Tag Archives: cnn

Asking White People About America’s White Terrorism Problem

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 White terrorism is a huge problem in America. Since 9/11, more Americans have been killed in terror attacks by white supremacists than by Muslim extremists.
But while we hear a lot about Islamic terrorism, and all of the racial profiling, abuse, and harassment that Muslims in the U.S. face whenever a Muslim commits a violent act, we never hear about how white people feel when a fellow white person kills a bunch of innocent people in a Planned Parenthood clinic, or at a church in Charleston, or a home in North Carolina.
So we hit the streets to find out: what happens if you ask white people about America’s white terrorism problem?

 

 

 

 

Originally Written & Published by Collier Meyerson of Fusion

Chicago cops’ account of Laquan McDonald killing differed wildly from video footage

Protesters in Chicago prepared for a new round of action on Sundayafter the city released documents showing that at least five Chicago police officers told a story about the killing of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald that is wholly unsupported by the notorious video footage of the incident.

McDonald was shot 16 times in 15 seconds while he was walking away from officers. Jason Van Dyke, the officer who shot him, has been charged with murder.

But, as the New York Times noted, that version of events differs markedly from the story that multiple officers told—something we know thanks to newly released police records:

[A]t least five other officers on the scene that night corroborated a version of events similar to the one Officer Van Dyke, now charged with murder in the shooting, gave his supervisors: that Mr. McDonald was aggressively swinging his knife and was moving toward the police, giving Officer Van Dyke no choice but to start shooting.

The revelation will only heighten the scandal swirling around the Chicago Police Department. Protests have rocked the city since the McDonald video was released. Mayor Rahm Emanuel has fired the department’s superintendent in response to the scandal. There is also the possibility of an investigation by the Justice Department into the department’s wider problems.

A Chicago Tribune report on Saturday detailed some of the ways in which the department has managed to evade the kind of public scrutiny it is currently facing:

Of 409 shootings since the [Independent Police Review Authority’s] formation in September 2007 — an average of roughly one a week — only two have led to allegations against an officer being found credible, according to IPRA. Both involved off-duty officers.

[…]

Overall, police misconduct, including shootings and other wrongdoing, has cost taxpayers more than $500 million since 2004, according to officials.

The Chicago officers are far from the first to tell stories about police killings that wound up differing drastically from recorded footage of the events. Officers in the shootings of both Tamir Rice and Walter Scott, for instance, presented completely contradictory accounts of the incident.

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Sunday’s protests in Chicago are set to begin at 1:30 PM.

 

 

 

Originally Written & Published by Jack Mirkinson of Fusion

Seven Times Donald Trump Promised to Make America White Again

Donald Trump, a leading Republican hopeful for president of the United States, has made white supremacy a defining element of his campaign. Behold:

1. When President Barack Obama challenged the nation Sunday not to resort to bigotry after a Muslim couple killed 14 people in San Bernardino, California, Trump issued a press release Monday that read: “Donald J. Trump is calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country’s representatives can figure out what is going on.”

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2. When people said that sounded ridiculous, Trump doubled down. “I wrote something today that I think is very very salient, very important and probably not politically correct, but I don’t care,” he told reporters Monday in South Carolina.

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3. When the Syrian refugee crisis was wrongly blamed for the terrorist attacks in Paris in November, Trump’s answer was to ban all Syrians from entering the United States:

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Because Christian refugees are “superior” to Muslims, Trump said.

4. When Trump announced his candidacy and outlined his thoughts on immigrants who come to the United States seeking better lives, he told his supporters in June, “When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs, they’re bringing crime, they’re rapists.”

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5. When viewers pointed out that those comments seemed a bit inflammatory, Trump doubled down. “It’s unbelievable when you look at what’s going on. So all I’m doing is telling the truth,” Trump said in July in an interview with CNN’s Don Lemon. “Well, somebody’s doing the raping, Don! I mean somebody’s doing it! Who’s doing the raping? Who’s doing the raping?”

trump2Source: Mic/CNN

6. When Trump blasted the Democratic Party for “catering” to Black Lives Matter activists. “I think it’s disgraceful the way they’re being catered to by the Democrats,” Trump told Bill O’Reilly in September. “And it’s going to end up kicking them you-know-where. I don’t think it’s going to end up good. The fact is all lives matter. That includes black and it includes white and it includes everybody else.”

trump3Source: Scott Olson/Getty Images

 

7. When he gave his interpretation of the problem of police shootings in the United States. “It’s a massive crisis. It’s a double crisis. What’s happening and people. You know, I look at things. And I see it on television. And some horrible mistakes are made,” Trump said in August. “At the same time, we have to give power back to the police because crime is rampant. And I’m a big person that believes in very big — you know, we need police.”

trump4Source: Scott Olson/Getty Images

With Trump still drawing thousands of supporters and doing well in the polls, these dangerous comments keep on coming. Dare we ask what’s next?

 

 

Originally Published & Written by: Jamilah King of Mic News

Donald Trump Criticized for Mocking Reporter with Disability, Claims He ‘Merely Mimicked’

Donald Trump is under fire for making fun of a reporter who has arthrogryposis, a chronic condition that limits movement.

While at a rally in South Carolina Tuesday night, Trump waved his arms and spoke in a halted manner to create an unflattering impersonation of New York Times reporter Serge Kovaleski.

The newspaper has since responded: “We find it’s outrageous that he would ridicule the appearance of one of our reporters,” a spokesperson for the Times told CNNMoney.

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Trump’s alleged imitation of Kovaleski was in relation to a story the reporter had written in 2001 – it refutes claims that thousands of Muslims in Jersey City cheered the 9/11 attacks. But the Republican candidate is insisting he himself saw “thousands and thousands” of Muslims celebrate the attacks on the World Trade Center.

New Jersey police and public officials also deny these claims, and Kovaleski said this week he did not hear any reports at the time of such celebrations. “I certainly do not remember anyone saying that thousands or even hundreds of people were celebrating. That was not the case, as best as I can remember,” he told The Washington Post.

On Thursday, Trump responded on Twitter, claiming he wasn’t making fun of his disability but rather mocking him for allegedly “groveling and searching for a way out from what he wrote many years before.”

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“In my speech before over 10,000 people in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, I merely mimicked what I thought would be a flustered reporter trying to get out of a statement he made long ago,” Trump, 69, wrote.

He added, “If Mr. Kovaleski is handicapped, I would not know because I do not know what he looks like. If I did know, I would definitely not say anything about his appearance.”

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Trump also said this week that he would reinstate waterboarding and that suspected terrorists “deserve” to be tortured.

“It works,” Trump repeated of waterboarding. “Believe me, it works. And you know what? If it doesn’t work, they deserve it anyway, for what they’re doing.”

ORIGINALLY WRITTEN & PUBLISHED BY: SHEILA COSGROVE BAYLIS from People [11/26/15]

A Court Ordered Sherri Shepherd to Pay Child Support for a Baby Not Biologically Her Own

A Pennsylvania court ruled Monday that Sherri Shepherd must pay child support for a baby she and her then-husband Lamar Sally had via surrogacy — even though the couple split three months before the child in question was born.

The baby boy is the biological product of Sally’s sperm and a donor egg, meaning Shepherd is not his biological mother. In April, despite her protests, Shepherd was legally declared the child’s mother on the birth certificate (initially, the surrogate mother was listed).

Shepherd maintained the surrogacy and subsequent lawsuits were all part of Sally’s elaborate and protracted plan to defraud her. The court was unconvinced, ruling the TV personality must continue paying $4,100 per month in child support, which will increase to $4,600 when the child reaches adolescence.

shepherd2Source: Mic/Getty Images

Shepherd “does not dispute that she freely entered into the gestational carrier contract,” the Superior Court ruling stated Monday, according to the Associated Press. “Baby S. would not have been born but for [her] actions and express agreement to be the child’s legal mother.”

Sally has since been vocal about the victory, speaking to a number of media outlets about the ordeal. “I’m glad it’s finally over,” Sally told People. “I’m glad the judges saw through all the lies that she put out there, and the negative media attention. If she won’t be there for L.J. [the baby] emotionally, I’ll be parent enough for the both of us.” He israising the child in Los Angeles.

Melissa B. Brisman, owner of the New Jersey-based surrogacy firm, Reproductive Possibilities LLC, which Sally and Shepherd used, celebrated the decision too.

“Surrogates don’t want to feel that someone could want a baby and then just back out,” Brisman said, according to the Associated Press. “The surrogate is not the mother.”

Don’t be a baby about it: The battle is one of a number in recent years that navigates the legally murky waters of conception and pregnancy assisted by technology and who, exactly, is liable for the resulting life. Many noted the parallels in Shepherd’s ordeal to that of actress Sofia Vergara’s, who in May was sued by her ex-fiancé, Nick Loeb, to preserve and use their biologically shared frozen embryos.

In an op-ed letter published in April in the New York Times, Loeb wrote, “keeping [the embryos] frozen forever is tantamount to killing them.”

Shepherd’s case involves a number of complicated elements. Beyond the hairy legalities that come into play with technologically assisted conception is this less-common instance of a mother being ordered to pay child support.

While Shepherd, with a reported net worth of $10 million, does not likely run the risk of finding herself in a financially inequitable dynamic, a 2011 study conducted by the Australian Institute of Family Studies found, on average, mothers liable for child support earn substantially less than their male counterparts.

childsupportORIGINALLY WRITTEN & PUBLISHED BY: Natasha Norman from Mic [11/25/15]