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Monday, May 31, 2010

Paint guns, slingshots and marbles: Civilians Killed On Gaza Aid Flotilla























































































Israeli commandos storm aid flotilla; 9 killed










By AMY TEIBEL and TIA GOLDENBERG, Associated Press Writers




Dozens of activists and six Israeli soldiers were wounded in the bloody predawn confrontation in international waters. The violent takeover dealt yet another blow to Israel's international image, already tarnished by war crimes accusations in Gaza and its 3-year-old blockade of the impoverished Palestinian territory.


Prime Minister Benjamin Netanhayu canceled a much-anticipated meeting with President Barack Obama in Washington on Tuesday in a sign of just how gravely Israel viewed the uproar. In Canada, Netanyahuannounced he was rushing home but said he had called the American president and agreed to meet again.
















President Barack Obama voiced "deep regret" over the raid and "expressed the importance of learning all the facts and circumstances" surrounding the incident.


The activists were headed to Gaza to draw attention to the blockade, which Israel and Egypt imposed after the militant Hamas group seized the territory of 1.5 million Palestinians in 2007.


There were conflicting accounts of what happened early Monday, with activists claiming the Israelis opened fire without provocation and Israel insisting its forces fired in self defense.







Speaking alongside the Canadian prime minister, Netanyahu expressed "regret" for the loss of life but said the soldiers had no choice. "Our soldiers had to defend themselves, defend their lives, or they would have been killed," he said.


Israel said it opened fire after its commandos were attacked by knives, clubs and live fire from two pistols wrested from soldiers after they rappelled from a helicopter at about 4 a.m. to board one of the vessels.


Night-vision footage released by the military showed soldiers dropping from a helicopter one by one and being grabbed by a mob of men wielding sticks on the lead boat, the Turkish-flagged Mavi Marmara. The soldiers succumbed to the assailants and fell to the deck, where the men continued to beat them and dump one of them from the top deck.


A commando who spoke to reporters on a naval vessel off the coast, identified only as "A," said he and his comrades were taken off guard by a group of Arabic-speaking men when they landed on the deck.


Some soldiers were stripped of their helmets and equipment and thrown from the top deck to the lower deck, and some had even jumped overboard to save themselves, the commando said. At one point one of the activists seized one of the soldiers' weapons and opened fire, the commando said.


Communications to the ships were cut shortly after the raid began, and activists were kept away from reporters after their boats were towed to the Israeli port of Ashdod.


Helicopters evacuated the wounded to Israeli hospitals, officials said. Five ships had reached port by early evening and some 136 activists had been removed without serious incident, the military said.


Sixteen were jailed for refusing to identify themselves, police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said. Israel had said activists would be given the choice to be deported or imprisoned.


Israeli officials said the death toll was nine with 30 wounded, after earlier saying 10 people were killed. It said the final tally was reached after bringing all six boats in the flotilla under control.


A high-ranking naval official displayed a box confiscated from the boat containing switchblades, slingshots, metal balls and metal bats. Most of the dead were Turkish, he said.


In a sign the soldiers didn't anticipate such fierce resistance, two commandos told The Associated Press that the primary weapons were guns that fired paintballs — a nonlethal weapon that can be used to subdue crowds. They said they resorted to lethal handgun fire after they were assaulted.


Turkey's NTV network showed activists beating one commando with sticks as he landed on one of the boats. Dr. Arnon Afek, deputy director of Chaim Sheba Medical Center outside Tel Aviv, said two commandos were brought in with gunshot wounds. Another had serious head wounds from an unspecified blow, Afek added.


Activists, however, painted a completely different picture, saying the commandos stormed the ships after ordering them to stop in international waters, about 80 miles (130 kilometers) from Gaza's coast.


A reporter with the pan-Arab satellite channel Al-Jazeera, who was sailing on the Turkish ship leading the flotilla, said the Israelis fired at the vessel before boarding it, wounding the captain.


"These savages are killing people here, please help," a Turkish television reporter said.


The broadcast ended with a voice shouting in Hebrew, "Everybody shut up!"


At Barzilai hospital in the southern Israeli city of Ashkelon, a few activists trickled in under military escort. "They hit me," said a Greek man, whose right arm was in a sling, calling the Israelis "pirates." He did not give his name and later was escorted away with a neck brace.


At a news conference in Tel Aviv, Israel's military chief of staff and navy commander said the violence was centered on the lead boat, which was carrying 600 of the 700 activists. Troops took over the five other boats without incident, military chief Gabi Ashkenazi said.


Reaction was swift and harsh, with a massive protest in Turkey, Israel's longtime Muslim ally, which unofficially supported the mission. Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan accused Israel of "state terrorism," and the government said it was recalling its ambassador and called off military exercises with the Jewish state.


The U.N. Security Council held an emergency meeting later Monday, while the Arab League planned to meet Tuesday in Cairo.


Robin Churchill, a professor of international law at the University of Dundee in Scotland, said the Israeli commandos boarded the ship outside of Israel's territorial waters.


"As far as I can see, there is no legal basis for boarding these ships," Churchill said.


Many of the activists were from Europe.


The European Union deplored what it called excessive use of force and called for the Gaza blockade to be lifted immediately, calling it "politically unacceptable."


Israeli security forces were on alert across the country. Protesters gathered at two universities and burned tires and threw rocks in Israel's largest Arab city, but no injuries were reported.


Organizers said two prominent activists, 1976 Nobel Peace Prize laureate Mairead Corrigan Maguire and Holocaust survivor Hedy Epstein, 85, did not join the flotilla as planned.


Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas condemned the Israeli "massacre," declared three days of mourning across the West Bank.


Ismail Haniyeh, leader of the rival Hamas government in Gaza, condemned the "brutal" Israeli attack and called on U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to intervene.


In Uganda, Ban condemned the deaths and called for a "thorough" investigation.


Before the ships set sail from waters off Cyprus on Sunday, Israel had urged the flotilla not to try to breach the blockade and offered to transfer some of the cargo to Gaza from an Israeli port, following a security inspection.


Organizers included the IHH, an Islamic humanitarian group that is based in Istanbul but operates in several other countries. Israel outlawed the group in 2008 because of its ties to Hamas.


The flotilla of three cargo ships and three passenger ships carrying 10,000 tons of aid and 700 activists was carrying items that Israel bars from reaching Gaza, like cement and other building materials.


Israel has allowed ships through five times, but has blocked them from entering Gaza waters since a three-week military offensive against Gaza's Hamas rulers in January 2009.


Goldenberg reported from aboard the Israeli warship INS Kidon. AP writers Selcan Hacaoglu in Ankara, Rob Gillies in Toronto and Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations contributed to this report.








Live coverage: Israel's flotilla raid 



Aljazeera.net (blog) - Gregg Carlstrom - ‎14 hours ago‎



We'll be live-blogging the latest updates following Israel's attack on the Gaza aid flotilla, including international reaction, ...

















New York Times - Sabrina Tavernise - ‎23 minutes ago‎




ISTANBUL - The Israeli commando raid Monday on an aid flotilla, which left at least nine people dead, has dragged relations between Israel and Turkey to a new low, political experts here say, threatening to derail diplomatic ...







ABC Online - Aljazeera.net - FOXNews - CNN - Wikipedia: Gaza flotilla clash all 5,877 news articles »



Music Video Response to Corruption In The Antebellum States A.K.A. Jim Crow South


This might get me killed but I feel like standing up for something that's worth dying for. I'll speak for those who are too scared or too uneducated to address public corruption...






















































I usually don't make political tracks but it seems like ever since Obama won,  state government has gone crazy in the red states.Gov of Texas wants to secede...like make their own country (probably so they can legalize slavery). Arizona wants to pull over anyone who looks Mexican and Arkansas' Local Police force is out of control! I haven't seen a video on the net yet where a cop knew he was on camera and still uses a racial slur. WE NEED TO STAND UP!!

D.EZ

Robbie Wills plays the God-guns-abortion card in a mailer attacking Joyce Elliott





































via Arkansas Times: 2nd Dist. Dem runoff: Robbie Wills plays the God-guns-abortion card in a mailer attacking Joyce Elliott. Our readers don't like it a bit.














 







 

Neither do I. It's posted on this syndicated site:http://www.corruptionsucks.blogspot.com/








Wills Campaign Gets Ugly Against Joyce Elliott


May 29th,
2010


By jsamuel: Blue Arkansas Blog



A reader sent us a mailer
sent out by the Robbie Wills campaign attempting to slime Joyce
Elliott.




Essentially, it attacks her for having the gull to support a woman’s
right to choose, restricting gun rights, outlawing prayer in schools,
and being ineffective in office. Let’s look at each of these issues and
the support provided by the mailer…



  1. How could any self respecting Democrat be pro-choice?! (*sarcasm*) 

  2. On gun rights, the Wills campaign cites no votes and provides no
    support for the accusation besides the NRA. Look, I am pro-2nd
    amendment, but I really don’t listen to anything the NRA says. There is
    supporting people who like to hunt and then there is a much more radical
    agenda out there that the NRA pushes a lot of the time.

  3. Now about the vote on prayer in public schools… HB
    2971
    of 2005 was nonsense. It basically just restated what the US
    Constitution already states on the issue. It was entirely redundant and
    unnecessary. HB 2971 died in the state Senate. It seems like the
    majority in the Senate committee thought the bill was unnecessary, not
    just Joyce Elliott.

  4. The accusation that she is ineffective is laughable. I am sure a
    perusal of her website would say
    otherwise. But, true to form, I looked up the link provided by the
    mailer to “support” the accusation. I typed in the web address and got
    the following message:






    “Your account is not currently logged into your
    legislative service. Please select the appropriate state and service
    below to log in. The links in the report will work at that time. If you
    are not currently a subscriber, click on the appropriate link for
    contact information.”

    Okay, so no support at all for the accusation, just an error
    message…thanks! Now who is ineffective again Wills?





Anyway, the point of the mailer is clear. Wills is trying to paint
her as an “extremist” while also having those around him claim that HE
is the true progressive. His campaign is getting about as nasty and
contradictory as Blanche Lincoln’s campaign, and that is not a good
thing.



Friday, May 28, 2010

Consequences of the decision








Facts



The decision itself involved five consolidated cases coming from different lower courts in which African-Americans had sued theaters, hotels and transit companies that had refused them admittance or excluded them from "white only" facilities.



[edit]


Decision of the Court





The Court, in a decision by Justice Joseph P. Bradley, held that the language of the 14th Amendment, which prohibited denial of equal protection by a state, did not give Congress power to regulate these private acts. The Court also acknowledged that the 13th Amendment does apply to private actors, but only to the extent that it prohibits people from owning slaves, not exhibiting discriminatory behavior. The Court said that "it would be running the slavery argument into the ground to make it apply to every act of discrimination which a person may see fit to make as to guests he will entertain, or as to the people he will take into his coach or cab or car; or admit to his concert or theatre, or deal with in other matters of intercourse or business."






The Civil Rights Cases, 109 U.S. 3 (1883)[1], were a group of five similar cases consolidated into one issue for the United States Supreme Court to review. The Court held that Congress lacked the constitutional authority under the enforcement provisions of the Fourteenth Amendment to outlaw racial discrimination by private individuals and organizations, rather than state and local governments.





More particularly, the Court held that the Civil Rights Act of 1875, which provided that "all persons within the jurisdiction of the United States shall be entitled to the full and equal enjoyment of the accommodations, advantages, facilities, and privileges of inns, public conveyances on land or water, theaters, and other places of public amusement; subject only to the conditions and limitations established by law, and applicable alike to citizens of every race and color, regardless of any previous condition of servitude" was unconstitutional.




Dissent



Justice Harlan challenged the Court's narrow interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment in his dissent. As he noted, Congress was attempting to overcome the refusal of the states to protect the rights denied to African-Americans that white citizens took as their birthright:







"My brethren say that when a man has emerged from slavery, and by the aid of beneficient legislation has shaken off the inseparable concomitants of that state, there must be some stage in the progress of his elevation when he takes the rank of a mere citizen, and ceases to be the special favorite of the laws, and when his rights as a citizen, or a man, are to be protected in the ordinary modes by which other men's rights are protected. It is, I submit, scarcely just to say that the colored race has been the special favorite of the laws. What the nation, through Congress, has sought to accomplish in reference to that race is, what had already been done in every state in the Union for the white race, to secure and protect rights belonging to them as freemen and citizens; nothing more. The one underlying purpose of congressional legislation has been to enable the black race to take the rank of mere citizens. The difficulty has been to compel a recognition of their legal right to take that rank, and to secure the enjoyment of privileges belonging, under the law, to them as a component part of the people for whose welfare and happiness government is ordained."



Consequences of the decision



Harlan correctly predicted the consequences of this decision: it put an end to the attempts by Radical Republicans to ensure the civil rights of blacks and ushered in the widespread segregation of blacks in housing, employment and public life that confined them to second-class citizenship throughout much of the United States until the passage of civil rights legislation in the 1960s in the wake of the Civil Rights Movement.


Furthermore, "[i]n the wake of the Supreme Court ruling, the federal government adopted as policy that allegations of continuing slavery were matters whose prosecution should be left to local authorities only--a de facto acceptance that white southerners could do as they wished with the black people in their midst." Douglas A. Blackmon, Slavery by Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II, Anchor Books 2009, p. 93.


The decision that the Reconstruction-era Civil Rights Acts were unconstitutional has not been overturned; on the contrary, the Supreme Court reaffirmed this limited reading of the Fourteenth Amendment in United States v. Morrison529 U.S. 598 (2000), in which it held that Congress did not have the authority to enact parts of the Violence Against Women Act.


The Court has, however, upheld more recent civil rights laws based on other powers of Congress. Title II of the Civil Rights Act of 1964generally revived the ban on discrimination in public accommodations that was in the Civil Rights Act of 1875, but under the Commerce Clause of Article I instead of the 14th Amendment; the Court found it to be constitutional in Heart of Atlanta Motel v. United States379 U.S.241 (1964).

Tuesday, May 25, 2010

Haiti police slaughtered inmates in prison: report





















Haiti police slaughtered inmates in prison: report







According to a confidential UN report and testimony of former inmates, prison workers and relatives of the deceased, the daily said the prisoners were not armed at the time, were made to lie down and were shot.





WASHINGTON (AFP) – Haitian police killed several unarmed inmates in a prison in Les Cayes, one week after the January 12 earthquake, and blamed the massacre on a prison ringleader, The New York Timesreported after investigating the deaths.




Police said they found the bodies after storming the prison to quell a riot and blamed the murders on a ringleader, identified as Ti Mousson, who they claim shot fellow inmates who refused to join him in fleeing the compound.


Mousson is now at large, the daily said.


The alleged police massacre took place one week after the earthquake that devastated Port-au-Prince and its surroundings killing as many as 300,000 people, but left Les Cayes largely unscathed though with its population unnerved.


Two cooks who were inside at the time of the prison unrest said they saw no bodies when police stormed the compound. Former inmate Kesnel Jeudi said police made prisoners lie down and "while the prisoners were lying down -- they began firing."


Jeudi told the daily the police shootings involved some settling of scores: "There were people they selected to kill."


Most accounts put the number of dead from 12 to 19, with up to another 40 inmates wounded. The bodies were buried in an unmarked, common grave, the daily said.


"For four months, American and United Nations officials have made no public comments about the killings at Les Cayes, saying they were urging the Haitians to handle the matter themselves," The New York Times said.


After pressing US officials on the issue, it added, the United Nations mission chief in Haiti, Edmond Mulet, ordered the UN police commissioner there to begin an independent inquiry.


Eric Holder remains quiet over brutality by Detroit police









Eric Holder remains quiet over brutality by Detroit police


































Eric Holder

Photo - AP 

Anthony Bouchard - Cheyenne Government Examiner

Attorney General Eric holder was in Detroit for a ground breaking ceremony for a civil rights center at Wayne State University.



Ironically Holder, widely critical about the treatment of Terrorists isn’t saying a word about the killing of a seven year old girl that was needlessly shot by the police during a raid.

The little girl was sleeping at the time the police broke down the door and came in shooting. The girl, Aiyana Jones was hit in the head and neck and later died at the Hospital.

A&E had been shadowing the Detroit Police filming TV footage when the raid went bad. According to an AP report – Geoffrey Fieger the family’s Attorney said "the video shows an officer lobbing the [flash] grenade and then shooting into the home from the porch".



Sadly Eric Holder, America's top law enforcement officer declined to comment on the matter.








detnews.com










May 17, 2010http://detnews.com/article/20100517/METRO/5170376

Federal probe sought in fatal shooting; Holder mum on incident



Detroit -- Attorney General Eric Holder made no mention of Sunday's fatal shooting of a 7-year-old girl by Detroit police when he spoke at a groundbreaking for the Damon J. Keith Center for Civil Rights at Wayne State University early this afternoon.

About a dozen supporters of the Detroit Coalition Against Police Brutality and the Michigan Anti-War Coalition demonstrated across the street from the groundbreaking before it began. Ron Scott, a spokesman for the coalition, said he was calling on Holder to open a federal civil rights investigation into the shooting. 





"We think he should investigate this shooting and investigate what seems to be a policy that is leading to these kinds of confrontations," Scott said.

Holder did not make himself available to reporters but Justice Department officials in Detroit said talk of a federal investigation is premature. The shooting is under investigation by the Michigan State Police.

Aiyana Jones was fatally shot by police early Sunday when Detroit officers were raiding a two-unit flat on the east side in an attempt to arrest a man wanted for murder.

The demonstration ended before the groundbreaking ceremony and didn't disrupt it. 





At the ceremony, Holder, Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm and other speakers honored Judge Damon J. Keith of the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals, who Holder described as "a trailblazer and an icon" as well as "a towering role model."

Among the speakers were real estate developer A. Alfred Taubman, who donated $3 million to help build the center, and Ford Motor Co. vice president Edsel Ford II, who donated $1 million.

"I hope that equal justice under the law will guide the work of the Keith Center," Keith told the crowd. 





pegan@detnews.com">pegan@detnews.com (313) 222-2069

Little Rock school security supervisor arrested




Little Rock school security supervisor arrested 











Little Rock Ark May 9 2010


Fox news


A Little Rock school supervisor is in trouble with the law. Police say the school employee over-stepped his boundaries after hiring a female security guard. Detectives credit the new employee for noticing something suspicious and reporting it. What she found is now at the center of the investigation.



The Little Rock school district just placed 48 year old Robert Moore on leave as it conducts its own internal investigation. This as Little Rock police are moving forward with a case they say is all caught on camera.


Little Rock schools hire security guards to make sure your children are safe. This week, a security supervisor found himself on the other side of the law.


Police say it happened when Moore hired a new female security guard at the district’s security office.


“He interviewed her, told her she needed to try on some uniforms, she went into a room where the uniforms were,” Lt. Terry Hastings said.


That’s when police say she saw a camera recording her every move.


“She took the tape out of it, finished her interview with Mr. Moore and then left,” Hastings said.


Now the DVD with the evidence is in the hands of investigators.


“It’s unfortunate that sometimes people make bad choices often that result in consequences,” Tiffany Hoffman of Little Rock Schools said.


School officials placed Moore on leave. They don’t believe he’s ever done this.


“The good part is the aspect of his job does not take him into the schools so we don’t believe that any students were in harm’s way,” Hoffman said.


FOX16 went to the home listed as Moore’s address. No one answered the door.


“It kind of causes a bad image when you have this happen to whatever agency is involved in it,” Lt. Hastings said.


Police arrested Moore Wednesday and he got out of jail on a $2500 bond. He’s charged with Video Voyeurism, a Class D felony.


Police would not comment on what was caught on camera. Officers say they have to present it as evidence in court.




 
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