Ok, The Whitehouse won't open up the EPA email. And now the DOD/ Pentagon are resisting orders (isn't that ironic for the military) to clean up what the EPA are calling dangerous waste at 3 bases-- not to mention loads of other military sites listed as dangerous toxic dump locations.
Pentagon = America's Biggest Superfund Polluter.
Lyndsey Layton, of The Washington Post: "The Defense Department, the nation's biggest polluter, is resisting orders from the Environmental Protection Agency to clean up Fort Meade and two other military bases where the EPA says dumped chemicals pose 'imminent and substantial' dangers to public health and the environment. The Pentagon has also declined to sign agreements required by law that cover 12 other military sites on the Superfund list of the most polluted places in the country.
Maybe it's time to send in this guy.
Seriously, these guys are child-criminals. Every law breaking moment seems to be highlighted with tantrums and stubborn adolescent behavior. I can just about picture them with their fingers in the ears yelling la-la-la-la... I can't HEAR you! sheesh.
There's more...
(Manslaughter, Sex Crimes, etc) admitted to Marine Corp and U.S. Army in 2007. Double the number from 2006. Nope, nothing wrong with recruitment... nothing to see here, move along. This number does not include any of the mercenaries. --ThinkProgress
But don't worry, these aren't the guys we let near the torturing, or the weapons. Look at the bright side, now maybe Josh Trevino can join up again and actually finish his tour of duty!
There's more...
Tapped points out a NYT article where Giuli-anna and Romney are smacking each other around about crime.
Today we saw an article in The New York Times explaining that Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney are squabbling about, among other things, Romney's record on fightin' crime in Massachusetts:
“I think that Governor Romney is trying to distract attention from what is clearly a mistake that he made, but the other big mistake that he made was crime went up,” Mr. Giuliani said. “Violent crime and murder went up while he was governor, and I think that that is something that talks about not just an isolated mistake, it talks about a series of mistakes.” The Romney campaign responded that federal crime statistics show that the violent crime rate in Massachusetts, which includes not only murder but also crimes like assault, dropped 7 percent during his tenure.
They pointed out that Giuli-anna was lying out of his ass. It just occurred to me that maybe people don't realize...
When the Republicans talk about crime going up in their opponents state or locality they are talking about the negro problem. They are saying so and so, in this case Romney can't keep the black man down.
Anyway, just a FYI. It's why they use the term dog whistle, it's silent.
There's more...
Dontcha Just Loooooove The Smell of Jiffy Pop In the Morning?
Here at The Group News Blog, I do freely admit to taking exceptional interest in the Presidential campaign of one Rudolph W. (And the “W” stands for “Would you wear these pearls with this dress?”) Giuliani. As a lifetime New Yorker who lived under the lead thumb of his mayoralty, and saw close-up as many New Yorkers did, just how effortlessly Damien/The Omen-level evil the man could be towards people of color, political opponents, or damn near anyone who dared disagree with him, I have given him and his blitzkrieg campaign a special level of interest.
He is an exceptionally venal being, who when he wasn't surrounding himself with fearful supplicants, filled his comrade gaps with nearly equally shady bottom-feeders, just as power-mad as he, and as willing as he was to subvert any rules that limited that power and access to the perks of power.
Just last Friday his fellow grab-assing Lothario Bernard Kerik was indicted on sixteen counts in Federal Court—including mail fraud, wire fraud, tax fraud and conspiracy. Everything except for shooting a man in Reno just to watch him die...but hey, the investigation continues apace. We took Rudy to task on that here on Monday.
But it was the first post here on Rudy that set the hook in him, and ever since we have not let him shake the barb. That first post, “Take A Number Ya'll—All 54,337 Of You dealt with the numerous people ducked in the bushes with blowguns trained on Rudy and how they could in a slow, methodical way take him down. We've already seen New York's firefighters and Rudy's kids fire warning shots into the air on him, but it was a comment here by the on-the-case Julia over at Sisyphus Shrugged that stands out now—a warning about someone else who could make Giuliani's life difficult. The prediction now sits there, big and bold and as obvious as a a Broom-Hilda zit on a supermodel's face.
You forgot Judith Regan. Judith Regan got kicked to the kerb, and she's Pissed. julia / Homepage / 07.05.07 - 1:53 pm
To which I replied:
julia: You know...I seriously considered Regan for the list, but part of me said she's such “damaged goods” and straight-up batshit, that it could be a wash.
But your comment got me to thinking again...She's so slimy, so venal, and plugged into so much that is slimy and venal, that she could have at her fingertips/rolodex some really damaging stuff on him. Who knows what crazy shit Bernie could have blurted out while getting...um...you know...
The lady followed up with this bon mot:
(From Think Progress: [A]ccording to Kerik’s former girlfriend, the book publisher Judith Regan, this friendship could come back to haunt Giuliani’s campaign. She told one of my tnr colleagues that Kerik and Giuliani would frequently discuss “sketchy” activities in her presence “as if I weren’t there.” Regan told my colleague that she would reveal the contents of the conversations in the event that Giuliani’s presidential campaign took off. (Of course, Regan has her own scandal-ridden past. But she also has enough p.r. acumen and notoriety to win an...
I've always suspected that most of the scorpion tail action of karma operates by letting you live smack in the center of the life you've built for yourself. julia / Homepage / 07.05.07 - 5:15 pm
KEITH OLBERMANN: Judith Regan, the high-profile book publisher and editor, suing Rupert Murdoch's News-Corp, and claiming one of NewsCorp's executives wanted her to lie about her affair with Bernard Kerik, to federal investigators who were vetting Kerik, in order to protect the presidential aspirations of Kerik's benefactor, Rudy Giuliani. An allegation that News-Corp tried to suborn perjury to benefit Giuliani... and that there is evidence to prove that. There are few details... but we'll bring you more of them, and some reaction, in a moment.
-------------------------------------
...Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. where she worked, asked her to lie about her affair with Bernard Kerik while Kerik was being vetted as the nominee to head Homeland Security, in order to protect Rudolph Giuliani's Presidential aspirations—and oh, by the way, her lawyers tells The Times she can prove this.
“Defendants were well aware that Regan had a personal relationship with Kerik,” the complaint says. “In fact, a senior executive in the News Corporation organization told Regan that he believed she had information about Kerik that, if disclosed, would harm Giuliani’s presidential campaign. This executive advised Regan to lie to, and to withhold information from, investigators concerning Kerik.”
One of Ms. Regan’s lawyers, Brian C. Kerr of the firm of Dreier L.L.P., said she had evidence to support her claim that she had been advised to lie to federal investigators who were vetting Mr. Kerik and who might have sought to question her about their romantic involvement. But Mr. Kerr declined to discuss the nature of the evidence.
And finally from NY's Channel 7 11 O'Clock Eyewitness News:
LIZ CHO (REPORTER): Claims of a cover-up tonight against one of the biggest and most conservative media empires in the world, to protect the Presidential ambitions of Rudy Giuliani. Judith Regan, a celebrity book publisher claims in a 100 million dollar lawsuit that News Corp. encouraged her to lie to Federal investigators about her intimate relationship with Bernard Kerik when he was up for Homeland Security Chief. She claims it was it was an attempt to protect the political aspirations of Giuliani who appointed Kerik Police Commissioner.
Of course a month after her first prescient comment, and three months before this broke last night, Julia peered into the crystal ball again and hit paydirt:
“...As you may recall from the unpleasantness surrounding Mr. Kerik's* ladyfriend Judith Regan (the woman with the OJ book), HarperCollins is owned by Rupert Murdoch. Mr. Murdoch also owns conservative id machine Fox News, activist right wing advocacy organ the New York Post, and now long-time Giuliani supporter the Wall Street Journal.”
-------------------------------
“Mr. Murdoch is known to be very involved in setting the political direction of news coverage by his properties.
This is increasingly not looking like a good thing for Mr. Giuliani.”
Oh, my. It would appear that the other crazy Judith in Rudy's life, this one being Ms. Regan, could indeed play her “woman scorned”/“abandoned-by-all her-friends-who-are-tight-with-Rupert” card right into total “I'm Gonna Tear Your Playhouse Down” mode.
This one...could get verrrrrry ugly, as I imagine she does indeed have some seriously damaging shit on our “Three Amigos”—Rudy, Bernie, and Rupert. She's as crazy as a bat on meth, but she's an ace at plying her trade—which is obtaining, handling, and deftly deploying information. Rupe and the suits had better pony up the dough...some serious dough to this woman, because she ain't no Goddamn piker—she's a cornered, feral wildcat...with rabies. You might manage to net her, but you could lose an eye, a lot of blood, and need 16 rabies shots in your gut when it's all said and done.
If that is, she's in the mood to settle. Can you imagine the money she'd get for a book where she drops dimes, quarters and big, fat Sacajawea dollars all over those three? Fuck Kerik—he's penny-ante in this. She could wreck a Presidential campaign, (“Dont worry about me Regan! Don't worry about me!I'm Rudolph William Louis Giuliani! I'm no cheap crooked politician!”) and if you'll pardon my saying so,“ratfuck a network like it's never been fucked before”. The hell with “RatherGate”—we're talking about network honchos pressing her to lie to the Feds. Yikes!
Thus the popcorn graphic, Ladies and Gents. Sit back and watch this one play out. It could be lots of cheap, but entertaining, WGA-free (and Fred Thompson-free) courtroom procedural fun. Extra buttah, please!
Oh, and not like I'm pushing Ms. Regan one way or another, but I think she would just loooooove this wonderful rendition below of a song that I think resonates for her...perfectly.
“Jiffy Pop, bitches!”
UPDATE: In a phone conversation with a lawyer friend this morning (who's had some dealings with the NBA), he said the following:
Fox HAS to settle this. THEY HAVE TO! You don't mess around with someone like this who's...
a.) got it in for you, and b.) has even the remotest bit of evidence to support her claims.
This is the same situation Marv Albert was in during his trial for sexual assault against Perhach (Vanessa). Bad enough she laid it out there about him biting her all over the place, and the rough sex too—which kind of got lost in the shuffle of their having a 10-year long tryst-thing, but what really killed him was her getting pissed thathe was gonna marry someone else, and then out of spite she revealed during discovery about Marv's odd predilection for “drag” during sex. Discovery's where all the bad hearsay and tangential shit comes out. He settled up right quick after the “garter belt and panty” thing got out.
The same thing happened in the (NY Knicks Coach) Isiah Thomas/Cablevision sexual harassment trial where Anucha Brown (the plaintiff) wrecked Cablevision, Thomas, (and star point guard) Stephon Marbury with that nasty stuff found out in discovery. Again. The company loaning out interns as sex toys to players? Zeke's (Isiah's) fucked-up statements about Black women? And then Cablevision got exposed as covering their asses when it got hot, by firing the woman. And then they lost the fucking case! 10 million dollars—cut a check!
Team signs a guy to the worst NBA contract ever—a scrub (Allan Houston) for 100 million dollars and justifies it, but they couldn't settle with Anucha Brown for 4 million? Lost the case, damaged the Cablevision brand—further, coach is on the hot seat with protesters threatening to picket the Garden...and now Marbury's bolted the team and is probably gonna be traded for a bag of balls and a Kurt Rambis throwback jersey.
They need to NOT fuck with Regan. She knows too many people. She's not some middle management exec like Brown, or a jilted nobody like Albert's woman. She's a major media player. She cut book deals with superstars and knows everybody THEY know. The names in her Blackberry contact list should make these people pee in their pants. This can't go to trial. It just can't. They need to settle up, apologize and let her walk away like at the end of Chapple's Show goin' “I'm rich, bitch!”
He's right. I doubt they (FOX) can do too much to damage her without her nailing them on all manner of shit should she opt to play batshit-league hardball. And they'd better pray that money and an apology matters to her, and that she's not on some scorched-earth Abigail Williams/Crucible campaign. 'Cause if she is...
P.S. Speaking of Hardball, I imagine Chris Matthews will find some way to spin this as “Good for Rudy” in between teeth-grinding and quiet Depends™ filling sometime today. Bank on it.
There's more...
She's unleashed a massive mailer racist homophobic hit piece on her opponent just days before the primary, with no opportunity for a rebuttal.
What she's not telling you is, her husband Alex Vogel makes huge sums as a lobbyist for gay-friendly, hell, gay-open, gay-bashing down the doors of America, gay-programing-central Viacom.
Oh yeah baby, do it to me. Do it to me hard. Wouldn't she make a perfect Bottom? You just know she likes it rough.
These two are massive hypocrites, up to their tainted asses in lies, greed, corruption, diverted charity money, and quite possibly, election tampering. Allegedly. *smiles sweetly*
Let's get down to it...
Jill Holzman Vogel is a nationally recognized lawyer in Republican political circles. She has held senior posts in the Republican Party and in the Bush administration, including Chief Counsel to the Republican National Committee and Deputy Counsel at the Department of Energy. Call it a payoff for her work during November and December of 2000, when Jill served as counsel in the Florida Presidential Recount, acting on behalf of the Bush-Cheney campaign in West Palm Beach and in Osceola County.
In addition, Jill's law firm has been working hard in the laundering -- oops, in the snow-job where Sen. Majority Leader Bill Frist is shoveling buckets of cash, around half a mil, through an AIDS charity he controls using his political people being paid through the charity in order to keep them handy for his presidential campaign, using money donated by big corporations with business before the Senate, and using Jill's firm being paid big bucks to try and convince the IRS that everyone gets to write all of it off as a Tax Deduction, instead of going to jail for bribery, tax fraud, and election tampering.
I mentioned alleged election tampering before, and we'll get back there, but not yet.
Oh hell, let's get to it now.
From Florida, where Jill helped cheat GWB into the Presidency by shutting down the counting of the election, to Ohio where Alex Vogel helped in the "fraud of the fake voting rights groups" which "pursued racist disinformation campaigns, intended to divert attention from Ohio's election theft."
Vogel's lobbying firm was paid to go in and clean up the mess, once everyone started catching on to how the White House had stolen the election, from loading the Ohio Supreme Court to filing RICO suits just for political effect, to front organizations and carpet-bombing minorities with letters allowing their voter registrations to be challenged, and thus their votes to be declared invalid.
Not to mention making damn certain the white folks got the good machines and plenty of them, and the dirty rotten brown people got very few machines and they were the busted ones. People just left without voting instead of waiting five hours in line. Why? Because they didn't want to be fired from their job. Because they couldn't give up a day's pay. Because they were disabled and simply couldn't stand up for five hours (or even 30 minutes) waiting on a machine which might not be working when it was their turn.
Alex Vogel's firm came in to clean up the mess. Jill Vogel's firm created the legal strategy which caused the mess. Part of that mess was targeting GLBT people with hateful words (which often escalated to violence) in order to drive public letter writing campaigns, big press, and state constitutional amendments to drive single-issue Republicans to the polls to ban Gay Marriage.
Historian's remain split on how successful the GLBT issue was in driving turnout. While there is no question Republican turnout was enormous for a second election, it may be that the Republican's simply ran a massively better GOTV game via their control of church membership lists (which is illegal of course, but we're talking what happened, not what's legal.)
From Ohio where GWB beat swift-boated John Kerry by less than the margin of error (he gamed the fucking system AGAIN) we go to Virginia and meet total wackjob Laurie Letourneau (photo: the nut case at the microphone.)
This nut-case lunatic is not just Jill Vogel's babysitter -- she filed a complaint which got Mike Tate, Jill's opponent in the primaries, indicted, causing him to lose the election. The prosecutor who indicted him? Tied tightly to Jill Vogel's campaign, a visiting independent judge dropped the charges over the prosecutor's objections. And the Washington Post which reports the story mentions the prosecutor "began the investigation at the suggestion of a Holtzman Vogel campaign volunteer." That's this whack job, the fucking baby sister for Jill Vogel, and herself an accomplished and experienced political activist. a "Vogel campaign volunteer."
Assholes.
Here's a bit more on the whack job, just so you're clear how truly insane the George Bush wing of the Republicans are:
It seems that PCN is from Massachusetts, but left because:
"This place is a cesspool. It’s pathetic," she told the Worcester Telegram, discussing her home state, which has the third lowest divorce-rate in the nation. "We have an ineffective Church and a bunch of wimps in the legislature."
So, PCN packed up, moved to Virginia, and got herself buried in the Marshall/Newman Gays Are Icky Amendment as well as the Allen for Senate re-election campaign. From an e-mail I received a few weeks ago, it seems that PCN annoyed everyone at the Allen campaign.
Part that I assume is the most frustrating, and worst, is that this has all come at the hand of Laurie Latourneau- a right-wing friggin whack job. I couldn’t stand her while working for Allen- she used to call all the time with complaint after complaint. Christ himself would be a RHINO to this woman if he were to run for elected office today. She was never happy, never satisfied, and always preaching that social conservative shit to the utmost extreme. She was the individual you thought you wanted on your side, until she then was on your side- then she just hindered every effort, every word, everything. She would quickly become a thorn in everyone’s side.
So, the question comes down to this: Why is PCN working for Vogel, and did she file the complaint at the behest of the Vogel campaign? Is this the type of person who Republicans are using to push their message?
Remember that Jill's husband is a big-league consultant for Viacom, receiving (his firm) over half a million bucks for services.
Jill would have to parade naked through the East Village with Laurie Latourneau holding her on a leash, stroking her pert, aroused nipples with the strap, and offering free swats of her aged yet appealing buttocks to women passing by, for the Vogel family -- if we look at what they're paid for -- to be much more GLBT open.
What they say they're about, well, they're lying of course. What-the-fuck-ever. Follow the damn money. These are Republicans. They're not turned on or off by the sex. It's POWER they're horny for.
Here's what these hypocrites have slimed their opponent with, only this weekend left in the campaign.
(Click photos to make my lipstick BIG & RED -- Jill isn't subtle, is she?)
(Click photos to make me ENLARGED.)
Sara is correct. (And so is Max.) The Republican's are trying to get traction with hating Muslims. The Gay thing isn't working out too well for them any more, so now they're trying to transfer the hatred from The Gay to The Muslim.
Here we can watch the transfer attempt in action.
The Republican's need to be stopped cold. Called out, and fucking cold-cocked, left lying on the ground, unconscious.
Want to hate someone? Hate these people. They know what they're doing.
They may not hate America. But they sure as hell hate Americans. Not to mention they're stealing, literally stealing money and power from their rightful owners.
Remember the wack-job babysitter for Jill, Laurie Letourneau, profiled above as the kind of fair-minded thoughtful caring person these assholes hang out with -- and entrust the upbringing of their children with.
Here is what the Worcester Telegram said about Laurie Letourneau in the column of a popular columnist (hit the jump for more):
She asked that I withhold her name because she’s only 16 and respectful enough of her parents and school to abide by their wishes. But I wish I could identify this student, because we could use more young people like her who care about their world.
On Jan. 9 I wrote a column about Laurie Letourneau, a local anti-gay activist who said she’s moving to Virginia because Massachusetts has become a “cesspool” of immorality. I acknowledge that the column wasn’t exactly a love letter, as I consider Ms. Letourneau a hatemongering zealot who pushes intolerance to new levels, and I was relieved that someone so angry is no longer comfortable in the Bay State.
One of the e-mails I received came from the above-mentioned teen, a student at St. Peter-Marian High School. This young lady and five of her friends wrote a letter to Ms. Letourneau last year, after Ms. Letourneau and her group, Mass Voices for Traditional Marriage, organized a rally at St. Peter-Marian to ban gay marriage in Massachusetts. The students were upset that their school hosted the rally because some of their friends are gay, so they decided to put their education to good use by taking the time to articulate their views in a letter.
“How is the sanctity of marriage threatened by two people who love each other?” the students asked Ms. Letourneau in their e-mail. “Even if you disapprove of their relationships, would you also deny their innocent children of rights and protections other children would have simply because their parents are straight? How is this supporting stronger families?”
The tone of the letter was generally thoughtful and polite. At one point, the writers maintained that if Ms. Letourneau wouldn’t even compromise and support civil unions, then she must be anti-family and homophobic, but that’s as strong as it got. They ended the letter by thanking Ms. Letourneau for her time and expressing hope that she would “take these points into consideration.” They didn’t sign their names because, as the young lady later explained to me, they didn’t want trouble with their school.
“We purposely tried to be sickeningly polite,” the young lady noted in her e-mail to me. “At any rate, there was nothing wrong with that e-mail, right? Nothing too offensive or inflammatory?”
Right. But here I include, in its entirety, the response sent by Laurie Letourneau to a group of high school students who had the temerity to disagree with her:
“I shall give this to the Bishop tomorrow. Where are your guts — no name — well you poor sad creatures — don’t you know anything about your religion? Dah — sex outside marriage is a sin!! Try reading the catechism and actually learning about homosexuals — learned behavior — I am fed up with twerps who don’t have the brains to come in out of the rain. Try studying before you shoot your little ignorant mouths off. This will be given to the media and the supt. and the principal and maybe they can actually teach you something. Your (sic) are really sad people and I would be so ashamed as a parent if I had not done a better job rearing children to know that anal sex, disease, multiple partners, rimming, fisting, etc., were wrong!”
Sigh. There’s not much to add here, except to observe that it’s hard to tell from this exchange who is the grown-up and who is the child. And I suppose her mean-spirited missive served a useful purpose, by reinforcing my newfound sympathy for the state of Virginia.
The young lady, meanwhile, an honor roll student at her school, said she was stunned by the response.
“What kind of good Christian woman would list various sexual practices — some of which I had never heard of before, and I’m hardly naïve — in an e-mail to a 15-year-old?” she asked. “Though I hope she’s proud of herself — she has now converted me, my friends, most of my peer group and some of my teachers permanently to the pro-gay marriage side.”
Vicious, hateful, spiteful, horrid people.
The only good thing about them is, over the last seven years with them in charge of the United States, the unbelievers have seen with their own eyes precisely how fucking insane these total nut-jobs truly are.
THIS is the buddy -- the baby sitter of Jill Vogel who is running for the State Senate and previously was the RNC's lawyer. "Not playing with a full deck" was written to describe these fruit-loops.
And they want to force all of us to be just like them, under color of one law, one God, no sex they're not in charge of, and they get all the money.
There's more...
Wal-Mart Customer Service Manager Fired After Being Assaulted By Shoplifter
I guess the Customer IS always right.
Even when right is defined as 18-year-old Angel Rivera of the City of Newburgh being:
gets caught shoplifting,
is offered a polite way out without any trouble,
Runs out of the store,
Runs back in and SCREAMS at the soon-to-be fired Manger,
Smashes a McDonald's drink on her shoulder,
"Landed a hard hook to her cheek",
Punched someone else in the eye,
Spit in someone else's face, and
"Pummeled another manager."
All before Ms. Rivera was hauled off to jail under arrest on "robbery and assault, felonies, and petty larceny." Security cameras having her dead to rights on the major charges.
Obviously this breach of Wal-Mart's peace and decorum calls for the firing of the woman who CAUSED IT ALL TO HAPPEN, the Customer Service Manager, Victoria Smith.
If only she'd had the good sense to just let the alleged thief steal from Wal-Mart, Ms. Rivera wouldn't have gone bat-shit fucking insane and assaulted FOUR people.
Thank Goodness Wal-Mart provides World-Class Health Care and Vacation benefits to all employees -- as behooves one of the world's largest and most profitable companies -- and trusts its employees and managers to do the right thing. I'm sure each of these people got adequate time off to heal from the attack, along with proper counseling, and that no one is being scapegoated in any way for the random attack of a criminal.
That crazy & quirky Wal-Mart. Always doing the right thing.
Someone should do a crazy & quirky network television show about a triangle of crazy & quirky kids who love, live and work at... Wal-Mart.
Call it, Well-Met@Wal-Mart, with Wally, Wendy & Wesley. Wednesdays.
"He had refused to drop the camera which could be used as a weapon."
Right.
A jury acquitted him of all charges. Including the Officers writing in their reports that Waterhouse ran off, they chased him, and only then bean-bagged and Tasered him.
(They left out that it was on his own property as he videotaped their search of a friend's property.)
Four men who say Portland police ran roughshod over their constitutional rights are taking their cases to court. Monday their attorneys called for independent investigators to review complaints against police and for the mayor and chief to curb what they called officers' "dirty tactics."
Police officers followed a police dog onto the property during a search for a fleeing suspect. After the dog keyed on a car, officers broke out a window. Upset residents, insisting no one had run onto their property, started to videotape the police search.
When one woman was told to stop recording, she gave the videocamera to Waterhouse. He walked to the edge of the property, climbed up a dirt embankment and continued to record. At one point, he yelled to his friend, "Yes, I got it all on film. They had no right to come on this property."
He says in the suit that police immediately came after him, and yelled at him "put it down." Officers moved towards him, and he said, "Don't come after me." Waterhouse said seconds later he was shot with a bean bag gun and a Taser and fell to the ground.
Officers wrote in their reports that Waterhouse ran off, they chased and then bean-bagged and Tasered him. One officer wrote, "He had refused to drop the camera which could be used as a weapon."
Waterhouse was arrested, accused of criminal trespass and disorderly conduct. A jury acquitted him of all charges.
[Above] is the video that Waterhouse shot. It depicts the final 27 seconds of footage and ends with him being hit by the Taser darts.
How 'bout them apples?
Got to love those Fourth Amendment rights. Especially in Portland, where all the dirty rotten hippies hang out, and the Police love everyone.
No, wait. The police don't love anyone except themself.
Six Dead, One Critical. Shooter Taken Down By Sniper.
Early Sunday morning in Crandon, Wisconsin, a 20 year-old off-duty sheriff's deputy, in what is believed to be jealousy, burst into a house party and shot to death six high school students and recent graduates.
The gunman, whom police identified as Tyler Peterson, was later killed after he evaded law-enforcement officials, forcing this town of 2,000 about 225 miles north of Milwaukee to be virtually locked down by police for several hours.
Crandon Mayor Gary Bradley said Sunday afternoon that the suspect was dead. "He was brought down by a sniper," Bradley said. However, Forest County Sheriff Keith Van Cleve would not confirm that Peterson had been killed by fellow officers.
Many details were still sketchy late Sunday, but police believe Peterson shot the seven people, ranging in age from 14 to their early 20s, around 3 a.m. in a small downtown home where they had gathered to eat pizza and watch a movie. At least eight people were inside the house at the time of the attack, family members say, after celebrating the local high school's homecoming.
While it was unclear what the gunman's motive was, the mother of one victim said he may have been a jealous boyfriend. "I'm waiting for somebody to wake me up right now," said Jenny Stahl, 39, the mother of 14-year-old Lindsey Stahl, who was killed in the shooting. "This is a bad, bad dream. All I heard it was a jealous boyfriend and he went berserk. He took them all out."
Savannah Cleereman, 14, knew Lindsey and the five others who were killed. "Lindsey was my best friend since 1st grade," she said. "It's just the way she died. She didn't deserve it. None of them deserved to die at all. I had six friends, but they all died."
Cleereman said she had been invited to the same house party but didn't go because she was too tired from an early volleyball meet.
Instead, she and a friend—the sister of a young man at the party—stayed at Cleereman's house together. The two learned of the shooting Sunday morning when Cleereman's friend received text messages on her phone from people saying they were sorry to hear about her brother.
"Then my mom came in and told me that six of my best friends were dead," Cleereman said.
A second victim was Bradley Schultz, 20, a third-year student at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee who was home to visit his friends, said his aunt Sharon Pisarek.
"We still don't have many details, but from what they've told us, there was a girl next to him and he was covering her, protecting her," she said, sobbing. "He was loved by everybody. He was everybody's son."
Three of the victims were Crandon High School students, said schools Supt. Richard Peters, and the other three had graduated within the past three years.
"There is probably nobody in Crandon who is not affected by this," Peters said, adding that students would be especially affected. "They are going to wake up in shock and disbelief and a lot of pain."
Peters did not know whether Peterson had also graduated from the 300-student high school. But Crandon resident Karly Johnson, 16, said she knew the gunman and that he had helped her in a tech education class.
"He graduated with my brother," she said. "He was nice. He was an average guy. Normal. You wouldn't think he could do that."
On Sunday afternoon, Crandon residents gathered inside churches and area stores to talk about what had happened.
With the hymn "The Glory-Land Way" being sung by a congregation behind him, James Crawford, 36, tried to talk in a phone interview about his cousin who was killed. The Tribune is not identifying the cousin because it was not clear whether all family members had been notified about the death. "I just can't believe something like this would have happened here," he said.
Twenty-five people met for hours inside the Church of Christ in Crandon, which Crawford attends.
Earlier Sunday, Crawford had learned of his cousin's death when he awoke to a phone call from family members: His teenage cousin, "who wouldn't have hurt a fly," had died in a shooting that had happened only three blocks away.
And just when he went outside for a front-yard discussion with his neighbors, they learned from police that their child, who had been at the party, was dead, he said.
Damn.
I'm sorry. I'm sorry for everyone involved.
These things are just senseless. People try and make sense out of them, but you just can't. Because people are involved we think somehow we should have could have known.
No.
It's no different than a sudden storm, a freak tornado coming up without warning. The odds of one hitting your family are vanishingly small. Which doesn't help at all when it's right on top of you.
Tuesday, the Maryland Court of Appeals heard arguments in Baby v. Maryland to determine if consensual sex becomes rape if a woman says no in the middle of the sex act.
In October 2006, The Court of Special Appeals overturned a 2003 rape conviction, holding there is no rape under Maryland law if the woman consents to sex prior to penetration and then withdraws the consent after penetration.
This is what the reaction was almost a year ago to the Court of Special Appeals ruling:
The court insists that since Battle provides the only indication of Maryland law on the issue, that the dicta in Battle must carry the day.
The court further admits that the law as stated in Battle is predicated on utterly antiquated, outdated, and grotesque notions of the status and personhood (or lack thereof) of women. As the court stated:
The concept, undergirding the Battle holding, rooted in ancient laws and adopted by the English common-law, views the initial "de-flowering" of a woman as the real harm or insult which must be redressed by compensating, in legal contemplation, the injured party -- the father or husband . . .
. . . [I]t was the act of penetration that was the essence of the crime of rape; after this initial infringement upon the responsible male's interest in a woman's sexual and reproductive functions, any further injury was considered to be less consequential. The damage was done. It was this view that the moment of penetration was the point in time, after which a woman could never be "re-flowered," that gave rise to the principle that, if a woman consents prior to penetration and withdraws consent following penetration, there is no rape. Maryland adheres to this tenet, having adopted the common law, which remains the law of the Land until and unless changed by the State's highest court or by statute . . .
The court elucidates further the reasons for the law in effect TODAY in Maryland in footnote 6 of the opinion:
The cultural mores undergirding the notion that the crime of rape was complete upon penetration may be traced to Biblical and Middle, Assyrian Laws: Under MAL, the rape of a virgin was presumed to be an illegal trespass upon the father's property with the rapist required to "give the (extra) third in silver to her father as the value of a virgin (and) her ravisher shall marry her (and) not cast her off." The woman was required to marry her rapist without hope of divorce. If the rapist was married, the virgin still had to marry her rapist; however, the rapist's property, his wife, was also factored into the compensation. The rapist's wife was to be given to the father "to be ravished . . .not to return her to her husband (but) to take her."
This approach to rape developed because a virgin was considered a valuable asset, the value residing in men's ability to gain absolute ownership of the totality of her sexual and reproductive functions. Any infringement upon this totality through premarital sexual relations rendered the asset less valuable and might even turn it into a liability.
Arguing for the state before the Court of Appeals, State's Attorney Sarah Page Pritzlaff said that when there is force, the act qualifies as rape.
"You clearly have the element of force, you have the resistance by the victim, the victim was quite clear that it was hurting, that she wanted him to stop."
Defense attorney Michael R. Malloy argued that if intercourse is consensual under existing common law it can't be rape. He argued that the jury that convicted had faulty instructions from the judge.
The Maryland attorney general's office asked the court to take up the case after a court of special appeals overturned a 2003 rape conviction. That conviction dates to the trial of a boy who was 16 when accused of raping an 18-year-old community college student in her car on Dec. 13, 2003. Maouloud Baby was convicted a year later in Montgomery County of first-degree rape and other crimes -- some from helping his 15-year-old friend assault the young woman first -- and sentenced to 15 years in prison, with all but five of those years suspended.
The victim, who had met Baby that night, testified at the trial that she told him that "as long as he stops when I tell him to" she would have sex with him.
As he began, she told him to stop because he was hurting her, but he kept going for five or 10 seconds, she said.
Certainly any person has the right to withdraw consent during sex.
I read the decision of the Court of Special Appeals when it came out.
They are full of shit.
Courts have to follow the rule of law; that's why we have courts. What this court did however wasn't following the rule of law. It was legal horse-shit, a bunch of men following each other over a cliff rushing to uphold a man's privilege to treat women as chattel. It is simply wrong as a matter of law. I am cautiously optimistic the Maryland Court of Appeals will get it right.
If that fails, it is up to the legislature (and public pressure) to change the law. Which is precisely how the system is designed to work. (The legislature hasn't done a damn thing in the year this has been on their plate. Not a good sign. It's a man's privilege to fuck a woman any damn time he wants in Maryland. Always has been, always will be.)
As for the 10 seconds. In the throes of passion, I think 10 seconds is about the time a reasonable man -- one who perhaps was near la petite mort -- could reasonably take (5 to 10 seconds) to hear her saying "No" or "Stop", come back to earth, understand what she's saying, and indeed, get the fuck out of her. Including possibly double-checking she's saying "No" instead of "Oh, no, oh..." Sure, we'd hope he's not so damn selfishly focused on his own pleasure he isn't noticing how she's doing, but obviously that's not always so.
Ten seconds... as a rule? Bright-line rules don't work here. It's got to be a totality of the circumstances. Change your mind in the middle? Absolutely and always.
This specific case? You bet your ass it was rape. She didn't want to be with him to start and only gave grudging consent to begin with. Then the little bastard didn't stop when she said to, even though she was clearly crying out in pain. This was, without question, rape.
I hope the Maryland Court of Appeals gets it right, not just because of the case, but so that women of Maryland will know the law in their State no longer considers rape to be --
The initial "de-flowering" of a woman as the real harm or insult which must be redressed by compensating, in legal contemplation, the injured party -- the father or husband . . .
. . . [I]t was the act of penetration that was the essence of the crime of rape; after this initial infringement upon the responsible male's interest in a woman's sexual and reproductive functions, any further injury was considered to be less consequential.
Usually we hear the opposite story. How an Innocence Project has freed a guilty man from prison using DNA. Here's the opposite...
Twenty-five years a family has waited, waited and suffered, wondering if there wasn't possibly something they might have done differently to have prevented their child from dying. A rookie cop, now a senior investigator, finally solved the case a quarter of a century later.
Hit the link for a video of her father... I don't know what to say.
Paul Echols was a rookie patrolman the night police were called to the apartment of 23-year-old Southern Illinois University student Deborah Sheppard. Her front door was ajar and her nude body lay inside.
Although he wasn't working the case that night, April 8, 1982, he soon became familiar with the murder of the senior marketing major from Olympia Fields. In February, Echols -- now the Downstate Police Department's head of investigations -- sought permission to take another look at the case.
His hope was that DNA technology might provide a break. Evidence from the murder scene was retested. A match was made, and on Thursday, Echols traveled to the Big Muddy Correctional Facility in rural Johnson County to arrest Timothy Krajcir, 62, in Sheppard's sexual assault and strangulation.
Krajcir, a serial sex offender with a rap sheet dating to the early 1960s, is charged with four felony counts related to Sheppard's slaying.
The charges end 25 years of frustration for Sheppard's family, which had long ago stopped talking much about the murder.
"I owe Paul Echols a debt of gratitude that I can never repay," Bernie Sheppard, Deborah's father, said Friday. "I know that he and others have spent countless hours on Deborah's case over the years, and there's no way my family could ever repay them."
For 25 years, Bernie Sheppard said, he has regretted not being with his daughter to protect her. The weekend his daughter was murdered, he and his wife along with their other two daughters had planned to visit her for the Easter holiday, he said. If they had left earlier, he always thought, perhaps she would still be alive.
"You always have second thoughts, 'What would have happened if,' " he said. "You don't ever heal. You just go on."
Krajcir, an Allentown, Pa., native who has been in prison in his home state and Illinois since 1983, faces 20 years to life in prison if convicted of Sheppard's murder, said Jackson County State's Atty. Michael Wepsiec. He said it was premature to talk about whether the office would seek the death penalty.
At the time of his eldest daughter's death, Bernie Sheppard told the Tribune he did not care "how much effort, money, time or heartache" it would take to arrest, convict and jail her killer. After police initially issued a statement saying "this incident does not indicate foul play," Sheppard's family had flown her body to Chicago for an autopsy by then Cook County Medical Examiner Robert Stein.
Stein found Deborah Sheppard was strangled and suffered blows to the head, and determined the death a homicide.
Illinois and Pennsylvania records show Krajcir enlisted in the Navy in February 1962 and was stationed at the Great Lakes Naval Training Center. He was 18-year-old cook when he was arrested for the rape and attempted murder of a Lake County woman.
Krajcir admitted to attacking or trying to attack 16 other women in Illinois and the burglaries of seven homes in Pennsylvania before he joined the Navy. He was sentenced to 25 to 50 years in prison in 1963.
His release date could not be determined, but according to Illinois Department of Corrections records, he was imprisoned on another rape charge in 1972. Again, a release date could not be determined.
In 1979, Krajcir was jailed in Illinois and deemed a "sexually dangerous person." He was paroled two years later over the objections of the Jackson County prosecutor's office. Police say he murdered Deborah Sheppard shortly after being released, before returning to Pennsylvania. At the time of the slaying, Krajcir was taking justice administration classes at SIU.
In July 1982, Allentown police said Krajcir sexually assaulted three women in two incidents. Krajcir spent five years in prison for the assaults and an unsuccessful attempt to escape the Lehigh County Prison with another inmate on May 1, 1983. During his August 1983 sentencing, a Lehigh County judge ordered that Krajcir needed continued psychiatric care. In 1988 he was transferred back to Illinois for violating parole, and has been in custody ever since.
What are the facts? Ugly cases make for ugly opinions. Facts place people at scenes and clear people from having been involved. DNA tests give us facts.
I'm always stunned when I read a DA or state opposes DNA tests because the time for appeals has elapsed, or wants to destroy trial evidence once the appeals are expired.
We don't know what technologies will be invented which give us facts, but if the evidence to test is destroyed, no technology can test what isn't there anymore. Anyone with a genuine commitment to the facts would want to know what truly happened, regardless of who is set free. They'd have a commitment to the facts.
DNA is a test which provides facts. Facts are used by judges and juries to free and convict. Good. People should be convicted on true facts and freed on true facts.
Today, based on DNA evidence after twenty-five years, a family finally starts putting their daughter to rest.
Hurray for facts. And cops who care about getting them right.
There's more...
In yet another Karl Rove election fraud special, former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman rots in prison, victim of Rove's long-term plans to turn the US Justice Department into an arm of the Republican Party.
The case has a nasty political smell. From a Republican lawyer testifying for the defense linking the case against Gov. Siegelman to Mr. Rove personally, to the Justice Department asking he be sentenced based on charges he was acquitted of, the more you learn, the more this feels like a hit job.
Forty-four former state attorneys general have asked Congress to open an investigation including several prominent Republicans. Siegelman was denied bail and taken from the courtroom in shackles following his conviction, paraded in front of television cameras just in time for the evening news during a very tight election season, and has rotted in jail ever since while his appeal -- with many issues which legal experts agree are clearly legitimate -- moves forward.
Who implemented Karl Rove's plan? Alberto Gonzales, master of "I don't remember" and "I can't recall." Gonzales of course has not only been axed resigned, but remains the target of multiple investigations. The plan wasn't limited to Siegelman. He was simply one target. The entire firing of the US Attorneys remains designed to put pliable puppets in place so as to force voter fraud cases against Democratic leaning groups and anyone who comes close to winning in 2008 as per Rove's long standing practice. The Department of Justice are falling all over themselves to blame each other for the actual implementation. The original plan was simple -- and illegal.
It now looks increasingly like he was a target of a political vendetta that reached into and involved the Department of Justice in a political prosecution. And, in fact, we had a really astonishing development in this case back in May, when a Republican lawyer, Jill Simpson, who had been involved in the electoral campaign of his Republican opponent, Bob Riley, filed an affidavit, in which she described a conversation she had participated in with a man named William Canary. Now, he's a native New Yorker, actually, referred to frequently by Alabamians as "the carpetbagger," who is a prominent Republican kingmaker in Alabama, the head of the Business Council of Alabama. And he stated in this conversation that he had talked to Karl, and Karl had spoken to the Department of Justice, and they didn't have to worry about Don Siegelman anymore. He was going to be taken care of. And he went on to say, "My girls are going to take care of Siegelman."
Well, in fact, the US attorney who brought the case against Siegelman is Laura Canary, his wife, and the action was also joined in an earlier phase by Alice Martin, the US attorney in the Northern District of Alabama, a woman, by the way, who is currently under investigation for perjury, who also is very, very close to Canary. So this linked the case directly to Karl Rove and to political motivation. We took -- spent a lot of time looking at Simpson's affidavit, her motivation, and found it was really fully corroborated all across the board.
One of the really unusual things here is that the judge handling the case -- by the way, the judge handling the case is a former member of the Executive Committee of the Alabama Republican Party who had an open and notorious grudge involving Governor Siegelman, so how he came to handle the case is another real stunning fact about this case. He denied bail pending appeal, and in these sorts of political cases -- in fact, he directed that Governor Siegelman be placed in manacles and handcuffs and taken before waiting television cameras to be shown on the evening news in Alabama, something that a number of Republican attorneys general I talked with described as "absolutely extraordinary."
The allegation that started all this was a study that was done by two professors at the University of Minnesota. They said there were seven prosecutions by this Justice Department of Democrats for every one by a Republican. And if we look at Alabama, it may be the strongest single example of this phenomenon. The Department of Justice went after prominent Democratic elected officials and disregarded corruption that surrounded Republican officials. And, you know, this is one of the real centers of the Abramoff scandal, with a mass diversion of funds and casino gambling money going into the coffers of the Alabama Republican Party, not investigated, not dealt with, not charged.
People at the top of the Justice Department and beyond that were deeply involved tracking and directing this case from the beginning. And the end of the day, I think we're going to see that trail lead back to Karl Rove and his office.
Gilly always used to tell me to stop worrying about electronic election fraud and worry about old-fashioned election fraud.
Karl Rove and the US Justice Department, currently a bought and paid for arm of the Republican National Committee, are bringing you election fraud old style...
Print copies of the ACLU Bust Card (2 to a page), cut on the lines, and give one to everyone you know. Do this now please.
Tagging back on to Sara's great post, You have the right to remain silent, tagging on to my post Give Us Money Now, the ACLU Bust Card says in plain language what you and your kids should actually do when the police stop you. Make sure you read over it with your kids and PRACTICE, actually mock up being stopped.
If you or someone you know is a photographer, make sure they have the Bust Card for Photographers which lays out what is legal to photograph and not, and what the authorities can do about it, e.g.: Can they take away your film? Can they stop you from filming?
Know your rights. Don't be screwed.
Daughter #2 (Chelsea) was stopped last night on a routine traffic stop, her first. It went well. Why? Because all of my kids and I have PRACTICED, over and over and over, over and over and fracking over again, precisely how to handle a traffic stop so the cop is put at ease and is most likely to put them into the "good person" category and not the "scumbag" category.
Next to domestic disturbances, the single most dangerous type of regular call for a cop is the routine traffic stop. Want to avoid getting a ticket? Put the cop at ease before s/he gets to your car. When the lights come on:
Calmly put on your right turn signal. This lets the cop know you see him and are going to obey. Because you didn't slam on your brakes (dangerous) or swerve violently to the left (the wrong side of the road) you've demonstrated you are calm. Now reach up and turn on the overhead light in your car. This lets the cop see into your car indicating you have absolutely nothing to hide. Pull over carefully and smoothly at the first safe place where there is room for both you and the cop. Put your car in park. Roll down both front windows as you do not know which window the officer will approach. Put BOTH HANDS ON THE STEERING WHEEL IN THE 10 & 2 O'CLOCK POSITION. Don't do anything else. If you had the radio on it should be off. If you had a radar (fool) it should be long hidden without drawing attention to you or it. No talking on the cell phone. No nothing. Just sit there. Wait. The officer may take a while. Whatever. You have absolutely nothing to do in the world except sit there with your hands high on the steering wheel, absolutely positively NOT moving in your well-lit car.
When the officer approaches always call the officer Sir, Ma'am, or Officer. Don't get tricky and try Trooper (State Police), Deputy (Sheriff Department) or Agent (most federal officers.) You'll screw it up. Call them Officer and they'll understand you're doing your best. The first question they're likely ask is, "Do you know why I stopped you?" Answer "NO."
Let's review...
The first question the officer will ask is, "Do you know why I stopped you?" You know damn well why he stopped you. You were a) doing 75 in a 60, b) while running a red light, c) in a school crossing zone, d) with a light out, e) expired tags, f) and almost nailing a nun. Who cares! Answer: "No Officer, I don't." Now smile.
Notice you haven't given or offered your driver's license, registration and proof of insurance. Don't volunteer any of these. Your job is simple; keep the conversation on other stuff. The moment the officer takes your paperwork and heads back to the squad car, your chance to avoid a ticket drops big-time.
Don't admit to anything -- they'll write down on their copy what you admitted to and use it against you if you contest the ticket. Which you most likely should. People who contest tickets usually get them at least reduced (costs you less plus less points against your license which means not as much a jump in insurance costs) and often contesting a ticket gets it thrown out completely. It's at least worth a shot. But right now your job is to make the cop like you, to occur as a good person, a nice person, a person perhaps having a bad day who just made a simple mistake, all without ever ever ever admitting to a violation or anything illegal. Because the cop CAN & WILL use that admission against you.
If you're a nurse or a medic, say so. Or a teacher. If you're a woman, don't hesitate to cry or smile, feminism be damned -- unless it's a woman cop. If they want to scold you, never ever talk back to them no matter how much of an ass they are. At the bare minimum, keep your freaking mouth shut. If you can handle it (and they look like they want it), thank them for the lesson and promise to do better. The point is to get out of the ticket. You don't know how many tickets they might still write you for; at any given stop a cop has discretion to write probably three to four violations. Don't give them an excuse to make an example of you.
Thus if you're someone important, shut your damn mouth. Telling the cop you're important guarantees you'll not only get a ticket, you'll get the maximum possible ticket the cop can give you (possibly even a low-level criminal citation), ever "t" crossed, every "i" dotted. The cop will be at your court date, notebook in hand, having carefully written down every stupid thing you said and did. You will be convicted without any reduction. And if you're important enough the cop will have tipped the media off to come watch you make a fool of yourself.
Even if you get a ticket don't lose your cool by the side of the road no matter how unfair it seemed to you. The cop can still jerk you around if you give any reason. Smile, be polite, sign the ticket, pull out carefully and leave. Then get off the road at the first safe exit (a gas station) and write, write, write everything down, no matter how tiny or insignificant. Such a contemporaneous account including anything else you remember in the next few hours to day, has enormous credibility if you choose to contest the ticket or file a complaint.
The best single book written on fighting traffic tickets is Beat Your Ticket: Go to Court and Win (Nolo Press.) If you need to go deeper, Legal Research also from Nolo, and your county law librarian should be able to help you.
What Sara says works. You have rights, not just on the little stuff, but on the big stuff as well. I've said no to cops and federal officers, in interviews, in my car, and at my door. You can too. It's a matter of knowing your rights and of practice, of training yourself to say "No" to improper questions and being willing to stand up for those rights consistently.
"Can I ask you a few questions" "Do you mind if I come in and look around?" "Would you open your trunk so I can take a quick look?"
Practice saying "No" repeatedly. This may sound stupid but I'm completely serious: Try saying "No" out loud right now. Ask one of the above questions out loud, then say, "No, you may not." Now do it again, also out loud. Good. Now find a partner, ideally a family member. Have person A ask the question out loud, then person B replies, "No, you may not" out loud. Do this 10 times. Now switch. Feel free to make up your own civil rights questions where the answer is "No." But practice saying "No." Once you've done this 75-100 times, the twitchiness in your body begins to go away and the "No" starts to become natural.
Practice gets a behavior deeply into the body. If you don't physically practice standing up for your rights with your family multiple times out loud (saying "No"), then when the heat is on and a cop is bearing down six inches over you with a gun on their hip and their partner shining a flashlight into your daughter's eyes at 2 am, most likely the cop will win and your family will lose. Truly.
I can't say this enough: As you practice so will you behave when it is real. Make sure your family wins -- practice protecting your rights with your family. And print out copies of the ACLU Bust Card -- actively protecting your rights protects all of our rights.
Jesse's post (just below) on Anastasio Prieto points up something that's been a burr under my saddle for a long while now.
Very few Americans under 30 have ever taken a civics class . Which means nobody's ever walked them -- slowly and patiently over several weeks -- through each article of the Bill of Rights, and explained to them -- carefully and thoroughly and in great deta
