RFK, Jr. Hails Freedom of Speech, as Biden Loses State Censorship Ruling

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. blasted Democrats as betraying
liberty and free speech. Reacting to a federal judge's
injunction stopping the Biden administration from censoring
and banning speech on the Internet, RFK excoriated
government suppression of information.

"This ruling has been widely reported as barring the
administration from ‘working with,' 'contacting,' or
'coordinating with' social media," said Democratic
Presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., who
is mentioned in the injunction as one of the people
censored on social media. "These are euphemisms. The
case is about blatant censorship, in which government
agencies colluded with and coerced tech platforms
to censor Constitutionally-protected speech."

U.S. District Court Hits Joe Biden's Ministry of Truth

Update: Biden is "appealing a court ruling sharply limiting the ability of federal officials to interact with social media companies about the content contained on their platforms," reports Politico.

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., hailed a Louisiana federal judge's ruling to grant an injunction against President Joe Biden, ordering the administration to halt government-induced censorship of the internet, and the administration's myriad contacts with Big Tech,

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. is a candidate for the Democratic Party's nomination for Untied States president.

Judge Doughty's ruling forbids the Biden administration from contacting social media companies for "the purpose of urging, encouraging, pressuring, or inducing in any manner the removal, deletion, suppression, or reduction of content containing protected free speech."

As the national Democratic Party has become a champion of censorship of speech that the administration says is too dangerous to read or hear, Kennedy has taken the opposite position, blasting Democrats as betraying liberty and free speech.

"This ruling has been widely reported as barring the administration from ‘working with,' 'contacting,' or 'coordinating with' social media," said Democratic Presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., who is mentioned in the injunction as one of the people censored on social media. "These are euphemisms. The case is about blatant censorship, in which government agencies colluded with and coerced tech platforms to censor Constitutionally-protected speech."

The Biden administration's work for state censorship has also defined the national Democratic Party, as not one Democratic member of Congress has expressed public objection to what Judge Doughty calls Biden's "Ministry of Truth."

Kennedy is mentioned several times in Judge Judge Doughty's Memorandum Ruling on Request for Preliminary Injunction.

Kennedy, a prominent environmental attorney and children's' advocate, has been banned and censored by Big Tech for advocating for patients, consumers and families against what Kennedy has said are sometimes dangerous corporations.

Writes Judge Doughty:

(1) On January 23, 2021, three days after President Biden took office, Clarke Humphrey (“Humphrey”), who at the time was the Digital Director for the COVID-19 Response Team, emailed Twitter and requested the removal of an anti-COVID-19 vaccine tweet by RobertF. Kennedy, Jr.21 Humphrey sent a copy of the email to Rob Flaherty (“Flaherty”), former Deputy Assistant to the President and Director of Digital Strategy, on the email and asked if “we can keep an eye out for tweets that fall in this same genre.” The email read, “Hey folks-Wanted to flag the below tweet and am wondering if we can get moving on the process of having it removed ASAP.”22

Kennedy's press release in reproduced below:

RFK, Jr. Responds to Federal Judge Freedom of Speech, Censorship Ruling

July 05, 2023 Team Kennedy  

LOS ANGELES, CA—JULY 5, 2023—A federal judge issued an injunction Tuesday prohibiting Biden administration officials and federal agencies from communicating with social media companies about certain forms of protected speech.

The 155-page ruling details numerous clear violations of the First Amendment’s free speech clause. Amply referenced and footnoted, the document describes how Biden administration officials demanded that social media companies suppress information and deplatform people who expressed political views they deemed harmful.

“This ruling has been widely reported as barring the administration from ‘working with,’ ‘contacting,’ or ‘coordinating with’ social media,” said Democratic Presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., who is mentioned in the injunction as one of the people censored on social media.

“These are euphemisms. The case is about blatant censorship, in which government agencies colluded with and coerced tech platforms to censor Constitutionally-protected speech.”

As described in the injunction, government censorship demands were backed with threats to revoke Article 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which shields social media companies from liability for actions taken on their websites, as well as the threat of anti-trust action. Both of these, in the words of Mark Zuckerberg, are “existential threats” to social media companies’ business.

The injunction describes the formation of a censorship apparatus that includes public-private partnerships with groups like the Virality Project, the Stanford Internet Observatory, and the Election Integrity Project. They operated not only through direct demands, but also through creating a tacit consensus about what information is permissible.

Disallowed posts and suppressed information included those:

• Questioning the safety of the Covid vaccines
• Claiming the shots did not prevent infection or transmission
• Doubting the utility of masks and lockdowns
• Suggesting the lab leak hypothesis for Covid origins
• Questioning the integrity of the 2020 elections
• Claiming the authenticity of the Hunter Biden laptop story

“The judge got it exactly right when he wrote, ‘Freedom of speech and press is the indispensable condition of nearly every other form of freedom,’” Kennedy said. “Without freedom of speech, there is no democracy.”

Attorneys for Team Kennedy are considering further legal action to protect Mr. Kennedy’s rights and those of the campaign to be heard, free of censorship.

#

Wisconsin Children Send Message to Trump

Children at Madison, Wisconsin's Western Hills Park left a
message for the nation under assault from Donald Trump

Madison, Wisconsin — The Western Hills Park is a rest-and-recreational park on the Madison-Fitchburg border.

Joggers and passersby are treated to the pleasant hum of screams that only children can voice in range and casual oneness with their world.

In the nation meanwhile, a white supremacist movement led by a pathological president is directing a public-private engine of hate against the press, intellectuals, cities, the University, non-aligned civil servants, artists, many classes of people deemed decadent and dangerous, and even the sacred covenant of family.

The wolves of hate are loosed.

Cultivating military-clad municipal police, a collection of creepy billionaires and white supremacists the nation-over, Trump has discovered yelling 'fire' in an enclosed space causes chaos, as the smirking, strutting lunatic inflicts panic and trauma.

What to do?

Some children at Western Hills Park have a plan — fundamental and simple: Love, welcome and hope.

It's a simple message written in chalk by children on a walk-way through the middle of the park.

The young are always available to lead, if we are wise enough to listen their counsel.

As Robert F. Kennedy spoke in Capetown, South Africa on June 6, 1966:

Our answer is the world's hope; it is to rely on youth. The cruelties and the obstacles of this swiftly changing planet will not yield to obsolete dogmas and outworn slogans. It cannot be moved by those who cling to a present which is already dying, who prefer the illusion of security to the excitement and danger which comes with even the most peaceful progress. This world demands the qualities of youth: not a time of life but a state of mind, a temper of the will, a quality of imagination, a predominance of courage over timidity, of the appetite for adventure over the life of ease.

Two years after the Capetown address, on June 6, 1968, RFK was assassinated at the age of 42.

Today, the extent to which we embrace progress and courage over timidity is our republic's margin for survival and indeed that of humanity's place in the biosphere on our planet.

Trump's Followers as Are Repulsive as the Lunatic in the White House

Update: Five-thirty-eight.com, (Thomson-DeVeaux), concludes, "Right now, however, even though some white evangelical leaders have condemned Trump and the family separation policy, there’s no evidence that their followers are poised to turn on the president." Of course not. Opposing Trump involves thought or empathy, two qualities missing in the deluded white Christianite fundamentalists.

Notes Thomson-DeVeaux: "A 2017 poll from the Public Religion Research Institute that found that white evangelical Protestants were the only religious group in which a majority (57 percent) said they’re bothered when they encounter immigrants who don’t speak English. They were also the likeliest to say that they have little or nothing in common with immigrants."
 ---
We have never had a strutting, malignant narcissist as president, not like this.

Trump is so lost in his solipsistic delusions that he gazed longingly, and narrating his walk across a stage, began fondling an American flag after a talk because Trump loves America so much he couldn't contain himself.

Fox News Insider reported the spectacle like this: "President Trump showed his love for America on Tuesday in a video that has now gone viral."

Trumpists — the bigoted, vile bunch of white Evangelicals and racists who actually support this goon — are as ethically indictable as Trump or Trump TV.

Whether it's Kiron, Iowa or Kenosha, Wisconsin, Trump supporters are enabling this regime of cruelty and bedlam.

Not even the spectacle of 1,000s of children and babies being snatched, caged and trafficked across the country is sufficient to break support among followers because cruelty is the point behind most of Trump's support.

Cut these idiots off. If they own a business: Boycott it. If they live in your neighborhood: Avoid them. Oppose them in any decent way you can conceive.

Farron Cousins of the Ring of Fire is not surprised by anything Trump or his followers do or say.

Police State America

Armed and dangerous, ready-to-kill agent checks passports

"What no one seemed to notice was the ever widening gap ... between the government and the people. ... What happened here was the gradual habituation of the people, little by little, to being governed by surprise; to receiving decisions deliberated in secret; to believing that the situation was so complicated that the government had to act on information which the people could not understand, or so dangerous that, even if the people could not understand it, it could not be released because of national security."
— Milton Mayer's They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-45 (University of Chicago Press. ©1955).

Police-state America is a leviathan into which America stumbled.

Plenty of racists and fascists around, check your local municipal cops, but the hostility of the 1,000,000s of cops happened slowly, with silent accent or loud complicity from liberal mayors and the local corporate press.

On the national front, Dave Lindorff, a writer returning from the Philippines, Hong Kong and China, was subjected to, and witness to where the United States now stands vis a vis other authoritarian countries around the world.

Give Lindorff's piece a good read because the Untied States is going to get worse before it gets better.

Cops Push New Draconian Laws Squelching Protests

George Grosz, God of War, 1940,
Fear of the Other

'You can see how easy it was, then, not to think about fundamental things'

Madison, Wisconsin — President* Trump holds occasional rallies with cops, noting his political support from the local police gangs in blue and military-black.

The police-anti-liberty-Trump movement does not draw much attention.

It should. Ever wonder why cops are so in thrall of Trump?

Trump and cops share the same values: Fascistic distaste of civil liberties, hostility towards ethnic minorities and disdain towards open expression.

Consider Trump's administration* is the first openly white-supremacist executive branch in modern America.

Its pro-white, anti-human rights values are shared by most American cops.

Simon Davis-Cohen and Sarah Lazare report at In These Times a new front against Americans from cops.

Across the country cops are working for new legislation to devastate Americans who protest increasingly fascistic policies and misconduct, especially protests against police violence.

Report Davis-Cohen and Lazare:

'Cops are going to keep pursuing ways to keep themselves above the fray and unaccountable for the things they do,' says Tony Williams, a member of the MPD150, a police abolitionist project that recently released a "150-year performance review of the Minneapolis Police Department. 'It's a naked case of self-interest more than anything else.'

Minneapolis police aren’t alone: According to research conducted for In These Times in partnership with Ear to the Ground, law enforcement in at least eight states—Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Washington and Wyoming—lobbied on behalf of anti-protest bills in 2017 and 2018. The bills ran the gamut from punishing face coverings at protests to increasing penalties for 'economic disruption' and highway blockage to criminalizing civil protests that interfere with 'critical infrastructure' like oil pipelines.

Victory, power, freedom, safety, greatness, the Trump-police alliance against disruption and terrorists is becoming more ambitious as a nation sleep-walks its way into the Spring 2018.
--
One book to suggest to America's youth, to anyone, it is Milton Mayer's They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-45 (University of Chicago Press. ©1955).

Mayer, an American Jewish writer who had gone to Germany in the 1930s, made friends with 10 people, all of whom were members of the NAZI Party. He found them courteous, funny, genuine human beings whom he called "friends." They were also fools and certainly were guilty.
---
From Milton Mayer:

But Then It Was Too Late

"What no one seemed to notice," said a colleague of mine, a philologist, "was the ever widening gap, after 1933, between the government and the people. Just think how very wide this gap was to begin with, here in Germany. And it became always wider. You know, it doesn’t make people close to their government to be told that this is a people’s government, a true democracy, or to be enrolled in civilian defense, or even to vote. All this has little, really nothing, to do with knowing one is governing.

"What happened here was the gradual habituation of the people, little by little, to being governed by surprise; to receiving decisions deliberated in secret; to believing that the situation was so complicated that the government had to act on information which the people could not understand, or so dangerous that, even if the people could not understand it, it could not be released because of national security. And their sense of identification with Hitler, their trust in him, made it easier to widen this gap and reassured those who would otherwise have worried about it.

"This separation of government from people, this widening of the gap, took place so gradually and so insensibly, each step disguised (perhaps not even intentionally) as a temporary emergency measure or associated with true patriotic allegiance or with real social purposes. And all the crises and reforms (real reforms, too) so occupied the people that they did not see the slow motion underneath, of the whole process of government growing remoter and remoter.

"You will understand me when I say that my Middle High German was my life. It was all I cared about. I was a scholar, a specialist. Then, suddenly, I was plunged into all the new activity, as the university was drawn into the new situation; meetings, conferences, interviews, ceremonies, and, above all, papers to be filled out, reports, bibliographies, lists, questionnaires. And on top of that were the demands in the community, the things in which one had to, was ‘expected to’ participate that had not been there or had not been important before. It was all rigmarole, of course, but it consumed all one’s energies, coming on top of the work one really wanted to do. You can see how easy it was, then, not to think about fundamental things. One had no time." ...

A community member holds up a fist outside the Minneapolis Police Federation
union office, following the raid eviction of demonstrators camped out in front
of the Minneapolis Police Department's 4th Precinct location, blocks from
where Jamar Clark was killed by police weeks prior.
(Tony Webster/Flickr/Creative Commons)

$ 7 Million Verdict in Wisconsin for Family of Woman Gunned Down by Police in 2014

The face of hate in Madison, Wisconsin wears military blue
and black. Killers, Justin Bailey and Gary Pihlaja, have bad
attitudes and they found a home with the local police.

Madison, Wisconsin — A jury in U.S. District Court in Wisconsin spoke loud and clear:

26-year-old Ashley DiPiazza need not have been gunned down by Madison police in 2014.  Post-911, unreasonable policing in which everyone is subject to lethal force by occupying military-police units must stop now.

For family and friends of Ashley DiPiazza, a record $7 Million verdict will do little to ease the trauma of losing a young woman to killers. Said Joe DiPiazza, Ashley's father: "She had just told me all her friends were married and had kids, and she felt a little left out. She’d ask, ‘Dad, what kind of mother do you think I’d make to my child?’ I told her she’d be great,'" (Schultz, Wisconsin State Journal).

The federal civil rights case, Estate of Ashley DiPiazza v. City of Madison, Justin Bailey, Gary Pihlaja, resulted in "$4 million in compensatory and $3 million in punitive damages," reports Rob Schultz, Wisconsin State Journal.

Ashley DiPiazza, 26, was gunned
down by Madison, Wisconsin
police in 2014

Even as the Wisconsin citizenry is increasingly saying, 'no' to police killing people, the local police union and Madison Police, 'never-saw-a-killer-cop-I-didn't-like' Mike Koval bemoaned without irony police now may have to think before killing people, (Schultz, Wisconsin State Journal).

Life is cheap for killers, Justin Bailey and Gary Pihlaja, Not so for most others. Reports Schultz, in the Wisconsin State Journal:

After the verdict, the jury heard friends and family members recall how DiPiazza had many friends, loved her family, was responsible and had a couple of relationships with young men that left her disheartened.

At the time of the shooting, DiPiazza also was grieving over the impending death of her mother, Michelle Duby, of Lake Geneva, who died of cancer two days after DiPiazza was killed, DiPiazza’s father said. 

A disheartened Ashley DiPiazza was gunned down by miserable people to whom life means little.

It's not supposed to be this way. But Ashley DiPiazza is just another stat on the Killed-by-Police chronicle of horror:

Ashley DiPiazza was killed by Wisconsin police in May 2014, (Killed by Police)

Judge Alex Kozinski on Prosecutorial Misconduct

Judge Alex Kozinski of the U.S. Court of
Appeals for the 9th Circuit, (official photo).

Did the government react in horror at having been caught with its hands in the cookie jar? Did Justice Department lawyers rend their garments and place ashes on their head to mourn this violation of their most fundamental duty of candor and fairness? No way, no how. Instead, the government argued strenuously that its ill-gotten conviction should stand because boys will be boys and the evidence wasn’t material to the case anyway.
 ---
Eugene Volokh in the Washington Post offers remarks on the most American of derangement and inhumanity: the Police-prosecutor state.

Prosecutors from the United States Attorneys' offices to county district attorneys to municipal attorneys' offices are left unchecked with near-absolute power to cite with civil citations, prosecute, financially ruin and destroy lives under the color of law.

This near-absolute power does tend to corrupt nearly always.

Critical reading; notes Volokh:

... I began serializing “Criminal Law 2.0,” a new article by Judge Alex Kozinski — for whom I clerked 20 years ago, who is one of our nation’s most prominent appellate judges and has long been seen as on balance a libertarianish conservative (appointed by President Ronald Reagan). The introduction gave 12 reasons to worry about our criminal justice system; Wednesday’s post discussed wrongful convictions; yesterday’s post discusses the jury system, and ways to improve it; today’s post discusses prosecutorial misconduct; and I’ll post other parts of the article in the days to come. I’ve added some paragraph breaks and removed the footnotes (which are available in the PDF version), but otherwise this is as Judge Kozinski wrote it. [Writes Kozinski]:

Prosecutors hold tremendous power, more than anyone other than jurors, and often much more than jurors because most cases don’t go to trial. Prosecutors and their investigators have unparalleled access to the evidence, both inculpatory and exculpatory, and while they are required to provide exculpatory evidence to the defense under Brady, Giglio, and Kyles v. Whitley, it is very difficult for the defense to find out whether the prosecution is complying with this obligation.

Prosecutors also have tremendous control over witnesses: They can offer incentives — often highly compelling incentives — for suspects to testify. This includes providing sweetheart plea deals to alleged co-conspirators and engineering jail-house encounters between the defendant and known informants.

Sometimes they feed snitches non-public information about the crime so that the statements they attribute to the defendant will sound authentic. And, of course, prosecutors can pile on charges so as to make it exceedingly risky for a defendant to go to trial. There are countless ways in which prosecutors can prejudice the fact-finding process and undermine a defendant’s right to a fair trial.

This, of course, is not their job. Rather, as the Supreme Court has held, '[A prosecutor] is in a peculiar and very definite sense the servant of the law, the twofold aim of which is that guilt shall not escape or innocence suffer. He may prosecute with earnestness and vigor — indeed, he should do so. But, while he may strike hard blows, he is not at liberty to strike foul ones.'

All prosecutors purport to operate just this way and I believe that most do. My direct experience is largely with federal prosecutors and, with a few exceptions, I have found them to be fair-minded, forthright and highly conscientious.

But there are disturbing indications that a non-trivial number of prosecutors — and sometimes entire prosecutorial offices — engage in misconduct that seriously undermines the fairness of criminal trials. The misconduct ranges from misleading the jury, to outright lying in court and tacitly acquiescing or actively participating in the presentation of false evidence by police.

Prosecutorial misconduct is a particularly difficult problem to deal with because so much of what prosecutors do is secret. If a prosecutor fails to disclose exculpatory evidence to the defense, who is to know? Or if a prosecutor delays disclosure of evidence helpful to the defense until the defendant has accepted an unfavorable plea bargain, no one will be the wiser. Or if prosecutors rely on the testimony of cops they know to be liars, or if they acquiesce in a police scheme to create inculpatory evidence, it will take an extraordinary degree of luck and persistence to discover it — and in most cases it will never be discovered.

There are distressingly many cases where such misconduct has been documented, but I will mention just three to illustrate the point. The first is United States v. Stevens, the prosecution of Ted Stevens, the longest serving Republican Senator in history.

Senator Stevens was charged with corruption for accepting the services of a building contractor and paying him far below market price — essentially a bribe. The government’s case hinged on the testimony of the contractor, but the government failed to disclose the initial statement the contractor made to the FBI that he was probably overpaid for the services. The government also failed to disclose that the contractor was under investigation for unrelated crimes and thus had good reason to curry favor with the authorities.

Stevens was convicted just a week before he stood for re-election and in the wake of the conviction, he was narrowly defeated, changing the balance of power in the Senate. The government’s perfidy came to light when a brave FBI agent by the name of Chad Joy blew the whistle on the government’s knowing concealment of exculpatory evidence.

Did the government react in horror at having been caught with its hands in the cookie jar? Did Justice Department lawyers rend their garments and place ashes on their head to mourn this violation of their most fundamental duty of candor and fairness? No way, no how. Instead, the government argued strenuously that its ill-gotten conviction should stand because boys will be boys and the evidence wasn’t material to the case anyway.

It was only the extraordinary persistence and the courageous intervention of District Judge Emmet Sullivan, who made it clear that he was going to dismiss the Stevens case and then ordered an investigation of the government’s misconduct that forced the Justice Department to admit its malfeasance — what else could it do? — and move to vacate the former senator’s conviction. Instead of contrition, what we have seen is Justice Department officials of the highest rank suffering torn glenoid labrums from furiously patting themselves on the back for having 'done the right thing.' ...

I have never heard a prosecutor of any variety say of the wrongfully convicted, the wrongfully fined: Something must be done, an innocent has suffered.

Milwaukee Cops Harassed Wisconsin State Rep, He's Now Co-Plaintiff in ACLU Suit Against Cops

Wisconsin State Rep. David C.
Crowley, (D-Milwaukee), was
pulled over by Milwaukee
cops with guns drawn, searched
and frisked. Crowley is a
black human being.

Updated - Armed police stopping anyone, invading homes, harassing, issuing bogus citations, and arresting is now public policy in Wisconsin, and one surmises other states as well.

This is a fact of American society that remains hidden to many.

In the class-action suit filed in federal court in Milwaukee, Collins v. City of Milwaukee, et al, citizens are pleading their liberties under the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments of the United States Constitution. See ACLU press release.

The following piece was first published in The Pontiac Tribune by Isiah Holmes.

By Isiah Holmes, (via Cop Block)

Wisconsin’s ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union) just amended their lawsuit against the Milwaukee Police Department. The action, filed at the beginning of 2017 blasting problematic stop and frisks, increased its plaintiff list. Now, Representative David Crowley, (D-Milwaukee), is joining as a victim of harassment in the troubled city.

Milwaukee-local TFC, (The Fifth Column), writers were notified of these developments by Wisconsin ACLU Associate Director Molly Collins. The notification was issued as a press release to TFC, and other local media outlets. According to the release, Rep. Crowley–of Wisconsin’s 17th Assembly District–was subjected to an unnerving MPD stop.

ACLU recounted Crowley’s experience, taking place before he’d been elected to his current position. While walking with his god brother, the pair heard distant gunshots and opted to walked away. Gun violence can be quite common in some parts of Milwaukee, particularly during the summer. "A patrol car stopped in front of us," says Crowley, "and two officers jumped out with guns drawn and pointed right at us. I was terrified."

He then states officers took their wallets and I.D’s as the pair stood with hands up. "The officers drew their guns on us, searched us without our consent, and never explained why," Crowley states. The pair were then asked if they’d discarded a gun in the field they were walking in. Rep. Crowley feels MPD "treated us like suspects, yet we had done nothing wrong." As many with similar experiences feel, Crowley states officers "decided the Constitution didn’t apply to us."

ACLU’s lawsuit also added other new plaintiffs, both with similar tales. 19 year old Jeremiah Oliver says he was stopped without reasonable suspicion, ACLU’s statement reads. Yet another, Jeremy Brown, claims an officer stopped him because he didn’t recognize his face. According to ACLU, Brown was then ordered to drop everything, and stand against a fence for questioning. Upon returning from the police station, Brown was issued a $185 disorderly conduct ticket.

The Milwaukee Police Department has been routinely interfering in the lives of tens of thousands of Black and Latino residents, stopping them, searching them, and worse—all without reasonable suspicion and as if the Constitution didn’t exist – Karyn Rotker, senior staff attorney at the ACLU of Wisconsin.

Rotker goes onto state the MPD’s routine harassment of minority citizens has deeply eroded trust. Without it, the department’s ability to effectively investigate crime is inherently crippled. Ultimately, ACLU hopes to help improve MPD’s oversight, and community discourse. Not only that, but–as Collins expressed to the author in March–the nonprofit hopes other departments take notice. In Milwaukee County, this may be necessary, as MPD isn’t the only concerning department.

In a nearby suburb, which borders Milwaukee, officers have long been accused of racially-biased policing. The Wauwatosa Police Department, although largely overshadowed by MPD, has left lasting negative impressions in some residents. Such feelings boiled over last summer, when an officer shot his second person in 11 months.

The circumstances surrounding Jay Anderson’s shooting continue to bounce around the community. Namely, many residents were disturbed at WPD’s lack of transparency in the case, and pushback against protests staged by Anderson’s family. These actions, in fact, were provoked by WPD’s reluctance to disclose any information regarding the killing. Prior to the shooting, which the author covered extensively, WPD’s transparency issues became the subject of a documentary, also produced by the author.

When the lawsuit was first filed in Febrary, MPD Chief Ed Flynn defended his department’s stop and frisk procedure. Specifically, Flynn pointed to a lack of citizen complaints despite increased stops. As Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported, most stops don’t produce tickets, or even arrests. That fact, however, does not remedy the level of distrust the policy has generated throughout Milwaukee.

It’s difficult to predict exactly how MPD will eventually respond to any success the lawsuit might have. Last year, MPD consented to a DOJ practices probe during a time ripe with protests and investigations. The move was encouraging, as other departments reviewed at that time didn’t consent to probes. MPD also went the extra mile, with Chief Flynn attending a massive public forum to hear grievances. The audience choked with dissatisfied citizens victimized by stops, beatings, searches, and even more serious offenses like rape.

Confidence in the meeting, however, waned after MPD was then caught using Stingray cell data surveillance to illegally monitor citizens. The surveillance operations were so sketchy, in fact, that they were hidden from courts. Wauwatosa PD also collects and analyzes cell data, though how they achieve this isn’t currently known.

As the lawsuit develops, it’s becoming increasingly clear that something must give. In the last year, Milwaukee has had massive riots, several police shootings, including routine practices. The playing field is primed for ACLU’s lawsuit to make headway of some kind. If not, then the public’s resentment and frustration will simply manifest again.
#
Below is the ACLU of Wisconsin press release:

State Legislator Joins ACLU Lawsuit Against MPD Stop-and-Frisk Program

MILWAUKEE — Last night, the American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of Wisconsin, and the law firm of Covington and Burling filed an amended complaint in their class-action lawsuit against the city of Milwaukee over its police department’s vast stop-and-frisk program. The revised complaint adds three named plaintiffs to the lawsuit, one of whom is Representative David Crowley, a state legislator representing Wisconsin’s 17th Assembly District. Like the other named plaintiffs and tens of thousands of other Milwaukeeans of color, Rep. Crowley has been subject to an unconstitutional stop and frisk by the Milwaukee police without reasonable suspicion of criminal activity and based on racial profiling.

One evening before he was elected to the Wisconsin State Assembly, Rep. Crowley was walking with his godbrother in Milwaukee. “We heard gunshots in the distance, so we walked in the other direction to avoid trouble. A patrol car stopped in front of us, and two officers jumped out with guns drawn and pointed right at us. I was terrified,” said Rep. Crowley.

He and his godbrother put up their hands. The police frisked them, taking their wallets from their pants pockets and pulling their IDs from the wallets. One officer asked if the two men had thrown a gun into the field where they had been walking.

“The police treated us like suspects, yet we had done nothing wrong. The officers drew their guns on us, searched us without our consent, and never explained why,” said Rep. Crowley. “As young Black men, we were presumed guilty. The police decided that the Constitution doesn’t apply to us.”

Another new plaintiff in the suit is Jerimiah Olivar, a 19-year-old Latino Milwaukeean, who was stopped and frisked by police without reasonable suspicion while riding his bike in the early afternoon. The third new plaintiff, Jeremy Brown, is Black, and a police officer stopped him while he was walking one morning because the officer didn't recognize his face. The officer ordered Mr. Brown to drop what he was carrying and stand against a fence while he questioned him. Mr. Brown was eventually taken to the police station and released with a $185 ticket for disorderly conduct.

“The Milwaukee Police Department has been routinely interfering in the lives of tens of thousands of Black and Latino residents, stopping them, searching them, and worse—all without reasonable suspicion and as if the Constitution didn’t exist,” said Karyn Rotker, senior staff attorney at the ACLU of Wisconsin. “The department’s practices have caused Black and Latino Milwaukeeans to deeply distrust and fear police, crippling its ability to investigate crime.”

The Milwaukee Police Department conducts far more stops and frisks in neighborhoods that are predominantly Black or Latino than in other parts of the city.

Collins v. City of Milwaukee seeks reforms of the Milwaukee Police Department that protect constitutional rights through bias-free and evidence-based policing, transparency, and accountability. These reforms include an end to conducting stops and frisks without reasonable suspicion and to stopping people based on race or ethnicity. The lawsuit also seeks improved training, supervision, and monitoring of officers who conduct stops and frisks, and the collection and semiannual release to the public of data on all stops and frisks to permit analysis for evidence of constitutional violations.

For the amended complaint and more information about the lawsuit:

ACLU:https://www.aclu.org/cases/collins-et-al-v-city-milwaukee-et-al
ACLU of Wisconsin: http://aclu-wi.org/issue/collins-v-city-milwaukee
For more information about Covington & Burling:https://www.cov.com/

PDF Download: 

2017_5_23AmdedCmplt.pdf

Wisconsin Rep Offers Self-Limiting Bill Guiding Cops to Preserve Life

Madison, Wisconsin — In the better-than-nothing-I-guess category comes a bill in the Wisconsin legislature suggesting in essence police employ measures not to kill people quite so often.

The police-please-stop-killing-people proposed legislative package is in memo form.

The memo is being circulated to Wisconsin Assembly members seeking legislative sponsors for what will be three separate bills. Legislators have until May 31 to sign on as sponsors.

Because the bills are drafted by a Democratic legislator, Rep. Chris Taylor, (D-Madison), the gerrymandered Wisconsin legislature controlled by Republicans will not allow the package to pass and most likely not allow a vote.

The bills themselves are self-defeating and self-negating reform.

The legislative package amounts to a tame set of proposed guidelines and principles that fail to address the reality that post-911 police act as occupying armies in communities and are allowed to kill, harass, abuse, arrest, fine amid myriad other police-state tactics against the citizenry committed by our friends in blue and military-black. (Think of a gang of anti-intellectual thugs with bad attitudes flying under the color of law with a siege mentality, lined up in opposition to people especially the darker ones.)

Consider not killing people, is the force of legislation.

Rep. Taylor's press release is reproduced below:

Rep. Taylor Announces Safe Communities Package
Legislation aimed at making law enforcement and community members safer

MADISON – Today, Rep. Taylor (D-Madison) joined legislative colleagues and community leaders to circulate legislation regarding law enforcement use of force principles, aimed at reducing incidents of officer-involved deaths and increasing safety for everyone in the community, including law enforcement.

Currently, law enforcement agencies are required to have a written policy on when force is used, but very little guidance is given about what should be in that policy. All of the policy recommendations incorporated in the legislation come directly from law enforcement professionals, including both individual officers and national groups and taskforces that have studied policing issues. Additionally, the Law Enforcement Standards Board (LESB) has indicated these principles are entirely consistent with the way law enforcement officers are trained.

A piece of the package would require a law enforcement agency’s use of force policy to incorporate that the primary duty of law enforcement is to preserve the life of all individuals, that deadly force should be used as a last resort, that officers should use skills and tactics that minimize the likelihood that force will become necessary, that if officers must use physical force, it should be the least amount of force necessary to safely address the threat, and that officers must intervene if they witness a colleague using excessive force.

“Adopting more specific use of force standards makes everyone safer,” said Rep. Taylor. “Departments around the country have seen quantitative success in reducing officer injury, the use of force, and officer-involved deaths. Having these principles, which are consistent with the way officers are trained, in a written policy, is important so that the community can see these critical pieces are an expectation.”

Other pieces of the package specify that at least 8 of the annual 24 hour officer training requirement focus on use of force options, emphasizing de-escalation. Additionally, the package directs the LESB to establish a model use of force policy addressing interactions with the mentally ill and other vulnerable populations. Finally, the package requires that a law enforcement agency’s written use of force policy be published online to increase transparency and accessibility.

“These are common-sense reforms that communities and law enforcement can agree upon to enhance the safety of everyone in the community,” said Rep. Taylor. “It’s time to move forward together.”

Fitchburg, Wisc Police Harassment Escalates Against Poll Worker Who Blew Whistle on Voter Obstruction

Rushed piece follows no sleep by author, and inflicted trauma to household by 1:00 a.m., police intrusion

First-person report- updated

Fitchburg, Wisconsin — Somewhere deep in my life experience, I don't want to believe cops are lying, harassing pieces of human filth.

But I know better after living 53 years in Wisconsin.

Following the Aug. 9, 2016 civil citation given to Fitchburg, Wisconsin polling worker who blew the whistle on voter obstruction, police have harassed a home in a quiet, suburban neighborhood.

From an email sent this morning to Fitchburg, Wisconsin officials documenting what is one sense light harassment, but is in our home intimate betrayal and police misconduct, (see Mal Contends and Mal Contends).

James,

Would you forward to the judge? I want this documented in real time.

Judge H.E., please preserve this email as a record.

Tom Clauder, you have the most-heavy police background, read on and tell me this is acceptable behavior by police. Tell me this is the way it was in my Cap Times days when I covered Fitchburg.

This morning at approximately 1:00 a.m. Jackie and I were awakened to the Fitchburg police harassing our home. That's one in the morning, people, and I have not been back to sleep since. Jackie caught some two hours. We're clearing out calendars as we can, we do need to sleep.

This is the second time Fitchburg police have harassed our home is the last two months, both on laughably ridiculous pretexts.

Both times Jackie has been driven to tears. I can tell you that this is a less-than-gratifying experience. This harassment follows the Aug 9, 2016 harassment and the polls and our home.

The perp is Fitchburg police, and on both occasions cops shined powerful, (spotlight-intense), lights into our home after creeping around the outside of our home (in our quiet, peaceful neighborhood save the harassment by cops) and then lying to our face about what they were doing.

This is effectively terrorizing us in our home. I have alerted a civil liberties atty who asked to be kept posted after the last time this occurred earlier this year, calling him/her at 2:00 in the morning, for Christ's sake.

The pretext, the lie told to us after confronted the cops by phone, is about as credible as the Sgt with whom we spoke by phone at 1:30 this morning. Whatever you may believe about the character and nature of Fitchburg police, know these are not honorable individuals. Read on.

Two months ago, it was a car accident in the area that the cops said was "traced" to our address, which is easily disconfirmed, but resulted in no apologies to us. Moreover, when I walked outside to confront the two cops digging in the snow behind our bushes, I told them they looked "busy" but would like to know what is going on. I believe in retrospect the cops were planting evidence of footprints in the fresh snow for another purpose. This is felony misconduct, people.

This morning the Fitchburg Police Department said there was a 911 call "traced" to this address. On both occasions Jackie and I were dead-asleep, which is to say the cops lied, and their supervisors covered for them instead of investigating this harassment. "Traced," now, that is one bullshit word.

This kind of story is not one which is in the public sphere of consensus attitudes towards police, (but we are learning about the motivations and actions of these people).

This is a ridiculous situation, and the cops know this to be ridiculous but who will say anything? Writers, civil liberties activists, (and lawyers) that's who. I will say something, and will not stop until we are granted some measure of legal relief.

Therein is the motivation behind cops acting like thugs and prowlers in the night. Retaliation against me for what I write, and the civil liberties violations against others on which I have reported while working as a Fitchburg poll worker, (2007-2016).

I am taking legal measures of course, bringing these matters to the attention of newly elected city officials is one among many measures, but should I have to?

Neither Jackie nor I are is prepared or schooled on how to handle being harassed by cops.

With the approaching warm months, the only real concern we have Re safety, health and security is police harassment and being awakened at 1:00 in the morning, accomplished with bad intentions to inflict injury onto our household.

In any event this harassment, twice in two months, precedes my trial against the bogus civil citation. That trial is May 10, 5:00 p.m. I urge you to attend. My provisional conclusion is hostile cops wish to intimidate me and traumatize my disabled life partner so we will forgo our defense.

On the memory of my mother, I intend to litigate this citation and the harassment Jackie and I have endured. I will litigate first in muny court, then county district court, then federal dist court, and will be filling every complaint and making use of every civil defense against this apparent harassment project dating back to at least Aug 9. 2016.

Believe it. Oh, and pls consider acting.

A call to Fitchburg PD expressing concern would be a start, asking, for example, just what the hell do these people think they are doing?

Another Day, Another Cop Brutalizes Another Black Man

Demarco Anderson's head is stomped to pavement
whiled hand-cuffed. Officer Zachary Rosen
of the Columbus Police Department is the perp.
After Mr. Anderson's head was smashed
into the pavement by Rosen, Anderson
asked, "Are you serious? I got cuffs on, sir."

Is this unbridled aggression a part of police training and conduct?

Yes and yes.

Here's the latest evidence from the thugs in blue and military-black, whom Donald Trump has vowed to protect: Police deceit, brutality, nothing is too anti-human and vicious, (Columbus Dispatch).

Demarco Anderson's head is stomped to pavement whiled cuffed. Officer Zachary Rosen of the Columbus Police Department is the perpetrator along with fellow thugs, video of the police thugs shows.

By Carimah Townes in ThinkProgress:

On April 8, Officer Zachary Rosen of the Columbus Police Department in Ohio stomped the head of a young black man into a sidewalk, according to video footage of the event that was uploaded last week.

The video was filmed just two weeks after Rosen eluded criminal charges for fatally shooting a 23-year-old black man.

As seen in the video, DeMarco Anderson is lying flat on the ground and in the process of having his hands cuffed behind his back when Rosen runs up and kicks him in the head. Seconds before the blow, Anderson can be heard asking, 'Why are you being aggressive, sir?' as an officer kneels on top of him. After his head hits the pavement, Anderson says, 'Are you serious? I got cuffs on, sir,' as three additional officers surround him. Moments later, he is escorted to a police vehicle.

As long as police target mostly Latinos and black folks, police can count on passive compliance by the population at large. After-all, it's not happening to you yet.

Trump's Talk with Police Group Is Facism Incarnate

George Grosz, God of War, 1940, Fear of the Other

Listening to Donald Trump's public meeting with a police-power interest group should make your skin crawl.

While law enforcement personnel routinely peddle their political support to judges and candidates for all levels of elective office, Trump's rhetorical embrace of the Fraternal Order of Police at the White House today is odious, (Washington Post).

His message is clear: Oppose police, support civil liberties and you oppose Donald Trump. Victims of police, you get what you deserve.

Trump's veneration for "law enforcement" is replete with over-the-top rhetoric extolling police: "Great," "amazing," "incredible" saints in blue and military-black who equally praise-worthy supported Trump, always a virtue.

Said Trump in part: "I also want to thank you for your support during the election. I guess you probably know, the numbers were extremely lop-sided, right? ... As I traveled the country during my campaign, I had the great privilege to spend time with our amazing police officers who risk their lives every day to keep us safe. And I made a crucial pledge: We will always support — and you people know that better than anybody, you know me — the incredible men and women of law enforcement, I will always have your back 100-percent, like you always had mine and you showed that on November 8."

If you are a cop, and you can kill, imprison, harass, fine and attack innocents, and you have a friend in Donald Trump and his "great" attorney general, Jeff Sessions.

At the police event, Trump pledged, "I will work night and day to make American safe again."

Americans must be celebrating the glory of Donald Trump and their local police.

Oppose Trump by Understanding Idiots

Kathe Kollwitz—Mother and Dead Son

Meaning in the 2016 elections

Updated - The suggestion that white, Trump-voting Americans represent some salt-of-the-earth demographic demanding public policy reforms is ludicrous. White Americans are dumb and dangerous, and generic fascism is forever busy.

Trump appealed to white America because he made racist and idiotic appeals and pointed to culprits, (not the actual culprits but those to whom Trump assigned blame)—corporate America and the corrupt political system that only Trump can resist, its jobs-destroying mission implemented by Ivy Leaguers; those ass-hats from Malaysian and Indian call centers who frustrate real Americans while taking away American jobs; Jewish politically correct academics trying to tell you what to do; vote fraudsters cancelling your vote; and an assorted cast of elites, others and aliens who in some way on some day are coming after you to finish the job; a process begun by first frustrating and then ultimately killing you with Islamic terrorist reprisals against the gentle volk of America, ripped from the decent culture Trump will reinstall to make America great again. It has to come from here, the gut, and Trump has it.

That the above Trump riffs are incoherent nonsense is not important because Trumpians do not think in far-reaching political terms; Trumpians do not respect logic or empirical investigation. They feel and emote in the expiation drama Trump directs as a red-blooded, real and strong leader who simultaneously is one of us. Trump is the ultimate troll for many Americans for whom trolling offers empowerment.

Assorted Trumpians abound. In Milwaukee County the Sheriff's skin color can be overlooked as long as one David Clarke wears a cowboy hat proving Clarke is our African-American who don't take no shit from the liberals and Jews, lib-tards and know-it-all fuckers with no conception of manhood.

Republicans have been making appeals with nonsense for decades but Trump's failings as a human being and psychopath do make Trump an urgent threat. Trump will burn it all down because he is gallant and strong, and real Americans are the only way of building it back up anyway.

In opposition to the Trumpian state that fake libertarians now love is an appeal to humanity. Decency still sells, and exposing the indecent anti-rational is critical.

Dumb America is now less-thinking than any time in decades precisely because progress in decency has been made over the last 60 years. Yet Americans remain reachable through reason and through art.

Art history friends have long explained the power of Eugene Higgins (1874-1968), Ben Shahn (1898-1967), and Kathe Kollwitz (1867-1945). Consider why social realism and critical realism as art movements are vital to civilization. "Higgins was concerned about what was going on around him. He cared about helping people's lives by changing society," said Jackie Captain, a Wisconsin progressive who obtained a Master's degree from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, after doing work on Higgins and Ben Shahn with Jim Dennis.

People remain reachable through decency, art and reason. Trumpians are not metaphysical. Organize a little more, be creative in reaching the population, lead with your heart and never give up.

It's no coincidence Trump and the current band of Republipukes are targeting art, public education and civil rights.

Millions Protest Trump; Cite Civil Liberties, Hate, Inequality, Environment

Nearly 100,000 protested Donald Trump at
a Madison Wisconsin rally on Jan 21 2017

Resistance as an Act of Faith in Democracy

The adminstration of Donald Trump faces hostile, popular and organized opposition arrayed against this new president holding to unwanted policies amid widespread personal revulsion.

Popular sentiment was displayed in some 600 Women Rallies for Rights events held one day after the inauguration on Saturday, (NYT), (Twitter).

Millions took to the streets across the world as Americans seek new paths of opposition to this right-wing figure who ran on a platform of hate, retaliation against political enemies, and anti-science postures causing anxiety over the future of democracy. Trump's approval rating, already at historical lows, has now plummeted to 32 percent.

The White House site now resembles a rightwing political campaign web-page, using the same language as the 2015-16 Trump campaign.

As Trump hands over control of the government to billionaires, corporations and open racists, the shock of the election of Trump has millions shaken in their faith of democracy, and the intelligence and decency of white America.

From Charlie P. Pierce at Esquire

Faces of resistance at Madison Wisconsin at pro-people
rally Jan 21, 2017. At front is Kate Stormer

"Take Hitler and stick him on the funny page!"

WASHINGTON, D.C.—In 1978, there was a fairly big protest in Washington in favor of the passage of the Equal Rights Amendment. Janet Dunn came down from Connecticut. Her daughter Laurie came with her. The crowd was big. The Dunns were excited. The ERA, of course, never passed because what was then called The New Right mobilized against it primarily through an activist woman named Phyllis Schlafly. On Saturday, I caught up with Laurie and Janet Dunn, as well as Janet's son, Mitchell, in the middle of an immovable mass of humanity that filled a wide boulevard from building to building on either side. Mitchell was leading the way. Laurie was working from behind, asking people to make some sort of room for them. Janet was in a wheelchair. After all, she's 91-years-old now.

As we moved through the throng as a sort of small parade of our own—The Dunns picked up a few folks in their wake as they moved along, including me—Janet became something of a star. There would be room to move for a few dozen yards and then we would come up on one of the video screens carrying the speeches from the main stage at 3rd Street and Independence and the crowd would solidify again. And you'd hear Ashley Judd or Michael Moore or Debbie Wasserman Schultz—yeah, I couldn't believe it, either—for a few minutes and then Laurie and the rest of us would start politely asking the folks to make a hole and make it wide.
- Read the rest of Pierce's dispatch at Esquire -

Sharon Captain at pro-equality, anti-Trump
rally in Duluth, Minnesota, Jan. 21, 2017
(Facebook)

In 20th century America, it was a decades-long parlor game ruminating over the face of fascism in America, should it arrive. Fascism has always been here, but most of us have not noticed until it touches us personally.

Now, a fascist is in the White House and Americans are looking to their futures and they are determined, they are scared, and there is no stopping Americans working together against fascism.

Popular opinion has smashed the worst of presidents, the most destructive of wars, and the cruelest systems of injustice.

Fascism is ever busy, hate is a force never at rest.

The idea, the slander, that fascism and hate will prevail over liberty and love is belied by the multitudes who in the words of Bertrand Russell cast hope over fear. Trump as troller-in-chief wishes despair and hopelessness on America; such is the object of the fascist.

From Russell's Proposed Roads To Freedom - Socialism, Anarchism and Syndicalism, (1918, Cornwall Press, Inc, Cornwall New York), [Chapter VIII, The World As It Could Be Made]:

... Those whose lives are fruitful to themselves, to their friends, or to the world are inspired by hope and sustained by joy: they see in imagination the things that might be and the way in which they are to be brought into existence. In their private relations they are not pre-occupied with anxiety lest they should lose such affection and respect as they receive: they are engaged in giving affection and respect freely, and the reward comes of itself without their seeking. In their work they are not haunted by jealousy of competitors, but concerned with the actual matter that has to be done. In politics, they do not spend time and passion defending unjust privileges of their class or nation, but they aim at making the world as a whole happier, less cruel, less full of conflict between rival greeds, and more full of human beings whose growth has not been dwarfed and stunted by oppression.

A life lived in this spirit--the spirit that aims at creating rather than possessing--has a certain fundamental happiness, of which it cannot be wholly robbed by adverse circumstances. This is the way of life recommended in the Gospels, and by all the great teachers of the world. Those who have found it are freed from the tyranny of fear, since what they value most in their lives is not at the mercy of outside power. If all men could summon up the courage and the vision to live in this way in spite of obstacles and discouragement, there would be no need for the regeneration of the world to begin by political and economic reform: all that is needed in the way of reform would come automatically, without resistance, owing to the moral regeneration of individuals. But the teaching of Christ has been nominally accepted by the world for many centuries, and yet those who follow it are still persecuted as they were before the time of Constantine. Experience has proved that few are able to see through the apparent evils of an outcast's life to the inner joy that comes of faith and creative hope. If the domination of fear is to be overcome, it is not enough, as regards the mass of men, to preach courage and indifference to misfortune: it is necessary to remove the causes of fear, to make a good life no longer an unsuccessful one in a worldly sense, and to diminish the harm that can be inflicted upon those who are not wary in self- defense. ...

Resistance is strong

Opposing Trump Is Easy, Fun and Critical

Your brain is under attack. Defense is easy: Use your brain.

Canvassing black and brown sectors in segregated Wisconsin, one walks away with an inescapable conclusion: Few folks are organized, many are apolitical, and most appear hopeless about the electoral system.

As Noam Chomsky has often noted, most people believe "government is made up of a few big interests looking out for themselves and not for the people," (ChomskyInfo).

This well-founded belief is entrenched in segregated neighborhoods as well as more affluent white sectors.

In minority neighborhoods, the most visible and malicious manifestation of the state is typically the local police force—dangerous collections of amped-up wannabes exhibiting police-state phantasms, (Gin and Tacos). It takes a certain misanthropic personality to hurt someone.

Donald Trump will make things worse. From the national to the local governments come malice, conditions that likely in themselves do not lend to politicization.

There is no excuse not to oppose Donald Trump. Try Googling 'how to oppose Trump'.

Forget praying, try organizing; better yet attempt to think.

"They thunder forth from their clouds about gentleness and
forbearance, while they sacrifice human victims to the God of love,"
George Grosz (Rosenwald Collection; 1951.10.299;
National Gallery of Art)