mr. miracle the blueprint, the foundationstone, the embodiment of the paradigm...,

jhu |  Hustle's most revelatory chapter focuses on black churches. And it's illuminating precisely for how Spence connects the content of "prosperity gospel," a variant of evangelical Christianity, to the political imaginations of churchgoers. Rarely do academics—or journalists for that matter—look at what is presented in churches as political content, outside of how churchgoers impact elections. (For example, the emergence of the Christian right as a voting block in the 1970s.) Spence argues that what is said in church from the pulpit represents a neoliberalization of the black church.

The chapter opens with a brief discussion of two New York Times articles from the Detroit area following the 2008 economic crash that hit the automotive industry and the region hard. One, "Detroit Churches Pray for 'God's Bailout,'" was a report from the Greater Grace Temple, one of Detroit's many churches that, at the time, held special services to help its congregations through a difficult time. Spence notes that in the photo that ran with the article, three white luxury SUVs shared the stage with the church's leader, Bishop Charles H. Ellis III. The article reported that the vehicles were on loan from local dealerships and that Bishop Ellis, "urged worshipers to combat the region's woes by mixing hope with faith in God." Spence sees the vehicles as having two symbolic values. For those who worked in the automotive industry, it was a symbol of what they depended on to survive. For those who didn't work making automobiles, the SUVs were status symbols, reminders of what they could have if they would only hustle harder.

The following year, another Times reporter visited Pontiac, about 30 miles outside Detroit, to write about the automotive industry's role in creating a black middle class in that area, and how the industry's collapse was decimating those families. Titled "GM, Detroit, and the Fall of the Black Middle Class," the article told its story through a profile of Marvin Powell, a longtime autoworker, one of the 600 who still worked making trucks at General Motors' Pontiac Assembly Center. Powell worked the only shift the plant maintained after getting rid of nearly two-thirds of its workforce through buyouts, early retirement, and layoffs.

Prosperity gospel frames the problem of poor people as a problem of those who do not improve their human capital, not as something wrong with the system in which they must live.

During the reporting of the story, Powell learned that GM was planning on shutting down all of its factories for 10 weeks, which would leave him without his $900-per-week paycheck for that period. Powell said he might use the freed-up time to try and become a chef and start a catering company, adding that he had never intended to be a "GM lifer."

He attributed his positive outlook in trying circumstances to being a Greater Grace congregant, where he led a Sunday school class and was one of the church's armor bearers, an honorary position. His leadership role in Greater Grace had made him an esteemed figure at the auto plant, and his co-workers had encouraged him to run for a union leadership role. He demurred from that, but they sought him out for advice, nevertheless. What was he going to do when the plant closed? Powell told them that he couldn't control the plant's closing, so he didn't worry about it. He also said, "I tell them that God provides for his own, and I am one of his own."

That leapt out at Spence. Born and raised in Detroit as the son of a Ford autoworker, he was struck by Powell's resilience in the face of so much economic upheaval. But he was also taken aback by the way Powell conceptualized the situation. The autoworker didn't consider a union leadership position as providing him with an opportunity to fight for his and his co-workers' jobs. Instead, as Spence writes, "in Powell's opinion those who choose God will be saved from the worst of the economic crisis while those who don't, won't." Spence identifies this idea as part of the message spread by prosperity gospel, a doctrine that started in white churches in the 1950s and sprang to national attention through 1980s televangelism. It has taken strong root in black megachurches over the past two decades. Spence visited a black church in Baltimore County led by a charismatic prosperity gospel preacher who argued that everything associated with the economic crisis—debt, poverty, unemployment—was caused by a "poverty mindset." The minister reasoned that this mindset causes people to spend their money instead of saving it, causes "them to lay around when they should be hustling." And this mindset was the direct result of somebody having a bad relationship with God.

Spence writes: "Note the logic here. People are materially poor because they don't think right. Their inability to think right makes it impossible to receive God's blessings"—which can come in the form of spiritual or material reward. And the only way to right that bad personal relationship with God is for a person to change how he or she thinks—to improve their human capital through spiritual pursuits. These spiritual pursuits, it should be noted, often take the form of sermons and books that congregants can buy and workshops they can pay to attend, in addition to supporting the church by tithing.

For Spence, prosperity gospel, through prolific and celebrated pastors such as Creflo Dollar, founder of the mammoth World Changers Church International in Georgia, transforms "the Christian Bible into an economic self-help guide people can use to develop their human capital." It's a way to make questions about who lives comfortably and who lives in poverty a matter of which one spiritually deserves to do so. This notion, Spence writes, represents a neoliberalization of the black church—not only because the prosperity gospel frames the problem of poor people as a problem of those who do not improve their human capital (not as something wrong with the system in which they must live), but also in how the increasingly multi-millionaire leaders of black megachurches compete for their congregants' tithes and spiritual consumerism. Such a practice not only creates vast economic disparities between ministers and congregants—Spence notes an AtlantaBlackstar.com news website article that named eight black preachers who make more than 200 times what their churchgoers do—but it shapes parishioners' political imagination.

Fighting poverty, debt, and whatever economic adversity a congregant faces thus becomes only a spiritual matter for the individual, not the collective concern of a political organization. And getting people to see the political content in a church service is something Spence hopes readers will take away from the book. "What I want is for people to read it and see their world through new eyes," he says, adding that he hopes that by pointing out how prosperity gospel reproduces neoliberalism's disparities, readers might begin to seek other solutions to dealing with it.

There are possibilities for finding ways out of the neoliberal situation other than simply buying into the hustle, Spence says. Throughout the book, he offsets his charting of how neoliberalism seeped into black politics by citing contemporary instances of grassroots activism and political organizing to combat neoliberal advances. They may be modest, they may be temporary victories, but the examples he cites—the Urban Debate League that cultivates policy debate among city high school students; the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement that organizes communities to develop more equitable public policies; the Baltimore Algebra Project and Leaders of the Beautiful Struggle that in 2008 blocked Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley's attempt to spend $108 million in taxpayer money to build a new prison to house juveniles charged as adults—actively oppose the neoliberal turn in public policies.

mandingo king not a businessman, he's a business, man!

espn |  Ten years ago, at age 20, LeBron James left a successful agent who had negotiated more than $150 million in deals for him so he and three friends with no experience could run his business.

The move was instantly panned. Social media was in its infancy -- James didn't have a Facebook page at the time -- yet he was widely chided for being naive and foolhardy.

But James has always had a talent for being able to take in a wider perspective and think for the longer term, even when many around him do not. It's the same skill that allows him to see two passes ahead on the floor or the driving lane no one else notices. Which is how James arrived at last Monday, when he and Nike announced his signing of a lifetime contract.

The deal, worth hundreds of millions on top of the hundreds of millions that Nike has already paid him in their 13-plus years together, was negotiated over the course of months, but it has really been under construction for years. When James signed his last Nike deal, in 2010, it included provisions to protect him. So when Kevin Durant signed a 10-year deal with Nike last summer for a reported $300 million after a bidding war with Under Armour, James knew he was going to be in position for a historic deal.

The timing, like so many of his cross-court bounce passes, was impeccable. Nike is having one of the best financial years in its history, is the best-performing stock of the year on Dow Jones and has astronomical growth projections.

chiraq to the potomac - democrat racial politics Machine rotten to its core!!!

Tribune |  Call it rebellion, or pent-up resentment based on legitimate grievances. Whatever you call it, he's weak now.

After decades of hibernation under Daley, black political Chicago has begun to reassert itself. Young African-American leaders push for recognition. Black politics isn't the Rev. Jesse Jackson's show any longer.

One of the casualties of the old order appears to be Cook County State's Attorney Anita Alvarez. Rahm's buddy, David Axelrod, publicly criticized her for not charging Van Dyke with murder sooner, just as black activists were calling for her political head.

Now black politicians who supported Emanuel and said nothing about how he sat on the video are busy directing African-American animosity Alvarez's way. Many of them won't say Emanuel should resign, they're still worried he'll bite. But Alvarez? They want her out.

Alvarez was left without a chair when the music stopped. And now she's their offering.

Is it fair? No, but then there's nothing fair about Chicago politics. It's a power game. There's arithmetic and technique in getting out the vote, but great swells of emotion help too, and those who win know how to aim all that pent-up animosity at their targets.

It's all taking place before the March primary, as Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle pushes her candidate for state's attorney, Kimberly Foxx.

What's unsaid in polite circles but understood by all is that Foxx is black and Alvarez isn't. So the campaign for state's attorney becomes an exercise in political redemption and black political expectation, directed by Preckwinkle, who didn't have the steel to stand and challenge Rahm herself.

central casting has already tapped the secretary of opportunity to shore up Granny Goodness

whose image is more tarnished after 50 years?

NYTimes | Real estate companies, furniture makers and other businesses that have emblazoned the Trump name on their properties and products ought to think hard about whether they want to be associated with the outrageous things coming out of Donald Trump’s mouth as he campaigns for the Republican nomination for president.

Some businesses like NBC, Serta and Macy’s wisely distanced themselves from Mr. Trump and said that they would discontinue products that bear his name after he called Mexicans criminals and rapists earlier this year.

For years, Mr. Trump and his company positioned the Trump brand as a symbol of gaudy luxury. And they established a lucrative business licensing his name to real estate developers, hotel owners and other businesses. The Trump brand is used to sell products as wide-ranging as clothing, coffee pods and sofas.

Clearly many consumers who find Mr. Trump’s statements offensive will cringe at using products and services that have his name on them, even if he has little to do with the business in question. That’s why one Dubai-based retail company quickly removed Trump merchandise from its stores after Mr. Trump said Muslims should be barred from coming to the United States until officials “figure out what is going on.”

Of course, each business will make its own decision of whether and how they want to be associated with Mr. Trump. Some might have invested so much money and time in the Trump brand that they will stick with it, presumably hoping that the public furor over his comments will subside. (Given the rate at which he is insulting people, they might be waiting for a while.)

tried to tell you limp-wristed semi-cathedral pussies cats mr.miracle ain't no joke

WaPo |  He referred to Mexicans as “rapists,” questioned Sen. John McCain’s status as a war hero, ridiculed the physical appearance of his opponents, falsely claimed that “thousands” in New Jersey cheered as the World Trade Center fell and, this week, called for a ban on Muslims entering the United States.

Despite predictions that such searing, divisive rhetoric and the resulting outcry would cripple his campaign, Donald Trump’s insults and controversial proposals have propelled him to the forefront of the 2016 presidential race — and kept him there.

And while it may seem like a lurching, chaotic campaign, Trump is, for the most part, a disciplined and methodical candidate, according to a Washington Post review of the businessman’s speeches, interviews and thousands of tweets and retweets over the past six months.

Trump delivers scores of promises, diatribes and insults at breakneck speed. He attacks a regular cast of villains including undocumented immigrants, Muslims, Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton, his GOP rivals and the media. He keeps the narrative arc of each controversy alive with an endless stream of statements, an unwillingness to back down even when he has misstated the facts — and a string of attacks against those who criticize him.

All the while, his supporters see a truth-talking problem solver unlike the traditional politicians who have let them down. Spending remarkably little, he dominates yet another news cycle, and his Republican rivals languish in his shadow.

the type of basic managerial isht the hon.bro.preznit's dept. of ed ignored and neglected...,

aljazeera |  Public schools are usually considered to be safe places for our children. But what if the school buildings, where many kids spend hours of their day, are damaging their health?

That’s a question that some Philadelphia parents, teachers and advocates are asking in their fight for better conditions — and more transparency.

A series of reports this year from the city’s controller, which inspected 20 of the city’s more than 200 schools, said the buildings were “deplorable and dangerous environment for kids.”

What does that look like? Rotting walls, standing water, mold and crumbling ceilings, are just some of the health hazards America Tonight saw through dozens of images obtained from the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers. They offer a behind-the-scenes look at unsanitary and unsafe conditions — from asbestos to toilets clogged beyond repair.

with the poor, white, and pissed on lock, mr. miracle now taking aim at the black electorate...,

yahoo |  Donald Trump has seized — and maintained — the political spotlight, in part by making coarse remarks about minority groups and capitalizing on nativist fears among his core supporters. He’s called Mexican immigrants rapists and murderers, repeated stereotypes about Jews and money, and, this week, in the wake of the San Bernardino massacre, Trump ignited a national firestorm by calling for Muslims to be banned from entering the country. The more he’s alienated American ethnic groups and scandalized the political establishment, the more, it seems, the brash billionaire has pumped up his base.

But in a strange twist, Trump, the unabashedly politically incorrect Republican frontrunner, recently made an effort to be more sensitive about one of the country’s key minority constituencies.

This shift came after Trump met with a group that included prominent African-American pastors at his eponymous skyscraper headquarters in Manhattan on Nov. 30. Three people who attended the meeting told Yahoo that Trump was told to change the way he speaks about African-Americans, a group he has regularly referred to as “the blacks.” Members of the group left Trump Tower with the impression he would choose his words more carefully going forward.

months ago, mr. miracle told it like it t.i.-is on the hon.bro.preznit...,

mediaite |   Here’s another interesting clip from Donald Trump‘s phoned-in appearance on ABC This Week. Mediaite presents: In which Donald Trump declares that President Barack Obama has done “absolutely nothing” for the black community and, more importantly, Donald Trump “would win the African-American vote.”

if the Machine doesn't sacrifice Hizzoner, Mr. Miracle's afro-am numbers are going to exceed 25%

CNN |  At one point in the interview, Lemon stated bluntly that while on the campaign trail, Trump has insulted blacks, Asians and women, to which Trump replied, "I know, and I haven't insulted blacks. I haven't insulted Asians."

Lemon questioned Trump about a controversial and ultimately inaccurate tweet he posted to his Twitter account stating that 81 percent of whites were killed by blacks in 2014, when only 14 percent were.

Trump brushed that off as a retweet, noting that he didn't create it.

Lemon then asked flatly, "Are you racist?"

"I am the least racist person that you have ever met.  I am the least racist person," Trump said.

Lemon also asked the Republican front-runner if he was bigoted or Islamophobic, to which Trump replied, "No."

Trump added that being considered a racist or a bigot doesn't bother him because he knows that those labels are false.

 "No, if things are true, if that were true, it would bother me tremendously, OK. But of course, if you're a racist, you probably wouldn't care," Trump said. "But if things are true, it would bother me. But if it's—it's so false, and honestly, I don't hear it often. I don't hear it often."

Trump then added: "Actually, let me go a step further. A poll was taken recently where as a Republican, which is unheard of, I had 25 percent of the black vote. So, African Americans, 25 percent for Trump.

"A political pundit said, 'Wow, if that's true, the election is over; Trump wins.' I think I'm going to win the African-American vote, and I think I'm going to win the Hispanic vote."

chiraq to the potomac: hizzoner too big a liability to weather the blowback...,

WaPo |  Emanuel cried "crocodile tears," one protester said. The only people who believe it will be his "lap-dog city council," another said, according to the Tribune. They carried signs calling on Emanuel and his leadership team to resign.

And more and more — despite his speech Wednesday— it appears resigning could indeed be what Emanuel will be forced to do in order to restore Chicagoans' faith in their government.

Thanks in part to a series of missteps by the mayor after the shooting, exacerbated by a longer-term failure to address more systemic problems with Chicago's police department, Emanuel appears to have lost much of the city's trust. His approval rating has hit a record low of 18 percent, and 51 percent of residents think he should resign, according to a new poll from the Illinois Observer.

For Emanuel, trust is the most critical element right now for him to take any meaningful action to help a wounded Chicago. And it's increasingly difficult to envision a scenario in which whatever Emanuel does isn't viewed as a political Hail Mary to save his career by understandably frustrated and suspicious Chicago residents.

President Obama's former chief of staff has a reputation for being a savvy political operator — a real tough guy who plays politics like chess. But in every new twist and turn of the McDonald shooting, Emanuel has appeared to act only after he was backed into a corner by political pressure.

"I think the problem is that a lot of what's happening now seems reactive," said Vanessa Williamson, a fellow at the Brookings Institution.

before the bootprint fades from hizzoner's narrow disavowed azz, useless rubberstamping CABC got to go too!!!

chicagoreader |  As the new City Council was sworn in this week, aldermen said they were organizing themselves into five different, loosely defined blocs. 

The black caucus has 18 members, the Latino caucus has 13, and the newly formed gay caucus has five. There's also the progressive caucus, a group of self-professed reformers who regularly buck Mayor Rahm Emanuel, and the Paul Douglas Alliance, a group of self-professed reformers who regularly praise the mayor. The progressives say they'll have 11 members, and the Douglas Alliance includes nine. 

But these blocs don't play a major role in vetting legislation on taxes, pensions, budget cuts, or tax increment financing handouts. If aldermen formed caucuses based on how they vote and who's calling the shots on the city's pressing financial problems, they would look like this. (A * indicates the alderman is one of 13 council rookies, which means they can't be blamed for the city's fiscal woes for at least a couple more weeks.)

HB4356 and 12,500 chicago voter signatures: everything else is conversation...,

NYMag | Emanuel said last week that he has no intention of resigning. "We have a process; it's called the election," he told Politico. "The voters spoke. I’ll be held accountable and responsible for my actions and decisions I make, and that’s how I approach it." There's no way to force Emanuel out, since Chicago has no mechanism for removing the mayor – but now, two state representatives are trying to change that. Democrats Mary Flowers and La Shawn Ford co-sponsored a bill introduced Wednesday night in the Illinois General Assembly that would amend a 1941 law to create a mayoral recall procedure, which would be "effectively immediately."

Under the plan, a recall election could be initiated with signatures totaling 15 percent of the total votes cast in the last election, in this case 12,500 signatures. Ford drew up the legislation two weeks ago and decided to introduce it after seeing Wednesday's protests. "The people have lost confidence in the mayor and until he can regain confidence, we have to have something in place that we can try to bring the city together," he toldCBS Chicago.

It's far from certain that the procedure will be put in place. House Speaker Michael Madigan would have to bring up the bill for consideration, the Democratic-majority House and Senate would need to approve it, and it would require the governor's signature.

Emanuel may be able to smooth things over by following through on his police reform pledge, but if a recall election were held right now, it seems unlikely that he would survive. A recent poll by the online IllinoisObserver found the mayor's job approval is at 18 percent, and his disapproval rating is 67 percent. "Believe me, there’s a lot of buyers' remorse right about now and there's a lot of I-told-you-so right about now and there’s a lot of second-guessing," Chicago political consultant Delmarie Cobb told Reuters. "I do think that if this continues, certainly he would never get re-elected again with 55 percent of the black vote" as he did eight months ago.

the problematique of the problematique...,

plausiblefutures |  (When I use “politics” or “political” in this post, I simply mean “one coercing another” in the broadest sense. To “coerce” is to compel one to act in a certain way — either by reward or punishment.) 

In 1972, the Club of Rome (COR) rocked the world with a study called LIMITS TO GROWTH. The COR called the multitude of environmental problems facing future inhabitants of planet Earth the “global problematique”.

In the years since 1972, science has made great progress in understanding the natural world. Obviously, the problematique ensemble is a hierarchy of problems. The fundamental problem in the problematique ensemble is “H.Sapiens” (or the “critter”).

The critter is an especially important player in this drama because not only has its activity caused the problematique, the critter is also called upon to solve the problematique. Therefore, understanding the nature of the critter is THE prerequisite to solving the problematique.

In recent years, evolutionary psychologists and microbiologists has made tremendous progress in understanding the scientific nature of the critter. Nevertheless, activists still have made little (if any) progress solving the problematique [1]. This is partially due to the fact that activists do not want to hear the scientific truth about themselves, and partially because they can do little — if anything — about it anyway.

When confronted with the truth about themselves and about their unimportance in the political hierarchy, [2] activists will either become constructivists (take the science lightly, change it, or abandon it entirely when it becomes necessary) or fundamentalists (deal with troublesome science through psychological denial and/or political repression).

So now we have a nested problem: the “problematique of the problematique”. In other words, the “truth” concerning the problematique can be provided by science and political realism, but it is not the “truth” that activists are looking for. What kind of “truth” are activists looking for? Science can answer that question too.

Over millions of years of evolution, the critter has emerged as the apex “political predator” — NOT the engineer, NOT the problem solver, but THE political predator. When confronted with a social problem the critter first resorts to “politics” to insure and enhance its “inclusive fitness”. In fact, “politics” is the reason why we have such large brains:

“The social intelligence hypothesis posits that the large brains distinctive cognitive abilities of primates (in particular, anthropoid primates) evolved via a spiraling arms race in which social competitors developed increasing ‘Machiavellian’ strategies.” [3]

In short, our innate goal is genetic reproduction and our most important tool is “politics”. This is easily seen in other social animals. The dominant male eats first and has his pick of the females.

In our society, “money” is interchangeable for political power. And as Kissinger noted, “power” is the most powerful aphrodisiac. This because women who were attracted to powerful men were more likely to see their children live to reproduce their genes.

So the “real reason” (i.e., the “genetic reason” instead of the “rationalization”) why activists on this list will not accept the truth from science and political realism is not because it’s wrong, it’s because it doesn’t lead to more personal political power. In other words, the scientific truth about the critter does not increase the “inclusive fitness” of the activists themselves.

So activists keep searching for the “other truth” — the Santa Claus or the Good Tooth Fairy “truth” that will get them laid. Unfortunately, Santa Claus and Good Tooth Fairy don’t exist — what you see is what you get. However, I am going to put on my Nostradamus hat and make a prediction.

When blackouts sweep the country (probably < 5 years, certainly < 10) the political environment WILL change radically, but not in the way most people hope it will. One day we will wake up and suddenly the scientific truth WILL serve the political agenda of the ruling elites. [4] Let’s call that looming revolutionary day the “Pythagorean Revolution” in honor of the man who discovered that the Earth was spherical, and thus finite, approximately 2,500 years ago. [5]

After the Pythagorean Revolution occurs, instead of selling “negawatts”, environmental groups will be selling “negapeople”. “Gosh! Why didn’t we see it before? It’s either tigers or people, what choice do we have? Kill ’em all and let God sort them out!” Instead of “importing” people for labor, we will be “deporting” people to labor camps — if not “illegals” to their own countries, then “overbreeders” and undesirables to internal concentration camps for the next “Final Solution”:

not even gonna lie, I'd mix it up for rula jebreal on a train...,

fp |  In late November, the nonpartisan, Washington-based Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) released a survey showing that 56 percent of Americans now believe that Islam is at odds with America’s values and way of life. At the same time, however, PRRI has previously noted that seven out of 10 Americans have rarely or ever interacted with a Muslim, suggesting that their perceptions of Islam are driven entirely by media and political conversations about the religion. And that conversation has turned increasingly ugly, as the race for the Republican presidential nomination devolves into a frenzy of xenophobic bullying of vulnerable and underrepresented minorities.

The trend emerged with front-runner Donald Trump’s outrageous smears that cast Mexican immigrants as thieves, rapists, and drug dealers. The Republican Party’s rabid attentions soon shifted, with both Trump and fellow contender Ben Carson striving to outdo each other’s blood libels against American Muslims. On Dec. 7, Trump went so far as to issue a call to temporarily bar all Muslims from entering the United States, and he has voiced his support for a federal database to track American Muslims. He and his colleagues have not confined their bullying to those two groups. African-American Black Lives Matter activists, Jewish victims of the Holocaust, providers of health-care services (including abortion) to low-income women, even Americans with disabilities — all have been singled out for derision and abuse in a veritable war on the marginalized, declared by a reckless and cynical cohort of politicians. They’re hardly ignorant of the fact that, by spewing dangerous lies and stoking ignorant fears, they’re fueling the fires of prejudice, hate, and violence. They simply don’t seem to care.

When a couple of Trump supporters in Boston beat up and urinated on a homeless Mexican man, the candidate defended the perpetrators. “They love this country and they want this country to be great again,” he said. “They are passionate.” When his supporters beat a Black Lives Matter activist at a campaign event two weeks ago, he suggested the man “maybe … should have been roughed up.”

can Granny Goodness and can't bust a grape endure Rahm Chiraq blowback?

WaPo |  It is critical that the Justice Department now examine not only the police force, where a culture of impunity and a code of silence are deeply ingrained, but also Chicago’s entire system. That includes the Independent Police Review Authority, which examined 409 cases of police-involved shootings in the eight years ending Sept. 30 — and found just two unjustified. (Both involved off-duty police.) It includes the prosecutor’s office, headed by Cook County State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez, which seems to blanch at the prospect of indicting abusive officers, perhaps for fear of losing police cooperation in criminal investigations.

And it includes legal protections enshrined in union contracts as well as a state law known as the law enforcement officers’ “bill of rights.” The effect of those protections is to erect formidable barriers to discipline, let alone prosecution, in the event of police misconduct. For example: Officers involved in a shooting are afforded a 24-hour grace period before they must speak to investigators — a privilege that may be used to ensure their accounts jibe with those of their colleagues. In the McDonald killing, at least seven other officers were on the scene and five of them corroborated the allegedly mendacious account of Mr. Van Dyke, who said Mr. McDonald was menacing him with a knife. In fact, the video shows the victim heading away from the officers.

The problems in Chicago are complex and decades in the making; cleaning up the police force will require investigators to use a wide aperture. While Mr. Emanuel has promised cooperation, there is likely to be a good deal of institutional resistance to the federal probe. But the payoff, in terms of building the case for real reform, could be enormous.

cosa nostra in chiraq tryna destroy 50 years worth of misconduct records...,

WaPo |  Chicago authorities must notify journalists and activists before they destroy decades of records related to police misconduct, Illinois Circuit Court Judge Peter Flynn ruled in an emergency order Thursday.

The order comes after journalist and activist Jamie Kalven petitioned the court after police officials said they would destroy hundreds of thousands of pages of evidence, investigative files and computer records related to Chicago police officer misconduct reports older than four years.

The documents are among a trove of data requested by Kalven and other media organizations, including the Chicago Tribune and Sun-Times, dating back to 1967. Last year, city officials agreed to release all of the police misconduct information, but the city’s police unions sued to prevent the documents from becoming public and the issue remains in limbo. The case will eventually be decided by an Illinois appeals court.

The emergency order comes in the wake of a large public outcry following the release of the video that shows police officer James Van Dyke shooting 17-year-old Laquan McDonald 16 times in October 2014. Van Dyke was charged with first-degree murder hours before the video’s release.

Kalven and his attorney, Craig Futterman, a University of Chicago law professor, played a critical role in the release of the dash-cam footage by reporting on the video’s existence and demanding that officials release it. Kalven expressed relief at the judge’s order, saying it would give him time to go back to court before authorities could set a “bonfire” to decades’ worth of key information about police misconduct in Chicago. “Ministers, civic groups … are all calling for a full examination of the systems of accountability in the city.”

Futterman called the order a “band-aid” and said it’s unclear what would happen if police officials notify journalists they plan to destroy the records. “We would do everything in our power to stop it, but we proactively need to work toward a permanent solution,” he said.

Thousands more recent electronic records have already been released to Kalven under a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit decided last year. His organization, the Invisible Institute, made the records available in a searchable database.

chiraq's independent police review chief scuttles quickly for the baseboard

chicagoist | The head of Chicago’s Independent Police Review Authority (IPRA), Scott Ando, has resigned amidst growing controversy over the Chicago Police Department's practices. The Department of Justice is expected to announced an investigation of the CPD this week, and the department just released another video showing officers shooting and killing a young person of color.

“In his four years at IPRA, Scott has taken important steps to move IPRA forward and reduce its backlog of cases,” Mayor Rahm Emanuel said in a press release. “Yet it has become clear that new leadership is required as we rededicate ourselves to dramatically improving our system of police accountability and rebuilding trust in that process.”

IPRA was formed in 2007 to investigate allegations of police misconduct, including shootings of civilians. But of the more than 400 cases of police shootings the agency has investigated, it has only ruled twice that a shooting by an officer wasn’t justified.

"It's hard to believe," said Attorney Joseph Roddy, a former police union lawyer, said in aninterview with the Tribune. "Michael Jordan couldn't make 407 out of 409 shots — even from the free-throw line."

It doesn't help the numbers' credibility that Emanuel appoints the head of the institution, or that several of its members have ties to law enforcement—or are former law enforcement officials themselves. Police officers' contracts allow a 24-hour window before an officer involved in a shooting is questioned by IPRA, and patterns of complaints against officers are not considered during shooting investigations.

Officer Jason Van Dyke, who shot Laquan McDonald 16 times, killing him, had at least 18 civilian complaints against him, and may have had a role in another police shooting.

In fact, one of IPRA’s own investigators, Lorenzo Davis, was fired over the summer for refusing to reverse recommendations he made in six cases where he found shootings by officers were not justified.

o.g. roaches racing for the baseboards in chiraq

wgntv | The Chicago Police Department underwent another major shakeup Monday.

Sources have confirmed to WGN that Constantine “Dean” Andrews has resigned his position as the police department’s chief of detectives.

Andrews was appointed to his position by former Chicago Police Supt. Garry McCarthy in October. McCarthy was fired as superintendent last week in the wake of controversy surrounding the police shooting video of Chicago teen Laquan McDonald.

According to the Chicago Sun-Times, which reported Andrews’s departure as a “sudden retirement,” Andrews and other police officers have been under investigation for their roles in a case involving David Koschman, who was fatally punched in the face by Richard J. “R.J.” Vanecko, a nephew of former Mayor Richard M. Daley. Allegations surfaced about falsifying police reports and false claims that Vanecko had acted in self-defense.

Andrews closed the homicide of investigation of Koschman four years ago, according to the Sun-Times, but the paper’s investigation led to the appointment of special prosecutor Dan K. Webb. Webb’s 17-month investigation led to Vanecko’s indictment in December 2012, and Vanecko pleaded guilty in January 2014.

Andrews, who resigned Monday, was named 114 times in Webb’s report.

can't bust a grape can't put on the tard game-face and pretend to take jihad seriously....,

theatlantic |  At the core of Barack Obama’s terrorism speech on Sunday night lay a contradiction. He gave the address to convince an increasingly fearful nation that he takes the terrorist threat seriously. But he doesn’t, at least not in the way his political opponents do.

For George W. Bush, the fight against jihadist terrorism was World War III. In his speech to Congress nine days after 9/11, Bush called al-Qaeda “the heirs of all the murderous ideologies of the 20th century … they follow in the path of fascism, Nazism, and totalitarianism.” Many Republicans still see the “war on terror” in these epic terms. After the Paris attacks, Marco Rubio didn’t merely warn that the Islamic State might take over Iraq, Syria, and other parts of the Middle East. He warned that it might take over the United States. America, he argued, is at war with people who “literally want to overthrow our society and replace it with their radical Sunni Islamic view of the future.” In his telling, the United States and “radical Islam” are virtual equals, pitted in a “civilizational conflict” that “either they win or we win.”

Obama thinks that’s absurd. Unlike Rubio, he considers violent jihadism a small, toxic strain within Islamic civilization, not a civilization itself. And unlike Bush, he doesn’t consider it a serious ideological competitor. In the 1930s, when fascism and communism were at their ideological height, many believed they could produce higher living standards for ordinary people than democratic capitalist societies that were prone to devastating cycles of boom and bust. No one believes that about “radical Islam” today. In Obama’s view, I suspect, democratic capitalism’s real ideological adversary is not the “radical Islam” of ISIS. It’s the authoritarian, state-managed capitalism of China.

While Republicans think ISIS is strong and growing stronger, Obama thinks it’s weak and growing weaker. “Terrorists,” he declared on Sunday, now “turn to less complicated acts of violence like the mass shootings that are all too common in our society.” In other words, the Islamic State probably can’t do anything to America that we Americans aren’t doing to ourselves all the time, and now largely take for granted.

Obama also argued that the Islamic State is losing in the Middle East, where the “strategy that we are using now—air strikes, special forces, and working with local forces who are fighting to regain control of their own country” will produce a “sustainable victory.”

chumbalones believe POTUS protects them from lawless radical islamic extremists, truth is....,

peakprosperity |  To understand what’s happening in Syria right now, you have to understand the tactics and motivations of the US and NATO -- parties sharing interwoven aims and goals in the Middle East/North African (MENA) region.

While the populations of Europe and the US are fed raw propaganda about the regional aims involved, the reality is far different.

Where the propaganda claims that various bad dictators have to be taken out, or that democracy is the goal, neither have anything at all to do with what’s actually happening or has happened in the region.

For starters, we all know that if oil fields were not at stake then the West would care much much less about MENA affairs.

But a lot of outside interests do care. And their aims certainly and largely include controlling the region’s critical energy resources. There’s a lot of concern over whether Russia or China will instead come to dominate these last, best oil reserves on the planet.

Further, we can dispense with the idea that the US and NATO have any interest at all in human rights in this story. If they did, then they’d at least have to admit that their strategies and tactics have unleashed immeasurable suffering, as well as created the conditions for lots more. But it would be silly to try and argue about or understand regional motivations through the lenses of human rights or civilian freedoms -- as neither applies here.

Divide And Conquer Instead, the policies in the MENA region are rooted in fracturing the region so that it will be easier to control.

That’s a very old tactic; first utilized to a great extent by Britain starting back in the 1700s.

Divide and conquer. There’s a reason that’s a well-worn catch phrase: it’s hundreds of years old.

But to get a handle on the level of depravity involved, I think it useful to examine what happened in Libya in 2011 when NATO took out Muamar Gaddafi and left the country a broken shell -- as was intended.

I cannot really give you a good reason for NATO involving itself in taking out Gaddafi. I only have bad ones.

The official reason was that after the Arab Spring uprising in Libya in early 2011 (with plenty of evidence of Western influences in fanning those flames) things got ugly and protesters were shot. This allowed the UN to declare that it needed to protect civilians, and the ICC to charge Gaddafi with crimes against humanity, declaring that he needed to stand trial.

Here’s how it went down:

On 27 June, the ICC issued arrest warrants for Gaddafi, his son Saif al-Islam, and his brother-in-law Abdullah Senussi, head of state security, for charges concerning crimes against humanity.^[268] Libyan officials rejected the ICC, claiming that it had "no legitimacy whatsoever" and highlighting that "all of its activities are directed at African leaders".^[269]

That month, Amnesty International published their findings, in which they asserted that many of the accusations of mass human rights abuses made against Gaddafist forces lacked credible evidence, and were instead fabrications of the rebel forces which had been readily adopted by the western media. 

(Source)

After the ICC's indictment, it was a hop, skip and a jump to declaring a NATO-enforced ‘no fly zone’ over Libya to protect civilians.

From there it was just a straight jump to NATO actively shooting anything related to the Gaddafi government. NATO had thereby chosen sides and was directly supporting the rebellion.

The pattern in play here is always the same: cherry-picked events are used as a pretext to support the side seeking to topple the existing government and thereby leave a sectarian wasteland to flourish in the inevitable power vacuum.

nobel laureate can't bust a grape didn't sign on for this world war isht!

tomdispatch |  World War IV would require at least a five-fold increase in the current size of the U.S. Army -- and not as an emergency measure but a permanent one. Such numbers may appear large, but as Cohen would be the first to point out, they are actually modest when compared to previous world wars. In 1968, in the middle of World War III, the Army had more than 1.5 million active duty soldiers on its rolls -- this at a time when the total American population was less than two-thirds what it is today and when gender discrimination largely excluded women from military service. If it chose to do so, the United States today could easily field an army of two million or more soldiers.

Whether it could also retain the current model of an all-volunteer force is another matter. Recruiters would certainly face considerable challenges, even if Congress enhanced the material inducements for service, which since 9/11 have already included a succession of generous increases in military pay. A loosening of immigration policy, granting a few hundred thousand foreigners citizenship in return for successfully completing a term of enlistment might help. In all likelihood, however, as with all three previous world wars, waging World War IV would oblige the United States to revive the draft, a prospect as likely to be well-received as a flood of brown and black immigrant enlistees. In short, going all out to create the forces needed to win World War IV would confront Americans with uncomfortable choices.

The budgetary implications of expanding U.S. forces while conducting a perpetual round of what the Pentagon calls “overseas contingency operations” would also loom large. Precisely how much money an essentially global conflict projected to extend well into the latter half of the century would require is difficult to gauge. As a starting point, given the increased number of active duty forces, tripling the present Defense Department budget of more than $600 billion might serve as a reasonable guess.

At first glance, $1.8 trillion annually is a stupefyingly large figure. To make it somewhat more palatable, a proponent of World War IV might put that number in historical perspective. During the first phases of World War III, for example, the United States routinely allocated 10% or more of total gross domestic product (GDP) for national security. With that GDP today exceeding $17 trillion, apportioning 10% to the Pentagon would give those charged with managing World War IV a nice sum to work with and no doubt to build upon.

Of course, that money would have to come from somewhere. For several years during the last decade, sustaining wars in Iraq and Afghanistan pushed the federal deficit above a trillion dollars. As one consequence, the total national debt now exceeds annual GDP, having tripled since 9/11. How much additional debt the United States can accrue without doing permanent damage to the economy is a question of more than academic interest.

To avoid having World War IV produce an endless string of unacceptably large deficits, ratcheting up military spending would undoubtedly require either substantial tax increases or significant cuts in non-military spending, including big-ticket programs like Medicare and social security -- precisely those, that is, which members of the middle class hold most dear.

In other words, funding World War IV while maintaining a semblance of fiscal responsibility would entail the kind of trade-offs that political leaders are loathe to make. Today, neither party appears up to taking on such challenges. That the demands of waging protracted war will persuade them to rise above their partisan differences seems unlikely. It sure hasn’t so far.

for racetards and bibtards mistakenly believing they've spotted some common ground...,

salon |  Sometime in 1994, as Afghanistan tumbled into disarray in the wake of the civil war that followed the 1989 Soviet withdrawal, there emerged a highly secretive and heavily armed group known as the Taliban. Its declared purposes were to restore peace, to enforce traditional law and to defend the Islamic character of Afghanistan. The world now knows the rest of the story. After the cleric-led movement captured Kabul, the nation’s capital, in September 1996, it became clear to all observers that the Taliban represented a very troubling development in Islamic radicalism.

The Taliban, which springs from the Sunni branch of Islam, began a genocidal campaign designed to wipe out Shiite Muslims from much of Afghanistan. It openly countenanced international terrorism, harboring the criminal mastermind Osama bin Laden and giving him virtually free rein to plan bombings and assassinations. And it imposed a disturbing and deeply fundamentalist form of Muslim culture on the nation. Under the Taliban regime, girls’ schools were closed and women were forced to quit their jobs (at one time, 40 percent of Afghan doctors were female) and to wear a head-to-toe garment known as the burkha. Movies, television, videos, music and dance — all were banned.

This is a story that needs telling to a wide audience, and journalist Ahmed Rashid, who has covered the Afghan wars for more than 20 years as a correspondent for the Far Eastern Economic Review and the Daily Telegraph, is well equipped to do that. Getting it was not an easy task: The Taliban is about as impenetrable a political organization as exists anywhere in the world. Its acknowledged leader, Mullah Mohammed Omar, has never met with Western reporters or diplomats and has never even been photographed.

The tale is even more complicated, though. There’s also the matter of oil — specifically the desire of international oil companies to build a pipeline from the Caspian oil-producing region (home to Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and several other small nations) to serve potentially massive markets in South Asia. The route goes directly through Afghanistan, and the result has been what Rashid refers to as “romancing the Taliban”: For years, he reports, U.S. economic interests, driven by oil, took precedence over human-rights concerns; only very recently did pressure from American women concerned about the repression of Afghan women finally lead to a reversal in policy. Rashid was on the scene all along, covering what he calls the new “Great Game” in Central Asia, a late 20th century version of the late 19th century colonial struggle for hegemony. “Policy was not being driven by politicians and diplomats,” he writes, “but by the secretive oil companies and intelligence services of the regional states.”

The chief virtue of Rashid’s account is his ability to delve beneath the surface of events without falling prey to a one-sided Marxist-style economic analysis. Oil is important — but so is geopolitics, including the American desire to play off Afghanistan against Iran; and so are the obvious issues surrounding the oppression of women by the Taliban. As Rashid places the Taliban in its historical and social context, he accomplishes the difficult task of maintaining a degree of empathy while still excoriating the organization as cruel, barbaric and repressive. Its members aren’t even good Muslims by anyone’s standard except their own:

ain't nobody tryna hear what hon.bro.can't-bust-a-grape says tonight....,

bizpacreview |  “President Obama will address the nation from the Oval Office about the steps our government is taking to fulfill his highest priority: keeping the American people safe,” the White House said in a statement Saturday.

“The President will provide an update on the ongoing investigation into the tragic attack in San Bernardino,” the statement said. “The President will also discuss the broader threat of terrorism, including the nature of the threat, how it has evolved, and how we will defeat it.”

Obama’s first reaction to the attack in San Bernardino — an attack the FBI has now declared an act of terror — was to push for more stringent gun control laws.

Allowing no crisis to go to waste, the president will likely call on Congress to close a loophole that he claims allows possible terrorists on the country’s No-Fly list to purchase a gun.

Oh, and there’s sure to be a lecture on avoiding “anti Muslim” speech.

Based on the reaction on social media, few may be tuning it Sunday night… seems this president has long ago lost the ear of rational Americans.