Octopus Overlords

Rip wrote:The moral of the story is the right thinks everyone on the outside needs bombing and the left thinks they are all refugees.

The fictional place part is of ZERO importance.

Authorities said a Texas teenager serving probation for killing four people in a drunken-driving wreck after invoking an “affluenza” defense was in custody in Mexico, weeks after he and his mother disappeared.

Mexico’s Jalisco state prosecutors’ office said in a statement that its agents had been working with American authorities via the U.S. Consulate in Guadalajara since Dec. 26 to track down and capture 18-year old Ethan Couch and his mother, Tonya Couch. The office said the two were located and detained Monday evening in a beachside neighborhood of the Pacific Coast resort city of Puerto Vallarta.

After their detention, they were handed over to Mexican immigration authorities for deportation, the statement said.

Florida Man Trashes Mosque, Leaves Bacon At Front Door

Surveillance video captured a man wearing a T-shirt and camouflage pants, using a machete to enter the Masjid Al-Mumin mosque in Titusville through a carport. He then tore down lights, broke windows and left bacon on the front doorstep. The Quran forbids Muslims from consuming pork.

NYT wrote:Florida man accused of attacking a store clerk in Queens last month while muttering “I kill Muslims” has been indicted on hate crime charges, authorities said Monday.

Piro Kolvani, 55, from Jacksonville, Fla., was hit with four charges, including third-degree assault as a hate crime and other assault counts, according to Queens District Attorney Richard Brown.

Google has fixed a bug in an online tool after it began translating "Russian Federation" to "Mordor". Mordor is the name of a fictional region nicknamed "Land of Shadow" in JRR Tolkien's Lord of the Rings books. In addition, "Russians" was translated to "occupiers" and the surname of Sergey Lavrov, the country's Foreign Minister, to "sad little horse". The errors had been introduced to Google Translate's Ukrainian to Russian service automatically, Google said. The terms mirror language used by some Ukrainians following Moscow's annexation of Crimea in 2014. Screenshots of the erroneous translations have appeared on social networks in recent days.

"Google Translate is an automatic translator - it works without the intervention of human translators, using technology instead," said Google in its statement. Although translations are managed automatically, it is possible for users to suggest alternative translations manually. However, the BBC understands that this was not how the errors were introduced. Google said that Translate worked by looking for patterns in hundreds of millions of documents but translation remained difficult as the meaning of words was tied to the context in which they were used. "This means that not all translations are perfect, and there will sometimes be mistakes or mistranslations," the statement added. "We always work to correct these as quickly as possible when they are brought to our attention."

The bug now appears to have been fixed.

The liberal group Credo Action is demanding Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz resign a day after the Florida congresswoman accused millennials of “complacency” on abortion rights.

In a petition sent to the 3.9 million progressive activists the group claims as members, Credo cited Schultz’s comments on abortion, which infuriated many liberals, as well as a litany of other offenses, in calling for her to be removed.
Credo also accused Schultz of “rigging the primary process to suppress Democratic turnout,” of “supporting warmongers by trying to undermine the president’s Iran deal,” and of courting special interest groups at odds with liberal values.

“As DNC chair, you have repeatedly failed to act in the best interests of progressives and the Democratic Party,” the petition reads. “You have lost the trust of grassroots progressives and Democrats. Please resign immediately.”

On Wednesday, Schultz said in an interview with The New York Times Magazine that women in their 20s and 30s are not committed to fighting for abortion right because their “entire lives have been lived after Roe v. Wade was decided.”
...
Democratic presidential contenders Bernie Sanders and Martin O’Malley have accused the DNC of seeking to bury the debates to protect front-runner Hillary Clinton from scrutiny.

They have fumed over the missed opportunity to get their message out.

Accusations that Schultz and the DNC are in the tank for Clinton erupted again over how she handled the unauthorized use of a Clinton voter database by a Sanders staffer.
...
Furthermore, the DNC’s fundraising has been under scrutiny. The Republican National Committee has massively outraised the DNC this cycle and sits in a far better financial position.

Drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman has been captured, Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto announced Friday via Twitter.

"Mission Accomplished," the President wrote. "We have him."

Isgrimnur wrote:CNN

"Mission Accomplished," the President wrote. "We have him."

Defiant wrote:POLICE: SUSPECT CONFESSED TO PHILADELPHIA POLICE OFFICER SHOOTING 'IN NAME OF ISLAM'

In the meantime, details of Archer's background gradually emerged Friday.

Reached at her home in Lansdowne, his mother, Valerie Holliday, said Archer was the eldest of seven children and suffered head injuries from playing football and a moped accident. "He's been acting kind of strange lately. He's been talking to himself . . . laughing and mumbling," Holliday said. "He's been hearing voices in his head. We asked him to get medical help."

Isgrimnur wrote:CNN

Drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman has been captured, Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto announced Friday via Twitter.

"Mission Accomplished," the President wrote. "We have him."

Wasserman Schultz is also chair of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and ostensibly working to elect more Dems in 2016. Yet in a few short paragraphs, she insulted an entire demographic of female voters, made misleading statements about medical marijuana and the heroin epidemic, and suggested that drug addiction was not a problem “in the suburbs.”
...
In addition to her comments on abortion, Wasserman Schultz also made confusing and inaccurate statements about drugs and drug addiction. For example:

You’re one of a dwindling number of progressive politicians who oppose legalization of even the medical use of marijuana. Where does that come from? I don’t oppose the use of medical marijuana. I just don’t think we should legalize more mind-altering substances if we want to make it less likely that people travel down the path toward using drugs. We have had a resurgence of drug use instead of a decline. There is a huge heroin epidemic.

Heroin addiction often starts with prescribed painkillers. Pill mills were a problem in Florida, but the state didn’t make prescribing opiates illegal. There is a difference between opiates and marijuana.

Still, your opinion on this does seem like an outlier. It’s perfectly O.K. to not be completely predictable. I am a person, and I have individual opinions that may not line up ideologically. They’re formed by my personal experience both as a mom and as someone who grew up really bothered by the drug culture that surrounded my childhood — not mine personally. I grew up in suburbia.

...
Wasserman Schultz’s comments on drugs angered progressives not only because she is wrong on the facts, but because she also has been a major congressional supporter of private detention centers and private prisons, which in fact profit greatly from criminalizing drugs—especially among populations without the wealth and resources to get access to treatment instead of being sent to jail.

$iljanus wrote:

Isgrimnur wrote:CNN

Drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman has been captured, Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto announced Friday via Twitter.

"Mission Accomplished," the President wrote. "We have him."

Let the tunneling begin!

Hollywood actor Sean Penn interviewed Mexican drug kingpin Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman at a secret location soon after his jail break. The interview, conducted in October in the Mexican jungle, is published in Saturday's edition of Rolling Stone.

Guzman escaped from the maximum security Altiplano jail in July and was recaptured on Friday. Unnamed Mexican officials say Penn's secret meeting helped lead them to the fugitive who is back in Altiplano. Their comments chime with public pronouncements by Attorney General Arely Gomez, who said on Friday that an important aspect of his recapture "was discovering Guzman's intention to have a biographic film made". "He contacted actresses and producers, which was part of one line of investigation."

Isgrimnur wrote:Wasserman strikes back

Wasserman Schultz is also chair of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and ostensibly working to elect more Dems in 2016. Yet in a few short paragraphs, she insulted an entire demographic of female voters, made misleading statements about medical marijuana and the heroin epidemic, and suggested that drug addiction was not a problem “in the suburbs.”

Zarathud wrote: Other than not fully supporting drug legalization, none of these statements are even against the Democratic platform. Witch hunt.

RALEIGH, N.C. — A state law requiring that doctors who perform an abortion after the 16th week of pregnancy supply an ultrasound to state officials has sparked a new and bitter front in the war over abortion here, with stakes that are both personal and political.

Supporters say the purpose of the law is to verify that doctors and clinics are complying with state law, which outlaws abortions after 20 weeks but with an exception made for medical emergencies. Critics say the purpose is to intimidate and provide hurdles to women and doctors. The ultrasound provision, already a requirement in Louisiana and Oklahoma, is part of the continuing pushback against abortion in Republican-controlled states. In highly polarized North Carolina, it has raised the temperature of the abortion debate, which has been used to motivate conservative and liberal voters alike.

The law requires doctors who perform an abortion after the 16th week of pregnancy to send the State Department of Health and Human Services the method used to determine the “probable gestational age” of the fetus, the measurements used to support the assertion and, most controversially, an ultrasound showing the measurements. The provisions took effect Jan. 1.

A court has ordered Tonya Couch, the mother of "affluenza teen" Ethan Couch, to undergo a mental exam.

Tarrant County, Texas, Magistrate Judge Matt King ordered Tonya Couch to be examined after the court found "reasonable cause" to believe that she suffers from "a mental illness or is a person with a mental retardation," according to court documents.

The order was issued Friday and must be completed within 30 days.
...
On Monday, Mothers Against Drunk Driving started a petition supporting Tarrant County District Attorney Sharen Wilson's decision to ask for Ethan Couch to be moved from the juvenile justice system to the adult criminal system.

LawBeefaroni wrote:Covered in the 2016 New State Laws thread but showing up on the national stage now.

RALEIGH, N.C. — A state law requiring that doctors who perform an abortion after the 16th week of pregnancy supply an ultrasound to state officials has sparked a new and bitter front in the war over abortion here, with stakes that are both personal and political.

Supporters say the purpose of the law is to verify that doctors and clinics are complying with state law, which outlaws abortions after 20 weeks but with an exception made for medical emergencies. Critics say the purpose is to intimidate and provide hurdles to women and doctors. The ultrasound provision, already a requirement in Louisiana and Oklahoma, is part of the continuing pushback against abortion in Republican-controlled states. In highly polarized North Carolina, it has raised the temperature of the abortion debate, which has been used to motivate conservative and liberal voters alike.

The law requires doctors who perform an abortion after the 16th week of pregnancy to send the State Department of Health and Human Services the method used to determine the “probable gestational age” of the fetus, the measurements used to support the assertion and, most controversially, an ultrasound showing the measurements. The provisions took effect Jan. 1.

Don't care which side you are on, that's weak sauce using shaming and intimidation.

CNN wrote:Biden praises Sanders on income inequality, calls Clinton 'relatively new' to the fight

Washington (CNN) -- Vice President Joe Biden offered effusive praise for Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders Monday, lauding Hillary Clinton's chief rival for doing a "heck of a job" on the campaign trail and praising Sanders for offering an authentic voice on income inequality.

And while Biden said Democrats had a slate of "great candidates" running for president, he suggested Clinton was a newcomer to issues like the growing gap between rich and poor.

LordMortis wrote:Weird. I don't think of Hillary as new to the fight. I thought she was "fighting" against income inequality as a first lady. Heck she was the first person in my political lifetime to vocally push for "universal health care" Her problem, IMO, is that her idea of fighting is say some stuff and then lose, whereas Bernie walks the walk and really fights and doesn't just have people write speeches for him.

She's an old dog when it comes to the fight, she just never seemed to really care enough to fight for real.