The trial of a Florida man accused of shooting a black teenager begins today in a case that has drawn similarities to the George Zimmerman and Trayvon Martin case.
Jordan Davis
Michael Dunn, 47, is charged with first-degree murder and attempted murder after police said a November 2012 dispute with a group of teenagers outside of a Jacksonville convenience store turned deadly.
Dunn and his fiancée stopped at a convenience store on their way home from a wedding reception and pulled up next to a sport utility vehicle where Jordan Davis, 17, was sitting with friends, according to police.
Authorities said one of the teens complied when Dunn told them to turn down their music, however, Davis told him to turn down the volume again.
Dunn, who had a concealed weapons permit, then allegedly pulled out his handgun and fired several shots into the vehicle, fatally striking Davis in the back and groin.
Police said Dunn told them he feared for his life. Dunn’s attorney said he saw a gun and fired in self defense.
The Republican Party keeps dropping these folks like a cat shedding its hair. Or is it these folks are dropping the Republican party like a bad habit?
I prefer the latter.
Former Nevada Lt. Gov. Sue Wagner said Tuesday that she recently left the Republican party.
“It’s grown so conservative and tea-party orientated and I just can’t buy into that,” Wagner told the Reno Gazette-Journal. “I’ve left the Republican Party and it’s left me, at the same time.”
Wagner reflected on a party that has changed over the past few years.
“I did it as a symbol, I guess, that I do not like the Republican Party and what they stand for today,” Wagner said. “I’ve been a Republican all my life. My dad was active (in the GOP) in the state of Maine where I was born. It was more of a moderate, liberal Republican Party.”
Wagner, who served from 1991 to 1995 as the first female lieutenant governor in Nevada, supports abortion rights. In 2010, she would not endorse Republican Senate candidate Sharron Angle because of her “extreme” views on abortion.
Shaun White pulled out of the Olympic slopestyle contest Wednesday, about 24 hours after being banged up on a course that riders are criticizing as unduly harsh.
White issued a statement, saying that after much deliberation, he has decided to forgo the new snowboarding event and concentrate on halfpipe, where he will try for his third straight gold medal next week.
“With the practice runs I have taken, even after course modifications and watching fellow athletes get hurt, the potential risk of injury is a bit too much for me to gamble my other Olympics goals on,” White said.
Considered among the favorites of the new events on the Sochi Olympics schedule, White jammed his left wrist during practice Tuesday, and when he came off the slopestyle course, he called it “a little intimidating.”
CVS Caremark (NYSE: CVS) announced today that it will stop selling cigarettes and other tobacco products at its more than 7,600 CVS/pharmacy stores across the U.S. by October 1, 2014, making CVS/pharmacy the first national pharmacy chain to take this step in support of the health and well-being of its patients and customers.
“Ending the sale of cigarettes and tobacco products at CVS/pharmacy is the right thing for us to do for our customers and our company to help people on their path to better health,” said Larry J. Merlo, President and CEO, CVS Caremark. “Put simply, the sale of tobacco products is inconsistent with our purpose.”
Merlo continued, “As the delivery of health care evolves with an emphasis on better health outcomes, reducing chronic disease and controlling costs, CVS Caremark is playing an expanded role in providing care through our pharmacists and nurse practitioners. The significant action we’re taking today by removing tobacco products from our retail shelves further distinguishes us in how we are serving our patients, clients and health care providers and better positions us for continued growth in the evolving health care marketplace.”
Smoking is the leading cause of premature disease and death in the United States with more than 480,000 deaths annually.
With more dangerous weather slamming the metro-area, teachers, parents and students alike are questioning Mayor Bill de Blasio’s decision to keep schools open.
“How are we supposed to stay off the roads, if NYC schools remain OPEN!” mother Tilena Diamond commented on PIX11′s Facebook page. “UNREALISTIC MAYOR!!!! I am keeping my children home warm and safe period. And so is 95% of parents.”
This is the second time in recent weeks de Blasio has taken heat for keeping schools out despite inclement weather.
The Mayor cautioned New Yorkers to stay off the roads if they do not need to travel. “… [B]ut let the NYC kids travel to schools by school buses, what a huge contradiction,” another Facebook friend commented.
This latest storm system is expected to dump just two to four inches of snow on New York City, but it’s the ice and rain that will commuting treacherous.
Another clueless Republican is caught red handed saying the things he usually say in private, in public. And demonstrating just how clueless and how much of a racist he really is.
Larry Pratt, a staunch conservative and President of Gun Owners of America, recently did an interview with American Thinker writer Selwyn Duke during Gun Owners News Hour, where he compared “happy Africans from Africa” to “surly African-Americans.”
It is apparently Mr Pratt’s belief that if the mean, unfriendly, hostile African American was more like those happy folks from Africa, life for everyone in America would be peachy.
“Generally, the African from Africa is a very pro-American person, a very happy person. I know several. And they always just happy with a joke, pleasant smile on their face.
“And they clearly don’t identify with the surliness that’s all too frequently the attitude of their fellow African-Americans here.”
“Possibly the most racist thing I’ve ever heard from someone not actually burning a cross,” said one tweeter.
“Another sad attempt to pit Africans and blackamericans against each other. Dichotomies rooted in white supremacy,” added another.
Pratt also praised Ghana in his rant, reports Opposing Views.
“It’s still illegal to commit an abortion, it’s illegal to be a homosexual. Very conservative social laws and very free market oriented as well,” he added
I’m not quite sure how George Zimmerman became a celebrity, but it’s official … X gonna give it to George Zimmerman.
TMZ has learned, rapper DMX has just been named Zimmerman’s opponent in his upcoming celebrity boxing match.
Celebrity boxing promoter Damon Feldman tells us, DMX was selected out of 15,000 applicants … all of whom wanted a piece of Zimmerman in the ring after he issued the open challenge to fight anyone willing to take him.
But no one wanted to beat Zimmerman’s ass more than DMX.
As we first reported, DMX promised to massacre Zimmerman in the ring if he got the chance. To be exact, he said, “I am going to beat the living f**k out him … I am breaking every rule in boxing to make sure I f**k him right up.” He then said he’d literally piss on George’s face.
Zimmerman might actually have a chance though — as we reported, he’s been training pretty hard for months … oh yeah, and he’s only 30 years old. DMX is 43.
The boxing match will be 3 rounds.
The date, time, and location of the fight will be announced at a news conference next Wednesday.
One of the beat responses to the racists who took to their keyboard and voiced their displeasure to Coca-Cola for running an inclusive Super Bowl ad, came from an Atlanta anchor woman for WXIA station named Brenda Wood.
In a two minutes segment called Brenda’s Last Word, Wood explained that the ‘speak English’ folks – who were mad that America The Beautiful was sung in multiple languages – were apparently unaware that the English language originated in England, and that the author of the song they so love, was gay.
Here is the essence of what the Anchor had to say;
But the fact that people are outraged over this ad is outrageous itself. People indignant that others would have the audacity to sing ‘America the Beautiful’ in a language other than English, when America was built on opening its arms to the world? The quote on the Statue of Liberty doesn’t say ‘give me your English-speaking only, Christian-believing, heterosexual masses.’ It says ‘give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses, tempest-tost.’
Have we forgotten that every one of us ‘Americans’ except for Native Americans, are descendants of foreigners?
That the English language is from England?
What makes America different from everywhere else is that we are a melting pot. We are not homogenous. It is our diversity that built this country.
How dare there be indignation over the very thing that makes us great.
And why not honor the beauty of that in song? What’s so sacrosanct about this song that it can’t be sung in other languages by other ethnicities, by those of diverse religions and diverse lifestyles?
A relevant question considering the words of ‘America the Beautiful’ were penned by a gay woman, Katharine Lee Bates, in 1895, an English professor at Wellesley who also wrote lovingly of her longtime committed relationship with another woman.
And when I say “cock”, I’m not talking about a rooster.
She and her co-author spent most of that day trying to get police to take the incident seriously, but they — and some onlookers — were too busy laughing and taking pictures. They ended up lugging it into their apartment and are currently deciding what to do with it. (I can think of a few things. HEY-OOOO!)
Who’s the culprit, you ask? Probably some state-backed, pro-Putin youngsters, the magazine reports:
This is the kind of cockamamie (sorry) prank that reeks (sorry) of Nashi, the pro-Kremlin youth group founded after Ukraine’s Orange Revolution in 2005. It was the Kremlin’s way to engage the youth in politics by paying and brainwashing them to be their blunt instrument of revenge. These kids, often from poor families, have strange imaginations that center almost always on the scatalogical and the sexual. (They once used one prostitute named “Mumu” to lure various male opposition figures into bed in the same bugged apartment.) They manage to pull off these kinds of pranks by having the resources of the state at their disposal.
Shmuel “Shmuley” Boteach, a conservative rabbi who ran for office as a Republican and was endorsed by House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA), on Tuesday blasted Duck Dynasty reality star Phil Robertson for doing “tremendous damage to religion” with his anti-LGBT comments.
During a religion panel on Tuesday, Fox News host Gretchen Carlson asked CBN’s Wendy Griffith if she approved of a Bible study curriculum that was being branded with the “Duck Dynasty” name.
“I think it’s perfect,” Griffith replied. “They are just being who they are. They are people of faith. They realize that their fame could be short-lived and they’re making the most of it. They’re saying, you know, ‘We want to take a lot of people to heaven with us when we go so we’re going to do this, we’re going to bring it into the churches.’ I think it’s great.”
While Giffith seemed to have forgiven the recent remarks comparing homosexuals to terrorists, Boteach clearly had not forgotten.
“Amanda’s comment is very telling,” Boteach said. “The religious person hears a calling. It’s not career, it’s not about them, it’s about the wider contribution they can make to society in general. And that breeds humility.”
“But on this with Duck Dynasty, they’ve done tremendous damage to religion,” he added. “We have to stop making religion in America about bashing gays. They just have to forswear that stupid comment about comparing homosexuality to bestiality.”
And Boteach was just warming up: “You see the problem in America is we overlook all the heterosexual guys who are raping women, one in five, on the campus. We saw this terrible statistic that in Alaska…”
The rabbi was probably going to make a point about Alaskan women being raped at a rate three times the national average, but Carlson and Griffith cut him off.
“I don’t think that’s what they’re about,” Griffith argued.
“Bashing gays is not religion!” Boteach shot back. “What is religion is family dinners and combating the divorce rate.”
“If Christians want to buy this from somebody who’s made very bigoted and very stereotypical and very awful comments about women and African-Americans that’s their choice,” American Atheists Managing Director Amanda Knief pointed out. “But I am certainly going to find my moral leanings from someone else, not from reality TV characters.”
“Well, if people are interested, this church curriculum comes out in May,” Carlson said in conclusion.
Thanks to Rush Limbaugh, for putting the spotlight on Sandra Fluke. Her desire to run for office is a positive step forward for Democrats and the women’s movement.
Women’s rights activist Sandra Fluke appears to be moving forward with a run for Congress.
Fluke has filed with the California state Democratic Party to seek its endorsement in the race for retiring Rep. Henry Waxman’s (D-Calif.) seat, according to the state party Web site.
A state party delegate confirmed to Post Politics that Fluke has filed and paid the fee to appear on the ballot this weekend.
Fluke hasn’t officially announced her campaign or filed with the Federal Election Commission, and she didn’t immediately return a request for comment. But filing for the state party’s endorsement means she’s now officially part of the process.
TSA agents at Fort Lauderdale Airport in Florida came across a human skull in checked luggage last year
We may not all agree with some of the ways the TSA does its business, but it seems like they’re doing something right.
A shocking number of guns, weapons and explosive devices were pulled from checked luggage at airports by the Transportation Security Administration last year.
Some 1,813 firearms were seized at U.S. airports by TSA agents in 2013 – an increase of more than 16 per cent on 2012, according to the authority’s yearly report.
The weapons, discovered in carry-on bags at checkpoints, amounted to an average of five per day being found – and eight out of ten guns discovered were loaded.
Firearms were found by TSA agents at a total of 205 airports with Atlanta top of the list for the most firearms intercepted (111) in 2013.
After Atlanta, the top airports for weapon interceptions were Dallas/Fort Worth International in Texas (96 guns found); George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston (68 guns); Phoenix Airport (66 guns) and Denver International (51 guns).
Among the terrifying cache was a loaded .380 pistol with eight rounds, discovered on the lower left leg of a passenger at Bradley Hartford Airport in Connecticut.
In Pittsburgh, a loaded .45 with six rounds was found strapped to the ankle of a traveler.
But it’s not just guns that TSA agents come across – there have been a number of alarming weapons – including one or two that appear straight out of the history books.
At Chicago Midway, a mace was found in a passenger’s bag. The weapon is a spiked metal ball on a chain attached to a wooden stick used to bludgeon victims.
In Indiana, authorities were faced with an inert suicide vest which was a training aid used by an explosives instructor.
While searching clay pots in a checked baggage location at Fort Lauderdale, officers discovered human skull fragments. Although not a threat to security, the area had to be cordoned off as a crime scene.
Ten canisters containing 24-pounds of black powder were discovered in checked baggage at Chicago Midway.
A live blasting cap was found with an M60 fuse lighter in a passenger’s checked bag at the Manhattan Regional Airport in Kansas.
After an alarm went off at Anchorage airport in Alaska, officers found a 3.2oz flask of black powder, 22 feet of fuse, a large empty CO2 cartridge, and miscellaneous ammunition in a passenger’s bag.
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