Without the Ike Dike, a direct hit in the Houston-Galveston area by a category 3 hurricane will result in a catastrophic loss of lives and property
By Howie Katz
Big Jolly Politics
June 29, 2017
Hurricane Ike, which struck the Texas Gulf Coast just east of Galveston in September 2008, was the third most destructive hurricane to strike the United States. Ike left an estimated $24 billion of property damage, 82 deaths and 202 missing in its wake. Had the storm not taken a last minute turn to the north from its northwest track, it would have made a direct hit on Galveston and Houston and the storm surge would have been far more catastrophic to property and lives.
In the wake of Hurricane Ike, Texas A&M University at Galveston oceanographer William Merrell devised a plan that would protect homes and lives in the Houston-Galveston area from deadly hurricane storm surges. His plan was dubbed the “Ike Dike”.
Professor Merrell proposed an extension of the seawall all the way to the western end of Galveston Island and for a new sea wall on the Bolivar Peninsula east of Galveston Bay. In order to protect Houston and other cities along Galveston Bay, Merrell proposed the construction of huge floodgates at the entrance to the bay, like those used in the Netherlands. He also called for smaller gates at San Louis Pass and the Intracoastal Waterway, both of which are west of Galveston Island.
Sounds like a solid plan, one that would protect several hundred thousand homes and people from those deadly and destructive storm surges. But the Ike Dike was met with immediate opposition from environmentalists.
The econuts warned that the floodgates would interfere with the migration of sea life. What a crock! Those gates would only be closed upon the approach of a hurricane. They would be open at all other times, thus allowing that precious sea life to migrate into the polluted waters of the Houston ship channel. The econuts also opposed extension of the sea wall. Instead, they proposed building up the sand dunes as a natural barrier against any storm surge. Yeah right, that’ll work.
The environmentalists also say that developers are to blame for building homes and businesses within the storm surge areas. Of course they are right. But that’s no consolation for the people now living in the hundreds of thousands homes that are now sitting where they should never have been built.
The next opposition came from the bean counters. They said that the estimated $5 billion it would cost to build the Ike Dike was unattainable. Never mind that Hurricane Ike did $24 billion of property damage even though it came ashore in a far less populated area than Houston and Galveston. $5 billion is too much? Never mind that the feds spent $14.5 billion just within the city of on New Orleans to protect its citizens from the ravages of storm surge-induced flooding.
What did New Orleans have that Houston and Galveston did not have? After Hurricane Ike we did not have the pictures New Orleans had showing heart-wrenching images of 16,000 poor souls trapped in the Super Dome under unimaginable inhumane conditions.
$5 billion is too much? Along came the educated idiots at Rice University’s Baker Institute to throw a wrench into the Ike Dike plan. They had the solution to the high cost of the proposed Ike Dike. They recommended scrapping Merrell’s floodgates and sea wall extension in favor of one floodgate across the Houston ship channel. That would protect Houston’s multibillion dollar petro-chemical complex. But what about the homes and businesses siting in the path of a hurricane storm surge?
I am not an engineer or hydrologist. Common sense tells me that the water from the storm surge won’t just stop once it reaches the ship channel floodgate. It has to go somewhere. It probably cannot recede. Most likely the water will spread east and west, thereby flooding thousands of homes that might otherwise have been spared.
There has been a concerted effort in support of the Ike Dike on the part of public officials and prominent citizens from the cities within the Houston-Galveston area. But here it is nine years after Hurricane Ike and no Ike Dike is in sight. And by now the cost has probably tripled.
Will the Houston-Galveston area ever get the Ike Dike? Yes, but I fear it won’t be until after the area has taken a direct hit from a category 3 hurricane and the catastrophic loss of lives and property left in its wake.
Friday, June 30, 2017
GRETA VAN SUSTEREN UNEMPLOYED
by Bob Walsh
I admit I thought it was an odd fit when Greta Van Susteren bailed from Fox and went to MSNBC. Of course maybe there was some stuff going on at Fox on a personal level she just couldn't stomach. Be that as it may she lasted less than six months at MSNBC.
Ms. Van Susteren had the least-watched evening show on the uber-liberal network for the time she has been on the air there. She even routinely got beat out by that hack Chris Matthews by a very wide margin.
She has now hosted on CNN, Fox, and MSNBC. Maybe she will go back to practicing law, you never know. Personally I liked the lady and I am confident she will land on her feet.
I admit I thought it was an odd fit when Greta Van Susteren bailed from Fox and went to MSNBC. Of course maybe there was some stuff going on at Fox on a personal level she just couldn't stomach. Be that as it may she lasted less than six months at MSNBC.
Ms. Van Susteren had the least-watched evening show on the uber-liberal network for the time she has been on the air there. She even routinely got beat out by that hack Chris Matthews by a very wide margin.
She has now hosted on CNN, Fox, and MSNBC. Maybe she will go back to practicing law, you never know. Personally I liked the lady and I am confident she will land on her feet.
THE SUREST TEST OF A PERSON'S INTELLIGENCE...
...Is how much they agree with you
by Bob Walsh
Federal Judge Roger Benitez said today that, among other things, the magazine ban scheduled to take effect Saturday is an unlawful taking of private property without compensation.
The judge said, "If this injunction does not issue, hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of otherwise law-abiding citizens will have an untenable choice: become an outlaw or dispossess one's self of lawfully acquired property." The San Diego based judge issued a preliminary injunction blocking the law from taking effect until the matter is heard more fully.
A second judge, based in Sacramento, is also considering the matter in a different lawsuit filed by a different Second Amendment group.
It seems that not all federal judges are morons, even in the People's Republic of California.
by Bob Walsh
Federal Judge Roger Benitez said today that, among other things, the magazine ban scheduled to take effect Saturday is an unlawful taking of private property without compensation.
The judge said, "If this injunction does not issue, hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of otherwise law-abiding citizens will have an untenable choice: become an outlaw or dispossess one's self of lawfully acquired property." The San Diego based judge issued a preliminary injunction blocking the law from taking effect until the matter is heard more fully.
A second judge, based in Sacramento, is also considering the matter in a different lawsuit filed by a different Second Amendment group.
It seems that not all federal judges are morons, even in the People's Republic of California.
CLOSE ADVISOR OF POPE ACCUSED OF BEING A PEDOPHILE
by Bob Walsh
Cardinal George Pell, 76, is an Aussie and a top advisor to the Pope. He is the chief financial advisor to the Vatican. He stands formally accused of "historical sexual assault offenses" (meaning they are not recent). Pell has been ordered to appear in court on July 18 to face multiple counts.
There is a long history of Pell allegedly slow-dragging complaints of sexual assault by priests in his bailiwick.
Pell is currently on leave pending disposition of the charges. He said last year, in speaking to the commission within the church looking at sexual abuse, that he had made "enormous mistakes" in overseeing investigation into alleged pedophile priests.
Australia does not have a formal extradition arrangement with the Vatican and one would assume that Pell might have a diplomatic passport. Never the less he has said that he is in fact returning to Australia to face the charges.
Pell could also face a church trial on the charges. The Pope is on record as having referred to people in Chile who protested against a notorious pedophile priest as being a bunch of "stupid leftists." One might tend to wonder where his true sympathies lie.
Cardinal George Pell, 76, is an Aussie and a top advisor to the Pope. He is the chief financial advisor to the Vatican. He stands formally accused of "historical sexual assault offenses" (meaning they are not recent). Pell has been ordered to appear in court on July 18 to face multiple counts.
There is a long history of Pell allegedly slow-dragging complaints of sexual assault by priests in his bailiwick.
Pell is currently on leave pending disposition of the charges. He said last year, in speaking to the commission within the church looking at sexual abuse, that he had made "enormous mistakes" in overseeing investigation into alleged pedophile priests.
Australia does not have a formal extradition arrangement with the Vatican and one would assume that Pell might have a diplomatic passport. Never the less he has said that he is in fact returning to Australia to face the charges.
Pell could also face a church trial on the charges. The Pope is on record as having referred to people in Chile who protested against a notorious pedophile priest as being a bunch of "stupid leftists." One might tend to wonder where his true sympathies lie.
FORMER DPS TROOPER BRIAN ENCINIA CAN NEVER BE A LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICER AGAIN IN TEXAS
Perjury Charge Dropped Against Ex-Trooper Who Arrested Sandra Bland
By Dianna Wray
Houston Press
June 29, 2017
The former Texas Department of Public Safety trooper who arrested Sandra Bland in 2015 has been cleared of a perjury charge.
Bland's arrest in July 2015 kicked off a series of events that ended with Bland dead and outraged protesters from around the country pushing for more information about why she was ever arrested in the first place. Many of those questions were aimed at the arresting officer, Brian Encinia.
Encinia pulled Bland over because she changed lanes without signaling. Encinia took down her information and gave her a ticket. As the trooper handed Bland the ticket, he commented that she seemed irritated. When Bland refused to put out her lit cigarette, he pulled Bland out of the car and arrested her, charging her with resisting arrest. Bland committed suicide in the Waller County Jail three days later.
Encinia, who was later fired, was indicted on a charge of perjury for allegedly lying in the report he filed about Bland's arrest in January 2016. Before dashboard camera video of the incident was made public, Encinia claimed Bland had assaulted him by kicking him in the shin and swinging her elbows. He claimed that he pulled Bland from her car to "further conduct a safe traffic investigation."
He was indicted on a Class A misdemeanor charge of perjury because the grand jury didn't believe his explanation, Darrell Jordan, one of the five special prosecutors on the case, said at the time the indictment was announced.
Waller County District Judge Albert McCaig dismissed the case at the request of the prosecution. Prosecutors agreed to drop the charge if Encinia agreed to give up his police license and to never seek another job in law enforcement.
“Brian and his family appreciate the thoughtful review by the prosecutors. Dismissal was the right thing to do. The Encinias will remain forever grateful to their family, friends and members of the law enforcement community for all their support,” said Chip Lewis, Encinia’s attorney, in a statement announcing the dropped charge.
By Dianna Wray
Houston Press
June 29, 2017
The former Texas Department of Public Safety trooper who arrested Sandra Bland in 2015 has been cleared of a perjury charge.
Bland's arrest in July 2015 kicked off a series of events that ended with Bland dead and outraged protesters from around the country pushing for more information about why she was ever arrested in the first place. Many of those questions were aimed at the arresting officer, Brian Encinia.
Encinia pulled Bland over because she changed lanes without signaling. Encinia took down her information and gave her a ticket. As the trooper handed Bland the ticket, he commented that she seemed irritated. When Bland refused to put out her lit cigarette, he pulled Bland out of the car and arrested her, charging her with resisting arrest. Bland committed suicide in the Waller County Jail three days later.
Encinia, who was later fired, was indicted on a charge of perjury for allegedly lying in the report he filed about Bland's arrest in January 2016. Before dashboard camera video of the incident was made public, Encinia claimed Bland had assaulted him by kicking him in the shin and swinging her elbows. He claimed that he pulled Bland from her car to "further conduct a safe traffic investigation."
He was indicted on a Class A misdemeanor charge of perjury because the grand jury didn't believe his explanation, Darrell Jordan, one of the five special prosecutors on the case, said at the time the indictment was announced.
Waller County District Judge Albert McCaig dismissed the case at the request of the prosecution. Prosecutors agreed to drop the charge if Encinia agreed to give up his police license and to never seek another job in law enforcement.
“Brian and his family appreciate the thoughtful review by the prosecutors. Dismissal was the right thing to do. The Encinias will remain forever grateful to their family, friends and members of the law enforcement community for all their support,” said Chip Lewis, Encinia’s attorney, in a statement announcing the dropped charge.
JUSTIFIED OR NOT, POLICE SHOOTINGS ARE IN THE EYE OF THE BEHOLDER
After Death of Unarmed Man, Houston Agrees to Pay Family $260,000
By Meagan Flynn
Houston Press
June 29, 2017
On an October night in 2011, Houston Police Department Officer Jason Rosemon pulled into a neighborhood street, responding to a domestic disturbance call, demanding through a megaphone that Kenny Releford come outside. Minutes later, Releford, an unarmed, schizophrenic man, was bleeding to death in the middle of the street. Rosemon shot Releford because, according to the officer, Releford had a hand behind his back and Rosemon feared he had a gun. Rosemon shot him a second time about one minute later, because he saw him try to get up.
Now, after three years of litigation against the City of Houston, City Council finally agreed Wednesday to pay Releford's surviving family $260,000 as part of a settlement agreement, following a slew of federal court opinions in Releford's favor.
The settlement is a rare victory for the family members of unarmed victims of fatal police encounters in a city whose police department, for years, nearly always found a police shooting justified. The officer who killed Releford was not disciplined. But to win a civil rights lawsuit against the city, plaintiffs have to show that more than one of the city's police officers is a problem. They have to show that unchecked excessive force and failure to train or discipline officers are a widespread culture problem within the police department — an extremely high standard to meet.
Attorneys for Releford's family, however, dug up the dirt — findings we wrote about at length in a feature last year, "Officials Can’t Remember the Last Time HPD Saw an Unjustified Shooting. Here’s Why."
At the time of Releford's death, of the 99 incidents in which people had been killed or injured by Houston police officers since 2009, not a single shooting was found "unjustified" by HPD internal affairs (In years prior, from 2005 to 2009, only two out of 170 shootings were found unjustified.) The apparently "justified" shootings, in the department's lingo, included the death of Brian Claunch, a mentally ill, double-amputee homeless man in a wheelchair whom an officer shot after Clautch wielded a ballpoint pen; and the death of Omar Ventura, who was shot by a drunk off-duty Houston officer who had gotten into a bar fight and thought (wrongly) that Ventura was going to pull a gun.
U.S. District Judge Keith Ellison found in a February 2016 ruling that the detailed documentation of several of the Houston Police Department's investigations of officer-involved shootings — and the bleak statistics about how infrequently officers are held accountable — was reasonable evidence of the department's systematic failure to keep excessive force in check, and he denied the county's motion to dismiss the case. (It entered settlement proceedings roughly one year later.)
Ellison also found that these text messages, exchanged between two officers on the night of Releford's death, contributed to his family's argument that Houston officers are indifferent to the deaths of unarmed civilians:
Officer Peter Buttitta: Hey bro, can you guys go at least 2 weeks without a shooting.
Officer Lara: Thats how we roll at South Central Bra! We too hard!
Officer Buttitta: Hahaha right…is he DOA?
Officer Lara: He was alive when enrt to hosp.
Officer Buttitta: Man bra, you better be careful…the list is shortening of officers who havent gotten into a shooting yet.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Buttitta and Lara were probably engaging in a little tombstone humor, a practice quite common among cops to relieve stress, but these two shit-for-brains idiots were really stupid for doing so via text messages.
The way family members of people shot by cops usually see it is that the cops got up that morning determined to shoot somebody and the media plays right along with it. The cops on the other hand, for one reason or another, see their lives in immediate jeopardy. It’s all in the eye of the beholder.
By Meagan Flynn
Houston Press
June 29, 2017
On an October night in 2011, Houston Police Department Officer Jason Rosemon pulled into a neighborhood street, responding to a domestic disturbance call, demanding through a megaphone that Kenny Releford come outside. Minutes later, Releford, an unarmed, schizophrenic man, was bleeding to death in the middle of the street. Rosemon shot Releford because, according to the officer, Releford had a hand behind his back and Rosemon feared he had a gun. Rosemon shot him a second time about one minute later, because he saw him try to get up.
Now, after three years of litigation against the City of Houston, City Council finally agreed Wednesday to pay Releford's surviving family $260,000 as part of a settlement agreement, following a slew of federal court opinions in Releford's favor.
The settlement is a rare victory for the family members of unarmed victims of fatal police encounters in a city whose police department, for years, nearly always found a police shooting justified. The officer who killed Releford was not disciplined. But to win a civil rights lawsuit against the city, plaintiffs have to show that more than one of the city's police officers is a problem. They have to show that unchecked excessive force and failure to train or discipline officers are a widespread culture problem within the police department — an extremely high standard to meet.
Attorneys for Releford's family, however, dug up the dirt — findings we wrote about at length in a feature last year, "Officials Can’t Remember the Last Time HPD Saw an Unjustified Shooting. Here’s Why."
At the time of Releford's death, of the 99 incidents in which people had been killed or injured by Houston police officers since 2009, not a single shooting was found "unjustified" by HPD internal affairs (In years prior, from 2005 to 2009, only two out of 170 shootings were found unjustified.) The apparently "justified" shootings, in the department's lingo, included the death of Brian Claunch, a mentally ill, double-amputee homeless man in a wheelchair whom an officer shot after Clautch wielded a ballpoint pen; and the death of Omar Ventura, who was shot by a drunk off-duty Houston officer who had gotten into a bar fight and thought (wrongly) that Ventura was going to pull a gun.
U.S. District Judge Keith Ellison found in a February 2016 ruling that the detailed documentation of several of the Houston Police Department's investigations of officer-involved shootings — and the bleak statistics about how infrequently officers are held accountable — was reasonable evidence of the department's systematic failure to keep excessive force in check, and he denied the county's motion to dismiss the case. (It entered settlement proceedings roughly one year later.)
Ellison also found that these text messages, exchanged between two officers on the night of Releford's death, contributed to his family's argument that Houston officers are indifferent to the deaths of unarmed civilians:
Officer Peter Buttitta: Hey bro, can you guys go at least 2 weeks without a shooting.
Officer Lara: Thats how we roll at South Central Bra! We too hard!
Officer Buttitta: Hahaha right…is he DOA?
Officer Lara: He was alive when enrt to hosp.
Officer Buttitta: Man bra, you better be careful…the list is shortening of officers who havent gotten into a shooting yet.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Buttitta and Lara were probably engaging in a little tombstone humor, a practice quite common among cops to relieve stress, but these two shit-for-brains idiots were really stupid for doing so via text messages.
The way family members of people shot by cops usually see it is that the cops got up that morning determined to shoot somebody and the media plays right along with it. The cops on the other hand, for one reason or another, see their lives in immediate jeopardy. It’s all in the eye of the beholder.
SAN FRANSICKO TO PAY ILLEGAL ALIEN $190,000 BECAUSE COPS TURNED HIM OVER TO ICE
Undocumented immigrant to receive $190,000 from SF for sanctuary city violation
By Jonah Owen Lamb
San Francisco Examiner
June 28, 2017
A man who San Francisco police turned over to immigration authorities in violation of The City’s sanctuary ordinance is set to be awarded $190,000 in a settlement agreement reached with the City Attorney’s Office, which his lawyer hopes will push police to obey such laws.
Pedro Figueroa-Zarceno, 33, sued The City on Jan. 17 for violating its sanctuary city laws when officers at Southern Station allegedly cooperated with immigration officials. Figueroa-Zarceno, an undocumented immigrant and native of El Salvador, went to the station at 1251 3rd Street in Mission Bay in December 2015 to report a stolen car.
But instead of helping him find his car, officers called immigration authorities, who took him into custody outside of the station.
Police reports and case documents previously obtained by the Examiner showed that officers at the station detained Figueroa-Zarceno after they ran his name and found a warrant for his arrest. But they were unable to find details on the warrant, so Figueroa-Zarceno was released from a side door, where he was then arrested by immigration officials. Those officials had been notified by San Francisco police.
“It’s really important for San Francisco to remain a sanctuary city not in name only but also in practice,” said Saira Hussain, a staff attorney at the Asian Law Caucus, who represented Zarceno.
Hussain said her client’s case is not an isolated incident, and she hopes the settlement will encourage the department to follow its own rules and city ordinances. One recent case she mentioned was when an undercover officer, Joshua Fry, was caught on tape allegedly threatening to call immigration authorities on men in U.N. Plaza on May 5.
“Our hope is that the department is going to look into this further and really examine the way that the department can do more,” she said.
The department did not return a request for comment Wednesday.
The settlement agreement — which was introduced to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors Tuesday and has yet to be voted on — and lawsuit names a number of officers who were involved, including then-Acting Chief of Police Toney Chaplin, Sheriff Vicki Hennessy, sgts. Trevor Kelly and Eric Balmy, and officers Kevin Clifford, Nicole Chambers and Dayna Thibeaux.
Settlement agreements that are reached by the City Attorney’s Office are usually approved by the Board of Supervisors, but the body can reject them. The matter will next go before the Government Audit and Oversight Committee, which will then send their recommendation back to the Board of Supervisors.
City law, the Due Process for All Ordinance, bars law enforcement from cooperating with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, among other federal immigration officials, except in a few exceptions when violent criminals are involved. Part of the law’s purpose was to encourage immigrants to report crimes they may otherwise not report because they fear law enforcement will turn them over to immigration authorities.
The City’s sanctuary laws have been center stage in recent years in national politics, including in the killing of San Francisco resident Kathryn Steinle by an undocumented immigrant who at Pier 14 on July 1, 2015.
The suspect, Juan Francisco Lopez-Sanchez, a Mexican citizen, had been sent to San Francisco on an old drug possession warrant from federal custody and then released months before the shooting.
The City came under fire from many who said that Steinle’s death was due to The City’s policies, which allowed the release of Lopez-Sanchez from jail because he had no violent convictions.
EDITOR’S NOTE: If the sanctuary city kooks give Pedro 190,000 because that is less costly than continuing on with his lawsuit, I can understand that. What I cannot understand is why the judges didn’t dump Pedro’s lawsuit into the nearest garbage landfill.
By Jonah Owen Lamb
San Francisco Examiner
June 28, 2017
A man who San Francisco police turned over to immigration authorities in violation of The City’s sanctuary ordinance is set to be awarded $190,000 in a settlement agreement reached with the City Attorney’s Office, which his lawyer hopes will push police to obey such laws.
Pedro Figueroa-Zarceno, 33, sued The City on Jan. 17 for violating its sanctuary city laws when officers at Southern Station allegedly cooperated with immigration officials. Figueroa-Zarceno, an undocumented immigrant and native of El Salvador, went to the station at 1251 3rd Street in Mission Bay in December 2015 to report a stolen car.
But instead of helping him find his car, officers called immigration authorities, who took him into custody outside of the station.
Police reports and case documents previously obtained by the Examiner showed that officers at the station detained Figueroa-Zarceno after they ran his name and found a warrant for his arrest. But they were unable to find details on the warrant, so Figueroa-Zarceno was released from a side door, where he was then arrested by immigration officials. Those officials had been notified by San Francisco police.
“It’s really important for San Francisco to remain a sanctuary city not in name only but also in practice,” said Saira Hussain, a staff attorney at the Asian Law Caucus, who represented Zarceno.
Hussain said her client’s case is not an isolated incident, and she hopes the settlement will encourage the department to follow its own rules and city ordinances. One recent case she mentioned was when an undercover officer, Joshua Fry, was caught on tape allegedly threatening to call immigration authorities on men in U.N. Plaza on May 5.
“Our hope is that the department is going to look into this further and really examine the way that the department can do more,” she said.
The department did not return a request for comment Wednesday.
The settlement agreement — which was introduced to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors Tuesday and has yet to be voted on — and lawsuit names a number of officers who were involved, including then-Acting Chief of Police Toney Chaplin, Sheriff Vicki Hennessy, sgts. Trevor Kelly and Eric Balmy, and officers Kevin Clifford, Nicole Chambers and Dayna Thibeaux.
Settlement agreements that are reached by the City Attorney’s Office are usually approved by the Board of Supervisors, but the body can reject them. The matter will next go before the Government Audit and Oversight Committee, which will then send their recommendation back to the Board of Supervisors.
City law, the Due Process for All Ordinance, bars law enforcement from cooperating with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, among other federal immigration officials, except in a few exceptions when violent criminals are involved. Part of the law’s purpose was to encourage immigrants to report crimes they may otherwise not report because they fear law enforcement will turn them over to immigration authorities.
The City’s sanctuary laws have been center stage in recent years in national politics, including in the killing of San Francisco resident Kathryn Steinle by an undocumented immigrant who at Pier 14 on July 1, 2015.
The suspect, Juan Francisco Lopez-Sanchez, a Mexican citizen, had been sent to San Francisco on an old drug possession warrant from federal custody and then released months before the shooting.
The City came under fire from many who said that Steinle’s death was due to The City’s policies, which allowed the release of Lopez-Sanchez from jail because he had no violent convictions.
EDITOR’S NOTE: If the sanctuary city kooks give Pedro 190,000 because that is less costly than continuing on with his lawsuit, I can understand that. What I cannot understand is why the judges didn’t dump Pedro’s lawsuit into the nearest garbage landfill.
Thursday, June 29, 2017
GUN MAGAZINE BAN IN COURT
by Bob Walsh
On Thursday the federal court will hear an appeal to the 10-round magazine ban that is supposed to take effect this coming Saturday.
The ban, if it goes ahead, will outlaw the possession of so-called "high capacity) magazines by most private citizens in the formerly great state of California. Even if you have owned it for 20 years and it was completely legal when you bought it the law will make you a criminal July 1. Your choices are give the magazine to the cops (I"M sure they will be appreciative), take it out of state, scrap it or have it permanently altered so that it only holds ten rounds (not necessarily cheap or easy). Besides the Second Amendment implications this is, IMHO, a constructive taking of personal property by the government without compensation.
Obviously I hope the ban is overturned. I am not betting that way.
Fortunately as a retired cop I am exempt ... for the moment.
On Thursday the federal court will hear an appeal to the 10-round magazine ban that is supposed to take effect this coming Saturday.
The ban, if it goes ahead, will outlaw the possession of so-called "high capacity) magazines by most private citizens in the formerly great state of California. Even if you have owned it for 20 years and it was completely legal when you bought it the law will make you a criminal July 1. Your choices are give the magazine to the cops (I"M sure they will be appreciative), take it out of state, scrap it or have it permanently altered so that it only holds ten rounds (not necessarily cheap or easy). Besides the Second Amendment implications this is, IMHO, a constructive taking of personal property by the government without compensation.
Obviously I hope the ban is overturned. I am not betting that way.
Fortunately as a retired cop I am exempt ... for the moment.
REAL SECURITY OR FAKE SECURITY?
by Bob Walsh
Most of us who have been around for a while have seen a bit of both. Real security by it's nature is either expensive, inconvenient, or both. There are some places and situations that make real security necessary. There seem to be a lot of places that prefer fake security.
A case in point. On June 14 Jimmy C. Lam entered his work place, the UPS facility in San Francisco. He had to go thru a metal detector in order to accomplish this goal. He was carrying a Tec-9 pistol, a second hand gun and at least 100 rounds of ammunition. The metal detector did in fact alert. He was granted entry anyway, apparently without further inspection. He shot a bunch of people that day and self-rehabilitated when the cops showed up.
Did UPS screw the pooch? Did their security firm blow it? Is their procedure set up so that employees are not screened effectively on a routine basis? I strongly suspect that UPS and (if they have one) their contract security company are asking these questions.
Most of us who have been around for a while have seen a bit of both. Real security by it's nature is either expensive, inconvenient, or both. There are some places and situations that make real security necessary. There seem to be a lot of places that prefer fake security.
A case in point. On June 14 Jimmy C. Lam entered his work place, the UPS facility in San Francisco. He had to go thru a metal detector in order to accomplish this goal. He was carrying a Tec-9 pistol, a second hand gun and at least 100 rounds of ammunition. The metal detector did in fact alert. He was granted entry anyway, apparently without further inspection. He shot a bunch of people that day and self-rehabilitated when the cops showed up.
Did UPS screw the pooch? Did their security firm blow it? Is their procedure set up so that employees are not screened effectively on a routine basis? I strongly suspect that UPS and (if they have one) their contract security company are asking these questions.
CALIFORNIA’S END OF LIFE OPTION ACT
111 Terminally Ill People Took Their Own Lives in 1st 6 Months of California’s Right-to-Die Law
KTLA 5
June 27, 2017
A total of 111 people in California took their own lives using lethal prescriptions during the first six months of a law that allows terminally ill people to request life-ending drugs from their doctors, according to data released Tuesday.
They were among 191 people in the state who received the prescriptions from their doctors; not all ended up using the drugs to kill themselves, state health officials said.
The End of Life Option Act went into effect in June 2016, making California the fifth state in the nation to allow patients with less than six months to live to request end-of-life drugs from their doctors.
Deaths from aid-in-dying made up six out of every 10,000 deaths in California between June and December 2016, according to state officials. That’s much lower than the 2016 rate in Oregon, which was the first state to legalize physician-assisted dying in 1998. Last year, lethal prescriptions accounted for 37.2 per 10,000 deaths in Oregon.
EDITOR’S NOTE: I wish Texas would enact a Right-to-Die law.
KTLA 5
June 27, 2017
A total of 111 people in California took their own lives using lethal prescriptions during the first six months of a law that allows terminally ill people to request life-ending drugs from their doctors, according to data released Tuesday.
They were among 191 people in the state who received the prescriptions from their doctors; not all ended up using the drugs to kill themselves, state health officials said.
The End of Life Option Act went into effect in June 2016, making California the fifth state in the nation to allow patients with less than six months to live to request end-of-life drugs from their doctors.
Deaths from aid-in-dying made up six out of every 10,000 deaths in California between June and December 2016, according to state officials. That’s much lower than the 2016 rate in Oregon, which was the first state to legalize physician-assisted dying in 1998. Last year, lethal prescriptions accounted for 37.2 per 10,000 deaths in Oregon.
EDITOR’S NOTE: I wish Texas would enact a Right-to-Die law.
SAFE EXCHANGE ZONES FOR CRAIGSLIST BUYERS
LAPD sets up safe exchange zones for online buyers, sellers
By Jade Hernandez
KABC
June 27, 2017
SOUTH LOS ANGELES -- The Los Angeles Police Department's South Bureau recorded 45 street robberies, including one deadly, last year that were all tied to e-commerce exchanges.
Now the department is setting up safe exchange zones inside the lobbies of nine police stations and nearly a dozen Ralphs grocery stores for buyers and sellers to feel more secure in their transactions.
Police also have paired with the online company OfferUp, a mobile marketplace known for its safeguards for those buying and selling.
In recent years, police in Los Angeles and around the country have seen a trend of crimes associated with strangers meeting in person to complete transactions that were initiated online. Sometimes those encounters end with an assault and a robbery. In some cases, they have ended with one individual dead.
"I think a lot of our victims are coming from outside of Los Angeles and are very unfamiliar with our streets and our neighborhoods and are coming into places that they don't know might be a potential for crime," said LAPD Deputy Chief Dennis Kato.
Buyers and sellers should look for the "Exchange Zone" signs, which also note the areas can be used for child custody transfers. The lobbies and zones are available 24-7.
By Jade Hernandez
KABC
June 27, 2017
SOUTH LOS ANGELES -- The Los Angeles Police Department's South Bureau recorded 45 street robberies, including one deadly, last year that were all tied to e-commerce exchanges.
Now the department is setting up safe exchange zones inside the lobbies of nine police stations and nearly a dozen Ralphs grocery stores for buyers and sellers to feel more secure in their transactions.
Police also have paired with the online company OfferUp, a mobile marketplace known for its safeguards for those buying and selling.
In recent years, police in Los Angeles and around the country have seen a trend of crimes associated with strangers meeting in person to complete transactions that were initiated online. Sometimes those encounters end with an assault and a robbery. In some cases, they have ended with one individual dead.
"I think a lot of our victims are coming from outside of Los Angeles and are very unfamiliar with our streets and our neighborhoods and are coming into places that they don't know might be a potential for crime," said LAPD Deputy Chief Dennis Kato.
Buyers and sellers should look for the "Exchange Zone" signs, which also note the areas can be used for child custody transfers. The lobbies and zones are available 24-7.
A GUN SAFETY LESSON ONLY TOO REAL
An Indiana father was teaching his twin 10-year-old sons gun safety when he accidentally shot his 9-year-old daughter to death
Eric Hummel, 33, of Hobart, Indiana is facing charges of neglect of a dependent resulting in death, battery resulting in death to a person less than 14 years old, reckless homicide and two counts of neglect of a dependent.
What did Eric do?
On June 10, Hummel was teaching his twin 10-year-old sons not to handle his semi-auto pistol when – KABOOM – the gun went off. The bullet struck his 9-year-old daughter in the head. She died shortly after arriving at a hospital.
During his frantic panic-stricken 911 call, Hummel told the dispatcher that “I had my gun and I pulled the trigger, and I didn’t realize there was a bullet in there, and I shot my daughter.”
A bit later Hummel was heard saying “What the fuck just happened.” Then he pleaded with his daughter, “Please don’t go. Oh my God, please don’t go.”
A tragic ending to a gun safety lesson only too real.
Eric Hummel, 33, of Hobart, Indiana is facing charges of neglect of a dependent resulting in death, battery resulting in death to a person less than 14 years old, reckless homicide and two counts of neglect of a dependent.
What did Eric do?
On June 10, Hummel was teaching his twin 10-year-old sons not to handle his semi-auto pistol when – KABOOM – the gun went off. The bullet struck his 9-year-old daughter in the head. She died shortly after arriving at a hospital.
During his frantic panic-stricken 911 call, Hummel told the dispatcher that “I had my gun and I pulled the trigger, and I didn’t realize there was a bullet in there, and I shot my daughter.”
A bit later Hummel was heard saying “What the fuck just happened.” Then he pleaded with his daughter, “Please don’t go. Oh my God, please don’t go.”
A tragic ending to a gun safety lesson only too real.
IT HAS BEEN SIX MONTHS AND NO JUSTICE SO FAR
Paralyzed, Pregnant and Waiting for Justice after a Near-Fatal Houston Robbery
BY Meagan Flynn
Houston Press
June 28, 2017
Many people have asked Paxton Taylor Webb what it feels like to get shot, but even though it happened to her, she doesn’t know either.
The bullet entered her upper-mid back and severed her spinal cord. It then punctured her left lung, broke several ribs and ricocheted upward, fracturing her clavicle, before finally coming to rest in her left shoulder. Paxton had no idea. All she remembers is a piercing ringing in her ears and falling backward onto the floor, behind the cash register.
She had complied with everything the masked robbers asked of her. Around 2 o’clock on Christmas Eve morning last year, two gunmen entered Katz Boutique in Humble, and somehow knew the code to get inside the cashier’s booth where Paxton stood, encased in glass. In the surveillance video police released, she’s seen working quickly, handing over trays of cash and allowing the robbers to search for more as they please. It’s unclear why, then, one gunman decided to fire at her on his way out the door, as though taking the life of a 23-year-old woman was merely an afterthought.
She didn’t feel it, because she was paralyzed instantly.
“You would think, getting shot, that it’s gonna be like what you see in all the TV shows, like it’s an excruciating pain,” Paxton said from her hospital bed, an episode of Law & Order playing quietly in the background. “I didn’t feel any of that. So I told the paramedics I wasn’t shot.” They turned her over to find the blood pouring out of her back.
Six months later, Paxton is still waiting on justice, police still don’t have any idea who shot her, and she is still spending her days in the manufactured comfort of a hospital room. Yet just as she has begun to settle into her drastically alerted life, Paxton is preparing for another mammoth change: In several weeks, she will give birth to a baby girl.
On the night she was shot, she was four weeks pregnant. Neither she or her husband knew about the baby until she was on the operating room. The news came not long after doctors informed her that a only a piece of paper could have fit in the space between the bullet hole and her heart.
“I was thinking, how am I supposed to be pregnant and paralyzed? Why didn’t the bullet hit my heart? Why did I survive this?” Paxton said. “I didn’t understand anything that was going on. I mean, I’m not ever gonna understand why I was paralyzed or why I didn’t die. That’s just something I’m never gonna figure out. I will tell you, it was the scariest night of my life. And not just because two people came in and robbed the store, but it was…at that moment, my life had changed, and another life was being created at the same time, and I didn’t know how I was gonna do it all. I still don’t know how I’m gonna do it.”
* * *
In January, two miles from the scene of the crime, Houston Police Department investigators discovered an abandoned maroon Ford F-250, the vehicle Detective Samuel Spurlock says he is “highly confident” was used in the robbery.
It’s the best shot that Paxton and police have of tracking down the people who deprived the 23-year-old of the chance to walk again — but it’s also a long shot.
In the truck, Spurlock says investigators found clothing that appeared similar to what the robbers were wearing on video in the store. (Another surveillance video captured this truck fleeing the scene.) They took swabs from carseat headrests and sent the DNA to the Houston Forensic Science Center for testing.
In April the DNA lab results came back. There was no matching profile in any existing databases.
Detective Spurlock said that the DNA results have been entered into the FBI’s Combined DNA Index System, called CODIS, which stores the DNA profile until a match comes up, possibly if the suspect commits another crime elsewhere. The next step from here, Spurlock said, is waiting.
“It can take months. It can take years,” he said. “Not too long ago, I had results come back from something I submitted three years ago.”
Police held a press conference following the shooting in December, pleading that the public come forward with tips. Spurlock said none have led to any substantial people of interest yet, but that questions swirled around how the robbers knew the key code to get into Paxton’s cashier space, and whether any store employees may have known in any capacity about the robbery in advance. For now, however, that’s all they are: questions.
* * *
Her first trip in public in her electric wheelchair was to the Natural Science Museum.
It was a group outing, with her physical therapy group from Memorial Hermann’s TIRR rehabilitation center. She went with her aunt, Michelle Miller, one of Paxton’s regular caregivers, who said she and her niece both felt for the first time the curious gazes from those who still had the luxury of functioning legs. They learned for the first time how wheelchair ramps and seating that’s supposedly “handicap friendly” is friendly to only some but not all handicapped people. There were kids asking their moms why there was a whole group of people in wheelchairs—and the adults stared, too, Paxton said.
Her therapy group at TIRR had been preparing her for this. For two months, Paxton learned how to live again, learning basic everyday skills like how to shower without help. The therapy did just as much to change Paxton’s mindset about what it means to be paralyzed from the chest down. Therapists assured the former dancer that she could still dance in a wheelchair, just differently. That she could still drive a car one day, just differently. That she could still be a mom.
“I have to learn this stuff for her, so that she can go to the doctor when she needs to go to the doctor and I don’t need to depend on someone else,” Paxton said, “or if she falls and cuts herself, I need to be able to learn how to pick her up and make her tears go away. I have to learn how to do this stuff not only for myself, but for her.”
For a long time, Paxton wasn’t sure the day would even come.
On the night of the robbery, doctors told Paxton she was going to lose her baby. When she didn’t miscarry that night she and her family waited for her to miscarry for the next 12 weeks, when doctors said it was bound to happen due to the trauma and shock Paxton was still trying to shed. For her and the family the prediction was devastating: The news of her pregnancy had given her a reason to fight for her life, and now it was supposed to be stripped from her?
Paxton said she doesn’t believe she would have made it through those first weeks had it not been for her mother’s tough love, from the night she told her daughter, “don’t you dare die on me” to the times throughout her recovery she yelled, “don’t you dare say you can’t do this!”
Her mother, Brittney Miller, frequently spends the night on the couch next to Paxton’s hospital bed, where she tries not to dream about the night she had to tell Paxton she wouldn’t be able to walk again. Doctors hadn’t told Paxton yet, and, knowing something was seriously wrong, Paxton turned to her mom for honesty. “It was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do,” Miller said.
“It’s one of those things that doesn’t just affect you when it happens. It affects everybody close to you,” Paxton said. “It has affected my family; it has affected my husband; it has affected my unborn child. Even though she’s not here yet, eventually she’s gonna ask me, mommy, why can’t you walk? And that’s gonna affect her. And then one day, Mom, when did you find out when you were pregnant with me?”
Yet despite all the pain that has come with paralysis and the pregnancy, there is unanimous agreement when Brittney Miller says the hardest part has been going about their days with the knowledge that the people who shot Paxton are out there, perhaps doing the same thing.
Every few weeks they check in with Detective Spurlock, and every few weeks there is no new information to share. The label “inactive” remains on the Paxton’s case file.
The effects of the stalled investigation have manifested in the family’s daily lives.
Paxton and Miller have been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder. Sometimes Miller has panic attacks while walking to her car, or while ordering a sandwich in Quiznos — moments when she sees a figure or a vehicle that for just a split second look like they’re straight out of the surveillance video. Sometimes her aunt Michelle feels like she is being followed, afraid that the robbers have kept tabs on Paxton’s closest loved ones.
And sometimes, for Paxton, who has only been out of a hospital setting for a couple days at a time, the fear manifests in nightmares. She has been waiting for the details to slip away with time, hoping that she’ll forget about the white gloves, or the way they held the pistols or the way they yelled for the money.
“I wish I could forget even one thing,” Paxton said, “Just one. But I can’t.”
BY Meagan Flynn
Houston Press
June 28, 2017
Many people have asked Paxton Taylor Webb what it feels like to get shot, but even though it happened to her, she doesn’t know either.
The bullet entered her upper-mid back and severed her spinal cord. It then punctured her left lung, broke several ribs and ricocheted upward, fracturing her clavicle, before finally coming to rest in her left shoulder. Paxton had no idea. All she remembers is a piercing ringing in her ears and falling backward onto the floor, behind the cash register.
She had complied with everything the masked robbers asked of her. Around 2 o’clock on Christmas Eve morning last year, two gunmen entered Katz Boutique in Humble, and somehow knew the code to get inside the cashier’s booth where Paxton stood, encased in glass. In the surveillance video police released, she’s seen working quickly, handing over trays of cash and allowing the robbers to search for more as they please. It’s unclear why, then, one gunman decided to fire at her on his way out the door, as though taking the life of a 23-year-old woman was merely an afterthought.
She didn’t feel it, because she was paralyzed instantly.
“You would think, getting shot, that it’s gonna be like what you see in all the TV shows, like it’s an excruciating pain,” Paxton said from her hospital bed, an episode of Law & Order playing quietly in the background. “I didn’t feel any of that. So I told the paramedics I wasn’t shot.” They turned her over to find the blood pouring out of her back.
Six months later, Paxton is still waiting on justice, police still don’t have any idea who shot her, and she is still spending her days in the manufactured comfort of a hospital room. Yet just as she has begun to settle into her drastically alerted life, Paxton is preparing for another mammoth change: In several weeks, she will give birth to a baby girl.
On the night she was shot, she was four weeks pregnant. Neither she or her husband knew about the baby until she was on the operating room. The news came not long after doctors informed her that a only a piece of paper could have fit in the space between the bullet hole and her heart.
“I was thinking, how am I supposed to be pregnant and paralyzed? Why didn’t the bullet hit my heart? Why did I survive this?” Paxton said. “I didn’t understand anything that was going on. I mean, I’m not ever gonna understand why I was paralyzed or why I didn’t die. That’s just something I’m never gonna figure out. I will tell you, it was the scariest night of my life. And not just because two people came in and robbed the store, but it was…at that moment, my life had changed, and another life was being created at the same time, and I didn’t know how I was gonna do it all. I still don’t know how I’m gonna do it.”
* * *
In January, two miles from the scene of the crime, Houston Police Department investigators discovered an abandoned maroon Ford F-250, the vehicle Detective Samuel Spurlock says he is “highly confident” was used in the robbery.
It’s the best shot that Paxton and police have of tracking down the people who deprived the 23-year-old of the chance to walk again — but it’s also a long shot.
In the truck, Spurlock says investigators found clothing that appeared similar to what the robbers were wearing on video in the store. (Another surveillance video captured this truck fleeing the scene.) They took swabs from carseat headrests and sent the DNA to the Houston Forensic Science Center for testing.
In April the DNA lab results came back. There was no matching profile in any existing databases.
Detective Spurlock said that the DNA results have been entered into the FBI’s Combined DNA Index System, called CODIS, which stores the DNA profile until a match comes up, possibly if the suspect commits another crime elsewhere. The next step from here, Spurlock said, is waiting.
“It can take months. It can take years,” he said. “Not too long ago, I had results come back from something I submitted three years ago.”
Police held a press conference following the shooting in December, pleading that the public come forward with tips. Spurlock said none have led to any substantial people of interest yet, but that questions swirled around how the robbers knew the key code to get into Paxton’s cashier space, and whether any store employees may have known in any capacity about the robbery in advance. For now, however, that’s all they are: questions.
* * *
Her first trip in public in her electric wheelchair was to the Natural Science Museum.
It was a group outing, with her physical therapy group from Memorial Hermann’s TIRR rehabilitation center. She went with her aunt, Michelle Miller, one of Paxton’s regular caregivers, who said she and her niece both felt for the first time the curious gazes from those who still had the luxury of functioning legs. They learned for the first time how wheelchair ramps and seating that’s supposedly “handicap friendly” is friendly to only some but not all handicapped people. There were kids asking their moms why there was a whole group of people in wheelchairs—and the adults stared, too, Paxton said.
Her therapy group at TIRR had been preparing her for this. For two months, Paxton learned how to live again, learning basic everyday skills like how to shower without help. The therapy did just as much to change Paxton’s mindset about what it means to be paralyzed from the chest down. Therapists assured the former dancer that she could still dance in a wheelchair, just differently. That she could still drive a car one day, just differently. That she could still be a mom.
“I have to learn this stuff for her, so that she can go to the doctor when she needs to go to the doctor and I don’t need to depend on someone else,” Paxton said, “or if she falls and cuts herself, I need to be able to learn how to pick her up and make her tears go away. I have to learn how to do this stuff not only for myself, but for her.”
For a long time, Paxton wasn’t sure the day would even come.
On the night of the robbery, doctors told Paxton she was going to lose her baby. When she didn’t miscarry that night she and her family waited for her to miscarry for the next 12 weeks, when doctors said it was bound to happen due to the trauma and shock Paxton was still trying to shed. For her and the family the prediction was devastating: The news of her pregnancy had given her a reason to fight for her life, and now it was supposed to be stripped from her?
Paxton said she doesn’t believe she would have made it through those first weeks had it not been for her mother’s tough love, from the night she told her daughter, “don’t you dare die on me” to the times throughout her recovery she yelled, “don’t you dare say you can’t do this!”
Her mother, Brittney Miller, frequently spends the night on the couch next to Paxton’s hospital bed, where she tries not to dream about the night she had to tell Paxton she wouldn’t be able to walk again. Doctors hadn’t told Paxton yet, and, knowing something was seriously wrong, Paxton turned to her mom for honesty. “It was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do,” Miller said.
“It’s one of those things that doesn’t just affect you when it happens. It affects everybody close to you,” Paxton said. “It has affected my family; it has affected my husband; it has affected my unborn child. Even though she’s not here yet, eventually she’s gonna ask me, mommy, why can’t you walk? And that’s gonna affect her. And then one day, Mom, when did you find out when you were pregnant with me?”
Yet despite all the pain that has come with paralysis and the pregnancy, there is unanimous agreement when Brittney Miller says the hardest part has been going about their days with the knowledge that the people who shot Paxton are out there, perhaps doing the same thing.
Every few weeks they check in with Detective Spurlock, and every few weeks there is no new information to share. The label “inactive” remains on the Paxton’s case file.
The effects of the stalled investigation have manifested in the family’s daily lives.
Paxton and Miller have been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder. Sometimes Miller has panic attacks while walking to her car, or while ordering a sandwich in Quiznos — moments when she sees a figure or a vehicle that for just a split second look like they’re straight out of the surveillance video. Sometimes her aunt Michelle feels like she is being followed, afraid that the robbers have kept tabs on Paxton’s closest loved ones.
And sometimes, for Paxton, who has only been out of a hospital setting for a couple days at a time, the fear manifests in nightmares. She has been waiting for the details to slip away with time, hoping that she’ll forget about the white gloves, or the way they held the pistols or the way they yelled for the money.
“I wish I could forget even one thing,” Paxton said, “Just one. But I can’t.”
Wednesday, June 28, 2017
REPUBLICAN HEALTH CARE REFORM IS ON LIFE SUPPORT
The Republican health care bills passed by the House and proposed in the Senate will never fly
For seven years the Republicans have been obsessed not with outlawing abortions, but with outlawing Obamacare. They had me all aboard until I saw what the House-passed bill would do if it became law. It would make health care unaffordable for many seniors and would drive millions of the poor to emergency rooms for their health needs. And that would drive up hospital costs for everybody.
While I was and am still opposed to the mandatory provisions of Obamacare, I always thought – and said so – that Obama’s Affordable Care Act had some desirable provisions. Outright Repeal, which is what most Republican politicians have bee screaming for during the past seven years, is like throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
The Republicans are determined to repeal Obamacare but really do not have a solution to the nation’s health care problems. Republican health care reform is on life support and unless the GOP comes up with a reasonable plan that doesn’t hurt seniors and the poor, they might as well pull the plug. And then, although it is in critical condition, Obamacare will live on.
Here is a logical perspective from Jake Novak:
HERE’S THE ONE THING THE GOP NEEDS TO DO TO SAVE ITS HEALTH-CARE BILL
The GOP should leave Medicaid alone for now and focus on actual insurance reform that can pass
By Jake Novak
CNBC
June 27, 2017
Why is the Senate Republican leadership delaying the vote on its Obamacare replacement bill? Obviously, the easiest answer to that question is the GOP simply doesn't have the votes. But dig just a little bit deeper and we find the same problem that's been weighing this replacement effort down since this Congressional session began: fear.
As I have noted for months, the intense political fear of the number of people projected to lose health coverage has made any effort to reform Obamacare almost impossible for the Republicans to pass. I called those people the "Obamacare orphans."
When the latest CBO report came out Monday projecting that the number of Americans losing coverage under the Senate bill will be 22 million by 2026, it was obvious this measure was never going to even come up with for a vote until big changes were made first.
But the CBO report had an even more telling detail, and it proved that using the term "Obamacare orphans" wasn't very accurate. It said that almost 70 percent of that 22 million number would not come from people losing private health insurance coverage, but from the rolling back of the Medicaid expansion that went into effect under Obamacare.
In other words, 15 million people won't be losing "insurance" as we know it with premiums and deductibles to pay, but they'd be losing access to a government entitlement traditionally set aside for the poorest Americans. So the real fear is all about the blow back from "Medicaid orphans."
That, as they say, is a whole different ballgame.
Medicaid enrollment in the U.S. right now is no small issue. Thanks to the expansion, a whopping 74.5 million Americans are currently on Medicaid according to the latest government reports. That is almost double the 39 million Americans who were on Medicaid just as recently as 2007.
By contrast, the entire population of Great Britain is less than 65 million people. And again, unlike Obamacare, it's an entitlement program that requires no payments or financial commitments from its recipients. Even though it can often be very hard to find good and reliable care on Medicaid alone, it's clearly very popular considering this Medicaid expansion hasn't had any trouble finding more than 35 million new takers in under 10 years.
These massive numbers should make it clear why Medicaid is the key stumbling block in the Obamacare replacement or reform effort. It's not just because rolling back Medicaid would be responsible for the bulk of people losing coverage, it's because even a bare-bones entitlement like Medicaid is so hard to take away once the public gets it.
Now that the GOP senators know where this problem is coming from, it's time for them to throw in the towel for now on Medicaid, leave it for later, and get back to fixing the actual private insurance market.
That means getting back to so many of the insurance market reforms Republicans have said they've supported for years like allowing companies to sell insurance over state lines, allowing all kinds of bare-boned "major medical" plans to be sold everywhere, and expanding tax-free health spending accounts. These are the kinds of reforms that will truly bend the cost curve in health coverage and stop the insanity of using so many subsidies and regulations to help big insurance companies inflate prices.
The Medicaid expansion was not something President Obama or the Democrats talked a lot about when they were trying to sell Obamacare to the public in 2009 and 2010. Most of what we heard was about helping working people afford private coverage and, "if you like your plan, you can keep your plan."
This almost doubling of the number of people getting onto Medicaid was basically never discussed or publicly debated. Now, the Republicans are finding that rolling back this Medicaid expansion won't be possible under the same fog. It's obvious now that they shouldn't even try.
Conservatives and fiscal hawks know the Medicaid issue is not something that should be put aside for too long. That near-75 million Americans on the plan are a major cost balloon that could burst very soon. But after what's happened this week, they must also now know that it's a problem that cannot be politically addressed concurrently with private health insurance. Doing something about cutting back the Medicaid rolls and all the spending that comes with it, can wait at least until the Republicans can put together a reasonable alternative beyond White House Counselor Kellyanne Conway's advice that Medicaid recipients get a job. That will skew all the savings the CBO is projecting for the GOP bill right now, but saving money isn't the issue that's holding up the votes, it's these Medicaid orphans that are too hot to handle.
Delaying the votes on this GOP bill by a week, or even a month won't be enough to get the magic number of Republicans to vote for and pass the measure. The reason is Medicaid. So with time running out, it's time for McConnell to make like a surgeon and cut out the Medicaid part of this bill and focus on private coverage reforms only. That will perform the medical miracle of making things not only politically easier for the GOP, but actually achieving something that will do some good for the rest of the country too.
For seven years the Republicans have been obsessed not with outlawing abortions, but with outlawing Obamacare. They had me all aboard until I saw what the House-passed bill would do if it became law. It would make health care unaffordable for many seniors and would drive millions of the poor to emergency rooms for their health needs. And that would drive up hospital costs for everybody.
While I was and am still opposed to the mandatory provisions of Obamacare, I always thought – and said so – that Obama’s Affordable Care Act had some desirable provisions. Outright Repeal, which is what most Republican politicians have bee screaming for during the past seven years, is like throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
The Republicans are determined to repeal Obamacare but really do not have a solution to the nation’s health care problems. Republican health care reform is on life support and unless the GOP comes up with a reasonable plan that doesn’t hurt seniors and the poor, they might as well pull the plug. And then, although it is in critical condition, Obamacare will live on.
Here is a logical perspective from Jake Novak:
HERE’S THE ONE THING THE GOP NEEDS TO DO TO SAVE ITS HEALTH-CARE BILL
The GOP should leave Medicaid alone for now and focus on actual insurance reform that can pass
By Jake Novak
CNBC
June 27, 2017
Why is the Senate Republican leadership delaying the vote on its Obamacare replacement bill? Obviously, the easiest answer to that question is the GOP simply doesn't have the votes. But dig just a little bit deeper and we find the same problem that's been weighing this replacement effort down since this Congressional session began: fear.
As I have noted for months, the intense political fear of the number of people projected to lose health coverage has made any effort to reform Obamacare almost impossible for the Republicans to pass. I called those people the "Obamacare orphans."
When the latest CBO report came out Monday projecting that the number of Americans losing coverage under the Senate bill will be 22 million by 2026, it was obvious this measure was never going to even come up with for a vote until big changes were made first.
But the CBO report had an even more telling detail, and it proved that using the term "Obamacare orphans" wasn't very accurate. It said that almost 70 percent of that 22 million number would not come from people losing private health insurance coverage, but from the rolling back of the Medicaid expansion that went into effect under Obamacare.
In other words, 15 million people won't be losing "insurance" as we know it with premiums and deductibles to pay, but they'd be losing access to a government entitlement traditionally set aside for the poorest Americans. So the real fear is all about the blow back from "Medicaid orphans."
That, as they say, is a whole different ballgame.
Medicaid enrollment in the U.S. right now is no small issue. Thanks to the expansion, a whopping 74.5 million Americans are currently on Medicaid according to the latest government reports. That is almost double the 39 million Americans who were on Medicaid just as recently as 2007.
By contrast, the entire population of Great Britain is less than 65 million people. And again, unlike Obamacare, it's an entitlement program that requires no payments or financial commitments from its recipients. Even though it can often be very hard to find good and reliable care on Medicaid alone, it's clearly very popular considering this Medicaid expansion hasn't had any trouble finding more than 35 million new takers in under 10 years.
These massive numbers should make it clear why Medicaid is the key stumbling block in the Obamacare replacement or reform effort. It's not just because rolling back Medicaid would be responsible for the bulk of people losing coverage, it's because even a bare-bones entitlement like Medicaid is so hard to take away once the public gets it.
Now that the GOP senators know where this problem is coming from, it's time for them to throw in the towel for now on Medicaid, leave it for later, and get back to fixing the actual private insurance market.
That means getting back to so many of the insurance market reforms Republicans have said they've supported for years like allowing companies to sell insurance over state lines, allowing all kinds of bare-boned "major medical" plans to be sold everywhere, and expanding tax-free health spending accounts. These are the kinds of reforms that will truly bend the cost curve in health coverage and stop the insanity of using so many subsidies and regulations to help big insurance companies inflate prices.
The Medicaid expansion was not something President Obama or the Democrats talked a lot about when they were trying to sell Obamacare to the public in 2009 and 2010. Most of what we heard was about helping working people afford private coverage and, "if you like your plan, you can keep your plan."
This almost doubling of the number of people getting onto Medicaid was basically never discussed or publicly debated. Now, the Republicans are finding that rolling back this Medicaid expansion won't be possible under the same fog. It's obvious now that they shouldn't even try.
Conservatives and fiscal hawks know the Medicaid issue is not something that should be put aside for too long. That near-75 million Americans on the plan are a major cost balloon that could burst very soon. But after what's happened this week, they must also now know that it's a problem that cannot be politically addressed concurrently with private health insurance. Doing something about cutting back the Medicaid rolls and all the spending that comes with it, can wait at least until the Republicans can put together a reasonable alternative beyond White House Counselor Kellyanne Conway's advice that Medicaid recipients get a job. That will skew all the savings the CBO is projecting for the GOP bill right now, but saving money isn't the issue that's holding up the votes, it's these Medicaid orphans that are too hot to handle.
Delaying the votes on this GOP bill by a week, or even a month won't be enough to get the magic number of Republicans to vote for and pass the measure. The reason is Medicaid. So with time running out, it's time for McConnell to make like a surgeon and cut out the Medicaid part of this bill and focus on private coverage reforms only. That will perform the medical miracle of making things not only politically easier for the GOP, but actually achieving something that will do some good for the rest of the country too.
DON'T FUCK WITH CALIFORNIANS' CARS
by Bob Walsh
The Democrat-Socialist party in CA rammed thru a major fuel tax increase and a substantial car registration tax increase last year. This sleaze move was made possible by Democrap super-majorities in both houses of the legislature.
The CA Republican Party has just turned in about 85,000 signatures on recall petitions to throw Senator Josh Newman, D-Fullerton, out of his seat in the 29th District. If successful this would mean the Democraps could no longer ram tax bills thru with zero Republican support. They would lose their super-majority.
The Democraps sniveled about how much the election will cost ($3 mill) and also sniveled about it's lack of "authenticity," whatever the fuck that means.
The Democraps are alleging that the signature gatherers are telling people that the vote would overturn the recently passed $52 billion tax increases.
In response the Democraps have passed a NEW bill, which Jerry just signed. This allows petition signers to rescind their signatures if done so in writing within 30 days of the original signature. This adds at least weeks and maybe even months to the time line to certify such election attempts. This would tend to ensure that all such attempts will be held in conjunction with the June primaries rather than as special elections. This move would tend to favor the party in power, which in CA is of course the Democrat-Socialist party.
The Republicans have already said they will file a legal challenge to the change in the law. They will also continue to circulate petitions to ensure a hoped-for comfortable edge in the numbers for the recall.
The Democrat-Socialist party in CA rammed thru a major fuel tax increase and a substantial car registration tax increase last year. This sleaze move was made possible by Democrap super-majorities in both houses of the legislature.
The CA Republican Party has just turned in about 85,000 signatures on recall petitions to throw Senator Josh Newman, D-Fullerton, out of his seat in the 29th District. If successful this would mean the Democraps could no longer ram tax bills thru with zero Republican support. They would lose their super-majority.
The Democraps sniveled about how much the election will cost ($3 mill) and also sniveled about it's lack of "authenticity," whatever the fuck that means.
The Democraps are alleging that the signature gatherers are telling people that the vote would overturn the recently passed $52 billion tax increases.
In response the Democraps have passed a NEW bill, which Jerry just signed. This allows petition signers to rescind their signatures if done so in writing within 30 days of the original signature. This adds at least weeks and maybe even months to the time line to certify such election attempts. This would tend to ensure that all such attempts will be held in conjunction with the June primaries rather than as special elections. This move would tend to favor the party in power, which in CA is of course the Democrat-Socialist party.
The Republicans have already said they will file a legal challenge to the change in the law. They will also continue to circulate petitions to ensure a hoped-for comfortable edge in the numbers for the recall.
THE INHERENT RISKS OF BEING "HELPFUL"
by Bob Walsh
Many years ago I taught a class for CCW applicants. Successful completion was accepted as evidence of competence by many of the local agencies that issue CCW permits. I team-taught it with a local criminal lawyer.
One of the things we covered in some detail was sticking your nose into other people's business. There are risks inherent in this action and, generally speaking, you should avoid the risk by avoiding the action. A case in point.
The cops attempted to pull one Terence Lee Lenox, 47, over for suspected DUI in the vicinity of Newton, GA. He fled, crashed, and fled on foot.
Marcus Pitts, 47, a private citizen who happened to see all this, began to pursue with his pickup truck. When he caught Lenox, Pitts pulled a gun and shot Lenox in the neck.
Lenox was transported to the hospital in critical condition. Pitts was arrested by the local constabulary on unspecified charges relating to the unjustified discharge of a weapon.
Many years ago I taught a class for CCW applicants. Successful completion was accepted as evidence of competence by many of the local agencies that issue CCW permits. I team-taught it with a local criminal lawyer.
One of the things we covered in some detail was sticking your nose into other people's business. There are risks inherent in this action and, generally speaking, you should avoid the risk by avoiding the action. A case in point.
The cops attempted to pull one Terence Lee Lenox, 47, over for suspected DUI in the vicinity of Newton, GA. He fled, crashed, and fled on foot.
Marcus Pitts, 47, a private citizen who happened to see all this, began to pursue with his pickup truck. When he caught Lenox, Pitts pulled a gun and shot Lenox in the neck.
Lenox was transported to the hospital in critical condition. Pitts was arrested by the local constabulary on unspecified charges relating to the unjustified discharge of a weapon.
GUNS ARE INHERENTLY EVIL...AT LEAST IN CALIFORNIA
by Bob Walsh
Right now in the formerly great state of California the superintendent of a public school district can grant permission for civilian CCW permit holders to possess a firearm on a campus under their jurisdiction.
Unfortunately a large chunk of the Democrap super-majority in the CA legislature believes that firearms are inherently evil and therefore that the mere presence of a firearm is dangerous, evil and too horrible to contemplate.
Professional liberal asshole Kevin McCarty, D-Sacramento, has proposed AB424 which, if passed into law, would strip school superintendents of this seldom-utilized power. Of course assorted miscreants, terrorists and general purpose bad guys can be counted on the obey the law so it's all good, right? (What do you mean, bullshit?)
Right now in the formerly great state of California the superintendent of a public school district can grant permission for civilian CCW permit holders to possess a firearm on a campus under their jurisdiction.
Unfortunately a large chunk of the Democrap super-majority in the CA legislature believes that firearms are inherently evil and therefore that the mere presence of a firearm is dangerous, evil and too horrible to contemplate.
Professional liberal asshole Kevin McCarty, D-Sacramento, has proposed AB424 which, if passed into law, would strip school superintendents of this seldom-utilized power. Of course assorted miscreants, terrorists and general purpose bad guys can be counted on the obey the law so it's all good, right? (What do you mean, bullshit?)
WHEN FOLLOWING THE LAW VIOLATES THE LAW
by Bob Walsh
It happens if you live in the formerly great state of California and you can get to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.
In 2006 Jose Arias (an illegal alien) filed a lawsuit against Angelo Dairy in Acampo. There were various wages and hours violations listed in the basic allegation. Rural Legal Assistance was representing Arias. Shortly before the case came to court the defendant's lawyer is alleged to have ratted Arias out to ICE to get his happy ass deported. (Apparently that actually did happen.)
In 2013 Arias filed a second lawsuit alleging retaliation under FLSA naming both the lawyer and the dairy. The Ninth Circuit has just ruled that action can go forward.
Just thought you might like to know that you need to be careful, you could end up being sued in federal court for following federal law.
It happens if you live in the formerly great state of California and you can get to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.
In 2006 Jose Arias (an illegal alien) filed a lawsuit against Angelo Dairy in Acampo. There were various wages and hours violations listed in the basic allegation. Rural Legal Assistance was representing Arias. Shortly before the case came to court the defendant's lawyer is alleged to have ratted Arias out to ICE to get his happy ass deported. (Apparently that actually did happen.)
In 2013 Arias filed a second lawsuit alleging retaliation under FLSA naming both the lawyer and the dairy. The Ninth Circuit has just ruled that action can go forward.
Just thought you might like to know that you need to be careful, you could end up being sued in federal court for following federal law.
ON JULY 1, CALIFORNIA WILL SUDDENLY GAIN 6 MILLION NEW CRIMINALS
Why California gun owners may be breaking the law on July 1
By Ryan Sabalow
The Sacramento Bee
June 26, 2017
Sweeping new gun laws passed last year by California voters and legislators require those with magazines capable of holding more than 10 rounds of ammunition to get rid of them by July 1.
The question is: How many of California’s 6 million-plus gun owners are actually going to comply, even though violators face potential jail time if they’re caught?
Talk to gun owners, retailers and pro-gun sheriffs across California and you’ll get something akin to an eye roll when they’re asked if gun owners are going to voluntarily part with their property because Democratic politicians and voters who favor gun control outnumber them and changed the law.
In conservative, pro-gun Redding this week, Shasta County Sheriff Tom Bosenko joked that gun owners were lining the block to hand their magazines in to the sheriff’s office (In reality, no one has turned one in). He said his deputies won’t be aggressively hunting for large-capacity magazines starting next month.
“We’re not going to be knocking on anybody’s door looking for them,” Bosenko said. “We’re essentially making law-abiding citizens into criminals with this new law.”
California banned the sale of high-capacity detachable magazines in 2000, but it remained legal to possess them, except in cities such as San Francisco, Oakland, Los Angeles and Sunnyvale that enacted local bans. That changed this fall when voters and lawmakers passed overlapping gun laws that require Californians, with limited exceptions, to give up any magazine capable of holding more than 10 rounds. Sometimes incorrectly called “clips,” magazines are the part inserted into a gun that holds ammunition and can be quickly popped in and out for rapid reloading.
Gun-control advocates say getting rid of magazines that make shooters capable of firing a rapid volley of bullets in a matter of seconds will reduce threats to police and make it harder for gunmen to kill as many people in mass shootings.
“There’s just a lot of data that shows that large-capacity magazines are particularly attractive to mass shooters and to individuals committing crimes against law enforcement,” said Ari Freilich, staff attorney for the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, one the backers of Proposition 63, the gun-control initiative that California voters passed last fall. “They do not have legitimate self-defense value.”
In a pending lawsuit challenging the ban, Chuck Michel, a prominent gun-rights attorney in Long Beach, disagreed.
“The reason for the popularity of these magazines is straightforward: In a confrontation with a violent attacker, having enough ammunition can be the difference between life and death,” he wrote. “Banning magazines over ten rounds is no more likely to reduce criminal abuse of guns than banning high horsepower engines is likely to reduce criminal abuse of automobiles.”
Magazines sales were never tracked and owners weren’t required to register them, so it’s not clear how many remain in circulation. Gun rights advocates say there could be potentially hundreds of thousands of them in California gun owners’ homes.
Many types of handguns sold in California prior to 2000 came with detachable magazines that held more than 10 rounds. Large-capacity magazines also were widely collected and used by owners of semiautomatic rifles. These include the controversial – but hugely popular – AR-style rifles. Similar magazines also have long been popular with owners of Ruger’s 10/22, a ubiquitous .22 caliber rifle used by target shooters and small-game hunters nationwide.
The law provides no state funds to compensate owners for their magazines, and there’s no way to track whether gun owners give them up.
The law does give California gun owners several options to get rid of their magazines, including moving them out of state, turning them into law enforcement, selling them to a licensed dealer or destroying them by July 1. Some gun shops also are offering to permanently modify magazines to make them legal.
Even the staunchest pro-gun sheriffs, including Bosenko, the Shasta County sheriff, say they’ll be more than happy to tack a magazine-possession charge on to a drug dealer’s or a gang member’s rap sheet should deputies catch them with a high-capacity magazine.
“This is one more thing we can add to their charges, absolutely,” said Fresno County Sheriff Margaret Mims, an opponent of the law.
Voluntary compliance among otherwise law-abiding gun owners is another matter.
California cities with local ordinances haven’t had very many gun owners hand magazines in to police, though officers have removed some from circulation during the course of their investigations. The Los Angeles Police Department, for instance, seized nearly 9,000 magazines since it enacted a ban in 2015. Almost of all those magazines came from a cache police found inside a home of a gun collector who died in 2015. The department said it doesn’t track how many citizens voluntarily turned theirs in.
As of late last year, the City of Sunnyvale had six cases in which people handed in their magazines since the city enacted its ordinance in 2013, said Capt. Shawn Ahearn.
Adam Winkler, a professor at UCLA School of Law who writes about Second Amendment issues, said gun owners ignore local ordinances banning magazines, a trend he expects to continue with a statewide ban.
“We see no compliance from gun owners,” he said. “As best as we can tell, no gun owners are giving up their high capacity magazines or selling them out of state.”
Gun control advocates such as Freilich said that because there’s no way to track magazines, gun owners living in cities with bans could have been getting rid of them through other means.
But Second Amendment advocates say that’s highly unlikely. They say gun owners just became more discrete.
“Why would you (get rid of them)?” said Christopher Lapinski, operations manager of Last Stand Tactical on Florin Road in Sacramento. “You have your Fourth Amendment, which is the right to due process. You can’t just take something away from somebody that they own without violating the Fourth Amendment.”
Some gun owners say they’re hanging on to their magazines in the hopes pending court challenges will block the ban. They also hope the federal government will become friendlier toward gun owners under the Trump Administration.
“We think that we will be successful in the long run,” said Sam Paredes, executor director of Gun Owners of California.
A federal judge in San Diego is expected to decide whether to issue an injunction blocking the ban before July 1. A federal judge in Sacramento recently declined to issue a temporary restraining order in a similar case.
Freilich said that even if the San Diego judge blocks the ban, he’s optimistic gun control-advocates will win on appeal, since numerous courts have sided with states and local governments that have enacted similar restrictions.
“(Courts) have consistently found (high-capacity magazines) are properly considered dangerous and unusual weapons,” Freilich said. “They are weapons of war that do not receive Second Amendment protections.”
The magazine ban isn’t the only pending law California’s gun owners face under the new gun regulations.
Starting in January, Californians who want to buy ammunition online or through catalogs will have to ship their purchases through a licensed dealer. In July 2019, ammunition buyers will have to undergo background checks at retailers. Under the existing rules, anyone age 18 or older (21 or older for handguns) can buy ammunition without a background check, and sellers need no special training or license.
Many California gun owners say they are stocking up on ammunition in advance of the restrictions, which they fear will lead to shortages, especially for rural shooters and hunters who have limited shopping options. Some had feared ammunition retailers such as Walmart would get out of the ammunition business rather than go through with the new licensing process.
But Walmart spokesman Charles Crowson said Wednesday the company was in the process of updating its “systems and processes to comply with the law.”
National ammunition sales have steadied since the Trump administration took office, but it’s a different story in California, said Alan Davis, a spokesman for the Wideners.com, an online ammunition retailer based in Tennessee.
“If you consider the percent of our overall orders that ‘normally’ ship to California, the state is up about 50 percent relative to the country as a whole,” Davis said in an email.
Some of the state’s largest cities – including Sacramento, San Francisco, Oakland and Los Angeles – already impose restrictions on mail-order ammunition sales.
EDITOR’S NOTE: How many times do I have to tell you gunners to leave Kookfornia for Texas? When you move to Texas you will discover that you are living in a gun-friendly state. With the proper permit from the feds, you can even own a .50 caliber machine gun.
Yippie-yi-yo-ki-yay yippie-yi-yo-ki-yay, go ahead and make my day!
By Ryan Sabalow
The Sacramento Bee
June 26, 2017
Sweeping new gun laws passed last year by California voters and legislators require those with magazines capable of holding more than 10 rounds of ammunition to get rid of them by July 1.
The question is: How many of California’s 6 million-plus gun owners are actually going to comply, even though violators face potential jail time if they’re caught?
Talk to gun owners, retailers and pro-gun sheriffs across California and you’ll get something akin to an eye roll when they’re asked if gun owners are going to voluntarily part with their property because Democratic politicians and voters who favor gun control outnumber them and changed the law.
In conservative, pro-gun Redding this week, Shasta County Sheriff Tom Bosenko joked that gun owners were lining the block to hand their magazines in to the sheriff’s office (In reality, no one has turned one in). He said his deputies won’t be aggressively hunting for large-capacity magazines starting next month.
“We’re not going to be knocking on anybody’s door looking for them,” Bosenko said. “We’re essentially making law-abiding citizens into criminals with this new law.”
California banned the sale of high-capacity detachable magazines in 2000, but it remained legal to possess them, except in cities such as San Francisco, Oakland, Los Angeles and Sunnyvale that enacted local bans. That changed this fall when voters and lawmakers passed overlapping gun laws that require Californians, with limited exceptions, to give up any magazine capable of holding more than 10 rounds. Sometimes incorrectly called “clips,” magazines are the part inserted into a gun that holds ammunition and can be quickly popped in and out for rapid reloading.
Gun-control advocates say getting rid of magazines that make shooters capable of firing a rapid volley of bullets in a matter of seconds will reduce threats to police and make it harder for gunmen to kill as many people in mass shootings.
“There’s just a lot of data that shows that large-capacity magazines are particularly attractive to mass shooters and to individuals committing crimes against law enforcement,” said Ari Freilich, staff attorney for the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, one the backers of Proposition 63, the gun-control initiative that California voters passed last fall. “They do not have legitimate self-defense value.”
In a pending lawsuit challenging the ban, Chuck Michel, a prominent gun-rights attorney in Long Beach, disagreed.
“The reason for the popularity of these magazines is straightforward: In a confrontation with a violent attacker, having enough ammunition can be the difference between life and death,” he wrote. “Banning magazines over ten rounds is no more likely to reduce criminal abuse of guns than banning high horsepower engines is likely to reduce criminal abuse of automobiles.”
Magazines sales were never tracked and owners weren’t required to register them, so it’s not clear how many remain in circulation. Gun rights advocates say there could be potentially hundreds of thousands of them in California gun owners’ homes.
Many types of handguns sold in California prior to 2000 came with detachable magazines that held more than 10 rounds. Large-capacity magazines also were widely collected and used by owners of semiautomatic rifles. These include the controversial – but hugely popular – AR-style rifles. Similar magazines also have long been popular with owners of Ruger’s 10/22, a ubiquitous .22 caliber rifle used by target shooters and small-game hunters nationwide.
The law provides no state funds to compensate owners for their magazines, and there’s no way to track whether gun owners give them up.
The law does give California gun owners several options to get rid of their magazines, including moving them out of state, turning them into law enforcement, selling them to a licensed dealer or destroying them by July 1. Some gun shops also are offering to permanently modify magazines to make them legal.
Even the staunchest pro-gun sheriffs, including Bosenko, the Shasta County sheriff, say they’ll be more than happy to tack a magazine-possession charge on to a drug dealer’s or a gang member’s rap sheet should deputies catch them with a high-capacity magazine.
“This is one more thing we can add to their charges, absolutely,” said Fresno County Sheriff Margaret Mims, an opponent of the law.
Voluntary compliance among otherwise law-abiding gun owners is another matter.
California cities with local ordinances haven’t had very many gun owners hand magazines in to police, though officers have removed some from circulation during the course of their investigations. The Los Angeles Police Department, for instance, seized nearly 9,000 magazines since it enacted a ban in 2015. Almost of all those magazines came from a cache police found inside a home of a gun collector who died in 2015. The department said it doesn’t track how many citizens voluntarily turned theirs in.
As of late last year, the City of Sunnyvale had six cases in which people handed in their magazines since the city enacted its ordinance in 2013, said Capt. Shawn Ahearn.
Adam Winkler, a professor at UCLA School of Law who writes about Second Amendment issues, said gun owners ignore local ordinances banning magazines, a trend he expects to continue with a statewide ban.
“We see no compliance from gun owners,” he said. “As best as we can tell, no gun owners are giving up their high capacity magazines or selling them out of state.”
Gun control advocates such as Freilich said that because there’s no way to track magazines, gun owners living in cities with bans could have been getting rid of them through other means.
But Second Amendment advocates say that’s highly unlikely. They say gun owners just became more discrete.
“Why would you (get rid of them)?” said Christopher Lapinski, operations manager of Last Stand Tactical on Florin Road in Sacramento. “You have your Fourth Amendment, which is the right to due process. You can’t just take something away from somebody that they own without violating the Fourth Amendment.”
Some gun owners say they’re hanging on to their magazines in the hopes pending court challenges will block the ban. They also hope the federal government will become friendlier toward gun owners under the Trump Administration.
“We think that we will be successful in the long run,” said Sam Paredes, executor director of Gun Owners of California.
A federal judge in San Diego is expected to decide whether to issue an injunction blocking the ban before July 1. A federal judge in Sacramento recently declined to issue a temporary restraining order in a similar case.
Freilich said that even if the San Diego judge blocks the ban, he’s optimistic gun control-advocates will win on appeal, since numerous courts have sided with states and local governments that have enacted similar restrictions.
“(Courts) have consistently found (high-capacity magazines) are properly considered dangerous and unusual weapons,” Freilich said. “They are weapons of war that do not receive Second Amendment protections.”
The magazine ban isn’t the only pending law California’s gun owners face under the new gun regulations.
Starting in January, Californians who want to buy ammunition online or through catalogs will have to ship their purchases through a licensed dealer. In July 2019, ammunition buyers will have to undergo background checks at retailers. Under the existing rules, anyone age 18 or older (21 or older for handguns) can buy ammunition without a background check, and sellers need no special training or license.
Many California gun owners say they are stocking up on ammunition in advance of the restrictions, which they fear will lead to shortages, especially for rural shooters and hunters who have limited shopping options. Some had feared ammunition retailers such as Walmart would get out of the ammunition business rather than go through with the new licensing process.
But Walmart spokesman Charles Crowson said Wednesday the company was in the process of updating its “systems and processes to comply with the law.”
National ammunition sales have steadied since the Trump administration took office, but it’s a different story in California, said Alan Davis, a spokesman for the Wideners.com, an online ammunition retailer based in Tennessee.
“If you consider the percent of our overall orders that ‘normally’ ship to California, the state is up about 50 percent relative to the country as a whole,” Davis said in an email.
Some of the state’s largest cities – including Sacramento, San Francisco, Oakland and Los Angeles – already impose restrictions on mail-order ammunition sales.
EDITOR’S NOTE: How many times do I have to tell you gunners to leave Kookfornia for Texas? When you move to Texas you will discover that you are living in a gun-friendly state. With the proper permit from the feds, you can even own a .50 caliber machine gun.
Yippie-yi-yo-ki-yay yippie-yi-yo-ki-yay, go ahead and make my day!
CNN BOMBSHEL FAKE NEWS ATTACK ON TRUMP BACKFIRES
Trump's media enemies know that bashing him makes them big money but CNN's greediness and desperation to get him has cost them dearly
By Piers Morgan
Daily Mail
June 27, 2017
‘CNN, the most trusted name in news,’ bellows James Earl Jones morning, noon and night during the network’s 24/7 programming.
Well, not today it isn’t.
In arguably the most humiliating moment in its history, CNN just accepted resignations from three of its top journalists over a story they got horrendously wrong about President Trump and Russia.
It couldn’t have come at a worse time for CNN, or involved a worse kind of story.
Its war with Trump has escalated on an almost daily basis since he won the presidency.
He furiously brands CNN ‘Fake News’.
CNN, in turn, mocks and berates him at every turn and devotes huge resources toward trying to expose him.
It’s a toxic, abusive relationship that’s got so vicious and vengeful it threatens to imperil the very cornerstone of democracy, freedom of speech.
Now, CNN’s high moral ground has crumbled beneath it in spectacular style.
And it’s collapsed because all those involved forgot the golden rule of journalism: if it seems too good to be true, it probably IS too good to be true.
Last Thursday, CNN.com blasted out a new ‘bombshell’ exclusive about Trump and Russia.
It was the latest in a relentless barrage of similar Russia-related scoops by award-hungry mainstream media organisations desperately trying to prove Trump and/or his campaign team colluded with Russians, possibly as high up as Vladimir Putin, to fix the 2016 US Election.
Yet to date, there remains not a shred of hard evidence to nail the swirling maelstrom of rumours and scurrilous headlines.
Hence, no doubt, CNN’s wild over-excitement at finally getting a lead on what seemed like a possible game-changing piece of information.
It reported the Senate Intelligence Committee was investigating a potentially highly compromising link between Anthony Scaramucci, a prominent ally of Trump, and a $10 billion Russian investment fund.
CNN claimed Scaramucci met with the fund’s chief executive Kirill Dmitriev four days before the inauguration.
CNN further stated the investment fund was a part of Russian state bank Vnesheconombank, which is listed in a set of sanctions issued by the US government.
Democratic senators, CNN alleged, wanted to know whether Scaramucci indicated in that meeting if sanctions against Russia would be lifted.
If this story was true, it carried hugely damaging implications: here was a close ally of Trump’s caught in cahoots with Putin-backed moneymen in flagrant breach of sanctions.
But it wasn’t true.
There is no such Senate probe, there was no formal meeting and the fund is not even backed by a Russian state bank.
Within 24 hours, the story was roundly debunked and CNN removed it from its website. The network also apologised to Mr Scaramucci and has now fired the story’s author, Pulitzer Prize nominee Thomas Frank, along with Eric Lichtblau, an assistant managing editor in CNN’s Washington bureau, and Lex Harris, head of CNN’s investigations unit.
Their rapid departures show just how badly this incident has dented CNN’s reputation and just how angry it has made Jeff Zucker, its president.
I know how seriously CNN takes its journalism, because I worked there for four years and experienced its strict standards and practices policies at first hand.
When Hurricane Sandy hit Manhattan in 2012, CNN’s respected meteorologist reported live on my then show Piers Morgan Live that the stock exchange had been engulfed in several feet of water.
It was a huge development that would affect global financial markets.
However, it wasn’t true.
We corrected this erroneous fact within 30 minutes, but I remember there being a massive and lengthy week-long inquest later into how it had been aired without the required double-sourcing procedures.
Everyone involved was left in no doubt that such a mistake was not acceptable at CNN with dire consequences for any repetition.
This cock-up, though, is on a completely different scale because it has single-handedly destroyed CNN’s indignant denial of Trump’s ‘Fake News!’ charge.
The Scaramucci story was fake news. End.
And it was a story designed to cause great damage to Trump as he battles the potentially presidency-ending allegation that he colluded with Russians.
So how did this fiasco happen?
I fear the answer probably lies in that lethal combination of commercial greed and laziness.
CNN has enjoyed soaring ratings with its relentless, mostly negative focus on Trump’s presidency. That, in turn, has led to soaring profits.
The equation is simple: Trump-bashing = $$$.
They are not the only ones to do this; from MSNBC to Stephen Colbert, there are myriad media entities and shows currently cashing in big time by whacking Trump.
But with that success comes complacency.
CNN reported this story because it was desperate to report this story.
It was proof, finally, that a key Trump ally was up to his neck in financial filth with the Russians.
‘Follow the money’ was the Watergate journalists’ mantra, and it finally got them their man.
CNN’s own versions of Bernstein and Woodward clearly thought they were doing the same.
But they cut corners, apparently relying on just one anonymous source.
And that source turned out to be wrong - gifting Trump a PR touchdown he won’t stop triumphantly ball-spiking for a very long time.
When he shouts ‘Fake News’ at CNN now, it will carry some factual weight.
But there’s a wider issue here, and that’s the increasingly hostile relationship between the White House and the US mainstream media.
Both sides are to blame.
The White House, for flying too economically with the truth and playing silly point-scoring games with the media.
And the media, for its unprecedented hysterical bias against Trump, and its endless self-aggrandizing ‘Gotcha!’ antics in pressers and on air – most of which is designed to command the journalists viral video adoration on social media.
The effect of this mutually assured poison is to ratchet up the already appallingly febrile political atmosphere in America between left and right.
The kind of partisan rage that leads a mentally unbalanced man to shoot a Congressman on a baseball field.
It’s got to stop.
Donald Trump is the President of the United States, a title he won in a fair, democratic election. He’s not perfect but nor is he the monster some of his critics portray him to be.
CNN remains a great news network, notwithstanding this terrible error.
Both need to treat each other with more respect and fairness.
I suggest this would be a very good time for them to start.
By Piers Morgan
Daily Mail
June 27, 2017
‘CNN, the most trusted name in news,’ bellows James Earl Jones morning, noon and night during the network’s 24/7 programming.
Well, not today it isn’t.
In arguably the most humiliating moment in its history, CNN just accepted resignations from three of its top journalists over a story they got horrendously wrong about President Trump and Russia.
It couldn’t have come at a worse time for CNN, or involved a worse kind of story.
Its war with Trump has escalated on an almost daily basis since he won the presidency.
He furiously brands CNN ‘Fake News’.
CNN, in turn, mocks and berates him at every turn and devotes huge resources toward trying to expose him.
It’s a toxic, abusive relationship that’s got so vicious and vengeful it threatens to imperil the very cornerstone of democracy, freedom of speech.
Now, CNN’s high moral ground has crumbled beneath it in spectacular style.
And it’s collapsed because all those involved forgot the golden rule of journalism: if it seems too good to be true, it probably IS too good to be true.
Last Thursday, CNN.com blasted out a new ‘bombshell’ exclusive about Trump and Russia.
It was the latest in a relentless barrage of similar Russia-related scoops by award-hungry mainstream media organisations desperately trying to prove Trump and/or his campaign team colluded with Russians, possibly as high up as Vladimir Putin, to fix the 2016 US Election.
Yet to date, there remains not a shred of hard evidence to nail the swirling maelstrom of rumours and scurrilous headlines.
Hence, no doubt, CNN’s wild over-excitement at finally getting a lead on what seemed like a possible game-changing piece of information.
It reported the Senate Intelligence Committee was investigating a potentially highly compromising link between Anthony Scaramucci, a prominent ally of Trump, and a $10 billion Russian investment fund.
CNN claimed Scaramucci met with the fund’s chief executive Kirill Dmitriev four days before the inauguration.
CNN further stated the investment fund was a part of Russian state bank Vnesheconombank, which is listed in a set of sanctions issued by the US government.
Democratic senators, CNN alleged, wanted to know whether Scaramucci indicated in that meeting if sanctions against Russia would be lifted.
If this story was true, it carried hugely damaging implications: here was a close ally of Trump’s caught in cahoots with Putin-backed moneymen in flagrant breach of sanctions.
But it wasn’t true.
There is no such Senate probe, there was no formal meeting and the fund is not even backed by a Russian state bank.
Within 24 hours, the story was roundly debunked and CNN removed it from its website. The network also apologised to Mr Scaramucci and has now fired the story’s author, Pulitzer Prize nominee Thomas Frank, along with Eric Lichtblau, an assistant managing editor in CNN’s Washington bureau, and Lex Harris, head of CNN’s investigations unit.
Their rapid departures show just how badly this incident has dented CNN’s reputation and just how angry it has made Jeff Zucker, its president.
I know how seriously CNN takes its journalism, because I worked there for four years and experienced its strict standards and practices policies at first hand.
When Hurricane Sandy hit Manhattan in 2012, CNN’s respected meteorologist reported live on my then show Piers Morgan Live that the stock exchange had been engulfed in several feet of water.
It was a huge development that would affect global financial markets.
However, it wasn’t true.
We corrected this erroneous fact within 30 minutes, but I remember there being a massive and lengthy week-long inquest later into how it had been aired without the required double-sourcing procedures.
Everyone involved was left in no doubt that such a mistake was not acceptable at CNN with dire consequences for any repetition.
This cock-up, though, is on a completely different scale because it has single-handedly destroyed CNN’s indignant denial of Trump’s ‘Fake News!’ charge.
The Scaramucci story was fake news. End.
And it was a story designed to cause great damage to Trump as he battles the potentially presidency-ending allegation that he colluded with Russians.
So how did this fiasco happen?
I fear the answer probably lies in that lethal combination of commercial greed and laziness.
CNN has enjoyed soaring ratings with its relentless, mostly negative focus on Trump’s presidency. That, in turn, has led to soaring profits.
The equation is simple: Trump-bashing = $$$.
They are not the only ones to do this; from MSNBC to Stephen Colbert, there are myriad media entities and shows currently cashing in big time by whacking Trump.
But with that success comes complacency.
CNN reported this story because it was desperate to report this story.
It was proof, finally, that a key Trump ally was up to his neck in financial filth with the Russians.
‘Follow the money’ was the Watergate journalists’ mantra, and it finally got them their man.
CNN’s own versions of Bernstein and Woodward clearly thought they were doing the same.
But they cut corners, apparently relying on just one anonymous source.
And that source turned out to be wrong - gifting Trump a PR touchdown he won’t stop triumphantly ball-spiking for a very long time.
When he shouts ‘Fake News’ at CNN now, it will carry some factual weight.
But there’s a wider issue here, and that’s the increasingly hostile relationship between the White House and the US mainstream media.
Both sides are to blame.
The White House, for flying too economically with the truth and playing silly point-scoring games with the media.
And the media, for its unprecedented hysterical bias against Trump, and its endless self-aggrandizing ‘Gotcha!’ antics in pressers and on air – most of which is designed to command the journalists viral video adoration on social media.
The effect of this mutually assured poison is to ratchet up the already appallingly febrile political atmosphere in America between left and right.
The kind of partisan rage that leads a mentally unbalanced man to shoot a Congressman on a baseball field.
It’s got to stop.
Donald Trump is the President of the United States, a title he won in a fair, democratic election. He’s not perfect but nor is he the monster some of his critics portray him to be.
CNN remains a great news network, notwithstanding this terrible error.
Both need to treat each other with more respect and fairness.
I suggest this would be a very good time for them to start.
CHRISTIAN JACOBS, THE LITTLEST U.S. MARINE CORPS SERGEANT
Gold Star Wife Brittany Jacobs Shares Her Journey With Christian, Her Little Rock
By Amber Athey
The Daily Caller
June 26, 2017
Marine Sergeant Christopher Jacobs always told his wife, Brittany, and his son, Christian, “go big or go home,” and that’s exactly what they’ve been doing since his untimely death in 2011.
On October 24, 2011, Sgt. Jacobs — then 29 years old — was killed in a training accident in Twentynine Palms, California. Christian was just eight months old at the time.
Ever since, Brittany and Christian have traveled around the country keeping Sgt. Jacobs’ memory alive.
“[Christian] has cried wanting to know why his daddy can’t come down from heaven because he needs him,” Brittany told The Daily Caller. “He talks about his dad daily. He doesn’t cry over it like he used to now. He’s doing better with that, but he asks questions about him.”
Jacobs and her son first received national attention when they visited Arlington National Cemetery on Memorial Day in 2012. Jacobs says that was the first time she had seen her late husband’s headstone.
“It hits you all over again. When I saw that it was like a smack in my face. I cried,” she said, her voice breaking. “It hurts to go back and think about it.”
Initially, Jacobs had her friend take Christian away so she could be alone at the grave for a few minutes. But when Christian saw his mother crying, he ran back to her, kissed her forehead, and gave her a big squeeze.
Photographers caught the moment on camera and the photos went viral.
“He was barely over a year old when it happened,” Jacobs recalled. “I was getting calls before I even got home from Arlington that day. And I always think, you know, it’s gotta be Chris… It’s gotta be his daddy somehow shining through.”
“He knew what mommy needed,” Jacobs explained. “That’s my little rock.”
In 2015, CNN shared a video of Christian in the uniform “reading” a letter to his father on Memorial Day. Jacobs says Christian was too young to know how to read, so the words he spoke were made up on the spot.
“I hope for you to come back soon daddy, and I love you and hope for you to be here and I know you will be here,” he said. “And I love you.”
This year, the Jacobs family visited Arlington for Memorial Day again and had the opportunity to meet President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence.
Christian ran right up to President Trump and asked him if he wanted to meet his dad.
“You know, he’s little. He doesn’t understand how important of a person President Trump is,” Jacobs explained. “He just saw him as this special guy that he sees on TV. And he wanted to show him his daddy. Just the innocence of it was unbelievable.”
Trump and Pence agreed to go with Christian, now six years old, to see his father’s grave. Christian told them all about his dad and showed them family photos.
“I remember Trump goes, ‘He’s an aggressive little guy! I like that!’” Jacobs recalled.
The meeting with Trump led to an interview on Fox & Friends, and the interview led to an invitation to the Faith & Freedom Coalition’s Road to Majority conference.
“We got a call from the Faith & Freedom Coalition, the next week they were having an event in DC and they took us up there and Christian got to meet President Trump again,” Jacobs recalled.
President Trump spoke about the Jacobs family during his speech at the conference and led a standing ovation for Christian.
“I bawled. It was a special moment. My son doesn’t get it right now but soon he will,” Jacobs said.
Many people at Arlington remember Christian as the little boy who wears a mini Marine uniform so that he can look just like his dad. In fact, Christian now says he wants to be a Marine when he grows up.
“This is very new to him,” Jacobs explained. “At one point he was saying he didn’t want to be a marine because they get killed.”
The switch happened when Jacobs finally took Christian to Twentynine Palms to see where his father died.
Sgt. Jacobs survived combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan but was killed while training with an amphibious assault vehicle in Twentynine Palms. Christian told the Lieutenant who showed him around the area that he wants to operate the vehicles so that he can prevent other people from dying like his dad.
“His daddy always told him ‘go big or go home,’” Jacobs said. “His daddy was a leader and Christian is a leader too.”
Jacobs said Christian has been a stabilizing force for her while dealing with her husband’s death.
“People say, ‘you do so much for your son’ but they don’t understand how much he’s done for me,” she explained. “That has been my little rock.”
By Amber Athey
The Daily Caller
June 26, 2017
Marine Sergeant Christopher Jacobs always told his wife, Brittany, and his son, Christian, “go big or go home,” and that’s exactly what they’ve been doing since his untimely death in 2011.
On October 24, 2011, Sgt. Jacobs — then 29 years old — was killed in a training accident in Twentynine Palms, California. Christian was just eight months old at the time.
Ever since, Brittany and Christian have traveled around the country keeping Sgt. Jacobs’ memory alive.
“[Christian] has cried wanting to know why his daddy can’t come down from heaven because he needs him,” Brittany told The Daily Caller. “He talks about his dad daily. He doesn’t cry over it like he used to now. He’s doing better with that, but he asks questions about him.”
Jacobs and her son first received national attention when they visited Arlington National Cemetery on Memorial Day in 2012. Jacobs says that was the first time she had seen her late husband’s headstone.
“It hits you all over again. When I saw that it was like a smack in my face. I cried,” she said, her voice breaking. “It hurts to go back and think about it.”
Initially, Jacobs had her friend take Christian away so she could be alone at the grave for a few minutes. But when Christian saw his mother crying, he ran back to her, kissed her forehead, and gave her a big squeeze.
Photographers caught the moment on camera and the photos went viral.
“He was barely over a year old when it happened,” Jacobs recalled. “I was getting calls before I even got home from Arlington that day. And I always think, you know, it’s gotta be Chris… It’s gotta be his daddy somehow shining through.”
“He knew what mommy needed,” Jacobs explained. “That’s my little rock.”
In 2015, CNN shared a video of Christian in the uniform “reading” a letter to his father on Memorial Day. Jacobs says Christian was too young to know how to read, so the words he spoke were made up on the spot.
“I hope for you to come back soon daddy, and I love you and hope for you to be here and I know you will be here,” he said. “And I love you.”
This year, the Jacobs family visited Arlington for Memorial Day again and had the opportunity to meet President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence.
Christian ran right up to President Trump and asked him if he wanted to meet his dad.
“You know, he’s little. He doesn’t understand how important of a person President Trump is,” Jacobs explained. “He just saw him as this special guy that he sees on TV. And he wanted to show him his daddy. Just the innocence of it was unbelievable.”
Trump and Pence agreed to go with Christian, now six years old, to see his father’s grave. Christian told them all about his dad and showed them family photos.
“I remember Trump goes, ‘He’s an aggressive little guy! I like that!’” Jacobs recalled.
The meeting with Trump led to an interview on Fox & Friends, and the interview led to an invitation to the Faith & Freedom Coalition’s Road to Majority conference.
“We got a call from the Faith & Freedom Coalition, the next week they were having an event in DC and they took us up there and Christian got to meet President Trump again,” Jacobs recalled.
President Trump spoke about the Jacobs family during his speech at the conference and led a standing ovation for Christian.
“I bawled. It was a special moment. My son doesn’t get it right now but soon he will,” Jacobs said.
Many people at Arlington remember Christian as the little boy who wears a mini Marine uniform so that he can look just like his dad. In fact, Christian now says he wants to be a Marine when he grows up.
“This is very new to him,” Jacobs explained. “At one point he was saying he didn’t want to be a marine because they get killed.”
The switch happened when Jacobs finally took Christian to Twentynine Palms to see where his father died.
Sgt. Jacobs survived combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan but was killed while training with an amphibious assault vehicle in Twentynine Palms. Christian told the Lieutenant who showed him around the area that he wants to operate the vehicles so that he can prevent other people from dying like his dad.
“His daddy always told him ‘go big or go home,’” Jacobs said. “His daddy was a leader and Christian is a leader too.”
Jacobs said Christian has been a stabilizing force for her while dealing with her husband’s death.
“People say, ‘you do so much for your son’ but they don’t understand how much he’s done for me,” she explained. “That has been my little rock.”
Tuesday, June 27, 2017
WE MAY BE GETTING A GOOD FUXING
China has developed a bullet train that can attain a speed of 248 mph and will cruise at 217mph. The train is all set to serve the Beijing to Shanghai run and will reduce the current high speed rail travel tine from 5 hours to 3-1/2 hours.
The train has been named ‘fuxing’ which means ‘rejuvenation’ in Chinese. Chinese engineers developed the Fuxing by acquiring the best technologies from Japanese, German and French bullet trains.
The Chinese plan to export the Fuxing to markets in Europe and the U.S.
It would take Fuxing a little over an hour to travel between Houston and Dallas.
I suggest they change the train’s name. Americans would have a ball with that fucking Fuxing name. And if the train were to go between Houston and Dallas, them East Texas Baptists would absolutely not stand for any fuxing.
The train has been named ‘fuxing’ which means ‘rejuvenation’ in Chinese. Chinese engineers developed the Fuxing by acquiring the best technologies from Japanese, German and French bullet trains.
The Chinese plan to export the Fuxing to markets in Europe and the U.S.
It would take Fuxing a little over an hour to travel between Houston and Dallas.
I suggest they change the train’s name. Americans would have a ball with that fucking Fuxing name. And if the train were to go between Houston and Dallas, them East Texas Baptists would absolutely not stand for any fuxing.
NOW THAT WAS ONE HELL OF A SHOT
by Bob Walsh
Adam Johnson is a Sergeant with the Austin, TX police mounted unit. Larry McQuillams, 49, is an asshole who is now a dead asshole.
At about 0230 in the a.m. Johnson became aware of McQuillams who was armed with two rifles and shooting up things in beautiful Austin. That offended Johnson who fired one shot from his S&W .40 pistol at 312 feet, hitting McQuillams square in the chest. McQuillams went down like a sack of wet laundry and died shortly after, possibly from Johnson's shot and possibly from a self-inflicted wound fired after Johnson shot him.
In any case 104 yards with a service handgun in the dark is one HELL of a shot.
EDITOR'S NOTE: This occurred in November 2014 and Johnson was reported to have taken his shot while holding the reins of two horses in his other hand.
Adam Johnson is a Sergeant with the Austin, TX police mounted unit. Larry McQuillams, 49, is an asshole who is now a dead asshole.
At about 0230 in the a.m. Johnson became aware of McQuillams who was armed with two rifles and shooting up things in beautiful Austin. That offended Johnson who fired one shot from his S&W .40 pistol at 312 feet, hitting McQuillams square in the chest. McQuillams went down like a sack of wet laundry and died shortly after, possibly from Johnson's shot and possibly from a self-inflicted wound fired after Johnson shot him.
In any case 104 yards with a service handgun in the dark is one HELL of a shot.
EDITOR'S NOTE: This occurred in November 2014 and Johnson was reported to have taken his shot while holding the reins of two horses in his other hand.
SCOTUS TO DECIDE WEDDING CAKE CASE
by Bob Walsh
The Supreme Court is going to hear the case of the baker in Colorado who declined to make a wedding cake for a same-sex wedding and who got torn apart by the court system in Colorado. It will be interesting to see how SCOTUS feels about requiring a baker to bake a cake that goes against their religious beliefs.
The Supreme Court is going to hear the case of the baker in Colorado who declined to make a wedding cake for a same-sex wedding and who got torn apart by the court system in Colorado. It will be interesting to see how SCOTUS feels about requiring a baker to bake a cake that goes against their religious beliefs.
SCOTUS TO HEAR "MUSLIM TRAVEL BAN" IN OCTOBER AND ALLOWS MUCH OF IT UNTIL THEN
by Bob Walsh
The Supreme Court of the United States has agreed to hear the Trump travel ban in the upcoming court year. It has also ruled that much of the ban can be implemented immediately, that is until its final ruling.
The court ruled that the ban can be implemented immediately for people who are foreign nationals and do not already have some sort of relationship with the United States. The court stated that "denying entry to a foreign national does not burden any American party by reason of that party's relationship with the foreign national."
This isn't surprising to anybody who has actually read the law in this matter. Lower court rulings were clearly political exercises and not legal ones.
The Supreme Court of the United States has agreed to hear the Trump travel ban in the upcoming court year. It has also ruled that much of the ban can be implemented immediately, that is until its final ruling.
The court ruled that the ban can be implemented immediately for people who are foreign nationals and do not already have some sort of relationship with the United States. The court stated that "denying entry to a foreign national does not burden any American party by reason of that party's relationship with the foreign national."
This isn't surprising to anybody who has actually read the law in this matter. Lower court rulings were clearly political exercises and not legal ones.
DUTERTE KNOWS HOW TO FIGHT THE WAR ON DRUGS
Filipino president Duterte marks one year in power as it emerges 5,000 people have died and police have arrested more than 80,000 during his brutal war on drugs
By Scott Campbell
Daily Mail
June 25, 2017
Filipino president Rodrigo Duterte has marked a year in power with 5,000 people killed and 80,000 arrested in his brutal war on drugs.
The outspoken politician took power at the end of June last year vowing to halt substance abuse and lawlessness that he saw as 'symptoms of virulent social disease'.
Government officials claim that crime has dropped because of his campaign with thousands of drug dealers behind bars.
They say that a million users have also registered for treatment and future generations of Filipinos are being protected.
Manila police chief Oscar Albayalde said: 'There are thousands of people who are being killed, yes. There are millions who live, see?'
n the first 11 months of Duterte's rule, police say 3,155 suspects were shot dead in anti-drug operations.
Police say they have investigated a further 2,000 drug-related killings, and have yet to identify a motive in at least another 7,000 murders and homicides.
But a growing chorus of critics including human rights activists, lawyers and the country's influential Catholic Church dispute the authorities' claims of success.
They say police have summarily executed drug suspects with impunity, terrorising poorer communities and exacerbating the lawlessnesss.
In the Navotas fishing district there were nine killings in a single night earlier this month.
Local resident Mary Joy Royo said a dozen gunmen arrived on motorbikes and abducted her mother and stepfather.
Their corpses were found later with execution-style gunshots to the head and torso.
She said: 'They should be targeting the drug lords. The victims of the drug war are the poor people.'
Filipino priest Amado Picardal said: 'This president behaves as if he is above the law - that he is the law. He has ignored the rule of law and human rights.'
Critics say the death toll is far above the 5,000 that police have identified as either drug-related killings or suspects shot dead during police operations.
Most victims are small-time users and dealers while the masterminds behind the lucrative drug trade are largely unknown and at large, it is claimed.
In October, the Hague-based International Criminal Court said it could investigate the killings if they were 'committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack against a civilian population.'
Police operations were halted for much of February after it emerged that anti-drug police abducted and killed a South Korean businessman last year, but the outcry over the rising body count has rarely slowed the killing or led to prosecutions.
The Philippine Commission on Human Rights is investigating 680 drug-war killings.
Chito Gascon, the commission's chairman, said: 'In this country the basic problem is impunity. No one is ever held to account for the worst violations. Ever.'
Police chief Albayalde says that the force's Internal Affairs Service (IAS) investigates all allegations of abuse by his officers.
He added: 'We do not tolerate senseless killings. We do not just kill anybody.'
Indeed, the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency's own data suggests crystal meth has become even cheaper in Manila.
In July 2016, a gram of the substance cost 1,200-11,000 pesos (£19-£172), according to official figures - while last month a gram cost 1,000-15,000 pesos (£16-£234).
Gloria Lai of the International Drug Policy Consortium said: 'If prices have fallen, it's an indication that enforcement actions have not been effective.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Compare Duterte’s war on drugs with our war on drugs. Duterte comes down as hard on the users as on the dealers. The idea is to reduce, if not eliminate, the market for illegal drugs by getting the users off the street. Much of that war is fought in the poor communities.
In the U.S., we weep and wail about ruining the future of users if they are arrested. And if we concentrate our fight in those communities where illegal drugs are most prevalent, we are accused of racial discrimination against blacks. President Obama released drug offenders, mostly dealers, from federal prisons by commuting their sentences. The DEA is not going after the growers and suppliers of marijuana in those states where pot is legal. Instead of getting the users off the streets, we go after the dealers, thereby leaving a market to serve the insatiable hunger Americans have for illegal drugs. But when the drug kingpins get taken down, whether here or in Mexico, they are quickly replaced by underlings.
The Filipinos are fighting a take-no-prisoners war on drugs and winning decisively. While we too are winning the war on drugs, there is no end in sight because of the way we are fighting it.
By Scott Campbell
Daily Mail
June 25, 2017
Filipino president Rodrigo Duterte has marked a year in power with 5,000 people killed and 80,000 arrested in his brutal war on drugs.
The outspoken politician took power at the end of June last year vowing to halt substance abuse and lawlessness that he saw as 'symptoms of virulent social disease'.
Government officials claim that crime has dropped because of his campaign with thousands of drug dealers behind bars.
They say that a million users have also registered for treatment and future generations of Filipinos are being protected.
Manila police chief Oscar Albayalde said: 'There are thousands of people who are being killed, yes. There are millions who live, see?'
n the first 11 months of Duterte's rule, police say 3,155 suspects were shot dead in anti-drug operations.
Police say they have investigated a further 2,000 drug-related killings, and have yet to identify a motive in at least another 7,000 murders and homicides.
But a growing chorus of critics including human rights activists, lawyers and the country's influential Catholic Church dispute the authorities' claims of success.
They say police have summarily executed drug suspects with impunity, terrorising poorer communities and exacerbating the lawlessnesss.
In the Navotas fishing district there were nine killings in a single night earlier this month.
Local resident Mary Joy Royo said a dozen gunmen arrived on motorbikes and abducted her mother and stepfather.
Their corpses were found later with execution-style gunshots to the head and torso.
She said: 'They should be targeting the drug lords. The victims of the drug war are the poor people.'
Filipino priest Amado Picardal said: 'This president behaves as if he is above the law - that he is the law. He has ignored the rule of law and human rights.'
Critics say the death toll is far above the 5,000 that police have identified as either drug-related killings or suspects shot dead during police operations.
Most victims are small-time users and dealers while the masterminds behind the lucrative drug trade are largely unknown and at large, it is claimed.
In October, the Hague-based International Criminal Court said it could investigate the killings if they were 'committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack against a civilian population.'
Police operations were halted for much of February after it emerged that anti-drug police abducted and killed a South Korean businessman last year, but the outcry over the rising body count has rarely slowed the killing or led to prosecutions.
The Philippine Commission on Human Rights is investigating 680 drug-war killings.
Chito Gascon, the commission's chairman, said: 'In this country the basic problem is impunity. No one is ever held to account for the worst violations. Ever.'
Police chief Albayalde says that the force's Internal Affairs Service (IAS) investigates all allegations of abuse by his officers.
He added: 'We do not tolerate senseless killings. We do not just kill anybody.'
Indeed, the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency's own data suggests crystal meth has become even cheaper in Manila.
In July 2016, a gram of the substance cost 1,200-11,000 pesos (£19-£172), according to official figures - while last month a gram cost 1,000-15,000 pesos (£16-£234).
Gloria Lai of the International Drug Policy Consortium said: 'If prices have fallen, it's an indication that enforcement actions have not been effective.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Compare Duterte’s war on drugs with our war on drugs. Duterte comes down as hard on the users as on the dealers. The idea is to reduce, if not eliminate, the market for illegal drugs by getting the users off the street. Much of that war is fought in the poor communities.
In the U.S., we weep and wail about ruining the future of users if they are arrested. And if we concentrate our fight in those communities where illegal drugs are most prevalent, we are accused of racial discrimination against blacks. President Obama released drug offenders, mostly dealers, from federal prisons by commuting their sentences. The DEA is not going after the growers and suppliers of marijuana in those states where pot is legal. Instead of getting the users off the streets, we go after the dealers, thereby leaving a market to serve the insatiable hunger Americans have for illegal drugs. But when the drug kingpins get taken down, whether here or in Mexico, they are quickly replaced by underlings.
The Filipinos are fighting a take-no-prisoners war on drugs and winning decisively. While we too are winning the war on drugs, there is no end in sight because of the way we are fighting it.
PISS POOR ENGLISH LED TO DEADLY BUNGLED BUNGEE JUMP
Girl, 17, died when she bungee jumped off a bridge in Spain without being tied to the ledge after an instructor with 'very bad English' said 'no jump' and she thought he said 'now jump'
By Gareth Davies
Daily Mail
June 26, 2017
A 17-year-old girl who died when she bungee jumped off a bridge in Spain without being tied to the ledge plunged to her death in a mix-up over an instructor's English.
Vera Mol had a rope attached to her, but it wasn't tied to anything else when she took part in the popular adrenaline-fuelled activity on the bridge of Cabezon de la Sal in Cantabria back in 2015.
Her instructor told her, 'no jump', but his pronunciation was so bad the teenager thought he had said 'now jump' so she leapt to her untimely death.
The instructor, who has not been named, has appeared in court accused of causing the Dutch girl's death.
Judges in the court of Cantabria, northern Spain, say the instructor should have checked for ID to make sure Vera was 18 years old, adding that his English was 'macarronico', which translates to 'very bad'.
The court heard how tragic Vera Mol died after the misunderstanding during the jumping process, which could have been avoided had the instructor used the phrase 'don't jump' as opposed to 'no jump' as was reportedly the correct protocol.
It is also alleged the bridge was not supposed to be used for bungee jumping under Spanish regulations.
Flowtrack, who run the bungee jumping company which employed the man, claim it was an accident, but Martijn Klom from the company admitted the girl's death was caused by a misunderstanding when she was receiving instructions for the jump.
He confirmed the girl jumped when she was tied by the rope, but without being secured to the bridge.
By Gareth Davies
Daily Mail
June 26, 2017
A 17-year-old girl who died when she bungee jumped off a bridge in Spain without being tied to the ledge plunged to her death in a mix-up over an instructor's English.
Vera Mol had a rope attached to her, but it wasn't tied to anything else when she took part in the popular adrenaline-fuelled activity on the bridge of Cabezon de la Sal in Cantabria back in 2015.
Her instructor told her, 'no jump', but his pronunciation was so bad the teenager thought he had said 'now jump' so she leapt to her untimely death.
The instructor, who has not been named, has appeared in court accused of causing the Dutch girl's death.
Judges in the court of Cantabria, northern Spain, say the instructor should have checked for ID to make sure Vera was 18 years old, adding that his English was 'macarronico', which translates to 'very bad'.
The court heard how tragic Vera Mol died after the misunderstanding during the jumping process, which could have been avoided had the instructor used the phrase 'don't jump' as opposed to 'no jump' as was reportedly the correct protocol.
It is also alleged the bridge was not supposed to be used for bungee jumping under Spanish regulations.
Flowtrack, who run the bungee jumping company which employed the man, claim it was an accident, but Martijn Klom from the company admitted the girl's death was caused by a misunderstanding when she was receiving instructions for the jump.
He confirmed the girl jumped when she was tied by the rope, but without being secured to the bridge.
CALIFORNIA HAS ITS BIKER WARS BETWEEN THE HELLS ANGELS AND MONGOLS, TEXAS BETWEEN THE BANDIDOS AND COSSACKS
Biker in Mongols gang is arrested in fatal shooting of rival Hells Angels member in Riverside
By Veronica Rocha
Los Angeles Times
June 23, 2017
A Mongols motorcycle gang member is accused of fatally shooting a member of the Hells Angels biker gang last month in Riverside as part of an ongoing rivalry, authorities said.
Joshua Ryan Herbert, a 27-year-old Corona resident, was arrested Wednesday on suspicion of murder and attempted murder, according to the Riverside County district attorney’s office. Prosecutors allege the offenses were committed for the benefit of the Mongols gang.
Authorities say Herbert opened fire on five Hells Angels members on May 21, including 21-year-old James Duty, who died at the scene.
The group had stopped just before 10:30 p.m. to fuel up at a Shell gas station in the 3500 block of Adams Street, Riverside police Lt. Charles Payne said at a news conference this week. Clad in Hells Angels attire, the group stood in the parking lot and chatted.
As the group was talking, he said, someone exited a vehicle and began spraying gunfire.
When officers arrived, they found the bikers next to a set of fuel pumps.
Duty had been shot multiple times. Gunfire also struck the helmet of a second Hells Angels member, but he was not injured.
“This shooting was the result of an ongoing rival feud between the Hells Angels and Mongols outlaw motorcycle gangs,” Deputy Chief Larry Gonzalez said at a news conference.
Detectives, with the assistance of the FBI and other law enforcement agencies, launched an investigation into the gangs’ activities.
Detectives gathered surveillance camera footage and talked to witnesses who helped identify Herbert as the shooter, Payne said.
Authorities searched seven locations throughout Orange and Riverside counties associated with the Mongols gang. Investigators also seized illegal weapons as well as Mongols gang paraphernalia at Herbert’s home, authorities said.
The motorcycle gangs have a “long history of animosity toward one another, which includes committing crimes against each other, including murder,” Payne said.
Members are looking to expand their territory and increase their gang’s presence, he added.
The Mongols gang formed in Southern California in the 1970s. Hells Angels was established in 1948 in Fontana.
For decades, federal and local authorities have arrested and charged dozens of members from both gangs on racketeering, murder, drug sales and other charges.
The ongoing turf battle between the rival motorcycle gangs hit a boiling point in 2002, when a shootout erupted at Harrah's Casino & Hotel in Nevada during the Laughlin River Run, the annual biker rally.
During the melee, three people were killed and at least 16 people were injured.
In the last six to eight months, the rivalry between the Mongols and the Hells Angels has intensified in Orange and Los Angeles counties, resulting in attempted murders and shootings, Det. Jim Simons said.
“We believe it’s retaliation,” he said.
Authorities hope Herbert’s arrest doesn’t lead to more bloodshed.
“We hope that this will be the end of it but we always fear ongoing retaliation and feuds between both of these gangs,” Simons said.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Shit, that was a pussy affair compared to the shootout between the Bandidos and Cossacks that left 9 dead, 18 wounded and 170 arrested at the Twin Peaks in Waco two years ago.
By Veronica Rocha
Los Angeles Times
June 23, 2017
A Mongols motorcycle gang member is accused of fatally shooting a member of the Hells Angels biker gang last month in Riverside as part of an ongoing rivalry, authorities said.
Joshua Ryan Herbert, a 27-year-old Corona resident, was arrested Wednesday on suspicion of murder and attempted murder, according to the Riverside County district attorney’s office. Prosecutors allege the offenses were committed for the benefit of the Mongols gang.
Authorities say Herbert opened fire on five Hells Angels members on May 21, including 21-year-old James Duty, who died at the scene.
The group had stopped just before 10:30 p.m. to fuel up at a Shell gas station in the 3500 block of Adams Street, Riverside police Lt. Charles Payne said at a news conference this week. Clad in Hells Angels attire, the group stood in the parking lot and chatted.
As the group was talking, he said, someone exited a vehicle and began spraying gunfire.
When officers arrived, they found the bikers next to a set of fuel pumps.
Duty had been shot multiple times. Gunfire also struck the helmet of a second Hells Angels member, but he was not injured.
“This shooting was the result of an ongoing rival feud between the Hells Angels and Mongols outlaw motorcycle gangs,” Deputy Chief Larry Gonzalez said at a news conference.
Detectives, with the assistance of the FBI and other law enforcement agencies, launched an investigation into the gangs’ activities.
Detectives gathered surveillance camera footage and talked to witnesses who helped identify Herbert as the shooter, Payne said.
Authorities searched seven locations throughout Orange and Riverside counties associated with the Mongols gang. Investigators also seized illegal weapons as well as Mongols gang paraphernalia at Herbert’s home, authorities said.
The motorcycle gangs have a “long history of animosity toward one another, which includes committing crimes against each other, including murder,” Payne said.
Members are looking to expand their territory and increase their gang’s presence, he added.
The Mongols gang formed in Southern California in the 1970s. Hells Angels was established in 1948 in Fontana.
For decades, federal and local authorities have arrested and charged dozens of members from both gangs on racketeering, murder, drug sales and other charges.
The ongoing turf battle between the rival motorcycle gangs hit a boiling point in 2002, when a shootout erupted at Harrah's Casino & Hotel in Nevada during the Laughlin River Run, the annual biker rally.
During the melee, three people were killed and at least 16 people were injured.
In the last six to eight months, the rivalry between the Mongols and the Hells Angels has intensified in Orange and Los Angeles counties, resulting in attempted murders and shootings, Det. Jim Simons said.
“We believe it’s retaliation,” he said.
Authorities hope Herbert’s arrest doesn’t lead to more bloodshed.
“We hope that this will be the end of it but we always fear ongoing retaliation and feuds between both of these gangs,” Simons said.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Shit, that was a pussy affair compared to the shootout between the Bandidos and Cossacks that left 9 dead, 18 wounded and 170 arrested at the Twin Peaks in Waco two years ago.
Monday, June 26, 2017
ATTN BLM: WHITE COPS ARE EVEN SHOOTING BLACK COPS
Off-duty black police officer mistakenly shot by white on-duty officer from the same department in St. Louis who apparently mistook him for a fleeing suspect
BY Associated Press and Regina F. Graham
Daily Mail
June 25, 2017
An off-duty black police officer in St. Louis was mistakenly shot by a white on-duty officer from the same department who apparently mistook him for a fleeing suspect, authorities said.
The 38-year-old black officer was off-duty when he heard a commotion near his home and ran toward it with his service weapon to try to help his fellow officers on Wednesday night, police said.
St. Louis' interim police chief, Lawrence O'Toole, said the incident began when officers with an anti-crime task force followed a stolen car and were twice fired upon by its occupants.
One suspect was shot in an ankle and was arrested, along with another teenager who tried to run from police, O'Toole said. A third suspect is being sought as the others are being held on $500,000 cash bond.
When the off-duty officer who lived nearby heard the commotion and arrived at the scene Wednesday night to help, two on-duty officers ordered him to the ground but then recognized him and told him to stand up and walk toward them.
As he was doing so, another officer arrived and shot the off-duty officer 'apparently not recognizing' him, police said.
The police department as of Saturday hadn't disclosed the names of the officers, who have been placed on routine administrative leave as the matter is investigated.
Police described the black officer as an 11-year department veteran and said he was treated at a hospital and released. The officer who shot him is 36 and has been with the department more than eight years.
The black officer's lawyer, Rufus J. Tate Jr., discussed the shooting with St. Louis Fox affiliate KTVI, but the officer isn't named in that report.
Tate told the station that his client identified himself to the on-duty officers at the scene and complied with their commands.
The lawyer questioned the white officer's account to police that he shot the off-duty officer because he feared for his safety.
'In the police report you have so far, there is no description of a threat he received. So we have a real problem with that. But this has been a national discussion for the past two years. There is this perception that a black man is automatically feared,' Tate said.
Tate did not reply to several phone messages from The Associated Press seeking comment Saturday.
It was in the St. Louis suburb of Ferguson where a white officer shot an unarmed black teenager, Michael Brown, three years ago, setting off months of protests, some of which were violent.
The officer, who later left the force, wasn't charged, which further strained relations between the area's black community and the police.
But there have been several notable instances over the years in which an officer mistakenly shot a colleague.
In 2009, 25-year-old New York City police Officer Omar J. Edwards, who was black, was shot and killed by a white officer on a Harlem street while in street clothes. He had just finished his shift, and had his service weapon out, chasing a man who had broken into his car, police said.
Three plainclothes officers on routine patrol arrived at the scene and yelled for the two to stop, police said.
One officer, Andrew Dunton, opened fire and hit Edwards three times as he turned toward them with his service weapon.
It wasn't until medical workers were on scene that it was determined he was a police officer. A grand jury voted not to indict Dunton.
A year earlier in the suburb of White Plains, New York, a black off-duty Mount Vernon police officer was killed by a Westchester County policeman while holding an assault suspect at gunpoint.
And in Providence, Rhode Island, an off-duty black police sergeant, Cornel Young Jr., was accidentally killed by two uniformed white colleagues in 2000 while he was trying to break up a fight on a parking lot. Young was the son of the department's highest-ranking black officer at the time.
A jury later rejected a $20 million federal lawsuit by Young's mother against the city and its police force, who she claimed didn't properly train officers about how to identify their off-duty and plainclothes counterparts.
Federal Bureau of Investigation statistics show such accidental police-on-police shootings occur at a low rate given the tense, confusing circumstances officers routinely face.
In 2013, according to online FBI figures, only two officers were killed when mistakenly shot as a result of crossfire, mistaken for a subject, or involved in other firearm mishaps. The FBI statistics don't specify the race of the officers killed.
BY Associated Press and Regina F. Graham
Daily Mail
June 25, 2017
An off-duty black police officer in St. Louis was mistakenly shot by a white on-duty officer from the same department who apparently mistook him for a fleeing suspect, authorities said.
The 38-year-old black officer was off-duty when he heard a commotion near his home and ran toward it with his service weapon to try to help his fellow officers on Wednesday night, police said.
St. Louis' interim police chief, Lawrence O'Toole, said the incident began when officers with an anti-crime task force followed a stolen car and were twice fired upon by its occupants.
One suspect was shot in an ankle and was arrested, along with another teenager who tried to run from police, O'Toole said. A third suspect is being sought as the others are being held on $500,000 cash bond.
When the off-duty officer who lived nearby heard the commotion and arrived at the scene Wednesday night to help, two on-duty officers ordered him to the ground but then recognized him and told him to stand up and walk toward them.
As he was doing so, another officer arrived and shot the off-duty officer 'apparently not recognizing' him, police said.
The police department as of Saturday hadn't disclosed the names of the officers, who have been placed on routine administrative leave as the matter is investigated.
Police described the black officer as an 11-year department veteran and said he was treated at a hospital and released. The officer who shot him is 36 and has been with the department more than eight years.
The black officer's lawyer, Rufus J. Tate Jr., discussed the shooting with St. Louis Fox affiliate KTVI, but the officer isn't named in that report.
Tate told the station that his client identified himself to the on-duty officers at the scene and complied with their commands.
The lawyer questioned the white officer's account to police that he shot the off-duty officer because he feared for his safety.
'In the police report you have so far, there is no description of a threat he received. So we have a real problem with that. But this has been a national discussion for the past two years. There is this perception that a black man is automatically feared,' Tate said.
Tate did not reply to several phone messages from The Associated Press seeking comment Saturday.
It was in the St. Louis suburb of Ferguson where a white officer shot an unarmed black teenager, Michael Brown, three years ago, setting off months of protests, some of which were violent.
The officer, who later left the force, wasn't charged, which further strained relations between the area's black community and the police.
But there have been several notable instances over the years in which an officer mistakenly shot a colleague.
In 2009, 25-year-old New York City police Officer Omar J. Edwards, who was black, was shot and killed by a white officer on a Harlem street while in street clothes. He had just finished his shift, and had his service weapon out, chasing a man who had broken into his car, police said.
Three plainclothes officers on routine patrol arrived at the scene and yelled for the two to stop, police said.
One officer, Andrew Dunton, opened fire and hit Edwards three times as he turned toward them with his service weapon.
It wasn't until medical workers were on scene that it was determined he was a police officer. A grand jury voted not to indict Dunton.
A year earlier in the suburb of White Plains, New York, a black off-duty Mount Vernon police officer was killed by a Westchester County policeman while holding an assault suspect at gunpoint.
And in Providence, Rhode Island, an off-duty black police sergeant, Cornel Young Jr., was accidentally killed by two uniformed white colleagues in 2000 while he was trying to break up a fight on a parking lot. Young was the son of the department's highest-ranking black officer at the time.
A jury later rejected a $20 million federal lawsuit by Young's mother against the city and its police force, who she claimed didn't properly train officers about how to identify their off-duty and plainclothes counterparts.
Federal Bureau of Investigation statistics show such accidental police-on-police shootings occur at a low rate given the tense, confusing circumstances officers routinely face.
In 2013, according to online FBI figures, only two officers were killed when mistakenly shot as a result of crossfire, mistaken for a subject, or involved in other firearm mishaps. The FBI statistics don't specify the race of the officers killed.
DESPERATE POVERTY PLUS STUPIDITY CAN EQUAL DEATH
by Bob Walsh
An oil tanker rolled over on a highway in Pakistan yesterday. Many of the locals rushed to the scene of the wreck with containers, attempting to scrounge whatever of the contents of the tanker (kerosene or fuel oil maybe) that they could. Something happened, or somebody did something stupid and the tanker went BOOM. They think about 150 people died in the fireball.
It must truly suck to be that poor. I just can't imagine it.
An oil tanker rolled over on a highway in Pakistan yesterday. Many of the locals rushed to the scene of the wreck with containers, attempting to scrounge whatever of the contents of the tanker (kerosene or fuel oil maybe) that they could. Something happened, or somebody did something stupid and the tanker went BOOM. They think about 150 people died in the fireball.
It must truly suck to be that poor. I just can't imagine it.
ABBAS INSISTS THAT HE WILL CONTINUE TO PAY SALARIES TO CONVICTED TERRORISTS
REPORTS: Trump Furious With Palestinians, May Pull Out of Peace Process
Israel Today
June 25, 2017
The international mainstream media painted last week's meeting between Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas and US President Donald Trump's senior advisor and son-in-law, Jared Kushner, as "productive."
Apparently, that description wasn't entirely accurate.
The London-based Arabic-language daily al-Hayat instead called the meeting "tense," and said it ended with a serious rift between the Americans and the Palestinians.
According to Palestinian officials who spoke to the newspaper, Trump is now considering pulling out of the Mideast peace process altogether.
The Jerusalem Post quoted an American administration official as saying that was "nonsense," though he did not refute other details of the al-Hayat report.
Abbas is said to have been outraged when Kushner entered the room and conveyed Israel's demand that he stop using international financial aid to pay salaries to terrorists sitting in Israeli jails.
Kushner also reportedly insisted that Palestinian officials halt all incitement against Israel, and expressed disappointment that Abbas had failed to condemn last week's deadly terrorist stabbing in Jerusalem, which took the life of a young female Border Police officer.
Al-Hayat wrote that Abbas fired back by accusing Kushner of "taking Israel's side," and was adamant that paying salaries to convicted terrorists was part of his "social responsibility."
Israel Today
June 25, 2017
The international mainstream media painted last week's meeting between Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas and US President Donald Trump's senior advisor and son-in-law, Jared Kushner, as "productive."
Apparently, that description wasn't entirely accurate.
The London-based Arabic-language daily al-Hayat instead called the meeting "tense," and said it ended with a serious rift between the Americans and the Palestinians.
According to Palestinian officials who spoke to the newspaper, Trump is now considering pulling out of the Mideast peace process altogether.
The Jerusalem Post quoted an American administration official as saying that was "nonsense," though he did not refute other details of the al-Hayat report.
Abbas is said to have been outraged when Kushner entered the room and conveyed Israel's demand that he stop using international financial aid to pay salaries to terrorists sitting in Israeli jails.
Kushner also reportedly insisted that Palestinian officials halt all incitement against Israel, and expressed disappointment that Abbas had failed to condemn last week's deadly terrorist stabbing in Jerusalem, which took the life of a young female Border Police officer.
Al-Hayat wrote that Abbas fired back by accusing Kushner of "taking Israel's side," and was adamant that paying salaries to convicted terrorists was part of his "social responsibility."
CALIFORNIA WOMAN SHOULD BE THANKFUL SHE WAS NOT CHARGED EXTRA FOR THAT FROG IN HER SALAD
Disgusted diner finds a DEAD FROG in her salad at a California pizza restaurant and is only offered a $50 gift card in compensation
By Matthew Wright
Daily Mail
June 25, 2017
A woman was left disgusted after she found a dead frog in her salad at a California pizza restaurant.
Shawna C posted a scathing Yelp review on June 14 describing the sickening dining experience she had at BJ's Restaurant & Brewhouse in West Covina.
She wrote: 'I was about 4 bites into it and I noticed it tasted a little different.'
'I thought maybe the ranch dressing was a little bitter and after mixing the salad around some more I found a dead baby frog.
'Yes I said FROG! I've never experienced anything in my life like that.'
The restaurant manager offered to compensate her meal when Shawna told him what happened.
But she declined, and said they wouldn't be eating there any more.
'He explained that there [sic] produce comes from a vendor but don't they wash there vegs before serving?
'I told him this frog could contain salmonella and who knows how long it's been sitting in a produce bag and he still made us pay for our drinks which consisting of three beers total!
Shawna was irate at having to pay for her drinks in addition to having to find a new place for her party to have a meal.
She spoke with corporate, who offered her a $50 gift card to which she thought was a 'joke'.
Krysteen Romero, General Manager of BJ’s Restaurant & Brewhouse, saw the post and responded on June 22 apologizing for failing to handle the situation in a timely manner.
'We take situations like this very seriously and have launched an internal investigation including discussions with our suppliers and distributors,' she said.
By Matthew Wright
Daily Mail
June 25, 2017
A woman was left disgusted after she found a dead frog in her salad at a California pizza restaurant.
Shawna C posted a scathing Yelp review on June 14 describing the sickening dining experience she had at BJ's Restaurant & Brewhouse in West Covina.
She wrote: 'I was about 4 bites into it and I noticed it tasted a little different.'
'I thought maybe the ranch dressing was a little bitter and after mixing the salad around some more I found a dead baby frog.
'Yes I said FROG! I've never experienced anything in my life like that.'
The restaurant manager offered to compensate her meal when Shawna told him what happened.
But she declined, and said they wouldn't be eating there any more.
'He explained that there [sic] produce comes from a vendor but don't they wash there vegs before serving?
'I told him this frog could contain salmonella and who knows how long it's been sitting in a produce bag and he still made us pay for our drinks which consisting of three beers total!
Shawna was irate at having to pay for her drinks in addition to having to find a new place for her party to have a meal.
She spoke with corporate, who offered her a $50 gift card to which she thought was a 'joke'.
Krysteen Romero, General Manager of BJ’s Restaurant & Brewhouse, saw the post and responded on June 22 apologizing for failing to handle the situation in a timely manner.
'We take situations like this very seriously and have launched an internal investigation including discussions with our suppliers and distributors,' she said.
AS SHARP AS THE SPINES ON A CACTUS … BUT
Hillary Clinton and Huma Abedin went camping in the Mojave Desert. After they got their tent all set up, both women fell sound asleep.
Some hours later, Huma wakes Hillary and says, 'Honey, look up, what do you see? '
Hillary replies, 'I see millions of stars.'
‘What does that tell you?' asked Huma.
Hillary ponders for a minute then says, 'Astronomically speaking, it tells me there are millions of galaxies and potentially billions of planets. Astrologically, it tells me that Saturn is in Leo. Time wise, it appears to be approximately a quarter past three in the morning. Theologically, the Lord is all-powerful and we are small and insignificant. Meteorologically, it seems we will have a beautiful day tomorrow.’
‘What's it tell you, Huma?'
‘Hillie, you may be as sharp as the spines on a a cactus, but it tells me someone stole the fucking tent.’
Some hours later, Huma wakes Hillary and says, 'Honey, look up, what do you see? '
Hillary replies, 'I see millions of stars.'
‘What does that tell you?' asked Huma.
Hillary ponders for a minute then says, 'Astronomically speaking, it tells me there are millions of galaxies and potentially billions of planets. Astrologically, it tells me that Saturn is in Leo. Time wise, it appears to be approximately a quarter past three in the morning. Theologically, the Lord is all-powerful and we are small and insignificant. Meteorologically, it seems we will have a beautiful day tomorrow.’
‘What's it tell you, Huma?'
‘Hillie, you may be as sharp as the spines on a a cactus, but it tells me someone stole the fucking tent.’
Sunday, June 25, 2017
SOUTH AFRICAN SHOTGUN WEDDING
Limpopo man to be forced to ‘marry’ the donkey he raped
Capricorn Voice
June 22, 2017
LIMPOPO, SOUTH AFRICA -- After the recent incident at Roadhouse village, the owner of the donkey insists the man must make the donkey his wife, by marrying the animal.
The matter came to the attention of locals after the owner reported the matter to the local headman that a local resident was “found raping a donkey”. It is believed that it was not the first time the man had been involved in such an incident.
The owner of the donkey said he wants the man to take the donkey as his wife.
“When I went to him he said he was sorry about it but I’m not satisfied as it was not for the first time that he committed the same act,” said the owner.
The alleged perpetrator was summoned by the community structures but he refused to appear.
Acting Headman Daniel Ngobeni confirmed the incident.
“Because of the man’s absence we have transferred the matter to the Shigalo Tribal Authority Council,” he added.
The Secretary of the Shigalo Tribal Authority Council, Thompson Ntlamu, also confirmed the matter. “We summoned the man and he will appear to answer to charges against him,” he said.
Capricorn Voice
June 22, 2017
LIMPOPO, SOUTH AFRICA -- After the recent incident at Roadhouse village, the owner of the donkey insists the man must make the donkey his wife, by marrying the animal.
The matter came to the attention of locals after the owner reported the matter to the local headman that a local resident was “found raping a donkey”. It is believed that it was not the first time the man had been involved in such an incident.
The owner of the donkey said he wants the man to take the donkey as his wife.
“When I went to him he said he was sorry about it but I’m not satisfied as it was not for the first time that he committed the same act,” said the owner.
The alleged perpetrator was summoned by the community structures but he refused to appear.
Acting Headman Daniel Ngobeni confirmed the incident.
“Because of the man’s absence we have transferred the matter to the Shigalo Tribal Authority Council,” he added.
The Secretary of the Shigalo Tribal Authority Council, Thompson Ntlamu, also confirmed the matter. “We summoned the man and he will appear to answer to charges against him,” he said.
BERNIE IS UNDER INVESTIGATION FOR FRAUD ..... REALLY.
by Bob Walsh
Bernie Sanders and his wife Jane are under investigation by the FBI for bank fraud.
Saunders was trying to get $10 mill for Burlington College back in 2010. He was president of this fine institution of higher learning at the time. It has since been closed down.
Mrs Sanders is alleged to have fudged the numbers on donor information. Bernie is alleged to have used his political position to pressure the bank into approving the loan.
Bernie claims he is being targeted by Trump fanatics. He didn't claim the basic assertions were false. I somehow have a sneaking hunch the FBI would not be investigating if there was not at least some minimal evidence to support an investigation.
Both Bernie and Jane have lawyered up. That's what guilty people do.
EDITOR'S NOTE: Whoa there, Bob, not so fast! Does that mean Trump is guilty of obstructing justice in that Russian thing he's been denying? He's hired a top notch criminal attorney to represent him.
Bernie Sanders and his wife Jane are under investigation by the FBI for bank fraud.
Saunders was trying to get $10 mill for Burlington College back in 2010. He was president of this fine institution of higher learning at the time. It has since been closed down.
Mrs Sanders is alleged to have fudged the numbers on donor information. Bernie is alleged to have used his political position to pressure the bank into approving the loan.
Bernie claims he is being targeted by Trump fanatics. He didn't claim the basic assertions were false. I somehow have a sneaking hunch the FBI would not be investigating if there was not at least some minimal evidence to support an investigation.
Both Bernie and Jane have lawyered up. That's what guilty people do.
EDITOR'S NOTE: Whoa there, Bob, not so fast! Does that mean Trump is guilty of obstructing justice in that Russian thing he's been denying? He's hired a top notch criminal attorney to represent him.
BILL CLINTON’S AND DONALD TRUMP’S PEDOPHILE BUDDY GOT SWEETHEART DEAL FROM PRESIDENT OBAMA’S FEDS
Feds explain sweet deal for billionaire sex offender Epstein
by Jane Musgrave
Palm Beach Post
June 23, 2017
WEST PALM BEACH, FLA. -- Federal prosecutors went on the offensive this month, denying allegations that they bowed to pressure from billionaire Palm Beach resident Jeffrey Epstein and his high-priced lawyers at the expense of dozens of teenage girls he sexually abused.
In their first public comment since 2007 — when they negotiated a deal that allowed Epstein to escape federal charges — prosecutors filed hundreds of pages of documents in U.S. District Court, explaining what led to the now infamous non-prosecution agreement that has been decried as “a sweetheart deal.”
Contrary to claims by attorneys representing two of Epstein’s victims in a lawsuit against the federal government, Assistant U.S. Attorney Marie Villafana said she and her superiors were trying to help the traumatized young women when they agreed to let Epstein plead guilty to state prostitution charges.
The now-64-year-old money manager, who spends most of his time on his estate in the Virgin Islands, served 13 months of an 18-month sentence in the Palm Beach County Stockade. He was allowed to leave each day to go to work.
Hoping to persuade U.S. District Judge Kenneth Marra to throw out the lawsuit that accuses the government of violating the federal Crime Victims Rights Act, Villafana said she tried to keep Epstein’s victims informed about the investigation and the eventual plea deal. But, she said, negotiations were sensitive and neither Epstein, his victims nor their attorneys made it easy.
For instance, she said, most of the young women were extremely reluctant — or simply refused — to testify against Epstein, who had paid them to give him sexually-charged massages at his mansion.
One of the women who is now suing the government insisted Epstein never abused her, Villafana wrote in a sworn affidavit.
“I hope Jeffrey, nothing happens to Jeffrey because he’s an awesome man and it would really be a shame,” the woman, identified only as Jane Doe 2, told FBI agents in 2007.
While Villafana said she didn’t believe her, she also understood the young woman’s suffering. Further, she knew she couldn’t force her or Epstein’s more than two dozen other victims to testify against him.
Jane Doe 1, who is also suing the government, agreed to testify. But Villafana said one victim wouldn’t have been enough to convict Epstein.
Rather than let Epstein use his considerable influence to evade prosecution, she and top officials at the U.S. Justice Department crafted the plea deal.
In exchange for pleading guilty to charges of solicitation of prostitution and soliciting minors to engage in prostitution in Palm Beach County Circuit Court, Epstein was not charged with any federal counts. As part of the agreement, Epstein had to register as a sex offender and agree to settle civil lawsuits that his roughly 30 victims filed against him.
Getting Epstein to agree to pay restitution to his victims and register as a sex offender were key, Villafana wrote. Prosecutors wanted to assure his victims that they would be compensated and that “other minors throughout the country” would be protected, she wrote.
But shortly after Epstein signed the agreement on Sept. 24, 2007, he began fighting it, she said. He and his legal team, including former U.S. Solicitor General Kenneth Starr, whose investigation led to President Bill Clinton’s impeachment, contacted high-level justice department officials. They challenged the terms of the non-prosecution agreement.
Fearing it was falling apart, Villafana said her office and the FBI resumed the investigation and informed the victims of that by letter in January 2008.
In their lawsuit, the victims’ attorneys, Bradley Edwards and Paul Cassell, say the letter is evidence of their claim that prosecutors lied to the victims. They also claim that prosecutors never told Epstein’s victims about the plea deal.
Villafana said she didn’t tell the young women about the terms of the agreement, fearing Epstein’s attorneys would use it to crush them if federal charges were filed and the case went to trial. Savvy attorneys would argue that the women were testifying against Epstein because federal prosecutors told them they would get paid restitution if they did, she said.
When she learned Epstein planned to plead guilty to the two charges in circuit court on June 30, 2008, Villafana said she immediately notified Edwards. She said she told him to alert his clients so they could attend the hearing. None did.
Cassell, a law professor at the University of Utah, shrugged off the government’s new claims, calling them “meritless.” A written response will be filed at the end of July, he said.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Flight logs show that Clinton flew at least 26 times together with Epstein on his private jet, the “Lolita Express”, and that Trump had been a frequent flier too. The plane – also dubbed the “Mile High Club” – was outfitted with a bed on which Epstein and his buddies would have group sex with underage girls.
Both Clintons, Bill and Hillary, have been Epstein’s guests at his estate on Little St. James, his private 72-acre island – also dubbed “Orgy Island” - in the U.S. Virgin Islands.
by Jane Musgrave
Palm Beach Post
June 23, 2017
WEST PALM BEACH, FLA. -- Federal prosecutors went on the offensive this month, denying allegations that they bowed to pressure from billionaire Palm Beach resident Jeffrey Epstein and his high-priced lawyers at the expense of dozens of teenage girls he sexually abused.
In their first public comment since 2007 — when they negotiated a deal that allowed Epstein to escape federal charges — prosecutors filed hundreds of pages of documents in U.S. District Court, explaining what led to the now infamous non-prosecution agreement that has been decried as “a sweetheart deal.”
Contrary to claims by attorneys representing two of Epstein’s victims in a lawsuit against the federal government, Assistant U.S. Attorney Marie Villafana said she and her superiors were trying to help the traumatized young women when they agreed to let Epstein plead guilty to state prostitution charges.
The now-64-year-old money manager, who spends most of his time on his estate in the Virgin Islands, served 13 months of an 18-month sentence in the Palm Beach County Stockade. He was allowed to leave each day to go to work.
Hoping to persuade U.S. District Judge Kenneth Marra to throw out the lawsuit that accuses the government of violating the federal Crime Victims Rights Act, Villafana said she tried to keep Epstein’s victims informed about the investigation and the eventual plea deal. But, she said, negotiations were sensitive and neither Epstein, his victims nor their attorneys made it easy.
For instance, she said, most of the young women were extremely reluctant — or simply refused — to testify against Epstein, who had paid them to give him sexually-charged massages at his mansion.
One of the women who is now suing the government insisted Epstein never abused her, Villafana wrote in a sworn affidavit.
“I hope Jeffrey, nothing happens to Jeffrey because he’s an awesome man and it would really be a shame,” the woman, identified only as Jane Doe 2, told FBI agents in 2007.
While Villafana said she didn’t believe her, she also understood the young woman’s suffering. Further, she knew she couldn’t force her or Epstein’s more than two dozen other victims to testify against him.
Jane Doe 1, who is also suing the government, agreed to testify. But Villafana said one victim wouldn’t have been enough to convict Epstein.
Rather than let Epstein use his considerable influence to evade prosecution, she and top officials at the U.S. Justice Department crafted the plea deal.
In exchange for pleading guilty to charges of solicitation of prostitution and soliciting minors to engage in prostitution in Palm Beach County Circuit Court, Epstein was not charged with any federal counts. As part of the agreement, Epstein had to register as a sex offender and agree to settle civil lawsuits that his roughly 30 victims filed against him.
Getting Epstein to agree to pay restitution to his victims and register as a sex offender were key, Villafana wrote. Prosecutors wanted to assure his victims that they would be compensated and that “other minors throughout the country” would be protected, she wrote.
But shortly after Epstein signed the agreement on Sept. 24, 2007, he began fighting it, she said. He and his legal team, including former U.S. Solicitor General Kenneth Starr, whose investigation led to President Bill Clinton’s impeachment, contacted high-level justice department officials. They challenged the terms of the non-prosecution agreement.
Fearing it was falling apart, Villafana said her office and the FBI resumed the investigation and informed the victims of that by letter in January 2008.
In their lawsuit, the victims’ attorneys, Bradley Edwards and Paul Cassell, say the letter is evidence of their claim that prosecutors lied to the victims. They also claim that prosecutors never told Epstein’s victims about the plea deal.
Villafana said she didn’t tell the young women about the terms of the agreement, fearing Epstein’s attorneys would use it to crush them if federal charges were filed and the case went to trial. Savvy attorneys would argue that the women were testifying against Epstein because federal prosecutors told them they would get paid restitution if they did, she said.
When she learned Epstein planned to plead guilty to the two charges in circuit court on June 30, 2008, Villafana said she immediately notified Edwards. She said she told him to alert his clients so they could attend the hearing. None did.
Cassell, a law professor at the University of Utah, shrugged off the government’s new claims, calling them “meritless.” A written response will be filed at the end of July, he said.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Flight logs show that Clinton flew at least 26 times together with Epstein on his private jet, the “Lolita Express”, and that Trump had been a frequent flier too. The plane – also dubbed the “Mile High Club” – was outfitted with a bed on which Epstein and his buddies would have group sex with underage girls.
Both Clintons, Bill and Hillary, have been Epstein’s guests at his estate on Little St. James, his private 72-acre island – also dubbed “Orgy Island” - in the U.S. Virgin Islands.
FIRST EVER INDICTMENT OF DALLAS OFFICER SHOWS COPS BETTER MAKE DAMN SURE THEY CAN JUSTIFY A SHOOTING EVEN THOUGH ANY HESITATION COULD PUT THEIR LIVES IN JEOPARDY
Dallas officer charged with assault in the shooting death of pregnant woman whose family was 'hoping for a murder charge'
By Associated Press and Jessica Finn
Daily Mail
June 23, 2017
A grand jury has recommended an aggravated assault charge against a Dallas police officer who shot and killed a pregnant woman in a January confrontation involving a stolen car.
The Dallas County district attorney announced Friday that Dallas Police Officer Christopher Hess was indicted on the charge of aggravated assault in the shooting death of a pregnant 21-year-old Genevive Dawes.
Hess shot and killed a pregnant Dawes in a January confrontation involving a stolen car. It is the first time in 43 years that a Dallas Police officer has been indicted for an officer-involved shooting that resulted in death.
Daryl Washington, a civil rights attorney representing Dawes' family, said they were hoping for a murder charge to be brought against the officer. Washington also said the family was hoping a second charge would be brought because of the passenger, Virgilio Rosales, Dawes' boyfriend, who was also shot at during the incident.
He said Dawes was five months pregnant when she died after being struck by at least four bullets.
Hess and another officer, Senior Corporal Jason Kimpel, who the grand jury did not recommend charges against, had responded to a suspicious persons call, according to police accounts.
Dawes and Rosales allegedly ignored commands to get out of the car, reversed the car into a police cruiser, rammed a wooden fence and were reversing away from the fence when police fired, killing Dawes and injuring Rosales.
Washington said that account is flawed. He said the couple was sleeping about 5 a.m. in the car when police arrived. He said from the evidence he has seen, Dawes never drove the car toward the officers or tried to hit them. He also said Dawes did not know the car was stolen.
Washington said the officers fired 14 times into the car, and that he believed Hess had fired 13 of the shots.
'There were a total of 14 shots at a vehicle that was going five miles per hour,' Washington said. 'I can 100 per cent stand behind the fact that no officers were in danger. No officer at the time that those shots were fired, were behind that vehicle. And I feel comfortable saying that the statements given by the Dallas police officers were inaccurate.'
Authorities say Hess, a 10-year veteran of the Dallas Police Department, will be placed on administrative leave pending a review by Internal Affairs investigators.
If convicted, Hess faces between 5 and 99 years in prison. It was unclear from court documents if Hess had an attorney.
The Dallas County district attorney's office was scheduled to hold a news conference Friday afternoon to discuss the charges.
Dawes' family members, who gathered to make a statement about the indictment Friday, said she was a goofy and loving woman who would make everyone laugh, once adopted a stray duck and was devoted to her two daughters, Krystinah Rosales, 2, and Cerenity Rosales, 1.
'I feel like they tried to make my sister look like a criminal, to sweep it under the table to not even try to get justice for her,' said Alisha Garcia, Dawes' 26-year-old sister. 'She was my only sister. They took her life.'
By Associated Press and Jessica Finn
Daily Mail
June 23, 2017
A grand jury has recommended an aggravated assault charge against a Dallas police officer who shot and killed a pregnant woman in a January confrontation involving a stolen car.
The Dallas County district attorney announced Friday that Dallas Police Officer Christopher Hess was indicted on the charge of aggravated assault in the shooting death of a pregnant 21-year-old Genevive Dawes.
Hess shot and killed a pregnant Dawes in a January confrontation involving a stolen car. It is the first time in 43 years that a Dallas Police officer has been indicted for an officer-involved shooting that resulted in death.
Daryl Washington, a civil rights attorney representing Dawes' family, said they were hoping for a murder charge to be brought against the officer. Washington also said the family was hoping a second charge would be brought because of the passenger, Virgilio Rosales, Dawes' boyfriend, who was also shot at during the incident.
He said Dawes was five months pregnant when she died after being struck by at least four bullets.
Hess and another officer, Senior Corporal Jason Kimpel, who the grand jury did not recommend charges against, had responded to a suspicious persons call, according to police accounts.
Dawes and Rosales allegedly ignored commands to get out of the car, reversed the car into a police cruiser, rammed a wooden fence and were reversing away from the fence when police fired, killing Dawes and injuring Rosales.
Washington said that account is flawed. He said the couple was sleeping about 5 a.m. in the car when police arrived. He said from the evidence he has seen, Dawes never drove the car toward the officers or tried to hit them. He also said Dawes did not know the car was stolen.
Washington said the officers fired 14 times into the car, and that he believed Hess had fired 13 of the shots.
'There were a total of 14 shots at a vehicle that was going five miles per hour,' Washington said. 'I can 100 per cent stand behind the fact that no officers were in danger. No officer at the time that those shots were fired, were behind that vehicle. And I feel comfortable saying that the statements given by the Dallas police officers were inaccurate.'
Authorities say Hess, a 10-year veteran of the Dallas Police Department, will be placed on administrative leave pending a review by Internal Affairs investigators.
If convicted, Hess faces between 5 and 99 years in prison. It was unclear from court documents if Hess had an attorney.
The Dallas County district attorney's office was scheduled to hold a news conference Friday afternoon to discuss the charges.
Dawes' family members, who gathered to make a statement about the indictment Friday, said she was a goofy and loving woman who would make everyone laugh, once adopted a stray duck and was devoted to her two daughters, Krystinah Rosales, 2, and Cerenity Rosales, 1.
'I feel like they tried to make my sister look like a criminal, to sweep it under the table to not even try to get justice for her,' said Alisha Garcia, Dawes' 26-year-old sister. 'She was my only sister. They took her life.'
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