Comentando una forma de vivir creativa y pasional, la textura es de rabia y emotividad, hay desesperación y un poco de ansiedad. ¡¡BASTA YA¡¡.
Juan Pardo Navarro
Nato-Ostgrenze:Obama fordert Bundeswehr zur Abschreckung gegen Russland
DPA
Tornado-Aufklärungsflugzeug
Beim Minigipfel in Hannover drohen Kanzlerin Merkel unangenehme Forderungen. Nach Informationen des drängen die USA und andere Verbündete auf eine größere Präsenz der Bundeswehr an der Nato-Ostgrenze.
Deutschland soll sich stärker bei der militärischen Abschreckung gegen Russland engagieren. Bundeskanzlerin Angela Merkel wird bei dem Minigipfel, zu dem sie am Montag nach Hannover einlädt, nach Informationen des SPIEGEL mit einer entsprechenden Forderung von Barack Obama konfrontiert werden. Außer dem US-Präsidenten nehmen an dem Treffen auch die Regierungschefs von Großbritannien und Italien sowie der französische Präsident teil. (Diese Meldung stammt
Einem deutschen Regierungsvermerk zufolge drängen die USA, dass sich dieBundeswehrsignifikant an der geplanten Stationierung von einander ablösendenNato-Einheiten an der Ostgrenze der Allianz beteiligen soll. Vor allem von Großbritannien und Deutschland erwarten die USA demnach Truppen und Kriegsgerät für die Nato-Präsenz in den baltischen Staaten, Polen und Rumänien. Dies habe Obama bereits im Nationalen Sicherheitsrat angekündigt.
Im Juli will die Nato dann auf ihrem Gipfel in Warschau die neue Mission als zusätzliches Signal für die östlichen Partner beschließen, die sich von Russland bedroht fühlen.
Deutschland gerät mit der Forderung unter Zugzwang. Berlin hatte sich bei den Planungen zurückgehalten, da die Bundeswehr bereits maßgeblich an der neuen Eingreiftruppe der Nato beteiligt ist und für diese Zusagen bis ins Jahr 2020 gemacht hat.
Frankreich wiederum widersetzt sich Merkels Wunsch, bei dem Treffen in Hannover auch über das transatlantische Handelsabkommen TTIP zu sprechen. Präsident François Hollande wolle das Thema aus innenpolitischen Gründen meiden, hieß es. Alles, was mit Freihandel zu tun habe, sei gegenwärtig in Frankreich höchst unpopulär. Im Kanzleramt hatte man gehofft, zumindest einige Streitpunkte zwischen Europa und den USA ausräumen zu können.
Unruhe im Irak: Nachdem Anhänger des Schiiten predigers al-Sadr die Grüne Zone und das Parlament gest ürmt haben, fielen Warnschüsse. Ministerpräsident Abadi behauptet, die Lage sei unter Kontrolle.
Irakische Regierungsgegner haben am Samstag Mauern niedergerissen und sind in die stark gesicherte Grüne Zone der Hauptstadt Bagdad eingedrungen. Dort stürmten sie das Parlament - eine Eskalation der seit Monaten schwelenden politischen Krise im Lande.
Anhänger des SchiitenpredigersMuktada al-Sadrfordern schon seit längerem eine Revision des politischen Systems im Irak, das sie in Demonstrationen und bei Sit-Ins als korrupt und ineffektiv brandmarkten. Nun drangen sie erstmals in die Grüne Zone vor, in der die meisten Ministerien und ausländischen Botschaften ihren Sitz haben.
Irakische Sicherheitskräfte feuerten Tränengas auf einen Eingang der Zone, reagierten nach Angaben der Nachrichtenagentur AP aber weitgehend zurückhaltend auf das Eindringen der Demonstranten, die Sprechchöre anstimmten und irakische Flaggen schwenkten. Bei Eintreten der Dunkelheit drängten immer noch Hunderte in den gesicherten Bereich.
Die Agentur Reuters zitierte Quellen, nach denen Sicherheitskräfte auch Warnschüsse in die Luft abgaben. Auch die irakische Nachrichtenseite Alsumaria News berichtete am Samstagnachmittag von Schüssen und dem Einsatz von Tränengas. Insgesamt sollen Tausende in der Grünen Zone demonstriert haben.
REUTERS
Demonstranten stürmen Mauern um die Grüne Zone
Die Demonstranten protestierten gegen die Verschiebung einer Abstimmung im Parlament über ein Technokratenkabinett. Seit Monaten tobt im Irak ein Konflikt um politische Reformen, die der schiitische Regierungschef Haidar al-Abadi zugesagt hat. Bisher werden wichtige Posten nach politischen und konfessionellen Kriterien vergeben.´
Am Abend sagte Premierminister al-Abadi, die Sicherheitskräfte hätten die Situation in Bagdad "unter Kontrolle". Er forderte die Demonstranten auf, friedlich zu protestieren und die Besitztümer der staatlichen Institutionen nicht zu zerstören.
Uno-Mission drängt auf "Ruhe, Zurückhaltung und Respekt"
Den al-Sadr-Anhängern ist die Grüne Zone ein Symbol für die Abgehobenheit der politischen Klasse im Lande - der Bereich ist für die meisten Iraker ein Sperrbezirk. Das Parlament ist die einzige direkt vom Volk gewählte politische Institution des Landes.
In den Sozialen Medien kursierten Videos, in denen Parlamentarier flüchteten und ihre Fahrzeuge beworfen wurden. Die Anti-Terrorismus-Elitetruppen des Landes, die in der Vergangenheit die Sicherheitskräfte verstärkten, hielten sich bisher zurück. "Wir sehen das noch immer als Demonstration an", sagte der Sprecher der Einsatzkräfte.Die UN-Mission im Irak äußerte "starke Besorgnis". In einem Statement verurteilte sie Gewalt gegen gewählte Vertreter und drängte auf "Ruhe, Zurückhaltung und Respekt vor den Verfassungsinstitutionen des Irak in diesem kritischen Augenblick."
AFP
Der Vorsitzende der Islamischen Wertepartei flieht vor Protesten
Die Dschihadistenmiliz IS kontrolliert weite Teile des Iraks und des Nachbarlandes Syrien. Durch den Aufstieg des IS haben sich die Spannungen zwischen Schiiten und Sunniten im Irak verschärft.
Die irakische Regierung ist im Kampf gegen die Terrormiliz "Islamischer Staat" (IS) auf die Hilfe ethnischer und konfessioneller Milizen angewiesen, die nicht bei allen Irakern auf Zustimmung stoßen. Die Milizen treten immer selbstbewusster auf und versuchen, die Regierung vor sich herzutreiben. Zuletzt ließ der einflussreiche schiitische Geistliche Sadr seine Anhänger wochenlang einen Sitzstreik direkt vor Bagdads Regierungsviertel abhalten.
Zum Auftakt des AfD-Parteitags kam es zu heftiger Randale. Demonstranten blockierten Straßen mit brennenden Autoreifen und warfen Flaschen auf die Polizei.
Der zweitägige Bundesparteitag der Alternative für Deutschland (AfD)auf dem Stuttgarter Messegelände wurde zum Auftakt von massiven Protesten begleitet. Die Polizei nahm zwischenzeitlich etwa 500 Anti-AfD-Demonstranten in Gewahrsam.
Fast alle seien am Abend in kleinen Gruppen nach und nach entlassen worden, sagte ein Polizeisprecher. "Wir werden den Personenkreis aber weiter im Auge behalten", hieß es.
Demonstranten hätten am Morgen die Bundesstraße 27 mit brennenden Autoreifen für eine halbe Stunde blockiert. Auch auf der Autobahn A8 hätten Demonstranten auf Höhe des Flughafens in der Nähe der Messe in beide Fahrtrichtungen zeitweise den Verkehr unterbrochen. Einige zündeten Bengalos und Leuchtraketen. Die Polizei sprach von 2000 Demonstranten. Auf Twitter meldet die Polizei bis zu 900 gewaltbereite Störer.Die AfDversammelt sich an diesem Wochenende in Stuttgart, um über ein Parteiprogramm zu beraten. Für den Bundesparteitag haben sich mehr als 2000 AfD-Mitglieder angemeldet. Durch die Protestkundgebungen sowie Warteschlangen bei der Registrierung der Parteimitglieder verzögerte sich der Start.
Etwa 1500 Demonstranten hatten tagsüber versucht, den Parteitag zu stören. Unter den AfD-Gegnern, die rund um das Messegelände demonstrierten, waren viele Linksautonome. Sie riefen "Flüchtlinge bleiben, Nazis vertreiben" und "Wir kriegen euch alle". Die Polizei ging mit Pfefferspray gegen Flaschenwerfer vor.
Auch in der Stuttgarter Innenstadt kam es zu Kundgebungen gegen die rechtspopulistische Partei. Hier demonstrierten laut Polizei 1800 Menschen, nach Veranstalterangaben waren es mindestens 4000. Es sei zu keinen gewalttätigen Ausschreitungen gekommen, sagte ein Polizeisprecher. Der Parteitag wird am Sonntag fortgesetzt
Korwin: The founding fathers were specific in using "natural born citizen" in the Constitution. That means something.
Can just anyone be elected president of the United States?
No, of course not. Foreigners, for example, are not eligible.
The Constitution spells out the standards in Article II, Section 1: “No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President.”
MY TURN: Yes, Cruz is eligible to be president
Words mean something
Article II distinguishes between "citizens" and "natural born Citizens." Although the Founding Fathers used language with extreme care, this is now raising a ruckus over who is eligible.
The answer, fortunately, is in the historical record. It’s not a logic problem, or a legal matter for courts as some people suggest.
At the time of America’s founding, Benjamin Franklin obtained three copies of "Law of Nations" by Emer de Vattel. A record of the acquisition still exists. It was the preeminent guide on the subject. Franklin brought one to the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia for delegates to use, which they did.
From the record: “I am much obliged by the kind present you have made us of your edition of Vattel. It came to us in good season, when the circumstances of a rising state make it necessary to frequently consult the law of nations. Accordingly that copy, which I kept, has been continually in the hands of the members of our Congress, now sitting …” A letter from Benjamin Franklin to Charles Dumas on Dec., 9, 1775.
Fox News Channel's Sean Hannity interviews Republican presidential candidate Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), former presidential candidate Carly Fiorina, and former Texas Governor Rick Perry (left) at the Arizona Christian University in Phoenix, Ariz., on Friday, March 18, 2016. Rob Schumacher/The Republic
This book defines “natural born citizen” as a person born in a country, both of whose parents are citizens of the country at the time of birth. It was a clear three-part requirement: two citizen parents and native birth.
It allows for no foreign birth (jus soli) or parentage (jus sanguinis) in a person who is a natural born citizen. It’s distinct from ordinary citizenship. Article II recognizes the distinction, and includes exceptions for people alive “at the time of the Adoption,” since before the Constitution’s adoption everyone was a foreign subject.
From the record: “The citizens are the members of the civil society: bound to this society by certain duties, and subject to its authority, they equally participate in its advantages. The natives, or natural-born citizens, are those born in the country, of parents who are citizens.” Excerpt from Vattel’s “Law of Nations.”
John Jay, who became our first Supreme Court chief justice, sent George Washington a letter confirming that the only way to ensure the U.S. presidency remains free of what today we’d call “foreign entanglements” was to limit eligibility to natural-born citizens.
Washington replied, thanking him for the advice. In editing the final version of the Constitution, the framers changed Article II from "citizen" to "natural born Citizen." Records of all this exist.
From the record: “Permit me to hint, whether it would not be wise & seasonable to provide a strong check to the admission of Foreigners into the administration of our national Government; and to declare expressly that the Command in chief of the American army shall not be given to, nor devolve on, any but a natural born Citizen,” John Jay wrote to George Washington on July 25, 1787.
There, in a nutshell, is the entire situation.
The meaning is clear
The idea that a court must speak because the Founders didn’t define the term is nonsense. It’s the same type of nonsense modern people created to undermine other fundamental elements of our Constitution. The Founders knew exactly what the term meant.
The presidency is the only office in our entire legal structure with this requirement. "Citizen" appears throughout our laws. "Natural born citizen" appears in only one place — as a requirement for the highest office in the land.
How foreign is too foreign? The Founders' proposed pedigree was absolute.
“Hey, Sawyer!” I shout over the patter of water from the shower. “Could you please come here — and bring a notebook?”
I hear my son groan in the living room, but he’s used to this after all these years of living with me.
I don’t have to peek around the curtain to know that Sawyer has pushed open the door just enough so he can hear me and settled on the floor in the hallway, leaning against the wall with a pen and yellow legal pad.
“I’m ready,” he says.
I dictate the perfect beginning to a story I had been struggling to write for hours before I gave up and decided to take a break — and a shower.
“Got it,” Sawyer says and pulls the door shut again.
I get my best ideas in the shower.
I suddenly remember where missing things are, or the name of the movie I had been wracking my brain for. I know exactly what to get my mother for her birthday and how to rearrange the furniture in the living room to make room for an upright piano.
Mostly, it is where I find words when I think I’ve run out of them.
But I have learned that in the time it takes me to shave my legs, rinse the conditioner out of my hair, turn off the water and dry off, a great idea can evaporate like the steam on the medicine cabinet mirror.
Shampoo, rinse ... eureka!
I wondered why that is, so I Googled it. The simplest answer is because when we’re in a warm shower, we’re distracted. We are on autopilot — shampoo, rinse, repeat. Our minds relax, and our subconscious takes over.
Research shows we’re more likely to have a brilliant breakthrough when we’re doing something routine and monotonous, like driving our regular commute, running on the treadmill — or taking a shower.
While we’re washing between our toes, the pathways in our brains open to new and possibly more creative connections — and the resulting ideas — that our conscious minds might have ignored or dismissed outright.
It makes sense. I’ve always associated water with reflection. At night, I sit by the pool, the string of lights across the back of the house reflecting on the still water. In those quiet moments, I take stock of the day and plan for the next. Every summer, I take my family to the beach, for a whole week, swimming and paddle boarding, the sound of the waves lulling me to sleep.
Everything makes more sense to me when I'm near, on, in or under water. Even my favorite color is blue.
Nice place to visit, and I'd like to live there - or would I?
However, you should know, not all cleansing waters are created equal. Take a bath, for instance. Or don't.
Soaking in the tub always sounds like a fantastic idea, especially the way they do on television, with a glass of wine and a book, candles on the edge of the tub.
But it doesn’t ever work that way, not when you have a standard size tub and you’re tall like me. If I scooch down so the water covers my shoulders, then the bottom half of my body pops out of the water, chilly and exposed.
There’s nothing relaxing about it.
Plus, I never liked the idea of soaking in a cesspool of my own filth. (That water turns murky for a reason, you know.)
But just the sound of the shower running is soothing to me. The water creates a kind of white noise that shuts out the dog barking and the pew-pew-pew of Stormtrooper fire coming from Sawyer’s man cave.
It’s one of the few places that I get time to myself. I can rinse off a hard day, scrub away a harder one.
The space is quiet, enclosed. I can feel my shoulders relax, my mind wander.
Shampoo, rinse ... re-tile
Of course I don't need to come up with something brilliant — a passage for a story, a substitute for Diet Coke — every time I shower. Sometimes, it's just me behind the curtain standing under the spray in the bathtub. That's where I was when I noticed that as inspirational as this corner of the house was, it also could use some work.
At the far end of the tub, I see that the tile is bowing where it meets the tub, and there’s a hairline crack in a half moon. It’s in the exact spot where a net bag of toys — plastic boats, wind-up fish and a spitting frog — used to hang from two suction cups.
(As a baby, I bathed Sawyer in the kitchen sink. At 2, he loved baths so much that the only way to get him out was to tell him that he’d be sucked down the drain when I pulled the plug. By 3, he wouldn’t get in the bath unless I flipped off the lights and tossed in a plastic glow stick. The water would glow green. He was showering by kindergarten, and I don’t think he has taken a bath since. At 6-feet, it can’t be comfortable for him, either.)
It's not all bad, the bathtub. My cousin recently put in a new curved shower curtain rod, so the plastic curtain doesn’t stick to me anymore.
But the surround could use re-tiling. The tub itself is a little worse for wear, with the porcelain worn thin in a few spots where the black metal shows through.
I’ve had a plumber twice in the last three months to fix the faucets. I can hear the pipes rattle in the wall when I run the hot water.
As I rinse the conditioner out of my hair, I calculate what a new bathtub and tile job might cost.
Then it hits me, there in the shower. My latest big idea. Maybe we don’t need a bathtub at all. Now I am imagining a walk-in shower with a glass wall, no curtain to wash, and maybe that pebble-like flooring, like sand on the beach. Maybe sea-blue tile.
Later this summer, oil giant Royal Dutch/Shell Group is expected to merge its two parent companies, creating a new corporate entity: Royal Dutch Shell PLC.
But and you will find a crude Web site in garish colors where Alfred Donovan, an 88-year-old British army veteran, posts dozens of media reports and commentary, most of it negative, about Shell and the accounting scandal that plagued it last year. Just after Shell unveiled the name of the new entity last October, Mr. Donovan -- who has had frequent legal battles with Shell -- snapped up the rights to the Web site.
Cyber-squatting, in which people register domain names associated with a company's brands or identity, has become a bane of the corporate world in the age of the Internet. Squatters search out permutations of well-known names, often angling for a quick payout in exchange for selling the site to the company or using the site to draw hits to unrelated Web destinations. Often, critics try to grab similar domain names to draw attention to causes associated with a particular company or product.
But landing the exact domain name for a corporation as big and as well known as Shell is a rare coup these days.
Shell paid $115 million in fees to bankers, attorneys and accountants to hammer out the details of the plan, announced last October, to streamline its ownership structure by merging its two parent companies, Royal Dutch Petroleum Co. of The Hague, Netherlands, and Shell Transport & Trading Co., based in London. After the merger, the new company will be headquartered in The Hague and have just one stock listing, in London, with an estimated market capitalization of more than $200 billion. For years the company has been listed in London and Amsterdam.
Shell executives realized shortly after the merger announcement last fall that the new corporate name had been snapped up. Last month, Shell attorneys filed a complaint with the World Intellectual Property Organization, a Geneva-based arbiter of domain disputes, requesting Mr. Donovan be stripped of rights to the site, along with two others.
John Donovan, Mr. Donovan's son, said his father isn't seeking money from Shell but wants to draw as many people as possible to his Web site's postings about the company. "It's the good, the bad and the ugly," the younger Mr. Donovan said in a phone interview with his father, who is hard of hearing. "And it's not his fault the news has been so bad for Shell lately."
The two Donovans are well-known to Shell. They have waged a long-running anti-Shell campaign dating to the 1990s revolving around disputes over the rights to Shell gasoline-station promotions.
Over the years, the two sides have settled four lawsuits. But Mr. Donovan has continued his crusade. He has periodically picketed the company's headquarters and annual meetings.
In their complaint with the World Intellectual Property Organization, Shell attorneys argued that although there is no litigation outstanding between the two sides, the company believes the elder Mr. Donovan acquired the Web site "as a means of increasing his capability to disparage Shell at some time in the future."
A Shell spokeswoman declined to comment on the dispute, citing the pending arbitration.
Puerto Rico, an awkward legacy of America's 1898 testosterone spill, the Spanish-American War, is about to teach two things that few Americans know:
If conditions get bad enough there, its residents, who are American citizens, can come here.
And if Congress does not deal carefully with the mess made by the government in San Juan, Congress will find itself rescuing governments in Springfield, Ill., and other state capitals.
Puerto Rico's approximately 18 debt-issuing entities have debts - approximately $72 billion - they cannot repay. The Government Development Bank might miss a $422 million payment due in May, and the central government might miss a $2 billion payment in July. Congress will not enact a "bailout," meaning an infusion of U.S. taxpayers' money.
But some Democrats - perhaps anticipating a day of reckoning for their one-party state of Illinois and nurturing their indissoluble marriage to government employee unions, some of which have helped reduce Puerto Rico to prostration - want to reward the San Juan government's self-indulgence.
They favor pouring more Medicare, Medicaid, and other benefits into the island. They also favor giving protection of unionized government employees' pensions priority over payments even to holders of general obligation bonds guaranteed by the territory's constitution.
Philadelphia, the nation's poorest big city, spends $400,000 a year on three employees who don't necessarily work hard for the money.
The City Commissioners, with salaries of $129,600 and, for their chairman, $138,400, each collect almost four times the city's median household income for their elected posts atop Philadelphia's elections agency. But two people who have held the job say it's not full time.
"The only full-time part of it is the pay," former Commissioner Stephanie Singer told the Inquirer. Marian Tasco, a longtime city councilwoman who served a term as a commissioner, recalled, "I really had nothing to do."
While the City Commissioners officially oversee elections, most of the actual work is done by civil servants. And the commissioners aren't even on the job for their entire four-year terms. In the fourth year, judges make decisions in the commissioners' place while they run for reelection.
Commissioners Chairman Anthony Clark had dispensed even with the appearance of working, rarely showing up at the office until earlier this year, the Inquirer's Claudia Vargas reported. Al Schmidt, the lone Republican commissioner, effectively runs the office thanks to a deal with Clark, making him a one-man argument for a single professional director. Commissioner Lisa Deeley says she's busy, but the tasks she cites, such as speaking to civic associations and senior centers, sound like campaigning.
The commissioners are so invisible to the public that many voters who encounter difficulties contact the good-government group Committee of Seventy for help. They're even invisible to some of the people they employ: One poll worker called Seventy about his paycheck.
Perhaps to address the visibility problem, the commissioners recently cut a public-service announcement urging people to vote. It looks enough like a campaign ad that it may have served the commissioners more than the public.
Tasco made note of this issue 27 years ago when she testified before a commission considering changes to the City Charter. The commissioners must pledge allegiance to the parties to win elections and keep their jobs. That "tends to make them more sensitive and more responsive to the needs of the political structure as opposed to the public," she said.
Officials may finally be listening to Tasco. The Committee of Seventy, which has long advocated professionalization of the commissioners, has been working with City Council members to get a reform bill introduced.
The reform will have to insulate the new office from partisan influence. New York, Chicago, and Pittsburgh's Allegheny County employ part-time, politically balanced boards to oversee election agencies run by professionals.
Philadelphia ought to let go of this artifact. Council should put a charter change on the November ballot and allow voters to decide whether the city's elections can be run more efficiently and professionally.
A blogger who wrote about Kathryn Knott - the Bucks County woman convicted of participating in an attack on a gay couple in Center City in 2014 - has filed a lawsuit against Knott, Knott's father, the Bucks County district attorney and others.
Kathleen O'Donnell, 61, of Norristown, says in her lawsuit, filed in federal court in Philadelphia Friday, that her free-speech rights were violated and that she was fired from her job after Bucks detectives went to her workplace in August and asked about her online writings.
Knott, 25, of Southampton, is currently serving a five-to-10-month jail sentence at the Riverside Correctional Facility in Holmesburg after a Philadelphia Common Pleas jury in December convicted her of simple assault and related charges for her participation in the Sept. 11, 2014, attack at 16th and Chancellor Streets.
Two others, Kevin Harrigan, 27, and Philip Williams, 25, both of Bucks County, were also charged. They pleaded guilty and were sentenced to probation.
O'Donnell created her blog, which she called a "parody account," under the name "Knotty is a Tramp" on the website Disqus.com on Sept. 26, 2014.
The suit says she was "expressing her opinions and outrage" about the attack on the two gay men at a time when there was intense media scrutiny of Knott, who before the attack, had expressed anti-gay sentiments on social media.
O'Donnell's blog used as a profile picture "an extremely unflattering, publicly available photo" of Knott, which showed her "drinking directly from a large bottle of alcohol with her eyes closed," the lawsuit says.
O'Donnell's lawsuit alleges that Knott learned of the blog, was unhappy about it, told her father, and that he then directed her to complain to the Bucks County District Attorney's Office.
Knott's father, Karl Knott, was at the time the police chief of Chalfont Borough in Bucks County. He is currently a captain at the Central Bucks Regional Police Department.
On Aug. 6, the suit says, two detectives with the Bucks County D.A.'s Office went to O'Donnell's workplace - the Wayne office of Walker Parking Consultants, a parking-consulting and design company.
The detectives, Martin McDonough and Mark Zielinski, first had a private meeting with O'Donnell's boss, James Pudleiner, managing principal at the Wayne office, and told him that O'Donnell posted "harassing comments" about Knott, sometimes from a computer at her work, the lawsuit says.
It says O'Donnell was then brought before the detectives and that she acknowledged operating the "Knotty is a Tramp" account, saying she used it to comment on news items about Knott.
The lawsuit contends the detectives "threatened" O'Donnell, saying that if she continued writing under the username "Knotty is a Tramp" that "she would be arrested for 'fraudulently impersonating Ms. Knott.'"
O'Donnell told the detectives she would not post on the account again.
The lawsuit says that "as a direct result of the visit" by detectives, O'Donnell was fired from her job that same day.
O'Donnell's lawsuit, which also names Bucks County as a defendant, seeks more than $150,000 in compensatory damages and more than $5 million in punitive damages. It contends O'Donnell suffered monetary losses, including the loss of her salary, as well as damage to her reputation and emotional pain.
Efforts to reach Karl Knott at the Central Bucks Regional Police Department on Saturday were not successful.
The suit also names as defendants Bucks County District Attorney David Heckler and the two detectives who went to O'Donnell's workplace.
It contends Heckler directed the detectives to confront O'Donnell at her workplace "in retaliation" for her writings about Kathryn Knott.
Heckler, reached Saturday, said he hadn't yet seen the lawsuit, but was informed about it by a former law clerk of his.
He said he doesn't direct his office's detectives to investigate a matter unless it's something more serious, like a homicide.
He said his detectives were concerned about the blog because it "was perceived as potentially threatening and potentially inciting others" to do something threatening.
"We would not have been looking into the matter unless it involved what we believed to be potentially incriminating behavior," he said.
In the end, he said his office didn't file any charges against O'Donnell because she had agreed to stop writing on the blog.
Heckler also said the fact that Karl Knott was a police chief in Bucks had nothing to do with the detectives' investigation. The district attorney said he "barely" knows Karl Knott and wasn't contacted by him.
"We certainly didn't bully up on her [O'Donnell] because Chief Knott is a police officer and we were looking out for a buddy," Heckler said.
The suit was filed by attorneys Sean Ruppert and Martell Harris of Kraemer, Manes & Associates in Pittsburgh. Asked to see examples of O'Donnell's writings on the blog, Ruppert said Saturday he couldn't release them at this point in the litigation.
![[Alfred Donovan]](http://shell2004.com/week22/HC-GG209_DonovanAlfred06012005180738.gif)
