Israeli Official Orders Barring of “Palestine 1948” TV
IMEMC & Agencies | July 10, 2015
Israeli Police spokeswomen Luba Samri said, Thursday, that Israeli Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan has signed an official order shutting down “Palestine 1948 TV,” and barring all of its activities in the country.
Erdan said “Israel will not allow anybody to harm its sovereignty, or to grant the Palestinian Authority any foothold in the country.”
He alleged that the TV station never obtained any proper authorization to operate in Israel, and said “Palestine 1948″ began broadcasting, a month ago, from Nazareth. The order is valid for six months.
Head of the Palestine Public Broadcasting Corporation, Minister Riyad al-Hasan, said the TV is broadcasting from the West Bank city of Ramallah, and that Israel has no authority, or right, to shut it down.”
Al-Hasan told the WAFA News Agency that the Israeli threats also targeted production companies and media outlets that have business or cooperation with the TV station.
Arab Member of Knesset of the Joint Arab List, Basel Ghattas, issued a press release denouncing Erdan’s decision, and considered it as a “desperate Israeli move to control Arab media outlets.”
“This is a dangerous, uncivil, decision based on stupidity; it is an attempt to control and dominate media outlets,” he added, “While Israel claims democracy, and while media and technology continue to advance, Israel still tries to silence us.”
Related, June 18, 2015: Netanyahu Orders New Palestinian TV Shut, P.A Plans to Appeal Decision
Hillary Clinton: Use Congress and Corporations to End Boycott Israel Movement
By Naji Dahi – ANTIMEDIA – July 9, 2015
According to a letter from Hillary Clinton to pro-Israel donor, Haim Saban, she wants to be the top pro-Israel candidate in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination. More specifically, Clinton pledges her opposition to the BDS (Boycott, Divest, Sanction) movement. According to McClatchy,
“I know you agree that we need to make countering BDS a priority… we can work together…to reverse this trend with information and advocacy, and fight back against further attempts to isolate and delegitimize Israel… from Congress and state legislatures to boardrooms and classrooms, we need to engage all people of good faith, regardless of their political persuasion or their views on policy specifics, in explaining why the BDS campaign is counterproductive to the pursuit of peace and harmful to Israelis and Palestinians alike.”
It is no secret that Hillary Clinton is the Wall Street-sponsored candidate in the Democratic primary race. Data from Open Secrets for the 1999-2016 election cycles shows that three of her top five contributors were Wall Street firms (Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, and J.P. Morgan Chase). It seems that Clinton now wants to become the undisputed pro-Israel candidate, as well.
In the United States presidential elections, all major party candidates are obliged to show their loyalty to the state of Israel. In return, wealthy pro-Israel donors fill their election campaign coffers with much needed cash. In 2008, for example, the top three candidates in both parties (Obama, Clinton, McCain) were also the top three recipients of donations from pro-Israel groups and individuals. In 2012, history repeated itself with Mitt Romney and Barack Obama, the top two recipients of campaign cash from pro-Israel individuals and groups. While it is too early to tell, it is highly likely that the top two candidates from the two major parties will also be the top two recipients of pro-Israel campaign contributions.
Haim Saban, a billionaire who made his fortune in the entertainment industry, is a long time Democrat and ally of Hillary Clinton. He will likely promote pro-Israel, anti-BDS discourse in the Democratic Party. Sheldon Adelson, also a billionaire, is a long-time Republican whose job is to enforce pro-Israel, anti-BDS discourse in the Republican Party. According to The Times of Israel,
“Adelson said his prime focus… was to reverse the inroads being made by what he called ‘the BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) and company… the anti-Israel and anti-Semitic organizations [that] are making a lot of headway on the campuses in the United States.’ He said he would encourage Jewish groups to work to have boycott decisions taken by student campus groups reversed… Saban made clear that he intended to fight back against any business groups inclining to boycott Israel, and create a climate in which they were deterred from doing so.”
The success of the BDS movement is becoming an issue for Israel—so much so, that Saban and Adelson held a secret summit in Las Vegas last month to address the matter. The two billionaires invited 50 pro-Israel groups and pledged to fund their efforts to fight BDS on American college campuses with the hope of branding the movement anti-Semitic. According to Haaretz,
”…of millions of dollars were raised to combat campus campaigns to boycott, divest from and sanction Israel — or BDS, as the movement is known… both [Adelson and Saban] stressed their view that BDS — a form of nonviolent protest promoted by a diverse array of groups opposed to Israel’s policies toward the Palestinians — as simply a form of anti-Semitism.”
With Hillary Clinton officially on board and the two billionaires raising $20 million for the anti-BDS cause, American college campuses will be interesting centers of debate this fall.
New Online Terrorism Reporting Bill Will Harm Minorities, Chill Speech
By Gabe Rottman | ACLU | July 7, 2015
If there’s one thing the First Amendment stands for, it’s that vigorous debate about the issues of the day—even, and perhaps especially, uncomfortable debate about things like racism or terrorism—should be free from government interference. Tragically, that principle has been betrayed repeatedly over the past decade and a half, as law enforcement agencies continue to single out individuals for scrutiny based on speech or association protected by the First Amendment.
And, if the Senate intelligence committee gets its way, we’ll be chalking one more betrayal up on that blackboard. Last week, the press reported that the committee had secretly inserted a provision in a spending bill that would require social media companies to report posts about “any terrorist activity” to the government.
The bill is hopelessly vague on what that means. That’s because it goes far beyond a reporting requirement for wrongful conduct—terrorist activity—and will invariably result in the reporting of speech about terrorism—including by activists and other peaceful people with forceful opinions.
In practice, were this to become law, websites will likely do a couple of things.
First, they will over-correct and start taking down content wholesale. They will monitor posts for keywords like ISIS or “don’t tread on me” (a libertarian slogan that some identify with white supremacist and anti-government ideology) and pull them. That will chill an enormous amount of online debate over sensitive and important topics like the propriety of the Confederate flag memorial in South Carolina.
This is not a theoretical concern. There are numerous cases of large internet content companies taking down uncomfortable—but perfectly legal—speech because of government pressure (far less than the mandatory reporting requirement in this bill). For example, Apple voluntarily blocked applications that permitted users to identify the sites of overseas U.S. drone strikes. Say what you will about the legality, ethics, or wisdom of overseas drone strikes themselves (and we’ve had a lot to say), the free flow of information about drone strikes—such as their locations—is essential to feed vigorous and unfettered debate about this critical issue. One can just imagine what would disappear from the online debate in the face of a must-report law.
Second, and perhaps worse, companies—faced with the proposal’s utter lack of guidance on what the law requires them to report—will apply it inconsistently. Our nation’s history and its recent post-9/11 practices tell us that sensitive issues of particular interest to vulnerable minorities—religious, racial, ethnic, social, political, etc.—will receive more scrutiny, and therefore more censorship.
Consider, for instance, online discussion about the spate of police shootings of unarmed African-American men, and claims by many in law enforcement that the growth of a protest movement against police violence is feeding violence against the police. There have been several indications that the FBI is quite literally treating activists in the #blacklivesmatter initiative as suspected terrorists. Undoubtedly, some social media platforms are going to follow that lead, report that content to the FBI, and thus perpetuate the targeting of minority groups for law enforcement scrutiny based on First Amendment activity.
Free speech means ensuring the public square—which is increasingly migrating online—is open to viewpoints and arguments that we disagree with or find objectionable. Oftentimes, the hurly burly of public debate includes opinions that may make us squirm, but that nevertheless have an important place in a country that values truth above comfort in the marketplace of ideas. We have a right to discuss any issue, even sensitive ones, without fear that our internet provider, social media platform or telephone company is monitoring and reporting what we say. This bill language would lead to the improper monitoring and suppression of constitutionally protected speech.
Israeli Minister to Decide on Deportation of Palestinian MPs
Ma’an – July 7, 2015
The Israeli Minister of the Interior was given 30 days by the Supreme Court on Monday to reach a final decision on the possible deportation from East Jerusalem of three Palestinian lawmakers and a former Palestinian Authority Jerusalem affairs minister.
Monday’s hearing was a follow-up to a previous hearing in the same court on May 5, 2015 that discussed the possibility of revoking the Jerusalem residency rights of officials Muhammad Abu Teir, Ahmad Attun, Muhammad Tutah and Khalid Abu Arafeh.
While Abu Arefeh formerly served as the PA’s minister of Jerusalem affairs, the other three are members of Palestine’s parliament, the Palestinian Legislative Council.
All four live in occupied East Jerusalem.
The Israeli Ministry of the Interior has been threatening to deport the lawmakers and former minister since Hamas won Palestinian legislative elections in 2006.
The pretext for the ruling is disloyalty to the Israeli state, the lawmakers said last year.
The four were initially detained along with other lawmakers and, after their release, Israeli police seized their identity documents.
The permanent residency status of 107 Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem was revoked in 2014, adding to the 14,309 revoked by Israel since 1967.
Goldman Sachs-Supported Solar Company Uses Prison Labor to Make Panels
By Danny Biederman and Noel Brinkerhoff | AllGov | July 7, 2015
A leading maker of solar panels in the United States backed by Goldman Sachs has been using prison labor to help keep its production costs down.
Suniva Inc., based in Georgia, contracts with UNICOR, the name of the 80-year-old Federal Prison Industries, so inmates can assist with the assembly of solar panels.
Company officials told Reuters that prison labor accounts for only a small portion of its manufacturing operations, less than 10%. They say Suniva factories in Georgia and Michigan employing 350 people produce most of the panels. Several hundred inmates make solar panels at prisons in Sheridan, Oregon and Otisville, New York, reported the news organization.
The arrangement is part of a longtime government program said to be designed to prepare inmates for transitioning to life after their release from prison. However, prison workers reportedly earn only between 23 cents and $1.15 per hour, and are required to spend at least half of their UNICOR income to pay off court-ordered financial debts. Furthermore, the prisons apparently provide no job placement assistance for inmates released onto the streets, whose prison records follow them as they seek employment.
The UNICOR program employs about 13,000 prisoners per year and, in 2013, made nearly $610 million.
Relying on cheap labor is nothing new for Suniva, the third-largest producer of solar modules in the U.S., which was using factories in Asia until 18 months ago to keep costs down. Signing a contract with UNICOR has enabled them to transfer their operations to the U.S., according to company sales vice-president Matt Card.
“By making panels in the United States, Suniva has been able to capture lucrative federal contracts, avoid U.S. government tariffs on Chinese-made panels, and appeal to private sector customers who want American-made products,” wrote Reuters’ Nichola Groom.
The company reportedly earned nearly $100 million in revenue last year.
NYPD destroyed evidence in class action lawsuit against department
RT | July 7, 2015
The New York Police Department (NYPD) has destroyed evidence in an ongoing lawsuit against it, which alleges that police use a secret quota system to make arrests, new documents claim.
The class action suit alleges that NYPD Commissioner Raymond Kelly and former Chief of Department Joseph Esposito were secretly applying pressure to officers to issue more arrests after falling short of quotas for traffic offenses and low-level crime, resulting in up to 850,000 wrongful summonses – or written notifications to a party telling them where and when they need to be in court. Some summons cases leave the recipient with a criminal record.
The allegations that a “quota system” for arrests exists at the NYPD are supported by emails, paperwork and text messages. One text message stated:
“We missed seat belt number by 30 last week unacceptable. if need be u guys will go with me 2 traffic stat 2 explain why u missed [sic].”
However, other such records have been destroyed, despite the city agreeing to surrender the information more than a year ago, the New York Post reports, citing a letter filed in the Manhattan federal court by the plaintiffs’ lawyers.
The lawyers claim that they discovered documents by obtaining them from third-party emails, including one of an NYPD captain writing, “This has to stop” when referring to an officer having only one arrest in over 50 hours of overtime.
But when the emails were requested, the city couldn’t produce them, even after searching.
“The production confirms what plaintiffs feared but defendants have repeatedly denied: Defendants have destroyed evidence that is unquestionably relevant to this matter,” plaintiffs’ lawyer Elinor Sutton wrote in a letter, the Post reported.
The letter continues, “It is simply not tenable that Commissioner Kelly and Chief Esposito did not – in the entire period of 2007 through the present – write or receive emails using terms related to the word ‘summons.’”
“The spoliation of this evidence clearly demonstrates Defendants’ bad-faith, grossly negligent, or at least, negligent destruction of relevant documents.”
She added that documents from meetings about crime statistics may have been shredded due to a policy that NYPD officers testified about previously.
The trial is expected to be held early next year.
Florida Man Accused of ‘Terrorism’ Based On Book Collection
Counter Current News | July 2, 2015
Imagine being falsely accused of terrorism for nothing more than the books you have read. Well that’s exactly what has happened to a Florida man named Marcus Dwayne Robertson.
The U.S. government composed “snippets of information from various sources, out of context, to weave together a narrative of terrorist ideation,” according to a Florida judge.
That judge just ordered the release of Robertson, also known as “Abu Taubah,” an Orlando, Florida resident and Islamic scholar. Abu Taubah was accused of “supporting terrorism,” but the “evidence” against him amounted to nothing more than the books on his bookshelf.
Robertson, also known as “Abu Taubah,” was incarcerated from 2011. The charges he faced, however, were tax fraud and illegal gun possession. Not exactly “terrorism.”
But following his arrest and conviction stemming from these charges, prosecutors added what they termed “terrorism enhancement” to the sentence.
There seems to be no rationale for this other than ABu Taubah’s religious orientation… that and his book collection.
This sentencing guideline modification would have locked Robertson up for 20 years.
But the judge’s recent rejection of this bizarre, Orwellian sentencing “enhancement”, led to the Islamic scholar being released immediately.
Robertson’s sentence was argued as justifiable by prosecutors who said the contents of his Islamic book collection were sufficient “evidence” that he was connected to terrorism.
Approximately two dozen eBooks that Robertson downloaded were presented as “evidence” of his “terrorist connections.”
Prosecutors highlighted passage after controversial passage, as though this could serve as legitimate evidence that someone is a terrorist. They didn’t seem to understand that the contents of a book someone owns cannot be used as evidence against them.
A memorandum obtained by First Look was issued along with Judge Gregory A. Presnell decision. That memorandum strongly rejected the government’s argument that eBook passages could be used as “evidence” of “terrorism.”
“[T]here was no evidence produced that Robertson ever accessed these particular documents, much less that he took their extremism to heart,” Presnell argued.
He made it clear that even if the Islamic scholar admitted to having read the eBooks in question, this would not and could not be used as evidence of terrorism.
“The government has never disputed Robertson’s claim of being an Islamic scholar,” he added. “It is not at all remarkable for an Islamic scholar to study, among many, many others, the writings of Islamic extremists.”
He said that beyond this, the prosecutors did “not even come close to proving… Robertson’s relatively minor income tax fraud was intended to promote a federal crime of terrorism.”
The judge noted that he received “hundreds of emails” over the last few weeks that urged him to lock up the man for no reason other than because he was a Muslim. These emails amount to little more than racism and bigotry in most cases, and fear-mongering and ignorance in the rest.
“In America, everyone has a right to say and believe what they want, within the bounds of the law,” Presnell said before declaring that Robertson would have to be released immediately.
Robertson’s lawyer Daniel Broderson agreed that “at no point did the government ever have any actual evidence [Robertson] advocated terrorism, so they attempted to use his library of books as a backhanded way of branding him as a terrorist. He spent four years in prison, two years of it in isolation, over a prosecution that was both unfounded and that completely ran afoul of the first amendment.”
Speaking to The Intercept after he was released, Robertson said, “they’re trying to find an indirect way to sentence people with non-terrorism charges as though they’d committed terrorism offenses, without having to provide the preponderance of evidence that is normally required in such cases. You own a few books and some guy tells an informant you said something, and suddenly that is legal basis enough to sentence you to prison for decades.”
He added that he “lost all those years, in jail, in terrible conditions, away from my family. After all that, they couldn’t produce one single statement from me that supported terrorism.”
FBI Claims it Doesn’t Have to Share Records with Justice Dept. Inspector General
By Noel Brinkerhoff and Steve Straehley | AllGov | June 29, 2015
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has continued to stonewall requests by the Department of Justice’s inspector general for records pertaining to multiple investigations by the internal watchdog.
The FBI has contended since 2010 that the IG’s office lacks the legal authority to see documents related to certain matters, including grand juries, Title III electronic surveillances and Fair Credit Reporting Act information.
FBI officials also claim they don’t have to share documents related to two investigations of alleged whistleblower retaliation, or those pertaining to an IG review of the FBI’s use of telephonic metadata collected under Section 215 of the Patriot Act, according to the Project on Government Oversight.
The IG said in a report “delaying or denying access to agency documents imperils an IG’s independence and impedes our ability to provide the effective and independent oversight that saves taxpayers money and improves the operations of the federal government.”
“Actions that limit, condition, or delay access have profoundly negative consequences for our work: they make us less effective, encourage other agencies to take similar actions in the future, and erode the morale of the dedicated professionals that make up our staffs,” the report stated.
And it might become even more difficult for the inspector general to get information from the FBI. The 2016 Justice Department budget proposal does not include the section that now forces the Bureau to cooperate with requests from the IG.
Inspector General Michael Horowitz said such a move “could lead the FBI to believe that its conduct has been sanctioned and could cause other department components to conclude that it is acceptable to ignore the Appropriations Act and clear requirements of the IG Act and raise legal objections to the OIG’s access to certain records necessary to perform our important oversight function.”
To Learn More:
Watchdog Barks for Access to FBI Records (by Michael Smallberg, Project on Government Oversight)
Justice Watchdog Continues to Clash with FBI Over Access to Documents (by Charles Clark, Government Executive )
180 Day Report to Congress on the Impact of Section 218 of the Department of Justice Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year 2015 (Department of Justice Inspector General) (pdf)
Justice Dept. Report Details Clashes between FBI and Organized Crime Drug Task Force (by Noel Brinkerhoff, AllGov )
Media Uncritical of Justifications for Shooting Escaped Convict
By Matt Pepe | Just The Facts | June 29, 2015
After nearly a month on the run after breaking out of a maximum-security prison in Upstate New York, convicted murderer David Sweat was shot on Sunday by a New York State trooper and apprehended. Two days earlier fellow convicted murderer and escapee Richard Matt was shot dead by a federal agent nearby. While Governor Andrew Cuomo was quick to label Sergeant Jay Cook, who shot and captured Sweat, a “hero” – a claim that was repeated by CNN, the Daily News, Time and many other outlets – there was no serious analysis about whether Cook’s use of lethal force was legally justified.
The Associated Press published “Trooper had law on his side when he shot unarmed escapee” (6/29/15), which was widely reprinted nationally and internationally. The article makes the case appear definitively open and shut.
“A state trooper had the law on his side when he shot unarmed prison escapee David Sweat, apparently in the back, as the convicted killer ran toward a forest near the Canadian border,” the AP wrote.
Their source: one legal expert. Maria Haberfeld, head of the law and police science department at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, told the AP : “You cannot shoot a fleeing felon, but certainly you can shoot the one who poses a real threat. There was no reason to believe this person who had killed a police officer before was not posing a real threat.”
The AP cites the 1986 Supreme Court decision Tennessee v. Garner defining the condition that deadly force may only be used if “the officer has probable cause to believe that the suspect poses a significant threat of death or serious physical injury to the officer or others.” The AP also notes a New York State law permits the use of deadly force against a dangerous convict escaping from a detention facility.
While the AP says that “experts” differentiated the shooting from the case of Walter Scott, who was gunned down in South Carolina after a traffic stop, only the head of the National Association of Police Organizations is quoted to make this point. He said “these prisoners … they’re not presumed to be an innocent citizen walking down the street.”
The only opinions the AP mentions countering arguments for the legality of shooting Sweat are “some people online” who “questioned the decision to fire.”
It wouldn’t have been hard to at least find sources questioning the legal basis for shooting an unarmed man clearly not posing a immediate threat to the officer or anyone else.
Ten days earlier, Amnesty International released a report titled “Deadly Force: Police Use of Lethal Force in the United States,” which found that neither U.S. Constitutional law nor a single state law meets international standards concerning the use of force by police officers.
“Amnesty International reviewed US state laws – where they exist – governing the use of lethal force by law enforcement officials and found that they all fail to comply with international law and standards. Many of them do not even meet the less stringent standard set by US constitutional law,” the report says.
So even if it were true that the shooting of David Sweat was legal according to state and/or Constitutional law, it could still be the case that it does not meet the legal justifications of international treaties to which the United States is a party.
According to Principle 9 of the United Nations Basic Principles on the use of Force and Firearms by Law Enforcement Officials: “Law enforcement officials shall not use firearms against persons except in self-defence or defence of others against the imminent threat of death or serious injury, to prevent the perpetration of a particularly serious crime involving grave threat to life, to arrest a person presenting such a danger and resisting their authority, or to prevent his or her escape, and only when less extreme means are insufficient to achieve these objectives. In any event, intentional lethal use of firearms may only be made when strictly unavoidable in order to protect life.”
This is clearly a much more stringent standard than that established in the Garner case. Not only is an officer required to act in self-defense (or defense of a third person), but there must be an “imminent threat of death or serious injury” and the shooting must be “strictly unavoidable in order to protect life.”
The sequence of events leading to the shooting of Sweat, according to the New York Times, was that after being asked by Sergeant Cook to approach him, “instead Mr. Sweat turned and fled across a field toward the tree line.” Cook “patrolling by himself, gave chase and finally opened fire, striking Mr. Sweat twice in the torso, because he realized the fugitive was going to make it to the woods and possibly disappear.”
While Sweat had been convicted of the murder of a police officer, which would have established the justification to use lethal force against him under New York law, it would be much harder to argue he presented an “imminent threat” as he was unarmed and there was no one else nearby. He had been on the lam for more than three weeks without harming anyone. If he were to have escaped to the woods without being detained, would that have constituted an imminent threat?
There was no mention in the Associated Press article of any investigation into the shooting. As Amnesty noted: “All cases of police use of lethal force must be subject to an independent, impartial and transparent investigation and if the evidence indicates that the killing was unlawful, the police officer responsible should be criminally prosecuted.”
There are enough questions surrounding the shooting of an unarmed man to warrant an investigation, regardless of whether Sweat was a convicted murderer. Instead the officer is quickly called a hero and the media follow suit in their hero worship.
Sweat is reportedly in serious condition at Albany Medical Center. The media seems willing to ignore his rights because of the horrific crimes he was convicted of. But despite his crimes, he is legally still entitled to the right to life that every person – even the most hardened criminal – enjoys.
With the shooting of Sweat coming so soon after the Amnesty report, media organizations could have drawn attention to the higher standard for the use of lethal force by law enforcement officers under international law that the report documents, which quite likely were not met. They could have at least mentioned that relevant international law exists and is something American law enforcement are obligated to follow.
Utah police introduce programs to ‘reeducate’ civilians
By Justin King • The Fifth Column • June 16, 2015
Salt Lake City – The Utah Fraternal Order of Police hosted an event for more than 70 law enforcement agencies. The local media dutifully touted it as a way to reduce violence and some form of community outreach, apparently they didn’t examine the message very closely. The propaganda effort is, unsurprisingly, being conducted in a state where cops kill more people than drug dealers or gang bangers. It’s being conducted in a city that had a DA elected after promises of holding police to account for their actions. There has not been a single conviction.
The premise behind the program is as Stalinesque as they come. The advertising for the program paints it as something that helps officers and the community step into each other’s shoes. However, rather than address the fact that officers consistently use excessive force, it’s designed as a mobile reeducation center to convince people to “play the yes sir, no sir game” when dealing with officers. In other words, comply or die. For officers, the training revolves around attempting to alter the community’s perception of excessive force, rather than actually stopping it. During the class in Utah, officers were advised to go to neighbors after they bust down a door to execute a search warrant to explain why it was done. Nothing says “safe community” like terrorizing one family with a no-knock raid and then going and knocking on all the doors in the neighborhood to confront those families and scare them as well. More importantly, what are the officers going to say? It’s doubtful they will act with a presumption of innocence and therefore open the department up to a lawsuit.
The speaker at the event said, “Who is going to re-educate people who have been educated in a negative way? You!” Yes, it really is designed as a reeducation program.
The name of the organization is “Why’d You Stop Me.” There’s a 17-minute commercial available on YouTube that showcases some of the advice they are giving to kids who endure the reeducation program. Even in the video designed to make the organization look as if it is something other than a propaganda effort, the one-sided message provided by the organization that incorporates “the thin blue line” into its logo is apparent.
The video starts by displaying a badge wrapped with the “thin blue line,” which has become synonymous with police cover-ups, brutality, and misconduct. It then shows a series of clips of officers being beaten or shot. Then after endorsements from a bunch of members of the thin blue line, it displays: “121 Police Officers died in 2014 while protecting the communities they serve.”
With all of the images of violence, the message is clear: 121 cops were killed by criminals last year alone. Of course, that isn’t anywhere near the truth. According to the ODMP (the cited source in the video), the actual number of line of duty deaths was 134. However, they weren’t all beat to death or gunned down by merciless criminals. 2 were killed by other cops, 19 had heart attacks, 7 died from a “9/11 related illness,” 41 were killed in car accidents of some sort, and so on. Less than half of that number were actually killed by the actions of criminals. There’s no telling how many were killed during excessive force scenarios they provoked or by conducting no-knock raids against people that would have otherwise been nonviolent. It makes no mention of the number of unarmed civilians killed by cops during the same year. It makes no mention of the number of people killed by cops at all. That number is 1104. Seems like it would be worth mentioning that cops are killing civilians at a ratio of 20:1.
At 8:21 in the video the speaker states: “If you guys act respectfully, you get through that contact alive.” Seems to me that simply being unarmed should be enough to get through the contact alive. Just like World War II propaganda films, it shows successful conversions of people that didn’t respect police officers, who now say they do. They must be very proud to be able to trick a child from an underfunded inner-city school by feeding them lies and half-truths, but what is going to happen when that child sees a cop beat someone to death because they weren’t acting respectfully?
The primary speaker is obviously some form of social worker, anthropologist, or psychologist, right? Nope. He’s a cop. He works for Long Beach Police Department. He’s a member of the thin blue line. Why should we have expected anything else?
Why does Utah need some form of propaganda effort to reeducate the population? It probably has something to do with the fact that becoming a homicide victim at the hands of police is the most likely way of becoming a homicide victim in the state except for domestic violence, but we don’t have the numbers to determine how many domestic violence victims were killed by partners who are law enforcement. A cursory search found at least 4.
One Utah incident that has made headlines recently because the cop taunted the family of the unarmed man he killed is the case of Joey Tucker. Tucker was in some form of medical or emotional distress when an officer shot him three times. Even though the video clearly shows the officer’s statements to be false, and the new DA, Sim Gill, campaigned on holding police accountable and once wrote a paper lamenting the law enforcement community’s practice of not properly investigating crimes, no charges have been filed. Two videos of Tucker’s execution and screenshots of the Facebook conversation in which the cop says the son’s life was only worth $100,000 are available here.
Welcome to a society that will allow the population to be reeducated to accept brutality and violence, rather than ending it. We are headed to a hellish future where the security services of the United States are permitted to behave as judge, jury, and executioner while the public is expected to cheer at their own executions.
Featured Video
Prof Seyed Marandi: Will the US Collapse the Global Economy?
or go to
Aletho News Archives – Video-Images
From the Archives
The toxic legacy of nuclear weapons testing serves as a stark warning of the danger these weapons pose
By Scott Ritter | RT | March 11, 2021
Millions of people suffer and die from the effects of radiation exposure from decades of nuclear weapons testing. Their experience should give serious pause to those who continue to embrace the viability of a nuclear deterrent. … continue
Blog Roll
Aletho News- 13-18 DAYS: The PRACTICAL DIESEL BUFFER… Does It Preclude Bombing Iran?
- Prof Seyed Marandi: WILL the US COLLAPSE the GLOBAL ECONOMY?
- Larry Sanger Said Wikipedia Punishes Dissent. Then It Banned Him.
- How Darializa Avila Chevalier Is Different From Other Elected Progressives
- Israel Declares 464 Dunams in Sinjil as “State Land”
- Strait of Hormuz as strategic red line: Why Iran must confront Oman’s corridor plan and Trump’s threats
- House to vote on proposal ending $3.3bln in military aid to ‘Israel’
- Mission unaccomplished – Part I: America failed to achieve every war objective against Iran
- Iranian Victory – Gulf States Creating ‘Regional Security Framework’ With Iran
- IRGC Navy rejects new Strait of Hormuz shipping routes
- If Americans Knew
- Gaza ceasefire talks back to square one as Israel changes the rules – Daily Update
- The NDAA Proposed Merger of the U.S. and Israeli Military is Strategically Unwise and Inherently Unconstitutional
- Victories by Pro-Palestinian Democrats Show the Party’s Shift on Israel
- Massie moves to strike $3.3B in Israel military aid from the budget
- How Jeffrey Epstein’s Israeli Network Shaped Congo’s Deadly Mineral Trade
- Gaza officials warn of ‘silent famine’ as aid deliveries fall far below planned levels
- Wheat harvest becomes act of defiance as West Bank farmers race to outrun Israeli settler attacks
- The ICC must investigate Israel’s genocidal use of sexual violence
- The Myth of Israeli Self-Sufficiency
- Internal Documents Show Trump’s “Board of Peace“ Moving to Crush Palestinian Self-Determination
- No Tricks Zone
- 2025 Study: Cloud Effects Reduce Downwelling Longwave Radiation, Overriding The CO2 Impact
- 3 New Studies Find Increasing Trends In Solar Radiation Since The 1980s – Easily Explaining Warming
- THE TRANSCEIVER PARADOX: Why Organoid Intelligence (OI) Could Become Our Ultimate Alien Predator
- German Wind Turbines Face Regulatory Shutdown Due To Excessive Noise
- New Study: Chile’s Relative Sea Level Was 3.2 Meters Higher Than Today During The Mid-Holocene
- Beyond The Pitch: Why FIFA’s World Cup Is One Of Humanity’s Best Investments
- Climate Alarmists Now Using Natural Phenomena To Support Their Claims
- New Study: Significant CO2 Fluxes From Non-Volcanic Sources Are Largely Neglected In Carbon Budgets
- Women Climate Scientists Being Harassed, Insulted By Skeptics, Claims Berkeley Earth Researcher
- Germany’s Longterm Spring Climate Data Show “No Climate Trend”
Aletho News 