Is 17-Year Sentence Right for the Garbage-Dump Dad?

By Paul Shepard

No one felt good reading the story of the Ohio dad who left two small kids in a hot garbage dumpster for hours after fussing with the children's mother, Alisha Whitehead.

But the sentence of 17 years in prison that a Montgomery County Common Pleas Court handed down to Tommie Johnson Jr. of Dayton has me wondering if justice was truly served in this sad case of child neglect.

I can understand the arguments of some who say that only the grace of God prevented this from being a story of how two young children DIED in a garbage dumpster. His act was, as a prosecutor described, "unforgivable."

And Johnson Jr., 39, a repeat offender, who pleaded no contest to two counts of attempted murder, kidnapping, domestic violence and evidence tampering charges in the case, has shown little evidence that he wouldn't do something stupid and dangerous again to land him behind prison bars in the near future.

But some part of me feels that Johnson Jr. didn't get the best defense the American legal system has to offer in this case.

Did his attorney really think it was in Johnson Jr.'s best interest to plead to two counts of attempted murder? Was he really trying to kill his 23-month-old daughter, Ashonti, and her 8-month-old brother, Tommie III?

That answer was ultimately for a court to decide, but by taking all the charges, Johnson Jr. took the process out of the hands of the court and threw himself on its mercy. And little, quite understandably, was shown.

Now please don't interpret any part of this as a defense for Tommie Johnson Jr. He did something so wrong and so neglectful, he deserves to lose his freedom for a long time. And he will.

But I just wonder if Johnson Jr. had not become a national poster boy for dangerous parenting and if he could have been provided more aggressive legal counsel, would he have ended up with 17 years.

Blacks Are Accumulating More Student Loan Debt than Whites or Hispanics

By Ericka Blount Danois

Many students graduate with manageable debt or no education loans, but almost 17 percent of graduates in 2008 borrowed $30,500 or more to get their bachelor's degrees, according to a report released by the College Board Advocacy & Policy Center. The students who borrow the most are disproportionately black, and are more likely to have attended a private nonprofit or for-profit college than a public four-year college, although debt levels did not necessarily reflect family income.
Over all, the analysis - based on data from 2007–2008 graduates in the "National Postsecondary Student Aid Study" - revealed that about two-thirds of all those who received a bachelor's degree, graduated with some amount of loan debt.

About 25 percent of all college-degree recipients graduated with at least $24,600 in debt, and 10 percent graduated with at least $39,300, says the report.

A co-author of the report, Sandy Baum says that it's not the lowest-income students who have the most debt at graduation, but actually middle-income students. The authors, though, could not pinpoint why that is other than speculate that the types of colleges middle-income students choose to attend may have a high tuition.

Among bachelor's-degree recipients, independent students were also more likely to have high-debt levels. About 24 percent of them had at least $30,500 in loan debt, twice the percentage found among students who depend on their parents or another guardian.

"Independent students, who are disproportionately likely to come from lower-income families, are most likely to have high-debt levels," according to the report.

The College Board also analyzed the relationship between student debt and race, finding that black students were more likely than Asians, whites, and Hispanics to have high-debt levels. Only 19 percent of black students graduated with no debt, while the percentage of debt-free graduates from other racial groups ranged from 33 for Hispanic students to 40 percent for Asian students.

About 27 percent of all black students graduated with at least $30,500 in student-loan debt, while the portion of students with that level of debt ranged from 9 percent to 16 percent for other races.

According to the report, the problem is not that all students are borrowing too much, but that difficulties in predicting earnings after graduation, and students' lack of understanding about the financial impact of loans, leave too many of them borrowing more than they can manage.

For instance, if you're attending a Graduate Teachers College for $30,000 per year and upon graduation you're saddled with over $100,000 in debt, it would take a lifetime to pay back that loan on a teacher's salary. Do you think that tuition rates for institutions should reflect the salaries that students will receive at an entry level job upon graduation?

Cold-Case Murders From the Civil Rights Movement May Be Solved

By Ericka Blount Danois

Last weekend, more than 70 relatives of people murdered during the civil rights era gathered in Atlanta for the "Never Too Late for Justice" retreat, hosted by Syracuse University College of Law's Cold Case Justice Initiative.

"We need to come together so we can share, hear each others' stories and help heal," says Shelton Chappell (pictured above), whose mother was murdered by four white men who are still walking free. "Just as the families of victims of 9/11 have found a closeness, so can the relatives of people who died by homegrown violence," he said. "This was terrorism, too."

Janis J. McDonald, a Syracuse professor of law and co-director of the initiative, said the project was founded in 2007, after she was contacted by relatives of Frank Morris, a Ferriday, La., shoe-shop owner who was murdered in December 1964. They were frustrated because they could not get anyone to investigate his death.

Morris' shop was set ablaze and gunmen forced him back into the building, where he was burned and later died of his injuries. His case remains unsolved.

Law students, under the supervision of McDonald and co-director Paula C. Johnson pored over thousands of pages of documents and worked with local investigative journalists to find new witnesses. They also pushed for federal officials to investigate his murder.

"We realized that the families were living this daily," McDonald said. "Many of these family members were between 8 and 12 when they witnessed or experienced the loss of their relatives."

She said families are coming for different reasons: Some want to share their stories, others seek to have their relatives' death certificates changed to reflect homicide and others are pursuing justice against the murderers.

"The larger question that our society has never answered is about the role of law enforcement" in some of the deaths, she said. In some cases, they looked the other way and never fully investigated. In others, officers may have participated directly.

The families arrived last Friday for a private, facilitated retreat, which continued on Saturday. There was a public panel discussion that addressed the legal, historical and societal impact of the killings.

McDonald expects more families to come forward as word spreads.

These are the sort of cold-case files that need to be investigated and solved to bring these families closure and fulfill the civil rights mission that so many everyday people and leaders died for.

Watch McDonald and Johnson talk about the Cold Case Justice Initiative here:

Civil Rights Group Struggles To Remain Relevant

Obama to honor Height as godmother of civil rights

Hundreds of mourners are filing into the Washington National Cathedral to honor the late Dorothy Height, a matriarch of the civil rights movement.


President Barack Obama will give the eulogy at the funeral Thursday morning. Poet Maya Angelou will offer a reading, BeBe Winans will sing, and Camille Cosby will offer a tribute.

Attendees at the public funeral include Washington's powerful and others who boarded trains at 3 a.m. to take part.

Some of the women arriving at the cathedral are wearing bright hats like Height used to wear.

Leaders from Congress will share the front row with the president. Several officials from Obama's cabinet also will attend. Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele is also expected to attend.

Lavrov cautions Iran over sanctions

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov addresses the parliamentary assembly of the Council of Europe on April 29, 2010 in the northeastern French city of Strasbourg.


In the strongest signal yet of support for the US-pursued sanctions against Iran, Russia has warned Tehran that the measure could become "inevitable."

"In the absence of cooperation on the part of Iran, it is quite possible that sanctions will become inevitable, and in the very near future the Security Council will deal with these matters," RIA Novosti quoted Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov as saying on Thursday.

He made the remarks in reply to questions during a plenary meeting of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) in Strasbourg, France.

However, Lavrov stressed that Kremlin would never support the use of force against Iran as it would entail catastrophic consequences for Europe "and not just the Middle East, Near East, Central Asia, and the Caucasus region," FARS News Agency reported, citing Russia's Interfax news agency.

Russia, as a permanent member of the UN Security Council, could cripple the Washington-drafted resolution for more Iran sanctions with the use of its veto right.

But Moscow has remained vague on its stance towards the issue, shifting from support for Iran's civilian nuclear program, which Tehran has repeatedly said is completely peaceful, to veiled cautions that it may join ship with the US on more sanctions.

This is while, as one of the key suppliers in the nuclear fuel swap proposal, Russia is ultimately in favor of a diplomatic resolution.

Another veto-wielding UNSC member, China, has urged diplomacy in finding a solution to the nuclear impasse -- a call echoed by temporary members Turkey and Brazil.

In order to be passed, the resolution must be approved by at least nine members of the UNSC, granted that none of the five permanent members use their veto.

As a signatory of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, Iran stresses that it has the right to develop its nuclear program for peaceful purposes, citing its membership of the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Video: Florida Governor Expected to Run As Independent

Steve Jobs attacks Adobe Flash as unfit for iPhone

NEW YORK — Apple CEO Steve Jobs is going on the offensive against Adobe's Flash technology. He says it's too buggy, battery-draining and PC-oriented to work on the iPhone and iPad.

In a statement Thursday, Jobs laid out his reasons for excluding Flash — the most popular vehicle for videos and games on the Internet — from Apple's blockbuster handheld devices.

Apple has been criticized for the omission of Flash, which limits the usefulness of the iPhone. In his rebuttal, Jobs said the most important reason for excluding Flash is that it puts a third party between Apple and software developers. That means developers can take advantage of improvements from Apple only if Adobe chose to upgrade its own software, Jobs wrote.

Puerto Rican funeral home poses dead man on motorcycle

Marin Funeral Home in San Juan in Puerto Rico has made headlines before for posing a body in an unusual fashion.




Back in 2008, the company grabbed headlines for propping the body of 24-year-old Angel Pantoja Medina upright (as if standing) for his three-day wake at his mother’s home. Medina had previously told family members that he “wanted to be happy, standing” at his wake. Damaris Marin, the owner, has piqued international attention again with another interestingly posed body.



After 22-year-old David Morales Colón was shot to death last Thursday, family members brought the young man’s “Repsol-liveried Honda CBR600 F4″ to Marin for the unusual post-mortem display. The bike was given to Colón by an uncle before he died, and Marin posed the body atop the bike in a realistic racing pose, wearing street clothes and sunglasses.



According to a Puerto Rican news source, Colón survived a shooting previously, at the age of fourteen. He was buried yesterday in Rio Piedras. No word on whether the bike went with him.

NYS Sen. Kevin Parker's Inane Racist Rant

New York State Senator Kevin Parker seems to think that the mess in Albany is the result of white supremacist politicians in Albany.

In his latest off-the-wall behavior, hothead Sen. Kevin Parker Wednesday morning accused Senate Republicans - and even some Democrats - of being white supremacists.

Parker updated his Facebook status, saying he was "in Albany fighting the evil of White Supremacy!"

And Parker, who exploded in a fury during a public committee meeting Tuesday, defended his outburst during a radio interview as "par for the course of what we have to do up in Albany fighting the forces of evil."

Asked by Daily News columnist and WWRL host Errol Louis what the forces of evil were, Parker said, "these long-term white supremacist Republican senators."

He accused the GOP of not being able to handle losing the Senate majority and now having blacks, Latinos, women and gays running the chamber as part of the Democratic majority.

"They have a real problem with that and because of that they do things that are very very inappropriate," Parker said.
Where to start with this insanity?

How about the fact that Pedro Espada and Hiram Monserrate conspired with the GOP to stage a "coup" last year that gave the State Senate chamber back to the GOP after they lost it to the Democrats. Both are Hispanic (and Monserrate was later booted from the chamber after being found guilty on a misdemeanor assault charge). Moreover, that coup led to a reshuffling of the senior Democrat positions - between Malcolm Smith and John Sampson (who both happen to be African American).

In any event, Parker's just blowing smoke and providing still more evidence that Albany remains a circus and not serious about fixing the state's serious fiscal problems. Moreover, Parker's insanities include being indicted for assaulting a photographer (and the felony charges are still pending).

Parker is a thug who wants to bully his way through the chamber to arrive at decisions to his liking. Others in the Senate are not taking a liking to his tactics and have called him out on it.

How The Other Side Lives

By Michael Swartz



If you consider the tea party movement a political one and support their goals, you're not alone. A Rasmussen poll taken just before the tax day protests found that 24% of Americans now considered themselves part of the tea party movement.



Yet if you look at the actual number of people who have attended a tea party, the movement is likely far smaller. While there's no good accurate count of the number who have participated, it's safe to assume that the sum total is much fewer than the 69,498,215 people who voted for President Barack Obama. And chances are the circle of Tea party regulars has little congruency with the circle of Obama voters so it's no stretch either to assume that these are two different and entrenched camps.



Those who favor tea party politics tend to be for a reined-in, smaller government which is fiscally responsible, and they're united on that front. On the other hand, the sector of the Democratic party which most supported Obama is actually made up of far smaller and more disparate groups, which fall in and out of favor quickly depending on the issue of the day.



For example, the recent push for amnesty for illegal immigrants placed the Hispanic advocacy groups and other race-baiters at the top of the heap, displacing environmental groups who were hoping cap-and-trade would lead the agenda once health care passed. Moreover, while unions and other progressive groups were thrilled at the passage of Obamacare, gay rights supporters were displeased with the lack of progress on their pet issues and vocalized their disappointment at President Obama's recent appearance with Senator Barbara Boxer in California .



Despite their differences, though, the side of those who would consolidate government power in a Washington bureaucracy, back it up with an activist judiciary system, and reduce Congress to a body where favors are bought and sold for plebiscite votes has advanced their agenda at an increasing pace. Over the 80 years since the Great Depression began, government has constantly become a more powerful force in people's lives – only the pace has changed, depending on who occupies the White House. The statist agenda won victories, even under Reagan's watch, because Democrats controlled the purse strings at the time.



Those on the left also use the tactic of asking, "where were tea partiers when the Republicans in Congress increased spending and drove up the deficit under President George W. Bush?" It's a good question, but the pace toward statism wasn't quick enough to incite alarm and economic conditions were acceptable. In addition, President Bush handled the post 9-11 period well enough to earn a second term.



In retrospect Bush's biggest mistake was assuming he could work with Democrats inside the Beltway as he could Democrats in Austin . He had no idea the disparate groups which fight amongst each other when the Democrats are in power can speak with one voice when their territories inside the Beltway become threatened. In that respect, these special interests become the image the tea parties would eventually mirror because they too took to the streets when that which they believed they'd earned for themselves was threatened.



Yet even if the Republicans win big at the ballot box in 2010, the fight has barely started. Note that the Gingrich-led Republican Congress of the 1990's couldn't starve the Beltway beast – eventually they lost their will and their way. But if they don't succeed in their reform efforts we could lose America as we know it, and the tea parties of 2009-10 will become a forgotten chapter of the closing days of our nation's history.



Michael Swartz, an architect and writer who lives in rural Maryland, is a Liberty Features Syndicated writer for Americans for Limited Government.

Harmful Regulations Video Contest

By Adam Bitely



The EPA has decided to start a video contest, seeking to gather films promoting government regulations. The prize is $2,500 of stolen cash from the taxpayer.



What?! Well, two can play at this game — except we will not be robbing any taxpayers.



Americans for Limited Government/NetRight Nation and the Fr33 Agents Network have announced that we will host our own contest. The reward is $2,500 not stolen from the tax payers. Here are the rules to enter:



1.Create a video promoting how government regulations have harmed business in your area. Get creative. Examples: a video showing the rising cost of food prices due to government subsidies or the FDA preventing the release of life saving medications. Think outside the box and show us how government regulations are harming you!


2. Post your video to YouTube. Send the link to Adam@netrightnation.com.


3. Two weeks from now, on May 11, we will post the top selection of videos that have been entered. We will also announce the judges for the contest that will narrow down the field to the best video entry in the coming week. Also, we will post your video submissions as they come in.


4. We will announce a winner on May 18 and they will receive the $2,500 cash prize that has not been stolen from the taxpayer!



And if you have never made a video check out the two below (just click the image) and read just how easy it is to make one:





It's so easy to make a YouTube video, that it took less than 10 minutes to create these, and I am no video expert. Using a very cheap video camera, I recorded the above two brief videos on how food regulations drive prices up in Virginia and how labor bosses hate filling out disclosure forms. Once I had the video filmed, I simply plugged the camera into my computer, dragged and dropped the file onto my desktop and then uploaded it to my YouTube account. It's pretty easy! So there is no reason that you shouldn't be able to make a video for the contest and possibly win $2,500!



So get to work and start making some videos!



Adam Bitely is the New Media Director for Americans for Limited Government.

Republicans Strike Back?

By Robert Romano



Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has scheduled another procedural vote for today on the Dodd financial takeover bill. This follows two failed votes on proceeding to the bill this week that are solely designed to bully one or two Republicans into supporting the measure without making any significant concessions.



Senate Republicans must not take the bait. As Americans for Limited Government President Bill Wilson said yesterday, "Republicans can wield the upper hand in this debate by holding the majority to account for covering up for the real villain of the crisis: government." And so far, that is exactly what the Senate minority is doing.



Yesterday, Republican after Republican came to the floor to criticize not only what is in the bill — which, as ALG News has previously reported, is horrendous — but what is not.



Senator Pat Roberts (R-KS) said of the Dodd bill, "it sends a signal that the government will bail out institutions just as it did with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the two troubled mortgage giants that have received $125.9 billion in direct government funding and now have an unlimited U.S. credit line. Yet there's no mention of Fannie or Freddie in this bill."



Senator Roberts is exactly right. A text search of the Dodd bill will find that they are not at all included, despite the fact that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac weakened mortgage underwriting standards and mislabeled high-risk mortgage-backed securities, defrauding investors. All told, the GSE's brought some $1.835 trillion of these risky assets onto their books, out of the $4.7 trillion in mortgage-backed securities. That's about 39 percent.



"Failure to deal with Fannie and Freddie keeps taxpayers on the hook for more bailouts of these entities," Roberts continued. Again, he's right. "Too big to fail" cannot end while the government maintains the bailed-out firms like Fannie and Freddie with no end in sight and an unlimited credit line.



A Senate Republican alternative plan obtained by ALG News to the Dodd bill would begin to bring an end to government ownership of the companies. It would require the GSE's to "reduce their portfolio holdings by 10 percent of the prior year's holdings" and the President to submit a plan to reform the GSE's within six months of the bill's passage.



Although this particular provision holds some promise, it is meager in comparison to an outright requirement that the firms be sold off by the government. That must be included so that there is no mistake that, at the end of the day, the government will not be in the mortgage market.



Further, there needs to be protection such that the $4.7 mortgage-backed securities are not simply purchased by the Federal Reserve or the Treasury.



Why? Because under the Republican alternative, "Fed lending that leads to the Fed holding assets on its balance sheet for a maximum period of time shall be moved on-budget and counted as new budget authority, receipts, or deficits or surpluses for purposes of the budget of the U.S. government." The Federal Reserve has already bought $1.25 trillion of Fannie and Freddie securities. And under this provision, after a period of time, they would be transferred to taxpayers explicitly, being added directly to the national debt.



That would leave the government in charge of the mortgage industry.



Overall, moving Fed assets onto budget is actually a very good provision in comparison to current law, because it would restore honesty to accounting to the Federal Reserve and the U.S. budget. Under current law, the Fed has purchased the $1.25 trillion of securities with printed money in its program that replaced the Troubled Asset Relief Program. But, this did not appear on the government's balance sheet as it should.



New law should require those specific securities to be sold on the private market, and the Fed should be restricted from making any further intrusions into the mortgage market. The goal must be to get government out of housing finance altogether, and very explicit restrictions will need to be placed to prevent the GSE's from surviving in some other form under some other agency's regulatory umbrella.



Other parts of the Republican plan do not directly address the Federal Housing Administration's weakened down payments policies, nor do they repeal the Department of Housing and Urban Development Community Reinvestment Act regulations that forced banks to make risky loans to low-income Americans in the first place.



A final version of the GOP plan may include such provisions (such as in their title addressing underwriting standards), and they should, because they were an integral part of how so many bad mortgages were given out. Excluding that exempts another root cause of the crisis from reform.



Another critical aspect missing is reining in the Federal Reserve's easy money policies. Specifically, its lower-than-justified interest rates allowed the credit bubble to inflate to appalling proportions in the first place. It is solely up to Congress to protect the American people from another government-inflated bubble by reining in the excesses that fueled it.



According to research by Stanford economics professor John Taylor, "the Fed's target for the federal-funds interest rate was well below what the Taylor rule would call for in 2002-2005. By this measure the interest rate was too low for too long, reducing borrowing costs and accelerating the housing boom." By not placing restrictions on the Federal Reserve to wield interest rates policy as a mechanism for inflating asset bubbles, there will be nothing in place to prevent it from happening again.



There are other parts of the GOP alternative plan which accept many of the premises of the Dodd bill, like putting the FDIC as receiver of failing financial companies. Why not use bankruptcy courts? These are not depository institutions. They are investment firms, hedge funds, insurance companies and other non-banks. And the government should be in no position to seize them.



There is good reason for this. According to the Washington Times, "the government's non-bank rescues have become the biggest drain on taxpayers, including the burgeoning bailouts of mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, insurance giant American International Group, and Detroit's General Motors and Chrysler." This can only be remedied by ending the bailouts, and allowing companies to enter bankruptcy that belong there.



At the end of the day, there are some good ideas in the Senate Republican alternative, but it does not go far enough to addressing the root causes of the crisis. The American people are really expecting a comprehensive alternative plan that will end "too big to fail," reinstate risk to the markets, strengthen credit standards, and restore the faith of the American people that the government does not have aspirations upon the private sector.



Robert Romano is the ALG Senior News Editor.

Riot police deployed against Tea Party protesters

Quincy Tea Party members wanted President Barack Obama to know they were present Wednesday afternoon during his appearance in Quincy.
About 200 people protesting Obama's policies loudly chanted "USA, USA" as his motorcade made its way out of the Oakley-Lindsay Center, then sang "Hey, hey, hey, goodbye" as the vehicle went by.

The participants were vocal but well-behaved as they stood on the north side of York Street across from the OLC.
"Having the president come is really something," organizer Steve McQueen said. "But we do not agree with all the policies of Obama and the current Congress, and we wanted to make sure he knows we are here."

The crowd carried signs with messages ranging from "Give Us Liberty Not Debt" to yellow flags saying "Don't Tread On Me."

Urged on by people with megaphones, the crowd shouted slogans, among them "Remember in November" and "You work for us."

Tea party groups protest government spending and policies infringing on personal freedoms. The Quincy Tea Party had a well-attended rally in Washington Park last fall.
"We've always been respectful and acted with dignity," McQueen said. "We are out to make our case and make it peacefully."

There were a few tense moments when the crowd moved west down York toward Third Street after the president's motorcade arrived. A Secret Service agent asked the crowd to move back across the street to the north side.

When the crowd didn't move and began singing "God Bless, America" and the national anthem, Quincy Deputy Police Chief Ron Dreyer called for members of the Mobile Field Force to walk up the street.

The officers, mainly from Metro East departments near St. Louis and dressed in full body armor, marched from the east and stood on the south side of York facing the protesters.
There was no physical contact, and the officers did not come close to the crowd, but there were catcalls and more than a few upset tea party members, including a woman who shouted, "This is communism!"
McQueen also assisted in asking people to step back to the north side of York. The crowd moved back, the officers stayed for about 15 minutes and left, and there were no other incidents.

"It's just a communication issue. We were trying to get them to move across the street," Quincy Deputy Police Chief Curt Kelty said. "We were just trying to move them back, they complied, and it was fine."


Pictures of the protesters who sparked the call for police in full gear at the link.

You've got to feel for the cops in this charade.

Dana Loesch has more:

Who gave the order to call in the riot police on protesters? Word is that Secret Service from inside the venue and the presidential team pressured local law enforcement, who were against the idea. Local cops were overruled, I'm told by various sources, including a few members of local press. Moore reported that she overheard Secret Service telling the riot squad to "push them back, out of sight."

Intimidation tactic. Plain and simple. There was no violence, no arguments, just a couple hundred patriots who sang patriotic songs and wore red, white, and blue. Unbelievable.

Indeed.

Posted by Rick

Flight Bomb Scare Diverts International Travel

A recent Delta Airlines trip meant to go from Paris to Atlanta, had to detour and land in Bangor, Maine. During the flight, a bomb scare interfered and caused the authorities to take charge and alter plans. Continue below for more details, including a video.


Derek Stansberry, from Florida, used to serve in the Air Force and stated to crew members that he had explosives and false documents. The Airbus A330 carrying 234 passengers made it safely to the eastern most airport that could handle a jet of that size. Though they may have been confused, they all made it.






During the flight, bomb scares were unknown to most of the passengers.



“For some time, we were not told anything,” Adithya Sastryi said. “But the pilot came on and told us, ‘There has been a security threat,’ and that they’re trying to get it under control.”



The crew and travelers seemed to stay calm and after everyone was moved to the front of the plane, air marshals detained the suspect. Sandy Zusmann explained what happened next:



“About 45 minutes later to an hour later, they came on and they said, ‘As some of you may know, we had a security threat on the flight. That’s now under control, but we’re going to ask everybody to stay in their seats for the remainder of the flight.’”



There was no reason to previously suspect the gentleman and he seemed to have a respected career with the military. So why he decided to take this course of action, no one knows. The FBI will be heading up the investigation.



Once the plane was grounded in Maine, passengers were questioned and the jet was parked away from the gate and swept by agents and a dog team. However no bomb or other devises were found. As the investigations continue, I am sure we will find out more details. However, it seems to have just been an empty threat, though I am sure legal actions will be taken.



Let me know what you think about the flight’s bomb scare and following actions. Also check out this video.