Joe Biden’s younger brother James promised executives at two health care companies that his access to the former vice president would be pivotal in promoting their business.
Biden’s relatives have previously been accused of using their access to enrich themselves but the latest allegations, which are detailed in a number of sworn declarations filed in federal court on Friday, represent the first example of Biden’s relatives promising that he would use his influence to directly promote private businesses.
Executives at Azzam Medical Services and Diverse Medical Management sued James Biden in June, alleging that he offered to partner with them in 2017 as part of a ploy to steal their intellectual property.
One declaration, filed as part of the suit by Diverse Medical Management’s CEO Michael Frey, claims that James suggested that his brother could ensure that the company was contracted for court-ordered outpatient care.
“During my presentation regarding intensive outpatient treatment, James Biden interrupted me to say, ‘My brother needs to have you in every court system in America,’” Frey wrote in the declaration, which was obtained by Politico.
“I left the meeting very excited and optimistic about the future of DMM [Diverse Medical Management],” he added.
On another occasion, James told another Diverse Medical Management executive “that the DMM psychiatric care model would be used by Joe Biden as part of his campaign” and further suggested that his brother’s ties to the Department of Veteran’s Affairs and other labor unions “would help DMM expand its model nationwide.”
James “stated that he could facilitate contracts between DMM and first responders based on the relationships that his brother had with certain labor unions,” according to a declaration by Mitchell Cohen, Diverse Medical Management’s former general counsel.
In a response to the executives’ original complaint, James maintained his innocence.
James “Biden and his wife, Sara, have a long-held and passionate commitment to finding solutions for the improved treatment of both substance abuse and post-traumatic stress disorder and the linkage between them, particularly in rural areas where so many local hospitals are failing,” according to the response.
Biden, who maintains a narrow lead over the field in the Democratic primary, has faced numerous allegations that his family sought to profit off of his public service since entering the contest.
Most of the allegations relate to his son Hunter’s alleged efforts to use to his father’s influence and reputation to court wealthy Chinese financiers. Hunter’s firm signed a $1 billion private equity deal with a subsidiary of the state-owned Bank of China in 2013, less than two weeks after visiting Beijing aboard Air Force 2 with his father.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2LcoyDz Tyler Durden
According to a new report from Mexican newspaper Tabasco Hoy, the Mexican Navy intercepted 23,368 kilograms (51,517 pounds) of fentanyl at the Port of Lázaro Cárdenas, the largest Mexican seaport and one of the largest harbors in the Pacific Ocean.
The Secretariat of the Navy said joint work between the Naval Unit of Port Protection No.63 and the Tenth Naval Zone and Customs at the port uncovered the illicit drug in a 40ft shipping container. Preliminary reports show the container wasn’t entirely filled with fentanyl.
The vessel was a several hundred-meter container ship flying a Danish flag, in which according to its freight manifest, the fentanyl was identified as “Calcium Chloride.”
Navy and port officials completed a random search of the unnamed vessel, and when they carried out specialized Customs laboratory testing of some of “Calcium Chloride,” it turned out to be fentanyl.
Within one container, there were 931 sacks of fentanyl, totaled a gross weight of 23,368 kilograms (51,517 pounds). The container ship came from Shanghai, on China’s central coast, and was eventually going to drop off the cargo in Culiacán, the capital of the state of Sinaloa.
“It is important to highlight that, with these actions, the Secretary of the Navy, as the National Maritime Authority, endorses the commitment to work in coordination with the three government orders, to combat organized crime with the resources provided by the Law, always in strict adherence to Human Rights,” Tabasco Hoy said.
The report made no mention about the intended destination of the illicit drug after Culiacán port, but it was likely it was headed for the US.
It’s starting to become increasingly clear how the global supply chain of fentanyl starts with manufacturers in China, then shipped on container vessels to Mexico. The next step would be using Mexican cartels for the so-called “last mile” delivery to the US.
Flowing in one direction, the fentanyl pipeline starts in the Sinaloa state, through Sonara, into Baja California, where Mexican cartels, likely the Sinaloa Cartel, use well-established drug trafficking routes into the US. More than 80% of the drug is driven through the San Diego border before dispersed throughout the US.
By the time Mexican drug cartels get the fentanyl onto American streets, it would be cut with any number of substances, from cocaine to heroin to methamphetamine to sugar to acetaminophen.
There was also no mention in the report if the seizure was the largest in Mexican history nor how many millions of Americans it could’ve killed, but judging by the preliminary numbers – this latest seziure could be a record-setter.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2ZElnxW Tyler Durden
“Did we give up when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? No!” – Animal House
On this blog recently someone commented, “When I was a kid, people used to say that ‘It’s a free country,’ but they don’t say that anymore.” I tried it out the other day. The response? “It hasn’t been a free country in a while.” I turned him into the FBI for that kind of hate think.
I was driving in the middle of Midwestia in the middle of a quest that you’ll probably hear about on Wednesday. One of the videos that was in my suggested list was about “America’s Cold Civil War.” This isn’t a review of the video, but it brought up some interesting points. The one I want to make clear to every single person that loves freedom in the United States is: if you’ve ever seen a movie about that rag-tag elements of a group fighting a foe that has nearly utterly defeated them, it’s us. We are the Wolverines.
I get to be Charlie Sheen, mainly because he’s still alive. I think.
I don’t mean to say that to create a feeling of defeat – far from it. But the first step in dealing with a situation is understanding reality. And reality is very simple today. At a minimum, the Left has coopted the following elements of culture in the United States – they have been, over time, “converged” into Leftism:
The K-12 educational system.
Colleges and Universities.
Most Protestant religious organizations.
Most Catholic organizations.
The psychological establishment.
The American Medical Association.
All mainstream news media.
All mainstream entertainment media.
Most departments of the Federal government, absent the armed services.
The general officer corps of the armed services.
The courts.
Silicon Valley tech companies.
Many (but not all) Fortune® 500™ companies.
This isn’t an accident, it’s entirely by plan. And not only by plan, it’s by a plan that was entirely shared. From Verified Communist Traitor® Herbert Marcuse, in his book Counterrevolution and Revolt (bold added):
To extend the base of the student movement, Rudi Dutschke has proposed the strategy of the long march through the institutions: working against the established institutions while working within them, but not simply by ‘boring from within’, rather by ‘doing the job’, learning (how to program and read computers, how to teach at all levels of education, how to use the mass media, how to organize production, how to recognize and eschew planned obsolescence, how to design, et cetera), and at the same time preserving one’s own consciousness in working with others.
I could prove all of the above Institutions have been converged through the Long March Through the Institutions and will probably discuss a few of these in the future, because I could do a post on each one. Heck, maybe it would be a great book, but only if I could figure out how to pair hot chicks and communist propaganda.
East German girl swimmers bench pressing 300 pounds in 1976 is completely normal.
In almost any context, these organizations reflect the values of the Left, not of the Right. I specifically don’t use the label conservative here – the conservative movement has utterly failed in the United States (to quote absolutely everyone) to conserve anything. We live a country where adults telling four year old boys that being a girl is okie-dokie (and vice-versa) aren’t thrown directly in prison for a decade or more (after a trial, of course) for child abuse. The goals of the above organizations would be cause for mass revolt if they had been publicized in 1990, but now, despite no vote, no public acceptance, each point of the Left has been accepted as the new normal.
And telling a boy that he’s a girl? Oh, wait, that’s brave. Sorry.
Despite all of that, this is not a post about giving up. Screw that. Each day makes me more independent, not less, more wanting to tell the truth.
And if you’re reading this, no one is done here. Freedom is always the underdog. I really wish we’d just stop waiting until 2:00 in the fourth quarter to start playing.
I remember seeing a film in Social Studies in High School about the Korean War. In the black and white film, almost all of Korea had been lost. The film ended right at what is known as the Pusan Perimeter, right where the North Korean Army was about to kick freedom off of the Korean peninsula, forever. It was tough watching that film.
But then we learned what happened next: MacArthur led the naval invasion of Inchon and turned the tide of battle, leading a combined United Nations® force that cut off the North Koreans. This turned the course of the war, and in the process helped to create the free country of South Korea that is a world leader in technology, bad music videos, and wealth creation today.
Spoiler alert: we tied.
Our Pusan Perimeter is now. I had a great boss once upon a time, he would continually remind me, “John, start with the end in mind,” which is #2 of Covey’s Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. As I look at the state of the Right back in 2016, we were at the Pusan Perimeter. As we as a nation blindly stumble toward Civil War II, I can’t predict the outcome, but I can see the full range of outcomes.
We’ll go from best case to worst case for people who love freedom. Although there are variations, I think I’ve captured all of the big picture end games below.
I named operation Aesop after the Raconteur Report’s Aesop. You can read him here (LINK).
1. Operation Aesop: Total victory.
What it is: The Right wins. Traditional society is restored. Mothers and fathers in committed relationships are again honored. A Constitutional republic of limited government replaces the democracy of unlimited power. The United States is unified. Think of it as a return to the 1950’s, but with color TV and microwaves.
What it takes: Oh, not much more than the bloodiest war in the history of the country. The only way this results in victory is as Von Clausewitz wrote about in On War: [Accomplishing . . . ] “three broad objectives, which between them cover everything: destroying the enemy’s armed forces; occupying his country; and breaking his will to continue the struggle.”
That’s what happened in the first Civil War. That’s what happened to the Germans and Japanese in World War II. The concept of continuing was even more horrific than the concept of trying to continue to fight. It’s total capitulation. This is actual war until the enemy is not capable of continuing. Not talking heads on a television show. Not voting. Not discussion. Not a “mission accomplished” after five weeks moving across Iraq where the “will to continue the struggle” is still clearly intact.
Outcomes: Some freedoms we see now would be curtailed. Political discourse would be constrained. But teenagers would be pretty polite, again. And you wouldn’t really have to worry about the border.
I’m related to Patrick Henry, or so my aunt told me. I like to imagine Patrick getting a bit tipsy and writing mean letters to Madison about how short Madison was and how Dolly might want to give up on the chew.
2. Operation Founding Fathers: 50 Independent States.
What it is: A return to base principles. Originally, the United States was conceived as just that, independent free States. The majority of decisions to be made were to be made at the state, and not the Federal level. Each state was to be free to make decisions. Texas could be Texas. California could be Venezuela. Vermont could be stoned. The free decisions of free States was allowed. The free movement of free peoples was likewise allowed. This is returning to that state.
That taught me one thing: the thing the Left hates the most is . . . freedom. Liberty. In many ways the Left would rather lose a shooting war and be subjugated to the views of the Right than to be allowed to turn Seattle into the Siberia of the PacNorthwest.
The only way this can take place outside of warfare is a Second Constitutional Convention. I think that alone would lead to a shooting war from the Left and a complete revolt from all of the Leftist institutions shown above. But we can dream that the Second Constitutional Convention would turn out well. If we did it, oh, in the next year. The clock is ticking on this being a viable outcome. It’s probably time to do it now. As in, well, now. Conservatives (not the Right) seem to feel that everything is going to come out fine, so until the wolf is at the door, I don’t think they’ll move an inch.
The problem is that Conservatives (again, not the Right) seem to think that the Left likes the Constitution. Since the Left gained the institutions I’ve listed above, the Left doesn’t care about the Constitution – the Left cares about power. Pure, unadulterated, 18 year old with a 12 pack of Coors Light™ behind the wheel of a 1969 Camero® power.
Outcomes: In many ways this is the best outcome, but in my opinion the most unlikely. This is the only outcome where we can still have the full freedom of political discourse and the full Bill of Rights. I’d love to turn over freedom to choose to a California that can choke itself to death on Leftist feelgoodism while a Rightist Arizona can deny admission to every illegal and return them via a trebuchet if they want to.
I was expecting more girls in bikinis from Bruckheimer, but this is a good start.
3. Operation Fort Sumter: Going our separate ways.
What it is: Secession. Splitting up. It’s not you, it’s me Oregon. The problem is that unlike in 1860, the dividing lines aren’t so clear. Then there was a line which, if everyone agreed, would have been fine for a split. The North could be the North, the South could be the South. Oops. Now it would be a county by county fight.
What it takes: Just like a psycho ex-girlfriend, if the Right tried to succeed in Texas, the Left wouldn’t accept it, and would demand tanks on the banks Red River by morning, which would be hilarious because tanks don’t float. Unless the succession were overwhelming in number of states, numbers of the armed forces, and nearly immediate, I see only a small path to a peaceful succession. For succession to stick, the Left and Right would have to feel that conquering the other side was more costly than trying to forge a peace.
Outcomes: If succession happened and maintained, the United States would be irrevocably broken, unless it was re-stitched by a Caesar sequentially conquering the Balkanized United States. Maybe Caesar Pugsley Wilder the First?
Think they need a reason to send you to the Gulag? Sure they do! It’s Monday – that’s good enough.
4. Operation Gulag in The Dakotas:
What it is: This is the darkest timeline not only for our nation but for our world. And, amazingly, the only timeline (outside of a Second Constitutional Convention) that we can vote ourselves into. It is the Leftist takeover of everything. Although it is sold as a Denmark, in reality Denmark is capitalist with stronger social institutions because Denmark is, well, Danish and I think they put mayo on their fries. In the United States it will look much more like the U.S.S.R. – but not the basketcase 1988 U.S.S.R., but more like the 1932 “starve to death millions of citizens that Stalin doesn’t like” (In the World Murder Olympics, Communists Take Gold and Silver!) U.S.S.R.
What it takes: Nothing. We keep going as it is. In less than 20 years, we will be in complete tyranny. The erosion of rights we have seen won’t continue in a linear fashion. It will accelerate.
Outcomes: 1984.
Now we know the stakes.
Big Brother is our friend! And we’ve always been at war with Eastasia.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/325QWy3 Tyler Durden
Much anticipated data by China’s General Administration of Customs (GAC) detailing the country’s oil imports has been released on Tuesday, and shows that China has not cut its Iranian supply after the US waiver program ended on May 2nd, but has steadily increased Iranian crude imports since the official end of the waiver extension, up from May and June levels.
It’s been no secret that China continues to play a large part in preventing Trump’s desire to take Iran’s crude exports down to zero, despite a noticeable drop on its Iran oil imports compared to the summer prior (sinking almost 60% in June compared to a year earlier).
The new GAC data shows China imported over 900,000 barrels per day (bpd) of crude oil from Iran in July, which is up 4.7% from the month before. On a metric-ton basis, Iranian inflows rose 8.2% from June, but this marked a drop of 71.9% on the year, according to S&Pconversion figures (China’s GAC releases customs data in metric tons).
File image via Business Standard
China’s June crude shipments from Iran totaled 855,638, averaging to 208,205 barrels per day (bpd) two months after Trump ended the waiver program, compared with 254,016 bpd in May, according the July GAC figures.
Simultaneously, China’s oil purchases from Iran’s rival Saudi Arabia have during this hot summer of “tanker wars” soared to record volume, in June reaching an all-time high of 1.89 million barrels a day, andin July dipping slightly to 1.65 million b/d. Thus far for the first seven months of 2019 Saudi Arabia has been China’s top crude supplier, with Russia and Iraq second and third.
Meanwhile, the United States hit the top ten list of China’s suppliers for the first time since August 2018, the eighth largest supplier in July, jumping 45% year on year to 1.53 million metric tons, according to S&P analysis of the Chinese customs figures.
Chart: China’s General Administration of Customs figures for July 2019, via S&P Global Platts
Crucially for Tehran, China remains Iran’s largest oil importer and a crucial lifeline for the regime’s economic survival. Over the past five years China has remained the largest importer of crude oil in the world (previously it was the US).
July’s official customs data was published just after Iran’s foreign minister Javad Zarif met with China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Beijing while kicking off a tour of Asia to bolster support. This marked the third time the Iranian FM has visited China this year, as the top diplomat tries to reinforce Chinese support of Iran in its conflict with the US.
Via Forbes: In 2017 and 2018, China imported between 500,000 and 600,000 bpd of Iranian oil during the months of January and February. Throughout 2018, Chinese imports of Iranian Oil averaged 585,000 bpd, according to Chinese Customs Data. S&P states that those numbers have since dropped to 150,000-220,000 bpd in June and July, but these reduced figures still do not satisfy the State Department’s demand for a total cessation of Iranian oil purchases.
* * *
As we detailed previously, Zarif urged his Chinese counterpart at a meeting in Beijing on Monday for Iran and China to join forces to counter unilateralism and “contempt for international law”. While Zarif did not mention the U.S. directly in opening remarks to Wang Yi at a state guesthouse, he appeared to be referencing the administration of President Donald Trump.
Wang said in his opening remarks that “unilateralism is rising and power politics is emerging. Facing this situation, China as a responsible country agrees to work with Iran and other countries to work together for multilateralism, the basic rules of international politics and uphold the rightful interests of each country.”
During his trip to China, which has emerged as an obvious ally in Iran’s feud with Trump, Zarif was said to focus on security in the Strait of Hormuz. It is unclear if he was successful, however if one more Chinese warships unexpectedly appear in the Persian Gulf, we will know the answer.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/343yTKy Tyler Durden
It’s for their own good, of course! A New Jersey police department has unveiled technology that will allow 911 operators to stream video from callers smartphones.
For the time being, callers have to turn on the live video stream, meaning they are consenting and giving the police permission to see what’s happening as they call. This is the first step to automatic surveillance upon calling people who are assumed to be there to help. According to RT,the technology allows the 911 operators to use the phone’s camera and microphone. This is the first step down a very slippery slope.
911eye, developed by Capita Secure Solutions and Services in conjunction with West Midlands Fire Service in the UK, represents a step toward a terrifying surveillance infrastructure that can turn any internet-capable device into a remote-activated surveillance tool. West Midlands Police were the first to embrace “pre-crime” technology in the UK, developing the National Data Analytics Solution to sniff out potential offenders and divert them with ostensibly therapeutic “interventions.”
If the fact that it was developed by the people behind the real-life version of ‘Minority Report’ isn’t enough reason to give 911eye a wide berth, take a look at Carbyne911, one of its competitors. Funded by deceased pedophile Jeffrey Epstein through former Israeli PM Ehud Barak, Carbyne911 markets itself as the solution to mass shootings. The program – founded by current and former Israeli intelligence personnel, which isn’t at all worrisome given that this country spies on the US so extensively it scares Congress – lets emergency dispatchers commandeer the camera and microphone of any internet-capable device within a certain range of the person who made the call. –RT
Investors in this technology include Peter Thiel. Thiel’s company Palantir has been described as “using war on terror tools to track American citizens,” and its advisory board includes Patriot Act co-author Michael Chertoff, the former Department of Homeland Security chief. At least two US counties have reportedlyadopted Carbyne911, despite obvious privacy issues and basic human rights concerns. Not to mention the fact that while most of its employees and personnel have military-intelligence connections, few have a background in emergency services, which should also alarm anyone who wants their freedom and privacy in a world where they have neither.
Police forces across the United States have been transformed into extensions of the military. Our towns and cities have become battlefields, and we the American people are now the enemy combatants to be spied on tracked, frisked, and searched. For those who resist, the consequences can be a one-way trip to jail or even death.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2L5Fg7q Tyler Durden
Matthew Johns, a former Atlanta cop who kicked and choked a surrendering suspect until he was unconscious after a car chase in September 2016, was sentenced to 20 years in prison on Monday. He will serve at least five years, the Atlanta Journal-Constitutionreports. Johns had pleaded guilty to eight charges in July, including three counts of aggravated assault and two counts of making a false statement.
It’s noteworthy that Johns is being held to account for his actions only because that sort of thing seems so rare when police are involved.
“The criminal justice system did exactly what concerned citizens demand of it: fairness, transparency, and action,” said Paul Howard, Fulton County’s district attorney, in a statement. Howard stressed that Johns was brought to justice without the use of a special prosecutor, without widespread public protests or demonstrations, and with his fellow police officers agreeing to testify against him.
All of which is exactly what should happen in the wake of an attack like the one Johns perpetrated in 2016. According to the DA, Johns and other Atlanta cops were in pursuit of a suspected stolen vehicle along Interstate 75. Another police car struck the suspected stolen vehicle and caused it to crash. When it did, 15-year-old Antraveious Payne exited the passenger side of the crashed car and surrendered to police with his hands up.
Johns “ran toward the young male and proceeded to kick him in the head [three] times while he lay prostrate upon the ground,” according to the Fulton County DA’s office. Payne was rendered unconscious and suffered a serious concussion that required him to be hospitalized. The attack was captured by the dashcam of John’s police cruiser.
Johns was fired from the police force about nine months later, in July 2017. He was indicted by a grand jury in October 2018 and pleaded guilty in July.
In his statement about the guilty plea, Howard noted that Johns’ fellow police officers “viewed the dashcam” footage and had agreed to testify against him if the case had gone to trial.
The outcome in Atlanta stands in stark contrast to so many other cases of police brutality, from the death of Eric Garner at the hands of New York City cop Daniel Pantaleo—who was fired earlier this month but won’t face criminal charges—to the death of Daniel Shaver, who was killed by former Mesa, Arizona, cop Philip Mitchell Brailsford in 2017.
In those high-profile cases, like in many others, the police departments stood up for the obviously egregious actions of their members. Brailsford was acquitted of second-degree murder charges in part because Sgt. Charles Langley, who witnessed the killing, defended his actions to the jury. After Pantaleo’s firing in New York, Pat Lynch, president of the city’s branch of the Police Benevolent Association said “the job has been dying; and today, the job is dead.” All because one cop was somewhat held accountable for literally killing a guy over some untaxed cigarettes.
There are many structural impediments to holding police officers accountable when they commit criminal acts, from qualified immunity laws to the cozy relationship between cops and district attorneys. But a big part of the problem is that good cops will defend bad cops, simply because they are all cops.
The Atlanta Police Department deserves credit for holding its own members accountable—and for upholding the law. It’s unfortunate that qualifies as news.
from Latest – Reason.com https://ift.tt/30CLh24
via IFTTT
A trio of armed robbers who, straight out of the movie Snatch, were caught on tape stylishly holding up a jewelry store in the middle of Manhattan’s Diamond District on Sunday afternoon. The robbery took place at Midtown’s Avianne and Co., according to the New York Post, who posted the video online Monday.
The security footage shows the robbers tossing a duffel bag and tying up the store’s workers in a back room after brandishing pistols. One “dapper” bandit, wearing a stylish blue suit and sporting a fedora hat over braids, was seated near the rear of the store when he pulled a silver pistol out from between his legs.
The footage also shows another man forcing an employee onto his knees in a back room, where expensive watches and bottles of champagne are out on display. The robbery reportedly took about 15 minutes and two of the victims were just 16 years old.
One worker said:
“It was a horrific event because you have no capabilities, you can’t really do anything and you have guns pointing at your faces. They weren’t saying much. They were very sloppy. Sloppy thieves because they weren’t in coordination. If one guy was saying, ‘Get their phones,’ another guy was saying, ‘Open the showcase.’ They got away with a lot of merchandise.”
The worker continued:
“A lot of merchandise, things that cannot be accounted for. It’s amazing. It’s really amazing, shocking,” he said on Monday, with red marks still on his arms from his bindings. “I worked in the jewelry business for eight years. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
The criminals walked into the store under the guise of being customers, claiming before being buzzed in that they were there to buy rings. They forced employees to open the store safe and robbed the establishment of diamond-studded chains and watches worth a reported $4 million.
They also reportedly stole one workers’ wallet, telling them, “If you happen to do anything, you’ll be messed up.”
They then fled on 47th Street.
One veteran of the diamond district said it was “really stupid” to do business there on a Sunday, when the area is usually desolate:
“Who opens up on a Sunday where cars can park on the block and get away?” the merchant said. “It doesn’t make any sense to me.”
Avianne and Co. generally caters to “hip hop heavyweights” with “showy pieces”, according to the report. It advertises itself as leading “celebrity jewelers” who have a high end clientele, including Lil Wayne and Nicki Minaj.
Most recently, it made a custom piece of jewelry for a rapper from LA called “Blueface”, who is a School Yard Crips gang member.
“Man, if you guys take a close look at the color of the blue — just look at the color of the blue. Just look at how beautiful, sky-blue the diamonds are. Every single diamond matches the color,” the rapper’s Instagram said, celebrating blue, the gang’s signature color.
According to the NYPD, “Avianne shows no allegiance to the Crips or its rival Bloods gang.” The company apparently makes jewelry for both. “Whoever has the money. It’s all about the money,” the NYPD said.
But it seems that this time around, the shop got a little more of the “thug life” than they bargained for.
Video of the heist can be seen here:
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2LpOkEH Tyler Durden
Matthew Johns, a former Atlanta cop who kicked and choked a surrendering suspect until he was unconscious after a car chase in September 2016, was sentenced to 20 years in prison on Monday. He will serve at least five years, the Atlanta Journal-Constitutionreports. Johns had pleaded guilty to eight charges in July, including three counts of aggravated assault and two counts of making a false statement.
It’s noteworthy that Johns is being held to account for his actions only because that sort of thing seems so rare when police are involved.
“The criminal justice system did exactly what concerned citizens demand of it: fairness, transparency, and action,” said Paul Howard, Fulton County’s district attorney, in a statement. Howard stressed that Johns was brought to justice without the use of a special prosecutor, without widespread public protests or demonstrations, and with his fellow police officers agreeing to testify against him.
All of which is exactly what should happen in the wake of an attack like the one Johns perpetrated in 2016. According to the DA, Johns and other Atlanta cops were in pursuit of a suspected stolen vehicle along Interstate 75. Another police car struck the suspected stolen vehicle and caused it to crash. When it did, 15-year-old Antraveious Payne exited the passenger side of the crashed car and surrendered to police with his hands up.
Johns “ran toward the young male and proceeded to kick him in the head [three] times while he lay prostrate upon the ground,” according to the Fulton County DA’s office. Payne was rendered unconscious and suffered a serious concussion that required him to be hospitalized. The attack was captured by the dashcam of John’s police cruiser.
Johns was fired from the police force about nine months later, in July 2017. He was indicted by a grand jury in October 2018 and pleaded guilty in July.
In his statement about the guilty plea, Howard noted that Johns’ fellow police officers “viewed the dashcam” footage and had agreed to testify against him if the case had gone to trial.
The outcome in Atlanta stands in stark contrast to so many other cases of police brutality, from the death of Eric Garner at the hands of New York City cop Daniel Pantaleo—who was fired earlier this month but won’t face criminal charges—to the death of Daniel Shaver, who was killed by former Mesa, Arizona, cop Philip Mitchell Brailsford in 2017.
In those high-profile cases, like in many others, the police departments stood up for the obviously egregious actions of their members. Brailsford was acquitted of second-degree murder charges in part because Sgt. Charles Langley, who witnessed the killing, defended his actions to the jury. After Pantaleo’s firing in New York, Pat Lynch, president of the city’s branch of the Police Benevolent Association said “the job has been dying; and today, the job is dead.” All because one cop was somewhat held accountable for literally killing a guy over some untaxed cigarettes.
There are many structural impediments to holding police officers accountable when they commit criminal acts, from qualified immunity laws to the cozy relationship between cops and district attorneys. But a big part of the problem is that good cops will defend bad cops, simply because they are all cops.
The Atlanta Police Department deserves credit for holding its own members accountable—and for upholding the law. It’s unfortunate that qualifies as news.
from Latest – Reason.com https://ift.tt/30CLh24
via IFTTT
Are people finally beginning to wake up to the reality we are living in? According to a new poll, 70% of Americans are now angry at the entrenched political establishment that is exerting control over every aspect of their lives.
According to a newly released poll, an overwhelming number of Americans are pissed off at the political establishment that has been enslaving them for over a century. Seventy percent of Americans said they feel mad “because our political system seems to only be working for the insiders with money and power, like those on Wall Street or in Washington.” But that’s exactly what happens when control is handed over to a few. A consolidation of money and power at the top occurs and those who vote are the ones who get punished.
Additionally, 43% of Americans said that statement describes them “very well.”
Jeff Horwitt of Hart Research Associates, who conducted the poll with GOP firm Public Opinion Strategies, said, “Four years ago, we uncovered a deep and boiling anger across the country engulfing our political system. Four years later, with a very different political leader in place, that anger remains at the same level.”
“The question that decides the 2020 election may no longer be ‘are you better or worse off than you were four years ago?’ but instead ‘are you as angry as you were four years ago?’” said Horwitt. “And if that’s the question, the answer is a deafening yes.” –Breitbart
Humans were not meant to be controlled and enslaved and people are finally figuring out whether they are the master or the slave – and for the majority, the conclusion is not a good one. Four years ago (2015 when Barack Obama was still president), 39 % of Republicans and 44 % of Democrats reported they were very frustrated with the political establishment. Now, 29 % of Republicans and 54 % of Democrats remain very frustrated with the entrenched political establishment.
However, only a handful of Americans were actually surveyed. The NBC/Wall Street Journal poll included 1,000 adults and was conducted between August 10 to 14, 2019, with more than half reached by cell phone compared to landline phones, and has a margin of error of 3.1 percentage points.
When someone looks out at the world and sees all manner of suffering and injustice, stretching back for thousands of years and continuing today, he invariably blames such problems on someone else’s hatred, greed, or stupidity. Rarely will someone consider the possibility that his own belief system is the cause of the pain and suffering he sees around him. But in most cases, it is. The root cause of most of society’s ills–the main source of man’s inhumanity to man–is neither malice nor negligence, but a mere superstition–an unquestioned assumption which has been accepted on faith by nearly everyone, of all ages, races, religions, education and income levels. If people were to recognize that one belief for what it is–an utterly irrational, self-contradictory, and horribly destructive myth–most of the violence, oppression, and injustice in the world would cease. But that will happen only when people dare to honestly and objectively re-examine their belief systems. Larken Rose’s Most Dangerous Superstition exposes the myth for what it is, showing how nearly everyone, as a result of one particular unquestioned assumption, is directly contributing to violence and oppression without even realizing it.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/345OVUb Tyler Durden
Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro is really milking the supposedly civilization-threatening wildfires in the Amazon for all they are worth. Of course, as ZH readers probably already know, the impact of the fires currently afflicting the world’s largest rainforest right now has been somewhat exaggerated by all of the celebrities posting on Instagram (some have gone so far as to suggest it could threaten our entire civilization).
And rather than cave to the millions who have used the wildfires as a political cudgel, Brazil’s pugnacious president instead used the ‘insult’ from French leader Emmanuel Macron in stride, then turned it back around on him by appearing to insult his wife.
Now, after all that, Bolsonaro said Tuesday that he would accept the $20 million in aide money that Macron has supposedly collected for him (not like $20 million will make that much of a difference) if the French leader agrees to recant all of the “insults” he has flung at the Brazilian leader.
This comes after Bolsonaro’s aides had said earlier that he would snub the plan and refuse to accept Macron’s money.
“First of all, Mr Macron must retract the insults he gave me. First, he called me a liar. Then, the information I had is that our sovereignty is up for grabs in the Amazon,” Mr Bolsonaro told reporters on Tuesday.
“So, before talking or accepting anything that comes out of France’s best possible intentions, he will have to take those words out and then we can talk.”
Yesterday, after Bolsonaro warned foreign powers not to interfere on issues of Brazilian domestic policy, Macron laid out a two-part plan: first to extinguish fires raging in the rainforest with $20 million in aid from the G-7, followed by a program to reforest and protect them.
Macron said at the time that the Amazon is the property “of the whole planet”, and that “we can’t allow you to destroy everything (said to Bolsonaro).”
But Bolsonaro shot back that Macron must learn to respect Brazil’s sovereignty.
“We cannot accept that a president, Macron, unleashes unreasonable and gratuitous attacks on the Amazon, while disguising his intentions behind the idea of an ‘alliance’ of G7 countries to ‘save’ the Amazon, as if we were a colony or a no man’s land,” Bolsonaro said.
“After all, respect for the sovereignty of any country is the least that can be expected in a civilised world,” Bolsonaro said.
Bolsonaro chief of staff Onyx Lorenzoni told the popular Brazilian G1 news website that while Bolsonaro’s government “appreciates” the offer, but “maybe those resources are more relevant to reforest Europe? Macron cannot even avoid a foreseeable fire in a church that is a world heritage site.”
The dispute between the two leaders started last week when Macron said Bolsonaro had “lied” about the source of the fires.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2Zw37mb Tyler Durden
