The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

In The Mailbox: 01.18.22

Posted on | January 19, 2022 | Comments Off on In The Mailbox: 01.18.22

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Silicon Valley delenda est.

H/T The People’s Cube

OVER THE TRANSOM
357 Magnum: Carjack City
EBL: U.S. Buys The Virgin Islands For $25 Million, also, Democrats – Corrupt As Hell
Twitchy: Ray Epps’ Attorney Explains Why He Was Removed From The FBI Suspect Database, also. 150+ “Experts” Sign Letter Calling Joe Rogan “Extraordinarily Dangerous” To Society
Louder With Crowder: Carhartt’s Announces Jab Mandate, Customers Begin Boycott, also, After One Year Of Joe Biden, Voters Shifting To Republicans
Vox Popoli: The Great Barrington Declaration, Pad For Performance, and Don’t Trust The Corpocracy
Stoic Observations: The Expert Life

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
Adam Piggott: Switch Off Big Brother, also, Our Battle Against Effeminacy
American Conservative: Inflation Might Spell Doom For Wokeness, also, No, Eric Adams Won’t Save New York
American Greatness: Rand Paul Cancels DirecTV After Provider Drops OANN, also, New Peer-Reviewed Study Shows Ivermectin Significantly Reduces COVID Infections, Hospitalizations, & Mortality Rates
American Power: Democrats Have Long Perverted MLK Jr.’s Legacy, also, Michigan Democrats Poke The Mama Bears
American Thinker: Crumbling Narratives Leave The Ruling Class With Everything To Fear, also, The Political Timing Of The Epidemic’s End
Animal Magnetism: Goodbye Blue Monday, also, Animal’s Daily Corruption In Government News
Babalu Blog: Virginia’s New AG Jason Miyares Begins Fighting Corruption & Wokeism Immediately, also, Cuban Dictatorship Continues Violent Attacks Against Outspoken Priest
Baldilocks: Postmodernism & Her Lie-Babies
BattleSwarm: Virginia’s New Republican AG Gets Down To Business, NSBA Near Total Collapse. Good!, and Winter Of Discontent II – Biden Boogaloo
Behind The Black: Pushback – NSBA Facing Collapse After Calling Concerned Parents “Terrorists”, SpaceX Launches Another 49 Starlink Satellites, and Boeing & NASA Still Aiming For May Unmanned Starliner Launch
Cafe Hayek: Street Art That I Applaud, also, What Is The World Coming To?
CDR Salamander: Things To Learn From The Winter War, Making LCS Work The Only Way The Critics Said It Could Be, and DDG(X) Quicklook
Da Tech Guy: The Biggest Story Of The Day Bar None, SCOTUS Mandate Thoughts Under The Fedora, and Brandon By The Numbers
Don Surber: To Save Newspapers, Dump The Editorial Page, Steve Bannon Predicts 100-Seat Pickup For GOP, and An Indian Graveyard With No Bodies
First Street Journal: Philadelphians Are Fighting Back, also, Black Lives Don’t Really Matter In Lexington
Gates Of Vienna: The Next Fortuyn Will Be Baudet, Time To Brush The Wool Away, Boris, and Three Cultural Enrichment Tales From Germany
The Geller Report: MIT Scientist Warns Parents Not To Give Kids The Jab, also, While Shuttering Your Family Business & Getting You Fired, Fauci Made $1.7 Million On His Lies
Hogewash: Begala Channels Brecht, Team Kimberlin Post of The Day, and Don’t Know Much About History
Hollywood In Toto: Mike Rowe – “Comedians Have Let Us Down”, “Why Didn’t Rolling Stone Defend Me?”, and The View Veers From Idiotic To Borderline Dangerous
The Lid: Joe Biden Is Both Unlucky And Incompetent
Legal Insurrection:  Senate GOP Demands Answers From Education, Justice Departments Over “Domestic Terrorists” Letter,  In George Gascon’s LA Smash & Grab Morphs Into Slash & Dash, and Poli Sci Prof Calls Out Biden Over Divisive “Voting Rights” Speech In Georgia
Michelle Malkin: Associated Press = Associated Propaganda, also, Open Borders = Election Sabotage
Nebraska Energy Observer: Oops! Epps!, Lying Signs, and Some Thoughts On Islam
Outkick: Bama QB Bryce Young Puts Manning Award Next To Heisman, Sen. Cotton Blasts Warriors Co-Owner For Uyghur Comments, and Vax Clearly Offered NHL No Benefit, But Mysteriously, NFL Suddenly COVID-Free
Power Line: Massive Shift From Dems To GOP, Midnight Trains & Daylight Crime, and Felony Murder In A Good Cause
Shark Tank: Florida Lawmakers Take Aim At CRT
Shot In The Dark: Panicky Elites, Resilient Normies, Legal Discrimination Redux, and Your Papers
STUMP: Have An Actuarial New Year! also, Happy Second Christmas! Epiphany, Data Visualization, & Sumo
The Political Hat: The Damage Of Puberty Blockers, Georgia Vs. CRT, and The Coming California Water Crisis
This Ain’t Hell: Hugh Jonson – Still Riding On The Phony Pony, “Randy Andy” Stripped Of Military Honours, and USS Kitty Hawk
Transterrestrial Musings: Boca Chica, Dirty Hippies, and Don’t Look Up
Victory Girls: Australia – Who Cares? We Should, also, Sheila Jackson-Lee Co-Opts MLK To Pimp Voter Fraud
Volokh Conspiracy: Martin Luther King On The Ethics Of Resistance To State Authority, also, Crime Victims Allege Baltimore PD Unconstitutionally Seized & Destroyed Their Property 
Weasel Zippers: Dem Rep Wasserman-Schultz Compares Voter ID to “Communist Suppression & Oppression”, also, Oil Prices Hit Seven-Year High Under Biden
The Federalist: Biden FCC Nominee Gigi Sohn Wants To Nuke Conservative Broadcasters From The Air, also, WV Treasurer Drops BlackRock Over Woke Capitalism
Mark Steyn: Swallowing The Codswallop, “My Blue Heaven”, and G-Men & Jihad Men

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Category: Linkagery

White Lives Don’t Matter

Posted on | January 18, 2022 | Comments Off on White Lives Don’t Matter

No one’s life is safe in Los Angeles:

Brianna Kupfer knew something was off with the man who walked into the Los Angeles furniture store where she was working alone.
The UCLA grad student texted a friend on Jan. 13 to say said there was someone in the store Croft House on North La Brea Avenue who was “giving her a bad vibe,” LAPD Lt. John Radtke said on Tuesday.
The unidentified homeless man stabbed Kupfer, 24, in what cops said was “a random act of violence.” Her body was found a short time later by another customer.
“This individual responsible for this vicious senseless and brutal crime is walking amongst us,” said LAPD Chief Michel Moore in announcing a $250,000 reward for information leading to the killer’s arrest.
Los Angeles Councilman Paul Koretz said he introduced a motion on Tuesday for a $50,000 reward, while the rest of the money came from community members who have donated funds to the Kupfer family.
The suspect is described as a tall man with braided hair, wearing a dark hooded sweatshirt, dark pants and black tennis shoes. Cops said he should be considered armed and dangerous.
Kupfer’s father, Todd, told The Post investigators are working hard on his daughter’s case.
“We are extremely thankful for this show of support and hope it will lead to his capture.”
He criticized city leaders and said the recent uptick in crime is because of lenient policies against criminals.

Some lives matter in L.A., but Brianna Kupfer wasn’t one of those.

L.A. is run by Democrats, and Democrats hate white people. The fact that a lot of black people are also getting murdered during this crime wave is incidental to the main goal of Democrats’ policy, i.e., killing white people.

Be on the lookout for this suspect, who voted for Joe Biden.

Lots of Biden voters out there in L.A., and they want you dead, cracker.




 

Category: California, Crime

Nevada Cops Shoot White Guy With Diploma From Elite University

Posted on | January 17, 2022 | Comments Off on Nevada Cops Shoot White Guy With Diploma From Elite University

“I have a dream — a dream of a land where someday white suspects will get shot by the cops the same way black suspects get shot by the cops!”

Boys and girls, we have reached the Promised Land:

A Colorado man who was shot in the leg by law enforcement at the Red Rock Canyon scenic loop [Nov. 11] appeared in a Las Vegas courtroom early {Nov. 16} and had his bail affirmed at $100,000.
Clark County Chief Deputy District Attorney Giancarlo Pesci said during a Las Vegas Justice Court appearance for Erik Legried, 29, that the events leading to Legried’s shooting started when a family member of Legried’s called police prior to 7 a.m. Thursday to report he was suicidal. The Nevada Highway Patrol later found Legried driving a black Toyota Tacoma near the scenic loop visitor center.
“He has mental health issues and was not taking his medicine,” Pesci said. “(A police report) indicates he was driving at a very high rate of speed, crashed into a fence, then the troopers decided to stop him, to help him, told him to wait, and he took off at a high rate of speed. Then, he slammed his (truck) into one of the trooper’s vehicles.”
At least one NHP trooper discharged their firearm at Legried, wounding him in the leg. He was treated at an area hospital, then jailed on multiple felonies, including four counts of battery with a use of a deadly weapon against a first responder and evading arrest.
Pesci told Justice of the Peace Pro-Tem Holly Stoberski that because of Legried’s mental health issues and “dangerous acts,” his bail — set at $100,000 during a Friday court hearing — should remain the same.
“He’s a danger to this community and he’s a danger to law enforcement,” Pesci said.
Legried’s two attorneys, Christopher Mishler and William Brown, asked Stoberski to lower the bail. They said Legried’s mother in Minnesota had arranged for him to receive mental health treatment as a criminal case against him makes his way through the courts.
“They have a mental health screening set up at the Mayo Clinic,” Mishler said. “We’ve talked to him. He is in agreement that is proper. … He is willing to do that.”
The defense attorneys asked the judge to lower bail to $10,000 and impose electronic monitoring. Stoberski, however, kept the bail the same, noting even if Legried were released on bail with electronic monitoring, he would still have to remain in Southern Nevada while charges are pending.
In court, Legried described himself as a debate instructor, artist and musician. A preliminary hearing in the case was set for Nov. 30.

You’ve got to watch the video (skip to 5:12 for the action).

The thing is, Legried is not just some random white boy. He has a degree in philosophy from Northwestern University, and was once a debate coach at the prestigious Brentwood School in L.A. Yet just seven years after graduating college, he’s a “danger to this community,” off his meds, ramming police cars and getting shot by cops.

Do you think any of his fellow alumni of Northwestern ($79,197 a year, including room and board) are protesting about “excessive force” or Legried’s “rights” being violated by the cops? No, they don’t care. They’re more like, “Yeah, that crazy loser had it coming.” Nobody’s looting Walmart or toppling statues, because there is no political benefit for Democrats when white guys get shot by cops.

The Black Lives Matter movement is, and always was, a political scam.




 

Category: Crime

The Mysterious Motive

Posted on | January 17, 2022 | Comments Off on The Mysterious Motive

A huge clue that Democrats and the media (but I repeat myself) are just using the phrase “white supremacy” to exploit fear for political gain:

On Sunday, Joe Biden acknowledged the Texas synagogue hostage situation, dubbing the incident an “act of terror,” but refused to “speculate” on Akram’s motives when asked about it by reporters.
“No, I don’t. I — there’s speculation, but I’m not going to get into that. I will — I’m going to have a press conference on Wednesday, and I’ll be happy to go into detail of what I know in detail at that time,” Biden said in a press conference Sunday.
The now-dead hostage-taker was identified as Malik Faisal Akram, and he demanded the release of Aafia Siddiqui, a jihadi known as “Lady al Qaeda.”
Just like the FBI, Biden seems intent on “whitewashing” Akram’s motives. Akram only targeted a synagogue. I wonder what his motives were.
This insistence on pretending that Akram’s motives are unknown is troubling but not surprising. So much of this incident doesn’t fit the preferred narrative of the political left.
But it wasn’t all that long ago that Joe Biden was very willing to speculate the motives of Kyle Rittenhouse — who shot and killed two people in self-defense during the Kenosha riots — and label him a white supremacist without any proof whatsoever.
In 2020, in the final months of the presidential campaign, Biden featured a photo of Rittenhouse in a video posted to Twitter accusing Trump of refusing to “disavow white supremacists” . . .
Then Biden falsely linked Rittenhouse to white supremacists during an interview on CNN with Anderson Cooper.
“I don’t know enough to know whether that 17-year-old kid, exactly what he did, but allegedly he’s part of a militia coming out of the state of Illinois. Have you ever heard this president say one negative thing about white supremacists? Have you ever heard it? That’s the reason I got back in this race because of what happened in Charlottesville,” Biden claimed.
The only thing he got right was Rittenhouse’s age. Everything else was wrong. He wasn’t part of a militia. He wasn’t a white supremacist. A jury of his peers also agreed he acted in self-defense and found him not guilty.
Biden never apologized to Rittenhouse for his smears. In light of his unwillingness to “speculate” about Akram’s motives, Rittenhouse deserves an apology now more than ever.

Biden and other Democrats wouldn’t do this without the willing collusion of the media. If journalists were as critical of Democrats as they are of Republicans, Biden and his advisors would know they couldn’t engage in such irresponsible rhetoric without being called out on it. The idea that America is a nation besieged by “white supremacy” is absurd, but because liberals in the media understand this phrase to be code for “Republican voters,” they’re willing to let Biden and other Democrats get away with this disgusting smear. Oh, but you can’t say that a Muslim who takes hostages in a synagogue might be an anti-Semite because that could incite Islamophobia! Meanwhile in England:

The terrorist attack on a synagogue in Colleyville, Texas Saturday during Shabbat services ended after an eleven-hour ordeal. Fortunately, the four men held hostage, including the rabbi, were released unharmed. The Jihadi terrorist, a British national, is dead. His identity was released on Sunday.
Malik Faisal Akram, a 44-year-old Muslim from Blackburn, traveled two weeks ago to the United States and lived in homeless shelters before Saturday. His brother says he was mentally ill and asks a good question – why was Malik Akram allowed into the U.S. with his criminal record? . . .
Two teens from Manchester were arrested and are still in custody. There is little information coming forward on them, due to their ages. . . .
From the first statement issued by the FBI on Saturday night, there has been a lack of honesty in how the FBI has spoken about the terror attack. In an initial statement, an agent referred to the terrorist as a hostage taker and claimed that there was no known motive. He also said there was no indication that of a larger plot involved. By Sunday night, the FBI finally called it what it was – an anti-Semitic terrorism attack on a synagogue during worship services. Why was that so hard? Never mind, that’s a rhetorical question. Everyone following the story knew what it was from the beginning. The man admitted he traveled “5,000 miles” and chose the synagogue because of its proximity to DFW airport. That was heard on the live stream during the ordeal.

So, in the case of Rittenhouse, Biden falsely claimed to know the teenager was a “white supremacist,” but now the FBI pretends it doesn’t recognize the motive in what was self-evidently an anti-Semitic terrorist attack.

There is a double-standard in operation, and it is purely political.

(Hat-tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)




 

Category: Democrats, Islam, Racism, Terrorism

Rule 5 Sunday: Clearing Out The Bodacious Babe Backlog

Posted on | January 16, 2022 | 2 Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Looks like it’s been almost a whole month since I’ve done a Rule 5 Sunday, but today I have the energy to get caught up. Today’s appetizer is cosplayer Helly Valentine playing Tinker Bell.
Ceterum autem censeo Silicon Valley esse delendam.


Ninety Miles From Tyranny: Hot Pick of the Late Night, The 90 Miles Mystery Box Episode #1582, Morning Mistress, and Girls With Guns. 

Animal Magnetism: Rule 5 Goodbye 2021 Friday, the Saturday Blondepocalypse, Rule 5 How Will We Win Friday, the Saturday Brunettenarok, Rule 5 Terms You Shouldn’t Use Friday, and the Saturday Asian Invasion. 

EBL: My Man Godfrey, Julie London, Sarah Niemietz, Succession, The Tender Bar, Maria Callas, and Pat Benatar.

A View From The Beach: Lara Ghraoui, Happy New Year, Fish Pic Friday – Maggie N, Do I Really Want to Do An Election Post? I’m Positive!, Ima da te nema, The Wednesday Wetness, Tuesday Tanlines, Forget it Jake, It’s Baltimore, Oh Deer!, RIP E.O. Wilson – He Had an Inordinate Fondness for Ants, Chesapeake Sturgeon on the Road to Recovery, Hollywood Starlet Regrets Lost Youth, Monday Morning Stimulus, Palm Sunday and Deck The Halls

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Category: Rule 5

HOSTAGE CRISIS AT TEXAS SYNAGOGUE; UPDATE: SHOTS HEARD, HOSTAGES RELEASED, TERRORIST KILLED

Posted on | January 15, 2022 | 1 Comment

UPDATE 11:20 p.m. ET: Looks like a win for the good guys:

Gov. Greg Abbott tweeted about 9:35 p.m. [i.e., 10:30 ET] that all hostages are safe and out of a Colleyville synagogue after a loud bang and gunfire were heard. U.S. Rep. Beth Van Duyne told a Star-Telegram reporter in a text that the hostage-taker is dead. A loud bang followed by what sounded like gunfire was heard about 9:12 p.m. Saturday outside the Colleyville synagogue where a hostage situation has been ongoing for hours.
Colleyville police confirmed in a statement on social media the the situation is resolved and all hostages are safe.

Moral of the story: Don’t mess with Texas.

*** PREVIOUSLY ***

This looks very bad:

An apparently armed man took a rabbi and his congregants hostage at a Texas synagogue Saturday, demanding US authorities release a convicted terrorist known as “Lady al-Qaeda” — and phoning a New York City rabbi in a bizarre bid for help, according to sources and reports.
The unnamed assailant who stormed Congregation Beth Israel in Colleyville claimed to be the brother of Pakistani neuroscientist Aafia Siddiqui, who was convicted in Manhattan Federal Court in 2010 of trying to kill US authorities in Afghanistan.
She is currently serving an 86-year prison sentence at the Federal Medical Center, Carswell, in nearby Fort Worth, according to public records.
But a rep for Muhammad Siddiqui, the terrorist’s brother, said he has nothing to do with the incident. Authorities have not identified the alleged hostage-taker.
At some point Saturday afternoon, the hostage-taker — who was caught on the synagogue’s livestream angrily ranting about religion and claiming to have explosives — forced Congregation Beth Israel Rabbi Charlie Cytron-Walker to place a call to Manhattan’s Central Synagogue, a law enforcement source told The Post.
The man demanded to speak to Rabbi Angela Buchdahl, and asked her to use her “influence” to help get Siddiqui released before claiming to have a bomb, the source said.
Buchdahl called 911, the source said. It’s unclear what connection, if any, the 49-year-old Buchdahl has to the Siddiqui case.
A rep for Central Synagogue called the situation in Texas “a very sad and scary situation,” but declined to comment on the call. The NYPD said the Texas event “had no nexus to New York City.” . . .
The incident began just after 10:30 a.m. Texas time, according to the Colleyville Police Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
The live stream had 8,000 viewers before it was cut off at 2 p.m.; during the broadcast, the man could be heard saying, “If anyone tries to enter this building, I’m tellin you … everyone will die,” and could be heard repeating, “I’m going to die. Don’t cry about me,” according to the Jerusalem Post.
Police in Colleyville, a community near Dallas-Fort Worth, dispatched a SWAT team to the residential neighborhood surrounding the temple. They warned residents to stay away from the immediate area, according to social media and a tweet by Colleyville police.
The angry man can be heard ranting about religion on the ongoing livestream, the Fort Worth Telegram reported. However, the video did not show what was taking place in the temple, and it was unclear how many people were in the synagogue, the newspaper reported.

Expect more updates later.




 

Category: Terrorism, Texas

Can Mac Jones Win the ‘Froze Bowl’?

Posted on | January 15, 2022 | Comments Off on Can Mac Jones Win the ‘Froze Bowl’?

It’s supposed to be about zero degrees at game time tonight in Orchard Park, N.Y., where the Buffalo Bills will host the New England Patriots in an AFC wild-card playoff. It’s the third time since Dec. 6 that these two AFC East division rivals have played — probably some kind of record — and while the Patriots won the first “Wind Tunnel” game at Buffalo, the Bills came roaring back to defeat New England at Foxborough on the Sunday after Christmas. After the first Patriots-Bills game, New England was 9-4 and the top seed in the AFC, but since then they’ve lost three of the final four regular-season games, leading many observers to write them off as pretenders, not contenders. Their win over the lowly Jaguars clinched a playoff spot for the Patriots and, lest we laugh at that, the Jags beat the Colts in the final game to knock Indianapolis out of the playoffs. We know New England can play well when they concentrate and avoid mistakes, so the question tonight will be, which team shows up?

Since their bye week, long time New England commentator Tom Curran says, the Patriots have “gone from being the most consistent, sharp and efficient team in the conference to a flat, undisciplined, low-energy team that’s capable of WTF?! mistakes more than any Patriots team I can remember. And it happened all at once.” There is talk that quarterback Mac Jones has finally hit “the rookie wall,” and all I can say is, we’ll see. Great quarterbacks win tough games, and I truly believe Mac is destined for greatness. If he can somehow lead New England to victory in “the Froze Bowl,” all the scoffers will have to shut up for at least a week.




 

Category: Football

How Do Democrats Get Away With It?

Posted on | January 15, 2022 | Comments Off on How Do Democrats Get Away With It?

You have probably never heard of Terry Bean, but the multi-millionaire Oregon real-estate developer has been commonly described as a “gay rights pioneer,” a co-founder of the Human Rights Campaign, and often credited with pushing through the state “equality” law under which Oregon bakers were compelled to bake cakes for gay weddings:

Terry Bean has been a lifelong Democrat and has considerable influence in the party as a member of the Democratic National Committee since at least 2009. Among his contributions are his fundraising for Bill Clinton, serving on the DNC’s Convention Committee in 2000, serving as a co-chair of Howard Dean’s 2004 National Finance Committee,and being the first LGBT member of Barack Obama’s National Finance Committee. . . .
On November 19, 2014, Terry Bean was arrested on charges of sodomy and sex abuse in a case involving a 15-year-old boy, in what Bean’s lawyer Kristen Winemiller characterized as an extortion attempt by an ex-lover. Law enforcement sources said Bean was charged with “two counts of sodomy in the third degree, a felony, and sex abuse in the third degree, a misdemeanor.” He was arraigned in Lane County, Oregon, where the crimes allegedly occurred in 2013.
After the case continued for over a year, lawyers for Bean and the youth reached a civil agreement, which the judge ultimately rejected. The alleged victim declined to testify, his attorney Lori Deveny stating that “he did not seek out this prosecution and made his unwillingness to testify known at every step of the process”. The judge dismissed the case on September 1, 2015 without prejudice. In a statement, Bean wrote “I take some measure of comfort that the world now knows what I have always known – that I was falsely accused and completely innocent of every accusation that was made.” On January 4, 2019, Bean was re-indicted on the same charges. In March 2019, the alleged victim filed a civil lawsuit against Bean. In September 2019, Bean’s former partner was found guilty of third-degree sodomy and third-degree sexual abuse, which The Oregonian reported as “a blow” to Bean’s claims of innocence.

Now, I had not followed this case and am unfamiliar with the details, but a few facts seem self-evident here: First, that in 2013 a 15-year-old boy was the victim of sexual abuse, a crime for which “Bean’s former partner” was convicted. So this is not, as some in the media may describe it, “alleged abuse” — the abuse actually happened, as demonstrated by the conviction of Bean’s ex-partner. The only matter in dispute is Bean’s role in this crime, and the fact that “lawyers for Bean and the youth reached a civil agreement” could be interpreted as evidence that Bean was not wholly innocent. Furthermore, at the time this crime occurred, Bean was 65 and his partner Kiah Loy Lawson was 24. Would you say that a man having a partner more than 40 years his junior could be presumed to have, shall we say, an appetite for young flesh?

But who are we to judge, eh? Who can say what trouble we might get into if we were multimillionaires? The hypotheticals are perhaps limitless, so we ought to be grateful for our relative poverty, but leaving aside (possibly criminal) fantasies, now let us consider the reality:

The trial dropped bombshell after bombshell allegation: a Grindr app meeting, adult men engaging in sex acts with a 15-year-old boy, a scorned ex-boyfriend, a purported extortion plot against a well-known Portland gay activist and disavowals that any crimes occurred.
But a Lane County Circuit Court jury sorted through the messy details and took only two hours Friday to return a guilty verdict against Kiah Loy Lawson on two counts of third-degree sodomy and one count of third-degree sexual abuse.
The verdict is a blow to Lawson’s co-defendant and former boyfriend, Terry Bean — the Portland real estate developer, civil rights trailblazer and Democratic fundraiser. Bean, 71, faces trial in two months on the same charges.
Both men were accused of picking up the 15-year-old boy in Bean’s Mercedes S500 from a 7-Eleven in Eugene in September 2013 after meeting him via Grindr, an online dating app for gay men.
Police and prosecutors alleged the men drove the teenager to a Eugene motel room, sexually abused him, showered with him and then sent him home in a cab after Bean gave him $40 for his fare. At the time, Lawson was 24 and Bean was 65.
During the three-day trial, Lawson testified that he and Bean picked up the boy, but said they promptly dropped him off after learning he wasn’t 18, as he had claimed on the app. Neither of them engaged in any sex acts with the boy, Lawson said.
But Lawson conceded that he is the reason Portland police started investigating both Bean and him.
He testified that he was upset with the way Bean had treated him after their relationship ended badly. Bean had refused to give him a $40,000 payout that had been negotiated between their lawyers after Bean secretly video-recorded him in the bedroom and bathroom, Lawson said.
So in July 2014 he said he went to police with a made-up story about Bean — telling Portland Detective Jeff Myers that Bean had engaged in sex acts with the boy in the motel room.
But after Myers tracked down and interviewed the teenager, Lawson also was charged with the same crimes.
“It’s ironic how everything has essentially flipped on me,” Lawson told jurors.
Lawson described how he felt controlled and taken advantage of by Bean. He said Bean had lavished attention on him. Bean ultimately put up Lawson in his Hayden Island condo and told the younger man to quit his job because Bean would pay him a “salary,” Lawson said.
“He provided me with a lot of money, perks, travel, shopping — everything I needed and wanted, really,” Lawson said. But Bean had stipulations, too, such as he didn’t want Lawson to have a cellphone, Lawson said.
Lawson said after three to four months of dating, he felt as if Bean was using him to lure men to have sex. Lawson said he watched as Bean wooed his conquests, sometimes paying “younger people” a couple of hundred dollars to have sex.
“He would tell me how he liked younger guys,” Lawson said. “Also, he told me about a couple of times he had paid off younger people who were underage, just not to say things.”
“At first I felt special,” Lawson said. “… I thought I had it good. But then I realized that’s how he treated everybody and that was how it was just his M.O. to sleep with younger people.”

You can read the rest of that 2019 story, but you get the point: It is beyond a reasonable doubt, according to an Oregon jury, that a 15-year-old boy got picked up via Grindr and was sexually abused. And while prosecutors convinced the jury that Lawson was a liar — insofar as his denial was not to be believed — his testimony about Terry Bean’s predilection for “younger people” as sex partners seems credible. Also, don’t miss this detail near the end of that 2019 article:

In late 2014, Bean and Lawson were originally charged with sex crimes against the teen. But in 2015 on the day their cases were scheduled to go to trial, the young man failed to show up. Police and prosecutors have alleged the teen hid out in a mountain cabin because Bean agreed to pay him a total of $220,000 as a reward for not testifying then.

Again, who are we to judge? What would you do for $220,000? Speaking for myself, I think I’d probably skip court and hide out in a mountain cabin, too. The lawyer accused of brokering that payoff was found in contempt of court and is reportedly the subject of a disbarment investigation, but what about Terry Bean?

The long-running criminal prosecution of Portland real estate investor and gay rights pioneer Terry Bean came to an abrupt end today [Friday, Jan. 14] when the state moved to dismiss sex abuse charges against him.
“After a judicial settlement conference on December 27, 2021, before the Hon. Jean Maurer, the alleged victim in this matter communicated to me unequivocally that he has relocated out of state, and he no longer wishes to participate in this pending prosecution,” Lane County deputy district attorney Erik Hasselman wrote in court filings today.
The case goes all the way back to a 2014 WW cover story that detailed Bean’s tangled personal life. At the time, Bean, co-founder of the Washington, D.C., Human Rights Campaign and one of the largest Oregon fundraisers for President Barack Obama and other Democratic politicians, had recently ended a relationship with a man named Kiah Lawson.
Lawson and Bean would both later be indicted for sexually abusing a 15-year-old boy in Eugene in 2013. Lawson was convicted of that crime in 2019 but, through a series of developments and delays, Bean’s trial was set for 2022. Now, that will not happen.
“On December 28, 2021, the alleged victim’s attorneys reiterated in writing that for a variety of personal reasons, the alleged victim wished this office to resolve the pending matters against the defendant without a conviction in the case at bar,” Hasselman wrote.
“Given the alleged victim is an adult, represented by counsel, and has clearly expressed a desire not to participate in the pending prosecutions of the defendant, the State respectfully requests this Honorable Court dismiss this pending Indictment, in the interests of justice.”

Oh, it’s “in the interests of justice,” and the victim has “a variety of personal reasons” ($$$$) for wanting the state to drop the case against the multimillionaire Democratic Party fundraiser. What a coincidence!

Meanwhile, there must be thousands of guys in Oregon serving time in prison, or out on parole and permanently on the sex offender registry, for crimes no worse than those involved in this case, and the only difference is that those perverts are not multimillionaire Democrats.

The moral of the story is that $200,000 is now the going rate for teenage hookups with rich Democrats, who can never be convicted in Oregon.

UPDATE: Welcome, Instapundit readers!




 

Category: Crime, Democrats, Gays, Oregon
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