By Howie Katz
Today is the day we should all be thankful for the many blessings we enjoy in America.
And we should all be especially grateful to those in our armed forces who fought and died to protect those blessings. We should also give thanks to the law enforcement officers who protect us every day.
Here's wishing all the readers of BGB and TUG a Happy Thanksgiving ... and that includes those who do not like my views.
by Bob Walsh
Butt out of Brexit, Mr Biden – you're not even President yet, and when your mate Barack tried to bully us into staying in Europe, furious Brits showed him at the ballot box where he could stick his threat
By Piers Morgan
Daily Mail
November 25, 2020
Well, that didn't take long…
President-Elect Joe Biden is still eight weeks away from being formally inaugurated as the 46th President of the United States, but he's already throwing his weight around in a political battle raging thousands of miles away in Europe.
And he couldn't have chosen a more incendiary issue to immerse himself into than Brexit – the UK's incredibly controversial decision to break away from the European Union.
Or a more inappropriate time to do it, given that negotiations between the EU and UK dealmakers are reaching the final end game of a lengthy and deeply polarising five-year process since then British Prime Minister David Cameron first decided to put the decision to the people in a Referendum.
For the record, I voted to remain in the EU, believing there is far more economic and military power to be gained from a large strong union of 27 countries than there is from us trying to go it alone.
But I lost, and Leave voters won.
As someone who values democracy above all else, I have since been highly vocal in demanding that the vote be honoured, as many of my fellow Remainers – or 'Remoaners' as they've been dubbed - refused to admit defeat and shamefully tried to have the result overturned.
Now the situation is that Brexit has happened, the UK has legally left the EU, and all that's left is for a deal to be concluded between the UK and EU to govern their future trading relationship.
Or for there to be no deal, and therein lies a big problem.
One of the key remaining points of contention is the question of the Irish border.
It boils down to this: Ireland is an island split into two parts, north and south. The North is part of the United Kingdom, the South is a separate entity and remains a member of the EU.
So how does the North leave the EU, which includes the South, without there being a new physical trading border put in place?
And if there is a border, where would it be?
In the Irish sea between Ireland and mainland Britain, or between the two halves of the island?
And if it's the latter, who would ensure its security and effectiveness?
This is a very complex question, and one that has far-reaching consequences, not least for the people in Ireland who've enjoyed widespread peace and prosperity since the Good Friday Agreement in 1998 between the British and Irish governments, chaired by US Special Envoy George Mitchell, that brought an end to the violent sectarian troubles that had ravaged Ireland since the 1960s.
Most of them don't want a return to armed guards patrolling borders, bringing with it the strong possibility of renewed conflict, as well as connected issues like drug smuggling and migration.
So, it's unsurprising that Joe Biden, an Irish-American who makes much of his Irish roots, would have a strong view about it, and it's one he's expressed vehemently before – namely that there should not be a border between the two parts of Ireland because it might endanger the peace process. Indeed, he's gone even further.
'We can't allow the Good Friday Agreement that brought peace to Northern Ireland to become a casualty of Brexit,' he tweeted in September. 'Any trade deal between the US and UK must be contingent upon respect for the agreement and preventing the return of a hard border. Period.'
That constitutes a direct threat, and it's one he's now repeated.
The only difference is that he's President-Elect, and the man who will be US President from January 20.
And that makes what Biden has now said and done about the situation so problematic.
Speaking to reporters in Delaware yesterday, he said: 'We do not want a guarded border. We've worked too long to get Ireland worked out. I've talked with the British prime minister; I've talked with the Taoiseach; I've talked with others and I've talked with the French. The idea of having a border north and south once again being closed is just not right, we've just got to keep the border open.'
So, let me get this straight: the incoming President of the United States has been hitting the phones ordering European allies how they should be negotiating something that has nothing directly to do with him or America?
Sorry, but this is completely unacceptable.
Just as it's very concerning to see another senior Democrat with very close ties to Biden trying to order Britain around on how much we spend on our overseas aid budget.
John Podesta, a former adviser to Presidents Obama and Clinton, told the BBC the UK Government's planned reduction of the spending target was 'extremely unfortunate.'
No, Mr Podesta, what's 'extremely unfortunate' is you using your Biden connection to shove your big unwanted gob into our affairs.
As for Biden himself, I happen to agree with him that the Good Friday Agreement was a massively important moment in forging peace in Ireland, and it must be protected.
Just as I agree with him that nobody wants to go back to a guarded border.
But where I disagree is with his decision to speak out now.
He's not the President yet; Donald Trump remains the man in the White House until January 20.
And just as Trump's own often repeated cack-handed pro-Brexit interventions into the EU debate did more harm than good – and provoked howls of outrage from liberals on both sides of the Atlantic - so Biden's intervention now will do the same.
Lest he be in any doubt about this, let me take him back to April 2016 when Barack Obama, for whom Biden was Vice-President at the time, warned – just two months before the Referendum - that Britain would be 'back of the queue' for any US trade deal if we voted to Leave.
Obama's comments ignited fury and his astonishingly clumsy threat is thought to have played a not insignificant factor in both cementing and actually increasing the Leave vote.
The British, like Americans, don't appreciate being bullied by a foreign power.
Now it's happening all over again, with Joe Biden trying to dictate how the Brexit deal is concluded, before he's even taken the oath of office.
I've read considerable visceral fury on social media today from Brexiters incandescent that the President-Elect is poking his nose into the negotiations at such a vital time, and clearly trying to influence them.
And I have sympathy with that anger.
Can you imagine how Americans would react if a British Prime Minister tried to tell them how to control their border?
Butt out, Mr Biden – this is none of your business.
by Bob Walsh
by Bob Walsh
by Bob Walsh
Incoming senior Biden staffer justified suicide bombers during 2nd Intifada
JNS
November 25, 2020
Reema Dodin, announced on Monday as a deputy director of the White House Office of Legislative Affairs for the incoming Biden administration, praised suicide bombers during the Second Intifada, JNS reported on Tuesday.
In 2002, Dodin, then a student at the University of California, Berkeley, spoke about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict with residents of Lodi, Calif., saying that "suicide bombers were the last resort of a desperate people," according to the Lodi News-Sentinel.
Dodin, who was named to her new position alongside Shuwanza Goff, will be the first Palestinian-American to serve as a White House staffer, according to Palestinian media. She currently serves as deputy chief of staff and floor director to Senate Minority Whip Richard Durbin (D-Ill.).
The Biden Transition did not immediately respond to a request for comment, the report said.
__________
It’s a voice she said America is ignoring.
It’s a voice she said the media are not publicizing.
It’s the voice of the Palestinians, and Wednesday night, Reema Dodin, a Palestinian-American student from University of California, Berkeley, spoke to a group of Lodians about the conflict in Israel from the Palestinian perspective.
And Lodi listened.
“The American public has a history of being a fair-minded people, but the information the public is getting is biased, awful and wrong,” Dodin said. “If you’re going to present this information to the public, you need to do it in a holistic manner.”
Dodin, who was born to Palestinian immigrants in North Carolina, has spent time in Israel working as an emergency medical technician. She spoke Wednesday night at the United Methodist Church to an audience of about 40.
Sprinkling her presentation with personal anecdotes from her visits to Israel, Dodin described a conflict that began in 1948 with the decolonization of the Middle East, and explained a political and military struggle that has lasted for the half-century since, leading to many violent outbursts, including the battles being waged in Israel today.
She described a place where Palestinians are not given fair rights — a place where water is so scarce that the Israeli government will cut off the supply to coerce the Palestinian population.
Dodin laughed while recounting a recent visit to her uncle when her brother brought home some colorful rocks and washed them in their uncle’s scant water supply, dirtying the household’s only drinking water.
She shook her head as she described an emergency room where a malnourished woman going into shock was ignored and left untreated because she was not in need of help as much as the others in line for the doctor.
She described an Israel where Palestinians have lost hope and are getting desperate.
“The suicide bombers were the last resort of a desperate people,” Dodin said.
A crowded room of Lodians listened attentively for nearly two hours and hounded Dodin with questions after her speech, which was organized by the Lodi branch of the American Association of Educated Women and Lodi’s Breakthrough Project.
Dodin is an economics and political science double major and hopes to return to Israel after she graduates in May to work as an EMT in West Bank. She wants to eventually attend law school.
Corrupt New York Cop Crucial Link in Dominican Drug Trafficking Ring
By Parker Asmann
InSight Crime
November 19, 2020
A New York City police officer is accused of assisting a Dominican drug gang that moved hundreds of kilograms of cocaine, in a case that reveals how Dominican transnational organized crime groups have infiltrated law enforcement in one of the United States’ major drug markets.
Officer Amaury Abreu was arrested on charges that he allegedly conspired with drug traffickers based in the Dominican Republic and the United States to import and distribute cocaine in the New York metropolitan area from January 2016 to October 2020, the Justice Department announced November 9. During that time, law enforcement seized 350 kilograms of cocaine linked to the group, officials said.
Abreu is charged in a three-count indictment. His lawyer entered a not guilty plea at his November 9 arraignment at a Brooklyn federal court.
Also charged are Julio Bautista, Cesar Diaz-Bautista and Gustavo Valerio, who prosecutors say are high-ranking members of the trafficking ring tasked with overseeing drug distribution in New York.
Coordinating with contacts in the Dominican Republic, the group relied on drug couriers sent on flights to the United States, and also hid cocaine within legal imports and in “mail and tractor trucks” that entered the country from Mexico, according to a November 9 letter filed by US Attorney Richard Donoghue.
In a separate criminal complaint, a fifth defendant, Junior Ortiz, was also charged as part of the cocaine conspiracy. Ortiz owned and operated an import business in New York that prosecutors allege was used by the ring to move cocaine concealed in boxes of produce, according to special agent Sean Sweeney from the Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) branch of the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS).In May 2018, US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) seized 248 kilograms of cocaine hidden in a tomato shipment imported into New York’s Red Hook Port from the Dominican Republic for Ortiz’s produce company. For his help, Ortiz would supposedly get “$50,000 to $60,000 per container,” according to a wiretapped conversation recorded by a cooperating witness who was formerly a “senior member” of the group.
The government informant pleaded guilty to cocaine trafficking charges in March 2019, and is cooperating in hopes of receiving a lighter prison sentence.
Abreu, Bautista, Diaz-Bautista, Valerio and Ortiz were all arrested on November 9. If convicted, they each face a mandatory minimum sentence of 10 years and a maximum of life in prison.
While unchecked corruption may often characterize law enforcement across Latin America, transnational criminal groups could not operate successfully without the complacency of law enforcement in the United States.
In this case, Abreu was the key link for the trafficking group. He gave its members information on law enforcement operations and checked the New York City Police Department’s (NYPD) database for open warrants against them, according to US Attorney Donoghue’s November 9 letter.
What’s more, Abreu even allegedly distributed cocaine himself on at least one occasion. He also collected drug proceeds that he later handed over to Valerio, one of the high-ranking members in charge of collecting money, according to prosecutors.
The drug trafficking group also made use of a corrupt CBP officer, according to US officials, who allegedly ensured that a number of couriers carrying cocaine were “escorted through customs and baggage claim” after landing at John F. Kennedy International Airport.
This type of corruption has in part helped US-based Dominican drug trafficking groups rise to “dominate the mid-level distribution” of cocaine in East Coast cities where they have a large diaspora, such as Philadelphia, Boston and New York, according to the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA).
Working with suppliers in Colombia and criminal contacts in Mexico, the Dominican groups based along the East Coast have the “infrastructure to handle all facets of drug distribution to include the wholesale, mid-level, and retail sectors,” according to the DEA’s 2019 National Drug Threat Assessment.
These groups also maintain powerful contacts in the Dominican Republic, which plays a significant role as a transit nation in the international drug trade. A recently dismantled crime syndicate headed by César Emilio Peralta, alias “El Abusador,” smuggled more than a ton of cocaine into Puerto Rico and the United States between 2008 and 2017. In just the last three years alone, the ring led by Peralta, who was dubbed the “cocaine king” before his arrest, laundered more than $260 million in drug proceeds.
In recent years, Dominican trafficking groups on the East Coast also became more involved in the fentanyl trade as the US opioid crisis unfolded. In late 2018, authorities in Boston arrested two Dominican nationals with 32 kilograms of fentanyl worth some $30 million. The fentanyl was concealed in a tractor-trailer driven across the US-Mexico border by an alleged associate who was paid $40,000 for transporting the drugs, according to US prosecutors.
As opposed to the razor-sharp focus US authorities have on Central American street gangs like the MS13, Dominican drug gangs have maintained a relatively low profile, relying on strong transnational links to Latin America in order to operate.
Penguin Random House staffers broke down in tears over release of Jordan Peterson book
Fox News
November 24, 2020
A new report shows inner turmoil that is apparently taking place at Penguin Random House Canada over the publisher's release of a book written by Canadian clinical psychologist Jordan Peterson.
Peterson, a psychology professor from the University of Toronto and a popular podcast host who has a Ph.D. in clinical psychology, announced on Monday that he is releasing a new book titled "Beyond Order: 12 More Rules for Life," which is set to be released in March of next year.
However, Vice reported on Tuesday that Peterson's book has sparked an emotional outcry within the Canadian publishing giant with an effort by employees to pressure the company into canceling the book's release.
According to the report, "several" employees confronted management of Penguin Random House Canada (PRHC), a subsidiary of Penguin Random House, at an internal town hall on Monday and "dozens more have filed anonymous complaints" about PRHC's plans to release the latest work from the politically and culturally outspoken professor.
“He is an icon of hate speech and transphobia and the fact that he’s an icon of white supremacy, regardless of the content of his book, I’m not proud to work for a company that publishes him,” one town hall attendee, who is also a member of the LGBTQ community, told Vice.
Another employee alleged that “people were crying in the meeting about how Jordan Peterson has affected their lives” with one explaining that Peterson had "radicalized their father" and another insisting the publishing of Peterson's book will "negatively affect their non-binary friend."
“The company since June has been doing all these anti-racist and allyship things and then publishing Peterson’s book completely goes against this. It just makes all of their previous efforts seem completely performative,” the employee told Vice.
PRHC told Vice in a statement, "We announced yesterday that we will publish Jordan Peterson’s new book 'Beyond Order' this coming March. Immediately following the announcement, we held a forum and provided a space for our employees to express their views and offer feedback. Our employees have started an anonymous feedback channel, which we fully support. We are open to hearing our employees’ feedback and answering all of their questions. We remain committed to publishing a range of voices and viewpoints.”
Vice's report quickly went viral on social media with critics mocking the crying employees, suggesting they should quit or be fired by the publisher for their emotional response to Peterson's work.
Penguin Random House Canada did not immediately respond to Fox News' request for comment.
Houston-area man who tortured his wife in front of their children has been sentenced to prison
By Cory McCord
KHOU 11
November 23, 2020
MONTGOMERY COUNTY, Texas — Phillip Edward Bowers was sentenced to 30 years in prison after he pleaded guilty to multiple charges stemming from three days in 2019 in which he tortured his wife in front of three children.
Bowers, 34, pleaded guilty Friday to one charge of aggravated assault causing serious bodily injury with a deadly weapon (family violence) and another charge of aggravated kidnapping. Each charge carried a sentence of five years to life in prison. A jury sentenced him to 30 years for each charge, to be served concurrently.
In March 2019, Bowers' wife was found alone in the back bedroom of a New Caney home. Her injuries indicated that she had been severely beaten for several days. She was hurt so badly she wasn't able to provide information about the assault. She was taken to an area hospital, where doctors began life-saving treatment.
“The things that happened in that house are the things of which horror movies are made," prosecutor Echo Hutson said. "We have seen many murder victims with fewer injuries than this victim suffered at the hands of Phillip Bowers. We would be remiss if we did not thank the children who witnessed this abuse and had the courage to speak out about it. While the evidence against Phillip Bowers is overwhelming, justice is served when those victims are protected from having to face their abuser in court and having to relive their nightmare. These children can now grow up never having to fear this Defendant again. We are grateful for their strength and for the heroic work of all the community partners in this case."
Witnesses at the scene of the crime told authorities they had seen Bowers leave the house with three children shortly before medics arrived. Bowers was found and arrested at a nearby store.
Investigators say Bowers beat and tortured his wife in front of his children for three days. Evidence showed that Bowers used his hands, feet, steel-toed boots, a large flashlight, a box cutter and a vinyl jump rope to assault her. Physicians also noted that there was evidence that the victim had suffered previous assaults that required medical treatment.
After multiple surgeries, the victim was released from the hospital.
“This is absolutely the worst assault I have investigated with a surviving victim in my career. This sentence represents justice for the victim and her children, and prevents this Defendant from harming anyone else for a long time to come,” detective Brandon Bartoskewitz said.
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — A federal judge has set a new execution date for Lisa Montgomery, who was convicted of killing Bobbi Jo Stinnett and kidnapping her baby in Skidmore, Missouri in 2004.
Montgomery is now scheduled to be put to death Jan. 12, 2021.
Last week, a federal judge temporarily blocked Montgomery’s execution because the attorneys representing her contracted coronavirus wile visiting her in prison.
She was originally scheduled to be executed Dec. 8 at the federal prison complex in Terre Haute, Indiana.
In December 2004, Montgomery killed pregnant Bobbie Jo Stinnett at her home in Skidmore. Montgomery then used a kitchen knife to cut the baby girl from Stinnett’s womb. She kidnapped the baby and tried to pass the infant off as her own until she was captured the next day in Kansas.
An attorney for Montgomery, Sandra L. Babcock, said in a statement that her client is mentally ill and should not be executed.
“Lisa Montgomery is person with severe mental illness, and numerous experts have concluded that her crime was the product of a psychotic episode. It is difficult to grasp the extremity of the horrors Lisa suffered from her earliest childhood, including being raped by her stepfather, handed off to his friends for their use, sold to groups of adult men by her own mother and repeatedly gang raped, and relentlessly beaten and neglected. No one intervened to help Lisa, though many knew what was happening to her.
“In the grip of a psychotic break, Lisa killed a pregnant woman and took the baby. This was a terrible crime, but Lisa took full responsibility and offered to plead guilty and accept life imprisonment with no possibility of release. Yet the federal government insisted on seeking the death penalty, and prosecutors brushed off what little her lawyers told the jury about her history as an “abuse excuse. Now, despite Lisa’s deteriorating mental health and a much deeper understanding of the trauma she endured, the government plans to kill her. No other woman has been executed for a similar crime, because most prosecutors have recognized that it is inevitably the product of trauma and mental illness.
“Executing Lisa Montgomery would be yet another injustice inflicted on a woman who has known a lifetime of mistreatment.”
EDITOR'S NOTE: After reading the lawyer's statement, I used up a whole box of Kleenex to wipe away the tears gushing from my eyes.
Florida woman charged in machete attack wanted to be with man’s wife
New York Post
November 24, 2020
A Florida woman savagely hacked a man with a machete in his own bedroom during a psychotic attempt to convince his wife to run away with her, authorities said.
Alana J. Gibson, 27, of Venice, is facing charges of attempted murder, armed burglary, battery and fleeing to elude after Sarasota County deputies responded to the couple’s home just after midnight Sunday and found a shattered bedroom window, authorities said Monday.
Gibson, who worked with the man’s wife, broke into the Venice residence and attacked the male victim with a machete as he was asleep, deputies said.
Witnesses told investigators Gibson, who is identified in jail records as female, then began to strangle the man’s wife as she tried to stop the onslaught, deputies said.
Gibson then fled the home in a white pickup truck and led deputies on car chase into neighboring Charlotte County, where she was ultimately apprehended. Investigators also recovered a slew of weapons at the couple’s home, including a machete, an ax, a compound bow and several arrows, deputies said.
Gibson later admitted during an interview with investigators that she planned to kill the man and convince his wife to run away with her. The victim, who was not identified, was taken to a hospital and remained in stable condition Monday, authorities said.
The man had several lacerations throughout his body, The Port Charlotte Sun reported.
Gibson, meanwhile, was taken into custody after she drove over devices put down by authorities that blew out her tires. She kept driving, however, until a deputy used his patrol car to spin her truck sideways, the newspaper reported.
Gibson, who is listed as unemployed in jail records, remained held without bond Tuesday at the Sarasota County Correctional Facility, online data shows. It’s unclear if she’s hired an attorney who could speak on her behalf.
By Howie Katz
It's the bottom of the ninth. The Democrats are leading by one run over the Republicans, but the Republicans have loaded the bases. Heavy hitter Donald Trump is at bat. The count is 3 balls, 2 strikes. Joe Biden, the Democratic pitcher, throws a screwball. Trump swings and misses.
Staunch Trump ally Chris Christie says it's time for the President to concede
By Howie Katz
Big Jolly Times
November 24, 2020
Here is a lesson for President Trump from Kenny Rogers' song 'The Gambler':
You've got to know when to hold 'em
Know when to fold 'em
Know when to walk away
The rules of the game are for an outgoing president to concede the election he has lost, to invite the incoming president to the White House, and to have his administration cooperate with incoming president's transition team, all of which Trump refuses to do.
In refusing to concede the election, Trump is either a delusional psycho or the egomaniac jerk he's been all his adult life.
Trump, layers like Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell, and many who worshp at Trump's feet insist that the election was stolen from the president by the democrats using rigged Domino voting machines and other means of voting fraud.
An unhinged Giuliani clims to have hundreds of sworn affidavits attesting to the observation of voter fraud. But the sworn statements of witnesses claiming they observed voter fraud is not hard evidence, and without hard evidence, Trump cannot prevail in the courts.
by Bob Walsh
Metal Monolith Found In Utah's Red Rock Country
by Bob Walsh
The city of Sacramento has just agreed to pay $99,000 to a homeless man due to what can only be called an incompetent dog shooting.
The principle player was Kevin Cole. He was NOT homeless but the cop and the security guard believed he probably was as he looked the part. He had just finished some shopping in Safeway and hanging out with his backpack outside the store with his dog. He has some legit medical issues and was stuffing his groceries into his backpack prior to getting on the metro to do home. The security guard told him to move along. He didn't. The cops showed up. They told him to move along and gave him nine minutes to get his ass into gear. However before the nine minutes was up the cop wrestled him to the ground and handcuffed him. That agitated the dog, which was on a leash. One officer shot the dog. The dog was hit in the leg, the bullet hit the pavement and broke up. One segment hit Cole right between the eyes. Another segment hit the security guard.
Cole sued in federal court six months ago. The city settled, but the shooting is still under investigation. Based on the limited info available I expect the shooting was out of policy.
Ricky Schroder Calls Cops Over Online Attacks ... After Helping Kyle Rittenhouse Post Bail
TMZ
November 24, 2020
Ricky Schroder's getting so much hate for helping accused murderer Kyle Rittenhouse make bail, he reported it to cops ... TMZ has learned.
Law enforcement sources tell us ... deputies responded to a call from Schroder Sunday and stopped by his home to review various negative social media posts directed at the "NYPD Blue" actor.
While they weren't life-threatening, some of the comments were pretty nasty ... "Tbh thought he was dead. Would've been better," "This was a racist move pure and simple," and "Ricky Schroder can shove that silver spoon right up his own ass."
Celebs including Bette Midler weighed in too, saying, "Who knew he could be so malevolent?"
We're told cops determined none of the online comments rose to the level of a criminal threat ... so the officers just took a suspicious circumstances report and left.
Our sources say Schroder will be in contact with authorities if things escalate, and we're told police are monitoring the situation.
As we reported ... Schroder donated $150k to the 17-year-old's bail fund, which the teen's attorney, Lin Wood, said helped them post $2 million bail to get Rittenouse out of jail while he awaits trial for murder.
Some of the outcry is obviously harsher than others ... but you get the idea.
As for Rittenhouse ... he's accused of shooting and killing 2 men and wounding a third during the protests in Kenosha, Wisconsin following the police shooting of Jacob Blake. He's claiming he acted in self-defense.
Photos show 50 refrigerated trucks filled with bodies of 650 unclaimed COVID-19 dead being kept on Brooklyn waterfront 8 months after the city's pandemic pea
By Ariel Zilber
Daily Mail
November 24, 2020
Haunting photographs show an aerial view of freezer trucks parked along the Brooklyn waterfront that have been converted into makeshift morgues that hold the unclaimed bodies of 650 COVID-19 patients.
The sad images show some 50 trucks lined up neatly in the parking lot of the 39th Street Pier in the Sunset Park section of Brooklyn.
The emergency morgues were set up after the city’s mortuary facilities and private funeral homes were overflowing with dead bodies during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, when New York City was America’s virus epicenter.
The city continues to hold the bodies there because 230 of the deceased are of people whose next of kin have yet to be contacted, according to The Wall Street Journal.
A spokesperson for the city’s chief medical examiner’s office said it is not uncommon to hold bodies of those who have been estranged from loved ones or whose contact information for next of kin is old or outdated.
In some cases, the deceased’s next of kin are themselves deceased, according to city officials.
Those whose relatives have been contacted have yet to collect the bodies because they cannot afford the exorbitant costs of a proper burial.
In New York, the average cost of a traditional burial can hover around $9,000 while a typical cremation costs around $6,500, according to the New York State Funeral Directors Association.
As the pandemic claimed more dead, the city boosted its burial assistance to residents from the usual $900 to $1,700 - still well short of meeting the average cost.
Families that are unable to afford these options could ask the city to bury their loved ones for free on Hart Island, the small piece of territory in the Long Island Sound just off the coast of The Bronx.
Hart Island is where the city maintains a gravesite for the poor and needy. In pre-pandemic times, unclaimed bodies would have been interned on the island, one of the largest public cemeteries in the country.
Hart Island is operated by the city’s Department of Correction. Its burials have traditionally been done by inmates at the nearby Rikers Island jail.
During the first three month of the pandemic beginning in March, the city reported 203,000 confirmed cases of COVID-19. Of those, 18,679 people died and more than 54,000 people had been hospitalized.
In total, more than 24,000 New York City residents have died from COVID-19 related illness. More than 301,000 city residents tested positive for the disease.
The city numbers make up the brunt of New York State figures, which show more than 33,800 deaths and 607,000 cases.
In May, as the city struggled to grapple with the growing piles of bodies, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced that the city would hold off on conducting mass burials and that efforts would be made to notify next of kin.
Staffers at the city medical examiner’s office were simply ill-equipped to deal with a once-in-a-century pandemic.
The unit employs just 15 people whose job it is to identify bodies while seven others are tasked with contacting their relatives.
In normal, pre-pandemic times, the unit could deal with 20 deaths a day. At the height of the pandemic, it was inundated with a crush of some 200 new cases per day.
The lack of manpower led to weeks- and even months-long delays in notifying worried loved ones who kept calling the office seeking information about death certificates, the viewing of bodies, and funeral arrangements.
Lea-Anne Carafa was notified of the death of her husband, from whom she had been separated, three months after he was found dead in his bed.
Frank Joseph Carafa died of cardiovascular disease in his Manhattan apartment on May 6. His wife, who lives in Westchester County, was only told on July 28.
Frank’s death certificate does not mention COVID-19 a contributing factor in his death.
Before the pandemic, the office fielded up to 40 calls per day. At the peak of the pandemic, it was getting 1,000 calls per day.
City officials said they are sensitive to the needs of bereaved New Yorkers who must now be guided through the delicate task of claiming the bodies of their loved ones.
‘This has been traumatic,’ Dina Maniotis, the executive deputy commissioner of the chief medical examiner’s office, told The Wall Street Journal.
‘We are working with [next of kin] as gently as we can and coaxing them along to make their plans.
‘Many of them will decide they want to go to Hart Island, which is fine.’
When city officials are unable to track down next of kin, they try to identify the body through forensic means, including fingerprints, medical or dental records, or DNA data.
Officials also comb through police records or other available documentation.
The city has slowly managed to reduce the load of unclaimed bodies. In mid-September, it was holding 698 corpses.
It plans to continue using the truck freezers until the pandemic is declared over. That could be a while.
New York’s governor said on Monday he is reopening an emergency COVID-19 field hospital on Staten Island as the number of infections keep climbing, the first such facility in the state to relaunch since the state partly tamed the pandemic over the summer.
The temporary hospital on the grounds of the South Beach Psychiatric Hospital cared for 200 patients in spring, when New York City's hospital wards were overwhelmed with seriously ill and dying coronavirus patients.
Now, Cuomo said officials are concerned it might be needed again, as the virus has spread in the borough at a faster rate than in the rest of the city.
Staten Island has averaged 209 new cases of COVID-19 per day over the past seven days — up 86 percent from two weeks ago.
New York State has averaged nearly 5,500 new confirmed cases per day over the past seven days.
Hospitals
and nursing homes have reported 665 COVID-19 deaths in the state over
the past 30 days — more than in July, August and September combined.
A warrant has been issued for former police officer Chris Samayoa's arrest, which Boudin said a judge signed off on Saturday.
Samayoa has been charged with voluntary manslaughter, involuntary
manslaughter assault with a semiautomatic firearm, assault by a police
officer and discharge of a firearm with gross negligence.
In
December 2017, police said Keita O'Neil carjacked a California State
Lottery van and led officers on a pursuit through the Bayview and into a
public housing area.
Police said O'Neil then slowed down, jumped out of the van and ran toward the marked police car.
The DA's office said Samayoa shot O'Neil as he ran past the police car.
"As
other patrol cars closed in on him and blocked his path, Mr. O'Neil ran
past the police car where Officer Samayoa was seated in the passenger
seat. Officer Samayoa pointed his gun and shot Mr. O'Neil through the
passenger side window of the patrol car, killing Mr. O'Neil," Boudin
said in a statement.
Terminally ill Alabama man confesses to 1995 cold-case killing
A terminally ill Alabama man called cops to confess to a homicide that stumped investigators for 25 years, police said.
Johnny Dwight Whited, 53, told a Decatur police detective Wednesday that he was responsible for the 1995 slaying of Christopher Alvin Dailey, who died from a single gunshot wound to the head, department officials said.
“Despite the extensive investigation, a suspect was never developed in the case,” police said in a statement Thursday. “In the years that followed, the case was revisited several times for leads.”
But nothing ever materialized until Whited decided to apparently clear his conscience of killing the 26-year-old Dailey. He later met with detectives and provided information matching evidence in the cold case. Dailey’s relatives have been notified of the arrest, police said.
Whited made the startling admission after being transferred twice while on the phone, the New York Times reported.
“’I want to confess to a murder that I did years ago,’” Detective Sean Mukaddam recalled Whited saying. “He didn’t know the date or the year. We were scrambling to try to figure out what he was talking about.”
Investigators used a chart of every slaying in Decatur dating back to the 1980s and ultimately connected Whited to Dailey’s homicide on April 26, 1995, the newspaper reported.
Whited even went with detectives and re-enacted the killing, in which Dailey’s body was found in a wooded area of Decatur, according to the report.
“I’ve never had a situation where I just pick up the phone and have a call like that,” Mukaddam said. “Nothing where the suspect calls me out of the blue and wants to confess.”
Whited, of Trinity, was “remorseful,” Mukaddam told the Times.
“He was embarrassed about certain things,” the detective said without elaborating. “He wanted to get it off his chest.”
Authorities said Whited and Dailey did not know each other and declined to discuss a motive, but Mukaddam said Whited is “terminally ill,” the newspaper reported.
Whited’s attorney, Griff Belser, declined to comment, telling the Times he wanted to meet with his client before discussing his confession to the 1995 slaying.
Whited, who has been charged with murder, remained held Friday on $15,000 bond, court records show. His next court date was not listed.
Yemen rebels’ missile strikes Saudi oil facility in Jiddah
By Jon Gambrell
Associated Press
November 23, 2020
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Yemen’s Houthi rebels said they struck a Saudi oil facility in the port city of Jiddah early Monday with a new cruise missile, just hours after the kingdom finished hosting its virtual Group of 20 leaders summit.
The kingdom acknowledged the attack hours later. Videos of a small explosion at a Saudi Arabian Oil Co. facility in Jiddah had circulated on social media all day and a satellite photo confirmed damage at the site.
A projectile struck a fuel tank at the Jiddah distribution station and ignited a fire around 3:50 a.m., an unnamed Energy Ministry official said in a statement carried by the state-run Saudi Press Agency.
Col. Turki al-Maliki, a spokesman for the Saudi-led coalition fighting the Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen, blamed the rebels for what he called “a cowardly attack which not only targets the kingdom, but also targets the nerve center of the world’s energy supply and the security of the global economy.”
Brig. Gen. Yehia Sarie, a Houthi military spokesman, tweeted early Monday that the rebels fired a new Quds-2 cruise missile at the facility. He posted a satellite image online that matched Aramco’s North Jiddah Bulk Plant, where oil products are stored in tanks.
That facility is just southeast of Jiddah’s King Abdulaziz International Airport, a major airfield that handles incoming Muslim pilgrims en route to nearby Mecca.
Online videos appeared to show a tank farm similar to the bulk plant on fire, with wailing sirens heard and police cars alongside a highway by the facility. Details of the videos posted predawn Monday matched the general layout of the bulk plant.
A satellite photo from Planet Labs Inc. later published by TankerTrackers.com appeared to show damage to one of the tanks at the bulk plant and what appeared to be fire-suppression foam on the ground near it.
Earlier, the U.S. Consulate in Jiddah said it wasn’t aware of any casualties from the attack. It urged Americans to “review immediate precautions to take in the event of an attack and stay alert in case of additional future attacks.”
Saudi Aramco, the kingdom’s oil giant that now has a sliver of its worth traded publicly on the stock market, did not respond to a request for comment. Its stock traded slightly up Monday on Riyadh’s Tadawul stock exchange as crude oil prices remained steady above $40 a barrel.
The claimed attack comes just after a visit by outgoing U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to the kingdom to see Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman , a meeting that reportedly included Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The kingdom also just hosted the annual G-20 summit, which concluded Sunday.
A Saudi-led coalition has been battling the Houthis since March 2015, months after the rebels seized Yemen’s capital, Sanaa. The war has ground into a stalemate since, with Saudi Arabia facing international criticism for its airstrikes killing civilians.
The Houthis have used Quds, or “Jerusalem,” cruise missiles to target Saudi Arabia in the past. The Quds-1 has a copy of a small, Czech-made TJ-100 jet engine, with a range of 700 kilometers (435 miles). United Nations experts have said they don’t believe the missiles are built in Yemen and instead have been sold or traded to them in violation of an arms embargo.
Iran uses a copy of TJ-100 engines in its drone program. U.N. experts, Arab countries and the West say Iran supplies arms to the rebels, allegations denied by Tehran.
The Quds-1 was used in a missile-and-drone strike on the heart of the kingdom’s oil industry in 2019 that shook global energy markets. The U.S. believes Iran carried out that attack amid a series of escalating incidents last year between Tehran and Washington, something the Islamic Republic denies.
The crazed conspiracy theories of the Trump lawyer who claimed she would 'unleash the Kraken': How Sidney Powell went from federal prosecutor to claiming Georgia's Republican governor was bribed by Communists to let Biden win
By Geoff Earle
Daily Mail
November 23, 2020
Sidney Powell, the lawyer who proclaimed she was going to 'release the Kraken' – spent a decade as a federal prosecutor in Texas before she gravitated toward bizarre conspiracy theories including one that had Georgia's Trump-backing secretary of state being on the take to hand victory to Joe Biden.
Powell had already revealed an affinity for QAnon conspiracy theories and gained attention for representing Gen. Mike Flynn as he sought to reverse his guilty plea when she joined the Trump campaign's legal team.
She made some of the most outlandish claims at a Thursday press conference, where she claimed Venezuela, China, Cuba, George Soros, and Dominion Voting systems were all involved in a plot to throw the election to Biden.
Days after enduring a blistering commentary on Fox News by host Tucker Carlson, she got dumped from Tump's constantly fluctuating legal team.
“Sidney Powell is practicing law on her own. She is not a member of the Trump Legal Team. She is also not a lawyer for the President in his personal capacity,' Trump lawyers Rudy Giuliani and Jenna Ellis said in a statement.
Both lawyers had stood by Powell, along with attorneys Joe diGenova and Victoria Toensing at the presser, where Ellis described the unit as 'an elite strike force team that is working on behalf of the president and the campaign to make sure that our Constitution is protected.'
Trump made no doubt earlier that he appreciated having Powell in his corner, when he tweeted: 'I look forward to Mayor Giuliani spearheading the legal effort to defend OUR RIGHT to FREE and FAIR ELECTIONS! Rudy Giuliani, Joseph diGenova, Victoria Toensing, Sidney Powell, and Jenna Ellis, a truly great team, added to our other wonderful lawyers and representatives!' tweeted Nov. 14.
Before joining Trump's increasingly troubled effort to demonstrate election fraud, Powell had built a resume of credentials. She attended law school at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, served as a U.S. attorney in Texas, and represented Enron execs during the company scandal.
Days before the infamous presser, Powell made her 'release the Kraken' line, which shot across conservative media, after host Loud Dobbs introduced her as a 'member of Trump's legal team,' Mike Flynn's defense attorney, and a 'great American and prominent appellate lawyer'.
It was there that she said Dominion Voting Systems, which have voting machines in operation nationwide, 'was created to produce altered voting results in Venezuela for Hugo Chavez and then shift internationally to manipulate votes for purchase in other countries, including this one. It was funded by money from Venezuela and Cuba and China has a role in it also.'
She said she would expose an election fraud effort involving 'Silicon Valley people, the big tech companies, the social media and even the media companies' and cited 'staggering statistical evidence.'
The the Trump presser at the RNC headquarters in Washington, Powell expanded on her theory – now claiming the planned quiet fraud blew up because it 'broke the algorithm.'
'One of its most characteristic features is its ability to flip votes. It can set and run an algorithm that probably ran all over the country to take a certain percentage of votes from President Trump and flip them to President Biden which we might never have uncovered had the votes for President Trump not been so overwhelming in so many of these states that it broke the algorithm that had been plugged into the system, and that's what caused them to have to shut down in the states they shut down in' she said.
She got a smackdown from Fox host Tucker Carlson, who said his show had invited Powell on repeatedly to back up her claims, but she had failed to do so. ''She never demonstrated that a single actual vote was moved illegitimately by software from one candidate to another. Not one,' he said.
She denied Carlson's claim that she got angry at the requests, and said she sent him an affidavit to explained the situation, but allowed she was 'not really a numbers person.'
'I fully expect we will be able to prove all of it in court within the next two weeks ... We have more evidence right now than half the prison population is imprisoned on, of this egregious fraud,' she told host Maria Bartiromo.
One Trump supporting Republican Sen., Joni Ernst of Iowa, pushed back at yet another Powell claim – that members of Congress were in on the deal.
'We have no idea how many Republican or Democratic candidates in any state across the country paid to have the system rigged to work for them,' Powell said at the press conference.
‘That is an offensive comment,’ shot back Ernst.
By Saturday, she took her conspiracy theory of a multidirectional fraud even further – to include Georgia Sec. of State Brian Kemp.
Kemp is a conservative Trump supporter.
She told Newsmax – an outlet Trump has been promoting amid his feud with Fox – that Trump lost the state because Kemp was bribed by an election systems company.
'Georgia's probably going to be the first state I'm gonna blow up and Mr. Kemp and the secretary of state need to go with it,' she said.
'We've got tons of evidence. It's so much, it's hard to pull it all together,' she said. 'Hopefully, this week we will get it ready to file, and it will be biblical.'
Then she leveled her charge, without evidence, that Kemp and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger were on the take.
'And Mr. Kemp and the secretary of state need to go with it because they're in on the Dominion scam with their last-minute purchase or reward of a contract to Dominion of $100 million,' she claimed.
After her time as a prosecutor, Powell went into private practice. She represented executives at Enron and other companies.
She appears to have moved gradually toward her critiques of the 'deep state.'
She penned a book in 2014, Licensed to Lie, on misconduct at the Justice Department. She told Politico the media engaged in 'a significant effort to kill this book with silence.'
After the 2016 election, she became a fierce critic of the Russia probe – flaming Robert Mueller for hiring some of the people she had gone after in her book.
She would soon be drawn to QAnon, the far-right conspiracy theory that a cabal of Satan-worshiping child-sex traffickers are plotting against President Trump, who is trying to expose. It first emerged on 4chan in 2017.
Powell has also appeared on a QAnon YouTube show, and has repeatedly retweeted QAnon accounts.
She frequently shares the group's slogans, such as #TheStormisComing, on her social media account.
She gave a talk in 2018 at a fundraiser for Flynn. Her talk was titled: 'Creeps on a Mission to Destroy the President,' Politico reported. The slogan, which she had rolled out on Sean Hannity's Fox News program, ended up with a web site that sold T-shirts denouncing the Mueller probe.
After connecting with Flynn's brother, Powell would become Flynn's lawyer after he dumped his respected law firm of Covington & Burling, and sought to reverse his plea.
Trump hailed the move on Twitter after it was announced in 2019. 'General Michael Flynn, the 33 year war hero who has served with distinction, has now retained a good lawyer, he has retained a GREAT LAWYER, Sidney Powell. Best Wishes and Good Luck to them both!' Trump wrote.
__________
A spokesperson for Dominion Voting Systems hit back at conspiracy theories that the software company meddled in the election to benefit Joe Biden, insisting it was ‘physically impossible’ for its machines to change voter selections.
Michael Steel appeared on Fox News’ America’s News HQ on Sunday to debunk accusations made by attorneys working for the Trump campaign, who laid unfounded claims of voter fraud in a press conference earlier this week that included allegations Dominion had ties to Venezuela.
One of the attorney’s, Sidney Powell, who was disavowed by the Trump campaign Sunday, claimed the president had actually won the election ‘by a landslide’ but had been cheated by an 'algorithm' designed by Dominion.
Powell later reiterated the outlandish conspiracy in an interview with Newsmax on Saturday, in which she said Dominion’s machines – which are used in 28 states - had been programmed to ensure votes cast for Trump actually went to Biden instead.
Without offering evidence, Powell claimed that Dominion 'has a long history of rigging elections' and that this is 'what it was created to do to begin with.’
In response, Steel said Sunday that Dominion is ‘a nonpartisan American company. It is not physically possible for our machines to switch votes from one candidate to the other.
‘Our election system is run by local elected officials and nonpartisan poll watchers. We simply provide a tool to count the ballots and to print and count ballots,’ he continued.
During a bizarre press conference with Rudy Giuliani at the Republican National Committee headquarters in Washington on Thursday, Powell claimed Dominion used Smartmatic technology, which she said was ‘created in Venezuela at the direction of Hugo Chavez’.
Powell claimed Chavez, who died in 2013, developed Smartmatic technology to ensure he never lost an election.
She also claimed that votes for the US election were actually counted in countries such as Spain and Germany.
Steel vehemently rejected Powell’s notions, insisting: ‘There is no way such a massive fraud could have taken place, and there are no connections between our company and Venezuela, Germany, Barcelona, Kathmandu, [or] whatever the latest conspiracy theory is.’
When pressed by host Eric Shawn on how he could be sure Dominion’s machines were secure, he said that when voters cast their ballots, they fill it out on a touchscreen and are then given a printed copy that they hand to a local election official for safekeeping.
‘If any electronic interference had taken place, the tally reported electronically would not match the printed ballots,’ Steel said. ‘And in every case where we’ve looked at in Georgia, all across the country, the printed ballots, the gold standard in election security, has matched the electronic tally.’
Steel, who said he identifies as a conservative Republican, added that Dominion would ‘love to see any facts or evidence’ the Trump campaign has to substantiate their wild accusations.
‘Thus far we have seen none,’ Steel said, adding that in the 14 counties in Pennsylvania that used Dominion machines, President Trump won with 52 percent of the vote.
Furthermore, Steel said Dominion did not even have machines in some of the Wisconsin counties where the campaign has made accusations of fraud.
‘I can't imagine that someone would want to be in a position of authority in our election system and in our democracy just to subvert it,’ Steel said. ‘I think these are public spirited people. I think these are patriots and they are doing their job to the best of their ability to make sure we get accurate, transparent results.’
When quizzed as to whether a poll worker could use a USB drive to add votes for a candidate, Steel clarified that the machines don’t have such access points, and said the tabulators are not connected to the internet.
‘It’s not physically possible to do what they’re describing,’ Steel insisted.
