Lost weapons??? I think stolen weapons is a better word for it. Weapons stolen by the police officers in the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office. http://blogs.phoenixnewtimes.com/valleyfever/2014/09/mcso_dropped_from_federal_military_equipment_program_after_losing_weapons.php CSO Dropped From Federal Military Equipment Program After Losing Weapons By Matthew Hendley Fri., Sep. 12 2014 at 7:58 AM The Maricopa County Sheriff's Office can no longer obtain military surplus gear through a federal government program after losing nine firearms. The Sheriff's Office obtained the equipment through what's known as the 1033 program, which has come to national attention recently amid concerns of police militarization, especially during protests in Ferguson, Missouri. The program allows for the transfer of military equipment to local law enforcement agencies at no cost to police. Letters to the Sheriff's Office from the Department of Defense and Payson Police Detective Matt Van Camp, Arizona's state coordinator for the 1033 program, describe exactly how MCSO's termination from the program came about. "In 2012 the Defense Logistics Agency began an investigation in reference to the missing weapons from your agency," Van Camp's letter says. "They conducted a sight visit which I was present at, to conduct a physical inventory of all weapons in your possession and attempt to locate the missing weapons. Several weapons were located but the remaining eight 45 caliber handguns and one M-16 rifle remain unaccounted for." Van Camp was not available for comment yesterday. The DoD letter describes regulations in the program that call for accountability of the weapons, and violations of those regulations led to MCSO's termination. According to that DoD letter, "All investigative leads were exhausted and eight (8) .45 caliber pistols and one M-16 rifle remain unaccounted for. The missing weapon serial numbers have been entered into the National Crime Information Center (NCIC) database." MCSO spokesman Chris Hegstrom confirmed to New Times reports that Sheriff Joe Arpaio claims the missing weapons were likely kept by retiring deputies. The American Civil Liberties Union investigated the 1033 program for a report released this year titled "War Comes Home: The Excessive Militarization of American Policing." Through records requests, the ACLU found out what kind of gear MCSO had obtained from the federal government -- "mainly through the Department of Defense's 1033 program." That included 120 assault rifles, five armored vehicles, and ten helicopters. Across Arizona, the ACLU found that police departments had obtained bomb suits, night-vision goggles, guns, battering rams, surveillance equipment, utility trucks, armored vehicles, helicopters, and more than 21,000 pieces of "other types of military equipment." For kicks, we asked Hegstrom whether Arpaio's infamous .50-caliber machine gun was obtained under this program -- it wasn't, so Arpaio gets to keep it. Got a tip? Send it to: Matthew Hendley. Follow Valley Fever on Twitter at @ValleyFeverPHX. Follow Matthew Hendley at @MatthewHendley.
Don't these pigs have any real criminals to hunt down??? Last time I checked America was a secular county and blasphemy and heresy are not crime. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/09/11/oral-sex-jesus-statue-photo_n_5805174.html Teen May Get 2 Years For Pic Of Fake Oral Sex With Jesus The Huffington Post | By Hilary Hanson Posted: 09/11/2014 1:25 pm EDT Updated: 09/11/2014 3:59 pm EDT Will this boy get punished for coming to Jesus? A Pennsylvania teen may face up to two years behind bars for allegedly taking a photo of himself simulating oral sex with a statue of Jesus, Kron 4 reports. The photo was taken in front of Love in the Name of Christ, a Christian organization in Everett, Pennsylvania, and posted on Facebook back in July. On Tuesday, the 14-year-old — whose name has not been released by police — was charged with desecration of a venerated object, the Smoking Gun reported. If convicted, he could wind up spending two years in a juvenile jail, according to Kron 4. “Desecration” is defined in Pennsyvlania as ““Defacing, damaging, polluting or otherwise, physically mistreating in a way that the actor knows will outrage the sensibilities of persons likely to observe or discover the action.” Patheos.com notes that in Pennsylvania, a vandalism charge usually carries a maximum penalty of only one year in jail. JT Eberhard writes: So let’s say an adult (subject to harsher penalties than minors) elected to spray paint “Jesus loves dicks” on the side of this boy’s school. That guy, at most (and the “at most” comes in to play for people with previous criminal records, which this boy doesn’t have), would serve a year in jail – and that’s assuming the cost of having the wall re-painted exceeds $150, otherwise the penalty would be less. But a 14 year-old does something stupid that causes literally zero property damage and he could face two years in juvenile jail because it’s a “venerated object”? That’s insane. That’s really ludicrous. The teen's original Facebook post garnered 124 Facebook comments, ranging from “Amazing” and “this is heaven” to “this is repulsive, even if you don’t believe you could at least have respect for those who do and those who ARE going to Heaven…you discusting [sic], disturbed, disrespectful little punk ass bitch.” A spokesperson for Love in the Name of Christ told Raw Story that the ministry did not ask police to press charges. http://www.newsweek.com/christianity-under-attack-teen-faces-jail-lewd-pose-jesus-statue-270120?piano_t=1 'Christianity Under Attack!' Teen Faces Jail for Lewd Pose with Jesus Statue By Lauren Walker Filed: 9/12/14 at 4:33 PM | Updated: 9/12/14 at 4:35 PM A Pennsylvania teenager faces up to two years behind bars after posting pictures to Facebook in which he simulates receiving oral sex from a statue of Jesus. The unnamed 14-year-old says he posed with the statue, which sits outside a Christian organization in Everett, Pennsylvania, called Love in the Name of Christ, in late July. The pictures are being used as evidence that the teen may be guilty of desecrating an object of veneration. A spokesperson for Love in the Name of Christ told MailOnline they did not press charges in the incident. Instead, the pictures were found by the district attorney’s office (who filed the charges) and forwarded them to the state police in Bedford, Pennsylvania. He was arrested and will be tried in juvenile court as early as October 3. The law cited in this case states a person commits a misdemeanor of the second degree if he: (1) intentionally desecrates any public monument or structure, or place of worship or burial; (2) intentionally desecrates any other object of veneration by the public or a substantial segment thereof in any public place; The law goes on to define desecration as “Defacing, damaging, polluting or otherwise, physically mistreating in a way that the actor knows will outrage the sensibilities of persons likely to observe or discover the action.” The Altoona Mirror reports that Bill Higgins, the Bedford County district attorney, posted the following to Facebook on Thursday: "I guess I should take solace in the fact that the liberals are mad at me—again. As for this case, this troubled young man offended the sensibilities and morals of OUR community.… His actions constitute a violation of the law, and he will be prosecuted accordingly. If that tends to upset the 'anti-Christian, ban-school-prayer, war-on-Christmas, oppose-display-of-Ten-Commandments' crowd, I make no apologies." He is also tweeting links about the incident to conservative television hosts and writing, “Christianity under attack.” The American Civil Liberties Union has reportedly taken an interest in the case. http://www.timeslive.co.za/world/2014/09/12/teen-arrested-for-jesus-statue-blowjob Teen arrested for Jesus statue bl*wjob Times LIVE | 12 September, 2014 09:28 A Pennsylvania teenager has been arrested after he posted photos of himself posting photos of himself simulating a sex act with a statue of Jesus. The boy has been charged with desecration of a venerated object, a misdemeanor under Pennsylvania law according to The Smoking Gun. A college student had apparently been charged with breaking the same law when he peed on a nativity scene in 2010. While a vandalism charge normally carries a maximum penalty of one year in prison, this law imposes a harsher two year penalty in this case according to to WWJTD blogger JT Eberhard. "I imagine most Christians at that church shudder at the idea of Sharia law, which is pretty much defined by its harsher laws for so much as offending Islam. And yet, look at the laws we have in some places right here in America," Eberhard wrote. http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2014/09/pennsylvania-teenager-hump-oral-sex-jesus-statue-prison Pennsylvania Teenager Simulates Oral Sex With Jesus Statue, Faces 2 Years in Prison —By Sam Brodey | Fri Sep. 12, 2014 1:39 PM EDT Bedford County Free Press/Facebook Teenagers are prone to dumb, tasteless pranks, but one 14-year-old is facing prison time for his latest stunt. The teen, from Everett, Pennsylvania, hopped on top of a statue of a kneeling Jesus—in front of an organization called "Love in the Name of Christ"—and simulated oral sex with the statue's face. Naturally, he posted the pictures to Facebook, which made their way to authorities. Officials in Bedford County charged the teen (whose name hasn't been released) with desecration of a venerated object, invoking a 1972 Pennsylvania statute that criminalizes "defacing, damaging, polluting or otherwise physically mistreating in a way that the actor knows will outrage the sensibilities of persons likely to observe or discover the action." You'd think an appropriate punishment for a kid violating this seldom-invoked law might be picking up trash or, at worst, paying a fine. If convicted, he faces much worse: two years in juvenile detention. Truth Wins Out, a LGBT advocacy nonprofit, has argued that the law is unconstitutional because it violates the establishment clause—"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion"—and free speech rights—"Congress shall make no law abridging the right to hump a statue of Jesus." Pennsylvania is not the only state with a "venerated objects" law—many states have some version of it, but most define "desecration" as vandalizing or otherwise physically harming an object of civic or religious significance. Alabama, Tennessee, and Oregon have laws like Pennsylvania's, which can be interpreted to punish individuals—like this bold, dumb teenager—who simply decide to do something offensive.
Government Push for Yahoo’s User Data Set Stage for Broad Surveillance These are the type of government tyrants the Second Amendment is designed to give the people the power to fight and kill. Sadly these tyrants in the FBI, CIA, NSA, Homeland Security and alphabet soup of other Federal police agencies view the Constitution and Bill of Rights as nothing but toilet paper to wipe their *sss with!!!! And that's why we need the 2nd Amendment. I am sure that is what the Founder's were thinking when they wrote the Second Amendment. I also suspect if the Founders were alive today they would consider Emperor Bush and Emperor Obama along with the US Congress a thousand times worse then King George. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/13/technology/government-push-for-yahoos-user-data-set-stage-for-broad-surveillance.html?hpw&rref=technology&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&version=HpHedThumbWell&module=well-region®ion=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well Government Push for Yahoo’s User Data Set Stage for Broad Surveillance By VINDU GOELSEPT. 12, 2014 SAN FRANCISCO — It’s hard to fathom after a year of revelations about widespread government surveillance of Internet users, but in 2007, the government’s authority to demand such data from technology companies without a search warrant was very much in doubt. That changed a year later, when crucial precedents establishing the government’s right to request emails, phone records and other user data were set in a secret court case in which Yahoo unsuccessfully challenged the constitutionality of the government’s demands for information about its foreign users. Documents from that case, which were released by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court this week after much of the file was declassified, paint a vivid portrait of a battle that pitted a leading Internet company against some of the top officials in the Bush administration over what was legitimate gathering of foreign intelligence and what was illegal snooping. At one point, when Yahoo refused to turn over the requested data while it appealed its loss at the first stage of the case, the director of national intelligence, Michael McConnell, submitted an impassioned 16-page affidavit to Reggie B. Walton of Federal District Court, the surveillance court judge who had decided the case, outlining the various threats posed by Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups and the need for Yahoo’s cooperation. International terrorists “use Yahoo to communicate over the Internet,” Mr. McConnell wrote. “Any further delay in Yahoo’s compliance could cause great harm to the United States, as vital foreign intelligence information contained in communications to which only Yahoo has access, will go uncollected.” Underscoring that urgency, the government’s lawyers asked Judge Walton to declare Yahoo in contempt and impose a fine of $250,000 a day, with the daily fine to double each week that the company continued to drag its feet. The judge took just a few hours to order Yahoo to comply “forthwith” or face “coercive” fines, prompting it to cooperate as it pursued its appeal. The legal decisions in the case, and the reasoning used by both sides, helped set the stage for an updated Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act that set clearer rules about what types of information the government could seek from technology companies like Yahoo, Google and Facebook, which hold vast quantities of private user information. The lower court and appellate rulings supporting the government also gave encouragement to national security officials as they pushed forward with broad surveillance programs like Prism, XKeyscore and others described in documents leaked last year by Edward J. Snowden, a former National Security Agency contractor. “The specific kind of surveillance the government was seeking was untested,” said Stephen I. Vladeck, a professor who studies national security law at the American University Washington College of Law. “This litigation led to the judicial validation of practices that the government was already undertaking.” The Protect America Act, a temporary law passed in August 2007 by Congress after the 9/11 attacks, was the first to explicitly authorize bulk surveillance of foreigners suspected of being terrorists or posing other national security threats. Yahoo chose to mount an aggressive challenge to such surveillance, setting itself as a defender of its users’ rights. “The broad surveillance authorized by the P.A.A. and the directives is unreasonable because the P.A.A. allows the government to initiate surveillance on an unlimited number of targets, with no prior judicial review, no requirements of particularity and no findings of necessity,” the company wrote in its brief urging the appellate panel to allow oral arguments in the case. “The issues at stake in this litigation are the most serious issues this nation faces today — to what extent must the privacy rights guaranteed by the United States Constitution yield to protect our national security.” Perhaps coincidentally, as the company waged its secret court fight, its co-founder and chief at the time, Jerry Yang, was being raked over the coals by Congress and human rights advocates for the company’s 2007 decision to turn over information on Chinese users that had been demanded by the Chinese government, resulting in the arrest of at least two dissidents. Judge Walton, who heard the initial round of the case, and the three-judge panel of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review that heard the appeal were both acutely aware of the precedents they were setting. In his 98-page ruling, Judge Walton bemoaned the lack of clear guidance to decide the matter, even as he carefully addressed each party’s principal arguments. Ultimately, he concluded, deference must be given to the government’s claims that it would protect American users’ legal rights as it pursued foreign intelligence needed for national security. Noting that the Protect America Act was “hardly a model of legislative clarity,” he nevertheless found that the government’s surveillance requests did not violate the Fourth Amendment right of Americans to be free of unreasonable searches: “Congress obviously sought to strike the proper balance between the sometime conflicting interests of individual privacy and national security.” The appeals panel, led by Judge Bruce M. Selya, a senior judge on the Federal Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, also ruled in the government’s favor, expressing confidence in officials’ good-faith efforts to protect the rights of Americans. “We caution that our decision does not constitute an endorsement of broad-based, indiscriminate executive power,” the panel wrote. “Rather, our decision recognizes that where the government has instituted several layers of serviceable safeguards to protect individuals against unwarranted harms and to minimize incidental intrusions, its efforts to protect national security should not be frustrated by the courts.” A version of this article appears in print on September 13, 2014, on page B3 of the New York edition with the headline: Government Push for Data From Yahoo Set Stage for Broad Surveillance. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe
Gun control doesn't stop crime???? This article seems to say that! Personally I think the 2nd Amendment isn't there so you can go target shooting and rabbit hunting or protect yourself from criminals, but rather to give you the ability to kill government tyrants. OK, I guess government tyrants are also criminals. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/14/sunday-review/the-assault-weapon-myth.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&version=Moth-Visible&module=inside-nyt-region®ion=inside-nyt-region&WT.nav=inside-nyt-region The Assault Weapon Myth By LOIS BECKETTSEPT. 12, 2014 OVER the past two decades, the majority of Americans in a country deeply divided over gun control have coalesced behind a single proposition: The sale of assault weapons should be banned. That idea was one of the pillars of the Obama administration’s plan to curb gun violence, and it remains popular with the public. In a poll last December, 59 percent of likely voters said they favor a ban. But in the 10 years since the previous ban lapsed, even gun control advocates acknowledge a larger truth: The law that barred the sale of assault weapons from 1994 to 2004 made little difference. It turns out that big, scary military rifles don’t kill the vast majority of the 11,000 Americans murdered with guns each year. Little handguns do. In 2012, only 322 people were murdered with any kind of rifle, F.B.I. data shows. The continuing focus on assault weapons stems from the media’s obsessive focus on mass shootings, which disproportionately involve weapons like the AR-15, a civilian version of the military M16 rifle. This, in turn, obscures some grim truths about who is really dying from gunshots. Annually, 5,000 to 6,000 black men are murdered with guns. Black men amount to only 6 percent of the population. Yet of the 30 Americans on average shot to death each day, half are black males. It was much the same in the early 1990s when Democrats created and then banned a category of guns they called “assault weapons.” America was then suffering from a spike in gun crime and it seemed like a problem threatening everyone. Gun murders each year had been climbing: 11,000, then 13,000, then 17,000. Democrats decided to push for a ban of what seemed like the most dangerous guns in America: assault weapons, which were presented by the media as the gun of choice for drug dealers and criminals, and which many in law enforcement wanted to get off the streets. This politically defined category of guns — a selection of rifles, shotguns and handguns with “military-style” features — only figured in about 2 percent of gun crimes nationwide before the ban. Handguns were used in more than 80 percent of murders each year, but gun control advocates had failed to interest enough of the public in a handgun ban. Handguns were the weapons most likely to kill you, but they were associated by the public with self-defense. (In 2008, the Supreme Court said there was a constitutional right to keep a loaded handgun at home for self-defense.) Banning sales of military-style weapons resonated with both legislators and the public: Civilians did not need to own guns designed for use in war zones. On Sept. 13, 1994, President Bill Clinton signed an assault weapons ban into law. It barred the manufacture and sale of new guns with military features and magazines holding more than 10 rounds. But the law allowed those who already owned these guns — an estimated 1.5 million of them — to keep their weapons. The policy proved costly. Mr. Clinton blamed the ban for Democratic losses in 1994. Crime fell, but when the ban expired, a detailed study found no proof that it had contributed to the decline. The ban did reduce the number of assault weapons recovered by local police, to 1 percent from roughly 2 percent. “Should it be renewed, the ban’s effects on gun violence are likely to be small at best and perhaps too small for reliable measurement,” a Department of Justice-funded evaluation concluded. Still, the majority of Americans continued to support a ban on assault weapons. One reason: The use of these weapons may be rare over all, but they’re used frequently in the gun violence that gets the most media coverage, mass shootings. The criminologist James Alan Fox at Northeastern University estimates that there have been an average of 100 victims killed each year in mass shootings over the past three decades. That’s less than 1 percent of gun homicide victims. But these acts of violence in schools and movie theaters have come to define the problem of gun violence in America. Most Americans do not know that gun homicides have decreased by 49 percent since 1993 as violent crime also fell, though rates of gun homicide in the United States are still much higher than those in other developed nations. A Pew survey conducted after the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., found that 56 percent of Americans believed wrongly that the rate of gun crime was higher than it was 20 years ago. Even as homicide rates have held steady or declined for most Americans over the last decade, for black men the rate has sometimes risen. But it took a handful of mass shootings in 2012 to put gun control back on Congress’s agenda. AFTER Sandy Hook, President Obama introduced an initiative to reduce gun violence. He laid out a litany of tragedies: the children of Newtown, the moviegoers of Aurora, Colo. But he did not mention gun violence among black men. To be fair, the president’s first legislative priority after Sandy Hook was universal background checks, a measure that might have shrunk the market for illegal guns used in many urban shootings. But Republicans in Congress killed that effort. The next proposal on his list was reinstating and “strengthening” bans on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines. It also went nowhere. “We spent a whole bunch of time and a whole bunch of political capital yelling and screaming about assault weapons,” Mayor Mitchell J. Landrieu of New Orleans said. He called it a “zero sum political fight about a symbolic weapon.” Mr. Landrieu and Mayor Michael A. Nutter of Philadelphia are founders of Cities United, a network of mayors trying to prevent the deaths of young black men. “This is not just a gun issue, this is an unemployment issue, it’s a poverty issue, it’s a family issue, it’s a culture of violence issue,” Mr. Landrieu said. More than 20 years of research funded by the Justice Department has found that programs to target high-risk people or places, rather than targeting certain kinds of guns, can reduce gun violence. David M. Kennedy, the director of the Center for Crime Prevention and Control at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, argues that the issue of gun violence can seem enormous and intractable without first addressing poverty or drugs. A closer look at the social networks of neighborhoods most afflicted, he says, often shows that only a small number of men drive most of the violence. Identify them and change their behavior, and it’s possible to have an immediate impact. Working with Professor Kennedy, and building on successes in other cities, New Orleans is now identifying the young men most at risk and intervening to help them get jobs. How well this strategy will work in the long term remains to be seen. But it’s an approach based on an honest assessment of the real numbers. LOIS BECKETT is a reporter who covers gun violence for ProPublica.
More on Toronto's doper mayor Rob Ford http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/politics/2014/09/12/toronto-mayor-rob-ford-withdraws-re-election-bid/15523673/ Toronto's Rob Ford withdraws re-election bid People on the streets of Toronto react to the news of Rob Ford withdrawing from the race for mayor. Associated Press 12:23 p.m. MST September 12, 2014 TORONTO — Toronto Mayor Rob Ford withdrew his re-election bid Friday as he seeks treatment for a tumor in his abdomen, ending a campaign he had pursued despite a stint in rehab and persistent calls for him to quit amid drug and alcohol scandals. But he said his brother would run in his place, saying "we cannot go backwards." Rob Ford will instead seek a seat on the City Council, after a nephew withdrew his candidacy. "My heart is heavy when I tell you that I'm unable to continue my campaign for re-election as your mayor," Ford said in a statement. "I have asked Doug to run to become the next Mayor of Toronto, because we need him. We cannot go backwards." Doug Ford, a city councilor who had been the conservative mayor's campaign manager, submitted his papers to run for mayor in his brother's place. He will face two other major candidates in the Oct. 27 election. Ford's decision came two days after he was hospitalized and the tumor was discovered. Biopsy results won't be back for a week and a definitive diagnosis is pending. "As many of you know I've been dealing with a serious medical issue, the details of which are unknown. But I know that with the love and support of my family, I will get through this," Ford said in a statement. Ford acknowledged using crack cocaine in a "drunken stupor" last year following months of denials. He returned to work in June after a rehab stint for drugs and alcohol. The international spotlight first fell on Ford in May 2013, when Toronto Star and the U.S. website Gawker reported the existence of a video apparently showing the mayor inhaling from a crack pipe. He denied the existence of the video for months until police announced they had obtained it. After reports emerged this year of a second video showing him apparently smoking crack, Ford decided to enter rehab. But he refused to quit his job or abandon his bid for re-election. The City Council stripped Ford of most of his powers last year but lacked the authority to force him out of office because he hasn't been convicted of a crime. Ford has been the subject of an ongoing police investigation but has not been charged.
Missouri doing the best it can to mix government and religion and flush a woman's right to abortion down the toilet. http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/politics/2014/09/11/missouri-abortion-waiting-period/15457749/ Missouri enacts 72-hour abortion waiting period JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. — Missouri women seeking abortions will face one of the nation's longest waiting periods, after state lawmakers overrode the governor's veto to enact a 72-hour delay that includes no exception for cases of rape or incest. The new requirement will take effect 30 days after Wednesday's vote by the Republican-led Legislature, overruling the veto of Democratic Gov. Jay Nixon. He had denounced the measure as "extreme and disrespectful" toward women. The abortion bill was one of the most prominent Republican victories in a record-setting September session, during which Missouri lawmakers also overrode 47 line-item budget vetoes and nine other bills, including one creating a training program for teachers to carry guns in schools. Earlier this year, the Republican-led Legislature overrode Nixon's veto to enact the state's first income tax rate reduction in nearly a century. About half the states, including Missouri, already have abortion waiting periods of 24 hours. Missouri's current one also lacks an exception for cases of rape or incest. The new law will be the second most-stringent behind South Dakota, where its 72-hour wait can sometimes extend even longer because weekends and holidays are not counted. Utah is the only other state with a 72-hour delay, but it grants exceptions for rape, incest and other circumstances. Missouri lawmakers specifically rejected an amendment earlier this year that would have granted exceptions for rape and incest. Abortion opponents argued that it would have diminished the value of some lives depending on how they were conceived. Supporters of the legislation describe it as a "reflection period" for women and their families. If "you get a couple of more days to think about this pregnancy, think about where it's going, you may change your mind" about having an abortion, said Rep. Kathie Conway, a Republican from St. Charles. Abortion-rights advocates described the three-day wait as insulting to women who they said have likely already done "soul-searching" before going to an abortion clinic. "It's designed to demean and shame a woman in an effort to change her mind," said Rep. Judy Morgan, a Democrat from Kansas City. After the House voted to override Nixon's veto by a 117-44 vote, senators deployed a rarely used procedural move to shut off prolonged Democratic debate. They completed the veto override by a 23-7 vote, barely getting the required two-thirds majority. Planned Parenthood, which operates Missouri's only licensed abortion clinic in St. Louis, has not said whether it will challenge the 72-hour waiting period in court. But the organization has said its patients travel an average of nearly 100 miles for an abortion, and an extra delay could force them to either make two trips or spend additional money on hotels. Women also could travel across the state line in the St. Louis and Kansas City areas to abortion clinics in Illinois and Kansas that don't require as long of a wait. Missouri's current law requires physicians to provide women information about medical risks and alternatives to abortion and offer them an opportunity for an ultrasound of the fetus. Three Missouri clinics have stopped offering abortions in the past decade, and the number performed in the state has declined by one-third to a little over 5,400 last year. Before lawmakers convened, scores of abortion opponents gathered for a prayer vigil in the Capitol Rotunda, asking that God grant courage and boldness to lawmakers voting to enact the waiting period. Larger crowds gathered later for rallies on both sides of the legislation. Abortion-rights activists wore purple shirts while abortion foes wore red. Both sides pointed to the personal experiences of women who had abortions. Linda Raymond of St. Louis, said she regrets the abortion she had 38 years ago and might have acted differently if she had been offered information about alternatives, seen an ultrasound of the fetus and been required to take more time to think about her decision. "A 72-hour time frame is compassionate for women," Raymond said. Liz Read-Katz of Columbia said she had an abortion after learning the fetus had a severe chromosomal defect. "Waiting 72 hours wouldn't have changed my mind, but it most definitely would have caused more pain both mentally and physically," she said. Republican and Democratic lawmakers in Missouri twice previously joined together to override vetoes of abortion bills — enacting what proponents referred to as a partial-birth abortion ban in 1999 and instituting the 24-hour abortion waiting period in 2003.
Ex-judge gets 40 years in Arkansas drug case More of the old "Do as I say, not as I do" from our religious leaders, government masters and police??? http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/nation/2014/09/12/ex-judge-gets-40-years-in-arkansas-drug-case/15543813/ Ex-judge gets 40 years in Arkansas drug case Associated Press 6:19 p.m. MST September 12, 2014 LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — A former northeast Arkansas judge was sentenced to 40 years in prison on drug charges Friday after prosecutors accused him of killing a co-defendant who had agreed to testify against him. Bob Sam Castleman has not been charged in the 2013 death of Travis Perkins, but U.S. District Judge Leon Holmes said prosecutors had done a satisfactory job linking Castleman to it. Castleman's lawyer, Blake Hendrix, objected, saying that considering Perkins' death while contemplating Castleman's sentence would have an "extremely disproportionate effect." Hendrix said the sentence should not have exceeded 46 months. In a daylong sentencing hearing, Assistant U.S. Attorney Anne Gardner said Castleman, 64, killed the 34-year-old Perkins to silence him. FBI agent Ed Jernigan told Holmes that another co-defendant, Castleman's son Jerrod Castleman, had said his father dressed in a trench coat and wig and drove from a West Memphis casino to Pocahontas to kill Perkins. Ballistics experts noted a connection between slugs found at Perkins' apartment and in a tree off Castleman's back porch. Hendrix argued that any evidence from Jerrod Castleman would be "inherently suspect" because he also cooperated with prosecutors, but the judge noted the son knew details that few would know, including the number of times Perkins was shot. Other witnesses said the younger Castleman was elsewhere when Perkins died. Perkins' body was found three days before he was to appear in court to change his plea in the case and begin cooperating with prosecutors. It was also four days after a local newspaper published a story about Perkins cooperating with the government. Bob Sam Castleman, who with his son was once imprisoned for mailing a venomous snake to a man amid a property dispute, was among eight people named in drug charges in 2012. He was convicted last December of conspiracy to make methamphetamine and maintaining a drug premises. Hendrix said Castleman was only a casual drug user who let his girlfriend and his son make meth at his farm, and deserved a lesser sentence. He said if prosecutors wanted to link Castleman to the killing, they should have to prove their accusation beyond a reasonable doubt. Holmes said a lower standard was proper at Friday's hearing. By finding that prosecutors had linked Castleman to Perkins' death, sentencing guidelines ballooned to life in prison from a suggested penalty of five to 40 years in prison. However, since the conspiracy to make meth charge carries a maximum sentence of just 40 years, the judge was obligated to stop there. Castleman was a district judge in Pocahontas over a decade ago. In 2004, he and his son pleaded guilty to mailing a live copperhead snake to Albert Coy Staton. Staton had purchased an all-terrain vehicle from Jerrod Castleman and claimed the vehicle needed to be repaired.
http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/arizona/investigations/2014/09/12/aclu-claims-widespread-health-care-problems-prisons/15556523/ ACLU claims widespread health care problems in prisons Craig Harris, The Republic | azcentral.com 8:25 p.m. MST September 12, 2014 The American Civil Liberties Union has released 26 reports alleging widespread problems with the Arizona Department of Corrections' health-care system and its use of solitary confinement. The reports, released in advance of next month's federal class-action trial against the DOC, were rebutted by corrections officials. The reports say medical experts found prison exam rooms that lacked basic medical equipment and inmates who were neglected or mistreated, then died in the state prison system. The reports also alleged that inmates are placed in solitary because prison beds are full. The ACLU, ACLU of Arizona and California-based Prison Law Office filed a lawsuit in 2012 seeking adequate medical, mental-health and dental care for prisoners and challenging the use of solitary confinement in Arizona prisons. The suit covers roughly 33,000 inmates in 10 state-run prisons. A trial is slated to begin Oct. 21 in U.S. District Court in Phoenix. RELATED: Arizona prisons win class-action status in health suit "These reports are a powerful indictment of some of the practices in the Arizona Department of Corrections, and there needs to be a fundamental shift in how the state approaches some of these issues," said Don Specter, director of the Prison Law Office. Doug Nick, a DOC spokesman, said the state "strongly disputes the accuracy" of ACLU's paid witnesses, who prepared the reports. "While the plaintiffs have sought to try their case in the media, the ADC (Corrections Department) will present its evidence and arguments in court, where it will offer its own expert opinions that paint an accurate and realistic picture of inmate health care and conditions of confinement," Nick said in a written statement. The state tried unsuccessfully to get the case dismissed in August, arguing that inmates "received constitutionally adequate" medical and dental care and that "any deficiencies in the provision of medical care are not system-wide." Specter said his organization and the ACLU relied upon nationally recognized experts in correctional health care and practices of maximum-security prisons in drafting the reports. The ACLU released the documents this week, after winning a federal court ruling to have them unsealed. "The state didn't want these (records) to be public," said Steve Kilar, an ACLU of Arizona spokesman.
Residents complain of sludge at Tempe Town Lake after historic storm That's why we call it "Tempe Town Toilet" - See http://tempetowntoilet.100webspace.net You may also want to check out "Tempe Cesspool for the Arts" - http://tempe-cesspool-for-the-arts.tripod.com/ http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/tempe/2014/09/13/residents-complain-sludge-tempe-town-lake-historic-storm/15572399/ Residents complain of sludge at Tempe Town Lake after historic storm Dianna M. Náñez, The Republic | azcentral.com 12:20 a.m. MST September 13, 2014 A passerby held her nose as she jogged past the sun-baked mix of stagnant sludge and floating trash that has pooled up against Tempe Town Lake's western dam after Monday's massive rain storm. Ellen Churchill walked the lake Friday morning with her husband, Bill. Churchill said she was shocked to see so much garbage floating at the lake five days after the storm. "I thought it looked pretty disgusting," she said. The lake water near the western dam is a dark soupy, oily mix. Floating in the lake are water bottles, grass, tree branches, garbage bags, a couple of Mylar balloons and several plastic convenience store soda cups and Styrofoam containers. Ducks and birds in the lake did not seem to mind the mess, but residents who enjoy the typically scenic setting hoped the area would be clean again soon. City officials said storm water runoff from Indian Bend Wash has been flowing into Town Lake since Monday's storm. Churchill said she and her husband love the picturesque lake setting. She questioned why Tempe has not sent a clean-up crew to pick up the mess that marred the waters near the city's Tempe Center for the Arts and pedestrian bridge, which see hundreds of daily visitors. "I don't see it going away by itself, so I hope they get somebody out here to clean it up," Churchill said. Aida Waters, of Mesa, walked her dog, Copper, past the city's pedestrian bridge, which straddles the western dam. She worried about the stagnant water quality for lake users. "It was a little oily and filthy. It's just this crud that's floating," she said. "People canoe in there and they're paddleboarding. I don't want to be swimming in the waters." Since the storm, Valley residents have been concerned about stagnant waters becoming breeding grounds for mosquitoes that can carry the West Nile Virus. Tempe is responsible for Town Lake mosquito monitoring, said Johnny Diloné, a spokesman with Maricopa County Environmental Services Department, which monitors West Nile complaints and mosquito breeding at other county sites. He said the county sets mosquito traps in surrounding Town Lake neighborhoods and industrial areas. Diloné said residents can report mosquito breeding concerns to the county or the city. Town Lake dam construction was on hold as water rushed over the dam and flooded the work site. tempe sludge 2 City officials said storm water runoff from Indian Bend Wash has been flowing into Town Lake since Monday’s storm.(Photo: Dianna M. Nanez/The Republic) The four rubber bladders that make up the dam can be lowered at various levels to allow lake water to flow west into the dry Salt River bed. The bladders are typically lowered to prevent flooding when there is a mass runoff from upstream lakes. But lake water on Friday was only flowing over one bladder on the northern end of the dam. The garbage and sludge was backed up against the other three rubber bladders. The three bladders had not been lowered to allow water to flow over. On Friday morning, about six dam construction workers were in the Salt River bed west of the lake. Two of them were hooking up a machine to pump water out of the work site and into a channel that would move water west into the dry Salt River bed. Tempe City Manager Andrew Ching said the city contracts with a company that treats the lake to prevent mosquito breeding, tests the water quality and cleans scum in the lake. This weekend the city has a race event that involves swimming in the lake, which requires testing to ensure safe water quality. "We've been doing it (testing) every day and we've been cleaning," he said. "The water is good to go for the event." Tempe used to regularly post the lake's water quality for the public on the city's website. The last posted water-quality reading is from March 2013. Ching said the city has the water-quality reports and will post them next week at the soonest. Ching said Tempe does not typically lower the dam bladders to allow lake scum to flow into the Salt River bed. Rather, he said, scum is regularly cleaned out of the lake, but the pooled sludge seen Friday may be an accumulation over the week after a historic rainfall. Linda Taunt, deputy director of the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality's water-quality division, said that Arizona saw historic rainfall Monday, causing storm water runoff from upstream to flow into Town Lake. ADEQ is charged with ensuring that water in Arizona lakes is safe. Taunt said water may be flowing into Town Lake from Indian Bend Wash, the Mesa wastewater treatment plant and Arizona Department of Transportation canal runoff. "There's all kinds of fecal bacteria and fertilizers," she said. "This might not be the best time to be paddleboarding, sure you're supposed to stay on the board but even people who aren't novices can end up face-first into the lake." "I would not want to be swimming in it today," she said. "Kayaking and canoeing, that's fine." Taunt said residents who have concerns about poor water quality may contact the city for copies of the testing reports. If the testing show poor water quality, residents may contact the state water safety agency to report concerns. "We could work with DHS (the state Department of Health Services) to determine if we would not allow full-body contact with the water," she said. The agency typically only tests for some Town Lake swimming events. At the end of each year, the agency requests Tempe's reports for an annual state water quality report.
I got a gun and a badge and can kill anybody I want to kill. Sadly it seems that is how cops in the BP get to operate. Oddly I have in the last year or so started to see those green BP trucks in the Phoenix area. You see them all the time down in Tucson but until recently I have never seen them in Phoenix. http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/arizona/investigations/2014/09/12/customs-border-agents-not-disciplined-investigations-continue/15527207/ CBP: No agents disciplined for deadly force since 2004 Bob Ortega, The Republic | azcentral.com 2:31 p.m. MST September 12, 2014 Customs and Border Protection's acting Internal Affairs chief said Friday that he is unaware of any Border Patrol agent or CBP officer being formally disciplined for killing someone through the use of force since at least 2004. There have been at least 46 incidents in which agents have killed people, including 15 Americans, in the past decade. Mark Alan Morgan, who was appointed three months ago, made the comments at a press conference set up by CBP to highlight the agency's progress in an internal review, that began last month, of the use of force by agents and officers, and of how the agency responds to abuse complaints lodged against agents. But in many regards, the conference raised as many questions as it answered. Morgan said that at present, CBP is only looking into one use-of-force death as part of its review. And he said that CBP would not, at this point, provide any additional information about specific incidents it was reviewing. CBP has been under pressure from the public and Congress to explain its handling of cases in which agents used deadly force or were accused of abuses. Morgan spoke with reporters as part of what he termed CBP's efforts to be more transparent. He noted that transparency was vital to gain the public's trust. Congress began to push CBP in 2012 to investigate its use of force after a video surfaced of a 2010 death in San Ysidro, Calif. That video showed officers and agents beating and repeatedly shocking with a stun gun a man who was lying face down with his hands cuffed behind his back. Last December, The Arizona Republic reported that no agent had been publicly disciplined or faced repercussions in 42 (now 46) use-of-force deaths since 2005. That includes, among other questionable incidents, cases in which agents had shot unarmed teens who were running away from them. Both Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson, who was confirmed in late December, and CBP Commissioner Gil Kerlikowske, confirmed last spring, promised they would bring greater transparency to the agency. In May, they released new CBP use-of-force guidelines more tightly restricting when agents can resort to deadly force. And they released a highly critical outside report on CBP's use-of-force practices that the agency had kept secret for 15 months. That report, by the Police Executive Research Forum, a law-enforcement research group, said agents too often resorted to deadly force when they could avoid it. It cited 67 incidents of questionable use of force by agents, including many that did not result in deaths. In May, Kerlikowske promised CBP would review those 67 cases, along with 809 abuse complaints that the American Immigration Council, an immigration research group, had identified through Freedom of Information Act requests. Those abuse complaints, filed between January 2009 and January 2012, included allegations of physical, sexual and verbal abuse. The Council report said CBP had taken no action in 97 percent of the complaints in which it took formal action. Morgan said Friday that there are open criminal investigations by the FBI or local authorities into 11 of the use-of-force cases and five of the abuse cases. He said CBP had determined after an initial review that 14 of the remaining use-of-force cases and 141 of the abuse complaints merited further investigation by an agency task force. In the other cases, he said, there was either insufficient evidence to go further, complainants had recanted their accusations, or the use of force had been deemed justified. Morgan said only one of the 14 use-of-force cases still under review resulted in a death. He did not identify the case. There currently are at least 13 federal civil suits pending against Border Patrol agents or CBP officers by family members of people killed in use-of-force incidents. Morgan said he would have CBP officials confirm his recollection that no agent has been disciplined since 2004 for killing someone while on duty. CBP hasn't yet responded further to a query from azcentral.com for verification. He said that CBP is applying what it is learning from its reviews to change how agents are trained, and, for example, making sure that undocumented immigrants who file abuse complaints are interviewed before they are deported. "We're committed to improving where we can, acknowledging where we stumble, and being completely open and transparent," Morgan said.
Body-odor test has cab drivers crying foul If we are paying government bureaucrats to smell taxi drivers I don't think they are really needed. What a waste of tax dollars!!! Here in Arizona we have a law that is just as stupid. They passed a silly law requiring cab drives to take drug tests before getting their license!!! What happens if the cab driver flunks the drug test??? Absolutely nothing!!!! The law is just a government welfare program for drug testing companies. http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/weird/2014/09/12/san-diego-cabbies-cry-foul-over-body-odor-test/15509677/ Body-odor test has cab drivers crying foul Associated Press 9:05 a.m. MST September 12, 2014 SAN DIEGO — Body odor is among 52 criteria that officials at San Diego International Airport use to judge taxi drivers. Cabbies say that smacks of prejudice and discrimination. For years, inspectors with the San Diego Regional Airport Authority run down their checklist for each cabbie — proof of insurance, functioning windshield wipers, adequate tire treads, good brakes. Drivers are graded pass, fail or needs fixing. Anyone who flunks the smell test is told to change before picking up another customer. Leaders of the United Taxi Workers of San Diego union say the litmus perpetuates a stereotype that predominantly foreign-born taxi drivers smell bad. A 2013 survey of 331 drivers by San Diego State University and Center on Policy Initiatives found 94 percent were immigrants and 65 percent were from East Africa. Drivers wonder how inspectors determine who reeks. Driver Abel Seifu, 36, from Ethiopia, suspects they sniff inconspicuously during friendly conversations in the staging area. Airport authority spokeswoman Rebecca Bloomfield said there is "no standard process" to testing. Others drivers question how inspectors distinguish between them and their cars. The checklist has a separate item for a vehicle's "foul interior odors," which Bloomfield says may include gasoline, vomit or mildew. "If they want to bring their smell detector, they can use it to test the customers and the drivers," said driver Negus Gebrenarian, 39, from Ethiopia. He, like other drivers, said the stench is just as likely to come from the back seat as it is from the front. The airport authority says it is enforcing a policy of the San Diego Metropolitan Transit System, which regulates taxis throughout the region, that prohibits foul-smelling drivers and promotes regular bathing. It also says the practice is about satisfying customers. "Taxi drivers are often the first impression that travelers receive when arriving into San Diego and we want to encourage a positive experience," Bloomfield said. Only about three drivers fail to get a passing grade each year, she said. Inspectors have been smelling drivers for years. There was no controversy until a union employee waded through a 568-page airport board agenda and noticed the checklist, which had been approved in July for revisions unrelated to the body odor test. KPBS reported on the practice last week. San Diego's policy appears to be unusually explicit about sniffing out smelly cabbies. Chicago requires that drivers be "clean and neat in their appearance." New York City's wording is similarly broad. Seattle long evaluated cabbies for body odor associated with infrequent bathing and not washing clothes but dropped that test last month for a more general requirement on cleanliness. "The industry didn't like it and they felt that we were kind of overstepping: Why are we dictating to them? We don't tell city employees that you've got to shower more often," said Denise Movius, Seattle's deputy director of finance and administrative services. Bhairavi Desai, executive director of the 18,000-member New York Taxi Workers Alliance, said her face reddened with anger and dismay when she learned about the San Diego practice. She suggested the airport leave it to customers to complain about body odor. "What a dehumanizing way to treat your workers," she said. Travelers arriving in San Diego on Wednesday were mixed. Sue Beneventi, 70, thinks cabbies are getting picked on. "If you're going to say cab drivers, shouldn't you also say waitresses and anyone else who deals with the public?" she said after returning from San Antonio. Daniel Johnson, an 18-year-old Marine who came from Flint, Michigan, said it's fair to grade on body odor, especially considering the $70 fare to get to his base. He has felt trapped in smelly cabs in other cities. "The smell puts a sour expression on your face and you're thinking I just don't want to be in here," he said.
Don't these pigs have any REAL criminals to hunt down???? You know criminals that hurt people like robbers and rapists!!!! Not people that commit the victimless crime of having consensual relations!!! And we are going to warehouse this guy in prison for a year which will cost something like $50,000!!!! That's just as silly as putting somebody in prison for smoking marijuana!!!1 http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/ahwatukee/2014/09/12/ahwatukee-former-volunteer-sexual-relationship/15528785/ Ex-Ahwatukee school volunteer gets year in jail for sex with student File: Davey Trujillo, 26, arrested on 15 felony counts of sexual conduct with minor. Tyler Fingert, The Republic | azcentral.com 2:58 p.m. MST September 12, 2014 A former Ahwatukee high-school volunteer was sentenced Friday to one year in jail and lifetime probation in connection with a sexual relationship he had with a student. David Trujillo, 27, must also register as a sex offender. Trujillo pleaded guilty in July to two counts of sexual conduct with a minor over the age of 15. When Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Hugh Hegyi sentenced Trujillo to one year in jail, he deferred nine months of the sentence for three years. He said if Trujillo follows the rules of the probation, he may not have to serve the remaining nine months of his sentence. Prosecutors agreed to drop 13 of the 15 charges Trujillo faced as part of the plea. Trujillo was an assistant to the drama teacher at Mountain Pointe High School in Ahwatukee when he had a sexual relationship with a then-student, according to Maricopa County Superior Court documents. Phoenix Police were initially alerted about an inappropriate sexual relationship by high school officials after the teen's parents came forward with the allegations, records showed. When police spoke with the teen, he initially said that it wasn't true but later admitted that he and Trujillo did, in fact, have a relationship, records show. The teen said he remembered at least five different encounters with Trujillo, court documents showed. On Friday, most of the courtroom gallery was filled with Trujillo's family, friends and supporters, who were all dressed in purple. Some of them addressed the court to talk about his character. "I believe David Trujillo is one of the good ones," friend Shea Hunter said. Dave Trujillo, the defendant's father, became emotional as he told the judge about his son. "He was a positive influence on so many lives," he said. "Anyone that knows David would tell you he is a giving, caring person." For his part, Trujillo said his "poor decision making lead me to where I am today." "I apologize to the victim, to the victim's family for any harm that I might have caused them - emotionally, physically, stress - for the rest of their life," he said.
This is kind of odd, a cop actually being punished for his crimes. The only time this usually happens is when the cop has pissed off his bosses for some other reason. Of course if drugs were legal this crime would have never happened. My only question is how many years in prison would somebody who wasn't a cop receive if they committed the same crime. http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/phoenix/2014/09/12/phoenix-police-steals-narcotics-sentenced-abrk/15524607/ Ex-Phoenix officer gets prison for stealing drugs Agnel Philip , The Republic | azcentral.com 1:33 p.m. MST September 12, 2014 A former Phoenix police officer who pleaded guilty to stealing more than 2,000 narcotic pills that were in police custody was sentenced to nearly four years in prison by a Maricopa County Superior Court judge on Friday. William B. McCartney, 40, will serve three years and nine months in the Department of Corrections followed by three years of probation, according to the sentence Superior Court Judge Peter Reinstein handed down Friday morning. Reinstein will recommend to the Department of Corrections that McCartney be transferred to an out-of-state prison to serve his sentence. McCartney was arrested in 2011 after an internal audit showed that bags containing prescription painkillers, like oxycodone, that were handled by him were tampered with and replaced with over-the-counter medication. McCartney said during the hearing that he stole the painkillers because he was addicted to them. He said his addiction stemmed from an operation on his hand that he injured while on duty. "I know what I did was wrong, horrible and unethical," McCartney said. McCartney and his lawyer, David Cantor, asked the judge for the minimum sentence stipulated in his plea agreement of three years due to his achievements as a police officer and his contributions to society. But prosecutor Edward Leiter asked for a five-year sentence and said other police officers need to learn from McCartney's experience. "The message needs to be sent, frankly, to all police officers that if you engage in this type of activity … you will be appropriately punished," Leiter said. Five or six cases were directly impacted by McCartney's theft, but no cases were dismissed, Leiter said. McCartney's actions were a direct breach of public trust, Leiter said. Three members of McCartney's family spoke during the hearing. They said McCartney was a good man whose life spiraled out of control due to his addiction to painkillers. "We will all continue to love, support and be here for him," his brother, Ken McCartney, said as he cried at the podium. McCartney was extradited from Pennsylvania in July 2012 after being arrested in June. He had previously been arrested in 2011, but was released soon afterward as the case was further investigated. McCartney had been in the Phoenix Police Department since 1999 before his 2011 arrest, according to court documents. He resigned shortly after being arrested in 2011 and moved with his family to Pennsylvania. The defendant's family made impassioned pleas to Reinstein. They said they acknowledged the severity of the crime, but pointed to McCartney's record as a citizen and police officer. "He has always been a generous person," Ken McCartney said. The lead detective on the case, Theron Quass, said during the hearing that McCartney had legal ways to treat his pain and get counselling for his addiction but chose to steal the drugs instead. "He was clearly not honest, clearly addicted to drugs," Cantor said in reply to Quass' statements. Linda Staley, McCartney's sister, said his addiction was hidden from family members, doctors and friends. She said he has made an attempt to become clean after he realized he had a drug problem. "I am proud, as a sister, that he is here today," Staley said in reference to him taking responsibility by pleading guilty. Reinstein said McCartney's history as a police officer and good family man were mitigating factors in his sentencing, and he said McCartney was lucky to have his family support him. However, Reinstein also said he betrayed the trust of the people by stealing the narcotics.
I rarely agree with Mesa cop Bill Richardson but I do on this. On the other hand I suspect Lauren Kuby and David Schapira will be just as corrupt as Robin Arredondo-Savage and Shana Ellis. http://eastvalleytribune.com/columns/east_valley_voices/article_85b9a56c-2edb-11e4-ae6b-0019bb2963f4.html Richardson: Tempe voters indicate desire for change on council Retired Mesa master police officer Bill Richardson lives in the East Valley and can be reached at bill.richardson@cox.net. Posted: Thursday, August 28, 2014 11:15 am ​By Bill Richardson, guest commentary Tempe voters have spoken. Lauren Kuby and David Schapira are the newest members of the Tempe City Council after handily beating incumbents Robin Arredondo-Savage and two-term incumbent Shana Ellis. The unofficial political rules in Tempe are that incumbents are assured a job for as long as they want it and those who would challenge it had better think twice. This is a real upset to the old guard that Arredondo-Savage and Ellis belong to. Arredondo-Savage followed her Uncle Ben’s path to the council and city power and carries the support of the powerful fire fighter’s union. Ellis, who also comes from an old and prominent Tempe family, is quite well known for connection to the developers and money people who have long been driving Tempe City Hall. Stories about Arredondo-Savage’s uncle being convicted of corruption and her having attended a meeting with her uncle and undercover FBI agents posing as crooked developers no doubt cast a cloud on her name and tenure on the council. Arredondo-Savage has denied any wrongdoing and has not been charged with a crime. In weeks before the primary election the Arizona Republic reported Ellis’ record number of missed votes due to conflicts of interest and her relationships with prominent Tempe developer Charles Huellmantel who has now been identified as her fiancé. According to the August 23, 1014, Arizona Republic story, “Fact Check: Allegation that Tempe councilwoman claims too many conflicts of interest,” “The Republic reviewed City Council meeting minutes from January 2012 through May 2014. Ellis declared 45 conflicts or potential conflicts and/or abstained from voting on those city items, according to meeting minutes. “Of that amount, at least 34 were related to Huellmantel's business, Huellmantel & Affiliates, the applicant or a representative of the development project or issue before the council. By comparison, from January 2012 through May 2014 Mayor Mark Mitchell cited five conflicts, while Councilman Kolby Granville cited four conflicts and abstained once. Council members Robin Arredondo-Savage, Onnie Shekerjian, Joel Navarro and Corey Woods each cited no conflicts.” Both incumbents will fight it out in November’s general election to see who stays on the council. Beyond telling the two incumbents they’re no longer the favorites of Tempe citizens, voters sent a strong message to Mayor Mark Mitchell and sitting council members Koby Granville, Joel Navarro and Corey Woods incumbency is no longer a guarantee of re-election. Political scuttlebutt and occasional political pulse poll calls have led some to believe Granville, a political protégé of ex-mayor Hugh Hallman, a longtime political enemy of the Mitchell political family, might be gearing up to challenge the mayor in 2016. Mitchell barely squeaked out a win in 2012 when he beat Hallman’s candidate Michael Monti by only 139 votes. Overwhelming wins by Kuby and Schapira are a strong message from Tempe residents they want change and progress beyond what the current council has delivered. Crime became a topic of discussion in the last election among the challengers. Tempe is well known for its crime problems and the high costs of city government associated with the police department’s less than stellar performance when it comes to notorious high crime zone refried to as “the loud party corridor.” At the current cost of policing in Tempe some have begun to question if Tempe can sustain such costs and if Tempe can continue to afford to divert precious fiscal resources from other city departments and neighborhoods in order to pay for the police department and the “sea of crime” that encompasses most of Tempe north of the US 60. Kuby and Schapira have both made public safety and sustainability priorities for their time in office. In November Tempe voters will have to make a choice: Which one of the incumbents gets to keep their job? It’s going to be a tough choice. They both have issues that kept them from winning outright in the primary. • Retired Mesa master police officer Bill Richardson lives in the East Valley and can be reached at bill.richardson@cox.net.
Austrian SWAT team raids wrong apartment Lucky it was some Austria police thugs, and not American police thugs. If it was American cops the response when the found out they raided the wrong apartment would have been a simple "F*ck You" In this case the jackbooted Austrian police thugs were nice enough to hand out "compensation forms" http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/weird/2014/08/29/austrian-swat-team-raids-wrong-apartment/14804087/ Austrian SWAT team raids wrong apartment Associated Press 10 a.m. MST August 29, 2014 VIENNA — The drug bust was perfectly planned. Unfortunately, Austrian police broke down the wrong door. Police official Josef Knoflach has confirmed a media report that a SWAT team that used a battering ram to bust into an apartment at daybreak and surround its sleeping tenant with guns drawn was actually meaning to target the neighboring dwelling. Knoflach said Friday that police in the southern city of Klagenfurt had a hard time reading the apartment numbers because they decided to leave the hall lights off so as not to arouse suspicion. They subsequently went next door and found cocaine, cannabis and what police call a suspicious amount of cash. Two men are in custody. As for the wrong suspect? Knoflach says "compensation forms have been handed out."
Looks like Arizona isn't the only state that is having problems murdering people and making it look like they just went to be for a good nights sleep. http://www.mercurynews.com/nation-world/ci_26432140/oklahoma-execution-autopsy-cant-explain-43-minutes-writhing Oklahoma execution autopsy can't explain 43 minutes of writhing and moaning By Tim Talley Associated Press Posted: 08/29/2014 10:14:33 AM PDT OKLAHOMA CITY -- An autopsy on an Oklahoma inmate who died after his troubled execution was halted concluded that he was killed by the lethal drugs, but it doesn't explain why he writhed, moaned and clenched his teeth before he was pronounced dead about 43 minutes after the process began. Department of Corrections Director Robert Patton had said earlier that Clayton Lockett died from an apparent heart attack 10 minutes after Patton had halted the execution. But an independent autopsy released Thursday concluded that the cause of death was "judicial execution by lethal injection." It hadn't been clear whether all three execution drugs administered to Lockett had actually made it into his system, but the autopsy determined that they did. The autopsy was done by the Southwestern Institute of Forensic Sciences at Dallas, at the behest of the Oklahoma Department of Public Safety. Dale Baich of the Federal Public Defender's Office in Phoenix, who represents a group of Oklahoma death row prisoners who commissioned an independent autopsy of Lockett, said more information is needed. "What this initial autopsy report does not appear to answer is what went wrong during Mr. Lockett's execution," Baich said in a statement. Oklahoma and other death penalty states have encountered problems in recent years obtaining lethal injection chemicals after major drugmakers stopped selling them for use in executions. That has forced states to find alternative drugs, purchased mostly from loosely regulated pharmacies that custom-make medications. Many states refuse to name suppliers and offer no details about how the drugs are tested or how executioners are trained. Oklahoma put executions on hold after Lockett's April 29 execution. Officials at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester have said Lockett's vein collapsed during the lethal injection process. The autopsy does not say whether that's the case, though it does confirm that medical technicians poked him about 12 times as they tried to find a vein before settling on using one in his groin. Gov. Mary Fallin has ordered public safety officials to review the events surrounding Lockett's execution, including state execution protocols that had been changed in the weeks ahead of it. The state Court of Criminal Appeals agreed to not schedule executions for six months. Three are set for November and December. A spokesman for Fallin, Alex Weintz, said the autopsy report will be part of the full review. "We suspect they are in the final stages of that process," Weintz said. He said Fallin still supports use of the death penalty. "But we want our executions to be successful," Weintz said, adding that Fallin asked the Oklahoma Department of Public Safety to recommend possible changes to the execution procedures. The autopsy report does not include any recommendations about the protocols. A spokesman for the Corrections Department, Jerry Massie, said prison officials will have no comment until after public safety officials release their findings and recommendations. In Lockett's execution, Oklahoma used the sedative midazolam for the first time. The drug was also used in lengthy attempts to execute an Ohio inmate in January and an Arizona prisoner last month. Each time, witnesses said the inmates appeared to gasp after their executions began and continued to labor for air before being pronounced dead. Midazolam is part of a three-drug and a two-drug protocol in Oklahoma. Lockett's execution used a three-drug protocol --midazolam, vecuronium bromide and potassium chloride. The state also has a protocol that would use midazolam with hydromorphone, the same combination used in the problematic executions in Ohio and Arizona this year. Toxicology reports said all three lethal drugs were found in Lockett's system -- the sedative in brain tissue and elsewhere and the other drugs in his blood. A June lawsuit against the Department of Corrections on behalf of 21 Oklahoma prisoners alleged that prison officials are experimenting on death row inmates and violating the U.S. Constitution's ban on cruel and unusual punishment by tinkering with the state's lethal injection procedures. The state says those claims are false.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/the-mexican-drug-lord-chapo-guzman-is-in-prison-but-he-might-live-by-his-own-rules/2014/08/28/1878a689-aeaf-4d4f-a8bc-fca2dab3a02e_story.html?hpid=z9 The Mexican drug lord Chapo Guzman is in prison. But he might live by his own rules. By Joshua Partlow and Gabriela Martinez August 29 at 9:00 AM MEXICO CITY — Lawyers who visit their clients in the Altiplano, Mexico’s highest security prison, say they must leave behind their wallets, pens, tie clips, shoelaces. They complain that guards check inside the men’s underwear and women must take off their bras. Those in solitary confinement, such as the prison’s most famous inmate, drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, are under constant surveillance and receive just one hour of daily caged-in recreational time, according to those familiar with the prison. So the news last month in the Mexican magazine Proceso that Guzman had organized nearly 1,000 prisoners to hold a five-day hunger strike to protest the prison’s poor hygiene, medical care and food seemed curious. Not just that the world’s most fearsome drug lord was now apparently a human rights crusader but that he had the freedom of movement and communication inside the prison to pull it off. The prison, amid rolling farmland west of Mexico City, is tough to get inside, and the Mexican government denied requests to visit or speak with those who run it. Mexican officials did confirm that the mid-July hunger strike took place but denied that Guzman, or the other famous drug lord apparently involved, Edgar Valdez Villarreal, a.k.a. “La Barbie,” participated. “There is no way that any one of them could participate because they are totally isolated,” one Mexican official said. The official said the strike lasted “some hours” and involved about 100 people. “There were never 1,000, never.” That Guzman is in prison at all is a victory for the Mexican government. He had escaped from incarceration once before, in 2001, and his legend grew as he led the Sinaloa Cartel, the multi-billion dollar drug trafficking operation. In February, a team of Mexican marine commandos burst into his room in a Mazatlan condo and snatched him up. After being briefly marched before a press conference in Mexico City, Guzman was taken to the Altiplano and out of public view. The Mexican government plans to pursue criminal charges against him before considering extradition to the United States, where he has also been indicted. According to lawyers, former inmates, relatives and others, the Altiplano is indeed hard living. Some people complained about dirty cells, not enough blankets, a lack of medicine. “There is mold, they get sick, it’s cold, they don’t take care of them,” said a lawyer, who declined to give his name to preserve his access to the prison. They also said most prisoners, except for those in solitary, have plenty of opportunity to interact with each other. A former inmate, who spent nearly five years inside the Altiplano, said that the prison has eight modules, each divided into four sections. When prisoners go out onto the patio for recreation hour, they're only supposed to talk to other inmates from their section, he said. He slept in a bunk bed, with two prisoners per room, he said, and toilets were in public view. But he did find the medical care sufficient and got treated for his hypertension. “They never ran out of medicine,” he said. When he was imprisoned, from 2008 to 2012, he said, there were periodic hunger strikes to make different protests, including one for larger television screens. After the most recent protest, the Mexican official, without specifying, said, the “demands were satisfied and the protests were reduced.” Some inmates received new shoes, according to the sister of a prisoner. A subsequent Proceso article described the strike as a “triumph” for Chapo Guzman and La Barbie. Those familiar with the prison said Guzman does apparently get some preferential treatment inside Altiplano: While other prisoners are forced to shave, he’s been allowed to keep his mustache.
Another "do gooder" *sshole who knows how to run your life better then you do??? OK, make that Another "do gooder" *sshole from Homeland Security who knows how to run your life better then you do??? In the US, these "do gooders" are usually Christians who think that they and their God know know how to run your life better then you. In other parts of the world the facts are the same, but the religion just changes to Muslim, Hindu, or what ever the dominant religion in that part of the world is. http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/i-was-taking-pictures-of-my-daughters-but-a-stranger-thought-i-was-exploiting-them/2014/08/29/34831bb8-2c6c-11e4-994d-202962a9150c_story.html?hpid=z4 I was taking pictures of my daughters. A stranger thought I was exploiting them. Every year, when Jeff Gates and his family head to the Jersey shore, he takes a photo of his daughters on the Cape May ferry. (Jeff Gates) By Jeff Gates August 29 at 11:31 AM Jeff Gates is a Web designer, writer and artist in Silver Spring. His latest project is the Chamomile Tea Party. After my family arrives on the Cape May ferry for our annual vacation to the Jersey Shore, I take pictures of our two daughters on the ferry’s deck as we leave the harbor. I’ve been doing this since they were 3 and 4 years old. They are now 16 and 17. Each photo chronicles one year in the life of our family and our daughters’ growth into the beautiful young women they have become. Getting just the right exposure and interaction between the two has never been easy. They’ve gone from squirming toddlers to ambivalent teens who barely put up with their dad’s ongoing photography project. But this year, everything was perfect. It has been an extraordinary summer in the Mid-Atlantic: mild heat with low humidity. On that first day of vacation, the sea was calm and the sky a brilliant blue. As I focused on the image in my camera’s viewfinder, the girls stood in their usual spot against the railing at the back of the boat. I was looking for just the right pose — often waiting for that perfect smile or pausing as they fixed their hair after a strong ocean breeze. I was trying to get just the right exposure and flash combination to bring out their faces in the harsh midday sun. Totally engaged with the scene in front of me, I jumped when a man came up beside me and said to my daughters: “I would be remiss if I didn’t ask if you were okay.” At first none of us understood what he was talking about. His polite tone and tourist attire of shorts, polo shirt and baseball cap threw us off. It took me a moment to figure out what he meant, but then it hit me. He thought I might be exploiting the girls, taking questionable photos for one of those “Exotic Beauties Want to Meet You!” Web sites or something just as unseemly. When I explained to my daughters what he was talking about, they were understandably confused. I told the man I was their father. He quickly apologized and turned away. But that perfect moment was ruined, and our annual photo shoot was over. (Only after we arrived at our rented condo did I find out I had gotten a great shot.) As I was telling my wife what had happened, I saw the man again, scanning the horizon with his binoculars. The more I thought about what he had said, the more upset I became. My wife and I, both white, adopted our two daughters in China when they were infants. Over the years, as a transracial family, we have often gotten strange looks and intrusive questions from strangers, but nothing like this. Yet part of me understood what he was seeing: Here was this middle-aged white guy taking lots of pictures of two beautiful, young Asian women. Would this man have approached us, I wondered, if I had been Asian, like my children, or if my daughters had been white? No, I didn’t think so. I knew I’d regret not going back to speak to him about what had happened. My wife warned me I might be asking for trouble, but I reassured her that I would be fine. I walked outside to where he was standing and calmly said: “Excuse me, sir, but you just embarrassed me in front of my children and strangers. And what you said was racist.” The man didn’t seem at all fazed. He replied: “I work for the Department of Homeland Security. And let me give you some advice: You were standing there taking photos of them hugging for 15 minutes.” I see. So we didn’t fit the mold of what he considered a typical American family, and he thought my picture-taking was excessive, possibly depraved. How long should family snapshots take? He thought he was qualified to judge. I told him I was a professional photographer and take lots of photos. “My wife’s a photographer,” he said. “I understand.” “Then you should have known better,” I replied. He agreed to consider everything I had said. But he didn’t sound very sincere. When I had questions about his observations, he deflected them, hoping to manage my reaction with simple apologies, except they weren’t simple at all: He apologized; he criticized; and he apologized again. There was nothing more I could say, nor did I need to hear any more explanations from him. I thought about asking for his business card or his name, but instead I just walked away, feeling exposed. I had to consider my daughters’ feelings as well as my own. My 17-year-old, usually the stoic one, told me she almost cried when she understood what he was asking. And all the while I kept wondering: Had he overreached when he approached us, or was he just being a good citizen, looking out for the welfare of two young women? Perhaps he was doing what his Homeland Security training had taught him to do: Look for things that seem out of place, and act on those observations. But what is normal and what is not? Even if he thought something inappropriate was taking place, he certainly could have approached us more gently: “What a beautiful family you have there,” he might have said to me. If the girls had answered, “We’re not his family” or had even looked distressed by his statement, then he might have had cause to question them. Instead, his words were so intrusive, controlling and damaging. I would be remiss if I didn’t question them. A week later, on the ferry ride home, as my oldest and I were walking on deck, I suggested that we imagine the other passengers through this man’s eyes. She grimaced but agreed. It was so easy to project suspicious stories onto the white woman trying to grab a black child — instead of seeing a mother running after her son. Or to suppose that an old man was taking inappropriate photos of a young girl — instead of seeing a grandfather capturing a special moment with his granddaughter. We talked about this as we walked around the deck. The world and its suspicions had intruded on our family’s vacation as we crossed Delaware Bay. Racial profiling became personal that day. And while our experience was minimal compared with the constant profiling experienced by others, it left a repugnant taste in my mouth. Homeland Security instructs Americans: “If you see something, say something.” But at what point do our instincts compel us to act? And when does our fear of getting involved stop us? What causes someone to perceive one thing when an entirely different thing is happening? I’ve been thinking about this for weeks and have no clear answers. And that’s what disturbs me the most. jeffgates_writer@outlook.com
Tempe law giving gays rights driving Cathi Herrod nuts???? This new Tempe law is probably driving Christian nut job Cathi Herrod who runs CAP or the Center for Arizona Policy us a wall. Cathi Herrod and her Center for Arizona Policy have been very successful at getting the Arizona legislator to pass laws which turn Arizona into a Christian theocracy and police. Those laws usually make gays and women third class citizens in the eyes of the government. I would consider Cathi Herrod one of the most dangerous people in Arizona. http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/tempe/2014/08/26/tempe-elections-lgbt-protections/14590095/ Tempe first Arizona city to ban LGBT worker discrimination in charter Dianna M. Náñez, The Republic | azcentral.com 12:49 p.m. MST August 27, 2014 Tempe on Tuesday became the first Arizona city to ban discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender city workers as voters approved a charter change. Proposition 475 carried overwhelmingly, according to unofficial results. With its passage, any future City Council would have to go back to the voters to abolish workers' rights. U.S. military veteran status also becomes a protected class from employment discrimination. The passage is seen as a boost to LGBT rights and support for the council's actions. "I'm a social worker, I believe in equality for everyone," Sophie Borowski, 51, said at a Tempe polling site on election day, where she supported the measure. Political analysts say the public vote was risky on the heels of a city ordinance approved by council action alone. Results could harm or help efforts to expand equal rights statewide for gay and transgender residents. "Prop. 475 is a human-equality issue," said Eric Iwersen, a Tempe worker who is gay. "Tempe is a bold Arizona leader." The public vote came in the wake of the City Council voting unanimously to approve an ordinance on Feb. 27 that bans discrimination against the LGBT community in areas of housing, employment and public accommodations, such as restaurants and hotels. The ordinance, which did not provide protections for Tempe municipal workers, includes exceptions for religious organizations and social clubs. Businesses or individuals who discriminate in Tempe on the basis of gender identity, sexual orientation, U.S. military veteran status, race, color, gender, religion, national origin, familial status, age or disability now face a civil sanction with a fine up to $2,500. The penalty mirrors fines in Phoenix under a similar ordinance. Supporters view a win at the ballot box as a historic step that would spur more Arizona cities to consider the public's growing support of equal rights for the gay community. Other Tempe charter changes also were approved overwhelmingly: Proposition 473: Amends the city charter to add two alternate members to the City Council-appointed Merit System Board. The board's duties include reviews and recommendations on Tempe's personnel rules and regulations, and hearing employee appeals related to dismissal, demotions and disciplinary pay reduction or suspension. Proposition 474: Requires notice of claims or demands, typically tied to a legal suit, to be filed within 180 days of an injury or damage. This aligns charter language with state law, which allows for the 180-day period. Proposition 476: Creates gender-neutral language, replacing "councilman" with "council member;" "councilmen" with "council members;" and "he" with "he/she" and "his" with "his/her."
When it comes to talk U.S. Rep. Kyrsten Sinema loves to give us a line of BS that says she supports the little guy. But when U.S. Rep. Kyrsten Sinema votes she supports the military industrial complex and the police state. U.S. Rep. Kyrsten Sinema tried to slap a 300% tax on medical marijuana when she was a member of the Arizona Legislator. That tax would have added $900 to the cost of an ounce of medical marijuana raising the cost of an ounce of medical marijuana at Arizona dispesnaries from $300 an ounce to $1,200 and ounce after her tax was added. U.S. Rep. Kyrsten Sinema is a government tyrant who needs to be booted out of office. http://www.azcentral.com/story/azdc/2014/08/27/arizona-competitive-congress-races-begin/14707311/ Punches fly early in competitive congressional races AZ/DC Rebekah L. Sanders, The Republic | azcentral.com 4:15 p.m. MST August 27, 2014 Democrats and Republicans wasted no time throwing the first punches of the general election Wednesday in three toss-up races for Congress. Republicans say Arizona's swing seats are ripe for picking off Democratic incumbents in November, while Democrats point out weaknesses in the GOP challengers. Both parties praise their candidates as independent thinkers who will buck their parties to take care of Arizonans. The Democratic incumbents enter the general election with more cash in their war chests than their opponents. On Wednesday, Kirkpatrick announced she set aside $1.75 million in television ads, the largest amount so far of the Democratic candidates. But national Republicans and outside groups are expected to pour in millions to even out the playing field. Here's how the races are shaping up: 1st District The matchup: U.S. Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick, D-Ariz., is expected to face either House Speaker Andy Tobin or hotelier Gary Kiehne. The results in the Republican primary remained too close to call, as ballots continued to be counted in the rural eastern Arizona district that includes Flagstaff and Casa Grande. Democratic plan: Attack Tobin as beholden to lobbyists and special interests from his time at the state Legislature. Or attack Kiehne as a rich outsider who cares more about Texas than Arizona and makes off-color comments. Criticize both for supporting the 2013 government shutdown. Republican plan: Hammer Kirkpatrick for votes in favor of the Affordable Care Act and tie them to President Barack Obama. Bring up taxpayer-funded bonuses she gave staffers in her first term. Paint her as weak on border security. barber U.S. Rep. Ron Barber, D-Ariz.(Photo: Michael Schennum / The Arizona Republic) 2nd District The matchup: U.S. Rep. Ron Barber, D-Ariz., in a rematch with retired Air Force pilot Martha McSally, who narrowly lost in 2012. The southern Arizona district includes Tucson and the U.S.-Mexican border. Democratic plan: Rehash McSally's refusal to take positions on some controversial issues, while blistering her for other positions, such as on Social Security. Republican plan: Argue that Barber is out of touch with southern Arizonans, bringing up the threatened cuts to the A-10 program, border security and Medicare. sinema U.S. Rep. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz.(Photo: Charlie Leight/The Republic) 9th District The matchup: U.S. Rep. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., against Wendy Rogers, a small-business owner and former Air Force officer. Rogers competed for the seat last election but didn't get past the primary. The district is based in Tempe and Phoenix. Democratic plan: Barrage voters with video of Rogers talking about phasing out Social Security. Criticize her pro-life stance and tendency to avoid the media. Republican plan: Portray Sinema as untrustworthy -- a former champion of the Affordable Care Act and Obama's promise that "if you like your plan you can keep it," which she now says needs fixes.
Official: Bidders compete for Uruguay pot business If you ask me it's better then putting people in prison for using pot. But the only real solution to the problem is full legalization of marijuana which includes growing marijuana. Of course I don't only think that marijuana should be legalized, ALL drugs should be RE-LEGALIZED, just like it was before 1914 when the "Harrison Narcotic Tax Act" was passed. http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/world/2014/08/28/official-bidders-compete-for-uruguay-pot-business/14765233/ Official: Bidders compete for Uruguay pot business Associated Press 4:55 p.m. MST August 28, 2014 MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay — Uruguay's new market for legalized marijuana has attracted at least 20 companies bidding for the right to supply pot to the country's pharmacies, a government official said Thursday. An official from President Jose Mujica's office says cannabis regulators will review and pick the best businesses from the competitors that passed initial scrutiny. It's not clear how many may eventually be granted licenses in the South American country. The government official did not specify an exact number of bidders, saying only it was "more than 20 and less than 25." He spoke Thursday on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media. Successful companies must identify everyone involved in their businesses, document the source of their financing and be cleared by Uruguay's anti-money laundering agency. Uruguay is the first nation in the world to attempt to regulate the cultivation and sale of pot on a nationwide scale. The legalization law, passed in December 2013, allows growers and users to form clubs and authorizes pharmacies to sell up to 40 grams of pot a month to registered users. Mujica has said the sale of marijuana through pharmacies would be postponed until next year. On Wednesday, people in Uruguay who want to grow their own marijuana at home for personal use were able to register to do so as the government launched the latest phase in its legalization program. The government's Institute of Cannabis Regulation and Control said in a statement on Thursday that 54 home growers had registered over two days, including 21 in the Montevideo department that includes the capital of the same name. "It was a very simple bureaucratic step, much less complicated that I had thought," said marijuana grower Juan Vaz. Presidential and legislative elections are scheduled for October and the major opposition candidates have signaled they intend to repeal all or part of the legalization law if they gain power.
How do city governments spell REVENUE - DUI tickets!!!! The legal limit of .08 for DUI is so low that if a 100 pound person drinks 1 beer they are legally drunk. When DUI was invented the legal limit was .15, which for most people means the really are drunk. Also the fines are outrageously high. For simple DUI the minimum fine used to be $1,000 and I think that has been raised to around $2,000. An extreme DUI case will cost you $10,000+. And that's not counting you attorneys fees. Let's face it, the DUI laws are not about safety, they are about raising revenue for the government. http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/arizona/2014/08/28/labor-day-dui-patrols-begin-friday/14760715/ Labor Day DUI patrols begin Friday Maribel Castillo, The Republic | azcentral.com 3:32 p.m. MST August 28, 2014 Sixty-five law enforcement agencies throughout the state will be involved in DUI enforcement this Labor Day weekend, according to the Governor's Office of Highway Safety. From Friday through Monday, law-enforcement officials will begin saturation patrols and sobriety checkpoints throughout the state. Alberto C. Gutier, GOHS director said, "We want everyone to enjoy the holiday weekend and to do so responsibly by having a designated driver, calling a friend or taking a taxi home." Phoenix Police Department, East Valley DUI Task Force, and West Valley DUI Task Force will have saturation patrols from 7 p.m. to 4 a.m. each day of the holiday weekend and will be processing DUI suspects at various, pop-up locations throughout the Valley.
This is kind of odd. Usually when cops get arrested for crimes they deny the crime, and the police department, along with the police unions claim they are innocent and being railroaded by cop haters. Also usually the only cops that get charged with crimes, are cops who p*ss of their masters. The really crooked cops who get along with their masters are rarely charged with crimes. http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/phoenix/2014/08/28/phoenix-officer-arrested-for-stealing-police-say-abrk/14741745/ Phoenix officer arrested for stealing, police say D.S. Woodfill, The Republic | azcentral.com 2:29 p.m. MST August 28, 2014 A Phoenix police sergeant resigned from the department after he was arrested Tuesday, accused of stealing an undisclosed amount of merchandise, according to a Phoenix police spokesman. Mike Gurry, a sergeant with the Phoenix Police Department, was arrested Tuesday on suspicion of stealing from a "hobby store" in northeast Phoenix. "He was issued a criminal citation and released," Crump said. Gurry resigned from the department that afternoon.
Interesting, they only want to shake down people for parking in the RICH parts of town where these mountain preserve parks are located. My view is OUR TAX DOLLARS paid for these parks and we should be allowed to park in them for FREE. It could be worse!!!! I was in Tempe last night, that the crooks that run the city of Tempe were charging $40, yes, that's FORTY DOLLARS to park for the ASU game. On top of that they had covered up the parking meters which charge $1.50 an hour to park so you could not used them. I will be posting some photos of that later on today or this week. http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/phoenix/2014/08/29/parking-fees-phoenix-preserves-creates-furor-raises-questions-authority/14783489/ Parking fees at Phoenix preserves creates furor Phoenix city leaders are considering adding parking meters at 3 of the most popular trails. Betty Reid and Dustin Gardiner, The Republic | azcentral.com 10:50 p.m. MST August 28, 2014 Public outcry over a proposal to impose parking fees at three popular mountain preserve trailheads reached a din Thursday as about 150 residents from across the Valley packed a Phoenix recreation board meeting to plead with board members to drop the idea. Details of the proposal, including specific parking rates and hours, remained unclear, and parks board members won't likely vote on the issue until a consultant's recommendation becomes available this fall. But residents hoping to head off the idea gave emotional testimony against the plan, declaring their love of city parks and insisting they should be free. Some asked the Phoenix Parks and Recreation Board to allow the City Council to vote on the proposal — even though under the City Charter, the parks board has the authority to raise some recreation fees. "This is not an issue that people on the parks board should decide," said Tim Sierakowski, a Phoenix resident. "This issue should be decided by people who were voted into office. This effects the entire Valley, and it's too big of an issue for the parks board to decide." AZCENTRAL Residents rally against potential Phoenix trailhead parking fees Sierakowski brought 280 cards bearing the signatures of people who he said oppose parking meters at parks, but he refused to leave them with the board. The board is looking at three parking areas — Echo Canyon trailhead on Camelback Mountain, Pima Canyon in South Mountain Park, and Phoenix Mountains Park and Recreation Area's Piestewa Peak Summit Trail. Some board members and city officials contend the city needs the fees to help ease parking congestion and raise money to maintain and upgrade the popular trailheads, which are decades old. Parks and Recreation Deputy Director Ken Vonderscher gave a presentation Thursday that detailed issues with erosion, inadequate amenities and other areas. "We're putting a million people a year on those three trailheads," Vonderscher said prior to the meeting. "They're being loved to death. To be sustainable, we have to invest on the capital side." In 2010, the parks board approved a $2 daily or $50 six-month parking pass fee at five Phoenix mountain preserve sites. But the City Council killed the proposal. Members had needed to sign off by amending the city code to require parking passes at preserves. They never brought it to a vote, and the fees weren't implemented. The issue is being revisited now as City Manager Ed Zuercher continues to ask departments to identify potential fees to help cover city costs. Some Phoenix leaders are talking about how they may block the fees again. A contingent of City Council members — led by Councilman Sal DiCiccio, whose district includes Camelback Mountain and Piestewa Peak — are pushing for a council vote on the issue. Arizona Republic columnist EJ Montini and reporter Richard Ruelas discuss the potential of parking meters being installed at Phoenix parks. In a letter to Mayor Greg Stanton, the councilman said charging for parking at city preserves would be a major policy shift and elected officials accountable to their constituents should vet the issue. Vonderscher said the fee decision doesn't need to go to the Council this time around because the ordinances already allow Phoenix to install parking meters throughout the city. Creating a parking pass, as was attempted in 2010, required a new ordinance. However, DiCiccio said the Council could block the fees because it controls the city's purse strings and could block funding for the installation of parking meters or other required costs. He said he hopes the parks board will include the Council in the decision process voluntarily.
Sadly I think the governments view on "Constitutional Rights" is that if you don't know about your "Constitutional Rights", they are not going to honor your "Constitutional Rights". Of course every time I am stopped by a cop and tell him I am taking the 5th and refusing to answer his questions the cops always claim that my "Constitutional Rights" don't apply in this case. So I guess in reality the only time you have "Constitutional Rights" is when a judge is forcing the government to honor them. And sadly that doesn't happen much in the courts. http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/politics/immigration/2014/08/27/ice-cbp-change-practices-wake-aclu-rights-lawsuit/14720733/ ICE and CBP to change some practices in wake of ACLU rights lawsuit Julie Watson, Associated Press 8:22 p.m. MST August 27, 2014 SAN DIEGO – U.S. immigration authorities must revamp their practices to ensure that Mexicans accused of living in the country illegally are properly informed of their right to a hearing before an immigration judge, according to a lawsuit settlement made public Wednesday. The federal lawsuit was filed by the American Civil Liberties Union in Los Angeles on behalf of nine Mexican nationals and three organizations in June 2013. It alleged that U.S. Customs and Border Protection and Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers in Southern California routinely told Mexican immigrants that they could face months in jail while their cases were decided and falsely informed them that they could easily arrange legal status once they were back in Mexico. Immigration authorities would offer voluntary departures, which prohibit immigrants from re-entering the U.S. for up to 10 years, according to the lawsuit. The voluntary departures can be offered to immigrants who don't have criminal records. ICE and the CBP said in a statement that officials use voluntary departures as an option for those who asked to be returned home in lieu of formal removal proceedings, "but in no case is coercion or deception tolerated." The agencies said they have agreed to supplement their existing procedures to ensure that foreign nationals fully understand the potential consequences of returning voluntarily to Mexico. The ACLU said Wednesday that all the plaintiffs in the case would have been able to present viable cases before the court to remain in the United States had they been properly informed of their right to a hearing. "If the agencies implement the agreement fully, never again should families be driven apart based on immigration-enforcement practices that rely upon misinformation, deception and coercion," said Sean Riordan, an ACLU attorney.
Arizona 2014 Primary Elections Results
The only thing that sunrises me about the governor primary election is that racist jerk Andrew Thomas didn't come in last. Disbarred lawyer and former Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas actually beat Frank Riggs, whoever he is!!!
| Arizona Governor (Republican primary) | |
| Doug Ducey | 36.6% |
| Scott Smith | 22.1% |
| Christine Jones | 16.4% |
| Ken Bennett | 12.0% |
| Andrew Thomas | 8.5% |
| Frank Riggs | 4.5% |
It's also nice to see that AG Tom Horne got booted out of the AG's office in the primary election.
When Tom Horne wasn't having his lunch time sexual liaisons with Carmen Chenal he was busy trying to flush Arizona's Medical Marijuana Act or Prop 203 down the toilet.
FBI agents who were tailing Tom Horne witnessed an alleged hit and run accident committed by Tom Horne during one of his affairs with Carmen Chenal.
| Attorney General (Republican primary) | |
| Mark Brnovich | 53.8% |
| Tom Horne | 46.2% |
It was also nice to see John Huppenthal booted out of office. He was caught in the act of being a double talking politician.
| Superintendent of Public Instruction (Republican primary) | |
| Diane Douglas | 58% |
| John Huppenthal | 42% |
It was also nice to see Mary Rose "Bullet in the Butt" Wilcox lose in the Democratic primary. Mary Rose Wilcox is a big time supporter of the police state, and a fan of the "war on drugs" who wants to continue throwing marijuana smokers into prison. Mary Rose Wilcox also voted to steal $1 billion+ of our hard earned tax dollars and use them to build Bank One Ball Park for her good buddy Jerry Colengelo. Mary Rose Wilcox got the nickname "bullet in the butt" when Larry Naman attempted to assassinate her for her role in stealing our money to build Bank One BallPark.
| Congressional District 7 (Democratic primary) | |
| Ruben Gallego | 48.3% |
| Mary Rose Wilcox | 36.5% |
| Randy Camacho | 7.7% |
| Jarrett Maupin | 7.5% |
It was also nice to see former Tempe Mayor Hugh Hallman lose the Treasurers Republican election. While Tempe Mayor Hugh Hallman claims to be a conservative Republican he behaves like a tax and spend Democrat. Rain Baker of CAMP420 accused me of wanting Hugh Hallman's autograph. That's rubbish, I hate Hugh Hallman. I don't think I have ever met a politician I liked, outside of Ron Paul, and I haven't met him.
| Treasurers Republican Primary |
|
| DEWIT, JEFF | 44.69% |
| HALLMAN, HUGH | 32.78% |
| PULLEN, RANDY | 22.32% |
EJ Montini will use any lame excuse to demonize guns
EJ Montini will use any lame excuse to demonize guns
Yes, this accident, like all accidents that involve death is a tragic accident.
Sadly the accident was preventable. Sadly the accident was also caused by the gun instructor who let down his guard and allowed a 9 year old girl to handle a gun who had not been trained to handler and respect guns.
Would EJ Montini be demanding that automobiles be made illegal if a 15 year old driving student was allowed by her instructor to do something that killed the instructor. Probably not.
In this case EJ Montini seems to want to make it illegal for kids to handle guns because the stupidity of the gun instructor. That's wrong!!!
Why do we allow a child to handle an Uzi?
EJ Montini, columnist | azcentral.com 10:35 a.m. MST August 27, 2014
A tragedy is always a tragedy first. And what happened in northern Arizona Monday was a horrible tragedy.
A nine-year-old girl was at a shooting range with her parents. She was receiving instruction in how to use an automatic Uzi. According to investigators when the little girl pulled the trigger the recoil caused the gun to fly over her head. A bullet struck her 39-year-old instructor, Charles Vacca, in the head. He was killed.
The place this happened is called Arizona Last Stop. It's located on Hwy 93 in White Hills, near the Nevada border. The name of the outdoor shooting range (and restaurant) is Bullets and Burgers Adventure. It offers patrons the opportunity to fire a variety of automatic and "specialty" weapons.
What happened there Monday was awful for the family of Vacca and awful as well for the young shooter and her family. But it leaves us with three important questions:
Why would a shooting range allow a kid to handle an automatic weapon? Why would a parent? And, most importantly, why would a state?
I know what some of you are saying.
Perhaps because I've already heard from some of you.
On Tuesday afternoon, not long after the news of the shooting went public a man left a message on my voicemail saying, "Come on, Montini. What's taking you so long? Here's yet another opportunity for you to spread your anti-gun hatred. It's another chance for you to try to rob us of our Second Amendment Rights. And even better – because that's how (expletives) like you are – you can use the death of a man and the trauma of a child to spew your (expletive). Don't disappoint me.'"
Okay, I won't.
Not because anything the caller said was true, but because I've heard it all before.
For some people, the way to cut off any discussion of common sense gun control is to demean anyone who wants to bring up the topic.
It happened last year after the shooting and stabbing attack in Santa Barbara. It happened after the massacre in Tucson that killed six and wounded 13, including then-Rep. Gabrielle Giffords. It happened after the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, that left 20 children and six adult staff members dead.
It happens with gun violence both intentional and accidental.
A study by Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America and Everytown said 100 children are killed a year in preventable firearms accidents. In Arizona in 2012, more than 30 children were killed by firearms according to the 2013 Arizona Child Fatality Review,
It shouldn't happen. Nor should kids be in the dangerous position of handing automatic weapons.
The people who want to cut off the conversation say we should not talk about firearms regulation of any sort during the emotional days immediately after a tragedy.
When then? We move from tragedy to tragedy, issue to issue, at the speed of Twitter. A delayed discussion means no discussion.
In the meantime, a little girl has to live with the memory of having killed a man.
We should ask those uncomfortable questions now. Before anything like this happens again. Arizona law allows a minor to possess a weapon if accompanied by a parent, guardian or an instructor. But this type of weapon?
It's time we asked ourselves:
Why would a shooting range allow a kid to handle an automatic weapon? Why would a parent? And, most importantly, why would a state?
Truth in campaign advertising should be the law???? I always hear Democrats whining that rich people shouldn't be allowed to influence elections with out disclosing who they are. Usually they are referring to rich Republicans. From this article it seems like the Democrats have a double standard on that issue and seem to feel that unions who dump big bucks into elections shouldn't have to obey the same rules as rich Republicans who dump big bucks into election. For the record I a Libertarian, not a Republican or Democrat. Also I think free speech should be free speech. A person who uses free speech shouldn't be required by some government nanny to disclose who paid for the free speech. http://www.mercurynews.com/opinion/ci_26410228/mercury-news-editorial-truth-campaign-advertising-should-be Mercury News editorial: Truth in campaign advertising should be the law Posted: 08/26/2014 02:04:10 PM PDT2 Supreme Court rulings leave little room to regulate the influence of big money on political campaigns except in one very important area: disclosure. Corporations, unions and other organizations have unfettered rights to bankroll campaigns, but at least they can still be required to clearly disclose who's writing the checks. Yet for the second year, Californians' attempt to pass a law requiring clear disclosure of who's funding campaigns is in trouble. Voters and good-government organizations need to gang up on the Assembly by Saturday, when the DISCLOSE Act, SB 52, is scheduled for a floor vote. Powerful opponents empowered by Citizens United to wield unlimited financial influence would prefer to do it anonymously, and they are besieging their bought-and-paid-for pawns in the Assembly. No, it's not the Koch Brothers. It's not Chevron or the NRA. Here's a hint: this is a Democratic Assembly. That's right. It's unions. Specifically the Service Employees International Union and the California Teachers Association -- which happen to be among the largest campaign spenders in the state, according to Maplight, the nonpartisan research group that tracks money in politics. The DISCLOSE Act was authored by Sens. Jerry Hill, D-San Mateo, and Mark Leno, D-San Francisco. It would require campaign material to include a readable (no fine print) and factual list of its three top funders instead of using generic committee names like "Citizens for Mom and Apple Pie" and a general description of the members. Donors usually can be found in filings with the Secretary of State, but if you don't go looking, and if news reporters aren't covering the campaigns, you'd never know. The Senate has done its part, but Democrats' support in the Assembly is wavering. We'll be watching Bay Area lawmakers on this one, and if you care about transparency, contact your own representative. Find him or her at findyourrep.legislature.ca.gov/. We don't agree with the Supreme Court ruling in Citizens United. Neither corporations nor unions should have the same free-speech rights as individuals to spend unlimited amounts of money to influence public policy. We suspect the Founding Fathers would be appalled. But if we had to choose between trying to limit spending and requiring full, clear and immediate disclosure of who's bankrolling campaigns, we'd take disclosure in a heartbeat. People can make educated judgments about barrages of campaign claims when they understand who is behind them.
"This [Supreme Court decision] undermines the ability to deter illegal police behavior and leaves victims without compensation. When the police kill or injure innocent people, the victims rarely have recourse." Per US Supreme Court decisions "Police officers and other law enforcement personnel who commit perjury have absolute immunity and cannot be sued for money" Let's face it, the Bill of Rights is a worthless piece of toilet paper which the police routinely use to wipe their asses with based on these Supreme Court decisions. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/27/opinion/how-the-supreme-court-protects-bad-cops.html?hpw&rref=opinion&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&version=HpHedThumbWell&module=well-region®ion=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well&_r=0 How the Supreme Court Protects Bad Cops By ERWIN CHEMERINSKYAUG. 26, 2014 IRVINE, Calif. — LAST week, a grand jury was convened in St. Louis County, Mo., to examine the evidence against the police officer who killed Michael Brown, an unarmed black teenager, and to determine if he should be indicted. Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. even showed up to announce a separate federal investigation, and to promise that justice would be done. But if the conclusion is that the officer, Darren Wilson, acted improperly, the ability to hold him or Ferguson, Mo., accountable will be severely restricted by none other than the United States Supreme Court. In recent years, the court has made it very difficult, and often impossible, to hold police officers and the governments that employ them accountable for civil rights violations. This undermines the ability to deter illegal police behavior and leaves victims without compensation. When the police kill or injure innocent people, the victims rarely have recourse. The most recent court ruling that favored the police was Plumhoff v. Rickard, decided on May 27, which found that even egregious police conduct is not “excessive force” in violation of the Constitution. Police officers in West Memphis, Ark., pulled over a white Honda Accord because the car had only one operating headlight. Rather than comply with an officer’s request to get out of the car, the driver made the unfortunate decision to speed away. The police chased the car for more than five minutes, reaching speeds of over 100 miles per hour. Eventually, officers fired 15 shots into the car, killing both the driver and a passenger. The Supreme Court reversed the decision of the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit and ruled unanimously in favor of the police. Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. said that the driver’s conduct posed a “grave public safety risk” and that the police were justified in shooting at the car to stop it. The court said it “stands to reason that, if police officers are justified in firing at a suspect in order to end a severe threat to public safety, the officers need not stop shooting until the threat has ended.” This is deeply disturbing. The Supreme Court now has said that whenever there is a high-speed chase that could injure others — and that would seem to be true of virtually all high-speed chases — the police can shoot at the vehicle and keep shooting until the chase ends. Obvious alternatives could include shooting out the car’s tires, or even taking the license plate number and tracking the driver down later. The court has also weakened accountability by ruling that a local government can be held liable only if it is proved that the city’s or county’s own policy violated the Constitution. In almost every other area of law, an employer can be held liable if its employees, in the scope of their duties, injure others, even negligently. This encourages employers to control the conduct of their employees and ensures that those injured will be compensated. A 2011 case, Connick v. Thompson, illustrates how difficult the Supreme Court has made it to prove municipal liability. John Thompson was convicted of an armed robbery and a murder and spent 18 years in prison, 14 of them on death row, because of prosecutorial misconduct. Two days before Mr. Thompson’s trial began in New Orleans, the assistant district attorney received the crime lab’s report, which stated that the perpetrator of the armed robbery had a blood type that did not match Mr. Thompson’s. The defense was not told this crucial information. Through a series of coincidences, Mr. Thompson’s lawyer discovered the blood evidence soon before the scheduled execution. New testing was done and again the blood of the perpetrator didn’t match Mr. Thompson’s DNA or even his blood type. His conviction was overturned, and he was eventually acquitted of all charges. The district attorney’s office, which had a notorious history of not turning over exculpatory evidence to defendants, conceded that it had violated its constitutional obligation. Mr. Thompson sued the City of New Orleans, which employed the prosecutors, and was awarded $14 million. Continue reading the main story But the Supreme Court reversed that decision, in a 5-to-4 vote, and held that the local government was not liable for the prosecutorial misconduct. Justice Clarence Thomas, writing for the majority, said that New Orleans could not be held liable because it could not be proved that its own policies had violated the Constitution. The fact that its prosecutor blatantly violated the Constitution was not enough to make the city liable. Because it is so difficult to sue government entities, most victims’ only recourse is to sue the officers involved. But here, too, the Supreme Court has created often insurmountable obstacles. The court has held that all government officials sued for monetary damages can raise “immunity” as a defense. Police officers and other law enforcement personnel who commit perjury have absolute immunity and cannot be sued for money, even when it results in the imprisonment of an innocent person. A prosecutor who commits misconduct, as in Mr. Thompson’s case, also has absolute immunity to civil suits. When there is not absolute immunity, police officers are still protected by “qualified immunity” when sued for monetary damages. The Supreme Court, in an opinion by Justice Antonin Scalia in 2011, ruled that a government officer can be held liable only if “every reasonable official” would have known that his conduct was unlawful. For example, the officer who shot Michael Brown can be held liable only if every reasonable officer would have known that the shooting constituted the use of excessive force and was not self-defense. The Supreme Court has used this doctrine in recent years to deny damages to an eighth-grade girl who was strip-searched by school officials on suspicion that she had prescription-strength ibuprofen. It has also used it to deny damages to a man who, under a material-witness warrant, was held in a maximum-security prison for 16 days and on supervised release for 14 months, even though the government had no intention of using him as a material witness or even probable cause to arrest him. In each instance, the court stressed that the government officer could not be held liable, even though the Constitution had clearly been violated. Taken together, these rulings have a powerful effect. They mean that the officer who shot Michael Brown and the City of Ferguson will most likely never be held accountable in court. How many more deaths and how many more riots will it take before the Supreme Court changes course? Erwin Chemerinsky, the dean of the School of Law at the University of California, Irvine, is the author of the forthcoming book “The Case Against the Supreme Court.”
Hey, he's Black, he must be a criminal. Well at least that how the piggies in Beverly Hill feel. Years ago I read an article in the LA Times about a plumber who did a lot of work in Beverly Hills. He said that every time he finished a plumbing job on a home in Beverly Hills, that before leaving the home, he dialed 911 and told the cops "Hey, I am a Black man, and I just finished working on the home I am calling you from and I am leaving now", just to give that cops an advance notice that he was committing the crime of DWB or Driving While Black on the streets of Beverly Hills. http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-charles-belk-beverly-hills-police-apologzie-20140826-story.html#navtype=outfit Beverly Hills police express regret for holding black producer before Emmys By Robert J. Lopez contact the reporter Beverly Hills police express regret for detaining, handcuffing African American producer before Emmys Beverly Hills police officials said Tuesday that it was "extremely unfortunate" that officers handcuffed and detained an African American film producer who was in the city to attend a pre-Emmy party. Producer Charles Belk "matched the clothing and physical characteristics" of a suspected bank robber when he was pulled over by officers on Friday evening after he left a restaurant on Wilshire Boulevard, according to the Beverly Hills Police Department. [Yea, sure!!!] Belk said on Facebook that he was walking to his car when he was confronted by police, handcuffed and forced to sit on the sidewalk. He said he was detained for six hours. “I get that the Beverly Hills Police Department didn’t know that I was a well educated American citizen that had received a B.S. in electrical engineering from the University of Southern California, an MBA from Indiana University … and an executive leadership certificate from Harvard Business School,” Belk said. “Hey, I was ‘tall,’ ‘bald,’ a ‘male’ and ‘black,’ so I fit the description.” In a statement, police expressed regret. "The Beverly Hills Police Department deeply regrets the inconvenience to Mr. Belk and has reached out to him to express those regrets and further explain the circumstances," police officials said. But police added that officers "properly detained" Belk given the "totality of the circumstances." Sgt. Max Subin told The Times on Tuesday night that city officials had spoken to Belk's attorney. "He's definitely made Mr. Belk's concerns known to us, and we are looking into those concerns," Subin said. "We definitely regret the inconvenience that was caused." Follow @LAJourno for breaking news
Read this article and tell me if you think your getting your moneys worth from the money the IRS steals from your wallet!!!! http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2014/08/27/labor-department-pr-chief-wasteful-spender-or-promoting-mission/?tid=hpModule_14fd66a0-9199-11e2-bdea-e32ad90da239&hpid=z14 Labor Department PR chief: Wasteful spender or promoting mission? By Lisa Rein August 27 at 6:00 AM The House’s top Republican watchdog this week ordered the Labor Department to provide records on “mismanagement and wasteful spending practices” in the Office of Public Affairs, whose director has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to promote the agency and, critics say, himself. Labor officials defend the spending authorized by public affairs chief Carl Fillichio as a strategy to inform the public of the agency’s mission and boost employee morale. But House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) called it “frivolous” and a “misuse of agency resources.” “The DOL Office of Public Affairs frivolously spends taxpayer dollars on unnecessary items,” Issa wrote in an Aug. 25 letter to Labor Secretary Thomas E. Perez, demanding that the agency turn over documents showing planning and spending on elevator posters, an agency book club and internal magazine and numerous public relations contests Fillichio entered — and award ceremonies he attended — since 2009. Labor Secretary Thomas Perez. (AP/Molly Riley) Issa cited more than $600,000 in spending by the public affairs office in recent years on elevator posters commemorating the Labor Department’s achievements, public relations contests and more than $100,000 to promote a book club. Issa also criticized the use of taxpayer money to produce an internal magazine commemorating former Labor secretary Frances Perkins, travel by Fillichio to an awards ceremony in New York and the hiring of a Washington Nationals mascot for an agency event. Fillichio did not return a phone call seeking comment. A senior executive who held the same position under the previous Labor secretary, Hilda Solis, Fillichio is now senior adviser for public affairs and communications under Perez, overseeing the agency’s media and public affairs efforts, social and digital media, internal communications and Web site. Labor Department spokesman Stephen Barr, in a statement, called the agency “responsible stewards of public funds.” “We inform the public of our important mission and engage and educate our employees in creative, effective and appropriate ways,” Barr wrote. “Our internal communications efforts make a difference in employee satisfaction, retention and most importantly, performance. Better performance from our employees translates into better value for the public.” Issa began investigating the public affairs operation after Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) wrote to the agency’s inspector general last February, asking him to look into the same issues, in addition to contracting “irregularities.” Issa’s probe was first reported by the Hill. As a result of Coburn’s allegations, Inspector General Scott S. Dahl is conducting an audit of an agency contract, said an official with knowledge of the probe who was not authorized to speak publicly. It was unclear which contract is under review.
What's next??? A implanted chip to make us love our government??? And no this article isn't from the National Enquirer, it's from the Washington Post!!! http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/checkpoint/wp/2014/08/27/new-obama-plan-calls-for-implanted-computer-chips-to-help-u-s-troops-heal/?hpid=z10 New Obama plan calls for implanted computer chips to help U.S. troops heal By Dan Lamothe August 27 at 11:29 AM When President Obama on Tuesday highlighted 19 executive actions he says he is taking to improve the mental health of U.S. troops and veterans, one of them centered on a particularly novel effort: The development of new computer chips designed to modulate the nervous system to help with everything from arthritis to post-traumatic stress. The project is headed by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, a Pentagon agency that develops a variety of high-tech equipment for the U.S. military. It’s known as the Electrical Prescriptions program, or ElectRx (pronounced “electrics”). Program officials say the goal is to develop a technology that could help people heal more quickly through the use of biosensors and electromagnetic devices that control human organs. “Instead of relying only on medication, we envision a closed-loop system that would work in concept like a tiny, intelligent pacemaker,” said Doug Weber, the program’s manager. “It would continually assess conditions and provide stimulus patterns tailored to help maintain healthy organ function, helping patients get healthy and stay healthy using their body’s own systems.” Obama did not reference the new program directly in his speech Tuesday at the American Legion national convention in Charlotte, N.C. In a joint fact sheet released by the Pentagon and the Department of Veterans Affairs, however, the agencies said DARPA will start a new $78.9 million, five-year research program “to develop new, minimally invasive neurotechnologies that will increase the ability of the body and brain to induce healing.” It’s part of the Obama administration’s larger “BRAIN Initiative,” which involves the National Institutes of Health, DARPA, the National Science Foundation and the Food and Drug Administration, among other organizations. Officials say the BRAIN Initiative — which stands for Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies — includes a related DARPA effort to build new brain chips that will be able to predict moods to help treat post-traumatic stress. It’s known as the SUBNETS program, short for Systems-Based Neurotechnology for Emerging Therapies. Teams at both the University of California, San Francisco, and Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston are involved. The major hurdle for the ElectRX program may be shrinking the technology needed so that it can be used in the body. Implantable devices already are in use to fight inflammatory diseases and other health problems, but most are about the size of a deck of cards, requiring surgical implantation that can result in side effects, DARPA officials said. They want “ultraminiaturized devices” that would could be inserted through needle injection or other less invasive means. Dan Lamothe covers national security for The Washington Post and anchors its military blog, Checkpoint.
Let me get this straight - the guy that is running the "war on drugs" is a ex-drug, OK, ex-alcohol addict??? Not that I have anything against drug addicts, or alcoholics, but that sounds a little bit hypocritical!!! Personally I think ALL drugs should be legalized. If there is a "drug problem", it's not a criminal problem as the "war on drugs" treats it as, but rather a health or medical problem. This isn't an article, but a video. I always read any articles I post, but in this case I didn't view the video. http://www.washingtonpost.com/posttv/politics/meet-the-us-drug-czar-himself-in-a-recovery-program/2014/08/22/3d2c3260-2972-11e4-8b10-7db129976abb_video.html?tid=hp_mm&hpid=z3 Meet the U.S. drug czar, himself in a recovery program August 21, 2014 4:21 PM EDT — Michael Botticelli is the acting director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy. He's also in recovery for an addictive disorder. This is his story. (Jeff Simon / The Washington Post) Here is the link to the video: http://www.washingtonpost.com/posttv/politics/meet-the-us-drug-czar-himself-in-a-recovery-program/2014/08/22/3d2c3260-2972-11e4-8b10-7db129976abb_video.html?tid=hp_mm&hpid=z3