Reality Steps In...

Brunch Time!

If it's Wednesday… LET'S ROCK!

One day, perhaps, I may post here a detailed description of my posting strategy on the Discussionist

Were I to do that, it would be considered a concrete indication that I would have determined that posting anymore there is simply too boring and tedious an endeavor to continue.

And of course by me doing so it should not be regarded, in any way, as a criticism of other DU posters there. I would simply be describing my own style and the reasons why I used it.

I would also include detailed observations and suggestions that other DU posters are invited to use for themselves, if they are so inclined.

At this point, I have found the experience there to be quite an enjoyable one and I have no doubt that it will continue to be so in the foreseeable future.

Again, I thank Skinner, Elad and EarlG for such a marvelous opportunity to interact with some of our less than Liberal friends.

I consider it a stroke of genius from the way that they've pulled it off.

Happy Posting, everybody!

Jury can’t decide if cop who destroyed woman’s eyeballs with pepper spray should go to prison

Jurors appeared deadlocked Tuesday morning in the case of a former southern California police officer who blinded a woman when he fired a blast of pepper spray into her face.

Prosecutors said 38-year-old Enoch “Jeremy” Clark became “annoyed” when 32-year-old Monique Hernandez resisted his attempts Feb. 21, 2012, to place her in handcuffs.

Clark fired a JPX gunpowder-propelled gun, which discharges chemical irritant at 400 mph, just 10 inches away from the woman’s face while arresting her for misdemeanor driving under the influence, authorities said.

A dashboard camera recording, which has not been made available to the public, shows Hernandez with her hands behind her back, moving around as Clark tries to place her in handcuffs.

The officer repeatedly tells her to stop resisting, but Hernandez insists she’s not resisting and demands to know why she’s being taken into custody.

Clark repeatedly threatens to “JPX” her if she does not stop struggling, and the video shows the officer remove the pepper spray gun from his belt and fire a blast into her face.

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/05/20/jury-cant-decide-if-cop-who-destroyed-womans-eyeballs-with-pepper-spray-should-go-to-prison/

Second world war in Google Street View

My wife and myself are both vets who use our local VA Hospital...

We both get care at the John D. Dingell VA Medical Center, in Detroit, Michigan. http://www.detroit.va.gov A really excellent facility, located in the heart of city's vast Medical Center area.

I have nothing but praise for both the hospital's staff of medical professionals and the level of care that we have received from them.

Now, I see that someone noticed that all of the problems with VA Hospitals were located in Red and Purple states.

Somehow, I'm not surprised.

If vets can get great care in a city like Detroit, with all of the problems the we have here in this deeply troubled Blue area… Then what does that has to say about the real nature of this VA care crisis in the first place?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024975453

One-Third Of California Town’s Police Force Arrested For Scheming Cars From Poor Hispanics

A six-month-long investigation in Central California culminated this week with the arrests of five members of the King City Police Department, the former police chief and the owner of a local towing company.

According to the Monterey County district attorney, for at least three-and-a-half years the city’s top police officers participated in a scheme that took advantage of poor area Hispanics by essentially stealing their cars for profit.

Investigators say King City police ordered hundreds of vehicles to be impounded — most often those driven by Hispanic immigrants — and then either kept the cars for themselves or re-sold them for profit.

Journalist Virginia Hennessey of the Monterey Herald said the scandal is “likely the most widespread case of official corruption” in the history of the county, and King City — a town of only 13,000 people and a police force of 17, saw more than one-third of its law enforcement personnel taken off duty as a result of this week’s arrest.

Automobiles scheduled to be impounded in King City are supposed to be handled on a rotating basis by one of four local towing companies. According to the complaint unveiled on Tuesday, however, Sgt. Bobby Javier Carrillo sent 87 percent of 200 vehicles impounded between March 2010 and last November to a company owned by Brian Miller — the brother of acting Police Chief Bruce Miller.

http://noarmycanstopanidea.com/one-third-of-california-towns-police-force-arrested-for-scheming-cars-from-poor-hispanics/

Din-Din time!

Police abuse Black political activist as he moves into his own house

Cops caught on tape slamming Georgia man into a wall as he moved into his new home
By Arturo Garcia

Monday, May 19, 2014 20:40 EDT



An Atlanta-area man filed a formal complaint against local authorities on Monday after video surfaced of an officer slamming him to the ground in front of his own home, WAGA-TV reported.

“I assumed — apparently incorrectly, and naively — that they were pursuing someone on foot that had fled through my yard, and I was unaware of it,” 69-year-old Dhoruba Bin-Wahad said at a press conference Monday afternoon. “I thought that that’s why they had their guns drawn.”

The May 2 encounter began when Clayton County police were called to Bin-Wahad’s residence by a neighbor who reported seeing a “suspicious” male on the vacant property. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that another witness thought Bin-Wahad was a “pervert trying to look at her or her children from the vacant location through the woods.”

According to a police report of the incident, officers described Bin-Wahad’s behavior as “uncooperative and verbally argumentative.” He was accused of taking “a bladed stance with his right side of his body” and allegedly refused to sit down when ordered to do so by them.

“When I came out of the house, the first thing I said was that ‘I’m moving in. I have the key,’” Bin-Wahad said on Monday. “They asked me why was my car in the back. I said, ‘It’s my house. I was loading boxes.’”

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/05/19/cops-caught-on-tape-slamming-georgia-man-into-a-wall-as-he-moved-into-his-new-home/