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How the excessive militarization of the police is turning cops into counterinsurgents

[Author]FROM THE EDITOR:

 

Dear readers,[/Author]

I don’t need to repeat the horror stories that have been plaguing the mainstream media or corporate media, as it is now called, about the increasing police executions of people in their “line of duty.” The same excuses: the suspect had a gun (but who didn’t shot a bullet); he didn’t obey police command to stop but kept running; he didn’t show his hands; I called the police to help me restrain my daughter who was acting crazy, etc. They all got killed. The following article, written by Matthew Harwood, brings us inside of the how the police are becoming more violent, and how the killings go unpunished. Third part

 

To terrify and occupy: how the excessive militarization of the police is turning cops into counterinsurgents

 

by Matthew Harwood

TomDispatch

 

Third Part: How the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Justice are up-armoring the police

 

When police departments look to muscle up their arms and tactics, the Pentagon isn’t the only game in town. Civilian agencies are in on it, too.

During a 2011 investigation, reporters Andrew Becker and G.W. Schulz discovered that, since 9/11, police departments watching over some of the safest places in America have used $34 billion in grant funding from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to militarize in the name of counterterrorism.

In Fargo, North Dakota, for example, the city and its surrounding county went on an $8 million spending spree with federal money, according to Becker and Schulz. Although the area averaged less than two murders a year since 2005, every squad car is now armed with an assault rifle. Police also have access to Kevlar helmets that can stop heavy firepower as well as an armored truck worth approximately $250,000. In Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 1,500 beat cops have been trained to use AR-15 assault rifles with homeland security grant funding.

As with the 1033 program, neither DHS nor state and local governments account for how the equipment, including body armor and drones, is used. While the rationale behind stocking up on these military-grade supplies is invariably the possibility of a terrorist attack, school shooting, or some other horrific event, the gear is normally used to conduct paramilitary drug raids, as Balko notes.

Still, the most startling source of police militarization is the Department of Justice, the very agency officially dedicated to spreading the community policing model through its Community Oriented Policing Services office.

In 1988, Congress authorized the Byrne grant programs in the Anti-Drug Abuse Act, which gave state and local police federal funds to enlist in the government’s drug war. That grant program, according to Balko, led to the creation of regional and multi-jurisdictional narcotics task forces, which gorged themselves on federal money and, with little federal, state, or local oversight, spent it beefing up their weapons and tactics. In 2011, 585 of these task forces operated off of Byrne grant funding.

The grants, Balko reports, also incentivized the type of policing that has made the war on drugs such a destructive force in American society. The Justice Department doled out Byrne grants based on how many arrests officers made, how much property they seized, and how many warrants they served. The very things these narcotics task forces did very well. “As a result,” Balko writes, “we have roving squads of drug cops, loaded with SWAT gear, who get money if they conduct more raids, make more arrests, and seize more property, and they are virtually immune to accountability if they get out of line.”

Regardless of whether this militarization has occurred due to federal incentives or executive decision-making in police departments or both, police across the nation are up-armoring with little or no public debate. In fact, when the ACLU requested SWAT records from 255 law enforcement agencies as part of its investigation, 114 denied them. The justifications for such denials varied, but included arguments that the documents contained “trade secrets” or that the cost of complying with the request would be prohibitive. Communities have a right to know how the police do their jobs, but more often than not, police departments think otherwise.

 

Being the police means never having to say you’re sorry

Report by report, evidence is mounting that America’s militarized police are a threat to public safety. But in a country where the cops increasingly look upon themselves as soldiers doing battle day in, day out, there’s no need for public accountability or even an apology when things go grievously wrong.

If community policing rests on mutual trust between the police and the people, militarized policing operates on the assumption of “officer safety” at all costs and contempt for anyone who sees things differently. The result is an “us versus them” mentality.

Just ask the parents of Bou Bou Phonesavanh. Around 3:00 a.m. on May 28th, the Habersham County Special Response Team conducted a no-knock raid at a relative’s home near Cornelia, Georgia, where the family was staying. The officers were looking for the homeowner’s son, whom they suspected of selling $50 worth of drugs to a confidential informant. As it happened, he no longer lived there.

Despite evidence that children were present — a minivan in the driveway, children’s toys littering the yard, and a Pack ‘n Play next to the door — a SWAT officer tossed a “flashbang” grenade into the home. It landed in 19-month-old Bou Bou’s crib and exploded, critically wounding the toddler. When his distraught mother tried to reach him, officers screamed at her to sit down and shut up, telling her that her child was fine and had just lost a tooth. In fact, his nose was hanging off his face, his body had been severely burned, and he had a hole in his chest. Rushed to the hospital, Bou Bou had to be put into a medically induced coma.

The police claimed that it was all a mistake and that there had been no evidence children were present. “There was no malicious act performed,” Habersham County Sheriff Joey Terrell told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “It was a terrible accident that was never supposed to happen.” The Phonesavanhs have yet to receive an apology from the sheriff’s office. “Nothing. Nothing for our son. No card. No balloon. Not a phone call. Not anything,” Bou Bou’s mother, Alecia Phonesavanh, told CNN.

Similarly, Tampa Bay Police Chief Jane Castor continues to insist that Jay Westcott’s death in the militarized raid on his house was his own fault. “Mr. Westcott lost his life because he aimed a loaded firearm at police officers. You can take the entire marijuana issue out of the picture,” Castor said. “If there’s an indication that there is armed trafficking going on — someone selling narcotics while they are armed or have the ability to use a firearm — then the tactical response team will do the initial entry.”

In her defense of the SWAT raid, Castor simply dismissed any responsibility for Westcott’s death. “They did everything they could to serve this warrant in a safe manner,” she wrote the Tampa Bay Times — “everything,” that is, but find an alternative to storming the home of a man they knew feared for his life.

Almost half of all American households report having a gun, as the ACLU notes in its report. That means the police always have a ready-made excuse for using SWAT teams to execute warrants when less confrontational and less violent alternatives exist.

In other words, if police believe you’re selling drugs, beware. Suspicion is all they need to turn your world upside down. And if they’re wrong, don’t worry; the intent couldn’t have been better.

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Five best foods for fighting depression

[Author]by Aurora Geib[/Author]

 

Depression is a cruel disease. It starts out as an unobtrusive emotion and, when left unattended, eventually becomes a life altering and sometimes even a life threatening condition. Judging from the many stories shared on the internet describing actual cases of depression, one thing seems to stand out – a certain lack of hope. This hopelessness is further compounded by the fact that it is accompanied by a helpless feeling and manifested through antisocial behavior that characterizes depressed people.

Aside form omega 3 fatty acid rich foods, below are some more examples of foods that can also have a beneficial effect on mood:

Turkey – This food contains tryptophan, an amino acid needed to produce serotonin, a brain chemical. It is a deficiency in serotonin production that is thought to cause depression, so increasing its production could possibly address symptoms. A study published in the online journal Pharmacology, Biochemistry and Behavior shared that tryptophan can be used as an anti-depressant in mild to moderate cases of depression and there is evidence to support its ability to decrease aggression. Tryptophan is also found in meat, beans and eggs.

Vegetables, nuts and whole grains – This food group contains B vitamins: folic acid, B2, B6 and B12. In a study published in the Journal of Psychopharmacology, it was suggested that low levels of the B vitamin, folic acid and high levels of homocysteine, a high level protein, can likely produce depression. It was further suggested that increased doses of folic and vitamin B12 could potentially improve treatment outcome in depression.

Organic Potatoes, corn and rice grain – This food group is an example of complex carbohydrates which, when broken down, become glucose. Glucose fuels the brain, boosting cognitive performance and improving adeptness at tasks involving memory and attention. Avoid eating too much sugar, however, as it causes spikes in the blood sugar and aggravates symptoms of depression.

St. John’s Wort – Although there is evidence to the effect that the effectiveness of St. John’s Wort in treating serious cases of depression is more akin to placebo, there is also scientific evidence suggesting the herb’s efficacy in dealing with milder forms of depression. This herb is widely prescribed in Europe for depression.

Despite the evidence suggesting that depression may be treated by diet, it is still not enough to build a tight case. For now, most doctors agree that proper medical care cannot be substituted by a depression diet or from food or dietary supplements. From the current medical viewpoint, psychotherapy and medication is still the most effective means of dealing with depression.

Sources of the article:

Treatment of depression: time to consider folic acid and vitamin B12

Coppen A. and Bolander-Gouaille, C.

We review the findings in major depression of a low plasma and particularly red cell folate, but also of low vitamin B12 status. Both low folate and low vitamin B12 status have been found in studies of depressive patients, and an association between depression and low levels of the two vitamins is found in studies of the general population. Low plasma or serum folate has also been found in patients with recurrent mood disorders treated by lithium. A link between depression and low folate has similarly been found in patients with alcoholism. It is interesting to note that Hong Kong and Taiwan populations with traditional Chinese diets (rich in folate), including patients with major depression, have high serum folate concentrations.

However, these countries have very low life time rates of major depression. Low folate levels are furthermore linked to a poor response to antidepressants, and treatment with folic acid is shown to improve response to antidepressants. A recent study also suggests that high vitamin B12 status may be associated with better treatment outcome.

(NaturalNews)

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Cuba claims U.S. embargo has cost the island $1.1 trillion

[Author]by the El Reportero’s wire services
[/Author]
The Cuban government on Tuesday denounced the “systematic worsening” of the U.S. economic embargo, the impact of which Havana calculated at more than $1.1 trillion – taking into account the depreciation of the dollar against the international price of gold – since being imposed on the island in 1962.

The embargo is a “genocidal and vile act … (with) an extraterritorial dimension,” given that the United States is trying to impose it on third countries, Deputy Foreign Minister Abelardo Moreno said in presenting the Cuban government’s annual report to the United Nations on the U.S. sanctions.

Moreno emphasized that the “extraterritorial character” of laws associated with the embargo “have a direct impact” on foreign trade and the promotion of foreign investment in the country.

The damage to Cuban foreign trade between April 2013 and June 2014 amounted to $3.9 billion, the report said, adding that without the embargo, Cuba could have earned $205.8 million selling products such as rum and cigars to U.S. consumers.

Moreno accused Washington of carrying out the “implacable persecution” of investors in Cuba and the country’s financial transactions via the numerous sanctions that create substantial disincentives for establishing economic links with Havana.

He also emphasized the damage inflicted on tourism, with that sector being unable to earn at least $2 billion due to the impediments on traveling to the island imposed on U.S. citizens.

Moreno insisted that the embargo creates an obstacle to Cuba’s being able to provide basic and free services to its population, including education and health care.

In the health sector, no figure can “reflect the intangible costs of the social and human importance of the damage caused by the impossibility of getting access to medications and technology,” the deputy foreign minister said.

He also blamed the embargo for the difficulties in accessing the Internet on the island, saying that the United States prevents companies providing broadband services from operating normally in Cuba.

 

Colombia receives nearly 700 pre-Columbian artifacts repatriated from Spain

Colombia’s Foreign Ministry on Monday publicly presented a total of 691 pre-Columbian artifacts repatriated from Spain in recent weeks.

The items – from different epochs, cultures and regions – include objects with organic and geometric designs, the Colombian Anthropology and History Institute, or ICANH, said in a recent communiqué.

In the collection can be found representations of human faces, small flutes known as “ocarinas” and a large number of stamps and molds with symbolic images used by the indigenous peoples to paint their bodies and stamp cloth, ICANH added.

The process of repatriating this group of items began a year ago with the intervention of the foreign ministry, the culture ministry, the Colombian Embassy in Spain, ICANH and the Colombian Attorney General’s Office.

Colombian authorities asked for the return of the pieces, which had been seized by Spanish police in 2003 after they were discovered during the course of Operation Florencia against drug and money laundering cartels.

For a decade, the collection was in the custody of the Museum of the Americas, a Spanish government entity that preserved the pieces under optimal conditions during that entire time, according to ICANH, until it notified the Colombian government of the collection’s existence in 2011.

Now, the pieces will be studied to precisely determine their origins with an eye toward mounting a big exposition next month, ICANH personnel told Efe.

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New study: Prop. 47 would help California address overcrowded prisons

[Author]by Ngoc Nguyen and Nicole Hudley

New America Media
[/Author]
SAN FRANCISCO – A measure on the November ballot would reclassify six non-violent felonies to misdemeanors, a move that observers say could help California finally comply with a federal mandate to reduce its overcrowded prison system.

Under Proposition 47, those who commit certain low-level offenses – check fraud, drug possession, forgery, petty theft, receiving stolen property and shoplifting – would receive lighter sentences as long as they had no serious or violent crimes on their record. The reclassification would apply to property crimes involving amounts less than $950, and it would apply retroactively.

The change is expected to reduce the number of prisoners in state facilities, and state savings would be funneled into mental health and drug abuse treatment, K-12 education, and victims’ services.

Prop. 47 would move California closer to meeting a looming deadline to shrink its prison population under a federal-court mandate, according to a new study by the California Budget Project.

For the last three years, the state has been attempting to address overcrowding in state prisons by shifting nonviolent offenders — and funding — to local county jails, a process known as realignment.

But while the policy has succeeded in reducing the state prison population, it hasn’t been enough.

In 2011, a panel of three federal judges found that California’s severe prison overcrowding was the main reason it was failing to provide prisoners with adequate medical and mental health care, in violation of the U.S. Constitution. It set a prison population benchmark that the state was supposed to have met this year, to reduce the number of inmates in the state’s 33 prisons to 137.5 percent of design capacity. California still has not met the threshold and court judges have extended the deadline by another 17 months.

According to the Budget Project analysis, state prisons housed 115,972 individuals as of August. It still needs to shrink that number by about 2 percent –roughly 2,300 individuals – to comply with the federal-court mandate, and it has to do this by February 2016.

Barry Krisberg, a senior fellow at UC Berkeley, says Prop. 47 will help the state achieve that goal, without having to release violent offenders.

“Frankly, the only way you could bring the prison population [down] even further, you’d have to start releasing more lifers…you’d have to go to the violent population,” said Krisberg, who researches juvenile justice issues at UC Berkeley’s School of Law.

The Legislative Analyst’s Office estimates that Prop. 47 could impact 40,000 people and generate savings in the low hundreds of millions annually.

According to the Budget Project report, the measure, if passed, would reduce prison overcrowding in two ways: Going forward, fewer individuals would be sent to state prison for the reclassified crimes; and those already in state prison for those offenses would be resentenced and sent to county jails.

Some county jails are already experiencing their own overcrowding problems as a result of realignment. But San Francisco District Attorney George Gascon, a sponsor of the measure, says the change wouldn’t worsen conditions in county lock-up. Shorter sentences for individuals convicted of the reclassified crimes, he says, could ease overcrowding in the county jails.

And because misdemeanors carry shorter sentences than felonies, he says, “there will be a reduction in the time that people will spend in custody.”

But not everyone affected by Prop. 47 would be sent to county jails. Instead of jail time, someone who was convicted of a misdemeanor could receive supervised probation or court-ordered drug treatment.

“Prop. 47 will help, not hinder, counties working to reduce any pressures they are experiencing in their jails,” said Lenore Anderson, who directs Californians for Safety and Justice. The group has a 501 c4 Vote Safe that is a sponsor of Prop. 47.

The measure grows out of an idea that began with realignment, explains Rev. Ben McBride of PICO California. The question both are trying to address, he said, is: “How do we get non-violent offenders closer to getting home, building relationships with families?”

“When folks are closer to family…visitation of clergy…they keep more connected [and it helps] the process of rehabilitation,” McBride said. “The further they are from what PICO calls the ‘lifeline to healing’…the worse they will be.”

These community-based practices, the Budget Project analysis found, help lower crime rates and save money. For example, mental health courts that prescribe therapy instead of jail time for non-violent offenders has lowered re-arrest rates in San Francisco.

Similarly, drug courts that mandate drug treatment in the city reduce recidivism by up to 26 percent.

“Most people agree we have a challenge because a lot of crime incidents are connected to drug addiction and mental issues and yet our communities don’t have resources to really address those issues,” said Anderson. “A lot of those problems get much worse in the criminal justice system.”

UC Berkeley’s Krisberg noted that Prop. 47 has very little opposition thus far. Opponents, including the California Police Chiefs and the California Correctional Officers Organization, have raised $8,000 – far less than supporters of the measure, who have raised more than $3 million.

Public support for the measure also appears to be high. A June Field Poll found that 57 percent of Californians support the initiative, with 19 percent undecided.

Anderson says the lack of opposition and strong support for Prop. 47 shows state residents are “increasingly frustrated with spending on prisons.”

“We have the ability to …significantly reduce the prison and crime problem in state with this ballot measure,” she said. “And reinvest [the money] into things that Californians think are more important priorities to keep communities safe.”

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Obama ignores Congress, announces Syria strikes

[Author]Assad government to consider any military action an act of war

by Paul Joseph Watson
[/Author]
President Barack Obama is set to ignore Congress once again by launching military strikes inside Syria without consulting lawmakers, a move that threatens to enflame the entire region given that the Assad government has repeatedly insisted it will consider any military activity inside Syrian territory as an act of war.

“President Obama is prepared to use U.S. military airstrikes in Syria as part of an expanded campaign to defeat the Islamic State and does not believe he needs formal congressional approval to take that action, according to people who have spoken with the president in recent days,”reports the Washington Post.

Obama is set to deliver a prime time speech tonight during which he will make the case for U.S. air strikes inside Syria in the name of targeting ISIS militants.

In citing ISIS, which was armed and funded by the United States’ biggest allies in the region, as a justification for a military campaign inside Syria, Obama is set to accomplish what the administration failed to achieve last year after the chemical weapons attack in Ghouta was blamed on the Assad government, despite a subsequent MIT report which concluded the incident was more likely the work of US-backed rebels.

Despite many calling for Washington to renew its support for so-called “moderate” rebels in Syria in the name of combating ISIS, it recently emerged that murdered journalist Steven Sotloff was sold to ISIS by FSA militants. In addition, arms given to FSA rebels that originated from the U.S. and Saudi Arabia were later seized by ISIS fighters.

Bassel Idriss, commander of an FSA-run rebel brigade, also recently admitted that US-backed “moderate” rebels are still collaborating with ISIS.

During a recent appearance on Fox News, General Thomas McInerney also revealed how the United States inadvertently bolstered ISIS as a result of the terrorist group obtaining weapons from the U.S. consulate in Benghazi. A more direct method of support involved the U.S. training militants at a secret base in Jordan who later went on to become ISIS fighters in Syria.

Obama’s decision to launch air strikes inside Syrian territory without congressional approval echoes his 2011 assault on Libya, which again was a move to support radical jihadists that ended up with the African country turning into a failed state.

At the time, Obama brazenly undermined the power of Congress by insisting his authority came from the United Nations Security Council prior to the attack on Libya and that Congressional approval was not necessary. “I don’t even have to get to the Constitutional question,” scoffed the President.

According to Congressman Walter Jones, this was an act that constituted “an impeachable high crime and misdemeanor under article II, section 4 of the Constitution.”

Obama’s move to strike inside Syria in the name of fighting ISIS militants which his administration helped boost as a result of its disastrous policy to arm so-called “moderate” rebels threatens to spark a regional war given that the Assad government has repeatedly insisted that any military action within Syrian territory will be considered an act of war.

The global resistance to a U.S. attack on Syria, which successfully derailed last year’s seemingly inevitable assault, has largely evaporated in light of the western media’s ceaseless promotion of ISIS as a catastrophic threat.

As an MSNBC poll showed last night, anti-war fervor amongst liberals has all but disintegrated, with just 12 percent calling on Obama to get permission from Congress before launching an attack on ISIS inside Syria.

 

White House denies murdered journalist was sold to ISIS by US supported Syrian rebels

 

Will not change strategy on supporting Syrian ‘moderates’

Following accusations by the spokesperson for Steven Sotloff, the U.S. journalist murdered by Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), the Obama administration has claimed that the American was not sold to the extremist group by moderate Syrian rebels currently being supported by the White House.

The administration says that its own initial intelligence surrounding the disappearance of Sotloff has not revealed any indications that the journalist was exchanged by Syrian rebels for cash.

“Based on the information that has been provided to me, I don’t believe that is accurate,” White House press secretary Josh Earnest said Tuesday. “But I do know, at the same time, that this is the subject of an ongoing FBI investigation. So this is something that they’re looking into all aspects of this, including how Mr. Sotloff may have come into the hands of [ISIS].”

Appearing on CNN Monday, Sotloff family spokesman Barak Barfi slammed Obama, saying that “The administration could have done more, they could have helped us, they could have seen them through.”

Barfi also revealed that “sources on the ground” in Syria have informed the Sotloff family that the TIME journalist was sold for between $25,000 and $50,000 by the “so-called moderate rebels that people want our administration to support”

Barfi accused the White House of using Sotloff and his compatriot James Foley as “pawns” in their strategy for Syria, saying that the administration had made inaccurate and misleading statements, hiding the fact that the relationship between the family and the White House is “very strained”.

Barfi also threatened to divulge damning information should leaks by the White House to the media continue regarding the situation.

Despite these claims, White House press secretary Earnest said “the thoughts and prayers of everybody here at the White House continue to be with the Sotloff family as they grieve for the loss of their son.”

“Everybody here is grieving alongside them,” he added.

Earnest suggested that the U.S. support of Syrian rebels will not be altered or affected in any way by the accusations, calling the support “a core component of the strategy here.”

“The reason for that is simply that it is very dangerous for [ISIS] to be operating in a virtual safe haven anywhere in the world,” he said. “It’s particularly dangerous for them to be operating in a safe haven in a region of the world as volatile as Syria and Iraq.”

The same extremists who Killed US and NATO Troops in Iraq were supported all the way by the U.S. and its allies in Libya and Syria.

ISIS terrorists had already infiltrated those groups and the U.S. government knew it from their own intelligence and from independent intelligence. Like a cancer, the group grew and eventually consumed the so-called rebels fighting against the Syrian government.

Obama is scheduled to deliver a speech outlining a strategy to defeat ISIS. It is thought that he will advocate entering into a limited conflict that will last beyond his own term as president.

Steve Watson is a London based writer and editor for Alex Jones’ Infowars.com, and Prisonplanet.com. He has a Masters Degree in International Relations from the School of Politics at The University of Nottingham, and a Bachelor Of Arts Degree in Literature and Creative Writing from Nottingham Trent University.

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Preparing the ground for more whistleblowers

[Author]by Jon Rappoport

www.nomorefakenews.com[/Author]

 

It’s possible we will get more whistleblowers coming out and admitting they covered up vaccine damage.

In order to help prepare the ground, some education is required.

This article is a backgrounder. The intention is to sweep aside the vaccine propagandists whose main thrust is: the US medical system is excellent, just fine, science is succeeding on all fronts, so why should we doubt vaccines; don’t worry, be happy.

In the wake of the CDC whistleblower scandal, many such “defenders of the realm” have emerged.

Expressing generalized outrage and disbelief, they assure us that no doctor or healthy agency would do great harm to the population.

They tell us that modern medicine, in all its aspects, is a wondrous land.

They assure us that whatever the whistleblower, William Thompson, is saying about published research fraud and vaccines—well, it’s simply wrong. All is well. Rainbows and marshmallows.

How little they know. How little they care.

Documents within the privileged halls of the medical establishment prove them wrong.

First and foremost among these documents is Dr. Barbara Starfield’s stunning July 26, 2000, review, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association: “Is US health really the best in the world?”

Proper and elite credentials were crisply present and accounted for, all the way along the line. Journal of the American Medical Association. Dr. Starfield was a widely respected public health expert, working at the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health.

Her conclusions?

Every year, in the US, the medical system kills 225,000 people. That’s 2.25 MILLION killings per decade.

Of these, FDA-approved medical drugs kill 106,000 Americans per year. That’s a MILLION killings per decade.

In my 2009 interview with Dr. Starfield, she stated that, since her July 2000 publication, other researchers have pegged the death figures even higher.

If you go to Startpage.com and search for “FDA Why Learn About Adverse Drug Reactions,” you will see, on the FDA’s own website, a page where the annual 100,000-death figure is confirmed.

Of course, the FDA takes absolutely no responsibility for this horrific fact. Being the sole US agency in charge of certifying drugs as safe, when those drugs kill 100,000 Americans per year…the FDA’s conscience doesn’t waver an inch. To put it another way: what conscience?

Want more?

The citation is: BMJ June 7, 2012 (BMJ 2012:344:e3989). Author, Jeanne Lenzer. (See http://www.bmj.com/content/344/bmj.e3989 — “Anticoagulants cause the most serious adverse events, finds US analysis”)

Lenzer refers to a report by the Institute for Safe Medication Practices: “It calculated that in 2011 prescription drugs were associated with two to four million people in the US experiencing ‘serious, disabling, or fatal injuries, including 128,000 deaths.’”

The report called this “one of the most significant perils to humans resulting from human activity.”

And here is the final dagger. The report was compiled by outside researchers who went into the FDA’s own database of “serious adverse [medical-drug] events.”

Given what I’ve written here so far, alert readers will begin to wonder: how can these medical drugs kill so many people, when medical journals report, in thousands of published studies, that the drugs are safe?

Ah yes: reliance on published drug-studies.

The gold standard. This is what “the professionals” point to when challenged. This is the basis of their “science.”

It’s all a ruse. The published studies declaring the drugs safe are frauds. An insider among insiders confirms this.

For 20 years, Dr. Marcia Angell was the editor of one of the most prestigious journals in the world; The New England Journal of Medicine.

On January 15, 2009, the NY Review of Books published Dr. Angell’s devastating assessment of medical literature: “It is simply no longer possible to believe much of the clinical research that is published, or to rely on the judgment of trusted physicians or authoritative medical guidelines. I take no pleasure in this conclusion, which I reached slowly and reluctantly over my two decades as an editor of The New England Journal of Medicine.” —(Marcia Angell, MD, “Drug Companies and Doctors: A story of Corruption.” NY Review of Books, Jan. 15, 2009.)

Here is another quote of a similar nature, also published in the NY Review of Books (May 12, 2001, Helen Epstein, “Flu Warning: Beware of Drug Companies”):

“Six years ago, John Ioannidis, a professor of epidemiology at the University of Ioannina School of Medicine in Greece, found that nearly half of published articles in scientific journals contained findings that were false.”

Here’s another quote from the same article:

“Last year, GlaxoSmithKline’s diabetes drug Avandia was linked to thousands of heart attacks, and earlier in the decade, the company’s antidepressant Paxil was discovered to exacerbate the risk of suicide in young people. Merck’s painkiller Vioxx was also linked to thousands of heart disease deaths. In each case, the scientific literature gave little hint of these dangers.”

And finally, here is yet another statement from Marcia Angell, former editor of The New England Journal of Medicine: “A review of seventy-four clinical trials of antidepressants, for example, found that thirty-seven of thirty-eight positive studies [that praised the drugs] were published. But of the thirty-six negative studies, thirty-three were either not published or published in a form that conveyed a positive outcome.”

It turns out that the informational pipeline that feeds the entire perception of pharmaceutical medicine is a rank fraud.

So… when CDC whistleblower William Thompson made a public statement, on Aug. 27, admitting he and his co-authors cooked and buried vital data in a 2004 Pediatrics study on the MMR vaccine and autism, and when shocked observers rushed to claim there was really no problem and “the official science” was safe and true and good and right, and the CDC was innocent of wrongdoing and it was all a tempest in a teacup, they were entirely ignorant of the big picture, or they were lying through their teeth.

Whistleblower Thompson was merely adding one more footnote about medical fraud to a massive and growing encyclopedia of fraud.

The encyclopedia stands, dust-covered, on a remote shelf. The US government, the CDC, other public health agencies, doctors, medical schools, drug companies, and those execrable corporate front men—television media anchors—proceed apace, praising US medical science.

Problem? What problem? All is well in fairyland. Rainbows and marshmallows.

Jon Rappoport is the author of three explosive collections, The Matrix Revealed,

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Tiburón Film Society presents The Tinaja Trail

[Author]Compiled by the El Reportero’s staff[/Author]

A 65-min documentary filmed in the U.S. and Mexico.
In the desolate borderlands of the American Southwest, hundreds of undocumented immigrants die every year while attempting to cross into the United States from Mexico.
In response, volunteers are caching water supplies along the migratory trails and others are imagining cell phones running geo-poetic trail-finding software promising to lead migrants to water. Through the voices of those who have crossed, those who have failed, and those who are trying to prevent more deaths, a complex picture of the immigration crisis emerges.
At the Bay Model located at 2100 Bridgeway in Sausalito on Tuesday, Sept. 9, 2014 at 6 p.m. Admission is free and open to the public.

East Side Story and Chicano Soul History: Lowrider photo exhibit and more
In conjunction with the Lowriding season MCCLA is thrilled to present featured artists: Yolanda López, Art Meza, Adolfo Arias, and Fern Balladares whose art work represent lowrider culture past and present. Join us at the opening reception to meet the artists, hear excerpts of Meza’s Lowriting book, view screening of Why I Ride, a documentary on 80s lowrider car scene in San Francisco, walk along the display of lowrider cars parked in front of the center, and listen to oldies by DJ Soulera. Be a part of reclaiming public space. Don’t miss out.
Exhibit runs through Sept. 12, at the Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts, 2868 Mission Street, San Francisco.

6th Annual San Francisco Latino Film Festival
Cine+Mas SF celebrates its 6th year of the San Francisco Latino Film Festival, opening with our annual kick-off event sponsored by KPIX-CBS local at their studios (855 Battery St, SF) on Tuesday, September 16, 5:30 – 8:30 p.m.
The SFLFF program includes award winning and critically acclaimed documentary, feature and short films from Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Puerto Rico, Mexico, Cuba, El Salvador, Peru, Uruguay, Guatemala and the USA. Local and visiting filmmakers from around the country and Latin America will be in attendance.
The festival is proud to open this year at the Brava Theater in San Francisco’s Mission District, recently designated as the Latino Cultural Corridor. The opening night celebration will be at Brick & Mortar in San Francisco. Additional venues include Opera Plaza Cinemas (SF); Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts (SF); Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (SF); Red Poppy Art House (SF); Eastside Cultural Center (Oakland), La Peña Cultural Center (Berkeley); Mexican Heritage Plaza (San Jose).
“The festival’s purpose is to build community through film, while educating, entertaining, and recognizing the work of Latin American, Spanish and US Latino filmmakers which otherwise may not be seen in San Francisco,” said festival director Lucho Ramirez.
Some of the Short Films include a documentary animation this year: Frontera! Revolt & Revolution on the Upper Rio Grande, (USA/San Francisco), directed by John Jota Leaños, about the seminal events and colonial entries that have shaped the deeply contested territories of the US-Mexico Borderlands. Native and Chicano narrators recall this living history through memory, play, humor and song. The film is a collaboration between Chicano and Native artists in New Mexico and California.
From September 19 through the 27 at different locations in the SF Bay Area, with extended locations. For more info http://www.sflatinofilmfestival.org or call 415-826-7057. For tickets visit www.brownpapertickets.com or call 1-800-838-3006.

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“Cantinflas” movie makes strong showing in box office

[Author]by the El Reportero’s news services[/Author]

 

“Cantinflas”, the biopic about Mexican actor Mario Moreno, premiered in the United States with a total box-office of $3.2 million and the highest average number of moviegoers per movie theater that screened it.

The Sebastian del Amo flick opened in 382 theaters with an average box-office of some $8,400, while placing 13th on the list of the most revenues over the long Labor Day weekend.

Starring Spanish actor Oscar Jaenada, the picture tells the life story of the man described as Mexico’s Charlie Chaplin with a plot that focuses on the production of “Around the World in 80 Days,” with which Moreno (1911-1993) broke into Hollywood in 1956.

 

Guillermo Arriaga’s Words With Gods screens at Venice Film Festival

A wave of spirituality washed over the Venice Film Festival on Saturday with the out-of-competition screening of Words with Gods, a series of religious-themed short films directed by Mexico’s Guillermo Arriaga and eight other filmmakers, including Spain’s Alex de la Iglesia and Argentine-born Brazilian Hector Babenco.

“It doesn’t deal with religions so much as human beings,” Arriaga, who also produced the project, said here of his short, La Sangre de Dios (Blood of God).

“The goal of the film is to spark a dialogue so we can understand ourselves better and become better human beings,” he added.

Words with God consists of nine short films that take the movie-goer from the Australian desert to Iranian Kurdistan and from boisterous Mumbai to tsunami-battered Japan.

Mira Nair, Emir Kusturica and Amos Gitai are among the other directors whose short films were included in Words with Gods, the first of four installments in the Heartbeat of the World anthology film series.

La Sangre de Dios tackles the theme of atheism and “the death of God” through a story focused on the devastating impact of human beings on nature.

“It’s an ambiguous work that leaves open all the interpretations about what God is, if (God) exists or not,” Arriaga, former screenwriter for Mexican filmmaker Alejandro Gonzalez Iñarritu and the director of The Burning Plain, said.

The short that received the most applause at the Venice Film Festival, which kicked off on Wednesday and runs through Sept. 6, was De la Iglesia’s, the only one of the nine to use humor to address its theme – Catholicism and the forgiveness of sins.

De la Iglesia said that at first he wondered whether the theme might be too transcendent for a “comedian” like him to tackle and that he might offend people, even though he considers himself a Catholic.

“Then I thought that humor is a technique of expression that helps us approach reality more freely, and that was very important in talking about religion,” he said.

“For me, the forgiveness of sins is the most important part of the Catholic religion, which is defined precisely by its preference for the repentant sinner over someone who always does good. That fills me with hope,” De la Iglesia added.

Babenco’s film, meanwhile, invites the viewer to follow a homeless man who is distraught over the death of his son and attends an Afro-Brazilian religious ritual in which evil spirits are exorcised through dance.

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How the excessive militarization of the police is turning cops into counterinsurgents

[Author]FROM THE EDITOR:

 

Dear readers,[/Author]

I don’t need to repeat the horror stories that have been plaguing the mainstream media or corporate media, as it is now called, about the increasing police executions of people in their “line of duty.” The same excuses: the suspect had a gun (but who didn’t shot a bullet); he didn’t obey police command to stop but kept running; he didn’t show his hands; I called the police to help me restrain my daughter who was acting crazy, etc. They all got killed. The following article, written by Matthew Harwood, brings us inside of the how the police are becoming more violent, and how the killings go unpunished.

 

[Author]by Matthew Harwood

TomDispatch
[/Author]

 

Second part: Everyday Militarization
 

Don’t think, however, that the military mentality and equipment associated with SWAT operations are confined to those elite units. Increasingly, they’re permeating all forms of policing.

As Karl Bickel, a senior policy analyst with the Justice Department’s Community Policing Services office, observes, police across America are being trained in a way that emphasizes force and aggression. He notes that recruit training favors a stress-based regimen that’s modeled on military boot camp rather than on the more relaxed academic setting a minority of police departments still employ. The result, he suggests, is young officers who believe policing is about kicking ass rather than working with the community to make neighborhoods safer. Or as comedian Bill Maher reminded officers recently: “The words on your car, ‘protect and serve,’ refer to us, not you.”

This authoritarian streak runs counter to the core philosophy that supposedly dominates twenty-first-century American thinking: community policing. Its emphasis is on a mission of “keeping the peace” by creating and maintaining partnerships of trust with and in the communities served. Under the community model, which happens to be the official policing philosophy of the U.S. government, officers are protectors but also problem solvers who are supposed to care, first and foremost, about how their communities see them. They don’t command respect, the theory goes: they earn it. Fear isn’t supposed to be their currency. Trust is.

Nevertheless, police recruiting videos, as in those from California’s Newport Beach Police Department and New Mexico’s Hobbs Police Department, actively play up not the community angle but militarization as a way of attracting young men with the promise of Army-style adventure and high-tech toys. Policing, according to recruiting videos like these, isn’t about calmly solving problems; it’s about you and your boys breaking down doors in the middle of the night.

SWAT’s influence reaches well beyond that. Take the increasing adoption of battle-dress uniforms (BDUs) for patrol officers. These militaristic, often black, jumpsuits, Bickel fears, make them less approachable and possibly also more aggressive in their interactions with the citizens they’re supposed to protect.

A small project at Johns Hopkins University seemed to bear this out. People were shown pictures of police officers in their traditional uniforms and in BDUs. Respondents, the survey indicated, would much rather have a police officer show up in traditional dress blues. Summarizing its findings, Bickel writes, “The more militaristic look of the BDUs, much like what is seen in news stories of our military in war zones, gives rise to the notion of our police being an occupying force in some inner city neighborhoods, instead of trusted community protectors.”

Where do they get those wonderful toys?

“I wonder if I can get in trouble for doing this,” the young man says to his buddy in the passenger seat as they film the Saginaw County Sheriff Office’s new toy: a Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicle. As they film the MRAP from behind, their amateur video has a Red Dawn-esque feel, as if an occupying military were now patrolling this Michigan county’s streets. “This is getting ready for f**king crazy times, dude,” one young man comments. “Why,” his friend replies, “has our city gotten that f**king bad?”

In fact, nothing happening in Saginaw County warranted the deployment of an armored vehicle capable of withstanding bullets and the sort of improvised explosive devices that insurgent forces have regularly planted along roads in America’s recent war zones. Sheriff William Federspiel, however, fears the worst. “As sheriff of the county, I have to put ourselves in the best position to protect our citizens and protect our property,” he told a reporter. “I have to prepare for something disastrous.”

Lucky for Federspiel, his exercise in paranoid disaster preparedness didn’t cost his office a penny. That $425,000 MRAP came as a gift, courtesy of Uncle Sam, from one of our far-flung counterinsurgency wars. The nasty little secret of policing’s militarization is that taxpayers are subsidizing it through programs overseen by the Pentagon, the Department of Homeland Security, and the Justice Department.

Take the 1033 program. The Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) may be an obscure agency within the Department of Defense, but through the 1033 program, which it oversees, it’s one of the core enablers of American policing’s excessive militarization. Beginning in 1990, Congress authorized the Pentagon to transfer its surplus property free of charge to federal, state, and local police departments to wage the war on drugs. In 1997, Congress expanded the purpose of the program to include counterterrorism in section 1033 of the defense authorization bill. In one single page of a 450-page law, Congress helped sow the seeds of today’s warrior cops.

The amount of military hardware transferred through the program has grown astronomically over the years. In 1990, the Pentagon gave $1 million worth of equipment to U.S. law enforcement. That number had jumped to nearly $450 million in 2013. Overall, the program has shipped off more than $4.3 billion worth of materiel to state and local cops, according to the DLA.

In its recent report, the ACLU found a disturbing range of military gear being transferred to civilian police departments nationwide. Police in North Little Rock, Arkansas, for instance, received 34 automatic and semi-automatic rifles, two robots that can be armed, military helmets, and a Mamba tactical vehicle. Police in Gwinnet County, Georgia, received 57 semi-automatic rifles, mostly M-16s and M-14s. The Utah Highway Patrol, according to a Salt Lake City Tribune investigation, got an MRAP from the 1033 program, and Utah police received 1,230 rifles and four grenade launchers. After South Carolina’s Columbia Police Department received its very own MRAP worth $658,000, its SWAT Commander Captain E.M. Marsh noted that 500 similar vehicles had been distributed to law enforcement organizations across the country.

Astoundingly, one-third of all war materiel parceled out to state, local, and tribal police agencies is brand new. This raises further disconcerting questions: Is the Pentagon simply wasteful when it purchases military weapons and equipment with taxpayer dollars? Or could this be another downstream, subsidized market for defense contractors? Whatever the answer, the Pentagon is actively distributing weaponry and equipment made for U.S. counterinsurgency campaigns abroad to police who patrol American streets and this is considered sound policy in Washington. The message seems striking enough: what might be necessary for Kabul might also be necessary for DeKalb County.

In other words, the twenty-first-century war on terror has melded thoroughly with the twentieth-century war on drugs, and the result couldn’t be anymore disturbing: police forces that increasingly look and act like occupying armies.

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Three foods that can treat kidney disease and boost renal function

[Author]by Michael Ravensthorpe
[/Author]
Every year, more than 100,000 people in the United States are diagnosed with kidney disease, a serious, life-threatening condition in which the kidneys can no longer filter waste products from the blood. (1) The National Kidney Foundation estimates that one in three American adults is currently at risk of developing kidney disease and those odds increase to one in two over the course of a lifetime.

The leading causes of poor kidney health are diabetes and high blood pressure, which in turn are caused by a poor diet and lifestyle. Therefore, the only real long-term solution to kidney disease is to drink more clean water, get more exercise and, most importantly, to reject processed and unhealthy foods in favor of natural whole foods. The foods listed below are proven to be particularly effective at boosting renal health.

Asparagus

Asparagus was regarded as the perfect healing food for our urinary system for centuries in its native Europe and Asia, and we now understand why. This green spring vegetable is packed with natural compounds, including glycosides and saponins, that give it significant diuretic, anti-rheumatic and blood purifying qualities. Consequently, the regular consumption of asparagus is known to increase urine production, soothe the urinary system, boost cellular action in the kidneys and even dissolve the acids and salts that comprise kidney stones.

Moreover, a study published in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry in June 2013 found that a compound present in asparagus, 2”-hydroxynicotianamine, could inhibit angiotensin-converting enzyme activity in the kidneys, thus “preventing hypertension and preserving renal function.”

Garlic

Garlic has long been considered one of nature’s greatest disease fighters due to its impressive concentrations of the sulfur compound allicin. A proven antibacterial, antimicrobial, antiviral, antifungal and antioxidant, allicin is well-known for treating two of the main conditions that cause kidney disease, namely diabetes and high blood pressure. However, several studies have shown that this pungent and aromatic herb could be even better for our kidneys than previously thought.

One study published in Pharmacological Reports in 2008 discovered that garlic could significantly reduce kidney damage associated with mercury chloride exposure in laboratory animals (mercury chloride is a potential carcinogen used in disinfectants, batteries, insecticides and many other products to which humans are regularly exposed). (5) Another study, published in Food and Chemical Toxicology in 2001, found that garlic in low doses could enhance the antioxidant status of the kidneys, thus protecting them from the cell-damaging effects of free radicals.

Watermelon

There are three reasons why watermelons are good for treating kidney disease. Firstly, they are low in potassium and phosphorus, which are two minerals that dysfunctional kidneys can have problems balancing. Secondly, they are comprised of approximately 92 percent alkaline water, which helps flush the urinary system of accumulated toxins (watermelon fasts can even dissolve kidney stones). Lastly, they help the liver to process ammonia and deliver it to urea, thus easing the strain on the kidneys while ridding the body of excess fluids.

Unlike asparagus and garlic, watermelon is high in natural sugars. For this reason, people with diabetes-sourced kidney disease should be careful not to consume too much of it on a regular basis.

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