#TBT #SpyGate #SandyHook #RacialProfiling #LifesUnfairness #hsvboe #environmentaljustice

NOTICE: Due to Huntsville City School Superintendent Casey Warydynski's  Executive Orders, the school district may have read your social media accounts without warning, warrant, or notice. You have no recourse nor protection but to call for the resignation of the Superintendent and the Board of Education who enabled him.

In addition to bashing any media who dares the report the facts (not to be confused with spin), and blaming everything on the black guy, I mean Al Langford, I mean the NSA, one of the memes HCS officials, including the Mayor, cite to justify monitoring some (not to be confused with all) students social media accounts for threats of potential (not to confused with real) violence is to evoke the memory of Sandy Hook, and other mass shootings.

There was a recent opinionated, and irresponsible, article in "The Huntsville Times" about a program the HCS has implemented to help keep the schools safe. We have only to look at national tragedies such as Columbine, Sandy Hook or Virginia Tech to see how badly things can go...or even locally at Madison City Schools or UAH.

 Like most every school system across America, the HCS has instituted security procedures to try to intervene before there is a tragedy. Unlike the picture painted by The Huntsville Times, we do not have a secret group that trolls the social networks across the world for possible threats. Instead, we follow best-practice protocols used by others.

But, but you do have an off the books spying program that  trolls  the social networks of some students for possible threats.  We don't know if you follow best-practice protocols used by others,  because some members of the BOE were kept in the dark about this program.  The public would still be kept in the dark if someone hadn't leaked it to Al.com.  

Both Blair and McCaulley voiced concerns about the information provided to AL.com and the subsequent media attention the program is receiving.
Blair said students intending to do harm at school might be less likely to put information about their intentions online if they know the district is watching.
"This kind of stuff puts kids in danger," Blair said.
McCaulley said that whoever leaked the security presentation to the media may have broken Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) laws because the presentation included pictures of students.

So now they are worried about FERPA?  Excuse me while I ROTFLMBO.

I am convinced this Superintendent, and this BOE  must think we are stupid.  I mean, really?  Do they honestly believe we are going to believe they are spying on some students (and who knows who else) because of concerns about student safety, and to prevent another Sandy Hook?  

The reason I know this isn't about student safety is because Huntsville City Schools risk the health of the next generation, for the sake of giving our community a school, located less than half a mile from an active rock quarry, aided and abetted by the city of Huntsville.

Mayor Tommy Battle and the city's air quality chief, Danny Shea, both say the amount of particulate matter in the air on Pulaski Pike is far below levels considered potentially harmful by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
The city has an air quality monitoring station next door to the school site; Shea said it measures airborne particulate matter every six days.
The EPA threshold for particulate matter is 150 micrograms per cubic meter.
Shea said 46 micrograms is the highest reading detected by the city on Pulaski Pike in the past five years. The average particulate concentration was 14.8 micrograms in 2009; 17.8 micrograms in 2010; 16.3 micrograms in 2011; 14.9 micrograms in 2012; and 13.5 micrograms in 2013.
The levels are similar at Huntsville's other air quality monitoring stations on Airport Road, South Memorial Parkway and Madison Street downtown.
In a May 27 letter to the mayor, Shea said the city's measurements "demonstrate the absence of substantial adverse air quality impacts from quarry operations at the proposed school site."

I am not a rocket scientist, but you tell me how airborne fine particulate matter can be lower less than half a mile from an active rock quarry than at some other spots in town?

The reason I know this BOE doesn't give a flying flip about potential threats to some students is because not one of them has contacted the Environmental Protection Agency or conducted a health risk analysis.

One reason I know Sandy Hook is a red herring is because the targeted students were black and brown, wanna be gang members (not to be confused with real gang members who wouldn't be caught dead on Facebook), and studies show most school shooters are white males.

Sex of the shooter is fairly much a no-brainer – female spree/school shooters are rare, and the one entry here is only because I lowered the level to three fatalities.
Race of the shooter – there is a nearly 80% chance that the perpetrator will be white.
Age group – broadly speaking, there is about a one-third representation for teens, twenties, and 30-52.

Another  reason I know Sandy Hook is a red herring is because what is the first thing white males did in response to the Sandy Hook massacre?  Call for comprehensive gun control laws?  Nope, the demand for weapons and ammunition skyrocketed.  Which leads me to the conclusion if the school district were really trying to prevent another Sandy Hook, the NSA would be calling them about potential threats of violence from the people pictured below.   I'm just saying...

A crowd winds around Larry's Pistol & Pawn Friday morning along North Memorial Parkway. Interest in guns and ammunition has soared since the shootings of over two dozen students and staff at a Connecticut elementary school. WT Martin/HNW

A real liberal view: Why real liberals support the Constitution of the United States of America, all of it.

Fellow Blogger PoliticsAlabama, who has posting privileges (which I don't)  at Left in Alabama, posted a diary entitled A liberal view:  Why liberals should support the second amendment (as if we don't), linking to a Daily Kos diary entitled, Why Liberals should love the second amendment (as if we don't).

Let me clear up the *ahem* misconception.

Just because we self-proclaimed liberals want sensible gun control legislation to prevent the gun violence that demeans human life and tears communities apart doesn't mean we don't support the second amendment.

Just because we self-proclaimed liberals don't believe the solution to gun violence is more guns doesn't mean we don't support the second amendment.

Here are some words from a real liberal (not to be confused with a self-proclaimed liberal) about the constitution and gun rights.

Saturday night just ain't that special
Yeah, I got the constitution on the run
'Cause even though we've got the right
To defend our home, to defend our life
Got to understand to get it in hand about the guns

 It's not about the 2nd amendment.  It's about saving lives.  I Am Because You Are:  The Sandy Hook Promise

“This is a Promise we make to our precious children. Because each child, every human life is filled with promise, and though we continue to be filled with unbearable pain we choose love, belief, and hope instead of anger.”

An armed, unregulated, populace, keeping real and imagined tyranny at bay, one assault weapon at a time

The Real Threats to America's Security

What do you want to bet if this was a picture of a   black man, with a Black Liberation flag hanging in the background, watching The New Black Panther Party on TV, surrounded by weapons, calling for black people to take up arms against the government,  accusing the government of trying to take their guns away and calling it  tyranny,  we would have us some gun control legislation quick, fast and in a hurry?

I'm just saying....the NRA has riled up the survivalist....you know...the people who have been buying up guns every since President Obama was first elected, and who want to secede from the Union because he was re-elected.  

It makes you wonder whose side some, not to be confused with all, law enforcement officials and elected officials are on.

Our vision of this country is the same: We want a place where we all have rights. Specifically the right to own a pile of military assault weapons without anyone monitoring us so we can train and plan and then secretly block the emergency exits to the building. It's a country where we have the right to fight for our freedoms against all enemies, foreign, domestic... or even the ones that might be imaginary. It's a home where my right to swing my fist ends where your nose, torso, neck, and the back of your head begin. But only after it's all over, because people don't have the right to ask what I do with my guns, or where I'm keeping them, or whether several psychiatrists think I need to be heavily medicated. That's just like what the Nazis did.

Radio Boy, this Parody is just for you!  Enjoy!

Weapon Wonderland Song Parody (to be sung to Winter Wonderland)By Madeleine Begun Kane
Gun sales surge. Are you listenin’?
Ammunition keeps glistenin’.
They’re arming tonight and causing a fright.
U.S. Constitution arms the land.
People die for no reason.
Children shot! ‘Tis the season.
A terrible blight, each night after night.
Gun rights absolutists harm our land.
NRA and cronies claim our homeland
Must allow their arms in every town,
Claiming guns will help us.
We say “No man!
“The murder stats have got to go way down.”
Weapon fans have conspired.
Now our nation is mired.
With lives we have paid.
New laws must be made.
Or soon we’ll have a gun in every hand.

Are we safe yet?

Things the Second Amendment to the Constitituion does NOT allow We the People to do

Image Time magazine

 I am still trying to figure out how  a well regulated militia being necessary to a free State, the right of the people to bear arms shall not be infringed on   morphed into... an armed, unregulated populace who have the right to cling to  assault weapons just in the case there is a need to overthrow the government.

Allow me to set the record straight.

The well regulated militia the 2nd amendment refers to were slave patrols, land stealer's and Indian killers...all necessary to a the security of a free state....built with stolen labor on stolen land.

 

The 2nd amendment does not mean we the people can protect ourselves from our government in the event they abuse our civil liberties.

The 2nd amendment does not mean we the people can rise up and over throw the government of the United States of America when they infringe upon our civil rights

 

The 2nd amendment does not mean we the people can protect ourselves, or our homes, from government intrusion.

The 2nd amendment does not give we the people the right to overthrow the government when they take our rights away.

 

The 2nd amendment does not give we the people the right to overthrow our  government when they dismantle democracy.

This is the reality of what we the people must do to protect ourselves from our government.

"To protect ourselves from government, we must improve education and free access to voting and exercising that right to vote, and become the rulers of our government that our Constitution was supposed to make us.  And for good education, we must improve rules governing the media which massively shapes public opinion.  Today, we have 90% of our media concentrated in ownership by 6 or 7 mega-corporations.  The news we get is materially altered for corporate profit and not for truth or good democratic government.
Ultimately, i think that unbridled capitalism (such as ours has become) and good democracy are at odds.  We have become a corporatocracy from a democracy, let's face it."

Today marks one month since 20 children and 6 women were killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School.

 Gun advocates are ginning up fear because it's good for business.

Senator Rand Paul (r. KY) and Rep. Steve Stockman (r. TX) are threatening to impeach the President over gun control that hasn't even happened yet.

Let us march on until victory is won...at the ballot box.

Enough with the Excuses and the Enabling!

  

 Remembering Ana Grace Márquez-Greene, 6, of Sandy Hook, beloved daughter of James S. Greene, Jr. and Nelba (Amaro-Márquez) Greene, passed away senselessly on Friday, (December 14, 2012) during the horrific massacre enacted upon Sandy Hook Elementary School. 

Roland S. Martin writes:   America should see the Newtown carnage

“One of these mothers from Connecticut should do an Emmett Till moment; show the picture of their child dead in the classroom.”
That’s a text I received earlier this week from my TV One show producer. When I got it, a chill immediately went through my body just thinking about the possibility of seeing the carnage in such a photo.
When taping this week’s edition of my show, “Washington Watch,” Sirius/XM Radio host Joe Madison somberly said the same thing. Joe remarked that Emmett’s mother, Mamie, insisted on an open casket for her son so the world could see what was done to him by racists in Mississippi.

Left in Alabama resident's righty Old Prosecutor says the discussion shouldn't be about gun control, it should be about controlling violence, because guns are inanimate objects they don't kill on their own.  Sound familiar?

 Ironically, the discussion in a post calling for "controlling violence" taught me more than I ever wanted to know about assault rifles, semi automatic rifles, folding stock pistol grips, large capacity magazines, Ruger 10/22 rifles, pellet spread, short range weapons,  etc.  Call me crazy, but shooting a real gun at a living breathing animal, or, shooting a real gun at a target of a man/woman and aiming for their head or their heart, is just as violent as video games, movies and music videos.

Funny how we don't have the money to arm teachers with the tools they really need,  but we have plenty of money to train and arm them with weapons of mass destruction.  In the end, arming teachers with guns does nothing but provide false security.

What the Political Parent said;

I cannot keep having the same argument with the same talking points anymore. I do not believe in taking every one's guns away. I do believe we need to have sensible regulations that are enforced. You cannot compare guns with knives or cars or swimming pools. You cannot insist that I am going to be raped and murdered because I think 30 rounds is too much for any civilian. You cannot possibly think that your pistol and your cammo backpack gives you the tools to fight against a fictional tyrannical government. I will continue to fight for what I believe in, by donating to the Brady center, by contacting legislators, by writing letters to editors, etc. What I will not do is continue to waste my time arguing with buffoons who insist that repeating NRA lies and propaganda is the way to have a rational dialogue about safety. Go on the NRA site if you want to brag about your right to have whatever weapon you want and keep on tellin yourself that if someone gets caught in the crossfire somehow its their fault for not being "prepared". Or a video game's fault, or an atheist's fault, or a socialist's fault. I'll find a solution, you keep hiding from one.

How about this, let people keep their guns

Make possession of more than X rounds of ammo a felony. Pay whistle blower rewards for providing the name of ammo hoarders.
Require future ammo produced to go bad after 90 days.
Tax the sale of the new ammo to pay for the program.
There is no right to own ammo.

 The Founding Fathers never intended to for the second amendment to enable individuals to own what ever weapon they desired.

It was certainly not intended to enable groups of individuals to use deadly force against their own government. Instead, it was intended to enable government-led groups of white men to put down slave rebellions and to steal real estate from the Indians.

 Enough excuses.  Enough memorials.  Enough grief.   

 The problem of gun violence in the United States is complex, and as H.L. Mencken observed, "For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong." Advocating that we arm elementary school principals and kindergarten teachers is not only wrong but insane. We must stop allowing this kind of insanity to prevent us from having reasonable gun control legislation.

Amen and Amen.