Via WXIN:
A special tribute to fallen officers is on display at the Boone County Sheriff’s Office.
They installed a Christmas tree with 137 blue ornaments to represent the 137 officers killed in the line of duty this year, including Boone County’s own Deputy Jacob Pickett.
“It means a lot to all of us – we were all very close. He was a wonderful officer, and it’s our way of honoring him and the other 136 officers that have been killed this year,” said Mike Gideon, Boone County Senior Dispatch Officer.
Each ornament was hand-written with the officer’s name, rank, and end of watch date.
“That’s a life. That’s a life that matters. That’s a chair that’s empty. That’s a car that’s not being driven. That is an incredible hero that’s no longer walking our streets, so it meant something,” said Joni Scott, Boone Co Sheriff’s Office Chaplain.
After Christmas, each ornament will be sent to the department where the officer worked.
“It may just seem like a bulb you’re sending someone but it’s not, and I think it’s going to mean a great deal to them,” said Scott.
Dapandico | December 12, 2018 10:02 pm | Comments
If Aaron Feis had been armed, he could have saved lives.
Via Huff Po:
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — The panel investigating the Florida high school massacre recommended Wednesday that teachers who volunteer and undergo extensive background checks and training be allowed to carry concealed guns on campus to stop future shootings.
The Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Public Safety Commission voted 13-1 to recommend the Legislature allow the arming of teachers, saying it’s not enough to have one or two police officers or armed guards on campus. Florida law adopted after the Feb. 14 shooting that left 17 dead allows districts to arm non-teaching staff members such as principals, librarians and custodians — 13 of the 67 districts do, mostly in rural parts of the state.
Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri, the commission’s chairman, pushed the measure at the Tallahassee meeting. He said most deaths in school shootings happen within the first few minutes, before officers on and off campus can respond. He said suspect Nikolas Cruz stopped to reload his AR-15 semi-automatic rifle five times, all of which would have been opportunities for an armed teacher to shoot him.
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Nickarama | December 12, 2018 9:12 pm | Comments
Another loon from California.
Nickarama | December 12, 2018 8:35 pm | Comments
She thinks raising taxes is good.
Via Daily Caller:
House Democrats caved to their progressive wing Tuesday and decided to scrap a rule that would have required a three-fifths supermajority vote to pass any new tax hikes.
Democratic New York Rep.-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez celebrated the move.
“When I first won, folks said we were too naive, inexperienced, and uninformed to be effective,” Ocasio-Cortez wrote on Twitter Tuesday. “Yet in our first weeks, we elevated Green New Deal to national urgency, secured 30 cosponsors on a Select Committee, and helped stop a bad tax rule. I’d say we’re off to a good start.”
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Nickarama | December 12, 2018 8:00 pm | Comments
But yeah, no danger with people like this behind the effort.
Via Daily Caller:
A suspect in a 1987 bombing that wounded six American soldiers in Honduras is leading a group of migrants demanding entry into the United States.
Alfonso Guerrero Ulloa organized a march of approximately 100 migrants to the U.S. Consulate in Tijuana, Mexico, on Tuesday, The San Diego Union-Tribune reported. Ulloa delivered a letter to the consulate on behalf of the migrants, asking for either entry into the U.S. or a payment of $50,000 per person.
“It may seem like a lot of money to you,” Ulloa told the Union-Tribune. “But it is a small sum compared to everything the United States has stolen from Honduras.”
Ulloa has lived in Mexico since 1987 after fleeing Honduras in the wake of a bombing that wounded six soldiers. Ulloa was suspected of planting a bomb in a Chinese restaurant, but received asylum from Mexico, whose government described the suspected terrorist as a “freedom fighter.”
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Nickarama | December 12, 2018 7:30 pm | Comments
Are they kidding? And this woman is on the Supreme Court.
Nickarama | December 12, 2018 7:00 pm | Comments
Way to distract from Denhollander with this creepy woman.
Via Daily Wire:
On Tuesday evening, Sports Illustrated announced the person they were acknowledging as their “Inspiration of the Year.” They made a singularly appropriate choice, naming Rachel Denhollander, the lawyer and gymnast who was the first woman to come forward with charges of sexual assault against former Michigan State and USA Gymnastics doctor Larry Nasser.
But Sports Illustrated also chose someone whom some people might find inappropriate to present the award: Christine Blasey Ford, who made uncorroborated, unverifiable, and unsubstantiated accusations against Judge Brett Kavanaugh that he had sexually assaulted her when they were both teenagers. As Rachel Mitchell, Nominations Investigative Counsel United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary, wrote in a comprehensive analysis of Blasey Ford’s testimony:
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Nickarama | December 12, 2018 6:31 pm | Comments
In their constant quest to tax everything.
Via Mercury News:
Texting your sweetheart that you’re on your way home? California may soon charge you for that.
This is no LOL matter, critics say.
State regulators have been ginning up a scheme to charge a fee for text messaging on mobile phones to help support programs that make phone service accessible to the poor. The wireless industry and business groups have been working to defeat the proposal, now scheduled for a vote next month by the California Public Utilities Commission.
“It’s a dumb idea,” said Jim Wunderman, president of the Bay Area Council business-sponsored advocacy group. “This is how conversations take place in this day and age, and it’s almost like saying there should be a tax on the conversations we have.”
It’s unclear how much individual consumers would be asked to pay their wireless carrier for texting services under the proposal. But it likely would be billed as a flat surcharge per customer — one of those irksome fees at the bottom of your wireless bill — not a fee per text.
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Nickarama | December 12, 2018 6:10 pm | Comments
ZIP | December 12, 2018 5:00 pm | Comments
It will go in the books as a hate crime.
Via WBTV:
UNC Charlotte is looking into an incident where a figure hanging from a noose was spotted on campus.
School staff says the figure, now removed, was part of a final project for one of the art department’s classes. But that wasn’t clear to students when the figure was briefly hanging outside Rowe Arts building without explanation.
“We’ve come so far yet we still have so far to go,” Sophomore Camille Barfield says. “And just, I don’t know how someone can have it in their heart to put that up.”
“It could be a sign to someone else’s culture and I don’t think that’s right,” Senior Alexandria Stone says. “We don’t want to offend someone’s culture and we’re a multicultural university.”
A photo of the figure, hanging by a noose, was posted by a student on social media, but taken down soon after, once the dean responded and had the figure removed from the tree.
The chair of the art department tells WBTV this is part of an “installation” project for a foundation class, submitted by a student of color, and wasn’t meant to stay up beyond the student’s final critique.
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Dapandico | December 12, 2018 4:30 pm | Comments
Safe bet for the Trump-bashing fest and presentation of participation trophies.
Via NBC News:
After comedian Kevin Hart stepped down last week as 2019’s Oscars host following the unearthing of past homophobic tweets and jokes, speculation and opinions quickly surfaced online about who would and should take his place at the February awards show. Among those most mentioned was lesbian comic Wanda Sykes.
“Wanda would be lit,” Emmy-winning writer and actress Lena Waithe told Variety. “I vote for Wanda or Donald [Glover] or get Chris Rock back in there.” Ultimately, Waithe, who has previously called for an increase in black media representation, said she hopes “it’s somebody black and somebody funny.”
Sykes, an Emmy- and GLAAD-winning entertainer, came out publicly in 2008. In addition to stand-up comedy, her long TV resume includes appearances on “The Chris Rock Show,” “Curb Your Enthusiasm” and “Black-ish.”
Bryan Guffey, board president for the Midwest Institute for Sexuality and Gender Diversity, said Sykes’ intersectionality as a queer black women would help to “rectify the harm done against the LGBTQ community” by Hart’s tweets.
“Wanda Sykes is very funny and a brilliant comedian who also is a black woman, so it makes a lot of sense for her to be the replacement,” Guffey said. “We’d get a great host and someone who is a direct response to the homophobia.”
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Dapandico | December 12, 2018 4:01 pm | Comments
Motive not being released by authorities. Update to this story.
Via TOI:
French authorities detained five people as they hunted Wednesday for a suspected extremist who sprayed gunfire at one of Europe’s most famous Christmas markets in the eastern city of Strasbourg.
Meanwhile, medical officials lowered the death toll from Tuesday night’s attack from three to two, and then raised it back to three again. It was not immediately clear why the figures were changed. Thirteen people were wounded.
The government raised the security alert level and sent police reinforcements to Strasbourg, where some 350 security forces are searching for the assailant. Police officials said he was wounded in a gunfight with soldiers after the shooting attack but escaped, and a top official said he might have escaped to neighboring Germany.
The suspected attacker is Cherif Chekatta, 29, with a police record in France and Germany who had been flagged for extremism, police said. Police detained five people in overnight searches around the city, Laurent Nunez, secretary of state for the Interior Ministry, said on France-Inter radio.
A terrorism investigation was opened, but the suspected motive for the attack was not officially announced. Nunez said eight of the injured are in serious condition, and the city mayor said some had head wounds.
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Dapandico | December 12, 2018 3:30 pm | Comments
Break out the yellow vests.
Via Chicago Tribune:
Mayor Rahm Emanuel and a group of suburban leaders on Tuesday called for a 20 to 30 cent per gallon increase in the state’s gas tax to fund a major statewide transportation bill.
Emanuel spearheaded the push during a City Hall news conference in which he was joined by a handful of suburban mayors and regional planners. The mayor’s office also released a list of 26 suburban mayors and village presidents who supported the tax increase.
“We are facing a historic moment, and I stand with a group of bipartisan mayors on behalf of a new transportation bill that should happen in Springfield,” Emanuel said alongside the mayors of Park Forest, Hazel Crest, Oswego, Fox River Grove, Joliet, Batavia, Broadview and Ford Heights.
“Our state can’t wait any longer,” Emanuel continued. “Over the last four years, we’ve been stuck in neutral and the states in the surrounding area — Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Iowa just to name a few — have passed transportation bills with gas tax increases.” The mayor noted all of the states were controlled by Republican governors and legislatures at the time of the tax increases.
Illinois last raised the gas tax from 16 cents per gallon to 19 cents in 1990. Emanuel said raising the tax by 20 cents would be about the equivalent to inflation over the past 28 years. He said the group of mayors settled on a range of 20 cents to 30 cents to serve as a guideline for state lawmakers when they take up debate on the issue next year.
“For over a century, this region has been America’s crossroads for roads, rails and runways. The truth is it is a fundamental economic strength for the region and a job creator for the region,” Emanuel said. “And over the last 28 years, we have not been investing in that strength and it is beginning to show the wear and tear. Chicago and the greater Chicago metro area is losing some of the jobs and economic opportunity that would come if you had a 21st century transportation system to back up a 21st century economy.”
Chicago Department of Transportation Commissioner Rebekah Scheinfeld said that a 20 cent increase in the gas tax would produce an estimated $320 million in additional transportation funding for the Chicago region. Emanuel’s administration estimated that the same 20 cent increase would bring the city an additional $80 million per year.
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Dapandico | December 12, 2018 3:00 pm | Comments
ZIP | December 12, 2018 2:30 pm | Comments
Birth control is an individual responsibility.
Via Washington Examiner:
Christian organizations do not need to comply with Obamacare’s birth control mandate, a federal judge ruled Tuesday.
Judge Philip Brimmer of the U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado ordered that the federal government cannot enforce the provision, which obligates employers to pay for health insurance for their workers that covers all forms of contraception without a copay.
Brimmer, an appointee of former President George W. Bush, determined that the rule violated rights established by the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.
The mandate was challenged by six Christian organizations, including the Association of Christian Schools International, Samaritan Ministries International, Taylor University, Indiana Wesleyan University, Asbury Theological Seminary, and the Alliance Defending Freedom.
The birth control mandate was created as an outgrowth of Obamacare. The law was written to allow the Department of Health and Human Services to decide what type of preventive care health insurance plans should cover without a copay, and the Obama administration determined that all forms of birth control should be included.
The obligation previously had exemptions for houses of worship, but not for companies that had closely held religious beliefs. Those who didn’t comply would be fined, and after the Supreme Court asked the Obama administration to find a work-around, groups again challenged them in court.
The Trump administration didn’t fight the challenge to the mandate and also has loosened the birth control rule by allowing employers to opt out of the mandate if they have religious or moral objections. The change is set to take effect at the beginning of 2019.
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Dapandico | December 12, 2018 2:00 pm | Comments
The caravan isn’t about amnesty, it is about money.
Via Fox News:
Two groups of Central American migrants marched to the U.S. Consulate in Tijuana on Tuesday with a list of demands, with one group delivering an ultimatum to the Trump administration: either let them in the U.S. or pay them $50,000 each to go home, a report said.
Among other demands were that deportations be halted and that asylum seekers be processed faster and in greater numbers, the San Diego Union-Tribune reported.
The first group of caravan members, that included about 100 migrants, arrived at the consulate around 11 a.m. Alfonso Guerreo Ulloa, an organizer from Honduras, said the $50,000 figure was chosen as a group.
“It may seem like a lot of money to you,” Ulloa told the paper. “But it is a small sum compared to everything the United States has stolen from Honduras.”
He said the money would allow the migrants to return home and start a small business.
A letter from the group criticized U.S. intervention in Central America and asked the U.S. to remove Honduran President Orlando Hernandez from office. They gave the consulate 72 hours to respond.
A letter from the second group of about 50 migrants arrived at the consulate around 1:20 p.m. asking the U.S. to speed up the asylum process and to admit up to 300 asylum seekers each day at the San Ysidro Port of Entry in San Diego. Currently, around 40 to 100 are admitted.
“In the meantime, families, women and children who have fled our countries continue to suffer and the civil society of Tijuana continue to be forced to confront this humanitarian crisis, a refugee crisis caused in great part by decades of U.S. intervention in Central America,” the letter states.
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Dapandico | December 12, 2018 1:30 pm | Comments
Can we say abuse of power, folks? This used to be for third wold countries. But with the left, it’s now here.
Via NBC:
New York Attorney Gen.-elect Letitia James says she plans to launch sweeping investigations into President Donald Trump, his family and “anyone” in his circle who may have violated the law once she settles into her new job next month.
“We will use every area of the law to investigate President Trump and his business transactions and that of his family as well,” James, a Democrat, told NBC News in her first extensive interview since she was elected last month.
James outlined some of the probes she intends to pursue with regard to the president, his businesses and his family members. They include:
Any potential illegalities involving Trump’s real estate holdings in New York, highlighting a New York Times investigation published in October into the president’s finances.
The June 2016 Trump Tower meeting with a Russian official.
Examine government subsidies Trump received, which were also the subject of Times investigative work.
Whether he is in violation of the emoluments clause in the U.S. Constitution through his New York businesses.
Continue to probe the Trump Foundation.
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Nickarama | December 12, 2018 1:00 pm | Comments
Via Fox News:
Michael Cohen, the president’s former fixer who once famously claimed he was willing to “take a bullet” for Donald Trump before later turning against his boss, was sentenced to three years in prison Wednesday by a federal judge in New York after pleading guilty to numerous crimes while cooperating with prosecutors.
Before sentencing, Cohen also ripped into his former boss in federal court on Wednesday, telling a judge he felt it was his duty to cover up president’s “dirty deeds.”
Cohen appeared before U.S. District Judge William Pauley III for sentencing after pleading guilty to campaign finance violations, tax evasion and lying to Congress about Trump’s past business dealings in Russia. He was seen entering the Manhattan courthouse Wednesday accompanied by members of his family.
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Nickarama | December 12, 2018 12:30 pm | Comments
They didn’t think he had “lied” until Mueller took over. Meanwhile, Clinton folks destroyed evidence, told whoppers in their interviews and Clinton even got to have Cheryl Mills, a potential defendant/witness sit in on her interview as her “lawyer.”
Via Fox News:
In a lengthy court filing Tuesday, attorneys for former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn alleged that then-FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe pushed Flynn not to have an attorney present during the questioning that ultimately led to his guilty plea on a single charge of lying to federal authorities.
The document outlines, with striking new details, the rapid sequence of events that led to Flynn’s sudden fall from the Trump administration. The filing also seemingly demonstrates that the FBI took a significantly more aggressive tack in handling the Flynn interview than it did during other similar matters, including the agency’s sit-downs with Hillary Clinton and ex-Trump adviser George Papadopoulos.
While Flynn is among several Trump associates to have been charged with making false statements as part of the Russia probe, no one interviewed during the FBI’s Clinton email investigation was hit with false statement charges – though investigators believed some witnesses were untruthful.
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Nickarama | December 12, 2018 12:03 pm | Comments
Warning: what has been seen cannot be unseen.
Via Daily Mail:
Hillary Clinton tried her hand at Bollywood dancing last night at the wedding of India’s richest heiress.
The former first lady, who was seen wearing a back brace this summer, looked fit as a fiddle as she boogied with the king of Bollywood himself, Shah Rukh Khan.
Dressed in Indian attire, the 71-year-old swung her hips and threw her arms in the air with a beaming smile.
Mrs Clinton was joined by former Secretary of State John Kerry and a host of jubilant guests at the $100million bash in Mumbai.
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Nickarama | December 12, 2018 11:30 am | Comments
