Brickbats: March 2025
Thomas Smith, a former U.S. Capitol Police officer, was sentenced to 21 months in prison after pleading guilty to deprivation of rights under color of law. In June 2020, while patrolling the homes of members of Congress, Smith pursued two motorcycles at a high speed without running his lights. Prosecutors said Smith swerved his patrol car into one of the motorcycles, knocking the driver into the air and onto the asphalt. He then left the injured driver unconscious on the ground, did not file an incident report, and falsified police records to cover up his actions.
Former Santa Cruz County, Arizona, Treasurer Elizabeth Gutfahr stole more than $38 million in county funds between 2012 and 2024. She used the money to buy at least 20 cars, renovate ranches she owns, and pay other personal expenses for herself and her family. After pleading guilty to embezzlement and other charges, she faces up to 35 years in prison and must pay over $13 million in restitution and federal taxes.
Kristian White, a former Australian police officer, faces up to 25 years in prison after a jury found him guilty of manslaughter. Clare Nowland, a 95-year-old woman with dementia, lived in a New South Wales nursing home, where staff called police because she had a knife. Officers tried for about three minutes to get her to drop the knife before White, saying "bugger it," used his Taser on her. Nowland fell and struck her head, dying days later from an inoperable brain bleed.
Andrew Talbot, a former officer with the Greater Manchester Police, stole 4 kilograms (8.8 pounds) of cocaine from the evidence room, valued at 400,000 pounds ($494,440), then used the police database to find drug dealers who could sell it. He was discovered when he accidentally dropped a bag of cocaine outside his daughter's school. A Liverpool court convicted and sentenced him to 19 years in prison.
Nigel Carter collected 500 bicycles to send to Sudan, for people who need access to cheap transportation. The Scottish Environment Protection Agency blocked the shipment after an inspector deemed the bikes unfit for use because some needed repairs. Carter said the bikes had only minor damage and that the Sudanese charity was aware of their condition.
Tennessee prosecutors charged former McNairy County Sheriff's Deputy Connor Brackin with seven counts of aggravated animal cruelty and eight counts of reckless endangerment. While reportedly responding to an animal welfare call, Brackin went to a couple's home while they were at dinner and shot and killed seven of their eight dogs. According to the affidavit, Brackin fired his service weapon into campers where some of the dogs were being contained.
In England, Lincolnshire Police Superintendent Fran Harrod said officers won't arrest drivers who don't pay for gasoline because they might not be "having a great day." She advised gas station owners to instead pursue civil action against the thieves, which would get them their money back "within a matter of weeks." Harrod was responding to a gas station owner who said she had 50 drive-off thefts in six months.
When Tennessee students on Brandy Smith's school bus were being too loud, she reportedly slammed the brakes, causing some to hit their heads. At least three students were taken to the hospital and diagnosed with minor concussions. A grand jury indicted her for reckless driving, four counts of child abuse, and nine counts of reckless endangerment.
The post Brickbats: March 2025 appeared first on Reason.com.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
34 minutes ago
Panama's president appeals to a higher power as nearly 2 months of protests roil nation
PANAMA CITY -- Panama's José Raúl Mulino appealed to a higher power on Friday, calling in an archbishop and a rabbi to deliver a message to striking banana workers after nearly two months of social protest that have roiled the country. Mulino has said he won't reverse controversial changes to Panama's social security system, courts have deemed the strike illegal and top banana Chiquita Brands fired nearly 5,000 striking workers last month in Panama's western Bocas del Toro province. But nothing has stopped the protests. So at his weekly news briefing Friday, Mulino said he had met with Archbishop José Domingo Ulloa and one of Panama's leading Jewish figures, Rabbi Gustavo Kraselnik, to enlist them as intermediaries. He gave Ulloa a personal letter to bring to Francisco Smith, leader of the striking banana workers' union. In the letter, Mulino said, he committed to send proposed legislation to the Congress that would be favorable for the country's banana sector, above all its workers. But he conditioned the proposal on former workers lifting their protest. There was precedent for the maneuver. In 2022, Ulloa brokered a dialogue that eased protests over the high cost of fuel and food. In 2018, Ulloa mediated a dispute between parts of the government. Smith, secretary general of the Banana Industry Workers Union, had said earlier Friday before Mulino's announcement that he was open to dialogue. Union leaders planned to travel to the capital Monday to meet with the president of the National Assembly and present a list of demands. He insisted, however, that changes be made to the social security reform. Smith, who has led the protest in western Bocas del Toro province, has said the social security reform passed in March threatens the special privileges laid out for banana workers in another law, covering things like subsidies and labor protections. The impact has been acute. Chiquita Brands said last month they had lost at least $75 million before announcing a temporary halt to their operations in Panama. Demonstrations have not been limited to the banana workers, to Bocas del Toro or even to the social security changes. At various times teachers, construction workers and students have protested as well. Authorities have said they'll withhold the pay of 15,000 treachers for their strike. On Thursday, border police clashed with protesters who had blocked a highway in eastern Darien province, leaving injured on both sides. In addition to the social security changes, demonstrators have protested a security agreement giving U.S. troops access to some Panamanian facilities and efforts to reopen a massive copper mine.
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Original Sin: how Team Biden wished away his decline until it was too late
Joe Biden mistook his victory in 2020 for a sweeping, FDR-like mandate. Officially, that was before age and decay caught up. Horrifically, for Democrats, in June 2024 a debacle of a debate against Donald Trump confirmed what Washington insiders had only dared whisper but what most voters had known: Biden should not have sought re-election. Less than a month later, he was out, replaced as Democratic nominee by his vice-president, Kamala Harris. Now, Trump runs wild and Biden's legacy is buried beneath a heap of unkind reporting – and bouquets of sympathy, after news of his cancer. 'It was an abomination,' one prominent Democratic strategist is quoted as saying by Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson. 'He stole an election from the Democratic party; he stole it from the American people.' Tapper and Thompson concur. Over 350 engrossing pages, they deliver a stinging judgment, trenchantly written and well-sourced. The two reporters spoke to about 200 people, including members of Congress, White House staffers and campaign insiders. Some reportedly sounded the alarm about Biden's mental acuity and desperate efforts by aides to hide his deterioration. The alarm was not heeded. Tapper is CNN's lead DC anchor and chief Washington correspondent. Thompson is a national political correspondent for Axios and a CNN contributor. His speech at the recent White House Correspondents' Association dinner was one for the ages. 'President Biden's decline and its cover-up by the people around him is a reminder that every White House, regardless of party, is capable of deception,' Thompson said. 'We, myself included, missed a lot of this story. And some people trust us less because of it. We bear some responsibility for faith in the media being at such lows.' Original Sin begins with a bang. Its first chapter is titled 'He Fucked Us', from an on-record quote by David Plouffe, senior adviser to the Harris campaign, before that manager of Barack Obama's 2008 winning effort. 'We got so screwed by Biden as a party,' Plouffe says. Harris was a 'great soldier', but the race was 'a fucking nightmare. … 'And it's all Biden … He totally fucked us.' Try putting that toothpaste back in the tube. On the other hand, Plouffe doesn't reveal what Harris knew about Biden's fitness and when she knew it. Biden loyalists return the favor, too, the authors write: 'Many … felt that Harris didn't put in the work and was also just not a very nice person. Some quietly expressed buyer's remorse: They should have picked [Gretchen] Whitmer,' the Democratic governor of Michigan. Tapper and Thompson report cold political facts. In 2020, identity politics played an outsize role in Biden's VP pick. 'It boils down to whether he has a Hispanic woman or a Black woman,' Harry Reid, the former Senate Democratic leader, said then. Tapper and Thompson lay bare a sense of betrayal. 'The presidency requires someone who can perform at 2am during an emergency,' they write. 'Cabinet secretaries in [Biden's] own administration told us that by 2024, he could not be relied upon for this.' Yet, Biden and his minions made sure to clear the field. The representative Dean Phillips of Minnesota, Biden's only challenger among elected officials, never had a prayer. Governors stayed on the sidelines. Tapper and Thompson tell us one senior White House aide left because he or she didn't think Biden should run again. Biden had been walled off from staff to shield his decline. 'I love Joe Biden,' the unnamed aide continues. 'When it comes to decency, there are few in politics like him. Still, it was a disservice to the country and to the party for his family and advisers to allow him to run again.' That ranks as an understatement. The cover of Original Sin shows Biden with hands covering his eyes. The former president, his family and his closest advisers – known as the 'politburo' here – dwelt in a world of alternative facts. 'The Bidens' greatest strength is living in their own reality,' a source tells Tapper and Thompson. 'And Biden himself is gifted at creating it: Beau isn't going to die. Hunter's sobriety is stable … Joe always tells the truth. Joe cares more about his family than his own ambition … They stick to the narrative and repeat it.' To quote Lewis Carroll: 'I have said it thrice: What I tell you three times is true.' Biden's decline was not sudden, according to Tapper and Thompson. The signs were there years ago: 'During an eight-day, grueling bus tour in Iowa in December 2019, Biden gave his aides pause. While doing prep, he struggled to remember the name of longtime aide Mike Donilon. 'You know, you know,' he said, groping for it.' Donilon had worked with Biden for nearly 40 years. It should have been time to start worrying. Cover-up and denial are foundational to the Biden saga. This week brought Biden's bad diagnosis. 'He did not develop [metastatic prostate cancer] in the last 100, 200 days,' Zeke Emanuel, a doctor, told MSNBC on Monday. 'He had it while he was president. He probably had it at the start of his presidency, in 2021 … I don't think there's any disagreement about that.' Emanuel's brother, Rahm, was Biden's ambassador to Japan, and before that chief of staff to Obama. Democrats must address such self-inflicted wounds. Disapproval of Trump may be all they need to retake the House next year. But reckoning and redirection will be needed to recapture the White House. The party's brand circles the drain. For now, Trump is the exception that proves the rule: America is no country for old presidents. Original Sin is published in the US by Penguin Random House
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Biden dismisses Trump inquiry into his cognitive decline as a ‘distraction'
Joe Biden accused Donald Trump of 'distraction' after he launched an investigation into the former Democratic president's time in office, claiming Biden's top aides had covered up his cognitive decline and taken decisions on his behalf. Biden said in a statement widely emailed to US media that the move announced late on Wednesday came at a time when Trump was pushing a major piece of legislation that critics had said included massive tax cuts and huge slashes to social spending. 'This is nothing more than a distraction by Donald Trump and congressional Republicans who are working to push disastrous legislation that would cut essential programs like Medicaid and raise costs on American families, all to pay for tax breaks for the ultra-wealthy and big corporations,' Biden said. Biden added: 'Let me be clear: I made the decisions during my presidency. I made the decisions about the pardons, executive orders, legislation and proclamations. Any suggestion that I didn't is ridiculous and false.' Trump has repeatedly attacked Biden over his actions in the latter years of his presidency, even going so far as to promote a conspiracy theory that Biden was executed in 2020 and replaced by a robot clone. However, there has been a broader focus on Biden's mental acuity and physical health, especially after a book co-authored by the CNN anchor Jake Tapper was published containing a detailed account of Biden's physical and mental decline as his presidency wore on – something the book said worsened as the 2024 election loomed. In that campaign, Biden was forced to drop out after a disastrous debate performance heightened concerns over his abilities and age. He was eventually replaced by his vice-president, Kamala Harris, who lost the November 2024 election to Trump. In his announcement of an investigation, Trump directed the counsel to the president, in consultation with the attorney general, Pam Bondi, and other officials, to investigate 'whether certain individuals conspired to deceive the public about Biden's mental state and unconstitutionally exercise the authorities and responsibilities of the president'. The investigation will center on Biden's use of the autopen to sign legislation. An autopen is a mechanical device that is used to replicate a person's authentic signature, and has been used by US presidents to sign executive actions for decades. Trump called Biden's use of an autopen 'one of the most dangerous and concerning scandals in American history'. The announcement comes as Trump's One Big Beautiful Bill Act runs into high-profile opposition, as the US president and his political allies try to ram it through Congress. His one-time ally Elon Musk – who recently appears to have broken with Trump after helping him slash government spending – has called the legislation a 'disgusting abomination'. The bill includes about $3.75tn in tax cuts – extending the expiring 2017 individual income tax breaks and temporarily adding new ones that Trump campaigned on, including no taxes on tips. The revenue loss would be partly offset by nearly $1.3tn in reduced federal spending elsewhere, namely through Medicaid and food assistance. As a result, 7.8 million people would no longer have health insurance with changes to Medicaid, including 5.2 million from the proposed new work requirements on non-disabled adults up to age 65, with some exceptions, the analysis said. About 1.4 million people who are in the US without legal status in state-funded health programs would no longer have coverage. The Associated Press contributed to this report
