Saturday, October 31, 2015

An oldie and a goodie

If you take 1 minute to read this prayer, imagine how many prayers are going up for our country.
Hi Lord, it’s me. We are getting older and things are getting bad here. Gas prices are too high, no jobs, and food and heating costs too high. I know some have taken you out of our schools, government and even Christmas, but Lord I'm asking you to come back and re-bless America. We really need you! There are more of us who want you than those who don't! Thank You Lord, I Love You.

Police Harassment Explained


Recently, the Tampa Police Department ran an e-mail forum with the local community (a question and answer exchange) with the topic being, "Community Policing." One of the civilian e-mail participants posed the following question:
"I would like to know how it is possible for police officers to continually harass people, and get away with it?"
From the "other side" (the law enforcement side) Sgt. Bennett, obviously a cop with a sense of humor replied:
"First of all, let me tell you this ... it's not easy. In Tampa, we average one cop for every 600 people.
Only about 60% of those cops are on general duty (or what you might refer to as "patrol") where we do most of our harassing. The rest are in non-harassing departments that do not allow them contact with the day to day innocents.
At any given moment, only one-fifth of the 60% patrollers are on duty, and available for harassing people while the rest are off duty.
So roughly, one cop is responsible for harassing about 5,000 residents. When you toss in the commercial business, and tourist locations that attract people from other areas, sometimes you have a situation where a single cop is responsible for harassing 10,000 or more people a day.
Now, your average ten-hour shift runs 36,000 seconds long. This gives a cop one second to harass a person, and then only three-fourths of a second to eat a donut, and then find a new person to harass.
This is not an easy task. To be honest, most cops are not up to this challenge day in and day out. It is just too tiring.
What we do is utilize some tools to help us narrow down those people which we can realistically harass. The tools available to us are as follows:
PHONE: People will call us up and point out things that cause us to focus on a person for special harassment. "My neighbor is beating his wife" is a code phrase used often. This means we'll come out and give somebody some special harassment. Another popular one: "There's a guy breaking into a house." The harassment team is then put into action.
CARS: We have special cops assigned to harass people who drive. They like to harass the drivers of fast cars, cars with no rego, or no driver's licenses and the like. It's lots of fun when you pick them out of traffic for nothing more obvious than running a red light. Sometimes you get to really heap the harassment on when you find they have drugs in the car, they are drunk or have an outstanding warrant.
RUNNERS: Some people take off running just at the sight of a police officer. Nothing is quite as satisfying as running after them like a cat on the scent of a mouse. When you catch them you can harass them for hours, to determine why they didn't want to talk to us.
LAWS: When we don't have PHONES or CARS or RUNNERS, and have nothing better to do, there are actually books that give us ideas for reasons to harass folks. They are called "Laws"; Criminal Code, Motor Vehicle Laws, etc ...They all spell out all sorts of things for which you can really mess with people.
After you read the laws, you can just drive around for awhile until you find someone violating one of these listed offences and harass them. Just last week I saw a guy trying to steal a car. Well, there's this book we have that says that's not allowed. That meant I was allowed to harass this guy. It's a really cool system that we've set up, and it works pretty well.
We seem to have a never-ending supply of folks to harass and we get away with it. Why? Because for the good Tampa citizens who pay the bill. We try to keep the streets safe for them and they pay us to "harass" some people.
Hopefully sir, this has clarified to you a little bit better, how we harass the good citizens of Tampa.

The Poster Boy I Met

I was at the train station Monday in Geneva.  We were waiting to go to the opera.  A nice looking black man came to me and asked if I could help him. He said he had spent the night outdoors last night.  It wasn't cold. He wanted money for a ticket.  I said he should get on with us and I would buy his ticket. 

He did, and sat with us.  Nice looking man, younger looking than his 40 years would reveal.  His ticket cost me about 7 bucks.  For the next hour we talked a great deal, more important HE talked and I listened.

Here are some things he told me.  He grew up on the west side, Chicago and Homan on the west side.  That when he was 17 (he was an up and coming basketball player) he was arrested for standing while black.  That he was framed by the Chicago cops.  Spent 9 months in jail and got a 5 year probation.

Life didn't go well after that. He has had a hard time finding work.  Has 5 children with 3 different women.  Sees them from time to time, showed me a picture.  Doesn't have a Drivers License.  DUIs.
Used to have a pick up truck where he did yard maintenance type landscaping.  That's gone.  That he was a really hard worker, worked for a company I know well out our way. Even showed me a pay stub. Said he used to work at Caterpillar in maintenance.  But his sister and her boyfriend wrote checks on his account and stole all his money.  Then because he owed so much on child support they government took his whole check. 

So now he lives in a shelter and rides a bike.  Works where and when he can.  He DID graduate High School with a 3.0 from the CPS.  Seemed OK. I actually liked him.  We talked about the company he had been working for.  I asked if he knew my friend who worked there, Tim.  (I gave him the last name).  OH YET.  A good friend to him as well.  Great guy.

He asked if I knew where he could find work since he just can't get a break. I asked him for his phone number which he gave me, and I gave it to a guy who uses day labor, pays cash and is close to where he stays in Oak Park.

Well, here's the result.  Several unanswered phone calls even with voice mail to offer him work.. no response.  I ran into Tim and asked if he knew Derrick.  He said he hasn't worked there for the last 3 years.  I am suspicious of most of the rest of the stories I heard.  He was a hustler, and tried to hustle me.

I'm not suspicious of the fact that he keeps getting involved with women, moving in, getting kicked out.  After meeting Peggy he said that finding a Godly women is really hard. I suspect he is looking in all the wrong places.  Toward the end I got into some discussion of spiritual things, revealed that I am an ordained minister. He used to go to church.. but not any more.

I only post this because he represents so much of a cultural norm we need to begin to make abnormal.  Unless we as a society begin to help those trapped in the cultural collapse to escape, not with money, but with hard tough love that gets them on their feet with meaning.  That's what is needed and that's what is missing.  Government can do nothing for Derrick except to keep him enslaved for the rest of what could be a short life.

I think about that hour's train ride. I spoke words of hope over him. I encouraged him.  Maybe something he got will get him set free from the chains of cultural deception that hold him down.  MAYBE. 

I'll pray for him that God will take him to a place where he has nothing else left except Jesus. Then true repentance from dead works can begin.  We have created a monster in the community that locks people in cells made not with steel but with enablements to live below the God given potential they were created for.

Guess What? You're Not Actually A Hero






Guess What? You’re Not Actually A Hero
Here’s a recent headline I ran across in Slate: “Brave Portland Woman Breaks Up Planned Parenthood Protest by Chanting ‘Yeast Infections!’”

The story centers around a woman who works at Portland’s Purringtons
Cat Lounge. After witnessing a pro-life protester outside, Mary Numair,
who is a big fan of Planned Parenthood, decided to take matters into her
own hands by making a sign and yelling at some people:
The sign, which Numair crafted out of masking tape and a
piece of cardboard from the dumpster, praised Planned Parenthood for
treating her chronic yeast infections when she was in her early 20s and
uninsured. It also included a delightful cartoon of a vagina with a
smiling clitoris and a stick figure with pigtails and prominent breasts…
Now, however delightful or political profound a smiling clitoris
cartoon sketched on a piece of discarded cardboard might be, being a
liberal in Portland doesn’t exactly tell us that you’re prepared to face
or endure danger or pain or that you show any particular courage in the
face of a serious threat. Neither, sad to say, does yelling “yeast
infections!” Portland pro-life protestors were undoubtedly non-violent
(as almost all pro-life protests are) and Numair’s pro-government
protestation was not only protected by law but probably cheered by most.

Actually, her act was celebrated by a major news site. So Joan of Arc she is most certainly not.

But I’ve noticed a lot of this lately; and perhaps it’s not new.
Every day there’s some story focusing on false heroes and pseudo-bravery
masquerading as some valiant or defiant action. Not only on the
political front, but in culture, where fake courageousness not only
dilutes the genuine heroic actions of others, but is used to create the
false impression that people are engaged in actions far more important
than they really are. Bravery is not synonymous with “you agree with
me.”


Guess What? You're Not Actually A Hero

If you fly between Chicago and L.A. you might be a drug dealer, according to the DEA

In April of this year, two Drug Enforcement Administration task force members stopped a man named Issa Serieh at Los Angeles International Airport, asked him some questions, and seized $30,750 in cash off of him. They sent him on his way without charging him with a crime.

The task force members "were in a LAX terminal gate monitoring passengers arriving on American Airlines flight number 2220 which had traveled from Chicago," according to a complaint filed last month at the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California. And why were they monitoring that particular gate? Because "Chicago is a known consumer city for narcotics and Los Angeles is a known source city where narcotics can be purchased," the complaint explains.
The elastic definition of "reasonable suspicion " from the welfare-warfare state.

From NEWSALERT

The Commerce Department’s GDP numbers don’t make any sense

  The Commerce Department’s GDP numbers don’t make any sense
John Crudele

Marijuana must be legal in Washington because the folks at the Commerce Department have to be smoking a lot of it.
Commerce announced on Thursday that the nation’s third-quarter gross domestic product expanded by just a 1.5 percent annual rate.
That’s pathetic growth that won’t allow the US to create enough jobs for the number of people entering the workforce. It’s also less than half the second quarter’s growth.
But how Commerce got to that 1.5 percent number is truly amazing.
Of the 1.5 percent, 0.45 of a percentage point came from increased health care spending. In other words, mandatory ObamaCare payments caused about one-third of the third-quarter GDP growth.
Without that forced spending, GDP growth would have been just 1 percent annualized.
But that ain’t all.
Increases in durable-goods spending contributed 0.48 of a percentage point to that 1.5 percent GDP number. Without that increase — on products like cars, refrigerators and planes, which are long-lasting — annualized third-quarter GDP would have been just 1.02 percent.
Here’s the bizarre part: Sales of durable goods have been in a free fall.

Read the whole thing.

Monday, October 26, 2015

WOW, Who Knew?

Month off drinking slashes risk of disease: Abstaining found to heal the liver and lower blood pressure and cholesterol levels

  • Doctors have warned drinkers should abstain for a month to prevent illness
  • Research has shown it can heal the liver and lower blood pressure levels
  • Those who gave up for a month also at lower risk of cancer and diabetes
  • Researchers claim 'staggering' results can influence drinking guidelines

Witchcraft


Lance Wallnau A NATION UNDER SIEGE
The Veil of Witchcraft Must Be Torn Off!
Let’s go back. Here are some audio sound bites of the Obama Team explaining what happened in Benghazi when 4 Americans were killed...(in spite of 600 requests for increased security.)
OBAMA: I don't care how offensive this video was, it was terribly offensive and we should shun it.
HILLARY: (haltingly) This video is disgusting and reprehensible. It appears to have a deeply cynical purpose, to denigrate a great religion and to provoke rage.
CARNEY: Let's be clear. These protests were in reaction to a video that had spread to the region.
OBAMA: You had a video that was released by somebody who lives here, sort of a shadowy character, who is -- an extremely offensive video.
CARNEY: The unrest we've seen has been in reaction to a video.
OBAMA: A crude and disgusting video sparked outrage throughout the Muslim world.
RICE: It was a spontaneous, not a premeditated, response -- a direct result of a heinous and offensive video.
OBAMA: I know there are some who ask, "Why don't we just ban such a video?" The answer is enshrined in our laws. Our Constitution protects the right to practice free speech.
President Obama at the United Nations spoke 14 days after the attack: anticipating questions from the dictators that meet there. "Well, hey, why don't you just kill this obnoxious and unthinking video guy if he's caused you this much trouble?"
Obama says, "Well, now, America's not yet like your countries. I just can't shoot these people. But I can arrest 'em and put 'em in jail, which I have done. But we have freedom of speech. Make no mistake...I personally am offended by any words disrespectful to the Prophet. I'm trying to change America. "The future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam”"
Mrs. Clinton, January 23, 2013, Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on Benghazi. She testified.
Senator Ron Johnson (Republican-Wisconsin), said, "WE WERE MISLED that there were supposedly protests and an assault sprang out of that, and it was easily ascertained that it was not the fact. The American people could have known that within days..."
He's saying: "You people lied about this video for weeks, and we knew soon that it wasn't that, and yet you continued to say things that weren't true. Now, you could have set the record straight much sooner than you did."
NOW THE WITCHCRAFT MOMENT...
HILLARY: (shouting) With all due respect, the fact is we had four dead Americans.
JOHNSON: I understand.
HILLARY: “Was it because of a protest or was it because guys out for a walk one night decided to go kill some Americans? What difference does it make!?!?”
GET IT? THAT WAS THE WITCHCRAFT MOMENT! It made a great deal of difference because a U.S. President and Secretary of State conspired to lie to America and the World in order to secure a second (disastrous for America) term of office.
Four Americans dead. An attack, a terror attack that was known to be a terror attack in advance of its happening, which was lied about and blamed on a video.
Media says “she is doing a great job holding up against this partisan Republican attack!”
THAT’S THE CURRENT WITCHCRAFT MOMENT in Media.
Nothing less than the Spirit and Power of Elijah is going to be sufficient to break the Jezebel mind control that is working through the High Places of Government in Washington. Pray a prophetic anointing manifests - and creates a MOMENT to expose the real nature of what is going on in this highly filtered media circus of a hearing.
So how do we overcome the media and get the truth to people? Hillary wants to be the next president. People deserve to know the truth about this. She was not a brilliant secretary of state. She was a disaster. From Russia, to the Middle East, to Libya, to wherever she went, she was a disaster as secretary of state, and Benghazi which happens to be the poster for it.
Media is not gonna expose Mrs. Clinton, as you well know. They're gonna circle the wagons and protect her, and they're going to try to destroy those who criticize her.
All of the Middle East is a post-Obama disaster, meaning after Obama gained control of the foreign policy of our country, began implementing his agenda, it has been a disaster. What did the Obama/Clinton team create? ISIS was created; Al-Qaeda was reconstituted and is once again growing.
There's no other word for it. It's an ongoing disaster that is the direct result of a bunch of incompetent, condescending, progressives imposing their leftists “utopian” foreign policy on an unstable region and making it worse. Then covering up an attack on an Embassy by blaming the indiscreet use of free speech in America.
And America...yawns.
WHAT WAS THE BIG MOMENT YESTERDAY?
This video issue was discussed yesterday under questioning by congressman Jim Jordan.
And HE POINTED OUT THE CONTRADICITON. He read two quotes where Hillary talks about the video being responsible for all that happened, and then her quoted her as saying, "Everybody knows the film had nothing to do with it." And then he said, "Mrs. Clinton, why the disparity? Why not just tell the American people the truth?"
Hillary response was something like…"I did. I did. You're confusing things. I was talking to some president of a foreign country at one point, you know how we have to deal with things like that." It was preposterous.
She was nailed – right there- exposed on the fact that they all knew this video was a manufactured excuse.
But she got off the ropes.
There was no damage done, as far as I could tell.
THAT’S THE WITCHCRAFT MOMENT…AGAIN.
I'm just saying that when he hit her with the direct contradiction of how on the one hand she's telling people, "Yeah, we know the video had nothing to do with it," and the other hand still to this day, to this day she was citing the video and still using it in these hearings, still relying on it as the reason Benghazi happened.
This is how a spiritual fog operates over Washington in that room and over the Media that tells the story. It’s a fascinating sort of thing. Guys like Rush Limbaugh have been right on this stuff for a decade. I'm convinced we have secular prophets restraining the darkness. Now they need YOU. Without prayer America doesn't have a weapon in the arsenal for this thing.