A gunman opened fire at the famed Gilroy, California Garlic Festival Sunday evening, killing three people — including a 6-year-old boy — and injuring 12 others.
The popular food festival at the "Garlic Capital of the World" in Santa Clara County was about to close around 5:30 p.m. when at least one gunman opened fire. Authorities said police officers fatally shot the assailant, who had not been identified as of Monday morning. The motive for the shooting is unclear.
Witnesses reported hearing multiple rounds fired by a gunman armed with a rifle and dressed in what looked like a tactical vest and camouflage fatigues. They said he fired more than a dozen times before pausing and then firing again into the crowd.
Another shooting. And where is Congress?! Business as usual.
There isn't a "crisis at the border." The crisis is the now normal mass shootings with assault weapons in this country.
Someone who has asserted Article II of the Constitution lets him do whatever he wants.
Most recently, in spite of clear evidence of criminal acts of obstruction, America's monarch cannot be indicted of these crimes. (transcript from the Mueller testimony)
LIEU:I’d like to now turn to the elements of obstruction of justice as applied to the president’s attempts to curtail your investigation. The first element of obstruction of justice requites and obstructive act, correct?
MUELLER: Correct.
LIEU: OK. I’d like to direct you to page 97 of Volume 2 of your report, and you wrote there on page 97, quote, “Sessions was being instructed to tell the special counsel to end the existing investigation into the president and his campaign,” unquote. That’s in the report, correct?
MUELLER: Correct.
LIEU: That would be evidence of an obstructive act because it would naturally obstruct their investigation, correct?
MUELLER: Correct.
LIEU: OK. Let’s turn now to the second element of the crime of obstruction of justice which requires a nexus to an official proceeding. Again, I’m going to direct you to page 97, the same page of Volume 2. And you wrote, quote, “by the time of the president’s initial one-on-one meeting with Lewandowski on June 19, 2017, the existence of a grand jury investigation supervised by the special counsel was public knowledge.” That’s in the report, correct?
MUELLER: Correct.
LIEU: That would constitute evidence of a nexus to an official proceeding because a grand jury investigation is an official proceeding, correct?
MUELLER: Yes.
LIEU: OK. I’d like to now turn to the final element of the crime of obstruction to justice. On that same page, page 97, do you see where there is the intent section on that page?
MUELLER: I do see that.
LIEU: All right. Would you be willing to read the first sentence?
MUELLER: And that was starting with…
LIEU: Substantial evidence.
MUELLER: Indicates that the president…
LIEU: If you read that first sentence, would you be willing to do that?
MUELLER: I’m happy to have you read it.
LIEU: OK. I will read it. You wrote, quote, “substantial evidence indicates that the president’s effort to have Sessions limit the scope of the special counsel’s investigation be featuring (ph) election interference was intended to prevent further investigative scrutiny of the president and his campaign’s conduct,” unquote. That’s in the report, correct?
MUELLER: That is in the report, and I rely what’s in the report to indicate what’s happened in the paragraphs that we’ve been discussing.
LIEU: Thank you. So to recap what we’ve heard, we have heard today that the president ordered former White House Counsel, Don McGahn, to fire you. The president ordered Don McGahn to then cover that up and create a false paper trail. And now we’ve heard the president ordered Corey Lewandowski to tell Jeff Sessions to limit your investigation so that he — you stop investigating the president.
I believe any reasonable person looking at these facts could conclude that all three elements of the crime of obstruction of justice have been met. And I’d like to ask you the reason, again, that you did not indict Donald Trump is because of OLC opinion stating that you cannot indict a sitting president, correct?
MUELLER: That is correct.
America's monarch cannot be charged with a crime - any crime - while in office, solely based on an opinion of the Department of Justice's Office of Legal Counsel (OLC).
In a nutshell, The Nixon Justice Department, subsequent to Nixon's scandals, concluded that, "[t]he indictment or criminal prosecution
of a sitting President would impermissibly undermine the capacity of the executive
branch to perform its constitutionally assigned functions." In 2000 the Clinton Justice Department issued a legal memorandum concurring with the 1973 opinion.
I read the 39 page opinion and have a hard time accepting the conclusions of the OLC, which stated:
"In 1973, the Department of Justice concluded that the indictment and criminal
prosecution of a sitting President would unduly interfere with the ability of the
executive branch to perform its constitutionally assigned duties, and would thus
violate the constitutional separation of powers. No court has addressed this question directly, but the judicial precedents that bear on the continuing validity of
our constitutional analysis are consistent with both the analytic approach taken
and the conclusions reached. Our view remains that a sitting President is constitutionally immune from indictment and criminal prosecution."
The striking phrase in the OLC conclusion is that, "No court has addressed this question directly..." In order for this to happen, a sitting president would have to be charged with a crime. The only impediment is the OLC opinion.
While precedent legal cases surrounding the immunity of a president have referred to "no one being above the law," the OLC opinion under which our country lives usurps that tenet, effectively creating a monarchy. Admittedly a sitting president could be charged with crimes committed while in office after leaving office, however if elected to a second term the statute of limitations of many crimes will have expired after leaving office from the second term.
The time has come for the courts to decide on presidential immunity from crimes committed while in office. Unfortunately, it would end up in the Supreme Court, now stacked with conservatives justices. We, the people, are relegated to living under a monarchy.
Adolf Hitler rallied his followers by creating a nationalistic fervor. Last night's rally in North Carolina mirrored the same technique where racist-in-chief Trump continued his attack on four Congresswomen of color, resulting in chants of "send her back" from the audience.
Not-my-president Trump has denied that his calls to send the Congresswomen "back where they came from" are racist. In fact the Federal EEOC has clearly identified such slurs as illegal and, while related to the workplace, it is a clear foundational standard.
Harassment Based on National Origin
Ethnic slurs and other verbal or physical conduct because of nationality are illegal if they are severe or pervasive and create an intimidating, hostile or offensive working environment, interfere with work performance, or negatively affect job opportunities. Examples of potentially unlawful conduct include insults, taunting, or ethnic epithets, such as making fun of a person's foreign accent or comments like, "Go back to where you came from, " whether made by supervisors or by co-workers.
What is just as egregious as hate-monger Trump's addle minded sphincter followers repeating "back where they came from" is the complicit Republican members of Congress who have either supported this racism or stay silent.
My two car buddies and I are trying to put together a trip to Chicago, which isn't as simple as it should be. The main focus would be seeing the World War II German submarine U505, which is housed at the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry. Fascinating for sure.
Rather than drive the 550 miles we thought taking the Amtrak "California Zephyr" train might be - and I hesitate to use the word - fun.
The Positive:
• No road hassles driving.
• The observation car.
• The dining car.
• The bar.
The Negative:
• Going across Iowa and Illinois, which will look just like Nebraska.
• Coach seats for 10 hours (the tiny roomettes are too small for three and too expensive).
• Waiting on rail sidings for the freight trains to pass (Amtrak owns no rails).
• Did I mention the boring scenery across Iowa and Illinois?
Passenger rail was never a priority in America and it is now too late and too costly to build a system. Consequently Amtrak has struggled for years to stay afloat and without government subsidy they wouldn't. Compared to other methods of transportation Amtrak is expensive and especially compared to other countries that had the foresight to develop passenger rail systems.
No matter, Amtrak to Chicago may be an adventure. Maybe.
From 1938 to 2003 Volkswagen manufactured 21 million Type 1 Beetles. The last original Type 1 Beetle rolled off the assembly line on July 30, 2003.
Once again Volkswagen has announced it will no longer make the Beetle. The last "new" Beetle rolled off the production line in Puebla, Mexico and will be placed in a museum.
While the "new" Beetle was not as popular as the original Type 1 Beetle, it is the end of an iconic car. Again.
After a couple of failures trying clutch kits for the Beetle from a local auto parts store I ordered a Sachs brand kit.
As described in a previous post, the clutch disc in the two local kits would bump against the flywheel nut. The Sachs disc had the correct recess in the spline, as well as enough of a set back on the center web section (thanks Tom for catching that on the other discs). It seated properly against the flywheel.
The first step in installation was centering the disc and pressure plate against the flywheel using an alignment tool.
A couple bolts are loosely started to hold the disc and pressure plate in position while the alignment tool is used.
Once centered the disc and pressure plate are cinched down with the remaining bolts. Because replacing a clutch requires removing the engine, something I want to avoid for years to come, aircraft grade hardened bolts were used to eliminate any chance of them breaking.
The Sachs German engineered clutch is now manufactured in Brazil, where Beetles were also manufactured. The manufacturer is the last remaining company to manufacture VW Beetle engine blocks from the original factory molds.
As it turns out the Sachs clutch was the way to go instead of the local off brands.
What is traditionally a celebration of America's independence has been taken over by the narcissist-in-chief trump.
At a cost of $2.5 million, not-my-president trump has ordered military planes, tanks and armaments injected into the celebration, which has been for years by and for the people.
What has also been for years a non-political celebration has now been turned political with a self serving campaign speech by pathological liar-in-chief trump, including special reserved seating to high donor ticket holders and elite trumpies.
America's 4th of July is no longer America's celebration.
