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Ahmed Chalabi Now Convincing Christopher Hitchens That He Will Be Iraq's George Washington In Hell

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Ahmed Chalabi Now Convincing Christopher Hitchens That He Will Be Iraq's George Washington In Hell

Ahmed Chalabi, a con artist who spent a decade convincing America’s foreign policy establishment to topple a dictator so the Chalabi family could resume extracting their home nation’s wealth, died of a heart attack today, about 15 years too late. If you haven’t read it in a while (or at all), now is a good time to revisit Jane Mayer’s 2004 account of how long and how hard Chalabi worked to make regime change in Iraq the main foreign policy priority of a bunch of deeply stupid but powerful people, who grew to believe, despite of the overwhelming amount of evidence to the contrary, that the deeply unscrupulous exile could be a credible leader of a secular and democratic Iraq.

In Jordan, banking officials scoff at Chalabi’s claims of innocence. Petra had opened a subsidiary in Washington, D.C., in 1983, and after the bank’s collapse, according to a top Jordanian finance official, investigators combed America for forty-five days, trying to locate the bank’s hidden assets. Almost all the assets listed on the books, the official said, were worthless, except for an auxiliary office that was listed as a repository for valuable bank records. The investigators soon discovered that the “office” was a country estate with a swimming pool, in Middleburg, Virginia. It belonged to the Chalabi family, which was charging the bank a monthly rent. “There was not one business record in the whole place,” the official said. “This man is a vicious liar. There is no end to it. It’s like you find someone killing with a gun in his hand, and he says he’s innocent. He just wears you down.” The official declined to be named, because he feared Chalabi’s influence. “He has more powerful friends in Washington than you or me,” he said, adding, “Really, some of your people are such suckers.”

Many of those suckers will return to the Pentagon and the State Department as soon as America elects another Republican president. Others continue to have very good jobs in the journalism industry.

In lieu of flowers, the Chalabis request that you send unreliable exiles with dubious information to Judy Miller.


Photo via Getty


Police Seize Property From Lil Wayne's Miami Beach House to Satisfy Unpaid $2 Million Judgment

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Police Seize Property From Lil Wayne's Miami Beach House to Satisfy Unpaid $2 Million Judgment

Police stormed Lil Wayne’s mansion in Miami Beach on Tuesday, TMZ reports, empowered by a court order to seize certain assets in order to satisfy a $2 million judgment that came down against the rapper in September.

According to TMZ, Wayne, who is in Los Angeles, has not yet paid the judgment to jet leasing company Signature Group. He also owes the company $200,000 in legal fees.

The court order allowed Miami Dade County Sheriff’s deputies to break the locks on his house’s doors if necessary.


Photo via Getty Images. Contact the author of this post: brendan.oconnor@gawker.com.

Alabama School Officials and Terminally Ill Teen Caught in Right-To-Die Dilemma 

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Alabama School Officials and Terminally Ill Teen Caught in Right-To-Die Dilemma 

Today the Associated Press shared the story of a terminally ill Alabama 14-year-old who can’t return to school because of a dispute with school officials over his advance directive. It’s a legal knot, and caught in the middle is Alex Hoover, who is autistic, and who suffers from something called mitral valve stenosis.

First of all, here’s how the Mayo Clinic describes mitral valve stenosis:

Mitral valve stenosis — or mitral stenosis — is a narrowing of the heart’s mitral valve. This abnormal valve doesn’t open properly, blocking blood flow into the main pumping chamber of your heart (left ventricle). Mitral valve stenosis can make you tired and short of breath, among other problems.

In Alex Hoover’s case, his compromised heart has been unable to handle his adolescent growth spurt, and his health is failing. His mother, Rene Hoover, faced with a devastating inevitability, “does not want her son’s last days spent enduring a battery of medical procedures and medication as a result of his condition,” says the report.

“The last procedure we had done, it took us three weeks to get him to go to bed at night because he was afraid that if he went to sleep he would wake up and something would be wrong or that he’d be hurt,” Hoover told The Associated Press. A successful resuscitation and subsequent surgeries are unlikely to significantly improve the teen’s prognosis, she said.

“He would have to live his fears every single day,” Hoover said.

Rene Hoover drew up an advance directive to spare her son this fear and suffering, ensuring that Alex will not be resuscitated should he go into cardiac arrest. There are two tricky obstacles, though: Alabama does not recognize do-not-resuscitate orders or advance directives from people younger than 19 years old; and the Alabama State Department of Education has no policy on this sort of thing, and is therefore delegating responsibility for adhering to the Hoover family’s directive to school officials, as a choice. The local school board has declared that they will not honor Alex’s advance directive.

While Alex is unable to attend school, a teacher visits him three times a week for lessons at his home. Rene Hoover has proposed that she accompany him to school for a few hours a day, thereby relieving school officials of responsibility for his care in an emergency, but “she doubts officials will accept her proposal.”

As much as I want this to be a straightforward issue of a terminally ill person’s right to die, it is, as you might expect, more complex:

Alan Meisel, director of the Center for Bioethics and Health Law at the University of Pittsburgh, questioned whether the teen had the capacity to issue an advance directive.

“The fact that the person in question is under 18 simply to me makes it that much clearer that they need not honor the advance directive in this situation,” Meisel said.

Aside from liability concerns, school officials likely have concerns over the potential impact on students who could witness the teen’s death, Meisel said.

Republican state Rep. Mac McCutcheon is reportedly considering introducing legislation to change Alabama’s position on advance directives for people younger than 19. It seems unlikely such an action could go through the legislative process, become law, and go into effect in time to help Alex Hoover.

“We want him to have comfort and peace,” Hoover said. “Emotionally, it is probably the hardest thing I think a human being could go through; knowing that you have to choose not if your child’s gonna die, but how your child’s gonna die.”

McCutcheon hopes to present a proposal in the next year.

[Associated Press]

Photo via AP

Man Who Unwittingly Gave Directions to Cop Killer Claims He's Been the Subject of NYPD Harassment 

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Man Who Unwittingly Gave Directions to Cop Killer Claims He's Been the Subject of NYPD Harassment 

A U.S. Postal Service worker who unknowingly gave Ismaaiyl Brinsley directions to the Brooklyn housing project where he shot and killed Officers Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu earlier this year claims he has been the target of violent harassment by the NYPD, the New York Daily News reports.

http://gawker.com/two-cops-kille...

On the afternoon of December 20th, Brinsley stopped Karim Baker at Willoughby Avenue and Taaffe Place to ask him for directions to the Marcy Houses. “He never met him before,” Baker’s lawyer, Eric Subin, told the Daily News. “Never seen him before and he innocuously said, ‘Can I get directions to the Marcy Houses?’”

Police tracked Baker, 26, down some time later as part of the investigation into the shooting, and Baker said he told them that there was “nothing at all” unusual about Brinsley: “Just a guy asking for directions.”

Baker said he subsequently has been stopped 20 times without being ticketed. (The NYPD does not document stops that do not result in an arrest or summons.)

“Twenty times in a year is a lot of times to be pulled over and never issued a summons,” Subin said. “This is our strongly held theory. It’s too much of a bizarre coincidence not to hold water.”

“My impression is they were keeping tabs on him, watching where he was going.”

This alleged harassment campaign culminated in Baker’s arrest on October 21st, in which he was charged with resisting arrest, criminal possession of a controlled substance, obstructing cops and parking within 15 feet of a hydrant.

Baker told the Daily News that gang cops in an unmarked car were shouting him as he walked to his car, where it had been parked all day 20 feet from a hydrant, shining a flashlight in his face and demanding to see his ID. Baker said he attempted to call 911 when the cops pulled him from his car.

“I was being kicked, choked, punched, on the floor, stomped on,” Baker said. “I had a foot on my neck and a foot on my head. Someone stomped my head on the concrete.”

“They threw him down on his head,” his lawyer said. “The two of them start beating the hell out of him, a particularly savage beating. They all joined in the beating. They beat him until they seemed to be satisfied with what they had done to him.”

According to Subin, Baker filed a notice of claim in Queens Supreme Court on Tuesday in advance of a state lawsuit.


Photo via AP Images. Contact the author of this post: brendan.oconnor@gawker.com.

Hunger Games Amusement Park Coming to Atlanta, I Guess?

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Hunger Games Amusement Park Coming to Atlanta, I Guess?

Lionsgate Entertainment Corp. has confirmed it: AVATRON Park will bring “to the great state of Georgia and American audiences everywhere” theme park attractions based upon a dystopian future in which children are forced to kill each other for an annual television special.

Exciting!

“We are pushing the thresholds of location-based entertainment storytelling like never before, thanks, in part, to our unique combination of experienced creative leadership and technology integration expertise. We look forward to sharing this gamechanging experience with future guests.”

“The Hunger Games” books and movies certainly present a visually arresting setting that would seem to work well as an immersive park area, a la Universal Studios’ Harry Potter expansions. There is, however, the issue of the Hunger Games themselves. How do you work around that?

Avatron Smart Park hopes to open by 2019. Avatron’s chairman is David C. Garrett III, an experienced developer and a former Georgia Lottery executive. Designs for rides are in the early stages, but Mr. Ram said he had no qualms about the harsher “Hunger Games” story lines. “There are so many positives about these movies, starting with the fact that she’s an empowered young woman,” Mr. Ram said.

For sure, there’s plenty of positive stuff in the stories. Hunger Games-themed park areas could be cool, so long as you avoid, you know, the actual Hunger Games.

Hunger Games Amusement Park Coming to Atlanta, I Guess?

Immerse your children in the thrill of killing other children for sport. [Screenshot via YouTube]


Theme parks are often challenged to craft rides based upon popular movies while creatively avoiding those stories’ darker sections—the Little Mermaid-themed dark ride at Magic Kingdom skips over Ursula’s demise altogether, for example. This is no Little Mermaid! It will be fascinating to see how an amusement park can construct rides and attractions around “The Hunger Games” series when the central, defining, titular story element is so, so dark.

[FOX 5 Atlanta] [New York Times]

Image from Lionsgate via the New York Times

Report: U.S. Satellites Detected Heat Around Russian Jet Just Before Break Up Over Sinai

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Report: U.S. Satellites Detected Heat Around Russian Jet Just Before Break Up Over Sinai

Two unnamed U.S. officials told the Associated Press on Tuesday that satellite imagery detected heat around the Russian jetliner that broke up over Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula this weekend, killing 224 people, possibly indicating a bomb blast or catastrophic engine malfunction.

One of the officials said that a missile attack has been ruled out, on account of the fact that neither a launch nor an engine burn have been detected in the area.

Aviation analyst Paul Beaver told the AP that the heat signature “indicates that there was a catastrophic explosion or disintegration of the” Metrojet Airbus A321-200, but does not offer any clarity as to the specific cause.

“It doesn’t tell us if it was a bomb... or if somebody had a fight in the airplane with a gun—there is a whole raft of things that could happen in this regard,” he said.

Meanwhile, The Guardian reports that investigators from Egypt, Russia, and France have begun examinining black boxes recovered from the plane’s wreckage:

Investigators are yet to officially release data or findings, but according to unverified reports from Russia, cockpit recordings reveal unusual sounds at the moment the plane went off the radar, but confirm there was no distress call from the pilots.

After the crash, an ISIS-affiliated group on the Sinai Peninsula claimed responsibility for the plane’s destruction, but their statement has not yet been verified.

http://gawker.com/isis-group-cla...


Photo via AP Images. Contact the author of this post: brendan.oconnor@gawker.com.

Missing Italian Marathoner Found Riding the Subway Two Days After Race Finished

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Missing Italian Marathoner Found Riding the Subway Two Days After Race Finished

An Italian man who participated in and completed the New York City Marathon on Sunday before getting separated from his group and wandering the city for two days was found riding the subway on Tuesday morning.

Gianclaudio Marengo, 30, does not speak English, the New York Times reports, and had traveled to New York with seven other runners, recovering addicts from San Patrignano, a rehab center on the Adriatic coast.

Marengo was the slowest of his group, another Italian, Antonio Boschini said. When he crossed the finish line in Central Park, his companions were no longer there. Also, at some point lost his hotel keycard and subway map.

(The San Patrignano press office denied earlier reports that Marengo had any mental disability, telling the New York Post that he was simply “vulnerable” after years of addiction.)

(Also though, weirdly, nobody named “Gianclaudio Marengo” was registered to run the marathon: Marengo ran under Boschini’s number.)

“He could not find the way to the hotel,” Boschini told the Times. “So he remained in the park.” Eventually, his friends realized he was missing and alerted the Italian Consulate, who then alerted the police. “We went to the park but we did not find him.”

“He spent the night in the park,” Boschini said. Marengo tried to meet up with the other Italians at the airport on Monday morning, but he was rebuffed by airport security. “He stayed at the airport and waited,” Boschini said. “But they thought he looked homeless so they kicked him out.”

Marengo wandered the city until early the next morning, when Officer Man Yam looked up from reading a Daily News story about a missing marathon runner on his phone and saw the Italian.

“The good thing about 6:45 is it’s mostly construction workers [on the train], so this guy stuck out like a sore thumb,” Yam told the Post. They were on the downtown 2 train. “The first thing I notice is he has dry lips. That’s what happens when you go an extended amount of time without drinking water or if you’re underground.”

Yam showed Marengo his NYPD ID, said “Policia,” and his “eyes lit up.” They went up to the street and Yam bought him a glazed white doughnut with coffee, the Times reports, for $3.

Marengo was treated for mild dehydration at a local hospital, and he will return to Italy with Boschini soon.

Supreme Court Grants Last-Minute Stay of Execution for Neurologically Impaired Missouri Man 

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Supreme Court Grants Last-Minute Stay of Execution for Neurologically Impaired Missouri Man 

The U.S. Supreme Court has granted a stay of execution while a lower court considers the appeal of a condemned Missouri man convicted of beating three people to death with a claw hammer, reports the Associated Press.

Ernest Lee Johnson was convicted of three counts of first-degree murder for killing Mary Bratcher, Mable Scruggs, and Fred Jones in a robbery of a convenience store in 1994.

From the report:

All three workers were beaten to death with a claw hammer, but Bratcher was also stabbed at least 10 times with a screwdriver and Jones was shot in the face. Johnson hid the bodies in a cooler.

Johnson’s attorney, Jeremy Weis, has argued that Johnson is mentally disabled, and that testing after his conviction measured his IQ as 67, “still a level considered mentally disabled.” In 2001 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that “executing the mentally disabled was unconstitutionally cruel,” but a 2003 re-sentencing hearing again handed down a death sentence for Johnson. When that sentence was also thrown out by the Missouri Supreme Court, Johnson was again sentenced to death, in a 2006 sentencing hearing.

Mental disability isn’t the extent of Johnson’s vulnerability, here: in 2008, Johnson underwent brain surgery to remove a benign tumor. Doctors were unable to remove the entire tumor, but the surgery did remove 20 percent of Johnson’s brain tissue, and the result has been painful seizures and impaired motor skills. The appeal being considered by the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals complains that this circumstance could cause Johnson to experience painful seizures during a lethal injection. Whatever your position on capital punishment, a condemned prisoner being made to endure extraordinary pain during their execution falls under cruel and unusual punishment.

Weis cites a medical review by Dr. Joel Zivot, who examined MRI images of Johnson’s brain and found “significant brain damage and defects that resulted from the tumor and the surgical procedure,” according to court filings.

“Mr. Johnson faces a significant medical risk for a serious seizure as the direct result of the combination of the Missouri lethal injection protocol and Mr. Johnson’s permanent and disabling neurologic disease,” Zivot wrote.

Johnson was scheduled to be executed at 6 p.m. this evening, before the stay was granted. It is unclear how soon the lower court will rule on Johnson’s appeal.

[Associated Press]

Image via AP


Gay and Transgender Nondiscrimination Ordinance Rejected by Voters in Houston

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Gay and Transgender Nondiscrimination Ordinance Rejected by Voters in Houston

Voters in the city of Houston today, after a nearly 18-month battle during which the city’s lesbian mayor was sent hundreds of protest bibles, rejected nondiscrimination protections for gay and transgender people.

The Associated Press reports that the Houston Equal Rights Ordinance, which was originally passed by the Houston City Council in May 2014, failed to win approval from voters. The Texas Supreme Court had ordered the city in July to either repeal HERO or put it on the ballot after hearing a lawsuit over the ordinance.

The bill offered greater protections for gay and transgender people, but opponents said that it would increase the possibility of male sexual predators being allowed in women’s restrooms.

Texas, along with 27 other states, does not have any statewide laws prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender, the Texas Tribune reports

HERO, or Proposition 1, made it illegal to discriminate based on 15 different “protected characteristics.” It reportedly failed by a margin of about 61% to 39%.


Photo via AP Images. Contact the author of this post: brendan.oconnor@gawker.com.

Ohio Voters Reject Issue 3, Harshing the Mellows of Stoners Statewide

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Ohio Voters Reject Issue 3, Harshing the Mellows of Stoners Statewide

Square-ass and/or shrewd-ass Ohio voters rejected a ballot proposal to legalize marijuana for medicinal and recreational purposes, reports the Associated Press. This is a tough blow for “Buddie,” guys.

The measure known as Issue 3 would have allowed adults 21 and older to use, purchase or grow certain amounts of marijuana. The constitutional amendment would have established a regulatory and taxation scheme while creating a network of 10 growing facilities.

The AP report cites low voter turnout and skepticism of the regulatory framework of Issue 3 as factors that likely led to its demise.

Interestingly, Issue 2 looks like it will pass, according to poll results published by cleveland.com. Issue 2, you will recall, is designed to prevent the kinds of monopolies baked into the structure of Issue 3, which would have created a drug cartel consisting of 10 farmers granted exclusive rights to grow marijuana in Ohio. The passage of Issue 2 would have nullified Issue 3 even if it had passed.

It may be better for proponents of legalization to see Issue 2 passed and Issue 3 rejected—now they can get to work on a legalization measure that does not establish a pot oligopoly.

[Associated Press]

Image via AP

Report: Woman Caring for Bobbi Kristina Brown at Time of Her Death Was Impersonating a Nurse

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Report: Woman Caring for Bobbi Kristina Brown at Time of Her Death Was Impersonating a Nurse

According to a police report obtained Tuesday by the Associated Press, the woman in charge of caring for Bobbi Kristina Brown at the hospice where she died was impersonating a nurse and faces charges including identity fraud and nursing without a license.

http://defamer.gawker.com/didnt-she-almo...

Brown died July 26th at Peachtree Christian Hospice in Duluth, Georgia, six months after being found unresponsive in her tub. Taiwo Sobamowo was in charge of her care there.*

From the AP:

The case involving Sobamowo began in September, when investigators in Forsyth County began looking into her background after they received a tip raising questions about Sobamowo, who had worked at an assisted living facility, sheriff’s Deputy Epifanio Rodriguez said Tuesday.

Sobamowo faces charges of first-degree forgery, identity fraud and practicing nursing without a license in Forsyth County, Rodriguez said.

On Oct. 27, Forsyth County sheriff’s Detective Cpl. Jeffrey Roe contacted Duluth police “in reference to a high-profile case” that Duluth has some jurisdiction over, Duluth police wrote in their report.

Roe said Sobamowo had stolen the state-issued RN number of a real nurse at Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta.

“We had no reason to believe that she was anything other than a good nurse with proper credentials,” Homestead Hospice CEO Mallie Sharafat said in a statement. “As soon as the credentialing discrepancy was discovered by one of our employees, we immediately took action and notified the appropriate authorities.”

According to the AP, there nothing in the report that indicates how Sobamowo’s care for Brown may have been affected by the fact that she was not a credentialed nurse. The Fulton County Medical Examiner said in December that the cause of Brown’s death had been determined. It could not be revealed, however, due to a court order to seal the autopsy results.

Duluth police said the case is under investigation. Sharafat said that all care staff are being re-credentialed.


Photo via AP Images. Contact the author of this post: brendan.oconnor@gawker.com.

Desperate, Flailing McDonald's Fancying Up Their Burgers Across the Pond

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Desperate, Flailing McDonald's Fancying Up Their Burgers Across the Pond

Faced with a shifting marketplace, McDonald’s has ventured into the burgeoning Siberian restaurant scene and attempted to rebrand itself as a “modern progressive burger company.” Shockingly, neither of these totally credible business strategies have managed to offset the existential threat posed by rival burger companies, like Five Guys and Shake Shack, who distinguish themselves by selling actual organic food in their restaurants.

Infiltrating America’s schools is possibly a viable growth strategy stateside, but what can be done to rescue the brand from the competition overseas? The answer, according to the McDonald’s braintrust, is a “range of burgers” developed in conjunction with Michelin-starred restaurants that will include “the thickest patty ever sold by McDonald’s,” reports The Guardian.

The new burgers will be trialled at 28 restaurants in London, the south and Manchester before being rolled out to 400 McDonald’s restaurants next summer.

The trick, I suppose, will be integrating the tastes and culinary acumen of talented chefs with the beloved McFlavor we’ve all grown to McLove, even while it is almost certainly McKilling us.

The extra thickness of the meat means customers will have to wait for their burger to be served, in contrast to the company’s traditional hamburgers and Big Macs.

McDonald’s food development director Duncan Cruttenden says these burgers are the result of customer feedback:

“When the chef council started to develop this new premium offering, we worked with a brief generated by our customers – they told us they wanted thicker beef patties and high quality ingredients, freshly prepared.”

We would like human-grade food, please. Better hire some real chefs for that one!

These “Signature Collection” burgers will be served on brioche buns, and could someday be rolled out to McDonald’s locations all over the world, so long as they’re popular among the good people of Britain.

[The Guardian]

Image via AP

Illinois Cop's Mysterious Shooting Death Ruled a Suicide

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Illinois Cop's Mysterious Shooting Death Ruled a Suicide

The shooting death in September of a northern Illinois police officer that triggered a widespread manhunt has been ruled a suicide, the Associated Press reports. The Lake County Sheriff’s Office will announce the investigation’s “conclusive results” Wednesday.

On September 1st, Lieutenant Charles Joseph Gliniewicz of Fox Lake, a U.S. army veteran known as “G.I. Joe,” radioed that he was chasing three suspicious men on foot before backup officers found his body not far from his squad car, the AP reports. He had been shot twice: one round hit his ballistic vest and the other his upper chest.

There were signs of a struggle at the scene, the Chicago Tribune reports. Hundreds of officers began searching houses, cabins, and boats for the three suspects, who Gliniewicz describeed as two white men and a black man. No one was ever arrested.

(A couple weeks later, the Tribune reported, former Chicago police Officer Joseph Battaglia was charged with two counts of disorderly conduct after threatening two officials leading the investigation if they did not rule Gliniewicz’s death a suicide.)

Police said in October that Gliniewicz was shot with his own weapon, but authorities did not determine the manner of his death until now.

Unnamed sources told Fox32 Chicago that Gliniewicz committed suicide as a result of personal and professional pressures.

His family denies that this is possible, however. Gliniewicz’s son, D.J., told the AP his father “never once” thought of taking his own life, and described how the lieutenant was excited for retirement.


Photo via AP Images. Contact the author of this post: brendan.oconnor@gawker.com.

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Everyone Has Moved on But Kim Davis

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Everyone Has Moved on But Kim Davis

Kim Davis arguably has a lot of contempt: for gay people, for the legal system, for the Second Amendment (that’s a long sleeves joke) but she doesn’t want it on her record.

According to the Star Tribune, the Davis’s lawyers filed a 126-page appeal Monday, claiming the district court “rushed to judgment” in jailing her for contempt of court after she refused a lawful order to do her damn job.

Or as her lawyer terms it, “threatening to hold her hostage indefinitely as a prisoner of her conscience.”

“By imprisoning Davis and threatening to hold her hostage indefinitely as a prisoner of her conscience, the district court imposed direct pressure and substantial burden on Davis, forcing her to choose between her religious beliefs and forfeiting her essential personal freedom on one hand, or abandoning those beliefs to keep her freedom on the other hand,” [her lawyer] wrote.

Specifically, Davis would like four rulings made by U.S. District Court Judge David Bunning overturned by the appeals court, including the original injunction requiring her to issue the licenses.

Davis, who has filed many appeals since gay marriage was legalized this summer, has not yet won one.


Image via AP. Contact the author at gabrielle@gawker.com.


A Case Study in Failed Reporting: This Alternate Universe Story

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A Case Study in Failed Reporting: This Alternate Universe Story

A new study from astrophysicist Ranga-Ram Chary has found mysterious “bright spots” in cosmic background radiation that could be caused by alternate universes. So far, so good. Only the clowns in “journalism” could screw this one up.

Reporting 101: Follow the facts. So this scientist found an inexplicable glow while peering back in time to just after the Big Bang. And “he said that while there is a 30% chance the fluctuations are nothing unusual, there is also the possibility they provide evidence of a multiverse.” Okay. Fine. What do you do? You check it out.

I’ve been looking all morning and I have yet to find a single news story in which the reporter made the simple effort of calling this alternate universe for comment. Bias? Yes, but even worse: laziness.

One scientist thinks the finding is just due to dust. Another scientist says that an alternate universe should leave “a different mark” on this type of radiation. Okay. Fine. What kind of mark?

I don’t know—nobody bothered to make the call.

I hate to play “press critic,” but this is the sort of thing that makes the public lose faith in the media. All across the world, so-called “science journalists” are trumpeting the fact that maybe we found evidence of an alternate universe. Meanwhile, not a single one of them could do something as simple as looking up literally any name in the alternate universe phone book, giving them a ring, and asking, “Hi, do you exist? Are you bumping up against our universe? Thanks, bye.” It only takes a few minutes, and it makes all the difference in the world for credibility.

We’ve reached out to the alternate universe and we will update this post if we hear back.

[Photo: Shutterstock]

Court Docs: FBI Investigated Wu-Tang Link to Two Staten Island Murders

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Court Docs: FBI Investigated Wu-Tang Link to Two Staten Island Murders

The FBI examined an informant’s claim that two Wu-Tang Members—RZA and Raekwon—ordered the murder of two Staten Island drug dealers in 1999, according to newly released court documents obtained by the Staten Island Advance.

The documents are related to a 2014 trial against Staten Island brothers Anthony and Harvey Christian, who were convicted last October of running a drug empire in the borough for 20 years; during the same trial, Anthony Christian was also convicted of arranging the murder 17-year-old Jerome “Boo Boo” Estella in June 1999.

Chrisitan’s attorney, Michael Gold, now claims that an FBI file includes allegations from an informant that founding Wu-Tang members Robert “RZA” Diggs and Corey “Raekwon” Woods ordered the murder of Estella and another S.I. resident, Corey “Shank Bank” Brooker, who died a few weeks after Estella and whose murder remains unsolved. The informant, according to the FBI file, claims Estella robbed RZA’s brother and that Brooker robbed Raekwon’s cousin; RZA, the informant reportedly said, paid $30,000 for the hit on Brooker.

Gold is now requesting access to the full FBI file.

“These reports seem to suggest someone else was liable for those murders. I’m not suggesting that Wu-Tang committed these crimes. The FBI did,” Gold told the Advance. “What I’m trying to ascertain is their stated belief in an official file that Wu-Tang ordered this homicide.”

Assistant US Attorney Allon Lifshitz said his office provided all relevant information from the file to Gold before the Christian brothers trial began, and he included several relevant passages from the file in a court filing last month.

From the New York Post:

Those excerpts — culled from interviews with an informant named Brian Humphreys, the man who shot Estella — suggest that the doomed dealer had robbed RZA’s relative.

“A couple of weeks before the Boo Boo shooting, Uncles (informant Paul Ford) told Humphreys about a Blood named Boo Boo who just came home from jail. He stated that Boo Boo had robbed RZA’s little brother and had also gotten into something with the Christian brothers,” the excerpt reads.

“Uncles was talking about Boo Boo and said that he had just come home and robbed RZA’s brother and that they would likely come after him for that. Humphreys believes Uncles was referring to members of Wu-Tang.”

Another excerpt includes information about a conversation between Ford, Humphreys, and Christian.

“Ford stated that he had previously heard that Shank Bank was killed by Phife (ph). Ford believes that Phife collected money from RZA for executing the hit,” the document says. It’s not clear who Phife is, according to the Advance.

No charges were filed agains RZA or Raekwon, and prosecutors claim the allegations that Estella and Brooker only strengthen their cases against the Christians, because high-profile robberies would have increased police presence and hurt the drug trade.


Image via AP. Contact the author at taylor@gawker.com.

Jeb Bush Reliving Emotional Trauma, Begging Middle Schoolers to Email Him

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Jeb Bush Reliving Emotional Trauma, Begging Middle Schoolers to Email Him

How is the Jeb Bush comeback going? Well, his new slogan uncomfortably resembles one used by England’s most notorious monster. No one wants to vote for him. He apologized to the French. And today, Jeb just unloaded a lot of dark stuff on some unsuspecting middle schoolers.

At an education reform campaign event in New Hampshire earlier today, Jeb Bush seemed to start out hopeful. Perhaps because he found a group of deeply insecure, emotionally stunted adolescents to be, somehow, relatable, Jeb urged the kids to hit him up when they got home:

It’s a good thing Jeb found so many new friends, because, according to him, he is on the verge of a breakdown. The questions started out innocuous enough...

Something someone asked apparently led to Jeb suddenly finding himself back in his deep, dark, unhappy place.

But don’t worry. Jeb’s fine! He’s doing fine. He’s great.

Just, please, send him an email.


Contact the author at ashley@gawker.com. Image via AP.

Saudi Royal Drama: It Pays to Be a Secret Queen

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Saudi Royal Drama: It Pays to Be a Secret Queen

Shelter in place—there’s a high drama alert on the streets of London, where a secret queen has come forth to claim her fortune.

Here’s the story: a prince fell in love with a young commoner—he converted her to Islam—he married her—he forced her to have three abortions—and then he went on with his life like nothing happened.

The secret relationship between former Saudi King Fahd and his then-19-year-old bride, Janan Harb, was short—according to reports, Harb was forced to leave the country just two years after their alleged 1968 marriage and soon remarried. But she never forgot the king and the king never forgot to replenish her bank account.

For in exchange for the silent partnership agreement, Fahd had promised to “look after [Harb] financially for the rest of her life.” And from that day on, in sickness and in health, she had a royal expense account to have, and to hold, and to use to cover gambling debts.

But the problem with secrets, besides the fact that people keep them from me, is that they’re very difficult to enforce in a court of law.

And so in 2003, as King Fahd lay dying, Harb had a secret meeting with his son, Prince Abdul Aziz at the Dorchester Hotel. There, according to reports, she graciously offered to refrain from writing a tell-all book in exchange for money and property.

Harb said Prince Abdul Aziz, the son of another wife of the king, met her at the Dorchester hotel in London on 20 June 2003 when the king was seriously ill.

In the early hours of the morning he agreed to pay her £12m and transfer back to her two flats in Chelsea, to keep his father’s promise of lifelong financial support.

This is all according to a British court, which this week upheld the agreement, despite written denials from Aziz.

Sayeth the secret queen: “What’s £12m? It’s their laundry bill every week. It’s not like it’s their money. I worked for that money. If they don’t pay I will spill the beans in a book I have written.”

And they all lived happily ever after.


Image via AP. Contact the author at gabrielle@gawker.com.

The latest cost estimate for California’s high speed bullet train project: $71 billion.

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The latest cost estimate for California’s high speed bullet train project: $71 billion. Seems like a lot.

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