Jilly_in_VA
Jilly_in_VA's JournalFlorida pastor accused of Covid fraud a no-show in court due to 'grave medical concerns'
A Florida pastor accused of fraudulently obtaining $8 million in Covid relief funds is in declining health and appears to be unable to speak, his lawyer said after he failed to appear in court.
"There are grave medical concerns," Erin Hyde told a federal judge in Orlando on Wednesday, according to a transcript of the hearing obtained by NBC News.
Evan Edwards, 64, and his son Josh, 30, were arrested at their New Smyrna Beach home earlier in the day. They each face up to 30 years in prison if convicted on the top count of conspiracy to commit bank fraud.
What was supposed to be their first court appearance went sideways fast.
Evan Edwards was a no-show after he told officers he had medical issues and refused to get in his wheelchair in a court holding cell, Assistant U.S. Attorney Kara Wick told the judge.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/florida-pastor-accused-covid-fraud-no-show-court-due-grave-medical-con-rcna62018
Sure, dude, dure.
Details revealed in plan to attack Jan. 6 investigators
More information is being revealed in court documents relating to two East Tennessee men who were charged after they allegedly planned to attack the FBI Knoxville Office and kill law enforcement officers who were involved in investigating the January 6 Riot at the U.S. Capitol.
On Friday, the Department of Justice released an unsealed federal criminal complaint. According to the complaint, Edward Kelley, 33, of Maryville and Austin Carter, 26, of Knoxville are facing charges of conspiracy, retaliating against a Federal Official, Interstate threats, and solicitation to commit a crime. Previous coverage from WATE shared that Kelley was the fourth rioter to enter the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021.
In court records obtained by WATE, it was stated that Kelley and Carter initially appeared before the U.S. District Court in the Eastern District of Tennessee on December 16. At the hearing, both Carter and Kelley were represented by Defense Attorney Josh Hedrick, who, according to Knox Defense, has been working in criminal defense since 2006.
The court record shows that both Kelley and Carter reserved the right to a detention hearing, but only Carter requested one. Carter’s detention hearing is set for December 21 at 11 a.m., and the preliminary hearing for both Kelley and Carter is set for January 1, 2023, at 1:30 p.m.
The contents of the federal criminal complaint released on Friday are included below.
https://www.wate.com/news/top-stories/court-documents-shed-light-into-alleged-plan-to-attack-fbi-knoxville-office-january-6-investigators/
Y'all, this may have happened in Tennessee, but I think it's part of a bigger picture.
Human heart discovered in TDOT salt pile
A human heart has been discovered in the Tennessee Department of Transportation’s salt barn in McEwen.
According to Humphreys County Sheriff Chris Davis, TDOT workers were combining products to make brine on Thursday. As workers were retrieving salt from their barn, they discovered what they believed to be a weirdly shaped rock.
“I’ve got 32 years in in law enforcement,” Davis said. “I do have to say this is probably in the top 5 of most bizarre things that I’ve ever seen.”
The heart had been there for a while, Davis said, and was dehydrated from the salt.
“Somebody, somewhere knows, and we’re seeking information,” Davis said. “I always reach out to the public if you happen to have any idea or just an inclination.”
https://www.wvlt.tv/2022/12/16/human-heart-discovered-tdot-salt-pile/
It's going to be interesting when the DNA testing is done.
She Went Undercover to a Crisis Pregnancy Center. They Told Her Abortion Is Reversible.
In October, investigative reporter Olivia Raisner visited five anti-abortion crisis pregnancy centers—clinics that often receive state funding, despite providing no medical services and pushing disinformation to dissuade pregnant people from choosing abortion—in Indiana. She entered each clinic armed with her pregnant friend’s urine, a button on her shirt that secretly doubled as a camera, and scheduled appointments. There, she declined to sign any paperwork that asked her not to record conversations to “make sure everything I did was legal,” Raisner told me in a phone interview. “The anti-abortion movement has been filming, not legally, for years now, and we don’t want to stoop to their level,” Raisner said.
On Thursday, Mayday Health posted a video capturing Raisner’s experiences at the CPCs. In one clip, after she turns in a positive pregnancy test and says she’s considering abortion, an employee immediately begins spewing a steady stream of easily disproven lies. The staffer warns Raisner, without any evidence, that “there’s been a lot of suicides” after abortion and that “it is a very common problem.” Ironically enough, research has shown that being denied an abortion negatively impacts someone’s mental health, and over 95 percent of people who have abortions don’t regret the decision. Nonetheless, the employee sternly claims that other mental health issues could arise, warning Raisner that having an abortion could even cause her to develop an eating disorder. She told Jezebel that several clinics said this.
The clinic worker featured in Mayday’s video specifically emphasized the (false) claim that if Raisner used medication abortion, she had the option to “reverse” the abortion through a special pill, via a dangerous, non-proven method called “abortion pill reversal.” Raisner told Jezebel that as medication abortion becomes more widely used, given its continued availability in all 50 states, anti-abortion activists are increasingly pushing this bogus, medically dangerous claim.
Even as Raisner had the facts going into the anti-abortion clinics, she said it still required significant effort to “keep my emotions and anger at bay” as clinic staff members lied to her face. “I knew that the longer I was able to stay in there, and really sell my story as a pregnant person, the more I would be able to record,” she explained. “I needed to show the interactions that are taking place countless times a day across the country, for all the pregnant people who go to these centers and don’t have the information.”
https://jezebel.com/she-went-undercover-to-a-crisis-pregnancy-center-they-1849900424
There is no way these outfits should be receiving any kind of outside funding. ANY kind.
Former officer Aaron Dean found guilty of manslaughter in the shooting death of Atatiana Jefferson
Source: NBC News
A former Texas officer who shot and killed a Black woman through a window in her home in October 2019 was found guilty of manslaughter on Thursday.
Aaron Dean, a white Fort Worth police officer, fatally shot Atatiana Jefferson, a 28-year-old Black woman had been playing video games at home with her 8-year-old nephew before she was shot. Dean was responding to Jefferson's home after a concerned neighbor called a nonemergency line around 2 a.m. to say he noticed an open front door.
The jury, which could have found Dean guilty of murder, announced its verdict after deliberating for more than 10 hours. He faces two to 20 years in prison for the manslaughter conviction.
Tarrant County prosecutor Ashlea Deener said Wednesday during closing arguments that Jefferson acted reasonably and within her rights to protect herself and her nephew, Zion Carr, when she heard noises outside her home in the middle of the night and got a hold of her gun, as she did not know that police officers were at her residence.
Read more: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/former-officer-aaron-dean-found-guilty-manslaughter-shooting-death-ata-rcna61558
Good. I wish he'd gotten second degree murder though.
James Patterson to complete unfinished Michael Crichton book
The bestselling author James Patterson is set to complete an unfinished manuscript from the late Michael Crichton.
According to the Wall Street Journal, Crichton’s estate has provided him with over 100 pages of a novel about the imminent eruption of Hawaii’s Mauna Loa volcano, which threatens a secret cache of deadly chemical weapons. Just last month, the volcano did start erupting.
“Michael’s ability to tell a story that is propulsive while you learn things about the subject area he’s writing about is what pulled me in,” Patterson said. He said he never met Crichton, but knows him “through his books”.
Crichton died in 2008, leaving behind a career of books including Jurassic Park, The Andromeda Strain, Congo and Sphere, all of which were also adapted into films. In 2020, it was announced that Sphere would be adapted again into a TV series for HBO Max. Crichton also wrote and directed 1973’s Westworld.
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2022/dec/15/james-patterson-unfinished-michael-crichton-book
I don't think Patterson writes nearly as well. In fact, I don't think he even writes his own stuff any more, but I could be wrong.
From Buzz Iceclear to Clearopathra, snowplow naming gains traction around the country
What do Buzz Iceclear, Clearopathra and Snowbi Wan Kenobi all have in common? They are some of the named snowplows hard at work during the winter season.
Cities and states across the country have begun to hold naming contests for their snowplows, hoping to engage more residents and raise awareness for their snowplow drivers.
From Darth Blader in Minnesota to Scoopy Doo in Vermont and Jon Bon Snowi in Michigan, people like to have fun with the name puns.
[People] like the names and they have fun with that and maybe they have a new appreciation for the [snowplow] work and the drivers who do it everyday," Minnesota Department of Transportation spokesperson Anne Meyer told NPR.
The Minnesota Department of Transportation was one of the first departments in the country to start holding snowplow naming contests, Meyer said. The state received more than 24,000 suggestions for its inaugural contest in 2020 and more than 11,000 last year, she said.
During the first winter of the pandemic, MnDOT looked for ways to connect with Minnesota residents on social media and discovered Scotland's tradition of naming its snowplows, which they call "gritters."
https://www.npr.org/2022/12/15/1142817962/snowplow-name-contests
Writer Flying Home From Emmys Puts 'Racist' Delta on Blast
Delta Air Lines has launched an investigation after a Black screenwriter flying home from the Emmys said he was prevented from boarding his flight by an agent who admitted that it was due to racism.
Darnell Lamont Walker said he tried to call Delta, but the company wouldn’t take complaints over the phone. As an alternative, he posted about his experience on Twitter because “it’s where things change.”
“Gate agent said it was too late to get on my flight - it wasn’t,” Walker tweeted Monday. “Told me to get rebooked at [customer service] then he scanned in the people behind me.”
“Your employee…admittedly didn’t let me onto the flight because I’m Black,” Walker wrote in a subsequent post. “When asking for his name for the complaint, he covered his badge and said he didn’t need to give it, but looked forward [to] reading the complaint anyway.”
Walker, a writer for Netflix’s Karma’s World, was in Los Angeles for the Children’s & Family Emmys award ceremony over the weekend. He filed a formal complaint against Delta on Tuesday, claiming the gate agent said he was too late to catch his flight but, instead, let a group of white passengers board after him.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/black-screenwriter-darnell-lamont-walker-puts-racist-delta-air-lines-on-blast?ref=home
Good afternoon, Delta. Here's your "Shithouse of the Skies" award for the day. (I can't give the for the week this time of year, there are too many)
Audit: Tennessee DCS failed to fully investigate sex abuse reports
The Tennessee Department of Children's Services failed to adequately investigate dozens of reports of sexual abuse and sexual harassment allegations in its state residential facilities in 2021, according to a scathing state Comptroller report released this week.
The state audit also found DCS ignored dozens of additional reports of alleged consensual sexual activity between residents, which DCS officials allegedly deemed not worthy of internal investigation due to the consensual nature of the activity.
"Although these acts were not considered sexual abuse or sexual harassment, they may indicate a lack of supervision at the facilities, which the department has a duty to investigate," the audit states.
"If DCS does not address all potential sexual abuse, sexual harassment, and lack of supervision allegations within all facilities, then they cannot be sure they are providing a safe, humane, and secure environment for all children under DCS’s care, especially those that live in non-juvenile justice focused facility settings."
The department countered that in residential facilities, DCS refers sexual abuse allegations between children ages 13 and 17 directly to law enforcement. But DCS did not follow up with those cases after referral.
https://www.knoxnews.com/story/news/politics/2022/12/13/tennessee-department-of-childrens-services-failed-to-probe-sex-abuse-reports/69725145007/
Why would this surprise anyone, when there are hundreds of thousands of rape kits sitting untested in PDs everywhere and Gym Jordan is sitting in congress like always?
Company details why English Mtn. residents have gone weeks without water (UPDATE)
After months of complaints from English Mountain residents about a lack of water, the state has opened an investigation into why it’s been happening.
Tennessee’s Comptroller Office officially requested that all three Utility Management Review Board members be replaced after claiming they failed to control excessive water loss and to seek opportunities to replace or upgrade failing infrastructure.
According to the report, nearly 63% of the water under the control of the East Sevier County Utility District last year was lost, which means it spilled out onto the mountain and didn’t go to people’s homes.
That water loss rate is drastically higher than 2017?s rate of 48%.
“Pressure-reducing valves weren’t in operation,” said Craig Miller, Division Manager with Alliance Water Resources. “Ultimately, it’s the job of the people at the utility.”
He added that employees at ESCUD told him that a review board member instructed staff not to touch the pressure valves, which Miller believes is the primary reason why so much water loss occurred.
https://www.wvlt.tv/2022/12/14/company-details-why-english-mtn-residents-have-gone-weeks-without-water/
Sounds suspiciously like corruption to me....or incompetence. I vote for door #1
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