Injustice Delivered: Pizza Hut Demotes Delivery Guy For Defending Himself

Dec. 30, 2012 - I don't usually go for boycotts, but Pizza Hut needs to be on the receiving end of one for this. Sam Swicegood, college student and pizza delivery man in Maryland, defended himself against attackers while delivering pizzas. His mistake: He used a "weapon." To show him their moral support and compassion, Pizza Hut demoted him.

The trouble began as Swicegood tried to deliver pizza. He said he was "sucker punched" and his glasses flew off his face. Dropping the pizzas, he swung a piece of a tent pole he had up his sleeve.

“It’s a little fiberglass [rod] I had up my sleeve not thinking I would actually have to use it but more or less having a little comfort up my sleeve,” recalled Sam. Swicegood faced five attackers and said those odds “is just not a good situation to be in.” The rod is part of a tent pole, he explained, and it might have saved him from being more seriously injured. Hat tip to Freedom Outpost.

Swicegood said he was attacked previously, "so before he got out of his car, he grabbed something to protect himself," reported Fox News Balitmore on Dec. 28. Fox News also said that one of Sam’s co-workers was held at gunpoint last month and robbed "in the same area Sam was attacked; luckily in Sam’s case police arrested 3 out of 5 of the individuals - all of which are juveniles."

Pizza Hut: Now crap in my eyes.

Pizza Hut's outrageous reaction to Swicegood protecting himself: They demoted him, making him a cook earning less money than as a driver. Why? Because he violated Pizza Hut's no-weapon policy that forbids drivers from being armed.

Comment:  Suppose, instead of the tent pole rod, Swicegood hit his attackers with a pizza box? Those boxes are stiff and have sharp corners. You could take an eye out with ont. Could a Pizza Hut box be considered a weapon? After all, any solid object could be used as a weapon. A ball point, for example, is not a "weapon" until it is intentionally plunged into somebody's throat. 

Sam Swicegood deserves to work for a better employer. Here's a link to his resume. Additionally, there is a Facebook group now called "Support Sam Swicegood," so please check it out, "Like" it and share it. And the next time you want to go out for pizza, forget about Pizza Hut. At the Facebook page, somebody wrote the following:

Keep the pressure on Pizza Hut to reverse their silly decision to demote someone for protecting their life while delivering their product. I am not saying they need to be armed, but if in the course of defending oneself they pick something up to use as a defensive instrument, they should not be demoted or fired.

Pizza Hut Corporate Office Headquarters
14841 Dallas Parkway 
Dallas TX 75254
Phone: 800-948-8488

EXCLUSIVE: Breitbart Website's Dishonest Use of Two Photos In Stories About Sidwell Friends School

Does anyone at Brietbart know that L.A. is not in D.C.?
Click image to enlarge.

Sorry Breitbart: This is NOT Sidwell Friends School.
(AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes) (Damian Dovarganes)
Click image to enlarge (see original story).

Dec. 29, 2012 - BUSTED: Breitbart's "Big Government" website is using two photos that they present falsely as being taken at the exclusive Sidwell Friends School in Washington, D.C., attended by the Obama daughters. In my opinion, they did this deliberately. Sadly, both photos are being reproduced by bloggers who don't know how, or are too lazy, to do a little basic research to confirm facts.

One of the photos in question was most certainly not taken at Sidwell. The other is highly suspicious. Let me explain, and keep in mind that I am a conservative blogger who doesn't like fellow conservative bloggers presenting lies, whether on purpose or through stupidity. We all make mistakes. I sure do, but I correct them when I become aware of them. I would never do what the Breitbart kiddies did here.

BAD PHOTO #1: On Dec. 23, Breitbart's "Big Government" website published a photo as part of a story about security guards at Sidwell Friends School, the private institution in Washington, D.C. that the Obama daughters attend. The article, written by someone who calls himself A.W.R. Hawkins, is titled "D.C. School Posts Job Opening For Police Officer." A photo at the top of that article shows four burly, armed guards. The photo has no caption, and no source is given.

Trouble is, the photo was actually taken in February, 2011 on the other side of the continent, in Los Angeles. The armed men are Los Angeles Unified School District police, and they were guarding Miramonte Elementary school during a protest in Los Angeles on Monday, Feb. 6, 2012. Sadly, hundreds of conservative bloggers are mindlessly republishing the same photos as they follow Breitbart like zombies, telling their readers that the photo is of Sidwell Friends School.

Why did Breitbart's Big Government use a  photo of a school in L.A. in a piece about a private school in D.C.? Does the Breitbart organization have nobody in the D.C. metro area that could have provided them with a photo of the school? No doubt that could have happened.... but not with armed men standing in a dramatic photo. Better to grab that L.A. school photo, don't put a caption on it, and slap it into the post about Sidwell. That's not just lazy, that's deliberately presenting disinformation. (In my opinion, of course.)

Where was this photo taken? When? By whom?
Click image to enlarge.

BAD PHOTO #2: This is another baffling Breitbart use of a photo. This one was in another post by the same A.W.R. Hawkins, titled "School Obama's Daughters Attend Has 11 Armed Guards." What a  photo! Look! Three men with binoculars! They're looking at things! But, are they really Secret Service? The photo has no caption, no attribution, no date. The name of the photo file in the story is "sidwellfriendsSecretService.jpg," but that means nothing. A photo file is easily renamed.

"Sidwell Friends School in Washington, DC," wrote Hawkins, "has 11 security officers and is seeking to hire a new police officer as we speak." Really? The only substantiation of that Hawkins gives is a link to a jobs site called Job Hustler, where there is no mention of Sidwell Friends School at that link. But wait! That was just sloppy work by Hawkins: Sidwell is seeking a security guard, but the correct link is here. So Hawkins was right about the want ad, but we're still left with no documentation or substantiation of his claim that Sidwell currently has 11 armed guards. An unnamed source? He didn't say. A school official? He didn't say. Lazy journalism? Yep.

Sidwell by satellite: Where were those Secret Service guys standing?
Click image to enlarge.

THE REALLY WEIRD THING about this photo is that there does not seem to be any such place on the grounds of Sidwell Friends School. Look for yourself, at this Google satellite view of Sidwell, located at 3825 Wisconsin Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20016.

Notice the structure on which the three men are standing. It clearly has a flat roof. But try to find a structure that small with a flat roof on the Google maps satellite image below. Again, I'm not saying that these are not Secret Service guys. I just question where this photo was taken, and it's questionable because the Breitbart editors are lazy and didn't care to tell us. And how are we to know that it's three French Foreign Legion guys in Algeria? After all, Breitbart's editor had no problem using a photo of an L.A. school in the article about Sidwell Friends School in D.C.

It's garbage like this that makes me happy that I have remained an independent blogger and never sold my soul or journalistic integrity to the wannabe amateurs at Breitbart. Mind you, this is nothing against the late Andrew Breitbart. Rather, it's an indictment of the laziness of the editors and writers in that organization.

Yah, I am a conservative, but it pisses me off when my fellow conservatives act in such stupid ways that so brazenly violate the most basic rules of journalism - not to mention respect for copyrights. The folks running the Breitbart websites have been playing fast and loose with facts violating copyrights for a long time, but this is the first incident that I have taken the time to document. But it explains why I so rarely link to stories at the Breitbart sites. The vast majority of their contributors, after all, have no training or professional background in journalism. Sadly, it shows all too often. Sadder still, many conservative bloggers are happy to stick their faces into the trough and lap it up without question.

New White House Petition Asks Sen. Diane Feinstein Be Tried For Treason

Dec. 28, 2012 - A new petition to the White House asks that U.S. Senatrix Diane Feinstein (D-Calif) be tried in federal court "for treason to the Constitution." 

Feinstein, says the petition, "has made it clear she does not believe in the Constitution or the inalienable rights of Americans to keep and bear arms." (See full text below.)

The petition is undoubtedly inspired by an anti-assault weapon bill that Feinstein will introduce at the start of the next Congress. Equally certain is that Feinstein is doing this to make political hay out of the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School on Dec. 14. And just how do we know an "assault weapon" ban would NOT have stopped Sandy Hook shooter Adam Lanza? Because it didn't, points out Reason.com.

Diane Feinstein hates
the U.S. Constitution

There is confusion over whether Lanza used a Bushmaster AR-15 rifle at the school, but a report by NBC News (watch this video) says that state and federal officials said that while four handguns were found in the school, no long gun seemed to have been used. Lanza's Bushmaster AR-15 was still in the trunk of his car, where police found it unused at the scene. By the way: The Bushmaster AR-15 is not an "assault weapon." The video even shows police removing Lanza's Bushmaster from the car trunk.

The anti-Feinstein petition was posted on Dec. 27.  As of 4:50 p.m. EST today, it had garnered 4,741 signatures, needing another 20,259 to reach the required 25,000 for the White House staff will review it, "ensure it’s sent to the appropriate policy experts, and issue an official response." The petition is non-binding and will probably just be laughed off by anti-gun White House staffers, sympathetic to Feinstein, when they "review" it.

Peter Ferrara, contributor at Forbes, has a few words to say today about Feinstein's pending bill and the nonsensical hysteria about "assault weapons" in general.

Ferrara wrote that "assault weapon" is a term that "is just a PR stunt that fools the gullible and easily deluded. It is defined in legislation by cosmetic features that frighten white bread suburbanites, but do not involve any functionality of any gun. We tried it, conservatives said it wouldn’t work, and it didn’t work. Yet, it is the liberal answer to the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre in Newtown, Conn." Ferrara adds, "A Connecticut state law already banned assault weapons. The difference that made in stopping the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary: zero, zilch, nada, as the saying goes."

Cunning Stunt: Feinstein and some scary props.

Jacob Sullum at RedState points out that "the term assault weapon was invented by the anti-gun lobby as a way of blurring the distinction between military-style semiautomatics, which fire once per trigger pull, and selective-fire assault rifles, which can be set to fire continuously (a distinction that President Obama, who wants to bring back the 'assault weapon' ban, either does not grasp or deliberately obscures).... Guns are not 'assault weapons' until legislators arbitrarily decide they are."

Of course, none of these inconvenient facts matter to the anti-gun folks because they want all guns to be banned. A.W.R. Hawkins, lately of Breitbart.com, would agree with me. The attack on so-called "assault weapons" is a clever emotional use of language that allows them, as Peter Ferrara wrote, to "fool the gullible and easily deluded."

Watch the video above, in which Feinstein discusses her treasonous, anti-Constitution, anti-Bill of Rights assault weapons legislation bill in a guest appearance on PBS Newshour, Dec. 17.

In a scholarly thesis titled "Rational Basis Analysis of 'Assault Weapon' Prohibition," David B. Kopel examined the constitutionality and justification for banning such guns. His conclusion, in part (with my emphasis added):

"The demand for 'assault weapon' prohibition is often accompanied by a self-righteous insistence that only a criminal or a maniac would oppose prohibiting extremely dangerous firearms which have no legitimate use and are the criminal weapon of choice. But the closer one looks at the reasons given for 'assault weapon' bans the less one sees. The prohibition is no more rational than a prohibition on beer based on legislative 'findings' that beer grows on trees, that a single sip always causes instant physical addiction, and that beer is more dangerous than other alcohol because it is stored in aluminum containers. If the rational basis test means anything, it means that an 'assault weapon' prohibition is unlawful."

The full text of the petition against Diane Feinstein:

WE PETITION THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION TO:

Try Senator Dianne Feinstein in a Federal Court For Treason To The Constitution

The Constitution was written to restrain the government. No amendment is more important for this purpose than the 2nd amendment. The 2nd amendment was written so the power could be kept with the citizenry in the face of a tyrannical government. It was well understood the Constitution acknowledged certain rights that could not be limited by government.

Senator Dianne Feinstein has made it clear she does not believe in the Constitution or the inalienable rights of Americans to keep and bear arms. She is actively working to destroy the 2nd amendment with her 2013 assault weapons ban. For this reason we the people of the united States petition for her to be tried in Federal Court for treason to the Constitution.

An outline of her bill may be found here:

http://www.feinstein.senate.gov/public

Created: Dec 27, 2012
Issues: Firearms

Related:

• Adam Lanza Did use the Bushmaster AR-15 RedState.com
• Confusion abounds: Just what is an ‘assault weapon’? Philly.com
• What Is An "Assault Rifle"? - You've Probably Been Lied To YouTube
• Hypocrites: Senators Schumer and Feinstein Pack Heat Federal Observer
• Sen. Feinstein's 'Assault Weapon' Ban Really Handgun Ban Breitbart.com
• Rational Basis Analysis of "Assault Weapon" Prohibition, David B. Kopel Guncite.com
• CT. COP on Sandy Hook Inconsistencies: "THINGS DON'T ADD UP" YouTube
• Chuck Woolery on Assault Weapons YouTube
• Rapper Ice T on US gun control YouTube

RIP: General Norman Schwarzkopf, Dead at 78

General Norman Schwarzkopf

Dec. 27, 2012 - Another great American has passed away. A U.S. official says retired Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf, who commanded the U.S.-led international coalition that drove Saddam Hussein's forces out of Kuwait in 1991, has died. He was 78," reports FoxNews.

Schwarzkopf, also known as "Stormin' Norman," The "U.S. official" was not authorized to release the information publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.

• Read more about Gen. Schwarzkopf, including his background, at NPR. 
• Read an excellent history of the 1991-1992 Iraq conflict by the general at Frontline's Oral History at PBS. 
• Video: Gen. Schwarzkopf describes the victory of Desert Storm with added combat footage (below).