Category: Politics

 

Nickolas Clarke never thought he would save someone from drowning twice in his life, let alone in the same location. But while visiting the beach on Labor Day with his family, he and another bystander jumped in the rough water to save a young boy.

“You would never expect in a million years for that to happen again,” Clarke said. “It happens quick; you either do something or you don’t.”

The Army Ranger saved two people from drowning on the same beach on Oklaoosa Island in 2014. He was awarded the Soldier’s Medal, the Army’s highest award for heroism outside of combat.

Although Clarke retired in 2015, his military training and instincts stayed intact and helped him save yet another person this week.

It was about 3 p.m. Monday and red flags were flying as strong rip currents formed ahead of Tropical Storm Gordon. Clarke was sitting on the beach with his two children when he heard a lady yell for help.

“She was screaming ‘Somebody help my kid,’ ” Clarke said. “I looked over and that’s when I saw him out pretty far. I saw just a head in the waves.”

Without hesitation, Clarke and Sgt. Cody Patterson, an airman from Eglin Air Force Base, jumped in the water and grabbed the boy. They struggled to keep their heads above the waves and went under several times, but kept the boy’s head above the water.

By the time the men were able to stand, lifeguards had arrived and helped them to shore. Firefighters examined the boy and released him back to his family.

Monday was a busy day for lifeguards on Okaloosa Island, according to Okaloosa County Beach Safety Division Chief Rich Huffnagle. Although there were only two rescues, the lifeguards spent the day explaining to people on the beach the hazards of the rip currents.

Moments before Clarke and Patterson’s rescue, lifeguards pulled another person from the water nearby.

Clarke is still recovering from a broken neck, dislocated shoulder and injured back he received in an accident while in the Army. Monday’s rescue left him with back pain, but he said it was all worth it.

“Even if I had one leg and a missing arm, I’d still go out there,” Clarke said.

Generous Americans give more than $2.5 billion a year to some 40,000 charities with missions designed to help veterans.

Lately, however, this crowded field has been inundated by fraud, according to the Federal Trade Commission.

Welcome to the party…finally.  The use and abuse of veteran related charities has been going on for far too long.  Motorcycle clubs and even VFW posts have been busted for this asshattery.

The FTC launched Operation Donate with Honor in July to spotlight the problem of fraudulent and deceptive fundraising on behalf of military and veterans’ causes.

“It’s war profiteering,” Joshua Starks, commander of the 300,000-strong Oklahoma Veterans of Foreign Wars told Fox News. “They’re stealing from people who raised their hand and took an oath to serve our country and then went overseas to protect the rights of all of us–including the people who are stealing from them.”

As part of Operation Donate with Honor, the FTC distributed a list of 102 law enforcement actions 34 states have lodged against bogus veterans’ charities. Some are recent. Others are newly filed. The FTC is a partner in two of the new cases.

You can read the entire article HERE.

 

 

This is from Poetrooper. He had surgery yesterday and is continuing his fight against the Big C.  Get well, Poe!

Texas Democrat Senate candidate Roberto (Beto) O’Rourke seemed to have been forthcoming about his criminal arrests for attempted burglary and DUI. Well, except that he hasn’t. In fact, it would seem that Beto’s mea culpas about his bad-boy behavior failed to include the most damaging information: that according to a witness quoted in the police report, in the immediate aftermath of his serious drunken driving incident, young Beto attempted to flee the scene. That’s right, the current Democratic candidate to represent Texas in the United States Senate, had he been left to his own instincts, might well have been a drunken hit-and-run driver, a type of fleeing felon with which too many Texas voters are extremely familiar and for very good reasons.

In a recently released study of hit and run deaths from the American Automobile Association, Texas ranks eighth in the nation, exceeded only by California, Delaware, Arizona, Nevada, Florida, Louisiana, and numero uno, New Mexico. Looking at that list, would you care to hazard a guess what most of those states have in common? If you guessed they’re in our southern tier, proximate to our southern border, that would be a good start, as four of those states do share borders with Mexico, and that is indeed a factor. But it’s a federal government report, according to the Federation for American Immigration Reform that gets closer to the truth: that it is the higher numbers of young illegal males in these states operating motor vehicles without either legitimate driver’s licenses or required insurance who account for a disproportionate number of such accidents. Interestingly, FAIR notes that Mexico has no law against leaving the scene of an accident, which could account for some of this statistical evidence, but I’m inclined to believe that geography plays a larger role than culture, especially in the four border states and states like Nevada and Oklahoma where safe haven in Mexico is at most a few hundred miles away for a unlicensed, uninsured, intoxicated illegal who wants to avoid a possible prison sentence for any crime from DUI to vehicular homicide.

So Beto, whose father was a prominent border-area attorney and judge, which could well explain the lack of charges filed in the burglary and the relatively light treatment in the DUI offense, has bad-boy bona fides which could make any Democrat green with envy if he were running for the Senate in some state other than Texas, where news reports and headlines about innocent Texans being killed in hit-and-run accidents with jackrabbiting illegals are too frequent to be scoffed at and swept under urban, liberal, media carpets. It’s hard to imagine that Beto’s Democratic handlers actually believed they could keep a lid on this almost hit and run by their candidate, that it could remain undiscovered when it’s in a police report. Of course, the most intriguing aspect of that account is the phrase, “tried to leave.” DUI is one thing that many voters can forgive, but Hit and Run is a despicable offense, something else entirely, although apparently not with some Democratic kingmakers.

You’d think the Ted Cruz campaign could get a copy of that police report.

Photo of Mr. Beto O’Rourke is at the link below. I’m sure he will have women fawning over him. Some things don’t change. Make sure that people know about this guy. Who else left the scene of an accident? Hmmm… it was  a while back… and alcohol was involved… and it was dark….

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2018/09/born_to_run_betos_badboy_bona_fides.html

The Trump administration is cutting funding to Paki and Palestinian groups.  I guess President Trump is expecting something in return for that cash or doesn’t support their efforts in the first place.

The US military says it is cancelling $300m (£230m) in aid to Pakistan over what it calls Islamabad’s failure to take action against militant groups. President Donald Trump has previously accused Pakistan of deceiving the US while receiving billions of dollars. Pentagon spokesman Lt Col Koné Faulkner said the US military would aim to spend the money on other “urgent priorities”.

The move, which needs to be approved by the US Congress, is part of a broader suspension announced in January.  The US state department has criticised Pakistan, a key ally, for failing to deal with terrorist networks operating on its soil, including the Haqqani network and the Afghan Taliban.

“We continue to press Pakistan to indiscriminately target all terrorist groups,” Col Faulkner said in a statement on Saturday, adding that the $300m aid – which had earlier been suspended – should be used elsewhere due to “a lack of Pakistani decisive actions” in tackling the issue.

The announcement comes just days before US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is due to visit Pakistan to meet the country’s new prime minister, Imran Khan.

The US and others have long complained that Pakistan provides a safe haven to militant networks, allowing them to carry out cross-border attacks in Afghanistan – something that Islamabad denies.

The news is even worse for the poor plight of the Palestinians. 

The US and Israel also disagree with Unrwa on which Palestinians are refugees with a right to return to the homes they fled following the 1948 war.

Nikki Haley, the US ambassador to the UN, said earlier this week that Unrwa exaggerated the number of Palestinian refugees, and needed to reform.

“You’re looking at the fact that, yes, there’s an endless number of refugees that continue to get assistance, but more importantly, the Palestinians continue to bash America,” she said.

The state department says the US is contributing a “very disproportionate share of the burden of Unrwa’s costs”.

It complains of a business model and fiscal practices, linked to an “exponentially expanding community of entitled beneficiaries”, which is “unsustainable and has been in crisis mode for many years”.

I appears as if President Trump doesn’t want to give money to people who attack our friends and slander our good deeds.  What will this administration do next?  These are crazy times.

From Corinth, MS

A 2fer deal.  One DRT and the other DVS

(AP) —

His fatal shooting of another man was ruled self-defense, but Mississippi police say the man was living in the country illegally and will be reported to immigration authorities.

Corinth Police Chief Ralph Dance said Montejo Torres fatally shot Juan Guzman in self-defense Sunday and no charges will be filed against Torres.

(deported very soon)

 

From Vicksburg, MS

A Vicksburg man accused of discharging his handgun inside the city limits said he was acting in self-defense when he fired his weapon into the ground at his home.

Louis Fumbanks was arrested by police Aug. 18. His attorney David Sessums said Fumbanks is expected to appear in Municipal Court Thursday, adding he intends to request a trial on the charge. If convicted, Fumbanks would receive a mandatory fine and sentence of $500 and 30 days in jail.  Fumbanks was charged under an amended city ordinance passed in March by the Board of Mayor and Aldermen setting a mandatory $500 fine and 30 days in jail for people arrested for discharging a firearm inside the city limits.

One of the exceptions under the law is firing a weapon in self-defense.

The events leading to his arrest began about 8:40 p.m. Aug. 18, Fumbanks said. “My wife and I were sitting at home when my wife got a call from our neighbor, saying their house was being broken into,” he said. “I proceeded to the bedroom and got my pistol and I went to check on them.” Fumbanks said the neighbors gave him a description of the would-be burglar as a tall, bald-headed man wearing a white shirt and dark pants. He got his gun and walked to the front of his house, Fumbanks said, and as he was heading to the neighbor’s house, he saw the man the neighbors described.

“He was in their front yard coming toward my front yard at a high rate of speed,” Fumbanks said. “He was cussing, waving his arms, coming right to me; he was in my yard. I gave a warning shot; I shot into the ground and he stopped. He walked into the street and headed toward the end of the street, and a little bit later, the police showed up and caught him.”

Dead men tell no lies

 

From WINTER HAVEN, FL

An Uber driver in Florida claimed self-defense after he fatally shot a man who trailed his car and tried run him off the road, authorities said Wednesday.  The Polk County Sheriff’s Office is investigating the death early Tuesday of 34-year-old Jason Boek of Winter Haven, Florida.

“This is a classic stand-your-ground case,” said Sheriff Grady Judd, speaking at a news conference.

The sheriff’s office said an enraged Boek, believing his estranged girlfriend was the Uber’s passenger, aggressively trailed the car of 38-year-old driver Robert Westlake.  A dash camera video posted to YouTube by the sheriff shows Boek driving erratically and attempting to run Westlake off a central Florida road.  Once both vehicles were stopped, Boek got out of a large pickup truck and threatened to shoot the driver, according to the sheriff. Unknown to Boek, the Uber driver was a concealed-weapon permit holder and a recent police academy graduate.

The sheriff said Westlake fired one shot, striking Boek. The Uber driver then called authorities and attempted to revive Boek.  Authorities said Westlake has cooperated with police. Westlake did not know Boek, nor did the passenger. According to authorities, the passenger who had been drinking was escorted into the Uber by Boek’s on-and-off-again girlfriend.

Boek apparently mistakenly believed his estranged girlfriend was in the vehicle, Judd said. Boek threatened to assault both the passenger and the driver, according to text messages released by police.  Boek had an extensive criminal history, according to a news release issued by the Polk County Sheriff’s Office. He was on probation until June of 2021 for a 2016 felony battery charge. Police found a glass pipe containing methamphetamine residue inside the truck driven by Boek before the shooting.

“At the end of the day, the message is clear,” said Judd. “Don’t mess with the Uber driver.”