Category: Wall of Fame Assholes

LAPD Refuse to Replace Truck They Wrongly Shot Up

During the Los Angeles Police Department’s (LAPD) hunter for Christopher Dorner they decided to shoot up random vehicles. Apparently the LAPD promised to replace the truck (how gracious of them). As it turns out what they really meant was that the truck would be replaced with a great number of strings attached:

The two newspaper delivery women who were shot at during the manhunt for Christopher Dorner will not be getting a new replacement truck as promised by the LAPD, according to their attorney Glen Jonas.

It has been more than a month since LAPD Chief Charlie Beck promised the truck to Emma Hernandez, 71, and her daughter, Margie Carranza, who had been working in Torrance, Calif. before dawn on Feb. 7.

Police said it was a “case of mistaken identity” that prompted officers to open fire on the women. Beck later apologized and promised to replace their truck, now riddled with bullet holes.

According to Jonas, LAPD and Galpin Ford wanted his clients to pose for a photo opportunity and pay income tax on the truck. The women no longer want the truck after they were told they needed to fill out a 1099 form for the donation, Jonas said Monday.

“You tried to murder the woman, now you’re telling her she can’t have a four-wheel drive, you’re telling her she can’t sell it and you’ve got to be taxed on it?” Jonas said. “How would anyone react to that?”

That’s cold. First the LAPD shoots their truck up because they failed to actually establish the identifies of the occupants and then they demand that the owners of the shot up truck participate in propaganda and pay income tax on the replacement. The officers involved in the shooting should be treated to the cages they like to inflict on the populace.

Judge Blocks New York City’s Ban on Large Sugary Drinks

A judge has blocked Mayor Bloomberg’s ban on large sugary drinks. That in of itself isn’t overly interesting in my opinion, Bloomberg’s reaction is:

Mayor Bloomberg responded to the ruling by telling a news conference: “We think the judge is totally in error in the way he interpreted the law and we are very confident that we will win on appeal.

“One of the cases we will make is that people are dying every day. This is not a joke. Five thousand people die of obesity every day in America,” he added.

The ban would prohibit places like restaurants and movie theaters from selling soda containers exceeding 16oz. of capacity. Bloomberg claims that obesity kills over 5,000 people a day and his proposal to prevent it is to make patrons of movie theaters and restaurants buy two smaller drinks instead of one large drink. Making the situation more laughable is the fact that two 16oz. drinks will contain more sugar than one 20oz. drink. It seems that Bloomberg hasn’t thought his master plan all the way through.

Eric Holder Believes Swartz’s Case was a Good Use of Judicial Discretion

Eric holder believes that demanding jail time to justify charges that were based on a document, not a crime, was a good use of judicial discretion:

Attorney General Eric Holder on Wednesday said the suicide death of internet activist Aaron Swartz was a “tragedy,” but the hacking case against the 26-year-old was “a good use of prosecutorial discretion.”

Holder, the nation’s top prosecutor, is the highest-ranking member of the President Barack Obama administration to defend the indictment and prosecution of the former director of Demand Progress, who committed suicide in January as his April trial approached. Holder’s comments come seven weeks after Massachusetts U.S. Attorney Carmen Ortiz, whose office was prosecuting Swartz, said the authorities’ actions were “appropriate in bringing and handling this case.”

This isn’t surprising to hear from a man who believe it’s legal to murder United States citizens in the United States without due process. Still, you would think the man could show at least a little remorse for ruining a man’s life just to prop up a dying industry for a short while longer. Instead he came out and said his boys did a bang up job and that the ends (protecting the state’s cronies) justified the means (terrorizing a man and ruining his life).

Who Didn’t See This Coming

I would think a nation composed primarily of Jews would be as adverse to persecuting groups of individuals based on religion and race as a vampire is to sunlight. That’s not the case. In a rather incredible act of irony Israel began segregating Palestinians onto separate, and I’m sure equal, buses. Needless to say most people knew what was going to come next, the Palestinian-only buses would be targeted for attack:

Two Israeli buses that were part of a controversial “Palestinian-only” bus line launched earlier this week were torched on Monday night.

It’s much easier to lash out at groups when they’re conveniently segregated from other populations.

A Glimpse of Things to Come in the United States

Some time ago the federal government was trying to legally obtain the power to strip and American citizen of their citizenship. At the time it seemed obvious that the reason the politicians in Washington DC were going for that power was to give Obama a means of getting around his promise not to indefinably detain American citizens under the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). The United Kingdom may just demonstrated another benefit of stripping citizenship, the government can blow a former citizen up with a drone and claim they haven’t killed any citizens:

The Government has secretly ramped up a controversial programme that strips people of their British citizenship on national security grounds – with two of the men subsequently killed by American drone attacks.

Governmental protections are more mythological than unicorns. Any supposed legal protection put into place is easily bypassed with the stroke of a pen.

Issuing Prison Sentences to Justify Charges

Aaron Swartz was facing 35 years in prison for the “crime” of making copies of academic works. These charges were likely a factor in his decision to end his own life. A life was basically destroyed to uphold intellectual property laws, which are destined to die sooner or later. What makes this case even more absurd is that it appears as though the prosecutors wanted to cage Swartz, not because of his actions but, to justify the charges:

Some congressional staffers left the briefing with the impression that prosecutors believed they needed to convict Swartz of a felony that would put him in jail for a short sentence in order to justify bringing the charges in the first place, according to two aides with knowledge of the briefing.

I think this demonstrates one of the biggest issues with the United States so-called justice system, it’s not based on justice. Justice would have required waiting for Swartz to commit a crime but the prosecutors used previous writings by Swartz to claim he intended to commit a crime:

A Justice Department representative told congressional staffers during a recent briefing on the computer fraud prosecution of Internet activist Aaron Swartz that Swartz’s “Guerilla Open Access Manifesto” played a role in the prosecution, sources told The Huffington Post.

Swartz’s 2008 manifesto said sharing information was a “moral imperative” and advocated for “civil disobedience” against copyright laws pushed by corporations “blinded by greed” that led to the “privatization of knowledge.”

“We need to take information, wherever it is stored, make our copies and share them with the world. We need to take stuff that’s out of copyright and add it to the archive,” Swartz wrote in the manifesto. “We need to buy secret databases and put them on the Web. We need to download scientific journals and upload them to file sharing networks. We need to fight for Guerilla Open Access.”

Effectively the Department of Justice (DoJ) (talk about Orwellian doublespeak) brought their charges against Swartz because of something he wrote in 2008 and insisted on prison time because they felt it was necessary to justify the charges. This admittance by the DoJ also shows that censorship exists in this country, it’s just not overt. If you write something that the state disagrees with you will generally not be shutdown, blacklisted, or otherwise punished. What will happen is the state will bide its time until you do something that it believes is a prosecutable offense or usable to bully you into a plea bargain. At that point the state will use your previous works to generate more severe charges in which to hang you with. By using Swartz’s previous writings as justification for charging him the DoJ has sent a message that political dissidents can and will be punished. It’s an ultimatum. Either keep silent and avoid speaking out against the state or face the state’s wrath when it decides to finally descend upon you. In other words, shut up, slave.

A tip of the hat goes to TarenSK for this information.

Destroying Meat to Fight the Homeless

The state continues its war on the homeless. This time we state agents in Shreveport, Louisiana destroyed 1,600 pounds of meat that was donated to help feed the homeless:

A local charity lost hundreds of pounds of meat that was supposed to feed the homeless when it was destroyed by a State Health Inspector. But the homeless shelter says.. it was all a big mistake and the state is responsible — or at the very least, two state agencies seem to be in conflict. KTBS 3’s Keristen Holmes spoke with officials about what happened. Hunter’s for the Hungry is a program where sportsmen can donate any extra game they have to charity. The program is endorsed on the Louisiana Departmet of Wildlife’s website but the State Health Department says, they don’t recognize the program. In the meantime a local shelter has to spend more than $8,000 to replace the meat.

Stories like this always make me laugh when people tell me that the state is necessary to help people in need. While the state pretends to care for those with nothing through its welfare programs it continuously attacks those who have nothing. A common tactic has been to use local health departments to raid food shelves under the claim that the food hasn’t been tested and therefore may not meet nutritional requirements. Of course for those with nothing to eat nutritional requirements aren’t likely to mean a damned thing. To those people any food is better than no food.

Being Above the Law

The United Nations (UN) would like to remind everybody that they cannot be held responsible for bringing death and devastation to your land:

The United Nations has formally rejected compensation claims by victims of a cholera outbreak in Haiti that has killed almost 8,000 people.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon called Haitian President Michel Martelly to inform him of the decision.

The UN says it is immune from such claims under the UN’s Convention on the Privileges and Immunities of the UN.

This sounds like a good reason to banish the UN from your country. If they come and bear plague they will hide behind the Convention on the Privileges and Immunities of the UN (a.k.a. why the UN is above the law) to avoid suffering consequences.

In Lieu of Due Process LADP Burns Down A Cabin

The Christopher Dorner chase has apparently come to an end with Dorner burned alive inside of the cabin he barricading himself in. At least that’s what the media seems to be implying. As it turns out the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) may have purposely burned the person they believed to be Dorner alive:

Scanner audio apparently broadcast by the Los Angeles CBS affiliate KCAL on Tuesday captured angry officers yelling to “burn this motherfucker” prior to a cabin fire that is thought to have burned the body of fugitive ex-LAPD officer Christopher Dorner.

In a video recording posted to YouTube on Tuesday, the anchor pauses to let the viewer hear the mostly-inaudible scanner traffic.

“Do it right now,” one voice says. “Fucking burn this motherfucker!”

“Police officers, understandably upset,” the anchor explains.

A separate recording of scanner traffic — which has not been verified — features officers talking about going forward “with the burn.”

“All right, Steve, we’re gonna go — we’re gonna go forward with the plan, with — with the burn,” a male voice on the recording instructs. “We want it like we talked about.”

“Seven burners deployed and we have a fire,” the voice later adds.

“Copy,” a female voice replies. “Seven burners deployed and we have a fire.”

I think everybody knew the LAPD never intended to bring Dorner in alive. Still, burning a man alive seems quite drastic, especially when we’re continuously told that the United States is a land of laws and everybody is innocent until proven guilty in court.

You Can’t Rely on the State for Protection

Almost two years ago I reported that firefighters in Alameda, California allowed a man to drown because they were pissy about budget cuts. Not surprisingly the family of the victim filed a lawsuit and even less surprisingly the court ruled that the firefighters couldn’t be held responsible because they have no duty to protect individuals:

The police and firefighters who remained on shore as Raymond Zack waded into San Francisco Bay on Memorial Day 2011 and succumbed to hypothermia were under no legal duty to help him, a judge ruled Monday.

Officers and firefighters also did not worsen the 52-year-old Zack’s condition by clearing Robert Crown Memorial State Beach or by preventing people from going to his aid, Judge George Hernandez said in a ruling that effectively tosses out a lawsuit that Zack’s family filed against the city of Alameda.

Granted I wouldn’t hold the firefighters responsible either, nobody should be coerced into taking an action they don’t wish to take. What I take offense to is that we’re forced to pay these bums and receive no guarantee of service in return. Effectively we have to pay them or we’ll be kidnapped and locked in a cage or have are wages garnished but if they fail to provide the service we’re paying for no punishment befalls them. The true tragedy of this story is the fact that the firefighters allowed the individual to drown because they didn’t receive as much protection money as they wanted. This is askin to mobsters breaking your kneecaps because you failed to pay them protection money.