The man who shot the Judge and the others is a sorry ass piece of shit!

I cannot believe we live in a country where judges and their families are being executed. I was discussing this with a couple of immigrants today. They have been here 25 years from El Salvador. They told me that if a judge can be killed, no one is safe. I agree.

I refuse to live in fear. I refuse to live in a lawless nation where judges and their families can be executed. Fuck that. These two incidents are another sign of where this country seems to be headed. Congress is paid off. The President is a war-criminal. Dissenters are jailed and/or silenced. Witnesses to crimes are murdered. Judges and their families are executed.

I believe that much of this comes from Republican moral policy. Don't like someone? Go to war with them? Don't have a good reason? Make one up and tweak it as needed. Don't have money? We don't want to know you.

It's not like it happens every month.

What will u do? What is your option?

The more I see, the more I am tempted to run for office myself. That's one of my only options. What we really need are nasty marches in DC. It needs to be big and ugly. People in this country need to stand and fight for themselves. Unfortunately, American Idol is on 3 days a week, so they are too busy.

and yes, it's started at the top with the Rethugs in control. They seem to believe they're fully entitled to pick and choose which laws and treaties they'll bother with, and which parts of the old testament they'll respect.

When the leadership exists outside the law, there is no longer any compelling reason for the led to exist within it. It's every man for himself, and the devil take the hindmost.

It's unsustainable. That's the only good news.

Fucking CHAOS! :mad:

This ia a good "frame" ;)

I don't think we can blame them for what this guy did. People have been doing crap like this since time began. I don't know the full story but, I suppose republican policies could have some impact on this man but, I doubt it is the actual cause.

I am saying that they are responsible for the moral climate that allows this to even happen.

As great as President Clinton was people still raped and murdered during his time.

I'm not talking about the common rape and murder.

If Kerry was president (like he rightfully is), do you think this guy would have just have went to court and took his punishment? I say no. The man is a sicko and I really doubt any political figure would have casued him to act in any way.

The point is that the climate created by going to war on a lie, and most of the other shoot first ask questions later republican policy has created the kind of environment where it's acceptible to shoot judges.

who is saying it is acceptable to shoot judges?

It's the climate that we are in. Bush didn't like Saddam, he found a way to invade Iraq, kill a lot of people and capture him. It's called moral leadership.

how what bush did impacted this guy's actions.

:hi:

breaking the law from misdemeanors to felonies to murders to serial killers for a long time. I don't remember much of a difference crime wise between the Dem or Repub administrations.

Eventually they do go nuts.. People are less able to cope with stressors these days.. Look at the nutty guy who killed the Chicago judge's family. I know it's not the same as the guy in Atlanta, but think about it. He was a nebbishy little guy who spent YEARS "trying to be heard", and at every turn he was dismissed as "inconsequential". I'm sure the judge had NO IDEA that her dismissal of him would send him over the edge, but it DID. People are "on the edge" all over the country. People are losing their homes, their health their very security, and things that they might have dealt with in other times, are just too much for them now. I am NOT excusing what he did, but think about it. Do YOU think you could get "justice" if YOU needed it? Do YOU have the money to hire expensive lawyers? Could YOU get a fair hearing of YOUR grievances?

If you are the average person in America, the answer is NO.

It cost me over $1,000 to have a lawyer I met with ONCE, to file some routine paperwork for me and write 2 letters. (involving my mother's estate, where there was a recorded will, and there were not really many complications)..

The guy in Atlanta was mentally unstable to begin with or he would have not assaulted his former girlfriend. He was no dummy.. He went to college, had a decent job, and on the surface there was NO reason for him to "go off" like he did...but he DID..

People who need psychiatric help, are NOT getting it, and this is the price society is paying for that .

Maybe some have no insurance, so they cannot afford it, or some are so far gone they don't realize they need it, but the facts are out there for all to see. People are stressed to the max, and the slightest thing can set them off. We are all in danger because these people are all around us, and we never know what the trigger will be.

There is no safety valve anymore, and violence seems to be the only way these people can make their point. It would be safer and cheaper to get these people the help they so obviously need.

You are 100% right. There are two Americas, and the America of the working class is now in mental anguish.

We will see more of this because it seems that the "little people" have less and less to live for. I mean, if someone is broke and can't pay their bills and bankruptcy is no longer an option, what is to stop them from doing harm to themselves or others?? They have nothing to lose.

I don't know the story of the guy in Atlanta but it would seem that he snapped for some reason. Not that I am trying to excuse it- there was some discussion that he may not have been guilty of the assault he was on trial for. I don't really know. But incidents like this will lead to a bigger police state.

I saw someone on this forum blame this incident on gun control. Huh??? Maybe the poster thought that everyone in courtrrom should have been armed. I don't see what that would have done but result in a lot more injuries and deaths. Another poster blamed one of the victims (the female deputy who was guarding the prisoner). I think defendants are not shackled normally because it would cause the jury to believe they are guilty. I don't know. I don't really know how this could have been prevented either.

a defendent "in custody" is assumed to have done something pretty bad, to begin with.. They should be brought in handcuffed, then one hand re-cuffed to a screw-eye under or on the edge of the table....then uncuffed from the first set of cuffs. They could have their writing hand free, but ONLY that one. They would be unlikely to attack anyone while dragging a table..

THEN the jury is brpought in...after they are seated. No one on the jury would be able to SEE the one hand cuffed..

When it's time to go, the jury leaves, and THEN the defendant is stood up, and hands cuffed behind his/her back..and then the "table-cuff" removed...

No one gets hurt that way :)

This guy is just evil. He didn't "assault" his former girlfriend. He packed-up three days-worth of food for himself and went to her place where he held her hostage while he terrorized, raped, and beat her for three days. And two days after being caught with makeshift knives hidden on his person.....and God only knows what havoc he had intended to create with those.....not only did he kill the judge and a guard who was trying to stop him, he also cold-bloodedly killed an innocent court reporter, just because he could.

I'll make allowances for mental illness (like Andrea Yeaeger and the guy who killed Judge Lefkow's husband and mother, who was clearly disturbed) and I'll even give credence to some people who do just seem to "snap". But this creep doesn't fall into those categories. Nobody "snaps" and then rapes someone for three days. And this wasn't a "rampage killing", either, where someone just randomly kills like the guy on the Long Island train. He calculatedly killed those who he saw as "being in his way".

He wasn't broke or downtrodden. He came from a good home, had a good education, a decent job and no history of instability. In the end, he's just a human being who has evil in him and unleashed it with malice and intent. Nothing that happens to him, in my opinion, will be bad enough.

According to one reporter, even some of the detectives have said the man in Atlanta probably flipped. People who know him are saying that he was always a nice guy. He was very educated, smart and humorous. His employer, UPS said he was a good employee who did his work and was always on time. He had a lot of friends who really liked him. Everyone interviewed has said his actions were totally out of character. His lawyer for the rape case was on CNN. He said that even the girl who was raped and her family members told him that prior to the incident, he never was violent, never even raised his voice. This man committed some heinous acts but it is more than likely that he did indeed flip, just as the man in Chicago did. By the way, just because a person is educated and not poor, does not mean he is immuned to mental illness, does not mean he cannot lose his mind and behave has this man did. I saw Dr. Helen Caldicott being interviewed last week on C-Span. She said she has seen people who were perfectly normal one day, and psychotic the next.

i was thinking the same thing.

everybody cries these big tears for high-profile victims, but the injustices and travesties that happen EVERY DAY, to all the small people are just casually dismissed.

It started long before the war in Iraq though.

This is one unfortunate event that cannot be placed at the hands of Bush's policy on Iraq.