Weekend roundup
Sunday - 17Dec2017 Filed in: Headlines
How Using Eminent Domain to Seize Land for a Border Wall Harms American Property Owners
Your property rights are gone. Also National Butterfly Center Founder: Trump’s Border Wall Prep ‘Trampling on Private Property Rights’How you can be tracked even with your GPS turned off
Why wouldn't you want to be tracked, Citizen? Are you doing something wrong?Feds moving quickly to cash in on seized bitcoin, now worth $8.4 million
Seized from a "suspected" Dark Web dealer. Not convicted, but "suspected"Federal Labor Board Reverses Bad Decision that Made Corporations Responsible for Franchise Decisions
If it's the franchisee that cut's the employee's paycheck, then the franchiser has no responsibility. This was a cash grab pure and simple.Harlem Shook: Google Is Using Its Immense Power To Censor Content That Doesn’t Fit Its Political Goals. Everyone In America Should Be Concerned About That
For all the talk about net neutrality, it's the service providers who are the real censors. Why is Google filtering results? Why is Facebook manipulating your feed and tracking down everyone you may have talked to since the sixth grade? Why is Twitter monitoring the non-Twitter online activity of it's verified members? If you are not paying for a product, you are the product.Don’t Blame Big Cable. It’s Local Governments That Choke Broadband Competition
And oldie but still accurateThe Warlock Hunt
#MeToo will destroy everyone, women and men. That's what happens when you raise table stakes.Big Brother Installing Surveillance Cameras in Places of Worship
Two simple questions. Will surveillance cameras make parishioners safer? How long until an Authority Figure™ decides to monitor the cameras to make sure the worshipers are doing things "correctly?"Bitcoin futures are about to get another big boost
“TD Ameritrade, the largest futures operation of any online brokerage, is going to allow bitcoin futures trading on its platform starting Monday.” The Federal Reserve is about to get competition.Residents Outraged as DHS Spraying Town With Chemicals—Using Them as Human Guinea Pigs
Did anyone bother asking the residents what they thought?Is climate change REALLY the culprit causing California’s wildfires?
More claims without proofCourt Rules Plastic Flamingos Okay But Growing Vegetables in Front Yard Is ILLEGAL
“That’s what government does – interferes in people’s lives.”Watch: Police body cam of innocent woman clamped in K-9’s jaws. She’s suing.
Even if she wins, the cop won't pay. In many states sovereign immunity and qualified immunity "protect" police officers, even fi the actions of the police are illegal.Thursday roundup
Thursday - 03Aug2017 Filed in: Headlines
Whatever Is On Imran Awan’s Smashed Hard Drives Likely Can Be Recovered
This will be interesting.Danish 17-year-old girl who used a pepper spray to fight off a rapist near migrant asylum centre is told SHE will be prosecuted for carrying the weapon
It's headlines like this that make me wonder if Europe has a future.Scientists Still Seek A Reliable DUI Test For Marijuana
How Civil Asset Forfeiture Reduces Economic Mobility
Related - Policing for Profit: Jeff Sessions & Co.’s Thinly Veiled Plot to Rob Us Blind. Someone please explain why civil asset forfeiture is not legalized highway robbery.Maduro’s Stranglehold On Disarmed Venezuelans
Related - Venezuela's Price Inflation Hits an Annual Rate of 952% — Venezuelan Opposition Leaders Detained at Gunpoint in Raids — Venezuelans killing flamingos and anteaters to stave off hunger amid mounting food crisis — Deadly election day in Venezuela as protesters clash with troops — Hungry Venezuelans Flee in Boats to Escape Economic Collapse — The elites and politicos are building a case for intervening in Venezuela. It's a bad idea.Pulitzer-Prize Winning Reporter: FBI Report Shows It Was Seth Rich – Not Russians – Who Gave DNC Emails to Wikileaks
Related - Lawsuit says Fox knowingly faked Seth Rich story“No Please Stop!” Dash Cam Shows Cop Fire 21 Shots as Unarmed Teens Beg for Their Lives
When will Americans start holding police officers accountable for breaking the law?Commercial Crabber Of 50 Years Tells Gore Sea Level Hasn’t Changed Since At Least 1970
Take away the adjusted numbers and there is no climate change.Navajo Nation Purchases Colorado Land
This has been in the works for a while. It gives the Diné a place close to the last of their sacred mountains.Wednesday roundup
Wednesday - 19Jul2017 Filed in: Headlines
Highway robbery
Authorities in Utah Seized Nearly $3 Million in Cash and Assets From Citizens Last Year
❝❝In one case highlighted by the Salt Lake Tribune, cops seized cars and other property—including "a $25 flashlight…a $4,000 mountain bike, a $2,500 motorcycle and a guitar autographed by Led Zeppelin worth $3,000"— and charged several people after a methamphetamine bust, prosecutors say.
Cops like to publicize such busts because it feeds a narrative that asset forfeiture is used primarily against big-time drug dealers. But they're rather out of the ordinary, the report shows.
Most forfeitures (69 percent) take place during traffic stops and most of the time only money is seized. According to the state report, cash was taken in 99 percent of forfeitures during 2016, with the median seizure amounting to only $1,031.
That means, in many cases, the amount seized was considerably less than four-figures. In one instance, the report shows, police took $16 from a motorist.❞
— Eric Boehm