According to this news story, it seems likely the Illinois legislature is likely to pass a bill providing for a special election for State Comptroller in 2016. Normally that office is up in midterm years and has a four-year term. Judy Baar Topinka was re-elected State Comptroller in November 2014 but then she died before(More)… …read more
“You’re either a cop or little people.”—Police captain Harry Bryant in Blade Runner
For those of us who have managed to survive 2014 with our lives intact and our freedoms hanging by a thread, it has been a year of crackdowns, clampdowns, shutdowns, showdowns, shootdowns, standdowns, knockdowns, putdowns, breakdowns, lockdowns, takedowns, slowdowns, meltdowns, and never-ending letdowns.
Image Courtesy of Anthony Freda
by JOHN W. WHITEHEAD | RUTHERFORD INSTITUTE
We’ve been held up, stripped down, faked out, photographed, frisked, fracked, hacked, tracked, cracked, intercepted, accessed, spied on, zapped, mapped, searched, shot at, tasered, tortured, tackled, trussed up, tricked, lied to, labeled, libeled, leered at, shoved …read more
2014 has been a dark year as far as police brutality and corruption is concerned. No longer does the phrase “isolated incident” or “bad apple” apply. Americans have been privy to gruesome and debauched acts of cruelty from California to New York and they are anything but “isolated.”
It seems that every time we get over one horrific act, a new and even more disgusting atrocity rises up to the surface. One need only click on “Badge Abuse” in the menu above to confirm this.
Many of these repugnant scenarios would have never gotten a second look had it not been for …read more
On December 30, Iowa held a special election for State Senate, 12th district. The results: Republican Mark Costello 74.41%; Democrat Steven Adams 22.41%; Libertarian Don W. Brantz 3.18%. Here is a link to the returns on the Secretary of State’s web page. This is the first time in recent decades that the Iowa Libertarian Party(More)… …read more
The Associated Press has this story, saying the Minnesota Secretary of State has formally notified the Independence Party that it has lost its qualified status, something it has enjoyed for twenty years. The party needed to poll 5% for one of the statewide offices. The party was very unlucky, polling only 4.9% for Secretary of(More)… …read more
Police fired so many bullets that it sounded like “a fireworks grand finale”
Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania – A man was shot and killed by police in a Philadelphia suburb this Tuesday night, just days after he made inflammatory posts about police on YouTube.
A minimum of five police officers fired an unknown amount of shots at 52-year-old Joseph Anthony Pacini, claiming that he was attempting to run them over, all five of them at the same time, apparently.
In the eerie videos that he posted online earlier this month, he actually predicted his own death, saying that “Clearly these guys want me dead …read more
On December 30, U.S. District Court Judge Paul J. Barbadoro, a Bush Sr. appointee, declined to dismiss the lawsuit Libertarian Party of New Hampshire v Gardner, 1:14cv-322. The case was filed in July 2014 and challenges the new law that made it illegal for the party petition to circulate during an odd year. The state(More)… …read more
“It’s not a slowdown — it’s a virtual work stoppage.”
Image Credit: Flickr
New York, NY — The NYPD has basically stopped doing its job since the murder of officers Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu earlier this month, according to reports in the New York Post and New York Daily News, and yet the city hasn’t descended into total chaos.
The Post reported that arrests were down 66% in the week following the deaths of officers Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu, compared to the same period in 2013.
For certain offenses, the arrest levels are staggeringly low, according to the numbers put out by …read more
On December 29, the Tenth Circuit denied a request for rehearing that had been filed by Kansas and Arizona, in Kobach v U.S. Election Assistance Commission. Those two states had lost earlier this month, and had asked the court for rehearing, but it was denied. Thanks to Rick Hasen for the news. …read more
