Sadly, money is a necessity of life and often not very plentiful.
You, however, can make a difference!
Please consider donating to our “Carrie Project”, if you are able.
Every dollar counts and every dollar is appreciated!
Thank you for whatever you are able to do!
Blessings to all!
Full Article & Source:
Chris Christie: ‘Imagine if it were me who deleted my emails?’
Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke appeared on “Hannity” tonight to weigh in on why the death of convicted drug dealer Freddie Gray got so much more mainstream media attention than the murder of 25-year-old NYPD officer Brian Moore.
Last night, Sheriff Clarke told Hannity that, “Cops’ lives don’t matter.” Tonight, he said that he sees a political agenda in play, explaining that the data doesn’t back up the narrative of police targeting black men.
“There is no pattern. There is no credible evidence to support that law enforcement officers of any race use an inordinate amount of force against black males,” Sheriff Clarke stated.
He said this narrative thrives because the liberal mainstream media likes race and identity politics.
“They have abandoned their responsibility under the First Amendment to be neutral and to get to the facts, and they have become the mouthpiece, they have become the propaganda wing of leftist policy and leftist ideology,” Sheriff Clarke said.
Watch the clip from “Hannity” above.
Full Article & Source:
Sheriff Clarke: Mainstream Media Has Become Propaganda Wing of Far-Left
By Lloyd Marcus
My brother texted me in Florida reporting from Baltimore, our hometown. He said the thugs have gotten crazy and need to be dealt with. My nephew who is a video journalist said it was appalling witnessing local black ministers arguing over street corners for their group of protesters, jockeying for position for the TV cameras.
A friend called interrupting me watching Bizarre Foods TV show, wanting to know if I was watching the coverage of the Baltimore riots. Upon turning the channel to watch the mainstream media coverage, I had to turn the channel away from it. It was too much to stomach.
All I saw was people behaving badly; from Baltimore’s insanely liberal mayor to black talking head liberal operatives spewing idiotic excuses to domestic terrorist thugs turning the city into a war zone.
I thought, I have seen this stupid evil horror movie before (Ferguson) and I “ain’t gonna” watch it again.
The media is reporting that some black leaders are calling for peace. Well, I am sorry, but that is too little too late. How do you expect black youths to react to the Left’s orchestrated campaign to convince them that white Republicans and conservatives are racist and out to get them; white cops murder them at will, the rich got rich stealing from them and business owners are selfish and evil?
These lies have been sold to black youths by the highest black voices in the country – Obama, Oprah, Democrats, Sharpton, Holder, Jackson, the NAACP, the Congressional Black Caucus and assorted other race exploiting scumbags. If I sound angry it is because I am.
What was that mantra George’s dad on Seinfeld used to keep calm? Oh yeah, he said, “Serenity now! Serenity now!”
Enough with this hogwash that Christians should not get angry. The bad behavior destroying peoples’ livelihood in Baltimore and the nuanced response to it should make decent honorable people angry.
The Baltimore riots and other incidents of black mob attacks and assaults on innocent whites across America are the result of the Left’s hoax that blacks are victimized in America; perpetrating hate for political gain. http://bit.ly/1GEgNAf Such evil should make decent Americans angry.
When Jesus turned over the tables of the crooks in the temple, he was angry. Jesus even called evil doers names, “Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell?” Jesus pretty much expressed my thoughts regarding modern day black so-called civil rights leaders.
I am not advocating bad behavior from our side. The Bible says, be angry, but sin not. I am advocating that we stop putting up with it. These thugs do this stuff because they can.
I still can not wrap my head around the mayor of Baltimore saying the thugs must be protected and given space “to destroy.” http://bit.ly/1bA6vUa
In essence, the liberal mayor is saying that taxpayer businesses are acceptable collateral damage. I mean, who cares? Most of the trashed businesses are probably owned by rich white racists. Their ancestors probably owned slaves. So, they deserve it.
I am sick of it folks, liberal officials, liberal talking heads and liberal media justifying, tolerating and even celebrating bad behavior.
My brother asked if I noticed that all the blacks heralded as modern day civil rights heroes are criminals? I said, “Great observation grasshopper,” impressed by my low-info-voter brother.
Trayvon Martin was shot while attacking George Zimmerman. http://usat.ly/1HUg2Dp I remembered watching a youtube video of Alabama State marching band honoring the thug, spelling out “Trayvon” on the field. I thought, you have got to be kidding me. http://bit.ly/1DTmGm3
Equally frustrating is that all the black outrage, anger and violence is based on lies. For example. It has been proven that witnesses lied about Michael Brown after robbing a Ferguson convenience store and assaulting the clerk had his hands up in surrender to police. Brown was shot while attacking a police officer. http://bit.ly/1PSQYh8 And yet, from the Grammy Awards to pro football players running out of the tunnel with their hands up, the lie, slander of America’s police and hatred was furthered and nurtured.
Serenity now! Serenity now!
Meanwhile, truly extraordinary black role models such as retired black neurosurgeon Dr Ben Carson continue to be rejected and despised by black civil rights leaders. Only blacks who hate America with victim mindsets need apply for membership in their black civil rights movement club.
Blacks angry because of high black unemployment and poor economic conditions need look no further than their messiah (small m), Obama and his job killing policies and mountain of new outrageous regulations.
So please forgive me folks, my blood pressure can not take getting sucked into watching 24/7 sympathetic media coverage of this latest episode of Blacks Behaving Badly, Baltimore edition.
If the mayor of Baltimore and liberal media are going to take a don’t-make-the-black-kids-angry approach to dealing with white bystanders being brutalized http://bit.ly/1J6G3fZ, businesses being destroyed, looting and chaos in the streets, there is nothing I can do about it. Someone said voters get the government they deserve. Baltimore is notorious for electing liberals.
While I pray for my former hometown, I must emotionally sit this one out.
© Lloyd Marcus
This article is printed with the permission of the author.
Lloyd Marcus
The UK Guardian declared prolific writer, singer and songwriter Lloyd
Marcus the Tea Party Movement’s most prominent African American, seen on Fox News, CNN and more. Rejecting hyphenating, Marcus is renowned for proclaiming, “I am NOT an African-American! I am Lloyd Marcus AMERICAN!!!”
by Carrie K. Hutchens
The shadows follow into the night, brushing against the moment and cloaking in a chill of foreboding and rambling whispers.
A lone star mocks.
A chirp betrays.
A breeze moans.
Darkness dances and whirls in a haunting silence — the tune long forgotten — the steps mimicking and purposeless.
A fox cringes.
A bird soars in terror.
A cloud wanders.
A town sits alone and frightened in its despair of life that was, but now only memories burning and bitter in hopelessness.
Yesterday calls.
The night cries.
A tree falters.
The shadows follow into the night, brushing against the moment and cloaking in a chill of foreboding and rambling whispers, as the blasts come closer… closer… closer… until they are heard no more.
(c) 2015 Carrie K. Hutchens
All Rights Reserved!
No Reproduction Without Permission
by Carrie K. Hutchens * Friday, April 04, 2008 * Dakota Voice
Hillary Clinton thinks it is all a big joke that she lied? She thinks it is funny? So funny that she tells Jay Leno on the Tonight Show that she was afraid she wouldn’t make it to the studio because she was pinned down by sniper fire? And this is a person running for president?
Did Hillary also think it was funny when Zeifman is said to have fired her and one of the reasons claimed was for lying? (“Shocking Revelations about Hillary Clinton’s Watergate Committee Job” by Rick Moran – April 2, 2008 and More on Hillary’s Unethical Watergate Conduct by Bob Ellis – April 3, 2008 .)
There is something wrong with someone that can get caught lying and then go on television and try to make it a comedy routine. Lying should bring feelings such as regret and shame — not light-heartedness, laughter and the attitude of, “Yep, I lied. Hehe isn’t that funny? You caught me! Hehe oh my side hurts from laughing so hard. Want to hear another one?”
People need to take a step back and give this matter some serious thought.
Parents need to consider how they would feel if their child lied and then acted like it was a joking matter — something to brag about. Employees need to consider how they would feel if a co-worker or boss lied. What if it was a teacher, minister, police officer, or doctor? Wouldn’t there be a trust issue? Wouldn’t people note the inappropriate reaction to being caught in a lie and wonder what was wrong with the person?
~*~
Carrie Hutchens is a former law enforcement officer and a freelance writer who is active in fighting against the death culture movement and the injustices within the judicial and law enforcement systems.
by Carrie K. Hutchens * Friday, April 11, 2008 * Dakota Voice
I woke up to a clip of Bill Clinton blaming the media for what he considers unjust coverage of Hillary’s “misstatement” of the 1995 Bosnia trip. Poor Hillary, it was late at night, he claims. Besides the fact that the trip was in 1996, rather than 1995, he had some other facts wrong, too.
Hillary made the sniper fire statement on more than one occasion, contrary to his claim of once and at 11 at night when she was supposedly tired. But, of course, it wasn’t his fault he brought it up again, or that Hillary lied in the first place — it was all the fault of the media.
Speaking of confusing the facts when it is late at night — if Hillary gets that confused at 11 PM, just how confused is she going to be at 3 AM when that phone rings?
Then we have Bill, who apparently can’t get things right in the light of day, yet he has no hesitation blaming the media for worrying about it or reporting it. How dare they? That’s unfair coverage according to Clinton it would seem.
The Clintons also suggest that Hillary was the only first lady since Eleanor Roosevelt to visit a combat zone. Guess Pat Nixon and Barbara Bush don’t count. Maybe the Clintons meant to say the only “Democrat” first lady and it just “slipped their minds” to add that little added description.
Bill did give me an additional chuckle. He suggests when others get to be 60 (which Hillary is) that they might forget something when they are tired at 11 P.M., too. Is he saying, that at 60, people start getting to be feeble-minded and we should over-look their forgetfulness on major issues — like being shot at? Yep, I want a feeble-minded president that confuses smiles, hand shakes, welcomes and a little girl’s poem with sniper fire and need to duck and run immediately to waiting vehicles.
Did I mention that if Hillary gets THAT confused at 11 PM, we might have concern about a 3 AM call? Oh well… never mind, I’m sure if she gets too confused, it will be the media’s fault and she can always go talk to Jay Leno about it.
~*~
Carrie Hutchens is a former law enforcement officer and a freelance writer who is active in fighting against the death culture movement and the injustices within the judicial and law enforcement systems.
Originally published : Friday, April 11, 2008 * Dakota Voice
Greta Van Susteren slammed the mainstream media for its lack of reporting on the U.S. Marine veteran who has been held in Iran’s worst prison for more than three years.
Montel Williams went “On The Record” earlier this week to ask the public to help raise awareness for Amir Hekmati, the jailed veteran (below, right).
On Thursday, Williams returned to the show to discuss the case again, in light of the announcement by the Obama administration of a framework agreement on Iran’s nuclear program
Hekmati, an Iranian-American, was born in Arizona but held dual citizenship when he flew to Iran to visit his ailing grandmother.
Hekmati was arrested and charged with spying for the United States. He was sentenced to death, but that sentence was reversed and he was sentenced to 10 years in prison on a lesser charge.
Williams said a few days ago that Hekmati is in a dire situation, being whipped and forced to take drugs so that he could be tortured with the withdrawal symptoms.
On Thursday, Secretary of State John Kerry said conversations are continuing on the release of American prisoners. Others known to be held include American pastor Saeed Abedini and former FBI agent Bob Levinson.
Williams said he has “no idea” what Kerry meant with that statement.
President Obama declared Thursday that the proposed agreement satisfies the United States’ “core objectives.”
Williams pushed back, asking Greta how Obama could say that while these Americans remain imprisoned.
“Would not getting an American soldier back from the grips of a terrorist country that is torturing him be one of our objectives? So I don’t understand what that meant,” said Williams.
He added that the State Department may think he’s “pompous” for speaking out about this and demanding to know more.
But he said he only wants the administration to provide more information to the public.
“Don’t call me. Tell the American public what you’re doing. Since you and I started talking about this, there have been 18 million impressions of people in America looking at the story. That means America wants to know: how dare we make a deal and even contemplate signing one in a month, without bringing our citizens home? I don’t get it,” he said. (Click to continue reading)
Full Article & Source:
Montel: How Dare We Make a Deal With Iran While Americans Are Still Held?!
BROOKSVILLE —
A Brooksville Elementary student isn’t happy with the new statewide testing in schools, and she’s making her opinion known.
Sydney Smoot, 9, spoke Tuesday in front of the Hernando County School Board. She told school leaders that she’s not happy with the new Florida Standards Assessments.
“I do not feel that all this FSA testing is accurate to tell how successful I am,” she said in her speech.
WATCH: Sydney Smoot speaks out against standardized testing
The fourth-grader says the testing causes way too much anxiety for students.
“I just don’t think it’s fair because one test defines you as either a success or failure,” Sydney said.
She also says she had to sign a form telling her not to talk about the testing with her parents. She felt the need to speak up. (Click to continue reading)
Full Article, Video & Source:
Hernando fourth-grader speaks out against new FSA testing
In the second of her two opening statements on last night’s “Justice,” Judge Jeanine Pirro turned her attention to the Hillary Clinton email scandal.
Judge Jeanine said that congressman Trey Gowdy, a former prosecutor and a man who doesn’t take kindly to lies and the disregard of subpoenas, now has Clinton between a rock and hard place.
“Would those emails have shed light on your foundation raising millions of dollars from countries that you were doing business with as secretary of state?” Judge Jeanine asked. “Or would those emails have shed light on what actually went on in Benghazi? Or why you refused to designate Boko Haram a terrorist organization?”
“You’re a smart lady, Hillary. I get why you wanted a private server. But you may just have outsmarted yourself.” (Click to continue reading)
Full Article, Video & Source:
Judge Jeanine Warns Hillary: Your ‘Two-Step’ Won’t Work on Trey Gowdy
~*~
May you and yours be blessed this special day & all the days to come!
Screams pierce the night, as sirens wail against the blasts that light up the darkness in a fury of pure hatred. Smoke smothers the air. People seek to flee, running in desperation, but with no destination, except away… away from the blasts and the stench of burning flesh.
How long? How long has there been warning unheeded? Warning mocked as mere delusions of some? How long has the laughter rolled from the lips of the all-knowing and all-enlightened ones? Does it now matter?
Hearts pumping wildly as sweat flows freely. Blasts closer and closer. Breathing loud and labored against the sounds of people stampeding in blind flight. Away. Away from the nightmare and the murder surrounding and encircling. The nightmare devouring hope, with lungs fighting frantically for the next breath. Just one more breath. The breath that doesn’t come. The awareness of suffocation.
The terror. The tears. The prayers.
Suffocating. Falling. Numbness. Nothingness.
A silence that no one hears.
(c) 2015 Carrie K. Hutchens
All Rights Reserved!
No Reproduction Without Permission
Full Article, Video & Source:
‘This Is Wrong!’ Megyn Takes on Richard Fowler Over Reid’s Romney Tax Claim
~*~
~*~
Unbelievable!
They believed Obama’s truth but not Romney’s truth?
Excuse me, Mr. Fowler! A lie is not someone’s truth.
It is a lie!
It remains a lie no matter how many times someone claims it to be the truth.
~*~
Dear Fellow Citizens:
Do YOU believe that “lying” is politics at its finest?
Do you believe the best liar should win?
By Bobby Schindler
On March 18, 2005, my sister, Terri Schiavo, began her thirteen day agonizing death after the feeding tube – supplying her food and water – was removed. Terri was cognitively disabled and had difficulty swallowing and therefore needed a feeding tube. Terri was not on any “life support”, nor was she sick or dying. Nonetheless, she received her death sentence ordered by Circuit Court Judge, George W. Greer of Pinellas County Florida.
Greer’s order to remove Terri’s feeding tube was in response to her estranged husband and guardian, Michael Schiavo, requesting permission from the court to kill his disabled wife. This was after Schiavo began cohabitating with his fiancée and stood to inherit Terri’s medical trust fund, which at the time was close to $800,000.
However, more disturbing was that the judge ruled to kill Terri, despite her mother and father pleading with Schiavo, and the court, to allow them to take her home. In fact, a guardian ad litem urged Judge Greer to refuse the dehydration request. Instead, this legally-required protector of Terri was dismissed from the original case by Greer and no replacement was ever appointed.
March 31st marks a very sad day; and this year, it will be the ten year anniversary of Terri’s death. Rush Limbaugh described it this way, “the day our country hit rock bottom”.
Terri’s case divided the nation and it will be discussed in high schools and college medical ethics classrooms for years to come. It is the anniversary of the death of a young woman who simply had a disability and needed basic and ordinary care to live, and a family who wanted to love and care for her just as she was.
With it being the 10 year anniversary, calls from the media have increased. Most of the articles are excoriating Governor Jeb Bush for his defense of Terri when he was the Governor of Florida back in 2005. But I have noticed one question has been asked more than others – “What, if anything, has changed since Terri’s death?”
Yes, things have changed – they’ve gotten worse. Exactly how many persons are being killed like Terri every year is difficult to know, although I think the numbers would shock us. What we do know is that we have a very active and aggressive right to die movement.
There are many dynamics involved to successfully convince our general public that it’s “okay” to dehydrate and starve a human being to death. If I had to point to one of the major accomplishments, it is how the right to die forces have been able to reclassify feeding tubes as “medical treatment”. However, just as effective is how they’ve influenced the masses to buy into the notion that some persons are in fact, not persons. Consequently, these human “non-persons” have no “value” and can be killed.
This should be frightening to read. But it is true. Even more frightening is how this ideology has impacted and been accepted in our culture, in particular, our health care community.
This, along with changes in public policies, now puts life and death decisions in the hands of physicians, hospitals boards and ethics committees – basically strangers – in the place of family members.
After Terri died, my family’s experience, contesting this powerful right to die movement, led us to establish the Terri Schiavo Life & Hope Network, which seeks to raise public awareness of the looming culture of death, and to educate the public about care potentialities. Most importantly, however, is to help families in situations similar to what we experienced – loved ones in danger of being killed, like Terri.
Indeed, the calls from families for help have increased, and increased significantly, as the years have passed.
Why is this? How has the right to die agenda been able to efficaciously shift our attitudes to the point that is has become everyday practice to starve and dehydrate a person to death. The issue may see complex, however it seems to me that the answer is very clear. It is because they lie.
I saw it in my sister’s case and I see it in the stories from the families who call us. And one of the most pathetic lies out there is that killing someone by denying them food and water is a “peaceful” and “painless” experience, and the patently absurd notion that it is a “death with dignity”.
It’s important to differentiate that Terri’s condition, and countless others like her, is quite different from a situation where it may be medically appropriate to withhold food and fluids because a person is actively dying and their bodies are shutting down, no longer able to assimilate their food and hydration.
Nonetheless, the never-ending propaganda about the peaceable nature of forced dehydration compelled me to make public this image of my sister created from my memory. This (right) is what Terri looked like just before she died. It was horrible to see.
And yet, Schiavo’s attorney falsely told the public during a press conference, just days before Terri’s death, that she looked “beautiful”. This is what they want you to believe, not the harsh truth about the madness of what we permit in the rooms of hospitals, nursing homes and hospices every single day across this country.
These are the hard facts my family and I will have to live with for the rest of my life: After almost two weeks without food or water, my sister’s lips were horribly cracked, to the point where they were blistering. Her skin became jaundice with areas that turned different shades of blue. Her skin became markedly dehydrated from the lack of water. Terri’s breathing became rapid and uncontrollable, as if she was outside sprinting. Her moaning, at times, was raucous, which indicated to us the insufferable pain she was experiencing. Terri’s face became skeletal, with blood pooling in her deeply sunken eyes and her teeth protruding forward. Even as I write this, I can never properly describe the nightmare of having to watch my sister have to die this way.
What will be forever seared in my memory is the look of utter horror on my sister’s face when my family visited her just after she died.
Those pushing this agenda will certainly deny this, they have to. But there was a reason the court ordered that no cameras or video be permitted in Terri’s room while she was being killed. They claimed privacy issues. My family knows otherwise. And they do too.
So when will this heartlessness end? When will the lies end? When will the American people decide this insanity has to stop?
I don’t know. But I do know this – the lies will never end.
Full Article & Source:
I Will Never Forget the Look of Horror on My Sister Terri Schiavo’s Face the Day She Died.
Photo by: Carrie K. Hutchens
The icy chill of winter, clinging beyond its time, mocks and dances against the lonely night of darkness where no friendly voice speaks and no hopeful hand rests.
The chill… the darkness… the hopelessness embraces and suffocates.
Cries begging for mercy race to the heavens, as man drags still another unwilling soul into the pit of vile corruption that seeks to crush and devour.
The chill… the darkness… the hopelessness embraces and suffocates.
A hopeful challenge sings against the confusion, with no one to listen and few to remember the days when the world was not encouraged to sink into the incomprehension of utter insanity.
The chill… the darkness… the hopelessness embraces and suffocates.
Madness and rage erupt into boiling lava of confused hate and lost reason, as the masses seek to feast upon the spirit of all others not they or theirs.
The chill… the darkness… the hopelessness embraces and suffocates.
A dream, or a nightmare, there was a moment… a moment somewhere within time… a moment touched with a vague sense of humanity and good purpose.
The chill… the darkness… the hopelessness embraces and suffocates.
Where… where did those moments of a dream go? Did they travel far or just beyond the glimpse of a horizon hidden?
Did the chill… the darkness… the hopelessness embrace and suffocate all hope of a tomorrow to be as once was?
The answers await within the night not present. Only in a distant tomorrow will the truth be revealed to survivors of the icy chill that dances within the darkness where no friendly voice speaks and no hopeful hand rests.
The saved or the damned? Only they shall know as they emerge into whatever has become.
(c) 2015 Carrie K. Hutchens
All Rights Reserved!
No Reproduction Without Permission
Syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer sounds off on the largely self-inflicted embarrassment Pres. Obama and the White House have suffered in terror prisoner swap for accused deserter Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl
Full Article, Video & Source:
Krauthammer’s Take: Bergdahl Black Eye Obama Can’t Escape
St. Louis Police Officer Don Re wrote this blog post about the March 11, 2015 shooting death of a 6-year-old boy.
We arrived at the Children’s Hospital Emergency Room at the same time.
He and his partner parked and I pulled up to their left and did the same.
I got out of my car and watched as the officer hurried from his seat and opened the back, driver’s side door.
When the officer grabbed the boy from the back seat of his police Tahoe, I knew almost instantly.
Marcus Johnson
There was a split second though, before instantly I guess, where I didn’t know. For that split second, the officer looked like any dad grabbing his sleeping boy from the car and putting the boy’s head on his shoulder to carry him inside to sleep comfortably in his own bed.
For that split second, it was a sweet moment.
The officer, an around fifty year old white guy, clutched the little boy over his left shoulder gently, but with a clear purpose. The boy was small, a black child with his hair in corn rows and dressed as a typical five or six-year-old dresses.
He reminded me of my own six-year-old son.
The sudden, pained look on the officer’s face and the fact that the boy wasn’t crying or yelling or doing anything other than appearing to be asleep made the split second fantasy fade away fast.
We hurried into the emergency room where we were met by the trauma team and hospital staff. I’m always in awe at how these emergency room doctors and nurses and staff are so able to get to working on a patient so fast.
There was some sliver of hope that the boy would make it, at least that’s what we all wanted to believe.
The truth, and I think we all knew it, was that this boy would never fall asleep in his own bed again. When the officer laid the boy down on the gurney and stood back upright, any wind that may have been in my sails quickly faded to nothing.
His shirt said it all.
Where the boy’s little heart had laid so close to the officer’s own heart, was a mess that told us things would not end well.
The three of us officers, with nearly fifty years of city police experience under our collective belts, waited not so stoically outside of trauma room two as the doctors and nurses busted their tails to save this little guy.
We paced and exchanged awkward smiles with each other and the nurses and staff who were passing by. There were several times when one or all of us was close to tears, but we held it together.
It was hard for the officer, because he did the best he could and it wasn’t going to be enough. It was hard for me, because I have a son about that age at home and couldn’t imagine anything like this happening to him.
It was awkward because we were all hoping, but we also knew that it was going to take a miracle for that boy to live.
He was not granted that miracle.
Just like that, at a couple of minutes after 8pm, a five-year old boy was gone forever.
The sheet of paper, which I’ve seen way to many times, verified it. It’s the one with a line printed on it. When it’s completely straight, you’ve died. You’ve straight-lined, as they say.
I was done with being in the hospital. I wanted to leave.
To go back to my car, I had to walk past the same group of people who were in the waiting room when we walked past them earlier with the dying boy. Three little boys grabbed at me and asked me if that boy we carried in earlier was dead.
“Did he die, officer? Was that boy dead?” They asked me.
I got no help from their mom, as she was tending to a clearly sick kid of her own.
6-year-old Marcus Johnson Family photo
“Boys, he’s fine. He’s a strong boy, just like you guys.”
I felt bad lying, but it seemed easier than having to explain death to three strange kids all under ten years old.
I went to my car and grabbed a bunch of Dum-Dums from the bag I carry around. Mom was cool with me giving them suckers, and they left me alone about the dead boy they still thought was alive.
I couldn’t tell them that the boy who was about their same age had straight-lined.
Five-year olds shouldn’t straight line.
Why did this one?
Because of gun violence in the city.
The weather was nice so the people were out.
Some people were out with their guns.
Why did this boy have to die?
Was it disrespect?
Drugs?
A woman?
Money?
All stupid reasons to fire a gun anywhere near another human being, let alone children, but here we are again, with another child lost to violence.
We tried to save this boy.
The officer showed up and there was a hostile crowd of people, most of whom had nothing to do with the shooting, and most not even sure what they should be angry at. The were just angry because anger is easy. Patience is hard. Kindness in the face of adversity is hard. Understanding is hard.
Some chose to be angry at the police while others were taking video on their phone. Meanwhile, nobody was helping a child as he lay dying on the sidewalk from a bullet that had torn through his little body.
The officer fought through the angry crowd and put a dying boy he didn’t know in his car.
Did he have to do that?
No.
EMS was coming, but they were too far away. It was too risky to wait for them, so we raced that little guy to the hospital in record time. We had all sorts of cars shutting down the route to the hospital, just like we would were a fellow cop shot and in need of medical care. That’s about the highest honor we can give a person, and this boy deserved it.
Still, it didn’t matter on this night.
I truly believe that when it’s your time, it’s your time.
Five years shouldn’t be anyone’s time, but that’s not my call.
It’s queer, but I left hospital and went back in service to handle more calls. I had to handle some subsequent calls with a little dead boy freshly on my mind.
That’s the thing with policing. It never ends. You have to carry on, so I pretended to care about a car accident and a stolen bike when I just wanted to shout in their faces, “AT LEAST YOU DIDN’T DIE AT FIVE YEARS OLD FROM A BULLET THROUGH YOUR CHEST!!! I HAVE NO INTEREST IN YOUR BULLSHIT PROBLEMS RIGHT NOW!”
But that’s not professional.
I’m wrapping this up having finished a six pack of Bud Light Lime and I just kissed all three of my own sleeping kids as well as my wife. I also laid on the ground and wrestled my dogs at 2 am, even though one of them is dying and has no interest in playing, and I have to work in the morning.
I’m still thinking about a boy I never met alive, and hoping he’s in a better place.
I’m looking at my own six year old’s homework folder and wondering if this dead boy has a homework folder in a backpack never to be turned in again. Will his mom see it when she gets home and cry? Did he have a lunch packed for the next day that will still be in the fridge this weekend to remind his family of a lunch that was never taken to school?
Did he go to kindergarten?
Will somebody have to explain to his classmates that they’ll never see this little guy alive again and why?
This is all too sad and it needs to stop.
Someone please figure out how.
Printed with permission of the author:
don of all trades
As seen on The Kelly File
Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke tonight slammed the tweet that President Barack Obama posted following the shooting of two police officers in Ferguson, Mo.
Obama tweeted today:
Violence against police is unacceptable. Our prayers are with the officers in MO. Path to justice is one all of us must travel together. –bo
— The White House (@WhiteHouse) March 12, 2015
“That might score him point with hipsters, but it’s not going over real big with me and it’s not going over real big with the American law enforcement officer,” Clarke told Megyn Kelly.
“He took the lazy way out, he issued a tweet,” Clarke said of Obama. “He didn’t have the decency to put on a suit and go to the East Room or the Rose Garden and issue a heartfelt condemnation of what’s going on in these assaults against officers.”
Clarke said that “the assault on the American cop continues,” and he said it’s unfathomable that America has gotten to this point. Clarke explained that his biggest fear came true when Obama, Attorney General Eric Holder and New York Mayor Bill de Blasio “trashed the reputation of an entire profession.”
Full Article, Video & Source:
Sheriff: Obama ‘Took the Lazy Way Out’ With Tweet on Ferguson Shootings
Words slash against the heavens in insult and bitter shout. No mercy. No empathy. Only cold and destructive touch to caress the moment born of last.
Judgment reigns and ever reeks. Confession for the soul not owned. The stench of waste to overpower. Control demands of mandate bile to heap upon the pile.
One set of rules. One judge to judge. In arrogance the attitude of dashing stain.
Trust betrayed. Truth mocked in spittle spray. No cloth to dampen. Only tissues of utter despair to wipe the walls in story told of the history once defined to be.
Shadows fill the day in whispers made of sin. No sun to shine. No birds to sing. The ascension of wrongs to devour the gentle breeze of yesterdays lost in once upon a time.
One set of rules. One judge to judge. In arrogance the attitude of crushing disdain.
In flights of thought and worries more — no answers touch… no reason sowed … the words of harvest feed upon the innocent soul so mocked and left in withered silence muted.
Anger’s birth. Seed of demise. Hope dashed in vast delight. A world evolved in destructive path. Crushed spirits to pave the trail sunken in muck and rank decay.
One set of rules. One judge to judge. In arrogance the attitude without refrain.
A sin of betrayal. A sin of cruelty harshly inflicted once and again. Oh yes, the righteous attitude so proudly donned in crowned tarnish and spiked venom slithering . A stigma of toxic shame to carry throughout all eternity and beyond in the never-ending of forever and just one day more.
(c) 2015 Carrie K. Hutchens
All Rights Reserved!
No Reproduction Without Permission
Part One
By Nancy Valko, RN, ALNC
Most people who sign organ donor cards assume that they will be carefully diagnosed as “brain dead” before their organs are donated. That was generally true years ago, but a new non-brain death organ donation procedure was developed in the 1990s even though the language on organ donor cards did not change.
The current non-brain death organ donation policy started with ethics journal articles in the 1990s. At that time, it was called “non-heart beating donation” and promoted as a way to increase the supply of organs for transplant beyond the usual “brain death” organ donations. This was made possible by linking organ donation to withdrawal of treatment decisions from people considered hopelessly ill or dying but who did not meet the criteria for “brain death.”
This change in policy came in the wake of court decisions upholding the right to refuse treatment for incapacitated patients like Nancy Cruzan, a brain-injured woman said to be in a so-called “vegetative state.”
Since Dr. George Isajiw and I presented the following paper (“Non-heart beating organ donation” and the “vegetative state”) in 2004, the term “non-heart beating organ donation” has been changed to “donation after cardiac death” (DCD) and now around 5% of organ donations are from nonbrain death organ donors.[i] The numbers are expected to increase with organ donation policies such as the following: In June 1996, the American Medical Association issued its opinion that non-brain death organ donation was ethical.[ii] Eventually, the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (Joint Commission) required all hospitals to develop policies for DCD, effective January 2007, while the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS) proposed new bylaw amendments requiring all transplant centers and Organ Procurement Organizations (OPOs) to develop DCD policies by January 1, 2007.[iii]
Moreover, hospitals currently are being asked to report all deaths, imminent deaths and potential organ donor situations to the local organ procurement organization. Years ago, when only brain death criteria could be used, doctors themselves talked to families about organ donation. Now, many hospitals have policies that only trained organ donation representatives talk to families about donation. Such policies are said to increase the number of families consenting to organ donation.
In Part Two, I will discuss other strategies to increase the number of organ donations.
[i] “The Challenge of Organ Donation After Cardiac Death,” Matt Wood, Science Life, 02/20/2014; http://sciencelife.uchospitals.edu/2014/02/20/the-challenge-of-organ-donation-after-cardiac-death
[ii] “Opinion 2.157 – Organ Donation After Cardiac Death,” AMA Code of Medical Ethics, issued 06/1996 and updated 06/2005; http://www.ama-assn.org/ama/pub/physician-resources/medical-ethics/code-medical-ethics/opinion2157.page
[iii] “Donation After Cardiac Death: Analysis and Recommendations from the New York State Task Force on Life &the Law,03/17/2007;http://www.health.ny.gov/regulations/task_force/donation_after_cardiac_death/docs/donation_after_cardiac_death.pdf
Nancy Valko, RN, ALNC, has been a registered nurse for 45 years and is a spokesperson for the National Association of Prolife Nurses (www.nursesforlife.org). A long-time speaker and writer on medical ethics and other health issues, she has a website at: http://www.wf-f.org/bd-nvalko.html.She is also now a legal nurse consultant (www.valkogroupalnc.com ).
Source:
Newsletter for the Pro-Life Healthcare Alliance
This article is printed with permission.
Video & Source:
Honoring the life and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — A man’s kindness during Christmas had a lasting impact on one family.
The convenience store at 24th and Brooklyn sells canned foods, soda and candy, but the compassion is free.
“We had nothing under the tree, we didn’t decorate our tree or nothing until that day he blessed us,” said Danielle Wrinkle about the store owner, Howard Bettis.
He opened the store because the neighborhood didn’t have one. Rhonda Robinson works there.
“I told Howard she doesn’t have anything for Christmas, and the kids don’t have anything. And just out of the blue he said ‘we are going to adopt them, we are going to adopt them,’” said Robinson.
Full Article, Video & Source:
Pay It Forward: Convenience store owner adopts family over the holidays