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New York City has paid over $400mn in civil rights settlements since 2009 involving NYPD


RT
Wed, 15 Oct 2014 03:34 UTC
Image
© Cindy Ord / Getty Images / AFP
Released documents show that New York City shelled out hundreds of millions of dollars to settle civil rights lawsuits involving the New York Police Department(NYPD).

The documents - released by the New York City Law Department - show more than 12,000 cases since 2009 where the city paid out $428 million in police-related settlements. The records were released after a Freedom of Information Act request was made by MuckRock, asking the department just how many civil rights lawsuits were filed against the city when the police department was listed as a defendant over a five-year period.

While the list will require further review since the case histories are not provided, the Gothamist has argued that not all the settlements seem to be the result of police misconduct. The largest payout of $11.5 million went to Google engineer Sasha Blair-Goldensohn, who was nearly killed in 2009 when a tree branch fell on him in Central Park. Another large settlement went to the family of Ronald Spear, who died after being beaten by Rikers Island guards - officials who work for the Department of Corrections, not the NYPD. Without those two cases, though, there are still several thousand cases in which the NYPD was listed as a defendant.
Are police a costly liability? RT @StacyLeMelle: $428 Million in NYPD-Related Settlements Paid http://t.co/M477e1GJD4 via @intelligencer

- AliasHere (@AliasHere) October 13, 2014
Meanwhile, many of the lawsuits filed were found to have alleged false arrest, the New York Daily News discovered in an analysis of lawsuits filed against the city and the NYPD over a decade. Scores of cases involved injured people who had criminal charges against them thrown out, and people who lost or almost lost their jobs, kids, pets, or homes.

Comment: It's obvious that the New York Police Department engages in rampant brutality and misconduct. The only recourse available to victims is monetary. The individuals who perpetrate the acts are not held responsible, and are often rewarded for their actions. Only in a truly ponerized society does such a situation exist.

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Question

Foreign news outlets are linking US bio-warfare labs and Ebola outbreak


The Daily Sheeple
Tue, 14 Oct 2014 00:00 UTC
ebola whitehouse
Russian news outlet Ria Novosti recently featured an interview with Professor Francis Boyle, University of Illinois College of Law, implicating the United States military-industrial complex in the current Ebola outbreak which the World Health Organization claims has now taken over 4,000 lives in West Africa.

Via Ria Novosti:
"US government agencies have a long history of carrying out allegedly defensive biological warfare research at labs in Liberia and Sierra Leone. This includes the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which is now the point agency for managing the Ebola spill-over into the US," Prof. Francis Boyle said.

"Why has the Obama administration dispatched troops to Liberia when they have no training to provide medical treatment to dying Africans? How did Zaire/Ebola get to West Africa from about 3,500km away from where it was first identified in 1976?"

"Why is the CDC not better-prepared for this emergency after the US government spent about $70 billion since the anthrax attacks of October 2001 to prepare for this exact contingency?" Boyle said.

Comment: Whether or not Ebola was a creation of the military-industrial complex is uncertain. However, one thing that the CDC and the media are trying to evade is that Ebola is an airborne virus. Dr. Gary Kobinger, from the National Microbiology Laboratory at the Public Health Agency of Canada, said that he believed that the infection was spread through large droplets that were suspended in the air. By convincing people that the virus cannot travel through air, important precautions that could reduce the spread of the virus are not being taken.

Ebola - What you're not being told

Vast majority of U.S. hospitals not prepared to treat people with Ebola, and the story gets worse

Taking responsibility for your own health and safety is paramount. Now is a good time to ditch sugar and start eating animal fats:

Are you prepping your diet?

The Ketogenic Diet - An Overview

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Magic Wand

'Yes on 3': Tennessee to vote on banning income tax in perpetuity


RT
Wed, 15 Oct 2014 00:00 UTC
Income tax
© Reuters / Athar Hussain
On Election Day, Tennesseans will vote on whether or not to amend the state constitution to permanently ban income and payroll taxes in the Volunteer State. But even if the resolution fails, it is unlikely the legislature will institute new taxes.

Republican state Sen. Brian Kelsey sponsored the resolution putting the amendment on the ballot and heads the 'Yes on 3' committee urging its ratification. He said not having an income tax makes Tennessee "more fiscally responsible" and that permanently banning one would appeal to businesses, according to the Associated Press.

"Not having an income tax has already brought jobs to Tennessee, and permanently banning an income tax will bring even more jobs to the state," Kelsey said.
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Heart - Black

A child psychopath? 10 year-old boy kills 90 year-old woman in Pennsylvania

Ray Sanchez
CNN
Wed, 15 Oct 2014 02:10 UTC
Image
© WNEP
Tristen Kurilla, 10 years old, confessed to the murder of Helen Novak
"I killed that lady," the 10-year-old boy told a Pennsylvania state trooper, after a 90-year-old woman was found dead in the home of the boy's grandfather. Tristen Kurilla, a fifth grader, made the chilling confession Saturday, police said, after his mother brought him to the Pennsylvania State Police Barracks in Honesdale, about 140 miles north of Philadelphia.

Now, Kurilla is being held at the Wayne County Correctional Facility and charged as an adult with criminal homicide, the Wayne County district attorney's office said. The boy is separated from adult offenders and is being constantly supervised, CNN affiliate WBRE reported. The boy admitted to grabbing a wooden cane, holding it against 90-year-old Helen Novak's throat for several seconds and punching her in the throat and stomach, according to the police affidavit.

Kurilla told police he was angry at Novak because she had yelled at him when he entered her room. He said he wanted to ask her a question. Were you trying to kill her? the trooper asked the boy.

"No, I was only trying to hurt her," Kurilla replied, according to the affidavit.

The boy was ordered to be held without bail after his arraignment and is set to appear in court October 22. Bernie Brown, his lawyer, said he was petitioning the court to get the fifth-grade Damascus Elementary School student out of jail, WBRE reported.
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Camcorder

Watch: Dozens of teens vandalize Brooklyn store

Joseph Stepansky
NY Daily News
Tue, 14 Oct 2014 01:42 UTC
Image
© Crownheights.info/youtube capture
Dozens of youths are seen on surveillance video in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, before a smaller group burst into the Gourmet Butcher grocery store, trashing shelves and allegedly assaulting a worker.
A surveillance video posted online shows a group of teens trashing a Brooklyn store Saturday night, the store's owner said. Dozens of teens gathered outside of Gourmet Butcher on Troy Ave. near Carroll St. in Crown Heights before several rushed into the store and knocked over shelves and pushed products to the floor, a video posted on CrownHeights.infoon Monday shows.

The Store's owner, Yanki Klein, told CBS 2 the vandalism happened on Saturday around 9 p.m., only hours after he reopened his store following the Jewish holiday Sukkot.

"They screamed, they yelled, they made noise, whatever," Klein told CBS 2.

The owner told the station one of the teens also assaulted his 23-year-old brother. Police said they were investigating an assault at the location, but did not have details on the vandalism or if the attack could be bias-fueled. The assaulted man, who was punched in the head, declined medical attention at the scene, police said.
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Road Cone

Home is where the car is

Dina Demetrius
America.aljazeera.com
Fri, 10 Oct 2014 17:30 UTC
Image
© Aljazeera
Paula Corb
For four years, the only life Paula Corb and her two daughters have known is the one inside their 2000 Mazda minivan - stopping once in a while for take-out, groceries and gas.

Corb and the girls Alice and Emily are among 214,000 "unsheltered" homeless people in America, meaning they sleep in places not intended for human beings to sleep, like bus stations, abandoned buildings, parks or cars. For them, making a pit stop for gas is the equivalent of paying rent.

"We go on about a four-block radius," Corb explained. "It's $5 to $10 a day. You see, that's $70 a week times four. I mean, that's more than we really have got."

The vast majority of the country's 71,000 homeless families live in shelters, but almost 10,000 are living life like the Corbs.

For two decades, Paula Corb, her engineer ex-husband and two daughters lived in a four-bedroom house just outside of Santa Barbara. She described their life as a "fairy tale." But after her eight-year divorce, Corb went broke. The money from selling the house - at the bottom of the housing market - went to her debts and her lawyers. And as a homemaker for more than 20 years, she's had trouble finding work. The family packed up their stuff and moved into the van, where they live off of food stamps, gift cards for gas and food and Alice receives a Social Security disability check.

"It was scary. It was depressing," said Alice Corb, 22, the older daughter, of the first night living in the van. "I just kept thinking, 'How could this have possibly happened?' And this mantra in my head just repeated over and over: 'I want to go home.' And I just kept avoiding this one thought in my head that says, 'You don't have a home to go back to.'"

Comment: The U.S. government and corporations waste billions on wars. Corporate greed and unbridled selfishness are pillars of the economy. It is truly shameful. The author seems to be spinning the tale that homelessness is not so bad. It is that bad. A parking lot program at churches and businesses? Wow! How about giving them jobs instead?

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Target

How an Ebola outbreak would be an absolute boon for globalists

Brandon Smith
Personal Liberty
Tue, 14 Oct 2014 10:09 UTC
ebola workers
© Reuters/Jim Young
Workers wearing hazardous material suits arrive at the apartment unit where a man diagnosed with the Ebola virus was staying in Dallas, Texas, October 3, 2014.
Regional or widespread war, terrorism, cyber attacks, etc., are all useful vehicles to conjure mass confusion, and can also be used as scapegoats for the eventual downfall of our economy. That said, a viral pandemic truly surpasses them all in effectiveness. All other tragedies could easily be tied to the first "domino" or "linchpin" (as Rand Corporation calls it) of Ebola transmission, but the strategy goes deeper than this.

This is an incredibly useful strategy when used on the ignorant. And as I pointed out last week in my column, "U.S. government fails to stop yet another invasion," it's a sad fact that most of the people you meet in this life are fundamentally and functionally ignorant.

So I believe the spread of Ebola may be desired by certain power brokers. Here's why.

Comment: Could this Ebola spread be an example of the globalists never letting a good crisis go to waste? For more information on how to protect yourself and your loved ones see:

Ebola - What you're not being told

Pestilence, the Great Plague and the Tobacco Cure

Natural treatments for Ebola virus exist, research suggests

Natural allopathic treatment modalities for Ebola

Vitamin C - A cure for Ebola

Ebola threatens humanity by preying on human instincts of caring

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Cult

AIDS-infected Alabama church pastor refuses to resign despite abusing church funds and frequent drug-fuelled trysts with members of congregation

Sasha Goldstein
New York Daily News
Wed, 15 Oct 2014 22:55 UTC
Pastor Juan McFarland admitted his sins during sermons in September, shocking members of the Shiloh Missionary Baptist Church who voted Oct. 5 to oust the preacher. But McFarland has refused to step down, even changing church locks, church bank accounts and showing up Sunday to give a sermon, the suit claims.
Image
© Shiloh Missionary Baptist Church
Pastor Juan McFarland: sex predator, hard drug user... and preacher. He refuses to step down from his post.
This sinner thinks he's a saint.

An Alabama church board has filed a lawsuit seeking to remove the Shiloh Missionary Baptist Church pastor who refuses to leave, despite a vote to oust the man, who confessed to using drugs and having sex with church members while being HIV-positive.

Pastor Juan McFarland gave a sermon at the Montgomery church on divine healing Sunday, two days before the church's board of deacons and board of trustees filed suit alleging McFarland changed the locks at the house of worship and put church bank accounts in his name after "church members discovered his debauchery, sinfulness, hedonism, sexual misconduct, dishonesty, thievery and rejection of the Ten Commandments," the suit, obtained by AL.com, reads.

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Vader

It's only freedom and democracy when we say it is: Mass arrests in St. Louis as protest movement grows


Al Jazeera
Wed, 15 Oct 2014 22:39 UTC
Demonstrators refused to move for four hours - the time it took for officers to remove Michael Brown's body in August
Image

Cornel West among protestors arrested in Ferguson at a rally outside police headquarters

Hundreds of people demonstrated in the pouring rain in the St. Louis area Monday, with many refusing to move from outside Ferguson police headquarters for a period of four hours - the same amount of time that 18-year-old Michael Brown's body was left on the streets after being shot dead by an officer in August, sparking months of unrest.

The action was the latest in a "Weekend of Resistance" over the shooting of the Missouri teen. Activists have used demonstrations to renew calls for the prosecution of the white police officer who killed the black teenager. But protests have widened in their scope, taking how police departments across the country treat black Americans as a theme. Supporters of the Brown family have said race played a part in the teen's death - unarmed at the time, he reportedly had his hands in the air.

Numerous protests have been held in the two months since the Aug. 9 killing of Brown by officer Darren Wilson. But following weeks of relative calm, tensions escalated after another black teen, 18-year-old Vonderrit Myers Jr., was shot dead in the St Louis area last Wednesday by a white, off-duty - but still uniformed - police officer.
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Dollar

Why we should be seething with anger over income inequality

Paul Buchheit
Commondreams.org
Mon, 13 Oct 2014 22:38 UTC
Image
© Len Tsou/Unarmed Civilian/flickr/cc
It was recently reported that Americans greatly underestimate the degree of inequality in our country. If we were given proper media coverage of the endless takeaway of our country's wealth by the super-rich, we would be infuriated. And we would be taking it personally.

Each of nine individuals (Gates, Buffett, 2 Kochs, 4 Waltons, Zuckerberg) made, on average, so much from his/her investments since January, 2013 that a median American worker would need a quarter of a million years to catch up. For the most part it was passive income, new wealth derived from the continuing productivity of America's workers.

Why We Should Take It Personally

First, because our productivity is rewarding a relatively few people. In addition, many of the top money-makers are damaging other American lives. The top nine include four people (Waltons) who pay their employees so little that we taxpayers have to pay almost $6,000 a year to support each one of the employees. And it includes two people (Kochs) who have polluted our air and water to enrich themselves while quietly funding organizations that threaten to dismantle what's left of our democracy.

Another personal issue: While the Forbes 400 made almost enough in one year to fund the entire safety net, they don't even have to pay taxes on their half-trillion dollars of investment gain until they cash in, which may be never.

On Average, Most of Us Got One Dollar for Every Billion Dollars of New Wealth

A look at the numbers compiled by Us Against Greed shows how personal it really is. Out of that $5,350,000,000,000 ($5.35 trillion) made since the start of 2013, the bottom 80 percent of America took an average of less than $5,000 each. The richest 6 to 20 percent fared better, taking an average of about $65,000.

Comment: What the author is missing here is that psychopathic greed is at the heart of income inequality. Psychopaths are not capable of conducting business any other way. Until the people educate themselves and wake up to the true nature of what these creatures are, they won't take it personally.

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