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Transgender Congressional candidate arrested for selling a stolen ring

Stephanie Pagones and Larry Celona
New York Post
Wed, 14 Feb 2018 16:56 UTC
Juliet Germanotta
© John Roca
Juliet Germanotta
A congressional candidate from Wisconsin was busted by the NYPD in her home state when she tried to sell a ring she ripped off from a Manhattan jewelry store, police said Wednesday.

Juliet Germanotta - who in campaign literature vowed to keep the state "fiscally responsible by questioning expenses " - had ordered a $4,800, 18-karat yellow gold Zambian emerald and diamond ring from Mikaelians Jewelry on West 47th Street in Midtown on Sept. 19.

But Germanotta, 36, who describes herself as a "proud transgender woman," claimed the ring she received was not to her liking, and requested her money back from the store.

Instead of sending the real ring back, she sent the store a $10 replica - and sold the original, cops said.
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Handcuffs

Drunk American tourist assaults two officers outside of Buckingham Palace


The Guardian
Fri, 16 Feb 2018 16:48 UTC
Buckingham Palace
© Alamy
Ryan Robinson punched one of the officers in the face at least four times outside the palace, leaving him with bruising.
An American tourist assaulted two armed police officers outside Buckingham Palace after asking them if they knew any jokes, a court has heard.

Ryan Robinson, 36, of Hawaii, punched Ben Collins in the face at least four times and tried to grab his Taser electrical weapon on Wednesday evening.

When Simon Leckie tried to intervene, shouting "armed police, stand still" and pointing his weapon at Robinson, he knocked him to the ground.

He then pulled the two officers to their feet in "an extraordinary display of strength", said the prosecutor, Henry Fitch, before punching Collins again.

Robinson was heavily intoxicated and it required the help of several other officers before he could be restrained and arrested, Westminster magistrates court heard.
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Black Cat

Culture-clash: Nigerian immigrants in Italy under scrutiny for attempted dog-roasting, murder and sex-trafficking

Thomas D. Williams, Ph.D.
Breitbart
Fri, 16 Feb 2018 16:37 UTC
caged dogs
© AP Images for Humane Society International
Animal rights activists are up in arms over attempts to barbecue a dog at an immigrant welcome center in southern Italy, with migrants insisting the practice is normal where they come from.

Members of the Carabinieri, an Italian military police force, intervened immediately after receiving a call from an employee of the center who had witnessed the scene of a 29-year-old Nigerian man intent on roasting a dog at the center in Vibo Valentia, in the Italian region of Calabria.

The man had succeeded in skinning and chopping up the canine and was in the process of grilling it for himself and some friends when he was stopped by law enforcement officers. The young woman who called the police also volunteers at a pro-animal organization in the area.

Explaining to police that such a practice is "normal where we come from," the migrant insisted that he didn't kill the dog but had found it dead by the side of the road and had decided to grill it. He also pleaded ignorance of Italian laws forbidding eating cats and dogs.
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Arrow Down

Man who accused former Seattle Mayor of sexual abuse found dead of apparent drug overdose

Lewis Kamb
The Seattle Times
Sat, 17 Feb 2018 04:36 UTC
Delvonn Heckard
© Steve Ringman/The Seattle Times
Delvonn Heckard, the Kent man who sued Seattle Mayor Ed Murray for sexual abuse, was found dead early Friday of an apparent drug overdose in an Auburn motel, his lawyer said.

Delvonn Heckard had been in recovery for addiction to cocaine and other illicit drugs when he sued Ed Murray, alleging the former Seattle mayor had repeatedly paid him for sex in the late 1980s when he was a teenager.

Delvonn Heckard, the Kent man whose sexual abuse lawsuit against Seattle Mayor Ed Murray last year prompted other allegations to come to light - eventually leading to Murray's resignation - was found dead early Friday of an apparent drug overdose in an Auburn motel.

"In my opinion, a hero died today," attorney Lincoln Beauregard said Friday morning.

The King County Medical Examiner's Office confirmed Heckard's death on Friday afternoon, noting the official cause and manner of his death are pending.

Comment: More on Seattle's former Mayor Ed Murray:

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Handcuffs

Mother faces life in prison for the torture and death of her 8-year-old son

Frank Miles
Fox News
Fri, 16 Feb 2018 16:31 UTC
Gabriel Fernandez and Pearl Fernandez

Gabriel Fernandez and Pearl Fernandez
The mother of an 8-year-old California boy who was routinely beaten, starved and tortured until he died has pleaded guilty to a murder charge.

City News Service reported Thursday that, under the terms of a plea agreement, Pearl Fernandez is expected to be sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for the 2013 death of Gabriel Fernandez.

The 34-year-old Fernandez pleaded guilty to first-degree murder and admitted a special-circumstance allegation of murder involving torture. Sentencing is set for June 7.

Fernandez's boyfriend, Isauro Aguirre, was convicted last year of the same charge. Jurors recommended the death penalty for when he is sentenced on March 8.

During Aguirre's trial, according to Fox 11, prosecutors told jurors that Gabriel was beaten, shot with a BB gun, forced to eat cat feces and sleep while gagged and bound inside a small cabinet. Deputy District Attorney Jonathan Hatami called Aguirre an "evil" man who "liked torturing" the boy, according to Fox 11, and did so methodically for months before the child's death.
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USA

Justice Clarence Thomas speaks out against the culture of victimhood

Kevin Daley
Daily Caller
Thu, 15 Feb 2018 16:10 UTC
Clarence Thomas
© Library of Congress
Justice Clarence Thomas speaks at the Library of Congress in Feb. 2018.
Justice Clarence Thomas decried the contemporary culture of victimhood during remarks Thursday, telling an audience at the Library of Congress that constant aggrievement would exhaust the country.

Ever a touchstone for controversy on racial issues, the justice related a story from a recent trip to Kansas, where a black college student told him she was primarily interested in school work, and less interested in the political tumult gripping college campuses.

"At some point we're going to be fatigued with everybody being a victim," he said.

Thomas has struck similar chords throughout his public life. He appeared on Laura Ingraham's Fox News program in November 2017, and suggested contemporary activists could benefit from the example of his grandparents, who exhibited quiet fortitude during the heady days of white supremacy.

He made his Thursday remark in the context of a broader discussion about his childhood. Thomas was born in Georgia's coastal lowlands among impoverished Gullah-speakers, and spent his childhood working his grandfather's farm. He likened his upbringing to Kathryn Stockett's 2009 novel "The Help" as most of the women in his life, including his mother, were domestics in white households.

Comment: Justice Thomas' interview with Laura Ingraham:



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Map

Russia could be Lebanon's alternative to the devil and the deep blue sea

Andre Vltchek
New Eastern Outlook
Sat, 17 Feb 2018 13:55 UTC
Lebanon
Lebanon, as so often in the past, is facing mortal danger.

Saudi Arabia is putting great pressure on the Lebanese Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri, a powerful but controversial figure who holds dual nationality - Saudi and Lebanese. Riyadh expects Lebanon to play by its own rules, sidelining Hezbollah, ending Iranian influence in the country, and promoting Saudi business and political interests... or else. It is clear that foreign aid from the Gulf is increasingly conditional.

Tension with Israel is also mounting. A military conflict could erupt at any moment, with devastating consequences. Between 1978 and 2006, Israel attacked its northern neighbor on five occasions. The last time Israel invaded Lebanon, during the so-called Lebanon War in 2006, at least 1,300 Lebanese people were killed and 1 million displaced.

The Israeli air force is lately, unceremoniously, violating Lebanese air space, flying over its territory on the way to Syria, where it is bombing selected targets, grossly violating various international laws.
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Map

Libya: Seven years since February 17

Yuriy Zinin
New Eastern Outlook
Sat, 17 Feb 2018 13:49 UTC
Libyan people
On February 17 it will be 7 years since the start of the events in Libya which led to the overthrow of its leader - Muammar Gaddafi. These years have been full of dramatic and often bloody events, which, according to a number of different indices (effective sovereignty, stability, commercial activity etc.), have left the country much worse off.

Since 2014 the country has been in a chaotic situation - divided into two sectors, with opposing capitals in Tripoli and Tobruk, each of which have their own government, parliament, and security services. The balance of power between them is changing.

In the last year the area controlled by the National Army, led by Marshal Khalifa Haftar (i.e. the eastern, or Tobruk, sector) has expanded. That sector includes the 'oil crescent' (the oil wells and the main ports for oil exports). The Government of National Accord, headed by Fayez al-Sarraj, has an unsteady hold over the country.
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Star of David

Hundreds of Palestinian prisoners held without trial launch boycott of Israeli courts

Yumna Patel
Mondoweiss
Sat, 17 Feb 2018 13:16 UTC
Ofer Prison Israel
© Moshe Shai/Flash90
Prison guard walking past Palestinian prisoners in Ofer Prison, outside the West Bank city of Ramallah. February 13, 2012.
Hundreds of Palestinian prisoners being held in Israeli prisons under administrative detention - Israel's widely condemned policy of detention without charge or trial - launched an open-ended boycott of Israeli courts on Thursday.

The 450 administrative detainees released a joint statement announcing the boycott, saying "the core of resisting administrative detention policy comes from boycotting this Israeli legal system."

"We put our faith and trust in our people, their power and institutions, and in the civil society which will not leave us alone in this fight," the statement said, adding that "this is a national patriotic act that should not be violated by any individual or institution."
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Pistol

Gun control debate: Three anti-gun talking points peddled by the American Left after the Florida shooting

Matt Vespa
Townhall
Thu, 15 Feb 2018 13:19 UTC
rifles weapons guns
Yesterday was horrific. Nikolas Cruz, a former student at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, FL, ventured onto campus with an AR-15 rifle and smoke grenades, pulled the fire alarm, and began to open fire on students and faculty. He killed 17 people and wounded at least a dozen more. It didn't take long for the anti-gun crowd to start spewing their drivel across various mediums. We have the usual Cobb salad of crap: we've had 18 school shootings this year, we should ban semi-automatics, which is an unconstitutional gun ban, you can conceal carry a rifle (no, I'm not kidding), and Trump made it easier for the mentally I'll to buy firearms. All of this is either flat out wrong or grossly inaccurate.

We all knew that we would have to restack the sand bags. We always do after these tragic events, but we also always win these arguments. Liberal anti-gun positions don't get better with time; it's not like aging a fine wine. It's still the same putrid red progressive meat that everyone else refuses to digest. So, let's go through the motions of eviscerating these talking points again.
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