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Police civil asset forfeitures exceed all burglaries in 2014 and rising fast

Martin Armstrong
Armstrong Economics
Tue, 17 Nov 2015 20:00 UTC
American police
Between 1989 and 2010, U.S. attorneys seized an estimated $12.6 billion in asset forfeiture cases. The growth rate during that time averaged +19.4% annually. In 2010 alone, the value of assets seized grew by +52.8% from 2009 and was six times greater than the total for 1989. Then by 2014, that number had ballooned to roughly $4.5 billion for the year, making this 35% of the entire number of assets collected from 1989 to 2010 in a single year. According to the FBI, the total amount of goods stolen by criminals in 2014 burglary offenses suffered an estimated $3.9 billion in property losses. This means that the police are now taking more assets than the criminals.

The police have been violating the laws to confiscate assets all over the country. A scathing report on California warns of pervasive abuse by police to rob the people without proving that any crime occurred. Even Eric Holder came out in January suggesting reform because of the widespread abuse of the civil asset forfeiture laws by police.

Comment: This is pretty outrageous! Can anyone say Police State yet?

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Eye 1

Stadium evacuated in Germany over potential terrorist attack - Merkel and other top officials were expected to attend


RT
Tue, 17 Nov 2015 19:54 UTC
Image
© Morris Mac Matzen / Reuters
A friendly game between the German and Dutch national teams in Hannover has been cancelled, German media report, citing police sources. The stadium is being evacuated.

The match was cancelled due to "security reasons," police earlier told AFP.

The evacuation of the stadium is underway. Spectators that had already taken their places in the stands have been asked to leave the stadium via loudspeakers.

A "specific threat" has prompted the evacuations according to German BILD, citing police sources. Security services have received information about a potential terrorist attack "that should be taken seriously," according to dpa, a German news agency.

Police have reportedly found an ambulance car "full of explosives" outside the Hannover stadium, according to a local newspaper, citing police sources.

Comment: Zero Hedge is reporting rumors that an emergency vehicle was found loaded with explosives.

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Clipboard

UK study: Disability 'fit-for-work' assessments linked to rise in suicides, mental health problems, antidepressants


RT
Tue, 17 Nov 2015 13:55 UTC
Image
© Desmond Boylan/Reuters
Tests which assess eligibility for disability benefits may have had an effect on the mental health of claimants, according to new research which links the assessments to 590 suicides and thousands of anti-depressant prescriptions.

The study, published on Tuesday in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, suggests the Work Capability Assessment (WCA), also known as fit-for-work tests, may have "serious consequences" on the mental health of those being tested. It adds that the policy, which was intended to move people off disability benefits, had been introduced without any consideration of its effect on individuals.

Researchers from the University of Liverpool found 1 million people had been assessed in England between 2010 and 2013. They found these assessments are linked to 590 extra suicides, 297,000 extra cases of mental health problems and 725,000 anti-depressant prescriptions during the same amount of time. "Each additional 10,000 people reassessed in each area was associated with an additional six suicides, 2,700 cases of reported mental health problems and the prescribing of an additional 7,020 antidepressant items," the report notes.

"The reassessment process was associated with the greatest increases in these adverse mental health outcomes in the most deprived areas of the country, widening health inequalities." In total the results amount to a 5 percent rise in suicides, 11 percent increase in mental health issues and 0.5 percent more antidepressant prescriptions.

Comment: See also:

Despicable: UK budget cuts to 'bare bones' social services force elderly, disabled to go without assistance, food and drink

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Fire

Explosion reported at chemical factory in northeast China


RT
Tue, 17 Nov 2015 15:19 UTC
Fusun blast map
An explosion has been reported at a chemical factory in Fushun, Liaoning province, in northeast China. The cause of the blast is under investigation, CCTV reported.

The explosion caused a fire at the site, the factory's website said, as cited by TASS news agency.

Firefighters quickly arrived at the scene and the situation is reportedly under control.

No casualties have been reported.
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Stock Up

Viva Chavez! Venezuela reduces extreme poverty to 4.9 percent


TeleSur
Tue, 17 Nov 2015 18:33 UTC
Venezuela housing mission
© AVN
In April 2015, President Nicolas Maduro (2ndR) gave away the 700,000th home built by the Bolivarian Revolution. Now over 800,000 have been built.
Other countries in the region see extreme poverty as high as 53 percent. In spite of Venezuela's economic turbulence in 2015, the government has managed to reduce extreme poverty to 4.9 percent thanks to social investment and initiatives, the vice president for social development, Gladys Requena, announced Monday.

When former President Hugo Chavez was elected in 1998, 21 percent of Venezuelans lived in extreme poverty. Since then, under Chavez's same PSUV socialist party government, a variety of government "missions," or initiatives, have bolstered living conditions for millions.

The housing mission, for example, between 2011 and 2015 has provided 800,000 low-income families with new homes, while it was reported that the 12-year-old health mission has completed over 700 million free appointments to date. The spending on social projects has continued in spite of an economic war waged by international opponents to the wealth redistribution project of the PSUV's "Bolivarian Revolution," which has driven up inflation and smuggling.
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Fire

Massive chemical fire rages at industrial park near Pittsburgh

Bob Allen
CBS Local
Tue, 17 Nov 2015 10:34 UTC
Leetsdale fire
© Trevor Pugh
Firefighters are battling a five-alarm industrial fire in Leetsdale.

According to Allegheny County Emergency Services, the fire broke out at Weatherford Engineered Chemistry in the 100 block of Leetsdale Industrial Drive.

The company is involved in the development of oil and gas production.

The fire has since spread to a second building nearby. Firefighters have taken up a defensive position and are watering down six other buildings.

Officials say that the two chemicals involved - ammonium persulfate and sodium chlorite - are inhalation contact hazards.

As a result, an evacuation order has been issued for all homes on Washington Road in Leetsdale. About 75 homes are involved in the evacuation and residents are being ushered to the Quaker Valley High School gymnasium.
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Heart - Black

Animal-loving man killed by newly adopted dog

Katherine Burgess
Freep
Tue, 17 Nov 2015 18:23 UTC
Image
© Jackson-Madison County Rabies Control
The Rottweiler that killed Anthony Riggs was adopted from Jackson-Madison County Rabies Control.

A central Tennessee man was attacked and killed by a Rottweiler dog, just hours after adopting it from the county pound, according to the Madison County Sheriff's Office.

Anthony Riggs, 57, had adopted the Rottweiler from Jackson-Madison County Rabies Control, which is a part of the health department, Thursday morning. The dog attacked and killed him later that same day, according to the Sheriff's Office.

After leaving the county animal facility Thursday around 10:30 a.m., Riggs took the Rottweiler to show it to his son Thomas Riggs, according to Adrienne Riggs, Anthony's ex-wife. Father and son had made plans for the holidays, hugged and said they loved each other, she said.

Comment: Animal Rescuer in Georgia Killed by Own Dogs

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Ambulance

At least 16 killed, 100 injured as Pakistan passenger train derails


Press TV
Tue, 17 Nov 2015 15:30 UTC
Pakistan train crash
© EPA
A view of derailed wagons of a passenger train in Bolan district of Balochistan province, Pakistan on Nov 17, 2015.
A train transporting 300 passengers has run off its railroad track, leaving at least 16 people dead and more than 100 others injured in Pakistan's southwestern province of Baluchistan.

"Four carriages of a Rawalpindi-bound train which left Quetta railway station were derailed near Abegum area of Bolan district, some 75 kilometers (46 miles) from Quetta city," Akbar Hussain Durrani, the Baluchistan home secretary, said on Tuesday.

The accident occurred near Quetta, the capital of Baluchistan Province, after the train's brakes failed as it came speeding down the side of a mountain, according to officials.

The train driver and his assistant, and two members of the railway police, are among the dead.

Train accidents frequently happen in Pakistan.

In July, at least 17 people were killed when a special military train fell into a canal after a bridge partially collapsed.
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Quenelle - Golden

'Waste them in the outhouse': Putin's famous rallying cry against terrorists goes viral after Paris attacks


RT
Tue, 17 Nov 2015 17:29 UTC
Image
© Christian Hartmann / Reuters
French fire brigade members aid an injured individual near the Bataclan concert hall following fatal shootings in Paris, France, November 13, 2015.
In the wake of Friday's Paris attacks, French social media users have been posting and reposting a catchphrase by Vladimir Putin, who famously called for terrorists to be "wasted... in the outhouse." Some say they like this approach better than Hollande's "non-action" calls.

The phrase has become famous and dates back to 1999, when Putin was Russia's prime minister. At that time the country faced terror on a large scale as it was fighting jihadists in the Caucasus during the second Chechen campaign. He was commenting on the Russian anti-terrorist operation in the city of Grozny, the capital of the Chechen Republic, and the catchphrase became an illustration of his hardline attitude toward terrorists.

"We are going to pursue terrorists everywhere. If they are in the airport, we will pursue them in the airport. And if we capture them in the toilet, then we will waste them in the outhouse. ... The issue has been resolved once and for all," he told Russian media.

Since then the phrase has become Putin's catchphrase and has resurfaced on social media occasionally, especially after terrorist attacks. It was widely re-tweeted after the Boston Marathon bombings in April 2013 and the Charlie Hebdo attacks in January 2014, as social media users called for a tougher approach in dealing with terrorism.
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Nuke

Ugly legacies of the Vietnam War: Agent Orange, Monsanto & Dow Chemical

Dr. Gary G. Kohls
Global Research
Sun, 15 Nov 2015 16:56 UTC
Image
© tumblr
Fifty years ago this next month (December 1965), with the urging of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the rubber stamp approval of President Lyndon Johnson and Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, the United States Air Force started secretly spraying the forests of Laos with a deadly herbicide that was known as Agent Orange.

Operation Ranch Hand, whose motto was "Only We Can Prevent Forests" (a shameful takeoff of Smokey the Bear's admonition), was a desperate, costly and ultimately futile effort to make it a little harder for the National Liberation Front soldiers from North Vietnam to join and supply their comrades-in-arms in the south. Both the guerilla fighters in the south and the NLF army had been fighting to liberate Vietnam from the exploitive colonial domination from foreign nations such as imperial France (that began colonizing Vietnam in 1874), then Japan (during WWII), then the United States (since France's expulsion after their huge military defeat at Dien Bien Phu in 1954) and then against its own nation's US-backed fascist/military regime in South Vietnam that was headed by the brutal and corrupt President Diem.

Comment: The legacy of Agent Orange & Monsanto - Have things changed?

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