The description Sounds an awful lot like Enrique “Ricky” Prado. He worked renditions for the CIA and latter Blackwater.

The thing I like best about traveling through Arizona is that giant trucks can travel in any lane and at the same speed as everyone else! It is so exciting! I get to drive my compact car at 75 mph with double trailer gravel trucks in front and behind me and on both sides left and right.

In Romney’s idea of the perfect world he could prevent the government from paying for a poor child medical care but would be happy to come over and help fold clothes.

The U.S. defense budget is enormous because of what it is actually required to defend. Yes if we were to limit it’s size to what is necessary for protecting our landmass and population it could be much smaller but would not be able to carry out the bulk of it’s actual missions. America’s wealthiest 1% travel freely and have important economic interests all over the planet. These interests need to be protected very often by force of arms. Whether it’s overthrowing democratically elected governments for trying to negotiate too tough a deal with multinational resource companies or coercing foreign governments into creating better business environments by allowing abusive labor and environmental practices it all requires very expensive big stick diplomacy. The U.S. military’s cost just to protect the shipping lanes so American jobs can be safely exported to take advantage of rock bottom wages is more than the entire military budget of most other nations.

The guys in this video are not NYPD they are pot-bellied campus cops. If any one of them has a masters degree in anything unless it is from a kook pot Christian College I’ll eat my hat.

But seriously I would like to hear your opinion of this over the top para-military transformation of American law in enforcement.

Had a bad experience there? Sorry about that. Perhaps Humboldt State would have been a better fit for you.

The comments in bay area papers supporting the police are so over the top that they do the police image far more harm than good. I suspect that is their real objective.

Training civilian police in outlandish military tactics has been the real bread and butter for companies like Blackwater aka Xe. Even the most piss ant of small town sheriff departments or rent a cop community college police forces seems to have their own heavily armed SWAT teams these days. DHS picks up the tab for training and equipment and the temptation to inappropriately use all the those new toys is very great.

This is just starting to filter into the MSM…. very shocking video obtained by the Guardian.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/nov/18/occupy-oakland-police-beating-veteran?newsfeed=true

UC Davis is the most academically elite campus in the UC system. I can just imagine the envy and resentment that builds up in the academically challenged community college educated redneck cops employed by the system. It was ill advised for Chancellor Katehi to let them off the leash so that they could act out their revenge fantasy on the students.

No an injunction can only be used to prevent an action. After the fact it’s just a long and expensive legal grind.

I think that Bloomberg and Kelly’s plan to ignore the court order, clear out the park and then present the Judge with a fait accompli that will force her to declare the purpose of the hearing moot.

W.C. Fields walks into a bar, sits down and asks the barkeep, “say did I spend $50 in here last night?” Barkeep, “why yes you did”. W.C. Fields, “Thank God! I thought I’d lost it”

U.S. State Department officials will remain relatively safe because the Iraqi government is very unlikely to allow them or their security contractors to move beyond the walls of their huge embassy prison.

You are right on. It is probable time to let the Supreme Court decide if the state can regulate political speech and the right of assembly. We already know the state cannot control political spending so I hope the Supremes will feel a need to be consistent.

Remember that for every 100k manufacturing jobs lost their will be 6 hedge fund manager jobs created. In terms of national income it is a wash.

I have tried to put the best spin on the U.S. military motives. They may be trying to prevent the cluster fuck that will result from an out of control heavily armed frat boy private army run by the Department of State next year.

“The Gulf countries, and the UAE in particular, don’t have a lot of military experience. It would make sense if they looked outside their borders for help,” an Obama Administration official said. “They might want to show that they are not to be messed with.”

Given the tinderbox situation caused by the democracy uprisings of the Arab Spring I cannot possible imagine an Administration official making a more ignorant and inflammatory statement.