After the spraying incident at UC Davis where peaceful protesting students were pepper sprayed like bugs, outrage began pouring into to the university, as Americans nationwide called for the resignation of the police officers involved as well as UC Davis Chancellor, Linda P.B Katehi. Katehi pledged support for the trigger happy police, and suggested that the peaceful protesters were intimidating to the officers.
Well just hours ago, a video posted by Lee Fang showed a haunting image – the Chancellor leaving a press conference and walking to her car, surrounded by students sitting on the ground in complete silence. According to Fang’s report, the Chancellor initially refused to leave the building due to the eerie scene of the students outside.
A pretty remarkable thing just happened. A press conference, scheduled for 2:00pm between the UC Davis Chancellor and police on campus, did not end at 2:30. Instead, a mass of Occupy Davis students and sympathizers mobilized outside, demanding to have their voice heard. After some initial confusion, UC Chancellor Linda Katehi refused to leave the building, attempting to give the media the impression that the students were somehow holding her hostage.
A group of highly organized students formed large gap for the chancellor to leave. They chanted “we are peaceful” and “just walk home,” but nothing changed for several hours. Eventually student representatives convinced the chancellor to leave after telling their fellow students to sit down and lock arms.
The officer involved in the spraying was placed on “administrative leave,” pending an investigation into the incident. The Chancellor has, thus far, refuse to resign.
In yet another example of Republicans not understanding – or pretending not to understand – the struggles of the 99%, Newt Gingrich, the present leader among the Republicans trying to take on President Obama in 2012, blessed the American public, once again, with his expertise ignorance on the Occupy Wall Street protesters.
He starts off with a lie, which was expected… he is Newt Gingrich. “All the Occupying Movements starts out with a premise that we owe them everything,” he said. He paused, and when the expected barrage of applause from the right winged crowd didn’t massage his ego enough, Gingrich continued;
They take over a public park they didn’t pay for, they go nearby to use bathrooms they didn’t pay for, to beg for food from places they didn’t pay for, to obstruct those going to work to pay their taxes to sustain the bathrooms and to sustain the park, so they can self-righteously explain that they are the paragons of virtue to which we owe everything.
Now that is a pretty good symptom of how much the left have collapse as a moral system in this country, and why you need to reassert something as simple as saying to them, ‘go get a job, right after you take a bath.’
Hearing the last line got Gingrich the kind of applause he craved.
However, once again Newt, you’re wrong.
The 99% and the Occupiers are not concerned about what you have, nor do we want to take “everything” from you. What we do want is for you and your friends in the top 1% to stop taking everything from us. And over the last 30 years, since the Reagan Administration, taking from the poor to support the rich has been the Republicans’ modus operandi. It’s what they do.
And if Newt is correct in claiming that the Occupiers took over a public park “they didn’t pay for,” then exactly who pays for this public park if not the taxpayers, the same 99% he despises? Newt and his Republican friends are grossly mistaken in their assumption that the 99% are made up of dirty, uneducated and even unemployed people.
If Newt does become the Republican nominee, then he’d better keep in mind that the 99% are the ones who will be selecting the next president, and we’ll just assume he actually wants the presidency since he is campaigning. But knowing the character Newt is, we expect a flip-flop in the future. If he is the nominee, Gingrich will plead amnesia on this, and many other issues, that are getting him in hot, dirty water.
We normally allow idiotic statements from Republican presidential candidates to fall by the way side. Not every foolish phrase they make needs coverage. Take for example; Michele Bachmann. If we covered every silly statement Bachmann made, EzKool would single-handedly reduce the unemployment rate due to all the extra help we’d need. So we’ll pick and chose what Republican nonsense we cover.
Like the latest from Newt Gingrich.
He’s been on a rampage lately, trying to out-do himself on the turnip truck that is the Republican party. At a Harvard event Friday night, Gingrich spoke about poverty and how labor laws are keeping kids entrapped. So what was the Republican’s solution? Let your kids become Janitors.
“You say to somebody, you shouldn’t go to work before you’re what, 14, 16 years of age, fine. You’re totally poor. You’re in a school that is failing with a teacher that is failing. I’ve tried for years to have a very simple model,” he said. “Most of these schools ought to get rid of the unionized janitors, have one master janitor and pay local students to take care of the school. The kids would actually do work, they would have cash, they would have pride in the schools, they’d begin the process of rising.”
He added, “You go out and talk to people, as I do, you go out and talk to people who are really successful in one generation. They all started their first job between nine and 14 years of age. They all were either selling newspapers, going door to door, they were doing something, they were washing cars.”
Just another day on the job for these police officers. This time, we’ll show you what it means to “serve and protect,” as seen through the eyes of the UC Davis Police Department. More specifically, Lt. John Pike.
John Pike’s defenseless action happened on Friday, and was directed towards students, in protest, sitting on the ground. That’s it, students peacefully sitting on the ground, demonstrating their first amendment rights. Apparently, this was too much for the lieutenant. How dare they sit peacefully? Who do these students think they are, American citizens protected by the Constitution? They should be pepper-sprayed, and that was exactly what Mr. John Pike did.
The breakdown…
The police officer then returns to his position with the other officers. He also turns his back on the seated students, as does at least one other officer. They show no fear that the students might turn violent or threatening. The first cop talks on his radio for a while.
After a few “mic checks” and few more chants, a cop goes back to the seated students. The student asks, “You’re gonna shoot me for sitting here? You’re shooting us for sitting here?”
Roughly a minute later, the officer can be seen shaking the pepper spray canister as the gathered students start shouting, “Don’t shoot your children!”
As the officer began spraying the group of students, onlookers screamed, “Don’t do it! Don’t you do it!”
Newt Gingrich is now the leading Republican trying to beat President Obama in 2012. Gingrich, in the latest polls, has 25% of the votes, Herman Cain has 21% and Mitt Romney has 19%.
So naturally, the billions of questionable statements Gingrich has made since living his entire life in politics, are being looked at again.
The following gem, is apparently Gingrich’s way of gaining the Hispanic vote, by calling Spanish the “ghetto language.”
With Newt Gingrich emerging as serious contender, some Republicans are questioning his fitness for a general election campaign by seizing on comments the former speaker made in 2007 about Hispanics.
Making the case against bi-lingual education at a National Federation of Republican Women event, Gingrich said children should be taught “the language of prosperity, not the language of living in a ghetto.”
In the wake of his comments, Gingrich recorded a video in rudimentary Spanish, saying: “The words I chose to express myself were not the best.
Now let all the ghetto speakers head to the polls. Newt and his Republican buddies need your votes.
Republicans in Congress have pledged their lives to Grover Norquist and his efforts to protect the rich. Norquist managed to get just about all the Republicans in Congress to sign his pledge not to raise taxes on the rich. And although the economy needs all the help it can get, Norquist and his Republican goons are sticking to their pledge, thus, sticking it to the American people.
But even the rich is seeing through the Vail of deception perpetrated by the Republicans and their pretense of patriotism, and their willingness to see the economy crash and burn for political reasons. And they, the rich, have come to save the day.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Lobbyists for a day, a band of millionaires stormed Capitol Hill on Wednesday to urge Congress to tax them more.
They had a little trouble getting in. It turns out there are procedures, even for the really rich.
But once inside, their message was embraced by liberals and tolerated by some conservatives — including the ideological leader of anti-tax lawmakers, who had some advice for them, too.
“If you think the federal government can spend your money better than you can, then by all means” pay more in taxes than you owe, said Grover Norquist, of Americans for Tax Reform, a group that has gotten almost all congressional Republicans to pledge to vote against tax hikes. The IRS should have a little line on the form where people can donate money to the government, he suggested, “just like the tip line on a restaurant receipt.”
One of the millionaires suggested that if Norquist wanted low taxes and less government, “Renounce your American citizenship and move to Somalia where they don’t collect any tax.”
One day after Mayor Bloomberg and his police force successfully raided the first amendment of the occupiers at Wall Street, the park today was filled with security personal, police and scattered Occupiers…
…and new rules, posted at the check points on the barricades surrounding the park.
If there is anyone who qualifies to speak on whether or not waterboarding is torture, it’s John McCain. The 2008 Republican presidential nominee was a prisoner of war in North Vietnam from 1967 to 1973, and was subjected to many methods of torture by his captors.
One can only imagine his horror as his fellow Republicans – Michele Bachmann and Herman Cain – answered a question about waterboarding and torture. Asked whether waterboarding was torture, both Bachmann and Cain said it wasn’t, and that in fact torture would be part of their administration if they were to be elected as president.
Mr. McCain had this to say about his comrades and their preference for waterboarding, which is the act of making the victim feel as if they are being drowned.
The Arizona lawmaker—who was tortured himself while a prisoner of war in Vietnam — said the controversial practice was both illegal and ineffective on Monday evening.
“Very disappointed by statements at SC GOP debate supporting waterboarding,” he tweeted. “Waterboarding is torture.”
McCain, who ran for President in 2008, elaborated on CNN later, arguing, “If you put enough physical pain on somebody, they will tell you whatever they think that you want to hear in order for the pain to stop.”
But don’t take McCain’s word on this, he’s only had to suffer 6 years of torture. Listen to Michele Looney Toons Bachmann and Herman Pizza Man Cain. Yeah, they know what constitutes torture.
I understand that when it comes to the media, scandal attracts more attention than tragedy. However, in the case of Penn State University, scandal just doesn’t explain the delicate nature of the situation. Herman Cain’s wandering hands are a scandal. Eight lives will never be the same because of the actions of the athletic department at Penn State.
The monster here is former PSU defensive coördinator, Jerry Sandusky. Mike McQueary is not guilty of these horrifying acts of sexual abuse, nor is Joe Paterno. Still, Edmund Burke had a quote that is very fitting for this situation. “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.” McQueary and Paterno simply did not do enough to satisfy a good man’s conscience.
To explain to you what has happened in this prestigious state university means we have to go back to 2002, to the day Mike McQueary walked into the football locker room at PSU and saw the shower lights on and heard the water running. I apologize for the graphic nature of the following text but this is as it appears in the court statement. As McQueary approached the shower he could hear what he described to be rhythmic slapping. He believed the sounds to be of a sexual nature so he continued toward the shower to investigate. Upon peering into the showers, McQueary saw Jerry Sandusky engaging in anal sex with a boy he believed to be only ten years old. Sandusky allegedly saw McQueary which caused McQueary to leave the premises abruptly.
When McQueary consulted a relative about what he should do, he was instructed to tell Coach Paterno. Mike McQueary confided in Joe Paterno and left it up to him to decide how to handle the situation. Now this is where the story gets fuzzy. It has been widely spread that Paterno informed his boss, Tim Curley of the situation but then forgot about the issue when nothing was done.
Most recently, Paterno was fired from his position at PSU. Saturday was the first time he was not a member of the coaching staff since 1950. The game resulted in a 17-14 loss. Paterno is the winningest coach in Division 1 Football history. It’s a shame his career had to end like this but the truth is Paterno owed it to that child to do more. Eight more children have accused Sandusky of inappropriate sexual behavior. Every child after the one Paterno knew about falls under his responsibility. It could have been stopped and it wasn’t.
The blame can not fall only on Paterno and McQueary. In 2000, a janitor at Penn State walked in on Sandusky performing oral sex on a child. Even before that in 1998, a child’s mother confronted Sandusky about showering with her son and engaging in inappropriate sexual behavior. Sandusky responded to the accusation by apologizing and wishing he could take back what he did and further wishing that he were dead.
The simple fact is, where there is tons of smoke, their tends to be a whole lot of fire to go with it. Jerry Sandusky is a monster and there were many people who knew this. So why are we just hearing about all this now? It seems that too many people were aware of this for Sandusky to just be given the benefit of the doubt.
What we have here seems to be a coverup. Numerous questions remain unanswered. How deep does this coverup go? Are there more guilty parties? Has all the information come out? We can be sure that not all the information has come out. In fact, Mike McQueary has recently made several statements eluding to the fact that more information will come out showing that he did more to blow the whistle at this horrible secret. If we read between the lines we can see that this is likely true. When Sandusky was finally told to move on, he peaked the interest of one other school’s athletic department despite a stellar history as a defensive coördinator. So did other schools know what was going on here? And if so, how much did they know. There is even information slowly coming out that suggests local law enforcement knew entirely of the goings on at Penn State.
Is it possible that the community knowingly helped sweep these horrific crimes under the rug for the sake of preserving the idea of “Success With Honor” at PSU? Can that even exist at a place of learning if the school is involved in something so morally wrong?
After listening to Jerry Sandusky break his silence last night with legendary sportscaster Bob Costas, one thing can be concluded. Sandusky is a sick man. He claims he is completely innocent of these crimes and that everyone is lying about the things that took place. Further, he seems unsure as to why he would be set up like this.
After assessing all this information and internalizing it, there are two certainties. This is going to get a whole lot bigger before it goes away and Jerry Sandusky is evil.
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