News Items

High School Teacher Faces Disciplinary Action for Informing Students of Their Rights

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Rather than being reprimanded, Illinois high school teacher John Dryden, should be held up as an example of what it truly means to be a teacher.  When confronted with a situation where he knew his students might be giving up their Fifth Amendment rights, the social studies teacher did what he believed was the right and … Read more

Chants of “End the Fed”…Heard at Anti-Monsanto Rallies

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While most of my readers know about the widespread anti-Monsanto/GMO rallies that took place all over the world this past weekend, the rest of the public has no idea due to a mainstream media blackout.  That’s ok because that industry is dying quickly anyway.  Although I haven’t spent much time watching footage from the rallies, I … Read more

Video of the Day: Government Explained

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Ever wonder what would happen if an alien came down to earth and asked an average human to explain the dominant political systems in place?  Although the video is more than a year old, I had never watched it before and find it a really effective way to wake people up as to how absolutely … Read more

The Scorecard: 8,000 Wall Street Protesters Arrested, Zero Bankers

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America really has become the “land of the thief, home of the slave.”  While a minority of awake citizens desperately tries to shake their neighbors from their deep slumber, the masses continue to sit in front of the television, suck their thumbs and watch Desperate Housewives, while the oligarchs laugh incredulously at them all the … Read more

Noam Chomsky on the Classification System: “It’s to Protect the State from the Citizens”

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I’ve spent quite a lot of time studying declassified internal documents, and written a lot about them. In fact, anybody who’s worked through the declassified record can see very clearly the reason for classification is very rarely to protect the state or the society from enemies.  Most of the time it’s to protect the state … Read more

How Traffic Cameras are Intentionally Ripping You Off

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Traffic cameras raise privacy issues for sure, but they can also be devastating to your bank account.  When I see these things hovering over my head on the pleasant streets of Boulder, Colorado not only do I think of Big Brother, but also of some overbearing bureaucrat trying to get his or her hands in my pocket.  To be fair, I haven’t had any specific issues locally with the cameras and I hope not to have any in the future, but residents of Florida tell quite a different story.

In what is merely a sign of our completely corrupt and immoral times, many communities in Florida are intentionally shortening yellow light intervals at traffic intersections in order to catch unsuspecting drivers running red lights.  Not only does this lead to soaring ticket issuance, it also causes more accidents.  WTSP 10 News in Tampa completed a phenomenal investigative report.  Key excerpts are below:

TAMPA BAY, Fla. — A subtle, but significant tweak to Florida’s rules regarding traffic signals has allowed local cities and counties to shorten yellow light intervals, resulting in millions of dollars in additional red light camera fines.

The 10 News Investigators discovered the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) quietly changed the state’s policy on yellow intervals in 2011, reducing the minimum below federal recommendations. The rule change was followed by engineers, both from FDOT and local municipalities, collaborating to shorten the length of yellow lights at key intersections, specifically those with red light cameras (RLCs).

While yellow light times were reduced by mere fractions of a second, research indicates a half-second reduction in the interval can double the number of RLC citations — and the revenue they create. The 10 News investigation stemmed from a December discovery of a dangerously short yellow light in Hernando County. After the story aired, the county promised to re-time all of its intersections, and the 10 News Investigators promised to dig into yellow light timing all across Tampa Bay.

Red light cameras generated more than $100 million in revenue last year inapproximately 70 Florida communities, with 52.5 percent of the revenue going to the state. The rest is divided by cities, counties, and the camera companies. In 2013, the cameras are on pace to generate $120 million.

Money, money, money, at all costs, money.  America’s new religion.

“Red light cameras are a for-profit business between cities and camera companies and the state,” said James Walker, executive director of the nonprofit National Motorists Association. “The (FDOT rule-change) was done, I believe, deliberately in order that more tickets would be given with yellows set deliberately too short.”

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How Undercover Animal Rights Activists are Winning the Ag-Gag War

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I previously covered these crazy “ag-gag” laws being passed in states with large meat production industries back in March in my piece:  States Move to Criminalize Whistleblowing on Food Fraud and Animal Cruelty.  Such laws represent a really disturbing macro trend in America where, rather than deal with inhumane, criminal and immoral practices, large corporations and government would just rather the public not know.  The Obama Administration exemplified this practice perfectly in its recently exposed war on journalism.

The good news is that if care enough and stand our ground through non-violent resistance, we can win.  We are already seeing examples of this in the battle against “ag-gag.”  From the Village Voice:

Cody Carlson had no way of preparing for this moment. He was a Manhattan kid, days removed from working as an analyst for a business-intelligence firm, where he scrutinized corporations and their executives.

Now he was standing in a bleak barn at New York’s largest dairy farm.

His first job, technically speaking, was to repair the mechanism that pulled manure from the barn.

His real job: covertly filming it all for Mercy for Animals.

His hidden camera caught employees kicking and shocking animals that wouldn’t bend to their will. Supervisor Phil Niles is heard recounting an abuser’s greatest hits: how he beat cows with wrenches, smashed their heads with two-by-fours, kicked them when they were too feeble to rise.

“Fucking kicking her, hitting her,” he chortles while recalling one incident. “Fucking jumping off the top of the goddamned gate and stomping on her head and shit.”

After five weeks of filming, MFA took the footage to ABC’s World News. Niles was subsequently charged with misdemeanor animal cruelty. His penalty for 19 years of beating cows in every way imaginable: a $555 fine.

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Eton College’s Exam Asks Boys to Justify the Army Killing Protesters

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Eton, the elite boarding school just west of London, attended by Prince William, Prince Harry and current UK Prime Minister David Cameron asked a very interesting question on a recent scholarship questionnaire.  Specifically, 13 year old boys were asked to justify the army killing 25 protestors in oil-price related civil unrest.

It’s all hypothetical to be sure.  Just as hypothetical as the DHS buying billions of rounds of ammunition and assault weapons.  For hypothetical use, against hypothetical protestors when the hypothetical ponzi financial system collapses due to hypothetical theft by hypothetical oligarchs.  Got that?  From the Huffington Post:

Eton College asked 13-year-old boys competing for a scholarship to pretend to be Prime Minister and justify the army shooting dead 25 protesters as a “necessary and moral” decision, it has emerged.

The public school set the question as part of an exam to win one of 14 King’s Scholarships, which is worth one tenth of Eton’s £10,689 termly fees.

The question, which was posed to students in 2011, tells the teenagers: “The government has deployed the Army to curb the protests. After two days the protests have been stopped but 25 protesters have been killed by the Army.

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Detroit’s Public Pension Trustees Undergo “Continuing Education” in Hawaii While the City Burns

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Everyone knows the sad state of affairs that has befallen the city of Detroit over the past generation or so, with the finishing touches put on during the financial crisis as a result of punitive swaps sold by Wall Street and incredible corruption throughout the bureaucratic class.  However, rest assured that doesn’t stop the city’s public pension fund trustees from spending $22,000 in retirement system funds on a “continuing education” trip to a four-star resort in Hawaii.

We’ve seen this argument before.  I covered it late last year when I wrote a piece about how law lawmakers and lobbyists took extravagant trips together to Hawaii, Brazil, China, Australia and New Zealand. The one common defense put forward with regard to these boondoggles is that they need to learn information in order to “do a better job.”  If that’s the case and these trips are so effective, I have a question.  Why are things so screwed up?

From Reuters:

(Reuters) – The city of Detroit may be facing a deepening financial crisis but that hasn’t stopped four trustees of its public pension funds from spending $22,000 of retirement system funds to attend a conference in Hawaii this week.

The trip 4,500 miles west to a four-star resort on the world-famous Waikiki Beach in Honolulu doesn’t sit well with the top officials now running Detroit’s finances under an emergency order from the state of Michigan. Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr has not ruled out a bankruptcy as the city struggles under a $15 billion debt burden, which is being strained further by its hefty pension obligations.

“It especially doesn’t look good when you have city employees, police, firefighters having taken pay cuts,” said Bill Nowling, spokesman for Orr. “Middle-class, blue-collar workers, their dream vacation when they retire may be a two-week trip to Hawaii – they don’t associate Hawaii with a place you go to work.”

John Riehl, a senior sewage plant operator and 34-year Detroit employee, is one of the four. The cost fell within continuing education guidelines set by the legislature, he said.

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Operation Swill: New Jersey Bars Caught Serving Fake Alcohol

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It’s been a little while since my last food fraud post on rat meat being sold as lamb on the streets on Shanghai.  It’s been an even longer time since the last post on stealth inflation in alcohol when Maker’s Mark announced it was diluting its product (they ultimately backtracked due to consumer outrage).  Well, … Read more