by Bob Walsh
The formerly great state of California has just more than tripled the cigarette tax here in the tarnished golden state. As of right now the tax is 87 cents per pack. As of this coming Saturday it will be $2.87 per pack.
I fully expect the tobacco business at Native American casinos and tribal smoke shops is going to go way up in the near future. Might be a good side job. Smuggling smokes.
Friday, March 31, 2017
WHY TEXAS BATHROOM BILL WILL NOT PASS
North Carolina Bathroom Bill collapses under weight of multiple blackmails
By Howie Katz | Big Jolly Politics | March 30, 2017
The NCAA gave North Carolina a deadline of this week to repeal its controversial Bathroom Law or else! The or else is the loss of March Madness games as long as the law remains in effect. The North Carolina legislature met the NCAA’s blackmail demand Thursday and the state’s new Democratic governor has indicated he will sign the repeal measure.
When North Carolina passed its bathroom bill a year ago it was immediately set upon by the NBA which switched its 2017 All Star Game from Charlotte to New Orleans. Bruce Springsteen took his scheduled concert for a hike. The NFL announced that none of its special events would be held in the state as long as the Bathroom Law remained in effect. Major conventions were switched to other states and some major corporations announced a boycott of the state.
Thus North Carolina was subjected to multiple blackmails … and they succeeded. It was estimated that the controversial law would cost the state some $4 billion over 12 years.
The repeal of the Bathroom Law, however, pleased nobody. Conservative lawmakers were infuriated. In order to mollify them, the legislature included a compromise provision which prohibits local jurisdictions from passing any of their own anti-discrimination laws or ordinances until December 2020. That has angered the LGBT community and human rights groups. And the conservatives are still pissed off.
North Carolina’s Bathroom Law was identical to the bill passed by the Texas senate. Texas has received the same blackmail threats from the NFL, NBA and some major corporations. The NCAA will almost surely impose a March Madness boycott of the state if the bill, which is lingering in the House, were to pass.
There is an old saying: Money talks, bullshit walks! Passage of a Bathroom Law will cost the state of Texas billions of dollars. And that is the real reason why the Texas Bathroom Law will not be enacted.
We are in the era of political correctness and those of us who are conservatives might as well learn to live with it.
By Howie Katz | Big Jolly Politics | March 30, 2017
The NCAA gave North Carolina a deadline of this week to repeal its controversial Bathroom Law or else! The or else is the loss of March Madness games as long as the law remains in effect. The North Carolina legislature met the NCAA’s blackmail demand Thursday and the state’s new Democratic governor has indicated he will sign the repeal measure.
When North Carolina passed its bathroom bill a year ago it was immediately set upon by the NBA which switched its 2017 All Star Game from Charlotte to New Orleans. Bruce Springsteen took his scheduled concert for a hike. The NFL announced that none of its special events would be held in the state as long as the Bathroom Law remained in effect. Major conventions were switched to other states and some major corporations announced a boycott of the state.
Thus North Carolina was subjected to multiple blackmails … and they succeeded. It was estimated that the controversial law would cost the state some $4 billion over 12 years.
The repeal of the Bathroom Law, however, pleased nobody. Conservative lawmakers were infuriated. In order to mollify them, the legislature included a compromise provision which prohibits local jurisdictions from passing any of their own anti-discrimination laws or ordinances until December 2020. That has angered the LGBT community and human rights groups. And the conservatives are still pissed off.
North Carolina’s Bathroom Law was identical to the bill passed by the Texas senate. Texas has received the same blackmail threats from the NFL, NBA and some major corporations. The NCAA will almost surely impose a March Madness boycott of the state if the bill, which is lingering in the House, were to pass.
There is an old saying: Money talks, bullshit walks! Passage of a Bathroom Law will cost the state of Texas billions of dollars. And that is the real reason why the Texas Bathroom Law will not be enacted.
We are in the era of political correctness and those of us who are conservatives might as well learn to live with it.
PROFESSORS LIKE GEORGE CICCARIELLO-MAHER MAKE OUR ONCE ADMIRED UNIVERSITIES THE LAUGHING STOCK OF THE WORLD
'I'm trying not to vomit or yell out Mosul': Outrage at Drexel University professor who said he was disgusted when a first-class flyer gave up his seat to a uniformed soldier
Daily Mail | March 30, 2017
A Drexel University professor prompted a swift backlash on Twitter after sharing his disgust over a first-class flyer who gave up his seat to a serviceman.
George Ciccariello-Maher tweeted on Sunday: 'Some guy gave up his first class seat for a uniformed soldier. People are thanking him. I’m trying not to vomit or yell about Mosul.'
Cicariello-Maher, who is no stranger to controversy after he asked for a 'white genocide' for Christmas in 2016, was called 'ungrateful' and told to 'go to hell'.
Cicariello-Maher, currently a visiting researcher at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, was apparently disgusted after the act of kindness was applauded by his fellow passengers.
Even though his Twitter account is protected, his comments on March 26 sparked an uproar among Twitter users who called him 'unpatriotic'.
Christian Hockley wrote: 'I'm sorry you need attention. It's adorable, but let's see you say that to a Marine's face. Tweet after you do, if you can...'
Lisa Smith wrote: 'As a mother of a wounded soldier, who fought for HIS freedom, I have 3 words for HIM- GO TO HELL!'
Some called for Drexel University to fire Cicariello, while others suggested a boycott on the school by withholding donations.
Robert Henry wrote: 'Drexel University should fire Prof George Ciccariello-Maher for his "tried not to vomit" comment. DO NOT SEND YOU KIDS TO DREXEL UNIV.'
Just four months ago, Cicariello-Maher gained national media attention after tweeting: 'All I Want for Christmas is White Genocide.'
The professor told AP he was mocking what he called the 'imaginary concept' of white genocide, which he says was invented by white supremacists.
'It is a figment of the racist imagination, it should be mocked, and I'm glad to have mocked it,' he said.
Ciccariello-Maher followed up his initial tweet by praising the 'massacre' of whites in Haiti during the country's slave uprising and revolution more than two centuries ago.
The school issued a statement slamming his comments as 'utterly reprehensible [and] deeply disturbing', adding that they did not reflect the values of the University.
He specializes in 'colonialism, social movements, political theory, Latin America, and race and racism' according to an online biography.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Drexel should find some way to fire this shit-for-brains jerk! And since this worthless piece of shit is currently teaching in Mexico, ICE should find a way to keep him from reentering the USA!
Daily Mail | March 30, 2017
A Drexel University professor prompted a swift backlash on Twitter after sharing his disgust over a first-class flyer who gave up his seat to a serviceman.
George Ciccariello-Maher tweeted on Sunday: 'Some guy gave up his first class seat for a uniformed soldier. People are thanking him. I’m trying not to vomit or yell about Mosul.'
Cicariello-Maher, who is no stranger to controversy after he asked for a 'white genocide' for Christmas in 2016, was called 'ungrateful' and told to 'go to hell'.
Cicariello-Maher, currently a visiting researcher at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, was apparently disgusted after the act of kindness was applauded by his fellow passengers.
Even though his Twitter account is protected, his comments on March 26 sparked an uproar among Twitter users who called him 'unpatriotic'.
Christian Hockley wrote: 'I'm sorry you need attention. It's adorable, but let's see you say that to a Marine's face. Tweet after you do, if you can...'
Lisa Smith wrote: 'As a mother of a wounded soldier, who fought for HIS freedom, I have 3 words for HIM- GO TO HELL!'
Some called for Drexel University to fire Cicariello, while others suggested a boycott on the school by withholding donations.
Robert Henry wrote: 'Drexel University should fire Prof George Ciccariello-Maher for his "tried not to vomit" comment. DO NOT SEND YOU KIDS TO DREXEL UNIV.'
Just four months ago, Cicariello-Maher gained national media attention after tweeting: 'All I Want for Christmas is White Genocide.'
The professor told AP he was mocking what he called the 'imaginary concept' of white genocide, which he says was invented by white supremacists.
'It is a figment of the racist imagination, it should be mocked, and I'm glad to have mocked it,' he said.
Ciccariello-Maher followed up his initial tweet by praising the 'massacre' of whites in Haiti during the country's slave uprising and revolution more than two centuries ago.
The school issued a statement slamming his comments as 'utterly reprehensible [and] deeply disturbing', adding that they did not reflect the values of the University.
He specializes in 'colonialism, social movements, political theory, Latin America, and race and racism' according to an online biography.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Drexel should find some way to fire this shit-for-brains jerk! And since this worthless piece of shit is currently teaching in Mexico, ICE should find a way to keep him from reentering the USA!
TURKEY CONSIDERS YANKEE $1 BILL A CIA AGENT IDENTIFICATION DOCUMENT
A $1 Bill, Which is Proof He’s a CIA Agent, Has Landed A NASA Scientist In a Turkish Prison For Nine Months
By Dianna Wray | Houston Press | March 29, 2017
When Serkan Golge and his wife, Kubra, boarded a plane at George Bush Intercontinental Airport to visit Turkey last summer with their two sons, they had no idea they were walking into a political maelstrom.
Now, Serkan, a 37-year-old scientist employed at the Johnson Space Center and an American citizen who has made his home in Houston the past three years, has been held in Turkey for nine months, with more than six months spent in solitary confinement, because of vague accusations and a single American $1 bill.
His case has barely been covered in either the American or international media and Serkan's elected representatives in Texas only learned of his plight recently.
Shortly after the family arrived at Serkan's parents house in Antakya in mid-July, a coup erupted in Turkey in an attempt to wrest power from President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Kubra was getting ready for bed when she heard shouts in the street and melodic wails traditionally used to call people to prayer. She dismissed the clamor in the streets, assuming it was noise of her husband's childhood city, and went to sleep. It was only when she and Serkan turned on the TV the next morning and saw the news with thousands marching in the streets that they began to realize what had happened.
"It was unbelievable," Kubra says now. "We were thinking a coup was an old thing. Our parents had told us stories about coups, but they weren't something that happened anymore. Then it really happened right in front of us."
The coup ultimately failed, but the Turkish government started arresting people, detaining thousands on the thinnest of excuses. More than 40,000 Turks have been arrested since then, according to the New York Times.
Still, the couple assumed they were not a part of the chaos around them. The family isn't political and while they are all devout Muslims who pray five times a day, Kubra says none of them are hardliners. The Golges were due to return to the United States in just over a week, and they saw no reason to change their plans.
But as Serkan was putting their suitcases in the car, preparing to head to Istanbul where they would catch their flight home to Houston, police dressed in street clothes appeared in the driveway. They asked a series of questions before telling Serkan to take the luggage back into the house. They didn't want to open up the suitcases and search them in front of his family's neighbors, the police explained. The officers had gotten a tip, they said. They'd been told that while Serkan seemed to work for NASA, the tipster claimed he was actually a CIA operative, involved in the coup and also a member of a terrorist organization.
"It was like a sick joke," Kubra says. "I don't have words to describe that moment."
The officers went through the suitcases but didn't find anything, Kubra says. Then they took her husband down to the police station for questioning.
About two hours later the officers appeared again. This time they rifled through the house itself, going room to room. In Serkan's brother's old bedroom police found what they deemed evidence: A single U.S. $1 bill that had been kept in a keepsake box in a bureau belonging to Serkan's brother. Even though there were at least five people staying in the house, the officers decided the dollar belonged to Serkan and he was arrested, accused of being a CIA operative and a member of a terrorist organization.
Turkish prosecutors claim that Fethullah Gulen, the U.S.-based Islamic cleric Erdogan blames for the coup, gave his followers blessed $1 bills, according to the Times. Possession of such a bill is now used as evidence of membership in a terrorist organization.
They took Serkan away. He postponed their flight to leave a few hours later than planned, but they missed it. He's been imprisoned ever since.
Serkan first came to the United States in 2003 to study. Both he hand his wife won green cards in a lottery system for countries with low immigration rates to the United States. The pair have since become American citizens, and have been married for about a decade. They bought a home in Houston and have two children.
Life was full of good fortune. After graduating, Serkan got a job as a contractor through the University of Houston at NASA's Johnson Space Center. Since 2014 he has worked as a senior research scientist charged with studying the effects of space radiation on the human crew aboard the International Space Station. His work is crucial to NASA's plans to land on Mars by the 2030s, since the crew will have to get to Mars without being left debilitated by the radiation exposure from the journey.
Now Mars is the least of Serkan's worries. The first 22 days he was detained only lawyers could see him. Kubra and the rest of the family scrambled to find a lawyer to represent Serkan — some declined because of fear of being involved, some wanted to charge exorbitant rates — who could help them get in to see him.
When Kubra walked into the room at the detention center they both started crying. "Being separated, I wasn't sick, but even my bones were crying. My whole body was in such pain. I will never forget such pain," Kubra says. "Everything was like being in a dungeon with no light anywhere near."
Later, the family discovered, via court documents, that the tip had come from Serkan's sister's brother-in-law, who had been having a disagreement with the sister and her husband over some family land, Kubra says. "Once he admitted it, he said he was saving his country because he had a one percent suspicion out of 100 percent. He kept saying he was saving his country."
Aside from the tip and the dollar bill, Serkan went to a Gulen-affiliated test preparation center (this isn't as interesting as it seems since thousands of people attended these centers) and attended Fatih University in Istanbul, a university tied to Gulen. However, he went there because the state actually gave him a scholarship. Nothing else has turned up, despite rounds of interrogation and the fact that Serkan has been held in solitary confinement for more than six months.
Kubra gets to see her husband on the other side of a glass wall for about 40 minutes, once a week. Every two months he is allowed to be in the same room as his family. He cries when he sees the children, she says.
Now, the court documents have dropped the CIA accusations, but the prosecutors still have the $1 bill. He will soon go to trial, facing a sentence of up to 15 years in prison for being “a member of an armed terrorist organization.” His first hearing is scheduled for April 17.
As few publications have written about Serkan's detention, his incarceration has not been on the radar of his elected representatives in Texas.
Libby Hambleton, Cornyn's deputy press secretary in Texas, says the senator's office was not aware Serkan was being held in Turkey until the Houston Press reached out. Hambleton thanked the Press for bringing it to their attention, but didn't have any information about how Cornyn plans to respond.
Sen. Ted Cruz's office failed to return phone messages and emails asking for comment on the issue.
Rep. Gene Green's office only heard about Serkan's situation a couple of weeks ago, even though Serkan and Kubra live in Green's district. Last week, Green sent a letter to the Turkish Embassy asking the ambassador to help him secure Serkan's release so that the family can come home to Texas. "If convicted, he could spend up to [15 years] in prison, ruining the life of an innocent family who had built a happy home in Texas," the letter observes.
So far, the Turkish ambassador has not responded.
Serkan works at NASA but is technically employed by the University of Houston. UH spokeswoman Jeannie Kever says Serkan has gone on unpaid leave while he's being held in Turkey, but his position with NASA and UH is being held open for him indefinitely.
When asked whether NASA can or will try to help Serkan, NASA spokesman Allard Beutel referred the Press to the U.S. State Department. That agency acknowledged it has no influence over Turkish authorities in this case.
“We can confirm Turkish authorities arrested and detained U.S. citizen Serkan Golge last July," a U.S. State Department official stated. "We remain concerned for Mr. Golge and have raised his case with Turkish authorities. Although the United States does not have a legal right to access dual U.S.-Turkish citizens detained in Turkey, we continue to press for such access as a matter of courtesy. We have no further comment at this time.”
Even though NASA has stayed quiet, the scientific community has been trying to attract attention to Serkan's case. The Endangered Scholars Worldwide and the Committee of Concerned Scientists have both issued sharply worded statements over his detention, urging that he be released.
A petition has also been filed asking the White House to intervene. If the petition garners 100,000 signatures by next month, it is supposed to be reviewed by President Donald Trump. It only has about 150 signatures so far.
We've asked the White House if Trump is aware of Serkan's imprisonment, and if he plans on doing anything to help Serkan, but have yet to receive a response.
Kubra is praying that everything will be sorted out at the hearing next month. She noted that she loves her country, and has faith that everything will turn out as it is supposed to. But the whole situation still seems like something out of a movie.
"Sometimes I feel like it is a dream and my life will come back when I wake up. Other times I think it will never come back," she says. "From now on, I do not think bad things only happen to other people. It can happen to me, to us."
By Dianna Wray | Houston Press | March 29, 2017
When Serkan Golge and his wife, Kubra, boarded a plane at George Bush Intercontinental Airport to visit Turkey last summer with their two sons, they had no idea they were walking into a political maelstrom.
Now, Serkan, a 37-year-old scientist employed at the Johnson Space Center and an American citizen who has made his home in Houston the past three years, has been held in Turkey for nine months, with more than six months spent in solitary confinement, because of vague accusations and a single American $1 bill.
His case has barely been covered in either the American or international media and Serkan's elected representatives in Texas only learned of his plight recently.
Shortly after the family arrived at Serkan's parents house in Antakya in mid-July, a coup erupted in Turkey in an attempt to wrest power from President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Kubra was getting ready for bed when she heard shouts in the street and melodic wails traditionally used to call people to prayer. She dismissed the clamor in the streets, assuming it was noise of her husband's childhood city, and went to sleep. It was only when she and Serkan turned on the TV the next morning and saw the news with thousands marching in the streets that they began to realize what had happened.
"It was unbelievable," Kubra says now. "We were thinking a coup was an old thing. Our parents had told us stories about coups, but they weren't something that happened anymore. Then it really happened right in front of us."
The coup ultimately failed, but the Turkish government started arresting people, detaining thousands on the thinnest of excuses. More than 40,000 Turks have been arrested since then, according to the New York Times.
Still, the couple assumed they were not a part of the chaos around them. The family isn't political and while they are all devout Muslims who pray five times a day, Kubra says none of them are hardliners. The Golges were due to return to the United States in just over a week, and they saw no reason to change their plans.
But as Serkan was putting their suitcases in the car, preparing to head to Istanbul where they would catch their flight home to Houston, police dressed in street clothes appeared in the driveway. They asked a series of questions before telling Serkan to take the luggage back into the house. They didn't want to open up the suitcases and search them in front of his family's neighbors, the police explained. The officers had gotten a tip, they said. They'd been told that while Serkan seemed to work for NASA, the tipster claimed he was actually a CIA operative, involved in the coup and also a member of a terrorist organization.
"It was like a sick joke," Kubra says. "I don't have words to describe that moment."
The officers went through the suitcases but didn't find anything, Kubra says. Then they took her husband down to the police station for questioning.
About two hours later the officers appeared again. This time they rifled through the house itself, going room to room. In Serkan's brother's old bedroom police found what they deemed evidence: A single U.S. $1 bill that had been kept in a keepsake box in a bureau belonging to Serkan's brother. Even though there were at least five people staying in the house, the officers decided the dollar belonged to Serkan and he was arrested, accused of being a CIA operative and a member of a terrorist organization.
Turkish prosecutors claim that Fethullah Gulen, the U.S.-based Islamic cleric Erdogan blames for the coup, gave his followers blessed $1 bills, according to the Times. Possession of such a bill is now used as evidence of membership in a terrorist organization.
They took Serkan away. He postponed their flight to leave a few hours later than planned, but they missed it. He's been imprisoned ever since.
Serkan first came to the United States in 2003 to study. Both he hand his wife won green cards in a lottery system for countries with low immigration rates to the United States. The pair have since become American citizens, and have been married for about a decade. They bought a home in Houston and have two children.
Life was full of good fortune. After graduating, Serkan got a job as a contractor through the University of Houston at NASA's Johnson Space Center. Since 2014 he has worked as a senior research scientist charged with studying the effects of space radiation on the human crew aboard the International Space Station. His work is crucial to NASA's plans to land on Mars by the 2030s, since the crew will have to get to Mars without being left debilitated by the radiation exposure from the journey.
Now Mars is the least of Serkan's worries. The first 22 days he was detained only lawyers could see him. Kubra and the rest of the family scrambled to find a lawyer to represent Serkan — some declined because of fear of being involved, some wanted to charge exorbitant rates — who could help them get in to see him.
When Kubra walked into the room at the detention center they both started crying. "Being separated, I wasn't sick, but even my bones were crying. My whole body was in such pain. I will never forget such pain," Kubra says. "Everything was like being in a dungeon with no light anywhere near."
Later, the family discovered, via court documents, that the tip had come from Serkan's sister's brother-in-law, who had been having a disagreement with the sister and her husband over some family land, Kubra says. "Once he admitted it, he said he was saving his country because he had a one percent suspicion out of 100 percent. He kept saying he was saving his country."
Aside from the tip and the dollar bill, Serkan went to a Gulen-affiliated test preparation center (this isn't as interesting as it seems since thousands of people attended these centers) and attended Fatih University in Istanbul, a university tied to Gulen. However, he went there because the state actually gave him a scholarship. Nothing else has turned up, despite rounds of interrogation and the fact that Serkan has been held in solitary confinement for more than six months.
Kubra gets to see her husband on the other side of a glass wall for about 40 minutes, once a week. Every two months he is allowed to be in the same room as his family. He cries when he sees the children, she says.
Now, the court documents have dropped the CIA accusations, but the prosecutors still have the $1 bill. He will soon go to trial, facing a sentence of up to 15 years in prison for being “a member of an armed terrorist organization.” His first hearing is scheduled for April 17.
As few publications have written about Serkan's detention, his incarceration has not been on the radar of his elected representatives in Texas.
Libby Hambleton, Cornyn's deputy press secretary in Texas, says the senator's office was not aware Serkan was being held in Turkey until the Houston Press reached out. Hambleton thanked the Press for bringing it to their attention, but didn't have any information about how Cornyn plans to respond.
Sen. Ted Cruz's office failed to return phone messages and emails asking for comment on the issue.
Rep. Gene Green's office only heard about Serkan's situation a couple of weeks ago, even though Serkan and Kubra live in Green's district. Last week, Green sent a letter to the Turkish Embassy asking the ambassador to help him secure Serkan's release so that the family can come home to Texas. "If convicted, he could spend up to [15 years] in prison, ruining the life of an innocent family who had built a happy home in Texas," the letter observes.
So far, the Turkish ambassador has not responded.
Serkan works at NASA but is technically employed by the University of Houston. UH spokeswoman Jeannie Kever says Serkan has gone on unpaid leave while he's being held in Turkey, but his position with NASA and UH is being held open for him indefinitely.
When asked whether NASA can or will try to help Serkan, NASA spokesman Allard Beutel referred the Press to the U.S. State Department. That agency acknowledged it has no influence over Turkish authorities in this case.
“We can confirm Turkish authorities arrested and detained U.S. citizen Serkan Golge last July," a U.S. State Department official stated. "We remain concerned for Mr. Golge and have raised his case with Turkish authorities. Although the United States does not have a legal right to access dual U.S.-Turkish citizens detained in Turkey, we continue to press for such access as a matter of courtesy. We have no further comment at this time.”
Even though NASA has stayed quiet, the scientific community has been trying to attract attention to Serkan's case. The Endangered Scholars Worldwide and the Committee of Concerned Scientists have both issued sharply worded statements over his detention, urging that he be released.
A petition has also been filed asking the White House to intervene. If the petition garners 100,000 signatures by next month, it is supposed to be reviewed by President Donald Trump. It only has about 150 signatures so far.
We've asked the White House if Trump is aware of Serkan's imprisonment, and if he plans on doing anything to help Serkan, but have yet to receive a response.
Kubra is praying that everything will be sorted out at the hearing next month. She noted that she loves her country, and has faith that everything will turn out as it is supposed to. But the whole situation still seems like something out of a movie.
"Sometimes I feel like it is a dream and my life will come back when I wake up. Other times I think it will never come back," she says. "From now on, I do not think bad things only happen to other people. It can happen to me, to us."
Thursday, March 30, 2017
SCOTUS HALTS TEXAS EXECUTION
by Bob Walsh
The Supreme Court of the United States, by a vote of 5-3, ruled that the Texas criteria for who is and who is not intellectually disabled ignores current medical standards and said that Texas can not execute Robby James Moore because he is too fucking stupid. He wasn't too fucking stupid to gun down a grocery clerk.
There is no doubt that he is guilty. He will now continue to suck air at state expense for the rest of his miserable life.
__________
SCOTUS NIXES TEXAS EXECUTIONS USING ‘OF MICE AND MEN’ STANDARDS
Supreme Court Rules Texas Can't Use "Lennie Test" To Execute Mentally Disabled
By Dianna Wray
Houston Press
March 29, 2017
More than a decade after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that states cannot execute a mentally disabled person, the Supreme Court has nixed the Of Mice and Men standards that Texas has been using to determine whether or not a person is mentally fit to be executed.
Last fall, the Supreme Court heard the case of Bobby James Moore, a 57-year-old man who walked into a Houston convenience store with two other men and shot 75-year-old gas station attendant James McCarble during a robbery. Moore has been on death row since 1980. Moore was challenging whether or not the Of Mice and Men standards should be used to determine if he, or anyone, is mentally competent enough to be executed. Moore's IQ scores have ranged between 50 and 70 (a person with an IQ of 70 or below is generally classified as mentally disabled) but he was still slated to be executed. In the novella, by John Steinbeck, the intellectually disabled character Lennie is summarily executed after he accidentally kills a woman.
On Tuesday, the Supremes ruled 5-3 that these standards cannot be used.
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg penned a blistering opinion on the case, in a decision joined by Justices Anthony Kennedy, Elena Kagan, Stephen Breyer and Sonia Sotomayor. Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas dissented.
The Supreme Court had left an opening for such an issue when justices made a broad decision on the issue back in 2002 with Atkins v. Virginia, as Ginsberg notes in her opinion. The high court ruled that executing an intellectually disabled person for murder was a violation of the Eighth Amendment, which prohibits "cruel and unusual punishment."
However, with that ruling the Supremes left the actual definition of what constitutes intellectually disabled up to the states. In Texas, after the 2003 state Legislature failed to lay out the rules that would clearly prevent the execution of intellectually disabled people convicted of murder, it fell to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals to pin down the requirements. Judge Cathy Cochran was the one to write the opinion, and she came up with a real stunner.
Cochran, a California native, drew on the works of John Steinbeck when she was sorting out how to apply the Supreme Court's Atkins ruling — specifically his novella, Of Mice and Men. In 2004 Cochran used the book as inspiration to create the Briseño Factors, a set of seven flexible guidelines to help Texas courts determine whether or not someone is mentally competent enough to be executed.
The Briseño Factors — also known as the "Lennie Test" — basically mean a person who has tested as intellectually disabled can still be executed if he or she was able to tell a lie and remember to keep telling it, follow through enough to get an idea and act on it or talk coherently, or plan a crime. The test makes preventing the execution of a mentally disabled person almost impossible.
In Moore's case, a lower court in Texas had actually found him to be "intellectually disabled and constitutionally ineligible" for the death penalty, but the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals reversed this decision, as Ginsberg notes.
Instead of considering how Moore's life — years of childhood abuse, undiagnosed learning disorders, frequent elementary school transfers, repeated academic failure and a history of drug abuse — played into his intellectual disabilities, the appeals ruled that these factors were unrelated to his mental comprehension. The appeals court used a 23-year-old medical standard instead and found that, by that rule, Moore was not intellectually disabled.
Ginsberg dug into the CCA's use of the Briseño Factors calling these standards "an invention of the CCA untied to any acknowledged source." She then sharply sums up Moore's life, as told to the state habeas court in a 2014 hearing on whether Moore qualified as intellectually disabled:
"At 13, Moore lacked basic understanding of the days of the week, the months of the year, and the seasons; he could scarcely tell time or comprehend the standards of measure or the basic principle that subtraction is the reverse of addition. Id. At school, because of his limited ability to read and write, Moore could not keep up with lessons. Often, he was separated from the rest of the class and told to draw pictures. Ibid. Moore’s father, teachers, and peers called him “stupid” for his slow reading and speech. After failing every subject in the ninth grade, Moore dropped out of high school. Cast out of his home, he survived on the streets, eating from trash cans, even after two bouts of food poisoning."
Using up-to-date medical standards, the 2014 state habeas court reviewing the case found that Moore was intellectually disabled and thus could not be executed. If the CCA had been going by current medical standards, instead of cherry picking past standards, they would never have been able to find Moore competent enough for execution, she concludes.
Ginsberg points out that Texas uses current medical standards for other situations, including criminal cases, but doesn't use these standards for the death penalty. This, she argues, is nonsensical an unacceptable.
Roberts also found the Briseño Factors to be an "unacceptable method" of figuring out whether a person has adaptive deficits, but found the CCA had still done its due diligence in how it determined Moore's intellectual function level.
“The Court overturns the CCA’s conclusion that Moore failed to present sufficient evidence of both inadequate intellectual functioning and significant deficits in adaptive behavior without even considering ‘objective indicia of society’s standards’ reflected in the practices among the States,” Roberts observes in his dissent. “The Court instead crafts a constitutional holding based solely on what it deems to be medical consensus about intellectual disability. But clinicians, not judges, should determine clinical standards; and judges, not clinicians, should determine the content of the Eighth Amendment. Today’s opinion confuses those roles.”
Now, Moore's case will go back to the CCA which will have to look again at the lower appeals court rulings to determine whether Moore should be considered intellectually disabled and thus someone who can't be executed. But this time around the CCA will have to do that considering sans the Lennie Test.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Shit, and I thought Ginsberg was half-dead! Unless God wishes otherwise, it looks like she’s gonna hang in there until another Democrat becomes president.
The Supreme Court of the United States, by a vote of 5-3, ruled that the Texas criteria for who is and who is not intellectually disabled ignores current medical standards and said that Texas can not execute Robby James Moore because he is too fucking stupid. He wasn't too fucking stupid to gun down a grocery clerk.
There is no doubt that he is guilty. He will now continue to suck air at state expense for the rest of his miserable life.
__________
SCOTUS NIXES TEXAS EXECUTIONS USING ‘OF MICE AND MEN’ STANDARDS
Supreme Court Rules Texas Can't Use "Lennie Test" To Execute Mentally Disabled
By Dianna Wray
Houston Press
March 29, 2017
More than a decade after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that states cannot execute a mentally disabled person, the Supreme Court has nixed the Of Mice and Men standards that Texas has been using to determine whether or not a person is mentally fit to be executed.
Last fall, the Supreme Court heard the case of Bobby James Moore, a 57-year-old man who walked into a Houston convenience store with two other men and shot 75-year-old gas station attendant James McCarble during a robbery. Moore has been on death row since 1980. Moore was challenging whether or not the Of Mice and Men standards should be used to determine if he, or anyone, is mentally competent enough to be executed. Moore's IQ scores have ranged between 50 and 70 (a person with an IQ of 70 or below is generally classified as mentally disabled) but he was still slated to be executed. In the novella, by John Steinbeck, the intellectually disabled character Lennie is summarily executed after he accidentally kills a woman.
On Tuesday, the Supremes ruled 5-3 that these standards cannot be used.
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg penned a blistering opinion on the case, in a decision joined by Justices Anthony Kennedy, Elena Kagan, Stephen Breyer and Sonia Sotomayor. Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas dissented.
The Supreme Court had left an opening for such an issue when justices made a broad decision on the issue back in 2002 with Atkins v. Virginia, as Ginsberg notes in her opinion. The high court ruled that executing an intellectually disabled person for murder was a violation of the Eighth Amendment, which prohibits "cruel and unusual punishment."
However, with that ruling the Supremes left the actual definition of what constitutes intellectually disabled up to the states. In Texas, after the 2003 state Legislature failed to lay out the rules that would clearly prevent the execution of intellectually disabled people convicted of murder, it fell to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals to pin down the requirements. Judge Cathy Cochran was the one to write the opinion, and she came up with a real stunner.
Cochran, a California native, drew on the works of John Steinbeck when she was sorting out how to apply the Supreme Court's Atkins ruling — specifically his novella, Of Mice and Men. In 2004 Cochran used the book as inspiration to create the Briseño Factors, a set of seven flexible guidelines to help Texas courts determine whether or not someone is mentally competent enough to be executed.
The Briseño Factors — also known as the "Lennie Test" — basically mean a person who has tested as intellectually disabled can still be executed if he or she was able to tell a lie and remember to keep telling it, follow through enough to get an idea and act on it or talk coherently, or plan a crime. The test makes preventing the execution of a mentally disabled person almost impossible.
In Moore's case, a lower court in Texas had actually found him to be "intellectually disabled and constitutionally ineligible" for the death penalty, but the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals reversed this decision, as Ginsberg notes.
Instead of considering how Moore's life — years of childhood abuse, undiagnosed learning disorders, frequent elementary school transfers, repeated academic failure and a history of drug abuse — played into his intellectual disabilities, the appeals ruled that these factors were unrelated to his mental comprehension. The appeals court used a 23-year-old medical standard instead and found that, by that rule, Moore was not intellectually disabled.
Ginsberg dug into the CCA's use of the Briseño Factors calling these standards "an invention of the CCA untied to any acknowledged source." She then sharply sums up Moore's life, as told to the state habeas court in a 2014 hearing on whether Moore qualified as intellectually disabled:
"At 13, Moore lacked basic understanding of the days of the week, the months of the year, and the seasons; he could scarcely tell time or comprehend the standards of measure or the basic principle that subtraction is the reverse of addition. Id. At school, because of his limited ability to read and write, Moore could not keep up with lessons. Often, he was separated from the rest of the class and told to draw pictures. Ibid. Moore’s father, teachers, and peers called him “stupid” for his slow reading and speech. After failing every subject in the ninth grade, Moore dropped out of high school. Cast out of his home, he survived on the streets, eating from trash cans, even after two bouts of food poisoning."
Using up-to-date medical standards, the 2014 state habeas court reviewing the case found that Moore was intellectually disabled and thus could not be executed. If the CCA had been going by current medical standards, instead of cherry picking past standards, they would never have been able to find Moore competent enough for execution, she concludes.
Ginsberg points out that Texas uses current medical standards for other situations, including criminal cases, but doesn't use these standards for the death penalty. This, she argues, is nonsensical an unacceptable.
Roberts also found the Briseño Factors to be an "unacceptable method" of figuring out whether a person has adaptive deficits, but found the CCA had still done its due diligence in how it determined Moore's intellectual function level.
“The Court overturns the CCA’s conclusion that Moore failed to present sufficient evidence of both inadequate intellectual functioning and significant deficits in adaptive behavior without even considering ‘objective indicia of society’s standards’ reflected in the practices among the States,” Roberts observes in his dissent. “The Court instead crafts a constitutional holding based solely on what it deems to be medical consensus about intellectual disability. But clinicians, not judges, should determine clinical standards; and judges, not clinicians, should determine the content of the Eighth Amendment. Today’s opinion confuses those roles.”
Now, Moore's case will go back to the CCA which will have to look again at the lower appeals court rulings to determine whether Moore should be considered intellectually disabled and thus someone who can't be executed. But this time around the CCA will have to do that considering sans the Lennie Test.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Shit, and I thought Ginsberg was half-dead! Unless God wishes otherwise, it looks like she’s gonna hang in there until another Democrat becomes president.
TAXPAYERS SCREWED OVER BY FOOTBALL
by Bob Walsh
In 1995 the Oakland Raiders returned to Alameda County, lured in part by a $200 million bribe by the City of Oakland and Alameda County. The total cost of this bribe, including interest, is about $350 million. The taxpayers will be paying this off until 2025, long after the Raiders have moved to Las Vegas.
Taxpayer funding of stadium for billionaire sports teams owners can turn out to be a very bad deal for taxpayers. For a long, long time.
EDITOR'S NOTE: There ought to be some way the City of Oakland could sue the Raiders and the NFL for the remaining payments of the bribe.
In 1995 the Oakland Raiders returned to Alameda County, lured in part by a $200 million bribe by the City of Oakland and Alameda County. The total cost of this bribe, including interest, is about $350 million. The taxpayers will be paying this off until 2025, long after the Raiders have moved to Las Vegas.
Taxpayer funding of stadium for billionaire sports teams owners can turn out to be a very bad deal for taxpayers. For a long, long time.
EDITOR'S NOTE: There ought to be some way the City of Oakland could sue the Raiders and the NFL for the remaining payments of the bribe.
ASSHOLES WILL ACTUALLY FACE CHARGES IN STOCKTON
by Bob Walsh
The San Joaquin County D. A. has announced that a pack of assholes who disrupted city council meetings and created a disturbance in the streets after those meetings will be charged.
After the March 7 meeting the local constabulary arrested 12 people, including ten adults. Five of them were arraigned yesterday and the others will follow down the line.
Charges consist of resisting arrest, obstructing officers, battery on police officers and being an asshole in public ..... OK, I just made that last one up. However, it should be an actual law.
The San Joaquin County D. A. has announced that a pack of assholes who disrupted city council meetings and created a disturbance in the streets after those meetings will be charged.
After the March 7 meeting the local constabulary arrested 12 people, including ten adults. Five of them were arraigned yesterday and the others will follow down the line.
Charges consist of resisting arrest, obstructing officers, battery on police officers and being an asshole in public ..... OK, I just made that last one up. However, it should be an actual law.
NOBODY NEEDS AN AR-15...THAT DOESN'T MEAN IT CAN'T COME IN HANDY
by Bob Walsh
This little experiment in being prepared comes to us from Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, a suburb of Tulsa this most recent Monday. Three miscreants forced their way into a home occupied by a 23-year old man, the son of the homeowner. One of the intruders was armed with a toad-sticker, the other with brass knuckles. All wear wearing black clothing, gloves and masks. Unfortunately for them the 23-year old was armed with an AR-15 and knew how to use it.
When the brass stopped flying all three of the intruders were rapidly assuming ambient temperature and were fully rehabilitated. Two died in the house, the third in the driveway attempting to reach their getaway card, the driver of which took off when the shit hit the fan. The three dead guys were aged 16, 17 and 18.
The dumb-ass getaway driver actually went to the cops to make a statement. She was promptly arrested and under Oklahoma's felony murder rule is looking at three counts of murder-one for the deaths of his dumb-ass buddies. The getaway driver is Elizabeth Rodriguez, 21. None of the other involved persons has been named by the Wagoner County S. O.
Oklahoma law specifically permits the use of deadly force in response to home invasion.
This little experiment in being prepared comes to us from Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, a suburb of Tulsa this most recent Monday. Three miscreants forced their way into a home occupied by a 23-year old man, the son of the homeowner. One of the intruders was armed with a toad-sticker, the other with brass knuckles. All wear wearing black clothing, gloves and masks. Unfortunately for them the 23-year old was armed with an AR-15 and knew how to use it.
When the brass stopped flying all three of the intruders were rapidly assuming ambient temperature and were fully rehabilitated. Two died in the house, the third in the driveway attempting to reach their getaway card, the driver of which took off when the shit hit the fan. The three dead guys were aged 16, 17 and 18.
The dumb-ass getaway driver actually went to the cops to make a statement. She was promptly arrested and under Oklahoma's felony murder rule is looking at three counts of murder-one for the deaths of his dumb-ass buddies. The getaway driver is Elizabeth Rodriguez, 21. None of the other involved persons has been named by the Wagoner County S. O.
Oklahoma law specifically permits the use of deadly force in response to home invasion.
ORDER TO KILL WAS THE RIGHT CALL
'I want you to walk in there and kill this guy': A SWAT officer was ordered to shoot dead a crazed knifeman holding a one-year-old boy and four-year-old girl hostage
Associated Press and Daily Mail | March 29, 2017
Bodycam footage shows the moment a Baltimore SWAT supervisor ordered an officer to kill a man holding two children hostage with a knife.
It shows a sergeant telling his officer 'I want you to be relaxed, and I want you to walk in there and kill this guy'.
Moments later the officer entered the apartment where Reno Owens was holding the one-year-old and four-year-old captive with a 12-inch butcher knife and shot them dead on Friday.
The graphic footage of the standoff was shown to reporters on Tuesday - and an edited snippet showing only the SWAT officer entering the apartment was released to the public by Baltimore Police.
Police said 39-year-old Reno Owens had spent the night at his female cousin's house, awoke early Friday, went to her children's room and took them hostage.
Footage shows the woman meeting officers outside the home and telling them Owens charged at her with a knife in his hand. The video then moves onto officers in a bedroom doorway, pleading with Owens as he held the one-year-old boy and four-year-old girl at knifepoint.
He is heard screaming at the officers, threatening the children and also laughing, reciting prayers and at one point singing 'Rock-a-bye Baby.' One officer repeatedly tells Owens they want to help him and asks him to drop the 12-inch butcher knife. Owens doesn't cooperate.
Outside the house, a SWAT team sergeant gives the order to shoot Owens, saying he could kill the children at any time and that nonlethal force wasn't an option.
'I want you to be calm,' the sergeant tells SWAT Officer Zachary Wein. 'I want you to be relaxed, and I want you to walk in there and kill this guy.'
Moments later, video shows Wein walking up the steps, exchanging a few words with Owens, who still refuses to cooperate, and then firing a single fatal shot. During the exchange, Owens can be heard saying, 'I'd rather go out this way.'
Davis said hostage negotiators had been called, but didn't make it in time. Police have not yet determined whether Owens was on drugs at the time.
The actual shot that killed Owens wasn't shown, but authorities said regardless of what Owens was doing at that moment he was a deadly threat the entire time.
Davis said he decided not to publicly distribute footage of Friday's standoff to protect the children from being re-traumatized later.
'As they go through their childhood, adolescence and rest of their lives, we didn't want to create a video footprint they would be exposed to,' he said at a news conference.
Owens' mother, Doreen Parker, said she was shocked when she heard the news. Owens lived with her, she said, and while he sometimes struggled with depression, 'he loves kids; he would never hurt anybody.'
Davis praised the officers for their 'courage, bravery and grace under pressure,' and stressed such commands from SWAT supervisors are not uncommon in hostage cases involving 'a deadly threat.' But seldom are such exchanges captured on camera.
More such dramatic videos are expected to become available in cities nationwide where body cameras are being deployed by police agencies, pressed for greater transparency in dealings with the public after protests in recent years over the deaths of black men and others at the hands of law enforcement.
Civil unrest erupted across Baltimore in 2015 after the death of Freddie Gray, a young black man whose neck was broken in the back of a police transport van. Last year, the department began deploying body cameras, and earlier this year entered into a consent decree with the U.S. Department of Justice over its history of excessive force, unlawful stops and discriminatory practices.
Associated Press and Daily Mail | March 29, 2017
Bodycam footage shows the moment a Baltimore SWAT supervisor ordered an officer to kill a man holding two children hostage with a knife.
It shows a sergeant telling his officer 'I want you to be relaxed, and I want you to walk in there and kill this guy'.
Moments later the officer entered the apartment where Reno Owens was holding the one-year-old and four-year-old captive with a 12-inch butcher knife and shot them dead on Friday.
The graphic footage of the standoff was shown to reporters on Tuesday - and an edited snippet showing only the SWAT officer entering the apartment was released to the public by Baltimore Police.
Police said 39-year-old Reno Owens had spent the night at his female cousin's house, awoke early Friday, went to her children's room and took them hostage.
Footage shows the woman meeting officers outside the home and telling them Owens charged at her with a knife in his hand. The video then moves onto officers in a bedroom doorway, pleading with Owens as he held the one-year-old boy and four-year-old girl at knifepoint.
He is heard screaming at the officers, threatening the children and also laughing, reciting prayers and at one point singing 'Rock-a-bye Baby.' One officer repeatedly tells Owens they want to help him and asks him to drop the 12-inch butcher knife. Owens doesn't cooperate.
Outside the house, a SWAT team sergeant gives the order to shoot Owens, saying he could kill the children at any time and that nonlethal force wasn't an option.
'I want you to be calm,' the sergeant tells SWAT Officer Zachary Wein. 'I want you to be relaxed, and I want you to walk in there and kill this guy.'
Moments later, video shows Wein walking up the steps, exchanging a few words with Owens, who still refuses to cooperate, and then firing a single fatal shot. During the exchange, Owens can be heard saying, 'I'd rather go out this way.'
Davis said hostage negotiators had been called, but didn't make it in time. Police have not yet determined whether Owens was on drugs at the time.
The actual shot that killed Owens wasn't shown, but authorities said regardless of what Owens was doing at that moment he was a deadly threat the entire time.
Davis said he decided not to publicly distribute footage of Friday's standoff to protect the children from being re-traumatized later.
'As they go through their childhood, adolescence and rest of their lives, we didn't want to create a video footprint they would be exposed to,' he said at a news conference.
Owens' mother, Doreen Parker, said she was shocked when she heard the news. Owens lived with her, she said, and while he sometimes struggled with depression, 'he loves kids; he would never hurt anybody.'
Davis praised the officers for their 'courage, bravery and grace under pressure,' and stressed such commands from SWAT supervisors are not uncommon in hostage cases involving 'a deadly threat.' But seldom are such exchanges captured on camera.
More such dramatic videos are expected to become available in cities nationwide where body cameras are being deployed by police agencies, pressed for greater transparency in dealings with the public after protests in recent years over the deaths of black men and others at the hands of law enforcement.
Civil unrest erupted across Baltimore in 2015 after the death of Freddie Gray, a young black man whose neck was broken in the back of a police transport van. Last year, the department began deploying body cameras, and earlier this year entered into a consent decree with the U.S. Department of Justice over its history of excessive force, unlawful stops and discriminatory practices.
CRUCIFICTION OF JESUS JOINS HOLOCAUST AS A HOAX
Christian student is suspended for 'threatening' his Muslim professor after he 'confronted her for saying the Crucifixion was a hoax and Jesus' disciples didn't believe he was God'
By Ashley Collman | Daily Mail | March 29, 2017
A Christian student was suspended from Florida's Rollins College last week after allegedly threatening his Middle Eastern humanities professor, who is Muslim.
But sophomore Marshall Polston denies threatening Professor Areej Zufari and claims he is being unjustly treated after confronting her over her 'anti-Christian' teachings and support for a 'homophobic' student.
Polston accuses Zufari of claiming Jesus’ crucifixion was a hoax during class, and failing to challenge a Muslim student who said homosexuals should be decapitated under Sharia law.
Zufari and Polston, a 20-year-old international affairs major, have reportedly been clashing since the beginning of the semester in January.
According to an email the professor wrote to the school in February, she says Polston disrupted the first two classes with 'antagonizing interjections, contradicting me and monopolizing class time'.
'His attitude is contemptuous,' she said.
As a Christian, Polston said that Zufari's unorthodox lectures were unsettling.
In an interview with the Central Florida Post, Polston said that Zufari claimed Jesus' crucifixion was a hoax and that his disciples didn't believe he is 'God'.
'It was very off-putting and flat out odd,' he said. 'I've traveled the Middle East, lectured at the Salahaddin University, and immersed myself in Muslim culture for many years. Honestly, it reminded me of some of the more radical groups I researched when abroad.'
'Whether religious or not, I believe even those with limited knowledge of Christianity can agree that according to the text, Jesus was crucified and his followers did believe he was divine … that he was "God". Regardless, to assert the contrary as academic fact is not supported by the evidence,' he added to The College Fix.
After their first few spats, school officials intervened and Zufari says Polston's behavior improved over the next few weeks.
But things got heated again on March 8, when she gave him a 52 per cent on his first essay.
She says she was concerned about his reaction, and just as she predicted - he lashed out at her in a long email the next day.
'Since you've decided to carry a blitzkrieg out against me, I may have to speak up in regards to your extreme bias and not necessarily to the class but to the dean,' Polston said.
'Quite frankly the grade you assigned to me exposes your true agenda which is to silence me in class.' the email said. 'You're one of the most incompetent professors I have ever seen in my life.'
He also threatened to contact 'national media personalities that I'm good friends with' or take legal action.
But Polston said he made 'absolutely no threats' in the email.
'I was upset, understandably. I've never gotten anything less than straight A's, so I was really interested in figuring out how to possibly improve or at least understand the grade.'
Zufari says she was so concerned about the email that she cancelled class the next day, and sent an associate dean to dismiss the students.
That dean spotted Polston and struck up a conversation about the issues he's been having with Zufari.
The dean left troubled, writing to the school's assistant vice president of safety that Polston talked about a gun several times during the conversation.
'At no point did he threaten anyone openly, but I was very uncomfortable by his continued reference to guns, generalized categories of people by religion and his obvious nervousness and disdain for the professor,' she wrote.
Four days later, Zufari reached out to the ACLU of Florida on Facebook, asking for advice about a student who is 'making my life hell this semester'
'This one is spewing hatred at me, de-railing class, and just sent me a hateful email threatening me....
'The hate speech in the email would not be tolerated if it was targeting other minorities.
'So, what are my rights? This guy is making my life hell (I am very afraid of this guy.) And this situation is directly interfering with my ability to do my job.
'I want to know if there is a way to hold the individual responsible for his harassment and hate speech, she wrote.
Despite her previous concerns about Polston, Zufari resumed class the following week and engaged the class in a conversation about Muslim sharia law.
Polston says that during the class Zufari failed to punish a student, who is Muslim, when he made a hateful comment about gays.
'He stated that a good punishment for gays, adulterers, and thieves was the removal of a certain body part, as determined by Sharia law. It took a few seconds for me to realize that he actually said that, especially after what this community has faced with the tragic loss of life at Pulse,' Polston said.
Polston said that all Zufari did was tell the student he was 'in time-out' - despite calls from others in the class to report his behavior.
He claims that the comments were so disturbing that one of the his peers informed the FBI about the student.
After the class, Polston says that it wasn't the Muslim student - but himself - who Zuafri reported to the Dean of Safety.
'They made it clear that they had not gotten a report about what the student said, and were more concerned about the danger I was causing to the campus.
'What danger? A difference of opinion in a college classroom is nothing out of the ordinary and certainly not dangerous. It was surreal and degrading.
'The bad grade was upsetting, but they were literally refusing to acknowledge the dangers posed by someone who advocated chopping off body parts on campus,' Polston said.
Polston says he was then banned from returning to class, but Zufari says he walked by their meeting the next week and that's what pushed her to fill out the police report.
The claim was based on a student who allegedly saw Polston 'staring into the room' around 7:36pm on March 23. Campus safety were dispatched but could not locate Polston
Polston has denied the claims, providing a surveillance photo of him eating at a Chipotle just before 7pm - about a 30 to 40 minute drive away.
Zufari filed a 'protection against stalking' request against Polston on March 23, and the next day he was officially suspended from the school.
In a letter to Polston, administrators said his 'actions have constituted a threat of disruption within the operations of the College and jeopardize the safety and well-being of members of the College community'.
Polston says he has hired an attorney and is exploring his legal options.
Rollins President Grant Cornwell told the Orlando Sentinel that the school wound 'never ever ever' suspend student simply for disagreeing with a professor. He said there were other factors that led to Polston's suspension, but he would not go into details.
Polston had a disciplinary hearing on Tuesday, and it will take several days to determine an outcome.
Daily Mail reached out to both Polston and Zufari for comment but did not immediately receive a response on Wednesday.
By Ashley Collman | Daily Mail | March 29, 2017
A Christian student was suspended from Florida's Rollins College last week after allegedly threatening his Middle Eastern humanities professor, who is Muslim.
But sophomore Marshall Polston denies threatening Professor Areej Zufari and claims he is being unjustly treated after confronting her over her 'anti-Christian' teachings and support for a 'homophobic' student.
Polston accuses Zufari of claiming Jesus’ crucifixion was a hoax during class, and failing to challenge a Muslim student who said homosexuals should be decapitated under Sharia law.
Zufari and Polston, a 20-year-old international affairs major, have reportedly been clashing since the beginning of the semester in January.
According to an email the professor wrote to the school in February, she says Polston disrupted the first two classes with 'antagonizing interjections, contradicting me and monopolizing class time'.
'His attitude is contemptuous,' she said.
As a Christian, Polston said that Zufari's unorthodox lectures were unsettling.
In an interview with the Central Florida Post, Polston said that Zufari claimed Jesus' crucifixion was a hoax and that his disciples didn't believe he is 'God'.
'It was very off-putting and flat out odd,' he said. 'I've traveled the Middle East, lectured at the Salahaddin University, and immersed myself in Muslim culture for many years. Honestly, it reminded me of some of the more radical groups I researched when abroad.'
'Whether religious or not, I believe even those with limited knowledge of Christianity can agree that according to the text, Jesus was crucified and his followers did believe he was divine … that he was "God". Regardless, to assert the contrary as academic fact is not supported by the evidence,' he added to The College Fix.
After their first few spats, school officials intervened and Zufari says Polston's behavior improved over the next few weeks.
But things got heated again on March 8, when she gave him a 52 per cent on his first essay.
She says she was concerned about his reaction, and just as she predicted - he lashed out at her in a long email the next day.
'Since you've decided to carry a blitzkrieg out against me, I may have to speak up in regards to your extreme bias and not necessarily to the class but to the dean,' Polston said.
'Quite frankly the grade you assigned to me exposes your true agenda which is to silence me in class.' the email said. 'You're one of the most incompetent professors I have ever seen in my life.'
He also threatened to contact 'national media personalities that I'm good friends with' or take legal action.
But Polston said he made 'absolutely no threats' in the email.
'I was upset, understandably. I've never gotten anything less than straight A's, so I was really interested in figuring out how to possibly improve or at least understand the grade.'
Zufari says she was so concerned about the email that she cancelled class the next day, and sent an associate dean to dismiss the students.
That dean spotted Polston and struck up a conversation about the issues he's been having with Zufari.
The dean left troubled, writing to the school's assistant vice president of safety that Polston talked about a gun several times during the conversation.
'At no point did he threaten anyone openly, but I was very uncomfortable by his continued reference to guns, generalized categories of people by religion and his obvious nervousness and disdain for the professor,' she wrote.
Four days later, Zufari reached out to the ACLU of Florida on Facebook, asking for advice about a student who is 'making my life hell this semester'
'This one is spewing hatred at me, de-railing class, and just sent me a hateful email threatening me....
'The hate speech in the email would not be tolerated if it was targeting other minorities.
'So, what are my rights? This guy is making my life hell (I am very afraid of this guy.) And this situation is directly interfering with my ability to do my job.
'I want to know if there is a way to hold the individual responsible for his harassment and hate speech, she wrote.
Despite her previous concerns about Polston, Zufari resumed class the following week and engaged the class in a conversation about Muslim sharia law.
Polston says that during the class Zufari failed to punish a student, who is Muslim, when he made a hateful comment about gays.
'He stated that a good punishment for gays, adulterers, and thieves was the removal of a certain body part, as determined by Sharia law. It took a few seconds for me to realize that he actually said that, especially after what this community has faced with the tragic loss of life at Pulse,' Polston said.
Polston said that all Zufari did was tell the student he was 'in time-out' - despite calls from others in the class to report his behavior.
He claims that the comments were so disturbing that one of the his peers informed the FBI about the student.
After the class, Polston says that it wasn't the Muslim student - but himself - who Zuafri reported to the Dean of Safety.
'They made it clear that they had not gotten a report about what the student said, and were more concerned about the danger I was causing to the campus.
'What danger? A difference of opinion in a college classroom is nothing out of the ordinary and certainly not dangerous. It was surreal and degrading.
'The bad grade was upsetting, but they were literally refusing to acknowledge the dangers posed by someone who advocated chopping off body parts on campus,' Polston said.
Polston says he was then banned from returning to class, but Zufari says he walked by their meeting the next week and that's what pushed her to fill out the police report.
The claim was based on a student who allegedly saw Polston 'staring into the room' around 7:36pm on March 23. Campus safety were dispatched but could not locate Polston
Polston has denied the claims, providing a surveillance photo of him eating at a Chipotle just before 7pm - about a 30 to 40 minute drive away.
Zufari filed a 'protection against stalking' request against Polston on March 23, and the next day he was officially suspended from the school.
In a letter to Polston, administrators said his 'actions have constituted a threat of disruption within the operations of the College and jeopardize the safety and well-being of members of the College community'.
Polston says he has hired an attorney and is exploring his legal options.
Rollins President Grant Cornwell told the Orlando Sentinel that the school wound 'never ever ever' suspend student simply for disagreeing with a professor. He said there were other factors that led to Polston's suspension, but he would not go into details.
Polston had a disciplinary hearing on Tuesday, and it will take several days to determine an outcome.
Daily Mail reached out to both Polston and Zufari for comment but did not immediately receive a response on Wednesday.
Wednesday, March 29, 2017
FIRST IT WAS GRANMAS IN THEIR 80S, NOW A BOY, 13, GETS THE TSA TERRORIST TREATMENT
TSA agents at DFW give 13-year-old boy dressed only in a T-shirt and short pants a pat-down more thorough than the pat-downs made by cops in most cases when arresting felons
BarkGrowlBite | March 29, 2017
We can all feel much safer knowing that the TSA is protecting the flying public from terrorists. Going back some years, we should remember how the TSA saved us from granma terrorists by making 80-year olds remove their shoes. They must have prevented dozens of planes from being blown up by doing that.
Now that it’s not granmas any more, the TSA is giving young boys the terrorist treatment at DFW at least. A Facebook video posted by the suspected terrorist’s mother shows a TSA agent giving a young boy who was dressed only in a T-shirt and short pants a 2-minnute pat-down that was more thorough than the pat-downs made by cops in most cases when they are arresting a felon. Would you believe they even patted down the boy’s bare legs? Well, they did. I suppose they were searching for explosives implanted under his skin.
Jennifer Williamson, the 13-year-old boy’s mother is livid. She said her son Aaron passed through the metal detector Sunday morning without setting off an alarm.
The TSA claims a laptop inside the boy’s backpack set off an alarm and the ensuing pat-down was perfectly proper. TSA released the following statement:
“TSA allows for a pat-down of a teenage passenger, and in this case, all approved procedures were followed to resolve an alarm of the passenger’s laptop.
The video shows a male TSA officer explaining the procedure to the passenger, who fully cooperates. Afterward, the TSA officer was instructed by his supervisor, who was observing, to complete the final step of the screening process.
In total, the pat-down took approximately two minutes, and was observed by the mother and two police officers who were called to mitigate the concerns of the mother.
The passengers were at the checkpoint for approximately 45 minutes, which included the time it took to discuss screening procedures with the mother and to screen three carry-on items that required further inspection."
TSA agents told the mother they would not be allowed to board their flight to San Diego unless Aaron was patted down. Mrs. Williamson says that because of the extra screening their flight took off before they could board it.
Well, the Williamsons may have missed their flight, but all the other passengers on that plane landed safely at their destination because Aaron’s bare legs were thoroughly patted-down.
TSA Akbar!
BarkGrowlBite | March 29, 2017
We can all feel much safer knowing that the TSA is protecting the flying public from terrorists. Going back some years, we should remember how the TSA saved us from granma terrorists by making 80-year olds remove their shoes. They must have prevented dozens of planes from being blown up by doing that.
Now that it’s not granmas any more, the TSA is giving young boys the terrorist treatment at DFW at least. A Facebook video posted by the suspected terrorist’s mother shows a TSA agent giving a young boy who was dressed only in a T-shirt and short pants a 2-minnute pat-down that was more thorough than the pat-downs made by cops in most cases when they are arresting a felon. Would you believe they even patted down the boy’s bare legs? Well, they did. I suppose they were searching for explosives implanted under his skin.
Jennifer Williamson, the 13-year-old boy’s mother is livid. She said her son Aaron passed through the metal detector Sunday morning without setting off an alarm.
The TSA claims a laptop inside the boy’s backpack set off an alarm and the ensuing pat-down was perfectly proper. TSA released the following statement:
“TSA allows for a pat-down of a teenage passenger, and in this case, all approved procedures were followed to resolve an alarm of the passenger’s laptop.
The video shows a male TSA officer explaining the procedure to the passenger, who fully cooperates. Afterward, the TSA officer was instructed by his supervisor, who was observing, to complete the final step of the screening process.
In total, the pat-down took approximately two minutes, and was observed by the mother and two police officers who were called to mitigate the concerns of the mother.
The passengers were at the checkpoint for approximately 45 minutes, which included the time it took to discuss screening procedures with the mother and to screen three carry-on items that required further inspection."
TSA agents told the mother they would not be allowed to board their flight to San Diego unless Aaron was patted down. Mrs. Williamson says that because of the extra screening their flight took off before they could board it.
Well, the Williamsons may have missed their flight, but all the other passengers on that plane landed safely at their destination because Aaron’s bare legs were thoroughly patted-down.
TSA Akbar!
HOW WINNING THE ANTI-GUN BATTLE COULD LEAD TO LOSING THE WAR
by Bob Walsh
Last month the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the idiotic Maryland ban on "semi-automatic assault weapons" in a ruling that is so incredibly flawed that it might very well lead to a complete shitcanning of similar bans nationwide (if we are lucky).
The law targets specific firearms by name and specifically mentions certain purely cosmetic features that somehow make these weapons inherently evil, such as pistol grip stocks and flash suppressors, as well as the mere ability to accept commonly available magazines of greater than ten round capacity. This ruling flies in the face of the SCOTUS decision in the HELLER case that ruled that firearms "in common use at the time for lawful purposes" were protected by the Second Amendment. The AR-15, which is effected by the ban, is the most commonly-owned rifle in the USA.
The ruling, Kolbe v. Hogan, was so bad that it might very well prompt SCOTUS to revisit the issue, something they have resisted since Heller.
Last month the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the idiotic Maryland ban on "semi-automatic assault weapons" in a ruling that is so incredibly flawed that it might very well lead to a complete shitcanning of similar bans nationwide (if we are lucky).
The law targets specific firearms by name and specifically mentions certain purely cosmetic features that somehow make these weapons inherently evil, such as pistol grip stocks and flash suppressors, as well as the mere ability to accept commonly available magazines of greater than ten round capacity. This ruling flies in the face of the SCOTUS decision in the HELLER case that ruled that firearms "in common use at the time for lawful purposes" were protected by the Second Amendment. The AR-15, which is effected by the ban, is the most commonly-owned rifle in the USA.
The ruling, Kolbe v. Hogan, was so bad that it might very well prompt SCOTUS to revisit the issue, something they have resisted since Heller.
RAIDERS OF THE LOST SHITHOLE
by Bob Walsh
Yup, sad but true. The Oakland Raiders will be moving to Los Vegas in about four years, depending on how soon their super-duper new stadium can be built. The crime-ridden and gang-infested shithole of Oakland just couldn't put together enough bribe money to match the Las Vegas deal.
That's OK, I am sure there are several good high-school football teams that wouldn't mind having a nice stadium. Of course the rent income might be somewhat less, but that is the way the stadium crumbles.
Yup, sad but true. The Oakland Raiders will be moving to Los Vegas in about four years, depending on how soon their super-duper new stadium can be built. The crime-ridden and gang-infested shithole of Oakland just couldn't put together enough bribe money to match the Las Vegas deal.
That's OK, I am sure there are several good high-school football teams that wouldn't mind having a nice stadium. Of course the rent income might be somewhat less, but that is the way the stadium crumbles.
Tuesday, March 28, 2017
SPOT ON!
Hits the mark spot on! But I'll still take Ding Dong over the Hildebeast!! And given a choice between Obama and Ding Dong, I'll take Ding Dong!
FORMER NY NAYOR SCOLDS BOTH REPUBLICANS AND DEMOCRATS
Here is an op-ed by former NY Mayor Michael Bloomberg in which he scolds both congressional Republicans and Democrats over the health care fiasco.
Stop Blaming. Start Governing.
By Michael R. Bloomberg | BloombergView | March 26, 2017
Who’s to blame for the failure of the Republican bill to repeal and replace Obamacare? Who cares? What matters now is that Democrats stop gloating, Republicans stop sulking, and each party come to the table to improve a health-care system that both parties agree needs work.
After the bill collapsed on Friday afternoon, President Donald Trump accused the Democrats of obstruction, Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer accused the president of incompetence, Speaker Paul Ryan said health care was done, and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi bragged that it was a great day. No one had the courage to pick up the pieces and point the way forward.
The Affordable Care Act has provided health-care coverage to millions more Americans, but there are still some 30 million with no insurance. Premiums are too high. The individual mandate isn't encouraging enough people to buy into the system. Some of its regulations and taxes make little sense. Insurance markets are too thin, providing consumers too little choice. Health-care savings accounts do too little to encourage savings.
Republicans have viable ideas to address these issues, including high-risk insurance pools and capping the tax exclusion that companies get for providing employees with health insurance. It's regrettable that none of these ideas were seriously considered in the rush to repeal Obamacare.
Equally regrettable is that Republicans appear to be giving up and moving on to other issues. If they can’t get everything they want, they seem to have concluded, they’ll take nothing. It’s a bad strategy. As Senator John McCain said Saturday, Republicans need Democrats to reform health care. The art of governing is compromise – and not just within the majority party. The sooner Ryan accepts the fact that Democrats can be a cudgel to use against the Freedom Caucus, the more successful he and Congress will be.
Ronald Reagan was known to say that he would happily take 70 or 80 percent of what he wanted and come back for the rest later. Yet instead of living by Reagan’s rule, Republicans are hung up on the Hastert Rule, named for Dennis Hastert, the former (and now disgraced) House speaker: Generally speaking, only bills that can get through without Democratic votes are brought to the floor. This led the party to produce a deeply flawed health-care bill that, ultimately, did not win strong support from the Republicans' moderate or Tea Party wings.
At the same time, Democrats steadfastly refused to reach across the aisle to produce a bipartisan alternative. Gloating only makes that more difficult.
On Friday, Schumer said that Democrats are ready to work with Republicans to improve the Affordable Care Act on one condition: that Republicans take repeal off the table. This is not an auspicious step. Democrats ought to allow Republicans to call a new bill whatever they want. The details are what matters, not the label.
Stop Blaming. Start Governing.
By Michael R. Bloomberg | BloombergView | March 26, 2017
Who’s to blame for the failure of the Republican bill to repeal and replace Obamacare? Who cares? What matters now is that Democrats stop gloating, Republicans stop sulking, and each party come to the table to improve a health-care system that both parties agree needs work.
After the bill collapsed on Friday afternoon, President Donald Trump accused the Democrats of obstruction, Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer accused the president of incompetence, Speaker Paul Ryan said health care was done, and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi bragged that it was a great day. No one had the courage to pick up the pieces and point the way forward.
The Affordable Care Act has provided health-care coverage to millions more Americans, but there are still some 30 million with no insurance. Premiums are too high. The individual mandate isn't encouraging enough people to buy into the system. Some of its regulations and taxes make little sense. Insurance markets are too thin, providing consumers too little choice. Health-care savings accounts do too little to encourage savings.
Republicans have viable ideas to address these issues, including high-risk insurance pools and capping the tax exclusion that companies get for providing employees with health insurance. It's regrettable that none of these ideas were seriously considered in the rush to repeal Obamacare.
Equally regrettable is that Republicans appear to be giving up and moving on to other issues. If they can’t get everything they want, they seem to have concluded, they’ll take nothing. It’s a bad strategy. As Senator John McCain said Saturday, Republicans need Democrats to reform health care. The art of governing is compromise – and not just within the majority party. The sooner Ryan accepts the fact that Democrats can be a cudgel to use against the Freedom Caucus, the more successful he and Congress will be.
Ronald Reagan was known to say that he would happily take 70 or 80 percent of what he wanted and come back for the rest later. Yet instead of living by Reagan’s rule, Republicans are hung up on the Hastert Rule, named for Dennis Hastert, the former (and now disgraced) House speaker: Generally speaking, only bills that can get through without Democratic votes are brought to the floor. This led the party to produce a deeply flawed health-care bill that, ultimately, did not win strong support from the Republicans' moderate or Tea Party wings.
At the same time, Democrats steadfastly refused to reach across the aisle to produce a bipartisan alternative. Gloating only makes that more difficult.
On Friday, Schumer said that Democrats are ready to work with Republicans to improve the Affordable Care Act on one condition: that Republicans take repeal off the table. This is not an auspicious step. Democrats ought to allow Republicans to call a new bill whatever they want. The details are what matters, not the label.
TOO DAMN MANY DAMN WHITE PEOPLE
by Bob Walsh
Yup, that is a serious problem for the Walter Reed Middle School in North Hollywood (Los Angeles County) California. There are so may white kids attending school there that their funding is being cut, which will inevitably lead to larger class sizes and possible non-teaching staff cuts. (Except administrators, they NEVER cut administrators.)
It has to do with a complex, court approved funding formula designed to ensure that schools that are predominantly non-white get a bigger share of the pie. I assume that is because the school district thinks non-white kids are stupider (or is it more stupid?) and need more teacher help, but I am sure they would not actually SAY that.
Good thing California still has nice weather, or it wouldn't have a hell of a lot going for it.
Yup, that is a serious problem for the Walter Reed Middle School in North Hollywood (Los Angeles County) California. There are so may white kids attending school there that their funding is being cut, which will inevitably lead to larger class sizes and possible non-teaching staff cuts. (Except administrators, they NEVER cut administrators.)
It has to do with a complex, court approved funding formula designed to ensure that schools that are predominantly non-white get a bigger share of the pie. I assume that is because the school district thinks non-white kids are stupider (or is it more stupid?) and need more teacher help, but I am sure they would not actually SAY that.
Good thing California still has nice weather, or it wouldn't have a hell of a lot going for it.
HOMIE DON'T PLAY...MAYBE / PROBABLY
Bob Walsh
Attorney General Jeff Sessions just announced on Monday that the Trump administration will start taking action against sanctuary cities, which will include withholding of funding and may include attempts to recover previously granted funding until these jurisdictions come into compliance with federal law.
HELL YES I say. Bitch slap them, bend them over the bar and fuck them in the ass. They got nothing coming. If you let governments ignore the fucking law you don't have a lot of law left any more.
EDITOR'S NOTE: Agree! Which brings me to the states that have legalized marijuana. Start enforcing the federal laws there too. That will wipe out the dough they're making off of pot.
Attorney General Jeff Sessions just announced on Monday that the Trump administration will start taking action against sanctuary cities, which will include withholding of funding and may include attempts to recover previously granted funding until these jurisdictions come into compliance with federal law.
HELL YES I say. Bitch slap them, bend them over the bar and fuck them in the ass. They got nothing coming. If you let governments ignore the fucking law you don't have a lot of law left any more.
EDITOR'S NOTE: Agree! Which brings me to the states that have legalized marijuana. Start enforcing the federal laws there too. That will wipe out the dough they're making off of pot.
CALEXIT
The “Bad Boys of Brexit” throw their weight behind move to split California in two
By Patrick May | The Mercury News | March 27, 2017
If you can’t beat ‘em, leave ‘em.
That’s how many Californians feel lately about the Trump team in the White House, which explains why more and more residents of the Golden State want out.
Out, as in a Brexit-like departure known as Calexit.
This weekend comes word that two of the masterminds behind the United Kingdom’s ongoing divorce from the European Union, Nigel Farage and Arron Banks. The duo just returned from the United States, where they reportedly helped raise a million bucks for one of the Calexit campaigns floating around — a scheme that would split the state into two regions, one encompassing the eastern and more rural part of California while the other would include the more populated – and liberal – coastal communities.
Farage and Banks are known as the Bad Boys of Brexit, and for good reason. As the controversial leader of the UK Independence Party, or Ukip for short, the one-time broadcaster Farage stirred up the anti-immigration pot in England among the white British working class. Banks, who co-founded the Leave.EU group, angered many when he claimed that Britain’s UK membership is “like having a first class ticket on the Titanic.’’ He also got into hot water with his controversial move to commission a poll after the murder of British politician Jo Cox, asking respondents whether the crime would have an impact on public opinion.
Now the Bad Boys have brought their shtick to California, according to a report in the Daily Mail which says the pair are helping exit backers trying to pit the eastern, more rural side of California against the western ‘coastal elite’ liberals in Los Angeles and San Francisco. The plan would be to create a Republican stronghold in the new state cleaved off California’s eastern flank, thus giving the GOP two more senators and electoral college votes for a 2020 presidential election.
The Western side of the state would likely continue to vote Democrat in elections.
The Sunday Times reported that Farage and Banks’ goal is to hold a Calexit referendum during the US midterm elections in 2018.
“It would be portrayed as the Hollywood elites versus the people, breaking up the bad government,’’ Banks said. “Seventy-eight per cent of people in California are unhappy with their government. It’s the world’s sixth largest economy and it’s very badly run.’’
Banks said he and Farage wanted to show people in California ‘how to light a fire and win’ the Calexit referendum and they were recruited for the job by polling expert Gerry Gunster and Republican Scott Baugh, a former member of the state assembly.
Banks added: ‘We were saying that people said the same about Brexit — and we just went and did it. The money was pledged to take it to the next level. This could be the greatest political showdown ever.’
In California, 365,800 people must sign a petition for a proposition to appear on a ballot. Calexit supporters figure that can be easily achieved, given the widespread rancor among blue-state Californians about Trump’s victory. In the election, the state broke nearly two-to-one in favor of Trump’s Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton.
Meanwhile, a second Calexit campaign is underway. It’s called Yes California and it would see the state seceding from America entirely. If that initiative successfully finds a place on the ballot, a Yes vote would repeal clauses in the California Constitution stating “California is an inseparable part of the United States and that the United States Constitution is the supreme law of the land, ‘’ according to a statement from California’s Secretary of State Alex Padilla’s office said.
ESITOR’S NOTE: Why stop with just two regions? A better plan would be to split California into five or six regions, then dump them all into the Pacific Ocean. Of course, first we would have to get EPA permission to pollute the Pacific.
By Patrick May | The Mercury News | March 27, 2017
If you can’t beat ‘em, leave ‘em.
That’s how many Californians feel lately about the Trump team in the White House, which explains why more and more residents of the Golden State want out.
Out, as in a Brexit-like departure known as Calexit.
This weekend comes word that two of the masterminds behind the United Kingdom’s ongoing divorce from the European Union, Nigel Farage and Arron Banks. The duo just returned from the United States, where they reportedly helped raise a million bucks for one of the Calexit campaigns floating around — a scheme that would split the state into two regions, one encompassing the eastern and more rural part of California while the other would include the more populated – and liberal – coastal communities.
Farage and Banks are known as the Bad Boys of Brexit, and for good reason. As the controversial leader of the UK Independence Party, or Ukip for short, the one-time broadcaster Farage stirred up the anti-immigration pot in England among the white British working class. Banks, who co-founded the Leave.EU group, angered many when he claimed that Britain’s UK membership is “like having a first class ticket on the Titanic.’’ He also got into hot water with his controversial move to commission a poll after the murder of British politician Jo Cox, asking respondents whether the crime would have an impact on public opinion.
Now the Bad Boys have brought their shtick to California, according to a report in the Daily Mail which says the pair are helping exit backers trying to pit the eastern, more rural side of California against the western ‘coastal elite’ liberals in Los Angeles and San Francisco. The plan would be to create a Republican stronghold in the new state cleaved off California’s eastern flank, thus giving the GOP two more senators and electoral college votes for a 2020 presidential election.
The Western side of the state would likely continue to vote Democrat in elections.
The Sunday Times reported that Farage and Banks’ goal is to hold a Calexit referendum during the US midterm elections in 2018.
“It would be portrayed as the Hollywood elites versus the people, breaking up the bad government,’’ Banks said. “Seventy-eight per cent of people in California are unhappy with their government. It’s the world’s sixth largest economy and it’s very badly run.’’
Banks said he and Farage wanted to show people in California ‘how to light a fire and win’ the Calexit referendum and they were recruited for the job by polling expert Gerry Gunster and Republican Scott Baugh, a former member of the state assembly.
Banks added: ‘We were saying that people said the same about Brexit — and we just went and did it. The money was pledged to take it to the next level. This could be the greatest political showdown ever.’
In California, 365,800 people must sign a petition for a proposition to appear on a ballot. Calexit supporters figure that can be easily achieved, given the widespread rancor among blue-state Californians about Trump’s victory. In the election, the state broke nearly two-to-one in favor of Trump’s Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton.
Meanwhile, a second Calexit campaign is underway. It’s called Yes California and it would see the state seceding from America entirely. If that initiative successfully finds a place on the ballot, a Yes vote would repeal clauses in the California Constitution stating “California is an inseparable part of the United States and that the United States Constitution is the supreme law of the land, ‘’ according to a statement from California’s Secretary of State Alex Padilla’s office said.
ESITOR’S NOTE: Why stop with just two regions? A better plan would be to split California into five or six regions, then dump them all into the Pacific Ocean. Of course, first we would have to get EPA permission to pollute the Pacific.
Monday, March 27, 2017
PRESIDENT TRUMP’S LETTER TO THE FAMILY OF FALLEN CLEVELAND OFFICER DAVID FAHEY
BarkGrowlBite | March 27, 2017
Officer David Fahey, 39, of the Cleveland, Ohio Police Department was killed by a speeding hit-and-run driver on January 24 while setting road flares at the scene of a fatal car crash.
On March 15 President Trump sent the following condolence letter to Fahey’s family:
Dear Mr. and Mrs. Ketterer:
It is with a heavy heart that I learned of the loss of your son, Officer David Fahey.
Our Nation owes a debt of gratitude to David for his honorable service in the United States Navy and on the Cleveland Police Force.
While no words can possibly console your family at this sorrowful time, I pray that you are strengthened by the memory of David’s enduring spirit and steadfast courage. He will forever be remembered for his commitment to protecting and serving the American people.
Melania and I join your family, friends, loved ones, and the Cleveland community in honoring David for making the ultimate sacrifice while in the line of duty.
/Signed/ Donald J. Trump
Fahey’s mother said: “It was awesome to have David honored like that. It was very personally written. That meant a lot to know it wasn’t just a standard letter.”
Cleveland Police Patrolmen’s Association President Steve Loomis said: “President Trump sending a personal condolence letter to the family of fallen Cleveland Police Officer David Fahey is an act of heartfelt kindness that is appreciated by all law enforcement officers and law abiding citizens everywhere, and will never be forgotten,”
Officer David Fahey, 39, of the Cleveland, Ohio Police Department was killed by a speeding hit-and-run driver on January 24 while setting road flares at the scene of a fatal car crash.
On March 15 President Trump sent the following condolence letter to Fahey’s family:
Dear Mr. and Mrs. Ketterer:
It is with a heavy heart that I learned of the loss of your son, Officer David Fahey.
Our Nation owes a debt of gratitude to David for his honorable service in the United States Navy and on the Cleveland Police Force.
While no words can possibly console your family at this sorrowful time, I pray that you are strengthened by the memory of David’s enduring spirit and steadfast courage. He will forever be remembered for his commitment to protecting and serving the American people.
Melania and I join your family, friends, loved ones, and the Cleveland community in honoring David for making the ultimate sacrifice while in the line of duty.
/Signed/ Donald J. Trump
Fahey’s mother said: “It was awesome to have David honored like that. It was very personally written. That meant a lot to know it wasn’t just a standard letter.”
Cleveland Police Patrolmen’s Association President Steve Loomis said: “President Trump sending a personal condolence letter to the family of fallen Cleveland Police Officer David Fahey is an act of heartfelt kindness that is appreciated by all law enforcement officers and law abiding citizens everywhere, and will never be forgotten,”
WILL 2018 PROVE TO BE A CATASTROPHIC YEAR FOR THE REPUBLICANS?
Thus far Trump’s tweets and the Republican congressional disarray add up to a GOP train wreck about to happen
By Howie Katz | Big Jolly Politics | March 26, 2017
Make no mistake about it, the Democrats are determined to destroy the Trump presidency. Bent on revenge over what they consider a stolen election, they are not going to let up until Trump is driven out of office. And they’re getting plenty of help from Trump himself and his fellow Republicans.
Those who idolize Trump think his tweets are a wonderful way of communicating directly with the public. But Trump has been using Twitter mostly to lash back at his critics. And his tweet accusing Obama of ordering a wiretap on him has come back to bite him in the butt, with no end in sight. His tweets may well be the sword Trump falls on.
While the Republicans have a majority in both houses of congress, they are divided into conservative and moderate factions, each group being at odds with the other. This disarray led to the collapse of an attempt to redo Obamacare, something the Republicans have been swearing to do for the past seven years. Furthermore, the conservative faction is not enthralled with Trump, believing that he is not truly a conservative. They are probably right on that one.
In the Senate, Trump has Republican enemies who are not going to make the president’s life any easier. John McCain and Lindsey Graham use every opportunity to show they are at odds with Trump. McCain seems to be bitter over Trump’s stupid statement that the Vietnam War hero was no hero because he was a POW. You can also bet that Ted Cruz hasn’t forgotten Trump's absurd accusation that his father took part in the assassination of JFK.
Trump’s tweets together with the Republican disarray look like a GOP train wreck about to happen. That begs the question: Will 2018 prove to be a catastrophic year for the Republicans?
The way things are going, it looks like the Democrats will sweep the 2018 midterm congressional elections, and possibly achieving super majorities in both houses. Even if that does not happen, Trump looks like a one-term President. How does President Elizabeth Warren sound?
By Howie Katz | Big Jolly Politics | March 26, 2017
Make no mistake about it, the Democrats are determined to destroy the Trump presidency. Bent on revenge over what they consider a stolen election, they are not going to let up until Trump is driven out of office. And they’re getting plenty of help from Trump himself and his fellow Republicans.
Those who idolize Trump think his tweets are a wonderful way of communicating directly with the public. But Trump has been using Twitter mostly to lash back at his critics. And his tweet accusing Obama of ordering a wiretap on him has come back to bite him in the butt, with no end in sight. His tweets may well be the sword Trump falls on.
While the Republicans have a majority in both houses of congress, they are divided into conservative and moderate factions, each group being at odds with the other. This disarray led to the collapse of an attempt to redo Obamacare, something the Republicans have been swearing to do for the past seven years. Furthermore, the conservative faction is not enthralled with Trump, believing that he is not truly a conservative. They are probably right on that one.
In the Senate, Trump has Republican enemies who are not going to make the president’s life any easier. John McCain and Lindsey Graham use every opportunity to show they are at odds with Trump. McCain seems to be bitter over Trump’s stupid statement that the Vietnam War hero was no hero because he was a POW. You can also bet that Ted Cruz hasn’t forgotten Trump's absurd accusation that his father took part in the assassination of JFK.
Trump’s tweets together with the Republican disarray look like a GOP train wreck about to happen. That begs the question: Will 2018 prove to be a catastrophic year for the Republicans?
The way things are going, it looks like the Democrats will sweep the 2018 midterm congressional elections, and possibly achieving super majorities in both houses. Even if that does not happen, Trump looks like a one-term President. How does President Elizabeth Warren sound?
BEING AN HONEST CITIZEN IN THE WRONG PLACE CAN BE DANGEROUS
by Bob Walsh
Jamie Urton, 44, was driving along the road in the Walnut Hills neighborhood of Cincinnati a few days ago, minding his own business, when a four-year old child ran into the street in front of his car and was hit. Like an honest citizen Urton stopped. He was then set up by a mob of locals and shot to death. His passenger was somewhat injured. The child was injured in the original incident but not seriously.
EDITOR'S NOTE: Walnut Hills is a black neighborhood, Urton was white.
Jamie Urton, 44, was driving along the road in the Walnut Hills neighborhood of Cincinnati a few days ago, minding his own business, when a four-year old child ran into the street in front of his car and was hit. Like an honest citizen Urton stopped. He was then set up by a mob of locals and shot to death. His passenger was somewhat injured. The child was injured in the original incident but not seriously.
EDITOR'S NOTE: Walnut Hills is a black neighborhood, Urton was white.
SERIAL BURGLAR OFFERED MULTIPLE OPPORTUNITIES BY STUPID SERIAL VICTIM
Gun owned by former New Mexico Republican Chairman is stolen from his unlocked car FOUR times in the same month by the same person
BY Jordan Gass-Poore | Daily Mail | March 26, 2017
A former New Mexico Republican chairman has had handguns stolen from his unlocked car four times over the span of a month by the same alleged gang member.
Allen Weh, former state GOP chairman, reported to police on September 19 that someone stole an unsecured gun from his gray SUV in the parking lot of CSI Aviation, where he is CEO.
The thefts happened again on September 22, October 13 and November 16.
Weh, who kept replacing the firearms, took partial responsibility for the thefts, but also blamed the criminal justice system.
'Some of it was my own stupidity. I left my car unlocked. I should have locked it,' he told KOB 4. 'But what really bothers me is the criminal activity in this community that's gone on and allowed to take place by judges. It's got to end.'
By the third theft, CSI Aviation had installed surveillance cameras and captured 19-year-old Daniel Sandoval stealing a Smith & Wesson 9-millimeter semi-automatic handgun from his car.
When Weh went outside to confront the suspect, Sandoval, an alleged member of a violent Albuquerque gang, reportedly pointed the gun at the CEO 'in a threatening manner' then ran to a car and took off, reports KOB 4.
'That wasn't the first time I've ever looked down the long end of a gun,' said Weh. 'But the fact of the matter is, you don't expect it in your own parking lot.'
Sandoval was charged with aggravated burglary, aggravated assault, receiving stolen property and conspiracy.
He is one of two members arrested in September for the murder of church deacon Hector Aguirre, who was run down as he tried to stop them from stealing his work van.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Would you believe that Weh retired from the U.S. Marine Corps as a full-chicken Colonel.
BY Jordan Gass-Poore | Daily Mail | March 26, 2017
A former New Mexico Republican chairman has had handguns stolen from his unlocked car four times over the span of a month by the same alleged gang member.
Allen Weh, former state GOP chairman, reported to police on September 19 that someone stole an unsecured gun from his gray SUV in the parking lot of CSI Aviation, where he is CEO.
The thefts happened again on September 22, October 13 and November 16.
Weh, who kept replacing the firearms, took partial responsibility for the thefts, but also blamed the criminal justice system.
'Some of it was my own stupidity. I left my car unlocked. I should have locked it,' he told KOB 4. 'But what really bothers me is the criminal activity in this community that's gone on and allowed to take place by judges. It's got to end.'
By the third theft, CSI Aviation had installed surveillance cameras and captured 19-year-old Daniel Sandoval stealing a Smith & Wesson 9-millimeter semi-automatic handgun from his car.
When Weh went outside to confront the suspect, Sandoval, an alleged member of a violent Albuquerque gang, reportedly pointed the gun at the CEO 'in a threatening manner' then ran to a car and took off, reports KOB 4.
'That wasn't the first time I've ever looked down the long end of a gun,' said Weh. 'But the fact of the matter is, you don't expect it in your own parking lot.'
Sandoval was charged with aggravated burglary, aggravated assault, receiving stolen property and conspiracy.
He is one of two members arrested in September for the murder of church deacon Hector Aguirre, who was run down as he tried to stop them from stealing his work van.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Would you believe that Weh retired from the U.S. Marine Corps as a full-chicken Colonel.
PARTY TIME FOR IMPRISONED CARTEL CAPOS, ESCAPES FROM MEXICAN PRISONS
Here are two reports on life behind bars and escapes from Mexican prisons of cartel capos.
Drugs, Alcohol, parties and prostitutes in the prison at Culiacan where 5 capos escaped
By Carlos Alvarez
Zetatijuana
March 24, 2017
Luxeries, excess and parties, is what its like to live inside the Culiacan prison, where this past Thursday Juan Jose Esparragoza Monzon "El Azulito", Alfonso Limon Sanchez "El Limon", Jesus Pena Gonzalez, "El 20", Rafael Guadalupe Felix Nunez "El Changuito Antrax and Javier Zazueta Rosales "El Pancho Chimal" escaped.
The daily newspapers in circulation El Universal and Reforma informed that the closed circuit tv cameras inside the Aguaruto prison, captured the prisoners with cellular telephones, consuming marijuana and cocaine, cells with flat screen TV's, prostitutes coming into the prison and a party a day before the escape of the five capos.
The festivities inside the prison were carried out with music, alcohol and drugs, according to Reforma a group of familiars of prisoners in modules 7 and 5 of the prison, where the capos were housed, were the governors of the prison for Jesus Alfredo and Ivan Archivaldo Guzman Salazar, sons of Joaquin Archivaldo Guzman Loera, alias El Chapo, and also for Ismael Zambada Garcia "El Mayo".
Before the party, indicated a rotary, on Tuesday, they changed some of the prisoners inside the modules, because they were grouping together associates of Ivan Archivaldo Guzman and Ismael Zambada. Already in the party, the prisoners were shouting threats to people inside and outside of the prison.
They were triggering a rally of violence, which was halted by the prison guards who were in charge, the newspaper said, and according to sources of public safety, among the inmates a rumour was circulating that was spread to create a confrontation, and that any situation that would put them in danger would be avoided.
The alleged offenders went out the front door, according to the Governor of Sinaloa, Quirino Ordaz Coppel, who also noticed that the capos operated and worked from inside the Culiacan prison.
Although the State agent accused authorities of complicity, so far no details have been given of what happened prior to the escape, on the grounds that it is reserved information in the ongoing investigation of the Attorney Generals Office (PGR).
According to Reforma, although they were highly dangerous, the five escaped prisoners enjoyed privileges, such as alcohol and drug use, open hours for visitors and could remain outside of their cells without limitation.
For their part, the National Human Rights Commission (CNDH), in its general recommendation 18/2010 warned of the situation in the countries prisons, in particular this so called self governance.
This Culiacan jail has 2112 inmates of whom 500 are facing Federal Charges, so that the State Government has raised the urgency of transferring them to the CEFERESO centres to prevent escapes or contact with common prisoners.
Today, Jose Mario Rodriguez Murillo, Chief of Custodians of Culiacan prison, has been missing since the escape of El Azul's son, who is presumed to be complicit. The prison at Culiacan dates from 1969, and its cells have paraded old figures linked to drug trafficking, such as those of Manuel Salcido Uzeta, "El Cochiloco", Miguel Angel Lugo Beltran, "El Ceja Guera" among others, who became legends for the spectacular evasion of this prison said the newspaper.
__________
Mass escape: 29 suspected cartel members break out of Mexico prison through 120-foot tunnel
Fox News
March 24, 2017
El Chapo may be gone from Mexico, but tunnel-aided escapes by inmates are alive and well.
On Wednesday, 29 suspected drug cartel members used a 120-foot tunnel to escape from a state prison in the northern Mexico border state of Tamaulipas, authorities said.
One of the inmates, who escaped close to midnight, shot to death a passing motorist in an apparent carjacking in the state capital, Ciudad Victoria.
The Tamaulipas state security spokesman Luis Alberto Rodriguez said 12 of the 29 have been recaptured.
El Chapo may be gone from Mexico, but tunnel-aided escapes by inmates are alive and well.
On Wednesday, 29 suspected drug cartel members used a 120-foot tunnel to escape from a state prison in the northern Mexico border state of Tamaulipas, authorities said.
One of the inmates, who escaped close to midnight, shot to death a passing motorist in an apparent carjacking in the state capital, Ciudad Victoria.
The Tamaulipas state security spokesman Luis Alberto Rodriguez said 12 of the 29 have been recaptured.
Guzman was extradited to the United States in January.
After his 2015 escape, Guzman became something of a folk legend for a segment of Mexico's population for his defiance of authorities. He has been immortalized in songs known as narco-corridos, ballads about the drug trade and drug bosses.
On Thursday, Mexican police officers set up a perimeter around the Tamaulipas jail to determine how the suspected cartel members got away, according to Breitbart News.
The tunnel reached 15 feet underground, Breitbart reported.
Overcrowding, corruption and inmate control of prison areas have been persistent problems in Mexican prisons.
Rodriguez said about 30 guards at the facility were being investigated and appealed for help from neighboring states in apprehending the escaped inmates.
He said the prison dates to the 1940s and is outmoded. State authorities have been looking into moving the prisoners to other facilities, outside the city.
Drugs, Alcohol, parties and prostitutes in the prison at Culiacan where 5 capos escaped
By Carlos Alvarez
Zetatijuana
March 24, 2017
Luxeries, excess and parties, is what its like to live inside the Culiacan prison, where this past Thursday Juan Jose Esparragoza Monzon "El Azulito", Alfonso Limon Sanchez "El Limon", Jesus Pena Gonzalez, "El 20", Rafael Guadalupe Felix Nunez "El Changuito Antrax and Javier Zazueta Rosales "El Pancho Chimal" escaped.
The daily newspapers in circulation El Universal and Reforma informed that the closed circuit tv cameras inside the Aguaruto prison, captured the prisoners with cellular telephones, consuming marijuana and cocaine, cells with flat screen TV's, prostitutes coming into the prison and a party a day before the escape of the five capos.
The festivities inside the prison were carried out with music, alcohol and drugs, according to Reforma a group of familiars of prisoners in modules 7 and 5 of the prison, where the capos were housed, were the governors of the prison for Jesus Alfredo and Ivan Archivaldo Guzman Salazar, sons of Joaquin Archivaldo Guzman Loera, alias El Chapo, and also for Ismael Zambada Garcia "El Mayo".
Before the party, indicated a rotary, on Tuesday, they changed some of the prisoners inside the modules, because they were grouping together associates of Ivan Archivaldo Guzman and Ismael Zambada. Already in the party, the prisoners were shouting threats to people inside and outside of the prison.
They were triggering a rally of violence, which was halted by the prison guards who were in charge, the newspaper said, and according to sources of public safety, among the inmates a rumour was circulating that was spread to create a confrontation, and that any situation that would put them in danger would be avoided.
The alleged offenders went out the front door, according to the Governor of Sinaloa, Quirino Ordaz Coppel, who also noticed that the capos operated and worked from inside the Culiacan prison.
Although the State agent accused authorities of complicity, so far no details have been given of what happened prior to the escape, on the grounds that it is reserved information in the ongoing investigation of the Attorney Generals Office (PGR).
According to Reforma, although they were highly dangerous, the five escaped prisoners enjoyed privileges, such as alcohol and drug use, open hours for visitors and could remain outside of their cells without limitation.
For their part, the National Human Rights Commission (CNDH), in its general recommendation 18/2010 warned of the situation in the countries prisons, in particular this so called self governance.
This Culiacan jail has 2112 inmates of whom 500 are facing Federal Charges, so that the State Government has raised the urgency of transferring them to the CEFERESO centres to prevent escapes or contact with common prisoners.
Today, Jose Mario Rodriguez Murillo, Chief of Custodians of Culiacan prison, has been missing since the escape of El Azul's son, who is presumed to be complicit. The prison at Culiacan dates from 1969, and its cells have paraded old figures linked to drug trafficking, such as those of Manuel Salcido Uzeta, "El Cochiloco", Miguel Angel Lugo Beltran, "El Ceja Guera" among others, who became legends for the spectacular evasion of this prison said the newspaper.
__________
Mass escape: 29 suspected cartel members break out of Mexico prison through 120-foot tunnel
Fox News
March 24, 2017
El Chapo may be gone from Mexico, but tunnel-aided escapes by inmates are alive and well.
On Wednesday, 29 suspected drug cartel members used a 120-foot tunnel to escape from a state prison in the northern Mexico border state of Tamaulipas, authorities said.
One of the inmates, who escaped close to midnight, shot to death a passing motorist in an apparent carjacking in the state capital, Ciudad Victoria.
The Tamaulipas state security spokesman Luis Alberto Rodriguez said 12 of the 29 have been recaptured.
El Chapo may be gone from Mexico, but tunnel-aided escapes by inmates are alive and well.
On Wednesday, 29 suspected drug cartel members used a 120-foot tunnel to escape from a state prison in the northern Mexico border state of Tamaulipas, authorities said.
One of the inmates, who escaped close to midnight, shot to death a passing motorist in an apparent carjacking in the state capital, Ciudad Victoria.
The Tamaulipas state security spokesman Luis Alberto Rodriguez said 12 of the 29 have been recaptured.
Guzman was extradited to the United States in January.
After his 2015 escape, Guzman became something of a folk legend for a segment of Mexico's population for his defiance of authorities. He has been immortalized in songs known as narco-corridos, ballads about the drug trade and drug bosses.
On Thursday, Mexican police officers set up a perimeter around the Tamaulipas jail to determine how the suspected cartel members got away, according to Breitbart News.
The tunnel reached 15 feet underground, Breitbart reported.
Overcrowding, corruption and inmate control of prison areas have been persistent problems in Mexican prisons.
Rodriguez said about 30 guards at the facility were being investigated and appealed for help from neighboring states in apprehending the escaped inmates.
He said the prison dates to the 1940s and is outmoded. State authorities have been looking into moving the prisoners to other facilities, outside the city.
Sunday, March 26, 2017
GOVERNOR BROWN WORKING HARD TO MAKE CALIFORNIA NICER ... FOR CRIMINALS
by Bob Walsh
The formerly great state of California is working very hard indeed at marking California a more inviting place for criminals. A new proposal will grant additional "good time" credit to most prisoners for doing just about everything except sucking air, and I am not sure that isn't included.
These new proposal allow prisoners to seek parole after they have served their base term, regardless of sentence enhancements which often equal or exceed the base term. For instance, you can do time for armed robbery and then have a LOT of years tacked on for possession of a firearm and for being armed in the furtherance of a criminal street gang. This proposal would essentially ignore the sentencing enhancements (assuming the parole board goes along, which they might or might not).
Criminals will also get an additional three months off their sentence for completing a college degree, in addition to the three months already granted. They can also get up to one month per year for participating in various self-help programs.
The idea is to keep the prison population below the 137.5% of design capacity that various court orders demand.
The formerly great state of California is working very hard indeed at marking California a more inviting place for criminals. A new proposal will grant additional "good time" credit to most prisoners for doing just about everything except sucking air, and I am not sure that isn't included.
These new proposal allow prisoners to seek parole after they have served their base term, regardless of sentence enhancements which often equal or exceed the base term. For instance, you can do time for armed robbery and then have a LOT of years tacked on for possession of a firearm and for being armed in the furtherance of a criminal street gang. This proposal would essentially ignore the sentencing enhancements (assuming the parole board goes along, which they might or might not).
Criminals will also get an additional three months off their sentence for completing a college degree, in addition to the three months already granted. They can also get up to one month per year for participating in various self-help programs.
The idea is to keep the prison population below the 137.5% of design capacity that various court orders demand.
WHITE GIRL, 17, ABDUCTED BY BLACKS IN SOUTH CAROLINA, GANG-RAPED, SHOT TO DEATH AND FED TO ALLIGATORS
Attorney: FBI, authorities conducting search in Georgetown County connected to Brittanee Drexel case
By Gregory Yee | The Post and Courier | March 25, 2017
Brittanee Drexel's family is once again waiting for news from a search near Georgetown connected to the teen's 2009 disappearance.
Brad Conway, an attorney who represents Drexel's mother, Dawn, confirmed that the new search was related to the case but said that no other information was available Friday.
The FBI contacted Dawn Drexel Friday morning to inform her of the search, Conway said.
"She's encouraged but also it's heart-wrenching," he said.
Drexel, a 17-year-old from New York, traveled to Myrtle Beach for spring break and was last seen on a hotel security camera on April 25, 2009.
Don Wood, a supervisory agent with the Bureau's Columbia office, confirmed that "investigatory activity" took place in the area of Foxfire Court, which is located outside of Georgetown city limits.
The activity was centered on a small wooded area and an open area, Wood said, but did not comment on whether the case was connected to Drexel's disappearance.
Authorities have pursued leads back and forth from Myrtle Beach to McClellanville for years without luck before catching a break in August 2016. A prison inmate came forward with information that authorities used to piece together what they believe happened to Drexel after her disappearance.
She was abducted, gang-raped, shot to death and thrown into an alligator-infested swamp in a densely-forested area near McClellanville, according to the FBI.
The inmate, Taquan Brown of Walterboro, told investigators that he went to a "stash house" near McClellanville days after Drexel went missing and that he witnessed Timothy Da'shaun Taylor, then 16, "sexually abusing" the teen, according to a court transcript of a statement by FBI agent Gerrick Munoz.
Taylor saw others in the room with the girl and Da’Shaun Taylor, and he kept walking through the house to the backyard to give some money to Da’Shaun Taylor’s father, Shaun Taylor, according to the transcript. While they talked, Drexel ran from the house, was caught, “pistol-whipped” and taken back inside.
Two shots rang out and the inmate assumed Shaun Taylor shot the girl, according to the transcript. Then the girl’s body was wrapped up and taken away.
Asked what happened to the girl’s body, the FBI agent testified that it has not been found but that “several witnesses have told us Miss Drexel’s body was placed in a pit, or gator pit, to have her body disposed of. Eaten by the gators.”
Information on why authorities believe the scene in Georgetown is connected to the case was not available on Friday.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Where is a white ‘Al Sharpton’ expressing his outrage over this awful crime? At least this case is for real, not the 1987 Tawana Brawley rape hoax that made Sharpton a headliner.
By Gregory Yee | The Post and Courier | March 25, 2017
Brittanee Drexel's family is once again waiting for news from a search near Georgetown connected to the teen's 2009 disappearance.
Brad Conway, an attorney who represents Drexel's mother, Dawn, confirmed that the new search was related to the case but said that no other information was available Friday.
The FBI contacted Dawn Drexel Friday morning to inform her of the search, Conway said.
"She's encouraged but also it's heart-wrenching," he said.
Drexel, a 17-year-old from New York, traveled to Myrtle Beach for spring break and was last seen on a hotel security camera on April 25, 2009.
Don Wood, a supervisory agent with the Bureau's Columbia office, confirmed that "investigatory activity" took place in the area of Foxfire Court, which is located outside of Georgetown city limits.
The activity was centered on a small wooded area and an open area, Wood said, but did not comment on whether the case was connected to Drexel's disappearance.
Authorities have pursued leads back and forth from Myrtle Beach to McClellanville for years without luck before catching a break in August 2016. A prison inmate came forward with information that authorities used to piece together what they believe happened to Drexel after her disappearance.
She was abducted, gang-raped, shot to death and thrown into an alligator-infested swamp in a densely-forested area near McClellanville, according to the FBI.
The inmate, Taquan Brown of Walterboro, told investigators that he went to a "stash house" near McClellanville days after Drexel went missing and that he witnessed Timothy Da'shaun Taylor, then 16, "sexually abusing" the teen, according to a court transcript of a statement by FBI agent Gerrick Munoz.
Taylor saw others in the room with the girl and Da’Shaun Taylor, and he kept walking through the house to the backyard to give some money to Da’Shaun Taylor’s father, Shaun Taylor, according to the transcript. While they talked, Drexel ran from the house, was caught, “pistol-whipped” and taken back inside.
Two shots rang out and the inmate assumed Shaun Taylor shot the girl, according to the transcript. Then the girl’s body was wrapped up and taken away.
Asked what happened to the girl’s body, the FBI agent testified that it has not been found but that “several witnesses have told us Miss Drexel’s body was placed in a pit, or gator pit, to have her body disposed of. Eaten by the gators.”
Information on why authorities believe the scene in Georgetown is connected to the case was not available on Friday.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Where is a white ‘Al Sharpton’ expressing his outrage over this awful crime? At least this case is for real, not the 1987 Tawana Brawley rape hoax that made Sharpton a headliner.
KILL THOSE DAMN JEWS, AMEN!
Imam calling for Jews to be killed in sermon at Montreal mosque draws police complaint
By Brennan Neill and Stephen Smith | CBC News | March 24, 2017
A Montreal mosque is facing a police complaint and rebukes from the larger Muslim community after a video of an imam delivering a sermon in which he asks for Jews to be killed surfaced online.
The sermon took place at the Dar Al-Arqam Mosque in the city's Saint-Michel neighbourhood on Dec. 23, 2016.
The video was posted to the mosque's YouTube channel three days later. The imam in the video is Jordanian cleric Sheikh Muhammad bin Musa Al Nasr — he was reportedly an invited guest of the mosque.
In the video, the imam recites in Arabic the verse: "O Muslim, O servant of Allah, O Muslim, O servant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him."
CBC independently verified the speech and its translation.
The controversial verse comes from a religious text known as a hadith, which interprets the words and actions by the Prophet Muhammad.
The hadith in question deals with end times and tells how stones and trees will ask Muslims to come and kill Jews hiding behind them.
CBC Montreal has reached out to the Dar Al-Arqam mosque for comment and was told no one was available.
Accused of inciting violence
The video was brought to the attention of B'nai Brith Canada, which filed a complaint with Montreal police on Monday.
The organization said it is totally unacceptable that a mosque would allow this to go on.
"This is inciting violence, and this is inciting radicalization," said Harvey Levine, regional director of B'nai Brith in Quebec.
"It's against the law and has to be stopped," he said, adding that the complaint was filed with the Montreal hate crimes unit.
Montreal police confirmed they received a complaint, but would not provide any more information.
Mosque should apologize, says Muslim council
The president of the Muslim Council of Montreal, Salam Elmenyawi, wants to know why the imam was invited. He says the mosque should apologize.
He added that the Dar Al-Arqam Mosque is not one of the more than 40 institutions the council represents.
Imam Ziad Asali of the Association of Islamic Charitable Projects told CBC Montreal's Daybreak Thursday that he was also mystified as to why the cleric was invited to preach.
"I do not understand how this person was invited to come and give a sermon and spread this hatred in Montreal against any community," he said.
The hadith is one of more than 100,000 that are written in many books, some of which are considered authentic, while others are not, said Asali.
"To use the themes of the Prophet to spread hatred is actually something that is disrespectful towards the Prophet himself," Asali said.
There are mosques in Montreal, the imam said, that embrace a more extremist message.
"These people, not only do they show hatred towards non-Muslims, they even show hatred to us Muslims," he said.
Other complaints
Levine said this is the second complaint against a Montreal-area mosque filed with the Montreal police's hate crime unit in just over 40 days.
He said the police are still investigating that first instance but says they are not taking action soon enough.
"This is totally unacceptable. We want to know why the hate crimes unit has not done something to date yet. This person should be arrested and charged for hate crimes," said Levine.
CIJA Quebec, an organization that advocates for the Jewish community, said it has a close relationship with the Montreal police and has been following the two complaints.
"We know the Montreal police are seriously and diligently investigating these sermons," said David Ouellette, deputy director for CIJA Quebec.
He added the group believes the police are close to completing their investigation of the first complaint.
By Brennan Neill and Stephen Smith | CBC News | March 24, 2017
A Montreal mosque is facing a police complaint and rebukes from the larger Muslim community after a video of an imam delivering a sermon in which he asks for Jews to be killed surfaced online.
The sermon took place at the Dar Al-Arqam Mosque in the city's Saint-Michel neighbourhood on Dec. 23, 2016.
The video was posted to the mosque's YouTube channel three days later. The imam in the video is Jordanian cleric Sheikh Muhammad bin Musa Al Nasr — he was reportedly an invited guest of the mosque.
In the video, the imam recites in Arabic the verse: "O Muslim, O servant of Allah, O Muslim, O servant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him."
CBC independently verified the speech and its translation.
The controversial verse comes from a religious text known as a hadith, which interprets the words and actions by the Prophet Muhammad.
The hadith in question deals with end times and tells how stones and trees will ask Muslims to come and kill Jews hiding behind them.
CBC Montreal has reached out to the Dar Al-Arqam mosque for comment and was told no one was available.
Accused of inciting violence
The video was brought to the attention of B'nai Brith Canada, which filed a complaint with Montreal police on Monday.
The organization said it is totally unacceptable that a mosque would allow this to go on.
"This is inciting violence, and this is inciting radicalization," said Harvey Levine, regional director of B'nai Brith in Quebec.
"It's against the law and has to be stopped," he said, adding that the complaint was filed with the Montreal hate crimes unit.
Montreal police confirmed they received a complaint, but would not provide any more information.
Mosque should apologize, says Muslim council
The president of the Muslim Council of Montreal, Salam Elmenyawi, wants to know why the imam was invited. He says the mosque should apologize.
He added that the Dar Al-Arqam Mosque is not one of the more than 40 institutions the council represents.
Imam Ziad Asali of the Association of Islamic Charitable Projects told CBC Montreal's Daybreak Thursday that he was also mystified as to why the cleric was invited to preach.
"I do not understand how this person was invited to come and give a sermon and spread this hatred in Montreal against any community," he said.
The hadith is one of more than 100,000 that are written in many books, some of which are considered authentic, while others are not, said Asali.
"To use the themes of the Prophet to spread hatred is actually something that is disrespectful towards the Prophet himself," Asali said.
There are mosques in Montreal, the imam said, that embrace a more extremist message.
"These people, not only do they show hatred towards non-Muslims, they even show hatred to us Muslims," he said.
Other complaints
Levine said this is the second complaint against a Montreal-area mosque filed with the Montreal police's hate crime unit in just over 40 days.
He said the police are still investigating that first instance but says they are not taking action soon enough.
"This is totally unacceptable. We want to know why the hate crimes unit has not done something to date yet. This person should be arrested and charged for hate crimes," said Levine.
CIJA Quebec, an organization that advocates for the Jewish community, said it has a close relationship with the Montreal police and has been following the two complaints.
"We know the Montreal police are seriously and diligently investigating these sermons," said David Ouellette, deputy director for CIJA Quebec.
He added the group believes the police are close to completing their investigation of the first complaint.
ICE HOCKEY: LOSS OF FINGER JUST PART OF THE GAME
Ottawa Senators coach Guy Boucher: Marc Methot's finger is 'destroyed'; no punishment for Pittsburgh Penguins captain Sidney Crosby
ESPN | March 24, 2017
The Ottawa Senators got a big win but lost a player in the process.
Kyle Turris and Bobby Ryan scored in a shootout as the Senators beat the Pittsburgh Penguins 2-1 on Thursday night. They appear to have lost defenseman Marc Methot for perhaps an extended period of time, though, after he took a slash from Sidney Crosby in the first period.
Ottawa played the final 45 minutes without Methot, who left the game with a bloodied and mangled finger on his left hand following a two-handed slash from Crosby, who didn't receive a penalty on the play.
Methot grabbed Crosby by the jersey after the whistle and had a few words for the Penguins captain before leaving the ice.
"His finger is destroyed. It's shattered and he's out for weeks," Senators coach Guy Boucher said.
Crosby will not face discipline for the play, as NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly told ESPN the league is not looking into the incident.
While not referencing Crosby by name, Senators owner Eugene Melnyk went off about the incident on Friday and called for a suspension.
"We all know who he is. The guy is just beyond belief," Melnyk told TSN 1200 radio in Ottawa. "You do this kind of stuff, I don't care who you are in the league, I don't care if you're the No. 1 player in the league, you need to sit out a long time for this kind of crap."
Senators captain Erik Karlsson said it was an unfortunate play but one that happens all the time. This one just went bad.
"[Crosby] puts his stick in as [Methot] is trying to shoot the puck in, and unfortunately, it hits his finger," Karlsson said. "It turns out worse than most other times. Plays like that happen all the time, but I don't think it was intentional or dirty."
Crosby echoed those sentiments, saying he wasn't looking to injure Methot.
"I was just trying to get his stick, and I think I caught his finger, judging by his reaction and their reaction," Crosby said. "I've gotten those before. They don't feel good."
EDITOR’S NOTE: For the uninitiated, Sidney Crosby is considered one of the greatest hockey players ever. He is not a dirty player.
ESPN | March 24, 2017
The Ottawa Senators got a big win but lost a player in the process.
Kyle Turris and Bobby Ryan scored in a shootout as the Senators beat the Pittsburgh Penguins 2-1 on Thursday night. They appear to have lost defenseman Marc Methot for perhaps an extended period of time, though, after he took a slash from Sidney Crosby in the first period.
Ottawa played the final 45 minutes without Methot, who left the game with a bloodied and mangled finger on his left hand following a two-handed slash from Crosby, who didn't receive a penalty on the play.
Methot grabbed Crosby by the jersey after the whistle and had a few words for the Penguins captain before leaving the ice.
"His finger is destroyed. It's shattered and he's out for weeks," Senators coach Guy Boucher said.
Crosby will not face discipline for the play, as NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly told ESPN the league is not looking into the incident.
While not referencing Crosby by name, Senators owner Eugene Melnyk went off about the incident on Friday and called for a suspension.
"We all know who he is. The guy is just beyond belief," Melnyk told TSN 1200 radio in Ottawa. "You do this kind of stuff, I don't care who you are in the league, I don't care if you're the No. 1 player in the league, you need to sit out a long time for this kind of crap."
Senators captain Erik Karlsson said it was an unfortunate play but one that happens all the time. This one just went bad.
"[Crosby] puts his stick in as [Methot] is trying to shoot the puck in, and unfortunately, it hits his finger," Karlsson said. "It turns out worse than most other times. Plays like that happen all the time, but I don't think it was intentional or dirty."
Crosby echoed those sentiments, saying he wasn't looking to injure Methot.
"I was just trying to get his stick, and I think I caught his finger, judging by his reaction and their reaction," Crosby said. "I've gotten those before. They don't feel good."
EDITOR’S NOTE: For the uninitiated, Sidney Crosby is considered one of the greatest hockey players ever. He is not a dirty player.
MILITARY AIDES TRY TO CHEER UP KIM JONG-UN AFTER FAILED MISSILE LAUNCH BY PUTTING ON SURPRISE EXECUTION
The Onion | March 23, 2017
PYONGYANG—Following the country’s failed test launch of a new long-range missile, North Korean military aides reportedly tried to cheer up Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un Thursday by putting on a surprise execution.
“He was pretty upset by how things went yesterday, so we figured surprising him with the summary execution of a government official would be a great way to boost his spirits,” said Vice Marshal Hwang Pyong-so, adding that aides had worked overnight to find a disloyal judge or Korean Workers’ Party official and arrange the execution in secret. “You should have seen the look on his face when he opened the door to what he thought was an ordinary cabinet meeting and found a former vice chairman of the Central Committee tied to a chair, with a revolver nearby. He was smiling in no time and shot the enemy of the people in the face.”
At press time, reports confirmed that Pyong-so and a dozen other officials who had helped organize the surprise execution had been hanged for deceiving the Supreme Leader.
PYONGYANG—Following the country’s failed test launch of a new long-range missile, North Korean military aides reportedly tried to cheer up Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un Thursday by putting on a surprise execution.
“He was pretty upset by how things went yesterday, so we figured surprising him with the summary execution of a government official would be a great way to boost his spirits,” said Vice Marshal Hwang Pyong-so, adding that aides had worked overnight to find a disloyal judge or Korean Workers’ Party official and arrange the execution in secret. “You should have seen the look on his face when he opened the door to what he thought was an ordinary cabinet meeting and found a former vice chairman of the Central Committee tied to a chair, with a revolver nearby. He was smiling in no time and shot the enemy of the people in the face.”
At press time, reports confirmed that Pyong-so and a dozen other officials who had helped organize the surprise execution had been hanged for deceiving the Supreme Leader.
Saturday, March 25, 2017
WAR HERO WHO LOST BOTH LEGS TO IMPROVISED EXPLOSIVE DEVICE BECOMES COP
Double amputee who served as a Marine in Afghanistan to become New York cop
By Chris Perez | New York Post | March 23, 2017
A Marine war veteran who lost both of his legs in Afghanistan will fulfill a lifelong dream Friday when he graduates from the Suffolk County Police Academy — and becomes one of the nation’s first double amputees to serve as a fully active cop.
“I’m just really eager and excited to prove myself to my colleagues in my new job, my new career, that I’m capable of doing the job just as well as somebody with both legs,” Matias Ferreira told Newsday. “I don’t think the prosthetics hinder me in any way.”
The 28-year-old married father of one is set to become a police officer on Friday following a 29-week training program that included sit-ups, push-ups and a mile-and-a-half run — all of which he completed, no problem.
“A lot of guys are like, ‘What happens if one of your legs break?’ I’m sorry to say, but if I break my leg, I go in the trunk, I put on a new one,” Ferreira said. “If you break your leg, you’re out for a couple months, my friend.”
The Marine machine-gunner managed to run the department’s required mile-and-a-half in about 11 minutes — which is a minute and 29 seconds less than the demands for his age category.
“This is someone who served our nation, paid a significant sacrifice, and is now able to overcome adversity in a tremendous way,” Suffolk County Police Commissioner Timothy Sini told Newsday. “He’s done a terrific job as a recruit in the academy, both physically, academically and in his leadership to the other recruits, and he’s going to make a fine officer.”
In 2011, Ferreira was forced to have both of his legs amputated below the knee after he accidentally stepped on a 30-pound improvised explosive device. He will be one of the only cops in the country to have ever had the procedure done, according to Newsday.
There was at least one officer in the Arizona State Police who was a double amputee, the newspaper reports.
During Ferreira’s training, officials said he practiced taking down aggressive suspects wearing a protective suit. He only fell once — and was able to hop right back up immediately.
“If you have somebody coming at you and attacking you, we didn’t know how that was going to end up, we didn’t know if he would fall and not be able to get back up, so
‘For us it was an important moment,” said Lt. Steven Rohde, commanding officer of the academy’s recruit training section.
“Kind of an exclamation point on, ‘This guy’s the real deal. I wouldn’t want to fight him!’”
EDITOR’S NOTE: Matias Ferreira is a true hero in every sense of the word, and not some overblown sports star like O.J. Simpson or Brucella Jenner.
By Chris Perez | New York Post | March 23, 2017
A Marine war veteran who lost both of his legs in Afghanistan will fulfill a lifelong dream Friday when he graduates from the Suffolk County Police Academy — and becomes one of the nation’s first double amputees to serve as a fully active cop.
“I’m just really eager and excited to prove myself to my colleagues in my new job, my new career, that I’m capable of doing the job just as well as somebody with both legs,” Matias Ferreira told Newsday. “I don’t think the prosthetics hinder me in any way.”
The 28-year-old married father of one is set to become a police officer on Friday following a 29-week training program that included sit-ups, push-ups and a mile-and-a-half run — all of which he completed, no problem.
“A lot of guys are like, ‘What happens if one of your legs break?’ I’m sorry to say, but if I break my leg, I go in the trunk, I put on a new one,” Ferreira said. “If you break your leg, you’re out for a couple months, my friend.”
The Marine machine-gunner managed to run the department’s required mile-and-a-half in about 11 minutes — which is a minute and 29 seconds less than the demands for his age category.
“This is someone who served our nation, paid a significant sacrifice, and is now able to overcome adversity in a tremendous way,” Suffolk County Police Commissioner Timothy Sini told Newsday. “He’s done a terrific job as a recruit in the academy, both physically, academically and in his leadership to the other recruits, and he’s going to make a fine officer.”
In 2011, Ferreira was forced to have both of his legs amputated below the knee after he accidentally stepped on a 30-pound improvised explosive device. He will be one of the only cops in the country to have ever had the procedure done, according to Newsday.
There was at least one officer in the Arizona State Police who was a double amputee, the newspaper reports.
During Ferreira’s training, officials said he practiced taking down aggressive suspects wearing a protective suit. He only fell once — and was able to hop right back up immediately.
“If you have somebody coming at you and attacking you, we didn’t know how that was going to end up, we didn’t know if he would fall and not be able to get back up, so
‘For us it was an important moment,” said Lt. Steven Rohde, commanding officer of the academy’s recruit training section.
“Kind of an exclamation point on, ‘This guy’s the real deal. I wouldn’t want to fight him!’”
EDITOR’S NOTE: Matias Ferreira is a true hero in every sense of the word, and not some overblown sports star like O.J. Simpson or Brucella Jenner.
MORE ON THE DAMN DAM
by Bob Walsh
The Oroville dam and the area immediately downstream is going to be the focus of some intense concentration and work over the next few months. It is now pretty obvious that the entire gate-controlled spillway is going to have to be replaced BEFORE November 1 or the reservoir will be at serious risk. That doesn't count the work on the downstream side of the emergency spillway.
The Oroville damn is a very large earth fill dam, at 900 feet it is the largest in the country. The power house even running at max is capable of running less than 20,000 CFS out of it. That isn't nearly enough to do the job once the snow starts melting and the lake starts rising quickly.
Under normal circumstances in the formerly great state of California you couldn't even get permits in that period of time. Or twice that period of time. Or thrice even. Then need to get a plan, get contracts and permissions and waivers and actually DO the work in less than eight months.
One thing I know for sure. If I lived in Oroville or anywhere else close to that dam I would make real sure my flood insurance was paid up.
The Oroville dam and the area immediately downstream is going to be the focus of some intense concentration and work over the next few months. It is now pretty obvious that the entire gate-controlled spillway is going to have to be replaced BEFORE November 1 or the reservoir will be at serious risk. That doesn't count the work on the downstream side of the emergency spillway.
The Oroville damn is a very large earth fill dam, at 900 feet it is the largest in the country. The power house even running at max is capable of running less than 20,000 CFS out of it. That isn't nearly enough to do the job once the snow starts melting and the lake starts rising quickly.
Under normal circumstances in the formerly great state of California you couldn't even get permits in that period of time. Or twice that period of time. Or thrice even. Then need to get a plan, get contracts and permissions and waivers and actually DO the work in less than eight months.
One thing I know for sure. If I lived in Oroville or anywhere else close to that dam I would make real sure my flood insurance was paid up.
TEXAS LIQUOR REGULATORS PARTYING ON TAXPAYERS’ TAB
Texas alcohol regulators know how to party: records show they've spent tens of thousands of dollars to travel to swanky resorts where liquor flows and industry lobbyists abound
By Jay Root | The Texas Tribune | March 24, 2017
No agency can kill a buzz quicker than the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission, but behind the scenes state liquor regulators have shown they know how to party — all on the tab of taxpayers and members of an industry they oversee.
Consider the boozy junket the top TABC brass took to San Diego in the summer of 2015 — depicted in a humorous illustration officials created during work hours at the agency. It portrays agency director Sherry Cook, licensing chief Amy Harrison, a TABC analyst and an agency contractor riding in a plane while holding or guzzling from bottles of Lone Star Beer.
"Here we come California!" reads the caption above the doctored picture. "Woo Hoo!!!"
Cook couldn’t say precisely how or if the illustration was used internally, but in an interview with The Texas Tribune she acknowledged that using government computers to create a cartoonish picture showing state alcohol regulators downing beer may not have been done “in the most appropriate manner.”
The illustration, included in a slew of documents obtained by a grocery supply company that is suing the agency, highlighted the regulators’ enthusiasm for the conference in San Diego — just one of numerous trips agency honchos take each year to attend meetings of the National Conference of State Liquor Administrators (NCSLA), an industry trade group that brings liquor interests and government regulators together at swanky resorts around the nation.
The gatherings aren’t cheap. TABC billed the state at least $8,000 for the jaunt to San Diego alone, records from the agency and the state comptroller's office show. And in 2013 TABC shelled out more than $10,000 in taxpayer funds to send four people to the association’s annual conference at the Sheraton Waikiki in Honolulu, according to the records.
NCSLA — funded in large part by the alcohol industry — spent another $2,000 in direct-billed lodging and airfare reimbursements for the island adventure, state records obtained by the Tribune show.
The state comptroller's records show the alcoholic beverage commission has spent at least $85,000 on out-of-state travel since the 2011 fiscal year, much of it on liquor industry conferences. Almost $17,000 has been paid to NCSLA for registration and membership fees over the same period, the comptroller records show.
TABC could not say how much the liquor association has provided in travel reimbursements over the years to the agency or its employees. NCSLA Executive Director Pam Frantz said in an email Thursday that Cook, who sits on the group's board, has received travel reimbursements as a member of the association. But Frantz could not provide a list of all the travel reimbursements Cook and other TABC officials have received in the past five years.
After the Tribune asked questions about travel reimbursements, Cook contacted the Texas Ethics Commission, which informed her that payments the liquor organization made to her should have been reported on the personal financial statements she must file as a top agency official; the commission is working with her to determine how to rectify the disclosure “oversights,” said agency spokesman Chris Porter.
TABC is also examining whether it gave erroneous information about travel reimbursements when it answered an open records request related to the grocery supply company's demand for documents in 2015 by saying Cook had not received any reimbursements from outside groups.
Cook says the group's meetings she and her colleagues attend provide vital training and networking opportunities that help keep her agency abreast of the complicated regulatory structure in various states; TABC officials, meanwhile, impart wisdom they’ve learned in Texas to their national counterparts, she said.
“NCSLA is a place where state regulators from across the United States come together, and we talk a lot about, you know, best practices,” Cook said. “This is that place where we come together to have these discussions.”
Critics say they're junkets that waste precious tax dollars while raising troubling questions about the cozy relationship between the government regulators and powerful corporate interests. Austin lawyer Howard Wolf, who as a Texas Sunset Commission member a decade ago publicly complained that the state’s arcane liquor laws foster monopolies and discourage competition, said the conferences do little more than strengthen the liquor industry’s grip on Texas regulators.
“These people have virtually unlimited budgets for entertainment of all types, in order to be on the scene continually to monitor what is going on in the regulatory scheme,” Wolf said. “The TABC is ... not protecting the consumer. It’s not protecting the taxpayer. It’s protecting these very wealthy industry companies that own and dominate the industry.”
Wolf says that domination explains why Texas has adopted some of the strictest — and strangest — alcohol laws in the country. They may have started out as well-intended regulations aimed at combating organized crime and public drunkenness at the end of prohibition in the 1930s, but in modern times they’ve been adopted and promoted at the behest of politically connected companies, he says.
For example, when brewing giant Anheuser-Busch bought SeaWorld parks in 1989, state law prevented its amusement park subsidiary from selling liquor under “tied house” rules that force alcohol makers, distributors and sellers into three separate silos and supposedly forbid commercial cross-pollination. The next year, the Legislature came to Anhueser-Busch’s rescue by making retail alcohol sales legal at any “marine park” in “an enclosed restricted access area of not less than 254 acres nor more than 255 acres in a county with a population of over 950,000.” Only SeaWorld qualified.
In the distribution silo, powerful beer wholesalers have benefited from laws that require they be paid in cash upon delivery of their product and allow them to profit from exclusive distribution rights that they can sell — but politically weak craft brewers can’t. Texas craft brewers sued over the distribution rights issue and won, but the state is still fighting to stop them.
And a another bizarre liquor law, believed to be the only one of its kind in the nation, prevents publicly traded companies from selling spirits — thereby favoring politically powerful package stores and their blood relatives in maintaining the exclusive rights to sell hard liquor.
All layers of the liquor industry show up at NCSLA conferences, but the internal emails, state travel records and association literature obtained by the Tribune show business isn’t the only thing being conducted at the meetings. They typically feature sponsored parties, a well-stocked open bar and a busy array of social events.
On the 2015 trip to California, where Cook signed off on paying $73 more per night than the maximum allowable lodging rate of $142, TABC employees stayed at the posh Rancho Bernardo Inn, which NCSLA described as a “warm and welcoming resort nestled on 280 acres of green lawns” with “an 18-hole championship golf course and luxurious day spa,” records indicated.
“This resort has it all, so plan to come early and/or stay after the conference to relax, rejuvenate, and play,” the association said in its greeting message.
Beside boasting about all the sightseeing that could be done in San Diego, NCSLA officials arranged for a discounted round of golf — $89, cart rental included. The hospitality suite remained open until 2 a.m. on all four nights “for those wishing to extend their business and socializing into the evening.”
“We might even break out the karaoke!” organizers gushed.
In Hawaii, entertainment options included a golf tournament at Pearl Country Club, a “luau under the stars,” a networking event at the Bishop Museum, which boasts “the world’s largest collection of Polynesian artifacts,” and more.
At least two top agency officials — Cook and Deputy Executive Director Ed Swedberg — brought their spouses to Honolulu, records show. TABC declined to elaborate about when and where spouses were included on that or any other NCSLA jaunts but stressed that taxpayers never fund their travel.
A year after the Hawaii junket, Texas hosted the national liquor conference in San Antonio, and TABC spent at least $28,000 to send 17 employees, state records show. Partying appears to have been on the agenda in the Alamo City as well: After the event, liquor lobbyist Dewey Brackin — a former TABC staff attorney — sent a picture of himself with TABC licensing chief Harrison and others.
“Feeling no pain,” he said of the moment captured in the photo. Brackin said later he was merely “enjoying the fellowship” with NCSLA attendees.
Last year, the boozing at the NCSLA conference in Austin spilled into the newspapers — after the agency was accused of failing to get the proper alcohol permit while serving alcohol in its own hospitality room. TABC launched an investigation of itself and determined there was no wrongdoing, said Porter, the spokesman.
TABC declined to immediately provide the investigative report, which the Tribune is now seeking under state open records laws. Porter said the Texas Rangers received a copy of the investigative report and decided no further action was warranted.
As the Texas Legislature grapples with a tight budget this year, the TABC is already making plans to send representatives to the upcoming NCSLA annual meeting in Colorado this summer.
Next year, NCSLA’s annual conference will once again graces the shores of Hawaii, according to the NCSLA calendar of events. This time, though, attendees will bypass Honolulu and hit the spectacular Waikoloa Beach on the Big Island, according the NCSLA website.
“As long as we’re a dues-paying members of NCSLA we’ll continue to attend those conferences to meet with our counterparts from across the country and discuss issues that are of importance to the alcoholic beverage industry in Texas and nationwide,” Porter said.
EDITOR’S NOTE: It’s real easy to spend money when it’s not your own
By Jay Root | The Texas Tribune | March 24, 2017
No agency can kill a buzz quicker than the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission, but behind the scenes state liquor regulators have shown they know how to party — all on the tab of taxpayers and members of an industry they oversee.
Consider the boozy junket the top TABC brass took to San Diego in the summer of 2015 — depicted in a humorous illustration officials created during work hours at the agency. It portrays agency director Sherry Cook, licensing chief Amy Harrison, a TABC analyst and an agency contractor riding in a plane while holding or guzzling from bottles of Lone Star Beer.
"Here we come California!" reads the caption above the doctored picture. "Woo Hoo!!!"
Cook couldn’t say precisely how or if the illustration was used internally, but in an interview with The Texas Tribune she acknowledged that using government computers to create a cartoonish picture showing state alcohol regulators downing beer may not have been done “in the most appropriate manner.”
The illustration, included in a slew of documents obtained by a grocery supply company that is suing the agency, highlighted the regulators’ enthusiasm for the conference in San Diego — just one of numerous trips agency honchos take each year to attend meetings of the National Conference of State Liquor Administrators (NCSLA), an industry trade group that brings liquor interests and government regulators together at swanky resorts around the nation.
The gatherings aren’t cheap. TABC billed the state at least $8,000 for the jaunt to San Diego alone, records from the agency and the state comptroller's office show. And in 2013 TABC shelled out more than $10,000 in taxpayer funds to send four people to the association’s annual conference at the Sheraton Waikiki in Honolulu, according to the records.
NCSLA — funded in large part by the alcohol industry — spent another $2,000 in direct-billed lodging and airfare reimbursements for the island adventure, state records obtained by the Tribune show.
The state comptroller's records show the alcoholic beverage commission has spent at least $85,000 on out-of-state travel since the 2011 fiscal year, much of it on liquor industry conferences. Almost $17,000 has been paid to NCSLA for registration and membership fees over the same period, the comptroller records show.
TABC could not say how much the liquor association has provided in travel reimbursements over the years to the agency or its employees. NCSLA Executive Director Pam Frantz said in an email Thursday that Cook, who sits on the group's board, has received travel reimbursements as a member of the association. But Frantz could not provide a list of all the travel reimbursements Cook and other TABC officials have received in the past five years.
After the Tribune asked questions about travel reimbursements, Cook contacted the Texas Ethics Commission, which informed her that payments the liquor organization made to her should have been reported on the personal financial statements she must file as a top agency official; the commission is working with her to determine how to rectify the disclosure “oversights,” said agency spokesman Chris Porter.
TABC is also examining whether it gave erroneous information about travel reimbursements when it answered an open records request related to the grocery supply company's demand for documents in 2015 by saying Cook had not received any reimbursements from outside groups.
Cook says the group's meetings she and her colleagues attend provide vital training and networking opportunities that help keep her agency abreast of the complicated regulatory structure in various states; TABC officials, meanwhile, impart wisdom they’ve learned in Texas to their national counterparts, she said.
“NCSLA is a place where state regulators from across the United States come together, and we talk a lot about, you know, best practices,” Cook said. “This is that place where we come together to have these discussions.”
Critics say they're junkets that waste precious tax dollars while raising troubling questions about the cozy relationship between the government regulators and powerful corporate interests. Austin lawyer Howard Wolf, who as a Texas Sunset Commission member a decade ago publicly complained that the state’s arcane liquor laws foster monopolies and discourage competition, said the conferences do little more than strengthen the liquor industry’s grip on Texas regulators.
“These people have virtually unlimited budgets for entertainment of all types, in order to be on the scene continually to monitor what is going on in the regulatory scheme,” Wolf said. “The TABC is ... not protecting the consumer. It’s not protecting the taxpayer. It’s protecting these very wealthy industry companies that own and dominate the industry.”
Wolf says that domination explains why Texas has adopted some of the strictest — and strangest — alcohol laws in the country. They may have started out as well-intended regulations aimed at combating organized crime and public drunkenness at the end of prohibition in the 1930s, but in modern times they’ve been adopted and promoted at the behest of politically connected companies, he says.
For example, when brewing giant Anheuser-Busch bought SeaWorld parks in 1989, state law prevented its amusement park subsidiary from selling liquor under “tied house” rules that force alcohol makers, distributors and sellers into three separate silos and supposedly forbid commercial cross-pollination. The next year, the Legislature came to Anhueser-Busch’s rescue by making retail alcohol sales legal at any “marine park” in “an enclosed restricted access area of not less than 254 acres nor more than 255 acres in a county with a population of over 950,000.” Only SeaWorld qualified.
In the distribution silo, powerful beer wholesalers have benefited from laws that require they be paid in cash upon delivery of their product and allow them to profit from exclusive distribution rights that they can sell — but politically weak craft brewers can’t. Texas craft brewers sued over the distribution rights issue and won, but the state is still fighting to stop them.
And a another bizarre liquor law, believed to be the only one of its kind in the nation, prevents publicly traded companies from selling spirits — thereby favoring politically powerful package stores and their blood relatives in maintaining the exclusive rights to sell hard liquor.
All layers of the liquor industry show up at NCSLA conferences, but the internal emails, state travel records and association literature obtained by the Tribune show business isn’t the only thing being conducted at the meetings. They typically feature sponsored parties, a well-stocked open bar and a busy array of social events.
On the 2015 trip to California, where Cook signed off on paying $73 more per night than the maximum allowable lodging rate of $142, TABC employees stayed at the posh Rancho Bernardo Inn, which NCSLA described as a “warm and welcoming resort nestled on 280 acres of green lawns” with “an 18-hole championship golf course and luxurious day spa,” records indicated.
“This resort has it all, so plan to come early and/or stay after the conference to relax, rejuvenate, and play,” the association said in its greeting message.
Beside boasting about all the sightseeing that could be done in San Diego, NCSLA officials arranged for a discounted round of golf — $89, cart rental included. The hospitality suite remained open until 2 a.m. on all four nights “for those wishing to extend their business and socializing into the evening.”
“We might even break out the karaoke!” organizers gushed.
In Hawaii, entertainment options included a golf tournament at Pearl Country Club, a “luau under the stars,” a networking event at the Bishop Museum, which boasts “the world’s largest collection of Polynesian artifacts,” and more.
At least two top agency officials — Cook and Deputy Executive Director Ed Swedberg — brought their spouses to Honolulu, records show. TABC declined to elaborate about when and where spouses were included on that or any other NCSLA jaunts but stressed that taxpayers never fund their travel.
A year after the Hawaii junket, Texas hosted the national liquor conference in San Antonio, and TABC spent at least $28,000 to send 17 employees, state records show. Partying appears to have been on the agenda in the Alamo City as well: After the event, liquor lobbyist Dewey Brackin — a former TABC staff attorney — sent a picture of himself with TABC licensing chief Harrison and others.
“Feeling no pain,” he said of the moment captured in the photo. Brackin said later he was merely “enjoying the fellowship” with NCSLA attendees.
Last year, the boozing at the NCSLA conference in Austin spilled into the newspapers — after the agency was accused of failing to get the proper alcohol permit while serving alcohol in its own hospitality room. TABC launched an investigation of itself and determined there was no wrongdoing, said Porter, the spokesman.
TABC declined to immediately provide the investigative report, which the Tribune is now seeking under state open records laws. Porter said the Texas Rangers received a copy of the investigative report and decided no further action was warranted.
As the Texas Legislature grapples with a tight budget this year, the TABC is already making plans to send representatives to the upcoming NCSLA annual meeting in Colorado this summer.
Next year, NCSLA’s annual conference will once again graces the shores of Hawaii, according to the NCSLA calendar of events. This time, though, attendees will bypass Honolulu and hit the spectacular Waikoloa Beach on the Big Island, according the NCSLA website.
“As long as we’re a dues-paying members of NCSLA we’ll continue to attend those conferences to meet with our counterparts from across the country and discuss issues that are of importance to the alcoholic beverage industry in Texas and nationwide,” Porter said.
EDITOR’S NOTE: It’s real easy to spend money when it’s not your own
GETTING NAKED AT AUSCHWITZ DEATH CAMP
Fourteen naked men and women slaughter a sheep at Auschwitz death camp before chaining themselves under the 'Arbeit macht frei' sign in shocking and unexplained ritual
By AFP and Chris Summers | Daily Mail | March 24, 2017
A group of naked men and women today slaughtered a sheep in a bizarre ritual at the former Nazi death camp, Auschwitz-Birkenau, in Poland.
Fourteen people, aged between 20 and 27, chained themselves together in front of the camp's infamous 'Arbeit macht frei' ('Work makes you free') sign, according to museum staff.
The group also used a drone to film the incident but it is unclear what nationality they were or what was the point of the sick ritual.
Museum guards at the site in the southern city of Oswiecim immediately intervened, and police said all those involved have been detained.
'The individuals will be transferred to a police station for questioning. A large group of police officers are at the scene,' local police spokeswoman Malgorzata Jurecka told AFP.
She said they plan to inform prosecutors of the incident.
'This is the first time something like this has happened at Auschwitz,' museum director Piotr Cywinski told AFP.
'I have no idea what their motives were.'
Nazi Germany built the Auschwitz death camp after occupying Poland during World War II.
The Holocaust site has become a symbol of Nazi Germany's genocide of six million European Jews, one million of whom were killed at the camp from 1940 to 1945.
Poland's chief Rabbi Michael Schudrich said that the actions of those involved were wrong, regardless of the group's motives.
'Any use of Auschwitz for political statements, even using Auschwitz for moral statements, is not how Auschwitz should be remembered,' he told AFP.
'The Germans used Auschwitz to try to eliminate the Jewish people. Any happenings are a desecration of the memory of all those killed at Auschwitz, Jews, Poles, Soviet prisoners of war, Roma and others,' he added.
More than 100,000 non-Jews, including Poles, Roma, Soviet prisoners of war and anti-Nazi resistance fighters also died at the death camp, according to the museum.
An estimated 232,000 of Auschwitz's victims were children.
By AFP and Chris Summers | Daily Mail | March 24, 2017
A group of naked men and women today slaughtered a sheep in a bizarre ritual at the former Nazi death camp, Auschwitz-Birkenau, in Poland.
Fourteen people, aged between 20 and 27, chained themselves together in front of the camp's infamous 'Arbeit macht frei' ('Work makes you free') sign, according to museum staff.
The group also used a drone to film the incident but it is unclear what nationality they were or what was the point of the sick ritual.
Museum guards at the site in the southern city of Oswiecim immediately intervened, and police said all those involved have been detained.
'The individuals will be transferred to a police station for questioning. A large group of police officers are at the scene,' local police spokeswoman Malgorzata Jurecka told AFP.
She said they plan to inform prosecutors of the incident.
'This is the first time something like this has happened at Auschwitz,' museum director Piotr Cywinski told AFP.
'I have no idea what their motives were.'
Nazi Germany built the Auschwitz death camp after occupying Poland during World War II.
The Holocaust site has become a symbol of Nazi Germany's genocide of six million European Jews, one million of whom were killed at the camp from 1940 to 1945.
Poland's chief Rabbi Michael Schudrich said that the actions of those involved were wrong, regardless of the group's motives.
'Any use of Auschwitz for political statements, even using Auschwitz for moral statements, is not how Auschwitz should be remembered,' he told AFP.
'The Germans used Auschwitz to try to eliminate the Jewish people. Any happenings are a desecration of the memory of all those killed at Auschwitz, Jews, Poles, Soviet prisoners of war, Roma and others,' he added.
More than 100,000 non-Jews, including Poles, Roma, Soviet prisoners of war and anti-Nazi resistance fighters also died at the death camp, according to the museum.
An estimated 232,000 of Auschwitz's victims were children.
Friday, March 24, 2017
HI YO GLEN CAMPBELL
Hi Yo Silver, Away! – It doesn’t get much better than this. "The William Tell Overture" by Giaochino Rossini. Many of us grew up watching the Lone Ranger and Tonto on black and white television. Years later, many of us watched the Glen Campbell show on TV as well.
This video is a clip of a younger Glen Campbell playing the William Tell Overture (with symphony orchestra) and dedicating it to Clayton Moore, who played the Lone Ranger and Jay Silverheels, who played Tonto. You may never have seen Glen play like this before. This is world-class guitar playing and Campbell makes it look easy. The sounds of Glen Campbell on guitar and the symphony orchestra playing Rossini's "William Tell Overture" will take you back to those golden days of yesteryear, when the strains of the Rossini's masterpiece coming over the radio meant the Lone Ranger show was about to begin.
This video is a clip of a younger Glen Campbell playing the William Tell Overture (with symphony orchestra) and dedicating it to Clayton Moore, who played the Lone Ranger and Jay Silverheels, who played Tonto. You may never have seen Glen play like this before. This is world-class guitar playing and Campbell makes it look easy. The sounds of Glen Campbell on guitar and the symphony orchestra playing Rossini's "William Tell Overture" will take you back to those golden days of yesteryear, when the strains of the Rossini's masterpiece coming over the radio meant the Lone Ranger show was about to begin.
ENERGY SECRETARY RICK PERRY CLAIMS ELECTION FOR TEXAS A&M STUDENT BODY PRESIDENT WAS STOLEN
Perry: Did A&M shun due process in the name of 'diversity'?
By Rick Perry | Houston Chronicle | March 23, 2017
As Texas' first Aggie governor and as someone who was twice elected Yell Leader of Texas A&M University, I am deeply troubled by the recent conduct of A&M's administration and Student Government Association (SGA) during the Aggie student-body president elections for 2017-2018.
When I first read that our student body had elected an openly gay man, Bobby Brooks, for president of the student body, I viewed it as a testament to the Aggie character. I was proud of our students because the election appeared to demonstrate a commitment to treating every student equally, judging on character rather than on personal characteristics.
Unfortunately, a closer review appears to prove the opposite; and the Aggie administration and SGA owe us answers.
Brooks did not win the election. He finished second by more than 750 votes to one Mr. Robert McIntosh. However, McIntosh was disqualified by the SGA Election Commission and Judicial Court through a process that - at best - made a mockery of due process and transparency.
At worst, the SGA allowed an election to be stolen outright.
Here are the facts: Six hours after the election polls closed, the SGA Election Commission received 14 anonymous complaints, accusing McIntosh of voter intimidation. Rather than question McIntosh or conduct an investigation, the Election Commission immediately disqualified McIntosh and declared Brooks the winner. Later, the Commission added a second charge - again from an anonymous complaint - that McIntosh had failed to provide a receipt for glow sticks appearing in a campaign video on Facebook.
Now, as someone who appointed university regents for more than a decade, I assumed that the administration would have briefed the Board of Regents, considering the allegations of widespread voter intimidation and the disqualification of thousands of student votes. If anything is worthy of oversight, these events should qualify.
Incredibly, it appears that the Board of Regents was never informed.
Upon appeal, McIntosh was cleared of all charges of voter intimidation. None of the complaints were made by students who interacted with McIntosh, and many of the accusers turned out to be supporters of Brooks or his campaign volunteers. In other words, the entire episode that initially disqualified McIntosh was dismissed as a series of dirty campaign tactics.
The second charge of missing receipts was upheld by the Court, despite the fact that McIntosh had acquired the glow sticks for participating in a charity event prior to the campaign. Further, they were no different than visual props used by McIntosh's rivals' campaign videos - none of which were itemized or expensed.
In its opinion, the Judicial Court admitted that the charges were minor and technical, but, incredibly, chose to uphold the disqualification, with no consideration given to whether the punishment fit the crime. The desire of the electorate is overturned, and thousands of student votes are disqualified because of free glow sticks that appeared for 11 seconds of a months-long campaign. Apparently, glow sticks merit the same punishment as voter intimidation.
Now, Brooks' presidency is being treated as a victory for "diversity." It is difficult to escape the perception that this quest for "diversity" is the real reason the election outcome was overturned. Does the principle of "diversity" override and supersede all other values of our Aggie Honor Code?
Every Aggie ought to ask themselves: How would they act and feel if the victim was different? What if McIntosh had been a minority student instead of a white male? What if Brooks had been the candidate disqualified? Would the administration and the student body have allowed the first gay student body president to be voided for using charity glow sticks? Would the student body have allowed a black student body president to be disqualified on anonymous charges of voter intimidation?
We all know that the administration, the SGA and student body would not have permitted such a thing to happen. The outcome would have been different if the victim was different.
Election Commissioner Rachel Keathley must explain why she chose to overturn a fairly won election and disqualify thousands of votes on the basis of anonymous complaints and flimsy technicalities. Chief Justice Shelby James must explain why she treated these cases as annoyances rather than with respect. The administration must explain why it stood passive while equal treatment was mocked in the name of diversity, and why officials did not brief the Board of Regents.
Campus diversity is something every school and student should strive to consistently improve. But it must be done the right way. The quality of diversity on a campus depends on fair treatment, rather than preferred outcomes or engineered results. McIntosh's treatment suggests that A&M is choosing preferred outcomes over equal treatment: that the ends justify the means, and that not every student is deserving of the same treatment.
That is precisely opposite from the values that I learned as an A&M cadet.
Robert McIntosh was not treated the same as his competitors.
If we do not serve him and the voting majority of students, then we fail every student at our beloved university - and tarnish the ring that our alumni wear with pride.
EDITOR'S NOTE: So far no one has accused Putin of stealing the Aggie election.
By Rick Perry | Houston Chronicle | March 23, 2017
As Texas' first Aggie governor and as someone who was twice elected Yell Leader of Texas A&M University, I am deeply troubled by the recent conduct of A&M's administration and Student Government Association (SGA) during the Aggie student-body president elections for 2017-2018.
When I first read that our student body had elected an openly gay man, Bobby Brooks, for president of the student body, I viewed it as a testament to the Aggie character. I was proud of our students because the election appeared to demonstrate a commitment to treating every student equally, judging on character rather than on personal characteristics.
Unfortunately, a closer review appears to prove the opposite; and the Aggie administration and SGA owe us answers.
Brooks did not win the election. He finished second by more than 750 votes to one Mr. Robert McIntosh. However, McIntosh was disqualified by the SGA Election Commission and Judicial Court through a process that - at best - made a mockery of due process and transparency.
At worst, the SGA allowed an election to be stolen outright.
Here are the facts: Six hours after the election polls closed, the SGA Election Commission received 14 anonymous complaints, accusing McIntosh of voter intimidation. Rather than question McIntosh or conduct an investigation, the Election Commission immediately disqualified McIntosh and declared Brooks the winner. Later, the Commission added a second charge - again from an anonymous complaint - that McIntosh had failed to provide a receipt for glow sticks appearing in a campaign video on Facebook.
Now, as someone who appointed university regents for more than a decade, I assumed that the administration would have briefed the Board of Regents, considering the allegations of widespread voter intimidation and the disqualification of thousands of student votes. If anything is worthy of oversight, these events should qualify.
Incredibly, it appears that the Board of Regents was never informed.
Upon appeal, McIntosh was cleared of all charges of voter intimidation. None of the complaints were made by students who interacted with McIntosh, and many of the accusers turned out to be supporters of Brooks or his campaign volunteers. In other words, the entire episode that initially disqualified McIntosh was dismissed as a series of dirty campaign tactics.
The second charge of missing receipts was upheld by the Court, despite the fact that McIntosh had acquired the glow sticks for participating in a charity event prior to the campaign. Further, they were no different than visual props used by McIntosh's rivals' campaign videos - none of which were itemized or expensed.
In its opinion, the Judicial Court admitted that the charges were minor and technical, but, incredibly, chose to uphold the disqualification, with no consideration given to whether the punishment fit the crime. The desire of the electorate is overturned, and thousands of student votes are disqualified because of free glow sticks that appeared for 11 seconds of a months-long campaign. Apparently, glow sticks merit the same punishment as voter intimidation.
Now, Brooks' presidency is being treated as a victory for "diversity." It is difficult to escape the perception that this quest for "diversity" is the real reason the election outcome was overturned. Does the principle of "diversity" override and supersede all other values of our Aggie Honor Code?
Every Aggie ought to ask themselves: How would they act and feel if the victim was different? What if McIntosh had been a minority student instead of a white male? What if Brooks had been the candidate disqualified? Would the administration and the student body have allowed the first gay student body president to be voided for using charity glow sticks? Would the student body have allowed a black student body president to be disqualified on anonymous charges of voter intimidation?
We all know that the administration, the SGA and student body would not have permitted such a thing to happen. The outcome would have been different if the victim was different.
Election Commissioner Rachel Keathley must explain why she chose to overturn a fairly won election and disqualify thousands of votes on the basis of anonymous complaints and flimsy technicalities. Chief Justice Shelby James must explain why she treated these cases as annoyances rather than with respect. The administration must explain why it stood passive while equal treatment was mocked in the name of diversity, and why officials did not brief the Board of Regents.
Campus diversity is something every school and student should strive to consistently improve. But it must be done the right way. The quality of diversity on a campus depends on fair treatment, rather than preferred outcomes or engineered results. McIntosh's treatment suggests that A&M is choosing preferred outcomes over equal treatment: that the ends justify the means, and that not every student is deserving of the same treatment.
That is precisely opposite from the values that I learned as an A&M cadet.
Robert McIntosh was not treated the same as his competitors.
If we do not serve him and the voting majority of students, then we fail every student at our beloved university - and tarnish the ring that our alumni wear with pride.
EDITOR'S NOTE: So far no one has accused Putin of stealing the Aggie election.
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