F is for Fascism (Ferguson MO)

PhDeac said:

They were keeping up with the pace of the group in front of them.

Click to expand...

PhDeac said:

Yeah. That’s the thing. I’ve seen plenty of homeless looking people in Starbucks and never seen an employee tell them to get out.

Random story. One time I was back home eating dinner at a 4-star restaurant owned by a friend from high school. A guy we had seen wandering through another part of town the day before came in wearing tattered clothes and a reflector jacket.

A few customers (mostly well dressed white people 60+ years old) said hey to him and he said hey back. He sat at the bar and the server handed him a menu. He order something and sat at the bar. In a few minutes, they packed him a to go box. Didn’t see any card or cash exchanged. He waved to a few more folks and left.

I don’t know the back story but do know the owner is a stand up woman who goes out of her way to help people.

Click to expand...

PhDeac said:

Wrong town.

Click to expand...

A bill moving through the Louisiana Legislature seeks to impose stiffer penalties on people who cause criminal damage to "critical infrastructure" or enter such infrastructure without authorization, and it's adding oil pipelines to the list of what the state of Louisiana regards as "critical infrastructure."

It's a bill that Anne Rolfes, founding director of the Louisiana Bucket Brigade, says is aimed to prevent organizations such as hers from protesting the Bayou Bridge Pipeline, a 163-mile project that will eventually connect a crude oil hub in Nederland, Texas, to one in St. James Parish.

Groups such as Rolfes' have been as opposed to the Bayou Bridge Pipeline as the Standing Rock Sioux tribe was opposed to the Dakota Access Pipeline. The protests in Louisiana haven't attracted the international attention that the 2016 North Dakota protests did, and if lawmakers have their way, they never will.

Rep. Major Thibault, D-New Roads, has admitted that his legislation was inspired by the North Dakota protests. His legislation -- which has 49 co-authors in the House and 14 co-sponsors in the Senate -- defines pipelines as critical infrastructure and then creates two new crimes: criminal damage to a critical infrastructure and conspiracy to either commit criminal damage or enter a criminal infrastructure without authorization.

"We don't believe this takes away anybody's rights," Thibault said when he introduced the legislation to the House Administration of Criminal Justice Committee meeting April 5. As Thibault addressed the committee, he had Republican Rep. Stephen C. Dwight to his right and Tyler Gray, chief counsel to the Louisiana Mid-Continent Oil and Gas Association, to his left.

Making it obvious that he himself had actually written bill, Gray told committee members he could change the language to address some of their discomfort. For example, when Rep. Denise Marcelle alluded to Black Lives Matter protests that have shut down highways and asked if highways counted as "critical infrastructure," Gray offered to expand the definition of critical infrastructure even further if it would make her happy.

It was a unclear if Marcelle, a former Baton Rouge councilwoman who expressed anger after Baton Rouge police killed Alton Sterling, would be happy if highways were defined as critical infrastructure, but Gray's eagerness to load up the bill with more restricted areas bolstered the activists' argument that its aim is not the not the protection of property but the quashing of free speech.

"There's a right way to do things and a wrong way," Thibault told the Criminal Justice committee. "And if you want to protest against something or show your support against something then you go on down to the courthouse or whatever entity you need to, you get your permit and you go do it in a legal fashion."

In a telephone interview Thursday, a week after the full House voted 97-3 in favor of the new restrictions, Rolfes said, "The kind of resistance they like is when we stay within the lines they've drawn."

Click to expand...

Newenglanddeac said:

Click to expand...

The Milwaukee County District Attorney's Office said it will not press charges against two police officers who used their stun guns as many as 18 times in the death of a naked man in the shower last May.

District Attorney John Chisholm made the announcement on Friday, saying there was "no basis to conclusively link Mr. [Adam] Trammell's death to actions taken by police officers."

Click to expand...

Trammell's family claims he suffered from schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.

"The family first saw the video at the DA's office. So yes they've seen the video and they weep every time they see it," the Trammell family's attorney Mark Thomsen told WISN. "We had a young man in a bath tub naked, OK? Why they engaged in tasing for 15 to 18 times is beyond my imagination.

"For no good reason -- and essentially tortured to death," Thomsen added. "That should not happen to the mentally ill in our community."

Click to expand...

Siwatu-Salama Ra is a 26-year-old black mother who watched in horror as an angry assailant—a neighbor with whom Ra had a dispute—deliberately crashed her vehicle into Ra's car while Ra's two-year-old daughter was playing inside. Ra removed her unloaded, legally purchased handgun from the glove box and brandished it, scaring the neighbor off.

The assailant, Channel Harvey, was never charged. Ra was arrested for felonious assault. She is now serving a mandatory two-year-sentence, even though Michigan is a Stand Your Ground state and Ra was clearly defending her family on her own property.

Ra is pregnant, and she is expected to give birth in prison.

Click to expand...

At this point, Ra feared for her child's safety—and also the safety of her own mother, who was on the front porch. Harvey continued to move her car forward and backward in an aggressive manner. Finally, Ra retrieved her handgun and brandished it at Harvey. Harvey then used her cell phone to take a picture of Ra holding the gun and raced off to the police station, where she filed a police report.

Ra also filed a report, but Detroit police consider the first person to file a report to be the victim in a dispute. The Detroit Police Department has not responded to Reason's request for comment, but according to the Detroit Metro Times, multiple police detectives confirmed that this policy exists, including at the trial.

Click to expand...

PhDeac said:

Black people simply don't have the same rights white people do.

Click to expand...

wakephan09 said:

Agreed. But also brandishing a gun at a car with a kid in it is pretty messed up, even if that car is ramming your car with a kid in it.

Click to expand...

wakephan09 said:

Agreed. But also brandishing a gun at a car with a kid in it is pretty messed up, even if that car is ramming your car with a kid in it.

Click to expand...

PhDeac said:

Cops brandish guns at cars with kids in them all the time.

And no doubt a white guy would get away with standing his ground in that situation.

Click to expand...