Police in New York have arrested Zvi Shor, 64, the founder of the National Children’s Leukemia Foundation (NCLF). He is accused of a truly despicable fraud. The New York Attorney General’s office alleges that roughly 83 percent of the nearly $10 million that the NCLF raised from 2009 to 2013 was paid to professional fundraisers and less than one percent— $57,541— went to direct assistance for leukemia patients. Shor, whose son died of leukemia, has previously been accused of fraud. He was convicted of felony bank fraud in the Eastern District of New York in 1999.
Category: Society
We have yet another case of a police or security officer threatening a citizen for recording an encounter. The videotape below was taken by a young man who filmed the putdown of his father at the New Orleans airport. The supervisor warns the young man that he will be arrested for filming the public scene.
Continue reading “Video: TSA Supervisor Threatens Young Man Filming the Patdown Of His Father”
I have been a critic of aspects of the case against former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich. Blagojevich, 58, was convicted of 18 counts of corruption and given a 14-year sentence. The most problematic charge in my view concerned Blagojevich’s wheeling and dealing for the appointment of a successor to fill the 2008 vacant U.S. Senate seat of then-President-Elect Barack Obama. Now a panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit has overturned five of the counts specifically dealing with that vacancy controversy.
Continue reading “Seventh Circuit Overturns Five Counts From Blagojevich Conviction”
Television personality Kelly Siegler is under fire this month for what critics are saying is a history of unethical conduct as a prosecutor, including the hiding of evidence in capital punishment cases. After a career as a Harris County prosecutor, Siegler became the star in a reality series on TNT called Cold Justice, now in its third season. Siegler’s allegedly checkered history as a prosecutor is reminiscent of the controversy surrounding Nancy Grace, who was denounced an an unethical prosecutor who violated the rights of accused persons but has been retained by CNN as a show host and legal commentator.
Saudi Arabia has given the world another bizarre example of life under the strict Islamic code and values of the Kingdom. The Talaee Al-Noor International School in Riyadh painted an inviting and playful rainbow image on its building. The Kingdom’s religious police quickly swooped in an arrested the administrator, fined the school $25,000, and ordered the facade painted over. The reason? Rainbows are seen as “emblems Of homosexuality.” It is not clear what the religious police will do with naturally occurring rainbows.
Retired general and former Democratic presidential candidate Wesley Clark has caused a stir with an interview with MSNBC in which he appeared to call for the establishment of World War II-style internment camps to be revived for “disloyal Americans.” Clark used the infamous American internment camps for Japanese, German, and Italian Americans as a model: “if someone supported Nazi Germany at the expense of the United States, we didn’t say that was freedom of speech, we put him in a camp, they were prisoners of war.”
Continue reading “Wesley Clark Calls For New American Internment Camps”
The arrest of Brandon Hayes, 30, in Rhode Island may have seemed like a routine traffic stop and possession case until police officers checked his record. Hayes had succeeded in racking up his 41st arrest in two states. That is 38 arrests in Massachusetts and two in Rhode Island including gun and drug charges. The case is a prototypical example of habitual offender in the criminal justice system.
Continue reading “Rhode Island Man Arrested For 41st Offense In Two States”
It is hard to believe that it has been a year since the murder of Florida State University law professor Dan Markel on July 18, 2014. There has been no arrests in the case but this week the police released a picture of the car that they believe may have been involved in the crime.
The extensive move to remove the Confederate Flag from public and some commercial settings has raised serious concerns over both free speech and academic freedom. While the flag has been used as a racist symbol, it is also a historical symbol. According to one author, that distinction appears to have been lost by Amazon, which reportedly took done the book by Michael Dreese, a civil war author with six books on the conflict. Two of those books concern both the Union and Confederate battle flags and their roles in the Civil War. However, “This Flag Never Goes Down” (a book on the Confederate flag) was taken down by Amazon from its listed works.
We have been following the controversy over people declaring “All Lives Matter,” which is now viewed as racially insensitive and a “micro aggression” against the black community. We recently discussed the heartfelt apology given by Kathleen McCartney, the president of prestigious Smith College after she said “all lives matters” rather than ‘Black lives matter.” Now Democratic presidential candidate Martin O’Malley has followed suit with his own apology for saying that “all lives matter” in a speech, which he was interrupted by black audience members booing and protesting.
Continue reading “O’Malley Latest To Apologize For Saying “All Lives Matter””
By Darren Smith, Weekend Contributor
An interesting situation has developed in an Eastern Washington county where the public utility district is facing challenges to its electric system caused by the arrival of Bitcoin mining operations attracted to the area due to the low cost of power. The strain from these electricity data centers poses risks to both the cost of power to residents and might if left unabated pose a strategic cost to the credit rating of the utility itself, which will negatively affect the utility’s municipal bond rates for future expansions or debt retirements.
The allure of cheap power is leading to wildcat bitcoin mining that if unchecked could load the county’s power system at a greater level than that utilized by all the county’s electric users.
Continue reading “Wildcat Bitcoin Mining Centers Cause Problems For Utility District”
By Darren Smith, Weekend Contributor
A small measure of relief can be found in the return of several historical artifacts stolen from the Iraqi and Syrian people after plundering by ISIS.
The world has reacted with outrage and suffered the loss of historical treasures and landmarks at the hands of ISIS which has prided itself to be cleansing the region of a cultural history at odds to what the terrorist network considers to be non-conforming to its ideals. We featured such incidents HERE, HERE, HERE, and HERE.
The raid lends credence to evidence that ISIS is selling artifacts on the illicit antiquities market to raise funds for its operations.
Continue reading “U.S. Special Forces Return ISIS Plundered Relics To Iraq”
There is an interesting intrigue building of an employee suspected of being an undercover agent observing and recording events in the animal rights area. What is different is that the agent was not allegedly working for animal activists but SeaWorld. The People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) has identified a man that it says was a SeaWorld employee who took part in the group’s activities under the name of Thomas Jones. They say that he is actually Paul McComb, 28, who has held various jobs for SeaWorld including work as a human resources representative. SeaWorld has now put McComb on paid administrative leave pending findings of the investigation..
Continue reading “PETA Uncovers An Alleged SeaWorld Employee Who Worked Undercover For Years As Activist”
The Justice Department has lost a major case where it sought to bar efforts to determine if a convicted rapist is in fact innocent. The Obama Administration argued in United States v. Watson that Bill Watson should not be able to use a new DNA test that was not available when he was convicted of a rape in 2006. Despite dozens of cases where convicted individuals were proven innocent, the Obama Administration fought to prevent the use of this test even though the Innocence Project offered to shoulder all of the costs. The position of the Justice Department was inimical to the values of due process and the rule of law, in my view. The United States Court of Appeal for the Ninth Circuit rejected the highly technical claims that neither Watson nor the court should knew the true identity of source of key evidence found at the crime scene.
We have previously discussed the disconnect in some individuals, particularly ISIS recruits, who live relatively normal lives in the West only to become suddenly radicalized and violent as Islamic extremists. Chattanooga gunman Muhammad Youssef Abdulazeez could be such a case, though police are still trying to confirm the motivation for the attacks. The attack has been labeled “domestic terrorism.” Abdulazeez, 24, murdered four Marines and wounded a police officer on Thursday in shootings at two military recruiting and training centers in Chattanooga, Tennessee. What is now known is that he posted a couple posts shortly before the attack discussing how Muslims should act in this short life and how they had to resist the corrupting influence of life around them in proving their faith.