Blog

Since Operation Protective Edge began a week ago, anti-Israel demonstrations and anti-Semitic incidents have taken place around the world as far apart as The Hague, Hong Kong and Mexico City, where some protesters were seen carrying signs with swastikas and anti-Semitic slogans.

In Los Angeles, a federal officer fired his weapon Sunday during a pro-Israel rally held in front of the federal building in Westwood in an attempt to defuse an fight that broke out when pro-Palestinian counter-protesters arrived at the rally. An officer with the Department of Homeland Security sought to intervene and fired his weapon once.

Four men were arrested on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon after a group of men drove past the protest displaying a Palestinian flag then had the flag ripped away. When men from the truck attempted to retrieve the flag, there was a confrontation.

No one was injured in the incident.

Clashes erupted in Paris on Sunday as thousands of people protested against Israel and in support of residents in the Gaza Strip, where a six-day conflict has left 166 Palestinians dead. Several thousand demonstrators walked calmly through the streets of Paris behind a large banner that read “Total Support for the Struggle of the Palestinian People.”

Some of the slogans went beyond support for Palestine.

“We had multiple witnesses who told us they heard cries of ‘Death to Jews,’” Sacha Reingewirtz, president the Union of Jewish Students of France said. “I call on them to cease blaming Jews in France for the conflict, as they have nothing to do with it.”

Anti-Israel protesters swirled around the Synagogue Don Isaac Abravanel in Paris, screaming hate-filled epithets and hurling rocks and bottles as the Jews cowered inside, fearful for their lives. At another synagogue nearby, protesters tried to force their way into the building, armed with bats and chairs.

“I came to say no to this massacre,” said Amid Hamadouch, who had a sticker reading “Boycott Israel, Racist State” on his jacket.

“They are bombing innocent people,” added Hamadouch. “There are missiles being launched by Hamas, but the Israeli response is disproportionate. They are attacking the civilian population and not Hamas officials.”

The group was freed to leave the center only after police intervention at 9 pm. A Jewish owned store on rue de la Roquette was trashed by 50 men with iron bars and a young man was hospitalized nearby.

Thousands of pro-terrorist protesters also surrounded the French shul on Sunday throwing rocks into the building as congregants waited inside for police support. They had come to the synagogue on Sunday for a ceremony to honor the memory of the three Israeli teens that were kidnapped and slain.

On Friday night a firebomb went off at the entrance to the synagogue Aulnay-sous-Bois which is a northeastern suburb of Paris. On Saturday a crowd outside a synagogue in an eastern suburb of Paris chanted “death to the Jews” and “slaughter the Jews” in both Arabic and French, as protesters spit on the worshippers.

French Prime Minister Manuel Valls condemned the attempted synagogue stormings “in the strongest possible terms. Such acts targeting places of worship are unacceptable,” he said in a statement.

“I am profoundly shocked and revolted. This aggression towards the Jewish community has taken an absolutely unacceptable turn,” said Joel Mergui, president of the Israelite Central Consistory of France.

Meanwhile Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo called for “calm in the face of tensions” in the Middle East.

In Germany, police allowed an anti-Israel protester to climb inside a police car and shout slogans including “Child murderer Israel” and “Allahu Akbar” using the vehicles’ megaphone. Frankfurt Police let the protester use the megaphone during a Free Gaza demonstration Saturday because he had offered to calm down a protest that had turned violent.

“We as police had come up spontaneously with this unusual method and he abused it — we didn’t expect that,” spokeswoman Virginie Wegner said. “Police are neutral during protests.”

The head of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, Dieter Graumann, condemned the incident.

“I’m shocked that a German police car was used to spread hatred and agitation,” Graumann said. “It was a big mistake that the police let themselves be abused for this.”

Meanwhile, Rabbi Moshe Ohayon of Morocco’s Jewish community in Casablanca was attacked Friday. Authorities say a young man waited for the rabbi near the synagogue, then beat him repeatedly, breaking several of his ribs and causing him to lose consciousness.

The attacker reportedly asked the rabbi what the Israeli military was doing to his “brothers,” before hitting him.

In Sydney, more than 4,000 people gathered for a pro-Palestinian protest. Thousands more protested outside the Israeli Embassy in London on Friday, with similar demonstrations held in Dublin and Oslo.

Across the west, the Bureau of Land Management and U.S. Forest Service oversee 13.3 million AUMs (Animal Unit Months) on 250 million acres of public land. A month of grazing one cow/calf combination or five sheep costs $1.35 – a fee well below the present-day cost of $16 to $20 per month to graze livestock on private land.

The direct cost to U.S. taxpayers is at least $123 million a year.

Now a Utah congressman has introduced legislation to allow states and Indian tribes to take over management of wild horses and burros from the federal government. Chris Stewart says the BLM has failed to properly manage horses and burros, and states should manage them because each state faces unique challenges.

The proposal would also give states authority to form cooperative agreements to manage herds that cross over borders.

“The federal government has never been able to properly manage the horses and burros in the west,” Stewart said in a statement. “Every state faces different challenges, which is why it’s important that they have the ability to manage their own wildlife.”

“States and tribes already successfully manage large quantities of wildlife within their borders,” Stewart added. “If horses and burros were under that same jurisdiction, I’m confident that new ideas and opportunities would be developed to manage the herds more successfully than the federal government.”

Anne Novak of the group ‘Protect Mustangs’ criticized the legislation, saying it would lead to states and tribes killing the animals or selling them off for slaughter for human consumption.

“We’ve had firsthand experience with states and tribes managing wild horses, and it’s horribly cruel,” Novak said in a statement. “They ruthlessly remove wild horses and sell them to kill-buyers at auction. Severe animal abuse would be the result of the (legislation).”

The BLM Utah’s numbers show there are an estimated 3,245 wild horses and burros in the state when management levels call for 1,956. It’s an issue that concerns rural leaders that a showdown with the BLM is on the horizon.

“We don’t want this to turn out to be anything like the Cliven Bundy deal. Just because the BLM can break the law does not mean we can break the law,” said Beaver County Commissioner Mark Whitney. “Two wrongs don’t make a right.”

Under its roundup schedule, the BLM plans to gather 2,400 of the animals through the end of the fiscal year. All but 215 of them will be horses.

Plans call for the removal of 1,535 horses in Wyoming, 285 in Nevada, 200 in Utah, 75 in Oregon, 50 in California and 35 in Idaho. The bureau also plans to gather 140 burros in Arizona, 50 in California and 25 in Oregon.

Some 49,000 horses and burros removed from the range are being held in government facilities throughout several western states. More than 60 percent of the BLM’s annual budget for managing wild horses and burros goes towards warehousing the animals in corrals.

Shane Miller is a former Humboldt County man wanted in the death of his wife and two young daughters in Shingletown, California. He is featured on the new CNN show ‘The Hunt,’ with John Walsh, airing Sunday at 9 p.m.

Authorities say Miller shot his wife and daughters multiple times before grabbing the family dog and heading to a remote area of Humboldt County where he grew up. He hasn’t been seen since — even after an intensive manhunt around Petrolia, about 40 miles south of Eureka.

Miller had threatened to kill his wife and the girls before, and he finally carried out the murders on the day Sandy Miller planned to tell him she wanted a place of her own. She had sought to escape from her husband about two weeks before she and her daughters were killed.

During an April 20th domestic violence dispute, Sandy Miller went to Humboldt County and her husband followed the same day, finding her at a motel and bringing her back to Shingletown. Shane Miller also made threats to kill his mother-in-law, sister-in-law and her children.

Shasta County detectives found Shane Miller’s bunker last month in Whitmore. The hidden bunker contained a large cache of guns and ammunition, but no indication that he’d stayed there recently. A $25,000 reward is being offered for information leading to his arrest.

Shane is 5 feet, 10 inches tall and weighs 200 pounds with red hair and blue eyes. He is considered armed and dangerous.

UPDATE 08/03/2014: Shasta County Sheriff Office has identified remains found near Petrolia’s River Bar as those belonging to Miller. Authorities have been searching for Miller since May of 2013 after he killed his wife and two daughters.

DiFranco glared at that yellow truck, crawling down the road like death on wheels, like the kind of bad omen you don’t shake off. It wasn’t even past five in the goddamn morning, and already he was on edge, sweating his balls off at Post Six. Beirut. Fucking Beirut. What kind of sick joke was this? The air stank of rot, the city reeked of hopelessness, and now, here comes this truck. His stomach twisted, just like every other goddamn day in this shithole, perched on the edge of another war nobody gave a shit about.

The truck circled the lot real slow like it had all the time in the world to size them up. It made a full round, then rolled off toward the airport like it was on some joyride. But DiFranco wasn’t fooled. He knew that feeling—the kind of dread that sinks into your bones. Beirut had a way of teaching you that. Nothing, nothing in this place felt right.

An hour later, it came back. And this time, the fucker behind the wheel wasn’t out for a cruise. DiFranco could feel it, deep down. That same goddamn truck, now gunning straight for the lobby. He clutched his rifle so tight his knuckles turned white. “Shit,” he muttered under his breath, already knowing the next move. The truck barreled through the wire like it was slicing butter like it was meant to.

Sergeant Russell was there, standing like a dumbass near the entrance, probably daydreaming about his eggs and bacon. He spotted the truck too late, his face twisting into panic as he screamed, “Hit the fucking deck!” But it was pointless. Yelling doesn’t stop bombs. The explosion ripped through the building like a fucking hurricane, a wave of fire and death that left nothing in its wake.

Russell was tossed like a goddamn doll, flung into the street, bleeding and dazed. The building? Gone. Not just damaged, not just hurt—fucking gone. Vaporized. Concrete, flesh, bone—all mashed together into a bloody stew. DiFranco hit the ground hard, his body rattling from the blast, even from where he was. The air was thick with dust, the kind that clogs your throat, your lungs, the kind that hangs in the air when you’re close to hell.

And it was a Sunday. It was supposed to be an easy day, a fucking lazy day. By noon, they’d planned a damn barbecue. Yeah, a good ol’ American barbecue. Burgers, hot dogs, beer. Pretending for a second that life wasn’t shit. But no, not in Beirut. Beirut didn’t do days off.

Doc had left early that morning, heading out for one of his bullshit runs. The mission? Trade some smokes for beer with the Brits. Real high-stakes shit, right? But it was Doc’s life—always thinking about the next drink, next laugh like it would keep the fucking bombs at bay.

“Get back quick, Doc,” Gunny had joked. If he’d known what was coming, he would’ve said goodbye. He should have fucking said goodbye.

Doc walked that dirty, baking-hot road toward the British camp like he was on autopilot, cigarettes stuffed in his bag. It wasn’t his first time dealing with the Brits, swapping smokes for booze, trying to stay sane in a place where sanity had been torched long ago. The Brits greeted him like always, a smirk here, a handshake there, their camp calm in a way that felt somehow wrong.

It hit like a fucking freight train. The ground didn’t tremble; it erupted. Doc turned toward the U.S. compound and saw the plume of dust rising like Beirut’s dirty middle finger. The top of the Marine building—gone. Just fucking gone.

His stomach flipped. His mind blanked. “No… no, no, no, no, fuck!” he screamed, his voice tearing through the hot air. He couldn’t move, couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe.

McNeil, the British medic, grabbed him hard. “Snap out of it, Yank! Get to the hospital—we need you there.”

Doc wanted to run back to the wreckage, dig through the rubble with his bare hands, find the faces he knew, the bodies of men he laughed with, sweated with. But McNeil was right. He wasn’t just a Marine, not some grunt. He was the Corpsman. He saved lives. If there was anything left to save, it would be in the hospital.

Minutes later, the French barracks got hit. Another truck. Another fucking bomb. Fifty-eight French paratroopers were wiped out, just like that. Beirut had turned into a goddamn death trap. Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad—same shit, different name. Just a bunch of cowards hiding behind religion to blow up buildings and take lives.

By the time Doc got back to what was left of the Marine compound, it was chaos. Marines were ripping through the rubble with their hands, their fingers bloodied and raw, pulling out pieces of what used to be their friends. The smell of burning flesh clung to everything, searing itself into his brain.

Doc didn’t sleep for days. Couldn’t. Every time he shut his eyes, he saw that fucking yellow truck, the bearded asshole behind the wheel, grinning like the fucker knew he was about to become a goddamn martyr. Like he was proud to take 241 men with him. Marines, his brothers—people he shared meals with, people who fought and bled next to him. And that bastard’s smile? It stuck with him. Like it was burned into his eyelids, never letting him forget.

After gaining nearly 30 pounds over the last dozen years, I’ve been working on losing weight. So far I’ve lost nearly five pounds in about a two-week period.

A friend of mine, who knows how I’ve been struggling sent me a joke as a way of encouragement. Allow me to share it:

A guy calls a company and orders their five-day/five-pound weight loss program.

The next day, there’s a knock on the door and there stands before him a voluptuous, athletic, 19-year-old babe dressed in nothing but a pair of Nike running shoes and a sign around her neck. She introduces herself as a representative of the weight loss company.

The sign reads, “If you can catch me, you can have me.”

Without a second thought, he takes off after her. A few miles later puffing and puffing, he finally gives up.

The same girl shows up for the next four days and the same thing happens. On the fifth day, he weighs himself and is delighted to find he has lost five pounds as promised.

He calls the company and orders their five-day/10-pound program. The next day there’s a knock at the door and there stands the most stunning, beautiful, sexy woman he has ever seen in his life.

She is wearing nothing but Reebok running shoes and a sign around her neck that reads, “If you catch me, you can have me”.

Well, he’s out the door and after her like a shot. This girl is in excellent shape and he does his best, but no such luck.

So for the next four days, the same routine happens with him gradually getting in better and better shape. Much to his delight on the fifth day when he weighs himself, he discovers that he has lost another 10 pounds as promised.

He decides to go for broke and calls the company to order the seven-day/25-pound program.

“Are you sure?” asks the representative on the phone. “This is our most rigorous program.”

“Absolutely,” he replies, “I haven’t felt this good in years.”

The next day there’s a knock at the door; and when he opens it he finds a huge muscular guy standing there wearing nothing but pink running shoes and a sign around his neck that reads, “If I catch you, you are mine.”

He lost 33 pounds that week.

Vowing to “do something” about the Supreme Court’s recent Hobby Lobby ruling, Senator Harry Reid, who continues to work under a cloud of ethics charges, renewed Democrats’ plans to undermine the high court’s decision by attacking the “five white men” who voted in favor of the Christian, family owned business.

“The one thing we are going to do during this work period, sooner rather than later, is to ensure that women’s lives are not determined by virtue of five white men,” Reid told reporters Tuesday. “This Hobby Lobby decision is outrageous and we are going to do something about it. People are going to have to walk down here and vote.”

There’s just one problem with his statement — Justice Clarence Thomas is black.

This has left many wondering about Reid’s mental faculties. In May 2009 I posed the question: “Does Harry need Mental Health Help?” after he published an unfounded ‘memory’ about deceased Nevada Congressman Walter Baring in his book, “The Good Fight: Hard Lessons from Searchlight to Washington.”

In it, Reid claimed that on the day President John F. Kennedy was assassinated Baring told him it was good thing as JFK was leading the U.S. into Communism.

“But on the evening of Kennedy’s death, I sat with Congressman Baring of Nevada as he nursed his drink. And I was shattered. Then Baring said something that I will never forget. He was a conservative Democrat, reactionary actually, one of those guys for whom there was a Communist behind every bush. Fluoride was a Communist plot. And Kennedy, too, had been leading us down the path to Communism, Baring told me. It was probably a good thing that he was murdered. That’s what he told me.”

Reid’s assertion has been countered by Baring’s son, Jeff.

“There is no way my dad would have said anything like that, much less to Harry Reid,” the younger Baring said.

He also kept an Associated Press newspaper clipping from the day of JFK’s assassination which contradicts Reid and points towards his father’s real thoughts on the president’s death.

“I am stunned by the tragic death of our president and as congressman for Nevada; I join the people of the nation throughout the world in this dark hour, in mourning the death of our President, John F. Kennedy, and in extending our deepest sympathies to Mrs. Kennedy and family,” Congressman Baring stated.

Now — this strange statement about the only black member of the current Supreme Court is adding fuel to that fire.

Meanwhile others have wondered about Reid’s racist tendencies, and may interpret Reid’s comments as just another way of calling Thomas an “Uncle Tom,” thereby accusing him of not really being black. In 2008, Reid said Barack Obama was electable because he was “light skinned” and had “no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one.”

Thomas was joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Antonin Scalia, Anthony Kennedy and Samuel Alito in the 5-4 Burwell versus Hobby Lobby Supreme Court case. Thomas is seen as a strict constitutionalist and one of the more conservative members of the Supreme Court.

Finally…

With a deep compassion in my heart, I’m pleading with Harry’s wife Landra, his daughter, Lana and his son’s Rory, Leif, Josh and Key to talk him into retirement before his mentation problems escalate. It’s obvious to even the most-casual observer that he’s dealing with onset of dementia and needs to leave public life.

It’s hard to understand why any family member, who loves their husband and father, would allow his situation to continue deteriorating to the point it would become a public spectacle. I may not agree with anything he does politically – but I do believe he deserves to leave the public spot light with his dignity fully intact.

Nevada’s Democratic Congressional Representative’s Steven Horsford and Dina Titus are co-sponsoring a bill that claims to protect women’s health in response to last week’s Supreme Court “Hobby Lobby” decision. Obviously, they’re picking up their cue from Senator Harry Reid, also of Nevada.

“This Hobby Lobby decision is outrageous and we are going to do something about it,” Reid complained Tuesday.

Titus, another Las Vegas Democrat, trumpeted the legislation she introduced with the aid of the Pro-Choice Caucus.

“The private beliefs of corporations and employers have no place in the health decisions of individual women,” said Titus.

“The Not My Boss’ Business Act” will prohibit for-profit employers from using religious beliefs to deny employees coverage of contraception or any other vital health service required by federal law. The bill would keep in place the existing exemption in the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993 for religious employers such as churches, as well as accommodations for religious non-profit groups.

“A woman’s fundamental right to make her own health choices in consultation with her doctor should not be subject to the discretion of her boss’s religious views,” Horsford said in a statement announcing he would cosponsor the bill.

The bill could be up for a vote in the Senate as soon as next week. But Senate Republicans are likely to block it.

In an Associated Press-CNBC poll, released in April 2010, only 33 percent of those questioned favored legalization of marijuana while 55 percent opposed it. People under 30 were the only age group favoring legalization, with 54 percent and opposition increased with age, topping out at 73 percent of those 65 and older.

Opposition was also greater among women and those in rural and suburban areas, 60 percent supported the idea and 74 percent believed the drug had a real medical benefit for some people. Two-thirds of Democrats favored medical marijuana as do a slim majority of Republicans, 53 percent.

What a difference four-years can make.

Nearly two years after voter’s legalized recreational pot for adults over 21, Washington State’s first licensed cannabis shops opened for business. The pot being sold at four stores in Seattle, Bellingham, Prosser and Spokane was regulated, tested for impurities, heavily taxed and in short supply.

Washington is the second state to allow marijuana sales without a doctor’s note. The state’s Liquor Control Board began working right away to develop rules governing just about every aspect of the industry, from what fertilizers can be used to how extracts are produced.

But the board has been overwhelmed — nearly 7,000 people applied to grow, process or sell pot, and those licenses are being reviewed by the board’s 18 investigators. Fewer than 100 growers have been approved, and only a dozen were ready to harvest in time for the market’s launch.

Much of the marijuana being sold Tuesday cost at least twice the $10 to $12 per gram offered by the state’s unregulated medical dispensaries.

And long before opening, the stores had to survive an in-state lottery for the 300 retail licenses being issued. Then they had to buy product from growers.

Meanwhile, the slow roll-out is limiting the state’s tax receipts. Washington says it may take in $586 million over the next four years, which is just a fraction of the $1.9 billion state officials estimated before the vote.

Colorado now has 206 stores licensed by the state for recreational sales. It has another 493 stores licensed for medical-marijuana sales.

The Colorado State Highway Patrol has started to keep track of marijuana-specific DUI citations. Month to month, pot-DUI’s make up about 10-to-15 percent of all citations with over 350 people cited in Denver alone this year.

The state has also collected more than $11 million in marijuana taxes.

And speaking of Colorado, while enjoying a night out in Denver on Tuesday with Colorado Governor John Hinkenlooper, President Barack Obama was approached by a man who asked him if he wanted to smoke some of marijuana.

“You want to hit this?” Matt Ashton asked while Obama was making his way through the crowd at a Denver bar. The president laughed, and while he didn’t say no, he didn’t indulge.

Meanwhile medical marijuana dispensaries in Berkeley, California could soon be required to give away some of their stash — to the poor. The city council approved the ordinance Monday.

The requirement is buried in a 20-page ordinance to amend the Berkeley Municipal Code. A new chapter in the code includes the section “Medical Cannabis for Low-Income Members,” requiring the town’s four medical marijuana dispensaries to provide “at least 2 percent (by weight) of the annual amount of Medical Cannabis” they sell to “very low-income Members who are Berkeley residents,” at no cost.

“Very low-income” is defined by the city council as less than $32,000 per year for an individual and less than $46,000 for a family of four. Not only that, it has to be the same high-quality marijuana given to regular paying customers.

The city council will also consider an ordinance to ban e-cigarette use in public spaces, despite the fact that e-cigarettes are a highly successful smoking cessation tool.

The story isn’t that poor people are getting their pot on the cheap – it’s about a government body telling a private business to give away what they sell for nothing.

This is what tyranny looks like.

“As long as the government is perceived as working for the benefit of the children, the people will happily endure almost any curtailment of liberty and almost any deprivation.” ― Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf

The Senate on Monday approved a procedural voted in favor of the Bipartisan Sportsmen’s Act of 2014. The bill is a combination of several proposals aimed at allowing people to use land controlled by the federal government.

It would make sure more target ranges are placed on public land, and that target shooting, hunting and fishing can take place on these lands, ends a ban on fishing gear made with lead components, something that was put in place for environmental reasons. Additionally, it will let people import polar bear trophies from Canada harvested from bears taken before they were placed on the endangered species list.

The bill, however is not sitting well with Democrats, who opposed it by saying the Senate should not be trying to expand the rights of people with guns, including Senator Chris Murphy.

“There is a perfectly legitimate debate to be had about bringing more legal guns onto public property,” Murphy said. “But there is a more important debate than that about taking illegal guns off of our city streets.”

“If the United States Senate is going to spend a week debating a bill about gun policy, than we should be talking about getting rid of illegal guns,” he added. “We should be talking about keeping guns out of the hands of criminals. We should be talking about stopping the epidemic of gun violence across this country.”

He and Senator Richard Blumenthal both said they would vote against the bill because the Senate should be considering tougher gun regulations citing the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in late 2012. But they, along with others, were not enough to stop the overwhelming majority support for the bill.

Now, several GOP senators are hoping to offer amendments to strengthen gun right in the bill. However Senator Harry Reid is reportedly planning to block any floor amendments.

“These pro-gun Senators want to offer good amendments like concealed carry reciprocity,” Gun Owners of America notes, “but that won’t be possible if Harry Reid blocks their ability to offer pro-gun amendments with an ‘amendment tree.’”

Reid has often used procedural tactics, preventing Republicans from offering amendments that could put vulnerable Democrats on the spot in November. This and the gutting of the filibuster, has led too much of the legislative gridlock in the chamber.

Across the country in Washington State, a battle over gun rights is heating up with two opposing ballot initiatives concerning background checks. Initiative 594 would strengthen background checks on gun purchasers to include gun shows and online sales. Initiative 591, one the other hand would prohibit background checks by the state unless they conform to federal background check laws.

Initiative 594 says it would “apply the currently used criminal and public safety background checks by licensed dealers to all firearm sales and transfers, including gun show and online sales, with specific exceptions.”

On Sunday, the Seattle Times editorial board endorsed the increased background check initiative and opposed the ballot measure supported by the pro-gun groups, slammed the anti-background check measure as “wholly inappropriate, unnecessary and potentially a reckless retreat.”

“The firearm industry and its entrepreneurial forces know their market, so the notion of ‘confiscating’ guns is immediately mentioned,” the opinion piece added.

If passed, Initiative 591 would make it “unlawful for any government agency to confiscate guns or other firearms from citizens without due process” and “unlawful for any government agency to require background checks on the recipient of a firearm unless a uniform national standard is required.”

As the debate over gun control and the Second Amendment rages Independence day brought New York City’s “most concentrated explosion of gun violence this year,” the New York Post reported, as a dozen people were shot, three fatally, within a five-hour span.

One victim “suffered a head wound so grisly that cops couldn’t tell if he’d been shot, stabbed or beaten,” the Post reported.

Another seven people were shot in the early morning hours of Saturday in Indianapolis, and six more at a Houston music festival around the same time on the same day.

But it is in Chicago that the most gun violence took place with at 82 people shot and 14 deaths during the long Independence Day weekend. At five of those shootings were police-involved, ending with two people killed.

“There has to come a tipping point where this changes,” Chicago Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy said. “The illogical nature of what’s happening here — that government can intercede and prevent this from happening is overwhelming. And I refuse to think otherwise in a great country like America that we can continue to allow this to happen — not just on a state, but on a federal level.”

A Florida teen remains under house-arrest in Jerusalem. Fifteen-year-old Tariq Khdeir was attending a demonstration related to the death of his cousin, 16-year-old Mohammed Abu Khdeir, when he was arrested and beaten.

Hassan Shibly, executive director with the Council on American-Islamic Relations in Florida, claims the beating came at the hands of Israeli soldiers.

“You can see video of them really stomping on his face,” Shibly said.

However a statement released by the Israeli Defense Force refutes Shibly’s claim.

“It seems that the Israel Police Forces were involved in the incident, and not the IDF Forces,” the statement reads.

A spokesman for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that such beatings “should not happen.”

“Obviously, it is forbidden under Israeli law to beat up a suspect who is in handcuffs,” states Mark Regev.

A U.S. consular officer visited the teen in an Israeli detention center in Jerusalem and issued a statement following the visit:

“We are profoundly troubled by reports that he was severely beaten while in police custody and strongly condemn any excessive use of force. We are calling for a speedy, transparent and credible investigation and full accountability for any excessive use of force.”

Tariq described how police hit him.

”They hit me in the face, they hit me, they brutally hit me, they put me unconscious. I could not do anything about it,” Tariq said.

Israeli police say Tariq resisted arrest, attacked officers and was carrying a shepherd’s sling used for lobbing stones when he was arrested. Tariq was fined about $900 and sentenced to nine days of house arrest.

His mother, Suha Abu Khdeir, protested the continued restrictions on her son.

“I feel like he does not deserve to be on house arrest out of his own home for nine days and have a bail. On what charges? He has not been charged. There is no charge on him. Why are you putting him on house arrest? It makes no sense. I am American. I know the American law. This does not happen in America,” she said.

Tariq’s cousin, Mohammed died after being struck on the head with a blunt object and kidnapped off the street. An autopsy also showed traces of smoke in his lungs, indicating it was still breathing while the fire was burning.

Working quickly, Israeli authorities arrested six people believed to have murdered Mohammed. They have yet to release their names.

Mohammed’s mother welcomed news of the arrests but said she had little faith in the Israeli justice system.

“I don’t have any peace in my heart. Even if they captured who they say killed my son,” she said. “They’re only going to ask them questions and then release them. What’s the point?”

“They need to treat them the way they treat us. They need to demolish their homes and round them up, the way they do it to our children,” she added.

All this comes after the bodies of the three Israeli students were found, tied-up and buried beneath a pile of rocks in an open field in an area called Wadi Tellem north of the Palestinian village of Halhul. They were found after a “tip” to look in the field, which had been previously searched

Eyal Yifrach, 19, Gilad Shaar, 16, and Naftali Fraenkel, a 16-year-old with dual Israeli-American citizenship, were studying in West Bank yeshivas. They disappeared while hitchhiking home late at night June 12th, a week before the start of summer vacation.

Official reports are that “They know it’s the three, they will know for sure after they do the autopsy. It appears that they boys were shot to death, likely “very close to the kidnap” time, and that the prime suspects had still not been caught.

Hamas, a Palestinian militant group has been accused by Israel of taking the boys; however they have denied the kidnapping. Following the kidnappings, however Hamas ‘celebrated’ by handing out candy to Palestinian children.

In the meantime, Israel has identified at least two of the kidnappers as members of Hamas. Israel’s Shin Bet security service is working with Palestinian authorities to find Marwan Qawasmeh and Amer Abu Aisheh, who went missing the day the teenagers disappeared.

Both Qawasmeh and Aisheh have served time in Israeli prisons.