WASHINGTON, DC — AUGUST 30: Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, celebrating her 20th anniversary on the bench, is photographed in the East conference room at the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, D.C., on Friday, August 30, 2013. (Photo by Nikki Kahn/The Washington Post via Getty Images) | The Washington Post via Getty Images
Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg expressed her extreme regret over several of the current Court’s rulings in a wide-ranging interview published in The New Republic Sunday evening, including their rejecting the commerce clause of President Barack Obama’s health care law, and issuing a huge blow to the Voting Rights Act in their Shelby County v. Holder decision.
But the first Supreme Court ruling Ginsburg would send to the guillotine would be the Court’s decision in the case of Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, giving corporations and unions the green light to give and spend unlimited sums of money on independent political activity. “If there was one decision I would overrule,” Ginsburg told The New Republic, it would be Citizens United. “I think the notion that we have all the democracy that money can buy strays so far from what our democracy is supposed to be,” she said. Ginsburg said that the Court, in CItizens United as well as in the case of Shelby County, “should have respected the legislative judgment.” “Legislators know much more about elections than the Court does. … I think members of the legislature, people who have to run for office, know the connection between money and influence on what laws get passed.” According to Ginsburg, things may have played out differently had Justice Sandra Day O’Connor not retired so soon. She told The New Republic that O’Connor would have sided with the minority on Citizens United, Shelby County, as well as the Court’s Hobby Lobby ruling. “I think she must be concerned about some of the court’s rulings, those that veer away from opinions she wrote,” Ginsburg said. Read it here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/09/28/ruth-bader-ginsburg-citizens-united_n_5897760.html
WASHINGTON (AP) — Bureaucrats in Ferguson, Missouri, responding to requests under the state’s Sunshine Act to turn over government files about the fatal shooting of 18-year-old Michael Brown, are charging nearly 10 times the cost of some of their own employees’ salaries before they will agree to release any records. The move discourages journalists and civil rights groups from investigating the shooting and its aftermath. The city has demanded high fees to produce copies of records that, under Missouri law, it could give away free if it determined the material was in the public’s interest to see. Instead, in some cases, the city has demanded high fees with little explanation or cost breakdown. It billed The Associated Press $135 an hour — for nearly a day’s work — merely to retrieve a handful of email accounts since the shooting.
Missouri Gov Jay Nixon
That fee compares with an entry-level, hourly salary of $13.90 in the city clerk’s office, and it didn’t include costs to review the emails or release them. The AP has not paid for the search. Price-gouging for government files is one way that local, state and federal agencies have responded to requests for potentially embarrassing information they may not want released. Open records laws are designed to give the public access to government records at little or no cost, and have historically exposed waste, wrongdoing and corruption. “The first line of defense is to make the requester go away,” said Rick Blum, who coordinates the Sunshine in Government Initiative, a coalition of media groups that advocates for open government. “Charging exorbitant fees to simply cut and paste is a popular tactic.” Since Brown’s death and ensuing protests, news organizations, nonprofit groups and everyday citizens have submitted records requests to Ferguson officials, asking for police reports, records about Brown and the personnel files of Officer Darren Wilson, who shot Brown Aug. 9. Organizations like the website Buzzfeed were told they’d have to pay unspecified thousands of dollars for emails and memos about Ferguson’s traffic-citation policies and changes to local elections. The Washington Post said Ferguson wanted no less than $200 for its requests.
scenes from Ferguson
A city spokeswoman referred inquiries about public records requests to the city’s attorney, Stephanie Karr, who declined to respond to repeated interview requests from the AP since earlier this month. Some states provide public records for free or little cost, while others like Missouri can require fees that “result in the lowest charges for search, research and duplication.” The AP asked for a fee waiver because it argued the records would serve the public interest, as the law allows, but that request was denied. A spokesman for Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon referred questions about the high fees to the state’s attorney general, who handles freedom-of-information complaints. A spokeswoman for his office said none had been filed on the issue. In late August, the AP asked Ferguson officials for copies of several police officials’ emails and text messages, including those belonging to Wilson and Chief Thomas Jackson. The AP sought those records to reveal the city’s behind-the-scenes response to the shooting and public protests. Ferguson told the AP it wanted nearly $2,000 to pay a consulting firm for up to 16 hours of work to retrieve messages on its own email system, a practice that information technology experts call unnecessary. The firm, St. Louis-based Acumen Consulting, wouldn’t comment specifically on Ferguson’s contract, but said the search could be more complicated and require technicians to examine tape backups. The American Civil Liberties Union of Missouri filed a public records lawsuit days after the shooting for Brown-related police reports, but ultimately received a censored report that omitted officers’ names and other details usually released in such documents. Jonathan Groves, president of the Missouri Sunshine Coalition and a former daily journalist, said that while public agencies can legally charge reasonable fees for records, an unfettered Sunshine Law is nonetheless an important tool “so that we have faith in what the government is doing.” Read more here : http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/09/29/ferguson-city-files_n_5899388.html
Law enforcement officers photograph a window at the White .
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.
U.S. Park Police shows an undated image of Oscar R. Ortega-
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.
That command was the first of a string of security lapses, never previously reported, as the Secret Service failed to identify and properly investigate a serious attack on the White House. While the shooting and eventual arrest of the gunman, Oscar R. Ortega-Hernandez, received attention at the time, neither the bungled internal response nor the potential danger to the Obama daughters has been publicly known. This is the first full account of the Secret Service’s confusion and the missed clues in the incident — and the anger the president and first lady expressed as a result.
By the end of that Friday night, the agency had confirmed a shooting had occurred but wrongly insisted the gunfire was never aimed at the White House. Instead, Secret Service supervisors theorized, gang members in separate cars got in a gunfight near the White House’s front lawn — an unlikely scenario in a relatively quiet, touristy part of the nation’s capital.
It took the Secret Service five days to realize that shots had hit the White House residence, a discovery that came about only because a housekeeper noticed broken glass and a chunk of cement on the floor.
This report is based on interviews with agents, investigators and other government officials with knowledge about the shooting. The Washington Post also reviewed hundreds of pages of documents, including transcripts of interviews with officers on duty that night, and listened to audio recordings of in-the-moment law enforcement radio transmissions.
Secret Service spokesman Ed Donovan declined to comment. A spokesman for the White House also declined to comment.
The episode exposed problems at multiple levels of the Secret Service, and it demonstrates that an organization long seen by Americans as an élite force of selfless and highly skilled patriots — willing to take a bullet for the good of the country — is not always up to its job.
The actions of the Secret Service in the minutes, hours and days that followed the 2011 shooting were particularly problematic. Officers who were on the scene who thought gunfire had probably hit the house that night were largely ignored, and some were afraid to dispute their bosses’ conclusions. Nobody conducted more than a cursory inspection of the White House for evidence or damage. Key witnesses were not interviewed until after bullets were found.
Moreover, the suspect was able to park his car on a public street, take several shots and then speed off without being detected. It was sheer luck that the shooter was identified, the result of Ortega, a troubled and jobless 21-year-old, wrecking his car seven blocks away and leaving his gun inside.
The response infuriated the president and the first lady, according to people with direct knowledge of their reaction. Michelle Obama has spoken publicly about fearing for her family’s safety since her husband became the nation’s first black president.Read more .
It’s impossible to turn on the Tv , log onto the Internet , or even listen to an all oldies music station without being bombarded with news of the NFL’s Ray Rice, Adrian Peterson, or Johnathan Dwyer. Yes, even the Disc Jockeys on the oldies music station I listen to cannot help themselves. They stop the music to flap their gums about Domestic violence.
I couldn’t put my finger on what it was that united all of these different groups and individuals around a common cause. After all Racism has been in America for over 400 years, most wont mention it but will quickly deny it’s existence. I have a feeling the reasons behind the visceral condemnation of the trio of wealthy black men by those old white males have precious little to do with domestic violence. That however is a conversation for another day.
As I have said multiple times, what Ray Rice did was not funny , it was criminal, Period.
Tlhe NFL has had a history of Violence. Not just domestic violence of the type we saw in that elevator video, or what Johnathan Dwyer is accused of doing. Let alone Adrian Peterson spanking his kids leaving marks. Several Former and current players have been involved in serious felonies to include Murder.
Was the Ray Rice decking of his then fiancé Janay Palmer the straw which broke the proverbial Camel’s back?
Or was this Tsunami created to drown out something else? Roger Goodell has been successful as Commissioner of the NFL . Does anyone reasonably believe that NFL Owners who voted (33 to 8 in favor of Goodell for Commissioner in 2006, with the Oakland Raiders abstaining, were going to show him the door?
Which brings us to what was front and center in the News, when the Ray rice elevator video was exhumed. .
POLICEKILLINGS
Ronald Ritchie
Why is it that people do not want to face the fact that Police Officers are illegally killing and seriously hurting innocent people?
As I’m writing this a Ohio Grand Jury ruled that Cops acted properly in the Walmart killing of John Crawford III, a 22-year-old black man. According to the website Gawker.com
Ronald Ritchie, the 24-year-old who made that 911 call, is amending what he originally told police and reporters about the Aug. 5 incident. Ritchie, to the dispatcher: “He’s, like, pointing it at people.” He also said in the call that Crawford was trying to load the gun, causing 911 to tell officers, “he just put some bullets inside.”
Ritchie, to reporters at the time: “He was pointing at people. Children walking by.” Ritchie in the Guardian this week: “At no point did he shoulder the rifle and point it at somebody.” Well, that’s certainly a different story. What changed during the past month?
John Crawford
Ritchie says he was allowed to view the sealed security video, recently shown to Crawford’s family and their attorneys, that reportedly shows Crawford never lifted the BB gun and was on the phone and standing still when officers shot and killed him.
Will this liar be held accountable for what he did ? Don’t hold your breath, it was only a black man who died.
We do not know how Cops dealt with this case, as a former cop I will not begin to second guess what occurred in this particular case. From all indications they lied about yelling out orders before firing 5 bullets into his body. Eye-witnesses account indicate he never knew what hit him. These Cops know they would never be held accountable for killing Crawford. All is required is that they plant a fabricated story in the Main stream Media that Crawford was waving around the air rifle. They would do the rest. Even when evidence surfaced that he wasn’t they still continue the lie.
The Grand Juries are generally made up of the most pro-Police people, who lack objective thinking. Usually relatives of cops. In the United States the Grand Jury process involving Cops is a grave mis-carriage of Justice for the families of those wrongfully killed by Police. There is no Justice in them.
Eric Garner
As if that killing wasn’t bad enough, there were multiple other killings in the News which simply wouldn’t go away. Staten Island Native 43 year old Eric Garner was killed by NYPD cops who used a two decades old banned choke hold.Garner was accused of allegedly selling un-taxed cigarettes. In Ferguson Missouri an unarmed 18 year old Michael Brown was gunned down by Police officer Darren Wilson. Brown wasn’t even accused of committing a crime.
In St Louis County a few miles from where Brownwas executed Kijame Powell a 25 year old black man of unsound mind was summarily gunned down by police 23 seconds after
Michael Brown
arriving on scene. Powell was allegedly acting weird , but had not hurt anyone. Cops arrived and immediately escalated what from video evidence was a non-issue, then summarily executed him on the spot. This even as tensions were running extremely high in Ferguson a few miles away. Those cops did not stop to think what if we don’t get away with this?
In SaratogaSprings. …Utah 22 year old Darren Hunt was killed by police, 6 bullets to the back, he was carrying a sword. Eyewitnesses say he was running from
Darrien Hunt
cops.
These are just a few of the black men who were killed in quick succession across the country. This does not include the viscous assaults cops committed on men and women of color which did not result in death. The media needed to find something else to talk about. The already League litigated Ray Rice story was resuscitated and given new life to take the heat off cops and it worked.
In the meantime Criminal cops could go back to what they were doing . abusing and killing without consequence. There are good cops in every police department. If you are a good cop reading this and you do nothing when your colleagues do these things, you are not a good cop. You are a criminal.
Unfortunately none of the cowardly grand-standers will have the courage, character or integrity to stand with pregnant Sandra Amezquita, 44, who was thrown to the ground by NYPD cops.” Seriously though, what kind of cop does that? A Lawyer speaking on behalf of the woman said “Her belly is now with black and blue bruises. She’s bleeding and she’s having complications.”
Ray Rice is crucified for punching out his fiancé, and correctly so. What should happen to Cowardly cops who do this to a pregnant woman?Or are we to believe it is okay for cops abuse women but no one else is allowed?
After all the Government is ready to crucify Adrian Peterson for disciplining his children he’s not supposed to. But it’s perfectly within the realms of acceptability for the Government’s paid enforcers to mete out whatever punishment they see fit including death without consequence.
Who will bell this cancerous cat? The silence will be deafening, guaranteed. I am waiting to see the tough-guys who wanted a piece of Ray Rice stand up and demand justice for this pregnant mother.
I won’t hold my breath, I did say you were hypocrites and frauds. You are hypocrites and frauds !
The woman, Sandra Amezquita, 44, reportedly tried to intervene in the arrest of her 17-year-old son. In the video, officers from the 72nd precinct appear to be throwing her to the pavement before slapping handcuffs on her.
“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.
According to presiding coroner Patrick Murphy, the seven-member jury, in their unanimous verdict, concluded that “rat insecticide” was the agent used to poison the former commanding officer for the troubled Clarendon division that has been linked to the death squad investigation. “They [jurors] agreed that he was poisoned, but they don’t have the information to say how he was poisoned or who poisoned him,” Murphy explained. The verdict, which came after 35 minutes of deliberation, means that if new information is uncovered, the police can reopen the probe into Henry’s death. As is reported in the JAMAICAGLEANER .
I have doggedly followed this case from the moment I heard that SSP Dathan (Duffy Henry was Hospitalized. To those who do not know him, SSP Henry Officer in charge of the Parish of Clarendon. To Me he was Duffy. Duffy and I served at the Constant Spring CIB in the late 1980’s to early 1990’s I was promoted Acting Corporal. We sat the Accelerated Exams together we both passed. I left the Force in 1991 Duffy stayed . I was proud but not surprised to see Duffy climb the ladder to the rank of SSP rather rapidly.
He was smart , and curious. No matter what situation you are in he could make you laugh , he was just an all around good guy. I spoke to him just months before he died, by phone from New York . He hadn’t changed a bit , same Duffy !
From the beginning the streets had it that he was poisoned, anyone familiar with us Jamaicans
Dayton-Henry
know once there is a rumor circulating in the streets , it bears investigating. I have written several Articles since his death. I did so to keep the case alive, so someone would be brought to justice for killing him.
As I said in a previous Article, a Coroner’s Jury cannot say who poisoned Dathan Henry . It can only say that his death is a Homicide. Well guess what? Everyone suspected that. The Jury has said that he was systematically poisoned meaning he was poisoned over a period of time.
My greatest fear after Duffy’s death was that the so-called Detectives at the Major Investigations taskforce (MIT) investigating his death would not be worth a damn nickel.
This will be upsetting to many past and present members, frankly I don’t really care. These Detectives today cannot investigate a crime committed in their view. They are practically worthless when it comes to doing a proper Investigation closing all the loop-holes and bringing a credible case to Prosecution.
I wrote rather pointedly during this period of waiting, beseeching the Police to continue to do a thorough Investigation with a view to bringing the perpetrator‑s to justice for killing this man. Even as I did , I was never convinced they had the ability to conduct a credible Investigation.
Never once, In the time since I left the Force have I ever wished I was still serving, until now. I may come off a bit arrogant, but so be it. If I was serving I would have done everything in my power to help in bringing Dathan Henry’s killer/s to Justice , and she/he would be convicted.
Roxan Henry, SSP Henry’s brother and the family spokesman, made it clear that they will continue their push to have the police conduct a more detailed probe and are contemplating hiring an attorney to ensure that this happens.
The problem with this is, that the incompetent Police Department is still necessary. Yes an Attorney can watch proceedings on behalf of the family but it requires good police work to bring the perpetrator/s to justice. The kind of Investigation which ceased to exist many years ago.
It is sad but the JCF owes this family a conviction. Dathan Duffy Henry was a smart young man who could have done anything he chose to with his life. He chose the Police Department. It is a sad indictment on that Department that it cannot bring to justice the killer/s one of one of it’s best and brightest stars. “He did not poison himself … he did not commit suicide. Someone poisoned him,” Roxan Henry insisted. He certainly did not , his killer/s are walking around right there in Jamaica.
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. jamaicaobserver.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 9th, 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.
Henry Goedrich Magee’
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.
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 thegrio.com
The Secret Service chief has stepped-up security outside the White House after a man with a knife who jumped the fence made it into the presidential residence before being apprehended, officials said Saturday.This was reported by the huffingtonpost.com
Seriously the man had time to Jump a fence, cross the lawns and enter the residence of the President of The United States of America , and by the way it is reported that the man was armed with a folding knife. There are so many things wrong with this picture that I will come back to it.
It is reported that President Barack Obama insisted he still has confidence in the beleaguered agency’s ability to protect him and his family.
After the fact
What else is he going to say? He still has to depend on them to protect him for not only the remainder of his tenure in office but for the remainder of his life. It is not the first time that there has been foul-up by this Agency, involving this President.
in March Agents were in the Netherlands as part of a contingent preparing for President Obama’s visit. According to officials, one Secret Service agent was found intoxicated and passed out in the hallway of his hotel. Hotel staff subsequently alerted U.S. authorities. This agent and two others — who were his companions on a night out drinking in the Dutch capital — were disciplined by being sent home for not exercising better judgment.
How is it that someone can scale the fence , sprint across the lawn and enter the President’s residence unscathed?
Nearly two years ago an advance team ahead of an Obama visit to Colombia for the Summit of the Americas got drunk. In that case, Secret Service agents hit the clubs of Cartagena for a night of drinking that ended with them bringing prostitutes back to their hotel. The agency immediately pulled 11 agents allegedly involved in the scandal from Obama’s security detail, put them on administrative leave and removed their security clearances.
How much is enough? The media is engrossed in a feeding frenzy surrounding the Ray Rice Elevator incident , They just won’t let it go. Yes what Rice did was despicable, but now it’s much larger than Rice . Every little Racist turd has now crawled out of their hole and is now passing Judgement. This is an issue of National Import. Where is the coverage? Or are we to assume that the Nation’s first black family in the White House is undeserving of the protection commensurate with the office? The same protection afforded previous occupants of the White House.
President Barack Obama and his daughter had just left the White House by helicopter on Friday evening when the Secret Service says 42-year-old Omar J. Gonzalez scaled the fence, darting across the lawn and through the unlocked North Portico doors before officers finally tackled him.Officials had originally said that Gonzalez appeared unarmed as he sprinted across the lawn — potentially one reason agents didn’t shoot him or release their service dogs to detain him.
This is a ridiculously absurd statement, designed only to cover their asses? How could they make that determination while he was running toward the President’s Residence? It must be construed that anyone who unlawfully breaches the fence surrounding the White House and tries to enter the Building has mal-intent ! What if he had a bomb strapped to his body ‚or simply had one in his possession? How could they tell he didn’t have a gun? Did they see the knife while he was running ? Isn’t a knife a weapon capable of killing someone? Did they think about that statement before they concocted it? Who made that decision not to take out that intruder? Would a black intruder have been given that benefit? The answer is no!
34 year old Miriam Carey before she was killed by Secret Service and Capitol Police
That statement does not stand scrutiny. They had no problem killing 34-year-old Miriam Carey, of Stamford, Conn. on Friday Oct 4th Last year. The incident began at about 2:30 p.m. at the White House gates at 15th and E streets NW. Police say Carey had attempted to ram a temporary security barrier outside the White House with her car, then struck a Secret Service uniformed division officer. She then fled the scene, leading police on a chase. Carey had her one year-old baby in the car at the time, This did not stop Secret Service and Capitol Police from killing her. Carey’s mother said her daughter was suffering from post-partum depression.
If someone breached the private sanctum of my home without my permission I would be livid. This guy breached the Residence of the leader of the free world and there is no consequences. What if this is a dry run? The President and his family were not at home at the time. What if they were? As the Media spotlight blazes and the pontificaters
They had no compunction about pumping bullets into Miriam Carey
grandstand about Ray Rice and whether Roger Goodell should be fired the real serious issues are receiving no attention . As I said in a previous Article, all of this noise about the NFL, though of some merit, is being done to drown out the calls for attention to the killing of black men across America by Police.
With all of the hype surrounding the Secret Service , I am yet to be convinced that this is a professional agency which takes the safety of the Nation’s chief executive and his family seriously. Those wishing to do the President and his family harm only has to be right once. They seem to be getting a hell of a lot of opportunity toward that end.
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 24th, 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.”
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.”
Over the last month or so there has been a lot of Press surrounding the Police Killing of young men of color.The list of those killed or otherwise abused is long. These are just a few of the lives which were snuffed out by police. Many insists none of these men needed to die.
Which leads us to ask, “when did police become Agents of Execution”? I though Police Officers were supposed to serve and protect ! Who are Police Officers protecting and serving these days? The Media Spotlight was focused for a week on Ferguson Missouri, as the horrific killing of Michael Brown gripped people in America with souls and consciences. Now this does not apply to some, in this country certain quarters are only concerned when members of a certain group are killed.
Then everything comes to a halt and everyone is inundated with blanket wall-to-wall grieving and commentary. Despite the blood-letting of young African-Americans those concerned were mainly , .….. well .……African-Americans.
So how do you quiet all of this talk about Police abuse?
Wait, I got it, we will turn the conversation around .We will once again highlight just how violent Young African men are, that is why they are getting killed. But just how do we do that? … wait , wait, it will come to me.….…
Got it, we will go straight to the NFL ‚there are a lot of big, strong , abusive black men there, bingo.
Eric Garner
♦Eric Garner killed by New York Police Department on Staten Island with a banned choke-hold. Cop on paid leave, no action taken against him or his cahoots.
Michael Brown
♦ Mike Browngunned down in Ferguson Missouri eyewitnesses say Brown had his hands up when he was shot several times. Cop is on paid leave. No action taken against them.
♦ Kajieme Powell Killed by St Louis Cops. Powell of unsound mind was acting strangely , cops were called , 23 seconds after the cops arrived Powell was dead. No action taken against the cops.
John Crawford
♦JohnCrawford Killed in a Beaver Creek Ohio Wal-Mart, his crime picking up an Air Rifle which was on sale and walking around with it while talking to his girlfriend on the phone. Crawford’s girlfriend said cops killed him on sight. Shot in the back. No action taken against the cops.
Darrien Hunt
♦Darrien Hunt shot dead by Saratoga Springs Utah Police. his crime, walking around with a sword. Hunt was photographed smiling and talking to Police just moments before he was shot allegedly 6 times in the back. No action taken against the cops.
The NFL has a history of abuse of all kinds by it’s players , Black, White , and whatever other color they come in . Domestic abuse, sexual abuse, whatever. They do it.)
1) Ask Ben Roethlisberger ‚On July 17, 2009, a civil suit was filed in Washoe County, Nevada District Court accusing Roethlisberger of sexually assaulting Andrea McNulty, 31, in June 2008 in his hotel room while he was in Lake Tahoe for a celebrity golf tournament.
2) On March 5, 2010, it was revealed that police in Milledgeville, Georgia were investigating Roethlisberger for a sexual assault inside the women’s restroom of the Capital City nightclub. The accuser was treated at Oconee Regional Medical Center. An emergency-room doctor and two nurses examined her and noted in their report a “superficial laceration and bruising and slight bleeding in the genital area”, but could not say if trauma or sexual assault was the cause. Milledgeville Police Sergeant Jerry Blash, who had posed for a photograph with Roethlisberger earlier in the evening, was the first officer to respond. At the scene, he made a comment about the accuser to Barravecchio: “We have a problem, this drunken [expletive], drunk off her ass, is accusing Ben of rape.” Blash later admitted denigrating the accuser and never formally questioning Roethlisberger; he did speak to the NFL player and his off-duty police bodyguards at the Capital City club, but according to Blash’s own report, Roethlisberger was hardly engaged and spent most of the time on his phone.[14]wikipedia
No charges were ever filed against Roethlisberger. In fact it appears the Police covered his ass.
The listof players who have run afoul of the law is well established.
O. J. Simpson Murder , exonnerated , doing time for robbing his own property, in essence doing time for the murders he was not convicted of .
It’s not like the NFL has not been full of violent men for a long time. So why all of a sudden are we bombarded with round the clock coverage about wife punchers, head-butters and child spankers, when the League was always filled with murderers and sex offenders?
It is to change the subject . Guess what the subject is changed and you didn’t even notice. These people are awfully slick.
For years, there has been an unspoken but deeply prevalent don’t ask, don’t” tell policy in the black church. But today, Duke University released data that show those days may be coming to an end.Their research has found: “Acceptance of homosexual members in black protestant churches has surged of late. The percentage of churches accepting of gay and lesbian members has risen from 44 percent in 2006 to 62 percent in 2012. Further, 22 percent of black churches reported being accepting of gays in volunteer leadership roles, up from 6.5 percent six years prior.”
This isn’t the first time we’ve seen a spike in gay acceptance in the church. Just last year, Pope Francis made international news when he called on the Catholic Church to love gays and lesbians, who “must be accepted with respect, compassion and sensitivity.”
Many applauded Francis for being so inclusive, but black congregations have historically been a lot more resistant to such progressive ideals — especially where homosexuality is concerned. Which begs the question: why have African-American churchgoers suddenly become so gay friendly? Filmmaker Yoruba Richen speculates:
“What’s happening within the black church — and in the black community as a whole — is reflective of what’s happening in the country as a whole in terms of an opening to talking about sexuality and to supporting same-sex marriage.
Barack Obamacame out for same-sex marriage, which I think affected a lot of people’s willingness to be open to the idea. The NAACP came out after Barack Obama. Many black churches and leaders of black churches started to come out and support marriage equality, many of whom have a national presence.”
Richen may be on to something, because Duke’s data came from the National Congregations Study, which in 2012 interviewed the leaders of 1,331 American churches, mosques, temples, synagogues and other houses of worship. 2012 is also the year President Obama “came out” in support of same sex marriage.
Is that a coincidence? Perhaps not.
Either way, these findings confirm what many LGBT Christians have started noticing around the country; generations of anti-gay prejudices within the black church are being dismantled. Read more , thegrio.com
The archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, admitted to a crowd of hundreds at Bristol cathedral that he too that he has moments where he doubts the existence of God. He candidly told the many gathered a recent moment of doubt that occured while
Justin Welby the Archbishop of Canterbury
he was running with his dog. Welby shared these views during a live interview with BBC’s Lucy Tegg, last weekend. “Do you ever doubt?” Tegg asked. “Yes. I do. In lots of different ways really. It’s a very good question. That means I’ve got to think about what I’m going to say. Yes I do. There are moments, sure, where you think ‘Is there a God? Where is God?’” “I love the Psalms, if you look at Psalm 88, that’s full of doubt,” he continued. Welby then recounted a morning run with his dog, and pondering the injustice in the world. “The other day I was praying over something as I was running and I ended up saying to God: ‘Look, this is all very well but isn’t it about time you did something – if you’re there’ – which is probably not what the archbishop of Canterbury should say.”
As the archbishop of Canterbury, Welby is the leader of the Church of England and the “80 million-strong Anglican community” around the world, the Guardian stated. Thus, it was an eye-opening moment to hear that there were times where this religious leader questioned the existence of God. To see this part of the interview watch the below video starting from 11 minutes 50 seconds:
Welby did, however, state that he did not doubt Jesus. ”We know about Jesus, we can’t explain all the questions in the world, we can’t explain about suffering, we can’t explain loads of things but we know about Jesus,” he said. Read more here. slate.com
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 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”.
Hunt smiling with police before they gunned him down
“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.
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.
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