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Government banking restrictions makes legal pot sellers robbery targets

Justin Gardner
The Free Thought Project
Fri, 12 Aug 2016 16:39 UTC
robber
States across the nation are coming to their senses about cannabis by legalizing its recreational and medicinal use - abandoning one facet of the immoral, wasteful War on Drugs.

Although Washington has made small improvements, such as restricting the Justice Department from pursuing cannabis cases in states where it's legal, the feds are still mired in the irrationality of prohibition.

The Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) doubled down on its propaganda recently, claiming that cannabis grow houses in Colorado - where recreational use is legalized - are "the new meth houses." We can take solace in the fact that this kind of absurdity is a sure sign of desperation for an agency that preys on the citizenry through its drug war.

Besides the denial of freedom to use a plant, the feds' ongoing crusade against weed poses a direct danger to public safety. Because of federal banking restrictions, cannabis businesses in states where its sale has been legalized are forced to operate on a cash basis - making them a prime target for armed robberies.
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Heart - Black

Mother charged after 6yo son beats 13 day-old baby to death


RT
Fri, 12 Aug 2016 19:00 UTC
Kathleen Steele
© Pinellas County Sheriff's Office
Kathleen Steele
The mother of a 13-day-old baby violently beaten to death by her six-year-old son has been charged by Florida police with aggravated manslaughter.

Kathleen Marie Steele was arrested by Pinellas County Sheriff's Office on Thursday, after her newborn daughter Kathleen died from severe injuries including multiple skull fractures.

Officers say that on August 8, Steele left her three children unsupervised in her minivan for "over 30 minutes" as she visited a cellphone repair store.

In that time, Steele's second-eldest child, aged 6, is alleged to have "slammed" the baby girl around the vehicle in what Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri described as "one of the worst" incidents he had ever seen.
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Red Flag

Teen who was arrested for bringing clock to school forced to flee US due to media misreporting


RT
Fri, 12 Aug 2016 18:27 UTC
Ahmed Mohamed
Teen inventor Ahmed Mohamed, the Muslim boy famous for bringing a homemade clock to school that was mistaken for a bomb, was forced to leave the US due to flawed reporting, made-up facts, and general misinformation in the media, one of his attorneys tells RT.

"There has been a lot of misinformation and misunderstanding about what happened," Susan Hutchinson, Mohamed's family attorney said.

"There is misinformation about [Ahmed's family's] connection with other groups of people, the basis of their Muslim faith, about their activities in the Muslim community... there's just a lot of wrong information out there [...] rumors and things made-up by some people in the media," she stressed.

The attorney also noted that the misunderstandings began as soon as the story first broke. In September of last year, 14-year-old Ahmed was pulled out of class and arrested at his high school in Irving, Texas, after he brought a self-made digital clock to class to show his teacher. He was handcuffed, taken to a juvenile detention center, questioned by police, fingerprinted, and photographed for mugshots, before finally being released without charges. Moreover, he was threatened with expulsion if he refused to sign a confession saying he intended to bring a "hoax bomb" to school, according to his lawyers.

Comment: See also:

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Eye 1

Apple gets approval to build billion dollar data center in Ireland


RT
Fri, 12 Aug 2016 18:06 UTC
apple
© Toby Melville / Reuters
After months of delays and appeals, Irish authorities have given tech giant Apple permission to begin building its new one billion dollar data center that will occupy an area of some 30 football fields in a woodland in western Ireland.

"The Board decided to grant permission for the proposed development," the An Bórd Pleanála, the body that regulates planning and development in Ireland, ruled.

The construction plan was first announced in early 2015 and was approved by the Galway County Council, but that approval prompted a number of complaints to be directed from locals and environmentalists to the planning authority.

Objections to the data center include concerns about local wildlife, such as a possibly negative impact on the bat and badger population, as well as a potential flood risk for a neighboring golf course. Another objection focused on the center's proximity to a defunct nuclear power plant, the Wylfa Nuclear Power Station in Wales, which has been shut down for years. It took almost a year to look into these objections and overrule them, albeit with several reservations.
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Health

Canadian warship on NATO mission suffers outbreak of hand, foot and mouth disease

Bruce Campion-Smith
The Star
Wed, 10 Aug 2016 17:47 UTC
HMCS Charlottetown
© Andrew Vaughn/The Canadian Press (file photo)
A Canadian warship deployed at sea on a NATO mission has been hit by an outbreak of hand, foot and mouth disease, the Star has learned.

Some 20 sailors aboard HMCS Charlottetown came down with the contagious disease in recent days, which can cause painful sores and lesions on the tongue and gums as well as on hands and feet.

A military spokesperson confirmed the outbreak and said that personnel were being treated to ease the symptoms of hand, foot and mouth disease (HFMD). "Members with HFMD on board HMCS Charlottetown are being treated to help alleviate their symptoms as required," Capt. Nicola LaMarre told the Star.

The frigate sailed from Halifax on June 27 to take part in Operation Reassurance, Canada's contribution to NATO deterrence deployments in Eastern Europe. In mid-July, the ship was in the Black Sea where it participated in NATO operations, including exercises to hone anti-submarine warfare skills. It's back in the Mediterranean Sea and spent the weekend docked in Souda Bay, on the Greek island of Crete, for a scheduled port visit.
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Camcorder

New video released of disabled woman being beaten by airport police


RT
Fri, 12 Aug 2016 17:39 UTC
police takedown
© The Commercial Appeal/Facebook
New security camera footage shows the confrontation between Memphis International Airport police and confused and anxious young woman with several disabilities, as well as her subsequent violent by officers.

The video released Thursday by the Commercial Appeal is the latest in the case of the 19-year-old Hannah Cohen, who was leaving Memphis Tennessee on June 30, 2015, after receiving a treatment for a brain tumor.

The video shows Cohen and her mother arguing with police after she set off a metal detector at a security checkpoint.

Comment: Lowest of the low: TSA beats disabled teen coming home from brain surgery

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Eye 2

Daily Beast outs gay Olympians, but not gay Republicans at RNC - garners condemnation


RT
Thu, 11 Aug 2016 16:51 UTC
rio olympics gays outed homophobia
© Sergio Moraes / Reuters
Outrage was boiling online over the Daily Beast's choice to publish a voyeuristic piece detailing the sex lives of Olympic athletes. Why the focus on gay athletes rather than, say, a spike in demand for gay escorts at the Republican National Convention?

The Daily Beast's article titled "The Other Olympic Sport in Rio: Swiping" was found by many to be, at best, in poor taste and at worst, homophobic and potentially dangerous. To summarize it, a straight man was sent to Rio to see how Olympians use dating and hookup apps. However, he focused most of his attention on Grindr, a hookup app targeted to gay men.

"No prizes for guessing that Grindr proved more of an instant hookup success than Bumble or Tinder," author Nico Haines wrote in a questionable sentence. Given that Grindr was never intended to be a dating service, Haines' multiple critics took this sentence to cast shame on the sex lives of gay men.

In its original form, the article was published using the pictures of the athletes - one of whom hails from a country where homosexuality is a crime.

For athletes such as him, leaving their country gave them the opportunity to express their sexuality in a way many heterosexual individuals - such as the author of the Daily Beast article - may take for granted.

Pictures have since been removed from the piece, but nothing on the internet is ever truly gone for good. This leaves a number of lingering questions, such as "Why would anyone think this was a good idea?"

Comment: Shameful. Apparently even the "alternate media" is capable of scraping the bottom for ethics and decency when it comes to chasing a readership.

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Pistol

Chicago gun violence skyrockets with nearly 100 victims shot in less than a week

Alexandra Chachkevitch
Chicago Tribune
Thu, 11 Aug 2016 16:52 UTC
Chicago shooting
© Armando L. Sanchez / Chicago Tribune
A member of the Chicago Police Department works the scene of a shooting in the 4200 block of West Grenshaw Street on Aug. 11, 2016, in Chicago.
Nearly 100 people have been shot in Chicago in less than a week, pushing the number of shooting victims so far this year to more than 2,500 — about 800 more than this time last year, according to data kept by the Tribune.

Between last Friday afternoon and early Thursday, at least 99 people were shot in the city, 24 of them fatally. At least nine people were killed on Monday alone, the deadliest day in Chicago in 13 years, according to Tribune data. Among the wounded that day was a 10-year-old boy shot in the back as he played on his front porch in Lawndale. The number of shooting victims in Chicago stood at 2,514 Thursday morning. At this time last year, 1,725 people had been shot. The city has not seen this level of gun violence since the 1990s, a trend the Police Department has blamed on lax gun laws and feuding gang factions.

Over eight hours from Wednesday evening through early Thursday, three people were killed and at least 10 others were wounded in the city.
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Arrow Down

Olympics coverage all over the world: Tasteless, sexist, uncivilized

Julie Makinen
Los Angeles Times
Thu, 11 Aug 2016 16:20 UTC
bikini burka
© Antonio Lacerda / European Pressphoto Agency)
BBC Africa focused extensively on the uniform choices of the Egyptian and German women’s volleyball squads, labeling their match “Bikini vs Burka.”
A week into the Rio Games, NBC and some other U.S. news outlets have taken a drubbing for a sexist approach to female athletes. But around the world, other media organizations are showing they aren't about to let the Americans win gold, silver and bronze in the foot-in-mouth competition.

The U.S., to be sure, was out of the gate first. There was NBC broadcaster Dan Hicks, who after Hungarian swimmer Katinka Hosszu won gold and set a world record in the 400-meter individual medley, immediately started talking about her husband and coach, calling him "the guy responsible." Next came the Chicago Tribune, which referred to two-time trapshooting medalist Corey Cogdell as "wife of a Bears' lineman" in a headline, rather than using her name.

But then South Korea got in the game. The English-language Korea Times ran a story speculating on the love life of 6-foot-3 Kim Yeon-goung, headlined: "Boyfriend a tall order for 192cm South Korean volleyball star."

Comment: It's not just against women; it's an all-around lack of class and focus on the trivial. Men, women, they're all just pieces of meat, apparently.
It's hard to imagine in earlier and more puritanical times a feature like "36 of the Greatest Summer Olympic Bulges" appearing in a mainstream American magazine, even one as prurient as Cosmopolitan. Yet fashions shift in all things. And a Cosmo slide show that captures and rates the genital endowments of various male athletes almost immediately went viral across social media. Unprintable here, the subheadline even suggests awarding gold medals for exceptional, uh, performance. ...

Women and gay men are assumed to be the audience for these displays. The truth is, everybody's looking. You can judge that by how quickly the image of the shirtless, oil-slicked Pita Taufatofua — the Tongan taekwondo champion with the body of a bendable action figure — as the flag bearer for his country's Olympics delegation not only stole the show at Friday evening's Parade of Nations but also soon enough thereafter stoked the internet.

Much of the commentary after Mr. Taufatofua's later appearance on "Today" wearing traditional Tongan garb focused on the giddiness of the show's female hosts — Hoda Kotb, Natalie Morales and Jenna Bush Hager — as they lasciviously stroked the shiny torso of an athlete who looked ready to be deep-fried.

Yet there was Matt Lauer, stepping forward gingerly to run a finger over the athlete's biceps. (Al Roker, who had eagerly supplied the sunscreen with which his female co-hosts rubbed Mr. Taufatofua, stood flummoxed on the sidelines.)


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X

Liberty, equality, fraternity? Cannes bans burqinis from beaches because they 'show allegiance to terrorists'


RT
Fri, 12 Aug 2016 16:02 UTC
Burqinis bann
© Tim Wimborne / Reuters
Cannes Mayor David Lisnard has ruled that burqinis, a special Muslim swimsuit that covers the entire body, should be banned on the city's beaches.

"Access to beaches and for swimming is banned to anyone who does not have [bathing apparel] which respects good customs and secularism," his ruling read, as quoted by AFP. "Beachwear which ostentatiously displays religious affiliation, when France and places of worship are currently the target of terrorist attacks, is liable to create risks of disrupting public order (crowds, scuffles etc) which it is necessary to prevent," it added.

The decree was initially signed on July 28, and is set to remain in force until August 31, French media reported. People who are seen wearing burqinis on the beach will first be verbally told to change their swimwear or leave. If they refuse to comply, they will be fined €38.

Comment: This particular type of Muslim dress is indeed not traditional and comes from Saudi Arabia's Wahhabi doctrine of Sunni Islam. If France deems Saudi Arabia a 'terrorist organization' perhaps they should re-evaluate their close ties with the country rather than taking frustrations out on individual people.

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