Consider. Consider! Give me a break!
"After a health-department inspection of the Occupy Seattle encampment found overcrowded living conditions, unsanitary food preparation and no access to bathrooms during the day, Seattle Central Community College officials are looking at ways to evict the protesters from campus."
How about the Seattle Police SWAT squad, bring in the horse patrol, unleash the canine unit. Oh I know, shades of Bull Connor, cries of police brutality but coddling of these anarchists has threatened the publics' right to health and safety. "Students and neighbors have complained of open drug use and harassment." But the college Chancellor, Jill Wakefield, said, "Nothing has been decided at this point." Obviously, she is not a rocket scientist.
"In a letter to the college, the health department said it found no hand-washing facility near the food-preparation area, no approved water supply, no mechanical refrigeration for food, no sanitary facilities during the daytime, overcrowded living conditions, dogs defecating and urinating, debris and litter between tents and evidence of rodents."
How quickly would the Health Department close a restaurant or coffee stand if they found these violations?
"An Occupy Seattle spokesman said many of the college's allegations were unfounded. He said the Capitol Hill neighborhood where the college is located is known for drug use and transients and that college day-care workers routinely checked the children's play area for needles and syringes even before the political activists moved in."
Well isn't that nice. It's okay to trash a public college campus if it's located in a place unsafe for children. The city tossed the "Occupiers" out of Westlake Park but then that's where the Christmas, sorry, Holiday tree will be located, lots of kids there and we all know Seattle is a place for kids. Mayor Apologize, Mike McGinn, "offered City Hall Plaza" as a new location but the mangy mass chose to encamp at the college.
"The group moved to the college Oct. 29. The group is part of the larger Occupy Wall Street protests organized to send a message that the growing gulf between rich and poor threatens the nation's democracy."
The "growing gulf" is really between the law abiding, long-suffering taxpayers of Seattle and the occupy types with their codependent public officials.
I know the Occupy Wall Street crowd would love an incident they could use to further inflame the Left so enforcement of the law needs to be done with care but it needs to be done. After reading the front page article in Saturday's Seattle Times, tell me you are not incensed. It should make even liberal Seattle long for the Tea Party protests.
clear fog blog
So you're saying that apparent health code violations mean that protesters deserve to be killed and maimed? Guess that's even more proof that conservatives are a bunch of petty thugs.
Posted by: demo kid on November 19, 2011 08:29 PM
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/11/nyregion/for-occupy-wall-street-health-is-a-growing-concern.html?_r=1
It's the opposite. The occupiers want a Kent State moment to foment further agitation and prove that "the man has them down." But today's law enforcement is far too wise to play the game Warren suggests here.
They will patiently endure the hate-cop rhetoric and other taunts until the occupiers become bored and cold, and go home to do something productive like the rest of us.
Posted by: Jeff B. on November 19, 2011 09:28 PM#6: They have nothing better to do (see above). These people are professional activists. When I was attending UW (89-91), I always recalled seeing the same leftist agitators around campus, posting flyers and holding vigils for Daniel Ortega and lamenting the demise of East Germany.
Years later, can't recall exactly when, I went back to the campus and saw the very same bunch of agitators doing the same thing, only this time they were upset about our response to being attacked on 9/11.
The Tea Party was attacked as 'Astroturf', meaning it was contrived and disingenuous. I tell you it is just the opposite; OWS is the ultimate contrivance and the desperate last gasp of a now literally bankrupt socialist ideology.
I say let them continue to make jackasses of themselves; if your enemy is in the process of self immolation, hand him a lighter.
Posted by: Kato on November 19, 2011 11:01 PMAre you saying our AG doesn't know the law, or the college should break the law?
Posted by: Bruce on November 20, 2011 12:18 AMOh yeah, how about other peoples rights not to have the trashing of public areas? You demand rights to have your people live in filth and squalor urinating and defalcating all over the place, deny access for others because of your agenda? Your rights supersede others??
Posted by: rikki doxx on November 20, 2011 07:27 AMIs the WA State Republican Party funding all this in order to obtain priceless footage for campaign advertising hoping this stupidity lasts until the first Tues next November??
These moronic protesters are clueless about real life, facts and history in that what they advocate is the exact opposite of their own self interest: freedom to protest.
Hope and change!!
aka Useful idiots..
Posted by: Hank on November 20, 2011 07:33 AMstreet drunks
petty criminals
lazy bums
hookers
homosexual activists
welfare addicts
anarchists
Bolsheviks
and other losers who have turned a once decent, liveable city into a sewer. If this OWS episode doesn't cause a mass exodus of respectable working class families to the burbs I cannot comprehend what will do so. Perhaps when a total breakdown of law and order comes about.
Posted by: Saltherring on November 20, 2011 07:51 AMYES!
This is exactly the correct and appropriate response for any situation where people are eating food prepared by workers without documentation of training, or when the bleach solution is 8 times too strong!
Show us your documentation of training or you get the canines on your ass!
Smithers, unleash the hounds!
Posted by: MikeBoyScout on November 20, 2011 09:14 AMA heavy cloud of pepper spray, and then a cleansing spray of relief from a phalanx of water cannons.
Of course the bathwater would head down the sewer systems and contaminate Puget Sound.
So I guess it's a "win-win-lose" circumstance.
I'm OK with it.
And about the life long granny agitator. She is positively ecstacic about her trauma. She would do it all over again in a second.
Best day of her life.
Same as Rodney King. He wouldn't change a second of his experience. 3.2 million dollars, a shiny new haircut and status as a folk icon until the end of history.
But hey---that's no reason to consider this group bad, is it?
Actually, it is.
And speaking of colleges, it's the start of Apple Cup Week, folks. I hereby fire the first shot: uwrejects.com
Posted by: Michele on November 20, 2011 07:31 PMI'm sure the thousands of persons walking by on Broadway or Pine, having nothing to do with any of this, would appreciate being caught in the resulting mess, a mess being inflicted upon them by the very people they pay tax money to protect them. (That goes many, many times over for the small, local businesses which surround that corner.)
Look, Blart Popgun, just cower in your little house, quivering behind your mighty mighty concealed weapons permit, and leave scary city life to those of us who can handle it. Your side constantly loses elections in Seattle by very large margins for very good reasons, and your engaging in public revenge fantasies about how other people will commit assault against us for you just shows how worthless you really are. Utterly pathetic.
Posted by: tensor on November 21, 2011 03:57 AM1) Seattle Police SWAT squad, bring in the horse patrol, unleash the canine unit.
2) they need to be cleaned out just like the idiot vermin they are.
3) Tantrums need to be dealt with
4) A heavy cloud of pepper spray, and then a cleansing spray of relief from a phalanx of water cannons.
All of the self professed small government, freedom loving, lock step Republican voting conservatives should be very proud of the (un)Sound Politics peanut gallery!
Posted by: MikeBoyScout on November 21, 2011 05:34 AM
"This country does in fact have a serious deficit problem," he said to about 200 people packed in the Senate Budget Committee room.
"But the reality is that the deficit was caused by two wars -- unpaid for. It was caused by huge tax breaks for the wealthiest people in this country. It was caused by a recession as result of the greed, recklessness and illegal behavior on Wall Street. And if those are the causes of the deficit, I will be damned if we're going to balance the budget on backs of the elderly, the sick, the children, and the poor. That's wrong."
--Bernie Sanders, Indepdent, Vermont
Posted by: paul on November 21, 2011 09:02 AMYes. The future unfunded liabilities of Social Security and Medicare combined is somewhere between $60 and $100 TRILLION dollars. In other words, the those evil "tax cuts for the rich" and cost of two wars are a pittance in comparison. Democrats and socialists like Sanders are content to stick their heads in the sand and leave the problem for some future politician to deal with. People like Paul Ryan are the only ones taking it seriously.
Posted by: Palouse on November 21, 2011 10:12 AMBecause in the real world, you are wrong.
But the OWS movement will help get rid of Obama as average Joe realizes that violence, defacation, drugs, demands to forgive college debt, sex and tent cities are not cool, and not helping.
So again, thank you, and keep up the good work!
Actually---Yes you can.
Yes there were two wars. Sometimes that happens. WWII didn't seem to cause a recession, and it was much more expensive. Also, the two wars have an impact on the deficit of 1/10th of the current deficit rate, so they do not seem to be the major factor.
Yes, there was greed and reckless behavior. I think Bernie had a very big hand in that. Sometimes compassion has a way of resulting in unintended consequences. The housing bubble is what precipitated the economic collapse. Lots of financial decisions were based on an expectation that the value of the assets held (mortgage backed securities - MBS) were worth what they said they were worth. When the bubble burst so did the value of assets. Classical bubble economics. The MBS idea was the result of government decisions to "help the poor and the widows" by letting them in on the home ownership program whether they could afford it or not. The idea was that once in the game, they would build wealth and their lack of job or down payment would be overcome by the rising value of the property. Tow problems. One, a lack of income cannot be overcome by illiquid assets, and two, the artificial demand on housing drove prices up which also had a two-fold effect. It made the assets seem worth more than their true worth, and it forced the system to make greater and greater accommodations for the poor to buy into the system. Financial institutions made the same error as people and the government. They failed to see the price distortion and so made their decisions based on the belief that real estate would continue to grow in value far beyond its historical rate.
Finally, here is an analogy that illustrates why Bernie Sander's is wrong about how balancing the budget is done on the backs of the down-trodden.
Let's say there is this farmer. He generally grows about 100 bushels of grain each year. He needs 80 bushels to feed the poor the sick and the children in his town. The other 20 he needs to replant so he can grow 100 for next year. If he gets a little extra each year, the townsfolk make him give it to them so they can eat better that year. However, this year it was a poor growing year and he only grew 90 bushels. He tells the town that he can only give them 70 bushels this year because there was a deficit. The town Mayor speechifies and excoriates the "rich" farmer telling him "I will be damned if we're going to balance the food stores on backs of the elderly, the sick, the children, and the poor. That's wrong." The farmer tries to explain that if he has only 10 bushels to plant there will be less next year for everybody. In fact, he has been trying to tell her that if any extra he had was replanted each year instead of given to the women and children, he would eventually be growing even more year over year and everyone would benefit. But of course, the mayor only saw how much the farmer was keeping compared to the women and children and poor and so called him greedy and made everybody camp out on his lawn and chant slogans.
Recessions happen, and poor people do end up getting less. But the best way to improve the circumstances for poor people is to grow the economy. Yes the rich get richer, but the poor are better off too. A growing economy increases the amount of wealth for the whole economy, and it allows for improvements in the overall lifestyle. If you look at the quality of life for the poor in America, it has risen every decade, pretty much without fail even though the "official" numbers of poor have not seemed to change. Being poor just isn't what it used to be. The debate should be over how much seed to plant, not how much seed to give to the poor on any particular recession.
Posted by: Eyago on November 21, 2011 10:20 AMPaul is certainly right that our various wars have exacerbated the current deficit, although not as much as the housing bust and the ensuing depression. But this is peanuts compared to the fiscal gap. Palouse is absolutely right that this is the really big problem Whether that gap is $60 tillion or the $211 trillion that economist Lawrence Kotlikoff estimates, it is a very large number and hopelessly unsustainable. Demographic trends over which we have no control have made our entitlement state totally unworkable.
We have yet to acknowledge this fact as a nation. Fantasies are still indulged, here and elsewhere, that we can grow our way out of the problem, or that we can tax our way out by focusing only on the very wealthy. These are illusions. The only way out is to decide what benefits we really, really want, and then design a tax system that will pay for them with as little damage to economic growth as possible.
The alternative is to let the bond market do the job for us, with the consequences we can now see playing out in Europe.
Posted by: Thomas Rekdal on November 21, 2011 11:28 AMBernie Sanders, Marxist, Vermont
Posted by: Saltherring on November 21, 2011 01:58 PMAs for my reference to the bond market, I was alluding to the austerity measures it will eventually require of us, not recommending more debt. To see what austerity may actually entail, behold Greece and Italy.
I'm beginning to suspect that you have no idea what a Liberal or a Conservative might be. Or a fool, either, for that matter.
Posted by: Thomas Rekdal on November 21, 2011 02:48 PMI may be pathetic, but at least I have a sense of humor.
Posted by: Bart Cannon on November 21, 2011 03:01 PMHey funny man, you got any more eliminationist humor to share?
How about some Holocaust jokes? You got any of those?
Seek help.
What's the matter MBS. Having a hard time, knowing this foolish OWS stunt is helping to destroy O-dumber's chance of re-election even more.
I hear you owe some type of money to the US. Hey you could be a nice guy and give it all of it to the OWS crowd.
But, most typical lib's never do that. Take the money from someone else instead.
Posted by: Medic/Vet on November 21, 2011 04:11 PMI've trolled you here, but there are legitimate free market, small government solution alternatives to the Health and Safety issues specifically identified in the Public Health Seattle & King County Report for compliant investigation regarding "Occupy Seattle" encampment.
None of you (especially our posting host warrenpeterson) have been able to come up with one.
For example,
- Work with the #Occupy Seattle campers and the local businesses to acquire and contract a catering service which meets King County health standards.
- Work with the #Occupy Seattle campers and SCCC to get a maintained port a potty service like exists at construction sites all over the place.
- Work with SCCC to get larger trash receptacles and/or more frequent service for those that exist, and bill the #Occupy Seattle campers with a camping permit system.
No. Not one of you professed believers in the free market, small government, down the line Republican voters could come up with a solution.
And way too many of you (especially our posting host warrenpeterson) could only come up with violent ends imposed by the government to free speech for health and safety issues routinely handled at such events as the Apple Cup (h/t Michelle).
You are a sad, sad lot.
Posted by: MikeBoyScout on November 21, 2011 04:15 PMYou can't beat something with nothing smart guy.
The man who is going to win the GOP nomination, Mitt Romney, is a whole lot of nothing. Don't believe me, read the GOP polls.
So you posit the problem is that Tea Party gatherings are discriminated against in this state and the best solution you can come up with is "they need to be cleaned out just like the idiot vermin they are."
No?
What else you got?
Posted by: MikeBoyScout on November 21, 2011 04:50 PMNo, actually the salient point is that when the Tea Party rallies, they get their permits and follow the laws. When the OWS crowd gets together, the ignore laws, don't bother with permits, don't care who they bother and commit property destruction. You also assume that they were not first asked to get their permits and port-a-poties.
Don;t you get it? OWS is anti-authority, anti-government, and yet they ask the government to fix things. Huge cognitive dissonance. But then you are your kind don't actually think about what you want. You just like to be anti-whatever. No real answers, nothing constructive, just pop in and poop on everything and think you are making some kind of point. (sort of like what you do here.)
Posted by: Eyago on November 21, 2011 05:02 PMI don't think salient means what you think it means.
1) If the #Occupy Seattle campers are violating a law, why won't the office of Attorney General, run by GOP candidate for Governor Rob McKenna, evict them?
Have you contacted Attorney General Rob McKenna with your proposed solution?
What did his office say?
"OWS folks, on the other hand, scare the crap out of city governments because they fear the anarchists will go violent and they won't be able to control them."
Yeah, they are SCARY! Did you see what those #Occupy UC Davis kids did to the cops
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BjnR7xET7Uo
and what those #Occupy UC Davis kids did to the Chancellor?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8775ZmNGFY8
S C A R Y!
See them scarily sitting on the ground?
S C A R Y!
"They need to be cleared out, in accordance with already existing laws that are not being enforced, particularly those regarding public safety and sanitation. "
1) If the #Occupy Seattle campers are violating a law, why won't the office of Attorney General, run by GOP candidate for Governor Rob McKenna, evict them?
Have you contacted Attorney General Rob McKenna with your proposed solution?
The getters, in this world are capitalist traders...ie...those who trade for value and that means MONEY, something which seems in short supply to this bunch. The just want everyone elses, with no plans to get their own.
But WAIT!!! Maybe you meant the Government and the Schools ought to belly up to the bar and by the stuff the thugs need...Right Mikey? Force someone else to foot their bill, out of fear of violence. That amounts to brute force in my book. Just threaten and be hostile and everyone will give in.
What a joke MBS...please tell me you have a better solution than this??
Mine is simple, hose em down every hour from the Seattle Fire Department pump trucks...let em stay as long as they like. We have lots of water.
S.
Posted by: steve on November 22, 2011 09:34 AMIn the incident at UC-Davis where they used the pepper spray without just cause, the cops were wrong - an isolated incident. What about the 200 # of excrement at Occupy Santa Cruz and at various other locations posing human health hazards ? Yep, Mikey has told us he is on their side.
Posted by: KDS on November 22, 2011 10:58 AMBecause the Attorney General doesn't enforce the law, fool. The State Patrol does.
And the State Patrol does the governor's bidding. That's why nobody's bothered.
Posted by: jimg on November 22, 2011 12:15 PM"Mine is simple,.."
Of course yours is. The apple (your solution) doesn't fall far from the tree (your mind).
Posted by: MikeBoyScout on November 22, 2011 08:37 PMPretty simple really. I'd love to just hear your answers.