Author Archives: Mike

by

Sheriff’s Deputy Mistakes Black Law Student For A Defendant, Prevents Her From Entering With Other Lawyers

Stories like these cause me to won­der if it is still plau­si­ble for the tax dol­lars of Black peo­ple in America should go to pay the police. This is what hap­pens when a per­son with a grade school edu­ca­tion and six months of train­ing is giv­en too much power.

A sheriff’s deputy con­fused a Black third-year Roger Williams University law stu­dent as a defen­dant as she entered into a court­room to rep­re­sent a client as part of the school’s crim­i­nal defense clin­ic, she claimed on social media last week. The dean of her law school says that the mis­take is “all too com­mon” and is an exam­ple of “implic­it bias” in courtrooms.
Because she goes to school in Rhode Island, she is allowed to rep­re­sent indi­gent defen­dants, those who have been arrest­ed or charged with a crime but are unable to hire a lawyer due to suf­fer­ing undue hard­ship, in crim­i­nal cas­es under Supreme Court Rule 9.

In order for stu­dents to gain this expe­ri­ence in the state District Court, they are required to work under the super­vi­sion of a licensed attor­ney on the RWU Law fac­ul­ty. She claimed that after the sheriff’s deputy called for attor­neys to line up and pre­pare to enter the court­room, she was sin­gled out and stopped.
Despite being sec­ond in line and pos­sess­ing mate­ri­als need­ed (binders and fold­ers) to rep­re­sent her client in a mis­de­meanor case, the offi­cial asked her, “Are you sure you are in the right court­room? Are you the defendant?”
Crockton took to social media to explain what she says hap­pened that day. “I have nev­er been so embar­rassed in my entire life,” Crockton said in a TikTok video on her @sobrooklyn pro­file. “I felt like cry­ing at that moment. The crazy part about it is you hear sto­ries like this all the time with Black attor­neys, but when it hap­pens to you, it is so vis­cer­al that you don’t even know what to say.” She con­tin­ued, “I lit­er­al­ly have all these binders and fold­ers, and I’m dressed pret­ty nice — not to say that defen­dants don’t dress nice.” 
“Why would you assume that I am a defen­dant? Um, I think we all know why.” Less than a week, 341,000 TikTok views and 3,000 com­ments lat­er, she real­ized that her expe­ri­ence was not an iso­lat­ed occur­rence. Many peo­ple from all over the world were able to recount their own ver­sions of her story.

One per­son said, “This isn’t new. In the UK, crim­i­nal lawyers wear a wig and robes. Black crim­i­nal lawyers still get ‘mis­tak­en’ for defen­dants.” “My broth­er is a lawyer and prac­tices in Texas, and that hap­pens all the time,” anoth­er said. “Same! I’ve had bailiffs ask if I’m the defendant’s moth­er (I rep­re­sent teens),” one woman said, “And I’ve had a judge look past me and ask where the lawyer is.” In a sec­ond video, Crockton shared that the deputy apol­o­gized to her, but she believed it was hollow.
She said once she explained that she was a stu­dent lawyer, he per­mit­ted her admis­sion into the court and said, “Hey, sorry.”
“There was no ounce of emo­tion in that ‘sor­ry,’” she said in the video. Throughout the day, the stu­dent alleged that the deputy con­tin­ued to speak to her con­de­scend­ing­ly. “He act­ed like I had nev­er once in my life stepped foot inside of a court­room, [say­ing] this is where the judge sits, and this is where you sit and when the judge asks you a ques­tion you are to stand up and address him,” Crockton remem­bered. “I’m get­ting pret­ty weird­ed out and very anx­ious because every time he comes up to me, he is say­ing some­thing very patron­iz­ing, and I want this expe­ri­ence to be done.” When her super­vis­ing attor­ney and an RWU law pro­fes­sor, Andrew Horwitz, start­ed talk­ing to her, the deputy came over to the two and only spoke to her white teacher.

She said, “The sher­iff comes over and talks to him and lit­er­al­ly does not even look at me, does not even address me.” 
Horwitz, who serves as the direc­tor of the crim­i­nal defense clin­ic and assis­tant dean for expe­ri­en­tial edu­ca­tion for the school, was lat­er made aware of the incident.
He not­ed, just as the legions of com­ments did, that this was a sys­temic issue that many peo­ple of col­or and women encounter when deal­ing with the court system.
“What it shows is that implic­it bias is a very seri­ous prob­lem in this coun­try,” Horwitz said. 
“It’s very hard to find a sin­gle attor­ney of col­or who has not had the expe­ri­ence of being con­fused for a defen­dant or a lit­i­gant,” he said. “Sadly, we still live in a soci­ety where our pre­con­ceived notions of what an attor­ney should look like con­tin­ue to exclude peo­ple of col­or and, to some degree, women.”
This “implic­it bias” in the judi­cial sys­tem, he states, “is a per­va­sive nation­wide problem.”

“I don’t think there is a way to elim­i­nate the kind of bias we all har­bor,” Horwitz reck­ons. “But I do think we can and should engage in sig­nif­i­cant train­ing so that peo­ple become more aware of those bias­es and devel­op strate­gies to avoid hav­ing those bias­es active­ly harm­ing people.”
RWU Law’s Dean Gregory W. Bowman said that Crockton is “an excel­lent stu­dent” and has a “bright future.”
“Here you have a young woman who is ded­i­cat­ing her future to help­ing oth­ers by prac­tic­ing law,” he con­tin­ues. “And she is pulled out of line and was humil­i­at­ed by it.”
He also stat­ed that the insti­tu­tion will be work­ing with the bar asso­ci­a­tion and the judi­cia­ry “to help address this prob­lem, which is all too common.”
“This is a per­va­sive prob­lem that real­ly must be addressed in all states and by all court sys­tems,” Bowman stat­ed before adding, “and that law schools should take seriously.”
Already, the school is tak­ing steps to address race and law as they pre­pare the next gen­er­a­tion of practitioners.
During the fall 2021 semes­ter, RWU Law became one of the only law schools in the nation that pro­grammed class­es on race and the law as require­ments for the Juris Doctorate. (This sto­ry first appeared in the Atlanta Black Star)

by

Biden Signs Order On Cryptocurrency As Its Use Explodes

Biden signs order on cryptocurrency as its use explodes

FILE — President Joe Biden sits in the Oval Office of the White House, on March 4, 2022, in Washington. Biden’s trip on Tuesday to Fort Worth, Texas, is per­son­al. It’s a chance to talk with vet­er­ans and their care­givers and push for more help for mem­bers of the mil­i­tary who face health prob­lems after expo­sure to burn pits. (AP Photo/​Patrick Semansky, File)

President Joe Biden on Wednesday signed an exec­u­tive order on gov­ern­ment over­sight of cryp­tocur­ren­cy that urges the Federal Reserve to explore whether the cen­tral bank should jump in and cre­ate its own dig­i­tal currency.
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said the effort would “pro­mote a fair­er, more inclu­sive, and more effi­cient finan­cial sys­tem” while coun­ter­ing illic­it finance and pre­vent­ing risks to finan­cial sta­bil­i­ty and nation­al security.

The Biden admin­is­tra­tion views the explo­sive pop­u­lar­i­ty of cryp­tocur­ren­cy as an oppor­tu­ni­ty to exam­ine the risks and ben­e­fits of dig­i­tal assets, said a senior admin­is­tra­tion offi­cial who pre­viewed the order Tuesday on the con­di­tion of anonymi­ty, terms set by the White House.
Under the exec­u­tive order, Biden also direct­ed the Treasury Department and oth­er fed­er­al agen­cies to study the impact of cryp­tocur­ren­cy on finan­cial sta­bil­i­ty and nation­al security.
Brian Deese and Jake Sullivan, Biden’s top eco­nom­ic and nation­al secu­ri­ty advis­ers, respec­tive­ly, said the order estab­lish­es the first com­pre­hen­sive fed­er­al dig­i­tal assets strat­e­gy for the United States.

Read more here.…https://​news​.yahoo​.com/​b​i​d​e​n​-​s​i​g​n​i​n​g​-​o​r​d​e​r​-​c​r​y​p​t​o​c​u​r​r​e​n​c​y​-​e​x​p​l​o​d​e​s​-​1​1​0​0​2​1​4​5​9​.​h​tml

by

We Must Seriously Consider The Hidden Dangers Of Jamaica’s High Court Being The Final Arbiter..

Jamaicans ( like myself), who con­tin­ue to call for cut­ting the colo­nial ties we main­tain with Britain, must also avail them­selves ful­ly of what we are ask­ing for.
Fully jet­ti­son­ing the Queen of England also means get­ting rid of the privy coun­cil. Aggrieved Jamaicans who can man­age to get their cas­es heard by the UK privy coun­cil can at least get a fair hear­ing one way or the other.
Let us imag­ine for a moment hav­ing to trust the Caribbean Court of Justice, or worse, plac­ing your last bet on Bryan Sykes and his cohorts to be the final arbiters of your grievances?
Now come back to real­i­ty. Yes, that will actu­al­ly be the fate of Jamaicans if peo­ple like myself get our way and we final­ly dump the queen of England.
Now I know that this may be a bit unrea­son­able, but I got­ta ask any­way, will lit­tle showoffs like K D Knight be allowed to keep the des­ig­na­tion of “Queen’s Counsel”?
Imagine a sys­tem in which we have judges turn­ing loose vio­lent crim­i­nals as if it is their God-giv­en right to do so and com­mon thugs like K D Knight pos­tur­ing and show­boat­ing in our court­rooms-what kind of jus­tice sys­tem will Jamaica even­tu­al­ly have?

Sure, I would hire KD Knight to defend me if I ever got myself into trou­ble. First of all, Knight believes some peo­ple are above the law. He is also a bul­ly that goes into court­rooms to intim­i­date judges. (I wish he was prac­tic­ing law in the United States and tried that with a judge ) but I digress.
Foot on the bench-seat K D Knight address­es judges with scant respect. Judges go out of their way to be respect­ful and def­er­en­tial to him; they treat him in the way offi­cers of the court should treat the court.
K D Knight gets what KG Knight wants, when he is in the court­room it becomes his court, not the judge’s.
It came as no sur­prise that Knight is get­ting his way in the Trafugira Beheer hear­ings in Kingston. Knight, rep­re­sent­ing for­mer Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller, described the hear­ings occur­ring at the supreme court as quote “rub­bish hearings.”
For those of you who do not know what this hear­ing is about, the Trafigura Affair came to pub­lic atten­tion in October 2006 by then Opposition Leader Bruce Golding, who revealed that the firm, which trad­ed oil for Jamaica on the inter­na­tion­al mar­ket, had donat­ed $31 mil­lion to an account oper­at­ed by Campbell just before the PNP’s annu­al con­fer­ence that year.
It is impor­tant to note that it is ille­gal for com­pa­nies to make dona­tions to polit­i­cal par­ties under Dutch law.
Trafigura Beheer could not legal­ly donate mon­ey to the PNP as it vio­lat­ed sec­tion 14 of its code of conduct.
Trafigura Beheer rep­re­sen­ta­tives at the time lied that the mon­ey was part of a com­mer­cial agree­ment; the PNP, for its part, said the mon­ey was a dona­tion to the par­ty. The truth is that some arm twist­ing & extor­tion occurred, and now every PNP mem­ber has amnesia.
Either way, the whole fish head stunk to high heav­ens with the Dutch com­pa­ny break­ing its coun­try’s laws and the bunch of crooks in the PNP lying to the pub­lic about the true rea­son the mon­ey was giv­en to them.

Paragraph #1 sec­tion #14

POLITICAL CONTRIBUTIONS AND ACTIVITIES /​TRAFIGURA EMPLOYEE OBLIGATIONS

Trafigura does not sup­port indi­vid­ual polit­i­cal par­ties or indi­vid­ual politicians. 
Trafigura employ­ees and its agents should not make direct or indi­rect con­tri­bu­tions to polit­i­cal par­ties, orga­ni­za­tions, or indi­vid­u­als engaged in pol­i­tics on behalf of the Trafigura Group.
Employees are free to par­tic­i­pate in demo­c­ra­t­ic polit­i­cal activ­i­ties, but this should be done in your own time, using your own mon­ey and with­out ref­er­ence to your rela­tion­ship with Trafigura.
The most laugh­able of KD Knight’s shenani­gans and pon­tif­i­cat­ing are his claims that Portia Simpson miller can­not tes­ti­fy because of a med­ical con­di­tion. Ordinary Jamaicans in that sit­u­a­tion bet­ter tes­ti­fy or ask for anoth­er date if they are sick.
But the illus­tri­ous K D Knight seri­ous­ly believes that his for­mer Prime Minister should not be answer­able to the Jamaican peo­ple because some­how she is above the laws…
Imagine this kind of cha­rade and def­er­en­tial treat­ment in a Jamaica where they know that ordi­nary Jamaicans have no recourse out­side the clown-show they call the Jamaican Justice system.
That is what awaits peo­ple like me and oth­ers who espouse and keep push­ing for a new Constitution and a People’s Republic of Jamaica.
Imagine the cor­rup­tion that will take over the process if those cor­rupt left­ists can pick up the phone and call each oth­er regard­ing a case with no out­side or inde­pen­dent arbiter to exam­ine their deci­sions based on the law.
No one to call bullshit!!!

.

.

Mike Beckles is a for­mer Police Detective, busi­ness­man, free­lance writer, black achiev­er hon­oree, and cre­ator of the blog mike​beck​les​.com.

by

Bullied Black Kid Gets Suspended With Aggressor Who Rendered Him Unconscious..

Arkansas high school stu­dents staged a sit-in on their cam­pus after a Black stu­dent was sus­pend­ed for an equal amount of time as a white stu­dent who picked a fight with him dur­ing school hours.
Instigators filmed the alter­ca­tion and post­ed it on social media, spark­ing sev­er­al dis­cus­sions, includ­ing ques­tion­ing the administration’s response to bul­ly­ing and sys­temic racial bias in the school’s dis­ci­pline of young peo­ple. The now-viral video has racked up thou­sands of views and shares.
The fight, insti­gat­ed by a white stu­dent, took place in a lock­er room at Fordyce High School. It is unclear exact­ly when the inci­dent took place, but it was post­ed to Twitter on Feb. 25 by a local activist.
Cellphone video shows a Black teen get­ting dressed, as the “white bul­ly” is bom­bard­ing him with vul­gar state­ments about the child’s mother.
The Black teen is seen try­ing to ignore those insults, and at one point tries to walk away, as the bul­ly is encour­aged by oth­er boys to con­tin­ue the onslaught of ver­bal attacks and threat­ens to phys­i­cal­ly assault him. The video clip, which lasts a lit­tle over 2 min­utes, shows the Black boy even­tu­al­ly respond­ing after being hit by an object and pushed by the larg­er white aggressor.

https://​atlantablack​star​.com/​2​0​2​2​/​0​3​/​0​8​/​w​h​y​-​d​i​d​n​t​-​y​a​l​l​-​d​e​a​l​-​w​i​t​h​-​i​t​-​t​h​e​n​-​a​r​k​a​n​s​a​s​-​h​i​g​h​-​s​c​h​o​o​l​-​s​t​u​d​e​n​t​s​-​s​t​a​g​e​-​a​-​s​i​t​-​i​n​-​a​f​t​e​r​-​b​l​a​c​k​-​s​t​u​d​e​n​t​-​a​n​d​-​w​h​i​t​e​-​a​g​g​r​e​s​s​o​r​-​b​o​t​h​-​g​e​t​-​s​u​s​p​e​n​d​e​d​-​f​o​l​l​o​w​i​n​g​-​f​i​g​h​t​-​f​r​o​m​-​v​i​r​a​l​-​v​i​d​eo/

At one point, the white teen places the Black boy into a head­lock until, ulti­mate­ly, the stu­dent is left lying uncon­scious on the floor. While he is knocked out, the white kid kicks him in the head and stomps him on his back. The unsu­per­vised stu­dents were nev­er inter­rupt­ed by a teacher or coach, and it has not been report­ed how long the Black child was left uncon­scious on the floor. School offi­cials alleged­ly sus­pend­ed both stu­dents for ten days, despite video show­ing the Black child was attacked first, tried to de-esca­late the sit­u­a­tion, and, accord­ing to Fox 16, had pre­vi­ous­ly report­ed that he was being bullied.
In protest of this deci­sion, mem­bers of the stu­dent body decid­ed to protest by orga­niz­ing a sit-in on Friday, March 4. Their goal is to make the school pay more atten­tion to reports of bul­ly­ing and com­mit to tak­ing action against those who bul­ly oth­er students.

Students were also alarmed and object­ed to both stu­dents being dis­ci­plined. A video showed the prin­ci­pal address­ing the chil­dren, say­ing he “admires” them engag­ing their “right” to protest. But also said the school has inves­ti­gat­ed the fight “thor­ough­ly” and that it “went as far up the hand­book” as it could to align with school pol­i­cy. He told the stu­dents they are inter­rupt­ing school, espe­cial­ly sev­er­al “impor­tant peo­ple on cam­pus” that want to help the admin­is­tra­tion get “pro­grams” for the next year, imply­ing that the protest is imped­ing that progress. The stu­dents became rest­less with his remarks, and one young lady asked, “Why, if this has been going on since November, why didn’t y’all deal with it then?” Another respond­ed, “that boy is trained in mar­tial arts,” refer­ring to the white teen. The school’s stu­dent gov­ern­ment pres­i­dent stood up after the prin­ci­pal told him to show his lead­er­ship and get con­trol of the sit­u­a­tion. The Black stu­dent stood up and said, “I trust the school sys­tem, but if this does not get han­dled prop­er­ly, then we will [con­tin­ue to protest].”
The pres­i­dent thanked the prin­ci­pal for allow­ing the protest and said that he “real­ly hopes” the Black stu­dent gets an apology.
The prin­ci­pal then tells the stu­dents to go to their next peri­od, and the video shows them respond­ing in an over­whelm­ing “no!”
Fordyce School District Superintendent Judy Hubbell declined to com­ment on details of the inci­dent, stat­ing that it was “con­fi­den­tial information.”

Hubbell said, “This video came to light about two days ago and we can’t dis­cuss stu­dent dis­ci­pline because that is con­fi­den­tial infor­ma­tion. We are in the process of inves­ti­gat­ing this case and tak­ing care of it.” “We don’t want bul­ly­ing on our cam­pus,” she con­tin­ued. “We want to have a safe cam­pus, but this just came to light, and we are work­ing on this, we are talk­ing through the process. There have been dis­ci­pli­nary mea­sures, but I can’t tell you what those mea­sures are. I can’t tell you who’s involved or any­thing like that.” 
State Rep. Jamie Scott and state Sen. Joyce Elliott have reached out to the city’s depart­ment of edu­ca­tion on this issue.
Elliott tweet­ed, “Somebody from the Fordyce [School] District must defend the sus­pen­sion of the bul­lied stu­dent. This is nuts. What the hell was he sup­posed to do? There is no equiv­a­len­cy here!”

by

Weak Democrats Allow Republicans To Dictate To Them Even From The Minority

I do not know Ketanji Brown Jackson’s pol­i­tics, nor do I know her judi­cial phi­los­o­phy; as a result, I do not care that she is black and a woman nom­i­nat­ed for the Highest court.
If the dis­grace­ful self-hat­ing Uncle TomAss is any­thing to go by, I would rather they stack the court with rad­i­cal right-wing zealots as they have been doing since Trump took office, than elect anoth­er oreo cook­ie to the court…
After all, Ketanji Brown Jackson is mar­ried to a white man, like Uncle TomAss is mar­ried to a white woman. She is a woman right?.

Ketanji Brown-Jackson and her hus­band, Patrick

Black does­n’t mean right, as we have seen with Clarence TomAss and even the hir­ing of Black police offi­cers to police black neigh­bor­hoods, police abuse does­n’t nec­es­sar­i­ly decrease.
Today, my inten­tion is not to ques­tion Ketanji Brown-Jackson’s judi­cial phi­los­o­phy, but the fact that American democ­ra­cy is in deep per­il because what many peo­ple thought was a sys­tem of laws turned out not to be so.
A cop can pull a motorist over after fol­low­ing that motorist for a city block or two no mat­ter how well that per­son dri­ves, and the cop would have a pseu­do legit­i­mate rea­son for the stop as a result of the thou­sands of ordi­nances and laws that gov­ern the sim­ple act of oper­at­ing a motor vehicle.
But there is no hard and fast rule as to when the United States Senate [must] advice and con­sent to Judicial nom­i­nees-or not.

The look TomAss’s face pret­ty much relieves me of the urge to be nasty.

Mitch McConnell refused to meet with Merrick Garland even though Obama nom­i­nat­ed Garland for eight months before the 2016 Elections. Not that Merrick Garland would have amount­ed to much of any­thing had he been allowed onto the court.
If his per­for­mance at Justice is a barom­e­ter of how he would have per­formed on the high­est court, I’ll pass…
Nevertheless, how can McConnell’s actions be pos­si­ble in a demo­c­ra­t­ic soci­ety where a gov­ern­ment body plays pol­i­tics and mock the process? 
To add insult to injury, Neil Gorsuch was quick­ly foist­ed onto the high­est court as soon as the most cor­rupt per­son ever to hold the office took over the exec­u­tive branch.
Mitch McConnell was­n’t done; he reversed his own rule and insert­ed Amey coney Barrett onto the court a mere 27 days before the 2020 pres­i­den­tial elec­tions because they knew Trump was going to lose. A Democratic pres­i­dent would have appoint­ed Ruth Bader Ginsberg’s replacement.
A sin­gle per­son decid­ing on his own that he would not allow a vote so that a vacan­cy may be filled in over eight months then revers­es him­self and replaces a judge of his par­ty in 27 days.

The weak Democrats allowed Republicans to get away with it and did noth­ing. Today Republicans want the Democrats to go slow with Ketanji Brown-Jackson’s nom­i­na­tion for no oth­er rea­son than hop­ing to win the midterms and then jet­ti­son Brown-Jackson from the process.
Why would the Democrats play that game with them? The Republican Party is a polit­i­cal par­ty that does not believe in free and fair elec­tions, it does not believe in one man, one vote, and it no longer sub­scribes to the idea of con­sti­tu­tion­al democ­ra­cy, as we saw on January 6th, 2021. Why play by the rules if your com­peti­tor isn’t?
I believe in fight­ing fire with more fire. Joe Biden did not need a month or more to decide who he would nom­i­nate to the court. He was oblig­at­ed to nom­i­nate a Black woman to the court. Yes, I said it; black women made him president.
He also did not need time to vet Judge Ketanji Brown-Jackson; she had only a year ear­li­er moved up to the Appellate divi­sion of the fed­er­al judi­cia­ry, she need­ed no vetting.
Charles Schumer has the gav­el in the Senate, or at least I hope so; Mitch McConnell still seems to be run­ning the show. There is no rea­son that the President’s nom­i­nee is not already con­firmed to the high­est court.
He made a cam­paign promise, his par­ty nom­i­nat­ed him based on that promise and the American peo­ple over­whelm­ing­ly elect­ed him pres­i­dent based on that promise. It is time to stop play­ing around with the fas­cist right-wing par­ty and put judge Ketanji Brown-Jackson on the court forthwith.

.

.

.

.

.

Mike Beckles is a for­mer Police Detective, busi­ness­man, free­lance writer, black achiev­er hon­oree, and cre­ator of the blog mike​beck​les​.com.

by

Veteran NYPD Sergeant Pleads Guilty For Punching Two Homeless Men In Police Custody

A vet­er­an New York Police Department (NYPD) sergeant has plead­ed guilty for punch­ing two home­less men on two sep­a­rate occa­sions in 2019 and 2020.

Sgt. Phillip Wong plead­ed guilty at the Manhattan Supreme Court on Wednesday. He admit­ted to assault­ing the first man, who was in police cus­tody, and the sec­ond man, who was at the plat­form of West 96th Street and Broadway sub­way station.

“Law enforce­ment offi­cials are sworn to serve and pro­tect their com­mu­ni­ties, includ­ing New Yorkers in their cus­tody,” Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg said dur­ing Wong’s hear­ing. “In this case, Sgt. Wong vio­lat­ed not only his oath – but the law – dur­ing the vio­lent arrests of two New Yorkers, on two sep­a­rate occasions.”

Wong alleged­ly assault­ed a 48-year-old man being escort­ed by oth­er police offi­cers into a hold­ing cell inside NYPD Transit District 3 in Hamilton Heights on Oct. 4, 2019. The man alleged­ly kicked the cell’s door and spat at the offi­cers, which angered Wong. The NYPD sergeant report­ed­ly charged at the man and punched him in the face, as NextShark pre­vi­ous­ly reported.

Wong was still under inves­ti­ga­tion for the first assault when he got involved in the sec­ond one. 

A 35-year-old man was report­ed­ly arrest­ed at the West 96th Street and Broadway sub­way sta­tion on April 29, 2020, for punch­ing anoth­er pas­sen­ger. Wong was super­vis­ing the offi­cers at the scene of the incident.

The man report­ed­ly hurled anti-Asian slurs at Wong and kicked him in the leg after his arrest. In response, Wong and anoth­er offi­cer brought the man to the ground, and Wong knelt on his back.

At one point, the appre­hend­ed sus­pect alleged­ly told Wong, “I can’t breathe,” but the offi­cer con­tin­ued with his assault and replied, “I don’t give a f*ck if you can breathe or not.”

Wong even­tu­al­ly sur­ren­dered to author­i­ties fol­low­ing the inci­dent. However, he ini­tial­ly plead­ed not guilty to third-degree assault and third-degree attempt­ed assault charges. It is unclear what made him even­tu­al­ly change his mind.

The vet­er­an NYPD sergeant, who joined the force in 2006, was slapped with a two-year pro­ba­tion. He was also ordered to com­plete 70 hours of com­mu­ni­ty ser­vice and under­take anger man­age­ment or oth­er counseling.

The dis­trict attorney’s office has request­ed for Wong to be giv­en a 60-day prison sen­tence. Wong, who has been on mod­i­fied duty, is expect­ed to face a depart­ment tri­al on March 22.

by

Police, Prosecutors, Defense Attorneys, & Judges, All Sip From The Same Bitter Chalice.

In many of my arti­cles, one of the things you have seen me talk about is the deep and per­va­sive cor­rup­tion that per­me­ates many of America’s 18,000 plus police depart­ments, large and small.
As con­vo­lut­ed as the notion of mak­ing a com­plaint against the police means that a cit­i­zen has to go to the same police depart­ment and be greet­ed with hos­til­i­ty and intim­i­da­tion. It is far worse when the sur­face is scratched away.
My con­tention has sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly been those police offi­cers who vio­late their oaths do so with impuni­ty because they know they are protected.
A cit­i­zen who lies under oath is sum­mar­i­ly crim­i­nal­ized even when that cit­i­zen may have gen­uine­ly for­got­ten or omit­ted part of an inci­dent when talk­ing to law enforce­ment or prosecutors.
Think about the lev­el of com­plic­i­ty that goes into using tax­pay­ers’ dol­lars to pur­chase body cam­eras. Still, the leg­is­la­tion says that the pub­lic that pays for those cam­eras has no right to the footage from the cam­era because they are not pub­lic property?
Never mind that they are pur­chased with the pub­lic’s mon­ey! Imagine the crim­i­nal intent inher­ent in the prac­tices that allow cops to turn off body cam­eras dur­ing encoun­ters with the pub­lic and turn them back on when­ev­er they feel like it?
The col­lu­sion from leg­is­la­tors and oth­ers expos­es to the American pub­lic the lev­el of cor­rup­tion that is deeply ingrained into the American police culture.

However, when police offi­cers are caught lying under oath or fal­si­fy­ing doc­u­ments, they suf­fer no consequence. 
This two-tiered sys­tem of jus­tice runs the gamut; it isn’t just an unhealthy alliance between cops and cor­rupt pros­e­cu­tors but cor­rupt judges who active­ly shield crim­i­nal cops all the way to the high­est court and even the Federal Bureau Of Investigations (FBI) that is sup­posed to do their jobs as they are sworn to do.
Unfortunately, mak­ing a report to the FBI or a Federal Prosecutors’ office for action against police may not be such a good idea as there is evi­dence that some Federal Prosecutors and FBI agents are quite com­fort­able leak­ing evi­dence to the very sub­jects they’re sup­posed to be investigating.
In the link pro­vid­ed below, hear Attorney at law John H Bryan out­line his expe­ri­ences after sub­mit­ting evi­dence of a crime com­mit­ted by police offi­cers in West Virginia to the Federal Prosecutor in that state.
https://www.facebook.com/watch/?ref=search&v=491070869300435&external_log_id=7c506f9d-d5a9-4ab4-abfb-1d729309d9a5&q=john%20H%20bryan%20attorney%20at%20law%20fbi%20agent%20leaked%20my%20video

Another issue has cropped up, lawyers refus­ing to take cas­es that have to do with police depart­ments. I under­stand that no lawyer is oblig­at­ed to take a case if they believe they have no case or that it is unwinnable.
In fact, when lawyers are tak­ing cas­es that they are only reward­ed if they win, it is under­stand­able that they may be even more cau­tious about the cas­es they take.
With that said, there seems to be a pat­tern in many one hoss towns across the United States where an aggriev­ed per­son abused by police should not seek legal coun­sel in that town; it sim­ply won’t be there.
In some cas­es, the entire sys­tem of jus­tice, all sides (a) police, prosecutors,(b) defense attor­neys, © judges, (d) Legislators, all sip from the same bit­ter chal­ice. Justice is what they say it is- their brand of jus­tice is com­plete­ly divorced from the con­ven­tion­al expec­ta­tions of how the sys­tem is sup­posed to work.
In a June 7, 2020 arti­cle, the Cato Institute’s Clarke Neiley respond­ing to the tur­moil in the streets after the George Floyd mur­der, wrote the following.
Before you can fair­ly assess the legit­i­ma­cy of the ongo­ing protests or the qual­i­ty of the government’s response, you must under­stand the rel­e­vant facts. And the most rel­e­vant fact is that America’s crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem is rot­ten to its core. Though that cer­tain­ly does not jus­ti­fy the vio­lence and wan­ton destruc­tion of prop­er­ty per­pe­trat­ed by far too many pro­test­ers, it does pro­vide use­ful con­text for com­pre­hend­ing the inten­si­ty of their anger and the feck­less­ness of the government’s response. If America is burn­ing, it is fair to say that America’s crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem — which is itself a rag­ing dump­ster fire of injus­tice — lit the fuse. (C Neiley)

The cit­i­zen­ry must have faith in gov­ern­ment insti­tu­tions, par­tic­u­lar­ly insti­tu­tions tasked with dis­pens­ing jus­tice, police, pros­e­cu­tors, and courts. I have always been and con­tin­ue to be a lit­tle unsure why the Black com­mu­ni­ty had any faith in the jus­tice sys­tem, includ­ing Federal agen­cies and the FBI in par­tic­u­lar, giv­en that agen­cy’s record of hos­til­i­ty toward the community?
Sure, the entire polic­ing infra­struc­ture needs over­haul­ing, but bad police offi­cers are only bad because they are allowed to be so.
The entire sys­tem is guilty; the police are mere­ly foot sol­diers. The entire sys­tem is rot­ten to the core.
Neily wrote
...I feel moved to write these words because it appears from some of the com­men­tary I’ve been read­ing — includ­ing even from lib­er­tar­i­an cir­cles — that many peo­ple who con­sid­er them­selves to be gen­er­al­ly skep­ti­cal of gov­ern­ment and sup­port­ive of indi­vid­ual rights have no idea just how fun­da­men­tal­ly bro­ken our crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem is and how wild­ly anti­thet­i­cal it has become to our core con­sti­tu­tion­al val­ues. I see three fun­da­men­tal patholo­gies in America’s crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem that com­plete­ly under­mine its moral and polit­i­cal legit­i­ma­cy and ren­der it a men­ace to the very con­cept of con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly lim­it­ed gov­ern­ment. Those three patholo­gies are (1) uncon­sti­tu­tion­al over­crim­i­nal­iza­tion, (2) point-​and-​convict adju­di­ca­tion, and (3) near-zero account­abil­i­ty for police and prosecutors.
I con­cur wholeheartedly!

.

.

.

.

Mike Beckles is a for­mer Police Detective, busi­ness­man, free­lance writer, black achiev­er hon­oree, and cre­ator of the blog mike​beck​les​.com.

by

Police Fatally Shot A 12-Year-Old Boy In The Back After A Bullet Struck A Cop Car

Police killings are not things that are going away they are things that are hap­pen­ing dai­ly in America, made pos­si­ble by behold­en pros­e­cu­tors, and politi­cians and rub­ber-stamped by courts.
The pro-killer cop sup­port­ers believe that police can con­tin­ue to mur­der lit­tle black and brown boys or even grown men and women and their chil­dren will remain unscathed, unfor­tu­nate­ly, that is not how the world works.
Again I invoke the words of Martin Niemoller as I have done ever so often in my articles.

First, they came for the social­ists, and I did not speak out — because I was not a socialist.

Then they came for the trade union­ists, and I did not speak out— because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out — because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me — and there was no one left to speak for me.

Police in Philadelphia fatal­ly shot a 12-year-old boy in the back moments after a bul­let struck an unmarked police car on Tuesday evening. The vic­tim, iden­ti­fied as Thomas Siderio, was pro­nounced dead at Penn Presbyterian Medical Center min­utes after he was shot while alleged­ly hold­ing a gun and run­ning away from two offi­cers, police said. Authorities described him as a white male. “The life of a young man was cut trag­i­cal­ly short, and we should all be ques­tion­ing how we as a soci­ety have failed him and so many oth­er young peo­ple like him,” Philadelphia Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw said in a state­ment Wednesday. In her state­ment, Outlaw said that “a young child with a gun in their hand pur­pose­ly fired a weapon at our offi­cers and by mir­a­cle, none of the offi­cers suf­fered life-threat­en­ing injuries.” However, Deputy Commissioner Benjamin Naish said Wednesday that police were still inves­ti­gat­ing who fired at the vehi­cle, the Associated Press report­ed. He also could not say if Siderio was point­ing a gun at the police vehi­cle while fleeing.


Now comes the cop-splain­ing in an attempt to jus­ti­fy murder

Just because the vic­tim was run­ning away from the police and was shot in the back, Naish said, “does­n’t mean that he was­n’t con­tin­u­ing to be a threat to the offi­cer. None of the four offi­cers were wear­ing body cam­eras, author­i­ties said.

The offi­cers have been placed on admin­is­tra­tive duty fol­low­ing what Outlaw promised will be a “fair and thor­ough inves­ti­ga­tion” into the case. The inci­dent began when four plain­clothes offi­cers were in an unmarked vehi­cle around 7:24 p.m. on Tuesday in South Philadelphia as part of a task force inves­ti­gat­ing unlaw­ful firearms pos­ses­sion. They observed Siderio stand­ing in a cor­ner with a teenag­er who was want­ed for ques­tion­ing in the ongo­ing inves­ti­ga­tion, police said in a press release. The offi­cers drove toward the two indi­vid­u­als and acti­vat­ed the vehicle’s emer­gency lights.
“At that point, they heard gun­fire and glass shat­ter­ing from the rear pas­sen­ger win­dow,” police said. The bul­let struck the inner door­frame, went through the passenger’s head­rest, and stopped in the vehicle’s headliner.
The offi­cer sit­ting in the rear pas­sen­ger seat was struck by shards of glass in his face and eyes, accord­ing to the police.
Two oth­er offi­cers got out of the vehi­cle and began fir­ing at Siderio; author­i­ties said he was hold­ing a gun as he ran away. One of the offi­cers fired his gun twice at Siderio, strik­ing the boy in the upper right back with the bul­let exit­ing his left chest. Siderio was tak­en to the hos­pi­tal and pro­nounced dead at 7:29 p.m. on Tuesday.

The offi­cer hit by the glass was treat­ed at a hos­pi­tal and released. No oth­er offi­cers or civil­ians were injured.
In footage from a door­bell cam­era in the area, obtained by CBS Philly, one of the offi­cers appears to say, “I’m bleed­ing!” Police ques­tioned the 17-year-old who was with Siderio but lat­er released him.
“What I heard was when the cops pulled up in an unmarked car, they thought some­one was jump­ing them because they slammed on the brakes. So the kid shot because he thought some­body was going to shoot him,” the teenager’s step­fa­ther, Salman Khan, told Action News. Police alleged that the gun Siderio was hold­ing was a Taurus 9 mm semi­au­to­mat­ic hand­gun that had been stolen. The vic­tim was a sev­enth-grad­er at George W. Sharswood Elementary School. The school did not reply to BuzzFeed News’ request for com­ment. Siderio was report­ed miss­ing in 2020 when he was 11 years old, but he was found days lat­er. In a state­ment to BuzzFeed News, Keisha Hudson of the Defender Association of Philadelphia, said, “While we real­ize that not all the facts are in, we’re deeply trou­bled by reports of a twelve-year-old child being shot in the back by police. Because police nar­ra­tives in these sit­u­a­tions are often incom­plete and ever-chang­ing, (e.g., the ini­tial reports of George Floyd’s death being a med­ical con­di­tion), we call on the police depart­ment and the dis­trict attorney’s office to con­duct a thor­ough inves­ti­ga­tion into this shoot­ing and to be respon­sive and trans­par­ent with the public.”

by

Former AG Barr Said Trump Became Enraged After Being Told Election Fraud Claims Were Nonsense

Former U.S. Attorney General William Barr said then-President Donald Trump became furi­ous after Barr told him there was no evi­dence that the 2020 elec­tion was fraud­u­lent.

“I told him that all this stuff was bulls — … about elec­tion fraud. And, you know, it was wrong to be shov­el­ing it out the way his team was,” Barr said in an inter­view with NBC News’s Lester Holt that’s sched­uled to air Sunday night. First high­lights of the inter­view aired Thursday on MSNBC’s “Andrea Mitchell Reports.”

William Barr

The sit-down with Holt is Barr’s first tele­vised inter­view since he stepped down as attor­ney gen­er­al in late Dec. 2020. Barr is pub­lish­ing a new book about his time in the Trump admin­is­tra­tion, which has prompt­ed crit­i­cism from some that he remained silent about the for­mer pres­i­dent until he could prof­it from book sales.

Holt’s inter­view will air tonight on NBC Nightly News at 6:30 p.m. ET, with the prime­time spe­cial air­ing this Sunday at 9 pm ET on NBC. 
Read more here… https://​news​.yahoo​.com/​f​o​r​m​e​r​-​a​g​-​b​a​r​r​-​s​a​i​d​-​t​r​u​m​p​-​1​7​3​5​5​7​2​1​4​.​h​tml

by

Neither CARICOM Nor Member States Should Get Involved In Russia-Ukraine Conflict…

It is com­mon knowl­edge that togeth­er we are stronger, no doubt; there­fore, humans align them­selves to groups, orga­ni­za­tions, gangs, and all dif­fer­ent types of col­lab­o­rat­ing entities.
And there are ben­e­fits to oper­at­ing in groups that may not be derived from going solo. For exam­ple, buy­ing in bulk is a good idea; it usu­al­ly results in low­er prices and ben­e­fits such as free deliv­ery and oth­er goodies.
Operating as a com­bined enti­ty instead of a sin­gle indi­vid­ual is gen­er­al­ly more ben­e­fi­cial on mul­ti­ple fronts than oper­at­ing on one’s own.

Even the con­tentious Africans are com­ing around to rec­og­niz­ing the val­ue of togeth­er­ness in a world that has become increas­ing­ly inter­de­pen­dent; there­fore, we now have an African Union. 
The Europeans also fig­ured it out, and after world war two, west­ern nations decid­ed on NATO as a force-mul­ti­pli­er for their own pro­tec­tion. Later they also formed the European Union.
Before the sec­ond world war, pow­er­ful nations sought to coa­lesce with oth­er nations to be stronger and bet­ter able to achieve their goals. The mighty Germans at the time aligned them­selves with Italy and Japan, both pow­ers in their own rights.

And so that mes­sage has start­ed to slow­ly reach every­one, includ­ing the Caribbean, world events dic­tate they are bet­ter off align­ing them­selves with each oth­er. And so they did .… they formed CARICOM.
Now, as Russia invad­ed Ukraine, I cer­tain­ly do not believe that indi­vid­ual mem­ber states nor CARICOM should have a dog in that fight.
(CARICOM) has left the pos­si­bil­i­ty of impos­ing sanc­tions on Russia to indi­vid­ual mem­ber states fol­low­ing hours of intense delib­er­a­tion on the sec­ond day of the 33rd Inter-Sessional Meeting of Heads of Government in Belize.
CARICOM was formed exact­ly for these moments, and there­fore, if CARICOM is not get­ting involved, mem­ber states should also stay out of a fight that has noth­ing to do with it.
The peo­ple in Ukraine will cer­tain­ly have dif­fi­cul­ty locat­ing the Caribbean on a map, much less indi­vid­ual mem­ber states.CARICOM has already issued a state­ment con­demn­ing Russia’s inva­sion of Ukraine, argu­ing the hos­til­i­ties ran counter to the prin­ci­ples of respect for sovereignty.
That is where CARICOM and its mem­ber states should leave the issue. 
Cockroach nu bizniz Inna fowl fite.

.

.

.

.

Mike Beckles is a for­mer Police Detective, busi­ness­man, free­lance writer, black achiev­er hon­oree, and cre­ator of the blog mike​beck​les​.com.

by

Jamaican Immigrant Susan M. Collins Becomes First Black Woman To Lead A Federal Reserve Bank

(Photo from University of Michigan) 

Economist Susan M. Collins has become the first Black woman to lead one of the 12 region­al Federal Reserve banks since the cen­tral bank sys­tem was cre­at­ed in 1914.
She was appoint­ed the next pres­i­dent of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston on Feb. 9 and will start in her new role in July. Collins has been provost and exec­u­tive vice pres­i­dent for aca­d­e­m­ic affairs at the University of Michigan since 2020. 
A Harvard- and MIT-trained econ­o­mist with exten­sive expe­ri­ence in gov­ern­ment and acad­e­mia, Collins, 63, is only the sec­ond woman to helm the Boston Fed. Cathy Minehan was pres­i­dent from 1994 through 2007.
Collins will also be on the cen­tral bank’s pow­er­ful Federal Open Market Committee, whose man­date is to pro­mote full employ­ment and sta­ble con­sumer prices. Collins, whose par­ents immi­grat­ed from Jamaica, became a U.S. cit­i­zen in 1997. 
In a recent inter­view, Collins indi­cat­ed she would focus on both tra­di­tion­al Fed con­cerns, such as the labor mar­ket, and the kind of com­mu­ni­ty-ori­ent­ed ini­tia­tives the cen­tral bank has focused on in recent years. “I’ll note that a com­mon theme through­out my career has been a com­mit­ment to the mis­sion of pub­lic ser­vice to improve lives — whether through edu­ca­tion, research, or pol­i­cy,” she said.
Read the full sto­ry here-https://​fin​u​rah​.com/​2​0​2​2​/​0​2​/​1​4​/​j​a​m​a​i​c​a​n​-​i​m​m​i​g​r​a​n​t​-​b​e​c​o​m​e​s​-​f​i​r​s​t​-​b​l​a​c​k​-​w​o​m​a​n​-​c​h​o​s​e​n​-​t​o​-​l​e​a​d​-​a​-​f​e​d​e​r​a​l​-​r​e​s​e​r​v​e​-​b​r​a​n​ch/

by

Intelligence-based Policing Reaping Rewards, Not ZOSOs.…

The gains out­lined by the Jamaica Constabulary Force in a press con­fer­ence by Commissioner Antony Anderson are high­ly com­mend­able, both in the num­ber of weapons seized and the reduc­tion in the num­ber of vio­lent gun deaths.
However, the most sig­nif­i­cant take­away from this is that the suc­cess­es reaped by the JCF have been unques­tion­ably intel­li­gence-based, and of course, we have all seen the results.
Commissioner Anderson report­ed that since February 1st, 28 high-pow­ered rifles had been seized by the JCF, and a total of 163 ille­gal firearms has been removed from the streets. He made the case that the num­ber of weapons removed from the hands of crim­i­nals rep­re­sents an increase of 37 per­cent over the cor­re­spond­ing peri­od last year.
Anderson also bemoaned that 240 peo­ple have been report­ed killed since the start of the year.

There are a cou­ple of take­aways that we should not sweep under the rug.
(1) As I said ear­li­er, these are intel­li­gence-based suc­cess­es that can­not be attrib­uted to mas­sive amounts of secu­ri­ty per­son­nel stand­ing around in volatile com­mu­ni­ties. You do not just start dig­ging up riles and hand­guns from places in the ground unless some­one tells you where to look.
There is a case to be made that there are dis­tinct pos­si­bil­i­ties that intel­li­gence can be gath­ered from just the pres­ence of secu­ri­ty per­son­nel with­in the so-called Zones Of Special Operations (ZOSO).
To the extent that that can be true, it would be a strong case for more com­mu­ni­ty policing.
(2) The police Commissioner spoke to the places the weapons were being retrieved from, and he out­lined the role the Jamaica Customs Agency played in one recent weapons find.
Anderson said that on Monday, dur­ing a non-intru­sive inspec­tion process car­ried out in Montego Bay, St James, the Jamaica Customs Agency iden­ti­fied firearms hid­den in a tele­vi­sion set. They engaged the police, who sub­se­quent­ly seized two rifles, one sub­ma­chine gun, four hand­guns, eight mag­a­zines, and 16 rounds of ammunition.
Though com­mend­able, this is by far not near­ly enough.
Every search done by the cus­toms should be intru­sive, only when the lev­el of scruti­ny of for­eign goods enter­ing the Island becomes extreme­ly intru­sive and com­pre­hen­sive will those who would use our ports to send guns into the coun­try desist from doing so.
I once again call on the Government to change the psy­che of the Jamaica Customs and make it a law enforce­ment agency that is more focused on pro­tect­ing the nation’s ports than the rev­enue focused-agency it cur­rent­ly is.
A com­pe­tent law enforce­ment-focused Customs Agency will not only add to the work­force of the secu­ri­ty appa­ra­tus by virtue of enhanced train­ing and focus; it will inex­orably increase rev­enue for the coun­try because of less corruption.

(3) Our coun­try requires immense human and mate­r­i­al resources to effec­tive­ly police our bor­ders. We do not have those resources, but we can bet­ter ensure that the weapons arriv­ing in the coun­try through Customs are dras­ti­cal­ly reduced.
This brings me to the ques­tion of the ship­ments of weapons enter­ing the Island hid­den in tele­vi­sions, refrig­er­a­tors, and oth­er house­hold goods.
Why are the ship­pers of these goods in the United States and wher­ev­er they live not being arrest­ed and pros­e­cut­ed for these weapons finds?
Every per­son ship­ping mer­chan­dise to the Island ships through a ship­per; the per­son must have an iden­ti­ty; why exact­ly are they not being arrest­ed and prosecuted?
It is time that the gov­ern­ment stop being a minor league play­er and step up to the plate. It is time for the Government to press the United States for greater coöper­a­tion in stem­ming the flow of guns into the Island.
No, not press, demand that the US use its vast resources to help stop the flow of American guns into Jamaica…
If the gov­ern­ment can­not stop the flow of guns enter­ing the coun­try, no amount of effort by the secu­ri­ty forces will make a dif­fer­ence through the recov­ery process.
There will always be more guns in the hands of crim­i­nals than the police can inter­cept. It is safe to say two or three more slips through for every ship­ment intercepted.

.

.

.

Mike Beckles is a for­mer Police Detective, busi­ness­man, free­lance writer, black achiev­er hon­oree, and cre­ator of the blog mike​beck​les​.com.

by

Manchin Sits With Republicans During State Of The Union

Well there you have it, folks, we here at this medi­um have been say­ing if it walks, quacks, and acts like a duck, guess what? It is a duck!

Fake Democrat Joe Manchin of West Virginia fit­ted in quite nice­ly with his fel­low Republicans dur­ing the SOTU…

Sen. Joe Manchin, a Democrat from West Virginia, opt­ed to sit on the Republicans’ side of the House cham­ber dur­ing President Biden’s first State of the Union address.

Why it mat­ters: Manchin has been out­spo­ken in recent days against what he has brand­ed “hyp­o­crit­i­cal” poli­cies on ener­gy imports pur­sued by the Biden admin­is­tra­tion. N0netheless, he stood repeat­ed­ly with his fel­low Democrats to applaud poli­cies out­lined by the president.

Get mar­ket news wor­thy of your time with Axios Markets. Subscribe for free.

by

Black Woman Says She Was Forced To Give Up Seat To 2 White Women On Delta Flight

The two report­ed­ly com­plained to flight atten­dants for over an hour before the Black woman was asked to move to the back row. A California woman claims she had a Rosa Parks expe­ri­ence on a recent Delta Airlines flight when she was asked to give up her seat and move to the back of the plane in order to accom­mo­date two white women. As report­ed by Revolt, Camille Henderson was on her way back to the Bay Area from Atlanta on Feb. 3 when Delta flight atten­dants asked her to give her her seat after the two white women sit­ting next to her in the same row com­plained about not hav­ing enough room.

YouTube player

“They felt like they were tick­et­ed first-class seats, but they couldn’t pro­vide the tick­ets,” Henderson told ABC7 News. The two women report­ed­ly com­plained to flight atten­dants for over an hour before Henderson was asked by air­line staff to move to row 34, the plane’s last row. Henderson shared an audio record­ing with ABC7 News, in which some­one is heard ask­ing her, “Are you fly­ing by yourself?”Henderson con­firms that she is, and the per­son responds, “There’s a seat back there in aisle 34. It’s an aisle seat.”

Read more here…https://​news​.yahoo​.com/​b​l​a​c​k​-​w​o​m​a​n​-​s​a​y​s​-​s​h​e​-​f​o​r​c​e​d​-​1​3​5​4​1​7​5​2​1​.​h​tml

by

Vladimir Putin Is A Genius, Look At How He Split America Into Two Camps…

Donald Trump’s asser­tion that Vladimir Putin is a genius is cor­rect; after all, Putin turned a total clown, an igno­ra­mus, into an American pres­i­dent. I’d say that’s genius. But even more astound­ing than putting a car­ni­val clown into the high­est exec­u­tive office in America, he had the vision to imag­ine an American pres­i­dent that obeyed his every com­mand with slav­ish obedience.
A long game that includ­ed an American President opposed to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), an alliance the United States and oth­ers formed that has basi­cal­ly kept the world from anoth­er world war since 1945, a full 77 years.
Between the end of the first world war and the begin­ning of the sec­ond was 21 years. It is dif­fi­cult to argue against the insti­tu­tions set up after World War II to help main­tain world peace when the results are this stark.

Vladimir Putin’s strat­e­gy to put Donald Trump into the White House may have been even more suc­cess­ful than even the genius fer­al-eyed lit­tle man envis­aged. After all, it would require a deep sense of inge­nu­ity to imag­ine that over forty per­cent of the American pub­lic could become wide-eyed admir­ers of the Russian Federation and its auto­crat­ic leader.
Vladimir Putin under­stood America’s Achilles heel-Racism.
He inge­nious­ly under­stood that if he were able to install his own Manchurian can­di­date into the pres­i­den­cy, one that has broad appeal and can gal­va­nize the base racist ele­ments that lurk beneath the sur­face of American life, he would be able to split the coun­try down the mid­dle; he accom­plished that feat with inge­nious precision.

Genius all right; Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin

Whether the world real­izes it or not, we are on the brink of anoth­er world war. That is not to say that this par­tic­u­lar con­flict between Putin and Ukrain will inex­orably lead to armaged­don, but there are no guar­an­tees that it won’t either.
The stark real­i­ty is that no mad­man in his­to­ry who sought to use mil­i­tary pow­er to accom­plish his aims ever backed down in the face of oppo­si­tion. Adolph Hitler cer­tain­ly did not, even in the face of insur­mount­able odds fac­ing him with the awak­en­ing of the mighty American indus­tri­al machine that would even­tu­al­ly over­pow­er his armies with new­er and bet­ter and a lot of armaments.
President Joe Biden is set to deliv­er his first state of the Union address to the American peo­ple on March 1st. His first year has been fraught with a world­wide pan­dem­ic, an econ­o­my sig­nif­i­cant­ly affect­ed by it, and the poten­tial for a third world war.
Despite that, the President has risen to the task res­cued the econ­o­my with no Republican sup­port even as he bat­tles with Republican forces in his own par­ty that cares more about main­tain­ing white pow­er than the advance­ment and well­be­ing of the nation.

YouTube player

The par­ty that once lion­ized a failed actor (Ronald Reagan) for famous­ly telling Mikhail Gorbachev to tear down that wall on June 12, 1987, has now become the par­ty of Vladimir Putin. The par­ty that lion­ized and gave Reagan cred­it for send­ing the American debt through the stratos­phere by out­spend­ing the Soviets on weapons of war now open­ly sup­ports a tyrant from that same coun­try 35-years lat­er over its own country.
As President Biden redies to give his first state of the Union, what has the Russian-sup­port­ing Republican cau­cus in the United States Congress done-it con­venes a press con­fer­ence to denounce the American President and give suc­cor to the mon­ster in Moscow.
A weak­ened America means a strength­ened Russia; American racism has been the great­est threat to its own advance­ment and strength. Racism result­ed in a civ­il war result­ing in a mil­lion-plus dead between 1861 to 1865.
Ignorance now dwells where knowl­edge should abound; at its most recent CPAC, one fas­cist clown sought to ridicule the con­cept that America’s strength was its diversity.
The speak­er point­ed to both China and Russia as ful­ly homoge­nous soci­eties as great soci­eties- the [Kkkrowd] roared with delight. The sad irony is that despite its ills, America, a diverse nation is still head and shoul­ders above both China and Russia.
But in this dystopi­an real­i­ty, facts take a back seat to charged racist rhetoric…

.

.

.

.

.

Mike Beckles is a for­mer Police Detective, busi­ness­man, free­lance writer, black achiev­er hon­oree, and cre­ator of the blog mike​beck​les​.com.

by

Ukraine’s Shameful Treatment Of African Students Should Not Be Covered Up…

The world’s sym­pa­thies are stead­fast­ly focused on the nation of Ukraine in its exis­ten­tial strug­gle against the mighty Russian Federation. However, it was heart­break­ing to see images of Black stu­dents alleged­ly being pre­vent­ed from board­ing trains out of the besieged country.
Ever cau­tious about get­ting the facts before speak­ing out, I won­dered whether the decree by the Ukrainian Government that men should not be allowed to leave the coun­try may have played a part in the inci­dents that I have seen.
However, on Monday, the Nigerian gov­ern­ment called out the “unfor­tu­nate reports” of Ukrainian police “refus­ing to allow Nigerians to board bus­es and trains” head­ed toward Ukraine’s bor­der with Poland.

With around 4,000 Nigerians, most­ly stu­dents, “strand­ed” in Ukraine, the Nigerian gov­ern­ment said, there have been reports of Polish offi­cials refus­ing Africans entry into Poland. “It is para­mount that every­one is treat­ed with dig­ni­ty and with­out favor,” Nigeria’s pres­i­den­tial office and res­i­dence said in a state­ment on Twitter. “All who flee a con­flict sit­u­a­tion have the same right to the safe pas­sage under UN Convention and the col­or of their pass­port or their skin should make no dif­fer­ence.” South Africa’s head of pub­lic diplo­ma­cy echoed sim­i­lar con­cerns that South African stu­dents and oth­er Africans “have been bad­ly treat­ed” at Ukraine’s bor­der with Poland.
The South African for­eign office offi­cial shared a video of a woman at a Ukrainian bor­der town say­ing Africans wait­ing to cross were being “pushed,” “shoved,” and “denied access,” forced to wait in the cold as Ukrainians got “spe­cial treatment.”

It seems almost safe to safe to say that wher­ev­er white peo­ple are, evil lurks in their hearts. Imagine that they are destroy­ing them­selves, it is not us who are hurt­ing them, but they still find room for big­otry and hatred.
Blacks, whites, brown and yel­low peo­ple all across the globe looked on in hor­ror at Russian artillery shelling homes and high-rise hous­ing com­plex­es in Kyiv in hor­ror. We all felt a sense of empa­thy for the peo­ple in Ukraine, but it seems like hatred, big­otry, and igno­rance are curs­es assigned to Edomite peo­ple, and they sim­ply can­not help themselves.
As Black peo­ple, we are empa­thet­ic and sym­pa­thet­ic to all peo­ple in their strug­gles regard­less of race, col­or, reli­gion, creed, or sex­u­al ori­en­ta­tion. It seems, how­ev­er, that there is a world­wide hatred for the Black race that is palpable.
Maybe it is time that, as a race, we stop car­ing about peo­ple who do not care about us. In this war between Russia and Ukraine, we should have no favorite.

Days into the mas­sive refugee cri­sis cre­at­ed by Russia’s war on Ukraine, the Ukrainian gov­ern­ment has pub­licly acknowl­edged that African immi­grants seek­ing to flee the vio­lence have faced racist, dis­parate treat­ment com­pared to white Ukrainians. On Tuesday, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba tweet­ed that Russia’s inva­sion had “affect­ed Ukrainians and non-cit­i­zens in many dev­as­tat­ing ways. “Africans seek­ing evac­u­a­tion are our friends and need to have equal oppor­tu­ni­ties to return to their home coun­tries safe­ly,” the offi­cial said, adding that Ukraine’s gov­ern­ment “spares no effort to solve the problem.”
There have been numer­ous reports in recent days of African stu­dents and oth­er immi­grants fac­ing racist treat­ment as they seek to flee cities under attack. This includes Black peo­ple being kept from board­ing bus­es and trains even as white Ukrainians were able to and being kept wait­ing hours in the cold at the bor­der with Poland.
Earlier Tuesday, the United Nations’ high com­mis­sion­er for refugees, Filippo Grandi, also rec­og­nized the “dif­fer­ent treat­ment” between Ukrainians and “non-Ukrainians,” as he put it. “There should be absolute­ly no dis­crim­i­na­tion between Ukrainians and non-Ukrainians, Europeans and non-Europeans,” the U.N. offi­cial said, adding that the inter­na­tion­al orga­ni­za­tion “plans to inter­vene to try to ensure that every­body receives equal treat­ment.” “Everyone is flee­ing from the same risks,” he added.
Several African gov­ern­ments have con­demned the racism Africans have faced as they’ve sought to leave the war-torn coun­try. On Monday, the Nigerian gov­ern­ment called out “unfor­tu­nate reports” of Ukrainian police “refus­ing to allow Nigerians to board bus­es and trains” head­ed toward Ukraine’s bor­der with Poland. South Africa’s head of pub­lic diplo­ma­cy echoed sim­i­lar con­cerns that South African stu­dents and oth­er Africans “have been bad­ly treat­ed” at Ukraine’s bor­der with Poland. Over 600,000 peo­ple have fled Ukraine since Russia attacked last week, the U.N. said.
The African Union, which rep­re­sents the 55 coun­tries of the African con­ti­nent, said Monday that “reports that Africans are sin­gled out for unac­cept­able dis­sim­i­lar treat­ment would be shock­ing­ly racist and in breach [of] inter­na­tion­al law.” The nations urged all coun­tries to “show the same empa­thy and sup­port to all peo­ple flee­ing war notwith­stand­ing their racial identity.”

(From Huffpost)

This Article has been updat­ed with addi­tion­al infor­ma­tion from the Nigerian Embassy.

Mike Beckles is a for­mer Police Detective, busi­ness­man, free­lance writer, black achiev­er hon­oree, and cre­ator of the blog mike​beck​les​.com.

by

Proud Boys Leader Yells Racist Slurs Before Attacking Black Woman

A chap­ter leader in the far-right Proud Boys extrem­ist gang was charged with assault Sunday in Akron, Ohio, after he was record­ed shout­ing racial epi­thets at a black woman and then suck­er-punch­ing her in the face. A man police iden­ti­fied as Andrew Walls, 26, was caught on video out­side a bar in the ear­ly hours of Sunday, stum­bling and scuf­fling with oth­er patrons while spew­ing a tor­rent of racial slurs. His vic­tim, 23-year-old Cameron Morgan, was pass­ing by with a friend when she heard Walls and oth­ers around him scream­ing “Fucking niggers.”
She lat­er told her father that she con­front­ed Walls after real­iz­ing she was the only Black per­son around.
“We were like … ‘You can’t say that. That’s not OK,’” she told her dad, local teacher and for­mer sports­writer David Lee Morgan Jr., who record­ed the con­ver­sa­tion and pro­vid­ed a tran­script to HuffPost.
Video tak­en by Cameron Morgan’s friend shows what hap­pened next: Walls squares up, points his fin­ger at Morgan, and repeats the racist slur, adding: “Bitch, shut your mouth.” He then cocks his right fist and punch­es her direct­ly in the face, the impact of which releas­es a blood-cur­dling pop.
Morgan was treat­ed for a concussion.

David Lee Morgan, Jr.
@DavidLeeMorgan

Feb 27, 2022

I’m dev­as­tat­ed right now. My 23-year-old daugh­ter Cameron, who wouldn’t hurt any­one and has a heart of gold, was suck­er punched by this racist guy in Highland Square in Akron last night for no rea­son. She weighs maybe 100 pounds. Can some­one please help me iden­ti­fy him!

David Lee Morgan, Jr.
@DavidLeeMorgan
Please! I need to press charges! I’m heart­bro­ken and sick to my stomach.

Walls kept going after the record­ing end­ed, and dragged Morgan into the street by her hair, her father said. She was shak­en up, he said, and left the scene with­out ini­tial­ly call­ing police.

But once the video began to make the rounds on social media Sunday, activists quick­ly iden­ti­fied the assailant as Walls. They also unearthed a pre­vi­ous sto­ry about him in the local Akron Beacon Journal, which iden­ti­fied him as the vice pres­i­dent of the Akron-Canton chap­ter of the Proud Boys.

Though Walls wasn’t wear­ing his Proud Boys uni­form — a black and yel­low Fred Perry polo — dur­ing the assault, his mem­ber­ship in the gang sug­gests a pre­dis­po­si­tion for vio­lence and big­otry. The Proud Boys, des­ig­nat­ed as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center and a ter­ror­ist orga­ni­za­tion by Canada, have close ties to white suprema­cist groups and oth­er extrem­ists, and vio­lence is lit­er­al­ly writ­ten into their rules. (The gang’s high­est rank, known as the Fourth Degree, is giv­en only to mem­bers who com­mit a sig­nif­i­cant act of vio­lence “for the cause.”)
Walls’ chap­ter didn’t imme­di­ate­ly respond to a request for comment.
Reached by phone Sunday, David Morgan’s voice trem­bled as he recalled wak­ing up to see a video on his phone of his daugh­ter being assaulted.
“Soon as we saw it, I was in tears,” he said. “I just cried, because, I just watched some­body punch my daugh­ter, who wouldn’t hurt a fly.
Morgan said his daugh­ter went to an urgent care clin­ic and was treat­ed for a con­cus­sion after she saw stars and blacked out. Her face swelled up tem­porar­i­ly, to the point where she couldn’t move her jaw.

“She couldn’t real­ly open up her mouth to eat,” he said. Walls was charged with pos­sess­ing a firearm while intox­i­cat­ed and assault, and a war­rant was issued for his arrest. The sever­i­ty of Morgan’s injuries may lead to his assault charge being upgrad­ed to a felony, the Akron Beacon Journal reports. Akron police are also con­sid­er­ing an added eth­nic intim­i­da­tion charge. David Morgan said the rev­e­la­tion of Walls’ Proud Boys affil­i­a­tion changed every­thing for him. He said he was aware of the gang and the nation­al tour of polit­i­cal vio­lence they’d been on since their found­ing in 2016, but he “nev­er thought it would hit home until today.”
“This changes a lot for me, in the sense that, I want to get involved now,” he said. “This hap­pen­ing was time for me to wake the hell up. And I hate that my daugh­ter had to suf­fer that for me to wake the hell up.”

by

Biden Nominates Ketanji Brown Jackson To Supreme Court

HISTORIC MOMENT FOR AMERICA

Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson

A state­ment from the White House

Today, President Biden will announce his intent to nom­i­nate Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson as Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. Currently a judge on U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, Judge Jackson is one of the nation’s bright­est legal minds. If con­firmed, she will be the first Black woman to serve on the Supreme Court.

Since Justice Stephen Breyer announced his retire­ment, President Biden has con­duct­ed a rig­or­ous process to iden­ti­fy his replace­ment. President Biden sought a can­di­date with excep­tion­al cre­den­tials, unim­peach­able char­ac­ter, and unwa­ver­ing ded­i­ca­tion to the rule of law. He also sought a nom­i­nee — much like Justice Breyer — who is wise, prag­mat­ic, and has a deep under­stand­ing of the Constitution as an endur­ing char­ter of lib­er­ty. And the President sought an indi­vid­ual who is com­mit­ted to equal jus­tice under the law and who under­stands the pro­found impact that the Supreme Court’s deci­sions have on the lives of the American people.

As the long­time Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, the President took seri­ous­ly the Constitution’s require­ment that he make this appoint­ment “by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate,” seek­ing the advice of Senators in both par­ties. He stud­ied the his­to­ries and case records of can­di­dates, con­sult­ed legal experts, and met with candidates.

A for­mer clerk for Justice Breyer, Judge Jackson has broad expe­ri­ence across the legal pro­fes­sion – as a fed­er­al appel­late judge, a fed­er­al dis­trict court judge, a mem­ber of the U.S. Sentencing Commission, an attor­ney in pri­vate prac­tice, and as a fed­er­al pub­lic defend­er. Judge Jackson has been con­firmed by the Senate with votes from Republicans as well as Democrats three times.

Judge Jackson is an excep­tion­al­ly qual­i­fied nom­i­nee as well as an his­toric nom­i­nee, and the Senate should move for­ward with a fair and time­ly hear­ing and confirmation.

Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson
Judge Jackson has devot­ed the major­i­ty of her career to serv­ing the pub­lic — as a U.S. Sentencing Commission lawyer and com­mis­sion­er; as a fed­er­al pub­lic defend­er; and as a fed­er­al judge. Judge Jackson cur­rent­ly serves on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. From 2013 to 2021, she served as a United States District Judge for the District of Columbia. She has been con­firmed by the Senate on a bipar­ti­san basis three times – twice as judge and once to serve on the U.S. Sentencing Commission.

Judge Jackson was born in Washington, D.C. and grew up in Miami, Florida. Her par­ents attend­ed seg­re­gat­ed pri­ma­ry schools in the South, then attend­ed Historically Black Colleges and Universities. Both start­ed their careers as pub­lic school teach­ers and became lead­ers and admin­is­tra­tors in the Miami-Dade County Public Schools. When Judge Jackson told her high school guid­ance coun­selor she want­ed to attend­ed Harvard, the guid­ance coun­selor warned that Judge Jackson should not to set her sights “so high.” That didn’t stop Judge Jackson. She grad­u­at­ed magna cum laude from Harvard College, then attend­ed Harvard Law School, where she grad­u­at­ed cum laude and was an edi­tor of the Harvard Law Review.

After law school, Judge Jackson served in Justice Breyer’s cham­bers as a law clerk. Judge Jackson served as a fed­er­al pub­lic defend­er from 2005 to 2007, rep­re­sent­ing defen­dants on appeal who did not have the means to pay for a lawyer. If con­firmed, she would be the first for­mer fed­er­al pub­lic defend­er to serve on the Supreme Court.

Prior to serv­ing as a judge, Judge Jackson fol­lowed in the foot­steps of her men­tor Justice Breyer by work­ing on the U.S. Sentencing Commission — an impor­tant body, bipar­ti­san by design, that President Biden fought to cre­ate as a mem­ber of the U.S. Senate. Her work there focused on reduc­ing unwar­rant­ed sen­tenc­ing dis­par­i­ties and ensur­ing that fed­er­al sen­tences were just and proportionate.

Judge Jackson lives with her hus­band, Patrick, who serves as Chief of the Division of General Surgery at Georgetown University Hospital, and two daugh­ters, in Washington, D.C.