Saturday, August 30, 2014
Thursday, August 28, 2014
Do police get too much benefit of the doubt? Prosecutors and juries may tend to trust police accounts, but sometimes video evidence reveals a different story. Chris Hayes talks with John Crawford Jr., the father of a man killed by police inside an Ohio Walmart, and the family’s attorney Michael Wright. Joy Reid also joins the discussion.
Wednesday, August 27, 2014
Tuesday, August 26, 2014
Sunday, August 24, 2014
Video undercuts police story in shooting | MSNBC
"ST. LOUIS – Almost immediately after two police officers shot and killed an African-American man here, local authorities described the event as an act of self-defense. The victim, they said, had brandished a knife in a threatening manner.
At a press conference shortly after the Tuesday shooting, St. Louis Police Chief Sam Dotson gave the impression that the victim, later identified as 25-year-old Kajieme Powell, had charged at police, ready to stab. “Officer safety is the No. 1 issue,” he said. “Every police officer that’s out here has the right to defend themselves and the community.”
But in a newly released cell-phone video taken by an eyewitness at the scene and distributed by the St. Louis police, Powell is seen lumbering – not lunging. As he walks toward police officers, in broad daylight and on a relatively quiet street, he doesn’t seem to be the one threatening. In fact, he can be heard telling the officers, “Shoot me now, kill me now.” It is not possible to discern in the video whether Powell is armed though police can be heard warning him to “drop the knife.” They then opened fire, shooting at him at least eight times.
New Video Shows Israeli Bombing of Gaza Apartment Tower - ABC News
"New video shows an upscale high-rise apartment building in Gaza City destroyed in a cloud of fire and smoke during anIsraeli airstrike.
Israel bombed the 12-story apartment building, called the Zafer Tower in the Tel al-Hawa neighborhood, today as Hamascontinued to fire rockets towards the Israeli border.
The Palestine Interior Ministry released footage of the bombing, showing the apartment collapsing after being hit twice by Israeli bombs. The building goes down in seconds as onlookers scream and rush the injured to hospitals.
The entire building held 44 residential apartments."
Reasie's Ritin' - Ferguson
Why should a privileged, well-to-do white woman blog about Ferguson? I thought I shouldn't; I thought it would be derailing. But I have to.
Because I had to tell someone recently that no one deserves to be shot in the street. That sentence should not ever have to be said. Don't you think so? We're a society of laws, and you know what? None of our laws have "summery execution in the street" as a punishment. NONE OF THEM.
No, I don't want to hear hypotheticals. I don't care if he had a nuclear backpack. We're not dealing with extreme circumstances. We're dealing with everyday life, with a kid walking on a street in a suburb. We're dealing with THIS KEEPS HAPPENING.
What if it was your son? Your brother? Hell, what if it was the kid you babysat? The guy you pass at the bus stop in the morning? What if it was you?
Why do people bring up possible robbery as an excuse? Is the punishment for robbery death in this country? Are goods more valuable than people? Why am I even having to make this argument?
It's jarring, when you realize that some people do not live in your reality. I've been told "There is no racism." People, do you even realize how ignorant it sounds when you say, "Well, I'm a white person, and I've never experienced racism against black people."? Would you ever say "Well, I don't have cancer, and I've never experienced any shortcomings in cancer treatment, so your complaint about it not being curable must be false."?
I'm being a little mean there, but one of the things that helps ME deal with my innate biases is to re-frame the story. There's a well-known phenomena of human minds called "Illusion of Asymmetric Insight". Basically: You can't help it. I do it to. We have met the enemy and they are us.
Here's an article on Asymmetric Insight: http://youarenotsosmart.com/2011/08/21/the-illusion-of-asymmetric-insight/
It's a good read. (I link Youarenotsosmart.com a lot. Love his articles. It's a pity he's switched to a podcast format. I prefer to read.)
Also we have Confirmation Bias working against us. (http://youarenotsosmart.com/2010/06/23/confirmation-bias/ ) Basically - it's easy to say "This is the way I perceive the world so it must be as I perceive it." The bad news is - that's what the word "Prejudice" means. The good news is, there is a way to combat your own prejudices - through skeptical examination of facts.
Okay okay. So I'm just going to throw down some facts.
FACT: Law enforcement disproportionately targets black people.
https://www.aclu.org/billions-dollars-wasted-racially-biased-arrests
Maybe you don't like the ACLU - have a scholarly study: http://pqx.sagepub.com/content/4/1/4.short
FACT: Blacks are disproportionately the victims of violent crime.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2700237/
FACT: While the targets of violent crime are overwhelmingly the same race as their attackers, there are no "Stop White on White Crime" rallies. Now why is that?
All right, all right, that last one isn't cited. It's a statistic I've heard often enough, though. Most often, the victim of a violent crime knows their attacker - but our fear of the unknown makes us more likely to frame crime in the narrative of random strangers preying on random victim.
(Take kidnapping as a fun example. The vast majority of kidnappings are done by the child's birth mother, with other relatives coming in second, family friends in third, and strangers a distant fourth. Citation: http://www.parents.com/kids/safety/stranger-safety/child-abduction-facts/ Obviously, that's just a hot button issue for me - I was a victim of kidnapping as a child.)
I'm done. I'm just rambling now. Just... walk in another man's shoes, okay? When did that become an unpopular concept? And if you think I'm just a liberal hippy dippy dumbass, just please read the article on Asymmetric Insight first.
Peace.
Reasie's Ritin' - Ferguson
Because I had to tell someone recently that no one deserves to be shot in the street. That sentence should not ever have to be said. Don't you think so? We're a society of laws, and you know what? None of our laws have "summery execution in the street" as a punishment. NONE OF THEM.
No, I don't want to hear hypotheticals. I don't care if he had a nuclear backpack. We're not dealing with extreme circumstances. We're dealing with everyday life, with a kid walking on a street in a suburb. We're dealing with THIS KEEPS HAPPENING.
What if it was your son? Your brother? Hell, what if it was the kid you babysat? The guy you pass at the bus stop in the morning? What if it was you?
Why do people bring up possible robbery as an excuse? Is the punishment for robbery death in this country? Are goods more valuable than people? Why am I even having to make this argument?
It's jarring, when you realize that some people do not live in your reality. I've been told "There is no racism." People, do you even realize how ignorant it sounds when you say, "Well, I'm a white person, and I've never experienced racism against black people."? Would you ever say "Well, I don't have cancer, and I've never experienced any shortcomings in cancer treatment, so your complaint about it not being curable must be false."?
I'm being a little mean there, but one of the things that helps ME deal with my innate biases is to re-frame the story. There's a well-known phenomena of human minds called "Illusion of Asymmetric Insight". Basically: You can't help it. I do it to. We have met the enemy and they are us.
Here's an article on Asymmetric Insight: http://youarenotsosmart.com/2011/08/21/the-illusion-of-asymmetric-insight/
It's a good read. (I link Youarenotsosmart.com a lot. Love his articles. It's a pity he's switched to a podcast format. I prefer to read.)
Also we have Confirmation Bias working against us. (http://youarenotsosmart.com/2010/06/23/confirmation-bias/ ) Basically - it's easy to say "This is the way I perceive the world so it must be as I perceive it." The bad news is - that's what the word "Prejudice" means. The good news is, there is a way to combat your own prejudices - through skeptical examination of facts.
Okay okay. So I'm just going to throw down some facts.
FACT: Law enforcement disproportionately targets black people.
https://www.aclu.org/billions-dollars-wasted-racially-biased-arrests
Maybe you don't like the ACLU - have a scholarly study: http://pqx.sagepub.com/content/4/1/4.short
FACT: Blacks are disproportionately the victims of violent crime.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2700237/
FACT: While the targets of violent crime are overwhelmingly the same race as their attackers, there are no "Stop White on White Crime" rallies. Now why is that?
All right, all right, that last one isn't cited. It's a statistic I've heard often enough, though. Most often, the victim of a violent crime knows their attacker - but our fear of the unknown makes us more likely to frame crime in the narrative of random strangers preying on random victim.
(Take kidnapping as a fun example. The vast majority of kidnappings are done by the child's birth mother, with other relatives coming in second, family friends in third, and strangers a distant fourth. Citation: http://www.parents.com/kids/safety/stranger-safety/child-abduction-facts/ Obviously, that's just a hot button issue for me - I was a victim of kidnapping as a child.)
I'm done. I'm just rambling now. Just... walk in another man's shoes, okay? When did that become an unpopular concept? And if you think I'm just a liberal hippy dippy dumbass, just please read the article on Asymmetric Insight first.
Peace.
Reasie's Ritin' - Ferguson
Saturday, August 23, 2014
So now, a grand jury sits in St. Louis County, taking testimony and parsing evidence. Yesterday we learned the racial makeup of that grand jury: nine whites, and three blacks. Which raises the obvious question: Can whites empathize with Michael Brown and the larger grievances Ferguson’s black community has with police? And can America more broadly value the experiences and concerns of black America enough to address them rather than dismiss them?
Arguably, many white people’s systematic inability to validate the experience of black America, let alone empathize, is in and of itself a profound version of racial bias. According to a poll released this week by Pew’s Center for People and the Press, 80 percent of black Americans think the shooting of an unarmed African American teenager in Ferguson “raises important issues about race.” Yet only 37 percent of white Americans agreed with the same sentiment; more whites (47 percent) think “race is getting more attention than it deserves.”
What Anonymous Is Doing in Ferguson | TIME
What the "hacktavist" group does, how it dealt with the affiliated member who misidentified Michael Brown's killer and how many members are involved in Operation Ferguson
What Anonymous Is Doing in Ferguson | TIME
The Coming Race War Won’t Be About Race | TIME
Ferguson is not just about systemic racism — it's about class warfare and how America's poor are held back, says Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
The Coming Race War Won’t Be About Race | TIME
The Coming Race War Won’t Be About Race | TIME
The Coming Race War Won’t Be About Race | TIME
Ferguson is not just about systemic racism — it's about class warfare and how America's poor are held back, says Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
The Coming Race War Won’t Be About Race | TIME
The Coming Race War Won’t Be About Race | TIME
Friday, August 22, 2014
Ferguson Feeds Off the Poor: Three Warrants a Year Per Household - The Daily Beast
" Lest anyone contend that blacks inherently merit greater police attention than whites, the report offers another statistic.
“Searches of black individuals result in discovery of contraband only 21.7% of the time, while similar searches of whites produce contraband 34.0% of the time.”
That would suggest both that whites were more likely to be stopped when there was actual probable cause and that blacks were more likely to be stopped when there was not. And the antagonism sure to be generated by such racial disparities was magnified by the sheer number of cases.
The report cites a court employee as saying the docket for a typical three-hour court session has up to 1,500 cases. The report goes on to say that “in addition to such heavy legal prosecution,” the Ferguson court and others like it in nearby towns “engage in a number of operational procedures that make it even more difficult for defendants to navigate the courts.”
The report goes on, “For example, a Ferguson court employee reported that the bench routinely starts hearing cases 30 minutes before the appointed time and then locks the doors to the building as early as five minutes after the official hour, a practice that could easily lead a defendant arriving even slightly late to receive an additional charge for failure to appear.”
The lawyers of ArchCity Defenders specialize in representing the indigent and the homeless. They noticed that many of their clients had multiple warrants on minor charges issued by municipal courts in Ferguson and the other 80 municipalities in St. Louis County that have their own courts and police."
Thursday, August 21, 2014
Wednesday, August 20, 2014
Holder and Obama Differ in Approach to Underlying Issues of Missouri Unrest
“I thought of them again sometime after that,” he added, “when a police officer stopped and questioned me in Washington while I was running to catch a movie, even though I happened to be a federal prosecutor at the time.”
As a young lawyer and prosecutor, Mr. Holder started programs intended to bridge the divide between law enforcement and communities. “We all bring our life experiences to the job we do — and that’s exactly what we want our attorney general to do,” said Judge Emmet G. Sullivan of the United States District Court, a former colleague. “He does care, and it just shows the character of the man himself.”
Tuesday, August 19, 2014
ACLU: First Amendment 'suspended in Ferguson' | MSNBC
" Police in Ferguson, Mo., on Monday began telling protesters – who have been gathered for days demanding justice for the death of an unarmed teenager at the hands of police – that they were no longer allowed to stand in place for more than five seconds, but had to keep moving.
“When inquiries were made to law enforcement officers regarding which law prohibits gathering or standing for more than five seconds on public sidewalks,” the ACLU of Missouri wrote in its emergency federal court filing to block the apparent policy, “the officers indicated that they did not know and that it did not matter. The officers further indicated that they were following the orders of their supervisors, whom they refused to name.” The ACLU argued the policy was a prior restraint on speech and asked for a temporary restraining order."
Monday, August 18, 2014
Sunday, August 17, 2014
Saturday, August 16, 2014
Missouri Orders Nightly Curfew to Quell Looting - NYTimes.com
"Steven W. Hawkins, the executive director of Amnesty International USA, said in a statement: “It’s hard to build trust if the governor doesn’t meet with community members and restricts their movements with a curfew.”
Friday, August 15, 2014
The Day Ferguson Cops Were Caught in a Bloody Lie - The Daily Beast
"Police in Ferguson, Missouri, once charged a man with destruction of property for bleeding on their uniforms while four of them allegedly beat him.
“On and/or about the 20th day of Sept. 20, 2009 at or near 222 S. Florissant within the corporate limits of Ferguson, Missouri, the above named defendant did then and there unlawfully commit the offense of ‘property damage’ to wit did transfer blood to the uniform,” reads the charge sheet."
New York Candidate For Governor Arrested For Videotaping Cops
The summer of "wilding" cops. "Moreover, Randy's arrest is doubly ironic in light of New York's own Police Department Patrol Guide, which states that "taking photographs, videotapes or tape recordings" are not cause for arrest or detention so long as the activity does not jeopardize the safety of officers or others."
"Republican Senator Tom Coburn called out Fox News during a talk on Wednesday, saying that some of the network's shows are exactly the opposite of what the network claims to be in its "Fair and Balanced" slogan.
“There are certain shows on Fox I can’t watch,” Coburn told audience members at Tulsa Community College in Oklahoma. “Because they’re totally not fair and totally not balanced. What I want is, I want all the information if which I can make the best decision.”
FAMILY: COPS TRYING 'CHARACTER ASSASSINATION'
"Michael Brown’s family is beyond outraged at the devious way the police chief has chosen to disseminate piece mil information in a manner intended to assassinate the character of their son, following such a brutal assassination of his person in broad daylight.
There is nothing based on the facts that have been placed before us that can justify the execution style murder of their child by this police officer as he held his hands up, which is the universal sign of surrender.
The prolonged release of the officer’s name and then the subsequent alleged information regarding a robbery is the reason why the family and the local community have such distrust for the local law enforcement agencies."
Ferguson police name Darren Wilson as officer who shot Michael Brown | World | The Guardian
"Police chief Thomas Jackson said Wilson stopped the unarmed teenager after reports of a robbery in the area"
Ferguson unrest: What black families tell sons - CNN.com
This reporter is naive. This lesson has been taught since the first Africans were kidnapped and brutally brough TV to America to toil in hell. " As challenging as parenting is, black families in particular are assuming more burdens: At kitchen tables and in living rooms, they hold honest talks with their boys about how life can be different for them and what they ought -- and ought not -- to do in public, especially near police.
Think twice about wearing a hoodie. Pull up your pants. Shut your mouth around police. Swallow your pride. Don't drive with more than three friends. And keep your hands where they can be seen.
These are just a few examples of the rules that parents tell their young black sons -- and sometimes daughters -- about how to stay safe. Though stark and blunt, the admonishments follow a trend of violence that touches upon the most fiery issue in America: race."
Thursday, August 14, 2014
America's police are looking more and more like the military | Michael Shank and Elizabeth Beavers | Comment is free | theguardian.com
"A Defense Department program transfers military-grade weapons and vehicles to local law enforcement. It's the last thing we need"
Wednesday, August 13, 2014
Friday, August 08, 2014
Tuesday, August 05, 2014
"My heart is broken as I witness the suffering of the Palestinian people and the seeming indifference of Israelis. All my life I’ve been a champion of Israel, proud of its many accomplishments in science and technology that have benefited the world, insistent on the continuing need for the Jewish people to have a state that offers protections from anti-Semitism that has reared its head continuously throughout Christian and Islamic societies, willing to send my only child to serve in the Israeli Army (the paratroopers unit-tzanchanim), and enjoying the pleasures of long swaths of time in which I could study in Jerusalem and celebrate Shabbat in a city that weekly closed down the hustle and bustle of the capitalist marketplace for a full 25 hours. And though as editor of Tikkun I printed articles challenging the official story of how Israel came to be, showing its role in forcibly ejecting tens of thousands of Palestinians in 1948 and allowing Jewish terrorist groups under the leadership of (future Israeli Prime Ministers Menachem Begin and Yitzhak Shamir) to create justified fears that led hundreds of thousands of other Palestinians to flee for their lives, I always told myself that the dominant humanity of the Jewish people and the compassionate strain within Torah would reassert itself once Israel felt secure."
Monday, August 04, 2014
Israel has broken my heart: I’m a rabbi in mourning for a Judaism being murdered by Israel - Salon.com
"My heart is broken as I witness the suffering of the Palestinian people and the seeming indifference of Israelis. All my life I’ve been a champion of Israel, proud of its many accomplishments in science and technology that have benefited the world, insistent on the continuing need for the Jewish people to have a state that offers protections from anti-Semitism that has reared its head continuously throughout Christian and Islamic societies, willing to send my only child to serve in the Israeli Army (the paratroopers unit-tzanchanim), and enjoying the pleasures of long swaths of time in which I could study in Jerusalem and celebrate Shabbat in a city that weekly closed down the hustle and bustle of the capitalist marketplace for a full 25 hours. And though as editor of Tikkun I printed articles challenging the official story of how Israel came to be, showing its role in forcibly ejecting tens of thousands of Palestinians in 1948 and allowing Jewish terrorist groups under the leadership of (future Israeli Prime Ministers Menachem Begin and Yitzhak Shamir) to create justified fears that led hundreds of thousands of other Palestinians to flee for their lives, I always told myself that the dominant humanity of the Jewish people and the compassionate strain within Torah would reassert itself once Israel felt secure."
Saturday, August 02, 2014
Friday, August 01, 2014
NYTimes: Ugandan Court Invalidates Anti-Gay Law
The American evangelical advocated, anti-gay hate legislation is gone. The American group was partially funded by the owner of Chick Filet starting a boycott here by people of concious. Originally the bill had a death penalty provision for gay sex. Justice has defeated superstition. Enjoy small victories.
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