Phyrfight Intel

Why cops and firefighters stood by as a man drowned in San Francisco Bay

by Steven Greenhut

“On Memorial Day, a suicidal man waded into San Francisco Bay outside the city of Alameda and stood there for about an hour, neck-deep in chilly water, as about 75 bystanders watched. Local police and firefighters were called to the scene, but they refused to help. After the man drowned, the assembled “first responders” also refused to wade into the water to retrieve his body; they left that job for a bystander.

The incident sparked widespread outrage in northern California, and the response by the fire department and police only intensified the anger. The firefighters blamed local budget cuts for denying them the training and equipment necessary for cold-water rescues. The police said that they didn’t know if the man was dangerous and therefore couldn’t risk the safety of their officers.

After a local TV news crew asked him whether he would save a drowning child in the bay, Alameda fire chief Ricci Zombeck gave an answer that made him the butt of local talk-show mockery: “Well, if I was off duty, I would know what I would do, but I think you’re asking me my on-duty response, and I would have to stay within our policies and procedures, because that’s what’s required by our department to do.”

If you stand a better chance of being rescued by the official rescuers when they are off duty, it naturally leads people to question the purpose of these departments, which consume the lion’s share of city budgets and whose employees—in California, anyway—receive exceedingly handsome salaries.

In Orange County, where I worked for a newspaper for 11 years, the average pay and benefits package for a firefighter is $175,000 a year. Virtually every Orange County deputy sheriff earns, in pay and overtime, over $100,000 a year, with a significant percentage earning more than $150,000.

Though a few were appalled by the new public-safety culture they saw on display, most defended it; some even defended Zombeck’s words. Many made reference to a fire in San Francisco that week that had claimed the life of at least one firefighter. The message was clear: Don’t criticize firefighters, because they put their lives on the line protecting you.

There’s no doubt that firefighters and police have tough and sometimes dangerous jobs, but that doesn’t mean that the public has no business criticizing them—especially as they become infected with the bureaucratic mind-set spread by public-sector union activism.”

http://www.city-journal.org/2011/21_3_snd-alameda.html

by Tom Tancredo

“If anyone had any doubt about President Obama’s lack of respect for the Constitution, the separation of powers or the rule of law, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano dispelled that doubt on Aug. 18.

Napolitano has announced rather cavalierly that her department will no longer enforce the nation’s immigration laws. According to White House spokesperson Cecilia Munoz, our immigration laws will henceforth be enforced “in a smart and effective manner.” Reading the fine print, this translates into deporting only illegal aliens who commit “serious crimes,” and all others will get the benefits of “prosecutorial discretion.” This amounts to amnesty by White House decree, not by act of Congress.

Over 300,000 existing deportation orders will be disregarded by the agents of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency, and millions of future cases will never get that far.

State-level enactment of mandatory E-Verify laws and tough sanctions against employment of illegal aliens is the best way – indeed, in the short term, the only way – to obstruct and neutralize Obama’s unilateral, administrative amnesty.

The Obama amnesty ought to be the provocation for a national citizens’ movement to institute mandatory E-Verify laws in every state. Over 20 states besides Arizona allow initiative ballot measures, and several states have passed strict anti-illegal immigration laws through the legislature. It’s time for dozens of states to initiate such legislation, and there must be a national, coordinated effort to assist states in doing so.

http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=338229#ixzz1WLMerZ1a

“Texas Gov. Rick Perry has asked the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to reimburse the state $350 million to cover costs of imprisoning illegal immigrants.

In a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, the top-tier Republican presidential candidate blamed the federal government for not securing the border with Mexico, allowing illegal immigrants to cross over and use taxpayer-funded resources. He said resources for county jails are being depleted as a result.

Perry included in the letter the formula he used to determine the costs and included a memo from state Comptroller Susan Combs supporting his calculations.

http://www.newsmax.com/InsideCover/Perry-ImmigrationCosts/2011/08/26/id/408839?s=al&promo_code=CEE3-1

“The Wall Street Journal published a disturbing article earlier this week entitled “Federal Asset Seizures Rise, Netting Innocent With Guilty.”

You can already imagine the crux of the article.

In the United States, there are hundreds of regulations which authorize dozens federal agencies to confiscate private property– homes, cars, bank accounts, gold, company shares, and even personal effects.

Ironically, most Americans still think that they live in a country where you’re innocent until proven guilty. Nothing could be further from the truth, and it’s just another clear example of how the US Constitution has become a worthless piece of toilet paper for the federal government.

The Fifth Amendment states that “No person shall be… deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.” Tell that James Lieto, a New York businessman who was relieved of $392,000 when the armored car company used by his check-cashing firm was taken down by the FBI.

Lieto was innocent and not implicated in any wrongdoing, but the FBI took his money regardless as it just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Last October, another businessman named Raul Stio was suspected of wrongdoing by the Treasury Department. The government seized over $150,000 from his account, yet in the 10-months that followed, Stio has still not been charged with a crime.

http://www.sovereignman.com/expat/government-asset-seizure

“After weeks of investigation, NaturalNews can now reveal that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration is waging a clandestine war on raw milk dairy farmers through a network of government spies who are coached on infiltration and social engineering techniques. Resembling the Stasi East German police or KGB of the former Soviet Union, these undercover FDA agents meet each month for a “spying roundtable” phone conference called the Raw Milk Call during which techniques of infiltration are openly discussed and encouraged.

NaturalNews can now reveal that the majority of these undercover FDA agents are women, who are more easily able to infiltrate the raw dairy community with techniques of social engineering.

The existence of this elaborate spying operation has been confirmed by NaturalNews through three different sources, all of which demanded anonymity as they fear being targeted by the FDA with armed raids, false arrest and destruction of their property, as we recently witnessed with the Rawesome Foods raid. One source told NaturalNews they feared the FDA would stage a Waco-style siege of their farm and invent some justification to assault their farmhouse and shoot them and their family. Yes, this is how much freedom has been lost in America today, where farmers are afraid to speak out for fear they might be killed. And yet, it’s not paranoia: They have legitimate reason to fear their own government is targeting them for termination.

http://www.naturalnews.com/033428_FDA_secret_war.html#ixzz1WFlG0ah1

The Antelope Valley is a vast patch of desert on the outskirts of Los Angeles County, and a segment of the few rugged individualists who live out there increasingly are finding themselves the targets of armed raids from local code enforcement agents, who’ve assembled into task forces called Nuisance Abatement Teams (NATs).

The plight of the Valley’s desert dwellers made regional headlines when county officials ordered the destruction of Phonehenge: a towering, colorful castle constructed out of telephone poles by retired phone technician Kim Fahey. Fahey was imprisoned and charged with several misdemeanors.

But Fahey is just one of many who’ve been targeted by the NATs, which were assembled at the request of County Supervisor Mike Antonovich in 2006. LA Weekly reporter Mars Melnicoff wrote an in-depth article in which she exposed the county’s tactic of badgering residents with minor, but costly, code violations until they face little choice but to vacate the land altogether.

“They’re picking on the the people who are the most defenseless and have the least resources,” says Melnicoff.

Reason.tv collaborated with Melnicoff to talk with some of the NAT’s targets, such as retired veteran Joey Gallo, who might face homelessness if he’s forced to leave his house, and local pastor Oscar Castaneda, who says he’s already given up the fight and is in the process of moving off the land he and his wife have lived on for 22 years. And, while Antonovich declined an interview, we did catch up with him at a public meeting in order to ask the big question at the center of all this: Why the sudden enforcement of these codes against people living in the middle of the desert, who seemingly are affecting no one?

“The Obama administration cannot get its amnesty schemes through Congress , so now it has resorted to implementing its plans via executive fiat,” she said. “We need to remind President Obama that we elected a president that serves beneath the law and did not anoint a king that is above the law.”

http://www.newsmax.com/InsideCover/Jan-Brewer-Obama-Jobs/2011/08/19/id/408020

President Barack Obama has finally come up with a plan for jobs, Arizona governor Jan Brewer said on Friday.

The only problem is that it will only benefit illegal immigrants!

http://www.newsmax.com/InsideCover/Jan-Brewer-Obama-Jobs/2011/08/19/id/408020

“The economy has created less than 125,000 new jobs in seven of the last twelve months. Congress is importing workers at a faster rate than the economy is creating jobs.

Since 1990, immigration numbers have been higher than in any other period in U.S. history. Over the last two decades, immigration has averaged about 1 million people per year, or three times our traditional average.

Today’s immigration policies will profoundly impact the challenges our children and grandchildren will face. U.S. population will more than double from 203 million in 1970 to 439 million in 2050, according to the Census Bureau. And according to the Pew Hispanic Center, immigration will cause eighty-two percent of all U.S. population growth between 2005 and 2050. The radical population growth Congress creates through its immigration policies has no end in sight, and is running up a bill future generations will have to pay.

https://www.numbersusa.com/content/nusablog/beckj/august-17-2011/sustainable-immigration-part-1-4-american-workers.html?

From NumbersUSA:

“Last year, we were the first to break the news that the Obama Administration was considering options that would grant an administrative amnesty to illegal aliens living in the United States.

Yesterday, that possibility became a reality when White House Director of Intergovernmental Affairs Cecilia Munoz announced a change to the Department of Homeland Security’s deportation policy. Going forward, DHS will review deportation cases on a case-by-case basis and focus future deportations only on criminal illegal aliens, allowing non-criminal illegal aliens to stay in the country.

Making matters worse, the Wall Street Journal has confirmed that illegal aliens who receive deferred action or parole from deportation can apply for work permits allowing them to compete with 22 million Americans looking for full-time work. That’s 300,000 illegal aliens who could potentially receive work permits!

So, while Pres. Obama spent much of the week on a bus tour promoting a future plan to get unemployed Americans back to work, his Administration was working behind the scenes to help illegal aliens become eligible for jobs in the United States!”

Recently, the FBI started sending copies of a letter to military surplus stores in Colorado under the premise of a new program called “Communities Against Terrorism.”

Their intent is to have Americans report on fellow law-abiding citizens if they suspect them of any terrorist activities.

But here’s the catch: Guess who they want to be viewed as “suspicious”?
People who “insist on paying in cash”;
People who buy “Meals Ready to Eat”;
People who buy “weatherproofed ammunition containers”;
People who buy “high capacity magazines”;
And even people who buy “night flashlights.”

The Feds are going after a group of Americans known as “preppers.”

Those who want to be prepared for emergencies and possible disasters.

People who don’t want to rely on the government for every possible need – the same type of people who I respect – and feel that they are their own “first responder.”

And now, that kind of attitude is worthy of getting you put on a terrorist watch list.

http://paracom.paramountcommunication.com/hostedemail/email.htm?h=cf953c0b33b0bae390484593dd94a19d&CID=9622194623&ch=CF042A2C2629F68121C9A2EDD9C27E85

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/mon-august-15-2011/indecision-2012—corn-polled-edition—ron-paul—the-top-tier

Evidently Ron Paul does not even exist to American Mainstream Media.