Boston police arrested two Iowa men and confiscated a rifle, shotgun and hundreds of rounds of ammunition after they learned through social media the two had allegedly threatened attendees at this weekend's Pokemon World Championships at the Hynes Convention Center.
Eighteen-year-old Kevin Norton and 27-year-old James Stumbo were arrested Friday on charges of unlawful possession of a firearm, unlawful possession of ammunition, and other firearm related charges, Boston police said. They are expected to be arraigned at Boston Municipal Court tomorrow, cops said.
Boston police personnel with its Boston Regional Intelligence Center, or BRIC, received information from security at the Hynes Convention Center Thursday of threats on social media. Stumbo and Norton were stopped trying to enter the event on Thursday, police said. They had driven from Iowa. They were released while investigators waited for approval of a search warrant on the vehicle they were in, officials said.
On Friday, upon execution of the warrant, detectives recovered one 12-gauge Remington shotgun, one DPM5 Model AR-15 rifle, several hundred rounds of ammunition, and a hunting knife. An arrest warrant was issued for the two suspects who were nabbed at the Saugus Hotel with the help of Saugus police.
BRIC Commander Superintendent Paul Fitzgerald said, "The relationship between police and private sector security is important in both our community policing philosophy, as well as our counter-terrorism strategy. This incident is a good example of private security reaching out to their local Boston police district and relaying information to detectives and BRIC analysts in order to identify the very real threat. The BPD detectives did a great job in the stop and prevention of a potential tragedy."
According to the tournament website, the Pokemon Championships is a invitation-only even that began Friday and runs through today. The website says it's giving away $2 million in scholarships and thousands of dollars worth of prizes.
Americans have got to drop their weird verbal tic of inserting “illegal” into any discussion of immigration.
After I pointed out on “Fox News” that the dispute between Sen. Rand Paul and Gov. Chris Christie over spying on “Americans” was entirely a problem of immigration, “Fox Insiders” put these two sentences together:
“[Coulter] explained that halting illegal immigration would help solve other key issues such as the economy and national security. ‘Don’t make terrorists citizens through immigration, and we’ll have a lot less of a national security problem,’ Coulter said, pointing to the attacks at the Boston Marathon and in Chattanooga.” (Emphasis added.)
Were those guys illegals? Did Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev swim across the Rio Grande to get to Boston? Did Mohammad Youssef Abdulazeez hire coyotes to sneak him across the border so he could shoot four Marines and a sailor in Chattanooga?
No. Our government invited them in.
Some of our other beloved legal immigrants include:
— Anwar al-Awlaki, the man whose death in Afghanistan provoked Rand Paul to stage a 13-hour filibuster in opposition to the use of drones against — I quote — “American citizens”;
— the Fort Hood shooter, Nidal Malik Hasan;
— the attempted Times Square bomber, Faisal Shahzad;
— all those Somali immigrants living in Minnesota, bloc-voting for Al Franken before flying to Syria to fight with ISIS;
— Sirhan Sirhan;
— the 9/11 hijackers;
— the Pakistani terrorist Daood Sayed Gilani, American anchor baby, responsible for four days of bombings in Mumbai in 2008;
— the New York subway bomb plotter, Najibullah Zazi;
— Pakistani terrorist Aafia Siddiqui, who shot a U.S. Army captain in 2010;
— the “local man” arrested this week for trying to organize an army of ISIS fighters in New York and New Jersey, Nader Saadeh — anchor baby “American citizen.”
ALL LEGAL IMMIGRANTS AND THEIR CHILDREN! Why were any of them in this country? What are we getting out of this?
It’s not just the Fox website. Wherever I go on this book tour, I find people injecting “illegal” into the discussion, as if they’re being polite, like saying “Jewish” instead of “Jew.” But all these “homegrown,” “American” terrorists aren’t Americans, at all — except as a result of recent government policy.
This week, Sens. Jeff Sessions and Ted Cruz have sent a letter to the Obama administration asking how many “non-citizens, naturalized U.S. citizens and natural-born U.S. citizens have been involved in terrorist-related activity since 1993.” National Review’s headline? “Cruz, Sessions: How Many ‘Homegrown’ Terrorists Were Illegal Immigrants?” (The headline was later changed, after complaints.)
It’s a national neurosis! People simply refuse to see what’s right in front of their faces.
Admittedly, the media hide the evidence, but did anyone read this 2010 New York Times headline, “2 New Jersey Men in Terrorism Case Go Before a Judge,” and think, Oh my gosh! What is America coming to?
The “New Jersey men” were Mohamed Mahmood Alessa and Carlos Eduardo Almonte. Alessa, born to legal immigrants from Jordan and the Palestinian territories, told his Boy Scout troop, “Osama bin Laden is a hero in my family” and expressed a desire to mutilate homosexuals and subordinate women. (He was the first member of his troop to earn a merit badge in female circumcision.)
Alessa’s co-conspirator, Almonte, is a legal immigrant from the Dominican Republic. (Raising suspicions, he doesn’t play baseball.) He could be heard on a wiretap saying that he wanted U.S. troops to come home “in caskets.”
He also attended an anti-Israel rally with a large sign reading “DEATH TO ALL JUICE” — which he posted to his Facebook page, a social media platform created by a juice. (Naturalization officials must have high-fived one another when they got that guy.)
CNN was so relieved to have a “homegrown” terrorist who wasn’t a Muslim, the network abandoned its own rule book and identified Almonte as the child of “Latino immigrants” — amid fulsome descriptions of him as “an all-American kid” and an “all-American altar boy.”
So the good news is: Not all “American” terrorists are Muslim immigrants. Some are Latino immigrants — who typically become radicalized after coming into contact with one of our prized Muslim immigrants.
In addition to “DEATH TO ALL JUICE” Almonte, there was Bryant Neal Vinas, whose parents were legal immigrants from Argentina and Peru. Vinas fought with al-Qaida in Afghanistan and, in 2008, plotted to bomb New York’s Penn Station.
At least he’s not one of those icky illegal immigrants!
I have a word limit, so I’ve limited today’s discussion of legal immigrants to the terrorists. But I note that the big news this week is about an illegal immigrant, Victor Aureliano Martinez Ramirez, who raped, then murdered 64-year old Marilyn Pharis with a hammer at her home in Santa Maria, California. Has anyone noticed that Martinez Ramirez’s co-conspirator in the rape-torture-murder was legal immigrant Jose Fernando Villagomez?
It’s getting to the point where we’re going to need cattle prods and shock collars to break people of the neurotic compulsion to slip “ILLEGAL” in front of the word “immigrant.” The reality of legal immigration cannot make a dent in the elite’s make-believe world, where legal immigrants are only hot Swedish models, Rupert Murdoch and Sergey Brin.
Instead of Christie and Paul sparring over government policy on search warrants in a post-9/11 world, could we reconsider the government policy of admitting legal immigrants who need to be spied on?
A surge in serious crimes by illegal immigrants—many repeat offenders—who have been shielded by sanctuary laws isn’t stopping legislators in Massachusetts from quietly pushing for a measure that would protect undocumented aliens statewide.
The move could not have come at a worse time, as the nation reels from a series of atrocious crimes committed by illegal aliens who long ago should have been deported. Instead, they were protected by sanctuary laws despite their criminal histories and illegal status in the U.S. A recent example is the gruesome July 4 San Francisco murder of a young woman by an illegal immigrant thug with seven felony convictions. The Mexican national had been deported five times.
Like a number of municipalities across the nation, San Francisco’s sanctuary law protects illegal aliens and bans any sort of cooperation with federal authorities, even when the perpetrator is guilty of a serious offense. In fact, in the recent San Francisco case Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) had issued a detainer for the illegal alien, 45-year-old Francisco Sanchez, but local authorities did not honor it and instead released him. San Francisco’s mayor defended the policy after the senseless murder, saying that it “protects residents regardless of immigration status and is not intended to protect repeat, serious and violent felons.”
More than 200 cities, counties, and states across the U.S. protect criminal aliens from deportation by refusing to comply with ICE detainers or otherwise impede information exchanges between their employees, according to the Center for Immigration Studies. Among them is Cook County in Illinois, Miami-Dade County in south Florida and practically the entire state of California. In Massachusetts only a couple of cities—Amherst and Boston—have sanctuary measures in place and some state lawmakers want to broaden the protection.
The legislature is looking to pass a measure that will offer sanctuary protections to illegal aliens statewide. If approved, all public agencies in Massachusetts will be banned from divulging information on illegal immigrants to federal authorities and state employees will be forbidden from denying any taxpayer-funded assistance, benefits or participation in public programs to those in the country illegally. “This shall include, but not be limited, to education or training, employment, health, welfare, rehabilitation, housing or other services, whether provided directly by the recipient of funds of the commonwealth or provided by others through contracts or other arrangements with the recipient,” according to language in the proposed law.
The measure also offers illegal immigrants assistance in gaining legal status in the U.S., possibly citizenship. “It shall be the policy of the commonwealth to support and encourage any and all residents in their attempts to obtain lawful immigration status and, if they choose, citizenship. Nothing in this section shall prohibit an agency or employee of the commonwealth or recipient of commonwealth funds from requesting the voluntary provision of information or documentation regarding immigration status to the extent necessary to assist an individual in resolving his or her immigration question when such assistance is part of a program’s activities and is consistent with this subsection.”
The bill was introduced by state Representative Byron Rushing, a Boston Democrat who claims his priorities are human and civil rights. The civil rights activist/politician should read this disturbing investigative series in his hometown newspaper about illegal immigrant sex offenders who have been released instead of deported. They include convicted rapists, child molesters and kidnappers. One law enforcement agency calls them “the worst of the worst.” Just a few weeks ago, another local news report revealed that two illegal immigrants charged with drug-related crimes are suspected of murdering a grandmother in Lawrence, which is about 29 miles from Boston.
Beacon Hill lawmakers are quietly pushing legislation that could offer sanctuary protections to illegal immigrants across the state, the Herald has learned.
The new legislation, filed by state Rep. Byron Rushing (D-Boston), would ban public agencies from giving or sharing information on illegals with federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement unless forced to do so by a court or a federal order.
The bill also would ensure illegal immigrants have access to state benefits — such as welfare and driver’s licenses — and it would prohibit Bay State employees from denying “assistance, benefit, payment, service or participation in any program or activity” on the basis of immigration status, except as required by federal law.
State Rep. Shaunna O’Connell (R-Taunton) immediately decried the bill, saying, “This will make Massachusetts a sanctuary state that harbors illegal aliens and makes available to them every benefit under the sun.”
“I think this would be devastating to Massachusetts in many ways,” O’Connell said.
The sanctuary aspects of the bill mirror rules in San Francisco, where the July 4 random shooting death of Kathryn Steinle — allegedly at the hands of an illegal immigrant deported five times — brought the city’s lax practices into question.
Several Republican presidential candidates now back “Kate’s Law,” named after the slain 32-year-old San Francisco woman, which would hand out five-year prison sentences to any deportee who returns.
The legislation is before the Committee on Children and Families, where O’Connell is a member. The panel was scheduled to hear the legislation last week, but the controversial bill was pushed back to September as sanctuary city policies sparked national headlines.
“This is a bill that just popped up,” O’Connell said. “Nobody knew about it.”
But Rushing responded to the outcry over his bill, saying it doesn’t ask anyone to break federal laws and that he simply wants to encourage immigrants to move to the Bay State.
“It prohibits barring people on the basis of immigration status,” said Rushing, adding that hot-under-the-collar politicians should “calm down.”
“We want to make sure all people of Massachusetts are here legally, and we do that by helping them become legal citizens,” he said.
Rushing admitted that there is nothing in his legislation to ensure that illegal immigrants are on a path to citizenship before they receive state services, but said he’d be open to adding that language.
The Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition, a pro-immigrant group, has highlighted Rushing’s bill on their website as “priority legislation.”
They write that it “would provide clear guidance that inquiries into immigration status by state agencies and recipients of state funds are not permissible unless required by law.”
Word of the bill came on the day Republican Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal appeared on Boston Herald Radio saying top officials in sanctuary cities should be held “criminally liable as accessories” for any crimes committed by illegals.
Somerville Mayor Joseph A. Curtatone quickly challenged the GOP presidential candidate to “come and get me.” Curtatone, the mayor of a sanctuary city, said Jindal’s plan is an attempt to push him “beyond the 1 percent right now” in presidential polls.
What better place for “Dr.” Beverly Scott’s next soft landing than the National Transportation Safety Board?
The NTSB has as its mission, among other duties, the investigation of train wrecks, and who better to probe train wrecks than a train wreck like Bev Scott?
Another nationwide search, and if you dare question her qualifications, then you are immediately labeled a … well, you know.
The doctor (Ph.D. from Howard, B.A. from Fisk) once scoffed at the MBTA infrastructure as “no spring chicken,” which is an apt description of herself at age 65. But now her dear friend Barack, like her dear friend Deval before him, is taking care of Dr. Scott with a $155,000 a year sinecure for five years.
So she wedges her snout into yet another new trough and starts working on a federal pension, on top of God only knows how many others she’s already grabbing.
Eat your heart out, Olga Roche and Sherri Killins and Andrea Cabral and Ron Bell and Carl Stanley McGee and all the rest of Deval’s greedy coatholders. Bev’s died and gone to hack heaven. Not bad for an MBTA boss who, in retrospect, makes her predecessor Richard Davey look like Steve Jobs.
What would Bev call this kind of score?
“Makin’ a way outta no way,” she said last winter, when the MBTA was absolutely paralyzed by snow and the banana-republic work ethic of Deval’s appointees.
Gore Vidal once said, No talent is not enough. But for Bev, it has been. And still is, apparently.
Like her mentors Barack Obama and Deval Patrick, Beverly Scott is never held accountable for her failures, or anything else for that matter. She never pays the price. Think of her as a professional fare-jumper, with one, and only one, qualification. She’s the right demographic.
But sooner or later, usually sooner, the incompetence catches up to Bev. The optics outweigh the demographics, and it’s time to move on, just like she did from Atlanta to Boston.
We knew she was lugging a lot of baggage with her when she arrived from Atlanta. What we didn’t realize at the time was that the bags were full of her dirty laundry, which she was planning to have cleaned at the five-star hotels she junketed to every couple of weeks, charging everything to the taxpayers of Massachusetts.
“Flyin’ like an eagle” — those are some more of Bev Scott’s words, and they aptly sum up her lackluster career.
This is a woman who doubled the number of T employees — as opposed to workers — making over $100,000 a year. Just last year, she added 213 Friends of Deval to the T payroll. She bemoaned the lack of funds to deal with blizzards, after signing off on a state capital expenditures budget of $6.2 billion that included $2.83 million for “snow-fighting equipment.”
That’s one-twentieth of one percent, for those of you keeping score at home.
But by God, she is ready for her new slot on the federal mammary.
“I’ve been through hurricanes,” she said last February, “I’ve been through World Trade Center bombings, tornadoes coming, 30 inches, 36 inches and all so this ain’t this woman’s first rodeo.”
Let’s just hope it’s her last, but I’m not optimistic. Old hacks never die, they don’t even fade away. They just go somewhere else and screw up all over again.
Former MBTA General Manager Beverly Scott speaks with a well-wisher during her going away party, Wednesday, April 08, 2015. Staff photo by Angela Rowlings.
The embattled former head of the MBTA, ousted after the transit system suffered a complete collapse last winter, is up for a plum federal transportation job.
President Obama announced Tuesday that he is nominating former MBTA chief Beverly Scott as a member on the National Transportation Safety Board. Board members are nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate for five-year terms, according to agency.
Board members, who pull in annual salaries of about $155,000, attend NTSB board meetings, review and approve agency reports, safety studies and safety recommendations.
Scott left the T on April 11, but announced her resignation Feb. 11 under mounting public criticism as a string of snowstorms paralyzed the transit system.
Herald reports have revealed that Scott traveled across the country at taxpayer expense nearly every month during her two-plus-year tenure — sometimes several times a month — to conferences and meetings. She spent a total of 106 days traveling out of state during her tenure, taking 30 trips in 24 months, racking up $56,753 in expenses on lodging, airplane tickets and dining tabs, including at least $1,132 on hotel laundry and dry-cleaning bills.
Scott also went on a hiring and spending spree at the cash-strapped agency over the past year, nearly doubling the number of staffers with six-figure salaries. The 1,952 MBTA employees paid at least $100,000 represented a steep spike from 985 six-figure earners in 2013 and 711 in 2012.
Boston Mayor Martin J. Walsh said if Los Angeles ends up getting the 2024 Summer Olympic Games bid originally slated for Boston it means “somebody didn’t tell me the truth.”
In an interview today on Boston Herald Radio, Walsh said he is interested to see whether the United States Olympic Committee heads west after ending its pitch to put the games in the Hub.
“I was given a commitment that L.A. was not in the mix, I was given that commitment several times by the chairman of the USOC,” Walsh said. “I’m interested to see what happens.”
Walsh referenced a Boston Herald report on Sunday that quoted Anita L. DeFrantz, a member of both the USOC and the International Olympic Committee, as saying L.A. is “perpetually ready” to host the Olympics.
“It can host with only two years’ notice,” DeFrantz said, adding that much of the infrastructure needed for the Olympics is already in place for the two-time host city. Los Angeles is also the host for this year’s Special Olympics, which are happening this week.
But Walsh said that news comes as a surprise to him.
“I was specifically told that L.A. is not going to be part of this,” he said.
Evan Falchuk, who opposed the Boston bid and was spearheading a ballot question to bar use of taxpayer funds, told Herald Radio the mayor should have expected some deception from the USOC.
“Marty Walsh had so many misrepresentations either made to him, or that he did not question throughout the process that it’s interesting he would be frustrated that they were suddenly not telling the truth about some other city,” he said. “They were telling us lies about our city and our state for months and we needed political leaders to stand up and say no, but we didn’t with very few exceptions.”
The mayor also expressed frustration at a report in which a USOC board member questioned whether he was fully behind the bid.
“If they are questioning my commitment, then they haven’t been following the Olympic bid,” he said, “because I think I was one of the biggest cheerleaders for the Olympics from day one.”
(CNSNews.com) – President Obama on Thursday pledged to use his last 18 months in office to work on gun control, calling it “the one area where I feel that I’ve been most frustrated and most stymied.”
“If you ask me where has been the one area where I feel that I’ve been most frustrated and most stymied, it is the fact that the United States of America is the one advanced nation on earth in which we do not have sufficient, common-sense gun safety laws – even in the face of repeated mass killings,” he told the BBC in an interview.
“And if you look at the number of Americans killed since 9/11 by terrorism, it’s less than 100. If you look at the number that have been killed by gun violence, it’s in the tens of thousands," Obama continued.
“For us not to be able to resolve that issue has been something that is distressing, but it is not something that I intend to stop working on in the remaining 18 months.”
In the U.S., at least 34 Americans have been killed in terror attacks since 9/11. Those attacks include the 2009 killing of 13 people at Fort Hood, Texas, the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing, and the Chattanooga, Tennessee shootings last week which cost the lives of four U.S. Marines and a sailor.
Abroad, another 363 U.S. citizens have been killed in terror attacks since 9/11, according to data accumulated from State Department country reports on terrorism – or in years where data is incomplete, from the department’s Bureau of Consular Affairs’ record of citizens killed due to “terrorist action.”
The annual breakdown of terrorist fatalities abroad is 24 in 2014, 16 in 2013, 10 in 2012, 17 in 2011, 15 in 2010, 9 in 2009, 33 in 2008, 19 in 2007, 28 in 2006, 56 in 2005, 74 in 2004, 35 in 2003 and 27 in 2002.
BOSTON (AP) — Tens of thousands of people have been removed from the state's Medicaid program during the first phase of an eligibility review, according to figures from Gov. Charlie Baker's administration obtained by The Associated Press.
The eligibility checks, required annually under federal law but not performed in Massachusetts since 2013, began earlier this year as part of Baker's plan to squeeze $761 million in savings from MassHealth, the government-run health insurance program for about 1.7 million poor and disabled residents.
At $15.3 billion, MassHealth is the state's single largest budget expense.
Based on the results of the redetermination process so far, the state was on track to achieve the savings it had hoped for in the current fiscal year without cutting benefits for eligible recipients, said Secretary of Health and Human Services Marylou Sudders.
The first phase of the process involved letters sent to 503,286 Medicaid recipients over the first six months of the calendar year notifying them of the need to reapply for benefits, according to numbers provided to the AP by the Executive Office of Health and Human Services.
Final figures were not expected until Aug. 1, but of the nearly 293,000 applications processed through late June, 78 percent remained eligible for Medicaid based on income. Of those deemed ineligible, the majority will have access to subsidized private insurance through the state's health connector, though about 5 percent, according to Sudders, would not qualify for subsidized coverage.
The results of the eligibility redeterminations to date, Sudders said, were in line with the typical rate of change in the Medicaid population and she did not believe it had deprived deserving residents of coverage.
BOSTON (Reuters) - A Massachusetts town selectman who painted over fading crosswalks in his town in response to complaints from constituents was criminally charged on Tuesday for his efforts.
George Simolaris, a selectman in Billerica, about 25 miles from Boston, said he was tired of constituents asking when the white paint would be freshened up, so he fixed the problem himself. He said he bought cans of green paint, the town's official color, and spent the weekend painting over six faded crosswalks.
"All I've heard for months is: 'When is this going to get done?'" Simolaris said. "I got sick of it."
Police and town officials said painting the street without authorization was illegal and charged him with two counts of destruction of property, according to Billerica police spokesman Roy Frost.
Town Manager John Curran said the town was in the midst of a $400,000 pedestrian safety project that requires digging up the street including some of the crosswalks in question, which are slated to be repainted once construction is complete.
He added that Simolaris would be required to repay the $4,000 cost of cleaning up the paint, which he said chipped and smeared.
"His job is to uphold laws not break them," Curran said. "He has no respect for the governmental process."
Simolaris defended his actions.
"I'm just trying to do right by the people in my town," he said. "I didn't think I was intervening in other people's day-to-day activities or doing anything wrong."
When Fox News starts to question the wisdom of current FBI strategy dealing with potential terrorists, it's time for the country to listen. Civil rights advocates, right-wing anti-government zealots and assorted leftists have long complained about FBI tactics when it comes to political dissidents. The arrest of Alexander Ciccolo on July 4 seems to have awakened Fox. Can the rest of the nation be far behind?
Ciccolo, the 23-year-old son of a longtime Boston police captain, was one of the dozen or so "terrorists" arrested in the weeks leading up to July 4. FBI Director James Comey proudly announced their arrests at the bureau's headquarters a few days later. He claimed that the action of his bureau had prevented several Independence Day attacks and had saved lives.
What Comey didn't say was that some, if not all, of this could have been prevented had his agency followed an entirely different approach to cracking down on potential terror suspects.
That, of course, is not the policy of the FBI. Instead of neutralizing would-be or suspected bombers or shooters, Comey's agents spend millions of dollars and waste countless hours carefully weaving a case that has sent dozens of misguided young Americans to long prison sentences for plotting to kill Americans or aiding designated enemies.
The Ciccolo case is typical in many respects, although it differs from the others in one significant way. Last fall the young man's police officer father informed the FBI that his mentally ill son was increasingly captivated by ISIS propaganda. Instead of picking him up for a serious talk about where that would eventually lead him, the FBI began to monitor his activities. An informant recorded Ciccolo's pro-ISIS comments for the agency. When Ciccolo bought a gun, he was arrested for violating a law that prohibits someone convicted of a drug arrest from owning one.
After his arrest, the FBI reported that Ciccolo intended to build a pressure cooker bomb and explode it at an unnamed university. The bureau is very good at developing a long list of crimes, often involving conspiracy since no actual violence occurred, and Ciccolo will probably face a much longer list of charges than that simple gun possession on which he was arrested.
One doesn't have to be a flaming liberal to realize that something is wrong with the FBI's current strategy of building an airtight case against people like Ciccolo. On July 15 Fox News commentator Neil Cavuto interviewed former CIA intelligence officer Joshua Katz regarding the Ciccolo case. Katz sounded almost like a leftist except that he politely criticized the bureau for not following another course of action against these homegrown dissenters. He suggested that the bureau could have intervened earlier so that it wouldn't have to make an arrest.
So why doesn't the bureau, and others, adopt a policy of early intervention? Why, in the Riverside case last fall, did the FBI pay a convicted drug dealer about $250,000 to infiltrate a ragtag gang of four young men? That wasted countless hours of their agents' time at a cost approaching $1 million, when they could have just as effectively ended their plan to join ISIS by intervening early on.
Arrests, trials and convictions are more exciting, newsworthy, and justification for promotions and bigger budgets than quietly warning potential terrorists that their conduct could lead to long prison terms. But that warning would have been a lot cheaper for the government and would have saved many young people, like Ciccolo, from the ruin they now face.
Ralph E. Shaffer is professor emeritus of history at Cal Poly Pomona.
BOSTON – Massachusetts six years ago renamed its former Department of Mental Retardation and should now take the next step and wipe the words "handicapped persons" from the state's laws, according to a state representative from Somerville.
"It's an offensive and antiquated word," Rep. Denise Provost told the Committee on Children, Families and Persons with Disabilities on Tuesday.
Striking the word handicapped from the books is just as important as renaming the former DMR as the Department of Developmental Services (DDS), according to Provost, whose bill (H 121) runs for 21 pages and repeatedly inserts "persons with disabilities" to replace "handicapped."
In 2010, a year after the department's name was changed, Gov. Deval Patrick signed into law a follow-up bill replacing the words "mental retardation" with "intellectual disabilities or disability" in the Massachusetts General Laws.
The Provost bill also addresses what she called other "antiquated aspects" of the state's laws, ensuring that state laws are "no less protective" than the federal Americans with Disabilities Act, including in the areas of employment and Architectural Access Board standards. "Our laws are now out of sync with federal law," she said.
Boston’s liberal mayor Martin Walsh told the Boston Herald on Monday that he would do everything he could to block a Trump hotel or real estate project in Boston because of Republican Donald Trump’s remarks regarding illegal immigrants during his presidential campaign announcement last month.
“I didn’t criticize him; I just don’t agree with him at all,” Walsh said to the Herald. “I think his comments are inappropriate. And if he wanted to build a hotel here, he’d have to make some apologies to people in this country.”
Yet this morning Walsh tweeted “we are committed to retaining our talent and by working together to create a thriving innovative #Boston” in regards to an event coming to Boston.
Trump has received widespread condemnation from many on the left and some on the right for his remarks.
“They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us [sic]. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people,” Trump said in his campaign kickoff speech.
Trump has remained firm in his immigration views, asking for an apology from the media because of the escape of drug lord ‘El Chapo’ from a Mexico Prison over the weekend. Trump believes that the escape validates his remarks.
BOSTON (AP) — Prosecutors have arrested the son of a Boston police captain in a plot to commit terrorist acts on behalf of the Islamic State group.
Alexander Ciccolo (chih-KOH’-loh) is accused in a criminal complaint unsealed Monday of receiving four guns July 4 from a person cooperating with the Western Massachusetts Joint Terrorism Task Force.
An FBI affidavit says the 23-year-old Adams resident had talked with the cooperating witness in recorded conversations about his plans to commit acts inspired by the Islamic State group, including setting off pressure-cooker bombs at an unidentified university. According to the affidavit, he said the attack would include executions of students broadcast live online.
Before his arrest, agents had observed Ciccolo buying a pressure cooker similar to those used in the 2013 Boston Marathon bombings.
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