http://www.hightimes.com/read/hundreds-local-cops-are-requesting-armored-trucks-fight-war-weed
Mother Jones obtained more than 450 police department requests for armored tactical vehicles from the Pentagon. Did your police force request one? Browse all of them here…
https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/2196278-nm-rio-rancho-pd.html
Bloomberg reported today: The world’s biggest restaurant chain [McDonald’s], which had about 14,350 domestic locations at the end of last year, is shuttering stores across the country as it struggles to reverse its worst sales slump in more than decade.
Wikipedia: As of May 31, 2014, the company [Walgreens] operated 8,217 stores in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
Wikipedia: CVS Pharmacy is the second largest pharmacy chain after Walgreens in the United States, with more than 7,600 stores, and is the second largest US pharmacy based on total prescription revenue. As the retail pharmacy division of CVS Health, it ranks as the 12th largest company in the world according to Fortune 500 in 2014. CVS Pharmacy’s leading competitor Walgreens ranked 37th.
http://www.businessinsider.com/16-walmart-facts?op=1
16 Facts About Walmart That Will Blow Your Mind (2010)
Last year Walmart sold more bananas than any other item.
If Walmart’s more than 8,500 stores were put in one place, they would take up more than 32 square miles — as much as 15,300 football fields.
Walmart parking lots alone take up roughly the size of Tampa, Florida.
An additional Walmart Supercenter per 100,000 residents increases average BMI by 0.25 units and the obesity rate by 2.4%.
http://www.yum.com/investors/restcounts.asp
U.S.
Kentucky Fried Chicken: 4,370
Pizza Hut: 7,863
Taco Bell: 5,921
Total: 18,154
China
Total: 6,400
Great Britain
Total: 1,453
Germany
Total: 179
Looks Like A Quorum
How Very Boring
Alluring
Soaring
Partying
Mustache
Acrobat
Perspective
I’m So Vain
Sunset After The Rain
Thanks for viewing. 🙂
Hog farmers in the U.S., the world’s biggest exporter, are losing out on a big payday because of a feed ingredient that many have been giving pigs for the past 15 years. As hog and pork prices surge in China, the top consumer, its record imports this year will be dominated by Europe, not the U.S., according to Rabobank. Like dozens of countries, China bans the use of ractopamine that is fed to more than three-quarters of American hogs to help them gain muscle faster while eating less grain…
As much as 80 percent of U.S. hogs are raised using ractopamine, according to Brett Stuart, the chief executive officer of research firm Global AgriTrends. The drug was a hit after the Food & Drug Administration approved the first commercial version from Eli Lilly & Co. in 1999, and got even more popular with higher costs for corn feed during the past decade…
While users of the additive include the U.S., Mexico and Australia, and more than 100 countries accept pork raised with it, ractopamine is banned in China, Russia and the 28 nations of the European Union…
China has been restricting beta agonists since 2002 and singled out ractopamine in 2009, according to Elanco. The U.S. has argued the actions weren’t based on any scientific evidence. The Chinese government has said its ban on growth enhancers is designed to improve food safety, after instances of tainted products raised public concern. The country also is seeking to limit use of illegal pesticides and veterinary drugs…
Smithfield Foods, purchased by Hong Kong-based WH Group in 2013, has been working to remove ractopamine from all company-owned animals, it said in a May 22 statement. Smithfield is the world’s largest hog producer and pork processor. Last year, several U.S. plants were disqualified as exporters to China after ractopamine-residue violations and labeling issues, according to the USDA…
From Wikipedia:
Besides the pharmacology effect, ractopamine may cause intoxication effect; therefore, any consumption by humans of a meat and/or byproducts of animals that consumed ractopamine with feed for growth stimulation, may result in such clinical effects as tachycardia and other heart rate increases, tremor, headache, muscle spasm, or high arterial blood pressure. The effect of ractopamine on humans is not entirely known, but consumption of products that contain ractopamine residues is not advisable to people with cardiovascular diseases…
Since the drug was introduced, more than 160,000 pigs taking ractopamine were reported to have suffered adverse effects, as of March 2011, according to a review of FDA records. The drug has triggered more adverse reports in pigs than any other animal drug on the market. Pigs suffered from hyperactivity, trembling, broken limbs, inability to walk and death, according to FDA reports released under a Freedom of Information Act request…
Achiro says the results make clear that body-conscious issues aren’t limited to young women. Why men are also effected isn’t exactly clear, but he says evidence suggests it’s a combination of factors, including body dissatisfaction and gender role conflicts.
“Body-conscious men who are driven by psychological factors to attain a level of physical or masculine ‘perfection’ are prone to use these supplements and drugs in a manner that is excessive and which was demonstrated in this study to be a variant of disordered eating,” said Achiro. “As legal supplements become increasingly prevalent around the globe, it is all the more important to assess and treat the psychological causes and effects of excessive use of these drugs and supplements.” …
Charnesia Corley, 21, said she was running an errand for her sick mother when a male Harris County sheriff’s deputy pulled her over near a Texaco station on June 21 and accused her of running a stop sign. The deputy said he smelled marijuana coming from the car, which in Texas is probable cause to search a vehicle…
Her attorney, Samuel Cammack III, told HuffPost the two deputies asked Corley to remove her pants in full view of passersby.
“She said, ‘No, I don’t have any panties on,’ so the officer told her to bend over and she pulled her pants down for her and went to stick her hand inside of Ms. Corely,” Cammack said.
Corley resisted and the deputies forced her face-first to the ground, Cammack said. The female deputy then climbed onto Corley’s back and pinned her, while the officers awaited the arrival of a second female deputy, according to the lawyer. After the second female deputy arrived, the two women officers held Corley down and forcibly spread her legs, Cammack said.
“One held one leg and the other held the other leg and they stuck their fingers up inside of her,” said Cammack. “This was in a Texaco parking lot, where people were walking by and cars were driving by. This was a very busy area.”
Corely was charged with resisting arrest and possession of marijuana, both misdemeanors. Investigators reportedly said they found 0.02 ounces of marijuana on her…
http://www.rt.com/usa/221299-texas-lawsuit-invasive-cavity-search/
A woman is suing the Texas Department of Public Safety and four state troopers for what she calls an overly invasive body-cavity search in broad daylight on the side of the road. One of the troopers was previously sued over the same procedure.
Jennifer Stelly, a Texas Corrections officer, and her boyfriend Channing Castex were pulled over by two troopers for speeding in March 2013, according to the complaint. The officers arrested Castex after they said they smelled marijuana, which he admitted to have smoked previously…
Stelly remained standing on the side of the road during the entire hour-long incident, while Castex was in the backseat of the squad car.
When the female trooper arrived, the search was performed in view of the dashboard-mounted camera in the cop car, as well as in front of the three male officers and the busy highway traffic…
The male troopers laughed as they watched the cavity search, according to the complaint.
“I was on my cycle so she could not penetrate the vaginal area but she went to the anal area and she penetrated and put her finger inside and I just felt violated,” Stelly told KRIV. The officer did not change gloves between portions of the examination, court records said…
Booker noted that the same female trooper, Kelley Helleson, was a defendant in a previous lawsuit involving roadside cavity searches. In that 2012 incident, video from a dash-mounted camera shows Helleson using her fingers to search the anuses and vaginas of the women. The trooper used the same latex glove to touch the genitals of both women, while conducting the search on the side of the road in full view of the passing vehicles. Booker also represented the two women in that case, which was settled out of court for $185,000…
In 2013, two other women filed suit against the Texas Department of Public Safety after a roadside body-cavity search performed by another state trooper, Jennie Bui. New Mexico law enforcement has also been under fire for invasive searches, including a lawsuit from a woman who claims a corrections officer sprayed mace on a her genitals during a strip search.
According to NBC News, 38-year-old Angel Dobbs and 24-year-old Ashley Dobbs from Irving, Tex., were driving along Highway 161 on July 13, when they were stopped for allegedly littering by State Trooper David Farrell.
“In the dashcam video released by the women and their attorney, Farrell can be heard telling the women they would both be cited for littering for throwing cigarette butts out of the car,” the news agency reports.
After stopping the women, Farrell — who claims to have “smelled marijuana” in their vehicle — reportedly questioned the women about the drug and searched their car for traces of pot…
The trooper then returned to his vehicle and called female state trooper Kelley Helleson to the scene. He said he wanted Helleson to search the women because they were “acting weird,” according to the dashcam recording.
Angel and Ashley claim that they were then subjected to a very public and “humiliating” roadside body cavity search. They both claim that they were not warned beforehand that the “intrusive” search was about to take place…
Two mothers are suing a South Texas county and sheriff after claiming they were ‘illegally strip searched’ along a highway, in plain view of other drivers. Brittah Williams, currently pregnant with her second child, and mother-of-one Jesica Mascorro, both of Refugio, Texas, filed a lawsuit against County Sheriff Robert Bolcik and two of his deputies…
When asked why they had been stopped Sheriff Bolcik said he had information that Ms Williams’ boyfriend at the time was smuggling drugs into the county. He needed to search her car, he said.
After the search, no drugs were found, the lawsuit states. Deputy Shelley Haertig then arrived and searched the women. According to the lawsuit, she told the women: ‘to pull their dresses up to their neck and their underwear down to their ankles, to bend over and spread their cheeks,’ KZTV10.com reported.
The entire ordeal lasted more than two hours and Ms Williams’ young son, who was in the car at the time, was also searched, according to the suit…
http://www.storyleak.com/georgia-police-strip-search-drivers-during-minor-traffic-stops/
An investigation out of Georgia has uncovered multiple police departments engaged in strip searches as well as searches inside the pants of drivers pulled over for minor traffic violations…
While sitting in the passenger seat after his wife was pulled over for a suspended registration, Phillips was unexpectedly ordered to exit the vehicle by Forest Park police. Coming up empty on a vehicle search, police suddenly turned their attention back towards Phillips, demanding he submit to a search as well.
Expecting a legal, outside the clothes pat down, Phillips consented to the officer’s requests, only to have the officer demand he pull down his pants on the side of the road.
“That’s illegal, man, you can’t do that. You can’t do that,” Phillips told the officer.
Noting that Phillips was aware of his rights, the officer suddenly claimed to smell marijuana, demanding Phillips remain still as he continued his illegal search… Unsurprisingly, no marijuana was found on Phillips or in the vehicle…
Another passenger, Ben Kassars, was subjected to a similar search after his roommate was pulled over for allegedly following a vehicle to closely. Claiming the men had drugs and threatening them with jail if they refused, officers went inside Kassars’ pants as he leaned on the back of his vehicle…
The investigation found more than half a dozen similar encounters with departments all across the state, leading many to wonder if a state wide policy has been quietly implemented by police. Incredibly, similar incidents have been reported all across the country as well in recent years…
Just last November, a Southern New Mexico man, pulled over for allegedly failing to make a complete stop, was forced to undergo two illegal anal searches, three enemas and a colonoscopy after police claimed he was “clenching his buttocks” and concealing drugs.
The illegal search failed to produce any drugs…
The plaintiffs claim Ford and Douglas were handcuffed and searched on the street as additional officers arrived, and that the searches including reaching down the front of their pants. According to the lawsuit, Douglas was later shackled to the window bars of a nearby home, where officers pulled his pants down, bent him over and searched his buttocks…
The female defendant, Halley, claims she was surrounded by five male officers while a female officer ordered her to remove her pants — despite her pleas that she was menstruating. The officer allegedly ordered Halley to remove her tampon and proceeded to conducted the search in her vagina while the other officers make jokes and laughed, according to the lawsuit. The female officer claimed to have found a bag of heroin in Halley’s waistband, which Halley maintains was planted…
The verdict, handed down after three days of testimony and about five hours of deliberations, was the first in potentially dozens of civil rights trials alleging illegal strip and cavity searches by Milwaukee police. More than 60 people have sued the city and the Police Department in connection with such searches…
The officers contended they had been tipped off by a security officer at a nearby housing complex that Hardy hung out with a man they believed was trespassing. Gasser said he smelled marijuana as he approached…
There was no mention of marijuana in any of the police reports, and Garland said he had not smelled any. Hardy denied he had marijuana and none was found…
A Florida sheriff’s department is denying a woman’s claim that she was strip-searched in public and had her tampon “forcibly” removed by a female officer during a 2011 traffic stop with her children in the car..
She claims she waited in the police cruiser for two hours and when other officers arrived, she was frisked and strip-searched at the side of a busy road, the lawsuit alleges. She said her children had been waiting in the woman’s vehicle the entire time. The lawsuit’s account:
“During her detention, PLAINTIFF was frisked and strip searched twice at the side of the busy road, in plain view of passers by. During one of the strip searches, PLAINTIFF had a tampon forcibly removed by JANE DOE OFFICER.
“At no point was a drug sniffing dog used to search for contraband,” the lawsuit stated, adding “None of the officers ever found any weapons, drugs, contraband or anything illegal during plaintiff’s detention.”
According to the Citrus County Sheriff’s Office, Tarantino was issued a criminal citation for violation of restrictions on her driver’s license. She also was issued a written warning for rolling through a stop sign…
All Things Chronic 