Philadelphia Teachers at Caucus of Working Educators Confront White Supremacy at 4th annual conference

From [thenotebook]Some 200 teachers and other members of the Caucus of Working Educators chose to spend a pleasant fall Saturday in a 200- year-old building confronting an issue that most people tend to run away from: white privilege and white supremacy.

The fourth annual WE conference was held at the Old First Reformed United Church of Christ at 4th and Arch streets, which dates back to the 18th century.  

“We think it’s a fundamental problem in our country that causes a lot of other problems,” said Amy Roat, one of the caucus founders and a member of the steering committee. “We all live in the system of white supremacy, whoever you are, and it is unseen by most white people and it isn’t talked about and we’re not connecting white supremacy to our life experience in the classroom or in the community. So we need to explicitly do that in order to learn and grow.”

Attendees focused on how the teacher unions can orient themselves toward social justice instead of just “bread and butter” union issues such as wages and benefits. One of their main speakers was Barbara Madeloni, president of the Massachusetts Teachers Association.

"I decided to talk about what it’s like to be a white woman labor leader of a primarily white membership in a very white state that has a long history of racism, racist violence and white supremacy," Madeloni said a the end of the day. " I want to share with you both my personal reckoning with that, and what that means for me as a labor leader."

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White NJ Police Chief who Slammed Handcuffed Black Teen's Head Into a Metal Door said Black people are like ISIS & he’d like to be on the firing squad

From [WeirtonDaily] and [WashPost] A racist police chief in New Jersey slammed a handcuffed young black man’s head against a metal doorjamb and one of his officers recorded him making a series of racist comments, according to a federal indictment announced.

Frank Nucera, who retired as Bordentown Township police chief while under FBI investigation in January, was charged with civil rights and hate crime charges.

According to court documents, Nucera approached the 18-year-old from behind and slammed his head into a doorjamb while the suspect was being escorted by two officers from a hotel in September 2016.

Nucera had a history of making racist comments and used police dogs to intimidate African-Americans, including stationing them at high school basketball games to intimidate black fans, prosecutors said.

Nucera, who also served as township administrator for Bordentown ─ which is 76 percent white, and 9 percent black — retired in February, after the federal investigation began. He made $151,418 at the time, and is now receiving $8,832 a month in retirement benefits, according to state pension records. [MORE]

One of his police officers secretly recorded Nucera’s comments over the course of a year because prosecutors said he was “increasingly alarmed by (Nucera’s) racist remarks and hostility toward African Americans.” Prosecutors said that some of them “contain extremely offensive racist comments” by Nucera.

In one of the recordings outlined by prosecutors, Nucera said of African Americans that he was “tired of them” and “it’s getting to the point where I could shoot one.”

In November 2015, for example, when he was talking to a subordinate officer about an African American man he believed to have slashed the tires of a police vehicle, Nucera said, “I wish that n‑‑‑‑‑ would come back from Trenton and give me a reason to put my hands on him, I’m tired of ’em. These n‑‑‑‑‑s are like ISIS, they have no value. They should line them all up and mow ’em down. I’d like to be on the firing squad, I could do it,” according to the complaint.

Mayor Steve Benowitz, who is also a racist suspect, added a statement of his own, saying that the charges "are limited to one person and are not indicative" of the police force or township "as a whole."

The crux of the federal case focuses on the night of Sept. 1, 2016, when two Bordentown officers were called to a hotel on a complaint that a teen-aged couple ─ a boy, 18, and a girl, 16, both black ─ hadn't paid for their room and were swimming in the hotel pool. During questioning, the boy tussled with the officers, who pepper sprayed him and called for backup. Several other officers arrived, including Nucera and the unidentified officer who'd been secretly recording him, according to the complaint.

As officers arrested the boy and led him from the hotel to a patrol car in handcuffs, he stopped walking. Though he was not kicking or struggling, Nucera approached, grabbed the teen’s head and slammed it into a metal door jamb When the boy complained, Nucera hit him in the head with his arm, according to the complaint.

The officers involved described the incident to investigators, though one said he did not report it initially because he feared retaliation from Nucera. The teen initially asked to go to the hospital, complaining of a possible concussion, but ultimately changed his mind and was jailed, according to the complaint.

Speaking about the couple and the girl's aunt, who'd shown up at the scene of the arrest, Nucera went on a tirade frequently used racial slurs and profanity.

He was arrested Wednesday on charges of committing a hate crime and violating the 18-year-old suspect's civil rights by using excessive force. The charges carry a maximum of 10 years in prison.

Nucera was released on unsecured $500,000 bond and ordered to give up all of his guns and avoid contact with any potential victims or witnesses in the case ─ except his son, who is an officer on the force.

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GOP Campaign Playbook Has Only 1 Play: We Hate Niggers. “never take a knee" "leave our statues alone" 'they Kill & Rape'

GOP Motivating the Base in VA to Get the Racist Vote Out. From [ThinkProgress] George Wallace, the former Alabama governor and virulent defender of segregation, began his career as a racial moderate.

Wallace refused to join a walkout led by white supremacist “Dixiecrats” while he was a delegate to the Democratic National Convention in 1948. Referring to Wallace’s time as a state court judge, an African American attorney once described him as “the most liberal judge that I had ever practiced law in front of.” During his first bid for Alabama governor, Wallace was endorsed by the NAACP; his opponent was endorsed by the Ku Klux Klan.

It wasn’t until after the Klan’s candidate won that Wallace swore he would never be “outn*ggered” again in a political race. “I tried to talk about good roads and good schools and all these things that have been part of my career, and nobody listened,” Wallace said to a supporter who questioned the tactics that brought him to the governor’s mansion. “And then I began talking about n*ggers, and they stomped the floor.”

Last June, Virginia Republican gubernatorial candidate Ed Gillespie had a similar experience. Gillespie was supposed to be the prohibitive favorite for his party’s nomination, yet he won by barely more than one point over his race-baiting opponent Corey Stewart. After Stewart’s near-victory in the primary, Gillespie got the message loud and clear about how he needed to appeal to much of his base.

Stewart ran the kind of campaign that, until Donald Trump’s triumphant second-place finish in the U.S. presidential election, seemed more like a throwback to the age of Wallace than the sort of thing that could fly in the nation that elected Barack Obama. “No Robert E. Lee monument should come down. That man is a hero & an honorable man,” Stewart tweeted about a man who was notoriously cruel toward his slaves and who committed treason in defense of slavery. At another point, Stewart claimed that “nothing is worse than a Yankee telling a Southerner that his monuments don’t matter.” (Stewart was born in Minnesota.)

Gillespie appears to have been taking notes. One of Gillespie’s ads focuses entirely on a single issue — claiming Democratic candidate Ralph Northam “will take our statutes down, Ed Gillespie will preserve them.” His campaign flyers tap into cultural hatreds against black NFL players protesting racism in the United States — “you’d never take a knee . . . so take a stand on election day,” one reads. Many of his ads do little more than imply that, if Northam wins, you will be killed by scary-looking Latino men with tattoos.

“It feels like my campaign, doesn’t it?” Stewart commented to the Washington Post about Gillespie’s message. “I feel vindicated by it. What is it that they say? Imitation is the best form of flattery.”

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Suit: Racist Suspect Indiana Secretary of State Used Interstate Crosscheck to Purge Black, Latino & Asian Voters

Easier to Win When You Cheat. White Supremacy/racism is carried out through violence and/or tactics based on deception using various pretenses. Such as: pretending to protect your vote when they are stealing it. The GOP used Interstate Crosscheck to steal the 2016 election. 

From [IndyStar] Indiana Secretary of State Connie Lawson is once again being accused of violating federal elections laws. 

Common Cause Indiana in a federal lawsuit filed Friday calls for an injunction to be issued against Lawson, whom the political watchdog group accuses of unlawfully purging voters from state rolls. 

Specifically, Common Cause challenges the new "Interstate Voter Registration Crosscheck" system that allows election officials to immediately remove voters identified as having registered to vote in another state. The process finds a match based on first name, last name and date of birth.

Common Cause alleges that the crosscheck system contradicts the protections in the National Voter Registration Act of 1993, resulting in "nonuniform, discriminatory and illegal cancellations of Indiana voter registrations."

For example, one requirement of federal law says a state “shall not remove” a voter from its list of eligible voters due to change in residence unless the voter confirms a change in residence in writing or fails to respond to a notice sent by the state.

The ACLU of Indiana, national ACLU and voting rights group Demos are representing Common Cause in the suit filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Indiana.

Common Cause's latest action is similar to a lawsuit filed by the Indiana NAACP and League of Women Voters in August. 

The Indiana NAACP and League of Women Voters also allege that the state's crosscheck system on voter rolls violates federal law and is discriminatory. 

In noting the similarity of the separate lawsuits, Common Cause Indiana's policy director says the issue warrants increased attention.

"There seems to be a move to restrict the right to vote rather than expand it," Julia Vaughn told IndyStar.

"We are disturbed by attempts to restrict access to vote, and we feel an obligation to the voters and state to say, 'No, you have to follow federal law.'"

Named defendants in the lawsuit are Lawson, J. Bradley King and Angela M. Nussmeyer, who are co-directors of the Indiana Election Division.

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Jesse Jackson Supports Black Mayor Ushered in to Fix Flint Water Crisis, Now Facing Tuesday Recall

From [Mlive] With the Flint recall election just a few days away, supporters of Mayor Karen Weaver rallied at the New McCree Theater Sunday night to make a final push to rally their base to go to the polls on Tuesday, Nov. 7.

Among those offering their words of support for Weaver among the crowd of around 200 people was the Rev. Jesse Jackson on his latest visit to the Vehicle City.

"Our mayor has brought dignity, decency, and a high standard," he said. "We should work for her, invest in her... If we do our best on Tuesday morning, we'll celebrate on Tuesday night."

If given the chance to keep her seat at Flint City Hall, Weaver said her focus would continue to be recovering from the water crisis, as well as economic growth, public safety, and education while trying to maintain a cooperative spirit.

From [NyTimes] Weaver sailed into office two years ago promising to clean Flint’s lead-tainted water and to restore trust in government, after previous leaders brought poisoned water to the city and ignored residents when they complained. Ms. Weaver declared a state of emergency, met with the president and made the rounds on cable television, quickly becoming one of America’s most visible mayors.

But as her celebrity grew, so too did a revolt within her own City Hall. She now faces City Council members accusing her of corruption, a court battle over Flint’s long-term water source and, on Tuesday, a recall election that could snuff out her four-year term at the halfway point.

Ms. Weaver’s opponents — 17 names will appear on the ballot along with hers — dismiss her as a political amateur who has run Flint like a fief, failed to engage with the City Council and further eroded the public’s already battered faith in government. The candidate who receives the most votes on Tuesday will serve out the remainder of the term. [MORE]

Jury Decides Running From a White Anaheim Cop was No Reason to Murder Unarmed Latino Man but Discounts the Value of His Life

From [OCRegister] and [MORE] The family of a man killed by Anaheim police in a 2012 shooting that helped ignite riots in the city will receive $200,000, a federal jury determined on Friday, a day after it ruled the officer used excessive force.

The same jury that determined Officer Nick Bennallack used excessive force when he shot Manuel Diaz, 25, opted to award Diaz’s family far less than the $11 million the family’s attorney had suggested.

Outside the Santa Ana federal courthouse, Diaz’s mother, Genevieve Huizar, said she was happy the jury had found that her son was the victim of excessive force.

“It means the world to me,” Huizar said. “I was waiting a long time for this verdict. Being that they found him guilty, it relieves so much stress after the five years of going through this.”

Dale Galipo, the lead attorney representing Huizar, acknowledged that he was dissapointed in the monetary figure the jury arrived at, but described the trial as a victory for the civil rights community.

“Someone has to police the police,” Galipo said. “We respect the police. We know they have an important job. But there (has) to be some boundaries on the amount of force they can use. … We believe a verdict like this is extremely important in letting people know there will be accountability.” [there is no accountability. cops pay nothing out of pocket- taxpayers pay]. 

Galipo said what made the case “unique” was Bennallack and his partner Officer Brett Heitmann were not responding to a specific service call when they spotted Diaz standing outside a car in an alley near 700 North Anna Drive.

“They don’t see any specific criminal activity,” Galipo said.

Diaz, however, started running when he saw police. The officers shouted to him to stop, but he kept going into a courtyard, where he was gunned down before a fence.

The entire incident took about 10 seconds.

Bennallack testified he was concerned Diaz had a gun because his hands appeared to be near his waistband.

Diaz, however, started running when he saw police. The officers shouted to him to stop, but he kept going into a courtyard, where he was gunned down before a fence.

The entire incident took about 10 seconds.

Three teenage girl witnesses testified Diaz was shot twice — in the back and in the back of his head — with a pause between shots, Galipo said.

Galipo argued that the officers had to see a gun or fear there was an “imminent threat” of danger to them before opening fire and that wasn’t the case in this instance.

The officers also did not warn Diaz they would shoot if he did not stop, Galipo said. It appeared Diaz could have been surrendering when he was shot, the attorney argued.

 Video above of the immediate moments after police killed Diaz. In the video Diaz was still alive--and police stood there for over three minutes and did nothing. Instead, they seem more concerned with pushing witnesses away from the scene, the better to diminish the video quality of the footage, when they weren't actively trying to block the source from recording.

"He was shot in the back of the leg area, brought to his knees before being shot in the head ... it was an execution-style shot," said attorney Diana Lopez. "There is no evidence of any kind of weapon. ... You can see the two officers walking around looking for something instead of attending to the young man who is near to his last breath," she said referring to a bystander's video that captured the post-shooting scene

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Deadly Marburg Virus Outbreak Declared in Uganda

From [Express] and [MORE] A DEADLY outbreak of a rare and highly fatal virus has broken out in eastern Uganda and five cases have already been identified, the World Health Organisation (WHO) has confirmed.

The disease, known as Marburg virus disease (MVD), is similar to Ebola and can be lethal in up to 90 per cent of cases.

Emergency screening has begun at the Kenya-Uganda border in Turkana after three members of the same family died of the disease in Uganda.

The outbreak is thought to have started in September when a man in his 30s, who worked as a game hunter and lived near a cave with a heavy presence of bats, was admitted to a local health centre with a high fever, vomiting and diarrhoea.

He did not respond to antimalarial treatment and his condition rapidly deteriorated.

He was quickly taken to another hospital in the neighbouring district, but died shortly after arriving.

His sister, in her 50s, died shortly afterwards and a third victim passed away in the treatment unit of a local health centre.

The WHO website reads: “Marburg virus disease is a rare disease with a high mortality rate for which there is no specific treatment.

“The virus is transmitted by direct contact with the blood, body fluids and tissues of infected persons or wild animals (e.g. monkeys and fruit bats).”

Several hundred people are believed to have been exposed to the virus, which is among the most virulent pathogens known to infect humans.

Early symptoms include fever, chills, headache, and myalgia.

The news comes as Madagascar faces a deadly outbreak of plague, which has already claimed the lives of 127 people. [MORE]

Genocidal Aggression as "Self Defense": Israel Commits War Crimes in Latest Act of War on Palestinians

From [MintPress] On Monday, October 30, Israel fired five missiles at a tunnel under construction in Gazan territory east of Khan Younis. Seven Palestinians were killed and nine wounded during the attack. Israel asserts that the tunnel had reached the Israeli side of the perimeter wall it has built around Gaza, but it attacked the tunnel on the Gaza side, thus resulting in the 16 casualties. Since Israel has provided no proof that the tunnel had actually reached Israeli territory, the analysis that follows looks at either possibility.

In the first case, if the tunnel did not reach Israel, the tunnel would then be a defensive battlement. While Israeli propaganda mislabeled these structures as “terror tunnels” during its assault on Gaza in 2014, the tunnels were actually a very valuable asset for a defensive response to the Israeli invasion. During Operation Protective Edge, Israel unloaded its full arsenal of airpower, tanks, artillery and naval batteries against a defenseless population. The Palestinians had no such heavy weaponry and no effective defenses against Israel’s firepower.

The military wing of Hamas, the al-Qassam brigades, were able to use a tunnel network to evade the massive bombing and then attack Israeli troops and mechanized armor using close-in fighting. This negated Israel’s ability to massively shell Palestinian fighters. As Max Blumenthal noted, the tunnels played a large part in the Palestinians’ ability to inflict military casualties, killing 67 Israeli soldiers during Operation Protective Edge.

This would explain Israel’s interest in destroying the tunnels. Such casualties, even if relatively light in comparison to the Palestinian loss of 2,251 lives, are not acceptable to the Israeli public. Further, even after the three murderous assaults on Gaza in 2008-9, 2012 and 2014, the Israeli leadership is expected to launch still another assault going forward.

Yet there is one rather significant problem with this week’s attack. It is an act of war during a supposed ceasefire. Again, assuming the tunnel did not reach Israeli territory, the Palestinians have every right to build defensive battlements on their territory. That the tunnel may cause future Israeli casualties should there be another assault on Gaza does not justify Israel’s attack during a cease-fire.

Israel’s attack on a defensive position in anticipation of a future conflict is actually the first strike of such a conflict.  It is an offensive attack encompassing an unprovoked act of military aggression to reduce the Palestinians’ military preparedness. Therefore, Israel’s action is the launch of an offensive war, which is a war crime.

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Citing Unequal Power & Conditions, Black Civic & Faith Leaders Announce a Boycott of White Businesses in St Louis

Black Dollars Matter. From [AP] Amid ongoing protests reinvigorated by the [unjustified] acquittal of a white former police officer in the death of a black suspect, several African-American faith and civic leaders in St. Louis announced details of an economic boycott campaign Thursday as the busiest retail period of the year approaches.

The effort is targeting about a dozen businesses, including the retail chain Target, the St. Louis-based grocer Schnucks Markets, and the Galleria shopping mall in suburban St. Louis.

The Rev. Dinah Tatman, organizer of the campaign, said African-Americans are subjected to excessive force by police, criminalized for minor infractions and saddled with long sentences. She also cited economic disparities, efforts to diminish voting rights and political redistricting that has made it harder for black people to have their voices heard in elections.

The timing of the boycott is no coincidence, coming as the Christmas shopping season gets underway. Tatman said some "strategic" protests are planned outside of businesses during the holiday season, but she declined to offer details.

"As responsible leaders of our community, we can no longer sit idly by while businesses, small and large, benefit from the dollars we pour into their coffers," Tatman said at a news conference. "As Main Street America enjoys social and economic prosperity, our community continues to erode, causing intense strain on our family structure and resulting in high unemployment rates and wanton incarceration of our black men."

Schnucks said in a statement that it was "surprised and disappointed" by being included in the boycott, noting it has customers and employees "from across the demographic spectrum" and is among the few grocers who invest in urban areas of St. Louis. The company said it also helps low-income families and provides more than $13 million to food pantries each year.

Phone messages seeking comment from Target and the Galleria were not immediately returned.

St. Louis has been the site of numerous protests since Sept. 15, when a judge acquitted former police officer Jason Stockley of first-degree murder in the death of 24-year-old drug suspect Anthony Lamar Smith. The boycott effort is not part of the protest movement but is in addition to it, Tatman said.

The unrest has already had an economic impact with protests inside malls and on roads and highways, and cancellation of some events, including a U2 concert in September.

Economic disparities between blacks and whites in the region were highlighted in the aftermath of unrest in 2014 after the fatal police shooting of 18-year-old Michael Brown in the St. Louis suburb of Ferguson, Missouri. Brown was black and the officer who shot him was white.

A 2015 report by the East-West Gateway Council of Governments in St. Louis found that blacks in the region were more than three times as likely to be impoverished as whites.

The Rev. Ronald L. Bobo said the disparities are no coincidence as banks and insurance and real estate companies all practice subtle forms of discrimination.

"Our community is redlined, over and over again," Bobo said. "We need to make sure others understand they cannot take us lightly." [MORE]

In an Email to Huffington Post Papa John’s Tells Racists: Don’t buy our pizza

From [SacBee] Over the past few days, pizza has become something of a political matter.

After the CEO of Papa John’s blamed NFL player protests for poor profits this week, the pizza chain was slammed on social media by consumers and even rival pizza-makers for the quality of its pizza – the true reason for suffering sales, those critics claim.

Some took it a step or two further, calling Papa John’s founder and CEO John Schnatter a racist, with one white supremacist website naming Papa John’s the official pizza of the “alt-right,” Newsweek reported.

Papa John’s, which operates nearly 5,000 stores, is considering ending its NFL sponsorship, The Wall Street Journal and CNBC reported Friday.

Whether that ends up happening or not, Papa John’s has a message for racists: Don’t buy our pizza.

The full statement, received by The Huffington Post via email from the company’s senior director of public relations:

“We condemn racism in all forms and any and all hate groups that support it. We do not want these individuals or groups to buy our pizza.”

Meanwhile, some liberals have threatened to boycott Papa John’s and take their pie-buying business to competitor Little Caesars, whose founder Mike Ilitch reportedly paid for civil rights figure Rosa Parks’ housing for the last 11 years of her life, according to a Sports Business Daily story from 2014.

Some say the company will rebound, in image and in profits.

“People get upset and the outrage lasts for a week,” marketing professor Lakshman Krishnamurthi told The Washington Post. “These kinds of things blow over.”

Are You Free to Move? Congress Revoked Your Right to Travel w/o Due Process If You Owe the IRS $50K or More

Prison or Border Wall of Coercion. From [JDSupra] and [MORE] Under the new Section 7345 of the Internal Revenue Code coming into effect in January 2018, Congress has given the IRS the power to “certify” the names of delinquent taxpayers to the State Department for purposes of denying any open application for a passport and barring any foreign travel. Those taxpayers already on foreign travel at the time of that certification will have their passports revoked, and be issued a limited validity passport only permitting their direct return to the United States.

The IRS has not yet issued a revenue procedure, but here’s how the IRS describes the process. Once a taxpayer has a tax, penalty and/or interest balance that exceeds $50,000, and provided that the IRS had previously issued a lien or levy, the IRS can certify that taxpayer to the State Department for purposes of denying that taxpayer the right to leave the country. The State Department will wait 90 days from that certification in order for a taxpayer to either resolve any erroneous certification issues, make full payment of the tax debt, or enter into a satisfactory payment alternative with the IRS. If one of those three events does not occur in that timeframe, if that taxpayer had a pending passport application the State Department will deny it. If that taxpayer’s passport has already been issued, the State Department will revoke it. If that taxpayer was already on foreign travel, the taxpayer may be issued a “limited validity” passport only permitting his or her direct return to the United States. Once the tax issue is resolved with the IRS, the IRS will reverse the certification within 30 days and notify the State Department as soon as practicable. If the taxpayer files for judicial review of the certification in federal district court or Tax Court, the relevant court may only determine if the certification was erroneous or if the IRS failed to timely reverse the certification.

It is important to note that Section 7345 imposes a very significant, radical, and concerning change in U.S. tax collection enforcement measures, because it sidesteps two centuries of established law and constitutional procedure governing this exact area. During the last 200 years of U.S. legal history, the doctrine of ne exeat republica has been (and to this day continues to be) a method by which claimants including the federal government could prevent a debtor from leaving the United States, by obtaining what is called a writ of ne exeat republica. See, e.g., McKenzie et al v. Cowing, 4 Cranch CC 479 (1834). (Ne exeat republica may be loosely translated to “he shall not depart the country.) Section 7402 of the Internal Revenue Code expressly provides that federal district courts may issue such writs in tax cases, and for many years that specific provision was used to bar taxpayers from leaving the country.

Under that long established law, a debtor was required to be given sufficient due process in a federal district court before such writ could be granted. See, e.g., Kent v. Dulles, 357 U.S. 116, 126 (1958) (in which our Supreme Court noted that such right to process has existed as far back in written history as the Magna Carta, and was deeply engrained in the writing of our own Constitution). The historical procedure has always been that the claiming party first had to convince a federal district court judge that such remedy was necessary and appropriate under the circumstances, by establishing that the debtor planned to quickly depart the United States, that the debtor owes a specific amount that the debtor could pay, and that the debtor has sufficient foreign assets but insufficient domestic assets to pay the claim. See, e.g., United States v. Clough, No. C-73-2105-SW, 1977 WL 1196, at *3 (N.D. Cal. May 20, 1977). Each time, the federal district court balanced the request against the required showing, and the lineage of case decisions over the years show that the claimants (including the IRS) have won some efforts, and lost others. But importantly, in the last 200 years of such litigation, the burden has always been upon the claimant--and such burden of proof--has always been high, because in this land of the free and the home of the brave, the right to freely travel abroad is treated by our Supreme Court as a fundamental constitutional right. See Aptheker v. Secretary of State, 378 U.S. 500, 517 (1964) (finding that “freedom of travel is a constitutional liberty closely related to rights of free speech and association”).

But no more. With Section 7345, Congress has side stepped that constitutional right. Without having to prove to a federal district court that a taxpayer plans to quickly depart the United States, that the taxpayer owes a specific amount that the debtor could pay, and that the taxpayer has sufficient foreign assets but insufficient domestic assets to pay the claim, Section 7345 gives the IRS the power to certify a taxpayer to the State Department and bar a taxpayer’s foreign travel only for the reason that the taxpayer’s total tax, penalty and interest exceeds $50,000, so long as a federal tax lien or levy had previously been issued. (Graciously, in calculating that amount the IRS does not count that portion of tax that may have already been paid under an installment agreement, an offer in compromise, or a settlement agreement with the Department of Justice, or during the pendency of a Section 6330 collections due process hearing, or where an application for innocent spouse relief had been requested as to those taxes.) Further troubling is that the scope of the judicial review provided under Section 7345(e) stays within Section 7345, and never considers the burden requirements long required for this exact same taking under Section 7402. Under the Section 7345 judicial review, the reviewing court may only consider whether the taxpayer’s total tax, penalty and interest exceeds $50,000, whether a federal tax lien or levy had previously been issued, and if the matter is the timeliness of decertification, whether that had been timely done.

The IRS may argue that a taxpayer still has an equivalent amount of procedure. Don’t believe it. In short, the IRS no longer has to roll the dice before a federal district court judge. The IRS never has to meet the Section 7402 burden, and the court never is allowed to consider those factors. Congress has instead reduced the three-part test of Section 7402 to effectively just a one-part test under Section 7345: does the taxpayer owe more than $50,000? In doing so, it is evident that Congress designed Section 7345 as nothing more than an inward-facing wall of governmental coercion to pay what the Government claims is due. That taking of a taxpayer’s fundamental right to travel under Section 7345 is constitutionally suspect because it does not require the balancing required under its parallel Section 7402, prior to the government’s taking of that right.

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Gov Officials Hiding the Number of Deaths & Slow With Info On Severity Of Disease in Puerto Rico

From [BusinessInsider] Puerto Rico's government has given funeral homes and crematoriums permission to burn the bodies of potential hurricane victims in an effort streamline the costs and logistics of burying the dead. Many of these funeral homes, however, have been left in the dark.

While the government says funeral directors should send potential hurricane-related victims to the Institute of Forensic Sciences to be examined before being cremated, that is apparently not being properly communicated. As a result, funeral homes and crematoriums could be receiving dozens of hurricane victims without even realizing it and without counting them in the storm's official death toll.

Disaster experts told Buzzfeed News that "this lack of a transparent and consistent approach to counting deaths means the toll is likely inaccurate." [MORE]

From [KTLA] San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulín Cruz said Friday the death toll from hurricanes that hit Puerto Rico is actually hundreds higher than official government counts.

“It appears that for whatever reason the death toll is much higher than what has been reported,” Yulín Cruz said during an interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper on “The Lead.”

The official death toll stands at 55, according to a statement released to CNN by the government of Puerto Rico, but the number of dead may be almost as high as 500, Yulín Cruz said when asked specifically about the death count.

Many hurricane victims haven’t been included in that number due to their causes of death not being properly recorded or “being cataloged as dying of natural deaths,” Yulín Cruz said.

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Moronic Trump Falsely Claims US Hitting ISIS ‘Harder’ After NYC Attack

From [Anitwar] Declaring the New York truck attacker “an animal,” President Trump declared the US to be hitting ISIS “10 times harder” after the Tuesday terror attack, saying the US is getting revenge for the attacks and “we hit them like you folks won’t believe.”

The claims are in keeping with President Trump’s eagerness to present military force and increased aggression as the go-to solution to terrorism. His assertion, however, is simply untrue, with Pentagon data showing no change in the execution of the wars.

Indeed, Pentagon officials appeared surprised at Trump’s claims when pressed for evidence, offering a very content-light statement about how the US always hits terrorists hard wherever they find them. Trump’s spur-of-the-moment declaration, however, appears to have given them no time to manufacture anything giving even the appearance of an increase in strikes.

Trump’s off-the-cuff claims have tended to leave US agencies scrambling to try to explain things that are plainly false, but the 10 times harder claim was patently absurd, as it would rest on the assumption that the US could even conceivably increase their attacks tenfold on a moment’s notice.

Pentagon Prosecutor Says No More News Conferences/Briefing Reporters at Guantánamo, a prison only for non-whites

From [MiamiHerald] The Pentagon’s chief war crimes prosecutor, who for six years has been the most public booster of the military commissions, has decided to abandon a years long practice of briefing reporters and holding news conferences.

“This is a principled decision based on the law and the posture of these cases,” prosecutor Brig. Gen. Mark Martins said Sunday night. “And it’s the right time.”

More restrictions may be to come. In a 2014 court filing in the Sept. 11 terror attacks case, prosecutors suggested to the judge, Army Col. James L. Pohl, that he may want to impose a gag order on all lawyers in the high-profile tribunal.

They argued that lawyers offering commentary or other information outside of court could prejudice the possibility of “a fair trial by impartial members” — a jury of U.S. military officers, yet to be chosen — in the death-penalty case against accused plot mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed and four other alleged accomplices. No trial date has been set.

Pentagon spokesman Maj. Ben Sakrisson described Martins’ decision as part of an overall rethinking of public affairs strategy by the overseer of the war court, Convening Authority Harvey Rishikof. Throughout the Obama administration, the Pentagon regularly staged news conferences that gave the prosecutor, defense attorneys and families of terror victims a podium at the close of war court hearings.

Now, according to Sakrisson, “this is just the prosecution stepping away from engaging with the media directly. I wouldn’t characterize this change as extending to the defense teams.”

Family members and victims of terror attacks — chosen by Pentagon lottery and brought to the base as guests of the prosecution — will still be permitted to talk to reporters if they want, he said. “Going forward I expect there will be press conferences of some manner. But the final forum of participants is still under discussion.”

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Oversight Board Report on DC Police Cameras Contradicts Earlier Report - Unaccountable Cops Turning Cameras Off

Why Did DC Cop Cover his Body Cam Lens After Shooting Gerald Hall to Death? At about 1:23 cop covers the lens.[MORE]

From [TechDirt] Less than a month after a first report was delivered on Washington, DC police body camera use, a second one has arrived. And it seems to contradict some assertions made in the first report.

The first report was put together by an extension of DC's government called the Lab@DC. It showed body camera use doing almost nothing to curtail use of force by officers. This seemed to undercut the notion body cameras can be a tool of accountability. But they never will be -- not if the agencies using them remain uninterested in punishing officers for misconduct.

The Lab@DC report stated officers -- more than 2,000 of them -- weren't observed repeatedly or intentionally violating body camera activation policies.

Other researchers have suggested that BWCs may fail to affect outcomes because of nonadherence: officers, for a variety of reasons, may not use their assigned cameras according to departmental policy. They may fail to turn on the camera, for example. We have no indication that non-adherence was a widespread problem in this study. For 98% of the days in 2016, MPD averaged at least one video (and often many more) per call for service associated with a treatment officer. Further, even for the 2% of days in 2016 in which the number of videos uploaded was less than the number of incidents for which we would expect them, the difference is minimal, with 96% average adherence based on our measure.

The latest report, however, comes to the opposite conclusion. This one [PDF], put together by DC's police oversight board, shows plenty of nonadherence. (via FourthAmendment.com)

More than a third of cases investigated by a D.C. police oversight board after complaints were made about officers’ conduct this past year involved officers who did not properly use their body-worn cameras during those incidents, according to a report made public Tuesday.

Some officers turned the cameras on too late, others too early, the report from the Office of Police Complaints found. In 13 percent of the cases, at least one officer at a crime scene or incident failed to turn on the camera, though colleagues did.

Bodycam footage dissapeared of fatal police-involved shooting of Terrence Sterling? Homeland security footage also not available?

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