The founding fathers, often hailed as geniuses, may have overlooked a critical aspect of judicial oversight. The Supreme Court, with its heavily slanted political decisions, sets a dangerous precedent for American democracy. Mike responds to the action taken by justices like Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, who have been accused of unethical practices and accepting lavish gifts from wealthy benefactors.
These actions undermine the court’s integrity and question the founders’ intentions. Mike also delves into the impact of the Supreme Court’s recent controversial decisions, such as the destruction of the 1965 Voting Rights Act and the overturning of Roe vs. Wade. These rulings strip away rights that generations of Americans have taken for granted, raising serious concerns about the court’s role in expanding or restricting citizens’ rights.
Republicans, who control the majority in the US House of Representatives, have passed a bill with Democrat support that would impose punitive sanctions against the International Criminal Court because the court decided to indict genocidal psychopath Benjamin Netanyahu and his defense minister Yoav Galant of Israel. The United States was instrumental in establishing the ICC, however, ICC prosecutor Karim Khan told CNN that a senior leader of the court told him“This court is built for Africa and thugs like Putin.” This writer has previously written that African leaders should extricate themselves as signatories to this court, even as they are responsible for abiding by international laws. It is important to remember that though the United States was a major reason for the court’s establishment, the United States ensured that it was not a signatory to the ICC; therefore, it is not subject to the rulings of the court, and neither is the illegitimate Apartheid, State of Israel.
Samuel Alito
The United States cheered the court when it filed arrest warrants for Russian President Vladimir Putin; the court also bent over backward to issue arrest warrants for the alleged leader of Hamas, a man by the name of Yahya Sinwar. But when it’s time for accountability for the genocidal Netanyahu, the President of the United States, many Democrats, and the entire Republican party- all tools of the Israeli lobby AIPAC, balked and wants to destroy the court. There are more than enough reasons that the legitimacy of the court should be questioned based on its history of rulings, the statements Khan made to CNN, and more. However, Biden’s comments after the court decisions, “Let me be clear: we reject the ICC’s application for arrest warrants against Israeli leaders,” is a clear indication that the United States Government is prepared to squander the nation’s credibility and respect on the world stage to protect an indicted war criminal who isn’t even an American. It is another example of how the rules-based order the United States created after the Second World War is now dead. All great Empires eventually ended, and the American Empire will be no different. All great Empires’ demise occurred from within. Division, hatred, graft, and other vices contributed to their downfall. More than anything else, racial hatred within the United States has been the driving force of the fissures and cracks that have begun to emerge in America’s hegemonic control of our world.
Racial considerations have been at the heart of most major policy decisions and laws in the US because far too many white people do not believe that Blacks, in particular, and other races should be entitled to the same rights and privileges they enjoy. The Supreme Court, the highest body that is supposed to call balls and strikes, has itself become mired in allegations of gross ethical violations and, worse, a tool of the far right. The very idea of the United States as a leading democracy is undergoing a severe stress test. The Republican party has all but abandoned democracy as a governing principle (again, this decision is rooted in the increase of people of color in the US and the stagnation of the white birthrate). Republican war against Immigration and its five-decade assault on Roe V Wade overturned by the reactionary right-wing Supreme Court are all intended to halt the browning of America and increase the white population. The very legitimacy of the High Court is now in question after it took away rights Americans enjoyed for almost five decades. In a Democracy, the courts [do not] restrict rights; they expand them. The Roberts court has the dubious honor of restricting and suppressing the rights of the people.
No country can claim to be a democracy if the elected representatives of the people appoint bureaucrats to lifetime positions over which they thereafter have no oversight. The idea of a Supreme Court populated with bureaucrats who the people did not elect and answer only to themselves runs counter to the very notion of democracy. A Supreme Court that no one has the power to police is a court with no accountability. A court that refuses to respond to allegations of gross ethical misconduct among some of its members, which refuses to appear before the people’s representatives to answer questions about its conduct, the very body that put them in place, has become a Monarchy. But ethical impropriety is the least of the court’s challenges as Associate Justice Samuel Alito has been accused of flying a white supremacist flag on his property as well as flying the American Flag upside down, a signal that the flyer believes the 2020 elections were stolen from Donald Trump. It was reported that Samuel Alito accepted extravagant gifts from major conservative donors, including Paul Singer, a hedge fund billionaire who has repeatedly asked the Court to rule on his business dealings. The allegations that Justice Alito accepted a paid-for vacation totaling hundreds of thousands of dollars from Leonard Leo, who had recently played a significant role in his confirmation process, further undermine the court’s legitimacy.
Inverted U.S. flag at the Alitos’ home in Fairfax County, Va., in 2021, and the “Appeal to Heaven” flag outside their New Jersey vacation home last summer. Photos: Obtained by The New York Times
The United States is undergoing a seismic change, one that will determine whether the nation as it existed continues or reverts to the dark, dystopian nightmare it was for millions, a scenario half the nation seems to crave… The cliché, this is the most important election ever, will no longer be a cliché come November; it will actually be the most significant election in this nation’s history. Regardless of who wins in November, correcting the course may already be too late. Republicans and Democrats are united in bringing a genocidal sociopath, Benjamin Netanyahu, to address Congress, something Republicans did during the Obama presidency as a fuck you to Obama.….. Democrats sat in on it and cheered Netanyahu. This time Republicans and Democrats will once again stand and clap as the sociopathic murderer Benjamin Netanyahu who is under indictment from the ICC and will be an indicted felon in his own country once he leaves office, lectures the world on Israel’s righteousness, a fuck you to the ICC and the rest of the world.
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Mike Beckles is a former Police Detective, businessman, freelance writer, black achiever honoree, and creator of the blog mikebeckles.com.
It is not a democracy when the elected representatives of the people appoint bureaucrats to lifetime positions over which they thereafter have no oversight. The idea of a Supreme Court populated with unelected bureaucrats not elected by the people and that only answers to itself runs counter to every tenet of a democratic society. A Supreme Court that no one has the power to police is a court without accountability. A court that refuses to respond to gross ethical questions about its members, even to the representatives who appointed them, is illegitimate and, for all intents and purposes, a monarchy.
A Monarchy that rules by decree and takes away rights that citizens have come to enjoy for decades. This is the supreme monarchy.
The nation of South Africa voted in Parliamentary elections on May 29th; the party that gains more than 50% of the vote elects the next president. The African National Congress (ANC), the party of former President Nelson Mandela, has ruled South Africa for three decades since the end of white minority rule and seems set to lose its majority for the first time. After 30 years, the ANC may have fallen victim to the maladies of many previous political parties that evolved from colonial struggles. The ANC has been wracked with accusations of corruption scandals, poor management, and the inability to deliver on much of its promises to the nation’s largely black community.
Cyril Ramaphosa
As a consequence, many people have become frustrated with the party that formed the first democratic government after the demise of the apartheid régime minority rule was overturned. Before I go further, I must remind you, my readers, that the Western Powers, the United States, England, France, and most other European Nations supported white minority rule all across Africa where it existed, not just in South Africa. They also branded Nelson Mandela and the ANC a terrorist and terrorist organization, respectively.
Julius Malema (JuJu)
The ANC will most likely receive the largest share of the votes, allowing it to remain the most powerful political force in the country. Consequently, it will still be able to form a coalition government in which President Cyril Ramaphosa will retain the presidency. According to Reuters, after 42% of the votes have been tabulated, the ANC has received 42.7%, while the Democratic Alliance (DA) is in second place with 23.6%. uMkhonto we Sizwe (MK), a new party led by former president Jacob Zuma, was at 10% and eating into ANC support, particularly in KwaZulu-Natal, his home province and a traditional stronghold of the ruling party. MK had also overtaken the left-leaning Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) led by Julius Malema, currently the third biggest party in parliament, at 9.5%.
But for the traditional short memory of Blacks and their seemingly high tolerance for second-class citizenship, the DA party should be a party in name only.
The Democratic Alliance, the party that is the second most powerful to date, is the party largely of the white upper middle class who benefitted under apartheid rule; it has significant support from Indians within the country. It behooves the ANC [not] to ally with the Democratic Alliance to retain power, as it would represent a slap in the face of all the freedom fighters who have sacrificed to see the end of apartheid rule in South Africa. The worst thing Cyril Ramaphosa could do to keep power is to ally himself with the Democratic Alliance, a party some of whose supporters long for a civil war to return the nation to the dark days of minority rule just three decades past. The Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) have solid plans, not just for South Africa but for the reunification of the entire African continent to become one nation again. This has caused Western nations to caricature him as a clown unworthy of attention. The real clown is not only the Western powers but the black Africans who would cast a vote for the corrupt ANC or, worse, elect the Lilly-white Democratic Alliance to return them to white rule. Melema advocates for nationalizing South African mines and Banks, as well as lands supposedly owned by white South Africans. These ideas could lead to economic disaster if not approached correctly. Governments should not be in the business of owning banks but should heavily regulate them on behalf of all the people. The mines should be nationalized and returned to the South African people. The Government should appropriate the land, and the white settlers should be given the right to use it and continue whatever they have going on with them. Malema and the EFF are worthy of the attention of the South African people.
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Mike Beckles is a former Police Detective, businessman, freelance writer, black achiever honoree, and creator of the blog mikebeckles.com.
The Leahy Amendment allows the United States to maintain tight control over nations it loans money to or extends its largess to — – except the genocidal sociopathic pariah state of Israel. The Law bears the name of Vermont’s Democratic US Senator, Patrick Leahy, who served from 1975 to 2023. A brief Google search for the Leahy Amendment turns up the following: The “Leahy Laws” prohibit U.S. assistance to foreign security force units when credible information exists that the unit has committed a “gross violation of human rights” (GVHR). Pursuant to the laws, the U.S. government vets potential recipients for information about GVHR involvement before providing assistance.
The term “Leahy law” refers to two statutory provisions prohibiting the U.S. Government from using funds for assistance to units of foreign security forces where there is credible information implicating that unit in the commission of gross human rights violations (GVHR). One statutory provision applies to the State Department, and the other applies to the Department of Defense. The State Department Leahy law was made permanent under section 620M of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961, 22 U.S.C. 2378d. The U.S. government considers torture, extrajudicial killing, enforced disappearance, and rape under color of law as GVHRs when implementing the Leahy law. Incidents are examined on a fact-specific basis. The State Department Leahy law includes an exception permitting the resumption of assistance to a unit if the Secretary of State determines and reports to Congress that the government of the country is taking effective steps to bring the responsible members of the security forces unit to justice. (US Department of State.
There is no question about the clarity of the law, as it relates to how American tax dollars can be used to aid foreign Governments- yet the law, for some reason, does not apply to the apartheid genocidal state of Israel in its continued slaughter of innocent men women and children in Gaza Palestine… It is time for the American public to develop a sense of right and wrong and move away from the old discredited idea that they are superior, exceptional, or otherwise better than any other people on our planet. The continued embracing of the aforementioned propagandistic ideals is a clear indication of brainwashing and, worse, a sense that those who hold such views are indeed ignoramuses. It is past time that the American public realizes that maintaining the hypocrisy that allows Israel to manipulate them into doing injustice to other people means it is on a continued path to illegitimacy as a nation, much the same way Israel has become a worldwide pariah isolated in a cacoon of its own twisted sense of legitimacy. Please remember that in 1947, when American President Harry Truman authorized the people fleeing Adolph Hitler to settle on Palestinian land, the people of Palestine welcomed them with cheers and open arms. This was a fatal mistake on the part of the Palestinian people. Their acts of kindness cost them their homes, land, freedom, and lives. Their kindness was synonymous with foolishly picking up a poisonous snake and embracing it. In the end, a snake is a snake; it will sting because that’s what snakes do.
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Mike Beckles is a former Police Detective, businessman, freelance writer, black achiever honoree, and creator of the blog mikebeckles.com.
When it comes to America continued desire to be a warring nation, there is little distinction between the two political parties. Both the Democratic and Republican Party are heavily invested in the concept of war as a means of maintaining America’s hegemonic control over other nations on our planet.(mb)
Let Ukraine use Western weapons to strike targets inside Russia.
The debate inside the Biden administration over the issue is ongoing, and some top officials back lifting the restrictions on how Ukraine uses weapons provided by Washington, two sources with knowledge of the matter told NBC News.
Ukraine feels it has been left handicapped, arguing that the restrictions on its use of Western-supplied weapons have given Moscow an unfair advantage.
Russia “can use the military infrastructure on its territory for the war against Ukraine without any obstacles,” said Mykola Bielieskov, a research fellow at Ukraine’s National Institute for Strategic Studies, a government research group.
“As a result, there is a powerful asymmetry,” Bielieskov, based in Kyiv, told NBC News on Wednesday. “This has been talked about for a long time. It’s just that the Russian offensive in the Kharkiv region clearly showed this.”
Ukrainian soldiers from the 92nd assault brigade were involved in holding back the Russians on the border with Russia. In recent days Russian forces have gained ground around the Kharkiv region, which Ukraine had largely reclaimed in the months following Russia’s initial large-scale invasion in February 2022. (Kostiantyn Liberov /Getty Images)
The new urgency from Kyiv, which is still waiting for crucial U.S. military aid, has prompted a growing list of Western officials to back the idea of removing the restrictions on hitting targets inside Russia.
For much of the war, Kyiv’s partners have drawn a solid red line at letting Ukraine use the weapons they supply inside Russian territory, fearing an escalation from the Kremlin that could turn the conflict into a World War III.
The Biden administration has been consistent in this stance, perhaps worried that Russian President Vladimir Putin could retaliate using nuclear weapons — which he has regularly threatened throughout the conflict.
But with Ukraine outnumbered, outgunned and on the back foot, Kyiv has been making a public case for its allies to loosen their restrictions.
And it seems to be working.
French President Emmanuel Macron became the latest high-profile backer of the idea Tuesday. He suggested Ukraine should be allowed to hit military targets inside Russia from which missiles were being fired at Ukrainian territory, an apparent compromise position.
He was joined by German leader Olaf Scholz, who had resisted the idea but agreed to the concept Tuesday.
It comes on the back of NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg’s repeated pleas to let Ukraine use Western-supplied weapons to hit targets inside Russia, saying that not doing so hampers Kyiv’s ability “to defend themselves.” It’s a view shared by a number of European members of the alliance, including the United Kingdom, Sweden and Poland.
In previous debates inside the Biden administration over how far to go in arming Ukraine, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and CIA Director William Burns have staked out a bolder stance, supporting the provision of longer-range missiles and other weapons — and have often prevailed following appeals from lawmakers and European governments.
And on Wednesday, Blinken appeared to leave room for a shift on this issue, too.
“We haven’t encouraged or enabled strikes outside of Ukraine. Ukraine, as I’ve said before, has to make its own decisions about the best way to effectively defend itself,” he said during a trip to Europe that will include a NATO meeting Thursday. A “hallmark” of U.S. support for Ukraine, he said, “has been to adapt.”
“As the conditions have changed, as the battlefield has changed, as what Russia does has changed,” he added. “We’ve adapted and adjusted too and I’m confident we’ll continue to do that.”
Russian strikes on the eastern Ukraine city of Kharkiv on May 23, 2024, in the latest aerial bombardment on the war-battered hub. (@oleksiykuleba /AFP — Getty Images)
The Kremlin has sought to ward off the move, with Putin warning European NATO states Tuesday that they were playing with fire and risking “global conflict.”
Moscow recently staged exercises to simulate the use of tactical nuclear weapons, in a likely signal to the West against deeper involvement in Ukraine.
The risk of escalation seems to be exactly what’s kept Biden reluctant to allow the use of American weapons on Russian soil, said Christopher Tuck, an expert in conflict and security at King’s College London.
“Putin’s comments should be seen in this light: he is attempting to feed the fears of those who believe that crossing this U.S. red line would move NATO’s relationship with Russia into a new and dangerous phase,” he said.
It’s clear from frustration building in Ukraine that it will not violate the ban unless the U.S. softens its position.
“We cannot, and this is a fact, risk the support of partners,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Tuesday. “Therefore, we do not use the weapons of our partners on the territory of the Russian Federation. And we appeal: give us the opportunity to retaliate against their military forces.”
His comments came after a group of lawmakers from both parties last week publicly urged the White House to give Kyiv the green light.
“Ukrainians have been unable to defend themselves due to the Administration’s current policy. It is essential the Biden Administration allows Ukraine’s military leaders an ability to conduct a full spectrum of operations necessary to respond to Russia’s unprovoked attack on their sovereign land,” the lawmakers wrote in a letter to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin.
But the Biden administration’s fears might be exacerbated by Ukraine’s increasingly daring use of its own weapons, mostly drones, to strike strategic targets deep inside Russia such as oil refineries.
U.S. Secretary of State meets with Czech Republic’s Defense Minister Jana Cernochova in Prague, Czech Republic on May 30, 2024. (Petr David Josek /AP)
A Ukrainian drone targeted a long-range radar deep inside Russia that forms part of the country’s ballistic missile early warning system Sunday, a Ukrainian intelligence official told NBC News. The official wanted to remain anonymous because they are not authorized to disclose details of the strike, which appeared to be the second in a week against infrastructure used by Moscow to monitor Ukraine’s military activities.
Although the U.S. is likely to remove the restrictions on the use of its weapons inside Russia eventually, Tuck said, Ukraine would have to be careful about the sorts of targets that it attacks and would need to avoid inflicting civilian casualties.
It’s also important to put any U.S. decision into perspective, he added.
“Russian forces have made slow progress in Kharkiv oblast, so it is likely that a U.S. decision would be in time to make a militarily useful contribution to the fight there,” Tuck said. “But it isn’t a decision that is going to change the course of the war.”
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
I am fully conversant with what African Americans have gone through, and I daresay they are still going through. Nevertheless, the sense of anger they display toward immigrants is not just misplaced; it is doing the work of the people who enslaved them in the first place: We cannot continue to squander our future because we are tethered to the victimhood of our past. The idea is to start businesses as many immigrants have done. As far as startups go, we have to do that. We must start and support those startups. There is no shortage of black support for other businesses, so let us start and support our own. In 2022, Black Americans spent a record 1.6 trillion dollars on goods and services, according to CNBC.
Yet, a recent study revealed that a dollar circulates (six hours) in the Black community, 20 days in the Jewish community, and 30 days in the Asian community. How can we become empowered when we cannot hold onto our money because we are running out and spending it with people who don’t even like us? We are a well-lubricated conduit through which money passes, so we cannot pass on generational wealth as others do because we have none to pass on.
This isn’t “politics by other means,” it’s never-ending conflict.
Israel’s battle tanks amassed near Gaza on May 9th, 2024THELEGENDARYPRUSSIAN military theorist Carl von Clausewitz, whose works remain an influence on U.S. military officers today, wrote in his famous 19th-century treatise “On War” that “war is merely the continuation of politics by other means.” A military general himself advising on how best to wage an armed conflict, Clausewitz nonetheless reminded his readers that the purpose of war is to achieve political goals, not to pursue violence as end to itself, or as a wholesale substitute for diplomacy.
Clausewitz’s words would have been well-heeded by the U.S. and Israel before the start of the current war in the Gaza Strip, which has now reached a painful yet predictable impasse. So far, tens of thousands of Palestinians have been killed or wounded, Israel now faces genocide charges at the International Court of Justice, and Hamas control is already returning to parts of Gaza previously declared conquered by Israel.
Israeli military officials are now going public with criticisms that the war in Gaza had been misguided for a simple reason that Clausewitz himself would have recognized: Besides revenge, the war never had a clear political strategy or objective.
This lack of a political approach reflects long-standing attitudes in Israeli society that have now trapped the country in a forever war with the Palestinians and their other neighbors — with the U.S. as its patron effectively pulled along for the ride. The roots of this failure had been years in the making.
Well before October 7, the Israeli government decided that the Palestinians, whether in the West Bank or Gaza, were no longer politically relevant. Rather than dealing with the Palestinians as political agents, Israeli leaders have taken the position that Palestinians are merely a subject population to be suppressed and controlled with a mixture of military, technological, and economic tools.
While continuing a policy of blockading and periodically bombingGaza, Israel has either ignored or rejected the Palestinian Authority’s calls, with the support of international law, for a two-state solution. Instead, Israel proceeded unilaterally with its colonization and annexation of the West Bank, cementing a consensus among major human rights groups that Israel is an apartheid state.The U.S. under President Joe Biden, following in the line of other administrations, abetted this process of dismissing the political claims of Palestinians. Most notably, Biden followed the Trump administration in its pursuit of faux-diplomacy in the form of regional arms deals and normalization agreements between Gulf Arab states and Israel: the so-called Abraham Accords. That myopia eventually produced the current conflagration in Gaza, when the October 7 Hamas assault exposed Israel’s technological and military control over the Gaza Strip as much less robust than advertised. From a U.S. perspective, Biden’s reflexive backing for a war that has proven to be equal parts aimless and brutal has now trapped the U.S. in a situation where it is the primary enabler of an alleged genocide. The war has not only tarnished America’s reputation abroad but is also increasingly tearing at its own social fabric. Even diehard subscribers to the U.S. foreign policy consensus have been forced to reckon with the failures of treating the Palestinians as politically irrelevant. In a recent interview with Politico, former top U.S. diplomat Victoria Nuland acknowledged that this approach had laid the groundwork for the present calamity. “Beginning with the Trump administration, everybody fell in love with regional normalization as the cure-all for the instability and grievances and insecurity in the Middle East,” Nuland said. “But if you leave out the Palestinian issue, then somebody’s going to seize it and run with it, and that’s what Hamas did. The Gaza war began in the heat of emotion after Hamas’s attacks against Israeli civilian communities. It was quickly advertised to the Israeli public as a war to eradicate the group entirely. Yet seven months later, with tens of thousands of Palestinians dead and wounded, Israel remains mired in the territory with no prospect of an endgame in sight. One of many sad ironies is that Hamas itself had made repeated political entreaties toward Israel, which Israeli leaders had rejected alongside their rejection of engaging with Palestinian leaders in the West Bank. Instead, Israeli leaders preferred to visit Dubai and continue developing military and surveillance technology that they believed would allow them to control and ignore the Palestinians indefinitely. The consequences of this approach have now become clear, but the collapse may be only in its early stages. As a result of the war, Israel now faces the prospect of another conflict with Hezbollah on its northern border, where tens of thousands of Israelis have been evacuated since October 2023. And it faces other risks too, such as the potential demise of its key security relationship with neighboring Egypt, which has threatened to suspend the landmark Camp David peace accords and has recently joined the ICJ case charging Israel with committing genocide. Despite this escalating pressure, Israeli leaders show no sign of relenting or returning to political bargaining. Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant recently declared that Israel should build a large new city in the occupied West Bank, in part to move “the population of Israel to the east.” If a two-state solution remains a possibility at all, development like this on the land allotted by international law for a future Palestinian state would stamp out whatever hope there is. Palestinians, meanwhile, would be further confined to a series of penned-in encampments on their own homeland. The political landscape in Israel doesn’t offer much solace. Israel’s government contains far-right and even openly fascist ministers. Gallant, for his part, is considered a “mainstream” political figure in the country — a stark demonstration of just how much politics in Israel has moved away from the realm of diplomacy and negotiation. Just as its war in Gaza is winding up in a slow-rolling military failure, Israel’s policies in the West Bank are likely to produce more catastrophes in future. Israel continues to reject talks with the Palestinian Authority as well as the Arab League, which has offered full diplomatic and economic ties in exchange for a two-state solution for over two decades. The U.S. enables Israel’s continued digging of this ditch, despite overwhelming international consensus that it is violating international law. The unquestioning support and diplomatic cover it has received from successive U.S. governments, most recently from the Biden administration, has allowed a small country to defy global norms and public opinion, as it descends into a North Korea-like posture of paranoia and defiance. Biden is now tanking in the polls, despite his own reported disbelief. If he loses the next election after enabling all of Israel’s worst tendencies, he will go down not only as the leader who handed the presidency back to Donald Trump, but also as a diplomatic failure. He will have locked a superpower into a relationship with a client state that has long since abandoned diplomacy and international law in exchange for apartheid, endless war, and the use of brutal, even eliminationist force to address its problems. Clausewitz himself warned of the shortcomings of such an approach. “The political object is the goal, war is the means of reaching it, and the means can never be considered in isolation from their purposes,” he wrote. For Israel, and the U.S. alongside it, the future is one in which war will likely continue to be waged with no clear goals at all. ( The Intercept)
CHICAGO (AP) — Dorothy Jean Tillman II’s participation in Arizona State University’s May 6 commencement was the latest step on a higher-education journey the Chicago teen started when she took her first college course at age 10. In between came associate’s, bachelor’s and master’s degrees. When Tillman successfully defended her dissertation in December, she became the youngest person — at age 17 — to earn a doctoral degree in integrated behavioral health at Arizona State, associate professor Leslie Manson told ABC’s “Good Morning America” for a story Monday. “It’s a wonderful celebration, and we hope … that Dorothy Jean inspires more students,” Manson said. “But this is still something so rare and unique.” Tillman, called “Dorothy Jeanius” by family and friends, is the granddaughter of former Chicago Alderwoman Dorothy Tillman.
When most students are just learning to navigate middle school, her mother enrolled Tillman in classes through the College of Lake County in northern Illinois, where she majored in psychology and completed her associate’s degree in 2016, according to her biography. Tillman earned a bachelor’s in humanities from New York’s Excelsior College in 2018. About two years later, she earned her master’s of science from Unity College in Maine before being accepted in 2021 into Arizona State’s Behavioral Health Management Program. Most of her classwork was done remotely and online. Tillman did attend her Arizona State commencement in person and addressed the graduating class during the ceremony. Tillman told The Associated Press on Tuesday that she credits her grandmother and trusting in her mother’s guidance for her educational pursuits and successes.
“Everything that we were doing didn’t seem abnormal to me or out of the ordinary until it started getting all of the attention,” said Tillman, now 18. There have been sacrifices, though. “I didn’t have the everyday school things like homecoming dances or spirit weeks or just school pictures and things like that … that kind of create unity with my peers,” she said. She has found time to dance and do choreography. Tillman also is founder and chief executive of the Dorothyjeanius STEAM Leadership Institute. The program includes summer camps designed to help young people in the arts and STEM subjects. She said her plans include public speaking engagements and fundraising for the camp, which Tillman said she hopes to franchise one day. Tillman is motivated and has innovative ideas, said Manson, adding, “And truly, I think what is inspiring is that she embodies that meaning of being a true leader.” Jimalita Tillman said she is most impressed with her daughter’s ability to show herself and her successes with grace, but to also understand when to “put her foot down” when choosing between social outings and her education.(Associated Press)
Roughly 335 million people live in the United States; in 2020, four years ago, there were a reported 433.9 million guns circulating in the hands of civilians in the country. In stark terms, there are more guns in the hands of Americans than any other nation on Earth. Authorities have no idea how many unregistered guns are in the hands of people illegally. The 433.9 million number represents registered weapons. It follows, therefore, that people with registered guns do have those weapons in their homes. No one should, therefore, be fooled into accepting that when cops kill citizens who have committed no crimes in their own homes simply because they have a weapon in their hand, it is justified. Police have no authority to burst into people’s homes and gun them down because they have a gun in hand.
Okaloosa County Sheriff Eric Aden
Worse yet, police show up to people’s homes without a warrant, and homeowners inside, having committed no crime, have every right to be armed to answer loud knocks. There can be no wiggle room for police and their sycophants to crawl out of this unequivocal murder. The murder of senior Airman Roger Fortson in Okaloosa, Florida, is yet another case of over-hyped murderous cops who are predisposed to fire their weapons under the belief that they will not be held accountable. The fact that the County Sheriff still has not released the killer’s name is even more cause for anger and action. How are police officers allowed to knock on a person’s door and put six bullets into your chest in your own home, and then claim self-defense? Under Florida’s stand-your-ground laws, Airman Fortson had every right to stand his ground and repel that threat, yet he did not. He still had his weapon pointed down when he was murdered by a thug in uniform. As a former law enforcement officer, I continue to point to the blatant acts of murder that police are committing and getting away with.
(1) Police know that they have a criminal justice system that will back them all the way to the highest court. (2) They know that black lives are disposable. (3) They know that the majority of the white community in this country are racist, cop-loving sycophants who have no problem with them murdering black people. Even Black men with no criminal record on active duty service in the nation’s military. Citizens must.…scratch that; black people must stop allowing these state-sanctioned murderers who are paid with their tax dollars from murdering their loved ones. No other race allows this to happen without consequence. These killings are not accidental. These police murders are strategic because the system is constructed to exonerate them when they murder young black men. They have a strategy of criminalizing, brutalizing, defaming, and then eliminating. This must stop, but for Black people to put a stop to it, they must have an attention span that transcends the news cycle. They must be made to understand that killing black people comes at a very high price and with huge consequences. If Airman Fortson was white and everything was the same, no one would have known about this police encounter. No white man would have been shot to pieces in his own home in that way. White people who hate us will watch this video and find a way to justify what that murderous scum of a cop did; that’s okay; that’s what we expect of them. However, no Black person should accept the nonsensical explanation that this act of unadulterated murder was anything else.
Mike Beckles is a former Police Detective, businessman, freelance writer, black achiever honoree, and creator of the blog mikebeckles.com.
America has the worst incidences of police abuse in the Western world, including the wanton and avoidable taking of the lives of its citizens. We could delve into why this is the reality, but that would take too much time, which we do not have today. Sufficing to say that despite the calls to rein in police and the wide unchecked powers vested in them when there are incidences of blatant abuse, the powers that be increase police powers and the protection given to them against prosecution. The wide and unchecked powers given to police by Federal, State, and local legislatures and expanded by the Supreme and lower courts give police a brutish and callous attitude in the way they deal with citizens they consider powerless. After the George Floyd murder by Minneapolis cops, many municipalities boldly declared they would change the way police operate. Many progressive municipalities even pledged to cut spending on police and use those resources to serve their constituents better. None of that became a reality because the entrenched white power structure that exists and thrives on police violence pushed back hard by labeling them anti-police. The Zionist/corporate media got in on the act by pointing to false narratives of rising violent crime statistics. The fact is that violent crimes have continued to trend downward for decades. Ironically, the only aspect of violent crimes that has consistently been on the increase has been mass shootings committed by violent white extremists. Unchecked police powers have emboldened police to be wanton and callous with the use of lethal force even when they enter people’s homes. This lack of accountability has placed the lives of Black American citizens in serious peril, essentially removing the protections everyone should have in the sanctity of their own homes. Despite the [castle doctrine], police continue to enter the homes of citizens (usually blacks), sometimes the wrong home, and kill the occupant in a hail of bullets. This is completely alien to me as a former law enforcement officer who understands the duty of care required when entering someone’s home.
The tactic used when police murder young black men is that they have long criminal records. The strategy of criminalizing, demonizing, and destroying has worked to justify police violence for as long as policing has been in existence. The life of the young man they snuffed out in the article below poses a problem for that culture. He was a military man with zero criminal record. What lie will they come up to justify murdering him? We shall see.
Castle doctrine
The castle doctrine refers to an exception to the duty to retreat before using deadly self-defense if a party is in their own home. Under the doctrine of self-defense, a party who reasonably believes they are threatened with the immediate use of deadly force can legally respond with a proportional amount of force to deter that threat. The doctrine of self-defense is subject to various restrictions which differ from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. One such restriction on self-defense is the rule to retreat. In jurisdictions that follow the rule to retreat, a party is not entitled to a defense of self-defense unless they first tried to mitigate the necessity of force by fleeing the situation, so long as retreating could be done safely. That said, in jurisdictions that follow the castle doctrine, this restriction has an exception for parties in their own home. A party in their own home does not have a duty to retreat and, therefore, is entitled to a defense of self-defense so long as the other requirements of the defense are met. The castle doctrine exists in both common law and Model Penal Code jurisdictions.
Mike Beckles is a former Police Detective, businessman, freelance writer, black achiever honoree, and creator of the blog mikebeckles.com.
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An attorney for the family of a Black airman fatally shot by a Florida deputy in his home last week is calling for the release of law enforcement bodycam footage, saying a witness believes the deputy was at the wrong apartment. The 23-year-old victim has been identified by his family as Roger Fortson – anactive-duty senior airman, according to family attorney Ben Crump. “The circumstances surrounding Roger’s death raise serious questions that demand immediate answers from authorities, especially considering the alarming witness statement that the police entered the wrong apartment,” Crump said, citing the account of an unidentified person who was on FaceTime with Fortson at the time of the shooting. Okaloosa County Sheriff Eric Aden said in a statement deputies responded last Friday to an apartment after receiving a call for “a disturbance in progress.” “Hearing sounds of a disturbance, (a deputy) reacted in self-defense after he encountered a 23-year-old man armed with a gun and after the deputy had identified himself as law enforcement,” the sheriff said. “The deputy shot the man, who later succumbed to his injuries,” said the sheriff.
“I immediately placed the deputy on administrative leave and have asked the Florida Department of Law Enforcement to conduct the investigation that is required in such incidents,” the sheriff’s statement said. CNN has reached out to the sheriff’s office and Florida Department of Law Enforcement for additional information. The deputy involved in the shooting has not been identified by officials. Crump – who’s expected to hold a news conference in Fort Walton Beach, Florida, on Thursday – called Fortson “a stellar member of the Air Force and loved by his community.” “We are calling for transparency in the investigation into Roger’s death and the IMMEDIATE release of bodycam video to the family,” Crump said Wednesday in a post on X.
Airman entered active duty in 2019
Fortson heard two separate knocks at the door and – the witness said – when no one could be seen through the peephole, Fortson retrieved his gun, which was legally owned, according to Crump. The deputy then allegedly burst into the apartment and shot Fortson. The witness said law enforcement responded to the wrong apartment, and there was no disturbance there at the time, Crump said in a news release. According to Crump, the witness said Fortson was alone at the time. Her relationship to Fortson was not disclosed. Deputies communicated with dispatch that Fortson had been shot six times with multiple gunshot wounds to the chest with one exit wound, according to police dispatch calls, obtained by CNN affiliate WEAR. Officers can be heard saying that there was a “disturbance … physical in progress,” in the dispatch calls, WEAR reported. “Fortson was assigned to the 4th Special Operations Squadron. He entered active duty on Nov. 19, 2019,” said a statement from the Air Force, which noted the shooting occurred at Fortson’s off-base residence.
“The 1st Special Operations Wing’s priorities are providing casualty affairs service to the family, supporting the squadron during this tragic time, and ensuring resources are available for all who are impacted,” said the Hurlburt Field statement.
Shooting calls to mind past incidents
While details about the shooting remain murky, the allegation the Okaloosa deputy responded to the wrong apartment echoes other shootings in recent years, in which a Black man or woman was killed by law enforcement in their home. In 2019, a former Dallas police officer was sentenced to 10 years in prison after fatally shooting Botham Jean in his apartment the year prior. The officer – off duty but still in uniform – lived on the floor below Jean’s and said she approached what she believed to be her own apartment when she saw Jean inside. Atatiana Jefferson was killed that same year when a Fort Worth officer, responding to what police believed to be a burglary, shot her through her bedroom window. The officer testified at trial that Jefferson pointed a gun at him, but prosecutors argued there was no evidence he saw the gun before opening fire. The former Fort Worth officer was sentenced to nearly 12 years in prison in 2022.
On September 4, 1957, the first day of classes atCentral High, Governor Orval Faubus called in the Arkansas National Guard to block the Black students’ entry into the high school. Later that month, President Dwight D.Eisenhower sent federal troops to escort the Little Rock Nine into the school. (History.com)
These are the faces of the scum that will lead America in the future. Where will the change many of you expect to happen come from?
Mere decades ago, black students had to be ushered into classrooms by Federal troops sent to make that simple act possible. Most, if not all, of the white monsters who were instrumental in standing with the older Neanderthal mongrels who tried to prevent school integration managed to live out their lives without any consequences for their actions. Today, we hear colored politicians, some black, others East Asians, try to pretend that there is no racism in America, and they seek to ingratiate themselves into the filthy culture of white supremacy. Seeking to be accepted into the muck and morass of that filthy cesspool of Neanderthal mental deficiency. Today, as it was in 1957, the sub-human proclivity of the very same race was once again on full display at the University of Mississippi against conscientious students who dared to stand against the Zionist genocide of the Palestinian people. Their ire was particularly aimed at a black woman among the small group of conscientious objectors; monkey sounds and insults were hurled at her much the same way it was in 1957.
One mental retard demonstrated that nit only was the putrid racism learned behavior, his actions made it clear there can be no integration with people like them. At the very least, we must recognize that full human beings cannot coexist with such degenerates. His kind of degeneracy is not something that time or education can cure. The little mongrel has been identified as James “JP” Staples. He has since been dropped by his fraternity,“Phi Delta Theta. Racists Republicans, from Donald Trump to Mississippi’s Governor, were buoyed by the racist display. Governor Tate Reeves tweeted, “The ‘protests’ at Olé Miss today. Watch with sound. Warms my heart. I love Mississippi! Neither Trump nor Tate needed to opine; we know skunks from their smell. Others of the sub-human underclass voiced their glee at that blatant racism. Racism does not exist in America. The same America that the donkey-faced Tim Scott does not see racism in. No disrespect to Jackasses.
Staples making monkey sounds at a black woman…
Most of those students, not to mention their Neanderthal parents who ingrained the Edomite ignorance into them, understand the story behind the illegitimate formation of a country in a country that already existed. Frankly, those who consider themselves educated lack the capacity to think logically about the disingenuous idea of setting up a nation within a nation that already existed.
Pro-Palestine demonstrations at the University of Mississippi were overtaken with counter-protesters Thursday, resulting in a viral clip of white students taunting a Black student. The video was shared online and applauded by a Republican lawmaker. “Olé Miss taking care of business,” Rep. Mike Collins (R‑Ga.) posted on social media platform X. The video has received sharp criticism for the students’ racist actions. Collins has also been criticized for endorsing the racist actions in the video.
The dog manure that showed up to counter-protest the righteous and just protest against Palestinian genocide is understandably fruit from the same tree of Dog-shit that gathered in Washington DC on January 6th, 2021. This is proof that there can be no integration with those amoral, disgusting scum.
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Mike Beckles is a former Police Detective, businessman, freelance writer, black achiever honoree, and creator of the blog mikebeckles.com.
All my adult life, I have been an enthusiastic admirer of the ‘International Rules-based Order.’ The rules-based international system is founded on relationships between states through international institutions and frameworks, with shared rules and agreements on behavior. The rules-based system was developed after World War II. The rules-based international system, led by like-minded allies and partners, has produced peace, prosperity, and freedom, depending on who you ask.….….. If you live in Western Europe or North America, you may have been convinced that the international rules-based order has produced immense wealth, peace, and freedom for many, depending on who you ask. Over the years, my singular focus on this system has been that it has kept the world out of a third world war thus far to the exclusion of everything else. I have repeatedly pointed to the number of years between World Wars I and two in previous articles. World War I began in 1914 and ended in 1918. A mere 25 years later, in 1939, the world was again embroiled in another violent conflagration. The rules-based international system was constructed mostly by leading democratic allies at the end of World War II, mainly the United States and England. The system was put under the auspices of the United Nations. The UN is a construct of the new rules-based system. Arguably, the International Rules-based Order, established 79 years after its inception, has helped to avert a third world war. If your interpretation of the International Rules-based order has been as myopic as mine has been, like me, you would have missed all that I missed, including that I was evaluating the system through the eyes of Western propaganda.
Many are now arguing that the Rules-based Order may be reaching the end of its tether in light of what is occurring in Palestine and other parts of the world. Why is there a question now when there have been numerous conflicts since the end of the Second World War? Before we examine the why, let us first agree that when there are rules and laws, there is generally a need for someone or something to enforce them. Additionally, the system needs legal sanctions, courts, prosecutors, defense attorneys, judges, and law enforcers to work. It is important to reconcile that for a system to work, everyone [must] be treated equally so that there is buy-in from stakeholders. At the end of the Second World War, the four major Allied powers—France, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States—set up the International Military Tribunal (IMT) in Nuremberg, Germany, to prosecute and punish “the major war criminals of the European Axis.” The IMT presided over a combined trial of senior Nazi political and military … The International Court of Justice was established in the Hague, Netherlands; it is the only arm of the United Nations not based in the United States. Article 93 of the UN Charter states that all 193UN members are automatically parties to the court’s statute. Not a single Western nation nor Israel has been hauled before the court for breaches of International laws. In fact, the United States has literally made itself and Israel above the powers of the International Court of Justice. Despite American wars of aggression since the court was established, no nation has moved to have America held accountable.
The United Nations, based in New York City, and others were created by the Western victors, the United States, England, and France, who had just defeated German and Italian Fascism, or so we are socialized to believe. Ironically, within the US, British, and French Military structures were Fascists, as is evidenced by the rise of white right-wing Fascism in England, France, and, more so, the United States over the last several decades. The American Civil War was waged between white men and later freed African Americans, supposedly to free the enslaved African Americans. At the end of the war, nearly a million traitors who seceded from the Union, Union soldiers, and Blacks lay dead. The Nation reconstituted quickly, arguably more mind-numbingly racist than before it went to war. There was no penalty for the Southern Traitors; monuments were erected across the Country in their honor, even in northern states. I digressed!!!
The Americans and the British saw themselves as the New Police Force in the new paradigm; however, as the power dynamic between Colonist Britain and its former Colony England flipped, England became a tiny, wet, cold, insignificant island that nobody cared about. America was now in full hegemonic control of our planet with the fall of the Soviet Union. The rules were what America said they were. I can hear you saying, but the rules are enshrined in UN Charters.” Who determines what the rules are? Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely; cliché, yes, but appropriate. Emerging from the Second World War victoriously, the West began to carve up the world into enclaves; what they never bothered explaining to their citizens was the tremendously important role the Soviets played in ending the War. The Cold War period began immediately between the West and the Soviets. This period was frightening on many levels for our planet as most believed that the two factions would bring about nuclear armageddon. Perhaps the closest the world came to that grim reality was in 1962 when the two powers brought the world to the brink of nuclear war over Soviet missiles on the Island of Cuba. The disaster was averted, however, when the Soviets agreed to remove the missiles so long as the Americans removed their ballistic missiles from the nation of Turkey. Americans celebrated the end of the crisis as a win for their new President, John F. Kennedy. Still today, Americans believe that Kennedy pulled off some bravado that forced Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev to capitulate in fear. The reality of what occurred is that Khrushchev was strategic in his Cuban gambit. He wanted the American ballistic missiles in Turkey gone. At the end of the standoff, they were gone. That was a strategic loss the Soviet Premier could afford to take all day.
After the Soviet Union’s economic collapse, America had a free hand to do as it pleased. As the newly self-appointed world cop, it was already aggravating, starting, and creating global wars in Korea, Vietnam, Africa, Latin America, and even the tiny Caribbean region. The United States was now the law; everyone did as they wanted, or American troops were deployed. The new argument for American expansionist mentality was restoring or creating ‘Democracy”. Afghanistan, Iraq, Lybia, Syria. There was no end to America taking military action to exert its will covertly or overtly, except the newest Colonial settler nation, Israel. The United States and Britain created Israel in Palestine in 1947. A year later, in 1948, the United States recognized the infiltrator state as legitimate, the first nation to do so. Thereafter, it used its economic power to twist the arms of other nations to recognize the illegitimate state as a duly constituted state. But that has only been the beginning, as America would support the illegal occupation of Palestine, send untold billions to arm the pariah state, allow it to have nuclear weapons while attacking other nations under the guise they possess such weapons, block its accountability in the UN and International Court Of Justice, threaten and try to intimidate those who spoke out against Israel’s atrocities and war crimes, all because the United States of America was established on the very same lie that Israel was created on. Israel is a Colonial settler state, end of story; when a conversation about Israel begins, it must always be premised on the fact that it is illegal, it is illegitimate, it is based on a lie, and it should not be made to stand.
Mike Beckles is a former Police Detective, businessman, freelance writer, black achiever honoree, and creator of the blog mikebeckles.com.
Not much cash, if any, from the massive $95 billion war funding package passed by the US House will go to Ukraine. Already, there is much talk that much of the aid in weaponry that has gone to that war effort has gone to the black market, arms dealers, and terror groups. The bill passed with overwhelming bipartisan support, something not seen in Washington these days except for support for Israel, will now go to the Senate for final approval. After that, it is on to Joe Biden’s desk, where he anxiously awaits to attach his signature, making it law. The money allocated for Ukraine will go toward propping up that effort, if for nothing else, to try to poke a finger into Russia’s eye. Many experts have argued that the war in Ukraine is already lost. Nevertheless, American armaments will flow from its storage facilities to Ukraine. At the same time, your tax dollars go toward funding the military-industrial complex building of new tanks, antiaircraft guns, air defenses, bullets, etc. The fat cats in America will get even fatter while the slaughter continues.
According to Reuters:
Specifically, the allocation will see:
$5.2bn go to replenishing and expanding Israel’s missile and rocket defense system;
$3.5bn for buying advanced weapons systems and $1bn to enhance weapons production;
$4.4bn for other supplies and services to Israel and
Representatives Rashida Tlaib (3rd R), Cori Bush (3rd R), Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (4th R), Ilhan Omar (2nd L) and many other Representatives open a banner demanding a ceasefire and condemning the Israeli attacks on Gaza, in front of U.S. Capitol in the United States on November 8, 2023. (Photo by Celal Gunes/Anadolu via Getty Images)
Congress members who were more supportive of Israel at the start of the Gaza war received over $100,000 more on average from pro-Israel donors during their last election than those who most supported Palestine, a Guardian analysis of campaign data shows. Those who took more money most often called for US military support and backed Israel’s response, even as Gaza’s civilian death toll mounted, the findings show. The analysis, which looks at positions taken during the war’s first six weeks, does not prove any particular member changed their position because they received pro-Israel campaign donations. However, some campaign finance experts who viewed the data argue that donor spending helped fuel Congress’s overwhelming support for Israel. About 82% of Congress members were more supportive of Israel, and just 9% were more supportive of Palestine during this period. The remainder had “mixed” views. Legislators categorized as supportive of Israel received about $125,000 on average during their last election, while those supportive of Palestine on average took about $18,000. The volume and breadth of the donors’ spending is considerable: over $58m went to current Congress members, and all but 33 received donations. (The Guardian).
AIPAC’s money and influence in American politics also censured Representative Rashida Tlaib, the only Palestinian in the Congress, for daring to speak out against Israeli genocide in Palestine. Georgia Republican Rich McCormick and AIPAC stoolie introduced that censure motion. AIPAC is not satisfied with its stranglehold on the US Congress. In 2021, it created a political action committee, enabling the organization to contribute directly to political campaigns. Where else is this kind of thing allowed? This is not a situation as guaranteed by the constitution for citizens to lobby their government. This is a foreign entity lobbying the government, choosing who gets elected and even who gets censured on behalf of a foreign government. Talk about a foreign power interfering in our elections- Israel does it in broad daylight and with the full coöperation of both political parties. When will the American people wake up from their racist slumber and see what is going on?
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Mike Beckles is a former Police Detective, businessman, freelance writer, black achiever honoree, and creator of the blog mikebeckles.com.
The UN human rights chief, Volker Türk, has said he was “horrified” by reports of mass graves containing hundreds of bodies at two of Gaza’s largest hospitals. Palestinian civil defense teams began exhuming bodies from a mass grave outside the Nasser hospital complex in Khan Younis last week after Israeli troops withdrew. A total of 310 bodies have been found in the last week, including 35 in the past day, Palestinian officials have said. “We feel the need to raise the alarm because clearly there have been multiple bodies discovered,” said Ravina Shamdasani, spokesperson for the UN high commissioner for human rights. She described bodies “buried deep in the ground and covered with waste,” adding that “among the deceased were allegedly older people, women and wounded,” including some bound and stripped of their clothes.
“Some of them had their hands tied, which, of course, indicates serious violations of international human rights law and international humanitarian law, and these need to be subjected to further investigations,” she said. Palestinian rescue teams and several observation missions from the UN also reported the discovery of multiple mass grave sites in the Shifa hospital compound in Gaza City earlier this month after Israeli ground troops withdrew after a prolonged siege. Medics working for Doctors Without Borders described how Israeli forces attacked Nasser hospital in late January before withdrawing a month later, leaving the facility unable to function. Rescue workers are continuing to dig through the sandy earth to exhume bodies outside the hospital. Shamdasani said her office was working on corroborating Palestinian officials’ reports that hundreds of bodies had been found at the site. Officials in Gaza said the bodies at Nasser were people who had died during the siege. Israel’s military on Tuesday rejected allegations of mass burials at the hospital, saying it had exhumed corpses to try to find hostages taken by Hamas in October. “The claim that the IDF (Israel Defense Forces) buried Palestinian bodies is baseless and unfounded,” the military said, adding that after examining the bodies, its forces had returned them to where they had previously been buried.
Israel has repeatedly accused Hamas of operating in hospitals and using medical infrastructure as a shield, which Hamas denies. The UN rights chief also condemned increasing numbers of Israeli airstrikes that have pummelled northern, central, and southern Gaza in recent days, including naval artillery fire that has struck buildings along Gaza’s eastern shoreline. Airstrikes hit many areas already reduced to little more than rubble and broken slabs of concrete after 200 days of the war, including Beit Lahia in the north and the center of Gaza City. “The north remains dire,” said Olga Cherevko of the UN’s Office for Coördination of Humanitarian Affairs, speaking during a visit to the area. There’s more food coming in, but there’s no money to buy it. Healthcare facilities have been destroyed. There’s no fuel to run water wells, and sanitation is a massive issue. There’s sewage everywhere.” As Israeli ground troops reportedly staged a brief incursion into eastern Khan Younis, in the south of Gaza, satellite images from the destroyed city showed a growing tent encampment, which could be intended to house people fleeing Rafah in the event of an Israeli ground attack there.
Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, has repeatedly threatened to attack Rafah, Gaza’s southernmost city, where more than a million people are sheltering. On Tuesday, Türk again warned against a full-scale incursion on Rafah, saying it could lead to “further atrocity crimes.” Melanie Ward, the head of Medical Aid for Palestinians, who has recently returned from a visit to Gaza, said an Israeli invasion would be impossible without “human slaughter.” Ward said that roads running north of Rafah approaching Deir al-Balah in central Gaza were already crammed with people. “Every space … is already full of displaced people living in tents,” she said. “People from the east of Khan Younis can’t return there because their homes have been destroyed. There isn’t enough space for people in Rafah to try to move and seek safety somewhere else. It’s impossible for Israel to attack Rafah and for it not to be a disaster of epic proportions.” Many of the recent strikes have hit parts of Gaza where people already displaced have fled for the third, fourth, or even fifth time. “There’s no safe place to escape to, so everything we do, we try to do it fast,” said Rama Abu Amra, a 21-year-old student who sleeps with her family in a tent outside a friend’s house in Deir al-Balah, their fourth location since fleeing Gaza City months ago. She said the tent was uncomfortable, hot by day and cold at night, and in a crowded area. Asked where the family could flee in the event of an evacuation order, she said: “We honestly don’t know.” This story originated with the guardian.
The US House passed a bill that included more than $26 billion in funding for the genocidal Israeli war against the oppressed Palestinian people. The Funding for Israel’s war is part of a much larger war funding, 95 billion dollars to be exact, the balance of which will go toward Ukraine’s war effort against Russia. Ninety-five billion American dollars aimed at propping up Ukraine’s flailing war effort against Russia because Russia objected to that nation becoming a member of NATO, which would effectively put NATO on Russia’s border. Worse yet, it would mean that Ukraine on Russia’s border would be subjected to America’s nuclear umbrella protection. The United States would not allow Mexico to have Russian forces on its southern border. This point of view is not speculation; there is precedent to prove it.
On October 16th, 1962, the United States and the Soviet Union came dangerously close to bringing the world to nuclear annihilation because of Soviet missiles on the Island of Cuba. Cuba is about 90 miles from the southerlymost tip of Florida. It does not share a land border with the United States. Ukraine shares a land border with Russia. In the end, Nikita Khrushchev, the Soviet President, relented and agreed to remove the missiles. From then on, Americans celebrated the historic win by the then-newly minted John F. Kennedy. Those who bother to pay attention to history and are vested in facts know that the United States also removed its own missiles from Turkish soil, which was the reason Khruschev engaged in the Cuban gambit in the first instance. The historically correct version of that event is that Nikita Khrushchev won that chess move.
We could go on about history if the present weren’t so pressing. There is hopelessness, poverty, homelessness, lack of money for the education of American children, student loan debt, failing businesses, depression, and a host of issues that could be addressed with 95 billion dollars. Still, Congress and Joe Biden believe it is more important to spend 95 billion dollars to defend Ukraine and to help Israel kill unarmed Palestinians. But you are mistaken if you think this funding package was the only issue. Attached to the historic war-funding giveaway is legislation that will effectively ban the Application of TikTok from the United States. The real reason the US Government is doing this is that the Application allows Americans to see the genocide in Palestine paid for with their tax dollars. No American media house run by the Zionist interest thinks it necessary for Americans to see these atrocities. The reason the American politicians give the American public for their actions is that this Application is a national security threat because China partially owns it. Almost everything we use in America is made in China, so maybe we should be more concerned about that than an app. The Bill passed the House with heavy Democratic support, and it is now up to the Senate to pass it. Biden says he will sign it. It will effectively mean that Republicans and Democrats have come together to take away the rights of 172 million people and 7 million businesses that benefit from the application.
It will also strip away 54 billion dollars of revenue from the American economy. This is particularly egregious as the United States Constitution clearly states that Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, or abridging the freedom of speech or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. If you think that the Supreme Court will stop this for one minute, you are dead wrong.
The Supreme Court announced on Monday that it will not hear Mckesson v. Doe. The decision not to hear Mckesson left in place a lower court decision that effectively eliminated the right to organize a mass protest in the states of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas. Under that lower court decision, a protest organizer faces potentially ruinous financial consequences if a single attendee at a mass protest commits an illegal act. (Vox.com) Neither the Executive nor the Legislative branch of Government respects the Constitution. The Judicial branch that is supposed to ensure that Constitutional rights are guaranteed just happens to be the worst offender of those rights. So, it’s more wars and genocide with our dollars, and we dare not speak out against this because they will soon begin to throw us in prison for daring to speak out.
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Mike Beckles is a former Police Detective, businessman, freelance writer, black achiever honoree, and creator of the blog mikebeckles.com.
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