BONNE TERRE, Mo. (AP) — A Missouri man convicted of ambushing and killing a St. Louis area police officer he blamed in the death of his younger brother was executed Tuesday night.
Kevin Johnson, 37, died after an injection of pentobarbital at the state prison in Bonne Terre. It was the state’s second execution this year and the 17th nationally. Two more executions are scheduled in Missouri for the first few weeks of 2023.
Johnson’s attorneys didn’t deny that he killed Officer William McEntee in 2005, but contended he was sentenced to death in part because he is Black. But courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court, and Republican Gov. Mike Parson declined to stop the execution.
Johnson declined to make a final statement before the lethal drug was administered.
In a first for modern executions in Missouri, Johnson was not in the execution room alone. His spiritual advisor, the Rev. Darryl Gray, sat at his side. The men spoke softly until the drug was administered. Gray read from the Bible as Johnson shut his eyes. Within seconds, all movement ceased. Gray, a leading St. Louis racial injustice activist, continued reading from the Bible or praying while patting Johnson’s shoulder.
"We read scripture and had a word of prayer," Gray said. "He apologized again. He apologized to the victim’s family. He apologized to his family. He said he was looking forward to seeing his baby brother. And he said he was ready."
Bob Baer, an ex-CIA grifter who pushed the Russiagate nonsense in an attempt to overturn the 2016 election, attacked free speech on CNN. That Baer is a columnist for Time and Vanity Fair as well as an author makes his call for censorship hypocritical as well as anti-American.
If the man is against freedom of speech, why did we hire him to protect our country? The CIA needs to do a better job vetting applicants.
He is upset that Elon Musk is stopping the censorship of conservatives on Twitter.
Baer said, "Putin is going to be all over Twitter if there’s no regulations on this, fake accounts, spoofed accounts … And so when he’s talking about the popular voice, Musk, he’s really talking about Russian intelligence.
"It’s not right. And you know, this freedom of speech is just nonsense because you can’t go into a movie theater and yell ‘fire.’ It’s against the law. What Putin is going to do & the Russians is they’re going to use this as a vehicle to save himself in Ukraine."
Actually, you can yell fire in a crowded theater. Emma Camp made this clear in a column three years ago.
She wrote, "The erroneous idea comes from the 1919 case Schenk v. United States. The case concerned whether distributing anti-draft pamphlets could lead to a conviction under the Espionage Act—and had nothing to do with fires or theaters.
"In his opinion, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote that 'the most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theatre and causing a panic.' However, this idea was introduced as an analogy, meant to illustrate that, as Trevor Timm wrote in The Atlantic in 2012, 'the First Amendment is not absolute. It is what lawyers call dictum, a justice's ancillary opinion that doesn't directly involve the facts of the case and has no binding authority.'
The phrase, though an oft-repeated axiom in debates about the First Amendment, is simply not the law of the land now, nor has it ever been—something made all the more apparent when Schenk v. United States was largely overturned in 1969 by Brandenburg v. Ohio."
Schenk was wrong. You should be able to protest the draft during wartime without being subject to being jailed (or worse) as a spy.
If anyone is yelling fire, however, it is Baer.
Let us take a stroll down memory lane. Read the rest at the link
#7
If someone promotes lies and nonsense on any public medium, the obvious recourse of lovers of truth is to refute that false information.,
Suppression is only rational when the information cannot be refuted.
That occurs always when the information is truthful.
Thus the only rational purpose to censorship is the suppression of truth.
here are times when that can be appropriate. such as when in world war 2 we were able to read some Japanese communications. Publicizing that truth would have been idiotic.
Other truths were suppressed during that war, for the purposes of preventing panic in our population.
However most suppressions in recent years have been only for political reasons, and are a disgrace to their perpetrators, who control most sources of information in this country and strive to control them all.
Posted by: i forgot it ||
11/30/2022 17:22 Comments ||
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[Defense One] The Defense Intelligence Agency has a longstanding HR problem: too few human-resources workers to help the rest of its growing workforce. Now the agency is aiming to boost recruiting and retention of HR staff by updating its record-keeping and telework systems.
The DIA has "chronically under-invested in our human resources capabilities" since 2008, when it absorbed intelligence personnel from military departments in combatant commands, agency chief of staff John Kirchhofer said Tuesday.
"We never grew our HR capacity to support that. And that was part of the logic at the time: ’we can do this cheaply,’" Kirchhofer said Tuesday. "But when you're faced with a crisis, you realize that doing it cheaply is not serving the workforce well."
For example, he said, "We struggle on some of the basics like making sure that awards are done in a timely fashion, that pay and compensation is taken care of, and personnel actions are up to date."
So DIA has been working with the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the defense undersecretary for intelligence and security to boost its HR to a healthy level that can support DIA’s 16,500 employees in more than 100 countries. Kirchhofer also said the agency plans to hire 1,000 employees a year.
You can never have too few HR people. I'm guessing this is drama to get in some kind of woke police brigade into the DoD by hiring absolute libtard curiosities.
[FOX] Winston Churchill, whose resolute leadership and combative spirit rallied Britain when it stood against Nazi Germany in some of the darkest days of World War II, was born in Oxfordshire, England, on this day in history, Nov. 30, 1874.
Churchill was thrown into a cauldron of global warfare, also battling Imperial Japan in Asia, and thrived under the pressure of statesmanship in the defense of democracy.
He assumed the role of British prime minister on May 10, 1940, replacing ineffective Neville Chamberlain, the same day that Hitler launched his new mechanized blitzkrieg war machine on a frightening offensive across Western Europe.
Netherlands, Belgium and France all collapsed within six weeks.
Churchill's fearless reaction, as England sat in the crosshairs of an expected invasion, still steel the spirit and inspire determination today.
Posted by: Frank G ||
11/30/2022 11:06 Comments ||
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#3
There were some rumors (conspiracy theories they are called today) that Churchill sympathized with the farmer-soldiers, which led some to believe he was permitted to escape in order to tell their side of the story to the British upper crust and politicians.
Of course you can hear or read about anything.
Finding the actual evidence of the theory is something else again.
Update urgently needed.
[American Thinker - July 2018] America has undergone enormous change during the nearly eight decades of my life. Today, America is a bitterly divided, poorly educated and morally fragile society with so-called mainstream politicians pushing cynical identity politics, socialism and open borders. The president of the United States is threatened with impeachment because the other side doesn’t like him. The once reasonably unbiased American media has evolved into a hysterical left wing mob. How could the stable and reasonably cohesive America of the 1950s have reached this point in just one lifetime? Who are the main culprits? Here’s my list of the 10 most destructive Americans of the last 80 years.
10) Mark Felt — Deputy director of the FBI, aka "Deep Throat" during the Watergate scandal. This was the first public instance of a senior FBI officially directly interfering in America’s political affairs. Forerunner of James Comey, Peter Strzok, Lisa Page and Andrew McCabe.
9) Bill Ayers— Represents the deep and ongoing leftist ideological damage to our education system. An unrepentant American terrorist who evaded punishment, he devoted his career to radicalizing American education and pushing leftist causes. Ghost wrote Obama’s book, "Dreams of My Father."
8) Teddy Kennedy — Most folks remember Teddy as the guy who left Mary Joe Kopechne to die in his car at Chappaquiddick. The real damage came after he avoided punishment for her death and became a major Democrat force in the US Senate, pushing through transformative liberal policies in health care and education. The real damage was the 1965 Hart-Cellar immigration bill he pushed hard for that changed the quota system to increase the flow of third world people without skills into the US and essentially ended large-scale immigration from Europe.
7) Walter Cronkite — Cronkite was a much beloved network anchor who began the politicalization of America’s news media with his infamous broadcast from Vietnam that described the Tet Offensive as a major victory for the Communists and significantly turned the gullible American public against the Vietnam War. In fact, the Tet offensive was a military disaster for the NVA and Viet Cong, later admitted by North Vietnamese military leaders. Decades later Cronkite admitted he got the story wrong. But it was too late. The damage was done.
6) Bill and Hillary Clinton—It’s difficult to separate Team Clinton. Bill’s presidency was largely benign as he was a relative fiscal conservative who rode the remaining benefits of the Reagan era. But his sexual exploits badly stained the Oval Office and negatively affected America’s perception of the presidency. In exchange for financial support, he facilitated the transfer of sensitive military technology to the Chinese. Hillary, a Saul Alinsky acolyte, is one of the most vicious politicians of my lifetime, covering up Bill’s sexual assaults by harassing and insulting the exploited women and peddling influence around the globe in exchange for funds for the corrupt Clinton Foundation. She signed off on the sale of 20% of the US uranium reserve to the Russians after Bill received a $500,000 speaking fee in Moscow and the foundation (which supported the Clinton’s regal lifestyle) received hundreds of millions of dollars from those who benefited from the deal. Between them, they killed any honor that might have existed in the dark halls of DC.
5) Valerie Jarrett - The Rasputin of the Obama administration. A Red Diaper baby, her father, maternal grandfather and father-in-law (Vernon Jarrett who was a close friend and ally of Obama mentor Frank Marshall Davis) were hardcore Communists under investigation by the U.S. government. She has been in Obama’s ear for his entire political career pushing a strong anti-American, Islamist, anti-Israeli, socialist/communist, cling-to-power agenda.
#7
Kerry may well be the most despicable American alive. But I have to say it's impossible for him to be number one on this list, he lacks the motivation and ability to be number at ANYTHING.
#8
The politicians/jurists associated with The 17th Amendment and the SCOTUS Lochner-Era Commerce Clause userpation of States Rights and abrogation of the rarely cited 10th Amendment, the never ending progressive zealots who infest Washington.
#9
A strong case can indeed be made for putting Lyndon Johnson at the top of the list. Cesare's assertion that Jawn Frickin Kerry is not worthy of being number one on any list is only one part of that case. I don't believe this country has ever fully recovered from LBJ's administration. The wounds from the Vietnam War are still painful and most key elements of his cynical Great Society are still in effect. I believe one of history's great ironies is LBJ's claim to be fighting communism in Vietnam while implementing socialist policies in America. His guns and butter policies nearly wrecked the economy and led directly to the inflation that still ravages our economy. My sincere hope is that LBJ is burning in hell.
I'm afraid that Joe Biden, by which I mean whatever group of communists pulls his strings (most likely including Baraq Obama), may end up as a strong contender.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
11/30/2022 14:06 Comments ||
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#10
regarding his honorable mentions of Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin I'd say the Beetles beet them to the intro of drug culture.
Let's play a little game...picture a country that is ruled by one man - now imagine that country is so geographically isolated that its regions and people have little-to-no integration - now add in some horrendous wealth inequality. Can you guess what is keeping that country together?
FORCE. And as soon as that force is challenged, everything falls apart. The Chinese people have had enough of the zero-COVID policy, and large protests are opening the doors for much larger discussions to take shape.
China is looking down the wrong end of a double-barrel shotgun. One barrel - loaded with a rolling series of government breakdowns. The other - loaded with a tightening grip of Xi Jinping. No matter which side goes off, China will be sent into a spiral of self-destruction.
#2
The Chinese have, according to Westerners who have lived there for a decade or so, a strong sense of nationhood.
This is notwithstanding the linguistic division between Cantonese and Mandurin, the various ethnic, rural vs urban, rich vs poor, etc. differences.
Posted by: Lord Garth ||
11/30/2022 16:02 Comments ||
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#3
China historically splinters into chaos and warlordism regularly, when the emperor by his deeds loses the mandate of heaven. So falling apart is orthogonal to their sense of nationhood or peoplehood.
The Disney-Fox deal, expected to close in the summer of 2019, complicates things a great deal. While a lot of geeks are excited about the creative freedom that comes with the merger regarding Marvel copyrights, and film fans are nerding out about potential reboots of popular franchises like Alien, the Fox merger is also a little bit scary. When Disney buys Fox, there’s a great risk of potential media monopolies. Popular Disney assets like ESPN would be owned by the same company that owns its major competitor, Fox Sports. ABC and Fox News would also compete and be owned by the same company. Some aspects of Fox will be split off into their own company, now nicknamed "Diet Fox." Even so, this would really increase the things Disney owns in our pop culture: shows like The Simpsons, American Horror Story, American Idol, and Family Guy, films like Alien, Home Alone, Avatar, Deadpool, and Independence Day, and massively important media brands like National Geographic and Hulu.
The answer to the question, "What companies are owned by Disney?" is going to change drastically in the next few years as more media corporations gobble each other up. Will we end up with three huge media companies, or two, or one? Will we have one mega-conglomerate of everything creative being controlled by Disney? Will the owners still remember that it all began with a mouse?
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.