JG55

Just started reading UNBROKEN by Laura Hillenbrand. So far a very good read. I true story out of WWII

+1

Notice how she wouldn't let him get away and was chasing after him. Tough Girl!

http://www.break.com/index/little-woman-owns-creepy-elevator-guy.html Action starts at 42 seconds

http://biertijd.com/mediaplayer/?itemid=29004

/ Utah News From The Daily Herald Newspaper / Utah And World News - The Daily Herald / Opinion / Outside Observer With Jim Tynen The Vise, or stag-double-flation Posted: Friday, June 17, 2011 10:00 am | (2) Comments The more I sift through the economic news, the more anxious I grow. It's not one piece; it's when they all start to fit together. Are we in an economic vise, with both deflationary and inflationary pressures squeezing us ... until we break? I'm no genius. But going through sites such as Instapundit, RealClearPolitics, National Review Online, and other well-known sites, and disquieting facts suggest themselves. First, many worry about the prospects of inflation or deflation. But what if both are not only possible, but inevitable? Stag-double-flation? To stick with inflation, as the above observer notes, "When the banks start lending again, it will unleash the reserves that the Fed has pumped into the economy and there will be big inflation." That isn't the half of it. I've been reading "This Time Is Different" by two noted economists. They outline how virtually every country in the world has defaulted on its debt at some point. The scary part: sometimes they do it by inflating the currency. After reading this, you may join me in thinking that the government of the United States will choose to do this, partially because it's swept along by the ongoing inflation, but also because the politicians would rather infuriate the bondholders than the voters. The voters will get hammered, of course, but further down the road, and indirectly. And our current leaders love to kick the can down the road. Some say we can grow our way out of this. But whether you are a capitalist or a socialist, you are faced with growth engines that are tapped out. As one investor newsletter shows, not only have government stimulus programs have failed, the U.S. government is so tapped out, it couldn't do much anyway. Things are so bad, that one group floats the possibility that the Federal Reserve itself is just another bad bank -- another zombie bank with no real assets, floating along because no has the courage to face the facts. So that's stagflation: a comatose economy, even as prices rise, destroying the value of savings. But what if the "flation" also includes deflationary pressure of overwhelming force? As one report puts it, "'We believe a large proportion of today's high unemployment is structural in nature, resulting from a huge skill mismatch between the jobs being created and the existing skill sets of jobseekers,' says Wells Fargo economist Mark Vitner. The pressure from globalization is a driving factor. U.S. labor has become relatively more expensive compared with overseas labor, capital equipment, and computer software." I was in China last year. There's 1.3 billion people there, and by and large they are hard-working, tough, aggressive, smart and, when they want to be, charming. They work more cheaply, too. Throw in India, the rest of Asia, Mexico, etc. In other words, the U.S. is in a price war with the rest of the world. That's deflation. Plus, the continued impact of reality on the economy. Having recovered from the Great Hallucination of, say, 1998 to 2006, we are seeing the real worth of things. Housing is one sign. The nation built a lot of McMansions and strip malls and office buildings that aren't needed. So ... "The housing crisis that began in 2006 and has recently entered a double dip is now worse than the Great Depression." in other words homeowners are in a price war with each other. Ditto in other spheres that have experienced bubbles that are deflating, or have popped. That could include the higher education bubble: as grads fight for jobs, they in effect are in a price war with other grads. Now, at best, I would suggest, that's a bad equilibrium: Two negative forces somewhat counteracting each other. But as noted above, that means a zombie economy for a long time. What if, however, this underlying deflation and coming inflation reinforce each other? As economists note, deflation magnifies the debt burden. You have to pay back loans with dollars that are worth less, making the debt relatively more expensive. So picture a college grad. She suffers the effects of virtual deflation, as a lousy job market drives down wages. But inflation affects her to: as U.S. wages rise, the relative cost of having someone in Shanghai or Mumbai drops. She gets lower wages, or no job at all. That's what happens if the U.S. dollar becomes inflated, making our wages and products even more costly on the market, even as deflation hammers those with debts. And virtually everyone is in hock. Inflation won't give you even a nominally higher salary, if your job has been outsourced overseas. Meanwhile, you may still have your mortgage, car payment, student loan, etc., to pay. Perhaps its relative cost is less, as you pay with inflated dollars. But if you don't have even that, the debt remains a burden. Also, what about real value? In a stagnant economy, that art history degree has less value by any standards. A poor economy can't afford a lot of art analysis. How much else has less value in a stagnant society? As above, the government can't ride to the rescue. They're like Custer, surrounded and running out of bullets. So the economy may not be of stagnation, but of being squeezed in a vice. Maybe till it shatters. And what happens then? Is our society so stable that it can endure such a long period of frustration and ennui? Doubtful. All this isn't even counting the reality that other countries face the same trap. I'm just an amateur. But I can't help think of this weather explanation: "Tornado outbreaks are caused by the same forces that form individual tornadoes — the meeting of hot and cold. Typically, cold air coming in from Canada hits warm, moist air from the Gulf. When the cold air meets the warm air, they tumble over one another and create the vortexes called tornadoes" So what happens when deflation and inflation collide in just the right way? Do we get an economic tornado? I hope we don't find out.

Obama solicitor general: If you don't like mandate, earn less money By: Philip Klein 06/02/11 12:52 PM Senior editorial writer Follow Him @Philipaklein < span=""><> President Obama's solicitor general, defending the national health care law on Wednesday, told a federal appeals court that Americans who didn't like the individual mandate could always avoid it by choosing to earn less money. Neal Kumar Katyal, the acting solicitor general, made the argument under questioning before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit in Cincinnati, which was considering an appeal by the Thomas More Law Center. (Listen to oral arguments here.) The three-judge panel, which was comprised of two Republican-appointed judges and a Democratic-appointed judge, expressed more skepticism about the government's defense of the health care law than the Fourth Circuit panel that heard the Virginia-based Obamacare challenge last month in Richmond. The Fourth Circuit panel was made up entirely of Democrats, and two of the judges were appointed by Obama himself. During the Sixth Circuit arguments, Judge Jeffrey Sutton, who was nominated by President George W. Bush, asked Kaytal if he could name one Supreme Court case which considered the same question as the one posed by the mandate, in which Congress used the Commerce Clause of the U.S. Constitution as a tool to compel action. Kaytal conceded that the Supreme Court had “never been confronted directly†with the question, but cited the Heart of Atlanta Motel case as a relevant example. In that landmark 1964 civil rights case, the Court ruled that Congress could use its Commerce Clause power to bar discrimination by private businesses such as hotels and restaurants. “They’re in the business,†Sutton pushed back. “They’re told if you’re going to be in the business, this is what you have to do. In response to that law, they could have said, ‘We now exit the business.’ Individuals don’t have that option.†Kaytal responded by noting that there's a provision in the health care law that allows people to avoid the mandate. “If we’re going to play that game, I think that game can be played here as well, because after all, the minimum coverage provision only kicks in after people have earned a minimum amount of income,†Kaytal said. “So it’s a penalty on earning a certain amount of income and self insuring. It’s not just on self insuring on its own. So I guess one could say, just as the restaurant owner could depart the market in Heart of Atlanta Motel, someone doesn’t need to earn that much income. I think both are kind of fanciful and I think get at…†Sutton interjected, “That wasn’t in a single speech given in Congress about this...the idea that the solution if you don’t like it is make a little less money.†The so-called “hardship exemption†in the health care law is limited, and only applies to people who cannot obtain insurance for less than 8 percent of their income. So earning less isn't necessarily a solution, because it could then qualify the person for government-subsidized insurance which could make their contribution to premiums fall below the 8 percent threshold. Throughout the oral arguments, Kaytal struggled to respond to the panel's concerns about what the limits of Congressional power would be if the courts ruled that they have the ability under the Commerce Clause to force individuals to purchase something. Sutton said it would it be “hard to see this limit†in Congressional power if the mandate is upheld, and he honed in on the word “regulate†in the Commerce clause, explaining that the word implies you're in a market. “You don’t put them in the market to regulate them,†he said. In arguments before the Fourth Circuit last month, Kaytal also struggled with a judge's question about what to do with the word “regulate,†to the point where the judge asked him to sit down to come up with an answer. (More on that exchange here). Kaytal has fallen back on the Necessary and Proper clause, insisting that it gives broader leeway to Congress. Judge James Graham, a Reagan district court appointee who is temporarily hearing cases on the appeals court, said, “I hear your arguments about the power of Congress under the Commerce Clause, and I’m having difficulty seeing how there is any limit to the power as you’re defining it.†Kaytal responded by referencing United States v. Morrison, in which the Supreme Court struck down parts of the Violence Against Women Act, and United States v. Lopez, which struck down gun free school zones. In those cases, Kaytal responded, the Supreme Court set the limit that the Commerce Clause had to regulate economic activities. The health care market is unique, Kaytal insisted, because everybody will eventually participate. With the mandate, Kaytal said, “What Congress is regulating is not the failure to buy something. But failure to secure financing for something everyone is going to buy.†Graham acknowledged Kaytal's arguments, yet reiterated that he was “having trouble seeing the limits.†The problem with the “health care is unique†argument – and this is me talking – is that it just creates an opening for future Congresses to regulate all sorts of things by either a) arguing that a particular market is also special or finding a way to tie a given regulation to health care. For instance, the example that's come up often is the idea of a law in which government forces individuals to eat broccoli. During the Sixth Circuit argument, Kaytal said that such an example doesn't apply, because if you show up at a grocery store, nobody has to give you broccoli, whereas that is the case with health care and hospital emergency rooms. Yet that argument assumes that Congress passes such a law as a regulation of the food market. What if the law was made as part of a regulation of the health care market? It isn't difficult to see where that argument can go. The broccoli example is really a proxy for a broader argument about whether the government can compel individuals to engage in healthy behavior – it could just as well be eating salad, or exercising. There's no doubt that a huge driver of our nation's health care costs are illnesses linked to bad behavior. People who are overweight and out of shape cost more because they have increased risk of heart disease, diabetes, and so on. Those increased costs get passed on to all of us, because government pays for nearly half of the nation's health care expenses, a number that's set to grow under the new health care law. Is it really unrealistic to believe that future Congresses, looking for ways to control health care costs, could compel healthy behavior in some way? More pertinently, is there any reason why that would be unconstiutional under the precedent that would be set if the individual mandate is upheld? With most experts expecting the case to go before the Supreme Court, it seems the biggest obstacle for the Obama administration is figuring out where power would be limited if the mandate were upheld. Those challenging the law have made a clear and understandable limit by drawing a distinction between regulating activity and regulating inactivity (i.e. the decision not to purchase insurance). But simply saying the health care market is unique doesn't actually create a very clear or understandable limit to Congressional power. The 11th Circuit hears the case next week brought by 26 states led by Florida. Read more at the Washington Examiner: Obama solicitor general: If you don't like mandate, earn less money | Philip Klein | Beltway Confidential | Washington Examiner

Don't disagree with you but there is a difference between Obama and Ryan. Obama just wants to be President without all the work that goes with it. Ryan has put forth alot of work in Congress as well as developing the budget plan. He also seems to have a passion for this country which Obama doesn't. That to me makes a big difference. Romney is like Obama he just wants to be President and will say anything to get there. I like Herman Caine as well as Paul Ryan. I guess we will see if Ryan can become more developed over time. Hope so..

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I like Him, too bad he's not running for President. Paul Ryan’s Strategic Vision Paul A. Rahe · 8 hours ago On Thursday evening at the St. Regis Hotel three blocks from the White House. Paul Ryan was the featured speaker at a meeting of the Alexander Hamilton Society. I think it telling that his subject was not the fiscal crisis besetting our country. It was, as Michael Warren makes clear in a detailed report on the website of The Weekly Standard, the conduct of American foreign policy. If you have even a passing interest in the current Presidential race, you should read Warren’s report in its entirety. In it, he reprints Ryan’s every word. Here is how the Congressman began: Some of you might be wondering why the House Budget Committee chairman is standing here addressing a room full of national security experts about American foreign policy. What can I tell you that you don’t already know? The short answer is, not much. But if there’s one thing I could say with complete confidence about American foreign policy, it is this: Our fiscal policy and our foreign policy are on a collision course; and if we fail to put our budget on a sustainable path, then we are choosing decline as a world power. Ryan’s main point was that decline is not inevitable. It is a choice – a choice that we can make, a choice that we can resolutely refuse. If we continue on our current path, the rapid rise of health care costs will crowd out all areas of the budget, including defense. This course is simply unsustainable. If we continue down our current path, then a debt-fueled economic crisis is not a probability. It is a mathematical certainty. Some hear these facts and conclude that the sun is setting on America… that our problems are bigger than we are… that our competitors will soon outrun us… and that the choice we face is over how, not whether, to manage our nation’s decline. It’s inevitable, they seem to say, so let’s just get on with it. I’m reminded of that Woody Allen line: “More than any other time in history, mankind faces a crossroads. One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness. The other, to total extinction. Let us pray we have the wisdom to choose correctly.†In his speech, Ryan considered the consequences of making the wrong choice in this regard. It is, he insisted, a matter of paramount importance. In The Weary Titan , Aaron Friedberg − one of the founders of the Hamilton Society − has shown us what happened when Britain made the wrong choice at the turn of the 20th century. At that time, Britain’s governing class took the view that it would be better to cede leadership of the Western world to the United States. Unfortunately, the United States was not yet ready to assume the burden of leadership. The result was 40 years of Great Power rivalry and two World Wars. The stakes are even higher today. Unlike Britain, which handed leadership to a power that shared its fundamental values, today’s most dynamic and growing powers do not embrace the basic principles that should be at the core of the international system. A world without U.S. leadership will be a more chaotic place, a place where we have less influence, and a place where our citizens face more dangers and fewer opportunities. Take a moment and imagine a world led by China or by Russia. Choosing decline would have consequences that I doubt many Americans would be comfortable with. Ryan is persuaded that “we must lead,†and he is also convinced that “a central element of maintaining American leadership is the promotion of our moral principles – consistently and energetically.†We must, however, he continues, not be “unrealistic about what is possible for us to achieve.†America is an idea. And it was the first nation founded as such. The idea is rather simple. Our rights come to us from God and nature. They occur naturally, before government. The Declaration of Independence says it best: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.†There are very good people who are uncomfortable with the idea that America is an “exceptional†nation. But it happens that America was the first in the world to make the universal principle of human freedom into a “credo,†a commitment to all mankind, and it has been our honor to be freedom’s beacon for millions around the world. America’s “exceptionalism†is just this – while most nations at most times have claimed their own history or culture to be exclusive, America’s foundations are not our own – they belong equally to every person everywhere. The truth that all human beings are created equal in their natural rights is the most “inclusive†social truth ever discovered as a foundation for a free society. “All†means “allâ€! You can’t get more “inclusive†than that! Now, if you believe these rights are universal human rights, then that clearly forms the basis of your views on foreign policy. It leads you to reject moral relativism. It causes you to recoil at the idea of persistent moral indifference toward any nation that stifles and denies liberty, no matter how friendly and accommodating its rulers are to American interests. The real question, of course, is the practical one: “What do we do when our principles are in conflict with our interests? How do we resolve the tension between morality and reality?†And here is Ryan’s answer: According to some, we will never be able to resolve this tension, and we must occasionally suspend our principles in pursuit of our interests. I don’t see it that way. We have to be consistent and clear in the promotion of our principles, while recognizing that different situations will require different tools for achieving that end. An expanding community of nations that shares our economic values as well as our political values would ensure a more prosperous world … a world with more opportunity for mutually beneficial trade … and a world with fewer economic disruptions caused by violent conflict. Here, too, Ryan urges prudence and caution. “In promoting our principles,†he argues, “American policy should be tempered by a healthy humility about the extent of our power to control events in other regions.†Then, he turns to Saudi Arabia, Syria and Iran, Afghanistan, and China – where you can see a bit more clearly what he has in mind when he speaks of limits and where you can also see just how much care he has given to considering our strategic situation. Read Warren’s report. Run it off, and read it again. I think that, if you do, you will see why I think it right that this country do something almost unthinkable that it has not done in more than a century: elevate a mere Congressman to the Presidency. There are many reasons why we need to get our fiscal house in order. Perhaps in the long run the most important is that, if we do not, we as a people will lose the hard-won capacity to shape the strategic environment within which we, as individuals, live our daily lives. The political liberty we treasure depends upon our independence -- and ultimately that cannot be sustained if ours is an entitlements state. Paul Ryan

So Now All These People Will Apologize to Sarah Palin About Paul Revere, Right? As with most people, I simply took at face value the popular version that Paul Revere warned that the British were coming, the British were coming. Not having any real reason to look into it any deeper, Sarah Palin's statement that Revere warned the British that the colonial militias were waiting seemed odd. But it appears that the popular version is not complete. In fact, as pointed out at Conservatives4Palin, Revere did in fact tell the British that the colonial militias, who had been alerted, were waiting for them. Here is the original historical text written by Revere (spelling in original, bold added): I observed a Wood at a Small distance, & made for that. When I got there, out Started Six officers, on Horse back,and orderd me to dismount;-one of them, who appeared to have the command, examined me, where I came from,& what my Name Was? I told him. it was Revere, he asked if it was Paul? I told him yes He asked me if I was an express? I answered in the afirmative. He demanded what time I left Boston? I told him; and aded, that their troops had catched aground in passing the River, and that There would be five hundred Americans there in a short time, for I had alarmed the Country all the way up. He imediately rode towards those who stoppd us, when all five of them came down upon a full gallop; one of them, whom I afterwards found to be Major Mitchel, of the 5th Regiment, Clapped his pistol to my head, called me by name, & told me he was going to ask me some questions, & if I did not give him true answers, he would blow my brains out. He then asked me similar questions to those above. He then orderd me to mount my Horse, after searching me for arms Palin's short statement on the video was less than clear; that sometimes happens but the part of the statement which has people screaming -- that Revere warned the British that the colonial militias were waiting -- appears to be true. I've learned something new today, about Paul Revere. The leading lights of the left-blogosphere have made fools of themselves, as have people who are not of the left-blogosphere. I presume they all will be apologizing. Update: Aaron Worthing at Patterico has a round-up of all the hyperventilated left-blogospheric reaction, including by Think Progress, which writes: It’s hard to imagine why Revere would warn the British of anything, or why he’d do it with bells and gun shots. This account in "Paul Revere's Ride" by David Hackett Fischer (Oxford University Press 1994), may be of interest to Think Progress and all the others laughing because they purport to be so much better informed than Palin: "A townsman remembered that 'repeated gunshots, the beating of drums and the ringing of bells filled the air.'.... Along the North Shore of Massachusetts, church bells began to toll and the heavy beat of drums could be heard for many miles in the night air." It's available on Google Books. Le·gal In·sur·rec·tion: So Now All These People Will Apologize to Sarah Palin About Paul Revere, Right?

for those of us not so well versed : The Reinheitsgebot (German pronunciation: [ˈʁaɪnhaɪtsɡəboːt] ( listen), literally "purity order"), sometimes called the "German Beer Purity Law" or the "Bavarian Purity Law" in English, was a regulation concerning the production of beer in Germany. In the original text, the only ingredients that could be used in the production of beer were water, barley, and hops. The law has since been repealed but many German and American beers, for marketing purposes, continue to declare that they abide by the rule, in an attempt to convince customers that only the three permissible ingredients are used.

Um UM GOOD:up:

The Republican Who Can Win The candidate would know Americans are more worried about their jobs and their savings than abstractions like 'big government.' By DOROTHY RABINOWITZ To win the presidency in 2012, the Republican candidate will require certain strengths. Among them, a credible passion for ideas other than cost-cutting and small government. He or she will have to speak in the voice of Americans who know in their bones the extraordinary character of their democracy, and that voice will have to ring out steadily. That Republican candidate will need, no less, the ability to talk about matters like Medicare and Social Security without terrorizing the electorate. Americans already have plenty of cause for fear. They have on one side the Obama health-care plan now nearly universally acknowledged as a disaster. A plan that entails huge cuts in health care—$500 billion cut from Medicare—that will nevertheless cause no pain, according to its architects. As the polls on ObamaCare show, this grand scheme appears mostly to have alarmed Americans. From the Republican side comes an incessant barrage of doomsday messages and proclamations that the nation is imperiled by the greatest crisis in a generation—not, as we might have supposed, by our ongoing, desperate unemployment levels, but by spending on social programs. No sane person will deny the necessity of finding ways to cut the costs of these programs. But it's impossible not to hear in the clamor for boldness—for massive cuts in entitlements—a distinctly fevered tone, and one with an unmistakable ideological tinge. Not the sort of pragmatism that inspires voter confidence. Thinking about all this, a physician friend recalls a lesson that experienced doctors learn: A patient comes in with symptoms—is it angina? Will it lead to a heart attack? Patients whose doctors show deliberation and care in the choice of their treatment, he observes, tend to have increased faith both in the treatment and the doctor. That is a point of some relevance to politicians. View Full Image Martin Kozlowski The Republican who wants to win would avoid talk of the costs that our spendthrift ways, particularly benefits like Social Security, are supposedly heaping on future generations. He would especially avoid painting images of the pain Americans feel at burdening their children and grandchildren. This high-minded talk, rooted in fantasy, isn't going to warm the hearts of voters of mature age—and they are legion—who feel no such pain. None. And they don't like being told that they do, or that they should feel it, or that they're stealing from the young. They've spent their working lives paying in to Social Security, their investment. Adjustments have to be made to the system, as they now know. Which makes it even more unlikely they'll welcome handwringing about the plight of future generations. The Republican who wins will have to know, and show that he knows, that most Americans aren't sitting around worried to death about big government—they're worried about jobs and what they have in savings. The candidate would do well to give time and all due detail—the material is rich—on the activities of the Justice Department under President Obama, the most ideologically driven one in U.S. history. He would make the connection between the nature of this Justice Department and the president's view of the American nation. That view was made clear early, in candidate Obama's repeated reference to that happy time ahead when America would once again be worthy of respect—which we had presumably lost through our immoral policies—and when we would regain the trust of friends and allies around the world. That vision, still alive and well two and a half years into his administration, has been nowhere clearer than in Attorney General Eric Holder's determined effort to give 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed the benefit of a trial in an American court, with full constitutional protections. Only with such a trial, Mr. Holder argued, could America prove to the world the fairness of its justice system. The Republican candidate would have to make clear just how far removed from reality, how alien to the consciousness of most Americans, is this reflexive view of the nation as morally suspect, ever obliged to prove its respectability to a watching world. The attorney general still refuses to drop charges against two CIA employees accused of using enhanced interrogation techniques to extract information from terrorists—notwithstanding the recommendations of investigators looking into the case that the charges merited no prosecution. The candidate will have to speak clearly on foreign policy—and begin, above all, by showing he actually has one. The near silence on the subject among Republicans consumed by domestic policy battles has been notable. Not till President Obama delivered his speech relegating Israel to pre-1967 borders did outraged Republicans come to roaring life—as Democrats, too, largely did—about a foreign policy issue. The Republican candidate might bear in mind, for use on the campaign trail, the grand irony in the spectacle of candidate Obama holding forth on the stump about our friends and allies whom the United States had so alienated under George W. Bush—allies who would have to be won back. Fast forward to September 2009, when the Obama administration virtually overnight cancelled the planned missile defense system that was to be established in Poland and the Czech Republic—a shock to both allies but a gift to the Russians. The Kremlin was indeed grateful. In March 2010, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton let it be known that the United States no longer supported the British in the matter of the Falkland Islands, which have been British territory since 1833, and that "negotiations" with Argentina were in order. P.J. Crowley, then the State Department's spokesman, expressed the new neutral stance of the U.S. by referring to the Falklands and then adding, with his usual ostentation, "or the Malvinas"—the Argentinian name—"depending on how you look at it." The Republican who wins the presidency will have to have more than a command of the reasons the Obama administration must go. He will have to have a vision of this nation, and its place in the world, that voters recognize, that speaks to a sense of America they can see and take pride in. He can look at the film of the crowds, mostly of young people, who gathered at the White House to wave the flag of the United States when bin Laden was captured and killed. Faces of blacks, whites, Asians—of every ethnic group. At Louisiana State University not long after that, a student who planned to burn an American flag had to be rushed from the campus for his safety, much to his shock. Students by the hundreds had descended on him in rage, waving their own banners and roaring "USA! USA!" at the top of their lungs. It was a shout that spoke for more than they could say. After all the years of instruction, all the textbooks on U.S. rapacity and greed, all the college lectures on the evil and injustice the U.S. had supposedly visited on the world, something inside these young rose up to tell them they were Americans. That something lies in the hearts of Americans across the land and it is those hearts to which the candidate will have to speak. Ms. Rabinowitz is a member of The Journal's editorial board. Dorothy Rabinowitz: The Republican Who Can Win - WSJ.com

Guns is on Safe, Never fired, Doesn't say whether he raised it or not. Car alarm is going off, someone is banging on your door, You live in a rough area and you are thinking of protecting your wife and son, And in all that confusion. Swat fired 71 shots hitting him 60 times. And nothing illegal is found in the home.. For me that raises alot of unanswered questions. Take some time and read the articles or do some goggling for other articles

Radley Balko Radley.Balko@huffingtonpost.com Jose Guerena On May 5 at around 9:30 a.m., several teams of Pima County, Ariz., police officers from at least four different police agencies armed with SWAT gear and an armored personnel carrier raided at least four homes as part of what at the time was described as an investigation into alleged marijuana trafficking. One of those homes belonged to 26-year-old Jose Guerena and his wife, Vanessa Guerena. The couple's 4-year-old son was also in the house at the time. Their 6-year-old son was at school. As the SWAT team forced its way into his home, Guerena, a former Marine who served two tours of duty in Iraq, armed himself with his AR-15 rifle and told his wife and son to hide in a closet. As the officers entered, Guerena confronted them from the far end of a long, dark hallway. The police opened fire, releasing more than 70 rounds in about 7 seconds, at least 60 of which struck Guerena. He was pronounced dead a little over an hour later. The Pima County Sheriff's Department initially claimed (PDF) Guerena fired his weapon at the SWAT team. They now acknowledge that not only did he not fire, the safety on his gun was still activated when he was killed. Guerena had no prior criminal record, and the police found nothing illegal in his home. After ushering out his wife and son, the police refused to allow paramedics to access Guerena for more than hour, leaving the young father to bleed to death, alone, in his own home. I can now report a number of new details that further call into question the police account of what happened that morning. But first some context: The Pima County Sheriff's Office has now changed its story several times over the last few weeks. They have issued a press release (PDF) scolding the media and critics for questioning the legality of the raid, the department's account of what happened, and the department's ability to fairly investigate its own officers. They have obtained a court order sealing the search warrants and police affidavits that led to the raids, and they're now refusing any further comment on the case at all. When I contacted Public Information Officer Jason Ogan with some questions, he replied via email that the department won't be releasing any more information. On Saturday, Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik told Arizona Daily Star columnist Josh Brodesky that he may never release the search warrants and police affidavits. Dupnik rose to national prominence earlier this year after claiming combative political rhetoric contributed to Jared Loughner killing six people and wounding 19 others, including Rep. Gabielle Giffords, last January. The department's excuses for keeping all of this information under wraps make little sense. In his May 18 press release (PDF), for example, Ogan wrote, "The investigation that lead to the service of the search warrants on May 5 is a complicated one involving multiple people suspected of very serious crimes. Sometimes, law enforcement agencies must choose between the desire of the public to quickly know details, and the very real threat to innocent lives if those details are released prematurely." Dupnik used the same line of reasoning with Brodesky. "Those are the real sensitive parts of why we are having difficulty with trying to put information out publicly--because we don't want somebody getting killed," Dupnik said. The problem with that explanation is that the search warrants and affidavits weren't sealed until four days after the raids were executed, right at about the time the troubling questions about Jose Guerena's death began to make national headlines. If revealing the details of this investigation -- which remember, was initially described by the Sheriff's Department as a marijuana investigation -- could endanger lives, why weren't the warrants and affidavits sealed from the start? It isn't difficult to understand why some would suspect a cover-up, or at least an attempt to suppress details until the department can come up with a narrative that mitigates the damage. In any case, it's awfully audacious for a police agency to scold the media for not trusting them and for "spreading misinformation" just days after revealing they themselves released bad information. Advertisement There are other reasons to doubt the excuse that releasing the search warrants would jeopardize public safety. The raids on the other homes carried out that same morning, all part of the same operation, resulted in no arrests and turned up little if any actual contraband. (When police find illegal substances after these raids -- especially raids that end badly -- they usually quickly release that information.) Moreover, if this was all about breaking up a dangerous home invasion ring, where are the suspects, and where is the evidence? According to an advocate for the Guerena family I spoke with this week, the police also mistakenly raided another home near Guerena's the same morning, and have since replaced that home's front door. Again, the Pima County Sheriff's Department is refusing comment, so I can't verify this allegation with them. But police officials have admitted that even the Guerena warrant was only for his residence, not for Jose Guerena personally; his name doesn't appear anywhere on the warrants. The police also concede they weren't aware that there was a child in the home at the time of the raid. Given all of this, it seems reasonable to question just how thorough this investigation really was. I've been reporting on the overuse of SWAT teams and military police tactics for about six years now. You begin to see patterns in how police agencies respond to high-profile incidents like this one. One near-universal tactic is to lock down information once the media begins to grow skeptical. Another, often undertaken simultaneously, is to unofficially leak information that's beneficial to the police department. They're doing both in Tucson. Michael Storie, the attorney for the Arizona police union, is apparently handling the smear campaign portion of the strategy. Storie points out on the union's website that under his watch, no union police officer "has ever been convicted on charges relating to on-duty conduct." That may be a boastworthy claim when it comes to Storie's lawyering prowess. But it isn't exactly a testament to his trustworthiness. (Police critic William Grigg also points out that the boast isn't entirely true -- Storie represented a cop convicted of a sexual assault and kidnapping committed in 2005, despite Storie's best efforts to blame the victims.) On Friday, Storie told the Arizona Daily Star that Guerena was "linked" to a "home-invasion crew," and that police found rifles, handguns, body armor, and a "portion of a law-enforcement uniform" in Guerena's house. "Everything they think they're going to find in there, they find," Storie said. "Put it together, and when you have drug rip-offs that occasionally happen where people disguise themselves as law enforcement officers, it all adds up." I asked Chris Scileppi, the attorney representing Guerena's family, about the "portion of a law enforcement uniform" allegation. "They're trying to imply that he was dressing up as a police officer to force his way into private homes," Scileppi says. But when police serve a search warrant they leave behind a receipt what they've taken from the residence. According to Scileppi, the only item taken from Gurena's home that remotely fits that description was a U.S. Border Control cap -- which you can buy from any number of retail outlets, including Amazon.com. About the guns and body armor Scileppi says, "Is it really that difficult to believe that a former Marine living in Arizona would have guns and body armor in his home? Nothing they found in the house is illegal to own in Arizona." In fact, Storie himself acknowledged in the Daily Star that had the SWAT team entered Guerena's home peacefully, they wouldn't have made an arrest. And when you "put it together," to borrow his own terminology, Storie's comments thus far lead to a pretty astonishing conclusion: After violently breaking into Guerena's home, the police found exactly the evidence they were looking for -- yet none of that evidence merited an arrest. Storie is either shamelessly posturing, or he actually believes that the police are justified in violently forcing their way into a private home with their guns drawn, even if they have no expectation that they'll find any evidence of a crime. At his press conference last week, Storie also defended the SWAT team's refusal to allow paramedics to access Guerena for more than hour. "They still don't know how many shooters are inside, how many guns are inside and they still have to assume that they will be ambushed if they walk in this house," Storie said. This is absurd. The entire purpose of using SWAT teams, dynamic entry, and like paramilitary-style police tactics is to subdue dangerous suspects and secure the building within seconds. If it took more than an hour to secure the Guerenas' small home, this particular SWAT team was incompetent. By contrast, paramedics were tending to the wounded after the Jared Loughner shootings within 12 minutes, and that was a far more volatile crime scene. Storie has offered up a number of other questionable allegations and explanations in recent days. Last week, for example, Storie told the Daily Star that the investigation leading up to the raids was from the start about home invasions and "drug rip-offs" -- not just marijuana distribution, as the Sheriff's Department initially indicated. Storie also says the police vehicles ran their lights and sirens until they were parked in the Guerenas' driveway, and that a police officer knocked on the door and announced himself for a full 45 seconds before the SWAT team forced its way inside. He emphasized that the raid was "in no way" a "no-knock" operation. Storie is laying groundwork for the argument that Guerena should have known that the men breaking into his home were police. That he still met them with his rifle meant he was intent on killing them, which of course would justify their rash of gunfire. For good measure, Storie added that just before they opened fire, several officers reported hearing Guerena say, "I've got something for you; I've gotten something for you guys." There are a number of problems here, beginning with the lights, the sirens, and the knocking. If these warrants were, as Storie claims, for suspected dangerous, well-armed members of a home invasion ring, why would they give a violent suspect such ample warning that they're coming? Why wouldn't the police have sought and obtained a no-knock warrant? This is precisely the scenario for which no-knock entry is warranted -- to apprehend suspected dangerous people who may present an immediate threat to police and the public. This week I also spoke with Ray Epps, a retired Marine sergeant from Mesa, Arizona and president of the Arizona chapter of Oath Keepers, the controversial organization of police and military personnel who have vowed not to enforce laws they believe are unconstitutional. After hearing about Guerena's death, Epps drove to Tucson to investigate. "We spoke with several of the neighbors," Epps says. "And none of them -- none of them -- heard any sirens that morning. Every one of them told us they didn't hear anything, no knocking, no shouting, until the shooting started. They didn't hear anything until the shooting started." Scileppi, who is conducting his own investigation, wouldn't say if he had spoken to neighbors, but did say of the lights and sirens, "What we've found contradicts what they're saying." Epps added, "What I found disturbing is that none of the neighbors would give us their names. These people are terrified of the police, now. Another thing I found strange, they said the police didn't evacuate them until after the shooting." If next-door neighbors didn't hear the sirens or police announcement at the door, it's plausible that Guerena, who was sleeping off the graveyard shift he'd worked the night before, didn't hear them either. Of course, the other possibility here is that the police are lying about the sirens and the announcement. To buy what Storie is pitching, you would have to believe that Guerena -- the father of two young boys, who was working a night job to save money for a new home, who had no criminal record, who served two tours of duty in Iraq and was honorably discharged -- knowingly took on a team of armored, well-armed police officers, himself armed only with his rifle, and with his wife and young child still in the home. You'd also have to believe that the battle-tested former Marine forgot to turn off his weapon's safety before the shooting began. The alternate explanation -- and I think the more plausible one -- is that Guerena thought the men breaking into his home were criminals, but held his fire until he was sure. (That's also the mark of someone well-trained in gun safety, and a stark contrast to the SWAT team, which despite never receiving hostile fire, unleashed a barrage of bullets that penetrated not only Jose Guerena but, according to sources I spoke with, also the walls of neighboring homes.) If you're not actually a criminal and you wake up to the sound of armed men breaking into your home, your first thought isn't likely to be that you're being visited by the police. There may also have been something else on Guerena's mind: Last year, two of Vanessa Guerena's relatives were murdered by armed intruders. The intruders also shot the couple's children. What Guerena is alleged to have said -- "I've got something for you; I've gotten something for you guys" -- sounds damning if you assume he knew the men in his home were police, but there's nothing in that sentence indicating Guerena knew he was confronting cops. It also sounds like something a former soldier might shout out to intimidate armed intruders. And let's not forget, the same team of SWAT officers who reported hearing Guerena say those words also reported seeing a muzzle flash from Guerena's gun, which we now know couldn't have happened. Storie also says police found a photo of Jesus Malverde in Guerena's home. Malverde is an iconic, probably mythical figure often described as the "narco saint". But as my former Reason magazine colleague Tim Cavanaugh points out, while it's true that Malverde has been embraced by drug traffickers, he is also revered by the poor, by immigrants, and by people who feel they've been wronged. "That Guerena had a picture of Jesus Malverde tells us two things," Cavanaugh writes. "He had a family to worry about and he shared the belief of most Americans that a supernatural being or beings can influence earthly circumstances." When Daily Star columnist Josh Brodesky asked Sheriff Dupnik if Storie's chats with the press about the details of the Guerena raid were hindering the investigation, Dupnik said, simply, "No." So while Dupnik's department is refusing to officially release any information about the raid or surrounding investigation due to "the real threat to innocent lives," he has no problem with the police union lawyer disclosing details that smear Guerena to the benefit of Dupnik and his department. Perhaps we will at some point see convincing evidence that Dupnik and Storie are right -- that Jose Guerena was in fact a drug dealer and violent criminal who dressed up like a cop to rob rival drug dealers and innocent citizens of Pima County. But at this point, all we have is a dead father and veteran, a violent series of raids that make little sense, and a police agency that over the last three weeks has put out incorrect information, insisted that it would be dangerous to release any further information, and, at the same time, allowed a police representative to release information favorable to the department. The government of Pima County has killed one of its own citizens. This is the most serious, solemn, and severe action a local government can undertake. It demands complete transparency. The Pima County Sheriff's Department and other agencies involved in the raid ought to be doing anything and everything to make themselves accountable. Instead, they've shown arrogance, defiance, and obstinacy -- all wrapped in an appeal to public safety. Jose Guerena Killed: Arizona Cops Shoot Former Marine In Botched Pot Raid

Are you serious ? I guess the press in Tucson Az made it all up and the video above was staged in Hollywood > Just like the fake lunar landing..

Not sure what to make of this story. Could go either way, obviously more information is needed to come to a accurate conclusion. But I must say if what I have read so far is true, we all should be concerned about the militarization of the swat teams. Oath Keepers Plan Memorial Day Rally in Honor of Jose Guerena Posted by Jim Hoft on Monday, May 30, 2011, 10:05 AM DRAMATIC FOOTAGE was released this week showing Pima County SWAT Team members gunning down an Iraq War veteran inside his home. The SWAT Team beat in his door and fired 70 rounds at the Iraq War veteran before he fired a shot. They shot Iraqi veteran Jose Guerena 60 times after they barged into his home. Today the Oath Keepers are holding a protest in honor of Jose Guerena. Forbes reported, via Free Republic: Via Radley Balko , the Oath Keepers – a group of law enforcement officials who have taken an oath to only follow constitutional orders – are planning a memorial rally on May 30th for slain ex-marine Jose Guerena. Guerena was killed by a SWAT team in Arizona earlier this month, while his wife and four-year-old son hid in the house. You can read more about Guerena’s killing here . The Oath Keepers have this to say on their home page : He died with his safety still on. He didn’t fire a shot. The Pima County, Arizona (Sheriff Dupnik’s department), SWAT Team fired 71 rounds at him, hitting him with approximately 60 rounds. He had no criminal record. The only justification given by the Sheriff’s spokesman for using SWAT to serve the warrant was that it was a search warrant in a narcotics conspiracy investigation (with three other homes searched in the same neighborhood), and that this is their policy when the home-owner may be armed This policy of using SWAT to serve mere search warrants on people with no violent criminal history will lead to more deaths of veterans and other trained American gun owners because a trained man will react precisely the same way this young Marine did. We must take a stand on this use of SWAT against gun owners and veterans who have no violent crime history, and that stand needs to be a firm one. Oath Keepers Plan Memorial Day Rally in Honor of Jose Guerena | The Gateway Pundit

I have been watching the series on Netflix? Pretty interesting series but I have noticed there is a American Government is bad theme running through the series. As well as the usual PC statements... Isreal Bad Palestine good Climate change is destroying England etc.. But it is a pretty good series Kinda 24 light version..

So True