Chicago has announced that it would not renew its contract with its red-light camera vendor, Redflex Traffic Systems, part of an Australian company. The decision follows shocking disclosures of how the company showered a former city official with gifts and shared information with law enforcement.
Continue reading “Chicago Red-Light Camera Company Accused of Giving Gifts To Officials”
One would think that Iran would have its share of pressing social and political issues from the torture of prisoners to the denial of free speech to the development of nuclear weapons. However, Iran is aghast this week because of this video showing its U.N. ambassador, Ali Reza Sheik Attar, actually touching the hand of a woman. Yes, that is Attar giving a high five to Claudia Roth — a video that sent Muslim clerics in Iran scrambling to determine if he could be forgiven for such a public act of immorality. By the way, they are working on nuclear weapons.
We previously discussed how a man recently died while eating a 6,000-calorie Triple Bypass burger at the infamous Heart Attack Grill. That death followed the death of Blair River (a 572-pound obese 29-year-old man) as their spokesman. Now the restaurant’s second unofficial spokesman, John Alleman, has died of a heart attack in front of the restaurant.
Continue reading “Second Spokesman For Heart Attack Grill Dies . . . Of A Heart Attack”
I have previously written about the myth created by TSA that jokes at an airport security point about bombs constitute a crime. Now we have another case for this ignoble list involving Frank Hannibal, 50, who was arrested for making a simple joke to his wife and family about the ruckus caused by his jar of Crazy Richards peanut butter. He is now rightfully suing the TSA for $5 million and a verdict in his favor would do wonders to rein in this runaway agency.
The International Olympic Committee shocked many today by announcing that it is dropping wrestling as an Olympic sport for the 2020 Games. Instead, they will add golf. That’s right, they are dropping one of the original Olympic sports that go back to the inaugural modern Olympics in Athens in 1896 and one of the few sports traced back to ancient Greece. However, we will keep synchronized swimming and Rhythmic Gymnastic routines with ribbons and hoops.
French police are facing a bit of challenge in determining who to arrest in a series of rapes in Marseille. They have the DNA and eye-witness testimony to identify the rapist. However, when they move in to arrest the man they found two men — identical twins. Standard DNA analysis could not distinguish between the 24-year-old men and the witnesses, including a 76-year-old woman, could not determine which was the actual culprit between Yohan and Elwin.
Many of us who love to visit the Smithsonian’s Udvar-Hazy Air and Space annex in Chantilly often complain about the high $15 parking fee required of visitors (who have no choice but to park at the site. Now, it appears that more than $1.5 million was skimmed off by the booth personnel working for PMI Corporation. Freweyni Mebrahtu, 46, was sentenced to two years and three months in prison for her part in the conspiracy last week. Notably, Mebrahtu insisted that she never stole during the Muslim holy days of Ramadan. It appears that she considered that to be proof of being a moral person.
This video of a San Bernardino police officer circling and confronting a woman hiking in the desert has raised the anger of many about the increasing intrusion of police surveillance and operations. The officer lands his helicopter and confronts the woman without any evidence of reasonable suspicion, let alone probable cause.
Continue reading “Video: Police Officer Lands Helicopter To Confront And Search Hiker”
In Torrance, California, two women delivering newspapers were shot by LAPD officers looking for triple murder suspect Christopher Dorner. Maggie Carranza, 47, and her 71-year-old mother Emma Hernandez looked nothing like the African-American male suspect but police insisted that they were driving a Toyota Tundra pickup truck similar to Dorner’s truck.
By Mark Esposito, Guest Blogger
Author’s note: This is the sixth installment in a series about the child sexual abuse scandal at The Pennsylvania State University that helped bring down iconic football coach Joe Paterno and three top officials at the premier public college in Pennsylvania.
The Paterno family has released their long unawaited report critiquing the Freeh report entitled appropriately, CRITIQUE OF THE FREEH REPORT: THE RUSH TO INJUSTICE REGARDING JOE PATERNO. Commissioned by the family through the mega-law firm of King & Spalding, the report on”The Freeh Report” (sometimes called the Special Investigative Counsel’s (SIC) report) predictably castigates Former FBI Director Louie Freeh for using “Rank speculation. Innuendo. [and] Subjective opinions.” to form the basis of his conclusion that Papa Bear Paterno knew quite a bit more about Jerry Sandusky’s sexual proclivities than he let on and actively participated in a cover up of monumental proportions. In contrast, Joe Paterno is pictured as a fine man undone by an unfair, inaccurate report that read more like “an indictment” cooked up with the “unchecked power of a prosecutor, and [that] delivered unsupported but headline grabbing theories as fact.”
The wake from the scandal has toppled one university president, the athletic director, and an athletic department that rode football like a bucking horse. The key points made by the Paterno family lawyers are that:
Continue reading “Down In The Valley VI: The Paterno Family’s Report On The Freeh Report [UPDATED]”
By Mark Esposito, Guest Blogger
Bill Maher’s caustic but hilarious shtick may have landed him $5 million dollars worth of trouble. Appearing on Jay Leno’s The Tonight Show, the comic best known for his HBO series, Real Time With Bill Maher, laughingly “offered” a cool 5 extra-large to charity if perpetually hair-challenged, right-wing real estate mogul, Donald Trump, publicly coughed up his birth certificate. Saying he was reasonably sure that Trump was the “spawn of his mother having sex with orangutan,” Maher asked to see the document then pledged to pay five charities of The Donald’s choosing. Trump, who is no stranger to “birther” strategies, had famously offered to pay the exact sum to charity if President Obama produced his college records and passport application.
Continue reading “Bill Maher’s Gambit Or Why Donald Trump Loves Lucy”
Laura Murphy wants people to know that she is no book burner . . . just a book banner. The Fairfax County mother of four has been campaigning to ban the Pulitzer-prize-winning American novel “Beloved” from the school system due to its depictions of bestiality, rape, and murder. She says that her teenage son read the book as a senior in his Advanced Placement English class and was traumatized with nightmares as a result. Now she wants to ban the book for any child to read.
This happy mugshot shows Jeanette Holt, 25, after her arrest. If the criminal allegation against her is the truth, she is truly a piece of work. Chicago police accuse Holt of lying to police that her baby was taken when her car was stolen on Chicago’s South Side. Police launched a major hunt for the baby only to find out later that Hold allegedly lied because she wanted her car found.
Many citizens have said that they have been raped by the IRS, but Vincent Burroughs, of Fall Creek, Ore., means it a bit more literally. He insists that he was coerced into sex against his will by IRS agent Dora Abrahamson, who allegedly threatened him with heaving tax fines unless he slept with her.
This is a problem that you don’t encounter everyday in court. Matthew Brunelli, 23, is being prosecuted for aggravated-assault for allegedly punching John “Big Red” Huttick so hard in the left eye during a bar fight in August 2011 that the eye had to be surgically removed. Big Red was on the stand tearfully recounting the fight when his glass eye popped out and he caught it in his hand in front of jurors. Common Pleas Judge Robert P. Coleman granted a defense motion for a new trial given the expected prejudice caused by the scene against Brunelli.