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Not submitting to a police beating is 'attempted murder' in Florida

William Norman Grigg
LewRockwell.com
Wed, 02 Jul 2014 16:57 UTC
Image
© Newyorkdailynews
Every day, somewhere in this supposedly free county, some version of this script is played out: A police officer spies an individual committing a harmless but "illegal" act, aggressively pursues the subject, inflicts physical violence on the victim, then escalates that violence to lethal or nearly lethal levels when the victim doesn't immediately submit to the state-licensed aggression.

We could refer to this as the "From Malum Prohibitum to Murder" model of police escalation. Citizens who aren't killed in such encounters can expect to be punished for the impudence they display by surviving. Police officers responsible for the actual crimes of violence will not face prosecution, owing to the evil doctrine of "qualified immunity." A recent episode in Florida resulted in several charges - including attempted murder - against a man whose only apparent "offense" was to refuse to submit to a beating by a police officer.

The assault began when an officer named Ronald Cannella who had attempted to pull over a man named Livingston Manners for allegedly running a stop light dragged the driver from his vehicle and threw him to the ground in a gas station. It's quite likely that Manners, in justifiable fear for his safety, sought a well-lit area for the encounter with the brigand.

Comment: Listen to SOTT Talk Radio's most recent discussion on this very issue.

See also:
  • The dangerous militarization of our local police forces
  • Cops Kill More Americans than have been killed in Iraq‏

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Target

DUH! Analyst says terror threats blowback from 'wrong-headed' US policies


Press TV
Sat, 05 Jul 2014 13:14 UTC
tsa
Americans are tired of "constant terrorist warnings" issued by the US government, which are the direct result of Washington's "wrong-headed" foreign policy, a political analyst says.

US intelligence officials say they are concerned al-Qaeda is trying to develop a new and sophisticated bomb that could go undetected through airport security.

On Wednesday, the Department of Homeland Security ordered the enhancement of security measures at selected overseas airports with nonstop flights to the US.

"The warnings are coming right on the eve of the 4th of July holiday, this patriotic holiday in the United States," said Daniel Patrick Welch in a phone interview with Press TV.

"The American people are exhausted from this constant terrorist warnings and the warning of the next great 9/11," he added.

The news just shows "how disastrous and wrong-headed the US policy has become or has always been actually," Welch said.

"In erecting this massive security state," he pointed out, "the only thing they have managed to foil so far are the plots that they themselves have concocted."

"They have caught people that they have enticed into a trap and caught them before they acted."

The analyst said that the security threats represent a foreign policy blowback resulting from US wars and interventions.

"If you keep funding the same organizations in Iraq and Syria and all over the world eventually the genie is going to come back and bite you."

"It [warning] could be a false flag or it could the obvious result of wrong-headed policy. It really doesn't make much of a difference to people flying," Welch said.

The authorities seek to keep the population "scared and subservient to the people in power," he concluded.
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Books

Asia's culture of intelligence

John W. Traphagen
The Diplomat
Tue, 17 Jun 2014 00:00 UTC
Image
© Flickr/RageZ
I have been traveling to East Asia (and many other parts of the world) for more than 25 years and over that time one of the things that has always struck me is how intelligent the general public in countries like Japan appear to be. It's not that there aren't dummies in East Asia, but it always seems that the average level of education and ability to think about the world intelligently and critically is impressively widespread. I've often thought about why this is the case and also why the same seems more difficult to say about the U.S. The answer, I think, can be found in a comment science fiction writer Isaac Asimov made about the U.S. while being interviewed in the 1980s: "There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge."
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Star of David

Dealing with Israeli settlements is a bad idea - 12 more EU states warn businesses against it


RT
Fri, 04 Jul 2014 12:54 UTC
illegal israeli settlements
© Reuters/Ronen Zvulun

An Israeli flag waves on a hill near the West Bank Jewish settlement of Elazar, in the Etzion settlement bloc near Bethlehem
Amid growing Palestine-Israeli tensions, 12 more EU states have joined European heavyweights - such as the UK, Germany and France - in urging their nationals to refrain from doing business in Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.

The group of those who issued warnings for their citizens on includes: Austria, Belgium, Croatia, Denmark, Finland, Greece, Ireland, Luxembourg, Malta, Portugal, Slovakia, and Slovenia.

The European nations stated that Israeli settlements in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, Gaza and the Golan Heights are illegal and hamper a peaceful settlement in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Involvement in business activities in the area carries both financial and reputational risks for investors, they warned.

The European states also pointed out that the EU "will not recognize any changes to the pre-1967 borders, including with regard to Jerusalem, other than those agreed by the parties".

Comment: It will take a lot more than warnings to make a dent in Israel's ongoing land grabs and indiscriminate murder. It should be isolated from the world as the pariah it is.
  • It needs to be said over and over again: Israel does not want peace
  • Israel halts peace talks so it can continue to torture and murder Palestinians
  • Unattainable peace: Illegal West Bank settlements expansion continues
  • An endless "Peace Process" for Palestine

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Ambulance

Kidnapped and murdered Palestinian teen was burned alive -- autopsy


RT
Sat, 05 Jul 2014 12:51 UTC
Palestinian funeral
© Reuters / Ammar Awad
Palestinian women hold flags as they chant slogans during the funeral of 16-year-old Mohammed Abu Khudair in Shuafat, an Arab suburb of Jerusalem, July 4, 2014.
Soot found in the lungs of an East Jerusalem youth, whose funeral drew thousands on Friday, means the teenager was still alive and breathing when he was burned, according to the preliminary results of an autopsy.

The autopsy, carried out by Israeli doctors in Tel Aviv and attended by a Palestinian forensic expert, revealed that over 90 percent of the boy's skin was burned and he suffered a head injury.

"The direct cause of death was burns as a result of fire and its complications," Palestinian Attorney-General Mohammed Al-A'wewy was quoted as saying by the official Palestinian news agency, Wafa.

Fire dust material was found in the boy's respiratory system, which means "the boy had inhaled this material while he was burnt alive." The final report on the autopsy will be issued following more lab examinations of the body's tissue samples.

Muhammad Abu Khdeir, 16, was kidnapped Wednesday in his neighborhood in Arab East Jerusalem. His charred body was found several hours later in a forest on the outskirts of the city.

Comment: The Israelis routinely call Palestinians animals, yet the Israelis are more often than not the ones behaving like monsters.

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Star of David

More police brutality: Israeli cops caught beating 15 year old U.S. cousin of murdered Palestinian teen


RT
Sat, 05 Jul 2014 12:28 UTC
Tarek Abu Khdeir
© AFP Photo / Ahmad Gharabli
The mother of Tarek Abu Khdeir (portrait), the 15-year-old cousin of the murdered Palestinian youth Mohammad, shows a picture of her son, she took of him at the hospital after he was assaulted by Israeli police in East Jerusalem on July 5, 2014.

A shocking video, showing Israeli police officers savagely beating 15-year-old Palestinian-American Tarek Abu Khdeir - cousin of Mohammad Abu Khdeir who was burnt alive in East Jerusalem - has prompted outrage in the Palestinian community.

The video shows two officers striking the detainee, who was handcuffed and lying on the floor. One of the officers seems to be sitting on the Palestinian, while his colleague is kicking and punching him. The youth is eventually dragged away by the police.

The video of Tarek's beating has surfaced as the funeral was held Friday for his cousin, Mohammad Abu Khdeir, who was kidnapped in the same area and burned alive.

The beating, shot from two different angles by people filming from their windows, took place on Thursday evening in Shuafat, a neighborhood in East Jerusalem.

One of the videos was broadcast on the Palestine Today television channel.

The second video posted on Facebook by Quds News Network shows the same incident.

Tariq has since been arrested and held without charge, according to his family and the rights group Addameer, as reports the Ma'an News Agency.

According to a police spokesman, the incident featured in the video occurred while six "masked rioters" were being arrested. Three of them were alleged to have been carrying knives.


Comment: Palestinians experience this type of treatment daily. Just this fact alone should be enough to understand the general sentiment of Palestinians in the occupied territories and living in Israel.

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Handcuffs

A history of violence: LA cops beating women 'just the norm'


PressTV
Sat, 05 Jul 2014 12:16 UTC
david diaz
An American activist says a recent incident where a California Highway Patrol cop unleashed a barrage of punches to the face of a black woman is "just the norm" and another episode in the long history of police brutality in the US.

A recently published video captured by a driver shows a white CHP officer chasing a black woman who was walking on the eastbound 10 Freeway near the La Brea onramp, tackling her on the ground, and beginning to punch her repeatedly in the face.

"It's just another episode in the fabulous LAPD [Los Angeles Police Department] history of violence and what we call the 'blue line' where the police departments protect those that are even criminals within their own organization," said Tighe Barry, an activist with CODEPINK, a peace and social justice movement dedicated to ending US-funded wars and occupations.

"They show no respect for a woman, they will beat a woman, they will kill men and sometimes kill women," he added.


Comment: See also: 'She was screaming': Psychopathic Calif. Highway Patrol officer caught on video pummeling woman

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Bomb

Clashes in East Jerusalem after teen's burial revive Intifada ("upraising") fears for Middle East

Ruth Eglash & Griff Witte
Washington Post
Sat, 05 Jul 2014 00:00 UTC
Thousands of Palestinians furious over the killing of a local teenager swarmed the streets of East Jerusalem on Friday to demand a new intifada. The fierce ­clashes with police that followed the teen's funeral stirred fears that a mass uprising could already be underway.

The protesters waved Palestinian flags and chanted, "Enough of the suffering, enough of the pain," capping a week that has overflowed with both for Israelis as well as Palestinians.

On Monday, soldiers discovered the bodies of three Israeli teens who had been missing for more than two weeks. Then, on Wednesday, the badly burned remains of 16-year-old Mohammad Abu Khieder were found in a forest. Although no definitive link has been established between the ­cases, there was no doubt in the Palestinian neighborhood of Shuafat on Friday that Khieder's killing was carried out by Jewish extremists and that it was intended as revenge.
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Star of David

Israel steals artifacts and blocks Palestinian access to archaeological sites in Jericho


PressTV
Thu, 03 Jul 2014 00:00 UTC
israel, palestine, jericho
© Issam Rimawi/Flash90
Soldiers have been preventing Palestinian access to the archaelogical site
The city of Jericho in the West Bank is over 10,000 years old and one of the oldest cities inhabited by mankind.

Famous for its historic sites, production of dates and its modern city structures surrounded by ancient ruins, it has long been the favorite destination of Palestinians.

Jericho lies adjacent to the Dead Sea; however, the Israelis have imposed heavy restrictions on the area and allow very few Palestinians to visit.

The tiny part of the Dead Sea, which is allowed for Palestinians, is not suitable to walk along or swim inside the sea; it is a waste land of the lowest sea on earth.

Part 1

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Info

From the Third World to a soon-to-be Third World: The immigrant surge into the US

Wesley Pruden
The Washington Times
Thu, 03 Jul 2014 09:43 UTC

Maybe we've been conned. There's a growing recognition that Barack Obama is an incompetent poser, working out of his depth, and his administration is the gang that can't shoot straight. There's a lot of evidence to support that belief.

Everything he touches becomes a bloody mess, like crushed bones and bits of flesh caught in the tracks of a tank slicing through a rank of soldiers (or civilians). Iraq, Syria, Egypt - all gone, as prospects for countries with a prosperous and democratic future. The "reset" with Russia, meant to ensure that America and the replacement republic of the old Soviet Union can be friends, is a reset, sure enough. The new Russia looks more like a reset to the Cold War, more adversary than friend, transformed by a feckless American president and an ambitious Russian leader eager to take advantage of weak and incompetent American leadership.

Comment: This current immigrant surge will not be the cause of America's decline into Third World status. Wherever psychopaths rule there will eventually be ponerization, degradation and finally collapse. This is just another event in the circus that is America's ongoing destruction.

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