Author: Ezra Grant

I'm just tired of the lies and nonsense coming from the GOP, so this is my little contribution to combat the nonsense!

Categories
Politics trayvon martin

Jury Selection Begins in The George Zimmerman / Trayvon Martin Case

george-zimmerman833 Jury Selection Begins in The George Zimmerman / Trayvon Martin Case

It is the case that shocked the nation, shocked the world for that matter. And today, the George Zimmerman/Trayvon Martin trial officially began with jury selection.

Zimmerman, 29, is charged with second-degree murder and faces up to life in prison if convicted. He has pleaded not guilty, contending he acted in self-defense during a confrontation with Martin, 17, in a gated community in this central Florida town on February 26, 2012.

After a brief opening session in the courtroom, where Zimmerman was joined by his wife Shellie, Circuit Court Judge Debra Nelson called a recess so that she, the prosecutors and defense attorneys could meet briefly with a pool of about 100 potential jurors.

The jurors were then to fill out a questionnaire before being summoned one by one into the courtroom for individual questioning.

It is unclear how long it will take for the judge and lawyers to select a panel of six jurors.

At the time of the Martin killing, Zimmerman, a light-skinned Hispanic, was the self-appointed neighborhood watch captain in the Retreat at Twin Lakes community. During a struggle, he killed Martin with a single shot to the chest from a 9mm handgun.

Categories
Arizona Featured

The Accident – His Father is Dead, The Four Year Old Son Pulled The Trigger

PRESCOTT VALLEY, Ariz. — Authorities in northern Arizona say a 4-year-old boy has accidentally shot and killed his father at a Prescott Valley home.

Prescott Valley police say the shooting occurred just after noon Friday.

The 35-year-old man and his young son were visiting from Phoenix and were at a friend’s house.

Police say the boy somehow found a gun in the home’s living room and accidentally fired it and a bullet hit his father, who was rushed to a hospital where he died. Police identified the man as Justin Stanfield Thomas.

Police say the boy is with his mother. No other details have been released.

Categories
Health

Report: Asparagus Lowers Blood Pressure…

… at least in rats.

Here’s another reason to eat asparagus, in case you were looking for one.

Researchers at the Kagawa Nutrition University in Japan fed a diet consisting of 5 percent asparagus to rats with high blood pressure. As they report in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, published online on May 30, after 10 weeks, the rats on the asparagus diet had lower blood pressure than the ones fed a standard rat diet without asparagus.

The rats on the asparagus diet also had less protein in their urine, a sign of a healthier kidney. And they had less activity of ACE, or angiotensin-converting enzyme. Drugs that reduce the activity of ACE are used to treat hypertension in humans.

The Japanese researchers think a compound found in asparagus called 2″-hydroxynicotianamine is responsible for inhibiting ACE activity in the rats. There’s not a lot of literature on hydroxynicotianamine. It seems to be found in buckwheat sprouts, buckwheat leaves and buckwheat, where it also seems to be an ACE inhibitor.

Of course, it’s far too soon to known whether 2″-hydroxynicotianamine has a similar effect on humans. But if it does, perhaps this could open new vistas in the treatment of hypertension. In fact, for the treatment of high blood pressure, this could be the dawning of the age of asparagus.

Categories
Oklahoma City Sports

Oklahoma Thunder Kevin Durant to Sign With Jay-Z

Jay-Z’s upstart sports agency has received another big boost, as a source confirmed to ESPN on Friday night that Oklahoma City Thunder forward Kevin Durant will leave his current agent to join Roc Nation Sports.

The source said Durant believes he doesn’t need a contract agent now because he signed an $85 million extension with the Thunder in 2010 that will take him through the 2015-16 season. Instead, Durant — already one of the most marketable players in the league — has told those close to him that he wants to increase his brand.

A spokesman for Roc Nation Sports told ESPN that Durant is not currently a client. It’s unknown whether Jay-Z will wait until he sells his small ownership share in the Brooklyn Nets – it’s believed he owns between one-fifth and one-fifteenth of 1 percent of the team — before signing Durant. A source tells ESPN that Jay-Z’s ownership sale has not yet been completed.

If Jay-Z is just doing marketing work for Durant, he might be able to steer clear of NBA rules that would prohibit him from representing a player and owning a piece of a team.

Categories
edward snowden Politics

Edward Snowden – NSA Whistleblower Comes Forward – Video

A 29-year-old man who said he is behind the leaks exposing NSA surveillance on American citizens revealed his identity Sunday in an interview with The Guardian.

Edward Snowden, a former CIA communications expert and current defense contractor living in Hawaii, said that he released the documents to alert the American public about what is being done in their name.

“I’m willing to sacrifice all of that because I can’t in good conscience allow the US government to destroy privacy, internet freedom and basic liberties for people around the world with this massive surveillance machine they’re secretly building,” Snowden said to The Guardian.

Snowden told his superiors at Booz Allen and Dell, a firm where he earned $200,000 a year working on a contract with the NSA, that he was seeking treatment for his epilepsy and would need some time off. He then left on a plane bound for Hong Kong.

Snowden set up a meeting with Guardian reporters in his hide out after releasing documents last week on the NSA collecting telephone information from Verizon Wireless customers, and the PRISM program, which allows the government to tap into the servers of major internet companies in the U.S. and UK.

Categories
Immigration Immigration Reform Politics

President’s Weekly Address: Fixing a Broken Immigration System

President Obama says that the United States Senate will soon take action to fix our broken immigration system with a commonsense bill. He also cautions that the new bill will not make everyone happy, not Democrats, not Republicans. But urges Congress to act quickly to pass the bill.

The bill before the Senate isn’t perfect.  It’s a compromise.  Nobody will get everything they want – not Democrats, not Republicans, not me.  But it is a bill that’s largely consistent with the principles I’ve repeatedly laid out for commonsense immigration reform.

This bill would continue to strengthen security at our borders, increase criminal penalties against smugglers and traffickers, and hold employers more accountable if they knowingly hire undocumented workers.  If enacted, it would represent the most ambitious enforcement plan in recent memory.

Categories
Politics

Jesse Jackson Jr. Could Spend Up to 4 Years in Jail

Politico is reporting that the Federal prosecutors are seeking a four-year prison sentence for former Illinois Democratic Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr., who has pleaded guilty to illegally diverting hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign funds to personal use.

Under the Justice Department recommendations, Jackson would have to forfeit the $750,000 he stole from his campaign, and pay back another $750,000 to his reelection committee. Prosecutors are asking that someone not related to Jackson be appointed to run the campaign, which would then be “wound down.”

Jackson, the son of well-known civil rights advocate Rev. Jesse Jackson, is scheduled to be sentenced early next month.

In a break for Jackson and his wife — former Chicago Alderman Sandi Jackson, who also pleaded guilty in the case — prosecutors have requested that their prison sentences be staggered so that both aren’t in prison at the same time. Sandi Jackson faces up to 18 months in federal prison as part of the couple’s illegal scheme. The couple have two young children.

Once a rising star in Democratic politics, the 48-year-old Jackson pleaded guilty in February to using more than $750,000 from his campaign to cover a stunning range of personal expenses in thousands of transactions, including including home renovations, furniture, school tuition, groceries, a $43,000 Rolex watch, fur coats and memorabilia associated with Michael Jackson, Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X and Bruce Lee.

Categories
Politics

It’s Official – Cory Booker Is Running for Senate

Newark Mayor Cory Booker on Saturday formally announced he’s in the race to finish the US Senate term of the late Frank Lautenberg.

The 44-year-old Democrat made his candidacy official at a news conference Saturday in Newark, New Jersey’s largest city. He was joined by former US Sen. Bill Bradley, a former pro basketball player who for 18 years held the seat Booker is seeking.

Bradley, who endorsed Booker, called him “the right person for the right office at the right time.”

Booker began raising money for a Senate run even before Lautenberg, who died Monday, announced retirement plans in February. He had raised $1.9 million by the end of the last reporting period in March.

Reps. Frank Pallone and Rush Holt are also planning to enter the Democratic primary. Booker is considered the early front-runner.

Pallone, 61, had $3.7 million in his campaign coffers at the end of March and has deep union support. Holt, 64, a former research physicist, had $800,000 on hand.

Categories
Politics Rape

Rape Suspect Buried Alive With His Victim

Police had identified the 17-year-old as the possible culprit in the rape and murder of a 35-year-old woman near the municipality of Colquechaca.

The chief prosecutor says more than 200 furious local people seized Santos Ramos and buried him in the grave of his alleged victim.

He says residents blocked roads into the village to stop police arriving.

A reporter for a local radio station, who would only speak anonymously for fear of reprisals, told the media that Mr Ramos was tied up at the woman’s funeral.

He said mourners threw him into the open grave alongside the woman’s coffin and filled the grave with earth.

Colquechaca is a town of about 5,000 inhabitants some 207 miles ( 333 km) south-east of the Bolivian capital, La Paz.

Categories
Mitt Romney Politics

Mitt Romney: 47% Comment Sounded Better In My Head

The 2012 election has long been in the history books, but Mitt Romney still laments some of the things he said in the campaign — like those secretly taped “47%” remarks.

In an interview with CNN airing Thursday, the Republican presidential nominee said he was “very upset” after his comments at a fundraising event about 47% of Americans who are “dependent on the government” and “believe that they are victims” came to light.

“There were a number of times that I said things like that — that didn’t come out right,” Romney told CNN’s Gloria Borger. “Now and then, things don’t come out exactly the way you want them to come out. They don’t sound the way you thought they sounded.”

Romney spent days last fall trying to explain that he wanted to help all Americans, but the damage was done by the taped remarks, which were published by Mother Jones magazine

Categories
Michelle Obama Politics

Michelle Obama Confronts Heckler – “Listen to me, or you can take the mic.”

Her name us not Barack,  it’s Michelle. She wasn’t elected to public office, she is married to an office holder. And she does not write policies, implement policies or sign bills into law. That job belongs to Congress and the guy she married. His name is Barack.

Yet, for some strange reason, some people think that going to, and interrupting a speech by Michelle is a way to get their point heard. That was apparently the thinking of a gay rights activist, when she began shouting at Michelle at a fundraising speech on Tuesday.

Her name is Ellen Sturtz, and she apparently wanted Michelle – the unelected woman married to a public official – to do something about the government doing business with companies that may or may not be friendly to gays.

Again, Michelle is not a public official and she responded appropriately,  telling the heckler, “… wait, wait, wait. One of the things I don’t do well is this.”

Sturtz continued her plea for action, leaving Michelle no other choice but to leave the stage.

The video below shows the First Lady in a direct confrontation with the heckler, telling the heckler, that she is prepared to leave the event if the behavior continued. “Listen to me, or you can take the mic,” the First Lady said.

The heckler was eventually escorted from the premises.

Categories
Wisconsin Union Bashing

Woman Arrested for Attacking Reporters With Rock, Baseball bat and Two Pit Bulls

This is the type of action that looks bad on a whole group of people. Yes, her daughter was shot and it is understandable that she is upset about the shooting, but why turn violent against an innocent reporter who was just informing you that the person who shot your daughter was arrested?

For this woman, the only reaction to hearing such news was to throw a rock at the camera crew, chase them down a public street with a baseball bat, then sic her pit bulls after the reporter.

The woman was eventually arrested and released on $50,000.00 bond. So now in addition to dealing with her daughter being shot, the woman is now charged with a felony assault with a dangerous weapon. Her daughter is now back home.

These people are the reason why this site has a WTF category.

Exit mobile version