Thursday, April 27, 2017

“Wanted: FIFTY NEGROES” for involuntary experimentation



Before the Civil War there was no need to pretend to develop ethical guidelines when using black people for research or to worry about infringing on their rights, since they didn't think they had any.

Now there are plenty of efforts to pretend to respect the rights of minorities or other people when using them for medical research. There are also plenty of exaggerated conspiracy theories about abuses that are taking place in research experiments; however there is also evidence to indicate that they're not all exaggerations and that the people developing the ethical guidelines aren't the ones being used for research, with the possible exception of minor experiments that aren't very dangerous.

I'm not opposed to reasonable research or science; but when one class of people, perhaps you could call them an academic class that comes mostly from the ruling class, develop all the guidelines, and has access to the education necessary to understand them, and another class of people is used as research subjects that they don't understand this should be considered a problem, or virtual, if not literal slavery.

Under the current circumstances the vast majority of people being used for medical research don't have the educational background to understand the full risks their tasking or potential benefits. The people that advise them may have better educational background, but they may also have a subtle, or even blatant interest in misleading them, so they can get subjects for research. On top of that the vast majority of the benefits from this research goes to the ruling class, with little or no benefit going to the people that provide the research material. The academic world has supposedly developed ethical guidelines decades ago; however they're controlled by people with a clear bias, since, if they make them too strict they will lose some of their potential benefits, and the people that are being put at risk don't understand the research so they're not in a position to stand up for their own rights, when it counts.

Is there any doubt that the educated upper class of people are much more likely to get health care and that the benefits of patents that drive up the cost of medications or medical treatment goes almost entirely to the rich while poorer people, who are occasionally used for research, are much less likely to get access to health care. This situation makes it easier to offer the poor limited amounts of health care in return for participating in research, but there is no consideration of limiting the amount of profits the rich can make as a result of the patents developed with the research.

This could be dramatically reduced if we had Single Payer Health Care; however the rich control the political systems that are withholding it and they also control the media establishment that provides little or no discussion about the benefits of a Single Payer system. Despite their efforts to suppress coverage of Single Payer a growing number of people at the grassroots are learning about it yet the political establishment refuses to give it serious discussion or consideration, presumably because they represent campaign contributors not voters, who only hear from candidates approved by the mainstream media.

In the cases where there has been some reparations, it is almost always when people from the lower classes speak out loudly and receive help from some sympathetic people that have better education that can help guide them through the legal and medical process. Even then they rarely ever get full reparations, since the court system and academic world are both controlled by the upper class, and they rig the rules heavily in their own favor.

Some of the worst examples of abusive and often incompetent research on minorities, mostly black, was reported by Harriet Washington in “Medical Apartheid" including the following excerpt describing how James Marion Sims and Dr. T. Stillman openly experimented on blacks and even advertised for them as pieces of property with no regard for their rights as humans:

Sam’s version of events is not recorded, so we don’t know whether more than fear of pain caused him to balk at surgery. …. If Sam had gotten wind of Sim’s dismal surgical statistics, his famed fondness for forced experimentation on captive patients, or his penchant for taking shoemakers’ tools to black infant’s skulls, Sam’s opinion of Sim’s skill would have sunk low indeed. But he would not have dared to openly voice doubts about Sim’s abilities, so refusing treatment because of “the pain” may have been a canny dodge.

However Sam was enslaved, so the decision was not left to him but to his owner, who was eager to return his slave to profitable work. ….

Staging Disease: Treatment Under the Microscope

There were many Sams. Like circuses, clinics and hospitals had an abundance of uses for the displayed African American body. After the mid-nineteenth century, a supply of black bodies was key to the primacy of the hospital as the new center for American medical instruction and treatment. African Americans filled medical school rosters as well as circus tents, because medical teaching, training, and research utilized black bodies disproportionately, and in some southern venues, they were used exclusively.

During the 1830s, a Dr. T. Stillman ran serial advertisements in the Charleston Mercury for his infirmary, in which he principally treated skin diseases. On October 12, 1838, he made a fascinating addendum: “Wanted: FIFTY NEGROES. Any person having sick Negroes, considered incurable by their respective physicians and wishing to dispose of them …. The highest cash prize will be paid upon application as above.”

Slaves who had become too old of too sick to work supplied the bulk of hospital “clinical material.” They enjoyed no legal rights and could mount no legal challenge to their incarceration and treatment. Stillman advertised his desire for blacks who suffered from disorders far beyond his own specialty, such as apoplexy, kidney disease, and stomach, intestinal, bladder, liver, and spleen disorders, as well as scrofula and hypochondriasm. He wished to test new techniques and medications he had formulated on debilitated and chronically unhealthy blacks in the same institution where he treated paying whites. He then marketed the medications and techniques. (Harriet Washington “Medical Apartheid” 2007 p.102-3)

Additional excerpts from Harriet Washington “Medical Apartheid”


At several points in this book Harriet Washington debunks some of the exaggerations or false conspiracy theories that many minorities believe; however she confirms many others, and demonstrates that even if minorities are more inclined to believe some of the worst exaggerations, the opposite is often the case for people that aren't the victims of “Medical Apartheid,” who have an incentive to believe in the establishment, since they often get much better care.

She also admits to facing some of her own denials as a member of the establishment in the academic world and at least tries to do her best to recognize that some of these conspiracy theories are at least partially true when she writes the following:

When I haltingly voiced my fears to an African American acquaintance who had worked as a ward clerk in the nephrology unit, she looked at me as if I were not too bright and minced no words, “Girl, black people don’t get organs they give organs.” During our ensuing debate, she pointed out to me that the race bias in the hospital where we worked should have resolved any doubts: in the early 1980s, most of the black employees worked in housekeeping and clerical support. Blacks were noticeably scarce among the administration and medical staffs. Why, she asked, was I naïve enough to believe that racial bias stopped at the staffing roster? (Harriet Washington “Medical Apartheid” 2007 p.14-5)


The vast majority of research is only discussed in the academic world and there is very little attempt to educate the majority of the public about the risks behind this research, often until it is too late and many people find out the hard way. In many cases this happens when they find out about the negative side effects of medications they were given the impression were safe and wind up in law suits after the fact as I have pointed out in several previous articles, some listed below, including current lawsuits about talcum powder causing ovarian cancer the dangers of Miracle Grow or Round up and many more.

“Medical Apartheid” is probably the most thorough book I have seen yet that attempts to inform the public about this, but there is far more that many people can recognize if they understand the basic principles of science and research. For example, intentionally or not when there are environmental disasters in Flint Michigan, Chrystal City Texas, East Chicago Indiana, Love Canal New York, the disasters exposed by Erin Brockovich, Woburn Mass exposed by John Travolta in "Civil Action" and many others including those reported in "Dumping in Dixie" by Robert Bullard, they provide ample opportunity for research whether they could could be beneficial or not. However in all of these cases it should have been clear that before the disaster they already had enough research to determine that epidemic levels of pollution are disastrous and not worth the risks.

The most important lesson that we could learn if we tried isn't about medical research since these unintentional research projects are so incompetent and unethical; but about how corrupt our political economic and media institutions are!

These environmental disasters all have a lot in common with the research by Harriet Washington, since the vast majority of the benefits, when there are actual benefits to the research, goes to the wealthy with political power, while the vast majority of the sacrifices go to those without political power, often minorities especially blacks!



Additional research by Gary Webb also exposed that there was an enormous amount of incompetent research being done in the drug industry targeting mostly Hispanics or African Americans, and this was followed up by attempts to profit off it to finance some past wars based on lies including financing the Nicaraguan Contras in the eighties based on lies. Additional researchers including Alfred McCoy and Robert Parry has shown that this hasn't been limited to the Contras it began no later than Vietnam and that this activity has continued long after the Contras including events in Afghanistan and a plane that went down in 2007. the following except from Gary Webb's book shows some of the incompetent research that resulted from political corruption, or to read the full chapter for the full context see the link at end of excerpts:

Gary Webb "Dark Alliance" Excerpts from Chapter One focusing primarily on research into Cocaine use.

Dr. Robert Byck, a drug expert from Yale University, sat in the audience listening patiently to the testimony all day. When it was Byck's turn to speak, Guyer warmly welcomed him up to the witness table, complimenting him on his "very, very impressive" academic and professional credentials.

Byck thanked Guyer and then politely ripped into the federal government for spreading misinformation about the drug. "What I would like to talk to you about for the most part is the importance of telling the truth," Byck, a professor of psychiatry and pharmacology at Yale Medical School, began. The truth was that cocaine wasn't the horrible health hazard Americans were being told it was. "Cocaine doesn't have the kind of health consequences that one sees with drugs such as alcohol and cigarettes. Right now, if we look at the hospital admission records and death records, cocaine doesn't look like a dangerous drug. . .. We have given a great deal of cocaine to many individuals and find it to be a most unremarkable drug. We are giving cocaine by nose to normal young men. When anyone visits our laboratory, they look at the TV screen and say, 'That guy took cocaine?' They don't jump around, they don't get excited; they sit calmly and experience a drug high and don't become dangerous."

"What about five years later?" Guyer cried. "Are the membranes and so on not affected at all?"

"The damage to people's membranes is quite rare with cocaine. It does occur, but it is a rare phenomenon," Byck answered. "Part of this is because people don't use very much cocaine. It is expensive. Tell me the last alcoholic you saw with cirrhosis of the liver when cirrhosis was caused by Dom Perignon. You almost never see it." ......

He was there to deliver a warning from the scientific community.

Something bad was coming, Byck knew, something so deadly awful that the only way to prevent a catastrophe was for the government to tell the truth, and pray to God that it was believed. ....

For about a year, a Peruvian police psychiatrist named Dr. Raul Jeri had been insisting that wealthy drug users in Lima were being driven insane by cocaine. A psychiatrist in Bolivia, Dr. Nils Nova, began making similar claims shortly thereafter. Their reports, written in Spanish and published in obscure medical journals, went largely unnoticed in the United States because, frankly, they sounded so weird. .....

Byck, who among other things had collected and edited Sigmund Freud's cocaine papers, had been skeptical of the South American reports until he sent one of his students down to Peru on a summer project. In the spring of 1978 a first-year Yale med student named David Paly came to Byck with an idea the scientist found intriguing: Paly wanted to measure the blood plasma levels of Peru's coca-leaf-chewing Indians to see what it was that got the Indians high. .....

Byck quickly got some federal grant money and sent Paly back to Lima to do some controlled experiments on cocaine smokers. ....

Paly was both fascinated and repelled. "It was Pavlovian," he said. "It was just unbelievable. Some of these kids, in the lab, would smoke twenty grams of paste and then, after you had paid them for their time, they would run out on the street with the money and buy more." .....

When the hearings resumed, the congressmen peppered the witnesses with such questions as whether they thought Hollywood cocaine use was contributing to the deterioration of quality TV shows (as one of them had heard recently on the Mike Douglas Show); if it was true that Coca-Cola once contained cocaine; and if the TV series Quincy, in which Jack Klugman played a coroner, was "accurate" or if it was "way out." Not another word was said about doing research or warning the public about the dangers of cocaine smoking. Byck left the hearing stunned. "Nobody paid any attention," he recalled. "They listened to it, and everyone said, 'So what?' I felt very strongly that the information that I had should have caused somebody to say, 'All right! We've got to start finding out about this stuff!' But they didn't." .....

Byck said the Food and Drug Administration shut down attempts to do any serious research on addiction or treatment, refusing to approve grant requests or research proposals and withholding the government permits necessary to run experiments with controlled substances. ...

Byck told Guyer's committee sarcastically. "The regulations which govern the legal importation of cocaine and coca research are much more effective than the regulations which seem to govern smoking or smuggling." Full Chapter


The traditional media attempts to dismiss this as fringe conspiracy theory; however Gary Webb began his research by reporting on the Kerry committee report which was carried out by John Kerry and is part of the congressional record, so if his work is fringe then so is testimony before congress. Also the media pundits and CIA didn't attempt to discredit him by addressing his sources which include many additional court transcripts newspaper articles from traditional media and testimony from police and government attorneys, instead they attempted to smear him through unreliable methods that should, if anything add to his credibility, not detract from it! due to the incredible controversial nature of his reporting it appears as if even some of the supposedly progressive reporters from alternative media outlets may have been pressured to refute it, since on some occasions even a few authors from the Nation magazine claimed that some of his reporting wasn't accurate, but they didn't specify what was wrong with it.

If you read his book it may be clear that Gary Webb provided extensive sources for his claims and even, at times admitted that some of them might not be completely reliable, which is to be expected considering the subject matter, so it is an easy and reliable claim to say that some of it isn't true; even Gary Webb would admit that and did when he raised some questions himself. However and enormous amount of it is clearly true despite the spin that the government and mainstream media comes up with!

This research along with an enormous amount of additional research into drug running by many other authors, that the mainstream media refuses to cover, is enough to show that even if a large portion of it needs some review there is enough there to indicate that the drug war is based on lies, like other wars including the Vietnam war which was against a country that signed their own declaration of Independence, the Gulf War which was about weapons of mass destruction which didn't exist and many other wars based on lies that are only well disclosed in the alternative media outlets that the mainstream media recently attempted to portray as "Russian Propaganda." a close look at many of these outlets they referred to as "Russian Propaganda" quickly exposed that most of them had no connection to Russia at all and even the media that made that claim "walked it back!"

Michelle Alexander also exposed how the mass incarceration craze has eroded the appearance of justice which should now be considered a tragedy and a farce, or at least it would be if most people were aware of the news that is only reported at a low level in the alternative media outlets, in "The New Jim Crow," which is also very well sourced as far as it goes. However regrettably she spends very little time informing the public about the CIA involvement in running drugs and only mentions it briefly. Considering the subject matter and how much it applies to the expansion of mass incarceration it is hard to understand why she hardly even mentions it; however she did manage to get much more attention from the traditional media that most other alternative researchers and the work that she does is very good as far as it goes.

I can't help but owner if she was pressured to downplay the connection with the CIA and mass incarceration or if she would have gotten nearly as much attention from the mainstream media if she had reported more extensively on it.

Regardless of why Michelle Alexander didn't mention the CIA connection more, it is a major part of the reason for mass incarceration and it increases the availability of prison research subjects which Harriet Washington wrote about and it also increases the availability of traditional slave labor, which contrary to what most people believe is still legal under the thirteenth amendment according to Penal labor in the United States

In addition to being denied access to affordable health care even when the public is being used to develop medications that are making drug companies wealthy, we're also being denied access to news about the full extent of environmental destruction which is only reported in alternative media outlets or when it is reported in traditional outlets, it is scattered in locations far and wide so that most people are only aware of a small fraction of it. the public is also denied coverage of political candidates that don't bend over backwards to serve corporate interests, thanks to the consolidated commercial media which effectively rigs elections.

In order to have a viable chance to get elected any candidate need to start with name recognition, and with over ninety percent of the media in the control of just six oligarchies they can control who does or doesn't get name recognition, which is why two of the least like candidates, both of whom were under investigation by the FBI last year, managed to get the nomination ensuring that only candidates that serve corporate interests can get elected.

If we had diverse media there is no way either of these highly disliked candidates could have been elected and on top of that we would be in a much better position to minimize or eliminate unethical uses of research on those without political power for the benefit of those with political power, without full disclosure or informing the people being used for research of the full risks involved.

Even when some of us do pay far more attention to alternative media outlets it is easy to miss out on some of the reporting of some of these issues including what was apparently a massive prison strike that I didn't even hear about until I searched for it now and it only happened a few months ago. According to Prison Labor Is Unseen and "Utterly Exploitative," 10/06/2016 "An estimated 24,000 inmates missed work and as many as 29 prisons were affected, according to activists." Not only wasn't this reported in the traditional media which almost never reports some of the biggest grassroots movements but it wasn't reported nearly as well as I would have expected it to be in the alternative media.

The risks of horrifying research without fully considering the consequences, including some that was never intended to be done as research in the first place should be clear to anyone that takes a close look at many of the disasters resulting from past wars including WWI, WWII, The Vietnam War both Gulf Wars and many others all of which used chemical weapons although they weren't fully disclosed by traditional media and the results were often refuted even when there has been enormous amounts of evidence.

There was far more research into the damage done by Mustard Gas in both WWI & II, damage done by radiation during atomic tests in the fifties, Agent Orange in the Vietnam war, depleted Uranium in the Gulf Wars and who knows how many other undisclosed research projects than the vast majority of the public even suspect is going on; yet we keep fighting one war after another based on lies. this research is public for those that look for it but it is rarely reported by the traditional media; and when it is they often give preferential treatment to government denials even when they have no credibility. On occasions when they're faced with so much evidence that they have to admit to it they often do so quickly and briefly, for one and only one of these disasters at a time, before letting them fall down the memory hole without mentioning all the others and letting the public know that it is being repeated over and over again.



If more people knew half of this then it wouldn't be surprising that there are so many conspiracy theories about all the research that is being done without full disclosure. It should be more surprising that there isn't much more! Harriet Washington is one of the rare researchers that does such a good job sorting through all the real experiments and sorting out the false conspiracies in “Medical Apartheid" but regrettably she doesn't get nearly as much attention as she should.

One of the rare occasions where there is some discussion about some of this research is when it is done with the help of Planned Parenthood; however regrettably the discussion doesn't involve a rational review of the ethics of using poor people for research at all! Instead it has become a partisan political debate dividing people up to two sides, neither of which fully discuss the details properly. Harriet Washington also explored some of the misinformation on this subject as well and so did I in a previous article, Both sides of Planned Parenthood controversy ignore or misrepresent human research experiments where I pointed out that even though Planned Parenthood is supposedly a non-profit organization the people they were selling research material to were almost certainly for profit corporations that were making big money off the research they were doing. Cecile Richards was portrayed as a hero defending the rights of the poor yet she is being paid an enormous amount of money without mentioning that the research material they provide is being used to help multinational corporations increase their profits without requiring them to provide affordable health care.

Liberals and Progressives that might be outraged by this have remained silent thanks to the partisan debate about the abortion issue, and amazingly it is the right wing that is bring up this subject although they don't seem interested in learning from the research being done or providing affordable care. If this was brought in the open and discussed then it could and should be used as an other argument for Single Payer and to limit or in some cases eliminate patents which the public contributes to either by providing research subjects or in many cases subsidizing the rese4arch with tax payer dollars. When I reported on this previously it was being reported that Cecil Richards pay had surged from $300,000 to over $500,000; but apparently it may have surged even more after that close to a million dollars a year, yet she still doesn't explain how she's using research from the poor to enrich multinational corporations. This was reported by anti-abortion organizations based on tax returns from Planned Parenthood but mainstream efforts to refute this limited themselves to reports from before this came out, implying that it is probably true as far as I can find with an internet search.

We should be able to have this debate without assuming that this is the only way to get health care to the poor. If it was disclosed we could bring down the costs of health care and research dramatically and there would still be plenty of work for medical personnel including those providing abortion services, although if there was more contraceptive or other prevention methods unwanted pregnancies would almost certainly be less common.

However there might not be nearly as much work for bureaucrats making enormous amounts of money by pushing the interests of the wealthy at the expense of everyone else.

Not that this would bother some of us!

Planned Parenthood President’s Salary Reached Almost $1 Mill In 2014 10/12/2016



The following are a few of my past articles on this subject including research into psychological manipulation and indoctrination:

Multinationals Are Using Public For Research On Massive Scale

Wanted unsuspecting research subjects

Human Research Subjects

Florida Has History Of Some Of Worst Abuses At Schools with corporal punishment; this also explains how it leads to authoritarian upbringing, leads to more violence later in life and also contributes to acceptance of prison slavery often for people entrapped for trivial crimes.

Immigration Policy And Outsourcing Are Virtual Slavery also explains how slavery continues to this day against those with the least amount of political power, and it is used to suppress wages for those that aren't completely enslaved.

Philip Zimbardo, Lucifer Effect, Stanford Prison Experiment

Corruption or Bias in the American Psychological Association

Eli Roth’s Milgram/Obedience experiment much more extensive than most people realize

Anti-violence social experiments could be part of a slippery slope































Additional excerpts from Harriet Washington “Medical Apartheid”

Harriet Washington “Medical Apartheid” PDF at Original People

Friday, April 21, 2017

Are Privatized Security at Walmart or United Airlines Accountable?



Does anyone even know who the police work for anymore?

Are they supposed to be acting on behalf of corporations that are more concerned about profit than anything remotely resembling justice?



Remember that discussion about how the efforts to deregulate the airlines and eliminate the protections for consumers and workers to protect them from outrageous and even dangerous behavior from greedy businesses might not have worked out so well?

Remember how they said that maybe before they start eliminating enormous amounts or regulations they should figure out which ones really are incompetent?

Me neither!




With growing amounts of privatization it is difficult if not impossible for many people to tell between private security or police in many cases; and on top of that the real police often seem to be acting on behalf of private corporations without question even when they're supposed to be working for the government to protect all citizens impartially.

At least that's the way it's supposed to work in theory, although it is hard to see how anyone could believe it comes close to working that way in practice.

If there is a dispute between a corporation, that in the case of United Airline sold a ticket seated the passenger and based on their own obvious mistakes decided to have police remove him, should the police automatically assume the corporation was in the right?

Clearly that is exactly what happened and one thing that seems to have gone unnoticed is that the police who were almost certainly following orders were either suspended or put on administrative leave while the investigation continues; but as far as I can tell we don't even know who gave the orders and they don't seem to be taking much if any blame at all.

This should concern both the police and consumers, since even if they do hold the police accountable the same system will give bad orders again and other incidents like this will happen over and over again. Actually many similar incidents have happened repeatedly and when they find the need to hold someone accountable it is almost never the decision makers.

Media reports about whether it was police or airline security repeat several versions about it over and over again that are contradictory; however checking the facts without help from the mainstream media seems to indicate that it was the Chicago airport police who dragged this person out but they apparently took orders from United Airlines without fully understanding what was going on or why.

The vast majority of the public doesn't even know what incentives the police have when enforcing the law, which is already designed to heavily favor multi-national corporations that finance campaigns. There is little or no effort to educate the public about this by either the media or the political establishment; while they pass one law after another or allow one acquisition after another that increases powers of multinational corporations.

This isn't the first major problem by police that answer to corporations without question by far; but the vast majority of problems are only reported at the local level and they rarely explain much if anything about how police and judicial activities are steadily being privatized so that the police are not accountable to voters or elected officials nor are the people that hire them; and in most cases we can't even tell who they are.

There have probably been dozens if not hundreds of cases where major problems came up from privatized security and if anyone is held accountable it is almost never the people giving the orders, instead it is often the people with the least amount of power. In some occasions it is even the police although they try to avoid that if they can, and they rarely pay the same price that a civilian would pay for committing the same crimes.

The following is a small sample of the stories of outrageous behavior where it is difficult to tell who makes the decisions and if people hired are trained to blindly obey orders or to look out for the best interest of the public as a whole in a reasonably unbiased manner, starting with United Airlines which already spent at least two or three times as much as it would have costed to handle this reasonably and will spend well over ten to twenty times as much before it is done.

When no one even knows who's making decisions does that mean all reasonable discretion is being abandoned?

United Airlines vows not to call police on passengers as CEO apologizes for fiasco 04/12/2017

United Airlines said it will no longer call on law enforcement to remove paid and seated passengers who have not agreed to give up their places on sold-out flights, one of several moves the airline announced Wednesday to try to quell a week of consumer outrage.

The Chicago airline’s chief executive, Oscar Munoz, told ABC News’ “Good Morning America” on Wednesday morning that he felt “shame” when he watched the video of a passenger, Dr. David Dao, being dragged off a sold-out United flight bound for Louisville, Ky., on Sunday by Chicago airport police.

United has said it needed to bump four passengers to make room for airline employees who needed to travel to Louisville. The airline reportedly offered $400 and a hotel stay, and then $800 to passengers to induce them to give up their seats. When there were no volunteers, United selected Dao and other passengers to get off the plane.

Dao refused, prompting airport police to pull him screaming from his seat.

Also on Wednesday, the Chicago Department of Aviation put two more officers who were involved in the onboard fracas on administrative leave, joining an officer who was suspended earlier. The passenger, Dao, took steps that could be a prelude to a lawsuit, and President Trump weighed in on the controversy. Complete article




The Chicago airport police are supposed to work for the city of Chicago not for United Airlines; but even if they did work for United Airlines that shouldn't give them the right to conduct an assault on a paying customer as a result of their own colossal blunder. Like many other problems with police this seems to indicate that they might be trained to follow orders without question or trying to figure out if there is any justification or concern for the rights of citizens they're allegedly protecting.

There have been so many other high profile examples of additional bad behavior by police, private or not, that no one can keep track of it including the following where they concluded that a customer would be allowed to buy gift cards then tased and arrested him anyway even after determining that he was also a legitimate paying customer at Walmart, this time a private security guard that hardly seems defensible unless people think it has to be defended to avoid blame.

Man Suing Walmart For $5 Million After Being Wrongly Arrested And Tased 03/24/2014

Harold Burrowes was tased and wrongly arrested after purchasing thousands of dollars worth of Walmart gift cards, and now, he’s suing the company for $5 million.

Back in September of 2011, Burrowes, the owner of a wrecker service, purchased over $3,000 in Walmart gift cards to be used to buy diesel fuel. Burrowes says that he had been doing that instead of issuing company credit cards so his tow truck drivers could purchase fuel.

When Burrowes went to purchase the gift cards, the cashier informed him that he wasn’t allowed to buy them using another gift card.

"I explained to her, ‘I'm not using a gift card to purchase gift cards; I have my American Express,'" said Burrowes to Fox 4 News. Harold Burrowes was tased and wrongly arrested after purchasing thousands of dollars worth of Walmart gift cards, and now, he’s suing the company for $5 million.

Back in September of 2011, Burrowes, the owner of a wrecker service, purchased over $3,000 in Walmart gift cards to be used to buy diesel fuel. Burrowes says that he had been doing that instead of issuing company credit cards so his tow truck drivers could purchase fuel.

When Burrowes went to purchase the gift cards, the cashier informed him that he wasn’t allowed to buy them using another gift card.

"I explained to her, ‘I'm not using a gift card to purchase gift cards; I have my American Express,'" said Burrowes to Fox 4 News. Complete article


This is just one of many problems that Walmart has had with their security guards, who often seem to work for subcontractors and are often off duty police officers, including the following, who was supposedly only a reserve officer at the time and after the fact they attempted to de-legitimize him by claiming the police force he worked for was defunct, but at the time it was still considered legitimate, and the officer may not have been fully informed or properly trained.

Jury convicts guard who deployed Taser at Walmart 01/08/2015

HOUSTON (KTRK) -- A tense confrontation on video between a Walmart security guard and two young men that went viral a couple years ago has resulted in the guard's conviction.

The three and a half minute video posted on YouTube documented the heated exchange outside the Walmart in the 9400 block of W. Sam Houston Tollwa near Beechnut.

The young men claimed to just be recording shopping carts in the parking lot. The officer didn't like it and definitely didn't like the camera turned on him. On the recording you can hear the guard ask for identification. When the men question him, he verbally pushes back and at one point aims his Taser at them.

We've learned the guard is William Marks of Cleveland, Texas. At the time he worked for a security company contracted by the Walmart. Marks called Houston police for backup. The Harris County District Attorney's Office declined charges against the guys behind the camera, but then pursued Marks.

"Basically trying to report the kids, he reported himself," said KTRK Legal Analyst Joel Androphy.

According to the D-A's Office, Marks didn't have the credentials to represent himself this way. At the time he was only a reserve officer for the now-defunct Kenefick Police Department. He was charged with a private security act violation, essentially working as a security officer without holding a security officer commission and Wednesday a jury found him guilty. That means no more work in law enforcement, according to the DA's Office. Complete article


You often need a scorecard to figure out who security guards or police work for now and there is little or no effort to inform the public or keep those accountable that do the hiring. In most cases they don't hold the police or security officers accountable either unless there is an incident so extreme that they have to blame someone; but they still don't blame the people doing the training or even discuss the methods used to train police, or veteran, for that matter which is very similar.

When someone needs to be blamed it is always the person with the least amount of political power that can be blamed, usually with some justification. Walmart ahs also fired or prosecuted people for arresting throwing items out of a moving vehicle shooting and killing shoplifters that stole relatively minor items and posed no serious threat to safety; and they've been sued for use of excessive force numerous times including one example where they detained someone for failing to show a receipt for a jacket that he brought into the store with him and many other absurd situations.

This problem goes well beyond excessive force; the police working for the state routinely arrest workers for participating in union activities on behalf of corporations that donate enormous amounts of money to political campaigns, without addressing legitimate worker complaints.

when there's an enormous amount of environmental damage literally killing people and environmentalists protest after getting little or no response from elected officials instead of protecting the public from poison from oil or chemical companies the police routinely arrest protesters.

When protesters raise questions about shoddy merchandise or collapsing buildings in Bangladesh that kill workers instead of holding executives accountable and protecting workers they arrest protesters.



When the government invades one country after another based on lies including the ones about weapons of mass destruction that were exposed by Scott Ritter and Mohamed ElBaradei instead of arresting the people who caused thousands of deaths they arrest protesters.

They also arrest veterans who refuse to participate in illegal wars but then when Abu-Ghraib happened they arrested veterans who obeyed orders; in both cases the people who gave the illegal orders that led to these atrocities were not held accountable.

There should be no doubt that the police often don't protect and represent all the people equally or even close. They're here to follow orders; or at least that is the way it works in practice; although I'm sure there are many police officers who don't like this anymore than the public.

The best police, of course, don't approve of the worst activities of other officers; however they rarely speak out about it; and when they do they get little or no attention so it is up to the public to learn much more about holding police and especially those that hire and train them accountable. 

The people that give these orders aren't even democratically elected, as it became increasingly apparent during last years election. The evidence for this was public even before the election, but few people noticed since they rarely think about the election process.

The first thing any viable candidate for election in a national or statewide campaign needs is name recognition. The only way to get that in large states or nationwide is with the help of the media. the vast majority of the media in this country is now in the hands of six oligarchies and they can deny the best candidates the name recognition they need to win nationwide or in large states by simply refusing to cover them; and that is exactly what they do. Even in local races the media gives establishment candidates that cater overwhelmingly to the rich an enormous advantage and only some of the best informed local communities can overcome this. But even then the majority of power is in the hands of higher officials so this has limited impact.

There is an enormous industry to manufacture candidates that come up with promises that sound great during the campaign but routinely betray those promises once in office.

This does not fit the strictest definition of a conspiracy since this activity isn't completely secret although there clearly is a lot of activity that is done in secret that does fit the definition of a conspiracy.

We're not going to have a democracy until we have a diverse media and the public can control the interview process.

On top of that, if the government wants to fight wars based on weapons of mass destruction that don't exist or if corporations want police or security to intimidate or harass people that stand up for their rights they need to have people that are willing to blindly obey orders without question, and clearly they often have that.

There has been research studying how to get that for decades as well, and a large portion of it doesn't fit the definition of conspiracy either since it was reported in the academic world, although they weren't completely honest about it and spun the explanations, so some of it would involve conspiracy.

I went into this in a series of previous posts including Eli Roth’s Milgram/Obedience experiment much more extensive than most people realize Philip Zimbardo, Lucifer Effect, and The Stanford Prison Experiment and American Psychological Association exposed again These articles go into detail about how they train people to blindly obey orders. The most famous research into this includes the Stanley Milgram "Obedience to Authority" experiments which were allegedly done to learn why the Nazi's were able to get their people to blindly obey orders without question so that they could avoid it. This sounds good but the articles explain that this was only taught to a relatively small percentage of the public in the academic world.

What Milgram never mentioned is that this research could be used for at least one other purpose, to figure out how to obtain blind obedience. And as Professor Alfred McCoy pointed out this research was done with the support of the Office of Naval Research, which later directly financed Philip Zimbardo's Stanford Prison Experiment, which as I explained was almost certainly used to develop boot camp indoctrination methods that are clearly designed to obtain blind obedience to authority, not to prevent it as Milgram stated or implied. This research was never done to prevent another Holocaust; it was done to develop indoctrination techniques.

This problem goes way beyond a few corrupt or incompetent security guards or police; it is the result of a social, political and media establishment that is out of control, or it is in control for all the wrong reasons.

If this is going to be solved much more needs to be done to teach the public who the police are accountable to and how psychological manipulation can be used to obtain blind obedience to authority so that police enforce laws that are clearly made by among the most corrupt people in society.

We also need a much more diverse media establishment that enables honest candidates to get coverage and a diverse group of the best educational researchers in many subjects to get coverage as well so that they can educate the public about how to make decisions in their own best interests, which is necessary in a sincere democracy.







For additional related articles see the following:

Slain shoplifter's family sues Walmart 03/09/2013

‘I Am Not Going!’ New Footage Shows United Airlines Passenger and Police Arguing Before He’s Dragged Off Plane 04/12/2017

Chicago Airport Police Scrutinized after United Passenger Dragging Incident 04/18/2017

United Airlines shows how inequality is putting the squeeze on customer service 04/12/2017

United Airlines Is Not Alone 04/11/2017




Tuesday, April 18, 2017

Even Bernie Sanders Ignores History of North Korea Conflict!



Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it; and as much as I want to continue supporting Bernie Sanders he continues to cave to the political establishment one time after another, often ignoring epidemic levels of corruption rigging elections and fear mongering that successfully incites one war after another based on lies.

I still like Bernie Sanders better than any other traditional politician; but he's coming up short more often and even campaigning for the establishment that he campaign against just last year.

As long as he continues to support progressive issues I'll support him but when he comes up short or tries to lead people to support establishment supporting corporations people need to speak out against it not blindly falling for same scam again after another candidate with excellent rhetoric leads public in wrong direction. This is how we got Hillary the nomination which led to Trump in office.

Bernie Sanders may still provide stronger opposition to unjustified wars than most politicians but he ignores the history behind this conflict and many others leading him to support a policy that will inevitably fail.

Contrary to all the propaganda that is now being repeated over and over again the United States has repeatedly had opportunities to negotiate with North Korea to reduce and possibly end hostilities but these negotiations have collapsed often not because of the fanatical behavior of the North Korean leaders but because of the war mongering actions of our own country; one of the worst examples was in 2001 when George W. Bush abandoned the agreements negotiated by Jimmy Carter with limited support from the Clinton administration.

The mainstream media, political establishment, and even Bernie Sanders continues to ignore this when deciding on the policies that we should adopt to them including this excerpt about his interview with Jake Tapper Sunday:

Bernie Sanders explains opposition to Syria strike 04/1/2017

Meanwhile, Sanders said he believed Trump understood he needed to work with China to rein in the North Korean nuclear threat. "The United States must not act impulsively, and we must not act unilaterally," Sanders said.

Trump met with Chinese President Xi Jinping in the US earlier this month and spoke by phone with him last week to discuss North Korea's progress in missile development and another potential nuclear test.

Both Sanders and Trump have said the focus on the issue must remain on China. In recent days, China has signaled a possible shift on North Korea, including an editorial in Chinese media warning China could support UN sanctions on oil shipments to the isolated nation.

However, Sanders did not credit Trump with the possible progress, saying it was part of a trend.

"I think this policy shift on the part of China has been taking place for quite a while now," Sanders said. Complete article


The traditional media fails to remind the public of the history behind this conflict and that negotiations began in 1994, with help from Jimmy Carter, and could have lead to nuclear disarmament and normalization of relations if they were pursued. Most reports that came during the Clinton presidency indicated that a large portion of the administration was actually opposed to Carter's overtures, although most records that I've seen recently fail to mention this; however he did make some progress in 1994 and more could have been made in 2000 and into the twentieth century if the Bush administration hadn't abandoned efforts and acted in an arbitrary manner dismissing negotiations.

The following excerpt from an article before Kim Jong Un's rule shows how much more success could have happened if the Clinton and especially Bush administration had been more willing to negotiate in good faith; this could have set the stage for a much friendlier relation when power was passed on perhaps even avoiding as belligerent a leader as Kim Jong Un:

How Not to Deal with North Korea 03/01/2007

Jimmy Carter felt that the situation was extremely dangerous, and he was not alone. Three former senior American government officials, including Gallucci, have written a meticulous history of the 1994 crisis, and they credit Carter with halting a chain of events that could have led the US to resort to military action. Under active consideration, the former diplomats report, was what was called the Osirak Option, named for Israel’s 1981 strike against Iraq’s nuclear weapons plant, in which the Americans would have bombed North Korea’s nuclear complex at Pongbyon.3 Had that been done, who can know for sure what the North Korean response would have been? Among those advocating a preemptive strike was former national security adviser Brent Scowcroft. When Gallucci asked him what he thought about a possible North Korean invasion of South Korea as a response, Scowcroft’s reply, Gallucci told me, was “they won’t do it.”

As it happened, Carter needed just a single meeting with a jovial and commanding Kim Il Sung to put an end to the crisis. “If the US would agree to hold a third round of talks, and to help us get light water reactors, then there will be no problems,” Kim told Carter, according to Creekmore. Kim died three weeks after meeting with Carter, but Kim Jong Il, his carefully groomed successor, stuck to the deal in subsequent negotiations with the United States, leading to the Agreed Framework, which was signed on October 21, 1994, in Geneva. ....

Oddly though, what Kim Jong Il would decide if asked to choose between the bomb and a full, normal, nonbelligerent relationship with Washington has never been tested. Very likely, a working relationship with the United States would prove more subversive of the North Korean dictatorship than the efforts to isolate it and punish it have been. It is something that a new administration might try, assuming it is not already too late. Complete article


Most of the reports that I have seen recently don't fully reflect the abruptness that Bush administration abandoned the talks or the way it was presented at the time; but in March 2001 Bush decided that he didn't want to continue the talks and wasn't willing to trust the North Koreans as much as the Clinton administration, even though they had made an enormous amount of progress, even if some members of the Clinton administration hadn't been so supportive. According the the chronology listed below on March 13, 2001: "North Korea, apparently reacting to Washington’s new tone, cancels ministerial-level talks with Seoul. The talks were intended to promote further political reconciliation."

Jimmy Carter proved as recently as 2010 that there was still opportunity to negotiate with North Korea when he arranged the release of Aijalon Mahli Gomes. No doubt there have been plenty of problems and some of it was the fault of the dictators of North Korea but contrary to the propaganda that is constantly being repeated over and over again they haven't always been as belligerent as the media and the most extreme right wingers make them out to be.

This same attitude isn't limited to North Korea. In 2001 after the attack on 9/11 Iran offered intelligence, or should I say espionage help, to help track down Al-Qaeda who was also there enemy and demonstrated that they were willing to improve relationships; but after accepting this help Bush turned around and declared them part of the "Axis of Evil." This antagonistic attitude is what enabled Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to get elected several years later.

The united States leaders has a long history of antagonizing their opponents until they become the enemies they seem to want to have as an excuse to maintain a permanent state of war.

This proves to be incredibly obvious when arrogant leaders like John McCain refers to Kim Jong Un as that "Crazy fat kid." McCain claims that Kim Jong Un is not "rational," which may be true but if he's so irrational and he has nukes how rational could it be to antagonize him?

John McCain isn't the only one that seems to treat foreign policy as a joke many media pundits do so as well. Brian Williams was ridiculed for talking about how the Tomahawk missiles were so "Beautiful" and some of the pundits at MSNBC that remained silent about Brian Williams turned around and criticized Fox news for glorifying the missile strikes with country music singing about how glorious it is to "fight for freedom" without exposing all the lies leading up to war. Geraldo Rivera was one of the pundits at Fox when that clip went on and either at the same time or another one he talked about how he through it was great when the "Bad guys" would fear Trump because he was so unpredictable.

This is all part of a non-stop effort to glorify war without checking the facts as they go to prevent another war based on Weapons of mass destruction that didn't exist, and Scott Ritter and Mohamed ElBaradei exposed those lies before the Iraq invasion but they got little or no media attention and now the media refuses to cover people exposing their current lies. 

John McCain, Donald Trump, George Bush and many media pundits routinely demonstrate that they're no more rational than Kim Jong Un is! there should be no doubt that their warmongering is as much of the problem as Kim Jong Un and that part of the reason Kim Jong Un is so irrational is because they're constantly goading him, and ignoring this history isn't going to help resolve this problem.

This has been reported numerous times in the past but when the war drums are repeated over and over again they routinely ignore it and only people that get little or no media coverage attempt to remind the public of this and regrettably this includes Bernie Sanders. The following articles have some additional information on this subject:

Chronology of U.S.-North Korean Nuclear and Missile Diplomacy

The Problem is Washington, Not North Korea 04/17/2017

Blame Bush for North Korea's Nukes 02/10/2005

Jimmy Carter arrives in North Korea in attempt to free US prisoner 08/25/2010

I usually don't try to jump on the bandwagon of some of the most farfetched conspiracy theories about false flags unless there's an enormous amount of evidence; but even if there isn't some evidence of this then the fanatical behavior of our political leaders refusing to remind the public of the most important history of this subject and basing their decisions on their own deceptive propaganda is as fanatical as many of these false flag conspiracy theories.

Adding to this we're supposed to believe that a country that can't even keep their cities lit, as we're often reminded with these satellite photos has the technology to make nuclear weapons and hack into Sony pictures among other things.



This often seems to do far more to serve the propaganda purposes of the warmongers in the United States than it does North Korea's. Even though I would put to much weight in false flag conspiracy theories unless there was a lot of evidence under these circumstances I wouldn't completely rule it out; and the deceptive propaganda may be part of that evidence that there might actually be something to it even if the most irrational conspiracy theories turn out to be exaggerations as they often are.

Even if there is no false flag operation the entire political establishment including Obama who has also been silent about the most important history of this conflict does more to keep it going than to sincerely try to reconcile differences.

There is also growing reasons to doubt that Bernie Sanders is as progressive as he claims when he constantly endorses Democratic establishment candidates that oppose his progressive positions. I still like Bernie Sanders as much as anyone else, or at least I want to, but when he continues remaining silent about some of the worst war mongering and goes on the campaign trail for people like Hillary Clinton and not Tom Perez who were involved in rigging the election against him it is hard not to have some doubts.



Bernie Sanders attracted an enormous amount of support from the grassroots and became famous for collecting a record amount of small donations from people that really supported his agenda; but as much as I still like his positions that he often continues to support, of at least speak out in favor of, he's endorsing a growing number of Democrats that don't support them at all, often canceling out his own political views.

If people follow their leaders and they routinely behave like this then the belief in a Democracy is a tragedy and a farce; however it should be clear that many of his followers didn't accept his endorsement of Clinton nor do they accept his endorsement of Tom Perez which is what enabled Trump to win in the first place.







If we're going to avoid reelecting Trump or letting the Republicans increase their already unjustifiable majority in congress we're going to have to have a much stronger grassroots movement since the Democratic Party routinely demonstrates that they no longer care about Democratic principles, and it won't help for Bernie Sanders to try to convince us that the Democrats are the lesser evil when this is the best they're willing to do!









This is only a relatively brief review of some of the selective claims that they're using to scare people into supporting yet another war which may end up being based entirely on lies including some that may not have been exposed yet. This is part of a pattern of behavior that becomes clearer the more people look at history.

In order to get elected to higher office especially nationwide or statewide in large states the most important thing any candidate needs is name recognition. In order to get that name recognition they need coverage from the commercial media, controlled by only six oligarchies, that controls over ninety percent of the national news. If they want to prevent any progressive candidate from getting name recognition they need to win all they have to do is refuse to cover them.

Bernie Sanders was the most progressive candidate they provided coverage for since I can remember but they still didn't provide him with enough coverage to win especially with the political administration rigging the primaries, as several people including me explained in Can Hillary Clinton win without cheating? (Evidence of irregularities suppression or other cheating in at least eighteen states) Now Bernie is campaigning for the establishment he previously opposed like many other presidential candidates in the past including John McCain in 2000 and Barrack Obama in 2008; but when Obama won and McCain returned to the Senate they both got in line and supported the establishment they allegedly stood up to.

One of the most common methods used to manipulate the public is fighting wars based on lies. This has been exposed over an over again to those that know how to check the most reliable sources for their history. Sometimes this even comes from the mainstream media. A lot of this history was reported previously by traditional sources in the past but when it doesn't serve their current objectives they simply forget about history that doesn't serve their agenda.

I went into some of the past propaganda about North Korea in at least two past articles myself in Is 60 Minutes presenting anti-North Korea propaganda? and North Korea Nuclear Test Propaganda Is War Mongering

While we fight one war after another based on lies there are plenty of corporations making a fortune as demonstrated when Tomahawk maker's stock went up after U.S. launch on Syria 04/07/2017 and many more news stories that few people can keep track of. Amazingly despite all the propaganda about how "great" and "glorious" our veterans who are when they "fight for our freedom" they can't find the money to support them after they return whether it is at the Veterans Administration providing health care of counseling for PTSD or for providing retraining for other jobs in civilian life and they often treat them like charity cases, which I'm sure isn't what they expected when they signed up.

But there's never any shortage of money when paying off the military contractors making enormous profits from wars based on lies.







Edit 04/21/2017: Within a day if not hours of the posting of this article the Trump administration has done several more things including some obvious blunders to incite war without reviewing the obvious historical flaws of their war mongering; and they've also increased the pressure on Iran almost replicating the same thing that the Bush administration did with North Korea in 2001. Rex Tillerson came out with tough talk accusing the Iranians of violating the spirit of the agreement although it was "only hours after the State Department said Tehran was complying with its terms." Once again he ignored a long history of antagonizing activities by the U.S. including the 1953 coup which was exposed decades ago although the United States didn't officially acknowledge it until a few years ago. The United States itself gave them the technology they needed to get started in the seventies when they were under the rule of the Shah who was still terrorizing his own people. The United States passed up numerous opportunities to encourage democracy before the tyrant they were propping up was overthrown. The United States routinely only supports democracy when the people oppressing their own people happen to be opposed to the United States and often do their part to set the stage for them to take over in the first place.

Ignoring history and demonizing other countries is not an effective way to avoid war and encourage democracy. This is especially true when we have a consolidated corporate media that only provides coverage for candidates that repeat the same deceptive propaganda about wars or any other subject. By only providing coverage for corrupt candidates the consolidated media is helping to rig elections and maintain a permanent state of war based on lies!

The following are some additional sources about the conflict with Iran including history that the mainstream media and political establishment rarely ever mention:

Tillerson Toughens Tone on Iran After U.S. Confirms Nuclear Deal Compliance 04/19/2017

Rex Tillerson accuses Iran of 'alarming provocations' 04/19/2017

Wikipedia: 1953 Iranian coup d'état

CIA admits role in 1953 Iranian coup 08/19/2013

Timeline of Nuclear Diplomacy With Iran




Thursday, April 13, 2017

Illusion Of Justice For Sale



Even with a relatively small search quickly turns out an enormous number of wealthy people, celebrities, politicians that aren't held accountable for their crimes nearly as much as the vast majority of us.



The claim that we have equal opportunity in the eyes of the law has turned into a pathetic joke, assuming there was ever any truth to it at all!

This pathetic joke may seem very funny to those that benefit from the incredibly unequal justice system; but it is highly unlikely that the worst victims of it find it funny! 
 


Kalief Browder is one of the most famous recent cases where the justice system destroyed a life of someone who was either innocent of the crime he was accused of, as the Democracy Now article below implies that he probably was, or only guilty of a relatively minor crime without any access to due process or bail for almost three years before they finally released him. But it was of course to late since the emotional damage from spending that time, mostly in solitary, left so much damage that it led to his suicide.

I have no doubt that a more thorough search through history will indicate that there has never truly been equal rights to justice but at times there have been attempts to improve this, or as it often seems to turn out create the illusion of improvement when there is little or no improvements. One of the most effective improvements that actually did reduce inequalities, at least for a while is the Miranda v. Arizona decision which gave people the right to a lawyer if they couldn't afford one, or so we're told, and in many states it really did improve things. However I doubt if it was ever implemented as well in many other states and there are growing efforts to reduce or eliminate the few protections the poor, minorities and immigrants of what ever right they used to have.

Accused of Stealing a Backpack, Kalief Browder a High School Student Jailed for Nearly Three Years Without Trial 06/01/2014

"A School for Suicide": How Kalief Browder Learned to Kill Himself During 3 Years at Rikers Jail 03/03/2016

Kalief Browder, Held at Rikers Island for 3 Years Without Trial, Commits Suicide 06/08/2017

Mississippi County Sued for Indefinitely Holding Prisoners Without Charge or Access to Lawyer 10/01/2014

Additional stories from Democracy Now about Kalief Browder or epidemic injustices in the mass incarceration age.





Edit 03/29/2019: Jussie Smollett is one more on the long list of celebrities or millionaires with political connections that had charges dropped that few other people could even think of beating! Rahm Emmanuel made a big deal about being outraged by his using political connections, which are also close to him, to get off the hook; however he routinely does the same thing for hiss allies, including the Chicago Police, Charter School operators and Wall Street executive, clearly indicating that even if he's right on this his outrage is solely for political purposes, to get brownie points!

Kim Foxx defends Jussie Smollett decision as office says she 'did not formally recuse herself’ 03/28/2019

Ex-aide to Michelle Obama denies trying to sway outcome of Smollett case 03/27/2019

Jussie Smollett gave false information in 2007 DUI bust, claiming to be his brother 03/20/2019

Edit 04/03/2019: F. Scott Fitzgerald was clearly right as proven by reactions to college cheating scandals or Jussie Smollet and many other members of the ruling class. The latest report that they're hiring expensive consultants to advise them on how to deal with prison is a laughable idea for most of us. This is especially true since it's virtually guaranteed that unlike the rest of us, they'll almost certainly be able to buy their way out of prison and might even be able to buy their reputations back if they have enough money and allies.

“Let me tell you about the very rich. They are different from you and me. They possess and enjoy early, and it does something to them, makes them soft where we are hard, and cynical where we are trustful, in a way that, unless you were born rich, it is very difficult to understand. They think, deep in their hearts, that they are better than we are because we had to discover the compensations and refuges of life for ourselves. Even when they enter deep into our world or sink below us, they still think that they are better than we are. They are different. ” F. Scott Fitzgerald "The Rich Boy"

Parents charged in college cheating scam turn to consultant to understand prison life 04/03/2019

Parents could face tax charges, big fines in admissions scam 04/02/2019





Below are a long list of wealthy people that got off incredibly light for the crimes they committed, including murder, vehicular homicide, or accidents causing serious damage, rape, including of minors or pedophilia, and additional crimes. It didn't take long to search for these and if I do any additional searching which I probably will the list could get much longer. There are a few examples like John DuPont, Leopold and Loeb, and the Menéndez Brothers where they were convicted of crimes so big that the justice system felt they had to give them maximum sentences. Ironically in the case of the Menéndez Brothers there might have been some justification for some leniency, since there was almost certainly some truth to their claims that they were badly abused by their parents especially their father and the reason this went on so long might be because there was little or no accountability for Jose Enrique Menéndez, which may have contributed to his own murder.

In can't confirm all the details but I've seen enough research to show that children that are raised in non-abusive homes without major problems, of some sort, simply don't go on major killing sprees like this.

Anyone that pays attention to politics knows that the cost of campaigning has been skyrocketing far faster than the rate of inflation and the people that finance these campaigns don't do so because they want what's best for everyone they want "a return on our investment.” Literally coming out and saying that is supposedly what most people would consider a "Quid Pro Quo" which is what the pundits judges and politicians say they need to prove what they consider actual bribery; so the rich rarely ever say anything so obvious since it could get them prosecuted. However it doesn't take a genius to realize how weak this incredibly high bar is to prove corruption and even when it is reached they still ignore it.

Betsy DeVos, Trump’s Big-Donor Education Secretary said, "We do expect something in return. ... We expect a return on our investment.” 11/23/2016 This should be so incredibly obvious that she should be prosecuted; but instead they confirmed her anyway. To the best of my knowledge even the Democrats and Bernie Sanders who at least voted against her said little or nothing about this statement or called for prosecuting her since this should be clear evidence of bribery. If this isn't bribery then nothing they could say would be considered bribery according to those that pretend to defend democracy.



Even without an admission of the famous "Quid Pro Quo" there is an incredibly obvious correlation between skyrocketing campaign contributions and efforts to increase subsidies for rich donors and cut taxes at the same time which means they have to get money from someplace else to run the government. This means that one way or another they have to get that money from the rest of the public; and one of the politically correct ways of doing this is dramatically increasing fees on poor people that are prosecuted to the full extent and beyond of the law, as indicated in the following article.

As Court Fees Rise, The Poor Are Paying The Price 05/19/2014

In Augusta, Ga., a judge sentenced Tom Barrett to 12 months after he stole a can of beer worth less than $2.

In Ionia, Mich., 19-year-old Kyle Dewitt caught a fish out of season; then a judge sentenced him to three days in jail.

In Grand Rapids, Mich., Stephen Papa, a homeless Iraq War veteran, spent 22 days in jail, not for what he calls his "embarrassing behavior" after he got drunk with friends and climbed into an abandoned building, but because he had only $25 the day he went to court.

The common thread in these cases, and scores more like them, is the jail time wasn't punishment for the crime, but for the failure to pay the increasing fines and fees associated with the criminal justice system. Complete article


Amazingly these fees almost certainly don't even reduce the deficit or cover court costs, since they're often trying to collect them from the poor who don't have money to pay for it and it often costs almost as much if not more to try to collect money that doesn't exist then they actually collect. Furthermore if you keep trying to take from those who have nothing and little hope of getting anything then it is inevitable that they resort to crime. Under these circumstances rehabilitation takes a distant back seat, if it is tried at all, to shifting the tax burden to those without political power, even if it is justified to repay for their crimes. But if repayment for crimes was the objective then clearly those that could afford it should be required to pay much more but of course those that donate to campaigns aren't held to the same standards as the rest of us.

As Jeff Guinn reported this was almost an open secret decades ago when Terry Melcher knew he could get away with anything so he shot out streetlights scaring the neighbors just for fun without fear of being arrested. "The city’s most famous citizens, the movie and television and singing stars and their assorted producers and directors, were understood to be sacrosanct. Officers catching them in the act of drunk driving or getting in scuffles or committing any crime short of cold blooded murder in the presence of too many unimpeachable witnesses were expected to politely intervene and ensure the celebrities got home safely. ..... The driver was Terry Melcher, son of singer actress Doris Day. ... 'I'm going to get it sighted in,' Melcher proceeded to shatter several newly installed street lights. The loud booms of the shots reverberated down the hill... " "Manson: The Life and Times of Charles Manson" By Jeff Guinn p.114-5

In his book, (excerpts below) Glen Greenwald writes about how Scooter Libby claims he was being persecuted because he was a celebrity but Greenwald demonstrated that clearly the opposite is the case. Even though Libby got off light for the crime he was being charged with he wasn't held accountable, anymore than anyone else in the administration for starting a war based on lies that led to the death of thousands of innocent people. This is actually a common trend where celebrities claim they're being prosecuted more because they're famous and when they win they say the same justice is available for everyone like Audrey Cox in the following story:

TV reporter Audrey Cox found not guilty of DWI 06/15/2016

BRENTWOOD — TV reporter Audrey Cox was found not guilty on all counts in her aggravated DWI trial Wednesday after she was accused of striking a 79-year-old woman with her car while under the influence.

Cox, 53, of Lowell, Mass., and a veteran WMUR-TV reporter, embraced her attorney Andrew Cotrupi once the jury left the Rockingham Superior courtroom and said “thank you” through tears. She faced two Class B felonies – one of aggravated DWI or operating under the influence of liquor with serious bodily injury and one for reckless conduct. She also faced a misdemeanor DWI charge. A second Class B felony charge of aggravated DWI was dropped before the case went to trial. .....

Assistant County Attorney Karen Springer said in her closing remarks Cox’s refusal to take a Breathalyzer test was evidence of her guilt. She touched on Cotrupi’s earlier claim that Cox was “stone cold sober” at the time of the crash.

“If she was stone cold sober, what could that test have said? Zero point zero,” said Springer. “If you’re refusing to do the test that’s going to absolve you of the crime you’ve just been tried with, wouldn’t someone want to help themselves? Instead she said no.”

She also noted that Cox failed three field sobriety tests according to arresting officer Peter Moisakis, who testified this week. Moisakis said on the stand he smelled the odor of alcohol on Cox and that her eyes appeared “glassy.”

Springer said Cox’s conflicting statements on whether she had been drinking before the accident indicated she was being deceptive. Moisakis asked her at the scene of the accident whether she had been drinking, to which she replied ‘No.’ When he asked if she had anything to drink that day after she failed a field sobriety test, she said she had a glass of wine at lunch.

She noted Dary testified Cox put her hands on her hips and appeared “angry” when a bystander said an ambulance was coming.

“The media is quick to turn on its own, there’s no question about that,” Cotrupi said. “It seems like we live in a society where people very much relish in bad things happening to public figures, and I think that’s just unfortunate.” Complete article

Woman hit by WMUR reporter’s car feels ‘blessed’ to be alive 10/10/2015

Dary said Cox stopped the car, got out and approached her. “She said, ’I hit you,’” Dary recalled by phone from her home Thursday. “She wanted me to try to get up, but I couldn’t get up.”

About six other individuals approached the scene, one calling 911, Dary said.

Cox stood by, calmly encouraging her to get up, Dary said. She told Dary she wanted to drive her home, the woman recalled.

“I think she felt bad, you know, but she really, really was hoping I would just get up and walk away,” Dary said. “I would have if I could have.” ....

Cox was charged with driving while intoxicated in 2004 in Rye for crossing a double-yellow center line and making an illegal U-turn, according to Portsmouth District Court documents. That charge was reduced to negligent driving, the document states. Woman charged with DUI, hitting pedestrian 09/30/2015




Anyone that doesn't get the same preferential treatment that rich celebrities gets knows full well that they could never get treatment so lenient repeatedly But celebrities like Audrey Cox Alice Walton and many others get away with things that none of the rest of us could hope to get away with.

This even includes sex crimes where there is massive amounts of panic encouraged by the mass media when it applies to people that aren't celebrities but as several stories including the following show the same doesn't apply for the relatives of the rich including a judges daughter:

Destrehan High teacher Shelley Dufresne admits sex with student 04/09/2015

Former Destrehan High School teacher Shelley Dufresne pleaded guilty to obscenity Thursday (April 9), admitting in court that she had sex with a 16-year-old student. The plea lets her and the student avoid a public trial, and allows her to bypass registering as a sex offender and serving three years in prison.

She must spend 90 days at an inpatient mental health facility, serve three years of active probation and pay a $1,000 fine. If she fails to complete the court-approved mental health program by the end of August, she must report to the St. Charles Parish jail Sept. 1 to serve any days for which she has not received credit, Judge Anne Simon said during the plea hearing at the Hahnville courthouse.

Dufresne also agreed to surrender her teaching license. With the parents of her former student sitting in the front row of the courtroom, Dufresne admitted to having "consensual sexual intercourse with a juvenile," as detailed in the carnal knowledge law. .....

Her plea came during a status hearing in 29th Judicial District Court. It was accepted by Simon, the retired New Iberia jurist whom the Louisiana Supreme Court appointed to handle the case after the three local judges -- including Dufresne's father, Judge Emile St. Pierre -- stepped aside. ....

Separately, Dufresne and Rachel Respess, 24, are accused of having group sex with the student at Respess' Kenner apartment on Sept. 12, Dufresne's birthday. That case is pending in Jefferson Parish, where the district attorney's office has not made a decision on charging the two women.

The boy was a student in Dufresne's English class last fall, and had been a student in Respess' English class in 2013-14. Now 17, he told St. Charles Parish sheriff's deputies that he had sex with the teachers at Respess' apartment after the Destrehan Wildcats-Helen Cox Cougars football game. The Kenner Police Department report says the crime began at 9 p.m. and ended at 6 a.m. Complete article

Shelley Dufresne set for Jan. trial in Destrehan teacher-student sex case 10/20/2016

Trial set for Jeremy Eusea, former HHS teacher 03/30/2017 Former Destrehan High School teacher Kimberly Naquin was charged with having a sexual relationship with a female student in the parish. This month, she pleaded guilty to inappropriate behavior with the same student in Jefferson Parish.

How it happened: Destrehan teacher Shelley Dufresne found not guilty on all counts 04/25/2017




With all the panic about sex abuse with children few if any other sex offenders could hope to get off this easy without even having to register as a sex offender. This case isn't completely over yet; there there is apparently another trial coming up any time. It was schedule to begin a couple months ago but there are no news reports about it. An actual trial or plea would have almost certainly made the news so the most likely explanation is another delay.

As I reported in Jessie Servos Kills Principal Injures Assistant After School Paddling, which is actually a fictional story but it included some additional true research, there are far more stories about child abuse that don't make much if any news that are true or close to the truth than there are false stories that are debunked like Pizzagate. This effort to debunk false news stories without mentioning the true ones that are very similar is misleading propaganda and gives people the wrong impression. There is is additional research that indicates that many child abusers started out as abused children and learned to behave the same way as adults when they became the next generation of child abusers. Without evidence of further wrong doing it is difficult to know for certain; but there is a significant possibility that she might have been the victim before she was the perpetrator; which could potentially mean that she knows something about people, perhaps powerful people that might have abused her when she was younger, assuming this pattern is applicable.

This pattern of abuse victims becoming abusers may also be playing out in a recent story about Jerry Sandusky's son arrested, charged with child sexual abuse 02/13/2017

Most of the crimes listed below are are crimes that many other people are also involved in and receive far different treatment but there are many other examples that should be considered far worse since the damage is much bigger on an industrial scale killing thousands if not millions. This includes wars based on lies industrial accidents like the faulty ignitions which is listed below and Firestone tires also killing many people and much more environmental disasters which kill far more but they spin it and suppress the research. As I explained in The rich have a right to profit from polluting and killing the poor if a poor person poisons one rich person or anyone else they will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law but when rich people do it on a massive scale it's considered good business; and the government often arrests the protesters without even stopping the pollution that kills thousands if not millions.

Many of the politicians that the media presents as some of the strongest supporters of the lower or middle class are among the worst ones when it comes to promoting the get tough on crime problems that are targeting only the lower or middle class, including Joe and Beau Biden. Joe was one of the strongest proponents of mass incarceration that targeted the class he was supposedly the champion of; and Beau began to follow in his footsteps when he attempted to gain fame by prosecuting "one of the worst pedophiles in American history" but "DEFENDS the judge who only gave a du Pont heir probation after admitting to sexually assaulting his three-year-old daughter."

These aren't champions of the working class at all; they're scam artists using propaganda to get elected and enforce an incredibly unjustifiable judicial system.

You would have to keep your head in the sand and only watch the media the government and consolidated oligarchies tell you to believe there is anything close to "equal justice for all!"




Edit 05/25/2017: “state police prosecutor show favoritism toward some defense attorneys by offering their clients reduced-charge deals not offered to some defendants without lawyers” instead of reprimanding him they reprimanded Judge DeVries for being lenient on those without money for lawyers preventing them from being treated worse!

A few weeks ago a judge in New Hampshire Judge Devries was reprimanded for having too much compassion 05/1/2017 standing up for the rights of those that couldn’t afford a lawyer when prosecutors were over-zealous. The article says, “DeVries reported she did this after observing the same state police prosecutor show favoritism toward some defense attorneys by offering their clients reduced-charge deals not offered to some defendants without lawyers.” However there was no indication that the prosecutor was being investigated for giving favorable options to those with less money, who happen to need more protection from judges who are supposed to defend against injustices like this!

Instead of allowing Judges to do their jobs they’re punishing the ones that try to reduce inequality!



Beau Biden DEFENDS the judge who only gave a du Pont heir probation after admitting to sexually assaulting his three-year-old daughter 04/04/2014

Beau Biden prosecuted one of the worst pedophiles in American history 06/01/2015

Before He Was America's Wacky Uncle, Joe Biden Was a Tough-on-Crime Hardliner 08/07/2015

Glen Greenwald makes many similar arguments in "With Liberty And Justice For Some"

Alice Walton was also involved in an accident that killed a pedestrian but no charges were even seriously considered.


Drunken Driving charges dropped against Alice Walton Her record was also expunged and previous accidents including one that killed a pedestrian didn't even lead to charges even though she has a history, like her father of speeding well above limits.



Lewis: Martin Joel Erzinger Tom Marsico Two powerful financiers on opposite side of Vail bike crash 12/21/2010



10 Undeniable Facts About the Woody Allen Sexual-Abuse Allegation 02/07/2014



Timeline Bill Cosby: A 50-year chronicle of accusations and accomplishments



Roman Polanski sexual abuse case

Jared Fogle's ex-wife sues Subway, alleging it failed to alert authorities he was pedophile 10/24/2016

13 Infamous Celebrity Sex Offender Scandals — Prepare To Be Shocked! Jared Fogle; Bill Cosby; Josh Duggar; Mike Tyson; Anthony Kiedis; Jim Morrison; Tupac Shakur; Robert Kelly (a.k.a. R. Kelly); Michael Tyler (a.k.a. Mystikal); Roman Polanski; Paul Reubens (a.k.a. Pee Wee Herman); Jeffrey Jones; Jerry Sandusky

Celebrity child molesters: Is their fame a factor? 08/28/2014 Will Hayden; Remy Gonzales; Ian Watkins; Peter Yarrow; Andrew Clevenger; Paula Poundstone; Shane Sparks; Vincent “Don Vito” Margera.

25 Celebrities That You Forgot Committed Horrible Crimes Robert Downey Jr. ? Drug Charges; Mark Wahlberg ? Attempted Murder; Mike Tyson ? Rape; Mickey Rourke ? Spousal Abuse; Christian Slater; Lindsay Lohan; Charlie Sheen ? Assault and Criminal Mischief; Woody Harrelson ? Disorderly Conduct, Resisting Arrest, Drug Possession; Ozzy Osbourne; R Kelly ? Child Pornography; Jay-Z ? Attempted Murder; O.J. Simpson ? Burglary; Hugh Grant ? Sex in public with a prostitute; Martha Stewart ? Lying To Federal Investigators And Conspiracy; 50 Cent ? Drug Dealing; Lil? Kim ? Perjury and Conspiracy; Matthew McConaughey ? Drug Possession; Wesley Snipes ? Tax Fraud; Kobe Bryant ? Sexual Assault; Tim Allen ? Drug Trafficking; Sid Vicious; Will Smith ? Aggravated Assault; P Diddy ? Criminal assault with a deadly weapon; Justin Bieber ? DUI & Criminal assault;

"If you cannot afford an attorney one will be provided at State expense." True or False? False!

Has bail reform in America finally reached a tipping point? 04/03/2017

17 Wealthiest Murderers of History: Robert Durst; H.H. Holmes; Phil Spector; James Bob Ward; Harold Landry; Lizzie Borden; John du Pont; Michael Skakel; Issei Sagawa, “The Paris Cannibal” after only three years sent back to Japan where he lived free since; Eric and Lyle Menendez; Joran van der Sloot; Ethan Couch; Raya and Sakina; Dana Ewell; Vera Renczi; John Brooks; Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb

10 CEOs More Evil Than Martin Shkreli: Sam Walton

Affluenza: 10 Rich People Who Got Away With Horrible Crimes: Nick Oliveri Colin Read

Occupy: Justice for Sale: How Rich Corporations Get Away with Murder 04/0/2017

The 18 Most Horrifying Things Rich People Got Away With

5 Infamous Cases That Prove Getting Away With Murder Isn’t So Hard: Robert Blake; Richard James Herrin; Robert Durst; Isaac Turnbaugh; O.J. Simpson

Did They Really? Celebrity Crimes Revisited 09/30/2009

























Prosecutors will drop cases against former Va. governor Robert McDonnell, wife 09/08/2016













Brock Turner