New Poll Shows Nearly 70% of Latinos Disapprove of Trump

From [HERE] A new poll released Monday by Latino Victory Project, a Democratic group, shows Latinos feel increased concern about racism and that President Donald Trump is doing a worse job than they expected.

Results from the poll, conducted by Latino Decisions, show that when asked about the largest concerns facing the Latino community, race and race relations ranked second under immigration. While 53 percent of respondents mentioned immigration when asked to give one or two most important issues, 25 percent said so of race and race relations.

"This is the first time we’ve seen such a high marks ... for race and race relations," said Latino Decisions pollster Matt Baretto.

The results also show that 67 percent of Latinos disapprove of the job Trump is doing. By comparison, the latest polling numbers compiled by the website FiveThirtyEight shows that 54 percent of all adults in the country disapprove of Trump’s job in office.

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Although DA Withheld Evidence & Failed to Disclose Money & Gifts to Informants, Black Man's Death Sentence Upheld

From [DPIC] A white Arapahoe County judge has denied the appeal of Black death-row prisoner Sir Mario Owens, despite finding that white prosecutors withheld evidence and failed to disclose money, gifts, and favors they provided informants in exchange for their testimony.

In a 1,343-page Order and Opinion issued on September 14, Senior Judge Christopher Munch, racist suspect in photo,  found that county prosecutors had presented false evidence from two of their most critical witnesses and unconstitutionally withheld more than 20 separate pieces of evidence that could have helped the defense challenge the testimony of seven prosecution witnesses, but said a defendant "must establish more than helpfulness to sustain a claim of constitutional error." 

The ruling followed the controversial removal from the case of Senior Judge Gerald Rafferty, as the judge was preparing his decision after having presided over the case for more than a decade. Rafferty had ordered the prosecution to produce hundreds of pages of records and granted 37 weeks of hearings on what he had characterized as prosecutors’ “deliberate choice” to withhold evidence from the defense.

Owens was sentenced to death in June 2008 for the 2005 shooting death of Javad Marshall-Fields (the son of a Colarado state representative) and Fields's fiancé, Vivian Wolfe. A co-defendant, Robert Ray, was separately tried and sentenced to death. 

The case against Owens was largely circumstantial. As described by news reports in The Colorado Independent, there was "no definitive physical evidence, no confession, and no eyewitnesses who identified Owens in a case prosecutors built almost entirely on the testimony of informant witnesses to whom the DA’s office gave plea bargains, funds, or both in return for their cooperation against Owens."  

Owens alleged that the prosecution had withheld evidence from the defense that they had secured the testimony of cooperating informants by making thousands of dollars of cash payments and providing undisclosed favors in unrelated criminal cases. The Denver Post reported that one witness had been "promised and later given a district attorney’s office car" and another "received $3,400 in benefits, including cash for Christmas presents in the months prior to testifying on behalf of the prosecution." The Colorado Independent's review of court records reported that "one of the main witnesses [had been] threatened with being charged for the murders Owens was accused of and with receiving two life sentences" if he didn’t cooperate. Another witness had been granted an undisclosed suspended jail sentence conditioned upon cooperating with prosecutors in Owens’s case.

"People working for the prosecution would appear at informant witnesses’ court hearings and ask for lesser sentences on the condition that they testify against Owens," the paper wrote, and "informants who had been convicted of crimes were allowed to violate probation and commit future crimes without consequences as long as they cooperated." Owens's appeal has attracted attention because it was the first in Colorado's "unitary review" process that had been billed as speeding up capital appeals. Instead, it has substantially increased the length of appeals. It also raised questions of transparency because of the extraordinary levels of secrecy throughout the proceedings. Court files were sealed and a gag order prevented the parties from speaking about the case for seven years, until the order was lifted in 2013. Numerous case exhibits remain under seal. Owens's lawyers issued a written statement saying “We disagree with the court’s conclusion that none of this matters and can be tolerated in Colorado in any case, never mind a capital one. This is a sad day for ... the Colorado criminal justice system.”

Right to a Speedy Verdict from an All White Jury: Black Man Found Guilty of Murder, Imprisoned 10 Years w/o Trial in Alabama

Right to Speedy Verdict from Mindless Racist Suspects in Racist System. From [HERE] and [HERE] Kharon Davis spent a decade in jail awaiting trial. On Friday, an all white jury in this southern Alabama town deliberated less than three hours before finding him guilty in the fatal shooting of Peter Dwayne Reaves.

In a racially charged case raising questions of prosecutorial overcharging, inadequate representation, and questionable jury practices, Davis, charged with capital murder had been imprisoned for 10 years without trial.

Mr. Davis, 33, is black, but the jury was all white, in a county with a long history of striking blacks from juries. Jury selection took place on Monday and Tuesday, and Mr. Davis’s lawyers complained to the judge about the racial makeup of the jury, unsuccessfully arguing that a new pool be assembled.

Mr. Davis was one of three men charged in Mr. Reaves’s death. One of the others, Lorenzo Stacey, was acquitted. The third, Kevin Bernard McCloud, took a plea bargain in which he agreed to plead guilty and testify against Mr. Davis, a childhood friend, if prosecutors did not seek the death penalty. He is serving a 99-year sentence.

The three men had gone to Mr. Reaves’s apartment on a night in June 2007 looking to buy marijuana. But the deal quickly turned into a shooting. Mr. McCloud was wounded and Mr. Reaves was killed.

The prosecution was forced to make a largely circumstantial case against Mr. Davis, who they said fired the gun. None of Mr. Davis’s DNA was found in Mr. Reaves’s home, where the shooting took place. There were no fingerprints on the stolen 9-millimeter handgun that was used in the murder. And there were no witnesses who saw Mr. Davis shoot Mr. Reaves.

What’s more, extensive delays can erode any case, as memories falter and witnesses disappear or die. In this case, two key witnesses for the prosecution, including Mr. McCloud, changed their stories.

They stunned the courtroom by testifying that they had lied years ago to authorities about the case.

One, Larry Thompson, appeared on Thursday in an orange jumpsuit, handcuffs and leg chains. He is serving a 20-year sentence for an unrelated crime. After briefly testifying, he abruptly refused to continue, saying he feared for his life.

Mr. Thompson was a child at the time of Mr. Reaves’s death, and was supposed to help bolster the prosecution’s theory that the men had planned to rob Mr. Reaves from the beginning.

In the 2009 trial of Mr. Stacey, Mr. Thompson testified that he saw three men wrestling with Mr. Reaves, and that they pulled him back into the apartment after he tried to flee. He also testified that he heard Mr. Reaves yelling, “You are killing me! You are killing me!” after he heard the gunshots.

But this week, he denied that account.

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Russian Operatives Targeted Stupid Racist Trump Votary with Facebook Ads Promoting Hate & White Supremacy

From [WashPost] The batch of more than 3,000 Russian-bought ads that Facebook is preparing to turn over to Congress shows a deep understanding of social divides in American society, with some ads promoting African American rights groups, including Black Lives Matter, and others suggesting that these same groups pose a rising political threat, say people familiar with the covert influence campaign.

The Russian campaign — taking advantage of Facebook’s ability to send contrary messages to different groups of users based on their political and demographic characteristics — also sought to sow discord among religious groups. Other ads highlighted support for Democrat Hillary Clinton among Muslim women.

These targeted messages, along with others that have surfaced in recent days, highlight the sophistication of an influence campaign slickly crafted to mimic and infiltrate U.S. political discourse while also seeking to heighten tensions between groups already wary of one another.

The nature and detail of these ads have troubled investigators at Facebook, on Capitol Hill and at the Justice Department, say people familiar with the advertisements, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to share matters still under investigation.

The House and Senate intelligence committees plan to begin reviewing the Facebook ads in coming weeks as they attempt to untangle the operation and other matters related to Russia’s bid to help elect Donald Trump president in 2016.

“Their aim was to sow chaos,” said Sen. Mark R. Warner (D-Va.), vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee. “In many ­cases, it was more about voter suppression rather than increasing turnout.”

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AT&T hit with 2nd complaint of discrimination & 'blatant disregard for low-income Black & Latino Communities'

From [HERE] A prominent civil rights attorney is accusing AT&T of discriminating against low-income minority communities within Detroit in a complaint filed with the Federal Communications Commission on Monday.

The complaint is the second in as many months from Daryl Parks, a lawyer known for having represented the family of Trayvon Martin after the black 17-year-old was killed by George Zimmerman in 2012. Last month, Parks filed a similar complaint against AT&T on behalf of Cleveland residents.

Both filings accuse the telecommunications giant of withholding quality internet service from minority neighborhoods with high poverty rates.

The Monday complaint alleges that AT&T is responsible for a “pattern of long-term, systematic failure to invest in the infrastructure required to provide equitable, mainstream Internet access to residents of the central city (compared to the suburbs) and to lower-income city neighborhoods.”

Asked for comment, an AT&T spokesman referred to a statement the company put out in response to the August complaint.

“We do not redline,” Joan Marsh, AT&T’s chief regulatory and external affairs officer, said in the statement. “Our commitment to diversity and inclusion is unparalleled. Our investment decisions are based on the cost of deployment and demand for our services and are of course fully compliant with the requirements of the Communications Act. We will vigorously defend the complaint filed today.”

The Cleveland complaint relied on a March study conducted by the National Digital Inclusion Alliance and Connect Your Community, which detailed how the city’s poorer residents lack access to download speeds that are widely available to residents in more affluent nearby suburbs.

The complaint filed on Monday cited a similar analysis of the Detroit area. It found that 41 percent of the census blocks within the city had access to the highest tiers of fiber internet technologies compared with 81 percent of the remaining census blocks in Wayne County.

The average poverty rate in the census blocks with the highest internet speeds is 5.5 percent while the county average is 25.5 percent, the study found.

Parks requested that the FCC conduct an investigation into the allegations and promised to keep the pressure on AT&T.

"Unfortunately, AT&T’s arrogance and blatant disregard for low-income minority communities do not end with Detroit or Cleveland,” Parks said in a statement. “We are seeing a very discouraging pattern across the country. There are more cities, states and complainants to come."

The NYPD's Growing DNA Database [of Mostly Blacks & Latinos] Raises Concern

From [wNYC] The NYPD is increasingly turning to DNA to help solve crimes. And it's worked: The science has helped develop investigative leads and given prosecutors ammunition in court. But as the police have gotten more aggressive about collecting genetic material, they've quietly amassed a giant database of DNA profiles without any laws and little oversight over how they can use it.

As the science advances and the size of the databases grows, civil-liberties groups, defense attorneys and advocates are ringing alarm bells. WNYC and The Trace, a nonprofit newsroom focused on guns in America, took a look at the growth of law enforcement DNA databases. Click on the audio above to hear our story, and click here to read the print article, co-published with The Daily News.

Paper Boat Captain Trump Demonizes Black Athletes who Protest Against Unlawful Conduct by Cops

Trump had already jumped on this idiotic racist bandwagon. He is in major distract mode now.

What on earth is radical about protesting against the use of excessive force and deprivation of Constitutional rights by police officers against Blacks & Latinos? What possibly could be radical about protesting against conduct that is already illegal?  Having something to say about a public servant unlawfully stopping, detaining and murdering people based on skin color is not radical speech. It is normal. Put the black power fist down. This is whitenology. Such "protest" only seeks to uphold the status quo, uphold the equal application of laws. Elite racists have radicalized common sense! They are attempting to make Blacks & Latinos believe that what is actually conservative and common sense is radical thought & conduct. Therefore, we reject common sense when we reject "the radical" or what is "radical" to do. So, conformist or obedient Blacks & Latinos will not pursue things that anyone else with common sense would pursue- because to do so would be revolutionary. lol

From [HERE] Every day, and in countless and unexpected ways, Donald Trump, the President of the United States, finds new ways to divide and demoralize his country and undermine the national interest. On Tuesday, he ranted from the lectern of the U.N. General Assembly about “Rocket Man” and the possibility of levelling North Korea. Now he has followed with an equally unhinged domestic performance at a rally, on Friday evening, in Huntsville, Alabama, where he set out to make African-American athletes the focus of national contempt.

In the midst of an eighty-minute speech intended to heighten the reëlection prospects of Senator Luther Johnson Strange III, Trump turned his attention to N.F.L. players, including the former 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick, and asked a mainly white crowd if “people like yourselves” agreed with his anger at “those people,” players who take a knee during the national anthem to protest racism.

“Wouldn’t you love to see one of these N.F.L. owners, when somebody disrespects our flag, to say, ‘Get that son of a bitch off the field right now, out, he’s fired!’ ” Trump continued. “You know, some owner is going to do that. He’s gonna say, ‘That guy disrespects our flag, he’s fired.’ And that owner, they don’t know it. They don’t know it. They’re friends of mine, many of them. They don’t know it. They’ll be the most popular person, for a week. They’ll be the most popular person in the country.”

“People like yourselves.” “Those people.” “Son of a bitch.” This was the same sort of racial signalling that followed the Fascist and white-supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. It is no longer a matter of “dog whistling.” This is a form of racial demagoguery broadcast at the volume of a klaxon. There is no need for Steve Bannon’s behind-the-scenes scriptwriting. Trump, who is desperate to distract his base from his myriad failures of policy, from health care to immigration, is perfectly capable of devising his racist rhetoric all on his own.

In these performances, Trump is making clear his moral priorities. He is infinitely more offended by the sight of a black ballplayer quietly, peacefully protesting racism in the United States than he is by racism itself. Which, at this point, should come as no surprise to any but the willfully obtuse. Trump, who began his real-estate career with a series of discriminatory housing deals in New York City, and his political career with a racist calumny against Barack Obama, has repeatedly defined his Presidency with a rhetoric that signals solidarity to resentful souls who see the Other as the singular cause of their troubles. Trump stokes a bilious disdain for every African-American who dares raise a voice to protest the injustices of this country.

And lest there be any doubt about his intentions or allegiances, Trump tweeted this afternoon, “If a player wants the privilege of making millions of dollars in the NFL, or other leagues, he or she should not be allowed to disrespect our Great American Flag (or Country) and should stand for the National Anthem. If not, you’re fired. Find something else to do.”

In addition to urging the N.F.L.’s owners to fire any politically impertinent players, Trump also disinvited the N.B.A. champions, the Golden State Warriors, from visiting the White House after one of the team’s stars, Stephen Curry, voiced hesitation about meeting with the President.

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Racist Suspect Patriots Owner Criticizes Trump for Rant ['We Would Prefer for Their Chains to Remain Invisible']

From [HERE] Racist suspect New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft on Sunday said he was “deeply disappointed” in President Trump’s “tone” when he criticized NFL players who kneel during the national anthem. “There is no greater unifier in this country than sports, and unfortunately, nothing more divisive than politics,” Kraft said, praising his players and applauding efforts to “peacefully affect social change and raise awareness in a manner that they feel it most impactful.” The statement is notable because Kraft supported Trump and has been friendly with him for years. [MORE]

Racist idiot Trump is the opposite of what Neely Fuller refers to as the "refinement of the racism/white supremacy system." Racism is a power group dynamic, a white over Black system of vast unequal power. Sophisticated racists can exercise greater power us when we are manipulated, deceived and/or consensually participate in the arrangement. When our chains are visible the masters are less efficient. Dr. Amos Wilson describes different types of power as follows;

"Power, whether as "power to" or "power over," manifests itself in a variety of forms or types. We shall briefly define certain types or forms of power and their relevance to White racist domination and exploitation of Blacks and to the necessity of Blacks to develop the power to end such domination and exploitation.

Force as Power

Power as force involves the exercise of biological and physical means to prevent another person or group from doing what he or it prefers to do or "to get something to happen to the [person or group] that [he or it] would prefer it did not" (Wartenberg). The force utilized may involve "the infliction of bodily pain or injury including the destruction of life itself, and the frustration of basic biological needs."6 It may also involve the construction of human and physical obstacles to constrain or restrict the freedom and range of movement of another person or group.

 Force may be utilized instrumentally rather than directly, to achieve certain ends. The instrumental use of force may involve its use to inhibit or destroy another person's or group's ability to develop and mobilize his or its human and material resources which might be used against the interests of the powers-that-be. The strategic and tactical purpose of instrumental force is to limit or eliminate the subordinate individual's or group's capacity to act in certain ways. Instrumental force may be used to establish in the mind of the subordinate person or group the power holder's capability and willingness to use force as an instrument of punishment for non-compliant behavior on his or its part. It also may be used as a means of motivating the non-complying party to return to or to re-establish a pre-existing power relation. 

Force, per se, rather than being utilized as the primary and exclusive means of exerting power over another may serve more to reinforce or "back up" other forms of power relations (to be discussed below). That is, "force, although a reality in many social situations, achieves its full scope by undergirding other types of power" (Wartenberg). In so-called advanced societies like the United States, force is more likely to be applied as the "final persuader or arbiter" when compliance is not attained by other means.

Force as Inefficient Power — In the context of the modern nation-state, the use of force as the primary regulator of social and power relations, as the primary means of achieving the results desired by power-holders is more often than not, inefficient, counter-productive and fraught with onerous complexities and unintended outcomes. It is also often socially, economically and materially costly to exert and maintain. Wrong perceptively notes, as follows: 

Force is more effective in preventing or restricting people from acting than in causing them to act in a given way . . . Force can achieve negative effects: the destruction, prevention or limitation of the possibility of action by others. But one cannot forcibly manipulate the limbs and bodies of others in order to achieve complex positive results: the fabrication or construction of something, the operation of a machine, the performance of a physical or mental skill. 

Wartenberg further notes:

Force is uneconomic for a number of reasons. In the first place, it / requires that the dominant agent make some physical effort in order/ to keep the subordinate agent from doing what she would otherwise do ... As a result, maintaining the use of force requires a constant expenditure of energy by the dominant agent.... 

Force is also uneconomic because it inherently occasions resistance ... it is always perceived by those over whom it is used as a hostile presence, an alienating experience that restricts their ability to act. Because of this it engenders a dynamic of resistance in those over whom it is exercised

. . . .[Thus], force by itself is less effective as a means of power than is often assumed [Emphasis added] 

The problematics of using unadorned force as the chief instrument of power utilized by a dominant group to achieve complex social-material ends with economic efficiency and the barest minimum of social disruption, motivates that group to develop and apply more subtle forms of power. These will be discussed below. However, at this juncture we should note that current forms of domination of Continental, Caribbean, North, Central and South American Afrikans, respectively, by Europeans, is secured by more subtle and efficient means of political control than by the use of oppressive physical force. Consequently, the "independence" of Afrikan countries and former Caribbean colonies and the social "assimilation" of Afrikan Americans into the mainstream of White America by no means represent the lessening of European and Euro-American domination of or a fundamental change in the nature of European and Afrikan power relations in favor of the Afrikans, as persons so erroneously assume. Quite to the contrary, these historically apparent social/political changes instead represent the increased subtlety and efficiency of European domination of Afrikan peoples. It should be noted that the ability to use physical/militaristic force as the final arbiter of power relations still lies overwhelmingly in the hands of Europeans and EuroAmericans. It is this "force differential" that Afrikans across the Diaspora must in some way resolve, neutralize or frustrate if they are to gain true parity with Europeans and EuroAmericans and indeed gain their liberation from European domination.

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NYC to Pay 1.25M after NYPD Ignore Paramedics, Use Straightjacket & Brute Force to Murder Black Man on Drugs

From [HERE] and [MORE] The city has reached a settlement with the family of a man who died while in NYPD custody.

According to a published report, court papers show that New York City officials reached a $1.25-million deal with the mother of Ron Singleton. Singleton’s mother filed suit following her son’s death in July, 2014.

Singleton, who was African-American, was taken into police custody after a yellow cab driver flagged down a police officer near St. Patrick's Cathedral in Manhattan, police said in a statement. The cab driver claimed the passenger was "acting overly irate and irrational, cursing and screaming and causing alarm," according to the statement.

According to the lawsuit, Singleton was high on PCP and acting erratically when he was put in a ‘protective body wrap’ or makeshift straitjacket by police. The suit alleges that officers kept Singleton — a father of three – face down in the wrap despite requests from EMTs to turn him over for examination.

According to the lawsuit cops threw him to the ground while he was handcuffed. When officers pinned him to the ground, “he is reported to have let out a blood-curdling scream and immediately became limp and unmoving,” the lawsuit says. The officers refused requests from both EMTs and FDNY paramedics to remove Singleton from the wrap and to turn him on his back so he could be evaluated, according to the lawsuit.

The medical examiner ruled Singleton’s death a homicide and said that restraint ‘during excited delirium’ was partly to blame. Singleton suffered from heart disease and was obese.

Singleton’s death came four days before Eric Garner died when a large group of white NYPD officers smothered & pounced on the Black man while he was in a chokehold.  

DC Appeals Court Rules Warrantless Cell Phone Tracking ‘StingRay’ Device Used by Cops is Unconstitutional

From [HERE] and [HERE] The District of Columbia Court of Appeals ruled [opinion, PDF] Thursday that the use of cell-site simulators to detect cell phone location without a warrant violates the Fourth Amendment.

A device that tricks cellphones into sending it their location information and has been used quietly by police and federal agents for years, requires a search warrant before it is turned on. It is the fourth such ruling by either a state appeals court or federal district court, and may end up deciding the issue unless the government takes the case to the U.S. Supreme Court or persuades the city’s highest court to reverse the ruling.

The case against Prince Jones in 2013 involved D.C. police use of a “StingRay” cell-site simulator, which enables law enforcement to pinpoint the location of a cellphone more precisely than a phone company can when triangulating a signal between cell towers or using a phone’s GPS function. Civil liberties advocates say the StingRay, by providing someone’s location to police without court approval, is a violation of an individual’s Fourth Amendment right not to be unreasonably searched. The D.C. Court of Appeals agreed in a 2 to 1 ruling, echoing similar rulings in the Maryland Court of Special Appeals and federal district courts in New York City and San Francisco.

“This opinion,” said Nathan F. Wessler of the American Civil Liberties Union, who helped argue the case with the D.C. Public Defender Service, “joins the growing chorus of courts holding that the Fourth Amendment protects against warrantless use of invasive, covert technology to track people’s phones. … We applaud today’s opinion for erecting sensible and strong protections against the government violating  people’s privacy in the digital age.” [MORE]

Money: The Greatest Scam In History - What Is Money?

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Cross the Border of a Nation & You'll See that You Actually Were a Prisoner: What are Your Rights at the Border?

Osho Rajineesh said, "If enough rope is given to you, you forget about the prison. For example, these so-called nations -- India, Pakistan, Japan, Germany -- these are all great prisons, but they are so great that you cannot see the boundaries of your prison. Cross the boundaries of your nation and you will see that you were a prisoner. But the prison is big enough; you can move in the prison anywhere you want. But move out of the prison, try to enter another prison, and then you will see the limitation. 

These are man-made prisons; big enough so they can give you a false feeling of freedom, but there is no freedom. Unless all nations disappear from the world, the earth will remain a slave, humanity will remain in prisons, small and big. But it makes no difference whether the prison is very big and you cannot see the wall surrounding it.... The walls may be very subtle -- of passports and visas -- the walls may be VERY subtle, you may not see them, but they are there. You are not free to move. 

Almost all the constitutions of the world say that the freedom of movement is the birthright of every human being, but it is only written in the books, it is not true. You cannot move freely. If you want to go to Russia, impossible; if you want to enter into China, impossible. 

Nations have become such great prisons, and your presidents and your so-called prime ministers are all nothing but jailors. Those who talk about freedom are nothing but policemen. They say they are guarding you for your own safety, but in fact they are prison wardens watching so that you cannot escape. 

And there are prisons within prisons like Chinese boxes -- boxes within boxes.... India is a big prison; then there are Hindus and Mohammedans and Christians and Sikhs and Jainas and Buddhists -- now these are small prisons. The Christian can go to the church, he cannot go to the temple; the Hindu can go to the temple, he cannot go to the church. He has been taught and conditioned that the church is not a religious place; the Christian has been told that the church is the only right place to go -- all other religions are false, and all other religions lead you astray. Unless you are a Christian you cannot be saved. And then within Christianity there are Catholics and Protestants, and then among Protestants and Catholics there are smaller and smaller subsects. And prisons become smaller and smaller. 

Then there are political prisons: somebody is a communist and somebody is a socialist, and somebody is a capitalist...and so on and so forth. And you are not satisfied even with these: then you make Rotary Clubs and Lions Clubs.... Your thirst to be a prisoner is such that you can't simply be a human being. You have to be a Rotarian and you proudly declare, "I am a Rotarian," "I am a Lion." You are not satisfied with being simply a human being, you have to be a Lion. And then there are smaller and smaller confinements. 

Rather than getting out of these prison cells, we go on decorating them, we go on making them more and more comfortable. We are living under the law of gravitation, we are living as prisoners. We cannot go against the wind -- our life is gross. Buddha says: Be aware of it: what are you doing with your life? Reconsider, meditate over it, what you have made of yourself." [MORE]

At the Border What are You Waiving or "Consenting" to? 

The infographic from [whois], looks at the powers that border security has in the US, UK, Canada, and Australia. Security agents in each country can legally request access to your digital devices when you cross the border. US agents can request access anywhere within 100 miles of the border. Agents in the UK and Australia do not even need to have a reasonable level of suspicion to request access; so you could easily be subjected to a spot check.

You may be required to provide the password to unlock your device — and to provide access to all your social media accounts. Just refusing could get your device confiscated or arrested -see story below. 

Airport Police Demanded a [Non-White] Activist's Passwords. He Refused. Now He Faces Prison in the UK

From [HERE] IT WAS NOT the first time Muhammad Rabbani had problems when returning to the United Kingdom from travels overseas. But on this occasion something was different — he was arrested, handcuffed, and hauled through London’s largest airport, then put into the back of a waiting police van.

Rabbani is the 36-year-old international director of Cage, a British group that was founded in 2003 to raise awareness about the plight of prisoners held at the U.S. government’s Guantánamo Bay detention site. Today, the organization has a broader focus and says it is working to highlight “the erosion of the rule of law in the context of the war on terror.” Due to its work campaigning for the legal rights of terrorism suspects, Cage has attracted controversy, and Rabbani has faced the government’s wrath.

His trouble at Heathrow Airport in late November began with a familiar routine. Often, on his return to the U.K. from foreign trips, he was stopped by police and questioned under Schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act — a sweeping power British authorities can use at the border to interrogate and search people without requiring any suspicion of wrongdoing. People questioned under Schedule 7 have no right to remain silent, and they can be interrogated for up to six hours. Rabbani estimates that he has been stopped under Schedule 7 about 20 times. Usually, he was let free after a few questions without any charges or arrest. But not this time.

Rabbani was returning to London after a business trip to one of the Gulf states. He had been meeting with an individual whom he says was previously detained by U.S. authorities and suffered “years of torture” at the hands of his American captors. The person provided Rabbani with information about his treatment, including names of particular individuals allegedly involved in carrying out the acts of torture. These details, Rabbani says, were provided on a confidential basis and were to be used by Cage as part of a pending legal action against the U.S. government.

As he arrived back at Heathrow, Rabbani was pulled aside by a police counterterrorism officer at the passport control desk. At first, the conversation was polite. But the tone changed when the officer began asking Rabbani about his work for Cage. He requested that Rabbani accompany him to a room inside the airport where he would be subjected to a formal “examination” under Schedule 7, which is supposed to be used solely to determine whether a person is directly involved in the “commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism.”

In the interrogation room there were two police officers who searched all of Rabbani’s luggage and questioned him further about his travels — Whom did he meet? Where did he go? Where did he stay and for how long? After a while the conversation turned to the electronic devices Rabbani was carrying, which included a silver MacBook Air, a SIM card, a flash drive, and an iPhone. The officers asked Rabbani to turn over his passwords so that they could access the devices — and said that if he did not provide them, they would arrest him.

In August 2013, David Miranda, the partner of Intercept co-founding editor Glenn Greenwald, was detained in the same London airport and similarly interrogated under Schedule 7. Miranda had been assisting Greenwald’s reporting on documents about government surveillance leaked by National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden. Last year, in a significant victory for privacy rights, a judge in the Miranda case ruled that Schedule 7 was “not subject to adequate safeguards against its arbitrary exercise.” As a result, the British government made changes to a code of practice that outlined how officers should conduct their searches. Officers are now told that they should “cease reviewing, and not copy” information which they have grounds to believe is attorney-client privileged, is journalistic material, or is another kind of information held in confidence, which a person has “acquired or created in the course of any trade, business, profession or other occupation.”

Rabbani was aware of this crucial change and felt that the police were overstepping their recently narrowed authority. “I told them the info on there [my electronic devices] was confidential and sensitive — relating to vulnerable people,” Rabbani told The Intercept. “But they ignored that. They said, ‘No, we have the power to take your devices and to compel you to give your passwords.’”

The situation reached an impasse. Rabbani told the police that he would not turn over the passwords, and he was not going to change his mind. The officers arrested and handcuffed him, then escorted him through the main concourse of the airport into the back of a police van. He was taken to a nearby police station, held in a cell for about nine hours, and later released on bail. [MORE]

Africans Seeking Asylum in Germany Find Hatred & Otherization From Whites

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Despite Many, Many Elected Democrats in St Louis, Black Lives Still Don't Matter

The Teddy Bear Code is "protest" actually in cooperation with and submission to white supremacy/racism. [MORE]. Singing, lighting candles, posting up teddy bears and issuing resolutions do not fight the power of racism/white supremacy. In photo St. Louis Mayor Lyda Krewson speaks with Anthony Lamar Smith's parents after the Board of Aldermen approved a resolution honoring his memory. [MORE]

Last Friday, a white St. Louis police officer named Jason Stockley was acquitted by a racist suspect judge of first-degree murder in the 2011 shooting death of Anthony Lamar Smith, 24, after a high-speed chase.

Just before he shot him, Mr. Stockley, who is white, told his partner he was “going to kill” him. In his decision in the bench trial, Judge Timothy Wilson of the St. Louis Circuit justified Mr. Stockley’s remark by writing that [white] people “say all kinds of things in the heat of the moment” [with a Black person]

Prosecutors had also suggested that Mr. Stockley planted a gun in Mr. Smith’s car after the chase ended, because the weapon contained his fingerprints and his DNA, not Mr. Smith’s. But Judge Wilson, who has nearly 30 years of experience, expressed doubts about this, noting that “an urban heroin dealer not in possession of a firearm would be an anomaly.” [MORE] Who needs facts when you can project nonsense from your mind into reality? That is what racists have the unequal power to do in a system of vast unequal power based on skin color. 

We already know the Republicans are the White Party. The GOP is a racial identity party. "It is designed to appeal to white people as white people... not as union-members or as unemployed people or as home-owners... as white people.  It is a crude racial-identity party and the numbers bear that out. It is an almost exclusively white party. Many white people vote Democratic (39%), but the Republican party is pretty close to all white. A fact that is soft-pedaled in out national dialog because it makes the modern Republican party sound like a racist institution, which it is." [MORE] In fact, Republicans now depend on the white votary for fully 90 percent of their votes in presidential elections, while the Democratic Party wins 60 to 70 percent of the Asian and Hispanic vote and 90 to 95 percent of the black vote. [MORE] 

But Non-whites, especially Black folks should witness that all the players in the St. Louis area were and are all Democrats. To name a few [at the time of Smith's murder], 

Governor Jay Nixon [the current Governor is Republican is Eric Greitens], U.S. Senator Claire McCaskill, State Attorney General Chris Koster, St. Louis Mayors Francis Slay and Lyda Krewson (who took office April 18, 2017) and Prosecutor Robert McCulloch are all dems. 

The Democratic Party has dominated St. Louis city politics for decades. The city has not had a Republican mayor since 1949 and the last time a Republican was elected to another citywide office was in the 1970s. As of 2015, all 28 of the city's Aldermen are Democrats. 

At the federal level, in Missouri's 1st congressional district, a Republican has not represented a significant portion of St. Louis in the U.S. House since 1953. [MORE]

Judge Wilson, who is a  circuit court judge for the 22nd Circuit Court serving St. Louis, was appointed to the bench by racist republican Governor John Ashcroft. Nevertheless, he has been retained to the court by the mostly democrat St. Louis votary in elections in 1990, 1996, 2002, 2008 and 2014.

These folks plus a Black President and Attorney General [at the time of the murder] have not and did not equate to Black power.  The above mentioned folks and the so-called "power" of the vote did not help Black people solve its problem of racism/white supremacy, which is the cause of police brutality, the unequal administration of "justice" and so many other things plaguing non-white communities. 

And St. Louis is really no different than many other urban areas in this system of racism/white supremacy. Voting in and of itself is not power. As explained by Dr. Blynd, "voting without having economic rights and control of substantive rights is voting fraud." [MORE]

Amos Wilson explains, 'politicians and the media strive strenuously to convince the Black votary that every conceivable problem which confronts it can be resolved through voting heavily for Black and friendly White politicians. The establishment is ever quick to remind the Black electorate of the historical struggles necessary to achieve their right to vote. It indicts the community for any perceived electoral apathy and seeks to evoke guilt feelings in those who do not participate in the electoral process — making such ritualistic participation emblematic of democracy and first-class citizenship.

This is of special interest when it is realized that very few, if any, of the major political, economic and social goals achieved by Black America, including the Voting Rights Act, were accomplished through Black voting prowess. The ballot box has been a relatively impotent weapon in the achievement of major victories by the Black community. Suddenly vigorous protest and direct-action legal suits and extralegal processes such as boycotts, sit-ins, and the like, which were used so effectively by the community to achieve its sociopolitical ends and to fight injustice and oppression, have fallen far behind the election of Black and friendly White politicians to achieve the same ends. Politicians who in no way are interested in developing a program for the economic emancipation and empowerment of the Black community, and who are not committed to neutralizing White supremacy.' [MORE]

It is time to do something else about our powerless reality and begin asking questions such as how can we get some power to solve our problems? How can we neutralize this awesome white power? How do we stop white people from practicing racism? What kind of consciousness is needed for the task?