Jurors See Body-Worn Camera Video From Baltimore Co. Police Officer's Fatal Encounter

Jurors on Tuesday saw body-worn camera video of Officer Amy Caprio repeatedly ordering Dawnta Harris to get out of a jeep in Perry Hall.

Baltimore County police officers who responded before paramedics arrived also testified on their efforts to save Caprio, who was struck and killed last year, allegedly by Harris. A jury was seated Monday.

Defense attorney J. Wyndal Gordon, in his opening statement, called Caprio's death an accident. He said his client was "scared 16-year-old" who didn't know how to react when confronted by Caprio, and said Caprio "threw herself in the pathway of a moving vehicle."

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GIve this Dog A Treat

Wednesday Morning Funnies

Trump Suggests John Kerry’s Meetings with Iran ‘Big Violation of Logan Act’

President Donald Trump challenged former Secretary of State John Kerry Monday for speaking to Iranian leaders as they struggle with tough policies from the Trump administration.

“Iran is being given VERY BAD advice by John Kerry and people who helped him lead the U.S. into the very bad Iran Nuclear Deal,” Trump wrote on Twitter. “Big violation of Logan Act?”

In 2018, Kerry admitted meeting with Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif “three or four times” to discuss Obama’s signature nuclear deal with Iran that Trump ripped up.

“What Secretary Kerry has done is unseemly and unprecedented,” Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in reaction to the news. “This is a former secretary of state engaged with the largest state sponsor of terror.”

The Logan Act criminalizes unauthorized negotiations between American citizens and foreign governments who have disputes with the United States.

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WORLD TAI CHI & QIGONG DAY

https://www.worldtaichiday.org/

DRUG TAKE BACK EVENT - April 2019

Type of Incident: NATIONAL DRUG TAKE BACK EVENT 

Date and Time: 04/27/2019 from 10 am to 2 pm 

Narrative: The Maryland State Police – Eastern Shore Barracks – to include all counties on the Eastern Shore, in conjunction with the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) will be offering a free – no questions asked – drug turn in day. The focus is to provide a means for citizens to turn in unwanted prescription drugs. 

It is well known that addiction to prescription painkillers is a serious public safety issue. The majority of abusers get their first dose from a family member’s medicine cabinet. Thieves often look for such medications during break-ins, to use or to sell on the street. Leftover pills have been identified as a means to fuel the opioid epidemic. 

Recent studies published (June 2018) in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) recorded many young adults – aged 25 to 34 – have accounted for one in every five deaths. The statistics are staggering when stating all deaths attributable to opioids increased 292% between 2001 to 2016, resulting in nearly 5.2 deaths per 1000 population. 

The Maryland State Police Barracks and civilian partners (see attachment) on the Eastern Shore are working with the DEA to help reduce these numbers. On April 27, 2019, citizens are urged to come in and deposit their unwanted prescription pills. No liquids, needles, thermometers or biohazards materials are accepted. Help keep family members and others safe from addiction. 

How to find a disposal location near you? https://apps.deadiversion.usdoj.gov/pubdispsearch/spring/main?execution=e1s1

Another French Church Burns on Easter Sunday, Probable Arson

Police have confirmed that a fire in the French church of Notre-Dame de Grâce on Easter Sunday appears to have been intentionally set, making it the latest in a string of desecrations of Christian churches in the country.

The fire was started in a large, wooden confessional around 4:30pm and proceeded to consume a dais in the presbytery of the eighteenth-century church located in the southern French town of Eyguières, near Provence.

“Flames several meters high were coming out of the church,” said the mayor of Eyguières, Henri Pons, before a team of 30 firefighters with six vehicles arrived and managed to contain the blaze.

An area of some 20 square meters in the church was destroyed but observers have noted that the damage would have been far worse had it not been it not for the bold intervention of a local inhabitant.

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Driver Needed

TRUMP SIGNING MEMO CRACKING DOWN ON VISA OVERSTAYS

President Donald Trump will be signing a memorandum recommending severe sanctions on countries with high rates of visa overstays in the United States.

The memorandum recommends, among other measures, placing travel restrictions on citizens of the 20 countries who have higher than 10% visa overstay rates, including Chad, Yemen, Syria, Angola and others. Over 415,000 individuals were suspected of overstaying their short-term visitor visas in FY 2018, according to Department of Homeland Security data as of March 2019.

“What we’re doing here is shutting a backdoor for illegal immigration,” a senior administration official told The Daily Caller. “This is part of the Trump Administration’s comprehensive approach to combating illegal immigration.”

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The Truth About the Sri Lanka Attacks

NJ Governor Wants To Punish Low-Income Gun Owners With Insane New Fees

New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy (D) wants to significantly increase the cost of owning a gun in the state - proposing fees that would be among the highest in the country, according to the New York Times.

Currently, a firearm identification costs $5, a permit to own a gun $2, and a permit to carry a gun costs just $20. Murphy wants to raise that to $100 for the ID, $50 to own a gun and $400 to carry. In addition, Murphy wants to slap a 10% excise tax on ammunition and a 2.5% firearms excise tax.

The proposals are part of the state budget which must be passed by June 30.

The new fees would - as they always do - disproportionately punish low-income, law-abiding, mostly minority gun owners who wish to defend themselves and their families in high-crime areas.

While Murphy lives in mostly white Princeton, NJ - which has an average income of $125,000 and virtually no violent crime, residents of predominantly black Asbury Park - with an average income of $37,737 (2016) and more than double the national crime rate, would be much harder pressed to come up with the extra $523 to legally defend themselves.

Murphy claims that there is no "war on responsible gun owners," and that the funds raised from the fee hike would go towards anti-violence initiatives.

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Uh Oh: Elizabeth Warren's Past May Catch Up To Her

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-WA) has made a name for herself as "strong progressive." She's championed traditionally progressive values like gun control, taxing the rich and even forgiving people's student loan debt. But before Warren was a progressive darling she was actually a registered Republican, POLITICO reported.

For quite a few years, Warren was a registered Republican in Pennsylvania and Massachusetts. It wasn't until she was 47 years old and a Harvard professor that she suddenly changed parties.

Warren has acknowledged her Republican past before, but she does not often discuss it, or else downplays it. In a recent interview over tea at her home in Cambridge, Massachusetts, she said she assumes the first time she registered as a Democrat was 1996, but added, “I’m not even 100 percent sure what I was registered as.” According to Warren, in the six presidential elections she voted in before 1996, she cast her ballot for just one GOP nominee, Gerald Ford in 1976. She does not talk about her Republican past in either of her books or as part of the biography she recounts in her stump speech; the information often comes as a surprise even to Beltway politicos and longtime Warren allies.

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Oregon Snowflake Cashes In

Multnomah County has agreed to pay $100,000 to a black employee who claimed the county fostered a racially insensitive workplace after she complained about a co-worker who pinned up a “Blue Lives Matter” flag.

Karimah Guion-Pledgure claimed in her January lawsuit that the flag “demeans” and “denigrates” the Black Lives Matter movement. But some co-workers didn’t agree, and Guion-Pledgure claims they harassed her for it -- leading her to suffer debilitating stress and health problems, the suit said.

A probation officer hung up the flag in September 2017 above the probation officer’s desk, and after Guion-Pledgure and other black co-workers complained, supervisors refused to require it be removed, the suit said.

Proponents of the Blue Lives Matter flag say it’s meant to support and honor the work and sacrifices of law enforcement officers.

Guion-Pledgure’s lawsuit said the Blue Lives Matter movement “co-opts” the Black Lives Matter movement and "repurposes it to shift focus to law enforcement — a chosen profession, not a racial identity — and thus denigrates, dilutes, and demeans the purpose of the Black Lives Matter movement.”

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New Census Numbers Reveal Americans Migrating West And South, And Away From High-Tax Blue-States

The U.S. Census Bureau has just released their annual report on how the U.S. population is shifting, and there are some very clear patterns in the data. If you look at this Census Bureau map, you will see lots of purple (areas where the population is growing) in the west and the south, and you will see lots of orange (areas where the population is declining) in the north and the east. Of course this is a continuation of a pattern that we have been seeing for decades. Given the ability to choose, many Americans would rather live in areas of the country that are warm and sunny, and that makes a lot of sense. But that is not the only pattern that we see in the data.

From July 1, 2017 to July 1, 2018 seven of the ten counties that had the largest percentage increase in population were either in Texas or Florida…

• McKenzie County, ND: 7.1 percent
• Williams County, ND: 5.9 percent
• Comal County, TX: 5.4 percent
• Kaufman County, TX: 4.7 percent
• Brunswick County, NC: 4.6 percent
• Walton County, FL: 4.5 percent
• Midland County, TX: 4.3 percent
• Osceola County, FL: 4.3 percent
• St. Johns County, FL: 4.2 percent
• Hood County, TX: 4.1 percent
   

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REPORT: OMAR ATTACKED US SOLDIERS WHO DIED FIGHTING IN ‘BLACK HAWK DOWN’ OPERATION

A newly unearthed tweet shows Minnesota Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar attacking the U.S. soldiers who fought and died in the Battle of Mogadishu.

“In his selective memory, he forgets to also mention the thousands of Somalis killed by the American forces that day! #NotTodaySatan,” Omar wrote in a tweet in October 2017, uncovered Monday by John Rossomando of the Investigative Project on Terrorism.

Omar was responding to another tweet about the Battle of Mogadishu, a 1993 humanitarian operation by the U.S. military that sought to save starving Somalis by preventing food and aid from being captured by enemy combatants. The battle ultimately took the lives of 19 American soldiers and wounded 73 others, and it became the subject of the famous Hollywood movie “Black Hawk Down.”

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House Judiciary chairman subpoenas ex-White House counsel Don McGahn

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., on Monday subpoenaed former White House counsel Don McGahn to testify publicly next month following last week's release of Special Counsel Robert Mueller's report on the Russia investigation.

Nadler described McGahn, who stepped down as White House counsel in October 2018, as "a critical witness to many of the alleged instances of obstruction of justice and other misconduct described in the Special Counsel's report."

The committee's ranking member, Rep. Doug Collins, R-Ga., slammed Nadler's move.

"For the second time in four days, the chairman has issued a subpoena prematurely and contrary to his pledge not 'to issue a subpoena every time we have a disagreement with the administration.' Don McGahn sat for more than 30 hours of interviews with the special counsel’s investigation, and the chairman has answered that with a stunning 36-item subpoena. Instead of looking at material that Attorney General [William] Barr has already made available, Democrats prefer to demand additional materials they know are subject to constitutional and common-law privileges and cannot be produced."

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https://www.foxnews.com/politics/house-judiciary-chairman-subpoenas-ex-white-house-counsel-don-mcgahn

JORDAN RAISES ADDITIONAL QUESTIONS ABOUT CUMMINGS’S SECRET MOU WITH CHAIRWOMAN MAXINE WATERS

WASHINGTON, DC – Today, Congressman Jim Jordan, Ranking Member of the House Committee on Oversight and Reform, sent a letter to Chairman Elijah Cummings (D-MD) raising additional questions about a secret Memorandum of Understanding executed with Chairwoman Maxine Waters (D-CA). The Chairman executed the MOU unilaterally and did not first obtain approval for this measure through a vote of the Committee.

“I appreciate the information you provided about your nonpublic MOU with Chairwoman Waters. I hope you will continue to be transparent about all future MOUs you execute. However, your letter did not explain what authority in the Constitution, the Rules of the House of Representatives, or the Rules of the Committee allows you to bind the Committee through an MOU without first obtaining approval through a vote of the Committee.”

“Your nonpublic MOU with Chairwoman Waters cites no specific authority allowing you to execute an MOU that could affect future investigatory actions you take as chairman on behalf of the Committee. I ask again whether you could explain the authority that allows you to execute an MOU that affects potential Committee action without first obtaining approval of Committee Members.”

Full text of the letter can be found here.

Ocasio-Cortez targeted by mystery multimillionaire donor

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s surging national profile has inspired a trio of Republican opponents from her home district — along with a multimillionaire mystery donor who could help close the gap in her foes’ long-shot race against her.

Just three months after taking office, the Democratic socialist congresswoman’s challengers include an Egyptian American journalist, who has already tossed her hat in the ring, and an NYPD cop-turned-high school civics teacher and conservative talk radio producer, both of whom are seriously exploring a run against her.

And the fledgling challengers could get help from a wealthy New Yorker committed to backing an Ocasio-Cortez opponent, a GOP big said.

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Bill would provide protections to student loan borrowers

ANNAPOLIS, Maryland — Wade Davis called Navient’s customer service in March, hoping to adjust the payment plan for his student loan. Davis, 36, and a freelance musician seeking full-time employment, said he couldn’t commit to his plan.

After telling a representative from Navient — one of the major student loan servicing companies — of his current financial situation, the representative informed him he would have to sign up for a month-to-month payment plan that Davis said isn’t feasible with his current financial situation.

Reiterating his financial struggles, Davis said he was frustrated with the representative whom he described as “rude” and “snarky” and who threatened litigation.

“They know what they are doing,” Davis said of the loan servicing company. “They have a license to treat people any way.”

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Churches Have Become The #1 Target For Hate Attacks

The bombings in Sri Lanka have once again put a spotlight on the rising tide of violence against Christians all over the world

According to Open Doors USA, an average of 105 churches and/or Christian buildings are burned or attacked every month. That is more than three per day, and almost all of those attacks get ignored by the mainstream media in the western world. In addition, an average of 345 Christians are killed for faith-related reasons every single month. Of course these numbers will soon be out of date, because violence against Christians continues to escalate all over the globe, and the horrifying attacks that we just witnessed in Sri Lanka are a perfect example. The following comes from CBS News…

"A series of eight bombings in Sri Lanka targeting Christian churches and hotels in three cities killed at least 207 people and wounded up to 450 others on Easter Sunday. Defense Minister Ruwan Wijewardene described the coordinated blasts as a terrorist attack by religious extremists."

More specifically, the attackers were Muslim extremists.

Why does the mainstream media have to be so politically correct all the time?

Of course this comes right on the heels of the fire that almost destroyed the Notre Dame Cathedral. Authorities are still attempting to determine the cause of that fire, but we do know that many other churches have been hit by vandals and arsonists in France since the beginning of February.

More here