Random News and Notes 21 January
In a development that will shock absolutely no-one, the Minneapolis family that got teargassed by ICE and claimed they were just innocents going home lied. The family said they were going home from a basketball event their older son attended when their vehicle was targeted by ICE. Their infant son was hospitalized due to exposure to chemical irritants.
Turns out, they were part of the riot that occurred that night. In newly released images, Shawn and Destiny Jackson can be seen amid protesters 45 minutes earlier, away from any vehicle with no kids in sight.
The footage and images have fueled accusations of leaving children unattended and exaggerating for fundraising. The lying liars family and authorities have not responded. Their GoFundMe has raised over $171,000.
There are a couple of Karen videos making the rounds this morning. The first shows an interaction between a clearly unhinged woman and a cop in the forecourt of a gas station. I can find little other context so make of it what you will . . .
The second video shows a woman trying to interfere with a videographer of some sort. In this one, Karen is upset that the guy is filming outside of some pot dispensary and decides she can get handsy. She learns differently.
In both videos we see the effects of a lifetime of not being held to account for their actions. Police Karen likely caught charges she couldn’t bully her way out of. Camera Karen felt the burn, but I doubt that one learned the right lesson from the encounter.
The Trains in Spain crash Mainly on the Plain🎶
I’m making a My Fair Lady joke, but there have been two serious train crashes in Spain in the last few days. The first, on the 18th, was a collision between two high speed trains, more than 40 people were killed and 150+ injured. The second happened yesterday.
The train driver in the second crash was killed.
So much for the vaunted Euro rail system. . .
The US has siezed another tanker. This time it was the M/T Sagitta. The vessel is part of Russia’s “shadow fleet.” The ship is linked to a Hong Kong-registered owner sanctioned by the U.S. and is listed as sailing under the Panamanian flag
This is the 7th tanker arrested for sanctions evasion since the start of Operation Southern Spear.
It is no secret that this Editor is a huge baseball fan, so this next piece shouldn’t be a surprise. The public ballots for Baseball Hall of Fame voting have been released. There are going to be 2 inductees this year. Carlos Beltran and Andruw Jones both passed the 75% threshold to make it in to the Hall.
Do they belong in the Hall? I am not a member of the Baseball Writers’ Association of America so I don’t get a vote. That said, I’m not sure.
Jones was – by any metric – the best defensive center fielder of all time, and that should get him in the Hall. Except, he was credibly accused of beating his wife. And that should have kept him out.
Carlos Beltran has the stats to make it in. He was 9-time All-Star, 3 time golden glove, had eight seasons of 100 runs batted in and seven seasons of 100 runs scored. Except, he was the ringleader of the sign stealing scandal that embroiled the Houston Astros in 2017. MLB fined the Astros $5 million and stripped them of draft picks. GM Jeff Luhnow and manager A.J. Hinch were suspended and fired, though no players faced official punishment due to immunity for testimony. And that should have kept him out.