How the white imagination of a black threat continues to make justice elusive

Kendrec McDade, Amadou Diallo, Tamir Rice

As long as the law allows white men to act on their imagination of a black threat of violence, justice will remain a rare, elusive occurrence in America. It cannot and should not be enough for police or citizens to simply believe, based not on facts, but the possibilities of their own imagination, that they may be in grave danger at the hands of black boys and men who actually posed no threat to them whatsoever.

The threat must be verifiably real, true, actual, factual, or it is, no matter how police unions or the members of the press who do their bidding want to spin it, unjust, through and through, to threaten, assault, or murder based on the disproven reality that a threat could've existed because your imagination said so.

The reality is that Kendrec McDade, a completely unarmed and innocent all-state athlete posed absolutely no threat to the police or anyone else the day Pasadena, CA police shot him over and over again after imagining that they both saw and heard Kendrec shoot at them. They only found a cell phone. The white imagination of a black threat was enough in our justice system.

This is not OK.

The reality is that Amadou Diallo, a completely unarmed, hardworking man on his way home from work, posed absolutely no threat to the police who shot at him 41 times on the doorstep of his own home. They only found a wallet. The white imagination of a black threat was enough in our justice system.

This is not OK.  READ MORE

My Letter to Editor refuting conservative economics - printed! by NBBooksFollow

One week ago, BeninSC posted a diary noting that the Republicans are "a party of Orwellian deception" and urging us to

...shine the biggest light on the superiority of Democratic morality. Of doing unto others as we would wish to be done unto. Of respecting the challenges others less fortunate face. Of fighting injustices toward women, toward children, toward our armed forces, toward our workers, toward the elderly, toward minorities. Toward VOTERS! Always, ALWAYS talk the morality of our politics, of our humanity. It’s the biggest, best argument we can make, and it resonates - LOUDLY -  beyond every boundary drawn on a map.

But here's something I find almost as frustrating as Republican deception: the unwillingness or inability of Democrats to smash Republican lies and myths with simple American history. One of Karl Rove's tenets is to attack your enemy's strength. And I think that is exactly what we should do. I think we should start calling Republicans' and conservatives' adoration of "market economics" what it actually is - the glorification of selfishness, the celebration of exactly some of the worst aspects of human nature. It is not Christian, nor is it American. And their hatred of a strong central government is neo-Confederate, plain and simple. Every statement a Rick Perry or a Newt Gingrich makes about secession and states rights should be flung in our foes' faces as treasonous and seditious. I'm tired of playing nice with Republicans and conservatives who openly say stuff like bi-partisanship is like date rape - with Democrats as the victim.
Well, about two weeks ago, I happened to be in a restaurant in Yanceyville, NC, about 25 miles from my home. It's the seat of the next county over, typically southern conservative Caswell County, which I am proud to say my wife was on a local phone bank here in heavily Democratic Orange County that helped swing Caswell into the Democratic column in 2008. I picked up the most recent copy of the local paper, the Caswell Messenger, and my eye settled on a letter to the editor from some local conservative named Mr. R., raving that Obama's proposal for free college tuition was evil government redistribution, theft, blah, blah - the usual wrong-wing crap.

Now, ever since it became clear to me around 2009 or so, that President Obama was unwilling to buck Wall Street and fight for policies that would dramatically shift the balance between capital and labor, I have been reading a lot of American history in an attempt to find the answers to two questions: What is a republic supposed to be? And, what policies of political economy should a republic follow? In other words, is there a republican political economy? As distinguished from a plutocracy, or oligarchy, or monarchy.

So, I determined to take the LTE by Mr. R. and write my own letter to the editor refuting him point by point, including some of what I've learned the past six years. A couple days after I faxed and emailed my letter, I received an email from the editor asking me to shorten it quite a bit. It was originally just under 1,400 words, and I was able to trim it to about 900. I received another email, apologizing that they were looking for letters of about 500 words. So, I got it down to about 600 words, and emailed it to the editor, noting that I did not feel I could cut it any further. READ MORE

Sharia law: North Carolina Republicans empower magistrates to refuse to marry blacks, Jews, gays

Not on Magistrate Smith's watch, you don't.

North Carolina Republicans' latest wedge issue gambit, Senate Bill 2 (An Act to Allow Magistrates [...] to Recuse Themselves From Performing Duties Related to Marriage Ceremonies Due to Sincerely Held Religious Objection), passed the state Senate Wednesday on a near party-line vote (Democratic senators Clark and Ford joining 30 Republicans voting aye, and Republicans Alexander and Tarte voting no with 14 Dems). Passage in the House, and signing by Governor Pat McCrory (R), are widely expected to follow shortly.

In North Carolina, civil weddings are performed by county magistrates - bottom-rung appointed officers of the court whose other duties include such mundane tasks as hearing misdemeanor cases, presiding in small claims court, administering oaths, setting bail, accepting guilty pleas, and issuing subpoenas. These are undemanding but good-paying jobs (requiring no post-secondary education, and paying as much as $57,000).

When a Federal court decision made same-sex marriage legal in North Carolina last October, eight NC county magistrates resigned their positions rather than face the prospect of violating their religious beliefs by marrying same-sex couples. It should be easy enough for reasonable people across the political spectrum to agree that those resignations were the right thing to do. If you cannot reconcile your personal beliefs with your job duties, you need to find a different job. An orthodox Jew working at an oyster bar, a Sikh in a slaughterhouse, a Quaker in the Marines, a Catholic in a Planned Parenthood clinic - clearly none have a right to expect their employers to accommodate their sincerely held religious objections, and so all need to re-evaluate their career options. It's no different for civil servants, nor should it be.

Rather than allow such an obvious solution to suffice, Republicans are rushing to turn the issue into a social conservative rallying point in the run-up to the 2016 elections in North Carolina (a state where voters' opinions are evenly divided, with 44% approving of same sex marriage and 47% disapproving, with a 3% margin of error).

Phil Berger (R), president pro tem of the state senate and SB2's primary sponsor, casts his argument for the bill in First Amendment terms:

“If we’re not about holding up the rights guaranteed by our constitution in this body, then all the other stuff eventually is not worth very much,” he said. “We’re not saying that the First Amendment outweighs any other right that might exist. We’re saying there should be an accommodation when there is a conflict.”

SB2 would permit a magistrate with a "sincerely held religious objection" to recuse him- or herself from performing weddings by the simple act of so notifying the chief district court judge. No examination of the sincerity of that belief (such as would-be conscientious objectors face under Selective Service rules) would be required. Neither would the recusing magistrate be required to state exactly what it is he objects to: same-sex marriage (which many fundamentalist Christian denominations hold to be a sin), mixed-race marriage (regarding which the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints' prophet, Warren Jeffs, proclaimed "If you marry a person who has connections with a Negro, you would become cursed"), the re-marriage of a divorcee (which the Catholic Church holds to be a sin), the marriage of a Christian and a Jew (sometimes frowned upon by both religions), marriage between cousins (legal in North Carolina but proscribed by the Catholic church), or what have you. Proponents of the bill argue that it is therefore not discriminatory, as it does not target a specific class of persons. As well, they continue, the law is not discriminatory because recusal would bar the magistrate from performing any marriages for a period of six months...barring him from easily cherry-picking the marriages he will and will not perform. In an further paroxysm of zeal for 'fair play,' SB2 goes even further, permitting the reinstatement of any magistrate who resigned his position following the Federal court decision rendering same-sex marriage legal in North Carolina, with no loss of service time for purposes of determining the magistrate's eligibility to collect a pension.

Judging by news reports, outnumbered opponents of SB2 offered all the right arguments during debate on the bill:  READ MORE

Former State Department officials explain why the Clinton email 'scandal' is ridiculous

Hillary Clinton, then the secretary of state, checking
her PDA upon leaving Malta for Tripoli, Libya, in 2011.

According to the State Department, Hillary Clinton's use of a personalized email address during her time as secretary of state was no secret.

"The State Department has long had access to a wide array of Secretary Clinton's records — including emails between her and Department officials with state.gov accounts," State Department Deputy Spokesperon Marie Harf said in an email to Business Insider.

Business Insider asked the State Department about Clinton's use of private email in response to a New York Times article published Monday evening that said Clinton's use of a personal address "may have violated federal requirements that officials' correspondence be retained as part of the agency's record." The Times further reported "her aides took no actions to have her personal emails preserved on department servers at the time."

Some observers have cast the story as a "scandal" for Clinton, who is widely expected to run for president in 2016. Clinton has already faced accusations she is insufficiently transparent, and the email story has already been tied to that narrative. However, Clinton's team pointed to former State Department officials who defended her use of a personal email address and dismissed potential concerns. READ MORE

THE WORLD AT WAR (WORLD WAR ll

This war is a very important lesson of history,  since it shows what will happen if we don't stand up for our rights and allow truth to be smothered by propaganda,  for the short term objective of preserving the peace.  Even if you could trust the people who to whom you surrender your freedoms in exchange for security and you cannot,  there will be no way you can resist when those powers of state are handed over to the successors.  As Benjamin Franklin once said:  "Those who would surrender their freedoms for security,  will get neither peace nor security".  From the Caesars to Hitler,  Mussolini and Stalin,  history is rife with examples of how totalitarian systems abuse the people with their absolute powers.  Be warned!

War in the east SOVIET STORM series 18 parts (play list)

WORLD WAR II - BATTLEFIELD SERIES (30 parts) (Series 3 is about the Viet Nam War and is left out of this presentation)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Battlefield is a documentary series initially shown in 1994 that explores the most important battles fought primarily during the Second World War and the Vietnam War.^[1] The series employs a novel approach in which history is described by detailed accounts of major battles together with background and contextual information. READ MORE
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A collection of world war ll videos

Look Ma, it's Frosty the Republican Sex Scandal Man!

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NEW YORK CITY HOUSING COURT TUTORIAL

More lawyers need to make instructional/explanatory law videos.  Because the more people know about a law,  the better the laws protect your rights.  For example,  just imagine if no one knew about freedom of speech?  Your right to speak freely would be challenged by anyone who dissented to it,  making it impossible to exercise free speech.  Laws get passed to protect you,  but how can they do so effectively if you don't have a clue they exist,  let alone how to advantage yourself of them.

Eleven part playlist (plays in sequence)