The second highest Episcopal minister in Maryland, Bishop Suffragan Heather Cook, is under fire for an alleged fatal hit-and-run. Cook hit bicyclist Tom Palermo, 41, on a sunny Saturday afternoon, and left the father of two young children dying of a head wound on the side of the road. She returned 20 minutes later.
Continue reading “Heather Cook, Maryland’s First Female Bishop, Accused of Fatal Hit-and-Run”
During the coverage of the Ferguson protests, activist Joshua Williams, 19, became something of a celebrity as an advocate for peaceful protests. He was profiled by MSNBC and shown walking hand-in-hand with Cornel West. Williams was the counter image of the violent protesters who burned and looted Ferguson. However, this week, Williams was charged for setting fire to a convenience store during those very protests — a crime that police say he confessed to in a videotaped interview. It is sad development for a young man who garnered national attention for his work as a protest leader.
When I was in Chicago this week for Christmas, Brian Barker, 41, was all over the news. The Edwardsville police officer is accused of being a serial burglar, including break ins while on duty. He seems wanting as a police officer but as a crook he is even worse. They found stolen items in his home and there is a security tape reportedly of him burglarizing one of the locations. The end came fittingly at the Reality Salon and Spa for Barker.
Continue reading “Reality Check: Illinois Police Officer Arrested As Allegedly Serial Burglar”
If you gave a Barbie to a child in France, you might want to check the box. The French feminist group FièrEs secretly inserted pamphlets into hundreds of barbie toys and plastic guns reading “this toy is sexist. They stressed that “We have caused no damage or ripped any plastic. We simply slipped the message in boxes, or in books.” Of course, there is the injury to families who do not want to expose their children to the rantings of an extreme group that wants to use their children to make some point of social protest.
Cameron Shenk, 26, presents what can only be described as a tough defense case. A woman was in a bathroom stall in Terminal C of the Logan Airport in Boston when Shenk reportedly fell through the ceiling naked. It went from bad to worse from that point on.
Charles DiRosa, 27, has been criminally charged in Chicopee, Massachusetts after he posted “Put Wings on Pigs” to Facebook. It was a despicable act after the murder of two New York police officers, but in my view it was protected speech.
Continue reading “Massachusetts Man Arrested For Posting “Put Wings On Pigs” On Facebook”
We previously discussed how a Chinese zoo displayed a lion that caused a bit of a commotion when it suddenly barked. The zoo could to afford a lion so it made a large dog into a lion. An Italian circus in Brescia has proven even more daring – and dishonest. It dyed two chow-chow dogs to pretend that they were pandas. It did not seem odd to many people that a small zoo would have not one but two of the endangered animals.
Continue reading “Italian Circus Owner Charged After Dyeing Two Dogs To Pass Off As Pandas”
Brian Chellis, 23, has some serious naughty issues to address back at the home office. When police responded to a DUI call at 3 am, they found a gray Toyota van next to the loading dock of a Target store with its engine running, lights on, and music blaring. Inside, they found Chellis was dressed as an elf on a shelf and allegedly loaded smelling of a bit too much of the old holiday nog. Chellis was asleep at the wheel.
Continue reading “Bad Elf: New Jersey Man Arrested For DUI While Dressed As Elf On A Shelf”
A Philadelphia Fire Department paramedic is under fire for posting this picture with the caption: “Our real enemy.” The caption also said “Need 2 stop pointing guns at each other & at the ones that’s legally killing innocents.” Marcell Salters has also published highly antagonistic language toward police officers. He has since apologized but some have called for his punishment or termination. In the meantime, New York Mayor Bill de Blasio is under attack after Ismaaiyl Brinsley effectively executed two police officers over his anger with the recent decisions by grand juries in Missouri and New York. police have been protesting what they view as de Blasio’s unfair portrayals of police after the decision, including turning their backs on the mayor when he came to give a press conference on the murders.
Respectfully submitted by Lawrence E. Rafferty (rafflaw)- Weekend Contributor
It should not surprise any of the regular visitors to this blog that I have written many articles detailing the abuses of many of the Big Banks and the resulting fines that they have paid on multiple occasions. When a taxpayer reads about Billion dollar settlements being paid by Banks and financial companies as a result of a Justice Department investigation, they probably assume that the entire amount of the fine is being paid.
Those very same taxpayers may be surprised to learn that in many cases, the Banks are able to deduct from their taxes up to 75% of the fines and settlements made with the Justice Department. Continue reading “Just How Much of Big Bank Fines Are Actually Paid and Who Profits?”
Mexico is fixated on an extraordinary murder case involving psychologist María Alejandra Lafuente Caso, 40. Lafuente Caso is accused of drugging, murdering, and chopping up the body of her husband Allan Carrera Cuellar, 41. She has claimed spousal abuse as a defense.
Meet Genard Trey Dupree, 27, and Tarus Bernard Scott, 30. These two men are accused of not just stealing almost $400 worth of items from a Wal-Mart in Lake Wales, Florida but using a fake heart attack to distract customers. I am not sure what is more depressing, these two thieves preying on decent people who want to help a stricken man or the fact that very few people actually stopped in the video below. The men stole a motorized Barbie Power Wheels, a Barbie vacation house, and a LeapFrog tablet
Police are looking for these two women who used the stolen credit cards of another woman to rack up more than $8,500 in gift cards in eight minutes in Rockville, Maryland. The women casually went into a Target store and allegedly spent thousands before strolling out of the store. However, this time the police say that they have very good pictures of the culprits.
Below is my column that ran today in the USA Today. It ran earlier on the web and this is a slightly expanded version of the piece on the spat of apologies around the country.
Continue reading “Collegia Apologia: Academic Apologies Abound In The Aftermath Of Ferguson”
I have long argued in my column as well as numerous blog postings that our country is legally bound to prosecute people responsible for ordering torture during the Bush Administration. There is no question that water boarding is torture as recognized by President Obama, Attorney General Holder, the United Nations and virtually every expert in this field. However, while you may want to try to rewrite legal precedent (as did John Yoo and Jay Bybee in their infamous Torture Memos), you should not try to rewrite history. That is what former Vice President Dick Cheney appears to be doing this month. He told Chuck Todd on Sunday that we never prosecuted anyone for water boarding — an assertion that I and others have repeatedly raised over the years. The statement is simply false and adds historical revisionism to legal revisionism in our sordid foray into torture.
Continue reading “Cheney Offers Tortured View of History In Defending Waterboarding”