Louisiana teacher handcuffed after asking about pay at school board meeting

NEW ORLEANS -- A Louisiana teacher was removed from a school board meeting, forcibly handcuffed and jailed after questioning pay policies during a public comment period. The teacher's union and the ACLU are investigating and two board members are complaining that the board treats women unfairly.

A video posted by KATC-TV shows middle-school English teacher Deyshia Hargrave complying with a city marshal's orders to leave Monday night's Vermilion Parish School Board meeting in Abbeville, west of New Orleans. Next, she is seen on the hallway floor, screaming as the marshal handcuffs her behind her back.


...The station reported that board president Anthony Fontana had ruled Hargrave out of order for asking questions during a time reserved for public comment. Later in the same meeting, she spoke again in response to a question from the board, and was confronted by the marshal despite objections from the audience. "She was recognized!" several people said.

"This is the most disgraceful and distasteful thing I have ever seen," another audience member said as Hargrave made her way out.

Women have several times been told to leave meetings, while men who speak out have not been removed, board member Laura LeBeouf told The Associated Press in a telephone interview on Tuesday.

"When she realized she had to get out, she picked up her purse and walked out," LeBeouf said. "Women in this parish are not getting the same treatment."

The board's other woman member expressed similar sentiments.

"No reason for anyone to be treated this way. So far in 3 years, only women have been removed from board room meetings," Sara Duplechain wrote in an emailed response to AP's questions.

It remains unclear why Hargrave was handcuffed. In a longer video posted on YouTube by a reporter for the Abbeville Meridional, the officer is heard telling Hargrave outside the building that he had given her "many lawful orders to leave."

"And that's exactly what I was doing," Hargrave insists.

Neither the board president nor Superintendent Jerome Puyau returned phone calls or emails seeking comment. Puyau told media in southwest Louisiana that the school system would not seek to have Hargrave prosecuted.

Longstanding divisions on the eight-member school board preceded the meeting, according to LeBeouf and board member Kibbie Pillette, both of whom said that a new contract for Puyau give him the opportunity to earn as much as $38,000 more per year, while the board hasn't raised teacher salaries in more than a decade....

The teacher in question was asking why the superintendent of the division/board was getting a large pay raise when teachers and principals hadn't had one in years.

The teacher in question was asking why the superintendent of the division/board was getting a large pay raise when teachers and principals hadn't had one in years.

Louisiana teacher handcuffed after asking about pay at school board meeting

Polish authorities have arrested and charged three people from a neo-Nazi group after an investigation from a news channel found footage of them wearing Nazi uniforms and celebrating Adolf Hitler's birthday.

Poland’s prosecutor general launched an investigation into the group known as “Pride and Modernity” Sunday after increased pressure following TVN24’s exposé the day before. The members could face up to two years in prison.

The footage uncovered group members performing Nazi salutes and burning a swastika to mark the 128th anniversary of Hitler’s birth last spring.

"I would like to raise a toast to all gathered here to Adolf Hitler, to our beloved Poland and to us. Heil Hitler, Heil Hitler, Heil Hitler,” one of the member’s said in the video, according to Deutsche Welle.

Pennsylvania court orders new congressional map due to gerrymandering
Joseph Ax

(Reuters) - Pennsylvania’s top court on Monday threw out the state’s congressional map, ruling that Republican legislators unlawfully sought partisan advantage, and gave them three weeks to rework it in a decision that could boost Democratic chances of retaking the U.S. House of Representatives.


In a 5-2 decision, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled the electoral map violated the state’s Constitution by manipulating the district boundaries to marginalize Democratic voters, a practice called partisan gerrymandering.

Democrats, who hold only five of the state’s 18 congressional districts despite Pennsylvania’s status as an electoral swing state, hope to regain control of the House in the November mid-term elections by flipping 24 seats now held by Republicans nationwide.

A new map could give Democratic candidates a chance to capture as many as half a dozen Republican seats in Pennsylvania alone, with national polls showing voters strongly favoring Democrats in 2018.

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The court’s five Democratic members said the congressional map “clearly, plainly and palpably violates the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.” Both Republican justices dissented.

The court’s two-page order said the legislature has until Feb. 9 to submit a new map to Democratic Governor Tom Wolf, who would have until Feb. 15 to sign off. If those deadlines pass without an agreement, the court said it would adopt its own boundaries.

Experts have held up Pennsylvania as one of the most extreme examples of gerrymandering, pointing to bizarrely shaped districts that have earned nicknames like “Goofy kicking Donald Duck.” The Republican-controlled legislature created the current map in 2011, after the 2010 U.S. census.

...The U.S. Supreme Court is already weighing whether to set a legal standard for partisan gerrymandering in two cases out of Wisconsin and Maryland. The court is expected to rule by the end of June in both cases.

Monday’s decision could encourage similar state-court challenges elsewhere, said Li, the redistricting expert.

“It shows there may be a second front in the war against gerrymandering that does not depend on what the U.S. Supreme Court does or does not do in the Wisconsin and Maryland cases,” Li said.

A panel of federal judges in North Carolina two weeks ago threw out that state’s Republican-drawn map as illegally gerrymandered and ordered new lines drawn, a potential boost to Democrats in U.S. House races in that state. The U.S. Supreme Court, however, blocked that ruling last week, meaning a new electoral map in North Carolina is unlikely this year....

Steve Wynn resigns as top GOP finance chairman amid sexual misconduct allegations

Multiple women said they were harassed or assaulted by Wynn, which he denies

The Associated Press · Posted: January 27th 2018, 4:19:47 PM | Last Updated: 5 hours ago

Steve Wynn resigns as top GOP finance chairman amid sexual misconduct allegations

Multiple women said they were harassed or assaulted by Wynn, which he denies

The Associated Press · Posted: January 27th 2018, 4:19:47 PM | Last Updated: 5 hours ago

Casino mogul Steve Wynn has resigned as finance chairman of the Republican National Committee amid allegations of sexual harassment and assault.

Wynn has been a prolific Republican donor and led the RNC's fundraising efforts during President Donald Trump's first year. The relationship between the pair spans several decades.

RNC chairwoman Ronna McDaniel said in a statement Saturday that she accepted Wynn's resignation, first reported by Politico. A person with direct knowledge of the situation said Trump had signed off on the decision for Wynn to resign. The person spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to share private discussions.

The Wall Street Journal reported Friday that a number of women said they were harassed or assaulted by Wynn, the chairman and CEO of Wynn Resorts. One case led to a $7.5-million settlement with a manicurist, the newspaper reported.

The article also said that Wynn's actions were well known enough that employees would sometimes enter fake appointments in the books to help other female workers avoid him. In some cases, female employees would hide in back rooms if they knew Wynn was on his way to the casino.

...

Wynn was chosen by Trump to lead the RNC's fundraising effort, and he contributed more than $600,000 to GOP causes last year, according to the Federal Election Commission. Since 2013, Wynn has contributed nearly $2.4 million to GOP candidates and party organizations around the country, including 2017 special election winners as well as dozens of state Republican Party committees.

....Wynn has had a long relationship with the president, himself a former casino owner. After the 2016 election, Trump tapped the Las Vegas Republican to oversee the RNC's fundraising heading into a perilous midterm election for the party. Last Saturday, Wynn headlined a fundraiser for the president's reelection campaign and the RNC at Trump's posh Mar a Lago resort.

During recent fundraising events — including one recent one in New York City — Wynn has praised Trump as a history-changing president in the mold of Lincoln and Reagan.

....innesota Rep. Keith Ellison, deputy chair of the Democratic National Committee, reacted to the news of Wynn's resignation by saying, “I’m sure the RNC will find another billionaire to replace Steve Wynn, and they’re all going to do essentially the same thing: hoard wealth for the richest people and exclude hard-working people from real opportunity.”

Wynn has been a prolific Republican donor, particularly over the past decade: He has donated more than $2.5 million to the Republican Governors Association since 2012 and has been a top donor to several individual gubernatorial campaigns.

The casino mogul also contributed $411,000 to the National Republican Senatorial Committee over the past five years, $248,000 to the RNC and $100,000 to the National Republican Congressional Committee, according to campaign finance records...

Here's an argument of why stripping citizenship from idiots who don't deserve it is something any country should do when faced with this kind of evil stupidity.

https://www.rawstory.com/2018/01/neo-na ... hday-clip/



Poland lost six million civilian dead in World War Two, the vast majority of whom were killed by the Nazis.

Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), a conservative Republican firebrand, was the lawmaker responsible for inviting the controversial internet troll Chuck Johnson to Tuesday night’s State of the Union address.

Johnson’s presence in the gallery during the speech by Donald Trump raised eyebrows and immediately sparked questions over how a right-wing activist and blogger best known for attempting to dox the subject of the UVA campus rape story managed to get a ticket to the high-profile affair.

Reached by phone on Wednesday, Gaetz confirmed that he was the one who provided Johnson with the ticket.


Gaetz told The Daily Beast that he and Johnson had no pre-existing relationship and that he provided him with a ticket to the speech after Johnson “showed up at my office” the day of the speech. The congressman said he had an extra ticket after his father came down with bronchitis and couldn’t make it. Johnson just happened to be in the right place at the right time.

Gaetz’s public profile has grown in recent weeks as he has helped lead the charge for the releasing of the highly-controversial memo House Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes (R-CA) has put together on government surveillance. His advocacy for the memo’s release has led him to odd places, including an appearance on Alex Jones’s conspiratorial Infowars program.

Gaetz said that he and Johnson did not discuss the Nunes memo and didn’t interact much at the event at all. Asked if he planned to stay in touch, Gaetz replied: “He has my number.”

Johnson offered a different explanation of how the evening came together. Initially, he said he and Gaetz were introduced by another member of Congress, whom he declined to name. In a separate conversation with The Daily Beast, however, Johnson said that he was invited by several members of Congress but “took Gaetz’s invitation” as “he’s into stuff on the issues that I care about.”

Asked about Gaetz’s differing account, Johnson said, “I’ll go with whatever version Gaetz says because I’m not a gangster rapper.”

The issues that drew him to the congressman, Johnson said, included “weed and bitcoin and Trump and animal welfare.” He said he also likes Gaetz because he has “that fuck you mindset.”

Johnson also said that he ran into Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) during the State of the Union address and that he was a big fan of the California Republican. Johnson helped arrange a meeting between Rohrabacher and Julian Assange in addition to donating to the congressman’s campaign.

“It was a wild time. I certainly did a bunch of jumping out of my chair,” Johnson said of the State of the Union speech itself. “Trump was straight up gangster.”

Johnson, the founder of the right-wing website GotNews, is a notorious figure in online political circles. He routinely stakes out intentionally inflammatory positions on divisive political issues, and has on a number of occasions bungled facts in attacks on prominent public figures, including journalists and politicians.

In 2015, Johnson was permanently banned from Twitter after soliciting donations to help “take out” prominent Black Lives Matter activist Deray McKesson.

Nevertheless, Johnson remains a marginally influential figure in the political orbits of President Donald Trump and other Republicans. In April, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke carved out time for a phone call with Johnson. The two discussed plans for a wall on the southern border.

Johnson’s writings have also directly informed White House personnel decisions after articles published at GotNews found their way to the president’s desk.

Rep. Dana Rohrabacher brought a Holocaust denier to a meeting last week with Sen. Rand Paul to discuss Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, the Daily Caller reported.

The publication noted that Rohrabacher, a California Republican, “brought along top aide Paul Behrends and conservative journalist Charles C. Johnson.”

Johnson, an internet troll and vocal “alt-right” defender, is well-known for false attacks against political rivals, both on the Democratic side and within the Republican Party.

He is also a Holocaust denier. In a since-deleted Reddit discussion, Johnson argued that the number of Jews killed in the camps was around 250,000, not six million, and questioned the existence of gas chambers. And while stating in the post that he is not a Holocaust denier, he wrote: “I agree with David Cole about Auschwitz and the gas chambers not being real. Why were their swimming pools there if it was a death camp?”

Johnson reached out to the Forward to reiterate what he said in the post: that he is not a Holocaust denier.

The political blog Little Green Footballs wondered aloud if Paul knew who he was hosting. “It really only takes a few minutes to Google Chuck C. Johnson’s long history of racism, sexism and the kind of blatant hate speech that got him permanently banned from Twitter and suspended multiple times from Facebook.”

Read more: https://forward.com/fast-forward/384980 ... l-meeting/

TALLAHASSEE — Rep. Matt Gaetz recently held himself out as a man who accepts responsibility for his mistakes.

He brought up his 2008 DUI arrest during a meeting last week of the House criminal justice committee, which he chairs. The topic: a bill that would keep mug shots of people who are charged with crimes off the Internet until they are convicted.

Though he was never convicted, his booking photo is readily available online, Gaetz said.

"I'm of the view that that is part of who I am," said the Fort Walton Beach Republican, who in 2016 will seek the seat now held by his father, Senate President Don Gaetz. "I made bad decisions that resulted in an arrest, and that is sort of something that we all live with."

The bill passed the committee unanimously. Gaetz said such exposure could be a problem for those unaccustomed to publicity.

But as it turns out, notoriety is about the worst consequence Gaetz, now 31, has faced from the DUI arrest.

He didn't have his license suspended for a year when he refused the breath test — as Florida law dictates. And he didn't have that refusal used against him in a criminal proceeding. Charges against Gaetz were dismissed after events that included, among other things, the forced resignation of the arresting officer.

• • •

It was the night before Halloween in 2008 when Gaetz, then 26, drove back from the Swamp, a nightclub on Okaloosa Island. He drove a 2001 BMW SUV registered to his state senator dad.

Near midnight, Okaloosa County Deputy Chris Anglin clocked Gaetz going 48 in a 35 mph zone. Anglin later reported that Gaetz fumbled for his license and registration, his eyes were watery and bloodshot, and he swayed and staggered when he got out of the car.

Smelling alcohol, Anglin asked Gaetz if he had been drinking. Gaetz replied no. Minutes later, he admitted he had consumed two beers. Twice, Anglin conducted an eye test. Twice, Gaetz's eyes didn't follow the prompt.

Gaetz, who had recently begun practicing law, declined any field sobriety tests. He was arrested and refused the breath test.

Another deputy inspected the SUV, but found no alcohol. He did find two bottles of mouthwash. The one in the glove box was empty. The one on the floor board was a quarter full.

• • •

Three days after Gaetz was arrested, his attorney Drew Pinkerton told the Northwest Florida Daily News that the sheriff's case was weak. He said he wanted to review video from the cameras in the room where Gaetz was detained and from the patrol cars. But Pinkerton, who died of cancer in 2009, didn't refer to any video in his motion to dismiss the case.

Last year, the Sheriff's Office told the Times/Herald video from the room where Gaetz was held had been destroyed and Anglin's car had no camera. The camera in the other deputy's car was pointed away from Gaetz and Anglin, so that video is inconclusive.

The Gaetz arrest would be one of Anglin's last.

On Nov. 10, Anglin made a DUI arrest in Destin. An internal affairs report said that Anglin grabbed the suspect around the neck after he believed the suspect spit on him. But three other deputies, including a trainee, were there as well, and said the spitting was unintentional and that Anglin used unreasonable force. An internal affairs report agreed.

According to Anglin's personnel file, this was his fourth infraction, and third in a year.

"Mr. Anglin has lost the trust and confidence of his supervisors and co-workers alike," wrote Maj. Larry Ashley in his recommendation to fire Anglin.

Anglin, who resigned four days after receiving Ashley's letter, declined to comment.

• • •

More than a week after Anglin quit, the prosecutor asked to be taken off the case, because his stepson was friends with Gaetz. Then-Gov. Charlie Crist's office assigned the case to Steve Meadows, the state attorney for the neighboring circuit.

Less than a week later, Gaetz had his driver's license reinstated. A field officer for the Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles declared there was no evidence that Gaetz refused a breath test. Yet the refusal was clearly documented in Anglin's affidavit and arrest report.

It even was documented in Pinkerton's Dec. 18 motion to dismiss charges against Gaetz.

This three-page document, which Gaetz signed, states there was no evidence that he had been impaired. There was no mention of many of Anglin's observations suggesting that Gaetz was impaired.

It added a new detail: "A civilian witness drove by who knew (Gaetz) and observed no indication of impairment."

Yet the witness was not named, either in Pinkerton's document or other case records at the Okaloosa County Clerk's Office. Still, this anonymous testimony is all that contradicted Anglin's conclusion that there was probable cause to arrest Gaetz on DUI.

Meadows accepted Pinkerton's motion and agreed to drop the case on Dec. 22, 2008.

Gaetz wouldn't answer the Times/Herald's questions about the case. Contacted Monday, he dismissed the story as an example of tabloid journalism.

Meadows is now a Panama City DUI attorney. When reached Monday, he said he vaguely remembered the case, but refused to comment further.

In a Dec. 24, 2008, Daily News story, Gaetz said Anglin had harassed him.

"I was suspicious when he said, 'I know who you are and I know who your father is,' " Gaetz told the newspaper. " 'This will be very embarrassing for you if you don't do what I say.' "

It's not clear from the article if Anglin was contacted to refute this serious allegation, which was never mentioned in Pinkerton's motion to dismiss the charges.

Gaetz did talk then about the case, touting the dropped charges as proof he was innocent.

"I'm just pleased the truth has come out," he told the Daily News reporter in 2008.

Ex-anti-migrant party candidate arrested after 6 African immigrants shot and wounded in Italy

The shooting suspect was identified as Luca Traini, a 28-year-old Italian with no previous record. Traini had run on a list for the anti-migrant Northern League party in a local election last year in the town of Corridonia, but the party lost.

Colleen Barry
By The Associated Press

Sat., Feb. 3, 2018

MILAN—A lone Italian gunman shot and wounded six African immigrants Saturday in a two-hour drive-by shooting spree, authorities said, terrorizing a small city in central Italy where a Nigerian man was arrested days earlier in a teenager’s gruesome killing.

The shooting suspect with right-wing political ties had an Italian flag tied around his neck as he was arrested hours later in the city of Macerata. Authorities identified him as Luca Traini, a 28-year-old Italian with no previous record.

Traini had run for town council on the anti-migrant Northern League’s ticket in a local election last year in Corridonia, the party confirmed, but its mayoral candidate lost the race. The news agency ANSA quoted friends of his as saying that Traini had previously been affiliated with Italian extremist parties like the neo-fascist Forza Nuova and CasaPound.....

Lol.

I'd eats dinner every day buddy.

Pizza time two time this week.

It's one of best too eats.