My nephew - Will Overman - Barn Session

My nephew hikes the Appalachian Trail

Dershowitz: Zimmerman Prosecutors 'Should Be Disbarred'

 

Harvard Law professor Alan Dershowitz says the prosecutors in the George Zimmerman murder trial should be charged with "prosecutorial misconduct" for suggesting the defendant planned the fatal shooting of Trayvon Martin.

"That is something no prosecutor should be allowed to get away with … to make up a story from whole cloth," Dershowitz told "The Steve Malzberg Show" on Newsmax TV.

"These prosecutors should be disbarred. They have acted absolutely irresponsibly in an utterly un-American fashion."

Zimmerman, a 29-year-old neighborhood watch volunteer, is charged with gunning down Martin, 17, as the two fought following a confrontation in the gated Sanford, Fla., community where Zimmerman lives — an act the defendant said was in self-defense.

In the prosecution's final argument on Friday, lawyer John Guy said Zimmerman deliberately followed Martin and "shot him because he wanted to."

Dershowitz called Guy's statement "such speculation. How does he get into the mind of Zimmerman? He hasn't cross-examined him, he hasn't met him.

More @ Newsmax

Survival Is Not Fun, by Wild EMT

Via NC Renegade

 

Bug-Out!

A friend and I recently discussed some of the possible physical difficulties that might be associated with a rapid exfiltration from a devastated area during a major grid-down scenario.  We thought it would be interesting to explore the personal effects of increased stress, combined with decreased caloric intake, which might be encountered while “bugging-out.”  We wanted to move away from academic knowledge to personal experience, so we created a seven day bug-out “challenge” for ourselves. 

Background note: my survivalist friend was a U.S. Marine who served in Vietnam and then spent his career working on computers.  I'm a 46-year-old male who exercises daily by running and lifting weights.  I'm also a Wilderness EMT-B and I teach wilderness survival and wild plant skills as serious hobbies.  We both grew up in rural Utah, and we’ve spent many years backpacking throughout the Rocky Mountains.  We also invited another survivalist buddy (lawyer) to participate in the seven day challenge.

The Challenge

• Consume only 1,200 calories daily 
• Run 5K or bike 10K each day
• Work manual labor (or) lift weights one hour each day
• Sleep only 6 hours a night on the floor or ground
• Refresh your (heavy) bug-out bag and wear it at least 30 minutes a day
• Capstone: Run 15K or bike 30K with a (light) pack at the end of the challenge

More @ Survival

“Even Harry Reid now admits the Senate’s amnesty bill is unconstitutional and cannot become law."

 

Texas Congressman Steve Stockman announced on Thursday that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is now refusing to transmit to the House of Representatives the amnesty bill, which the Senate voted on and passed two weeks ago. According to Stockman he believes Reid fears it will be returned to the Senate on a “blue slip” resolution, which he threatened to use to kill the bill in the House.

More @ Freedom Outpost

Color Chart

A Doctrine Utterly Subversive of the Constitution

 

John C. Breckinridge

********************************

Former-Vice President and later Kentucky Senator John C. Breckinridge tried in vain to hold Congress to the Constitution and stop the Republican party’s war upon the South in mid-1861.  Returning home after the mid-year legislative session, he witnessed Federal officers assembling and training volunteers at Lexington, a forced political alignment with Lincoln’s government, and his own imminent arrest by the Northern military.

Bernhard Thuersam, Chairman

North Carolina War Between the States Sesquicentennial Commission

"Unsurpassed Valor, Courage and Devotion to Liberty"

www.ncwbts150.com

"The Official Website of the North Carolina WBTS Sesquicentennial"

   

A Doctrine Utterly Subversive of the Constitution

“[In January 1860, John C. Breckinridge] . . . still had more than a year to serve as Vice President of the United States. Within the month past the General Assembly of Kentucky by an overwhelming majority had elected him to the Senate of the United States for the six years beginning March 4, 1861. 

Neutrality caught the fancy of most Kentuckians, though the Southern Rights element was at first reluctant to accept it.  In succession, however, the House of Representatives on May 16 (1861), the governor on May 20, and finally the Senate [on May 24] . . . assented to that policy. 

For himself, he took the position that he was making a record of protest against the unconstitutional measures with which the majority party was fighting and unconstitutional war.  Certain it is that had the Republicans accepted his criticisms as valid they would have been forced to abandon the conflict.

During the [legislative] session he made four principal speeches. On July 16 he spoke vigorously against the joint resolution “to approve and confirm” various “acts, extraordinary proclamations and orders” performed or issued by the President since March 4 “for suppressing insurrection and rebellion.”  Breckinridge urged that if Congress had the “power to cure a breach of the Constitution or to indemnify the President against violations of the Constitution and the laws,” it might in effect “alter the Constitution in a manner not provided by that instrument.” 

He attacked the specific acts of the President [as unconstitutional such as] the establishment of a blockade of Southern coasts, the authorization of the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus by various military commanders, the waging of war and raising armies without any act of Congress, arbitrary interference with freedom of the press, and the arbitrary imprisonment of private citizens. 

Looking for a justification of the President’s acts, Breckinridge assumed that it would be found in the necessities of the case. He denied indeed that there was any genuine necessity for the acts of which he complained, but, more fundamentally, he argued that the “doctrine [of necessity] is utterly subversive of the Constitution . . . [and] of all written limitations of government.  Thus he concluded that only the powers actually granted in the Constitution may be exercised by the government, whatever the emergency. 

Expanding an argument which he had used at Frankfort on April 2, he predicted that unless current tendencies were checked, the result would be “to change radically our frame and character of Government” by establishing a centralized regime without any effective limitation upon its powers.  [He argued] that he and many other conservative men counted “the Union not an end, but a means – a means by which, under the terms of the Constitution, liberty may be maintained, property and personal rights protected, and general happiness secured.”

When asked, near the end of the session, what he would do [with] a hostile [Southern] army encamped but a few miles from the national capital, Breckinridge declared flatly that he would abandon the war; that he did “not hold that constitutional liberty . . . is not bound up in this fratricidal, devastating and horrible contest. Upon the contrary, I fear it will find a grave in it . . . Sir, I would prefer to see these States all reunited upon true constitutional principles to any other object that could be offered me in life; . . . But I infinitely prefer to see a peaceful separation of these States, than to see endless, aimless, devastating war, at the end of which I see the grave of public liberty and of person freedom.”    

(Breckinridge in the Crisis of 1860-1861, Frank H. Heck, Journal of Southern History, Volume XXII, Number 3, August, 1955, pp. 338-341)

85% of Americans Dissatisfied with Government’s Handling of Nation’s Finances

A new Gallup poll shows that a large majority of Americans are “dissatisfied” with the federal government’s handling of numerous economic-related issues, with 85% of people dissatisfied in particular with the government’s handling of the nation’s finances.

While the poll showed strong satisfaction for government’s management of natural disasters, national parks, and homeland security, for the 19 issues queried about by the poll,  Americans were dissatisfied with government’s handling of 13 of them in majorities that ranged from 56% to 85%.

Gallup asked, “Next, we are going to name some major areas the federal government handles. For each one, please say whether you are satisfied or dissatisfied with the work the government is doing.”

The results showed the following:

.................................................................  Dissatisfied         Satisfied

The nation’s finances                                  85%                        14%

Poverty                                                        80%                        19%

Labor and unemployment issues                 72%                        26%

Immigration policy                                        72%                        26%

Job creation, economic growth                     71%                        27%

Healthcare                                                   70%                        29%

Education                                                     65%                        33%

Veterans’ issues                                           58%                        38%

Foreign affairs                                               58%                        39%

Energy policy                                                 57%                        40%

Public housing                                               52%                        42%

Criminal justice                                              55%                        42%

Environmental issues                                     56%                        42%

Agriculture, farming                                        43%                        49%

Military, national defense                                42%                        56%

Transportation                                                38%                        57%

Homeland security                                          41%                         57%

National parks, open space                            26%                        68%

Responding to natural disasters                     23%                        75%

More @ CNS News

.................................................................  Dissatisfied         Satisfied
The nation’s finances                                  85%                        14%
Poverty                                                        80%                        19%
Labor and unemployment issues                 72%                        26%
Immigration policy                                        72%                        26%
Job creation, economic growth                     71%                        27%
Healthcare                                                   70%                        29%
Education                                                     65%                        33%
Veterans’ issues                                           58%                        38%
Foreign affairs                                               58%                        39%
Energy policy                                                 57%                        40%
Public housing                                               52%                        42%
Criminal justice                                              55%                        42%
Environmental issues                                     56%                        42%
Agriculture, farming                                        43%                        49%
Military, national defense                                42%                        56%
Transportation                                                38%                        57%
Homeland security                                          41%                         57%
National parks, open space                            26%                        68%
Responding to natural disasters                     23%                        75%
- See more at: http://cnsnews.com/news/article/poll-85-americans-dissatisfied-government-s-handling-nation-s-finances#sthash.WeOXBtEk.dpuf

Why the Zimmerman Prosecutors Should Be Disbarred

Via avordvet

 

Toward the end of his closing statement on Thursday, Florida Assistant State Attorney Bernie de la Rionda posted a slide on a screen in a fifth-floor Seminole County courtroom.

"Which Owner would be more inclined to yell for help?" read the banner on the top of the slide.  The slide was divided in two.  On the left was a photo of George Zimmerman's Kel-Tec PF-9 9mm handgun, and on the right was a can of Arizona Watermelon Fruit Juice Cocktail.  Beneath the photo of the gun was the question, "Who followed?"  Under the can was the question, "Who ran?"

So absurd was de la Rionda's presentation, and the whole case for that matter, that the can was turned sideways so the label could not be read.  Throughout the trial, prosecutors have called the drink "iced tea" lest the word "watermelon" be said in court.  "F***ing" was okay.  De la Rionda said it more times than the average rapper, but "watermelon," apparently because of its racial connotations, was not.

Hiding the word "watermelon" was the least of de la Rionda's dishonesties.  This one slide had several built in.  As to who ran, Martin had four minutes to run the 100 or so yards to the house he was visiting.  When he attacked Zimmerman, he was still 70 or so yards from that townhouse.  Do the math.

Then, too, from the day the State took over the case, prosecutors knew that Zimmerman was the one screaming for help.  All evidence supported that save for the dubious identification by Martin's mother.  If the State's jobs were to sow the seeds of reasonable doubt, one could forgive them this deception, but that's not the State's job.  That's the defense's.

The State's job is to make the case for the defendant's guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. 

More @ The American Thinker

North Carolina House approves restrictions on abortion clinics

 

 Republican lawmakers pushed ahead Thursday with their demand for new rules at North Carolina's abortion clinics, saying they will make the procedure safer for women. Opponents argued it was a blatant attempt to shut down clinics and curb a woman's right to choose.

The House voted 74-41 to approve new rules after a highly-charged, three-hour debate watched from the gallery by advocates on both sides of the issue.

The bill directs state regulators to change standards for abortion clinics to bring them in line with more regulated outpatient surgical centers. It also requires doctors to be present for an entire surgical abortion and when a patient takes the first dose for a chemically induced abortion.

More @ Fox

N.H. Rep. files petition, criminal complaint against oath-breaking colleagues

Via avordvet

 

A New Hampshire state representative has filed a petition to remove 189 legislators from the House of Representatives for voting to diminish citizen’s rights of self defense. John Hikel filed an Emergency Petition of Redress and a Verified Complaint of Breach of Oath of Office and Conspiracy against Rights in April against 189 members of the New Hampshire House of Representatives who voted to repeal the state’s “Stand Your Ground” law for “Breach of Oath of Office and Conspiracy against Rights.”

“It is one of our most basic rights [New Hampshire Constitution Part 1, Article 2a] and our oath of office says we will support the Constitutions of the United States of America and New Hampshire,” Hikel told Gun Rights Examiner. “I believe that a vote to diminish any rights violate that oath as well as New Hampshire statute 92:2 Chapter 92, Tenure and Oath of Office in Certain Cases.

More @ Examiner