The Brown family has been told that the Grand Jury has reached a decision.(Confirmed)

An announcement to say a verdict has been reached will be made at 4pm. The verdict will be announced later. (Unconfirmed) This may change.

This is from ongoing tweets from reliable sources. I am sure the family has been notified.
The announcement part sounds like a hot mess. Why should it be any different than this whole ordeal and process I guess?

The Darren Wilson Grand Jury decision is in. Will be announced later today.

@sdkstl: Now the news column is moving: @WesleyLowery: '
Solid sourcing' #DarrenWilson GJ is in. Presser later today. What will be announced TBD.

Many tweets from reliable sources about this. The time has not been announced. I am waiting on more info.

Presser later today: WaPo link: http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/grand-jury-reaches-decision-in-case-of-ferguson-officer/2014/11/24/de48e7e4-71d7-11e4-893f-86bd390a3340_story.html

Just imagine getting this text from your kid:

@jbjpublisher:
Rattled tonight by text and call from daughter at #FSU while in library during shooting. Praying for all involved.


I can't even....

John Doar has passed. Remember and honor this great man!

John Doar, a country lawyer from northern Wisconsin who led the federal government’s on-the-ground efforts to dismantle segregation in the South, and who later headed the team that made the case for impeaching President Richard M. Nixon in the wake of the Watergate scandal, died on Tuesday at his home in Manhattan. He was 92. The cause was congestive heart failure, his son Robert said.

During the most volatile period of the civil rights movement in the 1960s, it was Mr. Doar, along with a federal marshal, who escorted James Meredith when he integrated the University of Mississippi in 1962. It was Mr. Doar who led the successful prosecution of the men who killed three young civil rights workers in Mississippi in 1964. And it was Mr. Doar who defused a dramatic standoff between bottle-throwing civil rights protesters and police officers with their guns drawn in Jackson, Miss.

“He was the face of the Justice Department in the South,” President Obama said in 2012 when he presented Mr. Doar with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the country’s highest civilian honor. “He was proof that the federal government was listening.”

In 1974, Mr. Doar, a Republican, was named by Democrats to be chief counsel to the House Judiciary Committee investigating Watergate.

Mr. Doar prosecuted some of the most notorious cases of murder and violence in the South in the ‘60s, and was instrumental in changing the region’s pattern of race-based politics based on voter discrimination.
<snip>
Much more:
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/12/us/john-doar-federal-lawyer-in-battle-against-segregation-dies-at-92.html

RIP John Doar!
You fought the good fight. You will be missed.

Well, it feels like we all woke up in South Carolina or somewhere.

It is not a good feeling. The good news is that there is still a Democratic President who better veto the hell out of the crazy shit that crosses his desk.

Be glad if you live in a state with a good Democratic party and representation. That hopefully will provide some insulation from the lunacy.

The SC mention is a reference to realizing that those in charge of overall policy are crazy, mean, and stupid. The only thing that has kept SC from falling into the Atlantic Ocean is the fact that there is so much internecine fighting in our GOP that they rarely agree on much. This may keep the US Senate tied up for a while because Ted Cruz will probably challenge The Turtle for leadership of the Senate. We can hope.

Gonna go get another beer....or three....

For a much needed smile:

Photo of the day: Nina Pham reunited with her dawg Bentley

Bobby Harrell, the SC House Speaker, has resigned, pled guilty, and become a government informant.

COLUMBIA, SC — Bobby Harrell, the ex-speaker of the S.C. House who pleaded guilty Thursday to state charges of misusing campaign money and agreed to resign his office, is now locked into an ironclad plea deal that requires him to tell federal and state authorities about illegal activities of others, including lawmakers.

The five-page plea deal allows Harrell, one of South Carolina’s most powerful politicians, to avoid prison, but it puts him on probation and levies $130,000 in fines and penalties.

But Harrell has promised to help the State Law Enforcement Division and the FBI and must take lie detector tests to ensure he’s telling the truth – under the risk of going behind bars.

Such cooperation agreements are rarely used in state courts, but are more common in federal court, where law enforcement authorities often use a negotiated guilty plea to see if they can get information about other peoples’ criminal activities.

“I’ve only done a handful of these in state court,” said 1st Circuit Solicitor David Pascoe, a 20-year prosecutor assigned to the Harrell case.
<snip>
Much more: http://www.thestate.com/2014/10/23/3763350/from-powerful-official-to-government.html

He may clear out the statehouse and more. There are a lot of nervous people right now. Once more people start rolling to avoid jail time, down she goes.

‘You are so loved’ — Ottawa lawyer describes trying to save Cpl. Nathan Cirillo (Gutting...)

‘You are so loved’ — Ottawa lawyer describes trying to save Cpl. Nathan Cirillo

OTTAWA — Lawyer Barbara Winters was headed to a meeting Wednesday near her office at the Canada Revenue Agency when she passed the National War Memorial, stopping to snap a few pictures of the two honour guards standing soberly at attention.

Moments later, after passing by a Canada Post office at the corner of Elgin and Sparks streets, she heard four shots. For Winters, a former member of the Canadian Forces Naval Reserve, the sounds were unmistakable.

Turning, she saw people on Elgin Street ducking. She began to run — not towards safety, but towards the shots, and the wounded soldier lying at the foot of the memorial.

As Winters ran, she looked for — but couldn’t see — the two soldiers. Her mind went to the hit-and-run death in Quebec of Warrant Officer Patrice Vincent two days earlier, and she instinctively knew the honour guards had been targeted.

As she reached the memorial, Winters saw four people bending over a fallen soldier. She dropped her purse and briefcase on the steps and began to help.
<snip>
Much more:
http://www.ottawacitizen.com/health/News/10318953/story.html

Heroes all!
RIP Cpl. Nathan Cirillo
Sigh....

Madeleine Albright won Twitter last night vs Conan: