July 19, 2015 archive

Jon Stewart – Slandero Gigante

Adapted from Rant of the Week at The Stars Hollow Gazette

Sladero Gigante

Six In The Morning

On Sunday

  Explosions hit cars of Hamas officials in Gaza City

  Palestinian security sources say two people injured in blasts targeting officials of Hamas and Islamic Jihad.

19 Jul 2015 08:36 GMT

Two people have been injured in multiple car explosions in northern Gaza City, Palestinian security sources said.

The sources said six explosions took place at same time on Sunday morning in the Sheikh Radwan neighbourhood.

The cars belonged to officials of Islamic Jihad, Hamas and its armed wing, the Qassam Brigades.

Interior ministry spokesman Iyad al-Buzom released a brief statement in which he accused “vandals” seeking to destabilise Gaza of carrying out the explosions.

He said security officials started an investigation and would pursue the criminals.




Sunday’s Headlines:

 A Government Divided: Schäuble’s Push for Grexit Puts Merkel on Defensive

Australia’s war on cats: Government plans to cull 2 million by 2020

Local elections in North Korea unlikely to bring change

South Korea spy kills himself amid hacking scandal

Privacy fears over hacking revelations

Grimm’s Fairy Tales

C’mon, you know I had to.

Michael Grimm, Former Congressman, Gets 8-Month Sentence

By STEPHANIE CLIFFORD, The New York Times

JULY 17, 2015

Michael G. Grimm, a former New York congressman who resigned from office after pleading guilty to tax fraud, was given an eight-month sentence on Friday.

A federal investigation that initially focused on Mr. Grimm’s campaign fund-raising turned into a 20-count indictment related to his running of a restaurant in Manhattan, Healthalicious. Prosecutors said he underreported wages and revenue to the government and filed false tax documents as a result.



Prosecutors had requested a sentence of 24 to 30 months, while defense lawyers argued for no prison time. Judge Chen, who said that federal sentencing guidelines called for a term of 18 to 24 months, described the crime as “sustained fraud.”

“That this type of crime is common does not lessen its significance,” the judge said. “Your moral compass, Mr. Grimm, needs some reorientation.”

Mr. Grimm was a former Marine and Federal Bureau of Investigation agent. He was elected in 2010 to represent Staten Island and part of Brooklyn in Congress, and resigned after he pleaded guilty in December to one count of tax fraud, a felony.



Mr. Grimm had been punished enough, Mr. Rashbaum added, saying that he “suffered this humiliation” publicly: He left Congress and forfeited his pension; his law license has been suspended in New York and Connecticut; and he faces likely disbarment.



An assistant United States attorney, James D. Gatta, argued that Mr. Grimm had not taken responsibility for his crime. “He wants the court to accept that he is remorseful, but still, even today, he is trying to shift the blame for his conduct to others,” he said.



“He wraps himself in the oaths that he has sworn when it suits him, and turns his back on those oaths when it suits him,” Mr. Gatta said.

Mr. Grimm is scheduled to surrender Sept. 10 and begin his sentence. Once he serves his term, he must perform 200 hours of community service.

Judge Chen said that Mr. Grimm’s work for the F.B.I., as an agent investigating white-collar crime, meant that “he of all people knew better.”

Such a nice guy

On January 28, 2014, NY1-TV political reporter Michael Scotto was interviewing Grimm in a balcony hallway of the U.S. Capitol building about the recently concluded 2014 State of the Union Address. He then tried to question Grimm about a campaign finance investigation. Grimm said he would not discuss the investigation. As Scotto started to mention the investigation again, Grimm walked off. Scotto then turned to the camera and implied that Grimm didn’t want to face the issue on camera. Grimm then appeared to threaten Scotto, saying that he would “break [Scotto] in half,” as well as threatening to throw Scotto over the balcony.

Grimm issued a statement defending his behavior, saying that he was annoyed by what he called a “disrespectful cheap shot” from Scotto.[67][68] The next day, Grimm contacted Scotto to offer an apology for his behavior, which Scotto deemed sincere.[69] Grimm also issued a written apology, saying, “I shouldn’t have allowed my emotions to get the better of me and lose my cool.”[70] An unnamed former staffer for Grimm and NY1-TV political director Bob Hardt reported that Grimm had behaved in a similar manner to other reporters on previous occasions.

Cartnoon

On This Day In History July 19

This is your morning Open Thread. Pour your favorite beverage and review the past and comment on the future.

Find the past “On This Day in History” here.

July 19 is the 200th day of the year (201st in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 165 days remaining until the end of the year.

On this day in 1848, a two-day Women’s Rights Convention opens in Seneca Falls, New York. There the “Bloomers” are introduced.

The Seneca Falls Convention was an early and influential women’s rights convention held in Seneca Falls, New York, July 19-20, 1848. It was organized by local New York women upon the occasion of a visit by Boston-based Lucretia Mott, a Quaker famous for her speaking ability, a skill rarely cultivated by American women at the time. The local women, primarily members of a radical Quaker group, organized the meeting along with Elizabeth Cady Stanton, a skeptical non-Quaker who followed logic more than religion.

The meeting spanned two days and six sessions, and included a lecture on law, a humorous presentation, and multiple discussions about the role of women in society. Stanton and the Quaker women presented two prepared documents, the Declaration of Sentiments and an accompanying list of resolutions, to be debated and modified before being put forward for signatures. A heated debate sprang up regarding women’s right to vote, with many including Mott urging the removal of this concept, but Frederick Douglass argued eloquently for its inclusion, and the suffrage resolution was retained. Exactly 100 of approximately 300 attendees signed the document, mostly women.

The convention was seen by some of its contemporaries, including featured speaker Mott, as but a single step in the continuing effort by women to gain for themselves a greater proportion of social, civil and moral rights, but it was viewed by others as a revolutionary beginning to the struggle by women for complete equality with men. Afterward, Stanton presented the resulting Declaration of Sentiments as a foundational document in the American woman’s suffrage movement, and she promoted the event as the first time that women and men gathered together to demand the right for women to vote. Stanton’s authoring of the History of Woman Suffrage helped to establish the Seneca Falls Convention as the moment when the push for women’s suffrage first gained national prominence. By 1851, at the second National Women’s Rights Convention in Worcester, Massachusetts, the issue of women’s right to vote had become a central tenet of the women’s rights movement.

The Breakfast Club (Prison Blues)

Welcome to The Breakfast Club! We’re a disorganized group of rebel lefties who hang out and chat if and when we’re not too hungover  we’ve been bailed out we’re not too exhausted from last night’s (CENSORED) the caffeine kicks in. Join us every weekday morning at 9am (ET) and weekend morning at 10:30am (ET) to talk about current news and our boring lives and to make fun of LaEscapee! If we are ever running late, it’s PhilJD’s fault.

 photo 807561379_e6771a7c8e_zps7668d00e.jpg

Breakfast Tune: Folsom Prison Blues (Banjo), James Stiltner

Today in History


Women’s rights activists meet at Seneca Falls; The ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy on gays in the U.S. military; Apollo 11 enters lunar orbit; Baseball’s Pete Rose gets jail time; Moscow Olympics begins. (July 19)

Breakfast News & Blogs Below