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Justin Gardner – U.S. Police Routinely Travel to Israel to Learn Methods of Brutalityand Repression

When McKinney, TX police officer David Eric Casebolt brutally took down a teenage girl at a pool party in June, he was using a form of martial arts called Krav Maga in which he trained exclusively. These combat techniques were developed by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). This is a small reflection of a larger reality that exists in U.S. …

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Robots will cut 25% of US jobs in 4 years, transform workforce – report

The encroachment of self-help kiosks and grocery store scanners has led doomsayers to suggest automation threatens the workforce of the future. A new report argues it will create new business sectors and new jobs as well. By studying large companies in various industries, from Delta Airlines Inc. to Whole Foods Market Inc., as well as many startups, analysts have forecast …

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Matt Agorist – Outrageous Marijuana SWAT Raid on Organic Farm Turns Up.

Arlington, TX — In an effort to protect the citizens of Texas, a massive military-style raid was conducted on the Garden of Eden organic farm and commune. On August 2, 2013, nearly two dozen heavily armed SWAT officers stormed this peaceful farm in search of a plant. They found lots of plants, but much to their dismay, they did not find …

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The Mark Riley Show – 08.05.15

In year since searing death, Ferguson sees uneven change. Yes, there has been change, but how substantial has it been? Did it take the death of Michael Brown to bring about that change?

Another exoneration in Brooklyn brings total since last year to 14. DA Ken Thompson deserves the credit for this, but it also begs the question, what was the Das office doing before he got there?

In Congress, Obama begins campaign for Iran nuclear deal. His efforts are both public and private. However, when people talk about a better deal, just how do they think they’ll get it? Back out of this one, do they really think the Iranians will come back to the table?

The Voting Rights Act at 50. Back in the day, when people would warn against the erosion of the Act, I was one of those who thought they were overreacting. I was wrong. The attacks on the Voting Rights Act teaches us we must remain vigilant, lest someone try and take what was won at a terrible price.

John Kasich is in, Rick Perry is out in first Republican debate. The whole concept of upper and lower tiers is anti democratic on its face. And to use polling??? Nothing more than a means to generate money.

A belated look at New York’s cooling towers, prime suspect in Legionnaires outbreak. No matter what the suspect, the City should have been quicker to act and inspect the towers, if that’s where they suspect it comes from.

Synthetic marijuana gives people abnormal strength, makes them dangerous: NYPD. Leaving aside the similarities to the reefer scare of the early 20th century, this K2 looks like a problem. The place to stop it is at the point of sale, pure and simple.

Bar owner eliminated tips, raised prices and started paying everyone $15 dollars an hour. This was in Portland, Oregon where the cost of living is very high. Do you think it’s a good idea? He did it immediately, not in increments like politicians do.

The restrictions journalists agreed to in order to attend the Koch brothers’ conference. You don’t really want to ask why they agreed, do you?

Jeb!: “I’m not sure we need a half billion dollars for women’s health issues. He’s moonwalking backward, but this one’s going to hurt him.

Horrific bad factory farmers can’t put you in jail for exposing them no more. No more AG-Gag? Time to celebrate!

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Lauren McCauley – Bombshell Study Reveals Methane Emissions Hugely Underestimated

The amount of methane being leaked from natural gas production sites has been hugely underestimated, according to a “bombshell” new study released on Tuesday. In a paper published at Energy & Science Engineering, expert and gas industry consultant Touché Howard argues that a much-heralded 2013 study by the University of Texas relied on a faulty measurement instrument, the Bacharach Hi-Flow …

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John Grant – The United States of Absurdity, Circa 2015

A couple weeks ago, our military special operations command began an eight-week military exercise called Jade Helm 15 in Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Florida, Arizona, New Mexico and Utah. As reported in The New York Times, some Texans worried it was “actually a ruse for a federal takeover of the state.” Texas Governor Greg Abbott ordered the Texas State Guard to …

The Spirit of Judy Miller is Alive and Well at the NYT, and It Does Great Damage – Glenn Greenwald

One of the very few Iraq War advocates to pay any price at all was former New York Times reporter Judy Miller, the classic scapegoat. But what was her defining sin? She granted anonymity to government officials and then uncritically laundered their dubious claims in the New York Times. As the paper’s own editors put it in their 2004 mea culpa about the role they played in selling the …

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The Racist Killing Fields in the US: The Death of Sandra Bland By Henry A. Giroux

On July 9, soon after Sandra Bland, a 28-year-old African-American woman, moved to Texas from Naperville, Illinois, to take a new job as a college outreach officer at her alma mater, Prairie View A&M, she was pulled over by the police for failing to signal while making a lane change. What followed has become all too common and illustrates the …

For-profit colleges get rich by sinking students into debt–and their scam is financed by our tax dollars – Jim Hightower

Butch Hancock, one of Austin’s finest singer-songwriters, grew up in the Texas Panhandle, out among dryland farmers and strict fundamentalist Christians. Butch once told me that he felt he’d been permanently scarred in his vulnerable teen years by the local culture’s puritanical preachings on sexual propriety: “They told us that sex is filthy, obscene, wicked, and beastly– and that we …