‘We Have the Right to Defend Ourselves’: Community Rallies Around Utah Man Arrested for Shooting at Burglar

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Photo Credit: APResidents in a northern Utah city are coming to the defense of a man who was arrested and faces charges for shooting at burglars as they drove away from his property.

Layton police arrested Clare Niederhauser, 64, last week after he fired one shot at a car and another at a fleeing burglar, said Layton Police Lt. Shawn Horton. He was arrested on suspicion of two counts of reckless endangerment.

The shots were unlawful because the burglar had dropped a crowbar and was fleeing the property, according to Horton, who added that the shots could have endangered somebody’s life.

“There is a responsibility of owning a gun: you need to know when you can lawfully use your weapon,” Horton said. “You’re not authorized to shoot a firearm at a car just because you don’t want it to get away, or to scare them, or disable a tire.”

Layton police said they also have arrested the man suspected of burglarizing the house, Robert Santos Cruz, 47. Investigators are searching for a woman who drove the car that was leaving the driveway when Niederhauser shot at it.

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Southern California School Board Member Convicted Of Running Sex Ring

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Photo Credit: Rios Pimpin’ ain’t easy, man, as Ice-T, The Notorious B.I.G. and a number of other celebrated rappers have incisively counseled for years. However, Moreno Valley school board member Mike Rios had to learn this wisdom the hard way.

On Friday, a jury in Riverside, California found Rios, 42, guilty on almost two dozen felony counts stemming from a prostitution operation, reports KNBC. Rios managed the venture out of his home in neighboring Moreno Valley.

The litany of charges against the school board member included rape, pimping, pandering and insurance fraud. Two of the prostitutes involved were underage girls.

The jury found Rios not guilty on another count of rape. It couldn’t come to an agreement on still another rape count, or an additional pandering charge.

At the trial, the Los Angeles Times reports, the jury heard evidence that Rios, a Democrat, approached one woman on the street and flashed a school district-emblazoned business card when he offered her a job.

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Chuck Hagel Camp: He’s Not Dropping Out

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Photo Credit: John ShinkleChuck Hagel’s camp pushed back forcefully Friday against the notion that he might remove himself from consideration to be secretary of Defense.

“There is absolutely no truth to the notion that Sen. Hagel might consider withdrawing,” a Hagel aide told POLITICO. “He’s continuing his prep work and getting up to speed on the issues he will deal with as secretary of Defense.”

Online commentators began to speculate that Hagel might bow out, as more than a week had passed since his widely panned confirmation hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee with no word about when its members might take a vote.

Author Thomas Ricks floated the idea in a post on his blog Friday, arguing that the odds of a withdrawal were 50-50 and would increase two percent for every business day the Senate Armed Services Committee doesn’t schedule a vote. The conservative Weekly Standard — run by Hagel arch-nemesis Bill Kristol — immediately picked up that post.

But among politicians and operatives supportive of Hagel, there is little evidence of a coming withdrawal — and more than a little pique at Republicans for delaying the confirmation process. They insist he should surrender still more information about his income, but Democrats have cried foul.

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Mike Huckabee Speaks On The Future Of Conservatism

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Photo Credit:Taylor Baucom Former Arkansas governor, 2008 Republican Presidential candidate and current talk show host Mike Huckabee spoke on campus about his views on conservatism in America.

Mike Huckabee knew plenty of people at Syracuse University would disagree with his views. Yet the well-known conservative figure said that’s the reason he enjoyed speaking not just here, but at all college campuses.

At a past visit to Cornell University, where his hosts said 100 students were against his visit, Huckabee recalled asking to be dropped off in front of the protestors. Much to their surprise, Huckabee thanked them for reminding him why he loves America, and felt the same way when visiting S.U.

“We don’t learn much when the only people we ever talk to are the people we agree with,” Huckabee said, “We learn something when we talk to the people with whom we think we have nothing in common.”

Mike Huckabee, former Arkansas governor, 2008 candidate for the republican presidential nomination, and current host of the Sunday talk show “Huckabee” on Fox News, made this a major part of his message for the S.U. campus. Speaking and taking questions about “The Future of Conservatism” on Feb. 7 in an event organized by the SU College Republicans, he stressed while conservatives today should retain their core values, both sides must focus more on solving problems than disagreeing.

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FAA Releases New Drone Authorization List – See Who Applied To Have Them

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Photo Credit: Google MapsLast year, alarm was raised among some Americans regarding the Federal Aviation Administration’s expanding legislation for drone use over U.S. soil and the list of 63 authorized drone sites in the country. With more recent news that the Obama administration has approved drone strikes on some U.S. citizens, which some have said is “chilling” and the government saying “we can kill you,” the FAA has recently released an updated list of domestic drone authorization applicants.

The list was obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request made by the Electronic Frontier Foundation. The list shows 20 new applicants, mostly law enforcement and universities but also the first tribal entity, EFF noted.

Here are few of the new authorization applicants EFF called out:

The State Department
National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)
Barona Band of Mission Indians Risk Management Office (near San Diego, California)
Canyon County Sheriff’s Office (Idaho)
Clackamas County Sheriff’s Office (Northwest Oregon)
Grand Forks Sheriff’s Department (North Dakota)
King County Sheriff’s Office (covering Seattle, Washington)
Medina County Sheriff’s Office (Ohio)
Ohio Department of Transportation (Ohio)
Sinclair Community College (Ohio)
Lorain County Community College (Ohio)
EFF’s Jennifer Lynch, a staff attorney for the privacy advocacy organization, wrote the hope of the nonprofit in releasing this information is that people will ask their own local law enforcement about their plans for drone use.

“We also encourage people to ask hard questions of government officials about who is funding drone development in their communities and what policies the government will demand agencies follow if they fly drones,” Lynch wrote on the website. “We need greater transparency and citizen push-back to protect Americans from privacy-invasive domestic drone use.”

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Northeast Begins Dig-Out After Major Snowstorm, Thousands Without Power (+video)

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New Englanders began the back-breaking job of digging out from as much as 3 feet of snow Saturday and emergency crews used snowmobiles to reach shivering motorists stranded overnight on New York’s Long Island after a howling storm swept through the Northeast.

About 475,000 homes and businesses remained without power late Saturday night, down from a peak of about 650,000, and some could be cold and dark for days. Roads across the New York-to-Boston corridor of roughly 25 million people were impassable. Cars were entombed by drifts. Some people found the wet, heavy snow packed so high against their homes they couldn’t get their doors open.

“It’s like lifting cement. They say it’s 2 feet, but I think it’s more like 3 feet,” said Michael Levesque, who was shoveling snow in Quincy, Mass., for a landscaping company.

In Providence, where the drifts were 5 feet high and telephone lines encrusted with ice and snow drooped under the weight, Jason Harrison labored for nearly three hours to clear his blocked driveway and front walk and still had more work to do. His snowblower, he said, “has already paid for itself.”

At least five deaths in the U.S. were blamed on the overnight snowstorm, including an 11-year-old boy in Boston who was overcome by carbon monoxide as he sat in a running car to keep warm while his father shoveled Saturday morning.

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New York Times Calls For Menendez To Relinquish Committee Chairmanship

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Photo Credit: Glyn Lowe PhotoworksThe New York Times editorial board called on Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) Saturday to step aside as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee until questions about his relationship with a friend and donor under FBI investigation are resolved. The editorial is the latest blow in the broadening flap over Menendez’s relationship with Salmon Melgen, a Florida eye surgeon accused of overbilling the government millions for medical treatments.

“It is unclear whether the Senate Ethics Committee has initiated a formal inquiry into Mr. Menendez’s conduct, but a prompt and thorough review is surely called for,” the editorial read. “In the meantime, Mr. Menendez needs to relinquish his leadership role, at least temporarily.”

Menendez, who assumed the chairmanship after Secretary of State John Kerry was confirmed late last month, first came under fire over a pair of flights on Melgen’s private jet he accepted in 2010 for vacations to the Dominican Republic. The New Jersey senator sent Melgen a personal check for $58,500 in January, acknowledging he had not properly reported the flights as gifts.

Since then, reports have questioned Menendez’s efforts to help Melgen revive a port security contract for a firm that he partially owned and phone calls the senator placed to federal health officials over the accusations of overbilling Medicare.

Earlier this month, federal agents raided Melgen’s Florida home and office, although the government has not indicated the focus of their investigation.

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Carhart Patient Dead From Horrific 33-Week Abortion Injuries

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Photo Credit: lifesitnews.comA 29-year old woman died yesterday as the result of fatal complications suffered during an abortion at 33 weeks performed by LeRoy Carhart at Germantown Reproductive Health Center (GRHC) in Germantown, Maryland. According to the pro-life organization Operation Rescue, the information about the incident comes from an extremely credible anonymous source.

The woman, who came for a third trimester abortion from out-of-state, arrived at GRHC on Sunday and was seen by pro-life activists every day through Wednesday. Eyewitnesses said she appeared “pale and weak.”

Early Thursday morning, the woman began suffering chest pains and other discomforting symptoms. Her attempts to reach Carhart were unsuccessful.

The woman was taken by her family from her hotel to a nearby hospital emergency room at approximately 5:00 a.m. Efforts by hospital staff to contact Carhart or get informational assistance from the abortion clinic were unsuccessful.

The patient suffered massive internal bleeding into her abdominal cavity. She slipped into a Code Blue condition approximately six times before finally succumbing to her injuries at around 9:30 a.m. The case has been placed with the Medical Examiner for further investigation.

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Woman With Pacemaker Refuses Smart Meter- Has Power Cut In The Dead Of Winter

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Photo Credit: YouTubeA handicapped woman in western Ohio has to battle the freezing winter weather this weekend because she refused to allow the local power company to install a “smart meter” on her property.

Brenda Hawk has a pacemaker for her heart and because her brain was injured in a car accident, she requires a breathing machine in order to sleep at night. She does not want the new radio-frequency emitting meter because of the health problems these devices have been said to cause. But American Electric Power AEP-Ohio, the local power company, has persisted in their push to swap out Hawk’s analog meter and replace it with the new one.

TheBlaze spoke with Hawk on Saturday. At the time, she was using a kerosene heater to stay warm in the freezing weather. Hawk gave us a basic timeline on the story.

In October of last year, a utility worker arrived on her property and announced that he had removed her old analog power meter and replaced it with a new one. Hawk told him that she had not approved the meter swap and requested that the old one be restored. A series of phone calls between Hawk, the power company and the sheriff’s office was enough to get the new meter pulled out and the old one re-installed.

Fast forward to Jan. 24, 2013. A certified letter from AEP executive Ralph Rocca, Jr. arrived at Hawk’s home announcing that she would be getting a new meter or her power would be cut off. Her efforts to contact Rocca were not successful. All that Hawk wanted was a guarantee from the company that the new meter’s electrical signals would not interfere with her pacemaker. The company could not give her that assurance and it was her position that unless and until they did, no “smart meter” would be installed.

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Rand Paul To Give Official Tea Party Response To SOTU

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Photo Credit: Gage SkidmoreSen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., will deliver the Tea Party’s official response to President Obama’s State of the Union address on Tuesday, Tea Party Express announced on Friday.

Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., will deliver the Republican response.

“Since the President has been re-elected, the debt has continued to skyrocket and unemployment has ticked up, but he has offered no solutions and has shown no leadership,” said Tea Party Express Chairman Amy Kremer. “In contrast, Senator Rand Paul has put forth solutions that would spur economic growth and rein in Washington’s out-of-control spending. We are excited that Senator Paul, a conservative leader and strong voice for the Tea Party movement, will be offering our perspective on the state of the union.”

The first Tea Party response was given by Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., in 2011, and former Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain delivered last year’s response.

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