A disturbing lawsuit has been filed against the Baltimore County Police Department by Linda Johnson over the death of her husband, Architect Carl D. Johnson on May 27, 2010. Johnson was pepper sprayed, tasered, and beaten before his death on the way home from Bible study class.
In May 2009, a mentally disturbed man, James Bayliss, then 21, was beaten at a traffic stop in Warren County, New Jersey. While the family and other demanded answers, the police said little. Now, a long withheld police video has surfaced that shows troopers severely beating Bayliss who was thrown to the ground and pummeled by multiple officers. Critics are now demanding to know why the film was withheld and why the actions taken by the police was also withheld from the public.
Angel Dillard insists that she is merely a God-fearing woman doing the work of the Almighty. That is her defense after being sued after sending a threatening letter to Wichita doctor Dr. Mila Means. She insists that her threats were “divinely inspired” and thus protected by the first amendment.
In a letter sent last night, the Director of the Idaho State Liquor Division agreed to lift the ban on special orders of Five Wives Vodka after barring sales of the product by Ogden’s Own Distillery as offensive to Mormons. In the letter below, John Anderson apologizes for his past statements and those of his agency in an effort to avoid the litigation announced by my office earlier. We will be watching the reconsideration of the general listing application closely in July. We will keep the team intact during this period. In the meantime, bars in Idaho can order the product through special orders — an inconvenient but hopefully a temporary process.
Continue reading “Idaho Lifts Ban On Five Wives Vodka And Apologizes For Prior Statements”
For years, the United States has danced around the fact that it has repeatedly enter the sovereign territory of other countries with drone attacks and in some cases small unit attacks without the permission of countries like Pakistan. Such acts violate international law and would be viewed by the United States as an act of war if committed on U.S. territory. This week,Defense Secretary Leon Panetta finally responded directly to those objections and said that the attacks would continue unabated. Panetta essentially stated that we can invade other nations because we can and that countries will have to come to accept that — using the same concept as “floggings will continue on ship until morale improves.”
Continue reading “Panetta: The Drone Strikes Will Continue Until Morale Improves”
It is not clear which actress Amanda Bynes is in greater need of: basic driving or constitutional law lessons. After being arrested for drunk driving, Bynes took to Twitter to ask that President Barack Obama “fire the cop who arrested me.” While Obama may be willing to break away from an emerging civil war in Syria and a worsening economy to address the pressing problems of the starlet, he may find it difficult to fire the officer who is a state employee. However, according to the Justice Department, he does have the ability to declare the officer a threat to the nation and have him summarily executed. After all, if arresting a starlet is not an act of terrorism in our celebrity-driven society, I do not know what is.
Continue reading “Actress Asks Obama To Fire Officer Who Arrested Her For Alleged DUI Violation”
This morning, the Idaho Attorney General and Director of the Idaho State Liquor Division was informed that Ogden’s Own Distillery has retained my services to challenge the decision to block sales of “Five Wives Vodka” in Idaho. The businesses in Idaho were denied the right to “special order” the vodka because it was viewed as offensive to the large Mormon population in the state. The state also denied “general listing” to allow stores to sell the product. As on our other cases, I have to be circumspect on what I can say about the case in light of the pending litigation.
Continue reading “Utah Distillery To Challenge Idaho Ban On “Five Wives Vodka””
It is apparently not a good argument to compare contracting herpes to spilled coffee. It took just two hours for a jury to find a 69-year-old Oregon dentist liable for giving a nurse herpes. It was however the attorneys arguments in court that raises eyebrows. Defense attorney Shawn Lillegren attacked the nurse as a liar who said that she was just trying to be the next spilled coffee litigant to win the litigation lottery and that she needs to grow up. If so, she got it. The jury awarded her the full amount demanded in damages: $900,000 for her pain and suffering
The bookstore chain Barnes and Noble issued a rather belated apology to Dr. Omar Amin, 73, of Scottsdale, after he was thrown out of a children’s book section in Arizona. He was told that men are not allowed to be in the children’s section unless they are accompanied by a minor. That’s right. He was told that as a man he was viewed as a danger if reading alone in the section.
As a columnist for USA Today, there are times when I simply burst with pride over the association. That feeling occurred today when I heard that Donald Trump had publicly canceled his USA Today subscription.
Continue reading “Trump Dumps USA Today — Instantly Elevating Newspaper’s Standing”
While the Obama Administration continues its crackdown on marijuana, including medical marijuana, New York City is joining other jurisdictions in the decriminalization of possession of small quantities of pot. Last year, NYPD made 50,000 arrests for such small quantities of pot. The welcomed change further detaches the federal crackdown on marijuana from public opinion if not reality.
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According to Reddit, this song was written by Kate Brady and Nissa Jane for a graduation ceremony this month. The video is positively dreadful but the song and the voice is simply remarkable and I wanted to share it.
Continue reading “One More Reason To Go To Your Commencement: Meet Kate Brady and Nissa Jane”
This report in Haaretz details a highly disturbing account of how Israel’s Shin Bet security service interrogated American citizens with Arab backgrounds for hours and demanded access to their personal email accounts at Ben Gurion Airport. After spending a night in custody, they were denied entry into Israel in May. If these accounts are true, why has there been no formal and public objection from the Obama Administration?
The celebration of the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee was filled with traditions going back hundreds of years — including, it appears, the use of serfs. The Guardian is reporting that the government bused in dozens of unemployed citizens to work at the Jubilee from out of town and then directed them to sleep under the London Bridge without access to bathrooms or changing areas. It was a good ole fashioned Jubilee with a diamond-encrusted sovereign floating by in splendor with yeomen and “villeins” working in their menial existence. Some radicals (and suspected Jacobites) are questioning the conditions for the workers and calling for an investigation.
We have another preacher who is holding forth on homosexuality with some pretty shocking rhetoric. Dennis Leatherman of the Mountain Lake Independent Baptist Church in Oakland, Maryland can claim to be more merciful because, while he says that he positively aches to kill gays “in a fleshy way,” he cannot actually kill because of the Bible. That means that he cannot build the death camps of Rev. Worley — as much as he might want to.
Continue reading “Leatherman: I Long To Kill Gays “In A Fleshy Way””