Category Archives: Current Events

More Questions About Ferguson.

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Why did the Ferguson police force have only three African-American officers out of a force of 53 when the population of Ferguson is more than 67 percent black?

What did Officer Darren Wilson take away from his training at the disgraced Jennings Police Department that was disbanded over racial tensions? Did he bring that training to Ferguson? Knowing Wilson’s past, did the Ferguson Police Chief do anything to re-train Wilson?

Why was Officer Wilson’s first choice the weapon of last resort? In addition to his gun, he was carrying a Taser and a police baton. Either of those should have been sufficient to subdue an unarmed teenager.

Eyewitnesses say that during a scuffle at the driver’s door, a shot was fired with the officer’s gun and Brown ran away. Why, then, did Officer Wilson continue to fire at an unarmed teen? The eyewitness accounts that Brown stopped, put up his hands and turned around seems to be verified by a newly-obtained audio recording that indicates Wilson fired six shots in quick succession followed by a pause and another four shots.

Ferguson police explain that Michael Brown tried to take Officer Wilson’s gun while Wilson was in the car. If the gun was on Wilson’s right side, Brown would not have been able to reach it through the driver’s window unless Wilson was already holding the weapon in his hand. If so, why would he have his gun drawn for two unarmed teenagers who were walking in the street in broad daylight?

Ferguson police also say that after the first shots were fired, Brown charged Officer Wilson. Are we to believe that an unarmed young man, having just survived a fusillade of shots, turned to charge at the armed officer? That defies any reasonable understanding of self-preservation.

Was Michael Brown’s body left in the street uncovered for four hours after the shooting as a warning to the neighborhood? Only brutal dictators use such public display of bodies to send a warning to the public.

Why on earth would a police department confront a peaceful rally with armored vehicles, rooftop snipers, military assault rifles, flash bang grenades and tear gas? Were they trying to provoke a violent response? According to most reports, the looting and violence only began after the officers struck first.

Did Michael Brown really commit a “strongarm robbery” at the convenience store? There are reports that he actually paid for the cigars.

Why did Ferguson police not release an official report until many days after the shooting? And why did that report not include any details of the circumstances of the shooting? Was this done to prevent the possiblity of Officer Wilson making contradictory statements in court?

In my opinion, the Ferguson police department has a lot of explaining to do.

Bullies In Blue.

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Or black, or khaki, or camoflauge or whatever police officers are wearing these days.

The events in Ferguson and St. Louis are by no means unique. But they have called attention to a long-festering problem in the US. I recognize that there are many honorable and well-intentioned police officers. Unfortunately, their good work is being overwhelmed by a growing mob of violent bullies behind badges.

I first became aware of police violence in the 1950’s when I saw police brutality against peaceful civil rights marches. In the 1960’s I saw police brutally beat anti-Vietnam War prostestors. In the 1980’s, I saw the results of an off-duty police officer ruthlessly beating an unarmed college student. (The officer’s penalty was to be assigned as public relations officer for the department.) I became involved in an incident when police handcuffed and held an African-American employee for walking while black. I heard dozens of black friends describe repeated abuse by police officers. I witnessed six city cops mace and brutally beat a black man who was already cuffed and lying face down in the snow and slush. I served on a jury for an assault trial in which the police brought charges against a black man without investigating the case. I read reports of six cops fatally shooting a frail, mentally ill woman brandishing a kitchen knife.

I thought all of this was bad, until I witnessed the cell phone video of the police shooting in St. Louis. The victim was most certainly mentally ill. The knife he was carrying was small. He could easily have been stopped and disarmed with a baton or a taser. (I’ve managed to defend myself against a knife-wielding attacker with no weapons and no Kevlar vest.) Yet two officers, both larger than the victim, pumped at least 7 rounds into the victim. The other responding officers arrived on scene with very bad attitudes and unnecessarily bullied the witnesses.

Unfortunately, this event is far from unusual. In just the past few weeks, we’ve learned of the killing of an unarmed teenager in Ferguson; of an unarmed man in Los Angeles; of a mentally ill 50-year old woman in Phoenix who was holding a claw hammer. We’ve seen a California cop brutally beat an unarmed black woman on the side of a freeway. We’ve seen a NYC cop strangle an unarmed black man to death. We’ve seen Missouri police forces surround a community with military vehicles and assault rifles pointed at unarmed protesters. And we’ve seen a police officer randomly pointing an assault weapon at demonstrators and yelling “I’m going to f***ing kill you.”

This is not policing. It’s sanctioned bullying and worse…almost certainly the result of NRA-sponsored laws which have made guns more readily available and police more nervous; of the government program that provides military weapons to police forces that have no need for them; of our national infatuation with big boy toys and weaponry; of police training that encourages the use of lethal force when threatened; of police consultants who promote confrontation; of rampant racism and the oppression of black and brown people; of political fear-mongering that makes citizens afraid of their neighbors and encourages them to excuse police brutality as long as it makes them feel safe; of prosecutors who are afraid of the political consequences for filing charges against cops; and of a disengaged populace who are afraid to speak up against police brutality.

It’s time for this to end.

Racism And The Militarization Of Police.

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The current upheaval in Ferguson, Missouri has finally drawn attention to two long-standing problems with law enforcement in the US. Police have been disproportionately arresting and shooting African-American males for decades. Imagine if a member of a predominately black police force shot an unarmed white teenager in a majority white city. How do you think white people would respond? How do you think it would be reported by the media, especially Fox News Channel?

How do you think our white majority would react if a black police officer choked a non-violent unarmed white man to death? How do you think white people would respond to seeing video of a black police officer viciously beating a defenseless white woman alongside the freeway?

The harrassment and mistreatment of African-Americans by white police officers in Ferguson is all too reminiscent of the civil rights movement I witnessed in the Fifties and Sixties. The only real difference is that fire hoses and dogs have been replaced by tear gas, tanks and armored personnel carriers. .38 revolvers have been replaced by 9mm semi-automatics and .223 AR-15s. As one Marine stated, the military’s rules of engagement in policing a real war zone are more restrictive than what he saw in Ferguson.

With every death of an unarmed black man, our media eventually cite statistics of “Black on Black” crime suggesting that violence is uniquely inherent to African-American culture. However, they cite no “White on Whie” crime statistics when troubled young white men who are armed to the teeth empty their extended clips of ammunition into the bodies of school kids or theater-goers.

Ferguson demonstrates that it is long past time that we have a serious discussion about race relations, poverty and policing in the United States. (If that fact was not obvious enough, polls show that public opinion of the situation in Ferguson is split along racial lines.) It’s time for the police to put away their “big boy toys” and return to community policing based on the motto of “to serve and protect.” It’s time they represent the communities they serve. It’s time they are measured by the crimes they prevent as well as the arrests they make. It’s time they show that they are a force to run to instead of a force to run from.

Regardless of the events that led to the nonsensical shooting of an unarmed black teenager, the Ferguson Police Chief should be held accountable for making matters worse. He has clearly demonstrated that he neither represents his community nor understands its citizens. He should not only be fired by the citizens of Ferguson. He should replace Mayberry’s Barney Fife as the poster boy for inept policing.

UPDATE: It is being reported that the convenience store where Michael Brown supposedly stole cigars is saying that he actually paid for them. If proven to be true, the Ferguson Police Chief needs to be charged with character assassination and obstruction of justice.

Democrats Should Listen To Nader.

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For some time, I’ve written about the Democratic Party’s appalling ineptitude with regard to branding and messaging. The party seems utterly incapable of communicating a clear, concise and cogent message.

Most voters can recite the Republican brand – “Less government. Lower taxes.” But what does the Democratic Party stand for? What is its brand? Ask a hundred Democrats and you’ll get a hundred different answers. Ask a hundred independent voters and you’ll likely hear them parrot back some version of the Teapublican talking points – “Democrats are tax and spend liberals who are weak on foreign policy.”

In other words, Teapublicans have been more successful in branding Democrats than the Democrats themselves.

What accounts for such failure? In an article for the Huffington Post, Ralph Nader hit the nail on the head by suggesting that the party’s corporate consultants are part of the problem. Nader writes about a recent mass mailing from Nancy Pelosi, “The Pelosi mailing, uninspiring and defensive, is another product of the party’s political consultants who have failed them again and again in winnable House and Senate races against the worst Republican Party record in history.” Nader continued, “These consultants, as former Clinton special assistant Bill Curry notes, make more money from their corporate clients than from political retainers. Slick, arrogant and ever-reassuring, these firms are riddled with conflicts of interests and could just as well be Trojan horses.”

While Teapublican candidates want to destroy the government and any form of corporate regulation, Democratic candidates represent the working public…the vast majority of Americans. Yet, with few exceptions, the party has failed to tap into the smoldering, populist anger in the country. They’ve allowed the Tea Party to do that. Even though we have a Democratic president and a Democrat-controlled Senate, much of the debate in Washington has been controlled by a group of anti-government, anti-education, anti-science nitwits like Michele Bachmann, Ted Cruz, Louie Gohmert, Steve King, and Rand Paul.

These are people who want to take America back to the days of the Robber Barons and indentured servants. They are little more than an American version of the Taliban. But they’ve tapped into the anger generated by the collapse of our economy caused by large financial institutions. And because Democrats failed to articulate their political views and the actual causes of the crash, Teapublicans were able to redirect the blame to the victims of the crash…the people who lost their homes due to unregulated lending; the people who lost their jobs and needed to rely on unemployment insurance; the people who could no longer feed their children and needed to rely on food stamps; the so-called “moocher” class.

They blamed the victims. And the Democratic Party was so inept they let Teapublicans get away with it.

Even though Ralph Nader has been instrumental in passing legislation Democrats now claim as their own – the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, the Consumer Credit Disclosure Law, the Consumer Product Safety Act, the Federal Coal Mine Health and Safety Act, the Freedom of Information Act, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Mine Health and Safety Act, the National Automobile and Highway Traffic Safety Act and much, much more – Democrats now vilify Nader on the mistaken belief that he cost Al Gore the presidency in 2000. He didn’t. (The result actually had more to do with fraudulent absentee ballots, voter suppression in Florida counties and a partisan Supreme Court.)

No one has fought harder for American consumers and workers than Ralph Nader. Democrats would be wise to listen to him now instead of their overpaid, underperforming corporate consultants.

WWJT – (What Would Jesus Think)?

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During a recent sermon, Pastor John Hagee of Cornerstone Church in Texas decried our federal safety net programs by saying, “To those of you who are sick, to those of you who are elderly, to those of you who are disabled, we gladly support you. To the healthy who can work but won’t work, get your nasty self off the couch and go get a job! America has rewarded laziness and we’ve called it welfare.” (Hagee doesn’t have sympathy for the unemployed, single parents who can’t find jobs that pay more than the cost of daycare, and many others who are unable to support themselves and their families.)

Taking a Bible verse out of context, Hagee continued, “The Bible says, ‘The man who does not work, should not eat.’ I know liberals hate that verse, but read it and weep! It’s God’s position.” In other words, all devout “Christians” should allow people who rely on our social safety nets to starve.

Similarly, ”Christian” radio host Rick Wiles said, “Now this Ebola epidemic can become a global pandemic and that’s another name for plague. It may be the great attitude adjustment that I believe is coming…Ebola could solve America’s problems with atheism, homosexuality, sexual promiscuity, pornography and abortion.”

And you thought only Muslim extremists preached hate?

Worse, these are only two of the hate-mongers who spew from many of our nation’s pulpits on any given Sunday. Is it any wonder that young people are rejecting religion? In truth, people like Hagee and Wiles do not represent Christianity. They don’t even represent humanity. Yet they have developed substantial followings and they’ve been provided a forum from which to spout their hatred. We even help pay for their inflated salaries, their investments, their sanctuaries and their airtime by making all of their profits and properties tax-exempt.

So, tell me, who are the real freeloaders? The poor, the downtrodden and the unemployed? Or the charlatans of modern religion? What would Jesus think?

UPDATE: After publishing this article, I learned of more examples of “Christian” hatemongers. American Family Association spokesman Bryan Fischer is outraged by US humanitarian aid to the Yazidi minority under fire from ISIS in Iraq, calling the Yazidis “devil worshipers.” And megachurch pastor, Mark Driscoll, has admitted to making crude comments about feminism, homosexuality and “sensitive emasculated” men.

Maybe it’s time the Southern Poverty Law Center listed such organizations as hate groups.

Be Afraid Of The Children. Be Very Afraid!

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A study by Darren Schreiber of the University of Exeter found that the brains of Democrats and Republicans are wired differently. The key characteristic that distinguished Republican brains is in the way they process risk, reward and fear. They are more likely to exhibit fear of any perceived threat…even of change.

You can see this in the way Teapublicans approach politics by creating scapegoats. Now that we’re approaching the mid-term congressional elections, Teapublican candidates have created yet another straw dog in order to fire up their base. In 2006, it was gay marriage, which was going to “destroy America” and make all other marriages irrelevant. In 2008, it was fear of Black Panthers, Muslims and sharia law. In 2010, it was “Obamacare death panels” and illegal immigrants who were “taking our jobs” and “living off welfare.” In 2012, it was the fear of voter fraud, welfare recipients, food stamps, Obamacare and Benghazi, Benghazi, Benghazi.

This year, we’re supposed to fear a bunch of Central American refugee children who are attempting to escape the poverty and violence of their native countries. Ooooooo!

Yes, Teapublican candidates have turned these desperate waifs into frightening boogeymen for the election season. “They are disease-ridden invaders who will overwhelm our schools and infect our own children with hepatitis, tuberculosis, and dozens of other diseases,” they say. Some suggest that the children could be bringing ebola virus into the US. Some compare them to an invasion of Muslim extremists determined to destroy America. And, even more frightening, some Teapublicans claim that Obama has orchestrated this “invasion” in order to ensure that there will be more Democratic voters in the future.

With each election, leading up to the primaries, Teapublicans are fearful that a political opponent will outflank them to their right. As a result, they push more extreme views and generate more fear to fend off their opponents. Then, leading up to the general election, they run negative attack ads financed by billionaires to portray Democrats as tax and spend liberals who are weak on foreign policy and soft on immigration. They tell voters that Democrats are going to waste their money on “entitlements” for “welfare queens;” that Democrats will use your taxes to pay for abortions of white kids; that Democrats are socialists, communists, fascists and worse; that Democrats are going to take away your guns. So be afraid…very afraid.

Of course, all of this is amplified by Fox Noise Channel and the 92 percent of talk radio devoted to conservative fear and hate. The only question is will it work this time? There are far more Democrats and independents than Teapublicans. They can’t win on their own. So you can put an end to their fear-mongering. All you have to do is vote.

What Good Are Geneva Conventions If We Refuse To Enforce Them?

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By signing the Geneva Convention on torture, the US agreed that it would never resort to torturing prisoners, and that it would prosecute or extradite anyone who did. So why has the Obama administration refused to press charges of war crimes against George W. Bush, Richard “The Dick” Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Condoleezza Rice, et al?

The Senate Intelligence Committee has now documented torture during the Bush administration and President Obama has confirmed the findings. If that’s not enough evidence to generate indictments, Bush officials have confessed to their crimes in their published memoirs and on television. Not only have they admitted knowledge of “extraordinary renditions,” aka torture. They have bragged about their “extreme interrogation techniques” and stated that they would not hesitate to use them again.

In other words, they are self-confessed war criminals.

So why hasn’t the Obama administration pressed charges according to the Geneva Conventions? Why have they not extradited the perpetrators to countries that will? Aren’t we supposed to be a nation of laws? Don’t we brag about our commitment to human rights? Don’t we accuse and prosecute the officials of other nations for war crimes?

If we can’t live up to our own rhetoric and promises; if we can’t abide by the treaties we sign, what good are they?

Where Will This Nonsense End?

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This week, the United States House of Representatives voted along party lines to sue the President of the United States for the first time in history. The basis for the lawsuit? Teapublicans claim that President Obama overstepped his legal authority by extending the deadline for the Affordable Care Act’s employer mandate for another year – yes, that Affordable Care Act – the one congressional Teapublicans have voted to repeal more than 50 times. Never mind that every Chief Executive before President Obama has made such decisions. They were not Kenyan-born, black Muslims who were overwhelmingly elected with the help of African-Americans and Latinos.

In fact, President Obama has signed fewer executive orders than any president since World War II. He has signed 183 to George W. Bush’s 291 and Reagan’s 381.

But in order to truly understand the reason for the lawsuit, we must look at how we got here. In 1974, Democrats called for impeachment of President Richard Nixon over the break-in at the Democratic National Committee headquarters in the Watergate office complex. Despite the fact that, by ordering the break-in and the ensuing cover-up, Nixon had committed “high crimes and misdemeanors,” Republicans were spoiling for payback. They spent $70 million of taxpayers’ money on a witch hunt in order to find cause for impeaching President Clinton, ultimately impeaching Clinton for lying about an extra-marital affair – a “crime” likely committed by more than half of the presidents that served before him.

The impeachment backfired, making Clinton more popular than ever and further enraging Republicans. Then, when the George W. Bush administration tanked our economy, Republicans were determined to make the newly-elected Obama look worse. It’s as if they were saying, “Sure, our party made a mess of the country, but we’re going to block any attempt to fix it. We’re going to pin this mess on you.”

Even before Obama’s inauguration, Republican leaders announced that they intended to do everything within their power to make his presidency fail and to make him a one-term president. In attempting to do so, Republicans set a new standard for obstruction through filibusters, a refusal to put forward names for nomination to fill court vacancies, and investigations of manufactured “scandals.” Even worse was the deceit of pretending to work with Democrats to craft the Affordable Care Act (a Republican idea) by adding a variety of amendments in committee, then refusing to vote for it. In his second term, matters have only grown worse, with the 113th Congress doing even less than Harry Truman’s “Do Nothing” Congress and many Teapublicans calling for Obama’s impeachment.

All of this begs the question, what next?

I believe that the next time a Republican is elected president, Democrats will have little choice but to return the favor in kind. Indeed, they will have to raise the stakes. They will have to filibuster every bill and appointment. They will have to sue the president and threaten impeachment. Anything less would be seen as weak and cowardly. It won’t be easy. After all, how can you top the 113th Congress for obstruction?

Unless things change, we may as well just close Congress and declare a permanent recess.

Inversion: The New Name For Corporate Tax Evasion.

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Some of the world’s largest corporations were founded in the US. They were capitalized by selling shares to Americans on American stock markets. They relied on our infrastructure, our labor force, and the stability of our currency in order to prosper and grow. That growth was accelerated by tax incentives and government giveaways. They lobbied our Congress and the Federal Trade Commission to turn a blind eye as they swallowed up smaller competitors to create virtual monopolies. At the same time, these corporate giants took advantage of tax loopholes in order to reduce their tax rates to single digits.

So how have these companies repaid American taxpayers for their investment and their patronage?

Many corporations shipped their manufacturing jobs overseas in search of cheaper labor. They then dumped low cost products on our markets in order to force smaller competitors into submission. More recently, they stashed billions of dollars of their ill-gotten profits in foreign banks demanding that our government create a tax holiday to encourage them to “repatriate” the funds at greatly reduced tax rates. Now they are purchasing or merging with foreign competitors so that they might move their books overseas and avoid paying US taxes altogether.

The name for this latest off-shoring scheme is “inversion.”

Inversions are already costing our nation billions in lost revenue…revenue needed to maintain the infrastructure and economic stability these corporations rely upon. Medtronic recently resorted to the inversion scheme. Other companies to take advantage of the accounting trick include Aon, Applied Materials, Eaton Corporation, Fruit of the Loom, Halliburton, Ingersoll-Rand, Omnicom, and Tyco. The latest corporation to consider the scheme is Walgreens, which would presumably move its books from “the corner of happy and healthy” to Switzerland.

To add salt to this festering (and costly) wound, most of these inversions are being aided by our “too big to fail” banks; The very banks that were bailed out of certain bankruptcy in 2008 with our taxpayer funds.

So call it what you want, this latest corporate accounting trick is just another name for tax evasion. And I’d suggest another name for any corporation that resorts to such tactics…Traitor.

Where Is Our Conscience?

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If the events of this past week disclosed anything, it’s that the people of the United States have no conscience. We not only support a government waging war on civilians, including women and children, resulting in 860 dead and more than 5,000 wounded. We have accelerated deportations of desperate mothers and kids escaping the violence and poverty of Central America.

One must ask why? What happened to us? Where is our concern for our fellow men, or more accurately, our fellow women and children? Where is our sense of charity? Where is our morality?

For many years, we have unconditionally supported Israel. That made sense when the Arab nations around it refused to accept its right to exist. But that is no longer the case. Now Israel is the baddest bully on the block, with state-of-the-art weaponry purchased with our money. The Israeli government has made Gaza a prison and every so often, in the words of Israeli military leaders, it invades Gaza to do “a little lawn-mowing.” Israel refuses to negotiate a permanent two-state solution with the PLA because, in its view, the PLA has nothing of value to offer. It has no weaponry other than rocks. Israel also refuses to negotiate with those Palestinians who are armed…Hamas…probably because Hamas provides Israel a reason to justify its repression of Palestinians and its development of Palestinian territory in the West Bank.

So what is the US attitude to the violence in Gaza? Secretary of State John Kerry is working hard to negotiate a cease fire, saying that any agreement must first assure Israel of its security and Palestinians of an economic future. Not to villify Kerry, but why just talk about Israel’s security? It is the Palestinians who are being killed!

As for the refugees from Central America, why are their lives of so little value? Why are we deporting them when we have accepted refugees from around the globe who were facing similar conditions? Are Guatemalan lives worth less than Somalis? Are Honduran lives worth less than Romanians?

Conservatives preach that our entitlements will soon be bankrupt because, as baby boomers retire, there will be fewer people to contribute portions of their salaries to add to the trust funds. They say that we will soon have more people “on the dole” than people working. If that is true, why not accept refugees who have come here looking for jobs? Don’t the taxes and contributions of Latinos count as much as those from Sudanese, Ukranians, Russians, Vietnamese, Cambodians and all of the other refugees we have welcomed?

If we can so easily watch Palestinians die with our complicity; if we can so angrily turn our backs on desperate people seeking our help, we may as well remove the inscription from the Statue of Liberty. We must admit that we are no longer the beacon of freedom for the world. We must admit that we no longer hold the moral high ground.

We must admit that we have no conscience.