Author Archives: Mike

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Chicago’s Top Attorney Resigns Following Continuous Outrage Over Botched Police Raid

by Shanel Genai

On Sunday the lead attor­ney for the city of Chicago, Mark Flessner, resigned from his role as Corporation Counsel for the city of Chicago via an email sent to staff.
According to NPR, Flessner’s res­ig­na­tion was brought on because of the con­tin­u­al back­lash sur­round­ing the now-viral video of a 2019 botched police raid of the home of a local social work­er, Anjanette Young. As pre­vi­ous­ly report­ed by The Root, offi­cers bom­bard­ed Young’s home after being false­ly tipped off by an infor­mant, break­ing down her door, hand­cuff­ing her, and tear­ing up her home. This all hap­pened while Young, who had just got­ten out of the show­er, stood naked, repeat­ed­ly telling police that they had the wrong home.
Chicago Tribune reporter Gregory Pratt shared an image of Flessner’s email in a tweet Sunday after­noon. “Dear Team, I have resigned as Corporation Counsel. I will work on a tran­si­tion plan over the next few days,” Flessner wrote.

At this point, it’s unclear whether or not he was asked to resign, but Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot swift­ly accept­ed his res­ig­na­tion saying:
‘I accept­ed the res­ig­na­tion of Corporation Counsel Mark Flessner effec­tive imme­di­ate­ly. I want to thank him for his ser­vice to the City of Chicago. I am com­mit­ted to a full review of every­thing that occurred sur­round­ing this inci­dent, will take cor­rec­tive action where appro­pri­ate, and will hold peo­ple accountable.”
After his res­ig­na­tion, Flessner told the Chicago Tribune that he felt he was being accused by the pub­lic of try­ing to con­ceal police body cam­era footage of the raid. But he main­tains that it isn’t so. The video, which was released pub­licly by Chicago sta­tion WBBM-TV was brought to light ear­li­er this month, but only after a long, legal fight with the city of Chicago. Speaking on behalf of his client’s trau­mat­ic and har­row­ing expe­ri­ence, Young’s attor­ney Keenan Saunter had this to say to Chicago’s CBS2:
“If this had been a young woman in Lincoln Park by her­self in her home naked, a young white woman — let’s just be frank – if the reac­tion would have been the same? I don’t think it would have been. I think [offi­cers] would have saw that woman, right­ful­ly so, as some­one who was vul­ner­a­ble, some­one who deserved pro­tec­tion, some­one who deserved to have their dig­ni­ty main­tained. They viewed Ms. Young as less than human.”

As of now, Mayor Lightfoot has ordered a review of the city’s video release pol­i­cy and apol­o­gized to Young on behalf of both her­self and the City of Chicago.
(This sto­ry orig­i­nat­ed at Root​.com).

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Look At The List Of Republicans Who Already Jumped The Line To Be Inoculated Against COVID-19

Listen to this lying, fraud­u­lent char­la­tan lit­tle Marco Rubio who has his face so far up Trump’s ass that he prob­a­bly can­not smell any­thing else. No won­der this fraud who thinks he is white attacked every­thing President Barack Obama did. Including say­ing that the President quote ‘had no class”, what could have elicit­ed a strong com­ment from the lit­tle inbred Cuban? President Obama had the nerve to invite Rapper Common and oth­ers to the White House that their fore-par­ents built.

Marco Rubio
@marcorubio
I know I looked away from the needle
And yes, I know I need a tan
But I am so con­fi­dent that the #Covid19 vac­cine is safe & effec­tive that I decid­ed to take it myself

This is the fraud­u­lent lit­tle Cuban being inoc­u­lat­ed against COVID-19, hav­ing jumped the line and placed him­self in front of Doctors, Nurses, and oth­er front-line work­ers who are work­ing tire­less­ly to save and pro­tect the lives of oth­ers at the per­il of their own lives.
But I hard­ly believe that any­one is sur­prised at this lit­tle creep wannabe white, that he would jump the line to try and save his own sor­ry ass, and after he went mask­less to Donald Trump’s White House super­spread­er par­ty, and fol­lowed DonaldTrump’s igno­rant cru­sade against mask-wear­ing because he want­ed to cre­ate a false sense that every­thing was okay while peo­ple were dying like flies from the virus.
And oh, before I for­get, you guys some­times read stuff that I say about these peo­ple, how they would sell out their own moth­ers to cur­ry favor with oth­ers or worse, to try to con­vince white peo­ple that they are white.
Well, look at Macro Rubi. Did any­one care about his dis­gust­ing skin col­or? Why did he think it was nec­es­sary to tell us that he is off-color.
The lit­tle fool is in a back door kind of way try­ing to draw atten­tion to his dis­gust­ing flab­by biceps that are devoid of melanin.
Notice that he is wear­ing a mask; if he tru­ly believed in mask-wear­ing effi­ca­cy, why did he not wear one to Trump’s par­ty, or bet­ter yet, why did this lit­tle fol­low­er not stand on prin­ci­ple and refuse to go?
Nah.…. that would actu­al­ly require some char­ac­ter, for­ti­tude, dig­ni­ty, and balls, nei­ther of which Marco Rubio possesses.

But the lit­tle Cuban is not the only fraud Republican that has denied the seri­ous­ness of the Virus as peo­ple died, to push Donald trump’s self­ish agen­da. Look at this oth­er Trump min­ion Lindsay Graham from South Carolina.

Thank God for nurs­es who help peo­ple in need and know how to use a nee­dle. Thank God for those who pro­duced these vac­cines. If enough of us take it, we will get back to nor­mal lives. Help is on the way. (Lindsay Graham)He too jumped the line to receive the vac­cine, even though they denied it was dan­ger­ous all year and refused to wear a mask, poten­tial­ly plac­ing his dumb sup­port­ers at risk, to please Trump.
In effect, what they are doing is mock­ing the peo­ple who have lost their loved ones to this virus. Their lives are worth way more than the American peo­ple they so spite­ful­ly and will­ful­ly deceived.
Among the Republicans to jump the line based on the incred­i­ble val­ue of their lives over oth­ers are Mike Pence ad his wife.

Mike Pence, Second Lady Karen Pence, and Surgeon General Jerome Adams just took the coro­n­avirus vaccine.

Moscow Mitch McConnell
I just received the safe, effec­tive COVID vac­cine fol­low­ing con­ti­nu­ity-of-gov­ern­ment pro­to­cols. Vaccines are how we beat this virus. Now back to con­tin­ue fight­ing for a res­cue pack­age, includ­ing a lot more mon­ey for dis­tri­b­u­tion so more Americans can receive it as fast as possible.

In response to McConnell receiv­ing the vac­cine, one woman tweet­ed this guy is cur­rent­ly block­ing relief because he wants immu­ni­ty for cor­po­ra­tions that treat their work­ers unsafe­ly. Reminder 2: his vac­cine was paid by tax­pay­ers to whom he is block­ing relief.
I real­ly could have fall­en for the garbage that wear­ing a mask since last March was a sis­sy thing to do. We were made to believe that wear­ing a mask was polit­i­cal. I was almost con­vinced that I was not a true red-blood­ed Black man.
These are the same frauds who pre­tend­ed that the virus was no big deal, now look at them and their sense of entitlement.
The tragedy is that there are peo­ple stu­pid and dumb enough to go into vot­ing booths and cast bal­lots for these lying frauds.

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The Minister Of National Security & Commissioner’s Posturing Is Just That, Posturing!

“Insanity,” “the state of being seri­ous­ly men­tal­ly ill; mad­ness, extreme fool­ish­ness or irrationality.
Psychology today char­ac­ter­izes (insan­i­ty) this way; Mental ill­ness of such a severe nature that a per­son can­not dis­tin­guish fan­ta­sy from real­i­ty, can­not con­duct her/​his affairs due to psy­chosis, or is sub­ject to uncon­trol­lable impul­sive behav­ior. … men­tal health pro­fes­sion­als inform it, but the term today is pri­mar­i­ly legal, not psychological.
Haha, and there it is, folks.….colloquially, we Jamaicans refer to insan­i­ty as doing the same thing over and over, yet expect­ing a dif­fer­ent result.
In prac­ti­cal terms doing the same thing over and over will result in the same result; it is like math; it does not mat­ter how many times you mul­ti­ply 10 x 10, you will end up with 100, as long as you do so correctly.

For those rea­sons, the hand­wring­ing from the likes of Horace Chang, min­is­ter of nation­al secu­ri­ty, at the rash of killings in the Farm com­mu­ni­ty of Clarendon, is so utter­ly dis­gust­ing to me.
Speaking at the May Pen Police Station, Chang lament­ed the com­mu­ni­ty’s lack of sup­port against lawlessness.
(‘I urge com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers with infor­ma­tion about these killings to come for­ward and lend sup­port to the police so we can erad­i­cate these crim­i­nals.”
(“These crim­i­nals behave in an almost sav­age way, and that is a result of the fail­ure of our soci­ety in pre­serv­ing aspects of social order.”
What BS, Horace Chang is the mem­ber of Parliament for one of the strongest gar­ri­son com­mu­ni­ties in the Parish of Saint James. Before he became Minister of National [Security], which is an oxy­moron when con­sid­ered along­side some­one like Chang, he was a defend­er of the crim­i­nals oper­at­ing in his gar­ri­son com­mu­ni­ty on the one hand, while pay­ing lip ser­vice to the rule of law on the other.

The real sto­ry is not the hypocrisy of the likes of Horace Chang, and in fair­ness, all of the Island’s politi­cians and cer­tain seg­ments of the social class. It is about how they set the house on fire then bemoan the destruc­tion caused by the flames.
Gone are the days when our coun­try had four to five hun­dred homi­cides per year. We now live in an exis­tence where a thou­sand dead Jamaicans annu­al­ly, would be seen and cel­e­brat­ed as a work­ing law enforce­ment strategy.
The fak­ery and pre­ten­tious­ness of that area of the Jamaican soci­ety that influ­ences and make deci­sions that mat­ter, makes it impos­si­ble for this intractable prob­lem of endem­ic vio­lence to be dealt with decisively.
No one wants a soci­ety in which police offi­cers oper­ate with impuni­ty. Certainly not con­sci­en­tious police offi­cers past or present. This writer, him­self, a for­mer mem­ber of the JCF, has zero-tol­er­ance for that polic­ing; as a young offi­cer, I had sev­er­al con­fronta­tions with offi­cers who would abuse their oaths by mis­treat­ing mem­bers of the public.
I left the JCF a long time ago, but not long enough that my ser­vice record can­not be traced. Many of my for­mer col­leagues are still serv­ing; they knew where I stood then, they know where I stand now, based on my years of writ­ing on this subject.
My adher­ence to the rules should nev­er be con­strued to be pas­siv­i­ty or a lack­lus­ter approach to how vio­lent crim­i­nals should be dealt with.

Keeping homi­cides under five hun­dred per year in Jamaica was no easy feat; it cer­tain­ly did not occur in a vac­u­um, and it cer­tain­ly was not accom­plished by implor­ing mur­der­ers to obey the laws.
Social pro­grams are worth­while steps to take to end the vicious cycle of vio­lence pro­duc­ers and cor­ralling vio­lent criminals.
But the Island has strayed so far away from what kept the mur­der num­bers low dur­ing the ’80s, that beseech­ing the com­mu­ni­ties to report crim­i­nals to the police today, is tan­ta­mount to ask­ing the crim­i­nals to turn them­selves in.
Entire com­mu­ni­ties are arguably havens of crim­i­nal­i­ty in which decent law-abid­ing mem­bers are in the minor­i­ty and are ter­ri­fied to open their mouths to any­one about what they know.
They have zero con­fi­dence in the police, and would rather live under the crim­i­nals’ bootheels instead of risk­ing a vio­lent and bloody end­ing by giv­ing the police infor­ma­tion. Information they cor­rect­ly believe may end up right back with the vio­lent mur­der­ers they want to be removed from their communities.
To a cer­tain degree, many police offi­cers’ atti­tudes today are sym­pa­thet­ic and more reflec­tive of the views and beliefs that exist in cer­tain com­mu­ni­ties, than they reflect a belief in the rule of law.
That is the inher­ent tragedy that the nation now grap­ples with, and the divide that the crim­i­nals con­tin­ue to exploit.

A Jamaican soci­ety was cre­at­ed that gives every ben­e­fit of the doubt to vio­lent mur­der­ers. The law-mak­ers head gar­ri­son con­stituen­cies that are ver­i­ta­ble havens of crim­i­nal­i­ty. Consequently, the laws are not par­tic­u­lar­ly slant­ed to the con­tin­u­a­tion of the Jamaican State as a viable enti­ty that is larg­er than the indi­vid­ual; the laws are undu­ly acqui­es­cent to the rights of the most vicious murderer.
The cause of all this is now debat­ed as the fault of the large pow­ers that loans mon­ey to keep the Jamaican state afloat.
Whether or not Jamaica is now sub­servient to America and oth­er nations because it depends on them for loans is a plau­si­ble con­ver­sa­tion to have.
However, long before Jamaica was inun­dat­ed with crim­i­nal rights activists and lob­by­ists telling the lead­ers what they can and can­not do leg­isla­tive­ly, the lead­ers them­selves were active lob­by­ists and pro­tec­tors of the vio­lent crim­i­nals that preyed upon the weak and defenseless.
The so-called human-rights lob­by, bet­ter knows as crim­i­nal rights activists, mere­ly exploit­ed the space that already exist­ed between the crim­i­nals and those enforc­ing the laws.

The habit of the Minister of National Security and the com­mis­sion­er of Police of show­ing up in com­mu­ni­ties after the may­hem inflict­ed by the mur­der­ers, are tired, worn-out, and frankly pathetic.
The words ring hol­low and use­less. They are exer­cis­es in futil­i­ty. Begging peo­ple to come for­ward is a waste of time; it will not happen.
There was a rea­son that things were dif­fer­ent in the past; the police were more respect­ed; a large per­cent­age of the JCF was more revered. Call them super cops, call them name brand cops, or what­ev­er. The ter­mi­nol­o­gy does not mean bru­tal or law­less; it meant effective.
We got the infor­ma­tion we need­ed; we knew the crim­i­nals because cit­i­zens trust­ed us.
The trust and love many com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers had for us made it impos­si­ble for crim­i­nal ele­ments to gar­ner the courage to set up shop in the spaces we oper­at­ed in.
Despite the hifa­lutin the­o­ries being bandied about how polic­ing should be done, some­thing that has cor­rupt­ed JCF mem­bers’ minds, polic­ing remains large­ly the same.
Officers must car­ry them­selves with dig­ni­ty and pur­pose and show respect to the com­mu­ni­ty, which will result in reci­procity if cul­ti­vat­ed over time.
That is what I mean when I say polic­ing remains the same. We can argue that com­mu­ni­ties in which police have been suc­cess­ful, (let us say in the United States), are the same com­mu­ni­ties to which the police show respect.
The oppo­site is true of those com­mu­ni­ties in which the police act as overlords.

The sad real­i­ty is that the Gangsters who oper­ate as shot-callers in com­mu­ni­ties across the Island knew the impact name brand cops had on their abil­i­ties to operate.
They put the pow­der in the water that col­ored the nar­ra­tive. They knew that soci­ety would go along with their idea that name brand cops were bad for Jamaica. They knew that the elites would drink the cool-aid, and that the crim­i­nals who oper­ate out of Gordon House would fol­low suit.
It has been a sys­temic strat­e­gy employed by them to dis­cred­it the police; it includ­ed lay­ing down cov­er­ing fire so that weapons fall­en from dead gang­sters may be retrieved by oth­er gang­sters, there­by cre­at­ing the impres­sion that the cops mur­dered inno­cent choir boys. It grad­u­at­ed to send­ing out mourn­ers to demon­strate that cops mur­dered inno­cent men, paid mourn­ers, oth­ers forced at the per­il of their lives.
The crim­i­nal under­world under­stood that weak­en­ing the Police depart­ment was the best strat­e­gy for turn­ing the Island into the gang­ster’s par­adise it has become. Unfortunately, the fakes and frauds at the UWI did not under­stand it.
Out of that insti­tu­tion came some of the vapi­dest attacks on the police.
The JCF lead­er­ship, failed to respond, like neutered dogs, total­ly sup­pli­cant to their polit­i­cal boss­es, they allowed the nar­ra­tive to take root with­out fight­ing back.
Today, the JCF is the UWI; the force’s entire senior lead­er­ship has one con­nec­tion or anoth­er with that insti­tu­tion. An insti­tu­tion that is one of the most anti-law enforce­ment any­where in the world.
One that has com­plete­ly cor­rupt­ed and cor­rod­ed the process that the lead­er­ship of the JCF is unable to find its way out of a brown paper bag, despite the long list of let­ters they boast beside their names.

It was nev­er about let­ters and degrees. It was nev­er about brava­do, and pos­tur­ing. It has always been about com­mit­ment and ded­i­ca­tion, love of coun­try, which should not be attrib­uted to the Island’s lead­ers of either polit­i­cal party.
That is what we brought to the table when we strapped up and stepped out to do our jobs. We want­ed a Jamaica in which all peo­ple could go about their busi­ness in peace and with the assur­ance that they would be secure.
The pay was no good, but it was not what drove so many away; it has been the lack of sup­port for the rule of law, by the peo­ple who made the laws.
The soil is now far too con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed to pro­duce good crops. The gang­sters know it. They also know that the Minister of National Security and the Commissioner of police’s pos­tur­ing is just that.
Posturing!

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Mike Beckles is a for­mer Police Detective, busi­ness­man, free­lance writer, a black achiev­er hon­oree, and pub­lish­er of the blog mike​beck​les​.com. 
He’s con­tributed to sev­er­al websites.
You may sub­scribe to his blogs, or sub­scribe to his Youtube chan­nel @chatt-a-box, for the lat­est videos.

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Guiliani Tried It First As Mayor, Trump Learned It Was Possible…

One of a pagan soci­ety’s prob­lems is that it must con­tin­ue cre­at­ing new Gods, new sym­bols to look up to, and worship.
Superman, Batman, GI Jane, Ken & Barbie, Generals, the Military, Police, Rudolph Guiliani, (“you know America’s Mayor.”
“Yah”…
The same guy decid­ed to put New York City’s com­mand and con­trol cen­ter in the World Trade Center. And after the Facility was attacked in 1993.
It was brava­do and arro­gance, yet nobody in the media talks about Rudolph Guliani’s brava­do and arro­gance that placed those first respon­ders’ lives in grave danger.
Neither do they talk about the fact that it was under Guiliani’s lead­er­ship that the com­mu­ni­ca­tion equip­ment that the fire and police were using failed?

They went ahead and des­ig­nat­ed this clown America’s may­or. As the city’s chief exec­u­tive, he walked with Pataki and oth­ers after the attack with a mask slung under his chin.
Nobody both­ered to recall who this guy was before hail­ing him as the sec­ond com­ing of the Messiah. That it was the same Rudolph Guliani who led a gang of NYPD thugs in uni­form and out of uni­form to the steps of City Hall to denounce the now deceased David Dinkins, the City’s first Black Mayor, label­ing him a Nigger and a wash­room atten­dant.
The Media went along with Guliani’s unde­mo­c­ra­t­ic demand that he be giv­en addi­tion­al time to car­ry out his pro­grams even after his term was up. Michael Bloomberg, anoth­er wannabe dic­ta­tor, had won and was sched­uled to take office.
Many in the bel­ly of Gotham’s cor­rup­tion went along with it; at the time, Guiliani and his cohorts lob­bied the State Legislature and the City Council, to post­pone the elec­tion pri­maries after the September 11th attack, there­by allow­ing the mini-wannabe dic­ta­tor to serve an addi­tion­al six months in office, some of his cohorts even demand­ed that he be allowed to serve anoth­er four-year term.

As Guiliani and his min­ions pushed and prod­ded any­one who would lis­ten, lob­by­ing them to help him to dis­card the laws and allow him to serve a third con­sec­u­tive term in office, respect­ed politi­cians like John McCain cau­tioned him to back down.
Even the Republican Governor George Pataki was against the move. Pataki argued, “Regardless of Rudy’s moti­va­tion, regard­less of his raw emo­tions in the sit­u­a­tion, he aban­doned some of the most basic con­ser­v­a­tive prin­ci­ples — to fol­low the law and relin­quish pow­er when your term is over, even in times of crisis.”
In February 2007, the International Association of Fire Fighters issued a let­ter assert­ing that Giuliani rushed to con­clude the recov­ery effort once gold and sil­ver had been recov­ered from World Trade Center vaults and there­by pre­vent­ed the remains of many vic­tims from being recov­ered: “Mayor Giuliani’s actions meant that fire­fight­ers and cit­i­zens who per­ished would either remain buried at Ground Zero for­ev­er, with no clo­sure for fam­i­lies, or be removed like garbage and deposit­ed at the Fresh Kills Landfill,” it said, adding: “Hundreds remained entombed in Ground Zero when Giuliani gave up on them.”[159] Lawyers for the International Association of Fire Fighters seek to inter­view Giuliani under oath as part of a fed­er­al legal action alleg­ing that New York City neg­li­gent­ly dumped body parts and oth­er human remains in the Fresh Kills Landfill.[wikipedia]

All this time, Donald Trump was watch­ing and learn­ing how to dis­tort, desta­bi­lize, and ulti­mate­ly destroy Democracy. A more learned man had tried it before, and almost got away with sway­ing pub­lic offi­cials and civ­il soci­ety into giv­ing in to his dic­ta­to­r­i­al aspirations.
Had the pow­ers bowed to Guiliani’s wish­es, he would have been val­i­dat­ed in his beliefs that he alone could fix it, speak­ing of New York City after the ter­ror­ist attack of 9⁄11.
Where else did we hear that sen­ti­ment expressed?
Is it any won­der that those two clowns from Gotham would find com­mon cause in try­ing to destroy two hun­dred and forty plus years of precedent?
Who is real­ly sur­prised that at the heart of Donald Trump’s coup attempt, would be Rudolph Guiliani, the man who attempt­ed the same stunt as Mayor of New York City?
This writer has con­sis­tent­ly point­ed not just to Guiliani’s racism, but his Fascistic unde­mo­c­ra­t­ic beliefs and use of pow­er, includ­ing his use of NYPD cops against the City’s Black and Brown population.
Thankfully Republican pri­ma­ry vot­ers then, saw through El Duce’s fas­cism and denied him a sin­gle pri­ma­ry win. Unfortunately, only a few years lat­er, they missed the oth­er despot to come along, and look at the dam­age he did in just four short years, even after being impeached.

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Mike Beckles is a for­mer Police Detective, busi­ness­man, free­lance writer, a black achiev­er hon­oree, and pub­lish­er of the blog mike​beck​les​.com. 
He’s con­tributed to sev­er­al websites.
You may sub­scribe to his blogs, or sub­scribe to his Youtube chan­nel @chatt-a-box, for the lat­est videos.

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‘I Am Not Ashamed Of What I Did’: Proud Boys Leader Admits Burning Church’s Black Lives Matter Sign

The leader of the Proud Boys says he is “not ashamed” of burn­ing a Washington DC church’s Black Lives Matter sign.
The right-wing group’s chair­man Enrique Tarrio says he was respon­si­ble for set­ting the ban­ner on fire after a MAGA ral­ly in the city last weekend.
The dis­turb­ing inci­dent is being inves­ti­gat­ed as a poten­tial hate crime and a reli­gious leader has com­pared it to “cross burnings.”
The BLM sign was tak­en from the Asbury United Methodist Church, one of the old­est Black church­es in Washington DC, dur­ing a night of vio­lence after the pro-Trump rally.
Tarrio took to con­ser­v­a­tive social media site Parler to post a pic­ture of him­self and oth­er men using lighters to torch the sign.
Tarrio denied on Parler that the act was a hate crime and wrote that it was done “out of love” for the country.

“I’m here to tell you that there was no hate crime com­mit­ted. The only hate there is in my heart is for com­mu­nism and an author­i­tar­i­an gov­ern­ment,” wrote Mr Tarrio. “BLM is a Marxist move­ment. It isn’t about the col­or of some­one’s skin.
“Against the wish­es of my attor­ney I am here today to admit that I am the per­son respon­si­ble for the burn­ing of this sign.
And I am not ashamed of what I did because I did­n’t do it out of hate… I did it out of love. Love for a coun­try that has giv­en my fam­i­ly SO MUCH.”
Read sto­ry here. https://​news​.yahoo​.com/​a​m​-​n​o​t​-​a​s​h​a​m​e​d​-​d​i​d​-​p​r​o​u​d​-​2​0​0​0​3​1​3​2​7​.​h​tml

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Kansas Sheriff’s Deputy Accused Of Deliberately Running Over Black Former Detective

A for­mer police detec­tive from Kansas has filed an exces­sive force law­suit alleg­ing that he sus­tained seri­ous injuries when a Kiowa County Sheriff’s Deputy inten­tion­al­ly drove over him.

Lionel Womack said in a state­ment that he had not been speed­ing nor was he under the influ­ence when he was pulled over in a traf­fic stop by Jeremy Rodriguez.

Mr Womack, who is Black, says despite this, and even though his dri­ver’s licence, insur­ance, and vehi­cle reg­is­tra­tion were up to date, he pan­icked and fled.

A graph­ic dash­cam video cap­tured the series of hor­rif­ic events that unfold­ed next as the patrol truck mowed him down, as he ran shirt­less across a field on the night of 15 August.

“When the first offi­cer turned his lights on, I pulled over and com­plied … exact­ly as you’re sup­posed to. But when three addi­tion­al vehi­cles pulled up quick­ly and start­ed to sur­round my car, I freaked out. That’s when I took off, it was a ‘fight or flight’ moment and I was going to live,” he said.

“I felt like I was in dan­ger. This was out in the coun­try, late at night, and it was dark. So I ran for my life. That’s what you see in the dash­cam video. I’m run­ning in an open field, and I’m scared.”

The video is the cru­cial piece of evi­dence in the fed­er­al civ­il rights case filed by attor­ney Michael Kuckelman against the deputy in the US District Court in Kansas.

In the law­suit, Mr Kuckelman argues that Deputy Rodriguez used exces­sive force and was “cal­lous­ly indif­fer­ent” to Mr Womack’s civ­il rights.

Mr Womack had left the police depart­ment ear­li­er in August with hopes of build­ing up his own secu­ri­ty busi­ness. He was on his way home from a busi­ness trip to California when a Highway Patrol offi­cer in west­ern Kansas ini­ti­at­ed a chase over “an alleged traf­fic vio­la­tion”, accord­ing to the lawsuit.

Sheriff’s deputies from Pratt County and Kiowa County joined in the chase, which even­tu­al­ly end­ed on a dirt road. Mr Womack then took off on foot across a near­by field.

The dash­cam footage from a Pratt County sher­if­f’s deputy’s vehi­cle shows Mr Rodriguez using his patrol truck to catch up to Mr Womack, who was unarmed.

The deputy appar­ent­ly swerves the truck to hit Mr Womack, knock­ing him to the ground and run­ning over him.

Mr Womack rolls out from under the truck, his arms and legs flail­ing on the ground as some­one on the video shouts at him to lie down.

A deputy in the sec­ond patrol truck is heard to utter an exple­tive as he watch­es what is happening.

The law­suit alleges that Mr Womack sus­tained seri­ous injuries to his back, pelvis, and thigh, as well as to his right knee, ankle, and foot.

Commenting on the dis­turb­ing footage, Mr Kuckelman said: “It is impos­si­ble to watch a video of a deputy dri­ving his truck over Mr Womack with­out feel­ing sick. There was nowhere for Mr Womack to go. It was an open field, and he was trapped, yet the deputy drove his truck over him anyway.”

Neither Kiowa County Sheriff Chris Tedder nor his attor­ney respond­ed to a request for com­ment by the Associated Press.

Mr Kuckelman has urged Sheriff Tedder in per­son and in let­ters to fire Mr Rodriguez, but he has refused and the deputy remains on patrol. The attor­ney also wants Mr Rodriguez charged crim­i­nal­ly and has accused the sher­iff of engag­ing in a cov­er-up of the deputy’s conduct.

Four months lat­er, Mr Womack remains in jail on felony charges of attempt­ing to elude a law enforce­ment offi­cer by engag­ing in reck­less dri­ving and inter­fer­ence with a law enforce­ment officer.

Court records show he is also charged with sev­er­al mis­de­meanour traf­fic cita­tions, includ­ing fail­ure to dri­ve in the right lane on a four-lane high­way, improp­er sig­nalling, and dri­ving with­out headlights.

Mr Womack comes from a fam­i­ly entrenched in local law enforce­ment. His wife and his moth­er are police offi­cers with the Kansas City, Kansas Police Department. His step­fa­ther retired from police work as a sergeant there, and two of his aunts are police dispatchers.

After watch­ing the video, his wife, Officer Zee Womack said she strug­gled to under­stand why the deputy felt jus­ti­fied in using such force and that her hus­band is lucky to be alive.

At a time when it is not easy to be in law enforce­ment, she said “this makes it a lot more dif­fi­cult to be an officer”.

She added that some­one capa­ble of mak­ing a deci­sion such as Mr Rodriguez did should not have a badge, say­ing: “To me it showed a bla­tant dis­re­gard for human life.”

Ms Womack filed a fed­er­al law­suit last year alleg­ing “ram­pant racism and sex­ism” in her own police department.

In his state­ment, Mr Womack said he believes that most police offi­cers are good, but that law enforce­ment must be held account­able “when they cross the line”.

“I nev­er imag­ined that I would some­day be the vic­tim of exces­sive force by a fel­low law enforce­ment offi­cer. He could have eas­i­ly killed me.”

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White Man Who Shot And Killed Two Black People In Kentucky Kroger Sentenced To Life In Prison

By Zack Linly

Gregory Alan Bush — the white man who walked into a Louisville, Ky., area Kroger super­mar­ket in 2018 and fatal­ly shot two elder­ly Black peo­ple — plead­ed guilty to mur­der on Tuesday and will spend the rest of his life in prison with­out the pos­si­bil­i­ty of parole. Bush — who is report­ed­ly schiz­o­phrenic and was unmed­icat­ed at the time of the shoot­ing, accord­ing to his attor­ney — is also fac­ing fed­er­al hate crime charges, because while men­tal ill­ness might some­what explain why he walked into a gro­cery store and opened fire, mur­der­ing two peo­ple, men­tal ill­ness doesn’t make a per­son racist and there is lit­tle doubt that race played a part in the sense­less killings.

The Associated Press reports that Bush “plead[ed] guilty but men­tal­ly ill” in Jefferson Circuit Court to two counts of mur­der, crim­i­nal attempt­ed mur­der and wan­ton endan­ger­ment. He was sen­tenced to two life terms to be served concurrently.
From AP

Pleading guilty but men­tal­ly ill means the Kentucky Department of Corrections must pro­vide Bush with treat­ment and med­ica­tion dur­ing his term, accord­ing to Jeff Cooke, a spokesman for the commonwealth’s attorney’s office. Under a plea agree­ment, Bush also was set to plead guilty to fed­er­al hate crime charges in February. Federal pros­e­cu­tors alleged the shoot­ing of Maurice Stallard, 69, and Vickie Jones, 67, was racial­ly moti­vat­ed, though Attorney General William Barr agreed not to seek the death penalty.

Gregory Alan Bush

According to WDRB-TV, Angela Elleman, one of Bush’s attor­neys, said in a state­ment that Bush’s “schiz­o­phre­nia was not med­icat­ed, so he was tor­tured by voic­es that threat­ened to kill him and his family.”

“He act­ed out of his psy­chosis and his ill­ness, while at the very same time his elder­ly par­ents were down­town seek­ing a men­tal inquest war­rant to hos­pi­tal­ize him for everyone’s safe­ty,” Elleman said, adding that Bush’s actions that day “are not keep­ing with his char­ac­ter when med­icat­ed. Mr. Bush has agreed to spend the remain­der of his life in prison where he can be safe­ly treat­ed and medicated.”

But, again, lack of med­ica­tion doesn’t explain why Bush seem­ing­ly tar­get­ed Black peo­ple in his ter­ror­is­tic attack. As The Root pre­vi­ous­ly report­ed, just before Bush head­ed to Kroger to begin his ram­page, he tried to enter the his­tor­i­cal­ly Black First Baptist Church in Jeffersontown, which thank­ful­ly, was locked at the time.

As Bush was exit­ing Kroger after the shoot­ing, he report­ed­ly told a white man who was crouched behind a car hold­ing a gun, “Don’t shoot me. I won’t shoot you. Whites don’t shoot whites.”

According to court records, Bush also has a his­to­ry of mak­ing racist com­ments, includ­ing alle­ga­tions that he repeat­ed­ly called his ex-wife, who is Black, “a nig­ger bitch.”

WDRB reports that the fam­i­ly mem­bers of Bush’s vic­tims spoke at his sen­tenc­ing hearing.

“I just don’t under­stand why you select­ed any­one — It can’t be just for the col­or of their skin,” Charlotte Stallard, Maurice’s wife, said. “To me, it has to be more than that. You can’t hate some­one that much for the col­or of their skin. You have ruined my life. I’d like to just have an idea why?”

Kelly Watson, Stallard’s daugh­ter — whose son was with Stallard at the time of the shoot­ing — said in court, “That day replays in my head constantly.”

“The man whose life you took, he gave and he loved every­body around him,” Watson said. “He was there for every­body, and I hope that while you are sit­ting in jail, you are able to rec­on­cile your own life and think about what you did. And I’m grate­ful you will nev­er be able to hurt any­one else.”

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Time For The Lincoln Project To Become A Political Party…

Now that the Republican Party has demonstrated that it can no longer be trusted to see to the wellbeing of American Democracy; and now that it has become a full-blown autocratic party; now that far-right fringe groups like Qanon and other white supremacist groups like the proud boys and others have taken up residence in the party; and now that the party has all but decided that democracy is antithetical to its goals, there must be a change.

Continue read­ing →

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Barr Out

William Barr audi­tioned for the job of AG. He did incal­cu­la­ble harm to Civil Rights, to the coun­try, and the Department of Justice. His day has come.

When the Barr is set low, any­one can walk over it, which hap­pened in this case. The rapa­cious pur­suit of pow­er results in debase­ment and low­er­ing of stature, embar­rass­ment, and ridicule even.
William Barr will for­ev­er be the per­son­i­fi­ca­tion of all of that.
Trump fired William Barr.

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These Enemies Of American Democracy Should Forever Be Held Up To Public Ridicule And Whatever Remedies Exists Under Law

So, is America going to pre­tend that a host of Republican Attorney’s Generals and mem­bers of Congress did not com­mit Sedition against the United States?
(Sedition is overt con­duct, such as speech and orga­ni­za­tion, tends toward rebel­lion against the estab­lished order. Sedition often includes sub­ver­sion of a con­sti­tu­tion and incite­ment of dis­con­tent toward, or rebel­lion against, estab­lished author­i­ty)[W].

Ken Paxon

It makes per­fect sense that a Texas Attorney General that is a sub­ject of crim­i­nal inves­ti­ga­tions and numer­ous oth­er claims of uneth­i­cal and ques­tion­able prac­tices would file a case to over­turn the will of the peo­ple in states he knew as an attor­ney he had no stand­ing to file.
It also makes sense that Texas Republican Attorney General Ken Paxon would pull that stunt know­ing that it would go nowhere, even in a Supreme Court with as much cred­i­bil­i­ty as a Catholic Priest.
To those pay­ing atten­tion, includ­ing the elites in the Media, the con­ver­sa­tion about Paxon’s act of arguable sedi­tion is gross­ly misunderstood.
Paxon knew that his fil­ing would end the way it did, come on, the guy is a lawyer; for cry­ing out loud, it is dif­fi­cult to believe that Baylor University gave him an under­grad­u­ate degree he did not earn or that the University of Virginia school of law col­lud­ed and gave him a law degree he did not earn.
I mean, there are sto­ries of peo­ple in high places who have paid oth­ers to do their SATs and that the degree they got from a so-called pres­ti­gious school of finance was bought and paid for.
Gives a whole new mean­ing to the term [pres­ti­gious]. On that note, we must give Ken Paxon the ben­e­fit of the doubt that he did earn his degrees and that he is actu­al­ly a lot smarter than his court fil­ing sug­gests. In fact, the guy may be as wily as a Fox.

WHAT ARE THEY IN IT FOR?
Why would they decide to com­mit a sedi­tious Act against the United States by throw­ing out the legal and law­ful results of a fair elec­tion to install an ego­ma­ni­a­cal, nar­cis­sis­tic wannabe- dictator?

Ken Paxon was not per­form­ing for the Supreme Court; he was per­form­ing for an audi­ence of one, as they say. Paxon want­ed to do some­thing abun­dant­ly clear to the White House occu­pant that he would do any­thing for him, includ­ing com­mit­ting Sedition. That would get the Pardoner-in-chief’s atten­tion. And get his atten­tion it did.. Paxon knows it was a stunt, but the White House’s over­ly ele­vat­ed occu­pant did not know it. He sees all of these actions as acts of feal­ty, sub­mis­sion to his Monarchistic desires, and his strong­man aspi­ra­tions. And so Ken Paxon decid­ed to go for a par­don, under the belief that the Feds are mak­ing out an action­able case against him, and why not?
It has worked for Michael Flynn, Joe Arpaio, Dinesh D’Souza, Bernard Kerik, Rod Blagojevich, Scooter J Libby, Roger Stone, and a long list crim­i­nals, includ­ing Arsonists Dwight Lincoln Hammond and Stephen Dwight Hammond, right-wing nuts who set fire to Government buildings.
Donald Trump is on his way out the door, and as his exit draws clos­er by the day, there is much spec­u­la­tion that there will be a wave of pres­i­den­tial par­dons to include a poten­tial­ly unprece­dent­ed self-par­don by Trump.
It is rea­son­able to expect that an Attorney General who has the stench of cor­rup­tion as a Dog just sprayed by a Skunk, would seek to get his face before the par­don­er-in-chief, but what is behind the oth­ers above who decid­ed to know­ing­ly join a suite that they know is a direct affront to the Constitution they swore to uphold.
What actions are there under the Constitution to hold these trea­so­nous actors account­able for the acts of treach­ery against the United States?

If the Nation decides not to take action against these ene­mies of Democracy, the next chief exec­u­tive that comes with the temer­i­ty and arro­gance of Donald Trump will eas­i­ly upend 240-plus years of the American exper­i­ment. Democracy as we know it may only be read about as a past way of life if our chil­dren and grand­chil­dren are even allowed to read about the truth.
In Texas, the local News10​.com tele­vi­sion opined quote: The last-gasp bid to sub­vert the Nov. 3 elec­tion results is demon­strat­ing Donald Trump’s endur­ing polit­i­cal pow­er even as his term is set to end. And even though most sig­na­to­ries are far-right con­ser­v­a­tives who come from deep-red dis­tricts, the fil­ing meant that rough­ly one-quar­ter of the U.S. House believes the Supreme Court should set aside elec­tion results.
“The Supreme Court is not going to over­turn the elec­tion in the Texas case, as the President has told them to do,” tweet­ed Rick Hasen, a law pro­fes­sor at the University of California, Irvine. “But we are in bad shape as a coun­try that 17 states could sup­port this shame­ful, anti-American fil­ing” by Texas and its attor­ney gen­er­al, Ken Paxton.
Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro has called Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court to over­turn elec­tion results in Shapiro’s state and three oth­ers (“a sedi­tious abuse of the judi­cial process”).

More than 120 Republican mem­bers of Congress have asked the supreme court to bar four states from cast­ing elec­toral votes for for­mer Vice President Joe Biden, even though every last one of them knew unequiv­o­cal­ly that the Biden/​Harris tick­et won the elec­tions fair and square and by the same mar­gin that Donald Trump claimed a land­slide a mere four years ago. Yet they asked the Supreme Court to over­turn the elec­tions and chose a dement­ed auto­crat instead, there­by destroy­ing over two hun­dred and forty years of Democratic rule in America.
This is the kind of activ­i­ty that gets politi­cians round­ed up and impris­oned in oth­er nations as they should be. It is incon­ceiv­able that any per­son who took an oath to uphold the Constitution would act against the same Constitution with such bla­tant treach­ery, and be allowed to retain their priv­i­leged posi­tions of pub­lic service.
Given enough lever­age, the Republican Party in its present state, will col­lec­tive­ly betray the Constitution with­out bat­ting an eye.
Every mem­ber of this trea­so­nous bunch must for­ev­er be held up to pub­lic ridicule, and be sub­ject­ed to what­ev­er oth­er reme­dies exist in law, for the sedi­tious acts against the American democracy.

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Mike Beckles is a for­mer Police Detective, busi­ness­man, free­lance writer, a black achiev­er hon­oree, and pub­lish­er of the blog mike​beck​les​.com. 
He’s con­tributed to sev­er­al websites.
You may sub­scribe to his blogs, or sub­scribe to his Youtube chan­nel @chatt-a-box, for the lat­est videos.

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“40 Years A Prisoner” Confronts The Police We’re Supposed To Trust “telling Bold-faced Lies”

By D Watkins.
Mike Africa, Jr., who was born in prison, appeared on “Salon Talks” to dis­cuss MOVE and free­ing his parents

Eight-year-old me could­n’t imag­ine not see­ing my dad’s smil­ing face on Christmas morn­ing, or draw­ing my mom a car­toon-filled card cov­ered in thank yous for Mother’s Day, or the thou­sands of oth­er mem­o­ries small kids get to share with their par­ents. These types of mem­o­ries make up the foun­da­tion of our tra­di­tions and are the things that we pass down to our kids. Mike Africa Jr., who was born in prison, was robbed of the chance of cre­at­ing those in-per­son mem­o­ries with his par­ents. The Philadelphia police depart­ment forced him to fig­ure out life on his own.

Africa Jr.‘s jour­ney is bril­liant­ly relat­ed in the new HBO doc­u­men­tary film, “40 Years a Prisoner,” direct­ed by Tommy Oliver and avail­able now on HBO Max. Featuring an all-star ensem­ble of pro­duc­ers includ­ing The Roots, Common, and John Legend, “40 Years A Prisoner” is a com­pelling film about the hor­rors of America’s crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem. The sto­ry begins in 1978 when Philadelphia police raid­ed MOVE, a back to nature orga­ni­za­tion based on love, among oth­er peace­ful prin­ci­ples. Africa’s par­ents, two MOVE mem­bers, were arrest­ed dur­ing that raid on trumped-up charges and con­vict­ed before he was born. In the film, Oliver doc­u­ments Africa Jr.‘s life pur­suit of free­ing his par­ents, along with oth­er MOVE mem­bers, and a decades-long bat­tle with the Philadelphia police depart­ment. I recent­ly got a chance to talk with Africa Jr. and Oliver about the film on an episode of “Salon Talks.”
Read the sto­ry here: https://​www​.salon​.com/​2​0​2​0​/​1​2​/​1​0​/​4​0​-​y​e​a​r​s​-​a​-​p​r​i​s​o​n​e​r​-​m​i​k​e​-​a​f​r​i​c​a​-​j​r​-​t​o​m​m​y​-​o​l​i​v​e​r​-​s​a​l​o​n​-​t​a​l​ks/

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Black Man, 22, Shot Dead By Police In Texas

Joshua Feast, a res­i­dent of La Marque, Texas, was shot and killed by police on Wednesday. ABC 13 reports that La Marque Police had tar­get­ed feast as a per­son who may have been con­nect­ed to a pre­vi­ous shoot­ing in the area.

The shoot­ing took place in front of Feast’s uncle’s home, where he had been stay­ing. According to a neigh­bor, a police car drove up, then made a U‑turn back towards the house after pass­ing it and called out to Feast. At the time, the neigh­bor stat­ed that Feast, 22, was mov­ing a car after speak­ing with his child’s moth­er when the cop called his name out. The neigh­bor told ABC 13 that the offi­cer offered no help to Feast after he was shot. “I came out­side and over­heard the offi­cer say­ing, ‘Talk to me, Josh. Talk to me, talk to me.’ As if he sees him fad­ing away with­out try­ing to ren­der aid or at least help him.”

According to Click 2 Houston News, the offi­cer, iden­ti­fied as Jose Santos, shot Feast after he exit­ed his vehi­cle and start­ed to run. Feast’s uncle says he was hit in the back. The Galveston County Daily News says that offi­cer Santos has been put on admin­is­tra­tive leave. The Galveston County Sheriff’s Office is now inves­ti­gat­ing the shoot­ing. Chief Deputy Darrell Isaacks report­ed that Feast might have had a weapon on him when he was shot. La Marque Police Chief Kirk Jackson says that offi­cer Santos was inves­ti­gat­ing gun­shots heard in that area pre­vi­ous­ly and that Feast had been seen in the area and was a per­son of inter­est in the on-going inves­ti­ga­tion. La Marque Mayor Pro Tem Keith Bell, also made a state­ment regard­ing the shooting:

“It is def­i­nite­ly a sad day in our com­mu­ni­ty. I also want­ed to say that this is a tragedy to our com­mu­ni­ty as well. I do not believe that there is any mem­ber of our com­mu­ni­ty that would not call this a tragedy sim­ply because a young per­son in our com­mu­ni­ty, in our city, has lost their life unexpectedly.”
This sto­ry orig­i­nat­ed at Grio​.com.

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RIP Big Homie…

Stars are shar­ing trib­utes to pro-wrestler-turned-actor Tommy “Tiny” Lister, who passed away on Wednesday at the age of 62.

“RIP Tiny ‘Deebo’ Lister,” Ice Cube tweet­ed about his friend and co-star in Friday, the 1995 now-clas­sic com­e­dy. “America’s favorite bul­ly was a born enter­tain­er who would pop into char­ac­ter at the drop of a hat ter­ri­fy­ing peo­ple on and off-cam­era. Followed by a big smile and laugh. Thank you for being a good dude at heart. I miss you already.

I’m ded­i­cat­ing my page today as a Tribute to my close friend, ‘Tiny Lister’ aka Debo, aka Zeus, aka Cleatus… Gone far to (sic) soon. Rest easy Big Homie. Love U,” Ice‑T wrote.

“Rest In Peace to my good friend of over 30 years, Tommy ‘Tiny’ Lister. Sending prayer to his fam­i­ly and loved ones,” wrote Earvin “Magic” Johnson, who appeared with Lister in the icon­ic 1992 music video for Michael Jackson’s “Remember the Time.J.D. Witherspoon, son of late actor John Witherspoon, who also starred with Lister in Friday, said, “Rest In Peace Tiny Lister, my Dad always enjoyed work­ing with you. Take care of each oth­er up there. #RIPDeebo.”“Tiny Lister RIP. Such a sweet fun­ny man. He will be ter­ri­bly missed,” wrote Adam Sandler, who cast Lister in his 2000 com­ic-fan­ta­sy, Little Nicky.“Most of you remem­ber him best as Deebo. But my first and fond­est mem­o­ries of Tiny Lister was when he was Zeus and wrecked Hulk Hogan. #RIP,” wrote jour­nal­ist Andreas Hale. 

Content pro­duc­er Josiah Johnson not­ed that Lister always showed love to his native Los Angeles.

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Two Intellectually-challenged Racists Who Set America On A Collision Course With Itself…

The last four years have been a stress-test on the foun­da­tion of American Democracy.
The Trump Administration has arguably pushed the enve­lope on every square inch­ing of the process, to see what rule he could breach, what law he could break to enrich and fur­ther empow­er him­self and his children.
It is aston­ish­ing how he planned the whole thing and exe­cut­ed it to a “T.” When it became clear that there was one both­er­some lit­tle detail he had not thought through, (the pow­er of the vot­ers), he out­right pushed every square inch of the process to throw out two hun­dred and fifty years of process and make him­self a King.
It was a mas­ter­piece of a plan that seemed designed to upend the American process that has been in exis­tence for well over two hun­dred years, counter it with a Monarchistic sys­tem that the first set­tlers here, and the first pres­i­dent eschewed as anti­thet­i­cal to their ideals.

Donald Trump may not be bright, but if he devised the plan he exe­cut­ed over the last four years, I would rethink my assess­ment of his intel­lec­tu­al capabilities.
♦Leveling racist invec­tives at peo­ple of col­or, unearthing and incit­ing old racist attitudes.
♦Galvanizing a cult fol­low­ing that allowed him to do any­thing he want­ed by doing the first.
♦Weaponizing the cult-fol­low­ing against any­one who dared to oppose him.
♦Chasing dis­senters from the Republican par­ty, neu­ter­ing those who chose to stay.
♦Packing the courts with polit­i­cal lack­eys, many of who have been deemed gross­ly unqual­i­fied by the ABA.
♦Politicizing Government Agencies that ought to oper­ate out­side polit­i­cal inter­fer­ence, à la the Justice Department.
♦Refusing to have Senate appoint­ed cab­i­net, and oth­er picks, opt­ing for act­ing heads instead, more eas­i­ly manipulated.
♦Supporting and encour­ag­ing vio­lent white Nationalist Militias.
♦Continuing to sow dis­cord and divi­sion across racial groups.
♦Encouraging the Police, who are already hat­ed for their bru­tal­i­ty, to bru­tal­ize fur­ther and kill peo­ple of color.
♦Preaching America first, play­ing into American’s arro­gance about their exceptionalism.
♦Isolating America from tra­di­tion­al allies that believe in the rule of law and justice.
♦Cozying up to strong­men and dictators.
♦Etc.….…

Sarah Palin

If you believe that Donald Trump devised these strate­gies inde­pen­dent­ly, you may need to rethink your assess­ment of him.
Whether these strate­gies were giv­en to him after he was ele­vat­ed to the Presidency or whether they were giv­en to him after­ward is cer­tain­ly not a ques­tion that may be answered at my pay grade.
What is clear, is that these strate­gies have been designed cat­e­gor­i­cal­ly to tear down the estab­lished order and replace it with some­thing else.
Speaking at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in 2017, White House chief strate­gist Steve Bannon said that Trump’s cab­i­net picks were intend­ed to “decon­struct the admin­is­tra­tive state,” mean­ing weak­en­ing reg­u­la­to­ry agen­cies and oth­er bureau­crat­ic entities.
When peo­ple speak, we need to pay atten­tion and take them seri­ous­ly. If Government Agencies are weak­ened, it makes it eas­i­er for a total takeover by a chief exec­u­tive that does not believe in the rule of law, and that is exact­ly what Donald Trump did.
Battered, bruised, and bleed­ing, the coun­try’s checks and bal­ances seem to be hold­ing against the onslaught, but just barely.
In Pennsylvania, cer­ti­fy­ing offi­cers loy­al to the Republican par­ty were on the brink of vio­lat­ing their oaths to the con­sti­tu­tion by refus­ing to cer­ti­fy the vote, to cur­ry favor with a dan­ger­ous would-be wannabe dictator.
Members of the Republican Party in the US House and Senate have tak­en steps to help Donald Trump per­pet­u­ate the lie that the elec­tion was rigged even though all of them knew damn well that the elec­tions were prob­a­bly the fairest one in the his­to­ry of the nation. Even though over a month has passed since the National elec­tions were held, many of those Republicans have stead­fast­ly refused to refer to Joe Biden as President-elect.

Donald Trump

Others have made them­selves par­ty to friv­o­lous law­suits that have been filed on Trump’s behalf with the sole intent of over­turn­ing the will of the peo­ple and installing in pow­er; instead, a dement­ed, nar­cis­sis­tic sociopath.
His sup­port­ers have called for the exe­cu­tion of the duly elect­ed Democratic Governor of Michigan. They have called for the quar­ter­ing and mur­der of the cyber­se­cu­ri­ty Tzar who over­saw elec­tion secu­ri­ty; his only crime has been to do his job well.
Other elec­tion offi­cials, includ­ing Georgia’s Republican Secretary of State, have been threat­ened with death for not throw­ing out votes and giv­ing Trump the election.
There have been more than enough Republicans who are more than will­ing to destroy the coun­try’s very foun­da­tions to gain and hold polit­i­cal pow­er by and large.
And so we must ask our­selves, why has it been so easy for Trump to har­ness the pow­er of that griev­ance class?
What is the gal­va­niz­ing pow­er that made Donald Trump, Racist, fake bil­lion­aire, con-artiste, wom­an­iz­ing phi­lan­der, a misog­y­nis­tic xeno­phobe, so effec­tive in con­trol­ling almost a hun­dred mil­lion peo­ple who are will­ing to allow him to steal what­ev­er he wants, destroy what­ev­er he wants, and even kill whomev­er he wants, and remain in power?
The next Dictator that the Republican par­ty throws at the coun­try will not fail. Already they are busy decon­struct­ing the most fun­da­men­tal ele­ment of Democracy, the right of cit­i­zens to vote freely and with­out intimidation.
They have sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly put judges on the high­est courts who do not believe that all peo­ple should have the right to vote.
Republican Governors have set about clos­ing down ear­ly vot­ing sites across their states, and lim­it­ing vot­ing to only a few sites in places that have large black and brown populations.
Additionally, they engage in out­ra­geous­ly grotesque ger­ry­man­dered con­gres­sion­al dis­tricts, some­thing they will be back at, hav­ing won a major­i­ty of state­hous­es across the country.
At the high­est court, the Republican major­i­ty in Shelby County VS Holder, all but evis­cer­at­ed the 1965 vot­ing rights Act, on the premise that it has out­lived its usefulness.
The assault against the demo­c­ra­t­ic process has been unprece­dent­ed in my life­time. It is shock­ing to see the lev­el of assault being lev­eled at the process.
The next Republican that comes along and decides to become king will be successful.

In the next arti­cle, we will exam­ine how racial set-asides have char­ac­ter­ized every aspect of American life and has now result­ed in the illog­i­cal griev­ances in some whites that gave rise to the likes of Sarah Palin and Donald Trump. The two intel­lec­tu­al­ly-chal­lenged pop­ulists have man­aged to ignite and har­ness white griev­ance in a way that scares even Republicans.

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Mike Beckles is a for­mer Police Detective, busi­ness­man, free­lance writer, a black achiev­er hon­oree, and pub­lish­er of the blog mike​beck​les​.com. 
He’s con­tributed to sev­er­al websites.
You may sub­scribe to his blogs, or sub­scribe to his Youtube chan­nel @chatt-a-box, for the lat­est videos.

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Violent Crimes Escalate, Leaders Vacillate

As another year draws to a close, Jamaica is once again saddled with the dubious distinction of being one of the most violent places to live on this planet.
We must examine ourselves with clear-eyes and figure out whether the violence may be attributed to Jamaicans having a greater propensity for violence, as against whether people commit crimes because they believe with a high degree of certainty, that there will be no consequences for their actions, even if they are caught?

I think both sce­nar­ios are true; I also believe that the lat­ter con­trols the for­mer, but there is a lack of will to do what is necessary.
Additionally, Jamaican author­i­ties act as though our laws have to pass muster with the American, Canadian, and British Embassy.
Their con­tin­ued feal­ty and docile sub­servience to their old colo­nial mas­ters have great­ly ham­pered the nation’s crime-fight­ing efforts, even as those coun­tries leg­is­late and exe­cute their poli­cies with­out care or con­cern about what any oth­er nation thinks, least of all Jamaica.
The United States State Department is quick to judge how oth­er nations enforce their laws, even as the United States has one of the worse records in law enforce­ment and human rights.
On the one hand, American made guns con­tin­ue to flood the Island unabat­ed, yet on the oth­er, the United States rou­tine­ly issues alarm­ing [trav­el advi­sories] when those guns are used in vio­lent acts.
The United States can­not have it both ways, and the larg­er ques­tion remains, why is Jamaica act­ing as if it is the 51st state of the United States anyway?

As for Canada and Great Britain, why we care what they think is a mys­tery to me? Please enlight­en me, someone!
The sad real­i­ty, is that Jamaica has become like the man accom­pa­nied by his son, who took his Donkey to sell it.
The hap­less man lis­tened to every com­ment peo­ple passed made; he even end­ed up tieing up the don­key and car­ry­ing it between him and his young son.
Jamaica is either a sov­er­eign nation, or it isn’t. As a nation that has to fend for itself like every oth­er, we have the right to deter­mine autonomous­ly, how we leg­is­late, and effec­tu­ate policies.
We bor­row mon­ey like every­one else; how­ev­er, as a large­ly Black coun­try, Jamaica does not receive the aid that oth­er small­er nations receive from the big pow­ers that like to push their agen­das on us.
The state of Israel rose out of the desert in 1947; Jamaica gained it’s [so-called inde­pen­dence] in 1962; Jamaica has few­er than 3 mil­lion cit­i­zens. Conversely, the state of Israel has a pop­u­la­tion of 8.884 mil­lion as of (2018).
Israel is a nuclear-armed, nation that sets pol­i­cy in the mid­dle east.
It is so because the same pow­ers to whom Jamaica is heav­i­ly indebt­ed, the same pow­ers that like to dic­tate to Jamaica what is right and wrong, have fund­ed Israel’s growth even as they turn a blind eye to its war crimes across the mid­dle east from its inception.

No nation should sur­ren­der its auton­o­my to anoth­er because it bor­rows mon­ey from that oth­er coun­try. However, as the Bible teach­es, the bor­row­er is a slave to the lender, which is what Jamaica has become, a slave to America and oth­ers from which it con­tin­ues to borrow.
The sad truth is that the nations that dic­tate to Jamaica how it may enforce its laws, know full well the con­se­quences of crime to jamaica’s economy.
As I have said repeat­ed­ly, it is up to Jamaica to see through these big pow­ers’ strat­e­gy. A nation engulfed in crime is a nation that can­not ful­fill its poten­tial. A nation that can­not ful­fill it’s poten­tial is a nation that will for­ev­er be a debtor nation.
As a nation, Jamaica must stop being pre­ten­tious; we are not a Scandavanian nation; we must deal with our vio­lent killers in deci­sive ways, and end the pre­ten­tious appease­ment policies.
A nation that nego­ti­ates with, and begs vio­lent mur­der­ers to obey its laws is a nation that has sur­ren­dered to terror.
Some branch­es of the Jamaican Government has all but become lob­by­ing firms for the Island’s most vio­lent crim­i­nals, none more so than the so-called Justice Ministry, and the tax-pay­er paid Minister who heads that Ministry.

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Mike Beckles is a for­mer Police Detective, busi­ness­man, free­lance writer, a black achiev­er hon­oree, and pub­lish­er of the blog mike​beck​les​.com. 
He’s con­tributed to sev­er­al websites.
You may sub­scribe to his blogs, or sub­scribe to his Youtube chan­nel @chatt-a-box, for the lat­est videos.

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Black Detroit Lawmaker Receives Racist Threats For Refusing To Entertain Widespread Voter Fraud Claims

By Zack Linly.

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: Trump sup­port­ers are racist.

Some peo­ple might call the state­ment debat­able or even an out­right lie, but any­one who can sup­port a man who con­stant­ly proves him­self to be a xeno­phobe and hater of all things Black Lives Matter is no dif­fer­ent from their cult leader in my book. Besides, when push comes to shove, they always show their true col­ors (and their hatred for peo­ple of true color).

A Detroit Democratic law­mak­er found this out the hard way after she took part in a more than four-hour-long hear­ing with the House Oversight Committee last week in which Trump attor­ney and Danny DeVito’s Penguin cos­play­er Rudy Giuliani brought out a bunch of so-called “wit­ness­es” to regur­gi­tate all of the claims of wide­spread vot­er fraud that have been dis­missed by judges, debunked by legal experts and denounced by elec­tion offi­cials — not to men­tion the fact that even Attorney General William Barr said there’s no evi­dence to sup­port the non­sense, accord­ing to the Department of Justice.

Fox 2 Detroit reports that Rep. Cynthia Johnson, the Democratic chair of Michigan’s House Oversight Committee and one of three Democrats who par­tic­i­pat­ed in the sham-ass hear­ing, said she received mul­ti­ple voice­mails in which dis­grun­tled and delu­sion­al Trump sup­port­ers threat­ened her and essen­tial­ly said she should be lynched. Johnson shared one of the voice­mails to her Facebook page in which a very angry white woman can be heard call­ing her a “big-lip nigger.”

“Honey, how dare you bul­ly wit­ness­es on the stand,” KKK Karen said. “Your name and phone num­ber are out there now. You should be swing­ing from a fuck­ing rope you Democrat.”

Dems are going down, espe­cial­ly big-lip nig­gers like you,” she continued.

Sidenote: I’m not sure why racists still think “big-lip” is an insult to Black peo­ple con­sid­er­ing the fact that rich white women all over America are botox-ing the fuck out of their mouths in an attempt to emu­late the look, but whatever.

So what did Johnson do exact­ly to draw such ire? Well, as far as I can tell, all she did was call out the bullshit.

According to the Detroit News, none of the wit­ness­es who claimed to have seen nefar­i­ous activ­i­ties at the TCF Center — where Detroit’s absen­tee bal­lots were count­ed — were sworn in under oath before giv­ing their tes­ti­mo­ny, and Johnson right­ful­ly took issue with that.

“You’re allow­ing peo­ple to come in here and lie. And I know they’re lying,” Johnson said dur­ing the hearing.

Fortunately, Johnson appears to be most­ly unboth­ered by the white non­sense. In anoth­er Facebook post, she shared screen­shots of what she said is “only a sam­ple” of the phone calls she’s got­ten since the hearing.

“I just want all these peo­ple to know I’m not chang­ing my num­ber,” Johnson cap­tioned the post. “And with tech­nol­o­gy, you know I share!”

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Zack Linly is a poet, per­former, free­lance writer, blog­ger, and grown man lover of cartoons.

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The Untouchables: An Investigation Into The Violence Of The Chicago Police

Why does the department protect its most dangerous cops while retaliating against officers who tell the truth?

Usually, that kid clomp­ing down his mother’s porch is a trac­tor beam of charm. On the South Side of Chicago, where Gangster Disciples shoot the Black Disciples over slights and side-eyed infrac­tions, nobody seems to has­sle Calvin Cross — he’s too much fun to be around. He does a thou­sand voic­es, and all of them are fun­ny, from 50 Cent impres­sions to Dave Chappelle to the cast of Diff’rent Strokes. Every night, he calls his girl­friend, Tunoka Jett, to tell her he loves and miss­es her — and to some­times sing to her that dopey song from Dirty Dancing. “You can’t nev­er be down when you’re around him,” Tunoka says. “He’ll just keep at you and at you till you laugh.” Tonight, though, Calvin’s high beams are dimmed a bit: It’s the day after Memorial Day, and he’s stuffed on BBQ. He’s on the couch drows­ing through a Mavs-Heat game when his homie wakes him up to go hang out. Calvin doesn’t have friends so much as eager wing­men. “My cra­zi­est times with females hap­pened offa him,” says Myles Gardner, his day-one bestie at Harlan High School. “Once he showed that smile to a girl, it’s a wrap — then I’d swoop in on her home­girl.” Calvin’s got a baby boy due in the next five weeks, and all he talks about is how he’s going to spoil him. But Tunoka is a dean’s‑list stu­dent head­ed for col­lege, and Calvin’s 19 and, frankly, feel­ing him­self. He’s got too much game to set­tle down.

And so now he’s off to kick it with his pal Ryan, a guy he befriend­ed at Job Corps. The two teens walk up to 124th Street, head­ed around the cor­ner to meet some girls. But about halfway between Parnell and Wallace streets, a police car sud­den­ly screams to a halt beside them. Three cops pour out of it, dressed head to toe in black and point­ing semi-auto­mat­ics at them. Put your hands up, they scream; it’s dark; there’s a street­light on the cor­ner, but it’s bro­ken. Ryan stops and rais­es his hands. Calvin takes off run­ning. No one knows why he does this, though it’s easy enough to guess: He thinks he’s about to be killed.

Read more here; https://​www​.rolling​stone​.com/​c​u​l​t​u​r​e​/​c​u​l​t​u​r​e​-​f​e​a​t​u​r​e​s​/​c​h​i​c​a​g​o​-​p​o​l​i​c​e​-​r​a​c​i​s​m​-​v​i​o​l​e​n​c​e​-​h​i​s​t​o​r​y​-​1​0​8​8​5​59/

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Trump’s Outrageous Lies Used To Be Terrifying — Now They’re Just Pathetic

Still, we can glimpse a ray of hope in Trump’s swift meta­mor­pho­sis from a direct threat to democ­ra­cy to the butt of jokes about “mas­sive dumps.” There’s an impor­tant les­son here. Authoritarians can­not be shamed or rea­soned with, the way believ­ers in demo­c­ra­t­ic norms typ­i­cal­ly can be. There is no argu­ing author­i­tar­i­ans down, bar­gain­ing with them, or laugh­ing them away. But author­i­tar­i­ans do respond to pow­er. Power is how Trump was final­ly stopped and beat­en, and revealed as the small, strange man he always was. And pow­er is what it will take to stop the rise of American fascism.
Read Amanda Marcotte’s riv­et­ing Dec, 3rd Article here: https://​www​.salon​.com/​2​0​2​0​/​1​2​/​0​3​/​t​r​u​m​p​s​-​o​u​t​r​a​g​e​o​u​s​-​l​i​e​s​-​u​s​e​d​-​t​o​-​b​e​-​t​e​r​r​i​f​y​ing – now-theyre-just-pathetic/