LAPD officer arrested for smuggling illegal immigrants across US-Mexico border

A Los Angeles Police Department officer was busted by the U.S. Border Patrol on Tuesday after he was caught trying to smuggle two illegal immigrants into the U.S.
Officer Mambasse Koulabalo Patara was charged Wednesday with “violating immigration laws” and could face up to five years in prison if convicted, CBS2 reported.
The officer was driving Tuesday morning when he hit a checkpoint in Pine Valley about 12 miles north of the U.S.-Mexico border. U.S. Border Patrol agents interviewed Patara and two male passengers in his vehicle. Patara showed agents his badge and said he was off duty. When he was patted down, agents discovered his “service issued gun in his waistband,” the complaint stated.
Patara told border patrol agents that the two passengers in his vehicle, Herman Lopez and his nephew German Ramirez Gonzalez, were U.S. citizens. However, the two men admitted they were in the U.S. illegally.
One of the men told agents he has known the LAPD officer for years and was employed by him to work on his home in Fontana. The men were on their way back from a casino in Alpine and were on their way to another one in Campo at the time of the checkpoint.
The three men were taken to the Campo Border Patrol Station and arrested.
The LAPD told CBS2 that Patara was placed on paid administrative leave.

NBC Lost $69 Million Bet on Megyn Kelly

NBC is losing its $69 million gamble to steal Megyn Kelly from her conservative Fox News throne and remold her as a mainstream superstar on the Peacock Network, The Wall Street Journal reports.
Since joining NBC’s flagship morning show "Today," Kelly averages just 2.4 million viewers per episode, which is 18 percent below what the hour was drawing last season, according to Nielsen media research cited by the Journal. Even worse, the ratings have further plummeted for the past two months to a low of 1.9 million.

Andrew Tyndall, a TV news analyst and consultant, told the Journal: "[NBC News Chairman] Andrew Lack made the mistake with Megyn Kelly [from the beginning] with the decision to hire her to an anachronistic celebrity contract in the mistaken belief that star quality could turn into ratings gold."

In an interview with the Journal, Kelly said erroneous portrayals of her in the media are to blame.
"I need to introduce myself to people who don’t know me or know some bastardized version of me that they’ve gotten from a website or a TV show. There are definitely some who only know me through some caricature they learned about on ‘The Daily Show,’” she said.
New York magazine has reported that Kelly's long jump from "The Kelly File" on Fox News to NBC was fueled by unhappiness over a long-running feud with Donald Trump, ex-CEO Roger Ailes' sex harassment scandal, and strained relations with boss Rupert Murdoch.

But her NBC debut with a Sunday evening "Dateline"-style newsmagazine show last year was dubbed "a disaster" by Variety.

As well, she was ridiculed for interviewing conspiracy theorist Alex Jones despite a backlash that cost the show advertisers and led to Kelly being dropped as host for an event by an organization founded by parents of children killed at the Sandy Hook Elementary School, violence which Jones labeled a hoax.

Conservative Texas versus Liberal California Cartoons

Court upholds Texas' law in another big voter ID ruling

The American flag and the Texas state fly over the Texas State Capitol in Austin, March 14, 2017.

Texas' voter ID law that was twice blocked over findings of discrimination can stay in effect for the 2018 elections, a U.S. appeals court ruled Friday.
It was the second major ruling over voting rights in the U.S. this week after an Arkansas judge on Thursday blocked that state's voter ID measure as unconstitutional.
But in a 2-1 decision by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans, the Texas law that critics have slammed as one of the toughest voter ID measures in the nation was seen as a suitable replacement for the original 2011 law that a federal judge had likened to a "poll tax" on minority voters.
The biggest change to the Texas law — which accepts handgun licenses as sufficient identification to vote, but not college student IDs — is that voters without any acceptable photo ID can still cast a ballot so long as they sign an affidavit. Opponents and a federal judge in Texas balked at the revisions, saying criminal penalties tied to lying on the affidavit could have a chilling effect on voters.

The biggest change to the Texas law ... is that voters without any acceptable photo ID can still cast a ballot so long as they sign an affidavit.

U.S. Circuit Jones Edith Jones said the lower court went too far.
"The district court relied too heavily on evidence of Texas's state-sponsored discrimination from a bygone era," Jones wrote in her majority opinion.
The revisions to Texas' law were also supported by the U.S. Justice Department — a move that amounted to a complete reversal for the federal government, which under former President Barack Obama had joined minority rights groups in suing over the law. But two months after Donald Trump took office, the Justice Department abandoned the argument that Texas passed voter ID rules with discrimination in mind and said the changes should satisfy the courts.
Opponents bristled at the ruling but didn't immediately indicate their next step.
"We continue to firmly believe that the Texas photo ID law is one of the most discriminatory and restrictive measures of its kind," said Kristen Clarke, president of the Washington-based Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, one of the groups involved in the lawsuit.
Texas first passed the voter ID law in 2011, the same year the GOP-controlled Legislature adopted voting maps that were also struck down as discriminatory. Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton said Friday's ruling "removes any burden on voters who cannot obtain a photo ID."

The law was twice shot down by U.S. District Judge Nelva Gonzales Ramos — an appointee of then-President George W. Bush — who ruled that the strict requirements disadvantaged minorities and effectively dampened the electoral power of Texas' surging Hispanic population. She also disapproved of the modified version, which makes knowingly lying on the affidavit to vote a misdemeanor.
Democrats said that provision could keep people home on Election Day over fears of incorrectly filling out a form. Republicans call those concerns unfounded but have also supported aggressive action against voter fraud, which is rare. Earlier this year, a Texas woman was sentenced to five years in prison for voting in the 2016 presidential election when she was ineligible because she was on probation.
Thirty-four states have laws requiring or requesting that voters show some form of identification at the polls, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Arkansas' newly blocked law would have required officials to provide photo identification to voters free of charge if they didn't have any other photo ID. It also would have let voters without ID to cast provisional ballots by signing affidavits.
Pulaski County Circuit Judge Alice Gray, however, ruled there was no guarantee those provisional ballots would be counted and that they would face greater scrutiny.

Was 'liars' remark directed at Haley? Palestinian ambassador won't say

The Palestinian ambassador to the United Nations on Friday would not clarify if a reference he made about two U.N. ambassadors as being liars was aimed at U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley.

Instead of answering direct questions on the accusation, Ambassador Riyad Mansour said only that Haley’s speech Thursday to the U.N. Security Council was “not credible.”
Mansour had called a news conference to discuss the deteriorating situation on the Gaza-Israel border, where thousands of Palestinians protested Friday. Hundreds reportedly tried to storm into Israel during the weekly demonstration.
During the “Great March of Return,” Israeli security forces reportedly killed three Palestinians, with some 300 injured as they tried to break through the border fence from Gaza.
Referring to Thursday’s Security Council debate on the situation in the Middle East, including the Palestine question, Mansour told reporters that while he appreciated the support his delegation received at the council, he was not so impressed with two other delegations. Without referring to the U.S. and Israel by name, he went onto say that, “We challenge the liars who advocated lies in the Security Council yesterday.”

In an undated photo, Palestinian Ambassador Riyad Mansour converses with U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley.  (Associated Press)

Haley’s speech during the Security Council on Thursday centered on the use of human shields by terrorist groups such as Hamas, Hezbollah and ISIS. She said the terrorists hide behind innocent women, children and men to further their cause.
Haley in part said that, “Anyone who truly cares about children in Gaza should insist that Hamas immediately stop using children as cannon fodder in its conflict with Israel.”

“Anyone who truly cares about children in Gaza should insist that Hamas immediately stop using children as cannon fodder in its conflict with Israel.”

Upon being asked if he was calling Haley a liar, Mansour told reporters that Haley's speech on Thursday, “created a very strong resentment among the entire Palestinian nation.”
Pushed again for a yes-or-no answer by another journalist, Mansour said only that Haley’s speech was “not credible.”
He said, “With regard to Ambassador Haley, the fact that she goes on the tangent that she did, without saying a single word about who is creating this hardship, and the tragedy for the Palestinian people including children -- and not to site a single case of Palestinian children and their suffering at the hands of the Israeli occupying authority -- would make her whole story not credible, in addition to being extremely insensitive.”
The U.S. Mission to the U.N. did not respond to a Fox News request for comment, but a senior GOP congressional staffer said that, “The entire U.S. federal government, including even the Supreme Court, has been reviewing how much money we should be giving the Palestinians, because they spend it on terrorism, and how much money the Palestinians owe our citizens, again because of their terrorism. Now is probably not the best time for their officials to double-down on insulting our incredibly popular, incredibly influential U.N. ambassador, which is something they've been doing for months.”
In a February interview with a Palestinian news site, Saeb Erekat, a senior Palestinian official, reportedly told Haley to “shut up,” in response to her criticism of Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Palestinian Authority.
A few days later Haley shot back during a Security Council meeting with Abbas in attendance.
Haley said, “I will decline the advice I was recently given by your top negotiator, Saeb Erekat. I will not shut up. Rather, I will respectfully speak some hard truths.”

“I will decline the advice I was recently given by your top negotiator, Saeb Erekat. I will not shut up. Rather, I will respectfully speak some hard truths.”
- Nikki Haley, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations

The Palestinian envoy to the world body did, however, admit to calling his Israeli counterpart, Ambassador Danny Danon, a liar for his remarks at Thursday’s Security Council meeting.
In response to his Palestinian counterpart, Danon told Fox News in a statement that, “I will continue to proudly stand up for truth against attempts by the Palestinian representative to slander Israel at the U.N. as he advocates for the terrorists of Hamas, who cower behind women and children and use them as human shields.”

Ex-adviser to Clinton not confrontational in 2nd video, police say

Caren Z. Turner, a former financial adviser to Hillary Clinton, appeared in a viral video in which she confronted police officers in New Jersey.  (Port Authority of New York and New Jersey)

The former adviser to Hillary Clinton whose roadside rant in New Jersey went viral in a video this week has surfaced in a second video -- but this time Caren Z. Turner "was not confrontational or rude in any way," police said.
The latest video shows Turner arriving at Tenafly, N.J., police headquarters to inquire about the status of the impounded car that was the catalyst for the confrontation seen in the previous video.
In stark contrast to her appearance in police dashcam footage recorded March 31 along Route 9W in Tenafly, Turner in the second video -- also recorded March 31, but later in the day -- was not disrespectful to officers, NJ.com reported, citing police officials.
The first video ignited a firestorm that resulted in Turner, 60, having to resign as a commissioner of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which oversees bridges, tunnels and airports in the New York City area. She quickly apologized for her behavior, but was later censured by the authority, which she had also served as head of its ethics panel.
The new footage, released by police, shows Turner entering police headquarters, talking to someone at the front desk and waving to an officer.
According to Tenafly police Chief Robert Chamberlain, Turner had come to inquire about the legal requirements involving in retrieving the impounded vehicle.
"She was not confrontational or rude in any way," Chamberlain said. "She didn't drop any names, nor did she use her title to identify herself when she came into the department. She was at the department for approximately one hour."

"She was not confrontational or rude in any way. She didn't drop any names, nor did she use her title to identify herself when she came into the department. She was at the department for approximately one hour."

A routine traffic stop involving Turner’s daughter and three friends had prompted the former commissioner to intervene.
As seen on the dashcam footage, Turner pulls rank, insists the officers call her “commissioner” rather than miss, and tells the officers to “shut the f--- up.”
The Port Authority Board formerly censured Turner on Thursday, citing several ethics rules violations relating to the March 31 incident.
Turner issued an apology for her actions, but seemed to imply that the officers were partially at fault for what ensued.
“I let my emotions get the better of me and regret my tone toward the police officers and use of off-color language,” she said in a statement.
She added: “(A)t no point did I violate the Port Authority’s Code of Ethics or ask for special treatment for anyone involved, nor did I suggest, in any way, that I would use my position at the Port Authority to affect the outcome of the violations issued to the driver.”
Turner has served as a financial adviser to Clinton and other Democrats, including U.S. Sen. Kirtsen Gillibrand of New York and former New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine.

Dems fear GOP wins in California because of state's primary system, Hoyer says: report

House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer, D-Md., thinks Democrats can pick up more than 50 seats in the upcoming midterm elections.  (Reuters)

California's "jungle" primary system has Democrats worried that Republicans could win some of the Golden State's congressional seats in midterm elections, a top House Democrat said Friday.
House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer, D-Md., speaking to USA Today, said Democrats have a shot at winning in more than 50 congressional districts nationwide -- enough to take control of the House from the GOP.
Democrats need to win 24 seats to flip the House, according to the New York Times, while maintaining the 194 seats they currently hold.
But California’s primary system, in which the top two vote-getters face off in the general election, regardless of party, has Democratic leaders concerned, Hoyer said.
Because of the state's system, if multiple Democrats run in a primary, the party's votes could be so split up that two Republicans could finish first and second and face off in the general election, the Los Angeles Times reported.
“It’s a concern about having a Democrat in the final two,” Hoyer told USA Today. “We are focused on that and trying to make sure that we have at least one, maybe two, that really we think are viable. In some areas, we have like five or six Democrats and two or three Republicans and that makes it challenging.”
Democratic leaders are speaking candidates about the problematic election style, according to the paper.
Hoyer is still fending off backlash from a secret recording released Thursday by the Intercept, in which a voice identified as Hoyer is heard pressuring progressive candidate Levi Tillemann, a 36-year-old entrepreneur running in Colorado’s 6th Congressional District in Denver, to drop out of the race in favor of party-backed Jason Crow.
Hoyer addressed the controversy, telling the paper the focus is on having a Democrat in tough districts that are capable of winning.
“What is really important from our perspective is making sure that we have a Democrat that can win in districts that are tough,” he said. “We pretty much key off what the locals think is the strongest position we can be in.”
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi came to her colleague’s defense, telling reporters during her weekly news conference that “in terms of candidates and campaigns, I don’t see anything inappropriate in what Mr. Hoyer was engaged in — a conversation about the realities of life in the race as to who can make the general election.”
Hoyer and other Democrats have suggested that liberals' disdain for President Donald Trump could give the party the boost it needs in the midterms, but a report from the Brennan Center for Justice suggests otherwise.
The report suggests Democrats would have to win the national popular vote for congressional districts by a nearly 11 percentage point margin over Republicans in gerrymandered districts in key states that favor the GOP – something that hasn’t been done in more than 40 years.
“It would be the equivalent of a tsunami,” said Michael Li, a senior counsel who heads up redistricting work for the center, which is based at New York University's School of Law.
“Democrats would have to win larger than any sort of recent midterm wave — almost double what they got in 2006 — in order to win a narrow majority.”

Comey FBI Man Cartoons

Comey denies release of memo contents was a 'leak,' addresses Dem-funded dossier in Fox News interview

Former FBI Director James Comey on decision-making process in the Hillary Clinton email investigation, origins of the anti-Trump dossier, memos of conversations with President Trump and new book 'A Higher Loyalty.'
Former FBI Director James Comey, in a wide-ranging interview with Fox News on Thursday, defended sharing his memos about conversations with President Trump with multiple people, while denying it was a “leak.”
“That memo was unclassified then,” Comey told anchor Bret Baier during an appearance on “Special Report.” “It's still unclassified. It's in my book. The FBI cleared that book before it could be published.”
Comey acknowledged giving the memos to at least three people including his friend, Columbia University law professor Daniel Richman. He said he sent Richman a copy of the two-page unclassified memo and “asked him to get the substance of it out to the media.”
“The reason I'm smiling, Bret,” Comey said. “I don't consider what I shared Mr. Richman a leak.”
In addition to Richman, Comey said he gave the memos to other members of his “legal team,” including David Kelly and former U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald.
“I gave the memos to my legal team after I gave them to Dan Richman -- after I asked him to get it out to the media,” he said.
COMEY MEMOS SHARED MORE BROADLY THAN PREVIOUSLY THOUGHT
He also claimed the memos were personal, not official.
“I didn't consider it part of an FBI file... It was my personal aide-memoire,” Comey said.
The former FBI director said he kept two copies of the memos, one in his personal safe at home and another one at the FBI.
“I always thought of it as mine, like a diary,” he said.
Comey confirmed that the Justice Department's inspector general has interviewed him about his handling of the memos.
“And I expect a report on them,” Comey said. “Not on the handling of classified information because that's frivolous, but on, ‘Did I comply with policy? Did I comply with my employment agreement?’”
Earlier Thursday, Trump accused Comey of being a “liar and a leaker” who is “guilty of crimes.”
“He leaked classified information to get a special counsel and leaked the memos which are classified – the memos were about me and he didn’t write those memos accurately. He wrote a lot of phony stuff,” Trump said Thursday on “Fox & Friends.”
Comey responded by calling it a “false statement” and saying Trump is “just wrong.”
“Facts really do matter, which is why I'm on the show to answer your questions,” he said.
Comey also denied knowing who was behind the leak about the infamous anti-Trump dossier that was later revealed to have been used to obtain a surveillance warrant for former Trump campaign aide Carter Page. Comey also claimed he never knew exactly who funded the dossier.
Asked when he learned that the DNC and Hillary Clinton campaign funded Steele's work, Comey said: “I still don't know that for a fact.”
He went on to say, “I have only seen it in the media. I never knew exactly which Democrats had funded.”
Asked about FBI employees Peter Strzok and Lisa Page – whose anti-Trump text messages have been seized upon by Republicans -- Comey said he would have “removed both of them from any contact with significant investigations” had he been aware of the texts.
“It was such poor judgment,” he said.
Pressed on whether Strzok and Page's work should be questioned, Comey acknowledged, “It’s a reasonable question to ask.”
“And I can tell you this. When I saw the text, I was deeply disappointed in them,” he said. “But I never saw any bias, any reflection of any kind of animus towards anybody.”
Comey is doing television interviews to promote his new book, “A Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies, and Leadership,” in which he blasted the president for everything from his integrity to his height, skin and hair.
TRUMP SAYS COMEY ‘GUILTY OF CRIMES’
During his earlier interview on Fox News on Thursday, Trump specifically slammed the memos that Comey leaked to Richman to spur a special counsel appointment.
Fox News reported this week that during Comey's time at the FBI, Richman was a “special government employee” on an unpaid basis. Sources familiar with Richman’s FBI work said Comey assigned him to “special projects.”
On Thursday, Comey was asked why he didn't reveal hiring Richman as a special government employee for the FBI. Comey responded, “It wasn't relevant.”

Cosby's downfall traced to Hannibal Buress' 2014 jokes about him

Comedian Hannibal Buress, seen at an event in Pasadena, Calif., in 2014, is credited with broadening awareness of the allegations that Bill Cosby faced.  (Reuters)

Bill Cosby's conviction on sexual assault charges drew a range of reactions on social media Thursday -- including acknowledgement of another comedian whose 2014 jokes about Cosby have been credited with raising awareness of the allegations Cosby faced.
Thousands of people on Twitter and other sites lauded comedian Hannibal Buress, who called Cosby a rapist during a stand-up set at a Philadelphia comedy club that was recorded and which went viral at the time.
"Took a dude to make some jokes" to bring down Cosby, one Twitter user wrote Thursday. "This is what happens when you don’t believe women."
“Hannibal Buress changed history,” New York Post columnist John Podhoretz tweeted.
In the 2014 routine, Buress mocks Cosby's public scolding of the black community for bad behavior, alleging that Cosby has some shortcomings of his own.
“‘Pull your pants up, black people. I was on TV in the ’80s. I can talk down to you because I had a successful sitcom,’ " Buress says, impersonating Cosby.
"'Yeah, but you raped women, Bill Cosby,'" Buress replies in his own voice. "So, brings you down a couple notches. I don’t curse on stage. But yeah, you’re a rapist.”

"Yeah, but you raped women, Bill Cosby. So, brings you down a couple notches. I don’t curse on stage. But yeah, you’re a rapist."

Buress then encourages audience members to research Cosby's legal history online.
“When you leave here, Google 'Bill Cosby rape,'" he says. "That [expletive] has more results than Hannibal Buress.”
Cellphone video of the performance, first featured on Philadelphia magazine's website, went viral.
At the time, Buress got hate mail from many Cosby fans as well as praise from others calling him a “feminist hero,” the Washington Post reported.
“I got a lot of flak for that. I had people writing me awful things: ‘Bill Cosby’s not a rapist, Hannibal, you are.’ What?! That’s not how that works!” Buress said in his 2016 Netflix special, according to the Post.

“I got a lot of flak for that. I had people writing me awful things: ‘Bill Cosby’s not a rapist, Hannibal, you are.’ What?! That’s not how that works!”
- Hannibal Buress, in a 2016 Netflix special

But soon after Buress’ viral jokes, the allegations against Cosby became common knowledge, and his accusers were galvanized.
More than 60 women have spoken out against Cosby, including 35 accusers who told their story to a “culture that wouldn’t listen,” the Cut magazine reported.
Before then, Cosby's accusers were met with skepticism, threats and attacks on their character, the magazine reported.
COSBY GUILTY: JURY RULES COMEDIAN SEXUALLY ASSAULTED ANDREA CONSTAND
In 2005, former basketball star Andrea Constand alleged that Cosby drugged and sexually assaulted her. But it was not until Thursday, 13 years later, that Cosby was convicted -- although the former sitcom star's lawyer said he plans to file an appeal.
Constand's was the only criminal case to arise from more than 60 women who made allegations against Cosby.
Barbara Bowman had also been telling her story for nearly 10 years, the Post reported.
“Why wasn’t I believed? Why didn’t I get the same reaction of shock and revulsion when I originally reported it?” she wrote in the Post after the Buress joke. “Why was I, a victim of sexual assault, further wronged by victim-blaming when I came forward? The women victimized by Bill Cosby have been talking about his crimes for more than a decade. Why didn’t our stories go viral?”
Cosby, who had repeatedly denied the allegations, could now face up to 10 years in prison for each of the three counts of aggravated indecent assault.