Month: February 2014

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Featured Gun Control Politics

Florida’s Stand Your Ground Law Allows Blind Killer to Walk Free, With His Guns

Four years ago, he pulled his gun and shot his cousin. Then in March 2012, legally blind John Rogers pulled his gun again and killed his 34-year-old friend, James DeWitt. He stayed a short while in jail while the court went through the motions, but after it was all said and done, Stand Your Ground allowed John to walk free.

Last week, Stand Your Ground required a Seminole County Judge, John Galluzzo to return the murder weapon along with all his other guns to Mr. Rogers. This, according to WESH.

Even though the he said he didn’t want to do it, a judge in Seminole County, Florida, was forced to return a Glock pistol and a rifle to a blind man who won immunity for killing another man under the state’s “stand your ground” law.  The surreal hearing took place in the Seminole County Courthouse in Sanford—the city where Trayvon Martin was killed and his shooter set free under the same self-defense statute.

John Wayne Rogers had stood accused of premeditated first degree murder for shooting a “drinking buddy” in March 2012 “after a long drinking session,” according to the Orlando Sentinel. The killing was done “once in the chest with a .308 Remington assault rifle from a distance of 18 inches or less.”

But amid differing eyewitness accounts at his trial last month, a judge dismissed the jury and awarded Rogers immunity under Florida’s “stand your ground” law.

That led to Thursday’s hearing, in which Judge John Galluzo reluctantly admitted he’d have to give Rogers his rifle and a Glock 10 mm handgun. “I have to return property that was taken under the circumstance,” the judge said. “I have researched and haven’t found case law to say otherwise.”

Rogers—who has done probation for firing 15 rounds at a cousin and was jailed for pushing and punching a woman in a domestic disturbance three years ago—will have to buy new ammunition, however, since the state considered his cache “too old and dangerous.”

Categories
Politics

And Another – “Why I Left the Republican Party”

I used to be a serious Republican, moderate and business-oriented, who planned for a public-service career in Republican politics.  But I am a Republican no longer.

There’s an old joke we Republicans used to tell that goes something like this: “If you’re young and not a Democrat, you’re heartless. If you grow up and you’re not a Republican, you’re stupid.” These days, my old friends and associates no doubt consider me the butt of that joke. But I look on my “stupidity” somewhat differently.  After all, my real education only began when I was 30 years old.

This is the story of how in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina and later in Iraq, I discovered that what I believed to be the full spectrum of reality was just a small slice of it and how that discovery knocked down my Republican worldview.

I always imagined that I was full of heart, but it turned out that I was oblivious.  Like so many Republicans, I had assumed that society’s “losers” had somehow earned their deserts.  As I came to recognize that poverty is not earned or chosen or deserved, and that our use of force is far less precise than I had believed, I realized with a shock that I had effectively viewed whole swaths of the country and the world as second-class people.

No longer oblivious, I couldn’t remain in today’s Republican Party, not unless I embraced an individualism that was even more heartless than the one I had previously accepted.  The more I learned about reality, the more I started to care about people as people, and my values shifted.  Had I always known what I know today, it would have been clear that there hasn’t been a place for me in the Republican Party since the Free Soil days of Abe Lincoln.

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Politics

George Takei’s Open Letter to Arizona

George Takie

Quickly now – There’s a discrimination bill in Arizona that would allow businesses to deny service to anyone on the ground of Religion. If a business feels that their religious beliefs is not being upheld by a potential customer or if the employee of that business feels that the customer’s lifestyle differs from theirs, the business will be able to legally kick that person off their premises.  The governor of Arizona, Jan Brewer, cannot decide if she should make this bill law. She’s actually trying to decide if discrimination in her state, should be legal.

Now to the letter.

Dear Arizona,

Congratulations. You are now the first state actually to pass a bill permitting businesses–even those open to the public–to refuse to provide service to LGBT people based on an individual’s “sincerely held religious belief.” This “turn away the gay” bill enshrines discrimination into the law. Your taxi drivers can refuse to carry us. Your hotels can refuse to house us. And your restaurants can refuse to serve us.

Kansas tried to pass a similar law, but had the good sense to not let it come up for a vote. The quashing came only after the Kansas Chamber of Commerce and other traditional conservative groups came out strongly against the bill.

But not you, Arizona. You’re willing to ostracize and marginalize LGBT people to score political points with the extreme right of the Republican Party. You say this bill protects “religious freedom,” but no one is fooled. When I was younger, people used “God’s Will” as a reason to keep the races separate, too. Make no mistake, this is the new segregation, yours is a Jim Crow law, and you are about to make yourself ground zero.

This bill also saddens me deeply. Brad and I have strong ties to Arizona. Brad was born in Phoenix, and we vacation in Show Low. We have close friends and relatives in the state and spend weeks there annually. We even attended the Fourth of July Parade in Show Low in 2012, looking like a pair of Arizona ranchers.

The law is breathtaking in its scope. It gives bigotry against us gays and lesbians a powerful and unprecedented weapon. But your mean-spirited representatives and senators know this. They also know that it is going to be struck down eventually by the courts. But they passed it anyway, just to make their hateful opinion of us crystal clear.

So let me make mine just as clear. If your Governor Jan Brewer signs this repugnant bill into law, make no mistake. We will not come. We will not spend. And we will urge everyone we know–from large corporations to small families on vacation–to boycott. Because you don’t deserve our dollars. Not one red cent.

And maybe you just never learn. In 1989, you voted down recognition of the Martin Luther King holiday, and as a result, conventions and tourists boycotted the state, and the NFL moved the Superbowl to Pasadena. That was a $500 million mistake.

So if our appeals to equality, fairness, and our basic right to live in a civil society without doors being slammed in our face for being who we are don’t move you, I’ll bet a big hit to your pocketbook and state coffers will.

George Takei

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Mitt Romney Politics

Mitt Romney to Jan Brewer – Veto The Republican Discrimination Bill

He didn’t say it in all those words, but Mitt Romney took to twitter to let Gov. Brewer know that discrimination is wrong.

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Celebrities Music

Christian Band Leader Pleads Guilty to Hiring Hitman to Kill His Wife

The frontman of Grammy-nominated Christian band As I Lay Dying has admitted to trying to hire a hit man to kill his estranged wife.

Timothy Lambesis, 32, pleaded guilty to one count of solicitation of murder in Vista Superior Court, near San Diego, today.

The father-of-three was arrested in May last year after giving an undercover agent acting as a hit man, money, gate codes and an alibi to kill his estranged wife, Meggan Lambesis.

The Californian allegedly said he wanted his wife dead because she was going to get up to 60 percent of his income and would not allow their three young children to join him on tour.

NBC San Diego reported Lambesis could serve nine years behind bars as a result of his plea deal when he is sentenced on May 2. He is out on $2 million bail.

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Politics

Jon Stewart Takes On The Fox Network for Their “Black History Month” Coverage


In honor of Black History Month, Jon Stewart said it was time that some people got their facts straight on how history really went down.

Stewart called out Fox Business Network’s “tribute” to Black History Month Monday night by playing a clip of Fox News legal analyst Andrew Napolitano claiming that President Lincoln hurt the nation by leading “the most murderous war in America” rather than letting slavery die a “natural” death. Napolitano argued that Lincoln should have tried “purchasing the slaves and then freeing them.”

Here’s how Stewart responded:

“Compensated emancipation, why didn’t Lincoln think of that!? What’s that? Oh, he did think of that? Oh! He spent most of 1862 trying to convince the border states of Delaware, Kentucky, Maryland, Missouri and West Virginia to free their slaves in exchange for money and everybody said f*ck off…because it wasn’t economically feasible and the slave states had a deeply vested socio-political interest in maintaining a two-tiered culture based on cheap forced labor.”

Watch

Categories
Celebrities paula deen Racism racist

Paula Deen Says She’s “Back In The Saddle”

Paula Deen continued maneuvering for a comeback Sunday, turning a beachside cooking demonstration into a public apology for the racist comments that decimated her career last year.

The former Food Network star took the stage to prepare chicken and dumplings at the South Beach Wine and Food Festival, but before beginning asked the crowd if they minded if she talked about something serious for a moment. Without ever explicitly discussing the allegations or comments she has admitted making, she said she was glad to be back and that, “I am not a quitter.”

“We have come off of a very hard summer my family and I, my team, my partners,” she said to a cheering crowd of several hundred fans. “But you know, I have heard on more than one occasion … that I’ve never apologized. So if anybody did not hear me apologize, I would like to apologize to those who did not hear me.”

Deen’s career has been in shambles following a one-two punch of public relations disasters. In 2012, she was criticized for announcing she had both diabetes and a lucrative endorsement deal for a drug to treat the condition she’d until then hidden.

Then last summer, during a legal dispute with a former employee who accused her of racial discrimination and sexual harassment, she acknowledged having used racial slurs in the past. Most of her endorsement, book and TV deals fell apart within days.

Deen has mostly stayed out of the spotlight since then, even avoiding the Food Network’s 20th anniversary party last October. But lately, she has made it clear she wants back. Earlier this month, she announced that private investment firm Najafi Companies is investing $75 million to $100 million to help her make a comeback.

As part of the deal, she’s launching an umbrella company, Paula Deen Ventures, that will oversee her restaurants, cookbooks and product endorsements. And Sunday’s crowd seemed primed for it all, shouting out to her “You don’t need to apologize!” and “We want you back, Paula!”

“Ya’ll’s cards and letters that I got, helped me get out of bed every day,” she replied.

Midway through the demo, Food Network star Robert Irvine joined Deen onstage. Irvine survived his own scandal in in 2008 when the Food Network let him go over discrepancies in claims he’d made over his work experience. He eventually returned to the Network, seemingly unblemished.

“This is a warning to you,” Irvine told Deen. “You’ve apologized. You’ve eaten crow. You’re done. Don’t do it anymore. I’ve been there.”

Before a roaring crowd, Irvine then got down on his hands and knees while Deen straddled his back and rode him across the stage, a reenactment of a gimmick they’d done during a previous festival.

“I’m back in the saddle!” she yelled to the crowd.

Categories
Politics

Anderson Cooper Totally Demolishes Arizona’s Hate-The-Gays Bill

Arizona governor Jan Brewer is still deciding whether to allow Arizona business to legally discriminate. The bill passed both state houses, and Brewer must decide if her signature will make it law.

Until that decision is made however, much of the country is embroiled in the debate – should businesses be legally allowed to deny service to anyone because their religious beliefs are contradictory to that person’s way of life?

That was one of the questions asked by Anderson Cooper as he interviewed one of the Arizona senators who passed the bill.

Watch what happened next below.

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Celebrities fans Music rihanna

Video – Rihanna Almost Crushed by Euphoric Fans in Paris

The cost of being a celebrity. All she wanted to was get to her hotel room, but that simple, common task was not about to happen. Not on this day.

According to reporting by TMZ, Rihanna could have been in Paris to meet up with her old beau Drake.

Drake is in Paris for a concert — he performed last night — but he and Rihanna have been hanging out since the weekend … grabbing a fancy dinner at Paris’s famous L’Avenue restaurant Sunday.

Rihanna re-connected with Drake at his concert the next day … slipping in the rear entrance.

Video

Categories
Arizona Politics

Sources – Arizona’s Jan Brewer Will Not Sign ‘Gay-Hating’ Bill Into Law

The law would allow businesses in Arizona to legally discriminate against gays and anyone for that matter, on the basis of Religious beliefs. The legislation passed both the House and Senate in Arizona, and is waiting on Brewer’s desk for final signature to become law.

However, NBC is reporting that this signature will not happen. Here is the latest tweet from NBC on this topic.

Brewer has been under intense pressure from business groups and political leaders to diffuse the situation and veto the legislation which they fear will draw unnecessary attention to Arizona a year before it hosts the next Super Bowl and following economic losses on controversial immigration stances.

At the same time, three GOP state senators who initially ratified the measure have written to Brewer, a Republican, asking her to reject Senate Bill 1062, according to The Los Angeles Times.

Brewer, in an interview with CNN, said she is weighing her options. “I will do the right thing for the state of Arizona,” she said.

Categories
Politics

Burger King Worker Calls Customers “Bitch Ass Hoes”

Imagine if you went to Burger King or any other business for the matter, made a purchase and saw those words plastered across your receipt where the “Customer name” should be. Well for a Virginian woman and her daughter-in-law, this was not an imagination, it was their reality.

In an interview with WTVR, the woman identified as only Miss Lorel, said she saw the profanity on the receipt Saturday night after she picked up her order at the drive-thru of the restaurant.

She immediately asked to see the manager.

“He did apologize. He also called the young lady over and asked her, ‘did you see this?’ She just shook her head. He said it had never happened before,” Miss Lorel said.

After apologizing, the manager returned the receipt to Miss Lorel but did not offer to refund her money

“This is more than an insult. I mean calling you names on a piece of a paper, that will hurt somebody,” Miss Lorel said through tears. “I liked going there. But after this they won’t get my business anymore. I can make my own burgers”

When contacted,franchise owner John Naparlo said, “We are obviously upset by the harm this has caused one of our customers.”

Categories
arrested new york knicks Sports

More Troubles for Knicks – Guard Raymond Felton Arrested on Gun Charges

For those of you who watched Monday’s game against the Dallas Mavericks, the Knicks lost a heartbreak when a prayer from Dallas player Dirk Nowitzki bounced on the rim and fell into the basket in literally the last second of the game. That last basket broke a tie between the two teams, giving Dallas the win.

That last play summed up the way the Knicks season has gone so far, as games the team should have won, somehow resulted in losses. They have suffered numerous injuries and are now playing and praying for some way to make the playoffs, an increasingly difficult task with each breathtaking loss.

Well add this to the misery that is now the Knicks season. Felton Spencer, the point guard for the team, was arrested on gun charges.

According to a New York Police Department spokesman, Felton was arrested at the 20th Precinct shortly after the Knicks lost to the Dallas Mavericks on Monday. He is expected to be arraigned later Tuesday.

The arrest garnered him second and third-degree criminal possession of a weapon felony charges and a fourth-degree criminal possession of a weapon misdemeanor charge.

According to New York courts, the second-degree felony alleges Felton “knowingly possesses a loaded firearm” and the third-degree felony alleges Felton “knowingly possesses a firearm which has been defaced for the purpose of concealment or prevention of the detection of a crime or misrepresenting the identity of such firearm.”

The second-degree felony charge carries a maximum sentence of 15 years if convicted, and the third-degree charge carries a maximum sentence of seven years if convicted.

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