DonViejo
DonViejo's JournalVictim in loud music shooting case was in defensive posture, expert testifies
Source: Reuters
The trajectory of the bullets that killed an unarmed teen in a gas station dispute over loud rap music indicates that the victim could not have been in an aggressive pose, a forensic expert testified on Monday in a racially charged north Florida murder trial.
Michael Dunn, 47, a white software engineer, is being retried for first-degree murder in the death of 17-year-old Jordan Davis, who was black.
Dunn fired 10 rounds at an SUV carrying Davis and his three friends at a Jacksonville gas station in November 2012. Prosecutors say Dunn over-reacted after Davis insulted him for asking to turn the music down.
Dunn’s lawyers say he acted in self-defense because of a “perceived threat” that his life was in danger, alleging that Davis was getting out of the car in attack mode when the shots were fired.
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Read more: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/09/victim-in-loud-music-shooting-case-was-in-defensive-posture-expert-testifies/
Obama goal of Gitmo closure stalled at Pentagon
Source: ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON (AP) — The transfer of prisoners out of Guantanamo Bay has ground to a halt amid a slow Pentagon approval process, causing deep frustration within the administration and raising doubts that President Barack Obama will be able to fulfill his campaign promise to close the offshore prison for terrorism suspects.
A detainee sent back to his native Algeria in March is the only prisoner to have moved out this year, beyond the controversial exchange of five Taliban members in return for long-held captive U.S. Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl.
The slow pace is the result of the law that gives Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel — not the commander in chief — the final authority to transfer any of the 149 terror suspects being held at Guantanamo. Pentagon officials say they must carefully consider the risks before signing off, given that others have returned to terrorism.
The White House has reminded the Pentagon that recidivism risks must be weighed against the danger to the United States in keeping the Cuban prison open. Obama has said Guantanamo’s continued operation hurts U.S. standing overseas and is a recruitment tool for terrorists.
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Read more: http://www.salon.com/2014/09/30/obama_goal_of_gitmo_closure_stalled_at_pentagon/
National Review Writer: Women Who Have Abortions Should Be Hanged
By DANIEL STRAUSS Published SEPTEMBER 29, 2014, 2:58 PM EDT
Kevin Williamson, a correspondent for National Review, suggested Monday that women who have abortions should be hanged.
Williamson's tweet came in a back-and-forth on twitter that started with Williamson's piece criticizing a blog post by actress and director Lena Dunham on why women should vote.
The key part of the exchange was captured by Charles Johnson of the blog Little Green Footballs. Here is the exchange:
more
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/kevin-williamson-abortion-tweet
McConnell’s backers spend millions in Kentucky
Source: ASSOCIATED PRESS
LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) — Two groups with close ties to Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell are on track to spend nearly $20 million on television advertisements to sway Kentucky voters, a staggering amount for a single race that stands as a textbook example of the use of outside money in a tight contest.
While the effort began more than a year ago, the majority of the advertising by the Kentucky Opportunity Coalition and Kentuckians for Strong Leadership has aired since McConnell and Democrat Alison Lundergan Grimes won primaries in mid-May.
Much of it is relentlessly negative toward the Democratic challenger and President Barack Obama, who is highly unpopular in the state. “Liberals coast to coast are rolling out the red carpet for Alison Grimes. She’s backed by Obama’s biggest fundraisers,” said one early ad.
“Obamacare, the war on coal, big spending, higher taxes. That’s Obama’s agenda. And Alison Grimes supports Obama,” said another.
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Read more: http://www.salon.com/2014/09/29/mcconnells_backers_spend_millions_in_kentucky/
Pennsylvania priest ordered detained until trial
Source: ASSOCIATED PRESS
JOHNSTOWN, Pa. (AP) — A Roman Catholic priest from Pennsylvania was ordered to remain jailed until his trial on charges that he possessed child pornography and traveled to Honduras for sex with children during missionary trips.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Keith Pesto ordered the Rev. Joseph Maurizio Jr., 69, detained after prosecution evidence contrasted sharply with character witnesses who on Monday described the defendant as “priestly, faithful and committed to helping.”
“What you’re describing is Jekyll and Hyde, Father Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,” Pesto said, before noting he can’t let “Jekyll go free and detain Mr. Hyde.”
Maurizio has been jailed since Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents arrested him Thursday. A criminal complaint alleges Maurizio gave boys candy and money so he could molest them — including performing a sex act on a 14-year-old in a chapel — or watch the boys have sex. It happened during missions trips to Honduras with his self-run charity in 2009 and prior years, according to the complaint. Maurizio has been placed on leave from the Somerset County church he also pastored.
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Read more: http://www.salon.com/2014/09/29/pennsylvania_priest_ordered_detained_until_trial/
Number of US kids in foster care up after long dip
Source: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DAVID CRARY, ASSOCIATED PRESS
New federal figures show that the number of U.S. children in foster care rose slightly last year after dropping for seven straight years.
The annual report from the Department of Health and Human Services tallied 402,378 children in the foster care system as of September 30, 2013, up from about 397,000 a year earlier, but still down dramatically from a decade earlier. The peak number was 524,000 children in foster care in 2002, and the number had dropped steadily since 2005.
The long-term drop resulted primarily from a shift in the policies and practices of state and county child welfare agencies. Many shortened stays in foster care, expedited adoptions and expanded preventive support for troubled families so more children avoided being removed from home in the first place.
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Read more: http://www.salon.com/2014/09/29/number_of_us_kids_in_foster_care_up_after_long_dip/
Glenn Greenwald: U.S. manufactured militant threat as pretext to bomb Syria
In an extensive new report, The Intercept questions whether the much-hyped Khorasan Group actually exists VIDEOLUKE BRINKER
Until the Obama administration announced last week that it was launching air strikes in Syria to target the Islamic State (ISIS) and an al-Qaeda affiliate called the Khorasan Group, most Americans had never heard of the latter organization.
That’s because the U.S. government invented the threat, The Intercept’s Glenn Greenwald and Murtaza Hussain charge. In an extensive new report, the journalists document a carefully orchestrated campaign by U.S. officials to depict an imminent threat of terror attacks by Khorasan against U.S. targets. Media outlets suddenly zeroed in on Khorasan, hyping the alleged threat the group could pose, Greenwald and Hussain write.
Claims that Khorasan planned to launch attacks the U.S. came from anonymous officials who provided thin evidence that any such plans were at risk of being carried out. But, Greenwald and Hussain contend, “American media outlets – eager, as always, to justify Americans wars – spewed all of this with very little skepticism.”
However, mere days after anonymous officials were telling journalists of the sophisticated, far-reaching plots hacked by Khorasan, officials are backtracking. A new AP story – written by a journalist who’d previously spoken with officials hyping the Khorasan threat – notes that FBI director James Comey and Pentagon spokesman Admiral James Kirby have said they don’t have “precise intelligence about where or when the cell … would attempt to strike a Western target.”
more + video
http://www.salon.com/2014/09/29/glenn_greenwald_u_s_manufactured_militant_threat_as_pretext_to_bomb_syria/
George Zimmerman's Dad: If FBI Comes For My Son, 'He’s Probably Gonna Shoot A Few Of Them'
By AIZA GARCIA Published SEPTEMBER 29, 2014, 1:51 PM EDT
In the years since he shot and killed unarmed black teenager Trayvon Martin, former Florida neighborhood watchman George Zimmerman has reportedly lived in fear.
That fear is so strong, his father reportedly told GQ magazine for its upcoming October issue, that he worries it may result in the shooting of some FBI agents.
Robert Zimmerman told GQ that his son is nervous about his safety in general after becoming the focus of national attention following the shooting. He also said his son is concerned about the possibility of being charged with federal civil rights violations, despite being acquitted on state criminal charges last year, according to the magazine.
He's worried "if FBI agents come and kick in his door, he's probably gonna shoot a few of them," Robert Zimmerman said, according to GQ.
more
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/george-zimmerman-fbi-agents-shooting
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“You and your brother are evil”: GQ’s insane profile of George Zimmerman’s family
"They memorized a color-coded threat-ID system... Code brown: Draw your weapons. Code black: Come out guns blazing"
JOANNA ROTHKOPF
October’s issue of GQ features a profile of the family of George Zimmerman, the man who owes his life to Florida’s Stand Your Ground law and extremely understanding jurors, after fatally shooting Trayvon Martin. Writer Amanda Robb paints a picture of a family tormented by paranoia, as the Zimmermans struggle to live in a country where the vast majority of the population despises their brother.
Here are a few of the most fascinating, heart-breaking, complicated moments.
Their paranoid security protocols
“They watched the movie Argo to learn how to live like CIA. Code names for everyone. No mail delivered to the house. No visitors. No talking to the few neighbors they had. No long phone conversations — keep it short and vague to outwit surveillance. Never discuss your whereabouts via phone or text. Keep a weapon close by at all times. [George's brother] Robert slept with his gun. Still does.
“And in case someone–or multiple someones–decided to mount an attack on the house, the Zimmermans pre-packed their own “go-bags” filled with everything they would need to flee in a rush, as well as what they called “footballs” — like the one President Obama has with the nuclear codes–that contained laptops, cell phones, and other essential electronics.
more
http://www.salon.com/2014/09/29/the_most_bizarre_moments_from_the_zimmerman_family_gq_profile/
Famed WaPo Editor Ben Bradlee Now In Hospice Care
By CATHERINE THOMPSON Published SEPTEMBER 29, 2014, 9:46 AM EDT
Famed former Washington Post executive editor Ben Bradlee is now in hospice care, his wife Sally Quinn said Sunday.
Quinn, who writes a column on religion for the Post, told C-SPAN that her husband began hospice care earlier this month. Last year, she gave journalist Mark Leibovich permission to report for the first time in his book "This Town" that Bradlee, 93, suffers from dementia.
"It's been the most horrible experience I've ever had up until recently -- and he's still at home, I still have him sleeping in the bed with me and I will, until the end -- a certain peace has come over me, and this feeling of serenity," Quinn told C-SPAN. "Because what I thought was going to be horrible, the caretaking part of it, has become almost sacred." Bradlee can still recognize Quinn despite his declining health, she said.
The former executive editor is one of the most famous and respected newsmen of his generation, having helmed the Post in the era of the Pentagon Papers and the Watergate scandal. Last year, he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
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http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/ben-bradlee-in-hospice-care
Discrimination is an “inalienable” right: The 5 juiciest revelations in The New Yorker’s Rand Paul p
Discrimination is an “inalienable” right: The 5 juiciest revelations in The New Yorker’s Rand Paul profileFrom tensions with Ron Paul to his support for legalized discrimination, a new profile sheds an unflattering light
LUKE BRINKER
The forthcoming issue of The New Yorker features an engrossing 12,000-word deep dive into Sen. Rand Paul’s bid to take his libertarian conservative message mainstream ahead of a potential 2016 run for the White House.
The profile, by the magazine’s Ryan Lizza, rehashes familiar territory – Ron Paul’s racist newsletters, the notorious “Aqua Buddha” incident, and Paul’s train wreck of an interview with Rachel Maddow on the Civil Rights Act of 1964. But Lizza also unearths fascinating tidbits about Paul’s past and what may lie in store for the senator.
From political tensions between Paul and his father to his long track record of support for legalized discrimination, here are five key takeaways from the piece.
Paul vs. Paul?
While nobody ever thought Ron Paul stood a serious chance of winning the GOP nod in either 2008 or 2012, Rand Paul would be a real contender if he entered the field. That’s largely because while Ron Paul fancies himself an anti-politician – with a penchant for rhetoric that infuriated large segments of his own party – his son is less keen to alienate GOP factions he would need to win in a general election, including more hawkish members of the party.
more
http://www.salon.com/2014/09/29/discrimination_is_an_inalienable_right_the_5_juiciest_revelations_in_the_new_yorker%E2%80%99s_rand_paul_profile/
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Name: DonGender: Male
Hometown: Massachusetts
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Member since: Sat Sep 1, 2012, 03:28 PM
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