Idiots with badges, tasked with enforcing the War on Drugs, raided a home to find evidence of a marijuana-growing operation.  They scared the crap out of the inhabitants, a father and his 13-year old son, but didn’t find anything illegal.  The reason for this nonsense was that cops had observed the father and son visited a gardening store to buy supplies for growing tomatoes.  Their suspicions grew when they found tea leaves in the family’s trash, mistaking them for marijuana, leading to another misbegotten SWAT raid.  Not finding any evidence of illicit drug activity, the cops began rooting around through the entire house, looking for anything to justify the raid.  Not finding anything this time, they then brought the drug dogs in for training. CATO

Ridiculous, but probably not as bad as mistaking okra for marijuana.

Ugly story from my home state of Oklahoma.  Tulsa cops arrested Army vet Elliot Williams at a hotel in 2011, breaking his neck in the process, which paralyzed him.  Medical staff and police at the jail that held Williams believed he was faking paralysis right up until the moment he died, even while he was screaming for help while face down during an hour-long forced shower.  While he died, staff were caught on video taunting him, throwing him in a shower stall, and apparently never thinking to transport him to a hospital.  It’s almost too much of a stretch to believe that the entire medical staff, the cops, and even the jail psychiatrist thought he was faking paralysis.  It seems like more of a clear-cut case of pure sadism.  The entire staff enjoyed watching him suffer.  And, of course, they knew they could get away with it, which signals to other latent sadists that the profession most likely to give an outlet for their perverse desires. Daily Beast

Consequences of police militarization include the selection of the morally depraved for employment.  Not to say that all cops are like this, but when one is revealed to be sadistic scum, the entire police establishment rushes to protect that person, no matter how egregious the crime.  This, indeed, is a signal to the other morally depraved, violent, rage-filled, that they can find comfortable employment by unleashing those very characteristics that have so far prevented him or her from finding honest work in the private sector.  That process leads to incidents like Williams’ slow death from a broken neck.  Or the continuous stories of cops shooting family pets, or cops rushing into family homes guns a-blazing.

So putting a badge on those who should, in a normal society, be forever barred from employment in law enforcement is a consequence of a rapidly expanding police state.  What’s the police state a consequence of?  Prohibition.  The Drug War has generated the black market crimewave that is used as the excuse for all the surveillance power, all the war goodies, and all the unaccountable excessive force that is dished out by people who, absent the Drug War, would never be allowed near a badge and gun.  End the War on Drugs, or, to be even clearer, end all activity by government that has as its unintended effect the creation of black markets.  Meaning, legalize all voluntary behavior.  Only that will wither the bloated, artificial police state that has warped local police departments and has given rise to rampant criminal activity on the blue side of the law.

The nations that hold U.S. debt effectively hold the U.S. hostage.  For all the bluster about America being the most powerful nation in the world, China, Japan, and the Saudis could end the party tomorrow.  Which explains the spectacle of our leaders travelling abroad to assure their creditors that American taxpayers will do as they’re told, that they’ll pay up, and that they’ll be brought to heel.  This leads to the spectacle of foreign policy being molded to bring the maximum benefit to the creditor countries.  An Empire is controlled by its creditors, not by the citizens who always pick up the tab.

Activist Post.  The video is embedded in the article, read the whole thing.

In an attempt to make senior military officials look good.  In reality, those officials were the ones covering up/ignoring the sexual assault occurring on their watch. AP

Unlike White Privilege, Blue Privilege is a check that can apparently be cashed.  Cushy union jobs, early pension, etc.  But another perk of wearing a badge is that, if you happen to be holding a smoking gun with a dead civilian on the ground in front of you, the odds are in your favor that you’ll never see the inside of jail cell.  No matter the evidence stacked against you, because you are a member of the vaunted law enforcement class you automatically have the support of the powerful police union, and the DA, who will offer you a nice plea deal that keeps you out of jail.  It signals that there are no consequences for a murder committed by a rage-filled cop.  Indeed, it attracts the rage-filled.

Here’s a story of another murderous cop getting plea deal after killing a father-of-two in his own doorway.

A group called “VA is lying”.  As the article makes clear, the federal government is scared of those who have seen up close the results of the lies of war.  Soldiers get thrown into the various Mid-East meat grinders and then come back, maimed and pissed off, and occasionally vent about it on Facebook.  So, naturally, the Warfare State tasks some department with monitoring the disgruntle vets. Activist Post

Not too surprising, considering how often this happens.  The question now should focus on who put him up to it. Techdirt

It would be the equivalent to a $35 minimum wage in California, and devastate the most vulnerable workers. FEE

According to a new poll. Yahoo