Crazy People Are Dangerous

Posted on | November 23, 2019 | 1 Comment

Left-wing insanity? Let’s kill people because animals have rights:

An Ohio animal rights activist allegedly stabbed a woman in a church on Wednesday because she was wearing fur.
Police believe that Meredith Lowell, 35, stabbed the woman wearing fur boots based on a prior arrest in 2012, in which Lowell was charged with attempting to hire a hitman to kill a person wearing fur.
Around 5:15 p.m. on Wednesday, a babysitter was dropping children off at Fairmount Presbyterian Church in Cleveland Heights for choir practice. Witnesses told police they heard a woman screaming before the babysitter fell to the ground due to a stab wound.
When police arrived at the church, they found the young woman lying on the ground surrounded by blood, clutching her left side. A man was pinning Lowell down to the floor nearby, waiting for police, according to the report.
Police Chief Annette Mecklenberg praised the church staff member who restrained Lowell, according to News 5 Cleveland. “They put their safety at risk. They were able to restrain her and hold her down until the police arrived,” Chief Mecklenburg said. “They are to be commended for their actions no doubt.”
Lowell stabbed the victim twice in her arm and once in her abdomen. Police said Thursday morning she was taken to the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.
Lowell remains in jail on a $1 million bond.
In 2012, Lowell allegedly posted several times on social media looking for someone willing to kill a person wearing fur.
“I would like to create an online community on Facebook which would allow me to find someone who is willing to kill someone who is wearing fur toward the end of October 2011 or early November 2011 or possibly January 2012 or February 2012 at the latest,” Lowell wrote, according to the indictment.
After multiple evaluations, psychologists determined Lowell was not competent to stand trial because of mental disease or defect.
An evaluation was completed to determine if Lowell posed a danger to herself or others. Prosecutors said she had passed a handwritten note to jail guards shortly after her 2012 arrest. The note stated that if Lowell were to be released, she would contract another hit man to kill a person wearing fur or even do the deed herself, according to prosecutors.
However, a forensic evaluation later determined that though she was not competent to stand trial, did not pose a risk to herself, the general public or to property.
Fast-forward to 2018, when Lowell reportedly stabbed a woman. Her motives were unknown. She was charged with felonious assault and released on a $5,000 bond. Her case was transferred to mental health court, specialized for individuals with documented mental health issues.

Why hasn’t this person been locked up permanently? Why does someone with a documented history of violence keep getting turned loose?

Also, where did the idea of “animal rights” come from? If you are familiar with the idea of rights, as a political concept, you can trace it back to English common law — Magna Carta and all that. Prior to the American Revolution, to speak of “rights” was to speak of an abstraction, a metaphysical ideal. It was only because a ragged Patriot army was able to withstand a seven-year war against the British Empire that we, as Americans, can definitely state what rights we possess. And animals? Where is their manifesto? When have the animals gathered in convention to declare their “rights,” and to defy anyone who would oppress them?

Idiots like Meredith Lowell have watched too many cartoons about happy bunnies and so forth. I blame Walt Disney for her insanity. Walt Disney didn’t mean to produce radical propaganda, but ever since Bambi, we’ve been going in the wrong direction on this issue.

(Hat-tip: KIrby McCain on Twitter.)

Category: Crime, Ohio

Devin Nunes Sues CNN and Daily Beast Over ‘Demonstrably False’ Stories

Posted on | November 23, 2019 | Comments Off on Devin Nunes Sues CNN and Daily Beast Over ‘Demonstrably False’ Stories

Breitbart News reports:

House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence ranking member Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) intends to file lawsuits against both CNN and the Daily Beast over fake hit pieces the outlets have published about him in recent days, Breitbart News has learned exclusively.
Two pieces recently published in both outlets — one from Daily Beast earlier this week, and one from CNN published late Friday — alleged that the Rudy Giuliani associate Lev Parnas, who is now indicted on unrelated charges, helped Nunes with a variety of matters when digging into Ukrainian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election on behalf of Democrats.
The Daily Beast story, from Betsy Swan (formerly Woodruff), alleges that Parnas helped Nunes set up a variety of meetings on Ukraine matters. The CNN story, from Vicky Ward, goes even further, alleging that Nunes arranged a secret trip to Vienna and met there with Victor Shokin, the Ukrainian prosecutor that former Vice President Joe Biden pushed to have fired when Shokin was investigating Burisma Holdings, the natural gas company paying Biden’s son Hunter Biden $83,000 per month. It is unclear at this time how much of these reports are blatantly false, but most of each of them appear to be inaccurate, according to sources familiar with the matter.
As such, Nunes is planning to sue both the Daily Beast and CNN over each story.
“These demonstrably false and scandalous stories published by the Daily Beast and CNN are the perfect example of defamation and reckless disregard for the truth,” Nunes told Breitbart News late Friday night. “Some political operative offered these fake stories to at least five different media outlets before finding someone irresponsible enough to publish them. I look forward to prosecuting these cases, including the media outlets, as well as the sources of their fake stories, to the fullest extent of the law. I intend to hold the Daily Beast and CNN accountable for their actions. They will find themselves in court soon after Thanksgiving.”

If you report a fact — e.g., person X met person Y in location Z on a certain date — based on what an unnamed source told you, and this “fact” turns out to be false, you’re going to have a difficult time explaining to a judge that this is not libel per se. This is just basic Journalism 101 stuff, and if the “secret trip to Vienna” did not actually happen, heads should roll at CNN and the Daily Beast. Here’s something else that young journalists ought to be taught: When a source offers you a story on the basis of anonymity, ask yourself what their motive is, and if this motive renders the offered information suspect. Even if a story is basically true — i.e., Parnas was trying to help expose the corrupt connections between Ukrainians and Democrats, so that Parnas and Nunes had reasons to cooperate — the specific facts alleged in your reporting must be provably true, or else you could be at risk of a libel case.

Category: CNN, Congress, Media Bias

Friday Fiction: 100 Word Challenge

Posted on | November 22, 2019 | Comments Off on Friday Fiction: 100 Word Challenge

by Smitty

Sometimes they put you in a bad position, and blame you for being there.

The end of the day, the end of the week, the end of the month: somebody comes up to you and needs data access.

You kinda know who this is; you’ve seen him around the office, but this request is really weird.

Your car keys are on the desk, so he doesn’t worry when you declare the need to use the restroom before “We get on that”.

True enough; a great roadtrip begins on an empty bladder. Thank god for the spare key under the frame.
—
via Darleen

Category: Friday Fiction

The Impeachment Carnival Is a Distraction From What Really Matters

Posted on | November 22, 2019 | 1 Comment

While the televised circus in the House Intelligence Committtee was consuming the attention of the national media, the real news was happening behind the scenes with the Horowitz report:

Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz has found evidence that an FBI lawyer manipulated a key investigative document related to the FBI’s secretive surveillance of a former Trump campaign adviser — enough to change the substantive meaning of the document, according to multiple reports.
The show-stopping development comes as Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., told Fox News that Horowitz’s comprehensive report on allegations of Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant abuse against former Trump campaign aide Carter Page will be released on Dec. 9. “That’s locked,” Graham said.
The new evidence concerning the altered document, which pertained to the FBI’s FISA court warrant application to surveil Page, is expected to be outlined in Horowitz’s upcoming report. CNN first reported the news, which was largely confirmed by The Washington Post.
The Post, hours after publishing its story, conspicuously removed the portion of its reporting that the FBI employee involved was underneath Peter Strzok, the FBI’s since-fired head of counterintelligence. The Post did not offer an explanation for the change, which occurred shortly after midnight. Earlier this week, the DOJ highlighted a slew of anti-Trump text messages sent by Strzok when he was leading the Hillary Clinton email investigation and the probe into the Trump campaign.
Horowitz reportedly found that the FBI employee who modified the FISA document falsely stated that he had “documentation to back up a claim he had made in discussions with the Justice Department about the factual basis” for the FISA warrant application, the Post reported. Then, the FBI employee allegedly “altered an email” to substantiate his inaccurate version of events. The employee has since been forced out of the bureau.
In its initial 2016 FISA warrant application, the FBI flatly called Page “an agent of a foreign power.”

Democrats and the media (but I repeat myself) have endlessly condemned as a “conspiracy theory” — “unsubstantiated,” with “no evidence” — every suggestion that the origin of the investigation of the Trump campaign was tainted by partisanship and corruption.

(Hat-tip: Instapundit.)

Category: Corruption, Democrats, Donald Trump, Media Bias, Ukraine

In The Mailbox: 11.21.19

Posted on | November 21, 2019 | 1 Comment

— compiled by Wombat-socho

OVER THE TRANSOM
357 Magnum: Cops Never Use Drop Guns To Justify a Shooting
EBL: Discovery Will Be Especially Hilarious – Jussie Smollett Sues!
Twitchy: This Totally Believable Overheard Conversation Proves Trump’s Support Is Collapsing
Louder With Crowder: Fascist Left-Wing Protesters Form Human Chain To Block People From Entering Ann Counter Event

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
Adam Piggott: Your Backyard Is An Endangered Ecosystem
American Greatness: Ukraine’s Top Prosecutor Expands Probe Against Burisma Founder – Who Has Gone Missing
American Thinker: Obama Tells Greta, “You And Me, We’re A Team”
Animal Magnetism: Animal’s Daily Luxury News
Babalu Blog: Castro Dictatorship Launches Desperate Smear Campaign Against Imprisoned Opposition Leader
BattleSwarm: Dispatches From The Ukraine Corruption Investigation
Cafe Hayek: Please, People, Learn Some Basic Economics
CDR Salamander: USA Becoming The Cheshire Cat Superpower?
Da Tech Guy: To Ensure Victory Next Year, The GOP Desperately Needs To Learn How To Fight
Don Surber: The Derp State Flunks Impeachment
First Street Journal: Tom Steyer & The Democrat Clown Cavalcade Are Going To Reorganize Your Neighborhood
The Geller Report: President Trump Tells Navy – No, You’re Not Taking Eddie Gallagher’s SEAL Trident Pin, also, Iran’s Senior Leader Vows To Hang Protest Leaders
Hogewash: Team Kimberlin Post of The Day, also, Double Plus Ungood
Hollywood In Toto: Richard Jewell Paints Press As “Reckless, Corrupt, & Immoral”
Joe For America: Tulsi Gabbard SMASHES Democrats At Debate – “Not The Party That Is Of, By, & For The People”
JustOneMinute: The Walls Are Closing In On Trump
Legal Insurrection: Clinton Foundation Struggling Financially With No More Influence To Sell, also, Iranian Regime Deploys Snipers Against Protesters, Death Toll Over 100
The PanAm Post: Chileans Protest Against System That Has Fueled Their Prosperity
Power Line: The Sound Of Sondland, also, Why No One Cares About Impachment
Shot In The Dark: Minneapolis – Let’s Get Scientific!
The Political Hat: Gender Heretics – Purged For Questioning The Number Of Genders, Retaliation Against Real Women, & The Gender-Medical Complex
This Ain’t Hell: Thursdays Are For Cooking, also, Trump Lays Down The Law On Pardoned SEAL
Victory Girls: In Praise Of Warren’s “Freeloading Billionaires”
Volokh Conspiracy: Cali Supremes Strike Down Law Requiring Presidential Candidates to Disclose Income Tax Returns
Weasel Zippers: Nunes – I Yield To Schiff For Story Time Hour, also, FBI Official Reportedly Under Investigation For Altering Russia Probe Documents
Mark Steyn: How The Science Got Settled

Amazon Warehouse Deals

Category: Linkagery

Billionaire Dictator Tom Steyer Has a ‘Solution’ for the Housing ‘Crisis’

Posted on | November 21, 2019 | 2 Comments

Anyone who has read Thomas Sowell’s The Vision of the Anointed: Self-Congratulation as a Basis for Social Policy understands the worldview of “progressive” billionaire Tom Steyer. There is no problem that cannot be solved, such people believe, if (a) we put “enlightened” people in charge, and (b) we give them unlimited power and taxpayer dollars to provide a “solution.” If you voice objections to these grandiose schemes — e.g., explaining that similar plans have failed in the past, or pointing out the fiscal problems involved — you will discover that it is impossible to dissuade the Anointed from their cherished Vision. Facts don’t matter, past precedents prove nothing, and even basic arithmetic must be ignored, because the status quo is “unacceptable,” the problem involved is a “crisis,” and only a coward or a fool could oppose a “solution.” The man who bought his way into the debate is all-in on the housing “crisis”:

Democrat presidential hopeful Tom Steyer claimed he would “force” American towns to accept new, affordable housing in certain areas while speaking at the Democrat presidential primary debate held in Atlanta, Georgia, at Tyler Perry Studios on Wednesday.
Steyer’s remarks came as he was asked about affordable housing, particularly in his home state of California, which includes Los Angeles and San Francisco.
“When you look at inequality in the United States of America, you have to start with housing,” Steyer claimed. “Where you put your head at night determines so many things about your life. It determines where your kids go to school, it determines the air you breathe, where you shop, how long it takes you to get to work.”
“What we’ve seen in California is as a result of policy,” Steyer continued. “We have millions too few housing units and that effects everybody in California. It starts with a homeless crisis that goes all through the state, but it also includes skyrocketing rents that effect every single working person in the state of California.”
Steyer then claimed he knows “exactly what needs to be done” to address the housing crisis, and discussed the impact on the climate regarding certain liveable locations.
“I understand exactly what needs to be done here, which is why we need to change policy and we need to apply the resources here to make sure that we build, literally. millions of units,” Steyer said. “Where people live has a dramatic impact on climate and sustainability.”
Steyer then claimed that his administration would “force” towns to accept new housing units that are affordable for its residents.
“So, we’re gonna have to direct dollars, we’re gonna have to change policy and make sure that the localities and municipalities who have worked very hard to ensure that there are no new housing units built in their towns that they change that and we’re gonna have to force it,” Steyer added. “Then we’re gonna have to direct federal dollars to make sure that those units are affordable.”

People will say, “There’s no way Steyer’s going to get the nomination,” and this is obviously true. However, the point of all these debates — with Democratic hopefuls vying to out-bid each other on what fantastic amounts of money they’ll spend to provide “solutions” to every imaginable “crisis” — is that it moves The Overton Window. When allegedly Serious People spend hours spewing radical nonsense on national TV, it makes this nonsense seem possible, or even practical.

Category: Debates, Democrats

‘The Wheels of Justice Turn Slowly, But Grind Exceedingly Fine’

Posted on | November 20, 2019 | Comments Off on ‘The Wheels of Justice Turn Slowly, But Grind Exceedingly Fine’

Travis Lee Stroud, a transgender novelist also known as “Meredith Russo,” was exposed in 2016 as the alleged perpetrator of abuse against his/“her” ex-wife, Jennifer Marie Russo. Yet this record of accusations against Travis/“Meredith” was ignored by the literary community, which is devoted to promoting the transgender agenda, especially to children.

Anna Slatz interviewed the author’s ex, Juniper Russo:

“Domestic violence is insidious and slow, like the proverbial boiling frog,” Stroud’s ex-wife, Juniper Russo, said. “It’s hard to say when it all started.”
Juniper Russo alleges she was subjected to a campaign of sexual and emotional abuse at the hands of her former partner, abuse she says was so severe that the marriage culminated in a divorce in early 2015.
“We met on OKCupid in 2011 and got married in 2013,” Russo said, claiming the physical abuse started shortly after the wedding. “We had a lot of shared interests at the time, and I was naive enough to think that shared interests are the foundation of a healthy relationship.”
Russo shared disturbing details of some of the alleged abuses she suffered during her marriage to Meredith Stroud.
“When my son was born in 2014, I had severe pre-eclampsia and injuries from giving birth. I had to have major reconstructive surgery. I was extremely weak and in severe pain,” Russo said.
“Meredith was extremely abusive to me during this time, calling me a ‘feeding station, not a parent’ because breastfeeding my son was one of the only things I could do, and because I was asking [Meredith] to help with things like diapers,” Russo also alleges.
During this same time, Juniper says Stroud would tell her to commit suicide. “[Meredith] kept mocking me when I was in pain, and told me I was so useless as a parent I should just kill myself.”
Russo says she was first forced to call the police in late 2014, “[Meredith] was having an outburst. I got scared and called 911. [Meredith] took the phone from me, and was heard trying to prevent me from calling for help.”
As a result, Stroud was booked on charges of interfering with an emergency call. . . .

Read the whole thing.