As a kid, I got used to being stopped by the police. I grew up in an inner-ring suburb of St. Louis. It was the kind of place where officers routinely roughed up my friends and family for no good reason.
Ihated the way cops treated me.
But I knew police weren’t all bad. One of my father’s closest friends was a cop. He became a mentor to me and encouraged me to join the force. He told me that I could use the police’s power and resources to help my community.
So in 1994, I joined the St. Louis Police Department. I quickly realized how naive I’d been. I was floored by the dysfunctional culture I encountered.
I won’t say all, but many of my peers were deeply racist.
The brutality of the CIA’s torture program under the leadership and direction of George Bush and Dick Cheney is quite frankly, terrifying.
Interrogations that lasted for days on end. Detainees forced to stand on broken legs, or go 180 hours in a row without sleep. A prison so cold, one suspect essentially froze to death. The Senate Intelligence Committee is finally releasing its review of the CIA’s detention and interrogation programs. And it is brutal.
Here are some of the most gruesome moments of detainee abuse from a summary of the report, obtained by The Daily Beast:
The CIA has previously said that only three detainees were ever waterboarded: Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Abu Zabaydah, and Abd Al Rahim al-Nashiri. But records uncovered by the Senate Intelligence Committee suggest there may have been more than three subjects. The Senate report describes a photograph of a “well worn” waterboard, surrounded by buckets of water, at a detention site where the CIA has claimed it never subjected a detainee to this procedure. In a meeting with the CIA in 2013, the agency was not able to explain the presence of this waterboard.
Contrary to CIA’s description to the Department of Justice, the Senate report says that the waterboarding was physically harmful, leading to convulsions and vomiting. During one session, detainee Abu Zabaydah became “completely unresponsive with bubbles rising through his open full mouth.” Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was waterboarded at least 183 times, which the Senate report describes as escalating into a “series of near drownings.”
But of course, the owner is now saying that he didn’t mean any harm by offering the “Mike Brown Shots!”
Local TV station WDAF reported that Mug Shots, a bar in St. Joseph, Mo. whose motto is “where sarcasm is always free,” advertised a “Michael Brown” special of six shots for $10. Local residents protested at the bar after a photo of the advertisement circulated on social media, according to the report.
“It’s not meant to cause any harm,” the owner told WDAF on Saturday. “I should have thought a little bit more about it before I made it a shot special.”
WDAF did not identify the owner because he wished to remain anonymous to protect himself and his family. He added that he stole the idea from other bars in the area that referenced Brown, who was fatally shot by a police officer in Ferguson, Mo. back in August, and got a “good response” from it.
The apparently very self-aware owner offered a new deal, “The Owner of Mug Shots is an ***hole shot special,” on Saturday in an attempt to appease protesters who were unhappy with the reference to Brown.
A classic case of the blame the victim mentality. We will be foolish to expect anything more from Fox News.
In light of all the protests going on these days with people speaking out against police brutality throughout this country, Fox has decided to take a different look at the reason minority communities are being victimized and murdered by some police officers and according to Fox host Jeanine Pirro, minorities are to blamed.
Reading a question from a poll conducted by Fox News to her viewers on her television program, Justice with Judge Jeanine, Pirro asked the question? “Do police need to be retrained on how to be sensitive to the minority community.” Pirro said the response from Fox viewers was “overwhelmingly in favor of law enforcement,” and she also read some of those results to her audience.
Pirro quoted Fox viewer ‘Jeff’ who wrote, “Why is it always necessary to tip toe around the minority community,” with ‘Larry’ writing, “No. Enough is enough. The general public needs to be more sensitive to the police and show them the respect they deserve.”
Pirro added, “I agree.”
Viewer ‘Jordan’ disagreed, saying.”Yes. Those cops were racially profiling,” setting off a condescending Pirro who said, “Hey Jordan, you don’t even know what racial profiling is.”
In this week’s address, the President highlighted the good news in Friday’s jobs report – that American businesses added 314,000 new jobs this past month, making November the tenth month in a row that the private sector has added at least 200,000 new jobs. Even with a full month to go, 2014 has already been the best year of job creation since the 1990s. This number brings total private-sector job creation to 10.9 million over 57 consecutive months – the longest streak on record.
But even with this real, tangible evidence of our progress, there is always more that can be done. Congress needs to pass a budget and keep the government from a Christmas shutdown. We have an opportunity to work together to support the continued growth of higher-paying jobs by investing in infrastructure, reforming the business tax code, expanding markets for America’s goods and services, making common-sense reforms to the immigration system, and increasing the minimum wage.
Is it just me, or does it still not feel like the holidays yet? Perhaps the warmish, wet weather we’ve had here in the Northeast is partly to blame, or maybe it’s that the calendar has jammed the buying season into one less week this year because of a late Thanksgiving. Yes, yes, Chanukah, for once, is neither early nor late, which is rare for a Jewish holiday, but I think there’s something more than this going on in the country that’s partly clouding the season.
We have other things on our minds. Ferguson. Staten Island. ISIS. Oil prices. Wages. Equality issues relating to gender, age, sexual preference and orientation. Supreme Court arguments over worker disability rights and whether someone can post noxious, threatening dreck on Facebook, call it rap, and never mind the effect on the intended target. Even sports won’t let us relax and enjoy, what with players being suspended, unsuspended, arrested, concussed and, heaven forbid, involved in some of the aforementioned social issues. Why can’t they just be like Mike and play the game?
It seems as if the country is a bit more serious than normal this holiday season, weighing the price of our freedoms against the responsibilities that come with them. We’re looking at race and wondering why we still have problems and why whites and African-Americans still have such differing perspectives on how they are treated by police, the courts, storekeepers and mall security. We’re looking at income inequality and wondering why companies that make billions can’t lead by example and pay workers what they are worth, which is a wage that allows them to live a decent life. We’re looking at who is an American and how we can make sure that people who live here and contribute to their families and communities can stay here without the fear that the government is going to deport them because of a long-ago action. In short, we’re looking at justice and trying to make sure that everyone gets it because more than any other freedom afforded us, justice must be applied equally at all times.
In the end, I think this makes us stronger, and makes the season of giving that much more important. When we discuss, protest and even engage in some civil disobedience, we are reminded that we have given ourselves the greatest gifts of all: to live in a free society where we can air our concerns and make others realize that many groups in the United States are uncomfortable and unwealthy and insecure, and that each of us is responsible to make sure that every citizen is safe. That way, we can give other gifts, the material ones, knowing that we have done our part to make this a better country. The holidays we are about to celebrate are religious, but we need to remember that our national religion is democracy, and as such, we must all practice it.
So although it might not feel like the holidays just yet, I’m a little more optimistic that this season will see us do more good for ourselves and our neighbors.
Candy Crowley, a staple at CNN is packing up and leaving the network after working with there for 27 years. CNN president Jeff Zucker announced in a memo to staff on Friday.
“[I]t is with mixed emotions, that I wanted to let you know that Candy has let us know that she has made the decision to move on, so she can embark on the next chapter of her already prolific career,” Zucker wrote. “As difficult as it is for us to imagine CNN without Candy, we know that she comes to this decision thoughtfully, and she has our full support.”
Zucker did not mention who would replace Crowley on State of the Union, the network’s Sunday public affairs program. The network will be keeping the show, a spokesperson confirmed
Now this is something you probably haven’t heard in, like forever! On Wednesday, the same day a New York grand jury refused to hold police accountable in the choking death of Eric Garner, another grand jury in South Carolina brought charges against a white cop who shot and kill a black man in 2011!
Richard Combs worked in Eutawville when 54-year-old Bernard Bailey came to Town Hall to argue about his daughter’s broken-taillight ticket. Combs and Bailey briefly fought, and the police chief shot Bailey twice in the chest.
A grand jury indicted Combs on Wednesday, the same day a New York grand jury refused to indict an officer in the chokehold death of an unarmed black man. It’s more than a week after a grand jury refused to indict an officer in the death of unarmed Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri.
Combs’ lawyer says the officer feared for his life. Prosecutors say he was the aggressor. He’s no longer with the police department.
(AP) — U.S. employers added a whopping 321,000 jobs in November, the biggest burst of hiring in nearly three years and the latest sign that the United States is outperforming other economies throughout the developed world.
The Labor Department also said Friday that 44,000 more jobs were added in September and October combined than the government had previously estimated. Job gains have averaged 241,000 a month this year, putting 2014 on track to be the strongest year for hiring since 1999.
The unemployment rate remained at a six-year low of 5.8 percent last month.
The robust job gains come after the economy expanded from April through September at its fastest pace in 11 years. The additional jobs should support steady growth in coming months.
Jon Stewart was at a loss of words last night as he too tried to cope with the non-indictment decision handed down by the grand jury in the Eric Garner case.
“I don’t know,” Stewart confessed. “I honestly don’t know what to say. If comedy is tragedy plus time, I need more f*cking time. But I would really settle for less f*cking tragedy, to be honest with you.”
Garner’s death at the hands of a police officer in Staten Island New York, was caught on video and showed an overly aggressive group of officers bringing down and ultimately killing the unarmed man for committing the unthinkable crime of selling loose cigarettes.
The decision not to indict anyone for the killing of Mr. Garner sparked thousands of people to take to the streets in protest calling for justice in the Garner’s death. Stewart echoed those calls, questioning the justice system and our concept of a civilized society.
“We are definitely not living in a post-racial society. And I can imagine there’s a lot of people out there wondering how much of a society we’re living in at all.”
Another grand jury is about to decide if a white police officer did anything wrong when he applied an illegal choke hold that led to another black man being murdered.
The grand jury decision into the death of Eric Garner will come just days after a St. Louis grand jury ruled that Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson did absolutely nothing wrong when he chased after a fleeing teenager named Mike Brown and murdered him by pumping six bullets into the scared teen’s body.
“I can’t breathe! I can’t breathe,” Garner cried out after he went down on July 17. Seconds later, the 350-pound man, who suffered from asthma, lay motionless and unresponsive on the sidewalk. An ambulance carried him away on a stretcher.
He was pronounced dead that day at age 43.
The decision is expected sometime this week.
Manage Cookie Consent
We use cookies to improve your experience on our site. By agreeing to this, we can analyze browsing behavior and unique IDs on this site. Declining or revoking consent may affect certain features.
Functional
Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes.The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behavior or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
