Category: Who knows

You probably remember when we were first introduced to Charles Clymer last year when he accused David Clarke of “Stolen Valor” for his sheriff’s uniform. We went ahead and got Clymer’s military records just to verify his claims – he was an Army Specialist in the Old Guard and he went on to the US Military Academy as a cadet, but he was somehow injured and didn’t continue.

Well, I read an article about a transgender woman (that means he was born a man) by the name of Charlotte Clymer who had trouble in a DC restaurant when he tried to use the ladies’ room.

Sometime close to midnight Friday, Clymer made her way with a friend through Cuba Libre’s crowded hallways to use the women’s restroom. Before she could enter, however, Clymer said a male attendant stopped her – and her only – to request her ID.

“When I asked why, he said that ‘female’ must be on an ID to use the women’s restroom,” Clymer wrote. “I told him that’s nonsense, turned on my heel, and continued into the restroom.”

Clymer, a transgender woman who works as an activist and spokeswoman with the Human Rights Campaign, which advocates for LGBTQ equality, knew she was in the right. Nevertheless, the male attendant followed after her into the women’s restroom.

“I go into a stall to do my business, and I hear him walk in and search for me in this busy restroom full of women,” Clymer wrote. “He is doing everything but opening the stall doors.”

Even after she had finished, Clymer said the male attendant was waiting for her outside the restroom. This time, he had Cuba Libre’s manager with him, who also insisted there was a D.C. law that backed up the attendant’s belief. The manager demanded to see Clymer’s ID, even after she repeatedly told him there was no such law.

Clymer refused to show her ID. An uncomfortable standoff ensued. The hallways were crammed, and people were beginning to notice them, she said.

“A part of me was already going into gaslight territory,” Clymer told The Washington Post in an interview Sunday morning. “I knew what I was talking about. I work on [these issues] all the time. But the more insistent he was, the more doubt crept into my mind.”

Well, I wondered if Charlotte was the person who we knew as Charles last year, and sure enough.

Charlotte Clymer claims to work for the Human Rights Campaign – it’s a misnamed organization – they are exclusively dedicated to LGBQT rights.

So, yeah, the Army dodged a bullet when Clymer was injured at West Point – they certainly didn’t need another activist officer.

Residents of Adams, Massachusetts were outraged that vandals were tearing up flags placed on veteran headstones of the Bellevue Cemetery according to the UK’s Daily Mail.

Adams resident Mark Paquette told News10 he was watering flowers at Bellevue Cemetery last week when he saw broken flag poles on the ground.
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At the bottom of a hill, he saw that flags were missing from all the veterans’ graves, with the poles either left in their holders or broken and discarded on the ground.

‘Who would do something like this? And what would they be doing with the flags?’ Paquette said.

‘I was concerned that it was vandalism.’

The vandalism turned out to be the result of the local groundhog population.

Then, on Tuesday, a woman finally saw it occur with her own eyes at Bellevue.

‘They saw the woodchuck jump up on a flag and pull it right out of the holder,’ Mark said.

The Paquettes say that they’re thankful it wasn’t a cruel act of vandalism.

‘I’m glad to see that the veterans are respected the way they are,’ Mark said.

I’m sure that the local constabulary will issue a statement soon that there is no connection between the vandals and radical terrorists.

According to Fox News, the US Supreme Court sided with a Colorado baker in a 7-2 decision today. The baker had refused to bake a cake for a same-sex couple’s wedding because of the baker’s strongly-held religious beliefs;

In a 7-2 decision, the justices set aside a Colorado court ruling against the baker — while stopping short of deciding the broader issue of whether a business can refuse to serve gay and lesbian people.

At issue was a July 2012 encounter between the couple and baker Jack Phillips.

At the time, Charlie Craig and David Mullins of Denver visited Masterpiece Cakeshop to buy a custom-made wedding cake. Phillips refused his services when told it was for a same-sex couple. A state civil rights commission sanctioned Phillips after a formal complaint from the gay couple.

NPR calls the 7-2 decision “narrow”. I’m calling it “nearly unanimous”. Ruth Bader Ginsberg and Sonia Sotomayor dissented.

In a case brought by a Colorado baker, the court ruled by a 7-2 vote that he did not get a fair hearing on his complaint because the Colorado Civil Rights Commission demonstrated a hostility to religion in its treatment of his case.

Writing for the case, Justice Anthony Kennedy said that while it is unexceptional that Colorado law “can protect gay persons in acquiring products and services on the same terms and conditions that are offered to other members of the public, the law must be applied in a manner that is neutral toward religion.”

He said that while in this case the Colorado baker, Jack Phillips, understandably had difficulty in knowing where to draw the line, because the state law at the time affording store keepers some latitude to decline to create specific messages they considered offensive.

Of course, there were bakeries who would have sold a cake to the couple, but their intentions were to shove acceptance of their lifestyle down the throats of people like Jack Phillips.

Reunited. pic.twitter.com/Lb43PfEVXQ

— Senator Hatch Office (@senorrinhatch) May 26, 2018

According to CNN, Josh & Thamy Holt were released from imprisonment in Venezuela after two years. The Trump Administration says that they did not give up anything to the Madura government in exchange for their release;

Holt traveled to Venezuela in June 2016 to marry Venezuelan Thamara Caleño, according to news reports. He was arrested shortly afterward and accused by the Venezuelan government of stockpiling weapons and attempting to destabilize the government, according to The Washington Post. Holt was held for nearly two years without standing trial.

Holt and his wife were freed overnight and released to the US Embassy in Caracas, according to Foro Penal, a human rights organization of lawyers and others who assist political prisoners in Venezuela. The couple was joined by Sen. Bob Corker of Tennessee as they flew back to the US on Saturday afternoon.

42 years of Senate service, this image will forever be a highlight. ??

Wouldn’t have happened without talented diplomats at State, voices like @RepMiaLove, @SenBobCorker and his team, local media who never let anyone forget..

and the incredible faith of the Holts.#utpol pic.twitter.com/cqp4JVdz5H

— Senator Hatch Office (@senorrinhatch) May 27, 2018

Holt, a Utah native, arrived at the White House with his wife, Thamy, who had also been imprisoned, shortly after flying back from Venezuela. After the flight landed, Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah, who said earlier in the day that his office helped secure Holt’s release, posted a video to Twitter showing Holt reuniting with his family.

In his remarks from the White House, Trump thanked Hatch along with Tennessee Sen. Bob Corker, Utah Sen. Mike Lee and Rep. Mia Love of Utah. The President also took the opportunity to highlight the release of other Americans held prisoner abroad, including the recent release of three Americans who had been detained by North Korea.
“You were a tough one, I have to tell you, that was a tough situation,” the President said to Holt, adding that he is “very proud” of the administration’s overall track record.

Green Thumb sends us a link to the story of Michael Rotondo in Camillus, New York whose parents thought that it was time for the thirty-year-old to start a new life on his own and not in their house;

In filings to the court last week, parents Christina and Mark Rotondo said they’ve been trying to get their son to leave their home for several months.

The filing includes five written notices that the couple said it has left for Michael, starting with this note on Feb. 2:

2 February 2018

Michael,

After a discussion with your Mother, we have decided you must leave this house immediately. You have 14 days to vacate. You will not be allowed to return. We will take whatever actions are necessary to enforce this decision.

Mark and Christina Rotondo

It took a judge to get it through Michael’s thick skull that his parents want him out.

Rotondo was frustrated with the judge and said in court Tuesday that he didn’t think the judge fully read the case.

He said it sounded like the judge said he needed to leave the home immediately, but Rotondo told reporters after the court appearance that “that’s just ridiculous.”

“It seems to me like I should be provided with, you know, 30 days or so, because generally you get 30 days after you’re found, you know, to have to vacate the premesis,” Rotundo said. “So I’m expecting something like that. But realistically, if that’s not the case, I don’t know.”

Of course, Rotondo plans to appeal the judge’s decision.

The New York Times reports that Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the 9/11 attack planner asked a judge to allow him to testify at Gina Haspel’s confirmation hearing in regards to her participation in water boarding activities;

Mr. Mohammed, the principal architect of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, was captured in March 2003 and tortured by the C.I.A. This week, he asked a military judge at Guantánamo Bay for permission to share six paragraphs of information about Ms. Haspel with the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Ms. Haspel ran a black-site prison in Thailand where another high-level detainee was tortured in late 2002. But it is not known whether she was involved, directly or indirectly, in Mr. Mohammed’s torture. Mr. Mohammed was held in secret C.I.A. prisons in Afghanistan and Poland.

In the weeks after his capture, an Intelligence Committee report said, Mr. Mohammed was subjected to the suffocation technique called waterboarding 183 times over 15 sessions, stripped naked, doused with water, slapped, slammed into a wall, given rectal rehydrations without medical need, shackled into painful stress positions and sleep-deprived for about a week by being forced to stand with his hands chained above his head.

I’m only surprised that Democrats didn’t provide him with first-class airfare to Washington.

Ms. Haspel ran a black-site prison in Thailand in late 2002 while a detainee being held there, Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, who is accused of orchestrating Al Qaeda’s attack on the American destroyer Cole off the coast of Yemen in 2000, was subjected to torture techniques including waterboarding. She was also involved in destroying videotapes of interrogation sessions in 2005.

I don’t consider waterboarding to be torture – I’ve watched stank-ass hippies waterboard each other in front of the White House. I doubt that they would do that if it was all that terrible. The worst part for them is having clean water touch their nasty skin.