Indiana mom gets probation after claiming ‘religious freedom’ to beat children with coat hanger

An Indiana mother who claimed “religious freedom” to beat her son dozens of times with a coat hanger has been sentenced to probation after pleading guilty to battery.

Kin Park Thaing, a refugee from Burma, cited the state’s new religious freedom law as a defense after she was charged with felony battery and neglect of a dependent, reported the Washington Post.

Police launched an investigation after a teacher noticed dozens of deep-purple bruises on the 7-year-old boy’s body in March, but Thaing asked for the charges to be dismissed in July under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, or RFRA.

Prosecutors said that was the first time the act, which was signed into law by Gov. Mike Pence, had been used as a defense for child abuse.

Thaing argued that she was acting out her Christian beliefs in punishing her child with the weapon, and she cited Proverbs 23:13-14 to claim a biblical directive to beat her children as punishment.

She told investigators that she had beat both her son and daughter with the coat hanger and then asked them to pray afterward for forgiveness.

A Marion County judge denied her request to dismiss the case, but she later pleaded guilty to a lesser charge.

Thaing was sentenced Friday to eight months of probation in the case, and she has taken parenting classes to learn more appropriate methods of discipline.

TALLAHASSEE — Across the nation, governors who aren't even on the ballot are using their political muscle to drag fellow Republicans to victory in a year in which Donald Trump has created uncertainty at the top of the ticket.

In Maryland, first-term Gov. Larry Hogan is hitting the trail for key congressional races. In Wisconsin and Ohio, Scott Walker and John Kasich have done bus tours and are frequently with Republican senators battling for re-election.

But in Florida, where U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio and other Republicans are fighting for their political lives, Gov. Rick Scott is missing from the campaign trail.

When asked by the Times/Herald if he had any campaign stops planned, Scott replied: "There's none on the calendar."

Two years ago, Rubio and other congressional candidates joined Scott on a campaign bus tour when he battled Democrat Charlie Crist for re-election.

This year, however, not even Trump has been able to lure Scott onto the trail. Trump has made 19 campaign stops in Florida since the end of July. Scott didn't attend any of them.

Trump held a rally in Collier County on Sunday when Scott, who lives in nearby Naples, was in town. And then on Tuesday in Tallahassee, Scott was 8 miles from a nearby Trump rally. Scott said he had no time to meet with him before either stop. Scott said on Tuesday he had a dinner party with almost 50 people at the Governor's Mansion and could not leave them for Trump.

Scott said he still supports Trump. And he is running a political fundraising committee, Rebuilding America Now, that has raised more than $19 million to support him. Because super PACs like Scott's are prohibited from directly coordinating with campaigns, Scott's absence from Trump's rallies — while not legally required — helps avoid perceptions that they are working on campaign strategy together.

Outside of the PAC donations, Scott has not personally written any checks to Trump's campaign like he did in past presidential races. In 2008 and 2012, Scott donated more than $122,000 to John McCain, Mitt Romney and political committees that supported their campaigns.

"My first job is to represent the 20.6 million people who live in the state," said Scott, adding he's busy working on combating Zika and on hurricane recovery efforts.

"That's my primary focus right now," Scott said. "If there is the opportunity, I will do what I can to help people."

http://www.tampabay.com/news/politics/stateroundup/have-you-seen-this-man-on-campaign-trail-rick-scott-goes-missing/2300282

Source: Tampa Bay Times

TALLAHASSEE — A federal judge is demanding an explanation from state officials at a hearing today about a backlog in the number of newly registered voters who haven't been verified in time so they can vote in Florida's election.

U.S. District Judge Mark Walker has been tracking the number of unverified applicants, which on Thursday was nearly 25,000 out of 125,000 who registered during a weeklong extension the judge granted after Hurricane Matthew this month.

"It appears that the amount of voters being processed each day has slowed dramatically," Walker wrote in an order late Thursday. "As of now, almost 25,000 voters may or may not have their vote counted in the 2016 general election."

The judge ordered Gov. Rick Scott's top elections official, Secretary of State Ken Detzner, to have his elections division director, Maria Matthews, available to face questions.



Read more: http://www.tampabay.com/news/politics/elections/by-the-numbers-breaking-down-the-early-voting-and-mail-ballots-across/2300191

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The GOP cannot govern

October 27, 2016 by Ed Brayton

You may recall that back in February, an incredibly stupid attorney from Alabama filed a federal lawsuit against the five Supreme Court justices who were in the majority in the Obergefell decision. I said at the time that it would be quickly dismissed and so it has.

A federal judge on Wednesday dismissed a lawsuit filed by a Bessemer attorney against the five U.S. Supreme Court justices who made up the majority opinion legalizing gay marriage nationwide.

U.S. District Court Judge Madeline Haikala tossed out the lawsuit based on judicial immunity. The U.S. 11th Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled in a previous case that federal judges have judicial immunity for lawsuits regarding decisions they make and that she is bound by that precedent, she said.

The hearing lasted less than 30 minutes.

I’m shocked. 30 minutes seems a long time; I thought a few picoseconds was more likely. Said dumbass attorney is, of course, going to appeal:

Austin Burdick, the man who filed the lawsuit in February, said after the hearing that he plans to appeal to the 11th Circuit…

One of the issues for him, Burdick said, is that there is no accountability put in place for federal judges.

Yeah, that was quite intentional on the part of the framers of the Constitution. They gave them lifetime tenure and eliminated any need to run for election precisely so that they would not be accountable to the passions of the people, who might object to their rulings. They are beholden to the Constitution, not to the people. And that’s how it should be. The appeals court will take no longer to dismiss it than the district court did.

The owner of America's oldest brewery has come out in support of Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, and the company's faithful drinkers aren't too happy about it.

Eric Trump, the nominee's son, stopped at D. G. Yuengling & Son's in Pottsville on Monday while campaigning on behalf of his father.

His message to the company? Hard-working family businesses like Yuengling, a fixture in Schuylkill County since the 1800s, would thrive under a President Trump, the Reading Eagle reported Tuesday.

Yuengling's response?

"Our guys are behind your father," 73-year-old owner Richard "Dick" Yuengling Jr. said, according to the newspaper. "We need him in there."

Some fans of the beer were quick to retaliate Wednesday, declaring they plan to stop drinking Yuengling altogether.

http://www.phillyvoice.com/beer-drinkers-disavow-yuengling-after-owner-shows-support-for-trump/

pree•im•peech' (verb)

To level formal allegations of corruption or wrongdoing--punishable by removal from office or other penalty--against a public official prior to that public official assuming the office, just in case she's a bitch.
Ex. "Y'know, Trump has fucked us so badly, that to reunite this party we're gonna need more than just to pre-impeach pre-President Clinton."

"You're right. Hey, you know what I just realized? We totally forgot to impeach Obama."

"Aw, shit. And now it's too la--Hey...post-impeachment!"

"Sweet."


http://www.thefingnews.com/

Over Failed Anti-Choice Crusade

Alaska joins a growing list of states where taxpayers are footing costly legal bills over failed anti-choice restrictions pushed by Republican legislators.

Alaska taxpayers are on the hook for $995,000 in legal fees for a lawsuit that found the state’s Republican-supported parental notification measure unconstitutional.

The Alaska Supreme Court in July struck down the measure, which was enacted through a 2010 ballot initiative. Its sponsors included state Sen. Mia Costello (R-Anchorage) and Kim Hummer-Minnery, whose husband, as the Associated Press reported, heads the anti-choice group Alaska Family Council, an offshoot of Focus on the Family.

The measure required those younger than 18 to notify a parent or guardian 48 hours before receiving abortion care.

Planned Parenthood of the Great Northwest and the Hawaiian Islands and two doctors had sued to block to law, and the Supreme Court held in July that the measure violates minors’ right to equal protection under the Alaska Constitution.

See what other states owe: https://rewire.news/article/2016/10/25/alaska-owes-nearly-1-million-in-legal-fees-over-failed-anti-choice-crusade/

A federal appeals court ruled Monday in favor of a last-minute appeal filed by lawyers on behalf of the condemned Pacific bearded seal, who has been sentenced to die in the greenhouse gas chamber.

Indigenous Alaskans who hunt the seal had sued--along with big-oil companies and their wholly owned subsidiary, the state of Alaska--to overturn environmental protections for the seal. At issue was whether an animal could be declared endangered by climate change just because climate change hasn't killed it yet.

Big oil argued that the seal shouldn't be declared endangered just because scientists fucking know the poor bearded bastard's gonna die.

However, the court found that scientific fact is more than enough basis for declaring a species endangered. An earlier case established the precedent that government can act to save an entire species--in that case, Homo christianum--even when the threat--in that case, bogus WMDs--was prima facie horseshit. That case, Exxon, Cheney, et al, v. Oil-Rich Muslim Nations, is expected to be tied up in the courts until the final judgment.


Get an f'ing new slant on the news to your inbox daily: http://us9.campaign-archive2.com/home/?u=bc6cfeeede3f05b8504f947c9&id=1bb201e0be

MUST SEE!

http://freakoutnation.com/2016/10/martin-omalley-leaves-fox-hosts-sputtering-as-he-destroys-donald-trump-video/

This week, North Carolina found out it is not getting 730 new jobs and a quarter-billion-dollar impact that it was the top contender for. The reason? Its anti-LGBT law, HB2, which bans trans people from using the bathroom and bars municipalities from protecting LGBT people from discrimination.

CoStar Group Inc., a real estate analytics company, had been shopping around cities to build a new research operations headquarters, and the contenders were Charlotte, Richmond, Atlanta, and Kansas City. The Atlanta Business Chronicle heard from sources that Charlotte was the favorite. But the jobs are going to Richmond.

According to David Dorsch, CoStar Group’s commercial real estate broker, “The primary reason they chose Richmond over Charlotte was HB2.” CoStar Group was itself, a bit mum, simply confirming the jobs were going to Richmond — and no expansions were planned anywhere else. But Dorsch was adamant that the jobs were another casualty of the discriminatory law. “The best thing we can do as citizens in North Carolina is to show up on Nov. 8 and think about which party is costing us jobs and which one is not.”

https://thinkprogress.org/north-carolina-hb2-costar-backlash-4c80461b815#.k0n0q4knx