Monday, July 06, 2009
Saturday, July 04, 2009
Webster not guilty...never was...
Former North Carolina State Senator Hugh Webster refused to plead to lesser charges in politically-driven baseless charges from malicious prosecution brought about as vengence for daring to oppose liberal Congressman Brad Miller (D-NC) in 2008. Repeated attempts to destroy Webster's career by the state's oligarchs have failed since 1994, when Webster first defeated star player George Daniels.
He reached over and shook the hands of his attorneys, Kieran Shanahan and John Branch, after the judge read the not guilty verdicts for the count of embezzlement and exploitation of his aunt Thursday in Caswell County Superior Court.
The four-day trial finished a family matter, Shanahan said.
“Obviously the jury got it right,” he said. “I regret we had to go through it.”
After the trial, Webster said that he’s going to be very careful about helping people in the future and will have to find a way to pay his attorney’s fees. He and Doris Nance are family “no more,” he said.
“You never recover from this,” Webster said.
Webster stopped to talk with reporters while Shanahan waited for him toward the back of the courtroom.
“Come on, Hugh, let’s go, buddy,” Shanahan said to him. “Talking to the press only gets you in trouble.”
The jury heard more witness testimony, closing arguments and reached their verdict Thursday.
Shanahan reminded the jury of their responsibility during his closing argument. He stood at a podium in front of the 14 jurors with a tripod that held a easel pad to his left.
“You’re going to decide an important case,” he said. “I’m sitting next to a man that’s mad.”
Webster’s story remained the same throughout the trial, Shanahan said. Webster testified that the money was a gift. He told the jury they could trust Webster’s testimony.
“Please remember that my client had no obligation other than to be here,” Shanahan said. “Stripped down, this case is he said, she said.”
The nature of the case makes it tough to establish guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, he added.
Balls of crumpled white paper lay on the blue carpet at the end of District Attorney Joel Brewer’s closing argument. He walked the jury through Webster’s defenses, tearing them from a piece of paper and tossing them on the floor near the witness stand.
Brewer said the defense wanted to distract the jury with Webster’s fear of Medicaid fraud. He compared the situation to a hunting dog that is distracted by a rabbit while hunting quail.
“That’s what the defense wants you to do in this case,” Brewer said. “Chase a rabbit.”
Former state senator and Republican gubernatorial candidate Fern Shubert also testified Thursday about a spreadsheet of Nance’s bank records she organized.
The expert witness matched the spreadsheet with the Department of Social Services records that the Shanahan Law Group received. She said that the Nance’s unusual financial moves coincided with her ex-husband’s applications for Medicaid. Nance withdrew large amounts of money from two of the bank accounts the divorced couple shared about each time her ex, Robert Nance, applied for benefits. She moved the money to other joint bank accounts that DSS didn’t know about, she said.
Robert needed savings and cash less than a certain amount to qualify for Medicaid benefits, she said.
Shubert served in the General Assembly with Webster. The two Republicans stuck up for each other in the Democrat-held state senate. Webster endorsed Shubert when she ran for the Republican nomination for governor.
She wrote a column about Webster’s case in November 2007 for The County Edge, a weekly newspaper in Union County North Carolina. The charges “smell of political persecution,” she wrote.
But she said her history with Webster had no impact on her testimony.
“I am here not because of any relationship with the defendant,” Shubert said. “But I’m here in self defense because of a pattern I’ve seen that says I might be next.”
Webster described the trial as a dog-and-pony show, the charges as political payback and the $12,115.49 check a gift. Simply, the trial was Webster’s word versus Nance’s. And in the end, the jury could not find Webster guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Sunday, June 21, 2009
Brooklyn science fiction fans Erin Finnegan and Noah Fulmore are "walking on air: as they exchange vows aboard Zero Gravity Corporation aircraft
from KSC, June 20.
from KSC, June 20.
Saturday, June 20, 2009
But there is no peace...
And this is what we (yes "we") are faced with in Iran. As Sun Tzu wrote, the first and least remembered of his aphorisms in Art of War, his message to those for whom peace is a higher priority, and today for those who seek "a peaceful solution" between the factions who, make no mistake, are now engaged in a fight to the death:
"It is a matter of life and death, a road either to safety or to ruin. Hence it is a subject of inquiry which can on no account be neglected."
Other translations are no less explicit. War must be studied, if you want to live. There are few things so peaceful as a mass grave.
Above, which you will not see on American television, perhaps for the "best of reasons," to somehow protect children from the truth, is typical in Iran. It's going to get worse, too.
A young Persian woman dies before our eyes, the victim not of a fellow Iranian, a police officer, most of whom are unwilling to shoot on their fellow citizens. She was shot and killed by a Bahij, an Arab shi'ite militant member of Hezbollah, brought into the country by the wicked regime who still possess out sovereign embassy, after thirty years.
Their leader Ahmed Aminjad, an assassin and member of the Revolutionary Guard , was also a leader of the "students" who seized our embassy in 1979.
"It is a matter of life and death, a road either to safety or to ruin. Hence it is a subject of inquiry which can on no account be neglected."
Other translations are no less explicit. War must be studied, if you want to live. There are few things so peaceful as a mass grave.
Above, which you will not see on American television, perhaps for the "best of reasons," to somehow protect children from the truth, is typical in Iran. It's going to get worse, too.
A young Persian woman dies before our eyes, the victim not of a fellow Iranian, a police officer, most of whom are unwilling to shoot on their fellow citizens. She was shot and killed by a Bahij, an Arab shi'ite militant member of Hezbollah, brought into the country by the wicked regime who still possess out sovereign embassy, after thirty years.
Their leader Ahmed Aminjad, an assassin and member of the Revolutionary Guard , was also a leader of the "students" who seized our embassy in 1979.
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Up your health!
"With as little comment as possible," Mark Binker of the Greensboro News and Record, author of the Capital Beat blog in Raleigh, offers his readers three bills the N.C. House Health Committee, chaired by Dr. Bob England (D-Cleveland & Rutherford), is scheduled to take up for consideration, June 18.
They are House Bill 1380, the Medical Marijuana Act, sponsored by Greensboro Rep. Earl Jones, (D-Guilford) making "the possession of marijuana for medical purposes legal," Mark writes.
"No," he writes, "as I read the bill, being hung over from not having any pot is not a medical condition that would qualify."
Also on the committee calendar Thursday is H.B. 1579, Increase Alcohol Taxes, that Mark offered, without irony, "would triple the tax on beer as a way of discouraging young people from getting drunk on beer."
But at the top of the list, sponsored by Rep. Verla Insko (D-Orange), is H.B. 1122, "NC Colon Hydrotherapy Licensure," regulating the practice, says Mark, "of shooting water up folk's backsides."
And so, among over 500 boards and commissions in North Carolina state government the 19th Century Pragmatism Movement (the same people who gave us phrenology, among them those who were the ones who first pushed to license all skills and trades, now want to add licensing of "Colon Hydrotherapy."
Essentially, this is the professional administration of performing an enema on another, which is done using everything from coffee to mineral water, with mixtures of everything in between.
Last fall two ladies, one a practitioner, the other her follower, voluntary aide and frequent patient(?), made their first presentation in Raleigh to a Republican member of the House who also asked me to be there before the meeting.
This House Member had no clue why they chose them to make their first presentation in front of, and I had no clue why the Member then asked for me to be there. The note simply had a place and time, the subject being "Colon Health."
Before the gathering, I had sort of guessed correctly that the meeting was to be about regulating what I thought was known as "Colonics," a fashionable thing in Los Angeles, I gathered from watching to many motion pictures.
The pending meeting was subject for some snickering and eye-rolling, that sort of thing, as it approached. I suspended any temptation to make jokes, even though a healthy sense of humor is important if you want to keep a straight face around the legislature.
The two ladies were not stuck-up about the subject, though it clearly was no laughing matter to them either. They took colon health seriously enough not to flinch when, after they had made their case for state licensure, I asked them "what compelling interest does North Carolina have in licensing this practice?"
Such a question usually "divides the cat from the cat house," flushing out those who just want the state to outlaw their competition.
Such people think that question is about their motives, which it is, of course. But it's an honest question, especially if you are only basely familiar with your colon. Such people also betray themselves in how they answer that question.
If they answer, for example, that "it just is!" you can safely bet putting competitors out of business is all they really want to do.
Our two colon-health advocates, however, were prepared with horrific stories (with pictures) showing the downside of work done by less experienced practitioners, who apparently have been shooting water up their neighbors "backsides," and in a more primitive way than our advocate thought safe more than I realized.
She was new to North Carolina, and had been shocked to discover the methods of colon flushing as practiced among the primitives in North Carolina.
One thing is certain. In the unlikely event her competition gets wind of this legislation, it's certain the bill will get stopped up in the Senate.
We did give them some honest advice, as I recall. The way they are presently in Raleigh, we told them, it was unlikely a Republican legislator could help them with a bill.
We pointed them in the direction of Dr. England, in the House and Dr. Purcell in the Senate, and we recommended also some of the more strident "Unitarian, Pragmatist and Progressive" Democrats in both the House and Senate.
Rep. Insko's name came up, who eventually was either asked by Dr. England to sponsor H.B. 1122 or sponsored it out of belief that the methods our advocate's competition practiced this art in North Carolina really was a clear and present danger.
It passed an introductory First Reading in the House and, without objection, was passed by the Speaker to the Dr. England's Health Committee. Which leaves me wondering, as I did then, about the unintended consequences of the bill, should it become law.
I can't help but wonder also if there are any Shovel Ready projects in this pressing matter that are worthy of federal stimulus funding.
If the bill does pass there's certain to be a request from the Community Colleges for classes to train and license, and also to increase awareness of the need for colon health vigilance.
Maybe they can find some money for that in the Golden Leaf slush fund.
They are House Bill 1380, the Medical Marijuana Act, sponsored by Greensboro Rep. Earl Jones, (D-Guilford) making "the possession of marijuana for medical purposes legal," Mark writes.
"No," he writes, "as I read the bill, being hung over from not having any pot is not a medical condition that would qualify."
Also on the committee calendar Thursday is H.B. 1579, Increase Alcohol Taxes, that Mark offered, without irony, "would triple the tax on beer as a way of discouraging young people from getting drunk on beer."
But at the top of the list, sponsored by Rep. Verla Insko (D-Orange), is H.B. 1122, "NC Colon Hydrotherapy Licensure," regulating the practice, says Mark, "of shooting water up folk's backsides."
And so, among over 500 boards and commissions in North Carolina state government the 19th Century Pragmatism Movement (the same people who gave us phrenology, among them those who were the ones who first pushed to license all skills and trades, now want to add licensing of "Colon Hydrotherapy."
Essentially, this is the professional administration of performing an enema on another, which is done using everything from coffee to mineral water, with mixtures of everything in between.
Last fall two ladies, one a practitioner, the other her follower, voluntary aide and frequent patient(?), made their first presentation in Raleigh to a Republican member of the House who also asked me to be there before the meeting.
This House Member had no clue why they chose them to make their first presentation in front of, and I had no clue why the Member then asked for me to be there. The note simply had a place and time, the subject being "Colon Health."
Before the gathering, I had sort of guessed correctly that the meeting was to be about regulating what I thought was known as "Colonics," a fashionable thing in Los Angeles, I gathered from watching to many motion pictures.
The pending meeting was subject for some snickering and eye-rolling, that sort of thing, as it approached. I suspended any temptation to make jokes, even though a healthy sense of humor is important if you want to keep a straight face around the legislature.
The two ladies were not stuck-up about the subject, though it clearly was no laughing matter to them either. They took colon health seriously enough not to flinch when, after they had made their case for state licensure, I asked them "what compelling interest does North Carolina have in licensing this practice?"
Such a question usually "divides the cat from the cat house," flushing out those who just want the state to outlaw their competition.
Such people think that question is about their motives, which it is, of course. But it's an honest question, especially if you are only basely familiar with your colon. Such people also betray themselves in how they answer that question.
If they answer, for example, that "it just is!" you can safely bet putting competitors out of business is all they really want to do.
Our two colon-health advocates, however, were prepared with horrific stories (with pictures) showing the downside of work done by less experienced practitioners, who apparently have been shooting water up their neighbors "backsides," and in a more primitive way than our advocate thought safe more than I realized.
She was new to North Carolina, and had been shocked to discover the methods of colon flushing as practiced among the primitives in North Carolina.
One thing is certain. In the unlikely event her competition gets wind of this legislation, it's certain the bill will get stopped up in the Senate.
We did give them some honest advice, as I recall. The way they are presently in Raleigh, we told them, it was unlikely a Republican legislator could help them with a bill.
We pointed them in the direction of Dr. England, in the House and Dr. Purcell in the Senate, and we recommended also some of the more strident "Unitarian, Pragmatist and Progressive" Democrats in both the House and Senate.
Rep. Insko's name came up, who eventually was either asked by Dr. England to sponsor H.B. 1122 or sponsored it out of belief that the methods our advocate's competition practiced this art in North Carolina really was a clear and present danger.
It passed an introductory First Reading in the House and, without objection, was passed by the Speaker to the Dr. England's Health Committee. Which leaves me wondering, as I did then, about the unintended consequences of the bill, should it become law.
I can't help but wonder also if there are any Shovel Ready projects in this pressing matter that are worthy of federal stimulus funding.
If the bill does pass there's certain to be a request from the Community Colleges for classes to train and license, and also to increase awareness of the need for colon health vigilance.
Maybe they can find some money for that in the Golden Leaf slush fund.
Monday, June 15, 2009
Sarah Palin, the 21st Century 'It' Girl
Jay Valentine
The American Thinker
The American Thinker
The best and the brightest on the left go into politics. The best on the right run their own businesses. So it is no surprise that the left is far more adept, even expert at the art of hardball politics. And they are telling us something profound.
The left is telling us something many feel, many find as a hunch, that Sarah Palin is the most dangerous threat to the Obama administration with no close second. The left is telling us this by their "over the top" attacks. Not just the Letterman assaults, but the constant barrage of grievances filed against her in Alaska. The attacks every day on Palin for no apparent reason -- except that the left seems to see her quite differently from any Republican candidate. A difference of kind, not of degree.
They would never do this to Romney, Huckabee or Newt, at least not to this level. There is a clear reason -- these guys couldn't fill up a high school stadium unless they were giving out free beer.
The left is telling us something many feel, many find as a hunch, that Sarah Palin is the most dangerous threat to the Obama administration with no close second. The left is telling us this by their "over the top" attacks. Not just the Letterman assaults, but the constant barrage of grievances filed against her in Alaska. The attacks every day on Palin for no apparent reason -- except that the left seems to see her quite differently from any Republican candidate. A difference of kind, not of degree.
They would never do this to Romney, Huckabee or Newt, at least not to this level. There is a clear reason -- these guys couldn't fill up a high school stadium unless they were giving out free beer.
War of drugs, "Know it," says Nugent
Ted Nugent, Texas Wildman
Waco Tribune
One of the most dangerous places on earth is our own 2,000-mile border with Mexico. Our southern border is a drug-war zone, and we’re losing. Know it.
Before she became secretary of Homeland Security, former Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano declared a state of emergency along the Arizona/Mexico border because of drug trafficking, shootouts and an increasing illegal immigration invasion.
The Justice Department stated that Mexican drug cartels are the “largest threat to both citizens and law enforcement agencies in this country” with gang members loose in nearly 200 U.S. cities.”
This in the big, bad, brave United States of America! How can this be?
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