Throughout the nego­ti­a­tions between the P5+1 and Iran, the divi­sion of roles was clear. Netanyahu and Israel played Bad Cop. Obama and Kerry were the Good Cops bear­ing car­rots. Back when the process was just get­ting under­way, this even worked. “If we don’t tight­en sanc­tions,” the Americans could say to their super­pow­er inter­locu­tors, “who knows what those ‘cra­zies’ in Jerusalem will do.”
In any nego­ti­a­tion, it helps to have a bad cop to point to and, of course, what role would any­one expect the prime min­is­ter of Israel to play in this negotiation?

But Netanyahu refused to take the American administration’s stage direc­tion and play a sup­port­ing role as a flash­light-wield­ing Mall Cop. Instead, he played it to the hilt, a Terminator: the mod­ern day destroy­er, armed to the teeth, run­ning red lights with­out see­ing what’s in front of him, and will­ing to pay a heavy price to achieve his sin­gle-mind­ed objective.

Unlike a Mall Cop, a Terminator is liable to coör­di­nate activ­i­ties with the Republicans, med­dle in US elec­tions, lec­ture President Obama in the Oval Office, allow his asso­ciates and offi­cial rep­re­sen­ta­tives in the US to leak infor­ma­tion against the US pres­i­dent, and even arrive in Washington unin­vit­ed in order to deliv­er a provoca­tive speech before Congress.

The Israeli pub­lic, by the way, evi­dent­ly prefers Netanyahu as a rag­ing Terminator, but even rage even­tu­al­ly has its lim­its. In diplo­mat­ic terms, Israel was the los­er in this bat­tle over the nuclear agree­ment. In nego­ti­a­tions, the true job of the bad cop is not to ter­mi­nate the talks, but rather to help the good cops get the best pos­si­ble deal.

When it came to the talks, we didn’t even count

In terms of the nuclear threat, Israel’s sit­u­a­tion is bet­ter than it was before the his­toric treaty was announced in Vienna. Instead of an Iran suf­fo­cat­ing under sanc­tions while per­sist­ing in its nuclear arms race, the Islamic Republic has now been accept­ed as a legit­i­mate mem­ber of the inter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty. We still face a ter­ror­ism-spon­sor­ing state out­spo­ken­ly hos­tile to Israel, but it’s a ter­ror­ism-spon­sor­ing state with­out a nuclear bomb in the fore­see­able future.

In con­trast, look where Israel now stands: We’re not even on the map. No one took us into account in the talks. The White House has already made clear that there will be a veto if need­ed to over­come any con­gres­sion­al action that obstructs exe­cu­tion of the agree­ment, and even before Netanyahu could respond in English, John Kerry com­plete­ly dis­missed his remarks, call­ing his crit­i­cism of the deal “way over the top.”

Kerry was try­ing to say that the bad cop with whom the US coop­er­at­ed at the out­set turned out to be a prophet of doom at best, or an out-of-con­trol Terminator at worst, one who can­not read the map correctly.

Many offi­cials in Jerusalem and in the secu­ri­ty estab­lish­ment here in Israel share this assess­ment. To out­siders they join the cho­rus bemoan­ing the dis­as­ter that befell us, but behind closed doors they talk about the alter­na­tive that nev­er came to be, about Israel’s increas­ing iso­la­tion, and pri­mar­i­ly about why Israel should not sac­ri­fice its fore­most strate­gic asset – its rela­tions with the United States – pre­cise­ly when we have absorbed a blow vis-à-vis Iran.

Obama’s lesson in leadership

While the Israeli government’s Security Cabinet is busy declar­ing that Israel is not com­mit­ted to the agree­ment, and gov­ern­ment min­is­ters are encour­ag­ing their col­leagues in the oppo­si­tion to attack the agree­ment in English and storm Capitol Hill, it seems all the talk about bunker-bust­ing bombs and secret under­ground facil­i­ties is keep­ing the new real­i­ty from breach­ing the Prime Minister’s Office and adja­cent Cabinet con­fer­ence room.

There is an agree­ment. Six super­pow­ers have signed it. The American pub­lic sup­ports it. Democratic con­gress­men are also politi­cians, and they will not oppose the pres­i­dent as they approach an elec­tion year. There is an oppor­tu­ni­ty to get anoth­er defense pack­age. And, believe it or not, a win­dow of oppor­tu­ni­ty has just opened for a polit­i­cal ini­tia­tive lead­ing to a new region­al order in the Middle East.

There is also room to reflect on the man­ner in which we read the map and the glob­al bal­ance of pow­er through­out this peri­od. Indeed, despite the sanc­tions and dire warn­ings of a loom­ing holo­caust, under Netanyahu’s watch Iran reached a point at which it is three months away from a nuclear bomb. There are always dan­gers. But per­haps rather than insult­ing the American pres­i­dent and accus­ing him of naiveté and lack of under­stand­ing regard­ing the Middle East, we should try to learn some­thing from him with respect to his approach as a leader.

Barack Obama was elect­ed because he offered hope and change, and he cur­rent­ly enjoys rel­a­tive­ly high sup­port rat­ings because he is final­ly offer­ing div­i­dends as well. Meanwhile here in Israel, we have a lead­er­ship that plays up fears and promis­es to defend us against tomor­row, while neglect­ing oth­er press­ing items on today’s agenda.

The real choice fac­ing the Israeli pub­lic is whom to believe and whether we will throw our lot in with the seem­ing­ly naïve West, which prefers cre­ative diplo­ma­cy and chang­ing hori­zons over anoth­er war, or go it alone and hun­ker down in our admit­ted­ly dif­fi­cult neigh­bor­hood, depend pri­mar­i­ly on force and announce to the world that we have the pow­er to defend our­selves, even if that means that we march alone in this bat­tle – all the way to the top of Mount Masada, if it once again comes to that.

MONTEGO BAY, St James — Security Minister Peter Bunting rushed to St James yes­ter­day for a hasti­ly arranged tour fol­low­ing a bloody 24 hours in the crime-hit parish dur­ing which six peo­ple were shot and killed. Bunting, fol­low­ing the tour, told reporters that more police per­son­nel would be deployed in St James by the end of the week to help com­bat crime in the west­ern parish, which the police believe is being fuelled by the ongo­ing lot­tery scam. Curfews are also to be imposed in sec­tions of the parish by the police.The tour­ing par­ty includ­ed mem­bers of the Jamaica Defence Force and Police Area One, head­ed by Assistant Commissioner Paul Ferguson, and oth­er mem­bers of the top brass of the St James Police Division.

Five of the deceased have so far been iden­ti­fied. They are:

* 62-year-old Phillip Campbell and his nephew, 42-year-old Kevin Campbell, both of Matches Lane, Rose Heights;

* 42-year- old craft ven­dor Elizabeth Joy Robinson, of Ocho Rios, St Ann;

* 42-year- old David Dilbert, of Norwood in the parish; and

* 31-year-old Patrick Williams, also of Norwood.

The lat­est killing took place at 4:45 yes­ter­day morn­ing when Robinson was shot in the head by a gun­man while she was prepar­ing to set up craft items for dis­play at the Harbour Street Craft Market. A man who was shot and injured dur­ing the attack was tak­en to hos­pi­tal where he was admit­ted. Two hours before that, Campbell and his nephew were shot and killed by gun­men at their gate as they drove home with a female com­pan­ion. The woman, police said, man­aged to escape unhurt. Meanwhile, about 9:45 Thursday night res­i­dents heard explo­sions in the Norwood com­mu­ni­ty fol­low­ing which Williams and Dilbert were found suf­fer­ing from gun­shot wounds. They were pro­nounced dead at hos­pi­tal. More than 120 mur­ders have been report­ed in the St James Police Division since the start of the year, mak­ing it one of the blood­i­est of the coun­try’s 14 parishes.
Story Originated here: Six killed as gun­men go on ram­page in west­ern parish

KINGSTON, Jamaica — United States Ambassador to Jamaica Luis Moreno in a state­ment issued Thursday after­noon expressed con­do­lence to the fam­i­ly of police Constable Crystal Thompson, who was gunned down Tuesday night while on her way home from work.

See full state­ment below:

On behalf of the United States Mission to Jamaica, I wish to extend our deep and sin­cere con­do­lences to the fam­i­ly and col­leagues of Constable Crystal Thomas, who lost her life in the line of duty on July 14^th. Constable Thomas’ brav­ery and quick action saved many lives and demon­strat­ed her ded­i­ca­tion to her coun­try and to pro­tect­ing her fel­low cit­i­zens. At twen­ty-four years old, she exem­pli­fied the code of the Jamaica Constabulary Force: Serve, Protect and Reassure. Everyday law enforce­ment offi­cers across Jamaica step into the line of duty. I com­mend these offi­cers and know they will con­tin­ue to car­ry their duties pro­fes­sion­al­ly and just­ly. Tragically, all too many offi­cers as well as every­day Jamaicans have lost their lives to this sense­less vio­lence. The United States Embassy stands with the peo­ple and Government of Jamaica against these law­less criminals.

The police have recov­ered the ser­vice weapon of slain Police Constable Crystal Thomas, who was shot and killed last night by gunmen.

This was con­firmed a short while ago by the head of the Major Investigation Task Force, Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Dean Taylor.

Taylor, how­ev­er, declined to say where the firearm was recov­ered, stat­ing that he did not want to jeop­ar­dise the fast-mov­ing probe.

This is the sec­ond fire­man recov­ered in rela­tion to the attack on Constable Thomas.

Both firearms will be sent to the gov­ern­ment foren­sic lab­o­ra­to­ry for testing.

Meanwhile, National Security Minister Peter Bunting is cur­rent­ly at the Denham Town Police Station meet­ing with mem­bers of the senior man­age­ment team, includ­ing head of the West Kingston Police Division SSP Cornwall ‘Bigga’ Ford.

READ: Bunting, Holness con­demn police­wom­an’s killing

The Gleaner/​Power 106 News Centre also under­stands that Police Commissioner Dr Carl Williams is now on his way to St Catherine to meet with rel­a­tives of the slain con­sta­ble. Read more here :Police Recover Slain Woman Constable’s Firearm

The U.S. allows Tehran to keep its nuclear pro­gram with the secret hope that America’s foe will become a friend.
Both Iran and the United States essen­tial­ly got what they want­ed from the 159-page nuclear deal agreed upon Tuesday in Vienna.

The Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s gains were more tan­gi­ble than President Barack Obama’s. The Supreme Leader got sig­nif­i­cant sanc­tions relief for his ail­ing econ­o­my, the launch pad for Iran to become a more for­mi­da­ble Mideast pow­er. Mr. Obama stretched Iran’s nuclear break­out time from a few months to over a year with strength­ened inspec­tion rights. But accord­ing to top admin­is­tra­tion offi­cials, Mr. Obama has always been after some­thing much big­ger than cap­ping Iran’s nuclear pro­gram, and he got it — the strate­gic oppor­tu­ni­ty to begin con­vert­ing Iran from foe to “friend.” Iranian nego­tia­tors under­stood well what’s been dri­ving the U.S. pres­i­dent, and they have used the prospect of becom­ing “a friend” as their best bar­gain­ing card. For over a year now in small pri­vate con­ver­sa­tions and strolls, they have been paint­ing rosy pic­tures of Iranian-American coöperation.

The Iranian list of pos­si­bil­i­ties goes to most of Washington’s prin­ci­pal wor­ries about the broad Middle East. They would step up their fight­ing along­side Iraqi troops to com­bat the so-called Islamic State (ISIS or ISIL) in cen­tral Iraq. And they would do much more in Syria to go after the head­quar­ters and main forces that ISIS has there. They spoke of find­ing “solu­tions” to the civ­il war in Yemen between Sunnis and Iran-backed Shiites. They raised hopes of forg­ing bet­ter rela­tions with America’s “part­ners” in the Gulf. They pressed the idea of renew­ing the coöper­a­tion they once had with the U.S. fight­ing the Taliban at the begin­ning of the Afghan war. However, they said lit­tle or noth­ing about Lebanon, so as not to jeop­ar­dize the strong posi­tion there of their Hezbollah allies, or about their back­ing of Hamas in Gaza. And U.S. diplo­mats couldn’t get any­thing pos­i­tive from them about Israel, the coun­try that feels great­ly threat­ened by Iran and fer­vent­ly oppos­es any nuclear agree­ment with Tehran. But nei­ther did Iranian diplo­mats close these doors. To a large seg­ment of for­eign pol­i­cy spe­cial­ists and diplo­mats, such strate­gic open­ings are the very stuff of diplo­ma­cy, the real basis for reduc­ing con­flict and dan­ger between nations, for putting the use of nuclear weapons into the back­ground. But it seems for most politi­cians and leg­is­la­tors in Congress, these per­spec­tives are too iffy and in the case of Iran, naïve.

Congressional oppo­nents will be look­ing for any rea­sons, any excus­es, to oppose the Vienna deal.
So, as Republican Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Sunday, the deal will be a “hard sell” in Congress. And these oppo­nents won’t be moved by the fact that the vast major­i­ty of Iranians seek close rela­tions with the U.S. — just as they closed their eyes to pop­u­lar wish­es in Mr. Obama’s open­ing to Cuba. Besides, crit­ics just don’t buy the idea that Iran’s rul­ing cler­gy and the Revolutionary Guard will sur­ren­der inter­nal pow­er to any­one, let alone the pro-Western major­i­ty, or mod­i­fy anti-American and anti-Israeli policies.

With Iran’s more than 30 years of back­ing its own ter­ror­ists and threat­en­ing American friends in the Mideast, con­gres­sion­al oppo­nents will be look­ing for any rea­sons, any excus­es, to oppose the Vienna deal. If the past is pro­logue, few leg­is­la­tors will actu­al­ly read the long and com­plex doc­u­ment. Instead they will rely on like-mind­ed staffers and experts to rein­force their own prej­u­dices. (And for­tu­nate­ly for them, the press won’t ask them hard ques­tions to reveal their ignorance.)
Here will be the main lines of oppo­si­tion: First, the White House orig­i­nal­ly promised it would total­ly elim­i­nate Iran’s nuclear pro­gram. Essentially true. But it was a dumb promise. There was no chance Iran would agree to this — none — then or now. And notice that vir­tu­al­ly all those who want­ed Iran to give up all nukes nev­er made remote­ly sim­i­lar demands when it came to North Korea’s nuclear pro­gram and most­ly just bit their tongues as Pakistan crossed the nuclear thresh­old on its way to build­ing almost 150 nuclear weapons today. It has to be asked, who is more like­ly to use nukes — North Korea, Pakistan, or Iran? Most experts pick Pakistan first, then North Korea. Second, crit­ics will argue that Iran con­tin­ues its sup­port of ter­ror­ists and efforts to over­throw Israel and the Gulf states. Also true. Of course, Iran con­tin­ues to dam­age American inter­ests, but these talks are about slow­ing its climb toward nuclear weapons, not instant­ly set­tling steamy Mideast problems.

Third, the crit­ics say the U.S. could have had its way with the mul­lahs had Mr. Obama only stran­gled the Iranian econ­o­my with more sanc­tions. There are only a cou­ple of prob­lems with this argu­ment. One is that no nation, includ­ing those far weak­er eco­nom­i­cal­ly than Iran, has ever capit­u­lat­ed after eco­nom­ic sanc­tions. Notice Russia, Cuba, and North Korea. And two, while Iran’s econ­o­my is hurt­ing, almost all experts agree that it is nowhere near crum­bling. Recent stud­ies by con­ser­v­a­tive out­lets such as the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and The Economist demon­strate just that. Iran has the 17^th-largest econ­o­my in the world. Its growth has slowed in the face of sanc­tions, but it still man­ages, and it has also held up well enough in the face of declin­ing oil and gas prices, the pro­ceeds of which account for 60 per­cent or so of Iran’s econ­o­my. As for the heart of the nuclear agree­ment— for cer­tain it is not per­fect, but it does rep­re­sent clear steps for­ward in hold­ing Tehran to account on its nuclear efforts. All pro­vi­sions regard­ing devel­op­ing ura­ni­um or plu­to­ni­um hold Iran way below where it is at present and where it’s been head­ed. These restric­tions aren’t every­thing, but they are far bet­ter than what exists with­out an agree­ment today — or what Iran could do tomorrow.

Inspection rights aren’t per­fect either, but they go far beyond present com­mit­ments under the Non-Proliferation Treaty. No inspec­tion rights in any arms con­trol treaty have ever been air tight. No coun­try, nei­ther Iran nor the U.S., would per­mit open-end­ed inspec­tions. The wor­ri­some pro­vi­sions per­tain to the lift­ing of sanc­tions. Counter to Tehran’s wish­es, they won’t be lift­ed all at once or all soon. A big chunk will be removed soon after the agree­ment is for­mal­ly approved, but then, the bulk of the sanc­tions by the U.S. and oth­ers will come off over the course of years. Some might not be lift­ed by the U.S. Congress for many, many years. A legit­i­mate wor­ry is that Iran will cheat or oth­er­wise not live up to the agreement’s oblig­a­tions, and that the sanc­tion­ing par­ties will let them get away with it. Indeed, China and Russia could look the oth­er way and prob­a­bly will. It’s also prob­a­ble that the oth­er sig­na­to­ries — Britain, France, Germany, and the European Union — won’t be tough in their respons­es to violations.

These con­cerns give real weight to the argu­ment that this agree­ment in its exe­cu­tion could allow Tehran to have its nuclear capac­i­ty and a much stronger econ­o­my as well. The only pro­tec­tion here would be for Washington to go to its nego­ti­at­ing part­ners now and try to tie down how they will deal with pos­si­ble vio­la­tions col­lec­tive­ly. If Paris, London, Moscow, Beijing, and Berlin can’t agree with Washington on com­mon strong actions at this point, they should real­ize they are jeop­ar­diz­ing con­gres­sion­al pas­sage of the deal that has tak­en all of them three years to nego­ti­ate. This col­lec­tive com­mit­ment by the five per­ma­nent mem­bers of the UN Security Council plus Germany is the best counter argu­ment to the crit­i­cism that Obama’s hope for a strate­gic open­ing to Tehran is a pipe dream.

This is the only way to show they won’t allow the great oppor­tu­ni­ty they have cre­at­ed to be sub­vert­ed in a way that makes Iran stronger while it cre­ates ever-greater prob­lems. Original sto­ry pub­lished here: http://​www​.thedai​ly​beast​.com/​a​r​t​i​c​l​e​s​/​2​0​1​5​/​0​7​/​1​4​/​t​h​e​-​i​r​a​n​-​d​e​a​l​-​s​-​m​i​s​s​i​n​g​-​i​n​g​r​e​d​i​e​n​t​.​h​tml

The National Security Minister Peter Bunting has apol­o­gised for con­tro­ver­sial com­ments he direct­ed at the Opposition while at a polit­i­cal event on Sunday. Bunting had likened some mem­bers of the Jamaica Labour Party to vul­tures who glee­ful­ly see every loss of life as an oppor­tu­ni­ty to gain polit­i­cal mileage. He had also described Opposition Spokesman on Security, Derrick Smith as being reject­ed, dis­card­ed and recy­cled as he was fired by for­mer Prime Minister Bruce Golding after sev­en months as National Security Minister. However, speak­ing in the Parliament this after­noon, Bunting said those remarks were harsh and incon­sis­tent with how he han­dles his portfolio.

Minister Peter Bunting over remarks Bunting made at Sunday’s People’s National Party (PNP) Eastern St Andrew con­stituen­cy meet­ing. However, Smith, the Opposition spokesman on nation­al secu­ri­ty, said that he will con­tin­ue to raise the issue of a 22 per cent increase in mur­ders this year, over the fig­ures for the same peri­od last year, and also con­tin­ue to coöper­ate with the min­is­ter on behalf of the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) in the fight against crime and vio­lence. “As we speak, 629 Jamaicans have lost their lives since the start of the year. This is ver­sus 515 for the cor­re­spond­ing peri­od last year. Shocking!” the Opposition spokesman com­ment­ed, as he addressed a press con­fer­ence at the JLP’s Belmont Road head­quar­ters in Kingston. He said that of the 19 police divi­sions across the island, 13 have mur­der fig­ures so far this year which are above last year’s fig­ures, at a lev­el of between two per cent and 180 per cent increase.

Smith said that his job is to con­tin­ue work­ing for the Jamaican peo­ple and the JLP for a change in that situation.

“And, if this means sit­ting with Mr Bunting time and time again, or any oth­er min­is­ter in this PNP Administration, I will do just that,” he said. However, he crit­i­cised Bunting’s sug­ges­tion that he had raised the issue of the mur­der rate when he was off the island — a com­ment the min­is­ter made on Sunday. He said that the Opposition could not have known that Bunting was off the island until its mem­bers were so informed, hav­ing ques­tioned the absence of a state­ment from the min­is­ter on the mur­der issue at last week’s sit­ting of the House. “He did­n’t issue a state­ment that he was not around, so how were we to know that Bunting was not in Jamaica? What we knew was that the mur­ders were run­ning away in his absence, because dur­ing the peri­od that he was absent 45 per­sons were killed,” Smith said. He not­ed that the min­is­ter had also accused him of using the crime fig­ures for polit­i­cal expe­di­en­cy, but said that this was not true, as his focus was always on crime and not politics.

“Mr Bunting went on to use a range of abu­sive lan­guage to describe the Opposition, but I am not going there. I need to focus on nation­al secu­ri­ty. I am not going down that road with Mr Bunting,” Smith insist­ed. Bunting admit­ted at Sunday’s polit­i­cal meet­ing that he had been off the island for some­time. However, nei­ther he nor his min­istry has giv­en any indi­ca­tion as to the rea­son for his absence. The Jamaica Observer con­tact­ed both the com­mu­ni­ca­tions direc­tor at his min­istry and his per­son­al assis­tant yes­ter­day in an effort to find out if the min­is­ter had been on vaca­tion, as was sug­gest­ed by Smith at yes­ter­day’s press brief­ing. However, while they both con­firmed that they were aware that he was off the island, they both said they were unaware of the rea­son for the trip dur­ing the two weeks. But, Gordon House con­firmed yes­ter­day evening that Bunting is to make a state­ment to the House of Representatives this after­noon. The state­ment is expect­ed to explain his absence from the island, and include his response to Smith’s charges on the soar­ing mur­der fig­ures. Read more here: I will not go down that road, Smith tells Bunting

Dear Editor,

In light of recent remarks by the National Security Minister Peter Bunting, the National Democratic Movement would like answers to the fol­low­ing sim­ple questions:

Is National Security Minister Bunting suf­fer­ing a melt­down or men­tal fatigue? His wild, angry, emo­tion­al out­burst over the week­end, as he lashed out at the Opposition spokesman for his min­istry, would sug­gest that all may not be well with him. Or is his taste­less, inap­pro­pri­ate rant and rave mere arro­gance as is typ­i­cal of the “dut­ty politricks” nor­mal­ly used by des­per­ate trib­al gang members?

Is he over­whelmed by the rigours, stress and chal­lenges involved in run­ning such a seri­ous port­fo­lio? Is shoot­ing the mes­sen­ger a good strat­e­gy at crime-fight­ing, or should he and his Administration focus on solu­tions to the coun­try’s spi­ralling crime prob­lem, par­tic­u­lar­ly on the heels of recent reports that Jamaica was ranked third most mur­der­ous coun­try in the world for 2014 and anoth­er report that a mem­ber of the ‘Klansman’ gang — which is known to sup­port the PNP — end­ed up as a part of the par­ty pres­i­dent and prime min­is­ter of Jamaica’s secu­ri­ty detail?

Is Bunting’s sub­stan­tive role and func­tion as a ser­vant for the Jamaican peo­ple his first duty and pri­or­i­ty? Or is it about mud-sling­ing and fight­ing, as car­ried by ‘hos­tile tribes per­pet­u­al­ly at war’, to keep his par­ty in power?

The NDM sup­ports the fol­low­ing pol­i­cy positions:

1. We pro­pose con­sti­tu­tion­al changes which would result in the “best minds form­ing the Cabinet” and not mere politi­cians and par­ty stal­warts who are not tech­ni­cal­ly com­pe­tent to han­dle com­plex mat­ters and the prop­er run­ning of the sub­stan­tive min­is­te­r­i­al portfolio.

2. That the Jamaica Constabulary Force be renamed the Jamaica Constabulary Service.

3. That the com­mis­sion­er of police report to a spe­cial com­mit­tee of Parliament, instead of the min­is­ter appoint­ed by any politician.

Peter Townsend

President

National Democratic Movement.
Read more here: NDM wor­ried about Bunting

PHILADELPHIA — The Philadelphia Police Department says up to 20 offi­cers were jus­ti­fied in beat­ing and pos­si­bly taser­ing a black man, while call­ing him a “piece of shit.” Furthermore, offi­cers had prob­a­ble cause to charge him with assault and said he delib­er­ate­ly injured him­self after get­ting beat­en. Video of 22-year-old Tyree Carroll’s beat­ing was post­ed online Wednesday by Los Angeles-based jour­nal­ist Jasmyne Cannick. The video’s release has trig­gered an inves­ti­ga­tion by the Philly PD’s Internal Affairs Division. Police spokesman Lieutenant John Stanford said it was a drug bust in which the sus­pect vio­lent­ly resist­ed and even bit sev­er­al officers.

“Beating some­one while you call them a piece of shit, there’s no expla­na­tion for that, unless you want to admit you’re a racist,” Cannick told The Daily Beast. On April 3 Carroll was rid­ing his bike to his grandmother’s home in the north­west Philly neigh­bor­hood of East Germantown, where he lives, before offi­cers said they stopped him for drugs. The offi­cial, pre­lim­i­nary police ver­sion of events released Thursday after­noon is as fol­lows: Undercover nar­cotics offi­cers say at 11:44 p.m. they attempt­ed to stop Carroll for an unspec­i­fied “nar­cotics violation.”

“As the offi­cers stopped the defen­dant, he began to fight with the offi­cers, bit­ing one of the offi­cers a total of three times.” The video doesn’t show Carroll start­ing the vir­tu­al­ly one-sided fight. Police say Carroll bit anoth­er offi­cer dur­ing the mêlée, and that even­tu­al­ly “oth­er respond­ing offi­cers arrived on loca­tion and were final­ly able to get the male into cus­tody.” According to police, Carroll was car­ry­ing more than 5 grams of crack cocaine. Police claim that Carroll was trans­port­ed to the hos­pi­tal to be treat­ed for self-inflict­ed wounds “after inten­tion­al­ly strik­ing his own head against the pro­tec­tive shield locat­ed in the police vehi­cle” —just like the spu­ri­ous claim made against Freddie Gray. Carroll is in jail await­ing his next court appear­ance on charges of aggra­vat­ed assault, sim­ple assault, reck­less endan­ger­ment, resist­ing arrest, and pos­ses­sion of crack cocaine. (Carroll is inel­i­gi­ble for bail because he was on pro­ba­tion at the time of his arrest.) A fam­i­ly spokesper­son told CBS News that Carroll admits to bit­ing offi­cers because they had him in a choke­hold, which as an asth­mat­ic caused him to fear for his life.

Regarding the use of Tasers, the police said: “The infor­ma­tion that we have at this time indi­cates that use of force reports were com­plet­ed at the time of the inci­dent, indi­cat­ing the strikes and con­trol holds attempt­ed dur­ing the inci­dent. At this time there is no indi­ca­tion that an elec­tron­ic con­trol weapon was used despite hear­ing the offi­cer state ‘here comes the taser.’” There are seri­ous ques­tions about the police state­ment, not least of all that it is flat­ly con­tra­dict­ed by the nar­ra­tor of the video, who says offi­cers used their Tasers sev­er­al times on the already-sub­dued Carroll. “For hun­dreds of years, noth­ing has changed about how police treat black peo­ple,” Cannick said. “The only thing that is dif­fer­ent is that now there is a mech­a­nism, now every­one and their grand­ma is tak­ing video, so now the pub­lic at-large has to see it.” That’s exact­ly what hap­pened in the case of Najee Rivera. Last February, Officers Kevin Robinson and Sean McKnight were charged with bru­tal­ly beat­ing Rivera after they knocked him off of his scoot­er with their patrol car in 2013. Then the offi­cers filed charges against Rivera — who was still in the hos­pi­tal for an orbital frac­ture – for assault­ing offi­cers dur­ing a law­ful stop.

It was not until Rivera’s girl­friend brought video of the beat­ing to author­i­ties that the charges against Rivera were dropped and the dis­trict attor­ney and a grand jury began inves­ti­gat­ing the offi­cers. When The Daily Beast asked the D.A.’s office if it had reviewed the Carroll video, and if it had any plans for its own inves­ti­ga­tion, spokesman Cameron Kline respond­ed suc­cinct­ly: “The easy answer is, no.” Kline explained that the D.A.’s pro­ce­dure was to wait until Internal Affairs had com­plet­ed its own inves­ti­ga­tion or until Internal Affairs or the depart­ment asked the dis­trict attor­ney to assist. Simply put: The police depart­ment is being left to inves­ti­gate itself by the dis­trict attor­ney despite clear video evi­dence of exces­sive force. The video of Carroll’s arrest proves at the very least that Philadelphia can­not sim­ply take the word of its police or even trust the D.A. to watch the watch­men. An exter­nal review, per­haps by the U.S. Attorney’s Office, may be Carroll’s only chance of being cleared of trumped up charges and get­ting jus­tice against the men who are sworn to pro­tect and serve. Read more here: http://​www​.thedai​ly​beast​.com/​a​r​t​i​c​l​e​s​/​2​0​1​5​/​0​7​/​1​0​/​2​0​-​p​h​i​l​l​y​-​c​o​p​s​-​b​e​a​t​-​h​i​m​-​b​l​a​m​e​-​h​i​m​-​f​o​r​-​i​n​j​u​r​i​e​s​-​a​n​d​-​c​h​a​r​g​e​-​h​i​m​-​w​i​t​h​-​a​s​s​a​u​l​t​.​h​tml

WASHINGTON — FBI Director James Comey said Thursday he’s still not sure whether the killings of nine African-Americans inside a church in South Carolina last month meets the legal def­i­n­i­tion of terrorism.

The FBI defines ter­ror­ism as “the unlaw­ful use of force or vio­lence against per­sons or prop­er­ty to intim­i­date or coerce a gov­ern­ment, the civil­ian pop­u­la­tion, or any seg­ment there­of in fur­ther­ance of polit­i­cal or social objec­tives.” Dylann Roof, 21, who is charged in the fatal shoot­ings of nine peo­ple dur­ing a prayer ser­vice at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in down­town Charleston, appar­ent­ly wrote aracist man­i­festo say­ing he want­ed to “pro­tect the White race” and had “no choice” but to kill inno­cent worshipers.

“I am not in the posi­tion to, alone, go into the ghet­to and fight,” the man­i­festo says. “I chose Charleston because it is most his­toric city in my state, and at one time had the high­est ratio of blacks to Whites in the coun­try. We have no skin­heads, no real KKK, no one doing any­thing but talk­ing on the inter­net. Well some­one has to have the brav­ery to take it to the real world, and I guess that has to be me.”

“I don’t know yet,” Comey said Thursday, when The Huffington Post asked him whether the Charleston shoot­ing was an act of ter­ror­ism. “I was asked about that a day or so after and said that, based on what I knew at that point, I did­n’t see it fit­ting the def­i­n­i­tion. Since then, we’re found the so-called man­i­festo online, so I know the inves­ti­ga­tors and pros­e­cu­tors are look­ing at it through the lens of hate crime, through the lens, poten­tial­ly, of terrorism.”

The label “does­n’t impact the ener­gy that we apply to it,” Comey added.

“Given the nature of my busi­ness, I only oper­ate in a legal frame­work,” Comey said. “I know there’s a def­i­n­i­tion of ter­ror­ism that all of us car­ry around as a col­lo­qui­al mat­ter. I know from hav­ing talked to them the inves­ti­ga­tors and pros­e­cu­tors are look­ing at it through a bunch of dif­fer­ent lens­es to fig­ure out what, if any … fed­er­al charges might make sense.”

Comey said inves­ti­ga­tors “work very hard to try to under­stand the facts, and then Justice will fig­ure out what charges to bring. So the answer is I don’t know yet, but I know that our folks will look at it from all angles.”

Comey’s view con­trasts with that of for­mer Attorney General Eric Holder, who told The Huffington Post this week that Charleston was “clear­ly an act of ter­ror­ism.” It was a “polit­i­cal-vio­lent” act, Holder said.

“With a dif­fer­ent set of cir­cum­stances, and if you had dialed in reli­gion there, Islam, that would be called an act of ter­ror,” Holder said. “It seems to me that, again on the basis of the infor­ma­tion that has been released, that’s what we have here. An act of terror.”

The Huffington Post asked Comey whether there would be a hes­i­tan­cy to call the Charleston shoot­ing ter­ror­ism if Roof’s man­i­festo had indi­cat­ed his attack was inspired by the Islamic State.

“I’d inves­ti­gate it I think prob­a­bly just as we’re inves­ti­gat­ing now, to under­stand what his moti­va­tion was and whether it was designed to coerce a civil­ian pop­u­la­tion,” Comey said. “So we’d inves­ti­gate it the same, and then in decid­ing what charges to bring, we’d look at it through the frame­work of the indi­vid­ual statu­to­ry pro­vi­sions to see whether they’d apply.”

Comey object­ed to the sug­ges­tion that there was hes­i­tan­cy to call the Charleston attack ter­ror­ism based on the accused killer’s white suprema­cist views that would­n’t be present if the sus­pect were a Muslim extremist.

“Where’s the hes­i­tan­cy?” Comey asked. “This is where I strug­gle a lit­tle bit. The only world I live in is when you bring charges against some­one and charge them with some­thing under a par­tic­u­lar pro­vi­sion that is a ter­ror­ism statute, and so that’s the frame­work through which I look at it, and I think that makes sense for some­one in the gov­ern­ment who is doing an inves­ti­ga­tion to look at it through that framework.

“So I’m not hes­i­tat­ing to define it in any way, except to say that that we want to gath­er the facts and then find out which statutes make sense,” Comey said. “That would be the same whether his man­i­festo was writ­ten in Arabic or in English.”

Comey also said dur­ing a round­table dis­cus­sion with reporters that he believed the FBI was tak­ing the threat of non-Muslim home­grown extrem­ists — who have killed near­ly twice as many peo­ple with­in the U.S. as Islamic rad­i­cals in the years since Sept. 11 — seriously.

“Within the bureau, we have a pret­ty rig­or­ous process to try and assess threat and press resources against that threat, and I am con­fi­dent that we are putting the resources against both of these threats that make sense,” Comey said. “We try, as you know, to be very care­ful and respect­ful of free speech, but we also try and under­stand when speech cross­es the line of First Amendment-pro­tect­ed activ­i­ty to action or exhort­ing action that is in vio­la­tion of the law.”

Comey said a “whole lot” of FBI ana­lysts and agents “wake up every day” and focus sole­ly on domes­tic groups.

“One of the rea­sons that maybe the ISIL threat gets more atten­tion is that there real­ly isn’t a domes­tic ter­ror­ism threat that pos­es the risk of actors in every state engag­ing in ran­dom, near­ly ran­dom acts of vio­lence coör­di­nat­ed in the way that ISIL is attempt­ing to inspire direct activ­i­ties,” Comey said. “So there isn’t a com­pa­ra­ble threat actor in the domes­tic scene. It’s frag­ment­ed. There’s lots of dif­fer­ent groups that are poten­tial­ly wor­ri­some that we focus on.”

BALTIMORE (Reuters) — Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake has fired Police Commissioner Anthony Batts, the may­or’s office said on Wednesday.

Batts will be replaced on an inter­im basis by Deputy Commissioner Kevin Davis, the may­or’s office said in a statement.

Batts had head­ed the depart­ment dur­ing unrest trig­gered by the death of Freddie Gray, who died in April from an injury sus­tained in police custody.
Read more here: http://​news​.yahoo​.com/​b​a​l​t​i​m​o​r​e​-​p​o​l​i​c​e​-​c​o​m​m​i​s​s​i​o​n​e​r​-​a​n​t​h​o​n​y​-​b​a​t​t​s​-​f​i​r​e​d​-​2​0​0​0​2​2​2​2​2​.​h​t​m​l​;​_​y​l​t​=​A​w​r​B​T​4​Q​z​m​J​1​V​9​Q​c​A​8​F​5​X​N​y​o​A​;​_​y​l​u​=​X​3​o​D​M​T​E​y​N​z​Y​0​d​T​F​x​B​G​N​v​b​G​8​D​Y​m​Y​x​B​H​B​v​c​w​M​4​B​H​Z​0​a​W​Q​D​Q​j​A​z​N​D​B​f​M​Q​R​z​Z​W​M​D​c​3I-

Government MP, Lloyd B Smith, says cor­rup­tion in the PNP-admin­is­tra­tion and the wider soci­ety has forced him to recon­sid­er his future in rep­re­sen­ta­tion­al pol­i­tics. The Central St. James MP says he’ll short­ly tell Prime Minister and PNP President Portia Simpson Miller whether he intends to con­test the next General Election. Dennis Brooks reports: Nationwide News sources say Mr. Smith is con­sid­er­ing his future as he and key mem­bers of the gov­ern­ing par­ty are at odds. Contacted this after­noon the Central St. James MP said he’ll decide his future in two weeks time. Mr. Smith says cor­rup­tion in the wider soci­ety, includ­ing the Government, is among the rea­sons he’s con­tem­plat­ing step­ping aside. In December 2011, Mr. Smith over­came the JLP’s Heroy Clarke by 98 votes in the General Election. Meantime .. as word is cir­cu­lat­ing that Lloyd B. Smith is on his way out as MP for Central St. James, some PNP del­e­gates in con­stituen­cy say they’ve asked west­ern Jamaica-based attor­ney, Ashley-Ann Foster, to con­sid­er being the PNP’s flag bear­er for the area. Efforts this after­noon to con­tact Miss Foster were unsuc­cess­ful. But Nationwide News sources say on Sunday, Foster indi­cat­ed in writ­ing that she does not intend to seek re-elec­tion as Chairman of the PNP’s East Central St. James con­stituen­cy exec­u­tive or apply to be the par­ty stan­dard bear­er for that seat. It’s under­stood that Miss Foster will be vying to replace Mr. Smith as the PNP’s stan­dard bear­er for Central St. James. Read more here: CORRUPTION PUSHING LLOYD B OUT

So far, Donald Trump’s pres­i­den­tial cam­paign has lived up to, and arguably exceed­ed, every expec­ta­tion for self-beclown­ing while also simul­ta­ne­ous­ly hav­ing det­o­nat­ed a 50 mega­ton crazy bomb inside the GOP. Indeed, every time he’s opened his yap since announc­ing, some­thing hor­ren­dous has spilled out. Whoever start­ed the rumor that Trump might be a Democratic Party appa­ratchik sent to infil­trate the GOP nom­i­na­tion process and det­o­nate one crazy-bomb after anoth­er might actu­al­ly be onto some­thing. Trump’s been act­ing errat­i­cal­ly enough to mer­it some seri­ous ques­tion­ing not only about his par­ty loy­al­ty, but also whether he’s caught in the throes of a ner­vous break­down. Maybe it’s both.

Let’s first recap some of the most recent respons­es to Trump’s Mexicans-are-rapists state­ment, then we’ll get into Trump’s responses:

• Mitt Romney, who deaf­en­ing­ly toot­ed near­ly every imag­in­able racial dog-whis­tle dur­ing his 2012 cam­paign (remem­ber “Obama Isn’t Working” and Obama’s poli­cies are “for­eign?”), denounced Trump’s rapists remark at an Independence Day parade in New Hampshire, say­ing, “I think he made a severe error in say­ing what he did about Mexican-Americans.” Trump was talk­ing about undoc­u­ment­ed work­ers, so it’s refresh­ing that Romney would add “Americans” to that title.

• George Pataki, mean­while, referred to Trump’s remarks “divi­sive rhetoric,” which is clear­ly soft-ped­al­ing what ought to be described as “unfor­giv­ably stu­pid and offen­sive.” But we’ll take it.

• On Fox News Sunday, George Will couldn’t stop talk­ing about Trump’s awful­ness, going so far as to com­pare Trump to the noto­ri­ous Todd Akin, who infa­mous­ly described rape as “legit­i­mate rape.” Ouch.

Said Will:

“Picture him on stage in [the GOP debate in] Cleveland,” Will said on Fox News Sunday this morn­ing. “He says some­thing hideous­ly inflam­ma­to­ry — which is all he knows how to say — and then what do the oth­er nine peo­ple on stage do? Do they either become com­plic­it in what he said by their silence, or do they all have to attack him? The debate gets hijacked. The process gets hijacked. At the end of the day he is a one-man Todd Akin. He’s Todd Akin with ten dif­fer­ent facets.”

I’m not sure what exact­ly Will means by “Todd Akin with ten dif­fer­ent facets,” but sure. Why not.

• The reign­ing Miss Universe, Pauline Vega, called Trump’s remarks “hurt­ful and unfair.”

• Jeb Bush, whose wife Columba is Mexican, said:

“To make these extra­or­di­nar­i­ly ugly kind of com­ments is not reflec­tive of the Republican Party,” Mr. Bush said about Mr. Trump, whose com­ments caused NBC, Univision, Macy’s and oth­ers to cut ties with him. “He’s doing this — he’s not a stu­pid guy, so I don’t assume he thinks that every Mexican cross­ing the bor­der is a rapist. He’s doing this to inflame and incite and to draw atten­tion, which seems to be the orga­niz­ing prin­ci­ple of his cam­paign,” Mr. Bush said.

• But, actu­al­ly, the most remark­able attack on Trump came from this guy:

That’s Rick Perry aboard a bor­der patrol gun boat prac­ti­cal­ly dry-hump­ing an auto­mat­ic rifle aimed at Mexico, which, come to think of it, might actu­al­ly be moreoffen­sive than what Trump said. And yet, the guy who dressed up in bor­der patrol regalia with Sean Hannity ripped into Trump’s state­ment about Mexicans, say­ing:

JUNIOR Technology Minister Julian Robinson has wel­comed the clar­i­fi­ca­tion issued yes­ter­day by the US Embassy in Kingston of a State Department com­ment that the Jamaican Government could be mon­i­tor­ing local online conversations.

“I am hap­py that they have issued a clar­i­fi­ca­tion, because what the State Department was say­ing was dam­ag­ing to Jamaica’s inter­na­tion­al rep­u­ta­tion,” Robinson told the Jamaica Observer when con­tact­ed last night.

He was refer­ring to a cor­rec­tion of the state­ment includ­ed in the Internet Freedom sub­sec­tion of the 2014 Jamaica Country Report on Human Rights Practices issued by the US Department of State yesterday.

The report had stated:

“The (Jamaican) Government did not restrict or dis­rupt access to the Internet or cen­sor online con­tent. There were cred­i­ble reports, how­ev­er, that the Government mon­i­tored pri­vate online com­mu­ni­ca­tions with­out appro­pri­ate legal authority.”

Since its cir­cu­la­tion through the media, a large num­ber of Jamaicans have raised con­cerns about gov­ern­ment inter­fer­ence in pri­vate online com­mu­ni­ca­tions, and its tech­no­log­i­cal capa­bil­i­ty to do so.

In the absence of National Security Minister Peter Bunting, who has been away for the past week, Robinson, whose port­fo­lio includes cyber tech­nol­o­gy, has been com­ment­ing on the matter.

On Wednesday, he chal­lenged the US author­i­ties to pro­vide proof of the alle­ga­tions laid against the Jamaican Government. Yesterday, the US Embassy in Kingston respond­ed with a release say­ing that an inac­cu­ra­cy had been published.

The embassy said that the US Department of State has now cor­rect­ed the report and, as part of its process to devel­op these reports, the US Government want­ed “a robust exchange” between civ­il soci­ety, the press, and gov­ern­ment lead­ers on the issue.

“We wel­come feed­back on the report, with the objec­tive of main­tain­ing the most author­i­ta­tive, com­pre­hen­sive and fac­tu­al review of the glob­al state of human rights,” the embassy said.

“When there are inac­cu­ra­cies, the Department of State doc­u­ments these errors online and issues cor­rec­tions to ensure the integri­ty of the reports. The cor­rect­ed ver­sion of the report is (now) avail­able online,” the embassy added.
Read more here:Spying error — US cor­rects Internet mon­i­tor­ing report

A string of black church­es have been rav­aged by fire in the past week, in what could poten­tial­ly be a string of racial­ly-moti­vat­ed arson attacks. Places of wor­ship in Tennessee, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Ohio were rav­aged by flames this week. Authorities have con­firmed that three of the attacks were arson, while inves­ti­ga­tions are still under­way for the remain­ing two. The attacks come as nation­al atten­tion cen­ters on racial divi­sions in the wake of the church mas­sacre in Charleston, South Carolina, where nine peo­ple were gunned down by Dylann Roof.

The College Hills Seventh Day Adventist Church in Knoxville was attacked Monday. Church sources told WTLV that hay bales were heaped up by a church entrance then set alight, even­tu­al­ly engulf­ing the build­ing. In the ear­ly hours of Tuesday morn­ing, God’s Power Church of Christ in Macon, Georgia, was also set ablaze. Authorities told the Macon Telegraph the attack has the hall­marks of arson — though tests are still being car­ried out to dis­cov­er how the fire stared. In Charlotte, North Carolina, the Briar Creek Road Baptist Church start­ed burn­ing around 1am Wednesday.

Fire author­i­ties are sure that blaze was arson as well, though they have not revealed their evi­dence. Despite the huge dam­age to the build­ing, con­gre­gants had returned by Sunday to wor­ship at the site. Also on Wednesday, the Fruitland Presbyterian Church in Gibson County, Tennessee, caught fire. According to local news sta­tion WBBJ, fire inves­ti­ga­tors there are keep­ing open the pos­si­bil­i­ty of arson. Friday morn­ing saw the Glover Grove Missionary Baptist Church in Warrenville, South Carolina, catch fire as well.

Authorities there have yet to announce whether the fire was arson. The College Heights Baptist Church in Elyria, Ohio, also caught fire Saturday, and author­i­ties are still inves­ti­gat­ing. The Lorain Morning Journal report­ed that church­go­ers held hands and prayed in the build­ing’s park­ing lot on Sunday while the build­ing was unus­able. A sev­enth church, the Greater Miracle Temple in Tallahassee, Florida, also caught fire on Friday. However, accord­ing to the WTXL news sta­tion, the fire was prob­a­bly caused when a tree fell onto pow­er lines.

The attacks were com­ment­ed upon by the Southern Poverty Law Center. Their Hatewatch blog said the fires ‘may not be a coin­ci­dence’. Attacking black church­es has tra­di­tion­al been a tac­tic of white suprema­cists for cen­turies. At a pas­sion­ate eulo­gy on Friday for one of the vic­tims of the Charleston mas­sacre, President Barack Obama drew an explic­it link between arson and racial oppres­sion. He said that Roof, who espoused white suprema­cist views online, ‘sure­ly sensed the mean­ing of his vio­lent act’. ‘It was an act that drew on a long his­to­ry of bombs and arson and shots fired at church­es, not ran­dom, but as a means of con­trol, a way to ter­ror­ize and oppress.’ Read more: http://​www​.dai​ly​mail​.co​.uk/​n​e​w​s​/​a​r​t​i​c​l​e​-​3​1​4​2​8​1​7​/​S​t​r​i​n​g​-​s​u​s​p​e​c​t​e​d​-​a​r​s​o​n​-​a​t​t​a​c​k​s​-​S​I​X​-​b​l​a​c​k​-​c​h​u​r​c​h​e​s​-​s​t​r​e​t​c​h​i​n​g​-​G​e​o​r​g​i​a​-​O​h​i​o​-​b​u​r​n​e​d​-​s​i​n​g​l​e​-​w​e​e​k​.​h​t​m​l​#​i​x​z​z​3​e​f​6​q​e​Ryv