The Freeman family and the McGuffin family took up residence outside the courtroom in separate sections of the hallway in advance of the 1PM arraignment. The arrangement was in place before I got there so I had no way of knowing one group of persons were members of the McGuffin family so when I started to shoot a picture of the group I was sternly rebuffed. (Later, I sat with the press in the jury box and got a couple shots off)

McGuffin was visibly shaking and in tears when I passed by him, already seated, to the press area. His lawyer and DA Paul Frasier arrived minutes later to begin the proceeding. A hearing is set for next month to hear a plea for reduction of bail. McGuffin is not considered a high flight risk and may be let out on his own recognizance, although Frasier states he will try to keep him in jail. McGuffin thanked the judge for considering his requests stating he was a family man and hard working.

As the families were entering the Judge Gillespie’s courtroom, Cory Courtright, Leah Freeman’s mother, was in tears at the entrance and McGuffin’s mother standing a few feet behind her said, “Cry all you want, Cory. Nick is innocent”. Much to Cory’s credit she responded only that Mrs McGuffin should not speak to her, ever.

Clearly, the McGuffin family is under terrible stress but they did not behave especially well, in my opinion. Mrs McGuffin’s complete lack of empathy for Cory’s loss was just plain ugly.

Suicide rates for veterans returned home are sometimes exceeding the casualty rates in combat. War is hell!

As the grand jury investigation nears its expected completion all eyes are on the DA in anticipation of the ‘trial of the century’ in the ten year old unsolved murder of Leah Freeman. This month old report lays blame for the cold case squarely at the foot of the former police chief, Mike Reaves.

20/20 says there were inconsistencies with how the case was handled. Leah’s mother was ignored by the former police chief.

“She tried giving him some evidence, and he poked her in the chest and said ‘Just go to the media,’ and yelled at her..she went away crying,” said Avila.

This curtailed valuable time. “It was treated as a run away even though everybody told the police department this girl would not run away,” said Avila.

But when a new police chief entered, things changed.

If and when an arrest takes place, the courtroom will be standing room only but it is a safe bet the former chief will not show his face. The city manager who retained him for so many years shouldn’t show his face either… then he should resign and allow fresh thinking to revitalize the city just like a new police chief improved the police department.

Stephen smacks down the latest guffaw, faux pas, stupidly bad reporting at Fox News regarding trained monkey terrorists. (You can’t make this stuff up)

David H Brooks, just another defense department scammer screwing over our troops and supplying faulty body armor.

“Stephen’s refreshing tax cut with lime will work its way through the system and trickle down like a racehorse” Explaining the trickle down theory and Bush’s tax cuts with Bud Light

Read the excellent transcript here

I have sat behind this desk for seven years and pushed back at these counterfeit journalists, as a man might stand at the shore and try to push back the tide. I have been branded an ideologue and a profiteer and a mirror of image of that which I assail. I have said it in every way I could think of, and been told I have been over-the-top because I have mocked and shouted and repeated.

And today the proof lies in front of you, bleeding: the reputation of Shirley Sherrod, a woman who 24 years ago saw and overcame the vengeance in her own heart and achieved the kind of true greatness the rest of us can only hope we might express for one moment in the whole of our lives. Assassinated by Fox News! Assassinated by that scum Breitbart! Assassinated by all their meager-brained imitators on other channels and other sites, their limp fellow travelers who never asked questions first, but simply shot, and shot, and shot, and shot and laughed!
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Let me make this utterly clear: What you see on Fox News, what you read on Right Wing websites, is the utter and complete perversion of journalism, and it can have no place in a civilized society. It is words crashed together, never to inform, only to inflame. It is a political guillotine. It is the manipulation of reality to make the racist seem benevolent, and to convict the benevolent as racist — even if her words must be edited, filleted, stripped of all context, rearranged, fabricated, and falsified, to do so.