Obamacare and the Police State

So as the government shutdown continues more and more memes are popping up about it. Figured maybe I would put in my two-cents on the matter finally.

First, let me say I do not support Obamacare. Not because it is socialist, but because it is fascist. This isn't about nationalizing healthcare, it is about mandating our participation in capitalism. Requiring us to purchase a product from a private company. Though I am no Lefty, I have to admit that at this point, I would sooner accept government hospitals and doctors, than a mandate to participate in a system that has royally screwed us without vaseline for the past two decades with insane cost increases.

Why is a so-called "Leftist" President and a Democrat, forcing us to participate in what amounts to highway robbery by layers, pharmaceutical companies, and most of all those damned insurance companies? A program that was originally implemented in Massachusetts by Obama's last Presidential opponent, the Republican, Mitt Romney. Now more than ever it should be clear to the American people that political ideals mean nothing in the face of The Agenda being visited on us by globalists and banker scum.

At the same time though, I want to talk about another facet of this evil, the now ubiquitous police state. Like in Fascist Italy, and even more so in Nazi Germany, these extreme right-wing measures coincided with the build up of a totalitarian police-state apparatus through which all dissent was silenced, and eventually exterminated.

Police-state Captain Six, of what speaketh thou?

Well, it really doesn't get much more obvious than the dry-run for total and utter martial law than what happened in the wake of the Boston Marathon bombing where innocent civilians were ripped from their homes in true Gestapo fashion, door to door.

Let's cut to the chase here now. This is the pic that got me riled up tonight.

So what exactly is a non-essential employee? Certainly not the police who just shot an unarmed woman at the nation's Capitol. Not the NSA watching my every keystroke as I write this piece. Not the park rangers patrolling national parks that have been closed, in order to bar civilians from public property. (As if we needed the government to take a walk in the woods in the first place.)

Now this got me to thinking about the non-essential nature of even the so-called "essential" workers in the government. The non-essential nature of the police-state we live in. Everything from suspected child molesters molesting kids at airports on your dime, through the TSA, to the government extortion scheme known as the War on Drugs.

When Americans think of a police-state, they tend to think of places like Communist China. But despite the fact that they have nearly 4 times as many people as America, they actually have fewer prisoner. Not per-capita mind you, literally fewer prisoners. Per capita, we lead the world by far. We have only 5% of the total human population on the planet, yet 1 out of every 4 people in prison on Earth, live in an American prison.

So let's really cut to the chase here now, when we are talking about non-essentials. No one really wants to talk about the real cost to taxpayers to enslave ourselves, so there really aren't too many studies to go by. But there was one implemented in the state of Maryland a few years ago, that was quite enlightening. I believe this is something that should be done annually, in every state, and of course by Federal law agencies as well. But since we don't have that sort of clarity and accountability from our government. Let this serve as an example, to show you where your money is really going.

(Disclaimer: The following quoted text is presented for educational and conversational purposes only. as part of the larger theme presented. Rreaders are encouraged to read the original text and related material at reason.com.)

4.5 SWAT Raids Per Day

Maryland's SWAT transparency bill produces its first disturbing results

Radley Balko | March 1, 2010

 Cheye Calvo's July 2008 encounter with a Prince George's County, Maryland, SWAT team is now pretty well-known: After intercepting a package of marijuana at a delivery service warehouse, police completed the delivery, in disguise, to the address on the package. That address belonged to Calvo, who also happened to be the mayor of the small Prince George’s town of Berwyn Heights. When Calvo's mother-in-law brought the package in from the porch, the SWAT team pounced, forcing their way into Calvo's home. By the time the raid was over, Calvo and his mother-in-law had been handcuffed for hours, police realized they'd made a mistake, and Calvo's two black Labradors lay dead on the floor from gunshot wounds.

As a result of this colossal yet not-unprecedented screw-up, plus Calvo's notoriety and persistence, last year Maryland became the first state in the country to make every one of its police departments issue a report on how often and for what purpose they use their SWAT teams. The first reports from the legislation are in, and the results are disturbing.

Over the last six months of 2009, SWAT teams were deployed 804 times in the state of Maryland, or about 4.5 times per day. In Prince George's County alone, with its 850,000 residents, a SWAT team was deployed about once per day. According to a Baltimore Sun analysis, 94 percent of the state's SWAT deployments were used to serve search or arrest warrants, leaving just 6 percent in response to the kinds of barricades, bank robberies, hostage takings, and emergency situations for which SWAT teams were originally intended.

Worse even than those dreary numbers is the fact that more than half of the county’s SWAT deployments were for misdemeanors and nonserious felonies. That means more than 100 times last year Prince George’s County brought state-sanctioned violence to confront people suspected of nonviolent crimes. And that's just one county in Maryland. These outrageous numbers should provide a long-overdue wake-up call to public officials about how far the pendulum has swung toward institutionalized police brutality against its citizenry, usually in the name of the drug war.

But that’s unlikely to happen, at least in Prince George's County. To this day, Sheriff Michael Jackson insists his officers did nothing wrong in the Calvo raid—not the killing of the dogs, not neglecting to conduct any corroborating investigation to be sure they had the correct house, not failing to notify the Berwyn Heights police chief of the raid, not the repeated and documented instances of Jackson’s deputies playing fast and loose with the truth.

Jackson, who's now running for county executive, is incapable of shame. He has tried to block Calvo's efforts to access information about the raid at every turn. Last week, Prince George's County Circuit Judge Arthur M. Ahalt ruled that Calvo's civil rights suit against the county can go forward. But Jackson has been fighting to delay the discovery process in that suit until federal authorities complete their own investigation into the raid. That would likely (and conveniently) prevent Prince George's County voters from learning any embarrassing details about the raid until after the election.

But there is some good news to report here, too. The Maryland state law, as noted, is the first of its kind in the country, and will hopefully serve as a model for other states in adding some much-needed transparency to the widespread use and abuse of SWAT teams. And some Maryland legislators want to go even further. State Sen. Anthony Muse (D-Prince George's), for example, wants to require a judge's signature before police can deploy a SWAT team. Muse has sponsored another bill that would ban the use of SWAT teams for misdemeanor offenses. The latter seems like a no-brainer, but it's already facing strong opposition from law enforcement interests. Police groups opposed the transparency bill, too.

Beyond policy changes, the Calvo raid also seems to have also sparked media and public interest in how SWAT teams are deployed in Maryland. The use of these paramilitary police units has increased dramatically over the last 30 years, by 1,000 percent or more, resulting in the drastic militarization of police. It's a trend that seems to have escaped much media and public notice, let alone informed debate about policies and oversight procedures. But since the Calvo raid in 2008, Maryland newspapers, TV news crews, activists, and bloggers have been documenting mistaken, botched, or disproportionately aggressive raids across the state.

Lawmakers tend to be wary of questioning law enforcement officials, particularly when it comes to policing tactics. They shouldn't be. If anything, the public employees who are entrusted with the power to use force, including lethal force, deserve the most scrutiny. It's unfortunate that it took a violent raid on a fellow public official for Maryland's policymakers to finally take notice of tactics that have been used on Maryland citizens for decades now. But at least these issues are finally on the table.

Lawmakers in other states should take notice. It's time to have a national discussion on the wisdom of sending phalanxes of cops dressed like soldiers into private homes in search of nonviolent and consensual crimes.

Radley Balko is a senior editor at Reason magazine.

When considering the validity of the American police-state, and what your tax dollars are actually paying for, you might also consider these articles.

SWAT Get Medals For Shooting Innocent Family at Christmas

Crime-Lab Tech Who Acted As Judge Puts 34k Felons Back On Streets

First Known American Execution of Innocent Man Happens In Texas

101 Death-Row Inmates Proved Innocent








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Top Cop Threatens to Kill After Fellow Officer Gunned Down

Officer Jason Ellis was shot multiple times early Saturday morning on an off-ramp leading from the Bluegrass Parkway to Highway 55 in Nelson County, Kentucky. The K-9 officer was on his way home from work in a marked cruiser, but did not have his dog with him, when he was ambushed and killed by multiple shots from a 12-gauge shotgun. He is the first officer killed in the line of duty in the 150-year history of the Bardstown police force. Motorists discovered his body at around 3 a.m. and phoned 911. The former Cincinnati Reds professional baseball player leaves behind a wife and two children.

It is understandable that his fellow officers would feel a great deal of anger over such a seemingly senseless act of violence. What is not so understandable, is why Chief Rick McCubbin would make a public statement that sounds as if he hopes the suspect or suspects are killed, rather than be put on trial. It is one thing to feel human emotion after an event like that, to feel the need for revenge. It is quite another for a highly trained former U.S. Marshal with 25 years of law-enforcement experience to make a press statement like this...

“I can assure you we won’t give up on this person or persons until we either have them in custody or in the front sight of one of our weapons. I certainly hope the latter is the choice.” -Chief McCubbun

The police are not a judge, nor a jury, nor serve the public as executioners. It is this very mentality of shoot first and ask questions later which leads criminals to justify the slaughter cops in cold blood. A murder begets murder cycle of violence, rather than justice. Of course, there will be those that argue "so be it" and that it will "save taxpayers money in the long run" when police kill suspects on sight. But if we are really meant to condone this reasoning as a matter of policy, we might just as well shut down the courts entirely, burn the Constitution and get the ovens fired up in the concentration camps.

It is one thing to feel like you want to go out and get swift revenge. It is quite another for the police to say, in essence, that they will kill a suspect if they can get away with it. It's not the flashing lights or shiny pins, it's not the paycheck paid from tax dollars, or being a good shot with a gun that makes a police officer. The police are expected to "take the high road"so to speak, to be the better people. After all, it is this very principle above all others which defines the police officer, or which once did anyway. The principle which separates the police from the criminals. The ideal which makes the police the heroes in the first place.

Too often today though, it seems as if the opposite has become true, both in the eyes of the public, and in the courtroom. Instead of police being held to a higher standard, they are simply given a pass for criminal behavior and betrayals of public trust. Such a haven from justice creates a caste of criminality and thuggery for which there is no accountability. It is not acceptable to say that because a person spends his days doing good, that on occasion we should look the other way so that he can brutalize and murder. Yet that has become the predominant trend in our society today with our complacent acceptance of police wrongdoing.

Of course, anytime that police wrongdoing is brought up, the mind deflects the horror of what we are seeing, and instead refers to the argument of casuists, for whom the police can do no wrong. There is always the "few bad apples" argument, or the argument that there are a lot of cops out there who do a lot of good for the public, each and every day. And of course this is true, there are a lot of police officers out there who are genuine heroes, but that is entirely irrelevant when considering whether a cop is guilty of murder, or perhaps plans to commit murder. It is also entirely beside the point, if the police happen to kill someone who turns out to be the wrong person or otherwise entirely innocent.

Then again, maybe the idea of the good cop is something we should take a closer look at in this particular case. What follows here is a hypothetical example of sorts, made to demonstrate the perils of murdering suspects. Let us go right ahead and assume that the murdered police officer, Jason Ellis, was indeed every bit the American hero he appears to have been. There is no reason to believe otherwise. Let us question the circumstances of his death though, as any good investigator should.

The officer was on his way home from work at the end of his shift. He was driving in a marked police unit, but it was a "pool car" rather than his regular K-9 SUV unit. His dog was not with him. This pool unit was not equipped with recording devices like most standard police vehicles today. These pool cars are usually a sort of  "reserve" unit, usually an older model near-retirement, used more as an errand vehicle than for regular patrols and therefore not fully equipped with the latest gadgetry. 

The officer did not radio to headquarters/dispatch that there was an emergency, but he appears to have stopped on the freeway ramp to clear an obstruction in the roadway, or perhaps to assist what may have appeared to be a disabled motorist. There is debris along the roadway which appears as if a tree or limb might have been dragged or fell into the roadway, or that a vehicle went off of the roadway. His emergency lights were flashing when state police arrived at the scene, to find him dead. The officer was killed by multiple gunshot wounds from a 12-gauge shotgun. The officer's pistol remained secured in his holster. Some reports state that he was found in his vehicle, others say he was found laying outside of it. Crime scene investigators were seen concentrating around a knoll overlooking the scene, thick with brush and a small tree.

We should also consider that it is not very common for police to be killed randomly, or simply as targets of opportunity. In this case, it appears as if the officer may have been ambushed, and even that the attack was planned ahead of time. Whatever caused him to stop must have appeared to be so mundane that he had no reason to radio for assistance even though he was off duty, or that the attack happened so fast he never had a chance to radio for help.

Was this officer set up to be killed in an ambush, or did he simply stumble upon a cold-blooded killer, randomly, on a remote roadway in the dead of night? One would think that the police themselves would be anxious to answer that question. Especially the Chief who is responsible for the officers in his command. Instead of answers though, the Chief is voicing his opinion that he would just rather murder the suspect and be done with it.

This would be an awfully convenient way of murdering a police officer, and getting away with it, either directly or indirectly.

Let's imagine for a moment that the officer who was killed, might have stumbled upon something he shouldn't have at some other time. Some political intrigue and corruption perhaps, or maybe evidence of an ongoing criminal enterprise within the department. Only examples of course, but again to illustrate that the possibility exists this crime may not have been entirely random. The facts that he was killed on his way home from work, without his dog, in an under-equipped vehicle, in a remote location, and was not robbed of his firearm are all clues which suggest he was not killed randomly. Perhaps too, it was someone he worked with, who would know exactly what sort of highway hazard Officer Ellis would not bother to call in on the radio for.

Considering these points, it makes it all the more suspicious why the Chief of police would be calling for the murder of a suspect. Perhaps a suspect who was a trigger man in a larger plot? Perhaps a suspect who had no involvement at all, but who will be marked as guilty and rubbed out, closing the case and any further investigation.

This is not to say this is actually the story of what has happened there in Kentucky. This theory is just that, a theory, based on a few strange tidbits of information, to illustrate a point. It is not simply in the interest of protecting the rights of a suspect, who may or may not actually be guilty, but also in the interest of the victims of a crime, to make sure that a suspect is brought to justice rather than killed. It is in the interest of the police themselves, to protect themselves from being killed in this sort of plot. It is in the interest of the "good cops" that they cannot so easily be snuffed out, should they happen upon criminality within their ranks.

If it turns out that this cop-killer is just that, a plain old-fashioned monster, then let that be proven in a trial, and let the killer then be strapped to an electric char or have a fatal needle shoved in their arm, so be it. But if there is more to the story, or if the person who the police zero in on turns out to be innocent, these are reasons enough why the police should not be in the business of murder.


Credit to CopBlock.org where there original news story was first seen, and where a few additional links are available.




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PhD's On Foodstamps (Infographic)

All too often, when I try to have a sensible discussion with my friends and debate opponents regarding poverty in this country, they try to punt the issue to a "work harder" sort of logic. As if the issues of poverty are caused by the victims of terminally flawed economic policy. The facts, however, do not stand up to blame-shift logic. Blaming the victims will not solve the problem, or hold the responsible accountable.

It's all too easy to put out a video of an ignorant black woman with 15 kids, and make her the poster child of public assistance. But that's like saying that some Ku Klux Klan skinhead is the spokesperson for all sensible gun-owners in America.

Usually when I get into a discussion about public assistance programs, the argument goes something like this.

Opponent: People on welfare just need to get a job. 

Six: There are no jobs for 3 out of 4 Americans who apply. (Nevermind the millions who are not counted as unemployed because their insurance has expired.)

Opponent: So then they need to go back to school.

Six: Why? So we can have better educated people on food-stamps?

- Please visit graphic SOURCE

“People who dismiss the unemployed and dependent as ‘parasites’ fail to understand economics and parasitism. A successful parasite is one that is not recognized by its host, one that can make its host work for it without appearing as a burden. Such is the ruling class in a capitalist society.” -Professor Jason Read, University of Southern Maine

Also check out these infographics:

Breadlines and Foodstamps

Wal-Mart: Lower Prices, Higher Taxes



Also see:

Analyzing a Practical Minimum Wage

U.S. Workers Most Exploited in Developed World











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Elections Are Frauds

This first video came out at the end of last week. Now of course, the implications are a bit disturbing. But I couldn't help but laugh at how utterly stupid this young girl is. I weep for our future.

Some people have blamed Republicans for carrying out a deliberate campaign of voter fraud, but I think this is clearly a case of just how completely retarded young Americans have become. When it comes to real election fraud, the political overlords don't waste their time with the piss-ants on the street, as you will see below.


The truth is though, as scary as that bit was, there are much more sinister plots afoot when it comes to selecting our leaders.

Those of us who are old enough to remember will certainly recall the muddled and confused results in Florida, when it was decided there that George "Dubya" Bush would become the next President of the United States in 2000. Some folks still contend that Al Gore actually won the election. Whatever the actual count turned out to be down there, the Supreme Court finally stepped in to crown Dubya the new POTUS.

As the years have clicked by and technology advances, it has only become more easy to manipulate an election, and to cover up the fraud.

Rep. Tom Feeney (Fmr. Speaker of The House in Florida) employed this man from Oviedo, FL to rig elections and flip them 51% to 49%. Exit polling data was proven to be significantly different than the published results. Rep. Feeney was also the lobbyist for Yang Enterprises, the company who delivered the program.

So does it come down to a technology war between Republicans and Democrats? Hardly. The fraud is being perpetrated against you, the people, the voter, not in the battle between one politician and another. They already know who the winner is going to be, just like in a WWE wrestling match. Or at least the true power-brokers know who the winner will be, even if the contestants themselves don't. The whole idea here is to give the American public the illusion of choice. And doing that, is really no easy task when you have hundreds of millions of voters and a whole apparatus of well-meaning citizens participating in the voting process trying to make it as accurate as possible. The illusion of democracy must be complete in order to maintain control.

Nevertheless, we see not only that the technology is available, but that is is being used to alter the outcomes of elections. Especially in "close" contests where they make the average citizen really feel like their vote was so much more important than they ever realized. In reality, our leaders are not E-lected, they are SE-lected, by power-brokers operating behind closed door, in secret meetings, like those of the so-called Bilderberg group.

That mysterious cabal of the power-elite has met every year since 1954, almost never in the same place twice, and usually only once every four years in North America. That pattern was broken when they met for the second time at a Marriott hotel in Chantilly, Virginia, with just a year in between a meeting held in Canada. Coincidentally enough, they met at the same hotel again this year, another election year, just outside of Washington DC.

In the run-up to the 2008 Presidential elections, Hillary Clinton was running neck-and-neck with Barack Obama for the Democratic nomination, when the two of them suddenly disappeared from public view and dumped the press in order to hold a secret meeting. Some believed that they might have met at her house in Washington, but that was later proven false. Although their whereabouts were never proven, or admitted to, it is widely believed that the two met in secret with the Bilderberg group, and many also believe that it was decided at that meeting that Barack Obama would become the next President of the United States.

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Texting Cop Rams Motorcyclist

Using the phone is deadly while driving. Whether you are texting, or carrying on a conversation with a hand-free set, people need to stay off the phone when they are behind the wheel.

Can You Use the Phone and Drive? Take This Test to Find Out!

And that includes the police. Despite the fact that cops get away with it all the time, they are probably some of the most dangerous drivers on the road. In some states, there are laws which specifically exempt the police from distracted driving laws. This is the result...





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Freedom of Press Now a Felony In America

Yesterday was a sad, sad day for America as the light of liberty has been snuffed out.

A jury has ruled in favor of the state, declaring it a felonious act for the press to record a public official without explicit consent. Despite the gravity of the ruling, corporate media overage is non-existent.

Ademo Mueller has been convicted of 3 felony counts of wiretapping, for daring to record comments made to him by public officials, regarding an assault of a high school student by a police detective. That violent attack was caught on a digital video recording by another student in the cafeteria at West High School in Manchester, New Hampshire. The students then brought the recording to the attention of Mueller, a journalist and founder of police-accountability organization CopBlock. The reporter then telephoned the police department and the high school, seeking comment on the matter, allowing them the opportunity to voice their side of the story and any concerns. Months after the story was broadcast, the reporter was charged with three felony counts of wiretapping for recording those telephone calls.

The student who recorded the actual event was never charged with any crime, however.

The police officer who attacked the student, was never charged with any crime.

You can get more details on the full story in my previous articles:

Reporter Faces 21 Years After Airing Excessive Force Complaint

Press Freedom May Hinge on 'Jury Nullification' as Journalist is Put On Trial


The state's prosecutor charged that Ademo Mueller was a violator of statute NH 570-A-2 in that the communication in question was 1) intercepted, 2) consent of all parties wasn’t gotten, and 3) that the action was done purposely.

That's it. That's all it takes to turn a news reporter into a felon. That's all it takes for the government to put a free person in chains. Never mind the fact that when you call the police department, your communication is recorded, without notice or consent, in clear violation of this law. Never mind the fact that Mueller stated who he was, the organization he represents, and that he was seeking a public comment. Never mind the fact that the school officials, the so-called "victims," never complained to police, but rather that a police officer was ordered to go to them to investigate by his own department. Never mind the fact that the people the journalist was communicating with were public servants, in a public space, operating in a public capacity and without any reasonable expectation of privacy.

We see clearly, that there are two different rules of law now in America. One rule for the public, and another rule for officials. Public servants who can now only be held accountable by their own consent. These people are supposed to be our employees, not our masters. The founding of this nation was entirely based on the rejection of this very tyranny which we now find ourselves living under. What freedom is this that we dare not question our own servants? What liberty is this wearing chains for speaking? What justice is this that is rendered by privilege over right?

Upon the conviction, the state's prosecutor recommended to the judge that Ademo Mueller be sentenced to serve one full year of incarceration at the local jail, with five years of supervision post-release to ensure "good behavior" which, if violated, would then incur three consecutive terms of 1-to-3 years. 

The judge sentenced Mueller to one year in jail, with nine months suspended sentence, and  three year period in which poor behavior might incur the full weight of a 1-to-3 year sentence.

Be sure to read the full article on the case from Ademo's website:

Jury Deems Ademo GUILTY of Wiretapping for Seeking Accountability


This is the video of the trial:










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What is Jury Nullification?

What is Jury Nullification? You won't find it defined in your dictionary or described in your encyclopedia. You weren't taught about it in school, and indeed it is even considered a crime to tell other people about it in some circumstances. Imagine that for a moment, a crime to inform a citizen as to their right, even the scope of their duty while serving on a jury.

According to the Wikipedia entry:

Jury nullification is a constitutional doctrine which allows juries to acquit criminal defendants who are technically guilty, but who do not deserve punishment. It occurs in a trial when a jury reaches a verdict contrary to the judge's instructions as to the law. 

A jury verdict contrary to the letter of the law pertains only to the particular case before it. If a pattern of acquittals develops, however, in response to repeated attempts to prosecute a statutory offence, this can have the de facto effect of invalidating the statute. A pattern of jury nullification may indicate public opposition to an unwanted legislative enactment...

Most Americans have never even heard of such a doctrine. Thanks to numerous TV shows and real-life judges telling us that the only function of the jury is to render a decision based strictly upon the facts of the case, a key tenet of the justice system envisioned by the Founding Fathers has been lost. You see, it is not only the job of the jury to weigh guilt or innocence against the letter of the law, but also to judge the just nature of the statutes themselves. In this way, The People ultimately retain power over the government, rather than the government dictating to The People what is and what is not justice. This tenet is instrumental in protecting ourselves, as The People, from tyrannical laws and cronyism. This is why we have a jury system in the first place, not simply to act as a cog in the wheel of the justice system, but to be the justice in the system.

Let us imagine for a moment, that you live in a city where the Mayor makes soda-pop illegal. So illegal that he actually signs into law a criminal statute that makes it a jailable offense to dispense soda-pop. He makes a public campaign to warn about the evils of soda-pop, how detrimental it is to your health, while being crowned king of national doughnut day, and holding a vast amount stock in the city's number-one importer of iced-tea.

Fascist Food and Nutrition Nazis

Now let us imagine that you are sitting on the jury for a criminal trial of a single-mom arrested for selling soda-pop to her neighbor, which had been "smuggled" in from outside of the city limits, and that the transaction was captured on an audio-video recording by police. You see that she is plainly guilty of violating the law, technically, but can't in good-conscience send her off to jail for a year. You, and other jury members voice that dilemma to the judge, who then instructs you to render a verdict based strictly on the facts of the case, the evidence presented, and that all other considerations have no bearing on your duty to render a verdict. What do you do? It appears that you have no choice, and you find her guilty.

But if you had actually been a FULLY INFORMED JUROR, rather than just listening to the instructions of the judge who owed his career to the Mayor, you would have known that you did have an alternative. That it was not actually illegal for you to ignore the judge's instructions, and that you could have rendered a verdict based on your conscience rather than a law in a bool. You would have known that Jury Nullification not only gives you this right, but that it is your duty as a juror to render your verdict in such a manner. In this way, you see, not only have you protected the accused from overzealous and tyrannical prosecution, but you have also struck a blow against cronyism. Cronyism by the Mayor who stands to make a profit from the law he made, in relation to the company stocks he owns and the companies that own him. Cronyism by police and prosecutors who turn a profit on the backs of the taxpayers for every arrest and prosecution they make, maintaining their job security and giving the United States the largest prison population in the world in the process.

Imagine how many ridiculous laws would be suddenly rendered obsolete. Imagine how many frivolous prosecutions would be avoided. Imagine how many people would not be sitting in prison today for victimless crimes. Imagine how much lower your taxes would be if you didn't have to pay for all this nonsense. Imagine how powerless the government would suddenly find itself, in the face of a population that was no longer going to take any of their shit.



Maybe that's why the principle of Jury Nullification is the most taboo subject in our justice system today, and has been continually eroded in landmark decisions by the courts since 1895, as time has distanced us from the core principles of liberty on which this nation was founded. 

In 1794, the case of Georgia v. Brailsford was being heard before the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS). The court's first Chief Justice, John Jay, established precedent that the Common Law practice of Jury Nullification was valid in the United States. He wrote, in part...

"It may not be amiss, here, Gentlemen, to remind you of the good old rule, that on questions of fact, it is the province of the jury, on questions of law, it is the province of the court to decide. But it must be observed that by the same law, which recognizes this reasonable distribution of jurisdiction, you have nevertheless a right to take upon yourselves to judge of both, and to determine the law as well as the fact in controversy. On this, and on every other occasion, however, we have no doubt, you will pay that respect, which is due to the opinion of the court: For, as on the one hand, it is presumed, that juries are the best judges of facts; it is, on the other hand, presumbable, that the court are the best judges of the law. But still both objects are lawfully, within your power of decision."

That precedent held, unmolested, for 99 years. Prior to the Civil War, the Fugitive Slave Act made it a Federal Crime to help escaped slaves, but jury nullification was instrumental in undermining that law and bringing an end to slavery America. Jurors refused to render a guilty verdict against those who had helped escaped slaves. But in 1895, the Supreme Court of the United States struck it's first blow against the Common Law principle of Jury Nullification. In Sparf v United States SCOTUS held in a 5-4 decision that federal judges were not required to inform jurors of their inherent right to judge the law in a case.

In the 1969, the Fourth Circuit upheld in the case of U.S. v. Moylan that a court could refuse to allow instruction to a jury regarding nullification, yet hypocritically upheld the jurors inherent right to nullify. In other words, they were denying the right of the juror to be informed of their right, while still maintaining the validity of Jury Nullification stating...

“If the jury feels the law is unjust, we recognize the undisputed power of the jury to acquit.”

In the 1972 case of United States v Dougherty  the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit maintained that the courts could deny the defense the chance to instruct a jury on their right to nullify.

In 1988, in U.S. v. Krzyske, the jury asked the judge about jury nullification. The judge responded “There is no such thing as valid jury nullification.” The jury convicted the defendant, and the judge’s answer was upheld on appeal. Another judge did dissent however, and cited United States v. Wilson, 629 F. 2d 439 - Court of Appeals, 6th Circuit 1980, that the panel had unanimously decided "In criminal cases, a jury is entitled to acquit the defendant because it has no sympathy for the government's position."

In 1997, the Second Circuit ruled that jurors can be removed if there is evidence that they intend to nullify the law, under Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure 23(b). There have even been instances of jurors being removed and mistrials declared after informed-jury activists distributed literature near courthouses.

Now here's one final gut-check for the uninformed public. We often assume that it is the job of the defense attorney to defend their client to the best of their ability, with all of the knowledge at their disposal. This is not true, however. Attorneys, including defense attorneys, are an Officer of the Court. This means that their first duty is to the law, and not their client. With a sworn oath to uphold the law, they are forbidden from advocating jury nullification. You lawyer works for the court, not you.

If you ever sit on a jury, remember one important fact. You do not work for the court.


Lawmall.com

A History of Jury Nullification

The Straight Dope




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Reporter Faces 21 Years After Airing Excessive Force Complaint

Ademo Mueller, reporter and founder of police accountability network CopBlock, is facing 21 years in prison after broadcasting a story of a relatively minor excessive force complaint against police by a high-school student.

In that incident, a police detective on duty at West High School in Manchester, New Hampshire, slammed a teenager's head into a cafeteria table after the teen muttered an expletive. The act was caught on a digital-video recording, by another student.



Three months later, the reporter was indicted on three felony counts of wiretapping stemming from his coverage of the high-school incident, which included calls to police and school officials seeking information. Each count carries a maximum sentence of 7 years in prison. (Unfortunately, Ademo is likely to be sentenced to the maximum if convicted, as he was in a seperate incident where he was sentnced to the maximum of 12-months in jail for resisting arrest, when in fact he did not resist arrest at all, and his right to a jury-trial was denied through a bureaucratic sleight-of-hand.)



Sorting through the page of legal-speak in the New Hampshire Public Justice statute, it seems that the wiretapping laws there break down to whether or not another party has reasonable expectation that their communications are not subject to interception. As public officials of course, they should have no such expectation, especially when being interviewed by a reporter calling for public accountability.

TITLE LVIII PUBLIC JUSTICE CHAPTER 570-A WIRETAPPING AND EAVESDROPPING

“A public official who is on duty and in a public space has no expectation of privacy, the First Circuit Court of Appeals has already ruled on this in Glik vs. Cunniffe. The person who should face consequences is the officer who threw that poor kid into a table during lunch at the school cafeteria, not the journalist who reported about it." ~Ian Freeman, co-host of Free-Talk Live Radio

That seems to sum it up pretty well, but of course this is not how these public officials see it. In fact, the officer in question from the original incident was back to work the next day and faced no disciplinary action whatsoever for his violent assault, while now this reporter is facing 21 years in prison for merely showing you what is happening in America's schools today. Not only the violence at the hands of police, but also the trampling of rights rather than the teaching of rights by school officials. What are our children actually being taught in school?

My personal opinion is that the officer/detective in question has no business being assigned to duty in a high-school with that temperament, and that his act was indeed an unprovoked act of violence. Certainly not the worst act of violence I have ever seen though. I would have been happy just to see him face a departmental fine, a demerit on his record, and most importantly would liked to have seen him re-assigned outside of a public school setting.

Outside of that relatively minor incident though, anyone with a shred of common sense can see that this reporter should not be facing any sort of legal penalty whatsoever for reporting on a public news event in a free country, even if one believes that the confrontational officer acted correctly. What sort of convoluted sense of justice must public officials have to even level these charges against the reporter in the first place, and then for a grand-jury to have to return on indictment on these charges? It seems quite clear that this case is not about justice at all, but rather an unfounded and malicious misuse of the criminal justice system by those who are threatened by Ademo Mueller's demands for fairness and accountability from our own public officials. The fact that he was charged at all only validates the very premise of anti-police activism in the first place.

Let us be clear though, pro-accountability is not necessarily anti-police. There are officers out there who have no problem at all being filmed, and carry out their duties with the integrity and skill we would expect from a public authority. Unfortunately, I could only find one such example in the law-enforcement-only commentary on the related article at PoliceOne.

"I welcome anyone to record me anytime." - Posted by jcboston69 on Tuesday, July 31, 2012 01:53 PM Pacific

The much more common theme there in the commentary is to make juvenile comments about prison-rape and celebrating the arrest. And then we have this blurb, which is actually pretty insightful as to the mindset all-too-common to law-enforcement.

"First off, there's no reasonable expectation of freedom for a minor in school..." -Posted by ponydude94 on Tuesday, July 31, 2012 02:34 PM Pacific 

In other words, this law-enforcement professional believes that there are people and places in this this country where the Constitution does not apply. That a child in school is, essentially, bound by the same standard as a convicted felon in a prison, rather than as a free citizen acquiring an education. Also note his attempted psychological ploy at deflection of the case at hand, with his use of the words "reasonable expectation" which were used in the article to describe the wiretapping statute. The commenter then goes on to say...

"...Second, it looks to me like resisting arrest for misdemeanor theft..." 

So here we see that this law-enforcement professional will twist the law and actually lie about what he saw in order to defend his fellow officer. For the crime of misdemeanor theft to be valid, you would first need a victim to corroborate such a charge. In other words, unless the boy's sister told the detective that her purse had been stolen, no such grounds for arrest existed. Secondly, even if such grounds did exist, I saw no resistance occur. The boy was sitting peacefully, made no threatening gestures of any kind, and was violently attacked by the detective without clear provocation or cause. The purse had already been returned, and the officer began to walk away, disengaging himself from the matter. This corroborates the account of the student, that he was attacked after he muttered an expletive when the principal told him he was being suspended, and that the utterance was in fact the only provocation for the sudden assault.

Finally, this law-enforcement official finishes his commentary on the story with this blurb...

...Third, the video caught none of the conversation between the arrestee and the detective, only from the d-wad filming. Therefore, any explanation at a later time is hearsay, as these self-righteous turds can ultimately narrate the event however they wish. Teenagers will lie to their dying grandmother if it got them out of doing the dishes. Let's get the detective's story.

Well yes, that is a good idea, let's go ahead and get the Detective's story...


At this time it is not known what the disposition of the teen's case is. One would hope that at the very least he was cleared of any wrongdoing, and that a civil suit against the department for wrongful arrest is proceeding.

All in all though, this story is not really about one fairly minor incident of one law-enforcement official overstepping his bounds a little with a wise-ass teenager. This story is about an open attack on the freedom of the press, the freedom of speech in this country. This is YOUR freedom that is on trial, not just the journalist himself. The precedent that will be set by this case will define the future of freedom in New Hampshire, and the nation.

Free Ademo: An Overview (Video Link)

Free Ademo Page

Journalist Striving for Accountability Faces Two Decades in Prison (UPDATES HERE)


Stay tuned for an additional article later on jury nullification and the role it may play in this trial!

Sadly, this is how the case was finally concluded:

Freedom of Press Now a Felony in America





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DHS Agent Evokes Police-State Wrath for Reporting Undocumented Border Crossings

Absolutely sickening. Watch this, and then tell me that you still believe that you live in a free country. Tell me that you believe the Department of Homeland Security is keeping you safe.




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Drawing a Swastika is a Felony in NYS

This is absolutely ludicrous. A teenager has been charged with a FELONY for drawing on a sidewalk with baby oil. Now granted, he did draw a Swastika in a predominantly Jewish community, but in this day and age it is hardly surprising that a teenager might be desensitized to the meaning of the symbol, and detached from the history of it.

Man charged with drawing a swastika on a Monroe sidewalk 

VILLAGE OF MONROE – A Monroe man has been arrested and charged with felony aggravated harassment in the first degree for drawing a swastika on a Monroe village sidewalk late Wednesday night. 

The incident at the Millpond walkway in the center of the village was reported to Monroe Police by residents of the Hasidic village of Kiryas Joel. Responding officers found the symbol was made out of some sort of oil. 

A group of five men were nearby and the callers advised that one of them had drawn it. Police searched the men and found one had a 20 ounce bottle of baby oil in his backpack. Kumani Scott, 19, admitted he had drawn the swastika, saying he was just being stupid with friends and that he didn’t mean anything by it. Scott was also charged with misdemeanor making graffiti.

Police said the Millpond Park and walkway, where the incident occurred, are used by people at all hours of the day and night and there have been very few incidents of this nature in that area. 

“While the man arrested may not have meant anything by it, like he told the investigating officers, the swastika has a strong meaning to many people, and we take these types of incidents very seriously, as do New York State lawmakers, which is why New York State law classifies the drawing of a swastika on any public place a felony,” said Detective James Franklid.

I couldn't believe what I read there, so I had to look it up in the NYS Penal Code myself.

S 240.31 Aggravated harassment in the first degree. A person is guilty of aggravated harassment in the first degree when with intent to harass, annoy, threaten or alarm another person, because of a belief or perception regarding such person`s race, color, national origin, ancestry, gender, religion, religious practice, age, disability or sexual orientation, regardless of whether the belief or perception is correct, he or she: 
...
3. Etches, paints, draws upon or otherwise places a swastika, commonly exhibited as the emblem of Nazi Germany, on any building or other real property, public or private, owned by any person, firm or corporation or any public agency or instrumentality, without express permission of the owner or operator of such building or real property;

Now don't get me wrong here, I am not insensitive to what meaning would likely be taken by a Jewish person seeing that symbol drawn on a sidewalk. It will likely evoke sad memories of the past, and might even cause some fear, wondering if someone has intended to make a threat of some sort. But there are some other things to consider as well.

US Army, 45th Infantry Division, Oklahoma City

The meaning of the Swastika is interpretive, not set. The symbol itself was used for thousands of years before it was ever adopted by the Nazis. In fact today it is still widely used throughout Asia as a religious symbol and a symbol of good fortune. Which means that if you are a Buddhist, and decide to etch one of your religious symbols in the dirt at a park, you are now a FELON.

Now let's really think about that for a second too. What it really means to be a felon. In essence, you have your rights as a citizen stripped from you for the rest of your life. You can no longer vote, you can no longer own a firearm, you can't get a visa, you can no longer get public assistance, you are barred from Federally funded housing, and your job prospects are certainly narrowed by more than just the fact that you are also barred from holding all sorts of professional licenses. To impose this harsh punishment on a teenager, essentially destroying his life,  for something so trivial is absolutely absurd. Not to mention actually sending him to prison for it, at substantial cost to the taxpayer. Keep in mind here too, we aren't talking about a week in the county jail. This young man stands to spend more than a year in prison if convicted. And for what? Because he unwittingly offended a religious faction?

Granted, he no doubt did it to be irritating and "rebellious" as teenagers are often want to be, but it is quite likely that he had no idea whatsoever that what he was doing was a felony. As I said at the start, most kids today probably don't even fully grasp the meaning behind the Nazified symbol, or the history of what happened. For a mischievous teenager, drawing a swastika is no different than drawing a pentagram or an inverted cross, or the anarchy "A" symbol. Now we might point finger and say "well he should have known better" but that still doesn't make him a criminal, under the principle of mens rea.

Heck, it's not even like the kid used spray paint or even a marker, he used baby oil. A substance that is not permanent and causes no damage. Which now brings up the misdemeanor graffiti charge. He cannot even be found guilty of that, because the penal code states that the person must have intended to cause damage. Baby oil does not cause damage to stone or cement any more than a piece of chalk would.

S 145.60  Making graffiti. 1. For purposes of this section, the term "graffiti" shall mean the etching, painting, covering, drawing upon or otherwise placing of a mark upon public or private property with intent to damage such property.

In essence, what this "swastika law" says, is that even a child playing with chalk on the sidewalk in front of their house, is a felon if they draw an "x" with legs on it. And speaking of "chalking," Federal courts have ruled that this sort of non-damaging graffiti is protected free speech.

After a cost of eighteen days in a cage and a few months of legal threats, there is good news to report on chalking freedom out of Orlando, Florida. The ABA Journal published yesterday that Timothy Osmar, who was twice arrested for chalking at the Orlando city hall plaza, had his rights violated when he was legally kidnapped over protected political speech. US district magistrate David Baker’s ruling deemed the arrest for violation of a city ordinance to be an overreach of a code designed to prevent unauthorized commercial advertising.

Article continues at SOURCE.

So at the end of the day this kid might very well go to prison for offending some Jewish people. Don't we have more serious things to worry about in this country? Isn't imposing an inordinately harsh punishment the real crime here? Again, I am not saying that what he did was proper. I could see imposing a fine, or doing a little bit of community service for a charge of disorderly conduct perhaps, but this is just nuts. You can shout at someone and call them a nigger or a cracker, you can write "fuck the police" in chalk on the steps of city hall, but you better not offend a Jew in New York.

Suspect

Crime Scene

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Just Another Victim

The following article is about a teenager who was shot five times by police for underage drinking. You can read the details of the story in the link below. However, what I really wanted to share here was the introduction that author made, before going into details of the particular case. 

This is a country whose people self-righteously criticize China for its human rights abuses. This is a country where the public has been aghast at Singaporean laws against chewing gum, and its “harsh” penalties for violations of the law. This is a country whose people have propagated rabid fear-mongering against Muslims, on the grounds Islam supports poor treatment of women and arbitrary and severe punishments (and I have argued in the past that American statism is not so unlike radical Islam).

Despite the outward pretense of civility and denunciation of human rights abuses, this is a country whose police murder disabled old people, the mentally ill, and children – and get away with it. It is a country whose government actually defends the police when they yank little girls out of beds and put guns to their heads during mistaken drug raids. This is a country whose police arrest people for feeding the homeless. This is the country with the highest number of prisoners in the entire world, both in sheer numbers and on a per capita basis, even as it constantly claims to be the “freest” place on the planet.

The list goes on and on – you’d think the United States would be hiding its face in shame, rather than claiming to be a beacon of freedom while pointing the “human rights” finger at every other country but itself. While police apologists repeatedly drone the tire bit about it being “a few bad apples” or “isolated incidents” (never mind the fact that the law actually encourages and permits this type of behavior by police), the truth is, it would take more than a whole team of writers to detail and cover the daily atrocities committed by police.

Aaron Rosas’ story is one such atrocity.

Click here for the rest of the article.

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Police Release K-9, Open Fire On Crowd of Women and Children

Absolutely revolting. I suppose these cops were some of those "rare bad apples" we always hear about. Yea right. Wake up America. The police are not there to protect you. They are not your friend.




UPDATE: In the news report there we heard that police tried to buy the videos that people had taken of the pandemonium there. Trying to buy their silence in other words. But why would that be necessary at all if the police action was legal and justified? I am hearing now that this was not actually a rally at all to protest the shooting, but actually a family picnic on private property, where the citizens were discussing holding a rally at some point in the future. This was NOT the protest, according to what I am hearing now. This was just a family picnic where organizing a protest was being discussed. Are the police infiltrating your local neighborhood barbecues with spies now?


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Cops Say It's Good to GPS Track You, Not Them

Police (and other city workers) are outraged by the plan to install GPS tracking devices on all city vehicles in Columbus, Ohio. Firefighters say that the money would be better spent on a new fire-station, but police are screaming that such intrusion will put their lives in danger.

In this Ohio program, the device will allow supervisors to read the vehicle's location, speed, if the check-engine light is on, if it is sitting idle, if the seat-belt is clicked, and more. Many of the same offenses that we citizens are ticketed for on a daily basis, or for which we are otherwise paying for, such as idle time while a cop sleeps in his cruiser behind some warehouse.

Police hypocrisy seems to know no bounds. They have argued all the way up to the Supreme Court that they should be allowed to track your car without a warrant, yet when the technology is turned on them, suddenly is becomes a problem.

Hey cop! "If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to be afraid of!" As they are so fond of telling us all the time while they do a cavity search on your wife in a dark alley.




But let's see what the cops themselves are saying about this. These quotes come from the PoliceOne.com commentary on the story:

>BADPIG6515 -  ... but my biggest problem with GPS in every car it that it becomes public record. Hello discovery motion from every defendant's attorney that you will ever deal wit.

In other words, cops don't want YOU, the defendant, to have access to pertinent evidence for your defense. Too bad, gone are the days that a cop can sleep with a whore then turn around and arrest her for prostitution, or sit at a bar drinking all night before he arrests you for DWI. Would be nice if they could install a device to see if that cop who just crashed into you was on the telephone (even though they are already exempt in most states anyway, because, you know, cops brains are better then yours and they can talk on the phone while driving better than you.)

txconner - we were told our GPS were installed for "officer safety" reasons. Hahahaha. 

In other words, even the cops themselves know that their own Gestapo tactics have nothing to do with "your safety."

maddog103 -  This will do wonders for morale!

Shiny happy people maddog, shiny happy people. 

sekeraksm -  You can not lead by fear or micro manage. Just another nail in that "im too afraid to do anything" coffin. City leaders and micro managers, have fun with employee moral and dont complain when no one wants to do anything but punch a clock and collect their check.

And why is it that police are so closed-minded to their own beat, to see that this also applies on a national level. It's no wonder why the people have given up and this nation has gone to hell in a hand cart. A cop IS A MICRO-MANAGER who works for the city leaders micro-managing the lives of serfs who were once called citizens.

Don't complain about the very system you uphold at gunpoint, Mr Officer.

Now here is where I go off the rails with my "I hate pigs" fan-base. I totally disagree with this measure by the Columbus town fathers. Never have I seen two wrongs make a right. If it is wrong against the people, it is wrong for the police (and public sector.) Forget about the integrity of undercover operations, the piles of paperwork, it all comes down to one simple fact. This is a violation of the Constitution. The same rule applies to we the people as it does to cops of the Fourth Reich. Let us reclaim our rights, let us reclaim liberty. Let the cops lead way! Police, we need you to help us!!! Wake up!!! The oppression is now at your doorstep. Will you do something about it?

The three aims of the tyrant are, one, the humiliation of his subjects; he knows that a mean-spirited man will not conspire against anybody; two, the creation of mistrust among them; for a tyrant is not to be overthrown until men begin to have confidence in one another -- and this is the reason why tyrants are at war with the good; they are under the idea that their power is endangered by them, not only because they will not be ruled despotically, but also because they are too loyal to one another and to other men, and do not inform against one another or against other men -- three, the tyrant desires that all his subjects shall be incapable of action, for no one attempts what is impossible and they will not attempt to overthrow a tyranny if they are powerless. ~Aristotle

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When Should You Shoot a Cop?

That question, even without an answer, makes most “law-abiding taxpayers” go into knee-jerk conniptions. The indoctrinated masses all race to see who can be first, and loudest, to proclaim that it is NEVER okay to forcibly resist “law enforcement.” In doing so, they also inadvertently demonstrate why so much of human history has been plagued by tyranny and oppression.

In an ideal world, cops would do nothing except protect people from thieves and attackers, in which case shooting a cop would never be justified. In the real world, however, far more injustice, violence, torture, theft, and outright murder has been committed IN THE NAME of “law enforcement,” than has been committed in spite of it. To get a little perspective, try watching a documentary or two about some of the atrocities committed by the regimes of Stalin, or Lenin, or Chairman Mao, or Hitler, or Pol Pot, or any number of other tyrants in history. Pause the film when the jackboots are about to herd innocent people into cattle cars, or gun them down as they stand on the edge of a ditch, and THEN ask yourself the question, “When should you shoot a cop?” Keep in mind, the evils of those regimes were committed in the name of “law enforcement.” And as much as the statement may make people cringe, the history of the human race would have been a lot LESS gruesome if there had been a lot MORE “cop-killers” around to deal with the state mercenaries of those regimes.

Article continues at link: http://www.copblock.org/5475/when-should-you-shoot-a-cop/

A video from the author:




Related info:

Indiana Governor Signs Law Allowing Residents to Resist Illegal Police Searches



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