At Cary-Grove High School in Illinois, students and staff are participating in a "code red" drill on Wednesday.

"It will include somebody shooting blanks from a gun in the hallway “in an effort to provide our teachers and students some familiarity with the sound of gunfire.”'

School spokesman Jeff Puma said that only a small number of parents have contacted the school regarding the drill (Possibly because, according to one parent, not everyone has received the school notification about the drill.) and it's an even split for and against the drill.

"Substitute teacher Debbie Gummerson said, “Let’s put the kids through some training, and maybe we could save some lives that way, should something ever happen.”'

Parent Sharon Miller called the planned drill "absurd," and thinks shooting blanks in the hallway is unnecessary.

“If you need to run a drill, you run a drill,” she told WBBM Newsradio’s Bernie Tafoya. “They run fire drills all the time, but they don’t run up and down the hallway with a flamethrower.”

Full text of the letter sent to (some?) parents explaining the "code red" drill after the jump.

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Following the tragic Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre in Newtown, Connecticut, a habitually abusive public school administration in Harlem subjected over 300 disabled students and staff to a horrific staged school shooting.

Planned in secrecy, without any warning or notice to any of the victims, desperate students and staff were traumatized and struggle today with the aftermath. Hundreds of stories have emerged of teachers holding doors down to save their students while calling loved ones to say good bye. Staff falling to the floor in prayer. And brave acts of protection and heroism. Some arrived at hospitals for heart pain. 300 fragile students, starting at the age of 12, who have worked all their lives to be strong and overcome emotional hardships were terrorized by this action, and most do not have the voice to respond. Or even to tell their parents.

NYT:

Police officers raced to the school. Some students trembled as they crouched in corners trying to hide. A few staff members began to pray.

“We really thought we were not going home that night,” one teacher said. “It was probably the worst feeling I ever had in my life.”
...

P.S. 79, the Horan School, serves 300 students with special needs, including those with severe emotional disabilities, autism, cerebral palsy and other disorders. The students range in age from 12 to 21, one staff member said.

The lockdown drill began about 10 a.m. on Tuesday with a woman’s voice on the school’s loudspeaker saying, “ ‘Shooter,’ or ‘intruder,’ and ‘get out, get out, lockdown,’ ” said the staff member, who added that it seemed so realistic that it was hard to tell if the woman speaking was actually talking to a gunman or to teachers and students throughout the school.

At 10:01 a.m., a woman dialed 911 from her cellphone and said she had heard a message over the loudspeaker “that there was an intruder in the school, and that she was in the class with her students,” said a Police Department spokeswoman.

Officers from the 25th Precinct station house responded, she said. When they arrived a minute later, school officials told them that it was just a drill.

The school had already been under a genuine alert the same Friday of the Sandy Hook shooting due to a volatile former student who was believed to have entered the building.

On the day of the "lockdown drill," many students began to cry, shake, and scream in horror. Some students ran and hid into classroom closets, under their desks, and others became aggressive —not knowing how to deal with the chaos and fear.

A movement is growing to hold the school's administration accountable for terrorizing the students and staff. The students need help after being traumatized, and the teachers need to be protected from retribution by the administration for exposing this cruel and unusual assault.

There is a petition calling for justice for the students and staff of that Horan school that will be submitted to NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg, if enough signatures are gathered. If you'd care to join the friends of Horan and sign the petition, it's available online here.

Willard Mitt Romney may have been shell shocked when his second attempt to rule the empire failed, but he stayed true to himself right up until the very end.

Via:

"From the moment Mitt Romney stepped off stage Tuesday night, having just delivered a brief concession speech he wrote only that evening, the massive infrastructure surrounding his campaign quickly began to disassemble itself. Aides taking cabs home late that night got rude awakenings when they found the credit cards linked to the campaign no longer worked."

"Fiscally conservative," one Romney campaign staffer told NBC.

At least he didn't ship them all off to China.

Forbes' Helaine Olen notes:

In case you are wondering, this did not have to happen. The Mitt Romney for President entity does not end with Romney’s Tuesday night loss. There are papers to be filed with various federal commissions and bills to be paid ….

The Mitt Romney for President financial entity survives for as long as two more years as these tasks are completed.

The staff would also still have to face the bitter billionaire donors.

On Wednesday, Romney had a post-defeat breakfast with some of his wealthiest and most loyal donors. At the private gathering, the donors allegedly unloaded on Romney staff for its failed "junior varsity operation."

And then, a little Karma perhaps?

Via:

At some point, early Wednesday morning, when Gov. Mitt Romney and family were tucked into bed, a quiet call went out on the radio channel used by his Secret Service agents: "Javelin, Jockey details, all posts, discontinue."

Of all the indignities involved in losing a presidential race, none is more stark than the sudden emptiness of your entourage. The Secret Service detail guarding Governor Romney since Feb 1. stood down quickly. He had ridden in a 15-car motorcade to the Intercontinental Hotel in Boston for his concession speech. He rode in a single-car motorcade back across the Charles River to Belmont. His son, Tagg, did the driving.

Julian Assange makes his first public appearance in two months, ever since he took refuge in the Ecuadorian embassy in London. The WikiLeaks founder was granted political asylum on Thursday -- a decision that ignited a wave of international responses, with the UK and Sweden opposing the verdict and Latin American countries strongly supporting Ecuador's move.

Assange called upon the U.S. to end its 'witch hunt' on wikileaks, and to 'end the war on whistleblowers.'

A full transcript of his remarks follows:

“I am here today because I cannot be there with you today. But thank you for coming. Thank you for your resolve and your generosity of spirit.

“On Wednesday night, after a threat was sent to this embassy and the police descended on this building, you came out in the middle of the night to watch over it and you brought the world’s eyes with you.

“Inside this embassy, after dark, I could hear teams of police swarming up into the building through its internal fire escape. But I knew there would be witnesses. And that is because of you.

“If the UK did not throw away the Vienna conventions the other night, it is because the world was watching. And the world was watching because you were watching.

“So, the next time somebody tells you that it is pointless to defend those rights that we hold dear, remind them of your vigil in the dark before the Embassy of Ecuador.

“Remind them how, in the morning, the sun came up on a different world and a courageous Latin America nation took a stand for justice.

And so, to those brave people. I thank President Correa for the courage he has shown in considering and in granting me political asylum.

“And I also thank the government, and in particular Foreign Minister Ricardo Patino, who upheld the Ecuadorian constitution and its notion of universal rights in their consideration of my asylum. And to the Ecuadorian people for supporting and defending this constitution.

“And I also have a debt of gratitude to the staff of this embassy, whose families live in London and who have shown me the hospitality and kindness despite the threats we all received.

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