Remembering Richard "Racehorse" Haynes's Most Famous Cases
By Dianna Wray | Houston Press | April 28, 2017
Richard "Racehorse" Haynes, the famed Houston criminal defense attorney who could charm a jury like nobody else and cross-examine a witness so thoroughly it was just short of physical evisceration, died on Friday at age 90.
Now, we're taking a look back at the quick-witted lawyer who could and would do just about anything — whether that meant using a cattle prod on himself to show a jury that while it "hurts like hell, it’s not deadly,” threatening to put a nail through his hand to show that crucifixion wasn't actually that painful, or cross-examining an empty chair when the prosecution refused to produce a witness — in defense of his clients.
Haynes, born in San Antonio, got his nickname in junior high school over in Houston's Sunset Heights neighborhood either because he was the fastest runner in his class or because a football coach noticed that he seemed more interested in carrying the ball from sideline to sideline rather than advancing it on the field. But it seems like the moniker stuck because of, well, everything that came after.
He was definitely fast. Haynes served in World War II when he was still just a kid himself. In fact, he was only 17 years old when he helped storm a beach during the Battle of Iwo Jima. During the battle, he raced under enemy fire to save a Marine.
After the war, Haynes briefly considered becoming a doctor, but changed course after a week working in a hospital. Instead, he opted for the law, a profession where you could always appeal if you made a mistake. So he went to law school at the University of Houston and then went on to become one of the most skilled criminal defense attorneys ever seen in Texas.
Haynes had been practicing for more than a decade when he agreed to defend big-time Houston plastic surgeon Dr. John Hill, who was accused of murdering his River Oaks socialite wife, Joan Robinson Hill. After her death in 1969, her father, oilman Ash Robinson, contended that Hill had poisoned his wife, and petitioned the district attorney to charge Hill with murder. Hill was charged for causing her death by withholding medical attention and went to trial in 1971 with Haynes at his side.
After Hill's second wife testified that Hill had confessed to killing Joan via a dessert laced with bacteria that caused the infection that killed her, Haynes saw an opening and asked for a mistrial.
It was Haynes's most flashy case to date at that point, but he never got to see it through — even though he'd told numerous friends around Houston that he thought the doctor would beat the rap because he was actually innocent of the crime. He hoped to tackle it the second time around, but Ash Robinson opted not to wait for another trial to see Hill punished. Hill was shot at the front door of his River Oaks mansion in a contract killing before the second trial could get underway.
But that same year, Haynes took on another case, the one that made him famous. He agreed to defend Fort Worth oilman T. Cullen Davis, who was accused of murdering his stepdaughter and his wife's lover.
The 1971 case drew incredible media attention, partly because of the case itself and partly because Davis was at that time the wealthiest man ever tried in the United States. And despite the evidence, Racehorse's representation helped guarantee that Davis never saw the inside of a prison. The first trial ended in a mistrial after the jury deadlocked, and Davis was acquitted in the second trial.
Later on Davis was once again arrested, this time for plotting to kill his wife and the judge overseeing the divorce. (Apparently Davis liked to do things in a big, thorough way.) Haynes once again defended him and once again, even though there was video and audio proof, Davis went free. Haynes said in interviews over the years this made it more difficult to work his magic in the courtroom in the following years because his name and tactics were so well known, but that didn't stop him from taking on more flashy cases that garnered plenty of media attention.
In 1981, Haynes followed up by taking on another seemingly unwinnable case when he defended Vickie Daniel. Vickie Daniel was a former Dairy Queen waitress accused of murdering her husband, Price Daniel Jr., who was not only the descendant of a political dynasty in Texas that traced its roots directly back to Sam Houston, but also the former speaker of the Texas House of Representatives.
Price and his wife had a fraught relationship and he had cut her out of his will a few months before she had him served with divorce papers in January 1981. And then, a few days later, he came home and was shot to death, allegedly by Vickie.
It was the kind of case that most would have thought open and shut, especially since the pair were fighting and she apparently did shoot him, according to the court records. But Haynes dug in, claiming that Price was a "drunken, dope-crazed, wife-beating bisexual and pederast, a man whose smiling public face concealed perverse desires" who had come after Vickie when she shot him, according to D Magazine. The jury acquitted her.
Then there was Morganna, an entertainer who became known as the "kissing bandit" because, starting in 1969, she would rush onto baseball fields and kiss unsuspecting players. Morganna finally got caught and charged when she went after the Astros in Houston. Of course, Haynes represented her and came up with what could have been the most entertaining defense of his entire career.
In April 1985, the Astros were playing on their home turf in the Astrodome against the L.A. Dodgers when a buxom woman ran onto the field and planted two quick kisses on famed pitcher Nolan Ryan. Security was waiting for her, though — she'd done this many times before, ticking off the baseball top brass — so she darted for another player, shortstop Dickie Thon. She tried to make it to the Dodgers dugout, but was caught.
Morganna was charged with trespassing, and she came at the charge armed for bear with Haynes as her attorney. Haynes had a great defense planned out. He was going to argue, as he told papers at the time, the "gravity defense." In his view, Morganna had simply leaned over the stadium railing and then fallen, pulled down inexorably — and completely against her own will — by her enormous breasts.
Sadly, Haynes never got to argue this defense in court or demonstrate it — which is truly a pity since you just know that would have been one hell of a show and he was clear that he was going to demonstrate the effects of gravity by having someone, possibly the defendant herself, lean over and show that "seven of ten times," gravity won out. Instead, Houston Sports Association officials thought better of pursuing the whole thing and convinced city officials to drop the charges.
Through it all, Haynes had a flare about him that kept people watching. He also made a point of not carrying any enmity out of the courtroom, or acting like a jerk if he won. "You don't have to spit on the face of your enemy. Once you've conquest-ed your enemy, once you've won, you can shake hands and be a gentleman," he said in an interview a few years back.
Meanwhile, Haynes stayed married to the same woman for 60 years — his wife died before him — and had kids, lots of grandchildren and great-grandchildren, and was more normal-sounding in real life, outside the courtroom, than most of his famously infamous clients.
Sunday, April 30, 2017
THE HUNDRED DAYS OF DONALD J. TRUMP
The world has not come to an end
by Bob Walsh
Well, yesterday Trump got 100days under his belt. It is interesting, I think, to note what DID NOT happen. He has not begun wholesale deportation of Muslim, Mexicans or illegal aliens in general. Hillary Clinton is not in jail. Nobody from MSNBC of CNN has been arrested for sedition or criminal stupidity. The sun still rises in the east, even though it no longer rises out of Barack Obama's anal orifice. The world has not come to an end.
On a negative note, all of those liberal assholes that said they would leave the country if Trump won are still here. Too bad we can't use that as criteria to revoke their citizenship and deport their happy asses.
Life is hard, and sometimes unfair.
by Bob Walsh
Well, yesterday Trump got 100days under his belt. It is interesting, I think, to note what DID NOT happen. He has not begun wholesale deportation of Muslim, Mexicans or illegal aliens in general. Hillary Clinton is not in jail. Nobody from MSNBC of CNN has been arrested for sedition or criminal stupidity. The sun still rises in the east, even though it no longer rises out of Barack Obama's anal orifice. The world has not come to an end.
On a negative note, all of those liberal assholes that said they would leave the country if Trump won are still here. Too bad we can't use that as criteria to revoke their citizenship and deport their happy asses.
Life is hard, and sometimes unfair.
‘IF YOU DON’T JOIN THE GANG, WE WILL KILL YOU’
How the murderous Central American street gang MS-13 has built up a terrifying criminal stronghold in suburban Long Island
Associated Press | April 28, 2017
Late at night on Long Island, when helicopters thrum overhead and spotlights beam down onto lawns, many people here know exactly what's going on.
'You just think, '"Oh, God, whose child is it now?"' said Stephanie Spezia, a longtime resident of Brentwood, New York, a suburb in the heart of Long Island that is caught in the grip of a violent street gang with Central American ties, MS-13.
With MS-13 blamed for a trail of 11 corpses of mostly young people found since the start of the school year in Brentwood and Central Islip, the nation's focus has turned on how the Central American street gang built such a presence here.
The bloodshed in the two blue-collar towns has gotten the attention of President Donald Trump, who says the killings are the result of lax immigration policies that let too many criminal 'scum' slip through.
Attorney General Jeff Sessions gave a speech Friday not far from a park where the bodies of four young men were found this month bearing MS-13's hallmarks: repeated slashes from a blade that left the victims nearly unrecognizable.
The government's goal, he said, was 'to demolish' MS-13.
Until that happens, though, some parents say they are afraid to let their children go to school. Teens say any perceived slight to a gang member, especially a refusal to join, can mean death.
After one high school warned parents not to let their kids wear anything 'gang-affiliated,' gang members started deciding on a daily basis what colors were off-limits, leaving students to guess what not to wear.
'Kids are losing their childhoods,' said Jennifer Suarez, whose 15-year-old niece was beaten and hacked to death in the street last year. 'You can see the stress on their faces as they get ready. It's like, you know, they're suiting up for battle.'
So how does a street gang with ties to Central America gain such an aggressive foothold in the suburbs of Long Island?
MS-13, or the Mara Salvatrucha, is believed by federal prosecutors to have thousands of members across the U.S., primarily immigrants from Central America. It has a stronghold in Los Angeles, where it emerged in the 1980s as a neighborhood street gang.
But its true rise began after members were deported back to El Salvador in the 1990s. There, the gang thrived and spread to Honduras.
MS-13 and rival groups there now control entire towns, rape girls and young women, massacre students, bus drivers and merchants who refuse to pay extortion, and kill competitors or youths who simply refuse to join.
That violence has prompted a migration of people trying to escape, especially children, who have streamed north because of a U.S. policy allowing people under 18 who arrive without parents to stay in the country temporarily with relatives or friends.
Since the fall of 2013, the U.S. has placed 165,000 unaccompanied minors. Long Island has been a frequent landing spot. Suffolk County, which includes Brentwood and Central Islip, has gotten 4,500. Neighboring Nassau County has received 3,800.
In a recent roundup of 13 suspected MS-13 gang members accused of murder and other charges, seven had entered as unaccompanied minors.
'There's no question that MS-13 is recruiting these unaccompanied children,' said Suffolk County Police Commissioner Timothy Sini. The youngsters 'don't have an established social network, at least many of them don't, and MS-13 is providing that network.'
'They're also using coercion,' Sini said. 'They say, 'If you don't join the gang, we will kill you.''
All told, nearly 200 suspected MS-13 members have been rounded up since September. Among the tactics Sini has employed have been stepped-up patrols, renewed cooperation with an FBI task force and helicopter sweeps of wooded areas where gang members have been known to gather.
Trump has promised to eradicate the gang in the U.S. through strict enforcement of immigration law.
'We are putting MS-13 in jail and getting them the hell out of our country,' he told The Associated Press this week.
'They are a bad group, and somebody said they are as bad as al-Qaeda, which is a hell of a reference. ... We are out in Long Island cleaning out the MS-13 scum.'
The tough talk has made some residents fearful of law enforcement as well of the gang. They say it's not about immigration politics but about making a community safer.
Residents of Brentwood and Central Islip, with a combined population of about 100,000, say the area of modest ranch homes, warehouses and strip malls has always been a diverse, welcoming place for immigrants trying to make better lives for their children.
Some longtime residents say law enforcement bears some of the responsibility for the gang's rise because it ignored the burgeoning problem for years.
Parents say 4,200-student Brentwood High School lacks the means to help young people who are often left alone after school because their parents work long hours. There are few social workers and guidance counselors, they say, and not enough security guards or cameras.
'They can't walk the halls without fear,' said Evelyn Rodriguez, the mother of 16-year-old Kayla Cuevas, who was found beaten to death last fall. Rodriguez said her daughter had been bullied for two years.
In the months leading up to her death, Kayla was involved in a series of disputes with members and associates of the MS-13, prosecutors said. Rodriguez said her daughter stood her ground and ended up dead.
Kayla and her lifelong friend Nisa Mickens, 15, were walking on a street near their homes when men with baseball bats and a machete jumped out and attacked them.
Nisa was found dead on a residential tree-lined street a day before her 16th birthday. After a day of searching, Kayla was discovered in a wooded backyard nearby. She lived a block away.
'People, they missed the opportunity to know a really great person,' said Nisa's father, Rob Mickens, who is running for the school board to help push for change. 'They would have loved to know her.'
Bertha Ullaguari said she noticed her 18-year-old son, Jorge Tigre, going from a good student on track to graduate from Bellport High to someone who was too afraid to go to school.
Then she got two truancy letters. When she pressed her son, he refused to tell her what was going on.
'Some bad things happened there,' Ullaguari said, her voice trembling. She had heard he had his tires slashed. There were rumors of gangs.
And then, about two weeks ago while she was driving with her daughter, they got a mysterious call. A girl on the line said Jorge was dead along with three others in a park 20 miles from his home.
'We nearly killed ourselves from the shock,' said Ullaguari, who is an Ecuadorean immigrant.
Jorge's body and the three others were found cut, their torsos exposed and hands bound, just steps from a playground.
'It could happen to anybody's child, anywhere,' Evelyn Rodriguez said. 'We all need to be aware of this, and we need stand together. Because I don't want it to be your child.'
Associated Press | April 28, 2017
Late at night on Long Island, when helicopters thrum overhead and spotlights beam down onto lawns, many people here know exactly what's going on.
'You just think, '"Oh, God, whose child is it now?"' said Stephanie Spezia, a longtime resident of Brentwood, New York, a suburb in the heart of Long Island that is caught in the grip of a violent street gang with Central American ties, MS-13.
With MS-13 blamed for a trail of 11 corpses of mostly young people found since the start of the school year in Brentwood and Central Islip, the nation's focus has turned on how the Central American street gang built such a presence here.
The bloodshed in the two blue-collar towns has gotten the attention of President Donald Trump, who says the killings are the result of lax immigration policies that let too many criminal 'scum' slip through.
Attorney General Jeff Sessions gave a speech Friday not far from a park where the bodies of four young men were found this month bearing MS-13's hallmarks: repeated slashes from a blade that left the victims nearly unrecognizable.
The government's goal, he said, was 'to demolish' MS-13.
Until that happens, though, some parents say they are afraid to let their children go to school. Teens say any perceived slight to a gang member, especially a refusal to join, can mean death.
After one high school warned parents not to let their kids wear anything 'gang-affiliated,' gang members started deciding on a daily basis what colors were off-limits, leaving students to guess what not to wear.
'Kids are losing their childhoods,' said Jennifer Suarez, whose 15-year-old niece was beaten and hacked to death in the street last year. 'You can see the stress on their faces as they get ready. It's like, you know, they're suiting up for battle.'
So how does a street gang with ties to Central America gain such an aggressive foothold in the suburbs of Long Island?
MS-13, or the Mara Salvatrucha, is believed by federal prosecutors to have thousands of members across the U.S., primarily immigrants from Central America. It has a stronghold in Los Angeles, where it emerged in the 1980s as a neighborhood street gang.
But its true rise began after members were deported back to El Salvador in the 1990s. There, the gang thrived and spread to Honduras.
MS-13 and rival groups there now control entire towns, rape girls and young women, massacre students, bus drivers and merchants who refuse to pay extortion, and kill competitors or youths who simply refuse to join.
That violence has prompted a migration of people trying to escape, especially children, who have streamed north because of a U.S. policy allowing people under 18 who arrive without parents to stay in the country temporarily with relatives or friends.
Since the fall of 2013, the U.S. has placed 165,000 unaccompanied minors. Long Island has been a frequent landing spot. Suffolk County, which includes Brentwood and Central Islip, has gotten 4,500. Neighboring Nassau County has received 3,800.
In a recent roundup of 13 suspected MS-13 gang members accused of murder and other charges, seven had entered as unaccompanied minors.
'There's no question that MS-13 is recruiting these unaccompanied children,' said Suffolk County Police Commissioner Timothy Sini. The youngsters 'don't have an established social network, at least many of them don't, and MS-13 is providing that network.'
'They're also using coercion,' Sini said. 'They say, 'If you don't join the gang, we will kill you.''
All told, nearly 200 suspected MS-13 members have been rounded up since September. Among the tactics Sini has employed have been stepped-up patrols, renewed cooperation with an FBI task force and helicopter sweeps of wooded areas where gang members have been known to gather.
Trump has promised to eradicate the gang in the U.S. through strict enforcement of immigration law.
'We are putting MS-13 in jail and getting them the hell out of our country,' he told The Associated Press this week.
'They are a bad group, and somebody said they are as bad as al-Qaeda, which is a hell of a reference. ... We are out in Long Island cleaning out the MS-13 scum.'
The tough talk has made some residents fearful of law enforcement as well of the gang. They say it's not about immigration politics but about making a community safer.
Residents of Brentwood and Central Islip, with a combined population of about 100,000, say the area of modest ranch homes, warehouses and strip malls has always been a diverse, welcoming place for immigrants trying to make better lives for their children.
Some longtime residents say law enforcement bears some of the responsibility for the gang's rise because it ignored the burgeoning problem for years.
Parents say 4,200-student Brentwood High School lacks the means to help young people who are often left alone after school because their parents work long hours. There are few social workers and guidance counselors, they say, and not enough security guards or cameras.
'They can't walk the halls without fear,' said Evelyn Rodriguez, the mother of 16-year-old Kayla Cuevas, who was found beaten to death last fall. Rodriguez said her daughter had been bullied for two years.
In the months leading up to her death, Kayla was involved in a series of disputes with members and associates of the MS-13, prosecutors said. Rodriguez said her daughter stood her ground and ended up dead.
Kayla and her lifelong friend Nisa Mickens, 15, were walking on a street near their homes when men with baseball bats and a machete jumped out and attacked them.
Nisa was found dead on a residential tree-lined street a day before her 16th birthday. After a day of searching, Kayla was discovered in a wooded backyard nearby. She lived a block away.
'People, they missed the opportunity to know a really great person,' said Nisa's father, Rob Mickens, who is running for the school board to help push for change. 'They would have loved to know her.'
Bertha Ullaguari said she noticed her 18-year-old son, Jorge Tigre, going from a good student on track to graduate from Bellport High to someone who was too afraid to go to school.
Then she got two truancy letters. When she pressed her son, he refused to tell her what was going on.
'Some bad things happened there,' Ullaguari said, her voice trembling. She had heard he had his tires slashed. There were rumors of gangs.
And then, about two weeks ago while she was driving with her daughter, they got a mysterious call. A girl on the line said Jorge was dead along with three others in a park 20 miles from his home.
'We nearly killed ourselves from the shock,' said Ullaguari, who is an Ecuadorean immigrant.
Jorge's body and the three others were found cut, their torsos exposed and hands bound, just steps from a playground.
'It could happen to anybody's child, anywhere,' Evelyn Rodriguez said. 'We all need to be aware of this, and we need stand together. Because I don't want it to be your child.'
Saturday, April 29, 2017
100 DAYS IN OFFICE BUT NO MARCHING ORDERS FOR THE EMBASSY IN TEL AVIV
Trump’s pledge to move the U.S. embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem appears to be another broken promise
BarkGrowlBite | April 29, 2017
During his campaign for the presidency, Donald Trump promised Jewish groups that he would move America’s embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. “We will move the American embassy to the eternal capital of the Jewish people, Jerusalem,” trumpeted Trump.
And just before his inauguration, when asked by a correspondent for Israel Hayom if he remembered his promise to move the embassy, Trump replied: “Of course I remember what I told you about Jerusalem. Of course I didn't forget. And you know I'm not a person who breaks promises.”
Trump already has Congressional approval to move the embassy, an act of great importance to Israel. Congress passed the Jerusalem Embassy Act in 1995 which declared that (1) Jerusalem should remain an undivided city in which the rights of every ethnic and religious group are protected; (2) Jerusalem should be recognized as the capital of the State of Israel; and (3) the United States Embassy in Israel should be established in Jerusalem no later than May 31, 1999.
The State Department opposes moving the embassy because it would infuriate the oil-rich Arabs. And the Palestinian Arabs have vowed an “explosion” should Trump fulfill his promise.
Even though, like Trump, Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush pledged to move the embassy to Jerusalem, they acquiesced to the State Department's opposition.
President Trump could already have issued an executive order to move the embassy. The State Department would not have to wait for a new building to be constructed because the U.S. Consulate in Jerusalem can serve as our embassy until construction of the new building has been completed.
100 days in office but no marching orders for the embassy in Tel Aviv. Where is that executive order? Trump has gone from an unambiguous pledge to “we are thinking about it” to apparently forgetting about it.
Trump’s pledge appears to be another broken promise. And that broken promise will not cost him many votes because Jews make up only two percent of America’s population and 80 percent of them vote Democrat, no matter what.
BarkGrowlBite | April 29, 2017
During his campaign for the presidency, Donald Trump promised Jewish groups that he would move America’s embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. “We will move the American embassy to the eternal capital of the Jewish people, Jerusalem,” trumpeted Trump.
And just before his inauguration, when asked by a correspondent for Israel Hayom if he remembered his promise to move the embassy, Trump replied: “Of course I remember what I told you about Jerusalem. Of course I didn't forget. And you know I'm not a person who breaks promises.”
Trump already has Congressional approval to move the embassy, an act of great importance to Israel. Congress passed the Jerusalem Embassy Act in 1995 which declared that (1) Jerusalem should remain an undivided city in which the rights of every ethnic and religious group are protected; (2) Jerusalem should be recognized as the capital of the State of Israel; and (3) the United States Embassy in Israel should be established in Jerusalem no later than May 31, 1999.
The State Department opposes moving the embassy because it would infuriate the oil-rich Arabs. And the Palestinian Arabs have vowed an “explosion” should Trump fulfill his promise.
Even though, like Trump, Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush pledged to move the embassy to Jerusalem, they acquiesced to the State Department's opposition.
President Trump could already have issued an executive order to move the embassy. The State Department would not have to wait for a new building to be constructed because the U.S. Consulate in Jerusalem can serve as our embassy until construction of the new building has been completed.
100 days in office but no marching orders for the embassy in Tel Aviv. Where is that executive order? Trump has gone from an unambiguous pledge to “we are thinking about it” to apparently forgetting about it.
Trump’s pledge appears to be another broken promise. And that broken promise will not cost him many votes because Jews make up only two percent of America’s population and 80 percent of them vote Democrat, no matter what.
A WARNING FOR THOSE WHO FAVOR DECRIMINALIZING OR LEGALIZING MARIJUANA
Pot, including medical marijuana, has become a leading factor in highway crash fatalities in those states where medical marijuana and recreational pot are legal
By Howie Katz | Bib Jolly Politics | April 28, 2017
A report released Wednesday by the Governors Highway Safety Association (GHSA) and the Foundation for Advancing Alcohol Responsibility shows that more drivers are being killed under the influence of drugs in highway crashes than under the influence of alcohol.
In 2015, testing of the drivers killed in crashes revealed that 43 percent were under the influence of drugs, both legal and illegal, while 37 percent were under the influence of alcohol.
Marijuana was involved in more than 1/3rd of the drug-related crashes.
The increase in marijuana-related traffic fatalities is most notable in those states where recreational pot and/or medical marijuana have been legalized. “In Colorado,” according to the GHSA report, “marijuana-related traffic deaths increased by 48 percent after the state legalized recreational use of the drug.”
According to the Austin American-Statesman, “More than a dozen bills are pending in the Texas Legislature this session, aimed at lifting prohibitions on Texans who want to use marijuana for medical and recreational purposes.”
Those who favor legalizing marijuana claim that it is an innocuous substance. That is a lie! Pot advocates also claim that the illegal market in marijuana will disappear once the drug is legalized. That is not true either!
In Colorado and Washington, states that have legalized marijuana, the Mexican drug cartels are still doing a thriving business. Because there are high taxes added to the price of cannabis in legal pot shops, many stoners are getting their pot on street corners where they can buy the weed for far less. And that is also where juveniles can get their pot.
Attorney General Jeff Sessions has vowed to enforce the federal laws on marijuana which prohibit the manufacture, distribution and possession of the drug, particularly in those states that have legalized pot. Unless Congress changes the laws, the DEA could bring about an end to the legalization of marijuana.
Marijuana is not innocuous nor will its legalization kill the black market in pot.
The GHSA report should be a warning for those who favor decriminalizing or legalizing pot. I hope the majority of Texas legislators have the good sense not to mess with the state’s current laws on marijuana.
By Howie Katz | Bib Jolly Politics | April 28, 2017
A report released Wednesday by the Governors Highway Safety Association (GHSA) and the Foundation for Advancing Alcohol Responsibility shows that more drivers are being killed under the influence of drugs in highway crashes than under the influence of alcohol.
In 2015, testing of the drivers killed in crashes revealed that 43 percent were under the influence of drugs, both legal and illegal, while 37 percent were under the influence of alcohol.
Marijuana was involved in more than 1/3rd of the drug-related crashes.
The increase in marijuana-related traffic fatalities is most notable in those states where recreational pot and/or medical marijuana have been legalized. “In Colorado,” according to the GHSA report, “marijuana-related traffic deaths increased by 48 percent after the state legalized recreational use of the drug.”
According to the Austin American-Statesman, “More than a dozen bills are pending in the Texas Legislature this session, aimed at lifting prohibitions on Texans who want to use marijuana for medical and recreational purposes.”
Those who favor legalizing marijuana claim that it is an innocuous substance. That is a lie! Pot advocates also claim that the illegal market in marijuana will disappear once the drug is legalized. That is not true either!
In Colorado and Washington, states that have legalized marijuana, the Mexican drug cartels are still doing a thriving business. Because there are high taxes added to the price of cannabis in legal pot shops, many stoners are getting their pot on street corners where they can buy the weed for far less. And that is also where juveniles can get their pot.
Attorney General Jeff Sessions has vowed to enforce the federal laws on marijuana which prohibit the manufacture, distribution and possession of the drug, particularly in those states that have legalized pot. Unless Congress changes the laws, the DEA could bring about an end to the legalization of marijuana.
Marijuana is not innocuous nor will its legalization kill the black market in pot.
The GHSA report should be a warning for those who favor decriminalizing or legalizing pot. I hope the majority of Texas legislators have the good sense not to mess with the state’s current laws on marijuana.
WE ARE WHO WE ARE BECAUSE WE CHEAT
Since one third of scientists confessed to engaging in questionable research practices, might one not think the conclusions reached that pot is not harmful were predetermined by researches wanting a pro-pot outcome?
I have always questioned the studies which purport to show that pot is a beneficial substance, not a harmful one. Of course one could also say that studies showing pot to be harmful are bogus. It all boils down to what you want to believe about pot. But I’ll eat my beloved John Deere cap if those studies showing pot is not harmful were not conducted by pot smokers determined to justify their use of marijuana.
The following excerpt fron "Why We Cheat" by Ferric C. Fang and Arturo Casadevall, was sent to me by my former sheriff’s department colleague and old friend Jerry Doyle:
Not all people cheat, but it is "astoundingly common," and people are much more inclined to cheat if others around them are cheating:
"Although it is comforting to think that most people are essentially honest, cheating -- defined as acting dishonestly to gain an advantage -- is actually astoundingly common. In a 1997 survey, management professor Donald McCabe of Rutgers University and Linda Klebe Treviño, a professor of organizational behavior at the Pennsylvania State University, revealed that about three fourths of 1,800 students at nine state universities admitted to cheating on tests or written assignments. In 2005 sociologist Brian Martinson of the HealthPartners Research Foundation in Bloomington, Minn., and his colleagues reported that one third of scientists confessed to engaging in questionable research practices during the previous three years. ...
"Humans are surprisingly quick to cheat when the circumstances are conducive. In 2008 behavioral economist Dan Ariely of Duke University and his colleagues described what happened when they asked college students to solve math puzzles for cash rewards. When the researchers changed the experimental conditions such that the students assumed the examiner could not detect cheating, the average self-reported test score rose significantly. The researchers determined that the scores were not inflated by a few students who cheated a lot but rather by many students cheating a little. ...
"If cheaters used a simple cost-benefit calculation, one might predict that people would cheat as much as possible, not just a little bit. Yet in Ariely's study, students on average reported six correct answers when they got only four right, even though they could have raised their scores to a maximum of 20. In addition, no simple relation exists between the magnitude of the reward and the likelihood of cheating. When Ariely's team increased the cash reward, the amount of cheating actually declined. Ariely suggests that the students felt guilty when they cheated more or received larger amounts of cash through dishonest behavior. ... Another possibility is that the students thought they would be less likely to attract attention if they cheated only a little. ...
"In 2011 Ariely and behavioral economist Francesca Gino of Harvard Business School reported that people who score higher on psychological tests of creativity are more apt to engage in dishonesty -- a connection that is perhaps not surprising considering that creativity and tactical deception are both products of the neocortex. ... They submit that creative individuals are better at self-deception: they come up with more inventive rationalizations for cheating as a way of making themselves feel better about doing it. As Proust observed in Remembrance of Things Past, 'It is not only by dint of lying to others, but also of lying to ourselves, that we cease to notice that we are lying.' Or as George told Jerry on Seinfeld 75 years later, 'It's not a lie if you believe it.' Ironically, the creativity and intelligence that we regard as distinctly human might have arisen alongside our ability to deceive. We are who we are because we cheat. ...
"Unchecked dishonesty can promote the perception that one must cheat to remain competitive, ... and [certain] observations have led Ariely to refer to cheating as 'infectious.' ... Social contagion may help explain the high prevalence of cheating in relatively small groups of people. For example, 125 Harvard students were recently under investigation for cheating on the final examination in an introductory government course. (More than half these students were told to withdraw from school for up to a year as punishment.) It is statistically unlikely that nearly half the 279 students in that class are sociopaths given the low prevalence of sociopathy -- about 3 percent in males and 1 percent in females. A more plausible explanation is contagion. The widespread bending of the rules probably led students to conclude that collaborating with other students was okay. (The class was called 'Introduction to Congress,' so perhaps the students were simply identifying too much with the material.)"
I have always questioned the studies which purport to show that pot is a beneficial substance, not a harmful one. Of course one could also say that studies showing pot to be harmful are bogus. It all boils down to what you want to believe about pot. But I’ll eat my beloved John Deere cap if those studies showing pot is not harmful were not conducted by pot smokers determined to justify their use of marijuana.
The following excerpt fron "Why We Cheat" by Ferric C. Fang and Arturo Casadevall, was sent to me by my former sheriff’s department colleague and old friend Jerry Doyle:
Not all people cheat, but it is "astoundingly common," and people are much more inclined to cheat if others around them are cheating:
"Although it is comforting to think that most people are essentially honest, cheating -- defined as acting dishonestly to gain an advantage -- is actually astoundingly common. In a 1997 survey, management professor Donald McCabe of Rutgers University and Linda Klebe Treviño, a professor of organizational behavior at the Pennsylvania State University, revealed that about three fourths of 1,800 students at nine state universities admitted to cheating on tests or written assignments. In 2005 sociologist Brian Martinson of the HealthPartners Research Foundation in Bloomington, Minn., and his colleagues reported that one third of scientists confessed to engaging in questionable research practices during the previous three years. ...
"Humans are surprisingly quick to cheat when the circumstances are conducive. In 2008 behavioral economist Dan Ariely of Duke University and his colleagues described what happened when they asked college students to solve math puzzles for cash rewards. When the researchers changed the experimental conditions such that the students assumed the examiner could not detect cheating, the average self-reported test score rose significantly. The researchers determined that the scores were not inflated by a few students who cheated a lot but rather by many students cheating a little. ...
"If cheaters used a simple cost-benefit calculation, one might predict that people would cheat as much as possible, not just a little bit. Yet in Ariely's study, students on average reported six correct answers when they got only four right, even though they could have raised their scores to a maximum of 20. In addition, no simple relation exists between the magnitude of the reward and the likelihood of cheating. When Ariely's team increased the cash reward, the amount of cheating actually declined. Ariely suggests that the students felt guilty when they cheated more or received larger amounts of cash through dishonest behavior. ... Another possibility is that the students thought they would be less likely to attract attention if they cheated only a little. ...
"In 2011 Ariely and behavioral economist Francesca Gino of Harvard Business School reported that people who score higher on psychological tests of creativity are more apt to engage in dishonesty -- a connection that is perhaps not surprising considering that creativity and tactical deception are both products of the neocortex. ... They submit that creative individuals are better at self-deception: they come up with more inventive rationalizations for cheating as a way of making themselves feel better about doing it. As Proust observed in Remembrance of Things Past, 'It is not only by dint of lying to others, but also of lying to ourselves, that we cease to notice that we are lying.' Or as George told Jerry on Seinfeld 75 years later, 'It's not a lie if you believe it.' Ironically, the creativity and intelligence that we regard as distinctly human might have arisen alongside our ability to deceive. We are who we are because we cheat. ...
"Unchecked dishonesty can promote the perception that one must cheat to remain competitive, ... and [certain] observations have led Ariely to refer to cheating as 'infectious.' ... Social contagion may help explain the high prevalence of cheating in relatively small groups of people. For example, 125 Harvard students were recently under investigation for cheating on the final examination in an introductory government course. (More than half these students were told to withdraw from school for up to a year as punishment.) It is statistically unlikely that nearly half the 279 students in that class are sociopaths given the low prevalence of sociopathy -- about 3 percent in males and 1 percent in females. A more plausible explanation is contagion. The widespread bending of the rules probably led students to conclude that collaborating with other students was okay. (The class was called 'Introduction to Congress,' so perhaps the students were simply identifying too much with the material.)"
THE POWER OF WATER
A woman goes to the doctor, worried about her husband’s temper.
The doctor asks, “What’s the problem?”
The woman says: “Doctor, I don’t know what to do. Every day my husband seems to lose his temper for no reason. It scares me.”
The doctor says: “I have a cure for that. When it seems that your husband is getting angry, just take a glass of water and start swishing it in your mouth. Just swish and swish, but don’t swallow it until he either leaves the room or calms down.”
Two weeks later, the woman comes back to the doctor looking fresh and reborn.
The woman says: “Doctor that was a brilliant solution! Every time my husband started losing it, I swished with water. I swished and swished, and he calmed right down. How does a glass of water do that?”
The doctor says: “The water itself does nothing. It’s keeping your mouth shut that does it.”
The doctor asks, “What’s the problem?”
The woman says: “Doctor, I don’t know what to do. Every day my husband seems to lose his temper for no reason. It scares me.”
The doctor says: “I have a cure for that. When it seems that your husband is getting angry, just take a glass of water and start swishing it in your mouth. Just swish and swish, but don’t swallow it until he either leaves the room or calms down.”
Two weeks later, the woman comes back to the doctor looking fresh and reborn.
The woman says: “Doctor that was a brilliant solution! Every time my husband started losing it, I swished with water. I swished and swished, and he calmed right down. How does a glass of water do that?”
The doctor says: “The water itself does nothing. It’s keeping your mouth shut that does it.”
Friday, April 28, 2017
THE WEEK KIM HIT ROCK BOTTOM AND FINALLY MADE ME REALIZE I NO LONGER WISH TO KEEP UP WITH HER OR ANY OF THE GREEDY, CYNICAL KARDASHIAN CLAN
Kim Kardashian’s now selling nudity, drugs, booze and high-risk sex to the youth of the world and making hundreds of millions of dollars in the process
By Piers Morgan | Daily Mail | April 27, 2017
I’m done with Kim Kardashian.
And her ghastly family.
Done. Done. DONE.
I just can’t stomach the sight or thought of any of these talentless, publicity-crazed, unctuously self-absorbed, vacuous wastrels for a single moment longer.
Not Kim, not Kendall, not Kylie, not Kourtney, not Kris, not Caitlyn – not ANY of them.
This feeling of utter, skin-crawling anathema towards all things Kardashian and Jenner has been creeping up inside my intestines for a while but it crystallized itself today in a blazing eruption of irritation and contempt.
In the words of Peter Finch’s news anchor character Howard Beale in the movie Network: ‘I’m as mad as hell and I’m not going to take this anymore!’
What tipped me over the edge? Kim’s pathetic new interview with Ellen DeGeneres, the world’s most simpering chat show host and chief celebrity sycophant.
Here was a true meeting of galactic level insincerity.
It was Kim’s first TV appearance since she was robbed at gunpoint in Paris last year, and she milked it like an over-eager farmhand in a field full of udder-bloated cows.
The tears rolled as Kim told an equally choked up Ellen: ‘I know it sounds crazy but I know this was meant to happen to me. I feel like I am such a different person. I feel like things happen in life to teach you things.’
Ellen handed over some tissues, her caring, sharing face belying what she was really thinking, which was ‘KERCHING! You keep crying baby, this is ratings gold!’
Kim announced she no longer wears jewellery, or posts photos of her cars, because she doesn’t want to draw attention to her wealth.
‘I was definitely materialistic before,’ she explained, in between her wailing sobs. ‘I’m so glad that my kids get this me, that this is who is raising my kids. I just don’t care about that stuff any more. I really don’t.’
For a second, I nearly believed her.
It would take a heart of stone not to see a mother weep as she talked about such a terrible experience and how it had reshaped her entire life.
But then I remembered it was Kim Kardashian we’re dealing with, so I went to her Twitter account to check how her new life of anti-materialism was going.
Her most recent three tweets all direct her 51 million followers to her ‘Kimoji’ merchandise website.
The No1 item, which is currently ‘SOLD OUT’, is her Ass Tray at $35.
That’s a cartoon image of her large naked bottom inside an ashtray.
Among other items for purchase is her Butt Pool Float at $98 that also features Kim’s naked bottom shaped like a swimming pool float.
Ms Kardashian is very proud of her bottom.
So much so that she’s spent the past week deliberately flaunting it for the paparazzi on a beach holiday with her female friends.
It’s been a deliberate marketing ploy to sell her bottom-related merchandise.
The only problem is that the real thing, as we have now seen, bares no relation to the perfectly proportioned, super-smooth, cellulite-free vision of glory she sells to the world via her Kimoji wares or the heavily-airbrushed photos she posts and flogs to magazines.
In other words, as with all things Kardashian these days, it’s one gigantic con trick. A façade aided and abetted by the world’s women’s magazine industry that wants us all to buy into the fakery and compel its readers to aspire to completely bogus body images with myriad expensive potions, creams and surgeries.
Other Kimoji merchandise includes hats and T-shirts with pro-drugs message like ‘Never Not High’ and ‘Lit Tie Dye rolling paper’.
Oh, and a peach heart emoji that says ‘PNP’. That’s a slang term used mainly by gay men on sex apps like Grindr to denote ‘Party’n’Play’. It means they are interested in having high-risk, often unprotected sex with strangers while taking drugs like methamphetamine and GHB.
On the hit reality show Keeping Up With The Kardashians, Kim is always careful to maintain an abstemious image – no drugs and very little alcohol.
But it would seem that once she’s hooked her young fans into THAT image of nice, decent purity, she then urges them on her social media sites to spend big money on stuff actively promoting a very different lifestyle.
It’s hugely profitable, and hugely cynical.
For a while, I enjoyed the Kardashian ride; I interviewed Kim and her sister Kourtney for CNN in 2011 and they seemed nice girls who worked hard and were doing no real harm to anyone. Their overly pious critics seemed to miss the point - which was that there wasn’t really any point to them. They were just having fun.
As a result, I’d defend them vigorously against those who said they represented everything repellent about the fickle, artless world of Z-list reality television.
Then it all started to turn a bit darker and my sympathies went south too.
Nice girl Kim married bad boy rapper Kanye West and began posting profanely captioned nude photos of herself flipping the bird. By doing so, she crossed a line from harmless fun to something altogether more crass and unpleasant.
Particularly when she claimed it was being done as part of some kind of stand for ‘feminism and liberating empowerment for women’.
What absurd, disingenuous horseshit!
I’m not a prude and I couldn’t care less what people like Kim Kardashian want to expose of themselves in private, if they do so legally.
But when you have literally tens of millions of young female followers hanging on your every social media post, you surely have a great duty of care to send them the right messages?
For the world’s young girls to think the only way to get on in life as a woman is to strip naked in public and flip the bird is not just wrong, it’s dangerous.
Nor should they be encouraged to spend large amounts of money on accessories promoting the joy of drugs, when so many of them are still at school.
Kim Kardashian wants us to think she’s turned over a new leaf, that she’s renounced her old materialistic ways. That, as a mother of two young children herself, she has learned how to behave in a responsible fashion.
But she hasn’t.
The truth is that she’s now using her massive global platform to actively corrupt our kids.
And she doesn’t hesitate to aggressively exploit her own children as often as possible to further promote her brand through sites like Instagram, whilst pretending to prioritise their safety and interests.
The rest of her family have all followed suit, willingly, greedily complicit in the same ruthlessly commercial game.
I don’t find the Kardashian machine funny or harmless any more.
It’s grown ugly; very, very ugly.
Kim Kardashian’s now selling nudity, drugs, booze and high-risk sex to the youth of the world and making hundreds of millions of dollars in the process.
Do we really want someone like her to be the role model our young daughters look up to and want to emulate?
I don’t.
No, as I said at the start of this column, I’m done with Kim Kardashian and her ghastly family.
I want them gone from public life, expunged from the airwaves, thrown off the newsstands, and extinguished from the celebrity ether.
They’ve become a pitiful parody of stinking, sobbing hypocrisy that should no longer be encouraged or tolerated in civilised society.
It’s time to boot Kim Kardashian and her gigantic, surgically enhanced backside into the same obscurity from which she once crawled thanks to that infamous sex tape.
And I want you to join me in this campaign.
Again, back to the gloriously relevant words of Howard Beale:
‘You gotta say, “I’m a human being, goddammit! My life has value!” So get up out of your chairs, go to the window, open it, stick your head out and yell: “I’M AS MAD AS HELL, AND I’M NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS ANYMORE!”
I no longer want to keep up with the Kardashians.
Period.
Nor should you.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Sorry Piers, but you’re a day late and a dollar short. You should have seen the Kardashians and the Jenners for the filthy trash and phonies they are back when they first started their God awful TV reality show.
By Piers Morgan | Daily Mail | April 27, 2017
I’m done with Kim Kardashian.
And her ghastly family.
Done. Done. DONE.
I just can’t stomach the sight or thought of any of these talentless, publicity-crazed, unctuously self-absorbed, vacuous wastrels for a single moment longer.
Not Kim, not Kendall, not Kylie, not Kourtney, not Kris, not Caitlyn – not ANY of them.
This feeling of utter, skin-crawling anathema towards all things Kardashian and Jenner has been creeping up inside my intestines for a while but it crystallized itself today in a blazing eruption of irritation and contempt.
In the words of Peter Finch’s news anchor character Howard Beale in the movie Network: ‘I’m as mad as hell and I’m not going to take this anymore!’
What tipped me over the edge? Kim’s pathetic new interview with Ellen DeGeneres, the world’s most simpering chat show host and chief celebrity sycophant.
Here was a true meeting of galactic level insincerity.
It was Kim’s first TV appearance since she was robbed at gunpoint in Paris last year, and she milked it like an over-eager farmhand in a field full of udder-bloated cows.
The tears rolled as Kim told an equally choked up Ellen: ‘I know it sounds crazy but I know this was meant to happen to me. I feel like I am such a different person. I feel like things happen in life to teach you things.’
Ellen handed over some tissues, her caring, sharing face belying what she was really thinking, which was ‘KERCHING! You keep crying baby, this is ratings gold!’
Kim announced she no longer wears jewellery, or posts photos of her cars, because she doesn’t want to draw attention to her wealth.
‘I was definitely materialistic before,’ she explained, in between her wailing sobs. ‘I’m so glad that my kids get this me, that this is who is raising my kids. I just don’t care about that stuff any more. I really don’t.’
For a second, I nearly believed her.
It would take a heart of stone not to see a mother weep as she talked about such a terrible experience and how it had reshaped her entire life.
But then I remembered it was Kim Kardashian we’re dealing with, so I went to her Twitter account to check how her new life of anti-materialism was going.
Her most recent three tweets all direct her 51 million followers to her ‘Kimoji’ merchandise website.
The No1 item, which is currently ‘SOLD OUT’, is her Ass Tray at $35.
That’s a cartoon image of her large naked bottom inside an ashtray.
Among other items for purchase is her Butt Pool Float at $98 that also features Kim’s naked bottom shaped like a swimming pool float.
Ms Kardashian is very proud of her bottom.
So much so that she’s spent the past week deliberately flaunting it for the paparazzi on a beach holiday with her female friends.
It’s been a deliberate marketing ploy to sell her bottom-related merchandise.
The only problem is that the real thing, as we have now seen, bares no relation to the perfectly proportioned, super-smooth, cellulite-free vision of glory she sells to the world via her Kimoji wares or the heavily-airbrushed photos she posts and flogs to magazines.
In other words, as with all things Kardashian these days, it’s one gigantic con trick. A façade aided and abetted by the world’s women’s magazine industry that wants us all to buy into the fakery and compel its readers to aspire to completely bogus body images with myriad expensive potions, creams and surgeries.
Other Kimoji merchandise includes hats and T-shirts with pro-drugs message like ‘Never Not High’ and ‘Lit Tie Dye rolling paper’.
Oh, and a peach heart emoji that says ‘PNP’. That’s a slang term used mainly by gay men on sex apps like Grindr to denote ‘Party’n’Play’. It means they are interested in having high-risk, often unprotected sex with strangers while taking drugs like methamphetamine and GHB.
On the hit reality show Keeping Up With The Kardashians, Kim is always careful to maintain an abstemious image – no drugs and very little alcohol.
But it would seem that once she’s hooked her young fans into THAT image of nice, decent purity, she then urges them on her social media sites to spend big money on stuff actively promoting a very different lifestyle.
It’s hugely profitable, and hugely cynical.
For a while, I enjoyed the Kardashian ride; I interviewed Kim and her sister Kourtney for CNN in 2011 and they seemed nice girls who worked hard and were doing no real harm to anyone. Their overly pious critics seemed to miss the point - which was that there wasn’t really any point to them. They were just having fun.
As a result, I’d defend them vigorously against those who said they represented everything repellent about the fickle, artless world of Z-list reality television.
Then it all started to turn a bit darker and my sympathies went south too.
Nice girl Kim married bad boy rapper Kanye West and began posting profanely captioned nude photos of herself flipping the bird. By doing so, she crossed a line from harmless fun to something altogether more crass and unpleasant.
Particularly when she claimed it was being done as part of some kind of stand for ‘feminism and liberating empowerment for women’.
What absurd, disingenuous horseshit!
I’m not a prude and I couldn’t care less what people like Kim Kardashian want to expose of themselves in private, if they do so legally.
But when you have literally tens of millions of young female followers hanging on your every social media post, you surely have a great duty of care to send them the right messages?
For the world’s young girls to think the only way to get on in life as a woman is to strip naked in public and flip the bird is not just wrong, it’s dangerous.
Nor should they be encouraged to spend large amounts of money on accessories promoting the joy of drugs, when so many of them are still at school.
Kim Kardashian wants us to think she’s turned over a new leaf, that she’s renounced her old materialistic ways. That, as a mother of two young children herself, she has learned how to behave in a responsible fashion.
But she hasn’t.
The truth is that she’s now using her massive global platform to actively corrupt our kids.
And she doesn’t hesitate to aggressively exploit her own children as often as possible to further promote her brand through sites like Instagram, whilst pretending to prioritise their safety and interests.
The rest of her family have all followed suit, willingly, greedily complicit in the same ruthlessly commercial game.
I don’t find the Kardashian machine funny or harmless any more.
It’s grown ugly; very, very ugly.
Kim Kardashian’s now selling nudity, drugs, booze and high-risk sex to the youth of the world and making hundreds of millions of dollars in the process.
Do we really want someone like her to be the role model our young daughters look up to and want to emulate?
I don’t.
No, as I said at the start of this column, I’m done with Kim Kardashian and her ghastly family.
I want them gone from public life, expunged from the airwaves, thrown off the newsstands, and extinguished from the celebrity ether.
They’ve become a pitiful parody of stinking, sobbing hypocrisy that should no longer be encouraged or tolerated in civilised society.
It’s time to boot Kim Kardashian and her gigantic, surgically enhanced backside into the same obscurity from which she once crawled thanks to that infamous sex tape.
And I want you to join me in this campaign.
Again, back to the gloriously relevant words of Howard Beale:
‘You gotta say, “I’m a human being, goddammit! My life has value!” So get up out of your chairs, go to the window, open it, stick your head out and yell: “I’M AS MAD AS HELL, AND I’M NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS ANYMORE!”
I no longer want to keep up with the Kardashians.
Period.
Nor should you.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Sorry Piers, but you’re a day late and a dollar short. You should have seen the Kardashians and the Jenners for the filthy trash and phonies they are back when they first started their God awful TV reality show.
IT'S HARD TO GET GOOD HELP ..... IF YOU ARE RUNNING A PRISON
by Bob Walsh
The California prison system has a problem. They are operating under a court order and a special master to vastly improve the medical care of inmates. It is, however, hard to do if no one wants to work for you and if the administrative system is incompetently run.
The State I. G. has just issued a report detailing many problems within the system in general and at New Folsom Prison (technically California State Prison, Sacramento.)
I admit I have trouble understanding it. I know why they have trouble hiring staff at Chuckawalla Valley State Prison. It is in the middle of the desert in the middle of nowhere. You can see the parking lot for hell from Tower 1. New Folsom is in a major metropolitan area, the weather is decent, there is a real, modern infrastructure there like shopping, movies, massage parlors, indian casinos. Everything you need to live a civilized life.
The doctors that do work there complain incessantly of inferior working conditions. Most are actively looking for work elsewhere. Their response to emergencies is lethargic. (Remember Emergency Medical Care is a specialty. Most prison doctors write prescriptions and transport orders. They don't really practice medicine personally.)
CSP Sac is a high security institution. The inmate population are violent, dangerous assholes. It has seven positions on staff for primary care doctors. Three of those positions are vacant. This is one of the prisons that is offering a 15% bonus for medical doctors in addition to the 9% general pay raise coming this year. The current average pay for state prison doctors is about $250,000 per year. This is as a rank-and-file employee who works essentially 8-5 m-f with significant pay for working on call shifts or overtime, for which time-and-a-half is paid. I grant you that isn't a ton of money, but neither is it chump change.
The California prison system has a problem. They are operating under a court order and a special master to vastly improve the medical care of inmates. It is, however, hard to do if no one wants to work for you and if the administrative system is incompetently run.
The State I. G. has just issued a report detailing many problems within the system in general and at New Folsom Prison (technically California State Prison, Sacramento.)
I admit I have trouble understanding it. I know why they have trouble hiring staff at Chuckawalla Valley State Prison. It is in the middle of the desert in the middle of nowhere. You can see the parking lot for hell from Tower 1. New Folsom is in a major metropolitan area, the weather is decent, there is a real, modern infrastructure there like shopping, movies, massage parlors, indian casinos. Everything you need to live a civilized life.
The doctors that do work there complain incessantly of inferior working conditions. Most are actively looking for work elsewhere. Their response to emergencies is lethargic. (Remember Emergency Medical Care is a specialty. Most prison doctors write prescriptions and transport orders. They don't really practice medicine personally.)
CSP Sac is a high security institution. The inmate population are violent, dangerous assholes. It has seven positions on staff for primary care doctors. Three of those positions are vacant. This is one of the prisons that is offering a 15% bonus for medical doctors in addition to the 9% general pay raise coming this year. The current average pay for state prison doctors is about $250,000 per year. This is as a rank-and-file employee who works essentially 8-5 m-f with significant pay for working on call shifts or overtime, for which time-and-a-half is paid. I grant you that isn't a ton of money, but neither is it chump change.
CRIMINAL, STUPID, CRIMINALLY STUPID OR MERELY STUPID CRIMINAL??
by Bob Walsh
From what I gather Florida City, FLA is either a serious crime-ridden shithole, or it is inhabited largely by complete morons.
Martaevious Santiago was 17 on Tuesday. His sister, Tedra King, walked up to him in the family kitchen and gave him a nice hug for his birthday, then turned and walked away. He pulled a (stolen) gun from his pants, aimed at the back of her head and pulled the trigger, splattering her brains all over the kitchen. He then told the cops that it was an accident.
It seems that half of the people in the Washington Park neighborhood where they live is either a shooter or a shootee. Young Mr. Santiago was himself shot in the leg just before Christmas. The circumstances are a little fuzzy. His younger brother, Martwan Santiago, 15, was shot four times last year. (One incident, four bullets.) He is now paralyzed.
Martaevious asserts the gun was given to him by a 14-year old buddy. That friend was arrested by the cops on a warrant not related to this incident.
From what I gather Florida City, FLA is either a serious crime-ridden shithole, or it is inhabited largely by complete morons.
Martaevious Santiago was 17 on Tuesday. His sister, Tedra King, walked up to him in the family kitchen and gave him a nice hug for his birthday, then turned and walked away. He pulled a (stolen) gun from his pants, aimed at the back of her head and pulled the trigger, splattering her brains all over the kitchen. He then told the cops that it was an accident.
It seems that half of the people in the Washington Park neighborhood where they live is either a shooter or a shootee. Young Mr. Santiago was himself shot in the leg just before Christmas. The circumstances are a little fuzzy. His younger brother, Martwan Santiago, 15, was shot four times last year. (One incident, four bullets.) He is now paralyzed.
Martaevious asserts the gun was given to him by a 14-year old buddy. That friend was arrested by the cops on a warrant not related to this incident.
POT, INCLUDING MEDICAL MARIJUANA, LEAVING CARNAGE ON NATION’S HIGHWAYS
Drugged driving eclipses drunken driving in tests of motorists killed in crashes, with more than a 1/3rd of drug-related crashes involving marijuana
By Ashley Halsey III | The Washington Post | April 26, 2017
For the first time, statistics show that drivers killed in crashes are more likely to be on drugs than drunk.
Forty-three percent of drivers tested in fatal crashes in 2015 had used a legal or illegal drug, eclipsing the 37 percent who tested above the legal limit for alcohol, according to a report released Wednesday by the Governors Highway Safety Association (GHSA) and the Foundation for Advancing Alcohol Responsibility.
Of the drivers who tested positive for drugs, more than a third had used marijuana and more than 9 percent had taken amphetamines.
“As drunken driving has declined, drugged driving has increased dramatically, and many of today’s impaired drivers are combining two or more substances,” said Ralph S. Blackman, president of the foundation, a nonprofit founded and funded by a group of distillers.
The report is narrowly focused on fatal crashes. It shows that among fatally injured drivers with known test results, 2015 was the first time that drug use was more prevalent than alcohol use.
Beyond that, however, it draws on other studies and statistics that create a complicated portrait of legal and illegal drug use nationwide. Every state bans driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol.
The opioid epidemic — heroin use and the abuse of prescription drugs — is well established. In 2015, more than 33,000 people fatally overdosed on opioids, almost equal to the 35,095 people killed that year in all traffic crashes.
The number of drivers who tested positive for drugs after dying in a crash rose from almost 28 percent in 2005 to 43 percent in 2015, the latest year for which data is available.
Though the dates when each state passed a law vary, that period coincided with more-permissive laws covering the use of marijuana.
Medical use of the drug is now allowed in 29 states and the District of Columbia; 17 states permit its use in some medical circumstances; use has been decriminalized in 21 states; and recreational use is allowed in eight states and the District.
Attorney General Jeff Sessions has promised to reinvigorate the war on drugs, reversing an Obama administration policy that reduced prison sentences for nonviolent drug offenders.
Although the liberalization of marijuana laws and increase in drug-use fatalities might lead to an easy conclusion, the report cites European studies that found marijuana use slightly increased the risk of a crash, while opioids, amphetamines and mixing alcohol with drugs greatly increased the risk of a crash.
Counterbalancing that assessment of crash risk is this stark statistic: In Colorado, marijuana-related traffic deaths increased by 48 percent after the state legalized recreational use of the drug.
“Drugged driving is a complicated issue,” said Jim Hedlund, a former National Highway Traffic Safety Administration official who wrote the GHSA report. “The more we can synthesize the latest research and share what’s going on around the country to address drug-impaired driving, the better positioned states will be to prevent it.”
Unlike the blood alcohol standard of 0.08, which often can be established at the scene of a crash, testing for drug use is more complex, usually requiring a blood test, and the effect of drug use can vary substantially among users.
Surveys of regular marijuana users in Colorado and Washington state, which also has legalized recreational use, found that almost none of them thought marijuana use impaired their driving, while they believed drinking alcohol did.
The challenge to police in attempting to enforce laws against drug-using drivers is compounded because many officers lack training to identify those under the influence of drugs, and delays in testing may allow the drug to metabolize so the results do not accurately measure the concentration in the driver’s system at the time of the incident.
“As states across the country continue to struggle with drug-impaired driving, it’s critical that we help them understand the current landscape and provide examples of best practices so they can craft the most effective countermeasures,” said Jonathan Adkins, executive director of GHSA.
By Ashley Halsey III | The Washington Post | April 26, 2017
For the first time, statistics show that drivers killed in crashes are more likely to be on drugs than drunk.
Forty-three percent of drivers tested in fatal crashes in 2015 had used a legal or illegal drug, eclipsing the 37 percent who tested above the legal limit for alcohol, according to a report released Wednesday by the Governors Highway Safety Association (GHSA) and the Foundation for Advancing Alcohol Responsibility.
Of the drivers who tested positive for drugs, more than a third had used marijuana and more than 9 percent had taken amphetamines.
“As drunken driving has declined, drugged driving has increased dramatically, and many of today’s impaired drivers are combining two or more substances,” said Ralph S. Blackman, president of the foundation, a nonprofit founded and funded by a group of distillers.
The report is narrowly focused on fatal crashes. It shows that among fatally injured drivers with known test results, 2015 was the first time that drug use was more prevalent than alcohol use.
Beyond that, however, it draws on other studies and statistics that create a complicated portrait of legal and illegal drug use nationwide. Every state bans driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol.
The opioid epidemic — heroin use and the abuse of prescription drugs — is well established. In 2015, more than 33,000 people fatally overdosed on opioids, almost equal to the 35,095 people killed that year in all traffic crashes.
The number of drivers who tested positive for drugs after dying in a crash rose from almost 28 percent in 2005 to 43 percent in 2015, the latest year for which data is available.
Though the dates when each state passed a law vary, that period coincided with more-permissive laws covering the use of marijuana.
Medical use of the drug is now allowed in 29 states and the District of Columbia; 17 states permit its use in some medical circumstances; use has been decriminalized in 21 states; and recreational use is allowed in eight states and the District.
Attorney General Jeff Sessions has promised to reinvigorate the war on drugs, reversing an Obama administration policy that reduced prison sentences for nonviolent drug offenders.
Although the liberalization of marijuana laws and increase in drug-use fatalities might lead to an easy conclusion, the report cites European studies that found marijuana use slightly increased the risk of a crash, while opioids, amphetamines and mixing alcohol with drugs greatly increased the risk of a crash.
Counterbalancing that assessment of crash risk is this stark statistic: In Colorado, marijuana-related traffic deaths increased by 48 percent after the state legalized recreational use of the drug.
“Drugged driving is a complicated issue,” said Jim Hedlund, a former National Highway Traffic Safety Administration official who wrote the GHSA report. “The more we can synthesize the latest research and share what’s going on around the country to address drug-impaired driving, the better positioned states will be to prevent it.”
Unlike the blood alcohol standard of 0.08, which often can be established at the scene of a crash, testing for drug use is more complex, usually requiring a blood test, and the effect of drug use can vary substantially among users.
Surveys of regular marijuana users in Colorado and Washington state, which also has legalized recreational use, found that almost none of them thought marijuana use impaired their driving, while they believed drinking alcohol did.
The challenge to police in attempting to enforce laws against drug-using drivers is compounded because many officers lack training to identify those under the influence of drugs, and delays in testing may allow the drug to metabolize so the results do not accurately measure the concentration in the driver’s system at the time of the incident.
“As states across the country continue to struggle with drug-impaired driving, it’s critical that we help them understand the current landscape and provide examples of best practices so they can craft the most effective countermeasures,” said Jonathan Adkins, executive director of GHSA.
WARNING: KEEP YOUR COTTON-PICKING HANDS OFF YOUR DOG’S ASS!
Animal Breeder Group Opposes Bill Outlawing Animal Rape
By Craig Malisow | Houston Press | April 27, 2017
An animal breeders advocacy group wants changes made to a state House bill criminalizing beastiality, fearing that pet owners who innocently fondle Fido's junk might be thrown in the pen.
That's right: In one of the most tone-deaf, self-sabotaging, and just plain ol' crazy campaigns in recent memory, the Responsible Pet Owners Alliance believes that a bill outlawing animal rape might really be some Orwellian conspiracy targeting dog-show judges and pet owners who want to "cuddle" with their furry friends.
Texas is one of only eight states without beastiality on the books. House Bill 1087 would make it a state jail felony, which carries a penalty range of six months to two years.
But one portion of the bill sent shivers up the spines of the Alliance folk — the bit that would outlaw fondling or touching "the anus or genitals of an animal, including through clothing." Apparently, the Alliance's first reaction to this was, "Wait a minute — sometimes I fondle my dog's anus!"
In an April 25 email from the Alliance's San Antonio Mothership to its dedicated members stated the following:
"It was recently called to our attention that every [American Kennel Club] and [United Kennel Club] dog show judge could be committing a felony in Texas, because they must feel male dogs' genitals to confirm that they are intact. Bathing pets, grooming, clipping and sanitary cleaning around genitals (male and female) are conducted at every dog show and could be considered 'fondling and touching.' Pet owners would be in violation when checking pets for parasites, bathing, grooming or simply cuddling with pets lying across your lap, chest or stomach."
It should be noted that the bill provides exceptions for "generally accepted and otherwise lawful animal husbandry or veterinary practice."
If you're thinking there might be something more going on here than meets the eye, you'd probably be right. The beastiality bill was initiated by the Alliance's sworn enemy — the Humane Society of the United States, which the Alliance considers to be somewhere between ISIS and that Sham Wow guy on the fundamental extremist spectrum. (We reached out to the Alliance, but have yet to hear back).
The group's site includes a page called "HSUS Unmasked," which doesn't really unmask anything, and they have taken issue with other humane society-backed legislation in the past, including a bill regulating commercial animal breeders. In that case, the Alliance believed that the bill was really the first step in a plot to outlaw "pet ownership."
This seems to be nothing more than a disingenuous attempt to stick a thorn in the side of an organization that the Alliance has a philosophical disagreement with. No one is encroaching on Alliance members' rights to spoon with their dogs, whether it be their own pets, or the four-legged merchandise they breed "responsibly." And no one wants to curtail a member's right to inspect his pet's anus, assuming he can get his head out of his own.
By Craig Malisow | Houston Press | April 27, 2017
An animal breeders advocacy group wants changes made to a state House bill criminalizing beastiality, fearing that pet owners who innocently fondle Fido's junk might be thrown in the pen.
That's right: In one of the most tone-deaf, self-sabotaging, and just plain ol' crazy campaigns in recent memory, the Responsible Pet Owners Alliance believes that a bill outlawing animal rape might really be some Orwellian conspiracy targeting dog-show judges and pet owners who want to "cuddle" with their furry friends.
Texas is one of only eight states without beastiality on the books. House Bill 1087 would make it a state jail felony, which carries a penalty range of six months to two years.
But one portion of the bill sent shivers up the spines of the Alliance folk — the bit that would outlaw fondling or touching "the anus or genitals of an animal, including through clothing." Apparently, the Alliance's first reaction to this was, "Wait a minute — sometimes I fondle my dog's anus!"
In an April 25 email from the Alliance's San Antonio Mothership to its dedicated members stated the following:
"It was recently called to our attention that every [American Kennel Club] and [United Kennel Club] dog show judge could be committing a felony in Texas, because they must feel male dogs' genitals to confirm that they are intact. Bathing pets, grooming, clipping and sanitary cleaning around genitals (male and female) are conducted at every dog show and could be considered 'fondling and touching.' Pet owners would be in violation when checking pets for parasites, bathing, grooming or simply cuddling with pets lying across your lap, chest or stomach."
It should be noted that the bill provides exceptions for "generally accepted and otherwise lawful animal husbandry or veterinary practice."
If you're thinking there might be something more going on here than meets the eye, you'd probably be right. The beastiality bill was initiated by the Alliance's sworn enemy — the Humane Society of the United States, which the Alliance considers to be somewhere between ISIS and that Sham Wow guy on the fundamental extremist spectrum. (We reached out to the Alliance, but have yet to hear back).
The group's site includes a page called "HSUS Unmasked," which doesn't really unmask anything, and they have taken issue with other humane society-backed legislation in the past, including a bill regulating commercial animal breeders. In that case, the Alliance believed that the bill was really the first step in a plot to outlaw "pet ownership."
This seems to be nothing more than a disingenuous attempt to stick a thorn in the side of an organization that the Alliance has a philosophical disagreement with. No one is encroaching on Alliance members' rights to spoon with their dogs, whether it be their own pets, or the four-legged merchandise they breed "responsibly." And no one wants to curtail a member's right to inspect his pet's anus, assuming he can get his head out of his own.
Thursday, April 27, 2017
BASIC FLAW IN THE BUSINESS PLAN
by Bob Walsh
There is a basic flaw in official corruption. People have to know that you are accepting payments for favors or you get no income from your "side business." If too many people find out, or if the wrong people find out, it is very likely to bite you in the ass. A case in point.
The feds are currently giving a lot of grief to three retired NYPD cops and a former Brooklyn D.A. as part of an investigation into the NYPD gun licensing division. Essentially these people were accepting payments to approve or expedite gun permits, which are not exactly easy to get in the liberal mecca of New York City.
Two criminal complaints were filed against the four people on Tuesday.
I am sort-of guessing that the problem is both wider and deeper than presented thus far.
There is a basic flaw in official corruption. People have to know that you are accepting payments for favors or you get no income from your "side business." If too many people find out, or if the wrong people find out, it is very likely to bite you in the ass. A case in point.
The feds are currently giving a lot of grief to three retired NYPD cops and a former Brooklyn D.A. as part of an investigation into the NYPD gun licensing division. Essentially these people were accepting payments to approve or expedite gun permits, which are not exactly easy to get in the liberal mecca of New York City.
Two criminal complaints were filed against the four people on Tuesday.
I am sort-of guessing that the problem is both wider and deeper than presented thus far.
TEXAS SCHOOL SUPERINTENDENT SAYS PEEING IN TEACHER’S DRINKING CUP IS ‘POOR DECISION’ BY STUDENT
Moody ISD student accused of urinating in teacher's drinking cup
By Kristin Hoppa | Waco Tribune-Herald | April 25, 2017
A 16-year-old Moody High School student was detained on three felony charges Monday, accused of urinating in a teacher's drinking cup earlier this month, Moody Police Chief Roger Kennedy said.
Moody police opened an investigation April 13 after Moody ISD administrators notified them of a teacher who reported the student had urinated in a teacher's drinking container that day, Kennedy said.
"The juvenile was accused of urinating in a drinking cup that belonged to one of the teachers and she didn't find out about it until after the fact," Kennedy said. "She thinks she (ingested) it but she doesn't know 100 percent, because according to her statement she made the comment that the water fountain always tastes funny."
Moody ISD superintendent Gary Martel said the high school principal collected statements from students and reviewed video footage from hallway cameras after students returned from the Easter holiday. The school disciplined the student April 18 in accordance with the district's student code of conduct, as police continued to investigate, Martel said.
"Two other students told (the teacher) what was going around, and she immediately emptied the cup," Kennedy said. "We did charge him with three different offenses."
Moody ISD Disciplinary Alternative Education Program officials detained the student Monday without incident, and he was taken to a juvenile detention center, Martel said.
Third-degree felony charges of assault on a public servant, harassment of a public servant and obstruction or retaliation will be sent to the McLennan County District Attorney's Office.
"Unfortunately, students will make poor decisions at times," Martel said in a statement. "These poor choices sometimes occur within our schools. They are considered as a joke, dare or something funny, etc. The district cannot keep all poor decisions from happening on our campuses but we will follow district policy so there are consequences and punitive results for those who choose to make bad decisions at school.
"We will continue focusing on the large majority of our students who are making great choices and being great role models each day.”
EDITOR’S NOTE: Poor decision, my ass! This student committed a serious crime and the superintendent should not sugarcoat peeing in the teacher’s cup by labeling it a poor decision.
By Kristin Hoppa | Waco Tribune-Herald | April 25, 2017
A 16-year-old Moody High School student was detained on three felony charges Monday, accused of urinating in a teacher's drinking cup earlier this month, Moody Police Chief Roger Kennedy said.
Moody police opened an investigation April 13 after Moody ISD administrators notified them of a teacher who reported the student had urinated in a teacher's drinking container that day, Kennedy said.
"The juvenile was accused of urinating in a drinking cup that belonged to one of the teachers and she didn't find out about it until after the fact," Kennedy said. "She thinks she (ingested) it but she doesn't know 100 percent, because according to her statement she made the comment that the water fountain always tastes funny."
Moody ISD superintendent Gary Martel said the high school principal collected statements from students and reviewed video footage from hallway cameras after students returned from the Easter holiday. The school disciplined the student April 18 in accordance with the district's student code of conduct, as police continued to investigate, Martel said.
"Two other students told (the teacher) what was going around, and she immediately emptied the cup," Kennedy said. "We did charge him with three different offenses."
Moody ISD Disciplinary Alternative Education Program officials detained the student Monday without incident, and he was taken to a juvenile detention center, Martel said.
Third-degree felony charges of assault on a public servant, harassment of a public servant and obstruction or retaliation will be sent to the McLennan County District Attorney's Office.
"Unfortunately, students will make poor decisions at times," Martel said in a statement. "These poor choices sometimes occur within our schools. They are considered as a joke, dare or something funny, etc. The district cannot keep all poor decisions from happening on our campuses but we will follow district policy so there are consequences and punitive results for those who choose to make bad decisions at school.
"We will continue focusing on the large majority of our students who are making great choices and being great role models each day.”
EDITOR’S NOTE: Poor decision, my ass! This student committed a serious crime and the superintendent should not sugarcoat peeing in the teacher’s cup by labeling it a poor decision.
TWO LOUISIANA ENGLISH TEACHERS MAKE THREESOME WHOPEE WITH LUCKY STUDENT
Details of illicit encounters, Facebook page revealed as Destrehan teacher sex trial opens
By Michelle Hunter | The Times-Picayune | April 26, 2017
The fast and furious relationship between former Destrehan High School English teacher Shelley Dufresne, 34, and her then-16-year-old male student began with simple flirting, a prosecutor said as her trial began Tuesday (April 25) in Jefferson Parish.
But the relationship quickly advanced to multiple sexual encounters inside her Honda Pilot SUV at locations in St. Charles and Jefferson parishes over the course of a month in late summer of 2014, said Assistant District Attorney Rachel Africk.
The illicit relationship culminated with group sex involving another English teacher, Rachel Respess, 26, at a Kenner apartment, an encounter documented by the teen with a lewd video he later braggingly showed to a locker room full of fellow football players, Africk said.
The video is just one of the details revealed as Dufresne's trial on two counts of carnal knowledge of a juvenile got underway in a Jefferson Parish court. Dufresne has pleaded not guilty. She waived a jury trial, and the case is being heard by Judge Danyelle Taylor of the 24th Judicial District Court.
Dufresne's arrest on Oct. 1, 2014, the first of three Destrehan teacher sex scandals since, shocked the New Orleans area and made international headlines. During opening statements, Africk told the court the teen victim wasn't forced to have sex with Dufresne.
"He thought, as a 16-year-old boy, that this was his fantasy, and he thought that this was pretty awesome, and he bragged about it," she said. But she said authorities are not in court because of the boy's decisions.
"We're here today because of Ms. Dufresne's decisions," Africk said. "The carnal knowledge statute places the onus on the adult."
Dufresne's defense attorney Kim McElwee attacked what she called an abysmal investigation by the Kenner Police Department. While Dufresne admits having sex with the teen in St. Charles Parish, none of their encounters ever occurred in Jefferson Parish, McElwee said.
Dufresne takes responsibility for her actions but she is not a horrific sex offender, according to McElwee.
"The sex offender laws at one time meant you knew somebody really harmed a child, not somebody almost 17 years old that took part willingly," she said, noting the teen broke criminal laws and has not been punished.
Fake Facebook page: 'Madison Mexicano'
Africk told the court the teen was a student in Dufresne's 11th-grade English class and had been in Respess' class the year before. Though Africk named the boy in court, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune is not identifying him because he is the victim in the case and was a juvenile at the time of the alleged crime.
After the teen was checked out of school one day in August 2014, Dufresne sent him a personal Facebook message.
From there, prosecutors say Dufresne created a fake Facebook profile named "Madison Mexicano," with an image of the cartoon character Speedy Gonzalez as the profile photo. The cover photo for the profile included the phrase, "I love Mexican boys," a reference to the teen, who is Mexican, Africk said.
Dufresne began messaging him from the account Aug. 22, 2014, the first time the two had sex behind a daiquiri shop near a strip mall off Veterans Memorial Boulevard in Kenner, according to Lt. Clint Patterson, lieutenant commander of the St. Charles Parish Sheriff's Office Juvenile Investigations division.
Dufresne and the teen continued to communicate by text message and by Facebook messenger, the prosecutor said.
"Those messages leave very little to the imagination as to what happened between (the teen) and Ms. Dufresne," Africk said.
Dufresne and the teen had sex multiple times, after football practice and after football games, Africk said. They had sex at Dufresne's Montz home and in parking lots and empty lots in Destrehan and Jefferson Parish.
Patterson testified that he recovered condoms used and discarded by the teen in a parking lot behind apartments on Brandon Hall Drive in Destrehan and in a lot near Carriage Lane and Dunleith Drive, also in Destrehan. He also told the court he identified similar condoms at the spot of the alleged one Jefferson Parish encounter, but he did not collect them because they were found outside Kenner police jurisdiction.
Threesome: Sex with two teachers
Rumors about the relationship had spread around the school and seemed to come to a head on the night of Sept. 19, 2014, according to authorities. That's when Dufresne was out for drinks at The Sport Pub and Grill, 3001 Ormond Blvd., Destrehan, following a football game, Africk said.
The teen was also there with other students, including one who questioned the truth of the boy's boasts that he was having sex with a teacher. That led to a fight outside, according to Africk. After leaving the restaurant that night, Dufresne and the teen went to Respess' apartment in Kenner.
"(The teen) and Ms. Dufresne have sex repeatedly, and at some point, Ms. Respess joins in, and they have a threesome," Africk said.
After Respess passed out from drinking, the teen took a lewd video of her, Africk said. Though authorities never recovered the video, investigators interviewed several students who saw the video, she said, calling the teen's actions reprehensible.
Gossip surrounding Dufresne and the student spread afterwards, finally reaching the ears of school officials, who contacted the Sheriff's Office on Sept. 26, 2014, the prosecutor said.
Though also arrested by St. Charles investigators on a charge of carnal knowledge of a juvenile, Africk noted that Dufresne later pleaded guilty to a "reduced charge" of obscenity. However, the judge in the St. Charles case ordered Dufresne to give a factual basis of the case in which she admitted having sex with the teen.
Poor investigation
McElwee, who is defending Dufresne with attorney Jim Williams, said in court the Kenner police department did not properly investigate the allegations of sex in Jefferson Parish. Patterson later testified that Kenner police "cut and pasted" information received from St. Charles investigators for the Kenner arrest warrant obtained for Dufresne. Patterson then conducted most of the investigation.
Kenner police never interviewed the teen nor did they take him around to try and identify the places where he claimed to have had sex with Dufresne in Jefferson Parish, McElwee said. Kenner police also never went to Respess' apartment to collect any evidence.
The prosecution presented wrong dates in the case, according to McElwee. She pointed out that the teen told authorities he first had sex with Dufresne on the night of the Destrehan High School football Jamboree, which according to the school schedule, actually occurred Aug. 29, 2014, not Aug. 22.
St. Charles prosecutors charged Dufresne with having sex with the teen Aug. 22, 2014, in St. Charles.
"Now the Jefferson Parish district attorney's office wants to say, 'No, no, no... she had sex in Jefferson Parish on Aug. 22," McElwee said. "That's just out and out not true."
Dufresne admits having sex with the teen in St. Charles Parish, and McElwee suggested the student used that to threaten his teacher. When he got out of line one day in class and she corrected him, the teen sent Dufresne a photo, McElwee said, presumably an incriminating image.
"At any moment, I can expose this, and you can go to jail, and you'll lose your life as you know it," McElwee said the boy threatened.
The lewd video of Respess was revenge because he'd had a problem in her class the year before, according to McElwee.
"He told the cop he got payback," she said of the teen.
As for the group sex at Respess' apartment Sept. 19, 2014, McElwee said no sex occurred because the teen "couldn't get an erection."
"I do feel a little weird saying that in court," McElwee said. "But he said that in his statement."
McElwee suggested that although he was a juvenile, the teen committed crimes in Jefferson Parish by making the lewd video of Respess without her permission while she was asleep, and by showing it to his football teammates.
"There have absolutely been no consequences for his behavior," she said.
EDITOR’S NOTE: When will those hot-to-trot teachers ever learn that when they fuck one of their students, he is sure to brag about it to other students?
By Michelle Hunter | The Times-Picayune | April 26, 2017
The fast and furious relationship between former Destrehan High School English teacher Shelley Dufresne, 34, and her then-16-year-old male student began with simple flirting, a prosecutor said as her trial began Tuesday (April 25) in Jefferson Parish.
But the relationship quickly advanced to multiple sexual encounters inside her Honda Pilot SUV at locations in St. Charles and Jefferson parishes over the course of a month in late summer of 2014, said Assistant District Attorney Rachel Africk.
The illicit relationship culminated with group sex involving another English teacher, Rachel Respess, 26, at a Kenner apartment, an encounter documented by the teen with a lewd video he later braggingly showed to a locker room full of fellow football players, Africk said.
The video is just one of the details revealed as Dufresne's trial on two counts of carnal knowledge of a juvenile got underway in a Jefferson Parish court. Dufresne has pleaded not guilty. She waived a jury trial, and the case is being heard by Judge Danyelle Taylor of the 24th Judicial District Court.
Dufresne's arrest on Oct. 1, 2014, the first of three Destrehan teacher sex scandals since, shocked the New Orleans area and made international headlines. During opening statements, Africk told the court the teen victim wasn't forced to have sex with Dufresne.
"He thought, as a 16-year-old boy, that this was his fantasy, and he thought that this was pretty awesome, and he bragged about it," she said. But she said authorities are not in court because of the boy's decisions.
"We're here today because of Ms. Dufresne's decisions," Africk said. "The carnal knowledge statute places the onus on the adult."
Dufresne's defense attorney Kim McElwee attacked what she called an abysmal investigation by the Kenner Police Department. While Dufresne admits having sex with the teen in St. Charles Parish, none of their encounters ever occurred in Jefferson Parish, McElwee said.
Dufresne takes responsibility for her actions but she is not a horrific sex offender, according to McElwee.
"The sex offender laws at one time meant you knew somebody really harmed a child, not somebody almost 17 years old that took part willingly," she said, noting the teen broke criminal laws and has not been punished.
Fake Facebook page: 'Madison Mexicano'
Africk told the court the teen was a student in Dufresne's 11th-grade English class and had been in Respess' class the year before. Though Africk named the boy in court, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune is not identifying him because he is the victim in the case and was a juvenile at the time of the alleged crime.
After the teen was checked out of school one day in August 2014, Dufresne sent him a personal Facebook message.
From there, prosecutors say Dufresne created a fake Facebook profile named "Madison Mexicano," with an image of the cartoon character Speedy Gonzalez as the profile photo. The cover photo for the profile included the phrase, "I love Mexican boys," a reference to the teen, who is Mexican, Africk said.
Dufresne began messaging him from the account Aug. 22, 2014, the first time the two had sex behind a daiquiri shop near a strip mall off Veterans Memorial Boulevard in Kenner, according to Lt. Clint Patterson, lieutenant commander of the St. Charles Parish Sheriff's Office Juvenile Investigations division.
Dufresne and the teen continued to communicate by text message and by Facebook messenger, the prosecutor said.
"Those messages leave very little to the imagination as to what happened between (the teen) and Ms. Dufresne," Africk said.
Dufresne and the teen had sex multiple times, after football practice and after football games, Africk said. They had sex at Dufresne's Montz home and in parking lots and empty lots in Destrehan and Jefferson Parish.
Patterson testified that he recovered condoms used and discarded by the teen in a parking lot behind apartments on Brandon Hall Drive in Destrehan and in a lot near Carriage Lane and Dunleith Drive, also in Destrehan. He also told the court he identified similar condoms at the spot of the alleged one Jefferson Parish encounter, but he did not collect them because they were found outside Kenner police jurisdiction.
Threesome: Sex with two teachers
Rumors about the relationship had spread around the school and seemed to come to a head on the night of Sept. 19, 2014, according to authorities. That's when Dufresne was out for drinks at The Sport Pub and Grill, 3001 Ormond Blvd., Destrehan, following a football game, Africk said.
The teen was also there with other students, including one who questioned the truth of the boy's boasts that he was having sex with a teacher. That led to a fight outside, according to Africk. After leaving the restaurant that night, Dufresne and the teen went to Respess' apartment in Kenner.
"(The teen) and Ms. Dufresne have sex repeatedly, and at some point, Ms. Respess joins in, and they have a threesome," Africk said.
After Respess passed out from drinking, the teen took a lewd video of her, Africk said. Though authorities never recovered the video, investigators interviewed several students who saw the video, she said, calling the teen's actions reprehensible.
Gossip surrounding Dufresne and the student spread afterwards, finally reaching the ears of school officials, who contacted the Sheriff's Office on Sept. 26, 2014, the prosecutor said.
Though also arrested by St. Charles investigators on a charge of carnal knowledge of a juvenile, Africk noted that Dufresne later pleaded guilty to a "reduced charge" of obscenity. However, the judge in the St. Charles case ordered Dufresne to give a factual basis of the case in which she admitted having sex with the teen.
Poor investigation
McElwee, who is defending Dufresne with attorney Jim Williams, said in court the Kenner police department did not properly investigate the allegations of sex in Jefferson Parish. Patterson later testified that Kenner police "cut and pasted" information received from St. Charles investigators for the Kenner arrest warrant obtained for Dufresne. Patterson then conducted most of the investigation.
Kenner police never interviewed the teen nor did they take him around to try and identify the places where he claimed to have had sex with Dufresne in Jefferson Parish, McElwee said. Kenner police also never went to Respess' apartment to collect any evidence.
The prosecution presented wrong dates in the case, according to McElwee. She pointed out that the teen told authorities he first had sex with Dufresne on the night of the Destrehan High School football Jamboree, which according to the school schedule, actually occurred Aug. 29, 2014, not Aug. 22.
St. Charles prosecutors charged Dufresne with having sex with the teen Aug. 22, 2014, in St. Charles.
"Now the Jefferson Parish district attorney's office wants to say, 'No, no, no... she had sex in Jefferson Parish on Aug. 22," McElwee said. "That's just out and out not true."
Dufresne admits having sex with the teen in St. Charles Parish, and McElwee suggested the student used that to threaten his teacher. When he got out of line one day in class and she corrected him, the teen sent Dufresne a photo, McElwee said, presumably an incriminating image.
"At any moment, I can expose this, and you can go to jail, and you'll lose your life as you know it," McElwee said the boy threatened.
The lewd video of Respess was revenge because he'd had a problem in her class the year before, according to McElwee.
"He told the cop he got payback," she said of the teen.
As for the group sex at Respess' apartment Sept. 19, 2014, McElwee said no sex occurred because the teen "couldn't get an erection."
"I do feel a little weird saying that in court," McElwee said. "But he said that in his statement."
McElwee suggested that although he was a juvenile, the teen committed crimes in Jefferson Parish by making the lewd video of Respess without her permission while she was asleep, and by showing it to his football teammates.
"There have absolutely been no consequences for his behavior," she said.
EDITOR’S NOTE: When will those hot-to-trot teachers ever learn that when they fuck one of their students, he is sure to brag about it to other students?
WOMAN BACK AS HOUSTON COP AFTER 18-YEAR BREAK
Houston's Oldest 'Rookie' Back on the Force
By Mike Glenn | Houston Chronicle | April 24, 2017
HOUSTON -- It was a bit of a deja vu for Wendy Caldwell when Police Chief Art Acevedo pinned on the badge at her graduation ceremony last month from the Houston Police Academy.
Almost 25 years ago, former Houston police chief Sam Nuchia welcomed her to the force after her first graduation. She worked five years as a police officer before deciding to stay home with her children.
Now, at 53, Caldwell's returns makes her the oldest person ever to graduate from the physically taxing six-month Houston Police Academy.
"Coming back after 18 years, it was, 'This is do or die. I've got one shot at this," the mother of two teenagers said. "It's not easy but I had to do this."
Houston police officials said they are glad Caldwell returned to the force. Caldwell, who originally graduated in July 1993, first served as a night shift patrol officer at the department's Central Division and later with HPD's mounted patrol.
"Her previous experience, knowledge and skill that she brings back to the department are a valuable asset and we're happy that she has chosen to once again join HPD," said Assistant Chief Wendy Baimbridge.
Caldwell was more determined this time around. She said she was also better prepared mentally for the academy.
"But physically, it was much harder. Not because of my age but because HPD has ramped up its (physical training) program tremendously," she said. "When you're 53 and competing with kids that are 20 and 30 years younger than you, it was pretty challenging."
When you're in your 50s, Caldwell said, it just isn't as easy to recover from an intense police academy workout session. In fact, Caldwell broke a femur bone toward the end of her training during an intense exercise called Red Man where cadets simulate a foot chase followed by a full-on fight with an instructor covered in red protective pads.
"I lived with Ben Gay and ice bags and ibuprofen," she said with a laugh. "Sometimes it was a 'Two Aleve and four Tylenol' day."
Several of her fellow cadets called Caldwell 'mom' during the training. They were protective and encouraging of their more senior counterpart, and could tell she struggled with physical ailments the entire time.
"They saw that I wasn't going to slack off and just skate through the academy," she said.
No regrets
Although learning the department's computer system was a challenge -- in "her day," every report was written by hand -- Caldwell said she had no problems in the academy classrooms or on the driving and shooting ranges.
She hung up her Houston police uniform to stay home with daughter Reagan, now 18, and son Dillon, 17. Her former husband also was a Houston police officer and Caldwell said she didn't want their children to spend so much time in day care.
"It was on my accord and I chose to leave," Caldwell said. "I don't regret it at all."
Caldwell ran a busy household when she left the department with children born a mere 15 months apart. She home schooled them for their first eight years until they moved into the public school system.
"I told people it was harder to be a stay-at-home mom than to be a cop," Caldwell said. "I honestly thought I'd never come back."
She still kept fit in her civilian life. Once her children were in public school, Caldwell developed what she called a "really serious tennis habit," and also played in a softball league with several law enforcement officers as teammates.
'Kind of a catalyst'
After 18 yearsaway, she had made her peace with being a former Houston police officer. Then her marriage fell apart.
"It was a kind of a catalyst," Caldwell said. "What are you going to do that's going to provide you with enough income to support your kids?"
What she went through is not that unusual, said Jill Hickman, who runs a company that, among other things, coaches women returning to the workforce.
"What took her out of the work place is very similar to what is bringing her back," Hickman said of family obligations.
Some women go back to work by choice while others do not have any other option and must earn a paycheck, she said. Women with younger children often decide to stay home because of the high costs of day care.
"They'd have to take three jobs instead of one," Hickman said.
Hickman applauded Caldwell's regular physical activity over the years. She encouraged women in her position to take every opportunity for self-improvement, such as enrolling in online courses if they struggle to leave the house because of small children. It will eventually pay off, she said.
"Where I am today may not be where I am tomorrow," Hickman said.
After her divorce last year, Caldwell began asking some of her law enforcement softball teammates about possibly returning to the Houston Police Department. The cut-off age to enter is 44, but because she had already served, that wasn't an obstacle. A break in service of more than five years, however, means officers have to complete the academy again.
"They were skeptical about whether I could do it. But I was still there week after week, giving it my 100 percent," she said.
Same badge number
Caldwell said her fellow cadets were far more mature than those from 1993. Several were combat veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan and one had joined HPD after a full 20-year career in the U.S. Marine Corps. Still another was a former Army captain who had graduated from West Point.
"The hardest part was mentally getting over the fact that I had to do the academy again," Caldwell said. "But if these guys can do this, certainly I can."
Caldwell thought the leg break during the grueling Red Man exercise would have ended her plans to restart a law enforcement career, but luckily, the HPD brass allowed her to graduate with her peers.
She's on desk duty as her leg recovers, but looks forward to returning to the streets. When she left the force the first time, Caldwell asked the department not to assign her old badge number to anyone else.
"When I came back, I got my original badge number back -- 5645," she said.
By Mike Glenn | Houston Chronicle | April 24, 2017
HOUSTON -- It was a bit of a deja vu for Wendy Caldwell when Police Chief Art Acevedo pinned on the badge at her graduation ceremony last month from the Houston Police Academy.
Almost 25 years ago, former Houston police chief Sam Nuchia welcomed her to the force after her first graduation. She worked five years as a police officer before deciding to stay home with her children.
Now, at 53, Caldwell's returns makes her the oldest person ever to graduate from the physically taxing six-month Houston Police Academy.
"Coming back after 18 years, it was, 'This is do or die. I've got one shot at this," the mother of two teenagers said. "It's not easy but I had to do this."
Houston police officials said they are glad Caldwell returned to the force. Caldwell, who originally graduated in July 1993, first served as a night shift patrol officer at the department's Central Division and later with HPD's mounted patrol.
"Her previous experience, knowledge and skill that she brings back to the department are a valuable asset and we're happy that she has chosen to once again join HPD," said Assistant Chief Wendy Baimbridge.
Caldwell was more determined this time around. She said she was also better prepared mentally for the academy.
"But physically, it was much harder. Not because of my age but because HPD has ramped up its (physical training) program tremendously," she said. "When you're 53 and competing with kids that are 20 and 30 years younger than you, it was pretty challenging."
When you're in your 50s, Caldwell said, it just isn't as easy to recover from an intense police academy workout session. In fact, Caldwell broke a femur bone toward the end of her training during an intense exercise called Red Man where cadets simulate a foot chase followed by a full-on fight with an instructor covered in red protective pads.
"I lived with Ben Gay and ice bags and ibuprofen," she said with a laugh. "Sometimes it was a 'Two Aleve and four Tylenol' day."
Several of her fellow cadets called Caldwell 'mom' during the training. They were protective and encouraging of their more senior counterpart, and could tell she struggled with physical ailments the entire time.
"They saw that I wasn't going to slack off and just skate through the academy," she said.
No regrets
Although learning the department's computer system was a challenge -- in "her day," every report was written by hand -- Caldwell said she had no problems in the academy classrooms or on the driving and shooting ranges.
She hung up her Houston police uniform to stay home with daughter Reagan, now 18, and son Dillon, 17. Her former husband also was a Houston police officer and Caldwell said she didn't want their children to spend so much time in day care.
"It was on my accord and I chose to leave," Caldwell said. "I don't regret it at all."
Caldwell ran a busy household when she left the department with children born a mere 15 months apart. She home schooled them for their first eight years until they moved into the public school system.
"I told people it was harder to be a stay-at-home mom than to be a cop," Caldwell said. "I honestly thought I'd never come back."
She still kept fit in her civilian life. Once her children were in public school, Caldwell developed what she called a "really serious tennis habit," and also played in a softball league with several law enforcement officers as teammates.
'Kind of a catalyst'
After 18 yearsaway, she had made her peace with being a former Houston police officer. Then her marriage fell apart.
"It was a kind of a catalyst," Caldwell said. "What are you going to do that's going to provide you with enough income to support your kids?"
What she went through is not that unusual, said Jill Hickman, who runs a company that, among other things, coaches women returning to the workforce.
"What took her out of the work place is very similar to what is bringing her back," Hickman said of family obligations.
Some women go back to work by choice while others do not have any other option and must earn a paycheck, she said. Women with younger children often decide to stay home because of the high costs of day care.
"They'd have to take three jobs instead of one," Hickman said.
Hickman applauded Caldwell's regular physical activity over the years. She encouraged women in her position to take every opportunity for self-improvement, such as enrolling in online courses if they struggle to leave the house because of small children. It will eventually pay off, she said.
"Where I am today may not be where I am tomorrow," Hickman said.
After her divorce last year, Caldwell began asking some of her law enforcement softball teammates about possibly returning to the Houston Police Department. The cut-off age to enter is 44, but because she had already served, that wasn't an obstacle. A break in service of more than five years, however, means officers have to complete the academy again.
"They were skeptical about whether I could do it. But I was still there week after week, giving it my 100 percent," she said.
Same badge number
Caldwell said her fellow cadets were far more mature than those from 1993. Several were combat veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan and one had joined HPD after a full 20-year career in the U.S. Marine Corps. Still another was a former Army captain who had graduated from West Point.
"The hardest part was mentally getting over the fact that I had to do the academy again," Caldwell said. "But if these guys can do this, certainly I can."
Caldwell thought the leg break during the grueling Red Man exercise would have ended her plans to restart a law enforcement career, but luckily, the HPD brass allowed her to graduate with her peers.
She's on desk duty as her leg recovers, but looks forward to returning to the streets. When she left the force the first time, Caldwell asked the department not to assign her old badge number to anyone else.
"When I came back, I got my original badge number back -- 5645," she said.
Wednesday, April 26, 2017
TRANSGENDER PEOPLE ARE MENTALLY ILL SAYS PROMINENT CANADIAN PSYCHIATRIST
Psychiatry expert: ‘scientifically there is no such thing as transgender’
LifeSiteNews | January 11, 2013
OTTAWA -- A prominent Toronto psychiatrist has severely criticized the assumptions underlying what has been dubbed by critics as the Canadian federal government's "bathroom bill," that is, Bill C-279, a private member’s bill that would afford special protection to so-called "transgender" men and women.
Dr. Joseph Berger has issued a statement saying that from a medical and scientific perspective there is no such thing as a "transgendered" person, and that terms such as “gender expression” and “gender identity" used in the bill are at the very least ambiguous, and are more an emotional appeal than a statement of scientific fact.
Berger, who is a consulting psychiatrist in Toronto and whose list of credentials establishes him as an expert in the field of mental illness, stated that people who identify themselves as "transgendered" are mentally ill or simply unhappy, and pointed out that hormone therapy and surgery are not appropriate treatments for psychosis or unhappiness.
"From a scientific perspective, let me clarify what ‘transgendered’ actually means," Dr. Berger said, adding, "I am speaking now about the scientific perspective – and not any political lobbying position that may be proposed by any group, medical or non-medical."
"‘Transgendered’ are people who claim that they really are or wish to be people of the sex opposite to which they were born, or to which their chromosomal configuration attests," Dr. Berger stated.
"Some times, some of these people have claimed that they are ‘a woman trapped in a man’s body’ or alternatively ‘a man trapped in a woman’s body’."
"The medical treatment of delusions, psychosis or emotional happiness is not surgery," Dr. Berger stated.
"On the other hand," Dr. Berger continued, "if these people are asked to clarify exactly what they believe, that is to say do they truly believe whichever of those above propositions applies to them and they say ‘no’, then they know that such a proposition is not true, but that they ‘feel’ it, then what we are talking about scientifically, is just unhappiness, and that unhappiness is being accompanied by a wish – that leads some people into taking hormones that predominate in the other sex, and even having cosmetic surgery designed to make them ‘appear’ as if they are a person of the opposite sex."
He explained that cosmetic surgery will not change the chromosomes of a human being in that it will not make a man become a woman, capable of menstruating, ovulating, and having children, nor will it make a woman into a man, capable of generating sperm that can unite with an egg or ovum from a woman and fertilize that egg to produce a human child.
Moreover, Dr. Berger stated that the arguments put forward by those advocating for special rights for gender confused people have no scientific value and are subjective and emotional appeals with no objective scientific basis.
"I have read the brief put forward by those advocating special rights, and I find nothing of scientific value in it," Dr. Berger said in his statement. "Words and phrases, such as 'the inner space,' are used that have no objective scientific basis."
"These are the scientific facts," Dr. Berger said. "There seems to me to be no medical or scientific reason to grant any special rights or considerations to people who are unhappy with the sex they were born into, or to people who wish to dress in the clothes of the opposite sex."
"The so-called ‘confusion’ about their sexuality that a teenager or adult has is purely psychological. As a psychiatrist, I see no reason for people who identify themselves in these ways to have any rights or privileges different from everyone else in Canada," he concluded.
REAL Women of Canada asked Dr. Berger for a statement on the issues surrounding Bill C-279 after the organization appeared before the review committee hearings on the bill.
Gwen Landolt of REAL Women told LifeSiteNews that after being initially refused permission to present their perspective on the bill to the review committee, the group was accepted, but found that all other groups and individuals who had been accepted to appear before the committee were supporters of Bill C-279.
"It can scarcely be an impartial review of any bill if only the witnesses supporting the bill are invited to speak to it," Landolt said.
Landolt explained that after passing second reading on June 6, 2012, Bill C-279 went to the Justice and Human Rights Committee for review.
At the review committee hearings, REAL Women of Canada presented a 12 page brief setting out the harms created by the bill, and pointing out that the terms “gender expression” and “gender identity," as written in Bill C-279, were so broad that they could be used to protect pedophilia along with other sexual perversions, if passed into law.
REAL Women provided the committee with evidence that post-operative trans-gendered individuals suffer substantially higher morbidity and mortality than the general population, placing the so-called “sex reassignment” surgery and hormone treatment under continued scrutiny.
They pointed out that a pioneer in such treatment, Dr. Paul McHugh, distinguished professor of psychiatry at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and psychiatrist-in-chief at Johns Hopkins Hospital, stopped the procedures because he found that patients were no better adjusted or satisfied after receiving such treatment.
McHugh wrote in 2004 that “Hopkins was fundamentally cooperating with a mental illness” by catering to the desires of people who wanted surgery to change their biological sex.
“We psychiatrists, I thought, would do better to concentrate on trying to fix their minds and not their genitalia,” he stated, adding that “to provide a surgical alteration to the body of these unfortunate people was to collaborate with a mental disorder rather than to treat it.”
Landolt noted that the committee hearings ended in confusion over the terminology presented in the bill, and that even the bill's sponsor, NDP MP Randall Garrison (Esquimalt – Juan de Fuca), was not clear as to who is included and who is excluded in these terms.
"The definition for 'gender identity' proposed by Mr. Garrison is a subjective one that he defined as a 'deeply felt internal and individual experience of gender, which may or may not correspond with the sex that the individual was assigned at birth'," Landolt said, adding that "The committee engaged in extensive discussions on the meaning of “gender identity” and “gender expression” without much clarification."
"As a result, instead of a smooth, orderly dispatch of this bill through the Committee orchestrated by Garrison, Conservative MP Shelly Glover (St. Boniface, Manitoba) and Conservative MP Kerry-Lynne Findlay (Delta-Richmond-East, BC), the committee hearings broke down in confusion at the final hearing on December 10th. The result is that the bill will be reported to the House of Commons as originally written without amendments," Landolt stated.
Following this state of confusion over terms at the review committee, REAL Women sought out an expert in order to provide the scientific and medical evidence relating to "transgenderism" and the other terms used in the bill.
Gwen Landolt told LifeSiteNews that REAL Women of Canada will be including Dr. Berger's statement in an information package to be sent to MPs before the bill comes to final vote.
"It is crucial that MPs know that this legislation is harmful, not only to those who think themselves transgendered but also to society, and should not be passed into law," Landolt said. "We must therefore write to our MP’s to request that they speak against this troubling bill."
Dr. Berger is certified as a specialist in Psychiatry by the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada and by the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology, and is an elected Distinguished Life Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association. He is also a past Chairman of the Toronto district of the Ontario Medical Association and past President of the Ontario branch of the American Psychiatric Association.
Berger has been an Examiner in Psychiatry for the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology for twenty five years, has taught as Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Toronto, and is the author of many published papers on different aspects of Diagnosis and Independent Psychiatric Assessments, as well as author of the book “The Independent Medical Examination in Psychiatry” published by Butterworth/Lexis-Nexis.
EDITOR’S NOTE: I just received this article from a good friend. I don't want to ID him because he'll be mislabeled as transphobic. Personally I’ve always maintained that transgenders are sicko psychos!
LifeSiteNews | January 11, 2013
OTTAWA -- A prominent Toronto psychiatrist has severely criticized the assumptions underlying what has been dubbed by critics as the Canadian federal government's "bathroom bill," that is, Bill C-279, a private member’s bill that would afford special protection to so-called "transgender" men and women.
Dr. Joseph Berger has issued a statement saying that from a medical and scientific perspective there is no such thing as a "transgendered" person, and that terms such as “gender expression” and “gender identity" used in the bill are at the very least ambiguous, and are more an emotional appeal than a statement of scientific fact.
Berger, who is a consulting psychiatrist in Toronto and whose list of credentials establishes him as an expert in the field of mental illness, stated that people who identify themselves as "transgendered" are mentally ill or simply unhappy, and pointed out that hormone therapy and surgery are not appropriate treatments for psychosis or unhappiness.
"From a scientific perspective, let me clarify what ‘transgendered’ actually means," Dr. Berger said, adding, "I am speaking now about the scientific perspective – and not any political lobbying position that may be proposed by any group, medical or non-medical."
"‘Transgendered’ are people who claim that they really are or wish to be people of the sex opposite to which they were born, or to which their chromosomal configuration attests," Dr. Berger stated.
"Some times, some of these people have claimed that they are ‘a woman trapped in a man’s body’ or alternatively ‘a man trapped in a woman’s body’."
"The medical treatment of delusions, psychosis or emotional happiness is not surgery," Dr. Berger stated.
"On the other hand," Dr. Berger continued, "if these people are asked to clarify exactly what they believe, that is to say do they truly believe whichever of those above propositions applies to them and they say ‘no’, then they know that such a proposition is not true, but that they ‘feel’ it, then what we are talking about scientifically, is just unhappiness, and that unhappiness is being accompanied by a wish – that leads some people into taking hormones that predominate in the other sex, and even having cosmetic surgery designed to make them ‘appear’ as if they are a person of the opposite sex."
He explained that cosmetic surgery will not change the chromosomes of a human being in that it will not make a man become a woman, capable of menstruating, ovulating, and having children, nor will it make a woman into a man, capable of generating sperm that can unite with an egg or ovum from a woman and fertilize that egg to produce a human child.
Moreover, Dr. Berger stated that the arguments put forward by those advocating for special rights for gender confused people have no scientific value and are subjective and emotional appeals with no objective scientific basis.
"I have read the brief put forward by those advocating special rights, and I find nothing of scientific value in it," Dr. Berger said in his statement. "Words and phrases, such as 'the inner space,' are used that have no objective scientific basis."
"These are the scientific facts," Dr. Berger said. "There seems to me to be no medical or scientific reason to grant any special rights or considerations to people who are unhappy with the sex they were born into, or to people who wish to dress in the clothes of the opposite sex."
"The so-called ‘confusion’ about their sexuality that a teenager or adult has is purely psychological. As a psychiatrist, I see no reason for people who identify themselves in these ways to have any rights or privileges different from everyone else in Canada," he concluded.
REAL Women of Canada asked Dr. Berger for a statement on the issues surrounding Bill C-279 after the organization appeared before the review committee hearings on the bill.
Gwen Landolt of REAL Women told LifeSiteNews that after being initially refused permission to present their perspective on the bill to the review committee, the group was accepted, but found that all other groups and individuals who had been accepted to appear before the committee were supporters of Bill C-279.
"It can scarcely be an impartial review of any bill if only the witnesses supporting the bill are invited to speak to it," Landolt said.
Landolt explained that after passing second reading on June 6, 2012, Bill C-279 went to the Justice and Human Rights Committee for review.
At the review committee hearings, REAL Women of Canada presented a 12 page brief setting out the harms created by the bill, and pointing out that the terms “gender expression” and “gender identity," as written in Bill C-279, were so broad that they could be used to protect pedophilia along with other sexual perversions, if passed into law.
REAL Women provided the committee with evidence that post-operative trans-gendered individuals suffer substantially higher morbidity and mortality than the general population, placing the so-called “sex reassignment” surgery and hormone treatment under continued scrutiny.
They pointed out that a pioneer in such treatment, Dr. Paul McHugh, distinguished professor of psychiatry at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and psychiatrist-in-chief at Johns Hopkins Hospital, stopped the procedures because he found that patients were no better adjusted or satisfied after receiving such treatment.
McHugh wrote in 2004 that “Hopkins was fundamentally cooperating with a mental illness” by catering to the desires of people who wanted surgery to change their biological sex.
“We psychiatrists, I thought, would do better to concentrate on trying to fix their minds and not their genitalia,” he stated, adding that “to provide a surgical alteration to the body of these unfortunate people was to collaborate with a mental disorder rather than to treat it.”
Landolt noted that the committee hearings ended in confusion over the terminology presented in the bill, and that even the bill's sponsor, NDP MP Randall Garrison (Esquimalt – Juan de Fuca), was not clear as to who is included and who is excluded in these terms.
"The definition for 'gender identity' proposed by Mr. Garrison is a subjective one that he defined as a 'deeply felt internal and individual experience of gender, which may or may not correspond with the sex that the individual was assigned at birth'," Landolt said, adding that "The committee engaged in extensive discussions on the meaning of “gender identity” and “gender expression” without much clarification."
"As a result, instead of a smooth, orderly dispatch of this bill through the Committee orchestrated by Garrison, Conservative MP Shelly Glover (St. Boniface, Manitoba) and Conservative MP Kerry-Lynne Findlay (Delta-Richmond-East, BC), the committee hearings broke down in confusion at the final hearing on December 10th. The result is that the bill will be reported to the House of Commons as originally written without amendments," Landolt stated.
Following this state of confusion over terms at the review committee, REAL Women sought out an expert in order to provide the scientific and medical evidence relating to "transgenderism" and the other terms used in the bill.
Gwen Landolt told LifeSiteNews that REAL Women of Canada will be including Dr. Berger's statement in an information package to be sent to MPs before the bill comes to final vote.
"It is crucial that MPs know that this legislation is harmful, not only to those who think themselves transgendered but also to society, and should not be passed into law," Landolt said. "We must therefore write to our MP’s to request that they speak against this troubling bill."
Dr. Berger is certified as a specialist in Psychiatry by the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada and by the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology, and is an elected Distinguished Life Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association. He is also a past Chairman of the Toronto district of the Ontario Medical Association and past President of the Ontario branch of the American Psychiatric Association.
Berger has been an Examiner in Psychiatry for the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology for twenty five years, has taught as Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Toronto, and is the author of many published papers on different aspects of Diagnosis and Independent Psychiatric Assessments, as well as author of the book “The Independent Medical Examination in Psychiatry” published by Butterworth/Lexis-Nexis.
EDITOR’S NOTE: I just received this article from a good friend. I don't want to ID him because he'll be mislabeled as transphobic. Personally I’ve always maintained that transgenders are sicko psychos!
OMG, THE WORLD IS COMING TO AN END
by Bob Walsh
OK, not really, but allegedly many of the members of congress feel like it is. It seems that there is a special, close-in, parking lot at Reagan International reserved only for members of congress, justices of the Supreme Court and a few other special people. That lot is going away on July 1 and they will have to park with the peasants.
They still get to park for free by showing their congressional ID on the way out. (There may be a point in that, they do have to travel a lot on more-or-less official business) so they won't suffer too much. As far as having to park with the peasants, fuck them. A little walking will do them some good.
OK, not really, but allegedly many of the members of congress feel like it is. It seems that there is a special, close-in, parking lot at Reagan International reserved only for members of congress, justices of the Supreme Court and a few other special people. That lot is going away on July 1 and they will have to park with the peasants.
They still get to park for free by showing their congressional ID on the way out. (There may be a point in that, they do have to travel a lot on more-or-less official business) so they won't suffer too much. As far as having to park with the peasants, fuck them. A little walking will do them some good.
KILLING THE SECOND AMENDMENT THRU "REASONABLE REGULATION" ..... THAT SHOULD READ 'UNREASONABLE'
by Bob Walsh
Back we go to Chicago. Nobody has guns but cops and criminals. Back when, SCOTUS issued the Heller decision which told places like D.C. and Chicago that they could not outright ban handguns and could not make a blanket refusal of carry permits. In Chicago now it is at least theoretically possible to get a carry permit. You need, among other things, evidence of training. Trouble is, there is not a single commercial firing range in all of Chicago.
The local ordinance which governs such things prohibits the placement of a range near residential areas, schools, etc. These restrictions are so broad that there is only in theory 2% of the real estate in Chicago that could legally be used to set up a commercial firing range. So there are in fact none.
The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals has found this restriction to be unreasonably burdensome. Chicago is, however, slow-dragging a change in the ordinance. So far very successfully. (It should be noted there are 11 law enforcement firing ranges in the city.)
Chicago lawyers were able to find only two instances of thefts from gun ranges in the entire U. S. in the last seven years. They also asserted the ranges were health and safety hazards, but made no such claims about law enforcement ranges. They also claimed that such ranges would be "crime magnets" but were unable to show any proof of such a claim. Commercial ranges in nearby cities have no such problems.
The power structure in Chicago (left-wing Democrat) is very slowly being dragged into compliance with the U.S. Constitution. It is about fucking time.
Back we go to Chicago. Nobody has guns but cops and criminals. Back when, SCOTUS issued the Heller decision which told places like D.C. and Chicago that they could not outright ban handguns and could not make a blanket refusal of carry permits. In Chicago now it is at least theoretically possible to get a carry permit. You need, among other things, evidence of training. Trouble is, there is not a single commercial firing range in all of Chicago.
The local ordinance which governs such things prohibits the placement of a range near residential areas, schools, etc. These restrictions are so broad that there is only in theory 2% of the real estate in Chicago that could legally be used to set up a commercial firing range. So there are in fact none.
The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals has found this restriction to be unreasonably burdensome. Chicago is, however, slow-dragging a change in the ordinance. So far very successfully. (It should be noted there are 11 law enforcement firing ranges in the city.)
Chicago lawyers were able to find only two instances of thefts from gun ranges in the entire U. S. in the last seven years. They also asserted the ranges were health and safety hazards, but made no such claims about law enforcement ranges. They also claimed that such ranges would be "crime magnets" but were unable to show any proof of such a claim. Commercial ranges in nearby cities have no such problems.
The power structure in Chicago (left-wing Democrat) is very slowly being dragged into compliance with the U.S. Constitution. It is about fucking time.
LIARS, CHEATS AND SNEAKY BASTARDS
by Bob Walsh
The University of California is a constitutional body within the state. They have a HUGE amount of autonomy on what they do with their funds, and they regularly poor-mouth to get more money from the state and to extract more money from students. Do they really need it?
The California State Auditor released a very interesting report on Tuesday that asserts that the U.C. system has managed to hide about $175 million off the books in order to make it's poor-mouthing more believable. The auditor, Elaine Howle, also states flat-out that the president of the university attempted to interfere with the audit process. The President, Janet Napolitano, says that she did not interfere with the audit and that the stash is in actuality much smaller than the auditor claims it to be.
It also seems likely that the President's office diddled with surveys from individual campuses before they made their way to the auditor. Napolitano claims that they "reviewed" the data to ensure the auditor got "accurate information."
Can you spell Lying Sack Of Shit?
The University of California is a constitutional body within the state. They have a HUGE amount of autonomy on what they do with their funds, and they regularly poor-mouth to get more money from the state and to extract more money from students. Do they really need it?
The California State Auditor released a very interesting report on Tuesday that asserts that the U.C. system has managed to hide about $175 million off the books in order to make it's poor-mouthing more believable. The auditor, Elaine Howle, also states flat-out that the president of the university attempted to interfere with the audit process. The President, Janet Napolitano, says that she did not interfere with the audit and that the stash is in actuality much smaller than the auditor claims it to be.
It also seems likely that the President's office diddled with surveys from individual campuses before they made their way to the auditor. Napolitano claims that they "reviewed" the data to ensure the auditor got "accurate information."
Can you spell Lying Sack Of Shit?
THE GREAT (OR AT LEAST LARGE) TRAIN ROBBERY
by Bob Walsh
There was an interesting train robbery in the crime-ridden and gang-infested shit-hole that is Oakland, CA on Saturday night.
At about 9:30 p.m. a group of about 50 juveniles jumped the fare gates, mobbed an incoming train at the Coliseum station, and robbed a number of passengers, thumping a few of them in the process. The program went on for about five minutes. No weapons were in obvious sight. Most of the robberies were of cell phones, though at least one purse and one duffle bag were also taken. At the time of the attack there were BART police officers on robbery suppression patrol in the back parking lot. By the time they got the word and got there the mob had left the scene and blended into the local area.
BART has refused to release surveillance footage due to the fact that the suspects are all believed to be juveniles. A significant number of the train cameras are known to be dummies though there were working cameras on some of the train cars. Also, if I remember correctly, all of the platforms have cameras.
There was an interesting train robbery in the crime-ridden and gang-infested shit-hole that is Oakland, CA on Saturday night.
At about 9:30 p.m. a group of about 50 juveniles jumped the fare gates, mobbed an incoming train at the Coliseum station, and robbed a number of passengers, thumping a few of them in the process. The program went on for about five minutes. No weapons were in obvious sight. Most of the robberies were of cell phones, though at least one purse and one duffle bag were also taken. At the time of the attack there were BART police officers on robbery suppression patrol in the back parking lot. By the time they got the word and got there the mob had left the scene and blended into the local area.
BART has refused to release surveillance footage due to the fact that the suspects are all believed to be juveniles. A significant number of the train cameras are known to be dummies though there were working cameras on some of the train cars. Also, if I remember correctly, all of the platforms have cameras.
BETTER 40 YEARS LATE THAN NEVER
Man admits to murdering 16-year-old Utah girl in 1977
By Pamela Manson | The Salt Lake Tribune | April 24, 2017
After waiting four decades to learn who raped and killed Sharon Lecia Schollmeyer in her Salt Lake City apartment, her loved ones wanted a quick resolution after DNA recently linked the former building manager to the crime.
They got it.
On Monday, Patrick Michael McCabe, of Bell, Fla., who was charged in the case in March, pleaded guilty in Utah's 3rd District Court to murder and aggravated burglary, both first-degree felonies. Under a deal with prosecutors, a charge of aggravated sexual assault was dropped.
The plea agreement also spares the 59-year-old McCabe the possibility of a death sentence by allowing him to enter a guilty plea to murder in the second degree, rather than murder in the first degree, a capital offense. He faces consecutive prison terms of five years to life when he is sentenced June 12 by Judge Paul Parker.
Prosecutor Matthew Janzen told the judge that Schollmeyer's family members supported ending the case with a plea deal; defense attorney Michael Sikora said his client wanted to resolve the matter quickly.
Outside court, Sally Kadleck, mother of the 16-year-old victim, who was an emancipated minor living alone in an Avenues apartment, said it was terrible not knowing for years who killed her daughter. She is grateful that police connected McCabe to the slaying.
"I'm just glad they found him," Kadleck said.
Her son, Charles Schollmeyer, and daughter, Brigett Love, said that they are thankful the case is nearing a close without lengthy court proceedings and that they are relieved McCabe agreed to plead guilty.
"He doesn't want to make us suffer any longer than we already have," Love said.
Schollmeyer's body was found Dec. 5, 1977, by Kadleck after she was let into the apartment by McCabe, the then-20-year-old building manager at 125 E. 1st Ave., according to court documents. The documents say the victim was found naked in a bathtub that was filled with 6 inches of water, blindfolded with a scarf and gagged with a halter top.
The plea agreement says McCabe, who did light maintenance at the complex in exchange for rent, had used a key to get inside Schollmeyer's apartment and commit his crime. He found the victim sleeping in her bed and raped her, then took her to the bathroom and strangled her, according to the agreement.
Last December, a national database matched DNA found on the halter top used to gag Schollmeyer to McCabe, who was in the system because of a 1999 sex offense involving a minor, court records say.
During an interview on March 1 with Salt Lake City Police Department investigators who had traveled to Florida, McCabe — who said he left Utah in February 1978 and, except for one overnight visit, never returned — allegedly confessed to raping and killing Schollmeyer. He was arrested and extradited to Utah, where he was booked into the Salt Lake County jail and held in lieu of cash-only bail of $2 million.
When asked in court by Parker what was in his mind when he entered the apartment, McCabe, who was seated in a wheelchair during Monday's hearing, replied, "To rape Ms. Schollmeyer."
By Pamela Manson | The Salt Lake Tribune | April 24, 2017
After waiting four decades to learn who raped and killed Sharon Lecia Schollmeyer in her Salt Lake City apartment, her loved ones wanted a quick resolution after DNA recently linked the former building manager to the crime.
They got it.
On Monday, Patrick Michael McCabe, of Bell, Fla., who was charged in the case in March, pleaded guilty in Utah's 3rd District Court to murder and aggravated burglary, both first-degree felonies. Under a deal with prosecutors, a charge of aggravated sexual assault was dropped.
The plea agreement also spares the 59-year-old McCabe the possibility of a death sentence by allowing him to enter a guilty plea to murder in the second degree, rather than murder in the first degree, a capital offense. He faces consecutive prison terms of five years to life when he is sentenced June 12 by Judge Paul Parker.
Prosecutor Matthew Janzen told the judge that Schollmeyer's family members supported ending the case with a plea deal; defense attorney Michael Sikora said his client wanted to resolve the matter quickly.
Outside court, Sally Kadleck, mother of the 16-year-old victim, who was an emancipated minor living alone in an Avenues apartment, said it was terrible not knowing for years who killed her daughter. She is grateful that police connected McCabe to the slaying.
"I'm just glad they found him," Kadleck said.
Her son, Charles Schollmeyer, and daughter, Brigett Love, said that they are thankful the case is nearing a close without lengthy court proceedings and that they are relieved McCabe agreed to plead guilty.
"He doesn't want to make us suffer any longer than we already have," Love said.
Schollmeyer's body was found Dec. 5, 1977, by Kadleck after she was let into the apartment by McCabe, the then-20-year-old building manager at 125 E. 1st Ave., according to court documents. The documents say the victim was found naked in a bathtub that was filled with 6 inches of water, blindfolded with a scarf and gagged with a halter top.
The plea agreement says McCabe, who did light maintenance at the complex in exchange for rent, had used a key to get inside Schollmeyer's apartment and commit his crime. He found the victim sleeping in her bed and raped her, then took her to the bathroom and strangled her, according to the agreement.
Last December, a national database matched DNA found on the halter top used to gag Schollmeyer to McCabe, who was in the system because of a 1999 sex offense involving a minor, court records say.
During an interview on March 1 with Salt Lake City Police Department investigators who had traveled to Florida, McCabe — who said he left Utah in February 1978 and, except for one overnight visit, never returned — allegedly confessed to raping and killing Schollmeyer. He was arrested and extradited to Utah, where he was booked into the Salt Lake County jail and held in lieu of cash-only bail of $2 million.
When asked in court by Parker what was in his mind when he entered the apartment, McCabe, who was seated in a wheelchair during Monday's hearing, replied, "To rape Ms. Schollmeyer."
Tuesday, April 25, 2017
THIS ONE IS GOING TO BE HARD TO CLEAN UP
by Bob Walsh
If the story being told is true, an inmate died last year in the Milwaukee County Jail of dehydration. He was (apparently) mentally ill and (allegedly) the water had been turned off in his cell for a week.
A jury is considering whether there is probable cause to charge one or more jail officials with abuse of the prisoner. (I admit I don't understand the procedure on this. Must be a local or state thing.)
Allegedly the prisoner, Terrill Thomas, was having some sort of "mental health crisis." He was being fed allegedly inedible "neutraloaf" meals and had the water in his cell shut off. It is unclear if he was provided drinking water or not. If he did in fact die of dehydration one would think not. Prisoners often have their water turned off if they flood their cells and are fed "neutaloaf" if they throw food, refuse to return their trays and utensils after eating or otherwise act like assholes.
In any event it is difficult to understand how the prisoner was not removed, forcibly if need be, and put in medical housing at some point along the line. As noted, I strongly suspect that someone is going to have his tit in a wringer over this one. Mere indeptitude isn't going to cover it.
If the story being told is true, an inmate died last year in the Milwaukee County Jail of dehydration. He was (apparently) mentally ill and (allegedly) the water had been turned off in his cell for a week.
A jury is considering whether there is probable cause to charge one or more jail officials with abuse of the prisoner. (I admit I don't understand the procedure on this. Must be a local or state thing.)
Allegedly the prisoner, Terrill Thomas, was having some sort of "mental health crisis." He was being fed allegedly inedible "neutraloaf" meals and had the water in his cell shut off. It is unclear if he was provided drinking water or not. If he did in fact die of dehydration one would think not. Prisoners often have their water turned off if they flood their cells and are fed "neutaloaf" if they throw food, refuse to return their trays and utensils after eating or otherwise act like assholes.
In any event it is difficult to understand how the prisoner was not removed, forcibly if need be, and put in medical housing at some point along the line. As noted, I strongly suspect that someone is going to have his tit in a wringer over this one. Mere indeptitude isn't going to cover it.
ASSHOLE SUING FOR DAMAGES BASED ON HIS ASSHOLEISHNESS
by Bob Walsh
Jermaine Padilla is an asshole. He is a guest of the state and probably has legitimate mental health issues. He is still an asshole.
There are rules when you are in prison. Those rules are necessary for the safe, efficient running of the prison. They protect both the staff and the prisoners.
Back in 2012 staff wanted Padilla to come out of his cell. He didn't want to. So he was "extracted." Cell extractions have been videotaped for YEARS. The staff asks nicely pretty please will you come you. Then, eventually, a suit comes down and asks pretty please, come out of your cell. If you don't they go in and get you. It isn't pretty. The prisoner often plays up to the camera which he KNOWS is there and screams like a mashed cat.
Padilla's lawyer is suing the formerly great state of CA and is asking for punitive damages as well as compensatory damages, alleging that the state is liable for "malice and oppression" committed by the evil "prison guards" who extracted Padilla from his cell.
Padilla was, at the time, housed in the mental health crisis unit in the state prison at Corcoran. He had stopped taking his meds, and smeared himself with his own shit. At that time the mental health professionals determined it was necessary to get Padilla out of the cell. He refused. So they blasted the crap out of him with a shitload of pepper spray, then went in after him and strapped him down to a gurney. He was kept restrained for some time (like a day and a half). He was NOT transferred to DMH (Dept. of Mental Health), perhaps in part because of the onerous paperwork required, even though the department guidelines seem to indicate it should have been done.
The bottom line is that dealing with nutters is difficult. Dealing with dangerous nutters is difficult and dangerous. I would humbly suggest that Padilla's lawyer and the federal judging looking at this, as well as the jury, should come down to the mental health unit (IN UNIFORM AND NOT IN STREET CLOTHES) and check out the situation and how it really works.
Was Padilla mistreated? Damned if I know. I do know that dealing with nutters is far from as easy as the lawyers and the courts pretend it should be.
Jermaine Padilla is an asshole. He is a guest of the state and probably has legitimate mental health issues. He is still an asshole.
There are rules when you are in prison. Those rules are necessary for the safe, efficient running of the prison. They protect both the staff and the prisoners.
Back in 2012 staff wanted Padilla to come out of his cell. He didn't want to. So he was "extracted." Cell extractions have been videotaped for YEARS. The staff asks nicely pretty please will you come you. Then, eventually, a suit comes down and asks pretty please, come out of your cell. If you don't they go in and get you. It isn't pretty. The prisoner often plays up to the camera which he KNOWS is there and screams like a mashed cat.
Padilla's lawyer is suing the formerly great state of CA and is asking for punitive damages as well as compensatory damages, alleging that the state is liable for "malice and oppression" committed by the evil "prison guards" who extracted Padilla from his cell.
Padilla was, at the time, housed in the mental health crisis unit in the state prison at Corcoran. He had stopped taking his meds, and smeared himself with his own shit. At that time the mental health professionals determined it was necessary to get Padilla out of the cell. He refused. So they blasted the crap out of him with a shitload of pepper spray, then went in after him and strapped him down to a gurney. He was kept restrained for some time (like a day and a half). He was NOT transferred to DMH (Dept. of Mental Health), perhaps in part because of the onerous paperwork required, even though the department guidelines seem to indicate it should have been done.
The bottom line is that dealing with nutters is difficult. Dealing with dangerous nutters is difficult and dangerous. I would humbly suggest that Padilla's lawyer and the federal judging looking at this, as well as the jury, should come down to the mental health unit (IN UNIFORM AND NOT IN STREET CLOTHES) and check out the situation and how it really works.
Was Padilla mistreated? Damned if I know. I do know that dealing with nutters is far from as easy as the lawyers and the courts pretend it should be.
FITBIT GIVES WIFE KILLER MORE THAN BIT OF A FIT
Slain woman's Fitbit data cited in murder case against husband
CRIMESIDER | April 24, 2017
ELLINGTON, Conn. -- A 40-year-old Connecticut man is facing charges that he killed his wife in 2015, and police are reportedly citing data from the slain woman’s Fitbit in the case against him.
Richard Dabate was arrested this month and charged with murder, tampering with evidence and making a false statement in the fatal shooting of 39-year-old Connie Dabate on Dec. 23, 2015.
Authorities say Dabate told them a masked man had entered their Ellington home, shot his wife and tied him up before he burned the intruder with a torch. Investigators say he was found with an arm and leg zip-tied to a folding chair, and he had superficial knife wounds, according to the Hartford Courant.
But Connecticut State Police say data from Connie Dabate’s Fitbit, along with information from social media, cellphones, computers and the home’s alarm system, contradict Richard Dabate’s statements to police, the paper reports.
Police say there were no signs of a struggle in the home, nothing was stolen and a police dog only picked up Richard Dabate’s scent, reports the Courant, citing an arrest warrant. The warrant says Dabate had a pregnant girlfriend at the time of his wife’s killing and that he told his girlfriend he was getting a divorce.
Dabate allegedly told investigators his wife was unable to have another child, so the couple did some “untraditional things.” He said all three planned to co-parent the child, reports CBS affiliate WFSB. The couple had two children.
Police also say Dabate changed his story, put in a claim for his wife’s $475,000 life insurance policy and withdrew nearly $93,000 from an investment account in his wife’s name.
Dabate was released on bail last week. A judge ordered him to turn in his passport.
Dabate is due in court April 28. His lawyer told the Hartford Courant that his client maintains his innocence and had offered to turn himself in after an arrest warrant was issued.
CRIMESIDER | April 24, 2017
ELLINGTON, Conn. -- A 40-year-old Connecticut man is facing charges that he killed his wife in 2015, and police are reportedly citing data from the slain woman’s Fitbit in the case against him.
Richard Dabate was arrested this month and charged with murder, tampering with evidence and making a false statement in the fatal shooting of 39-year-old Connie Dabate on Dec. 23, 2015.
Authorities say Dabate told them a masked man had entered their Ellington home, shot his wife and tied him up before he burned the intruder with a torch. Investigators say he was found with an arm and leg zip-tied to a folding chair, and he had superficial knife wounds, according to the Hartford Courant.
But Connecticut State Police say data from Connie Dabate’s Fitbit, along with information from social media, cellphones, computers and the home’s alarm system, contradict Richard Dabate’s statements to police, the paper reports.
Police say there were no signs of a struggle in the home, nothing was stolen and a police dog only picked up Richard Dabate’s scent, reports the Courant, citing an arrest warrant. The warrant says Dabate had a pregnant girlfriend at the time of his wife’s killing and that he told his girlfriend he was getting a divorce.
Dabate allegedly told investigators his wife was unable to have another child, so the couple did some “untraditional things.” He said all three planned to co-parent the child, reports CBS affiliate WFSB. The couple had two children.
Police also say Dabate changed his story, put in a claim for his wife’s $475,000 life insurance policy and withdrew nearly $93,000 from an investment account in his wife’s name.
Dabate was released on bail last week. A judge ordered him to turn in his passport.
Dabate is due in court April 28. His lawyer told the Hartford Courant that his client maintains his innocence and had offered to turn himself in after an arrest warrant was issued.
NOOKIE IN SPACE?
Sex in Space? NASA Says No, but Pornhub Wants to Reach This Final Frontier
By Dianna Wray | Houston Press | April 21, 2017
It's the question everyone longs to know about the final frontier: Have astronauts ever had sex in space?
Officially, NASA denies any such thing and there are no official, confirmed, yes-they-definitely-got-it-on reports about anyone doing it in space. (The idea of space sex is so good, though, that it has inspired at least one hoax. Pierre Kohler, the author of The Last Mission, claimed that NASA had commissioned a study on sexual positions in space back in 2003, complete with special two-person sleeping bags to make getting together a bit easier in low-gravity situations. The claim was debunked, but that hasn't stopped people from continuing to be fascinated with the idea of getting it on in orbit.)
But as we get closer to making the dream of sending astronauts on the very long trip to Mars a reality, it's understandable that people are wondering if a little space love (whether of the personal kind or via a duo) has ever happened or is even that likely.
There's been gossipy excitement over this idea ever since the first woman went to space in 1982, but the odds are good that if it's ever happened the space sex was more about the novelty of nookie in space and less about the actual joy of it. Logistically, it doesn't seem like having sex in space would be that easy or terribly fun.
For one thing, there are tons of physiological changes that happen during spaceflight that could play a part in sex and (if things were really serious with the partner or if it was a really long trip) procreation. When you're in space you experience gravity changes, radiation, vibration, noise, isolation, disrupted circadian rhythms and a whole bunch of stress. All of this can make it difficult to actually get together and do the deed.
There's also the little question of gravity. Gravity helps blood flow rapidly to certain places on the body and without gravity, men may not be able to get erections and women may also not get quite as physically aroused by sex.
So yeah, even if they can do it, so to speak, it's not necessarily a terribly satisfying encounter.
The idea of human sexual activity in the weightlessness or extreme environments of outer space – sex in space – presents difficulties for the performance of most sexual activities because of Newton's third law. According to the law, if the couple remain attached, their movements will counter each other, which means their actions won't change velocity unless they are affected by another, unattached object. There could also be problems from drifting into other objects (which makes sense when you think about it) since if the couple have a combined velocity relative to other objects, collisions could occur.
So far, NASA isn't down with having formal space sex experiments to let us know how any of this is for sure, but Pornhub is definitely interested. The company in 2015 announced it intends to make a space sex film and opened up its efforts to crowd funding. You'd think that would have translated to porn in sex immediately being made, but Pornhub has collected only a fraction of the more than $3 million required to make the movie.
So for now, sex in space is going to have to continue to live where it does best, the popular imagination. Unless, of course, there are any astronauts out there with some fun stories to tell about how exactly they defied the problems of gravity and Newton's third law to get it on. In which case, we all definitely want to hear what they've got to say.
By Dianna Wray | Houston Press | April 21, 2017
It's the question everyone longs to know about the final frontier: Have astronauts ever had sex in space?
Officially, NASA denies any such thing and there are no official, confirmed, yes-they-definitely-got-it-on reports about anyone doing it in space. (The idea of space sex is so good, though, that it has inspired at least one hoax. Pierre Kohler, the author of The Last Mission, claimed that NASA had commissioned a study on sexual positions in space back in 2003, complete with special two-person sleeping bags to make getting together a bit easier in low-gravity situations. The claim was debunked, but that hasn't stopped people from continuing to be fascinated with the idea of getting it on in orbit.)
But as we get closer to making the dream of sending astronauts on the very long trip to Mars a reality, it's understandable that people are wondering if a little space love (whether of the personal kind or via a duo) has ever happened or is even that likely.
There's been gossipy excitement over this idea ever since the first woman went to space in 1982, but the odds are good that if it's ever happened the space sex was more about the novelty of nookie in space and less about the actual joy of it. Logistically, it doesn't seem like having sex in space would be that easy or terribly fun.
For one thing, there are tons of physiological changes that happen during spaceflight that could play a part in sex and (if things were really serious with the partner or if it was a really long trip) procreation. When you're in space you experience gravity changes, radiation, vibration, noise, isolation, disrupted circadian rhythms and a whole bunch of stress. All of this can make it difficult to actually get together and do the deed.
There's also the little question of gravity. Gravity helps blood flow rapidly to certain places on the body and without gravity, men may not be able to get erections and women may also not get quite as physically aroused by sex.
So yeah, even if they can do it, so to speak, it's not necessarily a terribly satisfying encounter.
The idea of human sexual activity in the weightlessness or extreme environments of outer space – sex in space – presents difficulties for the performance of most sexual activities because of Newton's third law. According to the law, if the couple remain attached, their movements will counter each other, which means their actions won't change velocity unless they are affected by another, unattached object. There could also be problems from drifting into other objects (which makes sense when you think about it) since if the couple have a combined velocity relative to other objects, collisions could occur.
So far, NASA isn't down with having formal space sex experiments to let us know how any of this is for sure, but Pornhub is definitely interested. The company in 2015 announced it intends to make a space sex film and opened up its efforts to crowd funding. You'd think that would have translated to porn in sex immediately being made, but Pornhub has collected only a fraction of the more than $3 million required to make the movie.
So for now, sex in space is going to have to continue to live where it does best, the popular imagination. Unless, of course, there are any astronauts out there with some fun stories to tell about how exactly they defied the problems of gravity and Newton's third law to get it on. In which case, we all definitely want to hear what they've got to say.
DONALD TRUMP JR. TAKES SON ON HUNTING TRIP IN NATIONAL ZOO
According to witnesses at the zoo’s Elephant Outpost, Donald Trump Jr. told his son to aim for a calf that had wandered away from its mother in search of a play partner
The Onion | April 19, 2017
WASHINGTON—In what he referred to as an important rite of passage for his 8-year-old son, Donald John III, Donald Trump Jr. took his eldest boy to the Smithsonian National Zoological Park for his first-ever hunting trip, sources said Wednesday.
The daylong excursion, during which father and son could be seen wearing matching khaki fatigues and safari hats, was reportedly an opportunity for Trump Jr. to introduce the young boy to hunting by showing him how to track a wild animal through a zoo exhibit, set up the perfect shot just outside a fenced enclosure, and, if possible, hit the target right between the eyes as it lies sleeping.
“That’s it, D.J.—steady the barrel along the edge of the guardrail, just like that,” Trump Jr. whispered, appearing to swell with pride as Donald John III crouched near an ice cream stand in the zoo’s Cheetah Conservation Station and took aim at a cub playing inside a small enclosure 10 feet below. “Be very quiet or you’ll spook him. Now, whenever you’re ready, just exhale slowly and squeeze the trigger.”
“Great shot, son!” Trump Jr. continued as three valets from the hunting party set down the Trumps’ gear and entered the cheetah habitat to field-dress the carcass. “Let’s keep this spot until the zookeeper comes to feed them. When that happens, they’ll all move out into the open and we’ll be able to get a few more.”
According to sources, Trump Jr. and his son crept quietly along the paved footpaths—staying low and occasionally ducking behind an information kiosk—in the hopes of remaining undetected as they approached their next targets, Wilma and Zora, the two American bison housed by the zoo. Both animals were reportedly lapping water from a trough and caught unaware, allowing the father-son duo to take each of them out with three quick shots to the head, use a bowie knife to cut off the horns for souvenirs, and then continue on their way to the picnic pavilion for hot dogs and sodas.
Arriving at the zoo’s bird sanctuary, the Trumps are said to have switched from big-game rifles to scatterguns, bringing down a dozen flamingos, five whooping cranes, and a pair of North Island brown kiwi as zoo employees and families in the nearby gift shop screamed and ran for cover.
“The key to hunting is biding your time, D.J.—wait until those sea lions are trapped between the tank wall and your line of fire so you can get a clear shot at them before they swim away,” said Trump Jr., peering through the scope of his rifle at the aquatic mammals sunning themselves on a concrete embankment. “Later, when we go inside the Great Ape House, you’re going to be tempted to take a shot right away, but you have to be patient.”
“Eventually an orangutan will come down from its tire swing to grab a piece of fruit,” he added. “When that happens—bam, you nail him!”
Reports confirmed the highlight of the expedition came when Trump Jr. took down the zoo’s giant panda Tian Tian with just two shots, the first bullet shattering the Plexiglas barrier and the second hitting the animal directly in the heart. The Trumps reportedly took the opportunity to pose with their prized trophy, each triumphantly placing a foot on the blood-drenched panda as a hired photographer captured the moment.
The jubilant father and son reportedly ended their day by honing their marksmanship at the Small Mammal House, picking off mongooses one by one as they poked their heads out of their burrows.
“D.J., I was very proud of you out there today,” a misty-eyed Trump Jr. said as he tousled his son’s hair and tenderly wiped a smear of giant anteater blood from the boy’s cheek. “Maybe someday, when you have a son of your own, you’ll take him to the zoo and kill something really great like a white rhino, or, who knows, maybe you’ll take him to an aquarium and bag a dolphin. Even I haven’t done that.”
At press time, having deemed a gazelle carcass too small to make a good wall mount, the Trumps had abandoned the dead animal near a lemonade cart to rot in the sun.
The Onion | April 19, 2017
WASHINGTON—In what he referred to as an important rite of passage for his 8-year-old son, Donald John III, Donald Trump Jr. took his eldest boy to the Smithsonian National Zoological Park for his first-ever hunting trip, sources said Wednesday.
The daylong excursion, during which father and son could be seen wearing matching khaki fatigues and safari hats, was reportedly an opportunity for Trump Jr. to introduce the young boy to hunting by showing him how to track a wild animal through a zoo exhibit, set up the perfect shot just outside a fenced enclosure, and, if possible, hit the target right between the eyes as it lies sleeping.
“That’s it, D.J.—steady the barrel along the edge of the guardrail, just like that,” Trump Jr. whispered, appearing to swell with pride as Donald John III crouched near an ice cream stand in the zoo’s Cheetah Conservation Station and took aim at a cub playing inside a small enclosure 10 feet below. “Be very quiet or you’ll spook him. Now, whenever you’re ready, just exhale slowly and squeeze the trigger.”
“Great shot, son!” Trump Jr. continued as three valets from the hunting party set down the Trumps’ gear and entered the cheetah habitat to field-dress the carcass. “Let’s keep this spot until the zookeeper comes to feed them. When that happens, they’ll all move out into the open and we’ll be able to get a few more.”
According to sources, Trump Jr. and his son crept quietly along the paved footpaths—staying low and occasionally ducking behind an information kiosk—in the hopes of remaining undetected as they approached their next targets, Wilma and Zora, the two American bison housed by the zoo. Both animals were reportedly lapping water from a trough and caught unaware, allowing the father-son duo to take each of them out with three quick shots to the head, use a bowie knife to cut off the horns for souvenirs, and then continue on their way to the picnic pavilion for hot dogs and sodas.
Arriving at the zoo’s bird sanctuary, the Trumps are said to have switched from big-game rifles to scatterguns, bringing down a dozen flamingos, five whooping cranes, and a pair of North Island brown kiwi as zoo employees and families in the nearby gift shop screamed and ran for cover.
“The key to hunting is biding your time, D.J.—wait until those sea lions are trapped between the tank wall and your line of fire so you can get a clear shot at them before they swim away,” said Trump Jr., peering through the scope of his rifle at the aquatic mammals sunning themselves on a concrete embankment. “Later, when we go inside the Great Ape House, you’re going to be tempted to take a shot right away, but you have to be patient.”
“Eventually an orangutan will come down from its tire swing to grab a piece of fruit,” he added. “When that happens—bam, you nail him!”
Reports confirmed the highlight of the expedition came when Trump Jr. took down the zoo’s giant panda Tian Tian with just two shots, the first bullet shattering the Plexiglas barrier and the second hitting the animal directly in the heart. The Trumps reportedly took the opportunity to pose with their prized trophy, each triumphantly placing a foot on the blood-drenched panda as a hired photographer captured the moment.
The jubilant father and son reportedly ended their day by honing their marksmanship at the Small Mammal House, picking off mongooses one by one as they poked their heads out of their burrows.
“D.J., I was very proud of you out there today,” a misty-eyed Trump Jr. said as he tousled his son’s hair and tenderly wiped a smear of giant anteater blood from the boy’s cheek. “Maybe someday, when you have a son of your own, you’ll take him to the zoo and kill something really great like a white rhino, or, who knows, maybe you’ll take him to an aquarium and bag a dolphin. Even I haven’t done that.”
At press time, having deemed a gazelle carcass too small to make a good wall mount, the Trumps had abandoned the dead animal near a lemonade cart to rot in the sun.
Monday, April 24, 2017
SUBSIDIZE THE ARTS AND HUMANITIES?
The Trump administration wants to defund the NEA, NEH and public broadcasting
By Howie Katz | Big Jolly Politics | April 23, 2017
Congress has just returned from one of its frequent breaks. The House is faced with passing a budget to avoid a damaging government shutdown. There are several contentious items that the Trump administration is pushing. One is the building of a wall along the Mexican border. Another is the defunding of subsidies for the arts and humanities.
The Trump administration wants to defund the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) and the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) along with the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
The defunding of NEA and NEH probably would not have been proposed were it not for the “Piss Christ” photograph and the “Tongues of Flame”.
In 1989, contemporary artist Andres Serrano exhibited his "Piss Christ" (Serrano's title) photograph of a crucifix submerged in a jar of Serrano's blood and urine. The exhibit was a deliberate attempt by the artist to offend members of the Christian faith. Serrano had received a $15,000 grant for his exhibit from the NEA.
In 1990, the "Tongues of Flame" exhibit by artist David Wojnarowicz consisted of several offensive depictions of Jesus Christ, including one of Jesus "mainlining" heroin by injecting a hypodermic needle into his arm. Wojnarowicz's exhibit was also funded by the NEA.
I am sure that even someone with half a brain can agree that funding such outrageous and offensive ‘art’ is a terrible waste of the taxpayers’ money. While those creeps Serrano and Wojnarowicz had every right to exhibit their anti-Christian smut, the NEA did not have to dole them the funds to do it. But is that any reason to defund the federal subsidies to the arts and humanities?
As for public broadcasting, conservatives are angry with the far-left slant some of its programs have taken on, and well theyshould be. But those leftie programs constitute only a small part of public broadcasting. For the most part the public radio and TV programs are very informative on a great variety of subjects.
The reasons given for defunding the NEA, NEH and public broadcasting is to help slash the federal deficit. Well and good. But is defunding the three programs really going to cut down on the deficit? Let’s look at the appropriations in the 2016 federal budget:
All appropriations except for the NEA, NEH and public broadcasting: $3.899 trillion
NEA: $148 million. That is 0.003 percent of the total spending.
NEH: $148 million. That is 0.003 percent of the total spending.
Corporation for Public Broadcasting: $445 million. That is 0.01 percent of the total spending.
So there you have it. Cutting the funding for the NEA, NEH and public broadcasting will have absolutely no effect on the federal deficit.
Because those programs do far more good than harm, I’m for continuing to subsidize them.
By Howie Katz | Big Jolly Politics | April 23, 2017
Congress has just returned from one of its frequent breaks. The House is faced with passing a budget to avoid a damaging government shutdown. There are several contentious items that the Trump administration is pushing. One is the building of a wall along the Mexican border. Another is the defunding of subsidies for the arts and humanities.
The Trump administration wants to defund the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) and the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) along with the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
The defunding of NEA and NEH probably would not have been proposed were it not for the “Piss Christ” photograph and the “Tongues of Flame”.
In 1989, contemporary artist Andres Serrano exhibited his "Piss Christ" (Serrano's title) photograph of a crucifix submerged in a jar of Serrano's blood and urine. The exhibit was a deliberate attempt by the artist to offend members of the Christian faith. Serrano had received a $15,000 grant for his exhibit from the NEA.
In 1990, the "Tongues of Flame" exhibit by artist David Wojnarowicz consisted of several offensive depictions of Jesus Christ, including one of Jesus "mainlining" heroin by injecting a hypodermic needle into his arm. Wojnarowicz's exhibit was also funded by the NEA.
I am sure that even someone with half a brain can agree that funding such outrageous and offensive ‘art’ is a terrible waste of the taxpayers’ money. While those creeps Serrano and Wojnarowicz had every right to exhibit their anti-Christian smut, the NEA did not have to dole them the funds to do it. But is that any reason to defund the federal subsidies to the arts and humanities?
As for public broadcasting, conservatives are angry with the far-left slant some of its programs have taken on, and well theyshould be. But those leftie programs constitute only a small part of public broadcasting. For the most part the public radio and TV programs are very informative on a great variety of subjects.
The reasons given for defunding the NEA, NEH and public broadcasting is to help slash the federal deficit. Well and good. But is defunding the three programs really going to cut down on the deficit? Let’s look at the appropriations in the 2016 federal budget:
All appropriations except for the NEA, NEH and public broadcasting: $3.899 trillion
NEA: $148 million. That is 0.003 percent of the total spending.
NEH: $148 million. That is 0.003 percent of the total spending.
Corporation for Public Broadcasting: $445 million. That is 0.01 percent of the total spending.
So there you have it. Cutting the funding for the NEA, NEH and public broadcasting will have absolutely no effect on the federal deficit.
Because those programs do far more good than harm, I’m for continuing to subsidize them.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)