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ACLU finds Chicago police overwhelmingly target minorities with stop-and-frisk policy


RT
Mon, 23 Mar 2015 02:06 UTC
Image
© Reuters / Jim Young
Move over, Manhattan. The controversial stop-and-frisk practice once common among the New York Police Department has spread to Chicago, according to a new report, and is more prevalent in the Windy City than in the Big Apple.

A report published by the American Civil Liberties of Illinois on Monday accuses Chicago Police Department officers of overwhelmingly targeting minorities during an apparent stop-and-frisk surge last year.

African-Americans accounted for around 72 percent of civilians stopped by the CPD during a four-month period last summer, according to the ACLU. This is despite them accounting for less than one-third of Chicago's population. Whites and Hispanics were subjected to stop-and-frisk policing 17 percent and 9 percent of the time respectively.

From May through August 2014, according to the report, the CPD stopped around a quarter of a million people without making an arrest. With statistics showing that minorities are predominantly the victims of these searches, the ACLU report suggests constitutional violations may be afoot.
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Sheriff

Four cops fired for racists texts and KKK video


RT
Mon, 23 Mar 2015 02:01 UTC
Image
© Reuters / Lucy Nicholson
Four cops are out of a job after an internal review within the Ft. Lauderdale Police Department in Florida uncovered a slew of racially-charged messages sent between officers, and even a homemade movie that's ripe with hateful epithets.

Three officers have been fired, Ft. Lauderdale Police Chief Frank Adderley said at a news conference on Friday, and a fourth, Alex Alvarez, had already resigned in the midst of a five-month probe launched late year when his former fiancée filed a complaint with the department.

The woman, who has not been named, approached authorities in October 2014 about text messages sent between Alvarez and other officers with the Ft. Lauderdale police.

"She said she had personally seen it herself and felt it was inappropriate," Adderley said.

A subsequent review of text messages sent between the cop and his colleagues uncovered several instances in which the officers used derogatory terms.

"I had a wet dream that you two found those two n*****s in the VW and gave them the death penalty right there on the spot," reads one of the text messages in question.
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Pistol

'American exceptionalism': Utah becomes only state in America to approve death by firing squad


RT
Mon, 23 Mar 2015 01:47 UTC
Image
© Reuters/Brian Snyder
Utah Gov. Gary Herbert has signed a law authorizing the use of firing squads to carry out death penalty sentences if officials cannot acquire lethal injection drugs, making the state the only one in America to approve of the method.

"Those who voiced opposition to this bill are primarily arguing against capital punishment in general and that decision has already been made in our state," said Marty Carpenter, spokesman for Herbert, as quoted by the Guardian.

"We regret anyone ever commits the heinous crime of aggravated murder to merit the death penalty and we prefer to use our primary method of lethal injection when such a sentence is issued. However, when a jury makes the decision and a judge signs a death warrant, enforcing that lawful decision is the obligation of the executive branch."

Comment: Yep, 'American exceptionalism' strikes again.

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Stormtrooper

Above the law: Cops in the U.S. kill citizens at 70 times the rate of other first world countries

Matt Agorist
The Free Thought Project
Thu, 08 Jan 2015 18:53 UTC
Image
In case you've been under a rock lately, it is becoming quite clear that police in the US can and will kill people, even unarmed people, even on video, and do so with impunity.

The tallying methods, or rather lack thereof, used by both the FBI and individual police departments to count the amount of people killed by police, have been shown to be staggeringly inaccurate.

However, this inability of the government to count the number of people it kills, has been met with multiple alternative means of calculating just how deadly the state actually is.

One of these citizen run databases, is the website www.killedbypolice.com. The site is basically a spreadsheet that lists every person killed by cops in the years 2013 and 2014. In addition to naming those killed, it also provides a link to media reports for each of the killings, age, sex and race if available.

The tally for 2014? 1,100 people killed by those sworn to protect. That is an average of three people a day.
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Chart Pie

Privatization: Empowering the wealthy while impoverishing the masses

Paul Buchheit
Common Dreams
Mon, 23 Mar 2015 00:00 UTC
USPS vs Fedex

'USPS is so inexpensive, in fact, that Fedex actually uses the U.S. Post Office for about 30 percent of its ground shipments,' writes Buchheit.
'USPS is so inexpensive, in fact, that Fedex actually uses the U.S. Post Office for about 30 percent of its ground shipments,' writes Buchheit. (Photo: file)

The Project on Government Oversight found that in 33 of 35 cases the federal government spent more on private contractors than on public employees for the same services. The authors of the report summarized, "Our findings were shocking."

Yet our elected leaders persist in their belief that free-market capitalism works best. Here are a few fact-based examples that say otherwise.

Comment: Corporations are in business to make money for their shareholders. As that is their primary mandate, there is little incentive to provide for the common good. In many instances where corporations have taken control of public utilities, services have deteriorated while costs have risen. Yet, because of the power they wield and their ability to control the media they are very artful in managing to convince large sectors of the public into voting against their common interests.

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X

Escape plot foiled as Bedford Prison staff intercept drone laden with drugs and weapons

Martin Delgado and Ross Slater
Daily Mail
Mon, 23 Mar 2015 02:04 UTC
drone used british jail

This is the first known case of a remote-controlled aircraft being used to infiltrate a British jail
A drone has been used in a daring night-time attempt to smuggle drugs and weapons into a high security jail.

The plan was only thwarted when the machine became entangled in razor wire on a security wall and was then spotted by staff at Bedford Prison.

It is the first known case of a remote-controlled aircraft being used to infiltrate a British jail.

The Chinese-made machine was carrying a package containing drugs, mobile phones, screwdrivers and a knife.

Prison staff spotted it on the razor wire and managed to retrieve it.
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TV

Facilitating control of the masses: Our habitual media consumption empowers the matrix

Michael Snyder
The Economic Collapse Blog
Sun, 22 Mar 2015 00:00 UTC
The Matrix
© Imágen de la pelícila The Matrix.
The average American spends more than 10 hours a day using an electronic device. And most of that activity is not even interactive. The vast majority of the time we are just passively absorbing content that someone else has created. This very much reminds me of the movie "the Matrix", but with a twist. Instead of humans being forcefully connected to "the Matrix", we are all willingly connecting ourselves to it.

There is a giant system that defines our reality for us, and the length of time that the average American spends connected to it just continues to keep growing. In fact, there are millions upon millions of us that simply do not "feel right" unless there is at least something on in the background. Just think about it. How much time do you spend each day with all electronic devices completely turned off? Thanks to technology, we live at a time when more news, information and entertainment is at our fingertips than ever before, and we are consuming more of it than ever before. But this also gives a tremendous amount of power to those that create all of this news, information and entertainment. As I have written about previously, more than 90 percent of the "programming" that we absorb is created by just 6 enormously powerful media corporations. Our conversations, attitudes, opinions and belief systems are constantly being shaped by those entities. Unfortunately, most of us are content to just sit back and let it happen.

Comment: With the continued bizarre global weather patterns, the absolute insanity of world leaders pushing for more wars and the likelihood of a global economic meltdown, it is becoming obvious to those who are paying attention that things are likely to get even uglier on the BBM. Those who begin preparing now will have a much better chance of surviving, and those lost in the dream of the matrix will soon awaken to find themselves in a very harsh environment.

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Eye 2

Modern slaves in an EU country: The case of the Piaseczno 'Ukrainian slave market'

Ewa Wołkanowska-Kołodziej & Iryna Kołodijczyk
Fort Russ
Sun, 22 Mar 2015 22:01 UTC
Image

Comment: Below are a few excerpts from a Polish article about the fate of some of the Ukrainians fleeing the trouble in Ukraine and arriving in Poland, a part of the "heavenly" EU that the Maidanites wanted so much to be a part of, only to find that they are often despised and treated like slaves.


Translated by J.Hawk
A Pole locked up two Ukrainian women in the basement. He let them out after two weeks, but they didn't want to talk about it. "Didn't you go to the police?"—I ask. "But we have no rights here," they answer.

You stand by the road and wait for a Pole. On Sunday, in the frost, from 5-6 in the morning. Maybe today a Pole will wake up thinking "I don't have a pressed shirt" or "why pay for a worker if I don't have to pay?" Then he'll get in the car and come get a Ukrainian girl: to paint walls, load coal, assemble scaffolding. He'll pay 7 and sometimes even 20 zlotys per hour. At the end of the day he may pay less than promised, or not pay at all. But that's better than working for a month and getting paid nothing.

Comment: After Poland and many other Eastern European countries joined the EU, many local laws in Western Europe were circumvented, so they could work for a smaller wage. Still, it appears that what is happening to some of the Ukrainians that come to Poland is significantly worse. To understand why the mistreated Ukrainians do not just go back, one may read this Ukraine war crimes report: Torture and inhumane treatment of civilians

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Eiffel Tower

Wretched hive: Half of Paris drivers temporarily banned due to heavy smog


RT
Sun, 22 Mar 2015 18:58 UTC
Image
© Reuters / Philippe Wojazer

France is introducing emergency traffic restrictions in Paris due to massive smog that has recently gripped the famous City of Lights, almost obscuring the landmark Eiffel Tower. Half the capital's drivers will be banned from the streets on Monday.

Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo, who has repeatedly asked the authorities to introduce measures to battle the choking pollution, proposed the temporary ban.

"I am delighted the state has agreed to put in place a partial driving ban on Monday, which I have been requesting for several days," Hidalgo wrote on Saturday on Twitter.

Only those vehicles with number plates ending in an odd number will be allowed on the streets. However, the ban doesn't affect taxis, electric cars and ambulances.

Public transport will be free on Monday all over Paris and its satellite towns.
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No Entry

No place to hide: Fraternities' sexist and racist exploits revealed on social media

Amanda Holpuch
The Guardian
Sat, 21 Mar 2015 17:11 UTC
Penn state protest
© Matt Rourke/AP
Students and others demonstrate against frats on the Penn State campus, 20 March 2015 in State College, Pa.
It has not been a good week for frats - the all-male university societies named after Greek letters meant to provide students with a family-like support system.

Sordid images were discovered on two private Facebook pages operated by members of Penn State fraternity Kappa Delta Rho, including some of naked women, not all of them conscious or awake, according to a search warrant. Some were fellow students, others strippers the frat hired.

When news of one page - Covert Business Transactions - leaked, the frat shifted operations to "2.0", another private page. Under one photo, a group member commented: "Lol delete those or we will be on cnn in a week." It got 11 likes.

Penn State suspended the fraternity this week and its actions were condemned by the frat's national headquarters.

Comment: For more on what happens when psychopaths go to college see:

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