WASHINGTON (AP) ‐ For years, the federal Bureau of Prisons has been plagued by systematic failures, from massive staffing shortages to chronic violence. But the largest agency in the Justice Department has largely stayed out of the public view.
The death of billionaire financier Jeffrey Epstein and the revelation that he was able to kill himself while behind bars at one of the most secure jails in America has cast a spotlight on the agency, which has also been besieged by serious misconduct in recent years.
Staffing shortages at the agency ‐ it employs more than 35,000 people and has an annual budget that exceeds $7 billion ‐ are so severe that guards often work overtime day after day or are forced to work mandatory double shifts. Violence leads to regular lockdowns at federal prison compounds across the U.S. And a congressional report released earlier this year found "bad behavior is ignored or covered up on a regular basis."
At the same time, the Bureau of Prisons will be responsible for carrying out the first federal executions in more than 15 years, the first of which is scheduled for Dec. 9.
The issues at the Bureau of Prisons are likely to take center stage Tuesday as the agency’s new director appears before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Her appearance comes as federal prosecutors in New York prepare to charge two correctional officers who were responsible for guarding Epstein when he took his own life in August at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Manhattan. The city’s medical examiner ruled Epstein’s death a suicide.
The officers are suspected of failing to check on him every half-hour, as required, and of fabricating log entries to claim they had. Federal prosecutors offered the guards a plea bargain, but the officers declined the deal, according to people familiar with the case. The people insisted on anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the case publicly.
#5
Give us more money and we'll do better! - taking a page from the Teacher's Union playbook.
If I were King of the Forest, I'd put money into cryogenic research. If we could freeze-dry convicts for the duration of their sentence, it would cut down on staffing, maintenance and storage space.
#8
It was not guards neglect or staffing issues, the union is out front on this cover. It was corruption, in the union, that allowed someone to enter the room and murder him.
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
11/19/2019 12:14 Comments ||
Top||
#9
I'd institute a motorcycle riding, armed judiciary with license to kill and a quota to fill.
Certainly more likely to achieve results before cryogenic research. I'm generally against death squads, but everything is a situation. It's complicated...
#11
Violence leads to regular lockdowns at federal prison compounds across the U.S. And a congressional report released earlier this year found "bad behavior is ignored or covered up on a regular basis."
So the AP is saying Epstein didn't kill himself.
[NYPOST] A man in Iowa allegedly opened fire in a strip club parking lot after his debit card was declined for a private dance, a report said.
James Allen Wells, 67, was a patron at the Porsches Theater of the Arts strip club in Waterloo around 11 p.m. Friday when he got a lap dance and stiffed the club, according to the Courier.
After the card was declined, Wells stormed into the parking lot and pulled a .38-caliber Smith & Wesson revolver from his waistband, firing off five rounds, the report said.
Multiple cars were struck, including the rear window of a Dodge Durango, the tailgate of a Chrysler Town and County, and the windshield of a Chevrolet Impala.
The gunman then fled and police attempted to pull him over for speeding ‐ but he refused to stop, leading to a short chase.
Wells eventually crashed his vehicle into a curb and was apprehended after a scuffle with cops. One of the officers injured a hand during the arrest.
Wells was charged with criminal mischief, reckless use of a firearm, assault on a peace officer and reckless driving.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/19/2019 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[11127 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
James Allen Wells, 67, was a patron at the Porsches Theater of the Arts strip club
Frisky old feller. Albeit rather young for a Democratic Party leader.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
11/19/2019 10:12 Comments ||
Top||
#11
Multiple cars were struck, including the rear window of a Dodge Durango, the tailgate of a Chrysler Town and County, and the windshield of a Chevrolet Impala.
He couldn't find a Prius?
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
11/19/2019 10:54 Comments ||
Top||
[CNN] A Southern California woman who was wounded in the 2017 Las Vegas mass shooting has died, the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Coroner Department said.
Kimberly Gervais, 57, of Mira Loma, California, was one of the more than 500 people injured when Stephen Paddock
...the semi-divorced, brilliant, retired accountant on anti-anxiety meds who collected a bunch of guns and bump stocks, found a hotel room overlooking a country music festival after checking out several other mass murder opportunities around the country, and shot it up for a grand total of 58 59 dead and over 400 wounded. Oddly enough, his father was an FBI-wanted psychopath...
opened fire from his hotel room on the Route 9 Harvest Music Festival on October 1, 2017.
Fifty-eight people were killed in the attack, making it the deadliest mass shooting in modern US history. Gervais' death could potentially be the 59th fatality, depending on the findings of an autopsy.
Gervais, who suffered spinal injuries and had been recovering at a nursing facility in Redlands, California, died Friday, the coroner said in a statement Monday.
[ChristianPost] The Christian Post reached out to Chick-fil-A Monday, asking them to respond to the criticisms that they were compromising their principles in order to appease their ideological opponents.
“Beginning in 2020 the Chick-fil-A Foundation will introduce a more focused giving approach, donating to a smaller number of organizations working exclusively in the areas of hunger, homelessness and education. We have also proactively disclosed our 2018 tax filing and a preview of 2019 gifts to date on chick-fil-afoundation.org. The intent of charitable giving from the Chick-fil-A Foundation is to nourish the potential in every child,” a Chick fil-A representative said in a statement emailed to CP Monday.
"Our goal is to donate to the most effective organizations in the areas of education, homelessness and hunger. No organization will be excluded from future consideration – faith-based or non-faith based," the spokesperson said, noting "I also wanted to add that Chick-fil-A will not be opening on Sundays."
According to an exclusive from BisNow Monday, Chick-fil-A was shifting away from its current philanthropic structure to refocus their giving on other causes, specifically education, homelessness and hunger, and would no longer be donating to groups like the Salvation Army, Fellowship of Christian Athletes, and the Paul Anderson Youth Home.
#4
If there is one organization that has historically worked to -
...working exclusively in the areas of hunger, homelessness and education.
it would be the Salvation Army. Sorry excuse of surrender to the LGBT radicals, a loud but very small group that promotes intolerance of Christians. Like any radicals in any movement they give everyone a bad name. Chick just empowered them.
#6
All the whining that it's a sell out grates on me. They are a big business and they have to play the game as it is currently being played. The owners of the company can still donate to any charity they want, and there are ways to do it without being in the news.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
11/19/2019 9:49 Comments ||
Top||
#7
Question, somebody, ANYBODY? Why do the producers of 'Wheel of Fortune' the most successful game show running, continue to insist on LGBTQ contestants (mostly male) on nearly every fok'n segment ?
#10
B - you watch HGTV much? Their shows are very inclusive. And I don't mind that. What I fuss about is that so many participants are out of the old, antiquated, so-twentieth-century 'mainstream'. Just like Wheel, Mrs. Bobby's favorite show.
Posted by: Bobby ||
11/19/2019 17:23 Comments ||
Top||
[Jpost] Egypt's purchase of Russian fighter jets puts it at risk of US sanctions and endangers future acquisitions of US equipment, a US state department official said on Monday.
Egypt is aware of those risks, US Assistant Secretary for Political-Military Affairs R. Clarke Cooper said at the Dubai Airshow.
[The Northern Echo] RELATIVES are being sought of a Northallerton man shot down on a night-time bombing mission over Belgium during the Second World War.
Bernard Touzel was born in Northallerton in 1912. He attended the Grammar School and became a clerk with the North Riding County Council at Northallerton.
In September 1939 he married Joan Broadwith of Thirsk. Volunteering for the RAF in 1940 Bernard was accepted for aircrew training and qualified as an Air Observer, later navigator and posted to No 166 Wellington Squadron based at Kirmington in Lincolnshire.
On the night of June 24, 1943 as part of a force of 630 aircraft consisting of 251 Lancasters, 171 Halifaxes, 101 Wellingtons, 98 Stirlings and 9 Mosquitoes they attacked Wuppertal in the Rhur. During the raid 34 aircraft from the bombing force were shot down by nightfighters. Bernard’s Wellington was one of those lost and he and the entire crew were killed. Bernard Touzel was buried in Brussels Military Cemetery at St. Evere. He also is remembered in the Central Church of the Royal Air Force St Clement Danes London, the Romanby War Memorial, the Grammar School Memorial Plaque, the All Saints Parish Church Memorial and the NALGO Memorial in County Hall. He was 31.
A Belgian aircraft recovery group has now located his Wellington and has been in contact with Northallerton historian and author Tony Eaton in an attempt to locate any relatives.
Mr Eaton said: “The Belgian group are searching for any of Bernard’s family members in order to offer them the chance to visit the site. It is known that he had a daughter named Valerie who was born in 1941 and she is thought to have married in 1962 and had two children.”
Anyone with further information is asked to contact Mr Eaton on 01609 774439 or tony.ae778@gmail.com. 'We'll meet again.'
[Jpost] Russia on Monday handed back three naval ships it captured last year to Ukraine, something Kiev wanted to happen before a four-way peace summit on eastern Ukraine next month in Gay Paree.
The handover, confirmed by the two countries' foreign ministries, occurred in the Black Sea off the coast of Crimea, which Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014.
Russia seized the ships in the same area in November last year after opening fire on them and wounding several sailors. Moscow said the ships - two small Ukrainian armored artillery vessels and a tug boat - had illegally entered its territorial waters. Kiev denied that.
Russia returned the sailors who had been on board the ships to Ukraine in September as part of a prisoner exchange deal.
Various Russian media outlets reported that the ships would be returned to Ukraine on Monday without their ammunition and documentation.
Russia's Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement Moscow would respond harshly in future to what it called any similar maritime "provocations" near its borders.
Ukraine's Ministry of Foreign Affairs said the three captured ships were en route to the port of Odessa.
It said that their original voyage, which Russia had interpreted as a border violation, had been peaceful and legal and that Kiev planned to pursue a case against Russia over the matter at an international arbitration panel in the Netherlands.
Despite those and other continuing tensions, the handover is likely to be seen as a confidence-building measure ahead of the planned Ukraine summit however.
The leaders of La Belle France, Germany, Russia and Ukraine will meet in Gay Paree on Dec. 9 in an attempt to advance efforts for a peaceful resolution to the conflict in eastern Ukraine, the French presidency said on Friday.
More than 13,000 people have been killed in the more than five-year-old conflict in east Ukraine between pro-Russian separatists and Ukrainian government forces.
Relations between Ukraine and Russia collapsed following Moscow's annexation of the Crimean peninsula, which prompted Western sanctions. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy won a landslide election victory in April promising to end the conflict.
#1
How can France and Germany have any credibility as honest brokers in this matter? Weren't they (like the US) doing all they could to encourage Ukraine to join the EU?
Why isn't the summit being held in a non-EU/non-NATO venue like Austria or Switzerland?
[EN.YNA.CO.KR] North Korea ...hereditary Communist monarchy distinguished by its truculence and periodic acts of violence. Distinguishing features include Songun (Army First) policy, which involves feeding the army before anyone but the Dear Leadership, and Juche, which is Kim Jong Il's personal interpretation of Marxism-Leninism, which he told everybody was brilliant. In 1950 the industrialized North invaded agrarian South Korea. Twenty-one countries of the United Nations eventually contributed to the UN force opposing the invasion, with the United States providing around 90% of the military personnel. Seventy years later the economic results are in and it doesn't look good for Juche... n leader Kim Pudge Jong-un ...the overweight, pouty-looking hereditary potentate of North Korea. Pudge appears to believe in his own divinity, but has yet to produce any loaves and fishes, so his subjects remain malnourished... has supervised an airborne landing training, emphasizing the need to improve the country's war preparedness, Pyongyang's official news agency said Monday.
Kim's "field guidance" was reported a day after South Korea and the United States decided to put off their wartime air exercises to encourage North Korea to return to the negotiation table for its denuclearization.
Kim watched "an airborne landing training of sharpshooter sub-units of the Air and Anti-Aircraft Force of the Korean People's Army (KPA)," according to the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).
"It is necessary to wage a drill without notice under the simulated conditions of real war like this and examine it, not being affected by rule and formality, and thus make it an opportunity for improving the preparedness of KPA units for war and examining and training them," Kim was quoted as saying.
According to footage released by the North's state TV, the sharpshooters jumped from a plane that appeared to be an An-2 aircraft, which is known to be used for infiltration operations.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/19/2019 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[11129 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
"Use Pogo sticks when landing. My army does not drag their butts through grass sideways !"
[DAWN] A government ban on demonstrators wearing face masks, aimed at helping to quell months of pro-democracy unrest in Hong Kong, is unconstitutional, the territory's high court ruled on Monday.
"The restrictions it imposes on fundamental rights [...] go further than is reasonably necessary [...] and therefore fail to meet the proportionality test," the court said, according to a press summary.
The ban on face-covering came into force in October, when the city's unelected pro-Beijing leader invoked colonial-era legislation for the first time in more than 50 years.
The move was seen as a watershed legal moment for the city since its 1997 return by Britannia to China ‐ but has been largely symbolic.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/19/2019 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[11128 views]
Top|| File under: Commies
[DAWN] Hong Kong police using tear gas and rubber bullets fought off protesters on Monday as they tried to break through a police cordon that is trapping hundreds of them on a university campus.
Protesters advanced on the police from outside the cordon, while others emerged from the campus, their trademark umbrellas at the fore. Police in some places swooped in to subdue protesters and make arrests.
It wasn’t clear if any of those inside Hong Kong Polytechnic University escaped.
Hong Kong’s work week started with multiple protests that disrupted traffic, and schools remained closed because of safety concerns. There was a temporary lull in the pitched battles for control of the Polytechnic campus as the emphasis shifted from battering the protesters with tear gas and water cannons to waiting for them to come out.
#2
When I lived in PeeAye, the power company read the meter every other month and "estimated" the months it didn't read the meter. Guess whether the "estimates" were high or low...
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
11/19/2019 12:33 Comments ||
Top||
#3
Maybe the customers are on a 'Budget Plan' where you get billed the same every month....no matter what.
The utilities that do this will reconcile at the end of the year but in their own time, not yours.
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
11/19/2019 12:52 Comments ||
Top||
#6
So... Francis would have preferred twenty times as many dead and wounded?
Posted by: Rob Crawford ||
11/19/2019 6:58 Comments ||
Top||
#7
So the fire bombing of Tokyo back in March '45 has his blessings? As was the rape of Manila?
BTW, we were reading the Japanese diplomatic code well after the war ended. Records show that the foreign office was engaged in promoting the 'evil' of the bombs in order to down play the atrocities of the former government.
#12
I have really come to dislike this pope. I really hope that he gets removed or retires soon. They need to select someone that actually reads and believes in what the church is supposed to teach, not someone who thinks everyone has to like him.
#14
This Pooh-Bah of Catholic kabuki
Sez nuclear weapons are kooky?
I might bow along
With his kowtowing song
If it wasn't for Maestro Suzuki.
Posted by: Large Jones4020 ||
11/19/2019 22:55 Comments ||
Top||
#15
^ Off the pile from yesterday. Have I mentioned my Rantburg monkey theory (lately)? As in, dozens of informed, articulate humans, typing for not very long at all, regularly produce long strings from the stream of consciousness of a demented monkey? Positively spooky sometimes. ["Thanks!" in monkey]
Posted by: Large Jones4020 ||
11/19/2019 23:03 Comments ||
Top||
#16
Wubbish ! I can monkey all my own. Within seconds.
[Space.com] NASA has recruited SpaceX's Starship, Blue Origin's Blue Moon and three other commercial lunar lander ideas to join its Artemis moon program.
Today (Nov. 18), NASA announced the selection of SpaceX, Blue Origin, Sierra Nevada Corp., Ceres Robotics and Tyvak Nano-Satellite Systems, Inc. to join its Commercial Lunar Payload Services program (CLPS). The five companies can now vie to deliver robotic payloads to the lunar surface for NASA, helping to pave the way for the return of astronauts to the moon by 2024.
"American aerospace companies of all sizes are joining the Artemis program," NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said in a statement. "Expanding the group of companies who are eligible to bid on sending payloads to the moon's surface drives innovation and reduces costs to NASA and American taxpayers. We anticipate opportunities to deliver a wide range of science and technology payloads to help make our vision for lunar exploration a reality and advance our goal of sending humans to explore Mars."
The five companies join nine others selected by CLPS in November 2018, bringing the total number of private moon lander hopefuls to 14 firms.
The newly selected five are:
Blue Origin, Kent, Washington
Ceres Robotics, Palo Alto, California
Sierra Nevada Corporation, Louisville, Colorado
SpaceX, Hawthorne, California
Tyvak Nano-Satellite Systems Inc., Irvine, California
The largest lander, by far, of the new entrants is from SpaceX, which bid its Starship reusable launch vehicle. Gwynne Shotwell, president and chief operating officer of SpaceX, said that Starhip will be able to deliver up to 100 metric tons of cargo to the surface of the moon and return an unspecified amount back to Earth.
“We do think this is a really neat program. It reminds us a bit of the COTS program,” said Shotwell, referring to NASA’s Commercial Orbital Transportation Services effort that funded the development of SpaceX’s commercial cargo capability.
Shotwell said Starship lunar lander missions could begin in 2022. Such missions would be cargo only, but she said could serve as a “nice stepping stone” to later crewed missions. She didn’t give a date for crewed missions, but said SpaceX would fly Starship “a lot” before flying any missions with people on board.
h/t Instapundit
[the college fix] "In this time of heightened tensions and fear from national and international events, we need to recognize real fear, grounded in real threats and true harm at events still raw and recent in our memory ‐ El Paso and Gilroy, Pittsburgh and Poway."
What prompted Stanford administrators to make this reference to mass shooters and domestic terrorists? The Stanford College Republicans advertised their event with conservative pundit Ben Shapiro.
Provost Persis Drell and Vice President for Student Affairs Susie Brubaker-Cole (left and right, above) wrote the message to voluntary student organization leaders and student residential staff Nov. 7, and emailed it to the whole community that afternoon.
At the time it was sent, The Stanford Daily excerpted just two benign sentences from the email, leaving out administrators’ association of flyering with killing people. A doctoral student who received the email, Scott Borgeson, recently posted it.
h/t Instapundit
The Chancellor at Syracuse University has stated that he will actively work with a group of students who have issued several demands meant to address a racism issue at the school, including the institution of a new policy that would require students be offered an option to choose that their roommate share the same race.
The demand to allow "students of color" to elect not to room with students of other races was one of several such demands issued by a group of protesting students who aired their concerns about racism on campus during an ongoing sit-in. Syracuse Chancellor Kent Syverud spoke at the sit-in in a live-streamed exchange.
#2
I have a dream that our children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the content of their character but by the color of their skin.
I have a dream that one day, in the college they attend, black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with other black boys and black girls and not have to treat white boys white girls as brothers and sisters.
I have a dream that we will all devolve to a lower state of being and return to a simpler time, one filled with enmity and fear.
#3
New roomies: "Yo." "How do you do?
Are you too a human of hue?"
"Ma nigga." "Woo-hoo!"
Ethnic hijinks ensue,
And come Christmas: "Peace out." "Fond adieu!"
Posted by: Large Jones4020 ||
11/19/2019 4:02 Comments ||
Top||
h/t Instapundit
...Burger King was sued on Monday by a vegan customer who accused the fast-food chain of contaminating its meatless "Impossible" Whoppers by cooking them on the same grills as its traditional meat burgers.
In a proposed class action, Phillip Williams said he bought an Impossible Whopper, a plant-based alternative to Burger King’s regular Whopper, at an Atlanta drive-through, and would not have paid a premium price had he known the cooking would leave it "coated in meat by-products."
...I hope this serves as a lesson to corporate America: You just can't please vegans, because if they were capable of happiness, they wouldn't be vegans. You can't cater to them -- in this case literally -- because their entire philosophy is anti-human. They're ashamed of their own existence on this planet, and that shame has turned them into totalitarian wackjobs. Trying to sell things to them will only backfire. Your best option is just to ignore them.
#2
...had he known the cooking would leave it "coated in meat by-products."
He's complaining about the fat that comes off of normal hamburgers during cooking. A) Why, yes - it's cooked on the same fucking flattop grill as everything else and b) it's the only flavor that fake burger's ever gonna have.
I haven't been to a BK since they started shoving this horseshit down our throats. The day they remove the fake burger from their menu is the day I go back.
Posted by: Frank G ||
11/19/2019 8:59 Comments ||
Top||
#4
So, I could sue that this questionable non-meat product contaminated by burger? Flame on!
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
11/19/2019 10:12 Comments ||
Top||
#5
Burger King where I live means a silly 1/2 inch chicken patty and some stupid sauce between two warmish buns. The chicken always tastes like it died of a broken heart. And for the price of swiss chocolate.
#8
I gotta try the coconut, that sounds interesting.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
11/19/2019 12:00 Comments ||
Top||
#9
Burns for a bit longer. I order from a local who sells a mix of wood and coconut. People put in just coconut blocks, because of the lesser amount of smoke and easy cleaning, but I prefer the mix.
#11
^ The real buddha rejected vegetarianism as a virtue, Magpie. He only suggested consideration for animals and moderation. Not all of them are vegetarians. Some buddhist omnivores will rather 'respect' the meat on the table, now that it's dead - they'll just finish it off right quick.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[NYPOST] A man in Iowa allegedly opened fire in a strip club parking lot after his debit card was declined for a private dance, a report said.
[The Northern Echo] RELATIVES are being sought of a Northallerton man shot down on a night-time bombing mission over Belgium during the Second World War.
...hereditary Communist monarchy distinguished by its truculence and periodic acts of violence. Distinguishing features include Songun (Army First) policy, which involves feeding the army before anyone but the Dear Leadership, and Juche, which is Kim Jong Il's personal interpretation of Marxism-Leninism, which he told everybody was brilliant. In 1950 the industrialized North invaded agrarian South Korea. Twenty-one countries of the United Nations eventually contributed to the UN force opposing the invasion, with the United States providing around 90% of the military personnel. Seventy years later the economic results are in and it doesn't look good for Juche...
[BREITBART] 
[Space.com] NASA has recruited SpaceX's Starship, Blue Origin's Blue Moon and three other commercial lunar lander ideas to join its Artemis moon program. 
