June 8, 2015

3 destructive things you learned in school without realizing it

1) You learned that success comes from the approval of others

We seem to live in a culture today where people are more concerned with appearing to be something important rather than actually being something important. See: the Kardashian sisters, Donald Trump, 63 percent of all Instagram users, athletes who make rap albums, the entire US Congress, etc."

2) You learned that failure is a source of shame

Earlier this year I had lunch with one of those people who you just can't believe exists."


3) You learned to depend on authority

I think there's a tendency for most of us to be scared of not having someone tell us what to do. Being told what to do can be comfortable. It can feel safe, because ultimately you never feel entirely responsible for your fate. You're just following the game plan."


http://www.vox.com/2015/6/1/8677055/high-school-lessons

June 5, 2015

He was celebrating his team's best season ever. That's when he ran into the NYPD and broke his leg.

Thabo Sefolosha was getting ready for the NBA playoffs when his season came to an abrupt end."

Atlanta Hawks forward Thabo Sefolosha was celebrating with friends after his team's 96-69 thrashing of the Phoenix Suns when he allegedly suffered a fractured leg after being put in a headlock and thrown to the ground by police outside of a New York City nightclub.

Police claimed that Sefolosha had interfered with efforts to set up a crime scene in the area near where another NBA player had been stabbed."

*Sefolosha's leg injury required surgery, which put an end to his season.

Days later, he released a statement confirming he had sustained injuries from police during his arrest.

The following is a statement from @ThaboSefolosha: pic.twitter.com/BmF8XSohsh— Atlanta Hawks (@ATLHawks) April 14, 2015

The initial reports put out by police claimed that Sefolosha and teammate Pero Antic were asked "six times" to leave the scene of a crime.

One officer claimed that he "observed the defendant Thabo Sefolosha run in an aggressive manner towards the direction of Police Officer Daniel Dongvort," and "Officer Dongvort's back was facing the defendant at the time."



Meanwhile, video and eyewitness reports didn't match what police said:

http://www.upworthy.com/he-was-celebrating-his-teams-best-season-ever-thats-when-he-ran-into-the-nypd-and-broke-his-leg?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+upworthy+%28Upworthy%29

June 5, 2015

Help build a definitive guide to every unreleased video of police brutality

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Across the country, videos of extreme police brutality and murder exist, but are being concealed by police departments, prosecutors, and even media organizations. For nearly nine months, a deeply disturbing video of the Salt Lake City, Utah, police killing of Dillon Taylor existed, but was concealed not only by police and the district attorney, but even by the Salt Lake City Tribune.

In the video, we learned that Taylor, unarmed and committing no crime, posed no real threat to the officer and was listening to music on his headphones. We also witnessed the gruesome aftermath of what it truly looks like when someone is shot at point blank range by the police and then summarily treated like a criminal. It's one of the worst things you'll ever see in your life and should inform how you feel about the true impact of police brutality."

Ultimately, it's my strong belief that every video of police brutality and murder should be released immediately—not after prosecutors decide not to do anything, not after all charges are dropped, but as soon as it is humanly possible to load them to YouTube. The videos are public property, paid for by tax dollars, and inform the public far better than fictional press releases ever will.

Sadly, the Taylor video was not the only video being concealed by police and prosecutors. Below we will include a list of every police violence video that we know exists that people in power refuse to release."

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/06/04/1390517/-Help-us-build-a-definitive-guide-to-every-unreleased-video-of-police-brutality

June 4, 2015

Denny Hastert is Contemptible, But His Indictment Exemplifies America’s Over-Criminalization

Bush-era House Speaker Denny Hastert, who was indicted yesterday, is a living, breathing embodiment of everything sleazy and wrong with U.S. politics. That is highlighted not only by his central role in enabling every War on Terror excess, but also by this fact:

Hastert’s ability to make such large cash payments probably came from his career as a K Street lobbyist. He entered Congress in 1987 with a net worth of no more than $270,000 and then exited worth somewhere between $4 million and $17 million, according to congressional disclosure documents."

Hastert is about the least sympathetic figure one can imagine. Beyond his above-listed sins, he shepherded the 2001 enactment and 2005 renewal of the Patriot Act, whose banking provisions, in sweet irony, seemed to have played a key role in his detection and in creating the crime of which he stands accused. His long record in Congress involved, among many things, denying equal rights to people based on the “Family Values” tripe, as well as continually supporting ever-increasing penalties and always-diminished rights for criminal defendants. So he’s reaping what he sowed."

*Radley Balko, who has done among the best work on the broken U.S. criminal justice system, said this morning: “Dennis Hastert is one of the last people I want to be defending. But these charges are the picture of over-criminalization run amok.”

*Long-time appellate judge Alex Kozinski co-authored an essay entitled “You’re (Probably) a Federal Criminal,” noting how easy it is to become a felon. “Most Americans are criminals, and don’t know it, or suspect that they are but believe they’ll never get prosecuted … Violations are so common that any attempt to go after all criminals would sweep up millions of people.”

https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/05/29/denny-hastert-highly-unsympathetic-face-americas-criminalization-pathology/

June 4, 2015

Darth Vader? Dick Cheney likes the image

Dick Cheney doesn’t mind being compared to Darth Vader.

Not at all.

When a Wall Street Journal reporter journeyed to Wyoming recently to interview Cheney, the former vice president showed off the cover of his truck trailer hitch.

It features the image of the Supreme Commander of the Imperial Fleet.

“Darth Vader,” Cheney told the Journal. “I’m rather proud of that.”

http://onpolitics.usatoday.com/2015/06/02/darth-vader-dick-cheney-likes-the-image/

June 2, 2015

Transgender Employees Bathroom Access Guidance Issued By OSHA

Transgender employees should have access to bathrooms that match the gender with which they identify, according to a guidance issued Monday by the U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration. OSHA said all employees must be able to work in a way that’s consistent with how they live their everyday lives based on their gender identity."

* An estimated 700,000 adults in the United States are transgender, which means their internal gender identity is different from the sex listed on their birth certificates, according to the Williams Institute at the University of California-Los Angeles.

“Gender identity is an intrinsic part of each person’s identity and everyday life,” OSHA’s guidance said. “Regardless of the physical layout of a worksite, all employers need to find solutions that are safe and convenient and respect transgender employees.”

The OSHA guidance comes as thousands across the country marked the beginning of National LGBT Pride Month. “Our journey is not complete until our lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender brothers and sisters are treated like anyone else under the law,” U.S. President Barack Obama said Monday in light of Pride Month."

http://www.ibtimes.com/transgender-employees-bathroom-access-guidance-issued-osha-amid-lgbt-pride-month-1947564?rel=latest2

June 1, 2015

Questionable Florida police shootings triple in past 15 years

The witnesses who saw a Broward County deputy sheriff kill a man who had strolled through his apartment complex with an unloaded air rifle propped on his shoulders agreed: Just before he was gunned down, Jermaine McBean had ignored the officers who stood behind him shouting for him to drop his weapon.

Nothing, the officer swore under oath, prevented McBean from hearing the screaming officers.

Newly obtained photographic evidence in the July 2013 shooting of McBean, a 33-year-old computer-networking engineer, shows contrary to repeated assertions by the Broward Sheriff's Office, he was wearing earbuds when shot, suggesting he was listening to music and did not hear the officers. The earphones somehow wound up in the dead man's pocket, records show."

*From Ferguson, Mo., to Baltimore to Cleveland, the nation is awash in disputed, high-profile cases of police violence.

A look at disputed cases in Florida is a reminder of how frequently they arise far from the limelight and how many questions surround the way they are investigated. The issue is particularly acute in Florida, where state Department of Law Enforcement statistics show the number of fatal police shootings has tripled in the past 15 years, even as crime has plummeted."

*In South Florida's Broward County, no officer has been charged in a fatal on-duty police shooting since 1980, a period that covers 168 shooting deaths.

"The court never goes against the police," said Rajendra Ramsahai, whose brother-in-law, Deosaran Maharaj, was killed by a Broward County deputy last year. "They are always ruling in the officer's favor."

In civil wrongful death cases throughout South Florida, lawyers discovered files missing, dashboard camera videos erased and police department accounts that did not match the evidence. Cases like McBean's underscore how law enforcement agencies handling their own shooting investigations can be exposed to criticism years after the crime-scene tape has been taken down and the television cameras are gone."

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/crime/article22738308.html