The gun­man parked his black Honda direct­ly south of the White House, in the dark of a November night, in a closed lane of Constitution Avenue. He point­ed his semi­au­to­mat­ic rifle out of the pas­sen­ger win­dow, aimed direct­ly at the home of the pres­i­dent of the United States, and pulled the trigger.

A bul­let smashed a win­dow on the sec­ond floor, just steps from the first family’s for­mal liv­ing room. Another lodged in a win­dow frame, and more pinged off the roof, send­ing bits of wood and con­crete to the ground. At least sev­en bul­lets struck the upstairs res­i­dence of the White House, fly­ing some 700 yards across the South Lawn.

President Obama and his wife were out of town on that evening of Nov. 11, 2011, but their younger daugh­ter, Sasha, and Michelle Obama’s moth­er,Marian Robinson, were inside, while old­er daugh­ter Malia was expect­ed back any moment from an out­ing with friends.

Secret Service offi­cers ini­tial­ly rushed to respond. One, sta­tioned direct­ly under the sec­ond-floor ter­race where the bul­lets struck, drew her .357 hand­gun and pre­pared to crack open an emer­gency gun box. Snipers on the roof, stand­ing just 20 feet from where one bul­let struck, scanned the South Lawn through their rifle scopes for signs of an attack. With lit­tle cam­era sur­veil­lance on the White House perime­ter, it was up to the Secret Service offi­cers on duty to fig­ure out what was going on.

Then came an order that sur­prised some of the offi­cers. “No shots have been fired. . . . Stand down,” a super­vi­sor called over his radio. He said the noise was the back­fire from a near­by con­struc­tion vehicle.

Raw video post­ed to social media Tuesday appears to show NYPD offi­cers slam­ming a preg­nant woman to the ground belly-first.

The woman, Sandra Amezquita, 44, report­ed­ly tried to inter­vene in the arrest of her 17-year-old son. In the video, offi­cers from the 72^nd precinct appear to be throw­ing her to the pave­ment before slap­ping hand­cuffs on her.

The New York Daily News reports that Amezquita is 5 feet, 4 inch­es tall, and five months preg­nant.

“Don’t resist! Throw your hands up!” an onlook­er warns as Amezquita is grabbed by the arm by an uniden­ti­fied offi­cer, but the words come too late.

A friend tries to get in between offi­cers and Amezquita, but she is thrown to the ground, too. Cops issued Amezquita a sum­mons for dis­or­der­ly con­duct. Her hus­band was arrest­ed for alleged­ly assault­ing a police officer.

The video of the inci­dent, which hap­pened in Brooklyn over the week­end, was post­ed to Facebook by El Grito De Sunset Park, a com­mu­ni­ty action and social jus­tice group that has been in oper­a­tion since 2002.

Checkpoints occu­py a unique posi­tion in the American jus­tice sys­tem. At these road­side sta­tions, where police ques­tion dri­vers in search of the ine­bri­at­ed or “ille­gal,” any­one can be stopped and ques­tioned, regard­less of prob­a­ble cause, vio­lat­ing the Fourth Amendment’s pro­tec­tion against “gen­er­al war­rants” that do not spec­i­fy the who/​what/​where/​why of a search or seizure. Though the Supreme Court agrees that check­points skirt the Fourth Amendment, the Court has been clear that the “spe­cial needs” check­points serve, like traf­fic safe­ty and immi­gra­tion enforce­ment, trump the “slight” intru­sions on motorists’ rights.

We have check­points for bicy­cle safe­ty, gath­er­ing wit­ness­es, drug traf­fick­ing, “ille­gal” immi­gra­tion and traf­fic safe­ty. Many states, like California, require cops to abide by “neu­tral” math­e­mat­i­cal for­mu­las when choos­ing which dri­vers to pull over (like 1 in every 10 cars). In real­i­ty, these deci­sions are left to the dis­cre­tion of indi­vid­ual police offi­cers, which results in a type of vehic­u­lar stop and frisk.

That’s why peo­ple in Arizona have sued the Department of Homeland Security for its wan­ton deploy­ment of immi­gra­tion check­points in their state. Among their com­plaints are racial pro­fil­ing, harass­ment, assault and unwar­rant­ed inter­ro­ga­tion, and deten­tion not relat­ed to the express “spe­cial need” of deter­min­ing peo­ples’ immi­gra­tion status.

A key legal detail about check­points is that they can­not be used for crime con­trol, as that would require indi­vid­u­al­ized prob­a­ble cause. But legal schol­ars argue that non-crim­i­nal­ly-mind­ed check­points are also ille­gal. They point out that the Fourth Amendment pro­tect­ed the colonists from being searched for non-crim­i­nal “wrong­do­ing.” Doing noth­ing wrong at all, they argue, is not grounds to be searched or have your prop­er­ty seized​.Read more here. http://​www​.salon​.com/

KINGSTON, Jamaica – Coroner Patrick Murphy has hand­ed over the case to jurors who are now to deter­mine whether Senior Superintendent Dayton Henry was mur­dered. Murphy hand­ed over the case to the juror for delib­er­a­tion after two hours of sum­ma­tion and instruc­tion. Henry, who head­ed the tough Clarendon Police Division, passed away from health com­pli­ca­tions in May 2012 after being admit­ted to the Intensive Care Unit at the Kingston Public Hospital, after falling ill. His death sparked sus­pi­cion and an inquest was con­vened to deter­mine if Henry was mur­dered. Reportedly, a pathol­o­gist report has stat­ed that a chem­i­cal found in rat poi­son was present in the senior cop’s sys­tem. Murphy is expect­ed to hand over the case to jurors who will deter­mine if Henry was mur­dered. jamaicaob​serv​er​.com

This medi­um is at a loss in under­stand­ing why it took all of this time for a Coroner’s Inquest to con­clude it’s find­ings. SSP Henry passed away a full 27 months ago. Why are Jurors just now being asked to deter­mine whether he was mur­dered? What kind of inves­tiga­tive Protocol is that anyway?

Now I am a lit­tle Leary that there was­n’t even a prop­er inves­ti­ga­tion going on while it took this pathet­ic process to play out. Is there an active file with wit­ness state­ments? Did Investigators put poten­tial sus­pect on record by col­lect­ing state­ments from them? (This includes, but is not con­fined to SSP Henry’s wife or com­mon law partner.

What did the Investigation yield in the process, if any­thing? Why do I have the feel­ing that noth­ing sub­stan­tive was done pend­ing the out­come of this snail-paced Coroner’s Inquest. 

How will jurors decide whether or not SSP Henry was mur­dered with just what is alleged­ly placed before them? There are active Ingredients that may be found in poi­sons , traces of which may actu­al­ly be found in our food , water, or even med­i­cines. Does that prove mur­der? I think not . All it says is that the per­son did not die from nat­ur­al causes. 

On Friday, May 9, 2014, just after 5:30am in Killeen, Texas, Marvin Louis Guy was the tar­get of a no knock raid. The offi­cers were look­ing for drugs, yet none were found in the home. There was some ques­tion­able para­pher­na­lia, but noth­ing indica­tive of drug deal­ing- or any­thing damn­ing enough for a rea­son­able per­son to feel the need to take an offi­cers life. Unfortunately the dan­ger of no-knock raids is real. just ask the par­ents of baby Bou or the fam­i­ly of Detective Dinwiddie. Detective Dinwiddie was one of the SWAT offi­cers who broke into Guy’s house on May 9^th, based on a seem­ing­ly bogus infor­mant tip off about drugs being dealt from the home. Likely alarmed by the men climb­ing through his win­dows at 5:30 in the morn­ing, Guy and his wife sought to pro­tect them­selves and their prop­er­ty and fired on the intrud­ers- in self defense.

Dinwiddie, along with three oth­er offi­cers were shot while attempt­ing to breach the win­dows to the home, accord­ing to the department’s press release“The TRU was begin­ning to breach the win­dow when the 49 year old male inside, opened fire strik­ing four officers.”

Since the shoot­ing occurred dur­ing the break in, a rea­son­able per­son would assume they had not yet iden­ti­fied them­selves as police offi­cers. How on earth is this not self defense? Prosecutors are now seek­ing the death penal­ty against Guy. He is charged with cap­i­tal mur­der in Dinwiddie’s death, as well as three counts of attempt­ed cap­i­tal mur­der for fir­ing on the oth­er offi­cers dur­ing the shootout, injur­ing one oth­er offi­cer. Body armor pro­tect­ed oth­ers who were hit. This announce­ment, giv­en by the pros­e­cu­tor in open court, comes one day after Governor Rick Perry pre­sent­ed Dinwiddie’s fam­i­ly with the Star of Texas award. This award is giv­en out each year to police and first respon­ders killed or injured in the line of duty, the Killeen Daily Herald report­ed. Let’s flash back to December, in Texas, for a moment. On December 19, also just before 6am, Burleson County Sgt. Adam Sowders, led a team in a no-knock mar­i­jua­na raid on Henry Goedrich Magee’s mobile home in Somerville.

Also star­tled by these intrud­ers, Magee opened fire, fear­ing for the safe­ty of him­self and his then preg­nant girlfriend.

Sowders was unfor­tu­nate­ly killed among the chaos.

In February, just a few months before the fate­ful raid in Killeen, all charges against Magee were dropped when a Texas grand jury refused to indict, based on them believ­ing he feared for his safe­ty and that this was a rea­son­able act of self defense.

With such sim­i­lar cir­cum­stances and such intense­ly oppo­site reper­cus­sions one cant help but try to find the differences.

Most obvi­ous? Guy is black and Magee is white. Also, take note of the dif­fer­ence in pho­tos used in the press.
Read more at http://​the​freethought​pro​ject​.com/​p​r​o​s​e​c​u​t​o​r​-​s​e​e​k​i​n​g​-​d​e​a​t​h​-​p​e​n​a​l​t​y​-​o​f​f​i​c​e​r​-​k​i​l​l​e​d​-​k​n​o​c​k​-​r​a​i​d​/​#​c​t​4​W​x​c​O​R​v​u​M​a​8​X​Q​P​.99

Video was released Monday of a vio­lent alter­ca­tion alleged­ly between rap­per Jay Z and his sis­ter-in-law Solange Knowles. By now, most peo­ple with access to WiFi have already seen it and maybe even joked about the way Solange launched her­self at Jay Z, punch­ing and kick­ing. The response elicit­ed by the footage begs the ques­tion, how­ev­er: is female to male vio­lence real­ly a laugh­ing mat­ter? The hash­tag #whatJayZsaidtoSolange is a trend­ing top­ic on Twitter, gar­ner­ing hun­dreds of thou­sands of tweets in a few hours. Users made attempts to one-up each oth­er with spec­u­la­tion over what the rap­per could have said to his sis­ter-in-law to pro­voke such a sud­den and vicious attack. Even some cor­po­ra­tions saw fit to cap­i­tal­ize on the moment. Fast foodchain Whataburger sent out, “I’m not shar­ing my Whataburger with you #WhatJayZsaidtoSolange.” “#WhatJayZsaidtoSolange It’s not DiGiorno, It’s Delivery,” tweet­ed the piz­za mak­er. The tweet has since been deleted.

“Our soci­ety, cer­tain­ly our media, treats attacks on men by women as a laugh­ing mat­ter,” says Phillip W. Cook, author of “Abused Men: The Hidden Side of Domestic Violence.” Cook, who stud­ies and writes on inti­mate-part­ner and fam­i­ly vio­lence against men points to high-pro­file exam­ples like a 2011 Super Bowl com­mer­cial from Pepsi. In the ad, a man is repeat­ed­ly assault­ed by his female part­ner. She kicks him and push­es his head into a pie, among oth­er things. The com­mer­cial ends with her vio­lent­ly hurl­ing a can of Pepsi at his head but acci­den­tal­ly hit­ting anoth­er woman. The com­mer­cial was titled, “Love Hurts.”

“Do you think there wouldn’t be howls of protest if a man was doing that to a woman,” asks Cook of the com­mer­cial. “Those kinds of images, and there are more than we real­ize, dimin­ish the seri­ous­ness of vio­lence against men and make vio­lence by women seem accept­able and fun­ny. That ulti­mate­ly has an effect on how we view all vio­lence,” he says. “We need to be accu­rate about the infor­ma­tion being sup­plied and treat it seri­ous­ly.” Family vio­lence against men, per­pe­trat­ed by women, is not near the epi­dem­ic that vio­lence against women is, but it’s still fre­quent and sig­nif­i­cant, say experts. According to Cook, meta-analy­ses of domes­tic vio­lence data have revealed that near­ly half of all inci­dents are clas­si­fied as “mutu­al com­bat.” More than a quar­ter of domes­tic vio­lence inci­dents, he says how­ev­er, are per­pe­trat­ed by women against their male part­ners. Read more here the​grio​.com

Hiawayi Robinson, of Pritchard, Alabama, a small city on the north side of Mobile, was look­ing for­ward to turn­ing nine years old next week. On Tuesday, Hiawayi had talked to her father on the phone about what she want­ed for her birth­day (a lap­top com­put­er) and told him that she was going down­stairs to see if her cousin was home. She nev­er came back.

Her par­ents report­ed her miss­ing that evening. Her grand­moth­er, Brenda Populus, was heartbroken.

“I’ll do any­thing to get my grand­ba­by back,” she said. “Her birth­day was on the 24^th, in one week.” Populus couldn’t believe that Hiawayi could dis­ap­pear so sud­den­ly. “She went right down the steps — she didn’t have to cross the street or any­thing, just a lit­tle courtyard.”

Thursday, after a search coör­di­nat­ed by local police and the FBI, as well as vol­un­teers from the com­mu­ni­ty, Hiawayi’s body was found behind an aban­doned build­ing. Police are inves­ti­gat­ing her death as a homi­cide, in con­junc­tion with the FBI; no cause of death or pos­si­ble sus­pects have been announced.

When reporters asked Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley to com­ment on the news that Hiawayi’s body had been found, these were the words of com­fort and sup­port he had for Hiawayi’s family:

“There are things that hap­pen we just don’t under­stand. There are dif­fi­cul­ties in fam­i­lies. We don’t know, maybe drug relat­ed. Maybe alco­hol relat­ed. Maybe fam­i­ly prob­lems. We just don’t know what the sit­u­a­tion is.”

Bentley added he needs to do every­thing he can to make fam­i­lies more sound.

Gov. Bentley has not yet replied to press queries about his com­ments Thursday, but on Friday, he abrupt­ly offered a $5000 reward for infor­ma­tion lead­ing to the arrest and con­vic­tion of a sus­pect and has issued a writ­ten state­ment say­ing some­thing rather dif­fer­ent from his ear­li­er com­ments about the sad fam­i­ly with its pos­si­ble drug and alco­hol problems:

“Dianne and I were heart­bro­ken to learn of the trag­ic death of this inno­cent child. We have been pray­ing and fol­low­ing the sit­u­a­tion close­ly, and our prayers for com­fort are with Hiawayi’s family.

“We won’t rest until this lit­tle girl’s killer is brought to jus­tice. Alabama’s state law enforce­ment agen­cies have been active­ly assist­ing the Prichard Police Department in the inves­ti­ga­tion into the death of Hiawayi Robinson. I direct­ed the Secretary of the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency, Spencer Collier, to go to Prichard and offer any resources need­ed. As soon as Hiawayi was report­ed miss­ing, we sent 10 State Bureau of Investigation agents to Prichard, and our Trooper Aviation Unit also assist­ed in help­ing to find Hiawayi. Those agents will remain in Prichard until a sus­pect has been arrest­ed. Furthermore, I’ve direct­ed an increased pres­ence of state troop­ers in Prichard until the per­son who com­mit­ted this ter­ri­ble act has been found.”

Read more at http://​won​kette​.com/​5​6​0​8​6​9​/​a​l​a​b​a​m​a​-​g​o​v​e​r​n​o​r​-​c​o​n​s​o​l​e​s​-​f​a​m​i​l​y​-​o​f​-​m​u​r​d​e​r​e​d​-​8​-​y​e​a​r​-​o​l​d​-​b​l​a​c​k​-​g​i​r​l​-​b​y​-​s​u​g​g​e​s​t​i​n​g​-​t​h​e​i​r​-​d​y​s​f​u​n​c​t​i​o​n​-​k​i​l​l​e​d​-​h​e​r​#​l​5​F​S​5​R​V​J​z​k​j​l​4​g​s​m​.99

Arizona Cardinals run­ning back Jonathan Dwyer head-butted his wife and broke her nose after she bit his lip to stop his sex­u­al advances, accord­ing to a police report made pub­lic Thursday.

Dwyer lat­er threat­ened to kill him­self in front of their 17-month-old son if the wife alert­ed the police, accord­ing to the report, which detailed the lat­est domes­tic vio­lence alle­ga­tions against an NFL play­er. Dwyer was arrest­ed Wednesday and benched by the team.

The police report describes two alter­ca­tions between Dwyer and his wife, on July 21 and 22. In the first, Dwyer tried to kiss her and take off her clothes, accord­ing to the report. She told him to stop and bit his lip when he wouldn’t, the report said. Dwyer then head-butted her, it said. Police were called to the home by some­one who heard argu­ing. When they got there, the report said: Read more here…http://​www​.nbc​news​.com/​s​t​o​r​y​l​i​n​e​/​n​f​l​-​c​o​n​t​r​o​v​e​r​s​y​/​p​o​l​i​c​e​-​d​e​t​a​i​l​-​a​s​s​a​u​l​t​-​a​l​l​e​g​a​t​i​o​n​s​-​a​g​a​i​n​s​t​-​n​f​l​s​-​j​o​n​a​t​h​a​n​-​d​w​y​e​r​-​n​2​0​6​466

The two offi­cers involved in the inci­dent have not been iden­ti­fied by Saratoga Springs police depart­ment. They have been placed on paid admin­is­tra­tive leave. An inves­ti­ga­tion is being car­ried out by the county’s “offi­cer-involved shoot­ing pro­to­col team”, which includes offi­cers from sev­er­al dif­fer­ent forces and agen­cies, accord­ing to Taylor, who said the coun­ty attorney’s office would “review these find­ings and issue a statement”.

“We haven’t even inter­viewed the offi­cers yet,” said Taylor. “We’ve talked briefly with them just to kind of get an idea of what the scene was at the time.” He said offi­cers were typ­i­cal­ly inter­viewed with­in 48 – 72 hours of a shoot­ing. One is now sched­uled to be inter­viewed on Tuesday and the oth­er on Thursday, more than a week after the shoot­ing, he said.

“I’m stunned. I find that almost incom­pre­hen­si­ble,” Edwards, the attor­ney for Hunt’s fam­i­ly, said after being informed of this by the Guardian. “You want to speak with the offi­cers almost imme­di­ate­ly after­wards, when their mem­o­ries are fresh and before they have had a chance to cor­rob­o­rate their stories.”Read more here: http://​www​.the​guardian​.com/​w​o​r​l​d​/​2​h​1​4​/​s​e​p​/​1​6​/​d​a​r​r​i​e​n​-​h​u​n​t​-​s​h​o​t​-​i​n​-​t​h​e​-​b​a​c​k​-​b​y​-​u​t​a​h​-​p​o​l​i​c​e​-​s​a​y​s​-​f​a​m​i​l​y​-​a​t​t​o​r​ney

PUBLISHER’S NOTE:

The Attorney rep­re­sent­ing this fam­i­ly does­n’t seem to be the bright­est bulb in the shed. Why does mis­ter Edwards believe the cops have not been inter­viewed more than a full week lat­er ? Of course the Department puts out a sto­ry it culled from the Officers, but does­n’t both­er to inter­view them. The idea is to give them and Department Lawyers time to con­jure up an air-tight lie. Of course there is real­ly not much of a chance they will be held account­able. The case is being inves­ti­gat­ed by their cronies from dif­fer­ent depart­ments. These guys are enjoy­ing what amounts to extra vaca­tion time, paid for in tax­es by the vic­tim’s par­ents. Welcome to America. 

THE moth­er of new­ly installed Commissioner of Police Dr Carl Williams wants Jamaicans to sup­port her son in his new job.

“I’m ask­ing the good Lord and you mem­bers of the pub­lic to give him your sup­port,” Lynette Williams told the Jamaica Observer yes­ter­day, fol­low­ing the change of com­mand cer­e­mo­ny at the Police Officers’ Club in St Andrew.

Yesterday, Mrs Williams told the Observer that she was thank­ful for the suc­cess of her son and that the Lord had lift­ed him up.

“I feel I’ve done my best with him, and I feel Carl will do his very best,” she said.

During the cer­e­mo­ny, attend­ed by Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller and oth­er mem­bers of the Cabinet, Chief Justice Zaila McCalla and Director of Public Prosecutions Paula Llewellyn, among oth­er offi­cials, the sym­bol­ic baton of com­mand was passed over by Acting Commissioner Glenmore Hinds to Williams.

Hinds served as act­ing com­mis­sion since Owen Ellington start­ed his pre-retire­ment leave in July. Read it here:  http://​www​.jamaicaob​serv​er​.com/​n​e​w​s​/​C​o​m​m​i​s​s​i​o​n​e​r​-​s​-​m​o​m​-​w​a​n​t​s​-​p​u​b​l​i​c​-​s​u​p​p​o​r​t​-​f​o​r​-​s​o​n​_​1​7​5​5​1​313

The FBI is inves­ti­gat­ing alle­ga­tions of exces­sive force by a Missouri police offi­cer dur­ing a traf­fic stop that left a teenage motorist in crit­i­cal con­di­tion, author­i­ties said on Monday.

Last week two Studio City police offi­cers in Los Angeles detained and alleged­ly mis­took “Django Unchained” star Daniele Watts for a pros­ti­tute after they saw her — report­ed­ly ful­ly clothed — kiss­ing boyfriend and celebri­ty chef Brian James Lucas in a car.

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — A young black man who was fatal­ly shot last

week by Utah police lunged at the offi­cers with a real sword that had a 2.5‑foot steel blade, pros­e­cu­tors said Monday. Reports from Darrien Hunt’s fam­i­ly that the 22-year-old was car­ry­ing a toy sword are not accu­rate, said Utah County Chief Deputy Attorney Tim Taylor. “It was­n’t plas­tic, it was­n’t wood,” Taylor said. “It appears to be a real samu­rai sword.”“It was­n’t plas­tic, it was­n’t wood,” Taylor said. “It appears to be a real samu­rai sword.”.

Susan Hunt: Those stu­pid Cops , they though” they had to mur­der over a toy. This is my fam­i­ly and they have ruined it”

The Saratoga Springs Police Department is under fire over the fatal shoot­ing of Hunt last Wednesday. The city removed a crit­i­cal social media post­ing that accused the news media of report­ing innu­en­do, opin­ion and rumor as fact with the police chief apol­o­giz­ing for the remarks. Hunt’s moth­er has accused police of shoot­ing her son because he is black. Police say race played no role. An attor­ney for the fam­i­ly says an inde­pen­dent autop­sy shows Hunt was shot six times while run­ning away. Read it here: http://​www​.huff​in​g​ton​post​.com/​2​0​1​4​/​0​9​/​1​6​/​d​a​r​r​i​e​n​-​h​u​n​t​-​s​h​o​t​-​u​t​a​h​_​n​_​5​8​2​7​2​9​8​.​h​tml

President Obama was turned down at sev­er­al top golf cours­es in Westchester while he was vis­it­ing the area over Labor Day week­end, sources tell NBC 4 New York.

The Trump National Golf Club, the Winged Foot and Willow Ridge were among some of the élite cours­es that rebuffed the pres­i­den­t’s request to tee off there, accord­ing to sev­er­al sources who were told about the pres­i­den­t’s advance team’s calls to the club managers.

• Firefighters Sent Home for Not Removing Patriotic Decals

Club man­agers appar­ent­ly did not want to incon­ve­nience their high-pow­ered and high-pay­ing mem­bers over Labor Day week­end by shut­ting down their cours­es to accom­mo­date the president.

The First Family

The pres­i­dent was in town Aug. 29, a Friday, for fundrais­ing events in New York and Rhode Island. He had been sched­uled to stay overnight in Westchester County in order to attend the Saturday evening wed­ding of MSNBC host Alex Wagner and White House chef Sam Kass at Blue

Hill Farms

The sources said the White House advance team was giv­ing the clubs just a day or two notice to fill the president’s open Saturday morn­ing in New York. Of sev­er­al cours­es con­tact­ed in New York and Connecticut, a spokesman for Fairview Country Club in Greenwich said it would have accom­mo­dat­ed the pres­i­dent if he had asked. That was the only club that said it would.

Labor Day week­end is one of the busiest times of year for golf cours­es, and with mem­ber­ship at some area clubs exceed­ing $100,000, many cours­es may not have want­ed to dis­place its mem­bers on a week­end when they would have want­ed to play.

Read it here:http://​www​.nbc​newyork​.com/​i​n​v​e​s​t​i​g​a​t​i​o​n​s​/​P​r​e​s​i​d​e​n​t​-​O​b​a​m​a​-​R​e​j​e​c​t​e​d​-​T​r​u​m​p​-​G​o​l​f​-​C​o​u​r​s​e​-​W​e​s​t​c​h​e​s​t​e​r​-​2​7​4​4​2​3​3​5​1​.​h​tml

This sto­ry was pub­lished by The Center for Public Integrity, a non­prof­it, non­par­ti­san inves­tiga­tive news orga­ni­za­tion in Washington, D.C.

By Dave Levinthal

In 2007, when the Charles Koch Foundation con­sid­ered giv­ing mil­lions of dol­lars to Florida State University’s eco­nom­ics depart­ment, the offer came with strings attached.

First, the cur­ricu­lum it fund­ed must align with the lib­er­tar­i­an, dereg­u­la­to­ry eco­nom­ic phi­los­o­phy of Charles Koch, the bil­lion­aire indus­tri­al­ist and Republican polit­i­cal bankroller.

Second, the Charles Koch Foundation would at least par­tial­ly con­trol which fac­ul­ty mem­bers Florida State University hired.

And third, Bruce Benson, a promi­nent lib­er­tar­i­an eco­nom­ic the­o­rist and Florida State University eco­nom­ics depart­ment chair­man, must stay on anoth­er three years as depart­ment chair­man — even though he told his wife he’d step down in 2009 after a sin­gle three-year term.

Read it here: http://​www​.thedai​ly​beast​.com/​a​r​t​i​c​l​e​s​/​2​0​1​4​/​0​9​/​1​2​/​k​o​c​h​-​f​o​u​n​d​a​t​i​o​n​-​t​o​-​c​o​l​l​e​g​e​-​w​e​-​l​l​-​g​i​v​e​-​y​o​u​-​m​i​l​l​i​o​n​s​-​i​f​-​y​o​u​-​t​e​a​c​h​-​o​u​r​-​l​i​b​e​r​t​a​r​i​a​n​-​c​l​a​p​t​r​a​p​.​h​tml

The par­ents of Reeva Steenkamp say “jus­tice was not served” after South African ath­lete Oscar Pistorius was acquit­ted of mur­der­ing their daughter.

June and Barry Steenkamp told NBC News of their “dis­be­lief” that the court had believed Pistorius’s ver­sion of events.

Judge Thokozile Masipa found him guilty of the less­er charge of cul­pa­ble homi­cide, say­ing the state had failed to prove he intend­ed to kill.

Pistorius has been allowed bail ahead of sen­tenc­ing on 13 October.

Judge Masipa said the ath­lete had act­ed “neg­li­gent­ly” when he shot his girl­friend through a toi­let door, but in the “belief that there was an intruder”.

The Paralympic sprint­er had stren­u­ous­ly denied mur­der­ing Ms Steenkamp after a row on Valentine’s Day last year, say­ing he shot her by mis­take. Read it here: http://​www​.bbc​.com/​n​e​w​s​/​w​o​r​l​d​-​a​f​r​i​c​a​-​2​9​1​8​4​590

Rush Limbaugh obvi­ous­ly dis­gust­ed with House Republicans for their plan to vote on the con­struc­tion of a National Women’s

History Museum, an under­tak­ing Limbaugh con­sid­ered total­ly unnecessary.

“There isn’t going to be a National Men’s [Museum],” Limbaugh com­plained. “[A]ll those war muse­ums and memo­ri­als, those are muse­ums to men. We’ve left the women out, that’s right.”The lack of an accom­pa­ny­ing National Men’s Museum wasn’t Limbaugh’s only beef with the plan, though. He also said it was redun­dant. “We already have, ladies and gen­tle­men, I don’t know how many muse­ums for women all over the coun­try,” Limbaugh argued. “They are called malls.”

Read more here: salon​.com

All of this may seem far-fetched and a prod­uct of Russian para­noia, but truth is beside the point. If the idea of U.S.-backed régime change in Russia becomes an arti­cle of faith in Moscow, the neg­a­tive reac­tion could last far longer than Putin’s régime, with dire long-term con­se­quences for rela­tions between the West and Russia. If Washington and Brussels con­tin­ue to raise the stakes with new sanc­tions, they could by them­selves esca­late the cri­sis far beyond Ukraine.

Read more: http://​www​.politi​co​.com/​m​a​g​a​z​i​n​e​/​s​t​o​r​y​/​2​0​1​4​/​0​9​/​w​e​s​t​e​r​n​-​s​a​n​c​t​i​o​n​s​-​r​u​s​s​i​a​-​b​a​c​k​f​i​r​e​-​1​1​0​8​7​9​_​P​a​g​e​2​.​h​t​m​l​#​i​x​z​z​3​D​7​J​l​l​elW