California Water Wars: Another Form of Asset Stripping?

California Water Wars: Another Form of Asset Stripping? 03/25/2015

In California's epic drought, wars over water rights continue, while innovative alternatives for increasing the available water supply go untapped.

Wars over California's limited water supply have been going on for at least a century. Water wars have been the subject of some vintage movies, including the 1958 hit The Big Country starring Gregory Peck, Clint Eastwood's 1985 Pale Rider, 1995's Waterworld with Kevin Costner, and the 2005 film Batman Begins. Most acclaimed was the 1975 Academy Award winner Chinatown with Jack Nicholson and Faye Dunaway, involving a plot between a corrupt Los Angeles politician and land speculators to fabricate the 1937 drought in order to force farmers to sell their land at low prices. The plot was rooted in historical fact, reflecting battles between Owens Valley farmers and Los Angeles urbanites over water rights.

Today the water wars continue on a larger scale with new players. It's no longer just the farmers against the ranchers or the urbanites. It's the people against the new "water barons" -- Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Monsanto, the Bush family, and their ilk -- who are buying up water all over the world at an unprecedented pace. Complete article

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A Warning to Our Nation’s Police

A Warning to Our Nation’s Police

Many of you know that I am a person who has put a number of years into the discipline of policing a free society — and I do say “discipline” because policing consists of the multiple disciplines of psychology, sociology, law, emergency medicine, rhetoric, martial arts, history, education, and philosophy (and a few other as well).

And since my retirement, I have been watching, analyzing, writing, and listening to and about police matters. I have recently come to a conclusion about what is going on and a prediction for the future — deep-down, I do hope I am wrong!

Since Ferguson, I have felt a sense of urgency in the nation — and I know that when I write and talk about that urgency has rubbed many of you the wrong way. Agitated or not, police need to look outside themselves and into the cities and communities they serve.

Here’s what I think is going on…

The future of American policing today rests on how well and how quickly its police can regain the trust and support of poor people and people of color.

Trust and support are essential in order to fairly and effectively police a multi-cultural, free society like America.

Without that trust and support, policing will have to use fear, force, and repression to maintain a semblance public order, not the consent and support of the people themselves. Complete article

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Philadelphia’s Killer Cops Prove the Necessity of Black Community Control of Police

Philadelphia’s Killer Cops Prove the Necessity of Black Community Control of Police 03/25/2015

In response to the Black Lives Matter movement, the U.S. Justice Department has attempted to position itself on the side of “reform.” Its new report on the Philadelphia police is one example. However, their version of reform is designed to perfect the system of mass Black incarceration, and to derail the movement. “It is critical that the movement put forward its own proposals that would fundamentally alter the power relationships between the police and the Black community.”

“Integrated city halls and diversity in police hiring have not altered the core police mission in Philadelphia or anywhere else in the United States.”

The Black experience in Philadelphia shows, definitively, that conventional assumptions undergirding “reform” of policing have no basis in the racial realities of the United States. Over the past eight years, Philadelphia cops shot at “suspects” 390 times, a rate of once a week, killing 65 of them. Fifty-nine of the human targets were unarmed and 80 percent of them were Black, according to a newly-released report by the U.S. Justice Department.

Philadelphia cops are five times more likely than New York City police to use deadly force against citizens. Despite having agreed four years ago to federal court monitoring of its stop-and-frisk policies, Philly cops made 200,000 such stops last year – about twice as high as the rate recorded in New York before that city’s program was officially halted. Ninety percent of those frisked in Philadelphia are minorities. Yet, the majority Black and brown city boasts a Black district attorney, a Black police commissioner and a 35 percent Black police force, and has had a mayor-appointed Police Advisory Commission since 1993. (Its first such board was set up in 1958.) Complete article

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Beating Trial of LAPD Officer Begun, Then Delayed By “Peace Officer's Bill of Rights”

Beating Trial of LAPD Officer Begun, Then Delayed By “Peace Officer's Bill of Rights”

The case of People v. Mary O’Callaghan began in a Los Angeles courtroom last Wed., Feb. 25, but was halted and delayed till April 2 as the court moved to hear new evidence in the case. Approximately 50-60 perspective jurors who had been sworn in were dismissed.

Mary O’Callaghan is the LAPD officer who kicked/stomped 33-year old Alesia Thomas seven times in the groin/vaginal area in July of 2012. She was charged with Abuse Under Color of Authority by the L.A. County District Attorney’s office after a recommendation from an internal LAPD hearing. If convicted O’Callaghan could face a maximum of one year in county jail and/or a fine of $10,000 if convicted.

At issue appears to be statements made by an unidentified police officer to O’Callaghan on the night Alesia Thomas was arrested: that the officer told O’Callaghan to “stop it; cut it out.” Complete article

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Eight Great Reads at the Journal of 9/11 Studies

Eight Great Reads at the Journal of 9/11 Studies 03/22/2015

This summer will mark the ninth anniversary of the Journal of 9/11 Studies. In that time, my co-editors and I have published over 150 peer-reviewed articles and letters addressing various aspects of the 9/11 crimes. Although it can be hard, thankless work, the job of co-editor has also been rewarding and I’ve learned a great deal. Complete article

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Police: No More Excuses

Police: No More Excuses 03/21/2015

To Our Nation’s Police:

What are you going to do?

When are you going to do it?

Two important questions for them to answer as we go beyond our nation’s Fergusons.

Having been a member of the police for many years, and now a writer and commentator, I am intrigued by these questions. How will our police answer? Will Ferguson be their new norm? This would not be an unusual as “hunkering down,” protecting the status quo, and castigating detractors is what many police have done for decades when faced with change. And when the fire wains and the smoke settles, nothing has changed. Complete article

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Police Frame Innocent People

Police Frame Innocent People 03/18/2015

Police have been busted framing innocent people in numerous ways. For example:

A British judge found that British police framed four innocent men of carrying out an IRA bombing

Judges in India say that police in Dehli “tampered with and fabricated” evidence against many innocent people

A New York police investigation supervisor for criminal investigations in seven counties admits that he and another lieutenant faked fingerprint evidence so often that the New York Times called it an “almost routine fabrication of evidence in criminal case” Complete article

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Presidents, Prime Ministers, Congressmen, Generals, Spooks, Soldiers and Police ADMIT to False Flag Terror

Presidents, Prime Ministers, Congressmen, Generals, Spooks, Soldiers and Police ADMIT to False Flag Terror 03/18/2015

There are many documented false flag attacks, where a government carries out a terror attack … and then falsely blames its enemy for political purposes.

In the following instances, officials in the government which carried out the attack (or seriously proposed an attack) admit to it, either orally or in writing:

(1) Japanese troops set off a small explosion on a train track in 1931, and falsely blamed it on China in order to justify an invasion of Manchuria. This is known as the “Mukden Incident” or the “Manchurian Incident”. The Tokyo International Military Tribunal found: “Several of the participators in the plan, including Hashimoto [a high-ranking Japanese army officer], have on various occasions admitted their part in the plot and have stated that the object of the ‘Incident’ was to afford an excuse for the occupation of Manchuria by the Kwantung Army ….” And see this. Complete article

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US Refuses To Seriously Tackle Police Brutality and Racism

US Refuses To Seriously Tackle Police Brutality and Racism 03/16/2015

The report released in early March by a panel President Obama appointed to examine serious shortcomings in police practices across America, including the shooting of unarmed people, mostly non-white, listed problems and proposed solutions that are hauntingly similar to those found in a report on police abuses released 47 years ago by another presidential panel.

The March 1968 report of the presidential panel popularly known as the Kerner Commission noted with dismay that many minorities nationwide regarded police as “an occupying force” – a presence that generated fear not feelings of security.

The March 2015 report from President Obama’s panel made a similar finding, noting that perceptions of police as an “occupying force coming in from the outside to rule and control the community” had sabotaged the ability of law enforcement to build trust in many communities. Complete article

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Germany Files War Crimes Against Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld And Other CIA Officials

Germany Files War Crimes Against Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld And Other CIA Officials 12/21/2014

If President Obama won’t do it, someone else will. Thankfully, a human rights group in Berlin, The European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights, has begun the process of indicting members of the Bush Administration by filing criminal complaints against the architects of the Admin’s torture program.

Calls for an immediate investigation by the German human rights group was started after outrage ensued on the case of a German citizen, Khalid El-Masri, who had been captured by CIA agents in 2004 because of a mistaken identity mix-up and was tortured at a secret prison in Afghanistan. Complete article

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Margaret Thatcher turned a blind eye to politicians raping children—and the cover-up continues under David Cameron

Margaret Thatcher turned a blind eye to politicians raping children—and the cover-up continues under David Cameron 03/08/2015

Former prime minister Margaret Thatcher knew about politicians sexually abusing children - but failed to act against them, an MP has told Sky News.

Simon Danczuk, who exposed Sir Cyril Smith as a prolific child abuser, said: "There is no doubt about it now, from what we know, that she turned a blind eye to people who were quite clearly paedophiles. That is absolutely clear.

"It is a real stain on Margaret Thatcher's legacy and I don't get any pleasure from saying that, but she turned a blind eye to it." Complete article

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Florida bans use of “climate change” and/or “global warming” by state officials

Florida bans use of “climate change” and/or “global warming” by state officials 03/10/2015

The state of Florida is the region most susceptible to the effects of global warming in this country, according to scientists. Sea-level rise alone threatens 30 percent of the state’s beaches over the next 85 years.

But you would not know that by talking to officials at the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, the state agency on the front lines of studying and planning for these changes.

DEP officials have been ordered not to use the term “climate change” or “global warming” in any official communications, emails, or reports, according to former DEP employees, consultants, volunteers and records obtained by the Florida Center for Investigative Reporting.

Complete article

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US government has LIED AND LIED about GMOs, new book reveals

US government has LIED AND LIED about GMOs, new book reveals

In an acclaimed new book being launched Wednesday in London, American public interest attorney Steven Druker reveals how the US government and leading scientific institutions have systematically misrepresented the facts about GMOs and the scientific research that casts doubt on their safety.

The book, Altered Genes, Twisted Truth, features a foreword by the renowned primatologist Dame Jane Goodall, hailing it as “without doubt one of the most important books of the last 50 years”. Complete article

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What’s Happening in Madison?

What’s Happening in Madison? 03/10/2015

From this morning’s Wisconsin State Journal:

“Students from throughout Madison left school and took their rage, sorrow and demands to the city’s power centers on Monday, rocking the state Capitol rotunda with chants of ‘Justice for Tony’ then demanding a meeting with Mayor Paul Soglin and Police Chief Mike Koval while massed outside the City-County Building.

“In loud, well-choreographed voices, they vowed to press public officials and police for consequences in the death last Friday night of Tony Robinson, an unarmed 19-year-old shot by a police officer after an altercation on the Near East Side. Complete article

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Federal Study: US Gov (police) Killing apprx. 1,000 of its Own People Per Year

Federal Study: US Gov (police) Killing apprx. 1,000 of its Own People Per Year 03/10/2015

The federal Bureau of Justice Statistics reports that, on average, US police piled up the bodies of 928 US citizens per year between 2003-2009 and 2011.

And Tom Hall notes: “A list compiled on the website Killed by Police of every police killing mentioned in the American media includes more than 2,000 deaths since May 2013.”

Killings by police in the US “reached a record high last year [461 was the number thought to be a record before the new study was published], while the number of officers killed in the line of duty fell to its lowest level in decades [27].” (By comparison, police in the UK, Germany, Japan, and Australia killed under ten people each, and some years kill none.) Complete article

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Cheney: 'No problem' with detaining innocents

Cheney: 'No problem' with detaining innocents 12/15/2014

Former US Vice-President Dick Cheney made no apologies on Sunday for the US interrogation programme that he helped devise after the 9/11 attacks and expressed no regrets for any innocents who may have been harmed in the process.

Mr Cheney had said in an interview last week on Fox News that he considers the now-released summary of the Senate report on interrogation of suspected al-Qaeda militants to be "full of crap" and that the programme was "fundamentally justified".

Critics who hoped the former vice-president would receive more pointed questions in a Sunday appearance on NBC's Meet the Press weren't disappointed, but Mr Cheney didn't back down from his defence of his actions. He said Bush administration policies have kept the US safe for 13 years, repeatedly referencing the horrors of the 9/11 attacks to justify his actions. Complete article

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