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Sore-Loser Governor’s Last Act: Pardons for Hundreds – Including Killer Whose Family Raised $21,500 for Re-Election

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Outgoing Tea Party Republican Governor Matt Bevin of Kentucky has now pardoned hundreds of convicts since he lost a close re-election race one month ago. Among those benefitting from his exit are five convicted killers and other violent felons. One of the men receiving a pardon just happens to have family members who hosted a high-dollar fundraiser for the governor’s re-election campaign this past summer.

Gov. Bevin issued 428 pardons in the month before leaving office this week under objection. Bevin wanted to challenge the election results but Kentucky does not have a law mandating it and he was unsuccessful.

41-year old Patrick Brian Baker received an unconditional pardon from his 19-year prison sentence this week after being convicted in 2017 “of reckless homicide, first-degree robbery, impersonating a peace officer and tampering with physical evidence,” The Times-Tribune reports. The victim’s wife and three children were in the home when the acts  occurred.

Saying, “I’ve never seen a more compelling or complete case … the evidence was just overwhelming,” Judge David L. Williams had lamented at sentencing the convicted felon could be imprisoned for only 19 years.

“I believe it would be a miscarriage of justice to do any less,” Williams added. “It’s 19 years because that’s all I can give you…if I could give you more, I would.”

But as Newsweek reports, “Baker’s brother and sister in law, Eric and Kathryn Baker, hosted a fundraiser for Bevin at their home in Corbin, Kentucky, in July last year,” according to The Courier Journal. They raised a whopping $21,500. The pair added $4000 to the pot as well.

Baker’s co-defendants are not receiving pardons, despite the fact it was Baker who pulled the trigger.

Others receiving pardons “include one offender convicted of raping a child, another who hired a hit man to kill his business partner and a third who killed his parents.”

Image by Gage Skidmore via Flickr and a CC license

 

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Trump Says He ‘Saved’ Iranian Ayatollah From ‘Very Ugly Death’

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President Donald Trump took umbrage at Ayatollah Ali Khamenei declaring victory in the war with Israel. Trump said he knew where the Ayatollah was hiding and stopped Israel from killing him.

On Thursday, Khamenei posted to X, formerly Twitter, declaring victory over both Israel and the United States in the war that started on June 13, ending with a ceasefire agreement brokered by Trump on June 24. During the war, Israel’s attacks killed at least 610 people, compared to 28 Israelis killed by Iran’s attacks.

“With all that commotion and all those claims, the Zionist regime was practically knocked out and crushed under the blows of the Islamic Republic,” Khamenei posted.

READ MORE: Trump Says News Media ‘Caught Cheating Again’ For Questioning Iran Claims

“My congratulations on our dear Iran’s victory over the US regime. The US regime entered the war directly because it felt that if it didn’t, the Zionist regime would be completely destroyed. It entered the war in an effort to save that regime but achieved nothing,” he added in another post.

Trump took offense in a Friday Truth Social post at how the Ayatollah framed things .

“Why would the so-called ‘Supreme Leader,’ Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, of the war torn Country of Iran, say so blatantly and foolishly that he won the War with Israel, when he knows his statement is a lie, it is not so. As a man of great faith, he is not supposed to lie. His Country was decimated, his three evil Nuclear Sites were OBLITERATED, and I knew EXACTLY where he was sheltered, and would not let Israel, or the U.S. Armed Forces, by far the Greatest and Most Powerful in the World, terminate his life. I SAVED HIM FROM A VERY UGLY AND IGNOMINIOUS DEATH, and he does not have to say, ‘THANK YOU, PRESIDENT TRUMP!'” Trump wrote.

Trump then said that the Israel strike that happened shortly after the ceasefire was announced would have been “the final knockout” had he not demanded Israel “bring back a very large group of planes.” He also said that until he heard Khamenei’s statement, Trump was considering lifting sanctions on Iran “which would have given a much better chance to Iran at a full, fast, and complete recovery.”

“They have no hope, and it will only get worse! I wish the leadership of Iran would realize that you often get more with HONEY than you do with VINEGAR. PEACE!!!” Trump added.

The brief war started when Israel made a surprise attack on Iran’s nuclear sites including scientists and military figures like the Iran’s chief of staff of the armed forces, Maj. Gen. Mohammad Bagheri; commander-in-chief of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Gen. Hossein Salami; and the head of the IRGC Air Force, Gen. Amir Ali Hajizadeh.

Israel’s defense minister Israel Katz confirmed that the country had wanted to kill Ayatollah Khamenei as well. Though reporting suggested that the United States had talked Israel out of this, Katz said permission wasn’t needed. Rather, he said, Khamenei survived because there was “no operational opportunity,” according to Al Jazeera.

On June 22, the U.S. attacked three of Iran’s nuclear sites in Natanz, Fordow and Isfahan. There were no casualties. Nor were there any casualties when Iran retaliated with a strike on a U.S. base in Qatar.

Trump made the order to attack Iran without informing Congress beforehand. The U.S. strike was controversial, with Rep. Al Green filing an article of impeachment alleging Trump violated the War Powers Act, but the article was quickly tabled.

Trump has repeatedly claimed the U.S. attacks had “obliterated” the Iranian sites. Early intelligence reporting seen by CNN and the New York Times said that the destruction had been overstated. Later reports from the CIA said the sites were “severely damaged.” However, it is still unknown whether Iran’s supply of enriched uranium was destroyed as Trump says, or moved before the strike.

Image via Reuters

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‘Well Peter, There Was a Global Pandemic’: Psaki Socks Doocy for Not Grasping How World Events Affect Inflation

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White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki is no longer holding back her frustration to chaos agents and propagandists in her briefing room.

Fox News propagandist Peter Doocy on Thursday continued his false framing and intentional disregard of how world events affect economic conditions and inflation.

Psaki was forced to inform Doocy that there’s “no question that when a foreign dictator invades a foreign country, and when that foreign dictator is the head of a country that is the third-largest supplier of oil in the world, that that is going to have an impact.”

Ignoring that basic fact, Doocy continued, this time grossly politicizing world events.

“The President’s statement blames the ‘Putin price hike.’ Are you guys just gonna start blaming Putin for everything until the midterms?”

“Well, we’ve seen the price of gas go up at least 75 cents since President Putin lined up troops on the border of Ukraine,” Psaki replied.

Doocy continued to put his inability to understand on full display.

“Last month, the statement didn’t mention the ‘Putin price hike.’ It mentioned inflation because of the pandemic. Why is that?” Doocy asked.

“Well, Peter last year, last two years, there was a global pandemic. Everyone who’s a – global economists have all agreed that this has been the biggest contributor to date of inflation because of the impact on the supply chain. Obviously, global events impact the economy, the global economy, as well as global inflation and the price hikes as a result that have escalated over the course of time of President Putin’s further invasion of the impact on the global oil markets are of course having an impact.”

Watch:

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‘Whole Case Is a Mess’: Internet Stunned as Judge Lets Rittenhouse Choose Final Jurors in Raffle System

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Controversial Judge Bruce Schroeder allowed Kyle Rittenhouse, on trial for shooting three people and killing two of them with an AR-15 assault weapon he had illegally obtained and carried across state lines, with literally having a hand in choosing the twelve jurors who will now decide his fate.

Judge Schroder has been under fire for what many see as extraordinary deference to Rittenhouse, some even say support of Rittenhouse. Others have noted his cell phone ring tone is the same song as Donald Trump’s campaign theme song, and others still were offended by at least one offhand “joke” Schroder made. Trial watchers were also stunned when Schroder falsely claimed zooming in on a photo as millions of people do daily to enlarge it is “so-called scientific evidence.” And others were disturbed by Schroeder’s very public attacks on the prosecutor.

18 jurors sat through the entire trial, but only 12, as is customary, will decide the case.

“At the direction of Circuit Judge Bruce Schroder,” the Associated Press reports Tuesday afternoon, “Rittenhouse’s attorney placed slips of paper into a raffle drum with the numbers of each of the 18 jurors on it who sat through the two-week trial. The drum had been sitting on a window ledge throughout the trial but was placed in front of Rittenhouse at the defense table Tuesday.”

“Rittenhouse then selected six pieces of paper from the drum, who a court official then read aloud to be dismissed: 11, 58, 14, 45, 9 and 52.”

The remaining 12 will deliberate the case.

“I’ve never heard of a defendant pulling the names,” Portage County Assistant District Attorney Robert Jambois told the AP. “That’s done by a member of the court.”

Not in this case, which has deviated from general norms repeatedly.

Former Milwaukee County assistant district attorney Julius Kim told the AP, “I’ve never seen a judge allow a defendant to draw those names. That might be a little unconventional but there’s nothing wrong with it that I could really see.”

On social media many were stunned.

 

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