This colossal waste of time, energy, tax dollars, jail/prison beds, etc. is a
national disgrace; not to mention the cruel and unusual devastation this
heaps upon the heads of hapless arrestees, .

This needs to be shoved into the faces of all GOP "austerity" freaks,
until they cry "UNCLE!"

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/national-affairs/pot-possession-an-arrest-every-42-seconds-20121030

Guilty of "Presidenting while Black"




http://pamshouseblend.firedoglake.com/2013/05/20/presidenting-while-black/

Apparently, Assange is correct in saying that the Swedish & US governments are conspiring to
entrap him in Sweden "for questioning" about a bogus "crime" and then extradite him to the USA
to be detained indefinitely under lock and key, for the "crime" of exposing war crimes.


Julian Assange reveals GCHQ messages discussing Swedish extradition
WikiLeaks founder uses subject access request to access British agency chatter, which allegedly calls extradition 'a fit-up'
Giles Tremlett in Madrid and Ben Quinn
guardian.co.uk, Sunday 19 May 2013 20.05 EDT

Authorities at GCHQ, the government eavesdropping agency, are facing embarrassing revelations about internal correspondence in which Wikileaks founder Julian Assange is discussed, apparently including speculation that he is being framed by Swedish authorities seeking his extradition on rape allegations.

The records were revealed by Assange himself in a Sunday night interview with Spanish television programme Salvados in which he explained that an official request for information gave him access to instant messages that remained unclassified by GCHQ.

A message from September 2012, read out by Assange, apparently says: "They are trying to arrest him on suspicion of XYZ … It is definitely a fit-up… Their timings are too convenient right after Cablegate."

The messages appear to contain speculation and chatter between GCHQ employees, but Assange gave little further explanation about exactly who they came from.

The WikiLeaks founder, who has spent the past 11 months in the Ecuadorian embassy in London to avoid arrest and extradition to Sweden, claimed GCHQ had been unaware that it might have anything on him that was not classified.

"It won't hand over any of the classified information," he said. "But, much to its surprise, it has some unclassified information on us."

"We have just received this. It is not public yet," he added.


MORE HERE: http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2013/may/20/julian-assange-gchq-messages-extradition?CMP=twt_fd

to a helpless unarmed woman, before he beat her, for filming
the cops beating up someone else. When this kind of shit
happens -- as it does, all the time -- every day that ticks by
we further disgrace ourselves as a nation, on the world stage.

This kind of gross in-your-face quasi-sanctioned police violence
is what makes other countries laugh up their sleeves, when the
USA tries to lecture them and wag fingers about THEIR own
human rights atrocities.

This needs to stop, as it is one of the most agregeous of the 1000
cuts we are dying from as a nation, bleeding to death as it were.

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Cops Beat Woman For Filming Another Beating
May 10, 2013
BALTIMORE (CN) - Baltimore police beat up a woman and smashed her camera for filming them beating up a man, telling her: "You want to film something bitch? Film this!" the woman claims in court.

Smith claims she was stuck in stand-still rush hour traffic in northern Baltimore when she saw the defendant officers beating up and arresting a young man.

She says pulled out her camera, stood on her car's door sill and filmed the beating.

"Officer Church saw plaintiff filming the beating and ran at her," the complaint states. "He scared her and she sat back in her vehicle. As he ran at her, he yelled, 'You want to film something bitch? Film this!'

"Officer Church reached into plaintiff's car and grabbed her telephone-camera out of her hand, threw it to the ground and destroyed it by smashing it with his foot.

More at link: http://www.alternet.org/civil-liberties/cops-beat-woman-filming-another-beating

He maybe THOUGHT about actually pushing back on the folks behind the curtain,
and this was "Them" pushing back.

Am I the only one who suspects such a thing?

After hiring a mob of thugs as strikebreakers, 19th Century railroad tycoon Jay Gould said "I can hire one-half of the working class to kill the other half." In this one moment of rare candor, Mr. Gould exposes the inexorable Grand Game Plan of the super-rich 01% of the world's population.

There it is. Plane. And. Simple. No frills. No pretenses.

This comment affords us a stark glimpse into the darkly insidious mindset of heartless greed, whose relentless lust for ever-more riches is incrementally lock-stepping our so-called "civilization" toward massive "depopulation", complete economic meltdown, cataclysmic climate change events, increasingly frequent false-flag "attacks", neo-feudal corporate capitalism run amok to the brink of self-annihilation, much of it under the guise of "counter-terrorism".

* Some 1,271 government organizations and 1,931 private companies work on programs related to counterterrorism, homeland security and intelligence in about 10,000 locations across the United States.

* An estimated 854,000 people, nearly 1.5 times as many people as live in Washington, D.C., hold top-secret security clearances.

* In Washington and the surrounding area, 33 building complexes for top-secret intelligence work are under construction or have been built since September 2001. Together they occupy the equivalent of almost three Pentagons or 22 U.S. Capitol buildings - about 17 million square feet of space.

* Many security and intelligence agencies do the same work, creating redundancy and waste. For example, 51 federal organizations and military commands, operating in 15 U.S. cities, track the flow of money to and from terrorist networks.

* Analysts who make sense of documents and conversations obtained by foreign and domestic spying share their judgment by publishing 50,000 intelligence reports each year - a volume so large that many are routinely ignored.
http://projects.washingtonpost.com/top-secret-america/articles/a-hidden-world-growing-beyond-control/1/

Make no mistake, there is an uber-rich "break-away" bunch of "insiders" operating in and through our "shadow government", to implement Mr. Gould's end game. The sooner we all wake up to this unpleasant fact, the more chance we have (narrow though it may be) to somehow derail this run-away corporate train to Hell on earth.

Hot Damn!! Makes me downright proud to be an Oregonian, once again.
The vote was 52 to 7, so MANY Republicans also support this ban here.

Despite the headline, unfortunately this bill does NOT ban ALL drones, but requires that
drones only be used on a case by case basis, and would require a warrant. It also outright
bans ANY use of weaponized drones for ANY purpose.

____*____*____*____*____*____*____*____*____*____*____*____*____*____*____*____*


Oregon House Defends 4th Amendment: Passes Bill to Block Drone Surveillance
by Ali Papademetriou

The state of Oregon’s House of Representatives proved to be a proponent of the Fourth Amendment after passing HB 2710, a bill that would block unwarranted drone surveillance if passed, last week.

House members unanimously voted on the bill, 52 to 7.

According to the legislation, “Drone may be used by law enforcement agency for purpose of surveillance of person only pursuant to warrant or in emergency circumstances.” With the growing number of states and cities requesting to use drone surveillance without a warrant, it is telling that Oregon’s House senses that honoring citizens’ right to privacy is important.

If the bill were to be signed into law and law enforcement used drone surveillance to collect criminal evidence, it would require that the information and or images be destroyed within 30 days of collection unless they are being used as evidence in a criminal persecution.

Of course, HB 2710 also declares that no drone may be used that is equipped with weaponry.

More of article: http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=post&forum=1252

World's Smallest Park Fight Creates Feud Between Brits, Americans
By TERRENCE PETTY 04/12/13 05:36 PM ET EDT

PORTLAND, Ore. — The British and the Americans are quarreling – albeit with tongues in cheek – over territory again, this time over who has the world's smallest park.

One, in Portland, Ore., is essentially a concrete planter, 2-feet in diameter, with soil and some vegetation, and the Guinness Book of World Records says it's the smallest.

The other is about 5,000 miles away, in England. Those guys don't claim to have a physically smaller park – theirs is 15 feet by 30 feet. But they are disputing whether Portland's is a park at all.

What started as two Brits' stunt to drum up publicity for a charity run at their park sparked some cross-pond banter. One online commenter wrote: "If that's a park then my window box should take the title."

Someone who said they were from Portland replied: "Yes, but our park has leprechauns. Does yours?"

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/12/worlds-smallest-park-feud_n_3072111.html?utm_hp_ref=weird-news

And we never know how or when said privileges will be revoked;
they could ALL be revoked literally in the twinkling of an eye, (like
how suddenly 911 happened) ... or gradually as needed, modulated
so the whole enchelada doesn't blow up in the 1%'s face .. like was
starting to happen with Occupy Wall St..

Just sayin'. Happy Trails .. It's been nice to know you.

Peace out.

I was listening to NPR while on a recent road trip, but I don't remember
the exact program. It was a witty, urbane, hour-long hodge podge of
music, poetry, skits and political commentary, aired during the day.

The anchor introduced a guy they said was the "past administrator for
Social Security Administration who is also a poet"; saying that he had
a poem to share, but first he has this to say, "Obama is doing the right
thing regarding SS and Medicare, and he won't be hurt politically by
supporting the chained CPI"; then later he shared a 4 line mediocre
haiku poem he'd penned. I couldn't believe my ears.

Not that I am under any illusions about NPR still being "progressive" but
still, it was the slick easy insertion of this guy into a radio program so
obviously aimed at intellectuals and hipsters that was stunning to me,
like they were slipping a mickey into my drink, hoping I didn't notice.