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Behind The Woodshed 4th year Anniversary at Real Liberty Media
At the Situationally Aware Action Oriented Intelligence Center
Of Evolutionary Engagement
The Victory Against You in the Silent War is Your Silence
Terrorists IS US
Engaging in counter-propaganda tactics and related work
The Civil War Is Over
- BREAKING: Syrian Army Has Reached the Iraqi Border, Cutting off the Americans at al-Tanf
TURN ON ENG SUBS
The Syrian Army has reached the Iraqi border, according to the Russian Ministry of Defense.
While we don’t have a lot of details yet, here’s what we can say: this is a brilliant move if true. Not exactly a checkmate yet, but definitely a check on US ambitions in southern Syria.
In essence, as Americans were busy bombing small Syrian groups entering their declared exclusion zone via the main road, a separate Syrian force staged a lightning-quick advance through roadless desert, well to the east of the “deconfliction” zone enveloping the Americans.
If the US forces are not cut off from ISIS they no longer have an excuse to continue occupying this part of Syria. (Or will they insist they get to leapfrog over the Syrian army?)
Russians are saying it will be them and the Syrians — rather than the Americans — who will be advancing along the Iraqi border towards al-Bukamal (the major border crossing in the Euphrates valley coveted by the Pentagon)
Russian officers also accused the US of hindering the Syrian war effort against ISIS, by blocking its military from opening a new front against the group:
“The coalition air forces and the strongholds of the forces of New Syrian Army have blocked the way of the government forces, tasked with defeating IS groups.”
“This is a violation of the sovereign right of Syria to protect it borders.”
Apparently in sync with the Syrian army move south, Iraqi forces likewise advanced against ISIS from their side and met on the border. Thus Syria has not just reached the formal Iraqi border, but actually re-established an actual link to Iraq. - Quit Pussyfoot’n
Hey! You Do Have Rights
- The Supreme Court Just Bolstered Your Right to Repair Stuff
Impression v. Lexmark
Lexmark sells two kinds of cartridges: an expensive, reusable model; and a less expensive, single-use one. The only mechanical difference? The cheap cartridge features a chip that disables the damn thing once you refill it. Lexmark also made consumers sign a “post-sale restriction” contract stipulating that only Lexmark could collect, refill, and resell them.
Of course, people found a way around those constraints. Third-party companies collected cartridges and disabled the chip. Impression Products, a small, family-run office supply company in West Virginia, started selling refilled cartridges for less than Lexmark charged. Lexmark sued for patent infringement in 2013. Impressions CEO Eric Smith was baffled by the letters he received from Lexmark’s attorneys. The way he saw it, his company was simply selling refurbished printer cartridges, and Lexmark had no right to control cartridges after selling them.
“I’m just a little guy who felt I was being bullied in the schoolyard,” Smith told Ars Technica. “I decided to fight. Someone had to do it.”
He Sold $190 In Marijuana. So The Gov’t Seized Grandma’s $54,000 House.
Pennsylvania’s Supreme Court struck a major blow against forfeiture last week when justices ruled unanimously that it was illegal for Philadelphia authorities to seize Elizabeth Young’s house because someone in her home – her son — had less than an ounce of marijuana.
“This is one of the most important civil forfeiture decisions issued by a court and the most important ever issued in Pennsylvania,” said attorney Jason Leckerman. “The court has set forth a comprehensive constitutional framework for analyzing forfeiture claims that should substantially curb forfeiture proceedings in Pennsylvania and is likely to influence other state courts considering these issues.”
The court found that the seizure of the grandmother’s house and car because of $190 worth of marijuana was a violation of the Eighth Amendment’s ban on excessive fines, Institute for Justice attorney Nick Sabilla wrote in a Forbes article. The marijuana was sold by her adult son, Donald Graham.
Graham was sentenced to just 23 months of house arrest and never fined, but the Philadelphia District Attorney’s office decided to seize his 72-year-old mother’s house and minivan. Young’s attorneys sued, claiming the seizure of the $54,000 home was grossly disproportionate.
“Civil forfeiture punishes property owners for someone else’s wrongs,” Young’s attorney, Jessica Anthony, told The Philadelphia Inquirer. “That means individuals can lose their homes because a family member, friend, or even a stranger has been accused of using, storing or selling drugs in their home, even if no one gets convicted for the crime. The loss of one’s home . . . is a harsh punishment.”
Victory for Property Rights
Civil forfeiture takes place in civil court, where the defendant has a lower probability of winning such a case. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court may have changed that in Commonwealth v. Young by ruling that courts and prosecutors must follow U.S. Supreme Court precedence. The U.S. Supreme Court had earlier ruled that it “‘would be grossly disproportional to the offense’ to force a man to forfeit $357,144 when he pled guilty to a crime that triggered a maximum $5,000 fine,” Forbes reported.
The case only applies in Pennsylvania, but other courts might borrow from its logic, Sabilla wrote.
- Not So Fast: The Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s Check on Civil Asset Forfeiture
A dialogue has been ongoing in this country regarding the ability of the government to seize property that is alleged to be connected with criminal conduct. We have all seen forfeiture notices attached to federal indictments, and we have seen District Attorneys and State Attorneys General file civil actions against “bad” property, including cars, homes, cash, and more. On May 18, 2017, USA Today ran an article entitled “How Police Steal From Citizens,” wherein op-ed contributor Payton Alexander notes that at least 15 states are considering legislation to cut down on civil asset forfeiture, or eliminate it completely. Here, in Pennsylvania, we might not have to wait for the legislature.
On May 25, 2017, in a lengthy and detailed opinion by Justice Debra Todd, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court struck down the seizure of a 71-year-old disabled grandmother’s home and vehicle by the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office. Elizabeth Young was home on bedrest when her son, 50-year-old Donald Graham was arrested for selling marijuana out of the home and car owned by his mom. Ms. Young unsuccessfully asserted an innocent owner defense at the trial court level in an attempt to save the rowhome in which she lived for the past 40 years.
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court held that the analysis of a forfeiture action begins with a determination of whether the property is an instrumentality of a crime. If it is found to be an instrumentality, a proportionality analysis must be undertaken. The Court explained in great detail a non-exhaustive list of factors to be considered in weighing the value of the property to be seized against the gravity of the crime. In this particular case, the District Attorney’s Office argued, in part, that Mr. Graham sold drugs out of his mother’s home for years, thus placing neighbors and investigating officers in harm’s way. The Supreme Court found this analysis to be insufficient and flawed.
Perhaps the issue of greater importance addressed by the Court was that of Ms. Young’s innocent owner defense. Justice Todd explained that the trial court must identify the circumstances that make it reasonable to infer that the owner of the property had actual knowledge of the criminal conduct in order for the Commonwealth to defeat the innocent owner defense. The Court noted the difficulty a property owner might have in “proving a negative,” i.e. that she did not have knowledge of the crimes. The Court added that a home is an “especially significant type of property.” “The loss of one’s home, regardless of its monetary value, not only impacts the owner, but may impact other family members, and one’s livelihood. Indeed, the home is where one expects the greatest freedom from governmental intrusion; it not only occupies a special place in our law, but the most exacting process is demanded before the government may seize it.” The Supreme Court held that the trial court did not sufficiently consider all of the relevant circumstances in evaluating Ms. Young’s evidence proffered in support of her defense. The case has been remanded.
Pennsylvania is known to be a political swing state and can be viewed as a bellwether on certain important issues. Only time will tell whether this most recent decision of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court will lead the pack in nationwide reform of civil asset forfeiture.
Commonwealth v. 1997 Chevrolet, et al., can be found on the Court’s website here or at 2017 WL 2291733.
- COMMONWEALTH v. 1997 CHEVROLET
BEFORE: DAN PELLEGRINI, President Judge, and BONNIE BRIGANCE LEADBETTER, Judge, and RENÉE COHN JUBELIRER, Judge, and ROBERT SIMPSON, Judge, and MARY HANNAH LEAVITT, Judge, and P. KEVIN BROBSON, Judge, and PATRICIA A. McCULLOUGH, Judge.Jessica M. Anthony, Philadelphia, for appellant. Jonathan M. Levy, Assistant District Attorney, Philadelphia, for appellee.
Elizabeth Young appeals an order of the Court of Common Pleas of Philadelphia County (trial court) that granted the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania’s petition for the forfeiture of her home and her 1997 Chevrolet minivan. The trial court held that the forfeited property had facilitated the illegal sale of marijuana by Young’s son, who lived with her, and it rejected Young’s defense that she neither knew of nor consented to her son’s conduct. The trial court also rejected Young’s claim that the forfeiture of her home imposed an excessive fine for a criminal offense that consisted of her son’s four sales of marijuana, with a total value of approximately $90,1 and in which she had no involvement. For the reasons set forth below, we reverse and remand.
- Victory! Supreme Court Rules States Cannot Steal Money From The Innocent
Colorado, like most states, forces convicted criminals to pay court costs, fees, and restitution after they’ve been found guilty. But the question arises, “What happens when someone who’s been found guilty, has paid their dues, and then has their convictions overturned on appeal? Do they get their money back?” Not in many states, like Colorado. But all of that has changed after a landmark ruling from the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS).
The state not stealing money from innocent people sounds like common sense, right? Well, unfortunately, in the land of the free, it was necessary for SCOTUS to step in and tell the greedy state that they do not have a right to steal people’s money.
According to Forbes, “defendants, Shannon Nelson and Louis Madden, were convicted for sexual offenses and ordered to pay thousands of dollars in court costs, fees and restitution. Between her conviction and later acquittal, the state withheld $702 from Nelson’s inmate account, while Madden paid Colorado $1,977 after his conviction. When their convictions were overturned, Nelson and Madden demanded their money back.”
Colorado refused, even after the plaintiffs won in a state-level appellate court. The state, instead, insisted that if they wanted their money back, they’d have to file a claim under the Exoneration Act, forcing the defendants to once again prove their innocence to retrieve their funds. The plaintiffs appealed all the way to the Supreme Court, who sided with the citizens in a 7-1 ruling, declaring Colorado’s law unconstitutional.
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote the majority opinion for the court declaring “the Exoneration Act’s scheme does not comport with the Fourteenth Amendment’s guarantee of due process.”
Ginsburg wrote that Nelson and Madden are “entitled to be presumed innocent” and “should not be saddled with any proof burden” to reclaim what is already theirs. In other words, they shouldn’t have to demonstrate they’re not criminals after the court has already made such a determination.
Provocation Rule Void
- Supreme Court overturns Ninth Circuit ‘provocation rule’
[JURIST] The US Supreme Court [official website] on Tuesday ruled [opinion, PDF] 8-0 to strike down [transcript, PDF] the “provocation rule” created by the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit [official website] which allows law enforcement officers to be held liable for an otherwise defensive use of deadly force if the officer provoked the violent encounter. Justice Samuel Alito [official profile], in writing for the court, stated that officers cannot be held liable for excessive force under the Fourth Amendment because “a different Fourth Amendment violation cannot transform a later, reasonable use of force into an unreasonable seizure.” The Fourth Amendment prohibits “unreasonable searches and seizures.” Justice Alito wrote that the issue with the provocation rule is thatit instructs courts to look back in time to see if there was a different Fourth Amendment violation that is somehow tied to the eventual use of force. That distinct violation, rather than the forceful seizure itself, may then serve as the foundation of the plaintiff’s excessive force claim. … [T]his approach mistakenly conflates distinct Fourth Amendment claims. Contrary to this approach, the objective reasonableness analysis must be conducted separately for each search or seizure that is alleged to be unconstitutional.
The Supreme Court heard oral arguments in County of Los Angeles v. Mendez [SCOTUSblog backgrounder] in March. The court was asked to rule on a Fourth Amendment civil rights action filed by two victims of a police shooting. Two Los Angeles County sheriffs entered Angel Mendez’s home without a warrant, found by [opinion, PDF] the trial court and Ninth Circuit to be a violation of the Fourth Amendment. Finding for Mendez and his girlfriend, both of whom were shot after Mendez reached for a BB gun, lower courts applied the provocation doctrine, holding that despite the reasonableness of the sheriffs’ reaction, the officers had created the situation which caused the injury by failing to obtain a warrant. The Supreme Court was asked to determine whether the provocation theory applies, as it allegedly conflicts with the court’s ruling in Graham v. Connor [opinion], and whether an incident giving rise to a reasonable use of force breaks the chain of causation.
New Tumor Evidence
- New Tumor Evidence Found in Confidential Glyphosate Data
Major news on the glyphosate front: the first ever independent analysis of the complete confidential data set sent by industry to the EU for the re-licensing of glyphosate shows EFSA and ECHA’s safety assessment would have failed to identify several cases of tumors and cancer following an exposure to the substance. It is high time the complete data set is published in full to enable scrutiny by the scientific community.
According to Christopher Portier, a leading environmental health and carcinogenicity specialist1 who has been actively defending the IARC assessment in the glyphosate re-licensing process in the EU, the public agencies who performed the scientific assessment of glyphosate’s toxicity (BfR, EFSA and ECHA) would have failed to identify eight cases of statistically significant increase in tumors following glyphosate exposure in the confidential data set provided by industry.
Dr Portier has sent on May 28 a letter detailing his findings to the President of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, copying most institutions involved in the EU glyphosate assessment. His work, he writes, shows that “eight instances where significant increases in tumor response following glyphosate exposure were not included in the assessment by either EFSA or EChA. This suggests that the evaluations applied to the glyphosate data are scientifically flawed, and any decisions derived from these evaluations will fail to protect public health.”
This is the first ever analysis of this dataset by a scientist who has no financial links to the glyphosate industry and who has not participated in the official EU assessment 2. This data set was obtained by CEO and Green MEPs after an access to documents request, which took a year (and significant resources) for EFSA to process as industry opposed it and demanded many redactions.
Technocratic Blot Clots
- Mark Zuckerberg is running the Bucky Fuller agenda
“Every time somebody comes up with a universal plan to improve the world, you have to ask yourself this burning question: who will impose the plan? And then you have ask: what are the imposers’ true motives? And you have to remember what a Trojan Horse is.” (The Underground, Jon Rappoport)
Over a period of 50 years, Buckminster Fuller explained his plan for making a better world. He talked about the coming wave of automation that would throw gigantic numbers of people out of work. He talked about the need for a universal system of support, whereby everyone on the planet would be guaranteed, from birth, the essentials of survival: food, clothing, shelter, and limitless free education.
Read this statement by Fuller:
“We must do away with the absolutely specious notion that everybody has to earn a living. It is a fact today that one in ten thousand of us can make a technological breakthrough capable of supporting all the rest. The youth of today are absolutely right in recognizing this nonsense of earning a living. We keep inventing jobs because of this false idea that everybody has to be employed at some kind of drudgery because, according to Malthusian-Darwinian theory, he must justify his right to exist. So we have inspectors of inspectors and people making instruments for inspectors to inspect inspectors. The true business of people should be to go back to school and think about whatever it was they were thinking about before somebody came along and told them they had to earn a living.”
Obviously, Fuller’s plan carries great appeal for many young people, for whom the idea of earning a living is a full-bore horror movie.
Fuller also believed that freeing up the young to “think about new solutions” for humanity and come up with new technology would justify his plan.
Compare Fuller’s agenda with Mark Zuckerberg’s. The Facebook founder recently gave a commencement address at Harvard. Read his words carefully:
“…today, technology and automation are eliminating many jobs…Our generation will have to deal with tens of millions of jobs replaced by automation like self-driving cars and trucks. But we have the potential to do so much more together.”
“Every generation expands its definition of equality. Previous generations fought for the vote and civil rights. They had the New Deal and Great Society. Now it’s our time to define a new social contract for our generation.”
“We should have a society that measures progress not just by economic metrics like GDP, but by how many of us have a role we find meaningful. We should explore ideas like universal basic income to give everyone a cushion to try new things… And as technology keeps changing, we need to focus more on continuous education throughout our lives.”
By direct statement and implication, Zuckerberg is echoing Bucky Fuller. The threat of automation. Massive unemployment. Guarantee the means of survival for every person. Free education for life. Come up with new ideas that contribute to the progress of the human species.
But as with Fuller, the thorny question about who is going to put this new universal plan into action is sidestepped. It appears the answer is: “the government.”
The most incompetent, bloated, corrupt, conniving force on the planet is in charge.
Doesn’t that fill you with confidence?
There is more. Who, behind the scenes, influences and controls government decisions and policies? A few groups come to mind: Bilderberg; Council on Foreign Relations; Trilateral Commission; United Nations. Fill in others yourself.
These are people we can trust?
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Silent Weapons for Quiet Wars
- The people know that they have created this farce and financed it with their own taxes (consent), but they would rather knuckle under than be the hypocrite. Factor VI – Cattle Those who will not use their brains are no better off than those who have no brains, and so this mindless school of jelly-fish, father, mother, son, and daughter, become useful beasts of burden or trainers of the same.
- Mr. Rothschild’s Energy Discovery
What Mr. Rothschild [2] had discovered was the basic principle of power, influence, and control over people as applied to economics. That principle is “when you assume the appearance of power, people soon give it to you.”
Listen How
The Law of War
General Orders No. 100: The Lieber Code
INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE GOVERNMENT OF ARMIES OF THE UNITED STATES IN THE FIELD
Where Not Throwing Oppression Off, You Live Either Under an Occupation or by Conquest.
The Choice and Responsibility are Yours. United We Strike
Behind The Woodshed for that practical education & hard but necessary dose of reality.
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