Suit Filed: Fla Cop Released His K-9 on a Surrendering Black Man and Encouraged the Dog to Repeatedly Bite Him Causing Unconsciousness

From [FTP] and [MORE] Riviera Beach, FL — Instead of simply doing his time for his crime, a Black man, who is currently in jail for burglary, will likely be receiving $400,000 of taxpayer money because a sadistic cop sicced his K-9 on him as he surrendered. Kwamain Diondre O’Neal, now serving seven years for attempted burglary and fleeing or attempting to elude, has served notice that he seeks damages of $400,000 for the gruesome incident.

The savage mauling was captured on officer John Vanderlaan’s body camera as he sicced his K-9 on O’Neal while he was surrendering. As the officer’s K-9 tore the flesh from O’Neal’s body, the officer praised his dog, telling him “Good boy! Good Boy!”

As the body camera footage shows, O’Neal had his hands up, saying he was surrendering and begged Vanderlaan to keep the K-9 at bay. But the officer did not hold the dog back.

As the Palm Beach Post reports, an Internal Affairs investigation led the city to suspend Vanderlaan for 84 hours and require 40 hours of remedial training in dog-handling. The city transferred him out of the K-9 unit in December 2018.

Despite the suspension and the gruesome video, the city declined to file criminal charges against Vanderlaan. An investigator for the State Attorney’s Office Public Corruption Unit, Sgt. Jerry Lamm, on March 5, 2020, agreed, finding “no evidence to dispute the findings of the Riviera Beach Police Department.”

The video shows the officer and K-9 tracking down a young Black man who is sitting on top of an awning attached to a building near the intersection of Blue Heron Boulevard and Avenue O.

“Get on the ground!” Vanderlaan repeatedly yells at the Black man as the K-9 can be heard barking.

He tells the officer he wants to surrender but is afraid of the dog. “Just don’t bite me!” O’Neal is heard yelling. “Get the dog! Please just get the dog!”

As the video shows, O’Neal has his hands in the air while Vanderlaan is telling him to come down.

After about three minutes of the officer yelling for the suspect to come down and the suspect yelling for the officer to control the dog, Officer Vanderlaan reaches up through the awning and pulls O’Neal down by his legs.

As soon as the suspect hits the ground, the K-9 is on him. O’Neal can be heard screaming as the K-9 bites him repeatedly.

The man’s screams are hard to listen to as the K-9 rips the flesh from his arm.

As the dog continues to shred O’Neal’s left arm, the officer praises his dog, telling him “Good Boy!”

The pain of having his bicep torn from his bone was apparently so unbearable that O’Neal passed out and went completely limp as the dog continued to tear him to shreds.

Vanderlaan claimed that he may be faking it, as if it is possible to go limp as a K-9 tears into your flesh.

“Check for a pulse. Make sure he ain’t fakin’ it,” an officer can be heard saying on the video.

Instead of going to jail for the burglary he had just committed, O’Neal was transported to St. Mary’s Medical Center where he was treated for the “great bodily harm” inflicted on him by Vanderlaan’s K-9.

“The force used by the K9 Officer and Vanderlaan was clearly excessive,” attorney Zedrick Barber II said in a letter to the city on Feb. 7. “As a result of Vanderlaan, the K-9 and the city’s unlawful acts and indifference for Mr. O’Neal’s well-being, Mr. O’Neal suffered great bodily harm requiring immediate medical treatment and leaving irreparable and permanent scarring.”

After the incident, a supervisor ruled Vanderlaan’s handling of the K-9 “violated the department’s excessive use of countermeasures, resulting in injury,” according to a release from the city.

A statement from Vanderlaan later admitted the fault, noting that, “In hindsight, what I should’ve done was hold the dog and just wait for him to come down. I should’ve taken the initiative and told somebody to come over here and do it and I didn’t.”

‘Getting Thru This Together’ or Racism/White Supremacy Business as Usual? New Orleans Cops are Jailing [Black and Brown] People for Minor [bullshit] Offenses as City becomes a Covid-19 Hotspot

According to FUNKTIONARY:

Straw-Boss - a Sambo who is appointed a certain oversight role for the white power Overseer. It is the job of the Straw Boss to establish a formal organization to effectively and systematically carry out the wishes of the white supremacist power matrix while serving his own personal needs and ends through patronage power. 2) a ranking SNigger. 3) Toby. 4) "Safe Negro." 5) responsible (to the white supremacist ideology) Negro. 6) the gatekeeper for black professional positions gained through (acquiesced) to various sexual positions. 7) Pork Chop Boy. (See SNigger & McNegro)

From [WashPost] One man was accused of stealing whiskey from a drugstore. A homeless man had allegedly refused to leave a hotel lobby. A woman had walked out of a grocery store without paying for a cart full of food worth $375, according to the police.

These are among the people the New Orleans Police Department arrested and booked into the city jail during the past 10 days, as it became clear that the city was at the center of one of the nation’s fastest-growing covid-19 hotspots. The cases were described by public defenders, and a Washington Post reporter viewed police summaries of their alleged offenses, with the defendants’ names redacted.

At a time when many law enforcement officials across the country have released inmates and curtailed arrests to prevent a deadly outbreak of covid-19 in local jails, some are resisting pressure to take similar measures. Police in New Orleans and some other jurisdictions continue to lock people up for minor and nonviolent offenses, according to defense lawyers, union officials and court records.

This business-as-usual approach endangers the police, the community and inmates, public health experts say. Two inmates have already tested positive at the Orleans Justice Center jail, as have six medical staff and 11 employees of the sheriff’s office, which runs the jail.

“We need to treat this situation as if there is rising floodwater in the jail and there are only hours before people will drown,” said Jason Williams, a member of the New Orleans City Council who has called on police to suspend arrests for nonviolent crimes. “Time is of the essence and right now the clock is running against us.”

Mayor LaToya Cantrell issued a stay-at-home mandate on March 20 in an effort to slow the spread of the coronavirus through social distancing, which is all but impossible in a jail setting. Cantrell did not respond to a request to explain the city’s policing approach. [MORE]

Is Your Landlord Trying to Get Paid Off the Virus? If Your Lease Has a "Force Majeure" or Emergency Clause then Payment May Be Excused Due to an ‘Unforeseeable Event’ Making It Impracticable to Pay

INDYBAY STATES, “PEOPLE, NOT PROFIT. COVID-19 HAS DISRUPTED OUR LIVES UNLIKE ANYTHING WE HAVE SEEN IN OUR LIFETIMES. THIS APRIL, THOUSANDS, IF NOT MILLIONS, OF PEOPLE WILL NOT PAY THEIR RENT. WE ARE BANDING TOGETHER: FOLKS WHO CANNOT PAY AND THOSE WHO WILL JOIN THEM IN SOLIDARITY. WE REFUSE TO PAY FOR THE RIGHT TO LIVE. MANY WILL HAVE TO CHOOSE BETWEEN RENT AND FOOD, AND MANY WON’T HAVE ENOUGH FOR EITHER. WE WILL NOT SACRIFICE OUR LIVES TO KEEP THE MARKET AFLOAT, OR TO FILL THE POCKETS OF REAL ESTATE LENDERS AND LANDLORDS.”

RESTATEMENT (SECOND) OF CONTRACTS § 261 provides:

Where, after a contract is made, a party's performance is made impracticable without his fault by the occurrence of an event the non-occurrence of which was a basic assumption on which the contract was made, his duty to render that performance is discharged, unless the language or the circumstances indicate the contrary.

From [JDSupra] Until the COVID-19 (new coronavirus) pandemic, the term force majeurewas one not readily recognized outside of legal circles.  Now, in light of the rapid spread of this disease and its ensuing consequences, businesses are scrambling to ascertain whether they can (i) cancel, suspend or delay contracts based on force majeure clauses, (ii) limit liability for breach or nonperformance thereunder and/or (iii) oppose invocation of a force majeure defense.

While each agreement’s language, the governing law and the surrounding factual circumstances will differ and require individual analysis, below we present a short primer on the law of force majeure and on alternative theories available to argue for or against nonperformance of contractual requirements.  We start with some generally accepted principles, and then examine some case law in the District of Columbia, Virginia and Maryland (the “Metropolitan Area”). To read our advisory on how courts in Illinois, California, and New York have addressed force majeure clauses, click here.

What does force majeure mean? What is a force majeurecontractual provision?

The term force majeure is a French term – literally meaning “superior force” – that worked its way into English law from the Code of Napoleon.  Black’s Law Dictionary defines it as follows: “An event or effect that can be neither anticipated nor controlled; esp., an unexpected event that prevents someone from doing or completing something that he or she had agreed or officially planned to do.” 

A force majeure clause is a provision found in a contract that, if applicable under its terms, has the effect of terminating, suspending, or limiting performance by a party of its contractual obligations when extraordinary circumstances beyond the party’s control prevent such performance.  Application of a force majeure clause in certain circumstances can even entitle a party to compensation, e.g., the return of a deposit.  In essence, a force majeure clause gives a person an “out” to one extent or another from contractual duties.  

Do the words “force majeure” need to appear in the contract?

No.  The agreement can contain a provision having the same effect as a force majeure clause without using those words.  For example, a contract might contain a paragraph called “Termination for Cause” that may list events that will allow nonperformance. Thus, it is important to review each contract to determine if it enumerates force majeure events even in the absence of those talismanic words.

What are typical force majeure events/occurrences covered in contracts?

Force majeure events or occurrences may be natural or manmade.  Typical force majeure clauses cover such specific matters as: acts of God; war, insurrection, or civil disturbance; natural disasters like earthquakes, fire and floods; transportation disruptions; strikes and labor disturbances or labor shortages; government shutdowns, etc.  At the same time, however, force majeure clauses may also include a “catch-all” provision that triggers its consequence, for example, “or any other emergency beyond the parties' control, making it inadvisable, illegal, or impossible to perform their obligations under this Agreement.” 

It is important to note that courts historically construe force majeure clauses narrowly to limit them to their express terms only.  Thus, as applicable here, if the clause specifically covers such things as epidemics, pandemics or diseases that have caused nonperformance, there obviously is an excellent argument that the new coronavirus pandemic would trigger the force majeure clause. At the same time, if a catch–all clause includes “other emergencies”, it too could very well capture a party’s inability to perform due to COVID-19, in light of the President and the Metropolitan Areas’ officials respectively having declared national and state emergencies.

A harder question surrounds the term “act of God.”  What follows is a brief discussion of decisions from the local courts in the Metropolitan Area that interpret that phrase, and how that phrase might apply to cases involving COVID-19.  It is important to recognize, however, that each case will turn on specific facts and context, and additional contract language that might limit application of an act of God, such as whether the act of God had to have been unforeseen.  [MORE]

How the Government of Italy is Handling its [Free Range Prison] Population Now

Emergency Brake. Are Governments Tracking the Outbreak or Spying on People?

FUNKTIONARY defines “emergency” as “the excuse given for implementing some long planned attack on the freedom of the dwellers upon the land by those behind the curtain of the Corporate state. You deserve a break today … an emergency brake. Emerge and (see the illusion of reality projected in your mind), then breaktrance with breakbeats. (See; Nine-Eleven, MKULTRA & Trance).”

Racist Suspect Alabama Judge Denies New Trial for Toforest Johnson, on Death Row for Killing Cop: No physical evidence, 10 Alibi Witnesses, White AG Hid Info of Witness Payment

From [DPIC] and [HERE] Racist suspect Jefferson County Circuit Judge Teresa Pulliam [in photo] denied a new trial Monday for Alabama death row inmate Toforest Johnson, whose case has attracted local and national attention from prominent lawyers and advocates who believe he is innocent, saying he had not proven his claim that his conviction and death sentence for the killing of a sheriff’s deputy in 1995 were the product of prosecutorial misconduct.

Johnson was convicted in 1999 of murdering Jefferson County Sheriff’s Deputy William G. Hardy. Hardy was a Black man. Over the course of four different court proceedings, the state presented at least five different accounts of who committed the killing. No physical evidence connected Johnson to the crime, and ten alibi witnesses placed him at a nightclub on the other side of Birmingham when the shooting occurred. Johnson’s conviction rested on the testimony of one witness, Violet Ellison, who claimed she had been eavesdropping on a phone call her daughter had placed to the prison and overheard a man calling himself “Toforest” confess to the crime. Prosecutors did not disclose to Johnson’s lawyers or the jury that Ellison had been paid $5,000 in reward money for her testimony.

Johnson’s lawyers first learned in 2003 that a reward payment may have been made. The prosecution had been aware of the payment and the trial judge, Alfred Bahakel, whose brother Jerry was a Jefferson County sheriff’s deputy at the time Hardy was murdered, approved the payout. Neither disclosed the payment to the defense. After 15 years of litigation on the issue, the Alabama Attorney General’s office turned over documentation of the reward payment in January 2019. They blamed the delay on Jefferson County prosecutors having “misfiled” the records of the payment.

In a June 2019 hearing in Jefferson County court, Johnson presented evidence documenting the payment, including copies of the $5,000 check and a letter from then-District Attorney David Barber asking for the state to pay Ellison and acknowledging that she had come forward in an effort to collect the reward money. Ellison testified that she was unaware of the reward until several years after the trial, but Johnson’s lawyer, Ty Alper argued, “[t]he State does not just call you out of the blue, years after trial for no particular reason and tell you, we’d like to give you $5000 for this trial that you testified in three years ago.”

In a March 16, 2020 order, Judge Teresa Pulliam credited Ellison’s testimony, describing her as “well-dressed” and “articulate.” Ellison’s testimony, she wrote, outweighed the evidence presented by Johnson’s attorneys. His lawyers said they would appeal the court’s ruling.

Johnson’s case has attracted national attention as part of a pattern of misconduct by Jefferson County prosecutors. In 2014, Jeff Wallace, the state’s lead prosecutor, said, “I don’t think the State’s case was very strong, because it depended on the testimony of Violet Ellison.” Johnson’s lawyers pointed to inconsistencies in Ellison’s story, which did not match the physical evidence in the case.

Over the course of four trials of Johnson and his co-defendant, Ardragus Ford, Birmingham prosecutors advanced at least five different, contradictory theories of the crime, many of them based on the shifting testimony of a 15-year-old witness, Yolanda Chambers. Chambers’ story changed numerous times after police repeatedly threatened her with imprisonment. Two other witnesses who refused to testify to the version of events police wanted were jailed. In an amicus brief filed in support of Johnson in December 2019, the Innocence Project wrote, “[i]f ever a case bore the hallmarks of a wrongful conviction, Toforest Johnson’s is it.”

During his campaign for office, Jefferson County District Attorney Danny Carr pledged to “examine post-conviction cases to identify and correct wrongful prosecutions,” including “previously-imposed death sentences.” He said his office is reviewing Johnson’s case. “At the end of the day, my dad is still innocent,” Johnson’s daughter, Shanaye Poole said. “Our family is more determined than ever to make sure the truth prevails and he comes home.”

Imagine living in a country that charges 13 million [disproportionately Black & Brown] People every year with misdemeanor crimes for things like jaywalking or sitting on a sidewalk

From {MassPrivatel] A new "Big-Picture View" by The Prison Policy Initiative reveals a horrifying picture of mass incarceration in America.

"The American criminal justice system holds almost 2.3 million people in 1,833 state prisons, 110 federal prisons, 1,772 juvenile correctional facilities, 3,134 local jails, 218 immigration detention facilities, and 80 Indian Country jails as well as in military prisons, civil commitment centers, state psychiatric hospitals, and prisons in the U.S."

Imagine living in a country that puts 10.6 million people in jail every year.

"Every year, over 600,000 people enter prison gates, but people go to jail 10.6 million times each year. Jail churn is particularly high because most people in jails have not been convicted. Some have just been arrested and will make bail within hours or days, while many others are too poor to make bail and remain behind bars until their trial. Only a small number (about 160,000 on any given day) have been convicted, and are generally serving misdemeanors sentences under a year."

Imagine living in a country that puts 550,000 people in jail every year who have not been convicted of a crime.

Imagine living in a country that puts people behind bars for technical violations and low-level offenses.

"More often, they are charged with misdemeanors or non-criminal violations. Yet even low-level offenses, like technical violations of probation and parole, can lead to incarceration and other serious consequences. A common example is when people on probation or parole are jailed for violating their supervision, either for a new crime or a technical violation. If a parole or probation officer suspects that someone has violated supervision conditions, they can file a detainer (or hold), rendering that person ineligible for release on bail. For people struggling to rebuild their lives after conviction or incarceration, returning to jail for a minor infraction can be profoundly destabilizing."

Imagine living in a country that charges 13 million Americans every year with misdemeanor crimes for things like jaywalking or sitting on a sidewalk.

"The massive misdemeanor system in the U.S. is another important but overlooked contributor to overcriminalization and mass incarceration. For behaviors as benign as jaywalking or sitting on a sidewalk, an estimated 13 million misdemeanor charges sweep droves of Americans into the criminal justice system each year (and that’s excluding civil violations and speeding). These low-level offenses account for over 25% of the daily jail population nationally, and much more in some states and counties." [MORE]

All White Bench: Study Finds that 85% of all State Supreme Courts Judges are White

Courthouse News reports that State supreme courts remain overly represented by Caucasian men, New York University’s Brennan Center for Justice reported Thursday, saying nearly half of all high court benches have an all-white bench.

The study paints a picture of a state judiciary that is increasingly out of sync with state demographics.

While Caucasian men represented only 30% of the national population in 2018 but occupied 55% of the seats on state high courts in 2019, the study found. Meanwhile, men and women of color, as well as Caucasian women, represented their demographics less often than their national populations, with 22 states having no people of color at all on their high courts. [MORE]

Circuit Ct [11 White Judges] Blocks Release of Records in Lynching Case: White Mob Dragged 4 Black People from car, Tied Them to a Tree & Shot Them 60X. No One Indicted, Charged by White DA

From [HERE] and [HERE] Weighing grand jury secrecy against the historical significance of unreleased records about a 1946 mob lynching in Georgia, the en banc 11th Circuit ruled Friday that grand jury transcripts from the unsolved Moore’s Ford case cannot be unsealed. [The Moore’s Ford Lynchings, also known as the 1946 Georgia lynching, refers to the July 25, 1946 murders of four young African Americans by a mob of white males.] [MORE]

In a 8-4 split, the Atlanta-based appeals court refused to make an exception to a federal rule to allow for the release of grand jury transcripts in what is widely considered the last mass lynching in American history.

The ruling may mark the end of a fight started by the late historian Anthony Pitch and continued by his widow Marion Pitch to uncover records that could shed light on the deaths of Roger and Dorothy Malcom and George and Mae Murray Dorsey.

The two black couples were stopped by a mob as they drove along a road outside of Atlanta and were dragged from their car, tied to a tree and shot.

Although over 100 people reportedly testified before a grand jury in late 1946, no one was ever indicted for the crime.

An 11th Circuit panel previously upheld a lower court’s decision to release grand jury materials in the case. In a February 2019 ruling, the three-judge panel found that district courts can authorize the disclosure of grand jury records outside of Rule 6(e) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure’s exceptions in certain “exceptional circumstances.”

Rule 6(e) codifies the rule of grand jury secrecy and determines under what conditions the records of grand jury proceedings may be released.

Friday’s reversal comes after a full 12-member panel of the court reheard arguments in the case in October following a vote to vacate the prior decision.

The en banc court ruled that all instances in which a district court can disclose grand jury materials are already codified in Rule 6(e), calling the rule “exhaustive.”

The court overturned its 1984 ruling in In re Petition to Inspect & Copy Grand Jury Materials (Hastings), which held that district courts have power to go beyond the exceptions listed in Rule 6(e).

“District courts may only authorize the disclosure of grand jury materials if one of the five exceptions listed in Rule 6(e)(3)(E) applies; they do not possess the inherent, supervisory power to order the release of grand jury records in instances not covered by the rule,” Senior U.S. Circuit Judge Gerald Tjoflat, a Gerald Ford appointee, wrote on behalf of the majority.

In a dissenting opinion, U.S. Circuit Judge Charles Wilson, a Bill Clinton appointee, called the majority’s view of the case “anti-textual and anti-historical.”

Wilson said he would uphold the 11th Circuit’s precedent that district courts have the power to disclose grand jury materials, noting that district court judges very rarely exercise that power and the federal appeals court has oversight over those decisions.

According to the dissent, district courts in the 11th Circuit have only unsealed grand jury transcripts twice since the court was established in 1981.

Wilson was joined in the dissent by U.S. Circuit Judges Beverly Martin and Jill Pryor, both Barack Obama appointees. U.S. Circuit Judge Robin Rosenbaum, another Obama appointee, dissented in a separate opinion.

Vanilla Vice: No Jail Time for Anybody after PG&E Pleads Guilty to 84 Counts of Manslaughter. It Will Pay $4M Fine from a fund set aside for Victims of the Blaze

NO ACCOUNTABILITY FOR ELITE WHITES WHO COMMIT CRIMES. The Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) is an American investor-owned utility (IOU) with publicly-traded stock. In PHOTO Bill Johnson, Chairman of the Board, Acting CEO.

From [WSJ] PG&E Corp. PCG -1.94% said it would accept criminal responsibility for starting the deadliest wildfire in California’s history, becoming one of a small number of U.S. corporations to plead guilty to felony charges of involuntary manslaughter.

The indictment by a grand jury and PG&E’s decision to plead guilty put to rest significant questions about the extent of the company’s culpability in starting the Camp Fire in 2018.

PG&E, a utility that supplies electricity and natural gas to 16 million people, or about one in 20 Americans, admitted that its failure to maintain its equipment was criminally negligent and caused the deaths of more than 80 people. However, the indictment doesn’t charge any PG&E employees or executives.

Butte County District Attorney Mike Ramsey, who led the investigation, said evidence showed that the company’s maintenance problems resulted from decisions made by many people over many years, and he decided not to charge any single person.

On Monday morning, the San Francisco utility disclosed that it would plead guilty to an indictment in Butte County, where 85 people died during the Camp Fire. The indictment charges the company with 84 counts of manslaughter and one count of unlawfully causing a fire. The company has agreed to pay a $3.48 million penalty, the statutory maximum.

According to the LA Times, it plans to pay its $4-million fine from a fund set aside for victims of the blaze.

The utility is on the hook for $3.5 million in fines and penalties and an additional $500,000 that will go to the Butte County District Attorney’s Environmental and Consumer Protection Fund as part of a plea agreement the utility recently reported to the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The utility plans to pay that $4 million out of a $13.5-billion Fire Victim Trust that was set up during its bankruptcy after the wildfire, which killed 85 people and destroyed more than 18,000 buildings in the rural mountain town of Paradise in Northern California.

“This is an unconscionable attempt to avoid responsibility for the very crime to which it just confessed,” said Michael Carlson of Caymus Vineyards, one of thousands of claimants against the utility. “The district attorney worked hard to hold PG&E responsible for its crime, and we are confident he never intended for PG&E to use funds dedicated to fire victims.”

Indeed, Butte County Dist. Atty. Michael Ramsey told The Times on Thursday he was surprised when he learned of the utility’s payment plan.

“It’s incredibly stupid and insenisitve, in a nutshell,” Ramsey said. “All these statements of ‘great remorse.’ Is that all fake?”

But Ramsey acknowledged he does not have the power to tell the utility how to pay its fine. That will be up to the judge overseeing the utility’s bankruptcy. Observers such as Paradise Councilman Michael Zuccolillo have already made up their minds on how the judge should rule.

“It’s a fine against PG&E, it’s not a fine against the wildfire fund,” said the councilman, who like most of the town’s residents lost his home in the 2018 blaze. “I think it’s extremely poor PR. I have a hard time imagining PG&E can’t come up with $4 million.”

PG&E officials argued that when the trust was established, all parties agreed to use the fund to pay out claims against the utility. Fines and penalties is mentioned in the fine print once, on the third page of the agreement’s term sheet.

To undo this specific portion of the agreement could throw PG&E’s entire bankruptcy plan into jeopardy, including its financing, the company said in a statement emailed to The Times on Thursday.

“The action we took this week related to the Camp fire charges is an important step in taking responsibility for the past and working to create a better future for all concerned,” the company statement said. “We want to do right by the victims and the communities. That is why we have been focused on resolving the cases quickly so that victims can start to receive the help they need as quickly as possible.”

Earlier this month, it appeared that the victim trust could be tapped by both the California Office of Emergency Services and the Federal Emergency Management Agency to recover costs from their responses to the fire as well. Both agencies have since agreed that victims will receive their payments out of the trust first.

The fine and settlement PG&E reached with Butte County prosecutors included the caveat that prosecutors cannot seek additional charges against the utility for the Camp fire, which shattered California records for lives lost, buildings destroyed and insurance claims filed for a single wildfire.

Investigators found that PG&E workers had failed to do climbing inspectionson many of its grid towers, including the century-old tower where equipment failed the morning of Nov. 8, 2018. On that day, a small metal hook holding up a high-voltage transmission line and insulator failed,  creating the spark that ultimately grew into the wind-driven blaze.

This was not the first time PG&E had been found criminally responsible for a disaster.

In 2016, a federal jury found the utility guilty of violating pipeline safety regulations before a deadly natural gas pipeline explosion in the San Francisco Bay Area and then misleading investigators about how it was identifying high-risk pipelines.

Jurors convicted PG&E of obstruction and five of 11 counts of pipeline safety violations, including failing to gather information to evaluate potential gas line threats and deliberately not classifying a gas line as high risk.

The explosion of the PG&E natural gas pipeline in 2010 sent a giant plume of fire into the air, killed eight people and destroyed 38 homes in the city of San Bruno.

PG&E is set to be arraigned on the charges April 24 in Butte County Superior Court.

You Can't Frequently Wash Your Hands If the Utility Company Has Turned Off Your Water & Refuses to Restore Service

On April 1st, while corporate retailers skip on payments & homeowners are allowed to wave mortgages, millions of renters will be expected to pay their rent. Accordingly, a nationwide rent strike has been organized.

From {HERE] and [HERE] The advice is simple and universal: Washing your hands with soap and water is one of the most effective ways to stop the spread of the coronavirus. But for millions of people across the country, that's not simple at all: They lack running water in their houses due to service shutoffs prompted by overdue bills. 

The Rev. Roslyn Bouier remembers when children began to show up at the Brightmoor Connection Food Pantry on Detroit's northwest side, clutching empty pitchers. It was the summer of 2014 and the kids were parched. But their thirst didn't come from playing outside — they had no water at home.

That was the year the city of Detroit started its water shutoff campaign, turning off water to 28,500 residential accounts behind on payments. Through the end of 2019, the city has recorded about 127,500 total service cutoffs, according to the water department, though that figure includes households where the water was turned off repeatedly.

According to the Guardian seven states – Wisconsin, New York, Connecticut, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Illinois and Louisiana – have mandated a halt to shutoffs, according to data provided exclusively to the Guardian by Food & Water Watch (FWW), a not-for-profit organisation tracking the situation.

A handful of private water companies, which supply about 15% of Americans, have suspended shutoffs.

But just one in five water departments have explicitly agreed to reconnect households currently without running water. The rest have only committed to halting new shutoffs.

"In this pandemic, it's the people who are living on the margins of society and the poorest of our society that's being the most adversely impacted," Bouier said. 

Michigan has the sixth-highest number of coronavirus cases in the country, according to Johns Hopkins University's data tracking of the disease. The state has reported 3,657 cases and 92 deaths as of Friday afternoon. Detroit leads Michigan with 1,075 cases and 23 deaths.

We the People of Detroit co-founder Monica Lewis-Patrick said her organization, which has campaigned for years to end shutoffs, has struggled to find bottled water to deliver to families without service because supplies are being hoarded. [MORE]

Don't Believe the Hype: Millions of [Non-White] People Need Loans as Coronavirus Spreads but [Elite White] Lenders Are Making Them Tougher to Get

According to the [Wall Street Journal] Banks and financial-technology firms are starting to toughen their approval standards for new loans to consumers and small businesses. That means many people could find it hard to get credit just when they most need it, as the novel coronavirus pandemic puts thousands out of work.

Large U.S. lenders including JPMorgan Chase JPM -7.12% & Co., Bank of America BAC -4.93% Corp., Capital One Financial Corp. COF -4.44% and Santander Consumer USA Holdings SC -7.58% Inc. are among the companies reviewing and revising certain lending criteria, according to people familiar with the matter. Planned moves include approving fewer consumers with lower credit scores, asking for more income documentation and placing lower spending limits on new credit cards.

American Express Co. AXP -4.89% has scaled back financing offers to small businesses, according to people familiar with the matter. Fintech lenders Square SQ -4.80% Inc. andOn Deck Capital ONDK 1.82% Inc. said this week they would do the same.

About half a dozen lenders that have found borrowers through Fundera Inc., an online marketplace for small-business loans, have paused new extensions of credit, said Fundera CEO Jared Hecht. “Lenders have zero idea how to assess risk in this environment,” Mr. Hecht said. “There is no model that can predict today if I lend $1, will I get paid back?”

Lenders are concerned that rising unemployment and a potential recession will send loan defaults soaring. The moves suggest at best a pause and at worst an end to six-plus years of a bull run in credit, where financial firms have been eager to lend and underwriting standards for credit cards, auto loans and personal loans have been relatively loose.

Lenders are scrutinizing applications for credit cards and personal loans in particular because consumers often turn to them when they are in a bind. They are usually unsecured, which means lenders have little recourse if a borrower defaults, and they can be the first loans people stop paying when money is tight.

Many lenders have said they would work with existing borrowers who ask for help. Some lenders, for example, are increasing card spending limits or delaying due dates on loans.

But lenders are reluctant to take on additional risk from new customers.

“Even people who applied [for credit] in the last two weeks are more vulnerable [now] than when they applied,” said Brian Riley, director of credit advisory services at Mercator Advisory Group. [MORE]

Soldiers around the world Being Used to En-force Coronavirus Lockdowns on “Citizens" [its a “lockdown" b/c you’re in a “Free-Range Prison," now go inside and play on your “Cell Phone"]

System Based on Consent or Physical Coercion? The WashPost observes “Around the world, as a [manufactured] consensus has formed around the [perceived] need for quarantine and social distancing to fight the coronavirus, a more delicate question has emerged: How do you enforce those new rules? [the same way you en-force all rules - violence]

In every region, under all kinds of political systems, governments are turning to increasingly stringent measures — and deploying their armed forces to back them up.

Countries as varied as China, Jordan, El Salvador and Italy have sent service members into the streets. Guatemala has detained more than 1,000 people. In Peru, those who flout government restrictions can be jailed for up to three years. In Saudi Arabia, it’s five.

Deploying troops is a startling but often effective way to keep people indoors, but its impact could ripple well beyond the end of the coronavirus, as countries decide when — and if — to cede the powers endowed by a global pandemic.

In Lebanon, Chile and Hong Kong, beset for months by protests, fear of the coronavirus has allowed the state to ban public gatherings without overtly violating civil liberties. In several countries, leaders have used the public health crisis to suppress freedom of speech and other constitutional protections. [MORE]

Michael Huemer explains in a “lawless society” commands are often enforced with threats to issue further commands, yet that cannot be all there is to it. At the end of the chain must come a threat that the violator literally cannot defy. The system as a whole must be anchored by a non-voluntary intervention, a harm that the state can impose regardless of the individual’s choices.

Statists continually marvel at the situation right in front of their eyes and still miss it. Government is a coercive institution. It may feel better to you if you consent - but you really have no choice in the matter, do you? In reality, you either comply with authorities or go to jail. Read that again. According to FUNKTIONARY:

citizens - those who instinctively seek permission or ask themselves whether or not they are allowed to do anything before they act. Citizens (serfs, subjects or slaves), possess a "ruled" mind-virus mentality (See: Citizenship & Slavery). FUNKTIONARY further states:

“A citizen is one whose second nature is to do whatever might please his or her master without question in order to avoid disapproval and/or punishment. Citizens show-up, shut-up, and pay-up—extorted tribute and fines." 

coercion - external authority or any sort of compelled act based on the threat of violence, ostracism or peonage. Once a man has said “yes” under “coercion,”once a man has yielded because he was forced to yield, you have destroyed his capacity to say “yes” spontaneously forever. He will say yes only when he is coerced. (See: violence, power, authority, Will & Force).

cell phones - communication devices that inmates use to talk to one another and to those out in the bigger prison. [MORE]

Michael Huemer explains

“Generally speaking, when the state makes a law, the law carries with it a punishment to be imposed upon violators. It is possible to have a law with no specified punishment for violation, but all actual governments attach punishments to nearly all laws.  Not everyone who breaks the law will in fact be punished, but the state will generally make a reasonable effort at punishing violators and will generally punish a fair number of them, typically with fines or imprisonment. These punishments are intended to harm lawbreakers, and they generally succeed in doing so.

     Direct physical violence is rarely used as a punishment. Nevertheless, violence plays a crucial role in the system, because without the threat of violence, lawbreakers could simply choose not to suffer punishment. For example, the government commands that drivers stop before all red lights. If you violate this rule, you might be punished with a $200 fine. But this is simply another command. If you didn’t obey the command to stop before all red lights, why would you obey the command to pay $200 to the government? Perhaps the second command will be enforced by a third command: the government may threaten to revoke your driver’s license if you do not pay the fine. In other words, they may command you to stop driving. But if you violated the first two commands, why would you follow the third? Well, the command to stop driving may be enforced by a threat of imprisonment if you continue to drive without a license. As these examples illustrate, commands are often enforced with threats to issue further commands, yet that cannot be all there is to it. At the end of the chain must come a threat that the violator literally cannot defy. The system as a whole must be anchored by a non-voluntary intervention, a harm that the state can impose regardless of the individual’s choices.

     That anchor is provided by physical force. Even the threat of imprisonment requires enforcement: how can the state ensure that the criminal goes to the prison? The answer lies in coercion, involving actual or threatened bodily injury, or at a minimum, physical pushing or pulling of the individual’s body to the location of imprisonment. This is the final intervention that the individual cannot choose to defy. One can choose not to pay a fine, one can choose to drive without a license, and one can even choose not to walk to a police car to be taken away. But one cannot choose not to be subjected to physical force if the agents of the state decide to impose it.

     Thus, the legal system is founded on intentional, harmful coercion. To justify a law, one must justify imposition of that law on the population through a threat of harm, including the coercive imposition of actual harm on those who are caught violating the law. In common sense morality, the threat or actual coercive imposition of harm is normally wrong. This is not to say that it cannot be justified; it is only to say that coercion requires a justification. This may be because of the way in which coercion disrespects persons, seeking to bypass their reason and manipulate them through fear, or the way in which it seems to deny the autonomy and equality of other persons.” [MORE]

Toot Toot, All Aboard Captain Trump’s Paper Boat! Poll Shows President is as Popular as he's ever been - Thanks to his Stupid, Unaccountable Neuropean & Neuropeon Believers

WOULD YOU LIKE TO BUY SOME INVISIBLE HAIR PINS? ALL THE PROCEEDS GO TO THE SYSTEM OF RACISM/WHITE SUPREMACY

CNN states: “Here's an indisputable fact: President Donald Trump is as popular today as he has been since his first day in office.

In a new Gallup poll, 49% approve of the job Trump is doing as president while 45% disapprove, matching the highest his approval rating has ever been in Gallup surveys. A Monmouth University poll released on Monday showed Trump at 46% approval, again the best he has done in that poll in more than three years.” [CNN]

Although Mr. Chump is a blithering idiot incapable of managing a pack of rubber bands and whether neuropeans and neuropeons derive any tangible, material benefits from his policies, they are apparently living through him vicariously - as they enjoy watching him practice racism and indulge in other mindless vulgar ignorance. Most of the time Trump does and says exactly what his believers want to see and hear. Neuropeans and neuropeons, all of them racist, apparently love feeling necessary to his power and domination over non-white people and love being dominated by him. As explained by Doc. Blynd white degeneracy has been wrongly cast as white supremacy.

Trump fulfills a need and if he wasn't around some other deceivers would take his place.  Neuropeans and neuropeons create their own deceivers, they give Trump the opportunity and want to be deceived. OSHO explains “There are millions of people who are ready to be deceived, who are simply waiting for someone to come and deceive them - because of their beliefs, because of their vicious desires, because of their greed.” He says:

“The ego can try to influence, then it feels good, dominating, but remember that the ego also feels good being dominated. The masters feel good because so many slaves are dominated, and the slaves also feel good being dominated.

There are two types of mind in the world: the mind of those who dominate - the male mind, and the mind of those who like to be dominated - the female mind. By female I don't mean women, or by male, men. There are women who have masculine minds and there are men who have feminine minds. They are not always the same.

These are the two types of mind: one which likes to dominate and one which likes to be dominated. In both ways ego is fulfilled because whether you dominate or are dominated YOU are important. If someone dominates you, then too you are important, because his domination depends on you. Without you, where will he be? Without you, where will his kingdom be, his domination, his possession? Without you, he will be nobody.”

Ego is fulfilled at both the extremes, only in the middle does ego die. Don't be dominated and don't try to dominate.

Just think what will happen to you. You are not important in any way, not significant in any way, neither as a master nor as a slave. Masters cannot live without slaves and slaves cannot live without masters - they need each other, they are complementary. Just like men and women, they are complementary. The other is required for their fulfillment.”

Don't be either.” [MORE]

[and so it goes also in the relationship between racists and niggers in a system of RSW. That is, RSW is maintained through cooperative control, a voluntary, consensual master-servant relationship between racists and compliant Black people. Racists need complementary Black people to willingly play subordinate servant roles to maintain their master position - ‘it is our behavior, our values, our consciousness, the kind of personalities we’ve established in ourselves, our taste, our desires and needs that maintains neuropeans in their dominant position.’ [MORE] Needless to say w/in said relationship elite racists function as Black people’s parents, bosses, managers, and major decision-makers. Master-servant relations have nothing to do with demographics or political party affiliation. Neuropeans and neuropeons both seek to have master-servant relations with Black people - Blacks who participate & fulfill this role may be described as niggers MORE.]

OSHO warns “Don't be a participant in any deception, be very, very alert.”

Naturally, the actual identity of the neuropeans and neuropeons who voted for Mr. Trump is unknown b/c elections in a so-called democracy use secret/anonymous ballots. As a result, voters avoid all personal responsibility and accountability for the acts of the puppetician who allegedly “represents them.”

Neuropeons - neurotic, stupid and self deluded poor white trash. 2) skin heads 3) Nazis, neo-Nazis and Theo-nazis (See KKK, WOTAN, Weitko Disease, Fasxism, Racism White Supremacy, Stupidity, Ku Klux Klan & Yurungu).  

Neuropeans - (Neurotic Europeans) - neurotic, ignorant, narcissistic and self-deluded white supremacist Caucasians operating at the mythic and rational levels of consciousness only. 2) Fascists. (See Weitko Disease, White Supremacy and Yurungu.)

Believer - one who accepts that which has no basis in reality. 2) a person who enjoys being deceived. A believer does not seek—just accepts theologies and/or ideologies. 3) one who is addicted to vanity and/or chained to convention with conviction. 4) one who lives in a cloud of illusions, confounded by language and its deceptions. Believers are people who make their lives subjective slaves to a mere belief—engineered my limited and fragmented understanding and fostered by erroneous conclusions based solely on effects and appearances. A true believer would rather believe in something and be wrong than not believe in it and be right. 

dumfuxx - those who are terminally stuck-on-stupid—who buy into the stupid part of anything—attached to their stupidity.

dummies - creatures that obliviously accept and protect the parameters imposed on them by their unavowed or avowed enemies. (See: Cowards, Dupe-lification, Dummy Return, Reality Boxes, Knowledge Vacuums & Orglings)

belief-based truth - a description or perception of reality, (the content of which comprises what we call "truth"), that one desires or hopes to be true, despite external scientific, natural, or reproducible proof-based truth to the contrary. People all-too-often compromise their integrity and/or intelligence by devising truth which disallows any proof by design, as part and parcel of its ruse to allure its believers)—and even the truth that carries proof cannot be proven against the undeniable uncertainty of Reality. You fall prey to (or fall for) the illusions of proof if you ignore the pure subjectivity of reality. Illusions of scientific proof follow illusions of limits, and illusions of religious proof follow illusions of truth. Science makes truth out of proof, while belief-based religions make proof out of truth. (See: Infinity, Proof, Revelatory Truth, Absolute Truth & Belief System)

New Legislation Expands Immunity Protections From COVID-19 Liability Claims

From [HERE] The North Carolina General Assembly voted yesterday, June 23, 2020, in overwhelmingly bipartisan fashion to expand the immunity protections that it created last month in response to the COVID-19 Pandemic. House Bill 118 (HB 118) expands immunity for all COVID-19 infection claims arising out of ordinary negligence to all businesses and persons, very broadly defined. Previously, on May 2, 2020, the General Assembly passed Senate Bill 704(SB 704), which limited immunity protection to healthcare “providers” and “facilities,” “essential businesses” and “emergency response entities” with the protection for businesses and emergency response entities further limited to claims by employees and customers. The limited reach of that protection was revisited by the General Assembly in HB 118 and greatly expanded. 

This Client Alert explains HB 118 and how it expands civil immunity to all “person[s]” against all infection claims during the ongoing pandemic, building significantly upon the earlier, more limited grant of immunity provided in SB 704. 

We previously provided an Alert on SB 704. Like SB 704, HB 118 passed in overwhelmingly bipartisan fashion, passing the Senate 40-7 and the House 110-5, and is expected to become law subject to the Governor’s authority to veto it. HB 118, entitled “An Act to Provide Limited Immunity From Liability for Claims Based on Transmission of Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19),” does not supplant SB 704, but compliments and expands its protections mainly by providing an immunity shield to a much broader and, essentially, all-encompassing category of persons, businesses and claims. 

Specifically, HB 118 provides that “no person shall be liable for any act or omission that does not amount to gross negligence, willful or wanton conduct, or intentional wrongdoing.” The definition of “person” includes all natural persons and every type of legal entity.[1] While SB 704 provided that same protection against negligence lawsuits, the protection was limited to healthcare “providers,” “facilities,” “essential businesses,” and “emergency response entities,” and for businesses to claims by “employees” or “customers.” HB 118 applies to all of the entities to which SB 704 applied and more. 

The immunity under both laws, however, is limited to ordinary negligence and will not shield persons or businesses from claims or acts arising out of gross negligence, willful or wanton conduct, or intentional wrongdoing. Although HB 118 does not define these terms, North Carolina courts have defined “gross negligence” as “wanton conduct done with conscious or reckless disregard for the rights and safety of others.” Suarez ex rel. Nordan v. Am. Ramp Co., 831 S.E.2d 885, 893 (2019) (quotation omitted). In lay terms, all businesses and persons have a liability shield if they make a negligent mistake, i.e., we all are protected if we make a mistake, but not if we make a really stupid mistake. If we make a really stupid mistake or worse, we lose the protection. These issues and what conduct will eliminate protection against liability are sure to be addressed in COVID-19 related litigation, which has begun and is likely to continue for some time.