Via a Google search, a link entitled "Megalomania's Method of Making HMTD" notes the chemical's "extreme sensitivity to heat, shock, and friction" and describes it as "a poor choice for the lesser skilled home chemist…HMTD does not store well, so deal with it immediately." This video claims to demonstrate the chemical's volatility.

UPDATE: A new report says that Gliedman and Greene are not terrorists, "just privileged kids with drug habits."

I wonder how much time in the slammer the rich white kids with drug habits -- not to mention the explosive chemicals and illegal sawed-off shotgun -- will serve?
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Police have arrested a pregnant graduate of an elite Manhattan prep school and her Harvard-educated boyfriend Sunday after allegedly finding an explosive powder and a sawed-off shotgun in their Greenwich Village apartment. Morgan Gliedman, 27, daughter of a prominent New York City physician who attended the Dalton School, and Aaron Greene, 31, are charged with felony possession of an explosive with intent to use, and felony criminal possession of a weapon. The criminal complaint also claims that a "collection of pages" entitled "The Terrorist Encyclopedia" was found in the apartment.

NYPD went to 9th Street Saturday to question Morgan Gliedman about alleged credit card theft when they found a plastic container with seven grams of a white chemical powder called HMTD; a chemical that the New York Post says is so powerful, "cops evacuated several nearby buildings."

Besides the powder, the apartment also contained a flare launcher, a modified twelve gauge Mossberg 500 shotgun, ammo, and nine high-capacity rifle magazines, sources told the Post. Cops also allegedly uncovered papers about creating homemade booby traps, improvising submachine guns, and several handwritten notebooks containing chemical formulas.

The Gothamist reports:

Residents were roused by the police at around 7:30 a.m. on Saturday and relocated while police executed a search warrant. Gliedman, who is pregnant, is also charged with four counts of felony grand larceny for credit card theft that police say occurred in February of this year, and a warrant squad was making the arrest when they noticed "a white powdery substance" in a plastic container in the living room.
...
Investigators say that substance is Hexamethylene Triperoxide Diamine (HMTD), which was one of the components in the explosives to be used by Ahmed Ressam, the "millennium bomber" who planned to bomb LAX on New Year's Eve in 1999. HMTD was also likely to be used in the foiled bombings of transatlantic flights in 2005. Sergeant Michael DiMarfio of the NYPD's bomb squad tested the powder, and the results yielded a positive for HMTD, according to the complaint.
...
Greene was arraigned on Sunday afternoon, and is being held without bail until his next hearing on January 4. Gliedman had yet to be arraigned as of Sunday night. According to court records Gliedman was charged with marijuana possession in February, but had taken an Adjournment in Contemplation of Dismissal [ACD], and her next scheduled court appearance for those charges is on January 10.

According to Gliedman's Facebook page, she attended The Dalton School, NYU's Gallatin School, and received an MFA in creative writing at the Art Institute of Chicago. The Post reports that Greene "attended Harvard as an undergraduate and did his graduate work at the university’s Kennedy School of Government" and has "five prior run-ins with the police, with the charges including, assault, and weapons possession."

On Monday afternoon, Morgan Gliedman's arraignment was postponed when she was taken to a hospital and reported to be in labor.

Morgan Gliedman (Facebook)

Police have been caught setting up occupy wall street protesters last year in order to prosecute them more harshly under the law.

In December of last year, Occupy Houston made headlines as they blocked the entrance to the Port of Houston by forming a human chain using pvc pipes to lock their arms together in "dragon sleeves." This tactic didn't stop the Houston police from arresting them, however, and instead of being charged with simple misdemeanors, the use of those pipes -- considered "criminal instruments" -- the group face felony charges.

Austin Police Officer Shannon Dowell was one of three undercover APD officers within Occupy Austin, the same group that ended up in the Port of Houston. The APF officers designed and built those "dragon sleeves" that got the protesters in so much trouble.

Officer Dowell apparently had been bragging about how he set up the occupiers, and someone who overheard him tipped off the attorney for one of the protesters.

Via:

Occupy Austin members claim Dowell specifically encouraged them to ramp up their protest efforts.

"This man would attend our meetings, pull me aside and say, we need to do more aggressive actions," Dave Cortez said.

Those allegations infuriated the presiding Harris County judge. She said she was floored by the officers' involvement.

"It was determined that plain-clothes officers blending in was necessary for the safety of the participants and the community," Minnix said.

The Occupy Houston protesters are hoping to have charges dropped because of the role of the undercover officers.

Another court hearing is scheduled for later this month.

A recent Atlanta news report details instances of foreclosure fraud in Georgia and how Georgia officials fail to take prosecutorial action despite a new law that makes foreclosure fraud a felony, punishable by fines and jail time.

Time to Rebel! Five Ways We Can Break the Big Banks' Death Grip on the Economy

Wall Street’s incredible greed and arrogance may have finally handed us the tools and leverage we need.
Read it at Truthout.

Court orders Occupy Hong Kong to leave HSBC

Occupy Central in Hong Kong, one of the last outposts of the global protests sparked by the Occupy Wall Street movement, has been ordered to clear its encampment outside one of the world's largest banks.

Credit Card Debt Collection Flawed

Up to 90 percent of cases filed by credit-card companies to collect bad debts may be flawed, according to one New York judge who says he has heard as many as 100 in one day. The problem, say many of the judges who oversee the slew of suits filed by American Express, Citigroup, and other credit-card companies, is that they all follow the same he-said-she-said pattern—companies eager to collect debts try to make their cases with partial records and improper documents, leaving substantial holes in their arguments. The companies disagree, with one American Express spokesman telling The New York Times that the company has “a strong process in place to ensure accuracy of testimony and affidavits provided to courts.”

Occupier Charged With Terroristic Felony

David C. Gorczynski, 22, was charged on Tuesday with attempted bank robbery and terroristic threatening, both felonies, as well as one misdemeanor charge of disorderly conduct. Police detained him after he walked into an Easton, PA Wells Fargo branch with a sign that read “You’re being robbed” and another that said “Give a man a gun, he can rob a bank. Give a man a bank, and he can rob a country.”

Police Take Down Occupy Memphis

Officers with the Memphis Police Department on Friday morning began dismantling the Occupy Memphis camp on Civic Center Plaza in Downtown Memphis, WMC-TV reports.

The effort began around 4 a.m. Friday. City of Memphis CAO George Little told the news station the site has evolved into a homeless encampment.

Continue reading »

“It would have been like throwing popcorn,” said Sweet Grass. “They hardly weigh anything, and can’t travel very far.”

For this gesture, Govinda is facing eight felony charges. None of the seedpods had made contact with an officer, but eight officers “felt assaulted.” Each of the eight wrote up a separate felony indictment for the same act, along with a misdemeanor charge for wearing a black bandanna around his head.

Officers refused to identify themselves on paper, choosing instead to sign each individual citation as “John Doe.” An officer has written across each indictment form the word “SERIOUS.”

“Where’s the evidence? Where’s the accuser? There’s something so rotten in Denmark in this,” Sweet Grass said.

The bail resulting from these eight felony charges has been set at $50,000 each. All told, that leaves the bail for Govinda – whose full name is Ahimsa Govinda Wind-Thunder – at a staggering $400,000. Eight separate charges for the same accusation.

Govinda's family believes he was targeted by police, because they made of point of letting him know they knew where he lived, and seemed to keep track of his activites. Police cars were also seen sitting in front of the family's home, and would follow Govinda seemingly waiting for him to make a wrong move so that they could issue him tickets, which they did repeatedly.

The family hopes that they'll have an opportunity in court to present their evidence, the seed pods, which they believe would lead to the charges being dropped. In the meantime, Govinda spends 23 hours of each day in solitary confinement, in maximum security at Oakland jail.

[Photo of the teepee that led to Wednesday's Occupy Oakland raid - via @geekeasy]

Khali Johnson was arrested for "basically littering," which could somehow turn into his third strike and a lifetime in prison.

You may recall that I told you all about the situation with Khali last month, after his arrest during a December 16th Oakland Police raid. There was great concern because Khali had been held in detention unusually long, appeared at each court hearing severely bruised and didn't have access to his prescribed psychiatric medication.

More Via:

The threat of life imprisonment looms for Occupy Oakland activist Marcel Johnson - better known by his alias, Khali - after a third-strike arrest during the demonstration. Having spent about 15 years incarcerated already, 38 year-old Khali said he was trying to turn his life around by distributing food to the needy at the Occupy Oakland encampment, where he was a frequent, vocal, sometimes endearing presence. On December 16 he was arrested outside City Hall for violating anti-encroachment laws — namely, for a dispute about a blanket — which normally wouldn't have warranted more than a few hours jail time. Since Khali was in fact violating his probation terms for a different case in Sacramento, he was taken to Santa Rita and made to serve some jail time in lieu of going to trial, his attorney Dan Siegel explained. There, Khali was held in solitary confinement and not given his psychiatric medications, which might explain why he got into an altercation with a peace officer — the exact circumstances of which are still widely disputed. Now, Khali faces a felony assault charge in place of his original misdemeanor. As of Friday, December 23, Khali's bail was set at $580,000, according his attorney, Dan Siegel.

Siegel won't be representing Khali in the assault case, but luckily was able to convince a judge to order a medical evaluation that hopefully will explain the altercation between Khali, and the officer in Santa Rita. The next scheduled court date for Khali is January 9th in Pleasanton where he will face that potential "third strike," and bail that would be completely out of reach as Khali is homeless, with no money or possessions to his name.