Ex-Cop Michael Slager sentenced to 20 years in prison for killing Walter Scott

Thank God for Feidin Santana filming the shooting of #WalterScott. If not for his video #MichaelSlager would have gotten away with murder. May God’s grace, mercy and DIVINE protection be with him. May God’s tender mercies comfort the hearts of Walter Scott’s family. CHARLESTON, S.C. — More than two years ago, the fatal shooting of unarmed black motorist Walter Scott by a white South Carolina… View On WordPress
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Trust no one: Scholar risked all to document Islamic State

The historian carried secrets too heavy for one man to bear. He packed his bag with his most treasured possessions before going to bed: the 1 terabyte hard drive with his Source: Trust no one: Scholar risked all to document Islamic State View On WordPress from Tumblr http://ift.tt/2nJYeZd via IFTTT View On WordPress from Tumblr http://ift.tt/2Al86hP via IFTTT View On WordPress from Tumblr… View…… View On WordPress
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GOP Tax Plan Is Igniting a Movement for a Moral Economy

By Sarah Anderson
Inequality.org

 

If you’re expecting a gift card from your boss as an end-of-year bonus, enjoy it this year because you probably won’t get one in 2018.

The Senate tax bill would ban such rewards. Why? Republican lawmakers are determined to prevent ordinary workers from pocketing a $25 or $50 gift card without reporting it as taxable income.

Meanwhile, these same politicians are planning to dole out billions of dollars in tax breaks to the very wealthiest Americans. For example, they’re planning to gut or entirely eliminate the estate tax, a curb on extreme wealth concentration that currently applies only to fortunes worth more than $11 million per couple.

Republican Senator Chuck Grassley explained the reasoning: “Not having the estate tax recognizes the people that are investing, as opposed to those that are just spending every darn penny they have, whether it’s on booze or women or movies.”

Republicans are using this prejudice against working people to justify a massive giveaway to wealthy political donors. While giving the rich and big corporations huge tax breaks, the Republican tax plan would raise taxes on 87 million middle-class families, throw 13 million people off health insurance, and cut Medicare by $400 billion.

This moral abomination is already igniting a firestorm across the country. Over the past two weeks, protests have erupted at 50 universities and in least 100 cities, while nearly 50 people have been arrested on Capitol Hill.

And whether or not President Trump achieves his goal of signing this tax deal into law by the end of the year, this fight is just beginning.

liz-and-barber-el-paso-border-1145x700.j

Rev. Liz Theoharis (left) and Rev. William Barber II (right) with activists and leaders at the U.S.-Mexico border, October 2017.

On December 4, prominent faith leaders announced plans for one of the largest waves of civil disobedience in U.S. history. Dubbed the “Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival,” this effort will mark the 50th anniversary of a similar initiative in 1968 that was undercut by the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King.

The campaign co-chairs, the Rev. Liz Theoharis and the Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II, are determined to pick up the baton from King and other 1960s leaders. They’ve called the Republican tax plan “an act of gross violence against America’s poor.” But this is just one of the motivations.

“We are witnessing an emboldened attack on the poor and an exacerbation of systemic racism, ecological devastation, and the war economy that demands a response,” Rev. Barber said.

A new Institute for Policy Studies report I edited reveals that conditions in each of these areas have worsened since 1968 by many measures. The documents the increased number of Americans below the poverty line, the acceleration of economic inequality, and the emergence of new forms of voter suppression laws and mass incarceration that further entrench systemic racism. It highlights the growing imbalance in government spending on the military relative to social programs, and the intensification of racial and income disparities in access to clean air and water.

READ THE FULL IPS REPORT

Why we need to revive the 1968 Poor People’s Campaign

Starting next spring, the Poor People’s Campaign aims to bring tens of thousands of poor and disenfranchised people, clergy, and other moral leaders to rallies at statehouses in at least 25 states, leading up to a major demonstration at the U.S. Capitol on June 21.

While Republicans may succeed in scoring a short-term win for the political donor class, their tax plan is sparking a new moral movement that will lift up the millions of Americans living in poverty and build power for transformational change.

Poor People’s Campaign Hearing, November 2017.

Sarah Anderson directs the Global Economy Project at the Institute for Policy Studies and is a co-editor of Inequality.org. @Anderson_IPS. This op-ed originally published by OtherWords.org.

 

Israel’s pathetic need for recognition

True this!

نادية حرحش

So Israel was waiting for the American recognition for its sovereignty?

It is really pathetic to see Israelis celebrating the American recognition and were waiting for trump to give them sovereignty ?

It is amazing how when you really don’t have real ownership-a thief- you will continue to see recognition even when you are seizing it all ..

An occupier can steal , seize , even own… But can never feel home .

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Jerusalem … a city of it’s people….us

Jerusalem is home to all who have lived there for centuries and not just the politicos of the occupation!

نادية حرحش

I was driving back home when I saw a bunch of settlers crossing the road in front of me with an Israeli flag walking towards Damascus gate.

Palestinians sitting on Damascus Gate met them with singing Mawtini.

Of course by the time I was able to park the car. The scene was finished.. but yet I found people like me, trying to be there .. a father making a statement with his children. Men and women sitting chatting in the freezing cold weather insisting that this city has people …us.

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Ex-Cop Michael Slager sentenced to 20 years in prison for killing Walter Scott

Thank God for Feidin Santana filming the shooting of #WalterScott. If not for his video #MichaelSlager would have gotten away with murder. May God’s grace, mercy and DIVINE protection be with him. May God’s tender mercies comfort the hearts of Walter Scott’s family.

CHARLESTON, S.C. — More than two years ago, the fatal shooting of unarmed black motorist Walter Scott by a white South Carolina police officer set off a wave of national protests over racially biased policing and the use of lethal force.

On Thursday, Michael Slager, the ex-North Charleston patrolman, learned his fate after pleading guilty in Scott’s death: He was sentenced to 20 years behind bars.

His two-decade prison sentence and two years of supervised release is within the sentencing guidelines for second-degree murder and obstruction of justice that U.S. District Judge David Norton said were committed. Slager shot Scott with “malice and recklessness,” Norton said, and then gave false testimony to investigators.

Scott’s mother, Judy Scott, was one of seven family members who spoke before Slager was sentenced. She recalled her 50-year-old son grew up a “happy, jolly child” and then turned to Slager directly, telling him, “I forgive you.”

Slager then began to cry.

Federal prosecutors had sought life in prison for 36-year-old Slager, who agreed to plead guilty in May to a federal charge of violating Scott’s civil rights. That was in exchange for state prosecutors agreeing not to file any new charges in the case after a month-long murder trial ended in a hung jury a year ago. Slager in that trial faced 30 years to life in prison.

Slager’s sentencing caps a winding case that followed other notable police-involved deaths in Ferguson, Missouri, Cleveland and New York, and highlights how rare it is for law enforcement officers to be convicted or plead guilty in such incidents. A bystander captured the April 2015 shooting of Scott on his cellphone, and the graphic footage was eventually viewed by the public millions of times and became a key piece of evidence for the prosecution.

Scott, a father of four, was stopped by Slager for a broken taillight. The cellphone video began recording after the stop, when the men were standing in a vacant lot.

Slager fired eight shots at Scott as he ran away — striking him five times, including three in the back, a coroner later said. Even after he was shot, Slager handcuffed Scott’s arms behind his back.

Slager had claimed that Scott took control of his Taser and that he feared for his life in a scuffle after the traffic stop. The video didn’t show Scott taking the stun gun.
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