Public Servants Solve Decade-long East Coast Rapist Case

MoonHowler

The Prince William County Police along with police from other jurisdictions solved the East Coast Rapist case  last week which had been an open case since 1997.  The alleged rapist is originally from Berryville, VA, where his mother still lives.  He raped women in Virginia, Maryland, Connecticut and Rhode Island before being apprehended.  His latest victims were 3 Dale City teens who were walking home after trick or treating over in Dale City in 2009. 

A police effort recently put up a series of roadway graphics along the interstates on the east coast in hopes on finding this criminal.   Thousands of tips came in and one paid off.  Aaron Thomas, 39  was arrested late last week.  PWC police connected the dots that he was probably a truck driver.  They also cashed in on capturing his DNA from a carelessly discarded cigarette while he was appearing in court over something unrelated. 

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Frank Buckles’ last fight

MoonHowler

Remember last week when the Frank Buckles, the only surviving veteran of WWI died?  His death is not without controversy.  From Foxnews.com:

CHARLES TOWN, West Virginia — The daughter of Frank Buckles, who was the last American veteran of World War I, is urging lawmakers to let him lie in state in the Capitol Rotunda in Washington, D.C., the Richmond Times-Dispatch reported Sunday.

Susannah Buckles Flanagan said her father, who served as a military ambulance driver, wanted to lie in the rotunda to honor the memory of all WWI veterans.

“He looked upon this as his final duty, which he took seriously,” she said.

“If the last American soldier surviving is not suitable to serve as a symbol around which we can rally to honor those who served their country in the Great War, then who can serve that purpose? There is no one left,” she said in a letter released Saturday.Read More

New Sleeping Giant?

MoonHowler

Several weeks ago, several scrappy little labor unions banded together against big brother out in Wisconsin.  Support grew until thousands of protesters piled into Madison, the state capital, to protest the attack on the very life blood of unions everywhere.  Governor Scott Walker might just have overplayed his hand. 

Walker went after the public sector unions using the state budget crisis as a reason for draconian measures that held union members accountable for a higher percent of health care and pension contribution.  The union conceded and then Walker tried to take collective bargaining away from them.  Like the gambler, he couldn’t walk away from the table and now he has a tiger by the tail.  The 14 Democrats are still self-sequestered away so a quorum is not possible.  Thousands of people from other unions have joined in solidarity with the Wisconsin public employees. Read More

Look out Oscar, Elmo and Big Bird, this time it’s real

MoonHowler

Politico.com

Break out the Big Bird and Elmo props again — Sens. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) and Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) introduced a bill Friday that would eliminate federal funds for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the latest shot in a long-running GOP effort to kill PBS funding.

Their legislation would stop all taxpayer subsidies to CPB and its entities, including National Public Radio and Public Broadcasting Service, which the GOP pair argues can survive financially without taxpayer dollars.

“NPR boasts that it only gets 2 percent of its funding from taxpayers and PBS gets about 15 percent, so these programs should be able to find a way to stand on their own,” said DeMint in a statement about the bill.

Coburn chimed in that the “federal government has no business picking winners and losers in today’s highly competitive media environment.”

It sounds like DeMint and Coburn want more Faux News and less neutral programming. This yearly threat to PBS and NPR has been going on for years.  It has nothing to do with our budget crisis.  That is a ruse.  This is all about conservative control. 

Earlier last week we discussed the threats to defund NPR and PBS in the Ken Burns thread.  Now the threat   is real.  What shows do we like and watch and what do these shows give us that are uniquely American?   What can be done to stop these people from ripping away what many of us consider our culture?  When will they decide to defund the national parks and monuments?

America’s much abused moral authority

MoonHowler

Guest post

Published in the Guardian, UK 3/5/11

 Colonel Morris Davis:  “As former chief prosecutor at Guantánamo, I know that until the US rights the record on torture, its human rights calls ring hollow”

Once upon a time, Americans across the political spectrum were united behind efforts to prevent torture and punish torturers. The United States signed the UN Convention Against Torture (CAT) in 1988 when Republican Ronald Reagan was president. A Democrat-controlled Congress ratified it in 1994. The CAT says, “No exceptional circumstance whatsoever … may be invoked as justification of torture,” a principle the US endorsed without reservation. The CAT requires nations to enact domestic laws criminalising torture, and in 1994, a torture statute was added to the US criminal code.

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$250k isn’t rich for Bush tax cuts, but $50k is for teachers

MoonHowler

 

Huh?  Since when is $50k in this day and time adequate? 

Jon Stewart explains  tells it like it is. 

The Wisconsin fight continues and Jon points out the sheer hypocrisy of Republicans protecting those making more than $250k while at the same time howling over teachers making $50k.  That’s pretty hard to explain, unless you are Jon Stewart. 

 What part of his skit isn’t true? 

Huck rips Natalie Portman over pregnancy

MoonHowler

Politico:

Mike Huckabee laced into Oscar winner Natalie Portman for her “out-of-wedlock” pregnancy, saying the expecting star is helping to “glamorize” single motherhood.

Huckabee made the comments on conservative commentator Michael Medved’s radio show this week, after Portman accepted her golden trophy and in her speech thanked her fiance, Benjamin Millepied, for giving her “my most important role of my life.”

Medved led the way on the question, saying the “most wonderful gift” Millepied could have given the diminutive Black Swan star “would be a wedding ring! And it just seems to me that sending that kind of message is problematic.”

 

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Why the Scorn? [aka… kick in the gut]

MoonHowler

From msnbc.com:

The jabs Erin Parker has heard about her job have stunned her. Oh you pathetic teachers, read the online comments and placards of counterdemonstrators. You are glorified baby sitters who leave work at 3 p.m. You deserve minimum wage.

“You feel punched in the stomach,” said Ms. Parker, a high school science teacher in Madison, Wis., where public employees’ two-week occupation of the State Capitol has stalled but not deterred the governor’s plan to try to strip them of bargaining rights.

Ms. Parker, a second-year teacher making $36,000, fears that under the proposed legislation class sizes would rise and higher contributions to her benefits would knock her out of the middle class.

“I love teaching, but I have $26,000 of student debt,” she said. “I’m 30 years old, and I can’t save up enough for a down payment” for a house. Nor does she own a car. She is making plans to move to Colorado, where she could afford to keep teaching by living with her parents.

Around the country, many teachers see demands to cut their income, benefits and say in how schools are run through collective bargaining as attacks not just on their livelihoods, but on their value to society.

Even in a country that is of two minds about teachers — Americans glowingly recall the ones who changed their lives, but think the job with its summers off is cushy — education experts say teachers have rarely been the targets of such scorn from politicians and voters.

This woman really isn’t making a great deal of money.  She has college debts that must be paid off.  The NO Child Left Behind Act sets unrealistic expectations for every teacher in this nation.  Specifically, the act says that by 2014 each school will have 100% pass rate.  In other words, every child in America will have passed all of his/her state objectives.  Sure, sure, by the time 2014 rolls around, someone in the Department of Education or Congress will have come up with some lamely concocted caveat to ease the pains of not being able to do the impossible, but that is still the albatross that hangs around each teacher’s neck as they enter the building each morning to go to work.  That is the axe  that hangs over their head during the work day. 

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Norfolk’s Maury High School Grad Backs Teachers

MoonHowler

That’s right, the boy from Maury High School has become the champion of the nation’s teachers.  Who is this Maury grad?  None other than MSNBC’s Ed Schultz.  Ed has never been one of my favorites but I have new respect.  He has been out to Wisconsin and has gotten down in the trenches. 

Jackie Haworth,  a retired  teacher from Ohio, appears on the Ed Show to discuss how things really are.  She was amazing.  Ed met Jackie because she emailed him after his radio show.  Jackie has been where many people have not.

 

Ed goes back to Maury High School next  week.  Maury is in the middle of Norfolk.  I assume he will find that things have changed alot.  Very few commentators have been as supportive of public school teachers during this crisis as Ed. 

Supreme Court Gives Green Light to Westboro Baptist

MoonHowler

 

In an 8-1 decision, the Supreme Court has upheld the right of Westboro Baptist Church to demonstrate at the funerals of fallen heroes. According to CNN:

A Kansas church that attracted nationwide attention for its angry, anti-gay protests at the funerals of U.S. military members has won its appeal at the Supreme Court, an issue testing the competing constitutional limits of free speech and privacy.

The justices by a 8-1 vote on Wednesday said members of the Westboro Baptist Church had a right to promote what they call a broad-based message on public matters such as wars.

The father of a fallen Marine had sued the small church, saying those protests amounted to targeted harassment and an intentional infliction of emotional distress.

“Speech is powerful. It can stir people to action, move them to tears of both joy and sorrow, and– as it did here– inflict great pain,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote. “On the facts before us, we cannot react to that pain by punishing the speaker.”

Roberts explanation was that the real criticism was of the government and military and not the individual. Tell that to the families who are grieving. The Roberts Court has been very disappointing.

Will Bill O’Reilly pay the father’s judgement?  He did say he would.

The ‘what ifs’ of 2012

MoonHowler

Richmond Times Dispatch:

New polling pegs a potential U.S. Senate contest between former Govs. George Allen and Timothy M. Kaine as a dead heat.

The first survey by Public Policy Polling since Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va., announced that he won’t seek re-election shows Allen, a Republican, and Kaine, a Democrat, tied at 47 percent with 6 percent undecided.

Kaine, who has said he will make a decision on whether to run for the seat early this month, registers a higher favorability rating than Allen, with 46 percent to Allen’s 39 percent.

46-39 doesn’t quite seem like a dead heat to me, but you know those polls.  Yea/Nay depending on who you like.  Let’s take a look at some other variables.  Kaine might not want to run. He was sitting back minding his own business being DNC chair, when Webb announced he was retiring after one term.  What other Democrats could step up to the plate?  There is always former Rep. Rich Boucher.  How about former Rep. Tom Perriello?  Both of these men were knocked out of office at midterms.

…[T]he poll showed Allen beating two other Democrats mentioned as a possibility. Allen bests former Rep. Rick Boucher, 47-42, and former Rep. Tom Perriello, 48-41, in the survey. Boucher and Perriello were casualties of a Republican surge in the November midterms.

How about Republican contenders who might oust Allen in a primary or convention?  Both Jaime Radthke and Delegate Bob Marshall’s names have been mentioned.

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2 Week Reprieve from Government Shutdown

MoonHowler

We aren’t out of the woods yet…but the government won’t be shutting down at the end of the week.  House and Senate leaders  have bought 2 more weeks and there are $4 billion in spending cuts.  That’s a start.

A Washington Post poll released earlier in the week showed that both parties would share the blame if government services shut down.  Additionally from the Washington Post:

 Both sides also recognize that they are not on particularly strong political footing.

Republicans, who only recently returned to power in the House, understand that their mandate is fragile – and that it is not to bring the roof down.

“The American people’s priorities are clear,” said Boehner spokesman Michael Steel. “They want to keep the government open, and they want to cut spending.”

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