Weird News

[sexobon]

A former Obama White House aide and candidate for Congress in Maryland’s 8th District goes public with arrest record:

What Makes Black Men Run From the Police?

... I know why. I am a black man, and I have been arrested. I am also a husband and father of three, a lawyer, a former White House aide and now a candidate for Congress.

The police made a mistake, as humans inevitably do. It was a little more than a decade ago, when I was in my early 20s and well on my way toward a promising career. I was in a car with some friends and fellow law-school classmates when, as a thoughtless prank—the sort that tends to hang over from adolescence—one of them shouted an obscene comment at a woman on the street. That woman turned out to be an undercover police officer.

Let me state that what he did was wrong, and completely out of character; but, of course, I had no idea of his intended actions, nor did I have control over them. We were all arrested, and in the end, the charges were dropped and the record of my arrest was eventually expunged.

I knew at the time, and I suppose I could have assured myself, that it was all a mistake and that the police would accept the truth of my innocence. But as difficult as it is for me to admit, when the police officer confronted me, I thought about running, too. I wasn’t having a bad day, I didn’t have an outstanding warrant and I knew I had done nothing wrong. But I also knew that arrest—not conviction, but a single arrest—could severely imperil my future right then and there. Suddenly, despite my success in life, I could see myself becoming yet another black man swallowed by our elaborate criminal-justice system—another statistic. ...

... Until now I have never disclosed any of this to anyone other than close friends and family. And I expect that some who know me (and many others who don’t) will see me differently after reading this piece. But I would ask them, when did I cease to be human? Am I not the son, husband and father of three, attorney or former White House aide I was before you knew this about me? ...

Yebbut, why now?

[Lamplighter]

Originally Posted by sexobon

Yebbut, why now?

I suppose it's as the man says in the last paragraphs...

My sincere hope is that by lifting my voice, I will encourage others to do the same.
The statistics tell us that there are many of us who have similar testimonies about
what our nation’s heavy-handed approach to criminal justice is doing to
communities of color and society at large.

Right now we find ourselves at a critical moment in history.
We stand at the precipice of passing the most sweeping
bipartisan criminal-justice reform legislation in a generation.
But it won’t happen if this is seen as a problem for “them,”
as opposed to all of us. Democracy is what got us into this mess,
but I’m confident that democracy can help alleviate it and
bring us markedly closer to our country’s highest ideals in the process.

[sexobon]

No, that's borderline delusional. There are eight million stories in the naked city and he's too much of a politician for his to be the one that encourages.

[footfootfoot]

Originally Posted by sexobon

No, that's borderline delusional;
he's a politician.

Edited for concision.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Maybe a super-pac has offered tons of cash to the swiftboat others in that car that night to go public. Maybe even swear it was he who yelled.

[Gravdigr]

Judge: If the US SCOTUS thinks we don't know what constitutes a marriage, we damn sure don't know what constitutes a divorce, so I ain't divorcing people until SCOTUS tells me what constitutes a divorce.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Lawyers for the Bumgardners did not immediately return a request for comment from The Huffington Post.

Well duh, these cats depend on him, and his fellow judges, for their livelihood.
Plus "Contempt of Court" is the only thing you can be sent to jail indefinitely.
If they jailed everyone who has contempt for the courts, they would only collect a buck three eighty in taxes... for the country.

[DanaC]

Hah. Nice.

[Happy Monkey]

What a tool.

[Gravdigr]

Ah, the NYPD...

They shot at dude 84 times. Hit him once. Once. In the calf. That means they missed this idjit car jacker 83 times.

And, if you believe the talking head in the video (below), they did it with 16 shot revolvers.



Also, talking head makes it sound like the cops were wearing red pants.

[DanaC]

It would be reassuring to think they were aiming for a leg shot but with 83 misses they could just as easily have been aiming for his head. Could be the world's most accidental good shooting.

[Gravdigr]

I don't know how one can fire 83 rounds, in NYC, and not hit somebody.

[DanaC]

Yeh that does seem somewhat surprising.

[sexobon]

It's the new police strategy to avoid civil strife. They don't shoot bullets at a suspect, they shot bullets all around the suspect so the suspect can't move without running into a bullet. That way if a suspect gets shot, it's the suspect's fault.

Good time to buy into ammunition manufacturers.

[glatt]

Elaborate cheating scandal in the chess world.

Arcangelo Ricciardi was ranked 51,366 in the world when he entered this chess tournament in Italy. He creamed everyone he played, and rose dramatically through the standings. But he had some peculiar mannerisms. He never got up out of his chair, and he had his arms crossed all the time with his fist jammed into his armpit. He also kept blinking like crazy. Officials were convinced he was cheating, and asked him to empty his pockets. They found nothing. They asked him to open his shirt, and he refused. So then they put him through a metal detector and found a camera hanging around his neck and some sort of remote vibrating device in his armpit. They deduced the camera transmitted the game to an accomplice and the accomplice sent moved to him through some sort of code to his vibrating armpit. And he was blinking to decipher the instructions.

Sounds like a really elaborate cheating system, and I don't understand it. According to the tournament's website.

Top prizes in Group A are € 700 / € 500 / € 400 / € 300.