Vid: Generation Opportunity, Politics, and Millennials – Q/A with Evan Feinberg

“Fifty-nine percent of
18 year olds that voted in the 2012 election voted for Mitt Romney.
We are seeing a radical shift among the younger generation that
they are a freedom generation,” says Evan Feinberg, the president
of Generation
Opportunity, an organization advocating better economic
possibilities for 18-34 year olds through less government and more
freedom. 

Watch the video above for Reason TV’s interview with Evan
Fineberg of Generation Opportunity. Click the link below for full
text and downloadable versions. 

About 6:00 minutes. 

Interview by Nick Gillespie. Edited by William Neff. Shot by
Detrick and Tracy Oppenheimer. Music by The Custodian of
Records.

View this article.

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WTI Crude Plunges To New 7-Month Lows

Brent crude is rising this morning up from an earlier dip to $101.75. That is not the case for WTI crude which has been in freefall since this morning’s CPI data print. Brent-WTI has soared from below $5 to over $6.50 in the last few hours as WTI drops to a $95 handle at its lowest since mid-January.

 

 

Obviously positioning in crude was very speculatively long but one wonders at the price action when it would appear to be the only ‘weapon’ Obama has left to fight Putin.




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Police Officer: ‘if you don’t want to get shot…just do what I tell you.’

Sunil Dutta“If you don’t want to get shot,
tased, pepper-sprayed, struck with a baton or thrown to the
ground,” warns Officer Sunil Dutta of the Los Angeles Police
Department, “just do what I tell you.”

The thing is, Officer Dutta (pictured) is also an Adjunct
Professor of Homeland Security and Criminal Justice at Colorado
Technical University. And he uttered those words not in the heat of
the moment, but in an
opinion piece in the Washington Post responding to
widespread criticism of police attitudes and tactics currently on
display in Ferguson,
Missouri, but increasingly common nationwide.

Dutta
continues:

Don’t argue with me, don’t call me names, don’t tell me that I
can’t stop you, don’t say I’m a racist pig, don’t threaten that
you’ll sue me and take away my badge. Don’t scream at me that you
pay my salary, and don’t even think of aggressively
walking towards me. Most field stops are complete in minutes. How
difficult is it to cooperate for that long?

Dutta actually comes off as a reasonable law enforcement
officer, when compared to some of his colleagues who can be found
venting on police-only bulletin boards or referring to Ferguson
protesters as “fucking
animals.” Dutta acknowledges that police can abuse their
authority, saying “When it comes to police misconduct, I side with
the ACLU: Having worked as an internal affairs investigator, I know
that some officers engage in unprofessional and arrogant behavior;
sometimes they behave like criminals themselves.”

He endorses the use of body cameras and dashcams to record
interactions between police and the public. He counsels, “you don’t
have to submit to an illegal stop or search. You can refuse consent
to search your car or home if there’s no warrant.”

And yet he demands unresisting submission to police without
argument or even legal protest. Just how do you “refuse
consent to search your car or home” without running afoul of the
no-nos Dutta warns may get you “shot, tased, pepper-sprayed, struck
with a baton or thrown to the ground”?

Remember, this is a thoughtful police officer, with a
PhD., who teaches criminal justice.

Maybe Matthew Worden, an Enfield, Connecticut, police officer,
was being thoughtful when he
beat the living shit out of Mark Maher earlier this year. That
incident begaan when Maher asked Worden why another person was
being detained.

Worden’s own department thought the officer’s actions were over
the top, but the state’s attorney declined to seek arrest or
prosecution.

Militarized policeThe last week has seen an
enormous and justifiable focus on the militarization of
police departments in this country, including tactics and
equipment. Jungle camouflage, assault rifles, and armored personnel
carriers have been part of an intentionally intimidating show of
force in Ferguson, Missouri—the sort of display that has become all
too common throughout the country.

But you don’t have to have an armored vehicle to be a jerk and a
danger to the public. If you have the attitude that you are owed
deference and instant obediance by the people around you, and that
you are justified in using violence against them if they don’t
comply, we already have a problem. That’s especially true if
official institutions back you up, which they do.

If you really think that everybody else should “just do what I
tell you,” you’re wearing the wrong uniform in the wrong country.
And if you really can’t function with some give and take—a few
nasty names, a little argument—of the sort that people in all sorts
of jobs put up with every damned day, do us all a favor: quit.

The law enforcement problem in this country goes well beyond
boys with toys. It’s much deeper, and needs to be torn out by the
roots.

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Fact Or Fiction: The Pros And Cons Of Militarizing The Police

The ongoing clashes between residents of Ferguson, MO and heavily armed police forces – which are equipped with M16 rifles and armored vehicles – have drawn attention to the increasing militarization of police in the United States. Here are the ‘alternative‘ cases for and against outfitting local law enforcement with military-grade weapons…

PROS

  • Same tactics used successfully in Afghanistan, Iraq
  • Modern law enforcement simply cannot do their job properly by relying on handguns, tasers, and tear gas alone
  • A real shot in arm for nation’s ailing weapons industry
  • Look on driver’s face when tank pulls up beside Mini Cooper always fun
  • Local photojournalists now able to capture fog of war at home
  • Nice surprise treat for veterans to see weapons they used in war pop up on their hometown streets
  • Never a bad idea to put a more powerful gun in someone’s hand
  • Actually going to seem pretty quaint when compared with police armaments 20 years from now

CONS

  • Most police officers have proven fully capable of violently subduing protesters without any military-grade weapons
  • It actually very hard to recite Miranda rights while holding 40-pound grenade launcher
  • There no longer any middle ground between community watch and military
  • Mine Resistant Ambush Protected Vehicles only get 5 miles per gallon
  • Jesus, just look at this shit
  • Military-style helmets limit peripheral vision while firing indiscriminately into crowd
  • Could potentially be abused if put in lesser hands than America’s historically honest and virtuous police departments
  • Takes away that personal touch of beating a suspect to death with bare hands

 

Fact or Fiction…

 

Source: The Onion




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Stocks Up, Dollar Up, Bond Yields Up, Commodities Down As AAPL Hits $100.00

Weaker than expected inflation and better than expected housing data sparked a dump in commodities, surge in the USDollar and US stocks. US Treasuries were unsure at first but once the US cash session opened, bonds were sold hard. The trends of the morning though have now slowed and are reversing modestly as Europe closes… and AAPL tops $100…

 

Commodities sliding…

 

Stocks jumping but stalling post EU close…

 

Treasuries were unsure at first but started tro dump when US equity markerts opened… only to stall when Europe closed…

 

All about the Jackson Hole trade? Let Goldman explain…

With opinions mixed as to whether or not Jackson Hole will be the forum for Yellen to say something new, many are trying to figure out if it is a buy the rumor and then buy more after the fact event, a buy the rumor sell the fact event, or a do nothing with the rumors and then buy the fact if the USD is actually rallying after the fact event.

Clear?

Charts: Bloomberg

Bonus Chart: AAPL $100




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Meanwhile In Pakistan

With all the other geopolitical war/conflict/droning hot spots around the world, one has so far managed to fly under the radar for the past few weeks, yet one which has the potential to generate a substantial disturbance in the central-planning farce: Pakistan.

Pakistan's opposition-leader (and cricket legend) Imran Khan has asked his followers surround the nation's parliament building, calling for a Tahrir-Square-like protest to oust Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. While political instability is a hallmark of Pakistan's coup-prone government, Khan's concerns at the demise of law-and-order in the nation along with a belief that May 2013's election was "stolen" through conspiracies to rig the results, have led him to demand his followers stop paying taxes and utility bills.

The populist politician has a large following as anti-government protests rise against Pakistan's fragile democracy. Local media reports up to 20,000 in the crowd set to enter Islamabad's "red Zone" and government is calling on the military to protect them.

As The Diplomat introduces:

Pakistan’s last election brought Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to power with a sweeping mandate. That was supposed to consolidate the democratic process for the country. This was the first time one civilian government had passed power onto another democratically elected government. The oft-repeated claim was that the hangover from past military rule had burdened civil-society just enough to prevent a regression. Most people today would share that sentiment, however reluctantly.

 

That reluctant strain has only found more space to ruminate in the past three weeks, as the central government ties itself up in knots of mismanagement, following an almost ritualistic script from the past. There are several threads to this story that are all intersecting at the wrong time for the Sharif-led Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) government.

 

…

 

Pakistan’s civilian government, led by the Pakistan Muslim League under Nawaz Sharif, is facing its biggest challenge since coming to power this week. Thousands of Pakistani protesters took to the streets of Islamabad, led by Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf’s (PTI) Imran Khan and cleric Tahur ul-Qadri. The protesters are demanding that Nawaz Sharif’s government step down. Imran Khan threatened the independence day protests in advance, prompting the Pakistani government to move the Pakistani military into Islamabad to bolster security ahead of the occasion. So far, the government insists that its response has been non-violent. A government statement rebuffs claims from PTI that protesters had been fired upon: “There were absolutely no gunshots fired at his rally and such PTI-driven sensationalism is unfortunate.” The PTI describes its march on Islamabad as an “independence march.”

And there are two main threads to the current tension… first, fears of violence… Pakistan has been facing the worst ever law and order situation for some years with dozens of suicide bombings and killings taking place every month.

Two months ago, following an attack on the Jinnah International Airport in Karachi that left 30 dead, the military launched a major offensive — dubbed Zarb-e-Azaab, or “Sharp Strike” – against militants in North Waziristan. Though details on the progress of the operation are murky, what is clear is the displacement of over a million people with no place to reside besides poorly resourced government shelters and camps. Pakistan’s past patterns of migration would suggest that many of these internally displaced people (IDPs) will find their way to urban centers such as Karachi, which is already grappling with conflict between competing ethnic groups. The inadvertent consequences of this operation will inevitably produce greater unrest in Pakistan’s financial capital, which is already distraught with problems of gang violence and political turmoil.

and second, election-figging accusations…

The second line running through this narrative is the story of Imran Khan, chairman of the Pakistan-Tehrik-i-Insaf (PTI), who claims that his third place finish in the last election was due to electoral fraud. Khan’s allegations of election rigging however, have no basis: of the 58 petitions filed by his party members requesting an audit of various constituencies, 70 percent have been decided, with not one in favor of PTI. Secondly, Khan’s party, which formed the provincial government in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, continues to struggle with governance, having achieved little during its term despite riding high into office on a wave of populism. Having failed on both accounts, Khan has found a path by playing opposition politics through his “Million Man Freedom March,” with the goal of wringing a mid-term election from the central government so that seats can be reallocated on the basis of those results. Until this demand is met, Khan vows to remain encamped in the capital of Islamabad.

But now things are escalating…

  • *KHAN CALLS FOR TAHRIR SQUARE-LIKE PROTEST TO OUST NAWAZ SHARIF
  • *KHAN CALLS ON SUPPORTERS TO SURROUND THE PARLIAMENT BUILDING
  • *PAKISTAN ARMY SAYS TROOPS TO DEPLOY IN ISLAMABAD `RED ZONE'

As WSJ reports,

Cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan called for widespread civil disobedience in Pakistan, urging supporters to stop paying taxes and utility bills in a bid to oust the government of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.

 

 

The populist politician also raised the stakes. In a speech following a third day of protests in Islamabad, he warned that after two more days he would no longer be able to stop his supporters from storming the prime minister's house.

 

"We have to decide what to do with Nawaz Sharif, because he evades all laws, and he rigs the elections," Mr. Khan told a crowd of thousands. "We can't let this unjust regime continue."

 

The antigovernment protests have underscored the fragility of Pakistan's democracy, reviving fears of intervention from the country's coup-prone army.

 

…

 

In a speech that he described as the most important speech of his life, Mr. Khan said no taxes, including sales tax, and no electricity bills should be paid to a "fraudulent" government. Mr. Khan, who once campaigned on a "rule of law" platform, previously promoted the payment of taxes. Pakistan's low tax-collection rate and an inability to get consumers to pay for their electricity are among the country's most urgent economic problems.

 

Mr. Khan also said that, after two more days, he would no longer be able to keep his agreement not to enter Islamabad's so-called Red Zone, an area that houses the prime minister's house and office, Parliament, government ministries, the Supreme Court and embassies, including the U.S. Embassy.

 

…

 

The crowd cheered loudest at the prospect of pushing beyond the barricades. Some in the audience were carrying gas masks and goggles—in preparation, they said, for tear gas.

And so, here we are.. it begins…

  • *KHAN BEINGS MARCH TOWARD PAKISTAN PARLIAMENT HOUSE IN ISLAMABAD

The government said Saturday that it had deployed 30,000 security forces to safeguard the march and Islamabad's sensitive areas, in one of the biggest peacetime operations seen in Pakistan. Mr. Khan himself in his speech acknowledged that any attempt to reach the Red Zone would involve bloodshed and it could draw in the army.

*  *  *
Beware the wrath of Khan…

* * *

Time to deploy The Kerry…




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Militarizing Public School Security: Classroom Cops Will Have AR-15s

AR-15When students in the Compton Unified School
District in California return to class after summer break is over,
they may be surprised to find that the campus police officers are
prepared for all-out war. Over the summer, the district’s school
board authorized the school police to beef up their arsenals by
purchasing semi-automatic weapons.

Compton isn’t even the first public school district to do so; a
dozen others have instructed the cops to buy SWAT-style weaponry,

according to ABC-7:

“I was extremely opposed to the police officers having rifles;
however, the statistics are chilling,” said Satra Zurita, Compton
Unified School District Board member.

The Compton School Board’s approval of the AR-15 for school
police in July was unanimous. They are not alone. LAUSD tells
Eyewitness News they have comparable weapons. So do Fontana School
Police. The numbers are growing.

What were those statistics? School Police Chief William Wu
explained to district officials that some mass shooters
wear body armor (a whopping 5 percent!), and cops have to get
within 25 yards of their target to take anyone down with mere
handguns. Therefore, they need AR-15s. Without better guns, school
cops just aren’t prepared for terrorist attacks, mass shootings,
meteor strikes, etc.

Never mind, of course, that despite random fluctuations from
year to year, mass shootings are
not becoming more frequent or more deadly, and schools are

among the safest places for kids, all things considered. It
would seem to me, then, that Compton is preparing for an
exceedingly unlikely worst case scenario.

Is there any harm in being prepared, anyway? Some members of the
school community certainly seem to think so,
according to 89.3 KPCC (emphasis mine):

But some community members are upset about the policy,
questioning the utility of having such high-powered firearms
in the hands of school police officers.

“The school police has been very notorious in the community and
in reality has never had to shoot anyone before,” said Francisco
Orozco, a recent Dominguez High School graduate and founder of the
Compton Democratic Club. “So this escalation of weapons we
feel is very unnecessary.”

Orozco said the police could better focus on day-to-day security
concerns on campus, rather than arming themselves for a worst-case
scenario. He also pointed to a lawsuit filed last year by
parents in the district, alleging racial profiling by Compton
school police officers — as well as recent allegations by students
of excessive force — as evidence of a rift between the department
and the community.

“The school police has not even earned the right to carry
handguns,” Orozco said.

As the recent events in
Ferguson have made clear, a more militarized police force
damages the relationship between the cops and the community. If the
people already don’t trust the cops, arming them to high heaven
certainly won’t help matters.

Wu defended the new weapons policy as an “effective tool” to
confront threats to students’ lives:

It is a worst-case scenario, and SWAT teams train for it: an
active shooter storming a school, a gunman armed with high-power
weapons and wearing body armor.

“Seeing in the North Hollywood shootings when they were wearing
the soft body armor, bullets were hitting them but having no effect
in slowing them down,” said Wu.

And it can take time for a fully equipped SWAT team to get to a
school.

“Any extra 30 seconds, one minute, two minutes that we can’t
stop the threat exposes our kids to more unreasonable danger,” said
Wu.

District policy will require the cops to store their new weapons
in their vehicles, however, so in the event of a shooting, the
officers would still have to take a few minutes to retrieve the
rifles.

If such new security measures are actually necessary, Wu hasn’t
made a very strong case. Just because something bad
could happen—even though it’s astronomically
unlikely—is not reason enough.

In any case, those who oppose the creeping militarization of the
police certainly have their work cut out for them, if even security
officers in extremely safe school environments are geared for
battle.

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New Video of Assault by Cop Who Police Tried to Arrest But Prosecutor Said Tape Evidence Was “Too Complicated”

Mark Maher booking photoOn April 1 Mark Maher was
assaulted by Enfield, Connecticut, police officer Matthew Worden
during an arrest at a boat show. An investigating officer, Lt.
Lawrence Curtis, decided the use of force by Worden, which caused
multiple injuries to Maher’s face and arm, was “neither necessary
nor needed,” The states’ attorney for Hartford, Gail Hardy, an
“11-year veteran” of the Division of Criminal Justice when she took
the position,
rejected the police’s warrant application, saying the video,
which depicted the brutality, had “many moving parts where it is
extremely difficult to keep up with everything that is going on
with all parties.

Now, The Courant, which has been following the story
and the department, reports that a second video, from the squad
car’s dashcam, has been revealed. Maher, who is suing for the
injuries and psychological distress allegedly caused by Worden, is
also fighting charges stemming to the arrest incident.
The Courant reports:

Two police videos of the incident, including one that shows
Worden hitting Mark Maher, may be played in Superior Court in
Enfield Tuesday as Maher tries to get charges of interfering with a
police officer thrown out. The second cruiser video recorded the
conversation between Worden and Maher. Both videos, which The
Courant obtained from one of Maher’s attorneys, may be presented as
evidence that Maher should not have been arrested.

Watch the video, via The Courant,
here.

This morning a court
threw out charges against Maher. Worden, who has had 14
internal affairs investigations opened against him in the last
seven years, remains un-arrested and on paid leave.

The “police interaction” between Worden and Maher began over
Maher smoking a cigarette outside and questioning why another
person was being detained.

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Gene Healy on Ferguson and Dystopian Military Toys

Through the fog of Twitter, it’s difficult
to discern the precise details of what’s been happening
in Ferguson, Mo., in the 10 days of protests spurred by the
police killing of an unarmed teenager. Last week, writes Gene
Healy, I found myself musing darkly, “Just wait till Ferguson’s
cops get federally funded drones.” If you think paramilitary
policing looks dystopian now, just wait till you see what’s
being cooked up in defense contractors’ labs. It’s bad: From
“puke sabers” to “pain rays” Homeland Security and
the Pentagon maintain a keen interest in developing
crowd-control weapons for occupations at home and abroad. It’s no
accident that technology developed for population control in
foreign counterinsurgencies is being turned inward — in fact, it’s
been a matter of deliberate federal policy. But it’s not too late
to reverse the slide.

View this article.

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Buy The Drip: Thousands Of Gallons Of Oil Spill Into Ohio River Upstream Of Cincinatti

Lately it is not just trains blowing up across the country in the ongoing effort to prove just how safer rail transport is for crude oil transit compared to pipelines: as citizens of Cincinatti found out this morning, their drinking water may come with an added kick after thousands of gallons of diesel fuel spilled out onto the Ohio River after an incident at a power plant early Tuesday. According to WCPO, the Coast Guard said it estimated about 8,000 gallons of fuel spilled out from Duke Energy’s W.C. Beckjord power station outside of Cincinnati.

The bad news for Ohians, especially those living in Cincinatti, is that the spill took place upstream, and rather close to the city:

The spill was first reported at about 12:20 a.m. Tuesday. The plant is about 20 miles southeast but upstream of Cincinnati. Duke Energy later released a statement saying the spill happened at about 11:15 p.m. Monday.

 

The company said the spill happened during a routine transfer of fuel oil. Duke estimated about 5,000 gallons was discharged into the river. Crews were able to stop the release by 11:30 p.m.

 

Duke said it notified local, state and environmental agencies promptly to take action.

 

“We notified state and local authorities of the incident and have been working with them throughout the overnight hours,” Chuck Whitlock, Duke Energy president of Midwest Commercial Generation and vice president of gas operations, said in a release. “We have cleanup crews on site that are identifying the appropriate actions that will be needed to remediate.”

Surprisingly, it is America after all where nothing is every anyone’s fault, Duke Energy stepped up and admitted it was accountable:

Duke Energy assumed responsibility for the cleanup and Coast Guard officials said a spill response organization has been contacted to begin operations. The Hamilton County Emergency Management Agency said the spill happened when a secondary containment unit failed to contain the fuel when it was released due to an open valve.

 

Officials said the fuel ran down a hill before entering the river.

 

HCEMA officials said Coast Guard crews could detect a sheen and detect a diesel odor for about 1 to 2 miles downstream of the facility.

 

Officials said the Clean Harbors cleanup organization dispatched three boats to recover the fuel.

So now that we know who’s responsible, the question is what happens to the drinking water:

Waterworks officials said water quality scientists are monitoring the river, along with the Northern Kentucky Water District, to determine whether the water is safe. Workers said the agencies will continue to take water samples until the threat is determined to be gone. Tony Parrott, head of Greater Cincinnati Water Works, said the department was notified of the spill just after midnight.

 

Parrott said crews shut down the Ohio River intakes quickly so none of the spill was taken in. He said they expected the spill would arrive at the waterworks at about 7 a.m.

Others, however, such as Cincinatti.com decided that there is no time like the present to ease people’s minds, and promptly reported that despite the thousands of spilled gallons, it is ok to drink the water:

Parrott says that reserves were near capacity and Water Works will be able to remain operating with the river intakes closed for some time.

 

Due to the reserves, drinking water is safe.

Or in other words, buy the drip.




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