Patrick Kane's Rape Accuser Withdraws From Investigation

Nov 3 (Reuters) - A woman who accused Chicago Blackhawks star Patrick Kane of rape has told prosecutors that she no longer wants to cooperate in the investigation, five sources with knowledge of the case told The Buffalo News.

The investigation has created a great deal of stress for her and her family, and she no longer wants to participate in the case against the National Hockey League All-Star, she told authorities, according to the News.

The woman, whose name has not been disclosed, accused Kane, a three-time Stanley Cup champion, of raping her in his off-season home in Hamburg, New York, a Buffalo suburb, early on Aug. 2 after the two met at a nightclub.

One of the News' sources said the woman spoke to investigators at the Erie County District Attorney's Office and then signed a "affidavit declining prosecution" document, which is now being considered by District Attorney Frank Sedita.

The woman first asked Sedita's staff about the status of the investigation before saying she no longer wants to cooperate, one of the unidentified sources told the News.

Kane, 26, had denied the allegations and the News reported in September, citing sources, that DNA evidence did not support the woman's contention she was raped.

Although Kane's DNA was found on his accuser's shoulders and fingernails, it was not found in her genital area or on her undergarments, unidentified sources told the newspaper.

Sedita was not immediately available for comment on Tuesday. (Reporting by Steve Ginsburg in Washington)

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Douthat and the Desire for an Unchanging Church

New York Times columnist Ross Douthat's critique of the direction of Catholicism under Pope Francis has recently come under attack from some prominent American Catholic theologians. However, my concern is not on the theological credentials of Douthat or whether he should use the pages of the New York Times as a pulpit to pontificate on the hermeneutics of the leadership of Pope Francis. My goal in this essay is to engage the substance and presuppositions of his claims about Catholicism. Theologians who disagree with Douthat should enter into a healthy and robust dialogue with him and show why and how the claims of his argument lack merits. Every Christian is capable of doing theology when they reflect on their faith. I appreciate the sentiments of the theologians who signed the petition against Douthat but I do not share in some of their convictions. Douthat like every other Catholic and free American has a right to reflect on what he understands about faith, Catholic identity, doctrines and the directions of his church. In doing this, he has the right to call forth those values and virtues in American Public Square and political discourse to shed light on faith's connections and consequences for the common good of the United States. I do not agree with many of Douthat's conclusions, but I admire his desire to publicly and strongly uphold and defend his Catholic convictions through the storied pages of the New York Times.

What is problematic in Douthat's writings so far on Pope Francis is that it lacks a sense of history. Without a broader understanding of the history of the development of Catholic beliefs and practices, Douthat confuses disciplinary regulations with belief; and the cultural forms of sacramental celebrations with their essence. To give one example, his argument that changing the disciplinary regulations about reception of communion which allows divorced and remarried Catholics to receive communion will empty the indissolubility of the sacrament of matrimony is a non-sequitor. Annulment process is a regulatory protocol introduced to address the status of those whose marriages have failed. It is not an article of faith and can be changed anytime to make it a more effective process for healing and restoration of broken lives. Changing the annulment process does not change the essence of marriage, Holy communion or the sacrament of reconciliation. Thus to charge Pope Francis of clearly inclining toward 'the liberalizing view' and of consistently maneuvering the process to advance this change is not only an ad hominem argument but lacks any factual support. If one Pope introduced annulment as a response to the challenges facing Catholics in his times, why shouldn't another pope seek for new approaches to better serve the needs of Catholics in order to realize the intention of the Lord Jesus in instituting these sacraments?

Furthermore, to argue as Douthat does that the inseparable link between Holy Communion and the sacrament of reconciliation is being torn by those who propose allowing communion for divorced and remarried Catholics shows Douthat's limited understanding of the history of the sacrament and the Holy Eucharist. The sacrament of Reconciliation is not more efficacious than the Holy Eucharist in taking away sin. The penitential rite at the beginning of Mass is not meant to be a mere window dressing. Traditionally, the church has taught that this little confession does take away venial sin, but in the words of absolution said at Mass the priest asks God to 'forgive us our sins' not 'some of it', but all of it. While traditional Catholicism upholds the importance of sacramental confession for all who are conscious of any sin in their lives, and discourages 'unworthy reception' of communion, it leaves the ultimate judgment on individual conscience. The quest by Douthat for a rigorist and pure church is at the heart of his unease with Pope Francis. Also he confuses the contingent means for realizing the ends of the sacrament with the essence of the sacrament, and fails to appreciate the historical development of the sacramental practices and the limitations of these practices in mediating fully what God wishes to offer to the Church. This is a major weakness in his essays.

Finally, without an appreciation of the history of the synodal and conciliar traditions of the Church, Douthat and Catholics like him are unfortunately obsessed with a siege mentality about the future of the Church. He sees dialogue and disagreement at the Synod as a sign of confusion rather than a summons for discernment about the movement of the spirit in history. He interprets Pope Francis' openness to listening to what the Spirit says to the Church rather than impose his will on bishops and cardinals as was the case in recent papacies as a veiled stratagem for changing the church in his own image and likeness. At the heart of Douthat's unease about the papacy of Francis is his desire for an unchanging church, and his innocent romantic ideals of a transcendental ecclesiology of an ahistorical Catholicism. But Catholicism from her origin has always been a changing and reforming church. Thus the cultural bereavement of Catholics like Douthat or their public disagreement and excoriation of the pope are hewed from a certain ideological reading of a presumed synchronist and pure Catholicism, untouched by historical forces. Such Catholicism exists only in the innocent pietistic world of Douthat. So what is at stake here is not simply of a doctrinal and dogmatic fortress which may wither in Catholicism, but rather of the renewing fire of the Spirit which will be smothered if the Church does not open herself to the gift of prophecy from the Spirit whose wind blows wherever and whenever she pleases.

Pope Benedict XVI then as Cardinal Ratzinger once said in an interview that "Catholicism is fed by the whole of the history of belief, but in its characteristic form it developed in the Western Church. In that sense, much of what we today call a Catholic way of thinking is not beyond the limitations of time, nor is it unchangeable." My contention in this essay is that Catholicism is a great river with many cultural and historical tributaries all contributing in enriching this sea of love watering the city of God on earth. If this is true of Catholicism, then one should become increasingly conscious of the limitations of forms of thinking and acting within the church which could narrow the full expression of Catholicism as a world church. Every act of believing is conditioned by the historical and social context of the believer and every analysis of faith is influence in most cases by the locus of enunciation of the writer or theologian. To elevate one's thinking to a metaphysics or to apotheosize one's culturally conditioned understanding of Catholic orthodoxy as some abstracted totally packaged revelatory gift from God above is problematic and misleading. It is so easy to sustain such debates in the comfort of Times Square rather than from the dumps of history like Pope Francis. However, when you are dealing with other counter narratives of faith and of divinity, of history and the last things like some of us theologians from Africa and Asia in the encounter with Hinduism, Islam, Buddhism and African Traditional Religions; when you are dealing with a congregation relying only on prayer for answers to sickness, witchcraft and failed governments; when belief for you is a matter of life or death in the face of religious persecution the limitations of Western debates in a post-Western Christianity immediately becomes clear. The versions of Western ways of thinking about the God of Jesus Christ embraced by Douthat and the Western canons of inclusion and exclusion through religious narratives of sin and righteousness embedded in Western Christianity is coming to the end of the road. It is no longer offering valid answers to new questions here in the West nor is it satisfying the new contexts of faith outside the West. Pope Francis knows this because the Cardinals chose him from a non-Western end of the earth to challenge, reform and transform Catholicism from this form of thinking and acting so that Catholics can encounter a God of love and mercy and not simply a metaphysical and idealistic God. Pope Francis is making it possible for God to surprise us by opening our eyes to new things and asking us to step into a new future by not putting new wine into an old wine skin.

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NRA Repeats Same Old Misleading, Racist Tropes in New Anti-Clinton Video

Now that the 2nd Amendment has become an issue in the looming 2016 presidential campaign, it was just a matter of time until the NRA got its own campaign playbook together and started adding its voice to the political fray. So it was hardly a surprise when the NRA released its first political message right out of the mouth of Wayne LaPierre, who claimed he was responding to Obama's appearance at a police chief's meeting in Chicago where the president dutifully repeated his call for 'common-sense' laws to help end the everyday carnage from guns.

The NRA's campaign message turns out to be a riff on the "we don't need no stinkin' new gun laws" mantra that was first promoted by Donald Trump. And once Trump said it, all the other Republican presidential pretenders fell into line with what has become official policy for the NRA. And why don't we need any more gun laws to stop what Wayne-o calls the "bloodshed?" Because all we have to do is "enforce the federal gun laws" and "direct every federal jurisdiction to round up every felon, drug dealer and gangbanger with a gun" and the problem will be solved right then and there.

But Obama won't do it, and if she's elected Hillary won't do it because they "wait for a crime that fits their agenda and blames the NRA." Which is another way of saying that instead of locking up all those bad guys with guns, the Democrats just want to pass new gun-control laws. "President Clinton and President Obama use the carnage to campaign for new gun laws" says Wayne-o, and the result of not enforcing current laws is that "thugs" like Darius Brown (picture of Brown with voice-over from Wayne-o) don't go to jail and instead end up shooting a nine-year old girl.

So here we have the NRA game plan as we inch towards election 2016. Blame it all on the Democrats who don't enforce crime laws, tie them to "thugs" who are always young men of color, and make sure to remind everyone that urban "bloodshed" has nothing to do with guns. Doesn't it remind you just a bit of the Willie Horton campaign ads that secured the White House for the first iteration of George Bush? But if the Horton campaign was short on facts and long on emotional, racist-tinged images, it can't be compared to the misrepresentations and racist-laden messaging this time around.

Let's start with the charge that Clinton and Obama won't enforce laws and are "soft" on crime. In 1993, the national violent crime rate was 746. Eight years later, at the end of the Clinton administration, the rate had fallen to 506, a decline of 33 percent. Eight years after that, at the end of Bush II, the rate stood at 457, a further decline of 10 percent. In 2014, seven years into Obama, it's at 357, a drop from the end of Bush's tenure of 22 percent. Since 1993 the violent crime rate has declined by 52 percent, of which 90 percent disappeared during the administrations of two, crime-loving Dems.

In the rush to get Wayne-o's comments up there right after the president addressed the police chiefs, the folks who produce those insipid NRA videos might want to take another look. Because the picture of "Darius Brown" is actually a picture of Jamal Streeter, one of three young men charged in the murder of a 13-year-old teenager named Darius Brown. Oh well, if every young man of color is either a gangbanger or a thug, how hard is it to get them all mixed up?

It's not hard at all if you've decided that, everything else failing, you'll fall back on the time-honored issues of race and crime in order to galvanize your political base and garner some votes. I happen to believe that most Americans, gun owners or not, will see right through this stupid charade even if Wayne-o and the NRA haven't yet figured it out.

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Fall-Flavored Beer Cocktails That'll Turn Up Thanksgiving

We're smack dab in the middle of fall, which means two things. 1. The hurricane of holiday parties is swirling right around the corner and 2. Your local beer aisle has reached peak levels of seasonal beer mayhem.

So how about getting creative with all those bottles of pumpkin- and apple-spiced everything? 

Since mixing beer (especially flavored ones) with liquor can be a bit tricky, we turned to the experts at Brew'd, a pub in Honolulu that specializes in craft beer cocktails, for a little guidance.

"It's all about enhancing the flavor of the beer by using different ingredients," Adam Golash, the pub's beverage director, told The Huffington Post.

When coming up with your own concoction, Golash suggests thinking of the beer's flavor as a food item, instead of a beverage.

If you have a pumpkin flavor, for example, think about what you'd add to a pumpkin pie. For most seasonal beers, such as apple ales, Golash suggests using a bourbon because "you get little hints of vanilla." Spice flavors, like cinnamon or spiced rum, work well, too. 

As far as the pouring ratio goes, Golash sticks (roughly) to half and half: half beer, half everything else.

Below, seven tasty beer cocktails that will turn up any seasonal soirée. Make sure you check out the Apple Pumpkin Bourbon and the Double Rumpkin, which were made specially for HuffPost by Brew'd.

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What You Should Know About The New Illinois Public Schools Data

Another round of new public school data has been released as part of the annual Illinois Report Card, including student and teacher demographics, ACT scores and financial information.

While the objective of the statewide education report card is to provide parents, teachers, administrators and the public with more insights on how Illinois' schoolchildren are performing academically, some key data has yet to be published -- namely the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Career (PARCC) scores from last spring -- and those results won't be released until at least late November.

Illinois is one of 11 states now administering the PARCC exam, which is based on more rigorous Common Core standards. The exam replaced both the ISAT and PSAE tests and may be used to phase out the ACT test as a determinant of college readiness, writes the Daily Herald's Susan Sarkauskas.

The new report card data show a dismal 46 percent of high school graduates were "ready for college," meaning more than half failed to score at least a 21 on the ACT. Statewide, the average score was 20.5.

Here's how students scored on the ACT by subject, with benchmark scores in parentheses:

• English (18): 61 percent
• 
  
• Mathematics (22): 40 percent
• 
  
• Reading (22): 39 percent
• 
  
• Science (23): 35 percent
• 
  
• All subjects: 25 percent

Even more troubling, reports the Chicago Tribune

• Only 24.9 percent of 2015 public school graduates statewide scored high enough on all four ACT subjects to be considered college-ready. That percentage was up from 24.2 the year before.
• 
  
  
• Just 26 high schools in the state had 50 percent or more of their graduates reach those four college-ready scores, the Tribune found. And those schools are the perennial high performers, including high-ranking, selective-enrollment schools in Chicago and several affluent districts in Cook, Lake and DuPage counties.
• 
  
  
• Meanwhile, high-poverty schools in Chicago and downstate posted the lowest ACT scores in the state and some had less than 5 percent of students considered ready for college classes.

Here's what else you should know from the 2015 Illinois Report Card.

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Paintball Gun-Wielding Robbery Suspect Shot, Killed

A Chicago grocery store customer holding a concealed carry license shot and killed a suspected robber on Saturday night.

The suspect, Reginald Gildersleeve, 55, allegedly entered Agencia Mexicana at around 7 p.m. wearing a mask and pulled out what appeared to be a gun, The Chicago Tribune reported.

He was actually holding a paintball gun, Chicago Police Department spokesman Anthony Guglielmi told The Huffington Post. 

Gildersleeve allegedly declared that he was robbing the store, then pointed the paintball gun at an employee and forced her towards the back of the business, according to the Associated Press. A customer, who was legally carrying a concealed gun, then shot Gildersleeve multiple times, fatally wounding him. 

His stepson, Igbinosa Oronsaye, said Gildersleeve didn’t deserve to be killed.

“Now my heart feels like ice,” he told the Tribune. “I loved that man so dearly."

No one else was injured in the incident. 

Spokesman Guglielmi told HuffPost that the customer who shot Gildersleeve will not face charges, since officials consider the shooting to have been self-defense.

Contact the author at Hilary.Hanson@huffingtonpost.com

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With Automatic Voter Registration, Illinois Poised to Reduce Recidivism

If the Illinois General Assembly passes Senate Bill 2134 - automatic voter registration - it may not increase voter participation as much as anticipated but it could be one of the most effective anti-crime laws in the state.

Just like the Oregon statute that became the first of its kind in the country this March, the bill would implement automatic voter registration for any Illinois resident who gets a driver's license or a state identification card.

One of the criticisms offered for the Oregon law was that too many indigent and minority people lacked any interface with the Department of Motor Vehicles because they can't afford the fee for the license/identification. These people wouldn't be automatically registered in Oregon under the new law.

But Illinois might not have that problem if Senate Bill 2134 passes.

Illinois is unique in that it is one of two states with a program that allows people released from prison to exchange a prison ID/discharge papers for a state identification card for free. If the automatic voter registration bill passes, then an Illinois prisoner could leave confinement and be registered to vote - and have identification to apply for jobs - the very same day, even if he has no money. This is important because many released offenders in Illinois don't know that they are eligible to register to vote.

Research from the Florida Parole Commission indicates that recidivism rates for those released offenders who had their right to vote restored was only 11%, as compared with 33% for an entire cohort of convicted felons. That's a 67% decrease in reoffending when felons' voting rights are restored. In a state where recidivism is 51.7%, a reduction is clearly needed.

Re-registering to vote was the easiest part of my re-entry back into society after more than six years in prison. I was released on March 18, 2014, applied online in April and had my voting rights restored through the mail by May 5, 2014.

Even though it was my right and I was legally entitled to vote, just the fact that civic participation was one area of my life where I wouldn't face discrimination gave me a bit more confidence in re-entering society. Re-registering to vote made me feel legit, like I wasn't so bad.

When I voted in the Congressional midterm election in November, I learned that few ex-offenders turn out on the first Tuesday of November with me.

Only one study, published ten years ago, attempted to predict whether restored felons actually vote. Jeff Manza and Marcus Britton, both at Northwestern University at the time, and Christopher Uggen of the University of Minnesota found that about 30 percent of felons would vote when given the chance.

If the restoring the right to vote is so meaningful that it can draw a released offender away from re-offending, then the fact that less than a third of those people use that right shouldn't make sense, at least not to people who have never been incarcerated.

To me, it makes sense. The reason why the Florida study suggests that the mere registration to vote, not actual voting, helped released prisoners to keep away from crime is the value of symbolism in a marginalized person's experience.

Whether the restoration comes hard-fought or not, reinstatement of voting rights represents formalized redemption and a re-acceptance in society, a rare feeling when you're wearing the Scarlet "F" as you exit prison. And if that feeling of redemption is delivered to someone early enough, it can affect how a released offender approaches the challenges that remain ahead of him.

Social workers and parole and probation officers have become so preoccupied with the practical elements of an ex-felon's life - jobs, housing, medical and mental health treatment - that they concentrate more on what these things do rather than what they represent to someone like me. In Illinois, an ex-offender can trade a badge of an old life (prison ID) for an icon of a new life (the state identification card). If Senate Bill 2134 passes and his right to vote is restored at the same time, it's a sign that he's back and he, too, isn't so bad.

Recidivism rates in the eleven states that permanently bar convicted felons from voting aren't good. In 2010, Florida had the highest recidivism rate in the country and the largest population of disenfranchised citizens. I take that as a sign.

Automatic voter registration in Illinois has the potential to keep returning citizens from going back to prison and that alone makes it worth passing, even if it's just a start in maximizing voter participation.

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