GDPR – Are You Ready?


The new so-called “General Data Protection Regulation” (GDPR) of the EU goes into full force on May 25, 2018. GDPR is a serious measure which is really designed to stem any criticism of the EU Commission. The claimed purpose is to stop propaganda pretending this will boost consumer confidence, revive the economy and generate billions of dollars in savings. What this is all about is the plain fact that this regulation will lay the foundation establishing a new layer of bureaucracy pretending to protect citizens but will burden the private sector since there are no specific injuries that are defined in advance leaving the enforcement arbitrary in the hands of bureaucrats at their discretion.

Across all of Europe, nobody understands exactly what is allowed and what is forbidden, who has to take what action, but the penalties of up to €20 million or 4% of your annual turnover are shocking. If you violate these uncertain rules when using personal data who can find yourself charged for simply doing normal business. This new EU regulation provides for a major threat to all companies in every field without exception. It appears to be clandestinely intended to be a revenue-raising tool that is just undefined. This regulation could be the straw that breaks the back of public patience and economic development in Europe. So far, such actions were always directed against individual industries such as the banks, which everyone else ignored since it was not their pocket being hit. This submissiveness unfolded more like the famous saying of Martin Niemoller (1892-1984) how the Nazi came for each group one at a time and nobody said anything until it was their turn and there was nobody left to ask for help.

Nobody knows if it is even okay to congratulate a customer on a birthday. If you can only send one e-mail to people who have expressly agreed in advance, can you send any sort of greeting even for Christmas? You are not allowed to send these persons any suitable e-mail or ask them for authorization by phone. A letter with a request for permission to send an e-mail is permitted. Lawyers cannot interpret exceptions in the vague formulations for even that will be just opinions that vary from one lawyer to the next. Everyone wants, everyone needs clarity but it does not exist!

This legislation is akin to the Writs of Assistance entered by King George III, which sparked the American Revolution. The defending lawyer against the King’s Writs of Assistance was James Otis (1725-1783) who pronounced these writs were “the worst instrument of arbitrary power, the most destructive of English liberty, and the fundamental principles of law, that ever was found in an English law book.” Otis warned that the king placed discretion in the hands of every agent to act as he desired. Nothing has changed for the government can do whatever it desires today and it is always the burden of the citizen to prove he has any rights whatsoever.

The EU has created the very same type of act. Allowing penalties to be imposed at the discretion of government agents without any clearly defined law is extremely arbitrary. The only thing truly defined are the penalties which can be up to €20 million Euros or 4% of the gross turnover of any business. Government agencies such as the judiciary, the police, the financial and intelligence services enjoy a special status, naturally.

Lawyers cannot even agree on whether the sending of an email by a company to a person is allowed or not for a birthday or holiday. Does there have to be prior consent to receiving an email? Some lawyers have warned that you may not be able to even send an email to ask for permission to send one. A company who sends unwanted emails commits a punishable violation of the regulation. Simply requiring to have an “unsubscribe” feature fails to comply with the law.

There are the countless emails we all get from Nigeria promising you are now a multi-millionaire just send your personal details so they can clean out your account. Just how is an EU regulation going to be applied overseas? Can a company that bombards people with emails constantly every day just because they look at their site but did not buy anything could be charged in Europe even if they are sending them from the USA. There is such a thing as territorial jurisdiction, but then again there is also extradition agreements. It appears that legitimate businesses will be hunted and fined for just doing commerce. The pretend emails that are criminally intended to grab your money or hold your computer for ransom will never be caught in the process.

The entire basis of Microsoft Windows is to push advertising and to take your surfing the net without any warning they are doing it. The latest Windows version was interesting. We turned off auto-update and two separate computers crashed at the same time and forced a reboot and then took 30 minutes to install updates. This seems that you cannot even opt-out even if you pay for the Pro Version. The vagueness of this law could actually call into question Windows when it is up to the discretion of an agent.

BTW – we do not sell anyone’s names, we do not send endless solicitations every day, anything we send as to notices of posts you must subscribe to for free.

Germany Gets a Grand Coalition


The SPD members voted by a two-thirds majority for their party’s entry into a renewed grand coalition. The acting Social Democrats (SPD) party leader Olaf Scholz came out and said: “We now have clarity: The SPD will enter the next federal government.” The SPD had no choice. The polls showed if they returned and put it to an election, they would lose to the rising right-wing. Germany will move into a grand coalition but it truly lacks the majority support of the German people. This means that political unrest in Germany will continue to rise.

Chancellor Angela Merkel finally reached a deal this past Wednesday to form a new German grand coalition government by handing the powerful finance ministry to the country’s main center-left party SPD in an agreement aimed at ending months of political gridlock. Both the CDU and SPD realized that if they failed, both would lose seats to the rising AfD. Merkel’s conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU), its Bavaria-only sister, the Christian Social Union, and the center-left SPD agreed to a 177-page deal that leads off with the promise of “a new awakening for Europe.”

Germany has already broken its post-World War II record for the longest time in its latest election on Sept. 24 to the swearing-in of a new government. That is still at least several weeks away. Merkel has been leading a caretaker government, which has not been in any position to play any significant role in the debate on the fate of the EU going forward. That spotlight has been taken by France’s President Emmanuel Macron who seems to enjoy his newfound power.

Schulz’s has taken a course in recent months that simply undermined his authority. On election night, Schulz vowed to take the party into opposition against the CDU. He reversed course in November after Merkel’s efforts to build a coalition with two smaller parties collapsed. Merkel needed only the approval of a party congress of her CDU which seems to do whatever she tells them to do. The Social Democrats are set to get the foreign, labor and finance ministries to run. The finance ministry is the major prize, for it was held by Merkel’s CDU for the past eight years. This has been a major influential position given Germany’s status as the eurozone’s biggest economy. The interior ministry, also held by the CDU, would go to Bavaria’s CSU, which has pushed hard to curb the number of migrants entering Germany.

WALKING INTO MORDOR


Oikophobia — fear and hatred of one’s own culture and people. It has brought down civilizations since there have been civilizations. And now we’re infected, too.

Let’s Try Bank Shaming


An article in the NYT suggests that banks should not allow their credit cards to be used to purchase weapons. Unfortunately, it probably wouldn’t work because it’s doesn’t address the root problem: the existence of evil people.

Why Not Take More?


A professor at UCLA seems surprised that poor people in America don’t vote for more redistributive policies. Maybe they have more moral fiber than intellectuals give them credit for.

The New German Political Hawk?


The German Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen was being touted as a possible successor to Merkel. She has spoken at the Munich Security Conference stating that there must be “the common will to actually use the military weight when circumstances require it.” Leyen has come out saying that Germany should no longer hide behind its history, but must accept that soldiers must fight for the security of the nation and the freedom of the people. Leyen’s French colleague, Florence Parly, has also called for closer European military cooperation.

The NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg has warned against risks that confront Europe as a whole. He came out and said: “The truth is: the European Union cannot protect Europe alone.”

France has been stating that Europe must be militarily independent of the USA. Nonetheless, t defense of Europe without the help of Norway, the United Kingdom, Canada, and the United States, would actually be very hard to imagine.

The scuttlebutt is that Leyen is a hawk who would have little problem going to war against Russia. She was seen as on the short-list of successors to Merkel, but she is going to NATO instead. The Hessian Prime Minister Bouffier is surprisingly distant to Chancellor Merkel as the dissatisfaction with Merkel rises.

Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer is also being talked about as a successor to Merkel. She is the first woman to lead the government of Saarland and only the fourth woman to govern any German state.

Three Marines Hospitalized After Suspicious Letter Opened on Joint Base Myer-Henderson…


According to recent reports up to eleven marines from Joint Base Myer-Henderson in Arlington Virginia have suffered from mysterious symptoms after opening a suspicious letter within the administration building on base.

Fox 10 is reporting three marines were taken to the hospital and are currently receiving treatment for sore throats and a nosebleed. A Hazmat team was immediately called and is working on the scene.

Responding fire department officials report 11 people came into contact with the suspicious letter. Details developing.

Feinstein Fails to Win Democratic Endorsement


We are witnessing the rebuke of career politicians by career politicians. The California Democratic Party took a vote and it concluded it will not endorse Senator Dianne Feinstein’s re-election bid this year. Feinstein is 84 and the oldest politician there who wants to run for another 6-year term.

The delegates at the party’s annual convention gave the majority of votes to her top primary challenger, progressive State Senator Kevin de Leon.
De Leon received 54% of the vote, compared to 37%. Feinstein is nor considered to be left enough for California. She has stood by the NSA and called Snowden a traitor.

Neither Democrat will receive the state party endorsement because they both failed to reach the 60% threshold. Nevertheless, Feinstein leads by 29 points in the polls there and she is backed by the establishment with big bucks. Even though she did not get the Democratic endorsement, she may be impossible to beat anyway. She has all the money.

This is shaping up to be Feinstein v Democrats v People. Curious outcome. Long live corruption?

Germany Turning to the Right


What is happening in Germany is very critical because it is a reflection of the global trend. Schultz is under attack because the SPD has fallen to such a state that it is barely above the AfD. Party members are deeply concerned as I wrote that Schultz wanted a coalition for personal power. Yet there was another issue at stake. There was also a growing fear that the SPD would lose even more seats in a new election.

Merkel, many remark will have to be dragged out of office by her hair. She wants to remain Chancellor until 2021. Because of that personal desire, she too wants a coalition deal. Therefore, both Schultz and Merkel are seen as a deal for personal political status.

Meanwhile, there is a rising trend of right-wing groups in Germany that the refugee crisis has inspired. Politicians have for far too long regarded the people as fools who will accept whatever the politicians tell them. Those days are passing.

Trade Union Confederation (DGB), labor unions are turning much more right-wing. The AfD and other right-extremist groups are preparing to win votes and mandates with trade unions such as IG metal and Verdi von März. They see this trend as never having so good prospects at the polls.

Politics is shifting in Germany and we have the refugee crisis and EU policies to thank. Many members of the SPD party are warning that if they fail to agree to the coalition, a new round of elections will see their party be greatly reduced.

School Shooting Was Outcome of Broward County School Board Policy – Now Local and National Politicians Weaponize Kids for Ideological Intents…


CTH has intentionally stayed away from discussion of the Parkland school shooting as we watched and reviewed the response.  However, it’s time to call the Broward School Board officials to task and simultaneously prepare the class-action lawyers to cripple the system.

Broward County schools intentionally created polices from 2010 through 2016 that culminated in the 2018 mass school shooting in Parkland.  We know this with great specificity because five years ago we warned Broward County Florida school board members this could happen.

In 2012 and 2013 while doing research into the Trayvon Martin shooting we discovered an alarming set of school policies being enacted in Miami-Dade and Broward County Florida.  The policies were called “diversionary programs” and were essentially about stopping High School students from being arrested. Law enforcement was instructed to avoid arrests and defer criminal conduct to school administrators.

Students who engaged in violence, drug sales, robberies, burglaries, theft and other various crimes were intentionally kept out of the criminal justice system.  County administrators and School Superintendents told local and county law enforcement officers to stop arresting students.

2013 […] Broward, the nation’s seventh largest district, had the highest number of school-related arrests in Florida in the 2011-2012 school year, according to state data. Seventy-one percent of the 1,062 arrests made were for misdemeanor offenses. (more)

Unfortunately, the school board mandated policies came into conflict with law and order. The problem of the conflicted policy -vs- legality worsened over time as the police excused much more than misdemeanor crimes.  Over time this culminated in police officers falsifying documents, hiding criminal activity, lying on official police reports and even hiding stolen merchandise police retrieved from high school students.

In 2012 Trayvon Martin was one of those students. –SEE HERE

It was our initial FOIA requests to the Miami Dade School Police Department which revealed the secret discipline and diversionary program Trayvon Martin was granted to avoid a criminal record.    The School Board and M-DSPD kept trying to hide the issue; they delayed responses and charged us thousands for FOIA information; but we knew this story was huge… so we kept going.

Specifically Trayvon Martin’s criminal conduct was hidden behind school discipline.  Stolen jewelry was recorded as random ‘found items’ (the jewelry just intentionally placed in storage with no investigation), Trayvon’s possession of marijuana was similarly obfuscated, and all of the incident reports were intentionally falsified by officials and School Resource Officer, Daryl Dunn,  to avoid the Criminal Justice system.

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It is all well documented.  None of this is supposition.  Our research discovered sworn affidavits from the police department HERE.  No-one was ever been held to account – it was just too politically dangerous an issue.

SRO Dunn never filed a criminal report, nor opened a criminal investigation, surrounding the stolen jewelry. Instead, and as a result of pressure from M-DSPD Chief Hurley to avoid criminal reports for black male students, Dunn wrote up the jewelry as “found items”, and transferred them, along with the burglary tool, to the Miami-Dade Police property room where they sat on a shelf unassigned to anyone for investigation.

A separate report of “criminal Mischief” (T-08809) was filed for the additional issue of writing “WTF” on a school locker. [It was the search for the marker used to write the graffiti that led to the backpack search].

The school discipline, “suspension”, was attached to the graffiti and not the stolen jewelry.

oCTOBER 2011 - 1

The connections between the Police Burglary report and the School Report of “found items” were never made because the regular police detective in charge of the Burglary case had no idea the School Police Dept. had filed a “found items” report.

Two differing police departments, and the School Officer, Dunn, intentionally took the criminal element out of the equation – instead preferring “school discipline” and not “criminal adjudication”.  (more)

And it wasn’t just Trayvon Martin, there were hundreds of similar actions taken by conflicted School Resource Officers – totaling thousands of crimes over the course of just the first few years of these programs (2010 through 2013).

CTH contacted the Miami-Dade School District, every single school board member, and the Broward County School District – to warn them of what was taking place.

We provided thousands of pages of sworn affidavits and transcribed testimony from law enforcement. We spent several thousand dollars locating, transcribing and assembling the documents and evidence; and hundreds more hours compiling all the information.  –SEE HERE– We sent all of it to both school districts and both school superintendents.

Their response: “go away”.

The school board’s in Miami-Dade and Broward County had created a disastrous scheme and it didn’t take long to see where this was going.   The scheme was supported by President Obama’s federal education policy, and executive orders –SEE HERE– and people like Jesse Jackson –SEE HERE– In August of 2012 President Obama issuing an “executive order”  establishing the White House Initiative on Educational Excellence. Effectively placing “quotas” on school discipline based on race.

Broward County, even went one step further.  They stopped arresting students and then changed the policy of suspension.  Broward enhanced their program in 2013:

Broward’s Collaborative Agreement on School Discipline was announced in early November. Instead of suspensions, students can now be referred to the PROMISE program, where they receive counseling for several days and then return to school. A host of non-violent misdemeanors no longer require an arrest, though officers can sometimes override that if they feel it is necessary (“I wanted to make sure deputies always had discretion,” says Scott Israel, Broward County’s sheriff). The school district’s Office of Minority Male Achievement reviews data to ensure that punishments for minor infractions and racial disparities are on the decline. (read more)

So what happens when you stop arresting students for clear criminal conduct and then lessen the school punishment therein?…. You get this:

The Department Of Justice – Civil Rights and School Discipline October 21st 2010

2010 – In recent years, many school districts across the country have begun to adopt strict zero-tolerance discipline policies that impose increasingly harsher punishments for seemingly minor infractions. These disciplinary measures – in-school or out-of-school suspensions, alternative school placements, expulsions, and referrals to police departments and juvenile authorities – disrupt a student’s education and diminish their chances for success.

For too many students, these school-imposed sanctions lead to the criminal justice system, a pathway commonly referred to as the School-to-Prison Pipeline. Regrettably, studies have shown that children of color are disproportionately affected by zero-tolerance policies, a trend that increases already significant disparities.  (read more)

2010ERIC HOLDER – Never before have our two agencies come together in this way – or brought together such a large and diverse group of partners – to discuss the best ways to ensure that civil rights and educational opportunities are protected for every student, at every level, and in every community…But it is just the beginning of what I know – and I pledge – will be an ongoing conversation about how we can better understand the causes, and most effectively remedy the consequences, of disparities in student discipline. I want to assure all of you that for me, for Secretary Duncan, for the agencies we lead, and for the administration – this work is a top priority.

US DOJ October 2010