December 9, 2015


News Clips For The Day


http://www.cbsnews.com/news/donald-trump-endorsers-still-with-him-after-proposed-muslim-ban/

Donald Trump's endorsers still with him after proposed Muslim entry ban
By REBECCA KAPLAN CBS NEWS
December 9, 2015

Play VIDEO -- Crowd applauds Trump's proposal
Play VIDEO -- Is Donald Trump's Muslim proposal legal?



There's been plenty of outrage about Donald Trump's proposal to temporarily bar Muslims from entering the United States, but neither the comments nor the public backlash seem to have driven away most of the people who endorsed him.

The celebrities who have endorsed Trump, ranging from basketball's Dennis Rodman to Duck Dynasty reality show star Willie Robertson to actor Gary Busey, have not weighed in on the controversy in public or on Twitter.

Boxer Mike Tyson, who is Muslim, has also kept quiet. He has not responded either to Trump's plan or to his tweet Sunday casting doubt on President Obama's assertion there are Muslim sports heroes in the United States.

New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady has also said nothing publicly, although the website Deadspin is offering $100 to any reporter who is able to ask Brady about his allegiance to Trump (although Brady did walk back an offhanded September remark that he hoped Trump would become president).

Pro wrestler Hulk Hogan, who said in early September that he wants to be Trump's running mate, has also said nothing so far.

Predictably, though, Trump's white supremacist supporters are cheering, led by Andrew Anglin, who publishes a neo-Nazi website called Daily Stormer.

"Heil Donald Trump - THE ULTIMATE SAVIOR," Anglin wrote in a blog post entitled, "Glorious Leader Calls for Complete Ban on All Moslems."

"Why were these monkeys ever allowed in in [sic] the first place? What an insane, stupid concept," he wrote.

The Daily Stormer endorsed Trump in June. Anglin wrote at the time that he had "many disagreements" with Trump, but the businessman was "absolutely the only candidate who is even talking about anything at all that matters."

The neo-confederate group League of the South, which hasn't endorsed Trump but is sympathetic to his positions, suggested that he doesn't go far enough. Instead of the temporary ban espoused by Trump, the league, led by Michael Hill, calls for "the permanent banning of Muslims and all other Third World immigrants into the USA, and particularly into the South," he wrote on the website, in response to a CBS News query. He also said his organization wants "the immediate deportation of all Muslims and all other Third World immigrants from the USA, and particularly from the South."

What may seem more surprising is that Trump retains much of his support among state elected officials, as well.

"A temporary moratorium on this is something I totally agree with," New Hampshire State Rep. Fred Doucette, who is one of Trump's co-chairs in the state, told CBS News. "His heart's in the right place. He's worried about American safety and maybe that's what we should be talking about.

Instead, Doucette blames the media for misrepresenting Trump's proposal by saying he is banning all Muslims, including American citizens (Trump's proposal called for a "total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States," but he later amended the idea while talking to Fox News. People currently living in the U.S. and traveling abroad would be allowed to come home, he said).

"When I talk to the constituents, they understand after I spend a few minutes on the phone with them that it's getting misread. I totally support his position, I'm sure in the coming days it will be cleared up," he said.

Georgia State Sen. Michael Williams, who endorsed Trump in October, said that Trump supporters in his state "are behind" the idea.

"It's protecting our country from those that are trying to do us harm, and its not that we're trying to keep all Muslims out -- it's just that we want to keep those people who have come to hurt us," he told CBS News.

Williams said that not all Georgians support Trump's proposal, but he's not worried it will make it more difficult for Trump to attract supporters.

"As we look back this could be seen as the moment that Donald Trump stood out as the Republican presidential nominee," he said.

That's not to say there hasn't been any buyer's remorse. Khalaf al Habtoor, a businessman from the United Arab Emirates who wrote an article backing Trump in a Gulf newspaper over the summer, told NBC News he made an error in judgment.

"When he was talking about Muslims, attacking them....I had to admit I made a mistake in my supporting Mr. Trump," he said. "He is creating a hatred between Muslims and the United States of America."

And the son of a Muslim immigrant, New Hampshire real estate investor Adeel Tahir, said he was "100 percent Donald Trump" until his recent comments.

"I think it's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard in my life," Tahir told WMUR.

His concern is that he might not be able to re-enter the U.S. if he travels overseas to check on his family's properties.

"It's scary. We are American citizens here, we contribute to society, we employ people, we pay taxes here, and for someone to say you were born and raised in this country but you're not allowed here because you're Muslim -- it hurts," he said.




“Predictably, though, Trump's white supremacist supporters are cheering, led by Andrew Anglin, who publishes a neo-Nazi website called Daily Stormer. "Heil Donald Trump - THE ULTIMATE SAVIOR," Anglin wrote in a blog post entitled, "Glorious Leader Calls for Complete Ban on All Moslems." "Why were these monkeys ever allowed in in [sic] the first place? What an insane, stupid concept," he wrote. …. the league, led by Michael Hill, calls for "the permanent banning of Muslims and all other Third World immigrants into the USA, and particularly into the South," he wrote on the website, in response to a CBS News query. He also said his organization wants "the immediate deportation of all Muslims and all other Third World immigrants from the USA, and particularly from the South." What may seem more surprising is that Trump retains much of his support among state elected officials, as well. …. "It's scary. We are American citizens here, we contribute to society, we employ people, we pay taxes here, and for someone to say you were born and raised in this country but you're not allowed here because you're Muslim -- it hurts," he said.”


"When he was talking about Muslims, attacking them....I had to admit I made a mistake in my supporting Mr. Trump," he said. "He is creating a hatred between Muslims and the United States of America." That’s all we need, more Muslims hating us. How will that solve our problems with public safety? I don’t understand how any Muslim could support Trump, even if they are Republicans. He is not qualified due to his egotism, his scorn for the gentler views on human relations and human needs. A man who says so many really objectionable things is not suited to the task of representing this country at home or abroad. He also has virtually no real “platform” on which to run except for what amounts to an internal civil war. Who his supporters are tells it all. What scares me is the number of such people there are in our country, especially in the South and West.

It’s possible to be patriotic about our country without espousing a hatred of most or all immigrants from “Third World” countries. Keeping our nation, which protects minorities, whole without having it revert to a new Apartheid state, should be one of our main goals as we cope with those individuals who are jihadists. Yes, stop those individuals who are dangerous, but don’t foster abuse of any group. A number of Muslims in this country have stood up and spoken against jihadism, calling it “not Islam.” It is, let’s face it, religious fanaticism instead, and like all fanaticism it brings out the evil in mankind rather than the goodness. I pray that our country will be delivered from this transformation into a country like Hitler’s Germany or the Apartheid South Africa of not very many years ago.




http://www.cbsnews.com/news/laquan-mcdonald-shooting-chicago-police-jason-van-dyke-rahm-emanuel-apologize/

Embattled mayor speaks out on fatal police shooting
AP December 9, 2015

13 photos -- Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel listens to remarks at a news conference in Chicago, Illinois, Dec. 7, 2015. REUTERS/JIM YOUNG
Play VIDEO -- Video released of fatal taser by Chicago police
Play VIDEO -- Feds launch investigation into Chicago PD
Play VIDEO – Can Chicago police regain trust?
Play VIDEO -- Chicago's top cop dropped


CHICAGO -- Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel apologized for the 2014 shooting of a black teenager Wednesday during a special City Council meeting that he called to discuss a police abuse scandal at the center of the biggest crisis of his administration, and promised "complete and total" reform to restore trust in the police.

The crisis comes amid fallout over the release of a video showing white Officer Jason Van Dyke shooting 17-year-old Laquan McDonald, who appeared in the video to be walking away from Van Dyke. Van Dyke is charged with first-degree murder.

Emanuel addressed three main themes in his passionate speech: justice, culture and community. He also criticized the police department, which is being investigated by the U.S. Department of Justice, for being quick to shoot, saying the department's "supervision and leadership," as well as the oversight agencies, failed.

"I take responsibility for what happened because it happened on my watch. And if we're going to fix it I want you to understand it's my responsibility with you," Emanuel said. "But if we're also going to begin the healing process, the first step in that journey is my step.

"And I'm sorry."

The mayor also spoke of residents' mistrust of Chicago police, saying it's unacceptable that there are parents in Chicago who feel they must warn their children to be wary of officers.

"We have normalized gun violence," Emanuel said, noting the city's gang problem.

At least four different groups of protesters planned to converge on City Hall on Wednesday. A protester who was at City Hall before Emanuel's speech said the mayor must step aside.

"If he doesn't step down, there are going to be protests again and again," said Jim Rudd, a 25-year-old coffee shop worker. "And he's going to eventually lose the support of the City Council."

The McDonald footage - ordered to be released by a judge last month and made public hours after Van Dyke was charged - set off a chain of events that captured the attention of the country. Days of protests and marches followed, including one on the busiest shopping day of the year that partially shut down the city's most famous shopping district, Michigan Avenue.

A few days later, Emanuel announced that he had demanded and received the resignation of Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy, created a new task force for police accountability and expanded the use of body cameras.

But the anger did not subside, and every day there seemed to be another issue, including the release of hundreds of pages of documents that show police had described in their reports a far more threatening McDonald than the teen shown to the city and the world on video.

The situation became so volatile that Emanuel was forced to do something he rarely does: backtrack. After initially saying that a federal probe of the department would be "misguided" because the U.S. Attorney's Office was already examining the McDonald shooting, Emanuel later said he welcomed such an investigation.

On Monday, U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch announced a Justice Department civil rights investigation to determine if there are patterns of racial disparity in the police department's use of force.

Emanuel then said the city would stop fighting the release of a second video that showed a police officer shooting a man in the back. That video was released Monday during a presentation in which Cook County State's Attorney Anita Alvarez said she would not charge the officer.

Later that night, the city released yet another video showing an inmate being dragged out of his cell by his handcuffed wrists. While a police review board previously found the officers' actions justified, Emanuel said he did not see how the treatment of the man - who later died following a reaction to an antipsychotics drug - could "possibly be acceptable" and said he did not consider the investigation closed.




“Emanuel addressed three main themes in his passionate speech: justice, culture and community. He also criticized the police department, which is being investigated by the U.S. Department of Justice, for being quick to shoot, saying the department's "supervision and leadership," as well as the oversight agencies, failed. "I take responsibility for what happened because it happened on my watch. …. The mayor also spoke of residents' mistrust of Chicago police, saying it's unacceptable that there are parents in Chicago who feel they must warn their children to be wary of officers. "We have normalized gun violence," Emanuel said, noting the city's gang problem. …. "If he doesn't step down, there are going to be protests again and again," said Jim Rudd, a 25-year-old coffee shop worker. "And he's going to eventually lose the support of the City Council." …. On Monday, U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch announced a Justice Department civil rights investigation to determine if there are patterns of racial disparity in the police department's use of force.”


Police violence in general needs to be curbed, not merely those acts directed toward blacks and other minorities, though I have no doubt it is more severe in their cases. Such people are “throwaways” in our society in many ways and too often there is no real punishment for such rogue cops. Cops are not all corrupt and violent, however, so retaliations against them such as ambushes are absolutely no more just than are their crimes. We must have police officers or crime would totally overcome our ability to carry out a normal daily life.

We just need real supervision from the top and from their peers as well. In two incidents this year a fellow police officer stopped such an assault by simply telling the guy to put his gun down. Officers are not always comfortable with some of these crimes either. Group think can often be diminished or stopped totally by one individual speaking out against it. There’s a huge amount of group think among police. Recently here in Jacksonville there was a shooting incident and some 100 officers appeared within minutes on the spot. Officers should by all means have quick access to help from other officers, but a measured response is what is really needed. It seems to me that headquarters should dispatch enough selected officers to the spot to do the job of lending aid and not one of those open calls for all officers.





http://www.cbsnews.com/news/donald-trump-muslim-ban-remark-britain-uk-petition-banned-entry/

Donald Trump could be banned from entering the U.K.
By TUCKER REALS CBS NEWS
December 9, 2015

Photograph -- Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks at a campaign rally in Waterville Valley, New Hampshire, Dec. 1, 2015. REUTERS
Play VIDEO -- Donald Trump stands by Muslim ban despite backlash
Play VIDEO -- Donald Trump doubles down on Muslim ban remarks


LONDON -- An official online petition calling for the government of the United Kingdom to ban Donald Trump from entering the country over his "unacceptable behavior" was still gaining signatures fast Wednesday after crossing the 100,000 threshold forcing leaders to consider it.

The petition, created on a government web portal, had more than 130,000 signatures by 8 a.m. Eastern. That number had doubled in less than 12 hours.


Britain's Home Office does have the power to unilaterally ban foreign nationals from entry, and it has done so in the past.

Other Americans who have already found themselves persona non-grata in the U.K. include Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, Florida pastor and "Burn a Quran day" instigator Terry Jones, various leaders of white supremacy groups and the Westboro Baptist Church... the list goes on.

"The UK has banned entry to many individuals for hate speech," the petition's author, a Scottish woman who has been a vocal critic of Trump since he started building golf courses in the country, says on the online form.

"If the United Kingdom is to continue applying the 'unacceptable behavior' criteria to those who wish to enter its borders, it must be fairly applied to the rich as well as poor, and the weak as well as powerful," wrote petition author Suzanne Kelly.

Regardless of the number of Britons that eventually sign the petition, the decision on whether to ban Trump, or any other individual, is made by the Foreign Office.

Teresa May, the U.K. government minister in charge of the Home Office, said Wednesday that she believed it was important for politicians around the world to work for "cohesion among communities rather than division," but she would not say directly whether she would consider banning Trump.

The petition, having gained more than 100,000 supporters, will however force Britain's Parliament to at least consider the move in open debate.

Already there has been significant backlash against Trump's remarks about Muslims from British politicians.

Prime Minister David Cameron said through a spokesperson that he considered Trump's suggestion that the U.S. should ban Muslims from entering the country "divisive, unhelpful and quite simply wrong."

In defending his stance, Trump sought to highlight the danger of Muslim extremists in the West by pointing to London as a place where, he said, even the police were afraid to enter certain majority-Muslim neighborhoods.

The outspoken and often controversial Conservative mayor of London, Boris Johnson, was quick to dismiss Trump's assertion as inaccurate, at best.

"I think he's portraying a quite stupefying ignorance that makes him frankly unfit to hold the office of president," Johnson told Britain's Channel 4 News.

Even London's Metropolitan Police Department, which rarely steps into political matters, issued a statement saying it "would not normally dignify such comments with a response, however on this occasion we think it's important to state to Londoners that Mr Trump could not be more wrong."




“Other Americans who have already found themselves persona non-grata in the U.K. include Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, Florida pastor and "Burn a Quran day" instigator Terry Jones, various leaders of white supremacy groups and the Westboro Baptist Church... the list goes on. …. "If the United Kingdom is to continue applying the 'unacceptable behavior' criteria to those who wish to enter its borders, it must be fairly applied to the rich as well as poor, and the weak as well as powerful," wrote petition author Suzanne Kelly. Regardless of the number of Britons that eventually sign the petition, the decision on whether to ban Trump, or any other individual, is made by the Foreign Office. ….


Trump will hopefully become aware that there really is something wrong with his outlandish and several times obscene comments. Of course he has denied them afterwards, or said they meant something harmless. This story sounds a little like people in the UK are “straining at a gnat and swallowing a camel,” but I do remember the US banning the excellent singer-song writer Cat Stevens famous for Moonshadow and other great hits from entering the US.

See the news article below on that subject. It happened under George W. Bush in 2004. His smooth tenor voice takes me back in time. He was born Steven Demetre Georgiou and joined the Islamic religion, changing his name to Yusuf Islam. He made comments advocating Salman Rushdie’s death in 1989 for his satirical writings against modern day Islam, The Satanic Verses. This article is recommended reading: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/cat-why-was-i-banned-from-us/.

“Yusaf Islam, center, formerly known as the rock star Cat Stevens arrives at London's Heathrow airport after being refused entry to America Thursday, Sept. 23, 2004. U.S. officials, who had ordered Islam taken off a London-to-Washington flight on Tuesday, said he was on a security watch list because of suspicions that he was associated with potential terrorists. "I'm totally shocked," Islam told a swarm of reporters as he came through the arrivals area at Heathrow airport. AP” The US was still jumpy at that time about terrorist supporters. I think he was not a donor to terrorist causes, but a young man who spoke too soon and without thought about Rushdie. Yusuf has been removed from the No Fly List as of 2006, however, according to this article: http://littlegreenfootballs.com/article/23379_Yusuf_Islam_is_Allowed_Entry_to_US of 2006, which says that he has been allowed into the US to support a new album of his.




http://www.cbsnews.com/news/angela-merkel-time-person-of-the-year-2015-donald-trump-black-lives-matter-finalists/

Angela Merkel named Time's Person of the Year for 2015
CBS/AP
December 9, 2015

SEE ALSO: http://time.com/4137173/bernie-sanders-time-person-of-the-year-poll-win/, about the On Line poll which was won by Sanders.


NEW YORK -- German Chancellor Angela Merkel has been named Time's Person of the Year, praised Wednesday by the magazine for her leadership on everything from Syrian refugees to the Greek debt crisis.

Time also cited Merkel's strong response to "Vladimir Putin's creeping theft of Ukraine" and on its cover called her "Chancellor of the Free World."

"Not once or twice but three times there has been reason to wonder this year whether Europe could continue to exist, not culturally or geographically but as a historic experiment in ambitious statecraft," Time editor Nancy Gibbs wrote. "You can agree with her or not, but she is not taking the easy road. Leaders are tested only when people don't want to follow. For asking more of her country than most politicians would dare, for standing firm against tyranny as well as expedience and for providing steadfast moral leadership in a world where it is in short supply, Angela Merkel is TIME's Person of the Year."

Merkel, 61, is just the fourth woman since 1927 to be chosen and the first since opposition leader Corazon C. Aquino of the Philippines in 1986. She is the first German since Willy Brandt, the West German chancellor named in 1970 for "seeking to bring about a fresh relationship between East and West" during the Cold War. In 1999, Time picked the German-born Albert Einstein as Person of the Century.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel speaks with President Obama outside the Elmau castle in Kruen near Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany, June 8, 2015, at a summit of the leaders of the Group of Seven (G7) industrial nations.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel speaks with President Obama outside the Elmau castle in Kruen near Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany, June 8, 2015, at a summit of the leaders of the Group of Seven (G7) industrial nations. REUTERS/MICHAEL KAPPELER
Wednesday's news came in as Merkel's spokesman Steffen Seibert was leading a government press conference in the German capital, while Merkel herself was at an event in Leipzig. When asked about it by The Associated Press, Seibert said he had only just received word on his phone himself.

"I'm sure the chancellor will regard this as an encouragement for her political work, for a good future for Germany as well as for Europe," Seibert said.

The other finalists included Donald Trump, who for months has topped Republican polls for the 2016 U.S. presidential election and dominated headlines.

On Twitter, Trump responded to Time's announcement and said that Merkel was "ruining Germany."


The other candidates for 2015 were Caitlyn Jenner, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, the Black Lives Matter protest movement, ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and Uber CEO Travis Kalanick.



"You can agree with her or not, but she is not taking the easy road. Leaders are tested only when people don't want to follow. For asking more of her country than most politicians would dare, for standing firm against tyranny as well as expedience and for providing steadfast moral leadership in a world where it is in short supply, Angela Merkel is TIME's Person of the Year." This is a very interesting statement to me, one which I have never heard before. I think of a good leader as being, educated, adept at getting along with people well enough to work together, intelligent, urbane, benign but not weak, and one who not only has a “vision,” but who is not afraid to fight for it. Of our presidents I would include Ronald Reagan – without agreeing with him – John Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson on some occasions but not others, Eisenhower, and last but not least Bill Clinton. Obama has all those qualities, but some consider him weak and I consider him somewhat passive, which is different. I think he has shown great strength against the unending opposition of the Republicans of all stripes, and by means of Executive Orders has done a considerable amount. I like him a great deal as a leader, perhaps of the type that this article describes: “she is not taking the easy road. Leaders are tested only when people don't want to follow. For asking more of her country than most politicians would dare, for standing firm against tyranny as well as expedience and for providing steadfast moral leadership in a world where it is in short supply….”



http://www.cbsnews.com/news/kim-segal-life-as-a-public-defender-21/

Life as a Public Defender
By KIM SEGAL
December 9, 2015

Photograph -- jail-generic.jpg, CBS DFW
Photograph – portrait photo


BROWARD COUNTY, Fla. -- "Make America great again" -- that's the campaign slogan for presidential hopeful Donald Trump. I agree we need to make America great again. I just question how we achieve that goal if we don't start changing the way we treat our citizens, our fellow Americans.

I have been a public defender for a year, and not a day has gone by where I am not shocked about how poor and black Americans are treated by a system that cares more about criminal convictions than about our Constitution.

We throw more people behind bars per capita than any other country in the world. There are 2.2 million Americans incarcerated and according to The Sentencing Project that's a 500% increase over the past thirty years.

This week I will be wasting taxpayers' time and money by trying a trespass case, which in Florida is punishable by up to 60 days in jail. My client was in a Home Depot parking lot hoping to find work when a police officer told him to leave. He left but not before he was charged with a crime. At deposition the officer didn't notice anything different about my client, like the fact that he is hearing impaired. This disability made no difference in the state's decision to pursue this charge.

The alleged trespasser in this case is the same race and gender as most of my clients -- a black male. Not a surprise since 1 in every 3 black males is likely to be imprisoned at some point in his life. The odds of imprisonment for white males are 1 in 17. It would be easy to dismiss these statistics with the thought that blacks commit more crimes than whites, but I have yet to meet a white person who has been stopped by a cop for riding a bicycle without a light, or charged with loitering and prowling for walking in a residential neighborhood at a late hour.

Stops like these usually turn into searches that result in drug charges. Drug offenses are the main reason for the racial disparity in our prisons and jails. While statistics show that Americans of all colors use drugs at roughly the same rate, the rates of those incarcerated aren't comparable. Two-thirds of prisoners incarcerated on drug charges are, you guessed it, black. The "War on Drugs" has created this disparity. Let's revisit this policy and redirect the tens of thousands of dollars we spend per inmate on policies and programs that can make America great again.

There's been a lot of talk about a border wall to make America great again, but how about putting some focus on all those walls that have already been built across our country? I am referring to those massive prison walls, topped with barbed wire and turrets with armed guards that keep the bad Americans in but can't seem to keep the bad stuff out.

My clients have told me stories about physical abuse, rape and the ready availability of drugs. "There is stuff (drugs) to smoke here," my friend John writes to me, "but I don't do any of that so that's a big step for me." John is incarcerated on a drug offense. He had been fighting addiction before going to prison and now he has to worry about a relapse while behind bars. As a child John's mother was murdered in front of him and he used drugs to mask the pain. If we want to make America great again we need to talk about walls and creating a safe environment for our citizens behind the ones we have already built.

It's hard not to rally behind the make America great again slogan but putting it into practice will be the challenge. I think we should make America great again by caring about the plight of all Americans regardless of class or race. The document that established our national government may be a good place to start. Let's make America great again by changing our culture to one where the United States Constitution is more important than criminal convictions.

The high profile trials of Manuel Noriega, Timothy McVeigh, OJ Simpson and George Zimmerman are among the important legal stories Kim Segal covered as a journalist for over two decades. While working as a producer for CNN, she began attending law school at night, and was admitted to the Florida Bar in 2005.

At 46, she left her television career for a position as a Public Defender in Broward County, Florida.

Follow Kim Segal on Twitter



“I agree we need to make America great again. I just question how we achieve that goal if we don't start changing the way we treat our citizens, our fellow Americans. I have been a public defender for a year, and not a day has gone by where I am not shocked about how poor and black Americans are treated by a system that cares more about criminal convictions than about our Constitution. …. There are 2.2 million Americans incarcerated and according to The Sentencing Project that's a 500% increase over the past thirty years. …. . My client was in a Home Depot parking lot hoping to find work when a police officer told him to leave. He left but not before he was charged with a crime. At deposition the officer didn't notice anything different about my client, like the fact that he is hearing impaired. …. 1 in every 3 black males is likely to be imprisoned at some point in his life. The odds of imprisonment for white males are 1 in 17. It would be easy to dismiss these statistics with the thought that blacks commit more crimes than whites, but I have yet to meet a white person who has been stopped by a cop for riding a bicycle without a light, or charged with loitering and prowling for walking in a residential neighborhood at a late hour. …. Two-thirds of prisoners incarcerated on drug charges are, you guessed it, black. The "War on Drugs" has created this disparity. Let's revisit this policy and redirect the tens of thousands of dollars we spend per inmate on policies and programs that can make America great again. …. I think we should make America great again by caring about the plight of all Americans regardless of class or race. …. While working as a producer for CNN, she began attending law school at night, and was admitted to the Florida Bar in 2005. At 46, she left her television career for a position as a Public Defender in Broward County, Florida.”


This lady is a hero of sorts. I really am impressed by people who give up a lucrative career to become a defense attorney out of love for justice. Her points that class and race are getting in the way of administering real justice, that the War on Drugs emphasizes the crime of possession of marijuana over the need for such users to get help in a treatment center. This article states the shocking statistic that we have had a 500% increase in incarcerations, usually over drugs. The ratio of 1 in 3 for black men and 1 in 17 for white men is also very disturbing. Even 1 in 17 is a lot of arrests, however, and when you consider that many arrests and tickets are for something that is very minor it really makes me angry. Law enforcement needs to be liberalized and in too many cases the courts and city halls are behind the ridiculous arrests. A tiny hamlet in Florida called Waldo was a well-known “speed trap,” but what came out in their investigation was that the town was raking in the traffic fines as a way of making money. That really is disgusting, and it isn’t uncommon, either. See the very interesting article below about Waldo.


http://www.cbsnews.com/news/florida-town-infamous-for-speed-traps-disbanding-police-force/

Florida town infamous for speed traps disbanding police force
CBS/AP
October 1, 2014

Photograph -- Last year, Waldo, Florida's seven police officers wrote nearly 12,000 tickets. CBS News
Play VIDEO -- Florida town's notorious speed traps under investigation
Speed traps: America's 10 most ticketed cars


WALDO, Fla. -- The City Council of a tiny north Florida town known as one of the nation's worst speed traps has voted to disband its small police force.

The Waldo City Council on Tuesday voted 4-1 to eliminate the department just weeks after the chief and interim chief resigned because of state investigations into many issues, including an illegal ticket quota.

City Manage Kim Worley told the Gainesville Sun that a Florida Department of Law Enforcement audit found many expensive computer and facilities fixes were needed, a cost the small town cannot afford.

The move follows a revolt by five Waldo officers, who said that they were forced to meet an illegal ticket quota and that evidence was being stored improperly by the department's interim chief.

As CBS News reported last month, Waldo's seven police officers wrote nearly 12,000 speeding tickets last year, collecting more than $400,000 in fines - a third of the town's revenue.

The town had six different speed limits in just a couple of miles. Drivers enter the city at 65 miles per hour. It then drops to 55, 45 and then 35.

Asked if the situation "rings well" with him, Gordon Smith, the sheriff in neighboring Bradford County, said: "It doesn't because you're creating this cash cow. Where there's cash register justice."

Smith was put in charge of the police department in Hampton, just nine miles down State Highway 301, after the city's police department was disbanded this year. Several town officials are suspected of stealing some of the money raised by fines.

"That's legalized robbery," Smith said. "And we shouldn't be doing that."



“The move follows a revolt by five Waldo officers, who said that they were forced to meet an illegal ticket quota and that evidence was being stored improperly by the department's interim chief. As CBS News reported last month, Waldo's seven police officers wrote nearly 12,000 speeding tickets last year, collecting more than $400,000 in fines - a third of the town's revenue. …. Smith was put in charge of the police department in Hampton, just nine miles down State Highway 301, after the city's police department was disbanded this year. Several town officials are suspected of stealing some of the money raised by fines.”


Everybody needs money, and where there are no real jobs for honest people and lots of often exaggerated “respect” for the police there is fertile ground for corruption. They can and sometimes do commit crimes and get away with it. All those mystery stories about small towns where a law enforcement officer persecutes or attacks a stranger who happens through are not entirely without basis, though of course most folks in those small towns really are nice people of good character. For example look at the original movie with Rod Steiger called “In The Heat Of The Night.” It’s a great one!

I don’t believe in secrecy as a policy, and a lack of oversight by some body of people who are higher up the ladder. Police departments without an effective city government to control and keep them running as they should, are truly dangerous. They carry guns and have the almost unlimited right to use them, within their jurisdiction that is. Of course when the FL state authorities began to look at Waldo and Hampton “the jig was up.”





http://news.yahoo.com/unspoken-option-climate-talks-fail-072902746.html

An unspoken option if climate talks fail: Geoengineering
By SETH BORENSTEIN
December 5, 2015

Related Stories --
Matter of degree: Temperature goal an issue in climate talks Associated Press
Monday's Morning Email: Inside the Paris Climate Talks Huffington Post
Give Kids a Voice at Climate Talks Huffington Post
Why Banks Need To Be More Upfront About Climate Risk Huffington Post


PARIS (AP) — It's the option climate negotiators here are loath to talk about.

What if they fail to curb global warming and the environment gets so dangerous that someone decides to do something drastic and play mad scientist? Should nations purposely pollute the planet to try to counteract man-made warming and cool the world? Scientists are pretty sure they can do it, but should they?

The issue is called geoengineering — purposely tinkering with the planet as opposed to the unintentional warming that's happening now. The most talked about and advanced method involves putting heat-reflecting particles high in the air, but there also have been proposals to seed clouds other ways, put mirrors in space and seed the oceans with iron.

Scientists noticed a temporary but pronounced cooling after the 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines. What's in mind would be, essentially, an artificial and constant man-made volcano with material released by aircraft or cannons.

No one is talking about doing it — yet. But some scientists want to study it to find about side effects and other issues. And earlier this year, the U.S. National Academy of Sciences said small-scale and controlled experiments could be helpful to inform future decisions.

Even geoengineering's most ardent research supporters aren't proposing it instead of cutting back heat-trapping emissions from burning fossil fuels. But they say someday it may be needed. However, it doesn't solve all climate change problems, just the temperature part.

Stanford University climate scientist Ken Caldeira isn't advocating seeding clouds with sulfur particles any time soon, but he does fear a failure in climate talks and believes that at some point in the future, drastic options will look more palatable. He thinks scientists need to prepare now.

"I think of it as kind of symptomatic relief," Caldeira said in an interview on the sidelines of the U.N.-led Paris talks. "I'm thinking like morphine for the cancer patient."

But others inside the negotiations shudder at even talking about the issue.

"The emissions and the climate change that we're causing with that is already a massive experiment on our world that we don't really know the outcome of," said U.N. Assistant Secretary-General Janos Pasztor. "So I don't think we should start another set of experiments and go into geoengineering. I think we should get our act together and reduce our emissions."

Joe Ware, a spokesman for the faith group Christian Aid, was even more blunt.

"It's probably playing God a bit too much for the faith community," Ware said Friday. He said the world needs more wind farms and solar power instead.

Harvard scientist David Keith has been working on plans to test what he calls solar geoengineering in the atmosphere at a very small scale. Year one would involve balloons putting small amounts of sulfate in the air and tracking changes and side effects. Although he has received interest from private individuals, he has been unable to get the federal government to pay attention, he said.

"You can't uninvent this technology," Keith said. "The next generation of our kids will make decisions about this as we deal with climate risk, whatever we do. If we decide not to have a research program, we give them the gift of ignorance."

One problem, Keith and others said, is that there are no rules, nationally or internationally, that tell people what they can or cannot do. Pasztor said there are no plans for any international bans of the idea.

Marcia McNutt, the former U.S. Geological Survey chief who was tapped to be the next head of the National Academy of Sciences, led an academy panel that looked at the issue and recommended very cautious and small-scale research.

She said that someday a nation in crisis, such as in a long-term devastating drought, might feel the need to do something. But, she asked, what if it hurts other nations?

Jeffrey Sachs, director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University, said there's "just a plethora of dangerous and unsolved problems that makes (geoengineering) very, very unattractive."

Putting sulfates in the world is a "tremendously bad idea," and is a huge gamble for the world, Sachs said.

Dana Fisher, director of the University of Maryland's Program for Society and the Environment, said "geoengineering seems very American to me." That's because it's an option that doesn't seem to involve sacrifice or change and takes advantage of technology.

"Technology makes us happy and sets us free," Fisher said. "But there are unintended consequences."



“What if they fail to curb global warming and the environment gets so dangerous that someone decides to do something drastic and play mad scientist? Should nations purposely pollute the planet to try to counteract man-made warming and cool the world? Scientists are pretty sure they can do it, but should they? …. The most talked about and advanced method involves putting heat-reflecting particles high in the air, but there also have been proposals to seed clouds other ways, put mirrors in space and seed the oceans with iron. Scientists noticed a temporary but pronounced cooling after the 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines. …. Even geoengineering's most ardent research supporters aren't proposing it instead of cutting back heat-trapping emissions from burning fossil fuels. But they say someday it may be needed. However, it doesn't solve all climate change problems, just the temperature part. …. "The emissions and the climate change that we're causing with that is already a massive experiment on our world that we don't really know the outcome of," said U.N. Assistant Secretary-General Janos Pasztor. "So I don't think we should start another set of experiments and go into geoengineering. I think we should get our act together and reduce our emissions." …. Joe Ware, a spokesman for the faith group Christian Aid, was even more blunt. "It's probably playing God a bit too much for the faith community," Ware said Friday. He said the world needs more wind farms and solar power instead. …. If we decide not to have a research program, we give them the gift of ignorance." One problem, Keith and others said, is that there are no rules, nationally or internationally, that tell people what they can or cannot do. Pasztor said there are no plans for any international bans of the idea. …. … said "geoengineering seems very American to me." That's because it's an option that doesn't seem to involve sacrifice or change and takes advantage of technology. "Technology makes us happy and sets us free," Fisher said. "But there are unintended consequences."


“Jeffrey Sachs, director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University, said there's "just a plethora of dangerous and unsolved problems that makes (geoengineering) very, very unattractive." Putting sulfates in the world is a "tremendously bad idea," and is a huge gamble for the world, Sachs said.” Anybody who wants to jump right into this experiment, which may not work anyway, and which could have a rebound effect such as unbreathable air or a cripplingly cold climate change rather than the little bit of cooling which is desired, should read and watch more science fiction. They also should be forced to look honestly at the ongoing threat of nuclear disaster which simply would not be a permanent part of our reality on this earth, if we had never invented the atomic bomb in the first place. When the first work was done on radiation the scientists and governments could have agreed not to create a bomb, and to use it for energy only, even though that is not without risk either. Three Mile Island and the recent case in Japan are evidence of the problem.




http://news.yahoo.com/five-ways-us-reduce-mass-shootings-133524659.html

Five ways the US can reduce mass shootings
The Christian Science Monitor
By Patrik Jonsson
December 5, 2015

Photograph -- San Bernardino County Sheriff John McMahon talks to reporters during a news conference


It's not impossible to reduce mass shootings like the one in San Bernardino, experts say. The US has been able to eliminate or dramatically reduce other forms of violence.

Afraid. Helpless. Numb.

According to news reports, those are some feelings shared by Americans after a wave of disturbing mass shootings, including the one Wednesday in San Bernardino, Calif., where 14 people were killed and 21 others wounded in a hail of bullets.

By unofficial counts the 355th mass shooting in 2015, the mayhem in Southern California was preceded hours earlier by a mass shooting in Savannah, Ga. Before that, the list goes on: Roseburg, Colorado City, Isla Vista, Chattanooga, Charleston, Phoenix, Aurora, Newtown.

Recommended: How much do you know about the Second Amendment? A quiz.

This is how the news makes Tampa, Fla., resident Wendy Malloy feel: “It is a constant, grinding anxiety. And it gets louder every day,” she told The New York Times.

The US is dealing with what appears to some experts to be an increasingly greater willingness by disturbed or ideologically motivated individuals to lash out at perceived injustices by meting out maximum damage to strangers.

In the past four years, the pace of such attacks has accelerated, by some measures. According to a Harvard University study based on a database compiled by Mother Jones magazine, what used to be an average of 200 days between mass shooting deaths in the US has dropped to just over 60 since 2011.

To address the roots of this trend in a substantive way, experts say, will require shifts in attitude and political thought.

While it often is left out of political rhetoric, America has seen dramatic successes in quelling violent crime in the past century – from the elimination of lynchings to decreases in domestic violence and child abuse, from declines in cop shootings and gun homicides, which have dropped 49 percent since a peak in 1993, according to Pew. Considering progress made in reducing other forms of violence, Americans and their institutions aren’t quite as powerless as it may sometimes seem to, if not eliminate, dramatically curb what’s become a numbing kind of new normal.

At the same time, it’s clear that any broad-based attempt to address mass shootings as a societal ill will have to involve several factors. Chief among them is compromise among political partisans and a greater willingness to accept advances in science, forensics, mental health screening, and gun safety features.

“The choice between the blood-soaked status quo and the politically impossible is a false one,” Evan DeFilippis and Devin Huges, the founders of Armed With Reason, wrote recently in The Washington Post.

Experts see five areas in which progress could be made in reducing mass shootings:

1) THREAT ASSESSMENT

In a nondescript FBI building near Washington, D.C., sits Behavioral Unit No. 2, a federal threat assessment laboratory that disseminates its strategies to pinpoint potential havoc-makers to local police departments. Its mission to spot potential domestic mass shooters was added onto the FBI's profiling wing in 2010, as an outgrowth of counter-terror activities going back to 9/11. Many of its interventions don't involve arrest, but rather helping someone get help to address mental health issues.

It is not a perfect system. Santa Barbara police supposedly versed in threat assessment visited Elliot Rodger on a so-called welfare, or check-up, call from his mother. Everything seemed fine to the officers, but they failed to ascertain whether he had recently purchased a gun, a standard question that threat assessment professionals say can be crucial in stopping a shooter in the planning stages. A few days later, Mr. Rodger killed six people during a campus rampage in Isla Vista.

But despite such failures, the American government, as well as states, already has investigators combing leads for any common thread of danger. It’s a strategy in its infancy, but proponents say the tactics, which when used correctly don’t violate individual constitutional rights, can be further shifted from terrorism to mass shootings.

Unit No. 2 has been involved in at least 500 interventions that might have ended in mass shootings. “Threat assessment has been America's best and perhaps only response to the accelerating epidemic of active shooters and mass shootings,” Tom Junod reported for Esquire last year.

2) COMMON SENSE GUN CONTROLS

No, the science is not settled on whether stronger gun control laws actually quell mass gun violence. In the case of San Bernardino, the weapons were bought legally. Also, California already has some of the strongest gun control laws in the country.

But “there’s such a clear middle ground” in the gun control debate “because you can stem gun violence without taking away guns,” says Jonathan Metzl, director of the Center for Medicine, Health and Society, at Vanderbilt University, in Nashville, Tenn.

Experts would like to see more of that middle ground employed.

The 2009 Heller decision by the US Supreme Court did guarantee the right of Americans to have access to firearms for personal protection, but left municipalities and states with room to regulate weaponry among the citizenry. And some of those legal checks on gun ownership have proven effective in saving lives.

When Connecticut enacted a law in 1995 that required that people purchase a permit before purchasing a gun, studies found a 40 percent reduction in the state’s homicide rate.

When Missouri in 2007 repealed a similar permit-to-purchase law, the state saw a 16 percent increase in suicides with a gun.

3) CITIZEN DEFENDERS

In terms of compromise, if gun owners cede new checks on gun ownership, then gun control proponents may have to concede points of their own, specifically that lawful gun-carry by responsible Americans can have a role in deterring, or in certain cases, stopping mass killers once an attack has begun.

One of the victims in the San Bernardino attack told CNN on Thursday that he wished he had been armed as he hunkered in a bathroom with bullets whizzing through the wall.

It is, without question, a controversial proposition. Sheriffs in Arizona and New York have called for concealed carry permit holders and retired police officers to carry their weapons with them to rebuff any attack. But other law enforcement officers have said they oppose having untrained bystanders step in to active shooter situations, possibly resulting in more loss of innocent life.

While rare, there have been cases, often involving off-duty police officers, where someone has been able to successfully intervene.

In 2007, an off-duty police officer having an early Valentine’s Day dinner with his wife shot and killed an 18-year-old gunman at an Ogden, Utah, mall, stopping a rampage where five people died. “There is no question that his quick actions saved the lives of numerous other people,” then-police chief Chris Burbank said at the time.

In 2010, another off-duty police officer drew his personal weapon and fired when a man attacked an AT&T store in New York Mills, N.Y. The attacker was killed before he could carry out a plan to murder several employees at the store.

And in 2012, a young shooter killed two people and wounded three others during a rampage at Clackamas Town Center before a man carrying a lawful personal weapon drew it and pointed it at the man. At that point, the assailant retreated, and then killed himself in a stairway.

Many Americans don’t like how widespread gun-carry has become in recent years.

But it’s already a fact of life, and one that, some law enforcement experts believe can be corralled into a potential bulwark the next time someone decides to go on a shooting spree.

4) THE SCIENCE OF VIOLENCE

Why is America, one of the bastions of scientific breakthroughs on the globe, so hesitant to better understand the fundamental dynamics of how guns, if at all, promote violence?

Partisan politics is the obvious answer to why Congress has for 20 years blocked the Centers for Disease Control from using public funds to study gun violence, worried that the data will be used for gun control advocacy. But even deeper is a long-running distrust between the NRA and gun control advocates about each other’s true intentions.

One symptom of the lack of systematic study is that there is currently no common standard for tracking mass shootings. Most news reports this week, including this one, have cited crowdsourced data from two online tracking sites that rely on news reports, in conjunction with studies such as the Harvard one and an FBI report on “active shooter” situation

The NRA rebuffs even the most minor check on guns on the idea that it’s part of a disarmament end game rather than an effort to save lives. The other side reflexively paints the gun lobby as a puppet for culpable weapons manufacturers, indeed as co-conspirators to violence, rather than as a politically active firearms safety organization.

That means any movement on research funding will require both sides to ease up their rhetoric and open their eyes to the emerging facts.

For example, one key question is whether laws that make it easier to carry guns reduce crime or increase it. Studies have found trends, but causation has remained elusive.

"Fundamental questions of whether you are safer carrying a gun around with you or not have not been answered adequately,” Daniel Webster, the director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research in Baltimore, told the Post recently.

After all, applying scientific research to other societal dangers has had dramatic impacts on human safety.

As highway death tolls rose in the US decades ago, studies of car crashes showed that younger people were particularly prone to serious accidents. In response, states raised standards for younger adults, improved car safety, and saved thousands, if not millions, of lives.

“We learned that you could design cars to be safe … [and] we could do the same with guns and save some lives,” said Mr. Webster at Johns Hopkins. Having deeper knowledge “opens you up to having fuller understanding of the problem and what you can do to solve it.”

5) CELEBRATE VICTIMS, SHUN SHOOTERS

A free, vigorous press is enshrined in the Constitution as one of the highlights of American democracy. Yet studies have shown that current coverage of mass shootings likely fuel what experts call a “contagion effect,” given that many modern mass shooters emulate their “heroes” and yearned for their own infamy.

There are strategies that responsible media enterprises can employ without abandoning their fact-finding missions, says Ron Astor, a professor of social work at the University of Southern California.

“I’m like everybody else, I want to know who the person is, who his wife was, why they did it – that’s human nature,” he says. “But focusing intently on victims and what was lost here in a meaningless and random way … sends a really clear message that the sanctity of human life is so high that it’s unacceptable to shoot somebody as a way to send a message. Yes, it’s a news story that needs to include important information, but talking about the lives that were destroyed, what good they did, why that was taken away from us for no reason, that’s important, and will change how we think and how we feel.”

After decades of inactivity, the US Supreme Court in 2008 began a major reexamination of the scope of the right to keep and bear arms, an issue that has long ignited passionate debate and prompted powerful political lobbying. How well do you understand this constitutional evolution? Take our quiz to test your knowledge.


http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Justice/2011/1104/How-much-do-you-know-about-the-Second-Amendment-A-quiz/Topic-of-Second-Amendment#

How much do you know about the Second Amendment? A quiz.
The Christian Science Monitor
By Warren Richey
NOVEMBER 4, 2011

This is a very interesting quiz. I suggest you take it. I learned how much I didn’t know about constitutional gun issues.




“To address the roots of this trend in a substantive way, experts say, will require shifts in attitude and political thought. …. Considering progress made in reducing other forms of violence, Americans and their institutions aren’t quite as powerless as it may sometimes seem to, if not eliminate, dramatically curb what’s become a numbing kind of new normal.” …. Chief among them is compromise among political partisans and a greater willingness to accept advances in science, forensics, mental health screening, and gun safety features. …. Its mission to spot potential domestic mass shooters was added onto the FBI's profiling wing in 2010, as an outgrowth of counter-terror activities going back to 9/11. Many of its interventions don't involve arrest, but rather helping someone get help to address mental health issues. …. Unit No. 2 has been involved in at least 500 interventions that might have ended in mass shootings. …. When Connecticut enacted a law in 1995 that required that people purchase a permit before purchasing a gun, studies found a 40 percent reduction in the state’s homicide rate. …. Partisan politics is the obvious answer to why Congress has for 20 years blocked the Centers for Disease Control from using public funds to study gun violence, worried that the data will be used for gun control advocacy. But even deeper is a long-running distrust between the NRA and gun control advocates about each other’s true intentions. …. That means any movement on research funding will require both sides to ease up their rhetoric and open their eyes to the emerging facts. …. One symptom of the lack of systematic study is that there is currently no common standard for tracking mass shootings. …. For example, one key question is whether laws that make it easier to carry guns reduce crime or increase it. Studies have found trends, but causation has remained elusive. …. “But focusing intently on victims and what was lost here in a meaningless and random way … sends a really clear message that the sanctity of human life is so high that it’s unacceptable to shoot somebody as a way to send a message.”


“A shift in attitude and political thought” are necessary to see progress on this highly emotional topic. The conservative legislators, and especially the NRA, have “for 20 years” blocked attempts to compile statistics and do research on the subjects of gun violence and mass shootings. NRA people always claim that there will be a violence reduction when “good people” have guns in their possession to counter the “bad” people. Police officers, however, are divided on that subject, some saying that it adds to the confusion and loss of life. In fact, many of these killers were not known to be “bad” at all, or even mentally ill, but rather “quiet.” They are, of course chronically mentally ill, and that recognition is key to stopping these crimes, but police and family members need to learn to recognize that extreme quietness as a sign of illness. Family members tend to view it as “shyness,” which does not carry all the anger and disordered thinking that the silence and withdrawn nature of the mental illness so often does. In one case mentioned, a police officer, supposedly trained in interventions of this nature, saw nothing wrong with the young man in question, even though the mother had seen a problem and called them to come and check on him. In addition, he either was simply negligent or made a decision that he just didn’t need to check for a recent gun purchase. Unfortunately, the next day or so the boy “snapped” and started shooting with his brand new gun.

I’m really glad to see that the FBI has a specialized group called “Unit No. 2,” who study these trends and look for “red flags” that something is about to happen of a violent nature. According to this article they have successfully prevented some 500 shootings, and guided many people to mental health care. The FBI gets criticism sometimes, but most of the time they seem to me to do very good police work, carried out with enlightened thinking and usually without the “rogue cop” type of egregious violence that city police departments are so often involved in. I believe it is because the FBI is more selective in their hiring and more intensive in their training. I’m sure it’s largely because they have more money to spend on personnel matters and agent salaries, as well, and also because the guys at the top are more restrictive on them than most local police departments are with their workers. Too often, city PDs have a tendency to let their officers do whatever and however they want to, while on their patrols. They are also often pressed to issue a certain number of tickets with fines just as the notorious town of Waldo was doing, upping the number of knit-picking arrests that are so expensive and annoying. We absolutely do need cops, but I want to see them operate differently and let’s face it, more honestly.