July 12, 2013

African American journalist: "Where's the outrage about black-on-black crime?"

Crystal Wright
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 11 July 2013 09.50 EDT
Link

Excerpt:

"As the George Zimmerman murder trial heads towards its conclusion this week, race has taken center stage. Since last year when Zimmerman allegedly killed Trayvon Martin in self-defense, the mainstream media joined by so called black activists injected a racially charged narrative into the case. You know "racist" white man profiles and kills black kid.

Sadly, this trial wouldn't be receiving wall-to-wall national media coverage if Zimmerman was black. That's what we should be talking about.

Startling statistics reveal that between 1980-2008, African-Americans were six times more likely than whites to be victims of gun violence and seven times more likely to kill with guns than whites, according to the Justice Department. African-Americans represent a mere 13% of the US population yet more than 50% of federal prisoners are black. You can claim racial bias in the judicial system, but that doesn't explain all of it.

Why aren't so-called black leaders outraged and marching over the recent shooting rampage in Chicago. During the 4 July holiday weekend, including the Wednesday leading up to it, 62 people were wounded by gun violence in Chicago and 12 others killed. The holiday shooting spree raised Chicago's homicide tally to 200 for the year. Last year about 500 people were killed, and most of those killing and being killed in Chicago are black. According to the Chicago Tribune, "blacks make up about 33% of the city's population, they accounted for nearly 78% of the homicide victims through the first six months of 2012"."

July 11, 2013

My prediction of the Zimmerman verdict: Not guilty of anything

He walks free.

July 11, 2013

Morsi didn't suck as President. He was boycotted by Mubarak loyalists and the wealthy elite

If you have doubts, read this NYT article today about how the gas lines miraculous disappeared in the short amount of time since the coup took place.

The police (loyal to Mubarak) stopped working and now police officers are everywhere fighting Islamists.

NYT (July 10, 2013): The apparently miraculous end to the crippling energy shortages, and the re-emergence of the police, seems to show that the legions of personnel left in place after former President Hosni Mubarak was ousted in 2011 played a significant role — intentionally or not — in undermining the overall quality of life under the Islamist administration of Mr. Morsi.

This is the same Mubarak that was ousted by the people of Egypt.

Working behind the scenes, members of the old establishment, some of them close to Mr. Mubarak and the country’s top generals, also helped finance, advise and organize those determined to topple the Islamist leadership, including Naguib Sawiris, a billionaire and an outspoken foe of the Brotherhood; Tahani El-Gebali, a former judge on the Supreme Constitutional Court who is close to the ruling generals; and Shawki al-Sayed, a legal adviser to Ahmed Shafik, Mr. Mubarak’s last prime minister, who lost the presidential race to Mr. Morsi.

Yes, the situation was dire during Morsi's reign, but it does not necessarily means Morsi's policies caused it.

The people of Egypt have been duped, by this is nothing to be ashamed up. The powerful few on Earth have been deceiving the little ones since the beginning of times. Sad but true.

There's much more you will find interesting in this piece: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/11/world/middleeast/improvements-in-egypt-suggest-a-campaign-that-undermined-morsi.html?hp&_r=0

July 11, 2013

Ellsberg never said Obama was a worse President than Nixon was

What's a good way to pretend that Dan Ellsberg is an exaggerating kook?

Easy. Just pretend that he said Obama is a worse President than Nixon was, period, without noting that Ellsberg's comparision focus on specific aspects of the Presidency: transparency and press freedom.

Not health care, not jobs. That's not Ellsberg's focus. Obamacare is an important achievement by Obama and the job situation has improved compared to what it was under Bush.

Irrelevant points are used by Ellsberg haters to "debunk" things he never said, such as:

If Obama was worse than Nixon, how come he won re-election against Romney?

To stick to what Ellsberg said would force Ellsberg haters to discuss a topic they avoid like a hot potato: NSA Spying on all Americans.

In short, let's stop spinning so much and get to the point.

July 11, 2013

Walter Pincus corrects the multiple falsehoods in his own anti-Greenwald/Snowden/Assange hit piece

Earlier, I wrote about Walter Pincus' failed attempt to involve Julian Assange and Glenn Greenwald in some sort of conspiracy along with Eric Snowden regarding the recently leaked NSA documents.

Pincus has now been forced to fact-check his multiple errors:

CORRECTION: This Fine Print column (also published in the July 9 A-section print edition of The Washington Post) incorrectly said that an article by journalist Glenn Greenwald was written for the WikiLeaks Press blog. The article, about filmmaker Laura Poitras and WikiLeaks being targeted by U.S. officials, was written for the online publication Salon and first appeared April 8, 2012. Its appearance on the WikiLeaks Press blog two days later was a reposting.

The Fine Print column also asserted that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, during a May 29 interview with Democracy Now, “previewed” the story that Greenwald wrote for the Guardian newspaper about the Obama administration’s involvement in the collection of Americans’ phone records.There is no evidence that Assange had advance knowledge of the story; the assertion was based on a previously published interview in which Assange discussed an earlier surveillance project involving the collection of phone records.

The column also did not mention Snowden’s past work in the intelligence community. The lack of this context may have created the impression that Snowden’s work for Booz Allen Hamilton gave him his first access to classified surveillance programs.


http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/questions-for-snowden/2013/07/08/d06ee0f8-e428-11e2-80eb-3145e2994a55_story.html

July 10, 2013

Police department in South Florida makes video calling for non-violence post-Zimmerman verdict

Nice message. I believe the idea was from the Broward County police department. Officers, young teenagers and athletes united in this call for harmonious discussion.

It's called "Raise your voice, not your hands."

July 10, 2013

Zimmerman will not testify in his own defense

Source: USA Today

SANFORD, Fla. -- George Zimmerman told the judge in his murder trial today that he will not testify and his lawyers asked for an immediate judgment of acquittal, which was denied.

Earlier in the day, judge Debra Nelson rejected defense requests to allow into evidence photos and text messages from Trayvon Martin's phone as well as a computer animation of the slaying.

Nelson said she will allow defense lawyers to show jurors the computer animation during closing arguments. However, she rejected the defense bid to present the animation as actual evidence, which means the animation can't be reviewed by jurors during their deliberations.

The animation, from a defense witness, depicts the 17-year-old Trayvon walking up to Zimmerman and punching him -- and later shows the teen on top of Zimmerman when Trayvon is shot.

Read more: http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/07/10/trayvon-martin-george-zimmerman-trial-animation/2504917/

July 10, 2013

It's official. USA Today reports that George Zimmerman will not testify

Posted at 3:28 pm today (Wednesday): http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/07/10/trayvon-martin-george-zimmerman-trial-animation/2504917/

July 10, 2013

Witness in Zimmerman trial is giving details of area burglaries before Trayvon was shot

From the Twitter page of Orlando Sentinel Court Reporter:



I think the defense will argue that Trayvon was profiled by Zimmerman on the grounds that he was the same race as the burglars.

https://twitter.com/JeffWeinerOS/statuses/355036546879078400

July 10, 2013

Walter Pincus joins David Gregory in failing miserably to discredit Glenn Greenwald (and Assange)

Walter Pincus wrote a conspiracy theory/story that goes like this, in summary:

Wikileaks knew ahead of time about the info Snowden gave to Greenwald. This, Pincus said, could be proved because Julian Assange talked about the NSA program before Greenwald published the first article on Snowden. Additionally, Greenwald and Assange are close buddies because Greenwald once wrote something in Wikileaks' website.

But Greenwald immediately proved that

1) Assange was talking about a program called Stellar Wind, which had nothing to do with Greenwald's revelations (Stellar Wind was old news).

2) It was a lie that Greenwald ever wrote anything in Wikileaks' page.

Pincus is being criticized by liberal media watchdog Fair.org here: http://www.fair.org/blog/2013/07/09/washington-posts-wikileakssnowdengreenwald-conspiracy-theory/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=washington-posts-wikileakssnowdengreenwald-conspiracy-theory

Greenwald made Pincus admit that Greenwald's alleged writing for Wikileaks didn't exist.

Even Pincus' colleage Eric Wemple of the Washington Post spoke of the "weaknesses" of Pincus' column:

“Fine Print,” the name of Pincus’s column, rests on a certain “conceit,” its author said. It examines documents and “puts things together,” in the words of Pincus. Given that MO, Pincus didn’t reach out to Greenwald to probe whatever connections he may have to WikiLeaks, or to ask how all this information flowed from Snowden. “It’s a strength and a weakness” of the column, said Pincus. In this case, we’re going with weakness.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/erik-wemple/wp/2013/07/10/pincus-responds-to-greenwald-blast/

That's right. The bold portion is Wemple's opinion.

Greenwald is schooling the young (David Gregory) and the old (Walter Pincus) in the art of journalism, as they make shit up and screw up while trying to discredit him.