On February 2nd 2009 Provo Police assaulted a man by the name of Chris Lauridsen.
Chris Lauridsen had the nerve to be be annoyed by an Animal Control agent with a chip on her shoulder harassing him for leaving his dogs in the car for 10 minutes on a 40 degree day.
Any Animal Control Officer with common sense would not have harassed Lauridsen, but this Office obviously did not have any common sense. Perhaps it was a slow day for Animal Control.
“At one point I attempted to explain to her that I was being mistreated and that she worked for me,” he said. “She said no, she didn’t, she worked for the city of Provo and I lived in Woodland Hills.”
Lauridsen explained that he owns a business in Provo that brings in $1 million a year and employs 15 people.
“I don’t deserve to be treated like that,” he said.
And that’s when she called for backup officers.
A person should get equal treatment whether or not his business brings in $1 million into Provo each year. A bagger in a grocery store shouldn’t have to put up with police brutality either.
Do people really think it’s Constitutional for a man to be beaten with night sticks, if he gets angry at police for harassing him?
We know this isn’t an isolated incident since we have the little old lady in Orem who was brutalized for not watering her lawn during our ever lasting drought.
Mike has also started a campaign on Youchoose.net called Free Chris Lauridsen. The purpose of the campaign is to collect signatures to get the charges dropped against Chris Lauridsen and to bring attention to other cases of police brutality in Utah.
What else can be done? Who else is responsible for the conduct of these public employees? Why haven’t the names of the police officers and the animal control agent been released?
The only way police will start to respect people’s rights is if they lose their jobs when they do things like this. This means who ever is responsible for the Police Officer’s jobs has to be eliminated if he/she won’t do something about their abuse.
The way to handle an unresponsive politician is to eliminate them in a primary. People have to get together and decide what candidate in a primary they are going to back.
Although I like the views of third party candidates, supporting one as a solution is a waste of time. Here’s why:
No matter how high your ideals are the reality is the majority of Utahns are going to go to the General Election and vote straight Republican. The exception is Salt Lake who does just the opposite and votes straight Democrat. In Salt Lake it would be a good idea to volunteer for better Democrats in Salt Lake.
Maybe it would be too much effort for people to actually research candidates before they vote ***sarcasm***
Salt Lake is outnumbered by the rest of the state however so even if they vote straight Democrat, they’re not going to be able to knock out a senator like Robert Bennett who’s up for reelection in 2010, or Orrin Hatch who’s up for reelection in 2012.
You can combine the Libertarians and the Constitution Party (although they don’t agree on what liberty means), and they still don’t add up to the numbers the Democrats voting in Utah. The number of Democrats voting in Utah is almost half the numbered by Republicans voting.
Clearly the Libertarian and Constitution Party members would have more success getting involved at the caucus and primary level with the Republican Party.
One answer for people in Utah County, and the rest of Utah, is to join the Campaign for Liberty.
It takes so much time to volunteer and get involved to prevent the country from becoming a police state. Any amounted of money can be defeted by volunteers if there are enough of them. That’s one reason why as a woman, I think women have been suckered into working. Women used to be a much greater political force, but they (we) don’t have time to get involved if they are working full time, trying to take care of a family and a home. Women have been convinced they are some how inferior, or being cheated if they aren’t out in some crappy job slaving away like their male counterparts. How gullible they are.
I apologize to everyone, it took me a couple of days to add this page.
On Saturday I filled in for Linda Strasburg. My guests were Lowell Nelson and David Garber from Utahns for Liberty of Utah County. I first met Lowell and David in September of 2007 when I joined a Ron Paul meetup group started by David.
On the show David gives us a background on how he started the meetup group, and became involved in the Ron Paul movement — now known as Campaign for Liberty.
Lowell, who is an excellent person to work with, gave us a summary of how the political system works and how each and everyone of us can get involved to make a difference.
We also stressed people from different political backgrounds and affiliations have all come together to support the Campaign for Liberty to defend the Constitution.
Cathy from Herriman called in and brought up Tom Drashyl who had appeared as a guest on the Gayle Ruzika show. This set me off on a tangent over my concerns over Barack Obama “Birth Certificate Issue.”
I stated in my opinion, it’s a red herring. What I mean by that is people’s attention to is being diverted to an issue that probably isn’t even a real issue. You can go to FactCheck.org to see high resolution closeup pictures of Barack Obama’s Birth certificate.
I believe the “Birth Certificate Issue” obscures really damming issues related to Barack Obama. The political pundits tell people “Obama is moving to the center” when actually he is just showing he is corrupted and corruptible. Sadly people let political pundits think for them. They frame people’s perspective, and the majority go along with it.
I should stress these following points about Barack Obama are really important reasons why we need to clean out Congress. Obama is not going to restore the Constitution, and neither is Orrin Hatch or Robert Bennett. They helped trash it with the Patriot Act in the first place.
First Obama did not run on a platform of restoring the Constitution by repealing The Patriot Act. Barack Obama voted for the Reauthorization of the Patriot Act.
When I went back and look at this article, I believe it’s even worse than what I reported on the air:
Mr. Obama scolded Exelon and federal regulators for inaction and introduced a bill to require all plant owners to notify state and local authorities immediately of even small leaks. He has boasted of it on the campaign trail, telling a crowd in Iowa in December that it was “the only nuclear legislation that I’ve passed.”
“I just did that last year,” he said, to murmurs of approval.
A close look at the path his legislation took tells a very different story. While he initially fought to advance his bill, even holding up a presidential nomination to try to force a hearing on it, Mr. Obama eventually rewrote it to reflect changes sought by Senate Republicans, Exelon and nuclear regulators. The new bill removed language mandating prompt reporting and simply offered guidance to regulators, whom it charged with addressing the issue of unreported leaks.
Those revisions propelled the bill through a crucial committee. But, contrary to Mr. Obama’s comments in Iowa, it ultimately died amid parliamentary wrangling in the full Senate.
“Senator Obama’s staff was sending us copies of the bill to review, and we could see it weakening with each successive draft,” said Joe Cosgrove, a park district director in Will County, Ill., where low-level radioactive runoff had turned up in groundwater. “The teeth were just taken out of it.”
The history of the bill shows Mr. Obama navigating a home-state controversy that pitted two important constituencies against each other and tested his skills as a legislative infighter. On one side were neighbors of several nuclear plants upset that low-level radioactive leaks had gone unreported for years; on the other was Exelon, the country’s largest nuclear plant operator and one of Mr. Obama’s largest sources of campaign money.
Since 2003, executives and employees of Exelon, which is based in Illinois, have contributed at least $227,000 to Mr. Obama’s campaigns for the United States Senate and for president. Two top Exelon officials, Frank M. Clark, executive vice president, and John W. Rogers Jr., a director, are among his largest fund-raisers.
The history of the bill shows Mr. Obama navigating a home-state controversy that pitted two important constituencies against each other and tested his skills as a legislative infighter. On one side were neighbors of several nuclear plants upset that low-level radioactive leaks had gone unreported for years; on the other was Exelon, the country’s largest nuclear plant operator and one of Mr. Obama’s largest sources of campaign money.
Barack Obama voted for the Wall Street Bailouts just as Robert Bennett and Orrin Hatch did.
It’s not hard to see why Obama supported the Bailouts either. According to Opensecrets.org, who collects publicly available FEC information and analyzes it, here are Barack Obama’s top ten (10) contributors:
This is of great concern to me because I believe people have to much trust in Obama. They are letting their guard down, and that’s dangerous.
Mohammad I almost forgot. This one is just for you, for all the times you have called in saying what a great guy Obama is. I would like to ask you watch and listen to Obama’s speech to AIPAC (American Israeli Political Action Committee).
Charles called in after I ran through this list, and stated there was probably a minimum leak threshold with the Obama letting companies off the hook for nuclear leaks. I confess that is probably true, but the New York Times article does not give the exact mounts. Charles stated he has been concerned about the push for a one world government for years.
If anyone thinks Charles is up in the night, watch this video.
[update added 1/7/2009] I forgot to add Obama lied to Iowa voters, or the Canadian Ambassador Michael Wilson over NFTA. Take your pick.
This gets us back to why it’s so important for people to stay politically active, and become politically active.
The Utahns for Liberty of Utah County meetup group does not charge any sort of membership fees. All that is required is for you to go to the web sight and sign up. It’s very helpful if you attend a meeting when one is scheduled. Utahns for Liberty of Utah County works with many other groups in Utah when the issue is liberty related. This group is a great way to stay in touch with whats going on, and network within all of the other state groups.
Rhonda Lee called in to state she believes the system is rigged so there’s no point in getting involved. Lowell makes the point that is rare. Usually the reason we fail is because citizens fail to get involved.
Lowell and I could not agree more on this points. Conspiracy should not be used as a scape goat. We can’t use conspiracy as an excuse to do nothing.
There’s a lesson I learned from a video called Where There’s a Will There’s an A+:
If you fail to try, you are guaranteed to lose. Real failure is failing to take action. Even if you try at to do something and don’t succeed, you should at least be proud of yourself for giving it your best shot.
When I joined this meetup group, I learned how the caucus system worked, and I have been able to pass this information on to others like Mark Maxon. I never would have been able to become well informed on the issue if it wasn’t for David Garber, Lowell Nelson, and Mike Ridgway who provided additional information like this UEA training site Caucus101.
Utahns for Liberty of Utah County will be participating in an End The Fed rally planning meeting on 1/8/2009, as well as many other events. Please check the calendar and join us.
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