Hearing starts amid heightened security

A controversial hearing on Islamic terrorism is underway on Capitol Hill, with the chairman saying the inquiry does not warrant the "rage and hysteria" it has prompted.

New York Republican Rep. Peter King is holding the hearing into radicalization in the U.S. Muslim community. Muslim leaders say the inquiry is overbroad and paints all Muslims as terrorists or potential terrorists.

The top Democrat on the committee, Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, says he believes the hearings could be used to inspire terrorist propaganda.

King is receiving increased police security.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.

Extra security will accompany a New York congressman as he chairs a hearing focused on the U.S. Muslim community and its willingness to help prevent radical Islamic terrorism.

Rep. Peter King told The Associated Press that he has had a larger security details for the past few months because of an overseas threat relayed in December. Since then, round-the-clock security has been provided by the New York Police Department and the Nassau County, N.Y., police.

On Thursday, however, at King's request, the Capitol Police will be securing the congressional hearing room and surrounding areas, as well as his office, as the House Homeland Security Committee takes testimony.

Rarely does a congressional hearing attract as much advance controversy. In protests ahead of the session, critics have condemned the hearing as anti-Muslim and have likened it to the McCarthy-era hearings investigating communism.

"I am well aware that the announcement of these hearings has generated considerable controversy and opposition," King says in prepared opening remarks obtained by the AP. "Congressional investigation of Muslim American radicalization is the logical response to the repeated and urgent warnings which the Obama administration has been making in recent months."

The witnesses include family members of young men who were inspired by others to go into terrorism, with deadly consequences. They plan to tell Congress that the young men were brainwashed by radical elements in the Muslim community.

The hearing has reignited a national debate over how to combat a spate of homegrown terrorism. The Obama administration has tried to frame the discussion around radicalization in general, without singling out Muslims. King has said that's just political correctness since al-Qaida is the main threat to the U.S.

Despite the protests, there's nothing in the prepared testimony that indiscriminately labels Muslims as terrorists, as critics had feared.

Melvin Bledsoe, whose son, Carlos, is charged with killing an Army private at a recruiting station in Little Rock, Ark., is scheduled to testify about his son's conversion to Islam and his isolation from his family.

"Carlos was captured by people best described as hunters," Bledsoe says in his prepared remarks obtained by the AP. "He was manipulated and lied to."

Elsewhere at the Capitol, National Intelligence Director James Clapper was scheduled to address the threat of homegrown terrorism. In his prepared remarks, Clapper said 2010 saw more plots involving homegrown Sunni extremists _ those ideologically aligned with al-Qaida _ than in the previous year.

"Key to this trend has been the development of a U.S.-specific narrative that motivates individuals to violence," Clapper said.

21 Suspended Priests Named

the names of 21 Archdiocese of Philadelphia priests recently suspended for allegations of raping and torturing children, only to be covered up by higher-ups in the church, have been released. This comes to us the same day Cardinal Rigali apologized for such “evil acts” (again) during an Ash Wednesday homily. Via the Inquirer:

1. BARR, Rev. Philip R., (1948)
 Pastor Emeritus, St. Edmond’s, Philadelphia

2. BOWE, Rev. John F., (1973)
 Saint Joseph’s, Warrington

3. CADWALLADER, Rev. George B., (1992)
 Saint Vincent De Paul, Richboro

4. CASTELLANI, Rev. Paul A., (1996) 
Saint Philomena’s, Lansdowne

5. CHAPMAN, Rev. Michael A., (1982) 
Ascension of Our Lord, Philadelphia

6. ClOSE, Rev. Msgr. John A., (1969)
 Saint Katharine of Siena, Wayne

7. FERET, Rev. Msgr. Francis S. (1962)
 Saint Adalbert’s, Philadelphia, PA 19134

8. FERNANDES, Rev. Mark E. (2004) 
Saint Agnes, Sellersville, PA

9. FLOOD, Rev. Msgr. J. Michael (1968)
 Saint Luke the Evangelist, Glenside

10. GASPAR, Rev. Mark S., (1998)
 Our Lady of Charity, Brookhaven

11. GLATTS, Rev. Joseph M., (1966)
 Pastor Emeritus, St. Andrew Parish, Drexel Hill, now at Saints Simon and Jude rectory, West Chester

12. HARRIS, Rev. Steven J., (1980) 
Saint Isaac Jogues, Wayne

13. HOY, Rev. Daniel J.
Retired, Our Lady of the Assumption Rectory, Strafford

14. LOGRIP, Rev. Msgr. Joseph L. 1972)
 Chaplain, Saint Mary’s Manor, Saint Stanislaus Rectory, Lansdale

15. MCCORMICK, Rev. Andrew D., (1982)
 Sacred Heart Rectory, Swedesburg

16. NAVIT, Rev. Zachary W.(1994)
 Director, Office for Special Projects & Closures
Our Lady of GuadalupeRectory, Doylestown

17. PETERSON, Rev. Leonard N., (1967)
 Saint Maria Goretti, Hatfield

18. POVISH, Rev. Robert W. (1990)
 Chaplain, State Correctional Institute, Graterford; Saint Eleanor Rectory, Collegeville

19. REARDON, Rev. John D. (1973)
 Saint John of the Cross Rectory, Roslyn

20. Rooney, Rev. Thomas J. (1991)
 Chaplain, Immaculate Mary Home; Saint Timothy’s, Philadelphia

21. Talocci, Rev. Peter J., (1986) 
Saint Patrick’s, Malvern

Note: Number in parentheses represents year in which priest was ordained.

Philadelphia Police Officer Caught on Tape Assaulting Woman

Alberto Lopez Sr. assaulted a woman. He then arrested her for assaulting a police officer.  At a preliminary hearing, he lied under oath.  The victim of police misconduct was ordered to stand trial.  Then this videotape surfaced.  

Philadelphia police officers asked the gas station owner to delete it.  He refused.  The woman was vindicated.  Philadelphia's legal system, however, remains under indictment.

Officer Lopez Sr. is still carrying a badge and gun.  Although he perjured himself, the District Attorney's office has declined to prosecute him.  Lopez Sr. remains armed and dangerous.  

The police officers who "asked" the gas station owner to delete the video also remain at large.  They have not and will not be prosecuted for obstruction of justice.  They have not and will not be punished by the Internal Affairs Department for committing police misconduct.

Here is the amazing video:

You may read more here.

Rejecting Preventive Health Care

Image via Wikipedia

When we absitively to accommodate affection affliction to all behindhand of whether they could allow it, we didn't apprehend we were activity to bear healthcare to all, behindhand of whether they capital it. The affair surfaces as "healthcare" adjoin "sickness care". How's that, again?

The angle that preventing ache is above to alleviative disease, goes aback at atomic to Benjamin Franklin. In arguing that the Pennsylvania Legislature affliction to advice body the nation's aboriginal hospital, Franklin offered the adage that it would save money in the continued run to amusement bodies aboriginal and get them aback to work. At that aboriginal time, Franklin could hardly accept advancing that it isn't consistently true. Antitoxin anesthetic implies it is cheaper to absorb baby amounts, possibly every year, for abounding people, than to absorb ample amounts for a few. It's a amount of arithmetic, of course, and it doesn't consistently accept the aforementioned answer. Aback the algebraic works adjoin a antitoxin approach, it's usually argued the accretion in bloom is account it; but that's not consistently the case, either. Already a being gets too old to accomplish an bread-and-butter contribution, the blueprint changes. And as an alone approaches end of life, his abandonment of what it takes to prolong activity gathers added respect. Older bodies are generally in the bearings area they are affronted by any advancement their activity does not deserve to be prolonged, but outspokenly adopt to die rather than abrasion a colostomy bag, or a tube in the bladder, or be fed with a spoon. If they are Jehovah's Witnesses and debris transfusions, that too, commands added account aback they are elderly. This is a accustomed problem, not a new one. What's new is added attenuate and pervasive.

The accessible apparently does not actually acknowledge the dematerialization of what ability be alleged arbitrary diseases, or the operation of chance, or God's will. These are baleful illnesses like affection attacks, strokes, epidemics, and added things not anyone's fault. Except for blight and Alzheimers Disease, best actually accepted austere illnesses which remain, are to some admeasurement self-inflicted. Smoking causes lung cancer, alcoholism causes accidents and homicides as able-bodied as cirrhosis of the liver, demography recreational drugs destroys lives, caught sex causes HIV. Obesity causes hypertension and diabetes, apathy your anesthetic undermines treatment. If this keeps up, we are activity to see the day aback every obituary will be too base to print. Poor Jud is dead; it's his own fault.

It's alike worse than that. The 800-page Obamacare plan was too complicated for alike the Congressional committees to understand; but the accessible was not adverse for abstruse reasons, the accessible was annoyed at the idea. All the President's ample about extenuative money by binding antitoxin affliction affronted the accessible to acquaint him, Get off my back. Almost every smoker has approved at atomic already to quit, actually every adipose being has again approved to lose weight unsuccessfully. It's hard, let's see you try it. And now it goes above nagging, we are activity to booty the position that every being who gets ailing from a self-inflicted ache is costing the nation money we can't afford. The country has a appropriate to abuse bodies who drive us to bankruptcy. Let's accept some Wellness police, and fair but close punishments. Is that actually what Obama has in mind? Well,sir, you aloof get off my back.

Even so acquiescent and binding a being as my backward wife already declared that aback she got to be seventy years old, she was activity to try some marijuana at atomic once. The actuality that she lived thirteen added years than that after accomplishing it, did not change her attitude. Aback you get to a assertive age, abounding of the old rules don't administer to you.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Arts, Briefly: British Copies Found of Ben Franklin Letters (nytimes.com)
• Personal Health: Extra Vitamin E: No Benefit, Maybe Harm (nytimes.com)