Tuesday, November 25, 2014


News Clips for The Day


http://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics-government/article4077044.html

Emails show GOP consultants’ ‘almost paranoid’ mission to circumvent Fla.’s gerrymandering ban
By Marc Caputo, Kathleen Mcgrory and Michael Van Sickler
Herald/Times staff writers
11/23/2014

The Republican consultants had to be hush-hush — “almost paranoid” in the words of one — because of their high-stakes mission: Get go-betweens to help circumvent a Florida Constitutional ban on gerrymandering.

The plot was spelled out in a newly released batch of once-secret emailsthat show how the consultants surreptitiously drew congressional and state legislative maps. They then recruited seemingly independent citizens to submit them in an effort to strengthen the hand of Florida Republicans when the GOP-led Legislature redrew lawmaker districts in 2011.

The year before, Florida voters overwhelmingly amended the state’s constitution to prohibit legislators from drawing legislative and congressional districts that favor or disfavor incumbents or political parties. Citing the new amendments, a coalition of voting-rights and liberal groups called the Fair Districts Coalition sued the Legislature over its maps.

The emails, under court seal until this weekend, played a key role in a recent court victory to force the Legislature to redraw some of Florida’s congressional districts. The correspondence will take center stage in a related case challenging the state Senate maps.

The emails also provide a fly-on-the-wall glimpse of how political players used secrecy and deception as they recruited third parties to submit maps, some of which were drawn by Gainesville-based Data Targeting firm, led by political player Pat Bainter.

“Want to echo Pat’s reminder about being incredibly careful and deliberative here, especially when working with people who are organizing other folks,” Data Targeting’s Matt Mitchell wrote in a Nov. 29, 2011 email. “Must be very smart in how we prep every single person we talk to about all of these. If you can think of a more secure and failsafe way to engage our people, please do it. Cannot be too redundant on that front.”

“Pat and I will probably sound almost paranoid on this over the next week, but it will be so much more worthwhile to be cautious,” Mitchell concluded.

About 14 minutes later, consultant Jessica Corbett of Electioneering Consulting, responded that she understood the plan.

“Just to ease your minds, I have tried to do most of the asking over the phone, so their [sic] is no e-mail trail if it gets forwarded,” Corbett wrote, noting that she limits what “I am putting in writing” in emails.

“I only send templates to those who I have spoken/e-mailed with and they know the mission and have agreed to help,” she wrote. “I have stressed discretion to all.”

In response, another Data Targeting consultant named Robert Krames said: “Good. Thank you.”

The emails also detail how the consultants proposed districts that benefitted some Republicans or, in one proposal, “retires Bill Young,” the now-deceased congressman from Pinellas County.

The consultants established a database of lawmakers’ home addresses and overlayed them on some maps. In another case, they considered ways to pack black voters in a Miami-Dade district by creating a district with “some long tentacles to reach out and grab enough black population.”

Bainter, owner of Data Targeting, had fought the release of the emails for months. He took his case to the U.S. Supreme Court, where conservative Justice Clarence Thomas declined to take the case Friday.

The emails were supposed to be released Dec. 1, but Bainter’s allies released the documents over the weekend, first to the Naples Daily News.

Bainter had claimed his First Amendment rights would be infringed by the release of the documents. But the Florida Supreme Court said he waited too long to make the argument. Bainter stood by his claim Sunday.

“The Florida Supreme Court ruling unsealing my personal documents further undermines the constitutional rights of any citizen who dares participate in democracy,” Bainter said in a written statement.

Bainter said the case and the pursuit of the emails “had less to do with the law and more of an inquisition hell bent on winning through legal threat, that which they fail miserably at in the arena of public opinion. They demanded my personal and private political musings, opinions and activities, that which is most dearly protected by the Constitution.”

The Fair District Coalition declined to comment on the documents Sunday, saying a court-issued order that prohibited the release or discussion of the emails had not been lifted.

In a brief filed Friday with the Florida Supreme Court, the coalition said the documents showed “the lengths the operatives went to secretly send to collaborators in the Legislature the maps they developed to maximize Republican seats.”

The coalition — composed of several voters rights groups and individuals — is appealing Circuit Court Judge Terry Lewis’s ruling that the 2012 congressional maps violated the state Constitution. The groups say Lewis did not go far enough by requiring only two districts to be redrawn and allowing the Legislature to come up with a new plan.

When Lewis made his ruling on July 10, he gave legislators until Aug. 15 to modify the map and fix two districts in particular. Lawmakers responded by calling a rare summer-time special session and modified seven of the state’s 27 congressional districts, then appealed to the court to approve it.

Lewis upheld the revisions and allowed Florida’s flawed congressional districts to remain in place for two more years.

Fair Districts wants the state Supreme Court to invalidate the entire apportionment plan and impose a “meaningful remedy,” according to the brief filed Friday.

Not all of the plans and maps the consultants discussed became law. The emails, 538 pages worth, don’t explicitly show just what was ultimately approved by legislators.

And, despite the machinations of the consultants, there’s no clear evidence showing the consultants directly influencing lawmakers to circumvent the anti-gerrymandering law. Lawmakers say that, in the end, they made their decisions based on all the public evidence and data they had in front of them.

So even if the consultants used go-betweens, if lawmakers didn’t know about it, then there’s relatively little evidence to show that they had the intention of drawing districts to favor or disfavor incumbents.

Though a somewhat arcane topic, the issue of redistricting has some of the most far-reaching political ramifications. Redistricting, which takes place every 10 years after the U.S. census, is designed to make sure that congressional and state legislative seats have an equal number of residents so people are fairly represented.

But in drawing the districts, the party in power often tries to maximize the strength of its voters and minimize that of its opponents. In the case of the Florida Legislature, that means packing as many Democrats as possible into relatively fewer districts. It makes Democratic districts overwhelmingly Democratic but it also ensures that there are far more districts that lean Republican by just enough of a comfortable margin.

After the GOP won the Legislature in the 1990s, it established districts that clearly benefitted Republicans and diluted overall Democratic power. That’s why liberal-leaning groups in 2010 put the so-called “Fair Districts” amendments on the ballot.

One potential problem for Democrats remained: minority voters, who get more guarantees under federal law of electing minority representatives. Since minorities, specifically African-Americans, tend to vote more Democratic, the creation of heavily black districts allows the spread of more white Republican-leaning districts.

The process has been nicknamed “bleaching” and the email chain suggests that Data Targeting’s Michael Sheehan considered ways to get more whites out of an iteration of Miami state Sen. Dwight Bullard’s district to make it more Democratic.

That district and another, Sheehan wrote, “do not have enough available non-minority population that we could reduce to effectively increase the minority population percentage. However we can create some long tentacles to reach out and grab enough black population to hit 50+%”

The documents show the lengths to which the consultants went to strengthen districts controlled by Republicans, from Pinellas County’s state Sen. Jack Latvala to Miami-Dade’s state Sen. Anitere Flores.

In one case, a consultant with West Palm Beach-based Public Concepts named Rich Johnston fretted that we “missed Flores house” in one district. Sheehan then wrote back: “I will adjust to include Flores.’

Flores told the Herald/Times that she had no knowledge of the discussions.

The GOP consultants made sure that they specifically pinpointed all of the homes of lawmakers and potential candidates in the proposed districts. In one email, Bainter made sure that the home of his client, U.S. Rep. Dan Webster, was included on a map.

In another email chain, Bainter said of then-state Sen. John Thrasher “He actually lives in Clay County.” That admission conflicts with Thrasher’s statements that he lived in his St. Johns County-based district.

In one exchange, Johnston asked Bainter and Sheehan for a spreadsheet containing the home addresses for candidates and incumbents.

“Still have a problem in Manatee,” Johnston wrote in an Oct. 19, 2011 email that mentioned Republican state Sen. Bill Galvano. “Galvano is west of Bradenton over by the water. Can we wrap the rest of Manatee County into SD 21 and retreat some out of Sarasota?”

On Nov. 10, 2011, Johnston asked Bainter to include “5007 Eagle Point Drive, Jacksonville” address in District 5. Property records show that address belongs to Jacksonville Republican Rep. Michael Hogan.

On Nov. 28, 2011, Johnston took an interest in the man who just became the speaker of the Florida House of Representatives, Steve Crisafulli: “Is there a way to put Crisafulli back in play?”

Other consultants who participated in or were referenced in the emails: Randy Nielsen of Public Concepts, Anthony Pedicini of Image Management, Republican Party of Florida map-drawing whiz Frank Terraferma and top lobbyists Rich Heffley and Marc Reichelderfer.

Some of them took the stand during the redistricting trial earlier this year. Terraferma testified that a maps he drew at Heffley’s behest was identical to one submitted under the name of a former FSU student named Alex Posada. Posada said someone else submitted the map under his name.

Who did is a mystery, although it was clear that Bainter’s crew had a stable of potential map-submitters, some of whom were allegedly organized by his hometown associate, Stafford Jones, the chairman Alachua County GOP.

“I can direct Stafford to have his people send these maps via email,” Mitchell wrote in one email to Bainter, who a week before said by email “Stafford getting me 10 more people at least, [sic].”

Because Bainter temporarily succeeded in having the emails shielded from public view, parts of his testimony were given in secret.

Earlier, in 2012, Bainter sat for a deposition where he downplayed his involvement in map-making and made little mention of using go-betweens. Bainter was elusive and displayed a poor memory when he was questioned by Fair Districts lawyer Michael B. DeSanctis.

“Why were you drawing maps?” DeSanctis asked him at one point.

“Intrigue,” said Bainter.
DeSanctis: “Intrigue about what?”
Bainter: “What do you mean by ‘what?’”
DeSanctis: “What do you mean, ‘intrigue?’”
Bainter: “It was a pretty intriguing process.”
DeSanctis: “What? Well, one might be intrigued by the redistricting process and still not take it upon himself or herself to actually draw maps. So I’m wondering…what was going through your mind?
Bainter: “It was a very fascinating item. And I found it very interesting. I never actually completed a map. I found it way too tedious.”



http://www.tampabay.com/blogs/the-buzz-florida-politics/gop-operatives-asked-us-supreme-court-to-halt-release-of-his-redistricting/2181790

GOP operative asks U.S. Supreme Court to halt release of redistricting docs
Mary Ellen Klas
May 28, 2014

GOP political consultant Pat Bainter has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to stay the order by the Florida Supreme Court over the release of documents in the ongoing redistricting trial.

Florida's high court ruled 5-2 late Tuesday that 538 pages of emails, maps and planning documents of Bainter and his Gainesville-based political consulting firm must be allowed into the record – but only if the courtroom is closed. The ruling came even before a written opinion had been completed by the First District Court of Appeal and Bainter claims the forced disclosure of what he considers "trade secrets" will have a chilling effect on his First Amendment rights. 

Safriet argued in 31-page appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court that disclosing the documents will violate Bainter's First Amendment rights and force him to disclose trade secrets. The information he wants kept from disclosure includes "names, contact information, and internal deliberations" of Bainter and his team as well as their employees, clients, and "other like-minded individuals regarding the redistricting process." 

The plaintiffs allege that Bainter and his partners conspired with GOP consultants and legislative staff to create a "shadow" redistricting process that attempted to protect incumbents and Republican candidates in violation of the Fair District amendments to the state constitution.

Bainter, whose legal bills are being paid by the Republican Party of Florida, argues that the U.S. Supreme Court should issue an emergency stay "to keep the proverbial cat in the bag" and to preserve his ability to later petition this court if it wants to appeal any ruling out of Florida.



https://fairdistrictsnow.org/news/303/

9 Investigates: High cost of Florida redistricting lawsuits
WFTV 9 | WFTV 9 | 11/10/2014


ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. —The Florida Legislature has spent more than $6 million on outside legal counsel fighting congressional redistricting.

"The legislature subverted the will of the people during the drawing process,” says Deidre McNabb, president of Florida's League of Women Voters. “They are also spending millions of our taxpayer dollars to fight the will of the voters, it's disgraceful and quite frankly it's unacceptable."

In 2010 Florida voters adopted the Fair Districts Amendment, rewriting the Florida Constitution to require lawmakers to draw congressional districts without a partisan advantage. Earlier this year Leon County Judge Terry Lewis found the plan adopted by the legislature to be invalid. Following his ruling, Lewis ordered the legislature to redraw two congressional districts.

As part of the case between the state and the League of Women Voters it was revealed that lawmakers had a series of secret emails which showed portions of the maps had been drawn to favor one political party of another, a violation of the Florida Constitution.

The legal fight, which has already cost taxpayers more than $6 million, will soon cost the state even more. Two key issues including the newly drawn congressional maps as well as some of the secret documents used in the map drawing process are now headed to the Florida Supreme Court.




“'The Florida Supreme Court ruling unsealing my personal documents further undermines the constitutional rights of any citizen who dares participate in democracy,' Bainter said '… Get go-betweens to help circumvent a Florida Constitutional ban on gerrymandering. The plot was spelled out in a newly released batch of once-secret emailsthat show how the consultants surreptitiously drew congressional and state legislative maps. They then recruited seemingly independent citizens to submit them in an effort to strengthen the hand of Florida Republicans when the GOP-led Legislature redrew lawmaker districts in 2011. The year before, Florida voters overwhelmingly amended the state’s constitution to prohibit legislators from drawing legislative and congressional districts that favor or disfavor incumbents or political parties. Citing the new amendments, a coalition of voting-rights and liberal groups called the Fair Districts Coalition sued the Legislature over its maps.... The consultants established a database of lawmakers’ home addresses and overlayed them on some maps. In another case, they considered ways to pack black voters in a Miami-Dade district by creating a district with 'some long tentacles to reach out and grab enough black population.'... 'The Florida Supreme Court ruling unsealing my personal documents further undermines the constitutional rights of any citizen who dares participate in democracy,' Bainter said in a written statement.... 'They demanded my personal and private political musings, opinions and activities, that which is most dearly protected by the Constitution.'... He took his case to the U.S. Supreme Court, where conservative Justice Clarence Thomas declined to take the case Friday.”

A secret and illegal attempt to get around a newly adopted Florida law that specifically prohibits the drawing of voting districts in a way favoring one party over another promises to be a major scandal. Their proposed redistricting lumped many black people into an elongated and irregularly shaped district to prevent their successful participation against Republican candidates. The 2010 law has been upheld by the FL Supreme Court as it ordered the sealed documents open to the light, and is what Republican Pat Bainter calls a violation of the individual's right to “participation in Democracy.” Participating in democracy is going to the polls and voting, and making as much outreach as possible to potential voters before the election.

I call this gerrymandering a direct and purposeful violation of a fair district law written to specifically prohibit such redrawing of maps, and unfortunately par for the course for Republicans. They do everything they can to prevent the valid counting of votes by blacks, Hispanics and others who tend to vote Democratic. They just don't believe in a fair fight. The US Supreme Court declined to hear their petition to block the Florida Supreme Court opinion, that will open the tainted emails and other documents to the light of day. They are crying out that this is unfair. They think anytime they don't win it's because the fight was unfair. I will look for any further information on the case.





http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/middle-east-unrest/netanyahus-cabinet-moves-define-israel-jewish-n254856

Netanyahu's Cabinet Moves to Define Israel as Jewish – NBC
The Associated Press
First published November 24th 2014

Why Do Jews and Muslims Keep Fighting Over Jerusalem Holy Site?

JERUSALEM — In a move likely to further inflame tensions with Israel's Arab citizens, the Israeli Cabinet on Sunday approved a bill to legally define the country as the nation-state of the Jewish people. The decision, which set off a stormy debate that could bring down Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's brittle coalition government, followed weeks of deadly Arab-Jewish violence and was denounced by critics as damaging to the country's democratic character and poorly timed at such a combustible moment. It now heads toward a full parliamentary vote on Wednesday.

Israel has always defined itself as the "Jewish state" — a term that was contained in the country's declaration of independence in 1948. The new law seeks to codify that status as a "Basic Law," Israel's de facto constitution. While many critics derided the measure as unnecessary, Netanyahu told his Cabinet the bill is a response to Israel's Arab critics both inside and outside Israel who question the country's right to exist. The bill calls not only for recognizing Israel's Jewish character but for institutionalizing Jewish law as an inspiration for legislation and dropping Arabic as an official language. Ahmad Tibi, a leading Arab lawmaker, denounced the bill as an attack on Arab natives of the country and called on the world to offer them protection. Dov Khenin, leader of the mixed Jewish-Arab Hadash party, accused Netanyahu of "pouring fuel into the bonfire of hate." Israeli Arabs, who make up about 20 percent of the population, have long complained of discrimination and second-class status. Israel is in the midst of its worst sustained bout of violence in nearly a decade.




“The decision, which set off a stormy debate that could bring down Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's brittle coalition government, followed weeks of deadly Arab-Jewish violence and was denounced by critics as damaging to the country's democratic character and poorly timed at such a combustible moment. It now heads toward a full parliamentary vote on Wednesday.... Israel has always defined itself as the "Jewish state" — a term that was contained in the country's declaration of independence in 1948. The new law seeks to codify that status as a "Basic Law," Israel's de facto constitution. While many critics derided the measure as unnecessary, Netanyahu told his Cabinet the bill is a response to Israel's Arab critics both inside and outside Israel who question the country's right to exist. The bill calls not only for recognizing Israel's Jewish character but for institutionalizing Jewish law as an inspiration for legislation and dropping Arabic as an official language.... Dov Khenin, leader of the mixed Jewish-Arab Hadash party, accused Netanyahu of "pouring fuel into the bonfire of hate." Israeli Arabs, who make up about 20 percent of the population, have long complained of discrimination and second-class status. Israel is in the midst of its worst sustained bout of violence in nearly a decade.”

Netanyahu has made several extreme moves recently, including the razing of a Palestinian's house. The article yesterday said that such attacks on Palestinian property used to be Israeli policy, but was discontinued when the military leaders stated that it was not causing the Arabs to back down in the fight. Now Netanyahu has begun doing it again. To me it is below the level of a government policy, but is more like the way the gangs in US and Mexican cities “control” the population.

I see from this article that there is a moderate party in Israel called the HADASH party, and acronym for words meaning The Democratic Front for Peace and Equality. It is a Communist Israeli party. “It currently has four members in the 120-seat Knesset.” It tends toward Palestinian nationalism, according to Avirama Golan of the Haaretz, but to me is supports things which are completely fair likely to move the two nations toward a true peace. It's not surprising that the party only has four seats out of 120, but I can't help wondering how many Jews in Israel would like to see those moderate steps taken with a resulting peace and acceptance by their neighboring Arab states.

The Wikipedia article titled HADASH states:
“Policies and ideology –

The party supports evacuation of all Israeli settlements, a complete withdrawal by Israel from all territories occupied as a result of the Six-Day War, and the establishment of a Palestinian state in those territories. It also supports the right of return or compensation for Palestinian refugees. In addition to issues of peace and security, Hadash is also known for being active on social and environmental issues.[5]

Hadash defines itself as a non-Zionist party, originally in keeping with Marxist opposition to nationalism. It calls for recognition of Palestinian Arabs as a national minority within Israel.[6]

Hadash shifted to a more Arab nationalist appeal after running on a joint list with Ta'al in 2003.[7] Avirama Golan of theHaaretz wrote in 2007 that Hadash has "succumbed to the separatist-nationalist and populist stream ... and chosen to turn its back on a social and civil agenda in favor of questions related to Palestinian nationalism ..."[8]





http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/black-voters-in-st-louis-county-direct-their-anger-at-the-democratic-party/2014/10/14/e6957b8a-4f02-11e4-aa5e-7153e466a02d_story.html

Black voters in St. Louis County direct their anger at the Democratic Party
Sandhya Somashekhar
Reporter — Washington, D.C.
October 14, 2014

FERGUSON, Mo. — Darren Seals experienced waves of disbelief and anger after Michael Brown’s death, but two months later, he has found a way to channel his emotions: Focus on changing an elected leadership that seems deaf to the concerns of African American residents like him.

So on Nov. 4, the 27-year-old assembly-line worker and hip-hop musician from a deeply Democratic community plans to take bold action. He says he will vote for a white Republican.

“Just because they’ve got the D next to their name, that don’t mean nothing,” said Seals, who lives a few blocks from where a police officer shot Brown. “The world is watching us right now. It’s time to send a message of our power.”

Many African Americans in Ferguson and across St. Louis County, angered over their leaders’ response to the fatal shooting, say they will be taking their outrage to the ballot box and voting against a Democratic Party that has long been their automatic choice.

They are focusing on the St. Louis county executive’s race, which typically centers on matters such as the budget and sanitation but this year has become caught up in the unrest.

Earlier this month, a coalition of some 20 African American Democratic leaders called a news conference to endorse the GOP candidate, state Rep. Rick Stream. Armed with voter registration forms, activists like Seals have been roaming black neighborhoods urging people to vote for anyone but the Democrat.

The plan is not only to beat back a local candidate they view as particularly unfriendly to black residents, but also to present a show of force to Democratic leaders all the way up to Sen. Claire McCaskill and Gov. Jay Nixon. By switching their allegiance in this election, these African Americans hope to demonstrate that their votes should not be taken for granted.

Ted Hoskins, the mayor of nearby Berkeley who has endorsed Stream, rattled off a series of slights and sins. They range from the governor’s decision to back the controversial prosecutor in the Brown case to the Democratic Party’s anemic support for the incumbent county executive, a black Democrat who was ousted by a white challenger during the August primary.

“This is about the total disrespect white Democrats have demonstrated against the black community,” he said. “This time, we are going to show them.”

It could be a difficult feat. A Republican has not held the St. Louis county executive’s position in 25 years. Black residents make up about a quarter of the county’s population. But they typically account for only 10 to 15 percent of the vote, according to Terry Jones, a political science professor at the University of Missouri at St. Louis.

Anger is running high among some African Americans toward the Democratic candidate for county executive, County Councilman Steve Stenger, who is white. Stenger mounted an aggressive primary challenge in defeating Charlie Dooley, one of the state’s top-ranking black politicians and the first African American to become St. Louis county executive.

Even worse in the eyes of some African Americans are Stenger’s political ties to Robert P. McCulloch, the Democratic county prosecutor handling the Michael Brown case. McCulloch, whose father was a police officer killed in the line of duty by a black man, earned the ire of local black residents over his handling of a previous police shooting and a perception that he is particularly hard on black suspects.

They have asked for McCulloch to be removed from the Brown case, but he has declined to recuse himself. McCaskill and Nixon, among other officials, have backed McCulloch’s decision to stay on the case.

McCulloch did not respond to requests for comment. In a previous interview with The Washington Post, McCulloch contested the notion that he cannot be fair in the Brown case.

“This argument is silly. They keep bringing up my father who was killed in the line of duty,” he said. “If anything, it made me a strong advocate for the victims of violence.”

In the primary, McCulloch took the unusual step of endorsing Stenger, filming an ad in which he accused the incumbent’s administration of corruption. At a recent County Council meeting, speaker after speaker asked Stenger to denounce McCulloch, but Stenger has remained supportive of McCulloch’s role in the Brown investigation.

Stenger’s name and his support for McCulloch have become well known among protesters who have demonstrated nightly across the street from the Ferguson Police Department. “You know, I usually vote Democrat, but I might have to have a change of heart come Election Day and vote for the Republican,” Marvin Skull, 55, a machinist from nearby Hazelwood, said with a grin.

Stenger also declined to comment. He has tried to paint his Republican opponent as an extreme conservative in the legislature, highlighting his support for gun rights and his anti-abortion views. He has some high-profile African American support, including the Rev. Sammie E. Jones, pastor of Mount Zion Baptist Church in St. Louis, a congregation of 900.

Jones said it would be a mistake for blacks to vote for a Republican, because the GOP does not have the community’s interests at heart. “We support the Democratic Party because they are of the people,” he said of the area’s African Americans, predicting that “there are very few of us who are willing to cut off our nose to spite our face.”

The race has spawned a few other campaigns, including a nascent write-in effort for a local black activist and another one urging people to vote simply for Michael Brown.

But those backing Stream are hoping that their vote will be something more than a protest vote.

On a recent evening at the New Northside Baptist Church conference center in Jennings, a predominantly black suburb near Ferguson, black Democratic elected officials in St. Louis County applauded boisterously when Stream stood in front of them to make his case.

Stream, whose daughter died at age 18 after suffering from an eating disorder, said he could understand Brown’s parents’ pain. He pledged to adjust policies to prevent people with outstanding traffic tickets from going to jail, a longtime concern of local African Americans, and to lobby for more school funding. He made the case that the true ideological divide in Missouri is between urban and rural, not Republican and Democrat, and acknowledged that he had a lot to learn about the African American community.

“I can guarantee you, a lot of what you’re thinking up here is not what we’re thinking in Kirkwood,” he told the roughly 25 people present. “I have to come up here and hear about what you all care about.”

Terry Wilson, chairman of the Jennings School Board, urged the group to strongly consider Stream, and to bring their friends with them to the polls. “The other candidate, he’s really dismissing this community,” he said. “We’re so baptized into voting for Democrats. . . . Look at all the Democrats that have done wrong to you.”

A few miles away in East St. Louis, Ill., Seals, the factory worker and hip-hop musician, wandered the crowd at Peace Fest, an outdoor concert, handing out voter registration forms. His frustration with the Democratic Party rises as high as the White House, where he said President Obama has done little for black Americans.

“To this day, in seven or eight years, we haven’t seen any significant difference in the black community,” he said. “In fact, it feels like it’s getting worse.”

Seals, who voted for Obama but has never cast a ballot in a local election, acknowledges that his vote for a Republican may be “a one-time thing.” But it depends on whether Stream ushers in the change he has promised, explaining, “We aren’t asking you to perform miracles. We just want you to do the job you are supposed to do.”




The Grand Jury had three black people and nine whites, and only nine votes are required to reach a determination. I wanted to hear what the final vote on the Grand Jury was, especially how the black members voted. That vote has been withheld by authorities, however. Why, I wonder?

Interestingly, all the mayors of St. Louis since 1949 have been Democrats and yet racism is still present. Of course in 1949 Southern Democrats were largely conservative, called “Dixiecrats.” Then the party lost many of its Southern members when Democratic leaders came out behind the Civil Rights movement. The Republicans lost no time in courting the segregationist vote and that distillation of Republican politics the Tea Party is now taking over in many parts of the South and West. See the following Wikipedia article for the listing of St. Louis Democratic mayors: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mayor_of_St._Louis.






POLICE AND THE USE OF DEADLY FORCE – TWO ARTICLES


From coast to coast, Ferguson touches a nerve
CBS/AP November 25, 2014, 5:43 AM

Photograph – New York City Police Commissioner William Bratton is seen after having fake blood sprayed at him on Monday night, November 24, 2014 during protest in Times Square following decision by grand jury not to indict police officer in Michael Brown shooting death in Ferguson, Missouri in August

Thousands of people rallied late Monday and early Tuesday in cities across the country, from Los Angeles to New York and dozens of places in between, to passionately but mostly peacefully protest a grand jury's decision not to indict a white police officer who killed unarmed black 18-year-old Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, this past summer.

They led marches, waved signs and shouted chants of "Hands up, don't shoot," the refrain that has become a rallying cry in protests over police killings across the country.

Some of the most disruptive demonstrations were in St. Louis, New York, and in Oakland, California, where protesters flooded the lanes of freeways and milled about stopped cars with their hands raised in the air.

Activists had been planning to protest even before the nighttime announcement that Officer Darren Wilson will not be charged in the shooting death of Brown. Many activists have promised more waves of protests nationwide Tuesday.

Brown's parents, community leaders, President Obama, and many others have called on the protesters to remain calm and to express their displeasure peacefully.

The racially charged case in Ferguson has inflamed tensions and reignited debates over police-community relations even in cities hundreds of miles from the predominantly black St. Louis suburb. For many staging protests Monday, the shooting was personal, calling to mind other galvanizing encounters with local law enforcement.

In New York, the family of Eric Garner, a Staten Island man arrested for selling cigarettes who was killed by a police officer's chokehold earlier this year, joined the Rev. Al Sharpton at a speech in Harlem lamenting the grand jury's decision.

Later, several hundred people who had gathered in Manhattan's Union Square marched peacefully to Times Square, where Police Commissioner Bill Bratton was sprayed with fake blood. A suspect was taken into custody for the incident.

The group continued to Columbus Circle , and north through Manhattan's the Upper West Side on Broadway. The protesters broke through barricades in some areas, reports CBS New York.

Police said that protesters briefly shut down the Triborough and Brooklyn bridges.

Sharpton called the decision an "absolute blow," adding: "Even when you see a blow coming that you expected, it still hurts nonetheless."

He said there had been no confidence in the Missouri prosecutors from the start, and questioned why the prosecutor didn't say if the grand jury decision had been unanimous.

With the death of a man last week in a New York city housing project at the hands of a police officer, Sharpton said, "Let it be clear that we are dealing with the same attitudes of Ferguson right here in the city. Ferguson is not just in Missouri."

Police departments in several major cities were ready for large demonstrations with the potential for the kind of violence that marred nightly protests in Ferguson after Brown's killing. Demonstrators there vandalized police cars and buildings, hugged barricades and taunted officers with expletives Monday night and early Tuesday while police fired smoke canisters and tear gas. Gunshots were heard on the streets and fires raged.

But police elsewhere reported that gatherings were mostly peaceful following Monday's announcement.

As the night wore on, dozens of protesters in Oakland got around police and blocked traffic on Interstate 580. Officers in cars and on motorcycles were able to corral the protesters and cleared the highway in one area, but another group soon entered the traffic lanes a short distance away.

Oakland Mayor Jean Quan said early Tuesday more than 40 people have been arrested for hurling bottles, breaking windows and setting small fires during the protests.

A diverse crowd of several hundred protesters marched and chanted in St. Louis not far from the site of another police shooting, shutting down Interstate 44 for a time. A few cars got stuck in the midst of the protesters, who appeared to be leaving the vehicles alone. They chanted "Hands up, don't shoot" and "Black lives matter."

"There's clearly a license for violence against minorities, specifically blacks," said Mike Arnold, 38, a teacher. "It happens all the time. Something's got to be done about it. Hopefully this will be a turning point."

In Seattle, marching demonstrators stopped periodically to sit or lie down in city intersections, blocking traffic before moving on, as dozens of police officers watched. After hours of marching peacefully, protesters also hurled canned food, bottles and rocks, police said. Five arrests were made, reports CBS Seattle affiliate KIRO-TV.

Seattle police said the demonstrators threw bottles, rocks and lit flares near officers in another intersection. Some vandalism was reported, and police said protestors continued to throw bottles at them there.

Demonstrators also managed to briefly shut down part of Interstate 5 in Seattle late Monday night.

Groups ranging from a few dozen to a few hundred people also gathered in Chicago, Salt Lake City, and Washington, D.C., where people held up signs and chanted "justice for Michael Brown" outside the White House.

"Mike Brown is an emblem (of a movement). This country is at its boiling point," said Ethan Jury, a protester in Philadelphia, where hundreds marched downtown with a contingent of police nearby. "How many people need to die? How many black people need to die?"

In Los Angeles, which was rocked by riots in 1992 after the acquittal of police officers in the videotaped beating of Rodney King, police officers were told to remain on duty until released by their supervisors. About 100 people gathered in Leimert Park, and a group of religious leaders held a small news conference demanding changes in police policies.

A group of about 200 demonstrators marched toward downtown.

The marchers briefly shut down the northbound and southbound lanes of Interstate 110 in downtown Los Angeles late Monday night, according to City News Service. People stood and lay in the northbound lanes and the center divider. California Highway Patrol officers declared an unlawful assembly. That protest lasted about an hour, reports CBS Los Angeles.

After midnight, about 100 police officers wearing riot gear fired hard foam projectiles into the ground to disperse about 50 protesters on Pico Boulevard in downtown Los Angeles, the Los Angeles Times reported.

Another splinter group of about 30 people marched all the way to Beverly Hills, where they lay down in an intersection.

Chris Manor, with Utah Against Police Brutality, helped organize an event in Salt Lake City that attracted about 35 people.

"There are things that have affected us locally, but at the same time, it's important to show solidarity with people in other cities who are facing the very same thing that we're facing," Manor said.

At Cleveland's Public Square, at least a dozen protesters' signs referenced police shootings that have shaken the community there, including Saturday's fatal shooting of 12-year-old Tamir Rice, who had a fake gun at a Cleveland playground when officers confronted him.

In Denver, where a civil jury last month found deputies used excessive force in the death of a homeless street preacher, clergy gathered at a church to discuss the decision, and dozens of people rallied in a downtown park with a moment of silence.




“They led marches, waved signs and shouted chants of "Hands up, don't shoot," the refrain that has become a rallying cry in protests over police killings across the country. Some of the most disruptive demonstrations were in St. Louis, New York, and in Oakland, California, where protesters flooded the lanes of freeways and milled about stopped cars with their hands raised in the air.... The racially charged case in Ferguson has inflamed tensions and reignited debates over police-community relations even in cities hundreds of miles from the predominantly black St. Louis suburb. For many staging protests Monday, the shooting was personal, calling to mind other galvanizing encounters with local law enforcement.... Sharpton called the decision an "absolute blow," adding: "Even when you see a blow coming that you expected, it still hurts nonetheless." He said there had been no confidence in the Missouri prosecutors from the start, and questioned why the prosecutor didn't say if the grand jury decision had been unanimous.... "There's clearly a license for violence against minorities, specifically blacks," said Mike Arnold, 38, a teacher. "It happens all the time. Something's got to be done about it. Hopefully this will be a turning point."... "Mike Brown is an emblem (of a movement). This country is at its boiling point," said Ethan Jury, a protester in Philadelphia, where hundreds marched downtown with a contingent of police nearby. "How many people need to die? How many black people need to die?"... About 100 people gathered in Leimert Park, and a group of religious leaders held a small news conference demanding changes in police policies. A group of about 200 demonstrators marched toward downtown.... Chris Manor, with Utah Against Police Brutality, helped organize an event in Salt Lake City that attracted about 35 people. "There are things that have affected us locally, but at the same time, it's important to show solidarity with people in other cities who are facing the very same thing that we're facing," Manor said.... In Denver, where a civil jury last month found deputies used excessive force in the death of a homeless street preacher, clergy gathered at a church to discuss the decision, and dozens of people rallied in a downtown park with a moment of silence.”

“Changes in police policies” – that is exactly what needs to happen across the US. Laws need to take into account things like what the actual crime is which has caused an interaction with police. It needs to be something more than “Why are you a black person in this neighborhood? And why is a poor man driving this expensive car?” A crime is assaulting someone who is walking down the street or shoplifting or fighting physically over what should have been merely a sharp exchange of words. Jaywalking is a subject for a ticket, but not for arrest, it seems to me. Wearing a hoodie is not a crime, and usually even that most obnoxious of teenager's tricks – wearing the pants down around their hips or lower – is not, either. Perhaps it should be. Stopping and frisking people merely because they are black should stop. If they have just been seen dealing drugs to people cruising the neighborhood, that of course is a crime.

Then, when officers shoot someone they should have to explain why they didn't use their taser or night stick instead. Also, as I have said many times, police on patrol should go in pairs so they won't be caught at a disadvantage as Wilson said he was. I also believe that when any one officer gets too many shootings on his record, he should be investigated and retrained. All officer should be trained in “talking criminals down” rather than engaging in a fight unnecessarily. If a man is carrying and pointing a gun, then he should be shot, but I still say that the police should shoot to disable a criminal rather than to kill him. Police departments usually defend the recommended practice of shooting a perpetrator in the middle of his body as a matter of officer safety. When officers encounter a homeless or mentally deranged person, they should try to arrest him rather than killing him.

Somehow we need to inject a larger dose of mercy and kindness into the relations that the police have with the public than exists today. Specifically, we need for police officers to meet with those who live in a neighborhood and interact on the human level in order to regain trust. The police officer is supposed to be protecting the citizens of Ferguson or any other community, rather than arresting all or them or worse. It really is at a bad state nowadays, and police are too often really hostile toward the community members, with a reciprocal hostility coming back at them. It's as extreme as the Israelis and the Palestinians, and as reprehensible. We're Americans. We need to do better than that.





After Ferguson, can the use of force by police be addressed?
By STEPHANIE CONDON CBS NEWS
November 25, 2014, 6:00 AM

Photograph – Retired Captain Ray Lewis of the Philadelphia Police department holds a sign outside the Ferguson Police Department in Ferguson, Missouri, on November 24, 2014 during a against protest the death of 18-year-old unarmed black teenager Michael Brown, who was shot to death by a white police officer.  This photo shows Capt. Lewis holding a large sign that reads “Police Try Love.”

After meeting for 25 days, a Missouri grand jury has decided that Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson will face no charges for shooting and killing Michael Brown, an unarmed 18-year-old in August.

The decision, announced Monday night, is a profound disappointment to many seeking justice for Brown and other victims of unjustified police force. However, the discussion that activists are hoping to spark -- in Ferguson and nationwide -- "doesn't start or end" with the grand jury's decision, Montague Simmons, chairman of the Organization for Black Struggle, told CBS News.

"The community's outraged not just by Mike Brown," he said, but also by repeated stories of African-Americans who are wrongly shot by police, like 28-year-old Akai Gurley who was killed in New York last week, or 12-year-old Tamir Rice, who was killed on Sunday in Cleveland.

"Black skin cannot be used as probable cause," Simmons said.

Reports out of Missouri, Rhode Island, New York and elsewhere suggest racial bias in policing is a widespread problem. It's a serious enough concern that the Justice Department in September launched a major, five-city probe into the issue. At the same time, at least one lab-based study out of Washington state showed that local officers were slower to aim their weapons at black suspects in simulated scenarios.

Whether racially biased or otherwise, there's little information available about the use of force by police. The FBI reports on "justifiable" police homicides -- there were 410 in 2012 -- but does not report on unjustified homicides, or about nonlethal uses of force. Only a small fraction of the nation's police forces produce reports on misconduct.

Simmons and others have said that collecting such data would be a strong first step toward improving police conduct and police relations with the communities they serve.

"It would help at least determine whether [racially-motivated] behavior exists," Simmons said.

Still, he insisted it's just the first step.

"The people that were actually hired to protect us -- who were empowered to protect us and our rights -- are attacking us, and it's intolerable," he said. "There are solutions that can actually bring those relationships back into balance, but we need to compel elected officials to do their job."

David Klinger, a University of Missouri-St. Louis professor who formerly served as a police officer, told CBS News that "it's important for people to not draw conclusions that cops are out there looking to shoot people -- they're not."

His research into the issue, which has included interviewing hundreds of officers involved in shootings, shows that in "the vast majority of cases where officers have lawful cause to shoot, they hold fire."

Still, he said, there are without doubt "lawful but awful" incidents -- where an officer may have been legally justified in using force but did so unnecessarily. Law enforcement officers have a broader right to use force -- including deadly force -- than normal citizens.

"What I can tell you from interviewing officers is... often times the training is not what it should be," Klinger said.

Every state has some kind of licensing process for police officers that mandates certain levels of training, but Klinger said that it's up to the departments themselves to do more than the bare minimum and ensure their officers are ready to engage with their communities. He said that establishing a use-of-force database would be "hugely valuable" for improving those efforts.

"Every time a police officer discharges his or her firearm, we need to know that," he said. "We need to get fine grain information about the incident -- race of those involved, age, what type of weapons did the suspect have, that the officer used."

With that sort of information, he said, "Not only will we be able to track the rate at which cops are shooting, we'll also be able to get valuable information about where the shootings occur so we can improve police training."

After the Michael Brown shooting, the Justice Department stepped into Ferguson to help improve the police department's community relations. Specifically, the Justice Department's Office of Community-Oriented Policing Services (COPS) has been on the ground working with local police forces and community groups.

Along with imparting advice through agencies like COPS, the federal government can encourage stronger police conduct with the grants it doles out. Already, the Obama administration is reviewing policies that let police departments acquire military equipment for free from the federal government. Congress is similarly looking at that issue. A report produced this year by the Brennan Center for Justice suggested at the administration should review all grant programs for police -- not just those which transfer military equipment or funding for military equipment.

Klinger said that relying primarily on reforms at the federal level can make the process unnecessarily political. Furthermore, he noted that there's no "one size fits all" approach to improving police forces' community relations.

"You cannot train a police officer in Bismarck, North Dakota... with the same tactics and procedures as I was trained with in South Central Los Angeles," he said.

Civil rights groups and others have called for other reforms at the local and state level. For example, Trevor Burrus, a research fellow at the libertarian Cato Institute, suggested that after an officer uses force, the adjudication process should be taken out of the hands of the police and their natural allies, like county prosecutors.

"Internal affairs doesn't really seem to work in most situations," he said.

While it's impossible to know how often officers are exonerated for using force, Burrus said his work tracking the issue leads him to believe that officers are let off the hook far too often. The Cato Institute runs the National Police Misconduct Reporting Project, which uses media reports to track alleged and confirmed cases of police misconduct. In 2010, the group found 1,575 reported allegations of excessive force.

"Power without accountability is always a problem," Burrus said.

Simmons agreed that police forces should be subject not just to internal reviews, but civilian oversight as well.

"We've got to get serious about what it means to be held accountable," he said.




"Black skin cannot be used as probable cause," Simmons said.... Reports out of Missouri, Rhode Island, New York and elsewhere suggest racial bias in policing is a widespread problem. It's a serious enough concern that the Justice Department in September launched a major, five-city probe into the issue.... Simmons and others have said that collecting such data would be a strong first step toward improving police conduct and police relations with the communities they serve. "It would help at least determine whether [racially-motivated] behavior exists," Simmons said.... His research into the issue, which has included interviewing hundreds of officers involved in shootings, shows that in "the vast majority of cases where officers have lawful cause to shoot, they hold fire." Still, he said, there are without doubt "lawful but awful" incidents -- where an officer may have been legally justified in using force but did so unnecessarily.... "What I can tell you from interviewing officers is... often times the training is not what it should be," Klinger said. Every state has some kind of licensing process for police officers that mandates certain levels of training, but Klinger said that it's up to the departments themselves to do more than the bare minimum and ensure their officers are ready to engage with their communities. He said that establishing a use-of-force database would be "hugely valuable" for improving those efforts.... Along with imparting advice through agencies like COPS, the federal government can encourage stronger police conduct with the grants it doles out. Already, the Obama administration is reviewing policies that let police departments acquire military equipment for free from the federal government. Congress is similarly looking at that issue.... Civil rights groups and others have called for other reforms at the local and state level. For example, Trevor Burrus, a research fellow at the libertarian Cato Institute, suggested that after an officer uses force, the adjudication process should be taken out of the hands of the police and their natural allies, like county prosecutors.... The Cato Institute runs the National Police Misconduct Reporting Project, which uses media reports to track alleged and confirmed cases of police misconduct. In 2010, the group found 1,575 reported allegations of excessive force. "Power without accountability is always a problem," Burrus said. Simmons agreed that police forces should be subject not just to internal reviews, but civilian oversight as well. "We've got to get serious about what it means to be held accountable," he said.

This article really gets down into some specific things which can and should be done to transform police/community relations on a nationwide level. Mentioned above is the need for local government to involve itself in policing issues. It is inexplicable to me that St. Louis's mayors since 1949 have all been Democrats and uet this situation exists there. I can only conclude that they are “Dixiecrats” rather than modern day Democrats. Hopefully we will see much work on this problem, from databases that track unnecessary violence in policing and biased interactions by the police and courts. It isn't just police, but courts and the citizenry as a whole. The retired police officer marching with the protesters at Ferguson was holding a sign that said “Police Try Love.” Amen!





Silicon Valley's Power Over The Free Press: Why It Matters – NPR
Elise Hu
November 24, 2014

A big shift happened in news and information over the past few years: The people who write news and information no longer control the distribution of it. Technology companies do.

Specifically it's Facebook and Twitter — the large social platforms created in Silicon Valley.

"We have reached a point of transition where news spaces are no longer owned by newsmakers," Emily Bell told an audience at the University of Oxford recently. Bell, who led the digital transition of The Guardian, is currently at the Tow Center for Digital Journalism at Columbia University. (Here's her Guardiancolumn version of the speech.)

Previously, Bell says, "the pioneers of journalism were also pioneers of communications technology." Today, the press no longer controls the platforms by which our stuff gets to audiences, she says. Instead, Bell says, they are controlled by private companies that are "unaccountable" to the public in the same way, since they're fundamentally accountable to commercial interests.

How We Got Here

News companies lost control of distribution because they weren't traditionally tech companies, staffed with engineers or thinking programmatically. Today, as even Domino's Pizza shows, every company must become a tech company if it wants to control its fate with customers.

Bell says:
"We lacked the institutional will or insight to move swiftly enough in the right directions and we were held back in transformation by large, legacy organizations and the revenues that came with them. And doing journalism is a hard, resource hungry business."

The software developer and "father of blogging," Dave Winer,puts a finer point on it:
"Journalism stood by while blogging took root. They covered it, but largely dismissed it. They ignored RSS. They ignored everything, including the threat to their art. I warned them many times, here on scripting.com, that they would regret letting the tech industry own their distribution system. But that's what happened. Without any resistance whatsoever. Journalism let tech move in and take over."

As Bell has chatted with me about before, it's very hard to run an innovation "lab" inside a "factory" which is turning out news every day. And as the Innovator's Dilemma has highlighted, it's exceedingly difficult for businesses to turn away from their main source of revenue right now to consider the revenue they'll need five or 10 years from now.

Here's The Danger

Social media platforms now edit and shape culture, even though they feel kind of allergic to having that responsibility. "Every time an algorithm is tweaked, an editorial decision is being made," Bell writes.

"As news organisations cease to print physical newspapers, as linear television struggles to survive the buffeting of on-demand services, as services become not just digital first but digital only, journalism and free expression become part of a commercial sphere where the activities of news and journalism are marginal. ... Their culture is as alien to reporting and editing as ours is to designing social software."

Algorithms and protocols that run social platforms affect discourse, and the engineers behind those protocols don't have to think about journalism or democratic responsibility in how news is created and disseminated.

A prime example of this is the first nights of the protests in Ferguson, Mo. If you were on Twitter, you saw an endless stream of protest photos and links. If you were on Facebook, you saw nearly nothing. All because engineers decide what news you see.

Bell writes:
"In a world where we navigate our daily lives through social platforms, just how this information reaches us, what is on a 'trending' list, how these algorithms work, becomes not just of marginal interest but a central democratic concern. Even the obscure issue of equal access to the internet, or 'net neutrality', can affect how we get our news and information."

So, Now What?

Journalism organizations should not be wholly reliant on technology companies, Bell says. The only way to be less reliant is to make more of their own technology; specifically, building tools and services that "put software in the service of journalism rather than the other way around," she says.

Journalists and editors should learn to make technology "learn programmatic thinking" and understand the world they operate in, Bell says. She argues that to preserve journalism's traditional role, "We must stop relying solely on the tools and platforms of others and build our own."

Winer, who wrote a response to Bell, adds that the open source tools out there are often ignored, but can be adopted and tooled for news purposes. "We have enough open formats and protocols to build a dozen news distribution systems with all kinds of algorithms," Winer says.

Bell adds that large news organizations (like NPR) that already make technology should extend these types of technologies as part of their core mission.

Finally, she says we ought to be better reporters. Technology is a system of power in it of itself. Journalists should hold it to account.

"Cover technology as a human rights and political issue as if it were Parliament. ... It is just as interesting and about ten thousand times more important," she says. "We have to stop coverage of technology being about queuing for an iPhone and make it about society and power. We need to explain these new systems of power to the world and hold them accountable."




“A big shift happened in news and information over the past few years: The people who write news and information no longer control the distribution of it. Technology companies do. Specifically it's Facebook and Twitter — the large social platforms created in Silicon Valley. "We have reached a point of transition where news spaces are no longer owned by newsmakers," Emily Bell told an audience at the University of Oxford recently. Bell, who led the digital transition of The Guardian, is currently at the Tow Center for Digital Journalism at Columbia University.... Today, the press no longer controls the platforms by which our stuff gets to audiences, she says. Instead, Bell says, they are controlled by private companies that are "unaccountable" to the public in the same way, since they're fundamentally accountable to commercial interests. How We Got Here – News companies lost control of distribution because they weren't traditionally tech companies, staffed with engineers or thinking programmatically.... "Journalism stood by while blogging took root. They covered it, but largely dismissed it. They ignored RSS. They ignored everything, including the threat to their art. I warned them many times, here on scripting.com, that they would regret letting the tech industry own their distribution system. But that's what happened. Without any resistance whatsoever. Journalism let tech move in and take over."... Algorithms and protocols that run social platforms affect discourse, and the engineers behind those protocols don't have to think about journalism or democratic responsibility in how news is created and disseminated.... Journalism organizations should not be wholly reliant on technology companies, Bell says. The only way to be less reliant is to make more of their own technology; specifically, building tools and services that "put software in the service of journalism rather than the other way around," she says. Journalists and editors should learn to make technology "learn programmatic thinking" and understand the world they operate in, Bell says. She argues that to preserve journalism's traditional role, "We must stop relying solely on the tools and platforms of others and build our own."

“Bell adds that large news organizations (like NPR) that already make technology should extend these types of technologies as part of their core mission. Finally, she says we ought to be better reporters. Technology is a system of power in and of itself. Journalists should hold it to account.” I now depend more on the Internet for my news than on television since I don't have cable TV and can't get CNN. This morning the Ferguson news on TV had stopped and I turned to NPR radio, where I got a good in-depth set of comments. Yesterday morning I couldn't pull up the NPR news website and I was briefly frightened. They are always threatening to go dark unless we give them more money. I understand that, and I sympathize, so I do give them money. They are our best source of news along with CBS and CNN in my opinion. They have lots of very unusual stories, and meaningful insights.

The whole issue of Net Neutrality that is still ongoing, as the FCC hasn't yet given in and made the decision to protect the little guys like me and you against AT&T and COMCAST, is not a dry and boring subject, but a political and legal matter. The threat that they could censor Internet content to the point that I wouldn't be able to keep a political news blog, and who knows, could possibly be arrested for what I say in another decade or so, is of real concern to me. I use the Internet daily, and if I dig around among the articles,trying various search words, I can answer almost any question I pose. I also have contact through my Google Plus account with quite a number of correspondents who send me news articles and photographs and interact in conversations which are only rarely abusive. Most of the people seem to be liberal Democrats. The “trolls” don't seem to be on my account very often. I would really hate to lose this little Internet community, and would be much more bored without it.