Minn Court To Decide Whether White Cops Can Beat & Threaten to Kill Laotian Motorists Immediately After Traffic Stops

From [TheGlobe] The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Minnesota filed a lawsuit Wednesday against the Worthington Police Department, Buffalo Ridge Drug Task Force and city of Worthington, along with individual officers involved in a July 2016 traffic stop in which Worthington resident Anthony Promvongsa was allegedly assaulted by Task Force Agent Joe Joswiak while WPD Officer Tim Gaul stood by. 

The suit alleges the city and its police department did not enforce their excessive force policies, did not properly document incidents of force, did not properly investigate allegations of excessive force and generally engaged "in a policy, pattern of practice, or custom of failing to reprimand or discipline any officer for excessive force."

Worthington Mayor Mike Kuhle responded Wednesday to those allegations.

"We have commissioned an independent investigation and report and it is due in the next two weeks," he said. "I think it’s very unfortunate that the ACLU has chosen to file a lawsuit ahead of the city being able to review the independent investigation and giving the city a chance to respond to that report.

"The city of Worthington and the police department does have a use of force policy and it is taken seriously," Kuhle added.

The incident was recorded by Joswiak's dashcam. Footage, which depicts Joswiak pulling a gun on Promvongsa before punching and kneeing him, was obtained by the ACLU and released in June. Before even greeting the man the video shows the white cop opening the door of the car. The cop then yells “Get the fuck out of the car, motherfucker!”. Before Anthony can comply within a second the cop punches and knees him repeatedly before another officer assists in pulling him out of the car, putting him face down on the road and handcuffing him.

According the ACLU, the white cop initially claimed Anthony refused his order to leave his car, but the video contradicts this assertion. "Instead it shows a textbook case of excessive force.” [MORE]

In August, Promvongsa pleaded guilty to fifth-degree assault with intent to cause fear in August, admitting he drove recklessly by driving in close proximity to a police officer. That officer, according to a police report, called dispatch to report the reckless driving. That's when Joswiak began looking for Promvongsa, and eventually pulled him over.

ACLU Attorney Ian Bratlie said Joswiak and Gaul weren't involved with the original incident, as charges that Promvongsa swerved his car at Joswiak were dropped during his plea agreement. 

"Regardless, if you're alleging the police can beat up anybody for traffic violations, you're nuts," Bratlie said. "People should not be attacked for traffic violations, and there's certainly no reason for anybody to think the police had any authority to do what they did — they didn't. There's no justifying Officer Joswiak's actions."

Bratlie said Gaul had been charged on prior occasions with excessive force. Based on conversations with officials and community members, Bratlie added, Joswiak's history of excessive force "wasn't exactly a secret."

Richest 1% [all racist suspects] Own Half the World's Wealth, Study Finds

[Racist Suspect - any non-white person who is capable of practicing racism against non-whites.] From [theGuardian] The globe’s richest 1% own half the world’s wealth, according to a new report highlighting the growing gap between the super-rich and everyone else.

The world’s richest people have seen their share of the globe’s total wealth increase from 42.5% at the height of the 2008 financial crisis to 50.1% in 2017, or $140tn (£106tn), according to Credit Suisse’s global wealth report published on Tuesday.

“The share of the top 1% has been on an upward path ever since [the crisis], passing the 2000 level in 2013 and achieving new peaks every year thereafter,” the annual report said. The bank said “global wealth inequality has certainly been high and rising in the post-crisis period”.

The increase in wealth among the already very rich led to the creation of 2.3 million new dollar millionaires over the past year, taking the total to 36 million. “The number of millionaires, which fell in 2008, recovered fast after the financial crisis, and is now nearly three times the 2000 figure,” Credit Suisse said.

These millionaires – who account for 0.7% of the world’s adult population – control 46% of total global wealth that now stands at $280tn.

At the other end of the spectrum, the world’s 3.5 billion poorest adults each have assets of less than $10,000 (£7,600). Collectively these people, who account for 70% of the world’s working age population, account for just 2.7% of global wealth.

The report said the poor are mostly found in developing countries, with more than 90% of adults in India and Africa having less than $10,000. “In some low-income countries in Africa, the percentage of the population in this wealth group is close to 100%,” the report said. “For many residents of low-income countries, life membership of the base tier is the norm rather than the exception.”

Meanwhile at the top of what Credit Suisse calls the “global wealth pyramid”, the 36 million people with at least $1m of wealth are collectively worth $128.7tn. More than two-fifths of the world’s millionaires live in the US, followed by Japan with 7% and the UK with 6%.

However, the collapse in the value of the pound since the Brexit vote meant the total number of dollar millionaires in the UK fell by 34,000 to 2.19 million. Just over half of the UK’s 51 million adults have wealth in excess of $100,000. The mean average wealth of a UK adult is $278,038, but the median is $102,641. [MORE]

Analyst Says a Surge of Black Voting Can Propel Dems to Big Wins Nationwide [But When Will They Listen to Us?]

Do Dems Take Any Risks to Show Black Lives Matter? [In photo HRC with cops]. From [Slate] After the Virginia election last week, Jamelle Bouie, a Black political analyst at Slate provides an analysis on "how black voters can propel Democrats to big wins across the country." He states that Democratic strategists have primarily analyzed the VA results by focusing on once Republican-friendly suburbs in VA. He states "while dissecting Democratic performance in those areas, one shouldn’t forget the other key component of Northam’s win—high turnout and strong support among voters of color, and black voters, in particular.

Segregation and gerrymandering have packed many black voters in uncompetitive districts. But they still play an important part in statewide races across the country, providing critical margins in tightly contested states like Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin. A Democratic Party that can replicate Virginia’s black turnout in other, demographically similar states is one with a stronger shot at capturing lost gains."

Bouie explains that Black turnout was high and the Black electorate voted for Northam do almost 9 to 1. He also believes that there is a "surge of black voting" up from previous years and they are an important part of a growing number of persons voting. He believes that these results can be successfully replicated in the states mentioned above. 

To explain the Black surge he says, "black voters were already somewhat mobilized, thanks to Donald Trump and recent events in the state. In an August poll commissioned by BlackPAC, a progressive political action committee, 54 percent of black Virginians said they felt their communities were under assault, voicing high levels of racial anxiety in the wake of the white nationalist attacks in Charlottesville." 

And so now what will Northam do about Blacks' "racial anxiety"? And if his success with "the Black surge" can be duplicated elsewhere then what will other victorious Dems do for Blacks? Its good to the ego to feel necessary to their success but what actual, positive, tangible gains will result from such victories?  

Thus far, Black and friendly White Democract politicians have shown no interest in developing a program for the economic emancipation and empowerment of the Black community and shown no committment to neutralizing Racism/White supremacy and all the problems RSW causes such as; poor public schools, poverty, economic inequality, unemployment, drug addiction, infant mortality, AIDS, chronic welfare dependency, lack of affordable housing, homelessness, unequal administration of justice, police brutality, jim crow like incarceration, voter suppression and disenfranchisement and much more. [MORE] 

Mr. Bouie's skilled analysis is self-deception resulting from a false consciousness or other directed programming or psyops created by elite racists. Remember, we are educated to help solve their [whites] problems - not our own. And right now Dems have an election problem. "Anxiety" is the primary motivation for Blacks like gasoline to a car in the system of racism/white supremacy. Dr. Wilson explains, "[anxiety] is the master's whip" or remote control used to push our buttons which activate the programming they have indoctrinated us with. Wilson explains that it is our

"collective self-deception, which is the benchmark of oppressed Black consciousness, is the main product of White-Black social power relations, motivated by anxiety and ignorance, founded on the denial and distortion of reality. Such a consciousness and its produced behaviors require that Blacks operate against their own best interests in the interests of their White oppressors; that they be self-denying, self-defeating, and oftentimes self-destroying, while convincing themselves that the opposite is true.' 

Above HRC gives Mary J the 411 on Black Lives Matter and other somnambulistic hypnosis [MORE] and [MORE]

History has shown us that it is pure mythology that there is some so-called "representative democracy" at play here that we actually particpate in. A form of government that responds to what the Black votary actually wants and needs does not exist and never has."

For greater understanding Dr. Blynd explains in FUNKTIONARY:

democracy - a commercial form of "government" (exploitation and theft via force, deception and involuntary participation) of the mob, by the mob, and/or the mob, i.e., Mob-Rule. 2) a guise rubber stamping of an alternative royalty into overruling power. 3) the worst possible form of government because the majority rules whether they be good, evil, or misled by a minority. 4) slavery of the people, by the people, for the people. 5) equality achieved through force. 6) a system where only the majority need to befooled. 7) advertised equality. 8) a parody of a free society that only ethical anarchism or voluntaryism can usher into existence.

"Democracy has always been seen (and is still seen today) as equality of rights (granted privileges), not conditions. To the hypothetical equality of rights there has always corresponded a substantial inequality of conditions. And instead of being related to the nature of their individuality, differences between people have always been those marked by the different basic conditions they live in as they struggle against the suffocating artificial divisions imposed on them by power." —Alfred M. Bonanno. Democracy is a euphonious term created mainly to serve as sheepskin for Leviathan, Doggy and the Crimethlnc. All-Stars. 9) Dictatorship camouflaged as freedom 10) a whitewashed plutocracy with a pastel eggshell finish. Democracy, next to "monetized debt," and direct taxation (on labor) is the biggest con-game perpetrated on a population. Democracy has proved only that the best way to gain and sustain power over people is to assure the people that they are ruling themselves. Once they believe that lie, they make wonderfully submissive and self-maintained slaves.

"There are those who maintain that at bottom what is called democracy, (whenever and wherever it is supposed to have existed), is merely the mask for the rule of capitalist and/or bureaucratic minorities over an ignorant and deceived majority whose franchise signifies only the right to choose or tc change its masters." -Max Nomad. As long as mob rule is allowed through secret ballots, operational and organizational transparency will evade us and vice (vested interests controlling economies) will continue to forsake us and break us. Democracy is a powerful synthetic ideology of recuperation. Democracy goes against the emancipation of desire. Democracy allows for A to band together with B (majority rule) to rip off C. Democracy and citizenship are the chains that filter your pursuit of happiness and the happiness in your pursuit. Democracy in America has been checked and balanced, or gone unchecked and unbalanced—depending on one's indoctrination—to the point (extent) of collapse. Only the improper is left to prop it up aright as if it were still standing on its own ideological efficacy and edifice. "Democracy (the political ideal) is just a dream, it has not happened anywhere, it cannot happen. And wherever it happens (in practice), it creates trouble, the medicine proves more dangerous than the disease itself." -OSHO. "If the people of a democracy are allowed to do so, they will vote away freedoms that are essential to that democracy." -Snell Putney. As H.L. Mencken so aptly observed, "Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want and deserve to get it good and hard." In a democracy, scum rises to the top; otherwise it starts there. Democracy is a specific instance of stationary rogue State power. Under the rubric of democracy, justice can be attained only by begging, buying, milking and taking.  

Click to read more ...

Racists in GOP Purposefully Undermining & Underfunding US Census to Undercount Growing Black & Latino Populations

GOP is Destroying the Illusion of Representative Democracy. The Census is being purposefully underfunded to undercount Black, Latino and Asian populations which are expanding and growing rapidly. The white population is declining. 

Demographic data collected by the Census Bureau are used to distribute more than $600 billion a year in federal funds and to determine how many seats in Congress each state gets. But there are worries that the 2020 Census will produce a less accurate count than in decades past.

Underfunding already has forced the bureau to delay an advertising campaign and cancel some field tests. Any scaling back of outreach efforts could impact how immigrants, communities of color and rural communities are counted, census watchers say.

The results of the U.S. census are far more important than most Americans realize. Census data are the starting point for redistricting and reapportionment – adding and removing House districts from states as population changes dictate – not to mention the distribution of billions of dollars in federal funding. Housing assistance, highway maintenance and Medicare/Medicaid are just three examples of programs that distribute federal dollars to states in the form of grants based on census results. Undercounting populations guarantees that over the next decade, states will be strapped for funding in these areas.

"This would lead to a result that deprives population groups of equal political representation and access to their fair share of public and private resources," wrote Vanita Gupta — a former Obama administration official who now heads The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights — in statement submitted to the House committee.

And that is likely to happen if Republicans in Congress get their way. Under cover of the non-stop Trump circus, they are quietly working behind the scenes to ensure that the 2020 census fails – and fails to their advantage.

This time around, the GOP controls the White House and have House and Senate majorities pending the 2018 midterm elections. The Trump administration and Congress are working to ensure that the Census Bureau is required to do its work the old-fashioned way – counting heads door-to-door, using mail-and-return forms or asking households to respond to an online survey – while simultaneously depriving the bureau of the fundingnecessary to do so effectively.

If they get their way, and a cash-starved Census Bureau is prevented from supplementing its direct counting methods with the latest technology, the predictable result will be a census based largely on mail-and-return paper forms and voluntary online responses. As we saw in late-20th-century censuses, there will be a serious undercount – one that particularly underrepresents African-Americans and Hispanics.

This can happen because the Census Bureau is now led by Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, a Trump crony and former leveraged buyout specialist who infamously struck a deal with Trump Taj Mahal investorsallowing Trump to retain control after bankrupting the casino in the early Nineties. The Census Bureau has been without a director since 27-year bureau veteran John Thompson resigned in May over the politically motivated defunding of his department. As with most vacancies under Trump, no replacement has been appointed. An interim director was quietly named in late June, suggesting that the position will remain unfilled.

And it gets worse. Few Americans, even in Congress, realize that the census is a count of population, not of citizens. Every man, woman and child in a given area is counted, whether U.S. citizen, legal resident or undocumented immigrant. Trump-era Immigration and Customs Enforcement crackdowns, though largely fruitless, are highly likely to have a major chilling effect on non-citizens, regardless of legal status. Even under ideal conditions for the Census Bureau, the fear generated by aggressive and well-publicized ICE raids are expected to suppress the counts of Hispanics, immigrant communities and non-U.S. citizens.

Click to read more ...

Like Cologne, Rules & Codes Don't Change Your Interiority & Actually Prevent You From Responding to Racism

Acting like you are unmoved by racism/white supremacy is acting and suppression - not transformation. The map is not the territory. 

Like the "Sphinx", Janet Jackson's Nose is Collapsing [Her-em-akhet was also perfect before the white man came]

Janet Jackson is back on the scene and in control but is she D'Void of Funk now? The real name of the Egyptian [Kemet] Sphinx is Her-em-akhet. The nose and lips on the statue were allegedly destroyed by racist suspect Napoleon Bonaparte sometime between 1798-1801 in order to conceal the African identity and physical features of Her-em-akhet. [MORE] History as propaganda to maintain European power & domination. [MORE] 

AG Sessions Says He has No Blacks on Senior Staff & Unsure Who Authorized Report on “Black Identity Extremists"

From [ThinkProgress] During a hearing on Capitol Hill Tuesday, Attorney General Jeff Sessions struggled to answer basic questions about race, diversity, and a report authored by the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Counterterrorism Division on so-called “black identity extremists.”

“Who had the power in your department to order [something] like this?” Rep. Karen Bass (D-CA) asked Sessions, referring to the FBI’s report, which was released in August and was titled, “Black Identity Extremists Likely Motivated to Target Law Enforcement.” The report was initially met with heavy criticism from groups like the Congressional Black Caucus, Black Lives Matter, and the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), who felt it unjustly targeted black citizens and was reminiscent of the FBI’s COINTELPRO operation in the 1950s and ’60s, which targeted civil rights leaders like Martin Luther King Jr.

“I’m not sure how that report got ordered,” Sessions said, stumbling over his words. “I don’t believe I explicitly approved or directed it.”

Pushed on whether he himself believed there was a larger “black identity extremist” movement brewing, Sessions responded, “I would be anxious to see the conclusions of that report, but I am aware that there are groups that do have an extraordinary commitment to their racial identity and some have transformed themselves even into violent activists.”

Things snowballed from there. After highlighting white “extremist” organizations like neo-Nazi groups, the Ku Klux Klan (KKK), and the sovereign citizens movement — which believes in following the law on its own selective terms and has violently targeted and killed police officers —  Bass then asked Sessions whether he believed the activist Black Lives Matter group should still be categorized by the FBI as “extremist” as well.

Sessions replied, “I’m not able to comment on that. I have not so declared it.” He added that he would review the FBI’s report following the hearing, stating that “they usually do an excellent job, objective and fair, on those kinds of reports.”

Sessions was also pressed Tuesday on the Trump administration’s judicial nominees, 91 percent of whom are white, and 81 percent of whom are male.

“Does that foster diversity?” Rep. Cedric Richmond (D-LA) asked. 

Click to read more ...

Racist Suspects at Dept of Justice [Racism] Order Attorneys To Stop Giving Legal Advice to Non-White Immigrants

From [WBUR] A group of Seattle immigration lawyers are fighting a cease and desist notice from the U.S. Justice Department. The DOJ told them to stop giving legal advice to immigrants unless they intend to offer them full representation in court. The attorneys say the order could cut off help for thousands of immigrants across the country. For now a federal judge has blocked the DOJ order, but the case is still in court. [Listen Here]

Cop to Latino Teen: "Confess or They’ll Fucking Give You the Needle” - White DA's Use False, Coerced Confessions to Produce Injustice

The threats made to Djurdjulov are not uncommon even though the U.S. Supreme Court has consistently said that coercive interrogations may violate the constitutional rights of suspects and preclude their “involuntary” statements from being introduced at trial. The nation’s judges have consistently allowed the police to undertake aggressive questioning of suspects, to exercise the “craftship” of deception and intimidation of the sort made famous in countless movies and television shows where the suspect “breaks” during police interrogation.

And they have done so by narrowing the definition of what constitutes police coercion. So the police during questioning can lie and falsely tell a suspect that his friend (and co-defendant) has confessed to the crime, incriminating both of them. The cops can lie and falsely tell a suspect that his fingerprints or his DNA were recovered from the scene of the crime. They can even lie and falsely tell a suspect that they have satellite images that incriminate him. No court has ever held, as far I can tell, that police have a duty to tell a suspect the truth about the evidence they may or may not have against him.

But many courts have identified legal distinctions between police lies about facts — i.e. “your buddy just ratted you out” — and police lies about legal rights. So the police are not supposed to tell a suspect during interrogation that any incriminating statement he says won’t be used against him. Or that what he says will determine the nature and degree of the charges. A cop cannot promise to get a suspect a reduced charge or sentence, decisions that are not in police hands. If it seems murky, it is. Like so much else about criminal law and the Constitution the courts generally resolve these cases based on the intricate facts they present.

Nor have the courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court, come up with a bright-line test for how long an interrogation may go before it is considered unduly “coercive” under the Constitution. In the Djurdjulov case, the interrogation surely would have been ruled unlawful had the police not permitted the 18-year-old suspect to sleep, or eat, or go to the bathroom. And it surely would have been unconstitutional had he been physically assaulted or threatened with physical injury. Not only did this not happen but video of the interrogation proved it did not happen. While jurors did not see the video — they were shown only a transcript of the interrogation — the appellate judges who just upheld the interrogation did.

But none of this means that Djurdjulov wasn’t coerced into the series of stories he ultimately told the police. When the young man’s interrogator threatened him with the death penalty — “fucking give you the needle” is how the cop put it — surely that cop knew or should have known that threat was hollow. The folks at the Exoneration Registry, who help track false confession cases, say they have counted at least 27 false confession cases across the country where suspects were threatened with the imposition of the death penalty.

In at least five of the cases tracked by the Registry the suspect was a juvenile at the time of the alleged murder. But in only one of those cases, like the Djurdjulov case, was the threat made after the U.S. Supreme Court outlawed the execution of juvenile killers in March 2005 in a decision styled Roper v. Simmons. The Supreme Court has yet to hear a case in which these sorts of police threats, made to teenagers already susceptible to false confessions, helped convict a suspect of murder.

Click to read more ...

Ct Appointed Atty to Black Man: "you better take the plea"- Gets 27 Yrs in Prison for Hitting Teen w/Fly Swatter

What was the "Bargain" of the Plea ? From [USAToday] A Wichita Falls man was given a lengthy prison sentence for using "excessive" force on a disabled 13-year-old boy, who suffered a severe brain injury, in 2006.

Maurice Duane Jackson, 45, accepted a plea deal as his trial was scheduled to begin on one count of injury to a child. He was given 27 years in prison with 393 days credit, per the agreement.

He also pleaded true to three enhancement paragraphs for prior felony convictions, raising his punishment range from 2-10 years to 25-99 years, or life, in prison.

According to court documents:

A woman met with officers at the Wichita Falls Police Department on Oct. 17, 2016, about Jackson's treatment of a 13-year-old child, who can only communicate by using various sounds and signals after having suffered a "severe brain injury" in a car accident in 2006.

She told officers the child can understand what he's told to do and is capable of doing some things for himself, so he has been punished for misbehaving.

The woman said she heard sounds of the child getting hit and screaming the night before she made the report after the child ignored what she asked him to do.

She told police Jackson used a thick, plastic flyswatter to hit the child, causing numerous bruises that appeared to be lashes across his back.

Two other witnesses to the incident described a similar incident to officers and said they noticed "really bad" marks across the child's back, including bruises, welt marks and swelling. One described the marks as being "reddish purple, similar to whip marks."

Click to read more ...

Texas "Recouped" or Shook Down $11 Million from Poor Defendants Who Thought they had a Free Court Appointed Atty

From [TexasTrib] After Kelly Unterburger and his girlfriend were pulled over for speeding in 2011, a state trooper searched the car and found what was described in court documents as a bag dusted with white powder. Unterburger was arrested for possessing less than a gram of a controlled substance and brought before a North Texas court.

The U.S. Constitution says people too poor to afford a lawyer should be appointed one paid for by taxpayers. And Unterburger — who said he was wrongly accused — was told he would be. So he was surprised when, years later, a bill arrived saying he owed thousands of dollars in attorneys' fees.

“If I’d known they were going to charge me,” he said, “I would have spent more time screening lawyers.”

In Texas and across the country, defendants are sometimes asked to repay part or all of the costs of their court-appointed lawyer through a practice called recoupment. Texas counties recouped more than $11 million from poor defendants in 2016, 4.5 percent of the total amount spent on indigent defense statewide.

Critics argue the practice can seem “untoward, to say you’re given this [constitutional] right but we’re going to charge you for it,” said Beth Colgan, a professor at the University of California at Los Angeles School of Law. But proponents say it’s sound public policy and a way to tamp down on a ceiling-less mandate borne largely by local taxpayers. 

Since 2001, when Texas drastically revamped its public defense system, the costs of assigning lawyers to poor defendants has skyrocketed, from $91.4 million to nearly $248 million in 2016. County coffers have paid the most. Last year, the state allotted around $32 million to indigent defense; counties together paid $216 million, 87 percent of the overall amount.  

“Small, economically disadvantaged rural counties like Hill County, we have limited budgets, and we spend a significant amount of money on indigent defense,” said David Holmes, the county attorney there. It "is just and right to ask that if you offend the laws of the state or victimize citizens of this county – and the taxpayers of the county provide you with a lawyer that you don't have to pay for up front – if you at some point have the ability to do that, you ought to do it." 

Depending on the court, defendants in Texas can be deemed indigent if their income is less than $49,200 for a family of four.

Some defendants are told at the outset of their case that they may be liable for their court-appointed lawyers' costs. But Unterburger says he wasn’t. He says he didn’t know what seemed like the guarantee of a free lawyer could be rescinded. And he was especially shocked when the bill came in 2014, and it said he owed nearly $10,000. 

Click to read more ...

The Senate Tax Bill is a Handout by White Puppeticians for Wealthy Elite Whites

From [ThinkProgress] Republicans in the Senate were determined to a write a tax plan that, unlike the House’s proposal, would be less of a handout to some of the wealthiest Americans. Unfortunately, it seems the new plan still benefits them significantly.

Both bills center around a huge corporate tax cut that Republicans hope will allow freed-up cash to trickle-down to the middle-class in the form of higher wages and more jobs. Analyses of the House tax plan finds that it falls far short of that goal, and the Senate bill doesn’t hold up any better under scrutiny.

Under the 373-page Senate plan — which Republicans dropped just before the long holiday weekend — the corporate tax rate would be lowered from 35 percent to 20, but unlike the House plan, that change wouldn’t phase in until 2019. This one-year delay would save the U.S. Treasury about $108 billion, which is crucial, given that the corporate tax cut is the single-most expensive change to the U.S. tax code, reducing the federal revenue by $1.46 trillion over the next decade.

The trade-off for these corporate tax cuts, however, is so small that even delaying their implementation wouldn’t make much of a difference in the long-run. Many corporations already pay a lower effective tax, with some paying no U.S. taxes at all. The effective corporate tax rate, after credits and deductions, is closer to 19 percent, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

For those companies to whom the 20 percent rate would apply then, the extra money would likely end up back in the pockets of the shareholders, and would not, as Republicans argue, translate to increased job opportunities and higher wages for workers (even the economist who helped create the policy doesn’t even believe that).

Click to read more ...

White Rocklin Cop Arraigned for Felony Assault in "Savage Beating" that Broke Latino Man's Arm During Arrest

From [ABC] Rocklin Police Department officer Brad Alford was arraigned Monday morning in Placer County Superior Court on charges related to use of excessive force.

Alford pleaded not guilty to three felony charges, including assault with a deadly weapon causing great bodily harm, assault by a public officer, and filing a false report.

In September, the Rocklin Police Department turned over evidence to the Placer County District Attorney regarding an arrest Alford made of a driver suspected to be under the influence.

Attorney Stewart Katz is representing that driver, Emelio Perez-Chavez, on the misdemeanor charges Perez-Chavez is facing, which include driving under the influence and obstructing an officer.

Katz was in court today regarding those charges. Katz says that in the course of his client’s arrest, Alford beat Perez-Chavez with his baton, breaking Perez-Chavez’s arm and fracturing his finger. Perez-Chavez continues to deal with the emotional aftermath of the arrest, according to his attorney.

Katz is pushing to review the video evidence that the police department handed over to the district attorney’s office. Deputy District Attorney Raymond DeJesus would not comment on whether he believes the video should be made public in this case.

Click to read more ...

Lawsuit Claims White Aurora Cops Broke Into Black Man's House w/o a Warrant & Arrested Him on False Charges

From [DenverPost] A 60-year-old Black man has filed a federal lawsuit against Aurora police after they arrested him following an incident in which he fought off a man who was beating his stepdaughter.

Dwight Crews’ “illegal arrest” was one of a series of incidents in recent years in which Aurora police officers mistreated people of color, according to a news release Monday by the American Civil Liberties Union.

“This case adds to a disturbing string of incidents in which Aurora police have abused and violated the Constitutional rights of people of color,” said Mark Silverstein, ACLU legal director. “Until Aurora improves police transparency and accountability, the victims have no choice but to seek justice in the courts.”

Crews is seeking compensatory damages.

On Nov. 14, 2015, Crews intervened when his stepdaughter was being beaten by her husband, the news release says.

Two Aurora police officers allegedly removed Crews from his house on Nov. 14, 2015 without a warrant in the middle of the night, according to the lawsuit filed Monday in U.S. District Court in Denver. The officers restrained Crews, forced him to the ground and unlawfully arrested him on trumped-up charges, the lawsuit says.

“The Constitution forbids police from intruding into the privacy of a person’s home unless they have a warrant issued by a judge,” Silverstein said in a new release. “Our 60-year-old client was not a threat and presented himself in a calm and cooperative manner.”

Click to read more ...

Sham Process: Non-White US Citizen Detained by US in Undisclosed Prison in Iraq for 60 Days w/No Access to Attorney

From [HRW] The US government has been holding a US citizen suspected of fighting with the Islamic State (also known as ISIS) for two months in an undisclosed military prison in Iraq without access to legal counsel, Human Rights Watch said today. US authorities should immediately ensure that the prisoner has access to a lawyer and should appropriately prosecute him in a US federal court.

The prisoner, a man identified by the US Defense Department only as “John Doe,” surrendered to US-allied forces in Syria around September 12, 2017, media reports said. The prisoner reportedly has requested a lawyer at least twice, including after he was informed of his US constitutional rights, and refused to answer interrogators’ questions. The Defense Department has rejected the requests of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), a prominent US civil rights group, to contact him to offer to represent him or help him find a lawyer.

“Holding a detainee for two months in Iraq without access to counsel violates minimum international detention standards and is ultimately counterproductive,” said Letta Tayler, senior terrorism and counterterrorism researcher at Human Rights Watch. “Depriving a criminal suspect of counsel and other fundamental rights could complicate his prosecution and deter other alleged fighters from surrendering.”

The US should ensure legal counsel is available not only to the US prisoner but also to any other alleged fighters, regardless of their nationalities, whom it cannot turn over to Iraqi authorities because of torture concerns, Human Rights Watch said.

Click to read more ...