2.11.2012
Driver whisks 6 students off NC bus before it bursts into flames CNN
CNN -
After noticing smoke seeping inside, a North Carolina bus driver rushed six elementary school children off her vehicle moments before it burst into flames.
Obama's 'Muslim prayer': Rumor-mongers' sin of omission? Salt Lake Tribune
Salt Lake Tribune -
By CARYN SHINSKE The people behind a popular chain e-mail about President Obama and the National Day of Prayer might want to think about the sin of omission.
2.10.2012
The Pedophile Guys: Timothy Dolan: Birth control tweak a "first step" CBS News
CBS News -
The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, which has been harshly critical of a federal requirement that church-linked organizations provide contraceptive coverage to their employees, said Friday that it was reserving judgment on the ...
'Extreme: Health, Life, Love: Extremely free of cancer, failure, conditional love.' SL (no detail)
'Extreme: Health, Life, Love: Extremely free of cancer, failure, conditional love.' SL (no detail)
UN chief to Netanyahu: Israel must refrain from settlement construction Haaretz
Haaretz -
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon meets with PM Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem, says peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians must continue.
Catholics Split Over Obama Contraceptive Order NPR
NPR -
They supported Al Gore in 2000, President George W. Bush in '04 and President Obama in '08. The GOP presidential hopefuls are certainly using this issue.
2.09.2012
Obama's Approval Numbers Climb Wall Street Journal
Wall Street Journal (blog) -
By Naftali Bendavid The recent run of positive economic news, modest though it may be, appears to be sinking in with voters and giving President Barack Obama his best approval numbers in a while. President Barack Obama gestures after speaking Thursday, ...
'OCCUPY DC REPORT CARD - Occupiers D-, Pk Police A- ' SL (vid, txt)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jMwFdpW3zXU
Raw transcript with typos and errors......
''OCCUPY DC REPORT CARD - Occupiers D-, Pk Police A-
Quite unexpectedly I hit the mother load today in terms of getting to the bottom of what I think happened on Saturday at Occupy McPherson Square. As I arrived here at the park about noon today, two of the four officers I saw at the end of the park, and made a bee line to them all, to express my concern for the officer that had a bottle thrown into his eye, to find out how he was, and I think he's out of the hospital , and they're hoping for a full recovery, but I don't know yet; two of them are fellows that I've known now for years, from my work in front of the White House. One is from upstate NY, a farm boy I'd guess, if not by profession, certainly by demeanor. Just a straight, straight, straight shooter. My guess is, frankly, he probably doesn't know how to lie. Among his kindnesses, I remember one time that the unspeakably nasty Concepcion, had to admit his kindness. She's a biggot, she hates ever policeman. And yet in a horriffic wind storm, her huge umbarella and plastic was blown, and this fine young officer ran across the park to get it, and return it, despite all the nastiness she heeps on these guys. And then another fella, his wife is a high school teacher, inner city kids, although recently that's changed, recently married. Just two nice young guys, are among the ones that were on duty. And I expressed my concern that it appered to me that there was a flagrant, complete betrayal of the efforts by a young fella I have tremendous respect for, in the Occupy DC movement, who had thought that he negotiated that only tents with bedding, food, or health hazard would be removed. And it was my understanding that he felt totally, and completely, and immediately betrayed once he had gained the compliance of his comrades to free up the statue of McPherson on Saturday morning. Well, if I have any doubts they're far in the minority now. The fella from upstate NY was on the detail that went tent to tent. And the park police didn't make the decision on what tents were removed, he said. A medical doctor from health and human services, I think he said, was the one that made that determination. It's possible I'm not being told the truth, it's possible I'm lying to you, it's possible it's really raining right now. They didn't make the determination. The guy from HHS did. I even asked this fine young man, now, was this some red neck right winger doctor? He said, absolutely not. He was just a doctor from HHS. Some of the tents were known in advance as having been occupied by people with communicable diseases, severe communicable diseases. That was the minority of those removed, but some were removed simply based on that knowledge. Most were removed because of evidence of urine or feces, and that doesn't mean necessarily human feces. Before and during the occupation there are a lot of rats in this park, and they'd make their way into the tents, so be it human or unhuman feces, those were the reason for tents being removed. I'm told, and catagorically believe that the police did not decide what tents were removed, unless it was the case of bedding, and on that score I was correct. I couldn't believe that 60% of the tents had bedding left in them. It was largely most of the tents removed for health reasons, as determined by the doctor.
The other isssue that had concerned me hugely, was the two incident's, one in which I was almost trampled, and the other widely seen on tape, the standoff at the library in the middle of Occupy, where it seemed, it appeared, and probably happened that there was a sudden surge, a frightening surge of police energy, as the police with plexiglass helmets and shields, all of a sudden started pushing the crowd. But first of all, and this is my feeling as a citizen, human being, a pursuer of justice, and my knowledge of the law - if I receive an order, including a gesture from a police officer, that's a, if I don't comply with that I have just waved my rights to expecting no escalation. I've just invited on myself an escalation. If I don't like what police officer says, I can unviolently noncomply and accept the consequences, or I can resist and argue and expect consequences. Personally I don't want it to be any diffrent. I don't what for contests to take place on the street with the police. I'd rather see that take place in a court of law. Many, most, all of the folks at Occupy tragically, it's such a strategic mistake and it's so immature, can't seem to resist making that issue, the one that they wan't to fight. Oh, I resisted, but I didn't resist that hard, so the police shouldn't have reacted they way they did. A. it's not the law, B. it's not the way it works, and C. if that's what you're going to spend your time on, your're done. It is so far down' thke list of what you should be concerned with.
But relaitve to the library that I saw on tape and was concerned about, A. there were people pushing back against the shields. That's aggression, you don't get to do that, you don't get to put your hands on a cop, a cop doesn't get to put his hands on you unless you've crossed a boundary, and that' isn't what what happening. People were pushing back against the shields. You don't get to do that. That's an arrestable offense. But on top of that there were people behind the police officers being pushed, civilians that were sitting on the ground and the police were being pushed back on top of them and if they didn't surge forward then they were going to fall back on demonstartors. I"m not suggesting it's exactly that simple, it wasn't suggested to me it was exactly that simple, but that's the nature of what was going on.
The two-legged vermin many of whom identify as anarchists, black bloc maybe, these are people of hate, pure, unmitigated hate. They're my brothers and sisters, they don't know any better, but they are sucking down, they're pulling down these folks at Occupy. Hate is the status quo. Violence is the status quo. That's what what Occupy pretentds to be against, violence in its overt and subtile forms. Well the anarchists are about hate. The only alternative is unviolent waging of love, by whatever name. And that can be tough as hell. Nothing is off the table with that. But that's the only alternative, and, in a mistaken of inclusiveness, the better souls in Occupy are losing their clarity on that. However they may have understood it going forward, and wanting to not offent the anarchists, uh, no, actually folks, if your issue, if the issue you came to DC for of NYC or SF... is to have run-ins iwth the police, well, you're hopeless friends. Enjoy your rant. But if you're better than that, and some of you are, then stop getting sucked into these battles, you're on the wrong side of, and even when you're on the right side, you're taking your attention off of the 1%, off the issues that are worth your life.
I never asked directly about officer Beck who I've raised questions about, however, my feeling about the removal of tents, I have every reason to accept the word of these two young officers that I've known and seen every reason to trust - their humanity, versacity, professionalism for years, who say, we didn't make the call. And then moments ago I saw officer Reed, one of the commanding officers, and he independently corroborataed that. They took copius notes on everything they removed from the park because they know they're going to be sued. I've worked with these folks for years. They're professionals, they're nice folks, they've put on the uniform to defend the citizens, the constitution. And that's what they've been doing. And if they argument is that they haven't been doing everything perfectly, well my God, what an incredibly important thing to fight over; I'm being facetious.
And on the issue of the two explosively forceful explosions by the park police, the one in the evening where I almost got trampled, was to get the guy that had possibly blinded a fellow officer. It wasn't gratuitously violent. I felt that it could have or should have been communicated better, but I didn't realize at the time that there was an officer down, that there was an officer that had been possibly blinded by the fellow they were aprehending. They didn't trample any of us, they didn't hurt any of us. They didn't come out with any show of hatred. I was concerned they didn't show any more concern, but under the circumstances, that and the incident at the library, park police gets at least a B+, if not an A or an A- for their conduct the last 4 months. They're continuing to break the law, they're continuing to turn a blind eye to the law, to enable this encampment to continue. They're not coming on like heavies now, despite one of their men being serously injured. They're trying to keep their jobs, when they come through late at night, if anyone is asleep they say you've gotta sit up, no thei're not tolerating bedding, they'd be fools to, Issa would get them fired, he's that slime ball on the Hill, that democracy hater. These are good guys. They're damn good guys. And they were the first to come to the defense today in our discussion of many of the Occupiers. 'We know that most of those guys are good guys. We know that most of the troublemakers on Saturday came just to make trouble. We've been around Occupy. We knew that many of the troublemakers were faces we hadn't seen before. They jumped to that defense. I didn't have to bring it out of them.
Raw transcript with typos and errors......
''OCCUPY DC REPORT CARD - Occupiers D-, Pk Police A-
Quite unexpectedly I hit the mother load today in terms of getting to the bottom of what I think happened on Saturday at Occupy McPherson Square. As I arrived here at the park about noon today, two of the four officers I saw at the end of the park, and made a bee line to them all, to express my concern for the officer that had a bottle thrown into his eye, to find out how he was, and I think he's out of the hospital , and they're hoping for a full recovery, but I don't know yet; two of them are fellows that I've known now for years, from my work in front of the White House. One is from upstate NY, a farm boy I'd guess, if not by profession, certainly by demeanor. Just a straight, straight, straight shooter. My guess is, frankly, he probably doesn't know how to lie. Among his kindnesses, I remember one time that the unspeakably nasty Concepcion, had to admit his kindness. She's a biggot, she hates ever policeman. And yet in a horriffic wind storm, her huge umbarella and plastic was blown, and this fine young officer ran across the park to get it, and return it, despite all the nastiness she heeps on these guys. And then another fella, his wife is a high school teacher, inner city kids, although recently that's changed, recently married. Just two nice young guys, are among the ones that were on duty. And I expressed my concern that it appered to me that there was a flagrant, complete betrayal of the efforts by a young fella I have tremendous respect for, in the Occupy DC movement, who had thought that he negotiated that only tents with bedding, food, or health hazard would be removed. And it was my understanding that he felt totally, and completely, and immediately betrayed once he had gained the compliance of his comrades to free up the statue of McPherson on Saturday morning. Well, if I have any doubts they're far in the minority now. The fella from upstate NY was on the detail that went tent to tent. And the park police didn't make the decision on what tents were removed, he said. A medical doctor from health and human services, I think he said, was the one that made that determination. It's possible I'm not being told the truth, it's possible I'm lying to you, it's possible it's really raining right now. They didn't make the determination. The guy from HHS did. I even asked this fine young man, now, was this some red neck right winger doctor? He said, absolutely not. He was just a doctor from HHS. Some of the tents were known in advance as having been occupied by people with communicable diseases, severe communicable diseases. That was the minority of those removed, but some were removed simply based on that knowledge. Most were removed because of evidence of urine or feces, and that doesn't mean necessarily human feces. Before and during the occupation there are a lot of rats in this park, and they'd make their way into the tents, so be it human or unhuman feces, those were the reason for tents being removed. I'm told, and catagorically believe that the police did not decide what tents were removed, unless it was the case of bedding, and on that score I was correct. I couldn't believe that 60% of the tents had bedding left in them. It was largely most of the tents removed for health reasons, as determined by the doctor.
The other isssue that had concerned me hugely, was the two incident's, one in which I was almost trampled, and the other widely seen on tape, the standoff at the library in the middle of Occupy, where it seemed, it appeared, and probably happened that there was a sudden surge, a frightening surge of police energy, as the police with plexiglass helmets and shields, all of a sudden started pushing the crowd. But first of all, and this is my feeling as a citizen, human being, a pursuer of justice, and my knowledge of the law - if I receive an order, including a gesture from a police officer, that's a, if I don't comply with that I have just waved my rights to expecting no escalation. I've just invited on myself an escalation. If I don't like what police officer says, I can unviolently noncomply and accept the consequences, or I can resist and argue and expect consequences. Personally I don't want it to be any diffrent. I don't what for contests to take place on the street with the police. I'd rather see that take place in a court of law. Many, most, all of the folks at Occupy tragically, it's such a strategic mistake and it's so immature, can't seem to resist making that issue, the one that they wan't to fight. Oh, I resisted, but I didn't resist that hard, so the police shouldn't have reacted they way they did. A. it's not the law, B. it's not the way it works, and C. if that's what you're going to spend your time on, your're done. It is so far down' thke list of what you should be concerned with.
But relaitve to the library that I saw on tape and was concerned about, A. there were people pushing back against the shields. That's aggression, you don't get to do that, you don't get to put your hands on a cop, a cop doesn't get to put his hands on you unless you've crossed a boundary, and that' isn't what what happening. People were pushing back against the shields. You don't get to do that. That's an arrestable offense. But on top of that there were people behind the police officers being pushed, civilians that were sitting on the ground and the police were being pushed back on top of them and if they didn't surge forward then they were going to fall back on demonstartors. I"m not suggesting it's exactly that simple, it wasn't suggested to me it was exactly that simple, but that's the nature of what was going on.
The two-legged vermin many of whom identify as anarchists, black bloc maybe, these are people of hate, pure, unmitigated hate. They're my brothers and sisters, they don't know any better, but they are sucking down, they're pulling down these folks at Occupy. Hate is the status quo. Violence is the status quo. That's what what Occupy pretentds to be against, violence in its overt and subtile forms. Well the anarchists are about hate. The only alternative is unviolent waging of love, by whatever name. And that can be tough as hell. Nothing is off the table with that. But that's the only alternative, and, in a mistaken of inclusiveness, the better souls in Occupy are losing their clarity on that. However they may have understood it going forward, and wanting to not offent the anarchists, uh, no, actually folks, if your issue, if the issue you came to DC for of NYC or SF... is to have run-ins iwth the police, well, you're hopeless friends. Enjoy your rant. But if you're better than that, and some of you are, then stop getting sucked into these battles, you're on the wrong side of, and even when you're on the right side, you're taking your attention off of the 1%, off the issues that are worth your life.
I never asked directly about officer Beck who I've raised questions about, however, my feeling about the removal of tents, I have every reason to accept the word of these two young officers that I've known and seen every reason to trust - their humanity, versacity, professionalism for years, who say, we didn't make the call. And then moments ago I saw officer Reed, one of the commanding officers, and he independently corroborataed that. They took copius notes on everything they removed from the park because they know they're going to be sued. I've worked with these folks for years. They're professionals, they're nice folks, they've put on the uniform to defend the citizens, the constitution. And that's what they've been doing. And if they argument is that they haven't been doing everything perfectly, well my God, what an incredibly important thing to fight over; I'm being facetious.
And on the issue of the two explosively forceful explosions by the park police, the one in the evening where I almost got trampled, was to get the guy that had possibly blinded a fellow officer. It wasn't gratuitously violent. I felt that it could have or should have been communicated better, but I didn't realize at the time that there was an officer down, that there was an officer that had been possibly blinded by the fellow they were aprehending. They didn't trample any of us, they didn't hurt any of us. They didn't come out with any show of hatred. I was concerned they didn't show any more concern, but under the circumstances, that and the incident at the library, park police gets at least a B+, if not an A or an A- for their conduct the last 4 months. They're continuing to break the law, they're continuing to turn a blind eye to the law, to enable this encampment to continue. They're not coming on like heavies now, despite one of their men being serously injured. They're trying to keep their jobs, when they come through late at night, if anyone is asleep they say you've gotta sit up, no thei're not tolerating bedding, they'd be fools to, Issa would get them fired, he's that slime ball on the Hill, that democracy hater. These are good guys. They're damn good guys. And they were the first to come to the defense today in our discussion of many of the Occupiers. 'We know that most of those guys are good guys. We know that most of the troublemakers on Saturday came just to make trouble. We've been around Occupy. We knew that many of the troublemakers were faces we hadn't seen before. They jumped to that defense. I didn't have to bring it out of them.
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