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Friday, June 21, 2019
Former Disney Vice President Gets Lenient Prison Sentence for Repeated Sexual Abuse of 7 Year Old
The criminal justice system went easy on the offender, whose lawyers say he should not be incarcerated at all.
A former executive, who was formerly in a position of power at a corporation that makes obscene profits molding young minds, has been convicted of child sexual abuse.
Michael Laney, 73, was acquitted on three counts of first-degree rape and three counts of first-degree sex abuse, but was unable to escape conviction on four counts of first-degree sexual abuse. He will serve 81 months in prison as a punishment for his sex crimes made on a seven-year-old girl.
Despite his conviction, his lawyers are still maintaining Laney’s innocence.
“The character of the evidence is just stories, and the strength of those stories is exceedingly low,” attorneys Stephen Houze and Jacob Houze wrote in a statement.
They are also appealing for sympathy for this convicted child sex abuser, citing Laney’s wife’s alleged Parkinson’s disease as reasons for even more leniency.
“Sentencing Mr. Laney to any amount of incarceration, much less an actuarial true life sentence, disproportionately impacts him more than a defendant without those personal characteristics,” Houze wrote in a statement.
Multnomah County Deputy District Attorney Charles Mickley believes the claims made by Laney’s attorneys are “peculiarly offensive and insulting” to the victim.
“Defendant wholly ignores the compelling evidence of his guilt presented at trial, including the evidence of his...
BLUNDERS BY DEMOCRATS AND CAPITOL POLICE ENABLED WHAT PROSECUTORS CALL THE ‘LARGEST DATA THEFT IN SENATE HISTORY’
- Former Democratic aide Jackson Cosko committed the “largest data theft in Senate history” by stealing a senator’s data and “doxxing” Republicans during the hearings for Justice Brett Kavanaugh.
- The crime was enabled by a series of errors by Democrats.
- Capitol Police made multiple mistakes that left spy devices operational in the Senate even after the suspect was arrested.
A rogue Democratic aide stole a massive trove of political data and used it to harm Republicans by “doxxing” them in what prosecutors call the “largest data theft in Senate history.”
The theft was made possible, and could have been much worse, because of myriad blunders by the Capitol Police and multiple Democratic congresswomen.
Jackson Cosko was sentenced Wednesday to four years in prison. Prosecutors called his offense an “extraordinary” and “vicious” crime where the ex-Democratic aide stole a senator’s data, mined it for blackmail material and then published the home addresses and phone numbers of Republican senators during the 2018 hearings for now-Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh.
Even after the computer administrator was caught in the act and arrested for spying on a senator’s office using his advanced technical skills, Capitol Police didn’t check the USB ports of nearby computers. Six different computers within steps of where he was arrested in the Senate had keylogger devices in them that continued to capture and beam private information over WiFi. They were only exposed through a confession.
Police then got a search warrant on his home, but missed critical evidence because they didn’t check the oven.
Toxic individuals were repeatedly passed among government offices apparently without anyone performing a background check or calling for job references. And despite lamentations from Democrats about the DNC hack, there was seemingly little concern about technology and...
Latinos For Trump Lost Its Event Venue After Antifa Called Them Racist
Latinos for Trump planned to hold an educational leadership and activism conference in Woodlands, Texas this weekend, and lost their event venue after local Antifa groups labelled the Hispanic supporters of President Donald Trump as racist and the local media piled on.
The group of Hispanic Trump supporters explained to Big League Politics that they have been labelled as white supremacists who are engaged in the next red scare by the local media, and harassed by local Antifa groups.
According to Bianca Gracia, vice president of Latinos for Trump, Antifa began calling the event venue’s insurance company and complaining that violent white supremacists would be using the facility, likely resulting in violence that the insurance company would have to cover. At the same time, Houston Press released an article lambasting Latinos for Trump, and the pro-America Texans United For America group, quoting a known member of Antifa who lost his job as a professor for being too radical.
This led the insurance company to renege on its contract with Latinos for Trump, leaving the group scrambling to inform attendees of a new, undisclosed location for its leadership training, forum on human trafficking, firearm training, and social media activism seminars.
Houston Press repeatedly quoted Dr. David Michael Smith, of Houston United Front Against Fascism, in...
Swiss vote for EU gun control laws
Brussels has coaxed Switzerland into accepting a top-down scheme on carrying weapons. On May 19, 2019, Swiss voters approved a new set of gun restrictions to put Switzerland’s gun control laws in line with European Union standards.
Under this new law, military-style, semi-automatic weapons will be heavily restricted as well as gun registrations. Participants in shooting sports however, will still be able to nominally exercise their right to own arms.
The international gun community expressed concern after the Swiss vote in favor of such regulations, passed with a margin of 64-36 percent,.
Switzerland is generally viewed as a pro-gun country similar to the United States, and has often been cited as an international example for the feasibility of civilian firearms ownership. Those who argue for the right to self-defense, have criticised the new measures.
According to a Von Mises Institute contributor Claudio Grass and an officer in the Swiss militia, Dimitrios Papadopoulos, some 80 percent of gun owners in Switzerland use semi-automatic weapons, which are effectively now prohibited under the new directive.
The only way people can acquire the newly prohibited weapons is through an exemption where the prospective gun owner declares himself to be a sports marksman – someone having used the weapon at least five times within a five-year timespan.
This exception may soon disappear since the EU has announced further restrictions. The Swiss will have no option but to adopt these, too, according to the Schengen treaty.
Switzerland has a militia tradition dating back to the Middle Ages, and because Swiss cantons did not have nobility structures, defense and security were provided by ordinary citizens themselves. Swiss military service is also inextricably tied to marksmanship, with servicemen having to go to the shooting range at least once a year.
Military servicemen receive a SIG550 assault rifle or a SIG P220 pistol and are required to keep their firearms at home as long as they are enlisted. After serving, veterans can keep these weapons, although the automatic and burst-fire functions of the SIG550 must be disabled.
But under the new EU Directive, the SIG550 and SIG510 have been reclassified as “prohibited” weapons even though the Swiss government issues about 20 000 of these weapons to recruits every year.
Cantons handle all permits, as there is no centralized bureaucracy for guns in Switzerland., even though the firearms law is federal.
Authorities are obliged to grant a permit unless the person applying has a criminal record, mental health issues, or deemed to be dangerous. Once obtained, the firearm cannot be confiscated except for extreme circumstances.
Semi-automatic firearms will now fall under the same category as machine guns and fully automatic weapons which require an Ausnahmebewilligung or exception permit.
Both Grass and Papadopoulos highlight that the EU directive could lead to potential gun control by the EU.
“What is particularly scary is that the whole argument for the new law was not really about saving lives or reducing gun violence, but rather focused on Brussels ordering Switzerland to...
The 90 Miles Mystery Box: Episode #659
You have come across a mystery box. But what is inside?
It could be literally anything from the serene to the horrific,
from the beautiful to the repugnant,
from the mysterious to the familiar.
If you decide to open it, you could be disappointed,
you could be inspired, you could be appalled.
This is not for the faint of heart or the easily offended.
You have been warned.
Thursday, June 20, 2019
A Champion Emerges: Sen. Hawley Proposes Bill To Tackle Tech Censorship
A Republican lawmaker is finally taking on Big Tech censorship. Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley announced Wednesday a bill that would aim at the Achilles heel of Big Tech: Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act.
Section 230 gives tech platforms immunity from publisher liabilities. The reason being is that they provide a “forum for a true diversity of political discourse.” VDARE.com readers are probably aware of this protection from our many articles demanding Republicans re-examine this protection. It looks like one of them took notice.
Hawley’s bill would require all large platforms to submit to a government audit to assess if they operate as neutral political forums. If they refuse to comply or fail the audit, the platform would be stripped of its Section 230 protection. [GOP Sen. Josh Hawley takes aim at Big Tech's legal protection with new bill, by James Rogers, Fox News, June 19, 2019]
The Missouri senator believes large platforms such as Facebook and Twitter are operating more like publishers than neutral forums and hopes the audits can reform their behavior. “There’s a growing list of evidence that shows big tech companies making editorial decisions to censor viewpoints they disagree with,” he said in a Wednesday statement. “This legislation simply states that if the tech giants want to keep their government-granted immunity, they must bring transparency and accountability to their editorial processes and prove that they don’t discriminate.”
The move was just what Republicans needed to do, as the Watcher has outlined. Tech companies cling to this protection because it benefits them immensely. Lawmakers taking a look at it terrifies them. When Democrats threatened Section 230 over a viral video of Nancy Pelosi, Facebook responded by taking down the video.
The new legislation may spur tech giants to chill their zeal to suppress conservative opinions.
Sadly, many conservatives and libertarians already oppose the bill. Koch-funded Americans for Prosperity claims it undermines free speech by allowing government interference in the internet. Reason also complained the bill gives too much power to the government over...
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