Dot, the events in Ferguson last year changed our country.

The protests against the shooting death of Michael Brown and the extreme police crackdown on those protests helped spark a movement to push back on police brutality and institutional racism.

The Justice Department review of the Ferguson Police Department was so brutal and ugly—calling out the role of police as revenue generators for the city, the regular use of excessive force, and the overwhelming racism permeating the department—that even right-wingers are saying Ferguson police are out of control.

Now, we have a chance to take this movement back to Ferguson and change the system that has made African Americans targets in their communities.

There’s an election in Ferguson in 3 days, and we’re supporting candidates for city council that are vowing to reform this broken system.

Here’s what Ferguson Township Democratic Committeewoman Patricia Bynes has to say about these two amazing candidates:In the 2nd Ward, we are supporting Bob Hudgins, a protest leader and former journalist who is making transparency in government and accountability his platform.

Bob's opponent is current Ferguson Mayor James Knowles' predecessor, who, during his tenure as Mayor, hired both the City Manager that recently resigned and signed off on the widely discredited Police Chief.

In the 3rd Ward, we are enthusiastically backing Lee Smith, a retired union electrician and the first African American President and Business Agent for a local IBEW union in the Midwest. 

Lee is also a widower who has raised ten children in Ferguson and is committed to rebuilding trust in local government.

Lee’s opponent is a lawyer, as well as a prosecutor in one municipality, while serving as a judge in a neighboring municipality.

This is exactly the circle of influence that needs to be stopped in the municipal courts locally and throughout the region.

Keep fighting,
Rachel Colyer, Daily Kos

P.S. Patricia Bynes, the Democratic committeewoman I quoted above, is running an incredible GOTV program for these and other candidates in Ferguson.

Sarah Brady

February 6, 1942–April 3, 2015
 

She never spent time harping on the unfairness of the tragedy that befell her family. She was too busy changing the world, and making it better for the rest of us.

*********************************************

I may be drunk, Madam. but in the morning I will be sober and you will still be ugly.

Winston Churchill

*********************************************

And now for today's head banger
on the closest brick wall...

This would make a good headline for The Onion.

Sadly, it's not satire at all.

Harris Himes, who calls himself "pastor" of the Big Sky Christian Center in Montana (the address of which is Himes's post office box), got himself in a bit of hot water recently.

He and another "pastor," James "Jeb" Bryant, apparently swindled an investor out of $150,000 by claiming to own a business called Duratherm Building Systems and promising good returns.

From the Missoulian:

The charges included theft, fraud, conspiracy to commit both, failure to register a security and failure to register as a salesman of same.According to court records, Himes and Bryant claimed to own a business, Duratherm Building Systems, and promised at least one investor a large return on his $150,000.

But the investor claimed to have never received any returns or confirmation of sale, nor could he get his money back.Duratherm Building Systems was connected to another company, Monarch Beach Properties, which Himes and Bryant claimed was a "type of parent corporation."

The state investigation revealed several inconsistencies with respect to these companies.

For one, Monarch is solely owned by Bryant and his wife, and the business address linked to the money-wiring instructions given to the alleged victim is for an apartment complex in Rockville, Md.

The state of Maryland has no listing for Monarch.

Duratherm has a website that lists Mexican and U.S. phone contact numbers.

The U.S. phone number has a 202 area code, indicating Washington, D.C. Rockville is just outside Washington, D.C., and when the number is dialed the voice on the message claims to be James Bryant, who then signs off with "Have a blessed day."

********************************************

  PRESIDENT OBAMA

DO NOT

FAST TRACK TPP!

IT IS NOTIN THE BEST INTEREST

OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE!

CALL YOUR

 CONGRESSMAN & SENATORS

ASAP!

 These may be the most important calls

you've ever made for the survival of this union!

*********************************************

And the President is planning a trip to Kenya...NOT to visit his family...they're in Hawaii...the 50th state...hear that you dense republicans! or are you willfully ignorant?

Is it going to be mandatory for future Presidents to produce their birth certificate?

70 Kenyan Students Massacred

At least 70 Kenyan students were massacred Thursday when Somalia's Shebab Islamist group raided a university, the interior minister said, the country's deadliest attack since US embassy bombings in 1998.

"We are mopping up the area," Interior Minster Joseph Nkaiserry told reporters, saying that four gunmen had been killed after Kenyan troops launched an assault on the final building where the insurgents had holed up for over 12 hours.

"Unfortunately, we lost... a number of lives, we have not confirmed fully, but it is in the region of 70 students, and 79 have been injured, nine of them critically," he added.

The masked gunmen began the assault before dawn, using grenades to blast open the gates of the university in the northeastern town of Garissa, near the lawless border with war-torn Somalia, before attacking students as they slept.

"The terrorists, 90 percent of the threat has been eliminated... we have been able to confirm that four terrorists have been killed," he added, saying that troops were scouring the campus as the total number of gunmen was not known, but that the main operation was over.

"We are mopping up the area, and will update with the number of casualties," he said, imposing a dawn until dusk curfew on several northern and eastern Kenyan districts.

The Al-Qaeda-linked Shebab claimed the pre-dawn attack, the same insurgents who carried out the Westgate shopping mall massacre in Nairobi in September 2013, when four gunmen slaughtered at least 67 people in a four-day bloodbath.

Kenya has been hit by a wave of grenade and gun attacks, often blamed on sympathisers of the Shebab and sometimes aimed at police targets, since the army crossed into southern Somalia in 2011 to attack Islamist bases.

It's SO Bad--that even members of Congress are Shocked

That's a pretty high threshold-bar to have been reach there ... given all the outrage-fatigue lately.

TPP so bad even the US congress is shocked

By Leith van Onselen

[...]

“This is really troubling,” said Senator Charles E. Schumer of New York, the Senate’s No. 3 Democrat. “It seems to indicate that savvy, deep-pocketed foreign conglomerates could challenge a broad range of laws we pass at every level of government, such as made-in-America laws or anti-tobacco laws. I think people on both sides of the aisle will have trouble with this”…

“U.S.T.R. [United States Trade Representative] will say the U.S. has never lost a case, but you’re going to see a lot more challenges in the future,” said Senator Sherrod Brown, Democrat of Ohio. “There’s a huge pot of gold at the end of the rainbow for these companies”…

Senator Brown contended that the overall accord, not just the investment provisions, was troubling. “This continues the great American tradition of corporations writing trade agreements, sharing them with almost nobody, so often at the expense of consumers, public health and workers,” he said…
[...]

But wait that leaked Investment Chapter of the TPP--is an equal-opportunity offender. Neo-cons really don't like 'kowtowing' to the United Nations, now do they?

Trans-Pacific Partnership Seen as Door for Foreign Suits Against U.S.

By Jonathan Weisman, nytimes.com--March 25, 2015

[...]
Backers of the emerging trade accord, which is supported by a wide variety of business groups and favored by most Republicans, say that it is in line with previous agreements that contain similar provisions. But critics, including many Democrats in Congress, argue that the planned deal widens the opening for multinationals to sue in the United States and elsewhere, giving greater priority to protecting corporate interests than promoting free trade and competition that benefits consumers.

[...] Conservatives are likely to be incensed that even local policy changes could send the government to a United Nations-sanctioned tribunal. On the left, Senator Elizabeth Warren, Democrat of Massachusetts, law professors and a host of liberal activists have expressed fears the provisions would infringe on United States sovereignty and impinge on government regulation involving businesses in banking, tobacco, pharmaceuticals and other sectors.

Members of Congress have been reviewing the secret document in secure reading rooms, but this is the first disclosure to the public since an early version leaked in 2012.
[...]

Nice--that the corporate negotiators, finally decided to let select members in on their dealings ... I wonder if their "copies" in the "secure rooms"--were heavily redacted, too?

But, but--here exactly is that "shocking part"?
  
I'm so glad you asked ...

Now We Know Why Huge TPP Trade Deal Is Kept Secret From the Public

by Dave Johnson, Fellow, Campaign for America's Future; huffingtonpost.com--March 27, 2015

[...]
The section of the TPP that has leaked is the "Investment" chapter that includes investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) clauses. WikiLeaks has the text and analysis, and the Times has the story, in "Trans-Pacific Partnership Seen as Door for Foreign Suits Against U.S.":

[...]
    Under the accord, still under negotiation but nearing completion, companies and investors would be empowered to challenge regulations, rules, government actions and court rulings--federal, state or local -- before tribunals organized under the World Bank or the United Nations.

The WikiLeaks analysis explains that this lets firms "sue" governments to obtain taxpayer compensation for loss of "expected future profits."

Let that sink in for a moment: "Companies and investors would be empowered to challenge regulations, rules, government actions and court rulings--federal, state or local --before tribunals...." And they can collect not just for lost property or seized assets; they can collect if laws or regulations interfere with these giant companies' ability to collect what they claim are "expected future profits."
[...]

The tribunals that adjudicate these cases will be made up of private-sector (i.e., corporate) attorneys. [...]

Well--Duh!!  ... Who else would they put in charge--if it was up to them?
Let me see if I got this right: 'U-N convened tribunals will trump U.S. commerce on the global stage of the World Bank'--Yes, I'm finally starting to get that "sinking feeling" too.
Just wait til Rand Paul (and comrades) get a load of this special arrangement.  Wooh-buddy!