The Dissident Dad – Free Your Mind

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I was wiping off the dust from an old book that I read when I was just 15 years old. I thought I had lost it, but while cleaning out my garage, I discovered it at the bottom of a box, like buried treasure. This specific book changed my life. It was the key to everything my brain had told me was right, but I had never seen it in written words. The book was “Rich Dad, Poor Dad,” by Robert Kiyosaki. First self-published in 1997, somehow I got lucky and a friend who was in his 30s gave it to me as a gift.

Upon opening up this book that I hadn’t touched in 18 years, written in my handwriting was “free your mind.” It was a statement of faith I had declared to myself as a young man.

Since last fall, I’ve been writing Dissident Dad posts weekly, focusing on my personal struggle to raise 3 children in an environment where the America we were all told about and learned to love is completely in the past. It’s a totally foreign nation to anyone residing in the current police state run by an insane group of oligarchs, multinational corporations and lunatics in D.C.

Today, I want to change it up a bit and reach out to any young adults reading this post, or perhaps parents who are raising teenagers. With daily stories about college-aged kids being overwhelmed with debt and irrelevant degrees for today’s economy, I wanted to put together a list of 50 alternatives to going to college.

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Inmates at San Francisco Jail Forced Into Gladiatorial Combat as Sheriff’s Deputies Placed Wagers

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At just 150 pounds, it was hardly fair to pit Ricardo Palikiko Garcia against an opponent well over twice his size. But Garcia had to fight him — or else he’d allegedly face torture. 

Like the gladiators of old, Garcia and others were forced into pugilistic matches, local authorities said. Four sheriff’s deputies then placed bets on their bouts.

“Deputy’s betting against me and forcing me to fight and if I don’t fight, then he’s basically telling me that he was going to beat me up, cuff me, Tase me all at once,” Garcia said in an audio recording.

Investigators fear the fights may have gone on for a while. For Garcia, there was a lead-up. Deputies forced him to do pushups to train for fights.

– From the CNN article: Inmates Forced Like Gladiators to Fight as Deputies Took Bets

You know something’s just not right in your culture when you see a headline about prisoners engaging in gladiatorial combat while incarcerated, and the first thing that comes to your mind is, “this reminds me of a similar story from last year.”

Indeed, all it took was a quick search and I uncovered an article I wrote last March ago titled, FBI Launches Investigation into a Private Prison So Violent it is Called “Gladiator School,” which noted that:

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Jeb Bush Doubles Down on His Love Affair with the NSA in Recent Interview

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Last month, I highlighted Jeb Bush’s passionate and relentless support for the fascist, authoritarian and unconstitutional activities of the NSA in the post, Jeb Bush Exposed Part 2 – He Thinks Unconstitutional NSA Spying is “Hugely Important.” Here’s an excerpt:

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, who is seriously considering a run for the White House in 2016, said Wednesday that the National Security Agency’s program that collects bulk telephone records was “hugely important,” throwing his support behind the practice as Congress debates whether to reauthorize or limit it.

At an event on foreign policy hosted by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, Mr. Bush, a Republican, said, “For the life of me, I don’t understand the debate” over the metadata program.

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57-Year-Old Michigan Man Beaten to a Bloody Pulp by Police Officer Known as “RoboCop” for Running a Red Light

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Dent opened his door and was dragged out of his Cadillac; almost immediately, Melendez put him in a chokehold. Melendez then proceeded to deliver 16 blows to Dent’s temple. This all took place in about 15 seconds. Another officer arrived moments later and proceeded to use a taser stun gun against Dent, three times. In the video, Dent, with blood dripping from his forehead and cheek, appears not to be resisting Melendez’s efforts to arrest him.

Melendez’s record shows he has faced similar allegations before. At one point, he garnered more citizen complaints than any officer in Detroit, where he started his career in 1993 and served until his resignation in 2009. He entered Inkster’s police force a year later.

Over nearly two decades, Melendez has been named as a defendant in a dozen federal lawsuits, accused of planting evidence, wrongfully killing unarmed civilians, falsifying police reports and conducting illegal arrests. Some suits were settled out of court. Others were dismissed.

In 1996, Melendez, who was known in Detroit as “RoboCop”, and his partner shot and killed Lou Adkins. While Adkins was on the ground, several witnesses said the officers shot him 11 times, according to the Detroit Free Press. The case was settled for $1.05m, court records show.

– From the Guardian article: How a Traffic Stop Left a Michigan Man Beaten, Bloodied and Bitter at Police

Michigan police officer William Melendez has a sordid reputation. Amongst other things, he has come to be known as “Robocop” for his shady and often violent behavior. Additionally, he was “cited as the ringleader of numerous officers indicted by a federal grand jury in 2003 on civil rights violations.”

In contrast, Detroit native Floyd Dent worked at Ford for 37-years, has no criminal record and seems to be a decent and thoughtful citizen. He just happens to be black, driving at night, and had the unfortunate experience of running into William “Robocop” Melendez on the evening of January 28, 2015.

One of these individuals should be behind bars for a very long time, and one of them shouldn’t.

From the Guardian:

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Four “Too Big to Fail/Jail” Banks Threaten to Hold Back Funds to Democrats Over Elizabeth Warren

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Having already proven that their institutions are above the law in the aftermath of the financial crisis, executives at the “Too Big to Fail and Jail” banks have decided it’s time to teach Senate Democrats a lesson. Not being content with trillions in taxpayer backed bailouts to protect and further consolidate virtually all wealth within their oligarch fiefdoms, these bankers are irate at the notion that a commoner would dare criticize their unassailable crony privilege.

However, the worst part of this story, is that while Warren is harsher than most of her completely bought and paid for colleagues, she is still pretty meek when it comes to the big bank oligopoly. In her most misguided position, she doesn’t even support an audit of the largest organized crime institution operating within these United States, the Federal Reserve. Oh and for those of you who will claim the Fed is already audited, think again. Read: The Fed Impedes GAO Audits by Destroying Source Documents.

Thus it seems even Warren’s meager push for reform is simply too much for the thin skinned bailout baby banks to handle. From The Hill:

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Accusations Emerge That the U.S. Is Aiding ISIS – The Latest “Conspiracy Theory” Circulating in Iraq

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My belief is, we will, in fact be greeted as liberators.

– Dick Cheney on NBC’s Meet the Press, March 16, 2003

But that enmity for the United States circulates beyond the militias that once fought U.S. soldiers, surfacing also in parliamentary debates and Iraqi media reports and even at the highest ranks of the national armed forces that the United States is aiding.

“Everybody knows that the Americans are dropping supplies to Daesh,” said Brig. Gen. Abed al-Maliki, a senior Iraqi army commander based in the city of Samarra, about 80 miles north of Baghdad, using another term for the Islamic State.

What’s more, he said, during some of the fiercest fighting around Samarra last year, U.S. Special Operations forces dropped behind enemy lines to assist Islamic State militants.

“They came in with parachutes, and they were helping to bomb the city,” he said.

U.S. airstrikes against the Islamic State, he contended, are probably just a cover for efforts to support the group.

“It’s just a show,” he said, sitting in the city’s army command headquarters. “If the Americans want to finish something, they will finish it. If they wanted to liberate Iraq, they could.”

– From the Washington Post article, In Fight for Tikrit, U.S. Finds Enemies on Both Sides of the Battle Lines, March 27, 2015

How do you know your foreign policy is a complete and total destructive nightmare? When the country you supposedly “liberated” not only turns into a horrific war zone, but all sides fighting accuse you of helping the enemy. This seems to be precisely what is happening in Iraq at the moment.

Just last week, I was shocked to read in the Wall Street Journal that the U.S. military was preparing to coordinate action against ISIS in Tikrit, alongside Iranian backed militias. I highlighted this in the post, Can’t Make This Up – U.S. Providing Aid in Fight Against ISIS in Iraq Alongside Iranian Troops. Here’s the key excerpt:

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Meet the Overseas Contingency Operations Account – Washington D.C.’s Crony Capitalist War Slush Fund

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Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain has called it a “gimmick,” and Democrats complain that larding up the separate war funding bill with extra spending amounts to an “abusive loophole.” Yet so far, the massive increase is likely to remain in this year’s budget.

Another major criticism of the process has been its common use to fund favored projects and other items not directly tied to the war — a trend that has steadily grown over the years as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan dragged on and the Pentagon loosened the definition of war-related spending.

From 2001 to 2014, nearly $71 billion of nonwar funding was provided through war appropriations, according to the Pentagon’s own definition, the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service reported in December.

– From the Politico article: War Budget Might be Permanent ‘Slush Fund’

Many people will read this post, and posts like it, and shrug their shoulders saying that there’s always going to be corruption. True; however, there are degrees of corruption. When empires such as the U.S. attain a certain level of corruption that reaches the point where it becomes engrained within the fabric of society, and you couple that with zero accountability for the super rich and powerful, you have the ingredients for societal collapse. We are rapidly approaching this point, and I personally don’t think there’s any way to stop it.

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Another Oligarch Preaches to the Peasants – Charlie Munger Says “Prepare for Harder World”

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While several exceptionally wealthy and successful people have admirably come out and spoken passionately of the broken nature of financial markets and the political system, as well as the threat this poses to society in general (think Paul Tudor Jones and Nick Hanauer), there have been several examples of oligarchs coming out and conversely demonstrating their complete disconnect from reality, as well as a disdain for the masses within a framework of incredible arrogance.

I’ve commented on such figures in the past, with the two most popular posts on the subject being:

A Billionaire Lectures Serfs in Davos – Claims “America’s Lifestyle Expectations are Far Too High”

An Open Letter to Sam Zell: Why Your Statements are Delusional and Dangerous

The latest example comes from Charlie Munger, Warren Buffett’s right hand man, who tends to demonstrate an incredible capacity for verbal diarrhea. Recall his commentary on gold: “gold is a great thing to sew onto your garments if you’re a Jewish family in Vienna in 1939.”  

Moving along, Mr. Munger provided some typically insensitive commentary at an event yesterday in Los Angeles. Bloomberg reports that:

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Government Report Finds DEA Agents Had “Sex Parties” With Prostitutes Hired By Drug Cartels

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Although some of the DEA agents participating in these parties denied it, the information in the case file suggested they should have known the prostitutes in attendance were paid with cartel funds. A foreign officer also alleged providing protection for the DEA agents’ weapons and property during the parties, the report said. The foreign officers further alleged that in addition to soliciting prostitutes, three DEA SSAs [special agents] in particular were provided money, expensive gifts, and weapons from drug cartel members.

* A deputy U.S. Marshal “entered into a romantic relationship” with a fugitive’s spouse and would not break off the relationship for more than a year, even after being told by supervisors to end it.

* An ATF “Director of Industry Operations” had “solicited consensual sex with anonymous partners and modified a hotel room door to facilitate sexual play.” The ATF employee even disabled a hotel’s fire detection system, and when caught by the hotel, said he had done it before.

– From the Politico article: DEA Agents Had ‘Sex Parties’ with Prostitutes, Watchdog Says

There’s no agency in government more vehemently opposed to ending the immoral and counterproductive “war on drugs” than the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). Now we know why.

From Politico:

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True Story – U.S. Military Lost Equipment from $750 Million Program, Some Ended up on eBay and Craigslist

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The Pentagon lost track of sensitive equipment from a $750 million program to help U.S. soldiers spot roadside bombs — and some of it wound up for sale on eBay, Craigslist and other websites, according to a Navy intelligence document obtained by The Intercept.

The report went on to state that “more than 32,000 pieces of equipment were issued” under the program, and the items “are NOT for civilian use and are controlled under the International Traffic in Arms Regulations.” The devices went missing because the military units had poor control over equipment distributed to them, according to the intelligence brief.

JIEDDO has been heavily criticized over the years for expending large sums of money without attaining clear results. According to a 2012 report by the Government Accountability Office, JIEDDO had spent over $18 billion yet lacked an effective way to oversee its programs.

– From the Intercept article: Sensitive Military Gear Ended Up on eBay, Craigslist

Another day, another example of the inconceivable incompetence of the U.S. government.

Just yesterday, I published a post titled, Can’t Make This Up – U.S. Providing Aid in Fight Against ISIS in Iraq Alongside Iranian Troops. Here’s an excerpt in case you missed it:

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