What happens if someone tries to pull a gun out of a cop's holster?

In the United States, where it's protocol for officers to have guns on their person (if not two), it is not uncommon for a police officers to be disarmed and killed with his or her own weapon. A felony charge is commonplace as the minimal charge for theft of a weapon, and police forces are working to instate further penalties to ensure safety of police officers. Columbus, Ohio, for example, recently wrote language into a bill that would even penalize the theft of a taser, pepper spray, a baton, and other utensils with the same felony charge of taking a weapon to further protect officers from situations that might threaten their well-being. 

Abroad, it is less common for patrol officers to carry weapons. Chinese police officers, for example, only began carrying guns in April 2014 after a decade-long ban. Iceland, despite being the 15th most armed nation per capita, recently had their first fatal police shooting in 200 years. The United Kingdom and New Zealand tend to have special armed units to avoid loose triggers.

We asked legal and law enforcement professionals what happens if someone tries to grab a police officer's gun out of their holster.  READ MORE

White House Remains Silent On IRS Extortion Of Innocent Americans

On Monday, I wrote about the IRS practice of emptying private bank accounts when it appears to the government that there exists a pattern of bank deposits seeking to skirt the bank reporting laws requiring all deposits of $10,000 or more to be reported by the bank to the government.

The seizures are the result of a law passed in 2000 requiring banks to look for and report ‘structuring’ cases where bank deposits by an individual or business reveal a pattern of depositing sums just below the $10,000 reporting trigger in an effort to hide large deposits from the government.
The point of the law is to help the federal government hone in on terrorists, drug dealers and other criminals who deal in large sums of cash.

As noted in my earlier piece, the most recent statistics indicate that the law has gone wildly off-course with approximately 80 percent of those who had their accounts seized in 2012 turning out to be completely innocent people who did not meet the profile of a  terrorist, drug dealer or any other sort of criminal that the law was created to impact.

While I suppose one can argue that mistakes happen—particularly when the government is involved—one might also suppose that, upon learning of the error, the IRS would be all too anxious to return the money, with interest and damages, along with a profound apology for any damage done.
Not so much.  READ MORE

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TO SIGN THE WHITE HOUSE PETITION CLICK HERE
(note link didn't work previously because of changes to how the white house petition system now operates, until 150 people sign the petition is only available through this link. which you may copy and post elsewhere. Thank you.)

FIND THE BILL HERE H.R. 5212 Civil Asset Forfeiture Reform Act

Building a 'Mature' Democracy in Afghanistan

Presidents Hamid Karzai and Barack Obama at the
White House. (photo: Jim Watson/AFP/Getty Images)

By Tom Engelhardt, TomDispatch.com

09 March 12

ow primitive the Afghans are!  A New York Times account of faltering negotiations over a possible “strategic partnership” agreement to leave U.S. troops on bases in that country for years to come highlights just how far the Afghans have to go to become, like their U.S. mentor, a mature democracy.  Take the dispute over prisons.  Afghan President Hamid Karzai has been insisting that the U.S. turn over its prison facility at Bagram Air Base to his government.  (The recently burned Korans came from that prison's library.)  The Obama administration initially refused and now has suggested a six-month timetable for such a turnover, an option Karzai has, in turn, rejected.  No one, by the way, seems yet to be negotiating about a second $36-million prison at Bagram that, TomDispatch recently reported, the U.S. is now in the process of building.

The Times' Alissa Rubin suggests, however, that a major stumbling block remains to any such turnover.  She writes: “The challenges to a transfer are enormous, presenting serious security risks both for the Afghan government and American troops. Many of the estimated 3,200 people being detained [in Bagram's prison] cannot be tried under Afghan law because the evidence does not meet the legal standards required to be admitted in Afghan courts. Therefore, those people, including some suspected insurgents believed likely to return to the fight if released, would probably have to be released because Afghanistan has no law that allows for indefinite detention for national security reasons.”

Honestly, what kind of a backward country doesn't have a provision for the indefinite detention, on suspicion alone, of prisoners without charges or hope of trial?  As a mature democracy, we now stand proudly for global indefinite detention, not to speak of the democratic right to send robot assassins to take out those suspected of evil deeds anywhere on Earth.  As in any mature democracy, the White House has now taken on many of the traits of a legal system -- filling, that is, the roles of prosecutor, judge, jury, and executioner.  READ MORE