Texas family demands justice for son shot in his sleep after shooter gets 90-day sentence
In Texas, a guy who was in his apartment shot and killed another guy in the neighboring apartment. The shooter says it was an accident. I say there’s no such thing as an “accidental” shooting. This was negligence. 90 days is way too short. How about nitrogen asphyxiation?
https://www.yahoo.com/news/family-demands-justice-son-shot-100000357.html
Texas family demands justice for son shot in his sleep after shooter gets 90-day sentence
By Nicole Lopez
July 31, 2023
Austin Salyer was a stellar student at Texas State University. Originally from Highland Village, a small town in North Texas, he had dreams of becoming a military officer.
Five semesters into his college education at Texas State, the 20-year-old made the dean’s list.
“He was just doing tremendous,” said Austin’s father, Rodney Salyer, in an interview with the Star-Telegram.
Austin was in the university’s ROTC program for a year when he signed his commitment papers on Sept. 9, 2021, to serve in the military. (more…)
In Florida, Republican snowflakes and crybabies are using cancel culture to try to ban Shakespeare
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2023/07/15/law-limits-florida-school-books/70414412007/
To be or not to be on the shelf? New Florida school book law could restrict even Shakespeare
By Douglas Soule, Ana Goñi-Lessan, and Jeanine Santucci
July 15, 2023
To be or not to be on the shelf? That’s the question school districts across Florida are asking themselves as they figure out how to apply a new book-challenge law.
In Leon County, home to the state’s capital, school-media specialist Kathleen Malloy says “The Bard,” William Shakespeare, could be at risk. Shakespeare’s works have already been restricted for certain grades in Orange County, which includes Orlando.
Schools are having to ditch long-established methods for choosing what books to purchase and teach. Since the new law signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis took effect July 1, if a school district finds material that contains “sexual conduct,” under the state’s definition, it must “discontinue use of the material for any grade level or age group for which such use is inappropriate or unsuitable.”
Malloy said she used to go by a system called the Miller Test, a three-prong method established with Supreme Court rulings to determine whether material was obscene. No longer.
“Even Shakespeare is suspect,” Malloy said.
State law goes into effect over ‘sexual conduct’ in books at schools
Malloy and other media specialists around the state are interpreting the new legislation, HB 1069, to mean that districts could be breaking the law if they do not pull media containing “sexual conduct.” That includes many books needed to take the College Board’s Advanced Placement literature exam and dual-enrollment classes.
Malloy said that could even apply to books that overall are “very valuable as a piece of literature,” with just one or two small scenes that fall under the “sexual conduct” definition.
Districts are awaiting training from the Florida Department of Education on how to proceed, and some have put their review processes on hold to wait for state guidance, including Brevard and Hillsborough.
In the meantime, book-access advocates are disputing how districts are interpreting the “sexual conduct” provision, and committees are leaning toward “erring on the side of caution” – something the state Department of Education advises media specialists to do when considering what books to keep in their libraries.
“It is overly cautious,” said Stephana Ferrell, co-founder and director of research and insight for the Florida Freedom to Read Project.
Parents who disagree with a school board’s final decision on a book challenge can now also request a special magistrate from the state to review the decision, on the school district’s dime, which Ferrell said could encourage groups to pressure school districts without actually filing book challenges – and potentially forcing districts to cave to avoid the challenge costs.
And, school districts must remove any book challenged because it includes pornography or sexual conduct within five days until the complaint is resolved.
The Department of Education did not respond to a media request.
What does ‘sexual conduct’ mean?
The state’s definition of “sexual conduct,” includes actual or simulated intercourse, exhibition of or physical contact with genitalia, or any depiction of “sexual battery.”
In Brevard County, the district’s book review committee voted to remove three texts by poet Rupi Kaur because of sexual content.
Committee member Michelle Beavers said her favorite poem is from “The Sun and All Her Flowers,” one of the texts under review, but she was still in favor of removing the book. The book includes drawings depicting outlines of naked bodies.
“It’s against statutes. We’re done. That’s it,” she said, holding up copies of the drawings.
While a review process is ongoing in Orange County Public Schools, four Shakespeare plays are listed as approved for only grades 10 through 12, the Orlando Sentinel reported. Also on the temporarily rejected list are books that had been frequently taught in county high school classes, including “The Color Purple,” “Catch-22,” “Brave New World” and “The Kite Runner.”
The common rationale: “sexual conduct.”
And in the Tampa area, Pinellas County school officials, while choosing books for their annual Battle of the Books competition, voiced concern about relationships and sexual situations mentioned in the texts, which could make them off limits under the new law.
The pushback on book bans
DeSantis, who is vying for the Republican nomination for U.S. president, signed the law on the same day he signed three other bills that critics say target transgender people and the LGBTQ community.
DeSantis has maintained that the idea of book bans across Florida, which have made headlines across the nation, is a “hoax.” He has bashed books that have been recently removed or restricted from public schools as pornographic, violent or otherwise inappropriate.
Those restrictions and removals have swelled in Florida over the last two years with legislation signed by DeSantis and a push by conservative parents’ rights group Moms for Liberty, armed with lists of offending excerpts from targeted books.
In Leon County, the school district is contemplating delaying the checking out of books at all schools at the beginning of the school year until they can make sure they’re abiding by state statute, said Superintendent Rocky Hanna.
“I’m not banning books, I am not that guy,” Hanna said. “I also, because of this new law, do not want to be found in violation of the law and targeted by the DOE and the governor.”
Earlier this week, Hanna pulled five books that he deemed were in violation of state statute following proddingfrom a local chapter of Moms for Liberty.
We will not do more than the law requires,” he said.
Kasey Meehan, director of the Freedom to Read project at PEN America, said the removal was an example of an activist group “intimidating” school administrators by using “overly vague” Florida law to label content as pornography.
“This framing has become an increasing focus of activists and politicians to justify removing books that discuss sex, include LGBTQ+ characters, or feature characters of color: books that do not remotely fit notions of ‘harmful ideology and overt sexualization,’” Meehan said in a statement.
In August 2022, a NASA report on the January 2022 eruption of Hunga Tonga–Hunga Haʻapai stated, “The huge amount of water vapor hurled into the atmosphere, as detected by NASA’s Microwave Limb Sounder, could end up temporarily warming Earth’s surface…. The excess water vapor injected by the Tonga volcano… could remain in the stratosphere for several years.”
Tonga Eruption Blasted Unprecedented Amount of Water Into Stratosphere
By Jane J. Lee and Andrew Wang
August 2, 2022
The huge amount of water vapor hurled into the atmosphere, as detected by NASA’s Microwave Limb Sounder, could end up temporarily warming Earth’s surface.
When the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai volcano erupted on Jan. 15, it sent a tsunami racing around the world and set off a sonic boom that circled the globe twice. The underwater eruption in the South Pacific Ocean also blasted an enormous plume of water vapor into Earth’s stratosphere – enough to fill more than 58,000 Olympic-size swimming pools. The sheer amount of water vapor could be enough to temporarily affect Earth’s global average temperature.
“We’ve never seen anything like it,” said Luis Millán, an atmospheric scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. He led a new study examining the amount of water vapor that the Tonga volcano injected into the stratosphere, the layer of the atmosphere between about 8 and 33 miles (12 and 53 kilometers) above Earth’s surface.
In the study, published in Geophysical Research Letters, Millán and his colleagues estimate that the Tonga eruption sent around 146 teragrams (1 teragram equals a trillion grams) of water vapor into Earth’s stratosphere – equal to 10% of the water already present in that atmospheric layer. That’s nearly four times the amount of water vapor that scientists estimate the 1991 Mount Pinatubo eruption in the Philippines lofted into the stratosphere.
Millán analyzed data from the Microwave Limb Sounder (MLS) instrument on NASA’s Aura satellite, which measures atmospheric gases, including water vapor and ozone. After the Tonga volcano erupted, the MLS team started seeing water vapor readings that were off the charts. “We had to carefully inspect all the measurements in the plume to make sure they were trustworthy,” said Millán.
A Lasting Impression
Volcanic eruptions rarely inject much water into the stratosphere. In the 18 years that NASA has been taking measurements, only two other eruptions – the 2008 Kasatochi event in Alaska and the 2015 Calbuco eruption in Chile – sent appreciable amounts of water vapor to such high altitudes. But those were mere blips compared to the Tonga event, and the water vapor from both previous eruptions dissipated quickly. The excess water vapor injected by the Tonga volcano, on the other hand, could remain in the stratosphere for several years.
This extra water vapor could influence atmospheric chemistry, boosting certain chemical reactions that could temporarily worsen depletion of the ozone layer. It could also influence surface temperatures. Massive volcanic eruptions like Krakatoa and Mount Pinatubo typically cool Earth’s surface by ejecting gases, dust, and ash that reflect sunlight back into space. In contrast, the Tonga volcano didn’t inject large amounts of aerosols into the stratosphere, and the huge amounts of water vapor from the eruption may have a small, temporary warming effect, since water vapor traps heat. The effect would dissipate when the extra water vapor cycles out of the stratosphere and would not be enough to noticeably exacerbate climate change effects.
The sheer amount of water injected into the stratosphere was likely only possible because the underwater volcano’s caldera – a basin-shaped depression usually formed after magma erupts or drains from a shallow chamber beneath the volcano – was at just the right depth in the ocean: about 490 feet (150 meters) down. Any shallower, and there wouldn’t have been enough seawater superheated by the erupting magma to account for the stratospheric water vapor values Millán and his colleagues saw. Any deeper, and the immense pressures in the ocean’s depths could have muted the eruption.
The MLS instrument was well situated to detect this water vapor plume because it observes natural microwave signals emitted from Earth’s atmosphere. Measuring these signals enables MLS to “see” through obstacles like ash clouds that can blind other instruments measuring water vapor in the stratosphere. “MLS was the only instrument with dense enough coverage to capture the water vapor plume as it happened, and the only one that wasn’t affected by the ash that the volcano released,” said Millán.
The MLS instrument was designed and built by JPL, which is managed for NASA by Caltech in Pasadena. NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center manages the Aura mission.
Ana Kasparian of the Young Turks: The Very REAL Victims Of Retail Theft
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=byHO3n_OdME
Property Value Collapse Shows Democrat Destruction of Baltimore Is Nearly Complete
Property Value Collapse Shows Democrat Destruction of Baltimore Is Nearly Complete
By John Nolte
July 27, 2023
It’s a short, to-the-point story from a local Fox affiliate, but the news is jaw-dropping. The devastation Democrats have brought to the once-mighty city of Baltimore is about complete.
A mere eight years ago, in 2015, a 30-story downtown Baltimore building sold for $66 million.
Last month the same building sold for $24 million.
Another downtown building, which is currently the home of T. Rowe Price, was once assessed at $171.4 million. Today it assessment sits at about half that amount: $93.7 million.
“The property values are declining rather rapidly,” Economist Anirban Basu told Fox Baltimore. He adds that companies desperate for “staff and safety” are fleeing downtown Baltimore. Well, duh. Anyone who prioritizes “staff and safety” has no choice but to get out of Democrat-run cities.
Basu adds: “The only way for Baltimore to get out of this quandary is to grow its tax base, to add taxpayers, not subtract from that.”
No, the only way for Baltimore to get out of this quandary is to vote for a change of leadership, which will never happen.
So what’s happened to Baltimore since 2015?
What else? The Democrats who run Baltimore allowed rioters to riot and now, like most riot-ravaged cities (Detroit, Watts, Oakland), the city is unlikely to ever recover.
You think I’m engaging in hyperbole when I write that Baltimore Democrats allowing rioters to riot? Baltimore’s then-Democrat mayor, Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, admitted in a 2015 press conference that “we gave those who wished to destroy space to do that.”
What were these riots about?
What else? Another race hoax ginned up by the media. Some punk named Freddie Gray died in police custody. Six police officers—three black, three white—were charged with the murder by a corrupt State Attorney named Marilyn Mosby. All six were acquitted. Then Obama’s Justice Department ran in to destroy these officers but couldn’t find a single charge to bring against them.
Naturally, CNN ran in to hose another predominantly black city down with racial gasoline.
At the time, I wrote a piece titled: “Baltimore Is a Democrat Problem, Not America’s Problem.”
Here’s an excerpt:
Democrats run the city of Baltimore, the unions, the schools, and, yes, the police force. Since 1969, there have been only two Republican governors of the State of Maryland.
Elijah Cummings has represented Baltimore in the U.S. Congress for more than thirty years. As I write this, despite his objectively disastrous reign, the Democrat-infested mainstream media is treating the Democrat like a local folk hero, not the obvious and glaring failure he really is.
Every single member of the Baltimore city council is a Democrat.
And this is true of every failed American city. All these “racist “ police departments? They are all run by Democrats.
These cities prove beyond any doubt that the Democrat party’s ideas are only a recipe for failure, despair, chaos, crime, death, and blight. For it is in these cities where Democrata wield the power to enact their ideas without opposition.
One of their ideas, which we saw again during the Black Lives Matter riots of 2020, is to give “those who wished to destroy space to do that.” The result of that is permanent devastation. You see, decent people won’t remain in a city led by politicians who put up with rioting. People are remarkably resilient, but what they cannot put up with is lawlessness. People are only resilient when they can adapt, but no one can adapt to lawlessness because lawlessness breeds chaos. How do you adapt to chaos? You can’t. So decent people flee and the urban death spiral begins. Good people leave. Bad people move in. Things get worse. Crime spikes. Property values collapse. More good people leave. More bad people move in.
Don’t pity Baltimore.
Baltimore, like all American cities, has the power to choose its own leaders. Decade after decade, the people of Baltimore, in overwhelming numbers, have voted for Democrats and their disastrous policies.
The people of Baltimore are getting what they vote for.
We should be happy for them.
People should get what they want.
Especially Democrats.
I live here. What the hell do I care what happens to Baltimore?
Even if Ruby Freeman is 100% innocent and did nothing wrong, it is still a verifiable fact that someone in Fulton County lied about a “burst water pipe” as an excuse to send Republican poll watchers and news reporters home, and that election workers continued counting the votes after they had left
By Daniel Alman (aka Dan from Squirrel Hill)
July 27, 2023
Let’s say that Ruby Freeman is 100% innocent and did nothing wrong.
That doesn’t change the following information.
On the night of the election in November 2020, CBS News aired a TV report called “Pipe burst in Georgia delays vote counting.”
You can watch it here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C25DAAHZdEw
Also on the night of the election, ABC News tweeted: “The election department sent the ballot counters at the State Farm Arena in Atlanta home at 10:30 p.m., Regina Waller, the Fulton County public affairs manager for elections, tells ABC News.”
Here’s that tweet:
https://twitter.com/abcpolitics/status/1323846118208376834
However, official security video footage shows that after the Republican poll watchers and news reporters left the room where votes had been counted, a few election workers stayed behind and continued counting votes.
And there is no visible water leak in the video.
You can see that video footage here:
Judge pumps the brakes on Hunter Biden’s guilty plea
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2023/07/26/hunter-biden-plea-deal/
Judge pumps the brakes on Hunter Biden’s guilty plea
Expected guilty plea by the president’s son is in jeopardy because of concerns about a novel provision in the deal
By Perry Stein, Karl Baker, Devlin Barrett, and Matt Viser
July 26, 2023
WILMINGTON, Del. — A federal judge on Wednesday delayed accepting a guilty plea from President Biden’s son Hunter, saying the terms of the deal may not be constitutional but could be salvaged in the coming weeks if prosecutors and defense lawyers can show her it is on solid legal footing.
The deal that had been struck in June began to unravel near the start of the three-hour hearing, which the White House and allies of the Biden family had hoped would help close a painful chapter in Hunter Biden’s life that has cast a pall over the First Family.
U.S. District Judge Maryellen Noreika asked questions that revealed the extent of a long-standing dispute between federal prosecutors and Biden’s lawyers over whether the agreement — in which he would plead guilty to two tax misdemeanors and probably avoid jail time — would protect him from the possibility of additional criminal charges. She later questioned the structure of the deal itself, saying lawyers had crafted a two-step plea deal in which some key features may not be reviewable or enforceable by the court.
The complications marked another twist in a case that has been dogged by questions about possible political bias, prosecutorial delay, and debate over whether Hunter Biden was being treated too harshly or too gently because of who his father is. The judge’s skepticism also thrust Biden back into the spotlight, renewing questions over what investigations may be ongoing and how that might affect his father ahead of a presidential reelection campaign, and reanimated congressional Republicans, who have spent months focusing on the Biden family in what have often been fruitless pursuits.
Prosecutors had proposed that Hunter Biden plead guilty to the tax charges in a fairly standard agreement that requires the judge’s approval. Separately, they crafted a “diversion agreement” with Biden’s attorneys in which the president’s son would admit to wrongdoing in a gun case and agree to certain conditions, including not purchasing a firearm and not using drugs, to avoid actually being charged with unlawful possession of a firearm.
That type of agreement is not typically approved by a judge. But this diversion agreement referenced the proposed plea, and prosecutors submitted it to Noreika, creating a bifurcated deal in which the assurances Biden wanted — that he will not be pursued for other tax or foreign lobbying charges — were not part of the tax case, but part of the gun diversion agreement, lawyers said in court.
A provision of the gun diversion agreement said that if Biden, a recovering addict, failed to remain drug-free and meet other conditions for the next two years, Noreika would determine whether he had broken the terms of the deal and tell prosecutors they could revive the gun charge against him.
Biden’s attorney argued the case had been politicized and hinted that such language could protect him if a biased prosecutor unfairly accused Biden of breaching the agreement at some point. The judge said she understood that reasoning but added that if the agreement is unconstitutional, prosecutors could just try to void it and charge Biden anyway.
Noreika also questioned whether she could lawfully make the kind of determination spelled out in the documents, given that she is not a party to the diversion agreement and that judges generally are not responsible for pursuing criminal charges.
“I have concerns about the constitutionality of this provision, so I have concerns about the constitutionality of this agreement,” she said in court.
The judge also asked prosecutors if there was any precedent for a provision constructed this way. No, the prosecutor replied.
At one point, appearing exasperated, she said the lawyers seemed to expect her to simply “rubber-stamp” the agreement they had struck.
She told the two sides to work on the issue, a process that could take weeks.
In the meantime, as the unresolved situation means the criminal charges laid out in the proposed plea deal are still active against Biden, he entered a not guilty plea — for now.
The disagreement over immunity that surfaced at the start of the hearing had been publicly known since the deal was struck: Biden’s attorney said it would resolve the investigation of his client, and David Weiss, the U.S. attorney in Delaware, said the probe was ongoing.
In court, Biden said he was prepared to plead guilty. But then Noreika asked whether he would still do so if it was possible additional charges might be filed against him in the future.
Biden answered no.
Prosecutors again described the federal investigation around Biden as ongoing but, when pressed by the judge, would not reveal any details.
“As far as I’m concerned, the plea agreement is null and void,” Biden lawyer Chris Clark told the judge at one point.
A quick side discussion between the prosecutors and defense lawyers didn’t help.
“I don’t know what you’re trying to accomplish by blowing this up,” Clark told prosecutors. One of those prosecutors, Leo Wise, pointed to papers related to the case and said he was bound by the terms in them.
Clark shot back: “Then we misunderstood; we’re ripping it up.”
Later in the day, the two sides appeared to agree that the deal would provide immunity for certain tax, drug and gun charges between 2014 and 2019.
Wearing a dark suit, Hunter Biden responded, “Yes, your honor,” to questions that ensured he understood the details of what he would be agreeing to and the wrongdoing at the crux of the case. He detailed to the judge his history of drug abuse, saying that he has received inpatient drug and alcohol addiction treatment at least six times since 2003 and that his addiction ruined his business relationships.
The federal investigation of his business dealings was opened in 2018, during the Trump administration, and has been a favorite talking point for Republican critics of the current president and his family. Republican politicians have repeatedly accused Hunter Biden of broad wrongdoing in his overseas business deals and, since his father was elected, predicted that the Biden administration would be reluctant to pursue the case.
Attorney General Merrick Garland has insisted politics would not interfere with the criminal investigation, noting that it was being led by Weiss, a holdover from the Trump administration, and that Weiss had complete discretion over whether to bring charges.
Those assurances have come under intense scrutiny in recent weeks, however, since Republican lawmakers released interview transcripts from two whistleblowers from the Internal Revenue Service who were part of the investigation. They told the House Ways and Means Committee that the Justice Department slowed and stymied the probe, whittling away the most serious evidence of alleged tax crimes. And they alleged that Weiss had told the investigative team his charging options were limited.
Officials said Monday that Weiss, who has pushed back against the whistleblower allegations, is willing to testify to Congress about the investigation in the fall.
Papers filed in court when the plea agreement was reached indicate that Hunter Biden had agreed to plead guilty to two misdemeanor tax charges of failure to pay in 2017 and 2018. A court document says that in both those years, Biden was a resident of D.C., received taxable income of more than $1.5 million and owed more than $100,000 in income tax that he did not pay on time.
Prosecutors planned to recommend a sentence of probation for those counts, according to people familiar with the negotiations who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe elements of the case that are not yet public. Hunter Biden’s representatives have previously said that he eventually paid the IRS what he owed.
A second court filing is about the charge of illegally possessing a weapon, which involves a handgun Biden purchased at a time when he was abusing drugs. In that case, the letter says, “the defendant has agreed to enter a Pretrial Diversion Agreement with respect to the firearm information.”
Diversion is an option typically applied to nonviolent offenders with substance abuse problems. Hunter Biden has written and spoken openly about being addicted to cocaine during the years in question. People close to him, speaking on the condition of anonymity to be candid about a sensitive issue, said he was looking at the potential conclusion of the criminal case against him through the lens of an addict and was hoping to use the guilty plea to admit to past mistakes, make amends and move on.
But even if the legal turmoil that has surrounded Hunter Biden for years is wrapped up in coming days or weeks, the political battle will continue in the form of congressional investigations, attacks via social media and attempts to shape public opinion as the president seeks reelection in 2024.
The whistleblower testimony brought forth new allegations, including a text message that Hunter Biden allegedly sent on July 30, 2017, that invoked his father — at that time a former vice president — as the younger Biden tried to get a business partner to fulfill some expected promise.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, speaking at the start of a White House briefing on Wednesday that began just as proceedings were concluding in Wilmington, attempted to keep a distance from the case.
“Hunter Biden is a private citizen and this was a personal matter for him,” she said. “As we have said, the president, the first lady, they love their son and they support him as he continues to rebuild his life.”
She emphasized that “this case was handled independently, as all of you know, by the Justice Department under the leadership of a prosecutor appointed by the former president, President Trump.”
President Biden, who generally tries to refrain from commenting on his son’s criminal case but has also repeatedly stated that Hunter “did nothing wrong,” had no public events Wednesday and offered no public reaction to the new developments.
The court appearance took place a few miles from where Hunter Biden grew up and went to high school — just blocks from the Joseph R. Biden Jr. Railroad Station, the station from which his father commuted to Washington for decades as a member of Congress.
Giuliani, Researchers Ask Judge To Reject Hunter Biden Plea Deal, Saying Laptop Proves Hundreds Of Crimes
Giuliani, Researchers Ask Judge To Reject Hunter Biden Plea Deal, Saying Laptop Proves Hundreds Of Crimes
By Luke Rosiak
July 24, 2023
A nonprofit research group which combed through Hunter Biden’s laptop has sent a letter to the judge overseeing the First Son’s tax fraud case, urging her to reject the plea deal offered by prosecutors.
Marco Polo, which put emails from the laptop online and wrote a 630-page report summarizing its contents, said that judges are not obligated to accept plea deals even if prosecutors and the defendant agree on them, and that “not only will the plea deal in front of you, if accepted, make a mockery of the phrase ‘slap on the wrist,’ but it will also send a sobering message to citizens which demonstrates that nepotism and proximity to political power determines outcomes in our criminal justice system.”
It said “there is evidence for, at the very least, 459 violations of state and federal laws and regulations on the device. The breakdown is as follows: 140 business-related crimes, 191 sex-related crimes, and, lastly, 128 drug-related crimes. These instances of criminal wrongdoing are supported by primary source evidence: emails, photos, videos, text messages, audio files, et al. The plea deal for your consideration is so meager that the phrase ‘limited hangout’ does not describe the situation.”
It said a “limited hangout” is a public relations technique in which someone who wants to cover up something major admits to a very small portion in order to claim that the issue has been put to rest.
Joining Marco Polo in the letter was Rudy Giuliani, the former Donald Trump attorney who played a role in disseminating the laptop after the FBI appeared to sit on it.
By virtue of having been the United States Attorney (‘USA’) for the Southern District of New York, Mr. Giuliani is uniquely capable of spotting a ‘sweetheart’ deal reserved for those such as Biden, whose father is the president. Without Biden’s familial connections, there is no way any USA or AUSA would have proposed two misdemeanors and essentially a non-prosecution on the felony gun charge,” the letter said.
Robert Costello, Giuliani’s own lawyer and a former deputy in the New York prosecutor’s office, also signed the letter to Judge Maryellen Noreika of the District of Delaware federal court.
The letter said that congressional oversight and whistleblower disclosures have provided information that suggests that the plea deal, which is limited to misdemeanor tax charges, would allow a felony gun charge to go away under a diversion program, and carries a penalty of only probation, was the result of prosecutorial misconduct.
It said that then-Assistant US Attorney Lesley Wolf prevented investigators from getting more evidence by tipping the Bidens off that a raid on a storage unit was imminement.
“This egregious leak from Wolf-and her Department of Justice colleague and lawyer, Mark Daly-infuriated the IRS investigators (i.e. two of the whistleblowers) and likely violated Pennsylvania Bar rules (where Wolf is barred) in addition to federal statutes. Furthermore, Wolf apparently concealed evidence from the investigators, demanded that investigators avoid inquiring about ‘the big guy,’ a moniker for the U.S. president, Joe Biden, and was improperly concerned about the ‘optics’ regarding a search warrant of the U.S. President’s guest house. Suffice it is to say that ‘optics’ should not dictate investigative steps.”
It said according to congressional testimony from IRS whistleblowers, Hunter Biden’s lawyer Chris Clark told prosecutors that their “careers would be ruined if they brought various charges against Hunter.”
Further, “the District of Delaware has never — going back to 1995 — charged 26 USC §7203 as a standalone misdemeanor, as is the case with Biden. This proposed plea deal is, quite literally, unprecedented; we hope you will recognize that it is unprecedented because it is unjust,” the letter said.
“Lastly, the Chairman of the Oversight and Accountability Committee in the U.S. House of Representatives has announced that Biden’s former business partner, Devon Archer, will be testifying before his Committee early next week. It is imperative that this Court be apprised of that testimony to consider whether to accept this plea offer. At the very least, Your Honor’s consideration of this proposed plea should not be made until you are aware of all the salient facts likely to be revealed,” it said.
Did Quarterflash plagiarize a 20 note sequence from Pat Benatar?
By Daniel Alman (aka Dan from Squirrel Hill)
July 24, 2023
This is the 1981 song “Find Another Fool” by Quarterflash. Please note the opening lyrics of:
“I should have learned this lesson long ago”
“That friends and lovers always come and go”
That singing is 20 notes long.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0lRM7FmJgU
And this is the 1979 song “We Live For Love” by Pat Benatar. The same 20 notes (or at least 20 very similar notes) can be heard from the guitar at the beginning.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SD8TCo2QW6U
Why the Alliance between Stalin and Hitler Must Never Be Forgotten
Also see:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molotov%E2%80%93Ribbentrop_Pact
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margarete_Buber-Neumann
https://fee.org/articles/why-the-alliance-between-stalin-and-hitler-must-never-be-forgotten/
Why the Alliance between Stalin and Hitler Must Never Be Forgotten
Stalin’s intentional silence and inaction during World War II allowed the Holocaust to unfold without any meaningful resistance or counteraction.
By Benjamin Williams
July 23, 2023
World War II was one of the most catastrophic periods in human history, marked by unprecedented violence, genocide, and destruction. Yet, while the war’s narrative is dominated by the Axis and western Allied powers, the role of the Soviet Union, particularly under Joseph Stalin, in indirectly supporting Nazi Germany’s campaign of terror and conquest, often goes underreported. Drawing on several historical excerpts, this article will unpack the Soviet Union’s involvement in Nazi war efforts and their failure to protect or inform their Jewish population of impending atrocities.
The Molotov-Ribbentrop pact was signed in the early hours of August 24, 1939, in a surreal ceremony where swastikas fluttered alongside the hammer and sickle. The swastika flags purportedly came from a movie studio, where they had been used for anti-Nazi propaganda films. The ten-year non-aggression pact between the USSR and Germany was accompanied by a secret protocol outlining the spheres of influence for each power in Eastern Europe, including the partition of Poland and the granting of the Baltic States and Bessarabia to the Soviets.
Stalin made a closing toast, stating, “I know how much the German nation loves its Führer; I should therefore like to drink to his health.” The toast was ironic considering the hostile stance the USSR had previously maintained towards Nazi Germany. Stalin’s first gift after the pact was awarding Germany around 600 German Communists, most of whom were Jews. He had them extradited to the Gestapo in Brest-Litovsk, a symbolic location steeped in historical implications. Among the extradited was Hans David, a gifted composer, who later perished in the gas chambers of Majdanek, a fate shared by many others. This process of handing over Jewish and/or communist prisoners to the Nazis persisted beyond 1939.
Margarete Buber-Neumann, a former communist turned staunch anti-communist, was one such individual transferred from Soviet imprisonment to the hands of the Gestapo in 1940. Surviving the brutal conditions of both a Soviet prison and a Nazi concentration camp, Buber-Neumann later penned the memoir “Under Two Dictators,” detailing the harsh realities of life under the totalitarian regimes of Stalin and Hitler.
In the initial stages of World War II, after signing the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact in 1939, the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany embarked on a diplomatic relationship that allowed for territorial expansion and political maneuvering. The two totalitarian socialist regimes formed an uneasy partnership characterized by economic cooperation, information withholding, and non-aggression. This alliance’s impact on the Jewish population, particularly in the Soviet-occupied zone of Poland, was severe and catastrophic.
The ideological calculus of Stalin’s foreign policy became apparent in his anticipation of the imminent German attack on Poland. Recognizing the inevitability of British and French intervention, Stalin saw a unique opportunity to advance the cause of communism. From his perspective, a protracted conflict between capitalist powers presented an ideal scenario, sowing discord and creating opportunities for the spread of Soviet influence.
Stalin was explicit in his machinations, expressing that the USSR, the Land of the Toilers, would stand to gain from a drawn-out war that would weaken both the Reich and the Anglo-French bloc. Fearing a swift conclusion to the war, Stalin stressed the importance of aiding Germany to ensure a long and costly conflict. Despite the ongoing tensions with Japan in the Far East, Stalin envisioned the USSR’s eventual entry into the European theater at a time most advantageous to Soviet interests. The Soviet leader’s strategic vision underlined a ruthless pragmatism and an uncompromising commitment to the communist cause.
The mass deportation of approximately one million Polish refugees initiated by Lavrentiy Beria’s NKVD in February 1940, half of whom were Jews, highlights the first disturbing aspect of the Soviet-Nazi collaboration. The deportees, categorized under various labels such as ‘The Jewish National Counterrevolution’ were sent to Siberia under horrendous conditions that led to many deaths en route. Notably, many Jewish leaders and activists were among the arrested, including Menachem Begin, a young Zionist leader, and Henryk Ehrlich and Viktor Alter, founders of the Polish Bund, Poland’s largest Jewish party. This mass deportation represented the “chief administrative method of Sovietization.”
At the same time, the Soviet authorities kept the Jewish population uninformed about the ongoing Nazi atrocities just across the border, maintaining a deliberate silence that enabled the Holocaust. As part of the non-aggression pact, Soviet organs did not report the genocidal massacres conducted by the Nazis between 1939 and 1941. Those aforementioned anti-Nazi films were no longer being produced. Soviet newspapers like Pravda scarcely even used the word “fascist” from 1939 to 1941. This silence continued even after the Nazis broke the pact and invaded the USSR, a move that precipitated the extermination of 1.5 million Jews in White Russia and Ukraine. In essence, Stalin’s silence and inaction allowed the Holocaust to unfold without any meaningful resistance or counteraction.
Moreover, Soviet complicity contributed to the normalization of Nazi violence. Jewish victims of mass executions were routinely referred to as “Poles” or “Ukrainians” in Soviet media, obscuring the specific anti-Semitic nature of the Nazi pogroms. The Soviet population, despite constant indoctrination, was not educated about Nazi anti-Semitism or their genocide plan, fostering ignorance that ultimately led to widespread collaboration against Jewish populations.
In tandem with these policies, the Soviet Union also provided economic support to Nazi Germany, which was instrumental in facilitating Hitler’s war of conquest. The importance of this assistance cannot be underestimated as the USSR supplied significant quantities of food and raw materials to the Nazis. For instance, during the invasion of France and the Low Countries, the USSR supplied the Reich with 163,000 tons of petroleum and 243,000 tons of Ukrainian wheat in May and June of 1940 alone. As German demand increased during critical battles, such as at Dunkirk, Soviet oil deliveries surged to meet the needs, effectively fueling Hitler’s conquest of Western Europe.
Publicly, the Soviet Union even supported the German invasion of France and the Low Countries. The French Communist Party was instructed not to resist the Germans, leading to a wave of defections and further weakening France’s ability to withstand the German onslaught. Despite internal dissension and resistance, the Soviets continued to propagate defeatist slogans, actively undermining the war effort against the Nazis.
In today’s discourse, there is a tendency among Soviet apologists to laud the USSR as the singular force that ultimately toppled the Nazi regime in 1945. This, of course, ignores the critical support that came from the US via Lend-Lease. Even Stalin admitted “Without the machines we received through Lend-Lease, we would have lost the war.” While the sacrifices made by millions of Soviet soldiers should not be forgotten or swept under the rug, it is vital for us to simultaneously illuminate the darker corners of this past.
We should resist the call to ignore the sobering reality of the Soviet Union’s complicity. One cannot forget that the initial alliance forged between Stalin and Hitler was rooted not in necessity but sprouted from the soil of Stalin’s socialist ideology. Such was the poison entwined within this political tapestry that, had Hitler not invaded the USSR in 1941, or had he chosen to altogether forgo this path, the Soviet Union might have continued to stand in silence and support. Their eyes turned away, they could have remained an observer and accomplice as the monstrous Nazi regime crept across Europe.
As we peer into the past, a shadow of sorrow is cast, an echo of lament for the once voiceless victims, resonating with a plea that history might not repeat its darkest hours. Our duty to memory requires us to hold these bitter truths close and learn from them if we are to honor the legacies of those who suffered and died under the shadow of totalitarian regimes.
According to this article from the Boston Globe, some parents have removed their children from the Cambridge, Massachusetts public school district because it has just stopped offering eighth grade students the option of taking Algebra 1. I agree with these parents for removing their children over this.
Cambridge schools are divided over middle school algebra
By Christopher Huffaker
July 18, 2023
Martin Udengaard wants more for his son, and he doesn’t think Cambridge schools can deliver.
Cambridge Public Schools no longer offers advanced math in middle school, something that could hinder his son Isaac from reaching more advanced classes, like calculus, in high school. So Udengaard is pulling his child, a rising sixth grader, out of the district, weighing whether to homeschool or send him to private school, where he can take algebra I in middle school.
Udengaard is one of dozens of families who recently have publicly voiced frustration by a years-old decision made by Cambridge to remove advanced math classes in grades six to eight. The district’s aim was to reduce disparities between low-income children of color, who weren’t often represented in such courses, and their more affluent peers. But some families and educators argue the decision has had the opposite effect, limiting advanced math to students whose parents can afford to take private lessons, like the popular after-school program Russian Math, or find other options for their kids, like Udengaard is doing.
“The students who are able to jump into a higher level math class are students from better-resourced backgrounds,” said Jacob Barandes, another district parent and a Harvard physicist. “They’re shortchanging a significant number of students, overwhelmingly students from less-resourced backgrounds, which is deeply inequitable.”
Cambridge school leaders say they can’t re-instate the advanced math classes in middle school: Many students continue to reel from pandemic-related learning losses and are not ready to take algebra I before high school, and offering it only for those who are prepared, they say, would only widen the persistent disparities of educational performance among subgroups.
“We have a huge focus on addressing both the academic achievement gaps and the opportunity gaps in our community,” said Superintendent Victoria Greer. “One thing the district is not interested in doing is perpetuating those gaps.”
Greer said she and other district leaders are working on plans to add more elements of advanced math to the current middle school curriculum. But families are impatient and have called for a clear path back to an eighth-grade class covering all of Algebra 1. The issue, they say, is that without taking algebra I in middle school, it’s difficult for students to reach advanced classes later that would better prepare them for STEM college degrees and career paths — although not impossible because Cambridge high school students can “double-up” and take two semester-long honors math classes in a single year.
This is not the first time this debate has raged in Cambridge, and the same questions are being debated around the country. The California Board of Education, for example, is expected to pass a new state math framework that discourages eighth-grade algebra. Leaders there say the controversial measure is necessary because when the state pressured districts to offer eighth-grade algebra, many students were unprepared for the course and had to repeat it. In Dallas, on the other hand, a 2019 change that requires students to opt out of honors classes — rather than opt in — has led to 60 percent of 8th graders taking Algebra 1, triple the prior level. It was a move education leaders banked on to increase the number of historically marginalized students in advanced courses. Next door to Cambridge, Belmont also has an ongoing debate over math pathways, after the district reduced the number of options for middle school students in the 2019-2020 school year.
In Cambridge, district leaders — between 2017 and 2019 — gradually ended a policy of tracking middle schoolers into either “accelerated” or “grade-level” math, a change meant to improve outcomes for all. District leaders were alarmed by stark disparities in who was taking advanced math: those classes were overwhelmingly white and Asian, while the grade level math classes were full of Black and Latino students. Achievement gaps were stubbornly wide — and still are.
The implementation of the policy was immediately followed by the COVID-19 pandemic, making it hard to tell whether it was having an impact, as students across the country suffered academically. The pandemic also crowded the algebra debate out of the School Committee conversation for a time.
But the pandemic also prevented the new system from being fully implemented. While the middle schools stopped offering algebra for advanced students, as planned, they were unable to add aspects of the algebra curriculum to the now-universal grade eight curriculum.
Years later, officials disagree on how much algebra there was supposed to be. Some, like City Councilor Patricia Nolan, a former School Committee member, said the goal was to have all students take algebra 1, instead of none.
“We still have not approved removing algebra one in eighth grade,” echoed School Committee member Rachel B. Weinstein at a recent roundtable.
District leaders, on the other hand, say the intention was to include aspects of the algebra 1 curriculum in eighth grade, but not the entire course. While the pandemic pushed even that out of reach, three of the seven units covered in Algebra 1 will be added to the eighth-grade curriculum next school year, said district math director Siobahn Mulligan, although students will still need to take the standalone course when they reach high school. The district is also offering a free online program over the summer that incoming ninth-grade students can use to place out of algebra 1.
There will be further expansion in the future, Greer said, but declined to share details on what that would look like.
Algebra 1 effectively eliminated from Harvard-area middle schools because too many white and Asian students were taking it
Algebra 1 effectively eliminated from Harvard-area middle schools because too many white and Asian students were taking it
By Cortney Weil
July 17, 2023
A school district in Massachusetts has been slowly phasing algebra 1 out of its middle-school curriculum because the advanced math classes were predominantly taken by white and Asian students. Now, some area parents are considering placing their child in a private school or a homeschooling program to ensure that they are adequately prepared for high school mathematics.
Since 2017, Cambridge Public Schools has been slowly moving away from placing middle school students into “grade-level” or “accelerated” math classes since the “grade-level” courses were filled with black and Hispanic students, while the “accelerated” courses had mostly white and Asian students. District officials claim that the changes are designed to create better equity.
“Over time you end up with lower-level math courses filled with black and Latino children, and high-level math classes with white and Asian children,” said Manuel Fernandez, then-principal of Cambridge Street Upper School, in 2019. “Students internalize it — they believe the smart kids are the white kids. Our staff said we cannot continue to divide our students this way.”
“We have a huge focus on addressing both the academic achievement gaps and the opportunity gaps in our community,” added Schools Superintendent Victoria Greer. “One thing the district is not interested in doing is perpetuating those gaps.”
Though Algebra 1 has not officially been removed from the district’s eighth-grade curriculum, the new eighth-grade math course taken by all students, regardless of ability, has just three of the seven units that were previously taught in algebra 1 courses. And while incoming high-school students can take a free summer program that will allow them to place out of algebra 1, those who do not take the summer program must either double-up on math courses during high school or lose the chance to take advanced math classes, such as calculus, in their junior or senior year. A recent email from the district informed parents that middle-school math teachers will not “be recommending that any scholars place out of algebra 1” in high school.
This policy has angered many parents, some of whom are affiliated with Harvard University, which is located in Cambridge. “The students who are able to jump into a higher level math class are students from better-resourced backgrounds,” claimed Jacob Barandes, a Harvard physicist whose child attends Cambridge schools. “They’re shortchanging a significant number of students, overwhelmingly students from less-resourced backgrounds, which is deeply inequitable.”
Another area father, Martin Udengaard, has already pulled his son out of CPS on account of the algebra issue. Now, he has to decide whether he wants to place his son in a private school or to homeschool him.
Superintendent Greer said that the middle-school math curriculum is still under consideration and will likely be expanded in the future, though she did not explain “what that would look like,” the Boston Globe reported.
As of Monday afternoon, the website for the district math department claimed that its main focus is “equity.” Its stated mission is to “create equitable mathematics communities that engage all students in making sense of challenging mathematics, provide all students with access to challenging curriculum and empower students to participate meaningfully in mathematics discourse.” The only time the word “algebra” appears on the CPS website for eighth-grade math is to promote its free, pre-high school summer program.
In an email to TheBlaze, Sujata Wycoff, the CPS director of communications, claimed that many of the reports regarding the district’s middle-school math curriculum lack context. For one thing, Wycoff’s email said, schools have had to limit advanced curricula recently and instead provide more remedial instruction after the government shutdown a few years ago, which caused many students to fall behind. The email also claimed that CPS students do not need to “place out of Algebra 1” in order to take calculus in high school someday.
“Cambridge Public Schools is deeply committed to providing a high-quality, rigorous learning experience for all of our students, while also placing a strong focus on addressing the academic achievement and opportunity gaps in our community,” the CPS statement read.
“We are in the process of developing an equitable plan with great thought and intentionality that establishes a level of mathematics literacy required for full participation and access to opportunities. Three of the seven units covered in Algebra I will be added to the 8th grade curriculum next year. We look forward to sharing details of this expansion in the near future.”
Sexually transmitted diseases are not caused by lack of government funding. They are caused by irresponsible behavior.
https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/why-many-people-getting-syphilis-185238400.html
Why Are So Many People Getting Syphilis? An Expert Explains the Uptick in Cases
By Vanessa Etienne
July 21, 2023
Dr. Edward Hook — director of the STD Control Program for the Jefferson County Department of Health — spoke to PEOPLE to explain the recent uptick in the sexually transmitted infection.
Syphilis rates in the United States have been going up for about 20 years — along with other sexually transmitted infections.
But in April, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that syphilis rates jumped by nearly 32% for all stages of the infection, with a total of 176,713 syphilis cases recorded in 2021. The last time cases were nearly this high was in 1950, when 217,558 cases were reported.
PEOPLE spoke to Dr. Edward Hook — professor at the University of Alabama at Birmingham and director of the STD Control Program for the Jefferson County Department of Health — about the resurgence, a well as what syphilis is and why there’s a recent influx in cases of the sexually transmitted infection.
What is syphilis?
Syphilis is a bacterial infection that is usually spread through sexual contact, according to the Mayo Clinic, and usually presents as painless sores that spread the disease.
Because the sores don’t hurt, they often go undetected. However, the CDC says that while the sores will last 3-6 weeks regardless of treatment, it’s important to seek medical care to prevent the infection from progressing to the next, more dangerous stage.
At its early stage, syphilis can be cured with a single dose of antibiotics. But “without treatment, syphilis can severely damage the heart, brain or other organs, and can be life-threatening.”
While syphilis is on the rise, the CDC cautions that it cannot be spread through toilet seats, door knobs — or even from sharing utensils. The best way to avoid syphilis is by avoiding contact with the sores caused by the infection — so the CDC recommends using condoms if you are sexually active, although contact with the sores in areas not covered by a condom can still spread the disease.
Why are syphilis cases rising?
“Syphilis was lowest to start with in terms of the total population so it had the most room for increasing,” Hook notes.
Part of the reason cases of syphilis — as well as other STIs — are rising is because public health efforts to control these diseases are underfunded.
“In the past 20 years, the amount of money that goes to the CDC for STD control has remained level because of inflation. That means that the buying power of that funding is 40% less than it was 20 years ago. So it seems to me that the lack of resources is another important contributor to this problem.”
Additionally, syphilis cases are no longer present primarily among men who have sex with men.
“The current syphilis epidemic, of the past 10 or 15 years, started amongst men who had sex with other men,” he says. “But no surprise, it has then moved beyond men who have sex with men to involve men who have sex with women, and women who have sex with men, and other groups as well because people don’t exclusively partner with one kind of sex partner or another.”
Why are cases of syphilis in women increasing?
In addition to an overall rise in syphilis cases, the country has also seen an increase in women getting the STI, as well as a rise in congenital syphilis — which is when a mother with syphilis passes the infection to her unborn baby. According to the CDC, cases of congenital syphilis in the United States have “more than tripled” in recent years — although the disease was once “nearly eliminated.”
For example, the Houston Health Department reported this week that there was a 128% increase in congenital syphilis in Houston and Harris County — a rise that is similar to that of other cities across the United States.
“Congenital syphilis rates are now higher than they’ve been in the United States in more than 25 years. There are several reasons for that,” Hook says. “One is that this mirrors the general increase in syphilis and the movement of the syphilis epidemic from men who have sex with men into heterosexual population.”
“Second is that women with syphilis are disproportionately ethnic minorities, racial minorities, and those are people who have less ready access to healthcare than other populations,” he continues. “So, if you look at the simplest rates in the United States, you’ll see that the rates have gone up disproportionately amongst Hispanic women and Black women — the same groups who have other challenges with regards to access to healthcare, prenatal care, etc.”
Although cases in women are rising, Hook assures that these rates do not mean that women are more susceptible to syphilis. “It’s not a vulnerability issue,” he stresses. “There is no data whatsoever to suggest that one group or another is more vulnerable to acquiring syphilis than others.”
What is the key to decreasing overall syphilis cases?
Hook emphasizes that the national rate of syphilis cases could easily be lowered if there was greater investment in public health in the United States.
That investment involves increasing availability of and accessibility to preventive and care services, increasing education about screening and treatment, and focusing those efforts on underserved populations.
“We’ve proven again and again — most recently in the early 1990s — that if you make it a priority and you put resources into it, you can control this disease,” Hook tells PEOPLE. “Syphilis rates in the United States by the mid 1990s were the lowest that they’d been in decades. That was because there had been an epidemic of syphilis in the late eighties and early nineties that became a CDC priority. CDC put resources into it, the Congress of the United States helped fund syphilis control programs and rates plummeted.”
He adds, “The rates got so low that people said, ‘We’re in good shape, we can now reallocate resources to other purposes.’ And they did. The disease smoldered for a while, and then came back in a new vulnerable population this time, men who had sex with men.”
How often should people get tested for syphilis?
“That answer is different for everybody,” Hook admits. “In general, the more partners a person has, the more often they should be checked. We would suggest that everybody be checked at least once. For the people who are in stable, monogamous relationships and are confident that their partners are similarly monogamous, one test should be enough. If there are questions about monogamy, testing periodically — perhaps once a year — is reasonable. For people who have more than three, four sexual partners in a year, testing as frequently as every six months might be a good idea.”
Baby shower shooter paroled after serving year in jail
Baby shower shooter paroled after serving year in jail
By Rich Cholodofsky
July 18, 2023
Isiah Hampton had a baby on the way and was surrounded by friends and family who wanted to celebrate when everything changed.
Hampton, 27, of Arnold pulled out a gun and shot two people after he refused to carry baby shower gifts out to his car at the end of the party nearly two years ago, according to prosecutors.
“I feel bad for what happened. I didn’t want to hurt anybody,” Hampton said Tuesday during his sentencing hearing.
Hampton, who pleaded guilty in April to charges of aggravated assault and reckless endangerment, was ordered to serve just less that two years in jail. Westmoreland County Common Pleas Court Judge Meagan Bilik-DeFazio paroled Hampton after she gave him credit for more than a year he served behind bars after his arrest following the Sept. 18, 2021 incident at the Kinloch Fire Hall in Lower Burrell.
He was also ordered to serve an additional two years on probation and complete anger management classes.
Prosecutors dismissed one count against Hampton that charged him with aggravated assault with an attempt to cause serious bodily injury.
Police said an altercation that preceded the shooting erupted after Hampton refused to transport gifts from the baby shower.
Authorities said a woman slapped Hampton, who then pushed her backward. Hampton fell to the ground, pulled out a pistol and shot a 23-year old man in the torso and a 16-year-old boy in the buttocks as they attempted to intervene in the fray. Another woman suffered a grazing wound to her leg, according to court records.
Hampton said he has five children including one with a relative of two of his victims.
Assistant District Attorney Anthony Iannamorelli said Hampton’s victims agreed with the plea deal and sentence.
“We do not take this case lightly. This deal satisfies the nature of the crime and forces the defendant not to possess a firearm for the rest of his life,” Iannamorelli said.
The judge admonished Hampton for his behavior and said the sentence she imposed recognized the unique circumstances of the incident, his troubled background and acknowledged a potential self defense argument was in play had the case gone to trial.
“At some point in the generational chain someone has to break the cycle. Somebody has to break the chain. I hope you understand you permanently altered the lives of the people you just heard from. This isn’t a game and this isn’t fun,” Bilik-DeFazio said.
“The victims weren’t the people who started the altercation. This never should have gotten to the point it got to,” she said.
44% of millennials think CNN reporter Ryan Young should go to prison for misgendering Bud Light spokesperson Dylan Mulvaney
July 12, 2023: “CNN apologizes for misgendering trans influencer Dylan Mulvaney”
July 18, 2023: “Poll: 44 Percent of Millennials Want To Make Misgendering a Crime”
Source: https://reason.com/2023/07/18/poll-millennials-want-to-make-misgendering-a-crime/
In Portland, Oregon, after this developer complained to the government about homeless people vandalizing his property, the government did nothing to stop them, but fined him instead. So now he’s done doing business in the city. Good for him.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O6B0tlNiN-E
Why do they keep letting this violent serial scumbag out again and again and again?
https://www.yahoo.com/news/pennsylvania-man-allegedly-tried-abduct-015109693.html
Pennsylvania man who allegedly tried to abduct teen girl at mall had 28-page rap sheet
By Bradford Betz
July 13, 2023
A man with a 28-page rap sheet who police said “should not have been on the street” was arrested Thursday in the attempted abduction of a 14-year-old girl at a mall in Pennsylvania.
Khalilh Evans, 44, is accused of attempting to abduct the teen at the Willow Grove Park Mall after she became separate from her friends while shopping.
Abington Detectives identified the suspect and issued a warrant for Evans’ arrest, charging him with false imprisonment of a minor, a second-degree felony.
Evans was arrested Thursday with the assistance of the Philadelphia Police Department and the U.S. Marshal’s Office after he contacted his attorney and arranged to turn himself in.
He is being held at the Abington Police Department and will be arraigned by a judge.
Speaking a press conference Thursday, Abington Police Chief Patrick Mallow held up Evans’ 28-page rap sheet which, he said, includes “numerous weapons offenses, possession of firearms, aggravated assault, terroristic threats.
“An individual who should not have been on the street,” Mallow said, adding that officers had received “numerous tips from other individuals that our suspect approached other young women in this mall and possibly other locations.”
Mallow said this “was the type of crime where the hair on your back stands up.”
A second individual, believed to have been present during the incident has not yet been charged, and the investigation is continuing.
This San Francisco husband did nothing to defend his own wife when two women assaulted her
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mGYLhsFiw5M
Key California Assembly committee blocks bill to make child trafficking a ‘serious felony’
Key California Assembly committee blocks bill to make child trafficking a ‘serious felony’
Following the vote, those in the audience could be heard yelling, “You’re horrible!” and “You should be ashamed of yourselves” to the committee members. Human trafficking victims embraced and sobbed in front of the dais.
By Ashley Zavala
July 11, 2023
SACRAMENTO, Calif. – California lawmakers in the Assembly Public Safety Committee on Tuesday blocked a measure that would have classified human trafficking of a minor as a serious felony under state law, an effort that attempted to keep repeat offenders behind bars and make them ineligible to be released from prison early.
The measure was halfway through the state’s legislative process, having cleared the State Senate unanimously with broad, bipartisan support. None of the six Democrats on the Assembly Public Safety Committee were willing to cast a vote on the measure Tuesday. Republican Assemblymen Juan Alanis and Tom Lackey were the bill’s only yes votes.
Following the vote, those in the audience could be heard yelling, “You’re horrible!” and “You should be ashamed of yourselves!” to the committee members. Human trafficking victims embraced and sobbed in front of the dais.
The bill’s author, state Sen. Shannon Grove, R-Bakersfield, said she was blindsided.
“I am profoundly disappointed that committee Democrats couldn’t bring themselves to support the bill, with their stubborn and misguided objection to any penalty increase regardless of how heinous the crime,” Grove said. “You can pass a note to a bank and rob a bank, you can commit arson, and that’s considered a serious felony. But to traffic a minor child in the state of California is not. That’s wrong.”
Grove noted repeat offenders who traffic people under the age of 17 are eligible for early release credits and aren’t required to serve their full prison sentences. For example, someone sentenced to the maximum, 12 years in prison for the crime, may end up serving four years with the right amount of good conduct credits. The measure, SB 14, would have made the offense subject to California’s Three Strikes Law, meaning those who are convicted of the crime again would face harsher penalties on their next offense, potentially up to life in prison.
Opponents of the measure, including the Ella Baker Center, have said the state already has laws in place to keep traffickers in prison for a significant amount of time. The Assembly Public Safety Committee Chairman, Assemblyman Reggie Jones-Sawyer, D-Los Angeles, said in Tuesday’s hearing more prison time would not address the root of the problem.
Despite his opposition, Jones-Sawyer promised to work with Grove to work on the legislation.
“I think there is a lane we can get to, you and I have not discussed this one on one,” Jones-Sawyer told Grove in the hearing. “I get where you’re coming from.”
Grove told KCRA 3 that prior to Tuesday’s hearing, she reached out to Jones-Sawyer on his cellphone three times, and her staff reached out to his staff six or seven times, but he refused to take a meeting.
Jones-Sawyer’s office provided this response: “The Assemblymember’s office is aware of a single call from Senator Grove’s staff to his legislative director on Friday, July 7, to advise that the Senator had spoken with the Public Safety Committee’s staff about amendments. The conversation was brief, resulting in no changes to either office’s positions on the bill.”
Grove also said she had positive discussions with the Democrats on the committee before the hearing, including Assemblymembers Isaac Bryan, Rick Zbur, Miguel Santiago and Liz Ortega.
“They all thought it was a good bill and said they would consider it, but there is this issue of rolling the chair, so I don’t think anyone was going to stand up against the chair,” Grove said.
The Assembly Public Safety Committee and its leader, Jones-Sawyer, received criticism this year after refusing to hear fentanyl-related public safety bills. The committee has also rejected other measures that would increase penalties for domestic violence offenders, rapists of developmentally disabled children and other sexually violent crimes.
One of the sentence enhancements the committee has approved boosted penalties against people convicted of damaging or destroying property worth more than $275,000.
Law enforcement officials in the Sacramento area have said human trafficking is a growing problem in the area. A study last year found 13,000 people had been trafficked in Sacramento County alone in recent years, with some victims as young as 14.
If this guy is intent on shooting someone else, there is no way that an electronic ankle monitor is going to stop him
https://www.yahoo.com/news/man-accused-shooting-injuring-duquesne-211911513.html
Man accused of shooting, injuring Duquesne police officer to be released from jail
July 11, 2023
A man accused of shooting and injuring a Duquesne police officer is getting out of jail.
The accused shooter, Shyheim Berry, has been in the Allegheny County Jail since he was charged in the officer-involved shooting in February.
Tuesday, a judge granted him bond which means he will be released from jail soon, likely within the next 48 hours.
On Feb. 22, the officer was responding to a report of a man opening fire on an Uber driver.
The officer said he pulled up in an unmarked police cruiser that was several feet away from Berry. Investigators said Berry was armed with a mini assault rifle.
The officer said gunfire was exchanged at the same time, after he told Berry to drop his gun.
Berry was hit in the leg and was later found hiding in a basement before being taken into custody.
“In my experience, an aggravated assault shooting case generally speaking a person would probably make bail so the fact the victim is a police officer is probably part of the reason why the accuse was in jail for so long to begin with,” said attorney Blaine Jones.
Berry’s attorney, Casey White, says he was defending himself because Berry thought he was under attack and had no idea it was a police officer firing at him.
Judge Anthony Mariani granted Berry a non-monetary bond with electric home monitoring with strict bond conditions.
The expert who was interviewed this for this article blames this problem on “system racism,” but the expert did not say who it was that was engaging in this kind of behavior
https://www.yahoo.com/news/black-women-twice-likely-cyber-183000128.html
Black Women Twice As Likely To Be Cyber-Flashed
By Charity Nelson
July 11, 2023
A new study has revealed that Black women are twice as likely to experience cyber-flashing than their white counterparts. Cyber-flashing is defined as the act of using digital means, usually messaging or social media apps, to send pornographic images of oneself to another without their consent. Cyber-flashing can have disastrous effects on the victim, causing them distress, making them feel unsafe and endangering their long-term well-being.
The latest study, into cyber-flashing titled, “The exposé on women’s and marginalized genders’ social media experiences,” builds on a 2022 study that revealed that more than a fifth of girls and women in the United Kingdom have been cyber-flashed in the year prior. This recent study however goes even deeper. It found that 50 percent of the Black women who were part of the 2,000 women surveyed about their cyber-flashing experiences said they had indeed been cyber-flashed. This is in comparison to 26 percent of white women who shared the same traumatic experience.
A Grim State
Olivia DeRamus is the founder of Communia, the new social media platform that commissioned the study. Communia is an app dedicated to women and marginalized genders as it “prioritises wellbeing and social health”.
DeRamus, while speaking to the results from the study said, “This report reflects how women of colour also face system racism digitally, hyper sexualisation, increased risk of abuse – as well as how little is being done to protect their wellbeing on platforms like Facebook, which we can see is rated significantly higher as an unsafe space for Black women than White women in this report.”
DeRamus continued, “It makes sense then that the need for a safe space online for marginalized genders feels even more urgent for Black women at 91 per cent versus the 80 per cent of white women.”
Experts have cited that thorough social education on the matter, rather than simply enacting criminalizing laws, will be the best way to curb the issue. In the United States, some states including, California, Texas, and Virginia have already pushed to criminalize cyber-flashing.
New York City refuses to lock up serial shoplifters
A Tiny Number of Shoplifters Commit Thousands of New York City Thefts
Nearly a third of all shoplifting arrests in the city last year involved just 327 people, the police said. Businesses say they have little defense.
By Hurubie Meko
April 15, 2023
New York City’s storefront businesses, already weathering inflation and an uneven recovery from the coronavirus pandemic, are also contending with what the police say is a dramatic increase in shoplifting. But statistics also reveal a startling reality: A relative handful of shoplifters are responsible for an outsize percentage of retail crime.
Nearly a third of all shoplifting arrests in New York City last year involved just 327 people, the police said. Collectively, they were arrested and rearrested more than 6,000 times, Police Commissioner Keechant Sewell said. Some engage in shoplifting as a trade, while others are driven by addiction or mental illness; the police did not identify the 327 people in the analysis.
The victims are also concentrated: 18 department stores and seven chain pharmacy locations accounted for 20 percent of all complaints, the police said.
Petty thefts are one of the main drivers of the city’s overall crime rate, even as murders, shootings and other violent crimes have continued to drop. At a recent news conference, Commissioner Sewell said the situation demanded a “perpetual carousel of police resources.”
Criminal justice reform advocates have said that petty thefts are a crime of necessity, and that many down-on-their-luck New Yorkers are stealing what they need to survive in one of the world’s most expensive cities. But law enforcement and trade groups have blamed a proliferation of organized shoplifting crews, repeat offenders and the new state bail law that they argue has enabled such offenders to avoid jail time.
Last year, 41 people were indicted in New York City in connection with a theft ring that state prosecutors said shoplifted millions of dollars worth of beauty products and luxury goods that were sold online.
By the end of 2022, the theft of items valued at less than $1,000 had increased 53 percent since 2019 at major commercial locations, according to a new analysis of police data by researchers at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice.
Over the past five years, shoplifting complaints nearly doubled, peaking at nearly 64,000 last year, police data shows. Only about 34 percent resulted in arrests last year, compared with 60 percent in 2017.
Businesses large and small are grappling with “smash and grab” thefts, said David Johnston, vice president of asset protection and retail operations at the National Retail Federation.
“It’s the loss coupled with the violence and the concern of safety,” he said.
Representatives for major retailers in the city, including CVS, Macy’s and Target did not respond to requests for comment on shoplifting in New York. A spokeswoman for Walgreens, Kris Lathan, said the company had created a “major crimes unit” to assist authorities with investigations.
An estimate from a coalition of independent supermarkets, bodegas and grocers in the city, Collective Action to Protect Our Stores, put the total revenue lost to retail theft at about $300 million.
Small proprietors are scared, said Youssef Mubarez, whose family has owned a deli in Times Square for decades and who is also the director of public relations with the Yemeni American Merchants Association. The group has roughly 3,000 members who own delis and bodegas.
Since the pandemic, Mr. Mubarez’s cousin, who works at the family’s bodega, has encountered routine fights, Mr. Mubarez said, and some have involved knives. While opinions on what is behind the surge in shoplifting varies even among members, they all agree it’s more prevalent, he said.
“Every day, they’re going into work as they usually do and they’re not sure if the person walking in is there to rob them, going to steal from their store or start an issue where it just escalates to a point where they can’t control it,” he said.
Accosting a shoplifter is a risk each time, said Tchalare Idrissou, a clerk at the 99 Cent Zone store in the Mott Haven neighborhood of the Bronx. Recently, clerks at the store confronted and threw out a man they had seen shoplifting twice before on security camera footage.
“When you’re trying to stop them from stealing, they engage and try to fight,” Mr. Idrissou said, adding: “Sometimes we let them go with the stuff, because sometimes some of them have the weapons. Sometimes knives.”
Clerks described catching people walking out with items stuffed into their coats, sweaters, or down their pants. They kick them out of the store, they said, only to see some of them return. In other instances, they wouldn’t know how the shoplifter got away until they watched surveillance video.
A national survey of 63 retailers by the National Retail Federation found that they attributed about 37 percent — the largest portion — of so-called inventory shrinkage in 2021 to thefts by people who did not work at their stores.
Retailers have pointed to shoplifting as a drag on profits for decades. Walgreens said organized shoplifting was the reason it closed five stores in San Francisco in 2021. This year, however, a Walgreens executive said that the company might have overstated the effect, telling investors during an earnings call that “maybe we cried too much last year.”
But businesses have nonetheless turned to locking up merchandise behind glass, frustrating shoppers, and installing security guards at doors. For small stores, the costs of heightening security are often unaffordable, and merely reporting a small theft can be cumbersome. Those businesses are often left to stop thefts on their own.
In the Bronx, the Fordham Road Business Improvement District, which encompasses more than 300 businesses, launched a pilot program in January in which security guards patrol during peak shopping hours.
Two blocks from Mr. Idrissou in Mott Haven, Jose Filpo, who works at a deli and grocery owned by his uncle, said that he had started putting baby formula, which is priced at $22 and is a coveted item that has been subject to nationwide shortages in recent years, behind the register.
Mr. Filpo said he had become accustomed to escorting people out of the deli who are shoplifting, many of them homeless. Cleaning items like laundry detergent, priced from about $8 to $11, are the items that are stolen most often, he said.
Shoplifting is a crime of poverty, said Arielle Reid, supervising attorney of the Decarceration Project at the Legal Aid Society, New York’s largest provider of criminal and civil services for indigent clients. It can’t be solved by a continued reliance on “the heavy hand of law enforcement,” she said.
“Our clients and our communities are better served by investments in resources to break these endless cycles of incarceration,” Ms. Reid said.
The authorities take a harder line.
“Shoplifting, retail theft and commercial burglaries have escalated dramatically in recent years, and as a consequence, the consumer experience has suffered,” said Michael E. McMahon, the Staten Island district attorney. He blamed “reckless policies” for making businesses “less safe and under constant attack from rampant recidivism.”
Collective Action to Protect Our Stores, made up of 5,000 businesses in New York State, called on lawmakers to create units in the Police Department and prosecutors’ offices dedicated to retail theft and to offer more protections to retail employees who are attacked.
A bill introduced in Albany this year by Assemblyman Manny De Los Santos would elevate assault of a retail worker to a felony, in line with the penalty for attacks against police officers, transportation employees and nurses.
“In New York, when it comes to retail workers, we are coming up short,” the lawmaker from Upper Manhattan said in a statement.
After a 67-year-old deli employee was killed in Manhattan in March, Mayor Eric Adams suggested that shopkeepers bar customers who refuse to pull down their masks when they enter a store.
In December, Mr. Adams hosted a summit at Gracie Mansion to create a citywide plan to combat retail theft. Joined by law enforcement agencies and trade leaders, he said businesses were “the lifeblood of our economic recovery,” adding “we are not going to stand by and let criminals undermine our economy and the livelihood of New Yorkers.”
Mr. Adams has lobbied to toughen the state’s bail law, and the measure has once again turned into a divisive point in Albany’s budget negotiations.
After Republicans used the law and concerns over crime to capture key seats in last year’s midterm elections, Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, proposed modifications to the law that could keep more people in jail. But her fellow Democrats, who control the State Legislature, have firmly pushed back.
As politicians debate, businesses and residents are acting on their own.
In Harlem, a coalition of proprietors and officials from law enforcement and city agencies started meeting a year ago to address problems in the neighborhood’s 125th Street Business Improvement District.
Thanks to the group, the local police precinct was able to identify 18 people who had been seen shoplifting repeatedly, said Barbara Askins, the president and chief executive of the business district and a member of the Manhattan district attorney’s Manhattan Small Business Alliance, which was created to reduce shoplifting and robberies throughout the borough.
Those 18 names were sent to prosecutors, Ms. Askins said. And with a $20,000 grant from the district attorney’s office, the business improvement district plans to hire two part-time employees to engage with businesses and the community.
“We try to seek solutions, try to come up with creative solutions around existing laws to try to find a way to try to address this problem,” Ms. Askins said.
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