Newcraving Desk: Srinagar, Police in Budgam have arrested 3 persons and seized 3 vehicles involved in illegal extraction and transportation of minerals in Budgam. The personnel from police station Khansahib have arrested 3 persons involved in illegal extraction and transportation of clay from government land at Kralpathri Budgam. They have also seized 3 vehicles including 2 tippers and a JCB from the spot. The arrested persons have been identified as Mohammad Arif Deenda son of Ab Rashid, Ashiq Hussain son of Mushtaq Ahmed Deenda, both residents of Raiyar Ich & Jeevan Jote son of Jugal Kishore...
Advertising
Start your day with National Memo Newsletter
Know first.
The opinions that matter. Delivered to your inbox every morning
French President Emmanuel Macron
The French actor Gerard Depardieu is world-known as a lusty, usually charming pursuer of the carnal. He's now being accused of crimes against women, some violent in nature. A star of French cinema, Depardieu is being defended by French President Emmanuel Macron. Other supporters are former French first lady Carla Bruni, actress Charlotte Rampling and Depardieu's former partner, actress Carole Bouquet.
An accusation is not a conviction. It is common in custody battles for one parent to falsely accuse the other of child abuse. Jilted lovers are known to smear their ex-partners for revenge. Grifters make false accusations to shake "deep pockets" down for money. And some accusers are mentally unstable.
Depardieu might be guilty of serious crimes, but isn't it early to talk about stripping away his Legion of Honor medal? Depardieu denies the charges of rape and assault and, as Macron says, he deserves a presumption of innocence until a court decides otherwise.
A group leading the war against Depardieu, called MeTooMedia, responded to Macron, "You invoked the presumption of innocence, as if innocence took precedence over presumption."
Well, doesn't it?
Look, serious allegations must be investigated. But until it's established that a crime has been committed, it's only someone's word.
Depardieu is a big fat target who makes gross sexist remarks on the record. A character of enormous appetites, Depardieu is no Cary Grant, nor ever was.
But while rape is a violent crime, publicly saying crude things about a girl on a horse is not. A company would be well in its rights to dismiss an employee who did this, but then the perp would be jobless not incarcerated.
It's not against the law to be a pig, which based on Depardieu's rap sheet of filthy remarks, he may well be. Anyone who wants to boycott his movies is free to do so. Barring him from appearing in movies, however, is another matter.
Hardly a day goes by without some news report that "So-and-so has been accused of sexual harassment." Therefore, he must step down or be blacklisted or hand someone a bag of money. And it's alarming how many allegedly smart people fail to ask whether the individual was guilty and, if so, whether the charge involved truly serious misconduct.
When Joe Biden was running for president in 2020, a random woman accused him of grabbing her privates. What followed were urgent calls for him to leave the race, not so much from Republicans but from Democrats backing one of Biden's competitors for the nomination.
"In an ideal world, the Democrats would not have nominated a candidate whose history included guerrilla-nuzzling women and a possible sexual assault," Jennifer Senior wrote in The New York Times back in 2020.
All this before taking a close look at Biden's accuser. Tara Reade had a history of knocking on the door of her landlord to ask for emotional support. She often didn't pay her rent. She also had a thing for Vladimir Putin and eventually defected to Russia. Yet on the basis of this troubled woman's unverified accusations, Biden's campaign could have fallen.
It's not just the veracity of the accusation that needs questioning; it is also the accusation itself. Biden did "nuzzle" the back of at least one woman's head. He shouldn't have not done that, but characterizing that dated fatherly gesture as a "guerrilla" attack was hysterical.
One of the biggest raps against Depardieu, according to Le Monde, is that, on a trip to North Korea, he was heard "making explicit sexual comments in the presence of a female interpreter." That was no reason for a wax museum in Paris to immediately remove his figure.
Accusations are not facts. How about waiting for facts?
Reprinted with permission from Creators.
Keep reading...Show less
Speaker Begs GOP Caucus To Stop Hitting Him -- So They Hit Him Harder
January 11 | 2024
The Republican House is finally back to official work.They kicked off their short week with a conference meeting in which Speaker Mike Johnson reportedly asked Republicans to stop publicly being mean to him on social media. That did not go over well. In fact, it backfired and the House was once again thrown into chaos.
“Conservative Rep. Warren Davidson (R-OH) emerged furious, telling reporters that Johnson ‘should never have been hired,’" Axios reports. Davidson also told reporters that he walked out of the meeting early because he did not want to stick around to hear Johnson and leaderships’ “drivel.”
The contentious meeting Wednesday featured a dispute between Johnson and Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, who might still be smarting about how badly he lost his own bid to be speaker. The hardliners in the conference are angry at Johnson over his agreement with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY). They made that clear both in the meeting and by taking the fight to the floor, once again shutting the House down.
Thirteen House Republicans voted against a procedural bill to start debate on three bills that aren’t even related to the funding fight. They pulled a trick that had only been used once previously in the last two decades to bring legislative business in the House to a halt. This is exactly what the maniacs did to former Speaker Kevin McCarthy when they were mad at him for trying to avoid a government shutdown. We all remember how that ended.
“We’re making a statement that what the deal, as has been announced, that doesn’t secure the border and that doesn’t cut our spending, and that’s gonna be passed apparently under suspension of the rules with predominantly Democrat votes is unacceptable,” Freedom Caucus Chair Bob Good of Virginia told reporters Wednesday after the vote. The ever-present implication behind that now is that they can take another speaker down if they feel like it.
Rep. Chip Roy of Texas was one of the 13 and has been Johnson’s chief detractor on social media, most recently tweeting a graphic that showed a picture of Johnson and Schumer with a wad of burning cash, writing “doing nothing is better than doing what the @HouseGOP is ready to do.” He wasn’t feeling particularly chastised by Johnson on Wednesday.
Asked if he will keep this obstruction up, he told reporters, "We'll see … Right now, the point here is that we're not remotely satisfied." That’s pretty close to the response Roy recently gave on whether he was gearing up to oust Johnson. “[T]hat’s not the road I prefer,” he told CNN’s Kaitlan Collins. “[W]e’ll see what happens this week.”
Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.
From Your Site Articles
- New Speaker's Spouse Marketed Quack 'Therapy' To Cure Homosexuality ›
- New Speaker Johnson Says Leaders Are 'Ordained By God' ›
- GOP 'Moderates' Kneel As House Picks Election-Denying Extremist Speaker ›
- Johnson Displays Symbol Of 'Christian Warfare' Outside Speaker's Office ›
- Mike Johnson Seems Nice -- Until You Take A Closer Look ›
- The Perverse And Hidden World Of Mike Johnson's Culture War ›
- Flashback: What Mike Johnson Said As Mob Stormed Capitol On January 6 (VIDEO) ›
Keep reading...Show less