Pilot dies after plane crashes into Hudson River | New York Post

A vintage WWII fighter plane crashed into the Hudson River Friday night — and the pilot’s body was pulled from the wreckage about three hours later.

The P-47 Thunderbolt suffered a possible mechanical failure at about 7:30 p.m. and went into the river near the Intrepid Museum at West 46th Street, cops said.

“I saw the plane flying really low and I was thinking ‘what is this guy doing?’ ” witness Frank Piazza, 44, told The Post. “Then it bounced two times and then it went straight under — I don’t think he made it.”

Horrified onlookers at the ­Waterside Restaurant in North Bergen, NJ, said the pilot, later identified as 56-year-old Bill Gordon of Key West, Fla., desperately tried to escape.

“He opened the cockpit but he couldn’t get out,” said Johnny Flores, 25. “When he tried to get out it started sinking really fast.”

Witness Joanne Stolfo, of Ridgewood, NJ, said, “It was a very solemn feeling because we knew we were watching someone die.”Gordon’s body was recovered by NYPD scuba divers at around 11 p.m.

He had been flying in air shows, performing aerobatic maneuvers, for 25 years and was the lead pilot of a team that toured throughout the US and Central America, according to a bio on his webpage.

The one-seater left from Republic Airport in Farmingdale, LI, with another other vintage aircraft and a plane carrying a photographer taking promotional shots for this weekend’s air show at Jones Beach.

The Federal Aviation Administration said that the plane sent a distress call and went down about two miles south of the George Washington Bridge.

The aircraft was owned by the American Airpower Museum at Republic.

A spokesman for the museum, Gary Lewi, said the plane was doing a promotional shoot for this weekend’s air show at Jones Beach.

“It would appear that the aircraft suffered a mechanical problem,” Lewi said. “And [the pilot] elected to put it down in the Hudson.”

The other two other planes returned safely.

New Jersey State Police initially said the pilot was rescued with minor injuries, but later said it was a Good Samaritan swimmer who was trying to help.
Source: Pilot dies after plane crashes into Hudson River | New York Post

Satanic Temple Celebrates 6/6/16 in Los Angeles | L.A. Weekly

June is a time of celebration. Graduations take place. Father’s Day is observed. And summer officially begins.

It’s also when the Satanic Temple of Los Angeles has scheduled festivities for a revered day in the diabolic community — 6/6/16.

Yeah, you know what time it is, Black Sabbath fans.

The group, which has 12 members, says it’s heading to Lancaster on June 6 to take part in a “satanic ritual,” according to a statement. The schedule is secret, but the appearances will be designed to raise awareness of the religion, organizer Thuc Nguyen told us.

Co-organizers also include William Morrison and Ali Kellogg, Nguyen said.

Members of the sect also will be in Lancaster to support local Steve Hill, billed as the first Satanic Temple member to run for public office around these parts. He’s vying for a state Senate seat.

“We will be hitting five different points around the city, performing various rituals,” Nguyen said. “When we’re finished it will all connect together for the magic hour around sundown.”

A statement from the temple explains the fun in more detail:

The Pentagram is a star with five points. Using GPS technology we will place the five points of the star so that the Pentagram will encompass your entire city. When all of the points are in place, the Pentagram is completed. Drawing this symbol around your city represents a solemn promise from us, the Satanic Temple of Los Angeles. We will stand with the good people of the City of Lancaster and struggle for our constitutional right to individual liberty, freedom of expression and the separation of church and state in your community.

Members also plan to deliver their Bible, so to speak, The Seven Tenets, to Lancaster city leaders. Or at least they’ll try to, Nguyen said.

If you’re looking for ill behavior, you’re probably better off at a Donald Trump rally.

This sect, with roots at Harvard and Cambridge, is decidedly intellectual. Animals are respected; people, even more so.

The group once had a barbecue where a Trump piñata was bashed, Nguyen said. That’s downright civil and just.”We stand up for human rights and civil rights,” she said. “We get together on a social and political level.”

Yawn. Sounds like a real riot. At least the music’s cool.Contact: Dennis Romero Follow: @dennisjromero L.A. Weekly L.A. Weekly

Source: Satanic Temple Celebrates 6/6/16 in Los Angeles | L.A. Weekly

Dems pressure Obama on vow to resettle 10,000 Syrian refugees

By Kristina Wong – 05/18/16 11:40 AM EDT
A group of 27 Democratic senators on Wednesday called on President Obama to fulfill his commitment to resettle at least 10,000 Syrian refugees in the U.S. by October.

The lawmakers say the administration has so far only admitted 1,736 Syrian refugees, out of the 10,000 pledged.

“To fulfill the commitment you announced last year, at least 8,264 Syrian refugees would need to be admitted during the remaining five months of the fiscal year,” said the group, led by Sens. Dick Durbin (Ill.) and Amy Klobuchar (Minn.), in a letter to the president.

“We would appreciate an update on specific measures your Administration plans to take to fulfill its stated commitment to resettle the additional Syrian refugees by the end of September 2016,” they added.

The State Department launched a surge operation in Amman, Jordan, earlier this year to increase the pace of interviews of potential refugees.

Staff interviewed about 12,000 refugee applicants between February and April, a department spokesperson told The Hill earlier this month.

“Not all of the applicants approved by [the Department of Homeland Security] during the February-April period will be admitted to the United States in FY 2016. Some will be admitted in FY 2017,” the spokesperson, who requested anonymity, said.

The plan’s critics argue it could endanger U.S. national security, allowing terrorists to sneak through.

READ MORE

1 arrested following drug bust in Sound Beach | News 12 Long Island

A man was arrested after police say they seized drugs, a weapon, ammunition and cash from his Sound Beach home.Police say a major drug operation was being run out of the home on North Country Road, despite the fact that two small children, ages 3 and 5, live there. Tips from neighbors led to the raid, according to police.Authorities say they seized 100 grams of heroin, plus cocaine,…

Source: 1 arrested following drug bust in Sound Beach | News 12 Long Island

Welcome to a Bernie Sanders Wiccan ritual

Attending a rally for Bernie Sanders usually involves long lines and security screenings, but that wasn’t the case at an intimate, informal event Friday evening supporting the Vermont senator’s presidential campaign in a park here.

Instead of metal detectors, entrance required burning ceremonial sweetgrass.

Participants were “smudged,” meaning the smoke from the sweetgrass was wafted over them before they could enter the sacred circle and begin a Wiccan ritual to support Sanders ahead of Oregon’s primary on Tuesday.

“Welcome to the ‘Feeling the Bern ritual,’” Leigha Lafleur, 41, told the gathering as she prepared to lead them in the “amplification of positive energy of Bernie Sanders and the progressive movement.”

READ FULL

White House Sends Schools Guidance On Transgender Access To Bathrooms

The Obama administration issued guidance to schools Friday, saying they must allow transgender students to use the bathroom that matches their gender identity.

…The Department of Justice is already in a legal fight with North Carolina over its so-called bathroom law. By reaching out to all 50 states, the administration appears to be upping the ante.

…Attorney General Loretta Lynch — a North Carolina native — called the law discriminatory. “We see you, we stand with you,” she said, speaking directly to transgender people, “and we will do everything we can to protect you going forward.”

The administration now has extended that message to schools, not just in North Carolina, but across the country. Some will see that as the administration spoiling for a fight…

Under federal law, Title IX, schools that receive federal funding are not allowed to discriminate against students on the basis of sex. The guidance sent out to school districts on Friday makes it clear that as far as the departments of Justice and Education are concerned, that word “sex” includes gender identity.

DECEPTION OFF:
TRUTH ON:
Gender “identity” is an “Idea” of gender NOT A SEX !
TRUTH OFF:
DECEPTION ON:

…”[Obama] says he is going to withhold funding if schools do not follow the policy. Well, in Texas he can keep his 30 pieces of silver. We will not yield to blackmail from the president of the United States,” Patrick said. He went on to suggest that if the administration did withhold funds, low-income students who rely on free breakfasts and lunches would be the most affected.

He also said that opposition to the guidelines “has nothing to do with anyone being against a transgender child or a gay child. This has everything to do with keeping the federal government out of local issues.”

UNBELIEVABLE !

Hillary Rakes in Nearly $75,000 From Justice Department Employees

Calls continue for appointment of a special counsel
BY: Joe Schoffstall
May 10, 2016 4:58 am

Hillary Clinton has received nearly $75,000 in political contributions from employees at the Department of Justice, the agency that would decide whether or not to act if the FBI recommended charges against Clinton or her aides following its investigation into her private email server.

Justice Department employees have given Clinton far more money than her rivals, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.) and Donald Trump, according to a review of federal campaign contributions for the 2016 presidential cycle.

Clinton collected $73,437 from individuals who listed the “Department of Justice” as their employer. Twelve of the 228 contributions were for $2,700, the maximum individual amount allowed by law.

…David Bossie, president of the watchdog group Citizens United, told the Washington Free Beacon he is not surprised by the donations, and renewed his call for Attorney General Loretta Lynch to appoint a special counsel to handle Clinton’s case.

“I’m not surprised in the least to see more evidence that shows the politicization of the Justice Department,” Bossie said in a statement to the Free Beacon. “How can Democrat political appointees fairly investigate someone who is about to become their nominee for president? That’s why last July I called on Attorney General Lynch to appoint an impartial special counsel to investigate the private Clinton email server.”

“Today, I renew my call that Attorney General Lynch must appoint a special counsel to determine if Hillary Clinton or her agents broke the law and compromised our national security,” he continued. “This investigation needs to be conducted free of political influence once and for all.”

Bossie has questioned whether Lynch could remain impartial due to her past political donations. Lynch gave $10,700 in contributions to Democratic candidates between 2004 and 2008.

Howard Krongard, who was inspector general for the State Department from 2005 to 2008, predicted earlier this year that even if the FBI referred Clinton’s case to the Justice Department for prosecution it would “never get to an indictment.”

Krongard said the case would have to go through “four loyal Democratic women,” including Lynch, top White House adviser Valerie Jarrett, Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates, and Assistant Attorney General Leslie Caldwell, who heads the department’s criminal division.

…“The report out today that Hillary Clinton received almost $75,000 in political contributions from Justice Department employees is yet another reason why the Justice Department cannot and should not decide whether to bring a case against Hillary Clinton for her reckless handling of classified information while Secretary of State,” Whitaker said in a statement. “The decision of whether or not to bring a case against Clinton will be a difficult one for Attorney General Loretta Lynch, as I don’t believe she has the fortitude to oppose President Obama, who has publicly said Clinton’s behavior didn’t put our national security at risk. Since this Administration has shown no ability to be impartial, looking the other way at every turn of this investigation, I’m renewing an urgent call for the appointment of a special counsel in this case.”

READ FULL

Young Muslim kills 1 injures 3 in knife attack in German train station

(CNN) One man was killed and three people injured in a knife attack at a train station in southern Germany Tuesday morning, the Bavarian Criminal Office said.

Police have arrested a 27-year-old German man in connection with the attack, a police spokesman said, adding that a political motive could not be ruled out.
The attack happened shortly before 5 a.m. local time (11 p.m. ET Monday) in Grafing, 23 miles (37 kilometers) east of Munich, officials said.

The dead man, a 50-year-old, was inside a train bound for Munich when he was stabbed, police said. He later died at a hospital.

Three other men were injured, one of them seriously. Officials gave the injured men’s ages as 58, 55 and 43.

Police arrested the suspect near the station shortly after the attacks, said a police spokesman. A knife with a 10-centimeter (4-inch) blade was recovered, he said.

READ FULL

Out of the Shadows: Wicca Grows in Austin and Beyond

…Mary Caldwell has spiky pink hair, tattooed arms and works in customer service for a software company. She’s also the leader of a Wicca meet-up that gathers every other Monday at Monkey Nest Coffee on Burnet Road.

…as well as rituals and personal experiences with spirits. Recently, some members of the group had visited a local cemetery to commune with spirits.

“Some of the people in the group just see them, some just hear them and some of them just smell them,” said Caldwell, 44. “It was great fun.”

Wicca is a modern version of ancient pagan religions, created in England and brought to the United States in the 1960s. Its followers worship a goddess and a god, honor the Earth and practice ritual magic…

“We believe that everything is part of the One,” said Ed Fitch, 80, a Wiccan senior high priest and a member of Caldwell’s meet-up group, one of several Wiccan or witches’ groups in Austin. “Everything in the universe is linked to everything else in the universe.”

…The American Religious Identification Survey, which periodically surveys 50,000 Americans, said the number of self-identified Wiccans increased to 342,000 in 2008, up from 134,000 in 2001. The 2008 figures are the most recent available.

Wicca’s growth tracks the changing religious landscape in the U.S., as a growing number of people leave established religions and become either unaffiliated or switch to alternative religions. About 5.9 percent of Americans followed a non-Christian faith in 2014, up from 4.7 percent in 2007, according to the Pew Research Center,

“The number of people who have institutional affiliation are declining in general, so [Wicca] is part of a larger trend,” said Jennifer Graber, an associate professor of religious studies at the University of Texas at Austin. “People are not aligning themselves in traditional religious ways.”

…“We don’t just have god, who in Christian values is a white male. We’ve got a goddess. They are equal to each other.”

…Caldwell dabbled in Wicca when she was a teenager, but said her interest faded as she grew up and had children. It was not until eight years ago that she became fully devoted the religion.

…“It’s funny, because I’ve got people who are devoted Catholics coming to me and saying, ‘I’ve got a problem, and can you do a spell for me?’ ” she said.

READ FULL

British Muslim Sadiq Khan sworn in as London mayor touted as win for Qur’an

Acknowledge Muhammad as “the” prophet or face sharia law as an infidel:
“All Muslims are obliged to kill the infidel. An infidel (or kafir) is a non-Muslim. Many Muslims think that killing an infidel guarantees going straight to paradise.”

Labour party candidate comfortably outruns Conservative rival Zac Goldsmith, becoming the city’s first Muslim mayor.

The British Labour party’s Sadiq Khan has been sworn in as London’s new mayor after comfortably beating his nearest rival, Conservative MP Zac Goldsmith.

Speaking at the ceremony at Southwark Cathedral on Saturday, Khan called the city the “greatest in the world”, adding he was “proud” and “deeply humbled” by his win.

“I want every single Londoner to get the opportunities that the city gave to me and my family…the opportunities not just to survive, but to thrive,” Khan pledged.

READ FULL

Fallon: Clinton’s Lawyer Is In Constant Contact with Justice Department


Clinton campaign spokesman Brian Fallon said Friday that Hillary Clinton’s attorney has been in contact with the Justice Department throughout the investigation into her use of a private email server as secretary of state.

“David Kendall is her top counsel and he has been in touch with the Justice Department throughout this review. We’ve always been very upfront about that,” Fallon said in an interview on CNN.

The FBI has already interviewed Clinton’s closest aide, Huma Abedin, as well as some other Clinton confidantes, CNN reported Thursday. However, in an interview with MSNBC Tuesday, Clinton said that the FBI had still not contacted her “representatives.”

Fallon did not address Clinton’s apparent mistruth. Instead, the spokesman confirmed Clinton’s claim that the FBI still had not contacted her.

“She said no, because the honest answer is it hasn’t happened yet,” Fallon said. “But whenever they do, we’ll be happy to accommodate that and make it happen.”

In the same Tuesday interview, Clinton denied that foreign hackers breached her server. Fallon and the State Department have stood by her assertion, despite the Romanian hacker Guccifer’s claim Wednesday that he easily hacked into Clinton’s email.

READ FULL

Pelosi, Vicente Fox plot to defeat Trump, Mexican calls Trump voters lazy drunks


Latin America’s toughest critic of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump spent 30 minutes with House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi in Mexico this week plotting to help the Democrats defeat the businessman and give the presidency to Hillary Clinton.

…former Mexican President Vicente Fox also said that he is “becoming a fan of” Clinton, compared her to British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, and disparaged Trump supporters as lazy, uneducated, TV watching drunks.

…”We need to wake up that citizen. We need them to take them away from the TV and drinking beer, to working hard, to getting the skills, to getting knowledge, and they will come along, like everybody else.”

On a media tour to promote an anti-Trump, “compassionate, intelligent leadership” agenda, he said that he met with Pelosi at the airport in Mexico City Sunday and discussed ways he can help convince Latin American immigrants in the United States to reject Trump.

“What I’ve been saying here, I told her. Count with us, with all Mexicans, to support the Democratic Party…”

“We will never convince any Mexican either in the (United) States or in Mexico or any Latin American in the States or Latin America to support this false prophet,” he said.

He repeatedly called Trump “stupid,” and a “false prophet,” and called on Americans to “wake up” and reject the Republican.

WATCH FULL

A Christian letter to nominee Trump

Dear Mr. Trump:

One of the things I appreciate about you is that you’re exceptionally direct. So am I.

And so I’ll be direct.

I am a Ted Cruz supporter and part of what they’re calling the “#NeverTrump” crowd. As it now stands, and, speaking of directness, absent some direct revelation from the Holy Spirit Himself, I cannot, and will not, vote for you in November. (I hope you’ll continue reading. I do not intend this as an attack in anyway.)

Still, and before I jump into my profound reservations about your presidential candidacy, let me share a few more things that I appreciate about you. First, though many people, yourself included, have said that you “are the establishment,” I nonetheless appreciate that you took on the mealy-mouthed GOP establishment this primary season. The conservative base of the Republican Party is sick of their empty campaign promises, gutless lack of resolve and failure to use all means necessary to rein-in Obama.

Next, I, and others, love your often witty, always delightful smackdowns of the mainstream media – a media so marinated in leftist ideology and political correctness that they wouldn’t recognize objective journalism if it bit ’em in the … well, you get the idea.

Finally, you have quickly come to both signify and personify Middle America’s utter disdain for all things politically correct. “I don’t frankly have time for total political correctness,” you told Megyn Kelly in the GOP’s first presidential debate. “And to be honest with you, this country doesn’t have time either.”

Amen.

Now for the negatives. While there are many, for the sake of brevity I’ll address but a few. These negatives alone, to me, are absolute deal breakers.

Mr. Trump, I don’t oppose you because I’m Republican and you’re not. I don’t even oppose you because I’m conservative and you’re not. I oppose you, sir, because I’m a Christ follower.

Now, let me be clear. I know that I don’t speak for all faithful, Bible-believing Christians. In fact, there are many I both know and respect who plan to vote for you, some who even publicly endorsed you from the onset. I do not intend to indict them, judge them or even persuade them to do otherwise.

Still, there are many more who, like me, cannot, with a clear conscience, vote for you.

Let’s start from 30,000 feet and bring it in for a landing. Some of my Christian brothers and sisters have noted, accurately, that God has a wonderful way of using unlikely, broken and even wicked people for good (we are none righteous, not even one [see Romans 3:10]).

He may be doing that with you, and I pray He is.

Still others have even compared you to King David, a “man after God’s own heart,” who was both a murderer and adulterer. I love David’s story because it reminds me of my own. I’ve done some pretty horrible things in my life that, but for Christ’s amazing grace, forgiveness and sacrifice on the cross, I’d be getting exactly what I deserve – eternal separation from God.

King David was a sinner. I’m a sinner. You’re a sinner. But, as best I can tell, it is gross error to compare you to King David in any way. David, you see, was contrite. He was more than contrite. He was humble because he was humbled. He basked in humility because he willingly received God’s well-deserved humiliation and discipline. David was utterly broken and gloriously repentant for his many sins. He begged God with some of the most sincere and beautiful words ever written, for forgiveness most undeserved.

And God forgave Him.

Humility does not mean weakness. David was meek, he was not weak. Meekness is restrained strength.

Here’s where I must be direct. You and I, Mr. Trump, are no King Davids. Not only is there no evidence that you are broken, contrite, humble and repentant for your own very public sins; you, even today, continue, unrepentantly, to commit those sins and boast of them on the campaign trail. Hell, some of them, like crowing about your book, wherein you brag about all the hot chicks you scored and the times you cheated on your wives, are even part of your stump speech.

For his adultery David begged God, “Have mercy on me, O God, according to your unfailing love; according to your great compassion blot out my transgressions. Wash away all my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin” (Psalm 51:1-2).

By contrast, when recently asked about God’s forgiveness for your own storied past, you said, “I don’t like to have to ask for forgiveness. Why do I have to repent or ask for forgiveness, if I am not making mistakes?

”Well, because God demands it, for starters.

And so you remain an unrepentant serial adulterer who personally attacks his political opponents as “stupid liars,” sleazily suggests that their wives are ugly, absurdly intimates that their fathers conspired to assassinate JFK (you admitted the next day you were lying), brags about the size of his manhood from the debate stage, even now says that Planned Parenthood, an organization that gets filthy rich tearing live babies limb-from-limb and selling their body parts, “does wonderful things and we should not defund it,” essentially stated, just weeks ago, that men in miniskirts have a right to shower alongside our wives and daughters, and, neither last nor least, habitually and unapologetically verbally abuses women – somebody’s wives, mothers and daughters – by calling them “pigs,” “ugly,” “fat” or “great pieces of a–.”

Moreover, Mr. Trump, if elected you will be the very first U.S. president to have owned (and/or presently maintain stock in) strip clubs. Your Trump Taj Mahal strip club “Scores” in Atlantic City, for example, among the most mundane. You, sir, have profited, and continue to profit, from the sexual exploitation of precious young women created in the image and likeness of Almighty God – women who, not long ago, were not unlike my 11 and 12-year-old daughters.

You’re a worldly man, Mr. Trump. You know that many of these women are drug-addicted and were sexually abused as children. You also know that strip clubs (particularly Vegas/Atlantic City strip clubs) are hotbeds for sex trafficking (sex slavery) and prostitution.

This misogynistic exploitation of women and girls, on your part, is both reprehensible and inexcusable. Not only is it unbecoming of any man who wishes to hold the highest office in the entire land; it is decidedly unwise of any man who doesn’t wish to have some father or brother jerk him out of his limo for roadside dental work.

By all indication, you have neither asked these girls’ forgiveness, God’s forgiveness, nor ceased this shameless exploitation.

You have not repented.

And so I will not vote for you.

But I will pray for you.

Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2016/05/a-christian-letter-to-nominee-trump/#swC40fBRkXSZV7KX.99