Electric Monkey Pants

Category : scandal

« Older Posts
Newer Posts »

UCLA student tasered 4 times for not having ID in the campus library

Filed Under : America, fascism, scandal, videos by vemrion
Nov.16,2006

Fascism is on the rise in California as campus security felt obliged to taser a student at least 4 times for not having his ID in the library. He was on the ground for at least 3 of those tasers, and he is not accused of acting violently. Here’s a quick recap from the campus newspaper:

At around 11:30 p.m., CSOs asked a male student using a computer in the back of the room to leave when he was unable to produce a BruinCard during a random check. The student did not exit the building immediately.

The CSOs left, returning minutes later, and police officers arrived to escort the student out. By this time the student had begun to walk toward the door with his backpack when an officer approached him and grabbed his arm, at which point the student told the officer to let him go. A second officer then approached the student as well.

The student began to yell “get off me,” repeating himself several times.

It was at this point that the officers shot the student with a Taser for the first time, causing him to fall to the floor and cry out in pain. The student also told the officers he had a medical condition.

It’s at about this point that the video you’re about to watch begins. The audio is loud and painful to listen to as the student is shocked repeatedly. This video is disturbing to anyone who values freedom. You have been warned!

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AyvrqcxNIFs]

The video doesn’t have the best camerawork, that’s for sure. But you can get an impression of what happened from it.

A follow-up story in the student newspaper makes clear that the student was handcuffed for at least one (probably more) of the taser shocks. The story also offers some information about the use of tasers:

But according to a study published in the Lancet Medical Journal in 2001, a charge of three to five seconds can result in immobilization for five to 15 minutes, which would mean that Tabatabainejad could have been physically unable to stand when the officers demanded that he do so.

“It is a real mistake to treat a Taser as some benign thing that painlessly brings people under control,” said Peter Eliasberg, managing attorney at the ACLU of Southern California.

“The Taser can be incredibly violent and result in death,” Eliasberg said.

According to an ACLU report, 148 people in the United States and Canada have died as a result of the use of Tasers since 1999.

My main question is this: How do the campus security officers’ actions protect anybody? During this huge commotion that followed their illegal tasering, anything could’ve happened in that library. Women could’ve been raped in the bathroom. Laptops could’ve been stolen. It could have sparked a riot. So, how do their actions help anything?

It seems to me that these were just a bunch of thugs trying to assert and protect their authority, which is clearly more important to them than human rights or the students’ constitutional liberties.

I am simply disgusted with the actions of the campus security team. First, they caused a scene that didn’t need to happen by laying hands on the exiting student. Second, they tasered the hell out of him when there was no need to. With several officers present and no violent actions on the part of the student there was simply no reason to taser him. Being loud in a library is not a taser-able offense. Third, they tasered him again and again and again as he was lying helpless on the ground! That is absolutely unacceptable.

I can think of no other word but “fascism” to express my feelings about the actions of the officers in this video. Certainly, “abuse of authority” and “police brutality” come to mind, but they don’t really sum up the mindset of the officers fully.

The mindset is the scariest thing. It seems to be that “authority must be obeyed at all times, no matter what.” That is not consistent with the student’s constitutionally protected rights, which place his inalienable rights far above any sort of convenience achieved by granting limited authority to officers of the peace. I’m sure it would be much more convenient to give police officers unlimited power to use and abuse as they saw fit, but such an arrangement is totally incompatible with the concepts of freedom and liberty for which our forefathers fought and died. Freedom is far more important than being quiet in a library or being cooperative with police.

I hope that these “cops” will be fired and arrested for their gross breach of this student’s constitutional rights, not to mention sued for monetary compensation to make up for the excruciating physical pain he must’ve experienced (those screams will stick with me longer than I might wish).

Unfortunately, this is not an isolated incident. All over the country police are acting with impunity as they violate citizens’ rights and trample over civil liberties. I’ve covered some of these including when Miami police shot peaceful protesters with rubber bullets and then laughed and joked about it, or when cops beat and arrested a man trying to get a form to report police brutality. Also disturbing is a video of cops using vicious chokeholds on peaceful protesters.

How can we bring sanity back to our government? Who will protect us from the police? Well, the answer is: No one! We must protect ourselves, and each other. If you witness police brutality, be sure to report it, and capture it on tape if you can. Of course, be careful that you don’t get beaten when you try to file that report.

  This post currently has 11 screeches.

  Read screeches and add your own...

O.J. Simpson reveals how he would’ve butchered his wife

Filed Under : crime, death, evil, lying, murder, scandal, trial by vemrion
Nov.15,2006

You can’t make shit like this up:

The two-part television interview, titled “O.J. Simpson: If I Did It, Here’s How It Happened,” will air Nov. 27 and Nov. 29 on Fox, the TV network said Tuesday.

“O.J. Simpson, in his own words, tells for the first time how he would have committed the murders if he were the one responsible for the crimes,” the network said in a statement. “In the two-part event, Simpson describes how he would have carried out the murders he has vehemently denied committing for over a decade.”

Not only is he a murderer, he’s also a publicity hound.

Normally I’d insert something snarky and sarcastic here, but is there really any need? I mean, this pretty much says it all, doesn’t it? He’s had 10+ years to think about it, and now he’s going to tell us how he would rather have done it, given what he knows now. Well, that’s just great.

Perhaps he can take on the Kennedy assassinations next. Hell, why not do a reality TV show:

“It’s O.J. Simpson in… How I Would’ve Murdered Those People: The Most Famous Murders in History, Seen Through the Eyes of a Calculating Psychopath. This week O.J. tells us how he would’ve whacked JonBenet Ramsey!”

Look for it on Fox.

  This post currently has one screech.

  Read screeches and add your own...

Ted Haggard, religious guy, turns out to be a total fucking hypocrite

Filed Under : drugs, evil, fundamentalism, lying, religion, scandal, sex by vemrion
Nov.6,2006

Surprise, surprise.

Haggard, seen here trying to strangle God, was one of the nation’s leading religious nutjobs. He was the president of the National Association of Evangelicals (representing 30 million people) until it turned out he was having gay sex with a male hooker while snorting meth. Haggard initially claimed that he had bought the meth with no intention of using it, to which millions of meth addicts replied, “Riiiiiiight, buddy. Suuuure.”

Well, now he has been fired. And he’s even resigned from his own New Life Church in Colorado. What, do the Evangelicals have a little rule about gay sex or something?

It doesn’t matter to me that he’s as gay as a spring parade. What bothers me is that Ted Haggard has preached against homosexuality for years, saying it was a sin, and taking a firm stand against gay marriage… meanwhile he was getting his balls licked by some male prostitute named Mike Jones once a month.

Haggard’s sickening hypocrisy was actually what got the better of him. His fuck-buddy-for-hire ratted him out because he grew tired of getting Ted off one day and watching him preach about the evils of homosexuality the next.

Now Haggard has admitted, “I am a deceiver and a liar.” Well, I for one am refreshed by his honesty (about being a liar). Most religious scumbags lie continually and refuse to admit that they are deceptive sacks of shit, so it’s nice to hear Ted come to grips with his problem. (The problem: being a liar. Who gives a fuck if he’s as gay as Gore Vidal?) Of course, once you admit that you’re a liar you can never really be trusted again. So that kind of sucks for him. He went from “trusted religious leader” to “lying, drug-abusing fag” in one week. Tough week.

So, here’s a question for y’all: When are you gonna stop believing these self-righteous assholes? They continually turn out to be fuckheads and hypocrites. They always attack the same people (gays, women, minorities) in order to gain power for themselves. When are y’all gonna wake up and figure this scam out? I guess it’s as old as humanity and there’s a sucker born every minute, but I still have hope that people will figure out that their religious leaders (especially the ones at the top) are far more immoral than the people they accuse of immorality.

That doesn’t mean you can’t believe in God or have a community of believers. But you have to be aware that the most ambitious and most charismatic people are also the ones most likely to be in league with the devil, as it were. To a person driven to succeed at any cost a few lies on the way to the top are well worth the price. And maybe that’s okay in business (is it?), but that’s an extremely toxic outlook in the religious sphere. A few lies are NOT okay. In fact your whole job is to tell the truth!

I would suggest that the “sheep” in Ted’s flock learn how to read and pick up a Bible for themselves rather than letting sick men like Haggard interpret it for you. Make up your own mind about the purpose of life on Earth. Nobody knows for sure, so you can’t just abdicate your responsibilty and throw your trust in men like Ted and expect it to be okay. The only way to be sure is to cut your own path.

Oh, and for what it’s worth, I don’t think Ted “Gay Druggy” Haggard is correct about homosexuals. Although he obviously knows more about gay sex and the Bible than me, I still think my limited knowledge is sufficient to come to a better conclusion on the issue. Personally, I don’t remember Jesus saying, “Love your neighbor…unless he’s a fag.” Nope, I’m pretty sure Jesus told us to love everyone…and leave the judging to the guy upstairs.

  This post currently has 5 screeches.

  Read screeches and add your own...

Did Hastert take heroin-money bribes?

Filed Under : Congress, conspiracy, drugs, heroin, scandal by vemrion
Oct.23,2006

Sibel Edmonds and Daniel Ellsberg say it’s worth looking into:

The major effect of that is that terrorist gangs are taking a cut of this, including Al Qaeda, which essentially taxes this traffic as it goes through the various lands where each ‘band’ pays a percentage as they hand it off. In other words, the US is in effect, endorsing – well, ‘endorsing’ is too strong a word – ‘permitting’, definitely permitting, or ‘not acting against,’ a heroin trade – which not only corrupts our cities and our city politics, AND our congress, as Sibel makes very specific – but is financing the terrorist organization that constitutes a genuine threat to us. And this seems to be a fact that is accepted by our top leaders, according to Sibel, for various geopolitical reasons, and for corrupt reasons as well. Sometimes things are simpler than they might appear – and they involve envelopes of cash. Sibel says that suitcases of cash have been delivered to the Speaker of the House, Dennis Hastert, at his home, near Chicago, from Turkish sources, knowing that a lot of that is drug money.

There’s more.

Our government in action! In case you were wondering where they find time to be this corrupt, it’s because they don’t really do any work as RollingStone makes clear in their latest article on the corrupt congress.

Throw the bums out!

  This post currently has 2 screeches.

  Read screeches and add your own...

Some pages have received threats related to the Foley case

Filed Under : censorship, fascism, lying, religion, scandal, sex by vemrion
Oct.4,2006

Is somebody trying to tell them not to speak out?

Congressional pages involved in the Foley sex messages scandal are receiving threats via emails, Representative Rodney Alexander (R-LA) told CNN today.

We need to have an investigation of the threats as well as protect the safety of these pages. They could lead us much deeper down the rabbithole and they should not be punished for speaking out.

Meanwhile, it looks like the Republican leadership are all turning on each other in a desperate scramble to save their own asses. And it’s looking more and more like everybody except me knew about parts of this case months or even years ago.

Oh, and now Foley says he was molested by a clergyman and that he’s gay…and a drunk. And he’s been sold into sexual slavery in Uganda. Okay, not that last bit, but Foley is trying his best to make himself into the victim here. I don’t think that’s going to work. Keep trying, though.

I’m mostly concerned about the pages. We need to protect them and guard against any threats making them clam up. The only way we can get to the bottom of this and protect future pages is if everybody speaks out about what they know. The FBI needs to run a competent and thorough investigation and we need to make sure they don’t try to cover for those in power. Keep the pressure on!

  This post currently has no screeches.

  Read screeches and add your own...

Mel Gibson's Drunk Driving Simulator — This game is pretty fun!

Filed Under : funny, games, scandal by vemrion
Oct.3,2006
//[[Yanked!!]]\

Sorry, I didn’t realize the sound on this game was so annoying until I got home and started wondering what the hell that noise coming out of my computer was.

Anyway, it’s still a good game, just turn the sound off after your first time through. Here’s a link directly to the game.

  This post currently has one screech.

  Read screeches and add your own...

The Sexy, Sexy Skeletons in Mark Foley's Closet — Denny Hastert's Nightmare

Filed Under : corruption, elections, neocons, scandal, sex by vemrion

Holy shit, this Foley business is exploding. It looks really bad for the Republicans. The leadership of the GOP is in shambles. People are breaking ranks and speaking to the press to cover their own asses and the media is lapping it up. The leadership itself has tried to present a united front, but they seem to be taking a “duck and cover” approach to the storm. We’ll see if that works.

This is serious business. It is a serious breach of trust and a serious problem for a Republican party that has been trying to shake the “Culture of Corruption” tag that the Democrats have hung around their heads.

The blogs have been going nuts, of course. Glenn Greenwald in particular has had thorough and consistant coverage. He’s been all over this thing.

Hastert’s first interview since this scandal began is here, with CNN. He really just seems exhausted, beaten, and even resigned. He dismissively shrugs off the reporter’s incredulous question as to how he could simply forget reports from Rep. Reynolds that a 53-year-old Congressman was sending inappropriate emails to a 16-year-old page, and speculates that perhaps he forget about it because Reynolds mentioned it in passing along with a half-dozen or dozen other “campaign” items. This story really can’t end unless and until Hastert resigns.

The audio is really bad in that link above, and it’s not synched with the video. But the point is that Dennis Hastert is toast. He’s done. He had knowledge and he did nothing with it. There doesn’t seem to be any sort of “intervention” where Hastert might’ve wisely sat Foley down and told him, “Hey, dumbshit, quit hitting on the fucking pages, already, eh?” That might’ve happened, but it hasn’t come out yet. Denying any knowledge of the crime is a normal fallback for any politician (look at Condi Rice using that exact tactic to deflect culpability for the 9/11 attacks), but this time it might get Hastert burned since there are others close to him on record as saying that he was informed.

Of course, the neocons have wiggled out of tight spots before, a hundred times. But this might be their undoing. And yes, they look incompetent here, but they knew exactly what they were doing. Every powerful person has their favorite perks of the job, and Mark Foley’s was that he liked the endless stream of underage boys that he could hit on and do god-knows-what-else to. He could just as easily have been a high school gym teacher. Who knows what Hastert likes. Whisky? Hookers? Cocaine? All 3 at once? It doesn’t matter. These guys all look out for each other and they know when they have to look the other way. If Foley likes boys and Hastert likes hookers and Cheney likes skull fucking the corpses from his recent hunting expeditions, that’s just fine and dandy within the ruling elite.

But stories like this aren’t supposed to leak into the mainstream. And if they do, they are supposed to be buried quickly. So watch out for any attempts to do so (which will actually take the form of a deafening silence), and raise hell if you see it. I have no doubt that Hastert would have liked to cover this thing up way before the media caught wind of it. He should’ve put the kibosh on it long ago and now it’s come around to bite him in the ass. He’ll have to pay the piper.

Quite frankly, I suspect we’ve only scratched the surface of this one. The way that Foley resigned his seat — not decided to quit his re-election campaign, not said he would work out the remainder of his term — tells me that there may be more skeletons hidden in his closet. Possibly cute 15 year old skeletons with stories to tell. We shall see (but most likely we won’t, whether they exist or not). I don’t want to speculate (okay, yes I do), but I’m guessing that this goes waaaay deeper than “overly-friendly” notes to underage pages. I think we have to watch for something much worse. I can only subscribe Foley’s quick exit (at the very beginning of the media frenzy) to a guilty conscience.

What horror lurks in Foley’s closet?

  This post currently has no screeches.

  Read screeches and add your own...

Rep. Mark Foley (Republican) resigns after emails reveal him hitting on a 16 year old male congressional page

Filed Under : elections, neocons, scandal, sex by vemrion
Sep.30,2006

I mean, like, ewwwww!!

This guy is creepy, man. He’s 52 years old and he’s sending fairly explicit messages to teenaged pages. Pages, as you probably know, work for congresspeople in a sort of intern/gopher role. This particular page did not actually work for Foley, but they struck up a friendship. The page started getting freaked out after he gave his email address to Foley and ended up receiving some pretty sick emails. Raw Story has the emails if you want to check them out.

Foley has long marketed himself as a protector of children from sexual predation. In 2003, he became an outspoken critic of a summer nudist camp for children. An amendment by Foley to change federal sex offender laws became part of the Adam Walsh Child Safety and Protection Act of 2006.

Yeah, Foley loves children. He really, really looooooves children.

Like I said: Eww…

  This post currently has no screeches.

  Read screeches and add your own...

Rolling Stone and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. return with another look at election fraud

Filed Under : America, conspiracy, elections, fascism, fraud, neocons, scandal by vemrion
Sep.25,2006

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has uncovered a bombshell in Chris Hood, former Diebold employee, who claims that he personally patched dozens of Diebold electronic voting machines with an unauthorized patch:

Then, one muggy day in mid-August, Hood was surprised to see the president of Diebold’s election unit, Bob Urosevich, arrive in Georgia from his headquarters in Texas. With the primaries looming, Urosevich was personally distributing a “patch,” a little piece of software designed to correct glitches in the computer program. “We were told that it was intended to fix the clock in the system, which it didn’t do,” Hood says. “The curious thing is the very swift, covert way this was done.”

Georgia law mandates that any change made in voting machines be certified by the state. But thanks to Cox’s agreement with Diebold, the company was essentially allowed to certify itself. “It was an unauthorized patch, and they were trying to keep it secret from the state,” Hood told me. “We were told not to talk to county personnel about it. I received instructions directly from Urosevich. It was very unusual that a president of the company would give an order like that and be involved at that level.”

According to Hood, Diebold employees altered software in some 5,000 machines in DeKalb and Fulton counties – the state’s largest Democratic strongholds. To avoid detection, Hood and others on his team entered warehouses early in the morning. “We went in at 7:30 a.m. and were out by 11,” Hood says. “There was a universal key to unlock the machines, and it’s easy to get access. The machines in the warehouses were unlocked. We had control of everything. The state gave us the keys to the castle, so to speak, and they stayed out of our way.” Hood personally patched fifty-six machines and witnessed the patch being applied to more than 1,200 others.

Gee, that’s not suspicious or anything, is it?

Earlier in the article Hood says that the company was able to operate with unusual freedom since Georgia essentially privatized the election by giving Diebold (the highest bidder) the keys to the kingdom in order to get everything ready in a short timeframe.

Hood says it was “common knowledge” within the company that Diebold also illegally installed uncertified software in machines used in the 2004 presidential primaries – a charge the company denies. Disturbed to see the promise of electronic machines subverted by private companies, Hood left the election consulting business and became a whistle-blower. “What I saw,” he says, “was basically a corporate takeover of our voting system.”

How do we know we live in a democracy anymore? What proof do any of us have that the system is fair? Certainly, articles like this one don’t inspire any faith in me, and I’d bet that that’s the case for many folks out there.

So what should we do? Attack the messenger? Cross our fingers? Trust in Big Business?

None of those solutions are acceptable to me. I work with computers; I know what they can do. Hacking an election is trivial for Diebold. There’s no receipt or evidence left behind for a manual recount. Once the election is stolen, it’s gone for good. No recount is possible.

We need an open source solution, subject to rigid testing and public oversight if we’re going to use electionic ballots. Personally, I’m not convinced of the need for an electronic system. But if we do go with e-voting we need to stay away from “blackbox” voting. They call it blackbox because anything could be going on in there. You have no way of knowing if the person you just voted for actually received your vote. It’s far too uncertain. I prefer paper ballots for this reason.

The article goes on to deal with the ironically-named Help America Vote Act (HAVA) which actually does more to help Corporate America choose our representatives for us:

The primary author and steward of HAVA was Rep. Bob Ney, the GOP chairman of the powerful U.S. House Administration Committee. Ney had close ties to the now-disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff, whose firm received at least $275,000 from Diebold to lobby for its touch-screen machines. Ney’s former chief of staff, David DiStefano, also worked as a registered lobbyist for Diebold, receiving at least $180,000 from the firm to lobby for HAVA and “other election reform issues.” Ney – who accepted campaign contributions from DiStefano and counted Diebold’s then-CEO O’Dell among his constituents – made sure that HAVA strongly favored the use of the company’s machines.

Ney also made sure that Diebold and other companies would not be required to equip their machines with printers to provide paper records that could be verified by voters. In a clever twist, HAVA effectively pressures every precinct to provide at least one voting device that has no paper trail – supposedly so that vision-impaired citizens can vote in secrecy.

This is dirty, dirty business. It won’t be easy for Americans to believe that our (illegitimately elected, as it turns out) representatives and business leaders would be so evil to steal elections again and again, but America has a lot of waking up to do. “It can’t happen here” seems to be our mantra.

But it can. And it has.

  This post currently has no screeches.

  Read screeches and add your own...

Pentagon: Able Danger unit couldn't stop 9/11… because we wouldn't let them

Filed Under : 9/11, America, conspiracy, fascism, lying, neocons, scandal, videos by vemrion
Sep.22,2006

The Pentagon has finished investigating itself, and it finds itself…. not guilty!!! Yayyy!! What a triumph of democracy and accountability. [/sarcasm]

Let’s have Congressman Curt Weldon talk about that:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GPWF8JW7jJw]

  This post currently has no screeches.

  Read screeches and add your own...

FBI forced to triple fraud squads to keep up with rampant corruption on Capitol Hill

Filed Under : America, conspiracy, corruption, fraud, lying, neocons, scandal by vemrion
Sep.20,2006

Title pretty much says it all. Here’s the scoop:

There is so much political corruption on Capitol Hill that the FBI has had to triple the number of squads investigating lobbyists, lawmakers and influence peddlers, the Daily News has learned.

For decades, only one squad in Washington handled corruption cases because the crimes were seen as local offenses handled by FBI field offices in lawmakers’ home districts.

But in recent years, the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal and other abuses of power and privilege have prompted the FBI to assign 37 agents full-time to three new squads in an office near Capitol Hill.

FBI Assistant Director Chip Burrus told The News yesterday that he wants to detail even more agents to the Washington field office for a fourth corruption squad because so much wrongdoing is being uncovered.

My advice for the FBI: Keep up the pace. We’re gonna need a lot more agents if we want to get all of it. But I fear that the FBI lacks the political will to push too far, especially if the trail of corruption reaches too high up the chain of command. We need squeaky-clean corridors of power, but right now they’re covered in filth and decay. Does the FBI have the strength to arrest all of the perpetrators, not just the ones who get hung out to dry by their masters?

Really, if we wanted to stop corruption we’d have to arrest everybody in Washington except the janitors and the maids.

  This post currently has no screeches.

  Read screeches and add your own...

Rigorous Intuition breaks the JonBenet case wide open

Filed Under : America, conspiracy, crime, fascism, murder, scandal, sex by vemrion
Aug.20,2006

Sometimes I wonder why I even blog. Rigorous Intuition is so fuckin’ good that it makes all other blogs out there look like crap. Still, I ramble on.

As usual, Jeff Wells has some great insights into the crime and some new information that I’d never heard before. If you’re interested in the disturbing truth and the horrifying implications, head on over to Rigorous Intution.

Jeff also found this excellent resource for the investigtation. Here’s a sampling:

In his August 6, 1998 resignation letter, Boulder Detective Steve Thomas openly accused then police chief Tom Koby and other officials of sabotaging the case: “During the investigation detectives would discover, collect, and bring evidence to the district attorney’s office, only to have it summarily dismissed or rationalized as insignificant. The most elementary of investigative efforts, such as obtaining telephone and credit card records, were met without support, search warrants denied. The significant opinions of national experts were casually dismissed or ignored by the district attorney’s office, even the experienced FBI were waved aside.” Thomas was ordered not to question certain witnesses, “and all but dissuaded from pursuing particular investigative efforts. Polygraphs were acceptable for some subjects, but others seemed immune from such requests. Innocent people were not “cleared”, publicly or otherwise, even when it was unmistakably the right thing to do, as reputations and lives were destroyed. Some in the district attorney’s office, to this day, pursue weak, defenseless, and innocent people in shameless tactics that one couldn’t believe more bizarre if it were made up.”

The more I look into this case, the more it seems like a child-sex ring was involved, and that the investigation was headed off because some powerful people were involved. John Mark Karr’s “confession” seems more suspect by the minute. What’s he playing at?

Certainly, he’s not innocent. He is a pedophile. But is he really guilty of this particular crime? Maybe he was part of the child-sex ring. Maybe he’s just a convenient patsy.

The more I look into this case, the more things look bad for the Ramseys. It almost seems like they offered their daughter up as a sacrifice to the rich and powerful in order to gain more status for themselves. I hope that’s not the case, but she was found in their own home. What kind of Christmas party was that?

  This post currently has no screeches.

  Read screeches and add your own...

« Older Posts
Newer Posts »

© 2010 Electric Monkey Pants | Powered by Monkeys and their electric typewriting machines | Designed by Promi Sering and Vemrion.