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Illegal immigrant accused in triple homicide in Florida home

A 19-year-old illegal immigrant was being held without bail Saturday after the discovery of three bodies at a crime scene in a Florida home that veteran cops called “almost unimaginable.”

Brian Omar Hyde appeared before a judge Friday on charges he killed his pregnant cousin Starlett Pitts, 17, and her 19-year-old boyfriend in a Lehigh Acres home Tuesday, and then killed his aunt and Pitts’ mother, Dorla Pitts, 37, when she walked in on the scene while on the phone with her husband. Lee County deputies said he heard her scream, “Brian! What happened here? What happened?” before the phone went silent.
 “All homicide scenes are normally violent but even for us this scene was what we considered almost unimaginable,” Lt. Matt Sands said Thursday, according to WBBH-TV.
Hyde was in the country illegally from Belize in Central America and awaiting a court hearing as an illegal immigrant, having crossed the Texas border earlier this year, the Lee County Sheriff’s Office said.
He fled to the U.S. to live with his aunt to avoid a trial in a Belize courtroom on charges of assaulting a police officer last November, the station said. He was then tried in absentia, found guilty, and given a 6-month jail sentence that remains to be served.
Hyde was also wanted in Belize on charges of robbing a cell phone store, the station said, while also reporting, according to reports, that the teen and two other men were suspects in a double homicide in 2013. Eventually, he was charged with a lesser crime of handling stolen goods.
The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement released a statement Friday that said, “ICE has filed a request with the Lee County Sheriff's Office for notification if they intend to release the individual from custody.”
Police said the victims were killed by repeated "sharp force trauma" to the head and neck. Sands said each victim had wounds indicating they tried to defend themselves as they were being attacked.
Dorrien Pitts called a friend to check on his wife when he couldn't get her back on the phone. The friend saw blood stains on the floor and a foot near a couch, ran outside and called 911, the Fort Myers News-Press reported.
As cops collected evidence at the crime scene, Fort Myers cops stopped Hyde in an SUV for a traffic violation and arrested him for driving without a license.
When he was arrested, he had human blood on his bare feet, his shoes and pants, the paper said, citing the arrest report.
A bloody palm print recovered at the crime scene matched the left palm print taken from Hyde after his arrest in Fort Myers, the Lee Sheriff's Office said.
According to the arrest report police found a backpack full of clean clothes in the SUV along with several pairs of shoes making it appear to investigators “as if Hyde was about to flee the area.”
Investigators said they also discovered in the vehicle Hyde’s immigration papers and Dorla Pitts’ employee ID card from Naples Community Hospital where she worked as a nurse.
Hyde faces three count of second degree murder and one count of killing an unborn child by injury to the mother.
Pitts was helping her nephew obtain a high school equivalency diploma, her heart-broken sister Sasha Hyde told the News-Press from Belize.
“He was looking for something better in life,” she said.

Fox News Poll: Majority would reject Iran nuke deal

The Iran nuclear agreement goes to Congress in September.  If it were up to American voters, they would reject it -- with a large majority saying Iran wouldn’t abide by the agreement anyway. 

The White House wants Congressional approval for the agreement that would ease U.S. economic sanctions for 10 years in return for Iran stopping its nuclear program during that time.
The latest Fox News national poll asks voters to imagine being a lawmaker and casting a vote on the deal:  31 percent would approve it, while nearly twice as many, 58 percent, would reject it.
CLICK HERE TO READ THE POLL RESULTS
In an August 5 speech, President Obama said if lawmakers vote down the deal, the agreement will fall apart and war will come “soon.”
Even so, only half of Democrats would approve the deal (50 percent).  More than a third would vote it down (35 percent).
Most Republicans (83 percent) and a majority of independents (60 percent) would reject it.
One reason to oppose any deal is if you think the other side won’t keep the bargain -- and that’s certainly the case here: Three-quarters of voters say Iran cannot be trusted to honor the agreement (75 percent).  That includes almost all Republicans (93 percent), most independents (80 percent) and a majority of Democrats (59 percent).
New York Sen. Chuck Schumer, the second-ranking Democrat in the U.S. Senate and a prominent supporter of Israel, recently announced his opposition to the Iran deal.  By a nearly two-to-one margin, voters say Schumer’s opposition makes them feel less favorable toward the agreement (13 percent less favorable, 7 percent more favorable).  Sentiment is almost identical among Democrats.  Still, Schumer’s disapproval wouldn’t sway most voters either way (76 percent).
The poll finds the president’s job rating down a bit this week:  42 percent of voters approve of the job Obama is doing, while 51 percent disapprove.  Two weeks ago it was 46-46 percent.
The Fox News poll is based on landline and cell phone interviews with 1,008 randomly chosen registered voters nationwide and was conducted under the joint direction of Anderson Robbins Research (D) and Shaw & Company Research (R) from August 11-13, 2015. The poll has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus three percentage points for all registered voters.

Carson critical of Black Lives Matter message, strategy of disrupting campaign events

Black Lives Matter groups are meeting with Democratic presidential campaigns after members disrupted several events to get out their message but apparently have eschewed such a strategy with Republican candidates, which is OK with GOP contender Ben Carson.

Carson told Fox News on Thursday he doesn’t agree with the groups' apparent strategy of forcing a meeting or their agenda upon 2016 candidates, by either disrupting or threatening to disrupt a campaign-related event.
“Of course not,” said Carson, who is black. “I would like them to start paying attention to the carnage rather than making it a political issue. The most common cause of death for young black males in cities is homicide.”
Carson, a retired pediatric neurosurgeon and social conservative, also argued that black males killing each other is as large an issue as Black Lives Matter activists’ major concerns of criminal justice-reform and blacks dying while in contact with police.
The campaigns of 2016 Democratic White House candidates Hillary Clinton, Martin O’Malley and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders each confirmed earlier this week that their officials met with leaders of the loosely-knit Black Lives Matter movement.
But the specifics of the meetings, including whether the sides have reached any agreement to avoid further disruptions, remain unclear because the group will not allow the details to be made public.

More on this...

• Dr. Ben Carson on 'Black Lives Matter,' Planned Parenthood

Last week, a group of protesters claiming to be affiliated with Black Lives Matter ended a Sanders' event before it even started, snatching the 73-year-old’s microphone so they could talk about criminal justice reform, then pushing him away when he tried to take it back.
On Tuesday, newly-hired Sanders' National Press Secretary Symone Sanders, who is black, confirmed that Black Lives Matter leaders had been in contact with the campaign but said only that Team Sanders was “looking forward to continuing the dialogue with them and getting their input on various issues."
That was not the first time the group had disrupted an event with Sanders, Vermont Independent.
In July, Sanders and O’Malley, a former Maryland governor and Baltimore mayor, were essentially heckled off stage at the annual Netroots Nation convention.
O'Malley said before departing that "Black lives matter. White lives matter. All lives matter," which prompted boos and him later issuing an apology to those who found his remark “insensitive.”
The O’Malley campaign confirmed on Wednesday with FoxNews.com that the sides had met.
A campaign spokeswoman said the discussions focused on criminal justice reform and that group members argued for why such changes “need to be a priority.”
However, the spokeswoman said that the ground-rules of the meeting prevented her from discussing specific and pointed to O’Malley's speech in late July to the Urban League in which he talked about improving and reforming the criminal justice system.
The Black Lives Matter movement purportedly started after the 2012 death of black teen Trayvon Martin and has made the recent deaths of black males in contact with police a rallying point for change.
It also met this week with leading Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton, after announcing on social media that it would disrupt an event Tuesday in New Hampshire.
Group members were reportedly ushered into a side room and accepted an offer after the event to meet with Clinton.
The Clinton campaign declined to comment, and members of the Black Lives Matter group in Boston involved in the meeting would not discuss with reporters the details of the event.
However, Daunasia Yancey, one of the Boston group’s organizers, told Politico afterward that she didn’t hear Clinton talk about her part in “perpetuating white supremacist violence,” only her “reflection on failed policy.”
And the group tweeted: “We've gotten the attention of @HillaryClinton's staff & they are working w us.”
Black Lives Matter did not respond to requests for comment.
The group apparently has not reached out to Republican candidates including Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul who has been a leading voice in Washington, even before declaring his candidacy, to ending mandatory minimum federal sentencing.
Critics argue such sentencing, particular with drug possession charges, is unfair and has resulted in the skyrocketing costs of running prisons.
Paul spokesman Sergio Gor declined to comment this week on whether the campaign had been contacted or if the candidate was even interested in talking with Black Lives Matter about the future of his campaign.
The group last week disrupted a campaign event for GOP candidate Jeb Bush in Nevada.
Carson, a first-time candidate, on Thursday also reiterated what he told reporters in New York City on Wednesday including that “We need to be talking about how we solve the problem in the black community of murder.”
He also said the solution is to re-instill such values as “family and faith” that have helped black Americans through slavery, segregation and the Jim Crow era.
“If you abandon those things, this is what we get,” he said, arguing the problems are in large part the result of the police and members of the black community being mutually fearful of each other.

Glenn Beck names 15 cities that 'you don't want to live anywhere around;' San Francisco is number 2

Former Fox News commentator Glenn Beck recently shared his list of Top 15 cities "to avoid like the plague." He says the list is based on the "least religious cities in America."

"I want to give you the top 10 or 15 cities that I think are going to melt down," Beck said on his radio program. "These are the cities that you do not want to live anywhere around as things get worse and worse."

San Francisco was number two behind Portland.

According to Beck, "These are the cities that are already having trouble and we haven't even hit the road bump," Beck said Tuesday on his radio program.

Here's the complete list:

1. Portland

2. San Francisco3. Seattle
4. Denver
5. Phoenix
6. St. Petersburg, Florida
7. Columbus, Ohio
8. Detroit
9. Boston
10. Los Angeles
11. Milwaukee
12. Las Vegas
13. Minneapolis- St. Paul
14. Washington D.C.
15. St. Louis

Documents reportedly reveal details behind AT&T-NSA partnership

AT&T in 2003 reportedly led the way on a new collection capability that the National Security Agency said amounted to a “’live’ presence on the global net” and would forward 400 billion Internet metadata records in one of its firth months operation.

The New York Times reported the Fairview program was forwarding more than 1 million emails per day to the agency’s headquarters in Fort Meade, Maryland. Meanwhile, the Stormbrew program, linked to Verizon and the former MCI company, was still gearing up to use the new technology, which appeared to process foreign-to-foreign traffic.
According to an internal agency newsletter cited by the newspaper, AT&T began handing over 1.1 billion domestic cellphone calling records a day to the NSA in 2011, after “a push to get this flow operational prior to the 10^th anniversary of 9/11.” Intelligence officials told reporters in the past that the effort consisted mostly of landline phone records, the Times reported.
The agency spent more than $188 billion on the Fairview program, twice the amount spent on Stormbew, the newspaper reported.
Such details from the decades-long partnership between the government and AT&T emerged from NSA documents provided by former NSA systems analyst Edward Snowden, the Times reported in a story posted Saturday on its website. The Times and ProPublica jointly reviewed the documents, which date from 2003 to 2013.
While its known that American telecommunications companies worked closely with the NSA, the documents show that the government’s relationship with AT&T has been considered unique and productive, according to the newspaper. One document described it as "highly collaborative," while another lauded the company's "extreme willingness to help," the newspaper reported.
The documents show the telecom giant’s cooperation has involved a broad range of classified activities, according to the Times. AT&T has given the NSA access, through several methods covered under different legal rules, to billions of emails as they flowed across various domestic networks.
AT&T has also reportedly provided technical assistance in carrying out a secret court order permitting the wiretapping of all Internet communications at U.N. headquarters, which is a customer of the phone company. While NSA spying on U.N. diplomats had been previously reported, the newspaper said Saturday that neither the court order nor AT&T's involvement had been disclosed.
The documents also reveal that AT&T installed surveillance equipment in at least 17 of its Internet hubs on American soil, the Times reported, far more than similarly sized competitor Verizon. AT&T engineers were the first to try out new surveillance technologies invented by the NSA, the newspaper reported.
The NSA, AT&T and Verizon declined to discuss the findings from the files, according to the Times. It is not clear if the programs still operate in the same way today, the newspaper reported.
One of the documents provided by Snowden reminds NSA officials to be polite when visiting AT&T facilities, the Times reported, and notes, "This is a partnership, not a contractual relationship."

EPA Cartoon

Fiorina surging from also-ran to contender after debate

What a difference a week makes in presidential politics. Before the Cleveland debates, Carly Fiorina was little more than a dogged, hard-charging afterthought for most voters. On a good week, her poll numbers reached 2 percent. But after she mopped the floor with her opponents in the second-tier debate – affectionately dubbed #kidstable – the former Hewlett-Packard CEO suddenly finds herself in the top tier of presidential candidates.
“Obviously I am really gratified. I am really encouraged,” Fiorina told Fox News, having just finished a capacity-crowd town hall meeting in Alden, Iowa. A week ago, barely 40 percent of people knew who she was. Now, the left-leaning polling group PPP is blaring the headline “Fiorina On Fire.”
“You can’t get rattled when people don’t really know that you are out there,” Fiorina told Fox News. “On the other hand you can’t get rattled when all of a sudden they say you are on fire as well. This is a long haul. So none of this is going to go to our heads.”
You could forgive Fiorina for having a little more bounce in her step, though. When she walked into the Mason City, Iowa, library for a town hall Friday morning she found a standing-room-only crowd. Her campaign staff was pleasantly stunned by the newfound enthusiasm – a precious commodity for a person seeking the highest office in the land.
In Iowa, a Suffolk University poll this week showed Fiorina with 10 percent, placing her in the top five in the GOP field. A CNN/ORC poll in the state likewise showed her in the top five, with 7 percent.
Voters have found a lot to like about Fiorina, whether it’s her status as a political outsider, or that she has the toughness to stand up against seasoned political pros.
“She was one of my top picks out of the debates,” Brenda Crabb told Fox News. “I liked that she seemed really smart – she’s not a politician.”
Rich Baldwin put it a little more bluntly. “She’s not a career politician. And we have had it up to here with career politicians.”
Fiorina also says she is seeing an uptick in fundraising. Money is the key to whether she will be in it for the long haul, or may wither as quickly as she blossomed.
Never one to shrink from a fight, whether in the boardroom or the campaign trail, Fiorina is doubling down on her recent criticism of Donald Trump, questioning whether Trump is – in fact – a Republican.
“He won’t take a pledge saying he will support the Republican nominee,” Fiorina told Fox News. “He has changed his mind on some pretty important things. I would like to know where he actually stands on amnesty. Where he actually stands on universal health care. Where he actually stands on abortion. Those are things that matter to me and they matter to Republican voters.”
Fiorina’s ascent is a boon to the GOP as – at the moment at least – it gives her a far louder voice with which to go after Hillary Clinton. Fiorina has been relentless in her criticism of Clinton, saying she lied about Benghazi. Now she is going after Clinton for suggesting comments Trump made about Fox News’ Megyn Kelly prove that the Republican candidates are waging a war on women.
“I think Hillary Clinton is equally as guilty,” Fiorina told Fox News. “Anyone who paints with a broad brush in those insulting terms is as guilty as Donald Trump. It is ridiculous for Hillary Clinton to say that the Republican Party is waging a war on women.”
Fiorina also dismisses the notion – floated in a New York Times article -- that she is the GOP’s weapon to fight back against Democratic attacks that the party is waging war on women.
“I am a leader with a proven track record of problem solving.  I happen to be a woman,” she told Fox News.
Fiorina had a target on her back long before she announced her candidacy. Her newfound prominence will only make that target a more attractive one. After she told a voter Thursday night that parents have the choice whether to vaccinate their children, Slate magazine wrote that Fiorina “Comes out in favor of kids getting measles.” Fellow Republican George Pataki whacked Fiorina on Twitter, saying she rejects “accepted science that has eradicated diseases like small pox (sic) and polio.”
Fiorina told Fox News that Pataki is clearly trying to get attention and conveniently ignored the rest of what she said.
“We are talking about contagious diseases and I would certainly encourage parents to vaccinate their children,” Fiorina told Fox News. “I would respect true religious objections to those vaccinations and I support a school’s right to say if you will not vaccinate your child against these contagious diseases, then we have the right to say your child can’t attend public school.”
If Fiorina’s star continues to rise, she can expect more attacks from all corners. Whether she rises is another question. Much of her future hinges on the next debate – particularly if she makes the cut to play in the top 10. Fiorina told Fox News she has to constantly “exceed expectations.”
She raised the bar very high with her performance in the second-tier debate last week in Cleveland. The problem with mopping the floor with your opponents is that viewers will expect you to do it every time.