George Zimmerman got away with murdering Trayvon Martin earlier this year in a Florida courtroom. Although Stand Your Ground was not considered as part of his defense, Zimmerman based his trial on Stand Your Ground arguments. Although he initiated contact with Trayvon Martin, Zimmerman claimed he got into a fight with Trayvon, and fearing for his life, he shot and killed the 17-year-old.
Then there is the case of Jordan Davis. Sitting in his car at a gas station with his friends listening to music. Davis was shot and killed by Michael Dunn, a patron of the gas station. Dunn initiated contact with Davis by asking the teens to turn their music down. When they refused, Dunn got his gun, shot into the car and killed Davis. He’s claiming Stand Your Ground as his defense because he too “feared for his life.”
Nineteen year old Renisha McBride got into a car accident. She went to a home for help. As she stood on the porch, the homeowner put a gun in her face and pulled the trigger. He initially told the police that he feared for his life and used deadly force against the stranger standing outside his home.
Unfortunately, Stand Your Ground is a part of life in the states where it is law – Republican states mind you. It gives the okay to vigilantes and psychopaths to use deadly force in the streets if they feel their life is in danger.
South Park took a look at this law, and although this is a cartoon depiction, the premiss is pretty accurate!
I haven’t been writing about the healthcare.gov thing, for the simple reason that I have nothing to say. What’s going on isn’t a policy question: we know from the states with working exchanges (including California) that the underlying structure of the law is workable. Instead, it’s about an implementation botch, which is an incredible mess, and reflects very badly on Obama. But the future of the reform depends not on policy per se but on whether the IT issues can be fixed well enough soon enough, a subject on which I have zero expertise.
Of course, that hasn’t stopped other people from breathlessly commenting on every twist and turn in the polls, every meaningless vote in the House, and so on. Hey, it’s a living.
But at this point there’s enough information coming in to make semi-educated guesses — and it looks to me as if this thing is probably going to stumble through to the finish line. State-run enrollments are mostly going pretty well; Medicaid expansion is going very well (and it’s expanding even in states that have rejected the expansion, because more people are learning they’re eligible.) And healthcare.gov, while still pretty bad, is starting to look as if it will be good enough in a few weeks for large numbers of people to sign up, either through the exchanges or directly with insurers.
If all this is right, by the time open enrollment ends in March, millions of previously uninsured Americans will in fact have received coverage under the law, and reform will be irreversible. Obama personally may never recover his reputation; Democratic hopes of a wave election in 2014 are probably gone, although you never know. But anyone counting on Obamacare to collapse is probably making a very bad bet.
Freshman Rep. Trey Radel (R-Fla.) pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of possession of cocaine in a D.C. Superior Court judge Wednesday, after allegedly purchasing the illegal drug in a sting operation that was set up by several federal agencies.
According to court documents, Radel “unlawfully, knowingly and intentionally possessed” cocaine on Oct. 29. Radel was charged Tuesday following an indictment by a Superior Court grand jury.
“I’ve hit a bottom,” Radel said, as he appeared in District of Columbia Superior Court.
Radel was sentenced to one year probation while he attends treatment in Florida. The freshman congressman, who represents a solidly Republican district in southwest Florida, stated that he will begin an in-patient rehab program in his home state. Radel said he is also seeking counseling in the District. If heviolates his probation, he will have to serve 180 days in jail. He was also charged a $260 fee.
President Obama has paid tribute to President Kennedy at the Medal of Freedom ceremony today as he presented awards to former President Clinton, Oprah Winfrey, country singer Loretta Lynn and newspaper editor Ben Bradlee.
In his opening remarks, Obama highlighted the slain President’s sister-in-law Ethel Kennedy, calling her ‘one of my favorite people’ in a room full of dignitaries. He went on to also give President Kennedy’s grandson Jack a shout out by praising his basketball skills.
Aside from the fact that the 50th anniversary of President Kennedy’s assassination comes this Friday, the Democrat was mentioned because he was the one to establish the Medal of Freedom initiative which is the highest civilian honor in the country.
His death on November 22, 1963 came two weeks before the first group of winners were due to receive their medals.
President Bill Clinton is far from the first former Commander in Chief to receive the award- in fact all but four Republicans: Presidents Nixon, Ford and both Bushes- have been granted the award by their predecessors.
Merrick McKoy (right) shot and killed his 19-month-old daughter, Mia McKoy-Phanthavongsa, before turning the gun on himself — moments after this picture was posted to Facebook.
Moments after posting a photo of his beautiful baby daughter online, a disturbed dad made good on a Facebook threat and killed the toddler with a bullet to her head.
The chilling crime unfolded on social media after the little girl’s mom awoke Monday morning to her estranged baby daddy standing over her bed with a handgun, police in Colorado told the Daily News Tuesday.
The mom fought with her jealous ex-beau and fled to a neighboring apartment where she desperately called 911, cops said.
When police arrived on scene, an officer entered to find Merrick McKoy and little Mia with gunshot wounds, police said.
Both were rushed to a local hospital, but only McKoy survived. He was in critical condition.
“I told u I can’t live without u lol u thought I was joking now me n Mia out this bitch,” McKoy, 22, wrote on his Facebook page shortly before gunning down 19-month-old Mia McKoy-Phanthavongsa.
The cowardly dad made an exaggerated face with puckered lips as he held the helpless youngster in his arms for one last, haunting father-daughter portrait. “Don’t judge me had no choice,” he wrote in his final Facebook post before carrying out his fiendish plan.
Republicans rejoice! The easily fooled Americans are buying your lies about the president and healthcare.
WASHINGTON — President Obama’s approval ratings are so sickly that Mitt Romney could beat him right now, a new poll has found.
Obamacare is the heart of the problem, with opposition to the Affordable Care Act at a new high, 57%, according to the Washington Post-ABC News poll released Tuesday.
The President’s overall approval rating is at 42%, a loss of six points in a month.
He’s at career lows for leadership and honesty, with his rating for leadership down by 15 points this year.
Romney topped Obama 49% to 45% among registered voters in the poll, while the 2012 rivals were tied at 47% among all Americans polled.
In the 2012 election, Obama beat Romney, 51% to 47%.
A big reason for the turnaround is chagrin among independents and moderates. Their disapproval of Obamacare has risen sharply.
Too bad her opinion on the man that murdered Trayvon Martin is coming now instead of when it really counted.
After seeing George Zimmerman’s various encounters the law since winning an acquittal for murdering Trayvon Martin, one of the jurors responsible for Zimmerman’s acquittal has now changed her tune, saying that George Zimmerman belongs in prison.
Juror B29 — who identifies herself as Maddy — tells TMZ, she always had a bad feeling about Zimmerman, despite finding him not guilty of murdering Trayvon … a verdict she begrudgingly reached through a strict interpretation of the law.
Now, she says Zimmerman’s domestic violence arrest is proof he’s not freedom-worthy … “God is showing George’s true side … [George] is continuing to dig himself a bigger grave.”
The juror believes Zimmerman will continue to commit violent acts until someone lays down the law … telling us, “He NEEDS to do some type of time … He thinks he is invincible.”
In states with functioning websites, enrollments are picking up:
A number of states that use their own systems, including California, are on track to hit enrollment targets for 2014 because of a sharp increase in November, according to state officials.
“What we are seeing is incredible momentum,” said Peter Lee, director of Covered California, the nation’s largest state insurance marketplace, which accounted for a third of all enrollments nationally in October. California — which enrolled about 31,000 people in health plans last month — nearly doubled that in the first two weeks of this month.
Several other states, including Connecticut and Kentucky, are outpacing their enrollment estimates, even as states that depend on the federal website lag far behind.
CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. — Creigh Deeds, a veteran state senator and unsuccessful candidate for governor of Virginia in 2009, was hospitalized with multiple stab wounds Tuesday in an incident at his southern Virginia home that left his 24-year-old son dead, state police said.
Deeds, 55, was listed in critical condition at the University of Virginia Medical Center in Charlottesville, the Richmond Times-Dispatch reports.
The popular Democratic legislator suffered serious stab wounds to his head and upper torso, Corinne Geller, spokesperson for the Virginia State Police told reporters.
She said troopers responded to an early morning 911 call to Deeds’ residence in Millsboro where they found Deeds’ son, Gus, alive but suffering gunshot wounds. He died at the scene, Geller said.
Geller said troopers were still investigating the circumstances of the incident but were not searching for any assailants.
WSLS-TV quoted police investigators at the scene as saying Deeds had left the property on foot after being stabbed and walked to a nearby highway where he was picked up by a family member.
Deeds had four children with his first wife, whom he divorced in 2010. He remarried in 2012.
The selfie craze reached a new milestone Monday evening when Oxford Dictionaries announced that the Internet-born noun was its international Word of the Year.
The word selfie, “a photograph that one has taken of oneself, typically one taken with a smartphone or webcam and uploaded to a social media website,” beat out other internet words like ‘twerk’, ‘Bitcoin’, and ‘binge-watch’ to earn its 2013 title.
Once an obscure word, the selfie craze has become widely popular in the English language with a 17,000 percent use increase over the past year, according to Oxford Dictionaries editors. “Using the Oxford Dictionaries language research program, which collects around 150 million words of current English in use each month, we can see a phenomenal upward trend in the use of selfie in 2013, and this helped to cement its selection as Word of the Year,” Judy Pearsall, editorial director for Oxford Dictionaries, said in a statement.
And that is the problem with liberals. We are quick to apologise, even when we are correct.
On Friday, Martin Bashir responded to a Sarah Palin statement that compared America’s deficit to slavery. Sarah Palin obviously knows nothing about slavery or the unthinkable things that happened to the human beings who suffered and died in its name. So on Friday, Martin Bashir tried to educate Palin on some of the experiences slaves went through, and suggested that if she had any experience even remotely close to what the slaves suffered, she would not be throwing around the “slavery” analogy so easily.
But on Monday, Martin offered an apology, calling his Friday’s segment “wholly unacceptable.”
“Last Friday, on this broadcast, I made some comments which were deeply offensive and directed at Governor Sarah Palin. I wanted to take this opportunity to say sorry to Mrs. Palin, and to also offer an unreserved apology to her friends and family, her supporters, our viewers, and anyone who may have heard what I said. My words were wholly unacceptable. They were neither accurate, nor fair. They were unworthy of anyone who would claim to have an interest in politics, and they have brought shame upon my friends and colleagues at this network, none of whom were responsible for the things that I said.”
“In the battle of ideas, America leads the world in whole-hearted discussions and disagreements, and these arguments can be heard on a daily basis. But what I did on Friday had absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with that great tradition, and I am deeply sorry. Upon reflection, I so wish that I had been more thoughtful, more considerate, more compassionate. but I was not. And what I said is now a matter of public record.”
“But if I could add something to the public record, it would be this: That I deeply regret what I said, and that I have learned a sober lesson in these last few days. That the politics of vitriol and destruction is a miserable place to be, and a miserable person to become. And I promise that I will take the opportunity to learn from this experience. My hope is that it will renew in me a spirit of humility and humanity, that looks for the good and that builds upon the great things that this country has to offer to all of us, regardless of our political persuasion. This will be my guiding light and compass in the days ahead. But once again, I am truly sorry for what I said on Friday.”
Now I know there are those who would say that Martin is right for apologizing. That stooping to their level is not the way to go. But I do believe that sometimes, the only way to reach the low hanging fruit, the low thinking people is to reach down to their level. The Republicans live on this low level, and have been cutting the legs out from under the nation with their lies and dumb anology and misrepresentation of the truth for far too long. Sometimes, you have to stoop down and swing back.
For the record, since making her dumb statement, Sarah Palin has actually doubled down, repeating the slavery analogy at different settings.
Google will fast-track its efforts to replace a satellite image from its map service that shows the body of a slain California teenager.
The Google Maps image shows police standing near the body of 14-yeart-old Kevin Barerra, who was found shot to death in 2009 along some railroad tracks in Richmond.
The teen’s father, Jose Barrera, said he found out about the image last week and has asked Google to remove it out of respect for his son.
“When I see this image, that’s still like that happened yesterday, and that brings me back to a lot of memories,” Barrera said.
Brian McClendon, vice president of the Google Maps service, said the company would make an exception to its policy and accelerate the replacement of the satellite image.
“Our hearts go out to the family of this young boy,” McClendon said in an email statement. “Since the media first contacted us about the image, we’ve been looking at different technical solutions. Google has never accelerated the replacement of updated satellite imagery from our maps before, but given the circumstances we wanted to make an exception in this case.”
McClendon said he believed the image could be replaced within eight days, and he said he’d contacted the Barerra family to tell them the image would be replaced as quickly as possible
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