CHICAGO (Reuters) — Chicago police said on Monday they are inves­ti­gat­ing an inci­dent caught on video dur­ing a week­end protest that appears to show a Chicago police car blast­ing the song “Sweet Home Alabama.”

The 1974 song, by the Southern rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd, has been tak­en by some as sup­port­ing for­mer Alabama Governor George Wallace, a seg­re­ga­tion­ist, but mem­bers of the band have said the lyrics were misunderstood.

The video was shot at the “Black Lives Matter” protest on the west side of the nation’s third largest city on Saturday by pho­tog­ra­ph­er Gabriel Michael, accord­ing to the news web­site DNAinfo​.com. Michael could not be reached imme­di­ate­ly for comment.

The video shows an unmarked police car seems to be play­ing the song while dri­ving along with sev­er­al oth­er Chicago police vehicles.

Protests have been held in sev­er­al cities since a grand jury’s deci­sion last week not to indict a white police offi­cer whose choke­hold con­tributed to Eric Garner’s death in New York City in July.

The killings by white police offi­cers of Garner and of Michael Brown, an unarmed black teenag­er, in Ferguson, Missouri, have high­light­ed the strained rela­tions between police and the black community.

Chicago police spokesman Martin Maloney con­firmed that police are inves­ti­gat­ing the mat­ter. Police are com­mit­ted to “com­mu­ni­ty polic­ing and fos­ter­ing stronger rela­tion­ships” with the com­mu­ni­ties they serve, he said.

“With respect to the peace­ful protests, as you have seen over the past week CPD is ded­i­cat­ed to pro­tect­ing res­i­dents’ right to free speech and peace­ful assem­blies,” Maloney said in an email.

Stop Mass Incarceration Network Chicago, the group that orga­nized the Saturday protest in ques­tion, said in a state­ment that the video is “grotesque tes­ti­mo­ny to the geno­ci­dal log­ic of the police across this coun­try who are act­ing as the mod­ern-day lynch mob under the author­i­ty of the state.” http://​news​.yahoo​.com/​c​h​i​c​a​g​o​-​p​o​l​i​c​e​-​i​n​v​e​s​t​i​g​a​t​e​-​v​i​d​e​o​-​c​o​p​-​c​a​r​-​p​l​a​y​i​n​g​-​a​l​a​b​a​m​a​-​0​0​0​1​3​0​9​4​2​.​h​tml

Eric Schneiderman sent a let­ter Gov. Cuomo on Monday ask­ing for the stand­ing pow­er to usurp local dis­trict attor­neys, a mea­sure Schneiderman said is need­ed to address ‘the cur­rent cri­sis of con­fi­dence in our state’s crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem’ in the wake of the Eric Garner grand jury deci­sion not to indict NYPD Officer Daniel Pantaleo over Garner’s choke­hold death.

Most of New York City’s lead pros­e­cu­tors and the heads of two of the NYPD’s largest police unions tossed shade on the state attor­ney general’s request for the pow­er to inves­ti­gate cas­es in which police kill unarmed civilians.

State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman sent a let­ter to Gov. Cuomo ask­ing for an imme­di­ate exec­u­tive order to take that pow­er from local dis­trict attor­neys. Schneiderman said the mea­sure was need­ed to address “the cur­rent cri­sis of con­fi­dence in our state’s crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem.” The request comes after a grand jury last week vot­ed not to indict NYPD Officer Daniel Pantaleo in the July choke­hold death of Eric Garner in Staten Island. “In New York, and across the coun­try, the promise of equal jus­tice under law has been erod­ed by a series of tragedies involv­ing the death of unarmed per­sons as a result of the use of force by law enforce­ment offi­cers,” Schneiderman wrote. A Cuomo spokes­woman said the gov­er­nor, who has called for a “soup to nuts” review of the jus­tice sys­tem, is review­ing Schneiderman’s request. Mayor de Blasio called it a “mean­ing­ful pro­pos­al” that is worth look­ing into.

But the plan drew a cool response from four of the city’s five dis­trict attorneys.

Kenneth Thompson in Brooklyn and Richard Brown in Queens expressed oppo­si­tion while the Bronx’s Robert Johnson and Manhattan’s Cy Vance had seri­ous reser­va­tions. “As the duly elect­ed dis­trict attor­ney of Brooklyn, I am adamant­ly opposed to the request by the New York State Attorney General for author­i­ty to inves­ti­gate and poten­tial­ly pros­e­cute alleged acts of police bru­tal­i­ty,” Thompson said. “No one is more com­mit­ted to ensur­ing equal jus­tice under the law than I am.” The Daily News first report­ed last week that Thompson vowed to empan­el a grand jury by the end of the month to weigh pos­si­ble charges against Peter Liang, a rook­ie offi­cer who killed an unarmed man in a dark­ened hous­ing project stair­well Nov. 20. Police offi­cials said the shoot­ing of 28-year-old Akai Gurley was an acci­dent. A spokesman for Staten Island District Attorney Dan Donovan, who brought the Garner case before the grand jury, had no com­ment on Schneiderman’s request.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/n‑y-ag-asks-investigate-cases-cops-kill-civilians-article‑1.2037498

Five Montgomery County, Ohio, sheriff’s deputies alleged­ly sent racist text mes­sages both on and off duty, spark­ing a sweep­ing inter­nal inves­ti­ga­tion, accord­ing to Talking Points Memo, cit­ing reports at WDTN and WKEF tele­vi­sion news stations.

SEE ALSO: 

Cop In Vonderrit Myers Jr. Shooting Allegedly Tied To Racist Social Media Posts

Cop Who Pushed Don Lemon Suspended After Racist Speech Goes Viral [VIDEO]

NY Cop Suspended Over Alleged Racist Facebook Rant Against Obama

Montgomery County Sheriff’s Department Capt. Thomas Flanders (pic­tured) and detec­tiveMichael Sollenberger, both sus­pend­ed on paid admin­is­tra­tive leave, were just two names list­ed in a com­plaint filed by the NAACP Dayton, Ohio unit, WDTN report­ed this week. The three oth­er deputies were not pub­licly named, the report says.

Montgomery County Sheriff Phil Plummer addressed the dis­turb­ing texts on Tuesday, which were sent on per­son­al cell phones between November 2011 and January 2013, the news sta­tion writes. Two read: “I hate N**gers. That is all,” and “What do apples and black peo­ple have in com­mon? They both hang from trees.”

He also iden­ti­fied Sollenberger as part of the department’s inter­nal affairs team and Flanders as head of the Montgomery County Jail, the sta­tion report­ed. “I will not tol­er­ate racism in this depart­ment,” Plummer told WTND.

The inves­ti­ga­tion began after Dayton Unit NAACP President Derrick L. Foward received an anony­mous tip about the mes­sages in August, and report­ed it to the depart­ment. Officials said that they con­duct­ed a three-month inves­ti­ga­tion, and met with the NAACP nation­al office before going pub­lic with the alle­ga­tions, Raw Story reports.

Foward expect­ed the deputies to be fired if the inter­nal inves­ti­ga­tion con­clud­ed that they sent the messages.

Civil rights lead­ers have long com­plained about police vio­lence against Blacks, espe­cial­ly unarmed men. The texts pro­vide a sober­ing glimpse into the mind­set of some White law enforce­ment offi­cers, an issue that has moved to the fore­front nation­wide as pro­test­ers demon­strate against grand jury deci­sions not to indict two White offi­cers in the arrest­ing deaths of two unarmed Black men.

Widespread and ongo­ing protests broke out last week after a St. Louis County grand jury declined to indict then-Ferguson, Mo., police offi­cer Darren Wilson in the shoot­ing death of Michael Brown. And this week, a Staten Island, N.Y., grand jury refused to indict a NYPD offi­cer Daniel Pantaleo in the choke­hold death of Eric Garner.

The deputies appeared shocked by the alle­ga­tions, but “did not apol­o­gize,” Plummer told WKEF. It’s just anoth­er strik­ing exam­ple of how some White law enforce­ment offi­cers are used to oper­at­ing unchecked as they vio­late and dis­re­spect Blacks. http://newsone.com/3075654/i‑hate-niggers-text-montgomery-county-sheriffs/

Judge Andrew Napolitano, the senior judi­cial ana­lyst for Fox News, said Wednesday that he was shocked by a grand jury’s deci­sion not to indict a New York City police offi­cer in the choke­hold death of Eric Garner, describ­ing Garner’s death as “crim­i­nal­ly neg­li­gent homicide.”

“I think it is clear­ly a case for crim­i­nal­ly neg­li­gent homi­cide,” Napolitano said dur­ing a Wednesday seg­ment of “The Hugh Hewitt Show.”

“This is not Ferguson, Missouri,” Napolitano con­tin­ued. “This is not some­body wrestling for your gun, this is not where you shoot or be shot at. This is chok­ing to death a men­tal­ly impaired, gross­ly obese per­son whose only crime was sell­ing cig­a­rettes with­out col­lect­ing tax­es on them. This does not call for dead­ly force by any stretch of the imag­i­na­tion.” (It was not clear why Napolitano described Garner as “men­tal­ly impaired.”)

Napolitano said he was tak­en aback by the grand jury’s deci­sion, which was made pub­lic on Wednesday. He added that the deci­sion sug­gests Staten Island District Attorney Daniel Donovan nev­er want­ed an indict­ment to happen.

“If any DA wants an indict­ment, he can get one,” Napolitano said. “The cliché is that a grand jury would indict a ham sandwich.”

Garner, 43, died July 17 in Staten Island, New York while he was being arrest­ed for sell­ing untaxed cig­a­rettes. A bystander’s video of the arrest shows New York City police Officer Daniel Pantaleo appear­ing to put Garner in a choke­hold, a move that ispro­hib­it­ed under NYPD pol­i­cy. In the video, Garner screams “I can’t breathe!” mul­ti­ple times before his body goes limp. A med­ical exam­in­er lat­er ruled his death a homicide.

This is the sec­ond recent high-pro­file case in which a grand jury declined to indict a white police offi­cer in the killing of an unarmed black civil­ian, fol­low­ing last week’s deci­sion in the case of 18-year-old Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri.

A nation­wide series of protests erupt­ed imme­di­ate­ly fol­low­ing the grand jury’s deci­sion not to indict Ferguson police Officer Darren Wilson, who fatal­ly shot an unarmed Brown on Aug. 9. New York offi­cials braced for sim­i­lar protests on Wednesday.

While the reac­tion to the Ferguson grand jury deci­sion large­ly broke down along par­ty lines, with many con­ser­v­a­tives agree­ing that Wilson should not have faced tri­al, Napolitano, a lib­er­tar­i­an, is one of a num­ber of con­ser­v­a­tives who have expressed out­rage at the grand jury’s deci­sion in the Garner case, The Huffington Post’s Ryan Reilly reports.

Garner’s fam­i­ly plans to file a wrong­ful death law­suit against the city seek­ing $75 mil­lion in dam­ages.

National sta­tis­tics show that hun­dreds of homi­cides com­mit­ted by law-enforce­ment offi­cers between 2007 and 2012 were not record­ed in the FBI’s Uniform Crime Report, the Wall Street Journal reports.

More than 550 homi­cides com­mit­ted by police dur­ing that peri­od were miss­ing, the paper reports. The lack of com­plete data makes it impos­si­ble to accu­rate­ly deter­mine how many peo­ple police kill each year.

Demands for more trans­paren­cy on such killings have been shoved into the spot­light after the August shoot­ing death of 18-year-old Michael Brown by offi­cer Darren Wilson in Ferguson. The Ferguson police depart­ment has only record­ed one jus­ti­fi­able homi­cide between 1976 and 2012, accord­ing to statistics.

Local police depart­ments are not required to par­tic­i­pate in the FBI’s uni­form crime report­ing program.

Some agen­cies tend to not report the killings, Bureau of Justice sta­tis­ti­cian Alexia Cooper told the jour­nal. Nearly 800 agen­cies report­ed about 2,400 killings by police, while more than 18,000 oth­er depart­ments did not report any.

Some enti­ties in the reports said they did not view jus­ti­fi­able homi­cides by law-enforce­ment offi­cers as some­thing that should be report­ed. Some agen­cies did not con­sid­er the events to be actu­al offenses.

In cer­tain cas­es, if an offi­cer killed some­one in a city or town out of its juris­dic­tion believed that par­tic­u­lar town would han­dle the report, by they had not done so.

In recent years, police have tried to rely on the data to devel­op bet­ter tac­tics in policing.

A par­tic­u­lar alarm­ing report came as recent­ly in Washington D.C.

Police in Washington did not report any details about any homi­cides to the FBI for an entire decade start­ing in 1998; the same year the Washington Post revealed the city had one of the high­est offi­cer-involved killings in the country.

The city report­ed five killings by police in 2011, but zero in the fol­low­ing year after 24-year-old Albert Payton was killed by police while wield­ing a knife.

Significant increas­es in offi­cer-involved killings can spark ques­tions about man­age­ment with­in the police depart­ment, Mike, a crim­i­nol­o­gist at Arizona State told the jour­nal. “Sometimes that can be tied to poor lead­er­ship and prob­lems with accountability.”

For more vis­it the wall street jour​nal​.com

A video of a man being detained by a Michigan police offi­cer on Thanksgiving Day because he was “mak­ing peo­ple ner­vous” by walk­ing with his hands in his pock­et in near freez­ing tem­per­a­ture has gone viral and stoked afresh pas­sions over racial profiling.

Brandon McKean, the man who was detained not­ed in the video which he post­ed to his Facebook page on Thanksgiving Day, said he record­ed the inci­dent for his pro­tec­tion. It has since been viewed on Facebook more than 3 mil­lion times and shared more than 80,000 times. The Pontiac Tribune report­ed that the inci­dent occurred around 4:30 p.m. in Pontiac while McKean was walk­ing on Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and Michigan Avenue. The tem­per­a­ture had reached a high of 33 degrees Fahrenheit that day — just one degree shy of the freez­ing point of water. The video, which is just over a minute, begins with the offi­cer telling McKean that he was mak­ing peo­ple ner­vous, and he asks the offi­cer “why?”

And this is how the rest of it went:

“You were walk­ing by,” the offi­cer responds.
“Walking by and doing what?” asks McKean.
“Well, you were mak­ing peo­ple nervous.”
“By walk­ing by?”
“Yeah, they said you had your hands in your pockets.”
“Wow. Walking by with your hands in your pock­ets makes peo­ple ner­vous to call the police when it’s snow­ing outside?”
“It is,” respond­ed the offi­cer non­cha­lant­ly before ask­ing McKean “so, are you OK?”
“I’m fine, how about you?” McKean replied.
“What are you up to today?” asked the officer.
“Walking. With my hands in my pock­et, walking.”
“Is it an incon­ve­nience to talk to me right now?”

“Hell yeah, just because of the whole police sit­u­a­tion going on across the coun­try. This is out­ra­geous that you would let some­body tell you, ‘Oh there’s some­body walk­ing down the street with their hands in their pock­ets. There’s 10,000 peo­ple in Pontiac right now with their hands in their pock­ets …” not­ed an irri­tat­ed McKean.

“You’re right, but we do have a lot of rob­beries, so I’m just check­ing on you,” replied the officer.

The encounter end­ed with the offi­cer offer­ing the miffed McKean a high five who then shared the record­ed inci­dent with the world. http://​www​.chris​tian​post​.com/​n​e​w​s​/​m​i​c​h​i​g​a​n​-​p​o​l​i​c​e​-​o​f​f​i​c​e​r​-​d​e​t​a​i​n​s​-​m​a​n​-​f​o​r​-​m​a​k​i​n​g​-​p​e​o​p​l​e​-​n​e​r​v​o​u​s​-​b​y​-​w​a​l​k​i​n​g​-​w​i​t​h​-​h​a​n​d​s​-​i​n​-​p​o​c​k​e​t​s​-​i​n​-​n​e​a​r​-​f​r​e​e​z​i​n​g​-​c​o​l​d​-​1​3​0​5​05/

PUBLISHERS NOTE

Once again here is a sit­u­a­tion which could have careened out of con­trol real fast with dev­as­tat­ing con­se­quences for this man, or the officer.
I con­grat­u­late this young man on the way he stood his ground, did not abuse the officer>
I con­grat­u­late the offi­cer on the way he han­dled it to a point , by pulling out a cam­era phone to record the encounter. 
Even though he could have done a far bet­ter job of explain­ing why he had to approach the man who clear­ly was doing noth­ing wrong. 
The man lat­er com­ment­ed on his social media page that he was stopped for walk­ing with his hands in his pockets,ending with police state.
Which leads us to ven­ture that the Police state cre­at­ed by GW Bush is hav­ing dev­as­tat­ing con­se­quences for Americans, the Patriot Act, and oth­er laws designed sup­pos­ed­ly to pro­tect America , are mak­ing a mock­ery of the American Democracy. Remember “if you see some­thing say some­thing”?
What the hell is some­thing in this context?
Is “some­thing” as grey as a black man walk­ing with his hands in his pock­ets in near freez­ing temperature?
I am begin­ning to con­clude that there are racial ele­ments which are direct­ly stir­ring up and foment­ing racial hatred. I believe there are peo­ple out there who are direct­ly using the police to tar­get black people.
The police for it’s part is not above using ille­gal tac­tics to sub­vert the process. Just recent­ly they had cops in plain­clothes throw­ing stones at police from the back of a peace­ful Ferguson crowd of demonstrators.

What the hell is mak­ing peo­ple ner­vous? If you are ner­vous of peo­ple in pub­lic spaces with their hands in their pock­ets, then you need to stay in your home.
Some of this is being stirred up by talk radio and more effec­tive­ly FOX’s Fascist-Xenophobic rhetoric has done a lot to stir up racial angst across the country.
What are the chances the same caller/​callers would have called the police and report­ed that a white man was walk­ing along with his hands in his pockets?
We have a very big problem !

As pho­tos around the web show images of nation­wide protests in reac­tion to the events in Ferguson, Missouri, one par­tic­u­lar image has received wide­spread atten­tion. Earlier this week, free­lance pho­tog­ra­ph­er Johnny Nguyen cap­tured a pho­to of 12-year-old Devonte Hart dur­ing a Ferguson-relat­ed ral­ly in Portland, Oregon. Hart, an African-American boy, was hold­ing a sign that read “Free Hugs,” and the image Nguyen took shows Hart with tears stream­ing down his face while in a heart­felt hug with a white police officer.

Nguyen said the pho­to has since been shared more than 400,000 times on Facebook and repost­ed on more than 68,000 Tumblr accounts.

According to The Oregonian, which was the first out­let to pub­lish the pho­to, the offi­cer pic­tured in the image is Portland Police Sgt. Bret Barnum, who report­ed­ly saw Hart hold­ing his sign and called him over to engage in a quick con­ver­sa­tion about the protest, school and life.

Barnum then asked Hart for a hug — and it was dur­ing this moment that Nguyen cap­tured the touch­ing pho­to that he shared with the world.

“I’ve been told this pho­to has become an icon of hope in regards to race in America,” Nguyen said.

“Prior to that day, I would scroll through the Internet and see the pho­tos of images out of Ferguson, which all showed some vio­lence and anger — some even to the point of hatred and destruc­tion. This was the first pho­to I saw that showed some­thing pos­i­tive. It showed humanity.”

Following the protest, Hart’s par­ents — Sarah and Jen Hart — wrote a Facebook postthat detailed more about their son and the events that led to the moment cap­tured in the photo.

“My son has a heart of a gold, com­pas­sion beyond any­thing I’ve ever expe­ri­enced, yet strug­gles with liv­ing fear­less­ly when it comes to the police and peo­ple that don’t under­stand the com­plex­i­ty of racism that is preva­lent in our soci­ety,” the post read. “It was one of the most emo­tion­al­ly charged expe­ri­ences I’ve had as a mother.”

As the pho­to con­tin­ues to spread across the web, Nguyen said he hopes it will pro­vide some peo­ple with a sense of peace along with a mes­sage of love and compassion.

“In order to move on and progress toward real change, we need every rea­son for hope that can be gar­nered,” he said.

“We all have hurt in our heart but we have to turn that hurt into hope, hope for human­i­ty. We need to find a way to come togeth­er and find a com­mon ground and find peace.”

In doing so, Nguyen reflects on one par­tic­u­lar quote from civ­il rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. that he believes real­ly dri­ves the mes­sage home.

“MLK once said: ‘Darkness can­not dri­ve out dark­ness; only light can do that. Hate can­not dri­ve out hate; only love can do that.’ ” Nguyen recit­ed. “I think that’s what my pho­to has done.“Huffingtonpost​.com

Black Friday fatigue is set­ting in.

Early dis­count­ing, more online shop­ping and a mixed econ­o­my meant few­er peo­ple shopped over Thanksgiving week­end, the National Retail Federation said Sunday. Overall, 133.7 mil­lion peo­ple shopped in stores and online over the four-day week­end, down 5.2 per­cent from last year, accord­ing to a sur­vey of 4,631 peo­ple con­duct­ed by Prosper Insights & Analytics for the trade group.

Total spend­ing for the week­end is expect­ed to fall 11 per­cent to $50.9 bil­lion from an esti­mat­ed $57.4 bil­lion last year, the trade group esti­mat­ed. Part of the rea­son is that Target, J.C. Penney, Macy’s, Wal-Mart and oth­er major retail­ers pushed fat dis­counts as ear­ly as Halloween. Some opened stores even ear­li­er on Thanksgiving. All that stole some thun­der from Black Friday and the rest of the weekend.

Still, the pre­lim­i­nary data makes retail­ers wor­ried that shop­pers remain fru­gal despite improv­ing employ­ment and falling gas prices. Matt Shay, the trade group’s CEO, said he thinks peo­ple ben­e­fit­ing from the recov­ery may not feel the need to fight crowds to get the deep­est dis­count on a TV or toast­er. And those who feel like the reces­sion nev­er end­ed may not have the mon­ey and will stretch out what they spend through Christmas. And shop­pers are still feel­ing the effects of high food prices and stag­nant wages.

“While they’re more opti­mistic, they’re very cau­tious,” Shay said. “If the deals are not right for them, they’re not going to spend.”

Bottom line: Expect more deep dis­counts, all sea­son long. “Every day will be Black Friday. Every minute will be Cyber Monday,” he said. That could be what it takes to get shop­pers to open their wal­lets for the hol­i­day shop­ping sea­son, which accounts for about 20 per­cent of annu­al retail sales. Besides eco­nom­ic fac­tors, peo­ple are becom­ing more dis­cern­ing when they shop. Armed with smart­phones and price-com­par­i­son apps, they know what’s a good deal — and what’s not.

Kimani Brown, 39, of New York City, was among the Black Friday defec­tors. After four years of brav­ing the crowds, the sales failed to lure him out this year. “I con­sid­er myself a smart shop­per. And it’s not as allur­ing as it used to be,” Brown said. “It’s a mar­ket­ing tool, and I don’t want to be pulled into it.” He also said the fren­zy pushed him to over­spend, and he paid the price in January on his cred­it card state­ment. Instead, he said he will look online Monday, the online shop­ping day often called Cyber Monday. Some who went shop­ping on Thanksgiving felt they were doing it against their will. Cathyliz Lopez of New York City said she felt forced to shop on the hol­i­day. “It’s ruin­ing the spir­it of Thanksgiving,” the 20-year-old said Thursday. “But I was check­ing all the ads, and the best deals were today.”

The National Retail Federation is still pre­dict­ing a 4.1 per­cent increase in sales for the sea­son. That would be the high­est increase since the 4.8 per­cent gain in 2011. Some stores and malls had rea­son to be opti­mistic. Dan Jasper, a spokesman at Mall of America in Bloomington, Minnesota, said cus­tomer counts are up 5 to 6 per­cent for the four-day week­end. One plus: Shoppers were buy­ing more for them­selves, a sign of opti­mism. “They felt con­fi­dent in the econ­o­my,” he said.

CEOs at Target and Toys R Us said they saw shop­pers not just focus­ing on the door­buster deals but throw­ing extra items in their carts. Macy’s CEO Terry Lundgren told The Associated Press on Friday that he’s hop­ing low­er gas prices will help spending.

“There’s rea­son to believe that con­fi­dence should con­tin­ue to grow. That should be good for dis­cre­tionary spend­ing,” he said.

Some of those dis­cre­tionary dol­lars are migrat­ing online.

Target said Thanksgiving saw a 40 per­cent surge in online sales and was its biggest online sales day ever. And Wal-Mart report­ed Thanksgiving was its sec­ond-high­est online day ever, topped only by Cyber Monday last year.

From Nov. 1 through Friday, $22.7 bil­lion has been spent online, a 15 per­cent increase from last year, accord­ing to research firm comScore. On Thanksgiving, online sales surged 32 per­cent, while Black Friday online sales jumped 26 per­cent. In stores, shop­pers spent $9.1 bil­lion on Black Friday, accord­ing to research firm ShopperTrak, down 7 per­cent from last year. That was part­ly due to a 24 per­cent surge in Thanksgiving sales, to $3.2 billion.

ShopperTrak esti­mat­ed that in-store sales for the two days com­bined slipped half a per­cent to $12.29 bil­lion. http://​www​.huff​in​g​ton​post​.com/​2​0​1​4​/​1​2​/​0​1​/​b​l​a​c​k​-​f​r​i​d​a​y​-​w​e​e​k​e​n​d​-​s​a​l​e​s​-​f​a​l​l​_​n​_​6​2​4​5​9​2​6​.​h​tml 

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A Republican staffer on Friday apol­o­gized for a Facebook post that crit­i­cized Malia and Sasha Obama’s appear­ance at the annu­al White House turkey par­don cer­e­mo­ny, one of America’s sil­li­est hol­i­day traditions.

Elizabeth Lauten, the com­mu­ni­ca­tions direc­tor for Rep. Stephen Fincher (R‑Tenn.), wrote that the two teenagers should “try show­ing a lit­tle class,” “dress like you deserve respect, not a spot at a bar,” and, most of all, “don’t make faces” at Very Serious pub­lic events.

Dear Sasha and Malia, I get you’re both in those awful teen years, but you’re a part of the First Family, try show­ing a lit­tle class. At least respect the part you play. Then again your moth­er and father don’t respect their posi­tions very much, or the nation for that mat­ter, so I’m guess­ing you’re com­ing up a lit­tle short in the ‘good role mod­el’ depart­ment. Nevertheless, stretch your­self. Rise to the occa­sion. Act like being in the White House mat­ters to you. Dress like you deserve respect, not a spot at a bar. And cer­tain­ly don’t make faces dur­ing tele­vised pub­lic events.

The First Daughters join President Obama at the cer­e­mo­ny every year, where they can hard­ly con­tain their dis­dain for the lame dad jokes that pre­dictably fol­low. Before approach­ing Mac and Cheese, the two turkeys, the pres­i­dent remarked that it was “puz­zling that I do this every year.” Malia even declined her father’s offer to pet one of the par­doned turkeys with a non­cha­lant, “Nah.”

Lauten lat­er apol­o­gized for rush­ing to judg­ment on Facebook.

“I react­ed to an arti­cle and quick­ly judged the two young ladies in a way that I would nev­er have want­ed to be judged myself as a teenag­er,” she said. “After many hours of prayer, talk­ing to my par­ents and re-read­ing my words online, I can see more clear­ly how hurt­ful my words were. Please know that these judg­men­tal feel­ings tru­ly have no pace in my heart. Furthermore, I’d like to apol­o­gize to all of those who I have hurt and offend­ed with my words, and pledge to learn and grow (and I assure you I have) from this experience.”

Publishers note.

Just when you thought that cer­tain peo­ple could not be any more class-less they bur­row down into deep­er depths.
Makes you just stand there and well , stare in utter disbelief.

FERGUSON, Mo. (Reuters) — Tensions eased in the St Louis sub­urb of Ferguson on Thursday after two nights of vio­lence and loot­ing sparked by racial­ly charged anger over a grand jury’s deci­sion not to charge a white police offi­cer for fatal­ly shoot­ing an unarmed black teenager.

Protests also dwin­dled else­where in the United States as the Thanksgiving Day hol­i­day and win­try weath­er kept many indoors.
In New York, where pro­test­ers had vowed on social media to dis­rupt the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade through Manhattan, at least sev­en peo­ple were arrest­ed dur­ing the event, police said​.In California, about 500 peo­ple were arrest­ed in ral­lies on Tuesday and Wednesday that shut high­ways in major cities.About 90 of those pro­test­ers who were still in jail in Los Angeles on Thursday were ordered released by the city’s police chief in time for Thanksgiving din­ner, a police spokesman said, as long as they promised to appear in court.The order did not apply to any­one with an out­stand­ing war­rant, nor to one pro­test­er who was arrest­ed on Wednesday night for assault with a dead­ly weapon, the spokesman said.
Ferguson became the focal point of a nation­al debate on race rela­tions after offi­cer Darren Wilson shot dead Michael Brown on Aug. 9. The U.S. Justice Department is prob­ing pos­si­ble civ­il rights abus­es, and President Barack Obama has called for reflec­tion on the dif­fi­cul­ties minori­ties face in the coun­try. http://​news​.yahoo​.com/​m​o​r​e​-​4​0​0​-​a​r​r​e​s​t​e​d​-​f​e​r​g​u​s​o​n​-​p​r​o​t​e​s​t​s​-​s​p​r​e​a​d​-​o​t​h​e​r​-​u​-​0​0​2​1​4​9​0​4​8​.​h​tml

Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani on Sunday raised eye­brows when he said he was “dis­ap­point­ed” that the focus in Ferguson, Missouri, is on the major­i­ty of the police force being white, rather than vio­lence between African-Americans.

The con­ver­sa­tion erupt­ed when “Meet the Press” host Chuck Todd began dis­cussing the dis­pro­por­tion of white police forces to the com­mu­ni­ties they serve in areas across the U.S. aside from Ferguson, includ­ing Newark, New Jersey and El Paso, Texas. ”All of those places could become future Fergusons,” Todd said. 

Giuliani quick­ly piv­ot­ed the con­ver­sa­tion, argu­ing “the fact is, I find it very dis­ap­point­ing that you’re not dis­cussing the fact that 93% of blacks in America are killed by oth­er blacks. We’re talk­ing about the excep­tion here.”

Georgetown Professor Michael Eric Dyson chimed in, say­ing “First of all, most black peo­ple who com­mit crimes against oth­er black peo­ple go to jail. Number two, they are not sworn by the police depart­ment as an agent of the state to uphold the law. So in both cas­es, that’s a false equiv­a­len­cy that the may­or has drawn, which has exac­er­bat­ed ten­sions deeply embed­ded in American culture.”

“Black peo­ple who kill black peo­ple go to jail. White peo­ple who are police­men who kill black peo­ple do not go to jail,” Dyson con­tin­ued. “If a jury can indict a ham sand­wich, why is it tak­ing so long?”

Giuliani respond­ed, say­ing “it’s hard­ly insignif­i­cant, it is the rea­son for the heavy pol­i­cy pres­ence in the black com­mu­ni­ty.” Dyson: “Not at all, not at all.”

“What about the poor black child that is killed by anoth­er black child? Why aren’t you protest­ing that?” Giuliani asked. “Those peo­ple go to jail!” Dyson fired back. http://​www​.msnbc​.com/​m​s​n​b​c​/​r​u​d​y​-​g​i​u​l​i​a​n​i​-​f​o​r​m​e​r​-​m​a​y​o​r​-​b​l​a​c​k​-​v​i​o​l​e​n​c​e​-​r​e​a​s​o​n​-​w​h​i​t​e​-​c​o​p​s​-​f​e​r​g​u​s​o​n​?​C​I​D​=​S​M​_FB

Vatican City, Nov 17, ²⁰¹⁴⁄₀₁:11 am (CNA/​EWTN News).- Updated November 17, 2014 at 6:25a.m. MST. Adds com­ments from Vatican spokesman Fr. Federico Lombardi SJ at para­graphs 9 – 10.

Pope Francis on Monday offi­cial­ly announced that he will vis­it the U.S. in September 2015, includ­ing a vis­it to the World Meeting of Families in Philadelphia and New York City.

“I wish to con­firm, if God wills it, that in September of 2015 I will go to Philadelphia for the Eighth World Meeting of Families.” he announced at Vatican City’s Synod Hall Nov. 17 dur­ing his remarks at an inter­na­tion­al col­lo­qui­um on the com­ple­men­tar­i­ty of man and woman.

The Philadelphia World Meeting of Families will take place from Sept. 22 – 27. Even before the Pope’s announce­ment, the meet­ing was expect­ed to draw tens of thou­sands of peo­ple. Archbishop Charles J. Chaput of Philadelphia had told a gath­er­ing of Catholic bish­ops last week that a papal vis­it would like­ly result in crowds of about 1 million.

A glob­al Catholic event, the world meet­ing seeks to sup­port and strength­en fam­i­lies. St. John Paul II found­ed the event in 1994, and it takes place every three years.

Archbishop Chaput had pre­vi­ous­ly hint­ed that Pope Francis would attend the 2015 meet­ing, although he cau­tioned that the vis­it had not been offi­cial­ly con­firmed. In March 2014, a Pennsylvania del­e­ga­tion includ­ing Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett and Philadelphia may­or Michael Nutter vis­it­ed the Vatican to help encour­age the Pope to vis­it the U.S.

On Thursday, Archbishop Bernardito Auza, the head of the Holy See’s per­ma­nent observ­er mis­sion to the United Nations, told the Associated Press “if he comes to Philadelphia, he will come to New York.”

The 70^th anniver­sary of the U.N.’s found­ing would be “the ide­al time” for a papal vis­it, the arch­bish­op said Nov. 13. Next year also marks the 50^th anniver­sary of Pope Paul VI’s 1965 vis­it to the U.N., the first such vis­it from a Pope.

In August, on his return flight from South Korea, Pope Francis said he want­ed to vis­it the U.S. in 2015 for the Philadelphia gath­er­ing. He also not­ed that he had received invi­ta­tions from President Barack Obama, Congress and U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon, as well as from Mexico.

However, despite the antic­i­pa­tion of the Pope’s pos­si­ble vis­it to New York and Washington while in the U.S., Vatican spokesman Fr. Federico Lombardi S.J. told jour­nal­ists shorly after the announce­ment that as of now noth­ing else is confirmed.

The Pope, he explained, “did­n’t say any­thing about any oth­er steps or moments in his trip to America. He guar­an­teed his pres­ence to the orga­niz­ers of the World Day for Families, but as for the rest, I have no con­crete information.”

Pope Francis has vis­it­ed the Holy Land and Albania as well as South Korea. He will vis­it France and Turkey in November, and Sri Lanka and the Philippines in January 2015. He will return to France for a longer vis­it in 2015. http://​www​.catholic​newsagency​.com/​n​e​w​s​/​i​t​s​-​o​f​f​i​c​i​a​l​-​p​o​p​e​-​f​r​a​n​c​i​s​-​a​n​n​o​u​n​c​e​s​-​2​0​1​5​-​v​i​s​i​t​-​t​o​-​u​s​-​3​2​1​95/

PUBLISHER’S NOTE:

Vatican spokesman Fr. Federico Lombardi S.J. told jour­nal­ists short­ly after the announce­ment that as of now noth­ing else is con­firmed. The Pope, he explained, “did­n’t say any­thing about any oth­er steps or moments in his trip to America. He guar­an­teed his pres­ence to the orga­niz­ers of the World Day for Families, but as for the rest, I have no con­crete information.”

Pope Francis recent­ly demot­ed American Cardinal Raymond Burke. He removed Burke from the church’s high­est court plac­ing him in the posi­tion of chap­lain of the Knights of Malta, a Vatican char­i­ty group. 

Demoted for speak­ing out against Francis’ lib­er­al­ism with the Gospel of God and Homosexuals.

In an inter­view with a Spanish Catholic week­ly pub­lished last week, Burke said of the pope’s lead­er­ship: “Many have expressed their con­cerns to me. … There is a strong sense that the church is like a ship with­out a rudder.”

This same Pope Francis recent­ly asked Reporters “who was he to judge” when ques­tioned on the Issue of Homosexuality. In a Catholic Document cir­cu­lat­ed to Catholic Bishops , Francis urged them to be more tol­er­ant of Homosexuals. In oth­er words, Pope Francis is will­ing to state that he is not qual­i­fied to judge on the ques­tion of Homosexuality ‚even as he urges the Catholic Church to engage more with Homosexuals.

Pope Francis’s edict is tan­ta­mount to mak­ing him­self God. The Word of God is clear on Homosexuality. No one asked or expects Pope Francis to devise teach­ings on Homosexuality for Christians . God’s word is unchanged and unchang­ing. Homosexuality is an abom­i­na­tion onto the Lord our God.

In response to crit­i­cisms of his lib­er­al stance Francis said quote: “God is not afraid of new things.”

This is the same Francis who is com­ing to America to address the faith­ful on the World’s day of Families next year. It is at best a con­tra­dic­tion in terms and at worse, an insult to Christians who under­stand that Marriage is between one man and one woman as devised by God. 

The knife-car­ry­ing intrud­er who burst into the White House was­n’t stopped out­side because a Secret Service agent was busy talk­ing on a cell phone, it was report­ed Thursday. A series of “per­for­mance, orga­ni­za­tion­al and tech­ni­cal” fail­ures allowed Omar Gonzalez to break into the White House Sept. 19, accord­ing to Department of Homeland Security report obtained by The New York Times.

The Secret Service agent guard­ing the north lawn, which Gonzalez crossed on his way to the front door, was in his van talk­ing on his cell, The Times report­ed. His wasn’t wear­ing his radio ear­piece at the time and had left a sec­ond radio in his lock­er, accord­ing to Homeland Security report cit­ed by The Times. The agency only became aware that Gonzalez, a U.S. Army vet, had entered the secure perime­ter when oth­er agents began run­ning after him.

The Secret Service alarm sys­tems also failed to work, let­ting Gonzalez scale the fence with­out sound­ing a warn­ing. The First Family had exit­ed the White House just moments before Gonzalez, who had a knife in his pock­et, burst inside.

He was tack­led by a guard in the hall­way and appre­hend­ed. http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/white-house-intruder-stopped-agent-phone-nyt-article‑1.2010399

The Illinois cop who broke a jailed woman’s face while throw­ing her into a cell has plead­ed guilty to offi­cial mis­con­duct. Cassandra Feuerstein had a blood­shot eye from a rup­tured sock­et, bruised cheeks and loose teeth after for­mer Skokie police offi­cer Michael Hart shoved the woman into a cement bench after a 2013 arrest.

The ex-cop apol­o­gized to Feuerstein from a writ­ten note in Leighton Criminal Court Building and said he had been frus­trat­ed because she would not look into the cam­era for a mug shot. Feuerstein had been arrest­ed in March after offi­cers found her passed out behind the wheel of her car, parked on the side of the road.

She lat­er plead­ed guilty to dri­ving while under the influence.

“I did not intend to or want to harm you in any way,” Hart said, accord­ing to the Chicago Tribune. “I act­ed in frus­tra­tion and not out of anger or mean­ness … I’m sor­ry for the injuries I caused you. I hope you can accept my heart­felt apol­o­gy.” Hart opt­ed to resign because the Skokie Police Department planned to fire him, the Tribune report­ed. Surveillance footage shows Feuerstein col­lapsed on the floor of the jail cell before offi­cers attempt­ed to lift her from the pool of blood on the floor. Hart will lose his pen­sion as a result of plead­ing guilty. He is also sen­tenced to two years of pro­ba­tion. http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/illinois-pleads-guilty-battering-drunk-driver-face-article‑1.2010246

The high­est-rank­ing American at the Vatican was demot­ed this week­end, after weeks of vocal­ly crit­i­ciz­ing Pope Francis’ lib­er­al lead­er­ship of the Catholic Church. In an unprece­dent­ed move for the Vatican, Cardinal Raymond Burke was tak­en off the church’s high­est court to become the chap­lain of the Knights of Malta, a Vatican char­i­ty group, after vocal­ly oppos­ing the church’s recent pro­gres­sive moves. His new posi­tion holds almost no respon­si­bil­i­ties. Though out of the ordi­nary, the deci­sion keeps with Francis’ recent moves to make the church more inclu­sive, but it also sig­nals that, while the pope may be more lib­er­al, the rest of the church may not be. In par­tic­u­lar, the church has seem­ing­ly adopt­ed a more accept­ing stance toward the gay com­mu­ni­ty. Francis famous­ly said “who am I to judge?” about gay peo­ple, and, last month, the church’s annu­al meet­ing pro­duced a doc­u­ment ask­ing church lead­ers to dis­cuss whether they were ready to be more wel­com­ing towards divorced Catholics and gay people.

Burke, 66, did not fit in with the lib­er­al-lean­ing trend. He was a leader in the con­ser­v­a­tive move­ment with­in the church and has fought against any lib­er­al inter­pre­ta­tion of Catholicism, par­tic­u­lar­ly with regards to homo­sex­u­al­i­ty. (“Always and every­where wrong [and] evil,” he said.) “The pope is not free to change the church’s teach­ings with regard to the immoral­i­ty of homo­sex­u­al acts or the insol­u­bil­i­ty of mar­riage or any oth­er doc­trine of the faith,” Burke told Buzzfeed last month.

Francis’ lat­est deci­sion comes on the heels of a hand­ful of oth­ers in which he pushed Catholics to mit­i­gate the effects of cli­mate change and redis­trib­ute wealth. http://​www​.msnbc​.com/​m​s​n​b​c​/​p​o​p​e​-​f​r​a​n​c​i​s​-​d​e​m​o​t​e​s​-​a​n​t​i​-​g​a​y​-​b​i​s​hop

Russia’s long-range bombers will con­duct reg­u­lar patrol mis­sions from the Arctic Ocean to the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico, the mil­i­tary said Wednesday, a show of mus­cle reflect­ing ten­sions with the West over Ukraine. A state­ment from Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu came as NATO’s chief com­man­der accused Moscow of send­ing new troops and tanks into Ukraine — a claim quick­ly reject­ed by Russia. Shoigu said the ten­sions with the West over Ukraine would require Russia to also beef up its forces in the Crimea, the Black Sea Peninsula that Russia annexed in March.

He said Russian long-range bombers will con­duct flights along Russian bor­ders and over the Arctic Ocean. He added that “in the cur­rent sit­u­a­tion we have to main­tain mil­i­tary pres­ence in the west­ern Atlantic and east­ern Pacific, as well as the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico.” He said that the increas­ing pace and dura­tion of flights would require stronger main­te­nance efforts and rel­e­vant direc­tives have been issued to indus­tries. Russian nuclear-capa­ble strate­gic bombers were mak­ing reg­u­lar patrols across the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans dur­ing Cold War times, but the post-Soviet mon­ey crunch forced the mil­i­tary to cut back. The bomber patrol flights have resumed under President Vladimir Putin’s tenure.

The patrols have become even more fre­quent in recent weeks with NATO report­ing a spike in Russian mil­i­tary flights over the Black, Baltic and North seas as well as the Atlantic Ocean.

Earlier this year, Shoigu said that Russia plans to expand its world­wide mil­i­tary pres­ence by seek­ing per­mis­sion for navy ships to use ports in Latin America, Asia and else­where for replen­ish­ing sup­plies and doing main­te­nance. He said the mil­i­tary was con­duct­ing talks with Algeria, Cyprus, Nicaragua, Venezuela, Cuba, Seychelles, Vietnam and Singapore.

Shoigu said Russia was also talk­ing to some of those coun­tries about allow­ing long-range bombers to use their air bases for refueling.

A senior U.S. mil­i­tary offi­cial said that Russia has not pre­vi­ous­ly flown actu­al bomber patrols over the Gulf of Mexico, includ­ing dur­ing the Cold War.

Long-range bombers have been in the area before, but only to par­tic­i­pate in var­i­ous vis­its to the region when the air­craft stopped over night at loca­tions in South or Central America. During the Cold War, oth­er types of Russian air­craft flew patrols there, includ­ing sur­veil­lance flights and anti-sub­ma­rine aircraft.

The offi­cial, who spoke on con­di­tion of anonymi­ty because he was­n’t autho­rized to dis­cuss the flights pub­licly, also said that the pace of Russian flights around North America, includ­ing the Arctic, have large­ly remained steady, with about five inci­dents per year.

Col. Steve Warren, a Pentagon spokesman, declined to call this a Russian provo­ca­tion. He said the Russians have a right, like any oth­er nation, to oper­ate in inter­na­tion­al air­space and in inter­na­tion­al waters. The impor­tant thing, Warren said, is for such exer­cis­es to be car­ried out safe­ly and in accor­dance with inter­na­tion­al standards.

Ian Kearns, direc­tor of the European Leadership Network, a London-based think tank, said the bomber patrols were part of Kremlin’s efforts to make the Russian mil­i­tary “more vis­i­ble and more assertive in its actions.”

The new bomber flights “aren’t nec­es­sar­i­ly pre­sag­ing a threat,” Kearns said. “They are just part of a gen­er­al ramp­ing-up of activities.”

But he said “the more instances you have of NATO and Russian forces com­ing close togeth­er, the more chance there is of hav­ing some­thing bad hap­pen­ing, even if it’s not intentional.”

Senator Mary Landrieu sure is mov­ing fast to embrace her new Republican over­lords. She just might not have the chance work with them.

Facing a run-off elec­tion in three weeks to hold onto her seat in Louisiana, the woman who is now the most endan­gered Democrat in America raced to the Senate floor on Wednesday — short­ly after it reopened fol­low­ing last week’s elec­tion — to call for an imme­di­ate vote on a top GOP pri­or­i­ty: approval of the Keystone XL oil pipeline. “I want to say yes to Majority Leader Mitch McConnell,” Landrieu said. “The time to start is now. The pub­lic has clear­ly spoken.”

“I want to say yes to Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.”

The third-term Democrat gave McConnell, cur­rent­ly the minor­i­ty leader, a pro­mo­tion: He won’t actu­al­ly become major­i­ty leader until January — and if Landrieu does­n’t defeat Representative Bill Cassidy on December 6, she won’t be there to see it. Hailing from a state where the oil-and-gas indus­try is crit­i­cal to the econ­o­my, Landrieu has long been a big boost­er of the Keystone project and has repeat­ed­ly called on the Obama admin­is­tra­tion to approve it. Republicans have promised to take up leg­is­la­tion demand­ing its con­struc­tion when they take the major­i­ty, but Landrieu wants to take home a tro­phy in a race she is expect­ed to lose. http://​news​.yahoo​.com/​m​a​r​y​-​l​a​n​d​r​i​e​u​-​t​r​i​e​s​-​b​e​a​t​-​g​o​p​-​j​o​i​n​i​n​g​-​t​h​e​m​-​2​1​1​7​4​0​7​3​6​.​h​tml

Notwithstanding the neces­si­ty for expe­di­en­cy and plain old sur­vival, is it any won­der these turn­coats are reviled?Unfortunately These lily-liv­ered turn-coats are every­where in the Democratic Party. They are mere self­ish self-serv­ing oppor­tunists. I hope vot­ers in Louisiana send Mary Landrieu pack­ing in runoff elec­tions slat­ed for December. 

Washington (CNN) — Top Democratic strate­gists in Washington are already begin­ning one of the city’s old­est tra­di­tions — sec­ond-guess­ing a los­ing elec­tion strat­e­gy before what is expect­ed to be a sting­ing defeat in Tuesday’s midterm elections.

One of the key debates to emerge is whether Democratic can­di­dates were too cau­tious in avoid­ing President Barack Obama at all costs.

“Running away from the pres­i­dent is nev­er smart,” said one top Democratic strate­gist who has worked with both the White House and Senate can­di­dates this midterm cycle. “You look like chick­en s — ,” the strate­gist added on con­di­tion of anonymity.

A White House offi­cial who also asked not to be named so he could speak freely argued Democrats still have a chance to hold the Senate. “We don’t think any­thing is done until elec­tion day,” the offi­cial said in an email that includ­ed elec­tion day polls in 2012 that showed the pres­i­dent tied with Mitt Romney. Obama went on to win a deci­sive victory.

Still, the con­ven­tion­al wis­dom to ban­ish the pres­i­dent from key Senate bat­tle­grounds, in favor of either Bill and Hillary Clinton, Vice President Joe Biden, and even First Lady Michelle Obama made sense to most Senate Democratic cam­paigns. The pres­i­den­t’s low approval num­bers plus the con­ser­v­a­tive ter­rain at risk for Democrats in Arkansas, Alaska and Louisiana was a “tox­ic com­bi­na­tion,” as anoth­er top strate­gist put it. Read more here http://​www​.cnn​.com/​2​0​1​4​/​1​1​/​0​3​/​p​o​l​i​t​i​c​s​/​o​b​a​m​a​-​s​t​r​a​t​e​g​y​-​d​e​m​o​c​r​a​t​s​-​q​u​e​s​t​i​o​n​i​n​g​-​a​c​o​s​ta/