A Lesson From L.A. in the Zimmerman Case (+video)

/5 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: RCPBy Lou Cannon. Whatever one thinks of the jury verdict in the George Zimmerman case, history suggests that retrying him on federal charges would not produce a fairer outcome.

The last time a president of the United States and a U.S. attorney general disapproved of a jury verdict in a race-heightened case, they set in motion a series of events that produced a second verdict as suspect as the first.

It happened in 1992 when a suburban Simi Valley jury acquitted four white Los Angeles Police Department officers of excessive force and other charges in the beating of Rodney King, an African-American. The verdict, coupled with a woeful lack of preparation by the LAPD, touched off the deadliest American civil disturbance since the Draft Riot of 1863 in New York City.

By the time the Los Angeles rioting ended on May 4, 1992, 54 people had died with another 2,328 treated for injuries in emergency rooms by doctors practicing what one of them called “battlefield medicine.” The rioting was the costliest in U.S. history, with property losses exceeding $900 million — $1.45 billion in today’s dollars. Thousands of businesses were burned or looted and 862 structures burned to the ground.

President George H.W. Bush was, as he put it, “sickened” by a televised clip of the King beating he had seen soon after the incident occurred a year earlier. In the midst of the rioting the president met with civil rights leaders and made a televised appeal for calm, promising that the Simi Valley verdicts were “not the end of the process.” Read more from this story HERE.

__________________________________________________________________

Jesse Jackson Says Florida is an Apartheid State because of its Zimmerman Verdict

__________________________________________________________________

Photo Credit: AP‘Stand Your Ground’ Laws Are Winning

By Matt Berman. On Tuesday, the same day that Attorney General Eric Holder said that “Stand Your Ground” laws “sow dangerous conflict,” Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer called her state’s version of the law “important” and a “constitutional right.” And Wednesday, Florida state Sen. David Simmons called Holder’s comments “inappropriate” and “inaccurate.” Stand Your Ground may be getting more attention now after the Zimmerman verdict, but the laws themselves don’t look like they’re going anywhere.

And that’s not for a lack of effort from critics of the self-defense policy. While the exact laws differ somewhat from state to state, Stand Your Ground laws justify the use of force in self-defense when there’s a reasonably perceived threat. It’s on the books in some form or another in more than 21 states. Florida was the first to adopt the law, and the state is the focus of the law’s critics now. Those critics range from Stevie Wonder (who has decided to boycott any state with a Stand Your Ground law) to the dozens of student activists who crowded Gov. Rick Scott’s office on Tuesday.

But the critics aren’t limited to Florida. In New Hampshire, the state’s attorney general on Wednesday called for “another look” at the state’s Stand Your Ground law. “I think what it can do is cause a situation to escalate that doesn’t need to,” he said. Read more from this story HERE.

Justice Alito Might have Quintupled his Net Worth in 2012, Joins Super-Rich Colleagues on High Court

/4 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: APYes, that’s quintupled with a “q.” According to the Center for Public Integrity, an investigative journalism nonprofit, Justice Samuel Alito’s net worth jumped from between $380,000 and $1.1 million in 2011 to between $2.3 million and $6.2 million in 2012. The gulf in the estimates is due to the fact that federal officeholders such as justices and members of Congress must report only the range of their assets and liabilities, not the exact figures. Regardless of the exact amount, we know one thing: Justice Alito made a lot of money last year.

According to Public Integrity, the bump comes from “previously unreported PNC Bank accounts valued between $250,001 and $515,000, along with two Edward Jones investment accounts.” Alito’s investment portfolio includes holdings in Oracle Corp., a software firm; OEG Energy Corp.; Boeing; and Caterpillar. He also has some money in Chevron, which might be why he recused himself from a case last year that involved the company. Alito made $27,000 from teaching at Duke University and Penn State. (There are, however, limits to how much money a Supreme Court Justice can make on the side.)

Read more from this story HERE.

Study: Billions Utterly Wasted on Obama’s Global Warming Jihad

/3 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: Reuters As President Obama last month launched a sweeping new national program to combat “climate change,” including tens of billions of dollars in likely new subsidies for solar and wind power and bio-energy, a separate, groundbreaking study by the National Research Council has warned that those kinds of subsidies are virtually useless at quelling greenhouse gases.

The study, which looks at the subsidies and other incentives embedded in U.S. federal tax law after the past several years of climate change initiatives, concludes that they have done little or nothing so far to cut U.S. contributions to global carbon emissions, and are unlikely to do much more before 2035, the project’s research horizon.

The two-year, $2 million probe was the first of its kind undertaken to examine the relationship between U.S. tax provisions, a key tool of U.S. climate change policy, and the actual reduction of greenhouse gases.

The pioneering nature of the study itself speaks volumes about the murkiness of official knowledge concerning how well government can tweak the global thermostat by trying to radically reorient energy production and consumption in the U.S. economy.

It was carried out by a 12-member National Academy of Sciences panel of economists, energy experts, environmentalists, tax specialists and climate scientists backed by consultants wielding powerful computerized economic models and a sizeable handful of National Academy of Sciences staff.

Read more from this story HERE.

Gov. Rick Perry Signs Major Abortion Restrictions into Law

/3 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: Frederic J BrownRick Perry, the Republican governor of Texas, signed into law the nation’s most sweeping new abortion limits on Thursday morning, in a move that is likely to be subject to a challenge in the courts.

The bill, which will drastically reduce access to abortion in the state, failed to pass last month because of an 11-hour filibuster by state senator Wendy Davis, a Democrat. It was passed last week after Perry called a second special session to do so.

“It is a very happy, celebratory day,” Perry said, before he sat down to sign the bill, at the Capitol auditorium, where the bill-signing ceremony was held amid tight security.

“This is an important day for those who support life and for those who support the health of Texas women,” said Perry, a staunch anti-abortionist. “In signing House Bill 2, we celebrate and further cement the foundation on which the culture of life in Texas is built.”

A dozen state troopers were stationed outside the building, alongside scores of protesters in orange shirts, carrying coat hangers and signs that read: “Shame”, according to Dallas News.

Read more from this story HERE.

Key Witness in Whitey Bulger Trial Found Dead, Without Wallet or Phone, Under Overpass (+video)

/0 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: BetterBizIdeasStephen Rakes, a former South Boston man who had waited decades for a chance to testify against James “Whitey” Bulger, was found dead in the Mill Street area in Lincoln on Wednesday, authorities said today.

The cause of death is being determined by the state medical examiner’s office. An autopsy found no signs of trauma on the body; toxicology tests are underway and generally take several weeks to complete, authorities said this afternoon.

The case is being investigated by State Police and Lincoln police, according to a statement released by Middlesex District Attorney Marian T. Ryan.

District attorney’s spokeswoman Stephanie Chelf Guyotte said the prosecutor’s office is conducting a “death investigation.’’

Steve Davis, the brother of alleged Bulger murder victim Debra Davis, said he became close friends with Rakes. He said Rakes was physically fit, swimming year-round in the bay outside the L Street annex in South Boston.

Read more from this story HERE.

‘Clueless C**t’: Mainstream Journalist’s Admission that She’s A Creationist Sparks Nasty Response

/1 Comment/in , /by

Photo Credit: GettyJournalist Virginia Heffernan stunned many of her fellow reporters when she penned a piece last week entitled, “Why I’m a Creationist.” The reporter, who has had a successful career at The New York Times and Slate, among other outlets, is now the center of the ever-intense evolution vs. creationism debate. Currently, she works for Yahoo!, the outlet through which her faith-based proclamation was made.

Before we get into the nasty comments that have been thrown her way, let’s first look at what she said in the article. Heffernan began by announcing that she’s like most Americans: She doesn’t fear global warming and doesn’t hate religion. Then, she said, “at heart” she’s a creationist.

Heffernan admitted that this admission would be tough to understand for many of her compatriots in media.

“In New York City saying you’re a creationist is like confessing you think Ahmadinejad has a couple of good points. Maybe I’m the only creationist I know,” she said, touching upon the fact that it is rare for people in the city to hold such a viewpoint (one that many Americans in other areas of the country would actually agree with).

From there, Heffernan moved on, describing the process through which she became a creationist…

Read more from this story HERE.

Live In The South? Your Life Expectancy Is Shorter, Sicker Than The Rest Of The U.S.

/0 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: GettyIf you’re 65 and living in Hawaii, here’s some good news: Odds are you’ll live another 21 years. And for all but five of those years, you’ll likely be in pretty good health.

Hawaii tops the charts in the government’s first state-by-state look at how long Americans age 65 can expect to live, on average, and how many of those remaining years will be healthy ones.

Retirement-age Mississippians fared worst, with only about 17 1/2 more years remaining and nearly seven of them in poorer health.

U.S. life expectancy has been growing steadily for decades, and is now nearly 79 for newborns. The figures released Thursday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimate life expectancy for people 65 years old, and what portion will be free of the illnesses and disabilities suffered late in life.

“What ultimately matters is not just the length of life but the quality of life,” said Matt Stiefel, who oversees population health research for Kaiser Permanente.

Read more from this story HERE.

New Sabre Air-Breathing Rocket Engine to Dramatically Cut Flight Times, Drastically Reduce Costs of Space Payloads (+video)

/2 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: Reaction Engines LtdImagine taking off from a runway like a normal aeroplane but flying so high and so fast that when you unclip your seatbelt, you float around the cabin. Look out of the windows: on one side is the inky blackness of deep space, while on the other is the electric blue of your home planet, Earth.

This is no joyride for a few brief minutes of space-tourism weightlessness. Instead you are three, five or even 10 times higher than those little hops. In front of you is your destination: a space station. Perhaps it is a hotel or a place of work. You are in low earth orbit – and you’ve got there in far less time than it takes for a transatlantic flight.

This is the promise of the spaceplane, and it took a step closer to reality yesterday. UK Minister for Universities and Science David Willetts confirmed the government’s £60m investment in Reaction Engines Ltd.

Spaceplanes are what engineers call single-stage-to-orbit (if you really want to geek out, just use the abbreviation: SSTO). They have long been a dream because they would be fully reusable, taking off and landing from a traditional runway.

By building reusable spaceplanes, the cost of reaching orbit could be reduced to a twentieth current levels. That makes spaceplanes a game changer both for taking astronauts into space and for deploying satellites and space probes.

Read more from this story HERE.

‘This Town’ Needs an Enema (+video)

/2 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: Blue Rider PressBy Erick Erickson. Mark Leibovich of the New York Times has written a pretty scathing book about Washington, DC, called This Town: Two Parties and a Funeral-Plus, Plenty of Valet Parking!-in America’s Gilded Capital. It is a pretty accurate portrayal of the Washington, DC more and more Americans have come to hold in contempt. There exists in Washington a new aristocracy where, for example, a poor boxer from Searchlight, NV, can get elected to the United States Senate, become wealthy enough to live at the Ritz, and see his family profit from K Street.

It is a city where the new aristocrats move and do not want to leave. It is a town in need of an enema. Read more from this story HERE.

_________________________________________________________________

‘This Town’ rattles D.C. social scene

By Luis Romano. Washington is a town that shuns wannabes and impostors to ensure no one as unsavory as the gate-crashing Salahis makes it into the inner sanctum. So, it’s no small irony that a guy who was embraced by the A-list soirees of D.C. ends up toppling the hors d’oeuvres trays.

Indeed, the nation’s capital is in full spasm over Mark Leibovich’s cutting takedown of the city’s cozy culture in his new book, “This Town.” The fear: That it will send a chill through the elite after-hours social circuit — where the real business of this town often gets done between reporters and sources. What has rattled many is that Leibovich did a chunk of his reporting at parties and funerals at which he was considered a guest — or, at least, not a working journalist taking detailed notes…

For his part, Leibovich says that he is “always working as a journalist.” And furthermore, he adds, it’s a real circus out there…

One of his prime targets in the book is Tammy Haddad, a former television producer who has hosted a lot of parties at which Leibovich was a regular. He portrays her as a social-climber and access-peddler, writing, “… perhaps a bit of a cartoon.”

And Leibovich clearly had a front-row seat to observe her. By his own count, he’s attended about 10 of Haddad’s parties over the years, including one or two of her famous annual garden brunches before the White House Correspondents’ Dinner. (He was dropped this year after Haddad got wind of what he was writing.) Read more from this story HERE.

Student Booted from U.S. College for Favoring English!

/3 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: WNDAn Arizona college is being sued for labeling a student a “bigot” and punishing her with a long-term suspension after she requested that English be used in her nursing studies class so she could learn the subject.

The action was filed against Pima Community College on behalf of student Terri Bennett, who alleged that school officials created a “learning environment [that] was hostile to her as an English-language speaker.”

The complaint alleges that Bennett repeatedly was thwarted in her work listening to lectures, finishing group studies and participating in skills labs, clinicals and other learning activities by fellow students who spoke Spanish, which she did not understand. Study groups and labs in which she participated, an essential part of her nursing training, were being conducted in Spanish.

In response, she asked the college – which operates, ironically, under Arizona’s English-only legal requirement – to help enforce the use of English in her class so she could continue to pursue her educational goals. However, according to the complaint, Bennett was targeted by the school with ridicule, attacks, threats and, eventually, a nine-month suspension.

The group ProEnglish is helping Bennett with legal support.

Read more from this story HERE.