May 1, 2015

Man Who Filmed Freddie Gray's Arrest Is Arrested Under Suspicious Circumstances

Man Who Filmed Freddie Gray's Arrest Also Arrested Under Suspicious Circumstances
BY CARIMAH TOWNES * MAY 1, 2015 * Think Progress dot org

Kevin Moore, the man who filmed police arresting Freddie Gray and dragging him on the ground was arrested on Thursday night, along with two other cop watchers from Ferguson.

“The man who recorded one of two videos showing Baltimore cops dragging a screaming Freddie Gray into the back of a police van was arrested Thursday night, two days after voicing concerns that police were trying to intimidate him by plastering his photo all over the news, saying they wanted to interview him,” reads a We CopWatch Facebook post. After the incident occurred, We CopWatch tweeted that a gun was pointed at Moore.
Shortly after his release, Moore detailed the events leading up to his arrest, in a webcast discussion with Photography Is Not a Crime’s Carlos Miller. Moore says he was protesting with Ferguson cop watchers on North Avenue, shouting obscenities and wearing an Anonymous mask. Once the group left, officers arrested them without issuing a citation or explaining what the charges were. He was released later that night.

During the webcast, Moore also said that he’s faced police intimidation since filming Gray’s arrest. Although the cop watcher handed over the video footage to the Police Department’s Office of Internal Oversight, officers allegedly told the public that he was wanted for questioning. Moore told the Baltimore Sun that officers were trying to intimidate him by circulating his photo and asking people who he was. “For the police to post that picture and say you don’t know who I am, that’s B.S. You know who I am,” he said. (snip)

This isn’t the first time a person who recorded officers using excessive force was arrested. Weeks after filming the chokehold death of Eric Garner, Ramsey Orta was arrested for two counts of criminal possession of a semiautomatic handgun and trying to give the firearm to a teenager on the street. Orta denies that he was in possession of a gun when the NYPD arrested him. “When they searched me, they didn’t find nothing on me. And the same cop that searched me, he told me clearly himself, that karma’s a bitch, what goes around comes around,” he told SILive.com. “I had nothing to do with this. I would be stupid to walk around with a gun after me being in the spotlight.”

Watch the video: http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2015/05/01/3653674/man-filmed-freddie-gray-reportedly-arrested-suspicious-circumstances/

May 1, 2015

WTF? Child Happens Upon A Loaded Glock In Boehner's Capitol Bathroom

Child Finds A Loaded Gun In John Boehner's Capitol Bathroom
TPM * May 1, 2015 * Ahiza Garcia

A 7- or 8-year-old boy found a loaded gun in House Speaker John Boehner's (R-OH) Capitol suite bathroom a little more than a month ago, Roll Call reported on Friday.

The gun, which Roll Call only referred to as a Glock, was reportedly left there on March 24 by a dignitary protection officer.

The incident, however, was not isolated, according to Roll Call. The publication reported that Capitol police have a tendency to leave their guns in the building's restrooms.

On Jan. 29, according to Roll Call, one of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's (R-KY) security guards left a Glock and its magazine jammed into a toilet seat cover holder in a restroom stall at the Capitol's visitor center, where it was found by an employee.

And on April 16, a janitor found a Glock that had been left out in the open as he was cleaning the headquarters of the Capitol Police, according to Roll Call.

While two of the officers are still under investigation, according to Roll Call, the officer from McConnell's detail was suspended without pay for six days after the incident. The investigation and suspension were part of a report for the Capitol Police Board that Roll Call obtained Thursday.

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/john-boehner-gun-bathroom-capitol

May 1, 2015

Is Baltimore's Police State Over-Reach Finally Tipping the Scales Towards Real Justice?

In the wake of today’s announcement, that 6 officers will face criminal charges, I know it's still way too early to presume that justice, in the end,will be done in Baltimore regarding the death of Freddie Gray. By now, we've all witnessed -- see Tayvon Martin, Eric Garner, et. al. -- how the machinations of systemic racism tortures “institutions of justice" to grind out implausible narratives that shift blame from perps to victims, especially if the perps happen to wear badges & guns.

But Baltimore just might become the police-state’s Waterloo: in a city that is 63% African American, where the 51% of the police force is Black, and that has a Black Mayor, and a Black State Prosecutor, one could easily imagine Baltimore to be the 'perfect storm' that finally at long last, tips the scales towards something resembling justice the case of Freddie Gray. But there are signs that it’s not stopping there. Baltimore also has a Black Congressman, a Black President and a Black Attorney General.

Rachael Maddow did a segment last night on how 'bipartisan' outrage about the Freddie Gray case (or at least polite concern) was taking shape on Capital Hill. I too had noticed a conspicuous absence of usual dim-witted Congressional GOP dog-whistles blaming Blacks for getting in the way of police bullets, fists and batons. So when I heard Rachael's report, it kind of blew my mind, and gave me a glimmer of hope that maybe, just maybe, this nightmare might be transforming into something much more like Martin Luther King Jr.'s Dream.

Rachael reported that discussions were already underway on Capital Hill pointing towards an emerging bipartisan consensus for sweeping changes in our policing & criminal justice system to ensure that all citizens -- regardless of their color, mental state or financial means -- are afforded due process under the law. And concurrently we have our Democratic front-runner of the hour calling for an end to the “Era of Mass Incarceration”.

Rachael already has her ear to the ground on this one, so I’m going to be catching her show on a regular basis to see where this might go.

This is my prayer that we’ve finally reached that long-awaited tipping point.

April 30, 2015

BOROWITZ: Hillary Expected to Adopt All of Sanders’s Positions by Noon

Hillary Expected to Adopt All of Sanders’s Positions by Noon
BY ANDY BOROWITZ * April 30, 2015 * The New Yorker

WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—Democratic Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton is on pace to adopt rival Bernie Sanders’s positions on all major issues by noon on Thursday, Clinton campaign officials have confirmed.

Within minutes of Sanders’s entry into the Democratic race, Clinton released position papers on trade, income inequality, national defense, and the environment that meticulously aped the Vermont senator’s views on those matters.

Awaking at 8 A.M., Sanders, who had planned to run to the left of Clinton in 2016, discovered that, while he was sleeping, she had already begun running slightly to the left of him.

In an online video posted Thursday morning, Clinton welcomed Sanders to the race, adding, “To those who agree with Bernie Sanders on the issues, let me say this: I am Bernie Sanders.”

Sanders, who had scheduled a speech in Vermont for 11 A.M. on Thursday, cancelled it abruptly, saying, “Hillary already said everything I was going to say an hour ago.”

The Vermont politician told reporters that now he was unsure whether he would even continue with his campaign. “I don’t know anymore,” he said, visibly shaken. “I just don’t know.”

http://www.newyorker.com/humor/borowitz-report/hillary-expected-to-adopt-all-of-sanderss-positions-by-noon

April 25, 2015

Not another Bush or Clinton: political dynasties reach for 'regular Joe' status

Not another Bush or Clinton: political dynasties reach for 'regular Joe' status
Hillary Clinton, Rand Paul, Jeb Bush – the US is overflowing with dynastic ambition. Why are Americans still getting the same names on the ballot?
Dan Roberts * Friday 24 April015 * The Guardian

A short stroll from Walker’s Point, where the ancestral estate of the Bush dynasty juts out commandingly into the Atlantic ocean, there is a political campaign slogan in urgent need of fresh clarification.

“Barbara’s husband for president,” joked the original badge from George HW Bush’s 1992 campaign – still proudly on display in the Bush family’s local lobster restaurant in Kennebunkport, Maine.

That is, at least, until someone helpfully scrawled over the word ‘husband’ and added ‘son’ instead; updating the joke when George W Bush ran for the White House eight years later.

Within days, it will be time to update it again, to “Barbara’s other son”. Jeb Bush is set to announce – against his mother’s initial advice – that he will be joining the family tradition and seeking the Republican party nomination for president.

The Bush predilection for power is nothing new. Jeb’s grandfather, Prescott, was a US senator. Great-grandfather George Herbert Walker, developer of the Kennebunkport promontory that still bears his name, also founded a Wall Street bank.

But New England is overflowing with enough dynastic ambition right now to make even scions of the gilded age blush. In nearby New Hampshire, Hillary Clinton has been retracing the steps of her husband in the Democratic primary race.

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/apr/24/bush-clinton-dynasties-political-elite?CMP=ema_565

April 25, 2015

The TPP: Toward Absolutist Capitalism

Good read on TPP. An informed & thoughtful analysis IMHO.

The TPP: Toward Absolutist Capitalism
Saturday, 25 April 2015 * By Lambert Strether * Naked Capitalism via TruthOut

There are many excellent arguments against the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), two of which — local zoning over-rides, and loss of national sovereignty — I’ll briefly review as stepping stones to the main topic of the post: Absolutist Capitalism, for which I make two claims:

1) The TPP implies a form of absolute rule, a tyranny as James Madison would have understood the term, and

2) The TPP enshrines capitalization as a principle of jurisprudence.

http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/30368-the-tpp-toward-absolutist-capitalism

April 25, 2015

You Must Judge This Book by it's Cover!!!

Hell, the TPP 'cover' says "American Jobs, national security, etc."
so it MUST be good for America, right?

If those 600 very-clever global corporate lobbyists & lawyers who wrote the TPP
think it's good for America's middle class, what could possibly go wrong?

April 22, 2015

If corporations are legal "persons" then Why Not Chimpanzees?

In Historic Ruling, Pair of Chimpanzees Recognized as 'Legal Persons'
Two research chimps granted right to seek relief from imprisonment in habeas corpus ruling
Tuesday, April 21, 2015 * Common Dreams * byNadia Prupis, staff writer
http://www.commondreams.org/news/2015/04/21/historic-ruling-pair-chimpanzees-recognized-legal-persons

April 21, 2015

Wake-Up Call by UN: "World on Fire: Multiple Crises Raging Out-of-Control"

It isn't just the climate that's heating up at an exponential rate, it's also an epidemic Trail of Tears, socio-political meltdowns into chaos & misery that the UN feels helpless to even begin to address. How long before this Fire reaches the USA?

Oh wait, it's already here. Never mind. What the hell was I thinking?

~~~~ * ~~~~ * ~~~~ * ~~~~ * ~~~~ * ~~~~ * ~~~~ * ~~~~ * ~~~~ *

World on Fire: UN Helpless as Crises Rage in 10 Critical Hot Spots
Tuesday, April 21, 2015 * Inter Press Service & by Thalif Deen, IPS News

UNITED NATIONS - The United Nations is fighting a losing battle against a rash of political and humanitarian crises in 10 of the world’s critical “hot spots.”

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon says even the U.N.’s 193 member states cannot, by themselves, help resolve these widespread conflicts.

“We need more support and more financial help. But, most importantly, we need political solutions.” —U.N. spokesperson Stephane Dujarric“Not a single country, however powerful or resourceful as it may be, including the United States, can do it,” he warned last week.

The world’s current political hotspots include Syria, Iraq, Libya, Yemen, South Sudan, Somalia, Afghanistan, Ukraine, the Democratic Republic of Congo and the Central African Republic – not forgetting West Africa which is battling the spread of the deadly disease Ebola.

Historically, the United Nations has grappled with one or two crises at any given time. But handling 10 such crises at one and the same time, said Ban, was rare and unprecedented in the 70-year history of the United Nations.

Although the international community looks to the world body to resolve these problems, “the United Nations cannot handle it alone. We need collective power and solidarity, otherwise, our world will get more and more troubles,” Ban said.

But that collective power is conspicuous by its absence.



http://www.commondreams.org/news/2015/04/21/world-fire-un-helpless-crises-rage-10-critical-hot-spots

April 20, 2015

Prison Labor is Industry’s “Best Kept Secret in Outsourcing” and What Has Killed Your Job

Prison Labor is Industry’s “Best Kept Secret in Outsourcing” and What Has Killed Your Job
April 20, 2015 * by Mac Slavo * DC Clothesline

There’s “free trade.” There’s “fair trade.” And then there’s what’s really happening. The realities of globalization have made the price of labor somewhere between rock bottom and worthless.

Since the days of NAFTA, the WTO and a flood of cheap Chinese goods, major corporations – American-based and all the rest — have offshored production, taking advantage of virtual slave labor and the only edge that this kind of competition brings.



But now, American companies are taking advantage of something better than low-wage offshore labor – straight forward prison labor may be the best of both worlds for mega-corporations.

Don’t think they think they see it that way?
Now they are proud of it. Just see this promotional video: https://vimeo.com/125010485
They boast the ‘advantages of domestic contact centers at offshore prices.” It just isn’t fashionable to call it slave labor anymore.

Bad news for the honest, law abiding worker.

Of course, the inmates aren’t getting rich. They work for pennies which gradually go towards heavy fines and fees levied on inmates inside the private prison system that must be re-payed, along with the time they are doing.

This treasure trove of privatized slavery is managed by UNICOR, a government corporation managed under the Federal Prison Industries, who are officially “dedicated to employing inmates across the U.S. and providing them the job skills needed to succeed in life.”

Link to whole article: http://www.dcclothesline.com/2015/04/20/prison-labor-is-industrys-best-kept-secret-in-outsourcing-and-what-has-killed-your-job/#more-47642