UPDATE: Bomb Scares Continue In Pittsburgh!

**UPDATE 4-9-2012 Experts Profile Pitt Bomb Threat Maker

PITTSBURGH (KDKA) — What is the profile of the person or people who’ve been behind the bomb threats at Pitt?

Without a suspect in custody, everything experts think is merely speculation, but there are some common theories.

The inconvenience, the fear and the disgust of recent days is bad enough. But some expert theories are equally disturbing – especially if the perpetrator is watching all this up close.

First among the theories of a number of experts is that the threat maker is a male who enjoys the power of knowing that both law enforcement, the media and students have to be mobilized every time a threat is made…. MORE HERE

*UPDATE 4-6-2012: Bomb Scares Escalate, Could Cost Pitt Thousands

The ongoing bomb threats at the University of Pittsburgh are beginning to take a toll.

“We’ve had 17 bomb threats, and they have escalated,” said university spokesman Robert Hill.

Without going into specifics, Hill acknowledged that the cost of the bomb scares is also escalating.

“There is a cost,” Hill told KDKA Money Editor Jon Delano. “There’s the cost of the disruption itself — lost time in classes, lost time in research laboratories, lost time with our service mission. There is also the expense of the resources needed to search the facility.” ….. MORE HERE

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I live in a suburb of Pittsburgh, PA! Like many cities across our nation, Pittsburgh has its share of protesters, mostly visible in the same community where Pitt, and several other colleges and universities are located. I can’t help but believe that the closer we get to the Election, the more activity we may see from these groups, especially if President Obama’s numbers continue to slide, the more violence we will see around the nation. Increased violence will open the door for the WH to call out Martial law … just sayin. No harm in preparation, and absolutely no harm in prayer!

Knowing that the protester groups are made up primarily of students encouraged by liberal professors to “participate” in “changing” our government directed by paid SEIU employees, all of whom endorse the President, encourages me to continue on … to keep on talking to the people I meet about our nation and her issues. I do not want my children and grandchildren to ask me in 10 years what I did to help restore America’s love for freedom … I don’t want to say I did nothing! Most of the young people, if spoken to one on one, respond well to Truth! The people who are hard are the ones who have voted along union lines – usually Democratic – for 40 years. The only thing I can ask them is … do you really think president Obama represents your interests?

Third Bomb Threat Reported At Cathedral Of Learning – VIDEO – Pittsburgh News Story – WTAE Pittsburgh.

Updated: 6:29 p.m. Wednesday, March 28, 2012 | Posted: 10:22 a.m. Wednesday, March 28, 2012

Bomb threat at Cathedral of Learning building is 5th threat on Pitt’s campus in 2 weeks

PITTSBURGH — Two separate bomb threats were reported in buildings on the University of Pittsburgh‘s campus Wednesday.
Around 10 a.m. school officials sent an alert to students saying, “A bomb threat has been received for Chevron Bldg. Please evacuate building. If safe to do so, please tell others of this message.”

Authorities closed down surrounding roadways while investigators searched the building. The threat was lifted around 1 p.m. after authorities found nothing suspicious inside.



Oakland is home to several wonderful colleges and universities

Just before 6 p.m. another alert was sent to students and faculty saying, “A bomb threat has been received for the Cathedral of Learning. Please evacuate the building. If safe to do so please tell others of this message.”

Three other bomb threats were reported at the Cathedral of Learning on March 14, 19 and 22.

Authorities have said a person of interest has been identified in those cases. Police have not released the name of that person.

School officials said the recent threats have forced the university to change some of its security procedures.

Some of the changes include removing the doors in men’s restrooms. A security officer will now be guarding the restroom at all times and stop any students seen holding a marker.

Bomb threat empties Point Park University building

March 28, 2012 4:32 pm

By Liz Navratil / Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
A Point Park University building was briefly evacuated this afternoon after someone left a message about a bomb on a bathroom wall.

The Downtown university’s public safety officers were called shortly after 2 p.m. after someone found the note in a bathroom on the seventh floor of the West Penn Building near the corner of First Avenue and Wood Street, said school spokeswoman Mary Ellen Solomon.

Officers cleared the building as a precaution and Pittsburgh police were called to assist.

Lawrence Hall of Point Park Univ, just a few blocks from Pitt

Officers did not find any evidence of a bomb and students and faculty members re-entered the building at about 3:15 p.m. Ms. Solomon said the incident remains under investigation.

The West Penn Building houses the School of Business. Part of it is leased to the Kaplan Career Institute.

It was the second bomb threat to empty a university building in Pittsburgh today. A bomb threat pushed University of Pittsburgh officials to evacuate the Chevron Building in Oakland.

That was the fourth bomb threat targeting a Pitt building in the past two weeks.

The preceding three threats were made against the Cathedral of Learning (PITT).

The First Amendment: Religious Freedom, and Freedom to Speak, Print, Assemble, and Petition

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American Conservative, American history, conservative-politics, freedom of religion, government, james-madison, life, politics, religion, Thomas Jefferson, US Constitution

We hear a good deal nowadays about “a wall of separation” between church and state in America. To some people’s surprise, this phrase cannot be found in either the Constitution or the Declaration of Independence. Actually, the phrase occurs in a letter from Thomas Jefferson, as a candidate for office, to an assembly of Baptists in Connecticut.

The first clause of the First Amendment reads, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” This clause is followed by guarantees of freedom of speech, of publication, of assembly, and of petitioning. These various aspects of liberty were lumped together in the First Amendment for the sake of convenience; Congress had originally intended to assign “establishment of religion” to a separate amendment because the relationships between state and church are considerably different from the civil liberties of speech, publication, assembly, and petitioning.

The purpose of the “Establishment Clause” was two-fold: (1) to prohibit Congress from imposing a national religion upon the people; and (2) to prohibit Congress (and the Federal government generally) from interfering with existing church-state relations in the several States. Thus the “Establishment Clause” is linked directly to the “Free Exercise Clause.” It was designed to promote religious freedom by forbidding Congress to prefer one religious sect over other religious sects. It was also intended, however, to assure each State that its reserved powers included the power to decide for itself, under its own constitution or bill of rights, what kind of relationship it wanted with religious denominations in the State. Hence the importance of the word “respecting”: Congress shall make no law “respecting,” that is, touching or dealing with, the subject of religious establishment.

In effect, this “Establishment Clause” was a compromise between two eminent members of the first Congress—James Madison and Fisher Ames. Representative Ames, from Massachusetts, was a Federalist. In his own State, and also in Connecticut, there still was an established church—the Congregational Church. By 1787–1791, an “established church” was one which was formally recognized by a State government as the publicly preferred form of religion. Such a church was entitled to certain taxes, called tithes, that were collected from the public by the State. Earlier, several other of Britain’s colonies had recognized established churches, but those other establishments had vanished during the Revolution.

Now, if Congress had established a national church—and many countries, in the eighteenth century, had official national churches—probably it would have chosen to establish the Episcopal Church, related to the Church of England. For Episcopalians constituted the most numerous and influential Christian denomination in the United States. Had the Episcopal Church been so established nationally, the Congregational Church would have been disestablished in Massachusetts and Connecticut. Therefore, Fisher Ames and his Massachusetts constituents in 1789 were eager for a constitutional amendment that would not permit Congress to establish any national church or disestablish any State church.

The motive of James Madison for advocating the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment was somewhat different. Madison believed that for the Federal government to establish one church—the Episcopal Church, say—would vex the numerous Congregationalist, Presbyterian, Baptist, Methodist, Quaker, and other religious denominations. After all, it seemed hard enough to hold the United States together in those first months of the Constitution without stirring up religious controversies. So Madison, who was generally in favor of religious toleration, strongly advocated an Establishment Clause on the ground that it would avert disunity in the Republic.

In short, the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment was not intended as a declaration of governmental hostility toward religion, or even of governmental neutrality in the debate between believers and non-believers. It was simply a device for keeping religious passions out of American politics. The phrase “or prohibiting the free exercise thereof” was meant to keep the Congress from ever meddling in the disputes among religious bodies or interfering with the mode of worship……..MORE HERE