- In Oregon, a man fired a warning shot at a criminal breaking into his house, and the cops confiscated the man's gun.
- In Washington, a woman with hearing and cognitive disabilities was punched in the face several times by a police officer -- and the cops want her charged with assaulting an officer. All this, apparently because the woman was talking on a cell phone in her car, which is prohibited in Washington.
- A TSA goon sexually assaulted a Canadian woman during a pat-down in California.
- In Texas, police shot and killed a 73-year-old man who had come out to his garage to investigate an alarm in the neighborhood.
- Also in Texas, a man tries to enter a burning house to save his 9-month-old son. Police stopped him by hitting him with a Taser. The baby died in the fire.
- A federal judge has ordered Google to comply with the Obama administration's warrantless requests for user data. Thanks to the Patriot Act -- which can request such data without a warrant or subpoena if the government claims that a matter of national security is at risk -- this is perfectly legal.
- The Supreme Court ruled that it's OK for police, without a warrant, to take a DNA sample of anyone who's been arrested -- not convicted, only arrested. Justice Scalia, writing in dissent, said the ruling sets a "terrifying principle." So much for being protected against unreasonable searches and seizures.
- An associate of one of the Boston bombing suspects ends up shot and killed by the FBI during questioning, and the FBI can't get its story straight about what happened. Meanwhile, two FBI counterterrorism agents who were involved in the arrests in Boston died after a fall from a helicopter. Even if you don't want to believe in conspiracy theories, it's hard not to get suspicious when so many people who were so close to either the suspects or the investigation start to drop over. Dead men, after all, tell no tales.
- An American citizen has been sentenced to 15 years of hard labor in North Korea, and all the gutless Obama administration can do is offer a boilerplate statement of concern, while it asks nicely for North Korea to release him.
- Obamacare will increase health-insurance premiums by as much as 146% in California. Never forget that Obamacare was going to bring costs down -- and thanks to the corrupt Supreme Court that ruled the insurance mandate constitutional, you can't even opt out. Great news for a struggling economy, and for people who are already finding it hard to make ends meet.
- And in the latest attempt to turn Orwell's cautionary tale 1984 into a reality, the Obama administration says our war will continue for at least another 10 to 20 years. As Glenn Greenwald points out, the war can never end, because as long as we continue to kill innocent people, more people will rise up in hatred against us -- and because too many people with political ties are making too much money off the war machine. Potential quote-of-the-year candidate: "Whatever else is true, it is now beyond doubt that ending this war is the last thing on the mind of the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize winner and those who work at the highest levels of his administration."
Meanwhile, the people of Turkey are taking to the streets and fighting back against a government that's gone out of control.
According to an Al-Jazeera correspondenton the ground: "They are determined to keep 'speaking the truth' to the government. They say the government is acting in an authoritarian manner, ruling by decree and not listening to the people."
Sound familiar?
How heartening to see that there are some people in this world who still fight back against tyranny.
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