Airline bathrooms are getting smaller — you’re not imagining it
By Mary Schlangenstein
Bloomberg
July 10, 2018
If the restroom on your next flight seems a bit snug, don’t assume you’ve picked up a few pounds. U.S. airlines increasingly are putting smaller lavatories on their planes — and the economics of the decision means the smaller restrooms are probably here to stay.
As labor costs rise and fuel prices surge, airlines are taking advantage of robust travel demand to squeeze as many passengers as possible into planes. Knee-bashing reductions to legroom and elbow-crunching cuts to seat size are well-known tactics. The latest method is to retrofit old aircraft and order new ones with svelte lavatories that allow for an extra row of seats in the cabin.
Airlines say the new restrooms are just a few inches smaller than what passengers are used to. But it’s not as though the bathrooms were that big to begin with, and the tighter fit is sparking complaints from pilots, concerns from flight attendants and griping from travelers. Consultant Samuel Engel said taking his 4-year-old son to the restroom during a recent four-hour flight was like a yoga exercise.
“We’re both compact people, but I still had to basically straddle him to be able to fit in the lav together,” said Engel, who leads the aviation group at consulting firm ICF. “The sink is so tiny that we did a sort of four-handed ballet to wash each of our hands in turn, splashing water all over in the process.”
Wide use
The experience could be duplicated on just about any U.S. carrier.
American Airlines Group Inc. is using a smaller lavatory supplied by Airbus SE on new A321neos and remodeled older A321s to squeeze in more seats. The airline also is putting in diminutive restrooms made by Rockwell Collins Inc. on more than 300 Boeing Co. 737 aircraft.
United Continental Holdings Inc. has the Rockwell lavatories on about 10% of its 737 fleet — almost 35 planes — and will use them on at least 155 additional 737 Max jets, Boeing’s upgraded model of the single-aisle workhorse. Delta Air Lines Inc. has used the washrooms since 2014. JetBlue Airways Corp., meanwhile, is outfitting some of its fleet with a small lavatory made by Safran SA’s Zodiac Aerospace.
Gary Weissel, managing director of Tronos Aviation Consulting Inc., estimated that American could generate about $400,000 a year for each seat it adds to a plane, based on average fares and typical aircraft usage.
The airline told investors last fall that adding seats to its Boeing 737-800 and Airbus A321 jets would bring in $500 million a year. JetBlue has estimated that boosting capacity on its A320s by 12 seats to 162 will increase annual revenue by about $100 million.
Generating revenue
“Even with passenger complaints on these lavs, I don’t see airlines pulling them out,” Weissel said. “The revenue generated from being able to get an additional row of seats in there is too great.”
At shoulder height, the width of Rockwell’s Advanced Spacewall restroom — made by the company’s B/E Aerospace unit — is about the same that of as older economy-class restrooms. The space savings comes around sink level, as the wall curves in to allow a row of three seats to be tucked on the other side of the wall, under the bend. The lavatory, which is just one available option, provides seven inches more of cabin space, according to a Rockwell spokeswoman. The company and several airlines declined to provide full dimensions.
The smaller restrooms going on American’s 100 new 737 Max aircraft have prompted employees to dub it the Mini. Almost 230 older 737-800s also will be retrofitted with the petite washroom.
‘Miserable experience’
The economy cabin on American’s Max 8 is “the most miserable experience in the world,” Jimmy Walton, a captain for the airline, told company President Robert Isom during an employee meeting. “You’ve added 12 more seats, no more lavatories, and you’ve shrunk that lavatory to 75% of what it was before,” Walton said. “I can’t turn around in it.”
Flight attendants, who are on the front lines for traveler dissatisfaction, also criticize the smaller restrooms.
“We believe these lavatories contribute greatly to the general decline of the in-flight experience and have the potential to lead to increased incidents of air rage,” said Shane Staples, a spokesman for the Assn. of Professional Flight Attendants at American.
The lavatories are about 22.4 inches across at a passenger’s chest level when seated, American said. That’s 3.1 inches narrower than the previous models.
“You’re talking inches. We’re not talking feet,” said David Seymour, American’s senior vice president of integrated operations. “I don’t know how big of a population falls into ‘I can’t move around in it.’”
‘Too far’
To passengers already losing space bit by bit, however, trimming a few more inches can be a big deal.
Airlines “have decided the lavatory doesn’t matter that much” as they try to squeeze in more seats, said Jami Counter, vice president of flights at the TripAdvisor and SeatGuru.com air-travel sites. “I think they might have gone a bit too far. They’re taking it off of what already was a very skinny configuration.”
United Airlines’ first Boeing 737 Max 9 flights on June 7 spurred complaints on Twitter about the small restroom. Zach Honig, an editor-at-large for the Points Guy, a travel-tips site, tweeted that the economy class bathrooms on the plane “are shockingly bad” and “especially narrow.”
The airline’s 737s offer two or three different-size lavatories, including one in the premium cabin, United spokeswoman Maddie King said. The washroom at the front of the plane often is larger — but typically isn’t available to economy passengers.
Customer feedback
JetBlue’s planes have at least one full-size lavatory at the front that can be used by any passenger, said spokesman Doug McGraw. “The aircraft has a finite amount of space,” he said. “It’s not without challenges, but customer feedback on all the upgrades we are making to our interiors has been very good.”
Rockwell said that as trends in travel and fares change, it offers various restrooms to help carriers adapt. “These range from large lavatories to space-saving lavatories, which allow airlines to optimize the cabin,” said spokeswoman Pam Tvrdy-Cleary. Zodiac, which makes the JetBlue restroom, didn’t respond to requests for comment.
Boeing offers lavatories with added interior space as well as ones that allow carriers to increase room in the cabin. “Our goal is to provide the most flexibility to our airline customers to meet their individual business needs,” spokesman Doug Alder said by email.
Carriers may be forced to give at some point, said Engel, the ICF consultant.
“A few videos of people changing diapers in the aisle or a larger American stuck in the lav,” he said, ultimately may generate pressure for a new generation of lavatories “with less of the squeeze.”
EDITOR’S NOTE: This reminds me of the old triple-tail Lockheed Constellation passenger plane. It had a shitter in the tail end that the only way you could use it was to back in.
Wednesday, July 11, 2018
Tuesday, July 10, 2018
HEAD SHRINKERS PREDICT DARK DAYS AHEAD FOR BOYS RESCUED FROM THAI CAVE
Feel-good doctors are warning that some of the football team may never be able to swim, be in the dark or rooms with closed doors ever again
As soon as the first boys were rescued from that Thai cave, the feel-good doctors piped in with their predictions of gloom. The head shrinkers are warning that some of the football team may never be able to swim, be in the dark or rooms with closed doors ever again. They also predict the boys would face PTSD or depression months after they are rescued.
These are the same clowns that have made head shrinking a cottage industry. They predicted that the kids in Bosnia would suffer long-term traumatic effects from that bloody war. They didn’t.
The resilience of kids has been demonstrated time after time, a fact apparently overlooked by the psychologists and psychiatrists that are making such dire predictions for the cave boys.
I predict that shortly those boys will be playing soccer again. And they will be sharing stories about their adventure with eager-listening schoolmates.
Society would be far better off if some of these shrinks would crawl back under the rocks from which they come.
As soon as the first boys were rescued from that Thai cave, the feel-good doctors piped in with their predictions of gloom. The head shrinkers are warning that some of the football team may never be able to swim, be in the dark or rooms with closed doors ever again. They also predict the boys would face PTSD or depression months after they are rescued.
These are the same clowns that have made head shrinking a cottage industry. They predicted that the kids in Bosnia would suffer long-term traumatic effects from that bloody war. They didn’t.
The resilience of kids has been demonstrated time after time, a fact apparently overlooked by the psychologists and psychiatrists that are making such dire predictions for the cave boys.
I predict that shortly those boys will be playing soccer again. And they will be sharing stories about their adventure with eager-listening schoolmates.
Society would be far better off if some of these shrinks would crawl back under the rocks from which they come.
JUDGE BRETT KAVANAUGH IS THE NEW SCOTUS PICK
by Bob Walsh
It wouldn't have mattered who Trump picked. The Dems and other liberal whackjobs will got bat-shit crazy and scream that the appointment will mean the end of legal abortions. throwing gay people in prison and shoot-to-kill orders on illegal alien children on the borders. None of that will happen, but the yelling with happen anyway.
There are two Republican senators, both female, who maybe/probably will not support a candidate that they believe will overturn Roe. There are ten Democrat senators who are both up for election this year and whose districts were carried by Trump for more than 10% in the last election. A vote against could result in them being unemployed from the best gig they have ever had or could ever hope to have.
What will win out? Obviously, just from the numbers, Trump will win if the Republicans hang tough and play hardball. I am guessing they will. Now if Ruth Ginsberg will just drop dead the courts could be what they are supposed to be for decades to come.
It wouldn't have mattered who Trump picked. The Dems and other liberal whackjobs will got bat-shit crazy and scream that the appointment will mean the end of legal abortions. throwing gay people in prison and shoot-to-kill orders on illegal alien children on the borders. None of that will happen, but the yelling with happen anyway.
There are two Republican senators, both female, who maybe/probably will not support a candidate that they believe will overturn Roe. There are ten Democrat senators who are both up for election this year and whose districts were carried by Trump for more than 10% in the last election. A vote against could result in them being unemployed from the best gig they have ever had or could ever hope to have.
What will win out? Obviously, just from the numbers, Trump will win if the Republicans hang tough and play hardball. I am guessing they will. Now if Ruth Ginsberg will just drop dead the courts could be what they are supposed to be for decades to come.
BART IS RUN BY A BUNCH OF RACIST BASTARDS.....OR Not
by Bob Walsh
The Bay Area Rapid Transit District operates in the greater S. F. bay area. One of the tools they have for dealing with persistent and egregious assholeishness is to ban people from their property. To the outrage of the various sob sisters, about 2/3 of those banned are Black.
These bans typically run from one month to one year. Last year, 319 people were banned from BART. 209 of those are Black. 15% are White and 12.5% are Latino. BART service population is about 12% Black, 44% White and 18% Latino. They got legal authority in 2011 to issue these stay-away orders.
BART states that 94% of those issued orders are NOT know to re-offend during the period of the order. They assert that the program has produced increased safety for it's riders.
The Bay Area Rapid Transit District operates in the greater S. F. bay area. One of the tools they have for dealing with persistent and egregious assholeishness is to ban people from their property. To the outrage of the various sob sisters, about 2/3 of those banned are Black.
These bans typically run from one month to one year. Last year, 319 people were banned from BART. 209 of those are Black. 15% are White and 12.5% are Latino. BART service population is about 12% Black, 44% White and 18% Latino. They got legal authority in 2011 to issue these stay-away orders.
BART states that 94% of those issued orders are NOT know to re-offend during the period of the order. They assert that the program has produced increased safety for it's riders.
EIGHT FOR EIGHT. DAMN, THOSE GUYS ARE GOOD
by Bob Walsh
The people pulling those kids out of the cave are now eight for eight. True, they took the strongest and most able people out first, but that is still a noteworthy achievement. Tomorrow (probably as you read this) they will be removing the last four kids and the coach. I am suitably impressed.
The people pulling those kids out of the cave are now eight for eight. True, they took the strongest and most able people out first, but that is still a noteworthy achievement. Tomorrow (probably as you read this) they will be removing the last four kids and the coach. I am suitably impressed.
REACTIONARY BACKLASH OR REMOVING HEAD FROM ASS?
by Bob Walsh
Some time ago the formerly great state of California started making it possible for illegal aliens to get driver's licenses. I admit that, at the time, I had mixed feelings. I have tangled at least once with an unlicensed, and therefore uninsured, illegal alien driver.
One legit side of the argument says that they are going to drive anyway so we might as well make it possible for them to be licensed and insured. The other side says they are here illegally, why should we make them half-assed semi-legal by official state government actions? Both sides have their valid points.
There is currently an initiative drive under way that would, if successful, place the question on the 2020 ballot in California. The initiative would also eliminate the current "sanctuary state" status law and also end the idiotic automatic voter registration practices in CA, which makes voter fraud incredibly easy.
More than 1 million drivers licenses have been issued to known illegal aliens in CA in the three years it has been legal. Since that happened there has been a reduction in hit-and-run accidents in CA, but an increase in vehicle related deaths of 10%. It is not clear what causal relationship, if any, is represented there.
The initiative is being pushed by Don Rosenberg, whose son was plowed under in San Francisco by an unlicensed driver who entered the country illegally but had since been granted temporary legal status.
I wish him luck. I will be happy to sign the petition when I see it.
Some time ago the formerly great state of California started making it possible for illegal aliens to get driver's licenses. I admit that, at the time, I had mixed feelings. I have tangled at least once with an unlicensed, and therefore uninsured, illegal alien driver.
One legit side of the argument says that they are going to drive anyway so we might as well make it possible for them to be licensed and insured. The other side says they are here illegally, why should we make them half-assed semi-legal by official state government actions? Both sides have their valid points.
There is currently an initiative drive under way that would, if successful, place the question on the 2020 ballot in California. The initiative would also eliminate the current "sanctuary state" status law and also end the idiotic automatic voter registration practices in CA, which makes voter fraud incredibly easy.
More than 1 million drivers licenses have been issued to known illegal aliens in CA in the three years it has been legal. Since that happened there has been a reduction in hit-and-run accidents in CA, but an increase in vehicle related deaths of 10%. It is not clear what causal relationship, if any, is represented there.
The initiative is being pushed by Don Rosenberg, whose son was plowed under in San Francisco by an unlicensed driver who entered the country illegally but had since been granted temporary legal status.
I wish him luck. I will be happy to sign the petition when I see it.
BLACK FOLK DO NOT LIKE BROWN FOLK
Man, 92, Hit With Brick In Brutal July 4th Attack
CBS Los Angeles
July 6, 2018
LOS ANGELES -- Loved ones are looking for answers after a 92-year-old man was hit with a brick in a brutal July 4th attack.
Rodolfo Rodriguez suffered broken ribs, a broken cheek bone and has bruises all over his body. This normally healthy and active grandfather says it started just before 8 p.m. on July 4th as he went out for a walk in Willowbrook.
On the sidewalk, he says he bumped into a little girl as he was trying to get around her. That’s when he says a woman, believed to be the girl’s mom, threw him to the ground and started hitting him with her fists, then a brick.
Erik Mendoza says his grandfather doesn’t speak English and had no idea why he was attacked.
“I’m just overwhelmed how anybody can do this to a human being at all,” Mendoza said. “He’s 92 years of age. There’s no harm that he meant for you to treat him the way you did.”
Another woman told us she was driving by and saw the whole thing. She said a group of men soon joined the woman in the assault so Catherine got out of her car, took the woman’s picture and asked her why.
“When I take the picture, she said, ‘Oh, he tried to touch my girl.’ I saw everything, this is a lie. And when the guys came, they hit him in the face, his body, everything,” the woman said, adding she heard what the woman was saying to Rodriguez.
“Go back to your country, why are you here, bad things,” is what the witness said she head.
The attackers left as police were called.
Mendoza is meanwhile still in disbelief. He says he doesn’t understand how the woman and other men could do this to his defenseless grandfather for accidentally bumping into the little girl.
“That’s the lesson you’re going to give your child, for you to hurt elderly people because they bump into you?” he asked. “I just want to know what was going through her mind.”
Loved ones have started GoFundMe page to help Rodriguez as he recovers from his injuries.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Video shows the attackers were black. It’s no secret that blacks don’t like Latinos. They don’t like Asians either. And they also don’t like us Jews. Holy shit, who ever would have thought blacks are racists!?
CBS Los Angeles
July 6, 2018
LOS ANGELES -- Loved ones are looking for answers after a 92-year-old man was hit with a brick in a brutal July 4th attack.
Rodolfo Rodriguez suffered broken ribs, a broken cheek bone and has bruises all over his body. This normally healthy and active grandfather says it started just before 8 p.m. on July 4th as he went out for a walk in Willowbrook.
On the sidewalk, he says he bumped into a little girl as he was trying to get around her. That’s when he says a woman, believed to be the girl’s mom, threw him to the ground and started hitting him with her fists, then a brick.
Erik Mendoza says his grandfather doesn’t speak English and had no idea why he was attacked.
“I’m just overwhelmed how anybody can do this to a human being at all,” Mendoza said. “He’s 92 years of age. There’s no harm that he meant for you to treat him the way you did.”
Another woman told us she was driving by and saw the whole thing. She said a group of men soon joined the woman in the assault so Catherine got out of her car, took the woman’s picture and asked her why.
“When I take the picture, she said, ‘Oh, he tried to touch my girl.’ I saw everything, this is a lie. And when the guys came, they hit him in the face, his body, everything,” the woman said, adding she heard what the woman was saying to Rodriguez.
“Go back to your country, why are you here, bad things,” is what the witness said she head.
The attackers left as police were called.
Mendoza is meanwhile still in disbelief. He says he doesn’t understand how the woman and other men could do this to his defenseless grandfather for accidentally bumping into the little girl.
“That’s the lesson you’re going to give your child, for you to hurt elderly people because they bump into you?” he asked. “I just want to know what was going through her mind.”
Loved ones have started GoFundMe page to help Rodriguez as he recovers from his injuries.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Video shows the attackers were black. It’s no secret that blacks don’t like Latinos. They don’t like Asians either. And they also don’t like us Jews. Holy shit, who ever would have thought blacks are racists!?
THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION DID WHAT?
US threatened Ecuador with trade sanctions if they backed a UN resolution encouraging breastfeeding
By Ariel Zilber
Daily Mail
July 9, 2018
The United States has been accused of ‘blackmail’ after it threatened to cut aid to Ecuador and other poor countries who backed a resolution encouraging breastfeeding.
Earlier this year, countries sent diplomats to Geneva for a meeting of the World Health Organization, the UN-affiliated organization.
At the conference, Ecuador sponsored a proposal that recognized mother’s milk as the healthiest option for nursing newborns.
The resolution also called on world governments to crack down on marketing which says that substitute baby formulas are better and to ‘protect, promote, and support breastfeeding.’
But when the Trump administration failed to convince member states to water down the language about breastfeeding and formulas, it resorted to threats, according to The New York Times.
The administration told Ecuador that if it did not pull its resolution, it would respond by cutting military aid and adopting harsh, retaliatory trade measures.
Ecuador capitulated and did as the Americans demanded, The Times reported.
Health officials who had advocated for the resolution in favor of breast milk were shocked, they said.
They frantically tried to find other countries who would sponsor the resolution, but these nations - mostly from Latin America and Africa - were frightened off by the specter of American threats.
‘We were astonished, appalled and also saddened,’ said Patti Rundall, policy director of Baby Milk Action, a pro-breastfeeding advocacy group.
‘What happened was tantamount to blackmail, with the U.S. holding the world hostage and trying to overturn nearly 40 years of consensus on the best way to protect infant and young child health.’
Eventually, the resolution was introduced by Russia and subsequently approved.
The Americans did not threaten Moscow as they did Ecuador and other countries, according to the Times.
The Department of Health and Human Services, which tried to change the wording of the resolution, denies that it was involved in making threats against Ecuador.
‘The resolution as originally drafted placed unnecessary hurdles for mothers seeking to provide nutrition to their children,’ an H.H.S. spokesman said.
‘We recognize not all women are able to breastfeed for a variety of reasons.
‘These women should have the choice and access to alternatives for the health of their babies, and not be stigmatized for the ways in which they are able to do so.’
The State Department declined to comment.
Research has shown that mother’s milk contains far more nutrients that are necessary for a baby’s health than infant formula.
Companies that sell baby formula generate $70billion annually, but those sales have been stagnant due to the increased popularity of breastfeeding.
A Russian diplomat told the Times that his country’s decision to advance the breastfeeding resolution was an easy one to make.
‘We’re not trying to be a hero here, but we feel that it is wrong when a big country tries to push around some very small countries, especially on an issue that is really important for the rest of the world,’ the diplomat said.
An Ecuadorian official said that his government did not anticipate the harshness of America’s response.
‘We were shocked because we didn’t understand how such a small matter like breastfeeding could provoke such a dramatic response,’ the official said.
By Ariel Zilber
Daily Mail
July 9, 2018
The United States has been accused of ‘blackmail’ after it threatened to cut aid to Ecuador and other poor countries who backed a resolution encouraging breastfeeding.
Earlier this year, countries sent diplomats to Geneva for a meeting of the World Health Organization, the UN-affiliated organization.
At the conference, Ecuador sponsored a proposal that recognized mother’s milk as the healthiest option for nursing newborns.
The resolution also called on world governments to crack down on marketing which says that substitute baby formulas are better and to ‘protect, promote, and support breastfeeding.’
But when the Trump administration failed to convince member states to water down the language about breastfeeding and formulas, it resorted to threats, according to The New York Times.
The administration told Ecuador that if it did not pull its resolution, it would respond by cutting military aid and adopting harsh, retaliatory trade measures.
Ecuador capitulated and did as the Americans demanded, The Times reported.
Health officials who had advocated for the resolution in favor of breast milk were shocked, they said.
They frantically tried to find other countries who would sponsor the resolution, but these nations - mostly from Latin America and Africa - were frightened off by the specter of American threats.
‘We were astonished, appalled and also saddened,’ said Patti Rundall, policy director of Baby Milk Action, a pro-breastfeeding advocacy group.
‘What happened was tantamount to blackmail, with the U.S. holding the world hostage and trying to overturn nearly 40 years of consensus on the best way to protect infant and young child health.’
Eventually, the resolution was introduced by Russia and subsequently approved.
The Americans did not threaten Moscow as they did Ecuador and other countries, according to the Times.
The Department of Health and Human Services, which tried to change the wording of the resolution, denies that it was involved in making threats against Ecuador.
‘The resolution as originally drafted placed unnecessary hurdles for mothers seeking to provide nutrition to their children,’ an H.H.S. spokesman said.
‘We recognize not all women are able to breastfeed for a variety of reasons.
‘These women should have the choice and access to alternatives for the health of their babies, and not be stigmatized for the ways in which they are able to do so.’
The State Department declined to comment.
Research has shown that mother’s milk contains far more nutrients that are necessary for a baby’s health than infant formula.
Companies that sell baby formula generate $70billion annually, but those sales have been stagnant due to the increased popularity of breastfeeding.
A Russian diplomat told the Times that his country’s decision to advance the breastfeeding resolution was an easy one to make.
‘We’re not trying to be a hero here, but we feel that it is wrong when a big country tries to push around some very small countries, especially on an issue that is really important for the rest of the world,’ the diplomat said.
An Ecuadorian official said that his government did not anticipate the harshness of America’s response.
‘We were shocked because we didn’t understand how such a small matter like breastfeeding could provoke such a dramatic response,’ the official said.
CHICAGO BASKETBALL PLAYERS BELIEVE IN KICKING THE SHIT OUT OF REFS WHEN THEY DON’T LIKE THEIR CALLS
‘It’s sickening’: Players brawl with referees during basketball tournament
by Des Bieler
The Washington Post
July 9, 2018
A basketball tournament game Sunday in Georgia descended into shocking violence as players from one team brawled with referees. The head coaches of the two teams involved disagreed on who was to blame for the start of the incident, but the organizer of the event described the scene as “sickening” and vowed to ban anyone found responsible for it.
Video clips of the incident, which took place during a tournament in Emerson, Ga., quickly spread Sunday on the Internet. Players from a Chicago-based team, R.A.W. Athletics, were shown attacking referees, who could be seen fighting back as onlookers reacted with alarm. (Warning: violence and profanity.)
The coach of R.A.W., Howard Martin, said the violence began late in the fourth quarter, after a referee issued a technical foul to and ejected one of his players, who had been “complaining” about a call. “He made a comment to the referee. The ref didn’t like it,” Martin told ESPN.
“So the other team inbounded the ball, walked it up, the ref said to my player, ‘Say it again.’ Then he T’d him up and kicked him out of the game,” Martin added. “And he walked behind him, still having words.
“Then the ref pushed my player, and they squared up right by my bench. When they squared up, another one of my players jumped off the bench and took [the referee] down. We separated them.”
In a since-deleted tweet, Martin said the referee “attacked” his player, and that after people “tried to break it all up,” the official’s father, another referee who was working a game on an adjacent court, “ran over to our court and rushed our guys.” Martin told ESPN that after the player of his “who was involved in taking the ref down” told the arriving referee that he was responsible for that act, the official “charged the kid” and “it all went to hell.”
The coach of the opposing team, the Houston Raptors, agreed that the issuing of the technical foul began the incident, but he said that a R.A.W. player started the violence by bumping the referee with his shoulder before knocking him to the ground. “The referee definitely didn’t attack the kids,” the coach, Bobby Benjamin, told ESPN. “Absolutely not.
“Once things got going, and he was attacked . . . he got assaulted,” Benjamin continued. “They were too outnumbered to even try to defend themselves.”
“It’s unfortunate,” Josh Miley, the organizer of the tournament, said. “It’s saddening. It’s sickening. It’s hard to stomach. No adult, no kid should have to witness that.”
“Tempers got hot, one of their players hit the referee and then all hell broke loose,” a coach of a team playing on an adjacent court said to Yahoo Sports. “It’s a bad representation of AAU basketball. It’s sad.”
In response to widespread reports that the game was held under the auspices of the Amateur Athletic Union, that organization issued a statement denying any association with the tournament. “AAU is regularly and wrongly used to describe all nonscholastic travel basketball. Not all basketball events in the summer are run by the AAU organization,” the organization said.
“The incident at the non-AAU basketball event in Georgia is unfortunate,” AAU President Roger J. Goudy said. “The AAU organization takes the safety and well-being of our athletes, coaches and officials very seriously. Any such behavior is never tolerated at licensed AAU events and, for those groups who fraudulently represent themselves as AAU, we will pursue all legal remedies.”
Miley said that he and his staff are “still reviewing the video as to what might happen,” and Emerson police are reportedly also investigating the incident. Benjamin told Yahoo Sports that, as his team was maintaining a double-digit lead against its increasingly frustrated opponents, he had warned his players to steer clear of any possible altercations.
“Their players started fighting amongst each other and they were arguing with their coach,” Benjamin said. “That’s when I knew it was about to get bad. I figured if they’re going to fight with each other, they might be willing to fight anybody.”
“Now it’s all over social media, news outlets, that my kids are a bunch of thugs and a bunch of gangbangers,” Martin told ESPN. “They’re all teenage boys. One guy came to the aid of another guy, which he shouldn’t have. He should have let us handle it.”
by Des Bieler
The Washington Post
July 9, 2018
A basketball tournament game Sunday in Georgia descended into shocking violence as players from one team brawled with referees. The head coaches of the two teams involved disagreed on who was to blame for the start of the incident, but the organizer of the event described the scene as “sickening” and vowed to ban anyone found responsible for it.
Video clips of the incident, which took place during a tournament in Emerson, Ga., quickly spread Sunday on the Internet. Players from a Chicago-based team, R.A.W. Athletics, were shown attacking referees, who could be seen fighting back as onlookers reacted with alarm. (Warning: violence and profanity.)
The coach of R.A.W., Howard Martin, said the violence began late in the fourth quarter, after a referee issued a technical foul to and ejected one of his players, who had been “complaining” about a call. “He made a comment to the referee. The ref didn’t like it,” Martin told ESPN.
“So the other team inbounded the ball, walked it up, the ref said to my player, ‘Say it again.’ Then he T’d him up and kicked him out of the game,” Martin added. “And he walked behind him, still having words.
“Then the ref pushed my player, and they squared up right by my bench. When they squared up, another one of my players jumped off the bench and took [the referee] down. We separated them.”
In a since-deleted tweet, Martin said the referee “attacked” his player, and that after people “tried to break it all up,” the official’s father, another referee who was working a game on an adjacent court, “ran over to our court and rushed our guys.” Martin told ESPN that after the player of his “who was involved in taking the ref down” told the arriving referee that he was responsible for that act, the official “charged the kid” and “it all went to hell.”
The coach of the opposing team, the Houston Raptors, agreed that the issuing of the technical foul began the incident, but he said that a R.A.W. player started the violence by bumping the referee with his shoulder before knocking him to the ground. “The referee definitely didn’t attack the kids,” the coach, Bobby Benjamin, told ESPN. “Absolutely not.
“Once things got going, and he was attacked . . . he got assaulted,” Benjamin continued. “They were too outnumbered to even try to defend themselves.”
“It’s unfortunate,” Josh Miley, the organizer of the tournament, said. “It’s saddening. It’s sickening. It’s hard to stomach. No adult, no kid should have to witness that.”
“Tempers got hot, one of their players hit the referee and then all hell broke loose,” a coach of a team playing on an adjacent court said to Yahoo Sports. “It’s a bad representation of AAU basketball. It’s sad.”
In response to widespread reports that the game was held under the auspices of the Amateur Athletic Union, that organization issued a statement denying any association with the tournament. “AAU is regularly and wrongly used to describe all nonscholastic travel basketball. Not all basketball events in the summer are run by the AAU organization,” the organization said.
“The incident at the non-AAU basketball event in Georgia is unfortunate,” AAU President Roger J. Goudy said. “The AAU organization takes the safety and well-being of our athletes, coaches and officials very seriously. Any such behavior is never tolerated at licensed AAU events and, for those groups who fraudulently represent themselves as AAU, we will pursue all legal remedies.”
Miley said that he and his staff are “still reviewing the video as to what might happen,” and Emerson police are reportedly also investigating the incident. Benjamin told Yahoo Sports that, as his team was maintaining a double-digit lead against its increasingly frustrated opponents, he had warned his players to steer clear of any possible altercations.
“Their players started fighting amongst each other and they were arguing with their coach,” Benjamin said. “That’s when I knew it was about to get bad. I figured if they’re going to fight with each other, they might be willing to fight anybody.”
“Now it’s all over social media, news outlets, that my kids are a bunch of thugs and a bunch of gangbangers,” Martin told ESPN. “They’re all teenage boys. One guy came to the aid of another guy, which he shouldn’t have. He should have let us handle it.”
POT REWARD FOR A YOUNG BOY
Mother, lesbian partner used marijuana as incentive for son's behavior
By Vic Ryckaert,
Indianapolis Star
July 9, 2018
A Greenfield mother and her girlfriend face neglect charges after authorities say they gave her son marijuana as an incentive for good behavior.
Melissa Burton, 36, and Susan Glascock, 36, also took marijuana away from Burton's son when he misbehaved, according to a probable cause affidavit filed last week in Hancock Superior Court.
"(The boy) advised that Melissa would ground him from marijuana if he did something bad, and Melissa and Susan would reward him with marijuana if he did something good," Greenfield officer J. Tomas wrote in the affidavit.
Glascock "even taught him how to roll marijuana," Thomas wrote.
Greenfield police were called to the family's apartment on June 25 after a fight between the boy and Glascock.
Prosecutors said the 270-pound woman slapped and tackled the 100-pound boy, pinning him to the floor before Burton finally pulled her off.
When the boy got to his feet, prosecutors said he punched Glascock then fled from the apartment. Officers found him near the home walking on the road.
At the police station, the boy's grandfather told investigators that he saw Burton and Glascock give the boy marijuana.
"(The grandfather) advised that he 'lost it,'" according to the probable cause affidavit. "They told (the grandfather) that they would not do that again."
Prosecutors said Burton and Glascock told a Department of Child Services case worker they gave the boy marijuana. Glascock said it was once; Burton admitted to numerous times, according to the affidavit.
The boy told police they had given him marijuana at least 50 times in the past three months.
Prosecutors charged both women with felony child neglect. Glascock faces an additional misdemeanor charge of domestic battery.
Felony child neglect is punishable by six months to two and a half years in prison.
By Vic Ryckaert,
Indianapolis Star
July 9, 2018
A Greenfield mother and her girlfriend face neglect charges after authorities say they gave her son marijuana as an incentive for good behavior.
Melissa Burton, 36, and Susan Glascock, 36, also took marijuana away from Burton's son when he misbehaved, according to a probable cause affidavit filed last week in Hancock Superior Court.
"(The boy) advised that Melissa would ground him from marijuana if he did something bad, and Melissa and Susan would reward him with marijuana if he did something good," Greenfield officer J. Tomas wrote in the affidavit.
Glascock "even taught him how to roll marijuana," Thomas wrote.
Greenfield police were called to the family's apartment on June 25 after a fight between the boy and Glascock.
Prosecutors said the 270-pound woman slapped and tackled the 100-pound boy, pinning him to the floor before Burton finally pulled her off.
When the boy got to his feet, prosecutors said he punched Glascock then fled from the apartment. Officers found him near the home walking on the road.
At the police station, the boy's grandfather told investigators that he saw Burton and Glascock give the boy marijuana.
"(The grandfather) advised that he 'lost it,'" according to the probable cause affidavit. "They told (the grandfather) that they would not do that again."
Prosecutors said Burton and Glascock told a Department of Child Services case worker they gave the boy marijuana. Glascock said it was once; Burton admitted to numerous times, according to the affidavit.
The boy told police they had given him marijuana at least 50 times in the past three months.
Prosecutors charged both women with felony child neglect. Glascock faces an additional misdemeanor charge of domestic battery.
Felony child neglect is punishable by six months to two and a half years in prison.
Monday, July 09, 2018
BAD MEDICINE
Both Democrats and Republicans in Texas have a plank in their party platforms that would allow Texas doctors to determine the appropriate use of cannabis to certified patients
In California, doctors prescribe pot for almost any imagined ailment – headaches, backaches, stomach aches, alopecia, ingrown toenails, hemorrhoids, erectile dysfunction, anxiety, depression, nightmares, etc., etc. Marijuana prescriptions have been a cash cow for California doctors.
Now both Democrats and Republicans in Texas have a plank in their party platforms that would allow Texas doctors to determine the appropriate use of cannabis to certified patients. That’s bad medicine!
Pot has been touted for the treatment of epilepsy, glaucoma, pain, nausea and vomiting in chemotherapy patients, MS muscle contractions, sleep disorders and Tourette’s symptoms. But reputable scientific studies have shown that this is not true. Yet doctors choose to believe otherwise because it keeps the cash register ringing.
Furthermore, a 20 year study by a team led by Professor Wayne Hall, a drug adviser to the World Health Organization, found cannabis is highly addictive, causes mental health problems, doubles the risk of developing psychotic disorders, including schizophrenia and opens the door to hard drugs.
The situation with doctors prescribing medical marijuana in California got so bad that it amounted to a de facto legalization of Marijuana for recreational use. Now that pot has been legalized for recreational use in the state, that cash cow for doctors will shrink considerably. Why bother to get and pay for a pot scrip now?
The legalization of medical marijuana in California was a designed step for the legalization of recreational pot. And so it will be in Texas if we allow doctors to prescribe pot for whatever alleged ailment they choose.
So, do we really want to allow Texas doctors to determine the appropriate use of cannabis to certified patients? For those of us who are opposed to the legalization of marijuana for recreational use, the answer is a big no!
By the way, I am not opposed to the use of cannabis in medicine. Certain extracts of cannabis which do not cause a high have been shown to have curative results in some cases. If FDA approved extracts were to be prescribed instead of smokable pot, that’s fine with me.
In California, doctors prescribe pot for almost any imagined ailment – headaches, backaches, stomach aches, alopecia, ingrown toenails, hemorrhoids, erectile dysfunction, anxiety, depression, nightmares, etc., etc. Marijuana prescriptions have been a cash cow for California doctors.
Now both Democrats and Republicans in Texas have a plank in their party platforms that would allow Texas doctors to determine the appropriate use of cannabis to certified patients. That’s bad medicine!
Pot has been touted for the treatment of epilepsy, glaucoma, pain, nausea and vomiting in chemotherapy patients, MS muscle contractions, sleep disorders and Tourette’s symptoms. But reputable scientific studies have shown that this is not true. Yet doctors choose to believe otherwise because it keeps the cash register ringing.
Furthermore, a 20 year study by a team led by Professor Wayne Hall, a drug adviser to the World Health Organization, found cannabis is highly addictive, causes mental health problems, doubles the risk of developing psychotic disorders, including schizophrenia and opens the door to hard drugs.
The situation with doctors prescribing medical marijuana in California got so bad that it amounted to a de facto legalization of Marijuana for recreational use. Now that pot has been legalized for recreational use in the state, that cash cow for doctors will shrink considerably. Why bother to get and pay for a pot scrip now?
The legalization of medical marijuana in California was a designed step for the legalization of recreational pot. And so it will be in Texas if we allow doctors to prescribe pot for whatever alleged ailment they choose.
So, do we really want to allow Texas doctors to determine the appropriate use of cannabis to certified patients? For those of us who are opposed to the legalization of marijuana for recreational use, the answer is a big no!
By the way, I am not opposed to the use of cannabis in medicine. Certain extracts of cannabis which do not cause a high have been shown to have curative results in some cases. If FDA approved extracts were to be prescribed instead of smokable pot, that’s fine with me.
I'LL BE DAMNED, IT'S ACTUALLY WORKING
by Bob Walsh
I admit I didn't think it would work. So far, as I write this, the Royal Thai navy divers have managed to swim four of those kids out of that cave. I am officially impressed.
Cave diving is I am told one of the scariest things imaginable. They are dealing with teen and even pre-teen non-swimmers who have zero dive experience let alone cave diving.
Each boy has two minders as they exit the cave, presumably one in front and one behind. The passage is narrow and winding and so small that for part of it you can't carry your tank on your back. I wouldn't have given you a plugged nickel for getting them out that way. So far they are batting four for four. Way to go people.
I admit I didn't think it would work. So far, as I write this, the Royal Thai navy divers have managed to swim four of those kids out of that cave. I am officially impressed.
Cave diving is I am told one of the scariest things imaginable. They are dealing with teen and even pre-teen non-swimmers who have zero dive experience let alone cave diving.
Each boy has two minders as they exit the cave, presumably one in front and one behind. The passage is narrow and winding and so small that for part of it you can't carry your tank on your back. I wouldn't have given you a plugged nickel for getting them out that way. So far they are batting four for four. Way to go people.
WE ARE BEING INVADED BY GIANT RODENTS
by Bob Walsh
NO, I don't mean Democrats. The WE is the Delta area around Stockton, CA. The giant rodents are called NUTRIA and they are real. They weigh about 20 pounds each and look like big-ass rats.
These things are voracious eaters and damage levees. Much of the Delta is protected by non-engineered levees over 100 years old. They are a serious danger to the levee system specifically and the ecosystem in general.
They invaded the Chesapeake Bay area early in this century but were successful eradicated over a period of about ten years by aggressive hunting and dogs trained specifically to sniff them out.
These things breed like rats and Fish and Game want very much to hear about sighting of these things in the Delta area.
EDITOR'S NOTE: Can George W. Bush be blamed for this? Or did Putin secretly ship these rodents over here? Still, better yet, did that sneaky little fat guy, Kim Jong-Un, do it?
NO, I don't mean Democrats. The WE is the Delta area around Stockton, CA. The giant rodents are called NUTRIA and they are real. They weigh about 20 pounds each and look like big-ass rats.
These things are voracious eaters and damage levees. Much of the Delta is protected by non-engineered levees over 100 years old. They are a serious danger to the levee system specifically and the ecosystem in general.
They invaded the Chesapeake Bay area early in this century but were successful eradicated over a period of about ten years by aggressive hunting and dogs trained specifically to sniff them out.
These things breed like rats and Fish and Game want very much to hear about sighting of these things in the Delta area.
EDITOR'S NOTE: Can George W. Bush be blamed for this? Or did Putin secretly ship these rodents over here? Still, better yet, did that sneaky little fat guy, Kim Jong-Un, do it?
LAWYER ACCUSED JAMES COMEY OF BEING ‘MACHIAVELLIAN’ AND ‘DISHONEST’
Marc Kasowitz, then President Trump’s lead lawyer, wrote a blistering letter to Robert Mueller in which he argued Comey can't be trusted
Associated Press
July 8, 2018
Lawyers for President Donald Trump unleashed a blistering attack on former FBI Director James Comey in a confidential memo last year to the special counsel, casting him as 'Machiavellian,' dishonest and 'unbounded by law and regulation.'
The document was issued as Trump's legal team sought to undermine the credibility of a law enforcement leader they see as a critical witness against the president.
The letter, obtained by The Associated Press, underscores the intense effort by Trump's legal team over the last year to tarnish Comey's reputation and pit the president's word against that of the former FBI director.
Comey's firing in May 2017 helped set in motion the appointment of special counsel Robert Mueller, and one-on-one conversations with Trump that Comey documented in a series of memos helped form the basis of Mueller's inquiry into whether the president obstructed justice.
The June 27, 2017, letter was written by Marc Kasowitz, then the president's lead lawyer, as Mueller and his team were in the early stages of their investigation into Trump associates and as they had begun examining whether the president, by firing Comey, had sought to stymie an FBI investigation into the Trump campaign's ties to Russia.
The White House initially pointed as justification for the firing to a Justice Department memo that faulted Comey for his handling of the Hillary Clinton email investigation, though Trump later said that 'this Russia thing' was on his mind when he made the move.
It's not clear to what extent, if any, the attacks on Comey have resonated with Mueller's team, which is broadly investigating Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election and continues to seek an interview with the president to assess whether he had a corrupt intent when he fired the FBI director.
And even in the face of withering criticism, Comey has been largely consistent in his telling of his interactions with Trump in his memos, his book and press interviews he's given in recent months.
The 13-page document provides a window into the formation of a legal strategy that remains in use today by Trump's lawyers - to discredit Comey's value as a witness. It could have new relevance in the aftermath of a Justice Department inspector general report that criticized Comey for departing from protocol in the Clinton investigation.
The letter aims to identify for Mueller what the lawyers believe are grievous errors both in how Comey handled the Clinton investigation and in his early, and limited, encounters with the president.
In it, Kasowitz argues that Comey cannot be trusted as a witness because he repeatedly embellished his testimony before Congress, put his 'own personal interests and emotions' above FBI protocol and left a cloud of undue suspicion above the president's head.
'Over the last year, Mr. Comey has engaged in a pattern of calculated unilateral action unbounded by governing law, regulation and practice, and plainly motivated by personal and political self-interest,' wrote Kasowitz, who has since stepped aside as lead lawyer.
Lawyers for Comey declined to comment Saturday, as did Peter Carr, a spokesman for Mueller. Kasowitz and Trump lawyer Jay Sekulow did not return messages, and former Trump attorney John Dowd declined to comment.
The document, unlike other correspondence between Trump lawyers and Mueller's team, does not dwell on questions of Trump's guilt or innocence.
Instead, it casts in a negative light actions that Comey has said he carefully reasoned and that he has vigorously defended in his book and interviews.
Those include the decision to announce without Justice Department consultation the conclusion of the Clinton investigation, and the decision months later to brief Trump, then the president-elect, on salacious allegations about him in a dossier.
'Mr. Comey continued his Machiavellian behavior after President Trump was elected,' Kasowitz wrote.
Among the principal lines of attack are Comey's acknowledgment that he provided his lawyers with contemporaneous memos about his interactions with Trump and authorized one of them to share details with the news media.
In one such encounter, Comey said Trump asked him at a private dinner for his loyalty and that Comey offered him 'honest loyalty' instead.
'There is no 'honest loyalty' in an FBI Director surreptitiously leaking to civilians his privileged and confidential conversations with the president, or misappropriating and disseminating his confidential FBI memos or their contents about those meetings,' Kasowitz wrote.
'There is no 'honest loyalty' in using those civilians as surrogates to feed stolen information and memos to the press to achieve a personal, political, and retributive objective of harming a sitting president.'
Like Trump, the lawyer also complains about Comey's refusal to state publicly to Congress that the president was not under investigation even though he said so privately.
'Despite his repeated assurances to the President over the prior three months that he was not under investigation, the President's repeated pleas to make that fact public, and Mr. Comey's testimony that he had DOJ (Department of Justice) approval to make this "extraordinary" announcement, Mr. Comey not only declined to clarify that there was no investigation of the President, but he used broad language that only reinforced the inaccurate perception that the President was under investigation,' Kasowitz wrote.
The New York Times earlier reported that Kasowitz had written two letters to Mueller in June 2017, and published one in which he rejected the idea that Comey's firing could constitute obstruction of justice.
The AP obtained a copy of the other document, along with a two-page memo from September in which Trump lawyers lament to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein that Mueller was 'inexplicably' not investigating Comey's 'misconduct' they had earlier raised.
In the Kasowitz letter, he says Comey stonewalled the president's request to clear his name in order to 'sustain an investigative cloud' over his head that would make it hard for Trump to fire him.
Comey has said he had already told congressional leaders the FBI was not investigating Trump personally, and that he was reluctant to make public statements in case that changed and he needed to correct the record.
The letter also castigates Comey for usurping the authority of his Justice Department bosses by announcing the conclusion of the Clinton investigation without seeking their approval, a criticism echoed by the inspector general last month.
Comey has said he made the announcement alone because of concern that Justice Department leadership was seen as politically compromised.
The letter says Comey 'confronted' the president-elect in a January 2017 Trump Tower meeting 'with phony but highly embarrassing allegations concerning his personal life' from a dossier compiled by a former British spy.
It was the first in a series of conversations Comey documented in writing, something Trump lawyers say he did with the ultimate goal of undermining the president.
Comey has said he told Trump about the dossier allegations because they were widely known in Washington, including by the media, and that he kept his memos because he was concerned that Trump might lie about their conversations.
In the September memo obtained by AP, Dowd, who left the legal team in March, expressed dismay to Rosenstein that there was no grand jury investigation into 'the obviously corrupt conclusion' of the Clinton investigation, suggesting it was improper that Comey had begun drafting a statement closing the probe even before Clinton was interviewed.
'Today, you are faced with a terrible blight on our Department of Justice which must be addressed to restore and inspire confidence in the Department,' Dowd said.
Though the inspector general's office faulted Comey for some of his decisions, it did not find that his actions in the case were motivated by political bias.
Associated Press
July 8, 2018
Lawyers for President Donald Trump unleashed a blistering attack on former FBI Director James Comey in a confidential memo last year to the special counsel, casting him as 'Machiavellian,' dishonest and 'unbounded by law and regulation.'
The document was issued as Trump's legal team sought to undermine the credibility of a law enforcement leader they see as a critical witness against the president.
The letter, obtained by The Associated Press, underscores the intense effort by Trump's legal team over the last year to tarnish Comey's reputation and pit the president's word against that of the former FBI director.
Comey's firing in May 2017 helped set in motion the appointment of special counsel Robert Mueller, and one-on-one conversations with Trump that Comey documented in a series of memos helped form the basis of Mueller's inquiry into whether the president obstructed justice.
The June 27, 2017, letter was written by Marc Kasowitz, then the president's lead lawyer, as Mueller and his team were in the early stages of their investigation into Trump associates and as they had begun examining whether the president, by firing Comey, had sought to stymie an FBI investigation into the Trump campaign's ties to Russia.
The White House initially pointed as justification for the firing to a Justice Department memo that faulted Comey for his handling of the Hillary Clinton email investigation, though Trump later said that 'this Russia thing' was on his mind when he made the move.
It's not clear to what extent, if any, the attacks on Comey have resonated with Mueller's team, which is broadly investigating Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election and continues to seek an interview with the president to assess whether he had a corrupt intent when he fired the FBI director.
And even in the face of withering criticism, Comey has been largely consistent in his telling of his interactions with Trump in his memos, his book and press interviews he's given in recent months.
The 13-page document provides a window into the formation of a legal strategy that remains in use today by Trump's lawyers - to discredit Comey's value as a witness. It could have new relevance in the aftermath of a Justice Department inspector general report that criticized Comey for departing from protocol in the Clinton investigation.
The letter aims to identify for Mueller what the lawyers believe are grievous errors both in how Comey handled the Clinton investigation and in his early, and limited, encounters with the president.
In it, Kasowitz argues that Comey cannot be trusted as a witness because he repeatedly embellished his testimony before Congress, put his 'own personal interests and emotions' above FBI protocol and left a cloud of undue suspicion above the president's head.
'Over the last year, Mr. Comey has engaged in a pattern of calculated unilateral action unbounded by governing law, regulation and practice, and plainly motivated by personal and political self-interest,' wrote Kasowitz, who has since stepped aside as lead lawyer.
Lawyers for Comey declined to comment Saturday, as did Peter Carr, a spokesman for Mueller. Kasowitz and Trump lawyer Jay Sekulow did not return messages, and former Trump attorney John Dowd declined to comment.
The document, unlike other correspondence between Trump lawyers and Mueller's team, does not dwell on questions of Trump's guilt or innocence.
Instead, it casts in a negative light actions that Comey has said he carefully reasoned and that he has vigorously defended in his book and interviews.
Those include the decision to announce without Justice Department consultation the conclusion of the Clinton investigation, and the decision months later to brief Trump, then the president-elect, on salacious allegations about him in a dossier.
'Mr. Comey continued his Machiavellian behavior after President Trump was elected,' Kasowitz wrote.
Among the principal lines of attack are Comey's acknowledgment that he provided his lawyers with contemporaneous memos about his interactions with Trump and authorized one of them to share details with the news media.
In one such encounter, Comey said Trump asked him at a private dinner for his loyalty and that Comey offered him 'honest loyalty' instead.
'There is no 'honest loyalty' in an FBI Director surreptitiously leaking to civilians his privileged and confidential conversations with the president, or misappropriating and disseminating his confidential FBI memos or their contents about those meetings,' Kasowitz wrote.
'There is no 'honest loyalty' in using those civilians as surrogates to feed stolen information and memos to the press to achieve a personal, political, and retributive objective of harming a sitting president.'
Like Trump, the lawyer also complains about Comey's refusal to state publicly to Congress that the president was not under investigation even though he said so privately.
'Despite his repeated assurances to the President over the prior three months that he was not under investigation, the President's repeated pleas to make that fact public, and Mr. Comey's testimony that he had DOJ (Department of Justice) approval to make this "extraordinary" announcement, Mr. Comey not only declined to clarify that there was no investigation of the President, but he used broad language that only reinforced the inaccurate perception that the President was under investigation,' Kasowitz wrote.
The New York Times earlier reported that Kasowitz had written two letters to Mueller in June 2017, and published one in which he rejected the idea that Comey's firing could constitute obstruction of justice.
The AP obtained a copy of the other document, along with a two-page memo from September in which Trump lawyers lament to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein that Mueller was 'inexplicably' not investigating Comey's 'misconduct' they had earlier raised.
In the Kasowitz letter, he says Comey stonewalled the president's request to clear his name in order to 'sustain an investigative cloud' over his head that would make it hard for Trump to fire him.
Comey has said he had already told congressional leaders the FBI was not investigating Trump personally, and that he was reluctant to make public statements in case that changed and he needed to correct the record.
The letter also castigates Comey for usurping the authority of his Justice Department bosses by announcing the conclusion of the Clinton investigation without seeking their approval, a criticism echoed by the inspector general last month.
Comey has said he made the announcement alone because of concern that Justice Department leadership was seen as politically compromised.
The letter says Comey 'confronted' the president-elect in a January 2017 Trump Tower meeting 'with phony but highly embarrassing allegations concerning his personal life' from a dossier compiled by a former British spy.
It was the first in a series of conversations Comey documented in writing, something Trump lawyers say he did with the ultimate goal of undermining the president.
Comey has said he told Trump about the dossier allegations because they were widely known in Washington, including by the media, and that he kept his memos because he was concerned that Trump might lie about their conversations.
In the September memo obtained by AP, Dowd, who left the legal team in March, expressed dismay to Rosenstein that there was no grand jury investigation into 'the obviously corrupt conclusion' of the Clinton investigation, suggesting it was improper that Comey had begun drafting a statement closing the probe even before Clinton was interviewed.
'Today, you are faced with a terrible blight on our Department of Justice which must be addressed to restore and inspire confidence in the Department,' Dowd said.
Though the inspector general's office faulted Comey for some of his decisions, it did not find that his actions in the case were motivated by political bias.
AN AWFUL ACCIDENT THAT SHOULD NEVER HAVE HAPPENED
Two-year-old dies from self-inflicted gunshot wound
By Vanessa Vasconcelos and Taylor Kimber
KFSN
July 7, 2018
FRESNO, Calif. -- A community in disbelief after learning a toddler was able to get his hands on a firearm and shoot himself.
As crime scene tape surrounds the house at Audubon Drive at Churchill it is not only detectives looking for answers.
"That really that really bothered me I have grandkids and you just think I would not want this to happen," said neighbor Wendy Kulterman.
Wendy Culterman lives feet away from the tragedy.
She says the family living there, moved in roughly six months ago, and typically keep to themselves but on occasion, she could hear children playing.
"The only thing we know about them is this tragedy and that's the closest we're getting to them. It's awful," said Kulterman.
Saturday afternoon when police were called to the home for reports of a gunshot victim.
"At the time that this occurred, there were two adults inside the home with the child. Neither of them are the child's parents," said Fresno Police Lt. Rob Beck.
According to police, the toddler was in one of the bedrooms of the home when he accidentally shot himself in the head.
Police say the parents have been notified but now all are trying to determine how the child was able to get his hands on a pistol.
It is unclear whether the gun belongs to the homeowners or the family friends who were in the home, but police say this serves as a lesson in the importance of practicing gun safety.
"You're required to, if you have firearms in the home, they need to be locked and out of reach of children," said Beck.
By Vanessa Vasconcelos and Taylor Kimber
KFSN
July 7, 2018
FRESNO, Calif. -- A community in disbelief after learning a toddler was able to get his hands on a firearm and shoot himself.
As crime scene tape surrounds the house at Audubon Drive at Churchill it is not only detectives looking for answers.
"That really that really bothered me I have grandkids and you just think I would not want this to happen," said neighbor Wendy Kulterman.
Wendy Culterman lives feet away from the tragedy.
She says the family living there, moved in roughly six months ago, and typically keep to themselves but on occasion, she could hear children playing.
"The only thing we know about them is this tragedy and that's the closest we're getting to them. It's awful," said Kulterman.
Saturday afternoon when police were called to the home for reports of a gunshot victim.
"At the time that this occurred, there were two adults inside the home with the child. Neither of them are the child's parents," said Fresno Police Lt. Rob Beck.
According to police, the toddler was in one of the bedrooms of the home when he accidentally shot himself in the head.
Police say the parents have been notified but now all are trying to determine how the child was able to get his hands on a pistol.
It is unclear whether the gun belongs to the homeowners or the family friends who were in the home, but police say this serves as a lesson in the importance of practicing gun safety.
"You're required to, if you have firearms in the home, they need to be locked and out of reach of children," said Beck.
SHOULD A COP DRAW HIS GUN ON KIDS YELLING OBSCENITIES AT HIM?
El Paso police responds to video of officer pulling gun on kids
by Michael Ikahihifo and Javier Gutierrez
KFOX 14
July 7, 2018
EL PASO, Texas -- A video posted to Facebook on Friday night shows two El Paso Police Department officers handcuffing what appears to be minors who were yelling obscenities at them.
One police officer can also be seen pointing a gun at a group of children and later pulling a baton while telling the kids to move to the side.
El Paso police held a news conference about the incident Saturday afternoon. An investigation is underway into the officers’ actions.
“The officer in question will remain on desk duty until the investigation is complete,” said Dionne Mack, the deputy city manager for public safety.
Elizabeth Flores said she understands her kids were not respectful but she said the video does not show what happened earlier.
“They didn’t see the beginning. They didn’t see my son getting choked. That’s why the kids were agitated,” said Flores.
Two people were taken into custody, a minor and an adult. Jacob Flores was detained by police but later released.
“He chokes me like I had like a short breath but right after he had me on the floor and he grabbed my hair I was Bailey breathing,” said Jacob Flores.
The initial incident happened at about 5 p.m. Thursday.
Officers were called out to investigate a criminal trespass in progress, according to a police officer at the news conference.
As a result of the incident, two people were arrested at the scene.
Both were arrested for Interfering with the duties of a police officer.
EPPD confirmed one is an adult and one is a minor.
No complaints have been filed against the officer in the video regarding this incident.
Anthony Martinez saw most of what happened. He said everything turned for the worse when the police officer drew his gun.
“The fact that he pulled out his gun maybe escalated the kids to be ... meaner and aggravated towards him,” Martinez said.
Teresa Chacon lives across the street from where the incident occurred. She said she sides with the police.
“I personally am on the side of the law because the video shows they were disrespecting the cop,” Chacon said.
Chacon said the kids in the viral video are the same ones she sees coming onto her property.
“Nowadays, they don't respect anyone. They throw rocks, they sneak into one property and these are boys whose mothers should be corrected,” Chacon said.
Although officials said they don't approve of the kids behavior, they understand the need for proper protocol and have yet to determine if the officer was following it.
“For me, the thing that was most disheartening was seeing the children completely labeled and to see them discarded. This is one incident. This is our children and our community. I am not giving up on those children,” Mack said.
As of now, both the minor and adult are in custody for failure to comply with officers.
There is no confirmation yet on when they will be released.
KFOX14 is also waiting to read a copy of the policy for officers drawing their weapons.
EPPD tell KFOX14 that the policy is not black and white and in the end the judgment of proper protocol will be determined by the investigators.
by Michael Ikahihifo and Javier Gutierrez
KFOX 14
July 7, 2018
EL PASO, Texas -- A video posted to Facebook on Friday night shows two El Paso Police Department officers handcuffing what appears to be minors who were yelling obscenities at them.
One police officer can also be seen pointing a gun at a group of children and later pulling a baton while telling the kids to move to the side.
El Paso police held a news conference about the incident Saturday afternoon. An investigation is underway into the officers’ actions.
“The officer in question will remain on desk duty until the investigation is complete,” said Dionne Mack, the deputy city manager for public safety.
Elizabeth Flores said she understands her kids were not respectful but she said the video does not show what happened earlier.
“They didn’t see the beginning. They didn’t see my son getting choked. That’s why the kids were agitated,” said Flores.
Two people were taken into custody, a minor and an adult. Jacob Flores was detained by police but later released.
“He chokes me like I had like a short breath but right after he had me on the floor and he grabbed my hair I was Bailey breathing,” said Jacob Flores.
The initial incident happened at about 5 p.m. Thursday.
Officers were called out to investigate a criminal trespass in progress, according to a police officer at the news conference.
As a result of the incident, two people were arrested at the scene.
Both were arrested for Interfering with the duties of a police officer.
EPPD confirmed one is an adult and one is a minor.
No complaints have been filed against the officer in the video regarding this incident.
Anthony Martinez saw most of what happened. He said everything turned for the worse when the police officer drew his gun.
“The fact that he pulled out his gun maybe escalated the kids to be ... meaner and aggravated towards him,” Martinez said.
Teresa Chacon lives across the street from where the incident occurred. She said she sides with the police.
“I personally am on the side of the law because the video shows they were disrespecting the cop,” Chacon said.
Chacon said the kids in the viral video are the same ones she sees coming onto her property.
“Nowadays, they don't respect anyone. They throw rocks, they sneak into one property and these are boys whose mothers should be corrected,” Chacon said.
Although officials said they don't approve of the kids behavior, they understand the need for proper protocol and have yet to determine if the officer was following it.
“For me, the thing that was most disheartening was seeing the children completely labeled and to see them discarded. This is one incident. This is our children and our community. I am not giving up on those children,” Mack said.
As of now, both the minor and adult are in custody for failure to comply with officers.
There is no confirmation yet on when they will be released.
KFOX14 is also waiting to read a copy of the policy for officers drawing their weapons.
EPPD tell KFOX14 that the policy is not black and white and in the end the judgment of proper protocol will be determined by the investigators.
THIS JERK DID NOT REALIZE THAT IF HE SWALLOWED A BAG OF COCAINE THE COPS WOULD JUST WAIT UNTILL IT CAME OUT OF HIS DUMB ASS
Investigation continues in death of Waynesboro man who choked to death swallowing a bag of cocaine
The News Virginian
July 6, 2018
WAYNESBORO, Virginia -- Police will continue to investigate the death of a Waynesboro man on Friday.
William Tucker, 52, of Waynesboro was later identified after ingesting what police believe was a bag filled with cocaine.
Virginia State Police reported that just after 9 a.m. Friday the Skyline Drug Task Force and the city of Waynesboro’s SWAT Team executed a search warrant at a home in the 600 block of North Augusta Avenue.
Upon entry, police found a man forcing a bag filled with a white, powdery substance into his mouth. The bag became lodged in the man’s throat, but he refused assistance from police.
A Waynesboro officer began CPR after Tucker lost consciousness, according to a press release, and the officer was able to regain a pulse until an ambulance arrived. However, despite numerous attempts and the EMS response, Tucker was declared dead upon arrival at Augusta Health.
Police say in the preliminary phase of the investigation that the powdery substance appears to be cocaine. The amount ingested by Tucker is unknown at this time.
A woman and two children were safely removed from the home.
The search warrant, police say, was related to an ongoing illegal drug investigation conducted by the Skyline Drug Task Force, which is composed of investigators from the Waynesboro Police Department, Staunton Police Department, Augusta County Sheriff's Department, Nelson County Sheriff's Department and Virginia State Police Bureau of Criminal Investigation's Appomattox Field Office.
The News Virginian
July 6, 2018
WAYNESBORO, Virginia -- Police will continue to investigate the death of a Waynesboro man on Friday.
William Tucker, 52, of Waynesboro was later identified after ingesting what police believe was a bag filled with cocaine.
Virginia State Police reported that just after 9 a.m. Friday the Skyline Drug Task Force and the city of Waynesboro’s SWAT Team executed a search warrant at a home in the 600 block of North Augusta Avenue.
Upon entry, police found a man forcing a bag filled with a white, powdery substance into his mouth. The bag became lodged in the man’s throat, but he refused assistance from police.
A Waynesboro officer began CPR after Tucker lost consciousness, according to a press release, and the officer was able to regain a pulse until an ambulance arrived. However, despite numerous attempts and the EMS response, Tucker was declared dead upon arrival at Augusta Health.
Police say in the preliminary phase of the investigation that the powdery substance appears to be cocaine. The amount ingested by Tucker is unknown at this time.
A woman and two children were safely removed from the home.
The search warrant, police say, was related to an ongoing illegal drug investigation conducted by the Skyline Drug Task Force, which is composed of investigators from the Waynesboro Police Department, Staunton Police Department, Augusta County Sheriff's Department, Nelson County Sheriff's Department and Virginia State Police Bureau of Criminal Investigation's Appomattox Field Office.
Sunday, July 08, 2018
COME ON POCAHONTAS, TAKE THAT DNA TEST
Trump offers Senator Elizabeth Warren $1 million to take a DNA test to prove her claimed American Indian ancestry
President Trump participated in a Montana campaign rally Thursday. Here are some excerpts from his free-wheeling speech:
“Pocahontas, to you [Sen. Elizabeth Warren] I apologize. To the fake Pocahontas, I won't apologize. I’m going to get one of those little DNA kits and if I'm debating her, we will toss it to her, very gently so it doesn't injure her arm, and we'll say, 'Pocahontas, I'll give you a million dollars if you take the test to show you're an Indian!
“I said it the other day, yes, [Maxine Waters] is a low-IQ individual. Honestly, she's somewhere in the mid-60s, I believe.”
“I am going to tell NATO, you've got to start paying your bills.”
“You know: President Putin is KGB and this and that. Do you know what? Putin’s fine, he’s fine, we’re all fine, we’re people.”
Trump is preparing for a meeting with Putin in Helsinki, Finland later this month.
Responding to the $1 million offer, Warren tweeted:
“While you obsess over my genes, your Admin is conducting DNA tests on little kids because you ripped them from their mamas & you are too incompetent to reunite them in time to meet a court order. Maybe you should focus on fixing the lives you're destroying.”
You can expect Pocahontas to take a low road. She knows damn well that Trump is not ripping little kids from their mamas. It would be interesting to see what a DNA test would reveal about her ancestry. Come on Pocahontas, take that DNA test. I’m climbing out on a limb to say that if Elizabeth Warren is part Indian, so am I.
Trump was wrong in one respect though. He believes Maxine Waters has an IQ in the mid-60s. Wrong, way wrong! Persons who bellow like Waters are more likely to only have an IQ in the mid-30s.
President Trump participated in a Montana campaign rally Thursday. Here are some excerpts from his free-wheeling speech:
“Pocahontas, to you [Sen. Elizabeth Warren] I apologize. To the fake Pocahontas, I won't apologize. I’m going to get one of those little DNA kits and if I'm debating her, we will toss it to her, very gently so it doesn't injure her arm, and we'll say, 'Pocahontas, I'll give you a million dollars if you take the test to show you're an Indian!
“I said it the other day, yes, [Maxine Waters] is a low-IQ individual. Honestly, she's somewhere in the mid-60s, I believe.”
“I am going to tell NATO, you've got to start paying your bills.”
“You know: President Putin is KGB and this and that. Do you know what? Putin’s fine, he’s fine, we’re all fine, we’re people.”
Trump is preparing for a meeting with Putin in Helsinki, Finland later this month.
Responding to the $1 million offer, Warren tweeted:
“While you obsess over my genes, your Admin is conducting DNA tests on little kids because you ripped them from their mamas & you are too incompetent to reunite them in time to meet a court order. Maybe you should focus on fixing the lives you're destroying.”
You can expect Pocahontas to take a low road. She knows damn well that Trump is not ripping little kids from their mamas. It would be interesting to see what a DNA test would reveal about her ancestry. Come on Pocahontas, take that DNA test. I’m climbing out on a limb to say that if Elizabeth Warren is part Indian, so am I.
Trump was wrong in one respect though. He believes Maxine Waters has an IQ in the mid-60s. Wrong, way wrong! Persons who bellow like Waters are more likely to only have an IQ in the mid-30s.
POOR DECISION LEADS TO BAD OUTCOME
by Bob Walsh
Thursday evening the local constabulary in Calaveras County, CA responded to multiple calls of an armed man acting strange on Mountain Ranch Road. The local S. O. and the Highway Patrol both responded with a total of six officers. They found a man matching the broadcast description armed with what appeared to be a rifle with a laser sight.
The man, John James Corrigan, 38. swung the rifle at the cops. They shot him. He died.
The dead guy was a local child molester and doper. The weapon was in fact a fully automatic air rifle (aka BB gun) that had a barrel shroud and laser sight added to it after purchase. I wouldn't be surprised if substance abuse had something to do with his bad decision making. Damn shame. Or maybe not so much.
Thursday evening the local constabulary in Calaveras County, CA responded to multiple calls of an armed man acting strange on Mountain Ranch Road. The local S. O. and the Highway Patrol both responded with a total of six officers. They found a man matching the broadcast description armed with what appeared to be a rifle with a laser sight.
The man, John James Corrigan, 38. swung the rifle at the cops. They shot him. He died.
The dead guy was a local child molester and doper. The weapon was in fact a fully automatic air rifle (aka BB gun) that had a barrel shroud and laser sight added to it after purchase. I wouldn't be surprised if substance abuse had something to do with his bad decision making. Damn shame. Or maybe not so much.
WAS HARRIS COUNTY SHERIFF ED GONZALEZ SMOKING FUNNY TOBACCO?
Those flyers placed on the windshields of sheriff’s cars were not laced with Fentanyl
Remember when on June 26 Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez announced one of his deputies had been rushed to a hospital suffering from Fentanyl poisoning after touching a Fentanyl-laced flyer placed on the windshield of her cop car. Because similar flyers had been placed on the windshields of nearly a dozen other sheriff’s cars, Gonzalez had his department send out the following tweet:
URGENT: Flyers placed on the windshields of some #HCSO vehicles this afternoon at 601 Lockwood have tested positive for the opiod Fentanyl. One sergeant who touched a flyer is receiving medical treatment. Call authorities if you see these flyers and DO NOT TOUCH.
The tweet was accompanied by a photo of the flyer.
Well it turns out that lab tests revealed none of the flyers, including the one touched by the sergeant, were laced with Fentanyl. Furthermore, scientists say that you cannot absorb any Fentanyl through the skin by touching it. There is some danger in that the person touching the powder might accidentally inhale some particles.
So, if that sergeant was actually suffering from a Fentanyl reaction, the good sheriff ought to investigate what she has been indulging in during her off time.
Hey Ed! Were you smoking some funny tobacco when you issued that warning? Please remember, Texas had not yet legalized the recreational use of pot.
Remember when on June 26 Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez announced one of his deputies had been rushed to a hospital suffering from Fentanyl poisoning after touching a Fentanyl-laced flyer placed on the windshield of her cop car. Because similar flyers had been placed on the windshields of nearly a dozen other sheriff’s cars, Gonzalez had his department send out the following tweet:
URGENT: Flyers placed on the windshields of some #HCSO vehicles this afternoon at 601 Lockwood have tested positive for the opiod Fentanyl. One sergeant who touched a flyer is receiving medical treatment. Call authorities if you see these flyers and DO NOT TOUCH.
The tweet was accompanied by a photo of the flyer.
Well it turns out that lab tests revealed none of the flyers, including the one touched by the sergeant, were laced with Fentanyl. Furthermore, scientists say that you cannot absorb any Fentanyl through the skin by touching it. There is some danger in that the person touching the powder might accidentally inhale some particles.
So, if that sergeant was actually suffering from a Fentanyl reaction, the good sheriff ought to investigate what she has been indulging in during her off time.
Hey Ed! Were you smoking some funny tobacco when you issued that warning? Please remember, Texas had not yet legalized the recreational use of pot.
MIKE POMPEO-NORTH KOREAN TALKS DID NOT GO WELL
North Korea accuses U.S. of having a ‘gangster-like’ attitude.
After two days of talks with North Korean officials in Pyongyang, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo returned to the U.S. empty handed. Instead of solidifying an agreement on the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, North Korea accused the U.S. of having a ‘gangster-like’ attitude. The foreign ministry released the following statement:
“The attitude and demands from the U.S. side during the high-level talks were nothing short of deeply regrettable. We expected that the U.S. side would come with productive measures conducive to building trust in line with the spirit of the North-U.S. summit and [we] considered providing something that would correspond to them. The U.S. just came out with such unilateral and gangster-like denuclearization demands as [complete, verifiable and irreversible denuclearization], declaration and verification that go against the spirit of the North-U.S. summit meeting.”
Nevertheless, Pompeo said the talks were productive and North Korea’s chief representative at the talks said his country was still committed to denuclearization.
The two sides agreed to hold further talks on bringing the bodies of American soldiers buried in North Korea back to the U.S. In return for returning the bodies, the North Koreans want the United States to take “simultaneous” actions of expanding bilateral exchanges, and to end the Korean War in July. However, the U.S. does not appear willing to end that war just yet.
Not to worry though. The armistice talks between the U.S. and North Korea back in the 50s dragged on for two years.
After two days of talks with North Korean officials in Pyongyang, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo returned to the U.S. empty handed. Instead of solidifying an agreement on the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, North Korea accused the U.S. of having a ‘gangster-like’ attitude. The foreign ministry released the following statement:
“The attitude and demands from the U.S. side during the high-level talks were nothing short of deeply regrettable. We expected that the U.S. side would come with productive measures conducive to building trust in line with the spirit of the North-U.S. summit and [we] considered providing something that would correspond to them. The U.S. just came out with such unilateral and gangster-like denuclearization demands as [complete, verifiable and irreversible denuclearization], declaration and verification that go against the spirit of the North-U.S. summit meeting.”
Nevertheless, Pompeo said the talks were productive and North Korea’s chief representative at the talks said his country was still committed to denuclearization.
The two sides agreed to hold further talks on bringing the bodies of American soldiers buried in North Korea back to the U.S. In return for returning the bodies, the North Koreans want the United States to take “simultaneous” actions of expanding bilateral exchanges, and to end the Korean War in July. However, the U.S. does not appear willing to end that war just yet.
Not to worry though. The armistice talks between the U.S. and North Korea back in the 50s dragged on for two years.
AN AMNESTY PLAN THAT IS SURE TO PISS OFF US LAW ENORCEMERNT OFFICIALS
Mexico's new president plans amnesty for 'hundreds of thousands' involved in organized crime as cartel-related slayings look set to top 30,000 in 2018
By Rory Tingle
Daily Mail
July 7, 2018
Mexico's new president is planning an amnesty for 'hundreds of thousands' of youths caught up in organized crime in an effort to stem the country's epidemic of cartel-related violence.
Security advisers for President-elect Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said on Friday that amnesty legislation aimed at lessening violence will be developed with the input of crime victims and presented to Mexico's congress.
The security cabinet meeting was the first of a long day of gatherings for Lopez Obrador. In the evening he met for several hours with his economic team.
Alfonso Durazo, proposed as the new administration's public security minister, said the amnesty law would be part of a 'Mexican recipe for peace.'
Amnesty would not be given at the discretion of the president, he said. Congress will have the final word.
'The objective of this law is to bring youth who for various reasons of economic survival, extortion, pressure from organized crime are (working) in the illegal into the legal,' Durazo said.
There could be hundreds of thousands of youth working as lookouts for organized crime, he said. 'We have to give them a way out.'
The advisers said any amnesty would be aimed only at lower-level people involved in cartel activities, often out of coercion. Criminals guilty of violent acts would be excluded, they said.
Lopez Obrador's opponents attacked him throughout the campaign about the amnesty idea, but he won a landslide election victory July 1 and will take office Dec. 1. He met with the security members of his proposed Cabinet on Friday.
Olga Sanchez, the proposed interior secretary, said the president-elect had made clear that Mexico's runaway violence will not be addressed with more violence.
She also mentioned the possibility of reducing some criminal penalties without providing more detail.
Mexico is on pace to have more killings in 2018 than in any other year in at least the past two decades.
More than 200,000 people have been slain since the country began waging a war on drug cartels when President Felipe Calderon took office in late 2006.
Last year saw 30,000 murders and were nearly 8,000 in the first three months of 2018 alone, making it set to be even more bloody.
Lorreta Ortiz, Lopez Obrador's human rights adviser, said the new administration will immediately begin holding citizen forums and knocking on doors around the country to gather input that can be used to develop amnesty legislation.
'At the outset, no one who has committed a violent act, a single violent act, will receive amnesty,' Ortiz said. Those who could be eligible would be children and women recruited by organized crime to work as lookouts or mules, rural farmers who grow drug crops and people imprisoned for political crimes based on ideology.
Later, Lopez Obrador addressed the amnesty plan after leaving a meeting with his economic advisers and left open the possibility of looking at other measures if the public rejected it.
'It's about a process to achieve peace, but not with impositions, but rather convincing, looking for consensus,' he said. He said the objective is to 'finish the predominating violence that sadly imperils the country.'
He also said that after taking office, he would lead his security Cabinet, including leaders of the armed forces and the attorney general, in daily pre-dawn meetings to review security situations of the past 24 hours.
Durazo said the administration will also work to improve the capabilities of police so the military can be removed from the policing role it has been serving for years in some parts of the country.
The new government will improve filters to intercept illegal guns and drug proceeds flowing into the country, and authorities will focus on going after cartels' finances with bolstered financial intelligence, he said.
Durazo cautioned that the problem of spiraling violence did not appear in a day and 'it is not going to be resolved in a day.'
Late Friday, Carlos Urzua, who Lopez Obrador has proposed as treasury secretary, held a news conference following a four-hour meeting of the economic team.
Urzua spoke of a range of programs across agencies, including a train that would run between the tourist destination of Cancun and less-visited Palenque near the border with Guatemala, but gave a wry grin when he was asked if the peso had devalued this week.
Lopez Obrador's critics had pushed the idea that markets would react negatively to the leftist's election, but he quickly struck a moderate tone after his victory and met with Mexican business leaders to assure them that Mexico's economic fundamentals are important to him.
Banco Base analyst Gabriela Siller said in a report late Friday that the peso had its best week against the dollar since December 2011, gaining 4.36 percent to close just above 19 to the dollar.
'The peso's appreciation has been shored up by the communication efforts of the incoming government, including Lopez Obrador, who during the week dedicated themselves to reduce uncertainty and reiterate that they will use prudent, pro-market economic policies and work together with the business sector,' Siller wrote.
EDITOR’S NOTE: This guy appears to be taking a page out of Gov. Monnbeam’s hug a criminal program. It ain’t working too well in California and it won’t work well in Mexico either.
By Rory Tingle
Daily Mail
July 7, 2018
Mexico's new president is planning an amnesty for 'hundreds of thousands' of youths caught up in organized crime in an effort to stem the country's epidemic of cartel-related violence.
Security advisers for President-elect Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said on Friday that amnesty legislation aimed at lessening violence will be developed with the input of crime victims and presented to Mexico's congress.
The security cabinet meeting was the first of a long day of gatherings for Lopez Obrador. In the evening he met for several hours with his economic team.
Alfonso Durazo, proposed as the new administration's public security minister, said the amnesty law would be part of a 'Mexican recipe for peace.'
Amnesty would not be given at the discretion of the president, he said. Congress will have the final word.
'The objective of this law is to bring youth who for various reasons of economic survival, extortion, pressure from organized crime are (working) in the illegal into the legal,' Durazo said.
There could be hundreds of thousands of youth working as lookouts for organized crime, he said. 'We have to give them a way out.'
The advisers said any amnesty would be aimed only at lower-level people involved in cartel activities, often out of coercion. Criminals guilty of violent acts would be excluded, they said.
Lopez Obrador's opponents attacked him throughout the campaign about the amnesty idea, but he won a landslide election victory July 1 and will take office Dec. 1. He met with the security members of his proposed Cabinet on Friday.
Olga Sanchez, the proposed interior secretary, said the president-elect had made clear that Mexico's runaway violence will not be addressed with more violence.
She also mentioned the possibility of reducing some criminal penalties without providing more detail.
Mexico is on pace to have more killings in 2018 than in any other year in at least the past two decades.
More than 200,000 people have been slain since the country began waging a war on drug cartels when President Felipe Calderon took office in late 2006.
Last year saw 30,000 murders and were nearly 8,000 in the first three months of 2018 alone, making it set to be even more bloody.
Lorreta Ortiz, Lopez Obrador's human rights adviser, said the new administration will immediately begin holding citizen forums and knocking on doors around the country to gather input that can be used to develop amnesty legislation.
'At the outset, no one who has committed a violent act, a single violent act, will receive amnesty,' Ortiz said. Those who could be eligible would be children and women recruited by organized crime to work as lookouts or mules, rural farmers who grow drug crops and people imprisoned for political crimes based on ideology.
Later, Lopez Obrador addressed the amnesty plan after leaving a meeting with his economic advisers and left open the possibility of looking at other measures if the public rejected it.
'It's about a process to achieve peace, but not with impositions, but rather convincing, looking for consensus,' he said. He said the objective is to 'finish the predominating violence that sadly imperils the country.'
He also said that after taking office, he would lead his security Cabinet, including leaders of the armed forces and the attorney general, in daily pre-dawn meetings to review security situations of the past 24 hours.
Durazo said the administration will also work to improve the capabilities of police so the military can be removed from the policing role it has been serving for years in some parts of the country.
The new government will improve filters to intercept illegal guns and drug proceeds flowing into the country, and authorities will focus on going after cartels' finances with bolstered financial intelligence, he said.
Durazo cautioned that the problem of spiraling violence did not appear in a day and 'it is not going to be resolved in a day.'
Late Friday, Carlos Urzua, who Lopez Obrador has proposed as treasury secretary, held a news conference following a four-hour meeting of the economic team.
Urzua spoke of a range of programs across agencies, including a train that would run between the tourist destination of Cancun and less-visited Palenque near the border with Guatemala, but gave a wry grin when he was asked if the peso had devalued this week.
Lopez Obrador's critics had pushed the idea that markets would react negatively to the leftist's election, but he quickly struck a moderate tone after his victory and met with Mexican business leaders to assure them that Mexico's economic fundamentals are important to him.
Banco Base analyst Gabriela Siller said in a report late Friday that the peso had its best week against the dollar since December 2011, gaining 4.36 percent to close just above 19 to the dollar.
'The peso's appreciation has been shored up by the communication efforts of the incoming government, including Lopez Obrador, who during the week dedicated themselves to reduce uncertainty and reiterate that they will use prudent, pro-market economic policies and work together with the business sector,' Siller wrote.
EDITOR’S NOTE: This guy appears to be taking a page out of Gov. Monnbeam’s hug a criminal program. It ain’t working too well in California and it won’t work well in Mexico either.
ATTACK OF THE KILLER SPIDERS
Woman rushed to ER with brown recluse spider bites, then finds dozens more infesting her apartment
By Danielle Garrand
CBS News
July 6, 2018
Waking up to an infestation of spiders in your bedroom may sound like a horrible nightmare, but it was very much reality for a Tennessee woman. A reality that quickly became life-threatening.
Angela Wright of Brentwood, Tennessee woke up with arm pain and a few bumps on her chest and arm, but didn't think much of the mysterious ailment, she told CBS News.
Wright eventually visited the doctor's office and was given medication for the bumps, but it didn't help. In fact, she started feeling worse. "I realized I needed to go the ER when my chest was hurting. I had a sharp pain in my chest," Wright said.
She was taken to the emergency room a few days later, after she described feeling like she was hallucinating. Brown recluse spider venom includes a neurotoxic component, that is known to cause chills, fever or, in some rare cases, death. The effect of the spider bites on Wright was shocking.
"The bite formed two blood clots that went to my lungs. I was seconds from a stroke," Wright told CBS News.
Wright notified the management company in charge of the "Views of Brentwood" complex, where she lives, that her home was crawling with spiders, and she was bitten by them.
"I would find spiders everywhere when spring came. I emailed, called, and they [apartment management] only told me they put me on the monthly spray list," Wright said. Someone sprayed the apartment, but the spiders didn't go away.
Now, she is trying to move out of the infested apartment, but she said the management company won't break her lease. "They said the only way I could move is if I got someone to buy me out, which I won't, that's awful," Wright told CBS News. "They actually told me they didn't believe me."
Wright said the only option management is offering to her is to provide a 60-day notice, then vacate the apartment, which would require her to pay $2,200.
She is now fulfilling the notice and has already paid the first month due, but she won't live in the infested apartment. Wright is staying at another home until she finds a more permanent living situation.
The ordeal has cost Wright more than living expenses, medical costs are piling up. "They [apartment management] refused to help me pay medical bills," Wright said. She estimates she owes, "at least $10,000 that I know of."
Wright said the spider bites will have longterm effects on her health, "I am now on blood thinners the rest of my life," she said, and she is experiencing "sporadic pain in my chest still while the clots dissolve." She said the doctor even told her she "shouldn't have kids because of the clots."
When she's able to get a new apartment, Wright told CBS News she is going to be extra cautious, "Oh yeah, I'll be looking for spiders in each crevice."
EDITOR’S NOTE: She should sue the supreme shit out of the apartment complex since it refused to help her in any way.
By Danielle Garrand
CBS News
July 6, 2018
Waking up to an infestation of spiders in your bedroom may sound like a horrible nightmare, but it was very much reality for a Tennessee woman. A reality that quickly became life-threatening.
Angela Wright of Brentwood, Tennessee woke up with arm pain and a few bumps on her chest and arm, but didn't think much of the mysterious ailment, she told CBS News.
Wright eventually visited the doctor's office and was given medication for the bumps, but it didn't help. In fact, she started feeling worse. "I realized I needed to go the ER when my chest was hurting. I had a sharp pain in my chest," Wright said.
She was taken to the emergency room a few days later, after she described feeling like she was hallucinating. Brown recluse spider venom includes a neurotoxic component, that is known to cause chills, fever or, in some rare cases, death. The effect of the spider bites on Wright was shocking.
"The bite formed two blood clots that went to my lungs. I was seconds from a stroke," Wright told CBS News.
Wright notified the management company in charge of the "Views of Brentwood" complex, where she lives, that her home was crawling with spiders, and she was bitten by them.
"I would find spiders everywhere when spring came. I emailed, called, and they [apartment management] only told me they put me on the monthly spray list," Wright said. Someone sprayed the apartment, but the spiders didn't go away.
Now, she is trying to move out of the infested apartment, but she said the management company won't break her lease. "They said the only way I could move is if I got someone to buy me out, which I won't, that's awful," Wright told CBS News. "They actually told me they didn't believe me."
Wright said the only option management is offering to her is to provide a 60-day notice, then vacate the apartment, which would require her to pay $2,200.
She is now fulfilling the notice and has already paid the first month due, but she won't live in the infested apartment. Wright is staying at another home until she finds a more permanent living situation.
The ordeal has cost Wright more than living expenses, medical costs are piling up. "They [apartment management] refused to help me pay medical bills," Wright said. She estimates she owes, "at least $10,000 that I know of."
Wright said the spider bites will have longterm effects on her health, "I am now on blood thinners the rest of my life," she said, and she is experiencing "sporadic pain in my chest still while the clots dissolve." She said the doctor even told her she "shouldn't have kids because of the clots."
When she's able to get a new apartment, Wright told CBS News she is going to be extra cautious, "Oh yeah, I'll be looking for spiders in each crevice."
EDITOR’S NOTE: She should sue the supreme shit out of the apartment complex since it refused to help her in any way.
Saturday, July 07, 2018
WHEN PUSH COMES TO SHOVE
by Bob Walsh
As I write this on Friday the various house committees looking into the various Trump investigations are about to decide what, if anything, they intend to do about the feds refusal to comply with the congressional demands for information. Congress COULD declare various individuals in contempt of congress for refusing. They could in fact impeach a few people, including the head of the FBI, Rosenstein and (presumably) Mueller. If they will have the oomph to do so is an open question.
My guess, for what my guess is worth, is that they will pee. I hope I am wrong.
As I write this on Friday the various house committees looking into the various Trump investigations are about to decide what, if anything, they intend to do about the feds refusal to comply with the congressional demands for information. Congress COULD declare various individuals in contempt of congress for refusing. They could in fact impeach a few people, including the head of the FBI, Rosenstein and (presumably) Mueller. If they will have the oomph to do so is an open question.
My guess, for what my guess is worth, is that they will pee. I hope I am wrong.
GHOST SHIP MAY HAUNT FOR YEARS TO COME
by Bob Walsh
The two guys blamed for the notorious Ghost Ship fire in Oakland that killed 36 people have both copped pretty good pleas, one getting about nine years and the other one about six, with credit for well over one year time served. They will do it in the county, not the state.
So now comes the REAL mess, the civil suits. The victim families are of course suing EVERYBODY. The landlord, the city, and Pacific Gas & Electric.
Alameda County Judge Brad Seligman has ruled that the suits against both the City of Oakland, the property owner and PG&E can continue forward. Alameda County is no longer a defendant.
This is likely to cost both the City and PG&E a ton of money, although I must admit myself I don't see a lot of liability on the part of PG&E but then again I am not a lawyer.
The two guys blamed for the notorious Ghost Ship fire in Oakland that killed 36 people have both copped pretty good pleas, one getting about nine years and the other one about six, with credit for well over one year time served. They will do it in the county, not the state.
So now comes the REAL mess, the civil suits. The victim families are of course suing EVERYBODY. The landlord, the city, and Pacific Gas & Electric.
Alameda County Judge Brad Seligman has ruled that the suits against both the City of Oakland, the property owner and PG&E can continue forward. Alameda County is no longer a defendant.
This is likely to cost both the City and PG&E a ton of money, although I must admit myself I don't see a lot of liability on the part of PG&E but then again I am not a lawyer.
THIS OBNOXIUS INTRUDING SIDWELL FRIENDS SCHOOL TEACHER SHOULD BE FIRED
Schoolteacher Confronts EPA’s Scott Pruitt At Lunch, Urges Him To Resign
By Nick Visser
HuffPost
July 3,2018
Kristin Mink, a teacher [at Sidwell Friends School] and the mother of a 2-year-old, was eating lunch at a teashop in Washington, D.C., on Monday when her husband noticed a familiar face a few tables away. Scott Pruitt, the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, was dining with a companion.
“Instantly, I knew I had to say something,” Mink told HuffPost in a phone interview. “He’s someone I think about all the time. He’s directly impacting the future of the world.”
So she picked up her child, walked over to introduce herself and asked the man to resign.
“This is my son. He loves animals. He loves clean air. He loves clean water,” Mink told Pruitt in a video she later posted to her Facebook account. “Meanwhile, you’re slashing strong fuel standards for cars and trucks for the benefit of big corporations.”
She continued: “We deserve to have somebody at the EPA who actually does protect our environment, somebody who believes in climate change and takes it seriously for the benefit of all of us, including our children. I would urge you to resign before your scandals push you out.”
Pruitt listened to Mink as she calmly listed a bevy of the scandals plaguing his tenure at the EPA, but he doesn’t say anything in reply. He then left the restaurant with several members of his security detail without saying a word.
“He had no defense. He had no explanation. He had no apology. He had nothing to say,” she told HuffPost. “When you are a government official ... you are supposed to be directly working for the citizens that you’re serving. He’s a public servant. When you’re in that position, you should want to hear from the people who you are supposed to be taking care of.”
An EPA spokesman told HuffPost that Pruitt’s “leaving had nothing to do with the confrontation, he had simply finished his meal and needed to get back to EPA for a briefing.”
“Administrator Pruitt always welcomes input from Americans, whether they agree or disagree with the decisions being made at EPA,” the spokesman, Lincoln Ferguson, said. “This is evident by him listening to her comments and going on to thank her, which is not shown in the video.”
Mink’s encounter spread like wildfire on social media, similar to other recent interactions between frustrated members of the public and officials in the Trump administration.
Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Neilsen was confronted by activists shouting “Shame!” at a Mexican restaurant last month. Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao got visibly angry with protesters yelling at her husband, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.). And picketers have been targeting the home of White House adviser Stephen Miller in recent days.
Mink said being with her son while Pruitt was nearby “sparked something” in her that afternoon because she believes his decisions will affect “the world that my child is going to inherit, the world that all of our children are going to inherit.”
“He’s sacrificing our water, our air, the wellbeing of coastal communities,” she said. “He’s sacrificing those things for his own short time gain. I really don’t know how he sleeps at night. It’s pretty unfathomable to me.”
EDITOR’S NOTE: “Administrator Pruitt always welcomes input from Americans, whether they agree or disagree with the decisions being made at EPA.” What a load of horseshit! Does this EPA spokesman really expect us to believe that Pruitt welcomes an obnoxious intruder as he is eating a meal in a restaurant?.
Teachers are supposed to set a good example for their students. Mink is a teacher at the prestigious Sidwell Friends School. Her obnoxious intrusion set a bad example for her students. She should be fired!
Mink has a right to express her opinion, but not by intruding on anyone eating a meal in a restaurant. She became an instant internet sensation by releasing video footage of the incident. Mink captioned the video by saying:
“EPA head Scott Pruitt was 3 tables away as I ate lunch with my child. I had to say something. This man is directly and significantly harming my child's—and every child's—health and future with decisions to roll back environmental regulations for the benefit of big corporations, while he uses taxpayer money to fund a lavish lifestyle. He's corrupt, he's a liar, he's a climate change denier, and as a public servant, he should not be able to go out in public without hearing from the citizens he's hurting.”
Mink is obviously proud of her bad behavior because she wanted the whole internet world to know about it. Shame, shame on her! She made Maxine Waters proud.
By Nick Visser
HuffPost
July 3,2018
Kristin Mink, a teacher [at Sidwell Friends School] and the mother of a 2-year-old, was eating lunch at a teashop in Washington, D.C., on Monday when her husband noticed a familiar face a few tables away. Scott Pruitt, the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, was dining with a companion.
“Instantly, I knew I had to say something,” Mink told HuffPost in a phone interview. “He’s someone I think about all the time. He’s directly impacting the future of the world.”
So she picked up her child, walked over to introduce herself and asked the man to resign.
“This is my son. He loves animals. He loves clean air. He loves clean water,” Mink told Pruitt in a video she later posted to her Facebook account. “Meanwhile, you’re slashing strong fuel standards for cars and trucks for the benefit of big corporations.”
She continued: “We deserve to have somebody at the EPA who actually does protect our environment, somebody who believes in climate change and takes it seriously for the benefit of all of us, including our children. I would urge you to resign before your scandals push you out.”
Pruitt listened to Mink as she calmly listed a bevy of the scandals plaguing his tenure at the EPA, but he doesn’t say anything in reply. He then left the restaurant with several members of his security detail without saying a word.
“He had no defense. He had no explanation. He had no apology. He had nothing to say,” she told HuffPost. “When you are a government official ... you are supposed to be directly working for the citizens that you’re serving. He’s a public servant. When you’re in that position, you should want to hear from the people who you are supposed to be taking care of.”
An EPA spokesman told HuffPost that Pruitt’s “leaving had nothing to do with the confrontation, he had simply finished his meal and needed to get back to EPA for a briefing.”
“Administrator Pruitt always welcomes input from Americans, whether they agree or disagree with the decisions being made at EPA,” the spokesman, Lincoln Ferguson, said. “This is evident by him listening to her comments and going on to thank her, which is not shown in the video.”
Mink’s encounter spread like wildfire on social media, similar to other recent interactions between frustrated members of the public and officials in the Trump administration.
Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Neilsen was confronted by activists shouting “Shame!” at a Mexican restaurant last month. Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao got visibly angry with protesters yelling at her husband, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.). And picketers have been targeting the home of White House adviser Stephen Miller in recent days.
Mink said being with her son while Pruitt was nearby “sparked something” in her that afternoon because she believes his decisions will affect “the world that my child is going to inherit, the world that all of our children are going to inherit.”
“He’s sacrificing our water, our air, the wellbeing of coastal communities,” she said. “He’s sacrificing those things for his own short time gain. I really don’t know how he sleeps at night. It’s pretty unfathomable to me.”
EDITOR’S NOTE: “Administrator Pruitt always welcomes input from Americans, whether they agree or disagree with the decisions being made at EPA.” What a load of horseshit! Does this EPA spokesman really expect us to believe that Pruitt welcomes an obnoxious intruder as he is eating a meal in a restaurant?.
Teachers are supposed to set a good example for their students. Mink is a teacher at the prestigious Sidwell Friends School. Her obnoxious intrusion set a bad example for her students. She should be fired!
Mink has a right to express her opinion, but not by intruding on anyone eating a meal in a restaurant. She became an instant internet sensation by releasing video footage of the incident. Mink captioned the video by saying:
“EPA head Scott Pruitt was 3 tables away as I ate lunch with my child. I had to say something. This man is directly and significantly harming my child's—and every child's—health and future with decisions to roll back environmental regulations for the benefit of big corporations, while he uses taxpayer money to fund a lavish lifestyle. He's corrupt, he's a liar, he's a climate change denier, and as a public servant, he should not be able to go out in public without hearing from the citizens he's hurting.”
Mink is obviously proud of her bad behavior because she wanted the whole internet world to know about it. Shame, shame on her! She made Maxine Waters proud.
A NYLON ESCAPE TUBE WOULD BE DEADLY DANGEROUS BECAUSE IT IS SUBJECT TO TEARING
Elon Musk sends engineers from his Boring Company to help Thai cave rescue mission - and proposes creating underwater air tube for the children to crawl through
By Tim Collins and Connor Boyd
Daily Mail
July 6, 2018
Tech billionaire Elon Musk has dispatched his top engineers to help rescue 12 schoolboys and their football coach trapped in a flooded Thai cave.
On Twitter, Musk suggested using an underwater air tube could be created for the children to crawl through.
The 47-year-old said his Boring Co, which digs tunnels for advanced transport systems, could feed a nylon tube into the submerged sections of the cave before inflating it 'like a bouncy castle' to create an underwater tunnel.
Musk said engineers from his Boring Co and SpaceX companies needed to be on site to oversee the evacuation.
The schoolboys are trapped 2.600 ft (800 m) underground, the equivalent of two Empire State Buildings stacked on top of one another.
A spokesman for The Boring Company told the BBC: 'We are speaking with the Thai government to see how we can help, and we are sending SpaceX/Boring Company people from the US to Thailand today to offer support on the ground.
'Once we confirm what exactly will be helpful to send or do, we will.
'We are getting feedback and guidance from the people on the ground in Chiang Rai to determine the best way for us to assist their efforts.'
This is not the first time Musk has been approached to assist in a disaster zone.
The Puerto Rico government called on the 47-year-old billionaire for help last year, after a devastating hurricane hit the Caribbean island.
As well as providing expert advice to help rebuild the island’s infrastructure, electric automaker Tesla sent high-capacity battery packs to help keep the lights on in local homes and businesses.
When asked for his input on the ongoing rescue efforts in Thailand, Elon Musk initially suggested using an 'advanced ground penetrating radar' to help rescuers.
Tesla could supply 'fully charged Powerpacks and pumps' to help remove water from the cave network, Musk added.
The SpaceX found then tweeted with the idea of inserting an inflatable nylon tube into the cave system to create an underwater tunnel.
Battery packs and air pumps would be used to inflate the nylon tubes, submerged underwater. These tubes would provide an escape tunnel the children could crawl through to safety, Musk suggests.
Speaking to MailOnline about the escape idea proposed by the Tesla co-founder, Professor of Geology at the University of Aberdeen, John Howell said ‘if anyone could do it would probably be [Musk]’.
‘It’s a clever idea and, in theory, there is no reason as to why it wouldn’t work,’ said Dr Howell.
However, the academic warned that feeding a nylon tube through a limestone cave network could lead to tears in the fabric – instantly flooding the escape tunnel.
‘It is limestone so the rock is going to be very sharp and irregular,’ he warned.
‘It will also need to be used by several people at once, increasing the risk of a tear. One rip and it’s going to fill up with water instantly.’
The other problem with the plan is transporting the nylon tube through to the trapped schoolchildren in the first place.
‘Professional divers have struggled to get through to the boys as it is, one of them died earlier today,’ Dr Howell added. ‘Imagine this but also trying to drag a one-kilometre long tube behind you.’
In conclusion, Dr Howell said: ‘the practicalities make me think it is not possible.’
Professor John Gunn from the School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences at the University of Birmingham and chair of the cave research association, also has reservations about details of the scheme.
He said: 'If you imagine a tunnel under London flooded, this this would be straight with a few bends.
'However, this is more like asking to thread a pipe through all the aisles of a supermarket, up the stairs, down the stairs and then back through the aisles and also in total darkness and underwater.
'You can see it is more complicated. If he was proposing the pipe is moved by divers then I think that’s a non-starter.'
Musk's approach is opposed to a second proposed method where engineers would drill down to access the tunnels.
However, drilling expert Kelvin Brown, who was part of the team that rescued 33 Chilean miners in 2010, said there are lots of variables and risks when drilling into the cave system.
He said detailed maps were available for the Chilean mines, which helped the team determine how the rigs were going to behave.
Information about the layout of the Thai caves remains scarce.
As a result, Mr Brown said drilling into unknown areas could result in the trapped boys being hit by falling boulders.
Peter Styles, Professor of Applied and Environmental Geophysics at Keele University, added: 'It may be worth trying to see whether there is access into the cave where they are from the surface or whether it is feasible to make one if there isn't a natural access.
'If it is already partly connected it would be feasible but tricky.
'To drill a shaft big enough to get folks through in virgin rock is difficult but not impossible, as the other alternative may be to wait for the waters to fall which, as they have said, may be months.'
None of the 12 boys can swim or dive, which rescuers said will be essential in freeing them.
Experts are concerned about the affect the conditions facing the youngsters may be having on their well being.
'Many of the young people trapped in the cave in Thailand are likely to develop new psychological symptoms in the short-term,' said Dr Andrea Danese, head of the stress & development lab at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience, King’s College London.
'They may become fearful, clingy, or jumpy; they may be fear for their safety; they may become very moody or easily upset.
'In contrast, they may become detached or numb; or they may develop headache and stomach-ache related to the intense distress.
'Most of these young people will recover from these symptoms in a few weeks at most.
'However, we can expect that a sizeable proportion involved, between 10 and 20 per cent, will develop more enduring mental health problems related to the trauma, such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression, or conduct problems.'
An alternative escape route has been proposed by Senior Thai army officer Chalongchai Chaiyakum.
He said that around 200 people were exploring the hill to try to find a shaft that could be used to access the tunnels.
One team travelled 1,000ft (300m) down a shaft on Thursday, he said, before reaching a dead end.
It comes after a Thai Navy SEAL diver died while taking supplies to the trapped schoolboys.
Saman Kunan died after running out of oxygen in the cramped, waterlogged passageways of the Tham Luang caves in northern Thailand.
The 38-year-old was trying to reach a cavern set up as a command centre 1.2miles inside the caves and had been leaving oxygen tanks around the network as part of preparations for rescuing the 12 young footballers. But he ran out of air at 2am local time and his diving partner was unable to revive him.
His body will be flown to his hometown in Roi Et for a royally-sponsored funeral, the Thai king announced. Pictures today showed military officials transporting his flag-draped coffin.
It comes as footage emerged of Kunan at an airport preparing to fly out to join the rescue mission and revealing how he hoped to 'bring the kids home.'
The children have now been stuck underground for nearly two weeks.
By Tim Collins and Connor Boyd
Daily Mail
July 6, 2018
Tech billionaire Elon Musk has dispatched his top engineers to help rescue 12 schoolboys and their football coach trapped in a flooded Thai cave.
On Twitter, Musk suggested using an underwater air tube could be created for the children to crawl through.
The 47-year-old said his Boring Co, which digs tunnels for advanced transport systems, could feed a nylon tube into the submerged sections of the cave before inflating it 'like a bouncy castle' to create an underwater tunnel.
Musk said engineers from his Boring Co and SpaceX companies needed to be on site to oversee the evacuation.
The schoolboys are trapped 2.600 ft (800 m) underground, the equivalent of two Empire State Buildings stacked on top of one another.
A spokesman for The Boring Company told the BBC: 'We are speaking with the Thai government to see how we can help, and we are sending SpaceX/Boring Company people from the US to Thailand today to offer support on the ground.
'Once we confirm what exactly will be helpful to send or do, we will.
'We are getting feedback and guidance from the people on the ground in Chiang Rai to determine the best way for us to assist their efforts.'
This is not the first time Musk has been approached to assist in a disaster zone.
The Puerto Rico government called on the 47-year-old billionaire for help last year, after a devastating hurricane hit the Caribbean island.
As well as providing expert advice to help rebuild the island’s infrastructure, electric automaker Tesla sent high-capacity battery packs to help keep the lights on in local homes and businesses.
When asked for his input on the ongoing rescue efforts in Thailand, Elon Musk initially suggested using an 'advanced ground penetrating radar' to help rescuers.
Tesla could supply 'fully charged Powerpacks and pumps' to help remove water from the cave network, Musk added.
The SpaceX found then tweeted with the idea of inserting an inflatable nylon tube into the cave system to create an underwater tunnel.
Battery packs and air pumps would be used to inflate the nylon tubes, submerged underwater. These tubes would provide an escape tunnel the children could crawl through to safety, Musk suggests.
Speaking to MailOnline about the escape idea proposed by the Tesla co-founder, Professor of Geology at the University of Aberdeen, John Howell said ‘if anyone could do it would probably be [Musk]’.
‘It’s a clever idea and, in theory, there is no reason as to why it wouldn’t work,’ said Dr Howell.
However, the academic warned that feeding a nylon tube through a limestone cave network could lead to tears in the fabric – instantly flooding the escape tunnel.
‘It is limestone so the rock is going to be very sharp and irregular,’ he warned.
‘It will also need to be used by several people at once, increasing the risk of a tear. One rip and it’s going to fill up with water instantly.’
The other problem with the plan is transporting the nylon tube through to the trapped schoolchildren in the first place.
‘Professional divers have struggled to get through to the boys as it is, one of them died earlier today,’ Dr Howell added. ‘Imagine this but also trying to drag a one-kilometre long tube behind you.’
In conclusion, Dr Howell said: ‘the practicalities make me think it is not possible.’
Professor John Gunn from the School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences at the University of Birmingham and chair of the cave research association, also has reservations about details of the scheme.
He said: 'If you imagine a tunnel under London flooded, this this would be straight with a few bends.
'However, this is more like asking to thread a pipe through all the aisles of a supermarket, up the stairs, down the stairs and then back through the aisles and also in total darkness and underwater.
'You can see it is more complicated. If he was proposing the pipe is moved by divers then I think that’s a non-starter.'
Musk's approach is opposed to a second proposed method where engineers would drill down to access the tunnels.
However, drilling expert Kelvin Brown, who was part of the team that rescued 33 Chilean miners in 2010, said there are lots of variables and risks when drilling into the cave system.
He said detailed maps were available for the Chilean mines, which helped the team determine how the rigs were going to behave.
Information about the layout of the Thai caves remains scarce.
As a result, Mr Brown said drilling into unknown areas could result in the trapped boys being hit by falling boulders.
Peter Styles, Professor of Applied and Environmental Geophysics at Keele University, added: 'It may be worth trying to see whether there is access into the cave where they are from the surface or whether it is feasible to make one if there isn't a natural access.
'If it is already partly connected it would be feasible but tricky.
'To drill a shaft big enough to get folks through in virgin rock is difficult but not impossible, as the other alternative may be to wait for the waters to fall which, as they have said, may be months.'
None of the 12 boys can swim or dive, which rescuers said will be essential in freeing them.
Experts are concerned about the affect the conditions facing the youngsters may be having on their well being.
'Many of the young people trapped in the cave in Thailand are likely to develop new psychological symptoms in the short-term,' said Dr Andrea Danese, head of the stress & development lab at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience, King’s College London.
'They may become fearful, clingy, or jumpy; they may be fear for their safety; they may become very moody or easily upset.
'In contrast, they may become detached or numb; or they may develop headache and stomach-ache related to the intense distress.
'Most of these young people will recover from these symptoms in a few weeks at most.
'However, we can expect that a sizeable proportion involved, between 10 and 20 per cent, will develop more enduring mental health problems related to the trauma, such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression, or conduct problems.'
An alternative escape route has been proposed by Senior Thai army officer Chalongchai Chaiyakum.
He said that around 200 people were exploring the hill to try to find a shaft that could be used to access the tunnels.
One team travelled 1,000ft (300m) down a shaft on Thursday, he said, before reaching a dead end.
It comes after a Thai Navy SEAL diver died while taking supplies to the trapped schoolboys.
Saman Kunan died after running out of oxygen in the cramped, waterlogged passageways of the Tham Luang caves in northern Thailand.
The 38-year-old was trying to reach a cavern set up as a command centre 1.2miles inside the caves and had been leaving oxygen tanks around the network as part of preparations for rescuing the 12 young footballers. But he ran out of air at 2am local time and his diving partner was unable to revive him.
His body will be flown to his hometown in Roi Et for a royally-sponsored funeral, the Thai king announced. Pictures today showed military officials transporting his flag-draped coffin.
It comes as footage emerged of Kunan at an airport preparing to fly out to join the rescue mission and revealing how he hoped to 'bring the kids home.'
The children have now been stuck underground for nearly two weeks.
THE DESPERATE UPPER CLASS DRUG SMUGLERS
Financial weaknesses, egos, greed and a very human fear of poverty drive men to smuggle drugs into the U.S.
Borderland Beat
July 5, 2018
It happens every day, every hour, across Mexico, but especially in Tijuana, a transit point for millions of dollars worth of cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine, and fentanyl. Over drinks, over dinner, over a sipped beer or slammed shot, maybe the odd line of cocaine in an upscale bar, an arrangement is made. Over coffee, or lunch, in an office, or a ranch outside the city, the back of a casino, tired overworked waitresses, lingering cigarette smoke, the bleary drone of slot machines and jackpots, promotions and massive flat screens, an offer is presented.
The arrangement comes from a friend, comes from a friend of a girlfriend, a generous offer to sometimes desperate men, the desperation concealed by their job titles and upmarket houses, former glory days. These types are targeted by brokers, by sort of a feelers, men and women who lure them into their service, for sex, money, a chance for redemption in financial prosperity.
Take Esteban Loiaza, former professional baseball player, who made, spent, and apparently lost tens of millions of dollars, before ending up at age 46, thin, pale, and charged with trafficking 20 kilos of cocaine, from a stash house in his name, in Imperial Beach, minutes from the Tijuana border.
Loiaza is out of custody on a 180,000 bond, secured by a property owned by his former wife in Texas. It took months for Loiaza to make bail, showcasing his financial troubles. He was charged with federal drug charges in March, the state charges dismissed to make way for the federal indictment, charging him with one count of possession of cocaine with intent to distribute.
When he is finally sentenced, it is almost certain he will tell a familiar tale of desperate financial situations and an opportunity, that he now sincerely regrets taking. It may not sound much different from the former municipal Tijuana based judge, and lawyer, who was sentenced this week in federal court, to three years in custody.
Eduardo Sais Peinado was arrested in February, with 17 kilos of cocaine, at the San Ysidro point of entry. During his sentencing, through his attorney, he explained the series of events that led to his arrest and guilty plea. After 20 years as civil attorney in private practice, Peindao began working as a municipal judge, for $135 a week, he mostly oversaw matters such as parking tickets and traffic violations.
Around the same time he began seeing a woman, who had three children, one, 6 years old, had a disability, and he was financially helping to pay for her medical bills. His longtime partner in his law firm began to accuse him of being absent from the office, and negligent to the firm, as their business slowly slipped. Peinado for his part denied this.
Nevertheless, a large payment to the partners, of 128,000, was received, and Peindao's partner allegedly refused to pay him his half of the money. His financial situation worsened, as he burned through his savings and claimed he could not get a loan.
But, there was an opportunity that came one day at the Pueblo Amigo Caliente Casino in Tijuana. It wasn't a loan, but it was a chance. A man who he had never met, named Vale, but knew of his troubles approached him with an offer. Peindao claims two meetings later he agreed to traffic drugs across the border, concealed in his vehicle.
He made at least one preliminary trip, with nothing in the car, with another individual linked to Vale. Then he successfully crossed with drugs concealed, dropping the car in a parking lot in Chula Vista, where he left it with a man for an hour, who assumedly removed the product from the compartment. He then crossed the car back to Tijuana. He was paid 3,500.
A week later he was contacted again, and drove through the line on February 10th, 2018, driving a 2007 white jeep liberty, with kilos of cocaine lining the door panels. Customs officers, using a density scanning device, and a drug sniffing dog found the cocaine concealed in the door panels. He was charged with importation of a controlled substance.
The case brings to mind the Tijuana architect who was arrested in 2012, Eugenio Velasquez, who eventually was sentenced to a year in custody, for smuggling 5 kilos of cocaine. Velasquez, who through his lawyer, Jeremy Warren, told a story of deception and coercion, that resulted in his arrest and guilty plea.
Velasquez, was a successful, high end architect, who was contracted to do design work on a Tijuana ranch, in 2011. After a few weeks working on the ranch, he noticed he was being followed by men, and became concerned about his security. The client offered the use of his bodyguards, and Velasquez accepted. Months later, the client claimed Velasquez owed 40,000 for the use of his men.
Velasquez didn't have the money, or wouldn't pay, and he was offered a choice. He was a SENTRI card holder, and crossed rapidly, and frequently. The client claimed he would hurt or kill his family in Tijuana if he did not cross the 5 kilo shipment. Velasquez was arrested at the San Ysidro border, and charged federally.
Across the socioeconomic scale, people are recruited for this work. But, men like this piece details are especially useful, they are often well to do, and less likely to be stopped, or possess SENTRI cards and Readi Passes. They are vulnerable to the same threats of violence, but often it is the finances that lure them in.
There exists in Tijuana, and all over, a world of violence and killing, victims and killers, bodies with deep bruises under their eyes, ligature marks on their wrists, strangulation marks on their necks. This world is hinted at, alluded to, as men sit in bars and coffee shops, suits and sunglasses, shirt sleeves, coffee cups in saucers, the hectic flow of the morning work rush. Or the buzzy, frantic pulse of the casino, cigarette smoke and desperation in the air of every breath.
Esteban Loiaza and Sais Peinado were arrested the same weekend in Tijuana. There is nothing to suggest the two are linked, only in the sense that they are two of the same kind of targets that traffickers use. Exploiting financial weaknesses, egos, greed, a very human fear of poverty, these men always have work. They always have an offer. All you have to do is cross.
Sources: Zeta Tijuana and the San Diego Union Tribune
Borderland Beat
July 5, 2018
It happens every day, every hour, across Mexico, but especially in Tijuana, a transit point for millions of dollars worth of cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine, and fentanyl. Over drinks, over dinner, over a sipped beer or slammed shot, maybe the odd line of cocaine in an upscale bar, an arrangement is made. Over coffee, or lunch, in an office, or a ranch outside the city, the back of a casino, tired overworked waitresses, lingering cigarette smoke, the bleary drone of slot machines and jackpots, promotions and massive flat screens, an offer is presented.
The arrangement comes from a friend, comes from a friend of a girlfriend, a generous offer to sometimes desperate men, the desperation concealed by their job titles and upmarket houses, former glory days. These types are targeted by brokers, by sort of a feelers, men and women who lure them into their service, for sex, money, a chance for redemption in financial prosperity.
Take Esteban Loiaza, former professional baseball player, who made, spent, and apparently lost tens of millions of dollars, before ending up at age 46, thin, pale, and charged with trafficking 20 kilos of cocaine, from a stash house in his name, in Imperial Beach, minutes from the Tijuana border.
Loiaza is out of custody on a 180,000 bond, secured by a property owned by his former wife in Texas. It took months for Loiaza to make bail, showcasing his financial troubles. He was charged with federal drug charges in March, the state charges dismissed to make way for the federal indictment, charging him with one count of possession of cocaine with intent to distribute.
When he is finally sentenced, it is almost certain he will tell a familiar tale of desperate financial situations and an opportunity, that he now sincerely regrets taking. It may not sound much different from the former municipal Tijuana based judge, and lawyer, who was sentenced this week in federal court, to three years in custody.
Eduardo Sais Peinado was arrested in February, with 17 kilos of cocaine, at the San Ysidro point of entry. During his sentencing, through his attorney, he explained the series of events that led to his arrest and guilty plea. After 20 years as civil attorney in private practice, Peindao began working as a municipal judge, for $135 a week, he mostly oversaw matters such as parking tickets and traffic violations.
Around the same time he began seeing a woman, who had three children, one, 6 years old, had a disability, and he was financially helping to pay for her medical bills. His longtime partner in his law firm began to accuse him of being absent from the office, and negligent to the firm, as their business slowly slipped. Peinado for his part denied this.
Nevertheless, a large payment to the partners, of 128,000, was received, and Peindao's partner allegedly refused to pay him his half of the money. His financial situation worsened, as he burned through his savings and claimed he could not get a loan.
But, there was an opportunity that came one day at the Pueblo Amigo Caliente Casino in Tijuana. It wasn't a loan, but it was a chance. A man who he had never met, named Vale, but knew of his troubles approached him with an offer. Peindao claims two meetings later he agreed to traffic drugs across the border, concealed in his vehicle.
He made at least one preliminary trip, with nothing in the car, with another individual linked to Vale. Then he successfully crossed with drugs concealed, dropping the car in a parking lot in Chula Vista, where he left it with a man for an hour, who assumedly removed the product from the compartment. He then crossed the car back to Tijuana. He was paid 3,500.
A week later he was contacted again, and drove through the line on February 10th, 2018, driving a 2007 white jeep liberty, with kilos of cocaine lining the door panels. Customs officers, using a density scanning device, and a drug sniffing dog found the cocaine concealed in the door panels. He was charged with importation of a controlled substance.
The case brings to mind the Tijuana architect who was arrested in 2012, Eugenio Velasquez, who eventually was sentenced to a year in custody, for smuggling 5 kilos of cocaine. Velasquez, who through his lawyer, Jeremy Warren, told a story of deception and coercion, that resulted in his arrest and guilty plea.
Velasquez, was a successful, high end architect, who was contracted to do design work on a Tijuana ranch, in 2011. After a few weeks working on the ranch, he noticed he was being followed by men, and became concerned about his security. The client offered the use of his bodyguards, and Velasquez accepted. Months later, the client claimed Velasquez owed 40,000 for the use of his men.
Velasquez didn't have the money, or wouldn't pay, and he was offered a choice. He was a SENTRI card holder, and crossed rapidly, and frequently. The client claimed he would hurt or kill his family in Tijuana if he did not cross the 5 kilo shipment. Velasquez was arrested at the San Ysidro border, and charged federally.
Across the socioeconomic scale, people are recruited for this work. But, men like this piece details are especially useful, they are often well to do, and less likely to be stopped, or possess SENTRI cards and Readi Passes. They are vulnerable to the same threats of violence, but often it is the finances that lure them in.
There exists in Tijuana, and all over, a world of violence and killing, victims and killers, bodies with deep bruises under their eyes, ligature marks on their wrists, strangulation marks on their necks. This world is hinted at, alluded to, as men sit in bars and coffee shops, suits and sunglasses, shirt sleeves, coffee cups in saucers, the hectic flow of the morning work rush. Or the buzzy, frantic pulse of the casino, cigarette smoke and desperation in the air of every breath.
Esteban Loiaza and Sais Peinado were arrested the same weekend in Tijuana. There is nothing to suggest the two are linked, only in the sense that they are two of the same kind of targets that traffickers use. Exploiting financial weaknesses, egos, greed, a very human fear of poverty, these men always have work. They always have an offer. All you have to do is cross.
Sources: Zeta Tijuana and the San Diego Union Tribune
SEXIER FACE ON STAMP COST POSTAL SERVICE $3.5 MILLION
U.S. Post Office to pay $3.5M for using wrong Statue of Liberty on stamp
By Amy Lieu
Fox News
July 5, 2018
The U.S. Postal Service was ordered last week to pay $3.5 million for mistakenly featuring Las Vegas’ Statue of Liberty replica on a “forever” stamp instead of the original New York Statue.
In a copyright infringement lawsuit, Las Vegas sculptor Robert Davidson sued the Postal Service five years ago over its 2011 forever stamp design.
Davidson created the replica Lady Liberty in the façade at the New-York-New-York casino-resort on the Las Vegas Strip.
The forever stamp featured the face of his version of Lady Liberty, which his lawyers argued was more “fresh-faced,” “sultry” and even “sexier” than the original New York Statue, a gift from France.
Postal Service attorneys argued Davidson's design was too similar for him to claim copyright.
Federal Judge Eric Bruggink sided with Davidson, agreeing that his work was an original design with a more “modern,” “feminine” and contemporary face.
Bruggink ordered the Postal Service to pay $3.5 million to the artist, which is a slice of the $70 million the service made in profit from the forever stamp.
Davidson originally earned $233,000, after manufacturing costs, for his casino-based Lady Liberty creation, The New York Times reported.
The Postal Service released the stamps for at least three months before discovering that it was not the Lady Liberty in New York, after 3 billion of the stamps had been printed, the newspaper reported.
It wasn’t until 2014 that the post office discontinued the design, the report said.
The Times reported that the stamp brought in $2.1 billion from the sale of 4.9 billion stamps.
Davidson said he wanted his sculpture, like the rest of the casino-resort's facade, to have the feel of New York's iconic skyline without duplicating it, according to court documents.
"As the court noted, Mr. Davidson's artistic creation of the Las Vegas Lady Liberty is highly unique and attractive, which is what prompted the US Postal Service to select a photo of his work for the second ever Forever Stamp, over hundreds of other images," Todd Bice, Davidson’s attorney, said.
The post office declined to comment at this time.
By Amy Lieu
Fox News
July 5, 2018
The U.S. Postal Service was ordered last week to pay $3.5 million for mistakenly featuring Las Vegas’ Statue of Liberty replica on a “forever” stamp instead of the original New York Statue.
In a copyright infringement lawsuit, Las Vegas sculptor Robert Davidson sued the Postal Service five years ago over its 2011 forever stamp design.
Davidson created the replica Lady Liberty in the façade at the New-York-New-York casino-resort on the Las Vegas Strip.
The forever stamp featured the face of his version of Lady Liberty, which his lawyers argued was more “fresh-faced,” “sultry” and even “sexier” than the original New York Statue, a gift from France.
Postal Service attorneys argued Davidson's design was too similar for him to claim copyright.
Federal Judge Eric Bruggink sided with Davidson, agreeing that his work was an original design with a more “modern,” “feminine” and contemporary face.
Bruggink ordered the Postal Service to pay $3.5 million to the artist, which is a slice of the $70 million the service made in profit from the forever stamp.
Davidson originally earned $233,000, after manufacturing costs, for his casino-based Lady Liberty creation, The New York Times reported.
The Postal Service released the stamps for at least three months before discovering that it was not the Lady Liberty in New York, after 3 billion of the stamps had been printed, the newspaper reported.
It wasn’t until 2014 that the post office discontinued the design, the report said.
The Times reported that the stamp brought in $2.1 billion from the sale of 4.9 billion stamps.
Davidson said he wanted his sculpture, like the rest of the casino-resort's facade, to have the feel of New York's iconic skyline without duplicating it, according to court documents.
"As the court noted, Mr. Davidson's artistic creation of the Las Vegas Lady Liberty is highly unique and attractive, which is what prompted the US Postal Service to select a photo of his work for the second ever Forever Stamp, over hundreds of other images," Todd Bice, Davidson’s attorney, said.
The post office declined to comment at this time.
POLICE DEPARTMENTS SUED OVER USE OF PREDICTIVE POLICING COMPUTER PROGRAMS
Police departments in cities such as New York, Chicago and Los Angeles are all being sued for not releasing information about their predictive policing programs which, according to critics, result in minorities being arrested at higher rates than whites
By Dave Collins
Associated Press
July 5, 2018
HARTFORD, Conn. — Years of secrecy by America's police departments about their use of computer programs predicting where crimes will occur, and who will commit them, are under fire in legal cases nationwide.
The largest departments — New York, Chicago and Los Angeles — are all being sued for not releasing information about their "predictive policing" programs, which use algorithms to crunch data and create lists of people and neighborhoods for officers to target. Some smaller departments also have been brought to court and before public records agencies.
A top concern, advocates say, is that the computer programs perpetuate the problem of minorities being arrested at higher rates than whites. If arrest and crime location data that show such biases are fed into the algorithms, they argue, police will continue targeting minorities and minority neighborhoods at higher rates.
Several groups and organizations have taken police agencies to court in an effort to find out what data is being fed into the programs, how the algorithms work and exactly what the end results are, including which people and areas are on the lists and how police are using the data.
"Everybody is trying to find out how it works, if it's fair," said Jay Stanley, a senior policy analyst for the American Civil Liberties Union. "This is all pretty new. This is all experimental. And there are reasons to think this is discriminatory in many ways."
The programs are developed by private companies such as Palantir and PrePol and can tell police where and when crimes are likely to occur by analyzing years of crime location data. Other, more criticized programs produce lists of likely criminals and victims based on people's criminal history, age, gang affiliation and other factors.
Some cities are spending hundreds of thousands of dollars, even millions, on predictive policing programs, with many of the costs paid for by state and federal law enforcement grants. Several dozen U.S. police departments use some form of predictive policing, and more than a hundred others are considering or planning to start such programs, according to counts and estimates by different groups.
Police officials say they can't release some information about their predictive programs because of citizen privacy and safety concerns and because some data is proprietary. The programs are helping to reduce crime and better deploy officers in a time of declining budgets and staffing, they argue.
Some studies have arrived at conflicting conclusions about whether predictive policing is effective or biased, but there has not been definitive research yet, experts say.
Critics say they've already seen what they believe is evidence of biases in predictive policing, including increased arrests in neighborhoods heavily populated by blacks and Latinos and people on computer-generated lists being repeatedly harassed by police.
Mariella Saba believes predictive policing labeled her Los Angeles neighborhood, Rose Hill, as a crime hot spot, because she has seen heavy law enforcement activity. Friends and neighbors, many of them Latino, have been stopped by police multiple times, she said.
One friend, Pedro Echeverria, was shot three times by a police officer last year but survived. Prosecutors ruled the shooting justified, saying Echeverria had a gun and fought with officers. Police said they decided to stop him as he was walking on a street because he was in Rose Hill, a "known hangout" for gang members, according to a prosecutor's report.
"It's traumatic. It creates trauma," Saba, 30, of the increased police activity. "I know better to never normalize this or see this as normal. I'm about to burst."
Saba said she can't be certain whether Rose Hill is the subject of predictive policing because police won't release that information. A group she co-founded, the Stop LAPD Spying Coalition, sued the police department in February seeking data about its program.
The LAPD has released some data to the group but hasn't hand over other information, including copies of "chronic offender bulletins" that list people of interest to police. The lawsuit remains pending.
The LAPD can't release some information because of concerns about citizens' privacy, and other data sought by Saba's group doesn't exist, said Josh Rubinstein, a police spokesman.
"We're not trying to dodge anything," he said. "They're making assumptions about what we're doing that aren't true."
The LAPD uses a data mining program developed by Palantir Technologies, which was co-founded by tech financier and PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel with backing from an investment arm of the CIA. The company has helped the military in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Challenges in some other cities:
— In Hartford, police are facing a complaint by the Connecticut ACLU to the state public records commission for not releasing information about analytical software for the city's surveillance camera system that officials say will help predict crime and capture suspects.
— Journalists sued Chicago last year in an effort to get information on what data goes into its so-called "heat list," which ranks certain people on how likely they are to become perpetrators or victims of crime. The case remains pending.
"People are rightfully skeptical of the government using computers to predict who's going to commit a crime," said Matthew Topic, a lawyer for the journalists. "Maybe this heat list is a legitimate tool. Maybe it could be used better. The whole point of having transparency laws is we, as the public, get to second-guess everything government does."
— A judge in December ordered New York City police to release records about its predictive policing tools after officials declined to disclose documents requested by the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law. The center is seeking information about the department's use of Palantir's products and other records.
— Information about New Orleans' predictive policing program is being sought in court by Kentrell Hickerson, who is appealing his convictions on gang-related charges. A judge said in April that Hickerson can subpoena city officials for information on whether data from the program were used in his case. The case remains pending.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Police critics play the fucking race card every time the police attempt to fight crime in high crime neighborhoods. The police are targeting criminals, not minorities. It just so happens that black and Latino neighborhoods are higher crime areas than white neighborhoods. If a disproportionate number of minorities are arrested, it’s because blacks and Latinos commit a disproportionate amount of crime. Always overlooked is the fact that by policing minority communities and arresting the criminals therein, the police are protecting the law abiding minorities.
By Dave Collins
Associated Press
July 5, 2018
HARTFORD, Conn. — Years of secrecy by America's police departments about their use of computer programs predicting where crimes will occur, and who will commit them, are under fire in legal cases nationwide.
The largest departments — New York, Chicago and Los Angeles — are all being sued for not releasing information about their "predictive policing" programs, which use algorithms to crunch data and create lists of people and neighborhoods for officers to target. Some smaller departments also have been brought to court and before public records agencies.
A top concern, advocates say, is that the computer programs perpetuate the problem of minorities being arrested at higher rates than whites. If arrest and crime location data that show such biases are fed into the algorithms, they argue, police will continue targeting minorities and minority neighborhoods at higher rates.
Several groups and organizations have taken police agencies to court in an effort to find out what data is being fed into the programs, how the algorithms work and exactly what the end results are, including which people and areas are on the lists and how police are using the data.
"Everybody is trying to find out how it works, if it's fair," said Jay Stanley, a senior policy analyst for the American Civil Liberties Union. "This is all pretty new. This is all experimental. And there are reasons to think this is discriminatory in many ways."
The programs are developed by private companies such as Palantir and PrePol and can tell police where and when crimes are likely to occur by analyzing years of crime location data. Other, more criticized programs produce lists of likely criminals and victims based on people's criminal history, age, gang affiliation and other factors.
Some cities are spending hundreds of thousands of dollars, even millions, on predictive policing programs, with many of the costs paid for by state and federal law enforcement grants. Several dozen U.S. police departments use some form of predictive policing, and more than a hundred others are considering or planning to start such programs, according to counts and estimates by different groups.
Police officials say they can't release some information about their predictive programs because of citizen privacy and safety concerns and because some data is proprietary. The programs are helping to reduce crime and better deploy officers in a time of declining budgets and staffing, they argue.
Some studies have arrived at conflicting conclusions about whether predictive policing is effective or biased, but there has not been definitive research yet, experts say.
Critics say they've already seen what they believe is evidence of biases in predictive policing, including increased arrests in neighborhoods heavily populated by blacks and Latinos and people on computer-generated lists being repeatedly harassed by police.
Mariella Saba believes predictive policing labeled her Los Angeles neighborhood, Rose Hill, as a crime hot spot, because she has seen heavy law enforcement activity. Friends and neighbors, many of them Latino, have been stopped by police multiple times, she said.
One friend, Pedro Echeverria, was shot three times by a police officer last year but survived. Prosecutors ruled the shooting justified, saying Echeverria had a gun and fought with officers. Police said they decided to stop him as he was walking on a street because he was in Rose Hill, a "known hangout" for gang members, according to a prosecutor's report.
"It's traumatic. It creates trauma," Saba, 30, of the increased police activity. "I know better to never normalize this or see this as normal. I'm about to burst."
Saba said she can't be certain whether Rose Hill is the subject of predictive policing because police won't release that information. A group she co-founded, the Stop LAPD Spying Coalition, sued the police department in February seeking data about its program.
The LAPD has released some data to the group but hasn't hand over other information, including copies of "chronic offender bulletins" that list people of interest to police. The lawsuit remains pending.
The LAPD can't release some information because of concerns about citizens' privacy, and other data sought by Saba's group doesn't exist, said Josh Rubinstein, a police spokesman.
"We're not trying to dodge anything," he said. "They're making assumptions about what we're doing that aren't true."
The LAPD uses a data mining program developed by Palantir Technologies, which was co-founded by tech financier and PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel with backing from an investment arm of the CIA. The company has helped the military in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Challenges in some other cities:
— In Hartford, police are facing a complaint by the Connecticut ACLU to the state public records commission for not releasing information about analytical software for the city's surveillance camera system that officials say will help predict crime and capture suspects.
— Journalists sued Chicago last year in an effort to get information on what data goes into its so-called "heat list," which ranks certain people on how likely they are to become perpetrators or victims of crime. The case remains pending.
"People are rightfully skeptical of the government using computers to predict who's going to commit a crime," said Matthew Topic, a lawyer for the journalists. "Maybe this heat list is a legitimate tool. Maybe it could be used better. The whole point of having transparency laws is we, as the public, get to second-guess everything government does."
— A judge in December ordered New York City police to release records about its predictive policing tools after officials declined to disclose documents requested by the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law. The center is seeking information about the department's use of Palantir's products and other records.
— Information about New Orleans' predictive policing program is being sought in court by Kentrell Hickerson, who is appealing his convictions on gang-related charges. A judge said in April that Hickerson can subpoena city officials for information on whether data from the program were used in his case. The case remains pending.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Police critics play the fucking race card every time the police attempt to fight crime in high crime neighborhoods. The police are targeting criminals, not minorities. It just so happens that black and Latino neighborhoods are higher crime areas than white neighborhoods. If a disproportionate number of minorities are arrested, it’s because blacks and Latinos commit a disproportionate amount of crime. Always overlooked is the fact that by policing minority communities and arresting the criminals therein, the police are protecting the law abiding minorities.
RHINOS CHEER AS LIONS ENJOY FITTING MEAL
Three poachers are EATEN by lions after the men broke into South African nature reserve to slaughter rhinos for their horns
By Jamie Pyatt
Daily Mail
July 5, 2018
A gang of poachers who broke into a South African game reserve to hunt rhinos came off second best when they were attacked and eaten by a pride of hungry lions.
At least three hunters are believed to have been devoured by the predators, judging by the bloody scene on the Sibuya Game Reserve near Kenton-on-Sea in Eastern Province, South Africa.
One head and a number of bloodied body parts and limbs have been recovered from the area, along with three pairs of empty shoes.
Staff at Sibuya also found high powered hunting rifles with silencers, wire cutters and an axe used by poachers to cut off rhino horns.
A helicopter was called in to search for more possible poachers, but none have so far been found.
Owner Nick Fox, 60, said: 'We found enough body parts and three pairs of empty shoes which suggest to us that the lions ate at least three of them but it is thick bush and there could be more.
'They came heavily armed with hunting rifles and axes which we have recovered and enough food to last them for several days so we suspect they were after all of our rhinos here.
'But the lions are our watchers and guardians and they picked the wrong pride and became a meal.
'Whilst we are saddened at any loss of life the poachers came here to kill our animals and this sends out a very clear message to any other poachers that you will not always be the winner'.
The game reserve is one of the most popular in the Eastern Cape, and it is visited by many British tourists.
As well as rhinos and lions, Sibuya's 30 square miles is also is home to the rest of Africa's Big Five: elephant, buffalo and leopard.
In 2016, the reserve lost three rhinos when poachers got into the park and shot them dead and cut off their horns.
However, this time the hunters became the hunted, when they got in the way of the resident lion pride.
Mr Fox said: 'The lions may have eaten more of them it is difficult to tell as the area is very thick with bush and you cannot be sure what they have taken off to feed on elsewhere.
'The best estimate we have so far is that three of the gang were eaten.
'They were armed with high powered rifles with silencers, an axe for the horns, wire cutters and side arms, so were clearly intent on killing rhinos and cutting off their horns.'
The remains of the bodies were found as darkness fell on July 3rd, but staff had to wait until daylight on July 4th when the area could be declared safe to go in and recover what was left
Police spokeswoman Captain Mali Govender confirmed that the remains had been found in the lion camp and that detectives were on the scene trying to work out how many were eaten.
Captain Govender said: 'We do not know identities but firearms have been taken by the police and will be sent to the ballistics laboratory to see if they have been used in poaching before'.
Poaching is a major issue on the Eastern Cape with nine rhinos killed by illegal hunters on reserves this year.
In February a poacher was killed by lions in the Umbabat Game Reserve near the Kruger National Park, and his family were forced to identify him using all that was left - his head.
By Jamie Pyatt
Daily Mail
July 5, 2018
A gang of poachers who broke into a South African game reserve to hunt rhinos came off second best when they were attacked and eaten by a pride of hungry lions.
At least three hunters are believed to have been devoured by the predators, judging by the bloody scene on the Sibuya Game Reserve near Kenton-on-Sea in Eastern Province, South Africa.
One head and a number of bloodied body parts and limbs have been recovered from the area, along with three pairs of empty shoes.
Staff at Sibuya also found high powered hunting rifles with silencers, wire cutters and an axe used by poachers to cut off rhino horns.
A helicopter was called in to search for more possible poachers, but none have so far been found.
Owner Nick Fox, 60, said: 'We found enough body parts and three pairs of empty shoes which suggest to us that the lions ate at least three of them but it is thick bush and there could be more.
'They came heavily armed with hunting rifles and axes which we have recovered and enough food to last them for several days so we suspect they were after all of our rhinos here.
'But the lions are our watchers and guardians and they picked the wrong pride and became a meal.
'Whilst we are saddened at any loss of life the poachers came here to kill our animals and this sends out a very clear message to any other poachers that you will not always be the winner'.
The game reserve is one of the most popular in the Eastern Cape, and it is visited by many British tourists.
As well as rhinos and lions, Sibuya's 30 square miles is also is home to the rest of Africa's Big Five: elephant, buffalo and leopard.
In 2016, the reserve lost three rhinos when poachers got into the park and shot them dead and cut off their horns.
However, this time the hunters became the hunted, when they got in the way of the resident lion pride.
Mr Fox said: 'The lions may have eaten more of them it is difficult to tell as the area is very thick with bush and you cannot be sure what they have taken off to feed on elsewhere.
'The best estimate we have so far is that three of the gang were eaten.
'They were armed with high powered rifles with silencers, an axe for the horns, wire cutters and side arms, so were clearly intent on killing rhinos and cutting off their horns.'
The remains of the bodies were found as darkness fell on July 3rd, but staff had to wait until daylight on July 4th when the area could be declared safe to go in and recover what was left
Police spokeswoman Captain Mali Govender confirmed that the remains had been found in the lion camp and that detectives were on the scene trying to work out how many were eaten.
Captain Govender said: 'We do not know identities but firearms have been taken by the police and will be sent to the ballistics laboratory to see if they have been used in poaching before'.
Poaching is a major issue on the Eastern Cape with nine rhinos killed by illegal hunters on reserves this year.
In February a poacher was killed by lions in the Umbabat Game Reserve near the Kruger National Park, and his family were forced to identify him using all that was left - his head.
Friday, July 06, 2018
BRAVE, YES. HEROIC EVEN. SMART, MAYBE NOT SO MUCH
by Bob Walsh
I almost didn't write this. The guy is dead. He died protecting his kids. He also may have died being stupid, or at least badly prepared.
Aaron Gibbons, 31, was prowling around Sentry Island near Arviat, near Hudson's Bay in Canada. He and his three children were looking for tern eggs. Terns are not dangerous. Polar Bears are. They are the only terrestrial 100% carnivore. They eat only meat. If it moves it is potential lunch.
It seems a bear began to stalk and possibly charge the children. He put himself between the children and the bear. He directed the children to run as fast as they could back to the boat. Gibbons was not armed. The bear killed him. The children escaped. The kids put out an emergency radio call from the boat. The RCMP showed up and a nearby civilian hunter killed the bear.
The bears no longer have a significant fear of humans or human machines, at least in this area. They don't run from snow mobiles. They hang around humans, presumably because they know that humans and food often go together. If push comes to shove humans are food if you are a polar bear.
I know a guy who goes into the NorthWest and even on occasion Alaska to fish. He does not hunt. However, he is INVARIABLY armed when in bear country. Armed with something that will do the job if it comes down to it. Bush pilots in Alaska are required by law to be armed so if they have to set down they and their clients will not necessarily be bear munchies.
Maybe I am the odd one here, but I can't IMAGINE going into an area where dangerous, aggressive carnivores hang out, especially with children, without a reasonable means to protect myself and them. Otherwise buy your damned eggs in the store.
I almost didn't write this. The guy is dead. He died protecting his kids. He also may have died being stupid, or at least badly prepared.
Aaron Gibbons, 31, was prowling around Sentry Island near Arviat, near Hudson's Bay in Canada. He and his three children were looking for tern eggs. Terns are not dangerous. Polar Bears are. They are the only terrestrial 100% carnivore. They eat only meat. If it moves it is potential lunch.
It seems a bear began to stalk and possibly charge the children. He put himself between the children and the bear. He directed the children to run as fast as they could back to the boat. Gibbons was not armed. The bear killed him. The children escaped. The kids put out an emergency radio call from the boat. The RCMP showed up and a nearby civilian hunter killed the bear.
The bears no longer have a significant fear of humans or human machines, at least in this area. They don't run from snow mobiles. They hang around humans, presumably because they know that humans and food often go together. If push comes to shove humans are food if you are a polar bear.
I know a guy who goes into the NorthWest and even on occasion Alaska to fish. He does not hunt. However, he is INVARIABLY armed when in bear country. Armed with something that will do the job if it comes down to it. Bush pilots in Alaska are required by law to be armed so if they have to set down they and their clients will not necessarily be bear munchies.
Maybe I am the odd one here, but I can't IMAGINE going into an area where dangerous, aggressive carnivores hang out, especially with children, without a reasonable means to protect myself and them. Otherwise buy your damned eggs in the store.
SOME JOBS HAVE INHERENT RISKS ATTACHED
by Bob Walsh
On July 3 a woman happened to stop in a gas station with the SUV and two rugrats inside. I strongly suspect she left the key in it and the engine running, but the news article does not say for sure.
An as-yet unnamed bad guy jumped into the vehicle, presumably behind the wheel. The mother then jumped into the front passenger seat and expressed her desire that the bad guy not steal her car with her kids in side. The bad guy indicated lack of concern. The mother grabbed her gat from the glove box and shot him in the head, causing a minor traffic incident involving a telephone pole.
Neither the woman nor children were injured. The wannabe kidnapper-car jacker is in the hospital, in serious but stable condition. Too bad she didn't shoot him twice instead of just once, it might have saved the county the cost of the trial.
Since it happened in Dallas I can't imagine the police will be overly concerned with the issue. In CA the woman would probably be prosecuted for child endangerment and having an unsecured gun in her vehicle.
On July 3 a woman happened to stop in a gas station with the SUV and two rugrats inside. I strongly suspect she left the key in it and the engine running, but the news article does not say for sure.
An as-yet unnamed bad guy jumped into the vehicle, presumably behind the wheel. The mother then jumped into the front passenger seat and expressed her desire that the bad guy not steal her car with her kids in side. The bad guy indicated lack of concern. The mother grabbed her gat from the glove box and shot him in the head, causing a minor traffic incident involving a telephone pole.
Neither the woman nor children were injured. The wannabe kidnapper-car jacker is in the hospital, in serious but stable condition. Too bad she didn't shoot him twice instead of just once, it might have saved the county the cost of the trial.
Since it happened in Dallas I can't imagine the police will be overly concerned with the issue. In CA the woman would probably be prosecuted for child endangerment and having an unsecured gun in her vehicle.
BY NOW THEY ARE PROBABLY IN THE HANDS OF LA GANGBANGERS OR MEXICAN COPS
31 stolen Compton police handguns still missing
By City News Service
Los Angeles Daily News
July 3, 2018
LOS ANGELES — The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors renewed a $10,000 reward Tuesday in hopes of tracking down 31 Beretta and Glock pistols, believed to be police service weapons and stolen from a vault in Compton’s old City Hall.
The county money matches an identical offer from the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, putting the total reward at $20,000.
Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas recommended extending the offer, which was set to expire Sunday, saying that getting guns off the street is a county priority.
In March 2017, Compton officials discovered a stash of nearly 200 firearms in a vault in the old city building at 600 N. Alameda St., stored there by the long-disbanded Compton Police Department. The weapons were turned over to — and inventoried by — the sheriff’s Department. But when deputies returned in August to move the guns to a new location, 31 .40-caliber pistols were missing.
The ATF is handling the investigation.
The Sheriff’s Department took over law enforcement duties in Compton in 2000.
By City News Service
Los Angeles Daily News
July 3, 2018
LOS ANGELES — The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors renewed a $10,000 reward Tuesday in hopes of tracking down 31 Beretta and Glock pistols, believed to be police service weapons and stolen from a vault in Compton’s old City Hall.
The county money matches an identical offer from the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, putting the total reward at $20,000.
Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas recommended extending the offer, which was set to expire Sunday, saying that getting guns off the street is a county priority.
In March 2017, Compton officials discovered a stash of nearly 200 firearms in a vault in the old city building at 600 N. Alameda St., stored there by the long-disbanded Compton Police Department. The weapons were turned over to — and inventoried by — the sheriff’s Department. But when deputies returned in August to move the guns to a new location, 31 .40-caliber pistols were missing.
The ATF is handling the investigation.
The Sheriff’s Department took over law enforcement duties in Compton in 2000.
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