Kwame Kilpatrick’s Corruption Case Begins

NewsOne

Former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick (pictured) conspired with his father and best friend to turn City Hall into a den of bribes and kickbacks, a prosecutor said Friday as jurors heard opening statements in Kilpatrick’s corruption trial.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Mark Chutkow gave jurors a 40-minute overview of what they’ll see and hear in the months ahead. He said Kilpatrick was an enthusiastic rising star in Michigan politics who moved from the state legislature, then enriched himself with hundreds of thousands of dollars by muscling contractors, fooling political supporters, and rigging city business.

“This was not politics as usual,” Chutkow said. “This was extortion, bribery, fraud. … They broke their oath to serve this city. It was the citizens of the city of Detroit who were left holding the short end of the stick.”

Kilpatrick — who quit office in 2008 in an unrelated scandal and eventually served more than a year in prison for a probation violation — is charged with racketeering conspiracy, extortion, bribery, fraud, false tax returns and tax evasion. His father, Bernard, also is on trial, along with the ex-mayor’s best friend, Bobby Ferguson, and former Detroit water boss Victor Mercado.

Chutkow described how Kilpatrick deposited more than $200,000 in cash in his bank account and paid his credit card bills with another $280,000 in cash.

“He no longer lived like the citizens he governed,” the prosecutor said, noting luxurious travel and custom-made suits.

Kilpatrick, who faces more than 10 years in prison if convicted, has declared his innocence. Defense attorney James Thomas repeated it for jurors in his opening statement but didn’t specifically address the large sums of money outlined by the government.

Thomas called the government’s case a “scam.”

“The government has charged a racketeering conspiracy and everything but the kitchen sink. … You’re going to learn about politics,” Thomas said. “Politics is like making sausage. You know it’s not pretty; it’s messy. But once it’s cooked, it tastes pretty good.”

The government’s evidence will include text messages, undercover video and testimony from as many as 10 people who have pleaded guilty in the investigation.

Some were Kilpatrick’s closest allies at City Hall, including former Deputy Mayor Kandia Milton, former executive assistant DeDan Milton, and former chief administrative officer Derrick Miller.

This isn’t Kilpatrick’s first brush with the law. His 14-month prison term for a probation violation followed a 2008 conviction for lying from the witness stand about an extramarital affair, a relationship revealed in sexually explicit text messages.

Outside the downtown courthouse, the city Kilpatrick left behind in 2008 seems to be in a perpetual crisis. Detroit’s population has fallen significantly. An emergency manager has taken control of the public schools. Police officers work 12-hour shifts and have been hit with salary cutbacks.

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Senate hate crimes hearing centers on Sikh temple massacre

CNN

Forty-five days after a deadly shooting at Wisconsin Sikh temple, hundreds of Sikhs and their supporters lined the halls of Congress on Wednesday for a Capitol Hill hearing on hate crimes and the growing threat of domestic terrorism.

“The recent shooting at a Sikh temple in Oak Creek, Wisconsin, was a tragic hate crime that played out on TV around the country,” said Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Illinois, who chaired the hearing for a Senate Judiciary subcommittee.

“It was not the first tragedy based on hate, and, sadly, it won’t be the last,” Durbin said of the shooting, which left six dead and four wounded in addition to the gunman, who took his own life. “But it should cause all of us to redouble our efforts to combat the threat of domestic terrorism.”

Sikh communities across the country say they have experienced increased attacks since September 11, 2001. Sikh men wear turbans that some people mistakenly associate with Islam.

Many Sikhs have lobbied the federal government to track hate crimes that are committed specifically against them.

“I have filmed, chronicled, combated hate crimes against this community for 11 years,” Valerie Kaur, a Sikh filmmaker and community activist, said in testimony at the hearing.

“In the aftermath of Oak Creek, reporters came up to me and asked me, 'How many hate crimes have there been? How many hate murders have there been?' " Kaur said. "And I couldn’t tell them … because the government currently does not track hate crimes against Sikhs at all."

Harpreet Singh Saini, whose mother, Paramjit Kaur Singh, died in the Wisconsin shooting, told the subcommittee, "I came here today to ask government to give my mother the dignity of being a statistic.

“She was an American," said Saini, an 18-year-old college student who's majoring in law enforcement. "And this was not our American dream."

More than 400 people from across the country filled the Senate gallery, and a second room for overflow, to watch the hearing.

“I have a son who is 13 years old, and I thought, imagine that was my son telling a story about how his mother wasn’t going to be there for his graduation, his wedding," Linda Sarsour of the Arab American Association of New York said after Saini's testimony. "It just connects to you as a human, as a parent. I forgot that I was Muslim.”

According to the Justice Department, 6,600 hate crime incidents were reported to the FBI in 2010, the most recent year for which statistics are available. Nearly half were motivated by racial prejudice, including those against people of Asian descent, though the agency does not track anti-Asian crime specifically.

Nearly 13% of hate crimes in 2010 were directed specifically against Arabs and Middle Easterners, with a recent rise in crimes directed at Muslims.

“The FBI has a hate crime incident report form, and it only has an anti-Muslim category. I think that category is a catch-all category, and it really reflects this very flawed logic of mistaken identity,” said Kaur, who has been documenting the progress of the Sikh community in Oak Creek since the August massacre.

Some at the hearing said there are not enough federal analysts and agents monitoring hate groups and people like white supremacist Wade Mitchell Page, the suspect in the Oak Creek temple shootings.

A Department of Justice report presented at the hearing said that that the 2009 Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act has strengthened the department’s ability to prosecute hate crimes.

A coalition of civil rights, civic, faith and community groups is calling on President Obama to host a summit of religious tolerance, saying in a Thursday letter that "Religious bigotry has reached a crisis point in America."

"It is time for President Obama to ensure that this climate of hate and bigotry does not continue to spiral out of control,” said the letter, signed by about 100 groups.

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American Apartheid: American Schools Still Largely Segregated On Racial, Economic Lines

ThinkProgress

Nearly 60 years after American schools were desegregated by a landmark Supreme Court decision, they are still largely segregated along racial and socio-economic lines, an analysis of Department of Education found.

American schools have a larger share of African American and Latino students than ever before, but students from those groups are likely to attend schools with few white students, the study from the University of California, Los Angeles found, as the New York Times reports:

Across the country, 43 percent of Latinos and 38 percent of blacks attend schools where fewer than 10 percent of their classmates are white, according to the report, released on Wednesday by the Civil Rights Project at the University of California, Los Angeles.

And more than one in seven black and Latino students attend schools where fewer than 1 percent of their classmates are white, according to the group’s analysis of enrollment data from 2009-2010, the latest year for which federal statistics are available.

The segregation isn’t limited to race: across the country, schools with high minority populations often have high low-income populations as well, and “typical black or Latino student attends a school where almost two out of every three classmates come from low-income families,” the Times reports.

The segregation of American schools has perpetuated and exacerbated the education gap that exists between black and Latino students and their white and Asian counterparts. American students from less-educated, lower-income backgrounds are less likely to go to college than they are in other countries, and even high-achieving students from low-income backgrounds are far less likely to complete college than similar students from upper-income backgrounds. That has suppressed economic mobility for blacks and Latinos, two groups already disadvantaged in the American economy.

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Unwanted Non-Whites Protest Enforcement of Racist Arizona Immigration law

Daily Courier

A day after the most contentious provision of Arizona's immigration law took effect, rallies were held around Phoenix to protest the mandate that civil rights activists say will lead to systematic racial profiling.

More than three dozen activists stood outside a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement building along a busy thoroughfare Wednesday evening. They chanted: "No papers, no fear."

Carlos Garcia, an organizer with the immigrant rights group the Puente Movement, said the strategy is to urge people not to cooperate with immigration enforcement efforts - whether they're in the country legally or not.

Tempe resident Beatrice Jernigan said friends who are in the country illegally are scared.

"They don't know what's going to happen. They're more cautious," she said. "Some parents who are illegal immigrants are not allowing their kids to participate in afterschool sports."

On Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton ruled that police could immediately start enforcing the so-called "show me your papers" provision of Arizona's immigration law. It requires officers, while enforcing other laws, to question the immigration status of those suspected of being in the country illegally.

The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the provision in June on the grounds that it doesn't conflict with federal law. Opponents argued that the provision would lead to systematic racial profiling and unreasonably long detention of Latinos, and they unsuccessfully asked Bolton to block it.

Bolton said the law's opponents were merely speculating on the racial profiling claims. She did leave the door open to challenges if the claims can be proven.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is considering a request to halt the provision.

In the meantime, an education campaign for illegal immigrants to remain largely silent when they're pulled over by police is being put into practice across the state.

Leticia Ramirez has been telling people who live in the U.S. without legal permission, like she does, that they should offer only their name and date of birth if they're pulled over. She also tells them not to carry any documents that show where they were born.

"We want to teach the community how to defend themselves, how to answer to police, how to be prepared, and to have confidence that they're going to have help," said Ramirez, a 27-year-old from Torreon in the Mexican state of Coahuila.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the federal agency that verifies people's immigration status for local officers, said Wednesday it has not yet seen an influx in the number of calls it receives from local authorities for immigration checks and assistance.

A hotline run by civil rights advocates has been fielding queries from people wanting to know their rights if questioned about their immigration status.

The advocates are asking police departments not to enforce the provision, as a way to gain cooperation from immigrants in reporting crimes. But not enforcing the requirement could expose the agencies to lawsuits from people claiming authorities aren't complying with the law.

Outside the Immigration and Customs building in Phoenix, Prescott college student Brooke Bischoff said she doubts provisions prohibiting racial profiling will succeed.

She said testimony during a recent trial involving racial profiling accusations against the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office indicated that training to avoid discriminatory practices was "cursory."

Advocates also planned to gather on Wednesday to address the Phoenix City Council about their concerns about the law, and a march to the Maricopa County jail in downtown Phoenix was scheduled for Saturday.

State lawmakers passed the sweeping immigration measure in 2010 amid voter frustration with Arizona's role as the country's busiest illegal entry point. Alabama, Georgia, Indiana, South Carolina and Utah have since adopted variations of Arizona's law.

Republican Gov. Jan Brewer says the law won't cure the state's immigration woes but it could push the federal government to act on immigration reform.

White Party People Losing it: Mittens Supporter adds American Flag to "Lynched Chair" Display

Burnt Orange  Last night we broke the story of a man in Northwest Austin who lynched an empty chair from a tree in his front lawn, seemingly intended to represent the first African-American president. We've since received an updated photo from a neighbor that should clarify whether the homeowner meant the display to make a political statement. The image is here. The homeowner has attached an American flag to the chair. If anyone wasn't clear before that he meant the President, hopefully this decorative addition will make it clear: the homeowner is suggesting that Barack Obama be lynched. This image should curdle the blood of all patriotic Americans regardless of partisan leanings. Our flag is a symbol of our great country, and the ideals of diversity and opportunity that make us a beacon of hope and democracy around the world. Generations of service members have fought and died to protect what that flag represents. Yet because one sad, old racist can't handle the fact that the President of the United States, Barack Hussein Obama, is African-American, he ties that same flag to a public display calling for that President's violent, racially charged death. Unfortunately, our Austin neighbor is not the first person to come up with the "clever" idea of lynching a chair. A man in Virginia lynched a chair with a "Nobama" sign on it over the weekend, as reported by our friends at Blue Virginia. Meanwhile, this story is garnering national attention across the blogosphere, and will unfortunately only confirm the worst stereotypes of Texans as intolerant racists. We're not all crazy bigots, and that's why we've got to push back strongly against displays of racism both overt and subtle. Texans, do you really want this kind of imagery to represent our great state? We're the home of LBJ, signer of the Civil Rights Act, and we have a proud history of African-American and Hispanic civil rights efforts. Demographically, this dude's time is limited. He's 73. Across Texas, the majority of our public school students are Hispanic and African-American. According to the Census Bureau, most children younger than age 1 are minorities. The Republican Party continues to visibly brand itself as the last respite for public racism, and thankfully it won't win them many elections much longer. Republican Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina hit the nail on the head when he pointed out that "We're not generating enough angry white guys to stay in business for the long term." That isn't stopping the angry demographic from raging against the dying of their white majority. Incidents like this remind us that we've still got a long way to go, and that far from "solving" racism, the election of our country's first African-American president only revealed the festering, backwards beliefs clung to by those who fear the increasingly diverse future of our nation. As of the time of this post's publication, the chair was still hanging in effigy in Northwest Austin. Neighbors report that the homeowner had a "guard" on his lawn yesterday protecting his installation. If the homeowner wanted to draw attention to his backwards views about the President, he appears to have succeeded beyond his wildest imagination.

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Gallup Poll - U.S. Distrust in Media Hits New High

Gallup

Americans' distrust in the media hit a new high this year, with 60% saying they have little or no trust in the mass media to report the news fully, accurately, and fairly. The increase is driven by Republicans and independents.

South African workers strike at another mine

Rt.com

Workers for the night and day shift did not come to work at South African Kopanang mine, which employs about 5,000 people, AngloGold said on Friday. Workers’ demands have not yet been submitted to the company, it...

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Ninth Circuit hears arguments on California DNA collection law requiring Police to take DNA after arrest

Jurist

The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit [official website] heard arguments Wednesday regarding the constitutionality of a voter-approved California law [Proposition 69, PDF] that requires police officers to take DNA samples of arrested persons suspected of committing a felony. Sitting en banc, the judges questioned California Attorney General Kamala Harris [official website], raising concerns [San Francisco Chronicle report] that the law may be an unconstitutional government invasion of individuals' privacy. Harris retorted that the law contains safeguards against malicious use, including penalties for state officials who misuse DNA material. In February a three-judge panel of the Ninth...

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Insiders: Obama More Likely to Win

Hotline On Call 

Expectations that Mitt Romney will be able to defeat President Obama in November have slid down significantly over the last four months, according to National Journal's latest Insider's poll.

Insiders of both parties gave the president a moderate to high chance of winning his bid for re-election. When asked to rate his prospects on a scale of 0 to 10, with 0 being no chance and 10 being virtual certainty, Democrats gave Obama an average score of 7.7, a 0.6-point increase from when the question was last asked in late April. Republicans meanwhile gave their opponent a 5.8, representing a 0.9-point uptick.

The results are no doubt a reflection of a rough start to the general election for the Romney campaign, between a national convention that produced no significant polling bounce, the candidate's controversial statement on the U.S. embassy attack in Libya as well as leaked video of a Romney fundraiser where he dismissed the 47 percent of Americans who don't pay income tax as government-dependent freeloaders.

Insiders of both parties largely agreed that Obama's chances were bolstered not by his own doing but by a weak challenger.

Latino Stereotypes Thrive in the Media, Negative Attitudes Dominate

ColorLines

An important new study by the National Hispanic Media Coalition (NHMC) has confirmed many of our hunches about how negative media narratives and portrayals of brown people play out in the minds of non-Latinos. The report, Impact of Media Stereotypes on Opinions and Attitudes Towards Latinos, was commissioned by NHMC and conducted by Latino Decisions. The NHMC has shared the data with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), with a request for the institutions to study the impacts of hate speech in media. It would be tremendous for these organizations to recognize there's a problem and to be accountable to our community, at the Drop the I-Word campaign, it matters profoundly.

The term "illegal immigrants" was used in the study specifically to "test the extent to which respondents would use or avoid the phrase." Study participants were exposed to negative and positive media frames and messages in the news on TV, radio and print as well as in entertainment media. According to the study, non-Latinos no matter what the media format, think that Latinos and "illegal immigrants" are one and the same. There was a higher percentage of people who agreed that Latinos are "illegal immigrants" when exposed to negative frames, but even when exposed to good messages, people still held on to that view. Additionally "over 30 percent of respondents believed a majority of Latinos (50 percent or greater) were undocumented. And in terms of how language matters, "while 49 percent of respondents offer 'cold' rating of undocumented, 58 percent rate "illegal aliens" coldly.

This all points to the extent to which the racially charged and dehumanizing i-word and the concept that people could be "illegal" has become normalized through the media. It also makes it very clear that the immigration debate and the i-word, in fact, impact perceptions about and treatment of mestizo and first nation migrants with or without papers, no matter how many generations they've been on this land.

A Fox News Latino poll earlier this year, found that nearly half of Latino voters think the term "illegal immigrant" is offensive. I've wondered about the other folks that were ok with the i-word and if it's that they found the term useful in distinguishing themselves and creating a distance from the dehumanization that comes with the i-word. That thinking will not save anyone from being profiled or discriminated against. It's dangerous thinking that widens the net of people who are at risk of being criminalized or attacked.

The NHMC study looked at all types of ideas and stereotypes ranging from neighborliness and religiosity, to use of welfare and gang culture.

Stereotypes are unavoidable. When I first meet people and it comes up that I'm Salvadoran, I get different types of reactions. Some people smile and say, that's cool, my dear friend such and such is Salvi, or my favorite, I'm Salvi too -- to which I usually squeal with joy even at the stuffiest conference, or random bodega. Or I've been there, it's beautiful. Bonus points. Those are the best interactions. Other people will confide in me that they love pupusas, or they will tell me their favorite pupusa stuffing. Very recently ever since that Marta Stewart segment, now people want to say pupusas are "the next taco." 

All benign responses, chevere. No mention of our general badassness or happy disposition. All good, because at least they are not the folks that within the first five minutes want to mention Mara Salvatrucha, sometimes jokingly, usually disgracefully. You can always tell the people who watched that unfortunate National Geographic special with Lisa Ling that depicted all gang members as monsters. The story then becomes about monsters and not the US involvement and funding of Central American wars which led to mass migration and separation and hardship for families, which led to young people seeking familial ties and being exposed to gangs in the US that were later deported back to Central America. There's so much more to tell there. The point is, the stereotype.

In 2006 mainstream immigrant rights organizations fighting the draconian Sensenbrenner bill helped perpetuate a "good immigrant/bad immigrant" dichotomy, saying "We're not all criminals." This created a distance from people with a range of convictions who also did not want to be separated from their families. I was in Los Angeles at the time and even then it seemed incredible that many did not want to acknowledge how the racially biased criminal justice system would funnel loved ones and a lot of young people into deportation. At the time, the organization I'm on the board of, Homies Unidos, was fighting and sometimes winning deportation cases of young people who had convictions while they were making interventions in the community to prevent people from joining gangs and helping others make fresh starts away from gang life. The directly impacted community there remains front and center on policy and organizing. They have lived the impact of stereotypes but they continue to fight the stereotypes and the shame they come with.

Negative stereotypes often have some truth to them, but they simplify a lot of racial inequities and injustice. At the same time they challenge us to reject the shaming they are packed with, kick some serious knowledge about the systems at play and work toward justice. It's not just offensive that people think Latinos in general are "illegal." Or that Latinos are gangsters and criminals. What's more offensive is the idea that any person can be considered "illegal" or be dehumanized in any way and treated unjustly. Language and stereotypes impact all Latinos because of a widely held bias against all of us. We have clarity about how non-Latinos think of Latinos. Let's be equally vigilant about how we think of ourselves and our own communities.

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Rich getting richer: Richest 400 Americans' net worth jumps 13%

Citizens for Legit Gov

The net worth of the richest Americans grew by 13 per cent in the past year to $1.7-trillion (U.S.), Forbes magazine said on Wednesday, and a familiar cast of characters once again populated the top of the magazine's annual list of the U.S. uber-elite, including Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, Larry Ellison and the Koch brothers. The average net worth of the 400 wealthiest Americans rose to a record $4.2-billion, the magazine said. Collectively, this group's net worth is the equivalent of one-eighth of the entire U.S. economy, which stood at $13.56-trillion in real terms according to the latest government data.

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Mittens Darkens Skin Color to Appear More Hispanic for Univision Interview?

Buzzflash

It's not going unnoticed that in a September 19th interview on Univision (which has the largest reach of news programming to Latino audiences in the United States), Mitt Romney had his face darkened to appear, well, more Hispanic.  As a sharp eye on Democratic Underground noted and showed, there is simply no disputing it if you look at Romney's face while on Univision as compared to his other campaign photos and television appearances.

The cheesy attempt to subliminally try to make Romney appear more Latino, instead of a pale Mormon, was blatantly evident in a surprisingly critical article of the interview in the right wing Washington Times (although it should be disclosed that the commentary was from a liberal blogger). Just check out the Associated Press photos by clicking here.

As far as proof of Romney man tanning it up to try to appear more like "one of them," just look at his wan hands as compared to his face in the YouTube video of the television program. Catch the white skin in contrast to the heavy pancake makeup on his face as you watch the interview. (The video is posted at the end of this commentary.)

If you actually listen to the interview, Romney is doggedly challenged on his Latino immigration flip flops by Univision journalist Maria Elena Salinas.  Salinas and co-interviewer Jorge Ramos look lighter in skin tone than the heavily darkened Romney.

You have to wonder how much the Romney campaign is in freefall when it's candidate imitates Al Jolson singing "Mammy" in black face (although with a brown instead of black face) in order to sway Hispanic voters.

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Mysterious surveillance equipment at Occupy Wall Street one year anniversary

PrivacySos

The NYPD deployed multiple TARU surveillance teams throughout the streets on Monday as activists gathered for a one year anniversary celebration of the Occupy Wall Street movement. The TARU (which stands for Technical Assistance Response Unit) teams filmed protesters with handheld cameras, moving throughout crowds and following shortly behind the white shirted police officers who swept in to make arrests.

The area surrounding Zuccotti park and the NY stock exchange contained multiple surveillance towers as well as cameras affixed to poles hoisted from unmarked police cars. Also present was an unmarked police truck with this attached to the roof [more] 

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"They" Hate Us Because We Bomb Them

InformationClearingHouse

(Video) Dissecting the ongoing narrative of sweeping generalizations resounding in the establishment following a wave of protests that have spread across the Muslim world and explores why 'they' really hate the West.

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Printing such provocative satire after massive deadly protests over a film mocking Islam film, is that some kind of desperate act for publicity?

Rt.com

As protests rock the Muslim world, a French magazine has decided to publish cartoons insulting Islam, arguing freedom of speech. But critics now point to hypocrisy, with denying the holocaust being illegal in many European countries.

Journalist and writer Barry Lando explained to RT that he believes freedom of speech laws in Europe are used selectively and that the explosion of protest among Muslims is a symptom of 50 years of simmering anger at the West.

RT: Printing such provocative satire after massive deadly protests over a film mocking Islam film, is that some kind of desperate act for publicity?

Barry Lando: I suppose their motives are mixed, I’m sure publicity has something to do with it, definitely their circulation has gone up every time they’ve done it; so they risk firebombing but they’ve got a lot of money through doing it. But the French are no different to the newspapers in England or Europe who do the same thing.

As far as the question on limits on freedom of speech, not just in France but in Europe as a whole, looking at the laws across Europe, there are in-fact limits on freedom of speech and those laws link directly in Germany, Netherlands as well as France with any kind of publication or communication- and I’m quoting the German law now- “which would incite hatred against segments of the population or assault human dignity by insulting or maliciously aligning segments of the population”. In Germany you can be punished for 3-5 years for publishing such a thing.

Also you probably know that denying the holocaust is a crime in most European countries, not in the United Kingdom but certainly in France and Germany.

RT: Barry I want to draw your attention to something, the Prime Minster says that publication is an issue of freedom of expression, now just yesterday proactive pictures of British royalty were banned from the press, why weren’t they defended in the same way?

BL: I agree I think it’s hypocritical and it doesn’t really stand up to examination.

RT: Now you did mention freedom of speech and it certainly is an admirable concept and now France has shut down its embassies and schools abroad fearing a backlash against the cartoon

BL: Just let me finish if I could with what I was saying with the question of holocaust denial which is not permitted in Europe, I would argue that attacking the holocaust is very similar to attacking ones religion, as in the case of Judaism, so in-fact there are limits on it.

RT: Now the scope of the outrage throughout the Muslim world is huge, dozens of states are seeing both peaceful and violent protests now this can’t just be about a film or a cartoon- however mocking it may be?

BL: No of course, it’s just an excuse for the release of a lot of hatreds which have built up over decades, it’s the last drop in a cup of animosity against the United States and other countries which has been filling over the years, its goes back 50 years into the history of the United States and that part of the world, this is just an excuse if you will for some groups to make use of that hatred and set it aflame.

More than 21,000 Arkansas Children Have a Parent in Prison

Sentencing Project 

More than 21,000 Arkansas children have a parent serving time in prison and the system's neglect of these children is perpetuating a cycle of impoverishment, children's advocates say.

"When a parent is sent to prison, these children are overlooked and ignored," said Susan Phillips, a research analyst with The Sentencing Project.

State lawmakers heard from the directors of several state agencies and some advocates as part of an interim study that found that more than 18,000 children have a father behind bars and almost 3,000 have a mother serving time.

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California judge rejects plea to remove anti-Islam video from YouTube

Jurist

A judge for the Los Angeles Superior Court on Thursday denied a request for a temporary restraining order to remove a controversial anti-Islam film on YouTube that has sparked violent protests throughout the Muslim world. Actress Cindy Lee Garcia brought the claim on grounds of fraud, slander and intentional infliction of emotional distress against the film's producer, Nakoula Basseley Nakoula (d/b/a Sam Bacile), as well as YouTube parent company Google, but Judge Luis Lavin declared that Garcia had not shown a likelihood to prevail on the merits of her allegations.Though the movie, titled Innocence of Muslims [BBC backgrounder], is a spoof film, its characterization of the Prophet Mohammed as a fool and womanizer incited a rapid and violent uprising in the Middle East, including an attack on the US Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, that left US Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans dead. Overall, protests throughout Benghazi and Egypt led to more than 200 injuries, while protests in Yemen led to one death and an additional 15 injuries.

On Wednesday UN Special Rapporteur Maina Kiai condemned the recent violence that erupted after the film's release. Kiai stated that protests and rallies must be peaceful to be protected by international human rights law and urged the Middle East states to prosecute those responsible for the violence. Last week, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay  urged religious and political leaders to encourage an end to the violence that followed the release of the film. While Pillay said she "fully understand[s] why people wish to protest strongly against" the film, she "utterly condemn[s]" the violence that has resulted from the protests. Also last week, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton declared that the US had nothing to do with the anti-Muslim film despite its apparent production in America, in turn labeling it disgusting and reprehensible.

New Trayvon Martin evidence: Teens DNA Not Found on Zimmerman's Gun

OrlandoSentinel 

State evidence released today in the George Zimmerman second-degree murder case shows new details from a state crime lab that found Zimmerman's DNA on Trayvon Martin, the teenager he shot to death, and Trayvon's DNA on him.

But the gun that Zimmerman used to kill Trayvon that night – a gun that Zimmerman told police the teenager had reached for - revealed no evidence that Trayvon touched it.

State scientists checked several parts of the 9 mm handgun: its grip, trigger, slide and holster. They found Zimmerman's DNA and that belonging to other unidentifiable people but none that matched Trayvon, records show.

The gun evidence is important because Zimmerman told Sanford police he opened fire only after the 17-year-old pinned him to the ground and reached for the gun he wore holstered on his waist.

In a re-enactment for Sanford police the next day, Zimmerman did not say or show that the two had struggled over the gun, only that Trayvon had extended his hand toward it.

Prosecutors today released to the public several hundred pages of evidence. It included no bombshells.

The DNA evidence was among the most compelling because it confirmed that Zimmerman and Trayvon had been in extremely close contact.

Several neighbors reported seeing one on top of the other in a fight that left one of them screaming, Zimmerman with a broken nose and small gashes to his head and Trayvon dead from a gunshot wound to the heart.

Special Prosecutor Angela Corey released some DNA evidence May 17 but more details today. Records from the FDLE's Orlando lab show scientists there found a Trayvon-Zimmerman DNA mixture in a blood stain on Zimmerman's red-orange jacket.

Zimmerman's DNA was found in a stain on Trayvon's shirt. Scientists found on that same piece of clothing a Zimmerman-Trayvon mix of DNA, they reported.

The new evidence also reveals that the local president of the NAACP sent Sanford Police Chief Bill Lee an email three days after the shooting, asking to meet and discuss Trayvon's shooting.

It's unclear when or whether that meeting with Turner Clayton Jr. happened.

Lee and his agency's investigation into the shooting were harshly criticized by local and national civil rights leaders and Trayvon's family. Lee was fired a few months later.

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NYPD will videotape all Post-arrest Questioning by Police (Never talk to NYPD w/o an attorney)

WSj and NYDailyNews

The New York City Police Department plans to video record full interrogations of all suspects in murder and sexual assault cases, Commissioner Raymond Kelly said Wednesday in announcing what would be a significant expansion of an anti-abuse initiative in the nation's largest police force.

The development was unexpected. The NYPD began taping interrogations last year but only minimally: a pilot program was limited to felony assault suspects in two precincts. The Wall Street Journal reported last month that the agency planned to widen the program to five stationhouses. Officials at the time said the practice needed to be studied further before it could include all 76 precincts or more crimes.

Mr. Kelly divulged the news in a private speech at the Carnegie Council in Manhattan and his spokesman didn't respond to requests for comment. A copy of the speech was later made public by the NYPD.

He said taping interrogations—not just the confessions they often produce—would "enhance public confidence in the criminal justice system by increasing transparency."

The announcement comes at a time when the NYPD is facing intensifying criticism over the civil-rights implications of some of its practices. Mr. Kelly has defended the department against allegations that stop-and-frisks and surveillance in Muslim communities have unfairly targeted minority communities.

Videotaping interrogations has become an increasingly common practice in law enforcement over the past two decades. It is praised as a shield against strong-arm police tactics that can lead to false confessions as well as claims by defendants that they were pressured into admitting guilt. Some investigators resist, however, fearing the tapes give criminals a window into interrogation techniques and that even sophisticated juries may balk at some of the more aggressive, if legal, police strategies.

Currently, 341 of the state's 509 police agencies record suspect interviews in some crimes, typically in at least murder and rape investigations, according to the state Division of Criminal Justice Services. Nationwide, 18 states and Washington, D.C., require the complete recording of interrogations for some crimes.

Expanding the program in New York City would cost $3 million, which Mr. Kelly said he has requested from the nonprofit Police Foundation. He didn't specify a timetable for the project or say if the grant had been secured. Representatives of the foundation couldn't be reached for comment.

The district attorneys of Manhattan, Queens and Staten Island all praised Mr. Kelly's announcement as a tool in preventing wrongful convictions and bolstering prosecutions of guilty suspects. Steven Banks, the attorney-in-chief at the Legal Aid Society, said the expansion of the practice would "certainly be a step forward" but expressed concern that "there isn't a concrete timetable to finally put in place an initiative that could have a significant impact on wrongful convictions."

A measure requiring videotaped confessions in some cases in New York state has passed the Assembly but not the Senate. Mr. Kelly said the NYPD wasn't waiting for a legal mandate.

In 2010, Mr. Kelly announced that his agency would adopt video-recording on a trial basis in the 48th Precinct in the Bronx and the 67th Precinct in Brooklyn on all felony assault cases. The practice began in 2011.

In August, after a dozen requests by the Journal, the NYPD and court officials were unable to provide data on the total number of fully recorded interrogations, the dispositions of those cases or a comparison of conviction rates—offering little insight into the effectiveness of the initiative.

Mr. Kelly said Wednesday about 300 interrogations have been recorded in the pilot phase. "We've secured a number of early pleas after turning over a video confession to the defendants' lawyers," he said. "Based on this experience, we're ready to move forward with this practice in all of our commands."

It wasn't clear if the expansion would still include felony assaults. NYPD spokesman Paul Browne didn't respond to requests for more information.

No cases have gone to trial in Brooklyn or the Bronx in which an interrogation was fully recorded in the pilot program. A spokesman for the Bronx district attorney's office, Steven Reed, said defendants have pleaded guilty in 10 of 72 cases where a recording exists. The Brooklyn district attorney's office couldn't provide similar data Wednesday.

Legal experts said the impact of videotaped interrogations on police or jury behavior is still difficult to gauge: While they may expedite plea negotiations, they don't necessarily prevent more unsavory investigative practices from occurring off camera. "It's not a solution to the problem, it's a step in the right direction," said Scott Greenfield, a veteran New York criminal defense attorney.

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Anti-Muslim Group Re-Ups Islamophobic Ad Campaign In NY Subway - says Muslims are Savages

From [HERE] An anti-Muslim ad campaign is about to start a new run in the New York City subway, in spite of protests from Metropolitan Transit Authority officials. The ads, which also ran in San Francisco last month, have garnered much criticism from community activists.

The MTA refused to approve the ad campaign earlier this year, but, citing the First Amendment, a federal court ruled that the MTA must run the ads. Now, in the wake of tensions over mocking depictions of the Prophet Mohammad, 10 more NYC subway cars will soon have to display the ad posters, which imply that Muslims are “uncivilized” and call upon commuters to “Support Israel…Defeat Jihad.”

The American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI), founded by Pamela Geller of the group Stop Islamization of America, created the ads. (Geller is featured prominently in CAP’s recent report on the Islamophobia network in the United States.) AFDI celebrates their new campaign on its website, calling MTA “craven quislings.”

AFDI bought ad-space in Washington, DC to run the same campaign, but the the DC metro transit authority delayed running the ads ads “out of a concern for public safety, given current world events.” In New York, the MTA is looking at changes to their advertisement policy to allow for similar protections. For now, spokesman Aaron Donovan says “our hands are tied.” The ads are due to appear next week.

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