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June 2016

Posted by Andrew Branca on June 13, 2016 22 Comments
News reports this evening indicate that the third day of the "Freddie Gray" trial of police van driver Officer Caesar Goodson has been pretty much of a nothing burger. The prosecution has floated, to one degree or another, three theories of the case, as we described in some detail in our prior post:  Freddie Gray: The Relevance of Donte Allen’s Changing Earwitness Testimony. Let's take a look at each theory of the case in light of the reporting on today's events at trial.

Posted by New Neo on June 13, 2016 11 Comments
Not long after being introduced to the internet about 20 years ago, I realized that despite the internet's many wonders, anti-Semitism was also rife online. The internet gave this old hatred with a long pedigree new and sturdy legs. Do a search for some topic connected with the Holocaust, for example, and pretty quickly you'll encounter the manifold Holocaust deniers and websites devoted to spreading anti-Semitic lies about all manner of Jewish things and all points of Jewish history. These sites are slick, numerous, and wide-reaching, and I have little doubt that they have increased the number of anti-Semitic people in the world who are firmly convinced that they are privy to the truth about Jews.

Posted by Mary Chastain on June 13, 2016 1 Comment
Sources have said radical Islamic group Abu Sayyaf have beheaded Canadian hostage Robert Hall since they did not receive an $8 million ransom. The group murdered Canadian John Ridsdel in April. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau condemned the executions:
"With the tragic loss of two Canadians, I want to reiterate that terrorist hostage-takings only fuel more violence and instability. Canada will not give into their fear-mongering tactics and despicable attitude toward the suffering of others," Trudeau said in a statement. "This is precisely why the government of Canada will not and cannot pay ransoms for hostages to terrorists groups."

Posted by Andrew Branca on June 13, 2016 12 Comments
Last week we posted about how prosecutors in the current Freddie Gray trial of van driver Caesar Goodson had concealed from Goodson's defense attorneys an interview they had conducted with one Donte Allen.  Accordingly, the defense filed a motion for the dismissal of the charges against Goodson, a motion denied by trial Judge Barry Williams. In order to understand the relevance of witness Donte Allen, it is worth recalling exactly his role in the events surrounding the arrest and transport of Freddie Gray, and accordingly how his testimony might be relevant to determining the criminal liability, if any, of Officer Goodson. Assistant Medical Examiner Dr. Carol Allan provided the most detailed accounting of the events surrounding Freddie Gray's transport in the police van, including his physical condition during that transport and especially at specific stops along the route, in her report. Although this autopsy report has not been made public, on June 24, 2015 the Baltimore Sun published relevant sections of the report from a copy that they managed to obtain. The quotes embedded below come from a single contiguous section of that report as published by the Sun.

Posted by Mary Chastain on June 13, 2016 5 Comments
The biggest supporters of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro's programs have turned against him since they now suffer from the food shortages affecting the rest of the country. Party officials stressed to The London Times that Maduro's distribution system has "broken down and that conditions are ripe for civil war." He hoped the system would end the long lines "and black marketeers at state-subsidised supermarkets." Riots have exploded in these areas:
What is striking is that the riots — sometimes half a dozen a day in the capital — are in working-class slums far from the middle-class areas where support for the opposition has traditionally been strongest. The opposition, which controls congress, is trying to push through a referendum to remove Mr Maduro but that will take time and hungry people are more concerned about procuring food. To put an end to the vast queues and black marketeers the government recently started distributing food directly to local community councils. In an area of Antímano, one of the largest slums, a council spokeswoman said that the first delivery was supposed to arrive in April but only half of it arrived. To avoid riots — and accusations that it had stolen the missing food bags — the council did not give out any supplies. Last month none arrived. This month’s supply has still not come and now there is no food in the supermarkets either.

Posted by Mary Chastain on June 13, 2016 19 Comments
Omar Mateen's former coworker has told the media that the murderer regularly made homophobic and racist remarks, but was never fired because he was Muslim. Mateen murdered 49 people at a popular Orlando gay club on Saturday. Daniel Gilroy worked with Mateen at "G4S Security at the PGA Village complex in Port St. Lucie." He told Florida Today that he complained to the company about Mateen's numerous homophobic and racist comments. He claims they never did anything "because he was Muslim." Gilroy quit when Mateen did not stop sending him 20 to 30 text messages and 13 to 15 phone messages everyday:
"Everything he said was toxic," Gilroy told the paper, "and the company wouldn't do anything. This guy was unhinged and unstable. He talked of killing people."

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on June 13, 2016 19 Comments
Remember when the State Department decided it would be good to remove "father" and "mother" designations from passport applications and to replace them with "Parent 1" and "Parent 2"?  Don't look now, but in Oregon (where a 15 year-old can get a taxpayer-funded sex change operation), the government will allow you to call yourself  "non-binary" if you are transgender. From the Law Works LLC website:
On June 10, 2016, a Multnomah County Circuit Court Judge for the State of Oregon granted Jamie Shupe’s petition to change the legal sex/gender marker from Female to Nonbinary.  Lake Perriguey, of Law Works LLC,  represented Jamie in what is understood to be the first order from a United States state court to recognize “non-binary” as a legal gender/sex identifier as part of a legal sex change procedure. Oregon law does not specifically limit gender choices to Male or Female.  Instead, the law allows a judge to order a legal change of sex and enter a judgment indicating the change of sex of a person if the court determines that the individual has undergone surgical, hormonal or other treatment appropriate for that individual for the purpose of gender transition and that sexual reassignment has been completed.  See Oregon Revised Statute 33.460.

Posted by Mark Finkelstein on June 13, 2016 44 Comments
Do you think the families and loved ones of the Orlando victims wish Omar Mateen's father, an anti-American Afghan, had never been permitted to enter the United States? Do you think the great majority of Americans agree? The answer seems obvious: but not to the clueless cast of Morning Joe, which today trashed Donald Trump's call for a ban on Muslim immigration. Mika Brzezinski epitomized the willful blindness, claiming the Muslim ban has "no connection at all" to the Pulse massacre.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on June 13, 2016 11 Comments
In April, a 2-member California parole board authorized the release of former Manson Family killer Leslie Van Houten. The decision to go forward with this recommendation now rests with Governor Jerry Brown. Now Debra Tate, sister of Sharon Tate (who was butchered in another Manson Family attack) is seeking around 12,000 more signatures for a petition to stop this miscarriage of justice by appealing to Brown.
Charles Manson's deranged "family," including Ms. Van Houten, broke into the home of Leno & Rosemary LaBianca on August 10, 1969. Manson had gone into their home and tied the couple up. Van Houten placed a pillowcase over Mrs. LaBianca's head, tied it with a lamp cord, and held Mrs. LaBianca down so Patricia Krenwinkel could stab the innocent woman to death.

Posted by Mary Chastain on June 12, 2016 13 Comments
Omar Mateen's father Seddique claimed his son's religion had nothing to do with him killing 50 people at a popular gay club in Orlando. But videos show that Seddique supports the Taliban in his native Afghanistan. Seddique hosted a show called the Durand Jirga Show on Payam-e-Afghan, "which broadcasts from California." He then posted some videos from the show on his YouTube Channel, but has not done that for over a year. The Washington Post found that the "phone number and post office box displayed on the show were traced back to the Mateen home in Florida." He also posted a video of him as Afghanistan's president on his Facebook page, Provisional Government of Afghanistan - Seddique Mateen. He posted this only hours before his son opened fire at Pulse:
"I order national army, national police and intelligence department to immediately imprison Karzai, Ashraf Ghani, Zalmay Khalilzad, Atmar, and Sayyaf. They are against our countrymen, and against our homeland," he says, while dressed in army fatigues.

Posted by Mike LaChance on June 12, 2016 13 Comments
Ask any Democrat how they feel about Trump's proposed border wall and you'll be met with outrage. According to most liberals, such a concept is racist, xenophobic and utterly unnecessary. Building a wall doesn't solve anything . . . unless it's used to protect delegates and other high ranking officials in the Democratic Party. NBC News in Philadelphia reports:
Wells Fargo Center, Xfinity Live! to Be Inside DNC Security Perimeter Security at the Sports Complex during the Democratic National Convention next month will include “no-scale fencing” to enclose the Wells Fargo Center and Xfinity Live!, the Secret Service special agent in charge said in an interview Thursday.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on June 12, 2016 16 Comments
California's Santa Monica police may have prevented West Coast mass shooting today, by arresting a armed man with explosives heading to the areas's gay pride parade.
Authorities in Santa Monica found possible explosives as well as a cache of weapons and ammunition Sunday in the car of a man who told them he planned to look for a friend at the L.A. Pride festival in West Hollywood, a law enforcement source said. Federal and local law enforcement decided against canceling the annual parade, which went forward Sunday morning under tightened security. Investigators are now trying to piece together what happened but said they don’t believe there is any connection between the incident and the massacre at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Fla., that killed at least 50 people overnight. Early Sunday, Santa Monica police received a call about a suspected prowler near Olympic Boulevard and 11th Street. Patrol officers responded and encountered an individual who told officers he was waiting for a friend, according to a law enforcement source familiar with details of the arrest. That led officers to inspect the car and find several weapons – including three rifles, one of them an “assault rifle” -- and a lot of ammunition as well as tannerite, an ingredient that could be used to create a pipe bomb, said the source. The car had Indiana plates.

Posted by Mary Chastain on June 12, 2016 22 Comments
Details continue to emerge about Omar Mateen, the man who murdered 50 people and injured over 50 more at Pulse, a popular gay club in Orlando, FL. NBC News has reported that Mateen called 911 right before he committed the massacre. Officials told reporter Pete Williams that Mateen told the operators he "pledged allegiance to Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi." One law enforcement agent told CNN that the FBI opened "two cases on Mateen in the past," but they could not find "evidence to charge him with anything." They placed him on their radar as a possible Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) sympathizer:
In response to a question to whether the shooter may have had a connection to radical Islamic terrorism, FBI Assistant Special Agent in Charge Ronald Hopper said investigators are "looking into all angles right now." "We do have suggestions that that individual may have leanings toward that particular ideology but we can't say definitively," Hopper said.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on June 12, 2016 12 Comments
California is now beginning to implement its new right-to-die law, so terminally ill patients with six months or less to live can ask their doctor for life-ending medication.
The law requires terminally ill patients to submit three requests to their doctor for life-ending drugs. Two of them are verbal requests and must be at least 15 days apart. Patients must submit the third request in writing. Doctors and pharmacists can refuse to issue lethal medications without any fear of consequences. Patients can also opt out at any time. California will become the fifth state to allow medical aid in dying, and it's estimated that some 1,500 lethal prescriptions will be written in the state each year.
When Californians passed a medical marijuana measure, marijuana dispensaries began opening. In the wake of the new physician assisted suicide law, the first "right to die" clinic has been created.

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on June 12, 2016 72 Comments
An Islamic terrorist shot up an Orlando nightclub, killing 50 people and injuring at least 53 further people are hospitalized. CNN reports:

Approximately 20 people are dead inside Pulse, a gay nightclub, Orlando Police Chief John Mina said Sunday morning, just hours after a shooter opened fire in the club. At least 42 people have been transported for medical treatment, he said.

Police have shot and killed the gunman, Mina told reporters.
"It's appears he was organized and well-prepared," the chief said, adding that the shooter had an assault-type weapon, a handgun and "some type of (other) device on him." Law enforcement sources told CNN that the device, which was strapped to the suspect, was possibly explosive, but authorities don't know if it was real or not.
A canine unit indicated there were explosives inside the suspect's car as well, the sources said.
The most recent information released by police in Orlando is that 50 people have been killed and a further 53 are hospitalized.
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