Posts Tagged ‘wife’
Haley Barbour pardons 4 killers on his way out the door
This thug still thinks he should be president of the United States
Daylife/Reuters Pictures used by permission
In his last days in office, outgoing Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour pardoned four men convicted of murder…David Gatlin, Joseph Ozment, Charles Hooker and Anthony McCray received full pardons and were released at 1 p.m. Sunday, said Suzanne Singletary, spokeswoman for the Mississippi Department of Corrections. All four were serving life sentences and worked as trusties at the governor’s mansion, she said.
I guess they were extra polite serving the governor his bourbon and branch.
Gatlin was convicted of murder, aggravated assault and burglary of a residence…Ozment was convicted of murder, conspiracy and armed robbery in a separate case…
Hooker was convicted in a 1991 murder, while McCray was convicted in a 2001 murder, Singletary said…
Families of the men’s victims told CNN affiliates WAPT and WLBT they are outraged by Barbour’s decision…In 1993, WLBT reported, Gatlin walked into the trailer where his estranged wife, Tammy Ellis Gatlin, lived and shot her in the head. The woman’s friend, Randy Walker, survived a gunshot to the head.
“Is Gov. Barbour going to pardon us from our aches and pains and heartache that we have to suffer?” the victim’s mother, Betty Ellis, asked WLBT. “Is he going to pardon a child that had to grow up without a mother? Is he going to pardon me from never being able to feel her arms around my neck again? What is Barbour going to do about that?”
Los Angeles bishop resigns – to take care of his wife and kids
Zavala is the dude with the big hat
From humble beginnings in southwest Mexico, Gabino Zavala entered the priesthood and embarked on a remarkable journey that landed him squarely in the corner offices of the nation’s largest Roman Catholic archdiocese. An auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, he oversaw the church’s vast San Gabriel region, a diverse community considered vital to the future of the church. Then, from his pulpit, he became a forceful champion for social and economic justice.
…He is the father, church officials said, of two children, and has resigned his post.
Zavala’s fatherhood, a violation of canon laws of celibacy for priests, was the first controversy to rock the local church during the tenure of Archbishop Jose Gomez… Gomez responded with a blunt letter to his flock on Wednesday announcing the resignation…”He is the father of two minor teenage children, who live with their mother in another state,” the letter said. “Let us pray for all those impacted by this situation and for each other.”
That always helps, right?
The Vatican did not immediately name Zavala’s successor. Gomez declined to be interviewed, and the church declined to disclose further details. Asked whether Zavala was involved in the children’s lives, and why the information suddenly surfaced after so many years, archdiocese spokesman Tod M. Tamberg said: “Those are questions for Bishop Zavala to answer.”
Zavala, who is no longer in ministry but remains a priest and bishop, could not be reached for comment. The voice mail on his cellphone was full and no one answered the door of his home in the Hacienda Heights foothills…
Zavala’s resignation is likely to spark renewed debate over the ecclesiastical laws of celibacy. The earliest popes — St. Peter himself, under some interpretations — were married man and fathers. Later, in the fourth century, church officials concluded that men who were not celibate “shall be deprived of the honor of the clerical life…”
“It’s self-evident — celibacy does not work,” said Father Richard McBrien, a professor of theology at the University of Notre Dame. Younger priests influenced by conservative Vatican administrators in recent years “think celibacy is the crown jewel of the priesthood,” he said. “That’s nonsense.”
Anyone expecting reason, rational debate, policy changes happening in the Catholic Church as a result of this event, the problems it points out – shouldn’t hold their breath while waiting. The Church hasn’t made it past the 19th Century, yet.
Bomb hoax phone call gets jail time for spurned hubby
A hoax bomber has been jailed for claiming his wife was carrying explosives aboard a transatlantic flight because he wanted to “humiliate” her after their relationship ended.
Kevin Flynn, a 31-year-old chef, phoned police to say a device was being taken on a New York-bound aircraft by his wife, Kerensa, from either Heathrow or Gatwick airport.
Flynn made the anonymous call from a phone box in Bognor Regis, West Sussex, after the couple decided to end their relationship and she was travelling home to the United States…
Judge William Wood QC said: “When there is a chance of large-scale disruption or evacuation of buildings or aeroplanes and airports, this class of misconduct is so serious there is no possibility to do anything but impose an immediate custodial sentence…”
Following the sentencing, a spokesman for Sussex Police said: “Flynn acted without care for any anxiety or disruption he might cause and our investigation and the sentence reflects the seriousness with which we and the courts take such hoaxes.”
RTFA for the details of the soap opera.
Fact is that if the coppers hadn’t been sharp and connected Flynn to an earlier call from his home they might have gone for an emergency evacuation of the plane and the nearby terminal. You don’t always succeed in something like that being safe and orderly. Some innocent person could have been injured in a fear-driven stampede – just for his anger at his wife.
Congressman Weiner finally confesses – too little, too late
Daylife/Getty Images used by permission
Representative Anthony Weiner on Monday tearfully admitted having a number of inappropriate relationships with women over the Internet, saying he was deeply ashamed but would not resign.
Weiner, a New York Democrat and leading liberal voice in the House of Representatives who was expected to run for mayor of New York City in 2013, admitted to inappropriate Internet and telephone conversations with six women but said none of them developed into a physical relationship…
“I tweeted a photograph of myself that I intended as a direct message as part of a joke to a woman in Seattle,” he said of an image sent over Twitter of a man in his underpants, which sparked the scandal more than a week ago.
“Once I realized I had posted it to Twitter, I panicked. I took it down and said that I had been hacked. I then continued to stick to that story, which was a hugely regrettable mistake,” he said. “The picture was of me, and I sent it.”
Calling his actions “very dumb” and “destructive,” he stressed he did not have sex with any of the women.
Weiner is married to Huma Abedin, a longtime aide to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. The couple was married in a ceremony officiated by former President Bill Clinton…
House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi called for an ethics probe “to determine whether any official resources were used or any other violation of House rules occurred.” Weiner said in a statement, “I welcome and will fully cooperate with an investigation by the House Ethics Committee…”
Former Senate Republican aide John Ullyot, a communication consultant at Hill & Knowlton in Washington, said Weiner, “lost a big chance to salvage some dignity by resigning promptly…”
Unusual revelations by politicians in the New York metro area are nothing new. Former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer resigned after frequenting prostitutes and former New Jersey Governor James McGreevey, who was married, tearfully resigned after it was revealed he had a homosexual affair with an aide.
Weiner makes Eliot Spitzer look good. Spitzer admitted practically on the spot to his foolishness and resigned. Now he’s back on the remake trail of his public persona – working for CNN. Not much different from conservative Christian clowns like Newt Gingrich.
I guess the lesson to be learned by public figures and politicians – and an awful lot of men whose lives are ruled by the infamous one-eyed trouser snake – is the love of a good woman isn’t worth screwing up. Nor the faith in your ideals handed over by the electorate.
Education consultant stole millions
A cuckolded computer consultant hired to link the city’s 1,400 schools to the Internet has been charged with downloading $3.6 million into his crooked pockets.
Willard (Ross) Lanham, aided by corporate giants IBM and Verizon, masterminded the massive fraud to enjoy a life of luxury from 2002 to 2008, according to a scathing report from the special schools investigator. “Lanham effectively stole from schoolchildren so he could buy fancy cars and valuable real estate,” said Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara.
Prosecutors described Lanham’s greed as staggering. He was charged with looting the Department of Education while earning a $200,000 annual salary and living with his family in a sprawling, two-story Long Island home.
As he earned an illegal fortune off phony companies, inflated fees and a pair of no-show jobs, officials said, he built three luxury homes on a piece of abandoned Long Island farmland.
Once finished, Lanham even named the private street after his estranged wife, Laura Lanham.
The couple have since endured a long, angry and ongoing three-year divorce, with the wife dumping her 57-year-old husband to pursue younger men while blogging about her “cougar” lifestyle…
The probe, aided by the city Department of Investigation, found Lanham was hired to work on three major DOE projects – including the highly touted “Project Connect.”
The scam was simple: He hired contractors at low hourly rates, persuaded subcontractors to bill the city at a much higher rate and pocketed the difference, officials said.
In all, his Lanham Enterprises allegedly was paid $5.3 million for consulting work that cost his company only $1.7 million.
The accused swindler even ripped off his own brother, hiring him for a $40-an-hour consulting job while charging the city $225 an hour, a criminal complaint charged.
IBM and Verizon kept their corporate mouths shut over anything they may have noticed in the course of the fraud. I’m never surprised when systems run by elected officials are inefficient – though they needn’t be. Corporate governance should be a bit more consistent.
Verizon has said they will return any inappropriate profits. Nice of them.
E-mail on interfaith marriage gets ex-Marine on no-fly list
Abraham Mashal
Abe Mashal, a 31-year-old dog trainer from St. Charles, says FBI agents told him he ended up on the government’s no-fly list because he exchanged e-mails with a Muslim cleric they were monitoring.
The topic: How to raise his children in an interfaith household.
Mashal said he has never had any links to terror or terrorists and is a “patriotic,” honorably discharged Marine Corps veteran.
He found out he’d been flagged last April, when he tried to board a flight to Spokane, Wash., to train dogs for a client. Since then, his family members and friends have been questioned, and he said he has lost business because he isn’t allowed to fly.
Mashal is one of 17 plaintiffs in a lawsuit filed in June by the American Civil Liberties Union over the list.
FBI agents questioned him at Midway Airport, then at his home. Finally, he was summoned to a hotel in Schaumburg, where more FBI agents told him he’d been placed on the no-fly list because of an e-mail he had sent to an imam — a Muslim cleric — whom they’d been watching.
Mashal said he had sought the imam’s advice about raising children in a mixed-religion household. Mashal is Muslim; his wife is Christian.
He said the agents offered to get him off the list — if he would become an undercover informant at mosques. He refused and said he feels he was being blackmailed.
The FBI conducts their activities on behalf of Freedom and the American Way the same way they always have. Like gangsters with a license to steal, extort and blackmail.
Sanctioning someone’s lifestyle and livelihood must be in Chapter 1 of the Handbook of Sleazy Practices issued to unprincipled intel operatives worldwide. Pretending to defend our Bill of Rights is exactly what it is – a pretense, a ruse.
Corporations get cozy with charities like Jindal Foundation
“I hope you remembered the checkbook”
Louisiana’s biggest corporate players, many with long agendas before the state government, are restricted in making campaign contributions to Gov. Bobby Jindal. But they can give whatever they like to the foundation set up by his wife months after he took office…
Marathon Oil, which last year won approval from the Jindal administration to increase the amount of oil it can refine at its Louisiana plant, also committed to a $250,000 donation. And the military contractor Northrop Grumman, which got state officials to help set up an airplane maintenance facility at a former Air Force base, promised $10,000 to the charity.
The foundation has collected nearly $1 million in previously unreported pledges from major oil companies, insurers and other corporations in Louisiana with high-stakes regulatory issues, according to a review by The New York Times.
It is among the newest of charities set up by elected officials, including members of Congress, or their families that are mutually beneficial: companies seeking to influence politicians or curry favor can donate unrestricted amounts of money, while the officials benefit from the good will associated with charitable work financed by businesses…
Ethics watchdog groups say the contributions are no accident…
NSS. You don’t need an ethics advisor to point out the inherent corruption in politically-connected charity work.
Alexandra Bautsch, the governor’s top political fund-raiser, is listed as the charity’s treasurer. Ms. Bautsch has continued to be paid by Mr. Jindal’s campaign — $112,500 last year. But none of the officers, including Mrs. Jindal, were paid for their work.
In recent years, foundations linked to more than a dozen members of Congress have routinely accepted donations from businesses seeking to influence them. In some instances, the lawmakers have intervened with federal agencies or taken up legislation on donors’ behalf…
“Foundations tied to politicians see their donations dry up when the politician is no longer in power,” Ms. Sloan said. “That demonstrates the real reason the charities get the donations is their political position, not because of the good works they do.”
Corrupt and deceitful practices continue to be the foundation of American politics. Mail me a penny postcard when Congress or some state legislature actually does something more than quote scripture over the problem.
Arizona vigilante guilty of murdering Hispanic man, daughter
Obvious threat to Arizona Anglos
The leader of an anti-illegal-immigrant group has been convicted in a home invasion that left a 9-year-old girl and her father dead in what prosecutors said was an attempt to steal drug money to fund the group’s operations.
A Tucson jury found Shawna Forde, 42, guilty of murder in the May 2009 killings of Raul Flores, 29, and his daughter Brisenia at their home in Arivaca, a desert community 10 miles north of Mexico…
Forde is the leader of the Minutemen American Defense, a small border watch group. Prosecutors argued that she planned the attack to help fund its anti-immigrant operations.
Forde, formerly of Everett, Wash., and two men dressed as law enforcement officers forced their way into Flores’ home then shot him, his daughter and wife, Gina Gonzalez, who survived her injuries after getting into a gun battle with the attackers, authorities said…
A 911 recording released by the Pima County sheriff’s office captured Gonzalez pleading for help after her husband and daughter were shot. She was heard crying out in pain from a gunshot wound then becoming frantic as the attackers returned.
The sound of nine gunshots was heard as Gonzalez engaged the intruders.
“Oh my God, I can’t believe they killed my family,” Gonzalez said on the recording.
Police said Gonzalez shot and wounded one of her attackers, Jason Eugene Bush, who officers believe was the gunman.
Another man, Albert Robert Gaxiola, is accused of providing information about the area.
Bush and Gaxiola go on trial in the spring.
Like many rightwing vigilantes. Forde preferred 2nd Amendment Justice instead of the real deal. I guess some of that was her own tweaked mental imbalance. Some just the product of absolute belief in the ideology of bigotry and fear.
Like most political cowards, she tried to weasel out of responsibility at the end.
Sit on cellphone + phone calls wife = SWAT raid on school!
A 30-man armed SWAT team stormed a school in Illinois after a staff member accidentally called his wife from his pocket, causing her to believe that he was being held hostage.
Officers in America wearing riot gear and carrying automatic weapons searched Carlton Washburne School, Winnetka, for almost three hours after the woman, who has not been identified, called 911.
Joseph De Lopez, the local police chief, said the woman reported receiving a call from her husband in which she could hear muffled voices and believed he was being held captive by a man with a gun.
Within minutes a security perimeter was established around the school, whose pupils had left for the day, and officers poured into the building. Three TV news helicopters were circling above.
But while they were still searching the school, and the man’s distressed wife remained connected to his mobile phone and to 911, he returned home.
While driving back from work, he had called his wife by sitting on his mobile phone, which was in his back pocket, while he listened to hip-hop and talked to himself.
“His wife was the last number he’d dialled,” Chief De Lopez said.
Mark Friedman, the school district interim co-superintendent, explained that the music’s “gangster-like” lyrics had contributed to the woman’s concerns.
This passes for “good, clean fun” in the United States of America.
Husband beaten by wives over plans for number five
Runaway! Runaway!
A polygamist Pakistani man has suffered the shame of a public beating by two of his wives, who claimed he was planning to marry in secret for a fifth time.
Mian Ishaq had to be saved by police officers who hauled his two angry wives away from a friend’s wedding reception he was attending with his third wife in Pakistan’s Punjab province.
Afterwards he told reporters that he had only three wives, and rumours that he had a fourth wife and plans for a fifth were not true.
“This is a blatant lie. I am willing to swear on my life that I only have three wives,” he told reporters…
Witnesses said his two disgruntled partners arrived with relatives at the wedding reception in Gujranwala on Monday, overturning tables and shouting death threats before they started attacking their husband with shoes.
The shoe attack still works pretty well in South Asia.
