The Daily Drift

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Today in History

1531		The Catholics defeat the Protestants at Kappel during Switzerland's second civil war.
1540		Charles V of Milan puts his son Philip in control.
1727		George II of England crowned.
1795		In graditude for putting down a rebellion in the streets of Paris, France's National Convention appoints Napoleon Bonaparte second in command of the Army of the Interior.
1862		The Confederate Congress in Richmond passes a draft law allowing anyone owning 20 or more slaves to be exempt from military service. This law confirms many southerners opinion that they are in a 'rich man's war and a poor man's fight.'
1877		Outlaw Wild Bill Longley, who killed at least a dozen men, is hanged, but it took two tries; on the first try, the rope slipped and his knees drug the ground.
1899		South African Boers, settler from the Netherlands, declare war on Great Britain.
1906		San Francisco school board orders the segregation of Oriental schoolchildren, inciting Japanese outrage.
1915		Despite international protests, Edith Cavell, an English nurse in Belgium, is executed by Germans for aiding the escape of Allied prisoners.
1942		In the Battle of Cape Esperance, near the Solomon Islands, U.S. cruisers and destroyers decisively defeat a Japanese task force in a night surface encounter.
1945		Negotiations between Nationalist leader Chiang Kai-shek and Communist leader Mao Tse-tung break down. Nationalist and Communist troops are soon engaged in a civil war.
1950		The Federal Communications Commission authorizes the Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) to begin commercial color TV broadcasts.
1962		Pope John XXIII opens the 21st Ecumenical Council (Vatican II) with a call for Christian unity. This is the largest gathering of the Roman Catholic hierarchy in history; among delegate-observers are representatives of major Protestant denominations, in itself a sign of sweeping change.
1968		Apollo 7, with three men aboard, is successfully launched from Cape Kennedy.
1972		A French mission in Vietnam is destroyed by a U.S. bombing raid.
1976		The so-called "Gang of Four," Chairman Mao Tse-tung's widow and three associates, are arrested in Peking, setting in motion an extended period of turmoil in the Chinese Communist Party.
1991		Confirmation hearings for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas begin.

Non Sequitur

Big Bird flies high in 2012 presidential campaign

 

Big Bird is flying high in the 2012 presidential campaign.

President Barack Obama's campaign deployed the beloved "Sesame Street" icon in a new TV ad Tuesday mocking Mitt Romney for saying he would defund public broadcasting if elected.
The foundation backing "Sesame Street" quickly disavowed the spot, and Romney dismissed it as un-serious even though the Republican hopeful brought Big Bird into the national political conversation at last week's presidential debate.
Big Bird has been a big deal since Romney, in outlining ways he would cut federal spending, said, "I'm going to stop the subsidy to PBS," adding, "I like PBS, I love Big Bird."
Romney's vow to de-fund public broadcasting has been a staple of his campaign appearances for months, but the nationally televised declaration last week in Denver — more than 67 million were watching — gave it a much broader audience than ever before.
Romney's comment drew immediate reaction on social media, with users posting online photos of Big Bird appearing down on his luck or searching for work. Mock Big Birds have followed Romney to campaign events, and the real Big Bird even made an appearance on "Saturday Night Live" last weekend.
"I feel like I'm famous now. I was walking down the street the other day and felt like everyone recognized me," Big Bird said.
The "Sesame Street" dis offered an opening to Obama, who has faced strong backlash for his widely panned debate performance. At rallies and campaign appearances every day since the debate, he has used Romney's remark and referenced other "Sesame Street" characters to mock his opponent in a way audiences find funny and relatable.
"He said he'd bring down our deficit by going after what has been the biggest driver of our debt and deficits over the last decade — public television, PBS," Obama told people at a fundraiser Monday in San Francisco. "Elmo has been seen in a white Suburban. He's driving for the border. Oscar is hiding out in his trashcan. We're cracking down on them."
The satiric Obama campaign ad, set to air on national broadcast and cable stations, echoes that theme. The ad shows images of convicted financiers including Bernie Madoff and Enron's Ken Lay, and suggests Romney believes Big Bird is responsible for their crimes.
"Big, yellow, a menace to our economy," the ad says. "Mitt Romney knows it's not Wall Street you have to worry about, it's Sesame Street."
While Romney's comment drew criticism from PBS the day after the debate, the Sesame Workshop, which supports "Sesame Street" and other public broadcasting shows, demanded that Obama's campaign remove the ad.
"Sesame Workshop is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization and we do not endorse candidates or participate in political campaigns," the organization said in a terse, two-sentence statement. "We have approved no campaign ads and, as is our general practice, have requested that the ad be taken down."
Obama campaign spokesman Ben LaBolt said the campaign was reviewing the organization's concerns.
Romney, campaigning in Iowa, dismissed the Big Bird ad as inconsequential and suggested Obama was focusing on trivial matters rather than the economy and high unemployment.
"These are tough times with real serious issues, so you have to scratch your head when the president spends the last week talking about saving Big Bird." Romney told a cheering crowd. "I actually think we need to have a president who talks about saving the American people and saving good jobs and saving our future."
With his newfound political celebrity, Big Bird has emerged as the latest star in a campaign proxy war over a larger policy issue.
In 2008, Joe Wurzelbacher, or "Joe the Plumber," set off a proxy battle over tax policy when he asked Obama about his tax plan for small business. Obama's videotaped reply, in which he told Wurzelbacher that "when you spread the wealth around, it's good for everybody," prompted Republican John McCain to seize the statement as evidence that Obama supported socialist tax policies. Obama doubled down on his argument that higher income earners should be taxed more than the middle class.
This year, Big Bird is serving as a central actor in the debate over federal spending in tough economic times.
Public broadcasting has long drawn the scorn of many conservatives who see it as wasteful and having a liberal bias. Romney has framed it as a fiscal issue, suggesting shows like "Sesame Street" should charge for advertising like other television stations and shouldn't depend on the federal government for support.
Obama, for his part, has tried to frame the controversy as a matter of conservative overreach, suggesting that Romney and others would cut funding for much-beloved children's programming while giving tax breaks to the wealthy.
PBS receives a portion of its funding from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which receives an annual appropriation from Congress. In 2012, CPB received $445 million in federal funding. PBS said in a news release after last week's presidential debate that public broadcasting receives about one-100th of 1 percent of the federal budget.

Navy SEAL’s mom blasts Romney for politicizing death of her son

President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton honor the Benghazi victims at the Transfer of Remains Ceremony held at Andrews Air Force

As we have written before, Mitt Romney and his staff have admitted that when Americans lives are at risk, Team Romney smells “opportunity.”
So it’s no surprise that Romney saw the death of American Navy SEAL Glen Doherty, during the recent attack on America’s consulate in Libya, as an opportunity to take partisan advantage.  He admitted in the 47% video that he’s keeping his eyes open for such opportunities.
Unfortunately for Romney,  the Navy SEAL’s mother saw her son’s death as less of a godsend.

“I don’t trust Romney. He shouldn’t make my son’s death part of his political agenda. It’s wrong to use these brave young men, who wanted freedom for all, to degrade Obama,” said Barbara Doherty, Glen’s mother.

Showing yet again how clueless Mitt Romney really is about the world outside of the US, he is actually suggesting that the heroics of the Navy SEAL Glen Doherty show how important it is for the US to police the world.
While the actions of Doherty were impressive, and show why Navy SEALs are so highly regarded, in no way is that or should that be the model for US foreign strategy.
Here’s Romney exploiting the death of Doherty to attempt to make a point on the election trail.

Citing a CNN report that Doherty had been killed while trying to help others at the consulate, Romney expressed his admiration—and likened it to the leadership he says the country needs now in Washington.
“When he and his colleagues there heard that the consulate was under attack … they went there. They didn’t hunker down where they were in safety. They rushed there to go help,” Romney said. “This is the American way: We go where there’s trouble. We go where we’re needed. And right now we’re needed. Right now the American people need us.”

It’s questionable whether Romney (who sat out Vietnam in a Parisian mansion) really appreciates the impact constant war has on military families. Many families have been without a parent for years due to the heavy needs of wars in the region. If you have a family fortune like the Romney’s, you probably can’t understand the difficulties this presents.
When you are a pro-war protester like Romney, who isn’t interested in fighting or sending his own kids off to fight (much like other repugican chicken-hawks), you can’t be expected to understand that there is a significant difference between saving your own team who is under fire versus diving head first into an entire region that is in turmoil. One is a small (very important) mission, while the other is a fight that will go on for years.
After eleven years of war and multiple return missions for military families, plus a financial drain on the US, how can a serious candidate even think of endless war? Since we now know that the Romney Class is absent from the front lines in terms of fighting the war or paying for it financially, they remain clueless about the impact on American families as well as on locals abroad.
Everyone wishes that it was as simple as waving a magic wand and solving problems in the Middle East and beyond, but it doesn’t work that way.
Romney recently criticized Obama by saying “hope is not a strategy,” and he’s not wrong, but that’s hardly what I’ve seen from Obama in the Middle East. Hope may not be a strategy, but pretending as though we can afford more war and more foreign entanglements is the most ridiculous, idealistic heaping of wishful hoping that we’ve seen since the cowboy shrub was in office.
How’d the shrub’s foreign policy work out for the US?

Romney flip-flopped twice on abortion Tuesday

The Romney campaign issued two diametrically opposed positions on abortion last night.  One pro-choice, the other pro-life.
First the flip-flop.

Mitt Romney said Tuesday he has no plans to push for legislation limiting abortion, a softer stance from a candidate who has said he would “get rid of” funding for Planned Parenthood and appoint Supreme Court who would overturn Roe v. Wade.
“There’s no legislation with regards to abortion that I’m familiar with that would become part of my agenda,” the Republican presidential nominee told The Des Moines Register in an interview.

Funny, because Romney sure was familiar with the legislation when he commented on this before.

YouTube

But naturally, a few hours later, Romney backed off.

When I asked Romney spokesperson Andrea Saul to clarify what Romney had meant there (since the Huffington Post at least is taking it as a position that “could put [Romney] at odds with congressional Republicans who have made limiting abortion central to their messages”), she e-mailed, “Governor Romney would of course support legislation aimed at providing greater protections for life.”

Well, “protecting life” is pretty much the argument behind every piece of anti-abortion, anti-contraception, legislation out there. So that would mean that Romney is open to any anti-abortion legislation. Which is a 180 degree flip-flop from where he was a few hours before.
And what do you know, then the Romney campaign issued a statement to the Associated Press saying he would be a “pro-life president,” but refused to give any details as to what exactly that means.

Saul said Romney’s position is clear: “Mitt Romney is proudly pro-life, and he will be a pro-life president,” she said.

“Clear” isn’t quite the word I’d use.
Of course, it’s worse than that.  Buzzfeed’s Andrew Kaczynski documents that Romney has actually held 9 different views on abortion throughout his political career.  Nine.
There are a few possibilities as to what’s going on here:
1. Romney doesn’t really believe in anything. That means he lies a lot when he talks about policy, because he honestly doesn’t care, so it’s difficult to be consistent when there’s no underlying principle involved in the policy choices he makes.
2. To the degree Romney believes in anything, it’s liberalism.  Yes, he’s a jerk about corporate stuff, but on most other non-financial issues, he’s a Democrat.  And of late when Romney’s asked a question, his inner liberal slips, out until his staff can “fix” things and jam it back in.  So again, it’s difficult for him to be consistent about conservatism because it’s a foreign concept to him, and he doesn’t mean what he says when he embraces it publicly.
3. Romney is so desperate to be president that he’ll pander to anyone, and so dumb that he doesn’t think he’ll get caught.  And to his credit, he didn’t get caught lying throughout the last debate.  Jim Lehrer (and then President Obama) let Romney get away with murder.  And he lied his way through the repugican primaries, and won anyway.  So if you’re Romney, this lying thing has served you well, so why not continue to embrace it?
Romney is a dangerous man.  Not simply because of what he espouses, but because he’s not serious about any of it.  Nothing he says is real.  Nothing.  It’s one thing to paint yourself as more conservative for the primaries and more moderate for the general election, but not by simply changing your mind on every important issue – and then, when you’re called out on it by your base, changing back again.
I walk through Romney’s various flip-flops in detail, including his flip-flop on catfish, and his flip-flop on flip-flops, here, so I won’t go through them again.  (Though my favorite was Romney flip-flopping four times in a 24 hour period on the topic of pre-existing conditions.)
There is no way to predict what Romney will do if he becomes president.  He might move to the far left, he might move (more likely) to the far right (since so many of his advisers are on the far right).  But no one should be voting for this man based on his views.  His views aren’t real.  And to the extent they are, he doesn’t stand by them, ever.  So it’s pretty much a guarantee that his word means nothing.  And that doesn’t simply speak to policy, it speaks to his character.

The godfather of the 'tea party' loses it on CNBC over improving jobs numbers

Let’s be clear, CNBC is full of crazy right wingers who can’t lick Jack Welch’s boots quickly enough, and who love to smear people who have been more right than wrong on the economy, such as Paul Krugman.

There are a few reasonable people over there, but CNBC does their darnedest to keep the crazies in the spotlight.

CNBC wingnut Joe Kernan was tired of hearing “reason” on the show the other day, so he cut off non-conspiracy theorist Steve Liesman, who wasn’t feeding the job-numbers-conspiracy promoted by former GE CEO Jack Welch. Kernan then called on the Godfather of the Tea Party, Rick Santelli, who delivered the goods like no other channel besides Fox can deliver.

Santelli ranted about the poor state of the economy, despite the decrease in unemployment, and then added that he had predicted months ago that the September jobs report would be below 8%, implying the administration would fudge the numbers for positive press just before the election. “Take it any way you want!” Santelli said.
“Rick, what you’re implying with your comment…” Liesman interrupted.
“I’m not implying anything,” Santelli shouted back. “I’m telling you and it turned out that way. I’m a market whisperer.”

That’s one way of putting it.

Did you know ...

Ed Kilgore makes the case that Romney's post-debate bounce is subsiding

The "I am a job creator": a manifesto for the entitled

The 9 reasons business people are terrible at governing

The great coral reef coral facing major decline

That Iceland didn't bail out their bankers, they arrested them; now Iceland's economy is growing faster than anyone else's

The eleven shades of Romney

About how to prepare for the apocalypse with vegetables

A study finds looking at pictures of cute animals at work may produce productivity

Man behind anti-Muslim film to appear in court

A California man with many aliases who was behind an anti-Muslim film that sparked violence in the Middle East is expected to be asked by a judge Wednesday whether he violated his probation for a 2010 bank fraud conviction. Federal prosecutors said Mark Basseley Youssef, 55, had eight probation violations, including lying to his probation officer and using aliases. If Youssef denies those allegations, a judge will then likely schedule an evidentiary hearing.
Youssef has been in a federal detention center since Sept. 28 after he was arrested for the probation violations and deemed a flight risk by a magistrate judge.
He went into hiding after a 14-minute trailer for the movie "Innocence of Muslims" was posted on YouTube. Angry protests stoked by the film broke out in Egypt and Libya and violence related to the film has spread, killing dozens. Enraged Muslims demanded punishment for Youssef, and a Pakistani cabinet minister has offered a $100,000 bounty to anyone who kills him.
Federal authorities have said Youssef isn't behind bars because of the film or its content, which portrays Muhammad as a religious fraud, womanizer and pedophile. They said Youssef hasn't been truthful about his identity, using different names after he was convicted in 2010 of bank fraud.
Youssef was sentenced to 21 months in prison. He was barred from using computers or the Internet for five years without approval from his probation officer, though prosecutors said none of the violations involved the Internet.
An email left for Youssef's attorney, Steven Seiden, was not immediately returned Tuesday.
At least three names have been revealed to be associated with Youssef in the past several weeks. Court documents show Youssef legally changed his name from Nakoula Basseley Nakoula in 2002, but never told federal authorities, who used that as part of the probation violation case against him.
Youssef, an Egyptian-born Christian who's now a U.S. citizen, sought to obtain a passport in his new name but still had a California driver's license as Nakoula, authorities said. Youssef used a third name, Sam Bacile, in association with the film.
Authorities said Youssef used more than a dozen aliases and opened about 60 bank accounts and had more than 600 credit and debit cards to conduct a check fraud scheme.
When he was identified as Nakoula after the movie trailer went viral, federal probation officials questioned him. He denied using the name Sam Bacile, which was listed on the YouTube account that posted the trailer, and said his role in the film was limited to writing the script.
Tess Lopez, a former federal probation officer who now is a sentencing consultant in Northern California, said if federal prosecutors can prove Youssef violated his probation, it's likely he would receive more prison time because the new allegations are similar to the original crime.
"Given the nature of the conviction, it would normally warrant a prison sentence," Lopez said.

Whoops!

Florida governor gives phone sex number for meningitis hotline

In an typical mistake, Florida Governor Rick Scott gave out a phone sex hotline number to Floridians seeking information on a deadly fungal meningitis outbreak. Scott was providing an update on the outbreak at a cabinet meeting on Tuesday when he announced what he said was the hotline's toll-free phone line, but gave out the wrong number.

The governor's office was alerted by a public radio station in Tampa, WUSF, which was monitoring the cabinet meeting and posted the number on its website.

The station said it was "quickly notified by a reader that the number instead connected to an adult telephone line."

Callers are greeted with the recording of a woman's voice saying: "Hello boys, thank you for calling me on my anniversary."

Contacted Wednesday, Scott's spokeswoman Jackie Schutz said the governor, as he is wont to do, misread the number. He was informed of the error and was able to correct himself about 20 minutes later in the same meeting.

The correct number for the Florida Fungal Meningitis Hotline is 866-523-7339, but Scott got one of the digits mixed up.

Since the outbreak began, 138 people have contracted meningitis and 12 have died, including one in Florida, according to the latest tally from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Wednesday.

Daily Comic Relief

Woman with late-stage terminal cancer humiliated by TSA bandage-lifting

What has the TSA done to protect America from rogue cancer terrorists this week? This: A woman with leukemia who was making an end-of-life journey to Hawaii was humiliated en route by a revealing TSA pat-down.

[Michelle] Dunaj says nothing went right at the security checkpoint. A machine couldn't get a reading on her saline bags, so a TSA agent forced one open, contaminating the fluid she needs to survive. She says agents also made her lift up her shirt and pull back the bandages holding feeding tubes in place. Dunaj needs those tubes because of organ failure.
With other passengers staring, Dunaj says she asked for privacy and was turned down. "They just said that it was fine; the location we were at was fine," she said.

Video at KOMO NEWS. More at AP.

Occubaby is born!

Call it kismet. Last year police officers fenced in a peaceful young woman and pepper sprayed her in the face at an Occupy protest. She fell in love with the medic who came to her aid. On September 28 the couple had a baby: Tegan Kathleen Grodt!

Occubaby is born!

The Classics

Egyptian-born terrorist pleads not guilty

An Egyptian-born preacher pleaded not guilty Tuesday to conspiring with Seattle men to set up a terrorist training camp in Oregon, three days after he and four others were brought to the United States from England to face terrorism charges.

Mustafa Kamel Mustafa, 54, entered the plea shortly before U.S. District Judge Katherine B. Forrest set an Aug. 26 trial date. Mustafa, widely known by the name Abu Hamza al-Masri, is also accused of helping abduct 16 hostages, two of them American tourists, in Yemen in 1998.

"He's presumed innocent," his court-appointed lawyer, Jeremy Schneider, said outside court afterward. When someone asked Schneider whether he thought his client was a terrorist, he snapped: "That's a silly question."

Schneider said his client prefers to be known as Mustafa Kamel Mustafa, the name listed first on his indictment. Abu Hamza and Abu Hamza al-Masri are listed as aliases.

There was no mention in court Tuesday about access to the prosthetics — including a hook — that Mustafa uses in place of the hands he says he lost fighting the Soviets in Afghanistan, but Schneider said outside court that it was a problem for him.

"I believe he has use of them for a certain part of the day but not long enough to allow him to function the way he should function," he said. "As you can well imagine, he's not happy he's in a situation like this without use of his prosthetics."
"He's having a hard time. He doesn't have hands," he said.
He also is missing an eye. His lawyers in England said he suffers from depression, chronic sleep deprivation, diabetes and other ailments.

Earlier Tuesday, two men brought from England to face terrorism charges on Saturday along with Mustafa made their first appearance before U.S. District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan, who set an October 2013 trial date.

Khaled al-Fawwaz, 50, and Adel Abdul Bary, 52, are charged with participating in the bombings of embassies in Tanzania and Kenya in August 1998. The attacks killed 224 people, including 12 Americans. They were indicted in a case that also charged Osama bin Laden.

Both pleaded not guilty on Saturday.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Sean S. Buckley said the men made statements to officers in the United Kingdom that may be part of the evidence at a trial he estimated would last up to three months.

Two other men brought from Britain were arraigned in Connecticut on Saturday on terrorism charges.

Mustafa became well-known in the 1990s as his Finsbury Park Mosque in London became a training ground for extremist Islamists including Sept. 11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui and attempted "shoe bomber" Richard Reid. He had been jailed since 2004 in Britain on separate charges.

Traci Billingsley, a U.S. Bureau of Prisons spokeswoman, said she cannot provide specific information about individual inmates.

"In general, if an inmate arrives at any of our facilities with a prosthetic that we believe could pose a danger, it would not be permitted inside," she said, adding that the inmate would be medically evaluated to determine whether other accommodations or devices would be appropriate.

John N. Billock, head of the Orthotics & Prosthetics Rehabilitation Engineering Centre in Warren, Ohio, and a pioneer in the field, said a hook for a hand would "definitely be considered a weapon."

"You could brutalize somebody with it," he said. "You can put somebody's eyes out or knock out their teeth."

He said hooks are typically made of stainless steel or aluminum. The price of prosthetics in place of hands can range from $15,000 to $100,000, he said.

Mustafa is being held prior to trial in the same federal lockup where a prison guard lost an eye and was left brain-damaged when he was stabbed with a sharpened comb in 2000 by a terrorism defendant awaiting trial in the embassy bombings plot.

Mamdouh Mahmud Salim is serving a life sentence after pleading guilty.

Minnesota witness describes early al-Shabab recruiting

A Minnesota man who spent two months with a terrorist group in his native Somalia told a jury Tuesday that another man on trial for allegedly helping funnel recruits to the group gave money to buy weapons for fighters.

Salah Osman Ahmed testified that while he was staying at an al-Shabab safe house in Merca, Somalia, the defendant, Mahamud Said Omar, was also staying there. He said Omar gave the woman who ran the house about $300 for expenses as well as money to buy AK-47s for two fighters, which he said cost about $500 each.

Omar has pleaded not guilty to five terrorism-related counts and if convicted, could be sentenced to life in prison. He is one of 18 people who have been charged in an ongoing investigation into the travels and recruitment of more than 20 young Somali men who have left Minnesota since 2007 to join al-Shabab's fight against the U.N.-backed government in Somalia.
Several defendants, including Ahmed, have pleaded guilty in the case, and Omar's is the first case to go to trial.
On cross examination, Omar's attorney, Jon Hopeman, noted that Ahmed never saw Omar exchange money with others.
"You never saw him give anybody any money, right?" Hopeman asked. Ahmed replied that he hadn't.

Prosecutor William Narus asked how Ahmed knew about the money for the weapons. Ahmed replied that when he was at the safe house, the woman in charge told the men from the West they had to buy their own weapons. Omar was in a meeting and said he would buy two guns, and later, the woman told the men she had enough money for the guns, Ahmed testified.

Ahmed also testified that Omar left the house after about five days to go get married, and Ahmed thought Omar would join the group after his wedding. When the group went to another house, Omar didn't join them there, but an AK-47 arrived with Omar's name on it. The gun went to another fighter, Ahmed said.

Hopeman asked Ahmed whether Omar ever attended an al-Shabab training camp, ever tried to convince Ahmed to join the group, or ever took orders from al-Shabab. Ahmed testified he did not.

Ahmed has pleaded guilty to one terror-related count and has remained free while awaiting sentencing. He is cooperating with prosecutors in hopes of getting a reduced sentence.

After his testimony, Chief U.S. District Judge Michael Davis dismissed jurors for an afternoon break, then said he would be changing the conditions of Ahmed's release and putting him back on location monitoring. Davis also said Ahmed must turn in his passport and refrain from trying to get a new one, and he forbade Ahmed from leaving Minnesota with the judge's permission.

Ahmed's attorney, Jim Ostgard, asked Davis why he changed the conditions. Davis responded that he "listened to his testimony" and said another judge had the case initially and he wanted to make changes.

"I'm putting electronic monitoring on him so I know where he's at, unless you would like him taken into custody," Davis said.

Antifascist Greek protesters say they were tortured by police

Antifascist protesters in Greece who were arrested during a clash with members of the neo-fascist Golden Dawn party/gang say they were tortured by the police, who put out cigarettes on them, tased them, beat them, and threatened to provide their names and addresses to Golden Dawn revenge squads. The Guardian's Maria Margaronis reports:

Several of the protesters arrested after the first demonstration on Sunday 30 September told the Guardian they were slapped and hit by a police officer while five or six others watched, were spat on and "used as ashtrays" because they "stank", and were kept awake all night with torches and lasers being shone in their eyes.
Some said they were burned on the arms with a cigarette lighter, and they said police officers videoed them on their mobile phones and threatened to post the pictures on the internet and give their home addresses to Golden Dawn, which has a track record of political violence.
One of the two women among them said the officers used crude sexual insults and pulled her head back by the hair when she tried to avoid being filmed. The protesters said they were denied drinking water and access to lawyers for 19 hours. "We were so thirsty we drank water from the toilets," she said.
One man with a bleeding head wound and a broken arm that he said had been sustained during his arrest alleged the police continued to beat him in GADA and refused him medical treatment until the next morning. Another said the police forced his legs apart and kicked him in the testicles during the arrest.

Greek anti-fascist protesters 'tortured by police' after Golden Dawn clash

Brazilian council candidate 'handed out cocaine with election leaflets'

A Brazilian city council candidate has been arrested after she was caught allegedly handing out cocaine with her election leaflets, according to reports.

Carme Cristina Da Silva Lima, 32, was running for councilor of Itacoatiara, in Brazil's northern state of Amazonas. Police became suspicious when they saw a crowd allegedly gathering around Ms Lima's car on the morning of election day on Sunday.

Photo from here.

Officers searched her car and allegedly found hundreds of packets of cocaine attached to the candidate's leaflets with instructions on how to vote for her. Police chief Daniel Ottoni said: "There was a large gathering of people around Ms Lima, but when they saw the police they all ran away.

"The candidate and another man also fled by car but officers caught up with them. According to locals, she had been distributing the drugs since early in the morning, on condition that people vote for her." Ms Lima was arrested for electoral corruption and drug dealing.

A 14-year-old girl 'tried to kill boys by poisoning their brownies'

It was an apology for acting out that morphed into an attempted murder charge. A batch of brownies, meant as a peace-offering for teasing two boys who lived across the road, landed a Brisbane girl in serious trouble on Sunday night, after she allegedly laced them with toilet and window cleaners. It's alleged the teenager made the brownies in an attempt to apologize for behaving badly towards the two boys, aged 12 and 13, earlier that day at Richlands, west of Brisbane, Australia.

But it all went awry when she allegedly doused the brownies in toxic household chemicals before walking across the street and offering them to the boys on the last day of the school holidays. The boys' mother, who would not be named, said one of her sons took a bite of one of the teenager's brownies, before realizing something was very wrong. "They only had one bite, thank goodness," she said. "I'm just glad my younger one, who is seven, didn't get given one. You could smell it . . . it was very strong. I'm just horrified by what has happened."

The boys did not require medical treatment after eating the allegedly poisonous brownies. Police late on Sunday night charged the 14-year-old with attempted murder, administering a poison with intent to harm, and two counts of acts intended to maim. She was held at Richlands Magistrates Court overnight on Sunday, before making a successful bid for bail yesterday afternoon before Magistrate Deborah Vasta.

YouTube link

The teenager, who cannot be identified, was represented by defense lawyer and founder of Sisters Inside Debbie Kilroy. Ms Kilroy made no comment about her client outside court, other than to say the teenager was "fine" and holding up well despite the very serious allegations against her. Mrs Vasta allowed the teenager to walk free ahead of a committal mention on November 28. It is understood that the Department of Community Safety has found alternate accommodation for the young woman while she awaits court proceedings.

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