Police Officer James Crowley is a class act.Below is the officer's press conference following the beer picnic. He is the consummate professional and I suspect we will be seeing much more of him. "Joe the Plumber" rose to fame in an earlier episode of Obama dumbspeak; now welcome Sgt James Crowley to national prominence.
Sgt. Crowley garnered much support from his collegues in the Cambridge P.D., including officer Kelly King, pictured below; and, Sgt Leon K. Lashley who found himself embroiled in the controversy by being at the scene of the arrest of Prof. Gates. (video below)
Tags: Sgt James Crowley,Professor Gates,obama,cambridge police,racial profiling,race relations,obama dumbspeak,sgt leon lashley,officer kelly king
There is an interesting sidelight to the Obama-Gates-Police controversy. We are reminded of Obama's presence in Cambridge MA over 20 years ago while a student at Harvard. The Somerville (MA) News reported on March 7, 2007:
Before Barack Obama was a United States senator and a presidential hopeful, he was a Harvard University law student living in Somerville who parked in bus stops and accumulated hundreds of dollars in parking tickets. And for nearly two decades those parking tickets went unpaid, until a representative of Obama’s settled all his outstanding debts with Cambridge’s Traffic, Parking and Transportation Department Jan. 26.
Obama attended Harvard Law School from 1988 to 1991. During his time at Harvard, Obama lived at 365 Broadway in Somerville, according to his parking tickets. Records from the Cambridge Traffic, Parking and Transportation office show that between Oct. 5, 1988 and Jan. 12, 1990 Obama was cited for 17 traffic violations, sometimes committing two in the same day. The abuses included parking in a resident permit area, parking in a bus stop and failing to pay the meter. Twelve of Obama’s 17 tickets were given to him on Massachusetts Avenue.
In one eight day stretch in 1988, Obama was cited seven times for parking violations and was fined $45. Thirteen of the 17 violations occurred within one month in 1988.
Obama’s disobedience of the rules of the road earned him $140 in fines from the City of Cambridge. The tickets went unpaid for over 17 years and $260 in late fees were added to the tab. On Jan. 26, the fines and late fees were paid in full. The final tally for Obama’s parking breaches was $400, according to Cambridge Traffic, Parking and Transportation.
One wonders if Barack Obama's previous encounters with Cambridge authorities predisposed him, in the Gates case, to speak out rashly, and by his own admission, without" knowing all the facts". Obama's propensity to flout the law manifests even today in his unwillingness to prove his eligibility to hold his office and his refusal to reveal much of anything about his past (i.e college records, early writings etc) except what he allows us to know from his published memoirs.
Obama has described as "stupidity" the actions of Cambridge Police Sgt. James Crowley in the arrest of Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates. Prof. Gates, accompanied by a friend, was attempting to break into his own house, which activity a passerby interpreted as an attempted burglary prompting a call to the police. What happened next is described in the police report. (PDF)
In the video below Cambridge Police Commissioner Robert Haas supports Sgt Crowley and takes questions from the press:
At the website "The Root" where Gates is Editor-in-Chief, Gates is interviewed:
Henry Louis Gates Jr.: I’m outraged. I can’t believe that an individual policeman on the Cambridge police force would treat any African-American male this way, and I am astonished that this happened to me; and more importantly I’m astonished that it could happen to any citizen of the United States, no matter what their race. And I’m deeply resolved to do and say the right things so that this cannot happen again.
Of course, it will happen again, but … I want to do what I can so that every police officer will think twice before engaging in this kind of behavior.... (read more)
As to settling the matter over a beer as proposed by Obama and agreed to apparently by Gates and Crowley, a commenter at The Root opines:
"I don't want to hear the rants and or ravings of an idiot like Skippy Gates or Obama and how either of them thinks they can teach me anything about racism. I stopped listening long ago. They are both out of touch completely. Obama needs to get back to trying to solve the country's real problems. And I am sorry but race isn't high on the list....Now we have to hear about how an insignificant nerd with an over indulgent opinion of self is going to sit down and drink alchohol to solve the world's racism problems. Can this country get anymore ludicrous? When has alchohol ever solved anything?...Here's a couple of guys who are so used to having a captive audience of yes men and now they're convinced the rest of the world works that way. Skippy.....if you want to change the world, you just blew your best opportunity to be a vehicle for that change. Public opinion just passed you by. Sarge......if you fall into this trap it will be one of the saddest days in American history. Sargeant.....you are being set up. Be the bigger man by TURNING DOWN the invitation to partake in this scam."
Tags: louis henry gates arrest,sgt james crowley,barack obama parking tickets,barack obama cambridge,cambridge ma police,america racism,professor gates,the root,racial profiling,
Tags: barack obama,tv ads,aflac,halfblack,joe biden,little off the top, not too close,aflac duck,yogi berra,the obamas,political cartoons,political humor
Voodoo Economicsactually Works; Obama Care Never! They're gonna Rham it down our throats! This will be almost impossible to undo once Obama the Destroyer is gone.
In Congress, July 4, 1776. A Declaration by the Representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress assembled.
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth,
the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
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. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.
Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good. He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them. He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only. He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures. He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people. He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within. He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers. He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries. He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance. He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures. He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power. He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us: For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States: For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world: For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent: For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury: For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies: For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments: For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us. He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people. He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation. He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands. He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.
We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.
Tags: declaration of independence,independence day,july 4 1776,our founders,
When America Paid Tribute to Muslims
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Photo Credit:
Public Domain
Once upon a time, in its fledgling youth, the United States succumbed to
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Please ask the officer to smile
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