Archive for the 'law enforcement' Category
They were killed on the same day, in the same way. One of the deaths captured the attention of a city and spurred the Los Angeles Police Department into overdrive. The other slipped by unnoticed, leaving a lone detective with little more to go on than hope.
Some stories don’t even need commentary.
Don’t Talk to Cops
Mr. James Duane spitting hot, legal fire.
Or, as Bodie put it on The Wire, “Lawyer, motherfucker.”
A Memo to America
Barack Obama is not your favorite uncle.
He’s not your BFF. He’s not a rock star. He’s not the short, but scrappy white guy who comes off the bench for your college basketball team to the delight of the student section.
He’s an elected official. He’s a civil servant. He works for you. It is both your right and your responsibility to scrutinize and question every single policy decision he makes. It is both your right and your responsibility to parse every public statement he gives. Our population’s failure to do these things is what gave BushCo the freedom to lie, cheat and steal this country into both the financial and moral bankruptcy. Failure to do so under the current administration will only make it worse. What we need from you is not knee-jerk defense of Barack Obama. What we need from you, fellow citizen, is vigilance.
A quick recap of what’s at stake:
- The financial sector is a shambles of foreclosed homes, insolvent banks and hundreds of thousands of recently unemployed men and women. Once again, the big guy has bent the little guy over and sodomized him with rolled up hundred dollar bills. Once again, he’s going to get away with it.
- Speaking of financial matters, half of all bankruptcies in this country are caused by medical bills. The wealthiest nation in history has a health care system which The World Health Organization ranked lower than Costa Rica, Morocco, Colombia and 33 other countries when it last produced it’s rankings in 2000. Silly socialists.
- Our love affair with rockets and tanks has left us with a bloated defense budget that is almost as large as the military expenditures of all the other countries in the world combined. We’ve been in Iraq longer than we were in WW II. During that time, we’ve murdered and/or caused the deaths of as many as a million people, displaced hundreds of thousands more, made cannon fodder of 4,000 Americans, created countless terrorists and spent as many as $3 trillion, according to some estimates. But if we leave too soon, you know…things might really fall apart.
- Despite our legal, moral and tactical failing in Iraq, we’re poised to redouble our efforts in that other illegal, immoral war of aggression in Afghanistan with a troop surge for that specific campaign and an increase in military spending in general. If at first you don’t succeed…
- Some Americans still hold on to the arrogant, ignorant notion that our homosexual brothers and sisters do not have the exact same rights as everyone else. (Do you think Barack and Michelle would have settled for a civil union?) While the nation’s gaze was focused on the passage of Proposition 8 in California—a heinous and hateful piece of legislation, to be sure—Arkansas, Florida and Arizona passed laws making it illegal for homosexual couples to adopt. Much better that thousands of children continue to be shuffled to and from various foster homes and orphanages, lest they end of living with a couple of dikes, huh?
- Oh yeah. Cops are still murdering Black men in the street.
Excuse the fuck out of me if I take a second from admiring how Black and cool my president is to spend time worrying about the actual issues.
“But, Nick. Obama just got into the White House! He didn’t cause all that other stuff!”
As a United States Senator, Obama was complicit in and/or did absolutely nothing to resolve most of the aforementioned issues. (The fact that he was not in the Senate for the Iraq war vote and has said repeatedly that he would not have voted for it is balanced out by the fact that he voted to give President Bush every single dollar he wanted to fight the war.) He may not have been the guy holding Jodie Foster down on the pool table, but he was definitely cheering by the bar.
If I have to hear, read or see one more pundit falling back on some version of that toothless “he just got elected” canard, I’m going to challenge Stephon Marbury to a head-butting competition.
The next friend or family member who allows that idiotic, “He just said that to get elected”, The Spook Who Sat by the Door theory to escape their lips should be given the Ludovico technique from A Clockwork Orange with the violent images replaced with Noam Chomsky speeches.
Yes, the Obamas seem to be a well-adjusted, loving, beautiful family. Who gives a fuck? We have more important things to talk about than what sort of dog Malia and Sasha will get or whether or not Barack is smoking again.
The campaign is over. “Yes we can” should be removed from your vocabulary and deposited in the dust bin of political propaganda forever. Take that limited edition Shepard Fairy print down off your fucking wall, roll it up really tight, and shove it up your ass. You don’t make idols out of employees. The time has come for Americans to stop being cheerleaders and start being play by play analysts. (Think Hubie Brown, not Dick Vitale.)
What America needs is more informed, passionate debate on the merits of the issues. What America does not need is more mealy-mouthed defenses of Barack Obama.
Someone is already bending over backwards to defend this moron, Ashley Todd. A blogger named CajunTechie writes:
I don’t think Ms. Todd is psycho. I think she’s someone with good intentions and who deeply loves her country. She is, like many people, concerned about the direction her country will take if the wrong person becomes president. I believe she sees this election on a moral ground and, as such, all bets are off.
In an odd way, I understand her thoughts..
In an odd way, I actually respect her.
This woman faked a savage attack for the sole purpose of creating more racial hatred for Barack Obama, but somehow she had good intentions and loves her country? While law enforcement officials could have been out working to keep the streets safe, they had to waste their time and energy dealing with this racist bullshit, but he understands her thoughts? Given the history of abuse that Black men have suffered at the hands of police, there was a strong chance that some innocent guy could have been arrested and assaulted himself before everyone figured out that this was a hoax, but he respects her? If only we all got the same benefit of the doubt that America sees fit to extend to white women.
Dumbest shit I’ve ever read in my life.
I’ll tell you this, I think for the next month every Black man that sees Ashley Todd on the street should punch her in her face and then walk to the nearest police station and turn themselves in. I’d be more than willing to take an assault beef to teach that racist troglodyte a lesson.
Illustration via Phil McAndrew
Councilman Steve Bradford is on the case. Having single-handedly done away with all crime, poverty and quality of life issues in your city, Mr. Bradford has decided to focus his attention on the evil scourge that continues to threaten society; sagging pants. Avert your eyes, lady folk. There are adolescent boxer shorts in plain sight! The Daily Breeze tells the tale:
Gardena city officials will discuss a proposed ordinance Tuesday to ban wearing saggy pants and allow police officers to ticket offenders.
Yes, that’s right: saggy pants – as in, pants that hang down below the waist and expose several inches of underwear or skin.
Councilman Steve Bradford introduced the ordinance, arguing that the fashion amounts to indecent exposure.
"The average young African-American or Latino who is stopped usually is profiled based on what they’re wearing and how they’re wearing it," Bradford said at a recent City Council meeting.
"We can circumvent that by asking for folks to please wear their pants at a respectable level. I think it goes a long way in eliminating police contact and eliminating biases by the general public."
Or, you can circumvent that by not profiling the average young African-American or Latino because of how they’re wearing their clothing in the first place, Steve. How about allowing those citizens the right to go about their daily lives without being harassed because of how they choose to dress? You know, the same thing you’d do for everyone else?
The first Gardena Council member who proposes an ordinance banning Steve Bradford from proposing any more idiotic ordinances will get a big fat donation from yours truly.
The dangerous evil-doers who lurked the streets of your city have been put to justice. And by "put to justice," I mean their entire life savings has been taken away even though they did no harm to anyone.
From The Plain Dealer:
Last summer, two violent intruders broke into the Rickses’ house. Luther and his son fought with the burglars. After his son was stabbed, Luther broke free, got his gun and saved the family by shooting one of the intruders and scaring the other off.
When Lima police arrived, the Ricks’ nightmare should have been over – but it was just beginning.
The police entered the house and discovered the family safe. Because a small amount of marijuana was inside the home – used by Luther to ease his painful arthritis, hip replacement and shingles – the officers decided to confiscate Meredith and Luther’s entire life savings, more than $400,000.
Shortly afterward, the FBI got involved – not to help the stricken family, but to claim the money for the federal government.
The author is Bob Ewing, the assistant director of communications for the Institute for Justice, a property rights legal advocacy group, so this quickly becomes an editorial about the evils of civil forfeiture; which I’m sure are varied and awful. Of course, the government would not have looked twice at the Rickses’ marijuana if it were legal, as it would be if this country was capable of discussing this issue in an honest, rational fashion. The only thing these people did wrong was engage in profoundly unsound financial behavior.
I have a message for you, America:
From the Palm Beach Post:
Pull’ em up or pay up! That’s the order voters gave tonight by overwhelmingly approving Mayor Thomas Masters "saggy pants" law…Under the new law, anyone with droopy pants that show skin or underwear faces legal action. The first offense carries a $150 fine or community service. A second infraction carries a $300 fine or more community service. Habitual violators could face up to 60 days in jail. The jail provision produced a last-minute backlash to the ordinance. But the law was popular among elderly voters who apparently turned out at the polls.
Fresh on the heels of the news that 1 out of every 100 US citizens is incarcerated, these FUCKING MORONS decide that it’s a good idea to fine and possibly jail people for wearing their pants too low. The article mentions that "the law was popular among elderly voters." What if someone had introduced a measure making it illegal to wear your pants too high instead of too low? How would these FUCKING MORONS feel about that?
Congratulations, Denver
Once again, your citizens have exhibited a desire for more rational marijuana laws. I sincerely hope that more American cities will follow your lead.
More than half of Denver voters favored an initiative making marijuana the city’s lowest law enforcement priority.
With just a handful of ballots left to count, the measure had captured 55 percent of the vote. The result means the mayor must appoint a panel to monitor how marijuana cases are handled by the police and city prosecutors and issue a report.
I’ll let you write your own Mile High city jokes.
In 2000, Alex White Plume and his family had a great idea. After attempts to raise alfalfa, barley and corn on the tough soil of South Dakota’s Pine Ridge reservation, they decided to give industrial hemp a try.
Hemp is not marijuana.
Hemp has less than 1% THC, has over 25,000 uses, and is a hearty and relatively easy crop to grow. Buying hemp products in the US is totally and completely legal. Growing hemp, however, is not.
The White Plumes figured that, since their reservation is sovereign land, they would be able to grow hemp without the intrusion of the government. The DEA had other ideas.
Read more about their struggle in this NY Times article, and check out the website for the PBS series P.O.V, and the filmmakers own site.
Bonus hilarious video. Bush tries, in vain, to define sovereignty. What an idiot.
