"Red Flag" gun laws in good old America

From the frying pan into the fire.

John Whitehead at Rutherford.Org
"> Red Flag Gun Laws: Yet Another Government Weapon for Compliance and Control


We never learn.
In the right (or wrong) hands, benevolent plans can easily be put to malevolent purposes.
Even the most well-intentioned government law or program can be—and has been—perverted, corrupted and used to advance illegitimate purposes once profit and power are added to the equation.
The war on terror, the war on drugs, the war on illegal immigration, asset forfeiture schemes, road safety schemes, school safety schemes, eminent domain: all of these programs started out as legitimate responses to pressing concerns and have since become weapons of compliance and control in the police state’s hands.
Mark my words: red flag gun laws, which allow the police to remove guns from people suspected of being threats, will only add to the government’s power.
These laws, growing in popularity as a legislative means by which to seize guns from individuals viewed as a danger to themselves or others, are yet another Trojan Horse, a stealth maneuver by the police state to gain greater power over an unsuspecting and largely gullible populace.
Thirteen states now have red flag laws on their books. That number is growing.
As The Washington Post reports, these laws “allow a family member, roommate, beau, law enforcement officer or any type of medical professional to file a petition [with a court] asking that a person’s home be temporarily cleared of firearms. It doesn’t require a mental-health diagnosis or an arrest.”
In the midst of what feels like an epidemic of mass shootings, these gun confiscation laws—extreme risk protection order (ERPO) laws—may appease the fears of those who believe that fewer guns in the hands of the general populace will make our society safer.
Of course, it doesn’t always work that way.
Anything—knives, vehicles, planes, pressure cookers—can become a weapon when wielded with deadly intentions.
With these red flag gun laws, the intention is to disarm individuals who are potential threats.
“We need to stop dangerous people before they act”: that’s the rationale behind the NRA’s support of these red flag laws, and at first glance, it appears to be perfectly reasonable to want to disarm individuals who are clearly suicidal and/or pose an “immediate danger” to themselves or others.
Where the problem arises, of course, is when you put the power to determine who is a potential danger in the hands of government agencies, the courts and the police.
We’ve been down this road before.
Remember, this is the same government that uses the words “anti-government,” “extremist” and “terrorist” interchangeably.
This is the same government whose agents are spinning a sticky spider-web of threat assessments, behavioral sensing warnings, flagged “words,” and “suspicious” activity reports using automated eyes and ears, social media, behavior sensing software, and citizen spies to identify potential threats.
This is the same government that keeps re-upping the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which allows the military to detain American citizens with no access to friends, family or the courts if the government believes them to be a threat.
This is the same government that has a growing list—shared with fusion centers and law enforcement agencies—of ideologies, behaviors, affiliations and other characteristics that could flag someone as suspicious and result in their being labeled potential enemies of the state.
For instance, if you believe in and exercise your rights under the Constitution (namely, your right to speak freely, worship freely, associate with like-minded individuals who share your political views, criticize the government, own a weapon, demand a warrant before being questioned or searched, or any other activity viewed as potentially anti-government, racist, bigoted, anarchic or sovereign), you could be at the top of the government’s terrorism watch list.
Moreover, as a New York Times editorial warns, you may be an anti-government extremist (a.k.a. domestic terrorist) in the eyes of the police if you are afraid that the government is plotting to confiscate your firearms, if you believe the economy is about to collapse and the government will soon declare martial law, or if you display an unusual number of political and/or ideological bumper stickers on your car.
Let that sink in a moment.
Now consider what happened in Maryland after a police officer attempted to “enforce” the state’s new red flag law, which went into effect on Oct. 1.
At 5 am on a Monday, two police officers showed up at 61-year-old Gary Willis’ house to serve him with a court order requiring that he surrender his guns. Willis answered the door holding a gun.
Mind you, in some states, merely answering the door holding a gun is enough to get you killed by police who have a tendency to shoot first and ask questions later.......

Norman Finkelstein gives a clear-cut explanation of International Law regarding Israel's war crimes against Palestinians

Police State America continues to continue

Here comes Canada's first smoke-free campus

Yea right .... like that will happen!

 

Graeme MacKay at his blog
McMaster going tobacco, smoke-free

McMaster University will become the province’s first tobacco and smoke-free campus next year.

As of Jan. 1, 2018, using tobacco and all oral smoking devices will be prohibited on McMaster campuses.

This includes the Hamilton campus, inside and on the grounds of the Ron Joyce Centre in Burlington, as well as at all McMaster-owned properties.

The university said it is working to help students, faculty and staff adapt to the new policy and educate the community before it comes into effect.....

Entrapment of slow minded individuals by predatory law officers of the RCMP

IMO, the powers-that-be have instructed and trained law enforcement officers to sniff out folks who are, shall we say ... not smart or below average intellect, most probably due to their being habitual druggies.  These kind of people are  like putty in the hands of manipulative police officers or anybody smart and devious enough to be sadistic without a modicum of qualms. Where in the world can you find such nasties?  They can be found aplenty in professions where sadism reigns supreme and that includes not just the police forces but also the intelligence entities attached
to  government departments.

Of late, the two "Islamic terrorism" attacks in the land down south, one in San Bernardino and the other in Orlando are extremely difficult to understand.  The San Bernardino one was, IMO, a job carried out by one of the intel agencies and the patsies were the Muslim couple. Whichever intel agency was in charge of the orchestration of the San Bernadino caper, made far too many "mistakes" and those mistakes were witnessed by more than half a dozen folks  who wasted no time in relating what they saw. Too late for the powers-that-be to bribe or do away with the witnesses, unlike the  Orlando incident. The Orlando one, it's not over.  For sure there are witnesses who are now kept on ice,  but the ice  is bound to thaw in the near future and the truth will come out.  Of that, we can rest assured.

Here's a nice well kept list of terror attacks in USA from way back when.   
Here's what the founder of the Saker site has to say about false flags. Very intriguing.

The important thing to remember is that the powers-that-be have spent the last many decades brainwashing us via the media, especially, Satan's HQ aka Hollywood.
Once you stop believing those who want you to believe certain bullshit, you will learn to recognize bullshit for bullshit and not anything else but bullshit.

The whole point of this post was to show how the Empire's penchant for false flags and entrapment games is  influencing our own police forces here in Canada, but I went slightly off-track.
The case of Nuttall and Korody lays bare how weak minded individuals fall prey to heartless manipulators. Now imagine the manipulators as people who had a mind to do actual damage, they could very well have done so and then removed themselves from the scene or better still, shoot both Nuttall and Korody after they did the "boom".  We would of course believe that the couple and ONLY the couple was responsible for the boom, wouldn't we??? 

Stephanie Ip at TheProvince
‘They were out of their league’: 
Mountie behind ‘Mr. Big’ tactic blasts RCMP’s terror probe

Retired inspector Al Haslett, who helped develop the sting tactic in the 1990s, slams the team who investigated John Nuttall and Amanda Korody for not stopping the operation earlier.

A retired RCMP inspector who helped develop the “Mr. Big” sting tactic in B.C. believes the officers in the Canada Day terror probe were “out of their league” while investigating John Nuttall and Amanda Korody.

“The police that were engaged in this particular investigation never had the experience to be running something of this nature,” said former Mountie Al Haslett. “They were not experts in undercover work and they were out of their league.”

Nuttall and Korody were arrested in July 2013 as part of a police sting after planting what they believed were pressure-cooker bombs at the B.C. legislature on Canada Day. A jury found them guilty of terrorism-related charges in June 2015.

But on Friday, Justice Catherine Bruce ruled the RCMP had entrapped Nuttall and Korody into carrying out a police-manufactured crime, describing it as something the couple could never have planned, let alone executed, without the help and coercion of undercover officers. The conviction was overturned and the couple released.

“It cannot be said that the police acted in bad faith; however, they did not act in good faith,” said Bruce in her written decision.

“They were clearly overzealous and acted on the assumption that there were no limits to what was acceptable when investigating terrorism. Within their ranks there were warnings given and ignored.”
Haslett and the late RCMP Insp. Peter Marsh developed the Mr. Big technique in B.C. during the early 1990s. The sting operation sends officers undercover to pose as crime bosses to gain the trust of suspects and, when successful, results in a confession that nets a conviction or information that exonerates a suspect.

Mock executions, staged drug deals, and the appearance of a “criminal” lifestyle are often par for the course in Mr. Big investigations.

Most famously, the sting was successful in eliciting confessions from West Vancouver teens Sebastian Burns and Atif Rafay in the 1994 baseball-bat slaughter of Rafay’s mother, father, and sister.

The sting has also been used to snare Michael Proulx, who killed a Kentucky Fried Chicken co-worker in 1995 and fled Burnaby for a new life in England. It was there that a female Scotland Yard officer, working with RCMP, posed as a love interest to pull a confession from Proulx.......

Charlie Smith at Straight
Judge overturns convictions of John Nuttall and Amanda Korody i
n connection with plot to bomb B.C. legislature

...A massive RCMP sting operation monitored and directed the couple. An undercover operative even drove them to stores where they looked for bomb-making equipment.

Bruce declared in court today that police, in fact, manufactured the crimes.

She acknowledged that Nuttall "held extremist views of the Muslim faith" and that Karody "appeared to accept" this.

"However, the actions of the police went far beyond presenting the defendants with an opportunity to commit an act of terrorism," Bruce declared in her ruling. "The police engaged in a multi-faceted and systematic manipulation of the defendants to induce them into committing a terrorist offence."

In addition, Bruce stated that the undercover operation's "deceit practised upon the defendants constituted an implied threat".

"The defendants were so convinced that Officer A and his associates were part of Al Qaeda that they came to fear the officers would kill them if they did not complete the terrorist plan that was orchestrated by the police," the judge wrote.

She also pointed out that recorded conversations indicated that Nuttal had "obvious intellectual deficits that should have been apparent to the police".

"The defendants’ unsophistication and child-like nature made it easy for Officer A to manipulate their actions and beliefs. They came to love and trust him completely."....

Afghanistan .... no hope for this "democracy" venture too?

Is there no end to the failures of American foreign policy blunders?  The dying Empire's failures are also a reflection on the foreign policy failures of Canada, UK, Australia and other nations who are under the mistaken belief that their welfare and future depends on always jumping as high as possible when the puppet master Empire mumbles "jump."

Just for a moment here, reflect on how different today's world would have been if after the 9/11 attacks, the Empire had opted to  bomb and invade the country actually responsible for the attacks .... Saudi Arabia.  After a fair and sincere reflection, ask yourself if you were brainwashed at that time by the Bush/Chenney administration and whether it's time for you to free yourself  from those kind of strangleholds and stand by your own intelligence instead of being a slave to other people's agenda and motives.
 
Azam Ahmed writing at NYTimes:
Taliban Justice Gains Favor   as Official Afghan Courts Fail
Matiullah Khan and Muhammad Aywaz were each dug in, their property dispute in southern Afghanistan at an impasse.

Despite paying more than $1,000 apiece in lawyers’ fees, they found no resolution in the government’s judicial system. The tribal courts, informal networks of elders that most rural Afghans rely on, had also come up short.

So the two men did what a growing number of Afghans do these days when there is no other recourse: They turned to the Taliban. Within a few days, their problem was resolved — no bribes or fees necessary.

“He would have kept my house for himself if it wasn’t for the Taliban,” said Mr. Khan, a resident of Kandahar City who accused Mr. Aywaz of commandeering his home. “They were quick and fair.”

Frustrated by Western-inspired legal codes and a government court system widely seen as corrupt, many Afghans think that the militants’ quick and tradition-rooted rulings are their best hope for justice. In the Pakistani cities of Quetta and Chaman, havens for exiled Taliban figures, local residents describe long lines of Afghans waiting to see judges.

“You won’t find the same number of people in the Afghan courts as you do in the Taliban courts,” said Hajji Khudai Noor, a Kandahar resident who recently settled a land dispute through the Taliban in Quetta. “There are hundreds of people waiting for justice there.”

Western officials have long considered a fair and respected justice system to be central to quelling the insurgency, in an acknowledgment that the Taliban’s appeal had long been rooted in its use of traditional rural justice codes. But after the official end of the international military mission and more than a billion dollars in development aid to build up Afghanistan’s court system, it stands largely discredited and ridiculed by everyday Afghans. A common refrain, even in Kabul, is that to settle a dispute over your farm in court, you must first sell your chickens, your cows and your wife.

Countless training programs funded by Western allies for lawyers and judges have become bywords for waste. Laws suited to Western-style democracies have populated the books.

“The problem is we spent money on what we wanted to see, as opposed to thinking about what Afghans wanted to see,” said Noah Coburn, a political anthropologist at Bennington College.

Recognizing that informal tribal law would remain the choice for most Afghans, the United States in recent years began spending money to support local councils and connect them more publicly with the government. But a review by an independent monitoring organization found that instead of bolstering the government’s image, the effort mostly reinforced the primacy of the informal courts — of which Taliban justice could be considered a radical extension, wielding a mix of Pashtun tradition and extreme interpretations of Islamic law. ....

Lawsuits filed against Harvard University on charges of affirmative action policies

At long last someone is taking to court, universities who are neck-deep in affirmative action. Affirmative Action is one of the most deplorable practices deeply embedded in American universities and contrary to what most of us believe, the policy favors the rich and mostly the rich. The rich, no matter how dumb they might be and regardless of color and creed are always those who benefit from this policy while the most deserving are left out from the admissions quota.



Ben Mathis-Lilley writing at Slate:
Harvard Sued for Discriminating Against "High-Achieving Asian Americans"
Lawsuits filed by an activist organization on behalf of rejected applicants allege that Harvard and the University of North Carolina's affirmative action policies discriminate against individuals with Asian ancestry by limiting the number of such applicants that may be admitted. From Bloomberg:

Such applicants “understand that they are not competing” against “the entire applicant pool,” the group said in its filing against Harvard’s governing body, the Harvard Corp., in Boston federal court. “They are competing only against each other, and all other racial and ethnic groups are insulated from competing against high-achieving Asian Americans.”

Both institutions have responded that their admissions policies are consistent with federal law.

The Supreme Court has held that race can be considered on an individual and "holistic" basis in admissions decisions in order to attain the educational and social benefits of diversity. But quotas—or point-system bonuses—are unacceptable. "[Candidate X] immigrated to America from Colombia with her family when she was 11, perhaps her experience could deepen the rich tapestry that is our campus discourse," is an OK admissions-office thing to say. "We need three more women from the Balkans, let's just grab the first three that are on the pile and then it's Miller Time" is not............

Is nothing sacred any more?

This makes me wonder if there were more individuals tried at The Hague who were also subjected to the kind of shameful injustice as carried out at the ICTY.
According to ICTY's website they describe their work and themselves as: 

The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) is a United Nations court of law dealing with war crimes that took place during the conflicts in the Balkans in the 1990’s. Since its establishment in 1993 it has irreversibly changed the landscape of international humanitarian law and provided victims an opportunity to voice the horrors they witnessed and experienced.
In its precedent-setting decisions on genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity, the Tribunal has shown that an individual’s senior position can no longer protect them from prosecution.
It has now shown that those suspected of bearing the greatest responsibility for atrocities committed can be called to account, as well as that guilt should be individualised, protecting entire communities from being labelled as “collectively responsible”......

Below just a few paragraphs from the full article which goes to show how deep and wide is the corruption at the ICTY and it does not take a genius to wonder if the virus is also prevalent in the main body the ICJ ,or whether the virus has actually spread from it to its many branches.

Stephen Karganovic writing at VineyardSaker blog:
....Tainted from the outset, the case against Vojislav Šešelj began to really unravel once the trial started. It turned out that “expert” witnesses brought by the prosecution were a parade of half-wits and ignoramuses or, in Šešelj’s own memorable courtroom phrase referring to prosecution experts, “If they know less than I do about the subject matter of their expertise, they have no business being here.” The alleged percipient witnesses to Šešelj’s crimes were an unmitigated disaster for the prosecution, and their performance was marked by wholesale perjury. The vast majority admitted in court, under Šešelj’s merciless cross-examination, that they were blackmailed, pressured, or suborned to give false evidence against him under the direction of the prosecutor. One even revealed in open court that prosecution investigators had promised him access to “girls” if he agreed to give incriminating evidence against the defendant. Many prosecution witnesses, apparently relieved that they could finally do so in the relative safety of open court, withdrew large portions or all of their previously given statements and one, to the apparent amazement of the judges, requested permission to walk over to the defendant and to embrace him. 

The prosecution of Vojislav Šešelj, more than any other scandalous proceeding at ICTY, illustrates the true nature of the Hague Tribunal and symbolises most clearly its institutional corruption which was best encapsulated by the distinguished authority John Laughland in the title of one of his books: travesty. 

Oh, yes, and haven’t we forgotten to mention the official charges against Vojislav Šešelj? Not at all, they just happen to be completely ludicrous and of negligible import in relation to the gross subversion of basic legal principles that the conduct of his trial in all its phases represents. The defendant stands accused of “inciting” to violence and ethnic persecution in his political statements, an offence that is not even listed as a crime in the Tribunal’s Statute, any more than is the elusive doctrine of Joint Criminal Enterprise, which in any event would be regarded as legally protected free speech from any but a politically vindictive point of view. ......

The case of the conscientious Canadian woman and the JPMorgan Chase mammoth

The article below is worth reading in its entirety to get a glimpse, just a tiny little glimpse, of how corrupt to the core the American banking establishment has become and how politicians who are equally corrupt are keeping the banksters above water.  But for how long?
UPDATED:  Vid added

Matt Taibbi writing at RollingStone:
The $9 Billion Witness: Meet JPMorgan Chase's Worst Nightmare

Meet the woman JPMorgan Chase paid one of the largest fines in American history to keep from talking

She tried to stay quiet, she really did. But after eight years of keeping a heavy secret, the day came when Alayne Fleischmann couldn't take it anymore. 

"It was like watching an old lady get mugged on the street," she says. "I thought, 'I can't sit by any longer.'" 

Fleischmann is a tall, thin, quick-witted securities lawyer in her late thirties, with long blond hair, pale-blue eyes and an infectious sense of humor that has survived some very tough times. She's had to struggle to find work despite some striking skills and qualifications, a common symptom of a not-so-common condition called being a whistle-blower.

Fleischmann is the central witness in one of the biggest cases of white-collar crime in American history, possessing secrets that JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon late last year paid $9 billion (not $13 billion as regularly reported – more on that later) to keep the public from hearing.

Back in 2006, as a deal manager at the gigantic bank, Fleischmann first witnessed, then tried to stop, what she describes as "massive criminal securities fraud" in the bank's mortgage operations.

Thanks to a confidentiality agreement, she's kept her mouth shut since then. "My closest family and friends don't know what I've been living with," she says. "Even my brother will only find out for the first time when he sees this interview." 

Six years after the crisis that cratered the global economy, it's not exactly news that the country's biggest banks stole on a grand scale. That's why the more important part of Fleischmann's story is in the pains Chase and the Justice Department took to silence her.........

Those the gods would destroy they first make 90-yr old goodhearted folks thrown in jail

North America has gone stark raving mad.  No hope for any of us when we have lunatics ruling over us  .... we are all going down! 



From Yahoo ... Zachary Fagenson writing at Reuters 
For decades, 90-year-old Arnold Abbott  has hauled pans filled with roast chicken and cheese-covered potatoes onto a south Florida beach park to feed hundreds of homeless people.
For his good deeds, Abbott finds himself facing up to two months in jail and hundreds of dollars in fines after new laws that restrict public feeding of the homeless went into effect in Fort Lauderdale earlier this year.
“I’ve been fighting for the underdog all my life, so this is nothing new,” Abbott said.
He was first cited last Sunday, along with two clergymen and a volunteer from his nonprofit, Love Thy Neighbor.
On Wednesday, several police cars waited for Abbott at a downtown Fort Lauderdale park, and officers pulled aside the frail man, clad in a white chef’s coat, soon after the first plates were ready to be served.
“The ordinance does not prohibit feeding the homeless; it regulates the activity in order to ensure it is carried out in an appropriate, organized, clean and healthy manner,” Fort Lauderdale Mayor John P. Seiler said in a statement.
Abbott moved to Florida from Massachusetts in 1970 and was a civil rights activist and wholesale jewelry salesman. He and his wife first began feeding the homeless on their own in 1979. He started the foundation and feeding full time in 1991 after his wife died, in a tribute to her memory.
The dispute highlights a debate between two schools of homeless rights activists: Those who argue that banning public feeding criminalizes the homeless, and others who say feeding and panhandling helps keep them on the street.....

460000 sexual attacks in Canada on a yearly basis?

And, supposedly only 6 get prosecuted.  Forgive me for being the eternal sceptic .... but I don't believe this number. 

In wake of the news about the CBC radio guy's (am I the only person who's never listened to him or even remember seeing him on any show ever and had never heard of him before now?) misogyny in the bedroom with the kind of women who are always ready to jump in bed with any celebrity or just about anyone for that matter .... our Canadian media has been going bonkers plastering rape stories here, there, everywhere. Below is an example. 
Why not just arrest the guy on the testimony of the one woman who has started the ball rolling and then let a queue of women he's diddled and fiddled with come tell their stories.  I am sure there will be many fair damsels ready to wash their dirty laundry in public. 

Andrew Evans writing at YahooNews:
#BeenRapedNeverReported: Gut-wrenching stories shared in wake of Ghomeshi scandal......

How can one tell that a country is going stark raving insane?

Easy...when its judges send people to prison for not mowing their lawns, that's when.
The author below has a long list of other incidences of pure unadulterated madness gone wild in the USA. You gotta see for yourself.

Michael Krieger writing at LibertyBlitzkrieg:
Tennessee Woman Sentenced to Jail for Not Mowing Her Lawn  
The trend of average U.S. citizens being incarcerated by overzealous judges and prosecutors within the police state formerly known as America continues with reckless abandon. In fact, these sorts of cases are becoming so commonplace I simply cannot keep up with all of them. The following story is a perfect followup to my piece earlier today, which shows how American public school students are being arrested or harassed by police for the most minor of infractions, such as wearing too much perfume, sharing a classmates’ chicken nuggets, throwing an eraser or chewing gum.

If you are an adult American slave, you can add not mowing your lawn to the list of prison-worthy crimes in the police state.................

The Testimonies and the Findings of the Russell Tribunal on Israel's war crimes in Gaza

Part One:
I have posted here in this Part One, only the few of the vids that I have already seen of the people called to give witness before the Russell Tribunal. According to one of the witnesses, Dr. Mads Gilbert,  75% of those who wanted to attend the Russell Tribunal held in Brussels were blocked by Israel from leaving the open air prison Gaza. 

From RussellTribunalonPalestine:
Russell Tribunal finds evidence of incitement to genocide crimes against humanity in Gaza

September 25th 2014
For Immediate Release

The Russell Tribunal on Palestine’s Emergency Session on Israel’s Operation Protective Edge held yesterday in Brussels has found evidence of war crimes, crimes against humanity, crimes of murder, extermination and persecution and also incitement to genocide.

The Jury [1] reported: ‘The cumulative effect of the long-standing regime of collective punishment in Gaza appears to inflict conditions of life calculated to bring about the incremental destruction of the Palestinians as a group in Gaza.’



‘The Tribunal emphasises the potential for a regime of persecution to become genocidal in effect, In light of the clear escalation in the physical and rhetorical violence deployed in respect of Gaza in the summer of 2014, the Tribunal emphasises the obligation of all state parties to the 1948 Genocide Convention ‘to take such action under the Charter of the United Nations as they consider appropriate for the prevention and suppression of acts of genocide.’



The Jury heard evidence from eyewitnesses to Israeli attacks during the Gaza war 2014 including journalists Mohammed Omer, Max Blumenthal, David Sheen, Martin Lejeune, Eran Efrati and Paul Mason, as well as surgeons Mads Gilbert, Mohammed Abou Arab, Genocide Expert Paul Behrens, Col Desmond Travers and Ivan Karakashian, Head of Advocacy and Defence for Children International.

In terms of the crime of incitement to genocide, the tribunal received evidence ‘demonstrating a vitriolic upswing in racist rhetoric and incitement’ during the summer of 2014. ‘The evidence shows that such incitement manifested across many levels of Israeli society, on both social and traditional media, from football fans, police officers, media commentators, religious leaders, legislators, and government ministers.’
The Tribunal also found evidence of the following war crimes:



Willful killing

Extensive destruction of property not justified by military necessity

Intentionally directing attacks against a civilian population and civilian objects

Disproportionate use of force

Attacks against buildings dedicated to religion and education

The use of Palestinians as human shields

Employing weapons, projectiles, and material and methods of warfare which are of a nature to cause superfluous injury or unnecessary suffering which are inherently indiscriminate

The use of violence to spread terror among the civilian population



The Tribunal further stated: ‘It is recognised that in a situation where patterns of crimes against humanity are perpetrated with impunity, and where direct and public incitement to genocide is manifest throughout society, it is very conceivable that individuals or the state may choose to exploit the conditions in order to perpetrate the crime of genocide...........

Ron Paul: No moral argument for CIA torturing people

Try telling that to warmongers Darth Vader Cheney and Syrian jihad enabler McCain. 

One warmonger down .... many more to go

Ex-prez of France is being investigated for "influence peddling"..... that's newspeak for  bribe-taking.

From BBC:
Former French President Sarkozy placed under investigation. Late on Tuesday, Mr Sarkozy was taken before a judge after 15 hours of police questioning.

Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy has been placed under formal investigation over alleged influence peddling.

He appeared before a judge late on Tuesday, after presenting himself early that morning for police questioning, which lasted 15 hours.
This is thought to be the first time a former French head of state has been held in police custody.
Mr Sarkozy's lawyer, Thierry Herzog, was also placed under formal investigation as part of the same case.

A magistrate, Gilbert Azibert, also appeared before a judge.

When a suspect is placed under formal investigation, he or she is then examined by a judge, who determines whether there is sufficient evidence for the suspect to be charged.
The inquiry began when judges examined allegations that Mr Sarkozy received illegal funding for his re-election campaign from the former Libyan leader, Muammar Gaddafi.

Mr Sarkozy is hoping to challenge again for the presidency in 2017 and the inquiry is seen as a blow to his hopes of returning to office..........

Compassionate American government of liberal Democrats and God-fearing Republicans

Yup ... very compassionate indeed!

Mike Krieger of Liberty Blitzkrieg at ZeroHedge:
The “war on compassion” when it comes to the homeless in America has been one of Liberty Blitzkrieg’s key themes this year. There are many reasons why I find this topic to be of such tremendous importance. First and foremost, I think that if we want to see how the state and crony corporate status quo will treat everyone in the future, all you have to do is look at how the homeless are being “dealt with.” Secondly, random groups feeding the homeless in various venues is a great example of decentralized compassion. Political power hates decentralization and is quite intentionally trying to corral the homeless into the centralized bureaucratic channels over which it has total control. So this isn’t merely a humanitarian issue, it is also a front line battle in the key war of our time: Decentralization vs. Centralization.  

As I mentioned, this has been a key topic on this site in 2014. Before reading on, I suggest checking out some of my recent posts on it:

Couple Fined $746 for the Crime of Feeding Homeless People in Florida Park

The Homeless in NYC Are Now Living in Tiny Spaces in the Frame of the Manhattan Bridge

Illinois Church Told by City Officials It Can No Longer Provide Homeless People Shelter

South Carolina City Implements Law that Requires a $120 Permit to Feed Homeless People

Moving along to the meat of this post, the National Coalition for the Homeless (NCH) is about to release a report that details how 33 cities in America have either banned or are considering banning feeding homeless people. It’s so bad, that the UN singled out the U.S. in a report on human rights for our nation’s criminalization of the homeless. Where’s George Clooney and.....

UK wanted to drape a terrorism court case in a burqa

Naturally!  Now that the United Kingdom of the Caliphate is almost fully shariah-ed,  it would want not only its women but also its court cases shrouded under the veil.
Did the powers-that-be wanted to hide some embarrassing facts that the accused would divulge which would implicate the government itself?  Anything is possible when dealing with psychopathic politicians and demonic terrorists.

Dominic Casciani writing at BBC:
....Fully secret terror trial blocked  by Court of Appeal.
An unprecedented attempt to hold the first ever completely secret criminal trial in the UK has been blocked by the Court of Appeal.
Judges said that the "core" of the terrorism trial could be partly heard in secret but parts must be in public.

They said media also should be allowed to name the two defendants as Erol Incedal and Mounir Rarmoul-Bouhadjar.

Prosecutors said their unique application for a secret trial was in the interests of national security.
They had previously warned that they may have to abandon the prosecution if judges did not ban the press and the public from every part of the proceedings against the two defendants.

Until Thursday, the men were previously only known as AB and CD respectively.
In their decision, judges said that the trial of the two men was of an exceptional nature and the core of it must be held in private. But they added that they had "grave concerns" about the cumulative effect of anonymising defendants and holding the hearings in secret.....

....The judges said that the media and public would be allowed to attend the swearing-in of the jury, parts of the prosecution's introductory remarks setting out the case, the verdicts and, where there are convictions, the sentencing.

The court added that a small number of journalists could be allowed to attend the closed parts of the trial, subject to agreement relating to the confidentiality of the proceedings. Their notes would be securely stored until the end of the trial......

How the misguided Canadian "privacy legislation" laws work for the benefit of dishonest renters and against small business owners, the landlords

Below is the story of just one tenant among thousands others like her. Such degenerates can rent without paying for months on end and when forced out they go looking for other victims.  And, deplorably, our government is always on the side of such vermin.
  
You gotta ask: Why is the Canadian govt. discouraging small business (landlords) and encouraging renters to commit fraud?  I personally know of two landlords from my circle of friends who gave up their small business of renting out condos, because of such renters.

Something is definitely wrong with the way our lords and masters in the government do their thinking.
The culprits responsible in Ontario for these twisted rules which go against small business owners, who in many cases are being fleeced by tenants, are none other than the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario (IPC).

Emily Mathieu writing at TheTorontoStar:
.....Nina Willis is facing eviction, again. The Toronto tenant, who has a long history of failing to pay her rent and dragging her landlords to court, has been ordered to leave the two-storey Scarborough area property she has rented for more than a year.

As with each of her previous evictions — this case is the seventh the Star has documented dating back to 2005 — privacy legislation means her tactics and rental history will be kept secret from current or prospective landlords.

Willis is appealing a January 2014 ruling from the provincially funded Landlord and Tenant Board, instructing her to clear out for failing to pay her full rent, or pay on time. The board ordered her to leave by March. Because she appealed, as she has done in each previous case, her eviction is put on hold pending the outcome of the hearing.
Willis did not respond to emails asking for comment, or a letter left at the rental property. Her landlord, through his real estate agent, declined to comment.

In 2012, the Star reported that Willis has been ordered out of at least six houses since 2005, according to tribunal and court documents obtained by the Star, as well as interviews with landlords, lawyers and paralegals.

Board hearings are open to the public, but unlike cases before the courts, the record of a tenant’s appearances cannot be accessed, and the tribunal won’t comment on, or release information about, a tenant’s history. Provincial privacy legislation means the board has the option simply to confirm or deny if records exist, if those records contain information that could be considered an unjustified invasion of personal privacy.

Prior to 2003, rental information was released for a fee. But that stopped, in part, after broad requests for files were rejected and then appealed before the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario (IPC).............

Trial for War Crimes committed in Iraq by Blackwater killing machines still ongoing ....

meanwhile the company assumes a new name and carries on the business of  mayhem as usual. 

Matt Apuzzo writing at NYTimes:
.....The team of F.B.I. agents arrived in Iraq to investigate a shooting involving a private company that provided security for Americans in a war zone. It was October 2007, and the name of the company — Blackwater Worldwide — did not yet mean anything to the agents. But what they found shocked them.

Witnesses described a convoy of Blackwater contractors firing wildly into a crowded traffic circle in Baghdad the previous month, killing 17 people. One Iraqi woman watched her mother die as they rode the bus. Another died cradling the head of her mortally wounded son.

“This is the My Lai massacre of Iraq,” one agent remembers John Patarini, the team’s leader, saying as they were heading home.

That shooting in Nisour Square, along with the massacre by Marines of 24 Iraqi civilians at Haditha and the abuses at Abu Ghraib prison, became a signature moment in the Iraq war. Five Blackwater security guards were indicted on manslaughter and weapons charges, and a sixth entered a plea deal to testify against his former colleagues.

But over the years, a case that once seemed so clear-cut has been repeatedly undermined by the government’s own mistakes.

Prosecutors are trying to hold together what is left of it. But charges against one contractor were dropped last year because of a lack of evidence. And the government suffered another self-inflicted setback in April when a federal appeals court ruled that the prosecution had missed a deadline and allowed the statute of limitations to expire against a second contractor, Nicholas A. Slatten, a former Army sniper from Tennessee who investigators believe fired the first shots in Nisour Square. A judge then dismissed the case against Mr. Slatten........

What's wrong with Sharlene Simon?

Does she want to become the most hated female in Canada?  Okay,  we know that the victims' families are suing her, but for her to turn around and sue the victims?  What kind of a hare-brained lawyer advised Sharlene Simon to do that? 

Steve Mertl at DailyBrewYahooNews:
....Woman who struck cyclists,  killing one, now suing them for stress she’s suffered.

This is a cautionary tale about our modern reflex to head straight to court to compensate us the tragedies in our lives.
An Ontario woman who struck three teenage boys on their bicycles, killing one, now is suing the kids' families for more than $1 million for the stress she's suffered as a result of the accident.
Before your head explodes, you should also know she's being sued by the teens' families, but I'll leave it to you to decide who's more deserving.

Of course their respective insurers will probably wind up with the tab, which means we all pay in the end through higher premiums.
Sharlene Simon was driving down a country lane in Simcoe County north of Toronto around 1:30 a.m. on Oct. 28, 2012, when she suddenly came on the three teens riding abreast returning from a local coffee shop.

Unable to stop in time, she plowed into the group, killing 17-year-old Brandon Majewski and seriously injuring 16-year-old Richard McLean. Their friend Jake Roberts, also 16, escaped with only scratches, QMI Agency reported.

Last December, a lawyer for Simon filed a statement of claim in Ontario Superior Court naming the estate of the dead teen and the families of his friends, alleging the driver "has sustained and will sustain great pain and suffering," including " a severe shock to her system" as a result of the crash, Postmedia News reported.
Simon is claiming $1.35 million because, according to her claim, "her enjoyment of life has been and will be lessened" by the accident.

Simon is herself the target of a $900,000 suit by the families of the victims that alleges Simon was speeding, intoxicated or texting at the time of the accident.
Neither side's claim has been proven in court.
It's not clear from the news reports which suit landed in court first. Lawyer Brian Cameron, acting for the victims' families, told QMI Agency their suit was mainly to recover medical and funeral costs.
Still, he was stunned at Simon's suit, which also names the County of Simcoe for failing to maintain the road......