Free Republic

A federal judge ruled Monday that the federal government may not retry Cliven Bundy and his sons after rebuking prosecutors for withholding evidence during their felony trial stemming from an armed standoff four years ago. U.S. District Court Judge Gloria Navarro declared a mistrial in the case last month, saying federal prosecutors willfully withheld evidence that lawyers for the Bundys and alleged co-conspirator Ryan Payne should have had access to while mounting their defense. She said the attorneys were in violation of the Brady rule, which requires prosecutors to disclose evidence that could be favorable to a defendant, and told...

During Paddock’s stay at the hotel, room service and housekeeping “had contact with Paddock or entered his suite more than 10 times,” according to a statement sent to CNN from MGM Resorts International, which owns the Nevada hotel. The Las Vegas Review-Journal first reported the extent of the hotel staff’s interactions with the gunman. Paddock opened fire from his 32nd-floor hotel room onto a crowd attending an outdoor country musical festival. He killed himself before police breached his hotel room door. Hotel staff performs a welfare check “after two consecutive days where a Do-Not-Disturb sign has been displayed on the door,”...

The embarrassment a federal judge dealt to government prosecutors last month in the Cliven Bundy case could be set to resume Monday, at a hearing to determine whether the cattle rancher who became a folk hero long before he beat the feds can be retried. U.S. District Judge Gloria Navarro on Dec. 20 declared a mistrial in the high-profile case. It was only the latest, stunning development in the saga of the Nevada rancher, and served as a repudiation of the federal government. Navarro accused prosecutors of willfully withholding evidence from Bundy’s lawyers, in violation of the federal Brady rule,...

The owner of South Point, Michael Gaughan, has announced that he will be giving employees an extra $1M this year because of President Donald Trump's tax reform bill. “Las Vegas has experienced a significant amount of growth over the past few years, and this tax reform will continue to drive the economy for the city,” said Gaughan. “The new bill will have a monumental effect on our economy and, in turn, our property. We want to be sure that our extended family is taken care of.” He also said that employee bonuses will double this year. In addition, he is...

A new detection system to help prevent wrong-way crashes will be part of an interchange under construction in the south Las Vegas Valley. There were 279 wrong-way driver crashes on Nevada’s freeway systems from 2005 to 2015, according to the Nevada Department of Transportation. They resulted in 41 fatalities and 125 injuries. After researching ways to address the problem, NDOT determined a system using vehicle detection, cameras and red rectangular rapid-flashing beacons should be employed. To implement the system, NDOT requested and received permission from the Federal Highway Administration to experiment with the beacons. Permission was needed because red rapid...

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), Sen. Dean Heller (R-NV), and Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) have introduced the Jerusalem Embassy and Recognition Act, which would move the U.S. Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, and therefore recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital city. Currently, the U.S. Embassy is located in Tel Aviv. In a statement, Sen. Cruz said that it was "finally time" to move the embassy. “Jerusalem is the eternal and undivided capital of Israel,” Sen. Cruz said. “Unfortunately, the Obama administration's vendetta against the Jewish state has been so vicious that to even utter this simple truth - let alone the reality...

https://eblnews.com/video/las-vegas-shooting-what-can-be-learned-stop-similar-attacks-222595

The tax reform law championed by President Donald Trump and Sen. Dean Heller is already boosting Nevada’s economy. The proof is sitting right on the Strip. On the same day that Trump signed the bill into law, New York developer Steven Witkoff announced plans to revive the stalled Fontainebleau resort. The imposing blue building on the north end of the Strip has sat empty since the original project went bankrupt in 2009. Coincidence? Nope. Witkoff began seeking a loan to complete the project once it looked as if tax reform had a good chance of passing, according to a Bloomberg...

Attorney General Jeff Landry is urging a federal appeals court to reverse an order that is preventing the implementation of President Donald Trump's executive order regulating so-called "sanctuary cities," arguing that such immigrant-friendly jurisdictions "undermine the rule of law and deprive law enforcement of the tools necessary to enforce the law effectively." "We have seen too many crimes occur against our own State’s citizens due to sanctuary city policies; which is why I have been actively fighting back against these policies since taking office," Landry, a Republican, said in a news release announcing that he had joined 10 other attorneys...

In a July 5th email, Ryan Payne's lawyers asked prosecutors for copies of all threat assessments prepared before the April 2014 standoff between Cliven Bundy's supporters and federal officers attempting to impound the Bundy family cattle for years of failing to pay grazing fees and fines. Prosecutors handling the Nevada standoff case characterized defendants' continued push for threat assessments as another in their "long list of frivolous and vexatious pleadings." Prosecutor's didn't turn over the multiple threat assessments to Payne and his co-defendants, Nevada cattleman Cliven Bundy an his two sons, Ammon and Ryan Bundy, until the four were in...

In the $600 billion annual Defense Department budgets, the $22 million spent on the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program was almost impossible to find. Which was how the Pentagon wanted it. For years, the program investigated reports of unidentified flying objects, according to Defense Department officials, interviews with program participants and records obtained by The New York Times. It was run by a military intelligence official, Luis Elizondo, on the fifth floor of the Pentagon’s C Ring, deep within the building’s maze. The Defense Department has never before acknowledged the existence of the program, which it says it shut down...

A Nevada man who sold smoke grenades and military-issued ammunition stolen from the U.S. Air Force has been sentenced to 18 months in prison and two years' probation. U.S. Attorney Steven Myhre says 38-year-old Temogen Tran Noguni of Henderson was sentenced Friday in Las Vegas after pleading guilty in August to one count of unauthorized sale of U.S. property. Two co-defendants previously pleaded guilty to criminal charges in the case, including Jonathan Owens, a 27-year-old staff sergeant at Nellis Air Force Base.

The lead prosecutor in the Nevada standoff case against Cliven Bundy, two of his sons and a fourth alleged ringleader told a jury in his opening statement last month that the case centered on the need to respect the rule of law. Five weeks later, it was the prosecution team's abuse of the rule of law that sunk the case, leading to a judge's declaration Wednesday of a mistrial. U.S. District Judge Gloria M. Navarro methodically listed the prosecution's six separate violations of the Brady law, which requires turning over evidence potentially favorable to the defense. The judge further ruled...

(CNN)A former Pentagon official who led a recently revealed government program to research potential UFOs said Monday evening that he believes there is evidence of alien life reaching Earth. "My personal belief is that there is very compelling evidence that we may not be alone," Luis Elizondo said in an interview on CNN's "Erin Burnett OutFront." A pair of news reports in The New York Times and Politico over the weekend said the effort, the Advanced Aviation Threat Identification Program, was begun largely at the behest of then-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nevada, who helped shore up funding for it...

White House press secretary Sarah Sanders joked Tuesday that some of the reporters in the White House briefing room are not from planet Earth. “I already want to pass on this question given you’ve got aliens sitting among you,” Sanders said after being asked about discontinued federal research into UFOs. Sanders said she was unaware of whether President Trump believes in UFOs or if he wants to restore funding for research. “I will check into that and be happy to circle back,” Sanders said.

A judge declared a mistrial Wednesday morning in the Bunkerville standoff case involving rancher Cliven Bundy and other defendants, finding that the federal government improperly withheld evidence. A new trial for Bundy, his sons Ammon and Ryan, and co-defendant Ryan Payne, on charges arising from the 2014 standoff with federal agents was set for early next year. U.S. District Judge Gloria Navarro said that video surveillance, maps and FBI interview information was willfully withheld by the prosecution in violation of due process required by the U.S. Constitution. Considered collectively, she said, the evidence that was withheld was favorable to the...

A U.S. judge has declared a mistrial in the case against a Nevada rancher accused of leading a 2014 armed standoff with federal agents in a cattle grazing dispute. Chief U.S. District Judge Gloria Navarro dismissed the jury Wednesday and faulted prosecutors for what she called “constitutional due-process violations” and failing to properly turn over evidence to the defense. The decision in the case against Cliven Bundy, two of his sons and another man is the latest in a string of failed prosecutions in Nevada and Oregon against those who have opposed federal control of vast swaths of land in...

Then, in late 2016, Wikileaks published a number of Tom’s emails to John Podesta, which revealed the names of some of these sources. Among his advisors were two generals: one was a commander of the U.S. Air Force’s research laboratory at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base and responsible for managing the Air Force’s $2.2 billion science and technology program; the other was the Special Assistant to the Commander of Air Force Space Command at Peterson Air Force Base. As devastating as this was to some, it established for those who doubted him that Tom was indeed telling the truth about his...

Nearly half of humans believe in alien life and want to make contact, a survey in 24 countries has found, in what researchers said helps to explain the lasting popularity of the "Star Wars" franchise 40 years after the first movie was screened. On the eve of the release of "The Last Jedi", researchers published findings that 47 percent of more than 26,000 respondents believe "in the existence of intelligent alien civilizations in the universe".

Outgoing Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid said Wednesday that he “did what was necessary” in 2012 when he falsely accused Mitt Romney of not having paid his taxes for 10 years. Reid was asked about those comments, which he made during a speech on the Senate floor, in response to call during a live interview on Las Vegas’ KNPR. The caller asked Reid if he thought that “the brazen lie he told about Mitt Romney not pay his taxes has in anyway contributed to the fake news debate that we now find ourselves in.” {..snip..}