Category Archives: national news

legal news, national news

Tsarnaev likely to go down

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is now a convicted murderer.

A Boston jury convicted him of all counts of first-degree murder in the April 15, 2013 bombing at the finish line of the Boston Marathon.

The U.S. Justice Department will seek the death penalty once the sentencing phase of the trial begins next week.

Based on what I understand occurred in the courtroom during the trial, the young killer is likely to be put down.

He didn’t show remorse. He didn’t exhibit any emotion. He didn’t even flinch, blink or look away when prosecutors produced graphic autopsy photographs of the three people killed in the blast; meanwhile, the jurors wept as they looked at the pictures.

What does that say about Tsarnaev? To me, it says he carried out a premeditated attack against innocent victims to prove some political point. The last person to be executed by the federal government, Timothy McVeigh, did the same thing when he detonated the truck bomb in front of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City nearly 20 years ago this month.

I’ve noted already my opposition to capital punishment. Tsarnaev’s cold response is testing that opposition to the max.

Although I oppose this punishment on principle, I won’t grieve if the jury sends this young man to his death.

national news

Obama brings more joy to joyful day

The video attached to this brief post is about 100 seconds long.

It shows Barack Obama offering some prayers to honor Easter and what it means to Christians.

The video also demonstrates a good bit of the president’s humanity.

http://www.reuters.com/video/2015/04/07/obama-gets-crowd-laughing-at-easter-pray?videoId=363766546&videoChannel=1

There can be no doubt — none at all — that some critics will consider this video snippet to be a bit too light-hearted, too full of humor.

I see it differently. I see the president of the United States bringing a bit of additional joy to Christians’ most joyful holiday.

It made me laugh out loud.

national news

S.C. cop charged with murder

Here we go again.

This one is bad. Very bad. A graphic video shows a North Charleston, S.C., police officer shooting someone in the back — as the victim is sprinting away from the police officer.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/south-carolina-police-officer-charged-with-murder-after-shooting-man-during-traffic-stop/ar-AAayMPl

And yes, the officer is white and the shooting victim is black.

Officer Michael Slager has been charged with murder in the shooting death of Walter Scott.

Scott was unarmed. Slager fired eight shots at Scott.

How does one come to grips with this incident? Slager reportedly told investigators that he felt threatened by Scott. Threatened? By an unarmed man running away at full speed?

A conviction on a murder charge at the very least is going to send Slager to prison for a very long time.

I won’t convict him here. I just hope this time the case is adjudicated correctly.

 

media news, national news

Rolling Stone did a hatchet job

The Rolling Stone retraction of a story it published alleging a gang rape at a college frat house presents a graphic lesson in Journalism 101.

Be sure you get all sides of the story before you go to press.

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/04/rolling-stone-rape-columbia-report-116714.html?hp=m1#.VSSXRFJ0yt8

The magazine is paying a huge price in its loss of credibility. And it should.

It well might pay even more — as in financially — if it loses a planned lawsuit filed by some of the principals involved in the coverage of the bogus story.

The magazine reported a woman named Jackie was raped by members of a University of Virginia fraternity. However, the magazine didn’t bother to check with Jackie’s friends, or with the fraternity members, or with others who might be able to corroborate Jackie’s story.

It turned out that on the night in question, there wasn’t even a party at the frat house.

The story broke down.

The magazine issued a retraction and an apology.

And this story now has put the media under the looking glass once again.

What still astounds me is that the reporter, her editors and the “fact checkers” still are employed by the magazine. No one has lost his or her job.

I’m scratching my head over this one. I’ve seen reporters and editors fired for less than what happened at Rolling Stone. No one bothered to check the details of Jackie’s story? No one thought to ask the reporter to talk to the fraternity members? The reporter didn’t bother to do her homework?

Where I come from, they call such so-called reporting a “hatchet job.”

To retract a story is to admit that it is false, that it is bogus, that it doesn’t stand up to the basic test of good journalism. Rolling Stone has issued its retraction.

Why hasn’t it punished the people responsible for soiling the magazine’s credibility?

national news, political news

Sen. Paul: most interesting GOP candidate

I’ll lay my bet down now that Rand Paul is going to be the most interesting and provocative Republican running for president in 2016.

I didn’t like the U.S. senator from Kentucky when he first burst onto the scene. I like him better now. It’s not that I plan to vote for him next year if he gets the GOP nomination. He does have some interesting ideas to share with Americans.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/republican-rand-paul-announces-2016-presidential-run-on-website/ar-AAaxxuJ

He’s already announced on his website that he’s going to run. He has an event planned later today in his home state to make official.

He wants to return the nation to the “principles of liberty and limited government.”

Well, damn! Isn’t that original?

Actually, though, his view of libertarianism encompasses a wide swath of issues.

He suggests favoring marijuana legalization. I’m wondering what he’s going to say down the line about assisted suicide and abortion. His foreign policy doctrine looks to be of an anti-war bent, unlike so many of the TEA party members of his party who seem all too willing to start dropping bombs and (please pardon this hideous euphemism) placing American “boots on the ground” to assist in every regional conflict on the planet.

Paul didn’t distinguish himself during the Senate Benghazi hearings when he scolded then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton over the confusion that erupted in the firefight at the U.S. consulate in Libya. “If I had been president,” Paul said, he would have fired Secretary Clinton on the spot.

I thought at that moment: Oh … please.

But the man’s occasional quirkiness and interesting take on domestic and international affairs has piqued my curiosity.

With that — run, Rand, run!

 

national news, political news, State news

Hispanic, Anglo: Same thing? Umm, no

John Ellis Bush is no more Hispanic than his mother, father or his four siblings.

He’s an Anglo-American. But in 2009 he put “Hispanic” on his voter registration form.

Thus, the 2016 presidential campaign comedy of errors has begun — and John Ellis Bush, aka Jeb, isn’t even an official candidate for president.

http://www.politicususa.com/2015/04/06/jeb-bush-committed-felony-lying-florida-voter-registration-form.html

PoliticsUSA, a left-leaning website, says Jeb Bush committed a third-degree felony by registering falsely when he listed his ethnicity as Hispanic. Those folks are all up in arms over it, complaining that the media are giving Bush a pass.

What does PoliticsUSA want to happen to Bush? Toss him in jail for committing a third-degree felony six years ago?

I’m not willing to slap irons on the former Florida governor’s wrists and/or ankles.

Hey, perhaps he was thinking of his wife, Columba, who was born in Mexico. She’s Hispanic, for sure. So are the couple’s children, the most notable of whom is George P. Bush, the newly elected Texas land commissioner.

My favorite memory of George P. Bush is watching the then-teenager at the 1992 Republican National Convention in Houston extolling the virtues of his grandfather, President George H.W. Bush, who was seeking re-election. “Viva Boosh!” shouted George P. from the podium that day — bringing down the house in the Astrodome.

Jeb Bush will get past this little kerfuffle.

Just a reminder, though: John Ellis Bush, you are an Anglo. Keep it straight in the future, all right?

 

national news, political news

Beware of big money, former Sen. Hart warns

Former Vice President Walter Mondale once asked famously of then-Sen. Gary Hart: Where’s the beef?

He sought to smoke out Hart’s position on the issues that were driving the 1984 Democratic Party primary presidential campaign.

These days, though, the former senator is giving us plenty to chew on as he warns of the influence of big money — as in really big money — on the upcoming 2016 campaign for president.

http://www.politico.com/story/2015/04/gary-hart-hillary-clinton-2016-billion-dollar-campaign-116673.html?hp=l2_3

Hart’s target? Former Sen. and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, who figures to raise as much as a billion bucks to run for president. Hart doesn’t like that kind of influence. While he expresses admiration and respect for Clinton, he sounds like he’s leaning toward a possible alternative candidate for president — say, Elizabeth Warren or Martin O’Malley.

As Politico reported: “The post-Citizens United campaign finance environment has sullied the presidential process, he said, benefiting establishment politicians who cater to financial backers. He pointed to his own experience, noting that he and his wife mortgaged their home for between $50,000 and $75,000 — an amount that made a significant difference in his first campaign in 1984.”

Ah, yes, Citizens United.

That was the infamous Supreme Court decision that ruled in 2010 that campaign contributors cannot be limited in the amount of money they give. Why, it’s a free speech issue, the court ruled. President Obama then stood in the lectern at a State of the Union speech and scolded the justices as they sat right in front of him for their decision. Although the setting was inappropriate for such a tongue-lashing, the guts of what the president said hold up today: It is that money wields too much influence in the modern political process.

Those who suggest that enabling corporations to give mountains of money to candidates is simply allowing “free speech” do not seem to grasp that some speech is heard more clearly than others. Politicians are going to listen to those who can give huge sums of money more than they’ll listen to you and me.

Is their voice more important than ours?

That’s the kind of influence Sen. Hart is warning us about.

Gary Hart has found the beef.

 

national news

Sarah Brady fought gun-control fight valiantly

If anyone deserved the right to believe in gun control, it had to be the wife of someone wounded grievously by a madman firing a handgun at the president of the United States.

The advocate was Sarah Brady, the wife of the late White House press secretary James Brady, who was shot in the head by John Hinckley — who sought on March 31, 1981 to assassinate President Reagan. Sarah Brady died today at the age of 73.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/sarah-brady-gun-control-advocate-dies-at-73/ar-AAapGeK

Hinckley ended up being acquitted by reason of insanity and he’s spent his time in a hospital ever since.

Meanwhile, Sarah and James Brady became advocates for gun control. James Brady died in August of complications relating to the terrible head wound he suffered.

The Bradys had become enemies of gun-rights advocates, such as the National Rifle Association, which occasionally took great delight in vilifying them for their sincere views on the firearm control.

They had reason to believe as they did. They insisted courageously in the face of intense criticism that the Constitution’s Second Amendment guarantee of firearm ownership did not preclude additional controls being placed on the sale and purchase of weaponry.

That didn’t matter to the NRA or to other firearm-owners-rights groups.

They saved lives. “In the history of our nation, there are few people, if any, who are directly responsible for saving as many lives as Sarah and Jim,” said Dan Gross, the president of the  Brady Campaign and Center to Prevent Gun Violence, in a statement.

Sarah Brady was a ferocious advocate for what she believed. May she now rest in peace.

national news, political news

Nugent has right to expose his ignorance

I’ve taken great pleasure criticizing the blathering of the Motor City Madman, one-time rocker Ted Nugent.

Nugent is a profane loudmouth. Many of his utterances border on sedition.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/ted-nugent-obama-is-causing-veteran-suicides/ar-AAankZq

He’s also an American citizen who has the same rights the rest of us enjoy under the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment. He has the right to make an ass of himself. He does it regularly and he does it well.

The French writer, historian and philosopher Voltaire said it better than most when he wrote: “I do not agree with what you say but I’ll defend to the death your right to say it.”

Nugent said recently that the rash of veterans’ suicide is a result of President Obama’s policies. Yep, he blamed the president of the United States for those tragic deaths. He said “the commander in chief is the enemy.”

He’s referred to the president as a “subhuman mongrel” and added an assortment of disgraceful, disgusting statements to make whatever point he seeks to make.

I disagree with every single political statement that flies out of this guy’s mouth.

However, he’s entitled to say these things. He’s as American as anyone else, which just goes to show how diverse our national family has become.

Voltaire’s understanding of the right of free speech is unparalleled.

Even nut jobs like Ted Nugent are entitled to be heard.

Which brings up another famous quote from another notable statesman.

This, from President Abraham Lincoln: “Better to remain silent and thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt.”

 

national news, political news

MLK Jr. dies; RFK gives speech for the ages

Forty-seven years ago a single rifle shot killed one of the 20th century’s greatest Americans, Martin Luther King Jr.

James Earl Ray would be captured, tried and convicted of murdering Dr. King. He would die in prison.

Not long after the rifle shot ended the life of the Nobel laureate and champion of non-violent civil disobedience, a politician stepped to the microphone in Indianapolis. Robert F. Kennedy was campaigning for the presidency on April 4, 1968 and he decided to tell the mostly African-American crowd some tragic news.

He told them that Dr. King had been murdered and then he delivered one of the greatest extemporaneous speeches in modern political history.

RFK sought to quell the rage that rose from the shock of the news. He succeeded that night. While other cities across the country erupted in violence, Indianapolis remained calm.

I remember the events of that day very well. I was a teenager struggling to find my own way. I’d discovered a path later that summer when I was inducted into the U.S. Army.

Dr. King could stir enormous passion in people. He sought justice for African-Americans but insisted on taking a peaceful path. That he would die a violent death remains to this day one of the great tragic ironies of the 20th century.

Robert Kennedy’s courage that night in Indianapolis would be almost unheard of today. He urged the crowd to reach out and to seek the goodness among each other.

That was a turbulent time. RFK’s brother — the president of the United States — was struck down by an assassin less than five years earlier.

Indeed, Robert Kennedy’s own life would end violently two months and one day after Dr. King’s assassination.

In that brief moment, standing in the night, Robert Kennedy sought to honor Martin Luther King Jr. by seeking to tap the better angels of a society torn by violence.