Brooklyn's Jewish Modesty Police , Boy Scout Sex Scandal Cover Up 1959-2008, Gays allowed to Join BSA but not Atheists

The Boy Scouts of America another Christian Holier than thou Bible Thumpers who have been exposed for their cover-up of sexual assault crimes against children. Those who cover up such crimes are as guilty as those who commit them.

In this April 13, 2010 file photo, Kerry Lewis, left, leans into his lawyer, Paul Mones, in a Portland, Ore., courtroom after a jury found the Boy Scouts of America negligent for repeated sexual abuse by an assistant Scoutmaster in the 1980s. Local Boy Scout leaders and town officials helped hush up numerous child sex abuse allegations against scoutmasters and other volunteers, according to details in a trove of nearly 15,000 pages of so-called "perversion files" compiled by the Scouts from 1959

Hasidic Jews Modesty Police in Brooklyn New York
 

And now for something a little lighter -Fun with Glenn Beck and his new theme park for patriots and Christians only .

Libertypendence Park BSofA withBrianSack
Published on 20 Jan 2013
Walt Disney ain't got nothing on Libertypendence Park!

Today's Topics

* Ultra-Orthodox Jews Morality Squad in Brooklyn ,New York-what if they were Muslims
* Boy Scouts of America sex scandal coverup from 1959 to 2008.
* Boy Scouts of America opens its membership to Gays & Churches threaten to ban scouts
* Boy Scouts of America refuses to allow atheists to join


ultra-orthodox Jews patrolling streets in Brooklyn New York enforcing their own modesty code ignored by the anti-Muslim Islamophobes such as Fox News, Hannity, Beck, O'Reilly, Limbaugh, Robert Spencer, Daniel Pipes and the queen of the Islamophobes Pam Geller who is responsible for Hate Speech ads in NY targeting all Muslims.

 If this were a Muslim group all of these characters or if you prefer bigots would be up in arms and demand that these activities be stopped and they would call on their bigoted troops across the USA to hold protest against creeping Sharia but when non-Muslims do these things it's no big deal.

But it would be headline news across America if these were ultraconservative Muslims doing the same thing enforcing Sharia rules about modesty . The mainstream media especially Fox News, CNN and the usual Islamophobic suspects would be in hysterics claiming America was being taken over by Muslims. But when Jews or Christians take similar actions there is not such a great outcry about trampling on the US constitution.


Shadowy “modesty squads” police ultra-Orthodox Brooklyn Using social pressure and threats, a so-called "modesty squad" keeps a Hasidic Brooklyn neighborhood on edge By Katie Mcdonough at Salon.com, Jan. 30,2013

In ultra-Orthodox Jewish communities across New York state, women wear long skirts and long-sleeved, high-necked blouses on the street; men wear suits and white collar shirts, buttoned to the neck; and girls are told the precise color and thickness of the stockings they can wear to school.

And these aren’t just recommendations – community modesty codes are strictly enforced. Not just by social custom, but by a self-appointed, shadowy group of men who police a predominantly Hasidic neighborhood in North Brooklyn, according to a report in the New York Times.

“They operate like the Mafia,” Rabbi Allan Nadler, director of the Jewish studies program at Drew University, told the Times. “They walk into a store and say it would be a shame if your window was broken or you lost your clientele,” he said. “They might tell the father of a girl who wears a skirt that’s too short and he’s, say, a store owner: ‘If you ever want to sell a pair of shoes, speak to your daughter.’”

Many of the rules of conduct are focused explicitly on regulating what Hasidic women car wear in public, believing that an uncovered head or a skirt that reveals too much will arouse the sexual attention of men and boys.

But in places like Williamsburg, Brooklyn, the issue of non-compliance with ultra-Orthodox modesty rules has crept into neighboring secular areas. In 2009, Hasidic South Williamsburg community members successfully rallied to block a bike lane that brought outside bicyclists — specifically, women wearing shorts — through the neighborhood.

...“There are quite a few men, especially in Williamsburg, who consider themselves Gut’s polizei,” Yosef Rapaport, a Hasidic journalist, using the words for “God’s police,” told the Times.

“It’s somebody who is a busybody, and there are quite a few of them — zealots who take it upon themselves and they just enforce. They’re considered crazy, but people don’t want to confront them.”

Boy Scouts of America sex scandal continues as judge orders more documents be released to the court and the public.

Boy Scout Files To Be Released: Minn. Judge Orders Release Of More 'Perversion Files' by Steve Karnowski, Huffington Post, Jan. 29, 2013

— A Minnesota judge on Tuesday ordered the handover of confidential national Boy Scout records on sexual abuse from 1999 to 2008 in a move attorneys said could add to the body of evidence showing that the organization failed to take adequate steps to protect young people from molesters in its ranks.

Ramsey County District Judge Elena Ostby issued the order in a lawsuit involving former suburban Minneapolis scoutmaster Peter Stibal II, who is serving a 21-year prison sentence for molesting four scouts in his troop. The lawsuit was filed by one of his victims.

That victim's attorney, Jeff Anderson, said these files are from internal Boy Scouts of America records on adult volunteers suspected of molestation that are widely known as the "perversion files," but they cover a later period than records made public last October by court order in Oregon, which covered from 1965 to 1985. He called the order a triumph over institutional secrecy.

The hypocrisy on the part of churches is astounding. These churches are angry that the Boy Scouts of America might change its rule against allowing Gays into their organization. The churches say the organization is turning its back on Biblical principles. And yet most of these churches have been silent over the news that since about 1959 the Boy Scouts of America has done all that it could to cover up the sexual abuses against children committed by Scout Leaders. Instead of reporting them to the police like the Catholic Church they did little or nothing .

So in order to attempt to build new bridges that is to save the organization from extinction given all the bad press on its sexual scandals the Boy Scouts of America has decided it has been historically a bit hypocritical to cover up the actions of pedophiles who were Scout Leaders while refusing to allow Gays or Atheists to belong to their organization. Part of what they are admitting is that their excuses for keeping gays out is not reality based since these pedophiles in their organization were all considered to be mentally healthy upstanding heterosexual males and yet some turned out to be pedophiles. The erroneous prejudice and assumption has been that Gays are not moral and are not real Christians and that they would be more likely to sexually assault children than would heterosexual male Christian adults. The Boy Scouts has had a ban on Gay teenagers or having Gay scout leaders from joining .
So being a Christian and a heterosexual does not preclude someone from being also a pedophile.



Churches threaten to pull funding if Boy Scouts drop anti-gay ban About 70 percent of Scout troops are sponsored by faith-based organizations. Many are threatening to break ties By Katie Mcdonough at Salon.com,Jan 30, 2013

The Boy Scouts of America announced earlier this week that they are considering an end to their decades-long ban on gay members, leaving it to regional and local councils to dictate membership guidelines on sexuality.

The news was met with cheers from scouts across the country who have been banned from the organization after coming out, but many conservative and religious leaders are angry about what they see as the organization abandoning its long-standing commitment to biblical principles.

“If that is what the leadership is doing, then I think it will be a sad day in the life of the Boy Scouts of America,” Fred Luter, president of the Southern Baptist Convention, told the Baptist Press. “This is a tradition that so many of us across the country grew up in. We were in Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts in elementary school, and this organization has always stood for biblical principles — all the things that grounded our lives as a young kid growing up. To now see this organization that I thought stood on biblical principles about to give in to the politically correct thing is very disappointing.”

About 70 percent of all Boy Scout troops are sponsored by faith-based organizations, with the Southern Baptists, Catholic Church, Lutheran Church, United Methodist Church and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints representing the most troops, according to Fox News.

And many are suggesting they will break financial and membership ties with the organization if the policy goes through.

“Churches of all faiths and denominations, including Southern Baptist churches, will be forced to reevaluate whether they can, in good conscience, continue to host Scout troops given that the Scouts appear poised to turn their backs on this clear biblical and moral issue,” Roger Oldham, spokesman for the Southern Baptist Convention, said.

A bridge too far according to the Boy Scouts of America would be allowing atheists to join the Boy Scouts of America. So accepting Gays might be okay but not atheists. And yet it seems the Girl Scouts constitution does not allow for members of the organization to discriminate against anyone solely based upon their religious beliefs.

Boy Scouts Rule On Atheists Unchanged As BSA Reconsiders Ban On Gays by Brian Shane and Mike Chalmers at Huffington Post, Jan. 29, 2013

For former scoutmaster Richard Guglielmetti, the Boy Scouts of America's reconsideration of its ban on gay scouts and leaders is long overdue.

Guglielmetti, 66, who led Troop 76 in Simsbury, Conn., for a dozen years until 2005, said leaders and members of his troop ignored the national organization's prohibition on gays because they felt it was wrong.

"It's about time," he said Monday (Jan. 28).

Despite the national policies set forth by BSA, his troop always rejected the policy, Guglielmetti said.

"We had a bunch of boys in our troop who were gay, and they all felt the policy was wrong," he said. "Gay Scouts and everybody was always welcome in our troop."

One of those Scouts was Guglielmetti's own son, Matthew, now 34. Last year, Matthew turned in the Eagle Scout award he earned in 1993 because of Scouting's anti-gay policies, his father said.

and so it goes,
GORD. 

Father of Victim At Sandyhook Massacre Heckled By Pro-Gun Activists and Jon Stewart Gun Control Should Be A No-Brainer and Mathew Chapman " Guns,Guys & Gelding "

The grand purpose of the Constitution is stated in the first sentence. "We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution of the United States." The Declaration of Independence declares immediately that we should all have the unalienable right to "Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness."

Where is the Justice in twenty children getting shot dead by a mentally ill boy with such easy access to such powerful weapons? How can Liberty thrive when fear is so pervasive? Where is the inalienable right to Happiness for the mothers, fathers, brothers and sisters of those killed, who will mourn for the rest of their lives? Violence and fear of violence makes Tranquility impossible, perhaps most of all for people so anxious about guns they feel the need to buy guns to protect themselves from guns.


"The next step toward civilization in America should be regarding a peaceful and safe society as a human right, and seeing preventable gun violence as a contravention of that right." Quote from: "Guns, Guys, and Gelding -- How to Stop Men and Boys Shooting People in America" Mathew Chapman at Huffington Post, Jan.30, 2013

Gabrielle Giffords Speaks at Senate Judiciary Hearing on Gun Control

Published on 30 Jan 2013

Former Arizona Representative Gabrielle Giffords and her husband, Mark E. Kelly, appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday.

Today's Topics

* Jon Stewart on Gun control
* Father who's son was murdered at Sandyhook heckled at hearing
* Mathews Chapman guns guys and gelding -pro-gun crazies castration fears and paranoia

Jon Stewart on gun control
Jon Stewart argues that the 2nd amendment was not about individual rights but rather that a state could have a well armed and trained militia and secondly that at that time the guns they were talking about were muskets which are not at all equivalent to an automatic assault weapon.

Stewart also argues that both sides on the issue surely can agree first of all that they are all against mass murders and massacres and so should pass more laws to restrict gun sales and ownership to prevent such instances or at least reduce the carnage.

Stewart also argues that the public allows government to regulate certain consumer products to protect the health and safety of consumers from automobiles to meat processing to passenger airplane maintenance etc.



Wayne La Pierre states unequivocally that the right to bear arms is an inalienable God given right  and so has no real motivation for backing stricter gun laws or enforcing those laws already on the books regarding gun sales and ownership . Those laws contrary to what he and Sheriff Joe Arpaio think are not applied because of the obstructionism of the gun lobby .

But wasn't it the belief of many Americans before the American Civil War that it was a God given right to own slaves and that women were the property of their father and once married were the property of their husband . Do they want to return to in their view simpler and more barbaric times when only a small percentage of Americans had equal civil and human rights.

Well actually many of these people do want to push the clocks back though they often in public especially claim otherwise .

It is because of their actions that few if any back ground checks are made and they are the ones who lobbied for and got gun shows  made exempt from any gun control laws and as for the government or the CDC even doing studies on the matter of  gun related injuries or deaths the gun lobby has made it against the law for the CDC or any other government agency from doing such studies. So when the gun lobby spokespersons claim the ban on assault weapons in the USA had no effect we don't know if that is true though they cite private studies done by those friendly with the gun lobby or even paid by the gun lobby to do studies.  They have made it impossible for the US federal government and appropriate agencies such as ATF to enforce any regulations in a timely manner and with due diligence as we have discussed in previous post  and has been deconstructed and analyzed by Jon Stewart. The ATF has had no real increases in its budget or in its personnel for the last 20 years or so.

Wayne LaPierre Gun Owners Will Not Accept Blame For Acts Of Criminals Senate Gun

Published on 30 Jan 2013

NRA CEO Wayne LaPierre Speaks at Senate Gun Hearing -wayne lapierre nra Jan. 30, 2013 video senate hearing wayne lapierre Gun Owners Will Not Accept Blame For Acts Of Criminals'

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And here's another instance of the cold hearted insensitivity of the pro-gun activists as they heckle Neil Heslin who's 6 year old son was murdered in the Sandy Hook Massacre while Heslin was giving testimony to Gun Violence Prevention hearings.

So even as Neil Heslin speaks and is obviously upset and tearing up talking about his deceased son whom he loved these a holes can only think about their own agenda which comes before all else.
And what for us is sadder is that his courage to stand up in public and speak about gun control given Obama's record will be a pointless endeavor . Obama has already conceded too much ground to the pro-gun lobby by stating that he believes in the 2nd amendment as giving individuals the absolute right to own guns. And yet other constitutional lawyers would beg to differ and that the Amendment only applies to a well regulated militia and/or that the terminology is a bit befuddling and does not point to some absolute God given right to own firearms ( as Wayne LaPierre said in video above ) without any substantive regulations  .

" Neil Heslin, Father Of Newtown Victim, Heckled By Pro-Gun Activists " Christina Wilkie at Huffington Post, Jan. 30, 2013

Neil Heslin, the father of a 6-year-old boy who was slain in the Sandy Hook massacre in Newtown, Conn., on Dec. 14, stoically faced down pro-gun activists last night.

More than 1,000 people attended a hearing before the Gun Violence Prevention Working Group at the Legislative Office Building in Hartford on Monday to share their views on gun control, USA Today reported. Among them was Heslin, who held a large framed picture of himself and his son Jesse as he urged officials to consider strengthening gun laws in Connecticut.

But as he gave his emotional testimony, pleading with lawmakers to improve mental health options and to ban assault weapons like the one Adam Lanza used to murder his child and 25 other people, his speech was interrupted by dozens of audience members, The Connecticut Post reported.

“I still can't see why any civilian, anybody in this room in fact, needs weapons of that sort. You're not going to use them for hunting, even for home protection," Heslin said.

Pro-gun activists responded by calling out: "Second Amendment!"




In an article at Huffington Post Mathew Chapman argues that those against gun control are suffering from a psychological disorder that is they see being forced to give up their guns as an attack on their masculinity that is fear of castration and paranoia in this case a fear of government and so are unable to be rational in their discussions on gun control. They see any and all gun control laws as a form of government tyranny . Their claims that the more guns the safer society will be is disproved by countries which in fact enforce strict gun control laws. The pro-gun advocates are overwhelmingly men who believe in the use of force and violence.

The pro-gun lobby Chapman says reverts to an infantile mind set by seeing the world in terms of "Good Guys" vs the "Bad Guys" as if we always know with certainty which is which but the distinction is never that clear except after the fact. Of course we can add that George W. Bush and America's compliant media went along with Bush's narrative of Good Guys vs The Bad guys and the Axis of Evil for his narrative framing the Global War on Terror. This narrative of good vs evil in the end led America down a dark path in which it was okay to use whatever means necessary to track down the bad guys from secret renditions to indefinite detention to torture all of which has just made matters worse as America's enemies have grown in number.

While these men claim they want more guns to protect their wives and children the fact is that these guns are quite often used by these men against their wives or children rather than against a burglar or murderer entering their home.

The anti-gun lobby treats the 2nd amendment as if it were sacrosanct and as we have argued before they treat the 2nd amendment as if it were the eleventh commandment handed down by God to Moses and the Israelites. As Chapman argues the US constitution and its amendments must be seen in their historical context . If the Constitution is in fact an unchangeable sacred document equal to a literal inerrant view of the Bible then one could argue that slavery should not have been abolished since slavery was protected by the Constitution and other founding documents and women and blacks and other minorities and people without property would not have been given the right to vote or run for public office.

And as Chapman and others have argued if laws were to be based upon the bible as some religious conservatives argue then all sorts of barbaric laws could be introduced such as capital punishment for adultery, blaspheming, homosexuality , witchcraft, masturbation , stealing and capital punishment for children who disobey their parents. These punishments would have to be carried out according to Old Testament scriptures so no electric chair or gas chamber or lethal injection but rather stoning , whipping, hanging, beheading, maiming ,castrations etc.

Guns, Guys, and Gelding -- How to Stop Men and Boys Shooting People in America Mathew Chapman at Huffington Post , jan. 30, 2013

...most women seem to be either silent, reasonable, or in favor of more gun control. Perhaps they know that a gun in the house raises the likelihood of their getting shot and killed by a factor of 3.4, and that ninety percent of the time their killer will not be a stranger breaking into their house in the dead of night but someone they know. (To be shot by the man of the house holding the gun that was bought to defend the woman of the house from the stranger breaking into the house... talk about irony.)

...The infantile nature of male-gun attachment is confirmed by the language used. The Good Guys should have guns but the Bad Guys should not. "Good Guys" and "Bad Guys"?! Are you kidding me? Why not regress even further and frame it as a battle between Cowboys and Indians. (There's a wonderful argument for the gun -- if you're not Native American.)

...I watch Wayne LaPierre and his ilk, who certainly think of themselves as Good Guys, and with all due respect, I do not see "Good Guys," I see "Unstable Guys." Wayne LaPierre's terror terrifies me. Among the fear-based justifications from people like him... is that the government will get taken over by tyrants and citizens will need guns to remove them. Castration anxiety and clinical paranoia... what a burden it must be.

... I can't imagine an America with no handguns, but I can easily imagine an America with very few, and since when was the possibility of only partial success an excuse for not trying at all? In what other context do you hear people say with a straight face, "Criminals don't obey laws, therefore there's no point in making laws"? Why even bother to go down a path of evidence or comparison or common sense? Point out that strict gun laws demonstrably mean less gun violence when applied across an entire country -- look at England, Japan, Australia -- and, no matter how strong your proof, it's all for nothing because out comes the ultimate trump card: the Second Amendment, holier than the Second Coming even if it kills us.

How ironic that a constitution explicitly designed to be changed is constantly brandished as an argument against change.

...Sandy Hook has made some people wonder, myself included, if gun proliferation and gun violence is perhaps a civil rights issue, its impact so arbitrary and brutal, and so symbolic of everything that is wrong with America, that it challenges any single element of the constitution. As with denying freedom to slaves or the vote to women, modern gun violence is in conflict with the essential spirit of the constitution.

The grand purpose of the Constitution is stated in the first sentence. "We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution of the United States." The Declaration of Independence declares immediately that we should all have the unalienable right to "Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness."

Where is the Justice in twenty children getting shot dead by a mentally ill boy with such easy access to such powerful weapons? How can Liberty thrive when fear is so pervasive? Where is the inalienable right to Happiness for the mothers, fathers, brothers and sisters of those killed, who will mourn for the rest of their lives? Violence and fear of violence makes Tranquility impossible, perhaps most of all for people so anxious about guns they feel the need to buy guns to protect themselves from guns.

...The first step in preventing gun violence is to understand it. That the NRA managed to stop government financed scientific study into the roots of gun violence proves their absolute addiction to ignorance as their best defense. (And proves politicians' absolute addiction to campaign contributions no matter what the consequences.) Nothing should be protected from inquiry.

...The next step toward civilization in America should be regarding a peaceful and safe society as a human right, and seeing preventable gun violence as a contravention of that right.

and so it goes,
GORD.

NRA & Gun Industry Targets Children In Marketing Strategies & Police Across USA Shoot and Kill With Impunity & Unknown Number Of Wrongfully Convicted Persons Incarcerated

The gun industry is spending millions of dollars a year to market their products to America’s children. Advertising to kids is all part of widening their customer base to combat the waning popularity of shooting sports. The New York Times reports:

The industry’s strategies include giving firearms, ammunition and cash to youth groups; weakening state restrictions on hunting by young children; marketing an affordable military-style rifle for “junior shooters” and sponsoring semiautomatic-handgun competitions for youths; and developing a target-shooting video game that promotes brand-name weapons, with links to the Web sites of their makers.

From: Gun industry targets kids to ensure future profits by Rania Khalek at Dispatches from the Underclass , January 27, 2013

The National Registry of Exonerations, which has recorded over 2,000 exonerations in the United States since 1989, estimates that eyewitness misidentification plays a role in 43 percent of wrongful convictions. Other significant factors include perjury or false accusation (51 percent), official misconduct (42 percent), false or misleading forensic evidence (24 percent) and false confession (16 percent). Keep in mind that these numbers only reflect wrongfully convicted inmates who have been exonerated, meaning there are many more innocents wasting away behind bars for crimes they didn’t commit, we just don’t know how many.

From: " 3 black men released after 18 years in prison on wrongful murder convictions " by Rania Khalek ,Dispatches from the Underclass, January 24, 2013

...Between 1980 and 2005, close to 9,600 people were killed by police in America -- an average of about one fatal shooting every day. However, the real number may be higher due to underreporting by some departments to the federal government. For example, the Los Angeles Police Department responded to a Freedom of Information Act request by claiming there were 79 fatal police shootings from 2000 to 2005. Yet only 38 fatal shootings were reported to the federal government for the same period.

From:Too Many Police Shootings: More Than A Few Bad Apples By Rinku Sen and Alysia Tate Sonomacountry freepress.com


Today's Topics

* Unknown number of wrongfully convicted incarcerated in USA
* Unknown number of unwarranted shootings by US police forces
* Gun industry targets children in marketing strategy

America's racist , bigoted , corrupt System of Injustice From Police to courts to the Prison Industry . US police have become more militarized and no longer view themselves as part of a community but rather see themselves at war with most if not all citizens. So what can anyone expect from the police when they view every contact with the public as a confrontation which can easily escalate from verbal back and forth to a violent confrontation.

Here's an example of police using excessive force ironically on a small group protesting about police use of excessive force:
The police tried to take or even pay for video taken by witnesses. No one gave up their video.Video phones are now the bane of police officer's existence since eye witness accounts can be questioned by the video shows what actually occurred .

In a response to a protest against a police shooting the police respond with extreme use of force and police brutality on innocent citizens. Sat July 21st 2012 in Anaheim California.

The uploading of this video for archival and commenting purposes is protected under The following Fair Use legislation.

Many of us were wrong to assume that having a black president would lead to more involvement on the part of the White House and government agencies in trying to determine to what extent local police forces were or are in fact using excessive force in their treatment of suspects. Instead Obama is on the side of the police and those in positions of authority and Obama appears uninterested in whether or not the use of excessive force has become an epidemic .

Obama has shown he is also uninterested in dealing even with the role of racism in policing and the judicial and prison system.

The prison industry having been privatized basis its profits on numbers of those incarcerated the more people incarcerated the better it is for business and so has nothing to do with real justice. The fact that Black and Latino Americans are disproportionately represented in prisons even though they commit no more crimes than do white Americans.


" 3 black men released after 18 years in prison on wrongful murder convictions " by Rania Khalek ,Dispatches from the Underclass, January 24, 2013

Michael Cosme, Devon Ayers, and Carlos Perez lost 18 years of their lives in prison for murders they did not commit. The three men were convicted of the 1995 killings of a livery cap driver and FedEx executive. Eric Glisson and Cathy Watkins, who were also wrongfully convicted in the livery cap driver killing, were released last month.

Emotions were high when they were finally released Wednesday night. Video footage from NBC New York captures last night’s heartwarming scenes of the newly freed men as they embraced their loved ones with tears in their eyes. Cosme shouts gleefully, ”I’m free, I’m free. Finally, after 18 years, I’m free.”

The convictions were based on the testimony of a single questionable eyewitness who has since died. Upon Glisson and Watkin’s release in December, their defense attorney told ABC News, “As long as you’re relying on a crackhead who gets paid, these wrongful convictions are never going to stop.”

The National Registry of Exonerations, which has recorded over 2,000 exonerations in the United States since 1989, estimates that eyewitness misidentification plays a role in 43 percent of wrongful convictions. Other significant factors include perjury or false accusation (51 percent), official misconduct (42 percent), false or misleading forensic evidence (24 percent) and false confession (16 percent). Keep in mind that these numbers only reflect wrongfully convicted inmates who have been exonerated, meaning there are many more innocents wasting away behind bars for crimes they didn’t commit, we just don’t know how many.

One significant conclusion reached by the Registry’s exoneration record is that a significant portion of the wrongfully convicted look a lot like Michael Cosme, Devon Ayers, and Carlos Perez. Though African Americans make up just 13% of the population, half of exonerees are black. This reflects the disproportionate representation of black Americans in the prison population, a result of the structural racism that plagues each and every level of the American criminal justice system.

While America and its president mourn deaths of those killed in mass shootings the hundreds killed by police each year are seen as somehow deserving to be killed and so get no sympathy from their fellow citizens or the US government or the president himself.

America as we have previously discussed concerning gun violence , sexual assault, and the widespread abuse of children has an embedded culture of violence and this culture of violence has become the norm in America. So police sometimes shoot first before evaluating the situation and whether the suspect is a real threat to police officers or other citizens. Instead often times in cases involving minorities and the poor the police officers act as judge, jury and executioner.
For example "there have been at least 238 police involved killings in Los Angeles County since 2007..."

and it is estimated that ...Between 1980 and 2005, close to 9,600 people were killed by police in America -- an average of about one fatal shooting every day...   Too Many Police Shootings: More Than A Few Bad Apples By Rinku Sen and Alysia Tate Sonomacountry freepress.com

But the federal government and FBI do not compile stats on civilians shot by police officers across the USA. Is this because of pressure from other government agencies or the Congress or the White House or the lobbying of police chiefs we don't know.


The police exist to protect and serve the community and its citizens and not just to protect themselves and their fellow officers. Police officers are supposed to be trained to take control of a situation rather than adding more tension and a further escalation in verbal and physical confrontations.

Instead the police across the USA appear to believe that each contact with a citizen is a life and death situation for the police officer and any hesitation or passive refusal to comply by a citizen is seen as grounds for arrest and possible shooting to kill of that citizen or an illegitimate use of a taser . Tasers and guns should only be used when necessary not every an officer feels like it . The police end up treating all citizens as the enemy. This in part can be seen as possibly connected with US troops in various countries treating all civilians in those countries as the enemy and developing a shoot first pre-emptive shooting because the citizen might be an insurgent or terrorist.

More unwarranted gun violence by police officers who executed another Black American citizen . The police performed the execution style murder of a black suspect erroneously believing there were no witnesses when in fact there was at least one witness.


LA sheriff’s deputies shot unarmed Latino father of 2 in the back 7 times by Rania Khalek at Dispatches From The Underclass, January 28, 2013

"there have been at least 238 police involved killings in Los Angeles County since 2007..."

“How am I supposed to explain to my daughters that their father was murdered by the police, the people who they are supposed to go to for protection,” asked Rosanna de la Trinidad three days after her husband was killed. Jose de la Trinidad, 36, left behind a wife and two daughters, ages 3 and 6 when he was shot dead by Los Angeles Sheriff’s Deputies on November 10, 2012.

An autopsy report obtained by the Los Angeles Times reveals that he was shot from behind. Five of the bullets pierced him in the upper and lower back, one in the right forearm, and another in his right hip. Four were described as fatal.

This makes the deputies who shot him look more guilty of execution-style murder than they already did.

Police say they opened fired because De la Trinidad was reaching for his waistband where he could have been keeping a gun. But this is contradicted by a witness who saw the whole thing. She says deputies opened fire on De la Trinidad after he followed their orders to turn around and put his hands above his head. The autopsy report confirms that he did in fact have his back turned to police when they killed him.

It all started when Jose and his older brother, Francisco, left his niece’s quinceañera. Police tried to pull them over for speeding, but Francisco, who was driving, refused to stop, prompting a brief car chase. A few blocks later, the car came to a sudden halt and Jose jumped out of the passengers seat. Francisco quickly took off again, forcing one deputy to drive after him. Meanwhile, Jose stood on the sidewalk where he was greeted by three deputies in the street with their guns drawn. That’s when, police say, Jose reached for his waistband to retrieve what they could only assume was a gun (because, duh, he’s brown!). Fearing for their lives, two of the deputies shot and killed him.

Little did they know that a nearby resident... witnessed the entire incident from her bedroom window directly above the shooting.

“His hands were on his head when they started shooting,” she told investigators canvassing the neighborhood for witnesses some 30 minutes after the shooting.

Estefani said De la Trinidad did jump out of the car after it came to a sudden stop. After he ran toward the deputies a few feet, they ordered him to stop and turn around — which he did immediately, she said.

Seconds later, the deputies opened fire, she said.

for more on police shootings of suspects : see for instance : National data on shootings by police not collected by Alan Maimon, Las Vegas Review journal , Nov. 28, 2011

and:
Police Involved Shootings 2011: Annual Report by Jim Fisher True Crime, January 12, 2013
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Gun industry targets kids to ensure future profits by Rania Khalek at Dispatches from the Underclass , January 27, 2013

The gun industry is spending millions of dollars a year to market their products to America’s children. Advertising to kids is all part of widening their customer base to combat the waning popularity of shooting sports. The New York Times reports:

The industry’s strategies include giving firearms, ammunition and cash to youth groups; weakening state restrictions on hunting by young children; marketing an affordable military-style rifle for “junior shooters” and sponsoring semiautomatic-handgun competitions for youths; and developing a target-shooting video game that promotes brand-name weapons, with links to the Web sites of their makers.

Ads encouraging the recreational use of semiautomatic rifles by children are regularly found in the youth magazine Junior Shooters, which is funded by the gun industry. The magazine’s editor once penned an article justifying advertising AR-15′s to children:

“I have heard people say, even shooters that participate in some of the shotgun shooting sports, such things as, ‘Why do you need a semiautomatic gun for hunting?’ ” he wrote. But if the industry is to survive, he said, gun enthusiasts must embrace all youth shooting activities, including ones “using semiautomatic firearms with magazines holding 30-100 rounds.”

"Semiautomatic firearms are actually not weapons," he said, "unless someone chooses to hurt another person with them, and their image has been unfairly tainted by the news media. There is no legitimate reason children should not learn to safely use an AR-15 for recreation," he said.

At the forefront of this campaign are the gun manufacturers and their biggest proponents/lobbyists, the National Rifle Association and the National Shooting Sports Foundation. And they’re spending big:

The N.R.A. has for decades given grants for youth shooting programs, mostly to Boy Scout councils and 4-H groups, which traditionally involved single-shot rimfire rifles, BB guns and archery. Its $21 million in total grants in 2010 was nearly double what it gave out five years earlier.

Newer initiatives by other organizations go further, seeking to introduce children to high-powered rifles and handguns while invoking the same rationale of those older, more traditional programs: that firearms can teach “life skills” like responsibility, ethics and citizenship. And the gun industry points to injury statistics that it says show a greater likelihood of getting hurt cheerleading or playing softball than using firearms for fun and sport.

----

The US federal government compiles stats on police shot in the line of duty but refuses to compile stats on the number of people shot by police . For some reason this is some sort of national security secret or just refusing to own up to how many US citizens are wounded or killed by police each year. So the number of citizens shot by police is of no interests to the federal government or they fear the stats could be used by various human rights groups to show that police shooting civilians occurs far too often and that many of the shootings are unwarranted. If the majority of shootings are considered warranted then why not compile stats to give to the public.

The FBI claims it doesn't collect such stats because of budgetary concerns -give me a break.

see for instance : National data on shootings by police not collected by Alan Maimon, Las Vegas Review journal , Nov. 28, 2011

The nation's leading law enforcement agency collects vast amounts of information on crime nationwide, but missing from this clearinghouse are statistics on where, how often, and under what circumstances police use deadly force. In fact, no one anywhere comprehensively tracks the most significant act police can do in the line of duty: take a life.

"We don't have a mandate to do that," said William Carr, an FBI spokesman in Washington, D.C. "It would take a request from Congress for us to collect that data."

Congress, it seems, hasn't asked.

The FBI, which has the power to conduct civil rights investigations related to any questionable use of deadly force by any law enforcement agency, has produced at least one report analyzing shootings over several years by its own agents.

In addition, the agency tracks the total annual number of "justifiable homicides," acts it defines as "the killing of a felon by a law enforcement officer in the line of duty," but that only covers people shot while committing a serious crime and the data aren't broken down by agency. In 2010, that number was 387, down from 414 the year before.

While the agency collects, reports, and analyzes murders and assaults where police are the victim, Carr said budgetary concerns would likely preclude collecting such detailed data on shootings by police.

Everyone from the Justice Department to the International Association of Police Chiefs to local and state police agencies have guidelines or policies on use of deadly force. But seldom do they try to quantify and analyze trends.

Police Involved Shootings 2011: Annual Report by Jim Fisher True Crime, January 12, 2013

In 2011, according to data I have collected, police officers in the United States shot 1,146 people, killing 607. Since January 1, 2011, I have been using the internet to compile a national database of police involved shootings. The term "police involved shooting" pertains to law enforcement officers who, in the line of duty, discharge their guns. When journalists and police administrators use the term, they include the shooting of animals and shots that miss their targets. My case files only include instances in which a person is either killed or wounded by police gunfire. My data also includes off-duty officers who discharged their weapons in law enforcement situations. They don't include, for example, officers using their firearms to resolve personal disputes.

I collected this data myself because the U.S. Government doesn't. There is no national database dedicated to police involved shootings. Alan Maimon, in his article, "National Data on Shootings by Police Not Collected," published on November 28, 2011 in the "Las Vegas Review-Journal," wrote "The nation's leading law enforcement agency [FBI] collects vast amounts of information on crime nationwide, but missing from this clearinghouse are statistics on where, how often, and under what circumstances police use deadly force. In fact, no one anywhere comprehensively tracks the most significant act police can do in the line of duty: take a life."

The government does maintain records on how many police officers are killed every year in the line of duty. In 2010, 59 officers were shot to death among 122 killed while on the job. This marked a 20 percent jump from 2009 when 49 officers were killed by gunfire. In 2011, 173 officers died, from all causes, in the line of duty. The fact police officers feel they are increasingly under attack from the public may help explain why they are shooting so many citizens.

also see:

Too Many Police Shootings: More Than A Few Bad Apples By Rinku Sen and Alysia Tate Sonomacountry freepress.com

The problem of fatal police shootings in America goes beyond a few bad apples. It points to persistent and systemic problems that lead to ongoing tragedies for communities of color. Between 1980 and 2005, close to 9,600 people were killed by police in America -- an average of about one fatal shooting every day. However, the real number may be higher due to underreporting by some departments to the federal government. For example, the Los Angeles Police Department responded to a Freedom of Information Act request by claiming there were 79 fatal police shootings from 2000 to 2005. Yet only 38 fatal shootings were reported to the federal government for the same period.

While the precise number may not be clear, it is apparent that fatal shootings are not inevitable. Washington, D.C. had the nation’s highest rate during the 90s. But a combination of firearms training for all and true accountability for misbehaving officers led to a dramatic drop in the number of fatal shootings. It’s also clear that shootings are not distributed evenly throughout the population. In Chicago, for example, more than two-thirds of the shootings happened in black and Latino neighborhoods, and the majority of the incidents occurred in poor neighborhoods.

African Americans are particularly at risk of being killed by police. Black people were overrepresented among victims in each of America’s 10 largest cities. This contrast was particularly glaring in New York, Las Vegas and San Diego, where the percentage of black people killed was at least double their share of the general population. “There is a crisis of perception where African American males and females take their lives in their hands just walking out the door,” said Delores Jones-Brown, interim director of the Center on Race, Crime and Justice at John Jay College in New York. “There is a notion they will be perceived as armed and dangerous. It’s clear that it’s not a local problem.”

The shootings may be explained in part by implicit bias on the part of police officers, according to research by University of Chicago Professor Joshua Correll. In New York, connecting negative stereotypes with racial identity was considered as a factor in the 1999 fatal shooting of Amadou Diallo and the 2006 shooting of Sean Bell -- both of which involved black male victims being killed by more than 40 shots fired by officers.

and so it goes,
GORD.

12 yr old Abused By Neo-Nazi Dad Convicted of Murder & Obama The War President: "MLK Would Be Ashamed"- David Swanson Interview

Children are suffering from a hidden epidemic of child abuse and neglect. Every year 3.3 million reports of child abuse are made in the United States involving nearly 6 million children (a report can include multiple children).

The United States has the worst record in the industrialized nation – losing five children every day due to abuse-related deaths.

Quotes and chart From : Child Abuse in AmericaNational Child Abuse Statistics/Child Help

Today's Topics

*Comparing Martin Luther King Jr. to President Obama
* MLK would be ashamed of the actions of Obama
* Obama and US government fail to protect children
*USA does not recognize the designation of " child soldiers"
*USA courts treat children as adults
*Child who shot and killed abusive Neo-Nazi father convicted of murder


Obama The War President "MLK Would Be Ashamed"- David Swanson Interview



Does an abused child have the right to fight back against his abusers even if the abuser is a parent or is a child the property of the parent and therefore has no rights.

One wonders if this happened in Iran or North Korea would American politicians be anxiously flooding the media with the story to prove how depraved those societies are.

Once again Americans don't disappoint and prove their own fanaticism in dealing with a child who kills an abusive father. The fact that this child was raised by a Neo-Nazi hate preaching and violence justifying father we could therefore predict that he too would at some point either rebel or take to his father's ideology and to not just preach hate but to put that hate into acts of violence. The father was not in any way a good father but was abusive and taught his children his own hate-filled conspiratorial violent racist bigoted ideology.

At ten years old the child did what he thought was the only way to stop the abuse was to use violence to pick up a gun and shoot his father which was as he was taught the only way to resolve an issue or problem .

He committed this act of violence at age ten and yet the courts in America refuse once again to empathize and sympathize with this child who was in fact a victim of long term abuse to which he responded in the only way he new how.

In more enlightened nations the child would not be treated as an adult but as being a child who was the victim. Instead in the good old USA the child is treated as being a criminal and a murderer . The question is why would the justice system treat a child in this outrageous manner.

But this fits America's pattern when it comes to other issues involving children such as "Child Soldiers" which is an internationally recognized designation for combatants aged 15 or under. A child soldier is supposed to be treated not the same as adult combatants. Instead the child soldier is to be treated as a victim who is in need of rehabilitation and education and therapeutic help til he is ready to re-enter society as a responsible human being.

But according to Americans children while in the care of their parents are the property of the parents and so have no independent legal rights. So if a child is being abused the child must keep silent and endure the abuse??? If the child is being used for prostitution the child still has no rights or if they are trained to become soldiers by their parents than the child must submit unless he 's captured by US officials soldiers or FBI or CIA then the child is treated the same as an adult captured armed combatant ie incarcerated , abused and tortured and denied any legal rights or standing.


For example the USA and one other country Somalia refuse to sign onto defending the rights of children
  " Why Is the U.S. Against Children’s Rights?" By Lawrence J. Cohen and Anthony T. DeBenedet, M.D. at Time.com. Jan 24, 2012

Recently the U.N. special representative on violence against children called on member countries to ratify two optional protocols to the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child which would help prevent the sale of children, child prostitution, child pornography and the involvement of children in armed conflict around the world. The Convention was adopted in 1989 to promote basic human rights for children everywhere, but the latest effort to extend those protections underscores a disturbing truth: the United States is one of only two U.N. member countries not to have ratified the original Convention (the other country is Somalia — which doesn’t have a functioning government.) The Convention was drafted during the Reagan and Clinton administrations — with a great deal of influence from the United States — but has never been presented to the Senate for consent, which is the final step to ratification. Why?

The message it sends to other victims of abuse is chilling . For instance a woman who is being abused , beaten, raped by her husband if she reports this and nothing is done and she takes matters into her own hands and murders the SOB in America the sympathy goes to the abusive man and not the abused woman. The notion many people in America have is that the woman is supposed to be submissive to her husband because the Bible says so and so should just keep quiet and learn to live with such abuse.

So what is supposed to be the message to other children in America suffering abuse to remain in the abusive situation because the Bible says to honor your father and mother no matter what.

Are there accessible programs for a child to enter or a crisis center to call for help or is the view that children as the property of their parents just have no rights.

So like a rape victim who fights back and kills her attacker is imprisoned for life or even executed. Or is it only if she kills the attacker by accident during their struggle. But if the victim after being raped gets a weapon confronts her attacker and kills him then suddenly its first degree murder.

This is extremely hypocritical in a culture which promotes guns and violence which says that even in a public place a shopping mall or church if you feel threatened you can pull out your gun or whatever weapon you have and stop that person by wounding, maiming or killing them. Yet a ten year old boy gets no such breaks from America's notorious system of injustice. The injustices are especially aimed at women and children and minorities ie Blacks and Latinos etc.

" Boy who shot neo-Nazi dad is convicted of murder The defense argued that growing up in a racist, abusive household gutted the child of moral agency" By Natasha Lennard at Salon.com, Jan. 14, 2013

Two years ago a 10-year-old California boy shot his father, a neo-Nazi, at point blank range in the head. On Monday, the child, now 12, was convicted of second-degree murder and could remain in jail until he is 23-years-old.

The boy’s father, Jeff Hall, was a regional leader of the National Socialist Movement and, the court learned, brought his son up in a household plagued with violence and abuse. Although the judge determined that the boy shot his father with premeditated intent, the trial focused on whether the boy could possess moral agency. In neo-Nazi a household, in which a child learns that it is acceptable to abuse and kill perceived threats, can this child be expected to understand “right” from “wrong?”

As the LA Times reported, “Public Defender Matthew Hardy focused on the boy’s abusive home life, where gunplay and neo-Nazi gatherings were commonplace. Witnesses testified that Hall beat his son repeatedly, often in drunken or drug-addled rages.”

According to the AP, “The boy said in a videotaped interview with police that he didn’t think he’d get in trouble because he saw an episode of Criminal Minds in which a child killed an abusive father and wasn’t arrested.”

Although the judge recognized the defendant’s history of abuse, he ruled that the child was in a position to make a moral judgement. “Even with that background, the court must look at the facts of the case,” the judge said.

A separate hearing will be held to determine whether the boy should be sent to a juvenile detention center run by the state Department of Corrections, sent to an alternative treatment facility or placed on probation.

As the New York Times noted in 2011, the shooting “cast fresh light on the fringe group to which Mr. Hall devoted his life: the National Socialist Movement, the nation’s largest neo-Nazi party, whose message stands in surreal juxtaposition to the suburban, workaday trappings of many of its members.” Based in Detroit, the NSM has about 400 members in 32 states. Prior to Hall’s shooting, the Times were investigating the racist group and witnessed “virulent, hate-filled rallies as well as barbecues and baby showers in the backyard of Hall’s Southern California home,” where the young, newly convicted boy was raised.

Child abuse statistics at Child Help.org

A report of child abuse is made every ten seconds

*More than five children die every day as a result of child abuse.

Approximately 80% of children that die from abuse are under the age of 4. 1

It is estimated that between 50-60% of child fatalities due to maltreatment are not recorded as such on death certificates.

More than 90% of juvenile sexual abuse victims know their perpetrator in some way.

Child abuse occurs at every socioeconomic level, across ethnic and cultural lines, within all religions and at all levels of education.

About 30% of abused and neglected children will later abuse their own children, continuing the horrible cycle of abuse.

About 80% of 21 year olds that were abused as children met criteria for at least one psychological disorder. 

The estimated annual cost of child abuse and neglect in the United States for 2008 is $124 billion.

and so it goes,
GORD.

Fox News Hypocrisy Upset About NRA Compared To NAZIS

Michael Savage , Glenn Beck, Fox News etc. compare Obama to Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini,Mao, Pol Pott etc. Meanwhile while these right wing loons hypocritically are now complaining and whining about liberals comparing NRA and pro-gun extremists to NAZIs.
Screen shots taken from Michael Savage videos

Obama as Hitler in oversized coat congratulating NAZI uniformed children

Fox News and other members of the right-wing media and GOP upset that some liberals are comparing the NRA and other pro-gun extremists to Hitler and the NAZIS . They claim this sort of over the top rhetoric should not be part of the national dialogue on gun control issues.

But they forget that from the election primaries of 2008 til the present time 2013 they were quite vocal in their fear mongering rhetoric against Obama claiming Obama was a new Hitler and was going to destroy America and fill the streets with his young Brown Shirted supporters as they herded conservatives into the FEMA concentration camps or re-education camps run by Obama.

If such things were just said by a few conspiracy nuts such as Alex Jones and the David Icke, Paul Rand crazy train on the fringe we could ignore it . But this comparison of Obama to Hitler became a right wing talking point which was instead being pushed by people like Glenn Beck, Michelle Malkin,Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham, Bill O'Reilly, Michele Bachmann, Ann Coulter, Rush Limbaugh, Michael Savage .

Drudge Report on Jan. 9, 2013 compared Obama to Hitler and Stalin over his modest gun control initiatives.

and if you just key in Obama Mao Hitler etc there is a massive number of pics of Obama with or in the roles one of these brutal dictators . And yet the right says they never compared Obama to these dictators.

The funny thing or the irony to many progressives and liberals is that Obama if anything too far to the right though in all fairness in the USA the political right has become the new political center. The left has been for all intents and purposes been marginalized and rendered impotent while even the far right are treated as part of the norm in American political discourse.

But when these bizarre characters on Fox News and in the right-wing media repeat these accusations against Obama it did not in any way help the conservative causes or the Republican Party. It was this sort of rhetoric which turned many undecideds and even some otherwise loyal Republicans to either vote for Obama or just not bother to vote since their party was just mean-spirited and nasty without any substantive policies to put forward.

So we got this parade of crazies in the media comparing Obama to Hitler, Mussolini, Lenin, Stalin, Pol Pott which made it impossible to discuss issues in a rational manner and to find ways to compromise.

Fox News Can't Decide If It's OK To Call Someone Hitler

23 Jan 2013 Depends which side of the gun debate they are on.

more at foxnews.com

Racist Glenn Beck compares Obama to Hitler and Nazi's

Limbaugh Compares Obama to Hitler Again (and Again)
TYT August 2009.

Hank Williams Jr. Compares Obama to Hitler.- Fox & Friends - 10/3/11

Uploaded on 3 Oct 2011

(Hank's Golf Game Analogy)Hank Williams Jr. Compares Obama to Hitler.- Fox & Friends - 10/3/11 - Breaking AP - Hank Jr. writes song about 'Fox & Friends,' ESPN - Listen to new song here - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQ042HlDrd8

Rev. Manning: Obama Is A New Hitler

Uploaded on 9 Jun 2008

The Honorable James David Manning compares Obama to Hitler. This message was preached on 7 June 2008. Follow us on twitter. http://twitter.com/atlahworldwide

Obama Youth vs Hitler Youth?
May 4, 2012.

Michael Savage -Compares Obama to Mao & Hitler

Movie About Wikileaks Assange Calls a Hit Piece & Obama's Betrayal Of His Supporters

We’re only days into Barack Obama’s second term, and he’s in real danger of becoming all but irrelevant, of being remembered as an interesting but minor president whose principal importance was symbolic. Oh, don’t get me wrong — it was definitely stirring to hear Obama drop the tone of bogus bipartisan conciliation in a fiery and forthright inaugural address that was without any serious doubt the most “liberal” presidential speech delivered since the days of Lyndon B. Johnson. ... But don’t hold your breath waiting for any of that stuff he talked about to become reality.

Above quote by Sally Kohn open letter to President Obama Jan 26, 2013 via Salon.com

Don’t let me down, Obama! Your second inaugural address raised my hopes -- again. But I don't know how much disappointment I can take By Sally Kohn at Salon.com, Jan. 26, 2013

In America, if you commit a war crime and torture someone – nothing happens to you. But if you blow the whistle on this war crime – then get ready to go to jail.

On Friday, CIA whistleblower, John Kiriakou, was sentenced to 30 months in jail, for releasing classified information that exposed the CIA's use of waterboarding. Kiriakou is one of six current, or former, government officials, who've been slapped with criminal charges from the Obama administration for leaking classified information. That's more crackdowns on government whistleblowers than all other Presidential administrations combined.

We should not be jailing brave individuals who exposed war crimes in an effort to stop them. But, we should be locking up George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and the rest of their ilk, who knowingly allowed the United States to become a nation that tortures. It will take a long time to heal the deep moral wounds these men inflicted on our nation.

Above news item and Quote from Thom Hartmann: On the News With Thom Hartmann: CIA Whistleblower Gets 30 Months in Jail for Releasing Classified Information on Waterboarding, and More via Truthout.org,Jan. 26, 2013

Thom Hartmann doesn't mention the fact that which maybe stopping Obama for prosecuting George Bush and the gang is that for one thing  he and his administration does not want to roll back the power of the presidency which had been increased under Bush . Another reason is that Obama has committed during his time in office he has initiated his own War Crimes and Crimes against humanity and other crimes contravening international law but also has committed actions which are considered crimes under American law and that by doing so he has as president contravened the US constitution . Obama has been a disappointment on a number of levels .

 But he has tossed a bone or two to the electorate such as permitting Gays to get married and to serve in the military openly and to allow women to serve in the military as equals to their male counterparts and he managed to get through a watered down version of health care .

But so far he has done nothing til the last couple of weeks about gun control or about rampant police brutality across the USA or helped minority groups such as Blacks and Latinos who are targeted by police and so are incarcerated disproportionately compared to white Americans while at the same time Obama did more to help out the wealthy on Wall Street than he did for average Americans who lost their jobs, their homes etc. all due to the Criminals on Wall St. and their massive international Ponzi schemes. Money talks and those without are ignored or put off with rhetorical nonsense.

Another incident of President Obama's betrayal of his supporters is Obama's attacks on Wikileaks and Julian Assange . As a candidate Obama pretending to support Whistleblowers and would enact laws to protect Whistleblowers when in fact he has been more aggressive going after whistleblower than the previous openly conservative regime of George W. Bush. So who's side is Obama on . The status quo it appears is more important than going after those who have committed war crimes. He has even put one of the architects John Brennan of the torture program and Drone Wars and Targeted Assassinations as the new head of the infamous rogue CIA.

Democracy Now! Obama's Dick Cheney

Published on 7 Jan 2013

DemocracyNow.org - Dubbed the assassination czar, presumptive CIA nominee John Brennan has played a key role backing some of the nation's most controversial post-9/11 policies from the secret drone war to wireless surveillance. Brennan was a rumored pick for the job when Obama was first elected in 2008, but was forced to withdraw from consideration amid protests over his role at the CIA under George W. Bush and his public support for the CIA's policies of so-called "enhanced interrogation techniques" and extraordinary rendition.

We're joined by Marcy Wheeler, an investigative blogger with the website, EmptyWheel. Wheeler calls Brennan's nomination, "a testament to what kind of hard-nosed person Barack Obama has become and the degree to which his policies are really just a continuation of the Bush-Cheney policies."

Julian Assange revealed war crimes committed by the USA and Britain and is therefore considered by both nations as an enemy of both Britain and America. Both governments hide behind national security concerns to cover up crimes committed by them or committed in their name.

Obama's hope and change once again is mostly meaningless rhetoric and yet his staunchest supporters who should know better defend his criminal acts such as war crimes and crimes against humanity because somehow these wannabe progressives see these actions as necessary when Obama does them though they complained when Bush did them.

Assange: WikiLeaks film script leaked to WikiLeaks at Wral.com, Jan. 25, 2013

LONDON -- If you're making a movie about WikiLeaks, this is the kind of thing you probably see coming.

Julian Assange says he has obtained a leaked copy of the script for "The Fifth Estate," a DreamWorks film about the maverick computer expert and his famed secret-busting site. In a speech before the Oxford Union debating society earlier this week, Assange said his unauthorized sneak peek has left him convinced the film is a hit piece.

"It is a mass propaganda attack against WikiLeaks, the organization (and) the character of my staff," he said, adding that the movie – the opening scenes of which Assange described as taking place in Tehran and Cairo – also hyped Western fears over the Islamic Republic's disputed atomic energy program.

"It is not just an attack against us, it is an attack against Iran. It fans the flames of an attack against Iran," he said.

A DreamWorks spokeswoman declined to comment on Assange's claims.

In a telephone interview late Friday, Assange said that the film's plot revolves around a fictional mole in Iran's nuclear program who discovers that the country has nearly finished building an atom bomb and will soon be in a position to load it onto ballistic missiles. The film has the informant fleeing to Iraq when WikiLeaks publishes his name among its massive trove of classified material.

Assange says the whole story is "a lie built on a lie," claiming that the U.S. intelligence community generally believes that Iran stopped comprehensive secret work on developing nuclear arms in 2003, and that, in any case, the world had yet to see evidence of a case in which WikiLeaks had exposed a CIA informant.

"They tried to frame Iran as having an active nuclear weapons program. Then they try to frame WikiLeaks as the reason why that's not known to the public now," Assange said, comparing the movie to Kathryn Bigelow's "Zero Dark Thirty," another film whose artistic liberties with recent history have drawn allegations of political bias.

Assange declined to say where he got the script, although he hinted that he had been supplied with several copies of it over time. He also declined to say whether the script would be posted to the WikiLeaks website, saying only that "we are examining options closely."

"The Fifth Estate" stars Benedict Cumberbatch as Assange and Daniel Bruhl as Daniel Domscheit-Berg, an early Assange ally who eventually fell out with WikiLeaks.

The film is due for release in November, and in a statement earlier this week director Bill Condon was quoted as saying that those behind the movie want "to explore the complexities and challenges of transparency in the information age" and "enliven and enrich the conversations WikiLeaks has already provoked."

Assange made his comments to the Oxford Union on Wednesday via videolink from the Ecuadorean Embassy in London, where he has been holed up for more than six months in a bid to avoid extradition to Sweden as part of a long-running sex crimes case.

In speeches Obama is a crusading liberal-progressive in reality he is on the right of the Democratic party who just wants to please everybody and therefore please no one or at least very few.
Obama's greatest hits in inaugural speech mostly borrowed from FDR, JFK and Lyndon Johnson.

He says he's ending decade long war and yet the wars will continue but possibly re-branded to appease liberals and wannabe progressives as he orders more attacks on more nations all in the name of American hegemony.

Obama is still not going after those who have committed war crimes and crimes against humanity who served under George W. Bush mainly because he has adopted most of Bush' policies .


Obama was lip-synching too That big "liberal" speech sure sounded terrific — but it's almost too late for Obama to redeem his presidency By Andrew O'Hehir Salon.com, Jan. 26,2013

The star of last Monday’s big show was also lip-synching, in a sense, mouthing the lyrics to greatest hits from the songbook of Franklin D. Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy. It sounded great, especially to those of us who voted for him despite grave misgivings. But was it real?

We’re only days into Barack Obama’s second term, and he’s in real danger of becoming all but irrelevant, of being remembered as an interesting but minor president whose principal importance was symbolic. Oh, don’t get me wrong — it was definitely stirring to hear Obama drop the tone of bogus bipartisan conciliation in a fiery and forthright inaugural address that was without any serious doubt the most “liberal” presidential speech delivered since the days of Lyndon B. Johnson. ... But don’t hold your breath waiting for any of that stuff he talked about to become reality.

Presidents almost invariably have a more difficult time enacting major policy initiatives in their second terms. They may have been personally set free from short-term political consequences, but no one else in Washington shares that liberation. As the months pass toward another electoral cycle, second-term presidents look more and more like lame ducks. The likelihood that Obama will go into the history books as a “transformational figure” who reshapes American politics has dwindled to nearly nothing, if it ever existed in the first place.

...Obama has never shown the slightest inclination to rein in the exaggerated executive powers of the Bush-Cheney era, or the super-secret surveillance powers of the post-9/11 national security state. He may have ended the practices of torture and rendition and closed at least some of the CIA’s secret prisons, but we really can’t know any of that for sure. What we do know is that he has ramped up the drone wars in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen and elsewhere, and has claimed the right to kill any civilians he doesn’t like, including American citizens, anywhere in the world, on secret evidence and on his sole authority. Most of the president’s liberal defenders, who would have been outraged had George W. Bush done those things, have shrugged this off...

On both national security and Obama’s handling of the economy, you can’t claim his hands were tied. He absolutely had the power to set a progressive new course and didn’t use it – unless, that is, you want to take the cynical position that no president these days truly possesses the power to stand up against Wall Street and the big corporations. ... As Paul Krugman has consistently reminded us, Obama made clear choices at every step in his response to the financial and economic crisis, and chose to leave control of financial policy in the hands of the same Wall Street geniuses who brought us to the brink of apocalypse.

Throughout his career, Obama has been a cautious, calculating politician. Even when he has adopted the rhetoric and manner of a more prophetic and progressive leader, he has deliberately steered away from the kind of far-reaching liberal policy agenda he now claims to be embracing. ...Those instincts have helped him repeatedly win elections, bedevil opponents and bewilder supporters. But he’s no longer running for anything, and the beginning of the end of his presidency is at hand. Will he be remembered as a president who changed America, or just as an amorphous symbol of changes that were happening anyway? Is it too late for him to sing the song for real?

--------
Obama's betrayal of his progressive supporters has led not just to disappointment but skepticism and cynicism there are few if any politicians one can trust.

Don’t let me down, Obama! Your second inaugural address raised my hopes -- again. But I don't know how much disappointment I can take
By Sally Kohn at Salon.com, Jan. 26, 2013

Sure, I had friends from Illinois progressive circles who warned me that, no matter the rhetoric, you were a proven centrist at heart. They shouted and waved their hands. But I didn’t listen. I was enthralled and excited and brimming with hope.

Never before had there been a candidate for president who was neither a banker nor a politician’s son but a community organizer. Never before had there been a candidate for president who talked about racial justice and equality and opportunity with the same passion and urgency I recognize in my friends and fellow activists. Never before had there been a candidate for president who so robustly defended the role of government and the idea that we are all in it together, America’s sense of collective responsibility inextricably bound with our value for individual liberty. You even took the left-wing movement chant, Si se puede!, and adapted it for your own campaign slogan! At times, your sentiments and ideals seemed as if plucked from my own heart.

Your words raised my hopes. But your actions have let me down.

I’m not sure what has depressed me the most. First you abandoned the progressive priorities on which you campaigned, from closing Guantanamo to prosecuting bank fraud to addressing climate change. Then you embraced reactionary policies, from drone strikes to spending cuts to record deportations of immigrants. Then, just when you might think that those first two were a potentially brilliant rope-a-dope strategy to divide and conquer conservative opposition so that you had the political capital to stand firm on other issues, you failed to recognize the entrenched nature of the more-extremist-than-ever Republican Party and got rolled over and over again.

...But then, bookended by the Lincoln Memorial and the Capitol building, standing firmly in the shadow of Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Martin Luther King Jr. before you, you sent my hopes soaring yet again with your inaugural address. In my lifetime, I have never heard and may never hear a more powerful and persuasive articulation of why we band together as individuals to form the national community we call government. You reminded us all that the responsibility of a nation is not just to its wealthiest citizens but to its most vulnerable, and that the tradition of America, what has made us great, is not the few born into privilege and preserved as such through history but the many born to far less greatness who are able to persevere and prosper — that this arc of progress and opportunity for all is what makes America truly great. And you seemed to commit yourself to fighting the great fights of our generation — to protect our planet, to ensure basic rights and recognition for immigrants and gay families, to eradicate poverty and gender inequality, to protect the safety net for everyone who needs it.

Mr. President, my hopes are high. You have made me yet again proud to be an American and proud to have cast my vote in your favor. And I will do my part to fight along with you for the dazzling vision of justice and fairness and the common good that you dangled before the nation’s eyes on your second inauguration. But I cannot be let down again. I don’t know how much more disappointment I can take. I’m tired of signing e-pledges to have your back — and then you back down. If you fight, I’ll fight. But if you back down again, you’ll lose me.

But every damn time — from health care to the stimulus to the tax cuts to the debt ceiling –time and time again, I swore it would be different. That this time you would stand up for single payer or stand firm against the Keystone pipeline or make clear once and for all that entitlement cuts are off the table. Every damn time I got my hopes up. And most of the time I was disappointed. Not because I don’t understand the pragmatism and compromise necessary in politics, but because you seemed to loosen your grasp on the core principles and promises that must go hand-in-hand with such compromise.

So let’s be honest, by the time your re-election campaign came around, I had fully collapsed like a deflated balloon into the yawning chasm of your enthusiasm gap. Publicly, I tried to deny that such an enthusiasm gap even existed because I was trying to convince myself more than anyone else that my hope had indeed still been kept alive.

and so it goes,
GORD.

U.N. Launches Drone Investigation And Obama Lies About War On Terror Being Over And Finally American Women To Serve In Combat Roles

Violence against women embedded in America's culture

...We have an abundance of rape and violence against women in this country and on this Earth, though it’s almost never treated as a civil rights or human rights issue, or a crisis, or even a pattern. Violence doesn’t have a race, a class, a religion, or a nationality, but it does have a gender.

...Women’s liberation has often been portrayed as a movement intent on encroaching upon or taking power and privilege away from men, as though in some dismal zero-sum game, only one gender at a time could be free and powerful. But we are free together or slaves together.

There are other things I’d rather write about, but this affects everything else. The lives of half of humanity are still dogged by, drained by, and sometimes ended by this pervasive variety of violence.

Quote from: A Rape a Minute, a Thousand Corpses a Year by Rebecca Solnit at Huffington Post, Jan. 24, 2013

Today's Topics:

* President Obama's lies and propaganda about the Global War On Terror- the world is a battlefield
* UN to investigate US policy regarding Drone attacks-is the UN serious or just trying to placate critics of the Drone program.
* Gender equality in US military -now more women soldiers can take part in war crimes and crimes against humanity
* In Canada in contrast has had women in combat roles since 1989-America is behind the times and not a trend setter but rather reluctant follower
* co-opting feminists to silence their objections to war
* Violence against women is embedded and treated as the norm in American society as it is in other nations


UN to begin investigation into the use of Drones video care of Huffington Post:

U.N. Launches Drone Investigation Into Legality Of U.S. Program by Joshua Hersh at Huffington Post, Jan. 24,2013

-- The United Nations opened a major new investigation on Thursday into the United States' use of drones and targeted assassinations.

The U.N. investigation, led by special rapporteur on counterterrorism and human rights Ben Emmerson, is expected to focus on the legal justification for America's expansive drone program, which has largely remained secretive and unexamined.

"The exponential rise in the use of drone technology in a variety of military and non-military contexts represents a real challenge to the framework of established international law," Emmerson said in a statement released by his office.

"It is therefore imperative that appropriate legal and operational structures are urgently put in place to regulate its use in a manner that complies with the requirements of international law, including international human rights law, international humanitarian law (or the law of war as it used to be called), and international refugee law."

Maybe it is unfair to pick apart an Obama speech when it serves its own purpose as possibly entertainment , a lesson in mastering rhetoric or just part of an American tradition which has only a little relationship to reality or the actual intent of the person making the speech or in more cynical terms is just more propaganda to quiet down the great unwashed and preach to them about equality and justice for all while the Presidency and government are used to protect the rich and powerful and as much as the status quo as possible. Sometimes governments are forced to make changes when the public is dissatisfied with current laws. So the incoming President has to throw a bone or two to each of the various groups who have supported him including those in the lower classes but more often than not the change is one of appearance of fog and mirrors while the status quo is protected .


The Number One Falsehood in Obama's Inaugural Speech: 'Decade of War is Now Ending' by Alex Kane, Alternet.org, Jan. 23, 2013

Obama uttered a major falsehood, something that progressives should call him out on, and yet not many did (though Salon’s Natasha Lennard was on it). And the falsehood speaks to a highly important legacy that Obama will be leaving behind: the institutionalization of a permanent war footing so the U.S. can wreak havoc around the globe in the name of fightin’ terror.

“A decade of war is now ending,” said Obama, in his inaugural address.

But you see, Obama is not ending any war. It is true that he pulled out of Iraq, though that was only after the Iraqi government rebuffed his requests for U.S. troops to stay past 2012. And it is true that plans are being formulated for U.S. troops to leave Afghanistan--but it is also true that the Obama administration has held negotiations over having U.S. troops occupy that country for longer.

But the brazen lie that Obama has ended a decade of war comes in full view when you look at his record on drones. On the same day as Obama was inaugurated, his outgoing Secretary of Defense was much more truthful on this issue: “The reality is [drones are] going to be a continuing tool of national defense in the future.”

These drone strikes have hit Yemen, Pakistan and Somalia, and have indeed waged war on both militants there and the civilian population.

The US military has announced that women will be finally after decades of complaints allowed to officially take part in combat missions. This is sort of a change for the better in recognizing that women in military be treated as equal to their male counterparts. Some see it as a major step forward in gender equality .
 Note Canadian female soldiers have been taking part in combat since 1989.

Canadian women in combat roles bring their experiences to Australia The Canadian Press via Huffington Post, May 25, 2012

 ...The Canadian Forces now have women in some of the most senior, and some of the most dangerous jobs — navy divers and bomb disposal experts, to name just two.

Defence Minister Peter MacKay says the position of women in the Canadian military is inspiring.

"Canadians and Australians are very like-minded, but a number of other countries have really seen Canada as the gold standard when it comes to how women are treated in the forces, their advancement, their promotion to leadership positions," MacKay said in interview.

...The reticence of some countries to include women in combat roles is based on several false assumptions rooted in emotion rather than data, says Carignan.

The first is that women aren't hard-wired to participate in violence.

"You go through training together as a team and you learn how to apply your rules of engagement and you train in that field," she says. "When you get into a tense situation, your training kicks in. Application of violence is a completely gender neutral concept."

Another belief is that women aren't physically or mentally strong enough to cope with the rigours of combat — a notion the British government emphasized when they upheld the ban on women in frontline combat two years ago.

Carignan says men and women all come to the military with varying capabilities, and it's up to the leadership to deploy them based on strengths and weaknesses.

"We've seen this countless times out in operations or on exercises — the guy who ends up saving the day on the battlefield is not the guy who looks best in the weight room."

And then there's the perception that the public won't accept women dying on the battlefield. Capt. Nichola Goddard's death in Afghanistan in 2006 received significant attention, but at the time she was also only the 16th Canadian soldier killed in combat during the mission.

Afghanistan was the first war that Canadian women served in combat roles.

"Really, I find it quite offensive that we would think that losing a woman in combat is worse than losing a man," says Carignan. "Losing a soldier is a tragedy, period, regardless of the gender."

MacKay says having women in all aspects of the military isn't just a matter of equality, but can also bring benefits. He cites the example of Afghan girls and women who watched as Canadian women protected them and sometimes commanded male soldiers.

"I think there is nothing more vivid than that actual example that's being set by our women in the military," said MacKay.

Canada removed restrictions to women holding combat arms occupations in 1989, with the exception of service on submarines. That last restriction was lifted in 2001.

 Or is it just a way to co-opt and to help mute those who are against America's Military Imperialism .

So will 'Code Pink' be less vocal about its opposition to America's perpetual state of war and the mass murdering of innocent civilians in foreign nations . As it stands now most anti-war activists have already been muted since the election of President Obama in 2008 whether because Obama is a democrat and not a Republican or because in his speeches he talks as if he were a liberal or progressive or because he is the first black president it has created a difference in the way anti-war activists now view the wars being fought by President Obama. Obama is no more justified in his on going military strategies and tactics in the phony war on terror as was President George W. Bush.

There are some nagging problems being over-looked that is the US military and top brass' refusal to do anything substantive about the epidemic of sexual assaults committed by male soldiers against female soldiers. So this issue also needs to be addressed more formally and openly by the US military before we can conclude that women are now the equals to men in the military when these injustices of sexual assaults continue to be covered-up and not treated as serious crimes in the US military . How can women safely serve as equals in the US military when sexual assault is a constant threat and when it occurs it is treated in a dismissive manner.

Another issue to be raised is that if the US military is involved in war crimes and crimes against humanity committing various atrocities as a daily occurrence we can wonder if having female combat soldiers taking part in similar crimes is somehow a move in the right direction for gender equality. So now American women in the US military can now join their male counterparts in committing war crimes and crimes against humanity.

For an analysis of the violence against women in the USA see Rebecca Solnit's article which is an indictment against American society and patriarchal misogynist culture and its justice system which has done little to help with a sincere, honest, conversation on this topic.

In her article she compares the outcry about a gang rape in India while such cases in the USA are either ignored or down played or dismissed out of hand using a plethora of excuses for why these men did what they did. In many cases the men who raped or sexually assaulted a woman are depicted as if sexual assault was not a serious crime but rather just men being men or boys will be boys.


At times it appears as if in America and Western Culture in general that violence against women from sexual assault to women being battered by a male partner or even killed is seen as just something we all have to live with . Though as she points out the victims of this violence are the women while the men involved in such violence only a relatively few ever end up being charged or go to court or imprisoned. In America a thousand women are killed each year by men who may feel entitled to unleash their anger on women.

Thousands of rapes each year go unreported in part because the women may believe that they will not be taken seriously by those in positions of authority and that it may be used against them to undermine their reputation to losing their job and livelihood or to be characterized as easy, or a tease, or a slut or a trouble maker and so forth. So the female victim if she goes public gets to be victimized again by those in authority and the media


A Rape a Minute, a Thousand Corpses a Year by Rebecca Solnit at Huffington Post, Jan. 24, 2013

...Here in the United States, where there is a reported rape every 6.2 minutes, and one in five women will be raped in her lifetime, the rape and gruesome murder of a young woman on a bus in New Delhi on December 16th was treated as an exceptional incident. The story of the alleged rape of an unconscious teenager by members of the Steubenville High School football team was still unfolding, and gang rapes aren’t that unusual here either. Take your pick: some of the 20 men who gang-raped an 11-year-old in Cleveland, Texas, were sentenced in November, while the instigator of the gang rape of a 16-year-old in Richmond, California, was sentenced in October, and four men who gang-raped a 15-year-old near New Orleans were sentenced in April, though the six men who gang-raped a 14-year-old in Chicago last fall are still at large. Not that I actually went out looking for incidents: they’re everywhere in the news, though no one adds them up and indicates that there might actually be a pattern.

There is, however, a pattern of violence against women that’s broad and deep and horrific and incessantly overlooked. Occasionally, a case involving a celebrity or lurid details in a particular case get a lot of attention in the media, but such cases are treated as anomalies, while the abundance of incidental news items about violence against women in this country, in other countries, on every continent including Antarctica, constitute a kind of background wallpaper for the news.

...We have an abundance of rape and violence against women in this country and on this Earth, though it’s almost never treated as a civil rights or human rights issue, or a crisis, or even a pattern. Violence doesn’t have a race, a class, a religion, or a nationality, but it does have a gender.

Here I want to say one thing: though virtually all the perpetrators of such crimes are men, that doesn’t mean all men are violent. Most are not. In addition, men obviously also suffer violence, largely at the hands of other men, and every violent death, every assault is terrible. But the subject here is the pandemic of violence by men against women, both intimate violence and stranger violence.

...The Party for the Protection of the Rights of Rapists

It’s not just public, or private, or online either. It’s also embedded in our political system, and our legal system, which before feminists fought for us didn’t recognize most domestic violence, or sexual harassment and stalking, or date rape, or acquaintance rape, or marital rape, and in cases of rape still often tries the victim rather than the rapist, as though only perfect maidens could be assaulted -- or believed.

As we learned in the 2012 election campaign, it’s also embedded in the minds and mouths of our politicians. Remember that spate of crazy pro-rape things Republican men said last summer and fall, starting with Todd Akin's notorious claim that a woman has ways of preventing pregnancy in cases of rape, a statement he made in order to deny women control over their own bodies. After that, of course, Senate candidate Richard Mourdock claimed that rape pregnancies were “a gift from God,” and just this month, another Republican politician piped up to defend Akin’s comment.

Happily the five publicly pro-rape Republicans in the 2012 campaign all lost their election bids. (Stephen Colbert tried to warn them that women had gotten the vote in 1920.) But it’s not just a matter of the garbage they say (and the price they now pay). Earlier this month, congressional Republicans refused to reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act, because they objected to the protection it gave immigrants, transgendered women, and Native American women. (Speaking of epidemics, one of three Native American women will be raped, and on the reservations 88% of those rapes are by non-Native men who know tribal governments can’t prosecute them.)

And they’re out to gut reproductive rights -- birth control as well as abortion, as they’ve pretty effectively done in many states over the last dozen years. What’s meant by “reproductive rights,” of course, is the right of women to control their own bodies...

And though rapes are often investigated lackadaisically -- there is a backlog of about 400,000 untested rape kits in this country-- rapists who impregnate their victims have parental rights in 31 states. Oh, and former vice-presidential candidate and current congressman Paul Ryan (R-Manistan) is reintroducing a bill that would give states the right to ban abortions and might even conceivably allow a rapist to sue his victim for having one.

...Women’s liberation has often been portrayed as a movement intent on encroaching upon or taking power and privilege away from men, as though in some dismal zero-sum game, only one gender at a time could be free and powerful. But we are free together or slaves together.

There are other things I’d rather write about, but this affects everything else. The lives of half of humanity are still dogged by, drained by, and sometimes ended by this pervasive variety of violence.

and so it goes,
GORD.