James Woods: “Notoriously liberal West Hollywood had the brilliant idea of replacing police officers with unarmed ‘safety ambassadors.’ Let’s take a peek at how that’s worked out during an assault in progress…”
https://twitter.com/RealJamesWoods/status/1651957227375431680
‘It’s going to hit the consumer hard,’ Those with higher credit scores may pay higher mortgage fees
I think it’s absolutely horrible that they are punishing responsible behavior and rewarding irresponsible behavior. This is the exact opposite of what they should be doing.
https://www.cbsnews.com/boston/news/mortgage-fee-changes-good-high-credit-scores/
‘It’s going to hit the consumer hard,’ Those with higher credit scores may pay higher mortgage fees
By Courtney Cole
April 26, 2023
BOSTON – Changes in the mortgage industry could spell bad news even if you have good credit.
Beginning May 1, some people with higher credit scores may actually end up paying a higher fee while those with lower scores will pay less.
“It’s really a big change,” explained mortgage loan officer and credit score expert Al Bingham. “It’s going to hit the consumer hard when they go to apply for a mortgage.”
The changes are part of the federal government’s effort to provide equitable access to home ownership.
According to Bingham, it comes down to fees that lenders pay back to federal programs that back the mortgages. For some first-time homebuyers those fees are often rolled into a higher interest rate paid by the consumer.
Here is what it will mean for first-time homebuyers who fit certain income guidelines.
For a homeowner with a $500,000 purchase price who puts down the minimum down payment, a person with a 660 credit score will get a rate of about 6.25% while a buyer with a 740 score will pay 6.5%.
The changes will also make it more expensive for borrowers to refinance and to pull equity out of their homes to pay off consumer debt.
According to the Federal Housing Finance Agency, while some fees are being eliminated for lower-income buyers, and fees are being increased for for some buyers with higher credit scores, the two are not cause-and effect. “Higher-credit-score borrowers are not being charged more so that lower-credit-score borrowers can pay less,” they said in a statement. “Some updated fees are higher and some are lower, in differing amounts. They do not represent pure decreases for high-risk borrowers or pure increases for low-risk borrowers.” You can read their full explanation of the fee changes on their website.
San Francisco Drops Case against Homeless Man Who Beat Former City Official with a Crowbar
San Francisco has a really messed up definition of “self defense.” In the real world, the person acting in self defense was the one who used the pepper spray, not the one who used the crow bar. San Francisco has this completely backwards.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/san-francisco-drops-case-against-145629569.html
San Francisco Drops Case against Homeless Man Who Beat Former City Official with a Crowbar
By Brittany Bernstein
April 26, 2023
The San Francisco district attorney’s office on Tuesday dropped the charges against a homeless man who allegedly attacked former San Francisco fire commissioner Don Carmignani earlier this month with a crowbar, sending him to the hospital for emergency surgery to treat a hole in the back of his skull.
The case was dropped after prosecutors concluded the attacker, Garrett Doty, was acting in self-defense when he beat Carmignani so badly that he broke the former fire commissioner’s jaw and left him in need of 50 stitches, the New York Post reported.
The incident began when Carmignani confronted Doty and two other vagrants who were allegedly blocking Carmignani’s mother’s driveway in the city’s Marina District while consuming drugs and harassing neighbors. His mother’s calls to 911 had gone unanswered.
During the confrontation, the trio refused to leave and Doty allegedly became aggressive. Carmignani then deployed pepper spray on Doty.
Because Carmignani sprayed Doty, the district attorney’s office has concluded the homeless man was acting in self-defense when he viciously attacked Carmignani, despite prosecutors having obtained video of the attacker taking the crowbar out of a garbage can and taking practice swings before the attack.
Video appears to show Doty cornering Carmignani, who was heavily bleeding, against the wall of a gas station store while brandishing a crowbar. Carmignani tried to fight back, but Doty struck him in the head with the crowbar when Carmignani went to wipe blood from his eyes.
Carmignani attempted to escape toward the road but Doty hit him in the head again and then chased him down the sidewalk, according to the report.
The attack left Carmignani in the ICU for several days.
While Doty was initially charged with assault with a deadly weapon, aggravated battery with serious bodily injury, and assault with force likely to produce great bodily injury, it not may be Carmignani who now faces charges for spraying the pepper spray, according to the report.
Police and the district attorney’s office did not interview Carmignani about the incident before dropping the case, a source close to the victim told the paper.
In Chicago, two car thieves, age 14 and 17, drove recklessly and killed an innocent person. ABC News Chicago said, “The two have been charged with just one misdemeanor count of criminal trespassing each.”
By Daniel Alman (aka Dan from Squirrel Hill)
April 25, 2023
In Chicago, two car thieves, age 14 and 17, drove recklessly and killed an innocent person.
ABC News Chicago said, “The two have been charged with just one misdemeanor count of criminal trespassing each.”
Source: https://abc7chicago.com/cristian-uvidia-west-garfield-park-chicago-crash-kim-foxx/13181868/
This is absolutely despicable.
Chicago is way, way, way too lenient on criminals who kill people.
Extinction Rebellion leader Gail Bradbrook exposed as eco-hypocrite who has diesel car and buys imported food in non-recyclable packaging
Extinction Rebellion leader exposed as eco-hypocrite who has diesel car & buys imported food in non-recyclable packaging
By Nick Parker
April 20, 2023
A leader of climate protesters Extinction Rebellion was last night exposed as a diesel-driving eco-hypocrite who buys imported food.
Gail Bradbrook was shopped by a member of the public who saw her stocking up on Waitrose goods that had travelled thousands of air miles.
Gail Bradbrook was exposed as a diesel-driving eco-hypocrite who buys imported food.
The hypocrite was spotted by a member of the public who saw her stocking up on Waitrose goods that had travelled thousands of air miles.
The shopper who spotted her told The Sun: ‘She was doing everything Extinction Rebellion tells us not to do.’
As someone who does not live in New York City, I support Alvin Bragg’s decision not to prosecute theft
By Daniel Alman (aka Dan from Squirrel Hill)
April 21, 2023
This article from Fox News is called, Alvin Bragg promises not to prosecute theft to establish ‘racial equity’ balance: ‘Crime of poverty’.
I support the right of the 50 states and their respective cities to engage in different kinds of experiments, including ones that I think are ridiculous. I’m in favor of this particular one, because it’s what the voters wanted, and because I don’t live in this city.
I’m going to have a lot of fun watching all those YouTube videos of criminals in New York City who are smart enough to realize that they will never be prosecuted. How can I even blame them, when the person in charge of running the city is telling them that it’s OK for them to do what they are doing? The people of New York City are about to get exactly what they voted for, and I am going to have a lot of fun watching it happen.
L.A. Councilwoman Nithya Raman Blames Toyota for Catalytic-Converter Theft, Opposes Motion Targeting Thieves
https://www.yahoo.com/news/l-councilwoman-blames-toyota-catalytic-133800854.html
L.A. Councilwoman Blames Toyota for Catalytic-Converter Theft, Opposes Motion Targeting Thieves
By Ari Blaff
April 21, 2023
Rather than vote in favor of a motion banning the unlawful possession of catalytic converters — a valuable automotive part — Nithya Raman, a Los Angeles councilwoman, voted against the measure and blamed car manufacturers for making the part too easy to steal.
“In this case, I think one of the things that infuriates me, is that we have a company — whatever, Toyota — who makes the Prius, that essentially has a device on their cars which is super easy to remove. It’s basically the value of a MacBook, right?” the Democratic lawmaker said.
“That is put in a place that is incredibly easy to access in your car and the thefts related to this issue have essentially — all of the costs of that — are given to us to bear instead of them [Toyota] having to manufacture a car that actually is not so easy to be stolen,” the Harvard-educated Raman added.
The motion, which passed by a vote of 8-to-4 last Tuesday, stipulated that nearly 8,000 catalytic converter components had been stolen across Los Angeles in 2022, a 728 percent spike since 2018.
“It’s a crime happening to the constituents in our community that’s hurting people and one that we are allowing, we are failing to act on, if we do not pass this today,” said Councilman John Lee, who introduced the motion.
“This is a common-sense measure that simply provides law enforcement with an additional tool that will protect our communities from rampant and damaging theft.”
Raman was joined in her opposition by Councilwoman Eunisses Hernandez who argued that the motion would “not make our city safer” and that it could have an impact on Latino and Black communities.
“This ordinance is a costly one for the city,” Hernandez added. “It will lead to more cases for the city attorney. It will lead to more money spent on courts and more money spent on public defenders.”
Those opposing the motion insisted that car owners should fabricate cages or use anti-theft devices to protect their cars.
“When somebody gets something stolen, the city should be doing everything we can to make sure they’re made whole — not to punish another person,” Councilman Marqueece Harris-Dawson said.
Raman, a card-carrying member of the Democratic Socialists of America, first became involved in Los Angeles politics following her advocacy combatting homelessness.
“It’s incredibly important for us to be able to address not just the homelessness crisis but the broader housing crisis of which homelessness is just the most egregious symptom,” Raman said in an interview with the socialist magazine, Jacobin, in 2020.
“It is changing who gets to live here and who doesn’t get to live here. It’s pushing out working people and people of color.”
Raman resigned from her post as an executive of Time’s Up Entertainment, a sexual assault awareness organization dedicated to the film and media industry, to run for office, which she entered in December 2020.
“Instead of responding to it with work, with urgency, with focus, on actually addressing the issue, we say, ‘Oh, we’ll just ban it. We’ll just ban it and it’ll be the end of it,’” Raman added during the community meeting explaining her opposition to the motion.
Covid pandemic sparked by accidental leak from Wuhan lab, US investigation concludes
Covid pandemic sparked by accidental leak from Wuhan lab, US investigation concludes
The 300-page report into Covid origins finds leak was likely ‘unintentional resulting from failures of biosafety containment’
By Nick Allen
18 April 2023
The pandemic was probably the result of a “research-related incident” at a laboratory in Wuhan, China, a lengthy US Senate report concluded.
It said the theory that Covid-19 jumped from animals to humans in a market no longer deserved the “presumption of accuracy”.
The 300-page report, released to Axios, was the full version of a 35-page summary published in October by the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee.
It said: “The Covid-19 pandemic was, more likely than not, the result of a research-related incident.
“New information, made publicly available and independently verifiable, could change this assessment.
“However, the hypothesis of a natural zoonotic origin no longer deserves the benefit of the doubt, or the presumption of accuracy.”
The report suggested that advocates of the natural transmission theory “must provide clear and convincing evidence” for their argument.
It concluded: “The preponderance of information affirms the plausibility of a research-related incident that was likely unintentional resulting from failures of biosafety containment during vaccine-related research.”
Scientists, and US intelligence, have been divided over whether the pandemic originated at the Wuhan Institute of Virology [WIV], which had been collecting and manipulating bat viruses, or from a natural spillover at a Wuhan market selling live animals.
The report said there were “anomalies” between Covid-19 and other diseases that have spilled over naturally from animals to humans.
And it said, three years on, no critical evidence had been found proving there was a natural spillover.
It added that there had not been spillovers of the virus in numerous places at numerous times, as might be expected if that was the cause.
The report also noted that the type of bats carrying the closest virus to Covid-19 lived over 1,000 miles away from Wuhan.
However, the lab had collected over 200 coronaviruses, and employees had been photographed handling bats with inadequate protective gear, the report said.
Scientists there had been involved in research aimed at preventing future pandemics, and had sought funding to engineer coronaviruses, it said.
The report said: “A research-related incident is consistent with the early epidemiology [of Covid-19] showing rapid spread of the virus in Wuhan, with the earliest calls for assistance being located near the WIV’s original campus in central Wuhan.
“In short, human errors, mechanical failure, animal bites, animal escapes, inadequate training, insufficient funding, and pressure for results can lead to an escape of virulent pathogens, which could, in turn, infect animals and humans and lead to a release of a virus from a lab.”
However, the report dis not offer a “definitive” conclusion on the origin of the pandemic.
It said: “More information is needed to arrive at a more precise, if not a definitive, understanding of the origins…and how the Covid-19 pandemic began.
“Governments, leaders, public health officials, and scientists involved in addressing the Covid-19 pandemic and working to prevent future pandemics, must commit to greater transparency, engagement, and responsibility in their efforts.”
Last month, Christopher Wray, the director of the FBI, said Covid “most likely” leaked from the Wuhan lab.
Mr Wray said: “The FBI has for quite some time now assessed that the origins of the pandemic are most likely a potential lab incident in Wuhan.”
The US Department of Energy has also concluded that a lab leak was the most likely cause, although with “low confidence”.
The energy department oversees a network of 17 US laboratories researching advanced biology.
Meanwhile, the CIA reportedly remains undecided between the lab leak and natural transmission theories.
Jake Sullivan, the US national security adviser, said last month there was not a “definitive answer” yet.
He said: “Some elements of the intelligence community have reached conclusions on one side, some on the other, and a number have said they just don’t have enough information to be sure.”
Here’s yet another example of how New York City refuses to protect is citizens from violent criminals
Man Arrested in Harlem Killings Had Been Accused of Attacking Officers
Messiah Nantwi faces murder charges after shootings on Saturday and Easter Sunday. He previously faced charges after a shootout in 2021, and was out on bail.
By Chelsia Rose Marcius and Liset Cruz
April 11, 2023
A Harlem man who was out on bail after being accused of trying to kill police officers during a shootout was charged on Tuesday with killing two men over Easter weekend, according to the New York Police Department.
The man, Messiah Nantwi, 21, was arrested on Tuesday and charged with murder after two men were shot in the head in separate incidents, the police said.
He was also charged with one count of criminal possession of a weapon, the police said. Mr. Nantwi was expected to be arraigned in Manhattan, though the district attorney’s office could not confirm a time or date.
The police first responded about 4:45 p.m. Saturday to a call reporting a man shot near the corner of Madison Avenue and East 132nd Street. The victim, who was 19, was brought to NYC Health and Hospitals/Harlem, where he was pronounced dead. The police have not identified him.
Then, just before 8 p.m. Sunday, officers responded to a 911 call about a man shot inside a smoke shop on Malcolm X Boulevard near West 125th Street. They found the victim, Brandon Brunson, 36, of East New York, Brooklyn, with a gunshot wound to the head, the police said. He was brought to NYC Health and Hospitals/Harlem, where he was pronounced dead.
Authorities did not say what set off the violence, but it was not the first involving Mr. Nantwi.
In 2021, he was charged in the Bronx with first- and second-degree attempted murder after an encounter during which a police sergeant and two police officers were fired upon, according the indictment in that case.
Officers had spotted Mr. Nantwi and a second person on Feb. 21, 2021, carrying spray paint cans at Elton Avenue and East 153rd Street, prosecutors said at the time.
When officers tried to arrest Mr. Nantwi, he pulled out a .22-caliber pistol and fired three shots at the sergeant, Darren Earl, and the officers, Malik Underwood and Erick Reyes, according to the authorities.
The officers and the sergeant then fired 31 shots at Mr. Nantwi, striking him several times. He was treated at Lincoln Hospital, according to a March 2021 news release from the Bronx district attorney. The officers were not injured.
Mr. Nantwi was also charged at the time with criminal use and possession of a firearm, three counts of menacing a police officer, resisting arrest and possession of graffiti instruments, among other charges.
Patrice O’Shaughnessy, a spokeswoman for the Bronx district attorney, said Mr. Nantwi was jailed after his initial arraignment.
After a grand jury formally indicted him, a judge set a $300,000 bail. Mr. Nantwi posted 10 percent of that, $30,000, as the law permits, she said. He has been free and awaiting trial since April 20, 2021, according to Ms. O’Shaughnessy and city Correction Department records.
Mr. Nantwi’s lawyer in the Bronx case could not be reached for comment. It was not immediately clear on Tuesday who will represent him in the Manhattan murder cases.
In recent year, New York bail laws have become a matter of fierce debate in Albany as the governor and lawmakers try to balance public safety and the fair treatment of defendants who have not been convicted of crimes.
New York is the only state where judges cannot explicitly assess a defendant’s “dangerousness” when setting bail. Instead, judges must choose the “least restrictive” means merely to ensure that defendants return to court. Changes to the law last year now allow them to consider whether a defendant has previously used or possessed a gun.
This year, Governor Kathy Hochul has proposed doing away with the “least restrictive” standard for some serious charges. That would let judges set higher bail based on whether they believe a defendant poses a threat to the community. Some Democrats have said the change would needlessly increase the number of people jailed before trial.
In an interview Tuesday, Mr. Brunson’s mother, Gwendolyn Brunson, questioned why Mr. Nantwi was not held for longer after the 2021 shooting.
“You shot at a cop; you supposedly killed someone” on Saturday, she said. “Why was this person not in jail? It blows my mind.”
Ms. Brunson and Mr. Brunson’s sister, Portia Evans, said he spent time with a close knit circle of friends. For years he worked at Mount Morris Plaza Senior Housing, one block away from where he was killed, Ms. Evans said. The last time his sister spoke with him was on Friday during a FaceTime call. They were planning to take her 6-year-old son to an Easter egg hunt on Sunday.
Ms. Brunson said she would miss her son’s comforting presence.
“A little light was taken from the world,” she added. “It tears me up that someone took it upon himself, as he walked away, just to shoot him. How heartless can you be?”
If Democrats are against gun crimes, why did they put John Fetterman into the U.S. Senate instead of into prison?
According to this article from NBC News, in 2013, John Fetterman pointed a gun an an unarmed, innocent, law abiding black man.
If Democrats are against gun crimes, why did they put John Fetterman into the U.S. Senate instead of into prison?
Republican group launches new anti-Fetterman ads
The ads, airing in Pennsylvania, highlight a 2013 incident in which Democrat John Fetterman pulled a gun on an unarmed Black man.
By Alexandra Marquez
October 4, 2022
The Republican Jewish Coalition Victory Fund is out with two new ads in Pennsylvania’s Senate race targeting Democratic nominee John Fetterman over a 2013 incident where he pulled a firearm on an unarmed Black jogger.
The ads feature two Black voters discussing the incident.
“My message to Black voters: do your homework about John Fetterman,” one woman says in the first ad.
“He didn’t even apologize and now he wants our vote?” she adds.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3UetczhGlU
The ad is a reminder of a 2013 incident that occurred when Fetterman was mayor of Braddock, Pennsylvania. After hearing shots fired outside of his home, Fetterman used his shotgun to stop an unarmed man and detain him until police arrived.
Police found the man to be unarmed and wearing running clothes and headphones.
The incident has caused a wedge between some Black Democrats in Pennsylvania and Fetterman. It’s been brought up in other ads attacking Fetterman earlier this year, too.
In the second RJC ad, another Black voter tells viewers, “Now this guy’s running for Senate — you can’t make that s— up.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lx0iJeH0-xQ
In a statement, the Fetterman campaign’s communication director told NBC News, “There’s a reason all these attack ads never say what Dr. Oz would do about crime — because he doesn’t have a clue. They’re using fear and lies because they don’t have any real solutions.”
“Dr. Oz doesn’t know the first thing about crime, or what it takes to keep a community safe,” the statement said.
In a video released by the campaign in April, Fetterman himself addressed the incident, saying, “There was an episode over eight years ago, where I was outside with my young son who was four-years old at the time. And I heard this crushing burst of gunfire coming from a corridor that was the scene of dozens of shootings.”
“I immediately made a series of split second decisions: get my son to safety, call 9-1-1,” Fetterman adds. “And then I saw an individual dressed entirely in black, in a face mask, who was running from that scene in the direction of our elementary school … I realized that I could never forgive myself if I didn’t do anything and something terrible would’ve happened. So, I made that decision at that point to intervene.”
RJC is spending over $1.5 million on this ad campaign, a press release from the group said. The ads will air in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh.
The same day that RJC’s ad campaign was released, Future Forward PAC, an anti-Oz, pro-Fetterman group, also launched two ads blasting Oz for peddling unverified medical claims on the TV show he hosted for years before running for Senate.
“This is the lightweight Mehmet Oz, the guy who made a career promising miracle cures that turned out to be bogus,” a narrator in one FF PAC ad says.
“This is John Fetterman,” the narrator says later, adding, “the guy who will cut taxes for working people, slash healthcare costs and fight for a woman’s right to choose. Now, with everything going on in the world, who do you want in your corner?”
Harlan Crow collects memorabilia from the Nazis and the communists. The mainstream media only criticized him for one, and gave him a pass on the other.
By Daniel Alman (aka Dan from Squirrel Hill)
April 11, 2023
When I heard about recent news reports that Harlan Crow (a friend of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas) collected Nazi memorabilia, I thought, “Maybe there’s a context to this collecting that isn’t being accurately reported – or maybe not.”
Well, as it turns out, the context is that the media has a double standard when it comes to Nazism and communism. They criticized Crow for collecting memorabilia for one, while giving him a pass on the other.
Wikipedia states:
“Crow’s backyard garden is home to at least 20 statues of authoritarian leaders and Communist icons, including Vladimir Lenin, Josef Stalin, Fidel Castro, Mao Zedong, Karl Marx, Hosni Mubarak, Josip Broz Tito, Nicolae Ceausescu, Walter Ulbricht, Gavrilo Princip, Bela Kun, and Che Guevara. Crow acquired these former public monuments after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc. According to Crow, he collects such memorabilia because he ‘hates communism and fascism.’ Crow also owns original paintings by Adolf Hitler, Claude Monet, Rembrandt Peale, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Winston Churchill, and Dwight Eisenhower.”
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harlan_Crow
I hate the media’s double standard for Nazism vs communism.
On the other hand, I love the fact that Crow “hates communism and fascism.” As a libertarian, I view the two as being very similar to each other. I never understood how anyone could hate only one but not the other. If I go to a restaurant and the menu has a bowl of feces and a bowl of pus, I would walk out. And I would never understand any person who was only disgusted by one but not by the other.
The city of Oakland, California knowingly and deliberately allowed a violent serial criminal named Jamal Thomas to murder an innocent man named Miles Armstead. The police, the district attorney, the probation officer, and the judge all knew what was going on, and they knowingly and deliberately allowed this murder to happen.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/city-didn-t-stop-man-210705841.html
City didn’t stop man’s ‘campaign of terror’ that ended in deadly shooting, CA suit says
By Madeleine List
April 5, 2023
Officials in California did nothing to stop a man’s “relentless campaign of terror” against a family before he shot and killed their patriarch, according to a federal lawsuit.
The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California on April 3, says police officers with the City of Oakland and probation officers with the County of Alameda could have done more to prevent the killing of Miles Armstead. The “beloved” husband and father was killed by his next-door neighbor, Jamal Thomas, a “violent” man who was on probation at the time of the killing, the lawsuit says.
Armstead and his family made repeated calls to police to report harassment by Thomas and got a restraining order against him, but police officers consistently dismissed their concerns, the lawsuit says. Despite the fact that Thomas was on probation and violated the terms of his release, county officials did not revoke his probation and allowed him to go “completely uncontacted” for weeks leading up to Armstead’s killing on May 1, 2020, the lawsuit says.
The Oakland city attorney’s office declined to comment on the pending litigation. A spokesperson for Alameda County did not respond to a request for comment from McClatchy News.
Thomas is charged with murder and multiple other counts in connection with Armstead’s killing, according to Alameda County court records. No attorney for him is listed. He has pleaded not guilty to the murder charge, according to court records.
‘Campaign of terror’
In 2019, about two years after Armstead, a father of five, moved into an Oakland neighborhood with his wife, he and his family began to be harassed by Thomas, who was squatting at a neighboring property, the lawsuit says.
Between December 2019 and February 2020, Armstead called 911 at least 23 times to report harassment by Thomas, the lawsuit says. Thomas broke in; threw stones and bricks through the family’s windows, at one point injuring Armstead’s pregnant wife; and threatened to burn their house down, the lawsuit says. Armstead had a restraining order against Thomas at the time, according to the lawsuit.
Despite the ongoing harassment, police officers did not appear to take the threats to Armstead’s family seriously, according to the lawsuit.
“Each time Oakland Police were called, their response times became longer, and in conformance with their practice – their efforts lessened,” the lawsuit says. “On at least one occasion, the Armsteads did not receive a response to their call for service until two days later.”
Officers also often did not arrest or question Thomas about the crimes the Armsteads accused him of, which “emboldened (Thomas) further,” the lawsuit says.
During one call for service on Feb. 26, 2020, an officer responded to Armstead’s home where he was holding a baseball bat to protect his family and Thomas was threatening to burn Armstead’s house down, the lawsuit says. The officer told Armstead and Thomas that they were “acting like 12-year-old girls,” the lawsuit says. The officer then suggested that Thomas “go back down the street,” according to the lawsuit.
In March 2020, Thomas was arrested and released under the supervision of the Alameda County Probation Department, the lawsuit says. His probation officer was required to make contact with him every week to ensure he was complying with the terms of his release and the restraining order the Armsteads had against him, according to the lawsuit.
Instead, a probation officer met with Thomas on March 11, 2020, “directly in front of … Armstead’s house in violation of the restraining order,” the lawsuit says. Despite the violation, Thomas’s probation was not revoked. Probation officers then did not have contact with Thomas for nearly eight weeks, despite requirements to be in touch with him on a weekly basis, according to the lawsuit.
In the meantime, Armstead had become “so desperate from the lack of intervention from law enforcement” that he and his family decided to sell their home and move from the neighborhood, the lawsuit says. On May 1, 2020, while he was cleaning the front yard of the home after it was sold, Thomas fatally shot him, the lawsuit says.
“The probation department and the police department, they doused this flame with gasoline, and it just continued to grow and grow until it was completely out of control, and this inferno consumed Miles’s family,” Adante Pointer, an attorney with Pointer & Buelna who is representing the family, told McClatchy News.
‘Ripple effects’
Pointer said Armstead’s death has had “ripple effects” in the community beyond his family.
“He was a coach, he mentored people, he was a bank executive,” he said. “He touched a lot of lives.”
His family has also been “suffering,” he said.
“His most recent child never got a chance to meet their father,” Pointer said. “His older kids, they miss their father tremendously. His wife is left to raise a family without the patriarch.”
Pointer said city and county officials had a duty to supervise Thomas, and they failed.
“Any family, any person that is legitimately calling the police 20 plus times to their home because they’re being menaced and harassed and injured by anyone, should be taken seriously,” he said. “The taxpayers have a right to expect that our public employees are performing their job constitutionally and faithfully.”
The lawsuit accuses Oakland and Alameda County of negligence and wrongful death and seeks an unspecified amount of damages, including medical costs, funeral and burial expenses, and pain, suffering and emotional distress.
“Miles and his family were searching for and had invested in the American dream,” Pointer said, “and no one’s American dream should turn into a nightmare because of the ineffectiveness and the callous disregard of our government.”
Family of Oakland toddler killed by stray bullet decries DA’s plan to not pursue jailtime for suspects
https://www.yahoo.com/news/family-oakland-toddler-killed-during-215336782.html
Family of Oakland toddler killed by stray bullet decries DA’s plan to not pursue jailtime for suspects
Michelle De Pacina
April 6, 2023
The family of Jasper Wu, an Oakland toddler who was killed by a stray bullet, have voiced concern over Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price’s plans to not pursue jail time for the suspects.
Wu was driving home to Fremont, California, with his family on Nov. 6, 2021, when a stray bullet pierced their car on Interstate 880. The bullet passed through their front windshield and hit the 23-month-old toddler in the forehead.
The bullet came from a rival gang shootout between two vehicles exchanging fire. Trevor Green, 22, Ivory Bivins, 24, and Johnny Jackson, 34, were arrested in December 2022 and charged with murder, shooting at an occupied vehicle and possession of a firearm by a felon.
They are expected to have their preliminary hearing on murder charges by the end of this month.
When a member of the Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) community asked Price for an update on the case, Price responded in an email:
Our office is currently working on a partnership with the Asian Law Caucus to support AAPI victims of violence in ways that open up broader possibilities for healing and non-carceral forms of accountability.
Price revealed that her office is working to pursue “non-carceral” — meaning no jail time, even for criminals — forms of punishment.
The email, which was obtained by ABC7 News, was met with criticism from Wu’s family and Norbert Chu, who previously served as an Alameda County prosecutor for 35 years.
“There are almost no consequences due to no threat of severe punishments waiting,” a spokesperson for the Wu family told ABC 7 News. “How would that restore the public’s faith in the justice system? How would the public feel safe?”
“If I were Jasper’s parents, I would be highly offended. And I would be very fearful,” Chu said, noting that Price’s “insulting” statement appears to tell the AAPI community that “somehow we’re lesser victims than other people.”
When ABC 7’s Dan Noyes checked with the Asian Law Caucus regarding Price’s plan, they denied knowing anything about the email, noting that the first meeting with her office was only introductory.
“I’m very confused about this,” said the nonprofit’s executive director.
Although no decision has been made about dropping enhancements in charges related to Wu’s death, Price has reportedly asked the toddler’s parents to come in for a meeting next week.
New York City refuses to protects its citizens from a violent serial criminal named Phillip Meyers
https://www.yahoo.com/news/killer-ex-con-identified-suspect-195100523.html
Killer ex-con identified as suspect in sucker-punch mugging that killed Brooklyn man devoted to caring for elderly mom
By Thomas Tracy, Rocco Parascandola, and Larry McShane
April 6, 2023
A killer ex-con feared as the “local bully” in his Brooklyn neighborhood was identified Thursday as the suspect in a $1,000 sucker-punch robbery that killed a local man devoted to caring for his elderly mother.
Career criminal Phillip Meyers, convicted of murder in 1999, had 17 prior arrests before the deadly attack on John Sarquiz, 55, as the victim walked home from a Dyker Heights mini-mart after making a cash withdrawal from an ATM machine, according to NYPD Chief of Detectives James Essig.
Meyers, whose 13-year-old son was convicted alongside him in the 24-year-old slaying, was paroled in 2009 and quickly rang up another eight arrests — the most recent in 2020 for burglary.
He was also busted repeatedly between 1992 and 1998, with the charges escalating from burglary and criminal mischief to the homicide case, said Essig. The victim was carrying $1,000 cash when targeted and attacked, according to police and family members.
The 45-year-old fugitive suspect’s last known address was on Beach 19th St. in Brooklyn, said Essig, and he was also known as Philip Mastrage.
Sarquiz was attacked from behind on the evening of March 29. The attacker fled the scene with the stolen cash after repeatedly kicking the helpless victim in the head and body, police said.
Sarquiz died five days later when family members made the gut-wrenching decision to take him off life support.
Since the death of his father in 2014, he had been his elderly mother’s full-time live-in caretaker, according to relatives.
The victim’s sister said she was told the killer emptied Sarquiz’s wallet before throwing it back at the mortally injured man. His family stood vigil at his hospital bed before removing Sarquiz from life support this past Monday at NYU Langone Hospital-Brooklyn.
Sarquiz was targeted while walking the two blocks home from the Dean Mini-Market where he often bought lottery tickets for himself and scratch-offs for his mom, his sister said.
His head slammed into the sidewalk as he collapsed to the pavement on 13th Ave. near 72nd St., cops said.
Sister Christina Sarquiz told the Daily News that her brother promised their father to take care of the mom before the dad passed away. Their heartbroken mother, 80-year-old Karen Sarquiz, visited her dying son at the hospital as the family held out hope for his recovery.
“He was determined to follow through of what his father asked of him,” his sister said. “It was a great sacrifice of his own life and independence to make sure she was OK.”
The lifelong Brooklynite grew up in nearby Sunset Park, attending the local Catholic school Our Lady of Perpetual Help.
An impromptu memorial of flowers and candles appeared outside the store, where Sarquiz was fondly recalled as a regular customer. The mini-mart was closed down for several days after his death in a show of respect for the victim, according to a store employee.
“He was a great guy,” said the worker. “We knew him for years. He would come in and get things for his mother.”
Sister Christina said the family had heard the wanted man had a rap sheet and previously did jail time, adding they were told the suspect was also a drug addict.
“I don’t know how someone with a repeat offense and criminal record is allowed to walk the streets,” she told The News.
New Testimony Confirms Ballot Tampering in Maricopa’s 2022 Election
New Testimony Confirms Ballot Tampering in Maricopa’s 2022 Election
By Wendi Strauch Mahoney
April 3, 2023
New testimony from Bob Hughes confirms ballot tampering in Maricopa County’s 2022 election. Hughes states in his affidavit that “an intentional change was made to the printers affecting the DAY OF Election ballots” in the 2022 Maricopa County midterm election. Hughes’ affidavit in Exhibit K of a newly filed Motion to Reconsider in Mark Finchem’s dismissed 2022 election lawsuit confirms previous testimony from Clay Parikh. Parikh was one of several expert witnesses in the Kari Lake lawsuit.
Parikh testified there are “only two ways the printing of a 19-inch image on a 20-inch paper happened, and they are both intentional. He explained, “One way is by changing the printer adjustments. That would make the printer adjustments, and settings override the image file that was set. The other is from the application side or the operating system side.”
Hughes has 50 years of experience in the printing industry—16 of which have been in “printing ballots for Maricopa County Elections,” according to his affidavit. He also helped “establish the auditing criteria for the printing and paper portion of the 2020 Maricopa County ballot audit and helped select and set up the equipment used during the audit to do the ballot counting.”
On Mar. 6, 2023, he and his team reviewed the Logic and Accuracy reports (L&A) for the 2022 Maricopa County Election. Hughes and his team “physically inspected the ballots at MCTEC that were used in the testing of the election tabulators.” They also reviewed each of the Maricopa County Voting Center certification reports and the Tabulator reports that were “printed during their testing.” His affidavit clarifies explicitly that “[t]he most important and notable finding is that every machine and every voting center report show that every test was passed without any failures.”
Personalized ballots were required in the Maricopa County election because of various local elections, such as school district races. Therefore “ballot styles” are created for each precinct and “are prepared for each election at MCTEC,” not at the Voting Centers. When a voter arrives at a Voting Center, his identity is verified by the poll worker. The poll worker then uses the County’s e-poll book system to “verify they have not returned a mail-in ballot.” However, on election day, mail-in ballots were also turned in to the Voting Centers, and thus, the e-poll book may not be up-to-date on the status of a given voter’s mail-in ballot.
Contrary to what many want us to believe, Hughes testified that the equipment to carry out the voter verification process and the printing of ballots “need to be networked and online at the same time.”
Additionally, and very importantly, is that “ballot STYLES” are “stored PDFs.” They are “locked style formats that cannot be revised on the fly,” according to Hughes. They are “built ahead of each election and stored.” As such, Hughes confidently asserts that the 19-inch format seen in the 2022 Maricopa County election “was incorrectly used by mistake.” Furthermore, Hughes “was told” during his team’s review at MCTEC that “only 20-inch formats were created and no 19-inch formats were created for the 2022 election.” The use of the 19-inch ballot was NOT accidental, according to Hughes. He posits the 19-inch ballots either represent “interference…from someone at MCTEC” or “someone hacking into the MCTEC system.”
Logically, Hughes concludes that the shenanigans must have been introduced after testing because the “L&A tests showed no errors.” And, since poll workers have no access to the printer command module, the “interference had to come through the online E-poll book and then to the printers.” Many printers at multiple locations—with a “high correlation of those within Republican precincts,” leaving Hughes with the impression it was “not happenstance but an orchestrated attack on the election.”
Hughes speculates there are a number of ways ballots came to be unreadable because of the “larger margin at the top and the bottom of the page,” as captured in the screenshot below,
L & A testing is performed before election day with a test set of ballots. The tests are required to “perform at 100% accuracy rate,” according to Hughes. Hughes was told the Oct. 11 test decks were printed at MCTEC. However, Hughes concludes that “DAY OF Election test decks were printed at each voting center” because of several “clear factors.”
This assumption led Hughes to conclude that an “intentional change was made to the printers” for Election Day ballots leading to what he believed was “a perfect opportunity for interference in the election.”
A Chicago auto parts store manager shot and killed a would-be robber Saturday after the suspect flashed a gun, according to police.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/armed-store-manager-turns-tables-174835873.html
A Chicago auto parts store manager shot and killed a would-be robber Saturday after the suspect flashed a gun, according to police.
By Haley Chi-Sing
April 2, 2023
A man between 30 and 40 years old reportedly entered an O’Reilly Auto Parts store in Calumet Heights, took out a firearm and demanded money from the register, police said.
The store manager, whose name has not yet been disclosed, pulled out his own firearm and fired shots at the robber. Police said the manager is a valid FOID cardholder.
The would-be robber was transported to the University of Chicago Hospital in critical condition and later died from his injuries, police said.
Multiple bullet holes riddled the vestibule, along with shattered glass out front of the building. A gun was also seen near the entrance to the shop. Detectives were later seen taking photos out front of the auto parts store.
Police have not yet publicly identified the deceased man.
The incident comes as many Chicago residents have become concealed carry holders.
A Fox News Digital analysis based on local media reports going back to 2020 found at least 44 incidents where individuals with a gun – who had concealed carry permits or an FOID, an Illinois identification card used for gun possession and purchase – have thwarted an attack or other crime.
Agatha Christie classics latest to be rewritten for modern sensitivities
Agatha Christie classics latest to be rewritten for modern sensitivities
Poirot and Miss Marple mysteries have original passages reworked or removed in new editions published by HarperCollins.
By Craig Simpson
25 March 2023
Agatha Christie novels have been rewritten for modern sensitivities, The Telegraph can reveal.
Poirot and Miss Marple mysteries have had original passages reworked or removed in new editions published by HarperCollins.
The character of a British tourist venting her frustration at a group of children has been purged from a recent reissue, while a number of references to people smiling and comments on their teeth and physiques, have also been erased.
It comes after books by Roald Dahl and Ian Fleming were edited by modern publishers.
The new editions of Christie’s works are set to be released or have been released since 2020 by HarperCollins, which is said by insiders to use the services of sensitivity readers. It has created new editions of the entire run of Miss Marple mysteries and selected Poirot novels.
Digital versions of new editions seen by The Telegraph include scores of changes to texts written from 1920 to 1976, stripping them of numerous passages containing descriptions, insults or references to ethnicity, particularly for characters Christie’s protagonists encounter outside the UK.
The author’s own narration, often through the inner monologue of Miss Jane Marple or Hercule Poirot, has been altered in many instances. Sections of dialogue uttered by often unsympathetic characters within the mysteries have also been cut.
In the 1937 Poirot novel Death on the Nile, the character of Mrs Allerton complains that a group of children are pestering her, saying that “they come back and stare, and stare, and their eyes are simply disgusting, and so are their noses, and I don’t believe I really like children”.
This has been stripped down in a new edition to state: “They come back and stare, and stare. And I don’t believe I really like children”.
Vocabulary has also been altered, with the term “Oriental” removed. Other descriptions have been altered in some instances, with a black servant, originally described as grinning as he understands the need to stay silent about an incident, described as neither black nor smiling but simply as “nodding”.
In a new edition of the 1964 Miss Marple novel A Caribbean Mystery, the amateur detective’s musing that a West Indian hotel worker smiling at her has “such lovely white teeth” has been removed, with similar references to “beautiful teeth” also taken out.
The same book described a prominent female character as having “a torso of black marble such as a sculptor would have enjoyed”, a description absent from the edited version.
References to the Nubian people – an ethnic group that has lived in Egypt for millennia – have been removed from Death on the Nile in many instances, resulting in “the Nubian boatman” becoming simply “the boatman”.
Dialogue in Christie’s 1920 debut novel The Mysterious Affair at Styles has been altered, so where Poirot once noted that another character is “a Jew, of course”, he now makes no such comment.
In the same book, a young woman described as being “of gypsy type” is now simply “a young woman”, and other references to gypsies have been removed from the text.
The 1979 collection Miss Marple’s Final Cases and Two Other Stories includes the character of an Indian judge who grows angry demanding his breakfast in the original text with “his Indian temper”, a phrase now changed to say “his temper”.
References to “natives” have also been removed or replaced with the word “local”.
Across the revised books, racial descriptions have been altered or removed, including, in A Caribbean Mystery, an entire passage where a character fails to see a black woman in some bushes at night as he walks to his hotel room.
The word “n—–” has been taken out of revised edition, both in Christie’s prose and the dialogue spoken by her characters.
It is not the first time Christie’s works have been altered. Her 1939 novel And Then There Were None was previously published under a different title that included a racist term.
Agatha Christie Limited, a company run by the author’s great grandson James Prichard, is understood to handle licensing for her literary and film rights. The company and HarperCollins have been contacted for comment.
NYC garage worker charged with attempted murder after shooting armed thief
https://www.yahoo.com/news/nyc-garage-worker-charged-attempted-074301782.html
NYC garage worker charged with attempted murder after shooting armed thief
By Landon Mion
April 2, 2023
A New York City parking garage attendant was hit with an attempted murder charge after confronting an armed thief and wrestling the gun away before opening fire on the suspect.
Moussa Diarra, 57, is also charged with assault and criminal possession of a weapon in connection with the incident that occurred at around 5:30 a.m. Saturday morning.
The attendant had observed a man looking into cars on the second floor of the West 31st Street garage in Manhattan, police said, according to the New York Post. Diarra suspected the man was stealing, so he brought him outside and questioned him about what was inside his bag.
The man then pulled a gun on Diarra, who attempted to grab the firearm. The gun was fired, leaving Diarra with a shot to the stomach and grazed in the ear by a bullet.
Diarra proceeded to turn the firearm on the potential thief and shot him in the chest.
The alleged thief, 59-year-old Charles Rhodie, was also charged with attempted murder, assault and criminal possession of a weapon. He also faces a burglary charge, police said.
Diarra and Rhodie were transported to Bellevue Hospital in stable condition after Saturday’s incident at the parking garage.
The charges against Diarra for defending himself against an attacker come after a similar incident last year. In July, Manhattan bodega clerk Jose Alba was charged with murder after a confrontation in the store with an angry customer who attacked him behind his counter. Alba stabbed and killed the attacker in self-defense but found himself at the Rikers Island jail charged with murder.
Alba spent six days in jail until District Attorney Alvin Bragg dropped the murder charge amid intense public pressure.
In my opinion, this killer should have gotten the death penalty. Liberals want him to be let out in just 22 years.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/ny-man-gets-22-years-191506232.html
NY man gets 22 years for Asian immigrant’s hate crime death
By Bobby Caina Calvan
March 31, 2023
A New York man was sentenced Friday to 22 years in prison for the fatal beating of a 61-year-old Chinese immigrant who was collecting cans for money.
Jarrod Powell, 51, pleaded guilty in January to manslaughter as a hate crime in the 2021 death of Yao Pan Ma, part of a wave of crimes targeting people of Asian and Pacific Islander descent in New York and around the country.
Ma, who came to the United States with his wife in 2018, was attacked from behind as he was collecting cans in East Harlem on April 23, 2021. He was knocked to the ground, kicked, stomped on and left unconscious, authorities said.
Ma suffered a traumatic brain injury and died in a hospital eight months later without ever regaining consciousness.
Powell was arrested four days after the assault. He acknowledged in his plea agreement that he had targeted Ma because the victim was Asian, according to Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office.
Bragg called Ma’s death “the result of a despicable racially motivated attack.”
The victim’s family “endured an agonizing eight months in the hospital while the devoted husband and father of two remained in a vegetative state, before succumbing to his injuries on December 31, 2021,” Bragg said in a statement.
In addition to his 22-year prison term, Powell was sentenced to five years of supervised release. Powell did not speak at his sentencing in Manhattan state Supreme Court. His attorney declined to comment.
Karlin Chan, a spokesperson for Ma’s family, said that while Powell’s sentence “represents closure and a measure of justice, there a lot more hate crimes that deserve justice.”
Elaine Chiu, a law professor at St. John’s University who heads the Asian American Bar Association of New York’s task force on anti-Asian hate, hailed the prosecution of Powell as a breakthrough in efforts to get hate crimes against people of Asian descent taken seriously.
Chiu said Ma’s death “was probably one of the worst ways to die because he was pummeled to death with the fists and hands and feet of another human being.”
Woman Faces $13,000 Fine For Calling French President ‘Filth’ On Facebook
Woman Faces $13,000 Fine For Calling French President ‘Filth’ On Facebook
By Matt Novak
March 30, 2023
An unnamed woman in France is facing a fine of roughly $13,000 for referring to French President Emmanuel Macron “filth” in a Facebook post, according to a report from the AFP news service that cites local prosecutors. The woman was even arrested and reportedly asked police if her arrest was part of some joke.
The woman allegedly created a Facebook post on March 21 where she referred to Macron as “this piece of filth,” describing the French President as “filth” at least twice on social media. The post was reportedly about Macron’s controversial attempt to raise the retirement age for most workers from 62 to 64.
The proposed pension reforms have set off a wave of violent protests in the country. An estimated 740,000 protesters took to the streets on Tuesday in hundreds of rallies across the country, according to CNN.
While France has some constitutional protections for freedom of speech, they’re not nearly as robust as the First Amendment protections afforded to Americans, who are free to call any political leader they like a piece of filth without fear of arrest or fines.
The unnamed woman, who’s reportedly in her 50s, was arrested on Friday near the town of Saint Omer, France after a local administrative office apparently filed a complaint. The woman is being charged under a law that bans “insulting the president of the republic,” according to the AFP.
I solved the March 7, 2023 Wordle in just two guesses!
I solved the March 7, 2023 Wordle in just two guesses!
My guesses were STRAP and HORSE.
Here’s a screenshot:
Dan from Squirrel Hill's Blog 