Category Archives: Commentary

Democracy Has Failed!

When a free nation has to barricade its Capital to protect itself from its own people, well democracy has failed and it will ring to all corners of the world.

-> Holmes Norton: Biden’s Stopping Border Fence, ‘Yet, We’re Trying to Fence in Our Capitol’ – We’re ‘Overreacting to January 6’

On Monday’s broadcast of WMAL’s “Mornings on the Mall,” Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) stated that it “can’t be” that we’re “stopping the fencing on the border, and yet, we’re trying to fence in our Capitol.” Norton also said that “we’re overreacting to January 6,” and Congress is “afraid of its shadow.”

Norton said, “As you may have heard, on March the 4th, the House left early because of a threat for March 4. You will note that nothing happened on March 4. Now we have a Congress ahead — afraid of its shadow.”

She added, “[T]he president is already stopping the fencing on the border, and yet, we’re trying to fence in our Capitol. That can’t be.”

She added, “[T]he president is already stopping the fencing on the border, and yet, we’re trying to fence in our Capitol. That can’t be.”

Norton later stated, “I think, again, because we’re overreacting to January 6, I think the notion of a standby National Guard for a while, as long as they’re not surrounding the Capitol isn’t something that I would object to. I’d certainly hate to see it happen. But I think what it amounts to is a gradual pulling back of what we’re now seeing at the Capitol. So I think that, too, will gradually go away.” <-

Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett

Police Being Hostile?

A bystander’s perception of actions occurring may be perceived as hostile but that bystander doesn’t know the rules and protocols that a police officer has to follow. We put our faith in our police officers to be doing their job with integrity and objectivity. Additionally and of course the story doesn’t go into how all this started and the images captured are of course from the bystanders perceptive so what do we really know? When we continually assume bad faith from our police officers to defend our communities, what do we have left? – Anarchy? And who do we have to blame for anarchy, the citizens or the police?

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BLACK VOICES 06/12/2019 12:25 am ET
Woman’s Video Of Police Aiming Guns At Kneeling Man Goes Viral

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/video-hawthorne-police-kneeling-man_n_5d004b29e4b011df123c7008?utm_source=main_fb&utm_medium=facebook&utm_campaign=hp_fb_pages&ncid=fcbklnkushpmg00000063&fbclid=IwAR1IivzOs-SMvt3XyvCJLT7OnP4G_XOCHV9COYMLyC0708CbnopzmYxeJ78&fbclid=IwAR1sTbN_gBs2y6-m3VAwt7l82JgWPC7r9NjYUCrpxBHsU0EcQnF5sJCBcEw

 

The woman in Hawthorne, California, begged officers to put their guns down as they pointed it at a black man who was kneeling with his hands above his head.

A woman in the Los Angeles area is being praised for filming police as they confronted a black man with their guns drawn while he knelt with his hands above his head.

In the video, filmed Friday in the city of Hawthorne, at least four officers can be seen pointing their guns at the man, who is kneeling on the sidewalk, facing away from the officers with his hands up.

More Hawthorne Police Department officers arrive as the woman, Sky Holsey, begs the officers to put their guns away. The man can be heard saying he is unarmed.

Holsey said the incident occurred at a busy intersection in Hawthorne, in Los Angeles County. William Ewell, 24, ended up being arrested that Friday morning, police records show.

 

Holsey’s video went viral over the weekend, leaving many people outraged over the number of police officers with their guns drawn. Some people credit Holsey with preventing the officers from using deadly force against Ewell.

Holsey told HuffPost in an email that she was getting gas before work when the confrontation occurred. She said Ewell, whom she doesn’t know personally, “instantly” surrendered to the officers by kneeling with his hands up, noting that “he seemed in shock.”

Holsey said she began filming because she believed that the police were using excessive force.

“Is all that really necessary,” Holsey can be heard telling the officers in the video. “Is all the guns drawn on him necessary?”

He was arrested in connection with an argument with a gas station employee over a prior purchase, according to a news release posted by police on Monday. Police arrested Ewell on suspicion of robbery. He was released Monday with a citation, according to an arrest record.

Asked whether the actions of the officers were justified, Holsey told HuffPost: “Absolutely not.”

 

“Everybody seems to ‘fit the description,’” she said. “Plus, I thought it was too excessive for that many police and the guns drawn like that.”

As Holsey filmed the confrontation Friday, she warned Ewell to stay still “because they will shoot you” while she asked the officers to put their guns down and just arrest the man.

Holsey began crying as the officers kept their guns aimed at Ewell, as seen on her video. She later told the officers that her boyfriend, Leroy Browning, was killed by police in 2015.

After more than two minutes of filming, the police apprehended Ewell. One officer approached Holsey and told her that they were responding to a robbery and that the man “loosely matches the description” of the suspect.

“We’re not saying he’s a suspect, but we’ve got to figure out what’s going on,” the officer told her, a moment that was also captured on her video. “It says a weapon was involved. That’s the only reason he gets held at gunpoint.”

In a series of tweets, Rebecca Kavanagh, an attorney and media relations director of The Appeal, a criminal reform news blog, said that Holsey was “remarkable” for filming the incident, which she described as a “massive over-use of force.”

On Monday, Kavanagh said that police often justify arrests by claiming that the person “matched the description.”

“This is absolutely the number one pretext police use to stop and search Black and Brown people,” she tweeted.

Kavanagh described those searches as “harassment” on Sunday.

In a news release on Sunday, the Hawthorne Police Department said that an employee of a gas station flagged police on the street and pointed to a “male subject” across the street, accusing him of assaulting an employee.

At the same time, police say, someone called 911 to report a robbery with “possibly weapons involved.”

Police accused Ewell of arguing with a female cashier over a “prior purchase” and “forcibly” grabbing “store items from the display.” Police also claimed that Ewell assaulted an employee with a trashcan.

Kavanagh on Tuesday warned people against taking the police news release at face value.

Black Lives Only Matter If They Are Taken by Whites

Interesting read and needs to be forwarded on. Point is well taken that white on black killings garner all kinds of media attention and stirs the Black Lives Matter movement but black on black shootings occurs daily and not much media attention is put into it other than the crime itself but there is never much Black Lives Matter movement made on it. Seems very interesting especially if one lives in a city where technically the white population is the minority. Perhaps the Black Lives Matter movement could put more time and effort in promoting the stopping of black on black shootings as that is indeed a cultural and societal concern regardless of race.
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Black Lives Only Matter If They Are Taken by Whites
Armstrong Williams        / @Arightside / January 18, 2019

Social media rang with righteous indignation over the senseless killing of Jazmine Barnes, who was shot and killed while riding in a car along with her mother and three sisters on a Texas highway on Dec. 30.

The gunman, who was identified as a white man, allegedly drove a red pickup truck and fired upon the Barnes family seemingly randomly and without any provocation. A picture quickly emerged of a racist murderer on the loose, hell-bent on killing innocent black children.

All of the usual alarms were triggered. New York Daily News writer Shaun King, a leader of the Black Lives Matter movement, who was made famous in the aftermath of the Ferguson, Missouri, protests, rushed to tweet out accusations about the alleged suspect, a man named Robert Cantrell.

King, who has 1 million twitter followers, posted Cantrell’s mug shot and wrote, “We’ve had 20 people call or email us and say he is a racist, violent (expletive) and always has been. Just tell me everything you know.”

The liberal Left continue to push their radical agenda against American values. The good news is there is a solution. Find out more >>

Tips began to pour in to King, who forwarded them to police. One of those tips ultimately led to the arrest of two suspects, both of whom turned out to be African-American males.

But in the days immediately preceding the arrests, Black Lives Matter activists quickly mobilized in Houston, holding rallies and vigils and decrying the racist slaying of an innocent girl.

Celebrities like former NBA All-Star player Shaquille O’Neal also got in on the act, promising to donate money to cover Jazmine’s funeral expenses.

Houston Texans’ star wide receiver, DeAndre Hopkins, promised to take the field in Jazmine’s honor, after tweeting, “When I see Jazmine Barnes’ face, I see my own daughter.” Hopkins, who is himself the father of a 5-year-old daughter, announced he’d be donating his entire game check to assist with funeral costs and support the reward fund for information leading the suspects’ capture.

Prominent Dallas civil rights attorney Lee Merritt also joined the case, primarily due to his belief (based on the initial description of the suspect) that the shooting was racially motivated.

“That’s why I was brought on,” Merritt told The Washington Post last week. “We want to emphasize the racial nature of the attack and that hate crime charges are appropriate.”

Merritt’s statement begs the question, of course: Aren’t most murders, by definition, crimes of hatred?

When, on Monday, the new suspect was arrested and it appeared the motive was not race-related, the hoopla immediately died down. Gone was the righteous indignation on social media. No more celebrity attorneys announced they were interested in the case.

Sadly, this appeared to be just another case of black-on-black crime. Apparently, this was merely a case of two young black criminals who may have shot at the Barnes’ vehicle because they mistakenly identified the occupants—a mistake in judgment apparently fueled by drugs. Nothing to see here.

In a week, Jazmine’s case is likely to fade from public discourse. Hopefully, the tens of thousands of dollars pledged to the Barnes family by O’Neal, Hopkins, and others will actually make it to their intended recipients. That remains to be seen.

Although you would not know it from the media coverage, Jazmine is not the first black child to die because of senseless gun violence in the past year. In fact, of the over 1,300 child deaths by gun violence in 2018, more than 4 in 10 deaths were black children. Black children are, in fact, 10 times more likely to die of gun violence than white children. Furthermore, in most gun homicides of black children, the assailant was also black.

Where, one wonders, is the outrage over the nearly 500 black children killed by guns last year? How many of those names have even made it to the national media? Is each of their lives less important because a black person took them?

It seems that in all too many cases, black lives don’t matter unless they are taken by a white person. We almost never hear about the thousands of senseless murders of blacks by blacks.

But when the suspected killer is a white person, well, of course, that’s news. All of a sudden, there is an outcry of support and care and concern and activism. The murder unfailingly makes the evening news. Prognosticators are ready on the draw with the usual platitudes and complaints and inferences about America’s worsening racial climate.

The troubling narrative that emerges from the grossly disproportionate treatment of the relatively isolated instances of violence deemed “racially motivated” versus the virtual sea of other crimes not deemed tainted by race begs the question: Is the only reason we even know about Jazmine Barnes because people believe she was killed by a white man?

And that question begs another question: When black children are being murdered in absolutely horrific proportions, mostly at the hands of other black people, do black lives actually matter to black people? Or do they only matter when someone white kills them?

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Property Nuisance Suits City of Columbus

City Attorney Files Largest Nuisance Suit In Columbus History
By CLARE ROTH • SEP 19, 2018

Columbus leaders announced the largest public nuisance lawsuit in the city’s history today, naming three large multi-building apartment complexes with 802 units owned by one realty group.

Columbus City Attorney Zach Klein says one complex, the Mayfair Village Apartments on East Broad Street near Whitehall, had a multitude of health, sanitation and safety violation. In June, the city began fining the company $1,000 a day.

“Those fines have now racked up over $75,000, so this really is a last resort,” Klein says.

Klein says the city started working with the property management group AMG in early 2017, but they failed to fully comply.

“There’s a litany of things: extensive water damage, inoperable furnaces, damaged walls and ceilings, a ceiling actually collapsed on an individual, someone fell through a steps, mold, drains, lighting fixtures with exposed wires that are live wires that someone could get electrocuted, roach infestations, rodent infestations,” Klein says.

But Klein says there’s no immediate danger for tenants.

“We are not looking to shut them down and relocate 802 units, because there’s no immediate threat,” he says. “What we are looking to do is use the court process to compel this individual to fix these properties immediately.”

While the City Attorney’s office has gone after, and closed, apartment complexes as recently as last month, Klein says this case is different – it’s about quality of life, instead of crime.

“Shutting down places, most of the time, it’s in conjunction with police,” Klein says. “It’s about violence, it’s about drugs, it’s about gangs. This time, it’s about poor quality of life.”

The lawsuit also involves AMG’s Hartford on the Lake comlpex near Noe-Bixby Park, and the Fitzroy Apartments just off Morse Road.

The lawsuit is filed in Franklin County Environmental Court.

http://radio.wosu.org/post/city-attorney-files-largest-nuisance-suit-columbus-history?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter#stream/0
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Until the city passes legislation to treat any property being rented whether a company, LLC, or individual as a defined business with a set of rules and regulations with specific definitions, compliance, and enforcement, this problem with continue to fester.

Start with

  1. Required registering of all rental properties with a better yearly required valid contact information to include a valid email.
  2. In addition to this there should be a mechanism next to the contact number to quickly report if the contact info is not valid so that the auditors office can take action for incorrect information. This is technology that can easily be implemented and at least follows the principal that the city needs to provide better resources so citizens can “partner” with the city so that the city can have reliable information on property owners whether, owned, rented, or bank owned and take more timely action when citizens report a concern to code enforcement. There are many people that try to report issues but get stuck immediately on the first page
  3. Properties for profit rentals, etc should have to pay an administration fee or rental tax or rental license fee to the city for this. We tax everything else why not these properties that our renting in our communities and taking advantage of our city resources of trash pickup and community maintenance, hence our BIG major bulk trash situation MOSTLY caused by rental properties!
  4. As a home owner we pay to have trash removed based on average occupancy of a single home dwelling and most likely taking into account the turnover of the property. Properties that are rented should have to pay a higher fee because their trash burden to the city is more substantial than my usage.
  5. Out of state property owners, companies, or LLCs should be required to have a local property manager.
  6. Properties for rent should have a certification statement from a governing agency of acceptable living conditions similar to the requirements sent forth in order to have a property certified as Section 8.
  7. Rental properties formed as LLC’s should be required to show their Profit-Loss Statements. This information should be readily available on the Auditors site.
  8. Rental contracts that have to be filed with the city with specific language that includes code enforcement requirements of maintaining a property in the city this would include language in the contract that if a tenant for example fails to maintenance a property such as mowing, snow removal, etc or code enforcement the owner is immediately responsible regardless of whether language is specified in the contract of renter responsibility.
  9. The city should provide services to a property owner that rents to compose and have a sheet listing city services, rules, etc. This can even go further and include local block-watches and nearby community organizations.
  10. The city should compose and have available to rental property owners a list of expectations, city services, how to use, etc for all renters. The property owner renting should be required to hand out to every renter and every time they rent to a new renter.
  11. The eviction process needs to be changed to remove the “set out” process of evicted tenants. This just contributes to our trash and blight problem in our communities.
  12. The property owner is responsible for the proper removal of tenant belongings left in a property and not allowed to be set out as bulk for the city to have to take care of.
  13. There should be an “Angie’s List” of some kind that is easily assessable for both tenants and landlords to check the “rating” factor of both tenants and landlords.

My first bulk up request

I’ve definitely been an advocate and promoter for city services especially refuse, recycle and yard waste collection and bulk pick up but being a first time user of the bulk pick up service I must say I am very disappointed in my service request not being fulfilled. I came home to find that it hadn’t been picked up and when I looked up the ticket number it had been marked closed with no explanation. I called Columbus311 this morning and was told that it was construction debris! I advised that I didn’t understand how because it consisted of larger household items, furniture, trash cans, pictures, buckets, brooms etc that would not fit in my 90 gallon trash receptacle. I also said that I had a shopping cart nearby that frequently ends up in our alley and it was sitting next to it as well as two large glass door inserts that were going to be picked up by someone else but in no way was included in the bulk pickup. Apparently since they were in close proximately that warranted not picking up anything and that they don’t “pick thru” the items to ascertain what will be taken. Given that the bulk items were all grouped together I ponder what sorting thru had to be done. I figured they just saw what they wanted to see and concluded that it was all construction debris instead of realizing the items grouped together as household bulk. Puts a sour taste in one’s mouth who has always advocated bulk service and always worked hard to keep our alley the best in the area and unfortunately another example of advocating for services that end up being problematic after encouraging neighbors to use the services. I did get a call from the supervisor who is still researching what had happened but said it will be picked up tomorrow. Meanwhile I’m out there looking at the pile of remaining items as several pieces seemed worthwhile for others to want (well aside from the mop I had put out and found one street over yesterday evening when I was out walking the dog with my neighbor!) to be sure nothing “appeared” to be construction debris.

Sigh, my time is short here – I’m worn out and I’m pretty serious when I say my next home will be out in the country with my only worries being fending off the wildlife!

[Update: 08/10/18/Friday/All picked up this morning!]

#bulk
#services
#ServiceFail
#trash
#community
#WestgateHeights
#WestgateHeightsCommunityAlliance
#ColumbusOH
#ColumbusOhio
#Columbus
#OH
#Ohio

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Mouse in the house and all that’s related

A new family on the street shared with me about the terrifying incident of finding a mouse in their house! I said welcome to the west side Hilltop of Columbus, Ohio and that thankfully with the soon removal of the 300 gallon trash receptacles, this may help alleviate part of this problem. Now of course my neighbor behind me that hasn’t spoken to me for over a year because he was and is convinced that I caused the removal of the 300 gallon trash receptacles in my alley causing him a tremendous hardship of having to wheel his 90 gallon trash receptacle out to the alley every Wednesday via his totally filled up two car garage. Of course my suggestion of him fixing his damn gate might help with his current plight and inconvenience but alas being a maintenance person of several properties on the westside, he just didn’t feel he should have to fix his gate to take out the trash and that the city is violating his rights because of this! Now back to the mice, I find it interesting with all the stray and feral cats running the neighborhood that we really shouldn’t have such a problem but again alas with all the kind hearted folk who insist on putting out cat food on their porches and on abandoned properties to feed these little darlings; Well why work to eat when you can just wait to be fed? A truly American concept, no?

#mouse
#house
#trash
#cats
#FeralCats
#StrayCats
#GonnaMissMyHouse
#GonnaMissMyHood
#GonnaMissColumbusOH
#GonnaMissColumbusOhio
#GonnaMissColumbus
#WestgateHeights
#WestgateHeightsCommunityAlliance
#ColumbusOH
#ColumbusOhio
#Columbus
#OH
#Ohio

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Commentary

$685,000 for the new Shot Spotter equipment. Yay, that the Westside Hilltop is part of the pilot program, Nay that as with a high percentage of calls made to our CPD Dispatch from the Westside Hilltop – “we are too busy to dispatch or address your concern”. So question: When our Columbus City Council stamped this $685,000 purchase was more money allocated to our CPD to support and respond to this new technology? New Year’s Eve 2018 shall give us an answer!

#ShotSpotter
#commentary
#community
@ColumbusPolice
#CPD
#ColumbusDivisionPolice
#ColumbusPolice

#MoneyAllocationForEquipmentPurchaseButNotImplementation
#SpendingWisely
#CandyCoating
#CityOfColumbus
#CityOfColumbusServices
#OH
#Ohio
#ColumbusOH
#ColumbusOhio
#Columbus
#USA

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“Free” online is not free

Let’s be perfectly clear, when you get something for free online or a free online service, you are in some way paying for it. It may not be monetary to you but a wealth of information to the provider. Facebook, free game apps for your smartphone, and free online services all do it to gather information on you whether it be a one time affair or a continuous gathering of information on you such as Facebook. Most are harmless but having this information compiled on you just makes it a goldmine for unscrupulous third party companies or individuals to make a fortune on. In the 21st century it’s not about stealing your money it’s about stealing your identity and individuality!

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Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg testifies before Congress
By: Debbie Lord, Cox Media Group National Content Desk

Updated: Apr 10, 2018 – 7:44 PM
https://www.wsbtv.com/news/trending-now/live-updates-facebook-ceo-mark-zuckerberg-to-testify-before-congress/730128159

Equality is for all and needs participation from all

All this talk of equality today and equality for all…but yet I see Dr King’s message lost daily when I’m looked at as a white guy and automatically perceived with status. I was brought up to look beyond color and to listen and communicate accordingly but yet I see, I see just like a person of color a bias and I struggle and make that extra effort to show that I am only and individual, an individual trying to communicate with another individual but a lot of times it is daunting and sure dwindles that desire to just wanting to make a connection. I know I’m not the only person that feels that way, perhaps just the only person willing to admit it. I will continue to treat everyone like I would want to be treated but I will not treat anyone with special status just because they may have been considered unequal by others.

Homeowners Association (HOA) bans flying of American Flag

No Homeowners Association (HOA) should have it in it’s rules that one cannot fly an American Flag conversely anyone in the Homeowners Association knew of the rules before buying into the community. So don’t cry patriotism and your rights being violated even with the “Freedom to Display the American Flag Act of 2005” when you put up your 15 foot flag pole. There is a reason your HOA has the rules in effect and most likely attracted you to the community. Get on the HOA board and get the rules changed to everyone’s agreement.

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