Appears personal to me.

Man suspected of shooting and injuring Dallas-area doctor was then shot and injured by police

CEDAR HILL, Texas (AP) — A man suspected of shooting and injuring a doctor at a Dallas-area medical building was shot and injured Tuesday by police officers after his vehicle was involved in a crash with another vehicle and officers could see he had a long gun, police said.

Police in Cedar Hill, located just southwest of Dallas, said that officers were dispatched at 12:17 p.m. to Methodist Family Health Center after getting a call about a person with a gun in the building. A minute later, the dispatcher heard a gunshot.

The first officer arrived at 12:21 p.m. and saw a doctor on the ground in front of the building with a gunshot wound, police said. Police said that another officer saw a man with a long gun leaving the scene, police said. Police said that the officer then relayed the suspect’s vehicle information to other officers. At 12:22 p.m., the suspect’s vehicle was involved in a crash just down the road.

Police said that after the crash, the suspect still had the long gun and five officers fired their weapons toward him.

The doctor who was injured was in stable condition at Methodist Dallas Medical Center, while the suspect was in critical condition, police said. The driver of the car the suspect’s vehicle was in a collision with was taken to the hospital with minor injuries.

 

This gets verified and replicated and away we go to the races…

The First Room-Temperature Ambient-Pressure Superconductor

Sukbae Lee, Ji-Hoon Kim, Young-Wan Kwon

For the first time in the world, we succeeded in synthesizing the room-temperature superconductor (Tc≥400 K, 127∘C) working at ambient pressure with a modified lead-apatite (LK-99) structure. The superconductivity of LK-99 is proved with the Critical temperature (Tc), Zero-resistivity, Critical current (Ic), Critical magnetic field (Hc), and the Meissner effect.

The superconductivity of LK-99 originates from minute structural distortion by a slight volume shrinkage (0.48 %), not by external factors such as temperature and pressure. The shrinkage is caused by Cu2+ substitution of Pb2+(2) ions in the insulating network of Pb(2)-phosphate and it generates the stress.

It concurrently transfers to Pb(1) of the cylindrical column resulting in distortion of the cylindrical column interface, which creates superconducting quantum wells (SQWs) in the interface. The heat capacity results indicated that the new model is suitable for explaining the superconductivity of LK-99.

The unique structure of LK-99 that allows the minute distorted structure to be maintained in the interfaces is the most important factor that LK-99 maintains and exhibits superconductivity at room temperatures and ambient pressure.

Judge vacates Bowe Bergdahl’s desertion conviction

FALLS CHURCH, Va. — A federal judge on Tuesday vacated the military conviction of Bowe Bergdahl, a former U.S. Army soldier who pleaded guilty to desertion after he left his post and was captured in Afghanistan and tortured by the Taliban.

The ruling from U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton in Washington says that military judge Jeffrey Nance, who presided over the court-martial, failed to disclose that he had applied to the executive branch for a job as an immigration judge, creating a potential conflict of interest.

Walton noted that former President Donald Trump had strongly criticized Bergdahl during the 2016 presidential campaign. Bergdahl’s lawyers argued that Trump’s comments placed undue command influence on Nance.

Walton rejected the specific argument surrounding undue command influence, but he said a reasonable person could question the judge’s impartiality under the circumstances.

Bergdahl was charged with desertion and misbehavior before the enemy after the then-23-year-old from Hailey, Idaho, left his post in Afghanistan in 2009. He said he was trying to get outside his post so he could report what he saw as poor leadership within his unit, but he was abducted by the Taliban and held captive for nearly five years.

During that time, Bergdahl was repeatedly tortured and beaten with copper wires, rubber hoses and rifle butts. After several escape attempts, he was imprisoned in a small cage for four years, according to court documents.

Several U.S. service members were wounded searching for Bergdahl. In 2014, he was returned to the U.S. in a prisoner swap for five Taliban leaders who were being held at Guantanamo Bay.

The swap faced criticism from Trump, then-Sen. John McCain and others. Both Trump and McCain called for Bergdahl to face severe punishment.

In 2017, he pleaded guilty to both charges. Prosecutors at his court-martial sought 14 years in prison, but he was given no time after he submitted evidence of the torture he suffered while in Taliban custody. He was dishonorably discharged and ordered to forfeit $10,000 in pay.

His conviction and sentence had been narrowly upheld by military appeals courts before his lawyers took the case to U.S. District Court, resulting in Tuesday’s ruling.

The Justice Department declined comment on the ruling Tuesday.

Eugene Fidell, one of Bergdahl’s lawyers, said he was gratified by the ruling and said Walton’s 63-page opinion shows how meticulous he was in rendering the ruling.

Calls and emails to the immigration court in Charlotte, North Carolina, where Nance now serves as an immigration judge, were not returned Tuesday evening.

July 26

920 – During the Reconquista, the armies of the alliance of Navarre and Léon lose in battle against the moslem army of the Emir of Córdoba at Valdejunquera.

1139 – During the Reconquista, the day after defeating the moslem army of Ali ibn Yusuf, Prince Afonso Henriques is proclaimed Afonso o Conquistador, King of Portugal.

1529 – Spanish conquistador Francisco Pizarro is appointed governor of Peru.

1758 – During the French and Indian War, British forces are victorious in their siege of the French Fortress of Louisbourg on Nova Scotia and complete taking control of the Gulf of Saint Lawrence.

1579 – English explorer Francis Drake, on his voyage of circumnavigation, discovers a major bay on the coast of California -modern day San Francisco Bay.

1775 – Benjamin Franklin takes office as Postmaster General as the United States Post Office is established by the Second Continental Congress.

1788 – New York ratifies the U.S. Constitution.

1861 – General George B. McClellan assumes command of the Army of the Potomac following a disastrous defeat at the First Battle of Bull Run.

1863 – At Salineville, Ohio, Confederate cavalry under the command of General John Hunt Morgan are captured by Union forces.

1908 – Attorney General Charles Bonaparte issues an order to immediately staff the Office of the Chief Examiner, later to be renamed the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

1941 – In response to the Japanese occupation of French Indochina, the United States, Britain and the Netherlands freeze all Japanese assets and cut off oil shipments.

1945 – The Potsdam Declaration defining the terms of surrender required of Imperial Japan – basically unconditional – is signed in Germany by the leaders of the U.S., the UK and China. The USS Indianapolis arrives at Tinian island with the components for the Little Boy nuclear bomb.

1947 – President Truman signs the National Security Act of 1947 into United States law creating the Central Intelligence Agency, United States Department of Defense, United States Air Force, Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the United States National Security Council.

1948 – President Truman signs Executive Order 9981, desegregating the military of the United States.

1953 – Fidel Castro leads an unsuccessful attack on the Moncada Barracks, starting the Cuban Revolution.

1963 – NASA’s communications satellite, Syncom 2 is launched from Cape Canaveral to become the world’s first geosynchronous satellite.

1971 – Apollo 15 is launched as the first Apollo “J-Mission”, with the first Lunar Roving Vehicle stowed aboard the LM Falcon. 

1990 – The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 is signed into law by President Bush.

2005 – Shuttle Discovery is launched on mission STS-114 as the first flight after the Columbia Disaster in 2003.

2016 – Hillary Clinton becomes the first female nominee for President  by a major political party at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia.
Solar Impulse 2, piloted alternately by André Borschberg and Bertrand Piccard,  becomes the first solar-powered aircraft to circumnavigate the Earth.

It’s apparent he’s nothing but a puppet. The question is; who are the real one pulling his strings?

The Flashcard Presidency: Biden’s Aides Scramble to Diffuse Narrative That He’s a Total Mess

Joe Biden collapsed at the US Air Force Academy’s commencement, an event that even his aides privately worked to ensure never happened again. They’ve developed a plan to make the president look vigorous and mentally sound to conduct his duties as president. And yet, the man devolved into a mumbling, soporific mess during his White House meeting/photo-op with Israeli President Isaac Herzog.

NBC News had a lengthy piece about the Biden staff’s protocol to keep the president looking spry in the public’s view. As it was in 2020, the main concern is that Biden is both too old and too senile to be president. That narrative has grown as more public episodes of mental degeneration have presented themselves. Though buried in the piece, Biden’s staff and a former cabinet secretary, Marty Walsh, tried to relay how Joe is still working into the late night hours and how if you hugged him, you’ll see he’s healthy like a rhino. The problem is the piece goes give the impression that Biden’s aides know a mental foul-up is bound to occur again. The man will stumble even with flashcards to remind him to make certain points during meetings and speeches and a shorter staircase to Air Force One to ensure he doesn’t fall.

Even with no major primaries or debates on the Democratic side, the rigorous schedule a national campaign takes once a Republican nominee is selected will take its toll on a man who thinks railroads can be built over oceans (via NBC News):

Biden’s answer to voters who question whether he’s up to the rigors of a second term is simple: “Watch me.” The trouble is, voters are watching, and what they’re seeing is hardening impressions that it’s time for him to step aside, polling shows. Apart from being the most taxing job on the world stage, the presidency is also the most public, and signs of advancing age are tough to miss. 

Faced with life’s unbending reality — no one gets any younger — Biden’s advisers have been trying to blunt concerns about his age since his 2020 campaign. The challenge gets trickier by the day as the oldest president in history embarks on one last race against a Republican Party eager to pounce on every miscue. 

Any misstep is bound to be magnified when voters are already prone to believe Biden should consider retirement. Biden aides aren’t promising that he won’t stumble again. 

“Physically, he’s quite frail and he falls off his bicycle, or whatever,” said a former Western diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity to talk more freely. “He doesn’t have the stamina levels of an Obama or a younger president. People worry about his physical frailty and running from age 82 to 86” — the age Biden would be at the end of a second term. “That is really old by European standards. Really, really old. We don’t have anyone that age.” […] 

Biden’s use of the shorter staircase, which, of course, reduces the risk of a televised fall that goes viral, has more than doubled since Biden’s tumble at the commencement ceremony, according to an analysis by NBC News. In the weeks prior to tripping onstage, Biden used the shorter set of stairs to get on and off the presidential aircraft 37% of the time. In the past seven weeks he’s used them 84% of the time, or 31 out of the 37 times he’s gotten on and off the plane. […] 

The White House did not directly answer a question about whether Biden was using the shorter staircase to minimize the chance of a fall. An aide said the choice comes down to the weather, the airport and whether the press wants a photo on the tarmac with official greeters. (There was no rain Thursday when Biden took the shorter staircase at Joint Base Andrews.) 

Biden seems to be preserving his energy in other ways. It’s customary on foreign trips for the president to schmooze with other leaders at dinners once the meetings are over. Less formal and structured than the events preceding them, the dinners offer a chance for leaders to bond, talk through differences or amplify a point. On two recent international trips, Biden has chosen to skip the nighttime socializing. […] 

Other age-compensating measures are logistical, and probably familiar to many who’ve reached a certain stage in life: extra-large font on his teleprompter and note cards to remind him of the points he wants to make in meetings. […]

With Biden, displays of frailty are bound to get more scrutiny given the propensity of many voters to believe he shouldn’t run again. 

Advisers recognize this dynamic as well as the political cost of the next awkward moment. 

They gave a collective groan when Biden fell at the Air Force Academy, knowing the episode wouldn’t soon be forgotten. It turns out the sandbag had been camouflaged so that it would blend in, making it easier to miss, a senior White House aide said. 

“It happened in seconds,” another aide said, “but it’s going to be in front of us for months and maybe years.” 

Not as long as I’ve got the ammo I’ve got on hand, it ain’t.  While I’m not advising people that don’t have one to go out and buy one, for us that have them, they’ll do just fine.

GLOCK 22: IS .40 S&W A DEAD CARTRIDGE OR STILL RELEVANT? 

I remember a time when folks routinely bragged that their go-to concealed carry gun was chambered in .40 S&W, and I’ve met plenty of law enforcement officers who were issued pistols in the same caliber over the years. But it seems like the chatter about .40 S&W is all but gone these days.

In fact, over the last year, I have met only one shooter who routinely carries a Glock 22, specifically for the hard-hitting .40 S&W round it’s designed to shoot.

So, what gives? Is .40 S&W dead, dying, or still relevant?

To get started on answering that question, I pulled a gently used – and very budget-friendly – law enforcement trade-in Glock 22 from the Guns.com Vault. After all, it’s kind of hard to judge a round if you don’t spend some time using it.

Table of Contents

.40 S&W History
Glock 22: Accurate, Powerful, Reliable
Specs Comparison: G22, G21, G17, G19
Ballistics Comparisons: 9mm, .40 S&W, .45 ACP, 10mm
Some Ballistic Testing
10mm Resurgence
Pros & Cons: Why Get a .40 S&W Pistol?

Colorado Newspaper Editorial Scores Bullseye on Gun Control

A Sunday editorial in the Colorado Springs Gazette, reacting to a high-profile shooting incident last week in Auckland, N.Z., was on target when it stated, “Better control over known lawbreakers is likelier to forestall the next such tragedy than is another attempt to control guns.”

“Our state knows the pain of such seemingly random madness,” the editorial acknowledged, “so the incident was all too relatable. But it also offered a reminder of the limits of gun-control laws — repackaged nowadays in the U.S. as ‘gun safety’ laws — in curbing such violence. New Zealand’s crackdown on gun ownership in recent years obviously didn’t prevent this tragedy.”

In 2019, following a bloody attack on two mosques in Christchurch, N.Z., the government there cracked down hard on law-abiding gun owners. New laws forced gun owners to turn in—as part of a “buy back” which many have referred to as “compensated confiscation”—of thousands of firearms. As the Gazette editorial pointed out, those gun laws did not prevent last week’s shooting.

A man identified as Matu Tangi Matua Reid walked into a construction site, where he was employed, and opened fire with a pump-action shotgun, as reported by The Guardian. He killed two people and wounded several others including two police officers. He was found dead, possibly of a self-inflicted wound.

New Zealand authorities acknowledged Reid was on home detention but was allowed to go to work. He was doing time for a previous domestic violence offense.

The Gazette editorial was sprinkled with advice to Centennial State lawmakers, noting with no small irony how earlier this year, majority Democrats were congratulating one another for the gun restrictions they passed, including bans on so-called “ghost guns,” establishing a three-day waiting period on gun purchases, and raising the age for buying guns to 21 years.

“If only such measures could make a difference in heading off mass murder,” the Gazette editorial lamented. “If anything, they create a false hope.”

This is not a first for the newspaper in terms of going against the grain politically. Earlier, the Gazette published another editorial telling the Legislature to make fighting crime a priority.

I don’t know if there’s really a problem or not. Unfortunately, we’ve learned that we can’t trust the people who are in charge of finding out.

Everybody seems to be getting blood clots

Everybody seems to be getting blood clots

Coincidences do happen. I realize that.

Confirmation bias is a real thing–we tend to notice things that reinforce our preconceived notions.

But damn. Cruising through Twitter I saw not one, not two, but three stories about prominent people being treated for life-threatening blood clots all posted within an hour. And, of course, some very prominent people who you would not expect to have heart attacks (can’t think of any names right now, can you?) have been collapsing before our eyes.

Yes, confirmation bias is real. I could be just noticing things, although I really haven’t been thinking about blood clots or heart attacks without prompting.

In a world with 7 billion people, even improbable things happen.

But damn, there sure SEEM to be a lot of prominent people with serious circulatory problems all of a sudden. And they tend to be young. It’s not like getting the news that a 90 year old dropped over dead. These are often kids and young adults.

Continue reading “”

Federal judge blocks Biden’s controversial asylum policy in a major blow to administration.

A federal judge on Tuesday blocked President Joe Biden’s controversial asylum policy, delivering a major blow to the administration, which has leaned on the measure to drive down border crossings. The judge put the ruling on hold for 14 days for a possible appeal.

The ruling against the Biden administration could have major implications on the US-Mexico border, where crossings have plummeted since the rollout of the asylum policy, among other measures. A Justice Department spokesperson told CNN that the department plans to appeal.

“The Justice Department disagrees with the district court’s ruling today in the East Bay case and intends to appeal the decision and to seek a stay pending appeal. We remain confident in our position that the Circumvention of Lawful Pathways rule is a lawful exercise of the broad authority granted by the immigration laws,” the spokesperson said.

Judge Jon Tigar of the California Northern District Court previously ruled against a similar policy under the Trump administration and expressed skepticism that there was any daylight between Biden’s policy and the Trump-era one during a court hearing last week. Administration officials have rejected the comparison to Trump-era rules.

The Biden administration has rolled out a series of measures to try to stem the flow of migration and manage the situation along the US-Mexico border but is facing multiple lawsuits from Republican states as well as advocates, posing a risk to Biden’s border plans.

Tigar’s ruling stems from a lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union among other immigrant rights groups over a new asylum rule that largely bars migrants who passed through another country from seeking asylum in the United States, marking a departure from decades-long protocol.

The Biden policy, like the Trump-era one, garnered wide condemnation from Biden allies, including Democratic lawmakers and immigrant advocates when it was rolled out. “To be clear, this was not our first preference or even our second,” an administration official conceded at the time, adding that the onus is on Congress to pass reform.

The ACLU applauded the ruling in a statement.

“The ruling is a victory, but each day the Biden administration prolongs the fight over its illegal ban, many people fleeing persecution and seeking safe harbor for their families are instead left in grave danger,” said Katrina Eiland, deputy director of the ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights Project, who argued the case. “The promise of America is to serve as a beacon of freedom and hope, and the administration can and should do better to fulfill this promise, rather than perpetuate cruel and ineffective policies that betray it.”

The Justice Department is expected to appeal the ruling. If the Justice Department moves ahead with an appeal, the case will go to the Ninth Circuit, which twice affirmed Tigar’s rulings on similar policies under Trump.

During last week’s hearing, Justice Department lawyer Erez Reuveni argued that the rule has exemptions and that there are other lawful pathways that have been made available to migrants seeking to come to the United States.

Migrants who secure an appointment through the CBP One app to present at port of entry, for example, are exempt. While there are some exceptions, the rule generally applies to migrants who unlawfully cross the US-Mexico border. It doesn’t apply to unaccompanied migrant children.

Blocking the rule, Reuveni told Tigar, would “potentially undermine the ability to negotiate” with countries who have partnered with the US to manage the flow of migration.

Eiland, who argued on behalf of the plaintiffs, said the rule put migrants in harm’s way and that the regulation itself doesn’t provide any additional pathways. “There are no carrots that the rule itself actually offers,” she said.

Administration officials have pointed to a dramatic drop in border crossings since the end of a pandemic policy, known as Title 42, that allowed for the quick expulsion of migrants, as evidence that the administration’s approach, including increased deportations and tougher penalties.

In June, US Border Patrol arrested nearly 100,000 migrants along the US southern border, marking a decrease from May and marking the lowest monthly border encounters since February 2021, according to US Customs and Border Protection data.

But the Biden administration has continued to grapple with unprecedented mass movement of people in the Western hemisphere, which is the outcome of the coronavirus pandemic decimating conditions in the region.

The shifting migration patterns has put a strain on federal resources, as border authorities have encountered an increasing number of Cubans, Venezuelans and Nicaraguans. The US is largely barred from deporting migrants from those nationalities back to their home countries because of strained diplomatic relations.

Tigar concluded that the programs that provide migrants an avenue to apply to lawfully migrate to the US are specific to certain nationalities and not meaningful options for all asylum seekers.

“The Rule therefore assumes that these exceptions will, at the very least, present meaningful options to noncitizens subject to the Rule. Parole programs are not meaningfully available to many noncitizens subject to the Rule. Though other parole programs exist, the Rule generally relies on the parole programs for Cuban, Haitian, Nicaraguan, Venezuelan, and Ukrainian nationals. These programs are country-specific and ‘are not universally available, even to the covered populations,’” he wrote.

He also said that the government violated a law known as the Administrative Procedures Act – which sets certain guidelines for how agencies can roll out policies – in its implementation of the asylum rule.

“To justify limiting eligibility for asylum based on the expansion of other means of entry or protection is to consider factors Congress did not intend to affect such eligibility,” Tigar wrote. “The Rule is therefore arbitrary and capricious.”

Our society’s ‘top brains’ have gone mad — and dysfunctional politics is the result

“Suppose we got it all wrong and the real crazies are the TV people in nice suits and $300 haircuts?”
That’s an observation by Richard Fernandez on Twitter, and he has a good point.

There’s a lot of craziness in the air these days.
But for the most part it seems to be flowing from the top down, not bubbling up from the bottom.

It wasn’t farmers and factory workers who came up with the idiotic COVID responses — nor was it they who originated the more or less criminal idea of conducting “gain of function” research on making dangerous viruses more dangerous.

It wasn’t shopkeepers and bus drivers who thought the way to deal with burgeoning urban crime was to get rid of police and release criminals without bail.

It hasn’t been landscapers and auto mechanics championing the notion that a child in the single-digit age range can make a lifetime choice about his or her genitalia or maintaining that even criticizing that idea is itself a species of “violence.”

Ordinary Americans haven’t been claiming the way to promote free speech is to censor people or the way to end racism is to classify everyone by race and consequently treat them differently.

It’s not the working class that wants to “save the planet” by blocking traffic, starting forest fires or banning pickup trucks or gas stoves (though private jets remain surprisingly free from criticism).

All these crazy ideas and more are the product of our allegedly educated and intelligent overclass, the experts, policymakers and media types who in theory represent the thinking part, the brains, of our society. But there’s something wrong with these people — the “brains” of our society are basically crazy. Crazy is when you believe and do things that obviously don’t make sense or fit with the facts.

It’s important to have an intellectual class.
Exactly how important is open to question — in his recent book “How Innovation Works,” Matt Ridley argues that most 19th- and 20th-century innovations actually came from tradespeople and industry, not academics doing abstract research — but important enough.
The COVID lockdown scolds killed people — but they still have no shame

There are dangers to an intelligentsia, though.
Communism and Nazism started as intellectual movements; so did such fads as eugenics and lobotomies.
The Tuskegee Experiment wasn’t the product of racist Klansmen but of the curiosity of credentialed public-health experts.

In a 1999 essay, Neal Stephenson wrote that “during this century, intellectualism failed, and everyone knows it. In places like Russia and Germany, the common people agreed to loosen their grip on traditional folkways, mores, and religion, and let the intellectuals run with the ball, and they screwed everything up and turned the century into an abattoir. Those wordy intellectuals used to be merely tedious; now they seem kind of dangerous as well.”

It’s gotten worse.

Ideas can be dangerous; playing with them can be like gain-of-function research with viruses — if they escape into the general environment, disaster can ensue.

Guardrails like custom, religion and moral traditions made such disasters less likely, but we have spent basically my entire lifetime weakening those guardrails.
At the same time, our ruling class has become less diverse and more prone to groupthink.

A century ago, the people running our government, our economy, our academy and our media were varied.
Now they’re all members of the same class, educated usually at the same elite institutions, incestuously intermarried and driven by class solidarity.

As J.D. Tuccille recently wrote regarding the press’ supine attitude toward government censorship, today’s journalists “love Big Brother”: “Prominent reporters and powerful officials know each other, share attitudes, and trust each other.”

Agriculturalists know that in a monoculture, diseases spread rapidly because the entire crop is identical.
In a social and intellectual monoculture, groupthink ensures that bad ideas spread the same way.
This is especially so because our ruling class has substituted reputation for achievement.

One can be a successful CEO if the company does badly, so long as it pursues the right political goals.
Journalists, bureaucrats and political operatives routinely fail upward because they play to their peers.
The result is that any crazy idea can flourish if it’s stylish. And it’s gotten more dangerous, probably because social media allow so much self-herding behavior by elites.

Dissent is instantly ostracized before it even has a chance to be considered.

A decade ago, the crazy ideas I listed earlier would have been seen as beyond the pale of civilized political discussion. Now they’re all endorsed by leading American institutions.
That’s the hallmark of dysfunctional politics, and dysfunctional politics is what we have.

July 25

306 – Constantine I is proclaimed Roman emperor by his troops.

315 – The Arch of Constantine is completed near the Colosseum in Rome to commemorate Constantine’s victory over Maxentius at the Milvian Bridge.

1139 – During the Portuguese part of the Reconquista, Almoravid moslems led by Ali ibn Yusuf, are defeated by the forces of Prince Afonso Henriques, at Ourique, in Alentejo, Portugal

1261 – The city of Constantinople is recaptured by Nicaean forces under the command of Alexios Strategopoulos, re-establishing the Byzantine Empire.

1278 – During the Reconquista, oduring the siege of Algeciras near the Strait of Gibraltar, the fleet of the moslem Maranid Emirate of Granada, commanded by Abu Yaqub Yusuf an-Nasr wins a naval battle over the fleet of the Kingdom of Castile, commanded by the Admiral of Castile, Pedro Martínez de Fe.

1536 – Sebastián de Belalcázar, on his search for El Dorado, founds the city of Santiago de Cali, in modern Columbia.

1567 – Don Diego de Losada founds the city of Santiago de Leon de Caracas,  the capital city of Venezuela.

1603 – King James VI of Scotland is crowned King James 1 of England

1609 – The English ship Sea Venture, en route to Virginia, is deliberately driven ashore at Bermuda during a storm to prevent its sinking; the survivors going on to found a new colony there instead.

1693 – Ignacio de Maya founds the Real Santiago de las Sabinas, now known as Sabinas Hidalgo, Nuevo León, Mexico.

If anyone was wondering about all the Santiagos, July 25th is the feast day of the Apostle Saint James; ‘Santiago’ in spanish.

1722 – The ‘Dummer’s War’ between colonists and Abenaki tribes begins along the Maine-Massachusetts border.

1759 – During the French and Indian War, British forces capture Fort Niagara from the French, who subsequently abandon nearby Fort Rouillé to the north.

1783 – The Revolutionary War’s last action, the Siege of Cuddalore, is ended by a preliminary peace agreement.

1853 – Bandit Joaquin Murrieta, called the “Robin Hood of El Dorado”, is killed in Fresno County, by California Rangers

1861 – Congress passes the Crittenden–Johnson Resolution, stating that the war is being fought to preserve the Union and not to end slavery.

1866 – Congress passes legislation authorizing the rank of General of The Army, Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant becomes the first to be promoted to this rank.

1868 – The Wyoming Territory is established.

1898 – In the Puerto Rican Campaign of the Spanish American War, the U.S Army lands and secures the port at Guánica.

1909 – Louis Blériot makes the first flight across the English Channel in a heavier than air machine

1946 – Off Bikini Atoll during Operation Crossroads, the MK3 nuclear bomb “Helen” is detonated 90 feet underwater as the ‘Baker‘ – second – shot of U.S. nuclear tests.

1956 – 45 miles south of Nantucket Island, the Italian ocean liner SS Andrea Doria collides with the MS Stockholm in heavy fog and sinks the next day, with the loss of 51 passengers.

1961 – President Kennedy states that any attack on Berlin will be considered an attack on NATO.

1969 – During the Vietnam War, President Nixon declares the Nixon Doctrine, stating that the U.S. now expects its Asian allies to take care of their own military defense starting the “Vietnamization” of the war.

1978 – Louise Joy Brown is born at Oldham General Hospital, in Manchester, England;  the first human to have been born after conception by in vitro fertilisation.

1993 – Members of the terrorist Azanian People’s Liberation Army attack the Saint James Church in Kenilworth, Cape Town, South Africa killing 11 members of the congregation and wounding another 58 before a member, Charl van Wyk, returns fire, immediately stopping the terrorists and driving them off.

1994 – Israel and Jordan sign the Washington Declaration, formally ending the state of war between the two nations.

2000 – Air France Flight 4590, an Aérospatiale/BAC Concorde, crashes at Paris’ Charles de Gaulle airport on take off, killing all 109 passengers and crew aboard and 4 people on the ground.

2010 – WikiLeaks publishes classified documents about the War in Afghanistan, one of the largest leaks in U.S. military history.

Resident shoots person who tried to enter home through window

KENT, Ohio (WJW) — A person was shot after unlawfully attempting to enter an apartment through a window late Friday night, Kent police reported.

Police said they were called to an apartment in the Franklin Crossings complex on Stein Court around 11 p.m. A person was found with gunshot wounds to the leg and foot and was taken to the hospital for what police described as non-life-threatening injuries.

Section of Lorain Ave to be renamed for fallen CLE officer
An initial investigation showed a resident of the apartment shot at the person as they attempted to come in through a low level window. Police said the two appear to be acquainted and “the location of the burglary was not random.”

As the gun used in the shooting was stolen, the resident, identified as Larry Robinson III, is being charged with receiving stolen property, police said. The intruder, who has not been charged, has not been identified.

Police said no one else was injured in the shooting and more charges are expected as an investigation continues.

Suspected intruder shot twice by apartment occupant in Carmichael

A man was shot Sunday at an apartment complex in Carmichael, the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office said.

Deputies responded to reports of a shooting in the 8600 block of Fair Oaks Boulevard at 1:07 a.m., the Sheriff’s Office said in a news release.

When they arrived, they found one man shot after he had allegedly fired into an occupied apartment and then tried to break in, said Deputy William Robinson, a spokesman for the Sheriff’s Office.

The occupant of the apartment fired back, hitting the suspect twice.

Deputies applied a tourniquet to the would-be suspect’s wounds until fire personnel arrived and he was rushed to a hospital.

The suspect and the apartment’s occupant were not known to each other prior to the shooting, Robinson said. The occupant of the apartment is not expected to face charges.

The suspect is expected to recover, the Sheriff’s Office said, though it’s unclear what charges he may face.

Tennessee lawmakers standing firm on Second Amendment ahead of special session

Well, at least some of them are, and it sure looks like the opposition to Gov. Bill Lee’s “red flag” proposal is growing as we get closer to August 21st; the date when Lee says lawmakers will return to the capitol for a special session to respond to the Covenant School shooting in Nashville earlier this year.

Though we’re less than a month away from the start of that expected session, Lee has yet to officially call lawmakers back to the state capitol as his office works behind the scenes to garner support for his “temporary mental health restraining order”. Meanwhile, many Republican lawmakers are speaking out against the proposal, while still trying to provide some political cover to the governor himself.

About 100 people came out for a 2nd Amendment rally Saturday at the Enoch community building at the Henry County Fairgrounds to hear local and area GOP officials speak about the session.

… State Sen. John Stevens, R-Huntingdon, seemed confident the state Senate won’t be moved by Lee’s gun law proposals, which many Republicans have likened to a “red flag law.”

“The Senate is never going to walk back our 2nd Amendment rights,” he said. “Some of the leftists want this. Governor Lee is not a leftist.”

State Rep. Tandy Darby, R-Greenfield, also was careful not to criticize Lee in general, but only on this issue.

“I respect him, but I’m not on the same page as the governor on this. This looks like a red flag law,” said Darby.

Darby warned that on Aug. 21, when the special session begins, “all eyes will be on Tennessee. There’s nobody else in session (across the country).”

State Rep. Jay Reedy, R-Erin, who represents about a third of Henry County (Darby represents the rest), seemed unhappy a special session had been called at all.

“Some people think that, on August 21, we’re gonna solve all of Tennessee’s problems. No, we’re not,” Reedy said. “We’re just months away from our regular session, where we could have real in-depth conversations about this.”

Darby’s right that Tennessee’s special session will draw national attention, not only because even most full-time legislatures will be in recess when the session is slated to kick off in late August, but because of the topic at hand. Lee’s proposal for a “temporary mental health restraining order” isn’t going to be the only topic of discussion, and Democrats are expected to bring their own anti-gun bills to Nashville, including a more traditional “red flag” law, bans on gun sales to under-21s, and prohibiting the sale of so-called assault weapons and large capacity magazines.

Those bills won’t go far in the Republican-dominated legislature, but there are clearly a lot of conservatives who are worried about the political cost of standing pat. That’s why we’re starting to see some alternatives to Lee’s proposal emerge, including one piece of legislation that I believe would offer a substantial improvement to the status quo while still protecting Tennesseans’ Second Amendment rights.  As we reported last week, Rep. Scott Cepcicky is proposing the state build nine new mental health facilities, each with 150 inpatient beds. That would almost quadruple the number of state-funded beds available for inpatient care, though at a price tag of nearly $500-million.

Cepcicky told the Tennessean newspaper that the outlay would be “a significant investment in providing opportunities for people to get the help they need in both inpatient, outpatient and long term care,” and he’s not wrong. Not everyone suffering from mental illness is a threat to the public or themselves (in fact, the vast majority of those diagnosed will never be accused of a violent crime), but they’re still suffering, and there’s an acute lack of care for those most in need of help. Cepcicky’s legislation, if approved, would mark a major step towards eliminating the crisis in mental health care in Tennessee, and could be an example for other states to follow.

Of course, there’s no guarantee that Cepcicky’s legislation will be adopted, any more than Lee’s version of a red flag is guaranteed to go down in flames. Tennessee’s Republican majority are largely saying the right things now, but gun owners need to keep up their contacts and pressure for lawmakers to do the right thing if and when they return to the state capitol later this summer.