Author Topic: Police State - Official Thread  (Read 983022 times)

Soul Crusher

  • Competitors
  • Getbig V
  • *****
  • Posts: 39256
  • Doesnt lie about lifting.
Re: Police State - Official Thread
« Reply #750 on: April 04, 2012, 12:53:41 PM »
Another Trayvon Martin case? Black retired Marine is shot and killed by police in his own home
globalpost.com ^ | April 4, 2012




In November, Kenneth Chamberlain's heart device went off. Police officers responded to the medical emergency by shooting him to death.

The police officers originally were not charged with any crimes. But Chamberlain's family has tried to publicize his death, and the Westchester District Attorney's Office confirmed this week that the case will be presented to a grand jury within a month, the Daily White Plains reported today.

Chamberlain was a 68-year-old, black retired Marine living in a public housing project. On November 19, a medical alert device for his heart accidentally went off, triggering a response from public safety, the New York Daily News reported. When police officers came and knocked on his door, Chamberlain didn't open it, saying he was fine and didn't need help. Police officers then snapped the lock and entered Chamberlain's home. They Tasered him and then shot him. He died in the hospital two hours later.

The police officers had claimed that Chamberlain attacked them with a hatchet and a knife, and that they were acting in self-defense. They have not released the name of the officer who shot Chamberlain, the Daily White Plains reported Monday.


(Excerpt) Read more at globalpost.com ...






I live in Westchester on the border w the Bronx and will tell you this does not surprise me one bit.   

Shockwave

  • Getbig V
  • *****
  • Posts: 20807
  • Decepticons! Scramble!
Re: Police State - Official Thread
« Reply #751 on: April 04, 2012, 02:07:53 PM »
Epic. "Im fine"
Break the lock, taze, shoot. Makes perfect sense.

Skip8282

  • Getbig V
  • *****
  • Posts: 7004
Re: Police State - Official Thread
« Reply #752 on: April 04, 2012, 03:55:24 PM »
This has happened to me before.

As I work in CA a lot, and my company is headquartered there, I am forced to pay CA and VA state taxes and the California Franchise Tax board HAS done this to me in the past even though I DO NOT LIVE THERE.

It's a ####... and it is NOT a lie.

I had my accounts frozen by those fuckers in 2008 for the EXACT same reason.




This one here from the other day is still bugging me.

Can one of you lawyers tell me how the fuck this isn't taxation without representation.  He's not living there, he's not being represented.  This is fucking insane.

Bunch of fucking morons running wild in California legislature.

Soul Crusher

  • Competitors
  • Getbig V
  • *****
  • Posts: 39256
  • Doesnt lie about lifting.
Re: Police State - Official Thread
« Reply #753 on: April 04, 2012, 06:31:44 PM »
INVESTIGATORS: This Tennessee Judge Had Sex And Bought Drugs During Courtroom Breaks
News Desk, GlobalPost    | Apr. 4, 2012, 8:15 PM | 328 | 3


A Tennessee judge and alleged prescription drug addict stands accused of having had sex and buying pills during courtroom breaks, sometimes buying them from people he had previously sentenced himself, according to a new report cited by The Associated Press.

Judge Richard Baumgartner, 64, stepped down over a year ago, admitting to a single instance of misconduct, but the scope of the allegations has ballooned to the point that demands for retrials, releases and reviews could overwhelm the justice system in Knox County, Tennessee’s third largest, according to the news agency.
More from GlobalPost: Bengals cheerleader Sarah Jones pleads not guilty to sex with student (VIDEO)
The AP had reported last month that Baumgartner was under federal investigation. The Knoxville News Sentinel reported last week that Tennessee authorities were prevented from disclosing all of the results of the investigation into Judge Baumgartner.

The AP said the public portions of the file said Judge Baumgartner was an abuser of oxycodone, hydrocodone and generic Xanax and Valium and had sex in chambers with one of his suppliers, a woman named Deena Castleman who is not even half his age and has a history of arrests.

More from GlobalPost: Promises, pitfalls await investors in Burma’s frontier economy

Based on the investigation, Judge Jon Kerry Blackwood has overturned the convictions of four people held responsible for sexually torturing and murdering two University of Tennessee students and ordered retrials, according to the AP.

"We're getting pleadings almost daily now from people in the penitentiary filing habeas corpus saying, 'Let me out too.' It's raining over here," Knox County District Attorney General Randy Nichols was quoted as saying.

This post originally appeared at GlobalPost.

Soul Crusher

  • Competitors
  • Getbig V
  • *****
  • Posts: 39256
  • Doesnt lie about lifting.

Soul Crusher

  • Competitors
  • Getbig V
  • *****
  • Posts: 39256
  • Doesnt lie about lifting.
Re: Police State - Official Thread
« Reply #755 on: April 04, 2012, 08:12:51 PM »
Probably new assault rifles and incindiary ammo

Soul Crusher

  • Competitors
  • Getbig V
  • *****
  • Posts: 39256
  • Doesnt lie about lifting.
Re: Police State - Official Thread
« Reply #756 on: April 04, 2012, 08:15:41 PM »
Free Republic
Browse · Search   Pings · Mail   News/Activism
Topics · Post Article
Skip to comments.

Florida woman offers sex for 2 cheeseburgers off dollar menu
In Forum ^ | April 3, 2012
Posted on April 4, 2012 11:06:35 PM EDT by Clintonfatigued

A woman was arrested in a prostitution sting but not before she got two double cheeseburgers off the dollar menu at a McDonald's restaurant.

Christine Faith Baker, 47, was walking on a street Friday when she was approached by a detective working in the Manatee County Sheriff Office's special investigations division, according to a sheriff's office report.

After the undercover detective invited Baker into his car and the talk turned to sex, she said her fee would be two double cheeseburgers from the dollar menu at McDonald's, the report states.

The detective bought the burgers for $2.75 and then Baker told him that he could also tip her $40 for her services, according to the report. After Baker gave the detective directions to a vacant lot, Baker was arrested by other agents and charged with prostitution, the report states.

The report does not indicate if Baker got to finish eating the food before she was taken to jail. Baker was released from jail Saturday, according to the sheriff's office website.

(Excerpt) Read more at inforum.com ...








Sad. 

Soul Crusher

  • Competitors
  • Getbig V
  • *****
  • Posts: 39256
  • Doesnt lie about lifting.
Re: Police State - Official Thread
« Reply #757 on: April 07, 2012, 06:38:32 PM »
Government Surveillance Crackdown On Internet Goes Into Overdrive
                    
Cyber bills legislate for mass surveillance; Former Cybersecurity Czar calls for Homeland Security data “customs inspections”
Steve Watson
Infowars.com
April 5, 2012

In a New York Times editorial, former government cybersecurity czar Richard A. Clarke has called for the creation of customs checks on all data leaving and entering US cyberspace.
Clarke makes the call in relation to Chinese hackers stealing information and intellectual property from US firms.
“If given the proper authorization, the United States government could stop files in the process of being stolen from getting to the Chinese hackers.” Clarke writes.
“If government agencies were authorized to create a major program to grab stolen data leaving the country, they could drastically reduce today’s wholesale theft of American corporate secrets.”
While Clarke may well be coming at this subject well intentioned, the fact that government has a long history of attempting to crackdown on internet freedom and control the web will mean his words are a cause of concern for many.
“Under Customs authority, the Department of Homeland Security could inspect what enters and exits the United States in cyberspace…” Clarke continues.
A D V E R T I S E M E N T

“And under the Intelligence Act, the president could issue a finding that would authorize agencies to scan Internet traffic outside the United States and seize sensitive files stolen from within our borders.”
We have seen with the recent attempts to pass legislation such as SOPA, PIPA, and ACTA, that the federal government is hell bent on skirting around legal oversight in order to seize more control over web content and communications.
While those particular bills have more of a focus on copyright protection, there is a huge move afoot to use the issue of cybersecurity as a means to crack down on the free internet.
The Obama administration is going all out to muster support in Congress for a bipartisan cybersecurity bill co-sponsored by Republican Senator Susan Collins and Independent Senator Joseph Lieberman and Democratic Senators Jay Rockefeller and Dianne Feinstein.
Critics contend that the bill contains several provisions that represent a sweeping power grab on behalf of the federal government.
A measure recently added to the bill by Collins and Lieberman, and supported by Obama, would empower the Department of Homeland Security to conduct “risk assessments” of private companies in sectors deemed critical to U.S. national and economic security, forcing them to comply with expensive mandates to secure their systems.
ISPs AT&T and Comcast have denounced the provision, declaring that federal oversight will stifle innovation.
“Such requirements could have an unintended stifling effect on making real cybersecurity improvements,” Edward Amoroso, chief security officer for Dallas-based AT&T, said in testimony at a recent hearing. “Cyber adversaries are dynamic and increasingly sophisticated, and do not operate under a laboriously defined set of rules or processes.”
As we have previously reported, the bill originally legislated for an Internet ‘kill switch’ that would allow the President to shut down parts of the Internet in an emergency.
There are a whole host of other cybersecurity bills in the works including a GOP bill, co-sponsored by John McCain known as The Secure IT Act, and a newly introduced GOP bill known as The Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA), sponsored by Michigan Republican Mike Rogers.
All of the bills have the same vague wording and do not clearly define what a cybersecurity threat is. This has prompted groups such as The Electronic Freedom Foundation and The Center for Democracy and Technology to speak out about what they see as legislating for broad information sharing between private companies and the government for ill-defined purposes.
“The Rogers bill gives companies a free pass to monitor and collect communications and share that data with the government and other companies, so long as they do so for ‘cybersecurity purposes,’” the EFF said in a blog post. “Just invoking ‘cybersecurity threats’ is enough to grant companies immunity from nearly all civil and criminal liability, effectively creating an exemption from all existing law.”
Kendall Burman of the Center for Democracy and Technology spoke about CISPA in an interview with RT:
“We have a number of concerns with something like this bill that creates sort of a vast hole in the privacy law to allow government to receive these kinds of information.”
Burman added that the bill, as it stands, allows the U.S. government to involve itself in any online correspondence if it believes there is reason to suspect “cyber crime”, which it does not even clearly define.
Watch the interview:

Both the EFF and the CDT have noted that CISPA effectively legislates for monitoring and collecting online communications without the knowledge of the parties concerned and funneling them directly to the National Security Agency or the DOD’s

Essentially all of these bills legislate for moves by the federal government to access and monitor the online communications of all Americans, much like the more open agenda of the British government to snoop on citizens.

With the additional ongoing construction of a city sized secret NSA data collection center in the Utah desert, about which the agency will not even give details to Congress about, it is clear that the powers that be fully expect to go ahead with such plans, with or without the legislation to do so.

Soul Crusher

  • Competitors
  • Getbig V
  • *****
  • Posts: 39256
  • Doesnt lie about lifting.
Re: Police State - Official Thread
« Reply #758 on: April 16, 2012, 09:10:14 AM »
DHS Introduces Green Police
The New American ^ | April 13, 2012 | Raven Clabough





The Department of Homeland Security has announced that it will be creating an “environmental justice” unit that will be overseeing environmental regulations, alongside local governments. The unit’s role of enforcing environmental regulations has prompted critics to refer to the new department as the “green police.”

The DHS defines environmental justice as “the commitment of the Federal Government … to avoid placing disproportionately high and adverse effects on the human health and environment of minority populations and low-income populations.”


(Excerpt) Read more at thenewamerican.com ...





Like Celente says:   liberals are a bunch of fucking cowards and liars for failing to reign in their messiah.   

Soul Crusher

  • Competitors
  • Getbig V
  • *****
  • Posts: 39256
  • Doesnt lie about lifting.
Re: Police State - Official Thread
« Reply #759 on: April 16, 2012, 12:25:35 PM »
http://washington.cbslocal.com/2012/04/16/video-captures-woman-sobbing-uncontrollably-during-tsa-pat-down



Absurd.   At some point one of these scumbags is going to be KTFO'ed on the spot. 

Skip8282

  • Getbig V
  • *****
  • Posts: 7004
Re: Police State - Official Thread
« Reply #760 on: April 16, 2012, 02:42:36 PM »
http://washington.cbslocal.com/2012/04/16/video-captures-woman-sobbing-uncontrollably-during-tsa-pat-down



Absurd.   At some point one of these scumbags is going to be KTFO'ed on the spot. 





Give me a fucking break.  ::)

That bitch has got more problems than a simple patdown like that.

Soul Crusher

  • Competitors
  • Getbig V
  • *****
  • Posts: 39256
  • Doesnt lie about lifting.
Re: Police State - Official Thread
« Reply #761 on: April 16, 2012, 02:45:38 PM »




Give me a fucking break.  ::)

That bitch has got more problems than a simple patdown like that.


LOL - maybe brought back memories of her childhood?    ddduuhhhoooo!!!!

Skip8282

  • Getbig V
  • *****
  • Posts: 7004
Re: Police State - Official Thread
« Reply #762 on: April 16, 2012, 02:50:37 PM »

LOL - maybe brought back memories of her childhood?    ddduuhhhoooo!!!!




She needs to grow the fuck up.

If it's that much of a problem, lobby, start a grass-roots movement, vote for Ron Paul, etc.

Blubbering like a little child over that what 5 seconds (if that) is absurd.

Soul Crusher

  • Competitors
  • Getbig V
  • *****
  • Posts: 39256
  • Doesnt lie about lifting.

Soul Crusher

  • Competitors
  • Getbig V
  • *****
  • Posts: 39256
  • Doesnt lie about lifting.
Re: Police State - Official Thread
« Reply #764 on: April 17, 2012, 07:25:30 AM »
Why America is Devolving Towards Absolute Government Control

 - Kelly OConnell  Tuesday, April 17, 2012



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The relentless encroachment of socialism upon America’s economic, cultural and governmental landscape is like a bad dream to most red-blooded Americans. When society changes it can seem like the ineluctable drift of evolution or chance. But in the case of America’s ongoing continued expansion of government powers, spiking taxes, and shrinking military, it’s all part of a planned elitist push into socialism. And one need not believe in secret conspiracies when contemplating this shift. In fact, for those paying attention, it was all outlined long ago by the Fabian Socialist society, and other groups such as the Frankfurt School, as explained below.


I. Basic Socialism: History & Dogma

Socialism is a European phenomenon, beginning after the French Revolution with writers from Paris and London forming the core. The definition of socialism is: “a centrally planned economy in which the government controls all means of production.” While most believe Karl Marx (1818-1883) was the father of socialism, he wrote very few specifics on the topic. In fact, one of Marx’s most signal shortcoming was his failure to describe his own working economic system. Instead, it was Vladimir Lenin (1870-1924), first leader of the new USSR who developed the theory in situ, according to the Library of Economics & Liberty. Lenin’s attempts at creating a profit-free economy was a spectacular failure, only bettered by Joseph Stalin’s larger failure.

 

A. Vladimir Lenin’s ad hoc Socialism
The Library lists Vlad’s four critical factors he believed necessary for economic success:

Lenin began from the long-standing delusion that economic organization would become less complex once the profit drive and the market mechanism had been dispensed with—“as self-evident,” he wrote, as “the extraordinarily simple operations of watching, recording, and issuing receipts, within the reach of anybody who can read and write and knows the first four rules of arithmetic.”

The four laws were apparently insufficient to drive en economy towards productivity:

In fact, Soviet economic life under these first four rules was so disheveled within four years of the 1917 revolution, productivity fell to 14% of its pre-revolutionary level. By 1921 Lenin was forced to institute the New Economic Policy (NEP), a partial return to the market incentives of capitalism. This brief mixture of socialism and capitalism ended in 1927 after Stalin instituted forced collectivization meant to mobilize Russian resources for its leap into industrial power.

Suffice it to say that no version of socialism has ever provided longterm economic growth or security anywhere in the world, because it lacks a cohesive economic theory.

B. Karl Marx’s Vision: Revolution
Karl Marx claimed to have discovered a “science” of economics that proved his ideas true. In fact, according to author Paul Johnson in Intellectuals, Marx was a moralizing journalist, with the faculty of a poet, masquerading as a science-minded intellectual. Writes Johnson:

But in a deeper sense he was not really a scholar and not a scientist at all. He was not interested in finding the truth but in proclaiming it. There were three strands in Marx: the poet, the journalist and the moralist. Each was important. Together, and in combination with his enormous will, they made him a formidable writer and seer. But there was nothing scientific about him; indeed, in all that matters he was anti-scientific.

Further, according to Marx’s writing partner, lifelong benefactor and friend, Frederick Engels, Marx should be remembered as a revolutionary. He said grave-side at Marx’s burial:

For Marx was before all else a revolutionist. His real mission in life was to contribute, in one way or another, to the overthrow of capitalist society and of the state institutions which it had brought into being…

So Marx’s main interest in writing was to foment revolution, because without the collapse of capitalism, the promised paradise of total government control would never have room to occur. Knowing this, American leftists have long done whatever they could, in small and large ways to help birth the revolution upon American soil. The following is a partial history of that struggle.

II. Congressional Record January 10, 1963
On January 10, 1963, Florida US Representative Albert Sydney Herlong, Jr gave a speech outlining what he believed to be the 45 methods communists were using to take over America. Ponder the staggering number of these goals already achieved, much to our mortal damage.

11. Promote the U.N. as the only hope for mankind.

15. Capture one or both of the political parties in the United States.

16. Use technical decisions of the courts to weaken basic American institutions by claiming their activities violate civil rights.

17. Control schools. Use them to transmit socialist & Marxist propaganda. Soften the curriculum. Infiltrate teachers’ associations. Put the party line in textbooks.

20. Infiltrate the press. Get control of book-review assignments, editorial writing, policy-making positions.

21. Gain control of key positions in radio, TV, and motion pictures.

22. Discredit American culture by degrading all forms of artistic expression.

23. Control art critics and directors of art museums. Promote ugliness, repulsive, meaningless art.

24. Eliminate all laws governing obscenity by calling them “censorship” and a violation of free speech and free press.

25. Break down cultural standards of morality by promoting pornography and obscenity in books, magazines, motion pictures, radio, and TV.

26. Present homosexuality, degeneracy and promiscuity as “normal, natural, healthy.”

27. Infiltrate churches. Replace revealed religion with “social” religion. Discredit Bible & emphasize need for intellectual maturity, rejecting a “religious crutch.”

28. Eliminate prayer or any phase of religious expression in the schools on the ground that it violates the principle of “separation of church and state.”

29. Discredit US Constitution by calling it inadequate, old-fashioned, out of step with modern needs, a hindrance to cooperation between nations.

30. Discredit the American Founding Fathers. Present them as selfish aristocrats who had no concern for the “common man.”

31. Belittle American culture & discourage teaching of American history because it’s only part of the “big picture.”

32. Support any socialist movement to centralize control over any part of the culture: education, social agencies, welfare programs, mental health clinics, etc.

40. Discredit the family as an institution. Encourage promiscuity and easy divorce.

III. Frankfurt School
The Frankfurt School were a group of German intellectual Marxists who established the Institute of Social Research at Frankfurt University, modeled after the Marx-Engels Institute in Moscow. This became known as the “Frankfurt School.” After Hitler came to power, these Marxist professors fled to the West to preserve their lives. Setting up shop in Columbia University, they decided to launch a mission to convert America to Marxism via a soft war. According to one source they did certain things to aid this:

To further the advance of their ‘quiet’ cultural revolution - but giving us no ideas about their plans for the future - the Frankfurt School recommended (among other things):

1.The creation of racism offences.
2.Continual change to create confusion
3.The teaching of sex and homosexuality to children
4.The undermining of schools’ and teachers’ authority
5.Huge immigration to destroy identity.
6.The promotion of excessive drinking
7.Emptying of churches
8.An unreliable legal system with bias against victims of crime
9.Dependency on the state or state benefits
10.Control and dumbing down of media
11.Encouraging the breakdown of the family

A main idea of the Frankfurt School was exploiting Freud’s ‘pansexualism’ - the search for pleasure, the exploitation of the differences between the sexes, the overthrowing of traditional relationships between men and women. To further their aims they would:

•attack the authority of the father, deny the specific roles of father and mother, and wrest away from families their rights as primary educators of their children.
•abolish differences in the education of boys and girls
•abolish all forms of male dominance - hence the presence of women in the armed forces
•declare women to be an ‘oppressed class’ and men as ‘oppressors’
Munzenberg summed up the Frankfurt School’s long-term operation thus: ‘We will make the West so corrupt that it stinks.’

IV. Fabian Society: Slow Conquering Socialism

The Fabian Society of Britain was named after Roman general Fabius Maximus, famed for a warfare style that eked out victories via patience and attrition. Fabian socialists likewise seek to take over their host countries by slowly changing standards until the dumbed-down populace no longer has the wit to notice or care. A sociological analogy might be—how predators groom their victims, often waiting years for a chance to exploit their prey. An author sums up their strategy:

Like their namesake, today’s Fabians avoid open confrontation with the forces of freedom and, subsequently, tend to shield their true agenda from the light of day.

The creed of the Society, written in 1887, was as follows:

“It (The Fabian Society) therefore aims at the reorganization of society by the emancipation of land and industrial Capital from individual and class ownership…The Society accordingly works for the extinction of private property in land.”

The Fabian plan was to infiltrate America by targeting our legal system. Fabian convert Felix Cohen, a law professor at Yale, wrote the following:

“It is possible to attempt the overthrow of capitalism as an economic system without at the same time attacking the substance of capitalist law…Socialists can learn from their adversaries that it is always possible to attack existing law, in the name of democracy, justice, and liberty, in the name of the great ideals of the American Constitution, and in the name of law itself.”

Fabians sought to overthrow our system by changing the meaning of our stated legal concepts, and to codify those changes with cases brought by Fabian lawyers before Fabian Judges. The effect of this has been that while the technical wording of American law hasn’t changed much, the implementation has been transferred from the citizen and his elected representatives, to appointed bureaucrats. The Fabians have, diabolically, used our own laws to change the law. Freedom is the victim of these Socialist manipulations.

Conclusion
America is infiltrated by Marxists active so long in undermining our institutions and ideals that socialism is now in our collective DNA. They seek an end to private property, representative democracy and rule of law. But once America has turned over leadership to committed liberals, who will be left to protect the world from takeover by globalists intent on universal tyranny? Unfortunately, the question answers itself.




--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Soul Crusher

  • Competitors
  • Getbig V
  • *****
  • Posts: 39256
  • Doesnt lie about lifting.

Soul Crusher

  • Competitors
  • Getbig V
  • *****
  • Posts: 39256
  • Doesnt lie about lifting.
Re: Police State - Official Thread
« Reply #766 on: April 17, 2012, 07:30:27 PM »
Texas Man Claims Police Killed His Dog When Responding to Wrong Address (Video)
ABC News ^ | 4/16/2012 | ABC News
Posted on April 17, 2012 6:30:22 PM EDT by Dallas59

A Texas man claims that his beloved dog Cisco was shot point blank by a police officer who responded to a call at the wrong address.

Michael Paxton, 40, said he and his Australian cattle dog Cisco were relaxing and playing Frisbee in his Austin backyard on Saturday afternoon when he decided to go get something from his truck in the driveway.

As he approached his truck, he said he saw something from the corner of his eye and looked up to see a police officer who immediately drew his weapon and told Paxton to put his hands up.

(Excerpt) Read more at abcnews.go.com ...




Video at this link. 

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2873378/posts



Disgusting. 

Soul Crusher

  • Competitors
  • Getbig V
  • *****
  • Posts: 39256
  • Doesnt lie about lifting.
Re: Police State - Official Thread
« Reply #767 on: April 17, 2012, 07:33:37 PM »
Skip to comments.

Calif. SWAT Tear Gas Rounds Likely Caused House Fire
FIREHOUSE ^ | 17 April 2012 | Tony Burchyns
Posted on April 17, 2012 10:34:06 PM EDT by smokingfrog

Police tear gas launched into a Vallejo home in February played a role in starting a fire that caused $60,000 in damage and killed two dogs, a fire department report released Monday finds.

However, the Feb. 10, two-alarm blaze at 1041 Castlewood Drive was deemed "accidental in nature," according to the 13-page investigation report.

The exact cause was undetermined. But it likely involved one of the non-flammable rounds hitting or knocking over flammable household products, the report said.

The fire began shortly after police launched 12 tear gas rounds into various parts of the house. Police were trying to ferret out as many as six armed robbery suspects believed to be inside. However, it was later determined that the suspects had slipped away before police established a perimeter.

According to the report, the tear gas rounds were non-flammable. But one of the 37-mm projectiles fired through the back door could have penetrated or knocked over a household product containing flammable chemicals. At that point, vapors could have been released and ignited when reaching an ignition source, such as the flame from a nearby water heater.

** snip **

The report said that no person was responsible for setting the fire, because no one was inside when it started at about 5:30 p.m. Further, there were no incendiary devices found in the home, nor visible evidence of any electrical shortages in wall outlets or appliances.

Three dogs were trapped in the bedrooms. Two perished in the fire and the other ran away after being freed. Sharpe said its owner, a tenant displaced by the fire, who was at work when the Special Weapons and Tactics team arrived, later told him it had been hit and killed by a car.

(Excerpt) Read more at firehouse.com ...








Incredible. 

Soul Crusher

  • Competitors
  • Getbig V
  • *****
  • Posts: 39256
  • Doesnt lie about lifting.
Re: Police State - Official Thread
« Reply #768 on: April 21, 2012, 07:29:40 PM »
Free Republic
Browse · Search   Pings · Mail   News/Activism
Topics · Post Article
Skip to comments.

National Security Agency whistle blower (4 videos)
Zreo Hedge ^ | 20 APR 2012 | Democracy Now
Posted on April 20, 2012 7:42:44 PM EDT by BCW

Just a month ago we raised more than a proverbial eyebrow when we noted the creation of the NSA's Utah Data Center (codename Stellar Wind) and William Binney's formidable statement that "we are this far from a turnkey totalitarian state". Democracy Now has the former National Security Agency technical director whistleblower's first TV interview in which he discusses the NSA's massive power to spy on Americans and why the FBI raided his home. Since retiring from the NSA in 2001, he has warned that the NSA’s data-mining program has become so vast that it could "create an Orwellian state."

National Security Agency whistleblower

William Binney reveals he believes domestic surveillance has become more expansive under President Obama than President George W. Bush. He estimates the NSA has assembled 20 trillion "transactions" — phone calls, emails and other forms of data — from Americans. This likely includes copies of almost all of the emails sent and received from most people living in the United States. Binney talks about Section 215 of the USA PATRIOT Act and challenges NSA Director Keith Alexander’s assertion that the NSA is not intercepting information about U.S. Citizens.

Soul Crusher

  • Competitors
  • Getbig V
  • *****
  • Posts: 39256
  • Doesnt lie about lifting.
Re: Police State - Official Thread
« Reply #769 on: April 21, 2012, 08:52:07 PM »
ADVERTISEMENT
While the president has been urging “insourcing,” the government has been sending money to the Philippines to train foreign workers for jobs in English-speaking call centers.

According to New York Democratic Rep. Tim Bishop and North Carolina Republican Rep. Walter Jones, this is unacceptable and “shocking.”

The pair are calling on the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) to immediately suspend what is known as the Job Enabling English Proficiency (JEEP) program.

According to Jones’ office, in 2010, after the two men compelled USAID to end a similar training program in Sri Lanka, the agency assured the congressmen that they would “conduct a review to ensure the project will not take any jobs away from Americans.”

In a letter to the USAID administrator, Rajiv Shah, Bishop and Jones expressed their displeasure at learning of the effort they thought the agency had explicitly promised against.

“I believe it was reasonable to conclude from that statement that your agency’s outsourcing training program was terminated, particularly in light of President Obama’s ‘insourcing’ initiative announced earlier this year,” the pair wrote. “Therefore, I was shocked to learn that USAID has used taxpayer dollars to invest in outsourcing training programs in the Philippines at the expense of American workers.”.

According to Bishop, more than 4.5 million Americans currently work in call centers, but since 2007 more than 500,000 call center jobs have been outsourced to foreign countries.

Business Week broke the story about the JEEP program this week. According to Business Week, the program is part of the Growth and Equity in Mindanao (GEM) initiative, which costs $100 million annually.

“The JEEP program was developed to promote peace and stability in Mindanao by teaching English to youth in conflict-prone areas to help them pursue gainful employment in tourism, nursing and other locally-based industries and to break the cycle of violence which had gripped that region of the Philippines,” a USAID spokesperson told Business Week, adding that it is set to expire at the end of the year.

The congressmen want it gone yesterday.

“Using Americans’ hard-earned taxpayer dollars to fund the training of foreign nationals to take our jobs is absolutely crazy and totally unacceptable,” Jones said in a statement. “Uncle Sam is over $15 trillion in debt and unemployment is still elevated because of policies like this, and it’s got to stop.”

The pair pledged in their letter to “use every legislative option available to permanently prohibit USAID from engaging in such practices in the future.”

“I support the international development mission of USAID but my top priority is protecting American jobs and American taxpayers,” Bishop concluded. “I anticipate working closely with USAID in a bipartisan manner to ensure that none of its programs overseas will hurt workers here at home.”

Follow Caroline on Twitter

Article printed from The Daily Caller: http://dailycaller.com
URL to article: http://dailycaller.com/2012/04/20/usaid-training-foreign-workers-for-english-speaking-jobs/
Copyright © 2009 Daily Caller. All rights reserved.

Soul Crusher

  • Competitors
  • Getbig V
  • *****
  • Posts: 39256
  • Doesnt lie about lifting.
Re: Police State - Official Thread
« Reply #770 on: April 23, 2012, 12:21:47 PM »
Federal agents raid Patapsco Flea Market
Counterfeit sports apparel and cosmetics, pirated music confiscated
  Comments 72
By Hanah Cho
 
The Baltimore Sun
 
1:12 p.m. EDT, April 23, 2012
Vendors at the Patapsco Flea Market have a history of allegedly selling counterfeit and pirated merchandise, according to an affidavit, which outlined the latest accusation that resulted in a raid Sunday by federal Homeland Security intellectual property agents.

Capping a 2 1/2-year-long investigation into counterfeit apparel and accessories as well as pirated DVDs and musical recordings, federal investigators confiscated numerous items being sold there.


Federal authorities released few details about the raid, but the affidavit details several undercover operations that found that many of the items sold at the flea market were fake. They included goods with high-end brand names such as Nike, Uggs, Polo, North Face, Louis Vuitton and Gucci.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Download The Baltimore Sun's new iPhone app.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


In one instance in which undercover agents bought goods from vendors there, 34 of 38 items were found to be counterfeit. During the same outings on March 31 and April 1, agents bought a set of novelty contact lenses found to be dangerous. The lenses could fuse to the eye causing permanent vision loss, according to the affidavit.

The flea market, located in the 1400 block of West Patapsco Avenue on the southwest side of Baltimore, is owned by Management Inc., whose principal is listed as Joseph Brzuchalski, state records and the affidavit show. A message left with Brzuchalski's residence was not immediately returned.

The market for counterfeit goods and pirated and unlicensed merchandise has become widespread, especially with the explosion of online marketplaces.

It is a practice that deprives companies of revenue as well as debases the quality of brand names, said Ned T. Himmelrich, who heads the intellectual property and technology practice group at Baltimore law firm Gordon Feinblatt LLC. Companies have been working with federal authorities to crack down on the illegal activity, he said.

"It's more than just the one sale or a thousand sales," he said. "It's the ripple effect on the quality of the brand."

In a statement Sunday, Under Armour said: "Individuals who produce and sell counterfeit goods harm the American economy. The reality of counterfeiting is that it's much greater than just buying a knock off item at a discounted price, it's a multibillion dollar a year problem that undermines corporations."

In 1996, Baltimore police charged 30 vendors at the Patapsco Flea Market with selling counterfeit clothing. Authorities confiscated more than $1 million worth of what police alleged was counterfeit Nike, Timberland and Tommy Hilfiger apparel.

Baltimore policy seized counterfeit professional sports league apparel and items with brand names like Nike and Lacoste at the flea market in 2004 and 2006, according to the affidavit.

Hanah.cho@baltsun.com

Shockwave

  • Getbig V
  • *****
  • Posts: 20807
  • Decepticons! Scramble!
Re: Police State - Official Thread
« Reply #771 on: April 23, 2012, 05:19:06 PM »
2 1/2 years baby!!! To stop some counterfeit Nike shit... BOOOM!!!!!!


Extremely solid use of taxpayer dollars.

In other news, Im stoked for MoH Warfighter to come out.

Shockwave

  • Getbig V
  • *****
  • Posts: 20807
  • Decepticons! Scramble!
Re: Police State - Official Thread
« Reply #772 on: April 23, 2012, 06:09:04 PM »
Glad to hear that... We want it to be a big time hit.

I guarantee that the single player will not disappoint.
Awesome. BF3's single player was pretty good, but felt more like it was a rolling testbed for their new engine.
The Multiplayer is awesome for the most part.
Im more of a single player guy though, so Im really stoked for Warfighter. Especially being former military, I really have a soft spot for realistic combat games (which are very few and far between, the recent CoD's have been terrible yet still commands such a great rep for some reason!)

Soul Crusher

  • Competitors
  • Getbig V
  • *****
  • Posts: 39256
  • Doesnt lie about lifting.
Re: Police State - Official Thread
« Reply #773 on: April 29, 2012, 04:59:35 PM »

April 28, 2012
Terrorist Plots, Hatched by the F.B.I.
By DAVID K. SHIPLER
THE United States has been narrowly saved from lethal terrorist plots in recent years — or so it has seemed. A would-be suicide bomber was intercepted on his way to the Capitol; a scheme to bomb synagogues and shoot Stinger missiles at military aircraft was developed by men in Newburgh, N.Y.; and a fanciful idea to fly explosive-laden model planes into the Pentagon and the Capitol was hatched in Massachusetts.

But all these dramas were facilitated by the F.B.I., whose undercover agents and informers posed as terrorists offering a dummy missile, fake C-4 explosives, a disarmed suicide vest and rudimentary training. Suspects naïvely played their parts until they were arrested.

When an Oregon college student, Mohamed Osman Mohamud, thought of using a car bomb to attack a festive Christmas-tree lighting ceremony in Portland, the F.B.I. provided a van loaded with six 55-gallon drums of “inert material,” harmless blasting caps, a detonator cord and a gallon of diesel fuel to make the van smell flammable. An undercover F.B.I. agent even did the driving, with Mr. Mohamud in the passenger seat. To trigger the bomb the student punched a number into a cellphone and got no boom, only a bust.

This is legal, but is it legitimate? Without the F.B.I., would the culprits commit violence on their own? Is cultivating potential terrorists the best use of the manpower designed to find the real ones? Judging by their official answers, the F.B.I. and the Justice Department are sure of themselves — too sure, perhaps.

Carefully orchestrated sting operations usually hold up in court. Defendants invariably claim entrapment and almost always lose, because the law requires that they show no predisposition to commit the crime, even when induced by government agents. To underscore their predisposition, many suspects are “warned about the seriousness of their plots and given opportunities to back out,” said Dean Boyd, a Justice Department spokesman. But not always, recorded conversations show. Sometimes they are coaxed to continue.

Undercover operations, long practiced by the F.B.I., have become a mainstay of counterterrorism, and they have changed in response to the post-9/11 focus on prevention. “Prior to 9/11 it would be very unusual for the F.B.I. to present a crime opportunity that wasn’t in the scope of the activities that a person was already involved in,” said Mike German of the American Civil Liberties Union, a lawyer and former F.B.I. agent who infiltrated white supremacist groups. An alleged drug dealer would be set up to sell drugs to an undercover agent, an arms trafficker to sell weapons. That still happens routinely, but less so in counterterrorism, and for good reason.

“There isn’t a business of terrorism in the United States, thank God,” a former federal prosecutor, David Raskin, explained.

“You’re not going to be able to go to a street corner and find somebody who’s already blown something up,” he said. Therefore, the usual goal is not “to find somebody who’s already engaged in terrorism but find somebody who would jump at the opportunity if a real terrorist showed up in town.”

And that’s the gray area. Who is susceptible? Anyone who plays along with the agents, apparently. Once the snare is set, law enforcement sees no choice. “Ignoring such threats is not an option,” Mr. Boyd argued, “given the possibility that the suspect could act alone at any time or find someone else willing to help him.”

Typically, the stings initially target suspects for pure speech — comments to an informer outside a mosque, angry postings on Web sites, e-mails with radicals overseas — then woo them into relationships with informers, who are often convicted felons working in exchange for leniency, or with F.B.I. agents posing as members of Al Qaeda or other groups.

Some targets have previous involvement in more than idle talk: for example, Waad Ramadan Alwan, an Iraqi in Kentucky, whose fingerprints were found on an unexploded roadside bomb near Bayji, Iraq, and Raja Khan of Chicago, who had sent funds to an Al Qaeda leader in Pakistan.

But others seem ambivalent, incompetent and adrift, like hapless wannabes looking for a cause that the informer or undercover agent skillfully helps them find. Take the Stinger missile defendant James Cromitie, a low-level drug dealer with a criminal record that included no violence or hate crime, despite his rants against Jews. “He was searching for answers within his Islamic faith,” said his lawyer, Clinton W. Calhoun III, who has appealed his conviction. “And this informant, I think, twisted that search in a really pretty awful way, sort of misdirected Cromitie in his search and turned him towards violence.”

THE informer, Shahed Hussain, had been charged with fraud, but avoided prison and deportation by working undercover in another investigation. He was being paid by the F.B.I. to pose as a wealthy Pakistani with ties to Jaish-e-Mohammed, a terrorist group that Mr. Cromitie apparently had never heard of before they met by chance in the parking lot of a mosque.

“Brother, did you ever try to do anything for the cause of Islam?” Mr. Hussain asked at one point.

“O.K., brother,” Mr. Cromitie replied warily, “where you going with this, brother?”

Two days later, the informer told him, “Allah has more work for you to do,” and added, “Revelation is going to come in your dreams that you have to do this thing, O.K.?” About 15 minutes later, Mr. Hussain proposed the idea of using missiles, saying he could get them in a container from China. Mr. Cromitie laughed.

Reading hundreds of pages of transcripts of the recorded conversations is like looking at the inkblots of a Rorschach test. Patterns of willingness and hesitation overlap and merge. “I don’t want anyone to get hurt,” Mr. Cromitie said, and then explained that he meant women and children. “I don’t care if it’s a whole synagogue of men.” It took 11 months of meandering discussion and a promise of $250,000 to lead him, with three co-conspirators he recruited, to plant fake bombs at two Riverdale synagogues.

“Only the government could have made a ‘terrorist’ out of Mr. Cromitie, whose buffoonery is positively Shakespearean in its scope,” said Judge Colleen McMahon, sentencing him to 25 years. She branded it a “fantasy terror operation” but called his attempt “beyond despicable” and rejected his claim of entrapment.

The judge’s statement was unusual, but Mr. Cromitie’s characteristics were not. His incompetence and ambivalence could be found among other aspiring terrorists whose grandiose plans were nurtured by law enforcement. They included men who wanted to attack fuel lines at Kennedy International Airport; destroy the Sears Tower (now Willis Tower) in Chicago; carry out a suicide bombing near Tampa Bay, Fla., and bomb subways in New York and Washington. Of the 22 most frightening plans for attacks since 9/11 on American soil, 14 were developed in sting operations.

Another New York City subway plot, which recently went to trial, needed no help from government. Nor did a bombing attempt in Times Square, the abortive underwear bombing in a jetliner over Detroit, a planned attack on Fort Dix, N.J., and several smaller efforts. Some threats are real, others less so. In terrorism, it’s not easy to tell the difference.

David K. Shipler is the author of “Rights at Risk: The Limits of Liberty in Modern America.”

Soul Crusher

  • Competitors
  • Getbig V
  • *****
  • Posts: 39256
  • Doesnt lie about lifting.