Committee President Moore said the group was upset at being confronted by such a large and angry crowd who were obviously “against us” and stressed the committee was not trying to “do anything sneaky.”
But shouted questions from the audience forced the committee to call on Marston to respond to the vile comments he had written to Smith when she had questioned his stance on the proposed law in an email several weeks ago.
Besides calling her a “gun toting tea party psychotard,” he had accused her of “grandstanding on mythical narratives of victimization,” described her ” spit” as “the white stuff frothing on the ends of that rotten little mouth of yours from which you spew this hateful ignorant trash,” and invited her to come to Hudson to protest the law, writing, “We’ll be happy to beat you barbarians back with the clubs of reason & responsibility, radical lunatics that you are.”
Liberal David Marston told the crowd tonight, “I let my lesser self get the better of me.”
He ended his rant with this classic:
“And say, a quick ProTip, since you’re the ‘organizer’ for unemployed guns nuts USA. Next time you think these unhinged rants will change the mind of anyone who has even a modicum of intelligence, you might instead just go back down into your basement & watch another episode of wheel-of-fortune. It’ll certainly be just as effective. Remember: there are millions of Eagle Scout God Worshiping Patriots who find you & your radical ilk as disgraceful to American Democracy as the Brown Shirt jackboots you act like. I happen to be just one of them. Good Luck.”
Before the crowd of hundreds of infuriated gun rights activists Marston told a different story. He apologized, saying he had drafted his response to her in “the heat of the moment” and he acknowledged the email had been inappropriate .
“I let my lesser self get the better of me,” he said.
That wasn’t good enough for the crowd. One shouted, “Joanne (Smith) is the one he insulted, He should issue her a public apology.” They also insisted the Committee permit her to speak.
When she moved to the front of the room to say a few words the crowd erupted in cheers.
Smith, who is responsible for organizing the Second Amendment Rally in Albany on Thursday, February 28, featuring NRA President David Keene, State Legislators, the NYS Rifle and Pistol Association and SCOPE said she expects a turnout of between 10,000 to 15,000 at the event.
And, for what it’s worth, according to the Hudson City Attorney there’s no chance of the proposed gun law going into effect as it would be preempted by county and state ordinances already in effect.
Category Archives: Bureaucrats
Obama DHS Purchases 2,700 Light-Armored Tanks to Go With Their 1.6 Billion Bullet Stockpile | The Gateway Pundit
Maybe this could have been part of the sequester. Are they this worried about IEDs in Kansas?
The Department of Homeland Security (through the U.S. Army Forces Command) recently retrofitted 2,717 of these ‘Mine Resistant Protected’ vehicles for service on the streets of the United States.
Although I’ve seen and read several online blurbs about this vehicle of late, I decided to dig slightly deeper and discover more about the vehicle itself.
The new DHS sanctioned ‘Street Sweeper’ (my own slang due to the gun ports) is built by Navistar Defense (NavistarDefense.com), a division within the Navistar organization. Under the Navistar umbrella are several other companies including International Trucks, IC Bus (they make school buses), Monaco RV (recreational vehicles), WorkHorse (they make chassis), MaxxForce (diesel engines), and Navistar Financial (the money arm of the company).
U.S. Capitol official: Obama wrong on janitors’ pay cut – CBS News
The president’s mention prompted Carlos Elias, the superintendent of the U.S. Capitol building and the Capitol Visitors Center, to email his employees within hours of Mr. Obama’s comment.
“The pay and benefits of EACH of our employees WILL NOT be impacted,” Elias wrote.
“There was a specific mention in the news today by a high ranking official that said ‘The employees that clean and maintain the US Capitol will receive a cut in pay’ (not specific quote but very close to it),” Elias continued.
“This is NOT TRUE,” wrote Elias. “Therefore, I request that you please notify all of our employees about the importance of ignoring media reports.”
via U.S. Capitol official: Obama wrong on janitors’ pay cut – CBS News.
Net providers begin warning of illegal downloads – New York News | NYC Breaking News
Under the new system, complaints will prompt an Internet service provider — such as Verizon or AT&T — to notify a customer whose Internet address has been detected sharing files illegally. A person will be given up to six opportunities to stop before the Internet provider will take more drastic steps, such as temporarily slowing their connection, or redirecting Internet traffic until they acknowledge they received a notice or review educational materials about copyright law.
Consumers who maintain they have been wrongly accused would be forced to pay $35 to appeal the decision. The fee would be reimbursed if they prevail.
Proponents say the focus is on deterring the average consumer rather than chronic violators. The director of the organization behind the system, Jill Lesser of the Center for Copyright Infringement, said in a blog post Monday that the program is “meant to educate rather than punish, and direct (users) to legal alternatives.”
via Net providers begin warning of illegal downloads – New York News | NYC Breaking News.
Pelosi: Congressional pay cut undermines dignity of the job – The Hill
Nancy, the work you do is much less than what most people do to actually add value to our economy and keep their families fed. That’s dignity; feeding your narcissism is not.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said Thursday that she opposes a cut in congressional pay because it would diminish the dignity of lawmakers’ jobs.
“I don’t think we should do it; I think we should respect the work we do,” Pelosi told reporters in the Capitol. “I think it’s necessary for us to have the dignity of the job that we have rewarded.”
via Pelosi: Congressional pay cut undermines dignity of the job – The Hill.
After soda regs, Bloomberg’s NYC eyes Styrofoam ban – Washington Times
Let’s see how he handles the snow this weekend before we let him regulate more personal choices. My prediction – New York is in for some rough days with the snow. Last time this happened, the plows hit the streets where city officials lived, but didn’t get anything else done.
First, he limited the size of drinks allowed throughout the city. Now Mayor Bloomberg and his administration are mulling a ban on the plastic foam cups they’re sold in.
Polystyrene foam, sometimes sold under the brand name Styrofoam, is popular at thousands of delis and food carts across New York. The city prepares to roll out a major recycling announcement in the coming weeks, with Styrofoam cups on the chopping block, a Sanitation Department official said Wednesday.
via After soda regs, Bloomberg’s NYC eyes Styrofoam ban – Washington Times.
Michelle Rhee: My Break With the Democrats – The Daily Beast
After my listening tour of families, and hearing so many parents plead for an immediate solution to their desire for a quality education, I came out in favor of the voucher program. People went nuts. Democrats chastised me for going against the party, but the most vocal detractors were my biggest supporters.
“Michelle, what are you doing?” one education reformer asked. “You are the first opportunity this city has had to fix the system. We believe in you and what you’re trying to do. But you have to give yourself a fighting chance! You need time and money to make your plan work. If during that time children continue fleeing the system on these vouchers, you’ll have less money to implement your reforms. You can’t do this to yourself!”
“Here’s the problem with your thinking,” I’d answer. “My job is not to preserve and defend a system that has been doing wrong by children and families. My job is to make sure that every child in this city attends an excellent school. I don’t care if it’s a charter school, a private school, or a traditional district school. As long as it’s serving kids well, I’m happy. And you should be, too.”
Here’s the question we Democrats need to ask ourselves: Are we beholden to the public school system at any cost, or are we beholden to the public school child at any cost? My loyalty and my duty will always be to the children.
Not everyone bought it. In fact, most of my Democrat friends remained adamantly opposed to vouchers. It was interesting, though: they were always opposed to the broad policy, but they could never reconcile their logic when thinking at the individual-kid level.
via Michelle Rhee: My Break With the Democrats – The Daily Beast.
Oregon Bill 71. Death of FPV in oregon which may spread.
This bill would make putting a camera onto out quads illegal and send us to jail and heavy fines for flying them. Yes this is only in oregon now but if they pass it into law it WILL spread to to other states. We need to help fight this, sign the petition and start contacting your lawmakers and get this re-written. I do agree laws need to be passed for GOVERNMENT use of UAV’s but the videos we do should not fall under those laws. RC fliers have a history of great self regulation, with a few instances of idiots but they are few and far between, lets prevent the government from making us all criminals by doing what we love.
via Oregon Bill 71. Death of FPV in oregon which may spread..
Can juries tame prosecutors gone wild? – Boston Globe
This needs to be part of any reform of the legal system in this country.
To critics, this means that the charging process essentially rigs the game against defendants from the outset. Civil libertarians regard this as a dangerous gap in our rights: While the police who investigate and arrest us are bound by strict limits on what they can do, and courts must abide by procedures designed to treat defendants fairly, there are hardly any guidelines in place to protect us during the charging phase. The result—as any “Law & Order” fan knows—is a system where the prosecutor loads up as many charges as possible to force a guilty plea, and moves on to the next case.
“What we really have is a plea bargain system with a thin froth of showy trials floating on top,” said Glenn Reynolds, a professor at the University of Tennessee College of Law who published a widely circulated paper earlier this month on the topic of prosecutorial overreach.
Changing this, say reform-minded experts like Reynolds, would not necessarily require a radical reworking of how prosecutors do their jobs. Instead, it would be enough to strengthen an institution that’s already in place, though widely marginalized: the grand jury, a panel of citizens who are supposed to watch over the shoulders of prosecutors to make sure their fellow citizens aren’t being improperly charged, bullied, or targeted arbitrarily.
Grand juries today are required by law in just 19 of the 50 states—Massachusetts among them—and even there, they’re used only to indict felons. Officially, their job is listen to the prosecutor lay out the evidence and determine whether there is probable cause to charge the suspect with a crime. But in practice, grand juries tend to serve as rubber stamps, indicting almost everyone who comes before them. (It was a federal grand jury that indicted Aaron Swartz on felony charges in July 2011.) The joke in legal circles is that any prosecutor worth his salt could convince a grand jury to indict a ham sandwich.
To restore grand juries’ power to protect people from prosecutors, one important change states could make, Simmons says, is to give suspects the right to testify at their own hearings, and their attorneys the right to present exonerating evidence. Currently, there are only four states in the United States where those rights are in place; among them is New York—and, tellingly, approximately 6 to 10 percent of New York’s criminal cases are struck down by the grand jury, vastly higher than the national average. When Simmons was a prosecutor in New York earlier in his career, he said, there were several times when people he was trying to indict—a young military veteran accused of cocaine possession, a man who tried to bribe a police officer so he wouldn’t have to spend the night in jail—spoke up on their own behalf, and convinced the grand jury they didn’t deserve the proposed charges. In those cases, Simmons says, there was clearly probable cause to indict, but the jurors decided there was something about the situation that made the prospect of criminal punishment seem unfair
How Congress Is Not Like America
From the Social Science Research Council comes an infographic demonstrating why enlarging the House of Representatives might be desirable:
