The cost of being anti-military
Via Poligazette, here’s an analysis by Susan Duclos of the taxpayer hit that Berkeley is taking over its anti-troops’ stance.
In the last six weeks alone, the city of Berkeley has spent over $210,000 in police overtime to keep peace during these protests and counter protests, according to police.
The Berkeley police department has 186 officers on duty and in a statement from police spokeswoman Sgt. Mary Kusmiss, they usually spend between $2,500 and $3,500 per week on overtime during a normal week.
She further states that from Feb. 12 to March 22, that rose to $210,814.13 and that the city spent approximately $93,000 Feb. 12 during an all-day protest at Old City Hall that drew about 2,000 anti-war and military supporters.
Since then, anti-military groups like Code Pink and the World Can’t Wait have continued to hold weekly protests which have required anywhere from three to eighty officers to work overtime, saying that the anti-military groups mentioned above have become “increasingly raucous.”
Last Monday, March 24, 2008, they say that the police had to arrest another four CodePink protesters during a rally.
Those arrested were Benjamin, 55, of San Francisco; Suzanne Joi, 57, of Berkeley; Pamela Bennett, 45, of San Francisco; and Mari T. Blome, 52, of El Cerrito.
And that’s not all. The civilian counterinsurgency against Berkeley (see Zombietime’s latest photo essay) is having an impact, too:
The Lafayette War Veterans Golf Committee has moved their third annual fundraising golf tournament outside of the Berkeley. Their stated reason is ” due to the cities hostile attitude toward the Marine Corps.”
They have raised over $60,000 the last two years to help people who have been wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan and are being treated at the Polytrauma Rehabilitation Center at the Veterans Administration hospital in Palo Alto.
Ted Garrett, CEO of the Berkeley Chamber of Commerce said they had received at least 140 emails from people saying they would not do business with Berkeley. That was in early February, the number has risen since then.
Left-wing bigotry has consequences. Feel it, Berkeley.
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Trackbacks
- politicalpartypoop.com » Blog Archive » The cost of being anti-military
- Neocon News » Covering the increasingly violent anti-war movement
- 81-Year-Old Veteran Fends Off Mugger. Code Pink Vows Protests. « Chris Matthew’s Leg
- Hey, Protesting Against America Costs Money:
- Berkeley begins to feel the cost of being anti Military
- Locomotive Breath 1901
- Michelle Malkin » The cost of being Berkeley, part II
- Hot Air » Blog Archive » Berkeley software company relocates over protests of Marine recruiting station
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Categories: Berkeley
Sister Toldjah
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ha, pwnd by their own stupidity.
This is great news! I hope that sorry excuse for an American city goes BANKRUPT!!!
People have a right to do business when and where and with whom they want. There is a price for hating the military for Bezerkly. I feel sorry for those who are not able to move from that location and are not radical loons.
Gee, I thought these lunatics were all about peace? Peas is more like it.
These people do more to illustrate the down sides of extreme politics than any other means could. People are beginning to take notice I think.
I sure hope nobody gives them a “Get Out Of Jail Free” card. Let them serve one year for each day of disruption they have caused in Berkeley.
What a truly unattractive bunch of women those Code Pinkers are! eeeeuuuu (I could have used a 4 letter word beginning with U & ending with Y but I am trying not to be too unkind. LOL)
HAVE THEY REQUIRED THESE GROUPS TO HAVE PERMITS AND PAY FOR SECURITY – NO
IS THERE STILL A FREE PROTEST PARKING SPOT IN FRONT OF THE OFFICE – YES
YOU REAP WHAT YOU SOW.
IN THIS CASE A FATAL HARVEST.
KEEP UP THE E-MAILS AND PHONE CALLS.
” WE AIN’T BUYIN’ IT”
So how can Berkeley be anti military without being anti police? Sounds like hypocracy to me.
you know what…protest Berkley into bankruptcy. i say pro-troop protests should be held daily, because anti-war protested – like moths to a flame – will come out…further costing Berkeley money.
Berkeley wanted to make a statement? put your money where your mouth is.
As long as they have the university they will have income. I do hope more businesses pull out. I know that a lot of businesses have left CA in the recent years because of whole host of reasons mainly the regulatory burdens imposed on them. CA is heading for some real economic harships in the coming years with a shrinking tax base and ever more demands on their social systems.
CA soon will be a good place to visit but not live. The recent Census report on population migration also bears this out, with more and more folks coming south and southwest and leaving the liberal havens in New England and the northwest. I just hope they don’t ruin our Southern charm with their liberal programs.
As a practical matter, the protesters don’t believe business belongs in Berkley anyway. The loss of income to the capitalists is of no concern to them.
Furthermore, the police are creating a hostile environment to their expression of their first amendment right to free speech. The overtime being paid is unnecessary.
The only thing that will change the minds of these idiots is the death of a loved one to a terrorist attack. At that point they will protest the government’s failure to prevent the attack.
I’d say they are not getting their money’s worth.
I’m sure the People’s Republic of Berkley can use the Federal funding for those gourmet lunches to defray the cost of the Police Departments overtime.
just a grunt – trust me – if the libs come, they will destroy. All the wacko’s from Vermont, Maine and especially Mass fled their liberal havens to come to NH and ruined it. We went blue last election. What I can’t understand is if your state sucks to the point you decide to move, why try to turn the place you moved to into the sucky place you just move FROM?
I’m 72 and grew up in a much different America. We are so thankful for you real Americans out there protecting our freedoms, that cost so many people so much. These Berkley-types have a very limited view of the world, are socialists, and do such great damage to us all. “Semper Fi” T. Smith
Treating the military as a political entity (which it is not) is a bad, bad move by the nutroots left.
For one thing, they are taking aim at a non-problem group. Stupid is as stupid does. Example: the MSM using the phrase: “so-called surge”. Hello. The army calls it a surge. It is a descriptor of military strategy. It is not a political football term (at this point, anyway).
How lucky we are as a nation to have a military that isn’t like the banana republic ones of history.
Just A Grunt:
Many of the folks leaving the progressive states for the South bring their liberal ideology with them. For some reason, they cannot connect the fact that all of the welfare they advocated in their liberal states costs real money — and that real money has to come from taxes out of the pockets of citizens. Given a chance, the progressives will do the same damage to Georgia or Virginia that they did to California or Massachusetts.
Their next step will be to leave the country for some less costly haven – and they will condemn the USA for not being compassionate enough. The We are the World crowd just can’t connect work with success and welfare with failure.
#14 On March 31st, 2008 at 10:24 am, cea1940 said:
“just a grunt – trust me – if the libs come, they will destroy. All the wacko’s from Vermont, Maine and especially Mass fled their liberal havens to come to NH and ruined it. We went blue last election. What I can’t understand is if your state sucks to the point you decide to move, why try to turn the place you moved to into the sucky place you just move FROM?”
cea1940;
As a New Hampshire bot desperately trying to get the blazes out of Massachusetts (what came over me to take this job down here a few years ago?), I understand exactly what you’re saying; and I, also, am saddended.
Socialists/secularists seem to have some kind of short in their thinking/reasoning circuitry; that’s what I’ve come to believe is the best explanation for what you ask in your last sentence.
Pray for NH.
Pray for New England (maybe even for Mass and VT).
Pray for the U.S.
Umm…As a New Hampshire boy….
Whoa!
Boycott Berkeley!
Power to the right people
Anarchist unite in Berkeley, puleeze keep it up, we are looking at the U.S.S Berkeley hitting a Pink Iceberg.
Precisely. This is the same question I asked the Hispanics who demonstrate by marching against “injustices to illegal immigrants”! They are supposedly here to make a better life for themselves and their families, and yet they trash the cities they live in. They try very hard to convert our cities into Tijuana!
Liberals seem to all have the same M.O.s. Destroying the places where they move to is suicide, yet they do not see the total picture.
We can only hope that it happens soon. Personally, I am tired of these left wing loons moving down to the Raleigh area, looking down their noses at us who enjoy quaint Southern living, you know, being polite to each other, taking care of our own, saying hello when you pass someone in the street.
I saw a photo showing that the meter maids were out in force. That should help recoup cost…
/sarc off
They’ll just hire illegals to do the work for cheap. You gotta love the ‘rational and peaceful liberals’.
Surely we can do better than that.
Berkeley Chamber of Commerce
1834 University Ave.
Berkeley, CA 94703
Phone: (510) 549-7000
Fax: (510) 549-1789
Email: info@berkeleychamber.com
Protest permit- $50.00
Parking permit- $50.00
$ spent in Berkley by pro military people- 0
Overtime paid to protect loons $200,000-priceless
Any news on how DeMint is coming along with cutting off federal funds to Berkley? That would really get their attention, no more taxpayers money for your view on our military.
L
Let’s just hope Berkeley’s losses keep mounting. We’re not going to allow the abuse of our military anymore. Their hate is not going to go unchallenged.
Yet again with the hattip to Rev. Wright “the chickens have come home to roost”….there are just so many situations that those word become usable for the very leftist’s who use them….funny!
Since when have liberals cared about keeping taxes low? They’ll just tax the hell out of the city to cover the losses and blame it on Bush.
Two hundred thousand and no broken heads?
I’d want my money back!
The Libs can”t seem to connect the dots. The programs and give-aways that they demand and support cost money. they don’t understand that tax dollars come from TAXES!
Twits.
Mucho kudos to The Lafayette War Veterans Golf Committee!
I think I’ll find a donation for them.
I would think that the cost of having to look at those grossly unattractive slugs every day would almost be punishment enough!
Wait until they lose Federal funding. Then all they will have is their city council to pay the police. This is delicious, absolutely delicious.
The best thing about the blue states is their low birth rate. Many of the people who relocate to red states are doing it because they have or would like to have children and want a more affordable place to live. The people who stay in the blue states are often single, gay, or married but childless by choice. People with children generally grow more conservative and will probably vote that way, while childless people cling to their liberal values. Demographically, the advantage in the long term is all to the red states.
cea1940 said:
I got one word for you: Mexifornia! ‘Nuff said.
“What I can’t understand is if your state sucks to the point you decide to move, why try to turn the place you moved to into the sucky place you just move FROM?”
Indeed. That’s why people from California experience alot of disdain when they move anywhere else (except maybe Seattle or Portland). Liberals leaving California take their ridiculous notions with them, spreading entitlement blight wherever they go (or at least TRYING to do so).
For the record, I’m a Californian myself. I just wish there was a chance all the libs would move away to other states. Then they could be your problem, and we could fix this state
What defense can the average citizen do against this hit on their tax base? How about enacting a law that provide the following…
You can protest all you want. However, if you can’t do so within the rules and get arrested, then your fine should reflect the cost of the police required to haul your silly *ss away and the court to try you (if the judge finds you guilty, of course).
Maybe we could get a little peaceful discourse in this country instead of the vile and violent tendencies that many extremists embrace.
I, for one, would love to have serious consequences for serious actions.
$210,000 is roughly $2 per Berley resident. Too small a sum for them to notice.
Maybe George Soros will kick in for the added costs, eh?
Municipal budgets don’t work that way, dm. That money comes from the police operating budget, which is part and parcel of the city budget. Unless Berkley is socialist to the core, they have stay within their projected revenues.
So if the police are using up their budget, the city council gets to find extra dollars from somewhere, or they reprogram their budget accordingly.
Since the current council is a collection of ardent moon bats, they probably will look for outside support, although I can’t see many avenues (depends on California law, of which I am clueless).
Their other option is to pass some sort of assessment to cover the extra costs (call it the “Code Pink Protection Tax”). And that assessment will have to include estimated future costs as well; the year is still young, and there are more protests, to be sure. $210K is only the start.
I can’t say much about the legality of such assessments in the People’s Republic of California, but people will notice it. Especially if the city is losing outside business at the same time. Businesses tend to be very sensitive to these trends.
Of course, the city could just refuse to provide police protection. But I doubt that won’t fly, as the downtown area would be chaotic…..and that isn’t good for business as well.
All in all, it’s a minor wound….but I bet it bugs the heck out of the Berkley officials, professional and elected. And it sends a clear message to them.
Isn’t North Carolina the easiest state for an illegal alien to get a drivers license?
Did you get look at that GAS GUZZLING Code Stink vehicle?
Global Warming anyone?