News of the World

[kyonides]

Shellyne Rodriguez smirks, sports ‘FTP’ tattoo
after being charged over machete threat

The manic Manhattan arts professor who held a machete to a Post reporter’s neck and threatened to “chop” him up flashed a brazen smile Thursday after law enforcement sources say she was slapped with harassment and menacing charges.

A smirking Shellyne Rodriguez, 45, held her head high as she was escorted out of the 43rd Precinct in the Bronx in handcuffs just after 11 a.m. — several hours after turning herself in over Tuesday’s caught-on-camera ordeal.

The professor had her slew of tattoos on full display, including “FTP” (for “F–k the police”) inked on her fingers, as well as an image of brass knuckles and the boxing term “southpaw” scrawled across her hand.

Earlier, Rodriguez had worn black sunglasses and was flanked by a handful of supporters as she walked into the precinct to surrender to cops.

Rodriguez’s arrest follows Tuesday’s shocking chain of events, which unfolded when the veteran Post reporter knocked on her apartment door to ask her about viral footage of her cursing out Hunter College pro-life students.

What a find lame here is the fact that she had to turn herself in instead of the  cops arresting her at her own home. Why aren't they doing their job? Isn't their mayor a former  cop himself?

Dollar Tree Faces Profit Decline as Theft Surges
Considers Defensive Measures

Many major store chains have blamed a massive surge in theft as a growing challenge, as left-wing prosecutors restrict law enforcement from arresting shoplifters nationwide.

During the company’s first-quarter earnings report meeting on May 25, Dollar Tree CFO Jeff Davis told investors that the retailer expects to “improve our performance on shrink through defensive merchandising efforts, real estate optimization, and perhaps higher prices to compensate for areas of systematically higher shrink” over time.

Davis also told investors that the retailer’s “mix of discretionary will normalize” over time as well.
...
Dollar Store reported a 14-cent loss from “shrink” for the first quarter, according to the Wall Street Journal.

“Shrink” is the retail industry’s code for the difference between the number of items a store has according to its records and the number it has on hand, including shoplifting and other inventory losses.

Davis expects that the “combined and continuing full-year earnings impact of unfavorable consumables mix and higher shrink is expected to be approximately $0.55 per share in 2023.”
...
CEO Richard Dreilling said they were considering “defensive merchandising,”  a retail industry term for locking up store products and requiring customers to ask an employee to retrieve them.

He also suggested other solutions like “store closures” and “government action at the local level.”

Texas Lawmakers Issue 20 Articles
of Impeachment Against AG Ken Paxton

Late on May 25, the House General Investigating Committee filed 20 articles of impeachment against the state’s top prosecutor. The accusations against Paxton, 60, include misuse of official powers, bribery, and abuse of public trust over several years.

“There is a reason CNN called Texas ‘a legal graveyard for Biden policies,’” Paxton said in a statement posted on Twitter. “I am doing exactly what the voters elected me to do. It is a sad day for Texas as we witness the corrupt political establishment unite in this illegitimate attempt to overthrow the will of the people and disenfranchise the voters of our state.”

The House of Representatives will vote on the committee’s recommendation on May 27.
...
He accused the committee members of attempting to oust him from office over false claims.

“Just yesterday, four liberal lawyers put forward a report to the House General Committee based on hearsay and gossip, parroting long-disproven claims. Today, that Committee has asked the House of Representatives to use their unsubstantiated report to overturn the results of a free and fair election,” he continued.

Paxton said that neither he nor his office had been given an opportunity to address the allegations.
...
On May 23, Paxton accused House Speaker Dade Phelan of being drunk while presiding on the House floor on May 19, calling for the fourth-term Republican lawmaker’s resignation over his conduct.

The speaker’s office said Paxton’s call for Phelan’s resignation was motivated by the House Ethics Committee’s investigation of a $3.3 million whistleblower settlement the attorney general reached with four former employees who accused him of corruption.

Phelan did not respond to Paxton’s allegations of misconduct.

Biden Administration’s Proposed Gas Stove Regulation
May Violate Law, Expert Testifies

Expert testimony before a House committee outlined flaws in the Biden administration’s gas stove tests and the potential illegality of the Department of Energy’s (DOE) upcoming rules for the appliances.
...
During the hearing, witnesses Matthew Agen, Chief Regulatory Counsel for Energy at the American Gas Association, and Kenny Stein, Vice President for Policy of the Institute for Energy Research, outlined problems with the way the Department of Energy was approaching their rulemaking process.

During his testimony (pdf) Agen argued that the DOE’s analysis projects minimal cost savings for consumers, amounting to a meager $1.51 per year for gas cooktops.

Agen also contends that the proposed rule violates the Energy Policy and Conservation Act (EPCA) by potentially making gas cooktops unavailable in the market and argues the administration exhibited a predetermined bias against gas burners compared to electric ones.

According to Agen, the procedures used by testers were inherently biased, including the use of different water quantities, skewing the results against high-input rate burners commonly found in gas cooktops.
...
Stein made similar claims (pdf), saying that “The Department of Energy’s proposed rulemaking on conservation standards for gas stoves is not a sincere attempt to improve efficiency.”

According to the Institute for Energy Research vice president, the DOE’s rulemaking is “yet another piece of this administration’s whole of government approach to targeting energy sources that it disapproves of for ideological reasons.”

According to Stein, the DOE put together a test group of 21 gas cooktops with important features. The witness asserted that the agency has suggested standards so strict that only one out of 21 gas cooktops meets it. Stein also asserted that the DOE has not tried or told the public about any other gas cooktops that meet the proposed standard and have the necessary features.

Wagner Boss Excoriates Moscow
Says Ukraine Invasion Fell Short of Objectives

The head of the Wagner Group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, has sharply rebuked leaders in Moscow on May 23 saying Russia’s 15-month-long invasion of Ukraine had failed to achieve its primary aims.

A private military company with close ties to the Kremlin, the Wagner Group has led much of the fighting in Ukraine, especially in the eastern Donbas region.

Prigozhin, known for his biting criticisms of Russia’s military establishment, made the claims in an interview with Konstantin Dolgov, a popular pro-Kremlin blogger.

After expounding his views on the factors that led to the conflict, Prigozhin reiterated the invasion’s chief aims, one of which was the “demilitarization” of Ukraine.

But according to the Wagner chief, Moscow’s “special military operation” has only served to flood Ukraine with Western-supplied arms and equipment.

Since the invasion began early last year, Ukraine’s Western allies have provided Kyiv with vast amounts of sophisticated arms and equipment.

These have included HIMARS rocket launchers, advanced combat tanks, and American-made Patriot air-defense batteries, among other high-tech weapons systems.

Durham to Testify Before House Judiciary Committee
on ‘Seriously Flawed’ Russia Probe

The hearing, scheduled for June 21, will follow Durham’s closed-door briefing with the House Intelligence Committee on June 20.

Durham was appointed in October 2020 by then-Attorney General William Barr to conduct an independent inquiry of whether the law was violated by investigators in the Trump-Russia probe, which the FBI internally dubbed “Crossfire Hurricane.”
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In his report, Durham noted that there were clear discrepancies between the FBI’s handling of election interference allegations concerning Trump and those related to his political opponent, Hillary Clinton.

He revealed that in late 2014, the FBI learned from a credible informant that a foreign government was planning to send an unnamed individual to contribute to Clinton’s anticipated presidential campaign to “gain influence with Clinton should she win the presidency.”

The information was independently corroborated by the FBI and a full counterintelligence investigation was opened. However, when expedited authorization was sought for a FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) surveillance order, the application remained “in limbo” at FBI Headquarters for about four months.

The reason for the delay, an agent told Durham, was because “everyone was ‘super more careful’ and ‘scared with the big name [Clinton]’ involved.” The agent added that the FBI was “‘tippy-toeing’ around HRC because there was a chance she would be the next President.”
...
Yet when it came to the allegations against Trump, Durham found that the FBI had little evidence to support opening an investigation, but did so anyway, relying heavily on unsubstantiated information provided or funded by Trump’s political opponents.

Durham also noted that the Crossfire Hurricane investigators pursued a FISA surveillance order against Trump campaign associate Carter Page despite acknowledging that there was likely no probable cause to suspect he was a foreign agent, and that they disregarded “significant” exculpatory information that “should have prompted investigative restraint and re-examination.”

But even though his overall report reads as a scathing indictment of the FBI’s conduct, Durham recommended against “any wholesale changes in the guidelines and policies that the Department [of Justice] and the FBI now have in place.”

New rules and regulations, he reasoned, would be a “fruitless exercise” if agents were not already committed to the bureau’s guiding principles of “Fidelity, Bravery, and Integrity” and protecting the American people.

Of course, the FBI had something to say about all of these serious failures in procedure.

The conduct in 2016 and 2017 that Special Counsel Durham examined was the reason that current FBI leadership already implemented dozens of corrective actions, which have now been in place for some time.

Had those reforms been in place in 2016, the missteps identified in the report could have been prevented.

This report reinforces the importance of ensuring the FBI continues to do its work with the rigor, objectivity, and professionalism the American people deserve and rightly expect.

What corrective actions?
They haven't announced the dismissal of anybody involved in that poor imitation of a case.