Vladimir Putin's Novorossiya may mark just the start of his empire-building ambitions | Hagel: Hostage Somers is Dead in Yemen Rescue Attempt | French President Arrives In Moscow | CNBC: Jobs Report Reveals Just 4,000 More Working Americans | Obama's Tradition Of Fanning The Flames Of Racial Discord - Breitbart | Another Race-Based Attack In St. Louis: Black Thugs Drag Bosnian Woman Out Of Her Car and Beat Her | Clinton backs probes of chokehold, Ferguson deaths - News - southcoasttoday.com - New Bedford, MA | Dr. Michael Baden offers insight into death of Eric Garner
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Vladimir Putin has deftly tapped into Russians' sense of patriotism, evoking Moscow's defeat of the Nazis, while pursuing what critics say are alarming similar policies of expansionism - but sanctions are biting
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Window on Eurasia: No Need for Western Leaders to Deal with Putin Directly, Lithuanian President Saysby paul goble (noreply@blogger.com)
Paul Goble
Staunton, December 6 – Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite says that she doesn’t want to have anything to do with Vladimir Putin until the Kremlin leader changes his course and that she does not see any need for that given the multiple channels that Western countries have for interacting with the Russian government (echo.msk.ru/news/1450412-echo.html).
To deal with Putin directly, of course, is to play into his hands, building him up as the “indispensable” figure that he and his minions believe him to be, thereby reducing the pressure the impact of sanctions and other measures on him to end his aggression against Ukraine and his threats to Europe and the rest of the world.
But in a world of instant telephone communications, jet planes, and commentators clamoring for exactly such contacts as the best way to “solve” any problem, few Western leaders, themselves often having achieved such positions because of their confidence in their own personal abilities to deal with situations, will be able to follow Grybauskaite’s advice.
Indeed, even as she was making those comments, Russian news agencies were reporting that French President Francois Holland is going to meet with Putin in Moscow today, something one can be sure Moscow will promote and many in the West will accept as “welcome progress” toward a resolution of “the Ukrainian problem” (echo.msk.ru/news/1450358-echo.html).
Obviously, there are times when such talks are necessary and useful but only when they are in fact carefully prepared in advance by agreements reached at lower levels. But talking to an authoritarian dictator so obviously living in his own alternative reality is both counter-productive and dangerous because it will only convince him that he can win without changing course.
President Grybauskaite is right. Her recommendation should be followed. Isolating Putin in the way she proposes is, given what the Kremlin leader continues to do and say, even more important than any new sanctions regime or even further declines in the price of oil, however welcome those will be.
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Hagel: Hostage Somers is Dead in Yemen Rescue Attempt by webdesk@voanews.com (VOA News)
American photojournalist Luke Somers has been killed during a rescue attempt by American commandos in Yemen. U.S. Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel confirmed Saturday that Somers and a non-U.S. hostage were "murdered" by their al-Qaida in the Arabia Peninsula captors during a rescue attempt late Friday. The other hostage has now been identified as South African aid worker Pierre Korkie. Somers was kidnapped in September of 2013. Hagel says several terrorists were also killed during the rescue attempt, which he says was made because there were "compelling reasons to believe Somers' life was in imminent danger." President Barack Obama condemned what he called the "barbaric murder" of Somers "at the hands of al-Qaida terrorists." He said he authorized the rescue attempt Friday for Somers and "any other hostages held in the same location." Secretary of State John Kerry said the rescue operation was a "reminder of the brutality" of the AQAP terrorists. Korkie's charity, the Gift of Givers, said the South African aid worker's death came a day before he was due to be freed after more than a year in captivity. Earlier Saturday, Yemeni officials said a suspected U.S. drone strike targeted an area in the southern Shabwa province, killing nine al-Qaida militants. It was not immediately clear whether the strike was part of the American rescue for Somers who was kidnapped last year in Sana'a by AQAP. U.S. officials have confirmed that American commandos failed to rescue Somers in Yemen recently because he was not at the targeted site. The militant group AQAP released a video Thursday featuring Somers in which it said it would kill the 33-year-old photojournalist if the U.S. government did not meet its unspecified demands within three days. In the video, a man who said he is Somers said he is certain his life is in danger. In the video, a militant warned the United States of what he called "any other foolish action," but it was not clear if that was a reference to the raid or to the ongoing U.S. drone strikes against AQAP. The strikes have targeted militants but also led to civilian casualties. AQAP is one of the most active branches of al-Qaida, and militants have launched attacks from Yemen against the West, including the failed attempt to blow up a U.S.-bound aircraft in 2009. Al-Qaida and its affiliates are believed to make tens of millions of dollars annually in ransom for hostages and have condemned the widely publicized hostage killings by its rival, the Islamic State.
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U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said the rescue attempt was justified because there were "compelling reasons to believe that [hostage Luke] Somers' life was in imminent danger."
 РБК Украина |
Порошенко сообщил о встрече контактной группы по Украине 9 декабря
РБК Очередная встреча контактной группы в Минске запланирована на 9 декабря для решения вопросов имплементации минских договоренностей. Об этом заявил президент Украины Петр Порошенко, передает УНН. 3 декабря бывший президент Украины Леонид Кучма сообщил, что ... Очередная встреча в Минске запланирована на 9 декабря для решения вопросов имплементации минских договоренностей - ПорошенкоИнтерфакс - Украина Украина и США согласны на необходимости проведения новой встречи Трехсторонней контактной группыNovostiUA.net Порошенко: Трехсторонняя встреча в Минске состоится 9 декабряАпостроф НТВ.ru -Сводка Украинских и Мировых Новостей -В городе Все похожие статьи: 78 » |
French President Francois Hollande has arrived in Moscow where he is due to meet with Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin for talks on the crisis in Ukraine.
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Collapse of Israeli Government Bodes Ill for Peace Processby webdesk@voanews.com (Cecily Hilleary)
Israeli politics are famous for their unpredictability, and events in recent days have only underscored that reputation. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday fired two senior coalition partners and announced snap elections next March—all this, not even half way through his third term. In a televised press conference, Netanyahu accused Finance Minister Yair Lapid and Justice Minister Tzipi Livni of plotting to topple his government. He cited their opposition to Israeli policy on Iran’s nuclear program, settlement construction and, most recently, a controversial “nation-state bill,” which defines Israel as “the nation-state of the Jewish people”—not Israel’s Arab citizens. Netanyahu also cited Livni’s meeting with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in May, which he said he had not authorized. But is this reason enough to dissolve a government? Chemi Shalev, U.S. editor and correspondent for Haaretz newspaper, doesn’t think so. “Trust has never been—and I don’t think ever will be—a prerequisite to any coalition holding together. It’s not a commodity that one usually requires in politics,” he said. Assigning blame So what really drove Netanyahu’s actions this week? “The night before the firing, there was a meeting between Lapid and Netanyahu,” said Jeremy Man Saltan, an official with the Jewish Home Party of Naftali Bennett, Israel's economy minister. “Netanyahu gave five demands from Lapid in terms of what’s needed to return the trust between them and try to move the relationship forward. And Lapid said out of all five of them, he’s not interested in even one of them," Saltan said. Netanyahu reportedly demanded Lapid’s support on the nation-state bill, stop undermining the government on issues such as the settlements and relations with the U.S., drop a proposed affordable housing plan, transfer the funds to cover the army’s planned relocation to the Negev, and hand over a promised $1.6 billion to Israeli defense budget—the approximate cost of last summer’s Operation Protective Edge in Gaza. Many Israelis think the current crisis dates back to November 12, when the Knesset approved legislation designed to shut down a pro-Netanyahu daily newspaper owned and financed by U.S. casino tycoon Sheldon Adelson. “This was so embarrassing for Netanyahu, and he was so angry that his coalition partners had voted in favor of this law, that this set off a chain of events that has brought us to this point now,” Saltan said. In his speech Tuesday, Netanyahu blamed the crisis on the 2013 election. “The current government, from the day of its inception, has been a rebellious government…forced upon me because of the results of the elections,” Netayanhu said. “The reason for this is simple: The ruling party under my leadership -- the Likud -- did not receive enough seats. That is the simple reason.” Calculated risk Recent polls show Israel’s right wing gaining support and suggest that Netanyahu could once again be elected premier. “The polls are talking about something from 70 to 84 seats for the right religious bloc of Netanyahu, Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman, Bennett, ex-Likud minister Moshe Kahlon, along with the ultra-orthodox parties,” Saltan said. "There are some polls that show that the current coalition of Lieberman, Bennett and Netanyahu--that is the caretaker government in Israel right now--could even have a majority in Parliament without the additional parties," he added. But Haaretz’s Shalev says it's still a long way til the March 15 vote, and anything could happen between now and then. “It’s like a war: You know where you start; you don’t know where you finish,” he said. “And many events that are going to take place in the three, four months that are left before the election—including the new formulations of political parties and new players that will come in—and Netanyahu himself personally is not very popular right now," Shalev said. Peace process a ‘misnomer’ Most analysts agree these developments considerably dull prospects for resumed Middle East peace talks for the near future, maybe longer. “We are at a fork on the road,” said Shalev. “One, we could have a different government which would be more moderate, especially if Netanyahu were not prime minister—in which case, there would be a whole new path for peace talks to go forward. Then again, he said, Israel’s new government could be even more religious and right wing than it is now—a scenario he believes is more likely. “And then the prospects for the peace process will probably dim—and that’s an understatement.” In Brussels this week, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said he remains committed to the peace process, “which may at this particular moment be a misnomer.” Kerry said he hopes the new Israeli election will “produce the possibility of a government that can negotiate and move towards resolving the differences between Israelis and Palestinians, and obviously, the differences in the region.”
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Window on Eurasia: Putin Brings Back Another East German Tradition – State-Sponsored Doping of Athletesby paul goble (noreply@blogger.com)
Paul Goble
Staunton, November 6 – During the Cold War, East Germany was notorious for the ways in which officials insisted that athletes use performance-enhancing drugs in order to win medals for East Berlin. Now, Vladimir Putin, who served there as a KGB officer, has brought this practice back to Russia, according to a new German television expose.
This week Germany’s ARD channel showed a documentary film prepared by Hajo Zeppelt and bearing the title: “Secret Doping: How Russia Achieves Victories.” Based on interviews with a variety of former Russian athletes, the film concludes that doping is now state policy in Russia (kommersant.ru/doc/2625487).
Russian athletes told him, Zeppelt said, that “it is dangerous to talk about doping” because officials do not want any information about what they are doing to reach a wider audience. “All Russian anti-doping labs work for the defense of national interests and conceal the use of doping,” he added.
The chief figures in the film were Vitaly Stepanov, a former employee of the Russian Anti-Doping Agency (RUSADA), and his wife, Yuliya Rusanova, a former Russian athlete who was disqualified from competition for two years for using banned substances. Both of them now live in Germany.
Stepanov said that his former employer was regularly visited by officials from the Russian sports ministry who did whatever was necessary to hide any positive test results for Russian athletes and sometimes even arranged things so that athletes taking banned substances were not tested at all.
Ruslanova added that Russian trainers require the athletes under their supervision to take these medications and that anyone who refuses to do so is simply dropped from the team and a replacement found. She said that athletes were told how to get around tests and that there were always supplies of fresh urine they could use rather than their own if the World Anti-Doping Agency carried out unannounced tests.
WADA officials said they would “carefully investigate” these reports, but Nikita Kamayev, the head of Russia’s anti-doping agency, dismissed them, saying that those who said doping was Russian state policy were themselves guilty of taking drugs and thus not particularly reliable as sources of information.
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Because you can totally marry them.
Albert, prince of Thurn and Taxis
Country: Germany
Age: 31
Sign: Cancer
Age: 31
Sign: Cancer
Hot like: A man wearing nothing but lederhosen feeding you a steaming hot bratwurst in an enchanted park in Cologne.
Perfect for: Someone who has a need for speed — Albert is an accomplished race car driver.
Perfect for: Someone who has a need for speed — Albert is an accomplished race car driver.
Getty Images Andreas Rentz
Haakon, Crown Prince of Norway
Country: Norway
Age: 41
Sign: Cancer
Age: 41
Sign: Cancer
Hot like: Wearing a wool poncho while cozying up next to a burning fireplace on a mountain in Bergen, overlooking the bay.
Perfect for: Someone who has a bit of a wild side. Haakon's wife, Mette-Marit, was the subject of scandalous gossip when it was revealed she was involved in the rave scene. No joke.
Perfect for: Someone who has a bit of a wild side. Haakon's wife, Mette-Marit, was the subject of scandalous gossip when it was revealed she was involved in the rave scene. No joke.
Ragnar Singsaas / Via Getty Images
Prince Joachim Karl-Maria Nikolaus Isabelle Marcus d’Aviano
Country: Belgium
Age: 22
Sign: Sagitarrius
Age: 22
Sign: Sagitarrius
Hot like: Eating fresh-from-the-stove Belgian waffles in a Bruges apartment with windows large enough to see the snowflakes landing gently on the cobblestone streets.
Perfect for: Someone who is as noble as he is. He's literally descended from every kind of kingdom and nobility in Europe.
Perfect for: Someone who is as noble as he is. He's literally descended from every kind of kingdom and nobility in Europe.
Mark Renders / Via Getty
King Felipe VI
Country: Spain
Age: 46
Sign: Aquarius
Age: 46
Sign: Aquarius
Hot like: Some delicious chorizo that you had no idea was going to be so hot that it burned your tongue but it didn't really matter because you kind of liked it.
Perfect for: Someone who enjoys the water. Felipe competed in the 1992 Olympics for sailing.
Perfect for: Someone who enjoys the water. Felipe competed in the 1992 Olympics for sailing.
Mathis Wienand / Via Getty Images
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The magazine issued a note to readers saying there were “discrepancies in Jackie’s account, and we have come to the conclusion that our trust in her was misplaced.” The fraternity has issued a statement claiming there are major inconsistencies in her story.
Updated — 5:30 p.m. ET
AP Photo/The Daily Progress, Ryan M. Kelly
Two weeks after Rolling Stone published a widely read article alleging a student at the University of Virginia was gang raped by seven men, the magazine issued a note to its readers saying trust in their source was "misplaced."
"Because of the sensitive nature of Jackie's story, we decided to honor her request not to contact the man she claimed orchestrated the attack on her nor any of the men she claimed participated in the attack for fear of retaliation against her," Rolling Stone's Managing Editor, Will Dana, wrote in the note. "In the face of new information, there now appear to be discrepancies in Jackie's account, and we have come to the conclusion that our trust in her was misplaced."
The magazine said it apologizes "to anyone who was affected by the story."
Dana added in a series of tweets on Friday afternoon: "I can't explain the discrepancies between Jackie's account and the counter statements made by Phi Psi,""The fact that there is a story that appears in Rolling Stone in which I don't have complete confidence is deeply unsettling to me."
"We made a judgment – the kind of judgement reporters and editors make every day. And in this case, our judgement was wrong. We should have either not made this agreement with Jackie.or worked harder to convince her that the truth would have been better served by getting the other side of the story. That failure is on us – not on her."
The story claimed a woman named Jackie was raped by seven men at a fraternity house and that the university failed to respond to the assault. The article garnered so much attention that the university suspended all fraternities for the rest of the semester and UVA president Teresa Sullivan promised a full investigation into the matter.
UVA was under federal investigation by the Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights over how they handle sexual violence well before the Rolling Stone story was published.
Rolling Stone magazine was criticized for not talking to the alleged perpetrators. Author Sabrina Rubin Erdely said she had an agreement with Jackie to not contact them.
The Virginia Alpha Chapter of Phi Kappa Psi issued a statement detailing some of the discrepancies of the Rolling Stone story.
The release says they have determined that no member of the fraternity worked at the Aquatic and Fitness Center at any capacity in 2012. The statement also claims that the Chapter did not have a social event during the weekend of Sept. 28, 2012.
"Our Chapter's pledging and initiation periods, as required by the University and Inter-Fraternity Council, take place solely in the spring semester and not in the fall semester. We document the initiation of new members at the end of each spring. Moreover, no ritualized sexual assault is part of our pledging or initiation process. This notion is vile, and we vehemently refute this claim," the statement reads.
Given the investigation is ongoing, the fraternity said this is the only information it will provide at the moment and that they will continue to assist investigators in any way possible.
Phi Kappa Psi
The Washington Post also published a story Friday pointing out inconsistencies in Jackie's story and added that local police are investigating her rape allegations.
Earlier this week, Jackie revealed to friends for the first time the full name of her alleged attacker, a name she had never disclosed to anyone. But after looking into that person's background, the group that had been among her closest supporters quickly began to raise suspicions about her account. The friends determined that the student that Jackie had named was not a member of Phi Kappa Psi and that other details about his background did not match up with information Jackie had disclosed earlier about her perpetrator.
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Photograph by Michelle <a href="http://Gantner/www.maladjustedmedia.com" rel="nofollow">Gantner/www.maladjustedmedia.com</a>
Last Wednesday, BuzzFeed’s Jack Shepherd published an irresistible piece called, “21 Pictures That Will Restore Your Faith in Humanity.” The post is exactly as advertised, a rundown of photos of people being more wonderful than you’d expect—rescuing animals from danger, helping strangers in need, expressing tolerance for others, and all manner of additional good stuff. It became an instant hit on Reddit, Twitter, and especially Facebook, where it has earned more than 2 million Likes. So far, the post has attracted more than 7 million views, and as of Tuesday morning, its traffic shows no sign of abating.
When I saw Shepherd’s piece, my first thought was, Why didn’t I think of that? It’s a question that often pulls at me when I point my browser to BuzzFeed, which I do many times a day. Like a modern-day, unstuffy Reader’s Digest, BuzzFeed has a knack for distilling the good and the bad of life on the Internet into short, fun, highly clickable vignettes.
How does this one site come up with so many simple ideas that people want to spread far and wide? What’s their secret?
The answer, in short, is that BuzzFeed’s staff finds stuff elsewhere on the Web, most often at Reddit. They polish and repackage what they find. And often—and, from what I can tell, deliberately—their posts are hard to trace back to the original source material.
Once BuzzFeed had the germ of the idea, finding more pictures to populate its list was a matter of simple searching. A Reddit query for “faith in humanity” turns up most of the rest of the images in its list. Still, I was left guessing at the source for the two most iconic pictures in BuzzFeed’s gallery. The first photo shows a group of Christians at a Chicago gay pride parade holding signs apologizing for their church’s homophobia. The second shows a man wearing nothing but underwear hugging the men holding those signs. Those pictures weren’t in NedHardy’s posts. A story about the hug at the gay pride parade had been posted on Reddit, but the post’s title does not include the phrase “faith in humanity.” So how did BuzzFeed find these gems?
After a bit of Googling for phrases like “faith in humanity,” I came upon Andre Bastary’s Pinterest page. Bastary has tagged lots of pictures from around the Web with the phrase “faith in humanity.” Ten weeks ago, he tagged the gay pride photo, rendering it searchable. I’m guessing that’s how it got on BuzzFeed’s radar. It’s hard to say, though, because Shepherd’s post, which links to the sources of some of the photos on its list, doesn’t mention Pinterest or Andre Bastary.
Over the last couple weeks, I have spent many hours and opened hundreds of browser tabs in an effort to reverse-engineer posts I found on BuzzFeed. Recently, the site has expanded beyond its roots as a mere chronicler of memes, hiring a staff of excellent reporters and editors and creating top-notch sections covering politics, technology, and style. I ignored those reported sections. Instead, I spent most of my effort on what the site’s founder Jonah Peretti calls “old-school BuzzFeed”—those meme-saturated listicles that are designed to go viral online. Those posts generate the bulk of BuzzFeed’s traffic, and they are also the way most people get introduced to the site. When I saw a particularly inspired BuzzFeed list—and when the post did not prominently mention its sources—I tried to dig through the Web to find how BuzzFeed produced it.
This wasn’t always easy. BuzzFeed is so popular that its posts often obscure everything else online—for example, if you Google “faith in humanity,” you’ll mostly come up with references to Shepherd’s post, including many sites that pilfered BuzzFeed’s list. NedHardy’s original compilations, meanwhile, have been flushed from the top search results. But I’m a persistent Googler, and I get paid for this sort of thing. With lots of work, I was able to find how the work of others inspired BuzzFeed.
A good example is “14 Mistakes That Really Should Never Have Happened.” This post from last Wednesday shows mindless workplace failures, e.g., cafeteria spoons in a container labeled “forks” and pineapples in a big box labeled “watermelons.” At first glance, the post looks totally original, suggesting BuzzFeed spent a lot of time scouring the Web for images of occupational disasters.
But that’s not what happened. Under each picture in the post, BuzzFeed includes a tiny link to IMGur, a picture-hosting site favored by people on Reddit. There’s something opaque about the way BuzzFeed links to IMGur. BuzzFeed chooses to link directly to the file name of IMGur images. That means when you click on the link, you see only the photo, not the text that the Redditor appended to it. It’s only when you remove the “.jpg” from the URL that you see the full IMGur page for the image. If you do that for all the images in the “14 Mistakes” post, you’ll find that 13 of the images include the phrase “one job” in their titles (as in, “You had only one job to do, and you failed.”)
At that point it becomes obvious how this post came about. Step 1: A BuzzFeed editor noticed a “one job” post on Reddit. Step 2: He searched for the phrase there. Step 3: He found a lot more images. Step 4: He scooped them all up for his own post.
But what about the 14th image, the one that doesn’t use the phrase “one job” in its title? It turns out that was included in a compilation of “one job” images created by Reddit user BarelyMexican. That post, which went up a month ago, received 453,000 views and includes seven of the 14 images BuzzFeed uses. Every one of BuzzFeed’s “one job” images appeared on Reddit first, but neither Reddit nor its users (like BarelyMexican) are credited in the piece.
Once you understand how central Reddit is to BuzzFeed, it’s like spotting the wizard behind the curtain. Whenever you see a popular BuzzFeed post, search Reddit, and all will be revealed. A post called “30 Very Sound Pieces of Advice,” full of photos showing amusing life lessons? You’ll find many of its pictures by searching Reddit for “advice,” “sound advice,” “best advice,” and other such phrases. (You can complete your search by looking at Google Images and IMGur, too.) How about “19 Things That Will Drive Your OCD Self Insane”? Search for phrases involving “OCD.” “Fourteen of the Most Fabulous Animals in the Kingdom”—amazing pictures of animals striking glam poses? Just search the Web for “Bitch, I’m Fabulous,” a well-known Web meme, with particular animals (i.e., here’s a fabulous pigeon, a fabulous gorilla, and a fabulous llama). “Thirty-three Animals Who Are Extremely Disappointed in You”? That mines an old meme, one that’s easy to find all over the Web—including in a BuzzFeed post from last year, “12 Extremely Disappointed Animals.”
Photograph by Paul Zimmerman/GettyImages.
On Monday, I talked to Peretti about how BuzzFeed uses Reddit and other online meme havens. He compared the site’s editors to writers on a television show—they’re constantly scouring the Web for ideas, collaboratively discussing those ideas, and then figuring out which of them are worth pursuing. “A lot of what the BuzzFeed editors do is have conversations about the catchphrases or other things people are talking about on 4Chan and message boards and Reddit,” Peretti says. He concedes that some of its ideas have appeared elsewhere online, but he argued that there’s nothing wrong with that because few things on the Web are really original.
“The ‘faith in humanity’ meme has been part of Internet culture for a while,” Peretti says. “Jack had been collecting images for it for a while. He encountered Ned’s site while he was doing this because if you Google ‘faith in humanity,’ it’s one of the ones that comes up. But it wasn’t like that blogger defined this genre—he was doing something similar to Jack.”
Peretti added that even though Shepherd’s post wasn’t the first to document “faith in humanity” pictures, it was unquestionably the best. “In this case we’re popularizers of something that was more widely known in the world of Reddit or 4Chan,” Peretti says. NedHardy’s post includes several blurry images and a few that aren’t easy to figure out. Shepherd removed all those. His list has better, bigger pictures, and he added explanatory captions. “We’re making it into something that will delight and be understandable to the Facebook audience,” Peretti says. “It was almost more what we didn’tinclude that was the key to that post—we didn’t include inside jokes and memes that most people don’t understand. We took it down to its emotional core and made it more relatable to a general audience. That’s a service we provide, and we’re adding value by doing that.”
This sounded like a pretty good defense to me. But I still wondered why BuzzFeed was so cagey about its sources. Taking other people’s stuff as inspiration is a time-honored practice online. Bloggers do it every day, and most of them acknowledge the original source of whatever they’re writing about. Even posting other people’s pictures without permission, a copyright no-no, has become standard practice on the Web. (BuzzFeed does this often; Peretti has defended it by arguing that because BuzzFeed transforms photos into lists, it is protected under the fair use exception to copyright rules.) Peretti wasn’t hiding the fact that Shepherd spotted the NedHardy post while making his list. Why not at least link to it?
Peretti had no good answer for this. “In cases where it relates to anonymous Internet culture, we don’t have a clear policy” about when to cite your sources, Peretti says. “It’s a moving target—we think a lot about it and try to understand what’s the right way to handle this stuff.”
At the moment, many of BuzzFeed’s editors seem to have their own sourcing policies. Some of them cite Reddit sometimes; others never do. Some of them tell you where they found their images; others almost never do. (Peretti did say that BuzzFeed has a policy not to link to 4Chan because it doesn’t want to steer unsuspecting readers to the graphic horrors found on that freewheeling site.)
I should note that BuzzFeed’s reliance on Reddit doesn’t bother Reddit. Erik Martin, that site’s general manager, told me he doesn’t think BuzzFeed is doing anything wrong. Ordinary Redditors aren’t bothered either. Indeed, they’ll often link to BuzzFeed posts that were inspired by Reddit memes—and those posts are often brimming with appreciative comments.
“We see people taking entire posts of ours and publishing them and sometimes linking back and sometimes not linking back,” Peretti says. “My general feeling is that you’ve got to keep your head down and do great work, and sites that do that are never going to be respected. Sites that just look for someone else’s hits—sites that take much more than they add—are never going to be respected.”
I’ll leave it to you to decide if BuzzFeed is taking more than it’s adding. But all ethical issues aside, my exploration into BuzzFeed’s process has left me feeling a bit let down by a site I’ve long loved. It’s still possible to find completely original stuff on BuzzFeed—lists like “The 21 Absolute Worst Things in the World”—that are creative, wonderful, and (as best as I can tell) novel. Most of the time, though, that’s not what BuzzFeed is peddling. The secret to its viral success is to find stuff that’s already a minor viral success and make it better. Repeat the process enough, and you’re bound to get a few mega-hits. That’s not genius. It’s a machine.
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MOSCOW – Russia’s Internet watchdog agency has threatened to block Buzzfeed, the viral news-and-entertainment Web site said early Saturday. It is the first time a U.S. news organization has been touched by a Russian campaign against independent and opposition media outlets.
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This Week on Fox News Radio's "The John Gibson Show," the Leader of the New Black Panther Nation Quanell X debated the recent controversies over a Cleveland police officer fatally shooting 12-year-old Tamir Rice, and the Eric Garner and Michael Brown cases.
While discussing police using excessive force in minority communities Quanell X said, "My biggest concern with this Mr Gibson, is if there is not a significant change of attitude and mindset of police officers in the inner cities of black America, this country is on the verge of a civil war."
Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN
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President Obama has “destroyed” immigration enforcement in the U.S., Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) concluded Friday in reaction to the release of new Department of Homeland Security data.
DHS data obtained by The Los Angeles Times reveal that last year’s total deportations represented the lowest of Obama’s presidency, despite a surge of illegal immigration at the border.
The decrease in deportations included a 23 percent decline in interior removals since last year and represented fewer than half the interior deportations since 2011, when then-ICE Director John Morton issued the infamous Morton Memos placing restrictions on immigration enforcement.
According to Sessions, the DHS figures are “scandalous.”
“The effective result of the Administration’s non-enforcement policy is that anyone in the world who manages to get into the interior of the United States—by any means, including overstaying a visa—is free to live, work, and claim benefits in the United States at Americans’ expense,” Sessions said in a statement Friday. “Again: this is the result of lawless orders issued by this Administration.”
The Alabama lawmaker noted that “[s]o total is the collapse of enforcement” that even people apprehended crossing the border illegally have been simply released into the interior of the U.S.
“According to the stats published by the LA Times, a mere 852 individuals who arrived—this year or in prior years—as part of a ‘family unit’ were sent home in 2014. Yet in 2014 alone, 66,000 members of family units had arrived illegally by August. In other words, even if you assume 600 of the 852 arrived in 2014, that means less than 99 percent of the new illegal immigrants who showed up this year with relatives were not removed from the United States.”
Sessions concluded by calling for real enforcement of immigration law.
“The current situation does not have to continue,” he said. “Under existing law, these trends can be immediately reversed—all that is required is a President who is true to his duty to see that the laws of the United States are faithfully executed.”
Read Sessions’ full statement:
President Obama’s former ICE Director, John Sandweg, famously conceded: ‘if you’re a run-of-the-mill immigrant here illegally, your odds of getting deported are close to zero.’ The scandalous Homeland Security statistics published today by the LA Times illustrates just how true this statement is.Despite a massive rush on the border, deportations have continued their steady and dramatic decline. Interior deportations have fallen 23 percent since last year alone, and have been halved since 2011—when then-ICE Director Morton issued the so-called Morton Memos exempting almost all illegal immigrants from enforcement and removal operations.The effective result of the Administration’s non-enforcement policy is that anyone in the world who manages to get into the interior of the United States—by any means, including overstaying a visa—is free to live, work, and claim benefits in the United States at Americans’ expense. Again: this is the result of lawless orders issued by this Administration.This policy explains why more than 250,000 individuals are estimated to have overstayed their visas in 2012 and remained in the country unlawfully. It also explains why in 2014 only a miniscule 0.05% of the nation’s roughly 12 million illegal immigrants were removed who were not explicit agency ‘priorities.’ If you don’t meet a ‘priority,’ you are basically immune from enforcement. Even including ‘priority’ cases, 99% of illegal immigrants were still placed beyond the reach of immigration law.In fact, the removal of criminal aliens has continued to freefall, and has been cut in half since 2011. DHS documents show that the Administration freed 30,000 convicted criminal aliens into U.S. communities in 2014. Overall, there are about 167,000 convicted criminal aliens who were ordered removed that are now at large in the United States, and almost as many at large who were released before being ordered removed.So total is the collapse of enforcement that even those showing up at the border are being released en masse into the interior of the country. According to the stats published by the LA Times, a mere 852 individuals who arrived—this year or in prior years—as part of a ‘family unit’ were sent home in 2014. Yet in 2014 alone, 66,000 members of family units had arrived illegally by August. In other words, even if you assume 600 of the 852 arrived in 2014, that means less than 99 percent of the new illegal immigrants who showed up this year with relatives were not removed from the United States.There is no doubt: immigration enforcement has been destroyed by this President. But America must understand the situation can be remedied: if the public elects officeholders who will demand enforcement—at the worksite, the welfare office, and all ports of entry—the lawlessness can swiftly be ended.The current situation does not have to continue. Under existing law, these trends can be immediately reversed—all that is required is a President who is true to his duty to see that the laws of the United States are faithfully executed.
Read the whole story
· · · · ·
Even as the Obama White House was busy touting its Friday jobs report, CNBC's Jeff Cox looked deeper inside the government's data and discovered that the actual increase of working Americans numbers a paltry 4,000.
Worse, reports Cox, "the jobs that were created skewed heavily toward lower quality. Full-time jobs declined by 150,000, while part-time positions increased by 77,000."
Adding to the disappointing news, says Cox, is the fact that "there were 110,000 fewer married men at work, while married women saw their ranks shrink by 59,000."
The Republican National Committee wasted no time demystifying the hype surrounding the Obama jobs numbers.
"We're still faced with Carter-era levels of labor force participation," said RNC Chairman Reince Priebus in a statement. "Creating 300,000 jobs in one month shouldn't be a new high; it should be the minimum we expect."
Even reliably progressive media outlets including Huffington Post were forced to concede that the jobs report was no cause for celebration. Indeed, wages have grown just 2.1%, a figure only slightly above the 2% rate of inflation. And as Market Watch notes, "seasonal (that is, temporary) hiring probably made the November jobs report look a little better than it really was."
As CNS News points out, the number of working age Americans in the U.S. labor force remains at a 36-year low. In total, 92,447,000 American are no longer in the labor force.
Read the whole story
· · ·
WASHINGTON, D.C.--President Obama officially nominated Ashton Carter as his fourth Secretary of Defense to succeed Chuck Hagel, the only Republican in the president’s national security team, who resigned under pressure from the White House.
During a Roosevelt Room ceremony, before a small audience of administration officials and a few members of Congress, Obama expressed admiration for Carter who is considered a well-liked technocrat respected by members of both parties.
“With a record of service that has spanned more than 30 years — as a public servant, as an advisor, as a scholar — Ash is rightly regarded as one of our nation’s foremost national security leaders,” the president said. “As a top member of our Pentagon team for the first five years of my presidency, including his two years as deputy secretary, he was at the table in the Situation Room. He was by my side navigating complex security challenges that we were confronting. I relied on his expertise, and I relied on his judgment.”
“Ash is also known by our allies and our friends around the world. Having served both Republican and Democratic Secretaries, he’s respected and trusted on both sides of the aisle,” added Obama.
The president acknowledged the challenges Carter will face as the next secretary of defense, including the end of combat operations in Afghanistan and the beginning of the advise and assist mission there; the U.S.-led fight against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria; and the military efforts to contain the deadly Ebola virus in West Africa.
Carter, who will have to go through the Senate confirmation process, said he was honored to be nominated.
“I accepted the President’s offer to be nominated for Secretary of Defense because of my regard for his leadership. I accepted it because of the seriousness of the strategic challenges we face, but also the bright opportunities that exist for America if we can come together to grab hold of them,” he said.
Carter went on to highlight the “deep respect and abiding love” that him and his wife have for uniformed military personnel.
“Finally, to the greatest fighting force the world has ever known, to you, I pledge to keep faith with you and to serve our nation with the same unflinching dedication that you demonstrate every day,” he added.
Hagel was scheduled to attend the announcement, but backed out.
"The Secretary believes strongly that this day belongs to Ash Carter and his nomination to be the next Secretary of Defense," the Pentagon said in a statement. "As Secretary Hagel knows better than most, today is a day that is to celebrate Ash, his family, and all that he will accomplish. The Secretary is proud of Ash and of their friendship and does not want in any way to detract from or distract the proper focus of the day."
Carter, 60, held the No. 2 position in the Pentagon as Deputy Secretary of Defense from October 2011 to December 2013, under Leon Panetta and then Hagel.
He also headed the Department of Defense technology and weapons-buying office at the beginning of the Obama administration.
Panetta and Robert Gates, who served as defense secretaries under Obama, have been critical of what they describe as micromanagement and interference in Pentagon matters coming from the White House.
Defense policy analysts told Breitbart News that Carter is top-notch technocrat who is well-liked across the political spectrum.
Carter is expected to smoothly sail through the Senate confirmation.
“If confirmed in this job, I pledge to you my most candid strategic advice,” he told the president. “And I pledge also that you will receive equally candid military advice.”
Mr. Carter does not have first-hand military experience. Outgoing Defense Secretary Hagel is the first enlisted combat veteran to hold the Pentagon chief position.
Read the whole story
· · · ·
On Wednesday, President Obama laughably claimed that he has "a tradition" of not interfering in controversial cases before they are resolved.
"My tradition is not to remark on cases where there may still be an investigation," he said to guffaws all across the nation.. That may have been true for his predecessors, but it certainly is not true for him.
Whether it was Skip Gates, Trayvon Martin, or Michael Brown, the Community Organizer in Chief made a point of very inappropriately weighing in while the investigation was ongoing.
What exactly was the point of calling the police stupid in the Professor Gates case, or noting that if he had a son, he'd look like the teenage delinquent Trayvon Martin? Why did he respond to the violence in the wake of the Michael Brown shooting, with deep condolences for the family of a violent teenage lawbreaker, but no calls to respect our laws, or to respect the law enforcement officers who put their lives on the line for us?
Why didn't he encourage the inflamed mob to take a step back and wait for the evidence to come out before leaping to conclusions? Why didn't he ask them to trust in the American justice system? Obama and Holder knew that the evidence exonerated Officer Wilson, early on, but instead of discouraging the toxic false narrative of a Gentle Giant surrendering with his arms up in the air, they allowed the myth to grow.
Why is it that whenever our first black president meddles in racial matters, he always manages to make things worse?
Ahead of the Ferguson Grand Jury decision Obama met with Al Sharpton and other racial agitators in the White House, telling them to "stay on course" as they planned nationwide protests. Why is Al Sharpton (of all people!) advising the president of the United States on matters of race? Is Sharpton advising the president, or is the president advising Sharpton?
What exactly is going on here? John Perazzo of FrontPageMagazine has an idea, and I think he's right.
In his quest to cultivate the type of chaos that would spark social revolution against America’s capitalist system, Alinsky exhorted activists to constantly “rub raw the resentments of the people” and “fan the latent hostilities to the point of overt expression”—but to do this in measured tones, so as not to “scare off” middle-class Americans.
Thus did Obama dutifully and blandly call for “unity” and calm in the immediate aftermath of Michael Brown’s “heartbreaking and tragic” death, even as he repeatedly reminded us that: “police should not be bullying or arresting” anyone without cause; “in too many communities, too many young men of color are left behind and left as objects to fear”; “there is no excuse for excessive force by police”; “the justice gap” between whites and nonwhites is unacceptable; “the criminal-justice system doesn’t treat people of all races equally”; and “too many young men of color feel targeted by law enforcement, guilty of walking while black, or driving while black, judged by stereotypes that fuel fear and resentment and hopelessness.” And when the grand jury in Ferguson subsequently chose not to indict Darren Wilson because the officer obviously had shot Michael Brown in self-defense, Obama pronounced the black community’s indignation to be “an understandable reaction.”
Obama’s carefully chosen words—all delivered in the type of nonthreatening tenor advocated by Saul Alinsky—clearly communicated a single, foundational theme to African Americans: In the racist cesspool known as the United States, black people are routinely treated like second-class citizens, if not subhumans. Oh, and by the way, please remain calm. Wink, wink.
Thus, Obama and his race-mongering partners on the ground, threw fuel on the flames of racial discord and the National Guard were purposefully held back to allow Ferguson to burn.
Those revolutionaries out on the street looting, burning, and throwing molotov cocktails at the police, are this president’s foot soldiers – just like they were in Sanford Florida, just like they were during the Occupy “protests.”The America-hating Alinsky also taught that activists, in order to cast themselves as defenders of high-minded principles, must theatrically convey “shock, horror, and moral outrage” whenever any of their demands—however inconsequential—are not met. And no one conveys such emotions more convincingly than Obama’s aforementioned racial “advisor,” Al Sharpton, who vows to continue the Michael Brown/anti-police brutality crusade until the end of time if necessary. Alinsky understood quite well that even a pathetic moral degenerate like Sharpton can be an effective revolutionary if he is skilled in the otherwise worthless arts of bluster and righteous indignation.
And just like they were in Denver earlier this week.
A Denver police officer is in critical condition after being crushed by a vehicle during a school “Mike Brown Walkout” Wednesday. The accident happened while four bicycle officers were responding to students marching down the street. As the officers tried to protect the students from traffic, a motorist slammed into them sending all four to the hospital.
Is this the America Obama had in mind when he promised fundamental transformation?
Read the whole story
· · · ·
Russian President Vladimir Putin praised and thanked the Chechen government for responding to an attack in the capital of Grozny late Wednesday night. Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov attended Putin’s state of the nation address on Thursday.
"Now the 'rebels' once again appeared in Chechnya,” said Putin. “I am sure that the locals, the local law enforcement authorities will deal with them with honor. It is them who are working to liquidate another terror raid today. Let us all support them.”
You [Kadyrov] personally and your officers acted in a prompt and professional way, so [I express] a separate gratitude to you and all law enforcement officers of the Chechen Republic. We will never forget the names of killed comrades, the names of heroes and will have to provide all necessary aid to the families of those killed and support those affected.
Chechnya fought two separate warsafter the collapse of the USSR in 1990. Alkhanov Kadyrov, Ramzan’s father, switched to Moscow’s side during the second Chechen War. Russian forces seized Chechnya in July 2000. Putin selected Kadyrov as leader and he was elected president in October 2003, which he held until he was assassinated in May 2004. Putin pushed Ramzan into the presidencyin 2007. The two men are very close friends. Kadyrov is viewed by many critics as a Putin puppet.
Putin told Kadyov“to render all required assistance to the families of law enforcement officers killed.” Authorities said militants killed ten policemen and wounded twenty-eight.
“Criminals, as usual, were shooting them in the backs,” said Putin. “Whom did the criminals attack? They did not attack your special units fighting terrorism. They attacked officers of the traffic patrol service, people called upon to ensure order on roads, ensure normal operation of transport.”
Militants ambushed a checkpointin Grozny around 1 a.m. local time. They took over the old press building before occupying a nearby high school. There is no information about the groups involved in the attack, but one video“suggested the attackers had entered Grozny in an act of ‘retaliation’ for what it called the oppression of Muslim women.”
Read the whole story
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Former President George W. Bush jokingly referred to Hillary Clinton as his "sister-in-law" and said his brother, former Florida Governor Jeb Bush, could defeat her in a potential 2016 presidential contest.
W. often calls Bill Clinton his "brother from another mother" because of Bill Clinton's close relationship with his dad, former President George H.W. Bush.
CNN's Candy Crowley, in one of her final interviews before she leaves the network, asked, "so what does that make Hillary Rodham Clinton?" Bush replied, "my sister-in-law."
Bush said Hillary Clinton would be a "formidable" opponent for Jeb Bush. But he added, "Yeah, he’d beat her."
The Bush and Clinton families are distrusted by their respective bases because they epitomize the permanent political class, and voters on the left and the right have complained that the Bushes and Clintons merely represent two sides of the same coin.
Read the whole story
· · ·
Former President George W. Bush recently said it was "hard to understand" a New York grand jury's decision to not indict police officer Daniel Pantaleo in the death of Eric Garner, a 300-plus pound black man whose death in New York during a confrontation with police has been recently in the news.
"I thought, 'how sad. I hadn't seen all the details, but it's sad that race continues to play such an emotional, divisive part of life," said Bush.
The 43-year-old Garner, a father of six, died after officer Daniel Pantaleo attempted to arrest him in the borough of Staten Island for allegedly selling loose, untaxed cigarettes. A video of the incident obtained by the New York Daily News appears to show Garner pleading with police, "I can't breathe."The grand jury's decision came about a week and a half after a jury voted not to indict the white police officer who killed 18-year-old Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. Mr. Bush said he spoke with his former secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, about the recent protests that have erupted over apparent police brutality against minorities."She said, 'You've got to understand that there are a lot of black folks around that are incredibly more and more distrusting of law enforcement,'" Mr. Bush said, "which is a shame, because law enforcement's job is to protect everybody."
Rolling Stone managing editor Will Dana offered a series of tweets Friday afternoon which seem to offer a more abject apology for the magazines failure to check the facts in a widely read story about an alleged gang-rape at UVA. Dana's final tweet made it clear the failure was that of the magazine not the young woman profiled in their story.
1/I can’t explain the discrepancies between Jackie’s account and the counter statements made by Phi Psi.
— Will Dana (@wdana) December 5, 2014
2/The fact that there is a story that appears in Rolling Stone in which I don’t have complete confidence is deeply unsettling to me.
— Will Dana (@wdana) December 5, 2014
3/We made a judgment – the kind of judgement reporters and editors make every day. And in this case, our judgement was wrong.
— Will Dana (@wdana) December 5, 2014
4/ We should have either not made this agreement with Jackie…
— Will Dana (@wdana) December 5, 2014
5/…or worked harder to convince her that the truth would have been better served by getting the other side of the story.
— Will Dana (@wdana) December 5, 2014
6/ That failure is on us – not on her.
— Will Dana (@wdana) December 5, 2014
Earlier in the day Dana had published a 3-paragraph letter backing away from the story. That came as the Washington Post published its own detailed story stating that some of the claims in the Rolling Stone piece were inaccurate. The Post story also noted that some of the friends of the young woman around which the story is based (Jackie--a pseudonym to protect her identity) have begun to have doubts about her story.
Dana's initial letter backing away from the story was harshly criticized, especially by some on the left, for what they saw as an attempt to blame the subject of the story for the magazine's failure to verify the facts before publishing. MSNBC's Chris Hayes had a blunt response:
Also, fuck you RS for trying to throw your source under the bus: this is on you, not herhttp://t.co/xb8g3aAveM
— Christopher Hayes (@chrislhayes) December 5, 2014
But Hayes' response was tame compared to how CNN contributor Sally Kohn responded:
Stupid f*cking slimy victim-blaming Rolling Stone....
— Sally Kohn (@sallykohn) December 5, 2014
Vox's Amanda Taub also wrote a piece criticizing Dana's initial statement:
Rolling Stone's statement places the blame on Jackie, accusing her of being unworthy of trust. But the fact is that the magazine failed to report this story in a careful and ethical way. The reporter, Sabrina Rubin Erdely, did not fully check the details of Jackie's story before publishing them — or contact the alleged perpetrators involved...
Erdely claims that she was trying to protect Jackie, who feared that she might suffer retribution if Rolling Stone contacted her attackers. But failing to ensure that the story was accurate before exposing it to public scrutiny didn't protect Jackie. It left her vulnerable.
Will Dana, the editor who wrote the first statement and tweeted the 2nd one, has not said anything else on Twitter since his final tweet taking responsibility for the failure several hours ago.
Read the whole story
· · · ·
A 26-year-old white Bosnian woman was dragged out of her car early this morning and beaten by three black assailants in the same South St. Louis neighborhood that saw a Bosnian man bludgeoned to death with hammers earlier this week.
Police are investigating the attack as a possible hate crime because the victim says the suspects asked her if she was Bosnian during the attack.
According to a police report, at about 5:30 a.m., a Bosnian woman was driving on the 4600 block of Lansdowne when three black males in their late-teens to early-20s stepped in front of her vehicle.
When the woman tried to drive around them, the suspects reportedly pulled out a firearm, so she stopped the car.
After hitting her windshield with a crowbar, the suspects pulled the woman from her car, threw her on the ground and kicked her.
A suspect grabbed her purse, searched it, and told the others it was empty. All three suspects then fled the scene.
Police say the woman said she thought the crime was racially motivated because the suspects asked her if she was Bosnian.
St. Louis Mayor Slay has been forced by the evidence to admit the obvious:
“This has all the appearances of a hate crime based on the information that we have,” St. Louis Mayor Francis Slay responds. “The fact that they did suggest that she was a Bosnian – she was a Bosnian lady. We’ve already turned this over to the FBI.”
Early Sunday morning in the same neighborhood, Bosnian Seldin Dranovic was beaten by three teens wielding hammers; but he managed to escape. An hour later Bosnian Zemir Begic would not be so lucky. He was brutally bludgeoned to death by the same groups of thugs.
It is becoming apparent that some blacks in this South St. Louis neighborhood feel a great deal of resentment and animosity toward the Bosnian community.
A YouTube video flagged by Jim Hoft of Gateway Pundit features a delusional black woman named Mary Omni ranting incoherently about Bosnians and suggesting that they deserve to die.
“Ferguson, Bosnian death immigrant warning is this. You are on these black young men 14th birthrights and land rights. If there’s an accident that occurs you are considered the invader and embezzler thief. You came to build a dream on the 14th Constitutional nation of supremacy. Fourteenth biblical inheritors… The Bosnian immigrant was invading. The Bosnian immigrant was joining globalists and they came to America for the American dream at the expense of black infant babies. At the expense of the Mike Brown. At the expense of the black housing. At the expense of the black’s education… The immigrant Bosnian is seen as a foreign invader and a thief.”
She defended those who attacked with hammers on Sunday, declaring that they had "the contract - the Bosnian don't have the contract to be here."
Then, chillingly, she recited the lyrics to the classic folk song, "If I has a Hammer."
If I had a hammer, I hammer in the morning, I hammer in the evening, I hammer out all over this land. I'll hammer out danger, I hammer out warning, I hammer out love between my brothers and my sisters all over this land. So if I had a hammer, I'll hammer in the morning, I'll hammer in the evening, I hammer out justice, I'll hammer out danger and I'll hammer out warning. I'll hammer out love between my brothers and my sisters, all over this land.
She called the Bosnian who was murdered, a casualty of his invasion and thieving and suggested that the murderers were blameless.
The video is entitled Ferguson Bosnian Death Warning!
Read the whole story
· · · ·
The quest to find an actor capable of depicting a young Barack Obama, deep in love with Michelle, is currently underway.
The film, titled Southside With You, is set in the summer of 1989, when the President was a first year Harvard Law student.
Obama was hired as an associate at Chicago law firm Sidley Austin, where he first laid eyes on his boss, Michelle Robinson.
Sparks and political aspirations likely flew.
Southside With You will highlight the day Michelle, portrayed by Tika Sumpter, took young Barack up on his offer for a date, which is said to have taken some persuasion by the future chief executive.
For their first date, the duo reportedly went on a long walk, saw Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing, and followed it with a visit to the Art Institute of Chicago.
“I took her to this new movie that everybody was talking about, directed by a guy that not that many people had heard of, but it was supposed to be pretty good,” Obama recounted at the film’s 25th anniversary celebration.
The Obamas’ first kiss is said to have taken place curbside to a Baskin-Robbins in Chicago’s Hyde Park.
That site was later commemorated with a plaque in 2012.
The Baskin-Robbins has since been replaced with a Subway. However, the spot will forever be "immortalized," according to the New York Times.
The fictional Obamas might have to settle for cold cuts, as opposed to ice cream, but CGI has been known to make the impossible happen in film.
The film's producer, Tracey Bing, said:
Stephanie and I are excited to produce this smart and timeless film that sheds light on one of the great love stories of our time.Richard really captures the essence of that romantic connection between Barack and Michelle that is so evident in the way that they look at each other. We are looking forward to finding the perfect Barack.
Principal photography for Southside With You begins on location in Chicago next July.
Kipp Jones contributed to this report.
Read the whole story
· · · ·
Friday on Fox News Channel's "On the Record With Greta van Susteren," San Bernardino, CA District Attorney Mike Ramos took Comedy Central's "The Daily Show" host Jon Stewart to task accusing him of getting his facts totally wrong when on his show this week, Stewart included the Dante Parker case in his list of incidents of police brutality across the nation.
In a video statement, Van Susteren ran before the interview Ramos said, "He was so wrong about those facts. They did not shoot him. they tasered him after he committed a burglary and he was attempting to assault a deputy sheriff. A sheriff who was losing that struggle and fighting for her life."
When Van Susteren asked about the Twitter apology "The Daily Show" put out this evening Ramos replied, "Well, I haven't gotten a phone call apology and I'm waiting -- I will wait until Monday to see what the real apology is. He talked about a bigger picture. The bigger picture for me is the men and women of the honorable profession of law enforcement and how they are being attacked in this time period in the United States of America."
He added, "I think facts absolutely matter. I think you and I come from a legal profession and you know, especially on a television show like that that has millions of viewers, when you use a brush like that and misstate facts, it can create problems and issues. I mean, the deputy sheriffs that handled that case in San Bernardino county were very professional. They were protecting others, protecting themselves. They even called for medical assistance for this individual who lost his life and overdose of PCP. He was not shot, so, to make those statements, it creates problems especially right now with what we are seeing across the country. Again, when are we going to start talking about law enforcement officials and men and women that are really putting their lives on the line for us every day?"
Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN
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Friday on CNN's "This Hour With Berman and Michaela," civil rights activist Jesse Jackson said law enforcement is committing "acts of terror against black men."
Addressing the protest surrounding the deaths at the hand of law enforcement officers of Michael Brown and Eric Garner Jackson said, "It must be stopped. It puts an awful burden upon the Department of Justice to stop these acts of terror against black men."
Jackson continued that he believes the police attitudes towards black males might be motivated in slavery thinking and said, "Maybe it's a throw back in time even to slavery itself. After all, the African-American male was on the line, received such harsh treatment, it happened in wages and treatment. The woman was seen as the softer sex. This thing has deep roots but I think that today we have the capacity to get beyond unfounded fears. We didn't know how good baseball could be, Michaela, until everybody could play. There was no basis for the fear. When blacks were able to vote and share power with women and people of color, the fears about black males are unfounded fears. I hope that we'll remained disciplined, determined, bigger numbers and non-violent. That process whether run down the opposition we face today."
Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN
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Just two days after reports of a video haviing been released showing Luke Somers, captured photographer pleading for his life, his sister has revealed the nature of his death.
Miss Somers reported she had been visited by FBI agents who informed her of her brothers' death in Yemen while in the hands of Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). She said: “We ask that all of Luke's family members be allowed to mourn in peace”, reports the Daily Telegraph.
Although she has said her brother was killed during a rescue attempt, it is unknown when this attempt was, or how he died – whether caught in preliminary bombardment, crossfire, or if he was executed by his captors to prevent release. Earlier this week the Pentagon confirmed there had been an attempt to rescure Mr. Somers last month, in which eight other hostages were freed but Somers and an unnamed British hostage were “not present”.
It is possible Somers perished in that attempt, or there may have been another rescue since.
At the time a spokesman said “The overriding concern for Mr. Somers' safety and the safety of the U.S. forces who undertake these missions made it imperative that we not disclose information related to Mr. Somers' captivity and the attempted rescue”. There has been no official comment of the death of Mr. Somers so far.
As reported by Breitbart London on Thursday, Somers was captured in September 2013 while working for local papers in Yemen, on the Arab Peninsula. The date of the video which was made public this week is unknown, but the hostage made no mention of the recent failed rescue attempt, meaning it could be older. Addressing the camera he said: “My name is Luke Somers. I'm 33 years old. I was born in England, but I carry American citizenship and have lived in America for most of my life.
“It's now been well over a year since I've been kidnapped in Sana'a. Basically, I'm looking for any help that can get me out of this situation. I'm certain that my life is in danger. So as I sit here now, I ask if anything can be done, please let it be done. Thank you very much”.
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· · ·
The Royal Navy is to have its first permanent base in the Middle East since it's apparently premature 1971 withdrawal masterminded by Labour prime minister Harold Wilson.
Mina Salman Port in Bahrain is part of an “expansion of the Royal Navy’s footprint” and will “reinforce stability” in the Gulf, the British government say.
It will host ships including destroyers and aircraft carriers, essential for patrolling the area and for ongoing military operations in the region the BBC reports.
The Kingdom of Bahrain is an ideal location for a UK military base, being a central point in the Persian gulf and close to both Iran and Iraq. The UK have some presence already in the region as part of a rota of minesweepers but without their own port have had to ‘piggyback’ off the US facilities.
The deal was signed by Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond at a security conference in the country’s capital, Manama. He said it was "just one example of our growing partnership with Gulf partners to tackle shared strategic and regional threats” which "builds upon our 30-year track record of Gulf patrols".
On top of patrols, the base will be used for operations against piracy and for aerial surveillance. Mr Hammond told reporters that the new facility would be one of the most important Royal Navy bases in the world with its strategic significance meaning it can be used to support UK operations in Iraq, where RAF jets have been taking part in air strikes in Islamic State militants.
The initial £15million to build the base will be paid for by Bahrain but the UK will pay maintenance and other ongoing costs.
UK Defence Secretary Michael Fallon said: "This new base is a permanent expansion of the Royal Navy's footprint and will enable Britain to send more and larger ships to reinforce stability in the Gulf."
Bahrain's foreign minister Sheikh Khalid bin Ahmed bin Mohammed Al-Khalifa said: "Bahrain looks forward to the early implementation of today's arrangement and to continuing to work with the UK and other partners to address threats to regional security.”
There will be some in the country who will be opposed to having a western military power permanently based there. But with the threat of IS, many Gulf monarchies may be comforted to know that should they need help, both America and Britain will be close at hand.
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· · ·
Women will soon be allowed to fight alongside men on the front line as the government looks to relax restrictions on them joining infantry regiments.
A six month study into whether women are suited to fight in combat units has alleviated concerns that the Ministry of Defence had about these positions, the Telegraph reports.
Although the report made no firm recommendation, defence chiefs were concerned about opening up units such as the Royal Marines where the primary role of the unit is to ‘kill the enemy.’
Women have been fighting in front line positions in Iraq and Afghanistan, for example as medics or intelligence soldiers attached to an infantry unit, where due to the nature of the fighting they have to engage and kill opposition troops.
Other countries, including America, Australia and Canada have already lifted their restrictions and with more research to be commissioned it is looking increasingly more likely the UK will follow suit.
A senior Whitehall source said: “This is an important decision and we want to get it right. The review has so far not been conclusive and more research is needed. But overall the MoD is leaning towards making the change.”
The research was overseen by the then Chief of the General Staff Gen Sir Peter Wall and was taken over by his successor, Gen Sir Nick Carter.
The two main issues of concern are whether women are physically strong enough and tough enough to serve in frontline units and whether they are more prone to injury.
But there is also a key worry over the camaraderie which exists in these battalions and whether having women join would break that up and potentially cause problems should relationships form.
The research has been inconclusive on whether women will harm the cohesion and effectiveness but there has been evidence from Afghanistan that women were more prone to injury when carrying large amounts of kit for long periods.
The move will be controversial, whatever the decision. Col Richard Kemp, a former commander of British troops in Afghanistan, said he believed standards would inevitably be relaxed as women would struggle to meet the physical challenges which include needing great upper body strength as well as being ‘running fit’ and there would be a detrimental effect on morale.
“A combat unit’s job is to close with and kill the enemy, often in hand to hand combat with bayonets and grenades.”
“To get people to do that, to get out of a trench and attack a machine gun requires a certain comradeship and cohesion. I believe that is at its greatest when it’s between a band of brothers, that is between men.”
“There will be very, very few women who will want to do this and a risk that none or hardly any will succeed. Then there will be pressure to lower standards” he said.
But Joanne Mackowski, an expert on the issue of women in combat at the Royal United Services Institute pointed out that women take on front line roles in other risky industries and have been doing so in recent conflicts.
“In one way it would be an enormous change. But on the other hand, while we have never had women officially in combat roles, women have been on the frontline in Afghanistan for more than a decade.”
“We also have women firefighters and police officers who are in similar situations where everyone’s life depends on their colleagues” she added.
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SANAA, Yemen (AP) — An American photojournalist and a South African teacher held by al-Qaida militants in Yemen were killed Saturday during a failed U.S.-led rescue attempt, a raid President Barack Obama said he ordered over an "imminent danger" to the reporter.
Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula previously posted a video online threatening to kill photographer Luke Somers, prompting a second rescue attempt for him by American forces backed by Yemeni ground troops. But an aid group helping negotiate the release of South African Pierre Korkie said he was to be freed Sunday and his wife was told only that morning: "The wait is almost over."
In a statement, Obama did not address Korkie by name, only saying he "authorized the rescue of any other hostages held in the same location as Luke." The South African government did not immediately comment on Korkie's death.
Information "indicated that Luke's life was in imminent danger," Obama said. "Based on this assessment, and as soon as there was reliable intelligence and an operational plan, I authorized a rescue attempt."
A senior Obama administration official later told The Associated Press that militants tried to kill Somers just before the raid, wounding him. U.S. commandos took Somers to a Navy ship in the region where he died, the official said. The official spoke on condition of anonymity as the information had yet to be approved for release.
Lucy Somers, the photojournalist's sister, told the AP that she and her father learned of her 33-year-old brother's death from FBI agents at 0500 GMT (12 a.m. EST) Saturday.
"We ask that all of Luke's family members be allowed to mourn in peace," she said from near London.
Yemen's national security chief, Maj. Gen. Ali al-Ahmadi, said the militants planned to kill Luke Somers on Saturday, prompting the joint mission.
"Al-Qaida promised to conduct the execution (of Somers) today so there was an attempt to save them but unfortunately they shot the hostage before or during the attack," al-Ahmadi said at a conference in Manama, Bahrain. "He was freed but unfortunately he was dead."
The operation began before dawn Saturday in Yemen's southern Shabwa province, a stronghold of Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, the country's local branch of the terror group. U.S. drone struck first the Wadi Abdan area first, followed by strafing runs by jets and Yemeni ground forces moving in, a Yemeni security official said. Helicopters also flew in more forces, he said.
At least nine al-Qaida militants were killed in an initial drone strike, another security official said. Both spoke on condition of anonymity as they weren't authorized to speak to journalists.
Both Somers and Korkie "were murdered by the AQAP terrorists during the course of the operation," U.S. Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel said from Kabul, Afghanistan.
Saturday's operation marked the second failed rescue by U.S. and Yemeni forces looking for Somers, among the roughly dozen hostages believed held by al-Qaida militants in Yemen. On Nov. 25, American special operations forces and Yemeni soldiers raided a remote al-Qaida safe haven in a desert region near the Saudi border, freeing eight captives — including Yemenis, a Saudi and an Ethiopian. Somers, a Briton and four others had been moved days earlier, officials later said.
Following the first raid, al-Qaida militants released a video Thursday that showed Somers, threatening to kill him in three days if the United States didn't meet the group's unspecified demands or if another rescue was attempted. Somers was kidnapped in September 2013 as he left a supermarket in the Yemeni capital, Sanaa, said Fakhri al-Arashi, chief editor of the National Yemen, where Somers worked as a copy editor and a freelance photographer during the 2011 uprising in Yemen.
Before her brother's death, Lucy Somers released an online video describing him as a romantic who "always believes the best in people." She ended with the plea: "Please let him live."
In a statement, Somers' father, Michael, also called his son "a good friend of Yemen and the Yemeni people" and asked for his safe release.
Korkie was kidnapped in the Yemeni city of Taiz in May 2013, along with his wife Yolande. Militants later released his wife after a non-governmental group, Gift of the Givers, helped negotiate for her freedom. Those close to Korkie said al-Qaida militants demanded a $3 million ransom for his release.
"The psychological and emotional devastation to Yolande and her family will be compounded by the knowledge that Pierre was to be released by al Qaida tomorrow," Gift of Givers said in a statement Saturday. "A team of Abyan leaders met in Aden this morning and were preparing the final security and logistical arrangements, related to hostage release mechanisms, to bring Pierre to safety and freedom. It is even more tragic that the words we used in a conversation with Yolande at 5:59 this morning was: 'The wait is almost over.'"
Somers, who was born in Britain, earned a bachelor's degree in creative writing while attending Beloit College in Wisconsin from 2004 through 2007.
"He really wanted to understand the world," said Shawn Gillen, an English professor and chairman of Beloit College's journalism program who had Gillen as a student.
Fuad Al Kadas, who called Somers one of his best friends, said Somers spent time in Egypt before finding work in Yemen. Somers started teaching English at a Yemen school but quickly established himself as a one of the few foreign photographers in the country, he said.
"He is a great man with a kind heart who really loves the Yemeni people and the country," Al Kadas wrote in an email from Yemen. He said he last saw Somers the day before he was kidnapped.
"He was so dedicated in trying to help change Yemen's future, to do good things for the people that he didn't leave the country his entire time here," Al Kadas wrote.
Al-Arashi, his editor at the Yemen Times, recalled a moment when Somers edited a story on other hostages held in the country.
"He looked at me and said, 'I don't want to be a hostage,'" al-Arashi said. "'I don't want to be kidnapped.'"
___
Associated Press writers who contributed to this report include Maamoun Youssef, Sarah El Deeb, Maggie Michael and Jon Gambrell in Cairo; Robert Burns in Kabul, Afghanistan; Ken Dilanian in Washington; Adam Schreck and Fay Abuelgasim in Manama, Bahrain; Andrew Meldrum in Johannesburg and Yusof Abdul-Rahman in London.
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Page 6
December 03, 2014
Dr. Michael Baden offers insight into death of Eric Garner
Guests: Dr. Michael Baden, Geraldo Rivera, Bo Dietl
This is a rush transcript from "Hannity," December 3, 2014. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
SEAN HANNITY, HOST: And welcome back to "Hannity." This is a Fox News Alert. Earlier today, inside New York City's Grand Central Station, demonstrators staged a so-called "die-in" to protest the grand jury's decision not to indict the NYPD officer who placed Eric Garner in a headlock while attempting to arrest him.
Now, at this hour, protests are going on throughout the city. We'll continue to monitor what is a very tense situation at this hour in New York City.
Joining me now, though, first is forensic pathologist Dr. Michael Baden. He was hired by the Garner family to review the medical examiner's final autopsy. Also, Fox News senior correspondent Geraldo Rivera and former NYPD detective Bo Dietl.
Before I say anything, I -- my level of anger here over this stupidity -- we have limited police resources. We have crack dealers. We have heroin dealers. We have rapists. And cops, I don't blame them. They're told they've got to go out and arrest people, there are complaints made, over a freaking cigarette, Geraldo! That is beyond stupid to me!
GERALDO RIVERA, FOX SENIOR CORRESPONDENT: This was a chump charge.
HANNITY: Yes.
RIVERA: This man never should have died as a result of this encounter. I also believe -- I've waded through two demonstrations to get here just now. I hugged the cops as I came in -- "I love you guys. I love you for everything you do."
HANNITY: You walk around like a rock star, you and Bo.
(LAUGHTER)
RIVERA: But if this grand jury had not been in the predominantly white borough of Staten Island, in the county of Staten Island and had been in the Bronx --
HANNITY: Disagree.
RIVERA: -- this officer would have been indicted.
HANNITY: I want to see the evidence, Bo Dietl, because --
BO DIETL, FMR. NYPD DETECTIVE, FOX CONTRIBUTOR: Listen to me. I've done this thing many times. I'm 5'8" and I had to take down guys 6'2", 6'3". I've taken them down like that scores of times. You grab them, you get them down to the ground. You don't want to start flailing his hands around.
Problem here is he was still talking when he was down. If it was a chokehold, he would have been unconscious on the ground. Let's face it, our hearts go out to that family. There's a dead guy here. Shouldn't have been. But in reality, if he went and put his hand in back -- he was being arrested. And the cops were there for a reason!
HANNITY: He did resist. He did --
(CROSSTALK)
DIETL: The cops were there for a reason! There was calls --
(CROSSTALK)
RIVERA: He's dead! Come on, Bo, you don't die for selling cigarettes!
DIETL: Well, I agree with you, but --
(CROSSTALK)
HANNITY: Hang on. The way you do it, you got to lock in and you got to go for the carotid artery, and about 16 seconds --
RIVERA: Way too macho, man!
HANNITY: No, no, no!
RIVERA: Way too macho.
HANNITY: No, no. It -- but there -- it's not just technical, because I will bet you that when we get to see the evidence, what the grand jury heard, I bet you they heard a lot about chokehold versus headlocks.
Dr. Baden, you got to examine.
DR. MICHAEL BADEN, FORENSIC PATHOLOGIST: Well, first of all, I agree with you that it's silly to go after somebody for selling single cigarettes --
HANNITY: It's stupid!
BADEN: -- in a community to people who can't afford to buy --
HANNITY: A full pack.
BADEN: -- a whole pack of cigarettes.
HANNITY: Six dollars in taxes for one pack in New York City!
BADEN: But I think the autopsy itself -- the medical examiner did a great job on this. There's 27 pages in the report. And the female (ph), she found that there were 10 hemorrhages on the inside of the neck, in the muscles of the neck, petechial hemorrhages in the eye, hemorrhage in the tongue. And those are all evidence of neck compression. You're right, chokehold has many different meanings in all. What we're concerned at autopsy is was there pressure on the neck.
HANNITY: Right.
BADEN: There was pressure on the neck and pressure on the chest.
HANNITY: I don't doubt it. This is a big guy.
BADEN: Pressure on the chest that interferes with the lungs expanding and --
HANNITY: But they also --
(CROSSTALK)
BADEN: And hands on the face and nose. So he couldn't breathe, and he was telling the truth.
HANNITY: But he was still talking does. That impact his ability to talk, if he can't breathe?
BADEN: Yes, no, you can say, I can't breathe.
HANNITY: You can.
BADEN: Absolutely.
HANNITY: But they also mention the fact that he was asthmatic, had heart disease and obesity.
BADEN: Right.
HANNITY: All right, so -- and it's a high-stress situation here.
BADEN: Right.
HANNITY: Here's -- here's where I want to ask you this question. I grant you, any arrest that's caught on videotape -- which, again, for a cigarette is insanity to me -- is going to look violent. But when we get to the legality here, if there is a technical difference and a very specific one about going for the carotid artery, going for the trache, and that being a chokehold illegal, versus a headlock legal, that's why -- I will argue that when we get the evidence in, that is where the grand jury made their distinction.
DIETL: We used to have night sticks. Remember the old nightsticks? We used to come up behind a guy and put it on and say -- that's a choke.
HANNITY: That's a choke.
DIETL: (INAUDIBLE) couple minutes, you get them down. My whole thing here is that cop never -- and that grand jury heard it -- he never left that day with any intentions of this man dying.
RIVERA: But no one is saying that.
DIETL: It's a terrible accident!
RIVERA: That's a fake argument.
DIETL: So when you get these people outside --
(CROSSTALK)
DIETL: No, I don't see that!
(CROSSTALK)
RIVERA: -- negligent homicide.
DIETL: The intention was to bring --
(CROSSTALK)
RIVERA: If you and I are messing around and you end up dead --
HANNITY: All right, Geraldo --
RIVERA: -- I can be indicted for criminally negligent homicide.
DIETL: No, but intention! The intention's not there!
HANNITY: Geraldo, let me ask you a question --
RIVERA: -- was he probably negligent? Was this cop --
DIETL: No!
RIVERA: -- probably negligent --
DIETL: No!
RIVERA: -- in the way he applied force --
DIETL: No!
RIVERA: -- to this victim?
DIETL: No! I brought guy down like that many times --
(CROSSTALK)
DIETL: -- and they don't die!
RIVERA: Let a jury decide, then. Let the jury decide.
(CROSSTALK)
DIETL: If I brought a guy down there by a headlock like that, I brought a guy down and he dies --
(CROSSTALK)
RIVERA: Sean, it is impossible to see this not outside the context of race. A white grand jury puts themselves in this cop's shoes. A black grand jury will put themselves in the victim's shoes. That's the harsh reality of American justice today.
HANNITY: Did he resist arrest?
RIVERA: Yes.
HANNITY: If somebody resists arrest --
(CROSSTALK)
RIVERA: Yes, and he was a totally unsavory character, a pain in the neck, a public nuisance. That's why I want my taser. Get the taser. He gets shocked. You put the cuffs on him. Fifteen seconds later, he's awake. Nobody's dead.
DIETL: And there's no comparison --
(CROSSTALK)
GERALDO: There's no comparison --
HANNITY: While we're talking here, I want to take a live shot we've got out of Oakland, California, that is coming in right now. As you can see, protests now have expanded beyond New York City. And that is a live shot. We'll go down to the ground there in a few minutes.
Dr. Baden, I saw you wanted to weigh in on this discussion. It may sound technical and it may sound like it's semantics, but if one hold is illegal and the other is legal, that is a big distinction.
BADEN: That's a distinction, but in this case, doesn't make a difference to me because when we're looking at the autopsy findings, the autopsy findings, whatever we call it, chokehold, headlock, there was enough pressure on the neck to prevent the blood flow --
HANNITY: Right.
BADEN: -- that you talked about, to prevent air flow, and pressure on the chest and face, so that when he's saying, I can't breathe, he's telling the truth.
HANNITY: He said it 11 times.
BADEN: And he died of not being able to breathe.
HANNITY: But from the standpoint -- I understand there's an autopsy, you're going to do this.
BADEN: Right.
HANNITY: But if a grand jury's looking at this legally and a police officer's trained and he's told this choke is legal, this one isn't, this one's --
(CROSSTALK)
DIETL: The New York state penal law -- the New York state penal law, you can use a chokehold! It is not illegal! The department policy doesn't want you to use it!
RIVERA: I agree with Bo on that. But when you have a -- when the guy says he can't breathe and you're on top of him and your hands are behind his --
DIETL: You let him up! You let him up!
(CROSSTALK)
RIVERA: At the very least, that's not negligent?
(CROSSTALK)
RIVERA: The cop didn't go to kill him.
DIETL: Not at all! When the cop went into the grand jury --
HANNITY: What about this --
DIETL: -- he said, my intentions were to bring him down, not hurt other officers. That's what it was! This is a terrible accident that occurred with this man. It is not an intentional murder! When you got these --
RIVERA: I'm not saying it's a murder!
(CROSSTALK)
RIVERA: -- a criminally negligent homicide.
DIETL: No! That's too far. You're going too far!
RIVERA: That's as low as a homicide gets.
DIETL: Well, I don't believe this should be -- homicide is by another, am I right, Doctor?
BADEN: I love Bo Dietl, but Geraldo's right.
HANNITY: You're saying in terms of his argument.
BADEN: Yes. But -- but I think also --
HANNITY: Where was -- where was the EMT? It took four minutes for them to get there!
BADEN: That's another issue. Why didn't the EMT --
HANNITY: You said on Greta tonight that they might have still thought he was breathing when he wasn't?
DIETL: So why do you (INAUDIBLE)
HANNITY: I want to hear this.
BADEN: No, no. After he loses consciousness, he still breathes for a few minutes --
HANNITY: Right.
BADEN: -- before his heart stops.
HANNITY: But they might not have known he was unconscious.
BADEN: Well, he stopped struggling and he stopped saying, "I can't breathe." The problem is that when there's more than one cop on a person, they may pull (ph) each other and they may not know --
HANNITY: They may not have thought.
BADEN: -- that the person is --
HANNITY: All right.
BADEN: But what I was going to say --
HANNITY: We've got to take a break.
Content and Programming Copyright 2014 Fox News Network, LLC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Copyright 2014 CQ-Roll Call, Inc. All materials herein are protected by United States copyright law and may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, displayed, published or broadcast without the prior written permission of CQ-Roll Call. You may not alter or remove any trademark, copyright or other notice from copies of the content.
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| Time | 3:45 p.m. (EST) |
|---|---|
| Date | July 17, 2014 (2014-07-17) |
| Location | 202 Bay Street, Staten Island, New York |
| Cause | Compression of neck (chokehold), compression of chest and prone positioning during physical restraint by police[1] |
| First reporter | Daily News (New York) |
| Filmed by | Ramsey Orta[2] |
| Participants | Daniel Pantaleo and Justin Damico (NYPD officers) |
| Outcome | No indictment of Pantaleo[3][4] |
| Deaths | 1 |
| Litigation | $75 million lawsuit filed by Garner's family against New York City, the New York City Police Department (NYPD), and six NYPD officers[5] |
On July 17, 2014, Eric Garner died in the Tompkinsville neighborhood of Staten Island, New York, after a police officer put him in an apparent[6][7][8] chokehold, a tactic banned by the New York City Police Department (NYPD).[9][10] Garner was initially approached by officer Justin Damico on suspicion of selling “loosies”, single cigarettes from packs without tax stamps.[11] After Garner expressed to the police that he was tired of being harassed and that he was not selling cigarettes, officers made the move to arrest Garner. Officer Daniel Pantaleo, also on scene, put his arms around the much taller Garner's neck, applying an apparent chokehold shown in a video recording of the event, which has since gone viral. While lying facedown on the sidewalk surrounded by four officers, Garner is heard repeating "I can't breathe" 11 times.[2] Garner was pronounced dead approximately one hour later at the hospital.[12][13]
After the incident, city medical examiners concluded that Garner was killed by neck compression from the apparent chokehold, along with “the compression of his chest and prone positioning during physical restraint by police”. Contributing factors included bronchial asthma, heart disease, obesity, and hypertensive cardiovascular disease.[14][15][16] As a result of Garner's death, four EMTs andparamedics who responded to the scene were suspended without pay on July 21, 2014; officers Damico and Pantaleo were placed on desk duty, and Pantaleo was stripped of his service gun and badge.[17]
On December 3, 2014, a grand jury decided not to indict officer Pantaleo.[18] The event stirred public protests[19] and rallies[20] with charges of police brutality and was broadcast nationally over various media networks.[21][22] Attorney General Eric Holder announced that the Justice Department would launch an "independent, thorough, fair, and expeditious" civil rights investigation into Garner’s death.[23]
Background
Eric Garner
Eric Garner (September 15, 1970 – July 17, 2014) had been employed as a horticulturist at the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation.[23] Garner was a 350-pound (160 kg), 43-year-old, 6'3" (1.91 m) tall, African American man.[9][10] He has been described by his friends as a "neighborhood peacemaker" and as a generous, congenial person.[16] He had six children.[11]Garner had been previously arrested and was out on bail for selling untaxed cigarettes, driving without a license, marijuana possession, and false personation. Garner had a criminal record that includes more than 30 arrests dating back to 1980 on charges such as assault, resisting arrest, grand larceny. An official said the charges include multiple incidents in which he was arrested for selling unlicensed cigarettes.[24][25][26]
Daniel Pantaleo
Daniel Pantaleo is a white[27] New York City Police Department officer who was, at the time of Garner's death, age 29 and living in Eltingville, Staten Island.[28] Pantaleo was the subject of two civil rights lawsuits in 2013 where plaintiffs accused Pantaleo of falsely arresting them and abusing them.In one of the cases, Pantaleo and other officers ordered two black men to strip naked on the street for a search and the charges against the men were dismissed.[29][30][31]
Death
On July 17, 2014, at 4:45 p.m., Eric Garner was approached by a plainclothes police officer, Justin Damico, in front of a beauty supply store at 202 Bay Street in the Tompkinsville neighborhood in Staten Island. After telling the police officers, "Get away [garbled] for what? Every time you see me, you want to mess with me. I'm tired of it. It stops today. Why would you...? Everyone standing here will tell you I didn't do nothing. I did not sell nothing. Because everytime you see me, you want to harass me. You want to stop me [garbled] Selling cigarettes. I'm minding my business, officer, I'm minding my business. Please just leave me alone. I told you the last time, please just leave me alone."[32] When an attempt to take physical hold of Garner was made, he stated, "Don't touch me, please." He was then put in an apparent chokehold from behind by officer Daniel Pantaleo, and the video shows officer Pantaleo using his hands to push Garner's head down into the sidewalk. Use of the chokehold has been prohibited by New York City Police Department policy since 1993.[33][34]Once down and surrounded by four officers, Garner is heard to repeatedly state, "I can't breathe". According to Police Commissioner Bill Bratton, an ambulance was immediately called to the scene and Garner was transported to Richmond University Medical Center. He went into cardiac arrest while he was in the vehicle and was pronounced dead approximately one hour later at the hospital.[35] However, a second video apparently taken by a bystander was later released that appears to show that Garner lay motionless and unresponsive for several minutes before an ambulance arrived.[20][36]
Aftermath
Three weeks after recording his friend's arrest on his cell phone, Ramsey Orta was arrested on weapons charges.[2] Al Sharpton made a statement that prosecuting Orta while also calling him as a witness could constitute a conflict of interest.[2]
Investigation and grand jury
On July 20, 2014, the officer who grabbed Garner by the neck, Daniel Pantaleo,[22] was put on desk duty and stripped of his service handgun and badge.[38] Officer Justin Damico was allowed to keep his badge and handgun but was placed on desk duty.[39] Four of the EMTs and paramedics who responded to Garner's respiratory distress were suspended without pay on July 21,[22] while the hospital where they worked, Richmond University Medical Center, conducted its own investigation into the incident.[40] The two paramedics have since been returned to their regular duties.
Garner's death was found by the New York City Medical Examiner's Office to be a result of compression to the neck, compression to the body, and prone positioning, along with asthma, heart disease and obesity as contributing factors.[41] There was no damage to the windpipe or neckbones.[42] On August 1, the medical examiner's spokesperson, Julie Bolcer, announced that Garner's death has been ruled a homicide.[43] As of December 3, 2014[update] the United States Department of Justice launched further investigation towards the death.[44]
A grand jury was convened to hear evidence prior to deliberating whether to file charges against Officer Pantaleo. On December 3, 2014, the Staten Island grand jury decided not to indict police officer Daniel Pantaleo.[3][4]
Reaction
Public
Al Sharpton
and Eric Garner's wife, Esaw Garner (right), at a protest in Staten Island on July 19, 2014.
Al Sharpton organized a peaceful protest in Staten Island on the afternoon of July 19, and condemned the police's use of the chokehold on Garner, saying that "there is no justification" for it.[45]
On July 29, a protest was held in Times Square, organized by WalkRunFly Productions and poet Daniel J. Watts. The protest was in the form of poetry and many Broadway entertainers participated in the event.[46] Al Sharpton originally planned to lead a protest on August 23, in which participants would drive over the Verrazano–Narrows Bridge, then travel to the site of the altercation and the office of District Attorney Daniel M. Donovan, Jr.[47] This idea was scrapped in favor of Sharpton leading a peaceful march along Bay Street in Staten Island, where Garner died; police estimated that over 2,500 people participated in the march.[48][49]
After the Staten Island grand jury decided not to indict Pantaleo on December 3, people in New York City and San Francisco gathered in protest, demonstrating with several die-ins.[50][51] On December 5, thousands gathered in peaceful protest on the Boston Common in Boston, and then marched around the downtown area, blocking traffic, especially on I-90, in addition to staging "die-ins".[52]Protests also occurred in Chicago, Washington, D.C., Baltimore, and Atlanta.[53]
Politicians
De Blasio, at a July 31 roundtable meeting in response to the death, convened with police officers and political activists, called upon mutual respect and understanding. On August 1, in a statement, the mayor urged all parties involved to create a dialogue, and find a path "to heal the wounds from decades of mistrust and create a culture where the police department and the communities they protect respect each other".[56][57]
Police
As a result of Eric Garner's death, Police Commissioner William Bratton ordered an extensive review of the NYPD's training procedures, specifically focusing on the appropriate amount of force that can be used while detaining a suspect.[58]
NYPD Union leader Patrick Lynch challenged the claim that a chokehold was used.[59]
Funeral
A funeral was held for Garner on July 23, 2014, at Bethel Baptist Church in Brooklyn. At the funeral, Al Sharpton gave a speech calling for harsher punitive measures to be taken against the officers responsible for putting Garner in the chokehold.[60]
See also
References
- Jump up ^ "Medical Examiner Rules Eric Garner's Death a Homicide, Says He Was Killed By Chokehold". NBC New York. 12 August 2014. Retrieved 5 December 2014.
- ^ Jump up to: a b c d e "Staten Island man dies after NYPD cop puts him in chokehold". New York Daily News. July 17, 2014. Archived from the original on July 19, 2014. Retrieved July 19, 2014.
- ^ Jump up to: a b Sanchez, Ray; Debucquoy-Dodley, Dominique (December 3, 2014). "N.Y. cop not indicted in choke hold death". <a href="http://CNN.com" rel="nofollow">CNN.com</a>. RetrievedDecember 3, 2014.
- ^ Jump up to: a b Eversley, Melanie (3 December 2014). "Lawyer: Cop in chokehold case won't be charged". USA Today. Retrieved 3 December 2014.
- Jump up ^ $75 million suit over NYC chokehold death planned, Associated Press, October 7, 2014.
- Jump up ^ "Eric Garner death: US orders civil rights inquiry". BBC. December 4, 2014.
- Jump up ^ "Eric Garner death: Fresh protests across US cities". BBC. December 5, 2014.
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