Reader Supported News | 19 March 16
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Andy Borowitz | US Becomes Laughingstock of World for Something Other Than Gun Laws
Andy Borowitz, The New Yorker
Borowitz writes: "In an indication of shifting global attitudes toward the United States, the nation has become the laughingstock of the world for something other than its gun laws, a new survey of foreigners indicates."
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Andy Borowitz, The New Yorker
Borowitz writes: "In an indication of shifting global attitudes toward the United States, the nation has become the laughingstock of the world for something other than its gun laws, a new survey of foreigners indicates."
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Air Force Launches Investigation Into Drug Use Among Troops Protecting Nuclear Weapons
Dan Lamothe, The Washington Post
Lamothe writes: "The U.S. Air Force has launched an investigation into illicit, off-duty drug use by troops who protect its nuclear weapons, senior service officials said Friday, the latest black eye for a nuclear force that has suffered several scandals in recent years."
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Dan Lamothe, The Washington Post
Lamothe writes: "The U.S. Air Force has launched an investigation into illicit, off-duty drug use by troops who protect its nuclear weapons, senior service officials said Friday, the latest black eye for a nuclear force that has suffered several scandals in recent years."
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Fearing No Punishment, Denver Cops Abuse Crime Databases for Personal Gain
David Kravets, Ars Technica
Kravets writes: "Denver police officers performed searches on state and federal criminal justice databases that were not work-related and instead were made to help officers in the romance department and to assist friends, according to an independent department monitor."
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David Kravets, Ars Technica
Kravets writes: "Denver police officers performed searches on state and federal criminal justice databases that were not work-related and instead were made to help officers in the romance department and to assist friends, according to an independent department monitor."
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Denver police officer. (photo: Noel Hidalgo)
A nurse complained she got a phone call from an officer at a hospital crime scene.
enver police officers performed searches on state and federal criminal justice databases that were not work-related and instead were made to help officers' in the romance department and to assist friends, according to an independent department monitor. The report said that punishment, usually a written reprimand instead of being charged criminally, is not enough to deter future abuse of the National Crime information Center (NCIC) and the Colorado Crime Information Center (CCIC) databases.
"When used appropriately, they can be powerful tools to investigate crime," the report stated. "But the misuse of these databases for personal, non-law enforcement purposes may compromise public trust and result in harm to community members. We believe that the reprimands that are generally imposed on DPD (Denver Police Department) officers who misuse the databases do not reflect the seriousness of that violation, and may not sufficiently deter future misuse."
The report by Independent Monitor Nicholas Mitchell listed a host of wrongful searches, including an officer getting a phone number of a woman he met on assignment, and an officer running the license plate of a man for a friend who then stalked that person. None of the 25 Denver officers who abused the crime databases were charged with any access crime. The harshest penalty was a three-day suspension. Civilians who accessed the databases without authorization, however, most likely would be charged with hacking.
The databases include criminal records, home address, and immigration status, as well as other personal information about victims of domestic violence who have obtained protection orders. Juvenile arrest records are also included.
An unnamed officer received a written reprimand for the episode below, which led to stalking and threats:
On September 28, 2015, a man was parked at the Colorado Springs home of a woman he was dating. The woman was in the middle of a divorce. The woman’s soon-to-be ex-husband (‘‘ex-husband’’) saw the man’s car in the driveway, suspected his wife of having an affair, and took note of the car’s license plate. Database records revealed that on September 28, a DPD officer (‘‘Officer A’’) ran the man’s license plate in NCIC/CCIC. Shortly thereafter, the ex-husband began driving by the man’s house and threatening him. The ex-husband also found and contacted the man’s wife to tell her that the man was having an affair. The ex-husband told the wife that he knew their home address, showed her a picture of the man’s car, and asked her questions about the man to find out what gym he worked out at, what shift he worked, and where he spent his leisure time.During an investigation, Officer A admitted that he knew the ex-husband, who called him to complain about the vehicle parked in front of his house. The ex-husband said that he believed that his wife was having an affair, and asked Officer A to run the vehicle’s plate, which Officer A did.
In another incident, no discipline occurred:
A tow truck driver who frequently works with DPD officers was involved in a custody dispute with her ex-boyfriend regarding her teenage daughter. She learned that her ex-boyfriend and daughter were given a ride by another individual (who was a friend of the ex-boyfriend). According to the tow-truck driver, she called a DPD officer and asked him to run the license plate of the individual’s vehicle. The officer did so and provided her with information about the individual. The tow truck driver then spoke with the individual by phone and told him that she had personal information about him, including his home address.During an investigation into the incident, the tow-truck driver expressed significant concern about the officer possibly getting into trouble, and said that she had explained her reason for wanting the officer to run the license plate before he did so. The officer denied this, saying instead that he ran the plate because he thought that the tow-truck driver might have needed the information in connection with her official duties. The officer was alleged to have misused NCIC/CCIC and to have improperly communicated confidential information. The DPD and EDOS (Executive Director of Safety) found these allegations to be not sustained and unfounded, respectively, and no discipline was imposed related to this incident.
Another unauthorized access incident resulted in a written reprimand. The unnamed officer was docked two days of pay for calling a woman he searched and "leaving an unwelcome voice message that upset" her:
On May 15, 2015, a female hospital employee spoke with a DPD officer who was at the hospital to investigate a reported sexual assault. The female employee was not involved in the investigation, but the officer made ‘‘small talk’’ with her after his interview of the sexual assault victim. At the end of her shift, the female employee returned home and found a voicemail message from the officer on her personal phone. She had not given the officer her phone number, and was upset that he had obtained it (she assumed) by improperly using law enforcement computer systems. During an investigation into the incident, records revealed that the officer had, in fact, used the NCIC/CCIC database (and other DPD databases) to obtain her phone number, and the officer ultimately admitted to this conduct.
The Denver Police Department does not audit officers' use of the databases but investigates complaints of abuse.
Sonny Jackson, a Denver Police spokesman, said Chief Robert White views each incident case by case "and recommends the discipline he feels is appropriate."
There's been reports across the country of officers wrongly accessing criminal justice records for their personal use, sometimes resulting in criminal punishment. And sometimes police officers abuse the database to troll their own. In 2012, for example, Minneapolis paid out $1 million to a former female police officer whose driver's license record was looked up more than 400 times by fellow officers.
A Fearful Ascendency: The Rise of Trump
Vijay Prashad, CounterPunch
Prashad writes: "What Trump has done is merely shout out loudly what the Republican Party wants whispered."
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Vijay Prashad, CounterPunch
Prashad writes: "What Trump has done is merely shout out loudly what the Republican Party wants whispered."
READ MORE
Donald Trump supporters. (photo: AP)
hat began as a joke is now no laughing matter. Donald Trump will most likely be the Republican nominee for the President of the United States. Given the deep uncertainty of this presidential campaign, there is a sense that he could even win the presidency. The headquarters of the Republican National Committee in Washington, D.C., teeters in fearful anticipation. No one would like to speak openly about the presumptive nominee, but most of the party faithful fear his ascendancy.
Trump, the real estate baron, is truly an outside candidate. He says anything he wants, including dismissing the formidable pieties of the Republican Party on trade and foreign policy, and is therefore out of the party establishment’s control. Each of the mainstream candidates (Jeb Bush and Chris Christie) fell before Trump’s withering attacks and the massive support these attacks generated. Christie fell and then joined Trump’s juggernaut. Along New York City’s western highway are a series of buildings that bear—in large letters—Trump’s name. He was the real estate developer of these Trump Place Apartments. The Republican Party fears that it has been transformed into the Trump Party. He has done a hostile buyout under their noses.
The last Republican presidential candidate, Mitt Romney, went to the Hinckley Institute of Politics at the University of Utah to deliver a major address against Trump. Robert Hinckley created this institute in 1965 to “encourage the youngest and best minds to enter politics”. Neither Trump nor Romney fits the bill. Barack Obama defeated Romney in 2012. Trump seized the irony of a failed candidate taking the podium to attack his own party’s leading candidate. “Mitt is a choke artist,” said Trump in his inimitably harsh style. “He choked like I’ve never seen anyone choke.” Romney, in the same gutter style, called Trump “a phony, a fraud”. Trump’s “promises are as worthless as a degree from Trump University”, said Romney. “He’s playing the American public for suckers: He gets a free ride to the White House, and all we get is a lousy hat.” Romney was referring to the red hats that are now commonplace at Trump rallies. They bear the slogan: “Make America Great Again”. This is the sum total of Trump’s message. He has said little else.
An indicator of how removed Romney and the Republican establishment are from the mood of the electorate of the Right was that several people in the Utah audience of 700 wore these Trump hats. When Romney said, “Donald Trump tells us he is very, very smart,” a heckler yelled, “Smarter than you!”
Ted Cruz, deeply disliked
On many issues, Trump is not as harsh as his rival Ted Cruz. Cruz comes from the extreme right-wing Tea Party section of the Republicans. He is an uncompromising religious zealot, who believes in much the same kind of programme as Trump on issues of immigration and war-making. (It was Cruz, after all, who said that he would bomb Iraq and Syria to “make the desert glow”.) Cruz is deeply disliked by his Republican colleagues. At a Washington Press Club meeting in late February, the party leader Lindsey Graham said: “If you kill Ted Cruz on the floor of the Senate, and the trial was in the Senate, nobody could convict you.” Beneath Senator Graham’s joke is an edge of what is widely believed. Cruz is no better than Trump and yet is the only other viable candidate in the Republican primary.
Romney urged his party to block Trump, not at the elections, where his warning has been irrelevant. A few days after Romney made his speech, Trump handily triumphed in the primary elections in Kentucky and Louisiana (Cruz won in Kansas and Maine) and is now well ahead to become the presidential nominee. What Romney wants is for the party leaders at their convention to create rules that circumvent Trump’s election victories and deliver the candidacy to an acceptable person. He did not say who this should be. This is for the better since the two establishment candidates (Senator Marco Rubio of Florida and Governor John Kasich of Ohio) are anaemic.
A “brokered convention” has its perils since it would likely turn off those people who are loyal Trump voters and who might boycott the general election in November. This would deliver a landslide to the Democratic Party, not only in the presidential election but mainly in the concurrent elections for the Senate and the House of Representatives. In anticipation of that prospect, the Republican leader of the Senate, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky (a State that voted for Trump), will release his members so that they can attack Trump as they run for their own elections. This is pandemonium.
Why do the Republicans fear Trump so much? Romney evoked the racism and misogyny of the Trump campaign. Romney even said the word “misogyny”, something of historical proportions for a party that has systematically gone after women’s reproductive health and women’s rights. The “gender gap” in the 2012 presidential election was the largest in U.S. history, with the Democrats winning the women vote by 20 points.
On racism, the Republican coalition has relied upon Richard Nixon’s “Southern Strategy” of 1968, which evoked issues of “law and order” and “States’ rights” to send a message—blow dog whistles—to whites in the South that the Republicans would not honour the victories of the civil rights movement. The idea of “cutting taxes” and “stopping welfare” suggested that whites would not have to provide compensation for the years of slavery and apartheid. It was a not-so-subtle way to reproduce racism in the Republican coalition. What Trump has done is merely shout out loudly what the Republican Party wants whispered. His fulminations against Mexicans and Muslims—dangerous as they are—emerged directly out of the coded racism of the Republican establishment. Trump is the outcome of the Southern Strategy, of the anti-immigrant sentiment in the party and the deep wells of Islamophobia that have been cultivated since the 1990s. In this, Trump’s danger is his nakedness.
What worries the establishment is more than this surely. Trump’s erratic political positions whip from condemnation of the Iraq War of 2003 to denunciation of the trade agreements from the North American Free Trade Agreement of 1994 to the current Trans-Pacific Partnership. There is fear among the business elite that Trump will not honour the carefully crafted consensus between the two parties to protect the global interests of what is now called the 1%. The sum total of Trump’s platform was enunciated clearly in 2015 at a rally in Jacksonville, Florida: “We’re going to make our country great again. Remember this: the American dream will be back, bigger and stronger, I promise, than ever before. Ever.” With wages flat since 1973 for workers, that dream has been unattainable for at least two generations. It is the distance from that dream that draws disgruntled white rural voters to Trump and college students and urban multi-ethnic voters to the socialist barnstorming candidacy of Bernie Sanders.
Both Sanders and Trump have rattled the cages of the consensus. Sanders, the establishment believes, will eventually be undone by Hillary Clinton, who will loyally protect the interests of the 1%—unlike both Sanders and Trump. While Sanders could enliven the politics of unions and community organisations, Trump has merely inflamed the politics of his stature. One opens the door to a conversation about socialism, while the other opens the door to Trump. The establishment recognizes the choice these men place before the electorate. It is socialism or—dare one say the word—fascism.
Researchers Documented Just How Bad Texas' Abortion Law Is for Women
Alex Zielinski, ThinkProgress
Zielinski writes: "Earlier this month, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the biggest abortion case of the 21st century. The case questions a Texas law, called HB2, that uses elaborate tactics to essentially regulate abortion clinics into extinction. Despite its complexities, the case really comes down to one seemingly simple question: Does this law place an 'undue burden' on women seeking abortion?"
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Alex Zielinski, ThinkProgress
Zielinski writes: "Earlier this month, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the biggest abortion case of the 21st century. The case questions a Texas law, called HB2, that uses elaborate tactics to essentially regulate abortion clinics into extinction. Despite its complexities, the case really comes down to one seemingly simple question: Does this law place an 'undue burden' on women seeking abortion?"
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Pressure Mounts on Kerry to Take Action Over Honduras
teleSUR
Excerpt: "A huge group of academics join a growing list of influential figures putting pressure on the U.S. secretary of state to act on the killing of Berta Caceres."
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teleSUR
Excerpt: "A huge group of academics join a growing list of influential figures putting pressure on the U.S. secretary of state to act on the killing of Berta Caceres."
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A Monsanto Exec's Selfie-Snapping, Live-Tweeting PR Campaign for GMO Acceptance
Sarah Zhang, Wired
Zhang writes: "In 2014, Monsanto hired a director of millennial engagement. (No, really, that's his title.)"
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Sarah Zhang, Wired
Zhang writes: "In 2014, Monsanto hired a director of millennial engagement. (No, really, that's his title.)"
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