December 6, 7, and 8, 2016


News and Views


http://www.cbsnews.com/news/school-shootings-states-gun-background-checks-study/

Why do some states have more school shootings?
By ASHLEY WELCH CBS NEWS
December 7, 2016, 6:00 AM

11 Photos -- People walk arm-in-arm past a memorial for victims outside Marysville-Pilchuck High School in Marysville, Wash., Oct. 30, 2014 following a deadly shooting there nearly a week earlier. AP PHOTO/ELAINE THOMPSON
22 PHOTOS -- Death by gun: Top 20 states with highest rates


School shootings like the one that occurred at Sandy Hook elementary school four years ago this month leave the public grappling to make sense of how such horrific events could happen and struggling with questions about what can be done to prevent similar attacks.

But despite repeated calls to action, little progress has been made in deterring these tragic events. In fact, a new study shows the number of school shootings in the U.S. has skyrocketed in recent years — and the number keeps climbing.

The report, published online in the journal Injury Prevention, found there were 154 school shootings between 2013 and 2015. The number rose from 35 in 2013, to 55 in 2014, to 64 in 2015. This averages to more than one school shooting a week somewhere in the United States.

The researchers compared this to another study that showed 44 such instances during the years between 1966 and 2008 — equivalent to around one school shooting incident per year.

“I’m not sure you can just call that a jump,” lead study author Dr. Bindu Kalesan, an assistant professor of medicine at Boston University School of Medicine, told CBS News. “That is a leap.”

In the absence of an official monitoring system, Kalesan and her team conducted a systematic analysis of media coverage of school shootings — defined as “an incident when a firearm was discharged inside a school building or on school or campus grounds, as documented in publicly reported news” — between 2013 and 2015.

They also looked at a number of state-level factors, including whether or not the state requires mandatory background checks for all gun and ammunition purchases; the extent of gun ownership; mental health expenditure; and spending on public school education (K-12).

“What we wanted to do is understand school shootings on a more detailed level,” Kalesan said.

How U.S. gun deaths compare to other countries

The analysis showed that over those three years, 39 states had at least one school shooting. Eleven states — Alaska, Connecticut, Hawaii, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Dakota, Rhode Island, Vermont, West Virginia, and Wyoming — had none.

The majority of states in which school shootings occurred had fewer than 10 incidents over the years studied.

But five states had more. Georgia had the greatest number, with 15 school shootings. Florida and Texas each had 14. There were 12 school shootings in North Carolina and 10 in Tennessee.

More than half of the shootings (nearly 55 percent) occurred in K-12 schools, while 45 percent happened at colleges. Nearly all of the shootings were carried out by males. About 75 percent took place in metro areas.

In all, 84 people — including 27 perpetrators — died, and another 136 were injured.

The researchers identified several factors that were associated with a lower risk of school shootings. They found that the number of school shootings was lower in states that had:

Mandatory background checks for gun and ammunition purchases.
Higher spending on mental health.
Higher spending on K-12 education.

As of 2013, when the study began, the researchers said 14 states had some form of background checks for firearm purchase; five of those required background checks only for handguns but not for long guns or assault weapons.

School shootings were also less likely in states that had a higher percentage of residents living in urban areas.

Kalesan cautions that the findings are observational, so no firm conclusions can be drawn about cause and effect.

She also noted that certain details surrounding school shootings reported in the media turn out to be incomplete or inaccurate, which could affect their findings. Furthermore, since not every instance where a firearm is discharged on school grounds is reported, Kalesan believes the actual number of school shootings in the U.S. likely is even higher.

She said the research highlights the need for a national registry to monitor school shootings in order to better inform the debate over its causes and how to prevent these tragic events.

“We need the federal government to join hands with state governments to create a system of surveillance that includes school shootings,” Kalesan said. “We need more granular data to dive into so we can find more concrete results, so that we can inform our politics better, so that we can implement policies and find places where there are more victims to provide more programs and interventions. So that we can help the communities get better and deal with the violence.”



EXCERPT – “The researchers identified several factors that were associated with a lower risk of school shootings. They found that the number of school shootings was lower in states that had: Mandatory background checks for gun and ammunition purchases. Higher spending on mental health. Higher spending on K-12 education. …. As of 2013, when the study began, the researchers said 14 states had some form of background checks for firearm purchase; five of those required background checks only for handguns but not for long guns or assault weapons. School shootings were also less likely in states that had a higher percentage of residents living in urban areas. …. She said the research highlights the need for a national registry to monitor school shootings in order to better inform the debate over its causes and how to prevent these tragic events. “We need the federal government to join hands with state governments to create a system of surveillance that includes school shootings, ….”


Well, these conclusions and recommendations do echo those of good liberals at all layers of government, including President Obama. The opposition to trying to stop the problem, or at least reduce the severity, comes from “conservatives,” and especially the gun lobby. Whenever we enumerate Big Money backers of political candidates we should always include them. They are behind most of the sheer paranoia that is in the air these days. Any group that advocates the ownership of automatic weapons by ordinary citizens is totally dishonest and USUALLY racist/sexist/religionist/ and more of those kinds of adjectives. They try to foster fear and hatred so they can sell more and more guns.

It is also significant that those states which spend more money on mental health issues and on basic education (K-12) have fewer school shootings. It’s all in what our national Values are. I’m for peace, prosperity for the AVERAGE person, education BEYOND high school even if it’s only a trade school level skill, fewer and fewer group-against-group hostilities, a promotion of decency and compassion over a particular set of religious doctrines. I am certain those will bring improvement. It is interesting that 11 states had no shootings at all, and 5, which were all in the South or the West, that had more than the average number of 10. The percentage of the population who lived in urban environments coincided with lower rates of school or college shootings also. Pardon me for saying this, but I do tend to connect the achievement of a good high school and college education with cities more than with rural areas. Cities have human services that are often absent or rare in the country, including better mental health care, a higher standard of living generally, affordable productions of good art, more daily interaction between different human groups; something that DOES tend to produce better acceptance of others. Lots of hostility-producing stories against Islam or Judaism tend to be centered in rural places, and are related to the lack of contact with relatively educated and professional people, making those areas places that harbor more tolerance for the really bizarre and aggressive turns of mind -- militias, White Supremacists, Sovereign Citizens, and KKK members, to name a few.

A striking symptom of this turn of mind is the fairly recent politicization of those things by the gun lobby and the National Rifle Association in the form of “Open Carry” advocates, walking around in the local Walmart with a huge automatic rifle slung around ones’ big round belly. Yes, I saw a photo of that exact thing within this last year on the Internet. It is my strongly held belief that Open Carry should not be allowed under the law at all, except for police officers, security guards, military men on active duty, and others whose JOB REQUIRES that. Concealed Carry should be allowed if the individual citizen has a true NEED for a gun as self-protection. I think a woman whose boyfriend has turned violent, who is being stalked by some wild-eyed Loony Tunes who hasn’t YET attacked her, but who threatens to do it. I don’t want to kill anyone or anything, but if I am threatened, I’m fairly sure I’m not too docile or too pacifistic to do it.

While I regretted Hillary Clinton’s phrase “basket of deplorables,” partly because it did show a distinctly “privileged” turn of mind on her part and partly because it was immediately taken up as a weapon against her; her point, if inadequately explained, is well taken. When we campaign for office in the US we need to be aware, though, that “the shot heard round the world” takes only two or three seconds these days once a story makes it to the Internet and social media. See the following website: http://www.advocate.com/election/2016/9/14/trump-clinton-and-deplorable-picture. And as for comments “between friends,” remember the video capabilities of almost all modern Smart Phones, and how our citizens will sacrifice almost anything for a new electronic gadget. The police are having the same problem, these days. What happened that night in Ferguson, MO, differed from any other Southern night only by the presence of more than one such video recorders. When the angry marches, if not exactly riots, began, the police used their old tried and true methods – they started arresting/detaining people for openly using them. I believe that none of those cases has held up in court. It is not, so far, illegal to OPENLY BEAR WITNESS AGAINST THE POLICE. Of course, those ALEC backed “conservatives” are trying even as we speak (or I should say, write and read) to create ever more sneaky laws that will gut the Bill or Rights from within.

It’s not that I don’t agree with Hillary on that type of man, it’s only that they NEED sympathetic treatment such as three years with a psychiatrist and, for goodness sake, A JOB.” They are borderline psychotic and financially desperate. Most White people are no more likely to be vicious than Black people unless they have had decades of hopelessness and no knowledge of how to turn that trend in their lives around. They jump immediately to the conclusion that it’s somebody else’s fault, especially when it’s possible to find people of a different ethnic/cultural group. That’s called Scapegoating. The group of choice these days is the Islamic worshippers who look funny and may exhibit hostility against us Western types. And, addressing myself to the White police of the country, I cannot state frequently enough that if Black people are not abused at every turn they are far less likely to Hate Whitey! That will stop some of those random cop shootings that we’ve had so many of recently. They happen because some Blacks, along with several White police officers, do consider themselves to be AT WAR. What the heck do you expect to happen? The time when most Blacks were AFRAID of Whites is in the past. Some still are, of course, but BLM, NAACP, and others are ready and preparing themselves to RESIST. We as a society are in Phase Two of the struggles now.

Sending an abusive White Supremacist policemen into a predominantly poor and Black neighborhood is twice as likely to produce a racial warzone as sending a polite, mentally well-balanced and sufficiently well educated officer of any race would. One thing that would help is to include more women into the mix. Like it or not, most women do have better “people skills” than do most men. Too many men have only one “people skill,” the instinct to physically and emotionally intimidate others. Some of that’s due to their innate psychological makeup, and some is the result of the fact that men are far more likely to be brought up without personal responsibilities within the household of their birth. That produces self-centered and sometimes violent people.

The main problem policemen have in doing their job these days is that they don’t know how to talk to people, nor are they trained to do it. Arresting an angry man is harder than just pumping him full of bullets, so they choose the latter. From my youth, I have known the phrase “The only good N----r is a dead N----r!” Now to me and to Hillary Clinton, the man who follows that philosophy of life is a “Deplorable,” but to himself he is a “strong and courageous protector of the White Supremacist/traditional Southern way of life.” Some clever wag who did not use his real name, just one of those usually creepy sounding “handles” that they are so fond of, left me the Internet message “Your [sic] a traitor to your race.” I just can’t think in those terms. To me that turn of mind is a form of insanity, or stupidity, or sheer viciousness. It “justifies” cruelties of all kinds in the name of patriotism. To me, that is the persuasive voice of Satan.

Of course, I’m well aware that only the most hostile and immature men are drawn to doing things like that to another person, or an animal for that matter. The trouble is that there are more guys like that in the US than I realized until the anti-Other rants of Pres-elect Trump began to dominate the scene. He was the source of the disgusting and ridiculous rumor that President Obama was not, actually, a US citizen – the “Birther” lie. Fascinatingly, he has recently acknowledged that he is AWARE that it’s a lie, and that he did promote it to harm our one Black President. He has not apologized for that. The truth is that Trump is a sociopath – one who applies no rules or regulations to himself, with the fairly frequent result that he commits violent crime. That’s the kind of “leader” Trump is. To produce a RABBLE, we have to have a RABBLE ROUSER. The people whom I consider to be BAD have emerged in large numbers following Trump, like a plague of locusts, since the Trump ascendancy. What isn’t obvious is that they aren’t different people actually, from “GOOD” people; but the Mr. Hyde part – the un-thinking, uncaring, hostile, paranoid, narrow minded, fundamentalist, group-centered side of the more acceptable “conservative” thinkers, who weren’t openly fomenting riots and perhaps pogroms in the 1950s; but who now have formed a shockingly numerous subset of our culture who are geared up for a “Race War” immediately, and who are trying to take back their PROPER place over all other races that they had during the 1700s to 1800s both in Europe and the US. This isn’t even surprising to me, though it is shocking, since it is the direct result of an thinking pattern of White Supremacy.

I feel sure that the power of central government at this time could use our Big Brother skills to detect and arrest a large number of those people, if it weren’t for our Bill of Rights. Normally I would say that such a thing is unthinkable, but to me it is even more Unthinkable to allow this noble experiment in human government to be eaten out from the inside by this cancerous philosophy that Trump is boosting in every way he can. Given what he is already doing before he is even in office as President, I am really concerned about what will happen when he is the Chief Executive. He is already rapidly filling a disturbing number of his cabinet seats with retired military generals who have NOT been known for their liberal turn of mind. The easiest way to bring about a coup is probably by using the most “conservative” elements of almost any society, the Military and Fundamentalist religion. Anyone who is surprised by that within our society, except perhaps for the audacity of it, is reading the wrong Blog. They also are probably not being very honest in their assessment of that ancient undercurrent in the white society worldwide.



SAME SONG, NEXT VERSE:

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/dylann-roof-death-penalty-trial-charleston-church-shooting/

Dylann Roof's first death penalty trial set to begin in Charleston church shooting
AP December 7, 2016, 11:05 AM

50 Photos – Dylan Roof
Play VIDEO -- Mistrial after Michael Slager jury "hopelessly deadlocked" CBS
Play VIDEO -- Judge rules Dylann Roof mentally comptent [sic] to stand trial
Victim Photos – Roof shooting.



CHARLESTON, S.C. -- The white man who authorities said wanted to start a race war by killing nine black people in a South Carolina church is getting ready to stand trial in a city already bruised by a former police officer’s racially charged murder trial that ended in a hung jury.

Opening statements are set for later Wednesday in Dylann Roof’s federal death penalty trial after jury selection took about 20 minutes in the morning.

Roof sat with 12 people in Bible study and prayer for an hour at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston on June 17, 2015, before pulling a gun from his fanny pack, firing dozens of shots and reloading several times, police said.

He hurled racial insults, telling the parishioners he was killing them because he wanted a war between whites and blacks because blacks were raping white women and taking over the country, authorities said.

Roof left three people alive in the church basement so they could tell the world his reasons for the shooting, police said. Two others, who were in another room, also survived.

The shootings took place a little more than two months after a white North Charleston police officer was charged with murder for shooting an unarmed black driver running from a traffic stop, the stark killing unfolding millions of times across the country online and on TV after a bystander recorded it. The trial of Michael Slager ended Monday without a verdict, and though Charleston stayed calm, tensions rose even after the state prosecutor promised a retrial.

Although Slager’s lawyers vigorously fought to prove he wasn’t guilty, Roof’s lawyers have offered several times to plead guilty if federal prosecutors agreed not to seek the death penalty. They refused.

When prosecutors said it would take six to seven days to make their case that Roof is guilty, defense attorney David Bruck said Roof’s case would take little additional time.

The past week leading up to the trial had its own drama as Roof fired his lawyers to act as his own attorney, then hired them back Monday. But he said he will again be his own lawyer if he is found guilty and the second phase of the trial begins where prosecutors present evidence Roof deserves to be put to death.

Roof’s attorneys said they don’t know why he wants to be his own lawyer but said in other cases defendants have been trying to avoid having their lawyers introduce embarrassing evidence that could sway jurors.

Roof faces 33 charges in federal court, including hate crimes and obstruction of religion. State prosecutors plan a second death penalty trial on nine murder charges.



http://www.cbsnews.com/news/stanford-university-student-sues-school-alleged-sex-assaults/

Stanford University student sues school over alleged sex assaults
CBS NEWS
December 7, 2016, 9:32 AM

Photograph -- Stanford University’s campus is seen from atop Hoover Tower in Stanford, California, on May 9, 2014. REUTERS/BECK DIEFENBACH


PALO ALTO, Calif. -- A female student is suing Stanford University, alleging that the university knowingly allowed a sexual predator to roam the campus, CBS San Francisco reports.

The plaintiff, listed as Jane Doe - a former undergraduate and current graduate student at Stanford - alleges in a complaint filed Monday in U.S. District Court in San Francisco that she was sexually assaulted by a male student who had previously raped at least one other female student.

She alleges the university failed to “protect her and other female undergraduate students from a male student who was a known sexual predator on campus,” according to the complaint.

The complaint states that the suspect, listed only as “Mr. X,” choked and raped a woman on campus in February 2011. His actions were reported to the university but allegedly not investigated.

Then in February 2014, the complaint alleges, Mr. X sexually assaulted Jane Doe.

Between 2010 and 2014, Mr. X physically and/or sexually assaulted at least four female Stanford students and was allowed to graduate from the university with undergraduate and graduate degrees, according to the complaint.

Lisa Lapin, Stanford’s vice president of university communications, said in a statement that university officials “have acted in this case and in all matters to protect our students.”

She said that the university was unable to comment on specific facts of the lawsuit due to privacy laws.

“We have sympathy for the plaintiff in this case, but we will be vigorously defending the lawsuit as we believe that Stanford has acted with appropriate diligence and compassion within the constraints of privacy laws,” Lapin said.

She said the university will be promptly filing a response in court.

The lawsuit alleges that Stanford, through inaction, “deprived Ms. Doe of access to the educational benefits or opportunities provided by Stanford, in violation of Title IX.”

Stanford and other major U.S. universities are under federal scrutiny for their handling of sexual assault cases on campus.

Earlier this year, former Stanford student Brock Turner was convicted of sexually assaulting an unconscious woman on campus. His lenient sentence of six months in jail - of which he served only three months - prompted widespread condemnation of the judge and led to heightened awareness of campus rape.


I’ve seen three or four very similar cases. Women are blamed, men are given preference, as a general rule. Of course, there’s also the matter of whose daddy makes the most money, don’t you know? Both of those are age old stories. Read Thomas Hardy’s excellent study of the subject, Tess of the D’Urbervilles. That was written in 1891, and nothing has changed since.



http://www.cbsnews.com/news/commentary-pizzagate-fake-news-broader-problem/

Commentary: #Pizzagate and the broader problem of "fake news"
By WILL RAHN CBS NEWS
December 6, 2016, 6:00 AM

Photograph -- CEO of Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump campaign Stephen Bannon is pictured during a meeting with Trump’s Hispanic Advisory Council at Trump Tower in the Manhattan borough of New York, U.S., August 20, 2016. REUTERS/CARLO ALLEGRI


I’ll start with an anecdote. About four years ago I wrote something that mentioned in passing the fact that Adam Lanza used an AR-15 rifle in the Sandy Hook massacre. And for months afterward, I got email after email from irate readers insisting this was not the case.

Their theory, in broad strokes, went like this: Lanza had used semiautomatic pistols to carry out the assault, and the media and the government were claiming he used an AR-15 because they were looking for reasons to ban that particular weapon. It’s an example of what we would now call “fake news,” but at that time, it was just a regular old conspiracy theory.

Thankfully, the conservative blogger Erick Erickson wrote a piece in the weeks after the shooting insisting that Lanza had used an AR-15. I forwarded his post to the people emailing me and, if memory serves, that always ended the discussion. They trusted Erickson, and if he said it was an AR-15, then that’s what Lanza must have used.

I doubt that approach would work anymore. Erickson was a prominent member of the #NeverTrump movement, which means his opinions would likely be seen as suspect by conspiracy theorists.

Maybe I’m wrong about that, but I doubt it: Trump embraced conspiracy theorists like Alex Jones from the start of his campaign. His longtime political consigliere, Roger Stone, is the author of books arguing, among other things, that Lyndon Johnson had President Kennedy murdered. For a certain segment of Trump’s supporters, particularly his very vocal internet fans, all conspiracy theories are true until proven otherwise, and the word of some anti-Trump pundit like Erickson would mean little.

That brings us to #Pizzagate, the inane allegation that John Podesta and other Clinton allies are part of a child pedophile ring based out of a Washington, D.C. restaurant. It’s a belief that inspired a man to arrive at that restaurant with a rifle over the weekend. And it apparently counts among its adherents Michael Flynn, Jr., the son and erstwhile business partner of Trump’s incoming national security adviser, Gen. Michael Flynn.

Follow
Michael G Flynn🇺🇸 @mflynnJR
Until #Pizzagate proven to be false, it'll remain a story. The left seems to forget #PodestaEmails and the many "coincidences" tied to it. https://twitter.com/jackposobiec/status/805559273426141184 …
10:13 PM - 4 Dec 2016

The most worrying part of all this is that it is not at all clear who can knock this theory down in the same way Erickson was able to help quiet the fringe after Sandy Hook. People don’t know whom to believe anymore, as institutions we used to trust – law enforcement, the church, the press – have become discredited. And #Pizzagate is just one symptom of this dysfunction.

I say that as someone who’s been pretty skeptical over all this hemming and hawing over “fake news” lately. On the one hand, “fake news” is a real problem. On the other, the fact that “fake news” only became this issue of grand national importance after Trump’s victory makes this newfound emphasis a bit questionable. Some Clinton backers refuse to believe their candidate lost on the merits, and their search for hidden culprits have given rise to their own conspiracy theories, such as pro-Trump “fake news” sites taking their orders from Moscow.

Gunman arrested in shooting motivated by a fake news story
Play VIDEO
Gunman arrested in shooting motivated by a fake news story

For more on that, look no further than the Washington Post’s breathless coverage of PropOrNot, which is supposedly a group of non-aligned researchers who’ve discovered that many American online news outlets are actually, and perhaps unwittingly, allies of Russian intelligence.

Interestingly, these outlets tended to be either hard-right or hard-left, i.e. abstainers from the elite liberal consensus. And PropOrNot’s findings had apparently been peddled to numerous outlets before the Washington Post gave them its imprimatur; The New Yorker’s Adrian Chen, one of the reporters who passed on PropOrNot’s story, quickly gave it all a thorough debunking.

Needless to say, the fight between “real news” and “fake news” was not helped by a major national paper’s wholehearted embrace of PropOrNot’s conspiracy theory. But its also noteworthy that the story fell apart under scrutiny from The New Yorker, that most establishment of magazines, and not, say, Alex Jones’ InfoWars.

But who can debunk #Pizzagate? Not The New Yorker. Not the Washington Post or The New York Times or, for that matter, CBS News. That is to say, we can present readers and viewers with endless reasons for why it’s absurd to think that a Podesta email about ordering pizzas is somehow about prostitution, but some people simply won’t believe it because we’re the ones saying it.

When Erickson debunked the “Lanza used pistols” theory, he had a big tea party following, and as such his opinions had weight back when that was a dominant force on the right. And Erickson, for whatever people say about him, was not about to cynically indulge in conspiracy theories, whether they were about the president’s birthplace or Sandy Hook. He endeavored to be a responsible actor when it came to things like that.

Trump's national security team taking shape
Play VIDEO
Trump's national security team taking shape

But the alt-right, the extreme right wing movement that favors white supremacy and the place where these new conspiracy theories are now taking root, doesn’t have such responsible actors. If, say, Breitbart’s Milo Yiannopoulos, or even Trump himself, were to say #Pizzagate was a bunch of nonsense, that theory and others like it might quickly vanish.

They probably won’t, though, and that’s because paranoia is profitable, and so is the rot it leads to. “Fake news” has been with us since the founding of the republic. What’s new, and what’s very troubling, is furthering America’s broader epistemological crisis has become good business and good politics in the digital age.

This is a problem without easy solutions, but we do need to find away [sic] for mainstream news outlets to regain the trust of the public, part of which will involve avoiding easily-disprovable clickbait like PropOrNot. Less than 1-in-3 Americans have a lot of faith in the press, per Gallup, which is a horrible thing for our democracy, and an invitation to the type of “fake news” we’re so flummoxed by.

In the short term, though, our president-elect and his subordinates, having earned the alt-right’s trust, should go and try to knock some of this stuff down. Send Steve Bannon out there to say this #Pizzagate stuff is malarkey. Have Michael Flynn disavow his son’s comments. Let it be known that Trump thinks #Pizzagate is the stuff of moonbats.

The first step in stopping the spread of a “fake news” story is for trusted people to forcefully debunk it. Erickson could do it among the conservative rank-and-file in 2012, and someone like Bannon could plausibly do it among alt-right #Pizzagate theorists.

This is a small step, and one that won’t solve the broader problem of “fake news” and the lack of faith in our institutions. But given what happened over the weekend, a decision within the incoming administration to condemn at least this one absurd theory could wind up saving lives.



http://www.cbsnews.com/news/michael-g-flynn-resigns-from-trump-transition-team/

Michael Flynn's son resigns from Trump transition team
CBS NEWS
December 6, 2016, 6:20 PM


The son of Lt.-Gen. Michael T. Flynn, Donald Trump’s pick to be national security adviser, Michael G. Flynn, resigned from the Trump transition team Tuesday, CBS News’ Major Garrett reported.

He offered his resignation when it became clear that he was becoming a significant distraction and his position helping his father was no longer tenable.

Flynn the younger was given the distinct impression that his tweets on fake news had become problematic and the transition did not intend to expend the energy or political capital necessary to defend him.

He did scheduling things for his father and other tasks, but senior transition ‎officials don’t know the extent of his work for his father. But he had quickly become a problem that was going to be solved immediately: he resigned before he was fired. Possibly seconds before, Garrett reported.

The Trump transition team told reporters Tuesday only that Michael G. Flynn is not working with the transition.

Michael G. Flynn could be seen attending at least a couple of meetings at Trump Tower with his father -- he’s shown standing behind his father in photos like this one:

ap-16322588955542.jpg
Retired Lt. Gen Michael Flynn talks to media as he arrives at Trump Tower, Thursday, Nov. 17, 2016, in New York. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster) CAROLYN KASTER, AP

And in the first weeks after the election, when there were signs that the transition had stalled, the younger Flynn tweeted denials.

Follow
Michael G Flynn🇺🇸 @mflynnJR
Charlie, I've been here last 2 days. Great atmosphere, great mood....media lying about transition. Couldn't be going better! https://twitter.com/charliekirk11/status/799018314743873536 …
6:49 PM - 17 Nov 2016


The younger Flynn, who has been his father’s chief of staff at Flynn Intel Group, has attracted attention because of tweets about #Pizzagate, a fabricated story accusing Hillary Clinton leading a child sex trafficking ring at Comet Pizza in Washington, D.C. His tweet came after a a man named Edgar Welch showed up over the weekend at the pizzeria armed with an assault-style rifle so that he could investigate the story for himself.

Michael G. Flynn afterward tweeted that #Pizzagate would remain a story until it’s “proven to be false.”

Follow
Michael G Flynn🇺🇸 @mflynnJR
Until #Pizzagate proven to be false, it'll remain a story. The left seems to forget #PodestaEmails and the many "coincidences" tied to it. https://twitter.com/jackposobiec/status/805559273426141184 …
10:13 PM - 4 Dec 2016

Flynn has also trafficked in other conspiracy theories and fake stories, including one that said former President Bill Clinton had raped a 13-year-old and another that accused Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Florida, of being a gay cocaine user.

Follow
Michael G Flynn🇺🇸 @mflynnJR
@AnnCoulter HAVE YOU SEEN! Rubio's coke house, gayish dance troupe, and foam parties - Wayne Madsen Report http://www.waynemadsenreport.com/articles/20160129 …
9:52 PM - 3 Mar 2016



These two articles are disturbing to me because there is not the same BASIS legally for Internet defamation suits as with papers, magazines or TV, and I think that is unfair to people like Hillary Clinton who had to endure three or four absolutely ridiculous stories of which I was aware, before this Pizzagate business came up. Now the Trump Campaign has declared the story to be totally false and has fired young Flynn, however I didn’t see a Trump apology to Clinton.

The ACLU, who are the champions of disadvantaged groups such as Black, Hispanic and now Islamic people who, largely due to simple (and so simple-minded) hatred from Whites and Christians, have long been heroes of mine, along with the Southern Poverty Law Center. However, one idea which they insist upon, that to either criminalize outright or cause acts of defamation on the Internet to be open for law suits, under the Defamation Law, is deleterious to the maintenance of a Free Internet -- and therefore dangerous to our First Amendment rights -- is to me clearly a kneejerk reaction, and not in the best interests of a civilized nation. I am particularly concerned over the harmful things on the Net which help no one, in my opinion.

There are things on the Net which should not be available to ANYBODY in that they do not promote anything good, and do fuel (even organize) the pornographic materials showing both child and adult sexual activity. One of the most commonly mentioned problem sites is Craigslist. There was at least one case in which a woman was lured to her death in a Craigslist connection. If we can’t get the websites to police their content, then if photos of nudie babies is their subject, we need a CRIMINAL law to cover it which, as I am fond of saying, “has teeth.” If two truly consenting adults want to get together sexually, then it should be legal. Laws trying to prohibit that have taken some really shocking directions: sodomy laws, denial of the right to marry based on presumed intelligence or sanity issues, and anti-miscegenation or interracial marriage legislation, for instance.

However, children cannot either give legal consent nor protect themselves from abuse or even death, so no site should offer a service of that kind. There is a “cops” TV show site here that shows stings of the teen hookup sites, which are not always between teens at all, but by corrupt old men pretending they are young and innocent. What the cops do is “answer” those contacts and then, when they show up at the “teen’s” house (which is of course a dirty old man instead), they arrest the poseur. On one show, they caught a high school principal, a Rabbi, and some other equally well-respected members of society. The Net regulation organization can, I think, deny a domain name with cause, or find some ways to enforce criminal sentences. We can surely solve that particular problem without keeping me from writing “objectionable” anti-fascist material in this blog.

A few weeks ago, I accidentally copied a long series of Xs, which I use in this blog to divide one day’s work from another, into Google’s search input line. Instantly, the screen changed to nude women displaying themselves in ever more enticing and bizarre poses. It shouldn’t be that easy to run across boring and disgusting material which isn’t to my tastes, anyway. What about some beefcake instead?


http://theconversation.com/the-internet-poses-unique-challenges-for-drug-prohibition-6262
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_status_of_Internet_pornography
http://www.handyfilter.com/



LIBEL, SLANDER AND DEFAMATION


https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/defamation-law-made-simple-29718.html

Defamation Law Made Simple
Learn the basics of slander and libel -- the rules about who can say what without getting into legal hot water.
By Emily Doskow, Attorney

"Defamation" is a catch-all term for any statement that hurts someone's reputation. Written defamation is called "libel," and spoken defamation is called "slander." Defamation is not a crime, but it is a "tort" (a civil wrong, rather than a criminal wrong). A person who has been defamed can sue the person who did the defaming. (For in-depth information on defamation claims, check out Nolo's Defamation, Libel & Slander section.)

Defamation law tries to balance competing interests: On the one hand, people should not ruin others' lives by telling lies about them; but on the other hand, people should be able to speak freely without fear of litigation over every insult, disagreement, or mistake. Political and social disagreement is important in a free society, and we obviously don't all share the same opinions or beliefs. For instance, political opponents often reach opposite conclusions from the same facts, and editorial cartoonists often exaggerate facts to make their point.

What the victim must prove to establish that defamation occurred

The law of defamation varies from state to state, but there are some generally accepted rules. If you believe you are have been "defamed," to prove it you usually have to show there's been a statement that is all of the following:

-- published
-- false
-- injurious
-- unprivileged

Let's look at each of these elements in detail.

1. First, the "statement" can be spoken, written, pictured, or even gestured. Because written statements last longer than spoken statements, most courts, juries, and insurance companies consider libel more harmful than slander.


2. "Published" means that a third party heard or saw the statement -- that is, someone other than the person who made the statement or the person the statement was about. "Published" doesn't necessarily mean that the statement was printed in a book -- it just needs to have been made public through television, radio, speeches, gossip, or even loud conversation. Of course, it could also have been written in magazines, books, newspapers, leaflets, or on picket signs.


3. A defamatory statement must be false -- otherwise it's not considered damaging. Even terribly mean or disparaging things are not defamatory if the shoe fits. Most opinions don't count as defamation because they can't be proved to be objectively false. For instance, when a reviewer says, "That was the worst book I've read all year," she's not defaming the author, because the statement can't be proven to be false.


4. The statement must be "injurious." Since the whole point of defamation law is to take care of injuries to reputation, those suing for defamation must show how their reputations were hurt by the false statement -- for example, the person lost work; was shunned by neighbors, friends, or family members; or was harassed by the press. Someone who already had a terrible reputation most likely won't collect much in a defamation suit.


5. Finally, to qualify as a defamatory statement, the offending statement must be "unprivileged." Under some circumstances, you cannot sue someone for defamation even if they make a statement that can be proved false. For example, witnesses who testify falsely in court or at a deposition can't be sued. (Although witnesses who testify to something they know is false could theoretically be prosecuted for perjury.) Lawmakers have decided that in these and other situations, which are considered "privileged," free speech is so important that the speakers should not be constrained by worries that they will be sued for defamation. Lawmakers themsleves also enjoy this privilege: They aren't liable for statements made in the legislative chamber or in official materials, even if they say or write things that would otherwise be defamatory.

Public officials and figures have a harder time proving defamation

The public has a right to criticize the people who govern them, so the least protection from defamation is given to public officials. When officials are accused of something that involves their behavior in office, they have to prove all of the above elements of defamation and they must also prove that the defendant acted with "actual malice." (For a definition of actual malice, see the "History of Defamation and the First Amendment, below.")

People who aren't elected but who are still public figures because they are influential or famous -- like movie stars -- also have to prove that defamatory statements were made with actual malice, in most cases.

History of Defamation and the First Amendment

In the landmark 1964 case of New York Times v. Sullivan, the U.S. Supreme Court held that certain defamatory statements were protected by the First Amendment. The case involved a newspaper article that said unflattering things about a public figure, a politician. The Court pointed to "a profound national commitment to the principle that debate on public issues should be uninhibited, robust, and wide-open." The Court acknowledged that in public discussions -- especially about public figures like politicians -- mistakes can be made. If those mistakes are "honestly made," the Court said, they should be protected from defamation actions. The court made a rule that public officials could sue for statements made about their public conduct only if the statements were made with "actual malice."

"Actual malice" means that the person who made the statement knew it wasn't true, or didn't care whether it was true or not and was reckless with the truth -- for example, when someone has doubts about the truth of a statement but does not bother to check further before publishing it.

Later cases have built upon the New York Times rule, so that now the law balances the rules of defamation law with the interests of the First Amendment. The result is that whether defamation is actionable depends on what was said, who it was about, and whether it was a subject of public interest and thus protected by the First Amendment.

Private people who are defamed have more protection than public figures -- freedom of speech isn't as important when the statements don't involve an issue of public interest. A private person who is defamed can prevail without having to prove that the defamer acted with actual malice.

Resources

Defamation law aims to strike a balance between allowing the distribution of information, ideas, and opinions, and protecting people from having lies told about them. It's a complicated area of law. If you have more questions, check your local law library or the Defamation Law Section Nolo's website for more about the First Amendment and freedom of speech, the rights and responsibilities of the press, invasion of privacy, hate speech, and Internet speech.



https://www.aclu.org/issues/free-speech/internet-speech

INTERNET SPEECH

The digital revolution has produced the most diverse, participatory, and amplified communications medium humans have ever had: the Internet. The ACLU believes in an uncensored Internet, a vast free-speech zone deserving at least as much First Amendment protection as that afforded to traditional media such as books, newspapers, and magazines.

The ACLU has been at the forefront of protecting online freedom of expression in its myriad forms. We brought the first case in which the U.S. Supreme Court declared speech on the Internet equally worthy of the First Amendment’s historical protections. In that case, Reno v. American Civil Liberties Union, the Supreme Court held that the government can no more restrict a person’s access to words or images on the Internet than it can snatch a book out of someone’s hands or cover up a nude statue in a museum.

But that principle has not prevented constant new threats to Internet free speech. The ACLU remains vigilant against laws or policies that create new decency restrictions for online content, limit minors’ access to information, or allow the unmasking of anonymous speakers without careful court scrutiny.



https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=privileged+definition

priv·i·leged
ˈpriv(ə)lijd/Submit

Adjective

having special rights, advantages, or immunities.
"in the nineteenth century, only a privileged few had the vote"
synonyms: wealthy, rich, affluent, prosperous; having the rare opportunity to do something that brings particular pleasure.

"I felt I had been privileged to compete in such a race"
(of information) legally protected from being made public.
"the intelligence reports are privileged"
synonyms: confidential, private, secret, restricted, classified, not for publication, off the record, inside; informalhush-hush
"privileged information"


Privileged | Define Privileged at Dictionary.com
www.dictionary.com/browse/privileged

the privileges of the very rich. 2. a special right, immunity, or exemption granted to persons in authority or office to free them from certain obligations or liabilities: the privilege of a senator to speak in Congress without danger of a libel suit.

‎Privileged · ‎Privileged instruction · ‎Privileged site
more at http://www.yourdictionary.com/privileged#OtJmYpU0ZHD3uk9o.99


http://www.yourdictionary.com/privileged

privileged
image: http://cf.ydcdn.net/1.0.1.64/images/ahd5.jpg

adjective

Enjoying a privilege or having privileges: a privileged childhood; privileged society.
Entailing or carrying certain privileges: a reporter who has a privileged relationship with the actor.

Law

a. Protected by a legally recognized right against disclosure: privileged information.
b. Protected by a legally recognized right against a lawsuit for libel or slander.
noun
(used with a pl. verb)
Privileged people considered as a group. Often used with the.