For some of us this is about winning an argument and nothing more. Some would say he was a human being who lived in a country that believes in the freedom to walk down the street without getting six bullets pumped into his body by a police officer.
Others would say he was a thug, and they will quickly point at a video showing him allegedly robbing a convenience store. And although the video had nothing to do with him being killed, these people would say that the video somehow proves that he was a thug, a strain on society, a young man who chose not to listen to the orders of a police officer and therefore, deserved the officer killing him… in the free country.
One of these groups will win their argument and he will either be remembered as a human being, a teenager with a mother and father still weeping his loss. A boy who had birthdays, dreams and heartbreaks. For these people, Mike Brown will be remembered as a human being. He will be remembered as a a teenager with a soul who made mistakes like any other teenager, but like any other teenager, he too deserved to live.
Or, Mike Brown will be looked upon as the ruthless thug who disobeyed the orders of a cop. A thug whose crime began when he literally walked in the streets of this “free” nation. Or maybe, just maybe his crime actually began when he was born and society saw the color of his skin. And maybe because of that color they disregarded his humanity, his birthdays, his dreams and his heartbreaks. And because he wasn’t a human in their eyes they associated his teenage mistakes with thuggery. And they thanked the officer for cleansing the streets of Ferguson. These thug creatures must die.
In the end, one of these groups will have justice, whatever justice means these days. And that justice will either lead to real changes between the police and the communities they’re supposed to protect, or that justice will lead to more Mike Browns and a society stuck in the quicksand of intolerance, a society drowning in its own racism.
What now Republicans? What great idea do you have now to fight ISIS. “Arm the rebels” you screamed every day on my television and although the president told you that was not a good idea, you screamed louder. Well the President listened, and now it has been confirmed that ISIS has our weapons!
What now Republicans? We are giving them weapons to fight us! Not Smart! Unless… wait a second… was this your plan all along?
The Pentagon confirmed Wednesday that Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) fighters took possession of a stray bundle of U.S.-airdropped weapons and other supplies in the Syrian border town of Kobani earlier this week.
The U.S. had dropped 28 bundles filled with grenades, mortar rounds and other supplies intended for Kurdish fighters in Kobani battling ISIS, but at least one had gone astray and was immediately destroyed.
However, Pentagon officials confirmed a second one had gone off course and ended up in enemy hands. A YouTube video uploaded on Tuesday appeared to show an ISIS militant going through an array of boxes, at least two of which contained grenades.
“We have determined a second bundle also went astray,” Pentagon spokesman Army Col. Steve Warren acknowledged on Wednesday.”There’s always going to be some margin of error” when airdropping supplies, Warren added. “Wind can cause a parachute to move off its intended target.”
According to reporting by Buzzfeed, Secret Service identified the suspect as 23-year-old Dominic Adesanya of Bel Air, Maryland. Adesanya was taken into custody by agents after being stopped by guard dogs on the White House lawn around 7:16 p.m. ET. Video from the scene showed a man kicking and punching a dog.
Adesanya was transported to a hospital with injuries after he was taken into custody.
The cause of the incident was not immediately known, and comes in the wake of an incident last month where 42-year-old Omar Gonzalez scaled the fence and made it inside the White House before being apprehended. The security breach ultimately resulted in the resignation of Secret Service Director Julia Pearson.
This story is still unfolding, but according to NBC, another person was captured jumping the fence at the White House just moments ago. At this point, the White House is on lockdown according to NBC reporter Kristen Walker.
Walker said that in an NBC video, the person can be seen jumping the fence with Secret Service officials “screaming at him, telling him to get back.” The person was apparently apprehended by The Secret Service.
There is a report out now trying to put a spin on the official autopsy report. That report states that the official autopsy report of Michael Brown supports officer Darren Wilson version of what happened when he killed the unarmed teenager in Ferguson Missouri.
The supporting evidence, according to this report, was the blood on and around the door of the officer’s patrol car, and gunshot residue around Michael Brown’s thumb area. This, the report said, supports Darren Wilson’s version that Mike Brown attacked him in his patrol car, tried to reach for the officer’s gun, and punched and scratched officer Wilson in the face.
According to a St. Louis medical examiner Dr. Michael Graham, who looked at the forensic documents obtained by the Post-Dispatch, the evidence “does support that there was a significant altercation at the car.”
Graham suggests that their was a bullet that moved from Brown’s right thumb to his waist, leaving gunshot residue on Mike Brown’s thumb and that residue, Graham says, is “consist with products discharged from the barrel of a firearm.”
And Dr. Judy Melinek, a forensic pathologist interviewed by The Post-Dispatch said the findings “support the fact that this guy is reaching for the gun, if he has gunpowder particulate material in the wound.”
She went on, “If he has his hand near the gun when it goes off, he’s going for the officer’s gun.”
What is this report telling us? It’s not telling us anything new, except the fact that these two professionals are looking for reasons to believe Darren Wilson.
Before these two professionals expressed their opinion, their interpretation of Brown’s autopsy report, we already knew there was a struggle at the policeman’s car. We already knew that a bullet was fired at the policeman car and that Brown was hit with that bullet. This information was already corroborated by eyewitnesses to the shooting. One eyewitness, Dorian Johnson, was just feet away and watched the whole thing unfold.
No one is disputing that there was a struggle at the car. But why do we automatically ignore the eyewitness accounts and take the word of an officer who murdered an unarmed teenager, an officer who is looking for any excuse he can find to clear his name and has had almost 2 months to come up with a story? These two professionals looked at an autopsy report and concluded that Mike Brown tried to take the office’s gun, which resulted in his own death.
Another obvious explanation for the residue on Mike Brown’s thumb would be – Officer Wilson obviously felt threatened by the struggle – a struggle which is disputed by no one. He reached for his gun which is his first line of defense, and shot at Mike Brown. Mike Brown, realizing that he was about to be shot raised his hand in his defense to avoid what was about to happen. It is likely that he then reached for the gun trying to stop the bullet, resulting in the wound and the gunshot residue on his thumb.
Former St. Louis County Police Chief Tim Fitch told KMOX that he could understand why Darren Wilson shot Mike Brown at the car.
“If there was a struggle inside that car over a firearm, it sounds to me like Officer Wilson would have been justified in taking the action he did if he pulled the trigger and actually shot Michael Brown in the vehicle area,” Fitch said. Fitch also said that “half the officers killed every year with firearms are killed with their own,” which again could explain the first shot.
No one is explaining the 6 or so shots fired at Mike Brown as he ran away from Darren Wilson. Clearly Wilson kept control of his gun and did not lose it in the struggle. And clearly, after the supposed threat to his life was not only removed, but running away, the officer made the fateful decision to get out of his car, followed Mike Brown and almost emptied his clip at the fleeing teen, killing him in the middle of the street.
No, the professionals are not explaining the most important decision by Wilson, the decision to kill. They’re choosing instead to ignore the most obvious explanation to support a killer who will say or do anything, even lie, to clear his name.
An Associated Press report on Monday has Ohio Governor John Kasich in the bowl of hot water with his conservative constituents.
In the report, the governor said that Obamacare repeal is not going to happen because, well, it’s a darn good law! But when conservatives in Ohio heard their governor speak favorably of Obamacare, they were up in arms, the posse to overthrow the governor with their knives and pitchforks almost formed.
So to clear his name and expressed his hate of Obamacare, the governor called POLITICO Monday night to clarify what he meant. He was talking specifically about repeal of the expansion of Medicaid — which Ohio has implemented — and not of the Affordable Care Act more broadly.
“From Day 1, and up until today and into tomorrow, I do not support Obamacare,” the Republican governor said on Monday evening. “I never have, and I believe it should be repealed.”
Except for the Medicaid expansion part — which wouldn’t exist without the law. Kasich, however, thinks there ought to be a way to save it.
“I have favored expanding Medicaid, but I don’t really see expanding Medicaid as really connected to Obamacare,” Kasich said.
If Republicans take the Senate, Kasich said, “you better believe they’re gonna repeal Obamacare and I agree with that.” But, he added, “There’s got to be an accommodation” for Medicaid expansion.
TMZ got their hands on the audio of the recent brawl the Palins were involved in a little over a month ago. And like any respectable news agency, they posted it for all to hear!
Here are your Palins, freshly involved in a brawl!
Of course we all know that no one aspires to make the minimum wage, but Republicans far and wide are going on television these days proclaiming just that, that having a minimum wage job means that you are lazy, and incapable of aspiring for something better. Some Republicans even had the nerve to say that minimum wage work is not real work.
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) said Tuesday that he’s “tired” of hearing discussion on the minimum wage and seemed to suggest that a higher minimum wage isn’t something to “aspire to.”
“I gotta tell you the truth, I’m tired of hearing about the minimum wage, I really am,” Christie said during an event at the Chamber of Commerce in Washington, according to a recording of his remarks by the liberal opposition research group American Bridge.
“I don’t think there’s a mother or father sitting around a kitchen table tonight in America who are saying, ‘You know honey, if my son or daughter could just make a higher minimum wage, my God, all our dreams would be realized,” he added. “Is that what parents aspire to for their children?”
The governor went on to say that parents aspire to an America where their children can make more money and achieve greater success, according to The Hill. He said those aspirations weren’t about a “higher minimum wage.”
Personally, I would never put Rush Limbaugh in the news business, but a new survey from Pew Research finds that Rush Limbaugh is America’s least-trusted news source. And who does America trust most?
Thirty-nine percent of respondents to the Pew poll say they don’t trust Limbaugh, a bombastic conservative radio voice. Fox News follows closely with 37 percent saying they don’t trust the network. Glenn Beck ranks third, with 24 percent of respondents saying they distrust Beck.
The Pew survey was conducted March 19-April 29.
The five major news networks top the trust spectrum, with 54 percent of respondents saying they trust CNN, 50 percent saying they trust ABC and NBC, 46 percent saying they trust CBS and 44 percent saying they trust Fox News.
Forty-four percent of respondents say they get their news from CNN.
Judge Thokozile Masipa also gave Pistorius a three-year suspended sentence for a firearms charge.
The parents of Reeva Steenkamp told the BBC they were happy with the sentence and relieved the case was over. The defence said it expected Pistorius to serve about 10 months in prison.
Pistorius was convicted of culpable homicide but cleared of murder.
Prosecutors had called for a minimum 10-year term, and the defence had argued for community service and house arrest.
Pistorius showed little reaction to the sentence other than to wipe his eyes before being led away to the cells downstairs.
He was then driven away from court in a police van to Pretoria’s Kgosi Mampuru prison.
The President went to Chicago and decided to do some early voting. For those who are still unaware, the midterm election is just a couple of weeks away on November 4th!
Apparently, a young couple decided to vote early too and found themselves voting right next to the president. As the president began the process of casting his ballots and minding his own business, the girl’s boyfriend walk past and advised the president not to try anything with his girlfriend.
“Don’t touch my girlfriend,” the guy said to the President. He was later identified as ‘Mike.’
“I really wasn’t planning on it,” Obama said, as he joked with the woman voting in the next booth. She was later identified as Aia Cooper, Mike’s girlfriend. “There’s an example of a brother just embarrassing you, just for no reason whatsoever.”
“And now you’ll be going back home and talking to you friends; what’s his name?” the president asked.
“Mike,” Cooper said.
“‘I can’t believe Mike. He’s such a fool,’” Obama said, impersonating the woman.
“He really is,” she agreed.
Obama continued: “‘I was just mortified. But, fortunately, the president was nice about it. So it’s all right.’”
“I am freaking out right now,” she said, laughing.
The president got the last laugh, though.
“Give me a kiss and give him something to talk about,” the president said, as he gave Cooper a hug and a peck on the cheek. “Now he’s really jealous.”
But Cooper downplayed the moment.
“He gave me a hug and a kiss on the cheek. Just the cheek,” she told ABC’s Chicago station WLS. “Please, Michelle, don’t come after me!”
Although there have been no new Ebola diagnosis in the United States in the past 5 days, Republicans have been on the rampage, ginning up fear and hysteria over the disease and claiming that Democrats are the ones causing the apparent “outbreak.”
It should be noted that so far, a grand total of two infections were contracted here in the United States. But that fact hasn’t stopped Republicans from calling for travel bands from South African countries and claiming that ebola victims are pouring through the southern borders and it is clearly Obama’s fault.
Then there was a total disbelief in how the CDC was handling the “outbreak” as Republicans, led by John McCain, suggested that the only way to stop the massive ebola infections would be for the president to immediately appoint an ‘Ebola Czar,’ and any failure to do so would lead to the ultimate destruction of these United States.
Yes, the fear machine was in full throttle.
But what about a Surgeon General? Wouldn’t such a person be the ideal to provide information and deal with Ebola? Where is the Surgeon General and why have we heard absolutely nothing from him?
Because Republicans have blocked his confirmation and they are blaming the president for that too.
Over a year ago, the president tapped Dr. Vivek Murthy to be the new Surgeon General. His confirmation has been blocked by Republicans and to believe Ted Cruz on CNN, Murthy should not even be considered for the job because he’s not qualified. But of course that too is a lie.
This is how the conversation went down on CNN’s State of the Union with Candy Crowley;
CROWLEY: Do you think it would have helped … had there been a surgeon general in place to kind of calm what has become the fear of Ebola?
CRUZ: Look – look, of course we should have a surgeon general in place. And we don’t have one because President Obama, instead of nominating a health professional, he nominated someone who is an anti- gun activist.
To hear the Texas Republican tell it, Dr. Vivek Murthy isn’t even a “health professional,” which is the exact opposite of reality.
Outside of far-right politics, the facts are not in dispute.
Murthy is an attending physician at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston and an instructor at Harvard Medical School. He’s also the founder of TrialNetworks, an Internet portal for clinical-trial operations that counts Merck and Biogen Idec as customers. Earlier, he helped start a rural community health program in Sringeri, India, and an HIV/AIDS youth education program in India and the United States. He went to Harvard for his undergraduate degree and Yale for medical and business degrees.
None other than George W. Bush’s former Surgeon General described Murthy as “superbly” qualified for the post, pointing to his “impressive track record of accomplishments.” The executive director of the American Public Health Association argued that Murthy is “clearly qualified to succeed” in all of the major roles of the Surgeon General.
When Cruz suggests Obama failed to nominate “a health professional,” the senator has absolutely no idea what he’s talking about.
As for the Republican argument that Murthy is “an anti- gun activist,” again, reality proves otherwise. Murthy believes gun violence is a public-health issue – as do most medical professionals, including Ronald Reagan’s Surgeon General – but it’s never been the principal focus of his work in medicine.
The nation has been without a Surgeon General for over a year, and it seems increasingly obvious that the vacancy is having a detrimental effect. No fair-minded observer could possibly question Murthy’s background or qualifications – his confirmation hearings were a breeze – but literally every Republican in the Senate refuses to even consider the doctor because the NRA told them not to.
Republicans own this. Blaming the president for their ridiculous antics might make the right feel better, but it’s nevertheless absurd.
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