Cop Shoots Woman’s Dog, Department Apologizes by Filing Charges Against Her
By Carey Wedler | ANTIMEDIA | July 31, 2015
A woman in Clayton County, Georgia is facing charges after a police officer shot and killed her five-month-old puppy, who witnesses say was not a threat to him. The officer, who killed the dog in the presence of the woman’s children, has a history of aggressive misconduct and was suspended for his behavior once before.
Claudette Terry told WSB-TV Atlanta that she was in the process of moving into a new home in May when two police officers stopped to “check on” a man sitting in her driveway.
“My son opened the door [and] the dog ran out and kind of stood by me where the other officers were. He didn’t bark, growl or anything.”
She told the officers the man was a friend who was helping her move, but as she discussed the issue with them, Officer Water Dennard approached them to join the conversation—and kill her dog.
“He just shot the dog and stood there with no remorse, no regrets in front of her and her kids,” said Aijohli King, a neighbor who witnessed the shooting from her home across the street.
Dennard claimed in his incident report that the dog, named 8-Ball, lunged at him, but another witness account contradicts his version of events.
“He just took a step back and he just shot at the dog,” Brandon Smarr said. “And then he started laughing afterward.”
Dennard added literal insult to injury by firing another bullet into the wounded animal. “The dog was shaking on the ground,” Terry said. “And he walked up to the dog and shot it a second time. He walked closer and shot it a second time.”
The family is devastated by the loss of their dog, who was described as “friendly, according to friends, and well-loved, especially by Terry’s daughter.”
“Puppycide,” or police killings of dogs, is routinely covered in the news. The stories often follow a narrative similar to Terry’s, where an officer shoots a dog, claims it lunged at him, and is absolved of wrongdoing. Witnesses often contradict the officers’ accounts, but only in egregious cases—such as the Texas officer who made kiss noises at a friendly pit bull to lure it over and subsequently shoot it—are officers punished for their sadistic tendencies.
Though the Clayton County incident happened in May, Terry is now facing charges for failing to have her dog on a leash or show rabies paperwork.
The Clayton County police spokesperson for the Office of Professional Standards said it was conducting an internal investigation and could not comment on the case at this time. Dennard’s record shows multiple use of force complaints, including a suspension for tasing an individual in the neck.
Mercenary Drone Operators Kill Outside US Chain of Command
Sputnik – 01.08.2015
WASHINGTON — The US armed forces are using a growing number of mercenaries or contractors to operate lethal drone attacks as regular troops are increasingly unwilling to do so, experts told Sputnik.
“‘Private contractors’, mercenaries, have been involved in US drone surveillance and attack for some time, certainly with the CIA, and most probably not only in intelligence analysis, but also in the roles of pilots and sensor operators,” KnowDrones.com Coordinator Nick Mottern told Sputnik on Friday.
The sensor operators are the people who pull the trigger to launch Hellfire missiles and bombs, he said.
Mottern noted the need to hire mercenaries indicates that the US military is not able, for whatever reason, to find enough people within its ranks to do such work.
“This is… because it is involving an increasing amount of killing, and, I suspect, an increasing amount of PTSD [Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder].”
The situation, Mottern continued, presents a major legal problem for the contracting companies and the military alike, because of the question who should be held accountable for the killing going on conducted by drones.
“[T]he critical decisions of identifying ‘the enemy’ are being made by civilians who are under no official chain of command,” he added.
All drone killing remains clearly in violation of international law and US domestic law against assassination, Mottern pointed out.
Yet, “here we have the US paying civilians to do illegal killing without even the legal accountability applied to the US military,” he said. “[T]he mercenaries are accountable only to their employers who most assuredly are encouraging high kill totals to ensure continued contracts. “
This lack of accountability and of any clear chain of command “obviously means dramatically increased jeopardy for the people under surveillance and drone attack; that is a dramatic increase in the number of people being killed and terrorized,” Mottern explained.
The unwillingness of the US military to comment on this situation is evidence of its illegality, the activist argued.
The Bureau of Investigative Journalism (BIJ), Mottern said, has documented up to nearly 6,000 people killed by US drone attacks in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia, not including those killed in Afghanistan before 2015, or those killed by drone attacks in Iraq, Libya or possibly Syria.
“The extent of drone surveillance, killing and terrorism going on is very likely far beyond what is documented by [the BIJ figures],” Mottern warned.
Upstate Drone Acton activist Ed Kinane told Sputnik on Friday that the scale of drone operations and the amount of carnage they will inflict looks likely to increase in coming months.
“The problem isn’t ‘lack of personnel’; the problem is an overabundance of opportunities for surveillance and killing — thanks to the US military’s drive for assassination, intervention and invasion,” Kinane said.
The continued and increasing cycles of war generate further profit for major defense contractors in the United States and its close allies, Kinane claimed.
“More war equals more profit, [therefore] perpetual war equals perpetual profit [and] more regional instability equals more opportunities to secure control over resources of fractured nations,” Kinane argued.
The intelligence analysts now employed by the Pentagon will likely eventually be involved in domestic police and intelligence work as well, Kinane predicted.
Lion lives matter. But what about Palestinian kids?
By John Wight | RT | August 1, 2015
Western liberals came out in their droves to condemn the slaying of Cecil the Lion in Africa. How many will now come out to condemn the savage slaughter of a Palestinian infant, Ali Saad Dawabsha, by Jewish terrorists in the West Bank village of Duma?
I think we already know the answer to this question. For such people the blood of an African lion is more valuable than the blood of a 18 month-old Palestinian child. We know this to be true because for decades Palestinian children, along with their parents and families, have been routinely slaughtered and/or terrorized by Israelis, whether through individual acts of terror committed by illegal settlers and religious fanatics, or as is more common by the state via the IDF, the most cowardly army in the world bar none.
The gall of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in describing this latest act of primeval violence against a baby as an “act of terror” when he has ordered the mass murder of babies and children in Gaza; when his government has created a culture of extremism in its consistent and determined policy to demonize and dehumanize the Palestinian people in order to justify their continued oppression, is off the scale.
As for the so-called “international community” – in truth the US and its allies – it is an accessory to this child’s murder with the political, economic, military and diplomatic support it provides the apartheid state of Israel, a state whose crimes, to paraphrase the Irish revolutionary James Connolly, would shame all the devils in hell. Indeed for your average Israeli the very word Palestinian is synonymous with subhuman, the product of a mindset encapsulated in the now infamous words of former Israeli Prime Minister, Golda Meir, when she said, “There were no Palestinians.”
What Meir revealed was the status of ‘non-people’ that had long been ascribed to the Palestinian not by extremists but the political mainstream within this settler colonial state. Her words were not spoken as statement of historical fact but rather as a statement of intent. It is this intent that drives Israeli policy towards the Palestinian people to this day, whose suffering shames a world in which justice is a gift to be given instead of a universal right, as set out in the UN Charter.
Israel’s claim to victimhood throughout its existence is as hollow as it is perverse. It is a state founded on the mass ethnic cleansing of the land’s indigenous population, and a state that continues to exist at the negation of the remaining Palestinians every hour of every day.
The unfailing and ignoble pandering to Israel that informs the West’s entire policy with regard to the Middle East has only succeeded in creating a monster in the shape of the intransigent, rejectionist, and brutal political culture that now holds sway there, one that is underpinned by a flagrant disregard for international law and the human rights of some 3 million people in the occupied West Bank and 1.8 million in Gaza, which at time of writing remains a pile of rubble after Israel’s summer 2014 air, land, and sea assault in which over 2,100 Palestinians were slaughtered – around 500 of them children – and up to 10,000 injured or maimed, many of them permanently.
Gaza remains under siege, cut off from the outside world, its people and their suffering a symbol of the callous indifference of an international order in which Palestinian blood is not only cheap it is deemed worthless. Israel’s exceptionalism, on the other hand, remains sacrosanct.
Meanwhile the settlements continue to expand across the West Bank, despite their illegality. Over half a million illegal Jewish settlers now colonize land belonging to the Palestinians, who are subjected to daily acts of violence, intimidation, and terror at the hands of religious extremists. In this they are left exposed by an Israeli government that turns a blind eye to their treatment, and indeed arrests and imprisons those who dare complain or protest too vociferously.
There will be no justice for the Palestinians as long as organized hypocrisy continues to impersonate democracy in Washington and throughout European capitals with regard to their plight. Adding insult to grievous injury is how the Palestinians’ courage in resisting the juggernaut of oppression that has reduced their lives to misery is depicted as terrorism, thus used as justification for the status quo.
Those responsible for Ali Saad Dawabsha’s murder are the human product of the injustice that sits at the very foundations of a state that wears its brutality as a badge of honour. No state and no people can escape the crimes it commits, and no people can be forever denied justice on the altar of expediency and exceptionalism.
This is why the international campaign of boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) against Israel offers the Palestinians a lifeline of solidarity, providing them with a semblance of hope. Despite the supine disregard for their rights by political leaders in the West, more and more people are answering their cry for help. It is here, with this international solidarity campaign, where Israel is most vulnerable. Far greater than any economic or material impact the boycott campaign has had and is having, is the way it is slowly but surely chipping away at the moral foundations on which its system of apartheid rests.
Ali Saad Dawabsha was burned alive by animals who claim to be acting in the name of God and religion. This innocent child’s murder cannot be allowed to pass without a renewed determination to defeat the system of apartheid, siege, and occupation that nourishes the bigotry and hate that passes for democracy in Israel.
It has never been more important for all who care about justice to declare that we are all Palestinians.
World Food Program halves food aid to Syrian refugees in Jordan, Lebanon
Press TV – August 1, 2015
The World Food Program (WFP) has slashed by half its food assistance for Syrian refugees in Jordan and Lebanon due to a funding crisis.
Muhannad Hadi, the WFP’s regional director for the Middle East, North Africa, Central Asia and Eastern Europe, announced the decision on Friday.
Hadi said the international community must help the food assistance branch of the United Nations to continue its drive to keep refugees from going hungry.
The WFP official further urged international donors to increase their contributions, otherwise “it will be only a matter of months before we face the same situation again.”
The WFP said that the most vulnerable of the Syrian refugees living outside camps in Jordan will receive USD 14 per person in August while the rest will get only USD 7 each.
The agency will also provide the Syrian refugees in Lebanon with USD 13.5 per month, which is half of their initial entitlement.
The development comes as the WFP is currently underfunded and needs USD 168 million to keep helping Syrian refugees in Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt, Iraq and Turkey through October.
Syria has been grappling with a foreign-sponsored crisis since March 2011. The violence fueled by Takfiri terrorist groups has reportedly left over 230,000 people dead so far.
More than 4 million Syrians have left their country since the beginning of the conflict, according to latest figures released by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).
Lebanon is home to 1,172,753 Syrian refugees while Jordan hosts more than 629,000 refugees, with about 100,000 housed in refugee camps and the rest living in Jordanian communities.
In a joint report published on July 23, the WFP and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) warned of worsening food insecurity in the Arab country, saying that the ongoing crisis is pushing more people into poverty and hunger.
Approximately 9.8 million Syrians are estimated to be “food insecure,” with 6.8 million of them “severely food insecure,” according to the report.
In NY Times the Fate of One Israeli Soldier Trumps Massive Suffering in Gaza
By Barbara Erickson | Times Warp | July 30, 2015
“Black Friday: Carnage in Rafah,” a new report by Amnesty International, has drawn international media attention with its accounts of destruction and suffering during four days of the Gaza conflict last year. Headlines worldwide announce charges of Israeli war crimes, and photos present readers with towering columns of smoke, smoldering ruins and grieving Palestinians.
It is a story of suffering on a massive scale, but in reporting this narrative The New York Times has chosen to look not at Gaza and its agony but, once again, at Israel. Thus we find an article that gives focus to Israeli losses—a soldier missing in action, his comrades at arms and his bereaved family. The photo is of two Israeli parents grieving by a tombstone.
In her story, “Signs of War Crimes Seen in Israeli Hunt for Ambushed Soldier,” Isabel Kershner imposes this twist on a story of Palestinian suffering and Israeli atrocities by overplaying one element of the narrative: The attacks on the southern Gaza city of Rafah came after Lt. Hadar Goldin was captured on Aug. 1 and were a response to this event.
After Lt. Goldin was seized and taken into a tunnel, the Israeli army put its notorious “Hannibal Directive” into effect. This, in the words of the Amnesty report, is “a controversial command designed to deal with captures of soldiers by unleashing massive firepower on persons, vehicles and buildings in the vicinity of the attack, despite the risk to civilians and the captured soldier(s).”
Kershner builds her story not around the findings of the report, but the capture of Lt. Goldin and the reactions of his family and comrades. Thus, the article opens with the moment his unit realized he was missing, it refers to him throughout and ends with the comments of his grieving parents.
In all, Kershner mentions Lt. Goldin in some 13 paragraphs, nearly half the article. Readers find news of the report in her piece, including the most vehement condemnations by Amnesty officials, but her angle undercuts the thrust of the document. (Readers might want to compare accounts in The Independent, Al Jazeera or Newsweek, among others.)
The report is the work of Amnesty and Forensic Architecture, a British research group. It presents a meticulous analysis of the attacks on Rafah from Aug. 1 through Aug. 4 last year, describing numerous assaults that left at least 135 dead, including 75 children. It contains chilling accounts of events on the ground: desperate attempts to escape, strikes on ambulances and residents blasted into fragments.
The investigation found “overwhelming evidence that Israeli forces committed disproportionate, or otherwise indiscriminate attacks, which killed scores of civilians in their homes, on the streets or in vehicles, and injured many more.” It goes on to say, “In some cases there are indications that they directly fired at and killed civilians, including people fleeing.”
These findings provide “strong evidence” of “serious violations of international humanitarian law,” the report states, as well as “other war crimes.” Kershner, however, attempts to cast doubt on the aims of the report in one sentence that steps outside the bounds of reporting into editorializing.
She writes, “[The report] tries to offer the most detailed reconstruction of the events of Black Friday to date, in hopes of bolstering allegations against Israel that are now the subject of a preliminary investigation before the International Criminal Court in The Hague.”
In other words, Kershner says, Amnesty and Forensic Architecture are motivated by a desire to delegitimize Israel, and their analysis is merely an attempt to be “the most detailed.”
It seems that the Times was reluctant to tell this story. The problem, once again, was how to report the news of yet another damning report and at the same time to shield Israel, and so we have an awkward piece, one that tries to mesh two opposing narratives: the fate of Lt. Goldin and the disclosure of Israeli war crimes in Rafah.
The result is a confusing combination of reporting and obfuscation, a frequent outcome of the Times’ effort to serve Israeli interests over those of the reading public.
AL-KHALIL (HEBRON): Palestinian children targeted by the Israeli Military
CPTnet | July 31, 2015
“Recognizing that, in all countries in the world, there are children living in exceptionally difficult conditions, and that such children need special consideration…” – from the Preamble of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child
In the past two weeks, CPT has witnessed a significant increase in the targeting of Palestinian children by Israeli occupying forces. From soldiers confiscating their bicycles to chasing them down in the street, the Israeli occupying forces are stripping children of their fundamental right to rest and leisure, to engage in play and recreational activities.
These are the stories that CPT has documented in Hebron’s Old City, but many more stories of boys and girls remain invisible.
Sunday 19 July – A six-year-old boy was swarmed by the heavily armed Israeli military, forced to empty his pockets, and aggressively interrogated.
Monday 20 July – Israeli soldiers detained and allegedly assaulted 14-year-old Anan, then took him to the police station. The Israeli military then continued to raid the streets of Hebron, detaining young people outside an Internet cafe at 9:30 pm.
Thursday 23 July – Israeli soldiers invaded a Palestinian house in the Old City of Hebron while chasing a Palestinian boy. The soldiers claimed that the boy ran away from them, which made him “suspicious”.
Friday 24 July – Four boys were playing in the street when six Israeli soldiers began charging towards them and yelling. The boys ran home, and the Israeli soldiers followed them into their house. After five minutes of questioning the boys, the soldiers left.
Saturday 25 July – Wasim, 10 years old, was riding his bike with his friends behind a patrol of soldiers. The soldiers told him to go ahead and pass them on his bike, but then blocked CPTers from following. Wasim told CPT that the soldiers slapped his face as they took him towards the gate. Palestinians in the community and CPTers advocated for the release of the boy, but the Israeli soldiers pushed back and took him. Another witness saw the soldiers kicking Wasim as they took him away. They released him ten minutes later.
Tuesday 28 July – Israeli Border Police stopped a Palestinian child who was trying to pass through the military turnstile near the Ibrahimi Mosque. The Border Police opened the gate for him, helped him move his bike, and then looked him in the eye and said, “I confiscated your bike, now leave.” The Border Police then told the child, “You know only walking is allowed here. Next time you will bring a car trying to pass.” After five minutes, another Border Police officer gave the child his bike back and asked him to leave.
The International Solidarity Movement (ISM) also reported that a teenage boy was stopped and detained by a group of Israeli soldiers near the Souq in Hebron’s Old City. The reason for his detention was that he had a small box of children’s “pop pop fireworks.” Soldiers detained the boy for thirty minutes and then released him.
Wednesday 30 July – Moath, 16-years-old, was picked off the streets in Hebron by Israeli soldiers who body searched him, zip-tied his hands behind his back, and blindfolded him. CPT asked about the nature of his detention, but received no reason. Soldiers took Moath into custody for identification and released after an hour. Watch the video here.
“States Parties recognize the right of the child to rest and leisure, to engage in play and recreational activities…. States Parties shall ensure that no child be subjected to torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.” – from Articles 31 and 37 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child
It is not only the fact that the Israeli military oppresses children and violates their human rights that is the outrage, but that it does so with impunity. These incidents did not happen in a corner or a dark alleyway, but in public spaces. CPT is sometimes able to advocate for the rights of children, but despite the presence of human rights observers, there is still a lack of accountability for Israeli occupying forces. It is up to all of us to share these stories, and shift the prevailing narrative towards one of truth and justice.
Zionist settlers kill Palestinian toddler in arson attack
Ma’an – July 31, 2015
NABLUS – Israeli settlers killed a Palestinian toddler and injured four others early Friday morning after setting their home ablaze near Nablus in the occupied West Bank in what the Israeli leadership called an act of terrorism.
Israeli settlers smashed the windows of two homes in the Palestinian village of Duma before throwing flammable liquids and Molotov cocktails inside, a local resident told Ma’an.
Ali Saad Dawabsha, one-and-a-half years old, was trapped in the house and died shortly after sustaining serious burns, said Ghassan Daghlas, a local official who monitors settlement activity in the northern West Bank.
His mother and father, Riham and Saad, and their son Ahmad, four, also sustained serious injuries and were evacuated by Israeli forces to hospital.
The mother was in critical condition with third-degree burns covering 90 percent of her body, an Israeli doctor told public radio, stressing that her life was threatened. The father had burns on 80 percent of his body.
The Israeli settlers from nearby settlements also attacked and partially burned the home belonging to Maamoon Rashid Dawabsha.
Local media reported that the graffiti said “revenge” and “long live the Messiah” and that the attackers threw firebombs inside the two homes, one of which was empty.
The homes were located near the main entrance to the village and the settlers were able to flee the scene quickly before residents identified them, Daghlas said.
Dozens of villagers from Duma rushed to help rescue the two families from their burning homes, witnesses said. The injured were later taken to Israeli hospitals for treatment via a military helicopter.
Musallem Dawabsha, 23, told Ma’an : “We saw four settlers running away keeping distance between each other. We tried to chase them but they fled to the nearby Maale Efrayim settlement.” … Full article
Cincinnati Cop Who Killed Samuel DuBose Already Out of Jail
By Claire Bernish | ANTIMEDIA | July 30, 2015
Cincinnati, Ohio — After spending one day in jail, University of Cincinnati police officer Ray Tensing has already been released from custody on bail following his indictment for the murder of Samuel DuBose. Meanwhile, two UC Cincinnati police officers have now been placed on leave in the fallout of the fatal shooting of Sam DuBose by officer Ray Tensing.
Tensing was indicted for murder by a grand jury on Wednesday and officers Phillip Kidd and David Lindenschmidt testified that “[t]hey didn’t see anything,” said Hamilton County Prosecutor Joe Deters.
At the time of the incident, Tensing had claimed he shot DuBose after a scuffle led to him being dragged down the street by DuBose’s car. Tensing’s body cam footage—released to the public on the same day charges were announced—proved that story was fabricated. Now the video from Kidd’s body cam has also been released, and shows him arriving on scene and proceeding to corroborate Tensing’s story—the same scenario repeated in the official police report of the incident.
Despite video evidence to the contrary, Tensing can be heard in Kidd’s body cam footage explaining how he’d been dragged, to which Kidd says, “Yeah, I saw that.” When Tensing is overheard explaining the same story to yet another officer on the scene, Kidd says, “Don’t say anything.”
In the official incident report, Officer Eric Weibel wrote: “Officer Kidd told me that he witnessed the Honda Accord drag Officer Tensing.”
A stunning discovery found in Officers Kidd and Weibel’s shared history, is the death of a mental health patient in 2010 at University Hospital, as revealed by The Guardian. Kelly Brinson was suffering a psychotic episode and had to be placed in an isolation room, where he was repeatedly tasered by seven UC police officers. Brinson died three days later after succumbing to respiratory and cardiac arrest.
Brinson’s family later filed suit, and all seven officers, according to court documents, are accused of excessive force and that they “acted with deliberate indifference to the serious medical and security needs of Mr. Brinson.” And further, that before being restrained, Brinson “repeatedly yelled that slavery was over and he repeatedly pleaded not to be shackled and not to be treated like a slave.”
In an interview with The Guardian, Brinson’s brother, Derek, said that if those officers had been properly disciplined back in 2010, DuBose might still be alive. Brinson said the officers were “supposed to be fired […] but what happened was because we had an out-of-court settlement, they had immunity and they couldn’t be prosecuted. Everybody . . . associated with this case was supposed to be terminated,” he said, “and they didn’t — they didn’t terminate them.”
Legal experts feel Kidd potentially faces charges of giving a false statement. “I would expect that to be forthcoming,” said Bowling Green State University criminologist Philip Stinson, as reported in Cincinnati.com. “It was a false statement. The video evidence doesn’t support it. There seems to be the elements of a crime there.” (Watch the Officer Phillip Kidd body cam footage from Samuel DuBose shooting.)
Despite the charges of murder, Tensing’s body cam footage has been called into question. “It is our belief that he was not dragged,” explained Deters. “If you slow down this tape, you see what happened. It takes a very short period of time from when the car starts slowly rolling that the gun is out and he’s shot in the head.”
At the arraignment before a Hamilton County Common Pleas Court on Thursday morning, Tensing pled not guilty to charges of murder. His bond has been set at $1 million. While Stew Mathews, the attorney representing Tensing, maintains the former officer, “was in fear of his life at the time this happened,” Deters saw something entirely different in this shooting—describing the incident as “the most asinine act I’ve ever seen a police officer make. It was unwarranted.”
Despite the clear evidence in the video from the shooting showing wrongdoing, a segment of the public has seemingly come to Tensing’s defense as funds are quickly mounting to pay his legal fees. Mathews said, according to WCPO, “I think people feel like he’s getting railroaded here in Cincinnati. You’d have to be blind not to see that.”
Watch the full length Officer Ray Tensing body cam footage from Samuel DuBose shooting below:
There are now questions surrounding Tensing’s qualifications to have been a police officer in the first place. As Cincinnati.com reported, “The Ohio State Highway Patrol hired [him] nearly two years ago, but he quit after one day on the job. Tensing started the patrol’s 26-week academy Sept. 18, 2013, and left the following day citing that he ‘couldn’t adapt to the training environment.’”
The Grand Jury, both police departments, the Prosecutor, and much of the general public must, then, be blind. Video evidence in this fatal shooting is clear. Continuing to argue over a flagrantly unjustified shooting is only bringing absurdity to new levels. The Anti-Media will continue to update as new information comes to light in this tragic case.
Slow Motion Cincinnati shooting – Judge for Yourself
Photography is Not a Crime
Judge Who Took Kids from Off-Grid Family, Same Judge who Killed his Own Son and Wasn’t Arrested
By Justin Gardner | The Free Thought Project | July 30, 2015
Hot Springs, Ark — On Monday, we reported on the tragic case of 18-month-old Thomas Naramore, who died after being left in a hot vehicle for four hours. The father, Wade Naramore, is a Garland County circuit court judge and has not been arrested despite the fact that he admitted to leaving his son in the car.
The lack of an arrest, coupled with the fact that other people have been immediately arrested in similar situations, raises suspicions that Naramore is being treated favorably because of his status as a judge.
In another twist to this story, Naramore is the same judge who presided over a child endangerment case in January that gained widespread attention. Seven children were taken from Hal and Michelle Stanley because the parents possessed a legal, popular health supplement called Miracle Mineral Solution. Judge Naramore ruled that the Department of Human Services should keep the kids in custody, based on other allegations of abuse and neglect.
This is hard to believe after hearing the positive comments from neighbors. It could be that the Stanleys’ “off the grid” lifestyle and independence from government has something to do with their persecution.
Apparently the allegations have not stuck, as the Stanley family has regained custody of their youngest children in May, while the older three are allowed home on a part-time basis. It’s difficult to know exactly why the courts do what they do, since child welfare proceedings are surrounded by strict confidentiality laws.
It is sad irony that the judge ruling in a dubious case of child endangerment would put his own child in a far more severe state of endangerment, leading to the worst possible outcome.
Far too often, the state shatters lives by taking children away from their parents for no valid reason, putting them in the hands of state social services that can result in a far worse situation for the kids. There have been numerous instances of abuse while under the “care” of Child Protective Services.
While the State does not hesitate to interfere in the personal lives of so many citizens, it will take their time investigating Thomas Naramore’s death, assuring us that they “search for the truth with the ultimate goal of determining the facts, regardless of who might be a suspect in a given case.”
The Hot Springs Police Department will “continue withholding investigative material… at the specific direction of Mr. Scott Ellington, the special prosecutor recently assigned the case.”
The case could drag on for weeks before any charges are made, as investigators await the results of toxicology tests. The state’s Judicial Discipline and Disability Commission will also delay its probe until the criminal investigation is complete.
New Jersey State Trooper Fires Gun at Teens for Mistakenly Knocking on his Door
By Carlos Miller | PINAC | July 30, 2015
Three teens mistakenly walked up to the home of a New Jersey state trooper at 2 a.m. last Sunday and began knocking on the door, thinking it was their friend’s home, who lives on the same block.
But when a man on the other side of the door began yelling and cursing at them, they realized they had the wrong home and began walking back to their car.
When the angry man stepped out of the home, they began running and hopped in their car.
And when they saw him aiming a gun with a laser pointer towards them, they stepped on the accelerator to make their escape down the street in front of the home.
But the off-duty trooper, whose name is Kissinger Barreau, stepped into the street and fired three shots, including one that struck the tire.
“We realize it’s a gun and we panic. I’m like ‘dude, dude, dude, accelerate,’” Jesse Barkhorn told NJ.com.
What they didn’t realize was that the man who shot at them was a cop, which meant that his buddies were going to do everything they could to justify firing a gun at three teens who were not even on his property anymore.
About a mile-and-half away from the trooper’s home, once they believed they were safe from the crazy gunman, they stopped the car and one of the teens called his mom to tell her what had happened. He then called police to tell them what had happened.
Minutes later, when the teens noticed police helicopter and police dogs conducting a search in the area, they figured the cops were looking for the trigger-happy gunman.
But then they found themselves surrounded by cops, who searched and handcuffed them before leaving them in the back of a patrol car for hours on accusations that they had attempted to burglarize his home.
They were then driven down to Sparta police headquarters where they were photographed and placed in different cells.
Then they were transported to State Police Barracks where they were handcuffed to a steel bench for five hours before they were interrogated.
During that interrogation, police kept trying to get the teens to say they drove the car towards the cops, which, of course, would have made him fear for his life and justify the shooting.
But the teens just wouldn’t take the bait.
“That’s the exact opposite of what we were trying to do. We were just scared and trying to get out of there with our lives,” Barkhorn told the local news site.
The teens were eventually released when the cops confirmed that they did have a friend living on the same block and realized they were not going to admit to something they did not do.
And that was unfortunate for them because it meant they had to investigate their fellow trooper and we know they don’t like doing that. At least not very thoroughly.
The investigation is now being conducted by the state attorney general’s office, who are predictably taking a very pro-cop stance.
According to NJ.com:
The state attorney general’s office says its preliminary investigation has found an off-duty state trooper fired three shots from his personal gun as three teens fled his street in a car early Sunday morning — an account that’s largely consistent with what one of the teens has told NJ Advance Media.
But not entirely consistent.
Both say the teens knocked on the trooper’s Whispering Woods Lane door late at night after mistaking his home for a friend’s. Both say the trooper came downstairs with a gun — the AG’s office says it was his personal handgun. What the AG’s office describes as a “verbal exchange through the door,” teen Jesse Barkhorn, 18, describes as yelling and cursing by the trooper.
And both say that as the teens got in their car and fled, the trooper entered the street with the gun.
Where they notably differ: According to the AG’s office, the trooper says he identified himself as a trooper and pursued the teens on foot as they fled. Barkhorn says the trooper never identified himself.
It’s going to be interesting to see how this pans out because it appears that the only way to justify the shooting would be to criminalize the teens, either accusing them of trying to run the cop over or fleeing the scene even after they were told he was a cop, which should not make a difference considering anybody can claim they are a cop when they are out of uniform.
When Parents Must Break the Law to Keep Their Children Alive
By Carey Wedler | ANTIMEDIA | July 29, 2015
In the last several years, stories of cannabis oil helping epileptic children have populated the news cycle. Around the world, CBD (cannabidiol) treatments are gaining popularity due to their ability to rapidly alleviate seizures without making children “high.” Though these treatments are increasingly available in American states with legalized recreational and medical cannabis, they are not always freely available. Facing medical restrictions, one mother in Canada has vowed to treat her child—even if her doctor refuses to renew their prescription.
The Wilkinson family, from just outside Calgary, Alberta, resorted to CBD oil to treat their nine-year-old daughter. Mia suffered from crippling seizures due to Ohtahara syndrome. Her mother, Sarah Wilkinson, explained that Mia “… sometimes had seizures that would last up to 23 hours and she would have to be put into a medically-induced coma.”
The dozens of pills she was prescribed failed to inhibit seizures and decreased her quality of life, so the Wilkinson’s were immensely relieved when a neurologist approved cannabis oil to treat Mia—and it worked. As Anti-Media reported,
“They said her EEG was comparable to someone with a benign form of epilepsy ─ that’s never happened before,” Sarah said. Miraculously, she was ultimately seizure free for 18 months, weaned off of 30-40 pharmaceuticals a day. Mia has also learned to walk and at nine years old, said her first words like “yes,” “no” and “Mama.” “And ‘Mama’ is all I hear anymore. I bawled when I first heard it,” Sara recounted.
The family was devastated to learn that while medical marijuana is legal in Canada, their doctor refused to renew Mia’s prescription because of resistance from Alberta Children’s Hospital. The hospital which initially allowed Mia to ingest cannabis oil. As the doctor explained in an email to the Sarah,
“Due to the strict nature of the policy implemented here at Children’s, I am not allowed to fill the forms for renewal of medical marijuana.”
Though Health Canada, the country’s nationalized healthcare system, does not acknowledge cannabis as a legitimate treatment, the country’s court system ruled in June that people may use it to treat medical conditions. However, hospitals write their own policies regarding use, and Alberta Children’s changed its stance, leaving doctors to either buck policy or fall in line.
Sarah Wilkinson with her daughter Mia
Wilkinson’s experience is not an isolated case. Canadian mother Kendra Myhre was forced to seek alternative treatments for her child’s Dravet syndrome—which causes severe seizures—when traditional methods failed to ease his symptoms. “We didn’t want to see him suffer and put him in a casket before the age of five,” Myhre said, explaining her decision to seek cannabis treatment. “We wanted to give him the best possible life for as long as he’s got, which probably won’t be long.” She recently found a doctor willing to write a prescription.
Even as cannabis laws evolve in the United States, innumerable families risk legal repercussions for treating their children. In Kansas, cannabis activist Shona Banda faces 30 years in prison for treating her Crohn’s disease with cannabis oil and sharing her method of treatment with others. Her son was taken from her, and her home raided after he touted cannabis oil’s benefits for his mother at an anti-drug presentation.
Convoluted regulations also make treatment difficult. One Des Moines mother is allowed to possess oil to treat her epileptic son but must take him outside to the parking lot of his care facility twice a day to administer treatment. A New Jersey family is suing their school district for their daughter’s right to administer cannabis treatment for epilepsy and autism at school.
Other families are picking up and moving to states that do allow medical cannabis use. This is the case with Hillary Rayburn, who moved from Oklahoma to Colorado to obtain cannabis for her child’s epilepsy.
Though individuals and families still face heart-wrenching restrictions, the trend toward cannabis legalization has already begun. Parents who engage in civil disobedience by treating their children not only help change the perception of the treatment but help chip away at the decaying infrastructure of prohibition. By standing up to unjust and inhumane laws in the face of increasing medical research on cannabis, parents are helping to change the landscape of the Drug War and medicine. Kids are hopping on the cannabis civil disobedience train, as well. Speaking at a recent symposium for medical cannabis research, 15-year-old Coltyn Turner explained that he’d “rather be illegally alive [by using cannabis oil] than legally dead.”
Perhaps the most touching aspect of the fight for legalized medical cannabis is the persistence of parents who refuse to let their children suffer. “You’d be amazed at the networking parents can do when they have children with such a fatal disability, and the ends they are willing to go to for their children,” Myhre told Vice News.
As for Wilkinson, she, too, will continue to treat her child in spite of her lack of approval to do so. “She’s my daughter and I’m not willing to see her die because some people are uncomfortable with Cannabis as therapy,” she said.
Bill Would Give US President Power to Revoke Passports Without Due Process
Sputnik – 30.07.2015
In an effort to prevent potential terrorists from moving within the United States, the House of Representatives passed a bill which allows the US government to revoke the passport of anyone it deems a threat. The move has drawn heavy criticism from liberty advocates who say the bill violates the Constitution.
“The Benedict Arnold traitors who have turned against America and joined the ranks of the terrorist army ISIS should lose all rights afforded to our citizens,” said Republican Representative Ted Poe of Texas in a statement.
“These people are not returning to America to open coffee shops, they are coming back to kill. We must stop them from coming back at all.”
To that end, Poe sponsored a bill known as the Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) Passport Revocation Act. After only 15 minutes of debate, the bill was approved by the House of Representatives last Tuesday, and is currently being considered by the Senate.
Under the act, “the Secretary of State may refuse to issue a passport to any individual whom the Secretary has determined has aided, assisted, abetted, or otherwise helped an organization the Secretary has designated as a foreign terrorist organization.”
It also allows the Secretary to “revoke a passport previously issued to any individual” based on the same criteria.
In essence, the bill is a stricter version of laws already on the books. While current US law allows passports to be revoked for any number of national security reasons, those decisions can always be appealed by the individual.
The new bill approved by the House does away with that appeals process.
“The bill provides no ability for someone wrongly denied a passport to challenge the Secretary of State’s findings that they helped a terrorist,” said Norm Singleton, vice president for policy at the Campaign for Liberty, according to the New American.
“So much for due process and reigning in executive power.”
Other critics have expressed surprise that the bill’s passing received such little attention in the mainstream media.
“The US Secretary of State can revoke my passport without meeting any burden of proof that I am actually a terrorist or even that I have ever supported terrorism. He can keep his evidence against me totally secret and will never be required to justify his actions against me,” writes Daniel McAdams for the Ron Paul Institute.
“And this is considered ‘uncontroversial’ in the United States?”
Others have noted how unnecessary the legislation seems, given the technologies already used to track individuals’ movement.
“Given that this technology exists, there is no need for the US government to add powers that could end up stripping passports from citizens unnecessarily,” Patrick Weil wrote for Reuters. “To do otherwise would be to ignore serious constitutional problems.”
“Available technology allows the government to deny or forbid the possibility of dangerous persons crossing borders while easily enforcing the basic right – for us all – to bear a form of internationally recognized identification when abroad,” he added.
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The silver that medicine dropped — four thousand years of clinical use, four decades to erase.
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Lies are Unbekoming | October 16, 2026
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