May 29, 2013

‘Trigger-happy’ cops shoot 72-year-old Texas man dead inside his own garage

The officers in this case who shot the 72-year-old man were relative rookies. The man they shot was armed with a handgun, which the officers claim they told him to drop, and then (they claim) that since he didn't immediately drop the gun, they felt obliged to immediately gunned him down with 6 rounds. The cops were "just following policies and procedures" they claim.

I have two reactions to this:
1) How many of these cases, where citizens are on their own property minding their own lawful business, when police show up and all of a sudden someone gets murdered on their own property for no fucking reason. This happened to an elderly black man in NY 9-10 months ago, where the police came on a "welfare check", the homeowner told officers he was fine (through the closed door) and that the cops could leave now; but instead the cops break down his door and murder him in cold blood. This case in Texas is different in some obvious ways, yet it is also the same in too many ways for my comfort.

2) To all you gun-owners out there, this should be a warning that cops most likely WILL assume that any Joe Blow carrying a gun (even on their own property) is a "threat" to their safety, and will shoot and ask questions later. One more reason I DON"T own a gun, so as to not provoke a cop (or anyone else) to kill me because they're afraid I'm going to shoot them, because I "have a gun".

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‘Trigger-happy’ cops shoot 72-year-old Texas man dead inside his own garage
By Arturo Garcia * Raw Story
Wednesday, May 29, 2013 12:12 EDT

The widow of a 72-year-old Texas man is searching for answers after Fort Worth police shot and killed him on Tuesday while responding to a burglary call involving a house across the street.

“Married 46 years, and, you know, somebody gets a little trigger-happy and away they go,” Kathy Waller said to WFAA-TV on Tuesday after her husband, Jerry Waller, was shot inside the couple’s garage.

Kathy Waller told KHOU the couple noticed police in their Fort Worth neighborhood just after 1 a.m. Tuesday morning. Her husband grabbed his .38-caliber handgun and went downstairs to see what was happening. She said to the station she heard six gunshots afer he opened the garage door.

The Dallas News reported on Tuesday that authorities said in a statement that the two officers were “engaged by an adult male armed with a handgun” and shot him in fear for their safety. Jerry Waller was pronounced dead at the scene.

“I was told by an officer he wouldn’t put his gun down,” former city council member Becky Haskin told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. Haskin lives in the same neighborhood as the victim.

The Star-Telegram also reported that the two unidentified officers involved in the shooting have been with the department for less than a year. They have both been placed on administrative leave. A department spokesperson, Cpl. Tracey Knight, also promised to conduct a transparent investigation of the shooting while explaining the officers’ presence in the Wallers’ home.

“Policies and procedures were followed,” Knight told the Star-Telegram. “Officers are taught when they go to a call to survey the entire landscape and not just the small area of where the call is.”

MORE: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/05/29/trigger-happy-cops-shoot-72-year-old-texas-man-dead-inside-his-own-garage/

May 29, 2013

What Am I Missing Re: the IRS "Scandal"?

I still cannot for the life of me understand how it is that the IRS is SO GUILTY
of "targeting" conservative groups, when those very groups WERE ACTUALLY
BREAKING THE LAW, i.e. they were clearly, often blatantly, operating way outside
the statutory limitations of that tax status as a 501c4.

The only "crime" the IRS workers committed was doing their fucking job, paying
special attention to "profiling" which kinds of groups operate in most blatant dis-
regard for the law, in order to illumine the scope of the "problem". Isn't this
part of being a "professional" revenuer? ... you look first at the most obvious
cases, the most blatant violations, and they just happened to be the Tea Party
and KKKarl Rove and their ilk that stood out as just that: the most obvious
cases of blatant disregard for tax laws, laws it is the IRS's duty to enforce, with
a gun as necessary.

Can anyone explain to me why this IRS thing is getting even one inch of traction?

Maybe I really did miss something, mostly because I have only followed this from
afar so far, and am simply curious if there really is something these IRS employees
did that was improper. Looks to me like they were just doing
their job, ironically enough.

BTW - Oh, I get that the .01%-owned M$M is echo-chambering their marching orders
on cue. I get that. Which I guess is my point, if I have one, is that this whole charade
is becoming so painfully obvious, is why more heads aren't exploding?

or ...maybe they are.

May 29, 2013

Two U.S. embassy personnel shot at Venezuelan strip club

Anyone care to speculate as to exactly which "other agency" these two wounded US government employees might be getting their paycheck from? [and/or] Any wild guesses as to exactly what their "duties" might have been? i.e. did their duties included "destabilizing" the Post-Chavez Venezualen government? Why all the secrecy and anonamous sources"?
I think I smell a rat.

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Two U.S. embassy personnel shot at Venezuelan strip club
By Agence France-Presse - Raw Story dot com
Tuesday, May 28, 2013 18:42 EDT

Two employees of the US embassy in Venezuela were shot and wounded early Tuesday in the capital Caracas, in a murky incident that local media and a police source said took place at a strip club. “We can confirm that two members of the US embassy in Caracas were injured during an incident early this morning,” State Department spokesman Patrick Ventrell told reporters in Washington.

“Medical staff inform us that their injuries are not life-threatening,” he added, noting that they were hurt at “some sort of a social spot” but without specifying the venue or nature of their injuries. US diplomatic sources later confirmed to AFP that the two men were shot.

The Venezuelan media identified the two men as Roberto Ezequiel Rosas and Paul Marwin, and said they were military attaches at the embassy, but neither the State Department nor the embassy in Caracas would confirm those reports. “My understanding is that they are other agency personnel, not from the State Department,” Ventrell said.

Venezuelan television channel Globovision reported on its website that the incident took place at the Antonella bar located in a shopping center in the Chacao district of Caracas, after an altercation with other bar patrons.

Bar staff told AFP on condition of anonymity that the venue is indeed a strip club that only admits men over the age of 30, but refused to say anything about the alleged incident involving the US embassy personnel. A district policeman, who also spoke to AFP on condition of anonymity, said a shooting incident had been reported just outside the Antonella bar, involving three Americans.In the entryway of the club, there are photos of female strippers.

Venezuela has the highest murder rate in South America with 54 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants. In the first quarter of 2013 alone, there were 3,400 murders, according to government statistics.

Several diplomats have been assaulted in recent months in the country.The United States and Venezuela, which have had no ambassadors since 2010, have had strained relations since Caracas accused Washington of backing a coup that briefly ousted the late Hugo Chavez in 2002.

President Nicolas Maduro, Chavez’s former vice president, has maintained a confrontational stance with the US government since his election on April 14, calling President Barack Obama the “grand chief of devils.” Foreign Minister Elias Jaua, however, said two weeks ago that the new government was prepared to normalize relations with the United States, beginning with a return of Venezuela’s ambassador to Washington.

Despite the tensions, Venezuela sells the United States 900,000 barrels of oil a day.

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/05/28/two-u-s-embassy-personnel-shot-in-venezuela/

May 28, 2013

John McCain is not the only one overdue to retire

Pat Robertson threatens ‘nasty’ progressive group with ‘full-scale exposé’
By Stephen C. Webster
Tuesday, May 28, 2013 15:00 EDT

Television preacher and one-time Republican presidential candidate Pat Robertson warned on his “700 Club” show Tuesday that he’s inclined to run a “full-scale exposé” on a web publication that he refused to identify, calling them a “nasty group” that focuses on “embarrassing conservatives” who appear on television.

There are only two groups he could be talking about: Media Matters and Right Wing Watch, both of which specialize in video clips of conservatives saying untrue, insensitive or otherwise appalling things. Given his status as America’s premiere television soothsayer, Robertson’s show is a frequent stop for both groups, but only one of them recently caused a stir at Robertson’s network.

Right Wing Watch, a project of People for the American Way (PFAW), recently clipped Robertson saying something not so original for him, but always alarming when he repeats it. On a recent episode, he told a female viewer that her husband had an affair because she had not done enough to keep his attention, adding that she should focus on all the nice things he does for her instead, like letting her live in his house or giving her food and clothing.

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/05/28/pat-robertson-threatens-nasty-progressive-group-with-full-scale-expose/

May 20, 2013

FBI Data: One arrest every 42 seconds for possession of the Evil Weed

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

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

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

May 20, 2013

The Jury has reached a verdict: Obama is Guilty!!

Guilty of "Presidenting while Black"

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

May 20, 2013

Assange reveals GCHQ messages discussing Swedish extradition

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

May 15, 2013

"You want to film something bitch? Film this!" .. said the cop

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

May 15, 2013

Reading between the lines of Obama's over-night "firestorm" of "scandals"

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

Am I the only one who suspects such a thing?