by Bob Walsh
The formerly great state of California has an interesting legislature. There is now floating around the system a bill that would mandate that the DMV have a category of "NON-BINARY" for gender on drivers licenses.
I can foresee situations in which that could be.....amusing.
EDITOR'S NOTE: Amusing? Disgusting is more like it. While they're at it, why don't they stamp "MAY USE RESTROOM OF CHOICE" on the face of the license.
Friday, January 27, 2017
NIETO TELLS TRUMP TO BUGGER OFF
by bob Walsh
President Nieto of the Estados Unidos Mexico has told President Trump that he will not attend a meeting with Trump next week. He also asserted that he intends to protect Mexican citizens everywhere, including the U. S.
I would humbly suggest that, assuming Nieto is truly interested in protecting his citizens, that he should maybe keep them home, or at least attempt to ensure that when they go to another country they do so legally. Of course something like 12% of Mexico's GNP is money sent to Mexico by Mexican citizens living in the U. S., many of them illegally. So maybe he is just a tad more interested in protecting the status quo than in protecting his citizens.
Were I Trump I think I would say, "Fuck him and the caballo he rode in on." And then start mass deportations. That being said, I am not a diplomat so maybe we should do what Trump wants and start with the convicted felon illegal aliens and then work downstream from there.
President Nieto of the Estados Unidos Mexico has told President Trump that he will not attend a meeting with Trump next week. He also asserted that he intends to protect Mexican citizens everywhere, including the U. S.
I would humbly suggest that, assuming Nieto is truly interested in protecting his citizens, that he should maybe keep them home, or at least attempt to ensure that when they go to another country they do so legally. Of course something like 12% of Mexico's GNP is money sent to Mexico by Mexican citizens living in the U. S., many of them illegally. So maybe he is just a tad more interested in protecting the status quo than in protecting his citizens.
Were I Trump I think I would say, "Fuck him and the caballo he rode in on." And then start mass deportations. That being said, I am not a diplomat so maybe we should do what Trump wants and start with the convicted felon illegal aliens and then work downstream from there.
TRUMP STOPS FUNDS FROM GOING TO THE PALESTINIANS
Trump administration halts Obama’s last minute transfer of $221 million to the Palestinian Authority
By Eli Leon and Daniel Siryoti
Israel Hayom
January 26, 2017
The U.S. State Department on Wednesday halted the transfer of hundreds of millions of dollars to the Palestinian Authority that had been pushed forward by the former administration in its waning hours in what Republican lawmakers called an "underhanded move."
Last week, the outgoing Obama administration released $221 million to the Palestinian Authority -- funds previously held up by Republican members of Congress. More than $227 million in foreign affairs funding were released, including $4 million for climate change programs and $1.25 million for U.N. organizations.
The New York Times reported Wednesday that President Donald Trump is drafting executive orders that would halt U.S. funding to U.N. agencies and other international bodies that grant the Palestinian Authority or the Palestine Liberation Organization full membership.
Any organization that is "controlled or substantially influenced by any state that sponsors terrorism" will lose its funding, as will bodies that support any activity that circumvents U.S. sanctions against Iran or North Korea.
The Trump administration is planning to slash 40% of U.S. funding to international organizations overall, the report said. The cuts could severely curtail the work of U.N. agencies, which rely heavily on billions of dollars in annual U.S. contributions.
According to other media reports, Trump is also considering designating the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist group.
As for the potential move of the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, the London-based Arab newspaper Al-Sharq Al-Awsat reported Wednesday that the Palestinian Authority has received a "calming message" from Trump administration officials saying the issue will not be advanced at this time.
A Ramallah official told the daily that American officials had sought to clarify the issue, saying Trump is seeking to promote a move that would reignite American-brokered Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.
Still, senior Trump adviser Rudy Giuliani told Channel 10 News Wednesday that the embassy move was "not a question of 'if' but 'when.'"
Meanwhile, U.S. Consul in Jerusalem David Blum met with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and Chief Palestinian Negotiator Saeb Erekat in Ramallah to discuss the new administration's projected Middle East policies.
Also on Wednesday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's wife, Sara, spoke with First Lady Melania Trump to congratulate her on her new role.
"The two look forward to meeting in Washington and working together to bolster Israel-U.S. ties," a statement by the Prime Minister's Office said.
By Eli Leon and Daniel Siryoti
Israel Hayom
January 26, 2017
The U.S. State Department on Wednesday halted the transfer of hundreds of millions of dollars to the Palestinian Authority that had been pushed forward by the former administration in its waning hours in what Republican lawmakers called an "underhanded move."
Last week, the outgoing Obama administration released $221 million to the Palestinian Authority -- funds previously held up by Republican members of Congress. More than $227 million in foreign affairs funding were released, including $4 million for climate change programs and $1.25 million for U.N. organizations.
The New York Times reported Wednesday that President Donald Trump is drafting executive orders that would halt U.S. funding to U.N. agencies and other international bodies that grant the Palestinian Authority or the Palestine Liberation Organization full membership.
Any organization that is "controlled or substantially influenced by any state that sponsors terrorism" will lose its funding, as will bodies that support any activity that circumvents U.S. sanctions against Iran or North Korea.
The Trump administration is planning to slash 40% of U.S. funding to international organizations overall, the report said. The cuts could severely curtail the work of U.N. agencies, which rely heavily on billions of dollars in annual U.S. contributions.
According to other media reports, Trump is also considering designating the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist group.
As for the potential move of the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, the London-based Arab newspaper Al-Sharq Al-Awsat reported Wednesday that the Palestinian Authority has received a "calming message" from Trump administration officials saying the issue will not be advanced at this time.
A Ramallah official told the daily that American officials had sought to clarify the issue, saying Trump is seeking to promote a move that would reignite American-brokered Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.
Still, senior Trump adviser Rudy Giuliani told Channel 10 News Wednesday that the embassy move was "not a question of 'if' but 'when.'"
Meanwhile, U.S. Consul in Jerusalem David Blum met with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and Chief Palestinian Negotiator Saeb Erekat in Ramallah to discuss the new administration's projected Middle East policies.
Also on Wednesday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's wife, Sara, spoke with First Lady Melania Trump to congratulate her on her new role.
"The two look forward to meeting in Washington and working together to bolster Israel-U.S. ties," a statement by the Prime Minister's Office said.
SAN DIEGO HIGH SCHOOL STUDENT FORCED TO PEE IN BUCKET AWARDED $1.25 MILLION IN LAWSUIT
Student wins lawsuit against the San Diego Unified School District for being forced to pee in a bucket after her teacher denied her a bathroom break
By Maureen Magee
The San Diego Union-Tribune
January 25, 2017
The San Diego Unified School District has been ordered to pay more than $1.25 million in damages to a former student forced to urinate in a bucket after her request for a bathroom break was denied.
A Superior Court jury on Wednesday decided in favor of the former Patrick Henry High School student who sued the district and a teacher over the 2012 incident she said fueled gossip, lewd texts, depression and a suicide attempt.
San Diego Unified denied her initial claim seeking $25,000.
“Something like this never should have happened to a 14-year-old girl just entering high school,” said attorney Brian Watkins. “She took the stand and told a really embarrassing story, she told the jury how this has affected her life and how she is still working through issues.”
On Feb. 22, 2012, the student told a classmate in a 25-minute advisory class she urgently needed to use the bathroom but was afraid the teacher wouldn’t give her a pass. Believing it was against school rules, teacher Gonja Wolf rejected the student’s request and instead showed her to a supply room adjacent to the classroom where she could privately urinate in a bucket and dump the contents in a sink.
The school district called the verdict disappointing.
“We, of course, are disappointed and will be considering in the next few weeks whether or not to appeal,” said district spokeswoman Shari Winet.
Lawyers for San Diego Unified and the teacher said in court Wolf never intended to embarrass the girl, rather the teacher thought she had found a solution to what she mistakenly thought was a strict no-bathroom-break policy.
In a “lapse of judgment, she thought that was a good idea,” Katheryn Martin, an attorney representing the district, said in opening statements.
New to the campus at the time, 25-minute advisory classes were intended to provide study time and build relationships among students. Although teachers were told the short periods would be undermined by frequent bathroom breaks, the school expected them to use common sense, San Diego Unified attorneys told the jury and Superior Court Judge Katherine Bacal during the trial.
But Wolf, an art teacher, took a strict interpretation of the rule, and had recently purchased a bucket to serve as a make-shift toilet in the case of a security lock-down. The teacher had even urinated in the bucket a couple of times herself while working late at school, her attorney, Fern Steiner, told the jury.
Once the Patrick Henry administration found out about the incident, the popular teacher with no record of discipline was put on paid administrative leave and never returned to campus.
The school also made clear to teachers that students should not be denied bathroom trips. Administrators apologized to the girl and her mother and extended offers of assistance, attorneys told the court.
But once word of the incident got out, the girl was mercilessly teased and forced to transfer schools twice, attorney Watkins said. Widespread media coverage of the incident — that included television news crews showing up at her home and school — scared the girl, who ultimately attempted suicide, he said.
The jury awarded the girl $1.25 million in damages and $41,000 to cover past and current medical expenses. The girl, who is now 19, went on to earn a diploma from a charter school. She has a job, and is still in therapy due to post-traumatic stress caused by the incident, Watkins said.
“She is very happy she was able to have her voice heard,” Watkins said of his client. “I’ve been doing this for 20 years and this was one of the more peculiar cases I’ve had. The jury was fair and reasonable.”
By Maureen Magee
The San Diego Union-Tribune
January 25, 2017
The San Diego Unified School District has been ordered to pay more than $1.25 million in damages to a former student forced to urinate in a bucket after her request for a bathroom break was denied.
A Superior Court jury on Wednesday decided in favor of the former Patrick Henry High School student who sued the district and a teacher over the 2012 incident she said fueled gossip, lewd texts, depression and a suicide attempt.
San Diego Unified denied her initial claim seeking $25,000.
“Something like this never should have happened to a 14-year-old girl just entering high school,” said attorney Brian Watkins. “She took the stand and told a really embarrassing story, she told the jury how this has affected her life and how she is still working through issues.”
On Feb. 22, 2012, the student told a classmate in a 25-minute advisory class she urgently needed to use the bathroom but was afraid the teacher wouldn’t give her a pass. Believing it was against school rules, teacher Gonja Wolf rejected the student’s request and instead showed her to a supply room adjacent to the classroom where she could privately urinate in a bucket and dump the contents in a sink.
The school district called the verdict disappointing.
“We, of course, are disappointed and will be considering in the next few weeks whether or not to appeal,” said district spokeswoman Shari Winet.
Lawyers for San Diego Unified and the teacher said in court Wolf never intended to embarrass the girl, rather the teacher thought she had found a solution to what she mistakenly thought was a strict no-bathroom-break policy.
In a “lapse of judgment, she thought that was a good idea,” Katheryn Martin, an attorney representing the district, said in opening statements.
New to the campus at the time, 25-minute advisory classes were intended to provide study time and build relationships among students. Although teachers were told the short periods would be undermined by frequent bathroom breaks, the school expected them to use common sense, San Diego Unified attorneys told the jury and Superior Court Judge Katherine Bacal during the trial.
But Wolf, an art teacher, took a strict interpretation of the rule, and had recently purchased a bucket to serve as a make-shift toilet in the case of a security lock-down. The teacher had even urinated in the bucket a couple of times herself while working late at school, her attorney, Fern Steiner, told the jury.
Once the Patrick Henry administration found out about the incident, the popular teacher with no record of discipline was put on paid administrative leave and never returned to campus.
The school also made clear to teachers that students should not be denied bathroom trips. Administrators apologized to the girl and her mother and extended offers of assistance, attorneys told the court.
But once word of the incident got out, the girl was mercilessly teased and forced to transfer schools twice, attorney Watkins said. Widespread media coverage of the incident — that included television news crews showing up at her home and school — scared the girl, who ultimately attempted suicide, he said.
The jury awarded the girl $1.25 million in damages and $41,000 to cover past and current medical expenses. The girl, who is now 19, went on to earn a diploma from a charter school. She has a job, and is still in therapy due to post-traumatic stress caused by the incident, Watkins said.
“She is very happy she was able to have her voice heard,” Watkins said of his client. “I’ve been doing this for 20 years and this was one of the more peculiar cases I’ve had. The jury was fair and reasonable.”
Thursday, January 26, 2017
LET MY PEOPLE GO
‘Calexit,’ here we come? A third of Californians back secession in new poll
By Alexei Koseff
The Sacramento Bee
January 23, 2017
Nearly one in three Californians supports withdrawing from the United States, according to a new Reuters/Ipsos poll – a highly unlikely scenario that could nonetheless come before Golden State voters in the 2018 election.
The national survey, released on Monday, found 32 percent of California respondents inclined toward secession, a dramatic increase from the last time Reuters asked in 2014, when 20 percent favored the idea. That’s also significantly higher than the average support among all states of 22 percent, which has dropped two percentage points since 2014.
Why do so many Californians suddenly want to form their own country? Perhaps the election of President Donald Trump, who suffered a historic loss here in November.
The overwhelmingly Democratic state politicians have been defiant, already vowing legal challenges to Trump administration programs that conflict with California policies. As many as 1.2 million people are estimated to have participated in anti-Trump protests across the state on Saturday.
A secessionist group called Yes California is trying to capitalize on that sentiment by pursuing a 2018 ballot measure that would start the process of breaking away from the United States, which they have dubbed “Calexit.”
But the plan is a longshot: Even if Californians approve the initiative affirming their desire to secede, they would likely need two-thirds of Congress and three-quarters of states to pass an amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
EDITOR’S NOTE: By all means, let the Kookfornians go!
By Alexei Koseff
The Sacramento Bee
January 23, 2017
Nearly one in three Californians supports withdrawing from the United States, according to a new Reuters/Ipsos poll – a highly unlikely scenario that could nonetheless come before Golden State voters in the 2018 election.
The national survey, released on Monday, found 32 percent of California respondents inclined toward secession, a dramatic increase from the last time Reuters asked in 2014, when 20 percent favored the idea. That’s also significantly higher than the average support among all states of 22 percent, which has dropped two percentage points since 2014.
Why do so many Californians suddenly want to form their own country? Perhaps the election of President Donald Trump, who suffered a historic loss here in November.
The overwhelmingly Democratic state politicians have been defiant, already vowing legal challenges to Trump administration programs that conflict with California policies. As many as 1.2 million people are estimated to have participated in anti-Trump protests across the state on Saturday.
A secessionist group called Yes California is trying to capitalize on that sentiment by pursuing a 2018 ballot measure that would start the process of breaking away from the United States, which they have dubbed “Calexit.”
But the plan is a longshot: Even if Californians approve the initiative affirming their desire to secede, they would likely need two-thirds of Congress and three-quarters of states to pass an amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
EDITOR’S NOTE: By all means, let the Kookfornians go!
TRUMP BUMP
by Bob Walsh
The NYSE closed above 20,000 for the first time ever on Wednesday. Just thought you might like to know. The Democrat-Socialists are asserting that this is merely a holdover from the wise and forward-looking policies of the God-King Barack I and has nothing to do with the usurper at all. That is, of course, horseshit.
The NYSE closed above 20,000 for the first time ever on Wednesday. Just thought you might like to know. The Democrat-Socialists are asserting that this is merely a holdover from the wise and forward-looking policies of the God-King Barack I and has nothing to do with the usurper at all. That is, of course, horseshit.
DONALD TRUMP IS A DANGEROUS MAN
by Bob Walsh
Yes, it is true. Donald Trump is one dangerous, crazy sonofabitch. He is actually DOING the shit he promised he would do while running for president.
He has already reversed several of the God-King's executive orders. He has directed to state department to stop the issuance of routine visa to places like Yemen, Somalia, Iraq, Iran and other goat-fucker havens. He has put a 120 day hold on the refugee program from Syria pending review of the program. (Legit religious minorities with solid claims of persecution will still be processed.)
He is pushing for a federal level investigation of voter fraud. (You know the Democrat-Socialists are going to go apeshit over that.)
He has also signed an executive order to begin construction of the border wall. Clearly that can not go very far without a major funding bill from congress, but the man is not sitting on his hands.
He is also moving towards jerking federal funds from recognized "sanctuary cities." These include New York, Los Angels, Chicago, Philadelphia, Boston, Denver, San Francisco and Seattle.
Yes, it looks like Trump is planning, at least so far, to actually do much of the stuff he said he was going to do. He might not pull it off, but he seems to be willing to give it a serious try. That makes him a very dangerous man indeed.
Yes, it is true. Donald Trump is one dangerous, crazy sonofabitch. He is actually DOING the shit he promised he would do while running for president.
He has already reversed several of the God-King's executive orders. He has directed to state department to stop the issuance of routine visa to places like Yemen, Somalia, Iraq, Iran and other goat-fucker havens. He has put a 120 day hold on the refugee program from Syria pending review of the program. (Legit religious minorities with solid claims of persecution will still be processed.)
He is pushing for a federal level investigation of voter fraud. (You know the Democrat-Socialists are going to go apeshit over that.)
He has also signed an executive order to begin construction of the border wall. Clearly that can not go very far without a major funding bill from congress, but the man is not sitting on his hands.
He is also moving towards jerking federal funds from recognized "sanctuary cities." These include New York, Los Angels, Chicago, Philadelphia, Boston, Denver, San Francisco and Seattle.
Yes, it looks like Trump is planning, at least so far, to actually do much of the stuff he said he was going to do. He might not pull it off, but he seems to be willing to give it a serious try. That makes him a very dangerous man indeed.
PROSECUTORS SAY LAPD OFFICERS WERE IN FEAR OF THEIR LIVES AND ACTED LAWFULLY WHEN THEY SHOT UNARMED EZELL FORD
Ford's family, which insists the mentally ill black man was murdered by the police, late last year reached a settlement with the city of Los Angeles in a civil lawsuit
Associated Press
January 25, 2017
Two Los Angeles police officers acted in self-defence and will not face criminal charges after fatally shooting a mentally ill black man during a struggle over an officer's gun in 2014, prosecutors said Tuesday.
The finding from the Los Angeles district attorney's office comes more than a year after a police oversight board found the officers had no legal reason to stop 25-year-old Ezell Ford, violating department policy.
But prosecutors said Los Angeles Police Department officers Sharlton Wampler and Antonio Villegas were in fear for their lives and acted lawfully when they shot Ford on Aug. 11, 2014, as Ford struggled with Wampler over the officer's holstered gun. The shooting happened days after that of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, and led to a series of Black Lives Matter protests in Los Angeles.
"The question is did they honestly believe that Mr. Ford was about to take out the gun and shoot them, and there [are] a lot of facts that indicate that they did," District Attorney Jackie Lacey said in an interview Tuesday.
Authorities said the officers had approached Ford, whose family has said he struggled with an array of mental illnesses, after seeing him in a known gang area, telling him they wanted to speak with him. Ford, they said, began walking away, but the officers believed he was trying to discard an illegal substance. Prosecutors said Wampler placed his hands on Ford's shoulders before Ford spun around and grabbed the officer at the waist.
Both Wampler and Ford fell to the ground and started tussling as Ford tried to grab Wampler's gun from the holster on his waist, prosecutors said.
Villegas shot Ford twice during the struggle, but Ford continued to fight with Wampler, Lacey said. Wampler was eventually able to retrieve his backup weapon, which was affixed to his bulletproof vest, reached around Ford's body and shot him once in the back, she said.
"This was not some officer who deliberately took out a gun and said, 'I'm going to shoot Mr. Ford.' This was a struggle on the ground, for a couple of minutes, that was very tense," Lacey said. One of the most compelling witnesses, she said, told investigators they heard an officer shouting, "Let go of my gun!"
'Reliving it all over again'
Lacey said she called Ford's mother Tuesday morning before her office released a report on the shooting and told her they would not be bringing criminal charges against the officers. She said Ford's mother was very upset and that it "felt like she was reliving it all over again."
"My son was unarmed. He was murdered, and there will be no justice," Ford's mother, Tritobia Ford, told reporters as tears streamed down her face. "These officers get off scot-free. They just got away with murder. There is no justice for Ezell."
She said the shooting was unjustified and wants the two officers removed from the police force. A police department spokesman said both officers were working "in an administrative capacity" but declined to comment further.
The Los Angeles Police Commission ruled in June 2015 that the officers had no reason to stop and question Ford, and that violation of department policy led to an altercation that ended with Ford's death. The commission found that Wampler was unjustified in shooting Ford and Villegas was wrong to draw his weapon but acted appropriately in firing it because he believed Wampler's life was in danger.
The Los Angeles Police Protective League, the officers' union, said in a statement Tuesday that it agreed with Lacey's findings and that officers must be able to protect themselves and the public.
In October, Ford's family reached a tentative settlement in a state civil rights lawsuit they brought against the city.
Associated Press
January 25, 2017
Two Los Angeles police officers acted in self-defence and will not face criminal charges after fatally shooting a mentally ill black man during a struggle over an officer's gun in 2014, prosecutors said Tuesday.
The finding from the Los Angeles district attorney's office comes more than a year after a police oversight board found the officers had no legal reason to stop 25-year-old Ezell Ford, violating department policy.
But prosecutors said Los Angeles Police Department officers Sharlton Wampler and Antonio Villegas were in fear for their lives and acted lawfully when they shot Ford on Aug. 11, 2014, as Ford struggled with Wampler over the officer's holstered gun. The shooting happened days after that of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, and led to a series of Black Lives Matter protests in Los Angeles.
"The question is did they honestly believe that Mr. Ford was about to take out the gun and shoot them, and there [are] a lot of facts that indicate that they did," District Attorney Jackie Lacey said in an interview Tuesday.
Authorities said the officers had approached Ford, whose family has said he struggled with an array of mental illnesses, after seeing him in a known gang area, telling him they wanted to speak with him. Ford, they said, began walking away, but the officers believed he was trying to discard an illegal substance. Prosecutors said Wampler placed his hands on Ford's shoulders before Ford spun around and grabbed the officer at the waist.
Both Wampler and Ford fell to the ground and started tussling as Ford tried to grab Wampler's gun from the holster on his waist, prosecutors said.
Villegas shot Ford twice during the struggle, but Ford continued to fight with Wampler, Lacey said. Wampler was eventually able to retrieve his backup weapon, which was affixed to his bulletproof vest, reached around Ford's body and shot him once in the back, she said.
"This was not some officer who deliberately took out a gun and said, 'I'm going to shoot Mr. Ford.' This was a struggle on the ground, for a couple of minutes, that was very tense," Lacey said. One of the most compelling witnesses, she said, told investigators they heard an officer shouting, "Let go of my gun!"
'Reliving it all over again'
Lacey said she called Ford's mother Tuesday morning before her office released a report on the shooting and told her they would not be bringing criminal charges against the officers. She said Ford's mother was very upset and that it "felt like she was reliving it all over again."
"My son was unarmed. He was murdered, and there will be no justice," Ford's mother, Tritobia Ford, told reporters as tears streamed down her face. "These officers get off scot-free. They just got away with murder. There is no justice for Ezell."
She said the shooting was unjustified and wants the two officers removed from the police force. A police department spokesman said both officers were working "in an administrative capacity" but declined to comment further.
The Los Angeles Police Commission ruled in June 2015 that the officers had no reason to stop and question Ford, and that violation of department policy led to an altercation that ended with Ford's death. The commission found that Wampler was unjustified in shooting Ford and Villegas was wrong to draw his weapon but acted appropriately in firing it because he believed Wampler's life was in danger.
The Los Angeles Police Protective League, the officers' union, said in a statement Tuesday that it agreed with Lacey's findings and that officers must be able to protect themselves and the public.
In October, Ford's family reached a tentative settlement in a state civil rights lawsuit they brought against the city.
LETTER FROM A FARM KID WHO HAS JOINED THE MARINES
Marine Corps Recruit Depot
Parris Island, South Carolina
January 26, 2017
Dear Ma and Pa,
I am well. Hope you are. Tell Brother Walt and Brother Elmer the Marine Corps beats working for old man Minch by a mile. Tell them to join up quick before all of the places are filled.
I was restless at first because you get to stay in bed till nearly 6 a.m. But I am getting so I like to sleep late. Tell Walt and Elmer all you do before breakfast is smooth your cot and shine some things. No hogs to slop, feed to pitch, mash to mix, wood to split, fire to lay. Practically nothing.
Men got to shave but it is not so bad, there's warm water. Breakfast is strong on trimmings like fruit juice, cereal, eggs, bacon, etc., but kind of weak on chops, potatoes, ham, steak, fried eggplant, pie, and other regular food, but tell Walt and Elmer you can always sit by the two city boys that live on coffee. Their food, plus yours, holds you until noon when you get fed again. It's no wonder these city boys can't walk much.
We go on 'route marches,' which the platoon sergeant says are long walks to harden us. If he thinks so, it's not my place to tell him different. A 'route march' is about as far as to our mailbox at home. Then the city guys get sore feet and we all ride back in trucks.
The sergeant is like a school teacher. He nags a lot. The Captain is like the school board. Majors and colonels just ride around and frown. They don't bother you none.
This next will kill Walt and Elmer with laughing... I keep getting medals for good shooting. I don't know why. The bulls-eye is near as big as a chipmunk head and don't move, and it ain't shooting at you like the Higgett boys at home. All you got to do is lie there all comfortable and hit it. You don't even load your own cartridges. They come in boxes.
Then we have what they call hand-to-hand combat training. You get to wrestle with them city boys. I have to be careful though, they break real easy. It ain't like wrestling with that ole bull at home. I'm about the best they got in this except for that Tug Jordan from over in Silver Lake. I only beat him once. He joined up the same time as me, but I'm only 5'6' and 130 pounds, and he's 6'8' and near 300 pounds dry.
Be sure to tell Walt and Elmer to hurry and join before other fellers get onto this setup and come stampeding in.
Your loving daughter,
Alice
Parris Island, South Carolina
January 26, 2017
Dear Ma and Pa,
I am well. Hope you are. Tell Brother Walt and Brother Elmer the Marine Corps beats working for old man Minch by a mile. Tell them to join up quick before all of the places are filled.
I was restless at first because you get to stay in bed till nearly 6 a.m. But I am getting so I like to sleep late. Tell Walt and Elmer all you do before breakfast is smooth your cot and shine some things. No hogs to slop, feed to pitch, mash to mix, wood to split, fire to lay. Practically nothing.
Men got to shave but it is not so bad, there's warm water. Breakfast is strong on trimmings like fruit juice, cereal, eggs, bacon, etc., but kind of weak on chops, potatoes, ham, steak, fried eggplant, pie, and other regular food, but tell Walt and Elmer you can always sit by the two city boys that live on coffee. Their food, plus yours, holds you until noon when you get fed again. It's no wonder these city boys can't walk much.
We go on 'route marches,' which the platoon sergeant says are long walks to harden us. If he thinks so, it's not my place to tell him different. A 'route march' is about as far as to our mailbox at home. Then the city guys get sore feet and we all ride back in trucks.
The sergeant is like a school teacher. He nags a lot. The Captain is like the school board. Majors and colonels just ride around and frown. They don't bother you none.
This next will kill Walt and Elmer with laughing... I keep getting medals for good shooting. I don't know why. The bulls-eye is near as big as a chipmunk head and don't move, and it ain't shooting at you like the Higgett boys at home. All you got to do is lie there all comfortable and hit it. You don't even load your own cartridges. They come in boxes.
Then we have what they call hand-to-hand combat training. You get to wrestle with them city boys. I have to be careful though, they break real easy. It ain't like wrestling with that ole bull at home. I'm about the best they got in this except for that Tug Jordan from over in Silver Lake. I only beat him once. He joined up the same time as me, but I'm only 5'6' and 130 pounds, and he's 6'8' and near 300 pounds dry.
Be sure to tell Walt and Elmer to hurry and join before other fellers get onto this setup and come stampeding in.
Your loving daughter,
Alice
Wednesday, January 25, 2017
OBAMA’S PARTING SHOT AT ISRAEL
After eight years of antagonism toward Israel, Obama's parting gift to the Palestinians: $221 million
Israel Today
January 24, 2017
He couldn’t in the end help them declare statehood, but former US President Barack Obama did have a substantial parting gift for the Palestinian Arabs.
Just hours before he turned the White House over to President Donald Trump, Obama issued an executive order releasing $221 million in US taxpayer funds to the Palestinian Authority.
The money had been set aside as part of an earlier budgetary bill that included funding to the Palestinian Authority via USAID.
But congressional Republicans had blocked the transfer after the Palestinian leadership sought state-level recognition from various international bodies in violation of signed agreements with Israel.
GOP lawmakers argued that the Palestinian Authority was creating obstacles to peace, and that the US government, which had brokered the aforementioned agreements, must hold the Palestinians accountable.
But Palestinian Authority peace violations were never of much concern to Obama.
His parting gift to the Palestinians was seen as a final act of official support for their campaign against Israel, as well as a repudiation of President Donald Trump’s stated Middle East peace policies.
Israel Today
January 24, 2017
He couldn’t in the end help them declare statehood, but former US President Barack Obama did have a substantial parting gift for the Palestinian Arabs.
Just hours before he turned the White House over to President Donald Trump, Obama issued an executive order releasing $221 million in US taxpayer funds to the Palestinian Authority.
The money had been set aside as part of an earlier budgetary bill that included funding to the Palestinian Authority via USAID.
But congressional Republicans had blocked the transfer after the Palestinian leadership sought state-level recognition from various international bodies in violation of signed agreements with Israel.
GOP lawmakers argued that the Palestinian Authority was creating obstacles to peace, and that the US government, which had brokered the aforementioned agreements, must hold the Palestinians accountable.
But Palestinian Authority peace violations were never of much concern to Obama.
His parting gift to the Palestinians was seen as a final act of official support for their campaign against Israel, as well as a repudiation of President Donald Trump’s stated Middle East peace policies.
PUPPIES RESCUED AFTER MASSIVE AVALANCHE
by Bob Walsh
Three sheepdog puppies were pulled alive from the rubble of a hotel in Parindola, Italy yesterday. This led rescuers to hope that some more of the 22 missing people might still be found alive.
The one month old Abruzzo puppies were found in the boiler room, which was presumably in the basement of the hotel. The puppies parents managed to get out of the hotel on their own.
Seven people at known to have died when the avalanche hit the hotel five days ago..
Three sheepdog puppies were pulled alive from the rubble of a hotel in Parindola, Italy yesterday. This led rescuers to hope that some more of the 22 missing people might still be found alive.
The one month old Abruzzo puppies were found in the boiler room, which was presumably in the basement of the hotel. The puppies parents managed to get out of the hotel on their own.
Seven people at known to have died when the avalanche hit the hotel five days ago..
NOTE TO BUSINESSES: TRY NOT TO KILL YOUR CUSTOMERS
by Bob Walsh
Yesterday a federal judge dropped a $3 million fine, the largest allowed under the law, on PG&E. This relates to criminal violations of safety regulations which resulted in a gas pipeline explosion in a residential area in San Bruno, CA seven years back. In addition it is extremely likely that PG&E will now have to deal with a safety monitor to ensure that they no longer falsify pipeline safety reports and kill people.
The pipeline blast killed eight, injured more than 50 and destroyed 38 homes. The blast was caused by a bud weld in the pipe. In addition the jury found that PG&E attempted to interfere with the investigation.
Yesterday a federal judge dropped a $3 million fine, the largest allowed under the law, on PG&E. This relates to criminal violations of safety regulations which resulted in a gas pipeline explosion in a residential area in San Bruno, CA seven years back. In addition it is extremely likely that PG&E will now have to deal with a safety monitor to ensure that they no longer falsify pipeline safety reports and kill people.
The pipeline blast killed eight, injured more than 50 and destroyed 38 homes. The blast was caused by a bud weld in the pipe. In addition the jury found that PG&E attempted to interfere with the investigation.
HOW COME NO ASSHOLES ARE EVER SHOT BY COPS??
by Bob Walsh
It happened again, this time in Vallejo, CA. Neighbors called the cops to a drunken house party in the wee hours of Monday. Among the problems they encountered was an apparent mutual combat between a "teenager" (who was 6-2 and weighed 250 pounds) and a young adult. It turns out they knew each other. They were duking it out on the second-story rear deck. The cops tried to break it up and then fired up a Taser, which missed. At about that time the tables turned and the large16-year old ended up on his back on the deck and the 21-year old was on top, with a toad-sticker. One of the cops terminally rehabilitated the adult with the knife with four shots. The knife wielder, Angel Ramos, was pronounced rehabilitated at the scene.
Three of the people at the scene, including the 16-year old, were arrested for resisting arrest and general assholeishness. (OK, I just made that last part up. However, it should be a real law.)
The dead guy was described as a "happy person" and a "free spirit." I can see that. Damn near ever "happy person" or "free spirit" I know is regularly involved in homicidal fights while stinking drunk at house parties.
It happened again, this time in Vallejo, CA. Neighbors called the cops to a drunken house party in the wee hours of Monday. Among the problems they encountered was an apparent mutual combat between a "teenager" (who was 6-2 and weighed 250 pounds) and a young adult. It turns out they knew each other. They were duking it out on the second-story rear deck. The cops tried to break it up and then fired up a Taser, which missed. At about that time the tables turned and the large16-year old ended up on his back on the deck and the 21-year old was on top, with a toad-sticker. One of the cops terminally rehabilitated the adult with the knife with four shots. The knife wielder, Angel Ramos, was pronounced rehabilitated at the scene.
Three of the people at the scene, including the 16-year old, were arrested for resisting arrest and general assholeishness. (OK, I just made that last part up. However, it should be a real law.)
The dead guy was described as a "happy person" and a "free spirit." I can see that. Damn near ever "happy person" or "free spirit" I know is regularly involved in homicidal fights while stinking drunk at house parties.
ALCACUZ INMATES BARBEQUE HUMAN FLESH SPARKING CANNABALISM FEARS IN 10-DAY BRZILIAN PRISON RIOT
Inmates at a Brazilian prison rocked by infighting between drugs gangs have boasted about having a barbecue with human flesh
By Nicole Morley
Metro
January 24, 2017
Prisoners gloated as they showed off pieces of meat on a skewer over a bonfire and claimed they were toasting the remains of a rival.
The video, recorded as a 10-day riot gripped Alcacuz Prison in the north eastern city of Natal, where at least 26 inmates have been killed.
The bodies of some prisoners have been returned to their loved ones with their heads missing after they were decapitated.
Only 22 victims of the violence had been identified by Monday, with forensic experts still trying to determine who two heads, a forearm, an arm and a leg removed from the prison grounds belonged to.
No footage of the inmates eating members of rival gangs has emerged, and authorities said they had no concrete evidence to confirm cannibalism had taken place.
Elite military police are expected to move into Alcacuz shortly to help jail guards take inmates back to their cells and finally restore full order.
The prisoners filmed preparing their barbecue were said to belong to an Amazon drug gang called the Family of the North and a Rio de Janeiro-based drugs gang called the Red Command.
The man whose meat they claimed to be barbecuing was said to be a member of the Sao Paulo-based PCC or First Capital Command which kept the peace for years with the Red Command before their loose alliance fell apart last year and resulted in a spate of prison killings.
One of the bare-chested inmates pictured in the video, who made no attempt to hide his face, shouted out repeatedly: ‘Churrasco do PCC’ – Portuguese for PCC Steak.
Another prisoner, who was brandishing a machete-style knife and had several front teeth missing, said: ‘This is only the beginning.’
Last week it was reported grim prison massacre snuff videos showing corpses and severed heads on the ground during a prison riot in Manaus on January 1, were being sold for the equivalent of 75p on the streets of the northern city in the state of Amazonas.
Separate footage, believed to have been compiled by prison gang members, showed them holding up human hearts in front of a camera.
About 60 inmates were killed in Manaus, sparking a deadly wave of violence that included the riots in Natal and another at a prison in Roraima state on January 6 that claimed the lives of more than 30 people.
Prisoners at Alcacuz jail, where eyewitnesses have said they saw prisoners making a bonfire out of human heads, were still on the loose between prison blocks yesterday.
The violence has been blamed on a war between drug gangs battling for control of the cocaine trade in Brazil, which is a key trafficking route to Europe.
The North Family controls a lucrative cocaine route along the Solimoes, a branch of the Amazon that flows from Colombia and Peru, the world’s top two cocaine-producing nations.
For two decades, the two factions have maintained a working relationship, ensuring a steady flow of drugs and arms over Brazil’s porous border. But about six months ago, the PCC began trying to muscle the Red Command out of key drug routes.
By Nicole Morley
Metro
January 24, 2017
Prisoners gloated as they showed off pieces of meat on a skewer over a bonfire and claimed they were toasting the remains of a rival.
The video, recorded as a 10-day riot gripped Alcacuz Prison in the north eastern city of Natal, where at least 26 inmates have been killed.
The bodies of some prisoners have been returned to their loved ones with their heads missing after they were decapitated.
Only 22 victims of the violence had been identified by Monday, with forensic experts still trying to determine who two heads, a forearm, an arm and a leg removed from the prison grounds belonged to.
No footage of the inmates eating members of rival gangs has emerged, and authorities said they had no concrete evidence to confirm cannibalism had taken place.
Elite military police are expected to move into Alcacuz shortly to help jail guards take inmates back to their cells and finally restore full order.
The prisoners filmed preparing their barbecue were said to belong to an Amazon drug gang called the Family of the North and a Rio de Janeiro-based drugs gang called the Red Command.
The man whose meat they claimed to be barbecuing was said to be a member of the Sao Paulo-based PCC or First Capital Command which kept the peace for years with the Red Command before their loose alliance fell apart last year and resulted in a spate of prison killings.
One of the bare-chested inmates pictured in the video, who made no attempt to hide his face, shouted out repeatedly: ‘Churrasco do PCC’ – Portuguese for PCC Steak.
Another prisoner, who was brandishing a machete-style knife and had several front teeth missing, said: ‘This is only the beginning.’
Last week it was reported grim prison massacre snuff videos showing corpses and severed heads on the ground during a prison riot in Manaus on January 1, were being sold for the equivalent of 75p on the streets of the northern city in the state of Amazonas.
Separate footage, believed to have been compiled by prison gang members, showed them holding up human hearts in front of a camera.
About 60 inmates were killed in Manaus, sparking a deadly wave of violence that included the riots in Natal and another at a prison in Roraima state on January 6 that claimed the lives of more than 30 people.
Prisoners at Alcacuz jail, where eyewitnesses have said they saw prisoners making a bonfire out of human heads, were still on the loose between prison blocks yesterday.
The violence has been blamed on a war between drug gangs battling for control of the cocaine trade in Brazil, which is a key trafficking route to Europe.
The North Family controls a lucrative cocaine route along the Solimoes, a branch of the Amazon that flows from Colombia and Peru, the world’s top two cocaine-producing nations.
For two decades, the two factions have maintained a working relationship, ensuring a steady flow of drugs and arms over Brazil’s porous border. But about six months ago, the PCC began trying to muscle the Red Command out of key drug routes.
SOME OF THIS TEACHER’S STUDENTS GOT LUCKY AND SHOULD NOW BELIEVE ALLAH AKBAR
Teacher who repeatedly sexted students then performed sex acts on them blames her strict religious Muslim upbringing for making her too repressed
By Simon Holmes
Daily Mail
January 24, 2017
A high-school teacher who was jailed for performing sex acts on her underage pupils has blamed her strict religious upbringing for her crimes.
Linda Hardan, from Prospect Park in, New Jersey, was jailed to three years in prison yesterday after sending scores of sexually explicit text messages to pupils, aged 14 to 16 years-old in 2014, and then engaging in sex acts with them.
Her defense lawyer, Alissa Hascup, said the Muslim woman was driven in part to commit the offences due to her orthodox upbringing, and suggested that she be treated by a therapist as oppose to serving time in prison.
Hardan, 22, had pleaded guilty in a deal with the Prosecutor's Office that had called for a five-year prison sentence.
However Passaic County Superior Court Judge Miguel de la Carrera found enough mitigating factors to depart from the plea deal and impose a three-year sentence on the substitute teacher acknowledging the impact of her formative years on her mental development.
'She had classmates and friends, but somehow, perhaps because of limitations on her dating life, she didn't find the proper outlet among males of her own age,' he said.
'She did not learn how to interact with guys her age, 'the judge continued.
In one case Hardan, who taught at Manchester Regional High School, sent 40 selfies of herself 'in varying states of undress' to a 14-year-old who she then drove him to a waterfall and gave him oral sex.
The prosecutor said the boy was 'so upset, so disgusted that he got out of the car and walked home' two miles away.
Another student, 16, was so traumatized by Hardan's actions that he dropped out of school and never returned, said prosecutor Gyselle Da Silva.
Hardan, who also admitted sexting another 16-year-old, wept quietly as relatives said she was 'the foundation, the rock' of her family and pleaded on Monday for her to be spared jail.
She will be eligible for parole after a year but will be under strict supervisory probation for the rest of her life, the judge said.
De la Carrera said his sentencing options were limited by statute. 'There might be a wish for the law to be more nuanced, a wish that the law might be different, but it's not,' he said.
The judge dismissed Hardan's request that her sentence be delayed until she finishes her studies at Passaic County Community College in May.
He said that she will be better positioned to resume her studies when the prison sentence is behind her.
EDITOR’S NOTE: What a con job. Under Sharia law, her family would be justified in murdering her because she dishonored them.
“The boy was 'so upset, so disgusted that he got out of the car and walked home' two miles away.” And “Another student, 16, was so traumatized by Hardan's actions that he dropped out of school and never returned.” The only explanation for this is that these two boys were gay.
By Simon Holmes
Daily Mail
January 24, 2017
A high-school teacher who was jailed for performing sex acts on her underage pupils has blamed her strict religious upbringing for her crimes.
Linda Hardan, from Prospect Park in, New Jersey, was jailed to three years in prison yesterday after sending scores of sexually explicit text messages to pupils, aged 14 to 16 years-old in 2014, and then engaging in sex acts with them.
Her defense lawyer, Alissa Hascup, said the Muslim woman was driven in part to commit the offences due to her orthodox upbringing, and suggested that she be treated by a therapist as oppose to serving time in prison.
Hardan, 22, had pleaded guilty in a deal with the Prosecutor's Office that had called for a five-year prison sentence.
However Passaic County Superior Court Judge Miguel de la Carrera found enough mitigating factors to depart from the plea deal and impose a three-year sentence on the substitute teacher acknowledging the impact of her formative years on her mental development.
'She had classmates and friends, but somehow, perhaps because of limitations on her dating life, she didn't find the proper outlet among males of her own age,' he said.
'She did not learn how to interact with guys her age, 'the judge continued.
In one case Hardan, who taught at Manchester Regional High School, sent 40 selfies of herself 'in varying states of undress' to a 14-year-old who she then drove him to a waterfall and gave him oral sex.
The prosecutor said the boy was 'so upset, so disgusted that he got out of the car and walked home' two miles away.
Another student, 16, was so traumatized by Hardan's actions that he dropped out of school and never returned, said prosecutor Gyselle Da Silva.
Hardan, who also admitted sexting another 16-year-old, wept quietly as relatives said she was 'the foundation, the rock' of her family and pleaded on Monday for her to be spared jail.
She will be eligible for parole after a year but will be under strict supervisory probation for the rest of her life, the judge said.
De la Carrera said his sentencing options were limited by statute. 'There might be a wish for the law to be more nuanced, a wish that the law might be different, but it's not,' he said.
The judge dismissed Hardan's request that her sentence be delayed until she finishes her studies at Passaic County Community College in May.
He said that she will be better positioned to resume her studies when the prison sentence is behind her.
EDITOR’S NOTE: What a con job. Under Sharia law, her family would be justified in murdering her because she dishonored them.
“The boy was 'so upset, so disgusted that he got out of the car and walked home' two miles away.” And “Another student, 16, was so traumatized by Hardan's actions that he dropped out of school and never returned.” The only explanation for this is that these two boys were gay.
GOV. ABBOT TAKES AIM AT TEXAS SHERIFFS WHO REDUCE COOPERATION WITH ICE
In Trumpian fashion, Governor Greg Abbott took to Twitter late Friday to rebuke Travis County Sheriff Sally Hernandez for adopting a policy that significantly reduces her office's cooperation with federal immigration official
By Meagan Flynn
Houston Press
January 24, 2017
"Stiffer penalties coming," he warned.
Those potential penalties arrived on Sheriff Hernandez's desk Monday morning in a letter Abbott addressed to her, threatening to take away $1.8 million in state criminal justice grant money unless Hernandez agrees to fully cooperate with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials and place immigration detainers on any inmates in her jail whose immigration status is in question.
The partnership between the feds and local law enforcement agencies is otherwise known as the 287(g) program, in which jails facilitate deportation of undocumented immigrants by detaining them until ICE picks them up. It's a partnership Hernandez partially discontinued Friday, and which Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez also said during his campaign that he wanted to eliminate.
Under Hernandez's new policy, the jail would only honor ICE detainers placed on those charged with capital murder, aggravated sexual assault or continuous smuggling of persons. Otherwise, for any other offense, the feds will need a court order or an arrest warrant before the Travis County Jail continues to detain people who are otherwise free to be released on bond or after their case is dismissed. Holding them any longer, Hernandez said, is a violation of due process rights.
Still, even though Hernandez still plans to work with ICE in one way or another, Abbott appears to have construed her policy as total noncompliance with ICE. And for a sheriff who said he wanted to dump the 287(g) program entirely in Harris County, it's possible that the governor's promised retaliation may complicate Gonzalez's plans.
Sheriff Gonzalez made eliminating 287(g) a regular part of his campaign, one that was centered on criminal-justice reform. As his campaign website still states: "It is time for the 287(g) program...to be out of the Harris County jail. Congress must work to pass comprehensive immigration reform. Its failure to do so should not require local agencies to do its work. The current 287(g) program is a strain on valuable police resources and taxpayer’s money. Worse, it is a violation of due process rights and leads to racial profiling, the separation of families and a mistrust of deputies. Harris County deserves better."
Whether Abbott's threats to revoke grant money will factor into Gonzalez's course of action is up in the air; Harris County Sheriff's Office spokesman Ryan Sullivan said 287(g) is currently under review, and did not offer more information.
According to data from the sheriff's office, the program facilitated the deportation of 167 people in 2015, only a quarter of whom were charged with violent crimes against people. Former Sheriff Ron Hickman, whom Gonzalez defeated at the polls in November, renewed the 287(g) contact with the feds last June, despite intense opposition from immigrant groups. Advocacy groups such as United We Dream argued that, regardless of the sheriff's best intentions to facilitate deportations of only dangerous criminals, the sheriff's involvement with ICE officials causes immigrant communities to fear interacting with law enforcement at all, whether during a routine traffic stop or to report a crime.
This fear was part of the reason Hernandez justified limiting cooperation with ICE, saying in a video statement that witnesses to crimes should not be afraid to step forward, or offer a tip to police, for fear of deportation. "The public must be confident that local law enforcement is focused on local public safety, not on federal immigration enforcement," she said. "Our jail cannot be perceived as a holding tank for ICE. It's absolutely imperative for officers to have the trust of the public during their interaction."
Abbott, however, has viewed her policy as an immediate threat to public safety anyhow, dramatically stating, "it is a dangerous game of political Russian roulette — with the lives of Texans at stake."
Despite the fact that 287(g) is a contract exclusively between the feds and local law enforcement agencies, Abbott closed his letter by promising to stick his nose in it even further. Simply taking away $1.8 million in grant money, he said, is not tough enough. In other words, expect to see GOP lawmakers take aim at sheriffs who follow in the footsteps of Hernandez, by writing them into legislation barring sanctuary cities in Texas, legislation they have made a priority.
"Texas must enact tough penalties that punish those who would put themselves above the law — and even above the community they purportedly serve," Abbott wrote.
By Meagan Flynn
Houston Press
January 24, 2017
"Stiffer penalties coming," he warned.
Those potential penalties arrived on Sheriff Hernandez's desk Monday morning in a letter Abbott addressed to her, threatening to take away $1.8 million in state criminal justice grant money unless Hernandez agrees to fully cooperate with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials and place immigration detainers on any inmates in her jail whose immigration status is in question.
The partnership between the feds and local law enforcement agencies is otherwise known as the 287(g) program, in which jails facilitate deportation of undocumented immigrants by detaining them until ICE picks them up. It's a partnership Hernandez partially discontinued Friday, and which Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez also said during his campaign that he wanted to eliminate.
Under Hernandez's new policy, the jail would only honor ICE detainers placed on those charged with capital murder, aggravated sexual assault or continuous smuggling of persons. Otherwise, for any other offense, the feds will need a court order or an arrest warrant before the Travis County Jail continues to detain people who are otherwise free to be released on bond or after their case is dismissed. Holding them any longer, Hernandez said, is a violation of due process rights.
Still, even though Hernandez still plans to work with ICE in one way or another, Abbott appears to have construed her policy as total noncompliance with ICE. And for a sheriff who said he wanted to dump the 287(g) program entirely in Harris County, it's possible that the governor's promised retaliation may complicate Gonzalez's plans.
Sheriff Gonzalez made eliminating 287(g) a regular part of his campaign, one that was centered on criminal-justice reform. As his campaign website still states: "It is time for the 287(g) program...to be out of the Harris County jail. Congress must work to pass comprehensive immigration reform. Its failure to do so should not require local agencies to do its work. The current 287(g) program is a strain on valuable police resources and taxpayer’s money. Worse, it is a violation of due process rights and leads to racial profiling, the separation of families and a mistrust of deputies. Harris County deserves better."
Whether Abbott's threats to revoke grant money will factor into Gonzalez's course of action is up in the air; Harris County Sheriff's Office spokesman Ryan Sullivan said 287(g) is currently under review, and did not offer more information.
According to data from the sheriff's office, the program facilitated the deportation of 167 people in 2015, only a quarter of whom were charged with violent crimes against people. Former Sheriff Ron Hickman, whom Gonzalez defeated at the polls in November, renewed the 287(g) contact with the feds last June, despite intense opposition from immigrant groups. Advocacy groups such as United We Dream argued that, regardless of the sheriff's best intentions to facilitate deportations of only dangerous criminals, the sheriff's involvement with ICE officials causes immigrant communities to fear interacting with law enforcement at all, whether during a routine traffic stop or to report a crime.
This fear was part of the reason Hernandez justified limiting cooperation with ICE, saying in a video statement that witnesses to crimes should not be afraid to step forward, or offer a tip to police, for fear of deportation. "The public must be confident that local law enforcement is focused on local public safety, not on federal immigration enforcement," she said. "Our jail cannot be perceived as a holding tank for ICE. It's absolutely imperative for officers to have the trust of the public during their interaction."
Abbott, however, has viewed her policy as an immediate threat to public safety anyhow, dramatically stating, "it is a dangerous game of political Russian roulette — with the lives of Texans at stake."
Despite the fact that 287(g) is a contract exclusively between the feds and local law enforcement agencies, Abbott closed his letter by promising to stick his nose in it even further. Simply taking away $1.8 million in grant money, he said, is not tough enough. In other words, expect to see GOP lawmakers take aim at sheriffs who follow in the footsteps of Hernandez, by writing them into legislation barring sanctuary cities in Texas, legislation they have made a priority.
"Texas must enact tough penalties that punish those who would put themselves above the law — and even above the community they purportedly serve," Abbott wrote.
Tuesday, January 24, 2017
‘DE-POLICING’ MEME DISHONORS THOSE WHO SACRIFICED
Grits for Breakfast
January 19, 2017
The Austin police union president claimed the city is becoming victim of "de-policing" because, over the weekend, police did not immediately shoot and kill a man at the very first opportunity, although they did so later. "They could have used that force earlier, but they didn't," he told KVUE.
[Ken] Casaday said the officers waiting to use deadly force may be a result of something called "de-policing," a trend he sees happening across the country.
"Officers are feeling so much pressure from the scrutiny the media have put on them. They just are not making the stops and taking the risks that they used to... Sometimes it's just easier to go out and answer your calls and not be proactive, because really when officers are proactive is when they get in trouble," Casaday said.
In Austin, Casaday said de-policing started after former officer, Geoffrey Freeman, shot and killed a naked and unarmed David Joseph last year. A shooting that cost Freeman his job, even though he was criminally cleared.
This is the "Ferguson effect" argument recycled. Since this meme first arose, Grits has never understood why law enforcement spokesmen would suggest something so insulting to their own profession. Basically, the argument seems to be that officers will stop doing their jobs if people criticize them. For my part, I've never known a police officer with that mindset, so it's a bit jarring to see this I'm-too-big-a-pansy-to-do-my-job meme asserted as some sweeping mentality that's gripping the entire profession. I suppose it could be true, but Grits finds it unlikely and thinks there are other explanations for the data.
Further, the argument tarnishes the nobility of sacrifice by people like Little Elm Det. Jerry Walker, who died in a standoff with a gunman this week in which the suspect was also killed. He didn't shirk his duty or fail to step up when it was time. And it doesn't honor the memory of officers who've lost their lives to portray the bulk of the profession as cowards who would fail to risk such a sacrifice if the public were in danger because criticism had wounded their pride. Not only is that libelous meme untrue, it undermines public trust needed for the policing relationship to work.
Before the Ferguson-effect meme, when Grits heard the word "de-policing" I usually thought of officers faking cases to satisfy numbers-driven policing demands, like drug-arrest quotas generating dozens of false convictions in Tulia, detectives and informants framing illegal immigrants in the Dallas fake drug scandal, or more recently, police officers in Arlington turning in fake tickets for traffic stops they never performed. These cases aren't so much about officers shirking their duty because of media scrutiny as they are aggressive but overworked officers in agencies with poor supervision feeling pressure to make big numbers. That's a bigger concern to me than the idea that police officers may cease performing their duties because some protester or columnist said something rude about them.
It's rather shocking to me that a police union boss would attribute such unprincipled motives to his members. IMO he's not doing them any favors.
EDITOR’S NOTE: The memes "Ferguson Effect" and "De-Policing" are for real and do not dishonor those cops who sacrificed their lives. Police officers are now reluctant to look for signs of criminality because they fear being victimized by the media, by a shitstorm of social media jerks, and by politically motivated prosecutors if they have to resort to deadly force. So, they are backing off pro-active policing.
Uber-liberals seem to believe that cops get up in the morning, look in the mirror, and say "I wonder how many people can I shoot today?" And the Black Lives Matter rabble wants everyone to believe white cops are racist and out to kill blacks. The last thing any cop wants to do is to shoot someone.
January 19, 2017
The Austin police union president claimed the city is becoming victim of "de-policing" because, over the weekend, police did not immediately shoot and kill a man at the very first opportunity, although they did so later. "They could have used that force earlier, but they didn't," he told KVUE.
[Ken] Casaday said the officers waiting to use deadly force may be a result of something called "de-policing," a trend he sees happening across the country.
"Officers are feeling so much pressure from the scrutiny the media have put on them. They just are not making the stops and taking the risks that they used to... Sometimes it's just easier to go out and answer your calls and not be proactive, because really when officers are proactive is when they get in trouble," Casaday said.
In Austin, Casaday said de-policing started after former officer, Geoffrey Freeman, shot and killed a naked and unarmed David Joseph last year. A shooting that cost Freeman his job, even though he was criminally cleared.
This is the "Ferguson effect" argument recycled. Since this meme first arose, Grits has never understood why law enforcement spokesmen would suggest something so insulting to their own profession. Basically, the argument seems to be that officers will stop doing their jobs if people criticize them. For my part, I've never known a police officer with that mindset, so it's a bit jarring to see this I'm-too-big-a-pansy-to-do-my-job meme asserted as some sweeping mentality that's gripping the entire profession. I suppose it could be true, but Grits finds it unlikely and thinks there are other explanations for the data.
Further, the argument tarnishes the nobility of sacrifice by people like Little Elm Det. Jerry Walker, who died in a standoff with a gunman this week in which the suspect was also killed. He didn't shirk his duty or fail to step up when it was time. And it doesn't honor the memory of officers who've lost their lives to portray the bulk of the profession as cowards who would fail to risk such a sacrifice if the public were in danger because criticism had wounded their pride. Not only is that libelous meme untrue, it undermines public trust needed for the policing relationship to work.
Before the Ferguson-effect meme, when Grits heard the word "de-policing" I usually thought of officers faking cases to satisfy numbers-driven policing demands, like drug-arrest quotas generating dozens of false convictions in Tulia, detectives and informants framing illegal immigrants in the Dallas fake drug scandal, or more recently, police officers in Arlington turning in fake tickets for traffic stops they never performed. These cases aren't so much about officers shirking their duty because of media scrutiny as they are aggressive but overworked officers in agencies with poor supervision feeling pressure to make big numbers. That's a bigger concern to me than the idea that police officers may cease performing their duties because some protester or columnist said something rude about them.
It's rather shocking to me that a police union boss would attribute such unprincipled motives to his members. IMO he's not doing them any favors.
EDITOR’S NOTE: The memes "Ferguson Effect" and "De-Policing" are for real and do not dishonor those cops who sacrificed their lives. Police officers are now reluctant to look for signs of criminality because they fear being victimized by the media, by a shitstorm of social media jerks, and by politically motivated prosecutors if they have to resort to deadly force. So, they are backing off pro-active policing.
Uber-liberals seem to believe that cops get up in the morning, look in the mirror, and say "I wonder how many people can I shoot today?" And the Black Lives Matter rabble wants everyone to believe white cops are racist and out to kill blacks. The last thing any cop wants to do is to shoot someone.
GOOD LIBERALS SUPPORT FREE SPEECH...UNLESS THEY DON'T.
by Bob Walsh
Gabrielle Cateris is the President of the Screen Actors Guild. Last year she lobbies, strongly and successfully, for the passage of AB1687. It was signed into law by Jerry Brown.
Ms. Cateris played on Beverly Hills 90210. She was at the time 29. Her character was 17. She is absolutely convinced (quite possibly correctly) that she would NOT have got the part had they been aware of her true age. Now, with the internet and IMDB (Internet Movie data Base) it is not possible, or at least was not possible, to conceal little details like that. This new law made it illegal for these commercial web sites, which are often used in casting, to show a DOB. All, of course, in the interest of preventing age discrimination.
The law is now being challenged in federal court, asserting that it is an illegal and unconstitutional infringement on freedom of speech.
The formerly great state of California has a spotty history in this area. Some while back real free speech advocates challenged a rule of the State Assembly which forbade the use of television broadcast information from the floor for political or commercial purposes. These broadcasts are entirely funded by taxpayer money. The feds ruled that even "grandstanding" which was (allegedly) the reason this rule existed was in fact free speech and that the State Assembly could not prohibit these uses of its broadcasts.
In a further note, the state legislature is already considering two bills that require schools present material to enable their students to evaluate on-line news stories in order to determine which of them are "trustworthy" and which of them are not. Regular readers will remember that in California the Democrat-Socialists have a super-majority in both houses and all constitutional officers are also Democrat-Socialists.
(I am confident any such course material would be really brief. If it is from Fox News or any conservative source it is "fake news" and if it is from NPR, CNN or any mainstream media it is trustworthy.)
Gabrielle Cateris is the President of the Screen Actors Guild. Last year she lobbies, strongly and successfully, for the passage of AB1687. It was signed into law by Jerry Brown.
Ms. Cateris played on Beverly Hills 90210. She was at the time 29. Her character was 17. She is absolutely convinced (quite possibly correctly) that she would NOT have got the part had they been aware of her true age. Now, with the internet and IMDB (Internet Movie data Base) it is not possible, or at least was not possible, to conceal little details like that. This new law made it illegal for these commercial web sites, which are often used in casting, to show a DOB. All, of course, in the interest of preventing age discrimination.
The law is now being challenged in federal court, asserting that it is an illegal and unconstitutional infringement on freedom of speech.
The formerly great state of California has a spotty history in this area. Some while back real free speech advocates challenged a rule of the State Assembly which forbade the use of television broadcast information from the floor for political or commercial purposes. These broadcasts are entirely funded by taxpayer money. The feds ruled that even "grandstanding" which was (allegedly) the reason this rule existed was in fact free speech and that the State Assembly could not prohibit these uses of its broadcasts.
In a further note, the state legislature is already considering two bills that require schools present material to enable their students to evaluate on-line news stories in order to determine which of them are "trustworthy" and which of them are not. Regular readers will remember that in California the Democrat-Socialists have a super-majority in both houses and all constitutional officers are also Democrat-Socialists.
(I am confident any such course material would be really brief. If it is from Fox News or any conservative source it is "fake news" and if it is from NPR, CNN or any mainstream media it is trustworthy.)
TRUMP’S TRUTH-TELLING ABOUT ‘AMERICAN CARNAGE’
Wat is a better word for the more than 6,000 black men shot dead on the streets in 2015?
By Heather Mac Donald
National Review
January 23, 2017
The media have been clucking their disapproval at the “darkness” of Donald Trump’s inaugural speech. “Uniquely dark vision of the U.S.,” read a New York Times headline on Saturday. The Washington Post reported that “Trump delivered a dark inaugural address” — adding, somewhat contradictorily — “in which he pledged fealty to all Americans.” A New York Times op-ed by a former speechwriter for President Bill Clinton decried Trump’s “dark, counterfactual picture of ‘American carnage’: an economy in decline, communities under siege by ‘the crime and the gangs and the drugs.’” A New York Times editorial, “President Trump’s Dystopian America,” scoffed at how President Trump “waxed apocalyptic in imagining the prevalence of crime in the nation’s cities. ‘This American carnage stops right here and stops right now,’ [Mr. Trump] vowed,” the Times wrote incredulously.
The press unleashed an identical outpouring of criticism for Trump’s acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention, which was likewise said to adopt a counterfactually bleak view of the nation.
Are you scratching your head and wondering, Since when did liberals and the Left embrace a sunny, light-filled vision of the United States? If so, you’re not misremembering things. These are the same liberal elites who have been telling us for decades that America is shot through with an ever-expanding array of hatreds and injustice that disenfranchise large portions of the population and force them to live in fear.
While the conceit of an endemically bigoted and unjust America is longstanding, you need look no further than Saturday’s Women’s March on Washington, D.C., to refresh your memory. One sign bobbing in the crowd read: Men are afraid women will laugh at them, women are afraid men will kill them. Ashley Judd unceremoniously pushed Michael Moore off the stage to declare at high volume: “I am not as nasty as racism, misogyny, white privilege, Islamophobia, transphobia, homophobia, and white privilege.” (The “nasty woman” theme pervaded the march.) Judd yelled that “blacks are still in shackles and graves just for being black.” Representative Maxine Waters (D., Calif.) announced that “black women are struggling every day for justice and equality.” Kamala Harris, a U.S. senator from California, said that “if you are a black mother trying to raise a son, you know black lives is a women’s issue.” Cecile Richards of Planned Parenthood was “standing up for the rights of immigrants to live without fear.” A rapper called for an end to “white supremacy, white privilege, and white wealth” and “thanked God for Michelle Alexander” (who argues that white Americans have manipulated the criminal-justice system in order to reinstate slavery and segregation).
These thoroughly representative members — and products — of the cultural elite are the same people who have given us “safe spaces” and “allyship” on college campuses, under the preposterous notion that any American college student who is not white, male, and heterosexual is “unsafe.” The Left has developed a typology of American students as victims, their allies, and their presumed oppressors. When black students at Bard College in 2015 called for an end to “systemic and structural racism on campus . . . so that Black students can go to class without fear,” they were not making a joke. Of course they were treated as truthsayers by Bard president Leon Botstein and Bard’s bureaucrats. When black Princeton students announced that they were “sick and tired of being sick and tired,” adopting the words of civil-rights activist Fannie Lou Hamer, who had been beaten in the 1950s for trying to vote, no one laughed in the face of these fantastically privileged Princetonians. The press, the campus-rape bureaucracy, and an army of federal regulators proclaim that terrified college co-eds are living through a rape tsunami, which can be eradicated only by campus kangaroo courts.
So rapidly does American oppression metastasize into new forms, in the eyes of the Left, that the Left is constantly forced to coin a new vocabulary for it: microaggression, intersectionality, institutional racism, white privilege, cis privilege, implicit bias, etc.
The media’s contempt for Trump’s use of the phrase “carnage” to describe the rising violence in the inner city is particularly ludicrous. The press has slavishly amplified the Black Lives Matter claim that we are living through an epidemic of racist police shootings of black men. A New York Times editorial from July 2016 was titled “When Will the Killing Stop?” That same month, President Barack Obama asserted that black mothers and fathers were right to fear that their child will be killed by a cop — remarkably, he made this claim during the memorial service for five Dallas police officers gunned down by a Black Lives Matter–inspired assassin.
“Stop killing us” is one of the less profanity-saturated slogans aimed at cops during Black Lives Matter marches. A Black Lives Matter manifesto released last summer called for an end to the “war on black people.” A New York Times op-ed contributor, Roxanne Gay, writes: “As a black woman in America, I do not feel alive. I feel like I am not yet dead. . . . I don’t know how to feel like my life matters when there is so much evidence to the contrary.”
So if Trump is so contemptibly misguided in his description of the rising street violence over the last two years as “carnage,” how does that criminal violence compare with the supposed epidemic of cop killings of black men? In 2015, the last year for which we have official national data, more than 6,000 black males, according to the FBI, were killed by criminals, themselves overwhelmingly black. That is 900 more black males killed in 2015 than in the year before, but the number of black victims was undoubtedly higher even than that, since an additional 2,000 homicide victims were reported to the FBI without a racial identity. Black males make up about half of the nation’s homicide victims, so they presumably make up a similar share of racially unclassified homicide victims.
According to several uncontradicted non-governmental estimates, homicides continued rising throughout 2016, thanks to what I have called the “Ferguson effect”: officers backing off proactive policing in minority neighborhoods, under the relentless charge of racism, and the resulting increase in violent crime.
The year 2016, therefore, probably also saw well over 6,000 black males murdered on the streets. By contrast, the nation’s police fatally shot 16 “unarmed” black males and 20 “unarmed” white males in 2016, according to the Washington Post’s database of police killings. I have put “unarmed” in quotes because the Post’s classification of “unarmed” victims rarely conveys the violence that the suspect directed at the shooting officer. But even when we take the “unarmed” classification at face value, those 16 fatal police shootings of unarmed black men represent no more than 0.2 percent of all black male lives lost to homicide in 2016. If police shootings of allegedly unarmed black males represent a national epidemic of bloodshed, then what should we call the gunning down of over 375 times that number of black men by criminals? “Carnage” seems like a pretty good descriptor. In Chicago alone in 2016, 24 children under the age of twelve, overwhelmingly black, were shot.
Trump has regularly denounced inner-city violence; he promised in his inaugural that that violence “stops right here and stops right now.” He invoked the “child . . . born in the urban sprawl of Detroit” or in the “windswept plains of Nebraska” as both looking up “at the same night sky” and deserving of the same public safety. President Obama scoffed at Trump’s concern over rising urban violence even as he regularly accused the cops of lethally discriminating against blacks. For truth-telling when it comes to the actual dangers in American society, I’ll take the current president over the former one and the cultural milieu from which he emerged.
By Heather Mac Donald
National Review
January 23, 2017
The media have been clucking their disapproval at the “darkness” of Donald Trump’s inaugural speech. “Uniquely dark vision of the U.S.,” read a New York Times headline on Saturday. The Washington Post reported that “Trump delivered a dark inaugural address” — adding, somewhat contradictorily — “in which he pledged fealty to all Americans.” A New York Times op-ed by a former speechwriter for President Bill Clinton decried Trump’s “dark, counterfactual picture of ‘American carnage’: an economy in decline, communities under siege by ‘the crime and the gangs and the drugs.’” A New York Times editorial, “President Trump’s Dystopian America,” scoffed at how President Trump “waxed apocalyptic in imagining the prevalence of crime in the nation’s cities. ‘This American carnage stops right here and stops right now,’ [Mr. Trump] vowed,” the Times wrote incredulously.
The press unleashed an identical outpouring of criticism for Trump’s acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention, which was likewise said to adopt a counterfactually bleak view of the nation.
Are you scratching your head and wondering, Since when did liberals and the Left embrace a sunny, light-filled vision of the United States? If so, you’re not misremembering things. These are the same liberal elites who have been telling us for decades that America is shot through with an ever-expanding array of hatreds and injustice that disenfranchise large portions of the population and force them to live in fear.
While the conceit of an endemically bigoted and unjust America is longstanding, you need look no further than Saturday’s Women’s March on Washington, D.C., to refresh your memory. One sign bobbing in the crowd read: Men are afraid women will laugh at them, women are afraid men will kill them. Ashley Judd unceremoniously pushed Michael Moore off the stage to declare at high volume: “I am not as nasty as racism, misogyny, white privilege, Islamophobia, transphobia, homophobia, and white privilege.” (The “nasty woman” theme pervaded the march.) Judd yelled that “blacks are still in shackles and graves just for being black.” Representative Maxine Waters (D., Calif.) announced that “black women are struggling every day for justice and equality.” Kamala Harris, a U.S. senator from California, said that “if you are a black mother trying to raise a son, you know black lives is a women’s issue.” Cecile Richards of Planned Parenthood was “standing up for the rights of immigrants to live without fear.” A rapper called for an end to “white supremacy, white privilege, and white wealth” and “thanked God for Michelle Alexander” (who argues that white Americans have manipulated the criminal-justice system in order to reinstate slavery and segregation).
These thoroughly representative members — and products — of the cultural elite are the same people who have given us “safe spaces” and “allyship” on college campuses, under the preposterous notion that any American college student who is not white, male, and heterosexual is “unsafe.” The Left has developed a typology of American students as victims, their allies, and their presumed oppressors. When black students at Bard College in 2015 called for an end to “systemic and structural racism on campus . . . so that Black students can go to class without fear,” they were not making a joke. Of course they were treated as truthsayers by Bard president Leon Botstein and Bard’s bureaucrats. When black Princeton students announced that they were “sick and tired of being sick and tired,” adopting the words of civil-rights activist Fannie Lou Hamer, who had been beaten in the 1950s for trying to vote, no one laughed in the face of these fantastically privileged Princetonians. The press, the campus-rape bureaucracy, and an army of federal regulators proclaim that terrified college co-eds are living through a rape tsunami, which can be eradicated only by campus kangaroo courts.
So rapidly does American oppression metastasize into new forms, in the eyes of the Left, that the Left is constantly forced to coin a new vocabulary for it: microaggression, intersectionality, institutional racism, white privilege, cis privilege, implicit bias, etc.
The media’s contempt for Trump’s use of the phrase “carnage” to describe the rising violence in the inner city is particularly ludicrous. The press has slavishly amplified the Black Lives Matter claim that we are living through an epidemic of racist police shootings of black men. A New York Times editorial from July 2016 was titled “When Will the Killing Stop?” That same month, President Barack Obama asserted that black mothers and fathers were right to fear that their child will be killed by a cop — remarkably, he made this claim during the memorial service for five Dallas police officers gunned down by a Black Lives Matter–inspired assassin.
“Stop killing us” is one of the less profanity-saturated slogans aimed at cops during Black Lives Matter marches. A Black Lives Matter manifesto released last summer called for an end to the “war on black people.” A New York Times op-ed contributor, Roxanne Gay, writes: “As a black woman in America, I do not feel alive. I feel like I am not yet dead. . . . I don’t know how to feel like my life matters when there is so much evidence to the contrary.”
So if Trump is so contemptibly misguided in his description of the rising street violence over the last two years as “carnage,” how does that criminal violence compare with the supposed epidemic of cop killings of black men? In 2015, the last year for which we have official national data, more than 6,000 black males, according to the FBI, were killed by criminals, themselves overwhelmingly black. That is 900 more black males killed in 2015 than in the year before, but the number of black victims was undoubtedly higher even than that, since an additional 2,000 homicide victims were reported to the FBI without a racial identity. Black males make up about half of the nation’s homicide victims, so they presumably make up a similar share of racially unclassified homicide victims.
According to several uncontradicted non-governmental estimates, homicides continued rising throughout 2016, thanks to what I have called the “Ferguson effect”: officers backing off proactive policing in minority neighborhoods, under the relentless charge of racism, and the resulting increase in violent crime.
The year 2016, therefore, probably also saw well over 6,000 black males murdered on the streets. By contrast, the nation’s police fatally shot 16 “unarmed” black males and 20 “unarmed” white males in 2016, according to the Washington Post’s database of police killings. I have put “unarmed” in quotes because the Post’s classification of “unarmed” victims rarely conveys the violence that the suspect directed at the shooting officer. But even when we take the “unarmed” classification at face value, those 16 fatal police shootings of unarmed black men represent no more than 0.2 percent of all black male lives lost to homicide in 2016. If police shootings of allegedly unarmed black males represent a national epidemic of bloodshed, then what should we call the gunning down of over 375 times that number of black men by criminals? “Carnage” seems like a pretty good descriptor. In Chicago alone in 2016, 24 children under the age of twelve, overwhelmingly black, were shot.
Trump has regularly denounced inner-city violence; he promised in his inaugural that that violence “stops right here and stops right now.” He invoked the “child . . . born in the urban sprawl of Detroit” or in the “windswept plains of Nebraska” as both looking up “at the same night sky” and deserving of the same public safety. President Obama scoffed at Trump’s concern over rising urban violence even as he regularly accused the cops of lethally discriminating against blacks. For truth-telling when it comes to the actual dangers in American society, I’ll take the current president over the former one and the cultural milieu from which he emerged.
TEXAS GOV. ABBOTT THREATENS TO CUT FUNDING TO COUNTY OVER SANCTUARY CITY POLICIES
The Travis County sheriff has announced her department will be adopting sanctuary city policies
Fox News
January 23, 2017
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott threatened to cut funding for one county after its sheriff announced the agency would be scaling back its cooperation with federal immigration.
Travis County Sheriff Sally Hernandez announced last week she’s scaling back the amount of aid her department provides federal immigration agents in detaining suspects who might be in the country illegally, according to the Austin American-Statesman.
Starting Feb. 1, sheriff’s officials will begin honoring so-called immigration holds or “detainers” placed by federal authorities only when a suspect is booked into the Travis County Jail on charges of capital murder, aggravated sexual assault and “continuous smuggling of persons.”
Otherwise, federal agents must have a court order or arrest warrant signed by a judge for the jail to continue housing a person whose immigration status is in question.
"The public must be confident that local law enforcement is focused on local public safety, not on federal immigration enforcement. Our jail cannot be perceived as a holding tank for ICE or that Travis County deputies are ICE officers," Hernandez said.
Hernandez's announcement came as Texas Republicans are gearing up for a new fight to ban so-called sanctuary cities in the current legislative session.
Abbott responded to the announcement, tweeting his office “will cut funding for Travis County adopting sanctuary policies.”
"Stiffer penalties coming," Abbott's tweet said.
Abbott has pushed the issue to the front of his unofficial agenda for 2017, pledging in interviews and on social media to sign into law a "ban" on cities and local governments that are seen as protecting people in the U.S. illegally, with sanctions such as cutting state funding. Civil rights groups say the threat from the governor could lead to racial profiling.
Travis County could lose up to $1.8 million in grants because the governor's office requires compliance in order to receive grants.
The Travis County sheriff's office has a $169 million budget, according to the county's budget website. The $1.8 million would represent 1 percent of that budget.
"The public must be confident that local law enforcement is focused on local public safety, not on federal immigration enforcement," Hernandez said in a video announcement.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Gov. Abbot’s threat seems merely symbolic. That one percent cut of the sheriff’s total budget is certainly not enough to encourage her to stop adopting those sanctuary city policies.
It should be noted that the county seat of Travis County is in Austin, the San Francisco of Texas. While the uber-liberal city has affirmed “Austin’s role as a city friendly to undocumented immigrants,” that falls somewhat short of actually being a sanctuary city.
Fox News
January 23, 2017
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott threatened to cut funding for one county after its sheriff announced the agency would be scaling back its cooperation with federal immigration.
Travis County Sheriff Sally Hernandez announced last week she’s scaling back the amount of aid her department provides federal immigration agents in detaining suspects who might be in the country illegally, according to the Austin American-Statesman.
Starting Feb. 1, sheriff’s officials will begin honoring so-called immigration holds or “detainers” placed by federal authorities only when a suspect is booked into the Travis County Jail on charges of capital murder, aggravated sexual assault and “continuous smuggling of persons.”
Otherwise, federal agents must have a court order or arrest warrant signed by a judge for the jail to continue housing a person whose immigration status is in question.
"The public must be confident that local law enforcement is focused on local public safety, not on federal immigration enforcement. Our jail cannot be perceived as a holding tank for ICE or that Travis County deputies are ICE officers," Hernandez said.
Hernandez's announcement came as Texas Republicans are gearing up for a new fight to ban so-called sanctuary cities in the current legislative session.
Abbott responded to the announcement, tweeting his office “will cut funding for Travis County adopting sanctuary policies.”
"Stiffer penalties coming," Abbott's tweet said.
Abbott has pushed the issue to the front of his unofficial agenda for 2017, pledging in interviews and on social media to sign into law a "ban" on cities and local governments that are seen as protecting people in the U.S. illegally, with sanctions such as cutting state funding. Civil rights groups say the threat from the governor could lead to racial profiling.
Travis County could lose up to $1.8 million in grants because the governor's office requires compliance in order to receive grants.
The Travis County sheriff's office has a $169 million budget, according to the county's budget website. The $1.8 million would represent 1 percent of that budget.
"The public must be confident that local law enforcement is focused on local public safety, not on federal immigration enforcement," Hernandez said in a video announcement.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Gov. Abbot’s threat seems merely symbolic. That one percent cut of the sheriff’s total budget is certainly not enough to encourage her to stop adopting those sanctuary city policies.
It should be noted that the county seat of Travis County is in Austin, the San Francisco of Texas. While the uber-liberal city has affirmed “Austin’s role as a city friendly to undocumented immigrants,” that falls somewhat short of actually being a sanctuary city.
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