A child who was reported missing in Alabama 13 years ago has been found safe and unharmed in Cleveland, Ohio, authorities say.
Julian Hernandez was in the legal custody of his mother when he disappeared on August 28, 2002. He was 5 then.
It was suspected that his father, Bobby Hernandez, took him as part of a noncustodial parental abduction, according to the Vestavia Hills Police Department, just south of Birmingham . . .
The missing child they were able to locate and positively identify is now 18. Julian’s mother and family were notified of his recovery.
Bobby Hernandez was arrested Monday in the abduction. The court records from Cuyahoga County in Ohio did not specify exact charges against him. CNN reached out to attorney Ralph DeFranco’s office for further comment Wednesday night but did not immediately receive a response. (Read more from “More Than a Decade Later, Missing Alabama Boy Found in Ohio” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2015-11-04 23:44:262016-04-11 10:56:32More Than a Decade Later, Missing Alabama Boy Found in Ohio
Did you RSVP to any Halloween parties on Facebook? Maybe tweeted about your plans? Posted an Instagram of your costume? These days, when you’re reading tweets or looking at your friends’ photos, you might be joined by cops . . .
Once you get in your car, get ready to be tracked. Law enforcement agencies all over the country use ALPRs (automated license plate readers) to track drivers’ locations and activities. ALPRs are cameras — mounted on police cars or placed in stationary locations like light poles — that detect when a car passes, capture a picture of that car and record its license plate number. Accumulated location data creates a history of drivers’ movements that can provide private and intimate details on people’s lives, like where they work, where they live, where they worship, where they go throughout their day and whom they associate with. Law enforcement agencies like the New York Police Department have used ALPRs in exactly this way, trying to map out the entire Arab and Muslim community of New York and Newark. The Los Angeles Police Department and the LA County Sheriff’s Department scan 3 million plates every week . . .
Speaking of driving, do you go through any tolls on your commute? Many cities have switched to electronic tolls, either via an RFID chip in your car or via an account tied to your license plate number. In 2013, we noted that the San Francisco Bay Area had switched to all electronic tolls, making it functionally impossible to cross the Golden Gate Bridge without authorities knowing about it. And the Bay Area isn’t alone; other major urban areas like New York and even some states, like Washington, have moved to all (or nearly all) electronic tolling . . .
You may escape tracking by not driving and by purchasing a transit ticket in cash, but you’ll still be captured by ubiquitous surveillance cameras. In many U.S. cities, there are now surveillance cameras on every block. In San Francisco, you could appear on security cameras dozens of times in one day. In New York, “[t]he NYPD can tap into roughly 6,000 street cameras, two-thirds of which are privately owned. There are another 7,000 in public housing and more than 4,000 in the city’s subway stations” . . .
You’ve probably noticed that Facebook recognizes your friends and you in your photos. A mask might not be enough, though: Facial recognition technology has gotten so good that Facebook can even recognize the back of your head. (Read more from “Creepy Ways Local Law Enforcement Is Watching You” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2015-11-04 23:44:032016-04-11 10:56:32Creepy Ways Local Law Enforcement Is Watching You
Trump Shrugs off Obama’s Debate Critique: ‘He Can’t Handle the Country’
By Jeremy Diamond. Donald Trump dismissed Tuesday President Barack Obama’s mocking of the the GOP presidential candidates’ criticism of the CNBC moderators in the last debate.
Trump, whose campaign decided to continue dealing directly with the TV networks rather than forming a united front with other presidential campaigns, said he “doesn’t care too much” about the debate format, instead knocking Obama’s handling of the country.
“They’ve been hitting me one way or the other. I just want to have the debates. I like the debates. They can ask tough questions. … I just want to answer the questions and be done with it, frankly,” Trump said on ABC’s “Good Morning America.”
Of Obama’s criticism, Trump added, “He can’t handle the country. He’s doing a terrible job running the country.”
Obama ripped into the GOP’s field of 2016 hopefuls on Monday night, noting that while they’ve knocked him for being “weak” on the international stage, “it turns out they can’t handle a bunch of CNBC moderators.” (Read more from “Donald Trump Burns Obama’s Debate Critique: ‘He Can’t Handle the Country'” HERE)
_________________________________
All of Obama’s ‘Achievements’ Are Failing
By Jennifer Rubin. President Obama’s biggest domestic “accomplishment,” Obamacare, and his biggest foreign policy objective, extracting the United States from the Middle East and redesigning our alliances (Iran in, Israel out), are now Exhibits A and B in the argument for jettisoning the Democrats from the White House. At the very least these issues, combined with a lackluster economy, suggest Hillary Clinton will have trouble running for a “third Obama term.”
On the Obamacare front, CBS News reports, “Sign-up season started Sunday for health insurance under the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, now in year 3. Premiums are going up an average of 7.5 percent, but they could be much higher depending on where you live.” It is not hard to see that if this keeps up we are headed for the infamous “death spiral,” as Sally Pipes, a health-care expert and critic of Obamacare explains . . .
If the domestic scene looks less than attractive for Democrats, the foreign policy front is abysmal. The president’s latest, cynical move to send just 50 Special Operations forces to Syria — but not into combat! — encapsulates the absence of a coherent strategy that will leave the region bloodier, less stable and more violent than when Obama took office.
His latest move on Syria has unsurprisingly been poorly received. Fred Kagan of the American Enterprise Institute writes:
The situation is now beyond dire and all anyone can do is offer first steps that might start to drive it in a more positive direction. But any such steps must begin from the understanding of what this conflict is really about and who must actually resolve it: the Sunni Arabs and the non-Assad Alawite community. Those are the groups that will have to decide to put down their weapons and work out a mutually-acceptable deal. Defeating ISIS will still be hard in that context, but at least it might be both feasible and meaningful.
(Read more from “All of Obama’s ‘Achievements’ Are Failing” HERE)
On Monday, the federal government declared itself fit for the madhouse by mandating that a Chicago high school allow a full biological male into the girls’ locker room for all purposes, including nudity. This biological male, the feds determined, was different because he thinks he is a female.
The feds have ruled that the presence of a twig-and-berries in the girls’ locker room has been mandated by Title IX of the Civil Rights Act. Yes, ladies and gents and non-cisgenders: it turns out that the battle against sexism enshrined in the ill-written Title IX was actually intended to force underage young women to look at the penises and testicles of mentally ill boys . . .
The U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights spent almost two years checking out the Township High School District 211 because of the transgender “girl.” He filed a complaint with the feds in 2013 after the school refused “unrestricted access” to the girls’ locker room. The district eventually agreed to allow the boy into the girls’ room so long as he used a privacy curtain while disrobing.
That wasn’t good enough. The feds determined that this still constituted discrimination. Why? As John Knight, director of the alphabet-soup LGBT and AIDS Project at the ACLU, stated, this was “blatant discrimination.” He explained (well, we think it’s a he, unless he identifies differently today):
It’s not voluntary; it’s mandatory for her. It’s one thing to say to all the girls, “You can choose if you want some extra privacy,” but it’s another thing to say, “You, and you alone, must use them.” That sends a pretty strong signal to her that she’s not accepted and the district does not see her as a girl.
(Read more from “Feds Force High School Girls to Undress Next to ‘Confused’ NAKED BOYS” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00kathleenhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngkathleen2015-11-04 01:10:202016-04-11 10:56:32Feds Force High School Girls to Undress Next to ‘Confused’ NAKED BOYS
Far more military men are being raped by other men and experience other sexual traumas than is reported by the Pentagon because of the stigma attached to such assaults, says a new study released Tuesday by the American Psychological Association.
“Rates of military sexual trauma among men who served in the military may be as much as 15 times higher than has been previously reported, largely because of barriers associated with stigma, beliefs in myths about male rape, and feelings of helplessness,” the APA said in releasing findings published in its periodical Psychological Services.
Comparing the new study’s numbers and the Pentagon’s survey results produced some shocking statistics.
The Rand Corp., which conducted the most recent Pentagon sexual assault survey in 2014, found that about 12,000 men reported being assaulted. Sexual assault in the military is defined as unwanted sexual contact, including rape and other assaults or the attempt to commit those acts.
Extrapolating the study’s estimates of up to 15 times greater than the Pentagon’s count, it would mean that as many as 180,000 men are assaulted in one year and, of those, 57,750 are “penetrative” attacks. (Read more from “‘Gay’ Rape in Military Is Completely Underreported by Pentagon” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2015-11-04 01:09:162016-04-11 10:56:32COVER-UP: ‘Gay’ Rape in Military Is Completely Underreported by Pentagon
By WLWT. Ohio voters rejected a first-of-its-kind proposal Tuesday that would have legalized both medical and recreational marijuana, following an expensive campaign, a legal fight over its ballot wording and an investigation into the proposal’s petition signatures . . .
The measure known as Issue 3 on Tuesday’s ballot would have allowed adults 21 and older to use, purchase or grow certain amounts of marijuana and made cannabis available for medical uses in the same vote, a unique approach nationally . . .
Issue 2 targeted the system of 10 marijuana-growing sites that would have been created by the pot legalization question known as Issue 3 on the ballot. Issue 3 was defeated, avoiding a court challenge as to which issue would have trumped the other.
A few precincts in southwest Ohio’s Hamilton County reported problems getting voters their ballots because of poll workers’ unfamiliarity with a new electronic check-in system being used for the first time.
The marijuana legalization campaign, ResponsibleOhio, sought the extension, citing those problems. (Read more from “Ohio Voters Reject Legal Pot” HERE)
____________________________
Houston Equal Rights Ordinance Fails by Wide Margin
By Katherine Driessen. Houston’s controversial equal rights ordinance failed by a wide margin Tuesday, with voters opting to repeal the law that offered broad non-discrimination protections, according to incomplete and unofficial returns.
The hotly contested election has spurred national attention, drawing comment from the White House and the state’s top officials. Largely conservative opponents of the law allege that it would allow men dressed as women, including sexual predators, to enter women’s restrooms. Supporters of the law, including Mayor Annise Parker, argue that it extends an important local recourse for a range of protected classes to respond to discrimination.
Supporters released a written statement Tuesday night: “We are disappointed with today’s outcome, but our work to secure nondiscrimination protections for all hard-working Houstonians will continue. No one should have to live with the specter of discrimination hanging over them. Everyone should have the freedom to work hard, earn a decent living and provide for themselves and their families.”
The ordinance bans discrimination based not just on gender identity and sexual orientation, but also 13 classes already protected under federal law: sex, race, color, ethnicity, national origin, age, religion, disability, pregnancy and genetic information, as well as family, marital or military status. (Read more from “Houston Equal Rights Ordinance Fails by Wide Margin” HERE)
Before states across the country began striking down bans on same-sex marriage and the Supreme Court ultimately decided the issue nationwide, some gay couples used adoption laws as a way to gain legal recognition as a family, and the related benefits such as inheritance and hospital visitation rights.
Nino Esposito, a retired teacher, adopted his partner Roland “Drew” Bosee, a former freelance and technical writer, in 2012, after more than 40 years of being a couple.
Now, they’re trying to undo the adoption to get married and a state trial court judge has rejected their request, saying his ability to annul adoptions is generally limited to instances of fraud . . .
The adoption “gave us the most legitimate thing available to us” at the time, said Bosee, 68.
The adoption process Bosee and Esposito went through was not uncommon. Although it is difficult to gather hard numbers, the ACLU of Pennsylvania, a group supporting the couple, says it learned that many couples in states across the country lawfully took advantage of adoption laws in order to protect their relationships. Now these couples seek to marry, but first they must confront state adoption laws that provide no easy path to annulment. (Read more from “Disgusting: Father Seeks Right to Marry Adopted Son” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00kathleenhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngkathleen2015-11-04 01:06:452016-04-11 10:56:33Disgusting: Father Seeks Right to Marry Adopted Son
The Republican National Committee reportedly has asked the IRS to audit the finances of one of the Clinton family’s charities following its refusal to re-file tax forms even after acknowledging errors in reporting donations from foreign governments.
Reuters reported the Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI) said this week that it had decided against re-filing so-called Form 990s because the errors “had no impact” on the total amount of income it reported to the IRS. The charity claimed that the total amount of income was correct, but the breakdown of government and private funding was not. As a result, CHAI spokeswoman Maura Daley said the organization “does not believe a re-filing is necessary.”
In April, Reuters reported that the CHAI had failed to note grants from foreign governments separately from total revenue on its Form 990s in 2012 and 2013. At the time, the organization said it would re-file the documents for both years. It had previously re-filed returns from 2010 and 2011 for over-reporting the amount received in government grants by over $100 million.
The Clinton Foundation also said it would re-file its Form 990s after wrongly reporting that it had received no money from foreign governments on its tax returns for 2010, 2011, and 2012.
Reuters reported, citing tax experts, that it was unusual for a charity to make such large mistakes several years in a row. An IRS spokesman told the news agency that charities should re-file a Form 990 if it becomes aware of an error. (Read more from “GOP Reportedly Asks IRS to Audit Clinton Charity’s Finances” HERE)
The proportion of Americans who say they are “absolutely certain” God exists has dropped sharply from 71 percent to less than two thirds, the Pew Research Center said Tuesday.
The share of US adults who say they believe in God declined from 92 to 89 percent over the same period, from 2007 to 2014, but is still remarkably high compared to other developed countries.
The percentage of Americans who say they pray every day, attend regular services and consider religion very important have also clocked small, but significant declines, the research center said.
The vast majority of Americans, 77 percent of adults, continue to identify with some religious faith, but a growing number are unaffiliated to a particular group, the study found.
Younger Americans are also less religious than their elders. For example, four in 10 of the youngest Millennials say they pray every day, compared to six in 10 Baby Boomers. (Read more from “Number of Americans ‘Certain’ About God Falls to a Worrisome Percentage” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00kathleenhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngkathleen2015-11-04 01:00:272016-04-11 10:56:33Number of Americans ‘Certain’ About God Falls to a Worrisome Percentage
GOP leaders have spent the past few years rubber stamping Obama’s agenda and refusing to confront him on the most consequential societal issues of our time. This week they plan to preemptively undermine the next Republican president from his ability to make substantial reforms to our inefficient federal transportation system.
The House plans to consider a $325 billion 6-year highway bill that will require an $85 billion bailout through FY 2021. Where will they find the $85 billion in savings? The same place the found the $112 billion in “offsets” to fund the budget betrayal deal last week. In other words, they will use Enron-style accounting and an array of intangible offsets to pay for another bailout of the failed and inefficient federal transportation system. But what is most offensive about this bill is that, by reauthorizing federal highway programs for another 6 years instead of 2 or 3 years, this bill will preemptively sabotage the leverage of the next president to force critical policy changes in the system.
On July 30, the Senate passed its version of the bill, with only 15 Republicans opposing it. The Senate bill only offsets the first three years of the 6-year shortfall (an estimated $85 billion), and as noted, even those offsets are notional. For example, one of the offsets is the dubious notion of selling off the Strategic Petroleum Reserves, ironically, the very same offset they just counted against the budget bill!
The House plans to pass the Senate version of the bill (H.R. 22), albeit with a provision that will prohibit Congress from spending more money on highways after the first three years unless they come up with more revenue. But this is nothing more than a ruse to get conservatives to allow the House to go to conference with the Senate. We all know how this will end. A full 6-year bill with no real offsets and no conservative policy reforms that fix the systemic problem with our surface transportation system.
Once again, 21% of the entire bill is allocated for mass transit expenditures, something that should only be funded by states that are willing to pay for it with their own funds. As the Competitive Enterprise Institute observed earlier this year, we are spending a quarter of the highway funds on a method of transportation that accounts for less than 2% of all trips. Accordingly, 81% of the entire projected shortfall in the Highway Trust Fund is the result of increased spending on mass transit.
The irony of the bailout for mass transit coming on the heels of last week’s bailout of the Disability Insurance program is probably lost on the politicians, but it’s worth reviewing now.
Much like the payroll tax was sold as a pay-as-you go supply for Social Security, the 8.4-cent-per-gallon gasoline tax and the 24.4-cent diesel excise tax were promised to be used exclusively for highways and bridges. And just like with Social Security whereby 17% of the funds were later diverted to the disability program, 20% of the highway funds have been diverted towards mass transit, as a result of the urban pressure groups.
This is why the responsibility for transportation and the revenue of the gas tax must be returned to the states. They must be forced to prioritize their transportation projects. This is a common sense reform conservatives have united behind over the past few years, yet Paul Ryan has failed his first test and is embarking on a process that will not only continue the failed status quo and drive yet another $85 billion bailout, it will preclude the next president from enacting these reforms.
And of course, the Senate bill contains a reauthorization of the Export-Import Bank, the only federal agency Republicans have successfully shut down in recent memory. Ryan himself claims to oppose Export-Import Bank, but this process clearly shows that he will not deviate from the Washington Cartel, even to push the few ideas he shares with conservatives.
New party leader, same mentality. (For more from the author of “Paul Ryan’s House Sets the Stage for Next Highway Bailout Boondoggle” please click HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2015-11-04 00:59:552016-04-11 10:56:33Ryan=Boehner: Paul Ryan’s House Sets the Stage for Next Highway Bailout Boondoggle
