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A win and a loss, at least for now: Federal Judge finds 8th Amendment Violation in Pennslvania’s Refusal to Treat Mumia's Hep-C
By Dave Lindorff
Depending on how you look at it, lawyers for Mumia Abu-Jamal, the Philadelphia journalist and political prisoner serving a life sentence in a Pennsylvania prison after a controversial 1982 conviction for killing a white Philadelphia police officer, won a huge victory, lost big or maybe won and will win again soon.
No context is pretext: Critics’ Ignoring of Documented Record of Frisco Police Abuse Proves Kaepernick Right
By Linn Washington, Jr.
A month before the police union in San Francisco sent a blistering letter to NFL officials recently demanding that the professional football league apologize for the “ill-advised” criticisms of police by San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick that union was the target of scathing criticism for supporting police misconduct.
New York Times shames itself: Attacking Wikileaks’ Assange for Doing What Journalists are Supposed to Do
By Dave Lindorff
While I periodically have written commentaries dissecting and pillorying news articles in the New York Times to expose their bias, hypocrisy half-truths and lies, I generally ignore their editorials since these are overtly opinions of the management, and one expects them to display the elitist and neo-liberal perspective of the paper’s publisher and senior editors.
Not just toilet lids Pentagon Money Pit: Unaccountable Army Spending of $6.5 Trillion and No DOD Audit for the Past Two Decades
By Dave Lindorff
What if the inspector general of the Department of Health and Human Services were to report that $6.5 billion in spending by that federal agency was unaccounted for and untraceable? You can imagine the headlines, right? What if it was $65 billion? The headlines would be as big as for the first moon landing or for troops landing on Omaha Beach in World War II.
Misusing a quote about peace: Obama Calls for Peace and Comity at Home, But Favors Wars and Killer Drones Abroad
By Dave Lindorff
President Barack Obama made an eloquent plea for sanity and peace following the latest deadly assault on police officers -- this time a gunman with an assault rifle shooting and killing three cops in Baton Rouge and wounding another three, one critically injured.
The ultimate attribution error fuels war: The Post-Dallas Kumbaya Window Begins to Close
By John Grant
Someone's crying, Lord, kumbaya
- From the Gullah song meaning, Lord, come by here and help us
Initiative-873 gives small flicker of hope: Seattle’s ‘Liberals’ Get Chance to Finally Start Addressing Police Brutality
By Jess Guh, MD
Seattle, WA -- Ever since moving to Seattle it’s become clear to me that though most of its inhabitants identify as liberals, the dominant white culture enables a culture of armchair liberals. When it comes to LGBT rights, Seattle will stand up, but when it comes to addressing issues that actually threaten the comfortable, largely white and privileged population of the Seattle, it’s another story.
On forgetting and forgiving: Killing and Our Current American Crisis
By John Grant
Kill one person, it’s called murder.
Kill 100,000, it’s called foreign policy.
- A popular bumper sticker
As Police Killings of Minorities Mount, Attacks on Police Like the One in Dallas, While Awful, Are Also Sadly Predictable
By Dave Lindorff
The tragedy that is America has deepened with the news that several people on Thursday organized a military-style sniper attack targeting police in Dallas during a protest march and rally against police brutality and killings of black people in that city.
Barbarism, civilization and modern politics: PTSD as a Political Football in a Hobbesian Age
By John Grant
If our wars were to make killers of all combat soldiers, rather than men who have killed, civilian life would be endangered for generations or, in fact, made impossible.
What about cops?: Ban Assault Weapons, But for Police Too, Not Just Civilians
By Dave Lindorff
A few years ago, I contacted my local police department asking them to send an officer over to put down a doe that had been hit by a car on the street in front of my house. She had suffered a left front and right rear leg break but had somehow flopped herself well into the yard and was on the ground suffering. When a cop arrived, and began to approach her with his pistol I warned him off, saying the deer would hurt herself more trying to get away.
Virus blinds public to health issues that really matter: Zika Hysteria Spreads Faster than Zika Itself
By Jess Guh, MD
Zika has been described as extraordinary in so many ways. But the only thing that’s really extraordinary about the whole thing is how incredibly dispassionate I am about it.
Denying discrimination: Clintonian Political Calculus and the Culture of Hooey
By Linn Washington, Jr.
Hooey –- silly talk/nonsense –- frequently has slimy characteristics and slime is slippery.
Former President Bill Clinton recently slipped on some silly talk when trying to dance around a slime trail oozing from his presidency during the 1990s.
Heartfelt message or political gamesmanship?: WTF! John McCain Saluting an American Communist?
By John Grant
New Mifepristone label approval just a band-aid: FDA Change to the ‘Abortion Pill’ Overrated
By Jess Guh, M.D.
Hillary Clinton backed the coup: Shine the Light of Truth on Poor Honduras
By John Grant
Since the coup, Honduras has become one of the most dangerous places in the world.
Lawmakers make Texas MDs offer substandard care: Texas Abortion Laws Pose Dangerous Implications for All of Medicine
By Jess Guh
Much like expensive red wines, many Facebook relationships, and Kanye West’s psychological state, the case of Texas House Bill No. 2 is complicated.
White power and the ‘model minority’ myth: Officer Peter Liang Highlights the Asian-American Identity Crisis
By Jess Guh
The conviction of Peter Liang is the best thing that has happened to Asian Americans since the Immigration and Nationality Act of the 1960s. It’s also an embarrassingly example of how bewildered the minds of some Asian Americans are when it comes to race.
DNC defection: Rep. Tulsi Gabbard’s Surprise Endorsement Gives Sanders a Chance to Change the Whole Primary Game
By Dave Lindorff
Just as the media, in the wake of Hillary Clinton’s landslide win in South Carolina’s Democratic primary Saturday, are predictably writing the obituary for Bernie Sanders’ upstart and uphill campaign for the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination, Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii) has handed him an opportunity to jolt the American people awake.
Wrongs still need to be righted: Britain's Supreme Court Reverses Legal Practice Notorious For Prejudicial Enforcment
By Linn Washington, Jr.
London, UK
Often lost amidst the damning evidence of injustice in the enforcement of Britain’s notorious legal doctrine of joint enterprise are real people like Susan Williams –- persons whose lives have been shredded by the JE doctrine that Britain’s Supreme Court just gutted in a dramatic ruling today. Williams' grandson is serving a life sentence under joint enterprise which permits convictions carrying long sentences even of persons who did not commit a crime or even know a crime would occur.
Williams said her grandson was trying to break up a fight in 2010 that ended in a fatal shooting by others, yet led to his conviction under JE. The nightmare for Williams following the joint enterprise arrest and conviction of her grandson, Trevelle Williams, got much darker last November when her youngest daughter, the mother of Trevelle, committed suicide. Williams’ daughter, Tara Le, was distraught over her inability to free her son Trevelle, nicknamed Bluey, from what the Williams family and others saw as a wrongful conviction.
Conversation with activist Alfredo Lopez: The Left Needs to ‘Own’ Bernie Sanders to Ensure He Delivers on Campaign Promises
By Dave Lindorff
‘Injustice writ large’: Report Finds Racist Law Enforcement in England...Again
By Linn Washington, Jr.
London, UK -- Police and prosecutors scheme to secure convictions of persons who did not participate in any crime. Racial minorities disproportionately bear the brunt of this improper practice.
Rethinking Bernie Sanders: Attacking Wall Street and the Corrupt US Political System Makes Sanders a Genuine Revolutionary
By Dave Lindorff
I admit I’ve been slow to warm up to the idea of supporting Bernie Sanders. Maybe it’s because I publicly backed Barack Obama in 2008 and quickly came to rue that decision after he took office.
The Scale of the Slaughter: Passive Reporting vs Scientific Mortality Studies
Yellen has to raise rates: What’s Behind the Fed’s Decision to Raise Interest Rates in a Struggling Economy?
By Dave Lindorff
Much has been written over the past few weeks in the financial press and the business pages of general interest newspapers debating the wisdom of the decision in December by Janet Yellen and the Federal Reserve Board to raise interest rates for the first time in almost a decade.
