May 24, 2022

Los Angeles homeless outreach workers caught tossing food into dumpsters

"It's appalling what I see on that video," said Handal. "This is an absolute disgrace."

For months, the investigative team watched outreach workers with LAHSA picking up food for the less fortunate. The employees were supposed to spend their days interacting with the thousands of homeless in Los Angeles. LAHSA administrators said the goal was to build trust with the unhoused, using the food in hopes of convincing them to accept government service and housing.

One team that CBSLA followed could be seen picking up the homeless food, driving around for hours, stopping twice to give out meals before going on a break to walk around Balboa Park for an hour.

However, at the end of their shift, they were seen giving away all the food at a homeless encampment in Panorama City, folding up the empty boxes the food was once in.

But another team was seen driving and making stops at Target, Starbucks and McDonald's all while passing dozens of homeless people along the way. When they finally returned to their office, instead of folding up empty boxes, one LAHSA employee was seen throwing a case full of food in the dumpster behind their Panorama City building.

Another team was seen taking the boxes out of their car, walking into the room with the dumpsters and throwing a box filled with food right in the trash, even though there was a group of people living on the streets just a block away.

LAHSA — which received $800 million in public funds this fiscal year — did not provide anyone to speak with the investigative team but did write a statement which said in part:

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/goldstein-investigates-cameras-catch-employees-throwing-away-food-meant-for-the-homeless/ar-AAXE62v

May 24, 2022

San Diego College cancels event with Alice Walker, author of "the Color Purple" as speaker

Carlos O. Cortez, the new chancellor of the San Diego Community College District, announced Monday the cancellation of his investiture ceremony over criticism of the keynote speaker.


The free, public event with a keynote speech by author Alice Walker was scheduled to be held May 31 at Petco Park.

Walker, who received the Pulitizer Prize in 1983 for her acclaimed novel “The Color Purple,” has been accused of taking antisemitic positions in recent years.


“Over the past few weeks, concerns have been expressed about the political beliefs and writings of the investiture keynote speaker, Alice Walker. At the same time, others have expressed their support of Ms. Walker,” Cortez said in a statement.

“As a district that celebrates inclusion, we believe the best way forward would be to cancel the event altogether. I apologize for the pain caused to any member of our community. The investiture scheduled for May 31 will not be held,” he said.

In 2018, Walker said in an interview with The New York Times that she is a fan of conspiracy theorist David Icke whose writings have antisemitic themes. Her own recent poem “To Study the Talmud” has been criticized as antisemitic. Walker, whose first husband was Jewish, denies that she is antisemitic.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/community-college-president-cancels-ceremony-over-keynote-speaker-s-alleged-antisemitism/ar-AAXDxvE

May 24, 2022

Bakersfield business owner /sons under arrest, catch burglar, tie him up, beat him for 45 minutes

BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (KERO) — A Bakersfield man and his two adult sons were arrested after they beat a burglary suspect, sending the man to the hospital.

According to the Kern County Sheriff's Office, the incident began back on April 27th at around 3 a.m. when the suspect broke into the fenced area of a local business and took items from one of the vehicles on the property. Video surveillance at the business alerted 50-year-old John Sparks to the break-in.

Sparks confronted the suspect who then fled. Sparks chased the suspect to a nearby business and confronted him with a gun and fired one shot. At that point, the suspect laid down on the ground, and Sparks tied his hands behind his back with zip-ties.

Shortly after, 23-year-old Brenden Sparks and 20-year-old Trenton Sparks arrived on the scene. Over the next 45 minutes, John and his two sons allegedly "punched, kicked and hit the suspect with blunt force objects causing severe lacerations and injuries to the suspect’s face and body." They then put the suspect into the bed of a pick-up truck and drove to the 6900 block of Meany Avenue at which point the sheriff's office was called.

https://www.turnto23.com/news/crime/bakersfield-father-two-sons-arrested-after-beating-burglary-suspect

May 24, 2022

Star Trek Theme Music

May 24, 2022

Star Trek The next Generation, then and now

May 24, 2022

Gun culture ... Last 36 hours - between family and neighbors

May 24, 2022

52 year old paid student leader's 32 years in college may end

Paid Student Leader's 32 Years in College May End
Bolivia judge orders investigation of 52-year-old student with government salary

Bolivia Jails Paid Student Leader—He's 52
Max Mendoza has been a remarkably persistent student—and a profitable one: He's been enrolled at a public university in Bolivia for 32 years but never graduated, much of it while being paid a government salary to serve as a student leader.

On Monday, though, he was detained and sent to jail after a judge ordered a six-month investigation into allegations his tenure as a state-paid student leader constituted a crime.

Mendoza, now 52, has unsuccessfully tackled a series of majors—industrial engineering, agronomy, and law among them—since enrolling in 1990, the AP reports. But he has held a series of student leadership posts, and since 2018, he has been president of the University Confederation of Bolivia, the country's top student representative.


Mendoza has been earning $3,000 a month—10 times the national minimum wage. Prosecutors say he used the closure of schools for the pandemic as an excuse to extend his position. "He didn't meet the requirements. He didn't have a bachelor's degree (needed) to hold the post," Judge Javier Vargas said Monday.

Prosecutor William Alave said other long-serving student leaders were being investigated. Some complain that those leaders have taken advantage of the autonomy granted public universities to hold onto government pay granted to student leaders. Public anger rose after somebody threw a gas grenade into a student assembly in the city of Potosi this month and caused a stampede in which four students died. Many suspect the attack was meant to head off new student elections.

https://www.newser.com/story/320895/bolivia-jails-paid-student-leader-hes-52.html

May 24, 2022

Rabbit finds dinner in Walmart plant section

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/-S3anglp0I4

May 23, 2022

Supreme court guts lifeline for prisoners who claim wrongful convictions

he US supreme court on Monday gutted constitutional protections that for years have provided a federal lifeline to innocent prisoners facing prolonged incarceration or even execution following wrongful convictions stemming from poor legal counsel given to them by the states.

In a 6 to 3 ruling, the newly-dominant rightwing majority of the nation’s highest court barred federal courts from hearing new evidence that was not previously presented in a state court as a result of the defendant’s ineffective legal representation.


The decision means that prisoners will no longer have recourse to federal judges even when they claim they were wrongfully convicted because their lawyers failed to conduct their cases properly.

The decision eviscerated the supreme court’s own precedent in a move that the three liberal justices called “illogical” and “perverse”. In a dissenting opinion, Justice Sonia Sotomayor slammed the decision, warning it would leave “many people … to face incarceration or even execution without any meaningful chance to vindicate their right to counsel”.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/supreme-court-guts-lifeline-for-prisoners-who-claim-wrongful-convictions/ar-AAXDaaF?

May 23, 2022

No established democracy in recent history has been as deeply polarized as the U.S.

The Doom Spiral of Pernicious Polarization
The U.S. is more dangerously divided than any other wealthy democracy. Is there a way back from the brink?

By Yascha Mounk

Until a few decades ago, most Democrats did not hate Republicans, and most Republicans did not hate Democrats. Very few Americans thought the policies of the other side were a threat to the country or worried about their child marrying a spouse who belonged to a different political party.

All of that has changed. A 2016 survey found that 60 percent of Democrats and 63 percent of Republicans would now balk at their child’s marrying a supporter of a different political party. In the run-up to the 2020 presidential election, the Pew Research Center reported that roughly nine out of 10 supporters of Joe Biden and of Donald Trump alike were convinced that a victory by their opponent would cause “lasting harm” to the United States.


As someone who lived in many countries—including Germany, Italy, France, and the United Kingdom—before coming to the United States, I have long had the sense that American levels of partisan animosity were exceptionally high. Although I’d seen animosity between left and right in other nations, their hatred never felt so personal or intense as in the U.S.

A study just published by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace confirms that impression. Drawing on the Variety of Democracies (V-Dem) data set, published by an independent research institute in Sweden that covers 202 countries and goes back more than two centuries, its authors assess to what degree each country suffers from “pernicious” levels of partisan polarization. Do their citizens have such hostile views of opponents that they’re willing to act in ways that put democracy itself at risk?

The authors’ conclusion is startling: No established democracy in recent history has been as deeply polarized as the U.S. “For the United States,” Jennifer McCoy, the lead author of the study and a political-science professor at Georgia State University, told me in an interview, “I am very pessimistic.”

On virtually every continent, supporters of rival political camps are more likely to interact in hostile ways than they did a few decades ago. According to the Carnegie study, “us versus them polarization” has been increasing since 2005. McCoy and her colleagues don’t try to explain the causes, though the rise of social media is obviously a contributing factor.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/05/us-democrat-republican-partisan-polarization/629925/