Speaking specif­i­cal­ly to cer­tain fac­tions with­in the Black com­mu­ni­ty that President Obama did noth­ing for the Black com­mu­ni­ty, please watch the Senate judi­cia­ry com­mit­tee hear­ings of Judge Merrick Garland for Attorney General.
The attack on the Obama admin­is­tra­tion’s Justice Department by cer­tain Republicans Raphael Cruz, John Cornyn, and oth­ers, and on for­mer Attorney General Eric Holder is a tes­ta­ment to Obama’s com­mit­ment to the Black community.
For the fee­ble-mind­ed who con­tin­ue to expect that a Black President’s great­ness is how many checks he mailed out to them, please be edu­cat­ed on the facts.
I have always believed that President Obama’s great­est accom­plish­ments relat­ed to the Black com­mu­ni­ty have been what he could do in the Holder Justice Department.
As part of shak­ing up the entrenched racial dis­par­i­ties, then-Attorney General Eric Holder, was held in con­tempt of Congress by an antag­o­nis­tic Republican-con­trolled Senate that hat­ed what the AG was doing.
Then-Attorney General Holder also had his name on the supreme court deci­sion Holder vs. Shelby County Alabama, leg­is­la­tion in which the Supreme court evis­cer­at­ed sec­tions of the vot­ing rights Act.
When we jux­ta­pose what President Obama did, with Judge Garland’s ques­tion­ing by Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee, a crys­tal clear image emerges of where Republicans stand on the rights of African-Americans.

I had a rather con­tentious con­ver­sa­tion with a young Jamaican preach­er, who claims to be a Republican over the week­end. He want­ed to know what polit­i­cal par­ty I sup­port­ed; I answered cer­tain­ly not the lying Republican cult that rep­re­sents hat­ed and divi­sion, that lies as a mat­ter of course, and wants to destroy Democracy.
He claimed to oppose the Democrats because of the 1994 Violent Crime and Law Enforcement Act, oth­er­wise, known as the Clinton Crime bill). In typ­i­cal Jamaican fash­ion, the young preach­er act­ed under the belief that those who speak the loud­est were the ones who are right.
His style of com­mu­ni­cat­ing was ask­ing a ques­tion with­out allow­ing for an answer. Asking what he thought was a knock-out ques­tion was more than a ques­tion; it was the point for him.
When con­front­ed with doc­u­men­tary evi­dence that the 90’s crime bill was sought by black law-mak­ers, black cler­gy, sup­port­ed by both polit­i­cal par­ties, and was a response to the ram­pant killings in the Black com­mu­ni­ty, he did not want to see the evidence.
As I said before, ask­ing the ques­tion was his point, because I had pre­emp­tive­ly dis­armed him of the abil­i­ty to use Religion and hatred of Gays as a rea­son to lash out against the Obama administration.

In my pro­fes­sion­al capac­i­ty, I have the high hon­or of inter­act­ing with peo­ple of vary­ing polit­i­cal stripes. I under­stand, even though I’m afraid I have to dis­agree, with a white per­son who votes Republican, because he/​she sees that par­ty as a pro­tec­tor of his/​her white privilege.
I am baf­fled by the ques­tion, “what did Obama do for the Black com­mu­ni­ty” com­ing from Black Americans?
Considering that (a) Presidents can send leg­is­la­tion up to the Hill, but that Presidents do not pass leg­is­la­tion, (b) Presidents have to be pres­i­dent for all the peo­ple, not just some peo­ple, © that Obama faced blan­ket­ed Republican oppo­si­tion to every pol­i­cy posi­tion he pro­posed, even poli­cies they pre­vi­ous­ly sup­port­ed, that Obama only had a Democratic House for two of the eight years he was in office, what was he sup­posed to do differently?
The Gentleman asked me, what exact­ly Obama had done in the eight years he was in office. I direct­ed him to the fol­low­ing infor­ma­tion and end­ed the conversation.

OBAMA’s FIRST TERM RECORD

1. Ordered all fed­er­al agen­cies to under­take a study and make rec­om­men­da­tions for ways to cut spending
2. Ordered a review of all fed­er­al oper­a­tions to iden­ti­fy and cut waste­ful spend­ing and practices
3. Instituted enforce­ment for equal pay for women
4. Beginning the with­draw­al of US troops from Iraq
5. Families of fall­en sol­diers have expens­es cov­ered to be on hand when the body arrives at Dover AFB
6 Ended media black­out on war casu­al­ties; report­ing full information
7. Ended media black­out on cov­er­ing the return of fall­en sol­diers to Dover AFB; the media is now per­mit­ted to do so pend­ing adher­ence to respect­ful rules and approval of fall­en soldier’s family
8. The White House and fed­er­al gov­ern­ment are respect­ing the Freedom of Information Act
9. Instructed all fed­er­al agen­cies to pro­mote open­ness and trans­paren­cy as much as possible
10. Limits on lobbyist’s access to the White House
11. Limits on White House aides work­ing for lob­by­ists after their tenure in the administration
12. Ended the pre­vi­ous stop-loss pol­i­cy that kept sol­diers in Iraq/​Afghanistan longer than their enlist­ment date
13. Phasing out the expen­sive F‑22 war plane and oth­er out­dat­ed weapons sys­tems, which weren’t even used or need­ed in Iraq/​Afghanistan
14. Removed restric­tions on embry­on­ic stem-cell research
15. Federal sup­port for stem-cell and new bio­med­ical research
16. New fed­er­al fund­ing for sci­ence and research labs
17. States are per­mit­ted to enact fed­er­al fuel effi­cien­cy stan­dards above fed­er­al standards
18. Increased infra­struc­ture spend­ing (roads, bridges, pow­er plants) after years of neglect
19. Funds for high-speed, broad­band Internet access to K‑12 schools
20. New funds for school construction
21 The prison at Guantanamo Bay is being phased out
22. US Auto indus­try res­cue plan
23. Housing res­cue plan
24. $789 bil­lion eco­nom­ic stim­u­lus plan
25. The pub­lic can meet with fed­er­al hous­ing insur­ers to refi­nance (the new plan can be com­plet­ed in one day) a mort­gage if they are hav­ing trou­ble paying
26. US finan­cial and bank­ing res­cue plan
27. The secret deten­tion facil­i­ties in Eastern Europe and else­where are being closed
28. Ended the pre­vi­ous pol­i­cy; the US now has a no tor­ture pol­i­cy and com­plies with the Geneva Convention standards
29. Better body armor is now being pro­vid­ed to our troops
30. The mis­sile defense pro­gram was being cut by $1.4 bil­lion in 2010
31. Restarted the nuclear non­pro­lif­er­a­tion talks and build­ing back up the nuclear inspec­tion infrastructure/​protocols
32. Reengaged in the treaties/​agreements to pro­tect the Antarctic
33. Reengaged in the agreements/​talks on glob­al warm­ing and green­house gas emissions
34. Visited more coun­tries and met with more world lead­ers than any pres­i­dent in his first six months in office
35. Successful release of US cap­tain held by Somali pirates; autho­rized the SEALS to do their job
36. US Navy increas­ing patrols off the Somali coast
37. Attractive tax write-offs for those who buy hybrid automobiles
38. Cash for clunk­ers pro­gram offers vouch­ers to trade in fuel inef­fi­cient, pol­lut­ing old cars for new cars; stim­u­lat­ed auto sales
39. Announced plans to pur­chase a fuel-effi­cient American-made fleet for the fed­er­al government
40. Expanded the SCHIP pro­gram to cov­er health care for 4 mil­lion more children
41. Signed nation­al ser­vice leg­is­la­tion; expand­ed nation­al youth ser­vice program
42. Instituted a new pol­i­cy on Cuba, allow­ing Cuban fam­i­lies to return home to vis­it loved ones
43. Ended the pre­vi­ous pol­i­cy of not reg­u­lat­ing and label­ing car­bon diox­ide emissions
44. Expanding vac­ci­na­tion programs
45. Immediate and effi­cient response to the floods in North Dakota and oth­er nat­ur­al disasters
46. Closed off­shore tax safe havens
47. Negotiated deal with Swiss banks to per­mit US gov­ern­ment to gain access to records of tax evaders and criminals
48. Ended the pre­vi­ous pol­i­cy of offer­ing tax ben­e­fits to cor­po­ra­tions who out­source American jobs; the new pol­i­cy is to pro­mote in-sourc­ing to bring jobs back
49.. Ended the pre­vi­ous prac­tice of pro­tect­ing cred­it card com­pa­nies; in place of it are new con­sumer pro­tec­tions from the cred­it card industry’s preda­to­ry practices
50. Energy pro­duc­ing plants must begin prepar­ing to pro­duce 15% of their ener­gy from renew­able sources
51. Lower drug costs for seniors
52. Ended the pre­vi­ous prac­tice of for­bid­ding Medicare from nego­ti­at­ing with drug man­u­fac­tur­ers for cheap­er drugs; the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment now real­izes hun­dreds of mil­lions in savings
53. Increasing pay and ben­e­fits for mil­i­tary personnel
54. Improved hous­ing for mil­i­tary personnel
55. Initiating a new pol­i­cy to pro­mote fed­er­al hir­ing of mil­i­tary spouses
56. Improved con­di­tions at Walter Reed Military Hospital and oth­er mil­i­tary hospitals
57 Increasing stu­dent loans
58. Increasing oppor­tu­ni­ties in the AmeriCorps program
59. Sent envoys to the Middle East and oth­er parts of the world that had been neglect­ed for years; reen­gag­ing in mul­ti­lat­er­al and bilat­er­al talks and diplomacy
60. Established a new cyber­se­cu­ri­ty office
61. Beginning the process of reform­ing and restruc­tur­ing the mil­i­tary 20 years after the Cold War to a more mod­ern fight­ing force; this includes new pro­cure­ment poli­cies, increas­ing size of the mil­i­tary, new tech­nol­o­gy, and cyber units and oper­a­tions, etc.
62. Ended pre­vi­ous pol­i­cy of award­ing no-bid defense contracts
63. Ordered a review of hur­ri­cane and nat­ur­al dis­as­ter preparedness
64. Established a National Performance Officer charged with sav­ing the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment mon­ey and mak­ing fed­er­al oper­a­tions more efficient
65. Students strug­gling to make col­lege loan pay­ments can have their loans refinanced
66. Improving ben­e­fits for veterans
67. Many more press con­fer­ences and town halls and much more media access than pre­vi­ous administrations
68. Instituted a new focus on mort­gage fraud
69. The FDA is now reg­u­lat­ing tobacco
70. Ended pre­vi­ous pol­i­cy of cut­ting the FDA and cir­cum­vent­ing FDA rules
71. Ended pre­vi­ous prac­tice of hav­ing White House aides rewrite sci­en­tif­ic and envi­ron­men­tal rules, reg­u­la­tions, and reports
72. Authorized dis­cus­sions with North Korea and pri­vate mis­sion by Pres. Bill Clinton to secure the release of two Americans held in prisons
73. Authorized dis­cus­sions with Myanmar and mis­sion by Sen. Jim Web to secure the release of an American held captive
74. Making more loans avail­able to small businesses
75. Established inde­pen­dent com­mis­sion to make rec­om­men­da­tions on slow­ing the costs of Medicare
76. Appointment of first Latina to the Supreme Court
77. Authorized construction/​opening of addi­tion­al health cen­ters to care for veterans
78. Limited salaries of senior White House aides; cut to $100,000
79. Renewed loan guar­an­tees for Israel
80. Changed the failing/​status quo mil­i­tary com­mand in Afghanistan
81. Deployed addi­tion­al troops to Afghanistan
82. New Afghan War pol­i­cy that lim­its aer­i­al bomb­ing and pri­or­i­tizes aid, devel­op­ment of infra­struc­ture, diplo­ma­cy, and good gov­ern­ment prac­tices by Afghans
83. Announced the long-term devel­op­ment of a nation­al ener­gy grid with renew­able sources and clean­er, effi­cient ener­gy production
84. Returned mon­ey autho­rized for refur­bish­ment of White House offices and pri­vate liv­ing quarters
85. Paid for redec­o­ra­tion of White House liv­ing quar­ters out of his own pocket
86. Held first Seder in White House
87. Attempting to reform the nation’s health­care sys­tem, which is the most expen­sive in the world yet leaves almost 50 mil­lion with­out health insur­ance and mil­lions more underinsured
88. Has put the ball in play for com­pre­hen­sive immi­gra­tion reform
89. Has announced his inten­tion to push for ener­gy reform
90. Has announced his inten­tion to push for edu­ca­tion reform

Did I men­tion he passed health care reform?
I have no idea what the char­ac­ter­is­tics of a great American President are; what I do know is that, all things con­sid­ered, Barack Obama comes pret­ty damn close, in my opinion.
It is pret­ty easy to crit­i­cize our own, who have done things we could nev­er dream of doing, while sup­port­ing those who would rather see us back on the plantation.
We all have a right to sup­port who and what­ev­er we want to under the law. But when we chose to dis­par­age a per­son or a polit­i­cal par­ty to jus­ti­fy our shame­ful actions, we should at least get our facts straight.
Truth does still matter.

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Mike Beckles is a for­mer Police Detective, busi­ness­man, free­lance writer, black achiev­er hon­oree, and cre­ator of the blog mike​beck​les​.com. 

I want­ed to wait for a while before say­ing any­thing about the pass­ing of one of the most vapid­ly tox­ic fig­ures to influ­ence our nation­al discourse.
I speak of Rush Limbaugh, the insid­i­ous big­ot who passed away days ago at 70 after a bat­tle with lung can­cer. But the hypocrisy of the media in not describ­ing Limbaugh in the way he deserves, prompt­ed me to break my silence.
Despite the hate, misog­y­ny, and xeno­pho­bia that Limbaugh rep­re­sent­ed, the main­stream media gush­es over him as if he was some­one who left a lega­cy of good.
God is still work­ing on me, so I still pray that he con­tin­ues to lead me onto the path he wants me to trod, like the new tes­ta­ment teach­ings, which ask me to be of pious sup­pli­can­cy. One who turns the oth­er cheek when my ene­my spite­ful­ly assaults me, love them, and be good to them?
Or fol­low the Old Testament teach­ings, hon­or­ing war­riors like David who asked God to deliv­er his ene­mies into his hands, slew them, and progressed.
Rush Limbaugh must be remem­bered for what he tru­ly was, a can­cer. But we must also take note of those who enabled him, The media hous­es that gave him the plat­form to spew the garbage he did, so that they could rake in the prof­its from his decades of preach­ing hate.

Criticize me all you want, but since he is not fin­ished with me yet, I will shed not one drop of tear for an insuf­fer­able big­ot whose pass­ing left the world a bet­ter place today, than it was before he died.
I refuse to play nice to a glo­ri­fied clown who used the pub­lic air­waves to sow hatred and divi­sion, turn­ing neigh­bors against neigh­bors, mak­ing Americans see their fel­low Americans not as peo­ple who dis­agree on prin­ci­ple, but as ene­mies to be reviled and hat­ed. If refus­ing to be def­er­en­tial to that kind of insid­i­ous trash is a vice, col­or me the new viceroy.
Rush Limbaugh built an empire on hatred and divi­sion; at the very best, Rush Limbaugh was noth­ing more than a dem­a­gogue with a micro­phone, a wannabe come­di­an who was every­thing but fun­ny. It was no sur­prise that Donald Trump rose to the pres­i­den­cy on the hatred and divi­sion that Limbaugh per­pet­u­at­ed and promulgated.
It was no sur­prise that Trump, anoth­er racial dem­a­gogue saw fit to bestow the pres­i­den­tial medal of free­dom on Limbaugh. So much for the val­ue of those going forward.

Limbaugh died, leav­ing a mas­sive for­tune, report­ed­ly to the tune of $600 mil­lion, derived from spread­ing hatred for every­one who was­n’t white and male. He could­n’t take a pen­ny with him, nei­ther could it save him, which brings to mind, Matthew 16-26, Yeshua asked, what good it is for a man to gain the whole world but lose his soul?
Limbaugh is gone, nev­er to be heard from again, but the seeds of hatred and divi­sion he left behind will be hard to erase, if ever at all. His seeds of hatred all but splin­tered the coun­try, pit­ting broth­ers against broth­ers, sis­ter against sis­ter, par­ents against chil­dren, chil­dren against their par­ents, and neigh­bor against neigh­bor. Again here we see the word of God man­i­fest­ing right in front of our eyes, in plain sight, yet we ignore it.
Mark 13 ‑12, “Brother will betray broth­er to death, and a father his child. Children will rebel against their par­ents and have them put to death.

Rush Limbaugh’s life was about stir­ring up hatred and divi­sion, sow­ing lies and dis­cord; it result­ed in the rise of the king of lies and dis­in­for­ma­tion to the high­est exec­u­tive office, and we have seen how that turned out.
Limbaugh’s cam­paign of deceit includ­ed spread­ing lies that Barack Obama was not an American. He told his lis­ten­ers that the Affordable Care Act (Obama Care) would result in death pan­els; they gob­bled it up. He argued with a black caller to his show, telling him quote; “take that bone out of your nose and call me back.”
He asked his lis­ten­ers if they ever noticed that all com­pos­ite sketch­es of want­ed crim­i­nals looked like the Reverend Jesse Jackson. He invit­ed a guest on-air who sang “Barack, the Magic Negro” to the tune of “Puff, the Magic Dragon.” In 2016, he read an essay on air that a well-known white suprema­cist had penned.
He labeled Feminist women ‘Feminazis’. While speak­ing about the geno­cide of America’s indige­nous peo­ples, Limbaugh said, “Holocaust 90 mil­lion Indians? Only 4 mil­lion left? They all have casi­nos; what’s to com­plain about?”(salon)

Limbaugh fre­quent­ly mir­rored white nation­al­ist talk­ing points when dis­cussing Latino immi­grants, whom he described as lazy and depen­dent on the gov­ern­ment. He called migrants at America’s south­ern bor­der an “inva­sion.” He den­i­grat­ed Gays and Lesbians,’ the best way to stop the spread of the virus was to “not ask anoth­er man to bend over and make love at the exit point,” he asserted.
This guy was noth­ing but a blight, a poi­son, can­cer to the body politic, one that metas­ta­sized and inex­orable result­ed in Donald Trump and, worse, the storm­ing of the nation’s citadel of leg­isla­tive power.
The death of this guy is a bless­ing; no one should pre­tend to show def­er­ence to such a vile crea­ture, know­ing with­out a shad­ow of a doubt that the world is a bet­ter place today, than it was with him here.
We were all vic­tims of his hate; those who dis­agreed with his vile doc­trine, and those who agreed with him are equal vic­tims who now need redemption.
May God save their souls before it becomes too late for them too.?

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Mike Beckles is a for­mer Police Detective, busi­ness­man, free­lance writer, black achiev­er hon­oree, and pub­lish­er of the blog mike​beck​les​.com. 

Prime Minister Andrew Holness announced that Jamaica’s nation­al cur­few would start at 8 p.m., effec­tive Wednesday, February 10.
The mea­sure will remain in effect for a peri­od of at least two weeks.
The announce­ment came short­ly after Jamaica record­ed six con­sec­u­tive days of record-high COVID-19 cases.
Mr. Holness said the sit­u­a­tion is seri­ous, a cause for con­cern, and requires a gov­ern­ment response. Mr. Holness also not­ed the effect the cur­few will have on the econ­o­my, saying:
“If the num­bers set­tle, then we will go back to either 9 or 10 [p.m]. It is not the objec­tive of the gov­ern­ment to kill commerce.
“We do this very reluc­tant­ly but hav­ing great regard to the fact that if we don’t act, now, we could over­whelm our health sys­tem, which leads to either greater problems.”
The gath­er­ing lim­it has also been reduced from 15 per­sons to 10.
Check out more sto­ries here @ ( https://​jablogz​.com/​2​0​2​1​/​0​2​/​p​m​-​a​n​n​o​u​n​c​e​s​-​e​a​r​l​i​e​r​-​c​u​r​f​e​w​-​a​m​i​d​-​c​o​v​i​d​-​1​9​-​s​p​i​ke/ )

I am not going to speak to the lies Republicans told them­selves that they were the par­ty of law & order; every­one knew that was a lie. What I will do is try to do a lit­tle expose‘ on Republican lies and hypocrisy.
For decades Republicans like Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, Herbert Walker Bush, and Donald Trump ran as law and order candidates.
You may have noticed that I left out George Bush, who served two terms between 2000 & 2008. To his cred­it, George Bush did not make any claim to be much of any­thing but a goof­ball, at least not until the attacks of September 2001. Thereafter, Bush made him­self a wartime pres­i­dent; those wars are still in effect today.

The Republican claim of being the law & order par­ty was what is called a dog whis­tle. If you under­stand that bru­tal­iz­ing, lock­ing away, and killing blacks has been gov­ern­ment pol­i­cy after the so-called eman­ci­pa­tion dec­la­ra­tion, you begin to under­stand bet­ter, how run­ning as a law & order can­di­date means bru­tal­iz­ing, lock­ing away, and killing African-Americans.
It is cod­ed lan­guage to whites, par­tic­u­lar­ly in the South, what kind of pub­lic offi­cial they will be. Some Republican can­di­dates for pres­i­dent, irre­spec­tive of where they are from, launch their pres­i­den­tial cam­paigns from the deep South.
It was no sur­prise then, that the most igno­rant racist to run and occu­py the pres­i­den­cy in mod­ern his­to­ry ran as a law & order candidate.
No oth­er American war has been waged with more sav­agery and fer­vor than the FBI’s war against African-Americans. and black civ­il-rights lead­ers under Director J Edgar Hoover.
Hoover’s para­noia that America would be attacked and destroyed by com­mu­nists and gays is well doc­u­ment­ed, but his racist obses­sion with civ­il rights lead­ers was even more chilling.

In a February 11^th arti­cle, the Daily Beast, Jeffery Ogbar wrote; (On March 8, 1971, an anti-war activist group, the Citizens’ Commission to Investigate the FBI, broke into an FBI office in Media, Pennsylvania where they dis­cov­ered a cache of clas­si­fied doc­u­ments, many bear­ing the cryp­tic code “COINTELPRO.”
They leaked the doc­u­ments to the press. On March 24, 1971, The Washington Post ran a cov­er sto­ry on the FBI’s vast pro­gram in 1956 to neu­tral­ize sus­pi­cious per­sons and orga­ni­za­tions. Although ini­tial­ly formed to tar­get the Communist Party U.S.A., it was quick­ly expand­ed to include a wide range of groups con­sid­ered “sub­ver­sive.” No seg­ment had been as cen­tral to COINTELPRO oper­a­tions as civ­il rights activists. However, a broad­er scope of the FBI’s actions was unknown until Congressional hear­ings five years lat­er. What came to light was excep­tion­al­ly chill­ing — seeped in its own racism, with­out any checks or bal­ances, the FBI devot­ed more resources to harm­ing the Civil Rights move­ment than any oth­er task in its purview.)

J Edgar Hoover recruit­ed blacks to infil­trate civ­il rights orga­ni­za­tions, includ­ing Earnest Withers, a cel­e­brat­ed pho­tog­ra­ph­er who had access to pri­vate meet­ings of the move­ment. Whithers then duti­ful­ly report­ed back to Hoover on what he had learned. William O’Neil, a pet­ty crim­i­nal, was recruit­ed and used to infil­trate the Black Panther Party.
O’Neil’s treach­ery result­ed in the FBI & local police report­ed­ly assas­si­nat­ing the 21-year-old Fred Hampton as he lay sleep­ing, alleged­ly drugged, by the same William O’Neil on the direc­tive of his han­dlers in the FBI.
While ter­ror­ism has been a part of American cul­ture from the begin­ning of this exper­i­ment, it was nev­er viewed as a prob­lem because the ter­ror was direct­ed at the peo­ple America despised and hated.
For those rea­sons, the Ku Klux Klan is not a ter­ror­ist orga­ni­za­tion, but Republicans want the splin­tered Anti-Fascist pro­tes­tors (ANTIFA) des­ig­nat­ed a Terrorist group.

Asked about actions in help­ing the FBI to set up and assas­si­nate Fred Hampton, Oniel said the following;
I didn’t feel like I had done any­thing. I didn’t walk in there with guns. I didn’t shoot him. FBI didn’t do it. I felt some­what like I was betrayed. I felt like if any­one should have known it was going to be a raid that morn­ing, I should have known, also. I felt like I could have been caught in that raid. I was there that night, and I felt like if I’d have laid down, I prob­a­bly would have been a vic­tim, so I felt betrayed, I felt like, I felt like I was expend­able. I felt like, like per­haps I was on the wrong side. Yeah, yeah, I had my mis­giv­ings. I’m not going to, I, no, I’m not going to sit here now and take respon­si­bil­i­ty for the raid, you know, I’m not going to do that. I didn’t pull the trig­ger. I didn’t issue the war­rant. I didn’t put the guns in the apart­ment. So I’m not going to take respon­si­bil­i­ty for that, but I do feel like I was betrayed. I felt like I should have known the raid was com­ing down. I felt like it was prob­a­bly exces­sive. You know, I felt like it was a sur­gi­cal strike, you know, and I was real­ly angry for quite a few days. Quite a few days.
O’Neil would die in 1990 as he ran across the Eisenhower express­way on Dr. King’s birth­day. The med­ical exam­in­er ruled his death a sui­cide. I guess the uni­verse does pay attention.

No one knows exact­ly how many black peo­ple the Klan mur­dered through­out its his­to­ry, pos­si­bly hun­dreds of thou­sands con­sid­er­ing that Klansmen were/​are judges, police offi­cers, gro­cers, farm­ers, bankers, and every oth­er cat­e­go­ry of workers.
The killings were made through lynch­ings, shoot­ings, bomb­ings, and oth­er heinous acts, includ­ing James Byrd Jr’s drag­ging death in Jasper, Texas, over two decades ago.
We do not know how many may have been killed because they saw the wrong Doctor, the wrong nurse, was arrest­ed by the wrong cop,( lit­er­al­ly every cop was the wrong cop)eating at the wrong restaurant?
Organizations that have done far less have been des­ig­nat­ed Terrorist groups. Yet, in the United States, white ter­ror is such an accept­ed real­i­ty that there is no Federal Domestic ter­ror statute.

The Klan’s activ­i­ties con­tin­ue today, despite the third Ku Klux Klan Act, Civil Rights Act of 1871, or Force Act of 1871. With the pas­sage of the Third Force Act, pop­u­lar­ly known as the Ku Klux Act, Congress autho­rized President Ulysses S. Grant to declare mar­tial law, impose heavy penal­ties against ter­ror­ist orga­ni­za­tions, and use mil­i­tary force to sup­press them; Klux Klan (KKK). (History​.com)
In 1882, the U.S. Supreme Court declared the Ku Klux Act uncon­sti­tu­tion­al, but by that time, Reconstruction had end­ed, and much of the KKK had fad­ed away, or so they thought.
That was then; no one believes today that the Ku Klux Klan has fad­ed away. However, the Klan is the least of America’s wor­ries at the moment; the FBI and oth­er intel­li­gence agen­cies have repeat­ed­ly warned that domes­tic white suprema­cist groups pose the gravest dan­ger to America’s nation­al security.

Since there has been no sense of urgency to deal with home­grown ter­ror­ism, white ter­ror­ism has flour­ished in the United States. Using the Constitution’s lan­guage on local mili­tias and the 2^nd amend­ment, which pro­tects gun rights, vio­lent racist mili­tias have been allowed to expand their oper­a­tions across the country.
Their sup­port­ers in Congress have been able to oper­ate out in the open, by pre­tend­ing to be gun-rights advo­cates; when they are tru­ly full-fledged white suprema­cist supporters.
It has been that sup­port for white suprema­cist ter­ror groups why capi­tol insur­rec­tion­ists could storm the US Capitol and parade the racist flag of white supremacy.
For those rea­sons, Wisconsin US Senator Ron Johnson declared that the Capitol mob were not armed insur­rec­tion­ists.
Never mind that five of their own peo­ple died, one police offi­cer was killed and scores more seri­ous­ly injured by the nean­derthal horde who were armed with guns, base­ball bats, hock­ey sticks, flag­poles, chem­i­cal irri­tants, and oth­er weapons.
The hypocrisy of Ron Johnson and oth­ers like him should not be allowed to slide. These clowns declare police jus­ti­fied in using lethal force on unarmed peo­ple of col­or. Still, when it comes to the rag­ing lunatic mob of white trai­tors, they make excus­es and triv­i­al­ize the seri­ous­ness of their crimes.

Violent white suprema­cists mili­tia groups have not been treat­ed with the seri­ous­ness they should be; this led to killing many peo­ple, whites includ­ed. Timothy McVeigh, a mil­i­tary vet­er­an, destroyed the Edward R Murrow Federal build­ing in 1995, killing 168 Americans and injur­ing 680 oth­ers. The bomb­ing remains the dead­liest act of domes­tic ter­ror­ism in US history.
Timothy McVeigh was even­tu­al­ly exe­cut­ed, but the dam­age was already done. Killing him could not unring the bell.
Investigators have report­ed that a dis­pro­por­tion­ate num­ber of those arrest­ed after the Capitol breach of January 6^th, 2021 were either past or serv­ing mil­i­tary and police members.
The cod­dling of vio­lent white extrem­ist indi­vid­u­als and groups con­tin­ues to result in the mur­der of inno­cent Americans of all stripes.
In the 2019 El Paso mas­sacre, the white shoot­er, a 21-year old from Allen, Texas, claimed in a man­i­festo that he was act­ing to pro­tect whites in America from “cul­tur­al and eth­nic replace­ment” brought on by “the Hispanic inva­sion of Texas.”He alleged­ly allowed peo­ple who did not look like Mexicans to go free; then, he sum­mar­i­ly mas­sa­cred those who were the ene­mies in his mind.

[The shooter’s alt-right writ­ings includ­ing excerpts and names of indi­vid­u­als and groups who claim to be fight­ing against the “Great Replacement,” as one of their lead­ers calls the pur­port­ed threat of “white geno­cide” around the world. Followers of this con­spir­a­cy the­o­ry aim to cre­ate a neo-fas­cist “eth­nos­tate” where at least 90 per­cent of inhab­i­tants are white. Their pro­posed pro­gram will be car­ried out by dra­con­ian bor­der enforce­ment mea­sures that will deter future migra­tion, mass depor­ta­tions, the revo­ca­tion of birthright cit­i­zen­ship, and purg­ing non­white chil­dren (who rep­re­sent the great­est threat to the dis­ap­pear­ance of the white race). According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, mas­sacres like the one in El Paso are part of a strat­e­gy these extrem­ist groups call “accel­er­a­tionism,” the idea that the delib­er­ate spread of ter­ror is nec­es­sary to elim­i­nate non-whites from this country.](Texas Observer)
The white suprema­cist group, the Oath Keepers, Proud Boys, and the pha­lanx of oth­er Neo-Nazi losers all sub­scribe to this racist ide­ol­o­gy, and in Congress, there is sup­port for it.
In many State Legislatures across the coun­try, draft leg­is­la­tion and laws passed reflect those xeno­pho­bic and racist ide­olo­gies. Proponents of those laws may not open­ly declare their intent when draft­ing and pass­ing such leg­is­la­tion, but we know their intentions.

The chal­lenge now for author­i­ties is how to deal with the mon­ster they allowed to grow because they did not think that these ter­ror­ists would endan­ger them.
Law-enforce­ment offi­cers, some of whom are mem­bers and sym­pa­thiz­ers of white nation­al­ists groups, played foot­sie with their mem­bers. Believing they had found allies against the hat­ed black peo­ple strug­gling for free­dom from police vio­lence and insti­tu­tion­al­ized racism man­i­fest­ed through bru­tal and mur­der­ous police departments.
Many were unwit­ting­ly duped by the so-called back the blue cam­paign they waged against Black Lives Matter pro­tes­tors, peace­ably protest­ing for racial justice.
It was a strate­gic ruse designed to pla­cate and paci­fy police, many of whom are anti-black, to begin with. When the rub­ber meets the road, they made it clear that they did not care about the blue, par­tic­u­lar­ly if the blue would not allow them to achieve their blood lust.

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Mike Beckles is a for­mer Police Detective, busi­ness­man, free­lance writer, black achiev­er hon­oree, and cre­ator of the blog mike​beck​les​.com. 

OFFICERS EXPRESSED REGRET OVER NOT STOMPING AND GASSING A GROUP OF PEOPLE ARRESTED FOR PROTESTING IN OCTOBER.

Officers in Phoenix, Arizona were caught via their own body cam­eras dis­cussing regret over fail­ing to com­mit acts of bru­tal­i­ty against Black Lives Matter pro­test­ers dur­ing arrests last October. After arrest­ing 18 mem­bers of BLM, three Arizona offi­cers sat in a squad car ques­tion­ing why “they hadn’t tram­pled the group and doused them in pep­per spray,” accord­ing to The Washington Post. “Why didn’t we just stomp on them when they were leav­ing?” one offi­cer can be heard ask­ing. Another offi­cer said they should, “just gas them and let them run like crazy.” Arizona Police Chief Jeri Williams promised “swift and deci­sive dis­ci­pli­nary action,” and described the offi­cers involved as dis­re­spect­ful. Williams has so far not revealed what that dis­ci­pline may look like.

According to The Post, just hours after the body-cam footage was released, the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office announced that it would dis­miss charges against 15 of the pro­test­ers who were arrest­ed on October 17, 2020. The pro­test­ers were fac­ing a num­ber of charges, includ­ing riot­ing, aggra­vat­ed assault with a dead­ly weapon, and resist­ing arrest. Phoenix pros­e­cu­tors also filed gang-relat­ed charges against the pro­test­ers. An offi­cer explained that, although they were not in a gang, the pro­test­ers faced gang charges because they chant­ed “all cops are b — — ,” and most of them wore black and car­ried umbrellas.

Chief Williams said the depart­ment is going to under­go reform in order to pre­vent anoth­er inci­dent like this one from occur­ring again. “I have been and will con­tin­ue to be an advo­cate of the amaz­ing work done in this depart­ment each day,” she said in a state­ment. “However, I know that unpro­fes­sion­al, dis­re­spect­ful, and inap­pro­pri­ate behav­ior from even one of our offi­cers tar­nish­es the badge, but more impor­tant­ly, it hurts the com­mu­ni­ty we have sworn to protect.”

YA!!!

By Zack Linly

Kyle Rittenhouse is await­ing tri­al for fatal­ly shoot­ing two peo­ple and seri­ous­ly injur­ing a third with a rifle he couldn’t legal­ly car­ry. His mul­ti­ple charges include two felony counts of inten­tion­al homi­cide. Regardless of how one feels about the cir­cum­stances sur­round­ing the Aug. 25 shoot­ing in Kenosha, Wis., there’s no deny­ing that, on paper, he appears to be the kind of crim­i­nal Americans would have no prob­lem con­demn­ing even before he’s found guilty. Except, Rittenhouse is white, looks like the kid next door (to white peo­ple), and is an American’s American — mean­ing he loves cops, guns, vig­i­lante “jus­tice,” and, well, America.

This is why Rittenhouse quick­ly raised funds to pay his $2 mil­lion bail and why he thought noth­ing of hit­ting a bar fresh off his release and hang­ing out with local white suprema­cists. It’s why Rittenhouse was like­ly con­fi­dent that vio­lat­ing court orders by leav­ing the court with a false address would be no big deal — and it’s why he was absolute­ly right about that.
The Washington Post reports that dur­ing a vir­tu­al hear­ing on Thursday, Kenosha County Circuit Judge Bruce Schroeder denied the motion by pros­e­cu­tors to have Rittenhouse rear­rest­ed for vio­lat­ing the terms of his release and raise his bond by $200,000.
From the Post:

Schroeder acknowl­edged that the 18-year old had failed to keep the court apprised of his res­i­dence but dis­agreed with Assistant District Attorney Thomas C. Binger’s argu­ments, not­ing that Rittenhouse’s release con­di­tions require only that the defen­dant pro­vide the court with his address, not that he actu­al­ly reside there.

“To issue a war­rant now for a defen­dant that has appeared at every hear­ing would be break­ing the law, and I’m not going to do it,” Schroeder said, adding that he lacked the author­i­ty to issue the kind of war­rant Binger requested.
“Rittenhouse’s release con­di­tions require only that the defen­dant pro­vide the court with his address, not that he actu­al­ly resides there.”

Bruh, WHAT?

What kind of “whites only” bail con­di­tions are these that allow some­one charged in mul­ti­ple homi­cides to give the court any old address while the defen­dant lives wher­ev­er the hell he pleases?

You know what? Never mind; I’ve been writ­ing about “two Americas” since Rittenhouse first became news. According to the Post, dur­ing the Thursday hear­ing — which includ­ed state­ments by Gaige Grosskreutz, the man who sur­vived being shot by Rittenhouse; and John Huber, the father of Anthony Huber, one of the vic­tims who died — Schroeder did order Rittenhouse’s attor­neys to pro­vide the court with a cur­rent address, say­ing it would be kept secret from every­one except the judge, court clerk, and sher­iff. His attor­neys pre­vi­ous­ly argued their client left the address the court had on file because of “numer­ous death and oth­er threats based on the events of August 25, 2020, in the City of Kenosha, Wisconsin,” accord­ing to CNN.

HERE IS THE WAY THE SAME JUDGE RESPONDED TO A CASE INVOLVING A YOUNG BLACK MALE CHARGED WITH A LESSER CRIME
https://​www​.kenoshanews​.com/​j​u​d​g​e​-​n​o​-​d​i​s​m​i​s​s​a​l​-​f​o​r​-​m​a​n​-​a​c​c​u​s​e​d​-​o​f​-​f​i​r​i​n​g​-​g​u​n​-​a​f​t​e​r​-​f​i​g​h​t​/​a​r​t​i​c​l​e​_​2​4​b​c​4​a​f​a​-​6​370 – 5683-a1a3-f4246e4c1302.html

More from the Post:

During the hour-long hear­ing, which was at times con­tentious, Schroeder attempt­ed to head off sev­er­al argu­ments that veered too close to the polit­i­cal back-and-forth that has gripped the case. He stressed that he was try­ing to be as fair as pos­si­ble to every­one involved.

“This case is not going to be decid­ed by demon­stra­tors of one type or anoth­er,” he said.

Yeah, let’s hope America’s blind­ness doesn’t actu­al­ly decide this case to white crim­i­nal­i­ty. If the han­dling of Rittenhouse up until now is any indi­ca­tion of how he’ll be treat­ed when tried, I won’t be hold­ing my breath that his sto­ry ends in con­se­quences for his actions.