There is an interesting case out of Leroy, Alabama where Nathanial Johnson, 68, is facing an investigation after subduing and trying a burglar to a tree. By the time, he returned with the police, the man, Cleveland Jones Gully, 31, was dead and Johnson could go from the victim to the accused in a criminal case.
Yesterday, I took my son Jack and my nephew Jake (from Florida) on one of my favorite hikes: Little Devil’s Staircase. Located in Shenandoah National Park, it is a tough hike up a gorge with wonderful waterfalls and rock scrambles. It was raining when we arrived, which is not ideal due to the risk of slipping and the water pouring down the trail. However, the rain and misty conditions added to the size of the waterfalls and made the hike even more beautiful than usual.
If you said impersonating a police officer to meet Hooters waitresses, you have a gift. Nicholas M. Fuhst, 18, went into a Hooters in Kochville Township, Michigan and said that he was an undercover cop in need for reviewing the background information of various waitresses. They gave him the information but also gave the real police a call. Fuhst has now pleaded no contest to impersonating a police officer.
Continue reading “Can You Guess What This Person Was Charged With?”
Charles James Cahill, Jr., 49, is someone all too familiar to police. Cahill has 12 prior drunk driving convictions. He can now add a 13th arrest, but in this latest case there is a dead 12-year-old girl. Cahill hit a family’s van from behind on July 27th at 8:18 p.m. He then tested at almost three times the legal level of alcohol in his blood. Notably, his license was revoked by the Secretary of State in 1990. He is now facing charges of second-degree murder, operating with a high blood alcohol content causing death, operating while intoxicated third offense and driving while license suspended causing death and a misdemeanor charge of open intoxicants in a motor vehicle.
Below is my recent column in USA Today on the anger of voters with the two mainstream presidential nominees and my recent trip to Alaska. Below are some pictures from the visit to Mike Carpenter’s trading post on the way to Denali National Park.
Continue reading “American Politics And The Search For Authenticity In A Trip To Alaska”
In May, we discussed the highly disturbing incident of DePaul security standing around as a conservative speaker was prevented from speaking on campus. It was a terrible low for DePaul in allowing free speech to be denied to appease those who believe that only their views should be heard on campus. Now another conservative speaker, Ben Shapiro, has reported that his event was canceled after objections from protesters.
Continue reading “DePaul Reportedly Bars Conservative Speaker To Avoid Protesters and Objections”
There was a deeply disturbing scene in Louisville when a female prisoner was brought into court without pants. Kentucky Judge Amber Wolf was rightfully irate and called the jail directly from the courtroom. What is equally disturbing is that this woman was in court for simply failing to complete a diversion program on a 2014 shoplifting charge, but held for three days and denied feminine hygiene products in jail.
Ali Hammuda, an Imam at a Cardiff mosque, seems intent on maintaining a position as one of the most hateful and extreme voices in the West when it comes to Islamic values. Hammuda first attracted international attention when three young men from his mosque who became extremists in ISIS in Syria. He is now back in the news after a secret recording shows him telling his followers that it is permissible and moral under the teachings of Mohammed to have sex slaves.
There is an interesting free speech controversy in Melbourne and on the Internet. Melbourne street artist, Lushsux, has not only been told by a city council to remove a parody mural of Hillary Clinton but his Instagram account has been shutdown. Once again, the concern is that there remains a overt liberal bias in the sanctioning of comments or images on the Internet. Twitter for example has been repeatedly criticized for its barring or harassing conservative writers. UPDATE: Lushsux has responded to the city demands by painting over the picture to place Clinton in a burka.
Continue reading “Instagram Closes Artist’s Site After Posting Clinton Parody [UPDATED]”
There were two interesting polls this week that present together a humorous, if chilling, picture of the state of the American democratic process. According to the New York Times, only nine percent chose Clinton and Trump as nominees. That is unfortunately no surprise. Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton are the least popular candidates ever to secure nominations of the two parties. Then the Public Policy Polling found that in a general election matchup, five percent of Americans would vote for Harambe, the endangered gorilla that was shot and killed in May after carrying a 4-year-old around inside his habitat at the Cincinnati Zoo. Indeed, not only did five percent prefer Harambe (which seems quite sensible given the choices) but another four percent was undecided. So, those who want Trump and Clinton represent the same percentage as those who either prefer or might consider voting for a gorilla.
We have been discussing the trend toward suspending and expelling students (and teachers) for comments that they make on social media (here and here and here and here and here and here and here). Teachers and administrators have been criminalizing juvenile conduct rather than dealing with such issues with the students and their teachers. Now the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit has issued an opinion upholding one of the most ridiculous examples of the criminalization of our schools. The Tenth Circuit said that Albuquerque school officials and police were justified in ordering the arrest of 13-year-old boy who was burping in class. The Tenth Circuit ruled that the school officials and police officer were entitled to immunity for their excessive response to what was at worst a class clown.
Hillary Clinton admitted this Sunday that it is “fair” for voters to have questions about her truthfulness. However, she then proceeded to make the very type of statement that has undermined her credibility with voters. Despite the express statement of the FBI that her emails contained clearly classified information, including some with classified markings, Clinton insisted that there was no such finding and seemed to deflect blame for her conduct to subordinates. The Washington Post gave Clinton “Four Pinnochios” for her interview on truthfulness and the email scandal. Clearly, Clinton is right that there is “work to do” on the truthfulness thing.
Donald Trump has been widely criticized for what is seen as a shaky knowledge or fealty to the Constitution. Recently, however, he seemed to pledge support not just the Constitution but beyond — pleading to defend “Article XII” which is two articles too many for the Constitution.
Afghan cleric, Mohammad Karim, is in his sixties but he decided to marry a younger bride. For most people (including all non-pedophiles), this might mean a woman half his age in her thirties. For Karim it meant a six-year-old girl. After being arrested, Karim insisted that the girl was given to him in wedlock as a “religious offering.” The little girl could only say “I am afraid of this man.”
Continue reading “Afghan Cleric Defends Marriage To Six-Year-Old Girl As A “Religious Offering””
By: Cara L. Gallagher, weekend contributor
This is a follow up on N.C. State Conference of the NAACP v. McCrory
African-American voters in North Carolina were “targeted with almost surgical precision” by the North Carolina legislature, according to a three-judge panel for the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals. Judge Diana Gribbon Motz wrote the opinion dismantling, point by point, all the provisions rushed through the Legislature in the days immediately following the landmark voting rights decision in Shelby County v. Holder on June 25, 2013.
In the Shelby decision, the Supreme Court released states that, after passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, were required to clear all changes to voting policies and practices with either a federal court or the Department of Justice. Former slave states, where Jim Crow laws abound that disenfranchised minority voters for decades, were released from the pre-clearance requirement and allowed to make whatever changes they wanted to voting policies. States like North Carolina and Texas moved immediately – within days – to initiate laws increasing restrictions on voter access. Continue reading “NC voter laws ruled intentionally discriminatory by 4th Circuit Court”