Pentagon Hit Over Ft. Hood Shooting as 'Workplace Violence'

Original Post: News Room America

(Newsroom America) -- Some lawmakers on Capitol Hill are blasting the Pentagon for classifying the Ft. Hood, Texas shootings by a radicalized Muslim officer as "workplace violence," saying it amounts to little more than political correctness run amok.

Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, criticized the Defense Department classification on Wednesday during a joint session of the Senate and House Homeland Security Committee, saying the White House was also at fault for failing to identify the threat as radical Islam.

Thirteen people were killed and scores more wounded when Maj. Nidal Hasan, a former Army psychiatrist, went on a shooting rampage allegedly inspired by radical U.S.-born cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, who was killed in a U.S. drone strike in Yemen in late September, Fox News reported.

The men exchanged as many as 20 emails, authorities have said, and Awlaki declared Hasan a hero.

Sen. Joe Lieberman, chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, said the U.S. military has become "a "direct target of violent Islamist extremism" within United States borders.

"The stark reality is that the American service member is increasingly in the terrorists' scope and not just overseas in a traditional war setting," Lieberman told Fox News.

Authorities have arrested a number of suspects who have been linked to planned attacks on U.S. servicemembers.

In June, two men were charged with planning to attack a military facility in Seattle, Wash., with guns and grenades. In July, Army Pvt. Naser Abdo was accused of plotting a second Fort Hood attack. And in November, New York City police arrested Jose Pimentel, who has been accused of planning to attack military personnel returning from Iraq and Afghanistan.

"There is a serious threat within the military from people who have enlisted who are radical jihadists," said Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee.

"The Defense Department is very concerned about them. They feel they're a threat to the military both for what they can do within the military itself and also because of the weapons skills they acquire while they're in the military," he said.

Lefty comments on a story about a potential mail bombing

I'm going to post some comments on a story I found. I think this really shows the compassion of the left and those with the Occupy Wall Street mentality. If you think these are not OWS supporters and lefties than you have not political awareness whatsoever. Yes, I'm going to cherry pick comments because there are so many. But there are not a lot of comments condemning these actions or those of the other posters. There are some, but they are a small minority. I did not change the content in any way.

Original Post: Anarchist group may have sent letter bomb-German police

"FRANKFURT (Reuters) - An Italian anarchist group has claimed responsibility for a letter bomb sent to Josef Ackermann, chief executive of Deutsche Bank, and may have sent two more packages, investigators said on Thursday.

The suspicious envelope, intercepted on Wednesday evening, has raised fears that a wave of protests against the failures and excesses of bankers could turn more violent, and prompted police across Europe to warn banks to be extra vigilant..."

Once you click on the image, you'll probably have to zoom in a few times in order to read it. If you don't know how, hold Ctrl and then push + until you can read it. You'll then want to hold Ctrl and push - the same number of times you pressed +.

Occupy Wall Street protests are not peaceful

Bail set for Occupy protester charged with assault
"PORTLAND — Bail has been set at $10,000 surety or $5,000 cash for an Occupy Maine protester accused of striking another man in the head with the blunt end of a hatchet..."

LAPD Points Fingers at Occupy LA for Rise in Crime
"The LAPD reports that crime has dramatically increased in Downtown Los Angeles since Occupy L.A. set up camp. Not only are police busy arresting protesters, they're also combating a surge in incidents from robbery to grand theft auto to aggravated assault...">

'Defecation and drugs' at Occupy camp
"...Legal documents have listed "defecation and drugs" among problems at a protest camp outside St Paul's Cathedral,..."

Occupy DC Protester Shoots At White House With Assault Rifle
"Another day, another “isolated incident” from a “rogue element” within the Occupy Wall Street movement. This one opened fire on the White House with an AK-47:..."

Police arrest 6 Occupy Seattle marchers
"...A man assaulted an officer near Third Avenue and Wall Street, and was booked into the King County Jail for investigation of charges of assault on an officer, police said..."

Occupy Philly: Man arrested in rape; mayor denounces protesters
"Mayor Michael Nutter held a news conference Sunday, as police arrested a man in connection with Saturday evening's reported sexual assault of a 23-year-old woman in a tent on Dilworth Plaza outside City Hall. "

Rapes and sexual assaults are rampant among the Occupy movement
"...Rapes and sexual assaults are rampant among the Occupy movement in cities across the nation. According to ABC News, this past Saturday night a 23-year-old reported being raped by a 50-year-old inside a tent at Occupy Philadelphia. Similarly, a 14-year-old child was allegedly raped at Occupy Dallas. And at Occupy Cleveland, a 19-year-old told police she was raped after sharing a tent with an unknown man..." Occupy Milwaukee engaged in recall signature fraud
Occupy San Francisco Protesters Attacked Two Officers, Police Say
"...Police spokesman Carlos Manfredi says officers were trying to keep marchers out of an intersection when a woman came from the crowd, slashed an officer's hand with a pen knife or razor blade, then disappeared before he realized he'd been cut..."

Stinking up Wall Street: Protesters accused of living in filth as shocking pictures show one demonstrator defecating on a POLICE CAR

Protesters try to blind police with paint bombs


"Ultimately violence will be necessary"


Occupy Riverside Protesters Arrested
"...One protester threw a bottle at an officer and was arrested on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon..."

"You beat the crap out of them"


Flier at Occupy Phoenix asks, “When should you shoot a cop?”
"...It not only condones but even encourages citizens to kill any “government agent” (i.e. law enforcement officers), who in their perception violates their rights..."

Occupy Oakland Leaflet Mocks Pacifists and Openly Call for Violence
"...The Oakland Liberation Front goes on to demand that any and all pacifists in the movement stand aside, while the real Occupiers violently take on the police and work to bring our entire system down."

Governor Walker Target of Online Death Threat

Original Post: Maciver Institute

Madison, Wisc…] A death threat against Governor Walker was removed from Facebook on Monday, almost three full days after it was initially posted.

“Earlier this morning, Capitol Police became aware of an online death threat directed towards Governor Walker,” said Chief Charles Tubbs in a statement issued this afternoon. “Capitol Police takes any threat directed towards those who visit or work in the Capitol seriously, and Capitol Police investigators have identified and interviewed the responsible individual. Capitol Police does not generally comment on specific security issues.”

Tubbs issued the statement after an inquiry made by a MacIver News Service reporter.

“Rather than recall him… Can we kill him instead? Just curious,” wrote Rachel Cowan on the Recall Walker Kick Off Rally event page on Facebook Friday afternoon.

When someone responded with “He’s signed a bill allowing conceal to carry IN the capitol…..Someone just might get away with it!!!” Cowan then posted: “I’m game.”

The effort to recall Governor Scott Walker is underway and is highly-organized, with dozens of employees set to work out of more than 20 planned regional offices.

The Democratic Party of Wisconsin laid out its initial plan to recall Governor Scott Walker at a volunteer training meeting in Madison last month. DPW is working with a coalition of labor groups under the United Wisconsin umbrella and has divided the state into eight regions and is prepared to have 44 field officers operating out of 22 offices.

During the Senate recall elections in August, state Democrats’ goal was to recall at least three Republican Senators. While they failed to achieve that objective, organizers hope to use the lessons learned from that effort to help them collect the more than half a million signatures needed to trigger a recall election of the Governor.

The death threat was posted on the Facebook page promoting a rally by We Are Wisconsin, the labor union mega PAC that spent more than $18 million on the State Senate recalls earlier this month. We Are Wisconsin is one of the groups helping to organize a Recall Kickoff Rally on Saturday November 19.

Moments after the MacIver News Service contacted the page’s administrators for comments about the threats, the offending post was removed.

Screenshot of the threat at 12:35pm Monday:

Screenshot of the page as of 1:35pm Monday:

Congress Considers Bill to Protect Workers from Union Violence

Original Post: NLPC

by Carl Horowitz on Fri, 09/04/2009 - 17:13

Rep. Joe Wilson, R-S.C.Union members, at times at the behest of their leaders, aren't averse to roughing up opponents in order to win concessions. Employers and especially nonunion employees often find themselves on the receiving end of acts such as assault, extortion and vandalism or the threat of these things. At least one member of Congress, Rep. Joe Wilson, R-S.C., wants federal law to end this behavior. This past May 21, he introduced legislation, the Freedom from Union Violence Act of 2009 (H.R. 2537), that would impose potentially stiff fines and prison sentences on anyone who commits an act of violence or extortion during a labor dispute. The bill was referred in June to the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism and Homeland Security. The unions are intent on keeping the bill bottled up, as they have in previous attempts at such legislation since 1997.

The Freedom from Union Violence Act would amend existing law. It would close a loophole in the Hobbs Act, a 1946 federal law prohibiting robbery or extortion affecting interstate or foreign commerce. Without this amendment, notes Wilson, the Hobbs Act permits "violence and intimidation on behalf of labor unions...if it ruled that such coercion was to further a ‘legitimate' union objective." What he and other supporters are referring to here is a 1973 decision by the U.S. Supreme Court, United States v. Enmons, (410 U.S. 396 [1973]), which interpreted the Hobbs Act as granting this "right" to unions. His measure states:

Whosoever in any way or degree obstructs, delays, or affects commerce or the movement of any article or commodity in commerce, by robbery or extortion, or attempts or conspires to do so, or commits or threatens physical violence to any person or property in furtherance of a plan or purpose to do anything of this section, shall be fined not more than $100,000, imprisoned for a term of not more than 20 years, or both.

The bill explicitly exempts union conduct that is "incidental to otherwise peaceful picketing during the course of a labor dispute."

Supporters think the measure can't come soon enough. "Lawmakers on Capitol Hill need to send a clear message that any violence or intimidating during labor disagreements will no longer be tolerated," said Jerry Gorski, national chairman of Associated Builders and Contractors, an Arlington, Va.-based trade association of merit shop contractors. "This legislation is long overdue to help protect all workers in the construction industry." And the intimidation is real. This decade has witnessed union terror campaigns, for example, at the Kohler stainless steel sink factory in Searcy, Arkansas (the United Auto Workers); the nonunion Asbestos & Lead Removal Corporation, in Queens, N.Y. (the Laborers); and the AK Steel plant in Mansfield, Ohio (United Steelworkers of America). In the AK Steel case union members at various points detonated pipe bombs in mailboxes, fired gun shots, and assaulted nonunion workers. In one instance, a Steelworkers member was caught and charged with plotting to launch homemade rockets at the plant.

A 506-page report published in 1999 by the John M. Olin Institute for Employment Practice and Policy at George Mason University, "Union Violence: The Record and the Response by Courts, Legislatures, and the NLRB," reveals the extent to which union rank and file will go to terrorize employers, non-member workers, union dissidents and even third parties with no particular stake in the outcome of a strike or other dispute. Rocks, knives, guns, sledgehammers, explosives and bare fists are frequent means of intimidation. From the standpoint of psychological warfare, so are threatening phone calls, letters, emails, menacing stares, and unscheduled "visits" to the homes of targets. Using a database for the period 1975-96 assembled by the Springfield, Va.-based National Institute for Labor Relations Research (NILRR), study authors Armand Thieblot, Thomas Haggard and Herbert Northrup counted 9,785 incidents of criminal acts or threats in 50 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. Union member or official-initiated violence accounted for nearly 250 deaths during this time, 97 of them from a single act of arson at a San Juan, Puerto Rico hotel on December 31, 1986 following a meeting by Teamsters Local 901 to discuss a strike against management. (Three hotel workers pleaded guilty to federal charges several months later in that New Year's Eve holocaust).

Critics of the study claim that the data are unreliable and unfairly lump psychological and actual violence together. Apparently it's ok for psychological violence in critic's minds when anywhere else it'd be considered extortion and intimidation. In a 2001 article for the Texas Law Review, "The Continuing Assault on the Right to Strike," University of Texas law professor Julius Getman and former (Carter-era) Labor Secretary Ray Marshall accuse NILRR and Olin researchers of stacking the deck. "It seems obvious that the methodology employed confuses those strikes most written about with those most violent," the authors wrote. "Further, the Institute includes incidents of "psychological violence; i.e., intimidation, coercion and verbal threats" - terms which it does not bother to define. It seems clear, however, that this definition would include nonviolent civil disobedience of the type used by the civil rights movement and increasingly by the labor movement." Yet the authors' use of phrases such as "seems obvious" and "seems clear" reveals empirical ambiguity on their own part not to mention a view that prosecuting threats of violence is tantamount to depriving strikers of their rights.

The distinction between psychological and actual violence is, at bottom, artificial. By its nature, a threat of violence conveys to the intended target that injury or even death may result in the absence of compliance. Imagine calling Nazi Germany's conquest of Austria or Czechoslovakia "peaceful" because the Germans did not apply military force. Quite obviously, the mere threat of war was enough to induce surrender. This principle holds true for all types of conflict, including labor disputes. If a worker speaks out against a majority union position, and then sees a couple of beefy-looking men staring at him while simulating a slashing motion against their throat with an index finger, you can be sure that dissenter is going to think twice before piping up again. Terror through communication of a body gesture or machine (e.g., phone call) is intended to produce surrender of the will.

This kind of terror is especially prevalent in a group setting such as a picket line where the atmosphere already is confrontational. Here union members and even their bosses may resort to violence. That very likelihood causes many dissenters to recoil rather than serve as the spark for an act of violence of which they might be a victim. Moreover, it's easy for someone contemplating violence in that kind of environment to disavow moral responsibility. Thieblot, Haggard and Northrup explain:

Unlike planned and delegated violence (as in a football game) or aggressive violence deliberately undertaken by one or both sides (as in a war or ambush), the source and origin of violence that breaks out in confrontational settings is uncertain. When rocks start flying in a crowd, it's likely that no one knows or will ever know who cast the first one or what act of insolence or aggression pushed the situation over the edge. Individuals in a melee become caught up in the swirl of events, showing sides of themselves that would remain hidden in more serene settings. These instincts and outcomes are so common that when active groups in confrontation do not turn violent, that fact itself may qualify as news.

The Freedom from Union Violence Act implicitly recognizes the dynamics of intimidation in labor disputes and why it does qualify as violence. Rather than undermine the letter or spirit of the National Labor Relations Act, the measure clarifies the meaning of coercion, and in so doing affirms the commitment of NLRA to a democratic workplace. The measure has been in on-and-off mode ever since 1997, when Sens. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah and Strom Thurmond, R-S.C. first introduced it. Whether or not the problem of union violence is as bad as it was a decade ago, Congress should pass this overdue legislation.