Demovictory9
Demovictory9's JournalTexas homeowners reeling after property tax appraisals skyrocket
COLLIN COUNTY (CBSDFW.COM) - Some new numbers are painting a clear picture of how hard North Texas homeowners are getting hit by skyrocketing property tax appraisals.
CBS 11 News has learned that Collin County expects a record of 100,000 homeowners to protest their appraisals. A county commissioner we spoke with says it's the smart thing to do if you need financial relief.
A broken sprinkler system outside his home in Lucas, Texas is the least of Marc Sherrin's concerns after opening the mail. Looking at his statement he said, "We owe $75,000 more than last year looks like. We're going to have to protest again."
Sherrin and his family live in a small Collin County town where the price of the average home is already steep -- at $600,000. But appraisals this year, like the one he received in the mail, are up more than 30% across-the-board which makes the median home value now more than $900,000.
"I'm just kind of at my wits end," Sherrin said. "I don't know what to do."
The cities of Prosper, McKinney, Frisco, and Celina are all reporting home appraisal values above 30%, according to new numbers recently provided to County County leaders.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/texas-homeowners-reeling-after-property-tax-appraisals-skyrocket/ar-AAWEIkc
Optometrist Charged With Allegedly Delivering Nooses, Making Racist Threats (over BLM accessories)
A criminal complaint filed against Pilon on Tuesday detailed six counts of "willfully intimidating and attempting to intimidate citizens from engaging in lawful speech and protests." Each misdemeanor charge is punishable with a fine and up to one year in prison.
Pilon's alleged threats began on June 14, 2020, according to the complaint. He was accused of calling nine Starbucks stores across Michigan between 4:39 pm and 5:42 pm that day. In just over an hour, he allegedly directed nine staffers who picked up the phones to "Tell all the Starbucks workers wearing BLM shirts that the only good n***er is a dead n***er."
Pilon also allegedly told one of the employees, "I'm gonna go out and lynch me a n***er."
Two days earlier, Starbucks had announced that it was providing 250,000 "Black Lives Matter" T-shirts to employees who wanted to share their support for the movement during their shifts.
On June 22, Pilon allegedly left a noose in the parking lot of a Goodwill in Saginaw, Michigan. Attached to it was a handwritten note that said, "An accessory to be worn with your 'BLM' t-shirt. Happy Protesting!" He allegedly continued to leave nooses with similar notes at a 7-Eleven, a Walmart and a Kroger store over the following month.
Pilon also allegedly slipped a noose with an identical note into a truck owned by a Saginaw couple, prosecutors said. MLive identified the couple as Donald Simon, who is Black, and Regina Simon, who is Mexican-white. Regina told the outlet that she had been wearing a Black Lives Matter shirt while playing with the family dog in her front yard on July 11, the day before they discovered Pilon's threat.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/optometrist-charged-with-allegedly-delivering-nooses-making-racist-threats/ar-AAWFFiw
man who defaced a Florida LBGTQ memorial has been ordered to write a 25-page essay on Pulse nighclub
https://twitter.com/sfdb/status/1405628022380765191A man who defaced a Florida LBGTQ memorial has been ordered to write a 25-page essay on the Pulse nightclub shooting and its 49 victims.
Alexander Jerich, 20, pleaded guilty last month to criminal mischief and reckless driving in connection with a June 2021 incident in which he left 15-foot tire marks across a newly-unveiled Pride flag intersection in Delray Beach, court documents show.
Jerich, with a Trump flag waving from the back of his white pickup, "stopped at the intersection and then intentionally accelerated the vehicle in an unreasonable unsafe manner in a short amount of time commonly referred to as 'burnout,'" said an arrest warrant.
The tires left a mark more than halfway across the nearly $17,000 mural, which had celebrated its ribbon cutting ceremony on June 12, marking Pride month and the anniversary of the Pulse massacre.
Two days later, Jerich was attending a rally celebrating former President Donald Trump's birthday when he skidded dangerously across the intersection, the warrant said.
Another person who attended the rally, who identified himself as a gay man and spoke with police, said that before Jerich drove over the Pride flag colors, someone had shouted to him "tear up that gay intersection."
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/man-who-defaced-pride-mural-in-florida-ordered-to-write-25-page-essay-on-pulse-shooting/ar-AAWFriV
In addition, Pasch wants Jerich’s probation to last just three years, with the chance of ending it after 18 months if Jerich shows good behavior. He also asked Suskauer to withhold adjudication on the felony.
In his filing, Pasch said Jerich – who is 20 and lives with his parents – lost his construction job because of the charges and is trying to obtain a truck driver’s license. He has met with the state attorney’s office, Pasch said, “to express his regret and to apologize for his action.”
Jerich’s parents, Pasch said, are “dismayed and shocked.” They do not recall any “homophobia” in their family. LGBTQ advocates wanted State Attorney Dave Aronberg to charge Jerich with a hate crime, which would have brought an enhanced sentence. After Aronberg declined to do so, they asked that Jerich serve at least some time behind bars, to make a statement.
https://www.bocamag.com/jerich-faces-sentencing/
Minneapolis cops r so offensive that prosecutors hv trouble using their body camera footage in court
Minneapolis police officers are being caught on body camera footage saying offensive things to suspects and bystanders.An investigation by Minnesota's Department of Human Rights found the cop's conduct makes it difficult for prosecutors to use body camera footage in court.
The explosive report also detailed a consistent use of racial slurs and selective enforcement by the police.
Prosecutors struggle to use the body camera footage of Minneapolis police officers in court because cops say such offensive things in the videos, an explosive new investigation has revealed.
According to the Minnesota Department of Human Rights, which published the results of a sweeping civil rights probe into the Minneapolis Police Department on Wednesday, officers often say disrespectful and offensive things to criminal suspects, bystanders, and witnesses.
Prosecutors in Minneapolis and Hennepin County said this makes it difficult to use body camera footage in court, according to the report, adding that MPD officers are "much less professional and respectful" than those in neighboring departments.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/minneapolis-cops-are-so-offensive-that-prosecutors-have-trouble-using-their-body-camera-footage-in-court-investigation-finds/ar-AAWFjBz
https://www.insider.com/minneapolis-cops-offensive-language-proves-difficult-for-prosecutors-court-2022-4
"According to body worn camera footage, discipline records, statements from community members, and interviews with MPD officers, some MPD officers and supervisors use racial slurs," the report says. "They call Black individuals [the N-word] and 'monkeys' and call Black women 'Black bitches.'"
The investigation found that MPD officers use higher rates of more severe force against Black individuals than white individuals in similar circumstances.
Police data showed that 63% of all use of force incidents that MPD officers recorded were against Black individuals, though Black people make up about 19% of the Minneapolis population, according to the agency's 72-page report.
https://www.insider.com/minneapolis-and-city-police-racially-discriminate-investigation-finds-2022-4?inline-endstory-related-recommendations=
anti-vaxxer is pro-vax following his 49 days in the hospital with covid, incl 2 days on life suppor
What an Unvaccinated Sergeant Who Nearly Died of Covid-19 Wants You to Know
CAMDEN, N.J. — No one thought Frank Talarico Jr. was going to live. Not his doctors, his nurses or his wife, a physician assistant who works part time at the Camden, N.J., hospital where he spent 49 days fighting to survive Covid-19.
A 47-year-old police sergeant, he was not vaccinated against the coronavirus. Unconvinced of the vaccine’s merits, he figured he was young and fit enough to handle whatever illness the virus might cause.
He was wrong.
“If it’s an eye opener for somebody — so be it,” Sergeant Talarico said recently at his home in Pennsauken, N.J., about five miles northeast of Camden. He plans to get the vaccine as soon as the doctors he credits with saving his life at Virtua Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital give him final medical clearance.
“If I was vaccinated,” he said, “I have to think I wouldn’t have gotten as sick as I did.”
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/what-an-unvaccinated-sergeant-who-nearly-died-of-covid-19-wants-you-to-know/ar-AAWBxAd
After being rushed to the hospital the second time, he had a foot-long blood clot removed from his lung, a procedure that prevented certain death but caused his heart to nearly stop beating. He was placed on advanced life-support while still on the operating table. For two days a machine did the work of his heart and lungs.
Texas residents sue county for removing books on race, sex education from public library
The residents say the county is violating their first amendment rights by removing award-winning books from shelves due to their content and terminating "access to over 17,000 digital books” from the local library system.
“Public libraries are not places of government indoctrination,” the lawsuit filed Monday reads.
-------------------
Several of the books listed in the lawsuit that have been removed from libraries include adult works about oppression and racism like “Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents,” by journalist Isabel Wilkerson, and “They Called Themselves the K.K.K.: The Birth of an American Terrorist Group” by Susan Campbell Bartoletti.
The lawsuit also listed some of the children's books that have been removed: Maurice Sendak’s "In the Night Kitchen" is about a boy's dream of making a cake, and Robie H. Harris’s "It’s Perfectly Normal: Changing Bodies, Growing Up, Sex, and Sexual Health" is a sex education book about the biology of the human body.
--------------
Shortly after, in January 2022, the court voted to dissolve the existing library board and appointed a new board of residents advocating for the removal of the aforementioned books, according to the lawsuit.
Several plaintiffs wanted to join the new board but say they were refused due to their "public stances against ongoing censorship efforts in the County."
One plaintiff, according to the lawsuit, "holds a master’s degree in Library and Information Science, previously managed the rare books collection at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, and formerly served on a library board in Wichita Falls." He says he was refused a position on the new board.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/texas-residents-sue-county-for-removing-books-on-race-sex-education/ar-AAWCq35
teacher under fire for sending this letter to trans students
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/watertown-teacher-under-fire-for-gender-id-letter-to-students/ar-AAWDmzC
investors bought an apt building in sacramento & tried to get immigrants to pay rent twice
Summary of long article behind paywall: Afghan immigrants with low English skills and new to US living in rundown apt building. Prior owner suddenly asked for rent by the Feb 2nd when usually they had to 5th of the month. They paid not knowing the building was sold. The building was sold on the 3rd. New owners come in demanding Feb rent despite tenants showing them receipts. new owners try to get feb rent paid again for two months, then come up with plan. Pay your rent by the 1st from April to Sept. If a tenant misses that 1st payment, they owe feb rent... so creating a $1000 late payment fee. One new tenant had paid $2900 depositi and first months rents. The new owners turned him away.-------------------------------
The Bee spoke to six current tenants who said the previous building manager collected February rent in cash and money orders from each of them by Feb. 2 — the day before an LLC affiliated with Oakland-based Redwood Property Investors assumed ownership. The tenants produced receipts confirming the payment, but a Redwood executive said they never received the rent payments from the previous manager.
The new owner has not pursued evictions through Sacramento’s court system. Instead, the real estate investment company repeatedly asked the residents to pay the rent they’d already paid or leave their homes in three days — potentially an informal eviction that happens without court oversight. The tenants’ story reveals the stark power imbalance between low-income renters and landlords in the midst of a California homelessness crisis. With their lack of credit history and limited English skills that stymie their job searches, these tenants were in danger of becoming homeless and weren’t sure how to advocate for themselves.
Over a two-month period, the new owners posted multiple three-day pay-or-quit notices, demanding that the tenants pay another full month’s rent within three days or move out. The most recent notices were sent out April 7, telling tenants that if they did not pay or leave the premises, “your Landlord declares a forfeiture of the agreement under which you hold possession of the Premises and will institute legal proceedings.” That same day, Redwood’s chief financial officer, Cliff Jackson, wrote to The Bee, “Our initial findings reveal that a number of residents were defrauded by prior ownership.”
After both telling The Bee the rent had been paid to previous management and giving the tenants another three-day notice April 7, Redwood asked residents to sign a document, described as an effort to “start off on the right foot.” In the document, management wrote that the February payments were stolen by an employee of the previous owner. Then, they asked tenants to agree to pay rent by the first of the month every month from April to September.
Under the terms of the agreement, if a tenant paid any later than the first of the month, they would owe their February rent money again.
Read more at: https://www.sacbee.com/news/local/article260136260.html#storylink=cpy
awesome comments in response to article in NYTimes about the culture wars
Wake me up when Ross and the rest of these hand-wringing pundits start writing thinkpieces about the people (overwhelmingly females) under age 18 who undergo rhinoplasty (nose job), breast augmentation, and ear-pinning surgeries. Won't someone think of the children!?!
Spoiler alert: These pundits only get upset about medical alterations to a young person's body when they are not used solely to "improve" a child's appearance (in terms of the male gaze)—and that child is female 99% of the time.
------------------------------------------
The bottom line is that I'm a gay man and there is a hardcore 25% of hateful homophobic racist and bigoted conservative Southern Republicans that hate me and always will. Their influence goes up, goes down, and so on over and over. We had Anita Bryant, Phyllis Schafly, Pat Buchanan and now we have Ron DeSantis, Clarence Thomas and Sam Alito and many others that either hate us because of who we are or, like DeSantis, simply to score political points. I almost despise him more than the others because he really has ZERO substance to his hateful lust for power. But at the end of the day I'm sick and tired of talking about how and why I have a right to live my life as an equal member of society WITHOUT being called a "groomer" or whatever else they want to call me. These people, who support politicians who lie and steal and cheat on their spouses are trying to protect children from me and those like me. And I have to dignify these cretins with a defense as I enter the 6th decade of my life? I don't think so.
----------------------
The number of trans in the US is extraordinarily small (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28838353/).
The number of people seeking to profit politically off their denigration and tap into the latent and widespread homophobia that is within the penumbra of the anti-trans discussion is large and backed by money (hello Fox News and the GOP).
The trans issue is ginned up out of the playbook of other right-wing autocracies (Russia, Hungary et al). If these folks like DeSantis were truly worried about protecting children from predators and grooming, he would advocate laws squarely focussed on heterosexual male sexual violence.
-------------------
The GOP needs a boogie man for every election cycle and, this time, it has resurrected LGBT.
Last time the GOP used gays, anti-gay marriage amendments turned out conservative voters for George W. Bush. In subsequent years, the GOP scapegoated immigrants, Muslims, women, and ethnic/racial minorities.
This time, in hopes of getting back the suburban moms who abandoned Trump, the GOP is banking on scaring them that schools will allow pedophile groomers to abuse their kids just by mentioning gays.
Like clockwork, Americans will fall for the nonsense…again.
------------------------------------
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/13/opinion/transgender-culture-war.html#commentsContainer
Profile Information
Gender: FemaleHometown: California
Member since: Tue Feb 27, 2018, 10:32 PM
Number of posts: 32,443
