Nazi-like Israeli Soldiers Stormed into Palestinian Man's Home & “Severely” Beat Him to Death in the Occupied West Bank

From [HERE] A 24-year-old Palestinian has died after Israeli occupation forces stormed his home and beat him “severely” in the occupied West Bank.

Muhammad Zaghloul Al-Khatib Al-Rimawi was beaten by Israeli occupation forces during a pre-dawn raid on his home in Beyt Reyma, northwest of Ramallah in the occupied West Bank. According to a statement by Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association, Muhammad was arrested and “severely beaten by occupation soldiers and special forces to the point of passing out.”

Quoting the testimony of Muhammad’s brother, Bashir, Addameer relayed how Israeli soldiers removed the door to the Al-Rimawi house before rounding up the family. Al-Rimawi’s mother was attacked and Muhammad was taken into a separate room where he was beaten unconscious. Addameer added that Muhammad was then “taken away from the house while in such a state, and taken to an unknown location. After two hours, his family was informed of their son’s death.”

Denied they caused his death, Israeli occupation forces then tried to cover up the killing, with one soldier asking Muhammad’s brother if he had any previous illnesses. His brother replied that Muhammad had been healthy. Speaking to Quds News Network, Muhammad’s mother exclaimed: “Do not try to fabricate that he was ill. Muhammad was not sick, they [Israeli forces] killed him.”

Addameer explained that “this case represents a continuation of the occupation’s policy of utilising excessive force in the arrest of Palestinians […] in this instance, Al-Rimawi did not constitute a real or direct threat meaning that resorting to deadly force constitutes an extrajudicial killing.”

“There is a distinct necessity to investigate the circumstances of [Muhammad’s] death,” Addameer added.

The excessive use of force against Palestinian civilians is frequently used by Israeli occupation forces. According to Electronic Intifada, “Al-Rimawi was the third Palestinian to die this year after severe beatings by Israeli soldiers during arrest or inside Israeli prison.” One of those killed was Yassin Al-Saradih, a Palestinian from Jericho who was arrested and taken from his home in the middle of the night. A video showing Israeli forces beating Al-Saradih, even though he posed no threat to them, emerged shortly after his death, forcing Israeli authorities to change their previous story that Al-Saradih had died from smoke inhalation.

Night raids of Palestinian homes in the occupied West Bank are frequently conducted by Israeli occupation forces. According to Addameer’s statistics, Israel arrested 3,533 Palestinians in the first half of 2018 alone. Many of those arrested are held in administrative detention, meaning they can be held indefinitely without charge or trial. Israeli human rights organisation B’Tselem notes that at the end of June 2018, 446 Palestinians were being held in administrative detention, including one woman and three minors.

Judge Married to a Philadelphia Police lieutenant Re-assigns Case of White Cop who Fatally Shot David Jones in the Back From 35 Feet Away, as He Fled

From [HERE] Philadelphia judge agreed Wednesday to reassign the case of a fired Philadelphia police officer charged this month in the on-duty shooting death of a fleeing suspect.

The district attorney's office had asked Judge Patrick Dugan to step aside from former Officer Ryan Pownall's criminal homicide case because Dugan is married to a Philadelphia police lieutenant and because controversy erupted when he oversaw the excessive-force case of another officer.

Prosecutors also asked Wednesday that a preliminary hearing to determine whether there is enough evidence to support the charge be waived, because a grand jury had also recommended a criminal charge.

A hearing on whether to waive that preliminary hearing has been set for next week. Pownall is being held without bond because the criminal homicide charge includes the possibility of first-degree murder, and defendants charged with first-degree murder are not eligible for release on bail in Pennsylvania.

District Attorney Larry Krasner charged Pownall with criminal homicide this month for the 2017 death of 30-year-old David Jones, who was shot in the back as he fled.

Thirty-year-old David Jones had a gun on him when he was frisked by Officer Ryan Pownall, leading to a struggle, but he had thrown it to the ground and was running away when the officer shot and killed him, prosecutors said. His hands were visible and he did not turn toward the officer as he fled. 

"Jones was no danger to anyone in his flight," according to a grand jury that recommended charges be filed.

According to the grand jury report, Pownall was transporting several people [the DA said 3 people, a father and 2 children] to the Special Victims Unit including two children when he saw Jones riding a dirt bike on a city street without the permission of politicians on the 4100 block of Whitaker Avenue near the southern edge of the Feltonville neighborhood.

The cop told the man to stop after he stalled his bike on the sidewalk, police said. "Initially (the officer) was only going there to tell this guy to knock it off," Commissioner Ross said.

Jones' pulled into the parking lot of a night club. Pownall also pulled into the lot and got out of his vehicle to question the man. When he frisked Jones [for having a dirt bike? how about just give him a citation?], he felt a gun. A struggle ensued then Jones started running. Pownall tried to shoot Jones but that his gun jammed.

Surveillance footage showed Jones dropping his gun on the ground and running, and Pownall opening fire, shooting Jones twice in the back. Surveillance video shows the second round hit Jones from 10 feet away; the third hit him in the back from 35 feet away.

Pownall told another officer he saw Jones toss his gun, which came to rest about 25 feet from where the officer opened fire and in the opposite direction from where Jones was fleeing, the grand jury said.

The grand jury concluded "there is no indication how Pownall could have reasonably believed Jones was still armed or dangerous."

“As Jones ran, unarmed, Pownall fired at least three shots towards Jones and traffic, hitting Jones twice in the back. Jones was searched at the scene, no gun was recovered on his person,” said Krasner.

"He was shot twice in the back, while he was unarmed and running away. At no point did Jones turn toward Pownall or gesture in a threatening manner," the grand jury wrote.

Pownall's attorney, Fortunato Perri Jr., said he objects to waiving a preliminary hearing because he does not believe there is enough evidence for criminal charges.

“He was legally justified of his actions on the day of the shooting,” Perri said.

Pownall, who served in the department for 12 years, was fired last fall. Union officials have said they hope to get charges dropped and get Pownall's job back.

Krasner said previously he believed it was only the second time in nearly 20 years that a Philadelphia officer had been charged with a crime for an on-duty fatal shooting.

The shooting prompted protests, including a Black Lives Matter demonstration outside Pownall's home. John McNesby, president of the police union, later called the protesters “a pack of rabid animals.”

According to police records, Pownall was involved in a 2010 on-duty shooting in which a suspect was struck in the back.

Carnell Williams-Carney was paralyzed after Pownall and a second officer fired shots at him as he fled, hitting him once in the back. A federal jury ruled in a lawsuit that Pownall and the other officer were justified in opening fire.

“Move again, I dare you": Authorities will Not Discipline Miami Cop who Made Felony Threat & Stomped on Defenseless Black Girl's Head During Arrest

JUST FOLLOWING MASTERS ORDERS. From [HERE] Police officers used excessive force in separate instances when they were caught on video kicking suspects in the head, a civilian panel tasked with watching over Miami police determined this week.

But only one of the officers has been disciplined by the police department and prosecutors for the kick. The difference, according to Miami’s Civilian Investigative Panel: The officer who was suspended and charged with a crime was caught kicking at a suspected car thief’s head on cellphone video recorded by a civilian.

In the other case, an internal review found no wrongdoing despite clear video of the officer twice using the heel of his shoe to stomp on the head of a female teenaged armed robbery suspect while she was lying on the ground. But video of that incident only came to light several months after the incident, when a virtual policing unit retrieved it for trial and became alarmed enough to pass it along to supervisors.

The difference in how police responded to the cases, some CIP members concluded, shows what a powerful tool bystander cellphone videos have become in capturing the actions of officers — actions that in the past were rarely seen by the public.

Elisabeth Albert, a CIP investigator with two decades of policing experience, told panel members the bodycam video would never have been discovered if not for the action of the virtual policing unit. Unlike how the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s office dealt with the highly publicized cellphone video, the bodycam footage was passed back to the police department and treated as an in-house administrative matter.

“It was handled differently without the video out there,” Albert said.

The first incident involved the May 3 arrest of David Suazo, 31, who eventually pleaded guilty and agreed to 30 months in prison for grand theft auto, reckless driving, driving with a suspended license and fleeing from police. According to police and investigators from the CIP, police were watching Suazo’s home when he emerged and started driving a 2000 Jeep Cherokee that had been reported stolen in Broward County.

Police said they followed Suazo to Overtown and when they turned on their sirens he sped up toward the Culmer Apartments, crashed the vehicle into a wall and fled on foot. Police bodycam footage captured some officers, who couldn’t leap a spiked metal fence in a courtyard to get to Suazo, running through apartments.

At one point, officer Mario Figueroa confronted Suazo through the fence and fired his Taser, which had no effect. Then, after another officer subdued Suazo on the grass — lying on his stomach, his hands cuffed behind his back — Figueroa is seen racing toward him and delivering a running kick to the suspect’s head. Suazo appears to move his head in the video and Figueroa’s kick appears to miss its target.

Despite at least three officers wearing body cameras, none of them captured the kick. Figueroa claimed his camera fell off his uniform as he was running toward Suazo. The video, taken by a former Florida International University student who lives in the complex, received substantial play after she posted it on her Facebook page and sent a copy to Miami Police Chief Jorge Colina.

Colina immediately declared that the video “depicts a clear violation of policy” and suspended the two-year cop with pay pending the outcome of an investigation. Five days later, state prosecutors, who have rarely filed criminal cases against officers, charged Figueroa with assault. Figueroa said he thought the officer was struggling to subdue Suazo and was going to kick him to get him to comply, but changed direction of the kick in mid-stream when he realized Suazo was not resisting.

“What he did land was intent. The intent to me does way more damage,” said CIP member Courtney Omega. The board voted unanimously that Figueroa used excessive force.

The second incident was more contentious for CIP members, with some arguing that the officer had the right to fear for his life when he saw a dark object fly by while trying to subdue a teenage girl suspected of armed robbery. That object turned out to be her blue flip-flop.

It was February 2017 when police received a call saying an armed man had stolen a woman’s purse from her car at Northwest Seventh Avenue and 71st Street and then fled in a car. Police spotted the car and gave chase. It eventually crashed in Miami Shores at Northwest Second Court and 94th Street. The driver bailed and jumped a fence. But when police found a teenaged girl who had been in the car behind a patrol car, they began chasing her.

Bodycam video worn by one officer shows another officer taking the girl, known only as TJ, to the ground, then losing control of her and rolling away. That’s when Miami police officer John Askew is spotted running toward the girl with what appears to be a Taser in one hand and a radio in the other. With TJ on the ground, Askew twice stomps on her head with the heel of his right shoe.

“Move again, I dare you,” he’s heard saying while handcuffing her.

When the video is slowed, the dark object turned out to be her flip-flop flying in the air as Askew approaches her. There was no mention of the object initially by Askew in his report. But several months later, after viewing it prior to his internal affairs investigation, the officer claimed he feared it was the weapon used in the crime. State prosecutors who viewed the video passed it back to police, saying the issue should be dealt with administratively. Police found no wrongdoing with Askew’s actions.

He was eventually suspended a week without pay but for not filling out a use-of-force memo, which is required any time an officer uses force. Askew told internal affairs investigators he didn’t consider the episode to be a use-of-force.

Some CIP members — who are appointed by city commissioners, the mayor and police chief — said despite no known police training that involves kicking, anything goes in hand-to-hand combat, especially when police fear a suspect still has control of a weapon used in a crime.

CIP member Stephen Navarrete said he watched the video two dozen times and broke it down frame-by-frame. He said Askew only saw her behind the patrol car at the last moment and had the right to use force to subdue her, especially because he didn’t know where the weapon was and he saw a dark object fly past. The gun was eventually found in the backseat of the car that the suspects crashed.

“It looked bad. It looked ugly. But when she went down there was no control of her. He used his feet to control her. He thought she may have had the gun,” Navarrete said. “But before you vote tonight I think it’s important to remember this was an armed robbery. Anybody can pull a trigger.”

Other members, though, weren’t buying Navarrete’s narrative.

“This is like setting community policing back 30 years,” said panel member Deidria Davis.

Offered Minca Brantely: “It’s pretty obvious, you don’t kick people in the head. I teach that to my 7-year-old.”

The state eventually dropped all charges against TJ. The CIP panel voted 8-3, saying Askew used excessive force. Navarrete, Alvaro Puente and Noel Rojas were in the minority.

Now, CIP Executive Director Cristina Beamud will pen a letter to Colina arguing Askew should be disciplined for the kicks. Colina is not likely to do much. His office already said nothing will be done unless the panel finds new evidence that internal affairs hasn’t already taken into consideration.

The panel also voted to let Colina know that the video of the Miami officer driving over a grassy swale and a sidewalk and of Askew kicking the suspect should be used as a training video for Miami police — on how not to take a suspect into custody.

Serving No One: White Public Ruler in NC Profiles Black Reporter & Demands Identification but Refuses to Identify Himself or Badge Number

Larken Rose explains that the police uniform, badge and vehicle convey the following message to the public about the superior, super-human status of police in a shamocracy: 

“I am not acting as a thinking, responsible, independent human being, and should not be treated as such. I am not personally responsible for my actions, because I am not acting from my own free will or my own judgment or right and wrong. I am, instead, acting as the tool of something superhuman, something with the right to rule you and control you. As such, I can do things that you can’t. I have rights that you don’t. You must do as I say, submit to my commands, and treat me as your superior, because I am not a mere human being. I have risen above that. Through my unquestioning obedience and loyalty to my masters, I have become a piece of the superhuman entity called ‘authority.’ As a result, the rules of human morality do not apply to me, and my actions should not be judged by the usual standards of human behavior.  [MORE]

Ohio Puppetician with Psychopathic Racial Disorder Says 11-Year-Old Black Girl Tased in the Back by Black Cop Deserved it & was Morally Wrong for Shoplifting

For the most part white people treat each other humanely. But in their relations with non-white people, racists function as psychopaths. Dr. Bobby Wright has explained, 'the psychopath is an individual who is constantly in conflict with other persons or groups. He is unable to experience guilt, is completely selfish and callous, and has a total disregard for the rights of others. Psychopaths simply ignore the concept of right and wrong. By ignoring this trait in the White race (the lack of ethical and moral development) Blacks have made and are still making a tragic mistake in basing the worldwide Black liberation movement on moral suasion. It is pathological for Blacks to keep attempting to use moral suasion on a people who have no morality where race is the variable.' Wright called this condition affecting whites the psychopathic racial personality [MORE]

authoritarians expect Black “citizens” to be obedient to governmental rule not only as a political obligation but a moral necessity in accordance with programming designed to give THEM a "ruled" mind-virus mentality.” Obedience here MEANS, “the highest form of the power-fear systemic or slavery sold to both children and adults alike deceptively packaged in a respectfully sounding label and reverse terrorism.” [MORE]

"Lawless Society” - a socio-juristic human relation confliguration where law is upheld, codified, and deified over humanity. If you fear or worry about its advent, you'll certainly never recognize its presence. 2) a Police State of the Overruling Class" - from FUNKTIONARY.

BLACK ON BLACK CRIME IN SERVICE OF WHITE DOMINATION. From [TechDirt] and [MORE] Cincinnati police officer Kevin Brown’s decision to fire a Taser at an 11-year-old girl suspected of shoplifting from a grocery store in August immediately drew criticism from city officials and advocates. The Black cop told the child, “You know, sweetheart, this is why there’s no grocery stores in the black community.” [MORE]

The girl can be seen on the body camera footage [which he turned off prior to the incident and turned back on after] asking Brown if the Taser barbs were still embedded in her skin.

"It's in my body?" she asked. "They in my body?"

He explained, that yes, they were in her skin, but he's not supposed to take them out.

She was scared and crying at times as an all-male team of EMTs urge her to remain calm. The fire department removed the barbs and she was taken to Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center. 

The girl was charged with theft and obstructing official business, but Hamilton County Prosecutor Joe Deters dropped the charges saying police are supposed to confer with his office on charges related to children and that did not happen.[MORE]

But Ohio state Representative John Becker had a different take. Had it been his daughter, he announced in an August newsletter, “I’d be ashamed and embarrassed that she did something stupid enough to get herself tased.”

This is even worse than the police union's take on the incident, which referred to the completely expected backlash as "kneejerk." But, hey, I guess deciding to tase an 11-year-old in the back -- one who reportedly was all of 4'11'' and 90 pounds -- couldn't possibly be portrayed as a kneejerk reaction by a law enforcement officer. When force isn't truly needed, we can be sure some cops will deploy it anyway.

But Rep. John Becker's take is the hottest take of all. Anyone tased by a cop -- even an 11-year-old -- is a person who brought that crackling, barbed punishment down on themselves. There's no reason to question the wisdom or necessity of the Taser deployment. Rather, we should question ourselves. And perhaps society. But mostly ourselves.

Becker also addressed police shootings in his newsletter. If his child were shot by police, he wrote, “rather than blaming the cop, I’d be blaming myself and endlessly soul searching to figure out how I failed as a parent and why my kid grew up to be a punk.” He added, “Based on the evidence of what I see on television, it often times appears to me that justice was delivered to the dead punk.”

"Based on the evidence of what I see on television…" Holy shit. This is an elected representative. And he thinks the TV is giving him the "evidence" he needs to make snap judgments on tased kids. Blame the victim. And blame the victim's parents.

Cincinnati Police Chief Eliot Isaac said the Taser deployment was "unnecessary" and “we will make some changes but overall we believe we have a very solid policy.” “We” here means the masters he serves. Chief Isaac is another Straw-Boss - a Sambo who is appointed a certain oversight role for the white power Overseer. [MORE]

Becker also told The Appeal that if police tase a child, “it could be an indication of a parenting problem.” He added, “If I were to do research, I would expect to find that kids that come from two parent in-tact [sic] supportive families are less likely to get in trouble with the authorities than kids that came from tougher environments.”

"If I were to do the research…" Would this be research beyond the television watching that's given Becker such keen insight into officer-involved shootings? Who knows? Becker's certainly not going to do the research. He's just going to stick by his electro-guns and blame victims of cop violence for being raised badly or otherwise being harmed by the disintegration of the nuclear family unit -- the 2.5 children born to married heterosexuals who have managed to weather an escalating divorce rate, porn, video games, movies, television, the internet, social media, Satanism, multiple pagan-based holidays, postal rate hikes, alternate sexual orientations, public school indoctrination, Daylight Savings Time, mandatory vaccinations, HAARP projects (known and unknown), President Obama, Brown v. Board of Education, morning-after pills, weird Twitter, the removal of prayer from schools, the Simpsons, artistic expression in general, and whatever else has reduced the American way of life to a hideous nightmare where punk kids manage to live their whole lives without being deservedly tased by blameless, saintly police officers.

Becker is an idiot, but let's pretend the research he didn't do actually says what he thinks it will say. Even if a majority of kids tased/killed by cops are raised by single and/or inattentive parents, that doesn't justify force deployments that far exceed the danger presented by the developing situation. This 11-year-old was tased in the back by an officer who was taller, weighed more, and had the ability to summon any number of additional officers if it appeared this preteen was going to, I don't know, grow a foot, add 100 pounds of weight, and produce an arsenal of weapons before the officer got the mild shoplifting situation under control.

Incredibly, current Ohio state law allows police to tase children as young as seven. Speaking with WLWT, Cincinnati Vice Mayor Chris Smitherman said that he’s “introduced legislation previously on raising the tasing age from 7 to 12 and I’m hoping council will revisit this now raising the age for tasing.”

If you agree with John Becker, you're probably John Becker. Or a cop who hates using force reasonably or responsibly. But you're definitely not the sort of person who can be trusted with government power.

Judge Allows Racist Suspect ‘Vote Counter’ Running for Governor in Georgia to Use Electronic Voting Machines Despite Consensus Among Cybersecurity Experts that Machines are Vulnerable to Hacks

In photo racist suspect Brian Kemp, Secretary of State of Georgia who has a wide variety of responsibilities, including supervising elections and maintaining public records. He is also presently running for Governor against a very popular Black woman, Stacey Abrams. She is the first black female major party gubernatorial nominee in the United States. [MORE] The shrinking white population must rig elections to survive.

From [HERE] and [HERE] Judge Amy Totenberg of the US District Court for the Northern District of Georgia [official website] ruled [opinion, PDF] Monday that Georgia will be permitted to go forward with the use of its electronic voting machines, despite security warnings from voting technology experts.

The ruling comes in a 2017 lawsuit filed by Georgia voters and election security organizations who argued that the current machines used in Georgia, called direct-recording electronic (DRE) voting machines, were untrustworthy, insecure, and vulnerable to “malicious intrusion and manipulation of the system and voter data by nation states and cyber savvy individuals.”

There's a broad consensus among cybersecurity experts that such machines are vulnerable to potential hacks. If hackers manipulate vote totals, or another error occurs, there's no backup.

Georgia has 27,000 voting machines spread around 159 counties. At the time of the 2016 election, 5.4 million people were registered to vote in the state.

A few Georgia voters and election security advocates originally filed a lawsuit in 2017 over the state's election security. The lawsuit names Republican Secretary of State Brian Kemp, a candidate for governor, along with the state board of elections, and Fulton County in metro Atlanta.

Kemp, who is white, faces Democrat Stacey Abrams, a Black woman, in the Georgia race for governor.

"With this ruling behind us," Kemp said in a written statement Tuesday morning, "we will continue our preparations for a secure, orderly election in November."

Totenberg found that the plaintiffs had presented sufficient evidence that their votes cast on the DRE machines may be “altered, diluted, or effectively not counted on the same terms as someone using another voting method” but that “the eleventh-hour timing of their motions and an instant grant of the paper ballot relief requested could just as readily jeopardize the upcoming elections, voter turnout, and the orderly administration of the election.

Totenberg allowed Georgia to continue to use the machines due to time constraints and concerns of “voter frustration and disaffection” so close to the November election but urged the state to be prepared for 2020.

“Defendants will fail to address that reality if they demean as paranoia the research-based findings of national cybersecurity engineers and experts in the field of elections…The 2020 elections are around the corner,” wrote Totenberg.

Totenberg is a racist suspect who was appointed by Obama.

Georgia is one of 14 states [NPR report] that use these machines that lacking a paper trail for voter verification.

An NPR/Marist poll this week found that 56 percent of Americans believe electronic voting machines make elections less safe and 68 percent thought paper ballots made elections more secure.

In 2010, when African Americans in Brooks county organized a massive voter turnout drive and elected the first majority-black school board in its history, the secretary of state, Brian Kemp, had a dozen African American activists and school board members arrested and, over the course of a long grueling four-year period, dragged through the courts. Although, in the end, there were zero convictions for voter fraud, there was a chilling effect as lives were ruined, jobs lost, and a hard lesson on the costs of voting made abundantly clear.

Then, in 2014, Kemp put his crosshairs on the New Georgia Voter Project, an organization determined to register some of the 700,000 African Americans in the state who were not yet on the voter rolls. When the group signed up more than 100,000 to vote, Kemp immediately took to the airwaves insisting: “We’re just not going to put up with fraud.” That claim, spoken often and wrongly by Republican stalwarts from Kris Kobach to Donald Trump, is the lie used to justify voter suppression techniques. Yet, as the law professor Justin Levitt has documented, between 2000 and 2014, there have only been 31 cases of voter identification fraud out of one billion votes. Kemp, in his own way, acknowledged the lie when, behind closed doors, he explained to a group of fellow Republicans: “Democrats are working hard ... registering all these minority voters ... If they can do that, they can win these elections in November.” He, therefore, used the power of his office to launch a very public multi-year investigation that would, once again, aim to intimidate and dissuade African Americans from registering to vote.

In 2016, pummeled by voter suppression in more than 30 states, the black voter turnout plummeted by 7%. For the GOP, that was an effective kill rate. For America, it was a lethal assault on democracy. [MORE]

With the 2018 midterm elections less than two months away, voting has been a highly contested issue in federal courts across the country. Just this month courts have heard a number of issues regarding both elections security and pertaining to voting methods in general. On the same day as Totenberg’s ruling, a district judge in Texas dismissed [JURIST report] a lawsuit challenging Texas’ voter ID law, in light of the Fifth Circuit Court’s April ruling upholding the law as constitutional. In Arizona last week, the Ninth Circuit ruled [JURIST report] that Arizona ballot collection laws were Constitutional—the election practice at issue was Arizona’s requirement for people who cast votes in-person to do so in the precinct they were assigned. On September 7 a judge in a Florida district court ordered [JURIST report] 32 Florida counties to provide sample Spanish language ballots in order to help Spanish-speaking citizens vote. President Donald Trump issued an executive order [JURIST report] on September 12 directing federal agencies to investigate instances of interference with US elections and to take measures against those involved.

Captain Trump Powers Up his Paper Boat & Rolls Up His Sleeves after Hurricane - Unlike Puerto Rico, There are a Lot of White People in North Carolina

Report Says Payday Lenders in Michigan have Made Over a Half a Billion Dollars Off Usurious Loans at 340% APR Targeting Poor Black & Latino Communities over the past 5 Years

High Anxiety Created by Elite Racists [and respite from it] is the Whip in the Hands of the Master that Motivates Blacks & Latinos in Racist System. 

From [HERE] Consumer advocates say strong reforms are needed to better regulate the payday lending industry in Michigan, and they just might have the data to prove it. 

A new report from the Center for Responsible Lending found that in the past five years, payday lenders have taken more than half a billion dollars in fees from consumers in Michigan, including $94 million in 2016. Senior Policy Specialist with the Community Economic Development Association of Michigan Jessica AcMoody said with annual percentage rates in the triple digits, low-income customers often struggle to repay loans on time. 

"The average fees equal about 340 percent APR right now. And 91 percent of payday loan borrowers in Michigan re-borrow within 60 days," AcMoody said. "So what we really need are better restrictions on these loans." 

Un-representing You. Coin Operated Black Ho-Reps., Greg Meeks (D-N.Y.) and Gwen Moore (D-Wis.) have received large financial contributions from payday loan companies who prey on broke Black people with usurious loans. [MORE]

The report said more than two-thirds of payday loan stores in Michigan are owned by out-of-state lenders, which AcMoody explained means millions of dollars are leaving Michigan each year. According to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the average payday loan customer takes out 10 loans over the course of 12 months. 

AcMoody said the research also reveals that payday lenders are specifically targeting Michigan communities with higher concentrations of people of color and those with lower incomes. 

"Payday loans are a high-cost solution to a short-term problem and they're really built to take advantage of borrower's financial vulnerability," she said. "So what they're doing is locating in communities where they can prey on financial vulnerable people. " 

Beyond educating consumers about payday lending, AcMoody contends policymakers need to examine APR caps, and reconsider measures to expand payday loan offerings. "A package of bills in the Senate would expand payday offerings and allow loans of up to $2,500 for up to two years with fees equivalent of up to 180 percent APR," AcMoody said. "So a $2,500 loan would end up costing the consumer over $8,000 at the time they pay it back." 

15 states and the District of Columbia have a rate cap of 36 percent or less on payday loans. AcMoody said alternative loan products are also needed to help people who need short-term financial assistance.

“All the white people around us got power. We got none." NC Hit by 2 Storms: Hurricane Florence & Poverty [“the absence of conscious effort (self-determination) options; a surmountable obstruction"]

Joseph Cobbs sits in his friend’s yard, manning the generator for the block in Wilmington’s Northside. ‘All the white people around us got power. We got none.’ [MORE]

The second quote above is from Dr. Blynd.

Revived Miami Gardens Lawsuit Says Wells Fargo Targeted Black Homeowners & Borrowers by Lending to them on Terms Less Favorable than Whites

From [HERE] Miami Gardens has filed an appeal in a case, in which the city alleged Wells Fargo used discriminatory lending practices against its residents.

Wells Fargo dodged a Fair Housing Act lawsuit from Miami Gardens back in June 2014 when a federal judge ruled the city had insufficient evidence to support claims of discriminatory lending. The suit alleged the San Francisco-based bank charged higher mortgage rates to Black and Hispanic borrowers compared to their white counterparts who were similarly situated. Miami Gardens claimed that in turn, this led to decreased property values and caused a wave of foreclosures during the 2008 housing crisis. Now the third largest Black-populated city in the country is reviving the fight after filing a notice of appeal with the U.S Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit.  

“This city is appealing the case because we believe that the court got it wrong and failed to follow clearly established precedent,” said Miami Gardens City Attorney Sonja Dickens. 

Wells Fargo spokeswoman Michelle Palomino said the bank is prepared for the city’s appeal after its 2014 victory.

“We were pleased with the court’s decision in June to grant our motion for summary judgment and dismiss the city of Miami Gardens’ case against Wells Fargo,” said Palomino. “And, [we] will be prepared to respond to the city’s appeal. We will continue our focus on helping to expand homeownership opportunities in Florida and across the country.” 

Wells Fargo was not the only major bank on the city’s radar as the 2014 lawsuit also targeted JPMorgan, Chase, Citigroup and Bank of America for discriminatory behavior – all of which were dismissed.

Sixty-five percent of the population in Miami Gardens are homeowners, and the city has been working to increase those numbers. In April 2012, Miami Gardens purchased a property for $54,370 – ironically enough, from Wells Fargo. The purchase was a part of the Neighborhood Stabilization Program, a federal resource that aims to provide shelter using revitalized homes. Miami Gardens was awarded $6.8 million.

Miami Mayor Francis Suarez, also a lawyer who has fought and won similar cases, said fighting discrimination lawsuits could be a tough battle.

“It is very difficult to win in these cases because the banks have very high-powered lawyers and spend a lot of money on litigation,” said Suarez. “These are cases that if [the bank] loses, it can cost them hundreds of millions of dollars, so they put a lot of resources into them.”

The mayor went on to say that a win in this case would send a pivotal message to large corporations.

“I think a win would be incredible, not only for the African-American and Hispanic communities but also for the cities themselves to push back when large institutions are discriminating against their residents,” said Suarez.

Wells Fargo is no stranger to this kind of controversy. In 2012, the big bank paid more than $175 million to settle similar discrimination allegations brought by the Justice Department. As a part of that deal, in which the bank did not admit wrongdoing, Wells Fargo settled comparable lawsuits filed by the state of Illinois and the city of Baltimore. Back in February 2018, the city of Sacramento accused Wells Fargo of illegal lending in minority and low-income communities where they also claim it reduced home values, limited property tax revenue and drove up foreclosures.

“If the city wins, it would mean that the banks involved will be held accountable for discriminatory lending practices,” said Dickens. “Specifically, they will be held accountable for targeting minority homeowners and lending to them on terms that are less favorable than others.”

No date has been set for both parties to present their arguments.

Video of Testimony in 3rd Day of Jason Van Dyke Murder Trial, White Chicago Cop who Killed Laquan McDonald

Video of Testimony in 2nd Day of Jason Van Dyke Murder Trial, White Chicago Cop who Killed Laquan McDonald

Instead of Heckling NFL Fans in the Parking Lot, PropaGandhi-zers Should Beg Congress to Eliminate “Qualified Immunity" [Law of the Jungle Accountability for Cops in their relations with Black People]

From [HERE] The doctrine of qualified immunity was conjured up by the US Supreme Court in 1982 and victims of rights violations have been paying the price for more than three decades. The doctrine was created by the Court, not by Congress. This is an important distinction, especially since qualified immunity directly contradicts the liability Congress created as an avenue of redress for citizens.

Congress specifically said anyone who uses governmental power to deprive others of rights can be sued.

Every person who, under color of any statute, ordinance, regulation, custom, or usage, of any State or Territory or the District of Columbia, subjects, or causes to be subjected, any citizen of the United States or other person within the jurisdiction thereof to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the Constitution and laws, shall be liable to the party injured in an action at law, suit in equity, or other proper proceeding for redress…

These were the only exceptions granted:

… except that in any action brought against a judicial officer for an act or omission taken in such officer’s judicial capacity, injunctive relief shall not be granted unless a declaratory decree was violated or declaratory relief was unavailable.

Exceptions for judges. That's it.

As it stands now, qualified immunity lets everyone from cops to federal agents to IRS investigators off the hook for violating the rights of citizens. It's not supposed to be this way. Qualified immunity reverses the expectations of Congress to give government employees an easy way out. The Supreme Court felt the lack of safety valve for government employees meant they'd be too intimidated by possible liability to make quick judgment calls while performing their duties.

Instead, the doctrine has encouraged government employees to engage in blatant rights violations, secure in the knowledge the court-established doctrine will get them off the hook.

PropaGandhi - passive social non-resistance propaganda. 2) obedience-based servitude to the enforcers of granfalloons uncommonly known as Corporate States and any other group-entities. Mahatma Gandhi mostly walked barefoot which produced calluses on his feet. He also had a very weird diet sprinkled with bouts of fasting which made him rather frail and suffer intermittently from halitosis—this made him... "A super callused fragile mystic hexed by halitosis." (See: Poser, Class, Mass, Racism White Supremacy, Gun Control & Caste). - FUNKTIONARY.

Begging For Change. In photo, PropaGandi-zers gathered at the Tom Landry statue outside of AT&T Stadium on Sunday to protest police shooting deaths. They MARCHED carrYING coffins [in which they should put their beliefs in “authority,” “democracy,” “government” and in basing their struggle UPON the moral suasion of racists.].

David French, writing for the National Review, says it's time for qualified immunity to die. Its burial would allow the nation to go back to what Congress intended: an avenue of recourse for citizens whose rights have been violated by the government. The key linchpin in qualified immunity determinations is "clearly established law." But what does "clearly established" mean in the context of a QI defense? Almost nothing.

[T]he entire notion of “clearly established law” rests on a series of absurd, fantastical premises. Are we really to believe that a police officer doesn’t know he shouldn’t pound on the wrong door and blow away the innocent occupant* unless a court said so in a case, say, five years before? Do we really believe police officers and university administrators are diligently reading such cases as they are decided anyhow?

Also note how qualified immunity flips the meaning of the statute upside-down. Section 1983 is a law designed to protect citizens and help them secure their rights. It was not designed to protect the “vigorous exercise of official authority” but instead to restrain that authority.

*Refers to the case covered here.

Judge Don Willett, writing for the Fifth Circuit Appeals Court, pointed out the ridiculousness of relying on "clearly established law" to determine whether or not government employees should be held directly accountable for unquestionable violations of citizens' rights.

Plaintiffs must produce precedent even as fewer courts are producing precedent. Important constitutional questions go unanswered precisely because those questions are yet unanswered. Courts then rely on that judicial silence to conclude there’s no equivalent case on the books. No precedent = no clearly established law = no liability. An Escherian Stairwell. Heads defendants win, tails plaintiffs lose.

With few courts willing to draw the line in new cases, there's no precedent to look to when new troubling violations are alleged. The government can get a lawsuit dismissed in the first round of motions if there's no case directly on point in the jurisdiction handling the case. As Judge Willett pointed out, this only encourages novel rights violations, rather than deter future misconduct. To prevail on a QI motion to dismiss, a government defendant need only be the first to violate someone's rights in this manner.

Knowing that's the bar that must be hurdled to survive the initial round of motions in a civil rights lawsuits, future novel violations will likely never be converted into "clearly established law" cited by future litigants. Julian Sanchez's Twitter thread on the subject notes one side effect of three decades of qualified immunity is fewer civil rights lawsuits.

First time around, the right violated won’t be “clearly established,” and the official responsible will have qualified immunity. The second time very similar facts show up in court, though, the first case will have “clearly established” the right violated, eliminating immunity.

But think about how this effects incentives to litigate. If the specific harm you suffered isn’t “clearly established’ in your jurisdiction, you’re incurring the cost and hassle of a lawsuit, but you won’t recover damages. You’ll only allow the NEXT victim to recover.

The arguments for keeping the qualified immunity intact are weak. Holes have been poked in these by multiple lawyers and law profs, but the doctrine lives on, propped up by the parade of litigation that would certainly result if government employees were held directly responsible for their actions.

One of the weakest of the arguments is that the removal of qualified immunity would result in long stream of impoverished cops. As this amicus brief submitted for a QI-centric Supreme Court case points out, government employees are rarely, if ever, held directly accountable for their actions. It's almost always taxpayers paying other taxpayers for rights the government violated.

This concern is empirically unfounded. The widespread availability of indemnification already protects individual officers from ruinous judgments. A recent study shows that governments paid approximately 99.98 percent of the dollars recovered in lawsuits against police officers.

Qualified immunity lives on, and it seems unlikely the Supreme Court will revisit its own failure. That's not to say there's no chance it will happen or efforts like these are wasted. The Supreme Court recently punched a hole in the Third Party Doctrine -- another of its long-time favorites -- so it's conceivable a future ruling may substantially narrow the breadth of qualified immunity's scope. But as long as it remains in place, the public will continue to suffer for the government's sins.

Iraq close to running out of water

Nearly 30 TV Shows About Law Enforcement/Soldiers in Fall Lineup: Uploading ‘Obedience to Authority as a Virtue,’ Belief in ‘Government as Our Protector, Savior’ & Other Viruses Into Our Minds

“You are taught to perceive extortion in a different way by all the propaganda that's been put into you.

I think the best author on the law or legal system who went to work at the United Nations and the best sociologist in the world was Jacques Ellul. Read his books. He points it out as it actually is. He said all the movies you've watched, all the detective series on television, hospital dramas and so on and courtroom dramas are all propaganda to elevate those system into your mind into a supernatural almost superhuman system so you kowtow down to it. You believe in it. You worship it. You feel inferior and you leave it all up to them, because these are institutions which are going to run your lives in the very near future.” - Alan Watt quoted by Dr. Blynd in FUNKTIONARY, which defines propaganda as follows:

Propaganda - a psychological technique and means by which the lawless confound the lawful (dwellers upon the land). 2) any message intended to influence whether true or false. 3) disinformation used as programming that in its absence wouldn't stand up itself nor stand up for itself by itself. The Jesuits were the ones who invented the word and the first to systematize its practice. Propaganda is memes distributed with an external anchor and an embedded carrier. Propaganda is to be used as subversion, which is the undermining or detachment of the loyalties of significant social groups and their transference to the symbols and institutions of the aggressor-oppressor. "It is a political necessity to destroy the African consciousness of colonialized Africans or African people." -Dr. Amos N. Wilson. As for the minds of the general public, the most sinister part of The Matrix in which we now live is that you have been cajoled and convinced to suppress your own free will and surrender to the manipulators who control not just your mind, but your entire reality. Edward Bernays, the father of modem propaganda, explained: "If we understand the mechanisms and motives of the group mind, it is now possible to control and regiment the masses according to our will without their knowing it... We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of... In almost every act of our daily lives, whether in the sphere of politics or business, in our social conduct or our ethical thinking, we are dominated by the relatively small number of persons— who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses. It is they who pull the wires which control the public mind." "Most people prefer to believe their leaders are just and fair even in the face of evidence to the contrary, because once a citizen acknowledges that the government under which they live is lying and corrupt, the citizen has to choose what he or she will do about it. To take action in the face of a corrupt government entails risks of harm to life and loved ones. To choose to do nothing is to surrender one's self-image of standing for principles. Most people do not have the courage to face that choice. Hence, most propaganda is not designed to fool the critical thinker but only to give moral cowards an excuse not to think at all," -Michael Rivero. (See: Public Relations, Memes, Mind Viruses, Dance of Truth, Absolute Truth, Human Language, Memetics, Good & Evil, Confusion, False Flag Operation, Nine-Eleven, MEDIA, Propagenda, The Truth, Subvertilizers, Evolution, Religion, State, Symbolaeography, Voting, Elections, Orderlies, Corporate State, "Government," "Rolebot" & Reification) . 

Video of Opening Statements in Jason Van Dyke Murder Trial, White Chicago Cop who Killed Laquan McDonald

'Not a single shot was necessary or justified' [MORE]

Children Being Killed, People Cooking Leaves to Survive in Yemen

The people of Yemen have found themselves struggling not only for survival, but for a space in the Western [white] media’s war coverage. [MORE]

Study Says High Rate of Police Killings is Causing Mental Health Issues Among Blacks [System of White Supremacy Requires Blacks to be Primarily Motivated by “Created Anxiety" & its Avoidance]

From [HERE] Boston University's School of Health and the University of Pennsylvania released a study that found the high rate of unarmed African Americans being killed at the hands of police has caused more incidents of depression, stress and other mental health issues among blacks. In other words, overwhelming police brutality is damaging the mental health of African Americans — even those who have no direct connection to men, women and teens who have lost their lives.

The use of deadly force by police against an unarmed black American “carries with it the weight of historical injustices and current disparities in the use of state violence against black Americans,” researchers concluded.

The study's findings aren't entirely new. In 2015, Berkeley law professor Franklin Zimring analyzed 1,100 killings by police and found that the death rates for African Americans (and Native Americans) were disproportionately higher than their populations. Both groups have a history of state-sponsored injustice in the U.S.  

Both groups also deal with some of the highest rates of mental health issues in the country. Between blacks and non-Hispanic whites, blacks are more likely to report serious psychological distress. Native Americans also report high levels of PTSD. 

Boston University and University of Pennsylvania researchers concluded that their findings support “recent calls to treat police killings as a public health issue.” They noted that failure to do so produces mental health issues and health problems:  “The observed adverse mental health spillover effects of police killings of unarmed black Americans could result from heightened perceptions of threat and vulnerability, lack of fairness, lower social status, lower beliefs about one’s own worth, activation of prior traumas, and identification with the deceased.” [MORE] [Such is a purpose of the system of racism/white supremacy, a system in which the majority of the world's white people participate. The word "race," has little biological validity but is translated more correctly as "organization," the sole purpose of which is to maintain white domination and world control of non-whites' [MORE] ]

ANXIETY IS THE WHIP. Here, please indulge us with the use of an analogy to the show Westworld to illustrate a reality. The show is set in a futuristic park where humans pay to be able to act out their darkest fantasies with humanoid robots, called 'hosts',  available to fulfill their requests. The androids are programmed or brainwashed by their makers. The creators are in the minds of the androids or hosts; beliefs and stories are put into their "minds" by their masters. [These androids are motivated or powered by voice control of the masters]. Their consciousness has been manufactured and their conduct is controlled in the interests of their makers - as such their consciousness is the source and product of their power relations & inequalities with the makers and guests. Initially the hosts are completely unaware of all this and perceive their role in Westworld as "normal." That is, the hosts have no true knowledge or memory of what they are and how they came to be. This situation is not unlike the racist programming given to Black people in the real world to control our minds with a false consciousness in the system of white supremacy/racism.

What is mind anyway? A false entity; your being is your real face, your original face. The mind is created by the society. [MORE] "Consciousness is the premier instrument of social control. Those who represent and exercise societal and cultural authority seek to shape and direct the conciseness of each of the society's and culture's members in ways which maintain their integrity and advance their interests." [MORE] "Osho explains that 'the conscious is cultivated by the society, it is a conditioning. The conscious means society inside you. It is a trick of society. This created mind creates a prison around you.' [MORE] Mind is also a social function. A wolf needs a mind for a society of wolves; a man needs a mind for a society of men. To exist in a particular society you need a particular mind.[MORE]

Like the androids in Westworld, the socially manufactured mind given to Blacks is one designed to serve white folks and to fulfill a subordinate role, which we are to perceive as normal. According to undeceiver Dr. Amos Wilson, "black consciousness and behavior under the various regimes of White domination are characterized by habitual thought patterns and behavioral tendencies which render them pliable to White authoritarian/authoritative social control with minimal resistance; which induce Blacks to accept their subordinate status as natural, perhaps actually to mispercieve their oppression as freedom." 

Painting about reality by Unknown Black Student @ North Oldham High School, KY

Unlike the hosts in Westworld, Black people are not motivated by voice control but through created anxiety and other "white instigated social controls." Wilson explains,"to be oppressed is to make how one feels or expects to feel, the measure of all things. To be oppressed is to be ruled through one's feelings and emotions. It is to be exquisitely exposed to and manipulated by a play on one's dreads and fears by one's oppressors; by a play on one's needs for respite from their terror; by a play on one's needs for catharsis, solace, and compensatory joy. Anxiety is the whip in the hand of the oppressor used to drive the oppressed to completion of their appointed rounds.

The ultimate power of White domination and social control resides in their ability to successfully intimidate subordinated Afrikans; to convince them of the inevitability of White supremacy; of the awesome invincibility of White power. The history of White-Black social relations has been one of unrelent­ing intimidation, terror, mental and physical abuse of Black peoples, White-on-Black violence; of endemic injustice, and of the unending, unrequited attempts by subordinate Afrikans to avoid, escape, or some way prevent, temper or ameliorate the horrendous aftereffects of these activities. Avoidance and escape from White-instigated anxieties preoccupy the conscious­ness and subconsciousness of oppressed Afrikans. This preoccupation pathologizes, i.e., imbalances, the Afrikan psyche. Consequently, even the "normal" Afrikan under White domina­tion is primarily motivated by the desire to escape — to actively or passively avoid or in some other way neutralize or alleviate the fearful effects of his oppression. By definition, White supremacy requires that Blacks be primarily motivated by anxiety and its avoidance in the interest of their White oppressors.

Under White supremacy the operative presence of anxiety in the individual and collective psyche is a necessary constant. . .

ANXIETY AVOIDANCE/ESCAPISM THROUGH SUCH DEVICES AS ENTERTAINMENT SHOWCASED BY ELITES

It should be noted that in the subordinated Afrikan personali­ty much of the presence and operation of pathological anxiety is unconscious, i.e., unknown to its host. The subordinated Afrikan is hardly aware that his psyche, consciousness, and behavior have been subverted and misdirected by the eurocentrically-conditioned operation of anxiety and its related psychological after effects (other symptoms). White supremacy works most efficiently when subordinated Afrikans feel that they have freely chosen to think and behave the way they do when in actuality they have been subliminally compelled to do so by the psychopolitical machinations of their White oppressors. Thus, the subordinated Afrikan feels freest when he is most controlled. And his pursuit of apparent freedom is often the pursuit of unapparent enslave­ment.'

Wilson continues, "the ability of dominant Whites to socially manufacture or markedly influence Afrikan states of consciousness and conduct in the interest of perpetuating White supremacy, is both the source and product of the power relations and inequalities which inhere between these races. The White social manufacture of Black consciousness and behavior will end when the power differentials which make this process possible are equalized or reversed by the increased Black empowerment. This necessary equation or reversal of power relations begins when Afrikans come to understand the nature of power, its social origins and applications; when they recognize that they are as capable of its acquisition and disposition as are their European (and other ethnic group) counterparts; and when they consciously and deliberately choose to acquire and dispose of it in their own interests and in the defense of their own liberty." [MORE] and [MORE]

However, appealing to “authorities” and government is no answer. It is the problem. Government is simply, unequivocally , and always initiation of force or coercion and nothing else." Dr. Blynd. 

Niggerized - "unsafe, unprotected, subjected and subjugated to random violence, hated for who you are to the point you become so scared that you defer to the powers that be while willing to consent to your own domination." Dr. Cornel West quoted in FUNKTIONARY. [MORE]