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Video of the Day – Brawl Breaks Out in Japanese Parliament Over “War Bill”

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What do you get when you cross a collapsing economy with a government determined to pass a bill to make overseas military conflicts easier? You get this:

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Yep, this is what transpired overnight as tensions flared over the controversial “War Bill,” which Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is determined to pass in the face of public opposition. I covered this story last month in the post, Unusually Massive Protests Erupt in Japan Against Forthcoming “War Legislation.” Here’s an excerpt:

This story is very important. Not only will this action increase the likelihood of World War III in the Far East, but it’s another important example of a government acting against the will of the people.

Polling has indicated the Japanese public is against a pivot toward militarization and war, but Prime Minister Shinzo Abe  is pushing forward nonetheless. In fact, the current legislation to allow overseas military intervention has already passed the lower house of government. This prompted many Japanese to emerge from their decades long political apathy and get out into the streets. It’s estimated these protests were the largest in recent memory.

Now here’s the latest. From the Guardian:

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Eye in the Sky – 60 U.S. Police Departments Have Asked for Drone Certification

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Are drones coming to a police department near you? Possibly.

Next thing you know, they’ll be pepper spraying you from 10,000 feet.

From Yahoo News:

Los Angeles (AFP) – Drones are increasingly making their mark in the arsenal of US police forces, operating in a legal gray area and sparking concerns of constant surveillance of civilians.

Since 2012, government agencies can use small drones — weighing less than 55 pounds, or 25 kilograms — under certain conditions and after obtaining a certificate from the Federal Aviation Administration.

But the FAA, which is preparing small drone regulations, does not have authority on privacy protection and there is no specific framework on the issue on a national level.

Up to two dozen police forces are currently fully equipped with drones and trained to use them, including pioneers Grand Forks in North Dakota; Arlington, Texas; Mesa County, Colorado and the Utah Highway Patrol.

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Welcome to America – 14-Year-Old Texas Student Arrested for Building a Homemade Clock

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Police detained a 14-year-old Muslim boy after a teacher at his North Texas high school decided that a homemade clock he proudly brought to class looked like a bomb, according to school and police officials.

The family of Ahmed Mohamed said the boy was suspended for three days from MacArthur High School in the Dallas suburb of Irving after taking the clock to class on Monday.

The boy makes his own radios, repairs his own go-kart and on Sunday spent about 20 minutes before bedtime assembling a clock using a circuit board, power supply wired to a digital display and other items, The Dallas Morning News reported.

– From the ABC News article: Muslim Boy, 14, Detained for Making Clock Mistaken for Bomb

America is a deeply fallen nation. I don’t know how obvious it has to become before people come to grips and start to do something about it.

We haven’t decayed into this tepid abyss of immorality and decadence because of illegal immigrants, no matter what a two-bit demagogue preaching to desperate hordes infected with what Huxley referred to as herd-poisoning tells you. It’s entirely own our fault. We’ve allowed criminals and professional crony capitalists to take total control of the reins of power, and rather than fight against them, we aspire to become them. We have allowed them to scare us into submission by exploiting the tragic events of 9/11 to consolidate the world’s wealth into an increasingly small number of hands. Immigrants didn’t do this. We did, or at the very least, we allowed it to happen.

I harbor nostalgia for the days when Americans were merely ridiculed as being obese, McDonalds eating slobs ignorant of world affairs. We aren’t viewed with this combination of amusement and endearment any longer. Rather, the world now shudders with a mixture of disgust and horror in contemplation of what we have become. A decadent, clownish, wealth obsessed, corrupt, aggressive, war-mongering multitude of brainwashed imperial subjects. Worse yet, it’s not just ignorance anymore. There appears to be a idolization of anti-intellectualism running rampant, something on full display as of late with the ascendence of Donald Trump as a uniquely American strongman-savior. Not only is this stupid, it’s pathetic and dangerous.

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United Airlines CEO Walks Away with $21 Million Exit Package After Resigning Due to Corruption Probe

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Crime and corruption pay in America; you just have to be a corporate CEO, Wall Street executive, senior member of the military-industrial-intelligence complex or a politician. These so-called “elites” have perverted American justice to such a degree that not only are they now entirely above the law, they’re actually rewarded for unethical and crony behavior even after they get caught.

Nothing sums up how completely fraudulent and corrupt the U.S. economy has become than the following story, which describes how the United Airlines CEO who stepped down in the midst of a corruption probe is rewarded with a $21 million exit package, “free flights for life,” and free parking in downtown Chicago forever. No, I’m not making this up.

From the Omaha World-Herald:

When Jeff Smisek stepped down as United Airlines’ chief executive last week amid a federal corruption probe, he didn’t walk away empty-handed. He will receive at least $21 million in cash and stock, fly free for the rest of his life and keep his company car.

Then there is the parking.

He can park free in downtown Chicago and at airports in Houston and Chicago for the rest of his life.

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Does the Migrant Crisis Represent the End of the European Union?

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An emergency effort led by Germany to force European Union member states to accept mandatory quotas of refugees collapsed in discord.

Berlin called for EU financial penalties against countries that refused to accommodate their share of migrants. A Czech official said such threats were empty but nonetheless “damaging”. Slovakia said they would bring the “end of the EU”.

In scenes with echoes of the Cold War, families with small children sat in fields beneath the former communist country’s new 3.5-metre (10 foot) high fence, which runs almost the length of the border, topped with razor wire.

The greatest migration to Western Europe since World War Two has also created an institutional crisis for the 28-member EU, with one of the bloc’s signature achievements, its Schengen system of border-free travel across much of the continent, unraveling this week under the strain.

– From the Reuters article: Hungary Shuts EU Border, Taking Migrant Crisis into its Own Hands

Although everyone watching has been convinced that Europe’s disastrous economy and related debt crisis would be the spark to unravel the European Union project, it appears history has its own plans.

While EU technocrats have demonstrated an uncanny ability to scheme, threaten, kick the can and lie their way around the debt crisis, the migrant crisis will prove to be a much graver threat to the project. Strikingly, all it took was a few weeks of unrelenting migrants crossing into EU borders to put an end what is essentially the only achievement of the European Union — the Schengen system of borderless travel.

Without that, what is the EU really? A collection of nation-states forced by bureaucrats to pretend they are part of an artificial fantasy superstate called Europe? An amalgamation of debt serfs and technocratic overlords? See what I’m getting at?

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How the Department of Justice is Actively Trying to Prevent Civil Asset Forfeiture Reform

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Civil asset forfeiture is one of the most unethical and barbaric practices routinely performed by law enforcement in these United States today. Naturally, the Department of Justice is doing everything it can to protect the practice.

When I say that the rule of law is dead in America, I am not exaggerating. In fact, with each passing day it becomes increasingly obvious that the Justice Department not only has no interest in justice, it appears to view its primary role as coddling and protecting lawlessness amongst the so-called “elite” and their minions.

Today’s post proves the point once again. The state of California is in the process of passing a civil asset forfeiture bill, and in response, the DOJ is providing talking points to the California District Attorneys’ Association so that it can more effectively fight the bill. All of this after the DOJ had previously expressed faux support for civil asset forfeiture reform.

TechDirt reports:

At the beginning of this year, Attorney General Eric Holder attempted to close an exploitable loophole in asset forfeiture laws. State and local law enforcement agencies often sought federal “adoption” of seizures in order to route around statutes that dumped assets into general funds or otherwise limited them from directly profiting from these seizures. By partnering with federal agencies, local law enforcement often saw bigger payouts than with strictly local forfeitures.

The loophole closure still had its own loopholes (seizures for “public safety,” various criminal acts), but it did make a small attempt to straighten out some really perverted incentives. But deep down inside, it appears the DOJ isn’t really behind true forfeiture reform. In fact, it seems to be urging local law enforcement to fight these efforts by pointing out just how much money these agencies will “lose” if they can’t buddy up with Uncle Sam.

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Video of the Day – Ralph Nader Blasts Harvard Law School for Serving “Corporate Crooks on Wall Street”

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Would you be proud of representing the corporate crooks in Wall Street? What is the purpose of the Harvard Law School? Well, you know who knows what the purpose is? The corporate giants. They know exactly what the purpose of the Harvard Law School is. It’s to provide endless relays of lawyers who service their interests.

Harvard Law is not an institution that provokes any kind of consternation or fear among the power structure, just the opposite. It’s an institution, and I’ll get around to the exceptions. On the whole, it’s an institution that rationalizes corporate power brilliantly, services corporate power brilliantly with its graduates and some of its departments here.

– Ralph Nader during a recent speech at Harvard Law School

Ralph Nader is a Harvard Law School graduate. Here’s what he had to say about the institution’s shameless decay into the worship of greed and cronyism.

Two words: Banana Republic.

For related articles, see:

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Video of the Day – Bernie Sanders Speaks at Liberty University

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I came here today, because I believe from the bottom of my heart that it is vitally important for those of us who hold different views to be able to engage in a civil discourse. It is easy to go out and talk to people who agree with you…that’s not hard to do. That’s what politicians by and large do. We go out and talk to people who agree with us. But it is harder, but not less important, for us to try and communicate with those who do not agree with us on every issue.

– Bernie Sanders at Liberty University

As much as I disagree with Bernie Sanders on many important issues (mostly economic), I have a lot of respect for the man. I cannot really say the same about any other presidential candidate in the race at the moment.

The fact that Sanders chose to take time off from his campaign to speak to students of a private, Christian university founded by Jerry Falwell tells you a lot about the type of man he is. While Trump is busying hurling insults, and doing his best to appeal to the darker, more hateful aspects of the human condition, Sanders is out there trying to build bridges.

Take the time to watch the video and decide for yourself:

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Bankers Will Be Jailed in the Next Financial Crisis

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Jesus College, Cambridge hosted, once more, the world’s leading Symposium on Economic Crime, and over 500 distinguished speakers and panelists drawn from the widest possible international fora, gathered to make presentations to the many hundreds of delegates and attendees.

What became very quickly clear this year was the general sense of deep disgust and repugnance that was demonstrated towards the global banking industry.

I can say with some degree of certainty now that a very large number of academics, law enforcement agencies, and financial compliance consultants are now joined, as one, in their total condemnation of significant elements of the global banking sector for their organised criminal activities.

Many banks are widely identified now as nothing more than enterprise criminal organisations, who engage in widespread criminal practice and dishonest conduct as a matter of course and deliberate commercial policy. 

– From the excellent article: The Banking Criminals Exposed

My prediction is that bankers will be jailed in the next economic/financial crisis. Lots and lots of bankers.

It may seem to many that those working within this profession will remain above the law indefinitely in light of the lack of any accountability whatsoever since the collapse of 2008. It may seem that way, but extrapolating this trend into the future is to ignore a monumentally changed political environment around the world. From the ascendancy of Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders here in the U.S., to Jeremy Corbyn becoming Labour leader in the UK, big changes are certainly afoot.

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Iraq War Veteran Blows the Whistle on Shameless Propaganda Being Taught at Police Academies

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Before getting into the meat of this post, I want to start off by stating a fact: There is no “war on police” happening in America today. What is happening is a growing movement of people who want police accountability, profess a desire to reform the justice system so that we stop incarcerating people for the  oxymoron of “victimless crimes,” and an end to the widespread thieving of the public without due process via a practice known as civil asset forfeiture.

I’ve covered these topics extensively over the years. Here are just a few examples:

The United States: 5% of the World’s Population, 25% of its Prisoners

Don’t Mess with Texas – Police Raid and Shutdown Lemonade Stand Run by 7 and 8-Year-Old Girls

Chart of the Day – America’s Prison Population Over the Past 100 Years

Denver Police Arrest “Jury Nullification” Activist for Passing Out Informational Pamphlets

Land of the Unfree – Police and Prosecutors Fight Aggressively to Retain Barbaric Right of “Civil Asset Forfeiture”

The DEA Strikes Again – Agents Seize Man’s Life Savings Under Civil Asset Forfeiture Without Charges

Asset Forfeiture – How Cops Continue to Steal Americans’ Hard Earned Cash with Zero Repercussions

The public grievances listed earlier are reasonable demands which any civilized culture would insist upon. Nevertheless, many police departments across the country are taking these criticisms as part of some imagined “war on police” which simply doesn’t exist. Rather than showing even a sliver of introspection by looking inward at the mistakes policing has made in recent years, many officers are becoming defensive, combatant and have resorted to lies in order to dismiss the concerns of the public.

This is precisely what an Iraq war veteran witnessed recently while training at a police academy. He shared his story with the Daily Beast under the pseudonym Clayton Jenkins. Here are some excerpts:

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