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Qntra - Herald Of The Most Serene Republic |
Korryn Gaines (WOT:nonperson) was killed by Baltimore County police during a standoff. Before killing the 23 year old woman police requested that Facebook suspend the social media accounts she was using to broadcast her personal revolution. Facebook obliged, she died. Apparently the revolution will not be Facebooked, Instagrammed or Whatapp'd.1 Peace in our time.
As these are all Facebook social media properties. ↩
In what mainstream media is reporting as the first case of terrorism charges targeting a law enforcement officer in the United States, a DC area transit cop bought ~250 United States dollars worth of gift cards (archived). Prosecutors allege he then distributed the gift card codes to FBI agents so that those FBI agents could buy paid mobile messaging apps for the Islamic State.
Law enforcement officers not facing terrorism charges in the United States include:
Those most be some serious mobile messaging apps.
Gawker Media founder Nick Denton (WOT:nonperson) filed for bankruptcy protection. This follows Gawker Media's filing back in June. This bankruptcy filing follows Denton fraudulently misrepresenting to the court value of the Gawker Media stock posted as bond following the loss by his company and himself personally to Hulk Hogan. The day after Denton posted the Gawker media stock as bond, Gawker media filed for bankruptcy. Failing to take personal responsibility for his failings, Denton blames fellow homosexual in tech Peter Thiel (WOT:nonperson) for using his play money to support litigation against Denton and Gawker Media for outing Thiel's homosexuality. Sorry for your loss.
In a state known for enviro-mentalism, exorbitant housing prices, inoffensive wine, and year-round surfing, a $9.3 bn per year industry is being skimmed by asset liberators other than those in Sacramento and Washington (archived). These non-violent crimes – stealing truckloads of physical altcoins in the shapes of almonds, pistachios, and a variety of other tree nuts – are apparently being conducted using falsified documentation, laptops, and cell phones, tools widely known to be used by scammers and terrorists and probably next in line for the political firing squad after the beloved AR-15. Last year, 310.847 tons of untraceable anonymous tree nuts valued at $4.6 mn were reported stolen.
Unable to contend with unknown bands of brazen thieves stomping on their turf, California's State Assembly is looking to flush even more taxpayer money it doesn't have down the drain by creating an "Agricultural Cargo Theft Task Force" to contend with the rising challenge. Sorry for your nuts.
A group calling itself "The movement for Black Lives" claiming to speak as the voice of all smaller "Black Lives Matter" groups has issued a policy platform centered around six demands. Each of the six demands is composed of numerous sub demands. The demands are:
We demand an end to the war against Black people. Since this country’s inception there have been named and unnamed wars on our communities. We demand an end to the criminalization, incarceration, and killing of our people. This includes:
An immediate end to the criminalization and dehumanization of Black youth across all areas of society including, but not limited to; our nation’s justice and education systems, social service agencies, and media and pop culture. This includes an end to zero-tolerance school policies and arrests of students, the removal of police from schools, and the reallocation of funds from police and punitive school discipline practices to restorative services.
An end to capital punishment.
An end to money bail, mandatory fines, fees, court surcharges and “defendant funded” court proceedings.
An end to the use of past criminal history to determine eligibility for housing, education, licenses, voting, loans, employment, and other services and needs.
An end to the war on Black immigrants including the repeal of the 1996 crime and immigration bills, an end to all deportations, immigrant detention, and Immigration and Custom Enforcement (ICE) raids, and mandated legal representation in immigration court.
An end to the war on Black trans, queer and gender nonconforming people including their addition to anti-discrimination civil rights protections to ensure they have full access to employment, health, housing and education.
An end to the mass surveillance of Black communities, and the end to the use of technologies that criminalize and target our communities (including IMSI catchers, drones, body cameras, and predictive policing software).
The demilitarization of law enforcement, including law enforcement in schools and on college campuses.
An immediate end to the privatization of police, prisons, jails, probation, parole, food, phone and all other criminal justice related services.
Until we achieve a world where cages are no longer used against our people we demand an immediate change in conditions and an end to public jails, detention centers, youth facilities and prisons as we know them. This includes the end of solitary confinement, the end of shackling of pregnant people, access to quality healthcare, and effective measures to address the needs of our youth, queer, gender nonconforming and trans families.
We demand reparations for past and continuing harms. The government, responsible corporations and other institutions that have profited off of the harm they have inflicted on Black people — from colonialism to slavery through food and housing redlining, mass incarceration, and surveillance — must repair the harm done. This includes:
Reparations for the systemic denial of access to high quality educational opportunities in the form of full and free access for all Black people (including undocumented and currently and formerly incarcerated people) to lifetime education including: free access and open admissions to public community colleges and universities, technical education (technology, trade and agricultural), educational support programs, retroactive forgiveness of student loans, and support for lifetime learning programs.
Reparations for the continued divestment from, discrimination toward and exploitation of our communities in the form of a guaranteed minimum livable income for all Black people, with clearly articulated corporate regulations.
Reparations for the wealth extracted from our communities through environmental racism, slavery, food apartheid, housing discrimination and racialized capitalism in the form of corporate and government reparations focused on healing ongoing physical and mental trauma, and ensuring our access and control of food sources, housing and land.
Reparations for the cultural and educational exploitation, erasure, and extraction of our communities in the form of mandated public school curriculums that critically examine the political, economic, and social impacts of colonialism and slavery, and funding to support, build, preserve, and restore cultural assets and sacred sites to ensure the recognition and honoring of our collective struggles and triumphs.
Legislation at the federal and state level that requires the United States to acknowledge the lasting impacts of slavery, establish and execute a plan to address those impacts. This includes the immediate passage of H.R.40, the “Commission to Study Reparation Proposals for African-Americans Act” or subsequent versions which call for reparations remedies.
We demand investments in the education, health and safety of Black people, instead of investments in the criminalizing, caging, and harming of Black people. We want investments in Black communities, determined by Black communities, and divestment from exploitative forces including prisons, fossil fuels, police, surveillance and exploitative corporations. This includes:
A reallocation of funds at the federal, state and local level from policing and incarceration (JAG, COPS, VOCA) to long-term safety strategies such as education, local restorative justice services, and employment programs.
The retroactive decriminalization, immediate release and record expungement of all drug related offenses and prostitution, and reparations for the devastating impact of the “war on drugs” and criminalization of prostitution, including a reinvestment of the resulting savings and revenue into restorative services, mental health services, job programs and other programs supporting those impacted by the sex and drug trade.
Real, meaningful, and equitable universal health care that guarantees: proximity to nearby comprehensive health centers, culturally competent services for all people, specific services for queer, gender nonconforming, and trans people, full bodily autonomy, full reproductive services, mental health services, paid parental leave, and comprehensive quality child and elder care.
A constitutional right at the state and federal level to a fully-funded education which includes a clear articulation of the right to: a free education for all, special protections for queer and trans students, wrap around services, social workers, free health services (including reproductive body autonomy), a curriculum that acknowledges and addresses students’ material and cultural needs, physical activity and recreation, high quality food, free daycare, and freedom from unwarranted search, seizure or arrest.
A divestment from industrial multinational use of fossil fuels and investment in community- based sustainable energy solutions.
A cut in military expenditures and a reallocation of those funds to invest in domestic infrastructure and community well-being.
We demand economic justice for all and a reconstruction of the economy to ensure Black communities have collective ownership, not merely access. This includes:
A progressive restructuring of tax codes at the local, state, and federal levels to ensure a radical and sustainable redistribution of wealth.
Federal and state job programs that specifically target the most economically marginalized Black people, and compensation for those involved in the care economy. Job programs must provide a living wage and encourage support for local workers centers, unions, and Black-owned businesses which are accountable to the community.
A right to restored land, clean air, clean water and housing and an end to the exploitative privatization of natural resources — including land and water. We seek democratic control over how resources are preserved, used and distributed and do so while honoring and respecting the rights of our Indigenous family.
The right for workers to organize in public and private sectors especially in “On Demand Economy” jobs.
Restore the Glass-Steagall Act to break up the large banks, and call for the National Credit Union Administration and the US Department of the Treasury to change policies and practices around regulation, reporting and consolidation to allow for the continuation and creation of black banks, small and community development credit unions, insurance companies and other financial institutions.
An end to the Trans-Pacific Partnership and a renegotiation of all trade agreements to prioritize the interests of workers and communities.
Through tax incentives, loans and other government directed resources, support the development of cooperative or social economy networks to help facilitate trade across and in Black communities globally. All aid in the form of grants, loans or contracts to help facilitate this must go to Black led or Black supported networks and organizations as defined by the communities.
Financial support of Black alternative institutions including policy that subsidizes and offers low-interest, interest-free or federally guaranteed low-interest loans to promote the development of cooperatives (food, residential, etc.), land trusts and culturally responsive health infrastructures that serve the collective needs of our communities.
Protections for workers in industries that are not appropriately regulated including domestic workers, farm workers, and tipped workers, and for workers — many of whom are Black women and incarcerated people— who have been exploited and remain unprotected. This includes the immediate passage at the Federal and state level of the Domestic Workers Bill of Rights and extension of worker protections to incarcerated people.
We demand a world where those most impacted in our communities control the laws, institutions, and policies that are meant to serve us – from our schools to our local budgets, economies, police departments, and our land – while recognizing that the rights and histories of our Indigenous family must also be respected. This includes:
Direct democratic community control of local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies, ensuring that communities most harmed by destructive policing have the power to hire and fire officers, determine disciplinary action, control budgets and policies, and subpoena relevant agency information.
An end to the privatization of education and real community control by parents, students and community members of schools including democratic school boards and community control of curriculum, hiring, firing and discipline policies.
Participatory budgeting at the local, state and federal level.
We demand independent Black political power and Black self-determination in all areas of society. We envision a remaking of the current U.S. political system in order to create a real democracy where Black people and all marginalized people can effectively exercise full political power. This includes:
An end to the criminalization of Black political activity including the immediate release of all political prisoners and an end to the repression of political parties.
Public financing of elections and the end of money controlling politics through ending super PACs and unchecked corporate donations.
Election protection, electoral expansion and the right to vote for all people including: full access, guarantees, and protections of the right to vote for all people through universal voter registration, automatic voter registration, pre-registration for 16-year-olds, same day voter registration, voting day holidays, enfranchisement of formerly and presently incarcerated people, local and state resident voting for undocumented people, and a ban on any disenfranchisement laws.
Full access to technology including net neutrality and universal access to the internet without discrimination and full representation for all.
Protection and increased funding for Black institutions including Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU’s), Black media and cultural, political and social formations.
Certifiably brown Texas student Rohini Sethi1was suspended from the University of Houston student government after she uttered “Forget #BlackLivesMatter; more like AllLivesMatter.” while not being brown enough on social media. For offering the wrong empathy Sethi faces the following sanctions:
Handing down the punishment white Student Government Commisar Shane Smith3 (WOT:nonperson) attributed the intensity of Sethi's sanctions to her failure to acknowledge just how much more the class of black lives matter at the moment compared to the class of all lives.4 Smith was granted one time powers to punish Sethi as he saw fit in a vote that only required a simple majority, because kicking her out of her paid Government club gig would have required mustering a 3/4 majority and a trial5 in front of Student Supreme Court.6
Shane Smith on the implications on his decision on speech at the University of Houston offered:
The first amendment [sic] prevents a person from being jailed by the governmetn [sic] for what they say. But [it] does not prevent people from receiving other consequences for what they say.
Apparently you can't get a university education in Texas.
Vice President of the University of Houston's Student Government association and WOT:nonperson ↩
~700 United States Dollars monthly ↩
Self declared 3.4 GPA anticipated graduation Spring 2017 with a major in economics. Considering graduate school and full time employment according to his LinkedIN. ↩
In fact lives do not matter all that much. ↩
Shane Smith is a member of the University of Houston Mock Trial Association. ↩
And everyone knows Supreme Courts are clogged with old white men with names like Clarence Thomas, Sonya Sotomayor, Elena Kagen, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and son of an immigrant Samuel Alito. ↩
Earlier this week, a Florida man was robbed of $28,000 dollars cash during a Bitcoin deal gone wrong. Steve Manos (WOT:nonperson), met two men at midnight in the parking lot of a Boston Market "restaurant". Manos gave one of the men $28,000 cash in a brown paper bag, after which time a knife was pulled. The two men then ran from the scene. One suspect, Andre Allen (WOT:nonperson) was arrested because phone number. Manos gave Allen's to authorities. Beware the dangers of Bitcoin trapping with individuals outside the WOT. Sorry for your loss.
Alleged Rebel But Gangster Black Rebels member Justin Payne faces further sanctions after police allege a tweet was sent from one of his old alleged twitter accounts. The tweets reportedly alleged that police and the FBI set Payne up, expressed remorse that alleged Dallas police shooter Micah Johnson was killed in a drone strike, and further suggested that Micah Johnson was a Rebel But Gangster Black Rebel. Payne was hit with six months of house arrest and intensified monitoring of his computer and cellular phone use. Payne waived his opportunity to challenge this restrictions in a hearing though Payne has not admitted authorship of the tweets.
This development raises serious questions about the Rebel But Gangster Black Rebels including:
Peace in our time.
The debut of Monsanto's "Roundup Ready Xtend Crop System(TM)(R)" is raising tensions among soybean and cotton farmers who have and have not adopted the seed component of the system, especially in the American Mid South (archived). This year's combination of weather and desperate tillage has lead to ideal conditions for Palmer's Amaranth to flourish in soybean fields threatening to greatly reduce yields by shading soybean plants and consuming soil nitrogen1 far more aggressively than the soybeans can.
Glyphosate resistant Palmer's Amaranth after its debut in 2006 has swiftly spread across the country and this year's proliferation of the weed has forced farmers who planted "Roundup Ready Xtend Crop System(TM)(R)" cotton and soybeans to spray their fields with Dicamba. The twist is that Monsanto isn't done bringing the herbicide portion of "Roundup Ready Xtend" to market so farmers who planted seeds from this Monsanto crop system are just spraying and dumping Dicamba on their fields out of desperation. Farmers who lack these seeds are watching their soybeans curl up and suffer, because Dicamba is especially effective on legumes.
The fallout from this year's soybean season will likely include the consumption of immense amounts of various EPA and Department of Agriculture functionaries time, substantial monetary penalties and torts against the farmers who manage to harvest soybeans this year, and pain for Monsanto as restrictions on applying Dicamba increase and diminish the point of marketing Dicamba resistant soybeans. Sorry for your loss.
Most plants take soil nitrogen and pump it into growing above the soil. Palmer's Amaranth isn't content with that. It takes soil nitrogen for growth and then takes still more soil nitrogen and stores it as nitrates. At one point Palmer's Amaranth was grown as a staple grain, but in the contemporary farm environment the level of nitrates accumulated turn the plant toxic. ↩
An eight hundred pound cow competing at the Cowlitz County Fairgrounds in Longview, Washington managed to escape its captors initiating a police chase that lead to the hospitalization of one officer and damage to several police patrol vehicles (archived). Police tazered the 2/5th ton contender for "most spirited" animal before fatally shooting it. Local media reports the cow's owner was injured declining to discuss circumstances of the farmer's injuries. Last November police in neighboring Idaho killed a bull and its owner after the bull was mauled by a Subaru that failed to yield to the bull as required by law. Peace in our time.