TexasTowelie
TexasTowelie's JournalWell known Topeka attorney and philanthropist loses three-year battle with cancer
TOPEKA, Kan. (WIBW) - Dan Lykins, a well-known Topeka attorney and philanthropist lost his three-year battle with cancer Thanksgiving night.
He was 75 years-old.
Lykins’ daughter Danya tells 13 NEWS her father endured a total of 107 chemotherapy treatments after his diagnosis and worked as a personal injury attorney up to the time of his death.
In 2002, Lykins ran to represent Kansas’ Second Congressional District as a Democrat, but fell short to Republican Jim Ryun. He also mounted an unsuccessful bid to become Kansas Attorney General.
Lykins served as a member of the Kansas Board of Regents, and used his personal success as a lawyer to contribute to several non-profit and charitable causes across Northeast Kansas.
Read more: https://www.wibw.com/2021/11/26/well-known-topeka-attorney-philanthropist-loses-three-year-battle-with-cancer/
Lykins helped organize Kansas presidential campaigns from Bobby Kennedy to Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton. He served as treasurer of the Kansas Democratic Party from 1991 to 2010 and chaired the Clinton-Gore and Hillary Clinton Kansas campaigns, according to a biography compiled by the Kansas Historical Society.
Feds blast back at Rep. Fortenberry's claim that he was 'set up'
Federal prosecutors have fired back against claims that the FBI “set up” Rep. Jeff Fortenberry, saying that the only set-up was when the Lincoln congressman “intentionally, repeatedly and proactively” lied to investigators.
In court briefs filed Tuesday, attorneys with the Central California U.S. District Attorney’s Office asked a judge to reject motions by Fortenberry’s defense lawyers to dismiss three felony indictments alleging he misled and lied to federal investigators.
“Contrary to defendant’s revisionist and misleading re-tellings, the only person who ‘set up’ defendant for this prosecution was defendant himself ...” stated one brief, filed by two lead prosecutors in the case.
Chad Kolton, a spokesman for Fortenberry’s reelection campaign, said Wednesday that the “attack” on the congressman’s character from prosecutors doesn’t change the fact that the FBI instructed one of its informants to call Fortenberry in 2018 to tell him something he didn’t know — that $30,000 in contributions he had received in 2016 were illegal.
Read more: https://journalstar.com/news/local/feds-blast-back-at-rep-fortenberrys-claim-that-he-was-set-up/article_877a28f7-6483-55f8-8a87-2cbad4ba87d7.html
(Lincoln Journal Star)
Big raises for Nebraska corrections officers already bringing in applicants
Two weeks after Gov. Pete Ricketts’ administration announced substantial pay bumps for state corrections officers and other state security workers, the higher pay appears to be spurring more interest in open jobs.
The raises were announced Nov. 10, with hopes that they might help recruit and retain employees and chip away at the prisons’ deepening staffing crisis.
As of last month, about a third of the Nebraska Department of Correctional Services’ “protective services” positions — corrections corporals, sergeants and caseworkers — were vacant. The increasingly sparse staffing has spurred myriad problems, including record overtime costs, limits on inmates’ activities, safety issues, and “staffing emergencies” at prisons in Lincoln and Tecumseh that allow for 12-hour shifts.
Assuming the union approves the agreement, starting wages for corrections corporals and prison caseworkers will rise from $20 an hour to $28 an hour. That equates to a bump from an annual salary of $41,600 to $58,240, assuming a 40-hour workweek for 52 weeks a year. Sergeants will get a bump from $24 an hour to $32 an hour under the agreement, which would equate to a raise from $49,920 a year to $66,560.
Read more: https://journalstar.com/news/state-and-regional/govt-and-politics/big-raises-for-nebraska-corrections-officers-already-bringing-in-applicants/article_add04eac-959d-51cf-bd19-38ccccc68576.html
(Lincoln Journal Star)
Two Nebraska county GOP organizations censure Sen. Deb Fischer for infrastructure vote
The Dawes and Sheridan County Republican parties in northwestern Nebraska's Panhandle voted to censure Republican Sen. Deb Fischer for her vote to enact the $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill.
The two party organizations met in a joint session in Rushville in October and voted 23-2 to censure the senator.
"This vote was taken after (an earlier meeting in September) that included a conference call with Senator Fischer and her explanation of why she voted for this bill," the county organizations stated in a news release.
Fischer was one of 19 Senate Republicans who voted for the bill that was approved by the Senate on a 69-30 vote.
Read more: https://journalstar.com/news/state-and-regional/govt-and-politics/two-nebraska-county-gop-organizations-censure-sen-deb-fischer-for-infrastructure-vote/article_d739d3b6-0546-5e47-9a1c-9fd280ce60dd.html
(Lincoln Journal Star)
Jury orders Children's Hospital to pay $26.1 million for failing to treat infant's seizures
OMAHA -- A jury awarded a record $26.1 million medical malpractice judgment Monday against Children's Hospital & Medical Center for failing to properly treat a child who suffered seizures after a fall at a Sarpy County day care.
After a two-week trial and two days of deliberations, a jury ruled that Children's Hospital and Dr. Heidi Killefer improperly discharged Vivianne T. Marousek after the head trauma that resulted in the then-11-month-old suffering seizures at the hospital.
An earlier emergency room physician had properly treated Vivianne, said Patrick and Joseph Cullan, the Omaha attorneys who represented Vivianne and her parents, Andrea and Jacob Marousek. But when Killefer took over her care in January 2017, she concluded that the child had suffered a one-off seizure that wouldn't persist, Joe Cullan said Monday. She released the child from the hospital.
Within 48 hours of her parents taking her home, the child suffered severe seizures and irreparable brain damage, Cullan said.
Read more: https://journalstar.com/news/state-and-regional/crime-and-courts/jury-orders-childrens-hospital-to-pay-26-1-million-for-failing-to-treat-infants-seizures/article_de808166-e9ea-56bd-970d-0d3baa871f74.html
(Lincoln Journal Star)
Follow-up: Some New Information about the Bolsonaro Regime and Ties to Omaha's 88 Tactical
Seeing Red Nebraska has previously written about the neo-Nazi affinities of Omaha’s 88 Tactical, and about its strange relationship with the Bolsonaro regime in Brazil, including the fact that close friends of the Bolsonaro sons are on staff at the Nebraska shooting range.
Since that coverage was published, international activists concerned with the Bolsonaro regime and its fascist aspirations have dug more deeply into the strange network of relationships among 88 Tactical employees, the Trumps, the Bolsonaros, and the high-ranking aides and far-right propagandists who serve the two families. In this piece, our contributors simply seek to reveal connections among Eduardo Bolsonaro, his aide Julia Zanatta, her ex-boyfriend and 88 Tactical employee Tony Eduardo, the 2018 attempted assassination of Jair Bolsonaro, and far right propagandists Steve Bannon and Olavo de Carvalho, both of whom are currently under legal scrutiny by their respective governments for their roles in provoking far right insurrection.
Steve Bannon, Olavo de Carvalho, and a Bolsonaro Operative Named Julia Zanatta
Julia Zanatta is a friend and aide to politician Eduardo Bolsonaro, the son of Brazil’s president, and a follower of Olavo de Carvalho, a self-proclaimed philosopher, guru of Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro and mentor of the far right in Brazil. Olavo’s agenda includes opposing immigration and generalizing all people on the left as communists. His method ranges from constant harassment of enemy forces to lawfare. Olavo has thousands of followers in his online philosophy course. Some of his students landed top jobs in Bolsonaro’s government, including former Ministry of Foreign Affairs Ernesto Araújo.
In May 2019, Zanatta lied twice to a radio journalist from her home town in South Brazil when she said that Jair Bolsonaro’s son, Eduardo Bolsonaro, had never met personally with Olavo de Carvalho before the beginning of that year. She also concealed the information that Steve Bannon visited Olavo’s house in Petersburg, Virginia, while she and Eduardo Bolsonaro frequented the same place for at least a week in January 2019. According to another guest, filmmaker Josias Teófilo, Steve Bannon was there to get updated about the political scenario in Brazil. Jair Bolsonaro had just started his term as the country’s president.
Zanatta visited Olavo with Eduardo Bolsonaro, who had actually been there before, two years earlier in January 2017, when he stopped over before going to Shot Show in Las Vegas. The Shot Show is the largest annual trade show for gun enthusiasts in the US.
Read more: https://seeingrednebraska.com/fascism/some-new-information-about-the-bolsonaro-regime-and-ties-to-omahas-88-tactical/
Earlier threads:
88 Tactical, Militarized Police, and a Looming Coup in Brazil
Nebraska Group: https://democraticunderground.com/1063923
Latin America Group: https://democraticunderground.com/110878098
Follow-up: Some New Information about the Bolsonaro Regime and Ties to Omaha's 88 Tactical
Seeing Red Nebraska has previously written about the neo-Nazi affinities of Omaha’s 88 Tactical, and about its strange relationship with the Bolsonaro regime in Brazil, including the fact that close friends of the Bolsonaro sons are on staff at the Nebraska shooting range.
Since that coverage was published, international activists concerned with the Bolsonaro regime and its fascist aspirations have dug more deeply into the strange network of relationships among 88 Tactical employees, the Trumps, the Bolsonaros, and the high-ranking aides and far-right propagandists who serve the two families. In this piece, our contributors simply seek to reveal connections among Eduardo Bolsonaro, his aide Julia Zanatta, her ex-boyfriend and 88 Tactical employee Tony Eduardo, the 2018 attempted assassination of Jair Bolsonaro, and far right propagandists Steve Bannon and Olavo de Carvalho, both of whom are currently under legal scrutiny by their respective governments for their roles in provoking far right insurrection.
Steve Bannon, Olavo de Carvalho, and a Bolsonaro Operative Named Julia Zanatta
Julia Zanatta is a friend and aide to politician Eduardo Bolsonaro, the son of Brazil’s president, and a follower of Olavo de Carvalho, a self-proclaimed philosopher, guru of Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro and mentor of the far right in Brazil. Olavo’s agenda includes opposing immigration and generalizing all people on the left as communists. His method ranges from constant harassment of enemy forces to lawfare. Olavo has thousands of followers in his online philosophy course. Some of his students landed top jobs in Bolsonaro’s government, including former Ministry of Foreign Affairs Ernesto Araújo.
In May 2019, Zanatta lied twice to a radio journalist from her home town in South Brazil when she said that Jair Bolsonaro’s son, Eduardo Bolsonaro, had never met personally with Olavo de Carvalho before the beginning of that year. She also concealed the information that Steve Bannon visited Olavo’s house in Petersburg, Virginia, while she and Eduardo Bolsonaro frequented the same place for at least a week in January 2019. According to another guest, filmmaker Josias Teófilo, Steve Bannon was there to get updated about the political scenario in Brazil. Jair Bolsonaro had just started his term as the country’s president.
Zanatta visited Olavo with Eduardo Bolsonaro, who had actually been there before, two years earlier in January 2017, when he stopped over before going to Shot Show in Las Vegas. The Shot Show is the largest annual trade show for gun enthusiasts in the US.
Read more: https://seeingrednebraska.com/fascism/some-new-information-about-the-bolsonaro-regime-and-ties-to-omahas-88-tactical/
Earlier threads:
88 Tactical, Militarized Police, and a Looming Coup in Brazil
Nebraska Group: https://democraticunderground.com/1063923
Latin America Group: https://democraticunderground.com/110878098
Arkansas governor to call special session on tax cut plan
LITTLE ROCK -- Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson said Tuesday that he'll call the Legislature back into session next week to take up a tax cut plan, and that he hoped lawmakers would hold off on efforts to enact an abortion ban similar to one in neighboring Texas.
Hutchinson said the planned special session was set to begin Dec. 7, with its focus primarily on the tax cut package that calls for reducing the state's top income tax rate from 5.9% to 4.9%. The package, which also includes corporate tax cuts and a low-income tax credit, would cost the state $135 million in the current fiscal year and grow to nearly $498 million when fully implemented in 2026.
"I hope we have a short session, we do the business and we keep our focus on the tax cuts, which was the plan all along," Hutchinson told reporters.
Hutchinson is pushing for the tax cuts after the state ended its fiscal year in July with a nearly $1 billion surplus. A coalition of advocacy groups earlier Tuesday called on the Legislature to focus on funding needed services rather than a tax cut they said would primarily benefit higher earners.
Read more: https://www.texarkanagazette.com/news/2021/nov/30/arkansas-governor-to-call-special-session-on-tax/
Jones wants Sandy Hook 'hoax' case jury to hear his defenses
WATERBURY, Conn. -- Infowars host Alex Jones' lawyers are trying to get his free speech defense and other claims before a jury to argue that he is not liable for damages for calling the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting a hoax years ago.
The effort comes despite a Connecticut judge ruling this month that Jones was liable by default in a defamation lawsuit brought by relatives of some of the victims, saying he repeatedly failed to turn over some documents, including financial records. A hearing on how much the damages should be is planned next August before a jury.
Defendants who are found liable by default in lawsuits are not allowed to present their arguments against liability at hearings on damages unless they filed a "notice of defense," which Jones and his lawyers did last Wednesday.
Lawyers for the Sandy Hook families, however, plan to argue the jury should not hear Jones' defenses because the default ruling was disciplinary, Christopher Mattei, an attorney for the relatives, said Monday in an interview after a court hearing in the case. He said he believes Jones lost the right to present his arguments when he was defaulted.
Read more: https://www.texarkanagazette.com/news/2021/nov/29/jones-wants-sandy-hook-hoax-case-jury-to-hear-his/
Widow of Chad Read files wrongful death suit against Kyle Carruth, judge files recusal
The widow of a Lubbock father shot and killed during an argument over custody of his son is seeking $50 million in damages from the shooter, land developer Kyle Carruth.
Jennifer Read on Monday filed a wrongful death lawsuit accusing Carruth, the ex-husband of 72nd District Judge Anne Marie Carruth, of engaging in negligence and gross negligence, civil assault and intentional infliction of emotional distress, when he shot Chad Read on Nov. 5, at Carruth's property in the 2100 block of 90th Street.
"Defendants owed Chad Read a reasonable duty of care to act as a reasonably prudent person would act under the circumstances," the lawsuit states.
Jennifer Read's attorney, Anthony Buzbee of the Buzbee Law Firm in Houston, said in a statement, “Every Texan has the right to defend themselves and their property—no one, however, has the right to interject themselves into someone else’s conversation, return and bring a gun to an otherwise nonviolent argument, escalate the argument to violence, creating a violent situation, and then shoot and kill an unarmed man.”
Read more: https://www.lubbockonline.com/story/news/courts/2021/11/30/chad-read-shooting-death-kyle-carruth-lubbock-texas-lawsuit-jennifer-read/8810522002/
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Gender: MaleHometown: South Texas. most of my life I lived in Austin and Dallas
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