Category: Media and Culture,

Black activist jailed for his Facebook posts speaks out about secret FBI surveillance

On By peanutgallerynhIn American Injustice System,, Race,Leave a comment

Handcuffed and shaking in the cold wind, Balogun thought a misunderstanding must have led the FBI to his door on 12 December 2017. The father of three said he was shocked to later learn that agents investigating “domestic terrorism” had been monitoring him for years and were arresting him that day in part because of his Facebook posts criticizing police.

…Balogun spoke to the Guardian this week in his first interview since he was released from prison after five months locked up and denied bail while US attorneys tried and failed to prosecute him, accusing him of being a threat to law enforcement and an illegal gun owner.

…Balogun, who lost his home and more while incarcerated, is believed to be the first person targeted and prosecuted under a secretive US surveillance effort to track so-called “black identity extremists”.

…The government’s own crime data has largely undermined the notion of a growing threat from a “black identity extremist” [BIE] movement, a term invented by law enforcement. In addition to an overall decline in police deaths, most individuals who shoot and kill officers are white men, and white supremacists have been responsible for nearly 75% of deadly extremist attacks since 2001.

…The official one-count indictment against Balogun was illegal firearm possession, with prosecutors alleging he was prohibited from owning a gun due to a 2007 misdemeanor domestic assault case in Tennessee. But this month, a judge rejected the charge, saying the firearms law did not apply.

Black activist jailed for his Facebook posts speaks out about secret FBI surveillance | World news | The Guardian

Add kidnapping to the list of crime United States “law enforcement” personnel can commit without repercussions or consequences.

Photographing the Abandoned Homes Above the Arctic Circle (PHOTOS)

On By peanutgallerynhIn Europe,, Media and Culture,Leave a comment

Bye explained that rural areas in Scandinavia are facing depopulation due to the decline of farming. Many young people flock to the cities, leaving behind the rural way of life. Bye says many of the former farms have become vacation homes or are just abandoned. She said the homes give her a nostalgic, melancholic feeling, which is conveyed in her photos above.

“The feeling you get when surrounded by mountains so steep and tall and an ocean so crystal clear and turquoise blue, it makes you feel incredibly small and in awe,” she said. “It’s also very appealing to photograph abandonment in those surroundings— the weathered look of the houses are in direct correspondence with the mighty nature surrounding them.”

Photographing the Abandoned Homes Above the Arctic Circle (PHOTOS) | The Weather Channel

very cool

ACLU Report: Detained Immigrant Children Subjected To Widespread Abuse By Officials

On By peanutgallerynhIn American Injustice System,, Domestic Affairs,, Race,Leave a comment

The allegations include reports of physical, verbal, sexual and psychological abuse of migrant children and the denial of clean drinking water and adequate food.

Among the allegations, U.S. officials are said to have:

– Denied a pregnant minor medical attention when she reported pain, which preceded a stillbirth.
– Subjected a 16-year-old girl to a search in which they “forcefully spread her legs and touched her private parts so hard that she screamed.”
– Left a 4-lb. premature baby and her minor mother in an overcrowded and dirty cell filled with sick people, against medical advice.
– Threw out a child’s birth certificate and threatened him with sexual abuse by an adult male detainee.
– Ran over a 17-year-old with a patrol vehicle and then punched him repeatedly.

“These agencies have taken no meaningful action to hold federal officials accountable for abusing children or to ensure that such abuse never occurs again,” she said.

The ACLU report, co-written by the University of Chicago Law School’s International Human Rights Clinic, says the U.S. government “has failed to provide adequate safeguards and humane detention conditions for children in CBP custody.”

“These failures,” it says, “have allowed a culture of impunity to flourish within CBP, subjecting immigrant children to conditions that are too often neglectful at best and sadistic at worst.”

ACLU Report: Detained Immigrant Children Subjected To Widespread Abuse By Officials : The Two-Way : NPR

Well, what do you expect in a society where individuals tasked with law enforcement are valued and protected more than the actual citizenry they charged with protecting? When the only people you value are given guns and exempt from consequences for their crimes people get treated like they are lower than dogshit.

In Passing ‘Blue Lives Matter’ Bill, House Lawmakers Ignore Civil Rights Leaders

On By peanutgallerynhIn American Injustice System,, Race,Leave a comment

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the NAACP, and the Southern Poverty Law Center, co-authored a letter asking members of the U.S. House of Representatives to vote no on HR 5698, the “Protect and Serve Act of 2018.” But lawmakers, including Democrats, overwhelmingly voted to pass the legislation the next day.

The bill would establish offenses that target law enforcement officers as a federal crime, imposing penalties that are leading many of its opponents to label it the country’s first national “Blue Lives Matter” bill. Named for the push to “counter” Black Lives Matter, at least 32 of these bills were proposed in state legislatures last year, all intending to increase the penalties against those who harm officers.

…At least 987 people—disproportionately people of color—were shot and killed by police in 2017 and 963 in 2016, according to analysis from the Washington Post.

“Creating a new, yet superfluous, crime for offenses committed against law enforcement is a particularly disconnected and non-responsive policy choice,” the letter continued.

….Civil rights groups believe that the U.S. Senate version of the bill, which was introduced on May 7 by Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) and co-sponsored by Sen. Heidi Heitkamp (D-ND), is significantly worse because it establishes crimes against law enforcement as hate crimes.

“Not only does [the Senate’s bill] create a new crime by targeting law enforcement, it does it using the hate crimes framework,” Kanya A. Bennett, ACLU legislative counsel, told Rewire.News. “We know that law enforcement is already the most protected class of people given the federal laws that protect them [and] given the state laws that protect them.”

In Passing ‘Blue Lives Matter’ Bill, House Lawmakers Ignore Civil Rights Leaders – Rewire.News

When those enforcing the law are valued by the government as more valuable than the citizenry itself? you have fascism. Fascism. Buckle up people. It’s not going to get pretty from here.

Ambien to Roseanne: ‘Racism is not a known side effect’

On By peanutgallerynhIn Media and Culture,, Race,Leave a comment

The manufacturer of Ambien issued a statement on Wednesday dismissing actress Roseanne Barr’s suggestion that the sleep aid was to blame for her racist and anti-Semitic tweets that led to the cancellation of her rebooted sitcom.

“People of all races, religions and nationalities work at Sanofi every day to improve the lives of people around the world,” Sanofi U.S. said in a statement posted to Twitter. “While all pharmaceutical treatments have side effects, racism is not a known side effect of any Sanofi medication.”

Ambien to Roseanne: ‘Racism is not a known side effect’

heh