Re: US strike options on TSP

pankajs · Post by **pankajs** » 14 Jan 2014 22:52

Reuters Top News ‏@Reuters 32m

Kerry asks Vatican to help win release of American jailed in Cuba http://reut.rs/L7Pd4a

Prasad · Post by **Prasad** » 14 Jan 2014 23:41

ramana wrote:We also need to present positive news to provide a balanced picture.

In George Bernard Shaw's immortal words about a character in "Major Barbara" he says "One can depend on him to d the right thing for the worng reasons!"

There is a greater amount of positive news reinforced by the rather coocooned existence of NRIs in the US who bring back their tales to India. There is hardly any mention of the inequalities in the US or the continuation of existing prejudices to the lower classes and minorities in the country. Since many NRIs do not stay in or interact with a lot of the lower strata, their situation and troubles are never seen by these people and hence there is a gaping hole in their understanding of the american society. How many students who go to the us even drive through a 'ghetto'? Or understand the disparity in publics shools between middle class suburbian neighbourhoods and the poorer sections of their city/county? Everyone wants to put their children in the best school in the town and move to be under a particular school's area but do not bring such things up, even when they know it, while discussing inequalities and the influence it carries over the lives of the next generation. However, they're ready to spout the nonsense that the law is enforced and justice is carried out without any bias or influence by the upper class. Exposure to the wide range of american society is woefully inadequate to portray it as an utopia which is what many visitors from our country to the us do.

Apologies if all this is OT.

Prasad · Post by **Prasad** » 14 Jan 2014 23:46

Here is an interesting article in the Independent about the movie 12 Years as a Slave -

Steve McQueen’s acclaimed film 12 Years A Slave is brutal in its honesty. But is it too much for American audiences?

he New York Times, then less than two years into its distinguished existence, was among the first with the news. “We have obtained from Washington,” proclaimed its front page on January 20, 1853, “the subjoined statement of the circumstances attending the seizure and recovery of the negro man SOLOMON NORTHROP [sic], whose case has excited so high a degree of interest.”

It told the amazing tale of Solomon Northup, a free black man from upstate New York who was kidnapped and sold into slavery in 1841, and whose ordeal ended only after proof of his free status was provided to his owner.

The paucity of slavery movies is especially striking when compared with the hundreds made about the Holocaust.

Nor is Hollywood invariably squeamish, anxious not to upset the audiences on which the industry depends. Look no further than Saving Private Ryan, and the stomach-churning opening section on the Normandy landings, depicting war in its gory, unvarnished horror. But then Americans were the good guys – or, insofar as the Holocaust is concerned, at least not the bad guys. In 12 Years a Slave, it has been said, it took a non-American director such as McQueen, and a non-American star (Chiwetel Ejiofor, who plays Solomon Northup, is of Nigerian ancestry and grew up in England) to show slavery as it really was.

There may be some truth in this. Nonetheless, you could describe 2013 as America’s Year of the Black Movie. The Butler tells the history of the civil rights movement as witnessed by a butler at the White House, loosely modelled on Eugene Allen, a black butler who really did serve through eight presidential administrations.

Then there was 42, the story of Jackie Robinson, the first player to break the colour barrier in major league baseball, as well as Django Unchained. This autumn, the six-part documentary, The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross, presented by Gates, ran on US public television. And now 12 Years a Slave. So why this plethora now?

One big reason is that the entertainment industry is catching up with the fact that the US has its first black President. The election of Barack Obama, the African-American who beat the whites at their own game, has undoubtedly made admission of guilt easier. The liberal conscience has been partly assuaged and embarrassing subjects may be tackled more openly (even though Obama’s heritage is not of slaves, but as the mixed race son of a Kenyan studying in Hawaii, about as far from Dixie as it is possible to get in the 50 states).

12 Years A Slave is the most damning portrait of the old South imaginable. It is shot in a Louisiana where even mother nature is not welcoming: skeletal trees, draped in Spanish moss, that stand guard over oily swamps; the lush but stifling vegetation of the plantations, the sapping summer heat, rising like smoke from the cotton fields.

And that’s before you get to Edwin Epps, the plantation owner into whose hands Solomon Northup – now known by his slave name of Platt – has the misfortune to fall. Epps regards his slaves as a subspecies, mere chattels whose only reason for preservation is their value as labour. He finds justification for his casual brutality in the scriptures: “And that servant which knew his Lord’s will and prepared not himself, neither did according to his will, shall be beaten with many stripes” (Luke 12:47).

Of course, it has much contemporary relevance. Race, you will not be amazed to hear, is still a problem in the US, albeit a lesser one. The legacy of the Civil War, fought by the South to maintain slavery, is still visible. Republicans may have replaced Democrats as the region’s dominant party. But its conservatism in some respects is little changed.

Look no further than the staunch opposition to gay rights and the widespread quest for more stringent rules for elections, a thinly disguised attempt to turn back the civil rights clock by suppressing the minority vote, not least of blacks.

And who would deny that the visceral dislike of Obama among some of today’s Republicans reflects a sense that a black President, just like an educated, accomplished black such as Solomon Northup in the 1840s, offends the proper order of things?

But none of this will be changed by a single magnificent film – even one, to borrow those long-ago words of The New York Times, “whose case has excited so high a degree of interest”.

Just a few para's from that article. Read it in full.

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 15 Jan 2014 01:09

So what is the common theme in those multiple defects?

location: South
political affliation: mostly Republicans
racial:mostly whites
what else?

pankajs · Post by **pankajs** » 15 Jan 2014 09:37

cross post
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Huffington Post ‏@HuffingtonPost 24m

Marijuana prohibition was racist from the start. Not much has changed http://huff.to/1d137xT
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In a column for The Fix, Maia Szalavitz reminds us that Harry Anslinger, the father of the war on weed, fully embraced racism as a tool to demonize marijuana. As the first commissioner of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, a predecessor to the Drug Enforcement Administration, Anslinger institutionalized his belief that pot's "effect on the degenerate races" made its prohibition a top priority. Here are just a few of his most famous (and most racist) quotes:

"There are 100,000 total marijuana smokers in the U.S., and most are Negroes, Hispanics, Filipinos and entertainers. Their Satanic music, jazz and swing result from marijuana use. This marijuana causes white women to seek sexual relations with Negroes, entertainers and any others."

“Reefer makes darkies think they're as good as white men."

..
Meanwhile, states throughout the south began implementing drug laws as part of the explicitly racist Jim Crow system, with southern lawmakers being quite open about the racist motivations behind the laws.

Sure, this was more than 75 years ago, but how much has actually changed today? The feds have stripped Anslinger's offensive language from their official mission statements, but we are left with anti-drug policies that are hardly less racist in their application.

According to a 2013 study by the American Civil Liberties Union, blacks across the nation were nearly four times more likely than whites to be arrested on charges of marijuana possession in 2010, despite data that suggested they use the drug at about the same rate.
----------------------------------------------------------->>
Some comments on the post

Like most American wars (spoken and unspoken) people-of-color are always in 99.9% of the cases the scapgoats.

It is not only marijuana prohibition that is racist! Traffic enforcement is racist. All law enforcement is racist! The judicial system is racist! How on this Earth can the prison population be mostly African American while whites are still in the majority? You do not need any more proof than that. ( I am white by the way. )

Heroin, cocaine, weed, alcohol etc. All perfectly acceptable to use, provided that you were rich and white. The minute the "others" started to use it was all of a sudden a menace. Fast forward to 2014 and you have the same mentality.

vinod · Post by **vinod** » 15 Jan 2014 18:03

The original manuscript of 12 years a slave from 1853: http://docsouth.unc.edu/fpn/northup/northup.html

Javee · Post by **Javee** » 15 Jan 2014 18:11

After US Marshal's, it is LAPD's turn,

This is Kim Nguyen a few moments after she “fell” out of an LAPD patrol car in the early hours of March 17, 2013. Her left bra strap is broken and top of her dress is pulled down to her waist.

Her jaw was shattered. She lost most of her teeth. She had to be put in a medically induced coma because of bleeding to her brain. When she awoke a few days later, she found bruising on the inside of her leg.

....In a sworn deposition, Ms. Nguyen says one of the officers was groping her in the back of the patrol car in the minutes before she ended up on the pavement. Specifically, he was grabbing at her breasts, at her ear to get her to face him, and at the inside of her left thigh, presumably to get her to open her legs.

http://koreatownlanews.com/kim-nguyen-l ... -division/

pankajs · Post by **pankajs** » 15 Jan 2014 19:31

BBC News Graphics ‏@BBCNewsGraphics 1h

Racist hate groups in the US - and how a North Dakota town thwarted a neo-Nazi takeover http://bbc.in/1cZAf5z

pankajs · Post by **pankajs** » 15 Jan 2014 22:20

Bloomberg News ‏@BloombergNews 1h

Only 12% of workers in the U.S. get paid time off to care for a baby or a sick parent | http://bloom.bg/1iUkym5
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Bhat .. ?? This from the upholder of human right and what not!!!

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 16 Jan 2014 10:02

CNN reporting US marines did some atrocities in Fallujah in 2004.

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 16 Jan 2014 10:07

I think protests by people in the know in GOTUS halted the fallujah offensives when the military seemed intent on wiping the place off the map. matters were likely hushed up.

Vayutuvan · Post by **Vayutuvan** » 16 Jan 2014 10:32

White supremacist groups are protected by free speech as long as they do not indulge in action. They can talk as much as they want and still cannot be prosecuted.

pankajs · Post by **pankajs** » 16 Jan 2014 16:02

cross post
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Indefensible Kissinger

As more details come to light, the darker his deeds seem.

Can we please stop already with the tributes to Henry Kissinger? As more and more material gets declassified, there are periodic exposures of his uglier deeds. Walter Isaacson’s biography showed in detail how Kissinger had the FBI put wiretaps on journalists and government officials, including some of his own top staffers. A couple of years ago, it was revealed that back in 1975, while discussing how the Khmer Rouge had killed tens of thousands, he told Thailand’s foreign minister, “You should also tell the Cambodians”—the Khmer Rouge—“that we will be friends with them. They are murderous thugs, but we won’t let that stand in our way.” More recently, an Oval Office tape was released that captured Kissinger in 1973 saying, “if they put Jews into gas chambers in the Soviet Union, it is not an American concern. Maybe a humanitarian concern.”

And yet Kissinger continues to be publicly lionized in some circles.

..
Of all the incidents in Kissinger’s dark past, one of the least defensible must be his and President Richard Nixon’s staunch support of Pakistan’s military dictatorship while it carried out a bloody crackdown on its restive Bengali population in 1971. As Nixon's national security adviser, Kissinger stood behind Pakistan—a Cold War ally that prized its close military and diplomatic relationship with the United States—even as it swept away the results of a democratic election, killed horrific numbers of Bengalis and targeted the Hindu minority among Bengalis. He reserved his vitriol for India. And he trashed the career of Archer Blood, the brave U.S. consul general in Dhaka who, while witnessing and documenting the onslaught against the Bengalis, dissented from the White House’s pro-Pakistan policy. Here is a case where you’d think that even Kissinger’s most ardent defenders might settle for an embarrassed silence.

Not so. Confronted with the facts in my new book, The Blood Telegram: Nixon, Kissinger, and a Forgotten Genocide, Robert D. Blackwill makes a plea for sympathy—not for the hundreds of thousands of Bengalis killed, nor for the 10 million refugees or the traumatized survivors, but for “those at the top of the U.S. government who have to make momentous decisions.” In an expanded essay in The National Interest (which is published by CNI and whose honorary chairman is Kissinger), Blackwill goes further: “We should be grateful” to Nixon and Kissinger for their actions.

These apologetics make a revealing case study in how Kissinger’s reputation stays afloat. Rather than grappling with Nixon’s racist contempt for Indians, or Kissinger’s ignorance about South Asia or emotional misjudgments, Blackwill’s ahistorical piece rests on the careful skewing of the record.

When Kissinger’s actions get too indefensible, Blackwill simply ignores them. Take Nixon and Kissinger’s illegal arms transfers to Pakistan during its December 1971 war against India, where Blackwill goes to considerable lengths to overlook what Nixon and Kissinger knew full well: that they were breaking U.S. law. “Is it really so much against our law?” Nixon asked Kissinger, who admitted that it was. Blackwill ignores such evidence from the White House tapes, as well as the warnings of White House staffers and State Department and Pentagon lawyers that such arms transfers were violations of U.S. law. Instead, trying to change the subject, he writes, “Bass expresses indignation at this proposal, suggesting that it was undertaken to assist in the repression of civilians in East Pakistan”—even though these pages in my book actually concentrate on how Nixon and Kissinger broke the law. Blackwill can’t defend Kissinger for breaking U.S. law, but he can’t criticize Kissinger either, so he just pretends it never happened.

Blackwill’s method throughout is to avert his gaze from the most important evidence at the highest levels, particularly the White House tapes of Nixon and Kissinger’s most unguarded conversations, and stare selectively instead at a small portion of the less revealing stuff: Kissinger’s self-serving memoirs and books, public declarations, big interagency meetings, mid-level statements. This gives a systematic slant to Blackwill’s reading of events, which unsurprisingly validates his own ideological predilections. Anyone wanting the complete story can check out more than 2,600 footnotes in my book (the product of almost four years of comprehensive research in U.S. and Indian archives, untold thousands of declassified pages, and unheard White House tapes), rather than Blackwill’s slipshod little sketch. His real problem is that The Blood Telegram painstakingly documents Nixon and Kissinger’s whole record and draws measured and reasoned conclusions that don’t flatter Kissinger.

..
Blackwill sidesteps my book’s abundant evidence of Oval Office passion and bigotry only by raising the non-issue of profanity, pretending that I am “curiously offended that conversations in the Oval Office are often not the stuff of a church social.” In fact, the candid quotes from Nixon and Kissinger are salient because they are cruel, racist or reckless, not because they are PG-13. (I even point out that Kissinger didn’t swear much, tending toward “balderdash” or “poppycock.”) Indeed, some of Nixon’s harshest utterances about Indians use perfectly printable language: “I don’t know why the hell anybody would reproduce in that damn country but they do.” Kissinger joked about the massacre of Bengali Hindus, and, his voice dripping with contempt, sneered at Americans who “bleed” for “the dying Bengalis.” Is Blackwill really untroubled by such statements?

pankajs · Post by **pankajs** » 16 Jan 2014 17:13

HuffPostEducation ‏@HuffPostEdu 9m

Believe it or not, schools around the country are still named after white supremacists http://huff.to/1d6fo4f
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After years of debate, a barrage of media reports, and a petition that gained more than 162,000 signatures, Florida's Duval School District finally changed the name of a high school named for former Ku Klux Klan leader Nathan Bedford Forrest earlier this month.

Unfortunately, the district is not the last in the country to have a school named after a white supremacist. There are still schools with titles that commemorate leaders who, at one point in their lives, wanted to deny African Americans basic human rights. Still, a name change does not appear to be in the works for many of these schools.

Below we have compiled a list of these leaders who, despite having at one point held horrifying views, are still commemorated with school names, buildings or statues. It should be noted, however, that some, like late Sen. Robert C. Byrd, later apologized for their involvement with these controversial groups.

Wade Hampton III, a former South Carolina governor and senator who had ties to white supremacy groups, has at least two high schools, an elementary school and a school district named after him in the state. There is also a dormitory named after Hampton at the University of South Carolina.

Hampton, who was a Confederate cavalry leader during the Civil War, served as the governor of South Carolina from 1876 to 1879 and as a U.S. senator from 1879 to 1891. According to Encyclopedia Britannica, after being elected to office, Hampton "took the lead in South Carolina in the fight to restore white supremacy." When running for governor, some of his strongest supporters were members of the paramilitary group "Redshirts," who intimidated black voters through violence.

Several education institutions bear the name of Charles Brantley Aycock, a former politician who held racist views. At least two schools in North Carolina are named after Aycock. They're located in Greensboro and Pikeville. Further, there are a number of monuments and buildings named after him on the campuses of Duke University and UNC-Chapel Hill.

Aycock served as governor of North Carolina from 1901 to 1905. However, prior to becoming governor, the politician helped lead a statewide campaign pushing for the ideals of white supremacy and the disenfranchisement of blacks. According to the News & Observer, Aycock was "elected in 1900 during a horrific white supremacist campaign ... [that] led to the disenfranchisement of most black voters and the imposition of Jim Crow laws."

Nathan Bedford Forrest was the first "grand wizard" of the Ku Klux Klan in the late 1800s. While Duval Public School District in Jacksonville, Fla., recently gained media attention after changing the name of local Nathan B. Forrest High School, the district is not the only one with a school named after the former Klansman. At least one other school in the country, located in Tennessee, bears the Confederate general's name.

Duval School District decided to change the name of Nathan B. Forrest High School after more than 160,000 people signed a Change.org petition demanding the district take action. According to the petition, the "school got its name in 1959, when white civic leaders wanted to protest a court decision that called for integrating public schools."

Richard Brevard Russell Jr., a former Georgia governor and senator who held white supremacist views, has at least one middle school named after him in Winder, Ga. The University of Georgia also has a library named after the politician.

Russell served as the governor of Georgia from 1931 to 1933 and as a U.S. senator from 1933 to 1971. Russell was staunchly in favor of segregation and supported the ideals of white supremacy. According to the book Richard B. Russell, Jr., Senator from Georgia, Russell at one time stated that "it was an insult to the people of Georgia ... 'to even insinuate that I stand for political and social equality with the negro.'"

Robert C. Byrd was the longest-serving senator in U.S. history before he passed away in 2010. However, before Byrd's long and highly regarded political career, he was a leader of the Ku Klux Klan in West Virginia.

There is at least one high school named after Robert Byrd in Clarksburg, W.Va. There are also buildings and centers named after Byrd at academic institutions like Marshall University, West Virginia University, Shepherd University, the University of Charleston, and Wheeling Jesuit University.

pankajs · Post by **pankajs** » 16 Jan 2014 18:05

The Associated Press ‏@AP 7m

34 nuclear missile launch officers in Air Force taken off duty for alleged cheating on proficiency test: http://apne.ws/1fAJhxL
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WASHINGTON (AP) — In what may be the biggest such scandal in Air Force history, 34 officers entrusted with land-based nuclear missiles have been pulled off the job for alleged involvement in a cheating ring that officials say was uncovered during a drug probe.

The 34 are suspected of cheating several months ago on a routine proficiency test that includes checking missile launch officers' knowledge of how to handle an "emergency war order," which is the term for the authorization required to launch a nuclear weapon.

The cheating scandal is the latest in a series of Air Force nuclear stumbles documented in recent months by The Associated Press, including deliberate violations of safety rules, failures of inspections, breakdowns in training, and evidence that the men and women who operate the missiles from underground command posts are suffering burnout. In October the general who commands the nuclear missile force was fired for engaging in embarrassing behavior, including drunkenness, while leading a U.S. delegation to a nuclear exercise in Russia.

pankajs · Post by **pankajs** » 16 Jan 2014 18:14

CNNMoney.com ‏@CNNMoney 29m

The U.S. is charging Wal-Mart for allegedly retaliating against protesting workers. http://cnnmon.ie/1eTkeRM $WMT @emilyjanefox
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The National Labor Relations Board, which protects the rights of workers who organize for better working conditions, is taking a next step in a case against Wal-Mart (WMT, Fortune 500) for alleged unfair labor practices. The agency had warned in November that the complaint could be filed.

The complaint, filed Tuesday and circulated Wednesday by union representatives, details times when Wal-Mart allegedly illegally threatened "reprisal" against workers who protested on November 22, 2012, both on national television and to employees directly.

The agency also said Wal-Mart stores in 14 states unlawfully threatened or disciplined workers who participated in legal strikes and protests.

The complaint involves more than 60 employees, 19 of whom were allegedly fire as a result of their participation in the protests. It also named more than 60 Wal-Mart supervisors and one corporate officer.

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 17 Jan 2014 22:59

Agnimitra you might get this.

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The American drive for human rights is a part of de Christianizing the West.

- US is the first post feudal state. Divine rights of kings overthrown
- US has a Civil War to abolish Slavery. Over throws the Noah and his three sons origins of slavery
- US sides with the Allies and fights against the Nazis. Reinforces the actions above
- US propounds Human rights theory which overturns the slavery mindset of Bible.

Just Luttwak says Iran is de-Islamizing or creating the post-Islamic state, and Lilo says China is creating a post-Communist state by demonizing Japan, US is creating a post Christian state and needs to transfer the guilt on a conveinent patsy state : INDIA.

Martha Nussbaum et al want to transfer the guilt of Nazism on to Hindu India. All this part of the process of creating a post Christian West.

US Republican/Conservative support for India should be seen in this light for it undercuts their base!

Sagar G · Post by **Sagar G** » 18 Jan 2014 14:21

Meet Kenny, An Inbred White Tiger With Down Syndrome

Kenny is a white tiger that was ‘selectively’ inbred while in captivity in the United States. As zoos and exotic pet stores along with consumers have increased the demand for white tigers, breeders have attempted to recreate the ideal white tiger — large snout, blue eyes, white fur — by relying on a limited pool of white tigers that are in captivity.

The result? With such a limited gene pool, white tigers are born with an astoundingly high rate of deformities and health issues. For example, Kenny is mentally retarded, has significant physical limitations, and is considered the first tiger with down syndrome. The pictures, in many ways, speak to the condition that Kenny and other white tigers are in:

Click on the link to see photographs/videos of the latest and greatest that America has to offer in the field of animal breeding.

vishvak · Post by **vishvak** » 18 Jan 2014 17:27

Hunting business in USA attracts protests from animal rights activists
Dallas Safari club hosts auction to hunt a rare black rhino
Cause: conservation of same species i.e. rare black rhinos!

The winner is part of hunting consortium that has worked in hunting tourism industry for more than a decade. link
The winner of the auction also is famous for pictures with rare animals he has hunted all over the world and also claims to have conservation as a 'special' interest!

From link

hunters (more than half of whom fly from the U.S.) killed 46,000+ animals. Trophy hunting is worth $91.2 million a year and foreign tourists sometimes pay up to $40,000 to shoot a lion. The government supports hunting because of this revenue and the provincial governments sell permits to kill rhinoceroses, lions, elephants, and giraffes. 1,050 lions were killed in 2008.

vishvak · Post by **vishvak** » 18 Jan 2014 19:23

Charts: 4 Reasons Why the White House's Domestic-Worker Protections Matter
See the charts. 90% of these are women and 50% are minorities. The last one indicates lack of financial security for about 75% of black women as also Latino women.

KLP Dubey · Post by **KLP Dubey** » 18 Jan 2014 20:52

Sagar G wrote:Click on the link to see photographs/videos of the latest and greatest that America has to offer in the field of animal breeding.

Kenny is living in Arkansas, where I bet he fits right in with the similarly inbred population. I passed through there once and there were several times when I looked at people and wondered "how did that happen??"

svinayak · Post by **svinayak** » 18 Jan 2014 21:06

ramana wrote:Agnimitra you might get this.

------
The American drive for human rights is a part of de Christianizing the West.

- US is the first post feudal state. Divine rights of kings overthrown
- US has a Civil War to abolish Slavery. Over throws the Noah and his three sons origins of slavery
- US sides with the Allies and fights against the Nazis. Reinforces the actions above
- US propounds Human rights theory which overturns the slavery mindset of Bible.

Just Luttwak says Iran is de-Islamizing or creating the post-Islamic state, and Lilo says China is creating a post-Communist state by demonizing Japan, US is creating a post Christian state and needs to transfer the guilt on a convenient patsy state : INDIA.

Martha Nussbaum et al want to transfer the guilt of Nazism on to Hindu India. All this part of the process of creating a post Christian West.

US Republican/Conservative support for India should be seen in this light for it undercuts their base!

All of these are progression of the Marxism theory into the 21st century
The movement of derived theories of Socialism, leftism, communism, have to be transformed in the 21st century

Modernism needs to remove all the ancient history and old history. India is the last of the ancient history of the mankind and they are targeting India.

abhishek_sharma · Post by **abhishek_sharma** » 19 Jan 2014 02:41

The White Ghetto

In Appalachia the country is beautiful and the society is broken.

abhishek_sharma · Post by **abhishek_sharma** » 19 Jan 2014 10:47

On and off the road with Barack Obama.

pankajs · Post by **pankajs** » 21 Jan 2014 00:24

Claudius Smith Claims Self-Defense After Chasing And Shooting Possible Burglar: Orlando Police

Get ready for "Stand Your Ground, Part 2."

Police say an Orlando man is claiming self-defense after fatally shooting a man that he saw walking through his front yard.

Claudius Smith was charged with second-degree murder on Friday for the death of Ricardo Sanes, 21, TV station WOFL reported.

Sanes' body was found with multiple gunshot wounds on Thursday morning in an apartment complex near Smith's home.

Smith, 32, sprang out of his home after his girlfriend Angela Kemraj told him she'd seen someone on a surveillance monitor crossing their lawn, the Orlando Sentinel reported.

Kemraj told police she saw Smith leave the house and hop a fence in pursuit. Following his arrest at his sister's apartment, Smith allegedly admitted to the shooting, the Sentinel reported in a subsequent article.

A police report obtained by the Sentinel indicated that Smith told officers he'd had a recent problem with burglaries and that he was certain Sanes was the culprit. Smith pulled his gun when he confronted Sanes. A fight broke out, with Sanes allegedly throwing the first punch. Fearing that Sanes was reaching for a gun, Smith opened fire, he told police.

Investigators say they found a gun stuffed in Sanes' pants. But police examining his body surmised that he had been shot in the back, which may cast doubt on Smith's account.

The case has some similarities to the murder trial of George Zimmerman, who shot Trayvon Martin to death in Sanford, just outside Orlando, in February 2012.

Zimmerman, a neighborhood watch member, was patrolling his gated community when he followed and shot the 17-year-old Martin. At first, police did not arrest Zimmerman because of the Stand Your Ground statue, but a national outcry led to a second investigation. That time, Zimmerman was arrested but a jury declared him not guilty.

Though Zimmerman's defense did not mention Stand Your Ground during its case, it did play a part in the judge's instructions to the jury, shortly before Zimmerman was acquitted.

A_Gupta · Post by **A_Gupta** » 22 Jan 2014 17:06

What Dr Martin Luther King Jr actually did:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/08/2 ... tually-did

It wasn't the Civil Rights Act, or the Voting Rights Act or the Fair Housing Act that freed us. It was taking the beating and thereafter not being afraid.

A_Gupta · Post by **A_Gupta** » 23 Jan 2014 02:13

http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2014/0 ... harge.html

Man crashes car, staggers to nearby house for help. Residents call cops, one of them shoots man. Ten times. Grand jury refuses to indict for voluntary manslaughter.

http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2014/01 ... g-for-help

.... autopsy results showing a downward trajectory by most of the 10 bullets — eight in the chest, one in to the left arm and one in the abdomen — suggested that Ferrell was on his knees or already on the ground when Kerrick fired.

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 23 Jan 2014 02:27

I tell my kids never got anyone's home for help for you can be shot dead by either home owner or cops. No remorse except for your parents.

chaanakya · Post by **chaanakya** » 23 Jan 2014 11:00

What type of society is that? Pathetic.

Karan M · Post by **Karan M** » 23 Jan 2014 12:21

>>what kind of society is

paranoid one given easy access to firearms and constant details in press etc of violent crimes. and also individual centered. my home is my fortress etc.

pankajs · Post by **pankajs** » 23 Jan 2014 12:43

Why the Washington Post's New Ties to the CIA Are So Ominous

The Post is supposed to expose CIA secrets. But Amazon is under contract to keep them. Amazon has a new $600 million “cloud” computing deal with the CIA.

..
The Washington Post’s refusal to provide readers with minimal disclosure in coverage of the CIA is important on its own. But it’s also a marker for an ominous pattern -- combining denial with accommodation to raw financial and governmental power -- a synergy of media leverage, corporate digital muscle and secretive agencies implementing policies of mass surveillance, covert action and ongoing warfare.

..
Citing CIA documents, Bernstein wrote that during the previous 25 years “more than 400 American journalists ... have secretly carried out assignments for the Central Intelligence Agency.” He added: “The history of the CIA’s involvement with the American press continues to be shrouded by an official policy of obfuscation and deception.”

Bernstein’s story tarnished the reputations of many journalists and media institutions, including the Washington Post and New York Times. While the CIA’s mission was widely assumed to involve “obfuscation and deception,” the mission of the nation’s finest newspapers was ostensibly the opposite.

During the last few decades, as far as we know, the extent of extreme media cohabitation with the CIA has declined sharply. At the same time, as the run-up to the U.S. invasion of Iraq attests, many prominent U.S. journalists and media outlets have continued to regurgitate, for public consumption, what’s fed to them by the CIA and other official “national security” sources.

pankajs · Post by **pankajs** » 23 Jan 2014 15:41

Brahma Chellaney ‏@Chellaney 40m

US media have highlighted rapes in India but a damning White House report says 1 in 5 American women have been raped: http://goo.gl/FhTYU7
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Sexual Assault is a worldwide Epidemic and the sick monsters are found in every corner of the world. We in India also need to combat this curse and we all have roles to play in preventing experiences like these. White house on this issue as it relates to the United States.

A Renewed Call to Action to End Rape and Sexual Assault - The White House Blog

As part of an unprecedented national effort to address alarming rates of sexual assault on college campuses, President Obama issued a Presidential Memorandum today to establish the “White House Task Force to Protect Students from Sexual Assault."

..
The statistics around sexual assault in this country are nothing short of jarring. A report just released by the White House Council on Women and Girls entitled, “Rape and Sexual Assault: A Renewed Call to Action” reveals that nearly 1 in 5 women, and 1 in 71 men have experienced rape or attempted rape in their lifetimes. These statistics are stunning, but still can’t begin to capture the emotional and psychological scars that survivors often carry for life, or the courage needed to recover.

Today’s report states that students experience some of the highest rates of sexual assault. This violence, and the stress, fear, and mental health challenges that often follow, combine to increase dropout rates and limit opportunities for success in college for women and girls.

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We all have roles to play in preventing experiences like these. Through better education and awareness training for our young women. Through the improved mentorship and socialization of our boys and young men. Through the empowerment of bystanders to recognize dangerous situations and to speak up.Through improved survivor support services, and more victim-centered incident intake and justice response policies on our campuses.

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We can and must change our nation’s attitudes toward these devastating crimes, and we all have a role to play in preventing violence, and supporting the millions of survivors across the country as they seek to rebuild their lives.

Also,
Obama Launching New Initiative To Tackle College Sexual Assault Epidemic

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 23 Jan 2014 21:30

A book review of recent American crime genre authors:

UK Telegraph

Into the Lists

Into the lists
12:01AM BST 05 Jul 2007
Comment
Bad guys have got badder in American crime fiction, finds John Sutherland

The thug hero goes back - long past Captain Meadows Taylor (who introduced the term into popular parlance, with his Confessions of a Thug, in 1839) to Beowulf and, doubtless, some of the brawnies depicted on the cave walls of prehistoric man.

The line continues in 20th-century American crime fiction with humanoid gorillas such as Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer, who will shoot an uppity broad in the belly as insouciantly as Lord Peter Wimsey might help himself to that inadvisable third cucumber sandwich.

The most recent, and successful, mutation of the thug hero is Jack Reacher, the creation of Lee Child - 'the best thriller writer of the moment', as the New York Times's Janet Maslin unreservedly calls him.

Reacher is (like Hammer) ex-military. He was a major in the 110th special unit of the American military police. A corps d'élite. And ultra hard (Reacher regards the SAS as Limey softies). As we first encounter him, in Killing Floor (1997), he's mid-30s and the lonest of rangers.

Reacher has neither possessions nor family, never stays in the same town more than a few days, always travels by Greyhound bus under constantly changing assumed names. He's 6ft 5 in, 230 lbs of vagrant vigilante.

Trouble is his business. Reacher clears it up with a ruthlessness which he describes in technical detail. While gouging out a bad guy's eyeballs, the more conveniently to slit his throat, he explains: 'You don't do it with one elegant swipe. Not like in the movies. No knife is sharp enough for that. There's all sorts of tough gristle in the human throat. You have to saw it back and forth with a lot of strength. Takes a while.' Thanks for the tip, Jack.

Reacher is utterly conscienceless. Having bust one opponent's larynx (fatally) and blinded his sidekick (those thumbs again) he records feeling: 'No guilt, no remorse. I felt like I'd chased two roaches round the room and stomped on them.'

The bad guys are badder. They enjoy, for example, castrating their victims and forcing wives to eat their husbands' testicles before the sadistically delayed coup de grâce. Stomping is too good for the likes of them. The roach is a monarch of the glen by comparison.

Like the master, Elmore Leonard, Child cunningly varies setting and plot. Killing Floor is set in the deep South, where the hero foils a billion-dollar counterfeiting scam. In Without Fail (2002) it's a Jackal-like presidential assassination in Washington. In Persuader (2003), named after a shotgun which turns human targets into ketchup (Child loves gunnery), it's drug-running and the rocky New England coast.

In One Shot (2005), it's a sniper spree shooting in the American heartland. In The Hard Way (2006), it's a mysterious kidnapping in New York. Child's 11th and latest thriller Bad Luck and Trouble brings Reacher to Los Angeles and a reunion of his old military outfit, Magnificent Seven-style, for some laid-back West Coast thuggery.

As his publicists proclaim, Reacher is 'a new American hero'. Just like Guantanamo is a new kind of American correctional facility. No more Mr Nice Guy. Less publicised is the fact that Reacher is the creation of an English author. Child was born in Coventry in 1954, and had a worthy career in British television, before Killing Floor. After a corporate shake-up he was 'fired', aged 40. Now he sells millions of books a year: overwhelmingly in the US, where he chooses to live.

Why? 'One thing I learned over the years in television is you go where the audience is.' 'Why do you rob banks?' they once asked Willy Sutton. 'It's where the money is,' the witty thief blandly replied.

And what does Child miss about the UK? 'Almost nothing.' You can't say it plainer than that. Or more thuggishly, one might even think. No more Mr Nice Author.

They experts say fiction mirrors or anticipates non-fictional life.

No wonder the USMS and SD female spokewoman feel no repugnance in conducting cavity searches of female diplomats and US Supreme Court backs the police right to custodial rape.

No more Mr Nice Guy.

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 23 Jan 2014 21:46

Last evening I discussed Mahmood Mamdani's book Define and Rule with a young scholar off to do MA/PhD in native American studies at a prestegious East Coast uty.
I had the previous night seen PBS Custer's Last stand" and having read the book review of MM 's work saw the whole Native American tribal reservations as neo-colonialism in the European genre. "Custer's Last Stand" was like "Gen Gordon's Last Stand at Khartoum:. And the American response was same as the British response to the Sudanese Mahdi by the creation of Darfur. Lets see if in five or six years a new scholar emerges who can better explain/situate the American response to the native Americans in the greater European colonial context.

BTW: Mamadani is married to Mira Nair.

Sagar G · Post by **Sagar G** » 23 Jan 2014 21:59

pankajs wrote:Also,
Obama Launching New Initiative To Tackle College Sexual Assault Epidemic

President Barack Obama is launching an initiative to combat sexual assault, particularly on college campuses, turning the spotlight on a problem that has devastated millions of Americans yet rarely receives such White House attention.

Obama planned to sign a presidential memorandum Wednesday creating a task force to protect students from sexual assault, with a new White House report declaring that no one in America is more at risk of being raped or assaulted than college women. The report, "Rape and Sexual Assault: A Renewed Call to Action," says that 1 in 5 women have been sexually assaulted at college but that only 12 percent of student victims report the assault.

The report was compiled by the White House Council on Women and Girls and was being released Wednesday, but the White House provided an advance copy to The Associated Press. It says nearly 22 million American women and 1.6 million men have been raped in their lifetimes, with victims more likely to suffer from depression, substance abuse and a wide range of physical ailments, including chronic pain and diabetes.

The report says rape's prevalence is highest at college, fueled by drinking and drug use that can incapacitate victims. Obama is giving the task force of administration officials 90 days to come up with recommendations for colleges to prevent and respond to sexual assault, increase public awareness of each school's track record and enhance coordination among federal agencies to hold schools accountable if they don't confront the problem.

Obama senior adviser Valerie Jarrett, chair of the Council on Women and Girls, said men must be involved to combat the problem and the president wants to lead a cultural shift of men speaking out. "The president is committed to solving this problem, not just as president of the United States, but as a father of two girls" who will soon be heading to college, Jarrett said in an interview. So that's the real reason why POTUS chose to look into the issue

The report also declares that the criminal justice response to sexual assault is too often inadequate and lays out a goal of increasing arrest, prosecution and conviction rates without any specific targets. The report blames police bias and a lack of training to investigate and prosecute sex crimes for low arrest rates and says the federal government should promote training and help police increase testing of DNA evidence collected from victims.

The report mentions the wave of sexual assault in the military — Obama last month gave the Pentagon a year to better prevent and respond to the crime within its ranks or face further reforms. White House officials say they want to set the example by turning around the sexual assault epidemic in the military.

US students are raping, US Bolice is legally raping, US military is raping seems like US is a heaven for rapists. So to hide their own guilt, shame and utter failure all these "Human Rights" organizations funded by CIA pinches other nations world over about a situation which it itself has chosen to overlook.

pankajs · Post by **pankajs** » 23 Jan 2014 22:15

Some more facts on the Rape Epidemic in US {Not my words mind you}

Statistics

60% of sexual assaults are NOT reported to polis.
97% of rapists will never spend a day in jail

{97% of the rapist just walk away!! Don't you think that figure is shocking .. from a so called first word country .. the land of freedom and justice, milk and honey .. the land of the oh so righteous Preet Bharara}
Approximately 2/3 of assaults are committed by someone known to the victim
38% of rapists are a friend or acquaintance

AbhiJ · Post by **AbhiJ** » 23 Jan 2014 22:32

http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Op-Ed-Cont ... ion-338807

Let us take a moment to honor these heroes – all of them Jews – of the American Revolution: Francis Salvador, Benjamin Nones, David Salisbury Franks, and Haym Salomon. Salvador was one of the first Jews to join Washington’s Continental Army and fell in battle. Nones, a Jew born in France, joined the forces of liberty, rising to the rank of major. Franks, born in Philadelphia, served with honor as the aide-de-camp to Brigadier General Benedict Arnold and was exonerated after his commander’s treason. Haym Salomon – the Polish-born financier of the Revolution – is well-known today, his legend growing with the great wave of Jewish immigration to America from Eastern Europe over a century ago.

We honor our heroes. As the son of an infantry sergeant in the US Army – my father fought in battles in Germany and Bohemia in the last months of World War II – I am proud of my father’s service to America. Yet, when we acknowledge the role of Jews in the American Revolution, we must understand that this acknowledgment is tinged by apologetics and revisionist history.

The American Revolution was very much a holy and just religious war. Certainly this was so in the eyes of the Protestants who founded our nation and fought on the field of battle.

We often believe that Thomas Paine’s Common Sense was the sole spark that exploded into colonial rebellion against King George. In fact, as demonstrated by Professor James P. Byrd of Vanderbilt University Divinity School in his recent study of sermons delivered by ministers before, during and after the revolution, Christian clergy had great impact in inspiring the colonists to fight – and often to die – for their country.

Yes, as American Jews repeat often, the colonists had a strong sense of being the “New Israelites” and the basis of many of the sermons were stories of David and Deborah in the Hebrew Bible. Moses and the Exodus from Egypt were events in Israelite history that encouraged and emboldened the clergy and the Continental Army to rebel. But we must be much more honest about the role of Christian Scriptures – including “the New Testament” – in the religious rhetoric of what the fighters considered a war against demonic evil. The American Revolution – for many but not all of those who fought the British – was very much a “Christian War” fought by a “Christian Nation.” Every American – and anyone interested in the roots and history of the United States – should read Sacred Scripture, Sacred War: The Bible and the American Revolution. I would not dare summarize the complexity of author Byrd’s thesis in the space of this essay.

I was brought up believing that America of the revolutionary period was a “religiously neutral” nation. In fact, the reality of the American Revolution should make some American Jews – and a few secular humanists – a bit uncomfortable. Byrd devotes most of his study to the Hebrew Bible’s impact on pastors.

Byrd’s analysis of the sermons of the Revolution would not please Jewish apologists who would never admit to being “latecomers” to American soil who were not the prime founders of a country of Protestant Christians who, more than anything else, were followers of the militant Christ of Luther, not the Enlightenment God of Locke. The Vanderbilt divinity professor provides many examples of Christian Scriptures and their impact on Americans fighting a crusade. No, the Revolution was not just a fight against “taxation without representation.” It was a struggle with demonic forces in a religious – and sometimes apocalyptic – scenario.

This is seen most clearly in American ministers’ use of the book of Revelation in their sermons. While the apocalyptic book of Christian Scriptures was not the main source for the preaching of church sermons, it did play a critical role in inspiring men to fight the British. Revelation remains today a bizarre book with an array of strange images that have confounded readers and believers for millennia. Professor Byrd delves into Revelation as a source for Revolutionary sermons.

In an attempt to convince Americans that Jesus never condoned pacifism, ministers cited Revelation 19. This particular chapter features Christ as the “militant victor.”

This was a Christ wielding “a sharp sword” that would “smite the nations” in judgment, laying down “the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God.” King George embodied the demonic enemy who fought “Christ the Warrior.” During the Revolution, ministers invoked the “Christus Victor” of battle and violence to inspire their flock to fight. Americans martyred themselves on the field of battle, inspired by the image of a Jesus who fought evil {Founding fathers of America Jefferson always kept a Quran with himself.}, not a meek, “turn the other cheek” teacher.

The reality that Christian faith bolstered and emboldened the emerging nation of America in 1776 should be a threat to no one’s religious liberties today in the United States. It is simply a fact of history. But it is hard for American Jews to grasp this, especially when the Jewish experience historically in Christian lands has been an experience often of persecution and Jew hatred. The Christ as “militant victor” is the same force that persecuted Jews as the “sons of the Devil,” in the extreme hatred of Jews evoked by Luther in his later writings. To believe that the revolution which founded a nation based in freedom of religion was rooted in the same forces that represented anti-Jewish animus is a hard reality to swallow.

As well, American Jews are the most secular ethnic group in the US. Some Jews want to rewrite the narrative of American independence devoid of God. They are not comfortable with the reality that Christianity has played an important role in the development of our nation. Finally, while the masses of Jews came from Russia and Romania to America in the millions more than a century ago, American Jews still need to stake a claim in America’s founding to “fit in” and legitimize Jews as true Americans. While this is a legitimate enterprise, it should not be done at the risk of rewriting America’s history in Orwellian fashion.

Admitting that America emerged as a “Christian nation” with Christian founders – that many American colonists sacrificed their lives on the battlefield in the name of a Christian faith that promoted liberty and freedom from tyranny – in no way detracts from the heroism of the small Jewish population in colonial America in the War for Independence.

As for Moses in American lore, the picture is far more complex than that posed by American Jews who are proud of our country’s “Exodus Heritage.” In one of his few references to Judaism is his private correspondence, Founding Father Thomas Jefferson writes in 1820 to fellow patriot William Short: “Moses had bound the Jews to many idle ceremonies, mummeries and observances, of no effect towards producing the social utilities which constitute the essence of virtue; Jesus exposed their futility and insignificance. The one instilled into his people the most anti-social spirit towards other nations; the other preached philanthropy and universal charity and benevolence.”

Jefferson’s portrait of Moses is not flattering.

Jesus is Jefferson’s hero. Not a comfortable image for American Jews to find in the literature of a Founder of this great nation – but a real one embodied in our country’s history.

Let us face this reality with honesty, grace and a sense of history not distorted by an out-of-date and insecure apologetic stance.

member_22872 · Post by **member_22872** » 23 Jan 2014 22:40

Nice blog. Was Japan's attack on Pearl Harbour, an unprovoked attack on US?
December 7 and the American Double-Standard with Japan

pankajs · Post by **pankajs** » 24 Jan 2014 13:55

pankajs wrote:Some more facts on the Rape Epidemic in US {Not my words mind you}

Statistics

60% of sexual assaults are NOT reported to polis.
97% of rapists will never spend a day in jail
{97% of the rapist just walk away!! Don't you think that figure is shocking .. from a so called first word country .. the land of freedom and justice, milk and honey .. the land of the oh so righteous Preet Bharara}
Approximately 2/3 of assaults are committed by someone known to the victim
38% of rapists are a friend or acquaintance

I forgot to add:

1. Then there are what can only be described as official and lawful rapes as approved by the Supreme court and government of US.
2. I Think the above figures do not include lawful rape. The conviction rate in sexual assaualt case will drop further down from the 3% quoted above.

A_Gupta · Post by **A_Gupta** » 24 Jan 2014 15:51

http://margaretandhelen.com/2014/01/24/ ... -aunt-flo/

Margaret, as sure as the sun is going to come up tomorrow, some Republican peckerwood is going to say something stupid about a woman’s baby maker. I’d say “uterus” but that just confuses them even more.