Day: August 20, 2014

Ferguson Cops Come Up With An Idea

The police in Ferguson, Missouri have come up with a solution to prevent situations as they are having to deal with today.  Their solution is…..wait for it……drum roll please…..cameras on officers!  Ba-Bam!

(Newser) – Ahead of a visit from Attorney General Eric Holder today, officials in Ferguson, Missouri, say they want to make big changes to law enforcement and end the “discord and heartbreak” that has followed the police shooting of unarmed teenager Michael Brown. A statement released by city leaders says it is looking at changes including requiring all police to wear cameras, hiring more African-American officers, and requiring police to live in the city, reports NBC, which notes that a petition seeking a “Mike Brown Law” to require state, county, and local police to wear cameras has now received more than 127,000 signatures.

In a St. Louis Post-Dispatch op-ed, Holder promises a full, fair, and independent investigation into the shooting. He praises the bravery of police officers who put their lives on the line, but also stresses that “good law enforcement requires forging bonds of trust between the police and the public.” Trust “requires that force be used in appropriate ways,” he writes. “Enforcement priorities and arrest patterns must not lead to disparate treatment under the law, even if such treatment is unintended. And police forces should reflect the diversity of the communities they serve.” Another person was shot and killed by police in St. Louis yesterday, but Ferguson was more subdued last night than it was the previous five nights, the AP reports. Police still made 47 arrests, but the crowds were smaller and no tear gas was fired. A grand jury will begin hearing evidence today on whether Darren Wilson, the officer who shot Brown, should be charged, reports Bloomberg.

Better late than never.  We here on IST have been discussing that for a couple of days now….I wish I could say that it was here they got the idea….but being a realist…I cannot not.

Now I ask….will this help prevent such occurrences from happening in the future?

My thought is yes….but only if there is NO kill switch that the officer can use to blackout his actions.

Thoughts?

The World’s Most Repressive Regimes Delight In U.S. Crack Down In Ferguson | ThinkProgress

After decades of preaching to the world about how to handle dissent among its citizens almost to the point of being some sort of superior authority…….the rest of the world can all gloat over the handling of the situation in Ferguson…..

Nice of Ferguson to give the authoritarian world something to talk about……right?

 

The World’s Most Repressive Regimes Delight In U.S. Crack Down In Ferguson | ThinkProgress.

Is The M-IC Taking Over?

M-IC?  Military-Industrial Complex, that multi-billion dollar business that has turned the world into one big battlefield…..all in the name of profit.  It was bad enough that they were buying politicians like cheap candy….but now they have branched out into our system of law enforcement……turning our police forces into an extension of the military……and it is not getting better…..not by a long shot!

(Newser) – Critics such as Sen. Claire McCaskill say the initial police response in Ferguson, Mo., actually made things worse because cops were equipped like soldiers of war. No wonder, write Elizabeth Beavers and Michael Shank in the New York Times. The Pentagon and Homeland Security Department are keeping police forces across the nation awash in surplus military gear and vehicles. Under something called the 1033 program enacted in 1997, the defense department has provided $4 billion worth of military equipment to law enforcement agencies over that span. Homeland Security, meanwhile, has doled out $34 billion in “terrorism grants” so police departments can armor up.

The problem? Police departments have begun sending out officers with such gear for routine operations such as drug raids or to serve search warrants, the authors write. “As Ferguson shows, this militarizing of routine police work exacerbates tensions and increases the likelihood of disorder. This, in turn, appears to justify a militarized police response, and so the cycle continues.” Solution? Kill the 1033 program and tell Homeland Security to stop those grants. “Police militarization is a growing national threat,” they write. “If the federal government doesn’t act to stop it, the future of law enforcement everywhere will look a lot like Ferguson.” Click for the full column.

Is this necessary?  Is this what all those conspiracy freaks have been warning against for decades?  How long will this go on?  What can us mere mortals do to stop this slide?

Protests have picked up……and of course the narrative the police want to spin is that it is all “outside agitators”……..there have been many “celebs” that are jumping on this bandwagon….but the one that impresses me most is that of a Holocaust survivor……..

Earlier yesterday, 90-year-old Holocaust survivor Hedy Epstein, a political activist and St. Louis resident, was one of nine protesters arrested for blocking the entrance to a building where Gov. Jay Nixon has offices. “I’ve been doing this since I was a teenager. I didn’t think I would have to do it when I was 90,” she told the Nation. “We need to stand up today so that people won’t have to do this when they’re 90.” She was among a group of more than 100 protesters calling for the arrest of the officer who shot and killed unarmed teenager Michael Brown and the removal of the National Guard from the situation.

Here is a person that has first hand knowledge of what human rights abuses look like……she is a person that needs to be heard…..but sadly she may never get her chance…..the narrative is about criminals and agitators…..not the abuse of power or the committing of abuses against humanity.

Sadly, the M-IC will win this fight…..and Ferguson will be the loser big time.

If you are interested there is a live stream on VOX………

Immigration UpDate

Today I will step back from the chaos that is the Middle East and the total breakdown of American civil society that is Ferguson, Missouri and concentrate on some issues that are being neglected by the MSM…….

A couple of years ago when immigration was the hot button issue many states started making laws that punished the immigrants for finding work…..the state next to my own, Alabama, passed a bunch of laws and some were really strict on those people that hire undocumented workers……there seem to have been a problem with this ne3w law……local farmers were up in arms and predicting that they could not bring in their crops without the hiring of immigrants……the Alabama legislature back down and passed a watered down version of the harsh law.

I bring all this up be cause there seems to be a mutiny going on among the country’s farmers….not the large stifling farms but those of the family farms…..

(Newser) – Immigration is a hot topic for many Americans—but for US farmers, especially those far from the Mexico border, it’s a problem that needs a quick solution, McClatchy reports. “Because we’re not a border state, it’s definitely harder to get people over this far from the border to work,” says the owner of South Carolina’s Titan Farms, the biggest peach grower on the East Coast. “There’s truly not enough farmworkers now, legal or illegal.” Why not? Because immigrant workers who came over years ago are getting too old to work, and younger ones are being held up by red tape, says McClatchy.

Two of the more cumbersome federal programs are for H-2A and I-9 temporary visas, which include identity and minimum-wage requirements that at least some farm owners prefer to avoid. Most Americans won’t do the jobs, farmers say, and seasonal harvesting jobs won’t wait: “When it’s time to harvest, it’s time to harvest,” says a farming rep. In a new ad produced by a farming group, a farmer talks about destroying farmland due to a labor shortage and urges Capitol Hill to pass an immigration bill, USA Today reports. But Washington lawmakers have dropped the political hot potato for now, going on August recess without a solution—and analysts expect little more leading up to November’s elections.

Like any issue in our politics….there is always two sides to the story…….and immigration is NO different.  The time has come for political lip service is done……action is needed and needed soon.

So what will it bee when the spineless pricks return to DC?  Will immigration get the attention it needs or will it just be another issue whose only function is to raise campaign funds?