I publish an "Editorial and Opinion Blog", Editorial and Opinion. My News Blog is @ News . I have a Jazz Blog @ Jazz and a Technology Blog @ Technology. My domain is Armwood.Com @ Armwood.Com.
What To Do When You're Stopped By Police - The ACLU & Elon James White
Know Anyone Who Thinks Racial Profiling Is Exaggerated? Watch This, And Tell Me When Your Jaw Drops.
This video clearly demonstrates how racist America is as a country and how far we have to go to become a country that is civilized and actually values equal justice. We must not rest until this goal is achieved. I do not want my great grandchildren to live in a country like we have today. I wish for them to live in a country where differences of race and culture are not ignored but valued as a part of what makes America great.
Tuesday, June 28, 2016
Monday, June 27, 2016
Sunday, June 26, 2016
Farc rebel leader: ‘We repent everything, not just the war’ | World news | The Guardian
"The Farc has been accused of perpetrating many atrocities during the 50-year war – how do you respond?
We are trying to come out of a 50 years war. War is a denial of the human being. War is not human. Irrespective of its causes, however just, war in itself isn’t human.
What we have said is that, in this process, we have to assume our responsibilities and we have shown that we are ready to do so. The agreement on the issue of victims, that is the way Colombia society has to go forward in order to build reconciliation. We are ready to assume that part of the responsibility that corresponds to us.
We repent everything, not just the war but things that we have done in life. But beyond my personal case, one has to put this into political context. Personally, yes of course, there are always things to repent. We would like to rewind the movie, not to have been part of those situations.
We made decisions that in the heat of the moment we thought were fair and necessary, because otherwise there would have been great consequences for own forces. And then, in hindsight, one does see things differently. But you have to see them in the context that they actually happened."
Farc rebel leader: ‘We repent everything, not just the war’ | World news | The Guardian
Friday, June 24, 2016
How To Survive A Lynching
"The mob surged forward, some pummeling the jail with sledgehammers while others forced their way through the garage. When they breached the ground-floor walls, they snatched Tommy Shipp first from his cell. Mary Ball’s sister purportedly watched from atop a car, encouraging the mob to wrap a rope around his neck and lynch him. He was already bruised and beaten when they strung him up on the maple tree at the corner of Third and Adams streets outside of the courthouse, diagonal from the jail. Shipp struggled to free the rope from his neck. The mob lowered him, broke both his arms, and pulled.
Stand your ground defense denied for Black man in Georgia, Stand your ground has always been for whites only. This is America isn't it?
"Clayton County, Georgia Judge Albert Collier has denied Jessie Murray the use of stand your ground as a defense in his murder trial. Shockingly, the judge stated that the reason Murray could not use the defense was because he said his gun fired by accident during the struggle with the victim and his three friends.
Murray wanted to defend his ex-wife and mother of his children from a group of drunken White men at a bar. Court documents described Murray as being assaulted by the Nathan Adams, a former police officer, and three of his friends. Despite this threat, the court seems to be saying that Murray should have allowed himself to be beaten first and then used his gun as a last resort. In the decision issued by Judge Albert R. Collier, Clayton County Superior Court, the judge felt that Murray was not in fear of his life when he was attacked by a group of four men. The judge stated that “nor does it appear to this court that the other men in the vicinity were acting in such a way that would cause the defendant to reasonably believe that deadly force was necessary to prevent death or great bodily injury to himself or a third party … The court cannot reconcile the defendants asking for immunity under a self-defense statute, by stating that the use of deadly force was justified, and then also stating that the use of deadly force was unintentional.”
Stand your ground defense denied for Black man in Georgia
Thursday, June 23, 2016
A Syllabus In Progress - he ur-text for this reconsideration is W.E.B. Du Bois’s Black Reconstruction In America. Written in 1935 - The Atlantic
But this latter person, I am not trying to convince. I am simply pointing out these two points of view, so obvious to Americans, and then without further ado, I am assuming the truth of the first. In fine, I am going to tell this story as though Negroes were ordinary human beings, realizing that this attitude will from the first seriously curtail my audience." WE Dubois
A Syllabus In Progress - The Atlantic
Wednesday, June 22, 2016
Tuesday, June 21, 2016
Monday, June 20, 2016
3 N.Y.P.D. Commanders Are Arrested on Corruption Charges - The New York Times
"Three New York Police Department commanders, including a deputy chief, were arrested early Monday, along with a Brooklyn businessman, on federal corruption charges stemming from one of several continuing investigations into Mayor Bill de Blasio’s campaign fund-raising, according to court papers.
The arrests, of a deputy chief, a deputy inspector and a sergeant, were one of the most significant roundups of police supervisors in the recent history of the department. In striking the top ranks, the case is a particular blow to the storied — and sometimes sullied — reputation of the nation’s largest municipal police force."
3 N.Y.P.D. Commanders Are Arrested on Corruption Charges - The New York Times
The Devastating Process of Dying in America Without Insurance | The Nation
The Devastating Process of Dying in America Without Insurance | The Nation
Sunday, June 19, 2016
Black Americans incarcerated five times more than white people – report | US news | The Guardian
“You can’t work in the justice system and not know just by looking that there are racial disparities in the system,” said Baz Dreisinger, the creator of the Prison-to-College Pipeline program which prepares New York inmates in state prison for higher education.
Black Americans incarcerated five times more than white people – report | US news | The Guardian
Thousands protest at US bases on Okinawa after Japanese woman's murder | World news | The Guardian
"Thousands of people gathered on the Japanese island of Okinawa on Sunday in one of the biggest demonstrations in two decades against US military bases following the arrest of an American suspected of murdering a local woman.
Thousands protest at US bases on Okinawa after Japanese woman's murder | World news | The Guardian
‘Always Agitated. Always Mad’: Omar Mateen, According to Those Who Knew Him - The New York Times
"Omar Mateen was a disciplinary challenge in school, unafraid to push buttons. “Constantly moving, verbally abusive, rude, aggressive,” that school assessment noted. In the third grade, his rendition of the school song at Mariposa Elementary replaced “Mariposa, Mariposa” with “marijuana, marijuana.”
The boy was formally disciplined more than 30 times in elementary and middle schools as he pursued attention and occasional conflict rather than his studies. His father would later say that young Omar preferred drawing pictures in class to listening, which seems borne out by an assessment one of his teachers wrote at the time:
“Unfortunately, Omar had great difficulty focusing on his classwork since he often seeks the attention of his classmates through some sort of noise, disruption, or distraction.”
So was Omar Mateen betraying his latent extremist sympathies — or was he just being tone-deaf — when, at 14, he shocked other students on his school bus by imitating an exploding plane so soon after the Sept. 11 attacks?
“He got on, walked up the first couple of steps, held his arms out and made sounds like a motor and then made an explosion sound — and slipped into his seat,” Robert Zirkle, another student on the bus, remembered. “He did this three or four times, and was clearly not in the mood or the same state of mind that we were in. He seemed excited.”
His unsettling pantomimes ended when others told him there would be problems if he continued.
Omar cycled through three high schools, collecting a string of suspensions — for fighting and other infractions — along the way. (In one case, a charge of battery was adjudicated and a charge of disturbing school function was dropped, he later wrote to a potential employer. “This was an experience of me growing up and I learned a big lesson from it.”)
Martin Bielicki, a former dean of students at Martin County High School, remembered in an email that this student “had issues with other students, in particular,” and “always would argue back and even defend himself.”
“I remember Omar as a 14-year-old boy,” Mr. Bielicki wrote. “I look at that yearbook picture of him and it brings back memories of an innocent and likable young man.”
Omar matured with time. He took up soccer and skateboarding, became infatuated with weight lifting, and shed the flabbiness that had become a source of ridicule."
‘Always Agitated. Always Mad’: Omar Mateen, According to Those Who Knew Him - The New York Times
NYTimes: A Glimpse of Omar Mateen's Past, From School Reports to Job Dismissal
"Omar Mateen was born in Queens in 1986 to Afghan parents. He moved to Florida with his family in 1991 and spent his early years in the Port St. Lucie area on the state’s east coast. In both elementary and middle school, his teachers described him as often being unable to focus or control himself in class. As a young man, Mr. Mateen became interested in a career in law enforcement andearned an associate degree in criminal justice technology from Indian River State College in 2006.
As investigators comb through his past to glean an understanding of the young man whose attack on the Pulse nightclub in Orlando killed 49 people and wounded 53 others, a portrait of a complicated childhood and young adulthood is emerging. These documents offer a glimpse into Mr. Mateen’s life. "
NYTimes: A Glimpse of Omar Mateen's Past, From School Reports to Job Dismissal
Saturday, June 18, 2016
Friday, June 17, 2016
So You Think You Know the Second Amendment? - The New Yorker. I have been teaching this to Constitutional Law classes for a dozen years.
So You Think You Know the Second Amendment? - The New Yorker
Wednesday, June 15, 2016
Islamic Terrorism Is Right-Wing Terrorism | In the wake of the bloodshed in Orlando, some conservatives are making the particularly vile claim that the left “chose Islam over gays,” as Breitbart put it, and therefore is somehow to blame for the loss of 49 lives on Saturday night. This sort of rhetorical jab is why, in the hours after any mass shooting or domestic terror attack, many of us secretly hope that the perpetrator will turn out to be a Christian right-wing extremist rather than a Muslim like Omar Mateen. It makes no difference whatsoever to the victims or their relatives, but we dread the inevitable outpouring of bigotry against all Muslims that follows if the shooter is Muslim, and understand that violence by Christian or Jewish or Hindu (or whatever) extremists isn’t counted against those communities in the same way. Nobody ever feels the need to ask whether their local preacher condemns violence in the name of Christianity. It’s just assumed.The Nation
Federal Officials Ignored Years of Internal Warnings About Deaths at Private Prisons | The Nation
"Twenty thousand pages of previously unreleased documents reveal constant alarm from investigators—and disregard from leadership.
Federal Officials Ignored Years of Internal Warnings About Deaths at Private Prisons | The Nation
Republicans Run From Donald Trump's Orlando Response - NBC News
"WASHINGTON — Top Democrats, including President Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, challenged Republican lawmakers on Tuesday to defend Donald Trump's response to the terrorist attack on Orlando Sunday morning that claimed 49 lives.
Few took up the call.
Instead, GOP lawmakers in Washington jumped, ducked and crawled through yet another obstacle course laid by Trump as reporters peppered them with questions about the candidate's proposed ban on Muslim travel, his suggestions that President Obama sympathizes with radical Islamists and should resign and his threat of "big consequences" for Muslim communities in America who he says are harboring terrorists.
"I'm not going to be commenting on the presidential candidates today," Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said after receiving a question about Trump's accusations against the president.
House Speaker Paul Ryan, who lambasted Trump's Muslim ban when it was first proposed in December, said that he still disagreed with the candidate. Asked about Trump's repeated suggestion that "there's something going on" with Obama that prevents him from confronting terrorism, however, he drew the line.
"I am not going to spend my time commenting about the ups and downs and the in-betweens of comments," he said.
That was a popular reaction among Republicans, some of whom looked like they would rather be anywhere else doing anything but taking a question on Trump.
Jostling to get onto an elevator, Senator Pat Toomey, R-Penn., told reporters inquiring about Trump's Monday speech that he "didn't follow it closely."
Republicans Run From Donald Trump's Orlando Response - NBC News
Tuesday, June 14, 2016
MALCOLM X: “Martin Luther King Jr. is a TRAITOR” - This is an example of Malcolm's intelligence. You may not agree with his attack on MLK but it it hard to argue with the logic and common sense found in his argument. Malcolm X represented equal personhood. For men especially it meant that Black men did not have to grovel before White men. I love him for that. Growing up he was much more appealing to me than King. His incite was far ahead of King's in my mind. King got there though in his famous April 4, 1967 speech "Beyond Vietnam at Riverside Church NYC. He never however was to untangle his confusion involving non violence as a tactic vs a philosophy. As a tactic non violence may be an other option but you cannot use non violence when someone is trying to kill you. You must fight back and kill them first. This was the practical side of Malcolm while MLK was lost in his idealistic but misguided non violent philosophy. As my best friend Charlie has always said "you have to speak in a language they understand". Malcolm understood this.
Hate Crimes Against LGBT People Are Sadly Common | FiveThirtyEight
"The massacre at a gay nightclub in Orlando on Sunday was the worst mass shooting in American history and the deadliest terrorist attack on U.S. soil since Sept. 11. Through another lens, however, it was not an outlier. The gunman’s choice of target, a gay club, makes him just one of many to commit hate crimes against gay Americans. Although the magnitude and violence of the attack was unusual, the targeting of LGBT Americans is sadly common."
Hate Crimes Against LGBT People Are Sadly Common | FiveThirtyEight
Ex-classmate says Orlando shooter Omar Mateen was gay - NY Daily News
Ex-classmate says Orlando shooter Omar Mateen was gay - NY Daily News
Orlando man recognized gunman from gay dating apps | MSNBC
Orlando man recognized gunman from gay dating apps | MSNBC
Monday, June 13, 2016
South Korea’s Misogyny - The New York Times
"The country awoke on May 17 to shocking news that a young woman had been stabbed to death in a bar restroom in a busy shopping district in Seoul. Reports of murder are hardly rare in this country, but the 30-something male suspect’s motive stunned people. After the arrest, he told the police that he committed the crime because women had always ignored him.
The incident prompted testimonials from many women about the amount of misogyny they endure. A large number of men, in turn, dismissed the notion that the killing was an act of misogyny and said that women were being hysterical.
Many men would rather not acknowledge that South Korea is an entrenched patriarchy and that toxic gender relations are taking a toll on society. Women’s status has stalled in the 21st century. Too many of them are treated like second-class citizens and suffer undue violence, objectification and discrimination."
Friday, June 10, 2016
Warren: No VP conversations with Clinton Senator Elizabeth Warren talks with Rachel Maddow about whether she has heard from the Clinton campaign about a possible running mate role, and how the Democratic primary process helped shift the political landscape - The Rachel Maddow Show on msnbc – Latest News & Video
Wednesday, June 08, 2016
The Supreme Court Is Afraid of Racial Justice - The New York Times,
"The case, Washington v. Davis, involved the constitutionality of Test 21, developed by the federal government and used by the District of Columbia police force to assess people looking to become police officers. From 1968 to 1971, 57 percent of black applicants failed Test 21 compared with 13 percent of whites, leading two black would-be officers to file suit. The issue was whether a “race neutral” test that led to vastly different racial outcomes violated the Equal Protection Clause.
Consider three questions from Test 21:
1. Laws restricting hunting to certain regions and to a specific time of the year were passed chiefly to
A) prevent people from endangering their lives by hunting
B) keep our forests more beautiful
C) raise funds from the sale of hunting licenses
D) prevent complete destruction of certain kinds of animals
E) preserve certain game for eating purposes
2. The saying “Straight trees are the first to be felled” means most nearly
A) Honest effort is always rewarded.
B) The best are the first chosen.
C) Ill luck passes no one by.
D) The highest in rank have farthest to fall.
E) The stubborn are soon broken.
3. “Although the types of buildings in ghetto areas vary from the one-story shack to the large tenement building, they are alike in that they are all drab, unsanitary, in disrepair and often structurally unsound.” The quotation best supports the statement that all buildings in ghetto areas are
A) overcrowded
B) undesirable as living quarters
C) well constructed
D) about to be torn down
E) seldom inspected
Minority applicants were at a disadvantage because the questions were geared for white cultural norms and idioms. But the disparate failure rates also speak to decades of racially separate and unequal education. Test 21 can be seen as part of a long American tradition — from grandfather clauses to literacy tests — of seemingly race-neutral measures functioning in a discriminatory manner."
The Supreme Court Is Afraid of Racial Justice - The New York Times
Paul Ryan Calls Donald Trump’s Attack on Judge ‘Racist,’ but Still Backs Him - The New York Times
Paul Ryan Calls Donald Trump’s Attack on Judge ‘Racist,’ but Still Backs Him - The New York Times
Monday, June 06, 2016
To Stop Bad Prosecutors, Call the Feds - The New York Times
"Prosecutors are the most powerful players in the American criminal justice system. Their decisions — like whom to charge with a crime, and what sentence to seek — have profound consequences.
So why is it so hard to keep them from breaking the law or violating the Constitution?
The short answer is that they are almost never held accountable for misconduct, even when it results in wrongful convictions. It is time for a new approach to ending this behavior: federal oversight of prosecutors’ offices that repeatedly ignore defendants’ legal and constitutional rights. There is a successful model for this in the Justice Department’s monitoring of police departments with histories of misconduct.
Among the most serious prosecutorial violations is the withholding of evidence that could help a defendant prove his or her innocence or get a reduced sentence — a practice so widespread that one federal judge called it an “epidemic.” Under the 1963 landmark Supreme Court case Brady v. Maryland, prosecutors are required to turn over any exculpatory evidence to a defendant that could materially affect a verdict or sentence. Yet in many district attorneys’ offices, the Brady rule is considered nothing more than a suggestion, with prosecutors routinely holding back such evidence to win their cases.
Nowhere is this situation worse than in Louisiana, where prosecutors seem to believe they are unconstrained by the Constitution."
To Stop Bad Prosecutors, Call the Feds - The New York Times
Sunday, June 05, 2016
Saturday, June 04, 2016
Muhammad Ali, Titan of Boxing and the 20th Century, Dies at 74 - The New York Times
Muhammad Ali, Titan of Boxing and the 20th Century, Dies at 74 - The New York Times
Friday, June 03, 2016
De Blasio cautions 'rush to judgement' in Staten Island teen's death after chase | SILive.com
De Blasio cautions 'rush to judgement' in Staten Island teen's death after chase | SILive.com
Staten Island teen dies from asthma fleeing racist crew - NY Daily News
Staten Island teen dies from asthma fleeing racist crew - NY Daily News