Tuesday, October 02, 2012
Monday, October 01, 2012
The Vilification of Freedom of Speech
From: Family Security Matters
Slate joined the tut-tut mob of dhimmified American pundits and commentators by endorsing the abridgement of the First Amendment, at the behest of thin-skinned, super-sensitive Muslims, in its September 25th article, "The Vile Anti-Muslim Video Shows That the U.S. Overvalues Free Speech."
Slate is proof that the Internet isn't wholly a refuge from the Mainstream Media. It has its complement of liberal, leftist and myopic sites that range from banal to bizarre to outlandishly vitriolic. It isn't immediately apparent in the Slate article, written by Editor Eric Posner, that it denigrates not only the First Amendment, but anyone upholding its sanctity, because it took him ten paragraphs of irrelevant commentary to reach the conclusion that the First Amendment is ready for a tweaking and perhaps even a rewrite that would favor Muslims and Islam.
Robert Spencer zeroed in on the key statement in the Slate article in his Jihad Watch article of September 26th, and dismisses it with brevity. He quotes from Slate first:
That's all that need be said.
Spencer handily runs other publication over the coals in his Jihad Watch/Atlas Shrugs article, "The Suicide of the Free Press," on how and why other publications are picketing against the First Amendment. Citing the example of the Los Angeles Times' Op-Ed by Sarah Chayes, a career do-gooder currently with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Spencer asks:
Slate joined the tut-tut mob of dhimmified American pundits and commentators by endorsing the abridgement of the First Amendment, at the behest of thin-skinned, super-sensitive Muslims, in its September 25th article, "The Vile Anti-Muslim Video Shows That the U.S. Overvalues Free Speech."
Slate is proof that the Internet isn't wholly a refuge from the Mainstream Media. It has its complement of liberal, leftist and myopic sites that range from banal to bizarre to outlandishly vitriolic. It isn't immediately apparent in the Slate article, written by Editor Eric Posner, that it denigrates not only the First Amendment, but anyone upholding its sanctity, because it took him ten paragraphs of irrelevant commentary to reach the conclusion that the First Amendment is ready for a tweaking and perhaps even a rewrite that would favor Muslims and Islam.
Robert Spencer zeroed in on the key statement in the Slate article in his Jihad Watch article of September 26th, and dismisses it with brevity. He quotes from Slate first:
"That's because the First Amendment protects verbal attacks on groups as well as speech that causes violence (except direct incitement: the old cry of "Fire!" in a crowded theater). And so combining the liberal view that government should not interfere with political discourse, and the conservative view that government should not interfere with commerce, we end up with the bizarre principle that U.S. foreign policy interests cannot justify any restrictions on speech whatsoever. Instead, only the profit-maximizing interests of a private American corporation can. Try explaining that to the protesters in Cairo or Islamabad." (Bold emphasis is Spencer's)Spencer: "In other words, surrender before they hit us again."
That's all that need be said.
Spencer handily runs other publication over the coals in his Jihad Watch/Atlas Shrugs article, "The Suicide of the Free Press," on how and why other publications are picketing against the First Amendment. Citing the example of the Los Angeles Times' Op-Ed by Sarah Chayes, a career do-gooder currently with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Spencer asks:
University of CA Student Association condemns entire country of Israel of ‘racism
From: Campus Reform
The University of California Student Association (UCSA) secretly passed a resolution last month which condemned the nation of Israel of “racism.”
The resolution, passed through the student organization with unanimous support, claims there is a “wealth of scholarship and legal opinion” that exists affirming “racism” on behalf of Israel.
The University of California Student Association, the “official voice of UC students” passed a resolution accusing the nation of Israel of racism.
The resolution was in response to HR 35, a California Assembly resolution condemning anti-Semitism in higher education.
No agenda for the meeting was published in advance and UCSA did not contact Jewish organizations about the vote, despite inviting SJP to give a presentation.
Internal emails, obtained by the Daily Californian reveal that the planning of the vote was kept quiet in order to intentionally suppress dissent.
Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) member Luma Haddad, acknowledged in an e-mail to her organization's board that the vote was kept quiet to prevent opposition.
“There was not much word spread about this in the last few days that led up to the meeting,” wrote Haddad. “This was done in order to prevent unwanted lobbying/intimidation tactics.”
Pro-Israel group, Stand With Us, swiftly responded with a statement condemning the tactics as “secretive” and a “guerrilla” way to conduct business.
“The resolution's attack on legitimate concerns about anti-Israel extremism and anti-Semitism is deeply disturbing, but even more disturbing are the proponents' devious, undemocratic tactics,” said Roz Rothstein, Stand With Us CEO.
She added that they “it is unacceptable that public tax money supports the UCSA when it promotes anti-Israel bigotry and willfully excludes tens of thousands of students who pay dues and whom it is supposed to represent.”
The University of California Student Association (UCSA) secretly passed a resolution last month which condemned the nation of Israel of “racism.”
The resolution, passed through the student organization with unanimous support, claims there is a “wealth of scholarship and legal opinion” that exists affirming “racism” on behalf of Israel.
The University of California Student Association, the “official voice of UC students” passed a resolution accusing the nation of Israel of racism.
The resolution was in response to HR 35, a California Assembly resolution condemning anti-Semitism in higher education.
No agenda for the meeting was published in advance and UCSA did not contact Jewish organizations about the vote, despite inviting SJP to give a presentation.
Internal emails, obtained by the Daily Californian reveal that the planning of the vote was kept quiet in order to intentionally suppress dissent.
Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) member Luma Haddad, acknowledged in an e-mail to her organization's board that the vote was kept quiet to prevent opposition.
“There was not much word spread about this in the last few days that led up to the meeting,” wrote Haddad. “This was done in order to prevent unwanted lobbying/intimidation tactics.”
Pro-Israel group, Stand With Us, swiftly responded with a statement condemning the tactics as “secretive” and a “guerrilla” way to conduct business.
“The resolution's attack on legitimate concerns about anti-Israel extremism and anti-Semitism is deeply disturbing, but even more disturbing are the proponents' devious, undemocratic tactics,” said Roz Rothstein, Stand With Us CEO.
She added that they “it is unacceptable that public tax money supports the UCSA when it promotes anti-Israel bigotry and willfully excludes tens of thousands of students who pay dues and whom it is supposed to represent.”
Sunday, September 30, 2012
Friday, September 28, 2012
Egypt: Sinai's Coptic Christians flee homes, town after militant threats
From: Herald Extra.com
Coptic Christian families have fled their homes in a town in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, fearing for their lives after receiving death threats from suspected Islamic militants, a local priest said Thursday.
Father Youssef Sobhi said that Islamic militants dropped leaflets on the doorsteps of shops owned by Copts in the city of Rafah near the border with Gaza and Israel, ordering them to leave town within 48 hours and making an implicit warning of violence if they failed to do so. Two days later, masked militants on a motorcycle opened fire on one of the shops before speeding off, Sobhi said. No one was hurt in the shooting.
When Christians met Tuesday with the province's top government official, who was recently appointed by Egypt's new Islamist president, Mohammed Morsi, the governor promised to facilitate the Copts' move to the nearby city of el-Arish but did not offer to protect the community to ensure that it stayed in Rafah, according to the priest.
"I was shocked at the governor's response," Sobhi said. "This is simply displacement by the government's consent."
An Egyptian intelligence official confirmed that a number of Coptic families had fled Rafah because of a militant threat. Another security official denied the reports and said that no Christians were forced to leave. Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to brief the media.
It was not exactly clear how many Christians have left the town, but Sobhi said that the number of Copts in Rafah had dwindled from 14 families to two since the uprising that pushed longtime autocrat Hosni Mubarak from power in February 2011.
A first wave left Rafah after the only church in the town, The Holy Family Church, was looted, torched and destroyed in several militant attacks over the past year. The church is built on the site where Christians believe the Holy Family first stopped to rest after crossing into Egypt.
Sobhi was in the first group of Christians to flee, although he returns frequently to Rafah check on his parish.
Mamdouh Nasef, the Coptic shop owner who recently came under attack, said that his Muslim neighbors are urging him to stay and pledging to protect him.
"They can't guard me 24 hours a day, and I fear for my children," Nasef said by telephone. "My children were born here and Muslims here are like my brothers."
Nasef is still in Rafah, but plans to return to his hometown in southern Egypt.
There have been incidents of sectarian violence in Egypt in the past. In July, in the village of Dahshour south of Cairo a Muslim mob torched Christian homes and shops and damaged the local church, forcing many Coptic families to flee the village. The violence was sparked when a personal dispute swelled into violence and a Muslim man died.
In Sinai, the threats against the Christians, who are estimated at around 10 percent of Egypt's population of 85 million, are a symptom of the broader lawlessness that has hit the peninsula since the popular uprising ousted Mubarak. Since then, security has deteriorated across Egypt, particularly in Sinai where heavily armed Islamic groups have exploited the security vacuum to wage attacks on police stations and call for the establishment of an Islamic state.
Militants from Rafah, along with those from the neighboring Gaza Strip who cross into Sinai through an elaborate network of underground tunnels, have also waged cross border attacks into Israel. In one of their most recent strikes, masked militants killed 16 Egyptian soldiers near the border in early August.
Under Mubarak, Christians complained of discrimination from the government, which did little to prevent attacks on the community by hardline Muslims. Many Christians fled to the United States and other Western countries, and tensions have risen since Mubarak's police state has given way to a state of lawlessness.
With the election of the country's first Islamist president, Mohammed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood, many Christians have grown increasingly concerned about their place in Egypt.
Those worries only deepened after Egyptian Coptic Christians in the United States posted a 14-minute clip entitled "Innocence of Muslims," which denigrates Islam and the Prophet Muhammad, portraying him as a womanizer, a fraud and a child molester. The film has sparked angry protests across the Muslim world as well as attacks on U.S. embassies, including one in Libya that killed the U.S. ambassador and three other Americans. The wave of protests began in Cairo, where demonstrators breached the walls of the U.S. Embassy.
Also Thursday, an Egyptian court has upheld a six-year jail sentence for a Coptic Christian school teacher convicted of insulting Islam and the country's Islamist president in postings on Facebook.
Egypt's MENA state news agency says a court in the southern province of Sohag agreed with a lower court ruling that found Michelle Bishoy, also known as Bishoy el-Behiri, guilty of blasphemy after posting pictures that were deemed offensive to Islam's Prophet Muhammad. The court also upheld Bishoy's conviction on charges of insulting Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi.
Thursday's ruling can be appealed.
The case is the second this month in which a Coptic Christian has been detained for posting material considered anti-Islamic on social networking sites.
Coptic Christian families have fled their homes in a town in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, fearing for their lives after receiving death threats from suspected Islamic militants, a local priest said Thursday.
Father Youssef Sobhi said that Islamic militants dropped leaflets on the doorsteps of shops owned by Copts in the city of Rafah near the border with Gaza and Israel, ordering them to leave town within 48 hours and making an implicit warning of violence if they failed to do so. Two days later, masked militants on a motorcycle opened fire on one of the shops before speeding off, Sobhi said. No one was hurt in the shooting.
When Christians met Tuesday with the province's top government official, who was recently appointed by Egypt's new Islamist president, Mohammed Morsi, the governor promised to facilitate the Copts' move to the nearby city of el-Arish but did not offer to protect the community to ensure that it stayed in Rafah, according to the priest.
"I was shocked at the governor's response," Sobhi said. "This is simply displacement by the government's consent."
An Egyptian intelligence official confirmed that a number of Coptic families had fled Rafah because of a militant threat. Another security official denied the reports and said that no Christians were forced to leave. Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to brief the media.
It was not exactly clear how many Christians have left the town, but Sobhi said that the number of Copts in Rafah had dwindled from 14 families to two since the uprising that pushed longtime autocrat Hosni Mubarak from power in February 2011.
A first wave left Rafah after the only church in the town, The Holy Family Church, was looted, torched and destroyed in several militant attacks over the past year. The church is built on the site where Christians believe the Holy Family first stopped to rest after crossing into Egypt.
Sobhi was in the first group of Christians to flee, although he returns frequently to Rafah check on his parish.
Mamdouh Nasef, the Coptic shop owner who recently came under attack, said that his Muslim neighbors are urging him to stay and pledging to protect him.
"They can't guard me 24 hours a day, and I fear for my children," Nasef said by telephone. "My children were born here and Muslims here are like my brothers."
Nasef is still in Rafah, but plans to return to his hometown in southern Egypt.
There have been incidents of sectarian violence in Egypt in the past. In July, in the village of Dahshour south of Cairo a Muslim mob torched Christian homes and shops and damaged the local church, forcing many Coptic families to flee the village. The violence was sparked when a personal dispute swelled into violence and a Muslim man died.
In Sinai, the threats against the Christians, who are estimated at around 10 percent of Egypt's population of 85 million, are a symptom of the broader lawlessness that has hit the peninsula since the popular uprising ousted Mubarak. Since then, security has deteriorated across Egypt, particularly in Sinai where heavily armed Islamic groups have exploited the security vacuum to wage attacks on police stations and call for the establishment of an Islamic state.
Militants from Rafah, along with those from the neighboring Gaza Strip who cross into Sinai through an elaborate network of underground tunnels, have also waged cross border attacks into Israel. In one of their most recent strikes, masked militants killed 16 Egyptian soldiers near the border in early August.
Under Mubarak, Christians complained of discrimination from the government, which did little to prevent attacks on the community by hardline Muslims. Many Christians fled to the United States and other Western countries, and tensions have risen since Mubarak's police state has given way to a state of lawlessness.
With the election of the country's first Islamist president, Mohammed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood, many Christians have grown increasingly concerned about their place in Egypt.
Those worries only deepened after Egyptian Coptic Christians in the United States posted a 14-minute clip entitled "Innocence of Muslims," which denigrates Islam and the Prophet Muhammad, portraying him as a womanizer, a fraud and a child molester. The film has sparked angry protests across the Muslim world as well as attacks on U.S. embassies, including one in Libya that killed the U.S. ambassador and three other Americans. The wave of protests began in Cairo, where demonstrators breached the walls of the U.S. Embassy.
Also Thursday, an Egyptian court has upheld a six-year jail sentence for a Coptic Christian school teacher convicted of insulting Islam and the country's Islamist president in postings on Facebook.
Egypt's MENA state news agency says a court in the southern province of Sohag agreed with a lower court ruling that found Michelle Bishoy, also known as Bishoy el-Behiri, guilty of blasphemy after posting pictures that were deemed offensive to Islam's Prophet Muhammad. The court also upheld Bishoy's conviction on charges of insulting Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi.
Thursday's ruling can be appealed.
The case is the second this month in which a Coptic Christian has been detained for posting material considered anti-Islamic on social networking sites.
Thursday, September 27, 2012
Wednesday, September 26, 2012
Tuesday, September 25, 2012
President Obama Declares The Future Must Not Belong to Practicing Christian
From: Red State
Pay careful attention to what he says.
Pay careful attention to what he says.
The future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam. Yet to be credible, those who condemn that slander must also condemn the hate we see when the image of Jesus Christ is desecrated, churches are destroyed, or the Holocaust is denied.
Monday, September 24, 2012
Pakistani Foreign Minister: 'Maybe We Do Need to Rethink How Much Freedom is Okay'
From: CNSNews.com
Pakistani Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar told CNN's "Situation Room" last week that if freedom of speech in the United States provokes people in the Muslim and Arab world to take actions against Americans then “maybe we do need to rethink how much freedom is okay.”
CNN's Wolf Blitzer told Khar that the previous day he had interviewed Prof. Fouad Ajami of Stanford University's Hoover Institution. Blitzer had asked Ajami: "Is this going to get better, this relationship between America and the Muslim and Arab world?"
Ajami had responded: "No. That really is the honest answer. I mean, when you have these kinds--when you have these positions are so sharply drawn. We believe in the West, we believe in the Western tradition and ... of free speech."
Blitzer asked the Pakistani foreign minister if she agreed with Ajami.
"I see that this certainly can get better," she said. "And I think what we need is more tolerance for each other's views. What we need is to be able to give mutual space for us to be able to demonstrate what is culturally, religiously important to us and not to hold each other--you know, not to judge each other for that, to give that space and to be able to create some space for ourselves.
"And really, Wolf," she said, "I think we have to be sensitive to religious sensitivities. I think it's not good enough to say it's free speech, it should be allowed. I think if this does provoke action against American citizens or Americans anywhere else in the world, then maybe we do need to rethink how much freedom is OK.
"Is freedom to the extent of harming lives also OK?" she said. "So, I think we need to find a way to manage this in a civilized manner in trying to bring all of our, you know, all of our minds together."
When asked about “awful things” said about other religions in the Arab and Muslim world and that there are no massive demonstrations and violence in response, Khar said, “Well, I don’t want to get deeper into that discussion because I quite frankly think that in Islam there is a lot of respect for both Judaism and Christianity.
The Koran itself has a lot of respect, and that’s why this is why, I think, this is a common battle because Islam is a religion of peace.”
“Prophet Muhammed’s life is a life of peace,” said Khar. “He is called the messenger of peace, for instance. So this is very different than the Islam that is portrayed to you when you see that street violence."
Pakistani Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar told CNN's "Situation Room" last week that if freedom of speech in the United States provokes people in the Muslim and Arab world to take actions against Americans then “maybe we do need to rethink how much freedom is okay.”
CNN's Wolf Blitzer told Khar that the previous day he had interviewed Prof. Fouad Ajami of Stanford University's Hoover Institution. Blitzer had asked Ajami: "Is this going to get better, this relationship between America and the Muslim and Arab world?"
Ajami had responded: "No. That really is the honest answer. I mean, when you have these kinds--when you have these positions are so sharply drawn. We believe in the West, we believe in the Western tradition and ... of free speech."
Blitzer asked the Pakistani foreign minister if she agreed with Ajami.
"I see that this certainly can get better," she said. "And I think what we need is more tolerance for each other's views. What we need is to be able to give mutual space for us to be able to demonstrate what is culturally, religiously important to us and not to hold each other--you know, not to judge each other for that, to give that space and to be able to create some space for ourselves.
"And really, Wolf," she said, "I think we have to be sensitive to religious sensitivities. I think it's not good enough to say it's free speech, it should be allowed. I think if this does provoke action against American citizens or Americans anywhere else in the world, then maybe we do need to rethink how much freedom is OK.
"Is freedom to the extent of harming lives also OK?" she said. "So, I think we need to find a way to manage this in a civilized manner in trying to bring all of our, you know, all of our minds together."
When asked about “awful things” said about other religions in the Arab and Muslim world and that there are no massive demonstrations and violence in response, Khar said, “Well, I don’t want to get deeper into that discussion because I quite frankly think that in Islam there is a lot of respect for both Judaism and Christianity.
The Koran itself has a lot of respect, and that’s why this is why, I think, this is a common battle because Islam is a religion of peace.”
“Prophet Muhammed’s life is a life of peace,” said Khar. “He is called the messenger of peace, for instance. So this is very different than the Islam that is portrayed to you when you see that street violence."
Thursday, September 20, 2012
Tuesday, September 18, 2012
Monday, September 17, 2012
Thursday, September 13, 2012
Muslim Brotherhood website demands that West criminalize 'assaults' on Islam
From: The Times of Israel
Without the “criminalization of assaults on the sanctities of all heavenly religions,” the Muslim
Brotherhood warned on Thursday, insults to Islam “will continue to cause devout Muslims across the world to suspect and even loathe the West, especially the USA.”
The remarks were part of a statement posted on the English-language website of the Brotherhood in response to a trailer for a new film, which the Egyptian ruling party says is insulting to Islam.
Since the publication of the trailer earlier this week, violent anti-American riots have been raging at US diplomatic missions throughout the Middle East. In Benghazi, Libya, the American ambassador and three others were killed in a violent takeover of the consulate, and in Cairo and Sanaa, enraged mobs converged on the US embassies.
According to the statement, “one and a half billion Muslims [were] subjected to humiliation and abuse in the person of their leader, Mohammed, the Messenger of God, the Prophet of Islam,” due to the film.
The statement cited bigotry and hatred as motives for “repeated abuse,” and denounced as “ignorant” those who permit the abuse — a reference to Western authorities. Islam guarantees all people freedom of belief and freedom of opinion and expression, the statement said, but these freedoms should not extend to attacks on Islam.
“They are crimes and assaults against Muslim sanctities and must not be tolerated by the countries where they are produced or launched.”
The statement cited restrictions on Holocaust denial as an example of legislation that prohibits offensive speech, and suggested that laws should be passed that criminalize insults to Islam. Although legislation against Holocaust denial is in place in Europe, the US does not have similar laws.
According to the statement, Western condemnation of the film would not have been issued were it not for the riots. ”[The West] never made a move regarding the abuse [film] until after the strong reaction seen across the Muslim world,” the statement said.
The Muslim Brotherhood condemned the “bloodshed and violent response” of recent days, but asserted that Muslim peoples and governments had the right to peacefully and legally condemn “this new violation and heinous attack” — a reference to the film — and “to take appropriate action to deter repeats of such acts of barbaric aggression.”
“Those who insult the sanctities wish to poison budding relations between the peoples, to disrupt the efforts to build bridges between civilizations, and to sow discord between the peoples,” the statement said.
Wednesday, September 12, 2012
Tuesday, September 11, 2012
Obama Snubs Netanyahu
From: CBS DC
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is making it clear that Israel will not wait to take out Iranian nuclear facilities.
In heated comments toward the United States, the Israeli prime minister said that it’s becoming clear that diplomacy will not work with Iran.
“The world tells Israel, `Wait. There’s still time,’” Netanyahu said Tuesday, according to The Associated Press. “And I say: `Wait for what? Wait until when?’ Those in the international community who refuse to put red lines before Iran don’t have a moral right to place a red light before Israel.”
The Obama administration has consistently stated that they don’t want to go the military route against Iran and give more time for the sanctions to force Tehran to give up its nuclear ambitions.
Netanyahu worries Iran will continue developing nuclear technology without giving the Islamic nation a firm timeline to stop.
“If Iran knows that there is no deadline, what will it do? Exactly what it’s doing. It’s continuing, without any interference, towards obtaining nuclear weapons capability and from there, nuclear bombs,” he said, according to Haaertz.
Defense Minister Ehud Barak tried to downplay the harsh rhetoric, saying in a statement to Haaertz that the tension between the U.S. and Israel should be ironed out “behind closed doors.”
The Israeli paper also reports that the White House denied Netanyahu’s request to visit President Obama at the end of this month.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is making it clear that Israel will not wait to take out Iranian nuclear facilities.
In heated comments toward the United States, the Israeli prime minister said that it’s becoming clear that diplomacy will not work with Iran.
“The world tells Israel, `Wait. There’s still time,’” Netanyahu said Tuesday, according to The Associated Press. “And I say: `Wait for what? Wait until when?’ Those in the international community who refuse to put red lines before Iran don’t have a moral right to place a red light before Israel.”
Netanyahu worries Iran will continue developing nuclear technology without giving the Islamic nation a firm timeline to stop.
“If Iran knows that there is no deadline, what will it do? Exactly what it’s doing. It’s continuing, without any interference, towards obtaining nuclear weapons capability and from there, nuclear bombs,” he said, according to Haaertz.
Defense Minister Ehud Barak tried to downplay the harsh rhetoric, saying in a statement to Haaertz that the tension between the U.S. and Israel should be ironed out “behind closed doors.”
The Israeli paper also reports that the White House denied Netanyahu’s request to visit President Obama at the end of this month.
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Sunday, September 09, 2012
David Akers field goal record 63 yards (Giants vs Packers)
I did not think he had the range and I've never seen anything like it. Why is he in San Francisco? Thanks, Joe Banner.
Saturday, September 08, 2012
Thursday, September 06, 2012
Wednesday, September 05, 2012
Tuesday, September 04, 2012
Police Unions Cross Line While Bullying Public Officials
From: Reason.com
California city officials typically spare police officers even modest reductions in the pay and pension packages that are a main source of local budget problems, even when the other alternatives are cuts in public services or even municipal bankruptcy.
The common explanation is politicians are afraid of the cop unions’ political muscle come election time. That is true, but disturbing behavior by operatives associated with the Costa Mesa police union paints a much darker picture of the fear such unions instill in local officials. The incident has statewide and even national implications.
Costa Mesa Councilman Jim Righeimer had finished speaking at a community meeting last Wednesday, and then headed to a pub owned by fellow councilman Gary Monahan. Righeimer drank two sodas and drove home. After arriving home, a Costa Mesa cop showed up at his door and asked him to step outside and take a sobriety test, which he passed.
That a police officer can ask for a sobriety test after you have returned home is troubling enough, but the details of the case are even more astonishing.
A private eye with connections to the law firm Lackie, Dammeier & McGill of Upland, Calif., which represents the Costa Mesa Police Officers Association and many others across the state, called 911 and reported Righeimer as a possible DUI, representing himself as a concerned citizen. The caller said Righeimer stumbled out of the bar even though surveillance cameras show no such thing. “He’s just swerving all over the road,” the caller stated.
The private eye, Chris Lanzillo, a fired Riverside police officer who showed up at Righeimer’s house in a car without license plates, claims he was not on orders to follow Righeimer. The law firm also denied this but promptly removed Lanzillo's name from its Web site.
The Costa Mesa union fired the firm, moments before a city press conference. But this backpedaling is not credible. The law firm brags publicly about its brass-knucked tactics, and its Web site features testimonials from unions thrilled by how its legal work brings city managers to their knees. There's no sense believing anything said by a man whose claims in the police report are not even close to reality. The whole situation screams set up.
“What you have here is police associations and their law firms hiring private detectives to dig up dirt on elected officials that they can then use to extort them, embarrass them or worse in order to get the elected official to vote against the best interests of the city to protect themselves,” Righeimer told me. “That’s the definition of extortion.”
The Costa Mesa City Council is gaining national attention for its willingness to challenge unions. The council has passed pension reform and embraced outsourcing. It recently approved the Civic Openness In Negotiations (COIN) ordinance, which subjects contract negotiations to a level of outside auditing and public disclosure that has infuriated unions.
It would have been an embarrassment had the union ensnared the ring-leader of this reform movement in a DUI. But this is the kind of behavior one finds in police states, or perhaps Mafia organizations. It is not an isolated incident.
Recently, the Orange County Register’s Tony Saavedra reported on the “playbook” used by that Upland firm in its negotiations, and until recently published on the firm’s Web site. These lawyers represent 120 police associations across California, so these are typical tactics.
The fake-DUI call took place soon after Righeimer publicly criticized the firm.
“Its primer for police negotiations is part swagger, part braggadocio and all insult in its portrayal of the public and the budget-conscious officials elected to represent them,” Saavedra reported. He gave this example from the playbook text: “The association should be like a quiet giant in the position of ‘do as I ask and don’t (expletive) me off.’”
The playback calls for work slowdowns, for mobbing council meetings with calls for higher police funding, for scaring neighborhoods about crime problems by going to as many houses as possible looking for suspects for minor crimes. It calls for putting the pressure on officials, gaining their loyalty and then moving on to the “next victim.” This treatment of Righeimer takes a page out of the book.
At a press conference held by Righeimer to spotlight the behavior of unions associated with Lackie, Dammeier & McGill, Councilman Fred Smith of Buena Park, who has also taken a tough stance on unions, said a uniformed officer approached waitresses and demanded to know why their restaurant had a Smith for Council sign in the window, as their squad cars blocked the restaurant parking lot entrance. Elected officials shared examples of threatening statements and text messages by police union operatives. Councilman Monahan has in the past said police have staked out his bar and pulled over patrons as they leave to harm his business.
“It’s a pretty dark side of American policing and I have personally been a victim of this twisted cop behavior when I was police chief,” Joseph McNamara told me, after I mentioned Costa Mesa. He is a Hoover Institution research fellow and former police chief for Kansas City and San Jose. This “gangster cop” mentality, he said, becomes more prevalent during salary negotiations.
The solution? “Strong leadership where the chief, the district attorney and even the feds if necessary treat this as a very serious crime against democracy itself,” he said.
In addition to the gangsters, their consiglieres such as Lackie, Dammeier & McGill, should be investigated as well.
It’s one thing for elected officials to be “taken out” at the ballot box. But quite another thing for them to be harassed, intimidated, and set up on false charges as union operatives, operating under the color of authority, try to silence them.
California city officials typically spare police officers even modest reductions in the pay and pension packages that are a main source of local budget problems, even when the other alternatives are cuts in public services or even municipal bankruptcy.
The common explanation is politicians are afraid of the cop unions’ political muscle come election time. That is true, but disturbing behavior by operatives associated with the Costa Mesa police union paints a much darker picture of the fear such unions instill in local officials. The incident has statewide and even national implications.
Costa Mesa Councilman Jim Righeimer had finished speaking at a community meeting last Wednesday, and then headed to a pub owned by fellow councilman Gary Monahan. Righeimer drank two sodas and drove home. After arriving home, a Costa Mesa cop showed up at his door and asked him to step outside and take a sobriety test, which he passed.
That a police officer can ask for a sobriety test after you have returned home is troubling enough, but the details of the case are even more astonishing.
A private eye with connections to the law firm Lackie, Dammeier & McGill of Upland, Calif., which represents the Costa Mesa Police Officers Association and many others across the state, called 911 and reported Righeimer as a possible DUI, representing himself as a concerned citizen. The caller said Righeimer stumbled out of the bar even though surveillance cameras show no such thing. “He’s just swerving all over the road,” the caller stated.
The private eye, Chris Lanzillo, a fired Riverside police officer who showed up at Righeimer’s house in a car without license plates, claims he was not on orders to follow Righeimer. The law firm also denied this but promptly removed Lanzillo's name from its Web site.
The Costa Mesa union fired the firm, moments before a city press conference. But this backpedaling is not credible. The law firm brags publicly about its brass-knucked tactics, and its Web site features testimonials from unions thrilled by how its legal work brings city managers to their knees. There's no sense believing anything said by a man whose claims in the police report are not even close to reality. The whole situation screams set up.
“What you have here is police associations and their law firms hiring private detectives to dig up dirt on elected officials that they can then use to extort them, embarrass them or worse in order to get the elected official to vote against the best interests of the city to protect themselves,” Righeimer told me. “That’s the definition of extortion.”
The Costa Mesa City Council is gaining national attention for its willingness to challenge unions. The council has passed pension reform and embraced outsourcing. It recently approved the Civic Openness In Negotiations (COIN) ordinance, which subjects contract negotiations to a level of outside auditing and public disclosure that has infuriated unions.
It would have been an embarrassment had the union ensnared the ring-leader of this reform movement in a DUI. But this is the kind of behavior one finds in police states, or perhaps Mafia organizations. It is not an isolated incident.
Recently, the Orange County Register’s Tony Saavedra reported on the “playbook” used by that Upland firm in its negotiations, and until recently published on the firm’s Web site. These lawyers represent 120 police associations across California, so these are typical tactics.
The fake-DUI call took place soon after Righeimer publicly criticized the firm.
“Its primer for police negotiations is part swagger, part braggadocio and all insult in its portrayal of the public and the budget-conscious officials elected to represent them,” Saavedra reported. He gave this example from the playbook text: “The association should be like a quiet giant in the position of ‘do as I ask and don’t (expletive) me off.’”
The playback calls for work slowdowns, for mobbing council meetings with calls for higher police funding, for scaring neighborhoods about crime problems by going to as many houses as possible looking for suspects for minor crimes. It calls for putting the pressure on officials, gaining their loyalty and then moving on to the “next victim.” This treatment of Righeimer takes a page out of the book.
At a press conference held by Righeimer to spotlight the behavior of unions associated with Lackie, Dammeier & McGill, Councilman Fred Smith of Buena Park, who has also taken a tough stance on unions, said a uniformed officer approached waitresses and demanded to know why their restaurant had a Smith for Council sign in the window, as their squad cars blocked the restaurant parking lot entrance. Elected officials shared examples of threatening statements and text messages by police union operatives. Councilman Monahan has in the past said police have staked out his bar and pulled over patrons as they leave to harm his business.
“It’s a pretty dark side of American policing and I have personally been a victim of this twisted cop behavior when I was police chief,” Joseph McNamara told me, after I mentioned Costa Mesa. He is a Hoover Institution research fellow and former police chief for Kansas City and San Jose. This “gangster cop” mentality, he said, becomes more prevalent during salary negotiations.
The solution? “Strong leadership where the chief, the district attorney and even the feds if necessary treat this as a very serious crime against democracy itself,” he said.
In addition to the gangsters, their consiglieres such as Lackie, Dammeier & McGill, should be investigated as well.
It’s one thing for elected officials to be “taken out” at the ballot box. But quite another thing for them to be harassed, intimidated, and set up on false charges as union operatives, operating under the color of authority, try to silence them.
Monday, September 03, 2012
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