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Scottsdale - F*ck that silly First Amendment thingy. It doesn't apply to us. We are royal government rulers. Well at least that's how the city of Scottsdale seems to feel about the issue. http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/scottsdale/2014/10/13/scottsdale-appeal-sign-walker-ruling/17195911/ Scottsdale to appeal sign-walker ruling Edward Gately, The Republic | azcentral.com 10:53 a.m. MST October 13, 2014 Scottsdale isn't giving up its fight to prohibit sign-walkers from sidewalks and street corners, contrary to what state law allows. Last week, the City Council authorized City Attorney Bruce Washburn to appeal a Maricopa County Superior Court judge's ruling that the city must abide by a new state law allowing sign-walkers on public property and in public rights of way. Vice Mayor Guy Phillips was the only council member who voted no. He previously suggested the city establish a permit for sign-walkers to operate in the public right-of-way that would include numerous provisions, such as requiring them to be employed by legitimate businesses, stay away from medians and not throwing their signs in the air. "I don't see any reason why we should pursue this and spend any taxpayer money on it," he said. "I understand the rest of the council's position, we are a charter city and should be able to make our own rules and laws, but some things you just have to go along with the state." In late August, Judge Robert Oberbillig issued his ruling after the Arizona Attorney General's Office and Washburn each submitted motions for the court to bring an end to the case in their favor. A city ordinance restricts sign-walkers to private property, preventing them from standing close to traffic on sidewalks. The revised state law, which took effect in July, requires cities to allow the sign-walkers on public property and public rights of way. In May, Washburn filed a complaint seeking a judgment declaring that the state law constitutionally cannot be applied to the city because of its status as an Arizona city governed by its own charter. Charter status allows the city to set rules for managing its streets and sidewalks, among other things, the city argued. The larger issue, however, involved how far the state can go in imposing rules on charter cities. "The court has not entered a final judgment yet, although I anticipate its doing so in the near future," Washburn said. "Once it does the city will file a notice of appeal and the case will then be before the Arizona Court of Appeals." Once briefs have been filed by Washburn, the Attorney General's Office and Jim Torgeson, owner of Mesa-based Sign King of Arizona, who is an intervenor in the case, the court will determine if it will hear oral arguments. The Court of Appeals then will issue either a memorandum decision or an opinion deciding the matter, Washburn said. "Essentially the city will be stating that it disagrees with the trial court's application of the law to the facts in this case and asking that the Court of Appeals reverse the judgment of the trial court," he said.
Buckeye cop threats to kill Teodulo Sanchez, a Mexican living in Mesa.Buckeye cop threats to kill Teodulo Sanchez, a Mexican living in Mesa. "If you do something, here I kill you ... You understand me?"I think this is what the cop said in Spanish "Si haces algo, te mato. ¿Entiendes?"Here is the link to the You Tube video.
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Buckeye PD: Officer safety prompted threat to kill driver Matthew Casey, The Republic | azcentral.com 3:04 p.m. MST October 13, 2014 Buckeye police said safety concerns prompted an officer to threaten to kill a driver during a Friday afternoon traffic stop. Buckeye police officials said an officer was concerned for officer safety when he threatened to kill a 30-year-old Mesa man during a traffic stop Friday afternoon in the southwest Valley. Police said Monday that the officer, who was not identified, made a poor choice of words when the officer threatened to kill the driver if he did not comply with commands. Police have opened an administrative inquiry into the stop and the officer's actions, said Buckeye Police Chief Larry Hall. The driver of the stopped vehicle, Teodulo Sanchez, recorded the incident. The video, which is one minute and 14 seconds long, does not show the officer's face and Buckeye police did not identify the officer. Administrators said the officer had been with Buckeye Police for about a year and had prior service with another agency. Hall met with Sanchez and his family on Monday and promised to review the entire incident. In the video, the officer asks Sanchez's name and whether he had weapons in the car. Sanchez is given commands in English and Spanish to show his hands, turn the car off, show the officer his keys and produce his driver's license. "If you do something, here I kill you," the officer's voice says in Spanish. "You understand me?" Sanchez disobeyed the officer's command to not move his hands, Buckeye police spokesman Sgt. Jason Weeks said. At one point, Sanchez moved his left hand out of the officer's sight, but it was movement toward the Honda's center console that prompted the verbal threat. Sanchez, originally from Durango, Mexico, said he was returning to the Valley from Yuma where he has worked as a plumber at a military base for the past year. "I felt he was going to shoot me," Sanchez said in Spanish. Police initiated the stop on State Route 85 after receiving a law-enforcement report that Sanchez's Honda Civic may have been carrying drugs and the driver was possibly armed, Weeks said. The officer's safety concerns grew, Weeks said, as the officer approached the car and Sanchez did not obey repeated commands to lower the Honda's windows and turn off of the car, Weeks said. Sanchez has a criminal history and is free on bond with a pending immigration-status hearing, according to Buckeye police. Police searched Sanchez's vehicle for drugs and weapons, found none and released him, Weeks said. Sanchez said the incident happened between 12:30 p.m. and 1 p.m. Friday.
Why the f*ck is the city of Phoenix building the LARGEST apartment building in Arizona???? I thought the purpose of city governments was to provide services like water, sewer, trash, libraries and police for the residents of a city. Not run a Soviet style planned economy where government nannies have their hands in every facet of our lives. If you ask me it sounds like a government welfare program to get customers and business for the existing businesses in downtown Phoenix: "Attracting more residents, officials said, is the next step toward attracting new amenities and keeping downtown's restaurants, bars and shops in business." A couple of years back I believe the city of Phoenix also built and financed the largest hotel in Arizona for the Sheraton Hotel corporation. I suspect that was corporate welfare for the Sheraton Hotel corporation in exchange for bribes, oops, I mean campaign contributions. I also suspect that project cut into the profits of some of the existing hotels in Phoenix and may have driven a of the smaller hotels out of business. You know the other tax paying hotels the city of Phoenix pretends to serve. Chicago developer to build Phoenix's tallest residential high-rise The Republic Dustin Gardiner, The Republic | azcentral.com 9:01 a.m. MST October 13, 2014 Phoenix has selected a Chicago developer to build the city's largest and tallest residential high-rise in downtown, a 34-story glass tower that will change the city's skyline. Plans for the massive development, known as Phoenix Central Station, include about 475 apartments, 30,000 square feet of commercial space and a dog park. It will meld those uses with a bustling transit hub already on the site at 300 N. Central Avenue. Smith Partners LLC is expected to begin construction on the $82 million development by August 2015 and open its doors in 2017. Phoenix leaders said Central Station will bolster the cultural and economic renaissance underway in the downtown core. The area has transformed in recent years as the city has invested heavily in a light-rail system and incentives to lure large developments. Attracting more residents, officials said, is the next step toward attracting new amenities and keeping downtown's restaurants, bars and shops in business. David Krietor, CEO of the marketing and planning group Downtown Phoenix Inc., said the Central Station project has the potential to create an entirely new neighborhood within downtown, bringing more than 600 people to a lot that currently serves a limited purpose as a bus and light-rail stop. "We really are beginning to develop an extremely vibrant place whose economic success, I think, is helping the rest of the city," Krietor said. Phoenix owns the land and wanted a project that would integrate with the site's light-rail stations and create a urban environment friendly to residents, shoppers, pedestrians and bicyclists. Councilwoman Kate Gallego, whose district includes parts of downtown, has emphasized the need to make the project walkable and appealing at the street level by including space for recreation and work areas for budding entrepreneurs. "Some of the buildings we've built in our downtown have a more suburban feel," she said. "The more you can design the major street spaces to be attractive to pedestrians, the more vibrant it will feel, the more we'll get that active downtown feel that people are beginning to celebrate." Deputy Economic Developer Scott Sumners said Smith Partners, which submitted the winning bid, has constructed nine similar high-rise projects in the Chicago area. Potential rental rates in the tower, which will have luxury amenities, will be $800 for a studio apartment, $1,100 for a one-bedroom apartment and $1,600 for two-bedroom units, according to the proposal. Phoenix leaders voted 6-2 to approve the terms of a development agreement earlier this month. The deal includes an incentive package that city officials said is necessary to attract downtown development on this scale. As part of the deal, Phoenix will give Smith Partners a controversial tax-abatement incentive called a "government property lease excise tax," or GPLET. The agreement allows the developer to avoid paying certain taxes because the city will keep title over the building and grant the developer an exclusive right to lease the property back from the city. The arrangement allows Smith Partners to not pay property taxes for 25 years; a city official estimated property taxes would be $600,000 to $900,000 per year based on conversations with the developer. However, the developer will make smaller lease payments back to the city and, after eight years, pay different taxes on those lease payments. Councilmen Jim Waring and Sal DiCiccio voted against the project, saying they oppose the use of GPLETs. Critics say the incentive shifts the tax burden onto small businesses and homeowners. "It's nothing about this project; I've just always been opposed to this method of financing," Waring said. Supporters say GPLETs are one of the few tools cities have to promote economic development. Overall, the city expects the project will generate more than $32 million in revenue over the first 25 years. The value of its incentives to the developer will be roughly $18 million to $25 million, depending on the GPLET estimated value. "Land that currently generates zero revenue will turn into a commercial and residential high-rise and transit hub," Mayor Greg Stanton said. --- Phoenix may not be New York or LA when it comes to notoriety for its skyline but there are still some pretty tall buildings in the city worth celebrating on Skyscraper Appreciation Day on Aug. 10. The world-record-holding, 2,722 foot-tall Burj Khalifa building in Dubai, United Arab Emirates is five times as tall as Phoenix's largest building. no. 10 Bank of America (Collier Center) Bank of America (Collier Center) Location: 201 E. Washington St. Opened: 2001. Height: 360 feet, 23 floors. What's in there: It is the regional headquarters for Bank of America. no. 9 Phoenix City Hall Location: 200 W. Washington Street Opened: 1994. Height: 368 feet, 20 floors. What's in there: City offices, including mayor and council members. No. 8 The CityScape Phoenix Office Tower Location: 1 E. Washington St. Opened: 2010. Height: 370 feet, 27 floors. What's in there: It houses Jos A. Bank, Charming Charlie, V's Barber Shop, Potbelly Sandwich Shop, Fuego CityScape and Yogurt Time. no. 6 (tie) Wells Fargo Plaza Location: 100 W. Washington Street. Opened: 1971. Height: 372 feet, 27 floors. What's in there: Wells Fargo bank main office in Phoenix. Former names inlcude First National Bank Plaza and First Interstate Bank Building. no. 6 (tie) Two Renaissance Square Location: 40 N. Central Ave. Opened: 1990. Height: 372 feet, 28 floors. What's in there: Office space. No. 5 Viad Tower (Viad Corporate Center and Dial Tower) Location: 1850 N. Central Ave. Opened: 1991. Height: 374 feet, 24 floors. What's in there: Restaurants and offices. no. 4 44 Monroe Location: 44 W. Monroe St. Opened: 2008. Height: 380 feet, 34 floors. What's in there: This is Phoenix's tallest residential building. no. 3 CenturyLink Location: 20 E. Thomas Road. Opened:1989. Height: 397 feet, 25 floors. What's in there: The business center houses banks, law offices, communication companies and other offices. The building is outside of downtown Phoenix. Its other names include US West Tower, Phoenix Plaza and Qwest Tower. no. 2 US Bank Center Phoenix Location: 101 N. First Ave. Opened: 1976. Height: 407 feet, 31 floors. What's in there: The tower houses a commercial banking center, private banking and retail banking. no. 1 Chase Tower Location: 201 N. Central Ave. Opened: 1972. Height: 483 feet, 40 floors. What's in there: The tower houses JP Morgan Chase Bank, private businesses, law firms and the Phoenix Chamber of Commerce. Its previous names include Valley National Bank, Bank One Center and Valley Bank Center.
Probe of silencers leads to web of Pentagon secrets I guess the bottom line is you can't trust our government masters to obey the same laws we are expected to obey. Probe of silencers leads to web of Pentagon secrets By Craig Whitlock October 12 at 7:30 PM The mysterious workings of a Pentagon office that oversees clandestine operations are unraveling in federal court, where a criminal investigation has exposed a secret weapons program entwined with allegations of a sweetheart contract, fake badges and trails of destroyed evidence. Capping an investigation that began almost two years ago, separate trials are scheduled this month in U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Va., for a civilian Navy intelligence official and a hot-rod auto mechanic from California who prosecutors allege conspired to manufacture an untraceable batch of automatic-rifle silencers. The exact purpose of the silencers remains hazy, but court filings and pretrial testimony suggest they were part of a top-secret operation that would help arm guerrillas or commandos overseas. The silencers — 349 of them — were ordered by a little-known Navy intelligence office at the Pentagon known as the Directorate for Plans, Policy, Oversight and Integration, according to charging documents. The directorate is composed of fewer than 10 civilian employees, most of them retired military personnel. Court records filed by prosecutors allege that the Navy paid the auto mechanic — the brother of the directorate’s boss — $1.6 million for the silencers, even though they cost only $10,000 in parts and labor to manufacture. Much of the documentation in the investigation has been filed under seal on national security grounds. According to the records that have been made public, the crux of the case is whether the silencers were properly purchased for an authorized secret mission or were assembled for a rogue operation. A former senior Navy official familiar with the investigation described directorate officials as “wanna-be spook-cops.” Speaking on the condition of anonymity because the case is still unfolding, he added, “I know it sounds goofy, but it was like they were building their own mini law enforcement and intelligence agency.” The directorate is a civilian-run office that is supposed to provide back-office support and oversight for Navy and Marine intelligence operations. But some of its activities have fallen into a gray area, crossing into more active involvement with secret missions, according to a former senior Defense Department official familiar with the directorate’s work. “By design, that office is supposed to do a little more than policy and programmatic oversight,” the former defense official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because much of the directorate’s work is classified. “But something happened and it lost its way. It became a case of the fox guarding the henhouse, and I suspect deeper issues might be in play.” Navy officials declined to comment, citing the ongoing investigation and prosecution. “The Department of the Navy has fully cooperated with law enforcement since this investigation was initiated . . . and will continue to fully cooperate,” Cmdr. Ryan Perry, a Navy spokesman at the Pentagon, said. Missing evidence Prosecutors have said that the silencers were acquired for a “special access program,” or a highly secretive military operation. A contracting document filed with the court stated that the silencers were needed to support a program code-named UPSTAIRS but gave no other details. According to court papers filed by prosecutors, one directorate official told an unnamed witness that the silencers were intended for Navy SEAL Team 6, the elite commando unit that killed Osama bin Laden. But representatives for SEAL Team 6 told federal investigators they had not ordered the silencers and did not know anything about them, according to the court papers. Sorting out the truth has been made more difficult by the elimination of potential evidence. At one pretrial hearing, a defense attorney for the auto mechanic, Mark S. Landersman of Temecula, Calif., accused the Navy of impeding the investigation by destroying a secret stash of automatic rifles that the silencers were designed to fit. Prosecutors immediately objected to further discussion in open court, calling it a classified matter. The destroyed weapons were part of a stockpile of about 1,600 AK-47-style rifles that the U.S. military had collected overseas and stored in a warehouse in Pennsylvania, according to a source familiar with the investigation. If the foreign-made weapons were equipped with unmarked silencers, the source said, the weapons could have been used by U.S. or foreign forces for special operations in other countries without any risk that they would be traced back to the United States. A different source, a current senior Navy official, confirmed that an arsenal of AK-47-style rifles in a warehouse in Mechanicsburg, Pa., had been destroyed within the past year. But that official suggested the issue was a smokescreen, saying the weapons were being kept for a different purpose and that no program had existed to equip them with silencers. In a separate move that eliminated more potential evidence, Navy security officers incinerated documents last year that they had seized from the directorate’s offices in the Pentagon, according to court records and testimony. Two Navy security officers have testified that they stuffed the papers into burn bags and destroyed them on Nov. 15, 2013 — three days after The Washington Post published a front-page article about the unfolding federal investigation into the silencers. One of the security officers said it did not occur to her that the documents should be preserved, despite Navy policies prohibiting the destruction of records that could be relevant to lawsuits or criminal investigations. The officer, Francine Cox, acknowledged that she was aware the Navy directorate was under scrutiny and that she had read the Post article shortly before burning the documents. But she said she did not think the papers were important. “I didn’t think the information we had was pertinent,” Cox testified at a pretrial hearing in July. “If you don’t tell me to hold onto something, I don’t have to hold onto it.” Lee M. Hall, a Navy intelligence official who is charged with illegally purchasing the silencers and whose trial is scheduled to begin this month, argued that the burned material was crucial to his defense. He said the documents included handwritten notes and other papers showing the undersecretary of the Navy at the time had authorized the project. “My notes would show I acted in good faith,” Hall testified at the July hearing. Stuart Sears, an attorney for Hall, declined to comment. District Court Judge Leonie M. Brinkema rejected a bid by Hall’s attorneys to dismiss the charges against him but was incredulous that the Navy had destroyed the documents. “I don’t find any nefarious evidence, or evidence of bad intent, but it sure does look to the court like negligence,” she said. On other occasions over the past year, Brinkema has questioned whether prosecutors were fully aware of what the Navy directorate was up to and whether they really wanted to expose its activities by taking the case to trial. “We’re getting deeper and deeper into a morass,” she said at a hearing in March. “One of the things the government always has to think about is the cost-benefit analysis. At the end of the day, is this particular criminal prosecution worth the risk of having to disclose or reveal very sensitive information?” An investigation snowballs Suspicions about the Navy directorate surfaced in January 2013 when one of its officials appeared at a Defense Intelligence Agency office in Arlington and asked for a badge that would allow him to carry weapons on military property, according to statements made by prosecutors during pretrial hearings. The directorate official, Tedd Shellenbarger, flashed a set of credentials stamped with the letters LEO — an acronym for “law enforcement officer” — even though his office dealt primarily with policy matters and lacked law enforcement powers, the former senior Navy official said. Shellenbarger’s request prompted the Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) to obtain a warrant to search the directorate’s offices at the Pentagon. Agents found badge materials and other documentation that led them to broaden their investigation, according to the former senior Navy official. Shellenbarger and three other directorate officials were placed on leave, according to court records. Shellenbarger has not been charged and has since returned to work for the Navy. His attorney, David Deitch, indicated he might be called as a witness at Hall’s trial. “Mr. Shellenbarger has cooperated fully in providing truthful information to the government about his conduct, which was undertaken at the direction of his supervisors,” Deitch said. The badge inquiry led NCIS to discover e-mails and a paper trail pertaining to the $1.6 million contract to buy the silencers from Landersman, the California mechanic. Court papers describe him as a struggling small businessman who raced hot-rods and had declared bankruptcy in July 2012. He is the brother of David W. Landersman, the senior director for intelligence in the Navy directorate. Prosecutors have referred to David Landersman in court papers as a conspirator in the case, but he has not been charged. He is a combat-decorated retired Marine officer. His attorney has said he did nothing wrong. Mark Landersman has been charged with manufacturing, selling and shipping the unmarked silencers without a federal firearms license. His trial is scheduled to begin Oct. 27. One of his attorneys, Cary Citronberg, declined to comment. Ordinarily, a clandestine weapons program requires reams of paperwork and legal review. No documentation has surfaced in court to indicate that Navy officials formally signed off on the silencer project, although many pretrial motions have been filed under seal. Hall, the directorate official charged with illegally purchasing the silencers, has asserted that he received verbal approval for the secret program from Robert C. Martinage, a former acting undersecretary of the Navy, according to statements made during pretrial hearings. Martinage was forced to resign in January after investigators looking into the silencer deal found evidence that he had engaged in personal misconduct, according to Navy officials. The officials said the misconduct was unrelated to the silencer contract. Martinage is expected to be a key witness at Hall’s trial. He declined to comment, saying, “I have been advised not to discuss any aspect of that matter while the case is pending.” Craig Whitlock covers the Pentagon and national security. He has reported for The Washington Post since 1998.
One group that supports the right of terminally ill people to kill themselves so they don't have to die in pain is the Compassion & Choices group. It was originally called the Hemlock Society. Why can't Arizona allow dignified, painless deaths? 8:39 p.m. MST October 12, 2014 My mother died from brain cancer. I know from experience that no one should have to face that kind of an exit. My last memory of her was of her screaming from the hallucinations that were tearing through her mind. EJ Montini's column on Brittany Maynard's decision to move to Oregon to end her life peacefully, in response to this same terminal diagnosis, should be a wake-up call for all of us ("Life with dignity is leading woman to death with dignity," Valley & State, Friday). She's 29. She had her whole life ahead of her. This can happen to anyone. Arizona needs to catch up with states that offer physician-assisted suicide. We shouldn't have to relocate at the end of life to avoid a gruesome death. —JoAnnRichi, Phoenix
Sadly many folks write off ALL Mormons because of the Mormon Churches's hateful position against gays. But not all Mormon's share their church's hateful position against gays. I grew up as a Catholic and I was taught by the Catholic Church to hate gays. It took me till I was a freshman or sophomore in high school to figure out that the Catholic Church's position was illogical and wrong. Some Mormons pushing church on gay marriage Associated Press 1:03 p.m. MST October 12, 2014 SALT LAKE CITY — Court decisions this week paving the way for same-sex marriage to become legal in dozens of states, including Mormon strongholds like Utah, Idaho and Nevada, have emboldened a growing group of Latter-day Saints who are pushing the conservative church to become more accepting of gay members. The church's stance toward gays has softened considerably since it was one of the leading forces behind California's ban on gay marriage in 2008, but high-ranking leaders have reiterated time and again the faith's opposition to same-sex unions. Some Mormons hope to change that, or at least work to make congregations more welcoming places for gays and lesbians. Erika Munson, co-founder of a group pushing the faith to be more accepting of gays, said she worries about losing younger Mormons because of the church's stance. One of her five children, an adult son, has chosen to not to practice Mormonism, in part because of the religion's stance on homosexuality. "People under 30 all know somebody who has come out. They are not the other, they are not scary. They understand that they are just like them," said Munson, whose group Mormons Building Bridges stays neutral on gay marriage because they want to work within church doctrine. "So, that's really hard to reconcile with a Christian church where we follow the teachings of Jesus." On Monday — after the U.S. Supreme Court unexpectedly rejected appeals by Utah and four other states trying to protect their same-sex marriage bans — The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints said in a statement that the decision will have no effect on church doctrine or practices, while acknowledging that "as far as the civil law is concerned, the courts have spoken." Still, church leaders are not ready to accept gay unions. Dallin H. Oaks, one of the church's highest-ranking leaders, told a worldwide audience last week at a Mormon conference in Salt Lake City that legalizing same-sex marriage is among the world values threatening Mormon beliefs. Yet he also urged members to be gracious toward those who believe differently in what many gay advocates in the church saw as the latest example of the softer tone leaders are taking. The majority of Mormons will stand behind church teachings on the topic, said Scott Gordon, president of a volunteer organization that supports the church. That doesn't mean they are bigots or hatemongers, though, as they are sometimes labeled, he said. The reality is that most Mormons have gay relatives or friends they love, but they also agree with the religion's opposition to gay marriage rooted in a deeply-held belief that families are the center of life and for eternity, and that a family led by a man and a woman is best for children, he said. "Marriage is not just about love. Yes, love is a large component of it, but marriage is about having families and raising children and doing those things that will help the children grow into adulthood," said Gordon, of FairMormon. "The fundamental teachings of the church are never going to change on this. We'll just adapt and move on." The history of the church suggests Mormons could alter their views, although no one is expecting doctrinal change anytime soon. Mormons believe in ongoing revelations from God, which has led to fundamental changes. In 1978, Mormon church leaders lifted the ban on blacks in the priesthood. In 1890, the church president at the time received a revelation to end the practice of polygamous marriages that were part of the first 60 years of the church. "They have change built into their cosmos," said Sarah Barringer Gordon, a history professor at the University of Pennsylvania. "Churches exist in societies as well and that can't help but effect how they think." Spencer W. Clark said his beliefs began shifting when he became friends with gay and lesbian classmates in high school and college, and he eventually became the leader of a group of faithful Mormons that supports gay marriage. He, Munson and others hope that same-sex couples will become visible, active members of their communities, allowing more Mormons to get to know and appreciate families led by gay and lesbian couples. Even if Latter-day Saints don't accept gay marriage right away, that could help break down barriers, Clark said. "This helps people be more comfortable with it because it's no longer the big, scary unknown," said Clark, executive director of Mormons for Equality, who lives in Washington D.C. with his wife and three children. "They'll find out this isn't the doomsday scenario."
I suspect with Obamacare or the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) as it's officially called these hospital services are no longer needed. Of course if you ask me the last thing in the world I want is government health care. On an everyday basis you can see how the government f*cks things up. Do you really want to put your health care in the hands of the government??? County hospital at heart of contentious debate Michelle Ye Hee Lee, The Republic | azcentral.com 10:37 p.m. MST October 10, 2014 Most Maricopa County residents might not think about the county's public hospital system or even know it exists, but their lives could some day depend on it. The Maricopa Integrated Health System is a safety net for the county's poor and underserved residents. It primarily caters to those who have nowhere else to go. But it operates a burn center that treats some of the most desperate patients from across the Southwest. Its hospital is a Level 1 trauma center and a teaching institution for medical students and other health-care professionals. Maricopa County residents pay for these facilities through their secondary property taxes. The special health-care district also receives federal and state funds. Next month, county taxpayers will be asked in Proposition 480 to approve $935 million in bonds that would be spent to expand and renovate the aging system and increase capacity to serve the county's mentally ill. The total cost of the bonds, including interest over 30 years, is tabbed at $1.6 billion. Early voting began Thursday. The average homeowner would pay $13.74 more a year per $100,000 of a home's assessed valuation to finance the bonds, according to MIHS. Prop. 480 is stirring debate over the role of a public hospital system in a health-care landscape undergoing significant change. Arizona's Medicaid expansion and implementation of President Barack Obama's Affordable Care Act are key signs of that change. The primary question is not whether a public hospital system should exist in the Valley, but whether changes proposed in Prop. 480 are appropriate for Arizona's health-care future. Campaigns for and against Prop. 480, the second countywide ballot measure since 2004, are heating up. The proposal has wide support but draws opposition from certain interest groups and has split the Arizona hospital community. Proponents argue the changes would modernize MIHS to better meet the evolving needs of patients. Opponents question why taxpayers should fork over more money, especially since more Arizonans will be covered through the state's Medicaid expansion. Prop. 480 reflects MIHS executives' long-standing desire to upgrade facilities and modernize the system. A possible bond has been discussed since the district was created. Maricopa Medical Center, the county's hospital, already was an aging building when voters decided to create the hospital district a decade ago. The building, which broke ground in the late 1960s, has had leaks, asbestos in the walls, and emergency room corridors so small and crowded that intake patients, jail-inmate patients and violent psychiatric patients all waited in the same area. MIHS has spent $46.7 million on renovation and maintenance in the past five years. The largest proposed project in Prop. 480 is to replace the complex that houses the hospital, the Arizona Burn Center and the Level 1 trauma center. It is on the MIHS campus at 24th and Roosevelt streets. MIHS will die a slow death without the bond approval, proponents say. They have said the same thing for 11 years. But opponents call the claim an exaggeration — especially since the system has held its own during the past decade. Every major city has a publicly-funded hospital, usually operated through the county, city, a hospital district or a city-county partnership. And almost every major public hospital at some point has asked voters to invest their taxes in renovations to their aging facilities. Voters in Dallas County, Texas, for example, in 2008 authorized a $747 million bond to rebuild the crowded and aging Parkland Memorial Hospital, famous for treating President John F. Kennedy after he was shot. The Parkland Health and Hospital System is structured much like MIHS: Level 1 trauma center, a renowned burn center, community-based clinics, a teaching hospital, and a safety-net hospital providing uncompensated care for indigent patients. "Parkland, being a county hospital and indigent-care hospital supported by taxpayer dollars — the reality is, you may end up being there. There's a connection there," said Alan Walne, a former longtime Dallas city councilman involved in the bond campaign. "The citizens of Dallas County believe in the mission of the hospital and they absolutely understood the need to replace the building." Will Maricopa County voters feel the same way? Proposed changes "No more chest pains for you?" Dr. Sunitha Bandlamuri asked on a recent morning as she examined Guy Colombo, 50, her patient of more than 10 years. "We've got to work on that belly," she told him, and he bashfully laughed. "Yeah, I need to cut down on my starch," said Colombo, who is covered through the state's Medicaid plan. He chose this clinic because he lives nearby, and has built a relationship with Bandlamuri. It was a routine checkup at the Mesa Family Health Center, one of MIHS' 11 community-based family health centers, which are one-stop shops for patients' everyday needs. The family health centers provide a range of services, including adult and pediatric ambulatory care, primary care, OB-GYN exams, dental care and pharmacy services. Prop. 480 proposes to spend $138 million to upgrade, replace and add outpatient clinics like the family health centers throughout areas of the Valley with the most underserved and uninsured patients. The measure also proposes to allot $226 million for behavioral health facilities, including a new behavioral health hospital that would increase the number of beds available for seriously mentally ill patients. An additional $571 million would be spent on inpatient facilities, mainly replacing the Maricopa Medical Center, Arizona Burn Center and the Level 1 trauma center. Prop. 480 would allow MIHS to transition into a network of community-based clinics that provide primary, preventive, specialty and outpatient care — a decentralized model that safety-net systems nationwide are adopting. With new technology for telemedicine and electronic medical records, the role of a large, centralized hospital system is changing. The goal is to have fewer patients use the emergency room to receive primary care, which is much more expensive than actually going to a primary-care clinic. Instead, the system would take advantage of the new federal focus on increasing the number of community health centers in areas of high health-care need. As a result, the new Maricopa Medical Center would have fewer inpatient beds. "It no longer needs to have all those beds because a lot of the time that used to be spent in beds in the rehabilitation, recovery period is now happening at home," said Tony Rodgers, former director of the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System, the state's Medicaid agency. "Most hospitals are downsizing. It's really hard to downsize when you are built for wards." Over the past decade, the district has worked to rebrand itself as a nationally recognized hospital system and shed its image as the "county hospital," like some well-intended but unstable and behind-the-times cousin of county government. Maricopa County voters created the district in 2003 with 60 percent approval, spinning it off as an independent taxing entity. At the time, it was bleeding money from the county general fund. The district is governed by five publicly-elected directors. When the county no longer was legally mandated to be a safety-net system providing indigent health care, the Board of Supervisors mulled closing the county hospital, said Supervisor Andy Kunasek, the only remaining supervisor among those who decided to take the matter to the voters in 2003. "I can speak for the mindset of everybody that was there at the time on the board as we looked at it. Everybody recognized it as such an important institution in the Valley, in the whole state — really, the whole Southwest," Kunasek said. "The board thought collectively that it would be best to try and tell the whole story to the voters and let the voters decide," he said. The debate The Yes on 480 campaign has raised money aggressively, and launched a publicity blitz via news outlets, social media, billboards and bumper stickers. The campaign reported raising nearly $975,000 as of late September, which was considered a feat among political observers. That figure is more than double the amount raised in a comparable time for the last countywide ballot measure in 2004, a $951 million community college bond approved by voters. The majority of Prop. 480 donors are physicians, nurses and other staff from District Medical Group, the not-for-profit physician group at MIHS. A wide range of prominent community leaders, medical professionals, and state and local government officials support the bond. They say the measure would improve health-care services, attract more medical professionals and provide firefighters, first responders and police with quality facilities and equipment. "Prop. 480 should be approved because it fills a gap in the health-care delivery system in this community, and it's been filling that gap for over 100 years," said Dr. Leonard Kirschner, former AHCCCS director. "Maricopa County is an important part of our system and it will remain for the future, and it needs to be updated." The Vote No on Prop. 480 campaign was launched by the Arizona Tax Research Association, a research and advocacy group, and its president, Kevin McCarthy. Other groups opposing the measure include the Goldwater Institute, Americans for Prosperity Arizona, NAIOP of Arizona, Small Business Alliance, Gilbert Chamber of Commerce, AZ Public Integrity Alliance, and the Arizona Free Enterprise Club, a non-profit that has sparked debate over the influence of "dark money" through record spending in Arizona elections. The opposition campaign, formed only days before the most recent reporting deadline, has not filed a campaign-finance statement. Opponents say Prop. 480 comes at a bad time, as taxpayers emerge from the economic downturn and the health-care landscape is being reshaped. Taxpayers are paying for Medicaid expansion. They already pay secondary property taxes for MIHS, and will now be asked to pay even more, McCarthy said. Opponents also say the tax dollars will be used to compete against private hospitals — an argument proponents vehemently contest, saying MIHS comprises only 5 percent of the patient market in the Valley, and that the system serves a population that is not economically attractive for private and non-profit hospitals. That MIHS has only 5 percent of patients shows other hospitals are absorbing indigent health care, McCarthy said. The opposition campaign wants other options explored — including privatization of some MIHS services or public-private partnerships — before taxpayers commit to the bond measure. "If the decision is made by voters to deny the bonds, the current operation stays there. The burn unit isn't going anywhere. Their role in health care isn't going anywhere in the near future," McCarthy said. "But I think what's most important is the dialogue in the future should include taxpayers and private providers that feel like MIHS is competing in this space, trying to improve their market share." Proposed projects, costs $571 million Acute-care facilities, including replacing the Maricopa Medical Center, its Level 1 trauma center and the Arizona Burn Center. All are on the MIHS campus at 24th and Roosevelt streets. $226 million Behavioral health facilities, including a new behavioral- health hospital. $138 million Outpatient health facilities, including renovating or replacing existing outpatient clinics and building new ones. For more information Yes on 480: yeson480.com. Vote No on 480: vote noon480.com. MIHS bond advisory committee: mihsbondadvisory.org. ON THE BEAT Michelle Ye Hee Lee is a government accountability reporter whose coverage area includes the Maricopa Integrated Health System. How to reach her michelle.lee@arizonarepublic.com Phone: 602-444-8290 Twitter: @myhlee The ballot question "Shall the Maricopa County Special Health Care District, operating as Maricopa Integrated Health System (MIHS), be authorized to issue and sell General Obligation Bonds of $935,000,000 to meet community need for healthcare facilities throughout Maricopa County, including, without limitation, facilities for outpatient care, behavioral health, and replacement of the District's teaching hospital Maricopa Medical Center, its Level One Trauma Center and Arizona Burn Center?"
I guess I can say my standard line of more of the old "Do as I say, not as I do" from our religious leaders, government masters and police??? On the other hand this is more or less one of the standard ways the government uses to rob us serfs using photo radar bandits. Only this time a wanna be government rulers got screwed by the system. Years ago the government changed almost all traffic violations from criminal violations to civil violations. Not because it was the moral and right thing to to, but it's easier for the government to shake you down for a fine if they make it a civil violation rather then a criminal violation. I am not sure on the legal details of this, but based on a lot of articles that I have read that when it comes to photo radar violations it seems you are assumed to be guilty till you are proven innocent. Which is what it seems to have happened in this article to DuVal. DuVal drove while his license was suspended Yvonne Wingett Sanchez, The Republic | azcentral.com 11:45 p.m. MST October 12, 2014 Fred DuVal, the Democratic nominee running for governor, had his license suspended this year after he failed to pay a fine associated with a red-light ticket, his campaign consultant said Sunday. DuVal's license was suspended in June, consultant Rodd McLeod told The Arizona Republic. DuVal continued to drive during the suspension, McLeod said, but "had no idea the license had been suspended." DuVal received a ticket in December for turning right on a red light without coming to a full stop, McLeod said. A red-light camera captured the violation and DuVal received a ticket in the mail a short time later. McLeod said DuVal paid the $200 ticket. The license suspension was first reported Saturday by BuzzFeed. DuVal went to driving school in August but did not pay a $20 fee to reinstate his license. "A few days after he did the driver's school, he called ADOT (Arizona Department of Transportation) and said he went to driver's school and asked if he was OK to drive," McLeod said. "The person on the phone told him yes. He went back to living his life and never thought about it." McLeod's said DuVal's campaign recently learned a law firm was communicating with the state's Motor Vehicle Division about DuVal's license. On Oct. 3, following an interview with a Tucson newspaper, McLeod said DuVal and a campaign staffer went to the MVD office there to check the status of his license. "They ... said, 'Your license is suspended, you owe us $20,' " McCleod said. "And he got his license back." Asked how often DuVal drove during the suspension, McLeod said, "Once in a while, he drove. He might drive to the grocery store or something like that, but obviously he had no idea he didn't have a license." A campaign staffer drives to most events, McLeod added. "Voters are going to have a choice here between a guy who owed $20 to the MVD and was late paying it, and a guy who didn't pay his property taxes for three years on his Paradise Valley mansion and had a lien placed on his house," he said. DuVal faces Republican nominee Doug Ducey in the Nov. 4 general election. Ducey, too, has a history of traffic violations. Between Nov. 30, 2004, and Sept. 4, 2008, Ducey had 13 traffic offenses. At least seven of them were speed-camera tickets, based on documents from Scottsdale City Court. The court as of October 2010 did not have documents for the rest of his cases because they expired.
How does the govenrment "lose" $1.2 to $1.6 BILLION dollars??? That's correct BILLION!!! That's enough cash to give between 1,200 and 1,600 people a million dollars each!!!!! OK, let's face it the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan aren't about being freedom and democracy to those countries. Those wars are more or less a jobs program for generals and a government welfare program for the corporations in the military industrial complex. I have seen comments on the History Channel that say all the gold in Fort Know hasn't been counted or audited in the laws 50 years and might be missing. If the government can lose between $1.2 and $1.6 billion dollars in Iraq I wouldn't put it past them to lose all of the gold in Fort Knox. Investigation Into Missing Iraqi Cash Ended in Lebanon Bunker By JAMES RISENOCT. 12, 2014 WASHINGTON — Not long after American forces defeated the Iraqi government of Saddam Hussein in 2003, caravans of trucks began to arrive at Andrews Air Force Base outside Washington on a regular basis, unloading an unusual cargo — pallets of shrink-wrapped $100 bills. The cash, withdrawn from Iraqi government accounts held in the United States, was loaded onto Air Force C-17 transport planes bound for Baghdad, where the Bush administration hoped it would provide a quick financial infusion for Iraq’s new government and the country’s battered economy. Over the next year and a half, $12 billion to $14 billion was sent to Iraq in the airlift, and an additional $5 billion was sent by electronic transfer. Exactly what happened to that money after it arrived in Baghdad became one of the many unanswered questions from the chaotic days of the American occupation, when billions were flowing into the country from the United States and corruption was rampant. Finding the answer became first the job and then the obsession of Stuart W. Bowen Jr., a friend from Texas of President George W. Bush who in 2004 was appointed to serve as a special inspector general to investigate corruption and waste in Iraq. Before his office was finally shut down last year, Mr. Bowen believed he might have succeeded — but only partly — in that mission. Much of the money was probably used by the Iraqi government in some way, he concluded. But for years Mr. Bowen could not account for billions more until his investigators finally had a breakthrough, discovering that $1.2 billion to $1.6 billion had been stolen and moved to a bunker in rural Lebanon for safe keeping. “I don’t know how the money got to Lebanon,” Mr. Bowen said. “If I knew that, we would have made more progress on the case.” Mr. Bowen kept the discovery and his investigation of the cash-filled bunker in Lebanon, which his office code-named Brick Tracker, secret. He has never publicly discussed it until now, and his frustration that neither he nor his investigators can fully account for the missing money was evident in a series of interviews. “Billions of dollars have been taken out of Iraq over the last 10 years illegally,” he said. “In this investigation, we thought we were on the track for some of that lost money. It’s disappointing to me personally that we were unable to close this case, for reasons beyond our control.” He is equally frustrated that the Bush administration, apart from his office, never investigated reports that huge amounts of money had disappeared, and that after his investigators found out about the bunker, the Obama administration did not pursue that lead, either. Mr. Bowen said his investigators briefed the C.I.A. and the F.B.I. on what they found. But Mr. Bowen added that he believed one reason American officials had not gone after it was “because it was Iraqi money stolen by Iraqis.” Spokesmen for the F.B.I. and C.I.A. declined to comment for this article. The Iraqi government has also not tried to retrieve the money, and has kept information about the Lebanese bunker secret. Mr. Bowen said that he talked to Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki about the missing money and his discovery of the bunker and that Mr. Maliki never took any action, while expressing anger at the way the United States had handled the airlifted cash. The money so assiduously carried to Iraq from a vast facility in New Jersey operated by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York came from the Development Fund of Iraq, which was created by a United Nations resolution in May 2003 to hold Iraqi oil revenue. The fund was to be used in Iraq’s reconstruction, and the United Nations resolution called for the creation of a monitoring board to make sure the United States-led Coalition Provisional Authority, which governed Iraq in 2003 and the first half of 2004 and ordered the cash flights, used the money properly for the benefit of the Iraqi people. For the C.P.A., an advantage of using the cash from the Development Fund instead of money appropriated by Congress for Iraq was that there were not a lot of rules governing its use, and no federal regulations or congressional oversight of what happened to it. It was Iraqi money, not anything from American taxpayers. In an interview, Paul Bremer, who was the head of the C.P.A., defended the agency’s handling of the funds, and said the money was badly needed to keep Iraqi government ministries in operation. In particular, he defended the decision to accelerate the cash flights in June 2004, just before the provisional authority closed and was replaced by an interim Iraqi government. In the last two weeks of June, the C.P.A. ordered $4 billion to $5 billion in cash to be flown to Baghdad from New York in a rapid-fire series of last-minute flights. The Iraqi government “was broke at that point,” Mr. Bremer said. “Civil servants had not been paid for about three months. We had to get funds there right away.” He said that there was a budget process in Baghdad that determined how much cash was requested from the Federal Reserve. “The issue is what happened to the money once it was distributed through the minister of finance,” he said. “We had a very clear record of funds going to the Iraqi system.” Mr. Bowen was dismissive of Mr. Bremer’s defense of the C.P.A. Accounting for the funds was so lax, he said, that there were few credible records of how it was spent. “Our auditors interviewed numerous senior advisers of the C.P.A., and we learned from them that the controls on the Development Fund of Iraq money were inadequate,” Mr. Bowen said. “We didn’t make this up; we learned this from C.P.A. staff.” Former Treasury Department officials also questioned the need for the flights. Treasury had already sent $1.7 billion in cash from Iraqi government accounts in the United States to Baghdad in the first weeks after the invasion, and then had developed a new Iraqi currency that was introduced that October. They say the new currency ended the need for further cash infusions from the United States. “We did not know that Bremer was flying in all that cash,” said Ged Smith, who was the head of the Treasury Department team that worked on Iraq’s financial reconstruction after the invasion. “I can’t see a reason for it.” Mr. Bowen said that Brick Tracker, his office’s most sensitive investigation, began in 2010 when Wael el-Zein, a Lebanese- American on his staff, received a tip about stolen money hidden in Lebanon. An informant told him about the bunker, which in addition to the cash, was believed to also have held approximately $200 million in gold belonging to the Iraqi government. But by this time, official Washington had long since forgotten about the flights from Andrews. The C.I.A. expressed little interest in pursuing the matter, and the F.B.I. said it lacked jurisdiction, Mr. Bowen recalled. And when Mr. Bowen and his staff tried to conduct an investigation of the missing cash in Lebanon, they also met with resistance from the United States Embassy in Beirut. Mr. Bowen was not allowed to travel to Lebanon on official business. Two of his investigators who did travel to Lebanon were denied permission from the embassy to see the bunker themselves because it was too dangerous. When Mr. Bowen’s staff members met in Beirut with Lebanon’s prosecutor general, Said Mirza, he initially agreed to cooperate on an investigation, but later decided against it. The office of the special inspector general for Iraq closed in 2013, and Mr. Bowen is now working in the private sector. Mr. Bowen thinks at least some of the money has been moved, and said it is impossible to say whether any of it is still in the bunker. He says he is still frustrated by the lack of cooperation he got from his own government in his efforts to pursue the missing cash. “We struggled to gain timely support from the interagency as we pursued this case,” Mr. Bowen said. This article is adapted from “Pay Any Price: Greed, Power and Endless War” by James Risen, to be published Tuesday by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
Simple vote on legalizing marijuana in D.C. is not so simple Who writes these silly laws? "If the initiative passes, it would become legal to possess or grow small amounts of marijuana but not to sell or buy the stuff." I wonder is this a backdoor for the folks at MPP or Marijuana Policy Project to get a government monopoly on growing and selling marijuana for the medical marijuana dispensaries that seem to have taken over MPP. Here is Arizona a lot of people think that Andrew Myers who came from MPP and wrote Prop 203 or Arizona's Medical Marijuana Act intentionally wrote it to give the members of his Arizona Dispensary Association or Arizona Association of Dispensaries a government monopoly on growing and selling medical marijuana in Arizona. Simple vote on legalizing marijuana in D.C. is not so simple By Marc Fisher October 11 at 7:53 PM The campaigns for and against legalizing marijuana in the nation’s capital are not exactly sophisticated — no targeted robo-calling, no TV commercials, no get-out-the-vote drive. The Yes side instead papers streetlamp poles with signs that say just “Legalize.” The No side counters with its simple slogan, “Two. Is. Enough. D.C.,” meaning that legal alcohol and tobacco give Washingtonians all the mind-altering substances they need. The head of the No campaign, Will Jones, says he has never smoked pot, doesn’t drink except at weddings and believes marijuana is an expressway to heroin and the like. The head of the Yes campaign counters with an assurance that weed “is nontoxic and no one has ever overdosed from it.” “Believe me,” said Adam Eidinger, “it would have happened to me by now.” D.C. voters will be asked Nov. 4 for a simple yes or no on legalizing marijuana, which the city decriminalized this year, replacing arrests and possible jail time with a $25 fine for possession of up to one ounce. But in the hazy world of marijuana law — an alternate reality in which two U.S. states have declared the substance legal even as it remains banned under federal law — nothing is simple. The status of marijuana laws across the nation. In the District, the contradictions get kicked up considerably: If the initiative passes, it would become legal to possess or grow small amounts of marijuana but not to sell or buy the stuff. The D.C. Council is talking about waiting months, or even a year, before taking the next step and passing a scheme to allow sales, taxes and regulation. In the meantime, even if Congress were to allow a Yes vote to stand, the city would become a place where having marijuana is legal but getting it requires illegal acts or a magical appearance of seeds or the finished product. That leaves even some of the most fervent opponents of marijuana prohibition wondering just what the ballot proposal might accomplish. Elsewhere across the country, this fall’s votes on marijuana policy would have real and swift impact. Alaska and Oregon voters will decide whether to make state-regulated sales legal, much as Colorado and Washington state have done. In Florida, the ballot includes a measure that would allow medical marijuana, as 23 states and the District do. But even though recent polls show a large majority of D.C. voters favor Initiative 71, “I don’t expect Congress to sit back while the nation’s capital legalizes marijuana,” said council member Tommy Wells (D-Ward 6). Wells — who successfully pushed for the decriminalization law that went into effect in July — will vote for legalization, but he questions whether the council would then act to turn the capital into the kind of weed free-for-all that Denver has become. Advocates on both sides agree: Anyone who thinks Congress would approve turning its headquarters city into the American Amsterdam must be high. $560 an ounce For the 750 clients — up from 75 in May — who get their medical marijuana at Takoma Wellness Center on Blair Road NW, the debate is already over. After a 45-minute consultation with Jeffrey Kahn, the rabbi-turned-pot-purveyor who owns the dispensary, customers step into the sales room and choose among flowers (Blue Dream, Kush, Sativa Afghani, with a gram ranging from $12 to $20), pre-rolled cigarettes ($7.95 each), and concentrates (tinctures and hash varieties that pack more punch than the smoked weed.) Support for legalized marijuana in D.C. Although he has yet to turn a profit, Kahn’s business, which shares an old strip shopping center with a Chinese takeout and a liquor store, has picked up sharply in recent weeks, since the D.C. government loosened restrictions on the city’s three dispensaries and three cultivation centers. The new rules allow each grower’s crop to increase from 95 plants to 500 and greatly expand the list of chronic and serious conditions for which physicians can recommend marijuana. As a result, the fastest-growing categories of conditions for which Kahn’s clients seek relief are gunshot wounds and epilepsy. At $560 an ounce, Kahn’s Sativa Afghani is about a third more expensive than it would be on the black market, according to dealers. But many people “want to feel like law-abiding human beings,” Kahn said, and are willing to pay a premium for safe, homegrown pot. Still, although Kahn, 62, supports the initiative, he’s not sanguine about making the drug so easily available that people can get it without counseling on the right strains, dosages and forms of ingestion for their conditions. “It’s hard to imagine how marijuana could be safely used without some kind of educational program,” he said. “It’s not the kind of product any adult should be able to just buy off the shelf.” Legalization would help shift the supply chain toward local growers, Kahn said: “If you buy on the black market now, you’re not going to suffer major legal consequences, but you bought that from the Mexican cartel. A long, heavy chain of misery is attached to that half-ounce of marijuana.” Kahn has no illusions about the District becoming a landscape of storefront pot shops anytime soon. And he doubts that many people would grow their own even if it were legal to do so. “Growing marijuana is not the easiest thing to do, as I have learned,” he said. “It takes four months to grow, and it’s a lot of work.” As of Oct. 6, 1,362 D.C. residents had registered with the city Health Department to get medical marijuana. Many thousands more buy pot on the black market; about 14 percent of city residents have used marijuana in the past year, compared with 11 percent nationwide, according to federal surveys. Some buy on the street, and some have connections, such as a Northwest man in his 50s who has been selling in the District for 25 years. The man has mostly professional clients — lawyers, government contractors, lobbyists, journalists — who come by his home at appointed hours to make their purchases. He supports legalization and doesn’t worry about losing business if the trade goes legit. “It’s almost a pointless vote,” he said, “because Congress would never let there be stores all over. I just don’t see how this could practically work. Especially in this city, people want privacy.” Support in poll They also want legal weed. According to an NBC4/Washington Post/Marist poll conducted last month, D.C. voters support the initiative, 65 percent to 33 percent. Two of the three mayoral candidates — Muriel E. Bowser (D) and David A. Catania (I) — support legalization; Carol Schwartz (I) does not. White voters are far more likely to support the change — 74 percent approve — than blacks, 56 percent of whom say they’ll vote yes. Race turns out to be at the core of the legalization debate. The council’s decision on decriminalization was driven by evidence that African Americans are much more likely to be arrested for possessing pot than are whites, despite survey data showing the races to be equally likely to use the drug. As of 2010, the District had a higher marijuana arrest rate than any of the 50 states, and it ranked seventh nationally among nearly 1,000 counties analyzed by the American Civil Liberties Union. Eighty-eight percent of those convicted of marijuana possession in the city last year were black. But advocates differ on what to do about those disparities. Arthur Burnett spent 31 years as a judge in the District; now head of the National African American Drug Policy Coalition, he says legalization would not keep young black men out of jail, because marijuana would be more readily available, leading more young people to harder drugs. “Scratch the surface of most homicides and rape cases, and the perpetrators were high on drugs, including marijuana,” he said. “Although marijuana may not be a gateway drug scientifically, it does introduce people to a culture where they get drawn into other drugs.” Burnett says opposition among older blacks to legalization stems not from moralism, but from practical experience: “Black communities already suffer from a liquor store on every corner,” he said. “Elderly black voters see the connection between the derelict wino hanging on the corner and the potential for more young black men strung out on marijuana on that corner. Do we really want to substitute mass incapacitation for mass incarceration?” Jones, the 24-year-old leader of the anti-legalization campaign, said he’s seen too many peers lose their way in a fog of marijuana use and then find it hard to get back on track because of arrest records. “It’s selfish thinking to legalize something just for yourself, without thinking about the impact on society,” he said. “Is this something that’s good for our community? Is it going to help people get jobs?” Eidinger, a former head-shop owner who has devoted many years to pressing for more liberal marijuana laws, acknowledges the racial gap and said his campaign is “making a sincere effort to reach out to African Americans who are concerned.” “The older African American population has been devastated by the drug war,” he said, but he believes legalization would diminish the harm marijuana does to young people by curbing arrests that make it harder for them to find jobs. “Experimentation is inevitable,” Eidinger said. “This is just another human activity that can get out of hand. But locking people up doesn’t address it.” Eidinger thinks a thriving pot industry would be a source of jobs and tax revenue: “Someone could supplement their income by $1,000 or $2,000 a month with a grow in a room in their house or in outdoor space. This is a cash crop.” Kept on a short leash Even if Initiative 71 passes easily, neighborhood pot shops are a long way from opening. Although the city can pass its own laws, Congress retains the right to nix those laws at will and has done so when the city nudges the frontiers of social policy. From 1979, when the District was barred from using local tax dollars to help low-income women pay for abortions, to 1998, when Congress prohibited D.C. officials from counting the votes in a referendum on legalizing medical marijuana, the District has been less than its own master. On marijuana, especially, Congress has kept the city on a short leash. The District was eventually permitted to announce results of the medical marijuana referendum — 69 percent of voters said yes — but a ban on any legalization efforts wasn’t lifted until 2009. The city passed its medical marijuana bill the next year. Already this year, Rep. Andy Harris, Maryland’s only Republican congressman, has sought to block funding for decriminalization in the District. He attached an amendment to an appropriations bill, an oft-used method of imposing Congress’s will on the city, and has promised the same maneuver against legalization. Harris’s amendment didn’t make it to the latest version of the spending bill, so decriminalization in the District appears safe for now. Whether a block on legalization would get through both houses of Congress probably depends on whether Republicans gain control of the Senate in next month’s elections. “This fight doesn’t end with the vote,” Eidinger said. “It just becomes a democracy issue then.” If Congress were to let a Yes vote stand, even the legalization advocate wants to avoid the District becoming a marijuana mecca like Seattle or Denver, where open-air use has become common. “I have a 10-year-old, and I don’t want to see this turn into the pot festival capital,” he said. “That would blow people’s minds here. Congress would freak.” Marc Fisher, a senior editor, writes about most anything. He’s been The Post’s enterprise editor, local columnist and Berlin bureau chief, and he’s covered politics, education, pop culture, and much else in three decades on the Metro, Style, National and Foreign desks. Source I'm sorry, I forgot all I had to do to read the articles was delete my cookies. "Asset seizures fuel millions in police spending" I am sure this is one reason the cops LOVE the "war on drugs" and the RICO laws. It gives them a license to steal. I am not sure what this "Equitable Sharing Program" is. I suspect it is either a new name for the evil, unconstitutional RICO laws, or the RICO laws redesigned and re-invented with a new name. Asset seizures fuel police spending Story by Robert O'Harrow Jr., Steven Rich Published on October 11, 2014 Police agencies have used hundreds of millions of dollars taken from Americans under federal civil forfeiture law in recent years to buy guns, armored cars and electronic surveillance gear. They have also spent money on luxury vehicles, travel and a clown named Sparkles. ABOVE: In Douglasville, Ga, population 32,000, an armored personnel carrier costing $227,000 was bought using money taken from Americans under civil forfeiture laws. The details are contained in thousands of annual reports submitted by local and state agencies to the Justice Department’s Equitable Sharing Program, an initiative that allows local and state police to keep up to 80 percent of the assets they seize. The Washington Post obtained 43,000 of the reports dating from 2008 through a Freedom of Information Act request. Stop and Seize: In recent years, thousands of people have had cash confiscated by police without being charged with crimes. The Post looks at the police culture behind the seizures and the people who were forced to fight the government to get their money back. Part 1: After Sept. 11, 2001, a cottage industry of private police trainers emerged to teach aggressive techniques of highway interdiction to thousands of local and state police. Part 2: One training firm started a private intelligence-sharing network and helped shape law enforcement nationwide. Part 3: Motorists caught up in the seizures talk about the experience and the legal battles that could take over a year. Chat transcript: The reporters behind “Stop and Seize” answered readers’ questions about the investigative series. The documents offer a sweeping look at how police departments and drug task forces across the country are benefiting from laws that allow them to take cash and property without proving a crime has occurred. The law was meant to decimate drug organizations, but The Post found that it has been used as a routine source of funding for law enforcement at every level. “In tight budget periods, and even in times of budget surpluses, using asset forfeiture dollars to purchase equipment and training to stay current with the ever-changing trends in crime fighting helps serve and protect the citizens,” said Prince George’s County, Md., police spokeswoman Julie Parker. Brad Cates, a former director of asset forfeiture programs at the Justice Department, said the spending identified by The Post suggests police are using Equitable Sharing as “a free floating slush fund.” Cates, who oversaw the program while at Justice from 1985 to 1989, said it has enabled police to sidestep the traditional budget process, in which elected leaders create law enforcement spending priorities. “All of this is fundamentally at odds with the U.S. Constitution,” said Cates, who recently co-wrote an article calling for the program’s abolition on The Post’s editorial page. “All of this is at odds with the rights that Americans have.” Of the nearly $2.5 billion in spending reported in the forms, 81 percent came from cash and property seizures in which no indictment was filed, according to an analysis by The Post. Owners must prove that their money or property was acquired legally in order to get it back. The police purchases comprise a rich mix of the practical and the high-tech, including an array of gear that has helped some departments militarize their operations: Humvees, automatic weapons, gas grenades, night-vision scopes and sniper gear. Many departments acquired electronic surveillance equipment, including automated license-plate readers and systems that track cellphones. The spending also included a $5 million helicopter for Los Angeles police; a mobile command bus worth more than $1 million in Prince George’s County; an armored personnel carrier costing $227,000 in Douglasville, Ga., population 32,000; $5,300 worth of “challenge coin” medallions in Brunswick County, N.C.; $4,600 for a Sheriff’s Award Banquet by the Doña Ana County (N.M.) Sheriff’s Department; and a $637 coffee maker for the Randall County Sheriff’s Department in Amarillo, Tex. Sparkles the Clown was hired with asset forfeiture proceeds by police in the Village of Reminderville, Ohio, where she painted children's faces at a community relations event. (Ron Fowler) Sparkles the Clown was hired for $225 by Chief Jeff Buck in Reminderville, Ohio, to improve community relations. But Buck said the seizure money has been crucial to sustaining long-term investigations that have put thousands of drug traffickers in prison. “The money I spent on Sparkles the Clown is a very, very minute portion of the forfeited money that I spend in fighting the war on drugs,” he told The Post. About 5,400 departments and drug task forces have participated in the Equitable Sharing Program since 2008. Justice spokesman Peter Carr said the program is an effective weapon to fight crime but should not be considered “an alternative funding source for state and local law enforcement.” “It removes the tools of crime from criminal organizations, deprives wrongdoers of the proceeds of their crimes, recovers property that may be used to compensate victims, and deters crime,” he said in a statement. “Any funds received through the equitable sharing program are meant to enhance and supplement, not supplant or replace an agency’s appropriated budget and resources.” Money for gear, training A local or state police agency can seize cash or property under federal law through the Equitable Sharing Program when a federal agency such as the Drug Enforcement Administration or Immigration and Customs Enforcement agrees to adopt the seizure under federal law. Federal agencies generally are allowed to keep 20 percent or more of the seizure after an adoption. [Policing for dollars????] ‘Your property is guilty until you prove it innocent’ In the wake of Sept. 11, 2001, an aggressive brand of policing called “highway interdiction,” which involves authorities seizing money and property during traffic stops, has grown in popularity. Thousands of people not charged with crimes are left fighting legal battles to regain their money. In September, The Post reported that police across the country became more aggressive in their use of federal civil asset forfeiture laws after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Officials at Justice and the Department of Homeland Security encouraged a technique known as highway interdiction to help in the fight against drugs and terror. There have been 61,998 cash seizures on highways and elsewhere since 9/11 without search warrants or indictments and processed through the Equitable Sharing Program, according to an analysis of Justice data obtained by The Post. Equitable Sharing participants must follow rules contained in a 50-page Equitable Sharing guide that require the proceeds of seizures to be used “by law enforcement agencies for law enforcement purposes only.” Permissible uses include overtime pay, training, building construction and improvements and equipment — everything from file cabinets and fitness gear to automatic weapons, surveillance systems and cars. They also can use proceeds to buy food and drinks at conferences or during disaster operations. Police generally may not pay ongoing salaries or otherwise support annual budgets. One exception allows for departments to pay salaries of newly hired officers for one year or officers assigned to a drug task force as a replacement “so long as the replacement officer does not engage in the seizure of assets or narcotics law enforcement as a principal duty.” The Justice Department has about 15 employees assigned to overseeing compliance. Five employees review thousands of annual reports for discrepancies. Justice employees also use analytical tools to search for spending patterns. Several attorneys review all sharing requests for $1 million or more, Carr said, adding that the locals also do their own audits. The annual reports from local and state police are required to help “promote public confidence” in the program and to protect against “waste, fraud and abuse,” the guidelines say. But the forms provide few details about what is actually purchased, according to documents and interviews. That is in part because the department leaves it up to local officials to decide how to categorize their spending. There is little room to provide line-item detail. Justice’s inspector general’s office has conducted 25 audits on spending since 2008, an average of four a year, examining more than $18 million in Equitable Sharing spending, roughly three-quarters of 1 percent of the money spent during that time. Justice has challenged millions of dollars in spending as unsupported or unallowable. One audit examined about $3.4 million in Equitable Sharing funds that the Oklahoma Highway Patrol spent from July 2009 to June 2012. The audit found $1.9 million in unallowable and unsupported expenditures relating to salaries, overtime pay, construction, fees paid to contractors and the use of two Ford F-150 pickup trucks by non-law enforcement personnel. Oklahoma authorities did not return calls seeking comment. Auditors found the Mesa County, Colo., Sheriff’s Office paid thousands for projectors, scanner equipment and other items that were not intended for law enforcement. They also paid for 20 lawyers in the Mesa County prosecutor’s office to attend a conference at the Keystone ski resort. Auditors questioned more than $78,000 in spending. The Mesa Sheriff’s Office also did not respond to calls from The Post. One task force used the money for a subscription to High Times, a magazine for marijuana enthusiasts, at $29.99 for a year. Several departments bought custom-made trading cards, complete with photos and data about their officers. Some, including police in Chelsea, Mass., share them with children in their communities. “We have found that this is a great way to build trust and foster long-lasting relationships with the youth in our community who get to know officers on a first-name basis,” said Chelsea Police Chief Brian Kyes. Ten agencies have used the asset forfeiture funds to pay their fees for the Defense Department’s excess property initiative, better known as the 1033 program, which enables local and state police to buy surplus military-grade equipment at cut rates. The equipment includes automatic weapons, night-vision gear and clothing. Police in Sahuarita, Ariz., paid $4,300 to outfit a Humvee obtained through the 1033 program. The New Bedford, Mass., Police Department in 2012 paid $2,119 for shipping costs for M-16s from the military. In Brunswick County, N.C., $5,300 from asset forfeiture funds was spent on challenge coin medallions. The coins were to be shared with local residents or other law enforcement. (Brunswick County Sheriff's Office ) Dozens of sheriff and police offices paid a total of more than $100,000 for keepsakes known as “challenge coins” and lapel pins that they could share with one another and with local residents. Scores of departments spent money on vehicles. Many of them were typical police cruisers, but dozens were new and used sports and luxury cars, including at least 15 Mercedes, a dozen Mustangs, a handful of BMWs and two Corvettes. Others bought a variety of armored cars. Among them was the police department in Douglasville, Ga., and the sheriff’s office in Douglas County, Ga., which teamed up several years ago to buy an eight-ton, $227,000 BearCat (Ballistic Engineered Armored Response Counter Attack Truck). Douglasville Deputy Chief Gary E. Sparks said they have used the vehicle a few times in barricade situations. But mostly it has been deployed for “officer down” and SWAT team exercises. “It’s better to have it and not need it than need it and not have it,” he said. Police in Ferguson, Mo., also participate in Equitable Sharing. Since 2008, the department reported using seizure proceeds to buy $18,000 in weapons and protective gear, $71,000 in computers and communications gear, and about $43,000 in electronic surveillance equipment. Some of the money was seized in partnerships with other agencies, the annual reports show. Jurisdictions in the Washington region have used the federal asset forfeiture program as well. Virginia State Police spent $33 million on buildings and improvements and $11 million on computers and communications gear. A state police spokeswoman said the funds came from money forfeited by Purdue Frederick Company, the maker of OxyContin, to settle allegations that the company played down the drug’s addictive properties. The D.C. Metropolitan Police Department was a leader in spending on informants and undercover drug purchases, reporting about $3.3 million under that category. The department declined a request to provide details. Police in Prince George’s County, Md., spent $56,000 to paint two aging helicopters and more than $1 million on a mobile command bus using asset forfeiture dollars. Prince George’s police spent $382,000 on license-plate readers, $56,000 to paint two aging helicopters and an undisclosed amount on a “cell site simulator” that can surreptitiously track cellphones. Parker, the Prince George’s police spokeswoman, said the cellphone-tracking system is only used under court order and that the department “follows best practice policies” when spending forfeiture funds. Fairfax County police have spent $1.3 million on weapons and protective gear, $561,000 on buildings and improvements and $208,000 on electronic surveillance gear. The department declined to share details about the spending. The Justice Department audited Fairfax’s spending in 2009 and 2010 and found the department had complied with the guidelines at that time. “Our financial stewardship of our Seized Account Funds is in compliance with all Federal rules and laws, State rules and laws, County rules and laws, and we undergo audits of these accounts by local and federal agencies,” Col. Edwin C. Roessler Jr., the Fairfax police chief, said in a statement. “Additionally, we are subjected to internal audit processes to review all requests for expenditures to ensure purchases are pre-approved for compliance.” Steady money for Ga. town The Post analysis found that since 2008, more than 500 departments and drug task forces have reported receiving the equivalent of 20 percent of their annual spending plans at least once. Nearly 100 have done so in at least three of the past six years. The local department that makes the most consistent use of Equitable Sharing funds per capita is in Braselton, Ga., a town of about 8,000 people along Interstate 85 northeast of Atlanta. It has reported receiving the equivalent of 20 percent or more of its budget from the Justice program in five of the past six years, documents show. The Braselton Police Department’s approach to Equitable Sharing offers insights about the latitude the Justice Department gives local and state departments to spend seized proceeds. It also underscores how little Equitable Sharing participants are required to disclose to Justice each year. According to the town’s annual reports, police in Braselton have spent $79,000 on weapons and protective gear since 2008, $139,000 on travel and training, $134,000 on salaries, $224,000 on computers and communications gear, $875,000 on a category characterized on the Justice form as “other,” and $905,000 on buildings and improvements. Their spending included $806,000 for the purchase and modification of vehicles. “It’s legit. We’re not buying stuff just to buy stuff,” he said, adding, “We spend the money if we have it. . . . It’s pretty cool. We’re not only able to help us, we’re able to help others.” —Braselton Assistant Chief Lou Solis In interviews, Assistant Chief Lou Solis said that not all the reported spending went to items for the town police. He said that Braselton uses its membership in the Equitable Sharing Program to buy things for law enforcement partners, such as the Georgia State Patrol. The federal guidelines allow the formation of task forces and the participants to decide how to split the seizures among themselves, with Justice’s approval. Most of Braselton’s seizure proceeds came as a result of its participation in an Atlanta-based DEA drug task force that relies heavily on local police. Braselton has one officer assigned to the task force, Solis said. Braselton police recently paid $6,000 for copiers for a nearby DEA office. “The DEA says, ‘Hey man, we need a copier,’ ” Solis said. In some instances, town police help out on “whisper stops” after receiving informal tips about smugglers from the DEA, he said. Some of the seizures are made by the state patrol on nearby I-85, with help from Braselton officers, he said. State police have sometimes partnered with Braselton on seizures in exchange for pledges from town police to provide cars and equipment for the state police. For example, Solis said, Braselton police recently bought 27 M-4 assault rifles, at about $2,000 each, for state police with proceeds from Equitable Sharing. Braselton also paid almost $8,000 in program funds for radar, lights and a tag reader for the state police. The deals with Braselton enabled state police offices to receive the direct benefit of seizure proceeds rather than have the money go through the state patrol’s general fund, according to Solis and Capt. Kermit Stokes, a state patrol official. Braselton police also used seizure proceeds to build an enclosed shooting range used by local, state and federal authorities, including the Department of Homeland Security, which also contributed funding, Solis said. “It’s legit. We’re not buying stuff just to buy stuff,” he said, adding, “We spend the money if we have it. . . . It’s pretty cool. We’re not only able to help us, we’re able to help others.” In every instance, planned purchases are submitted to town authorities before being approved by Braselton’s police chief, he said. Every request from Georgia’s state patrol is accompanied by a formal letter, as required by the Justice program, he said. “It’s checked and it’s double-checked,” Solis said about the spending. “It’s audited.” When town police help out, other agencies sometimes promised to include them in a “DAG-71,” the federal form that specifies how sharing should occur. So many seizures have occurred in recent years, leading to so much sharing among local, state and federal authorities, that it has become common for one officer to tell another, “We’re going to ‘DAG you in,” Solis said. After The Post brought the transactions to Justice’s attention, a department official told Braselton to stop using Equitable Sharing funds to buy items for other departments, said Carr, the Justice spokesman. Such transactions were not “explicitly prohibited previously,” but a new interim guidance for the program was issued this summer, Carr said. “Braselton Police Department is now aware that this is not permitted and has assured the department it will comply with the new guidance,” Carr said. He added that other departments had made similar transactions in recent years. Braselton Police Chief Terry Esco said he was not aware of the interim guidance but is happy to comply. “We just never received the e-mail,” he said.
"Asset seizures fuel millions in police spending" Sunday, Oct 12, 2014 - The Washington Post is having a 3 part series on how the cops use RICO laws to steal money, cars, homes, property and anything else they can get their thieving hands on. They charge for the articles so I couldn't get a copy of them to post here. The series is titled "Asset seizures fuel millions in police spending" The articles are by: Robert O’Harrow Jr. and Steven Rich And the 3 articles are titled Part 1: Motorists’ cash seized Part 2: A police intel network Part 3: A fight to get money back Here is the link to the first article
http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/investigative/2014/10/11/cash-seizures-fuel-police-spending/?hpid=z1I suspect this is why the cops love the "War on Drugs" and the RICO laws. It gives them a license to steal. Source Efforts made to reduce eyewitness misidentifications From what I have read eyewitness accounts of crimes are often very inaccurate. It's not that people intentionally lie about what happened, it's that their brains tell them what they THINK happened, which is often different then what actually happened. The studies I read were staged crimes which were video taped. Witnesses in the staged crimes frequently got what happened wrong. One example was a class room where a thief came in and stole a woman's purse. Also the police questioning tends to be bias and the cops tend to steer the witnesses into identifying the people the cops think are guilty. Sadly cops get brownie points for solving crimes. even if they arrest innocent people and send them to prison, the cop gets his brownie points anyhow. Currently 300+ people that were framed by the police for crimes they didn't commit have been freed by DNA testing. Many of these people were convicted by eye witness accounts of people. Eye witness accounts that were either totally wrong. Or eye witness accounts where the people said what the cops told them to say to get the conviction. Efforts made to reduce eyewitness misidentifications Megan Cassidy, The Republic | azcentral.com 9:49 p.m. MST October 11, 2014 Three decades ago, a victim's imperfect memory sent Larry Youngblood to prison. DNA evidence would later clear the Tucson man of involvement with a 1983 child abduction and rape, but not before he would languish for a total of nine years behind bars. Advocates are pointing to this case and a growing number of others to discredit the sanctity of one of the legal system's most cherished prosecutorial tools: eyewitness testimony. Last week, the National Academy of Sciences released a report evaluating the scientific research on memory and eyewitnesses, underlining key variables that can lead to flawed identifications. The report recommends various best-practice procedures, including blind testing, (when the officer performing the lineup is unaware of the suspect), videotaping the procedure, developing standardized witness instructions and asking the witness to rate his or her level of confidence at the time of the lineup. The Innocence Project, a national litigation and public-policy organization that lobbies for freedom of the wrongfully convicted, has pushed for states to uniformly adopt these techniques, to mixed results. Ten states so far have enacted the recommendations by law, policy or court action. Arizona is not one of them, but some jurisdictions have voluntarily embraced the reforms. Innocence Project officials have advocated presenting photos or suspects in sequential order instead of simultaneously. Supporters say research shows the method helps prevent wrongful convictions by reducing the pressure to "pick one." The Tucson Police Department was one of four agencies to participate in an Innocence Project and American Judicature Society field study using sequential testing. The agency adopted the method following the study's report, said Tucson police legal adviser Lisa Judge. "The impetus for us was doing what we could to rely on the most credible evidence available," she said. "Certainly you can't ignore that across the nation, there's evidence that points to wrongful convictions based on bad IDS." Youngblood's saga began in 1983, when a 10-year-old boy was kidnapped from a Pima County carnival, molested and held for more than an hour. The boy received a rape examination and told investigators his assailant was a Black man with a bad right eye. But when police presented a photo lineup to the boy nine days later, it was Youngblood, a Black Tucson man with a disfigured left eye, who stood out. Youngblood was arrested four weeks later. Youngblood's chief defense in trial was that the boy had been mistaken, but a jury disagreed. He was convicted in 1985 and sentenced to 10½ years in prison. In a crucial misstep, Tucson police failed to properly store DNA evidence collected from the boy at the time, rendering it useless for emerging forensic technology. Legal battles over Youngblood's right to DNA would free and reincarcerate the man until more sophisticated DNA testing became available for the evidence. In 2000, Youngblood's claims of innocence were at last scientifically validated. He was not the assailant. Instead, the evidence led investigators to Walter Cruise, a Black man who was blind in his right eye, and serving time in a Texas prison for unrelated charges of sex assaults against children. Cruise later pleaded guilty to the Arizona crime. Carol Wittels, Youngblood's public defender who fought for his freedom, said the prosecution's case hinged nearly entirely on the victim's identification, despite conflicting evidence. Several people vouched for Youngblood's alibi — that he was baking lemon meringue pies at the time of the abduction, Wittels said. The victim had also noted there were tufts of gray in his assailant's hair, while a hair expert testified that Youngblood's black locks had never been dyed. "Larry's case always haunted me — he was such a sweetie," she said. "I knew he was innocent." Eyewitness misidentifications have contributed to 72 percent of the 318 convictions that were later overturned by DNA evidence, according to the Innocence Project. The true perpetrators were later identified in 39 percent of those cases, but were free to commit 98 additional violent crimes while the innocent were locked up, the organization says. Experts say most of the mistaken eyewitnesses aren't intentionally lying. While no single factor shoulders the blame for the human error, researchers say police practices often fall short on their efforts to ensure accurate eyewitness identification. "(I)nsufficient training, the absence of standard operating procedures and the continuing presence of actions and statements at the crime scene and elsewhere may intentionally or unintentionally influence eyewitness identifications," the report states. Scientists have long understood memory to be malleable by time and outside variables, but advocates say jurors still place too much trust on the brain's accuracy. Amshula Jayaram, a state policy advocate for the Innocence Project, explains the recommended reforms as a cost-benefit analysis. Defenders are getting trained on how to litigate using current sciences, she said, and officers using best practices are also protecting themselves from accusations of wrongdoing during an unreliable process. "These practices are designed to improve accuracy, but you'll never have 100 percent accurate eyewitness identifications," she said. "Memory is fundamentally fallible." Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery said today it would be a rare case that rises or falls on the basis of an eyewitness alone without any other evidence. Montgomery and Innocence Project officials have disagreed on the subject of sequential versus simultaneous eyewitness identification testing. Montgomery said he has resisted the reform because scientific evidence has not backed up the claim that the sequential method is preferable. He pointed to a recent case in which a Pennsylvania man's murder charges were dropped after a mistaken sequential identification.
Arizona gubernatorial candidates talk border challenges This article is rather silly and the Arizona candidates for governor talk about how they would solve a federal problem which isn't even something they would do as an Arizona government. Sadly politics seems to be mostly shoveling BS saying anything it takes to get you elected. "But these hard realities haven't stopped either candidate from making unlikely campaign promises" It's also kind of annoying the Arizona Republic didn't even interview ANY of the 3rd party candidates for the article. That's despite the fact that independent, and 3rd party voters out number the number of people in both the Republican and Democratic parties in Arizona. I am a Libertarian and I am not happy Barry Hess who is move of a Republican with a Libertarian leaning who runs for governor every 4 years as a Libertarian. Sadly the Republic didn't give us Barry Hess's plan to secure the border, which would make him look like Republican nut job Ev Mecham. Unless you enjoy wading thru ankle deep doo doo it's probably a waste of your time to read the article. Arizona gubernatorial candidates talk border challenges Bob Ortega, The Republic | azcentral.com 1:09 a.m. MST October 12, 2014 Gubernatorial candidates Fred DuVal and Doug Ducey face a dilemma on border security and immigration: It's far easier for a governor to rant about what the federal government is or isn't doing about these issues than actually accomplishing anything on the state level. Outgoing Gov. Jan Brewer knows this only too well. One reason: The federal government, not the state, is responsible for securing the border and enforcing immigration laws. Another reason: Any additional action by the state to secure the border is very difficult, and very, very expensive — and Arizona is financially strapped. Next year's projected state budget deficit is $520 million. With the U.S. government responsible for the border But these hard realities haven't stopped either candidate from making unlikely campaign promises — promises each repeated or clarified in recent interviews with The Arizona Republic. Both candidates say they'll push to improve border security — though Ducey's campaign makes the most extravagant commitment. Both also promise to focus strongly on boosting trade and improving relations with Mexico. The issue on which they differ most starkly, and can most easily take direct action, is whether to continue Brewer's policy of denying driver's licenses to young undocumented immigrants brought here by their parents as children — commonly called "dreamers." Where the candidates stand on the border and immigration issues: Improving border security The federal government has spent more than $126 billion on border enforcement over the past decade. That includes building hundreds of miles of fences; installing thousands of ground sensors and radar and camera towers; deploying drones and aircraft for surveillance; and more than doubling the number of Border Patrol agents in this state to more than 5,100. But Ducey, the Republican candidate, repeatedly said in his interview that "the southern border is unsecured and wide-open," and blamed what he called the federal government's "complete lack of attention to what's happening." His television ads promise "Doug Ducey will secure the border." "I will do everything possible under the law as governor," Ducey said, repeating his television ads, which promise "fencing, satellites, Guardsmen and more police and prosecutors." He offered no specifics on how he would accomplish that. But providing any or all of those would be expensive. The Government Accounting Office reported in 2011 that deploying 1,200 National Guard troops to the border in 2010 for a year cost the federal government, which authorized the deployment, $110 million. By law, if a governor calls out the Guard, as Texas' Gov. Rick Perry recently did, the state foots that bill. Given projected deficits for next year, a court order to boost state education spending by $1.6 billion over the next five years, and the likelihood that Ducey's promises to cut taxes would reduce state revenue, it's unclear where the money would come from. Ducey said he would reprioritize some of the $300 million annual budget at the state Department of Public Safety "to focus on violent crime, drug cartels and human trafficking." He did not say how much money he would repurpose or what programs at DPS he would cut. However, only $89 million of that budget comes from state general funds and potentially could be redirected. Other funding from the federal government passed on to the state is locked in for specific existing programs. Ducey also said he would give more money from drug and cash seizures to county sheriffs along the border. [Sounds like Ducey is a big time supporter of the police state!!!!] DuVal, the Democratic candidate, this summer issued a 21-point plan on border and immigration issues. He conceded that, given the court order on education spending, and other needs, "It's going to be a tough budget, and we've got to make good choices; but border security has to be a priority, along with education." Among DuVal's promises: • Boosting anti-smuggling efforts by Arizona's Department of Public Safety. • Creating a "strengthened role" for the National Guard in helping law enforcement. • Giving more cash from drug and cash seizures to the task forces going after criminals. [Looks like DuVal is just as big of a fan of the police state as Ducey is] • Spearheading, in his words, "relationships with banks" to detect and deter money laundering. He, too, is imprecise about where the funds would come from. But DuVal also said the best way to boost border security would be for Congress to pass the comprehensive immigration-reform and border-security bill that has been languishing in the House. That bill would boost border security spending by $46 billion over 10 years. "It's a significant increase in Border Patrol, it's a significant increase in Customs. It gives us more tools of surveillance," he said. "It's a comprehensive strategy around the security issues as well as around the human and economic issues." Ducey said he opposes the immigration-reform proposal that passed in the Senate, saying "I don't think it works" and that efforts should focus solely on border security first. Visits to the border Both candidates say their proposals are based on meetings they have had with people in border communities. "I've been to Nogales a number of times," DuVal said. "I've been to Naco, to Douglas, to San Luis. I've tried to see a lot of it. My most recent visit was with Sheriff (Tony) Estrada" of Santa Cruz County. Ducey said, "I was at the (John) Ladd ranch on the southern border in the Tucson Sector," referring to the San Carlos ranch, near Naco. "I've been to Nogales and the Mariposa Port of Entry (on the west side of Nogales) several times." Immigration Like border security, enforcement of immigration laws is a federal responsibility, although there are areas where the state has tried to play a role. In 2010, Brewer signed into law Senate Bill 1070, which made it a crime to be in Arizona and to seek work without documentation. The U.S. Supreme Court struck down most of the law in 2012, saying it was pre-empted by federal immigration law. More recently, after President Barack Obama's executive action deferred deportation of undocumented people brought here as children by their parents, Brewer ordered state officials not to issue driver's licenses to dreamers. DuVal has criticized Brewer's denial of driver's licenses to dreamers as mean-spirited. He says he would immediately reverse the ban. A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned Brewer's ban in July, but she has asked for a review by the full circuit court. "Children who were brought here by their parents as children are in a unique situation," DuVal said. "They have been raised here, they have gone to school here. They are fully embedded in our culture and society ... and are being responsible actors as employers and employees." "It's in our interests, since they will be part of our lives, that they be as successful as possible. That's why 48 states have moved toward providing driver's licenses, and we should do the same," he said. Ducey said he supports the ban, but he wouldn't explain why. Asked to offer his rationale for continuing the ban, he said, "I'm going to be consistent in the themes regarding border security first, then step-by-step immigration improvement and reform." Asked twice more why he supports the ban, Ducey repeated that he wants to "focus on border security first." Ducey also criticized Obama for saying he will take executive action on immigration reform after the November elections if Congress doesn't act. Ducey attacked an action that Obama has not said he would take, that would be far outside what mainstream legal scholars and immigration observers have discussed: "Barack Obama said he's going to have a blanket amnesty post-November, that he's going to have an executive order granting citizenship to undocumented immigrants," Ducey said. Obama has not said he would grant citizenship to any undocumented immigrants. While Obama has not described the scope of any action, White House staffers have said he will focus on deferring deportations of more undocumented migrants — with the main questions being how many and in what categories. Legal scholars across the political spectrum agree that deferring deportations, as Obama did through his earlier Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals action, is within the scope of the president's powers. But when a Republic reporter tried to discuss that context with him, Ducey insisted, "I think I'm pretty accurate on the blanket amnesty here for citizenship." ON THE BEAT Bob Ortega is a senior reporter specializing in coverage of the U.S.-Mexico border. How to reach him bob.ortega@arizonarepublic.com Phone: 602-444-8926 Twitter: @bob_ortega
Here is a Spanish language version of the story about Alaska TV reporter Charlo Green quit her job on TV over the draconian marijuana laws. Periodista renuncia al aire por defender la legalización de la marihuana La presentadora es la presidenta del Club de Cannabis de Alaska. La periodista estadounidense Charlo Green renunció a su trabajo en vivo y en directo por televisión, luego de mostrar una nota sobre la legalización de la marihuana. La presentadora de noticias en el canal KTVA de Alaska dijo al aire: "Todo lo que escucharon es la razón por la que yo, la dueña del Alaska Cannabis Club, dedicaré toda mi energía en pelear por la libertad e igualdad que empieza con la legalización de la marihuana en Alaska. Y en cuanto a este trabajo, bueno, no tengo demasiadas opciones, a la mierd*, renuncio". De acuerdo con E!, Green es presidenta del Club de Cannabis de Alaska y estaba en desacuerdo con la presión ejercida por los medios para evitar el libre uso de marihuana. Después de expresar su sentir sobre la legalización de este estupefaciente, la conductora salió de cuadro y enseguida enviaron a otra conductora que después de pedir disculpas por lo antes sucedido envió a corte comercial.
Let me get this straight. The city of Gilbert, Arizona is going to spend $160k to $180k a year to glorify the illegal, unconstitutional war in Vietnam, which we also lost??? "Some council members raised concerns about the $160,000 to $180,000 annual cost to maintain and operate the memorial." You also have to realize that most of the Vietnamese refuges in the USA are considered by people in their homeland to be traitors who sold them out to the American Empire in exchange for money and power. Gilbert's Vietnam Wall replica finds support from Vietnamese community Jonathan Reid, The Republic | azcentral.com 8:11 p.m. MST October 5, 2014 For Sang Nguyen, a South Vietnamese soldier who fought alongside Americans in the Vietnam War, Gilbert's proposed "Wall" replica is a chance for him to honor those who fought and died trying to win his people's freedom. "We sometimes fought side by side for our lives," Nguyen recalled in a statement at the unveiling of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial replica on Tuesday. "We hugged, jumped for joy when we defeated Viet Cong and cried sorrowfully when we lost a comrade." After the war's dramatic conclusion with the fall of Saigon in 1975, Nguyen was sent to a labor camp for 5 1/2 years. The American government was successful in getting the Vietnam government to allow Nguyen and others in labor camps to seek refuge in the United States. "Americans were open-armed to accept, resettle and support us when we first came to your country, and now our country," Nguyen said. "I do not have enough words to thank you." He shared his story with about 100 people gathered outside the Gilbert Town Council chambers for the project's unveiling. Operation Welcome Home, the group leading the effort to bring a permanent Wall replica to Gilbert, is raising funds and talking with the council about locating the project on town land. Some council members raised concerns about the $160,000 to $180,000 annual cost to maintain and operate the memorial.It's unclear who would cover that. Once organizers finish the final design for the replica, they will pitch it to the Town Council for a vote. This is expected to happen by January at the latest. Nguyen is a member of the Vietnamese Community of Arizona, which in July reached out to Operation Welcome Home after reading about the project in The Arizona Republic. Gilbert Councilwoman Jenn Daniels, a proponent of the project and member of Operation Welcome Home, recalled when the two groups first met. "When they heard about the project all they wanted to know about is 'how can we help?'" Daniels said. The legacy of the Vietnam War has shaped the identity of South Vietnamese Americans. While many Americans view the war as unnecessary and a failure, South Vietnamese Americans at the event were eager to show that the sacrifice was not in vain. Kevin Dang, president of the Vietnamese Community of Arizona, escaped communist-controlled Vietnam in 1989. At the unveiling, Dang recounted his family's struggle and expressed his admiration for American veterans and the South Vietnamese people. "We, the younger generation, are forever indebted to our parents for their sacrifice and resilience in search of a better life for us in America," Dang said. The number of civilian casualties of the Vietnam War remains a subject of debate, but media reports have provided estimates around 2 million, including U.S. intervention in Cambodia and Laos. American veterans in return expressed gratitude for the South Vietnamese involvement in the project, with veteran Roger Pollard presenting a ceremonial South Vietnamese flag. He said it was to honor the South Vietnamese and American soldiers who served and sacrificed during the war. The Wall memorial would feature the names of the 58,300 American soldiers who died in Vietnam. It would be 80 percent the size of the original, 8 feet at its tallest and 360 feet long. If built, the Town Council decided it would be located outside the Fire and Police Administration buildings, across the street from Gilbert's 9/11 Memorial. It would be the only permanent Wall replica in the western United States. Among the project's supporters is Cory Remsburg, the Afghanistan and Iraq veteran who was honored by President Barack Obama at the 2014 State of the Union. Remsburg was not at the unveiling but wrote in a statement that he is "grateful for the opportunity to pay tribute to those men and women who paid the ultimate price in an unpopular war." Operation Welcome Home is in the process of designing the replica, which is estimated to cost more than $5 million. Lisa Rigler, who is leading the effort, hopes donations will help cover the cost. The group is accepting donations at azwallproject.com. Those looking to donate can also mail a check to the AZ Wall Project at 1760 E. Pecos Road, Suite 344, Gilbert, AZ 85295.
I guess the bad news is that putting these Federal undercover air marshals on planes to protect from terrorists is a huge waste of money because there ain't no terrorists out there. The good news is every couple of years, these overpaid, under worked federal air marshals get some real work to do. In this case they busted up a fight about a passenger reclining her seat too far. Sure a $10 an hour flight stewardess could have done the job just as well. But if that happened these two useless federal cops who are probably making $100,000+ each would be out of a job. Passenger indicted after reclined-seat drama BOSTON — An airline passenger who became upset after a woman reclined the seat in front of him, causing the pilot to divert the plane, has been indicted on a federal charge of interfering with a flight crew. Edmond Alexandre began to argue with other passengers over the reclined seat on the Aug. 27 flight from Miami to Paris, the U.S. attorney's office said. When a crew member intervened, Alexandre followed him down the aisle and grabbed his arm, it said. Two undercover federal air marshals subdued him, and the American Airlines flight was diverted to Boston. The outburst over the reclined seat was at least the second such incident in the U.S. that week, authorities said. Days earlier, a United Airlines flight diverted to Chicago after two passengers argued over reclining a seat. Alexandre, a 60-year-old Haitian national who lives in Paris, was indicted Thursday. His lawyer, Josh Hanye, said Friday he has serious health conditions including diabetes, which wasn't being properly treated at the time. "I think all that matters in what happened on the plane," Hanye said.
After 17 years in prison, woman exonerated Sadly these cases are becoming rather common where a person is framed by the police for murder or rape and spends 10, 15, or 20 years in prison before being released because they were framed by crooked cops. While the article didn't say if DNA tests were involved in this case, DNA test have caused about 400 people to be released from prison when DNA tests proved the people were innocent and framed by crooked police officers. Here in Arizona Ray Krone became a famous when DNA testing made him the 100th person released from prison after DNA tests proved he was framed by the Phoenix Police for murder. After 17 years in prison, woman exonerated Associated Press 12:22 p.m. MST October 10, 2014 TORRANCE, Calif. — A woman who spent 17 years in prison after being convicted of murder in the death of a homeless man was exonerated Friday by a Los Angeles County judge who said she should not spend another minute behind bars. The courtroom burst into applause after Superior Court Judge Mark Arnold overturned the conviction of Susan Mellen, who was to be processed for release from the suburban Torrance courthouse. Mellen had entered the courtroom in tears, and her children also wept. The judge said Mellen had inadequate representation by her attorney at trial. "I believe that not only is Ms. Mellen not guilty, based on what I have read I believe she is innocent," he said. "For that reason I believe in this case the justice system failed." Mellen's case was investigated by Deidre O'Connor, head of a project known as Innocence Matters that seeks to free people who are wrongly convicted. O'Connor said in an earlier interview that she found that Mellen was convicted of the 1997 killing based solely on the testimony of a notorious liar. Mellen, a mother of three, was sentenced to life in prison without possibility of parole. The witness who claimed she heard Mellen confess was June Patti, who had a long history of giving false tips to law enforcement, according to documents in the case. She died in 2006. Three gang members subsequently were linked to the crime, and one was convicted of the killing. Another took a polygraph test and said he was present at the bludgeon killing of Richard Daly, and Mellen was not there. In a habeas corpus petition, O'Connor said the police detective who arrested Mellen was also responsible for a case in 1994 that resulted in the convictions of two men ultimately exonerated by innocence projects. It said the primary evidence against Reggie Cole and Obie Anthony was the false testimony of an informant who avoided prosecution for other charges in exchange for his help. Mellen's youngest children were 7 and 9 when she was arrested. "Although each member of this family suffered tremendously, they remain a close family unit," O'Connor said. One of the daughters was honored by Innocence Matters for bravery in obtaining a confession that helped to prove her mother's innocence, O'Connor said. "The 'kids' are overjoyed by the news of their mother's anticipated exoneration and are anxious to make up for lost time," O'Connor said.
NAACP: Police botched probe into killing of unarmed man Did you think anything else would happen??? NAACP: Police botched probe into killing of unarmed man D.S. Woodfill, The Republic | azcentral.com 11:07 p.m. MST October 10, 2014 NAACP leaders in Phoenix have recanted their original support for police and prosecutors in their handling of an officer-involved shooting of an unarmed Black man and now say they regret supporting the agencies and urging restraint from the victim's family. Oscar Tillman, president of the Maricopa County branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, said he feels let down by what he said was a shoddy homicide investigation by Phoenix police and a general lack of interest by the Maricopa County Attorney's Office in uncovering what occurred the night an off-duty Arizona Department of Transportation officer shot and killed his unarmed neighbor. Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery, who declined to charge the officer, defended his decision on Wednesday, saying he never claimed the shooting was justified. He said there simply wasn't enough evidence to bring criminal charges. "I was not saying this was a good shoot," he said. "Far from it." The FBI announced last week it is reviewing the shooting and subsequent police investigation at the request of the U.S. Attorney for Arizona, John Leonardo. News that the FBI has launched an investigation into the shooting was coupled with a simple message from Tillman for local officials: We're watching. The killing In January 2013, Officer Joseph MacKenzie, who has since left ADOT over unrelated misconduct, shot and killed his neighbor Quintine Barksdale outside an apartment complex near Camelback Road and Central Avenue in Phoenix. MacKenzie, who is White, said he shot Barksdale, who was Black, because Barksdale had attacked him by throwing gasoline on him and then reached for something in his pants. Matches were later found on Barksdale's body. The shooting culminated a rocky history between the two men. Barksdale had accused MacKenzie of stealing thousands of dollars from his apartment just days earlier. MacKenzie accused Barksdale of retaliating by pouring sugar into the gas tank of his car to make it break down, according to witness statements. Tillman on Wednesday joined critics of the Police Department and prosecutors who claim that investigators ignored important evidence that could have shed more light on the case. For example, it does not appear that investigators tested MacKenzie's clothing for gasoline or checked the gas container for fingerprints or other evidence linking it to Barksdale, according to police records. It also does not appear that investigators examined MacKenzie's finances to see whether he recently had a financial windfall consistent with the amount that Barksdale said was stolen. Police officials have not returned several requests for comment. On Thursday, Phoenix Mayor Greg Stanton issued a statement saying, "Our office is following this matter closely and looks forward to carefully reviewing the FBI's findings." Constant phone calls Tillman said his phone rang constantly after an article in The Republic detailed concerns with the investigation. He said outraged members of the Valley's African-American community wanted to know if the local NAACP was examining the matter. "Everybody that I've talked to (asked), 'Did they really look at MacKenzie? Did they know who he is and his background?' " he said. "These are community people. These are elderly ministers and plain citizens." Tillman said he and the NAACP went out on a limb for the Police Department and County Attorney's Office when the shooting occurred, urging Barksdale's family to avoid any appearance that they were questioning police or the investigative process. "I feel very let down," Tillman said. He said he regrets declining the family request in early 2013 to start calling attention to the killing. "It bothers me that I turned them down (about) doing a news conference and everything else, and I got a lot of flak from it locally," he said. Weaver Barkman, a retired 25-year veteran of the Pima County Sheriff's Department who conducted an independent investigation into the shooting on behalf of Barksdale's family, said he may never find out what occurred that night due to what he called a "botched" investigation by the Phoenix police. Barkman has accused the police of bias because investigators took MacKenzie's claims of self-defense at face value and did not put them to the test by examining all of the evidence. In a letter on May 1 to Phoenix Police Chief Daniel V. Garcia, Barkman said " 'criminal conduct' is not now, nor has it ever been, the primary issue in this case." "The issue in this matter is the biased and incompetent manner in which the killing of (Quintine) Barksdale by then ADOT Police Officer Joseph MacKenzie was investigated by your department," he wrote. "Had an objective investigation been conducted, the issue of criminality could have been properly addressed." Tillman said next week he will also bring his concerns to representatives of the U.S. Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division during a trip to Washington, D.C. "I'm dead serious about this," he said. "I'm not letting this one go down. I'm not." On Wednesday, Montgomery defended his decision not to charge MacKenzie. "Our assessment basically was that in looking at everything, we don't have a reasonable likelihood of a conviction here if we file a homicide charge, given the evidence that was found at the scene (and) statements made not just by (Mackenzie) but also by other neighbors," Montgomery said. Among those statements from neighbors is that they heard MacKenzie shouting at someone to "stop" and identifying himself as an officer. 'We can't prove it's bad' "I guess maybe another way to say it is that we're not saying it was good," he said. "We're just saying we can't prove it's bad." Montgomery said he would consider filing criminal charges if more information turned up and was submitted to his office for review. "Homicide cases don't have a statute of limitations," he said. "We certainly can look at it again, and I think we have an ethical obligation to do so." Montgomery said he doesn't believe the case's lead investigator, Jeanette Butcher, or any other officers gave MacKenzie special treatment or turned a blind eye because he was a fellow law-enforcement officer. "I looked at it as they were rather skeptical of his assertion of being a law-enforcement officer and how he was behaving in that complex," he said. Republic reporter Michael Kiefer contributed to this article.
GOP lawmaker: Legalize pot to aid state budget When it comes to legalizing marijuana, our government rulers seem to be only doing it for the money. Not for the right reasons. Like because the marijuana laws jail people for a victimless crime that hurts no one. Or that that it's a huge waste of tax dollars to pay cops to jail people for victimless marijuana crimes. Or that it's a huge waste of money to spend $40,000 or $50,000 a year to put people in prison for victimless marijuana crimes. Or that the laws against marijuana are probably all unconstitutional per the 10th Amendment. Sadly our law makers seem to see marijuana smokers as a new group of people they can rob for big bucks, which they will split up between themselves and the special interest groups that help them get elected. Also the article doesn't point out that the Marijuana Policy Project plan isn't really an attempt to legalize marijuana, but rather an attempt to give Andrew Myers and the members of his Arizona Dispensary Association or Arizona Association of Dispensaries a government monopoly on growing and selling recreational marijuana in Arizona. Possession of small amounts of marijuana will still be a felony and growing marijuana will still be a felony. Well for anybody except members of Andrew Myers's Arizona Dispensary Association. At least that's how folks who support legalizing marijuana think. GOP lawmaker: Legalize pot to aid state budget Yvonne Wingett Sanchez, The Republic | azcentral.com 9:48 p.m. MST October 10, 2014 012814438ml Now that Arizona's once-rosy budget outlook has evaporated, a state lawmaker wants to decriminalize and tax marijuana as a way to raise revenue. After seeing Colorado's experience with legalization, Rep. Ethan Orr, R-Tucson, said Friday that lawmakers should get creative about how they're going to confront the state's dim finances when the Legislature convenes in January. Revenue projections provided Tuesday to the Legislature's Finance Advisory Committee predict the state will end this budget year with a $520 million deficit and an up to $1 billion deficit in the coming fiscal 2016. "Given the massive budget shortfall we're facing, we need to look at revenue and I think this is a logical place we need to look," Orr said. "I think it's time to have an intelligent conversation about it (legalization)." Similar attempts to decriminalize pot have failed in recent years. Orr said lawmakers should consider his proposal before supporters of an effort to legalize recreational marijuana take their measure before voters in 2016. The Marijuana Policy Project of Arizona initiative almost certainly will be modeled after the voter-approved marijuana program in Colorado. For about a year, Colorado has allowed adults 21 and older to buy and possess up to an ounce of pot, which can be purchased at one of the many marijuana shops allowed under the law. Colorado's 2013 measure taxed recreational marijuana at 25 percent and earmarked $40 million in tax revenue for school construction. The state's Legislative Council recently estimated Colorado can expect to bring in about $175 million through the fiscal year that ends in 2017. Orr said he plans to talk with Republican leadership in the coming weeks to try to build support for his proposal. Leadership in the House and Senate did not immediately respond to a request for comment about Orr's idea. "If I don't think I'll have the votes, I won't take it forward," he said. Orr said he know he'll have a tough time pitching his idea to his colleagues. But, he said, he'd rather have state lawmakers impose a tax and direct its uses rather than leave it to an unpredictable plan from a citizen's initiative. Orr said taxes from marijuana sales in Arizona could be put towards education, law enforcement and tax incentives "for certain industries." Marijuana is legal for about 50,000 Arizonans, but only for medicinal purposes. Patients must get recommendations from a physician and obtain a card from state health officials under the Arizona Medical Marijuana Act approved by the voters in 2010. Any effort toward full legalization in Arizona is expected to be met with stiff opposition from law-enforcement officials and possibly from medical-marijuana dispensary owners who have spent the past few years building their businesses around the medicinal model.
This is a good example of why you should ALWAYS take the 5th Amendment when dealing with the police and refuse to answer ANY and ALL police questions. If you refuse to answer ANY and ALL police questions they can't charge you with "hindering prosecution" or "lying to the police" as they did in this woman's case. Remember you can't be punished or charged with a crime for taking the Fifth Amendment and refusing to answer police questions. It's pretty simple, just tell the police you want to exercise your 6th Amendment right to a lawyer and your 5th Amendment right to remain silent and keep repeating that over and over while the police lie to you and tell you that they will send you to jail and punished you if you don't cooperate with them. Phoenix police make arrest in DPS shooting case Megan Cassidy and Matthew Casey, The Republic | azcentral.com 9:39 a.m. MST October 10, 2014 Phoenix police arrested a woman Friday on suspicion of hindering prosecution in their investigation into the attempted murder of an Arizona Department of Public Safety officer. Phoenix police have arrested one of the two women they detained Thursday evening in connection to the Wednesday morning shooting of an Arizona Department of Public Safety officer, according to a Phoenix police spokesman. Valeria S. Jaimie, 24, was arrested on suspicion of hindering prosecution after police said her statements during an interview amounted to a "furtive effort to mislead detectives." Officials say Jaimie was injured from what they believed to be a gunshot wound from Wednesday morning, when officers and the suspects exchanged gunfire. Jaimie was treated at a hospital and booked into jail, said Officer James Holmes, a Phoenix police spokesman. Jaimiehas struggled with drug addiction for most of her life and was in and out of rehab as a teenager, according to her mother, Marisela Proano. "I never thought I'd be in this situation, but the police are only doing what they have to do. They are doing their job," Proano said in Spanish about her daughter being the subject of a police investigation. "They are decisions she has already made and they are consequences she'll have to take, have to confront." Proano said Jaimie's drug of choice is methamphetamine and she has had minimal contact with her daughter since asking that she and another man leave her Maryvale home this spring. Jaimie has a 5-year-old daughter, but her grandmother has custody, Proano said. Last month, the girl started asking to see her mother, prompting Proano to search for Jaimie. Their last communication was two days before the shooting. "Don't worry, Mom," Proano said Jaimie told her. "I'm OK. Pray for me." Officials are still seeking three more in connection with the shooting. Vanessa C. Martinez, 29, Danny Angel Vargas, 26, and Ramon L. Bueno, 39, have been identified as the three outstanding people police want to question in the case. Police believe Martinez, Vargas, Bueno and Jaimie were inside the vehicle when gunfire erupted Wednesday morning, Holmes said. The officer The injured officer, who underwent a 5-hour surgery on Wednesday, continued to be in stable but critical condition at a Valley hospital on Thursday. Authorities are guarding his identity until police can bring into custody everyone involved in the shooting. The officer stopped a 2008 blue Mercury Sable with excessively tinted windows — a state violation — before 3 a.m. Wednesday at the Knights Inn near Interstate 17 and McDowell Road. He asked the occupants for their identification cards to run through his in-car computer. Holmes said the officer suspected one or more of the occupants was being dishonest and called for back up. Two other DPS officers pulled in and were positioned near the suspect vehicle when the officer returned to the Sable. Holmes said someone inside the Sable opened fire, striking the officer and prompting the backup officers to return fire. The Sable peeled out but didn't go far. As the officers were calling for help and tending to their injured partner, the Sable returned and gunfire was again exchanged. Later that morning, an anonymous tip led to the Sable's discovery in the backyard of an abandoned home near 29th Avenue and Pima Street, a house police were familiar with from past investigations. Holmes said that, for the next 30-something hours, Phoenix police worked alongside DPS, the FBI, ATF and U.S. Marshals Service to track down persons of interest in the case. Police detained Jaimie and one other woman at about 5:30 p.m. Thursday in separate areas of the city. The other woman was released and will not be arrested in connection with the shooting, Holmes said. He stressed that the two women and Martinez, Vargas and Bueno are not suspects but investigative leads in the case. "We want to find these folks, we want to talk to them and we want to know if they have any involvement in this investigation," Holmes said. Later, Holmes spoke directly to Martinez, Vargas and Bueno: "Hey call us up. If you have nothing to do with the shooting, even if you were there, help us to find the person who did this." Police are asking anyone with information to call 911 or 480-WITNESS. Reporters Matthew Casey, Megan Cassidy and Maribel Castillo contributed to this report.
More on those photo radar bandits and crooks in Chicago City watchdog says red light program flawed By David Kidwell, Chicago Tribune 7:15 am, October 10, 2014 Chicago's red light camera program was beset by "fundamentally deficient" City Hall management and inconsistent enforcement, according to a limited inspector general review that failed to solve the mystery of suspicious ticket spikes exposed by the Tribune. Inspector General Joseph Ferguson reported that city transportation officials identified likely causes for just three of the dozen most dramatic spikes cited in the Tribune's 10-month investigation, putting the blame on faulty equipment and inaccurate camera settings. Ferguson said his office was unable to find reasons for any of the other anomalies, citing missing or destroyed records and his office's desire to quickly respond to public concerns raised by the Tribune's July report. The inspector general relied heavily on work conducted by the city Transportation Department and longtime camera operator Redflex Traffic Systems Inc., which was fired amid charges top company executives paid up to $2 million in bribes to win the Chicago contract. At the same time, Ferguson said City Hall's oversight "was insufficient to identify and resolve the types of issues identified in the Tribune report." While he dismissed the Emanuel administration's earlier contention that the spikes were due to normal changes in traffic flow, Ferguson said it may never be possible to know the extent to which any changes in the camera system's operations were intentional or accidental. The inspector general did resolve a more recent controversy involving the red light program — disclosing that the Emanuel administration quietly issued a new, shorter yellow light standard this spring that generated 77,000 tickets that would not have been allowed before the rule change. The administration defended the $100 tickets as valid but agreed to Ferguson's recommendation to end the new practice of issuing citations with yellow light times below 3 seconds. In the report, Ferguson suggested the city had never looked for the kind of surges in ticketing the Tribune found but instead focused on the opposite problem — intersections where ticket numbers were low or cameras weren't functioning. City transportation "staff saw their role at that time as keeping the systems operational rather than ensuring that the equipment functioned accurately." Emanuel's transportation chief essentially agreed with the inspector general report while seizing on Ferguson's finding that malfunctioning equipment responsible for one North Side spike meant there should have been more tickets, not fewer. "These issues demonstrate that the past management of the program was insufficient," Transportation Commissioner Rebekah Scheinfeld wrote in her response. "Although the program has shown dramatic improvements in safety, due to those technical and management deficiencies the program was actually under-enforcing violations." The administration offered to review about 16,000 tickets from the most dramatic spikes identified by the Tribune and announced earlier this month that only 3,000 drivers caught in spikes had responded to an offer to review their tickets. It said 126 were entitled to refunds. The administration's ticket review did not consider issues of fairness related to inconsistent enforcement. Ferguson said his office did not examine whether the city's efforts were sufficient. National traffic experts interviewed by the Tribune argue inconsistent enforcement of traffic laws at automated camera locations is fundamentally unfair to motorists because the purpose of camera systems is not to generate ticket revenue, but to improve safety by training drivers to improve their behavior over time. A Tribune analysis of more than 4 million tickets issued since 2007 found dozens of suspicious spikes throughout Chicago that the city said it could not explain. The July report focused on 12 of the most dramatic spikes involving more than 13,000 questionable tickets. Experts interviewed said the spikes were likely the result of faulty equipment or human tinkering and suggested that drivers ticketed during the anomalies should get refunds. While Ferguson's report confirmed the Tribune's findings that faulty equipment or human tinkering are the likely culprits, he stopped short of recommending widespread refunds. "Sudden changes to enforcement parameters, even unintentional changes, can create the appearance of unfairness and have the potential to erode public confidence in the program," he wrote. "While these violations may indeed have been violations of the law, the fact that CDOT was unaware of the change remains cause for concern." Ferguson's report found answers in only three of the spikes. At Halsted and 119th streets, where one camera in 2011 tagged more drivers in a 52-day period than it had in the previous year and half combined, Ferguson wrote that a change in the system settings caught 1,618 drivers who would not have been ticketed under the camera's normal settings. He said a lack of records means the drivers ticketed during the spike may never find out the motivation behind the change. The problem, he wrote, was a dramatic drop in the camera system's trigger speed. Under the rules, video evidence used to determine whether a ticket is issued must start before the car enters the intersection. So sensors in the roadway measured the speed of approaching cars to predict whether or not they have time to stop at the light. If the car is moving faster than a preset "trigger speed" the camera is activated. According to Ferguson's report, the trigger speed during the spike from April to June of 2011 mysteriously dropped from 15 miles per hour to as low as 5 miles per hour. "This drop resulted in 1,618 additional citations that would not have been issued had the trigger speed remained at 15 mph," Ferguson wrote. Redflex maintenance records indicate that a technician performed a preventive maintenance check May 17 and noted no issues with the trigger speed, he added. The report went on to say that the city's contract with Redflex required the company to do "daily operational and quality checks" and its routine maintenance checks included accurate settings for trigger speeds. "The increased violation counts continued for over seven weeks," Ferguson wrote, "and available maintenance records do not document when, why or how the trigger speed was reset to 15 mph, or who, if anyone, at CDOT or Redflex was aware of the issue." On the North Side, a spike at 800 W. Fullerton , was caused by a damaged traffic light that wasn't visible to drivers at the intersection, Ferguson wrote. That two-day spike tagged 64 drivers at a camera that normally only tagged a few motorists a day. "The traffic signals mounted on the mast arm of the light pole at this intersection were reported via 311 as damaged and not visible to drivers early on Aug. 3," Ferguson wrote, adding that a review of video "determined that one of the light poles at this location had been damaged late on Aug. 1 or early on Aug. 2." Despite the traffic light being not visible, Ferguson wrote that another light at the intersection was functioning and visible. "CDOT stated that the increase in RLC violations at the intersection may have resulted from inattentive drivers ignoring the still-functioning traffic signal and driving through the intersection during a red phase," Ferguson wrote. Another North Side camera, at 6200 N. Lincoln Ave., tagged an average of 47 drivers a day during a 12-day stretch at the beginning of 2012. In the previous six months, that same camera caught fewer than one driver a day. According to the inspector general's report, that spike was caused by a faulty sensor in the right turn lane of the three–lane roadway that only worked intermittently for years. The 12-day spike happened, Ferguson said, when the sensor — called a loop detector — mysteriously started working again and snared drivers rolling through right turns in a lane that had not been enforced for months. "As a result, the brief periods where the right turn lane loop detector was capturing events show up in the data as enforcement anomalies," Ferguson said. The inspector general's report failed to address how the loop detector suddenly turned itself on and off during five separate and distinct spikes in tickets at the camera. He also did not address the contention of experts who say sudden changes in enforcement, where behaviors that are excused one day are suddenly ticketed, are fundamentally unfair. He noted that had the sensor been working full time another 45,444 tickets would have been issued. In Scheinfeld's response to Ferguson's report, she noted that the imbedded sensors "were prone to frequent disruption due to the condition of the streets, weather and construction impacts." "They often suffered from long periods without enforcement until the loop detector could be repaired or reconnected," she wrote. "This led to the appearance of a spike in enforcement, when in reality it was what should have been the true level of violations occurring at that intersection." She said the maintenance problems with sensors has been resolved under Xerox, which has moved to above-ground radar technology. Ferguson adopted the city's explanation of the Tribune findings that yellow light times at the same camera "fluctuated wildly" from 3 seconds to 4 seconds. The city explained that the differences in yellow lights are for two different signal plans, 4 seconds for cars going straight through the intersection, and 3 seconds at the light governing only those cars in the right turn-only lane. Ferguson did not address the fact that many of fluctuations in yellow light times from 4 seconds to 3 seconds occurred in the same lane – the right turn-only lane – during the spike. "Based on CDOT's explanation and a review of available maintenance records, OIG has determined this difference in yellow light times at 6200 N. Lincoln was likely not a cause of any enforcement anomalies," Ferguson wrote. Ferguson ruled out fluctuations in yellow light times as the cause for any spikes. But he called out the Emanuel administration for changing the yellow light standard used to process violations when the city began the transition from Redflex to Xerox in February. "At the City's request Redflex categorically rejected any captured event with a recorded yellow light time below three seconds," Ferguson wrote. "However, after Xerox took over the operations of the RLC program, the City directed Xerox to accept RLC violations with yellow light times above 2.9 seconds." The city said it relied on a national electrical industry standard that allows for deviations in the hundredths or thousandths of a second. Ferguson recommended the city should change the standard back "in order to improve public confidence" in the camera program. The Tribune reported Thursday that its review of 1,500 overturned tickets since April revealed evidence that the city had changed the rules on yellow light times when Xerox took over. In more than 200 of those cases, city hearing officers blamed yellow light times under the 3-second minimum required by the city. An additional 299 rejected tickets had yellow lights under 3 seconds, although judges did not specify that as the reason. Scheinfeld declined to answer Tribune questions earlier this week about whether the city had changed the rules. But she said the yellow light times being rejected by judges as too short are in fact valid because they fall within an allowable variance of hundredths or thousandths of a second caused by fluctuations in electrical power Scheinfeld maintained in her letter to Ferguson that the sub-3 second tickets were valid but acknowledged the city had quietly suspended the lower threshold in September, after questions were first raised by hearing officers and the media. She said the city had not ordered Xerox "to stop processing any violation with an amber measurement under 3.0 seconds." dkidwell@tribune.com
City Hall shortened yellow light rules, thousands got tickets Sadly many of those photo radar bandits actually cause traffic accidents. I'm not the only one that says this, but sadly photo radar bandits are mostly about raising revenue and have almost nothing to do with safety. "The Emanuel administration quietly issued a new, shorter yellow light standard this spring that generated 77,000 red light camera tickets" "The administration defended ... the nearly $8 million in revenue it will collect from them -- as valid." City Hall shortened yellow light rules, thousands got tickets David Kidwell, Chicago Tribune 7:56 am, October 10, 2014 The Emanuel administration quietly issued a new, shorter yellow light standard this spring that generated 77,000 red light camera tickets that would not have been allowed before the rule change, the city inspector general announced Friday. The administration defended the $100 tickets -- and the nearly $8 million in revenue it will collect from them -- as valid. But the city agreed to Ferguson’s recommendation to end the new practice of issuing citations with yellow light times below 3 seconds. The Tribune reported Thursday that its analysis of overturned tickets and interviews with experts suggested the Emanuel administration had made a subtle, but significant, change when it switched camera vendors this spring from the beleaguered Redflex Traffic Systems Inc. to Xerox State and Local Solutions. Hearing officers were suddenly throwing out hundreds of tickets that showed yellow light times at 2.9, below the 3-second minimum required by the city. The city would not answer questions this week about whether it changed the yellow light standards, and Transportation Commissioner Rebekah Scheinfeld declined to explain the mystery in a recent interview with the Tribune, saying only that the tickets were valid because they fell within an acceptable standard for electrical deviations. But in a broader review about problems with the red light program sparked by Tribune reports, the inspector general on Friday revealed that Scheinfeld's department had ordered changes early this year as the program was transitioning from Redflex to Xerox control. “At the City’s request Redflex categorically rejected any captured event with a recorded yellow light time below three seconds,” Ferguson wrote. “However, after Xerox took over the operations of the RLC program, the City directed Xerox to accept RLC violations with yellow light times above 2.9 seconds.” The city said it relied on a national electrical industry standard that allows for deviations in the hundredths or thousandths of a second. Ferguson recommended the city should change the standard back “in order to improve public confidence” in the camera program. The Tribune reported Thursday that its review of 1,500 overturned tickets since April revealed evidence that the city had changed the rules on yellow light times when Xerox took over. In more than 200 of those cases, city hearing officers blamed yellow light times under the 3-second minimum required by the city. An additional 299 rejected tickets had yellow lights under 3 seconds, although judges did not specify that as the reason. Scheinfeld declined to answer Tribune questions earlier this week about whether the city had changed the rules. But she said the yellow light times being rejected by judges as too short are in fact valid because they fall within an allowable variance of hundredths or thousandths of a second caused by fluctuations in electrical power Scheinfeld maintained in her response to Ferguson that the sub-3 second tickets were valid but acknowledged the city had quietly suspended the lower threshold in September, after questions were first raised by hearing officers and the media. She said the city had not ordered Xerox “to stop processing any violation with an amber measurement under 3.0 seconds.” dkidwell@tribune.com
Our governments lying propaganda about the Vietnam war continues. "But the extensive website [celebrating the Vietnam War], ... largely describes a war of valor and honor that would be unrecognizable to many of the Americans who fought in and against it." For those of you who weren't around when the Vietnam war ended we were told the American government "won" the war. Of course I remember a week later after we "won" the war in Vietnam when North Vietnamese tanks stormed the Presidential Palace in South Vietnam. And of course there is that famous helicopter incident where refuges are being airlifted from the American Embassy in South Vietnam as the American government is engaged in an organized flight from Vietnam. Paying Respects, Pentagon Revives Vietnam, and War Over Truth By SHERYL GAY STOLBERGOCT. 9, 2014 WASHINGTON — It has been nearly half a century since a young antiwar protester named Tom Hayden traveled to Hanoi to investigate President Lyndon B. Johnson’s claims that the United States was not bombing civilians in Vietnam. Mr. Hayden saw destroyed villages and came away, he says, “pretty wounded by the pattern of deception.” Now the Pentagon — run by a Vietnam veteran, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel — is planning a 50th anniversary commemoration of the Vietnam War. The effort, which is expected to cost taxpayers nearly $15 million by the end of this fiscal year, is intended to honor veterans and, its website says, “provide the American public with historically accurate materials” suitable for use in schools. But the extensive website, which has been up for months, largely describes a war of valor and honor that would be unrecognizable to many of the Americans who fought in and against it. Leading Vietnam historians complain that it focuses on dozens of medal-winning soldiers while giving scant mention to mistakes by generals and the years of violent protests and anguished debate at home. The website’s “interactive timeline” omits the Fulbright hearings in the Senate, where in 1971 a disaffected young Vietnam veteran named John Kerry — now President Obama’s secretary of state — asked, “How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?” In one early iteration, the website referred to the 1968 My Lai massacre, in which American troops killed hundreds of Vietnamese civilians, as the My Lai Incident. The glossy view of history has now prompted more than 500 scholars, veterans and activists — including the civil rights leader Julian Bond; Daniel Ellsberg, who leaked the top-secret Pentagon Papers; Lawrence J. Korb, a former assistant secretary of defense under President Ronald Reagan; and Peter Yarrow of the folk trio Peter, Paul and Mary — to join Mr. Hayden in demanding the ability to correct the Pentagon’s version of history and a place for the old antiwar activists in the anniversary events. This week, in a move that has drawn the battle lines all over again, the group sent a petition to Lt. Gen. Claude M. Kicklighter, the retired Vietnam veteran who is overseeing the commemoration, to ask that the effort not be a “one-sided” look at a war that tore a generation apart. General Kicklighter declined to be interviewed, but a Pentagon spokesman, Lt. Col. Tom Crosson, said in an email that the mission of the commemoration, as directed by Congress, is to “assist a grateful nation” in thanking veterans and their families. He said that the Pentagon was willing to make corrections “when factual errors or potential mischaracterizations are brought to our attention,” and that “there is no attempt to whitewash the history of the Vietnam War.” The team has already changed some facts: After Nick Turse, the author of a book on Vietnam, noted the My Lai Incident reference in a February article on the website TomDispatch, the language was revised to read, “American Division Kills Hundreds of Vietnamese Citizens at My Lai.” It still does not use the word massacre. Mr. Hayden, 74, and other 1960s-era activists who helped him gather signatures, say they do not quarrel with honoring the sacrifice of soldiers. But they object to having the military write the story. “All of us remember that the Pentagon got us into this war in Vietnam with its version of the truth,” Mr. Hayden said in a recent telephone interview from Berkeley, Calif., where he attended a rally to mark another 50th anniversary, that of the free-speech movement. “If you conduct a war, you shouldn’t be in charge of narrating it.” Vietnam historians are also troubled. Fredrik Logevall, a Cornell University professor whose book on Vietnam, “Embers of War,” won the 2013 Pulitzer Prize, said that the website lacked context and that the timeline “omits too many important developments, while including a significant number of dubious importance.” Edwin Moise, a Vietnam historian at Clemson University, said he found numerous minor inaccuracies on the site. The presidential historian Robert Dallek, meanwhile, said he would like to see the anniversary effort include discussion of “what a torturous experience” Vietnam was for presidents. "It’s hard to believe this is going to be an especially critical analysis of the military,” he said. Congress authorized the commemoration in 2008, when it adopted a bill that directed the Defense Department to “coordinate, support and facilitate” federal, state and local programs associated with the 50th anniversary of the war. On Memorial Day 2012, President Obama issued a proclamation establishing a 13-year program, lasting until 2025, “in recognition of a chapter in our nation’s history that must never be forgotten.” That day, he spoke at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington. Few details of the plans have been made public. But in a 2012 interview with the website HistoryNet, General Kicklighter said that the commemoration would begin on Memorial Day 2015, when “we will begin to recruit the nation to get behind this effort in a very big way” and that the most active phase would conclude by Veterans Day 2017. He promised “educational materials, a Pentagon exhibit, traveling exhibits, symposiums, oral history projects and much more.” The mission, he said, is to “help the nation take advantage of a rare opportunity to turn back to a page in history and to right a wrong, by expressing its honor and respect to Vietnam veterans and their families.” But in antiwar and peace advocacy circles, unease has been percolating for some time. Veterans for Peace, an antiwar group based in St. Louis that includes many Vietnam veterans, has been talking since Mr. Obama’s speech about an “alternative commemoration,” said its executive director, Michael McPhearson. Mr. McPhearson was unaware of the Hayden petition. “One of the biggest concerns for us,” he said, “is that if a full narrative is not remembered, the government will use the narrative it creates to continue to conduct wars around the world — as a propaganda tool.” Mr. Hayden said he was particularly incensed at timeline entries like one that describes the Pentagon Papers as “a leaked collection of government memos written by government officials that tell the story of U.S. policy, even while it’s being formed” — without noting the Nixon administration’s effort to prevent their publication, or that Mr. Ellsberg and another leaker, Anthony Russo, were tried as traitors. And while the website does mention some protests, the references are often brief and clinical. On Nov. 15, 1969 — when 250,000 antiwar protesters jammed Washington in what was then the largest mass march in the nation’s capital — the timeline entry simply states, “Protesters stage a massive protest in Washington D.C.” Mr. Hayden’s petition grew out of conference calls with others in his antiwar network, including David Cortright, a veteran who protested the war in uniform and is now a scholar at Notre Dame, and John McAuliff, a former conscientious objector who runs a nonprofit organization devoted to reconciliation between the United States and Vietnam. The effort is also something of a reunion for the group. After scanning the list of signatories, Mr. Ellsberg, 83, exclaimed, “God, I’m glad they’re all alive!” Many of the longtime activists also see the petition as deeply relevant today. “You can’t separate this effort to justify the terrible wars of 50 years ago from the terrible wars of today,” said Phyllis Bennis, a Middle East expert who has known Mr. Hayden since the early 1970s. “When I saw this, I thought immediately, ‘We’ve got to stop this.’ ”
They are not "public servants", they are "royal government rulers"??? Usually me and socialist EJ Montini always disagree. But I think we agree a lot on this. EJ Montini didn't mention that a huge number of politicians get paid "full time wages" for jobs that effectively are part time jobs. A good example is members of the Arizona Legislator currently only work 4 months of the year. They get paid around $25,000 for that job, which would be $75,000 a year if it was a full time job. And they want to increase the pay to something like $35,000, which would make it a $105,000 a year job if it was a full time job. Pensions prove politics is not 'public service' EJ Montini, columnist | azcentral.com 3:44 p.m. MST October 9, 2014 We should stop calling a person's political career "public service." How often is that true? If ever. And we should particularly stop calling politicians public servants when that politician collects a pension. That's not service. That's a career, fully funded by taxpayers, who sometimes keep on funding the politician's lifestyle long after all the "service" has ended. Calling a political career "public service" is a disservice to all of those careers that actually do deserve to be thought of as "service." Police and firefighters, for example. Teachers. The military. Social workers. Health care professionals. A few others. But most definitely not politicians. In Arizona elected officials benefit from a pension program of their own creation, one that doesn't really appear to look out for the financial well-being of the citizens they "serve" but for themselves. So it should come as no surprise that Gov. Jan Brewer and Attorney General Tom Horne will receive nice fat pensions that you'll pay for. According to paperwork filed with the state Brewer will get $6,333.33 a month after leaving office and Horne will receive $3,600. Sure, Horne lost his most recent election. But, really, who's getting the last laugh? In most areas of life, as well as politics, you get what you pay for. With politicians, however, not only do we pay for their mistakes while they're in office, but we keep paying after they leave. And we keep paying. And we keep paying. So, who's getting serviced?
Congressmen aren't above the law??? Even if US Congressman Rick Renzi receives a prison sentence, it will probably be a slap on the wrist compared to what a civilian would have received for the same crimes. I wonder they they have servants for the inmates in those country club prisons they send government criminals to??? Now, this is justice: Rick Renzi runs out of rope Editorial board, The Republic | azcentral.com 5:24 p.m. MST October 9, 2014 Our View: An appeals court swats away the former congressman's arguments as if they were bothersome gnats. Rick Renzi would have us believe that congressmen are essentially immune from prosecution for anything they can remotely connect to their elected duties. That's nonsense. On Thursday, a federal appeals court said as much. "Congressmen may write the law, but they are not above the law," 9th Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Richard Tallman began his decision tossing out Renzi's appeals. 2013: Renzi receives 3-year prison sentence This is justice. The three-judge panel upheld every conviction, every sentence, swatting away Renzi's arguments as if they were nothing more than bothersome gnats. It is an extensive list. Renzi and his lawyers grasped at every loose definition, every justification they could find to get off the hook for the many schemes Renzi was convicted of conducting for his own benefit. They include using premiums collected by his insurance company to fund his first congressional campaign, and threatening to block a land-exchange proposal unless it included property owned by an associate. "Renzi received money ... that he was not otherwise entitled to receive," Tallman wrote. "This money clouded his judgement in performing his official duites and deprived his constituents of the honest services of their elected representative." The former congressman also argued the government shouldn't have been able to use his legislative acts as evidence against him. It's a highly technical argument, but the court noted that Renzi used his legislative activity in his defense. Doing so opened the door for the government to use the same activity in rebuttal. It's the right ruling. While elected officials need wide latitude, it can never extend to the point they can engage in illegal activity with impunity. Renzi abused the public trust placed. He sought to cash in public service for private gain. He was caught. His appeals are running out. Thursday's decision puts Renzi that much closer to beginning his three-year prison sentence. More importantly, it gives elected officials powerful incentive to remember who they serve. Former Arizona congressman Rick Renzi's public corruption and money laundering case is before a federal appeals court in Seattle.
I suspect that ex-fireman Frank Piccioli has cooked the numbers in his letter to the editor to make it look like firemen are being paid peanuts when they retire. Firemen and cops are paid VERY well and have VERY good retirement benefits. Currently most police officers in the Phoenix Metro area start at around $50,000 a year or about $25 an hour. Many cops make well over $100,000. Cops and firemen can retire after 10 years at 80% of their highest pay rate. And many frequently do and then get another job so they can "double dip". So if a cop got hired today at the going rate of $50,000 a year and didn't get ANY pay raises, which is unlikely, the cop could retire in 10 years and get paid $40,000 a year in retirement. I am not sure what firemen get paid, but I believe it is close to that of cops, for both the pay and retirement. Because of that I suspect the $24K pension Frank Piccioli is bitching and moaning has been low balled and is closer to at least $40,000 a year. And probably over $80,000 a year if Frank Piccioli has been working for the governmnet 25 years. First responder: My $24K pension makes me bad? Frank Piccioli 7:39 a.m. MST October 10, 2014 I will have worked for the city for 25 years when I retire from answering 911 medical and fire calls. I will have 25 years of hearing a mother yell and cry as I direct her to perform CPR on her blue-skinned drowned baby. Talking to a young man who is putting his hand in his friend's chest to stop the bleeding from the bullet hole as I hear the air escape from the open would. Talking to a father who I am directing to go under his 15-year-old daughter's lifeless body and lift her as she hangs from the garage door opener with a noose around her neck. Hearing the ringing in my ears for hours after an older man shoots himself in the head as I desperately try to get help to him in time and talk him down from his decision. After 25 years of that, I will be receiving a pension of about $24,000. And according to the far right in this state, I am the bad guy. I am the one bankrupting the city. I am the one who is hurting the citizens. What an amazing place we have become. — Frank Piccioli, Mesa
This happens ALL the time when the cops illegally search a person and then find drugs on the person. The cops claim the drugs just magically fell out of the persons pocket into plain sight of the cops. Yea, sure!!! Police: Cocaine fell out of Arizona man's pocket Associated Press 12:54 p.m. MST October 9, 2014 SIOUX FALLS, S.D. — An Arizona man who was filing a report with Sioux Falls police over an alleged theft at a strip club was arrested when a bag of cocaine fell out of this pocket. The Sioux Falls Argus Leader reports that 33-year-old George Williams of Queen Creek was talking to police Wednesday night and began pulling bills from his pockets to try and determine how much of his money was missing. That's when the bag of white powder fell to the ground. Police spokesman Sam Clemens says Williams reached down and picked up the bag "like nothing happened." A field test determined it was cocaine. Williams is charged with drug paraphernalia and possession of a controlled substance. Court documents do not list an attorney for Williams.
Kyrsten Sinema is using your tax dollars to help herself get re-electedIn this video ad made by U.S. Rep. Kyrsten Sinema she trades the promise of cold hard cash for the votes of old folks. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yNHR01lVy_g&feature=player_embedded Arn't you glad that U.S. Rep. Kyrsten Sinema is using your tax dollars to help herself get re-elected???
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The Lobbyists think the members of the Arizona Legislator deserve a pay raise. Do you??? "Every few years, top leaders in the three branches of government appoint a committee – usually dominated by lobbyists, lawyers and former legislators -- to decide whether they deserve raises. The committee almost always decides that they do" Yea, the Lobbyists who bribe the members of the Arizona Legislator to pass laws for the special interest groups they serve think the members of the Arizona Legislator deserved a raise. I am sorry, did I say "bribe", I meant shovel money at them in the form of "campaign contributions". Of course this article isn't about the pay raises the lobbyists want you to give the legislators. It's about how the members of the Arizona Legislator did an end run around the law and gave themselves a raise via per diem pay. Does the Arizona Legislature deserve a pay raise? Laurie Roberts, columnist | azcentral.com 6:03 a.m. MST October 10, 2014 I see that the Arizona Legislature is up for a pay raise. That's right, the folks who brought us the right-to-refuse-service-in-the-name-of-God bill, the ones who had to be ordered by the courts to fully fund public education are hoping that voters will reward them with a boost to their billfolds. Ok, wait for it… … Wait for it... …. You can stop waiting now, as I am not laughing. In fact, I could actually be convinced to support a pay raise for our leaders if they would first do this just one small thing. More on that in a moment. If you haven't followed the quest to raise the pay of our long-suffering lawmakers, you should, if only for a glimpse into how things work around here. Every few years, top leaders in the three branches of government appoint a committee – usually dominated by lobbyists, lawyers and former legislators -- to decide whether they deserve raises. The committee almost always decides that they do. Then, in the case of legislators, voters decide that they don't. In 1998, a former Republican legislator by the name of Peter Kay set out to change that. Kay chaired the Commission on Elective State Officers that year and having spent 20 years in the Legislature, he knew the score. He knew that while only voters can raise legislators' pay, lawmakers long ago found a way around that constitutional inconvenience. It's called per diem. A neat concept, per diem. Lawmakers are reimbursed for cost of food and lodging while on the job. Sounds reasonable, doesn't it? Legislators, after all, come from across the state to Phoenix for four or five months each year. It seems fair -- actually a bit cheap, even -- to give those who hail from the hinterlands $60 a day seven days a week to cover their expenses. But then there are the rest of them, the 53 lawmakers who live in the Valley. They have long comprised the majority of the 90-member Legislature and so it is no surprise that they, too, collect per diem. As in $35 a day, seven days a week while in session and roughly $35 a week the rest of the year. Last year, the average Valley lawmaker snagged close to $6,000 in per diem to cover expenses. Leading, of course, to the crucial question. What expenses? They already live here. They already eat – many of them eat for free, thanks to the lobbyists' lunch-on-the-lawn program. Mileage to and from work is covered separately. So what expenses? Kay's commission set out to make honest men and women of our legislators. His commission proposed a 60 percent pay boost, to $24,000 a year but with a catch: no more per diem. Instead, legislators would file expense reports just like any other state employee. "In all the years I was there, I didn't have any expenses but I got thousands of dollars," Kay told me recently. A solid 56 percent of voters approved Kay's plan. After the election, however, legislative leaders went to newly elected Attorney General Janet Napolitano to ask whether the voters could take away their per diem. Within 24 hours of taking office, she whipped out a decision and the state Supreme Court agreed. The result: Legislators got their 60 percent pay raise and kept their per diem. And voters? We got snookered. Since then, voters have rejected every pay proposal that has come along. So now comes Proposition 304, the salary commission's proposal that we raise our leaders' pay to $35,000 a year. That is, $35,000 plus the per diem we abolished 16 years ago. Commissioners, in the publicity pamphlet sent to every voter, point out that the last legislative pay raise was in 1998. What they fail to mention is that voters conditioned that raise on an end to the per-diem scam. "Our hard-working legislators deserve to be appropriately compensated for the sacrifices they make to serve their constituents and the State of Arizona," three of the commissioners write. "It is reasonable to cover the basic expenses of those who do serve so that service is open to all qualified citizens." It is also reasonable, I might add, that they obey the will of the voters who put them into office. So, here's what I propose to the Arizona Legislature. After Prop. 304 fails, be the statesmen that we all crave. Respect what voters decreed in 1998 and eliminate in-county per diem piracy. Then, use that money to more fairly reimburse out-county colleagues for their reasonable costs of living here. Is it really so much to ask, that you actually have expenses before you can collect for expenses? Heck, it might even move voters to give you a pay raise. In 2016. |
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