Arbery Case - a Collection of Videos

Since this case has hit the news, there has been a lot of debate, and disagreement, and a lot of facts seem to be missed. Rather than list all of that, posting videos that discuss the issues.  This was not some "innocent jogger", targeted for "being black".  This was a legitimate suspect, with a record and recorded previous aggression.  The men who acted did so legally, and should not be prosecuted for that, just because Arbery decided to attack, and ended up shot as a result.

The videos:

This first one shows Arbery being very confrontational with police, aggressive to the point one attempted to use a taser. There is some bad language.  Notice, he comes towards the cop several times, being quite aggressive, then claims the cop can't touch him. 

Next, we will talk about Larry English, the man who owns the home which Arbery entered illegally.  English now claims "nothing was stolen", but he's lying.  He reported to 911 before that things were, in fact, stolen, and even that he had video of that, mentioning a too bag/box. 

 He's lying now to protect himself, I am sure, since threats have been made against others in this case.

Travis McMichael called the police before about Arbery:

He also mentions the previous thefts, which English did, as shown above, report.

Surveillance video shows a man that looks like Arbery inside the English house:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ttm_UOojaLU

Another video shows him leaving the same house way back in December:

At the time this was reported, English was still lying about the thefts he'd previously reported.

This is, in case you haven't seen it, a video of Arbery leaving the same house the day of the shooting:

This is no innocent jogger.  This man went to that house on multiple occasions, sometimes at night, and items were, in fact, stolen.  The McMichaels had every right under the law to assume he was a criminal, and to purse and attempt to detain him, and to carry guns while doing so. 

Here, a former police officer speaks about many facts in the case, and stateshis opinions on the legalities:

Solid analysis, in this video.

Now here is a video that discusses this case and another, in which an elderly white couple was actually hunted and killed, by a black man, and the media doesn't seem to want to talk about it:

Yet we are supposed to believe that that everything is against blacks, nothing a black person does is relevant, and they can do literally anything, and no one can stand against it, or they risk being called a racist?  That's the real racism here.

Please, share these videos, or the blog link, so people can see the facts, and understand how the media is trying to push these racial narratives.  Don't fall for the propaganda.

President Trump Stands Against Social Media Censoring!

This is awesome!  For far too long, we have seen these social media companies acting as publishers, claiming they can control content, all while hiding behind labels that pretend they are something else.  Finally, we are seeing action against this, in for of an executive order! 

Donald Trump Signs Exec Order to Curb Big Tech’s ‘Unchecked Power’

President Donald Trump signed an executive order Thursday in the White House to defend free speech on social media and regulate social media companies for selectively censoring users.

“We’re here today to defend free speech from one of the greatest dangers,” the president said, referring to the “unchecked power” wielded by social media companies in the United States.
The president signed the order in the Oval Office on Thursday afternoon.
“They’ve had unchecked power to censor restrict, edit shape hide alter virtually any form of communication between private citizens or large public audiences,” Trump said.
The president criticized the growing monopoly of social media companies in America, vowing to act to change the regulatory framework for the companies.
“There’s no precedent in American history for so small a number of corporations to control so large a sphere of interaction,” he said.
Trump said the increasing editorial actions by social media to control the content on their platforms endangered their liability shield under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act as a neutral public platform.
“The choices that Twitter makes, when it chooses to suppress, edit, blacklist, shadowban are editorial decisions, pure and simple, they are editorial decisions,” Trump said.
The president accused the companies of political activism, calling it “inappropriate.”
“What they choose to fact check and what they choose to ignore or promote is nothing more than a political activism group,” he said.
Trump said that social media companies had “more power and more reach” than any phone company or newspaper or media outlet, and needed more regulation.
U.S. Attorney General William Barr attended the event and said his office would prepare legislation to restrict social media companies from pressing their particular viewpoints on their platforms.
“These companies grew because they held themselves out as public forums,” Barr said, adding, “Now that they’ve become these very powerful networks of eyeballs. They’ve now switched and they are using that market power to force particular viewpoints.”
The president also noted that checking social media companies had become a bipartisan issue, citing Democrat support for regulation.
When ABC News reporter Jon Karl asked why President Trump did not delete his Twitter account in protest of the company’s decisions, Trump replied, “If you weren’t fake, I would not even think about it, I would do that in a heartbeat.”

I believe this is long overdue.  If the platform is supposed to be social media, then it needs to welcome all opinions.  Unless someone is posting something illegal, pornographic, inciting violence, or the like, the content should be welcome.  Political opinions are free speech, and should not be censored.  Differing opinions on social issues, crimes, diseases, or whatever else should not be prohibited.  These companies have gone too far, and want to control what people think.  It's good to have a president that understands and respects the freedoms upon which this nation was founded!

VP Comments on Re-Opening of the Nation

I am sure you all recall that Georgia was being criticized strongly for re-opening faster than some recommended, with all sorts of dire predictions thrown around.  Well, it's working, and that is being recognized:

Mike Pence in Georgia: Brian Kemp ‘Has Proven’ Critics ‘Wrong Every Day’ on Battling Coronavirus

ATLANTA, Georgia — Vice President Mike Pence defended Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp against establishment media and leftist critics who just weeks ago inaccurately predicted widescale doom as Georgia moved to aggressively reopen its economy ahead of schedule.

“Let’s be clear: Gov. Brian Kemp has proven them wrong every day,” Pence said when Breitbart News asked him and Kemp during a press gaggle to respond to critics throughout the media and left who ripped Kemp at the outset of the reopening process. “The people of Georgia have proven them wrong every day.”
The vice president’s praise of Kemp’s handling of the coronavirus crisis comes just weeks after Georgia in late April moved to aggressively reopen its economy—and the state faced a bevy of criticism from establishment media outlets and leftists.
“Georgia’s Experiment in Human Sacrifice,” was a headline, for instance, in the Atlantic for a piece by Amanda Mull.
Others in media and on the left were similarly vicious to Kemp. Now, though, the data demonstrates that Kemp was right and they were wrong. A month into Georgia’s reopening process, the first and most aggressive anywhere in America, cases, hospitalizations, and deaths are all on the decline. Georgia continues its reopening process, and providing hope to other states across the country following its lead.
While Pence was much more direct in noting that the establishment critics of Kemp were wrong, Kemp brushed them off and said to Breitbart News that he is not interested in battling with media critics—he is more focused on winning the war with the coronavirus and energizing his state’s economy.
“I’ll just say the way I’ve been dealing with that is I’m not criticizing anybody,” Kemp said. “There’s no playbook on this. We’ve all been in this together. Everybody has had to make tough decisions, whether it’s at the federal level or local level or certainly at the state level. I think everybody has the lives of their citizens and constituents [in mind], and they’re concerned about them when they make those decisions. I haven’t been too worried about criticizing the press too much either. I just want to keep driving our numbers down and keep making sure we give people an opportunity to get back to work and save this great economy that we have.”
Pence’s trip to Georgia began with a lunch visit the Star Cafe in Atlanta with Gov. Kemp and Georgia’s first lady Marty Kemp. Later in the day, he visited Waffle House corporate headquarters in Norcross for a roundtable with Kemp and Waffle House’s CEO. The vice president’s trip comes during a broader effort by the White House to reopen America, one that President Donald Trump and Pence have been cheerleading across the country. Trump was in Michigan on Thursday to pressure Democrat Gov. Gretchen Whitmer to move faster, and Pence was in Florida on Wednesday to cheer on GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis and enjoy a burger with him.

Later, during the Waffle House roundtable, Pence noted that case numbers and hospitalizations continue dropping in Georgia even as testing increases–a remarkable feat, he said, since one would think that increasing testing would lead to a spike in cases.
In the press gaggle inside Star Cafe, Pence told Breitbart News that all 50 states are reopening now. Pence also said that America does not face a choice between the economy or the public health—he said it is a choice between “health and health.”
“I was just in Florida a few short days ago where I heard tell of the level of criticism that had been waged there against the efforts of Florida to safely and responsibly reopen,” Pence said. “I’ve been working with governors in both political parties every day since the president tapped me to lead the White House Coronavirus Task Force. There is not a governor in a state or territory in this country that hasn’t done everything in their power to put the health and well-being of their people first. What governors recognize and what President Trump and I recognize is this is not a choice between health and a growing economy. This is a choice between health and health. There are very serious health consequences to having our economy continue to be closed. I think the American people understand that.”
“We asked people during the most difficult days of the coronavirus pandemic to avoid elective surgery, but the better part of a month ago we saw hospitalizations dropping around the country, so we encouraged states to open up elective surgery again.” Pence continued. “I want to take this time to tell everyone in Georgia: Now is the time to go back to your local hospital and have that procedure and have that routine checkup to support your health and to support your local healthcare community. The truth is when people forgo routine checkups, there are health risks with that. When people go a long time without work, there are profound emotional and physical impacts of that. That’s what Gov. Kemp has recognized and the people of Georgia have recognized and other governors around the country like the governor of Florida are doing.”
“All 50 states today are now in some measure of reopening their economies, ” he said. “They’re demonstrating we can do it safely and responsibly. But what some of the critics have to recognize is it’s not a choice between health and a strong economy. It’s between health and health, and the president and I and the governor here are determined to move forward and safely and responsibly reopen. That’s because that is the best way for a safe and strong America.”
Kemp, during his comments in response to Breitbart News during the press gaggle, said that he has been focused on making scientifically sound decisions—and his push to reopen, which has happened as the coronavirus has receded here, proves that.
“If you think back a few months ago, it’s the best economy we’ve ever seen. I’ve been a small business guy for 30 years,” Kemp said. “I’ve been through ups and downs and I’ve had weeks where I didn’t know if I was going to be able to make payroll. Marty and I were scratching every penny we could get to get our people paid. We were at that point in Georgia and I knew that—and the president and the vice president said to us that we can’t let the ill effects of the virus be worse than the virus itself. We’re fighting two battles—the COVID battle but also the battle to get this economy back to where it was when we started. That’s what I’ve been focused on—I’m not too worried about critics that are out there. I’m making decisions based on science and public health advice—every decision I’ve made with [Georgia Health Commissioner] Dr. [Kathleen] Toomey has been in conjunction with that and I just appreciate the support and the help of the administration, as we’ve been on this battle for months now.”

As many of us already believed, the draconian measures pushed in many states were not necessary,and re-opening is vital to the country, and quite safe.  

Baby Bear Breaks Into Cabin for Reese's Cups!!

 VIDEO: Baby Bear Breaks into Tennessee Cabin with Guests Inside

Two friends on vacation in Gatlinburg, Tennessee, had a close encounter with a baby black bear while they were in their cabin, according to a video.

WATE reported that Michelle Eberhart came to Gatlinburg for the weekend with her husband and their friends when Friday morning, while their husbands were out playing a round of golf, Michelle and her friend noticed the baby bear leaning on the cabin’s back door.
“She just started pointing and I was like, ‘What?’ and so I turned and looked, and there’s a bear just putting his full force on the door. And then the door opens,” Eberhart said.
The bear then barged right through the back door inside the cabin while the ladies rushed to a bedroom for safety. The video showed the bear inside the cabin’s back door pawing on the walls.
There also happened to be three more bears lounging around on the porch outside, according to the video.
“It was just almost surreal, it was just a fight-or-flight, like I just have to remove us from this situation and make sure that we’re at least in a safe place,” Eberhart said.
The police were eventually called in, removing the bear from the cabin and shooing the other three bears lounging on the porch. But the bears did not leave the house empty-handed.
“They got 5 pounds of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups and a pound of M&M’s and two pounds of Sour Patch Kids and two bags of potato chips… two beers and two Diet Cokes and about 20 Zyrtecs,” Eberhart said.
Wildlife officials warn to keep your distance if you encounter a bear and call authorities because bears can travel very quickly.

 This is why it's wise to keep doors locked, on cars and homes, in bear country.  They are clever, and can open an unlocked door!  Readers of the old "Facts, Fun, and Faith" channel will recall stories of bears demolishing unlocked cars.

Cute little thing, and not much of a threat, though his mother would be another story!  

Wuhan Virus and Nursing Homes

This is an issue that concerns a lot of people, and rightly so.  Even while we can see that a lot of the alarmist predictions about this virus were not accurate, we do need to note that some groups are always vulnerable to such diseases, and address those concerns.  In the case of this virus, that isn't happening, and the most vulnerable among our citizens are not only not being protected, but are being placed in even greater danger.  Nursing homes are overused already, in my opinion, as people push older relatives aside, instead of caring for them at home as used to be the norm.  Only those with certain needs, that can't be cared for at home, should even be in such places, and even then, if  home care option is possible, that would be better than what we have today.  Here are a couple of articles discussing the virus and nursing homes, in New York and California:

Coronavirus: New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s Nursing Home Scandal Grows

NEW YORK (AP) — New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who has won bipartisan praise for rallying supplies for his ravaged hospitals and helping slow the coronavirus, is coming under increasing criticism for not bringing that same level of commitment to a problem that has so far stymied him: nursing homes.

In part-lecture, part-cheerleading briefings that have made him a Democratic counter to President Donald Trump, Cuomo has often seemed dismissive and resigned to defeat when asked about his state leading the nation in nursing home deaths.
“We’ve tried everything to keep it out of a nursing home, but it’s virtually impossible,” Cuomo told reporters. “Now is not the best time to put your mother in a nursing home. That is a fact.”
Residents’ relatives, health care watchdogs and lawmakers from both parties cite problems with testing and transparency that have prevented officials — and the public — from grasping the full scale of the catastrophe.
And they are second-guessing a state directive that requires nursing homes take on new patients infected with COVID-19 — an order they say accelerated outbreaks in facilities that are prime breeding grounds for infectious diseases.
“The way this has been handled by the state is totally irresponsible, negligent and stupid,” said Elaine Mazzotta, a nurse whose mother died last month of suspected COVID-19 at a Long Island nursing home. “They knew better. They shouldn’t have sent these people into nursing homes.”
Of the nation’s more than 25,000 coronavirus deaths in nursing homes and long-term care facilities, more than a fifth of them — about 5,300 — are in New York, according to a count by The Associated Press, and the toll has been increasing by an average of 20 to 25 deaths a day for the past few weeks.
“The numbers, the deaths keep ticking up,” said MaryDel Wypych, an advocate for older adults in the Rochester area. “It’s just very frustrating.”
Cuomo faced criticism at a recent briefing for saying that providing masks and gowns to nursing homes is “not our job” because the homes are privately owned.
“It was such an insensitive thing to say,” said state Assemblyman Ron Kim, a Queens Democrat who noted that it wasn’t until just this past week that New York and neighboring states announced a plan to combine forces to buy protective gear and medical supplies for nursing homes.
“If we had focused on that early on,” he said, “we could have saved a lot of lives.”
Cuomo’s administration defended its response to the crisis, saying it has provided more than 10 million pieces of protective equipment to nursing homes and created a database of 95,000 workers who have helped out in hundreds of New York homes.
“This was an overwhelming situation for everyone,” said Jim Malatras, who serves on the governor’s COVID-19 task force. “There were deaths and it’s unfortunate. But it doesn’t mean we weren’t aggressive.”
One key criticism is that New York took weeks after the first known care home outbreaks to begin publicly reporting the number of deaths in individual homes — and still doesn’t report the number of cases. By the time New York began disclosing the deaths in the middle of last month, the state had several major outbreaks with at least 40 deaths each, most of which were a surprise to the surrounding communities and even some family members.
“They should have announced to the public: ‘We have a problem in nursing homes. We’re going to help them, but you need to know where it is,’” said former New York Lt. Gov. Betsy McCaughey, a Republican who now heads the nonprofit Committee to Reduce Infection Deaths. “Instead, they took the opposite tack: They hid it.”
Further, there has been a lack of testing in several recent New York outbreaks, including one that killed , many of whom died with COVID-19 symptoms without ever being tested.
Unlike West Virginia, New York has not mandated testing in its more than 1,150 nursing homes and long-term care facilities. Nor has Cuomo followed the lead of such states as Maryland, Florida, Tennessee and Wisconsin in dispatching National Guard teams to homes to conduct testing, triage and some care.
To be sure, it’s difficult to gauge the impact of such actions. While those states reported fewer nursing home deaths than New York, several have a larger share of nursing home deaths out of their state’s totals than New York’s 25 percent.
“No state is doing even close to an adequate job,” said Elaine Ryan, AARP’s vice president for state advocacy.
New York has faced particular scrutiny for a March 25 state health department directive requiring nursing homes to take recovering coronavirus patients.
“A number of nursing homes have felt constrained by the order and admitted hospital discharged patients without knowing what their COVID status was,” said Chris Laxton, executive director of the Society for Post-Acute and Long-Term Care Medicine. “This order made an already difficult situation almost impossible.”
The order, similar to one in neighboring New Jersey, was intended to help free up hospital beds for the sickest patients as cases surged. But critics have suggested nursing homes were already overwhelmed and a better solution might have been sending them to the virtually empty Jacob K. Javits Convention Center, which was retrofitted to treat COVID-19 patients, or an even less utilized Navy hospital ship that has since left Manhattan.
As the virus was racing through his nursing home, the head of Brooklyn’s Cobble Hill Health Center frantically emailed state health officials April 9 asking just that.
“Is there a way for us to send our suspected covid cases to the Javitz center or the ship?” Donny Tuchman wrote.
Tuchman said he was denied permission. Eventually, residents at his home would die.
Added the lawmaker Kim: “We could have figured out how to isolate these folks. We failed to do that.”
Rich Azzopardi, a senior advisor to Cuomo, said controversy over use of the convention center and the hospital ship is a “red herring” because patients discharged to nursing homes were “outside of what the feds would accept” at those facilities.
A state Health Department spokeswoman added the state is not tracking how many COVID-infected patients were admitted to nursing homes under the directive but homes should not take on new patients if they are “not medically prepared” to meet their needs.
“Throwing in new residents who may or may not have been stable at that point could not possibly have been to the benefit of any facility,” said Dr. Roy Goldberg, medical director of the Kings Harbor Multicare Center, a nursing home in the Bronx that has seen 56 deaths.

Nearly 50 Percent of California Coronavirus Deaths in Nursing Homes

Data released from the California Departments of Health and Social Services on Friday show that nursing home deaths represent almost half of the coronavirus fatalities in the state.

The San Francisco Chronicle reported on the development:

There were at least 11,344 confirmed cases among staff and residents at California’s skilled nursing facilities and residential care facilities for elderly as of Thursday, according to state data. These cases account for 18.1 percent of the state’s total 62,512 cases.
Meanwhile, 1,276 staff and residents at such facilities have died of the disease, making up 49.4 percent of the state’s 2,585 deaths as of Thursday.
Given those numbers — which the state said are “provisional” — an alarming 11.2 percent of people infected with the coronavirus at a nursing home has died.

The information confirms that elderly people with underlying health conditions — the demographic in nursing homes — and the workers who care for them represent the most vulnerable population during the coronavirus outbreak.
“All data in this chart is provided to offer a snapshot of COVID-19 in skilled nursing facilities in California and does not imply wrongdoing on the part of the facility,” state officials said.
Michael Connors of the California Advocates for Nursing Home Reform said in the Chronicle report that he thinks the death toll is higher than the reported numbers, calling the number of reported deaths “horrific.”
“COVID-19 is like a viral wildfire in nursing homes,” Connors said. “It’s way past time for all public health authorities in California to start treating it that way.”

So, why are we allowing a system that endangers the elderly?  We've all heard the reports of nursing home abuses, and cases of neglect, and now we are seeing how badly disease can affect these places.  This needs to change.  

I also wonder if some of this isn't deliberate, in light of the "death panels" promoted during the previous administration, if some of these politicians aren't using this virus as a means of eliminating elderly people.  We know there are many with no respect for life, who would happily do away with not only unborn children, but the elderly the disabled, and anyone else that wasn't useful to them.  Is that what we are seeing now?