BJ Lutz and Natalie Martinez report for Channel 5 NBC Chicago that on April 10, 2013, at about 5:30 p.m., two black men walked into Quizhpe’s Gifts & Sports, in the 2200 block of North Western Avenue in Chicago’s Logan Square, intent on robbing the store.
One of the two men had a gun.
But they had idea what they were in for.
Shop owner Luis Aucaquizhpi had been robbed in the past and was in no mood to be a victim. He and his brother-in-law, 62-year-old Luis Quizphe, furiously fought back with an assault weapon — a baseball bat — as you can see in this video taken by the store surveillance cameras.
Aucaquizhpi said, “One of the guys, he said, ‘Give me the money or you are dead,’ and after that I was close to him and I tried to hit him with the bat, and the other guy he started shooting.”
Quizphe fended off the gunman with a baseball bat for a moment before the shooter tried to run away. Little did the robber know, however, that customers need to be buzzed in and out of the store. Seeing that they couldn’t get out, one of the attackers returned to the counter and continued shooting.
Aucaquizhpi is seen in the video tossing a stool at the gunman and later chasing him with a fire extinguisher after the two robbers buzzed themselves out of the shop.
Quizphe was shot in the leg during the ordeal and was listed in good condition at Advocate Illinois Masonic Hospital. The man with the gun appears to also have shot his accomplice. Police said they found 10 shell casings on the floor.
Quizphe’s son, Juan, credited God for being on his dad’s side: “I thank God that nothing worse happened to him, that he’s alive. I’m grateful for that.”
Police said no arrests had been made in the case as of Wednesday afternoon. After getting away, the men, whom Aucaquizhpi described only as being black men, ran north on Western Avenue and then west on Belden Avenue before getting into a gray car.
***
I am shocked! Just shocked!
Chicago has strict gun-control laws, requiring all firearms to be registered with the police department, and all gun owners to have a Chicago Firearm Permit. So how did the punk get hold of a gun to rob Quizhpe’s Gifts & Sports — and in broad daylight!
Snark.
Will mayor Rahm Emanuel now demand a ban on owning baseball bats?
In the wake of the horrible Sandy Hook school massacre on December 14, 2012, true to Obama’s former chief-of-staff Rahm Emanuel’s advice to “never let a crisis go to waste,” the Left have been busy little beavers, churning out one gun control initiative after another.
Here’s the rundown.
At the National or Federal Level:
1. On the first day of the new 113th Congress last Thursday, 10 bills were introduced relating to gun violence, most of which came from Demoncrats seeking new restrictions on gun ownership. They are:
H.R. 137: requires people prohibited from buying firearms to be listed in a national database.
H.R. 138: prohibits the transfer or possession of large capacity ammunition clips.
H.R. 141: requires criminal background checks on all firearms transactions at gun shows, which would close the so-called gun-show loophole.
H.R. 142: requires face-to-face purchases of ammunition, the licensing of ammunition dealers, and the reporting of bulk ammo purchases. HR 137, 138, 141, and 142 were introduced by Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (D-N.Y.), whose husband was shot to death in 1993.
H.R. 34 and H.R. 177: tighten firearms licensing requirements. Introduced by Rep. Bobby Rush (D-Ill.) and Rush Holt (D-N.J.), respectively.
H.R. 65: raises the eligibility age to carry a handgun from 18 to 21. Proposed by Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas).
H.R. 21: requires background checks for all gun sales; gun owners must report when their guns have been stolen. Reintroduced by Rep. Jim Moran (D-Va.).
Countering the above are H.R. 35 and H.R. 133 that would end federal law requiring that areas around schools be designated as “gun free zones.” Introduced by two freshman Republicans, Rep. Steve Stockman (R-Texas) and H.R. 133 from Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), in response to findings that violence in and around schools has increased since the gun free zone law took effect in 1990.
2. Companion bills to the above proposed House legislation could be introduced on the Senate side, but Senate leaders have reserved January 22 as the first day on which new Senate legislation can be proposed. However, Sen. Diane Feinstein (D-Ca.) already has prepared a bill, provisionally called the “2013 Feinstein Assault Weapons Legislation,” which seeks to ban the sale, transfer, importation, or manufacturing of some 120 specifically-named firearms, including semiautomatic rifles, shotguns, and certain handguns; as well as requires that grandfathered firearms be registered.
3. Yesterday, VPOS Joe Bidenrevealed that the POS might use yet another executive order to deal with guns: “”There are executive orders, there’s executive action that can be taken. We haven’t decided what that is yet. But we’re compiling it all with the help of the attorney general and the rest of the cabinet members as well as legislative action that we believe is required.”
4. In remarks today before a meeting with the NRA, VPOS Joe Biden intimated the Obama regime is seriously considering outlawing unregulated “private” gun sales.
1. In Connecticut, where alleged Sandy Hook shooter Adam Lanza violated dozens of gun laws, the legislature thinks the solution is more laws. A new bill proposed by State Senator Beth Bye would create a massive 50% sales tax on the sale of ammo and magazines, ban ammo buying via internet, and limit the sale of ammo to those with a gun permit.
2. In New York, Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who has actually publicly pitched all-out gun confiscation (or alternatively, forced gun buybacks), is now preparing new legislation designed to strip New Yorkers of “assault weapons,” as well as restrict the size of magazines.
3. In Illinois, the state legislature is considering a bill to ban vast swaths of semi-automatic weapons and magazines, as well as destroy shooting ranges.
4. In Chicago, which has the distinction of having some of America’s worst rates of crimes involving guns despite stringent gun control laws, there are calls for more gun regulation. Mayor Rahm Emanuel is asking the Illinois legislature to ban “assault weapons”.
5. In Maryland, Gov. Martin O’Malley is pushing for more gun regulation.
6. In California, legislators are considering harsh regulation on sale of ammunition.
7. In Florida, the Democratic House is looking to prevent concealed weapon permit holders from taking their guns to public events.
8. In New Jersey, Gov. Chris Christie says, “you’ve got to do stuff on guns.”
10. In Iowa, State Rep. Dan Muhlbauer told a local newspaper, “We cannot have big guns out here … the semi-automatics and all of them…. Those are not hunting weapons. We need to get them off the streets…. Those guns should not be in the public’s hands. There are just too many guns.”
It is now more than two weeks since the horrible massacre of 20 little children and 6 adults in Sandy Hook Elementary School, Newtown, Connecticut.
Shocking though it was, the massacre already is beginning to recede from news headlines and our consciousness, Americans being prone to short attention spans. Except for the Left’s exploitation of the terrible tragedy to redouble their perennial calls for “gun control.” Make hay while the sun shines! For as Obama’s former White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel instructs, one should never let a crisis go to waste.
But there are those, prone to skepticism and suspicion, who are not letting Sandy Hook fade away. They are asking if Sandy Hook and other recent mass shootings (Batman and Sikh temple) are “false flag” incidents — events contrived and manipulated by government in order to provoke mass fear and panic that are then used to achieve some covert agenda.
Such skeptics are dismissed as conspiracy kooks by the establishment media. I am not a conspiracist for this reason: If they are right, it means there are people so utterly evil that they would stoop to killing innocent little children to achieve their political ends. That in turn means our government is in the hands of people so malevolent and diabolical, calling them psychopaths doesn’t even begin to describe what they are. That is a frightening thought.
No matter how dubious you and I are about the conspiracy nuts, they are asking very troubling questions that demand answers. Those questions are reducible to one:
If 20-year-old Adam Lanza indeed was the lone gunman who single-handedly killed 28 people in Newtown (26 in Sandy Hook, as well as his mother and himself), why are there reports of other suspicious individuals at the scene?
Here are the reports:
1. In this audio recording on the night of the Sandy Hook massacre of unedited Newtown Police and Fire Dept. and Connecticut State Police radio traffic, you will hear the police referring to two strange individuals seen wearing ski masks and a nun outfit:
Beginning at the 1:34:19 mark, a male voice says “Danbury’s reporting a vehicle, a purple van, two occupants with possible ski masks that may be involved in this incident.”
At 1:35:07 into the audio, referring to the two occupants in the purple van, the same male voice says “One may be wearing a nun outfit, headed toward Danbury and Stoney Hill, purple van”.
The audio recording was provided by Radioreference.com and uploaded onto YouTube by Radioman911.com who writes: “There is information about two occupants in a van which turned out to be either unrelated or unfounded. There is also speculation that some unintelligible radio traffic that seems to contain the word ‘Adam’ is referring to the suspect. The word Adam is the police phonetic alphabet for the letter ‘A’, often used as part of a unit identifier.”
2. In this next video, an eyewitness told CBS News that he saw police lead a “grown man” “out of the woods” “in handcuffs”.The man was ”wearing camo (camouflage) pants and a dark jacket” and was still sitting in front of the police car as they spoke. The eyewitness said as the man was led past him, the man said “I didn’t do it.”
Who is the man who was handcuffed and taken into police custody? Why didn’t CBS News follow up on this story?
Update (1/26/2012):
It is said the man in camo pants is Chris Manfredonia, a father of one of the students allegedly on his way to the Sandy Hook school to bake gingerbread cookies with students. But then the Newtown Bee reported that the man was an off-duty tactical squad police officer: “A man with a gun who was spotted in the woods near the school on the day of the incident was an off-duty tactical squad police officer from another town, according to the source.” However, Intelhub. points out that the timeline indicates that the camo guy would have to be hanging around int he woods almost 3 hours after the massacre. Why would either a parent or an off-duty police officer be doing that? The man’s name was never revealed to the media, and with the media everywhere that fateful day, why is there no video of this man, although such footage reportedly exists.
3. In this next video, another eyewitness, a boy, says as he and other school children “ran down to the firehouse,” he saw “a man pinned down to the ground with handcuffs on.”Was this the same man “wearing camo pants” whom the CBS eyewitness had seen, or is he yet another suspect?
4. Dave Hodges, who describes himself as “an award winning psychology, statistics and research professor, a college basketball coach, a mental health counselor, a political activist and writer who has published dozens of editorials and articles in several publications such as Freedoms Phoenix, News With Views and The Arizona Republic,” writes in the Activist Post, Dec. 28, 2012:
“Former FBI informant, Larry Grathwohl, an infiltrator of Obama’s original backers from the Weathermen Underground with Bill Ayers, has also told me that the word on the street is that two teachers took down Lanza. Another unnamed source told me that there were at least 3 other shooters, not including Lanza.I must say that the evidence is compelling as we listen to the raw police radio recordings where the police are clearly stating that they have two shooters in custody, after two teachers reported seeing two shooters run by the gym.”
These reports by police (audio recording) and civilian eyewitnesses of other suspects may just be false sightings and false arrests of innocent suspects which often happen in the midst of traumatic and very chaotic events like Sandy Hook.
Or they may not.
If they are bogus, Newtown police should publicly and convincingly counter these rumors — if only to prove that “false flag” conspiracists really are nuts. But then, nearly five months after the Sikh temple shooting in Oak Creek, Wisconsin, the police still haven’t countered eyewitness reports of multiple gunmen (“a four-man team in a coordinated attack”) instead of a lone gunman, who did the killing.
Then there’s this sane-looking eyewitness who said James Holmes wasn’t alone but “had someone with him” in that dark Century movie theater in Aurora, Colorado. Why? Because there was a second can of tear gas which didn’t come from the side of the theater where Holmes was.
Is our government capable of perpetrating these evil deeds for “false flag” purpose?
I don’t want to think so. But then I remind myself that there are human beings who are that evil. Just ask the millions of innocent men, women, and children whom the Nazis killed, and the hundreds of millions of innocent men, women, and children whom the Communists killed in the Soviet Union, People’s Republic of China, and in North Korea today….
In the wake of the terrible massacre of 20 first-grade kiddies (and 6 adults) by an evil, likely-deranged lone gunman at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, the usual gun-control hyenas are braying.
This time, however, they may succeed in their gun control agenda, at least in getting assault weapons banned.
The Usual Hyenas:
CNN anchor Don Lemon (pic above) went on an anti-gun rant on Monday morning: “We need to get guns and bullets and automatic weapons off the streets. They should only be available to police officers and to hunt al-Qaeda and the Taliban and not hunt elementary school children.”
In a Twitter exchange on Saturday, MSNBC host Ed Schultzasked “Why should anyone own an assault rifle ?” and proposed a “confiscation of these types of weapons”. He also told one poster that “a Glock pistol qualifies as an assault weapon.”
On NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday, New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg renewed his perennial call for punitive federal gun control laws in the United States by lying that shooting deaths “only happen in America.” Not true. There have been shootings in other post-industrial societies, including Oslo, Norway; Winnendon, Germany; Kauhajoki, Finland; Beslan, Russia; Monash University, Australia; Dunblane, Scotland. (For those shootings, go here.)
Chicago mayor and former Obama White House chief-of-staff Rahm Emanuel is calling for a nation-wide ban on assault weapons. When he was Obama’s COS, Emanuel famously said that “No crisis should go to waste.”
Sen. Dianne Feinstein(D-Calif) has pledged to revive a law banning assault weapons at the opening of the next session of Congress in January.
Ominous Signs:
The powerful pro-2nd Amendment National Rifle Association (NRA) shut down their Facebook page and have not had any Twitter activity since the massacre on Friday morning. NRA officials have kept quiet. On Twitter, NRA president David Keene and NRA members have received death threats — calls for them to be shot. The irony of anti-gun people issuing death threats appears to be lost on everyone.
Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), who has been a strong supporter of 2nd Amendment rights with an A rating from the NRA — is signaling he’s changing his mind. On Monday outside the Virginia Capitol, Warner said: “I‘ve been a strong supporter of Second Amendment rights. I’ve got an A rating from the NRA. But the status quo isn’t acceptable. I’ve got three daughters. They asked me on Friday evening, ‘Dad, what are you gonna do about this?’ There’s got to be a way to put reasonable restrictions, particularly as we look at assault weapons, as we look at these fast clips of ammunition.”
Obama’s Hypocrisy
Gun rights advocates believe Obama will now focus on making gun control a top issue; one said, “It’s in his DNA to push this issue. This would be his crowning achievement, if he can ban guns.”
What is noteworthy is that, despite Obama’s decrying of gun violence, since he has been president, prosecutions for breaking gun laws have diminished sharply — a drop of 40% since the zenith reached under George W. Bush, which was 11,000.
***
Meanwhile, the American people are responding with an upsurge of gun purchases, even more than the marked increases in gun buying since Obama first occupied the White House.
In Colorado, for example, the Colorado Bureau of Investigation received 4,154 requests for background checks from potential gun buyers on Saturday, the day after the Connecticut shooting. That was so many the CBI couldn’t process them all and the backlog grew to nearly 18 hours. Extra staff was brought in over the weekend and workers are still trying to clear the backlog.
“Never let a crisis go to waste.” -Rahm Emanuel, Obama’s first WH chief of staff.
The POS is not letting Frankenstorm Sandy go to waste, but is using the human misery and destruction wrought by Sandy to portray himself as a caring take-charge leader.
Yesterday, he paid a visit to the American Red Cross national headquarters in downtown Washington, D.C. where, feigning compassion, he said to the victims of Sandy: “America is with you; we are standing behind you; and we are going to do everything we can to get you back on your feet.”
No sh#t!
I bet Ambassador Stevens, Sean Smith, and ex-Navy SEALS Glen Doherty and Tyrone Woods would disagree with that statement — if they’re alive to actually disagree, that is.
Top l to r: Amb. Christopher Stevens; Foreign Service Information Management Officer Sean Smith. Bottom l to r: ex Navy SEALS Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty.
Lest you’ve forgotten, on September 23, 2012, on CBS’ 60 Minutes, Obama referred to the four as “bumps in the road.” Stevens, Smith, Doherty and Woods were murdered by Islamic jihadists in Benghazi, Libya, which Obama kept insisting was a spontaneous mob riot for days and weeks after the attack, although he knew full well it wasn’t since he had watched the attack IN REAL TIME in the White House Situation Room.
Hope the victims of Frankenstorm Sandy don’t get the same treatment.
The POS’s Chicago pal and his first chief-of-staff Rahm Emanuel famously said: “Don’t let a crisis go to waste.”
The buzz on the Internet and talk radio this morning is that Obama wants to use Hurricane Sandy as an excuse to postpone the 2012 election and has asked his lawyers to look into how.
Super-storm Sandy left at least 18 people dead across seven states and knocked out power to at least 7.4 million people along the U.S. East coast.
In New York city, the financial district remains closed for a second day as seawater cascades into the construction pit at the World Trade Center. Roads and subway stations are flooded, with no relief in sight. More than 12,000 flights have been canceled since Monday and New York’s three major airports remain closed. Smoke lingered over many streets after a huge fire devastated 50 homes in the New York borough of Queens, many roads remained blocked by trees, and tunnels were inundated by lingering floodwaters. Train and bus services remained suspended citywide. Some subway stations had water above platform. Power was cut to about 500,000 homes across New York City’s five boroughs, including 250,000 in Manhattan. Company vice president John Miksad told reporters it could take a week to completely restore power. Tens of thousands of people had ignored appeals by the New York mayor to leave districts at risk where police had toured the streets calling for inhabitants to take special buses to safety. Authorities issued a mandatory evacuation order for 375,000 people at risk, but the majority decided to brave it out. (Source: Discovery News)
But the consensus I’ve read on the net is that, short of his imposing martial law, Obama does not have the constitutional legal authority to postpone a scheduled election.
David Jackson reports for USA Today, Oct. 30, 2012:
Don’t expect Hurricane Sandy to blow away Election Day a week from now.
Although storm damage will likely affect voting, especially early and absentee voting in the Northeast, it is highly unlikely that Election Day itself will be postponed.
For one thing, federal and state officials have a week to clean up and prepare.
There are also legal issues involved. Federal law requires elections to take place on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November. Any deviation from that plan is likely to lead to lawsuits.
Any mention of delaying the election is also likely to draw intense political protest, especially from President Obama’s critics.
The United States has held elections in difficult situations before — including in the middle of the Civil War in 1864, when Abraham Lincoln won re-election over one of his own former generals, George McClellan.
[...] There are provisions in the states to conceivably delay elections because of weather, but that would likely involve only New York or New Jersey. Neither is considered a swing state.
[...] There is at least one precedent for a delayed election — New York City delayed its primary on Sept. 11, 2001, which was set to occur on the very day of the terrorist attack. Later, when then-New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani suggested extending his term in light of the 9/11 disaster, he was quickly rebuffed.
The Congressional Research Service, asked in 2004 whether a terrorist attack could force postponement of a presidential election, said in a report that Congress would have to get involved in any delay, assuming it is even legal:
“While the Constitution does expressly devolve upon the States the primary authority to administer within their respective jurisdictions elections for federal office, there remains within the Constitution a residual and superseding authority in the Congress over most aspects of congressional elections … and an express authority in Congress over at least the timing of the selections of presidential electors in the States … Under this authority Congress has legislated a uniform date for presidential electors to be chosen in the States, and a uniform date for congressional elections across the country, which are to be on the Tuesday immediately following the first Monday in November in the particular, applicable even-numbered election years. In addition to the absence of an express constitutional direction, there is also no federal law which currently provides express authority to “postpone” an election, although the potential operation of federal statutes regarding vacancies and the consequences of a State’s failure to select on the prescribed election day … might allow the States to hold subsequent elections in ‘exigent’ circumstances.”
∞
There you have it.
Obama (or anyone) does not have the legal authority to postpone a scheduled election. Maybe Congress has the legal authority, but even here it’s questionable.
Meanwhile, as the POS puffs himself up pretending to take charge of storm relief efforts, Governor Mitt Romney actually is doing something concrete.
Two days ago, Team Romney already offered its campaign busto carry relief supplies for the East coast. (H/t FOTM’s Miss Wendy!)
Romney has also asked Americans to open their wallets and donate to Red Cross and other relief agencies, in lieu of donations to his campaign.
Consistent with his conservative principles and beliefs, Romney also said he’d handle the disaster differently from Obama. Instead of the federal government being principally in charge of relief efforts, Romney believes individuals (The People) and state governments should undertake disaster relief. A Romney campaign spokeswoman, Amanda Henneberg, said in an email to Bloomberg Businessweek: “Gov. Romney believes that states should be in charge of emergency management in responding to storms and other natural disasters in their jurisdictions. As the first responders, states are in the best position to aid affected individuals and communities, and to direct resources and assistance to where they are needed most. This includes help from the federal government and FEMA.”
In a CNN debate during the Republican primary, Romney said disaster relief responsibilities should be shifted to the states. He also advocated privatizing disaster relief. “If you can go even further, and send it back to the private sector, that’s even better,” Romney added.
The United States has the most powerful military in the world, comprised of the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, and Coast Guard. If that formidable military is insufficient to defend America, then nothing is.
Despite that, Barack Obama uttered these astonishing words during the 2008 presidential campaign. On July 2, 2008, in Colorado Springs, Colorado, the POS deviated from his pre-released speech script and said the following:
“We cannot continue to rely on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives that we’ve set. We’ve got to have a civilian national security force that’s just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded.“
Obama never explained what he meant by “a civilian national security force.” But Rahm Emanuel, who was Obama’s first White House Chief of Staff, did say in a 2006 interview with the New York Daily News that all Americans aged 18-25 should be inducted into ”universal civil defense training” — in effect, a civilian army. Emanuel’s idea is also contained in his co-authored book, The Plan. Here’s the audio of the interview:
All of which is not only evocative of the Hitler Jugend (Hitler Youth Movement) and the Soviet Union’s Leninist Young Pioneers, it is also against a federal law, the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878. Here’s what Wikipedia says:
“The Posse Comitatus Act is a United States federal law (18 U.S.C.§ 1385) passed on June 18, 1878, after the end of Reconstruction, with the intention… of substantially limiting the powers of the federal government to use the military for law enforcement. The Act prohibits most members of the federal uniformed services (today the Army, Air Force, and State National Guard forces when such are called into federal service) from exercising nominally state law enforcement, police, or peace officer powers that maintain ‘law and order’ on non-federal property (states and their counties and municipal divisions) within the United States. The statute generally prohibits federal military personnel and units of the National Guard under federal authority from acting in a law enforcement capacity within the United States, except where expressly authorized by the Constitution or Congress. The Coast Guard is exempt from the Act during peacetime.”
Fast forward four years from Obama’s 2008 civilian-army speech.
Since FEMA Corps specifically recruits young people, we may just as well call them the FEMA Youth Corps. And since they all wear royal-blue t-shirts, I suggest we call them Obama’s Blue Shirts.
What is FEMA Corps? This is what DHS says (I’ve embedded links to Wikipedia entries on CNCS and NCCC):
“FEMA Corps is an innovative partnership between the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS) to enhance disaster response and recovery capacity while expanding career opportunities for young people.
Established asa new unit within the existing AmeriCorps National Civilian Community Corps(NCCC), FEMA Corps engages young adults ages 18 to 24 to provide ten months of full-time service on disaster response and recovery projects. Members will be deployed to assignments ranging from working directly with disaster survivors to supporting disaster recovery centers to sharing disaster response and mitigation information with the public.”
At the September 13 induction ceremony, members of the inaugural FEMA Corps class took the AmeriCorps pledge to “get things done for America” and heard from agency leaders about the important work that lies ahead. FEMA Deputy Administrator Richard Serino and CNCS CEO Wendy Spencer were on hand to welcome the members and thank them for their commitment to service (see pic below).
“I will get things done for America – to make our people safer, smarter, and healthier. I will bring Americans together to strengthen our communities. Faced with apathy, I will take action. Faced with conflict, I will seek common ground. Faced with adversity, I will persevere. I will carry this commitment with me this year and beyond. I am an AmeriCorps member, and I will get things done.”
I, (NAME), do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God.
On May 24, 2002, Representatives Pete Hoekstra (R-MI) and Tim Roemer (D-IN) introduced the 2002 Citizen Service Act (HR 4854) to add to the AmeriCorp pledge references to God and the Constitution. AmeriCorps members would be called upon to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States…without any mental reservation…So help me God.” But the proposal stirred an outcry among current and former AmeriCorp participants who argued that the proposed pledge was divisive, “militaristic and religious,” and might deter recruitment. Although the Citizen Service Act was approved by both the Subcommittee on Special Education and the Committee on Education and the Workforce in June 2002, the House of Representatives took no further action on the Measure, and the AmeriCorps pledge remains unchanged.
According to DHS, the first class of FEMA Youth Corps had taken one month of AmeriCorps NCCC training and FEMA position-specific training. The Blue Shirts will now be deployed to their first assignments, supplementing existent reservist workforce in assisting citizens and communities who have been impacted by disasters.
After completing 1,700 hour of service, FEMA Youth Corps members will receive a $5,550 Segal AmeriCorps Education Award to pay for tuition or pay student loans. Members will gain significant training and experience in disaster services that can serve as a pathway to employment in the emergency management profession.
FEMA Youth Corps members will be based out of five AmeriCorps NCCC campuses across the country: Sacramento, Calif.; Denver, Colo.; Vinton, Iowa; Perry Point, Md.; and, Vicksburg, Miss. The program will engage 1,600 members annually when fully operational next year.
“While the idea of having a volunteer force of tens of thousands of volunteers scattered across the country to aid in times of natural disasters sounds great, the details and timing of this new government army is somewhat curious, if not disturbing. [...]
Unlike most local disaster response teams who are volunteers, training periodically and only showing up when there’s a disaster, the FEMA Corps will be a paid, full time, standing army of government youth. [...]
Over the past two years, President Obama has signed a number of Executive Orders suspending all civil and Constitutional rights and turning over management of an America under Martial Law to FEMA. Also in that time, domestic federal agencies under DHS, including FEMA, have ordered billions of rounds of ammunition as well as the corresponding firearms. Admittedly, these new weapons and ammunition aren’t to be used in some far-off war or to fight forest fires in California, but right here on the streets of America.
Individuals around the US have begun reporting the site of strange, new, heavily-armed FEMA fighting vehicles. What would a disaster relief agency like FEMA need with 2,500 brand new GLS armored fighting vehicles? According to the agency’s own mandate, as well as President Obama’s recent Executive Order, the answer is ‘population control’ during a time of Martial Law. [...]
What is the US federal government preparing for? And why does it feel it needs an army of brainwashed youth, millions of guns, thousands of armored fighting vehicles and literally billions of rounds of ammunition, just to provide relief to the American people during a natural disaster? Any historian will tell you it sounds more like the arming of the Hitler Youth than an army of first responders fighting forest fires and hurricanes.”
Where was the newly-graduated class of FEMA Youth Corps in all the cities and places devastated by Hurricane Sandy? There was not even a single reported sighting of an Obama Blue Shirt. Not one.
Seattle Times: Police say 13 people were shot and wounded in a 30-minute spate of violence in Chicago, including eight gunned down on a single street. Authorities have been battling an increase in homicides in the city where some aldermen complain gangs have no fear of the police.
Police say a drive-by shooting on Chicago’s South Side late Thursday wounded seven men and one woman ranging in age from 14 to 20 years. Two of the victims were taken to Comer Children’s Hospital. Most are in stable condition. Police say the 19-year-old woman wounded was shot in the arm while walking to work.
Five people were wounded in three other shootings around the same time. Police say 19 people were shot in Chicago on Thursday night and early Friday.
While the citizens of Chicago face a daily barrage of violence (gun violence on the streets of Chicago has escalated 40% this year), Mayor Rahm Emanuel attributes much of the escalation to the abundance of guns.
The mayor proposed a gun control ordinance in the Chicago City Council. Gun control, the answer of course. Like any of these criminals will voluntarily cough up their weapons. Chicago’s murder total for August 2012 has already surpassed August 2011’s total and with 8 days left.
While Chicago faces an increase in murders and gun violence, the city focuses on an innovative wellness program, expanding the Chicago Shakespeare in the Parks program, and establishing a new MBE/WBE mentorship program.
Perhaps the mayor should focus on the root cause of violent crime and protecting the citizens of the Windy City.
Today — Wednesday, August 1, 2012 — is Support Chick-fil-A Day.
In a recent interview with The Baptist Press on June 16, 2012, Dan Cathy, the chief of Chick-fil-A — which was begun by his father Truett, and now is a $4 billion-plus a year business — said, “We are very much supportive of the family – the biblical definition of the family unit. We are a family-owned business, a family-led business, and we are married to our first wives. We give God thanks for that.”
Mind you, Cathy didn’t say that Chick-fil-A would refuse to serve homosexuals. Cathy was simply exercising his Constitutional right to free speech, expressing his support for traditional man-woman marriage! For that, however, he and the restaurant chain and their customers were attacked, cursed, and vilified by Hollywood libs like Roseanne Barrand the Jim Henson (muppets) Company. Several mayors of large American cities — including Boston’s Thomas Menino, Chicago’s Rahm Emanuel, and San Francisco’s Ed Lee — vowed they would not allow Chick-fil-A to open a franchise in their cities.
All Americans who believe that we still have the Constitutional First Amendment right to free speech are encouraged to show their support for Chick-fil-A by buying something — a chicken sandwich or just a cup of coffee — at a Chick-fil-A Restaurant near you.
Even homosexuals support Chick-fil-A! Here’s a cartoon posted on the website GayPatriot.net (h/t FOTM’s moxielouise):
What news reports I’ve seen show that Americans are coming out IN DROVES! In some Chick-fil-A restaurants, customers are lined up in blocks!
Did you go to a Chick-fil-A today? If so, tell us about it!
If you took photos, send them to fellowshipminds@gmail.com and we’ll post them.
Here are two photos I just received (I’ll be updating with more photos as they come in):
PJStar.com: The city of Chicago paid $18 million last year to police officers on disability, including some who moved out-of-state, pursued college degrees and started new careers, according to a report published Sunday.
Charles Siedlecki, 57, is one of 347 Chicago police officers on disability, according a story published in Sunday editions of the Chicago Sun-Times. In 1992, the officer fell and hurt his shoulder while chasing a group of teens. Since then, he hasn’t worked as police officer, but went to law school, opened a law practice and continued hobbies, such as big-game hunting. During that time, he has collected more than $715,000 in disability pay, the newspaper reported.
The newspaper found that some officers never return to their jobs because of devastating injuries, such as paralysis. But others with less severe injuries often move to the suburbs or out-of-state, and some avoid returning in order to side-step desk work.
The disability money comes out of an already-underfunded pension system that’s subsidized by taxpayers.Police officers are the only city employees allowed to work an outside job during disability leave, the newspaper reported, and they also maintain health benefits for themselves and their families and receive raises for their old jobs.
Two years ago, Siedlecki’s doctor signed a report stating he was not “capable of safely discharging a firearm.” But the police officer bagged a hippopotamus and a wildebeest during a hunting trip in Africa.
“Traveling on safari with your son doesn’t equate to discharging a weapon on your hip as a police officer on the streets of Chicago,” Siedlecki told the newspaper, defending his hobby.
He said he plans to stay on disability until he reaches the age of 63, when he is eligible for a city pension. By then, Siedlecki will have collected nearly $1 million in tax-free disability pay, the Sun-Times reported.
Donald Barnes – working hard for da money…
Another man, Donald Barnes, went outside for his first physical training class on his 10th day in the Chicago Police training academy. It was a hot summer morning exactly 15 years ago. The 30-year-old trainee made it just five blocks into the three-mile jog. He collapsed around 11 a.m. on July 16, 1997. An ambulance rushed Barnes to a hospital, where he was diagnosed with heat stroke and placed in intensive care due to kidney and liver failure.
He never finished his police training, never worked a day as a Chicago Police officer — but, now 45, he has collected nearly $500,000 in tax-free disability payments.
After Barnes used up his allotted year of sick leave, the city’s police pension board placed him on duty disability, citing lingering effects from heat stroke. He is also entitled to free health insurance for his wife and their two kids, who were born after he went on disability leave.
Barnes, who uses a brace on his left foot and walks with a “slight limp,” according to pension records, collects his monthly disability checks even while working a second job.
In light of the newspaper’s findings, aides for Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel said they would urge the police pension board to crack down on abuses. “It is shameful that any individual would be dishonest about their disability to take advantage of the system, and we will continue to be as vigilant on behalf of the taxpayer to prevent cases of abuse and fraud,” said Chief Financial Officer Lois Scott and Comptroller Amer Ahmad in a written statement.
I’m all for legitimate disability pay. Yet if you are capable of working another job, how are you disabled from working? Granted, may not be the same type of job but it’s a job nonetheless.
Any wonder that Mayor Emanuel is trying to close the gap on a $635.7 million budget deficit in Chicago?
