Land of Fear: Media Hypes Ranting of Deranged Ohio Loser

With the Department of Homeland Security now fully funded for the immediate future the parade of bogeymen and bogus terror plots just doesn’t stop. The apex of scary bullshit was reached two weeks ago with the triple whammy of the Mall of America threat, the feds’ busting up of an alleged ISIS cell and the outing of Jihadi John as a former British computer programmer. But the American fear machine that provides the propaganda for the multi-billion dollar terror war industry never sleeps. This weekend the bewildered herd is being subjected to the repackaging of a 20 year old loser who was arrested by the FBI back in January for allegedly planning an attack on the U.S. Capitol.

In a Cincinnati television station interview, Christopher Cornell spoke of wanting to plant bombs at the Capitol, the Israeli embassy and bust a cap into the skull of Emperor Barack Obama himself. As reported by Reuters in the story “Ohio man accused of plotting Capitol attack says would have shot Obama”.

An Ohio man claiming sympathy with Islamic State militants and charged with plotting to attack the U.S. Capitol said in a television interview that he would have shot President Barack Obama in the head.

Christopher Cornell, 20, told Cincinnati's FOX 19 WXIX TV that if he had not been arrested by FBI agents in January, he would have carried out an alleged plot to plant pipe bombs on the Capitol and at the Israeli Embassy.

"What would I have done? I would have took my gun, I would have put it to Obama's head and I would have pulled the trigger," Cornell, of Cincinnati, said in a telephone interview from the Boone County, Kentucky, jail aired on Friday.

"Then I would have released more bullets on the Senate and the House of Representative members, and I would have attacked the Israeli Embassy and various other buildings full of kafir (a Muslim term for infidel) who want to wage war against us Muslims and shed our blood. That's what would happen," he said.

Cornell was arrested after he researched how to make pipe bombs, purchased a rifle and ammunition and made plans to travel to Washington to carry out the plot, according to court testimony from an FBI informant.

The idea that young Cornell’s "plot" had even a minuscule chance of success is preposterous. He is just one more pathetic loser entrapped by the feds to be trotted to scare gullible Americans into surrendering their liberty and money to feed the surveillance state monster. I haven’t seen the Sunday morning McNews show lineup yet but look for Cornell to make a guest appearance as fodder for some fascist pushing for the renewal of the USA PATRIOT Act in a few months.

While the media was breathlessly elevating Cornell to a potential threat of near Osama bin Laden sized proportions some inconvenient omissions were brought up by the website The Intercept. The story published just after Cornell’s arrest entitled “Latest FBI Claim Of Disrupted Terror Plot Deserves Much Scrutiny and Skepticism” elaborates on the foiled “plot”:

The Justice Department on Wednesday issued a press release trumpeting its latest success in disrupting a domestic terrorism plot, announcing that “the Joint Terrorism Task Force has arrested a Cincinnati-area man for a plot to attack the U.S. Capitol and kill government officials.” The alleged would-be terrorist is 20-year-old Christopher Cornell (above), who is unemployed, lives at home, spends most of his time playing video games in his bedroom, still addresses his mother as “Mommy” and regards his cat as his best friend; he was described as “a typical student” and “quiet but not overly reserved” by the principal of the local high school he graduated in 2012.

The affidavit filed by an FBI investigative agent alleges Cornell had “posted comments and information supportive of [ISIS] through Twitter accounts.” The FBI learned about Cornell from an unnamed informant who, as the FBI put it, “began cooperating with the FBI in order to obtain favorable treatment with respect to his criminal exposure on an unrelated case.” Acting under the FBI’s direction, the informant arranged two in-person meetings with Cornell where they allegedly discussed an attack on the Capitol, and the FBI says it arrested Cornell to prevent him from carrying out the attack.

Family members say Cornell converted to Islam just six months ago and claimed he began attending a small local mosque. Yet The Cincinnati Enquirer could not find a single person at that mosque who had ever seen him before, and noted that a young, white, recent convert would have been quite conspicuous at a mosque largely populated by “immigrants from West Africa,” many of whom “speak little or no English.”

The DOJ’s press release predictably generated an avalanche of scary media headlines hailing the FBI. CNN: “FBI says plot to attack U.S. Capitol was ready to go.” MSNBC: “US terror plot foiled by FBI arrest of Ohio man.” Wall St. Journal: “Ohio Man Charged With Plotting ISIS-Inspired Attack on U.S. Capitol.”

Americans continue to fall for this crap hook, line and sinker too and while the media and government bear much of the blame for the brainwashing it isn't like alternatives to the state-corporate media are not available. It really sucks to see all of this happening in a country that used to be proud about being the "home of the brave" but now seems to be largely populated by lemmings and sheep conditioned to live in a constant state of fear.

Does “Burn This Shit Down” Qualify as Inciting a Riot?

Finally after months of waiting, shameless race-baiting and media exploitation the grand jury decision in the Michael Brown shooting case came down Monday night. Police officer Darren Wilson was not charged with any crime in the August killing of the “gentle giant” and anyone who thought that he would be based on the evidence is a damned fool.  This was a cut and dried case ever since that convenience store video of young Brown showing a hulking goon roughing up a clerk was released. It is in my personal opinion pretty certain that even if Brown wasn't taken out by Wilson that he was on a collision course with the law sooner rather than later.

Ferguson is complex and it all pretty much boils down to that we will never know exactly what happened during that fatal encounter back in August. As was previously seen with a pudgy, wanna be neighborhood Dirty Harry named George Zimmerman who gunned down a black kid armed with a bag of Skittles - dead men tell no tales. Officer Darren Wilson should have deescalated the situation but in the post 9/11 U$A the police have increasing impunity to shoot first and ask questions later. This is especially so if the target is a young black man. Wilson acted as judge, jury and executioner and as a result did his part to move along the transformation of cops into members of what can only be recognized as death squads. 

On the other hand, Brown was caught on camera in the act of committing a crime which makes him far from the perfect martyr for the cause. The real tragedy is that the race card was immediately played and only benefited a corrupt system and it's police state in that attention to the militarization of the cops was flushed down the memory hole. Many, especially those on the right fail to understand that while they see the Brown vs. Wilson incident as a small piece of the greater race war in their minds that the big red, white and blue jackboot could just as easily be kicking their heads in as well. 

The words had no sooner left the lips of St. Louis County Prosecutor Robert McCulloch on Monday night than the mob violence commenced. This had been anticipated given the calling up of the National Guard by Missouri Governor Jay Nixon last week as well as additional civic precautions such as school closures. There is no excuse whatsoever for the actions of the troublemakers who took to the streets in Ferguson to destroy the property of others and they are nothing more than lawless hooligans of the worst type.

What has really not been reported is that Louis Head, the stepfather of the deceased Brown came out and actually called for a violent response in the aftermath of the announcement. This is just not something that is acceptable in a civilized country and borders on inciting a riot. As reported the Pierre Omidyar venture The Intercept, one of the few people who could have helped to contain the unrest only served to soak the streets with gasoline and throw down a match.

As reported by Juan Thompson of The Intercept in a piece entitled “BURN THIS SHIT DOWN”: MAYHEM AND PROTESTS ENGULF FERGUSON” that provided a narrative of last night’s events:

Standing outside the Ferguson Police Department headquarters, the mood of the crowd of a few thousand was initially jubilant and brimming with anticipation, but around 8 pm, when the announcement of the grand jury decision was made, all hell broke loose. Michael Brown’s mother Lesley McSpadden addressed the crowd as McCulloch was speaking, apparently already informed of what the decision was going to be. She broke down sobbing in tears and agony saying, “they took my baby,” and “we’re sick of this.” After that, the stepfather of Michael Brown, Louis Head, shouted through tears, “burn this shit down.” At that, some of the crowd got agitated and very aggressive with police.

AND

After the police formed a line, the crowd began chanting various slogans: “hands up, don’t shoot,” “f*ck the police,” “no justice, no peace,” etc. Some members of the crowd then dispersed south on South Florissant Road. The protesters who remained started throwing rocks at the police. Others damaged a police cruiser. Police then told protesters they were assembled unlawfully and to disperse or face arrest.

When the protesters didn’t disperse, police confronted them, shooting multiple tear gas or smoke canisters into the crowd and pushing the crowd north on South Florissant. The protesters reacted by shrieking, running, and washing their eyes out with milk and water. Some of the protesters were randomly shooting guns into the air, feeding into the chaotic environment. As the crowd moved north, a few protestors looted a small number of stores on South Florissant, including a Second Time Around resale store. But they were the minority by far. Most of the protesters were peacefully assembled, chanting slogans, but there was a minority who decided to loot, to set fires, and to torch two police cars. The protesters were angry, they were hurt, they were disappointed, and some of them used violence as a way to vent their frustration. One of the other protesters, a woman, said to the looters, “don’t do this, this isn’t who we are.”

The crowd was pushed further north. At South Florissant and Airport Road, protesters set a Walgreens on fire. Protesters also looted a T-Mobile store and an Aaron’s furniture outlet. Over on West Florissant Avenue, a different crowd had set multiple fires only a block or two from where Mike Brown was killed. Looters also hit up the McDonald’s that became infamous as a location where reporters camped during the first round of riots immediately after Brown’s killing.

The scene was chaos. In addition to the looting, cars were running into each other, people fighting on the street, and were guns being shot off. As I was leaving, I saw more fires being set.

The comments attributed to Head did nothing but further inflame the already volatile situation. While he and Brown’s mother, Lesley McSpadden were understandably grief stricken at the moment, there is zero excuse for such a grossly irresponsible statement. Were there deaths last night - fortunately there weren’t - Head would have blood on his hands today.

What remains of the U.S. Constitution after Emperor Barack Obama has wiped his ass with it for nearly six years guarantees Americans the right to protest in a peaceful manner and if they have a grievance let them do so. There is however nothing in the Constitution that protects calls for mob violence nor even dances on the farthest perimeter of condoning anarchy. Some choose to respect these rights as well as the safety and property of people and others like Mr. Head only serve to fire up low-minded thugs like his dead son in law. This is America and we are supposed to be above crap like this that normally would be associated with some third world African shithole. The violence only feeds into the racially charged narrative and keeps the victims of a cruel and oppressive system at each other's throats based on tribal bullshit rather than against their shared enemy that is the gangster state. Never forget that the pigs who run this star spangled sty have all the guns and the most sophisticated high tech surveillance machine in human history and they will use them. Resistance MUST be non-violent and focus on ideas. 

Now I may be mistaken but I sure as hell don’t remember reading anything about Martin Luther King shouting “Burn This Shit Down” in the history books.

(IMAGE: AP)

The Ebola Quarantines Begin

In the wake of the latest Ebola case, this one in the mega-population center of New York City there are serious questions on how to prevent a national spread of the virus. Both New York and New Jersey are sufficiently spooked so as to begin to implement mandatory quarantines on some of  those returning from areas where Ebola is rampant. The question now becomes just how much of an intrusion on civil liberties will come as the result of the escalated state of action.

It seems rather quaint to be talking about civil liberties at all in the post Constitutional wasteland of the Obama era. This is after all the administration that presides over the all-seeing, unaccountable spy machine that is the NSA Stasi and has given it impunity to gather data all Americans. The Global War on Terror (GWOT), now in year thirteen has allowed for the government to eviscerate the US Constitution and usher in an era when Americans can be spied upon, arrested and disappeared without a public trial. We now live in a land of secret courts with a malevolent and corrupt government that will use any measures, no matter how Draconian to protect it's power.

The new quarantines are described in a story from The Guardian entitled “New York and New Jersey issue tough new Ebola quarantine measure”:

Anyone flying into New York and New Jersey after having contact with Ebola sufferers in west Africa will be subjected to a mandatory 21-day quarantine, the governors of the two states announced on Friday, adding that one returning medic had already been detained.

Andrew Cuomo of New York and Chris Christie of New Jersey unveiled the joint policy, which goes beyond federal rules set out by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), as officials indicated the Obama administration was considering a similar rule throughout the US.

Cuomo, the Democratic governor of New York, said: “We’re just not comfortable with the concept of voluntary quarantine as an effective public health security measure.” He stressed that the CDC had made clear states were entitled to set tougher rules of their own.

Christie, the Republican governor of New Jersey, said he was prepared to take “whatever steps were necessary to ensure the public health” amid the ongoing risk of Ebola. “New Jersey and New York are going to determine the standards of quarantine, since CDC’s guidance is continually changing,” he said. “We need to set a standard for our two states.”

The quarantines have already come under fire from the the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and a nurse who was quarantined after treating Ebola victims has blasted her treatment. It is a touchy situation and the choices are to risk normalizing such detentions which could rapidly expand beyond health care workers or continue to do nothing as Ebola cases continue to pop up.

The consequences of a national Ebola outbreak would be catastrophic. Both in human costs as well as economic and everything possible must be done in order to avoid that. Once again, we are witnessing  the fallout from moronic and short-sighted government policies.  In this case the Obama regime’s foolhardy and flippant downplaying of the threat of Ebola. This continues with the politics of the moment – the 2014 mid-terms - taking precedence over public safety. The proof of the pudding is Barry's staged photo op with the Ebola infected nurse Nina Pham on Friday in the White House.

The quarantine of selected individuals returning from countries ravaged by Ebola, particularly if they are health care personnel who may have been exposed is a small price to pay for containment. They should be fully aware of the risks and a temporary period of precautionary isolation sucks but as long as the conditions are decent and not like a prison camp it isn't anything that is unreasonable. It is however a rock solid guarantee that if there is a national epidemic that you have not seen anything yet in terms of violations of civil liberties which will be rampant. The government has accrued an uncanny amount of police state power since that ugly and tragic pristine September morning back in 2001 and it will not hesitate to bring it all to bear when a state of emergency provides them with the opportunity to do so.

It is understandable for millions of Americans to live in a state of fear and to surrender their rights to the government in the hope that they will be protected, however it is obscene that nobody ever got to vote on it. Now these powers exist and are valuable components in the big toolbox of the state and as the saying goes, you can’t put the toothpaste back in the tube. We are a damned good ways down the path to fascism in the USA! USA! USA! and it is doubtful that there exists a trail of breadcrumbs leading back to being a constitutional republic. 

When it comes to the quarantines of a few to try to prevent the further spread of the virus it is damned if you do and damned if you don’t.

Nice job Obama, tell us that one again about how there was no domestic risk of Ebola.

Pentagon Announces Domestic Emergency Ebola Response Team

Living in the America of the post-September 11, 2001 era one must understand that the answer to pretty much everything is to call in the military. The ongoing wars in the volatile Middle East are one thing but such ideas are beginning to bleed over into the domestic realm. We already have the Pentagon underwriting the militarizing of the American police and the intelligence services working with locals law enforcement to set up Fusion Centers. Now the feds are kicking around the idea of a military response to an Ebola outbreak. Can an excuse for martial law be far behind?

According to a story that just broke on the website of the Los Angeles Times entitled “Pentagon announces Ebola rapid-response team for U.S. cases of virus”:

The Pentagon announced Sunday it is putting together a 30-person rapid-response team that could provide quick medical support to civilian healthcare workers if additional cases of the Ebola virus are diagnosed in the United States.

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel ordered U.S. Northern Command Commander Gen. Chuck Jacoby to assemble the team, which was requested by the Department of Health and Human Services, said Pentagon spokesman Rear Adm. John Kirby.

The team will consist of 20 critical-care nurses, five doctors trained in infectious disease, and five trainers in infectious-disease protocols.

"Once formed, team members will be sent to Ft. Sam Houston in Texas for up to seven days of specialized training in infection control and personal protective equipment," Kirby said in a statement. "That training is expected to start within the next week or so and will be provided by the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases."

Once the team is trained, they will remain in Texas in a "prepare to deploy" status for 30 days, available to be sent to other U.S. locations as required, he said. The team will not be sent to West Africa, where the Ebola virus is running rampant, or elsewhere overseas.

The creeping cat’s feet of American fascism continue to get louder and the introduction into The Homeland of the Ebola virus may be just that “serious crisis” that Rahm Emanuel would never let go to waste. It really is only a matter of time until an American president crosses the Rubicon and declares a state of martial law - you can bet on it.

The Posse Comitatus Act has pretty much been rendered null and void by the establishment of NORTHCOM several years back. This command ensured that the military would be properly equipped and legally authorized to deal with unspecified domestic issues in a time of national emergency. Whether it will be Obama, Hillary or some Republican upstart the power and ability now exists to implement martial law. Sadly, the public acceptance of it also exists.

Operations in Beantown in the aftermath of the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing where militarized police conducted warrantless door to door searches were essentially a live drill for martial law. Now the government is no longer even bothering with the pretense that the troops won’t be called out on American soil when that “serious crisis” arises. It could be Ebola or it could be in Ferguson in a few weeks when a grand jury does not indict right-wing hero and rogue cop Darren Wilson for the murder of the unarmed teenager Michael Brown and the riots start but it’s coming.

President Dwight D. Eisenhower must be rolling in his grave now that his dire warnings of the dangers of the Military Industrial Complex went unheeded and have now become fully realized.

The proverbial camel’s nose is already under the tent if you have bothered to take a good look around.

TSA Gestapo Issues Warning on Phony Obama Terror Group Khorasan

The top dog of America's airport Gestapo forces, the Transportation Security Agency (TSA) has issued a bogeyman alert over the phony "terrorist" group Khorasan. Never mind that the existence of the crazier than ISIS (ISIL, IS) Muslim marauders has already been debunked as more political trickery by Obama to scare the bejesus out of Americans. The government is still selling Khorosan past it's expiration date in order to capitalize on America's first workplace beheading and the possibility that old men with cane swords may be lurking in the aisle seats.

According to The Hill in a story entitled "TSA chief: Khorasan a threat to US flights":

Transportation Security Administration chief John Pistole said Friday that the Khorasan Group, an al Qaeda cell in northern Syrian, represented "a clear and present danger" to commercial flights to Europe and the United States.

"The stakes are real and the threats are high," Pistole told to members of the Aero Club, an organization that promotes the aviation industry, at a luncheon. "I see the Khorasan Group as being a very capable, determined enemy who was very much focused on getting somebody or something on a plane bound for Europe or the United States."

With about 275 airports worldwide with direct flights to the U.S., heightened security measures are being implemented at "a couple dozen" airports in Europe, the Middle East and North Africa, targeting those that might be used by a terrorist to fly to the U.S, he said.

The top aviation security noted that U.S. airstrikes this week against the militant group were intended to disrupt an "imminent attack or attack entering the last phases of execution."

That horseshit all worked very well ten years ago but with the rise in social media bogus terror threats are pretty easily shot down these days. Maybe the Obama regime can bring back the color-coded terror alert charts that became such an embarrassment that they were mothballed. It is very important to put fear into the sheeple right now because the Democrats are terrified that they are going to lose the Senate and Barry has to be horrified over the very real prospect of a deserved impeachment and ouster from the White House.

"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed -- and hence clamorous to be led to safety -- by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary."

- H.L. Mencken

But El Presidente continues his fear-mongering just in time for Halloween. In an epic nationally televised infomercial Obama showed up on CBS's flagship 60 Minutes last night. I am old enough to actually remember when 60 Minutes was a real news program instead of the zombie incarnation of the current era where it has become a ratings obsessed venue for government lies and celebrity swill. I excerpt from the transcript of Obama's interview (bracketed dialogue is mine]:

Steve Kroft: A lot of things going on in the world right now. A lot of them bad. You run into people on the street and they say the world is falling apart. You got Syria. You've got Iraq. You've got Ukraine. You've got Ebola. Is this the most difficult period of your presidency, the biggest challenge of your presidency, this period we're in right now?

[Translation: Nice job of fucking everything up O-bozo - how did that team of rivals thing work out for you?]

President Obama: It's a significant period. But if you think about what I walked into when I came into office, we had not only two wars still active, but we also had a world financial system, that was becoming unraveling. And we were losing 800,000 jobs a month. So you know, we've had challenges before, and we've overcome them. That's not to downplay the serious challenges that we do face right now, mostly internationally.

[Groan... there he goes blaming Bush again. Listen buddy, you own this mess now so stop whining. Who would have ever thought that the Bushreich would one day be looked back upon wistfully?] 

"This is not America against ISIL. This is America leading the international community to assist a country..."

[The "international community" including the predominant sponsors of radical Islamic terrorism in Saudi Arabia]

AND

Steve Kroft: I understand all the caveats about these regional groups. But this is an army of 40,000 people, according to some of the military estimates I heard the other day, very well-trained, very motivated.

President Obama: Well, part of it was that...

[The teleprompter must have crashed..]

Steve Kroft: What? How did they end up where they are in control of so much territory? Was that a complete surprise to you?

[Hey... I was playing golf...]

President Obama: Well I think, our head of the intelligence community, Jim Clapper, has acknowledged that I think they underestimated what had been taking place in Syria.

[Sure, why not trust the word of a serial perjurer?]

"And when trouble comes up anywhere in the world, they don't call Beijing. They don't call Moscow. They call us."

[Yes, "they call us" many things, for example "the Great Satan"] 

Steve Kroft: I mean, he didn't say that, just say that, we underestimated ISIL. He said, we overestimated the ability and the will of our allies, the Iraqi army, to fight.

President Obama: That's true. That's absolutely true. And I...

[Just say it Obama - you underestimated them after you armed them] 

AND

Steve Kroft: You've got midterm elections coming up. Are you going to get shellacked?

[Bent over and butt-fucked would be a more accurate description] 

President Obama: Well...

[Whoops, the teleprompter crashed again]

Steve Kroft: Or do you think that, I mean, are you optimistic? What are the issues and what are you going to tell the American people?

[Time to get out the hip-waders] 

President Obama: Here's what I'm going to tell the American people. When I came into office, our economy was in crisis. We had unemployment up at 10 percent. It's now down to 6.1. We've had the longest run of uninterrupted private sector job growth in our history. We have seen deficits cut by more than half. Corporate balance sheets are probably the best they've been in the last several decades. We are producing more energy than we have before. We are producing more clean energy than we ever have before. I can put my record against any leader around the world in terms of digging ourselves out of a terrible, almost unprecedented financial crisis. Ronald Reagan used to ask the question, "Are you better off than you were four years ago?" In this case, are you better off than you were in six? And the answer is, the country is definitely better off than we were when I came into office, but now we have to make sure...

[What a bullshit artist, as if name-dropping Reagan is going to excuse all of his incompetence] 

Steve Kroft: Do you think people will feel that?

[The Democrats have an army of gullible suckers although it is dwindling daily] 

President Obama: They don't feel it. And the reason they don't feel it is because incomes and wages are not going up. There are solutions to that. If we raise the minimum wage, if we make sure women are getting paid the same as men for doing the same work, if we are rebuilding our infrastructure, if we're doing more to invest in job training so people are able to get the jobs that are out there right now, because manufacturing is coming back to this country. Not just the auto industry that we've saved, but you're starting to see reinvestment here in the United States. Businesses around the world are saying for the first time in a long time, "The place to invest isn't in China. It's the United States."

[China sure is "investing" in the United States, thanks to Obama and his slimy Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner we are in hock up to our ass to them]

Steve Kroft: Do you think you can hold the Senate?

[Can pigs fly?] 

President Obama: Yes. I do.

[Cut that man off! He has exceeded his alcohol limit]

Steve Kroft: You think you can sell this.

[Are there still enough suckers out there who will bite on "hope and change" hogwash?] 

President Obama: You know what?

 [I have an inkling that they are beginning to suspect that I suck]

Steve Kroft: You think you can convince people that they're doing fine, economically?

[Banker bonuses have never been better and the parties on the Hamptons and Martha's Vineyard will be like Roman orgies this year]

President Obama: Hopefully, they get a chance to hear the argument, because all I'm doing is presenting the facts.

Yep Mr. President, just like Khorasan or for that matter "hope" and "change". As the late P.T. Barnum once nailed it: "there is a sucker born every minute" and they breed like rabbits in America these days. How else could a two-bit shit salesman like Obama have ever been elected as president?

Small Wyoming County Gets Grenade Launcher from Federal Government

The small rural county of Goshen in Wyoming didn’t take advantage of the U.S. government’s discounted military surplus program to buy an MRAP but they did decide that they wanted a grenade launcher. It must be one heck of a status symbol to have something like that out in the boonies along the Nebraska state line. This is yet one more example of how the feds are contributing to the militarized police madness in America.

As reported by a story on the website of the Casper Star-Tribune entitled “Goshen County buys grenade launcher”:

Three grenade launchers have been moved in and out of the Goshen County Sheriff’s Office in the past 65 years.

Yet not one of the weapons has been used by the county’s deputies.

Sheriff Don Murphy said the county bought its current launcher, which was made by Casper weapons manufacturer Defense Technology, for use in the county jail.

“We would use it in situations when less-lethal force is justified to get the situation under control,” Lt. Jeremy Wardell said. “That tool gives us an option not to use lethal force.”

AND

Wardell called the Defense Technology weapon, a 40mm single-launcher, a “less-lethal” option. He compared using the grenade launcher to utilizing pepper spray or a Taser.

“It’s just another option in that middle area between verbal and lethal force,” Wardell said. “We have the ability to use it in the jail as well.”

Murphy said the launcher would predominantly be used for riot control. If a fight broke out between 16 people in a pod at the jail, a deputy could fire rubber pellets at the ground in front of the brawl to get the attention of the inmates.

Wardell oversees the jail, which currently houses 25 inmates. He said there hasn’t been a large fight there in the past year.

“I’ve worked for the agency for 16 years, and we’ve never had a riot we couldn’t control,” he said.

The sheriff’s office also stocks non-lethal sponge grenades, which provide temporary incapacitation through blunt trauma, according to the Federation of American Scientists.

Murphy said the launcher could be used for a long distance shot if deputies wanted to fire a tear gas round into a hostage situation.

Goshen County hasn’t had a hostage situation for at least 15 years, Wardell said.

Goshen County seems to have some sort of particular fetish towards grenade launchers with this one being the third in it's history. The question is that if the previous two were never used then why of all of the things available through the Pentagon military mega-mall that is the 1033 Program would the county choose a grenade launcher. According to the story:

 "Goshen County, population 14,000, is the only county in Wyoming listed by the defense department as having received a grenade launcher from the government.”

Lt. Wardell states that it would give his department the option to use non-lethal force in the event of a jailhouse ruckus but the small local pokey only houses up to 25 inmates. Not only is the jail small enough to not need a grenade launcher to control but has no history of prisoner uprisings.

But it sure must make the local cops feel like their dicks all grew three inches in length. 

Law enforcement authorities in Goshen County, Wyoming need to realize that Red Dawn was just a movie and there is not going to be any foreign invasion let alone a riot or an Ebola virus outbreak there. They must be watching way too much television which is understandable given the remote locale.

You just can’t make stuff like this up.

Georgia County Refuses to Pay Medical Costs for Toddler Injured by SWAT Flash Grenade

In an outrageous example of adding insult to injury,  officials of Georgia's Habersham County have refused to pay the medical costs for a toddler maimed during a no-knock police raid. 19 month old Bounkham Phonesavah was severely injured and suffered life-threatening burns when a police goon squad chucked a military style flash grenade into his crib during a no-knock raid back in May. The story drew national attention and is another reason why the militarized police in this country need to be disarmed and have a serious legal choke chain applied to them.

These type of tactics may work fine for the Special Ops or JSOC types conducting midnight raids in Afghanistan but this is still at least theoretically a free country. Yet such violent (you could even call them "terrorist") attacks on civilians are all too commonplace in The Homeland which is being transformed into a war zone environment by cops run amok. John Whitehead of the non-profit civil rights organization The Rutherford Institute recently wrote that there are now over 80,000 SWAT storm-trooper raids a year in the American police state.

To recap the police maiming of “Baby Boo Boo” who had to spend weeks undergoing costly treatment including surgery and a stay in the burn ward of an Atlanta hospital I excerpt the following from a story entitled “Child burned by distraction device during raid” from local website AccessNorthGa.com on the story in the immediate aftermath of the incident:

Habersham County Sheriff Joey Terrell now is talking about the high-risk warrant service that resulted in burns to a 2-year-old child early Wednesday.

The child was burned when narcotics agents, assisted by members of the Habersham Special Response Team, used a distraction device as they entered a home at 182 Lakeview Heights Circle outside Cornelia.

"We had prior information on it," Terrell said of the circumstances of the home and its occupants. "The individual had been involved in an altercation with another male involving a possible AK-47 [rifle] several months ago, and he was arrested on some weapons charges. Supposedly that was about drugs."

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Terrell said the training teaches officers to only throw the device three to five feet inside the door, to protect the occupants.

"He taught our team members how to do it," Terrell said. "They breached the door and one member tossed the device in, then we entered the room."

During the entry is when the child was burned.

"What had happened was there was a playpen - a Pack N Play - that was pushed up against the door, and when they breached the door it wouldn't open up because of the Pack N Play," Terrell said. "It was just wide enough to toss the flash bang in, then they had to physically push it [Pack N Play] on out of the way to get in. That's when the team medics saw the child, stopped at the child, took the child out and began first aid."

A waiting ambulance, which was standing by a short distance away, was called to transport the child.

"The door that we entered was the door that we bought dope out of - that's why entered at that door," Terrell said. "Our team went by the book. Given the same scenario, we'll do the same thing again. I stand behind what our team did."

The cops of course denied both their flagrant disregard for the child as well boasted of  their arrogant impunity. This is evident by the comments from Habersham County’s Sheriff that:  "Our team went by the book. Given the same scenario, we'll do the same thing again. I stand behind what our team did". A real stand-up guy, let’s hope that the voters in Habersham County remember this fascist when he is up for re-election. While the incompetence of Terrell's amped-up and ready to rock armed thugs is obvious there will be absolutely no accountability. When in doubt refer to the doctrine of "If you're not a copy, you're little people" from the movie Blade Runner, because the entire system is configured to protect Leviathan's storm troopers.

Iconic libertarian and former longtime U.S. Congressman Ron Paul weighed in on the unspeakable use of the grenade against the toddler in his column "Ferguson: The War Comes Home":

One particularly tragic victim of police militarization and the war on drugs is “baby Bounkham.” This infant was severely burned and put in a coma by a flash-burn grenade thrown into his crib by a SWAT team member who burst into the infant’s room looking for methamphetamine.

As shocking as the case of baby Bounkham is, no one should be surprised that empowering police to stop consensual (though perhaps harmful and immoral) activities has led to a growth of authoritarian attitudes and behaviors among government officials and politicians. Those wondering why the local police increasingly look and act like an occupying military force should consider that the drug war was the justification for the Defense Department’s “1033 program,” which last year gave local police departments almost $450 million worth of “surplus” military equipment. This included armored vehicles and grenades like those that were used to maim baby Bounkham.

Today, the war on drugs has been eclipsed by the war on terror as an all-purpose excuse for expanding the police state. We are all familiar with how the federal government increased police power after September 11 via the PATRIOT Act, TSA, and other Homeland Security programs. Not as widely known is how the war on terror has been used to justify the increased militarization of local police departments to the detriment of our liberty. Since 2002, the Department of Homeland Security has provided over $35 billion in grants to local governments for the purchase of tactical gear, military-style armor, and mine-resistant vehicles.

Once again Ron Paul is right. In particular in that the phony war on terror provided cynical American politicians and the security industrial complex that arose like a phoenix from the ashes of the World Trade Center to be borne upon the wings of obscene profits and has become a cancer eating this once great country from within. It is no wonder why so many jackass  politicians and Obama officials are fear-mongering over the spooky Islamist group ISIS.  One is even shrieking about the nuking of an American city for God's sake. There is really nothing that they would like more than to capture that potent and lucrative 9/11 lightning in a bottle again to fund and preserve their surveillance machine and the police state that it supports. It keeps them all elected and in a position where they can continue to enable the war on America being waged on us all by their ongoing permanent state of emergency.

As long as this anti-American, anti-Constitutional horseshit is allowed to continue there will be more innocents who are the victims of police raids. It is a pretty safe bet that the weasels in Habersham County, Georgia are not going to have to cough up one red cent over their criminal negligence. The only real regret that I suspect that they haqve is that  "Baby Boo Boo" wasn't killed during the raid.