We recently discussed the homicidal hunk from ISIS who is all the rage with Muslim women looking for a husband to watch martyred. The extremist Sunni movement has been reaching out to Westerners to join their self-declared caliphate and thousands have reportedly responded. Now even more disturbing pictures have been posted with a father from Australia having his seven-year-old son holding up a severed head in celebration and a former British rapper (right) doing the same. Beheadings are viewed by ISIS as a traditional Islamic form of execution and a type of macabre celebration of their view of Islam. Severed heads feature prominently on ISIS (or Islamic State) social media postings.
Shawna Lynn Palmer, 22, dreamed of being a beauty queen may have ended in jail after she was arrested for alleged worker’s compensation fraud following the posting of video showing her competing in high heels despite her claim of an debilitating foot injury as a grocery clerk at Stater Bros. She appeared in the 2014 Miss Toyota Long Beach Grand Prix pageant. Toyota’s new slogan is “Let’s Go Places” but I think that is not exactly what Palmer had in mind.
We are leaving Cape Cod today (a bit early due to the arrival of thunderstorms) and we had a wonderful time in this extraordinarily beautiful spot. (As usual, I used my iPhone for pictures with varying success but the lighthouse taken from the boat turned out pretty good).
The Woodward family may need to add a keg to their family crest. Three members of the family — Nicholas (right), 19, Joshua (left), 22 and father Brian, 46 — were all arrested on the same day in Vermont on separate incidents of driving under the influence. Perhaps we could call this an intervention for the family? The successive arrests occurred when family members allegedly drove drunk to the scene of an accident involving the first family member.
Continue reading “Family Affair: Three Members of Vermont Family Arrested On Same Day For DUI”
And you thought the Redskins controversy was bad.
There are reports this week is of a bizarre confrontation where the Simon Wiesenthal Centre has asked the French government to rename a small village in central France that is currently called “Death to Jews” (La Mort aux Juifs). However, the town is resisting the efforts to change the name that dates back to the 11th Century.
The anti-homosexual movement in Kenya continues this week with an infamous bill that would reportedly allow foreign homosexual people stoned to death in public. The law would allow such executions for foreigners who commit one homosexual act while imposing a life sentence on Kenyan nationals.
Eun-jong Lee, 47, a visiting professor of Human Ecology Design at Cornell University has been arrested after he allegedly groped a sleeping woman’s breast on a flight from Tokyo to Newark, New Jersey. He has been charged with abusive sexual contact, a felony carrying a maximum two-year prison term and a $250,000 fine.
Hillary Clinton seems to have found a way to get people from moving beyond her disastrous “dead broke” claims, but not in a way that is likely to please those voters tired of wars and military interventions. Clinton used an interview this week to criticize the “failure” of President Obama’s policies in Syria and to insist that she wanted a more interventionist military approach. President Obama was quoted responding to such criticism by calling it “horseshit.” It seemed a return to the 2008 election where Clinton campaigned on her hawk credentials in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars — a mistake for many Democratic and independent voters. Recently, she changed her mind and said that the Iraq War was a mistake despite her refusal to listen to a chorus of critics of the war at the time when it was a popular political move. Despite that change, Clinton is suggesting that she would have armed the Syrian rebels and acted more aggressively to stop the Islamic State.
Continue reading “Hillary Clinton Criticizes Obama’s Foreign Policies”
U.S. District Court Judge Mark Fuller, 55, has been arrested and released on a $5,000 bond after being accused of hitting his wife, Kelli Fuller. He was arrested at the Ritz-Carlton hotel in downtown Atlanta.
Continue reading “Federal Judge Mark Fuller Arrested After Alleged Spousal Abuse”
Attorney Becky Keil made news in May after claiming to have been kidnapped. She has now been charged with making up the story and is facing one count of attempting to influence a public servant and two counts of false reporting to authorities.
Continue reading “Colorado Attorney Charged With False Kidnapping Report”
Iran’s parliament has continued to follow the religious dictates of the supreme leader Ayatollah Ali no matter how bizarre or repressive. So, when Khamenei ordered people to procreate “strengthen national identity” and counter “undesirable aspects of western lifestyles,” the parliament responded by banning permanent forms of birth control like vasectomies and tubal ligations while also banning advertising of birth control in the country.
Continue reading “Iran Bans Permanent Forms of Contraception and Advertising of Birth Control”
Today the family and I are leaving Boston after three days of enjoying this great city. I spoke at the ABA conference and we decided to turn the trip into a family vacation. We are going to go from here to Cape Cod to whale watch and enjoy the ocean. For me, the highlight was visiting the North End and Little Italy yesterday. We caught various marching bands and had some great food.
There is another disturbing story involving the police seizure of cameras of a scene of alleged police abuse. The arrest of a homeless man was caught on camera in Antioch, California. The arrest turned violent and some accused the police of abuse on the man who appeared mentally disturbed. Regardless of the merits of those allegations, police then added to the controversy by demanding that witnesses turn over their cameras.
I ran over a story today from earlier this year that raises some disturbing questions about the ability of some police departments to police themselves. Florida Highway Patrol Trooper Donna Jane Watts has sued over harassment that she encountered after pulling over another officer for speeding. A video shows Watts arresting Miami Police department officer Fausto Lopez after she was able to pull him over for speeding at 120 mph. Lopez promptly explained that he was late for an off-duty job. As a result of the arrest, other officers allegedly harassed Watts for stopping a fellow officer in the commission of a crime.
The Congressional Research Service (CRS) has issued a report that informed Congress that it has created 439 new criminal offenses between 2008 and 2013. This staggering figure gives a glimpse into the rapid criminalization of America where there are, by some estimates, around 4,500 federal offenses alone and tens of thousands of more on the state and federal levels. Politicians continue to add crimes, which tend to be popular with voters and do not require immediate budget demands (though they add huge costs not just in enforcement but the costs of citizens themselves in being pulled into the criminal justice system).
Continue reading “CRS: Congress Added 439 New Crimes Between 2008 to 2013”