Category Archives: Gun-violence

Bratton: There’s An “Epidemic” Of People Filming Police: Gothamist – doing the one foot in and one foot back dance!

Bratton’s defense of Martinez is inconsistent with his stark condemnation of four undercover NYPD officers that were caught on video harassing and arresting Crown Heights postal worker Glen Grays without cause. “You do not have a right to resist arrest and in so many of those videos, people are resisting violently and being encouraged by the crowd,” Bratton said Wednesday. Two years ago, Eric Garner was arrested and put in a chokehold by plainclothes NYPD officer Daniel Pantaleo on Staten Island. Garner was killed in the incident, and his death was ruled a homicide. (A Staten Island grand jury declined to indict Pantaleo.) His deadly arrest was filmed by Ramsey Orta, and the footage ignited heated nationwide debate about police brutality, racist policing patterns, and the potential benefits of placing mandatory body cameras on law enforcement officers. Filming police with your cellphone is completely legal, but plenty of NYPD cops will still arrest you for it.

Source: Bratton: There’s An “Epidemic” Of People Filming Police: Gothamist

Is Trump bump triggering dump USA move in America? Not much beyond the jokes – Times of India

A Canadian radio DJ launched a website earlier this year inviting Americans to move to an island off Nova Scotia if Donald Trump wins the race to the White House. A Canadian advertising firm set up a webpage called Trump Clause that includes legal advice for people or businesses choosing to migrate north. Net searches for ”moving to Canada” have soared since the start of the ”Trump bump,” and at one point, the Immigration Canada website was said to have crashed from the traffic. Meanwhile, sharp-eyed online entrepreneurs are hawking everything from ”Canadian Clothing Brands to Familiarize Yourself With Before You Move to Canada” to Canadian spouses to facilitate immigration (the website is appropriately called MapleMatch). The online music streamer Spotify has come up with a ”Moving to Canada” playlist (featuring Canadian singers), while in the U.S, one realtor recently advertised: ”Leaving the country if TRUMP is elected PRESIDENT? Give me a call and LET’S GET YOUR HOME SOLD!!”

Source: Is Trump bump triggering dump USA move in America? Not much beyond the jokes – Times of India

Moshe Yaalon, Israeli Defense Minister, Resigns – The New York Times

“This morning I informed the prime minister that following his management in the latest developments, and in light of my lack of faith in him, I am resigning from the government and the Knesset and taking time out from political life,” he wrote on his Facebook page. The addition of Mr. Lieberman to the government, which has not been announced, would not represent an enormous right-wing shift for Mr. Netanyahu’s coalition.

Source: Moshe Yaalon, Israeli Defense Minister, Resigns – The New York Times

Body Cameras Show Handcuffed Man Fatally Stunned With Taser – Video – NYTimes.com

This video includes violent scenes and graphic language. It has been condensed from its original length but is otherwise unaltered. On Nov. 20, 2015, Chase Sherman was handcuffed and stunned with a Taser by two Coweta County, Ga., sheriff’s deputies responding to a 911 call from his parents. He died at the scene. The body cameras worn by the deputies captured the episode.

Source: Body Cameras Show Handcuffed Man Fatally Stunned With Taser – Video – NYTimes.com

Netanyahu agrees to give defense portfolio to ultranationalist Lieberman | News | DW.COM | 18.05.2016

Lieberman is a polarizing figure, questioning the loyalty of Israel’s Arab minority. He tried and failed to require Israelis to sign a loyalty oath or have their citizenship revoked. He is also skeptical about pursuing peace with the Palestinians, and now wants to pass legislation that would impose the death penalty against Arabs convicted of terrorism. He has become an influential voice within Israel, while alienating many of the country’s allies. Israeli and Palestinian peace talks have been in the deep-freeze for some time, and by elevating extreme nationalists into government, the chances of any thaw in the near future are made that much more remote.

Source: Netanyahu agrees to give defense portfolio to ultranationalist Lieberman | News | DW.COM | 18.05.2016

Right-wing coup and who cares? Michel Temer, Brazil’s Interim President, May Herald Shift to the Right – The New York Times

The new Brazilian president’s first pick for science minister was a creationist. He chose a soybean tycoon who has deforested large tracts of the Amazon rain forest to be his agriculture minister. And he is the first leader in decades to have no women in his cabinet at all. The new government of President Michel Temer — the 75-year-old lawyer who took the helm of Brazil on Thursday after his predecessor, Dilma Rousseff, was suspended by the Senate to face an impeachment trial — could cause a significant shift to the political right in Latin America’s largest country. “Temer’s government is starting out well,” Silas Malafaia, a television evangelist and author of best-selling books like “How to Defeat Satan’s Strategies,” wrote on Twitter. “He’ll be able to sweep away the ideology of pathological leftists,” Mr. Malafaia added of a conservative lawmaker whom Mr. Temer chose as education minister.

Source: Michel Temer, Brazil’s Interim President, May Herald Shift to the Right – The New York Times

www.german-foreign-policy.com – German Militarism and Japanese Militarism – Deja Vu by Default?

War Rather than Policy

In reference to the current “arc of crisis,” the “European Security Strategy” adopted in Brussels in December 2003, stated: “Our task is to promote a ring of well governed countries to the East of the European Union and on the borders of the Mediterranean with whom we can enjoy close and cooperative relations” – a rampart of controllable, stable client states surrounding a prosperous EU.[12] This objective has been completely missed, concluded Wolfgang Ischinger, Chairman of the Munich Security Conference at the beginning of this year. The “vision of a European Union that would be surrounded by a cordon sanitaire of stability, growing prosperity and cooperation south of the Mediterranean and in Eastern Europe,” has “completely failed.”[13] To shield the German-European empire from all sorts of problems and facilitate economic access to interesting neighboring regions, soldiers are now being deployed in the respective countries, ranging from Mali and Syria to Iraq – for the wars of the near future.How the Bundeswehr is preparing for the wars of the near future by growing larger, restructuration, and rearmament, can be read in an intermittent succession of articles over the next few weeks in german-foreign-policy.com.

Source: www.german-foreign-policy.com

Philippines’ ‘Duterte Harry’: the would-be president accused of using death squads | World news | The Guardian

“His programme would be the elimination of criminality. At the core of this is the use of extrajudicial killings,” he said. “It was already done in Davao, the so-called peace and order. It will continue.” In 2009, Human Rights Watch released a report calling for the Philippines to dismantle highly organised vigilante gangs it said were directly linked to government officials and police.

Source: Philippines’ ‘Duterte Harry’: the would-be president accused of using death squads | World news | The Guardian

About The Stereotype Busting High Median Incomes Of Trump Voters | Race Files

We need to get real about who really constitutes the current and projected base for right wing extremism. They aren’t mainly poor folk. Real poor folks are our current and immediate projected base of support and we need to start acting like it. Instead, they are those with relative privilege, living in the anxiety of losing that privilege in a society that punishes the poor. White privilege is eroding. We need to acknowledge this reality.  If we don’t, we will become the victims of nostalgia, trading rose colored pictures of a romanticized past for a sustainable, fair, and secure economic future.

Source: About The Stereotype Busting High Median Incomes Of Trump Voters | Race Files

Aleppo Killing Field

Tucked in the lower floor of a building was Al-Quds hospital in Aleppo, Syria, a small 34 bed facility in the Sukkari neighborhood. Its windows and entrance were fortified with mostly sandbags for extra protection despite the many buildings around it that, in theory, protected it from being attacked. The hospital was not a rebel-run […]

via This is Aleppo: In A World Where Doctors Have Become Martyrs & Hospitals Battlegrounds — A Separate State of Mind | A Blog by Elie Fares