The intense animosity between Israel and its Arab neighbors was put into sharp relief last week when a simple selfie at a beauty pageant triggered a full fledged criminal investigation. Miss Israel Doron Matalon (first from left) snapped a selfie at the pageant and posted it. Someone noticed that the smiling contestant next to her was Saly Griege, this year’s Miss Lebanon (second from left). The reaction was seismic and sad. It appears that fraternization, like beauty, remains in the eye of the beholder.
We often discuss the short time allowed to react in auto accidents and this video illustrates the point. In this case, the accident may be part of the result of the recent black ice conditions in New Jersey where a rapid and sudden freeze led to multiple deaths in various states.
Continue reading “Video Captures Black Ice Accident Of Truck On Interstate In New Jersey”
I have previously written about the waste of billions of dollars by the government without any significant discipline of government officials. We have become accustomed to reports of unimaginable corruption and waste in Afghanistan from bags of money delivered to officials to constructing huge buildings immediately torn down to buying aircraft that cannot be used. Much like our useless campaign against poppy production where we continued to spend billions because no one had the courage to end or change the program. We now have another such example from Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) John Sopko about a $500,000 facility that was built and just left to “melt away” within four months of being built. Of course, contractors and corrupt Afghan officials have made huge amounts of money from such waste. Billions have disappeared while our own science, educational, and infrastructure programs are being cut. The flow of U.S. money however has not ended. After a trillion dollars, our government is on course to spend billions more in the country.
There is an interesting case developing in California over an alleged serial killer that has prowled around a neighborhood for years. The alleged culprit is Jaxson, a female eight-foot alligator believed to be 40 years old, that was kept illegally by a Van Nuys family without a permit. The “Anatomy of a Murder” aspect of the case comes in with the findings of the police in the hidden box of Jaxson — two dead cats. The police are asking neighbors to report other missing cats. I am sure it was unintentional but one article reported the suspicion about missing cats before adding “[t]he house is a family residence with multiple occupants, but no children were found there.” I do not think Jaxson is to blame.
Continue reading “Corpus Felis: Police Discover Eight-Foot Alligator Hidden In Home With Dead Cats”
A new study in the journal Science suggests that humanity is on the very of causing “a major extinction event” in our oceans while another study has found that 2014 was the hottest year in 135 years of record keeping. In the meantime, Pope Francis has again raised climate change and called environmental destruction a “sin” and affront to God.
Tyndale House, a major Christian publisher, has announced that it will stop selling “The Boy Who Came Back From Heaven,” by Alex Malarkey and his father, Kevin Malarkey. It turns out that the book is a bunch of . . . well . . . malarkey. Published in 2010, the book is an account of how Alex fell into a coma when he was six years old that lasted for two months. Alex said that during the coma he went to heaven and encountered the angelic aftermath awaiting the faithful. Alex however has now recanted the book and said that none of the heavenly account is true. Tyndale House has announced that it will no longer print the book.
Continue reading “Malarkey: The Boy Who [Did Not Come] Back From Heaven”
By: Cara L. Gallagher, weekend contributor
In one of the opening scenes in Selma, Ava DuVernay’s depiction of Dr. King’s quest for legislation that would end decades of disenfranchisement in the American South, Oprah plays a woman jammed up by Black codes prevalent in the South in 1965. A voter registrar quizzes her with questions that neither she nor any educated person of the time could possibly answer. She fails his test and is once again denied the right to register to vote. Right away we learn Selma is clearly not just a biographical film about Dr. King and other Civil Rights legends like Congressmen John Lewis, but also about the pain, shame, and violence endured by these men and women to get the Voting Rights Act of 1965 passed.
A group of fellow history teachers and I went to see an early release of Selma last week. I had mixed feelings about it. Continue reading “Selma’s error of omission: The specter of Shelby County”
Respectfully submitted by Lawrence E. Rafferty (rafflaw) Weekend Contributor
It is always tragic when anyone is killed. It doesn’t matter if it is accidental or intentional. The tragedy of someone dying is universal. However, when the person killed by a Cleveland Police Officer is a 12-year-old, tragic just doesn’t seem to describe it correctly. You will probably recall the recent case out of Cleveland, Ohio where 12-year-old Tamir Rice was killed by Officer Timothy Loehmann.
Tamir Rice was shot while playing in a Cleveland park. A citizen called 911 and suggested that a juvenile was pointing a gun, which was probably a toy, at people in the park. When Officer Loehmann and his partner answered the call they saw Tamir playing on a swing with the “weapon” in the waistband of his pants. Released videos suggested that Officer Loehmann fired at Tamir within 1-2 seconds of arriving at the park. That same video evidence also shows police throwing Tamir’s 14-year-old sister to the ground and handcuffing her.
When I first heard about the November 22nd, 2014 incident, I was shocked that a 12 year could be gun downed by a police officer. Even the recent stories about the police killing suspects in New Mexico, Missouri, New York City, to name a few, did not prepare me for this killing. Tamir was a 12-year-old child.
When the videos came out and when the truth about Officer Loehmann surfaced, I realized that Officer Loehmann was unfit for duty as a police officer anywhere and the Cleveland Police Department was negligent in hiring an unstable young man to patrol its streets. The decision to hire Officer Loehmann initiated the sad outcome in November. Continue reading “The Sad and Negligent Decision to Hire Officer Timothy Loehmann”
By Darren Smith, Weekend Contributor
A Manatee County Florida Sheriff’s Detective solved what could have been one of the greatest heists of recent memory.
Crime solver, Detective Todd Zink, caught a recently released inmate red handed; saving John Q. Taxpayer and the state treasury a tidy fortune.
Suspecting that this sly cad might have lifted something before she was released from jail, Detective Zink showed an impressive level of clairvoyance when his tough, streetwise diligence tracked her down before she could fence the loot to the underworld. The theft of this treasure, as with other fine works of art and antiquities to the illicit international art market, would represent an unparalleled loss to the culture of our great republic.
We invite you to read on, for another exciting chapter of Detective Zink, the Eliot Ness of Florida.
Continue reading “CRIME OF THE CENTURY FOILED BY INTREPID FLORIDA DETECTIVE”
By Darren Smith, Weekend Contributor
The Justice Department announced a new policy directive issued by Attorney General Eric Holder prohibiting the practice of the federal government adopting local asset forfeiture cases to the federal level. Adoption allows local law enforcement agencies the ability to utilize broad and powerful federal forfeiture and seizure laws that offer greater ability to take assets than what similar state laws would provide.
This comes as a reversal of a decades old policy of “Equitable Sharing” where the federal government would allow local law enforcement agencies the ability to use federal agencies and law to take assets in situations where state law would not permit such seizures.
The former policy had essentially the effect of hiring out the federal government in exchange for a “piece of the action.” The US would retain twenty percent of the assets and remand the remaining eighty percent to the states. With the exception of seizures relating to “public safety” such as firearms and explosives cases, this new policy change effectively could shut the door on what has been widely criticized to be a form corruptive abuse against citizens.
Continue reading “U.S. Attorney General Halts Controversial Asset Forfeiture Program”
By Darren Smith, Weekend Contributor
Only several days after world leaders converged on Paris to express solidarity with the French People and remorse for the victims’ families of recent terrorist attacks there, Turkish President Recip Erdoğan provided the world another gaffe that nested between the bizarre and the mysterious.
Though Turkey’s Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu attended the memorial led by numerous heads of state in a parade rally, a significant step backwards occurred when President Erdoğan later proclaimed that Muslims have never taken part in terrorist massacres.
By Darren Smith, Weekend Contributor
In a sign of additional international scrutiny to come for the conflicts within the areas administered by the Palestinian Authority, the International Criminal Court (ICC) received a declaration on January 1st granting the ICC jurisdiction within Palestine. Following this, and the behest of the PA, the ICC Prosecutor opened an examination into the events occurring within PA administered territories.
This scary video captures how little time a driver can have in avoiding a wreck when a tire flies over a median at the approaching car. We often deal with accidents in torts but it is hard for a jury to sometimes understand the very limited time for reaction. Indeed, one of the tricks of litigators is to give a sense of greater time by breaking up the period in a series of decisions or actions.
Continue reading “Driver Captures Moment of Collision With Flying Tire”
George Washington Law School (where I teach) has been accused of “downright predatory” tactics by the Associate Dean for Faculty and Academic Affairs in its acceptance of transfer students from American law school. The tension caused by transfers has increased during a period of reduced applications. Not only are schools fighting over a small applicant pool, but transfer students are effectively “off the books” for the purposes of reported GPA and LSAT rankings used by U.S. News and World Report. Thus, schools are more inclined to accept a transfer student in the second year (when scores are not reported) than when they first applied as first-year students.
As a Bears fan, I am used to turnover passes at critical moments but this is ridiculous. Kissimmee (Florida) officer Christopher Breuer was trying to pull over a gold Acura at 2 am after the car allegedly slammed into his cruiser. However, the car kept going after Breuer put on the lights. Trailing the car with this spotlight on the occupants, he then saw the sun roof open and a hand threw out a bag of cocaine . . . which landed on the hood of his police cruiser. Luis Vazquez, 30, (left) and driver Jose Vales, 38,(right) are now under arrest.