The Red Line comment is at 1:25
Photo by @Stcrow of @nytimes of Pres Obama making remarks about Ukraine during photo op with Mexican Pres Pena Nieto. pic.twitter.com/XftQFDDiDQ
— Mark Knoller (@markknoller) February 19, 2014
(Salon.Com) Since Florida cannot defend black life against white fear, the question now is: How should black people respond?
How much more are black people in this country supposed to take?
On Saturday, a Florida jury failed to convict Michael Dunn for the callous murder of Jordan Davis. Though he was convicted of three counts of attempted murder and also on a gun charge, a mistrial was declared for the first-degree murder charge. He will face substantial jail time – perhaps up to 75 years on the four charges for which he was found guilty.
Prosecutor Angela Corey has also publicly declared her intent to seek retrial on the murder conviction. However, she is the same prosecutor who oversaw the Zimmerman murder trial and failed to get a conviction. (more…)
As with almost every aspect of life whatever inherent truths you deny, you are doomed to revisit. Yesterday we outlined the latest media-avoided conversation surrounding yet another racially inspired knock out assault.
Knowing that a single blow to the head can lead to death, as was evidenced recently in the “knock out murder” trial of Jesse Smithers, these awkward, horrific and continually repeating examples are not a game.
They are, for all intents and purposes, attempted homicides.
Capital Murder as generally defined is: “the unlawful killing of another person, with malice of forethought and specific intent to kill“. Remove any of the three essential elements [(1) Unlawful, (2) malice, (3) specific intent] and you have the various degrees of homicide charges.
Remove ‘specific intent’ and you have “Murder 2” unintentional killing. Add in the removal of ‘malice of forethought’ and you have “manslaughter”. Remove ‘unlawful‘ and you end up with “justifiable homicide”.
The YouTube ID of 3-mkROh_t6g?feature=player_embedded is invalid.What you witness in this attack is (1) unlawful and (2) with malice of forethought. The unknown variable is ‘specific intent’. Does the attacker intend to kill the victim ?
Generally, at least in this example, I would surmise no – but one could easily argue, perhaps.
“Reporters Without Borders”, a watchdog organization headquartered in Paris, France and known by its French acronym, “RSF”, has published its annual “World Press Freedom Index”.
Liberty Blitzkrieg brings to our attention that in the great march FORWARD!, the US was a front runner in the stakes for greatest loss of press freedom in year over year results – slipping an impressive 13 slots from #33 last year to #46 on the 2014 world ranking, after Romania but before Haiti.
There were some “non-surprises”, such as North Korea and Eritrea remaining at the back of the pack, but also some pleasant surprises with tiny Belize clocking in at an impressive #29, hanging out in the “free press” band with Australia at #28.
Clearly, much work remains to be done before the US can be satisfied that the people’s work is completed and it can comfortably hang in the 100’s with its pals in the middle east and Africa. Maybe that will provide the necessary incentive to Dirty Harry in the Senate to get working on that innertubes kill switch. In the meantime, those pesky bloggers keep bringing up stuff like Benghazi, or Warrantless Wiretaps, or the ever expanding use of technology to spy on and monitor its own citizens.
The 2014 World Press Freedom Index spotlights the negative impact of conflicts on freedom of information and its protagonists. The ranking of some countries has also been affected by a tendency to interpret national security needs in an overly broad and abusive manner to the detriment of the right to inform and be informed. This trend constitutes a growing threat worldwide and is even endangering freedom of information in countries regarded as democracies. Finland tops the index for the fourth year running, closely followed by Netherlands and Norway, like last year. At the other end of the index, the last three positions are again held by Turkmenistan, North Korea and Eritrea, three countries where freedom of information is non-existent.
ARKANSAS – A mischievous prank turned deadly on Saturday after a 15-year-old girl was allegedly shot dead by an irate Arkansas homeowner who is now facing first-degree murder charges.
Adrian Broadway was allegedly hit in the head by Willie Noble, 48, after the teenage girl and five other friends covered Noble’s car with leaves, eggs and mayonnaise just before 1am on Saturday morning.
It was the second prank Broadway and her friends had played on Noble that evening – causing him to burst out of his home in Little Rock firing his gun at the car containing the teen and her friends. (more…)
VENEZUELA – “I want to get out of here. I want to leave this country as soon as possible and never come back.”
The text from my friend Luis surprised me. A lawyer by training, he got his masters in urban planning from an elite Manhattan university, and had returned to Venezuela full of hope. He was hired by a local NGO working on poverty abatement issues. But now, he’s fed up.
“Nothing works. There are lines to buy everything. Prices have gone through the roof. You can’t go out at night for fear of getting shot. If you want to get married, finding a place to live is impossible. The country has become unlivable.” (more…)
Seattle WASHINGTON – KIRO 7 has uncovered explosive new details in the case of the Capitol Hill arson at a popular gay nightclub. Suspect Musab Masmari’s motive may have stemmed from his “distaste for homosexual people.”
Masmari is charged with arson for allegedly setting the fire at Neighbours nightclub shortly after midnight on New Year’s Day.
According to investigative documents filed in King County Superior Court, the 30-year old Masmari told a friend “that homosexuals should be exterminated.” That friend, a member of the local Muslim community, went straight to the FBI because he believed Masmari may have also been planning a terrorist attack. That friend became a confidential informant.
According to the documents, Masmari first met the informant at Fatima’s Cafe near the Masjid at Taqwa Mosque on Seattle’s East Union Street, shortly after the fire at Neighbours. (more…)
(Via Breitbart) […] According to Fox News, de Blasio’s proposed plan to increase the minimum wage is getting as negative a reception as the plan to fund universal pre-K. Author Barnini Chakraborty notes that the latter has run into significant problems as New York Governor Andrew Cuomo proposed a state-wide universal pre-K plan that would make de Blasio’s tax hike unnecessary–something de Blasio flatly rejected.
Fox News notes that Cuomo called the idea of making rich neighborhoods fund themselves separately from the rest of the state “repugnant.”
The minimum wage plan might meet a similar fate in Albany.
In his State of the City address, de Blasio’s minimum wage increase plan featured prominently along the universal pre-K idea and new proposition to give government identification to illegal immigrants, which would allow them to open bank accounts and access other resources in the city. (more…)
(Boston) The head of the state’s beleaguered health insurance marketplace, which was once a national model, broke down in tears Thursday, as she described how demoralizing it has been for her staff to struggle with a broken website that has left an unknown number of people without coverage.
Jean Yang, the executive director of the Massachusetts Health Connector, wept at a board meeting, where it was disclosed that 50,000 applications for health insurance are sitting in a pile, and have yet to be entered into a computer system.
Each one of those applications requires two hours to process, adding to a mountain of work facing Connector staff as they scramble to prevent people from losing insurance, officials said.
“These people came here to lead and innovate, and instead they’re doing manual workarounds, and they are embarrassed to tell friends and family that they work for the Health Connector,” Yang said at the board meeting. […] (more…)
Update ST CLOUD – MINNESOTA – A Stearns County judge sentenced 18-year-old Jesse Smithers to 10 years on Thursday. Smithers admitted to delivering the deadly punch in a St. Cloud alley almost a year and a half ago.
On Sept. 21, 2012, Colton Gleason was walking with friends when a car pulled up, and Smithers got out and punched him. Colton died after falling and hitting his head.
https://minnesota.cbslocal.com/video?autoStart=true&topVideoCatNo=default&clipId=9813074
His father, John Gleason, says the pain, bitterness and hurt his family feels did not go away with the sentencing of the man responsible for his son’s death. (more…)