Beet L. Jooz

BATON ROUGE- Authorities have captured a work release inmate that escaped early last month.

On April 1 authorities were contacted in regards to a work release inmate, Lyndrick Huey, who failed to return to the facility as scheduled.

According to the arrest report, Huey was assigned to the EBR Parish Work Release Program in October, and was then assigned to work at a local business that same month. Before his escape, Huey had worked at the local business without any problems.

On the day he escaped, Huey was assigned to work at the business from 11 a.m. until his scheduled pickup at 9 p.m.

At approximately 8:30 p.m. the driver of the work release van discovered that the business where Huey was supposed to be working was closed. At 9 p.m. Huey was seen walking across the parking lot, according arrest records.

Huey then got into the van, which went to pick up other work release inmates. As the van stopped to pick up another person, Huey got out of the van without permission and left.

Huey is back in DOC custody and is charged with one count of simple escape.

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‘The Boy Scouts going coed eliminates one of the last healthy all-male groups — ‘

'Protecting the community from secret and invasive police surveillance'

Dr. Thomas Tramaglini took daily poops on the football field and track of a nearby high school, according to authorities.

With all of the hype about autonomous driving focused on companies like Uber and Tesla, one big name has been left off the list of consideration in the public spotlight: the United States Government. And, it turns out with companies like Uber seeing self-driving fatalities causing major pushback in implementation of public testing, the government is the one leading the self-driving race. 

Monday morning Bloomberg reported that the Pentagon could be the first to win the race to implement useful autonomous driving. Bloomberg reported:

Forget Uber, Waymo and Tesla: the next big name in self-driving vehicles could be the Pentagon.

“We’re going to have self-driving vehicles in theater for the Army before we’ll have self-driving cars on the streets,” Michael Griffin, the undersecretary of defense for research and engineering, told lawmakers at a hearing on Capitol Hill this month. “But the core technologies will be the same.”

The implementation of autonomous driving on the battlefield is an easier landscape to work with than roadways, as there are no traffic lights or roadsigns to worry about if you're just trying to just get supplies from point A to point B.

This makes autonomous vehicles a potentially lifesaving and wildly good idea for war zones - the delivering of things like medical supplies and food on the battlefield are a perfect fit:

The stakes for the military are high. According to Griffin, 52 percent of casualties in combat zones can been attributed to military personnel delivering food, fuel and other logistics. Removing people from that equation with systems run on artificial intelligence could reduce injuries and deaths significantly, he added.

“You’re in a very vulnerable position when you’re doing that kind of activity,” Griffin said. “If that can be done by an automated unmanned vehicle with a relatively simple AI driving algorithm where I don’t have to worry about pedestrians and road signs and all of that, why wouldn’t I do that?”

On top of that, the federal government has a much larger budget than any one company working on self-driving. The Pentagon's budget comes in around $700 billion:

With an annual budget of almost $700 billion, the Pentagon can afford to aggressively pursue autonomous vehicle technology well beyond fuel and food delivery trucks. The Army, for instance, is pushing forward with efforts to develop unmanned tanks and smarter vehicles for bomb disarmament, though many of those technologies will be remote-controlled, not autonomous.

Major Alan L. Stephens, an officer at the Mounted Requirements Division of the U.S. Army Maneuver Center of Excellence in Georgia, said in December that the Army wants to start testing light, fast remote-controlled tanks with the same firepower as the current 70-plus-ton manned M1 Abrams tank within the next five years.

BAE Systems Plc, the maker of the Army’s manned Armored Multi-Purpose Vehicle, also makes unmanned vehicles known as the Ironclad and the Armed Robotic Combat Vehicle. The Ironclad, which looks like a miniature tank missing a gun turret, is expected to have roles in reconnaissance, evacuations of injured personnel and explosive ordnance disposal, according to the London-based company’s website.

However, their enormous budget doesn't mean that they are not going to be working with companies already developing this technology. Other companies may wind up with a chunk of the government's $700 billion plus budget to help contribute to the project's development:

“The regulatory structure here in the U.S. and the countries where the U.S. may be sending troops are very different,” Stanley said. “How autonomous vehicles are going to be regulated -- in terms of safety, cybersecurity, privacy and liability -- those are going to be critical issues” the Pentagon will have to address as well, she added.

The Pentagon has a long history of support that helped to develop or refine key technologies that become widespread later, including space flight and the internet.

Griffin said the Pentagon “absolutely must leverage” what private companies are doing to develop self-driving cars, though he didn’t mention any by name and his office declined to comment when asked for more details about the Pentagon’s plans.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, which Griffin oversees, has been funding research into self-driving cars for years and sponsored its first competition for the vehicles in 2004.

“The military is very eager to learn and build upon what’s been done commercially as opposed to try to reinvent and do it themselves,” said RAND’s Stanley.

The Navy is also already looking into unmanned underwater vessels, with companies like Lockheed and Boeing competing for these contracts:

Offshore, the Navy is seeking help developing technology for the next generation of large and extra-large unmanned underwater vehicles to incorporate artificial intelligence so they can handle navigation hazards such as deep-draft commercial ship traffic, fishing activities, marine mammals and prospecting for oil, gas or minerals. Lockheed Martin Corp. and Boeing Co., the largest and second-largest U.S. contractors, are competing on the program, with a critical design review scheduled for December.

Not all companies already working on AI and self-driving seem excited about being a part of the government's plan, however. It was reported that employees at Google have already protested allowing the government to use the company's AI technology:

Thousands of employees at Alphabet’s Google recently demanded an end to deals letting the military use the company’s artificial intelligence technology. Mattis visited Google headquarters in Mountain View, California, last year to discuss with executives the best ways to use AI, cloud computing and cybersecurity for the Pentagon.

Among critics’ concerns is the potential development of autonomous weapons that make their own life-and-death targeting decisions. Ash Carter, who was defense secretary under President Barack Obama, told a Silicon Valley audience in 2016 that “in the matter of the use of lethal force, there will always be -- at least speaking for the United States -- a human being involved in decision making.”

Charles Dunlap, a retired Air Force major general who’s now a law professor at Duke University, said companies will come under “enormous pressure” as they sort out these issues and try to make sure their artificial intelligence products for the military don’t put people in danger.

We reported back in late March that Nvidia had suspended its self-driving tests, shortly after Uber did the same following a fatal accident. This came just weeks after one of Ford's self-driving prototypes also sent two people to the hospital in an accident. While a certain precursor seems to be in place for the Pentagon to roll out autonomous driving onto the battlefield, it's ultimately still a project at the hands of the government and that means we won’t be surprised if it takes longer to implement than expected, costs more than estimated or never sees the light of day to begin with.

The Lafayette-based company awarded a contract to cultivate and produce medical marijuana for Southern University has now filed an injunction against the institution.

Authored by Sean Bigley, op-ed via The Wall Street Journal,

Unaccountable Pentagon officials block a security clearance for a would-be White House aide.

Nothing ends a Washington career like being branded an unacceptable national-security risk. That’s why officials adjudicating personnel-security cases must act in a mature, objective and nonpartisan fashion. But when it comes to vetting Trump appointees, they often aren’t.

Instead, security clearances are being weaponized against the White House by hostile career bureaucrats, thwarting the president’s agenda by holding up or blocking appointees.

Consider the case of Adam Lovinger. Mr. Lovinger is a highly regarded and politically conservative Defense Department official. In January 2017, the Trump administration made a “by name” request for him to serve as a senior director on the White House National Security Council.

Before departing the Pentagon that January, Mr. Lovinger raised documented concerns with his supervisor about the misuse of contractors. One outfit, run by a woman Chelsea Clinton describes as her “best friend,” was being used to perform foreign-relations activities on behalf of the U.S. Mr. Lovinger, an attorney, perceived the arrangement as violating a federal law delineating inherently governmental functions. He also took issue with millions of dollars in public funds being spent on contractor studies of questionable relevance. One taxpayer-funded study sought to determine whether Americans are a “war-like people.”

Months after Mr. Lovinger raised these issues, the Pentagon suspended his security clearance and his White House detail was canceled without warning. The reason? Specious, and constantly evolving, claims of misconduct. One of Mr. Lovinger’s alleged transgressions was that Pentagon officials had improperly marked an academic report he took aboard an airplane for reading.

The father of three, his family’s primary breadwinner, remains on administrative leave. The same official who suspended Mr. Lovinger’s security clearance is now moving to cut off his pay while the allegations are under review. Amplifying due-process concerns, the panel rendering the final decision reports to the official who suspended him. She refuses to recuse herself or her subordinates despite a conflict of interest.

Meanwhile, Pentagon officials ignored a longstanding executive order requiring they provide the accused with the government’s evidence within 30 days. This forced Mr. Lovinger to respond blindly to vague allegations, then contend with bureaucrats claiming he did not adequately rebut documents he has never seen. Pentagon officials underscored their contempt for anyone who challenges them by leaking false, defamatory information about Mr. Lovinger.

Mr. Lovinger’s lifeline is that his case, although symptomatic of a political agenda, is fundamentally one of whistle-blower reprisal. That affords him legal tools and remedies—including an inspector general investigation and potential monetary damages—that other Trump appointees, victims of similarly abusive practices, can’t access.

As an attorney who defends security-clearance holders, including Mr. Lovinger, I have had a front-row seat to behavior that only a year ago I would have dismissed as a conspiracy theory. Across the federal government, what was long an apolitical process with clearly defined standards has devolved to the point that wildly unfounded accusations are now being used to smear reputations and settle petty vendettas. And it all occurs in closed-door proceedings not appealable to the courts. Failure to stop these abuses risks undermining the integrity of the entire personnel-security system.

In Mr. Lovinger’s case, those weaponizing the security-clearance process include a senior official who remains on the job despite publicly disparaging President Trump as “unfit” to lead, a Pentagon attorney who instructed colleagues on the importance of concealing retaliatory motives behind their actions, and the Defense Department’s security adjudications chief, who persists in advancing false allegations.

They and other unelected partisans are quietly usurping presidential prerogatives through a litany of seemingly small but slowly compounding abuses of bureaucratic power. Their efforts evidence a philosophy that laws and rules are not static boundaries of societal norms, but flexible tools of the administrative state.

It is imperative that federal-agency heads and inspectors general step in to stop the power grab, lest those targeting Mr. Lovinger and others like him believe themselves immune to accountability. Failure to act decisively will mean not only the continued destruction of lives and careers, but also a precipitous dwindling of the pool of patriots willing to subject themselves to such abuses.

Bill Cassidy will address more than 200 Louisiana College graduates.

Mandy Manning of Joel E. Ferris High School in Spokane, Washington was awarded the 2018 National Teacher of the Year award Wednesday at the White House. However, through her clothing choice, Manning took the opportunity in a political turn. Manning is a math and English teacher who works with refugee and immigrant students, according to […]

His lawyers sent her employer a letter.

The family of the Rev. Donald Tabb said they are waiting to hear more details from an ongoing search for their father by the U.S. Coast Guard and Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries.

The cause of the crash is under investigation

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Television's Bill Cosby and Oscar-winning director Roman Polanski were expelled from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the Academy Awards presenters said in a statement on Thursday.

The Tangipahoa Parish woman must also repay $809,605.

Police said Valencia Kelly stabbed Travis Thomas more than once in the legs during an argument on Oct. 13, 2017.

'Shame on you,' crowd tells NBC reporter.

He says litigation helped identify $300 million of wrongfully denied flood claims

Alex Jones presents video footage of black helicopters conducting a military, disaster drill in Totawa, New Jersey, an occurrence Infowars...

Republican darling Ben Shapiro’s Wednesday tweet begging Kanye West not to do an Infowars interview was symbolic of the establishment’s goa...

This could be huge...

"I am waiting for the Attorney General to step in, in his role as defender of justice, and put these people under investigation," Giuliani said.

Update 1: In a major retraction/correction - bringing back memories of ABC's epic Flynn story debacle - NBC News has clarified that Cohen calls were not being "listened to" but were being "logged" and in fact there was no wiretap.

"Michael Cohen's phones were being monitored by a pen register, not a wiretap, senior U.S. officials say.  Pen registers capture "to and from" calling and texting information, but not content."

The question is: will Tom Winter and Julia Ainsley - the so-called reporters who sourced someone as saying "at least one phone call between a phone line associated with Cohen and the White House was intercepted" be 'Brian Ross'd"..

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Tell us again, James Comey, how the Deep State doesn't exist.

In the latest bombshell about the FBI's investigation into President Trump's personal attorney Michael Cohen, NBC News reported Thursday afternoon that the FBI had been wiretapping phone lines used by Cohen during the weeks before the raid on his home, office and hotel room, as well as for an unknown amount of time before.

And what's more, NBC says prosecutors recorded at least one call between Cohen and somebody at the White House. We can almost guess who that "somebody" is...

Federal investigators have wiretapped the phone lines of Michael Cohen, the longtime personal lawyer for President Donald Trump who is under investigation for a payment he made to an adult film star who alleged she had an affair with Trump, according to two people with knowledge of the legal proceedings involving Cohen.

It is not clear how long the wiretap has been authorized, but NBC News has learned it was in place in the weeks leading up to the raids on Cohen's offices, hotel room, and home in early April, according to one person with direct knowledge.

At least one phone call between a phone line associated with Cohen and the White House was intercepted, the person said.

Previously, federal prosecutors in New York have said in court filings that they have conducted covert searches on multiple e-mail accounts maintained by Cohen.

After the raid on Cohen's office, members of Trump's legal team reportedly advised him to speak with Cohen. But later, when Rudy Giuliani learned about the call, he advised Trump not to speak with Cohen on the phone again for fear prosecutors might be listening. Giuliani has also reportedly advised Trump that Cohen is likely to flip on him.

It is unclear what incriminating information Cohen could give prosecutors on Trump, if he chose to cooperate. He represented Trump and the Trump Organization in its business dealings for nearly two decades before Trump became president. Special counsel Robert Mueller is interested in any information that federal investigators in New York may pick up that would be relevant to his investigation into possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia.

Cohen has previously said publicly that he would invoke his Fifth Amendment rights if subpoenaed to avoid incriminating himself before a grand jury and there is no indication from public filings that Cohen is cooperating in the probe.

Given the volume of Trump legal drama scoops that have dropped this week, we expect to see more reports fleshing out what exactly the FBI learned from eavesdropping on conversations between Cohen and - presumably - his No. 1 client. Then again, none of this should come as a surprise: after all, thanks to the FISA warrant obtained as a result of the Hillary Clinton-funded dossier, both the FBI and the NSA already knew everything that Trump was saying long before he became president.