NEW YORK (AP) – Thousands of uniformed police officers from New York City and around the country gathered Friday at the solemn, eight-hour wake of a city policeman who was killed along with his partner in a brazen daytime shooting a week ago.
Mayor Bill de Blasio, who had been criticized by the police union for his handling of protests critical of officers, briefly attended Officer Rafael Ramos’ viewing at the Christ Tabernacle Church in Queens, where Ramos was brought in a flag-draped casket and viewed in full dress uniform.
“Dad, I’m forever grateful of the sacrifices you made to provide for me and Jaden,” Ramos’ son, Justin, said during the wake, referring to his younger brother, as officers gathered in the street watched on giant television screens.
Ramos’ funeral is scheduled for Saturday. Vice President Joseph Biden and Mayor de Blasio have said they’ll attend. The funeral for Ramos’ partner, Officer Wenjian Liu, hasn’t yet been announced. (more…)

December 27, 2014; Washington, D.C. – In a year-end conversation with NPR News, President Obama told Morning Edition Host Steve Inskeep that low morale around race relations in the U.S. is exaggerated by the national conversation around recent violence and not an accurate reflection of the state of affairs around the country.
When asked if the U.S. is more racially divided than it was when he took office six years ago, the President responded:

“No, I actually think that it’s probably in its day-to-day interactions less racially divided.” (more)

(more…)

New York – One of Eric Garner’s daughters marked Christmas Day by spreading personal information about an NYPD cop who was present during the chokehold death of her father — outraging officers still reeling from last weekend’s execution-style slayings of two policemen in Brooklyn.
Erica Garner tweeted that cop Justin D’Amico was “another officer that helped killed [sic] my dad,” and directed her 5,000-plus Twitter followers to a Web page that lists ­addresses for D’Amico and five possible relatives.
The information was viewed about 500 times before Garner’s stunning tweet was deleted following inquiries by The Post. (more…)

The media narrative included here does not do the event justice.
Oakland CA – A protest march targeting police shootings turned violent in Oakland on Christmas night, reports CBS San Francisco station KPIX-TV.
Some demonstrators in the “No Time Off” march were hostile from the beginning, with one protester lunging at a KPIX camera moments after the march began. In Jack London Square, around 30 store windows were smashed, and some liquor was looted, the station says.

The Christmas tree in the square was targeted as the protest moved through the city’s streets, with ornaments and lights being ripped from the tree.
When the group blocked an intersection near City Hall, one driver lashed out, saying, “When people come from other areas and cause trouble, that’s what’s frustrating.”
About 40 Oakland Police officers monitoring the protest took a hands-off approach, trailing the marchers from behind. (link with video of police watching)

TEXAS – An attempted robbery at a north Texas home left a promising Howard University football player dead during his holiday break, local reports said.
Terrence Neal Tusan, 22, was identified as one of two suspects discovered shot to death at a Denton apartment complex over the weekend after allegedly breaking into a home, authorities told the Denton Record-Chronicle.
He and Jakobi Dmon Gipson, 18, of Arlington, Tex., are accused of masking their faces and forcing their way into an apartment Sunday before gunfire erupted.
Tusan’s body was found outside the apartment in the 1500 block of Meadow St. Gipson’s body was discovered inside the apartment, police said. (more…)

It became almost guaranteed that N Korea was not involved when President Obama began pontificating his assurances that N Korea was to blame.  Almost everything Obama proclaims is, actually, inverse to the truth.
However, now that Stompy has planted his presidential flag the concentric circles surrounding the Presidency will have to protect the office from embarrassment. Don’t look for the media to embarrass him either; Obama’s not a Bush – he’s one of their own.

(Daily Mail) The FBI just last week confirmed what many Americans already assumed to be a forgone conclusion when they revealed there was conclusive evidence that North Korea’s government was behind the hacking of Sony, an attack the government bureau said was carried out as a way ‘to inflict significant harm on a U.S. business and suppress the right of American citizens to express themselves.’
Then, in a press conference on Friday, President Obama not only attacked North Korea and leader Kim Jong-un for their attempts to ‘intimidate’ Americans through their actions, but went so far as to warn the country that America would retaliate in response their actions.
Almost immediately the North Korean leader issued a statement denying involvement and demanding an apology from the United States for their ‘evil doings.’ (more…)

When asked to explain my belief that Obama’s presidency was a construction created from approximately 10 years of pre-thought exquisitely planned detail, many people are puzzled by my reasoning.
The names of Emanuel, Plouffe, Axelrod, Jarrett and Holder are the visible names, but not the most consequential – nor the subjects worth researching. While most people reference the aforementioned when thinking about how a Junior Senator becomes Chief Executive; and indeed there is some factual reasoning toward that end, the executive office itself was not the majority maneuver.

If you peel back the layers to the Milli Vanilli roadshow – what you will notice is the strategy of putting specific ideologies into the legal affairs offices of all the “non-political” constructs. The Pentagon office of legal counsel, for example, can handcuff the activity of the Pentagon with legal opinion in opposition to the traditional goals of the organization (See Jeh Johnson).
Likewise the CIA office of legal counsel, can have a similar impact on actual outcomes and steer policy. If you want to find out what’s more consequential than the proverbial executive ‘pen and phone’, get to understand the legal counsel who can stop any activity they desire just by writing adverse legal opinion. The legal opinion does not need to meet the criteria of professional review to block activity – indeed most of the time it would be shredded by exterior legal analysis – their goal is not legal standing per se’, the goal is policy influence. (more…)

SAINT LOUIS – Demonstrators took to the streets for a second night after a white police officer in Berkeley, Missouri, killed a black 18-year-old who police said pointed a gun at him.
Dozens of protesters held a vigil late Wednesday at the gas station in the St. Louis suburb where Antonio Martin was shot, and they briefly blocked traffic on Interstate 170 during a march before returning to the station. Berkeley Police Chief Frank McCall told KMOV-TV that six to eight people were arrested.
Later, about 75 people staged a peaceful protest early Christmas morning outside of a nearby church, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Police in riot gear were present.
The actions were calmer than a night before, when a crowd of about 300 people gathered at the gas station, throwing rocks and bricks in a scene reminiscent of the sometimes-violent protests that followed the death of 18-year-old Michael Brown in nearby Ferguson.
(more…)

(Washington Times) Every year, in the week between Christmas and New Year’s, I think about George W. Bush.
It was in that week each year for the eight years that I covered him as a reporter that he gave me a spectacular gift — and he knew it.
I started covering the newly elected president in 2000, when I was in my 30s. Back then, as a reporter for The Washington Times, we went everywhere the president went. If he went to Charlotte, N.C., to give a 30-minute speech on an airport tarmac, we went. Up at 4 a.m., an hourlong commute to Andrews Air Force Base, in place on the ground hours before POTUS landed, and there for hours and hours after he left — sometimes right through the evening news so network reporters could file live from the site.
We also went with the president to Texas every summer — often for a month — and every winter, too, over the holidays. (more…)

EGYPT – An Egyptian court sentenced 40 backers of ousted president Mohammed Mursi to up to 15 years in jail Thursday for violence including torching churches, a judicial source said.
Followers of Mursi and his Muslim Brotherhood movement have been the target of a relentless crackdown by the authorities since he was deposed in July 2013 by ex-army chief and current President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.
The criminal court in Assiut in southern Egypt sentenced two defendants to 15 years each, while the others were given jail terms ranging from one year to 10, the source said.
They were accused of taking part in acts of violence in Assiut last year during which five churches, several police stations and a number of shops were set on fire. There were no reported casualties. (more…)