Initially a trial judge convicted him, he appealed to -and received- a jury trial.  The jury thought the accused showed remarkable restraint only firing once.   Same accusations/charges, two trial types, 180° divergent results.

VIRGINIA – After battling authorities for more than a year, a Portsmouth, Virginia, man was handed a verdict of not guilty by a jury who determined that he did not, in fact, act recklessly when he fired a warning shot at officers who attempted to make forcible entry into his home, only to later discover that they had gone to the wrong house.
The incident, which happened last January, unfolded while Brandon Watson and his wife were watching late-night TV and heard noises coming from the back yard.
“She said, ‘Oh my gosh, someone is in the backyard,’” Watson told reporters. “The noises got closer and then she heard the clicking of the backdoor handle.”
At that point Watson ran to grab his gun, which was legally owned.
“We ran upstairs very quickly,” Watson recalled. “She saw guys in all black.”
Watson didn’t immediately call 911 because he couldn’t find his cell phone. However, he wasn’t about to let anyone come into his home and possibly harm his family either. So he ran back downstairs, gun in hand.
Watson called out into the darkness, saying, “Who is that? I have a gun.”
He received no response, but instead then saw a red laser aimed at his chest. (more…)

I would like to see the liberal team who came up with this concept try to give a class in:  “Lose Your Urban Dialect” for inner city black people.    Do you think that would go over ?  Yeah, me neither.

TENNESSEE – It’s OK to talk Southern and work at a national lab — after all.
Oak Ridge National Laboratory has cancelled plans for a “Southern Accent Reduction” class because of objections from lab staff members, some of whom said they were offended by the training opportunity.
ORNL’s human resources department early last week distributed a registration notice for the six-week course to be taught by Lisa Scott, “a nationally certified speech pathologist and accent reduction trainer.”
Here was the pitch to get employees to sign up for the speech rehab program: “Feel confident in a meeting when you need to speak with a more neutral American accent, and be remembered for what you say and not how you say it.”
The notice said the class would cover “some of the most common pronunciation and grammatical differences between Southern dialects and standard American English.” (more…)

A few days ago we noticed an article in a Texas newspaper highlighting a proposal to build a transitional housing facility for 3,500 illegal aliens.   The proposed facility name was noted in the media as “Abraham Lincoln Transitional Lodge“.

Tornillo Land Co. owns the plot outlined in the application @15.6 acres.

The proposal was to build a complex on 15 acres located in/around Clint, Texas.   Here’s the general media outline(s):  (our research will follow)

This is the first Associated Press mention of the facility – CLINT, Texas (AP) — Authorities are considering a bid to build a shelter in West Texas that would be the largest in the U.S. to hold unaccompanied children who enter the country illegally.

A number of sites in Texas and elsewhere are being considered as detention facilities for many of the more than 57,000 unaccompanied children who have entered the U.S. since October.

But with 3,500 beds, the proposed Abraham Lincoln Transitional Lodge southeast of El Paso would be far larger than other centers. A temporary processing facility in McAllen holds about 1,000 children.

The lodge’s marketing director, Charles McGuire, tells the Houston Chronicle (http://bit.ly/1AmXUMR ) that the principal backers of the bid previously have invested in housing for oil workers in Texas.

The Texas Department of Family and Protective Services is reviewing the proposal (read more)

(more…)

A really odd dynamic surfaces yet again in the realm of the Obama administration’s remarkable list of “firsts”.   President Obama has become the first U.S. administration ever to factually side with radical islamists – like al-Qaeda, ISIS, The Muslim Brotherhood and HAMAS – over the more moderate Arab nations like Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia.
Even the Palestinian Authority, yes the Palestinian Authority, was shocked by the Obama/Kerry proposal for Gaza.

For years some people have claimed the Muslim Brotherhood actually has serious influence inside the White House.   Given jaw dropping recent events it seems almost impossible now to refute such a proposition.
(Via Newsweek) American diplomacy in the Middle East in recent days may have failed to reach a ceasefire in Gaza, but it has managed to reposition the United States on an unfamiliar side of the region’s complex web of alliances.
Israelis believe US Secretary of State John Kerry’s week-long ceasefire negotiations has firmly placed the US in the camp of Qatar and Turkey, both of which back the militant government of Hamas, while it has sidelined its traditional allies. (more…)

WASHINGTON (AP) — Obama administration officials were fuming Monday over a torrent of Israeli criticism of Secretary of State John Kerry’s latest bid to secure a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas.
In unusually harsh language, officials said the criticism of Kerry could put the relationship between the U.S. and Israel in jeopardy. They also said the personal attacks on Kerry crossed a line and were particularly disappointing at a time of active conflict.
Israeli media commentators have leveled almost nonstop criticism at Kerry in recent days over his attempts to bring Qatar and Turkey — two countries viewed by Israel as strong Hamas supporters — into the cease-fire negotiations. Kerry was also being accused of abandoning some of Israel’s key demands during the negotiations. (more…)

Four years ago I was in a rather heated discussion about the ultimate ends to leftist ideology. The framework was around immigration and the general principles which Secretary of State Clinton and President Obama were supporting – only the discussion was not about America, it was about Europe.

However, many of the same principles apply to the current U.S. border crisis.  One of the principle outlines being discussed was if you follow the path of belief to it’s logical conclusion you will find the U.S. facing the same issues with multi-culturalism and unchecked immigration.
At the time we did not know what 2014 would present; however, if you look historically at the issues I believe you will find a general similarity between the current border crisis, and the explosion in Europe right before the “Arab Spring”.
This is where the foreign policy ideology of President Obama comes full circle and delivers a domestic consequence of remarkable similarity.  (more…)

That headline is not the substance of this media article (below) – but for those of you who have followed the intents and activities of Emanuel Inc. you know where this is going.

HHS (The Multi-Trillion Dollar Agency) was selected by the administration to facilitate the transition of illegal aliens into local communities.   Doing so allows a massive amount of money to be shifted around inside the agency.   (emphasis added in the article and after we’ll expand):  
Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, a former Obama administration chief of staff, wants to expand the city’s efforts to house young illegal immigrants from Central America, reportedly proposing to shelter an additional 1,000 of them by year’s end.
“The influx of unaccompanied child migrants is a growing humanitarian crisis that we can no longer ignore,” said Emanuel, according to The Chicago Tribune. “While we have our own challenges at home, we cannot turn our backs on children that are fleeing dangerous conditions.”
The mayor’s office says the federal government will pay for the youths’ shelter, education, health care, food, safety and social services¹. (more…)

The article and media report falsely identify the illegal’s as “children”.   While children might be great ‘talking points’ For the umpteenth time we will correct – there are no unaccompanied alien children showing up at the border.   The most common grouping is a woman with her children; about half of the fathers are already here, for the rest it’s other family – and taxpayers get the bill for their unification.
The surge at the border is ILLEGALS WITH CHILDREN; key word “with“.
SOUTH CAROLINA – New federal data show at least 350 children families caught at the U.S. border this year have been sent to stay with relatives or other sponsors in South Carolina.

They are among more than 30,000 [families with] children who have been released to sponsors nationwide from Jan. 1 through July 7.  That’s according to data published Thursday by the Department of Health and Human Services’ Administration for Children and Families. (more…)

NEW YORK – Investigators are running license plate numbers, scouring social media, examining cellphone transmissions and collecting DNA as part of their investigation into who climbed the Brooklyn Bridge in the middle of the night to plant two bleached-white American flags there, NBC News has learned.

[…]  The high-quality flags, measuring about 11 feet about 20 feet, were made out of white linen, and the stars were individually stitched on, according to a senior law enforcement official. There were also large aluminum pans affixed over the bridge lights that normally illuminate the flags, secured with zip ties. (more…)

When your own stick turns out to be a boomerang, or what happens when you step on your own rake !

The latest revelations in the ObamaCare debacle revolve around Obama architect Jonathan Gruber.
You might remember back in 2010 during the fight over ObamaCare mandates ‘we the people’ were told the mandate was a penalty and not a tax.   However, when ObamaCare challenges ultimately reached the courtroom the administration argument was exactly the opposite.  The government argued the mandate was a tax not a penalty; only as a tax could the construct survive legal scrutiny.   This latest Gruber development similarly pretzellian but infinite degrees worse.
The construct of ObamaCare execution relied upon a network of state exchanges to enroll people in the plans.   The problem for the administration was the volume of political opposition to the entire plan itself.   Consequently the Obama administration had to set up a “stick” or punitive punishment if any state failed to comply with setting up the exchange.
The stick they settled upon was a simple premise – financial blackmail.   Any state who did not construct an exchange for their state citizens to enroll in ObamaCare would face a punishment of not being allowed to receive a federal subsidy for their premium.     In essence the goal was to force states to set up exchanges.  To force compliance the carrot was the federal premium subsidy, the stick was financial punishment if they didn’t. (more…)