This a long story, the short version is a wounded vet got denied a home thanks to the media humiliating this man.
Who the fuck would fight for this country after seeing stories like this?
https://www.newsleader.com/story/news/local/2018/04/26/nonprofit-almost-gave-sex-offender-free-home-stuarts-draft-va-disabled-veteran-michael-cain/970698001/
How a charity for disabled vets almost gave a sex offender a free home in Stuarts Draft
THE MEDIA SEEMED TO LOVE DISABLED VETERAN MICHAEL CAIN. HE DIDN'T TELL THEM HE WAS A CONVICTED SEX OFFENDER. AND A NONPROFIT WAS READY TO HAND HIM A FREE HOME IN STUARTS DRAFT.
Brad Zinn, bzinn@newsleader.com
Neighbors began seeing workers last year at the unoccupied house at 120 Brookmill Road, a ranch-style nestled along a cul-de-sac in a middle-class neighborhood in Stuarts Draft.
The contractors repaired the roof and installed a ramp to the front door. Neighbors took note.
It's the kind of place where the afternoon return of the school buses brings the adults out onto porches and driveways to greet children. Sun glances off a basketball hoop at street's edge, and similar monuments dot the fronts of several houses up and down the road.
Tucked away near Stuarts Draft's southeastern corner, the road is part of a suburban-style subdivision. Most of the homes are modest single story family residences, shaded by mature trees planted back when the subdivision began in 1990; bicycles lean on kickstands and are dropped on porches. Toys are casually strewn in yards. Campers occupy some driveways.
In December, following a small media event, word spread through the neighborhood that the house being worked on soon would be occupied. The new owner, by any definition, was an American hero. He had been woundedin Iraq.
It was shaping up to be the perfect feel-good story for the holidays.
Michael Cain, 37, a war veteran and double amputee, was receiving the home mortgage-free, courtesy of the Military Warriors Support Foundation's "Homes 4 Wounded Heroes" program. The charity worked in conjunction with the home's most recent owner, Wells Fargo bank.
Getting a house is no small deal. Getting one for free, in a settled and safe neighborhood in small-town America, is even bigger.
Cain, 14 years after he was maimed by a landmine in Iraq, was ready to begin the next chapter of his life among the families of Stuarts Draft. Television news covered the event. Press releases went to area media.
But after researching a detail about the press release, The News Leader quickly learned via Google something that neither the non-profit nor Wells Fargo had discovered. The man they were about to permanently embed in a neighborhood full of families and children was a convicted sex offender who had sexually assaulted a 14-year-old girl, according to Wisconsin court records.
That revelation set in motion a process that led the charity to rescind the home offer.
The vet in question had traveled the country as a member of sports teams that celebrated the accomplishments of disabled veterans. In archived clipping after archived clipping, veteran organizations and local media had photographed Cain, noted his achievements and described him in glowing terms:
"He lives every single day with an attitude that is unparalleled, and a heart full of nothing but kindness," the Purple Heart Foundation wrote in 2017.
"He has defied the odds," the NoVa Caps website said in 2016.
Perhaps he had.
After his injury and return to the U.S., Cain was the subject of an extensive New Yorker profile called "The Casualty."
"When people talk about the Army being good for a certain kind of young man, it’s boys like Michael Cain they have in mind," Dan Baum wrote. "Tall and lean, with a sweet smile and doll’s eyes, Michael spent his high-school years searching fitfully for the disciplined achiever within him."
Baum painted a picture of an American hero, but didn't foreshadow what was to come. Within two years of his return Cain was having sex with a 14-year-old girl. The teenager reported him. He was convicted and served two years in the Wisconsin Department of Corrections.
Military Warriors Support Foundation, a non-profit charity based in San Antonio, Texas, claims it did a background check on Cain before deciding to award him a home. But it says it didn't know about his sex offender status. Now, the agency says changes are underway to how it screens applicants.
Cain has been active in other endeavors, such as the USA Warriors Sled Hockey program and the Wounded Warrior Amputee Football Team, which played in Minnesota prior to this year's Super Bowl. It's not entirely clear whether these traveling teams played in school environments, which could be problematic for a registered sex offender in some states.
One of the organizations knew of Cain's criminal history and opted to support him, the News Leader investigation learned. The other has since cut ties with the veteran.
Cain, who has repeatedly declined interview requests for this article, remains in Virginia and now lives in Franklin, according to the Virginia State Police sex offender registry.
He has served his court-mandated sentence for his crime.
Slipping through the cracks
The News Leader began its research about Cain after it was invited to cover the home giveaway. Oddly, the press email from Wells Fargo arrived almost four hours after the event took place in Stuarts Draft. It was odd enough that an editor decided to Google Cain's name, and the sex offender registry popped up.
Further research by a reporter revealed convictions in his home state of Wisconsin that resulted in prison time.
Wells Fargo, which said the email snafu was inadvertent, regularly participates in the mortgage-free home giveaways for wounded vets, according to Kristy Marshall, a spokeswoman for the company.
Marshall said Wells Fargo — which has donated more than 350 homes worth more than $55 million in all 50 states through various non profits such as Military Warriors — was not aware of Cain's criminal past until contacted by a reporter.
"Wells Fargo donates properties to the Military Warriors Support Foundation for use in its Homes4WoundedHeroes program," Marshall said. "The foundation takes applications and chooses recipients for their program. Wells Fargo has no role in the selection process. This was an unfortunate situation and we intend to work with the nonprofit to ensure controls are in place so a mistake like this never happens again."
Over the years, Cain, who goes by "Big Mike," has been a media darling. The 2004 New Yorker article was the first and perhaps the brightest spotlight to stop on the former soldier. It delves into his boyhood in Berlin, Wisconsin, a town located in Green County and an area with fewer than than 6,000 residents. It tells how Cain joined the Army in 2000 and became a truck driver. Three years later he would find himself stationed in Tikrit, Iraq, it said.
On Aug. 10, 2003, Cain volunteered to ride along with a group of other soldiers to help deliver food and water in a large tactical truck to an encampment of U.S. soldiers two miles away, according to the magazine.
During the trip, an anti-vehicle mine ripped through the vehicle, shredding Cain's legs. His right leg would have to be amputated below the knee. In 2013, Cain's left leg would be amputated due to complications.
He would be awarded a Purple Heart for his injuries.
After The New Yorker, Cain was featured in a 2008 news article from the U.S. Department of Defense, where he played hockey with other soldiers undergoing rehabilitation at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Maryland.
Besides being hurt in the explosion, Cain told the reporter he'd been shot in the back and in the back of his head, according to the story, a version of events not consistent with what The New Yorker reported a few years before.
In 2009, USA Hockey Magazine ran a picture of Cain speaking with a Washington Capitals player during a hockey practice for wounded veterans.
In 2013, Cain is pictured in a photograph for Wounded Warriors Amputee Football Team at an event at a high school in Arlington, Va.
In a 2013 article, Cain was quoted on the Army's website. In 2015 the Army Times wrote a piece about Cain receiving help from a charity that assists veterans.
The East Bay Times, which covers the San Francisco area, wrote about a Wounded Warriors football game that Cain took part in.
In April of last year, the Purple Heart Foundation also featured Cain in an article.
All were written from the perspective of admiration for wounded warriors who come home and overcome obstacles. None mentioned his legal problems.
On Nov. 20, 2008, Wisconsin Representative Steve Kagan, D-Appleton, read into the Congressional Record a long lyric poem written in honor of Michael Cain. The poem, composed by Albert Carey Caswell, was titled "Raising Cain."
Kagan had met Cain at Walter Reed Medical Center a few days earlier while visiting another wounded soldier. It's unclear from the Record whether Caswell, a member of the Capitol Guide Service, had passed the poem on to Kagan, or if Cain himself had.
The poem described Cain's valor and courage in surviving the explosion of his vehicle, and focused on the image of him raising himself up from the wreckage: "As you were the one who so raised his head... / Whose fine heart so began to pound! / Raising Cain..." The poem calls Cain "This American Jewel... / a simple man... / And most of all he's a family man...."
The poem gives no indication that Caswell was aware that the heroic subject of his work had been serving time in prison for a violent sex crime only seven months earlier. Nor is it likely Rep. Kagan was aware of the fact as he read the poem into The Congressional Record that a far more tragic story could be told about Cain's behavior.
It started less than two years after the Iraq landmine forever altered Cain's life. He found himself back in Wisconsin, according to a statement of probable cause written by a Waushara County detective.
It was there in the summer of 2005 that Cain, who was married at the time, first kissed the 14-year-old girl.
The teen told authorities a few weeks later that she and Cain had sex at her parent's house in the town of Marion, Wisconsin, after everyone had gone to bed.
"She stated that she and Cain were in the living room watching TV," the detective wrote in his statement. "She stated that Cain asked her for a backrub. She stated she gave him a backrub and the two began kissing."
After having sex, Cain told the girl to "keep it a secret," according to the detective.
In a second incident, the teen described having sex in Cain's truck after he pulled off to the side of the road following a music festival.
Questioned by the detective, Cain, 24 years old at the time, said he was friends with the girl's brother.
"He stated that that was the first time he saw (the girl) since she had grown up to be 14 years old," the detective said in the report.
Cain admitted to having sex with the teen on three occasions, according to the detective. Less than two months after the probable cause statement was filed, Cain's wife filed for a divorce, court records show.
The victim's mother, contacted by The News Leader, said when Cain was in high school he used to ride on the same school bus as her daughter, who was in kindergarten at the time.
When Cain returned to the area, he began hanging out at the family's farm, chipping in and helping with chores when he could.
"He told us it made him feel worthwhile," she said.
The mother said because of his status as a wounded war veteran, Cain would often get free tickets to professional wrestling events and concerts, sometimes taking her children — four boys and her daughter, the youngest — with him.
"We always trusted him," she said.
She described Cain as "very polite, very nice," and said he was married at the time with an infant son. But Cain's wife and child didn't live in Wisconsin and were in "one of the Dakotas," she said.
She recalled a moment at a going away party for her oldest son, who was about to head off to the Marines. Cain gave an impassioned speech about being "blood brothers" and made a show of giving her son his Purple Heart medal as a good luck charm.
She suspects his bravado was just a disguise for his true intentions, adding, "They always want to look good in public."
Then came the sexual assault charges against Cain in two counties.
When her son came back on leave from the Marines after training, he and his father confronted Cain at his home. The medal was never seen again. The woman asked her husband and son what happened.
"They said that's all a mother needs to know. I don't know what was said or what was done," she said.
As for Cain's favorable press coverage over the years and him being chosen to receive a mortgage-free home, she said it didn't surprise her at all.
"Everything seems to always be given to him," she said, noting Cain was tabbed as the grand marshal of a Berlin parade shortly after he was wounded.
She even felt that Cain's status as a wounded war veteran led to a light prison stint.
In 2006, he was convicted in Wisconsin on two counts of second-degree sexual assault of a child, considered a violent offense under Wisconsin law. He was released from prison in April 2008 after serving slightly less than two years, according to the Wisconsin Department of Corrections. He could have faced up to 25 years for each felony, court files show.
The next month, Cain was back in the news, this time in a Department of Defense article about an ice hockey clinic for disabled vets.
After moving to Virginia, he was entered into the state's sex offender registry.
Swift action
Andrea Dellinger, vice president of the Military Warriors Support Foundation, said her agency was unaware of Cain's criminal convictions, and said he did not divulge them to the charity. Dellinger said Cain came to the agency based on a high recommendation from another organization, which she would not identify.
In his "Bio Information" provided to Military Warriors, Cain was listed as living in Alexandria when he applied for the mortgage-free home.
In explaining why he joined the Army, Cain wrote, "I grew up my entire life wanting to be an army soldier. I loved the army and when I was old enough to understand why the men and women did what they did in Vietnam I loved them and wanted to do what they did."
In the biography, Cain said his plans were to continue traveling with the Wounded Warrior Amputee Football team. "We go to schools and talk to kids there and show them that disability" doesn't mean you are handicapped, he wrote.
One of the agency's goals with the home program is to give veterans a stable environment that allows them to focus on their recovery and financial well-being, Dellinger said.
Military Warriors vetted Cain prior to naming him the beneficiary of the home, according to Dellinger, but said his criminal past was not revealed.
"We did do a vetting process on him and that information did not come up," she said.
The Cain episode has prompted the agency to take a closer look at its procedures when choosing veterans for a home, Dellinger added, and it will now be using LexisNexis, software that will give Military Warriors access to public and non-public records.
While Military Warriors was initially unaware of Cain's sex convictions, Dellinger said once the agency found out about Cain it immediately sought a resolution.
"We acted swiftly and appropriately to this situation, taking action the same day we received notice of Mr. Cain's background. Mr. Cain never took possession of the home."
Dellinger described the situation as "very uncommon" and said although the Stuarts Draft home is no longer being offered to Cain, the agency would assist in his transition to another residence — support that could vary from assistance with the cost of moving, storage or rent payments for a period of time.
"He's still a combat-wounded veteran, a Purple Heart recipient," she said.
Who knew?
Professor Charles Figley of Tulane University, director of the school's Traumatology Institute, said those severely wounded in combat are "treated like heroes and many times they don't feel like it."
He said wounded vets who return to civilian life face "everything the non-injured face, except they have more."
Initially, he said, hospitalized veterans are better off psychologically because they are able to connect with other wounded vets. But dealing with their combat injuries can be a double-edged sword, Figley noted, because often they can overcome their physical limitations through a certain tenacity that many of them seem to have, but "on the other hand, they're hurting emotionally."
Figley said veterans who are severely wounded, and the effect those wounds have on their lives, remains an understudied field. When asked why, the answer was blunt.
"There's no money in it," he said.
Not everyone was kept in the dark about Cain's past.
Thom Hirsch, a board member for USA Warriors Hockey, which fields a sled hockey team for wounded veterans, said Cain was forthright with officials about his criminal conviction when he joined the team. Hirsch said the mission of the organization is to help wounded veterans transition back into society. Sensing that Cain needed help as well, he was welcomed.
"It takes years, in some cases, for them to right themselves mentally," he said.
USA Warriors Hockey sometimes travels to schools and meets with children, but Hirsch said Cain is not permitted to attend those events and stays behind.
"The USA Warriors Hockey has protocols and procedures in place to address any concerns related to children and youth, such as screening of players and instituting background checks of players going to schools," he said.
Based on press clippings, Cain has also participated in numerous events for the Wounded Warrior Amputee Football Team, including a January game prior to this year's Super Bowl in Saint Paul, Minnesota.
The football team's website has a group photo including Cain and his teammates as well as high school cheerleaders, from a flag football game at Bishop O’Connell High School in Arlington, Va. in 2013, according to information on the website.
Chris Visser, who heads the Wounded Warrior Amputee Football Team, declined comment for this article but noted Cain is no longer part of its football program.
Neighbors react
As for the home on Brookmill Road that was supposed to go to Cain, it remains vacant four months later with a real estate lock box on the front door.
Military Warriors is pondering whether to give it to another military veteran.
"The final disposition of this property has not yet been decided," Dellinger recently said. "Military Warriors is currently evaluating the situation and how this could potentially cause undue stress on another recipient."
Patrick Harrigan, a longtime homeowner who lives across the street from the residence that was supposed to go to Cain, said he's glad a convicted sex offender wasn't placed in the neighborhood, and said the move could have potentially depressed property values.
"I wouldn't have been very happy," said Harrigan, who has a young daughter.
Next door to the house in question, Donald Wolff was picking up his children — one of them a teenage daughter — from his ex-wife's house when told of the Cain issue.
"That's ridiculous for this neighborhood," Wolff said.
But not everyone was completely against the move. Christina Truslow, who lives across the street and a few doors down from the vacant house, said she would have taken a wait-and-see approach had Cain moved into the neighborhood.
Truslow, a renter who has lived on the street for 10 years, said she's certain that some of her neighbors wouldn't have been very welcoming.
"It definitely would have caused a stir," she said.
Hirsch, the USA Warriors Hockey board member who works with Cain, said these issues are complicated: reintegrating damaged servicemen, protecting the community, providing ample support services, holding the line on court-mandated consequences, rebuilding a life afterward.
He said he considers Cain a friend and said the veteran has come a long way helping other wounded vets, as well as holding down a job.
"He did a terrible thing, and he paid a terrible price, and he continues to pay the price," Hirsch said.
Friday, April 27, 2018
Sunday, April 15, 2018
Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin blames sex crimes against children on teacher strike
Between those quotation fingers is a full blown idiot. If your kid misses school even one day, not only will he/she be sexually assaulted, that kid will try drugs for the first time, according to this guy putting the goober in gubernatorial.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/kentucky-governor-blames-teacher-protest-031528663.html
Kentucky Governor Blames Teacher Protest For Inevitable Assault Of Children Left Home Alone
Mary Papenfuss,
HuffPost
Fri, Apr 13 11:15 PM EDT
Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin slammed protesting teachers with an outrageous accusation Friday evening, indicating they were responsible for the inevitable sexual assault or poisoning of children left home alone in his state because school was out.
“I’m offended by the fact that people so cavalierly, and so flippantly, disregarded what’s truly best for children,” the Republican governor said at an impromptu news conference captured on video after teachers rallied at the state Capitol to stop school funding cuts.
Bevin also dissed protesting teachers for “hangin’ out, shoes off ... smokin’, leavin’ trash around, takin’ the day off.”
Bevin said “for a fact .... hundreds of thousands” of children were left home alone because schools were closed in 39 districts across the state to allow teachers and administrators to protest funding cuts.
“I guarantee you somewhere in Kentucky today a child was sexually assaulted that was left at home because there was nobody there to watch them,” he said. “I guarantee you somewhere today a child was physically harmed or ingested poison because they were home alone because a single parent didn’t have any money to take care of them.”
Bevin said, that in some “communities,” his fellow Kentuckians knew children would be home alone and “took advantage of it.” He added: “As surely as we’re having this conversation, children were harmed, some physically, some sexually. Some were introduced to drugs for the first time because they were vulnerable and left alone. It’s offensive. It really is.”
Teachers rallied in Frankfort to urge legislators to override Bevin’s vetoes of the budget and tax reform bills — which they did on Friday.
Kentucky Education Association President Stephanie Winkler told The Louisville Courier-Journal that she was “appalled” by Bevin’s remarks. Organizers said parents were given plenty of notice about school closings.
Jefferson County Teachers Association President Brent McKim told the Courier-Journal that using Bevin’s logic, schools should never close.
“The fact is, every school district did its level best to let parents know school was going to be closed with as much notice as possible,” McKim said. “The bottom line is that’s one day. He was cutting hundreds of millions of dollars from kids that would impact every day, and that’s what we were in Frankfort to stop. We were there with the overwhelming support and encouragement of our parents who know that we care about every student in our classes.”
Friday, April 13, 2018
Grabby Garcia might want to avoid Minnesota if HF 2800 passes
Sorry, I can't stop laughing over that MeToo shill Grabby Garcia, but this bill is no laughing matter, and it actually has a chance of passing.
If you want to follow the progress of HF 2800, CLICK HERE.
Description
Fifth degree criminal sexual conduct exclusion for nonconsensual, intentional touching of another person's clothed buttock eliminated.
http://www.kare11.com/article/news/bill-would-make-backside-groping-a-sex-crime/89-528698971
Bill would make backside groping a sex crime
A bill moving through the Minnesota Legislature would make it a sex crime to grab someone's clothed buttocks without permission.
Author: John Croman
Published: 10:57 PM CDT March 14, 2018
Updated: 10:57 PM CDT March 14, 2018
ST. PAUL, Minn. -- A bill moving through the Minnesota Legislature would make it a sex crime to grab someone's clothed buttocks without permission.
The fact it's not already a sex crime is surprising to some, but it's a loophole intentionally crafted by legislators in 1988 when they created the offense of 5th Degree Sexual Conduct.
"I am closing the loop on an exemption that I don’t believe belongs in the law," Rep. Regina Barr, an Inver Grove Heights Republican and chief author of the bill, told KARE.
"My bill specifically it makes criminal to touch somebody on the buttocks or derriere, without permission, in other words, it has to be nonconsensual and intentional touch."
Current law lists several descriptions of sexual contact that would constitute a violation, but carves out a clear exception -- "but does not include the intentional touching of the clothing covering the immediate area of the buttocks."
Ramsey County Attorney John Choi said, if the bill becomes law, prosecutors would use their discretion and consider the context. For example, the slapping that happens in athletics wouldn't land people in jail.
"I don’t know that any prosecutor would prosecute a situation like a baseball coach slapping somebody on the butt and saying get out on the field right now, right?" Choi remarked. "You still have to prove sexual intent."
He said the original exception was probably an attempt to protect coaches and athletes from overzealous prosecution.
Rep. Barr said she was already working on the proposal before then-Sen. Al Franken was accused by women of grabbing them, through their clothing, during photo ops. Barr, herself, says she has experienced harassment during her professional career.
"We have a different generation that’s not gonna tolerate some things that may have been tolerated before," she said.
Her bill cleared it's first hurdle Wednesday, winning approval of the House Public Safety Committee.
Choi is currently president of the Minnesota County Attorneys Association, which supports the legislation.
"If someone was doing this to my daughter without her permission, I'd be very concerned. I would want that person to face consequences."
He said it's difficult to prove an accused person's frame of mind, but circumstances surrounding the groping incident would come into evidence, including statements and texts made before and afterwards would shed light on intent.
This offense is a gross misdemeanor, which carries a maximum sentence of up to one year in jail. Choi said first-time violators would not have to register as sex offenders.
If you want to follow the progress of HF 2800, CLICK HERE.
Description
Fifth degree criminal sexual conduct exclusion for nonconsensual, intentional touching of another person's clothed buttock eliminated.
http://www.kare11.com/article/news/bill-would-make-backside-groping-a-sex-crime/89-528698971
Bill would make backside groping a sex crime
A bill moving through the Minnesota Legislature would make it a sex crime to grab someone's clothed buttocks without permission.
Author: John Croman
Published: 10:57 PM CDT March 14, 2018
Updated: 10:57 PM CDT March 14, 2018
ST. PAUL, Minn. -- A bill moving through the Minnesota Legislature would make it a sex crime to grab someone's clothed buttocks without permission.
The fact it's not already a sex crime is surprising to some, but it's a loophole intentionally crafted by legislators in 1988 when they created the offense of 5th Degree Sexual Conduct.
"I am closing the loop on an exemption that I don’t believe belongs in the law," Rep. Regina Barr, an Inver Grove Heights Republican and chief author of the bill, told KARE.
"My bill specifically it makes criminal to touch somebody on the buttocks or derriere, without permission, in other words, it has to be nonconsensual and intentional touch."
Current law lists several descriptions of sexual contact that would constitute a violation, but carves out a clear exception -- "but does not include the intentional touching of the clothing covering the immediate area of the buttocks."
Ramsey County Attorney John Choi said, if the bill becomes law, prosecutors would use their discretion and consider the context. For example, the slapping that happens in athletics wouldn't land people in jail.
"I don’t know that any prosecutor would prosecute a situation like a baseball coach slapping somebody on the butt and saying get out on the field right now, right?" Choi remarked. "You still have to prove sexual intent."
He said the original exception was probably an attempt to protect coaches and athletes from overzealous prosecution.
Rep. Barr said she was already working on the proposal before then-Sen. Al Franken was accused by women of grabbing them, through their clothing, during photo ops. Barr, herself, says she has experienced harassment during her professional career.
"We have a different generation that’s not gonna tolerate some things that may have been tolerated before," she said.
Her bill cleared it's first hurdle Wednesday, winning approval of the House Public Safety Committee.
Choi is currently president of the Minnesota County Attorneys Association, which supports the legislation.
"If someone was doing this to my daughter without her permission, I'd be very concerned. I would want that person to face consequences."
He said it's difficult to prove an accused person's frame of mind, but circumstances surrounding the groping incident would come into evidence, including statements and texts made before and afterwards would shed light on intent.
This offense is a gross misdemeanor, which carries a maximum sentence of up to one year in jail. Choi said first-time violators would not have to register as sex offenders.
Thursday, April 12, 2018
Media Outlets try to use abolishing the registry as evidence Shooter Conditt was crazy
I'm just glad this shooting occurred after my court case with the Book Crime Family, since Bimbo Book already tried comparing me to the Parkland FL school shooter. The point of these articles, of which the one below is merely one of the more salacious examples, is that the media presented a short writing piece on why Conditt believed the registry should be abolished as evidence that the man was going to go on a shooting spress. What the fuck is wrong with America?
https://www.ajc.com/news/national/austin-bombing-suspect-mark-conditt-proposed-ending-sex-offender-registry-blog-says/MvDjVau2mafQJYgKddPQkK/
Austin bombing suspect Mark A. Conditt proposed ending sex offender registry, blog says
Sean Collins Walsh, Claire Osborn, Tony Plohetski, Jeremy Schwartz and Mary Huber, Austin American-Stateman
1:15 p.m Wednesday, March 21, 2018
PFLUGERVILLE, Texas
In 2012, when he was 17 years old, Austin bombing suspect Mark Conditt laid out his political views in a series of blog posts he wrote for an Austin Community College course on the U.S. government.
>> Read more trending news
No motive for the bombings has been disclosed, either by the bomber or by authorities. Four bombings in Austin over 17 days left two people dead and four injured. Another bomb exploded in a FedEx distribution facility, and one unexploded bomb was found at another distribution center, officials said. Authorities identified the 23-year-old Conditt as the bombing suspect who died in a bomb explosion during a confrontation with police early Wednesday, the American-Statesman and KVUE have reported, citing local and federal law enforcement sources.
In the blog, Conditt described himself as a conservative. It’s not clear whether politics played any role in the bombings, but the blog posts provide insight into Conditt’s thinking as he was growing up.
He wrote that he was against gay marriage and abortion and in favor of the death penalty.
He also wrote that he supported doing away with the sex offender registration system.
“So you have a guy who committed a crime. Will putting him on a (sex offender) list make it better? wouldn’t this only make people shun him, keep him from getting a job, and making friends? Just for a crime that he may have committed over 15 years ago as a adolescent? On a side note, one fifth of all rapes are committed by a juvenile,” Conditt wrote.
On abortion, he wrote: “First, if a women does not want a baby, or is incapable of taking care of one, she should not participate in activities that were made for that reason. Second, if we are going to give women free abortions, why not give men free condoms, or the like? Is it not up to the couple to take these preventive measures?”
Arguing against gay marriage, he wrote that homosexuality is “not natural.”
“Just look at the male and female bodies. They are obviously designed to couple. The natural design is apparent. It is not natural to couple male with male and female with female. It would be like trying to fit two screws together and to nuts together and then say, “See, it’s natural for them to go together,” he wrote.
Conditt attended ACC from 2010 to 2012, but never graduated, a school spokesperson told the Texas Tribune.
*************************
Here is the actual piece that Conditt wrote. It looks like a school project, because that's what it was.
http://definingmystance.blogspot.com/2012/03/why-we-might-want-to-consider-doing.html
Friday, March 30, 2012
Why we might want to consider doing away with Sex Offender Registration.
In theory, these registries are list of every sex offender in the state, with the his house location and other pertinent facts to help people avoid exposing themselves to such people. Megan's Law requires sex offenders to register and update law enforcement every time they change location.
This is not the result. You have to really hate the guy to make him suffer for the rest of his life, even when his prison time is up. This sounds perfect for a serial rapist or pedophile, but its not such a great idea if something as trivial as public indecency or streaking can put you on the registry right alongside them.
So you have a guy who committed a crime. Will putting him on a list make it better? wouldn't this only make people shun him, keep him from getting a job, and making friends? Just for a crime that he may have committed over 15 years ago as a adolescent? On a side note, one fifth of all rapes are committed by a juvenile.
And how effective is it? Even if you know about a registered sex offender in the neighborhood, what's to stop him from doing it again? And that's not taking into consideration that 95 percent of all cases are from someone the victim had already knew? And if he was really going to do it again, would the fact that he is on a list really going to stop him?
https://www.ajc.com/news/national/austin-bombing-suspect-mark-conditt-proposed-ending-sex-offender-registry-blog-says/MvDjVau2mafQJYgKddPQkK/
Austin bombing suspect Mark A. Conditt proposed ending sex offender registry, blog says
Sean Collins Walsh, Claire Osborn, Tony Plohetski, Jeremy Schwartz and Mary Huber, Austin American-Stateman
1:15 p.m Wednesday, March 21, 2018
PFLUGERVILLE, Texas
In 2012, when he was 17 years old, Austin bombing suspect Mark Conditt laid out his political views in a series of blog posts he wrote for an Austin Community College course on the U.S. government.
>> Read more trending news
No motive for the bombings has been disclosed, either by the bomber or by authorities. Four bombings in Austin over 17 days left two people dead and four injured. Another bomb exploded in a FedEx distribution facility, and one unexploded bomb was found at another distribution center, officials said. Authorities identified the 23-year-old Conditt as the bombing suspect who died in a bomb explosion during a confrontation with police early Wednesday, the American-Statesman and KVUE have reported, citing local and federal law enforcement sources.
In the blog, Conditt described himself as a conservative. It’s not clear whether politics played any role in the bombings, but the blog posts provide insight into Conditt’s thinking as he was growing up.
He wrote that he was against gay marriage and abortion and in favor of the death penalty.
He also wrote that he supported doing away with the sex offender registration system.
“So you have a guy who committed a crime. Will putting him on a (sex offender) list make it better? wouldn’t this only make people shun him, keep him from getting a job, and making friends? Just for a crime that he may have committed over 15 years ago as a adolescent? On a side note, one fifth of all rapes are committed by a juvenile,” Conditt wrote.
On abortion, he wrote: “First, if a women does not want a baby, or is incapable of taking care of one, she should not participate in activities that were made for that reason. Second, if we are going to give women free abortions, why not give men free condoms, or the like? Is it not up to the couple to take these preventive measures?”
Arguing against gay marriage, he wrote that homosexuality is “not natural.”
“Just look at the male and female bodies. They are obviously designed to couple. The natural design is apparent. It is not natural to couple male with male and female with female. It would be like trying to fit two screws together and to nuts together and then say, “See, it’s natural for them to go together,” he wrote.
Conditt attended ACC from 2010 to 2012, but never graduated, a school spokesperson told the Texas Tribune.
*************************
Here is the actual piece that Conditt wrote. It looks like a school project, because that's what it was.
http://definingmystance.blogspot.com/2012/03/why-we-might-want-to-consider-doing.html
Friday, March 30, 2012
Why we might want to consider doing away with Sex Offender Registration.
In theory, these registries are list of every sex offender in the state, with the his house location and other pertinent facts to help people avoid exposing themselves to such people. Megan's Law requires sex offenders to register and update law enforcement every time they change location.
This is not the result. You have to really hate the guy to make him suffer for the rest of his life, even when his prison time is up. This sounds perfect for a serial rapist or pedophile, but its not such a great idea if something as trivial as public indecency or streaking can put you on the registry right alongside them.
So you have a guy who committed a crime. Will putting him on a list make it better? wouldn't this only make people shun him, keep him from getting a job, and making friends? Just for a crime that he may have committed over 15 years ago as a adolescent? On a side note, one fifth of all rapes are committed by a juvenile.
And how effective is it? Even if you know about a registered sex offender in the neighborhood, what's to stop him from doing it again? And that's not taking into consideration that 95 percent of all cases are from someone the victim had already knew? And if he was really going to do it again, would the fact that he is on a list really going to stop him?
Wednesday, April 11, 2018
Illinois Supreme Court Injustice Mary Jane Theis proves to us why facts and figures does not trump the whims of an out of control "justice system"
Read the Illinois Supreme Court Decision HERE.
https://reason.com/blog/2018/04/11/court-says-relying-on-fake-recidivism-nu
Writing Sex Offender Laws Based on Fake Recidivism Numbers Is Rational, Court Says
The Illinois Supreme Court unanimously upholds a law banning sex offenders from public parks.
Jacob Sullum|Apr. 11, 2018 1:45 pm
Last week the Illinois Supreme Court upheld a state law banning sex offenders from public parks, overturning a 2017 appeals court ruling that deemed the statute "unconstitutional on its face because it bears no reasonable relationship to protecting the public." The seven members of the higher court unanimously disagreed, saying, "We conclude that there is a rational relation between protecting the public, particularly children, from sex offenders and prohibiting sex offenders who have been convicted of crimes against minors from being present in public parks across the state."
In reaching that conclusion, the justices relied on alarming claims about recidivism among sex offenders, even while acknowledging that the claims have been discredited. The decision, written by Justice Mary Jane Theis, shows how fear overrides logic in dealing with sex offenders and how toothless "rational basis" review can be, allowing legislators not only to draw their own judgments but to invent their own facts.
Under Section 11-9.4-1(b) of the Illinois Criminal Code, "It is unlawful for a sexual predator or a child sex offender to knowingly be present in any public park building or on real property comprising any public park." In 2013 Marc Pepitone, who served a six-year prison sentence after pleading guilty to sexual assault of a child in 1998, was arrested for walking his dog in Bolingbrook's Indian Boundary Park. In addition to dog walking, the Third District Appellate Court noted when it overturned Pepitone's conviction, the law he violated criminalizes "a wide swath of innocent conduct" in public parks, including hiking, photography, bird watching, fishing, swimming, and bicycling; "attending concerts, picnics, rallies, and Chicago Bears games at Soldier Field"; and visiting "the Field Museum, the Shedd Aquarium, the Art Institute, the Adler Planetarium, or the Museum of Science and Industry, all of which are public buildings on park land."
Despite the park ban's substantial and lifelong impact on the recreational options of sex offenders, Pepitone did not claim the law implicated a "fundamental liberty interest." It was therefore subjected to rational basis review, a highly deferential test requiring only a rational relationship between the law and a legitimate government objective. In concluding that the law failed even that test, the appeals court noted (among other things) that "the statute places individuals who are highly unlikely to recidivate in the same category as serial child sex offenders."
The Illinois Supreme Court also thinks recidivism rates are relevant but is willing to accept whatever legislators say on the subject, even when there is no evidence to support it. "The State asserts that sex offenders have high rates of recidivism," Justice Theis writes. "Those rates have been widely accepted by courts across the country, including the United States Supreme Court, which has mentioned 'a frightening and high risk of recidivism' for convicted sex offenders." But that widely cited quote from Justice Anthony Kennedy, which comes from the plurality opinion in the 2002 case McKune v. Lile, was based entirely on an unverified claim in a 1986 Psychology Today article by a therapist who has repudiated it, saying he is "appalled" at the lingering impact of his three-decade-old estimate.
Kennedy said "the rate of recidivism of untreated offenders has been estimated to be as high as 80%." Urging passage of the Illinois park ban, a state legislator claimed sex offenders commit new crimes "40 or 50 or 60 percent of the time." Studies that track sex offenders after they are released from prison find much lower recidivism rates. A 2014 meta-analyis covering almost 8,000 sex offenders, for example, found a five-year recidivism rate of about 20 percent among "high-risk" offenders but less than 3 percent among the rest. After 15 years, the recidivism rate rose to 32 percent for the high-risk offenders and 5 percent for the others.
Theis is aware of the controversy over Kennedy's Trumpesque claim. "Regarding recidivism rates," she notes, "the defendant insists that the McKune plurality's 'frightening and high' comment has been debunked." It has. Repeatedly. And courts have begun to notice. But never mind. "Regardless of how convincing that social science may be," Theis says, "'the legislature is in a better position than the judiciary to gather and evaluate data bearing on complex problems.'"
In this case, both the legislature and the judiciary have assumed crucial facts that simply are not true, as far as we can tell based on all of the research that has been done during the last few decades. Theis is saying laws should nevertheless be written and upheld based on those demonstrably false assumptions until legislators decide to gather data. Call that whatever you want, but it surely is not rational.
Friday, April 6, 2018
Scott Andrew Ecklund crashes car into empty house because he thinks a registered citizen lives there
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/breaking-news/os-winter-park-house-crash-fbi-ar-rifle-20180403-story.html
Man who crashed into Winter Park house threatened to shoot officer, report says
By: Jeff Weiner, Orlando Sentinel
April 3, 2018
man who crashed a truck into a Winter Park house late Sunday claimed to be an FBI agent and threatened to shoot an officer with a high-powered rifle, according to a police report.
Police were called to the house on Aloma Avenue about 9 p.m. Sunday after receiving a report that a black truck had crashed into it.
They arrived to find the driver, Scott Andrew Ecklund, 32, standing outside the vehicle “taking a fighting stance,” according to the report. Officers ordered him to get on the ground, but he refused, the report said.
Officer Joshua Larson wrote in his report that Ecklund “stated multiple times that he was going to kill me and that he had an AR that he would shoot me with,” apparently referring to a military-style rifle.
The standoff ended when Ecklund tripped while walking backward and fell down, the report said. He kicked and punched the officers as they put him in handcuffs, spitting in Larson’s face, the officer wrote.
“I’m going to [expletive] kill you,” Ecklund said, according to the report.
While officers waited for the fire department to arrive to check Ecklund for injuries, he explained that he had crashed into the house because a sex offender lived there, the report said.
He said he was an FBI agent and “was working,” the report said.
A Florida Department of Law Enforcement database doesn’t show any sex offenders living at the house Ecklund was accused of striking. No occupation was listed for him in the arrest report.
The crash caused an estimated $7,500 in damage to the front of the house, the report said. Police contacted its owner, who opted to press charges for criminal mischief. The house was unoccupied at the time.
Ecklund also faces charges of battery on a law enforcement officer, resisting an officer with violence and threats to harm or kill and officer, records show. He remains in the Orange County Jail.
Records show he served a brief term in state prison for battery on an officer, stemming from a 2010 case. At least 24 traffic infractions have been filed against him in Orange County since 2002.
Mark Longwell, an Orlando attorney who has represented Ecklund in the past, said he hadn’t been retained to represent him in his latest arrest and couldn’t comment specifically on the new allegations.
“As a society, we don’t always know how to deal with mental health issues and our healthcare system and our criminal justice system are really not well-equipped at handling those issues,” he added.
Friday, March 30, 2018
Kyla Galen of ColoraDO'H writes one nasty headline
"Vanessa" in this story is a piece of crap, but this reporter is absolutely disgusting. This is the ugliest headline from a mainstream outlet in a while.
http://www.kktv.com/content/news/11-Call-For-Action-investigates-Registered-sex-offender-living-on-public-dime-478289563.html
11 Call For Action investigates: Registered sex offender living on public dime
By Kyla Galer | Posted: Thu 8:16 AM, Mar 29, 2018 | Updated: Thu 9:10 AM, Mar 29, 2018
A 13-year-old girl unwittingly made the discovery after learning about sex offender registries at school one day. At her teacher's prompting, she typed in her own address when she got home from school.
"She yelled, 'Mom!'" mother Vanessa (last name withheld) told 11 News. "And I went in there and she said, 'This is our address.' She says, 'Oh my gosh, isn't this our neighbor?'"
Vanessa and her four children live in public housing on the southwest side of the Springs. Under the Housing and Urban Development, or HUD, handbook, owners of these homes are supposed to prohibit anyone on the sex offender registry from renting.
But despite the law, sex offender registration records show Christian Garcia's address listed as the very apartment complex Vanessa and her children call home.
"It's super scary," Vanessa said.
Vanessa now wants to know how this could have happened.
"It makes me wonder how did everyone else in charge not realize that this was going on? And if they did know, why was nothing done? ... Somebody dropped the ball somewhere and it's absolutely appalling that something like this would fly under the radar."
Vanessa -- a survivor of domestic abuse -- says one of the reasons she chose to live in this particular complex is because of the locks on all doors leading outside.
"Unfortunately, as it turns out, we were locking a criminal inside every night."
One of Vanessa's neighbors says the address Garcia listed is actually her own.
"He does not live here at my apartment at all, it's just me and my kids," Jamie Busch said. "In actuality, his address is on the third floor."
11 News reporter Kyla Galer knocked on that address, but no one answered. She later inquired with apartment management how Garcia could have been living at the complex for six months. Management refused to talk on camera, but very briefly spoke to Galer on the phone before hanging up on her. They said they had no idea he was living there.
The El Paso County Sheriff's Office said sex offenders are checked on once a year.
"It really is incumbent upon the person who is renting the properties to make sure that that person is not a registered sex offender, especially if it is HUD housing," said spokesperson Jacqueline Kirby.
For Vanessa, none of these answers are reassuring.
"I feel like this guy needs to be exposed for the liar that he is," Vanessa said.
The sheriff's office says that just last week, Garcia listed a new address in Colorado Springs. But neighbors say they've still seen him hanging out at the complex in recent days.
Even if he's gone, Busch said she no longer knows if this was an anomaly.
"It kind of makes me wonder how many people now live here that are registered sex offenders with all the kids that run around here," Busch told Galer.
11 News is told it's unlikely Garcia will face charges, but he could get in trouble with his probation officer.
Friday, March 16, 2018
So now the California legislature is outlawing hugging? (And no, it isn't about Grabby Garcia)
http://www.richmond.com/news/national-world/government-politics/ap/california-lawmaker-banned-from-hugging-after-investigation/article_35d663f2-1b96-5dfd-b358-36693009fbfc.html
California lawmaker banned from hugging after investigation
By DON THOMPSON AND KATHLEEN RONAYNE Associated Press Mar 8, 2018
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — A California state senator has been told to stop hugging people after an investigation concluded that his trademark embraces made multiple female colleagues uncomfortable.
However, the investigation released Thursday found Sen. Bob Hertzberg's frequent hugs are not intended to be sexual and more often than not are not unwelcome.
Hertzberg, a Democrat from the Los Angeles area, has earned nicknames such as "Hugsberg" and "Huggy Bear" for greeting men and women alike with giant hugs.
The Senate Rules Committee formally reprimanded him on Tuesday and told him not to hug people anymore, but he will not otherwise face discipline.
Hertzberg released a letter apologizing to anyone who felt his frequent embraces were unwelcome. The 63-year-old said he has greeted people with hugs all his life and they were intended as "a gesture of warmth and kindness and a reflection of my exuberance."
"I understand that I cannot control how a hug is received, and that not everyone has the ability to speak up about unwelcome behavior," Hertzberg wrote. "It is my responsibility to be mindful of this."
Three California lawmakers have resigned over allegations of sexually explicit misconduct, with one stepping down while facing the threat of expulsion.
The investigation into Hertzberg covered four complaints dating back to 2010, involving three female lawmakers and a male sergeant at arms. It found he hugged two current and one former lawmaker in ways that made them uncomfortable and made the sergeant uncomfortable by "dancing briefly with his backside" against him.
None of the accusers are named, but former Republican Assemblywoman Linda Halderman has previously spoken to reporters about her accusations against Hertzberg. She said Hertzberg repeatedly hugged her for prolonged periods of time during her term from 2010 to 2012 and at one point thrust into her after she told him to stop.
Halderman declined to speak with the investigators from an outside law firm hired by the state Senate. The investigators concluded Hertzberg made her uncomfortable but couldn't find any evidence supporting that he continued to hug her after she asked him to stop.
Investigators found Hertzberg stopped hugging the second accuser in 2015 after she told him to stop, and that he was unaware that his hugs of another assemblywoman were unwelcome.
Republican Sen. Joel Anderson of Alpine said it's concerning that none of the accusers are named because it shows the Legislature doesn't have enough protections for people filing claims.
"If they don't feel comfortable, then how does the rank and file employee feel comfortable? How does that person in the public feel comfortable?" Anderson said.
He also said it's difficult to be fair to everyone involved if names are withheld.
Hertzberg said the allegations against him were exploited by opponents as he proposed overhauling California's money bail system for offenders awaiting trial. Hertzberg also said the Legislature should do a better job of keeping harassment complaints confidential during investigations.
Investigators noted Hertzberg has been warned about uncomfortable hugs in the past, including of a 2015 complaint from a staff member who said he held her close and began dancing with her. They faulted Hertzberg for not taking past complaints more seriously, but also criticized the Senate for not giving him enough information about the complaints against him.
"He missed opportunities to understand that some people were genuinely troubled by his hugging," investigators wrote, later adding, "more information may have resulted in Hertzberg correcting his conduct with respect to unwanted hugs earlier."
Hertzberg was elected to the state Senate in 2014 after serving six years in the Assembly.
Democratic Sen. Ben Allen of Santa Monica said he couldn't say if the investigation or reprimand were appropriate because senators not sitting on the Rules Committee were only given a summary.
"It's a sensitive investigation and I've got a lot of sympathy for everybody involved," he said.
Thursday, March 8, 2018
Frankly, I'm SHOCKED this case was overturned. Pun was intended.
Someone should make this judge wear a shock belt and light it up every time this douche violates the US Constituition.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2018/03/07/barbarism-texas-judge-ordered-electric-shocks-to-man-during-trial-conviction-thrown-out/?utm_term=.a205d14dbd6c
‘Barbarism’: Texas judge ordered electric shocks to silence man on trial. Conviction thrown out.
By Meagan Flynn March 7
In Tarrant County, Tex., defendants are sometimes strapped with a stun belt around their legs. The devices are used to deliver a shock in the event the person gets violent or attempts to escape.
But in the case of Terry Lee Morris, the device was used as punishment for refusing to answer a judge’s questions properly during his 2016 trial on charges of soliciting sexual performance from a 15-year-old girl, according to an appeals court. In fact, the judge shocked Morris three times, sending thousands of volts coursing through his body. It scared him so much that Morris never returned for the remainder of his trial and almost all of his sentencing hearing.
The action stunned the Texas Eighth Court of Appeals in El Paso, too. It has now thrown out Morris’s conviction on the grounds that the shocks ordered by State District Judge George Gallagher, and Morris’s subsequent removal from the courtroom, violated his constitutional rights. Since he was too scared to come back to the courtroom, the court held that the shocks effectively barred him from attending his own trial, in violation of the Constitution’s Sixth Amendment, which guarantees a defendant’s right to be present and confront witnesses during a trial.
The ruling, handed down Feb. 28, was reported Tuesday in the Texas Lawyer.
Judges are not allowed to shock defendants in their courtrooms just because they won’t answer questions, the court said, or because they fail to follow the court’s rules of decorum.
“While the trial court’s frustration with an obstreperous defendant is understandable, the judge’s disproportionate response is not. We do not believe that trial judges can use stun belts to enforce decorum,” Justice Yvonne T. Rodriguez said of Gallagher’s actions in the court’s opinion. “A stun belt is a device meant to ensure physical safety; it is not an operant conditioning collar meant to punish a defendant until he obeys a judge’s whim. This Court cannot sit idly by and say nothing when a judge turns a court of law into a Skinner Box, electrocuting a defendant until he provides the judge with behavior he likes.”
The stun belt works in some ways like a shock collar used to train dogs. Activated by a button on a remote control, the stun belt delivers an eight-second, 50,000-volt shock to the person wearing it, which immobilizes him so that bailiffs can swiftly neutralize any security threats. When activated, the stun belt can cause the person to seize, suffer heart irregularities, urinate or defecate and suffer possibly crippling anxiety as a result of fear of the shocks.
The stun belt can also be very painful. When Montgomery County, Md., purchased three of the devices in 1998, a sheriff’s sergeant who was jolted as part of his training described the feeling to The Washington Post like this: “If you had nine-inch nails and you tried to rip my sides out and then you put a heat lamp on me.”
Most courts have found that the stun belts are constitutional as long as they are used on defendants posing legitimate security threats — but the Texas justices said there was no evidence of that here.
The discord between Morris and Gallagher arose after Gallagher asked Morris how he would plead: guilty or not guilty?
“Sir, before I say that, I have the right to make a defense,” Morris responded.
He had recently filed a federal lawsuit against his defense attorney and against Gallagher, whom he wanted recused from the case. As Morris continued talking, Gallagher warned him to stop making “outbursts.”
“Mr. Morris, I am giving you one warning,” Gallagher said outside the presence of the jury, according to the appeals court. “You will not make any additional outbursts like that, because two things will happen. No. 1, I will either remove you from the courtroom or I will use the shock belt on you.”
“All right, sir,” Morris said.
The judge continued: “Now, are you going to follow the rules?”
“Sir, I’ve asked you to recuse yourself,” said Morris.
Gallagher asked again: “Are you going to follow the rules?”
“I have a lawsuit pending against you,” responded Morris.
“Hit him,” Gallagher said to the bailiff.
The bailiff pressed the button that shocks Morris, and then Gallagher asked him again whether he is going to behave. Morris told Gallagher he had a history of mental illness.
“Hit him again,” the judge ordered.
Morris protested that he was being “tortured” just for seeking the recusal.
Gallagher asked the bailiff, “Would you hit him again?”
Morris’s trial defense attorney, Bill Ray, told Texas Lawyer he didn’t object to use of stun belt during trial because his client was acting “like a loaded cannon ready to go off.” He also claimed he did not believe Morris was really being shocked.
As the Texas justices note, case law on the use of stun belts on defendants in court is slim, if only because outrageous uses of stun belts in courts are rare.
In the several cases cited in the ruling, the stun belts’ damaging effects on a person as well as their controversial history are well recognized. The stun belts were introduced in the early 1990s as a way to “control” prisoners. According to testimony in a stun belt case from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit, the devices “acted more as a deterrent rather than a means of actual punishment because of the tremendous amount of anxiety that results from wearing a belt that packs a 50,000-volt to 70,000-volt punch.”
“Never before have we seen any behavior like this, nor do we hope to ever see such behavior again,” Rodriguez wrote of Gallagher’s actions. “As the circumstances of this case perfectly illustrate, the potential for abuse in the absence of an explicit prohibition on nonsecurity use of stun belts exists and must be deterred. We must speak out against it, lest we allow practices like these to affront the very dignity of the proceedings we seek to protect and lead our courts to drift from justice into barbarism.”
The judge, contacted by The Post, declined to comment, citing judicial ethics.
Wednesday, March 7, 2018
Add being an informant to criminal activity to the growing list of things you can't do as a registered person.
So if you are a registered person, you testimony cannot be trusted, but if you are a fucking dope boy, you are A-OK.
http://www.clintonchronicle.com/breaking-news/not-guilty-informant-was-sex-offender-defense
Not Guilty - Informant Was A Sex Offender: Defense
Fri, 03/02/2018 - 9:06am Vic MacDonald
BY:
WLBG ON-LINE
COURT: Defense Questioned Use of Informant; Man Found Not Guilty
Friday, March 2, 2018 - WLBG on-line
A Clinton man was found “not guilty” of drug charges this week, after his defense questioned the use of a sex offender as a confidential informant in a drug transaction. 35-year-old Alexander Simmons of 111-A North Bell Street, Clinton was not convicted on charges of Possession of Crack Cocaine to Distribute in proximity of a school, park or playground.
The defense opened with the argument that the confidential informant, who set up the sale, was a convicted sex offender, and therefore, his testimony could not be trusted.
Clinton Public Safety Captain Tyrone Goggins explained how his department uses informants, saying that at the time of the alleged drug transaction, the informant had no pending charges. Detective Goggins also explained that it’s a common practice to use previously convicted offenders who volunteer for the job to sort of redeem themselves. He said police could only recommend that their service in the drug sale be considered in regard to their charges. He said that in this specific case, the informant used in the undercover drug sale just wanted to receive the customary $50 pay to set up a drug sale.
The prosecution submitted an audio recording as proof of a call to arrange the drug sale between the informant and defendant, and a video tape that was recorded by the informant at the time of the sale. Sargent Prather testified that he monitored the informant at the sale. Defense Attorney Scarlet Moore of Greenville asked Sgt. Prather if he knew the informant was a registered sex offender, and , if so, why he was sent to a park. Prather replied, “We monitored the entire sale and we were only seconds away if anything gets out of hand.” Sgt. Prather also said that to set up a bogus drug deal you have to use someone that is known to the dealer, you can’t just go into a local church and find someone to do that job.
Douglas Robinson, a chemist from SLED, testified that the substance turned over for evidence was in fact, crack cocaine.
In her closing argument, Defense Attorney Scarlet Moore of Greenville told the jury that the video was not definitive enough to show the actual drug being sold, and that in the audio recording you could not hear Simmons voice, and that the confidential informant could not be trusted to offer truthful testimony.
The jury returned a “not guilty” verdict.
http://www.clintonchronicle.com/breaking-news/not-guilty-informant-was-sex-offender-defense
Not Guilty - Informant Was A Sex Offender: Defense
Fri, 03/02/2018 - 9:06am Vic MacDonald
BY:
WLBG ON-LINE
COURT: Defense Questioned Use of Informant; Man Found Not Guilty
Friday, March 2, 2018 - WLBG on-line
A Clinton man was found “not guilty” of drug charges this week, after his defense questioned the use of a sex offender as a confidential informant in a drug transaction. 35-year-old Alexander Simmons of 111-A North Bell Street, Clinton was not convicted on charges of Possession of Crack Cocaine to Distribute in proximity of a school, park or playground.
The defense opened with the argument that the confidential informant, who set up the sale, was a convicted sex offender, and therefore, his testimony could not be trusted.
Clinton Public Safety Captain Tyrone Goggins explained how his department uses informants, saying that at the time of the alleged drug transaction, the informant had no pending charges. Detective Goggins also explained that it’s a common practice to use previously convicted offenders who volunteer for the job to sort of redeem themselves. He said police could only recommend that their service in the drug sale be considered in regard to their charges. He said that in this specific case, the informant used in the undercover drug sale just wanted to receive the customary $50 pay to set up a drug sale.
The prosecution submitted an audio recording as proof of a call to arrange the drug sale between the informant and defendant, and a video tape that was recorded by the informant at the time of the sale. Sargent Prather testified that he monitored the informant at the sale. Defense Attorney Scarlet Moore of Greenville asked Sgt. Prather if he knew the informant was a registered sex offender, and , if so, why he was sent to a park. Prather replied, “We monitored the entire sale and we were only seconds away if anything gets out of hand.” Sgt. Prather also said that to set up a bogus drug deal you have to use someone that is known to the dealer, you can’t just go into a local church and find someone to do that job.
Douglas Robinson, a chemist from SLED, testified that the substance turned over for evidence was in fact, crack cocaine.
In her closing argument, Defense Attorney Scarlet Moore of Greenville told the jury that the video was not definitive enough to show the actual drug being sold, and that in the audio recording you could not hear Simmons voice, and that the confidential informant could not be trusted to offer truthful testimony.
The jury returned a “not guilty” verdict.
Monday, March 5, 2018
#MoronToo: I guess you can say Elizabeth Dunn's list of alleged a wasn't very well "Dunn"
A few days ago, the college she attended "disciplined" her yet she was not suspended or expelled for falsely accusing a third of the male college students of being rapists or sexual harassers. She should have faced the same punishment as those she accused would have faced had they been disciplined.
https://www.sevendaysvt.com/vermont/hertoo-student-in-trouble-over-list-of-accused-sexual-transgressors/Content?oid=12090461
#HerToo: Middlebury Student in Trouble Over List of Accused Sexual Transgressors
By MOLLY WALSH
The #MeToo movement had already named and shamed Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein, comedian Louis C.K., U.S. senator Al Franken and celebrity chef Mario Batali when Elizabeth Dunn decided she had something to say about her classmates at Middlebury College.
On December 12, the senior went on Facebook to post a short list of "men to avoid" at Vermont's most prestigious college and solicited input from others. She added the crowdsourced names to her list until she had called out 36 male students and recent graduates for sexual misbehavior, ranging from serial rape to harassment.
Not all of the accusers were female. A few cases involved males or nonbinary students identifying men responsible for sexual misdeeds, according to Dunn.
Facebook removed the post within 48 hours, but screenshots of the list continue to circulate on campus. The incident gained national traction after it was covered on Babe.net, the same online outlet that published the much-debated anonymous account of a woman's "worst night of my life" date with comedian Aziz Ansari. In its Middlebury story, the website that proudly claims to be "for girls who don't give a fuck" blacked out the names on Dunn's list.
Like Ansari's defenders, some say Dunn, 21, went too far: What began as overdue acknowledgment of a vast sexual harassment problem has devolved into unfair and unsupported charges against men. Middlebury may expel Dunn, and she is worried that sanctions by the college could derail her plans to graduate in May and attend law school in the fall.
But other observers see Dunn's list as an act of bravery and, perhaps, desperation.
"There is an epidemic of sexual assault and everything else you can think of — violence, belittlement, discrimination, stalking, coercion — which happens on college and university campuses every day," said Felicia Kornbluh, a feminist and associate professor of history at the University of Vermont.
Women have issued warnings about men for a long time, and Dunn's list is a modern way to frame the message, Kornbluh said. It's "like what we used to do with writing names on the bathroom wall," she said. "It's sort of the weapon of the weak."
The list is a reminder that many victims don't feel they can trust in police or campus judicial systems to seek redress, Kornbluh said: "It's a sign of our utter failure institutionally."
Numerous students have shared stories with her of being victimized, she added. "It's pretty ubiquitous, and I hear no stories in which people used the university or other judicial procedures and got relief. That basically never happens," Kornbluh said. "So here we are. If I was an undergraduate, I might be writing on Facebook, too."
Culture Shock
Dunn said yes to Middlebury four years ago without ever having seen the place. The Atlanta, Ga., resident picked the college in part because it is known for its foreign languages and offered Arabic, which she'd studied in the rigorous International Baccalaureate program at her public high school.
Middlebury also offered financial aid to cover most of the cost of her four-year education. The teen was too busy with exams at the time to take advantage of an invitation to fly up and visit. Dunn, whom her friends call Liz, turned down similar offers from Brandeis University, American University, and the College of William and Mary to come to Vermont.
Dunn was eager to get out of the South and experience a new culture, a new place. But the transition for the African American daughter of a single hotel housekeeper mom was "jarring," as Dunn described it on a couch inside Middlebury's on-campus radio station, WRMC 91.1 FM, on the second floor of Proctor Hall. (She hosts a weekly program, "Cannabis Feminist," that explores "the intersections of marijuana, feminism, race, class and the prison industrial complex.") The mostly white, mostly wealthy and very sports-oriented school culture at Middlebury was indeed unfamiliar.
And, like many new college students, Dunn found herself navigating social situations for which she was unprepared. One night during her first year, she attended a party, met a guy and went to his room. According to Dunn, the student, a senior, plied her with alcohol to the point where she was "very drunk." They had a sexual encounter even though Dunn now says she "didn't really know what was happening" and "didn't really consent to a lot of what was happening."
Dunn tearfully explained that, the next day, she knew something terrible had occurred but didn't want to fully admit it to herself. She never reported the incident to police or campus judicial officers because she did not want to face humiliating questions that "chip away at you" and blame the victim, she said.
But she came to view the encounter as a sexual assault. And late last year, inspired by the #MeToo movement — and the "Shitty Media Men" list circulating online with claims about professionals in that industry — Dunn accused the student in her December 12 Facebook post that quickly grew into a list of 36 men. She revealed only his first name and encouraged other students to direct message, aka "DM," her on Facebook with the names of their abusers. She promised to add them to her list.
"The messages just started pouring in," Dunn recalled, adding that she was surprised by how many students wanted to share their experiences of being victimized by harassment and sexual assault. "There's just a lot of collective pain and trauma that people have experienced here," Dunn said of Middlebury College.
Before Facebook took it down due to complaints, the post listed the offenders — almost all by both first and last names — along with various accusations after each one, from "serial rapist" to "emotionally abusive" to "treats women, especially black women, like shit."
Dunn's post ended with these words: "here's to not being complicit in 2018 and feel free to dm me more names to add to this status because I could really give a fuck about protecting the privacy of abusers."
All of this happened as students were preparing to leave campus for the holiday break. Before she headed home to Atlanta, Dunn got a call from a campus judicial officer asking to meet. Initially, the purpose seemed to be to offer her comfort and support as a victim of sexual assault, Dunn said. But then the officer, whom she won't name, asked her to identify and provide contact information for those students who gave her the names of the men on the list.
Dunn said she refused to cooperate because she had promised to protect the privacy of the victims; she has since deleted all of their messages. Then, last week, Dunn said she was summoned again to meet with Middlebury judicial officers. On January 17, they told her she was officially facing college discipline for violating the privacy of other students — that is, those individuals she outed on the list.
"I could be facing suspension or expulsion. Middlebury judicial affairs has refused to take anything off the table right now," said Dunn, who is majoring in gender, sexuality and feminism studies. The possibility that she might not be able to finish at Middlebury is sobering, she said, but she still feels she did the right thing.
"This harm is being done by, like, specific people and by specific individuals, and if we want to move toward a conversation about, like, healing and accountability and growth, there needs to be some acknowledgment that harm was done," Dunn said. "So I think that the list was collectively generated not only by me, but by a pretty large group of survivors. It was like taking a moment to say, 'This is our experience. This is what happened to us.'"
Students weren't eager to speak to this reporter about Dunn or her list on a snowy afternoon last Thursday. More than half a dozen males declined to comment on the record about the controversy, but each was aware of it. The roster continues to circulate, they said, because so many people took screenshots of the post before Facebook pulled it down.
"For someone to just post a name, post an allegation and not have anything to back it up, it's hard to respect that," said a male first-year student on campus who did not want his name used. Others said the post "freaked" students out but triggered necessary conversations.
Samantha Valone, a Middlebury sophomore from the Boston area, said it was a good thing to call attention to sexual violence. But, she added, "I just kind of feel bad for some of the people who were maybe accused and are innocent, because their lives are pretty rough right now."
The range of misdeeds, alleged or real, also varied widely, she noted, from emotional abuse to the much more serious "serial rape," and "they maybe shouldn't have been put on the same list," Valone said.
After Facebook took down the list, some students decried the decision online and even accused the social media giant of being complicit in sexual assault, observed Nathaniel Wiener, a Middlebury College senior and a reporter for the student newspaper, the Middlebury Campus, which published a December 23 story on Dunn.
But other students immediately felt the list was unfair and still do, Wiener said last week. The controversy comes on the heels of another Middlebury mess that went national last March, when student protesters shut down a talk by The Bell Curve coauthor Charles Murray and injured a professor in the process.
Dunn helped organize that public demonstration, too, calling Murray's race-based theories about intelligence deeply offensive. On November 13, she took part in a "performance activism" piece in front of Proctor called "Laurie's Big Apology." Students in cheerleading getups waved metallic pom-poms as they lampooned Middlebury president Laurie Patton's effort to respond to continuing protests around the Murray event during a town-hall-style meeting she had convened a few days earlier.
To see the college headed back into the headlines over a new scandal upset a number of alumni, according to Wiener. Some reached out to him to ask about Dunn's motivations with the list. "My answer was, 'I don't know,'" said Wiener.
It didn't help that immediately after the social media blast, the college issued emails to the student body that appeared to take one side, and then the other. The first urged victims to report harassment or assault to the college judicial office. The second urged people falsely accused to report that, too, to the same office. The messages just added to the confusion around the list, Wiener said.
"It was like you get into a fight in the schoolyard, and your parents say, 'Well, I don't really know what happened, but make sure you don't do it again,'" Wiener said.
The federal law known as Title IX prohibits Middlebury and other educational institutions from discriminating on the basis of gender. Although it is well known for improving women's access and participation in athletics, the statute also provides guidance on campus judicial reviews of sexual assaults.
College officials would not confirm that Dunn is facing possible sanctions, nor would they say if any of the individuals on the list might be. A request to interview Patton was denied. But college spokeswoman Sarah Ray offered this statement on her behalf: "Middlebury takes all allegations regarding sexual assault and discrimination extremely seriously. Our policies encourage reporting of assaults and ensure that allegations are investigated thoroughly, fairly and confidentially. The public posting of allegations raises many issues for our community and has no role in a fair and balanced process.
"An investigation into all aspects of this incident is under way," the statement continued, "and we will work to ensure that Middlebury carefully follows its policies regarding sexual assault, harassment and other Title IX allegations, as well as its policies regarding respect for persons."
Justice or Witch Hunt?
This is not the first time social media has been used in a campus sexual assault allegation. Alec Rose is a Santa Monica, Calif., attorney with a national practice that specializes in college assault cases. He's not representing anyone in connection with the Middlebury incident.
One of his clients was recently cleared in a campus judicial review process, and the alleged victim chose not to appeal but later tweeted the young man's name with the accusation that he was a "rapist loose on campus" and that the college was whitewashing that fact, Rose said. "It was very devastating for the young man," and he withdrew from the school, according to Rose, who declined to release more specific details.
Meanwhile, the accuser could have channeled her anger into an appeal, he added. Using social media as it was in that case, and in others, can be deeply unfair, Rose said: "I think it's a dangerous way for somebody to seek redress, both to them and the people they are accusing."
He had a similar reaction after reading the story about Dunn's list on Babe.
"Without knowing that she had substance to back up her accusations against these 30 young men, I don't know how this could be deemed responsible," Rose said, adding: "It's certainly very humiliating to the people she reported on ... It may be a situation where some of them may not be able to recover their reputation."
Dunn said she considered the risk that someone would sue her for defamation of character when she posted the list, but she doesn't believe it will happen — in part because legal action would generate unwanted publicity. She hasn't heard from lawyers for any of the accused young men.
Another factor is the veracity of the claim. "In a campus situation, or in any situation where someone has alleged defamation by [an allegation of] sexual assault, one defense to that would be truth, that it actually happened," said Burlington attorney Ben Luna, who has no direct connection to the Middlebury situation but has represented students facing various charges and tried many sexual assault cases in his former career as a prosecutor.
"There's a whole host of issues at play here, legal and otherwise," Luna said.
Meanwhile, some female public figures, including French actress Catherine Deneuve, are warning that the #MeToo movement is turning into a witch hunt.
Is Middlebury an example of overreach on campuses?
"My immediate reaction to that is no," Luna said. Historically speaking, sexual assault has "been a grossly underreported crime," and victims have not felt able to go to the courts for many reasons, Luna said.
"There's a whole laundry list of reasons why an individual will not report, will not disclose," Luna said. "Some of those examples are the fear that no one will believe them, embarrassment. A lot of sex assault victims blame themselves." Luna said one teenage victim he worked with wasn't fully aware she had been violated. "She didn't really know what rape was," he said.
Back at Middlebury, Dunn is waiting to see how the college disciplinary process treats her. Her friends are petitioning against punitive action, and Dunn is applying to law schools.
She said she isn't concerned that her activism could adversely affect her chances of getting in. Her plan B: landing a job in the Bronx public defender's office.
Dunn has heard nothing from the man she personally accused and has never directly told him how she felt about the evening. Does she think he would view the incident as sexual assault? "Probably not," she said. "And that's another thing that is really typical here."
Men are sometimes raised to ignore social cues and feel a sense of entitlement, while women may be socialized not to say no or to accept things so men feel more comfortable, suggested Dunn.
Reactions from men on the list haven't all been negative. Some of the accused have "glared" at Dunn in the dining hall or said "not very nice" things, she allowed. But others have approached her to discuss the allegations and even said they wanted to create a forum for broader conversation.
Tyler McDowell, a junior from Pennsylvania, was accused on the list of making "fetishistic, racist, sexual comments about black women." He doesn't remember making such comments and does not know who claims he made them, McDowell told Seven Days.
Still, he doesn't feel he was treated unfairly. "I do not feel wronged by this. I also would stipulate that other men probably shouldn't, either," said McDowell.
The list was a "wake-up call" that should trigger discussion about the need for an end to the behaviors that were described on the list, he added. It's "one way of broadcasting kind of a general call for culture change."
Correction, January 25, 2018: Felicia Kornbluh called posting names a "weapon of the weak." And earlier version of this story contained an error.
Saturday, March 3, 2018
Coalinga CA incorporated civil commitment center, lost a tax bill because the patients can vote, now wants a bill to exclude them from voting
“[I]f the constitutional conception of 'equal protection of the laws' means anything, it must at the very least mean that a bare . . . desire to harm a politically unpopular group cannot constitute a legitimate governmental interest.” Department of Agriculture v. Moreno, 413 U.S. 528, 534 (1973), cited in Romer v Evans, 517 U.S. 620 (1996)
It is obvious this bill is retaliation for the voting preferences of those at the indefinite detention center at Coalinga.
http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=201720180AB2839
LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL'S DIGEST
AB 2839, as introduced, Arambula. Voter qualifications: domicile: sexually violent predators.
Existing law requires the Legislature to define residence and provide for registration and free elections for the purposes of voting in the state. Existing law defines a “residence” for voting purposes to mean a person’s domicile, and provides that the domicile of a person is that place in which his or her habitation is fixed, wherein the person has the intention of remaining, and to which, whenever he or she is absent, the person has the intention of returning. Existing law provides that at a given time, a person may have only one domicile. Existing law provides that a person does not gain or lose a domicile solely by reason of his or her presence or absence from a place while kept in an asylum or prison.
Existing law defines sexually violent predator, for the purposes of, among other things, classifying persons for commitment to the custody of the State Department of State Hospitals for mental health treatment, as a person who has been convicted of a sexually violent offense against one or more victims and who has a diagnosed mental disorder that makes the person a danger to the health and safety of others in that it is likely that he or she will engage in sexually violent criminal behavior.
This bill would provide that the domicile of a person who has been adjudicated a sexually violent predator and who is committed for an indeterminate term to the custody of the department shall be the last known address of the person before his or her commitment.
BILL TEXT
THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA DO ENACT AS FOLLOWS:
SECTION 1. Section 2036 is added to the Elections Code, to read:
2036. The domicile of a person who has been adjudicated a sexually violent predator, as defined in Section 6600 of the Welfare and Institutions Code, and who is committed for an indeterminate term to the custody of the State Department of State Hospitals, shall be the last known address of the person before his or her commitment.
http://www.fresnobee.com/news/politics-government/politics-columns-blogs/political-notebook/article202682219.html
After sexual predators swung an election, new law would change California voting rules
BY RORY APPLETON
rappleton@fresnobee.com
March 01, 2018 11:04 AM
Updated March 01, 2018 01:11 PM
Four months after the patients of Coalinga State Hospital doomed a 1-cent sales tax needed to maintain police and fire staffing in the city, the state Assembly is weighing a change to state voting law that would limit sexually violent predators’ voting rights.
Assemblyman Joaquin Arambula – the Fresno Democrat whose district encompasses much of Fresno County, including Coalinga – proposed the change on Feb. 16. In an interview this week, Arambula said he became aware of the issue after The Bee’s initial reporting on the failed ballot measure in November.
“I was shocked to find out that sexually violent predators were able to affect an outcome on something as important as public safety,” Arambula said. “This impacted the jobs of 23 police officers and firefighters who are desperately needed in Coalinga.”
Arambula’s one-page bill would set the residence status of any sexually violent predator committed to an indeterminate term in a California state hospital to his or her last known address.
Current law allows some patients at Coalinga State Hospital to vote in Coalinga, as the city annexed the hospital years ago to increase its population – a common tactic for small cities hoping to appear larger to attract potential businesses. A larger population count by the U.S. census also can bring more federal and tax revenues to a city for law enforcement, housing, transportation and other needs.
The proposed change must pass the Assembly and Senate before the governor can decide whether to sign it into law.
In November, a group of patients and former patients – organized as a group called Detainee-Americans for Civic Equality (DACE) – opted to oppose Coalinga’s Measure C, which would have raised the sales tax to pay for existing public services. Voting records show most of the hospital’s 304 registered voters voted against the tax, which failed by just 37 votes.
Robert Ferguson, a former patient and registered sex offender living in Fresno, is the community liaison for DACE. On Tuesday, he sent out a letter to activists and the news media blasting Arambula’s proposed legislation and threatening to do everything he can to keep the assemblyman from winning re-election this year.
In his letter, Ferguson said that patients at Coalinga are civil detainees, not prisoners. Many have been in custody for decades and will likely spend the rest of their lives in the hospital, he added.
Patients have no ties to their former addresses, Ferguson said, whereas measures in Coalinga do have a limited impact on them . The proposed sales tax hike would have increased prices at the hospital’s cafeteria, for example.
Arambula said he did not speak to any patients about voting in last November’s election this specific issue prior to proposing the law.
“The sexually violent predators don’t even use” community services in Coalinga, he said. “It’s much more appropriate for them to vote in the communities they will be returned to.”
The fallout from the defeated tax measure continues to reverberate through both Coalinga and the state hospital system.
In January, the hospital was locked down after patients began acting out due to a ban on certain personal electronic devices. The patients contend the hospital crackdown was in retaliation for the election, while the Department of State Hospitals says it was due to the spread of child pornography using the now-outlawed devices.
The patients have filed a lawsuit against the state.
The city of Coalinga has also filed an unrelated lawsuit against Fresno County, claiming the patients should never have been allowed to vote and demanding the election results be voided.
Coalinga proposed the sales tax after tough economic times led to a $557,000 deficit in its annual budget. The city’s Kmart, a major income producer, closed down, and income from its embrace of cannabis cultivation has been slow to materialize.
Friday, March 2, 2018
Trump Supporters Dating Site used Registered Citizen as Face of the Website
I have to admit I'm on the fence with this one. It is no secret I'm very anti-Trump, and anything that makes Trump look like Jenna Maroney from 30 Rock is great with me, but at the same time, I'm pro-second chances for registrants. Either way, the whole flap over this story is Shiitake-worthy.
Morons Are Governing America.
https://www.thewrap.com/trump-dating-pulls-child-sex-offender-as-featured-image/
Trump Dating Site Pulls Photo of Convicted Child Sex Offender From Home Page
***** filmed himself having sex with a teenager in the ’90s
Sean Burch | Last Updated: February 20, 2018 @ 8:02 AM
Trump.dating — the new dating site courting “Make America Great Again” supporters — couldn’t have picked a worse model for its featured image.
On the site’s splash page, users are greeted by the smiling face of **** , who it turns out is a convicted sex offender, as several local news outlets reported. **** was convicted in 1995 for filming himself having sex with a 15-year-old girl while he was in his mid-2os. His conviction is listed on public records.
***'s picture, along with his wife Jodi’s, have since been removed from Trump.dating’s welcome page. The conservative-friendly site — which caused an uproar on Monday for only allowing straight men or women to sign up for the service– didn’t immediately respond to TheWrap’s request for comment.
https://www.thecut.com/2018/02/a-convicted-sex-criminal-was-the-face-of-a-trump-dating-site.html
LOVE IN THE TIME OF TRUMP
FEBRUARY 20, 2018
11:18 AM
A Convicted Sex Criminal Was the Face of a Trump Dating Site
By
Madeleine Aggeler
As we’ve seen, dating can be hard for Trump voters. To even the playing field, some MAGA fans created Trump.dating, a safe space for those who hate safe spaces. The website has been off to a rough start, however, facing criticism for only making itself available to straight men and women, allowing people to sign up as “happily married” or “unhappily married,” and for featuring a picture of B** R***, a convicted sex offender, on its home page.
According to North Carolina’s WRAL news, in 1995, *** was convicted for taking indecent liberties with a minor after he taped himself having sex with a 15-year-old girl when he was 25.
*** and his wife, Jodi, are active in North Carolina conservative politics, and for a time, the Trump.dating home page featured a picture of the couple smiling in matching Trump baseball caps. (The picture has since been changed.)
It is unclear who created the website, and what role the *** play, if any. Barrett Riddleberger would not agree to answer questions about the site, but did tell WRAL, “I’ve already paid my debt for something I did 25 years ago.”
On its (now ***-less) home page, Trump.dating says it is
“wrecking the dating game and giving like-minded Americans a chance to meet without the awkwardness that comes with the first conversation about politics.” It also includes helpful dating tips for users’s profiles like “Play a little hard to get but with a fun flare,” and “People who feel good about themselves make others feel good too.”
The Cut has reached out to Trump.dating for a comment on ***, and will update when we hear back.
Thursday, March 1, 2018
Some people are actually stupid enough to think that giving high fives is "grooming"
I think most of my Shiitake Awards readers are Americans, but Predator Panic is just as bad across the pond.
I'm no Brit, so I had to look up the term "lollipop man" and it is the British term for a crossing guard, presumably due to the shape of their crossing signs on sticks resembling lollipops.
https://www.hulldailymail.co.uk/news/hull-east-yorkshire-news/lollipop-man-speaks-out-i-1194856?_ga=2.182952358.1208757162.1519914627-1935913851.1519310172
Lollipop man speaks out: 'I was told high-fiving kids was grooming'
Lollipop man Bryan Broom has spoken out about the complaints made against him to East Riding Council
ByAlex Grove
06:00, 10 FEB 2018
UPDATED 07:22, 10 FEB 2018
A respected lollipop man has admitted he resigned from his job after the council told him he could no longer high-five children because it could be interpreted as grooming.
Bryan Broom, 77, shocked parents and pupils alike after deciding to hang up his hi-viz earlier this week.
He left yesterday in an emotional afternoon and was showered with gifts and hugs from devastated children who urged him not to leave.
Bryan’s resignation came after complaints were made about him high-fiving youngsters as they left Kirk Ella St Andrew’s Community Primary School in west Hull.
And now, Bryan has revealed why he made the tough decision to quit doing the job he loved after almost two decades.
He said: “I used to high-five the kids until I was told it could be construed as grooming – that is what the council told me.
“It’s rather peculiar because two or three months ago there were pictures of the Duchess of Cambridge high-fiving at a school and I should have sent copies of those to the council.
“If it was good enough for the royal family why is it not good enough for me?
“If I carried on I would feel so frustrated that I would have to watch my Ps and Qs all the time.
“I wouldn’t know how to talk to people because I am a rather outgoing person.
“Maybe I do say some things wrong but generally I do, I think, a pretty good job.
“It makes me feel sad and I thought if this is what is happening to the world I don’t want to be a part of this.”
Since news of Bryan’s resignation broke among parents, mums have leaped to his defence and slammed those who have complained to the council about his behaviour as “pathetic” and “ridiculous.”
East Riding of Yorkshire Council has said that investigations were launched after complaints were made about Bryan’s conduct.
However, none of these were upheld.
In a statement, the council said: “The council had received a number of complaints from parents about the behaviour of Mr Broom.
"These complaints were investigated but not upheld. Mr Broom is choosing to leave of his own accord and we wish him well in the future."
Bryan condemned those who made complaints against him and slammed the perceived “political correctness” creeping into society, but was thankful for the support he received from many well-wishers.
“It means so much to me,” he said. “It proves that the majority of people are not into this political correctness and that they are the same as me.
“The ordinary people have come to my defence.
“This political correctness has been perpetuated by a small minority of people and in the last couple of days, the majority has proved to me that Mr and Mrs Ordinary are wonderful people and they don’t want this political correctness.”
After waving his lollipop stick for the last time on Friday, Bryan now plans to take a break by going on holiday for a week.
However, he expressed his pride and gratitude to those who showed up on his final day to give him the perfect send-off.
“It has been fantastic,” Bryan said. “I expected a bit of a fuss but it’s gone viral and I love it.
“I’ve had chocolate, gin, wine – you name it, and I’ve had some really nice messages from children saying ‘please don’t go.’
“It’s been wonderful and I feel so humbled that people think so fondly of me.”
I'm no Brit, so I had to look up the term "lollipop man" and it is the British term for a crossing guard, presumably due to the shape of their crossing signs on sticks resembling lollipops.
https://www.hulldailymail.co.uk/news/hull-east-yorkshire-news/lollipop-man-speaks-out-i-1194856?_ga=2.182952358.1208757162.1519914627-1935913851.1519310172
Lollipop man speaks out: 'I was told high-fiving kids was grooming'
Lollipop man Bryan Broom has spoken out about the complaints made against him to East Riding Council
ByAlex Grove
06:00, 10 FEB 2018
UPDATED 07:22, 10 FEB 2018
A respected lollipop man has admitted he resigned from his job after the council told him he could no longer high-five children because it could be interpreted as grooming.
Bryan Broom, 77, shocked parents and pupils alike after deciding to hang up his hi-viz earlier this week.
He left yesterday in an emotional afternoon and was showered with gifts and hugs from devastated children who urged him not to leave.
Bryan’s resignation came after complaints were made about him high-fiving youngsters as they left Kirk Ella St Andrew’s Community Primary School in west Hull.
And now, Bryan has revealed why he made the tough decision to quit doing the job he loved after almost two decades.
He said: “I used to high-five the kids until I was told it could be construed as grooming – that is what the council told me.
“It’s rather peculiar because two or three months ago there were pictures of the Duchess of Cambridge high-fiving at a school and I should have sent copies of those to the council.
“If it was good enough for the royal family why is it not good enough for me?
“If I carried on I would feel so frustrated that I would have to watch my Ps and Qs all the time.
“I wouldn’t know how to talk to people because I am a rather outgoing person.
“Maybe I do say some things wrong but generally I do, I think, a pretty good job.
“It makes me feel sad and I thought if this is what is happening to the world I don’t want to be a part of this.”
Since news of Bryan’s resignation broke among parents, mums have leaped to his defence and slammed those who have complained to the council about his behaviour as “pathetic” and “ridiculous.”
East Riding of Yorkshire Council has said that investigations were launched after complaints were made about Bryan’s conduct.
However, none of these were upheld.
In a statement, the council said: “The council had received a number of complaints from parents about the behaviour of Mr Broom.
"These complaints were investigated but not upheld. Mr Broom is choosing to leave of his own accord and we wish him well in the future."
Bryan condemned those who made complaints against him and slammed the perceived “political correctness” creeping into society, but was thankful for the support he received from many well-wishers.
“It means so much to me,” he said. “It proves that the majority of people are not into this political correctness and that they are the same as me.
“The ordinary people have come to my defence.
“This political correctness has been perpetuated by a small minority of people and in the last couple of days, the majority has proved to me that Mr and Mrs Ordinary are wonderful people and they don’t want this political correctness.”
After waving his lollipop stick for the last time on Friday, Bryan now plans to take a break by going on holiday for a week.
However, he expressed his pride and gratitude to those who showed up on his final day to give him the perfect send-off.
“It has been fantastic,” Bryan said. “I expected a bit of a fuss but it’s gone viral and I love it.
“I’ve had chocolate, gin, wine – you name it, and I’ve had some really nice messages from children saying ‘please don’t go.’
“It’s been wonderful and I feel so humbled that people think so fondly of me.”
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