“Trumpstank” May Turn Florida Blue

Anyone who is Hispanic and Republican is in deep shit right now. Republicans in Florida, a state they have managed to hold through voter suppression and razor thin margins…

Are about to become an extinct lower life form species.

That is what happens when a half million new Puerto Rican voters move to Florida because they have no electricity, food, housing, or water due to the Chumph”s racism.

This Trump as president crap show is about ready to finally come to a head as Republican electoral domination in the 2016 races are now looking at major risk.

In my state of Virginia, the Republican Gubernatorial candidate Ed Gillespie decide to court the Chump’s support…He is now 11 points down in a state where Republicans have been very competitive at the state level. If the chickenshit Democrats don’t do their usual f*&k up trying to be more conservative…Then they have an opportunity to take the Senate, and quite possibly the House.

Tossing Peanuts to the Brown Monkeys

GOP strategist warns: ‘Trumpstank’ could doom Republicans in Florida for years over Puerto Rico insults

Republican strategist Rick Wilson warned that President Donald Trump’s desultory response to the Puerto Rico hurricane was risking the party’s future in Florida for years to come.

As many as 100,000 Puerto Ricans have fled the crisis in the U.S. territory for the nearest state, and hundreds of thousands more American citizens from the island could join them there — possibly for good.

That could transform Florida in many ways, but it could very well end its position as a crucial swing state — especially if Trump follows through on his threat to pull FEMA, military and first responders from Puerto Rico.

“Set aside the WH/FEMA happy talk, and look at the numbers of new Puerto Rican voters in FL in six months,” Wilson tweeted. “They were already inclined to vote Dem. They were already coming here due to economic pressures.”

He warned Republicans to distance themselves from the president’s insulting treatment of Puerto Ricans or risk electoral disaster.

“The situation in P.R. is desperate and he’s adding insult to many injuries,” Wilson tweeted. “Good luck being a GOP candidate who has Trumpstank all over you running in the places they move to in FL. (And they’re mostly moving to FL)”

 Follow

Rick Wilson 

✔@TheRickWilson

Replying to @TheRickWilson

6/ Pretty simple rule: you don’t blame and insult the people who are victims of a natural disaster. Reap that whirlwind.

8:56 AM – Oct 12, 2017

The GOP strategist suggested Trump’s inadequate response might appeal to his racist base, but he said it could doom candidates trying to win a general election.

“And because he basically believes Puerto Ricans are Sea Mexicans and not American citizens,” Wilson tweeted, “he knows his base will think tossing paper towels is an adequate response to American citizens suffering desperate conditions.”

 

Florida Cop Harasses Black Man With Made Up Law

Apparently stepping outside the walk lines in Florida is a major felony. Not to mention getting arrested for a non-existent law.

Just another case of Walking While Black and an out-of-control racist cop.

WATCH: Florida cop makes up law to ticket black man for walking without identification

According to the Miami Herald, a police officer in Jacksonville, Florida incorrectly cited a law requiring identification for drivers when giving a ticket to a black man for jaywalking and for not having an ID on him, as shown in a viral video the man in question posted on social media.

The video posted by 21-year-old Devonte Shipman on June 20 shows Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office Officer J.S. Bolen confronting Shipman for jaywalking.

“Miami Beach, 1962?” the Herald report asked. “No, Jacksonville, 2017.”

When Shipman asked the officer what he’d done wrong, the cop told him that he was fining him for jaywalking, which costs $65. Bolen then asked the young man for his ID, and when he told the officer he didn’t have it, Bolen “snapped.”

“That’s another infraction,” Bolen said. “In the state of Florida, you have to have an ID card on you identifying who you are or I can detain you for seven hours until I figure out who you are.”

According to the Herald, however, the officer got the law wrong — Florida Statute 322.15 requires licensed drivers to always have their licenses when driving and can incur a $136 fine if they do not, but no such law exists for walking without a license.

“Bolen also gave Shipman a citation for failing to obey a pedestrian control signal, another $62.50 fine,” the Herald noted.

 

Tiger Caged!

Not good for Tiger Woods…

Tiger’s perp shot – definitely not on the green.

Tiger Woods Arrested On Suspicion Of DUI In Florida

Early Monday morning in Jupiter, Fla., Tiger Woods was arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence. Booked for DUI in a Palm Beach County jail at 7:18 a.m. ET, according to the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office, the golf legend was released on his own recognizance at 10:50 a.m.

Jupiter police spokesperson Kristin Rightler did not immediately offer further detail about the arrest.

The 41-year-old golfer has won 14 major tournaments and 79 PGA Tour events — which is enough to rank him second on the list of all-time winningest golfers, The Associated Press reports — but his most recent major win came nearly a decade ago, in 2008.

Since then, Woods has struggled with a raft of headline-grabbing off-the-course incidents, which Sports Illustrated details here.

More recently, health concerns have kept him off the links. Just last month, Woods underwent his fourth back surgery in about as many years.

“I could no longer live with the pain I had. We tried every possible non-surgical route and nothing worked. I had good days and bad days, but the pain was usually there, and I couldn’t do much,” he wrote in a blog post last week. “Even lying down hurt.”

Still, Woods expressed optimism about the results of the surgery and his chances to get back to the game.

“All I can do is take it day by day. There’s no hurry,” Woods wrote last week. “But, I want to say unequivocally, I want to play professional golf again.”

 

Former Congressional Black Caucus Cabaret Queen’s New Stylish Orange Jumpsuit

Former CBC Cabaret Queen Corrine Brown has been convicted of fraud and larceny in the stealing of hundreds of thousands of dollars from a fake charity she set up supposedly to provide scholarships to underprivileged black kids. She used the money to (what else) throw big parties.

Her next party attire will be the ever so stylish… Orange Jumpsuit.

Former U.S. Rep. Corrine Brown Convicted Of Stealing From Phony Charity

Former U.S. Rep. Corrine Brown has been found guilty of siphoning hundreds of thousands of dollars from a charity that she and her chief of staff had passed off as a scholarship service for students. The Florida Democrat had faced 22 counts ranging from conspiracy to tax fraud; she was convicted of 18.

Of the more than $800,000 she and Elias “Ronnie” Simmons raised for One Door for Education, member station WJCT reports that just $1,200 actually went where they told donors it would: students’ education. In roughly five years, prosecutors say, the charity distributed just two scholarships.

Prosecutors alleged — and on Thursday, the jury agreed — that Brown and Simmons pocketed the rest of the funds, using them for lavish events such as a golf tournament and luxury boxes for an NFL game and a Beyonce concert.

WJCT has more from the courtroom:

“Assistant U.S. Attorneys Tysen Duva and Eric Olshan painted Brown as an egotistical politician who lived beyond her means. Using bank records, checks, letters, emails and hundreds of other documents, prosecutors made the case Brown directed the deposit of $37,000 of One Door cash into her account. They also claimed she was instrumental in planning nine events that cost the sham charity $330,000.”

Brown had argued that the fraud was entirely the doing of Simmons, who earlier pleaded guilty and testified against her. Brown didn’t speak after the verdict was rendered, but her attorney James Smith told reporters, “I still have a lot of work to do on this case,” referring to the sentencing phase and the motion he plans to file for a new trial.

WJCT’s Ryan Michael Benk reports the sentencing phase could take 90 days or longer for Brown, who left office earlier this year after losing her re-election bid in the district she had represented for nearly a quarter-century.

 

Florida Senate Apologizes for Infamous Dozier School for Boys

Wrote about this a while ago describing the recovery of bodies of boys from unmarked graves at the school

This school didn’t close until 2011!

Florida Senate apologizes for abuse, deaths at reform school

The Florida Senate formally apologized on Wednesday to victims who suffered brutality, sexual abuse and even death after being sent as boys to a reform school with a history of troubles long denied by the state.

The infamous site, which opened in 1900 in Marianna as the Florida State Reform School and was later named the Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys, closed in 2011.

From its early days, the school was plagued by allegations of abuse. Senator Darryl Rouson, a Democrat who introduced the resolution expressing official regret and apology, said the state conducted six investigations in the school’s first 13 years after “reports of children being chained to walls in irons, severely beaten and used for child labor.”

A forensic investigation between 2013 and 2016 uncovered graves for 55 boys, 24 more sites than reported in official records, according to the Senate resolution. Most of the bones have not been identified and some of the deaths are believed to have resulted from abuse.

“These bones are telling the story,” Rouson said. “The story they tell is one of a shameful history.”

Boys were sent to Dozier for a wide range of alleged offenses from murder to smoking and skipping school. Many were not given a hearing or legal representation.

Fourteen men who had been sent to Dozier and a second reform school that opened in 1955 in Okeechobee, Florida, attended the Senate session on Wednesday.

“We apologize,” Rouson said to the men. “We are sorry, and this resolution on behalf of this Florida Senate commits to ensuring that the children of Florida are protected from this kind of abuse and violations of fundamental human decency.”

The Florida House of Representatives passed a similar resolution last week. Neither chamber is currently considering offering compensation to the victims, local media reported.

Investigative reports by the St. Petersburg Times newspaper starting in 2009 kicked off the increased attention in recent years to the scandal.

After U.S. Justice Department and state investigations revealed abuses by interviewing more than 500 former students, the two schools were shuttered.

 

Teens BLM Inspired Prom Dress Lights Up the Internet!

Wow! A heck of a creative idea!

Teen’s prom dress honoring Black Lives Matter movement goes viral

Milan Bolden-Morris attending Boston College to play basketball

It’s a prom dress with a message, and it is a message that is going viral on social media.

Milan Bolden-Morris wore a customized dress to her prom honoring the Black Lives Matter movement, featuring black and white images of Trayvon Martin, Sandra Bland, Tamir Rice and others.

Morris shared the photo on her Instagram page with the caption: “Yes I’m black. Yes I’m 17. Yes GOD is using me to convey a message that is bigger than me.”

The photo has garnered a lot of attention, both positive and negative, on social media. The Palm Beach senior is also a basketball star, having been recognized by The Palm Beach Post as an “all-area player.”

She will continue her basketball career in Massachusetts at Boston College.

 

Florida Finally Apologizes for Legal “Lynching” and Murder of Groveland Four

The wheels of Justice only took 70 years this time… Took about 15 minutes to convict the boys of something they couldn’t possibly have done.

70 years to admit a wrong that only took 15 minutes to commit.

‘We’re truly sorry’: Fla. apologizes for racial injustice of 1949 ‘Groveland Four’ rape case

In the summer of 1949, a 17-year-old white girl named Norma Padgett accused four black men of kidnapping her from a dark road in central Florida and then, in the back seat of their car, taking turns raping her.

Neighbors quietly doubted the girl’s version of events, and others speculated that the elaborate, detailed account was merely a coverup for the bruises she’d collected from her husband’s suspected beatings.

But this was the era of Jim Crow, in the middle of Lake County, where the local economy was sustained by orange groves that white men relied on black men to nurture.

And there to ensure law and order was Willis V. McCall, a sheriff buoyed by his segregationist, union-busting, white supremacist reputation.

Within days of Padgett’s accusations, three black men from the city of Groveland were in jail and a fourth, Ernest Thomas, was dead, shot and killed by an angry mob — led by McCall — who had chased him 200 miles into the Panhandle. In Groveland, black-owned homes were shot up and burned, sparking chaos so intense the governor eventually sent in the National Guard.

Based on little evidence, a jury quickly convicted the living three.

Charles Greenlee, just 16 at the time, was sent to prison for life.

Samuel Shepherd and Walter Irvin, friends and Army veterans, were sentenced to death, but the U.S. Supreme Court later overturned their convictions and ordered a retrial. Before that could happen, though, McCall shot them both. Shepherd died at the scene, but Irvin — who played dead — survived, and his sentence was later commuted to life in prison.

The saga of the men who became known as the “Groveland Four” has spanned nearly seven decades, tarnished the reputation of the town that endorsed it, inspired a revelatory, Pulitzer Prize-winning book and became the subject of an online petition demanding that Gov. Rick Scott formally exonerate all four.

After 68 years, and several previous failed attempts, the state of Florida has finally found the words that justice had been waiting on all this time: “We’re truly sorry.”

On the floor of the Florida House of Representatives on Tuesday, lawmakers unanimously passed a resolution apologizing to the families of the “Groveland Four” and exonerating the men. It also calls on Scott to expedite the process for granting posthumous pardons.

None of the “Groveland Four” are still living.

“This resolution is us simply saying ‘We’re sorry’ understanding that we will never know nor be able to make up for the pain we have caused,” said Rep. Bobby DuBose, a bill sponsor, according to the Miami Herald.

Then he asked House members to stand and face relatives of the “Groveland Four” who were present.

“As the state of Florida and the House of Representatives,” DuBose said, “we’re truly sorry.”

The formal acknowledgment of the case, now widely considered a racial injustice, has been years in the making. A book by author Gilbert King, “Devil in the Grove: Thurgood Marshall, the Groveland Boys, and the Dawn of a New America,” revived interest in the decades-old case and unearthed new evidence from once redacted FBI files that cast doubt on Padgett’s version of events.

Then in 2015, after reading King’s book in a college history class, University of Florida student Josh Venkataraman was driving from Orlando back to campus when he passed the road sign for the city of Groveland.

The book had “touched him,” he told a Miami Herald columnist in 2015, but seeing the physical place made it real.

He reached out to Carole Greenlee, the late Charles Greenlee’s daughter, who was living in Nashville, and asked if he could help.

At first the woman was skeptical, but eventually gave Venkataraman her permission to start a petition.

“I’m in the mode of trying to get my father exonerated,” she told the Herald years ago, “and I need all the help I can get.”

“Exonerate the Groveland Four” was born, and in the two years since has garnered nearly 9,000 signatures…Read the Rest Here…

 

Murder By Cop Out of Control in Florida

DOn’t tell the KKK Attorney General this…

Another survey of police shootings finds wide racial disparities

The Tampa Bay Times has just published a survey of Florida police shootings between 2009 and 2014. What the newspaper found is striking — although if you’ve seen similar studies from other states, it also isn’t terribly surprising.

First, though whites outnumber blacks in Florida by about 3-to-1, the paper found that cops shot more black people than white people. Police groups and their supporters will of course say that this is because blacks commit more crimes, are more likely to confront police, and that police are more likely to find themselves in black neighborhoods.

But the next set of numbers are more difficult to explain away. The paper focused on shootings in which the victim had neither threatened police with a weapon, nor committed a violent crime. If you subscribe to the “police shoot more black people because black people are more likely to be violent criminals” line of thought, you’d expect to see the racial disparity disappear in these numbers, or at least to narrow. Instead, it grew. Black people outnumbered white people in these incidents by nearly 2-to-1 (97-50). Police shot 55 unarmed black people vs. 25 white people. Police shot 15 black people who had been pulled over for only a traffic violation, vs. six white people. They shot 19 black people after mistaking a non-weapon for a weapon, vs. eight white people. They were about three times as likely to shot a black person who was running away (16-5), or who was suspected for a minor crime like drug possession or shoplifting (17-6), and four times as likely to shoot a black person in the back (8-2).

Perhaps most disturbingly, the paper found six incidents in which Florida cops shot a motorist because they mistakenly thought the motorist was reaching for a weapon. Five of those motorists were black. This goes back to the perpetuation of the fear of the ambush traffic stop, which is drummed into the heads of police officers over and over. It isn’t that such incidents never happen, but they’re exceedingly rare — a tiny, tiny fraction of traffic stops. A 2001 study in the Journal of Criminal Science found that even during the 1990s, a much more violent era than the one we live in today, under the worst-case scenario, about 1 in 6.7 million traffic stops resulted in the death of a police officer. When the authors used a more inclusive definition of “traffic stop,” the figure was 1 in 20 million.

Here’s a typical story from the series. The motorist is Rodney Mitchell, a 23-year-old black man and former college football player who was driving home from his job at a department store.

Adam Shaw had made mistakes in 2½ years with the Sarasota County Sheriff’s Office. He’d been disciplined for stopping minority residents for seatbelt violations then illegally searching their cars. Now he was part of Operation Armistice. Police were saturating north Sarasota to reduce crime. The black community scornfully called it Operation Amistad, after the slave ship.

Mitchell, in the Jeep with Florida tag GODANGL, was the next target.

Shaw would later say he saw Mitchell wasn’t wearing a seatbelt as the two passed on the road going opposite directions, even if it was nighttime and the Jeep had tinted windows. He would say the car didn’t stop soon enough, and that after it stopped, the driver was moving around a lot inside. He would say the driver refused to put the car into park.

What Mitchell’s 16-year-old cousin remembers from the passenger’s seat is a white cop rushing to the driver’s window and shouting: “Boy, why didn’t you stop the car?”

He remembers another officer walking to the front of the Jeep, the spotlight from his vehicle beaming through the windshield. He remembers Rodney Mitchell’s hands on the steering wheel, and Shaw ordering him to put the car into park. He remembers his unarmed cousin moving his right hand from the wheel toward the gearshift, then the flash from a muzzle, then the sound of four shots.

Pop, pop, pop, pop.

From stop to gunfire: 41 seconds.

Natasha Clemons raced to the scene when a friend called. Police would not let her go to Mitchell, sprawled in the driver’s seat, wearing his seatbelt. She collapsed right there, bathed in the blue lights of the lawmen who killed her only son.

Let’s talk about that seat belt. Last year, I posted about a study by the ACLU of Florida finding that black motorists in Florida are twice as likely as white motorists to be pulled over for seat-belt violations, despite being only slightly less likely to buckle up. (And it isn’t the first time a seat-belt violation has led to a police killing in Florida.)

In short, if you’re black in Florida, you’re more likely than white people to be pulled over for a minor traffic violation. Once you’ve been pulled over, cops are more likely to see you as a threat, more likely to mistake an innocent movement for a furtive gesture, and more likely to mistake an innocuous object in your possession for a weapon. And it’s not all that different if you don’t happen to be in a car.

 

Muhammad Ali, Jr Detained at Florida Airport For Being Muslim

Let’s face it, the folks who man customs stations and TSA lines aren’t usually drawn from the brightest on the block.Giving power to stupid is like…

Electing the Chumph.

Muhammad Ali, Jr with Mother, Kalilah

Son of boxer Muhammad Ali detained at Florida airport because of his Arabic-sounding name

A son of boxing legend Muhammad Ali was held for questioning for two hours at a Florida airport upon returning from Jamaica because of his Arabic-sounding name, US media reported.

Muhammad Ali Jr., 44, who was born in Philadelphia and has a US passport, was traveling with his mother Khalilah Camacho-Ali, the late sports icon’s second wife, friend and lawyer Chris Mancini told the Louisville Courier-Journal.

Mancini told the newspaper that both were held for questioning on the Fort Lauderdale International Airport on February 7 because of their Arabic-sounding names.

Camacho-Ali however was released after she showed US Customs agents a photo of herself with her ex-husband.

Ali Jr. however had no such photo — and according to Mancini was held for nearly two hours and repeatedly asked “Where did you get your name from?” and “Are you Muslim?”

When he said that he – like his father – was a Muslim, the agents asked further probing questions.

“To the Ali family, it’s crystal clear that this is directly linked to Mr. Trump’s efforts to ban Muslims from the United States,” Mancini told the Courier-Journal, a reference to President Donald Trump’s late January executive order imposing a 90-day entry ban for citizens of seven Muslim majority countries.

The travel ban has since been halted by a US federal court.

Mancini said that he and the Ali family are trying to find out how many other people were stopped for similar questioning, and are considering a federal lawsuit.

Airport and Customs officials did not answer queries from the newspaper about the case.

Muhammad Ali, one of the iconic 20th century sports heroes, died after a long battle with Parkinson’s Disease on June 3. He was 74.

Ali was celebrated as much for his three world heavyweight titles as for his civil rights battles outside the ring.

In 1964 Ali dropped his birth name of Cassius Clay when he converted to Islam.

The Louisville, Kentucky native was married four times he was survived by seven daughters and two sons.

 

Florida Voters Sue for Recount

Hmmmmm…Things are heating up!

Florida voters file lawsuit demanding official recount

Everything may not be golden for President-elect Donald Trump in the Sunshine State. A group of Florida voters filed a lawsuit Monday demanding a statewide hand recount of the ballots, noting a “deluge” of voting problems, including alleged hackings on electronic voting machines and polling places illegally turning away people from voting.

Trump won Florida with 4.6 million votes statewide, securing 112,000 votes more than former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton – a margin much larger than when former Vice President Al Gore lost in Florida to former President George W. Bush in 2000 by 537 votes. The defendants listed in the lawsuit include Trump, Gov. Rick Scott and the state’s 29 Republican presidential electors.

The president-elect and the rest of the defendants could simply ignore the lawsuit, or fail to respond before the national deadline to to settle disputes over election results. In that most likely case, the Electoral College will vote on Dec. 19 and Trump will assume office Jan. 20.

But the plaintiffs, who say Clinton was the actual victor in Florida, are calling on officials to probe the election results and determine whether Trump’s win was, in fact, due to a variety of statewide issues. The lawsuit is just the latest call for an investigation into the integrity of the 2016 presidential election, in which an unprecedented level of foreign interference played a major role.

Hillary Clinton conceded to President-elect Donald Trump in New York, Nov. 9, 2016, calling for a peaceful transition of power. Photo: Reuters

Meanwhile, recount efforts spearheaded by former Green Party candidate Jill Stein are continuing in Michigan, which began a statewide recount Monday. Stein has said the chances of any state recounts reversing the election results is highly unlikely. Instead, she wants to bring attention to the security of the nation’s voting process and other problems reportedly experienced in each election cycle. Stein also sought recounts in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.

“Our effort to recount votes in those states is not intended to help Hillary Clinton,” Stein wrote on her fundraising site for the recount, which received nearly $7.2 million by Tuesday. “These recounts are part of an election integrity movement to attempt to shine a light on just how untrustworthy the U.S. election system is.”

The three plaintiffs aren’t the first to call for a recount in Florida. Roque “Rocky” de la Fuente, a 2016 Reform Party candidate in the presidential election, vowed to pursue recounts in Nevada and Florida, citing election fraud and manipulation of electronic voter machines and ballots. Whether Trump decides to back any of these new recount efforts ahead of the approaching deadline, however, remains unknown and unlikely.

“[Trump’s] mentioned he wants to fix the rigged system,” Clint Curtis, the lawyer representing the three Florida voters, told Tallahassee Democrat’s Jeff Burlew. “This will give the opportunity to do that. If it were a normal politician, I’d say our chances are very slim. But it’s not a normal politician — it’s Donald Trump.”

 

Hillary Vote Lead now 2.2 million

Hillary won the popular vote by over 1.7%. Which actually is in line with a number of the polls prediction. Something which makes the Chumphs “win” in several key states even more questionable.

Clinton has registered 64,654,483 total votes, compared to 62,418,820 for Trump, according to a Cook Political Report analysis Monday. That represents a margin of 2,235,663 in the popular vote. Clinton garnered 48.2 percent of the popular vote, while Trump earned just 46.5 percent, good for a 1.7 point margin. Trump, however, picked up wins in key battleground states like Florida, Pennsylvania and Michigan, earning 306 Electoral College votes to Clinton’s 232.

What stands out is the Margin shift in the so-called swing states – massively in Trumps direction.

The Russians do good work.

State	Clinton (D)	Trump (R)	Others	Clinton %	Trump %	Others %	Dem ’12 Margin	Dem ’16 Margin	Margin Shift	Total ’12 Votes	Total ’16 Votes	Raw Votes vs. ’12
6
7	U.S. Total	64,680,874	62,437,545	7,235,983	48.1%	46.5%	5.4%	3.9%	1.7%	-2.2%	129,075,630	134,354,402	4.1%
8	13 Swing States	21,356,299	22,183,644	2,298,207	46.6%	48.4%	5.0%	3.6%	-1.8%	-5.4%	43,939,918	45,838,150	4.3%
9	Non-Swing States	43,324,575	40,253,901	4,937,776	48.9%	45.5%	5.6%	4.0%	3.5%	-0.5%	85,135,712	88,516,252	4.0%

 

‘Voting for Trump would dishonor God’: GOP Electoral College member resigns to avoid backing Trump

A Republican Electoral College member from Texas has decided to step down because his conscience will not allow him to back Donald Trump for president.

Politico reports that Art Sisneros, a GOP elector who has been critical of Trump in the past, has resigned his position in the Electoral College because he simply believes Trump is not fit for the presidency.

“If Trump is not qualified and my role, both morally and historically, as an elected official is to vote my conscience, then I can not and will not vote for Donald Trump for President,” Sisneros wrote in a blog post late last week. “I believe voting for Trump would bring dishonor to God.”

The now-former elector went on to say that he’s stepping down from his role because he did not want to violate his pledge to support whoever won the popular vote in his home state.

“The people will get their vote,” he wrote. “I will sleep well at night knowing I neither gave in to their demands nor caved to my convictions. I will also mourn the loss of our republic.”

 

Murder Numbers Explode in Stand Your Ground States

So called “Stand Your Ground” laws are nothing more than a license and incentive to commit murder.With the massive rise in hate crimes propelled by the Chumph’s hate speech and election – we can expect a lot more gunfire on the nation’s street corners. The reason the NRA was such a staunch supporter of the Chumph – is you can sell more guns as Americans kill each other on the streets in an internal war.

Trayvon Martin’s murder was enabled by Florida Laws.

Spike in murders seen after Florida ‘stand your ground’ self-defense law: study

Florida saw a significant spike in murders after enacting a “Stand Your Ground” law allowing people to use lethal force in self-defense in public or on private property, international researchers said Monday.

The southern state’s 24 percent rise in homicide from 2005 to 2014 stood in sharp contrast to nationwide homicide rates, which have been declining since the 1990s, according to research published in a special issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) Internal Medicine.

“This study highlights how Stand Your Ground is likely to be a cause of the rise in Florida murders, and provides crucial information which may influence future decision-making that affects wellbeing in the US and abroad,” said co-author Antonio Gasparrini of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

Florida in 2005 became the first US state to broaden protections for those who use firearms for self-defense. A number of other states have since followed suit.

Before 2005, Florida state law said people could use firearms or other lethal force against home intruders if they believed they faced an imminent threat of death or serious injury.

The 2005 law, signed by then governor Jeb Bush, extended the law to provide individuals with immunity “for using lethal force to defend themselves in public places, as well as on private property.”

Homicides linked to firearms rose 31 percent from 2005 to 2014, researchers found, compared to the previous sampling period from 1999-2004.

Overall, homicides in Florida for the decade after 2005 rose 24 percent, the study found.

The nightclub shooting in Orlando, where 49 people were killed — making it the worst mass shooting in modern US history — happened in June 2016 and was not included in the study.

“The findings are strong evidence that… this change to the law in Florida led to deaths that otherwise would not have occurred,” said study co-author Douglas Wiebe at the University of Pennsylvania.

“We need to think about the implications of these findings and Florida should consider reversing this decision that appears to have increased the use of lethal force.”

All demographic groups were affected by the increases in homicide rates.

The largest proportional rises were seen in the 20-34 age group (which went up by 31 percent) and among the white population (which rose by 28 percent), the study said.

A 20 percent increase in homicides was found among African-Americans.

For comparison, researchers looked at homicide rates in four other states — New York, New Jersey, Ohio and Virginia — that had not enacted a Stand Your Ground law over the same period of time and found no increase in homicide rates.

Suicide rates in Florida were also unchanged, suggesting that other events such as the global financial crisis of 2007-9 was not the major factor associated with the rise in homicides in Florida….More Here…

 

Miami Herald Goes All In

The world’s shortest editorial…

 

“Domestic Terror” Attack Leaves 20 Dead, 42 Injured At Florida Nightclub

A horrific attack this morning at an Orlando nightclub has led to approximately 20 dead, and 42 hospitalized. A lone gunman entered the club early this morning and opened fire on the people in the club before engaging local police in an extended gun battle. Police have announced no motive at this point, but have classified the attack as “Domestic Terror”.

Police: 20 feared dead after Florida nightclub terror attack

Approximately 20 people are dead inside Pulse, a gay nightclub, Orlando Police Chief John Mina said Sunday morning, just hours after a shooter opened fire in the club. At least 42 people have been transported for medical treatment, he said.

Police have shot and killed the gunman, Mina told reporters.

“It’s appears he was organized and well-prepared,” the chief said, adding that the shooter had an assault-type weapon, a handgun and “some type of (other) device on him.” Law enforcement sources told CNN that the device, which was strapped to the suspect, was possibly explosive, but authorities don’t know if it was real or not.

A canine unit indicated there were explosives inside the suspect’s car as well, the sources said.

At least nine officers were involved in the shootout, Mina said. Several coroner vans were seen traveling toward the nightclub.

One officer suffered an eye injury when a bullet struck his Kevlar helmet, said Danny Banks, special agent in charge of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement’s Orlando bureau. The helmet saved the officer’s life, Banks said.

 

Florida’s Republican Attorney General Takes Bribe Not to Prosecute Trump

This nasty bit of political prostitution may explain why cases against Donald Trump University have disappeared in Republican run states. In this case in Florida, the state’s Republican chief legal whore asks for money to make the lawsuit go away.

Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi (R)…Moving prostitution from the street corner into the courhouse

Florida attorney general dropped Trump U fraud suit right after GOP candidate gave her $25,000

Florida’s Republican attorney general, Pam Bondi, personally asked Donald Trump for a campaign contribution before dropping out of a lawsuit charging Trump University with fraud, the New Civil Rights Movement reports.

Bondi asked for the contribution before publicly announcing she would join a New York state suit against Trump U. Four days later, she received a check from Trump’s foundation. Bondi subsequently announced she was no longer suing Trump, citing insufficient grounds to proceed.

The check was in the amount of $25,000, and the donation was in violation of rules governing political activities by charities.

A spokesman for Bondi told the Associated Press that she was “unaware” of the dozens of consumer complaints levied against Trump’s seminars before she asked for the donation in 2013.

The AP reports that the timing of the donation is note-worthy, because Trump has bragged about expecting to get favors from politicians when he donates money to them.

For example, at a rally in Iowa in January, the AP quotes Trump as boasting, “When I want something I get it. When I call, they kiss my ass. It’s true.”

Federal law, according to the Washington Post, makes it illegal to solicit money with the intent of being influenced in official actions.

New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, along with a federal class action lawsuit in California, accuse Trump of defrauding students of $35,000 each with promises of real estate education they either didn’t receive or found useless, the AP reports.

Though Bondi claimed ignorance about the complaints, the AP also obtained thousands of pages of consumer complaints against Trump U, largely owned by Trump himself, which were filed with Bondi’s office. More than 20 people filed complaints with the Florida attorney general, many saying they paid for training materials which were never received.

“I was laid off work for the first time in my life and really need this money to support my family,” one man pleaded, seeking a refund. “$1,400 is so much money for my family.”

Bondi’s isn’t the first case in which a Republican attorney general has been accused of dropping a case against Trump U in return for campaign contributions.

Last week, the AP reported that then-Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott — who is now the governor — received a $35,000 campaign contribution from Trump three years after dropping a proposed 2010 lawsuit against Trump U. After the AP reported the story, former Texas Deputy Chief of Consumer Protection John Owen said the case was dropped for political reasons.

The AP points out that when the attorneys general dropped the lawsuits, they left consumers in their states on their own to try and collect their refunds from Trump.

Both politicians have endorsed the celebrity businessman in his presidential bid.