Kermit Gosnell Murder Trial Jury Reaches No Verdict Again After Two Days

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Photo Credit: LifeNewsThe jury in the Kermit Gosnell murder trial deliberated for a second day today and ended the day with no verdict. However, member of the jury actively informed themselves of laws that are applicable to the case and asked for information and assistance from the judge.

If sentenced for the convictions, Gosnell could face the death penalty following the convictions by the jury in Common Pleas Court in Philadelphia.

Under Pennsylvania law, all 12 of the jurors must reach a unanimous verdict on any of the murder counts Gosnell faces for him to be convicted on any of them. Each of the elements of a charged crime must be proven to each juror beyond reasonable doubt for that juror to vote to convict on that count and one reluctant juror could lead to a mistrial on any of the first-degree murder charges.

Since prosecutors are pursuing the death penalty in the case, the jury will only be deciding whether Gosnell is guilty related to the charges. If convicted, a second jury will be impaneled to determine sentencing under the penalty phase of the trial. During this phase, the judge has already instructed jurors to only consider guilt or innocence.

Given the number of charges Gosnell faces, and the fact that Gosnell has a co-defendant the jury is considering for conviction as well, the jury make take a longer period of time to arrive at a verdict on each of the 250-plus charges.

Read more from this story HERE.

Besieged Syrian Leader Makes Rare Public Appearance

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Photo Credit: APPresident Bashar al-Assad of Syria, apparently seeking to counter the impression of a leader in hiding after consecutive days of suspected insurgent bombings in his power base, Damascus, made a rare public appearance on Wednesday, visiting workers at an electric station.

Syrian state television and the official SANA news agency said that Mr. Assad mingled with workers at the Umayyad Electrical Station and congratulated them on the occasion of international Labor Day. Photographs showed Mr. Assad dressed in a dark suit as workers showed him the station.

“They want us to be afraid,” Mr. Assad said in one television clip. “Well, we won’t be afraid.” As he spoke, loyalists in the background chanted, “May God protect you.”

Mr. Assad, whose government is fighting an increasingly violent insurgency that grew out of his repression of peaceful political protests more than two years ago, is not often seen outside his heavily guarded presidential palace these days. His appearance followed an assassination attempt in the form of a car bombing on Monday aimed at his prime minister and a bombing on Tuesday that killed at least 13 people outside a former Interior Ministry building. The attacks were carried out in the heart of Damascus, the capital, which has remained basically under the control of Mr. Assad’s loyalist forces.

His visit to the power station coincided with a new set of explosions in central Damascus. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a group based in Britain but with a reporting network in Syria, said that rockets hit the neighborhood of Bab Mesalla, an area of shops and a transportation hub, and that a bomb detonated near the police headquarters on nearby Khalid bin Walid Street, a site of previous bomb attacks. SANA later confirmed the attacks, saying at least two people were killed and 28 were wounded. It attributed the attacks to terrorists, the Assad government’s blanket description for armed opponents.

Read more from this story HERE.

Report: Obama Knows Identity of Benghazi Mastermind but Does Nothing

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Photo Credit: Allison HargerBy Adam Housley. The U.S. has identified the mastermind of the Benghazi attack, sources tell Fox News, though the individual apparently is walking free in Libya.

The confirmation from multiple sources comes more than seven months after the assault on two U.S. locations in Benghazi, Libya, where four Americans — including Ambassador Chris Stevens — were killed. President Obama pledged after the attack that “justice will be done.”

But one source told Fox News the government is “sitting on” information.

“We basically don’t want to upset anybody, and the problem is, if Ambassador Stevens’ family knew that we were sitting on information about the people who killed their son, their brother, on and on, then, and we could look them as a government in the face, then we’re messing up. We’re messing up,” the source said.

Fox News spoke exclusively with one special operator who watched the events unfold in real time and has debriefed those who were part of the response. He remains anonymous for his safety and has decided to talk because he says he and others connected with the Sept. 11, 2012, attacks in Benghazi are frustrated with the excuses and lack of a military response since Stevens and three other Americans were killed. Read more from this story HERE.

GOP says Benghazi whistleblowers will ‘expose new facts’

By Jonathan Easley and Julian Pecquet. Eyewitnesses with potentially damaging information on the Obama administration’s handling of last year’s terror attack on the U.S. mission in Benghazi will testify at a hearing next week, Republicans said.

The House oversight committee is holding a hearing next week that will “expose new facts and details that the Obama administration has tried to suppress,” oversight chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) said Wednesday.

Two of Issa’s lieutenants said the witnesses at the hearing would include federal employees with direct knowledge of the attack that killed Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans in Libya.

Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), chairman of the oversight subpanel on national security, said people with “personal firsthand knowledge” would testify about the attack. Asked if any “whistleblowers” would be among the witnesses, Chaffetz said: “I think they will be appearing. Some of them.”

“I think you will see — again I can’t release any names to you yet, but next Wednesday I think those of us who are concerned about this issue … we’re finally going to get some answers,” Chaffetz told Fox News on Wednesday. Read more from this story HERE.

Republican National Committee Picks Karl Rove-Linked Company for $15 Million Project

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Photo Credit: APThe Republican National Committee has chosen a Karl Rove-linked voter data project called Liberty Works to help it compete with Democrats in the digital arena.

Liberty Works will team up with Data Trust, whose chairman of the board is former RNC Chairman Mike Duncan, committee spokeswoman Kirsten Kukowski confirmed to POLITICO.

“Basically, RNC is going to provide the data, and then Liberty Works will build the platform, and Data Trust will manage it all,” Kukowski said. “This is kind of in the beginning stages. There are legal issues that we’re going to iron out.”

Several data entities — one of which had connections to the Koch brothers — had been competing for the partnership, POLITICO previously reported. Roll Call first reported Wednesday on the selection of Liberty Works and Data Trust.

Rove, who had been working with Liberty Works’ founder Dick Boyce, pitched donors in New York last month for the $15 million-plus data project and also talked it up in March to top GOP insiders at an invitation-only conference in Georgia.

Read more from this story HERE.

Mexican Immigrant Busted at Border after Getting Tangled in Razor Wire

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Photo Credit: mopsografieA suspected illegal immigrant was rescued Tuesday by San Diego firefighters after becoming ensnared in the razor wire on top of a fence at the U.S.-Mexico border, Fox5SanDiego.com reported.

Border Patrol agents saw the man stuck in the fence east of Otay Mesa just before 3:45 p.m., and they called the San Diego Fire Department, the report said. It took rescuers more than an hour to free the man stuck some 20 feet above the ground. The undocumented man was evaluated by EMTs at the scene and was not injured. He was handed over to border agents and taken into custody, the report said.

The concertina wire on top of the fence is two rows deep and designed to make moving forward or backward excruciatingly painful.

Read more from this story HERE.

Shock Poll: Wealthy, Not Middle Class, Support Obama

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Photo Credit: Washington Examiner President Obama’s approval numbers are starting to mimic Mitt Romney’s.

According to a new Economist/YouGov poll, it’s the rich — not the poor or middle class — who back Obama more despite his 2012 campaign attacking the rich.

The poll found that fewer than half of those with incomes less than $100,000 per year approve of Obama’s performance, while he enjoys a 54 percent approval rating among those with incomes higher than that.

Read more from this story HERE.

Representative: ‘My Constituents Want More Sequestration, Not Less’

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Photo Credit: Getty ImagesNobody is particularly happy about the arbitrary, across-the-board spending cuts taking effect as a result of sequestration. That is, except for maybe Rep. Billy Long (R-Mo.), who said Tuesday that his constituents want even more cuts to kick in.

“The people that I’ve talked to seem to be doing well,” Long told local news affiliate KOLR10 News. “In fact, when I got out in restaurants here in town, people come up to me. They want to see more sequestration, not less.”

Long said people in other parts of the country may be feeling pain as a result of the $85 billion in cuts. But not his community.

“We haven’t seen any measurable effect here at all,” he said.

Read more from this story HERE.

Saudi Arabia Warned the United States IN WRITING about Boston Bomber in 2012

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Photo Credit: APThe Kingdom of Saudi Arabia sent a written warning about accused Boston Marathon bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security in 2012, long before pressure-cooker blasts killed three and injured hundreds, according to a senior Saudi government official with direct knowledge of the document.

The Saudi warning, the official told MailOnline, was separate from the multiple red flags raised by Russian intelligence in 2011, and was based on human intelligence developed independently in Yemen.

Citing security concerns, the Saudi government also denied an entry visa to the elder Tsarnaev brother in December 2011, when he hoped to make a pilgrimage to Mecca, the source said. Tsarnaev’s plans to visit Saudi Arabia have not been previously disclosed.

The Saudis’ warning to the U.S. government was also shared with the British government. ‘It was very specific’ and warned that ‘something was going to happen in a major U.S. city,’ the Saudi official said during an extensive interview.

It ‘did name Tamerlan specifically,’ he added. The ‘government-to-government’ letter, which he said was sent to the Department of Homeland Security at the highest level, did not name Boston or suggest a date for his planned attack.

Read more from this story HERE.

Chief Justice Roy Moore Making Eligibility Backers Desperate?

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Photo Credit: WNDThe Democratic Party has jumped into a Barack Obama eligibility case before Judge Roy Moore’s Alabama Supreme Court, filing an uninvited brief that even quotes late-night comedian Jimmy Kimmel in an effort to see the case dismissed.

As WND reported, 2012 Constitution Party presidential nominee Virgil Goode and Alabama Republican Party leader Hugh McInnish have filed a case seeking to force Secretary of State Beth Chapman to verify that all candidates on the state’s 2012 ballot were eligible to serve.

The case, dismissed at a lower level, is now being appealed to the Alabama Supreme Court, where Roy Moore was elected chief justice last November. The case becomes all the more intriguing because Moore is on record questioning Obama’s constitutional eligibility to serve as president.

Speculation abounds online that Alabama Democrats have jumped into the case out of concern Moore may not be so quick as other judges to dismiss challenges to Obama’s eligibility.

In a brief of amicus curiae filed last week, the Alabama Democratic Party insists the court is required to dismiss the case.

Read more from this story HERE.

Obama’s Press Conference: ‘I’m Still Relevant’ and ‘It’s Everyone Else’s Fault’

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Photo Credit: Daily Caller President Obama: I’m still relevant

By Glenn Thrush. If ever 47 minutes illustrated the frustration, tantalizing promise and ambivalence of a second term, this was it.

President Barack Obama, marking the 100th day since he delivered an ambitious inaugural address brimming with expansive plans, sparred with the White House press over a succession of issues over which he has conspicuously clipped control — from his response to the “game-changer” revelation that Syrian government forces used sarin gas, to the failure of his gun control push, to his continued efforts to shutter the Guantanamo Bay detention facility over the objections of Congressional Republicans and Democrats.

“Mr. President, you are a hundred days into your second term…my question to you is do you still have the juice to get the rest of your agenda through this Congress?” asked ABC’s Jonathan Karl — eliciting a surprised chuckle and “goll-y” from the commander-in-chief during a Tuesday morning press conference in the White House briefing room.

“You know… as Mark Twain said, you know, rumors of my demise may be a little exaggerated at this point,” said Obama, who seemed a lot less lighthearted than during his sharp-elbowed stand-up routine at the White House Correspondents Association dinner on Saturday. Read more from this story HERE.

Obama Blames Everybody

By Neil Munro. President Barack Obama spent most of his surprise April 30 press conference on the defensive, blaming the Senate, budget cuts, Republicans, Syria’s dictator and much else for the shaky start to his second term.

He had nothing major or new to announce, and no theme or message to steer media coverage.

About a third of the way through the press conference, Obama responded to a question about his political clout by saying sardonically that “as Mark Twain said, rumors of my demise may be a little exaggerated at this point.”

“In the Senate, this habit of requiring 60 votes for even the most modest piece of legislation has gummed up the works there,” he complained. Read more from this story HERE.