NEW YORK – A defiant motorcyclist caught on video smashing an SUV window with his helmet after a wild chase in upper Manhattan gave the middle finger to reporters in court Sunday.
Reginald (Reggie) Chance, 37, was in Manhattan Criminal Court facing assault and gang assault charges in the brutal beating of Alexian Lien when he flipped off reporters with both middle fingers moments before he appeared in front of a judge.
Chance is the rider wearing a black leather jacket, in the viral video of the Sept. 29 chase, who violently smashes the driver’s window with his helmet, the criminal complaint alleges.

[…] Once they trapped the vehicle, the thugs even tried to grab Lien’s wife, who was inside with the couple’s 2-year-old, a witness who’s being hailed as a good Samaritan said Sunday. (more…)

President Obama is ridiculously shrinking himself in front of an entire nation.  Do you think this is serendipity, or strategy?   Yeah, me too....

U.S. special forces raids, one successful – one not. 

Nazih Abdul-Hamed Nabih al-Ruqai’I (Anas al-Libi for short)  has been on the “kill or capture” list for 15 years.   He was a middle level al-Qaeda guy in the 90’s and thought to have been behind the cell that carried out the Kenya and Tanzania embassy bombings in 1998.
Both CNN and NBC are reporting he was captured in Libya (Tripoli maybe?)  […]

Al Libi has been a member of al Qaeda since at least 1994 and was a confidante of Osama bin Laden.  He also is a computer expert for the group and is believed to be one of the masterminds of the 1998 U.S. Embassy attacks in Kenya and Tanzania, which killed 12 Americans and more than 220 Kenyans. He has been indicted in New York in connection with the attacks and could ultimately be brought to the U.S. to stand trial.

The unsuccessful raid was in Somalia […]  (more…)

TreeHouse Team Ponderings:   Little one’s hair is nicely cared for and she’s wearing cute, clean clothes. Which makes one think mental illness on the part of caregiver/mom-person is not as significant a factor as perhaps they would like it to be?

This child looks properly cared for by a relative and thus, whatever the dead person did today was not primarily a result of mental illness, but a decision. Just a thought. In addition, the child is not behaving hysterically in the way that children accustomed to abusive surroundings might rip loose when “something else” goes wrong.

The child appears to be responding to a caring adult in an appropriate manner…not clinging or freaking out–but trusting. Again, that suggests the chaos was a result of deliberate decisions, not a result (primarily) of “mental illness.”
[O]ne of the very first newsmen on the scene was a reporter for Alhurra (“The Free One”)TV?   They shot the first video all the stations were using.

Alhurra is operated by the non-profit corporation “The Middle East Broadcasting Networks, Inc.” (MBN). MBN is financed by the U.S. Government through a grant from the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), an independent federal agency. The BBG serves oversight and as a firewall to protect the professional independence and integrity of the broadcasters. (link)

Interesting thought…  Somali woman hired to work in prisons.   Prisons generally filled with large percentages of those holding Muslim faith.  Hmmm? (more…)

By dictatorial fiat….

Obama's America… pic.twitter.com/P38BDsne5d

— Morgen Richmond (@morgenr) October 2, 2013

Effective one second past midnight this morning anything that happens will be because the U.S. Federal Government shut down.

If you don’t believe me, just watch television.   It will be live 24/7….
A wounded water buffalo was spotted trying to give birth on the dangerous Serengeti Plain, CNN International will soon report the cause is the shutdown of the U.S. federal government.   A man in Wisconsin missed his bus because the battery in his alarm clock ran out; Damn that John Boehner. A drawbridge near Baton Rouge Louisiana got stuck this morning – MSNBC confirms the GOP caused that.
In New York, a once joyful fifth grade teacher’s chalk broke in half right when she was about to use it on the blackboard; Peter King erupts in fury – ABC has live coverage.    If the stock market climbs, or falls, it’ll be all Ted Cruz’s fault – And NBC will be there live to walk you through it.   When the planes arrive/depart typically late, now CBS will report it’s because of Paul Ryan’s entrenched ideology – last week notsomuch. (more…)

Holder: Trayvon Martin investigation is 'ongoing'

— AJAM Live (@ajamlive) September 30, 2013

Gee, I wonder why you never heard of this race-based mass shooting incident in North Carolina, which took place while the trial of George Zimmerman was ongoing ?   Hmmm… couldn’t possibly be because the media hold any disposition toward not spotlighting race-based spree shootings when the black attacker specifically asserts his chosen targets were white people. No, wait…
GREENVILLE, N.C. (AP) — A man who shot four people near a Greenville Wal-Mart in June picked out his victims because they were white, according to several indictments handed down against him.

Lakim Faust had more than 100 rounds of ammunition when he started shooting at people at a law firm and a shopping center in June, authorities said.
A grand jury indicted Faust on 14 charges Monday, including four counts of attempted first-degree murder.
Faust, who is black, picked out his victims based on their race, according to the indictments. The documents didn’t specify why Faust wanted to shoot white people, and police have not talked about why he picked out his targets. (more…)

The Supreme Court, responding to numerous lawsuits brought about by harmed citizens, has affirmed -at the behest of all law enforcement communities- that the police have no “affirmative duty -or- responsibility” to protect any individual citizen from harm.
Quite simply, Law Enforcement is only statutorily bound to enforce laws; and/or respond to violations of law *after* an incident has occurred.
The absence of an affirmative duty to intervene prior to criminal conduct gives rise to the common concept of self defense.
It is our right to self-protection, in conjunction with our right to form associative arrangements, which gives rise to our right to form internal security agencies such as the police.
This is an essential part of the social contract with law enforcement.
However, contained within that right is the right to oversight of those agencies, and the right to alter or abolish them if they become destructive or oppressive.
This oversight is just as central, if not more so, as the establishment itself.
A fundamental unwavering principle behind the construct of internal security agencies which we create, permit and accept, is the duty to oversee such agencies within the formation of our Constitutional Republic.

(MARYLAND)  An email sent to students by a University of Maryland official that cites the Trayvon Martin shooting as evidence “it is legal to hunt down and kill American children in Florida” is being blasted as the latest evidence of a left-wing bias on campus.

The email, from William Dorland, director of the school’s Honors College, starts by welcoming students back to campus, but then quickly veers into politics.
“This year, we learned that it is legal to hunt down and kill American children in Florida,” it reads, in a reference to the trial of George Zimmerman, who was cleared of all charges in the fatal shooting of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin. The email went out to all students in the Honors College. (more…)

WASHINGTON (AP) – The Internal Revenue Service says an official at the center of the agency’s tea party scandal is retiring.
Lois Lerner headed the IRS division that handles applications for tax-exempt status when she was placed on paid leave in May. While she was in charge, the agency acknowledged that agents improperly targeted tea party groups for extra scrutiny when they applied for tax-exempt status from 2010 to 2012.
Lerner first disclosed the targeting at a law conference in May, when she was asked a planted question about IRS treatment of political groups. Less than two weeks later, she refused to answer questions at a congressional hearing, citing her constitutional right not to incriminate herself.
Republicans in Congress have repeatedly called for her to be fired.  (read more)