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June 2016

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on June 17, 2016 7 Comments
Shiloh Gun Range in Houston, Texas has opened their doors to members of the LGBTQ community who want to learn how to defend themselves. What started as an idea to hold a concealed carry class or two for members of the gay community rapidly ballooned into close to 300 class registrants and more emails and phone calls than the range can keep up with. Houston local news reported:
One look at his hole-filled paper target and you can see Ryan Thomas is a great shot. He has had his concealed handgun license for two years. Thomas also happens to be gay.

Posted by Mary Chastain on June 17, 2016 10 Comments
Orlando terrorist Omar Mateen "quit-claimed" his house to his brother-in-law with his wife Noor Salman as a witness in April. Initial reports showed $10 for consideration of the house, but a closer look at the document shows it at $100. https://twitter.com/davereaboi/status/743803321954275329 Did Mateen's family know more about his plans than they let on? The FBI has already toyed with the idea of charging his wife since she never told law enforcement of his desire to commit a terrorist attack on American soil. A quitclaim deed allows a grantor to transfer interest in a property to the grantee. The deed is quite common in divorce cases. It is an active transfer, which means he transferred the property on that day to his brother-in-law Mustafa Abasin and sister Sabrina Abasin.

Posted by Andrew Branca on June 17, 2016 48 Comments
The defense has rested in the "Freddie Gray" trial of van driver Officer Caesar Goodson.  Goodson is charged with murder, manslaughter, second-degree assault, misconduct in office and reckless endangerment , and he is the third officer to be tried in the death of Freddie Gray while in police custody.  The jury trial of Officer William Porter ended in a hung jury, and Porter is scheduled to be re-tried.  The bench trial of Officer Edward Nero ended in an acquittal.  As was the case with Nero, Goodson also elected to have a bench trial. This morning Officer Nero testified as a defense witness in Goodson's trial.  According to reporting by the Baltimore Sun Nero testified that at the second stop of the van Gray was combative with officers, and that Nero heard what he described as "loud banging" coming from the van where Gray was placed by himself.  The Sun reports that prosecutors had few questions for Nero on cross-examination (perhaps they are still recovering from their self-inflicted cross-examination implosion yesterday).

Posted by Miriam Elman on June 17, 2016 14 Comments
Several media watch dog groups (see here and here) have blasted reports published in The Independent, International Business Times, Times of London, and other news outlets for falsely accusing Israel of cutting off drinking water to Palestinians in the West Bank (Judea and Samaria) during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. Each of these news outlets picked up a blatantly incorrect Al Jazeera report that initially included no response from Israel. They ran their own stories with it, accompanied by headlines denunciating Israel for maliciously working to deprive Palestinians of water. https://twitter.com/AJEnglish/status/742968004686778368

Posted by Mark Finkelstein on June 17, 2016 33 Comments
In 1964, Republican Barry Goldwater suffered a devastating landslide loss to LBJ. Aside from his home state of Arizona, Goldwater carried only five other states, all in the Deep South. Goldwater amassed only 52 electoral votes, to Johnson's 486. But even that paltry performance will look "extremely successful" compared to the thrashing that is in store for Donald Trump in November -- if you believe Joe Scarborough. On today's Morning Joe, after reviewing Trump's disapproval numbers with various demographics, Scarborough said "Barry Goldwater is going to look like an extremely successful candidate." Interestingly, Nick Confessore of the New York Times disagreed, arguing that the American electorate is so polarized that LBJ-like landslides are impossible today, and that the candidate of either party has a guaranteed base of 48%.

Posted by Mike LaChance on June 17, 2016 26 Comments
The left is celebrating the passage of a new tax on soda and sugary drinks in Philadelphia. It's the second tax of its kind, the first was in Berkeley, California. This victory will only embolden proponents. CNN reports:
Philadelphia passes a soda tax In a final vote of 13-4, the Philadelphia City Council on Thursday passed a 1.5-cents-per-ounce tax on sugar-added and artificially sweetened soft drinks. That would add 18 cents to the cost of a can of soda, $1.08 for a six-pack or $1.02 for a two-liter bottle.

Posted by Mary Chastain on June 17, 2016 17 Comments
CNNMoney spoke with the person who has hacked Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) accounts with porn and gay pride. WauchulaGhost started the campaign a month ago with only pornography, but added gay pride after Omar Mateen killed 49 people at Pulse, a gay club in Orlando, FL. He said:
"There was a few of us... that discovered a vulnerability," he told CNNMoney. "We thought, 'Hey let's go start taking their accounts ... and humiliating them.'" --- "You had all those innocent lives lost," he told CNNMoney. "I just felt there's something I could do against the Islamic State to defend those people."

Posted by William A. Jacobson on June 16, 2016 18 Comments
We know that media outrage and exaggeration, combined with biased anti-Israel Non-Governmental Organizations and U.N. agencies, form a strategic asset for terrorist groups like Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon. The international reaction to Israeli self-defense measures ignores actual international legal standards, and substitutes completely politicized measures, such as "disproportionality." That term does not mean that one side suffers more than the other in a war; rather it is a case by case measure of whether the threat to innocent civilians in a particular military strike is disproportionate to the military value to be achieved. Israel goes to extraordinary measures to comply with the laws of war, but it doesn't matter to the media and the anti-Israel propaganda machine. Hamas and Hezbollah deliberately store and fire rockets from civilian areas for this very reason. http://youtu.be/A_fP6mlNSK8

Posted by Mary Chastain on June 16, 2016 81 Comments
Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) has blamed due process as the reason why the government cannot pass more gun control. From The Washington Examiner:
"The problem we have, and really the firewall we have right now, is due process. It's all due process," he said Thursday on MSNBC's "Morning Joe." "We can all say we want the same thing," he continued, "but how do we get there?"
I wonder if he gets that THIS is why our awesome Founding Fathers put in the Fifth Amendment.

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on June 16, 2016 15 Comments
Donald Trump for World President! this odd, and very Japanese video explores. I don't even know how to go about explaining what follows, but I can tell you that Donald Trump's head is on a brontosaurus, in the trees, on dictatorial statues, and winking from a picture frame. Just...see for yourself:

Posted by Mary Chastain on June 16, 2016 11 Comments
British Member of Parliament (MP) Jo Cox died after a middle aged man shot her on the street in Birstall, located near Leeds. The police arrested Thomas Mair, 52. Some eyewitnesses said he yelled "Britain first!" when he shot her, but others dispute the claim. Some in Britain have pushed the country to leave the European Union. Mair attacked Cox after she held her weekly office hours with constituents:
"The gun went off twice and then she fell between two cars and I came and saw her bleeding on the floor," shop owner Hichem Ben Abdallah told ITV News. Clarke Rothwell told the BBC that the suspect, who was wearing a baseball hat, lunged at Cox with a knife after he opened fire. "People were screaming and running from the area," Rothwell added.

Posted by Andrew Branca on June 16, 2016 89 Comments
As we've previously discussed, State prosecutors in the trial of van driver Officer Caesar Goodson were forced at the last minute to change their theory of the case from "Murder by Failure to Provide Medical Care" to "Murder by Rough Ride" after the evidentiary foundation for the prior theory evaporated. Yesterday prosecutors called as a witness a purported expert on "rough rides."  Apparently the cross-examination of this witness by the defense was nothing short of brutal. In addition, it's being reported today that prosecutors have taken to explaining away their imploding case by claiming--for the first time ever in these Freddie Gray" trials--that police detectives deliberately threw the investigation so as to prevent convictions. Before I go on, I want to give a large hat-tip to Mike McDaniel at Stately McDaniel Manor for bringing this to my attention.  Mike is doing his own excellent coverage of these Freddie Gray trials.  I also need to acknowledge Twitchy for capturing the live Tweets of Baltimore Sun Kevin Rector, @RectorSun. Rather than write out a lengthy narrative, I'm going to let Kevin Rector's tweets speak for themselves.  I present them here in chronological order, first on the matter of "rough ride" expert witness for the State, Neil Franklin.

Posted by Mary Chastain on June 16, 2016 10 Comments
New developments keep popping up with the terrorist attack in Orlando, FL, that left 49 dead and over 50 injured. This is what we know so far. Leslie wrote a post with the names of the victims and some stories about them. Our thoughts and prayers stay with them and their families during this hard time. We also wish a speedy recovery to the injured. Omar Mateen murdered those 49 people at Pulse, a popular gay club, as he pledged allegiance to the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL). The terrorist group has taken advantage of this and used his image in their latest recruitment ad, but no evidence exists that that Mateen ever communicated with the group. Officials discovered that Mateen watched numerous ISIS beheadings online. One official told CNN that the terrorist "consumed a hell of a lot of jihadist propaganda." He even wrote on Facebook about his allegiance to ISIS during his attack:
“I pledge my alliance to (ISIS leader) abu bakr al Baghdadi..may Allah accept me,” Mateen wrote in one post early Sunday morning. “The real muslims will never accept the filthy ways of the west” …“You kill innocent women and children by doing us airstrikes..now taste the Islamic state vengeance.”

Posted by Vijeta Uniyal on June 16, 2016 2 Comments
What should be first of its kind, a leading German bank has shut down an account connected to the anti-Israel boycott campaign -- also know by the acronym of BDS. Commerzbank, Germany’s second largest bank, closed the account of anti-Israel and pro-BDS website “Der Semit”. The action is expected to have implications for other banks providing services to groups affiliated to the BDS campaign throughout Germany. Israeli Minister for Public Security Gilad Erdan welcomed the decision taken by Commerzbank and urged other European banks to take similar steps against anti-Israel and anti-Semitic groups raising funds and carrying out transactions in Europe.

Posted by Mike LaChance on June 16, 2016 17 Comments
In another banner moment for the University of Missouri, student race activists hijacked a vigil for the victims of the Orlando terror attack this week. The College Fix reported:
WATCH: Mizzou race activist hijacks Orlando vigil as gay community rebukes her A vigil Monday planned by several University of Missouri student organizations was supposed to honor victims of Sunday morning’s deadly shooting rampage in a popular gay nightclub in Orlando, Fla. It turned into a blame session against Mizzou’s LGBTQ community for not being intersectional enough. Latino activists, including a Mizzou official, scolded the mostly white gathering for ignoring racial issues. That led one attendee to fume on Facebook that the organizers had invented a “race issue” out of a “homophobic attack” by gunman Omar Mateen.

Posted by Mark Finkelstein on June 16, 2016 47 Comments
There was a stunning moment on today's Morning Joe, when Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson was stumped when asked a simple question. With all the brouhaha over gun control in the wake of the Orlando massacre, what law could have stopped Omar Mateen? It was, of all people, Sam Stein of the Huffington Post who asked the killer question. Stein pointed out that Mateen was not on the no-fly or terrorist watch list, and had passed a background check. "So what is the actual legislative response" that would have stopped the Orlando attack? Johnson resorted to claiming that Congress had "a lot of ideas," but could not name one that would have made a difference. He also repeatedly recited the new mantra: gun control is a matter of homeland security. Bottom line: the Dem clamor for gun control is a political stunt. It's about increasing vote totals, not public safety.

Posted by New Neo on June 15, 2016 18 Comments
In the wake of the Orlando attack, we have seen the revival of an old debate in which Obama and the left refuse to name this enemy. Either they can't even say the word "terrorist," or they can't use any modifier that implies that Islam has anything to do with it. After a large and deadly attack such as the one in Orlando, where it was clear almost immediately that the perpetrator was an Islamic (or Islamicist, or radical Islamic) terrorist, it is glaringly apparent that Obama is refusing to call the attack what it is. And this is a weakness that Donald Trump is determined to exploit, and rightly so. Does it matter what we call perpetrators such as Omar Mateen? Obviously, both Obama and Trump---coming from opposite sides of the question---agree on the fact that it does matter, or this rhetorical battle wouldn't be going on. By using the words he uses, Trump wants to signal his resolve to oppose Islamic terrorism, as well as opposition to PC leftist language. What does Obama want to signal? Deference to the Muslim community, emphasis on his underlying policy goal of increased gun control, and minimization of the hugely increased threat from ISIS that occurred on his watch while he poo-pooed it.
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