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Gyro-Copter Lands On West Lawn of US Capitol, Pilot Arrested
An anonymous reader writes that Doug Hughes, 61, a mailman from Ruskin, Florida was arrested for landing a gyro-copter on the West Lawn of the U.S. Capitol. "A 61-year-old Florida mailman was arrested Wednesday after he landed a gyrocopter on the U.S. Capitol west lawn. The gyrocopter was carrying the pilot and 535 stamped letters for members of Congress urging 'real reform' to campaign finance laws. Doug Hughes told the Tampa Bay Times ahead of the afternoon stunt that he notified authorities 'well over an hour in advance of getting to the no-fly zone, so they know who I am and what I'm doing.' Capitol police sent dogs and a bomb squad to the scene. Nothing hazardous was found. A city block from the Capitol had been cordoned off."
Cut the guy some slack. He simply wanted to fly to D.C.; he had his own gyrocopter, and he really didn't feel like having his nuts groped by the TSA.
Can you really blame him?
I mean, I do not advocate the death penalty for stupidity, but I am shocked he wasn't hit by a sniper before he even crossed the property line.
A 61-year-old Florida mailman was arrested Wednesday after he landed a gyrocopter on the U.S. Capitol west lawn. The gyrocopter was carrying the pilot and 535 stamped letters for members of Congress urging 'real reform' to campaign finance laws.
So in other words, they arrested a Federal Employee on Federal Property for doing his job.
...is now the SECOND-craziest SOB ever to fly one of those things.
a drone
One representative per ~500,000 citizens is not democracy.
Before he took off he also called his friend back home to tell him the plan. His friend had the business card of a Secret Service agent who had previously visited and interviewed them after hearing about his plan for a "big thing" to call attention to campaign finance reform. His friend called the Secret Service agent, got no answer, but left a message informing him of the impending flight. He never got a call back, and the authorities claimed they were not aware of the flight. So, yeah, bit of an intelligence failure there.
Here's a much better article that includes a video at the bottom of him actually landing on the lawn, as well as the text of the letters he was trying to deliver. Note the complete lack of any resistance to him landing, the Capitol Police weren't out there and it took a little while to hear the first sirens.
http://www.tampabay.com/news/p...
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
One of the first produced autogyros was for mail delivery and landed on the White House lawn. That one got a trophy from Pres Hoover.
What is the exact ratio between citizens and representatives which defines a democracy?
All of this, of course, ignores the fact that the US is not, and has never been, an actual democracy. It is a Federal Republic.
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
What a man. Even if you disagree with his message (I can't think of anyone who would) the sheer courage to go ahead with this plan is astounding. What a man. Can we donate to his legal fund yet?
Once he radioed in to tell them he was with the USPS the secret service knew for sure he could not possibly be an armed maniac.
Nullius in verba
Dear ___________,
Consider the following statement by John Kerry in his farewell speech to the Senate —
"The unending chase for money I believe threatens to steal our democracy itself. They know it. They know we know it. And yet, Nothing Happens!" — John Kerry, 2-13
In a July 2012 Gallup poll, 87% tagged corruption in the federal government as extremely important or very important, placing this issue just barely behind job creation. According to Gallup, public faith in Congress is at a 41-year record low, 7%. (June 2014) Kerry is correct. The popular perception outside the DC beltway is that the federal government is corrupt and the US Congress is the major problem. As a voter, I'm a member of the only political body with authority over Congress. I'm demanding reform and declaring a voter's rebellion in a manner consistent with Jefferson's description of rights in the Declaration of Independence. As a member of Congress, you have three options.
1. You may pretend corruption does not exist.
2. You may pretend to oppose corruption while you sabotage reform.
3. You may actively participate in real reform.
If you're considering option 1, you may wonder if voters really know what the 'chase for money' is. Your dismal and declining popularity documented by Gallup suggests we know, but allow a few examples, by no means a complete list. That these practices are legal does not make them right! Obviously, it is Congress who writes the laws that make corruption legal.
1. Dozens of major and very profitable corporations pay nothing in taxes. Voters know how this is done. Corporations pay millions to lobbyists for special legislation. Many companies on the list of freeloaders are household names — GE, Boeing, Exxon Mobil, Verizon, Citigroup, Dow
2. Almost half of the retiring members of Congress from 1998 to 2004 got jobs as lobbyists earning on average fourteen times their Congressional salary. (50% of the Senate, 42% of the House)
3. The new democratic freshmen to the US House in 2012 were 'advised' by the party to schedule 4 hours per day on the phones fund raising at party headquarters (because fund raising is illegal from gov't offices.) It is the donors with deep pockets who get the calls, but seldom do the priorities of the rich donor help the average citizen.
4. The relevant (rich) donors who command the attention of Congress are only .05% of the public (5 people in a thousand) but these aristocrats of both parties are who Congress really works for. As a member of the US Congress, you should work only for The People.
1. Not yourself.
2. Not your political party.
3. Not the richest donors to your campaign.
4. Not the lobbyist company who will hire you after your leave Congress.
There are several credible groups working to reform Congress. Their evaluations of the problem are remarkably in agreement though the leadership (and membership) may lean conservative or liberal. They see the corrupting effect of money — how the current rules empower special interests through lobbyists and PACs — robbing the average American of any representation on any issue where the connected have a stake. This is not democracy even if the ritual of elections is maintained.
The various mechanisms which funnel money to candidates and congress-persons are complex. It happens before they are elected, while they are in office and after they leave Congress. Fortunately, a solution to corruption is not complicated. All the proposals are built around either reform legislation or a Constitutional Amendment. Actually, we need both — a constitutional amendment and legislation.
There will be discussion about the structure and details of reform. As I see it, campaign finance reform is the cornerstone of building an honest Congress. Erect a wall of separation between our elected officials and big money. This you must do — or your replacement will do. A corporation is not 'people' and no individ
It would be much MORE workable.
Bribery and blackmail would have to hit 10 times as many targets to be as effective. Deadlocks would be more easily broken through. The sharp edge of partisan lines would become blurrier. People would have an actual chance of meeting and talking to their representatives outside of some lip service campaign event or writing a big fat check.
most americans agree with him
he could have chosen a better way to make his point. but he'll be prosecuted, and the corruption will continue
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
It's gotta come from the right clearance to get there.
Come on, he had AT LEAST 100 feet of clearance. If that's not enough I don't know what is.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Step 1) Call/email ahead and say you are totally harmless.
Step 2) Fly/Drive/Swim vehicle packed to the gill with explosives right into your target without bother.
Step 3) Prophet!
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Why do we even need to elect our representatives? Consider this: if a rep gets 51% of the vote in the district, then nearly half the people are not represented. On top of this we have gerrymandering. If 80 out of 100 districts are 51% for party A and 49% for party B, and the other 20 districts are 100% for party B, you can easily see that despite having a real majority, party B has no actual power. Pretty sucky if you ask me.
No... I have a different answer:
Appointing our representation. In this system, each representative carries one vote for every person who appoints him or her. Taking the above scenario, if 51,000 people appointed rep A and 49,000 appoint rep B, then rep A gets 51,000 votes in congress and rep B gets 49,000 votes. But consider what that does to the 100 districts... now party A has 4,080,000 votes and party B has 5,920,000 votes on every issue... exactly what it should be.
Appointment-based representation is fair, and it removes the power of gerrymandering.
All my liberal friends think I'm a conservative, all my conservative friends think I'm a liberal.
And I am aware of a few kinks that would need to be resolved. If you keep the current districts, there would need to be more seats as now there are multiple representatives per district. And what if 20 people run for a district and get votes, should all 20 get seats? Probably not.
Some possibilities:
- Reduce the number of districts.
- Limit the number of representatives allowed per district.
- Perhaps, just get rid of districts. If someone from across my state represents me better than someone local, then perhaps my appointment should not be limited by borders drawn for an election system that would no longer be in place.
All my liberal friends think I'm a conservative, all my conservative friends think I'm a liberal.
I will donate $1000 to the first Super PAC willing to make federal gyrocopter subsidy a top priority. (Seriously those things are awesome, but we still don't have a good tipjet solution.)
What about an auto-gyro with 30 lbs or so of C4? Do you still want the "human at the controls"? You don't know what the intentions are, you just know it's very illegal to be there yet there he is.
This man was known to the Secret Service, they even interviewed him a year or so before this, on a tip that he would do JUST THIS.
In addition, he called the Secret Service an hour before he got there to let them know he was coming and why. The press also called them because he was in contact with the press to let them know this was a publicity stunt.
A country being a republic or not has absolutely nothing to do with being a democracy. And being federal also has nothing to do with being a democracy. These are orthogonal notions - a republic simply means a country without a hereditary or dynastic leader. It can be a democracy, or a dictatorship, or anything in between. A federal republic means simply a group of republics cooperating on common matters of interest while governing their own internal affairs - again, it has nothing to do with democracy. One could have a federal dictatorship, if one really wanted. Hell, there are non-republics which are democracies (Britain is a good example). Why do so many people have such difficulties with these words? The concepts are childishly easy to grasp. Why you got a +4 for telling everyone you don't know what those words means is beyond me :)
The phrase you are probably looking for is "representative democracy".
There is no democracy when corporations are allowed unlimited campaign donations, have the rights of 'people', and can direct their media/news to support their candidates..
If all the information most of the population get is from controlled sources, then theres no hope for "3rd party" and nothing will ever really change.. :(
Republican or democratic parties, Bush, Obama... Other than token issues theres no difference.
Remember folks the wealthiest 400(four hundred) people in the USA own more assets than the lower 150 million(150,000,000) people combined.