Tag Archives: America

Congress protests public right to guns. No checks & balances for constituents.

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I do like to see rule-breaking protest normalized, but that’s as far as I’ll go as an endorsement. These US Representatives won’t call an official sit-in to stop war, nor to defend Social Security or heathcare or to end torture or war crimes, but they’ll do it to abridge your rights. Until these MoFos sit-in to rein in the banks and the corporatocracy, I’ll be damned if I’m going to applaud them for wanting to curb the people’s right to bear arms. Take assault rifles from cops and private cops and the bank eviction posses before you deem it insupportable that your victimized constituents weren’t granted the second amendment for a reason. What utter dumbass charlatans! Who needs assault rifles? The Native Americans could have used them. The Puerto Ricans needed them. Hawaiians. Central America. Our slaves. Every African American male. You privileged shills!

The Lindsey Flanigan Courthouse Plaza protest timeline (July 2015 – present)

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UPDATED: This is a timeline of the legal battle which began in July 2015 over activists’s right to protest in the Lindsey Flanigan Courthouse Plaza. It explains why activists with Occupy Denver did not believe they were being given lawful orders when commanded to stop and why activists still believe the DPD were wrong to make their arrests. The city’s charges of “encumbrance” and “obstruction” appeared calculated to circumvent a federal injunction protecting the public’s First Amendment rights.

July 27, 2015
Mark Iannicelli and Eric Brandt distribute jury nullification literature at Lindsey Flanigan Courthouse (LFC) plaza. Mark Iannicelli is arrested and jailed for two days, charged with seven felony counts of jury tampering. #15CR03981 (charges dismissed 12/16 by Judge Plotz).

Aug 7
Warrant is issued for arrest of Eric Brandt for same incident, same charges. Eric Brandt is arrested and jailed #15CR04212 (charges dismissed 12/16).

Aug 14
Colorado 2nd Judicial District Chief Judge Michael A. Martinez issues order CJO-1 barring protest, including structures, in LFC plaza. (The Chief Judge later explained that his motivation was to preempt racial unrest on occasion of potential death sentence being given to African American Dexter Lewis, so soon after Aurora Theater Shooter James Holmes, who is white, had been spared the death penalty.)

Aug 17
Through attorney David Lane of Kilmer, Lane & Newman, plaintiffs Eric Verlo, Janet Matzen & Fully Informed Jury Association file complaint for federal injunction protection against continued arrest of jury nullification pamphleteers in LFC plaza

Aug 19
Having become apprized of CJO-1 posted at courthouse, Verlo et al file amended complaint to include a challenge of the “plaza order”. US District Court Judge William J. Martinez grants an injunction hearing for August 21.

Aug 21
1. An AMENDED CJO-1 is posted to courthouse entrance. Colorado Chief Judge Martinez amends PLAZA ORDER prohibitions to apply only to “highlighted area”, not entire plaza.

2. US Judge Martinez hears oral arguments on federal injunction. LFC plaza is stipulated to be not just a “designated” free speech zone but a “traditional” free speech zone.

Aug 25
US District Judge William Martinez grants preliminary injunction, strikes first paragraph from amended plaza order. He rules the prohibitions in the highlighted area cannot limit non-amplified speech, the accosting of passersby, or the distribution of literature.

Aug 26   FOUR ARRESTS
8am: New REDACTED amended CJO-1 [Plaza Order] is posted on glass door of Lindsey Flanigan Courthouse. Occupy Denver activists initiate an all-day protest to distribute FIJA fliers.

10am: Protesters erect a popup canopy which is immediately confiscated by DPD citing activist lack of permit. Other materials confiscated include table, chairs, drums, banners, signs and jury nullification brochures. However there are no arrests or citations.

1pm: City Attorney Wendy Shea agrees to have DPD return confiscated property. DPD equivocates (for two days), citing lack of a specific person to whom property should be released.

3pm: Plaintiffs Verlo et al file motion to hold DPD in contempt of federal injunction for the confiscations. (DPD was later found not to be in contempt because evidence was not conclusive that literature had been confiscated.)

9pm: Occupy Denver erects three tents. DPD and SWAT seize the tents. Four protesters arrested for “obstruction”: William Hall #15GS012195 (took a plea deal: probation and area restriction), Adrian Brown #15GS012196 (trial 3/8, not guilty obstruction & failure to obey, guilty interference, 20 days jail, on appeal), Fred Hendrich #15GS012197 (case dismissed 6/13), Eric Verlo #15GS012198 (trial 1/11, guilty obstruction & interference, 20 days jail, on appeal)

10pm: Remaining protesters stay overnight in sleeping bags awaiting release of arrestees. (Thus begins a 24-hour protest which continues for 56 days.)

Aug 28     ONE CITATION, TWO ARRESTS
4pm: After further calls to city attorney, the canopy is reclaimed from DPD property, and is erected immediately. DPD confiscates it as “encumbrance”. Citation is issued for dog off-leash to Caryn Sorado #15GV552914 (dismissed 11/24 via plea deal)

7pm: Immediately after his delayed release from jail, Adrian “Monk” Brown erects a tent. Within half hour, while walking his dog at South end of plaza, Brown is arrested by DPD and tent is confiscated. #15GS012303 (trial 11/16 w Rodarte, jury finds Brown NOT GUILTY)

8pm: Eric Brandt protests Brown’s arrest, chases DPD Commander Lopez car, arrested. #15GS012304 (trial 8/24 w Spahn)

Sept 1
8am: Hearing before US judge Martinez to hold DPD in contempt. Paying a visit to the Denver Department of Pubic Works, activist learn that there is no permit required for “free speech activity” and furthermore the department does not have jurisdiction over the Lindsey Flanigan Courthouse plaza.

4pm: Activists erect three empty tents marked with bold letters “JURY NULLIFICATION TENTS”. At 6pm, DPD arrives in force to confiscate the three tents, and pass out paper notices [Encumbrance Notice] which read:

“!!Notice!! It is illegal to place ANY encumbrance on the public right of way. An encumbrance is defined as “any article, vehicle or thing whatsoever” which is on “any street, alley, sidewalk, parkway or other public way or place.” D.R.M.C. § 49-246 et. seq. The manager of Public Works may order all encumbrances in the public right-of-way to be removed. The failure to remove items so ordered is a criminal offense; the maximum possible penalty for which is up to one year in the county jail and/or up to $999 fine. PLEASE REMOVE ALL PERSONAL ITEMS FROM THIS AREA. If personal items are not removed immediately, you may be subject to an order of removal at which time all items will be subject to removal by the Denver Police Department. Agency – Denver Police Department”

The Denver ordinance cited above reads:

“§ 49-246. The manager of public works or the manager’s designee (hereinafter in this article, “manager”) is authorized to remove or to order the removal of any article, vehicle or thing whatsoever encumbering any street, alley, sidewalk, parkway or other public way or place (any such thing hereinafter in this article to be called an “encumbrance”). The manager may prescribe appropriate methods, specifications, placement and materials for encumbrances in the public right-of-way.”

Sept 3
US District Court Judge William Martinez rules DPD is not in contempt because evidence was not conclusive that literature had been confiscated. (Note: plaintiff’s order to show cause was filed on 8/26 before that evening’s arrests.)

Sept 7
In the LFC Plaza, city workers install steel signs in center of plaza which read: “NOTICE In reference to DRMC Sec. 49-246 this plaza must remain free from all encumbrances/obstructions – Denver Public Works”

Sept 8
4:30pm: DPD conducts sixth raid on protest, confiscating everything that can’t be gathered and held by activists.

Sept 11
Night raid, to avoid arrest everyone must stand and gather personal items as if to leave.

Sept 12
DPD Night raid. Everyone made to stand, no arrests.

plaza-handcuffs-timothy-campbell-nmt

Sept 13
Night raid, stop and frisk of Timothy Campbell because he “looked threatening” to an HSS security guard. Campbell is handcuffed but released. Michael Moore is issued a citation for having his dog Lizzie off leash #15GS013171 (1/5 plea deal, six month probation).

Sept 14
DPD confiscates “encumbrances”: chairs, flags, banners, toilet paper

Sept 15
While Michael Moore is loudly protesting at doors of jail about delayed release of Eric Brandt, jail deputies assault Moore and attempt to take him into custody. DPD arrives and delivers Moore to Detox. No arrests.

Sept 16   ONE ARREST
Surveillance operator observes Jose “Pedro” Trejo urinating in public. DPD force arrives, Pedro arrested #15GS013298 (Plea deal, time served, $50 fine).

Sept 17
1am night raid makes 12th raid. DPD threaten arrest for “violation of urban camping ban”

Sept 18   FOUR ARRESTS
While activists are celebrating 4th anniversary of Occupy Wall Street, DPD evict assembly citing encumbrances, arrest Eric Brandt #15GS013512 (trial 8/29 w Spahn) and confiscate majority of protest equipment and personal property, warn others to leave and face arrest upon return. Activists return and DPD arrest three more: Adrian Brown #15GS013537 (dismissed 3/18), Jay Maxwell #15GS013517 (plea deal, year probation), and Timothy Campbell who is tackled and charged with assault #15CR05088 (jailed 4 days, charges dropped 9/22).

Via their attorney, plaintiffs Verlo et al receive Spoliation Letter to preserve all correspondence, media, eg. evidence of activities in plaza, from August 2015 onward.

Sept 19   ONE ARREST
2:38am: Later that night, Mark Iannicelli is arrested for not removing his chair from plaza #15GS013527 (District court considering motion to dismiss)

Sept 24   THREE ARRESTS
Possible police agent sent into camp to provoke fight. Arrest of Adrian Brown #15M08835 (charges dropped) and Matthew Lentz #15CR05197 (jailed 5 days, charges dropped 9/28). Brandt arrested for interference #15GS013823 (6/13 trial ended in hung jury. Retrial is 8/1 w Faragher).

Sept 25
Adrian Brown files motion for expanded discovery on 8/26 tent arrest case (#15GS012196). Sept 25 is before the 30 day period after which HALO camera footage is regularly overwritten. (Other 8/26 defendants will be told their discovery motions were filed too late to prevent destruction of HALO surveillance video. Although all motions were similarly worded and requested the identical evening’s footage at Brown.)

City challenges temporary injunction with US Court of Appeals.

4pm: CURFEW notice posted by City workers who install eight steel signs on periphery of plaza declaring a curfew. Signs read:

“NOTICE The grounds of the Lindsey-Flanigan Courthouse and the Denver Detention Center are closed to the public from 8:30PM until 7:30AM. Except to conduct official business within tne facilities. Violators are subject to citation or arrest pursuant to D.R.M.C 38-115”

7:25pm: Activist are driven off the plaza by DPD. Protest continues overnight on sidewalk along Colfax Ave. DPD conduct night raid forcing everyone to stand and gather sleeping bags as usual.

Sept 26
Protest relocates across Colfax Ave to triangle shaped park on Northwest corner of Tremont and Colfax.

Sept 28?
After an activist discussion of an alternative fallback location being the plaza in front of the Wellington Webb Building, we discover curfew signs have now been posted there too.

Sep 30
City of Denver files motion to dismiss injunction.

Oct 6   ONE ARREST
Possible infiltrator disrupts camp by stealing property. She is ousted by Caryn Sodaro but later files a complaint in municipal court seeking a protection order against Sodaro. Warrant is issued for Sodaro’s arrest #15GS014734 (11/18 plea deal, 150 days jail).

Oct 9
Plaintiff files response to motion to dismiss.

Oct 16
Reply brief by plaintiffs

Oct 21   ONE ARREST
On first day of rain since plaza protest began, DPD effects full eviction of COLFAX CAMP. Confiscates personal property and protest materials. Hauls much of it in a garbage truck. Eric Brandt is arrested for obstruction and interference #15GS015407 (trial 9/7 w Spahn)

Oct 26
Reply from plaintiffs.

Nov 12
Reply in support of defense

Nov 16
Jury finds Monk Brown no guilty of 8/28 obstruction. Judge Nicole Rodarte in 3G. Deputy city attorney prosecuted the case.

Nov 17
Oral arguments to court of appeals, courtroom III

Dec 16
Denver District Court Judge Kenneth Plotz dismisses Jury Tampering charges against Mark Iannicelli and Eric Brandt (city does not appeal).

Jan 11
8/26 tent arrestee Eric Verlo found guilty of obstruction and interference, 20 days jail. Represented by public defender. On appeal based on ineffective assistance of counsel.

Jan 13
City makes first request for plaintiffs to show documents to defendants, as per spoliation letter. (Meanwhile activist defendants have received discovery motion responses that surveillance video is overwritten and all of city correspondence is privileged.)

Feb 1
Plaintiffs Verlo et al are informed that US District Judge William Martinez wishes to hold a full trial to consider a permanent injunction. Depositions will be recorded on Feb 12.

March 8
8/26 tent arrestee Monk Brown found not guilty of obstruction and failure to obey, but guilty on interference, sentenced to 20 days jail, on appeal based in inconsistent verdict.

March 16
Mark Iannicelli arrested again distributing JN fliers #16GS003320. He’s detained and cited for harassment and violation of CJO-1. Released within hours, charges dropped are 3/18.

May 2
Verlo et al file motion to show cause why former Denver defendants should not be held in contempt of court for the March 16 arrest of Mark Iannicelli. Filing was delayed because city refused to produce discovery evidence. Plaintiffs had to file a CORA request to learn facts of Iannicelli’s arrest.

May 11
Deposition of Chief Justice Michael Martinez

May 31
Order received from Federal Judge William Martinez:

ORDER: Before the Court is Plaintiffs’ Motion for Order to Show Cause Why Former Denver Defendants Should Not Be Held in Contempt of Court [108]. Per D.C.COLO.LCivR 7.1(d) and Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 6(d), the Denver Defendants’ deadline to respond was May 26, 2016. Denver filed nothing on that date, and has since filed nothing. Accordingly, the Court could deem the motion confessed. Solely in the interests of justice, however, Denver is ORDERED to file a response on or before June 3, 2016. No reply will be accepted without prior order or leave of Court. SO ORDERED by Judge William J. Martinez on 05/31/2016.

June 1
Motion to dismiss 8/28 chair arrest of Mark Iannicelli moves case to district court. Dismissal expected.

June 3
City responds to motion to show cause.

June 13
Fred Henrich 8/26 tent case dismissed.

June 20
Federal judge William Martinez responds:

ORDER: Before the Court is Plaintiffs’ Motion for Order to Show Cause Why Former Denver Defendants Should Not Be Held in Contempt of Court [108]. Given the nature of the alleged violation of this Court’s preliminary injunction, and given the lack of evidence that the alleged violation presents an ongoing problem, the Court sees no pressing reason to address potential contempt at this time. Plaintiffs are therefore DIRECTED to file a notice, no later than June 24, 2016, explaining why the Court should give priority to their motion. Otherwise, the Court intends to set this matter for a hearing immediately following the bench trial scheduled to begin on April 17, 2017 between Plaintiffs and the Second Judicial District. SO ORDERED by Judge William J. Martinez on 06/20/2016.

June 22
Jury trial for Eric Brandt’s 9/24 interference arrest results in hung jury. Retrial scheduled for 8/1 w Judge Faragher.

—-

NOTES:
A. List of 2015-16 plaza arrests (20) & citations (2)

No. Name: Date: Offense: Result:
1. Mark Iannicelli 7/27 (jury tampering) DISMISSED 12/16
2. Eric Brandt 7/27 (jury tampering) DISMISSED 12/16
3. William “Reno” Hall 8/26 TENT (obstr.) PLEA, prob., area restriction
4. Adrian “Monk” Brown 8/26 TENT (obstruction) NOT GUILTY obstruct & failure, GUILTY interference
5. Fred Hendrich 8/26 TENT (obstruction, interference, failure to obey) DISMISSED 6/13
6. Eric Verlo 8/26 TENT (obstruction, interference) GUILTY, 20 days jail, on appeal
7. Caryn Sodaro 8/28 (DOG citation) PLEA deal
8. Adrian “Monk” Brown 8/28 TENT (obstruction) NOT GUILTY 11/17
9. Eric Brandt 8/28 (failure to obey) ***trial 8/24
10. Michael Moore 9/13 (DOG citation) PLEA deal
11. Jose “Pedro” Trejo 9/16 (urinating in public) PLEA deal
12. Eric Brandt 9/18 TARP (obstruction) ***trial 8/29
13. Jay Maxwell 9/18 HANDCART (obstruction) PLEA deal
14. Adrian “Monk” Brown 9/18 A COOLER (obstr) DISMISSED 3/8
15. Tim Campbell 9/18 (assault/resisting) DROPPED
16. Mark Iannicelli 9/19 CHAIR (obstruction) to be dismissed
17. Matthew Lentz 9/24 (assault) DROPPED
18. Adrian “Monk” Brown 9/24 (assault) DROPPED
19. Eric Brandt 9/24 (interference) ***hung jury, retrial 8/1
20. Caryn Sodaro 10/6 (disturb, threats) PLEA deal, 150 days concurrent
21. Eric Brandt 10/21 WET PILE (obstruction) ***trial 9/7
22. Mark Iannicelli 3/16/2016 (harassment, violation of CJO-1) DISMISSED

B. Running tally:
Cases dropped or dismissed: 9
Not guilty verdict, obstruction: 2
Guilty verdict, interference: 1
Guilty verdict, obstruction & interference: 1
Plea deals: 6
Cases outstanding: 4

3. Trials still scheduled:
August 1, Eric Brandt (9/24 interloper interference), RETRIAL, LFC 3H
August 24, Eric Brandt (8/28 Lopez failure to obey), jury trial, LFC 3F
August 29, Eric Brandt (9/18 tarp obstruction), jury trial, LFC 3F
September 7, Eric Brandt (10/21 Tremont obstruct.), jury trial, LFC 3F
April 17-19, 2017, Verlo v Martinez, permanent injunction, Araj Federal Courthouse Rm A801

A real democracy would elect Trump

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A friend of mine used to say “You know who has their finger on the pulse of America? Walmart.” Materialism on the cheap, zero social responsibility. It’s true of American television, fast food, urban planning, everything USA. We sell immediate gratification, that’s it. Success in America under declining capitalism has become courting only the lowest common denominator. I can wish it was otherwise, you can lecture it to death, but Cracker culture: insipid, racist, xenophobic culture is American culture. Love yourself, hate everybody who isn’t you. For many successive Me-Generations, narcissism is WHAT MAKES AMERICA GREAT. The American mass doesn’t want an Obama hued panel of multiculture-splainers saying America must be anything but stupid indulgent. An intelligencia’s repulsion at Donald Trump and his common denominator campaign goes without saying, but it can’t fault his sales pitch. Trump is tuned to win. Feel rueful about the lumpen masses, but you’re being undemocratic.

Mass shootings prompt calls for gun control, government massacres less so.

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Does it downplay the tragedy in Orlando to point out that America’s worst mass shooting, as many have called it, falls well short of the headcounts of shooting massacres which the US perpetrated upon Native Americans? Is it critical to differentiate lone gunmen from state sanctioned crimes against humanity? The first describes renegade racist lunacy, the second systemic. I find the conflation entirely useful. The atrocities of solo shooters spark petition drives to promote gun control. The tyrannical acts of our government against its subjects are reminders why the people fought for and won the right to bear arms.

I’m pretty sure PRIVILEGE is voting for a warmongering sociopath to feel good about having a first woman president.

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Oh, really, so it’s “privilege” to support Bernie Sanders because he will take votes away from Hillary and thus enable a Trump presidency? Is it privilege to vote for Trump just for the entertainment value of seeing what the blowhard will do? Who is the only candidate with a direct record of mass murder and banksterism? I’ll assert it’s wildly privileged to inaugurate Hillary Clinton, just as you did Barack Obama, for the token victory of a first whatever, at the cost of giving the US regime a public mandate for more war and imperialism. Remember how we used to believe the world didn’t hate us ordinary Americans, just our fraudulently elected president? Now you want to elect the Bush-est of evils. Privilege is knowing the most formidable military in the world will kill untold thousands of darker-skinned others for the sake of your security.

Sorry Rage, Trump Ain’t the Machine

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Immortan DonaldThere’s news from Cleveland, about to host the 2016 RNC Republican National Convention. Rage Against the Machine is planning a reprise of the show they PUT ON for DNC 2008 where they harnessed teen angst against America’s dystopian future (thus against its corporate party conventions) but FOR Barack Obama.

In 2008 the House of Bush was already falling. Now it’s 2016 and this time Immortan Joe is the ascendant Donald Trump apparently. Because Trump is a thought-criminal and troll racist, it seems that all pop, sub, and call-out culture agents agree that the next US president must not be Trump. I find it not in the least ironic that the machine thinks so too.

Rage Against the Machine’s Tom Morello is scheduling an encore performance of Denver’s DNC 2008, another counter-subversive star turn for the Democratic Party. In 2008 Rage quelled unrest to smooth the reception for Change Double-Agent Barack Obama. The corporate TM Rebels want to do the same for Hillary, this time directing their indignation at social injustice provocateur Donald Trump.


In 2008, Rage harnessed teen and counterculture angst and hitched it tightly to a stake in the mosh pit, a political assembly agitated but meant to go nowhere. Rage threw a free performance which drew thousands from the streets, as if a Rage concert memory would match the excitement of a protested convention. Of course those who were waylaid will never know. Even seasoned activists fell for the lure because Rage promised afterward to lead their stadium audience straight to the Pepsi Center to confront Obama and the DNC.


Not what happened. RAGE appointed Iraq Veterans Against the War as their favored antiwar agitants, whose MO has always been commemorative not rebellious, crowd participation encouraged only under a strict chain of cammand. With the IVAW, Rage members led the audience on stations of the cross “march” across downtown Denver exhausting protest energy and converting participants into spectators. It looks like Morello intends to do the same thing for Cleveland.

And I have no doubt they’ll succeed. Already social justice movements are feeding the trolls as if Donald Trump wasn’t merely another Westboro blowhard. Radicals from Antifas to Zapatistas think Trump is the face of US Fascism and must be stopped. Trump does spout ignorance and racism, though he hasn’t bombed or executed anyone. Does Trump embolden American racists and zenophobes or is that the machine’s framing?

Must Trump’s idiocies be rebutted? Must, for example, the Westboro Baptist Church be counterprotested? Normally everyone gets the wisdom of not feeding the trolls.

Obama Hiroshima visit not first time US president returns to scene of war crime

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We’re told President Obama’s visit to Hiroshima will the first by a sitting US president. Hiroshima being where America demonstrated its first atomic bomb. Ranked by scale of civilian casualties, Hiroshima has multiple sister cities who could share the honor of being sites of the greatest single day attrocity beneath US bombers. Travelogue wise, if there isn’t a sign saying “Washington slept here” obvously everywhere has a first for American presidents, so what makes Hiroshima newsworthy? Let’s agree as the objective of Oppenheimer’s Manhattan Project, Hiroshima was the most calculated. Nagazaki was the reproductive test serving as reprise for the international stage. Obviously President Obama’s next visit should be to Nagazaki as proof that paying tribute via presidential visitation doesn’t amount to an apology, expression of regret, or even recognition of a lesson learned. The gesture may be a nod to self-reflection but it’s not guilt. What Obama is doing is taking a bow. The imperial pageant of unending curtain calls, for an old show called gunboat diplomacy.

Atomic bomb

Once more the Hippie Bard takes keyboard in hand..

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Some might be asking themselves (as I often do) “Self, just what in Hell is Brother Jonah thinking, ragging on obscure moments in American and British history and raggin’ on the Queen?” Hmmm…

Perhaps it has much ado about something. Like the partitioning of Arabia which has taken an uncounted (by me) number of wars to keep in about the same political and religious boundaries.

Here I should interject the very much related wars on the ol’ Pipeline Grid such as VietNam, Thailand, (they host U.S. Air Farce Bases) (so do about two thirds of the countries around) India in all its manifestations, Ceylon which is now Sri Lanka as per the wishes of the people there, same with Mumbai, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, the new yet strangely ancient British and American policies to keep China as a client state rather than a superpower (way too late, fellas, way too late) by encircling them militarily and economically… but let’s start with the partitioning of Arabia. The Saudi, Jordanian, Yemeni, defunct Syrian and Iraqi, Kuwaiti etc Royal Houses have been placed on their thrones not by genuine common consent of the people the Kings and Emirs but by the Armed Forces and on behalf by the British and American 1% oil (and every other marketable commodity) cartels.

By the way Iran is not an Arabic nation. They’re Persian and the muddled inclusion in the Arabian bloc by people who say stupid shit like “well, they’re all alike” just pisses off some people.

While the Queen doesn’t have full political power in England or her royal former colonial empire, she IS a major shareholder in British Petroleum. The ones who screwed up the Gulf of Mexico and told the American/Mexican/Cuban and all other nations to mind our own business, they would take care of everything and we should just run along and play somewhere.

Economic concerns fuel military affairs. In the case oil, fueling is the correct word.

AND.. the 3 leading Protestant churches in America, Methodist, Baptist and AOG, are offspring of the Episcopal Church. And there’s movements in these churches to re-start the Crusades. Taking ISIS and al Qaeda as the excuse.

I have witnessed the Colorado prison and jail system allowing and encouraging volunteer Religious Leaders who spread the Gospel of Hate and exclude as many dissenters to that perverted gospel as possible. I’ll assume here that it’s a nationwide deal. Radicalizing American prisoners, many of whom are actually habitual violent criminals, to continue a war inflamed by the actions in behalf of the 1%.

And insisting all along that every “Ay-rab” meaning every Muslim in the entire world (it hurts my brain to translate Standard English into Standard Redneck) is born with a bomb in his or her hand.

maybe not that extreme, but hyperbole spawns hyperbole.  It doesn’t matter who gets in the way of the bullets or shrapnel, not to the bigpigs at least.

You might remember this…

“Charlie asd Camilla almost got their asses dragged out of their limo and street just would have prevailed, blue blood would have flowed in the gutters of London etc… (sic) the London Anarchists found a neat way to defeat kettling”

Maybe the rich bitch establishment ought to really worry about reprisals.Their gated communities can be kettled and turned into ghettoes in the most real definition of the term.

By volunteers who probably wouldn’t ask a dime in pay, merely a just society for their children.

One in which their kids or siblings or parents won’t be shot down in the street by the cops. Or shot in their own homes. I hadn’t been up here a red hot two months when the Denver cops shot a man to death in his bed, said they saw him “reaching for something” and the evidence at their automatic acquittal hearing was their word against that of a dead man. Then they charged the victim’s nephew for the killing because he wasn’t home when they went in to serve a warrant on him but shot his uncle instead. True Story, from the summer of ’04.

They obviously want war, or think they do. Or at least their masters believe they’ll come out on top.

But their social doctrine is entwined and mirrored in Capitalism. Which is a pyramid scheme, can’t last forever and when it falls, and their social doctrine goes down with the supply of non-existent money, based on resources they don’t actually have… too bad, right? Only we’ll have the privilege of joining them in their misery.

Yeah, That’s right, I’m saying the U.S. Navy committed piracy

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revengeThe day was 20 March 2014. Eastern Med. N Korean tanker Morning Glory departs from a port disapproved of by the American Corporate Police State. The New Libyan Puppet Dictatorship gets a call from the U.S. that the “rebels” had been intercepted and that the oil, claimed by the ‘Oil’-igarchy, is to be turned over to the Puppet “democracy”.

The picture is a “quick sloppy” but the issue at the top shows the front cover. It’s for sale on Ebay as a collectible but I don’t give a damn by whom. Piracy. The date, sometime in 1978. National Lampoon magazine publishes a “revenge” issue.

Showing on the cover is a person who is clearly Arab being punched in the face.

Why and how is it “revenge”? Because the OPEC ‘cartel’ demanded the price they wanted for THEIR property from the US/British Oil Cartels. Oh my, those dark skinned people need to be punished for their impudence. One of the suggested “revenge” tactics suggested was “what if a lot of American Navy crews uh.. “mutineed” and ehrr “Stole” their ships. It wouldn’t be our fault if these Bad Fellows became the Terrors of the Seven Seas, now would it? (Queen Elizabeth I did the same thing to the Spanish)”   Which is true, the English DID that. It goes on with a US submarine with a skull and crossbones (!) flying and the legend “Yo ho ho and $2 a barrel for Arabian crude!”

So now, according to the not-very-abandoned-or-even-noticeably-modified Bush Doctrine, the Navy thieves and murderers don’t even have to mutiny to enjoy their fantasies about being Captain Hook and Captain Kidd and Blackbeard and Long John Silver. The American Taxpayers subsidize their piracy on behalf of the richest 1% who skirt paying their own way through taxes as quickly as they dodge military service for themselves and their demon spawn piglets.

They get to sit around on their fat arses collecting the blood money and not pay nor fight nor work to earn the spoils.

That’s what we of the “Peasant” class get to do for them.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Virginia Dare was an “Anchor Baby”

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Not meaning to poke fun at young Ms Dare who disappeared along with the rest of the Roanoke Colony more than 400 years ago. More like mocking and reproving redneck bigots who make a big stink about other people having the same immigration privileges as THEIR ancestors did. Especially as it’s an election issue.

Along with the Religious Refugees. See, the first English immigrants were notably religious extremists fleeing from other religious extremists. Virginia the colony was named not for the Virgin Mary, but for Queen Elizabeth. The one who bullied Parliament into passing the Conformity doctrines. Which led to some hugely large massive horrifying monstrous big “civil” wars in England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland. Then exported to America along with the ongoing British v Spain and France wars.  The plan was then as now (think Israel) put a large amount of people who are just too contentious to allow them to stay in the Motherland, give them discount passage and sell them limited supplies and weapons. And do a lot of it on credit. The French term for it was pioneers. A support system for military adventures.  Make sure they’re likely to piss off the natives, but not likely to survive without some “emergency” backup from Momma England.

Others did the same thing, the English just were the ones who got away with it. Davy Crockett was part of two such maneuvers. Born in Tennessee when the Revolution hadn’t been worked out, Tennessee having been treaty land which the Crown was refusing to allow English expansion. One of the sore spots that the sorehead revolutionaries used as an excuse for the revolution. It’s referenced in the Declaration of Independence. The British government honoring some of their treaty obligations by selling weapons to Natives. And blankets (ahem!) and other goods. The Treaties in question being the peace agreements after the 7 Years War which was fought mostly in Europe but in American History class we’re taught to call it the French and Indian War. And since he was born in 1786 which was just barely almost 20 years before the Louisiana purchase, where the kings of  France and Spain took turns financing each others wars by selling land in The New World which had never been visited by any European king. They sold land back and forth that they had never seen. Along with the people of the region. Subject of Spain one morning and France the next. The English and their bastard child The United States did the same thing.

to tie it all together….

Definitely Davy Crockett was born of illegal immigrants on Cherokee land. The Roanoke colony was located in what’s now the Carolinas, named for one of the Kings Charles of England. The Conformity Acts caused such frictions between English Christians that Protestant groups like the Pilgrim Church, Puritans, Presbyterians and of course Catholics were slaughtered and persecuted whenever their factions weren’t persecuting every other faction. And a whole bunch of Christians who just could not conform to other Christian doctrines fled to America to set up shop. And put up shot. There was for instance a running feud which often broke into gunfire between South Carolina and North Carolina about the difference between Presbyterian and Episcopalian and another cross-Potomac same thing because Virginia was mostly Protestant and Maryland was predominately Catholic.  You didn’t have to be across the Catholic Protestant line to piss off the authorities. Just being a Non Conformist protestant would do the trick. I got that from the Oxford World Almanac which interestingly enough is sponsored by the Episcopal Church.

Whatever happened to Ms Dare and the rest of the Roanoke settlers is pure speculation but there sure is a lot of that too. Some have said in my hearing that the Roanoke people assimilated into the Cherokee or other nearby tribes. No documentation of that, all the documentation is on the lines that they Never Were Found Again.   Some of the speculation seems, to me, very cult like.

And a lot of the ones who promote that kind of conspiracy theories are also heavily into the Birther and Minuteman militias. And with ties to the Klan.

But with all these centuries of Christian v Christian slaughter, it’s somehow the fault of Jewish merchants (who say Happy Holidays instead of Merry Christmas)and Muslims. There have already been calls for the opening of internment camps for American Muslims.

Although the Hate Groups keep telling us that Muslims can’t be Americans. Or Native American Church. Or Jews. Or anybody who doesn’t attend Their Church. Ask any of those who proposing a Church State which one is to be the State Church and he’ll probably (eventually) say his own church of course.

Before any of all that comes around, maybe Christians better stop hating each other first. And your fellow Americans regardless of whether you think we’re actually Americans.

Hastert being a pedophile is not the story! Where did a former wrestling coach get millions to bribe his victims?!

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If Dennis Hastert was being treated like a convicted serial pedophile, he’d never see the light of day, you’d think. Instead the judge was asked to take into account his years of public service. Which is almost not missing the point of the whole scandal. Dennis Hastert being a pedophile pales next to the number of victims of his white collar crime. Paying hush money to the former victims of his predatory sexual abuse was the petty crime for which he was sentenced to 15-months in prison. Hastert’s biggest crime was his corruption as the longest serving Speaker Of The House. Dennis Hastert was a high school wrestling coach before running for office and becoming a multimillionare land speculator. Could Hastert’s record stint in Congress mean he didn’t break records for stealing from his constituents and their interests? It’s obvious where Hastert got the millions in cash with which to pay off his many underage victims. THAT’S the crime for which Dennis Hastert isn’t serving enough time. BY ALL MEANS, DO TAKE INTO ACCOUNT HIS PUBLIC SERVICE. Award his millions to his abused victims, put Dennis Hastert in jail forever, then, for betraying the public trust, hang him.

I have to ask: if Dennis Hastert was a perv as a wrestling coach, what predilections do you suppose he indulged as America’s second most powerful office-holder and corrupt multimillionaire? Are we to imagine Speaker Hastert kicked his pedophilia habit for graft? Those are two distinct abberations. One’s a mental disorder, the other is calculated greed.

At today’s sentencing the judge called Dennis Hastert a “serial pedophile” and expressed it was shocking to say serial pedophile and House Speaker in the same sentence. I doubt that. Mostly because we only learn these things after the fact. I think it would be more accurate in the future to wonder which if any of our speakers are not pedophiles.

If fellow congressmen and staffers knew anything of Hastert activities –and how couldn’t they not?– they should face prosecution as well.

Proud to be an American against war, with the exception being this election.

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peaceA good friend of mine used to wear this button everywhere. If it wasn’t the button, he wore the t-shirt. “Proud to be an American against the war.” Tonight he sported a button for BERNIE. Of course he did. We were joking around and he intimated he was not wholly disinclined to favor TRUMP. ME NEITHER, I told him! Trump coud bring down the empire single handed! No need to spark a revolution, Trump would pull a Samson out of sheer egoism! He’d gold plate our drones and they’d be grounded! He’d build a great wall and then we’d have a Great Wall! For tourists of all nationalities! A Great Wall couldn’t stop the Huns, even Disney knows that! And reportedly, billionaires are against Trump, so what’s the problem? Remember when we’d attend rallies dressed in suits and pretend we were “billionaires” advocating for war or bank bailouts? If billionaires wanted it we were against it. What the One Percent fear, we need! Haha! My friend would prefer Bernie of course, but Trump is definitely his third choice he told me. “Third” I asked? Well, first Bernie, then Hillary naturally, then Trump. OMG WTF.

U.S. protest photo of the millennium: post 9/11 Neodemocracy in American

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MEDIA BLACKOUT ON 400+ ARRESTS AT WASHINGTON DC #DEMOCRACYSPRING –You don’t have to be there to support the work of these activists. You can help by making others aware of their action. Add your voice and share. They are standing up for us. It’s time we stand with them and spread the word of their action.

Ask the candidates: who, as president, vows to jail Obama, Clinton and Bush?

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If Americans really want to differentiate which presidential candidate represents change, a good question would be, which will prosecute America’s celebrity war criminals? Who, among them, will jail past leaders guilty of crimes against humanity?

Obama 2008 didn’t do it. President Obama didn’t even close Guantanamo, end torture, or disarm drones. By failing to curb Pax America’s wars of aggression, Obama too should now stand in the docket. Wasn’t it hoped, as Bush and Cheney helivac’d from the White House, that Obama’s “change” meant calling that chopper back for a return to accountability? At minimum, superficially? Justice didn’t happen, Obama didn’t want to look back, and the villains remain to foul the political discourse as foils to perpetuate high crimes and to normalize the forgiving of greater trespasses.

Is American exceptionalism fathomless? ISIS hasn’t grown out of the terrible twos yet already John Kerry wants to charge it with genocide; not to haul ISIS perps before the Hague –extrajudicial assassination by drone circumvents that– but because genocide law holds that those who do not condemn it are its accessories.

How far does culpability reach among our active enablers of war crimes? It extends into our pool of candidates certainly, but how far? Does Senator Bernie Sanders, at one edge, consider himself an accessory to the crimes of past and current administrations? It’s possible Sanders voted against the wars, interventions and regime changes, but will he prosecute those who did not?

Donald Trump stands on the periphery as well, avaritic criminality is not alas a purview of the International Criminal Court, but he does seem an unlikely candidate for honoring the rule of law let alone conscience.

Still, would it hurt to ask? An independent party candidate might have the only acceptable answer. Who, as president, will honor humanity’s highest laws? Who will hold state terrorists accountable?

Denver art student informs Tale of Two Hoodies with Goya’s Third of May 1808. This KKK cop executes the black child.

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A Tale of Two Hoodies
DENVER, COLORADO- Here’s what the Denver Post article didn’t explain about the Denver high school art student who was pressured to remove her controversial piece from public display. Where was it being shown? At the Wellington Webb Building. That’s not irrelevant because it’s where viewers became offended. You could go inquire about the incident, if you knew where to ask, or where to protest the work’s removal. The WELLINGTON WEBB BUILDING downtown on Colfax. What’s so controversial, the scene is real isn’t it? There’s more.

The student’s drawing is essentially a reproduction of Michael D’Antuono’s 2014 piece “A Tale of Two Hoodies” which still sparks outrage. Missing in this version is the bag of Skittles which the black child offers the cop, locking the two figures in a standoff. Or obviously a mugging. The Skittles of course recalls Trayvon Martin and we know how that ended. The hands in the air references “Hands Up Don’t Shoot” and Michael Brown who shared the same fate.

Original 2014 workAll else about the Denver student’s contextualization of D’Antuono’s work is the same, the confederate flag uncovered from beneath the wallpaper of Old Glory. In the student’s piece the American flag appears worn through. In D’Ontuono’s original the racist flag has bursted through. The cop and hood are the same, except in the original the cop was maybe more fat.

What’s also missing in the DenPo whitewash is the context of the unamed student’s assignment. She was tasked with contextualizing TWO works. The influence of the second piece is not as apparent as the first. The boy’s hands-up wasn’t merely recalling the mantra of the Black Lives Matter movement, it was evoking the student’s other chosen influence, Goya’s famous “The Third of May 1808.” In that iconic work, a firing squad is executing a rebel with outstretched arms.

KNOWING THIS, you can see the student’s policeman has drawn his gun for an EXECUTION, not an arrest. The boy is not following an order or raising his hands in surrender. If even in resignation, this boy’s upheld arms communicate a plea. How does that inform you about this young Denver student’s understanding of “Hands Up Don’t Shoot” or “I Can’t Breathe”?

The officer’s Klan hood certifies that this shooting is a lynching. Many lynchings in the traditional sense were perpetrated by deputized citizens.

Denver Chief of Police Robert White said of the student’s work: “I’m greatly concerned about how this painting portrays the police.” Well sure, and Chief White didn’t know the half of it.

Should you go complain at the Wellington Webb Building? The Denpo article mentions Chief White intends to “have a conversation with the student and her parents.” You may want to caution that the Office of the Independent Monitor be invited attend that conversation, as a ride-along so to speak, to assure it isn’t the one-sided transaction to which we are becoming accostomed and inured.

Does Chief White think that racially enhanced officer involved extrajudicial executions should not be a student’s concern? He needs to look past what offended him and try to understand the art piece before he forces a conversation. Or what kind of conversation will it be. The student has already made her statement.

FOOTNOTE:
Here’s what Michael D’Antuono had to say about his original work. I’ve updated the original broken links:

This painting, created during the Trayvon Martin case, symbolizes the travesty of racism in the criminal justice system. It has been the object of much controversy and censorship. In 2014, I was Incensed that George Zimmerman was trying to profit from his notoriety for killing an unarmed teenager by auctioning his painting on eBay. In response, I put this piece on eBay with half of the proceeds going to the Trayvon Martin Foundation. The very same day Zimmerman sold his painting for $100,000, and as soon as it became evident that my piece was on par to pass Zimmerman’s mark, eBay shut mine down for violating their strict policy of not selling anything on their site glorifying hate groups or showing anything symbolic of the Klu Klux Klan. The hypocrisy of eBay was that at the time they killed my auction, they were selling over 1500 other items related to the KKK. Misrepresenting it’s meaning, a hate group co-opted the piece in 2015, passing out flyers in Southfield, Michigan. In 2016, a high school teacher in Nevada, was suspended for using the painting to inspire critical though.

U.S. SOLDIERS ARE READYING FOR A MASSIVE DEPLOYMENT

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COLORADO SPRINGS, COLORADO- You thank them for their service. You support them, they’re only following orders. You know they’re not at liberty to divulge everything they do or WHERE. As their supporters you are complicit, but whatever. Now your soldiers are keeping a HUGE secret from you. They’re GOING TO WAR. You’d think that would be too controversial to be a state secret.

If you leave in a military town, near a base, fort or camp, you need only ask around. Pawn shops and car dealerships seem to have their finger on the pulse of troop movements for some reason. In Colorado Springs, everybody knows. Friends and neighbors have already deployed overseas to establish contractor services. Others in readiness training.

Of course the big secret for awhile has been Africa. American soldiers have been involved in covert operations across Africa which none are still allowed to talk about. Those aren’t undeclared wars, just police actions. This time, again, it’s Iraq. Going back. I shall return.

Are they waiting on Spring? Summer weather? The election? Commander in Chief Clinton? Likely.

It used to be soldiers didn’t talk about mobilization. “Loose lips sink ships” etc. Of course in those days the public knew the nation was at war. War had been declared on us, or a fascist belligerent attacked. Today when the US launches offensive wars, illegal wars they’re called in the Hague, its troop movements have to be extra covert. Or not, actually, when mobilization is prelude to Shock and Awe.

Troop sneakiness seems to be all about sneaking past the American pulbic. Sneaking past us to unknown conflict zones in Africa and Asia, sneaking past us to redeploy to Iraq. At some point those soldiers have to understand what they’re doing is not only unpopular, it’s likely wrong.

OMG. Trump is not the Fourth Reich. You are!

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The face of American Fascism is ugly ugly ugly, by art deco spiffy uniform standards. To pluralist, multicultural tastes, it’s warm and fuzzy. You probably find it palatable, you don’t mind it telling you why we must settle for war, poverty and injustice. You recoil in fear when its faces tell you that Donald Trump is Fascism on the rise. American Fascism has been in high gear since consolidating everyone else’s trading monoplies, resources, and colonies. It began with the Louisiana Purchase and lept from the continent gobbling Spain’s former possessions. Our Veterans of Foreign Wars were the Nazis before the Nazis. Instead of targeting the Jews, the scope of Western genocide has been much broader. Today our Mandarins have friendly faces but their final solution is merciless and straddles the planet. On their domestic list are the homeless, the healthcare-less, the zero-stakeholders, essentialy the 99 percent. Internationally it’s everybody who doesn’t serve a purpose, for example, refugees. If you are complicit in this exceptionalism, you are the “Fourth Reich” everyone is warning you about. Donald Trump is an egomaniac with a Napoleon complex. Maybe he wants to liberate the common people from the old guard, cut the purses of the bankers, and crown himself emperor. The US presidency isn’t a dictatorship, but Trump’s foes sure are worried about him succeeding. This time round there might remain no monarchs to banish Napoleon to Elba. Trump has got no friends, and don’t be fooled, neither do you.

Obama nominates TORTURE JUDGE Merrick Garland to U.S. Supreme Court

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Elect a Democrat to the presidency to ensure progressive Supreme Court nominees. Elect a Democrat to end wars and prosecute war criminals. Elect a Democrat so we can close Guantanamo. After two years President Obama is finally hinting he’ll close Guantanamo (though missing the point, he’ll imprison its inmates elsewhere). The wars are not only ongoing, American troops are quietly mobilizing for a significant upcoming deployment, and Dick Cheney and ilk are still on television being consulted as experts. AND as concerns favorable supreme court justices, Obama has just nominated another moderate, Merrick Garland, who in his stint as appellate judge, defended George W. Bush’s torture and detainment policies in Guantanamo.

Denver jury convicts homeless man of trespassing on their yuppy lifestyle. DJ Razee’s tiny house idea was too big.

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Delbert J. Razee
DENVER, COLORADO- In the witness stand Delbert “DJ” Razee spoke eloquently about the Tiny House movement and Resurrection Village, a local experiment sponsored by advocates Denver Homeless Out Loud to suggest one remedy for the house-less of Colorado. Razee’s lawyer Frank Ingham made fools of the Denver Housing Authority stooge and four police officers who testified against the chronically homeless English Lit grad. Razee was charged with trespass on public land, on an empty city block which was supposed to have been used for affordable housing. Razee was among ten homeless activists arrested one night in November for refusing to vacate several very small structures they’d erected on property which the DHA was converting from a community garden to gentrified condos. After two days of trial, a jury of well-housed peers found Razee guilty, lest others of his untouchable caste darken their doorsteps or the vacant lots near them. On Thursday March 3rd at 8:30am DJ Razee reports to Judge Beth Faragher for sentencing.

It was an amazing trial. While his compatriots sought continuances or plea deals, DJ held his ground and never waived speedy trial. DJ was impatient to put the Denver Housing Authority on the stand. Their representative Ryan Tobin blew off a February 3rd subpoena, but when DJ’s lawyer Frank Ingham cross-examined Tobin on the 22nd, Tobin incriminated himself more than Razee. Ryan Tobin was the DHA goon who pressed charges against the activists for trespassing on the public lot opposite his $650K home. Tobin also sought a protection order against one of the activists, which restrained that person from approaching not just Tobin but the entire public lot. Can one do that? The protection order didn’t come up at DJ’s trial.

DHA
The DHA is a quasi-municipal entity which handles city property meant to accomodate lower income residents. The DHA is Denver’s second largest property owner. The city blocks at 26th and Lawrence used to be low income housing but have been razed for years. More recently a portion was used for a community garden but the DHA was evicting the urban farmers to sell the block to a high rise developer.

The logic offered was that DHA could use the proceeds of land speculation to build more affordable housing elsewhere. That strategy might impress business people but it’s clearly absurd. Instead of being a counterbalance to gentrification, this housing authority thinks its role is to be a tool for displacement.

Tobin’s testimony will benefit all the Tiny House defendants, depending on their juries. DJ is only the first of the arrestees to be brought to trial. Tobin admitted he had never clearly expressed who had the authority to issue a trespass order. Tobin also couldn’t say who precisely was present when he made his initial announcement to the group, although he claimed it was “everyone”. This was a chief contention of the city attorneys.

How about an sidebar for activists, as a sort of debrief:

On Tobin’s first visit, someone among the activists called EVERYONE together to listen to his announcement, austensibly to have a dialog. As a matter of practice this was regretable. First, because the action was already underway and there was no expectation that dialog could or should redirect the action. Second, it presented exactly what an authority issuing a formal notice needed: everyone in one place to BE GIVEN NOTICE.

Two, the city prosecutors used a video recording of the event, made by the activists themselves, to prove that the trespassers had received notice. While the taped discussion was not so clear, and the many subsequent announcements over police bullhorns were garbled, it didn’t help that the videographer offered narration to make what was being said explicit to viewers and bystanders. Offering, for example: “so basically we’ve been given notice that if we don’t leave the cops will come to arrest us.” Which alas is the confirmation prosecutors need that lawful orders were understood.

Although the city sought to incriminate Razee with the video, the footage provided wonderful context for the larger issue, the paradox faced by the homeless, had the jury been receptive. It also captured Ryan Tobin’s cavalier attitude about housing inequities. When he was asked by the group “Move along to where?” Tobin made this thoughtless suggestion: “Where did you come from?” Boos from his audience at the scene were echoed by the viewers in the courtroom.

Ryan Tobin couldn’t identify DJ at all, neither that he’d given DJ notice to leave, nor that he’d ever seen DJ before in his life. DJ described Tobin’s failure to recognize him in a FB post:

For six weeks, from October 23rd until December 9th, I shoveled the walks, carted away the trash, and resided at Resurrection Village at the same location as Sustainability Park, and Ryan Tobin who lives directly across the street from the property, testified that he has never seen my face. Of course, he hadn’t- I am one of the invisible people who is a criminal in the eyes of the housed, and the law.

DPD
The testimony of four DPD officers was also self-damning. Neither commander, nor lieutenants, nor arresting officer could fully justify why they deployed in combat gear. Even the jurors were set back by the militarized atmosphere, the helicopter overhead, and the overabundance of cops for a TRESPASS INFRACTION. About the helicopter, a lieutenant claimed she called in a mere “fly-by” but police video proved it hovered for nearly an hour.

One amusing aspect for many of us in the audience, was how the DPD witnesses would always refer to the offending activists as “Occupiers”. Denver Homeless Out Loud, in its need to gain cooperation with civic and law enforcement entities, takes great pains to distance itself from its roots in Occupy Denver. At any demonstration in Denver, an “Occupy” presence, usually merely the familiar OD faces, always means an escalated police escort and unseen armored-up reserves. While it may have been inaccurate to label the Tiny House trespassers as occupiers, it’s true that when protesters are holding their ground in Denver, refusing police orders, they are occupying. Like the Black Bloc, it’s not a who, it’s a tactic.

Attending the trials of activists is worth it if only to hear the testimony of the police. You learn what they’re trained to do, what their objectives are, and what they think you’re doing. Most officers, even commanders, think we need a permit to demonstrate. HA!

The first four witnesses could not place DJ at the scene, but the arresting officer finally fingered the accused. Asked if he could identify DJ, he pointed to the defendant’s table and described DJ’s courtroom attire for the record. You have to wonder if police witnesses look to the defendant’s chair by default, without regard to what they remember. How could they remember so many arrestees, months after the incident? I’m guessing that anyone sitting in DJ’s seat would have been ID’d as DJ.

I pose this question because of how DJ’s arresting officer was allowed to identify DJ on the crime scene video. Instead of letting the video play through and asking the officer if DJ appeared on the video and where, DJ’s prosecutors froze the video when the camera lingered on DJ and then asked the officer to ID him. The defense counsel objected vehemently and when overruled he motioned for a mistrial. So the judge reconsidered and granted Ingham’s motion. She then asked the jury to disregard the officer’s response and she made the prosecutor play the video again without prompting the officer, even though of course now he knew at which frame DJ appeared.

The jury
The entire trial was so farcical and so mercenary considering the inconsequence of the charge, that audience members were certain the jury was empathic to DJ and the victimization of Denver’s homeless. Nope. We knew from Voir Dire that the jury included an entrepreneur, a trader, and an inheritance consultant. All but one of the NPR listeners had been eliminated but we hoped she’d be a holdout. It was not to be. When the jury emerged with its verdict, the foreman carrying the written decision was the fratboy day trader.

Fratboy had been the juror submitting written questions to supplement what neither attorney had asked. We knew from the bent of his inquiries that he was playing a role that defense attorneys fear, a self-deputized investigator for the prosecutor, filling in the gaps of the testimony, seeking, if even unconsciously, to eliminate the “reasonable doubt” which is supposed to remain as a reason to aquit. That’s why defense attorneys generally object to Colorado’s rule allowing jurors to interject with their own questions to witnesses. On the plus side, such questions do offer both sides a hint of where those jurors are leaning.

As Denver gentrifies, it should be no surprise that juries will represent the affluent more than the demographics being displaced. DJ’s jury had absolutely zero concern for punishing a homeless man for his elegant protest gesture or for his unresolved circumstance. They laughed and made no eye contact with the audience as they turned their backs to return to their homes and leave a homeless man in greater jeopardy with the penal system.

DJ was not tried by a jury of his peers. Can the homeless get justice in the US court system? American juries are racist and classist, but you’re unlikely to find someone more untouchable to jurors than someone who is dispossessed.

As activists, we’ve got to do something about these Denver juries. Advocating for jury nullification is not enough. Denver’s urban social climbers need a welcome-to-the-community brochure, or swift kicks in the ass until they acknowledge there’s a brotherhood of man.

In Colorado they will kill you for your house. RIP Martin Wirth and assailants.

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My friend Martin Wirth made the news yesterday trying to protect his Bailey Colorado home from a predatory mortgage company. Today he is dead and I can’t say I believe this is what he intended. He took a sheriff’s deputy with him, and he wounded two more, but I don’t believe Martin intended that either. At this point we know only law enforcement’s side of the story so it’s too early to give Martin credit or blame. RIP everyone, victims all.

I do know Martin was served an eviction notice and that he intended to resist it. He was waging the fight in court. Two years ago he hoped to deter an eviction by sheer number of allies camped on his lawn. It would have achieved only a stay, but a symbolic victory is the best you can hope for in a political battle.

Alone with a rifle, I think Martin meant to have a western standoff, as pure a demonstration of why Americans have the 2nd Amendment, to protect your home from the bad guys, often the armed proxies of the state.

Let’s say that’s what Martin had in mind. Do you not suppose that he was a surprised as you and I that the Sheriff’s deputies would open fire? That they’d kill him, over a house?

He’d be in trouble enough just brandishing a gun. You’d think the state would be satisfied to jail a person for that. It gets him out of the house.

According to reports, the sheriff’s deputies anticipated resistance. They sent eight deputies to take Martin’s house.

In Colorado we’ve seen law officers show up in combat gear to enforce an eviction. They carried assault rifles among other scary weapons, which most assumed were worn for deterrence. After all, recalcitrant evictees can be arrested enroute to the grocery store or to check their mail without the need for a military assault.

In Bailey Colorado apparently everyone is in a big hurry to shut up the loudmouth. Martin Wirth was an Occupy Denver activist and a Green Party candidate for the state senate. In the last election he won 25% of the vote. No good letting Martin Wirth get that far this year.

In life, Martin was probably a kinder, compassionate, more thoughtful variety of western archetype. In death, he was cinematic. Typical of the western archetype he will be both vilified and honored.

Even the Pope doesn’t want Trump. Uh, who is more status quo than the Pope?

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When is the last time the corporate media was on your side? The fact that every news pundit opposes Donald Trump’s candidacy should indicate the real threat his election bid poses to the powers that be. Consider too that you are only seeing Trump through their lens. His lunacy and inanity are colored by their filter. What have you heard beside outlandish hyperbole? Is Trump a racist? In the hospitality business, most of his customers and his workforce cross the border. Fences? Bans? Trump is trolling, he’s saying whatever wins him attention over airwaves throttled and moderated by hostile gatekeepers. Neither Fox nor NPR want to consider Donald Trump “electable”. What does that say?!

What gets me is the left’s kneejerk alarm at Trump’s rise. As if the media’s clarion call rings for them. Alternative media is uncritically amplifying the mainstream fearmongering. Fortunately they’re all underestimating the American public.

TRUMP IS NOT A FASCIST, he’s a conceited blowhard. Trump is not an idiologue, he’s an ignorant narcissist. Trump is not a dictator, he’s a spoiled bully. AT WORST Trump could run the White House like a syndicate thug. Is that worse or better for the American people? We’ve already got government lawlessness. Let’s unleash absolute power to fight society’s real criminals.

AT WORST Don Trump could order drone strikes on the legislature. At worst he could deploy death squads against Wall Street and Madison Avenue. A gangland don’s ego will only be threatened by his rivals. Those of us without power have nothing he needs. If Trump crowns himself tsar maybe we’ll see bankers and media moguls have their hats nailed to their heads.

The status quo’s worst nightmare could not help but benefit its have-nots. And the American People know it, hense Trump’s unwavering popularity. To our political sages, Trump’s support is incomprehensible. Hardly. Trump is not a populist, he’s dumbo Rambo. Probably more Rambo than Dumbo. Uh oh. No wonder everybody in Who’s Who is terrified the public beast will get its proxy.
 
Now Pope Francis has spoken out against Trump. Figureheads for established power don’t get any bigger than the Pope.

Who spends so much on weapons that they can’t feed or house their people?

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North Korea’s leader as a mere toddler -that’s rich. Kim Jong Un is the preeminent adversary of our Pentagon. This New Yorker cover is wishful thinking I suppose if also insulting to our own sense of shame. The New Yorker depicts junior Kim’s military success as child’s play, though he continues to hold Western gunboat diplomacy in abeyance. The old saw is that North Korea has been starved of economic prosperty owing to its regime’s unfettered militarism. Sound more like someone else you know? The US can’t house its poor, can’t feed its children, can’t rebuild its infrastructure, nor provide safe drinking water to disfavored urban populations. The US spends more on war than everyone else put together. It can’t provide healthcare. Even Kim Jong Un can do that. Likewise Un doesn’t start wars, or expend ordnance to require the manufacture of more. North Korea’s war footing isn’t our capitalist sinkhole for weapons industry profiteers. That baby with the warheads would be better played by an average American preadolescent, shortly to be a PTSD’d amputee.

You want to protest a pro-rape rally? Try Veterans Day. Don’t feed the trolls.

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saddam-hussein-palace-us-soldiers-iraq
DENVER, COLORADO- So-called men’s rights advocates slash pick-up culture misogynists are making publicity for themseves by calling for rallies across the US to legalize rape. They suggest rape should be legal –in the home at least– a sort of Stand Your Ground haven for wife-beaters. To indemnify domestic abuse. These liberated emasculates are nostalgic apparently for when most sexual assault stigmatized the victim and stayed in the closet unreported. These freaks are trolling, obviously, but prompting indignant cries to mobilize counterprotests. So much so that the reassert-your-male-privilege meet-ups have been cancelled. Reportedly. See that’s the problem. It’s Phelps Bundyism NAMBLAism enabling the corporate media to paint “activists” in sordid stripes. DO YOU WANT TO PROTEST AGAINST RAPE? Protest systemic rape by occupation forces, whoever’s. Protest militarism. Protest American troops who try to rape 70% of their female soldiers and succeed with 40%, although who doubts that is underreported. Protest professional rapism to address the injustice of sexual violence. Let’s be fair. Rapists are also victims of rape culture. Protest rape culture.

Hillary, Bernie, and Elizabeth Warren

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I have read often that it was time for our first woman President (Hillary). As a man I would agree with that. But I would also remind the reader that Lizzie Borden was a woman and we know how that worked out for her parents, when she hacked them to pieces with an axe.

If a man and woman were equally qualified for the presidency, I believe I would vote for the woman. But Hillary and Bernie are not equally qualified.

I base my decision on two factors; where did Hillary and Bernie get their financial support? Hillary got her money from the bankers and corporations, while Bernie’s money came from the people. We would be very foolish and naïve if we fail to understand the word “PAYBACK”. When the dust of the presidential election has settled, the bankers would have their first woman in the white house. If it was Bernie, then the people would have their president.

Of equal weight in my decision is Elizabeth Warren, a WOMAN that I deeply admire and respect, who just prior to the Iowa Caucus failed to endorse Hillary. When a woman like Elizabeth fails to support one of her own, it speaks loud and clear for Bernie.

Hillary wants to be president for all the wrong reasons; her legacy, the bankers who gave her the opportunity, while Bernie wants to be president for all the right reasons, The American People who gave him the opportunity.

Hillary wants to be the first woman president; but she is not that woman that America needs.

Maybe we can ask the Pope to call for the release of American mercenaries captured in a Baghdad brothel

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WE SAY they were civilian contractors kidnapped from a Baghdad neighborhood apartment. WE ARE investigating whether the abduction was coordinated by Iran. When those missing are Western agents or corporate media propagandists or covert special ops (or wayward US sailors armed with AK-47s), we say they are abducted and scour diplomatic channels for traces of the underword. When the victims are adversarial persons of interest to Western military intelligence or the White House, they are rendered extraordinarily or summarily incinerated from the sky end of story.

Can you imagine foreign diplomats approaching US officials about their passport holders gone missing? How simply ludicrous that the US is indignant that our mercenaries are being picked off at the scene of their crimes. Iraq is a war zone. What, the occupied peoples must endure our drones but can’t arrest our criminals? Even when we’re raping Iraqi women? American exceptionalists bomb hospitals but hold brothels to be no fly zones.

US media won’t report who the contractors were or what they were doing. Security service company SALLYPORT is denying the three men work for them, or their parent company MICHAEL BAKER INTERNATIONAL, or doing work for GENERAL DYNAMICS CORP under contract with the US Army. The Dirty Three might have been in the sex trafficking service of providing “comfort women” for the US soldiers being redeployed to Iraq. “Sallyport” sounds pretty damned ugly to me. Good riddance.