Photo Credit: Miami Herald Nearly a decade ago, Harold Seymore was charged with sexually assaulting a female tourist on South Beach. Last week, Seymore was finally convicted of the crime — but as a woman.
Seymore’s story is a complicated one, an unusually long grind through both the criminal justice and mental health systems, all while struggling with gender identification issues. Born intersex, with functioning male and female reproductive organs, she has slowly transitioned to a woman.
For the first time in her life, Seymore donned a dress last week as she sat in a Miami-Dade courtroom to face jurors.
Her change in appearance from the 2005 arrest never took center stage but surfaced in subtle ways over four days of trial. Witnesses described a tall lanky man behind the assault. But defense attorneys, despite occasional slip-ups, made sure to call Seymore “she” while prosecutors used a neutral “the defendant” . . .
It took jurors just an hour to convict Seymore. On Friday, Pooler sentenced her to 15 years in prison, plus 10 years of probation. Because of her long criminal history, Seymore was designated a habitual violent offender. (Read more about the criminal case in Miami HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2015-02-10 01:25:042016-04-11 11:02:35Charged as a Man, Convicted as a Woman: Curious Criminal Case in Miami
Photo Credit: Daily Mail A high school senior has won her case over atheists to keep ‘under God’ in the pledge of allegiance.
Samantha Jones from Highland Regional High School in Blackwood, New Jersey, has defeated efforts by the American Humanist Association to remove the phrase, insisting it is a student’s right to read the pledge in its entirety.
A judge in Monmouth County threw out the latest attempt to have the phrase banished from the pledge because it did not violate the state’s constitution.
The teenager described America as a country of many beliefs and claimed everyone, including atheists, are protected by ‘one nation under God.’
In a statement released Friday, she said: ‘I’m so grateful the court decided that kids like me shouldn’t be silenced just because some people object to timeless American values.’ (Read more about the atheists trying to alter the pledge of allegiance HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2015-02-10 01:20:502016-04-11 11:02:36High School Student Wins Case Against Atheists Trying to Alter the Pledge of Allegiance
By Fox News. “NBC Nightly News” anchor Brian Williams could face new questions this week over differing versions of a story he repeatedly told about coming under Hezbollah rocket fire while riding in an Israeli Defense Forces helicopter in 2006, according to a published report.
The Washington Post reported late Sunday that Williams has given differing accounts of how close the rockets came to the helicopter he was riding in over northern Israel.
In a blog post written for NBCNews.com and dated July 18, 2006, Williams said that he was flying “at 1,500 feet” in a Blackhawk helicopter with a high-ranking Israeli general while rockets were being launched by the terror group into northern Israel from southern Lebanon. In the blog, Williams says the helicopter pilot tells him the rockets “landed about 30 seconds ago.” At that point, Williams says, he witnesses a rocket launch, about six miles away.
“A rising trail of smoke, then a second rocket launch, an orange flash and more smoke — as a rocket heads off toward Israel,” Williams says.
However, a month later, Williams made an appearance on Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show”, and told host Jon Stewart about “a view of rockets I have never seen, passing underneath us, 1,500 feet beneath us.” There is no such description of the rockets passing underneath the helicopter in Williams’ original blog post. (Read more about the different stories of coming under Hezbollah rocket fire HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2015-02-10 01:19:492016-04-11 11:02:36NBC News Anchor Told Different Stories About Coming Under Hezbollah Rocket Fire [+video]
Dr. Mary Neal, an orthopedic spine surgeon who describes herself as a “concrete thinker” who isn’t “fanciful” and doesn’t exaggerate, spent a long time trying to explain a seemingly inexplicable event that unfolded back in 1999 following a near-death experience.
After almost drowning during a kayaking accident while on a trip to Chile — and supposedly going without oxygen for 24 minutes — Neal remarkably survived without sustaining any brain damage.
And as if that weren’t miraculous enough, she claims that she visited heaven, interacted with spirits and was warned about her son’s death 10 years before it happened — an experience that left her confused and in awe.
When Neal recovered from her traumatic accident, she said that she found herself on a journey seeking answers, wondering whether she had imagined the entire heavenly ordeal.
“I really needed to figure out what I had experienced. I have gone through the process of coming up with alternative explanations,” the doctor told OWN TV’s “In Deep Shift,” noting that she considered the possibility of dreams and hallucinations. “We always want to find an explanation that we can understand other than something that is divine. I am a very concrete thinker. I’m not fanciful. I don’t exaggerate.” (Read more about the near death experience HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2015-02-10 00:58:352016-04-11 11:02:36‘Beyond Science’: Doctor Says She Visited Heaven in Near Death Experience, What She Learned Haunted Her for Years [+video]
Editor’s note: the measles outbreak is continuing to spread throughout the U.S. Many vaccination advocates are using this as an opportunity to attack parents who refuse vaccinations or decide to vaccinate on a different schedule than what some public health officials direct. On the left, activists are suggesting that vaccinations should be forcibly imposed on all children, notwithstanding any parental objections.
But some of these objections stem from legitimate religious objections. For example, Merck’s Measles, Mumps, Rubella, and Chickenpox vaccine is produced from an aborted fetal cell line. The idea of injecting cells produced from murdered babies is deeply unsettling to some.
It is outrageous to suggest that parents should be forced to vaccinate their children using such products. But it is also outrageous that those advocating for mandated vaccination would ignore one of the major causes of the outbreaks of formerly-eradicated diseases in the United States: the third world, illegal alien.
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By Lenny Bernstein. The measles outbreak spread to three more states and Washington D.C. last week, affecting 19 additional people, according to an update posted Monday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The highly contagious disease is now in 18 jurisdictions, with 121 people affected. The vast majority of the cases are part of the large outbreak that began in Southern California Disney theme parks in late December, the health agency said . . .
Authorities have said the resurgence is mostly caused by the growing number of people who are declining to vaccinate their children for personal reasons, or delaying the vaccinations.
“This is a teachable moment for this country,” former U.S. Rep. Henry Waxman said at a conference Monday at Johns Hopkins University’s Bloomberg School of Public Health. “When we see a disease that was almost eliminated in the early 1980s now come back with a jolt all around this country, we have to ask ourselves what’s going on. (Read more about the measles outbreak HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2015-02-10 00:39:472016-04-11 11:02:36Measles Outbreak Spreads to Three More States; Should the Feds Force Childhood Vaccinations?
Photo Credit: The BlazeBy Fred Lucas. President Barack Obama said his refusal to meet with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu two weeks before Israel’s elections isn’t personal — he wouldn’t meet with German Chancellor Angela Merkel under the same circumstances, either.
“As much as I love Angela, if she was two weeks away from election, she probably would not have received an invitation to the White House, and I suspect she would not have asked for one,” Obama said at a joint news conference with the German leader Monday at the White House. “Some of this just has to do with how we do business. I think it is important for us to maintain these protocols because the U.S.-Israeli relationship is not about a particular party” . . .
“I don’t want to be coy. The prime minister and I have differences around Iran’s sanctions,” Obama said. “I have been very clear and Angela agrees with me and [British Prime Minister] David Cameron agrees with me and the others who are members of the negotiations agree that it does not make sense to sour the negotiations a month or two before they are about to be completed and we should play that out if we can get a deal, we should embrace it. If we cannot get a deal, we will have to make a set of decisions and, as I said to Congress, I will be the first one to work with them to apply even stronger measures against Iran.” (Read more about how Obama is defending his choice to not meet with Netanyahu HERE)
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Despite Recent Criticism, Netanyahu Still Determined to Address U.S. Congress on Iran’s Nuclear Program
By Barak Ravid. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday that he is determined to address the U.S. Congress on Iran’s nuclear program. Netanyahu rejected the criticism in the United States and Israel, saying that “while some are busy with protocol or politics, a bad deal with Iran is taking shape.”
Speaking at a Likud election event, Netanyahu added that, as prime minister, it is his duty to do everything in his power to prevent a dangerous deal with Iran. “From the day Israel was established to this day, there have been essential differences between Israel and the U.S., and relations remained sound – this will be the case this time as well,” he said.
“This is not a political issue or a party issue, neither here nor there. This is an existential issue, and I approach it with the fullest responsibility.” (Read more from this story HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2015-02-10 00:18:012016-04-11 11:02:37Here’s How Obama is Defending His Choice to Not Meet With Netanyahu
By Associated Press. Residents say suspected Boko Haram fighters have kidnapped more than 30 people in northern Cameroon after attacking several towns.
Bouba Kaina, resident of where the first attacked took place, confirmed to The Associated Press on Monday that a bus was seized by the insurgents with 20 people aboard.
The bus was then driven toward the border with Nigeria, about 11 miles away . . .
Boko Haram fighters have escalated their attacks outside Nigeria, striking multiple times inside neighboring Cameroon and Niger in recent days. Neighboring countries are planning a military effort to subdue the group blamed for killing 10,000 people over the past year. (Read more about the Boko Haram attacks HERE)
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Nigeria Vows Not to Postpone Another Election, Despite Even More Boko Haram Threats
By Ola Awoniyi, with Aminu Abubakar in Kano. Nigeria insisted it will crush Boko Haram militants and avoid another election postponement, even as violence raged and the Islamists’ leader vowed to defeat a regional force hunting them.
National Security Advisor Sambo Dasuki’s comments came as Boko Haram launched another attack in neighbouring Niger and reports emerged of 20 people kidnapped in Cameroon, with 12 of them executed.
Niger’s parliament voted unanimously on Monday to send troops to join the regional fightback against the extremists, who have seized swathes of northern Nigeria in a conflict that has claimed more than 13,000 lives since 2009.
Dasuki, who at the weekend secured a six-week delay to Nigeria’s presidential elections, vowed that “all known Boko Haram camps will be taken out” by the time of the rescheduled vote. (Read more from this story HERE)
Photo Credit: The Fiscal Times By Steve Slater and Joshua Franklin. British bank HSBC Holdings Plc admitted failings by its Swiss subsidiary in response to media reports it helped wealthy customers dodge taxes and conceal millions of dollars of assets.
“We acknowledge and are accountable for past compliance and control failures,” HSBC said late on Sunday after news outlets including French newspaper Le Monde and Britain’s The Guardian published allegations about its Swiss private bank.
The Guardian, along with other news outlets, cited documents obtained by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) via Le Monde. HSBC said that its Swiss arm had not been fully integrated into HSBC after its purchase in 1999, allowing “significantly lower” standards of compliance and due diligence to persist.
The Guardian alleged in its report that the files showed HSBC’s Swiss bank routinely allowed clients to withdraw “bricks” of cash, often in foreign currencies which were of little use in Switzerland. HSBC also marketed schemes which were likely to enable wealthy clients to avoid European taxes and colluded with some to conceal undeclared accounts from domestic tax authorities, the Guardian added. (Read more about how HSBC admits it helped wealthy costumers dodge taxes HERE)
By Chad Bray. HSBC found itself under fire again on Monday after news reports over the weekend provided more details about long-running accusations that its Swiss private banking arm helped clients hide billions of dollars in assets from international tax authorities before 2007.
In a report released on Sunday, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, an organization based in Washington, said that secret documents revealed that bank employees had reassured clients that HSBC would not disclose details of their accounts to tax authorities in their home countries and discussed options to avoid paying taxes on those assets. Also contributing to the report were the newspaper Le Monde in France, The Guardian in Britain, the BBC program “Panorama” and CBS News’s “60 Minutes.”
The documents were stolen from HSBC by a former employee in Switzerland in 2007 and were given to the French authorities, who in 2010 shared them with officials in Britain, Spain and the United States, among other nations. Some of those jurisdictions have used the information to seek back taxes and penalties from individuals, and the British bank has paid fines to the United States related to those disclosures. (Read more from this story HERE)
Ukraine: Artillery Fire, Not ‘Tactical Nuke’ Attack, Sets Off Large Donetsk Explosion
[Editor’s note: A number of sites, such as Alex Jones’ Info Wars, suggested that the explosion was nuclear, but that seems to be a stretch. Nuclear detonations create significant EMP (electro-magnetic pulse) that would almost certainly have destroyed the electronic cameras recording the events.]
On Sunday night, a series of YouTube videos appear to show a large explosion in Donetsk, Ukraine (several can be watched here). However, it wasn’t a “tactical nuclear weapon,” as some social media users claimed, but just a big blast–reportedly Ukrainian army artillery fire hitting an ammunition depot held by the rebel Donetsk People’s Republic.
Videos that were uploaded Feb. 8 show a massive explosion going off in the distance, with an orange-red fireball lighting up the night sky.
While many details remain unclear, preliminary reports say it was a an artillery attack on a weapons depot owned by the breakaway Donetsk People’s Republic. According to Ukrainian news site TSN.ua, right-wing politician Dmitry Yarosh said the blast killed about “200 terrorists,” destroyed 20 Grad rockets, and trucks filled with ammunition. (Read more from about the reports of a tactical nuke in Ukraine HERE)
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New York Times Warn About Russia “Nuclear Saber Rattling” in Ukraine
By JOHN J. MEARSHEIMERFEB. The possibility that Mr. Putin might end up making nuclear threats may seem remote, but if the goal of arming Ukraine is to drive up the costs of Russian interference and eventually put Moscow in an acute situation, it cannot be ruled out. If Western pressure succeeded and Mr. Putin felt desperate, he would have a powerful incentive to try to rescue the situation by rattling the nuclear saber.
Our understanding of the mechanisms of escalation in crises and war is limited at best, although we know the risks are considerable. Pushing a nuclear-armed Russia into a corner would be playing with fire.
Advocates of arming Ukraine recognize the escalation problem, which is why they stress giving Kiev “defensive,” not “offensive,” weapons. Unfortunately, there is no useful distinction between these categories: All weapons can be used for attacking and defending. The West can be sure, though, that Moscow will not see those American weapons as “defensive,” given that Washington is determined to reverse the status quo in eastern Ukraine.
The only way to solve the Ukraine crisis is diplomatically, not militarily. Germany’s chancellor, Angela Merkel, seems to recognize that fact, as she has said Germany will not ship arms to Kiev. Her problem, however, is that she does not know how to bring the crisis to an end. (Read more from this story HERE)
Matt Drudge Warns that “Obama Knows Something Terrible is Coming”
In a tweet yesterday, Matt Drudge said this about Obama’s Grammy appearance:
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2015-02-09 01:53:092016-04-11 11:02:38Reports of Massive Explosion in Ukraine, Likely not Tactical Nuke, but Obama Shaken [+videos]
Photo Credit: Western Journalism By Heather Laskin. For all of President Obama’s talk of the border being safer than ever, Pinal County, Ariz., Sheriff Paul Babeu provided some evidence to the contrary when he spoke before the House Judiciary Committee on the issue of illegal immigration Tuesday.
Babeu, America’s 2011 “Sheriff of the Year” and an Iraq War veteran, testified before the committee that between 88,000 and 123,000 illegal aliens are apprehended at the Tucson Sector, one of nine border-patrol zones along the U.S.-Mexico border, each year. The Tucson Sector covers most of the state of Arizona from the New Mexico state line to the Yuma County line — a total of 262 border miles.
Between 17 and 30 percent of those apprehended have a criminal record in the U.S. “This clearly shows that the border is not more secure than ever,” Babeu said.
He also detailed how 30 to 50 illegal alien criminals are released into Pinal County every day. “These are the people that everybody, including the president, said are the bad actors,” he said. Many of those released have criminal records that include rape, manslaughter, child molestation, financial crimes, armed robbery, and assault against law enforcement.
Babeu said he has asked the federal government for more information regarding those individuals and their criminal histories, but the government refuses to give it to him. “I, as the sheriff, who swore an oath to protect the people of my county, should have a right to that information,” Babeu declared.
He stressed to committee members that the situation is so lawless in some areas of Pinal County — the number one pass through county in America for drug and human smuggling — that it often feels like a war-zone on American soil. (Read more about what Arizona sheriff said HERE)
By KRGV. The family of two missing veterans in Matamoros is desperate for any word of their safety.
Ernesto and Jesus Garcia were reported missing in Mexico after they did not return home on Monday. The brothers from Brownsville were visiting their grandmother.
Family said they were staying in the south-west side of the city, about 20 minutes south of Brownsville.
The family said this was a trip the brothers made often. Every few months, they would visit their family in Matamoros and check-in on their grandmother.
This trip was different because the two decided to drive home to the U.S. in the middle of the night. (Read more from this story HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2015-02-09 01:52:562016-04-11 11:02:38Arizona Sheriff Calls Out Obama, Insists Our Borders are Not “More Secure Than Ever”
