Police and federal agents raid Charlotte home by mistake
By: Amanda Ciavarri | WHEC.comRochester police and federal agents made a mistake in Charlotte this week that has one woman baffled and frightened. She wants to know how they could mistake her house for one they were supposed to raid in a drug bust.
“I was sitting in my living room texting on my phone and I heard somebody come in my back door. I didn't realize at the time what they were saying, but ultimately they were yelling out A-T-F, A-T-F.”
Nancy Dominicos says what happened next at her home on Tiernan Street Wednesday night is almost unbelievable.
“I thought it was a family member pulling a joke on me. And all of the sudden I looked up and they were in my dinning room pointing a loaded gun at me telling me they had a federal warrant to search my premises.”
Dominicos says she kept telling the three ATF agents this wasn't right. They told her they were searching for narcotics and asked if anyone else was home. She said her adult son was upstairs and that's when this story almost turned tragic.
“My son had heard me arguing with this man and it was not a voice he'd recognize. My son is a hunter, he put a bullet in the chamber of his gun. They heard that, they yelled down long gun, at that point there he told another ATF agent that was with me, handcuff her and take her out,” Dominicos said.
Thankfully Dominicos' son recognized it was law enforcement and put the gun down right away. Dominicos says the handcuffs caused bruises and as she was going outside with an ATF agent she heard him say they had the wrong house. The ATF and Rochester police executed a number of search warrants Wednesday night. Police sent us a statement, saying they entered the home through an unlocked side door and quote:
"Upon encountering an elderly resident, the team realized that they were at the wrong location at that time and left the premises."
Officers then searched the correct house down the street.
Dominicos says the whole event plays over and over in her mind,
“I'm still terrified. It's almost like a P.T.S.D. experience, you keep hearing things. You think oh my God I hear a door slam, I hear someone pulling into my driveway. I see a light it's like oh my God are they back?”
"How could they make that mistake, how could they make that mistake?”
For more Rochester, N.Y. news go to our website www.whec.com.
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Vatican publishes guide on how to deal with 'supernatural phenomena'
They have been closely guarded for more than 30 years, but guidelines on how to deal with divine apparitions of the Virgin Mary and "supernatural phenomena" have now been released by the Vatican.
The guidelines are intended to help
bishops "in their difficult task of discerning presumed apparitions,
revelations, messages or, more generally, extraordinary phenomena of
presumed supernatural origin," Cardinal William Levada, the American
prefect of the CDF, wrote in a preface Photo: Getty
The "norms" on how the Roman Catholic Church should deal with
mystical apparitions were initially drawn up in Latin in 1978 under Pope
Paul VI and were intended for strictly internal use.
They shed light on the sorts of apparitions which have inspired the
establishment of shrines such as those at Lourdes in France and Fatima in
Portugal, which attract millions of pilgrims a year, many in search of cures
for illnesses or other "miracles".
The guidelines are intended to help bishops "in their difficult task of
discerning presumed apparitions, revelations, messages or, more generally,
extraordinary phenomena of presumed supernatural origin," Cardinal
William Levada, the American prefect of the CDF, wrote in a preface.
Deciding whether a spiritual revelation is genuine or not is based on its "orientation
to Christ Himself," Cardinal Levada wrote. "If it leads us away
from Him, then it certainly does not come from the Holy Spirit."
Determining whether a spiritual revelation is authentic or not is the
responsibility of the local bishop, the Vatican said.
He is required to set up a special panel of theologians, psychologists and
doctors to judge the "psychological equilibrium and rectitude of moral
life" of the person or people reporting the apparition and whether it
corresponds with Church doctrine.
A revelation would be dismissed if there was evidence that the person who had
witnessed it was mentally unsound, whether the vision was the product of "collective
hysteria" or if there was a suspicion that the whole thing was a fraud
concocted for profit.
If the bishop cannot make a decision, the judgment can ultimately be referred to the Pope himself.
The Vatican decided to make the guidelines public, and to translate them into five languages, including English, because elements had leaked out into the public domain over the years.
They have been published by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), the powerful Vatican department which was headed by Benedict before he was elected Pope in 2005.
The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith is currently investigating claims that a group of six Catholic children began to see apparitions of the Virgin Mary in the town of Medjugorje in Bosnia-Herzegovina, starting in 1981.
The apparition claims have been judged groundless by a local bishop, but that has not stopped an estimated 30 million believers from visiting the pilgrimage site.
Lourdes, in the foothills of the Pyrenees, became a shrine after apparitions of the Virgin Mary were witnessed by a shepherd girl, Bernadette Soubirous, in 1858.
The publication of the guidelines may provide temporary distraction from one of the worst crises of Benedict XVI's seven-year papacy – the leaking of confidential documents and the arrest of his personal butler, amid claims of vicious faction fighting within the Holy See.
If the bishop cannot make a decision, the judgment can ultimately be referred to the Pope himself.
The Vatican decided to make the guidelines public, and to translate them into five languages, including English, because elements had leaked out into the public domain over the years.
They have been published by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), the powerful Vatican department which was headed by Benedict before he was elected Pope in 2005.
The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith is currently investigating claims that a group of six Catholic children began to see apparitions of the Virgin Mary in the town of Medjugorje in Bosnia-Herzegovina, starting in 1981.
The apparition claims have been judged groundless by a local bishop, but that has not stopped an estimated 30 million believers from visiting the pilgrimage site.
Lourdes, in the foothills of the Pyrenees, became a shrine after apparitions of the Virgin Mary were witnessed by a shepherd girl, Bernadette Soubirous, in 1858.
The publication of the guidelines may provide temporary distraction from one of the worst crises of Benedict XVI's seven-year papacy – the leaking of confidential documents and the arrest of his personal butler, amid claims of vicious faction fighting within the Holy See.
In Vatican City and Holy See
Another Grisly Abortion Mill Closes
 Last month I told you about an abortion mill in Birmingham, Alabama that severely injured two women performing botched abortions. Not only were the two women carried away from an abortion mill in ambulances, but from the same mill, on the same day, just minutes apart from each other. Back then, I told you how the paramedics had to make their way through a trash-filled alley to get inside the abortion mill. Because the gurney couldn't navigate the narrow back hall and dilapidated staircase, the paramedics had to carry the patient out by hand, and lay her down on the gurney in the trash-filled alley.  One of the women was immediately put into an ambulance, bleeding and unconscious, and rushed to a nearby medical center. But it didn't end there. Moments later the paramedics brought another patient through the alley, this time in a wheelchair. The woman, with an oxygen mask and wrapped in a blanket was carefully maneuvered out of the narrow doorway by emergency personnel. Then they whisked her away too. This all happened on -- of all days -- January 21st, just one day before the 39th anniversary of the disastrous Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion-on-demand to allow women to have so-called "safe" abortions. Apparently the abortionists didn't get the memo about the "safe" part. So what about that "legal" part then? Surely abortion mills follow the law? Thanks to increased pressure from the National Pro-Life Alliance members and other pro-life groups, state health departments all across the country have finally begun to conduct inspections. Many of these abortion centers have not been inspected for years. Some -- never. And abortion mills regularly violate even the few laws that govern them. The good news is, thanks to the public outcry from NPLA members and other pro-lifers, health inspectors finally went in to inspect the Birmingham, Alabama abortion mill. Investigators discovered that the abortionists misread pregnancy tests, use expired drugs, ignored ultrasound laws that require a woman be given the option to view her preborn child in the womb, and distributed controlled substances without physician authorization. 
Inspectors also found that the abortion facility in Birmingham didn't even wait long enough to verify if patients were pregnant before proceeding with abortions. Ultimately, the authorities had no choice but to shut down the abortion mill citing 76 pages of health code violations. Is it any wonder that women show up at emergency rooms all across America with fevers, infections, and permanent damage after trusting their bodies to these hellish places? Thanks to hard work from NPLA members and other pro-life groups, the Birmingham abortion mill is history, but you and I must not rest until all abortion mills are out of business. For Life,  Martin Fox, President National Pro-Life Alliance P.S. Thanks to Jill Stanek for the photos. P.P.S. Please consider chipping in with a small donation to help the National Pro-Life Alliance to expand our mobilization program to contact more pro-lifers to end abortion-on-demand. |
The Cowboy Byte
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| June 17, 2012 News and Thoughts for the day |
Obama Supporters Know His Drone War Is Indefensible
But the seductiveness of a leader using violence to slay the nation's enemies causes them to celebrate it anyway.
Reuters
Among President Obama's defenders, there is a certain schizophrenia about his drone campaign. On one hand, it makes them uncomfortable, what with all the dead children. On the other hand, they want to credit Obama with waging war on Al Qaeda much better than his predecessor. Mark my words: His kill stats are going to be part of his impending reelection campaign. But deep down, even Obama's staunchest supporters know his policy is indefensible.
Take Andrew Sullivan.
Over at The Dish, he directs our attention to this quote:
A bigger problem, though far from the biggest, is the notion that Obama has "accomplished exactly what he said he'd accomplish" while waging the war on terrorism. He has, it's true, killed Osama bin Laden, along with other people ranging from Al Qaeda operatives to innocent children. He also ended the war in Iraq on President Bush's timetable and surged troops into Afghanistan. And he signed an executive order barring torture, the most depraved practice of his predecessor.
But Obama hasn't eliminated Al Qaeda -- how many more number twos will die in the next year? -- and his foreign policy as a whole has strayed dramatically from what he promised. That is obvious. And you don't need to take my word for it. As Sullivan himself once noted, "those of us who fought for Obama's election precisely because we wanted a return to the rule of law were conned." And "the perverse truth is that, in some ways, the Obama administration is in greater violation of Geneva than even the Bush-Cheney administration." This is worth noting too:
But on reflection, Sullivan knows better than to presume that.
In fact, what I find most confounding is that Sullivan praises Obama for his drone kills, even though he himself has grave doubts about the strategy. Sullivan thinks that Obama's drone war in Yemen is illegal and dangerous. He's at least uncomfortable with our strikes in Pakistan too. As he put it:
I'd say it's evidence of humanity's unfortunate ability to be seduced by leaders exercising violence, even when we think that violence is immoral, illegal, and imprudent. Sullivan is, after all, celebrating Obama's drone kills and suggesting that they're part of why he deserves reelection. And yet, in more considered moments, he asserts that the drone campaign (a) violates the constitutional imperative to get Congressional permission for war; (b) constitutes the use of a technology that inclines us to blowback and permanent war; (c) effectively ends the Founders' vision; (d) empowers an unaccountable and untrustworthy agency; and (e) kills lots of innocent children.
Posts like the one Sullivan wrote, associating Obama's kill stats with his reelection and place on Mount Rushmore, are exactly the sort of thing that gives Obama a political incentive to continue the drone policy Sullivan thinks is illegal, imprudent, and a threat to the American way. I should note admiringly that almost every anti-drone argument has been linked previously on The Daily Dish.
Reuters
Among President Obama's defenders, there is a certain schizophrenia about his drone campaign. On one hand, it makes them uncomfortable, what with all the dead children. On the other hand, they want to credit Obama with waging war on Al Qaeda much better than his predecessor. Mark my words: His kill stats are going to be part of his impending reelection campaign. But deep down, even Obama's staunchest supporters know his policy is indefensible.
Take Andrew Sullivan.
Over at The Dish, he directs our attention to this quote:
The news that Abu Yahya al-Libi, the No. 2 leader of al Qaeda, is now confirmed to have been killed in a CIA drone strike in Pakistan's tribal region along the border with Afghanistan further underlines that the terrorist group that launched the 9/11 attacks is now more or less out of business. -- Peter Bergen.Sullivan appends this commentary:
What Bush failed to do in eight years, Obama has accomplished in three. He did it without torture. And he accomplished exactly what he said he'd accomplish. Think back for a few minutes to a decade ago. Imagine George W. Bush achieving what Bergen has now noted. Would a re-election even be in doubt? Or would he already be on Rushmore?That's pretty straightforward. Obama's kill stats make him better than Bush, he's fulfilled his campaign promises, and he deserves reelection on that basis. But let's look at those claims a bit more closely. For starters, Sullivan fails to note the very next paragraphs in Bergen's essay, which says this: "Under President Barack Obama, CIA drone strikes have killed 15 of the most important players in al Qaeda, according to a count maintained by the New America Foundation (a nonpartisan think tank where I am a director). Similarly, President George W. Bush also authorized drone strikes that killed 16 important al Qaeda operatives in Pakistan while he was in office." So apparently Bush would not be on Mount Rushmore if he achieved what Bergen noted.
A bigger problem, though far from the biggest, is the notion that Obama has "accomplished exactly what he said he'd accomplish" while waging the war on terrorism. He has, it's true, killed Osama bin Laden, along with other people ranging from Al Qaeda operatives to innocent children. He also ended the war in Iraq on President Bush's timetable and surged troops into Afghanistan. And he signed an executive order barring torture, the most depraved practice of his predecessor.
But Obama hasn't eliminated Al Qaeda -- how many more number twos will die in the next year? -- and his foreign policy as a whole has strayed dramatically from what he promised. That is obvious. And you don't need to take my word for it. As Sullivan himself once noted, "those of us who fought for Obama's election precisely because we wanted a return to the rule of law were conned." And "the perverse truth is that, in some ways, the Obama administration is in greater violation of Geneva than even the Bush-Cheney administration." This is worth noting too:
Aggressively trying to prevent torture victims from having their day in court merely using unclassified evidence is active complicity in the war crimes of the past. And such complicity is itself a war crime. Either we live under the rule of law and the Geneva Conventions, or we don't. And when Obama says we don't -- as he unmistakably is -- the precedent he is setting all but ensures that torture will come again, that there will never be consequences for it, and that the national security state can cloak itself in such a way that the citizenry has no way of penetrating its power. Bush and Cheney remain the real culprits here; but watching Obama essentially surrendering to their trap is a betrayal of a core rationale for his candidacy.Sullivan also said this about a different promise Obama broke:
Despite all these misgivings, it's the drone aided kill-stats to which Sullivan always comes back, as if our president's cool competence has allowed him to end the terrorist threat by remote controlled aircraft. But it really doesn't make sense to extol Obama every time a drone kills an Al Qaeda operative. There's no shortage of politicians who, if elected president, will give the CIA permission to fire on suspected terrorists in various foreign countries. Herman Cain would give that order. So would Rick Perry. Sarah Palin might even let drone operators practice on wolves. Would they be serving America's best interests in doing so? I don't think so. Neither does Jane Mayer. Nor Jeremy Scahill. Nor various anonymous officials quoted in The New York Times, who think we're creating more terrorists than we're killing. You'd think, reading the excerpt above, that Sullivan disagrees, and thinks Obama's kills have made us safer. Why else extol him for accomplishing what Bush didn't? The implication is that the cost of his drone strikes have been worthwhile.Many of us supported this president because he promised to bring back the constitutional balance after the theories of Yoo, Delahunty, et al put the president on a par with emperors and kings in wartime. And yet in this Libya move, what difference is there between Bush and Obama? In some ways, Bush was more respectful of the Congress, waiting for a vote of support before launching us like an angry bird into the desert.
But on reflection, Sullivan knows better than to presume that.
In fact, what I find most confounding is that Sullivan praises Obama for his drone kills, even though he himself has grave doubts about the strategy. Sullivan thinks that Obama's drone war in Yemen is illegal and dangerous. He's at least uncomfortable with our strikes in Pakistan too. As he put it:
The drone attacks into Pakistan are mighty close to warfare, it seems to me. There comes a point, in other words, at which a military kinetic action becomes a war. Drones are particularly dangerous instruments in this respect. They allow a president to pick war at will, and placate the public with no military casualties. This is precisely what the Founders were scared of. We have created a King with an automated army, and no Congressional or public check outside of elections, when the damage may have already been done.A bit later in the same post (emphasis added):
Maybe the line between targeted anti-terror strikes and de facto, ongoing warfare is hard to define. Sometimes, the executive may need to act urgently and unilaterally to counter an imminent military threat. But we are so far away from that now it's almost irrelevant. I guess ongoing, routine military attacks constitute war in my book.
I do think the military/CIA distinction matters. One thing I've learned this past decade is that the CIA is pretty much its own judge, jury and executioner. It is much less accountable to the public, more likely to break the laws of war and destroy the evidence, more likely to do things that could escalate rather than ameliorate a conflict. To read that the CIA has been given a green light to do what it wants to do in Yemen with drones seems to me easily over the trip-wire for war that requires Congressional buy-in.So what to make of all this?
Technology has made this more problematic. If the CIA, based on its own intelligence, can launch a war or wars with weapons that can incur no US fatalities, the propensity to be permanently at war, permanently making America enemies, permanently requiring more wars to put out the flames previous wars started, then the Founders' vision is essentially over. I think it's a duty to make sure their vision survives this twenty-first century test.
I'd say it's evidence of humanity's unfortunate ability to be seduced by leaders exercising violence, even when we think that violence is immoral, illegal, and imprudent. Sullivan is, after all, celebrating Obama's drone kills and suggesting that they're part of why he deserves reelection. And yet, in more considered moments, he asserts that the drone campaign (a) violates the constitutional imperative to get Congressional permission for war; (b) constitutes the use of a technology that inclines us to blowback and permanent war; (c) effectively ends the Founders' vision; (d) empowers an unaccountable and untrustworthy agency; and (e) kills lots of innocent children.
Posts like the one Sullivan wrote, associating Obama's kill stats with his reelection and place on Mount Rushmore, are exactly the sort of thing that gives Obama a political incentive to continue the drone policy Sullivan thinks is illegal, imprudent, and a threat to the American way. I should note admiringly that almost every anti-drone argument has been linked previously on The Daily Dish.
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