Real Racist in a White Sheet or False Flag? From [HERE] A white man from Maryland who told police he traveled to New York to kill black men turned himself in on Wednesday, about 24 hours after he fatally stabbed a man he encountered on the street, officials said.
Authorities described the suspected attacker as someone who had long harbored feelings of hatred toward black men before violently acting on them this week. Police said he carried out the attack in a way that intended to draw attention.
“The reason why he picked New York is ’cause it’s the media capital of the world,” said William Aubry, assistant chief of the New York City Police Department. “And he wanted to make a statement.”
New York police said they charged James Harris Jackson, 28, with murder. Police said Jackson encountered 66-year-old Timothy Caughman shortly after 11 p.m. on Monday and stabbed him multiple times. Caughman went to a police precinct for help and was brought to Bellevue Hospital, where he died, police said.
Early Wednesday morning, a little more than 24 hours after the attack, Jackson walked into the police substation in Times Square and announced that he was wanted for murder.
“‘I’m the person you’re looking for,'” Jackson told the patrol officers there, Aubry said at a briefing later Wednesday.
Jackson also told them he had knives in his pockets, and police searched him and took him into custody, Aubry said. Police recovered what Aubry called a 26-inch “black mini-sword,” which he said police believe is the weapon used to stab Caughman in the back.
The attack is “extremely distressing,” James P. O’Neill, the New York City police commissioner, said at the same briefing.
Police gave few details of Aubry’s background on Wednesday, identifying him only as a Baltimore resident and military veteran. Jackson was in the Army for more than three years, deploying to Afghanistan between December 2010 and November 2011, according to Lt. Col. Jennifer Johnson, an Army spokesperson. His service record did not include any badges reflecting combat interaction with any enemy during that time. Jackson served as a military intelligence analyst and left the service in August 2012 with the rank of specialist.
From [HERE] The white Vallejo police officer, Spener Bottomley, seen in two viral videos attacking an unarmed Black man, Dejuan Hall, in a street median is the subject of a civil rights complaint filed in federal district court last October.
In court documents obtained by the Times-Herald, the complaint alleges Spencer Bottomley, along with four other Vallejo police officers, used excessive force during an April 2016 arrest. Derrick Shields alleges that while laying face down on his stomach, he was kicked, punched, and struck with a baton by the officers, according to the complaint. Shields also alleges Bottomley struck him with a flashlight during the incident.
“As a result of the police beating, plaintiff lost consciousness, experienced bruises all over his body and spine, swollen face, fractured jaw, abrasions, and broken teeth,” the complaint alleges. Shields is seeking compensatory and punitive damages, along with damages for emotional distress.
Two weeks ago the videotaped struggle between Bottomley and Dejuan Hall, 23, of Vacaville — which went viral nationally — has some residents concerned about excessive force by the police department.
The incident occurred about 3:15 p.m. on March 10, when police responded to a call from employees at the Valero gas station on Fairgrounds Drive that a customer, later identified as Hall, was acting erratically.
After Bottomley confronted Hall outside the store, Hall ran, and Bottomley gave chase. Witnesses said the first arriving white officer (Bottomley) chased him for several minutes until he finally gave up and sat down in the middle of the street.
Then, while he was sitting - surrendered on the ground in the median - the officer dove or pounced on him from behind. Perhaps surprised, Hall appeared to defend himself as the officer started striking him in his face with his fist and elbow. The officer then strikes the Black man with a metal flashlight. Subsequently, another white cop arrives and although both cops appear to have subdued him the cop continues to hit him with a metal flashlight.
A second officer arrives and places his knee on Hall in an attempt to subdue him. Bottomley continues to strike Hall, while additional officers arrive on scene and demand the crowd back up from the incident.
“The kid surrendered,” said one witness who didn’t want to give his name. “The cop, on the other hand, came up right behind him and he was tired too. But he immediately dove on the kid and started wailing on him.” [MORE]
In response, numerous speakers at the March 14 Vallejo City Council meeting expressed concern regarding the content of the videos, with many demanding the council, mayor and city manager get involved and prevent similar incidents from occurring. Other speakers said officers need training on how to handle disabled individuals or persons with mental illness.
The local branch of the NAACP, Chapter 1081, issued a statement last week in response to the videos.
“Physical abuse or excessive police force is not an option,” wrote chapter president Jimmie Jackson. “With that on the table NAACP has launched its own independent investigation as to what occurred before, during and after the arrest of Mr. Dejuan Hall.
48 Days in Jail Off Lies & Bullshit.The US Supreme Court [official website] ruled [opinion, PDF] Tuesday that Fourth Amendment [text] protections against unreasonable seizure can continue after the legal process has concluded. In Manuel v. City of Joliet [SCOTUSblog materials], the court reversed the lower court in a 6-2 decision. [MORE] The opinion is [HERE] and [MORE] White supremacy/racism is carried out by deception & violence.
Elijah Manuel, a Black man, was riding through Joliet, Illinois, in the passenger seat of a Dodge Charger, with his brother at the wheel. A pair of white Joliet police officers pulled the car over when the driver failed to signal a turn. According to the complaint in this case, officer Gruber immediately dragged Manuel from the car, pushed him to the ground, handcuffed him, and struck him repeatedly. Gruber yelled at him, saying, “[y]ou remember me, street punk? Now I got you, you fucking nigger.” Manuel claims that the police searched his car and tore it apart in the process.
The policeman then searched Manuel and found a vitamin bottle containing pills. Suspecting that the pills were actually illegal drugs, the officers conducted a field test of the bottle’s contents. The test came back negative for any controlled substance, leaving the officers with no evidence that Manuel had committed a crime. Still, the officers arrested Manuel and took him to the Joliet police station.
There, an evidence technician tested the pills once again, and got the same (negative) result. But the technician lied in his report, claiming that one of the pills was “found to be . . . positive for the probable presence of ecstasy.” Similarly, one of the arresting officers wrote in his report that “[f]rom [his] training and experience, [he] knew the pills to be ecstasy.” On the basis of those statements, another officer swore out a criminal complaint against Manuel, charging him withunlawful possession of a controlled substance.
Manuel was brought before a [white?] county court judge later that day for a determination of whether there was probable cause for the charge, as necessary for further detention. The judge relied exclusively on the criminal complaint—which in turn relied exclusively on the police department’s fabrications—to support a finding of probable cause. Based on that determination, he sent Manuel to the county jail to await trial. In the somewhat obscure legal lingo of this case, Manuel’s subsequent detention was thus pursuant to “legal process”—because it followed from, and was authorized by, the judge’s probable-cause determination.
While Manuel sat in jail, the Illinois police laboratory reexamined the seized pills, and on April 1, it issued a report concluding (just as the prior two tests had) that they contained no controlled substances. But for unknown reasons, the prosecution—and, criticallyfor this case, Manuel’s detention—continued for more than another month. Only on May 4 did an Assistant State’s Attorney seek dismissal of the drug charge. The County Court immediately granted the request,and Manuel was released the next day. In all, he had spent 48 days in pretrial detention.
The Supreme Court held that those objecting to a pretrial deprivation of liberty may invoke the Fourth Amendment when (as here) that deprivation occurs after legal process commences. The Fourth Amendment prohibits government officials from detaining a person inthe absence of probable cause. It applies at arrest pre-legal-process) arrest, but also for a person's (post-legal-process) pretrial detention - after a finding of probable cause by a judge.
In Manuel's case, cops initially arrested Manuel without probable cause, based solely on his possession of pills that had field tested negative for an illegal substance. Manuel could bring a claim for wrongful arrest under the Fourth Amendment. And the same is true as to a claim for wrongful detention—because Manuel’s subsequent weeks in custody were also unsupported by probable cause, and so also constitutionally unreasonable. No evidence of Manuel’s criminality had come to light in between the roadside arrest and the County Court proceeding initiating legal process; to the contrary, yet another test of Manuel’s pills had come back negative in that period. All that the judge had before him were police fabricationsabout the pills’ content. The judge’s order holding Manuel for trial therefore lacked any proper basis. And that means Manuel’s ensuing pretrial detention, no less than his original arrest, violated his Fourth Amendment rights.
THE NUN CHIYONO STUDIED FOR YEARS, BUT WAS UNABLE TO FIND ENLIGHTENMENT.
ONE NIGHT, SHE WAS CARRYING AN OLD PAIL FILLED WITH WATER.
AS SHE WAS WALKING ALONG, SHE WAS WATCHING THE FULL MOON REFLECTED IN THE PAIL OF WATER.
SUDDENLY, THE BAMBOO STRIPS THAT HELD THE PAIL TOGETHER BROKE, AND THE PAIL FELL APART.
THE WATER RUSHED OUT; THE MOON’S REFLECTION DISAPPEARED – AND CHIYONO BECAME ENLIGHTENED. SHE WROTE THIS VERSE: THIS WAY AND THAT WAY I TRIED TO KEEP THE PAIL TOGETHER, HOPING THE WEAK BAMBOO WOULD NEVER BREAK.
SUDDENLY THE BOTTOM FELL OUT. NO MORE WATER; NO MORE MOON IN THE WATER – EMPTINESS IN MY HAND.
Enlightenment is always sudden. There is no gradual progress towards it, because all gradualness belongs to the mind and enlightenment is not of the mind. All degrees belong to the mind and enlightenment is beyond it. So you cannot grow into enlightenment, you simply jump into it. You cannot move step by step; there are no steps. Enlightenment is just like an abyss, either you jump or you don’t jump.
You cannot have enlightenment in parts, in fragments. It is a totality – either you are in it or out of it, but there is no gradual progression. Remember this thing as one of the most basic: it happens unfragmented, complete, total. It happens as a whole, and that is the reason why mind is always incapable of understanding. Mind can understand anything which can be divided. Mind can understand anything which can be reached through installments, because mind is analysis, division, fragmentation. Mind can understand parts; the whole always eludes it. So if you listen to the mind you will never attain.
That’s what happened: this nun, Chiyono, studied for years and years and nothing happened. Mind can study about God, about enlightenment, about the ultimate. It can even pretend that everything has been understood. But God is not something you have to understand. Even if you know everything about God, you don’t know him; knowledge is not ’about’. Whenever you say ’about’, you belong to the outside. You may be moving round and round, but you have not entered the circle.
When someone says, ”I know about God,” he says he doesn’t know anything at all, because how can you know anything about God? God is the center, not the periphery. You can know about matter – because matter has no center in it, it is just the periphery. You cannot know about consciousness: there is no self, there is no one inside. Matter is only the outside; you can know about it. Science is knowledge. The very word science means knowledge – knowledge of the periphery, knowledge about something where the center doesn’t exist. Whenever the center is approached through the periphery, you miss it.
You have to become it; that is the only way to know it. Nothing can be known about God. You have to be; only being is knowledge there. With the ultimate, ’about and about’ means missing and missing again. You have to enter and become one.
That’s why Jesus says, ”God is like love” – not loving, but just like love. You cannot know anything about love, or can you? You can study and study, you can become a great scholar, but you have not touched, you have not penetrated. Love can be known only when you become a lover. Not only that: love can be known only when you become love. Even the lover disappears, because that too belongs to the outside. Two persons in love become absent. They are not there. Only love exists, the rhythm of love. There may be two poles of the rhythm but they are not there. Something of the beyond has come into being. They have disappeared.
Love exists when you are empty. Knowledge exists when you are filled. Knowledge belongs to the ego, and the ego can never penetrate to the center; it is the periphery. The periphery can know only the periphery. You cannot know something which is of the center through the ego. The ego can study, the ego can make you a great scholar, maybe a religious scholar, a great pundit. You may know all the Vedas, all the Upanishads, all the Bibles and Korans, and still you know nothing – because it is not knowledge from the outside, it is something which happens when you have entered and you have become one.
THE NUN CHIYONO STUDIED FOR YEARS...
She may have studied for lives. You have been studying for many lives. You have been moving and moving in a circle. But when somebody moves in a circle, a very great illusion is created: you feel you are progressing. You always feel you are moving, and you are still not going anywhere, because you are moving in a circle. You go on repeating. That is why Hindus have called this world samsara. Samsara means the wheel, the circular. You move and move and move and never reach anywhere, and you always feel that you are reaching. ”Now the goal is nearer because I have walked so much.” Just try moving in a big circle. You can never see it as a circle, because you know only part of it. So it is always a road, a way. This is what has been happening for many lives.
Chiyono studied and studied, BUT WAS UNABLE TO FIND ENLIGHTENMENT – not because enlightenment is difficult, but because when you study it you miss the whole point. You are on the wrong track. It is as if someone is trying to enter this room through the wall. Not that entering this room is difficult, but you have to enter through the door. If you try through the wall it looks difficult, almost impossible. It is not. It is you who are on the wrong track. Many, many people, whenever they start the journey, they start through study, through learning, through knowledge, information, philosophy, systems, theology. They start from the ’about’; then they are knocking against the wall.
ThinkProgress has uncovered the disturbing secret history of the NYPD officer who killed Eric Garner. Documents obtained exclusively by ThinkProgress indicate that Officer Daniel Pantaleo, who is still employed by the NPYD (earning $120,000 a year), had a history of breaking the rules. These records are the subject of an ongoing lawsuit, and the city refuses to release them.
As you recall, on July 17, 2014, NYPD Officer Daniel Pantaleo wrapped his arms around Eric Garner’s neck and squeezed. He held tight as a gang of other white cops pounced on and slammed Garner, 43 years old and asthmatic, to the ground. Garner, who was unarmed at the time, gasped for air, arm outstretched, saying “I can’t breathe” over and over as officers piled on top of him. Then he was silent.
The next day, when the New York Daily News released video of the encounter, Garner had already died from neck and chest compression. His death sparked national protests about police violence against the black community, and his final words, “I can’t breathe,” became a rallying cry for the Black Lives Matter movement. On December 3, 2014, when a grand jury decided not to indict Pantaleo, thousands of people in cities all over the country stormed the streets to chant Garner’s dying words.
Pantaleo became a symbol of law enforcement that acts with impunity — especially with respect to white officers interacting violently with black men. Not only had Pantaleo killed a man accused of bootlegging cigarettes, but he’d used a chokehold prohibited by the NYPD to do it.
Before he put Garner in the chokehold, the records show, he had seven disciplinary complaints and 14 individual allegations lodged against him. Four of those allegations were substantiated by an independent review board.
Neither Pantaleo nor the NYPD responded to ThinkProgress requests for comment.
A pattern of problematic behavior
Pantaleo’s apparent disciplinary history was sent to ThinkProgress from an anonymous source who said they worked at the New York City Civilian Complaint Review Board (CCRB), an independent agency that receives and investigates complaints against NYPD officers. The source did not disclose their name or identity to ThinkProgress, but four New York City attorneys told ThinkProgress the documents match the appearance of summaries of disciplinary proceedings before the CCRB. Two of these attorneys declined to have their names associated with the verification of the documents, citing fear that they would be associated with the leak. (The documents can be found at the bottom of the article and [MORE on sources])
The documents show four of the allegations were substantiated by the CCRB, which recommended disciplinary action against Pantaleo years before he killed Garner. According to the records, the agency had sufficient evidence of an abusive vehicle stop and search by Pantaleo in 2011, which resulted in a two-part complaint. The agency also substantiated allegations about an abusive stop and frisk in 2012, which resulted in another two-part complaint that was reported by DNAinfo in April 2016.
According to the opinion of experts interviewed by ThinkProgress and our own review of CCRB data, this, along with the sheer number of cases, indicates a chronic history of complaints against Pantaleo and would make his disciplinary history with the CCRB among the worst on the force.
The documents indicate that the CCRB pushed for the harshest penalties it has the authority to recommend for all four substantiated allegations: charges that aren’t criminal, but “launch an administrative prosecution in the NYPD Trial Room,” according to the CCRB, and can result in suspension, lost vacation days, or termination. But the NYPD, which is not required to heed the CCRB’s recommendations, imposed the weakest disciplinary action for the vehicular incident: “instruction,” or additional training.
It also diverged from the CCRB’s stance on the 2012 stop and frisk. While the NYPD found Pantaleo guilty of unauthorized frisking, it cleared him of making an abusive stop. Instead of eight forfeited vacation days, per the CCRB’s recommendation, Pantaleo only had to forfeit two.
Jonathan Moore, a civil-rights attorney who represented Garner’s family and four of the Central Park Five, noted that the previous stop-and-frisk case was telling.
“Imagine that. Here’s the disposition of a substantiated charge for making a bad vehicle search and a bad vehicle stop, and the remedy is instruction,” Moore told ThinkProgress. “What happened on July 17th with Eric Garner was a bad stop and frisk.”
The documents also show allegations that Pantaleo refused to seek medical treatment for someone in 2009, hit someone against an inanimate object in 2011, made abusive vehicular stops and searches on two separate occasions in 2012, and used physical force during another incident in 2013.
The documents indicate that the 2009 and 2013 incidents were unsubstantiated by the CCRB, meaning “available evidence is insufficient to determine whether the officer did or did not commit misconduct.” So too were the vehicular stops and searches in 2012. The 2011 case was closed because the complainant was “uncooperative,” which the agency describes as not answering investigator requests for an interview or missing two interviews.
But legal experts say the number of complaints should have raised red flags, even if they weren’t substantiated.
“Regardless of the outcome, if you get three complaints in a year, you’re supposed to be on performance monitoring,” Moore said. “He got three in the course of two months in 2012.”
A record that stands out
Even a conservative reading of the documents indicates Pantaleo had among the worst CCRB disciplinary records on the force two years before his encounter with Garner. Yet the NYPD allowed him to stay on the streets.
When compared with publicly available data posted on the CCRB’s website, the records show that Pantaleo was subject to far more disciplinary allegations and substantiated complaints than the majority of his 36,000 fellow NYPD officers. The CCRB data, which is based on cases closed from 2006 to 2017, has its limitations: it does not appear to control for variables such as age or how long an officer has been on the force. For example, an officer with a decade in uniform may have the same number of complaints as an officer with just a year’s experience: common sense would say the less-experienced officer is the worse offender, but the records would make no distinction between these two hypothetical cases.
Nevertheless, a ThinkProgress analysis of available CCRB data found that only 1,750 current NYPD officers — or around 4.9 percent of the force — have received eight or more complaints, as Pantaleo has. The same data also shows that only 738 officers — about 2 percent — have two or more complaints with substantiated allegations.
"If murder is wrong, then whether it is committed by the man or by the society and its court, makes no difference."From [HERE] A day after a newly elected Black prosecutor said she would not seek the death penalty in capital cases, the remainder of Florida’s 20 state attorneys affirmed Friday they intend to pursue death sentences when appropriate.
The statement by the Florida Prosecuting Attorneys Association came as a number of African-American leaders declared their support for 9th Judicial Circuit State Attorney Aramis Ayala, who sparked a statewide outcry Thursday over her decision not to seek the death penalty in the case of accused cop-killer Markeith Loyd — or in any other case.
Within hours of her announcement Thursday, an outraged racist suspect, Gov. Rick Scott reassigned the case of Loyd — accused of killing his pregnant ex-girlfriend and shooting a Black Orlando police officer execution-style — to Brad King, an Ocala-area state attorney who is an outspoken proponent of the death penalty. King is white.
On Friday, prosecutors other than Ayala voted to “affirm the responsibility of enforcing the laws of Florida,” which they maintain is “paramount to our oath of office.”
“Throughout 19 of the 20 circuits of Florida, the death penalty will continue to be sought in those cases which qualify for its implementation,” the association said in a statement provided to The News Service of Florida after the vote. “The victims’ families of Florida deserve our dedication to implement all the laws of Florida. That is why the people of Florida have elected us.”
Ayala’s office participated in the conference call but did not vote, a source with the prosecutors said.
Status hearing 3/20/17. Skip to 14:00 for discussion. Since there is no prejudice to the defense, the defense could waive any objection but Mr. Loyd has no attorney.
On Monday Ayala accused Gov. Rick Scott of abusing his authority by ousting her as prosecutor in the Loyd case. She asked a judge Monday to put a hold on proceedings in the case of Loyd.
Ayala’s action came the same day more than 100 former prosecutors, judges and law professors sent a letter to Scott challenging his authority to remove the prosecutor — who, like other state attorneys, enjoys broad discretion in seeking the death penalty — from pursuing the case as she sees fit.
In a five-page filing, Ayala argued that Scott lacks the power to strip her of her role as prosecutor. The Florida Constitution gives Ayala “complete authority over charging and prosecuting decisions,” she wrote.
State law only gives the governor the authority to remove a prosecutor if he determines for “good and sufficient reasons” that “the ends of justice would be served,” Ayala went on, citing state statutes.
“A ‘good and sufficient reason,’ therefore, must be something other than a disagreement over how I should exercise my discretion in a particular case,” Ayala wrote.
White Cop Rewarded with Promotion. Won't Face Discipline in Racist System. From [HERE] A Brooklyn jury has awarded $2.5 million to the grieving mother of a 25-year-old Black man shot and killed by white police officer in 2008 — a shooting that cops maintain was accidental.
The surprise jury verdict against the city and Brooklyn NYPD Inspector John Chell was announced Friday following a five-week trial. In reaching its verdict, the jury determined that Chell “intentionally discharged” his firearm at Ortanzso Bovell. Witnesses say Chell shot Bovell as he fled in a stolen car.
On Aug. 7, 2008, Chell was a lieutenant in charge of the Brooklyn South Auto Larceny squad. He and his team found Bovell breaking into a 2004 Mustang GT at Remsen Ave. and Lenox Road in East Flatbush around 8 p.m., cops said.
The police in initial reports claimed that Bovell tried to speed off in the car and sideswiped Chell as he tried to escape.
Chell, who had taken out his weapon, fell and his gun went off as Bovell drove away, striking him in the back. Both the department and the Brooklyn DA, who was white, closed out the case in short order without charging Chell, officials said. White prosecutors believe almost anything white cops tell them.
During a five-week civil wrongful death trial that began in February, Chell was on the witness stand for three days. He stuck to his claims that Bovell’s death was an accident — but the jury didn’t buy it.
“He maintained that he started to fall and the gun went off,” said Jon Norinsberg, the attorney for Bovell’s mother Lorna Wright-Bovell. “But we proved that the ballistics contradicted this — that the shooting had to be done by someone firing from a standing position.”
Wright-Bovell said the verdict had given her closure. “I’m not saying my son didn’t do anything wrong — but they could have arrested him,” she said. “Don’t kill him.
The shooting marked the third time Chell had fired his weapon.
Since Bovell’s death, Chell has [been rewarded by the system of racism] steadily moved up the ranks and is the commanding officer of the 75th Precinct in East New York, officials said.
He was never disciplined for killing Bovell and the NYPD will not reexamine the shooting in light of the verdict, a high-ranking police source said.
The Psychopathic Racial PersonalityFrom [HERE] Officer Christopher Reiter, 36, is charged with third degree assault for kicking Mohamed Osman, 35, in the face when responding to a May 30, 2016, call, breaking Osman’s nasal cavity and causing a traumatic brain injury. The brain injury still prevents him from working and caring for his children.Reiter is white and Osman is a Somali American.
The incident was captured on surveillance video, and three other white officers at the scene said they did not feel it necessary to kick him in the face, according to charges.
He was on his hands and knees when he was kicked, which caused facial and brain injuries.
3rd degree assault requires a temporary but substantial loss of body function [like a broken arm]. 1st degree assault requires great bodily harm, permanent or protracted loss of use of body function. The prosecutor said the charges may be amended to 1st degree assault depending on Osman's recovery from his injuries.[MORE]
Video and records obtained by Star Tribune appear to contradict official reports filed by two white Minneapolis police officers when they justified kicking a man in the face in May 2016.
Reiter, who is no longer on the force, and Josh Domek were in a group of about four officers who responded to a domestic assault report at 2929 Chicago Avenue south during the early morning hours of May 30.
The video shows Domek and two other officers running out of the building with their guns drawn and toward a silver SUV where Osman was sitting. Osman got out of the car with his hands up and knelt on the ground. Domek then kicked Osman in his midsection. Immediately after, Reiter, dressed in a darker uniform, kicked Osman in the head.
According to the criminal charge, Reiter's kick caused Osman to collapse to the ground "unconscious and bleeding."
A squad car arrives and blocks the camera's view, but when that car pulls away, the video shows Osman at times sitting up unassisted.
In reports they filed after the incident, Domek wrote that as he approached Osman, he ordered him to get on the ground. Domek then wrote that he moved toward Osman "in an effort to push him to the ground to get him in handcuff position. While doing so, I felt resistance from the male, causing me to believe that he was going to attempt to fight as he had just been involved in a violent assault."
In his report, Reiter said when the other officers ordered Osman out of the vehicle, "I could see [Osman] pushing off the ground.
"I made a split second decision and kicked [Osman] in the face one time with the top flat part of my boot."
The video does not appear to show Osman either resisting or pushing off the ground.
In charging Reiter last week with a felony, County Attorney Mike Freeman said, "in this case, a kick to the face is a use of deadly force, and simply not justified," Freeman said.
Nazi Like.Last month an Israeli soldier who fatally shot an unarmed already wounded Palestinian Man in the head as he was laying prone on the ground was treated like a hero by the Nazi like Israeli government. The soldier was hooked up with an 18 month sentence.
From [HERE] and [HERE] ON WEDNESDAY, a U.N. agency published a report noting that “Israel has established an apartheid regime that dominates the Palestinian people as a whole.” Yesterday, the author of that report, who has served as executive secretary of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (UNESCWA) since 2010, Rima Khalef, resigned after the Trump administration, working in conjunction with Israel, pressured the U.N. secretary-general to demand that she withdraw the report.
Khalef, a Jordanian national who has served in multiple high government positions, refused the demand to repudiate her own report, instead choosing to resign. The report — which was co-authored by the Jewish American Princeton professor and former U.N. official Richard Falk, a longtime critic of Israeli occupation — has now been removed from the UNESCWA website.
What makes this event most remarkable is how unremarkable the report’s conclusion is: It’s a point that a former Israeli prime minister — as well as Trump’s own defense secretary — has made unequivocally. Back in 2010, Ehud Barak, Israel’s former prime minister and its most decorated soldier, explicitly warned that Israel was on a path to what he called a permanent “apartheid” state. As he put it: “As long as in this territory west of the Jordan river there is only one political entity called Israel it is going to be either non-Jewish, or non-democratic. If this bloc of millions of Palestinians cannot vote, that will be an apartheid state.”
Seven years later, Israel is indisputably committed to exactly that outcome. Many of its key ministers do not even support a two-state solution. Israeli expansion of illegal settlements continues unabated. Palestinians are further away than ever from full political rights, or even enjoying the right of democratic self-determination. As Barak himself pointed out, this is the very definition of apartheid.
Yet now, thanks to the Trump administration’s self-destructive devotion to Israeli interests — an odd posture for a president who ran on a platform of “Putting America First” — it is impermissible for U.N. officials to note this reality lest Israel be offended. In its report on the ouster of Khalef, CNN was surprisingly blunt about what this all means:
Memo to critics of Israel inside the U.N. system: Prepare to pay a price. … The U.S. under Trump has made it quite clear it will defend Israel perhaps more than all other countries at the U.N.
From [HERE] When the leader of the United Nations apologized to Haitians for the cholera epidemic that has ravaged their country for more than six years — caused by infected peacekeepers sent to protect them — he proclaimed a “moral responsibility” to make things right.
The apology, announced in December along with a $400 million strategy to combat the epidemic and “provide material assistance and support” for victims, amounted to a rare public act of contrition by the United Nations. Under its secretary general at the time, Ban Ki-moon, the organization had resisted any acceptance of blame for the epidemic, one of the worst cholera outbreaks in modern times.
Since then, however, the United Nations’ strategy to fight the epidemic, which it calls the “New Approach,” has failed to gain traction. A trust fund created to help finance the strategy has only about $2 million, according to the latest data on its website. Just six of the 193 member states — Britain, Chile, France, India, Liechtenstein and South Korea — have donated.
Other countries have provided additional sources of anti-cholera funding for Haiti outside the trust fund, most notably Canada, at about $4.6 million, and Japan, at $2.6 million, according to the United Nations. Nonetheless, the totals received are a fraction of what Mr. Ban envisioned.
In a letter sent to member states last month, Mr. Ban’s successor, António Guterres, asked for financial commitments to the trust fund by March 6. He also appeared to raise the possibility of a mandatory dues assessment if there were no significant pledges.
The deadline came and went without much response.
Mr. Guterres has not stated publicly whether he intends to push for a mandatory assessment in the budget negotiations now underway at the United Nations. Privately, however, diplomats and United Nations officials said he had shelved the idea, partly because of strong resistance by some powerful members, including the United States.
Diplomats said part of the problem could be traced to simple donor fatigue, as well as to many countries’ reluctance to make financial commitments without certainty that the money will be used effectively.
The donor challenge was acknowledged by Dr. David Nabarro, a United Nations special adviser who rose to prominence running its mobilization to fight the Ebola crisis in West Africa, and who has been leading its fund-raising efforts for Haiti as he seeks to become the next director general of the World Health Organization.
“Donors will respond, but they need to be convinced that they’re going to be given a good proposition for what’s done with their money,” he said in January at the World Economic Forum. “The Haiti cholera story is not actually a very good one, in that it’s taken us a rather long time to get on top of it, and still the problem is persisting.”
Thursday, March 23, 2017 at 02:36AM 
