I am against the death penalty, always have been, but I had to post this just to remind people how the rich and powerful actually see us regular people.....
BUCKNACKT'S SORDID TAWDRY BLOG We should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive & well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, chocolate, bier or wein in hand, body thoroughly used up, totally worn out and screaming "WHOO-HOO, WHAT A RIDE!!!!!!"
Showing posts with label Aurora CO. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Aurora CO. Show all posts
28 February 2025
22 February 2013
John McCain Response To Gun Control Pressure 'Appalling,' Says Mother Of Mass Shooting Victim 22FEB13
FIRST rep eric kapo cantor reminds us he is a nasty SOB with his opposition to the Senate VAWA bill sent to the House and then sen john mccain steps up to show the nation he can be as nasty a SOB as kapo cantor. This from HuffPost.....
Caren Teves, mother of a victim of the Aurora, Colo., mass shooting in July, said Thursday that Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) had responded reprehensibly to her gun control question earlier in the day, when he told her that she needed some "straight talk."
Teves' son, Alex, was 24 years old when he was gunned down alongside 11 others inside a movie theater. On Thursday, Teves, of Phoenix, attended a town hall held by McCain with hopes of encouraging the senator to support an assault weapons ban, which would restrict the sale of weapons such as the semi-automatic rifle used by the Aurora shooter.
McCain responded sharply to Teves' attempt to push the legislation.
"I can tell you right now you need some straight talk. That assault weapons ban will not pass the Congress of the United States," McCain said, drawing cheers from the crowd.
In an interview with Talking Points Memo, Teves expressed disappointment in the way McCain handled her question.
“I was very surprised that a senator, who has been in office for over 30 years, would address a grieving mother, who just lost her son exactly seven months prior -- yesterday was the 20th, I lost my son on 7-20-2012 -- to tell me that I needed ‘some straight talk,’” Teves told TPM.
Teves also said she was "surprised" at the continued indifference McCain and his staff had shown her, both at the town hall event and in response to a previous attempt she had made to reach out to the senator.
“It takes a lot for me to just get out of bed every morning," Teves said. "I mean, this is still so new and so fresh, that my son was murdered. And I just expected a little more respect from someone who’s been in office over 30 years, and his staff. Between that and the form letter that we received, it’s just, it’s appalling.”
In the wake of the Aurora shooting, McCain appeared to suggest that he'd be open to discussing the merits of an assault weapons ban. When such a bill was revamped and introduced after December's school massacre in Newtown, Conn., however, McCain took a more rigid tone, saying that it would have no chance of passing in Congress.
McCain came under fire from constituents on both sides of the spectrum in sessions held during the congressional recess. On Tuesday, McCain was forced to defend his position on comprehensive immigration reform to a number of disgruntled voters who pushed back with extreme views on undocumented immigrants.
24 January 2013
AURORA & NEWTOWN & ALL OTHERS FORGOTTEN ALREADY? & K Street stumbles for the second straight year 23JAN13
UPDATE; One of the people I referenced in my comment on this article responded, stating
So his initial comment remains with his retraction right above it. Olgaleslie's comment has been removed.
IT would seem the horror of Newtown and Aurora and all the other incidences of gun violence in the past year have been forgotten by some, or maybe these people are so sick they approve this kind of violence. I am disturbed by the callous call for violence against lobbyist from K Street in the comments section after this article in the Washington Post. I have no love for most lobbyist, and don't feel sorry for their loss of income, but I do not wish them the harm expressed in the two most recent comments posted. While I am an outspoken supporter and proponent of First Amendment rights, I also recognize the responsibility that come with these rights and so flagged both comments to the attention of the Washington Post moderators.
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IT would seem the horror of Newtown and Aurora and all the other incidences of gun violence in the past year have been forgotten by some, or maybe these people are so sick they approve this kind of violence. I am disturbed by the callous call for violence against lobbyist from K Street in the comments section after this article in the Washington Post. I have no love for most lobbyist, and don't feel sorry for their loss of income, but I do not wish them the harm expressed in the two most recent comments posted. While I am an outspoken supporter and proponent of First Amendment rights, I also recognize the responsibility that come with these rights and so flagged both comments to the attention of the Washington Post moderators.
K Street’s heavy hitters took a hit in 2012, with most of the region’s 10 largest lobby firms earning less revenue last year than in 2011. The top 10 firms saw revenue dip a collective 10 percent, from $256.9 million to $232.6 million.
Seven of the top 10 firms reported declines in revenue ranging from 5 percent to 30 percent. The three exceptions — Brownstein Hyatt, Podesta Group and Williams & Jensen — stayed flat or grew modestly.
It is the second year in a row that most of the largest firms saw lobbying earnings slip. Lobbyists attributed the 2011 downturn to an overall weak economy and a deadlocked Congress sidetracked by the debt ceiling debates. Some cited similar reasons for a down year in 2012, but said that may change now that a new Congress is in session and the presidential election is over.
“Congress literally just wasn’t here in the fourth quarter, and when they were, they were doing fiscal cliff avoidance stuff which isn’t the type of activity that generates a lot of lobbying,” said Rich Gold, who heads the public policy group at Holland & Knight. Gold said the firm’s public policy practice overall saw revenue grow about 6 percent, boosted by regulatory work with federal agencies.
“It wasn’t the days of 2009 where we were debating the health care bill and passing the Recovery Act, but it was a reasonable year,” he said. “2013 will be better.”
H. Stewart “Stu” Van Scoyoc, president of lobby firm Van Scoyoc Associates, said there are signs — such as the House agreeing to vote on suspending the debt limit in order to reach a budget agreement — that Congress is returning to a more “normal”state.
“The last two years, because Congress was doing so little and we were facing a presidential election, a lot of people were waiting for the beginning of the new Congress and completion of the last presidential election” to hire lobbyists, Van Scoyoc said. “We’re seeing signs of recovery ... [the House vote] is a first step toward a more ‘back to normal’ process. They’re using the debt ceiling to force a budget process. That’s a more traditional process, the kind of legislative activity that clients and lobby firms in town are going to be more engaged in.”
Year-end lobbying figures were reported to the Senate Office of Public Records this week. Here’s how the top 10 firms fared:
• Patton Boggs: down 5 percent from $48.4 million to $46 million
• Akin Gump: down 18 percent from $38 million to $31.2 million
• Podesta Group: up less than 1 percent from $27.4 million to $27.5 million
• Brownstein Hyatt: up 2 percent from $22.1 million to $22.5 million
• Van Scoyoc Associates: down 11 percent from $25.3 million to $22.5 million
• Williams & Jensen: virtually unchanged at $18 million
• Holland & Knight: down 5 percent from $19 million to $18 million
• K&L Gates: down 8 percent from $18.7 million to $17.2 million
• Cassidy & Associates: down 23 percent from $20.2 million to $15.6 million
• Ogilvy Government Relations: down 30 percent from $19.9 million to $14 million
By | 03:05 PM ET, 01/23/2013
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10:07 AM EST
The negative comments are amazing. Has anyone read the Constitution--how about the 1st Amendment? Lobbying is protected by the First Amendment. Anyone checked to see how much your employer/industry is spending in Washington so that you can keep your job, or have better housing, or clean water, or thousands of other issues that are important. Everyone should be lamenting the decline in spending, not gloating. And for the bad apples from the past that created such sentiment--just shoot them.
1/23/2013 7:29 PM EST
It would be nicer if mass shootings at lobbyist offices instead of schools and movie theaters.
02 October 2012
Act Now in Honor of Aurora Families 2OKT12
MASS SHOOTINGS have continued since the tragedy at Aurora, Colorado just a few of months ago. Oak Grove, WI and Minneapolis, MN were just a couple that made national news, but families and communities are suffering because the nra has the money from the gun industry to operate a nefarious propaganda campaign against common sense gun control and politicians are so cowardly they will not legislate the common sense gun controls that would help prevent some of this violence (though they do protect themselves by outlawing weapons in the government facilities where they work. Check this out from Tom and Caren Teves, parents of Alex Teves, one of the murder victims killed in Aurora on 20JUL12 and click the link to send a letter to Jim Lehrer, moderator of the presidential debate in Denver on 3OKT12 to ask the candidates what they plan to do about the growing gun violence in the US, and then share with your family and friends.
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02 August 2012
When Your Family Member Does The Unthinkable 1AUG12
THIS has to be a families worst nightmare. Here is a very good, compassionate piece from someone with first hand experience, from NPR.....
At 5:45 a.m. on Friday, July 20, Arlene Holmes
woke to the sound of the telephone. On the line was a man from ABC News.
There had been a shooting in Aurora, Colo., the man explained. Her
24-year-old son, James, was the suspect. Did she have a comment?
In the wake of a tragedy like the Colorado shooting, the families of victims must navigate a complicated emotional landscape. But so, too, must the families of those charged with the crimes, as they suddenly face all kinds of deeply disturbing questions.
"Is there something wrong with us that this could emerge from us? That someone capable of murder could emerge from our family?"
That, says David Kaczynski, was the question that hung over his family after his brother, Ted, was arrested as the Unabomber.
David had actually played a role in his brother's arrest. In 1996, he went to the FBI with his suspicion that his brother and the Unabomber might be the same man.
For months he and his wife, Linda, worked with them in secret; no other family member knew. And then came the moment that David Kaczynski dreaded, the moment he had to introduce to his mother the incredible idea that her oldest son could be a killer.
Kaczynski remembers driving to his mother's apartment in Schenectady, N.Y., and knocking on the apartment door. He remembers the way the look of happiness on her face slowly gave way to a look of concern, and then, several minutes into his rambling, elliptical explanation, a look of horror.
When he had finally finished, Kaczynski says, his mother got up from her chair, put her arms around his neck and lightly kissed him on the cheek. Then, he says, she told him three things: That she knew this must be hard for him. That she knew he was a good man who loved his brother. That she knew David was wrong. She knew her oldest son, Ted, knew how fragile he was, and she knew Ted wasn't capable of murder. When the FBI really looks into all this, she explained to Kaczynski, they would see the same thing.
"They're going to investigate this, and they're going to find out that Ted is completely innocent," Kaczynski remembers her saying. "This is all going to go away like a bad dream."
But it didn't.
'Beyond Words'
About a week after Kaczynski's mother sweetly kissed his cheek and explained that he was wrong, he and his mother found themselves sitting in a house surrounded by television camers, watching Ted's arrest on the news.
"My wife, Linda, my mother, Wanda, and I are in our house," Kaczynski says. "Paradoxically, we're kind of the focus of the world's attention, but you couldn't have felt more isolated than we felt at that moment."
To protect themselves from the media, the family had disconnected the phone and covered the windows with blankets. They were totally alone, had no idea if they would lose their jobs, if their friends would abandon them, if they would have to move and change their identities. Their most basic sense of themselves as a good and decent family had been shaken.
And so inside the house, Kaczynski says, instead of conversation there was mostly silence. "To some extent, what had happened was beyond words," he says.
For the eight days that his family was
essentially under this media siege, and for many years after, Kaczynski
says his family was plagued by a question — the same question that many
of us find ourselves asking every time a mass murder occurs. Is it
possible for such a terrible act to emerge from a normal family? Or does
evil come from evil? That's the issue quietly being raised every time a
family like this opens their mouths. Are you responsible, in some way,
for unspeakable horror?
'We ... The Parents Of A Mass Murderer'
In 1982, Larry Robison brutally killed five people. The crime was incredibly ugly. One victim was a 6-year-old boy; another was maimed and decapitated.
At the time, his mother, Lois Robison, was a school teacher; so was her husband, Ken. She remembers talking to her husband the night of her son's arrest — how clear it was to him that the life they'd built toegether was now gone.
"He said, 'We will no longer be Lois and Ken Robison, the school teachers,' " Lois Robison says her husband told her. " 'We will be Lois and Ken Robison, the parents of a mass murderer.' "
But this was not a title that Lois Robison felt her family deserved. If the question these families face is — Are you responsible for evil? — from the perspective of Lois Robison, the answer was clearly no.
"If there was anything you could do to keep it from happening, we did it," she says. "We were in church every time the doors were open. We took our kids to Sunday school from the time they were born. Larry was in Scouts, the girls were in Scouts. Ken was a Scout leader."
And when, as a young man, her son Larry started having mental health problems, Robison says, she did everything she could to help him.
She had him hospitalized several times for his problems, but the institutions, she says, would never hold him longer than 30 days.
"I fought the state of Texas, I fought the county, I fought everybody to get him help," Lois Robison says.
At trial the state of Texas rejected the insanity defense, and Larry Robison was eventually put to death. But from Lois Robison's perspective, it was the mental illness, and not her son, that was responsible for those crimes. And this belief both neutralized her guilt and shaped her feelings about what it was that she should do next.
"We can crawl into a cave and pull a rock in after us," she says, "and just, you know, hibernate and stay away from the world. ... Or we can be up front and tell the truth and hope that it helps somebody in the future."
And so after her son was arrested, Robison started advocating for mental health issues. She went all over the country talking about access to care. "If I hadn't done that," she says, "I would have laid down and died."
For Most Families, A Silent Struggle
David Kaczynski made a similar choice. He didn't turn away; he stepped forward. His professional life is now defined by what happened with his brother. And while he says he's heartbroken about the pain his brother Ted caused, like Robison, he views the murderer in his family as mentally ill — schizophrenic — not evil.
A former social worker, Kaczynski speaks frequently about mental health issues and is executive director of a group that fights against the death penalty.
But most families who've found themselves in a similar position don't seem to settle the question that way. For whatever reason they turn in, not out, to struggle with the issue of whether they bear any responsibility for the crimes of their kin.
Kaczynski understands this struggle in a unique way; over the years he's made a habit of reaching out to other families in similar circumstances. Last year, after the shooting of Gabrielle Giffords, he contacted the lawyer for the family of Jared Lee Loughner. He says he also contacted the Cho family after their son, Seung-Hui, went on a rampage at Virginia Tech.
"I left a phone message for the sister, I think, some years ago," he says. "And Linda and I have talked about writing to the Holmes family as well, so we'll probably send them a letter, just to let them know that if they need someone to talk to, we're open to that."
Just days after the shooting, a lawyer for the Holmes family stood in front of a gaggle of reporters and, after reminding everyone that James Holmes had not yet been convicted of a crime, asked that the media respect the family's privacy.
Sixteen years ago, a lawyer for the Kaczynski family stood in front of a bank of microphones and essentially said the same thing. A little while later, David Kaczynski emerged from his house for the first time. The media was finally gone.
But the problem of guilt? Of what to think of yourself? Of what to do? It was only beginning.
http://www.npr.org/2012/08/01/157737038/when-your-family-member-does-the-unthinkable?ft=3&f=1001&sc=nl&cc=nh-20120802
Enlarge John G. Mabanglo/AFP/Getty Images Wanda
Kaczynski and her son David Kaczynski (right background) are escorted
to their car by defense lawyers after Unabomber Theodore Kaczynski
pleaded guilty Jan. 22, 1998, in Sacramento, Calif.
In the wake of a tragedy like the Colorado shooting, the families of victims must navigate a complicated emotional landscape. But so, too, must the families of those charged with the crimes, as they suddenly face all kinds of deeply disturbing questions.
"Is there something wrong with us that this could emerge from us? That someone capable of murder could emerge from our family?"
That, says David Kaczynski, was the question that hung over his family after his brother, Ted, was arrested as the Unabomber.
David had actually played a role in his brother's arrest. In 1996, he went to the FBI with his suspicion that his brother and the Unabomber might be the same man.
For months he and his wife, Linda, worked with them in secret; no other family member knew. And then came the moment that David Kaczynski dreaded, the moment he had to introduce to his mother the incredible idea that her oldest son could be a killer.
Kaczynski remembers driving to his mother's apartment in Schenectady, N.Y., and knocking on the apartment door. He remembers the way the look of happiness on her face slowly gave way to a look of concern, and then, several minutes into his rambling, elliptical explanation, a look of horror.
When he had finally finished, Kaczynski says, his mother got up from her chair, put her arms around his neck and lightly kissed him on the cheek. Then, he says, she told him three things: That she knew this must be hard for him. That she knew he was a good man who loved his brother. That she knew David was wrong. She knew her oldest son, Ted, knew how fragile he was, and she knew Ted wasn't capable of murder. When the FBI really looks into all this, she explained to Kaczynski, they would see the same thing.
"They're going to investigate this, and they're going to find out that Ted is completely innocent," Kaczynski remembers her saying. "This is all going to go away like a bad dream."
But it didn't.
'Beyond Words'
About a week after Kaczynski's mother sweetly kissed his cheek and explained that he was wrong, he and his mother found themselves sitting in a house surrounded by television camers, watching Ted's arrest on the news.
"My wife, Linda, my mother, Wanda, and I are in our house," Kaczynski says. "Paradoxically, we're kind of the focus of the world's attention, but you couldn't have felt more isolated than we felt at that moment."
To protect themselves from the media, the family had disconnected the phone and covered the windows with blankets. They were totally alone, had no idea if they would lose their jobs, if their friends would abandon them, if they would have to move and change their identities. Their most basic sense of themselves as a good and decent family had been shaken.
And so inside the house, Kaczynski says, instead of conversation there was mostly silence. "To some extent, what had happened was beyond words," he says.
Enlarge AP This undated family photo shows brothers David (left) and Ted Kaczynski (center) in a sandbox with neighbors.
'We ... The Parents Of A Mass Murderer'
In 1982, Larry Robison brutally killed five people. The crime was incredibly ugly. One victim was a 6-year-old boy; another was maimed and decapitated.
At the time, his mother, Lois Robison, was a school teacher; so was her husband, Ken. She remembers talking to her husband the night of her son's arrest — how clear it was to him that the life they'd built toegether was now gone.
"He said, 'We will no longer be Lois and Ken Robison, the school teachers,' " Lois Robison says her husband told her. " 'We will be Lois and Ken Robison, the parents of a mass murderer.' "
But this was not a title that Lois Robison felt her family deserved. If the question these families face is — Are you responsible for evil? — from the perspective of Lois Robison, the answer was clearly no.
"If there was anything you could do to keep it from happening, we did it," she says. "We were in church every time the doors were open. We took our kids to Sunday school from the time they were born. Larry was in Scouts, the girls were in Scouts. Ken was a Scout leader."
And when, as a young man, her son Larry started having mental health problems, Robison says, she did everything she could to help him.
She had him hospitalized several times for his problems, but the institutions, she says, would never hold him longer than 30 days.
"I fought the state of Texas, I fought the county, I fought everybody to get him help," Lois Robison says.
At trial the state of Texas rejected the insanity defense, and Larry Robison was eventually put to death. But from Lois Robison's perspective, it was the mental illness, and not her son, that was responsible for those crimes. And this belief both neutralized her guilt and shaped her feelings about what it was that she should do next.
"We can crawl into a cave and pull a rock in after us," she says, "and just, you know, hibernate and stay away from the world. ... Or we can be up front and tell the truth and hope that it helps somebody in the future."
And so after her son was arrested, Robison started advocating for mental health issues. She went all over the country talking about access to care. "If I hadn't done that," she says, "I would have laid down and died."
For Most Families, A Silent Struggle
David Kaczynski made a similar choice. He didn't turn away; he stepped forward. His professional life is now defined by what happened with his brother. And while he says he's heartbroken about the pain his brother Ted caused, like Robison, he views the murderer in his family as mentally ill — schizophrenic — not evil.
A former social worker, Kaczynski speaks frequently about mental health issues and is executive director of a group that fights against the death penalty.
But most families who've found themselves in a similar position don't seem to settle the question that way. For whatever reason they turn in, not out, to struggle with the issue of whether they bear any responsibility for the crimes of their kin.
Kaczynski understands this struggle in a unique way; over the years he's made a habit of reaching out to other families in similar circumstances. Last year, after the shooting of Gabrielle Giffords, he contacted the lawyer for the family of Jared Lee Loughner. He says he also contacted the Cho family after their son, Seung-Hui, went on a rampage at Virginia Tech.
"I left a phone message for the sister, I think, some years ago," he says. "And Linda and I have talked about writing to the Holmes family as well, so we'll probably send them a letter, just to let them know that if they need someone to talk to, we're open to that."
Just days after the shooting, a lawyer for the Holmes family stood in front of a gaggle of reporters and, after reminding everyone that James Holmes had not yet been convicted of a crime, asked that the media respect the family's privacy.
Sixteen years ago, a lawyer for the Kaczynski family stood in front of a bank of microphones and essentially said the same thing. A little while later, David Kaczynski emerged from his house for the first time. The media was finally gone.
But the problem of guilt? Of what to think of yourself? Of what to do? It was only beginning.
http://www.npr.org/2012/08/01/157737038/when-your-family-member-does-the-unthinkable?ft=3&f=1001&sc=nl&cc=nh-20120802
VIDEO: U.S. Guns, The Awful, Shocking Truth 2AUG12
SO many Americans see the news of drug cartel gun violence in Mexico and make comments about the pathetic state of that country not able to do something about it. It is pretty hard for the Mexican government and law enforcement to get control when the money fueling the corruption and the guns fueling the violence come from the American drug market and the unwillingness of Congress and the President to challenge the policies of the nra! This from
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