United States – Page 41

CIA backs study on controlling global climate

The Central Intelligence Agency is funding a scientific study that will investigate whether humans could use geoengineering to alter Earth’s environment and stop climate change. The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) will run the 21-month project, which is the first NAS geoengineering study financially supported by an intelligence agency. With the spooks’ money, scientists will study how humans might influence weather patterns, assess the potential dangers of messing with the climate, and investigate possible national security implications of geoengineering attempts.

The total cost of the project is $630,000, which NAS is splitting with the CIA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and NASA. The NAS website says that “the US intelligence community” is funding the project, and William Kearney, a spokesman for NAS, told Mother Jones that phrase refers to the CIA. Edward Price, a spokesman for the CIA, refused to confirm the agency’s role in the study, but said, “It’s natural that on a subject like climate change the Agency would work with scientists to better understand the phenomenon and its implications on national security.” The CIA reportedly closed its research center on climate change and national security last year, after GOP members of Congress argued that the CIA shouldn’t be looking at climate change.

The goal of the CIA-backed NAS study is to conduct a “technical evaluation of a limited number of proposed geoengineering techniques,” according to the NAS website. Scientists will attempt to determine which geoengineering techniques are feasible and try to evaluate the impacts and risks of each (including “national security concerns”). One proposed geoengineering method the study will look at is solar radiation management—a fancy term for pumping particles into the stratosphere to reflect incoming sunlight away from the planet. In theory, solar radiation management could lead to a global cooling trend that might reverse, or at least slow down, global warming. The study will also investigate proposals for removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

The National Academies has held two previous workshops on geoengineering, but neither was funded by the intelligence community, says Edward Dunlea, the study director for the latest project. The CIA would not say why it had decided to fund the project at this time, but the US government’s apparent interest in altering the climate isn’t new. The first big use of weather modification as a military tactic came during the Vietnam War, when the Air Force engaged in a cloud seeding program to try to create rainfall and turn the Ho Chi Minh Trail into muck, and thereby gain tactical advantage. Between 1962 and 1983, other would-be weather engineers tried to change the behavior of hurricanes using silver iodide. That effort, dubbed Project Stormfury, was spearheaded by the Navy and the Commerce Department. China’s “Weather Modification Office” also controversially seeded clouds in advance of the 2008 Beijing Olympics, hoping to ensure rain would fall in the Beijing suburbs instead of over the Olympic stadiums.

Although previous efforts to manipulate weather and climate have often been met with mockery, many geoengineering proposals “are fundamentally doable, relatively cheap, and do appear to be able to reduce climate risk significantly, but with risks,” explains David Keith, a Harvard researcher and top geoengineering proponent.

But if geoengineering is cheap and “fundamentally doable,” as Keith claims, that suggests foreign countries, or even wealthy individuals, could mess with the climate to advance their own ends. “This whole issue of lone actors: Do we need to be concerned about China acting unilaterally? Is that just idle chatter, or is that something the US government should prepare for?” asks Ken Caldeira, a geoengineering researcher at the Carnegie Institution’s Department of Global Ecology and a member of the current National Academy of Sciences panel.

At least one individual has already tried modifying the climate. Russ George, the former head of Planktos, a company that works to develop technology to deal with global warming, seeded the Pacific Ocean off western Canada with iron to generate a plankton bloom that, in turn, was supposed to suck up carbon dioxide from the air. George’s effort was widely condemned, but at present there’s little to stop other individuals or countries from trying it or something similar. That’s part of what has the US intelligence community interested.

The CIA’s decision to fund scientific work on geoengineering will no doubt excite conspiracy theorists. The last time the government tried to do cutting-edge research related to the atmosphere—with the High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP), which aimed to protect satellites from nuclear blasts—people speculated that it might be a death ray, a mind control weapon, or, worst of all…a way to control the weather. – Mother Jones

Snowden could sink Obama-Putin summit

When the Obama administration discusses matters of sensitive diplomacy, it isn’t always a model of clarity.

But this week reporters have struggled to get a direct answer to what would seem to be a simple question: Is President Barack Obama still planning to attend a summit meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow in early September?

What’s become increasingly evident is the planned summit meeting is now entangled in the delicate negotiations between Messrs. Obama and Putin over the fate of former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.

Let’s back up to mid-June.

Mr. Obama was in Northern Ireland, meeting with various counterparts, including Mr. Putin. The two men held a private session, at which they agreed to take part in a summit meeting in Moscow prior to a separate Group of Twenty meeting in St. Petersburg, Russia.

Ben Rhodes, deputy national security adviser for strategic communications, said in a press briefing at the time: “So we’ll be going to Moscow before we go to St. Petersburg for the G-20.”

But the following week, Mr. Snowden left his hiding place in Hong Kong and showed up in Russia. Since then, the Obama administration has been imploring Russia to return Mr. Snowden to the U.S. to face criminal charges. So far, Mr. Putin hasn’t complied.

Now the summit may be a casualty of the Snowden negotiations.

In his daily briefings this week, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney has been giving careful answers to questions about whether the Obama-Putin summit is still on.

On Wednesday, he was asked if Russia’s handling of the Snowden case has any bearing on Mr. Obama’s decision to attend the scheduled summit meeting with Mr. Putin.

Mr. Carney replied that “the president intends to travel to Russia for the G20 Summit. And I have no further announcements to make beyond what we’ve said in the past about the President’s travel to Russia in the fall.”

Can he definitively say whether Mr. Obama will go to Moscow?

“I can say that the president intends to travel to Russia for the G20 Summit. I don’t have anything to add to what we’ve said in the past about that trip,” Mr. Carney said.

Later in the briefing, another reporter asked him to clarify that answer.

Mr. Carney replied that he “might have been deliberately vague, so I’m not sure I can clarify.”

He went on to say that “I have no further announcements on our travel to Russia. The President intends to go to Russia in September.”

“But you won’t say Moscow?” the reporter said.

“I just have nothing else to say on it,” Mr. Carney said.

All this seems to leave open the possibility that Mr. Obama might call off the summit. In any case, the White House statements may be a signal to Moscow that Mr. Snowden’s status and the summit’s future are now linked, one foreign policy expert said.

“I do think it is a signal,” said Heather Conley, director of the Europe Program at the Center for Strategic & International Studies.

The White House, she said, is “having to rethink [the Moscow summit] right now. This is going to be a very fluid situation.” – WSJ

Not black enough: NAACP rejects black conservatives

According to author and Fox News contributor Deneen Borelli and her husband, Tom Borelli, black conservatives have been blacklisted from the NAACP’s national conferences for years. When the Borellis, who are employees of the conservative group FreedomWorks, attempted to pay for booth space at this year’s 104th National NAACP conference in Florida, they were told there was no room for them despite plenty of exhibit space remaining open.

The NAACP website states that the mission of the organization is to, “ensure the political, educational, social, and economic equality of rights of all persons and to eliminate race-based discrimination.” The objectives of the NAACP include ensuring “the political, educational, social, and economic equality of all citizens,” and removing “all barriers of racial discrimination through democratic processes.”

Mrs. Borelli has been an outspoken critic of the Obama administration and the Democratic Party. In March her book, Blacklash: How Obama and the Left Are Driving Americans to the Government Plantation, came out in paperback. – Townhall.com

Blacks benefit most from self-defense law in Florida

African Americans benefit from Florida’s “Stand Your Ground” self-defense law at a rate far out of proportion to their presence in the state’s population, despite an assertion by Attorney General Eric Holder that repealing “Stand Your Ground” would help African Americans.

Black Floridians have made about a third of the state’s total “Stand Your Ground” claims in homicide cases, a rate nearly double the black percentage of Florida’s population. The majority of those claims have been successful, a success rate that exceeds that for Florida whites.

Nonetheless, prominent African Americans including Holder and “Ebony and Ivory” singer Stevie Wonder, who has vowed not to perform in the Sunshine State until the law is revoked, have made “Stand Your Ground” a central part of the Trayvon Martin controversy.

Holder, who was pressured by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and other progressive groups to open a civil rights case against acquitted neighborhood watchman George Zimmerman in the 2012 shooting death of 17-year-old Martin, criticized Florida’s “Stand Your Ground” self-defense law in a speech Tuesday before the NAACP.

The law was not invoked by Zimmerman’s defense team but was included in instructions to the jury.

“We must confront the underlying attitudes, the mistaken beliefs and the unfortunate stereotypes that serve too often as the basis for police action and private judgments. Separate and apart from the case that has drawn the nation’s attention, it’s time to question laws that senselessly expand the concept of self-defense and sow dangerous conflict in our neighborhood,” Holder said to applause in his speech before the NAACP Tuesday.

“These laws try to fix something that was never broken. There has always been a legal defense for using deadly force if — and the ‘if’ is important — if no safe retreat is available. But we must examine laws that take this further by eliminating the common-sense and age-old requirement that people who feel threatened have a duty to retreat, outside their home, if they can do so safely. By allowing and perhaps encouraging violent situations to escalate in public, such laws undermine public safety,” Holder said.

“The list of resulting tragedies is long and, unfortunately, has victimized too many who are innocent. It is our collective obligation; we must stand OUR ground to ensure — (cheers, applause, music) — we must stand our ground to ensure that our laws reduce violence, and take a hard look at laws that contribute to more violence than they prevent,” Holder said.

But approximately one third of Florida “Stand Your Ground” claims in fatal cases have been made by black defendants, and they have used the defense successfully 55 percent of the time, at the same rate as the population at large and at a higher rate than white defendants, according to a Daily Caller analysis of a database maintained by the Tampa Bay Times. Additionally, the majority of victims in Florida “Stand Your Ground” cases have been white.

African Americans used “Stand Your Ground” defenses at nearly twice the rate of their presence in the Florida population, which was listed at 16.6 percent in 2012. – dailycaller.com

Obama administration drowning in lawsuits filed over NSA spying

Not Juju's organisation... — Not Juju’s organisation…

Attorneys for the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF, not to be confused with Julius Malema’s Economic Freedom Fighters) have sued the Obama administration and are demanding the White House stop the dragnet surveillance programs operated by the National Security Agency.

Both the White House and Congress have weighed in on the case of Edward Snowden and the revelations he’s made by leaking National Security Agency documents. Now the courts are having their turn to opine, and with opportunities aplenty.

Day by day, new lawsuits waged against the United States government are being filed in federal court, and with the same regularity President Barack Obama and the preceding administration are being charged with vast constitutional violations alleged to have occurred through the NSA spy programs exposed by Mr. Snowden.

The recent disclosures made by Snowden have generated commotion in Congress and the White House alike. The Department of Justice has asked for the 30-year-old former Booz Allen Hamilton worker to be extradited to the US to face charges of espionage, and members of both the House and Senate have already held their share of emergency hearings in the wake of Snowden’s series of disclosures detailing the vast surveillance programs waged by the US in utmost secrecy. But with the executive and legislative branches left worrying about how to handle the source of the leaks — and if the policies publicized should have existed in the first place — the courts could soon settle some disputes that stand to shape the way the US conducts surveillance of its own citizens.

Both longstanding arguments and just-filed claims have garnered the attention of the judicial branch in the weeks since the Guardian newspaper first began publishing leaked NSA documents attributed to Snowden on June 6. But while the courts have relied previously on stalling or stifling cases that challenge Uncle Sam’s spy efforts, civil liberties experts say the time may be near for some highly anticipated arguments to finally be heard. Now on the heels of lawsuits filed by the likes of the American Civil Liberties Union and the Electronic Privacy Information Center, groups are coming out of the woodwork to wage a legal battle against the White House.

The most recent example came this week when a coalition of various organizations filed suit together against the Obama administration by challenging “an illegal and unconstitutional program of dragnet electronic surveillance, specifically the bulk acquisition, collection, storage, retention and searching of telephone communications information.” Represented by attorneys from the EFF and others, the plaintiffs in the latest case filed Tuesday in San Francisco federal court include an array of groups, such as: First Unitarian Church of Los Angeles; Bill of Rights Defense Committee; Calguns Foundation; California Association of Federal Firearms Licensees; Council on Islamic Relations; Franklin Armory; Free Press; Free Software Foundation; Greenpeace; Human Rights Watch; Media Alliance; National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws; Open Technology Institute; People for the American Way, Public Knowledge; Students for Sensible Drug Policy; TechFreedom; and Unitarian Universalist Service Committee.

Cindy Cohn, the legal director of the EFF, told the Washington Post that the NSA leaks credited to Snowden have been a “tremendous boon” to the plaintiffs in recently filed court cases challenging the surveillance state. The courts are currently pondering at least five important cases, Cohn told the Post, which could for once and for all bring some other issues up for discussion.

Since June 6, the American Civil Liberties Union, a Verizon Wireless customer and the founder of conservative group Judicial Watch have all filed federal lawsuits against the government’s collection of telephony metadata, a practice that puts basic call records into the government’s hands without a specific warrant ever required and reported to the media by Mr. Snowden. Larry Klayman of Judicial Watch has also sued over another revelation made by Snowden — the PRISM Internet eavesdropping program — and the Electronic Privacy Information Center, or EPIC, has asked the Supreme Court to vacate the order compelling Verizon Business Network Services to send metadata to the feds.

Perhaps most important, however, is a California federal court’s recent decision to shutdown the government’s request to stop the case of Jewel vs. NSA from proceeding. That debate first began in 2008 when Jewel, a former AT&T customer, challenged the government’s “illegal and unconstitutional program of dragnet communications surveillance” as exposed by a whistleblower at the telecom company. That case has seen roadblock after roadblock during the last five years, but all that changed earlier this month. The government long argued that Jewel v. NSA can’t go up for discussion because the issues at hand are privileged as ‘state secrets’ and can’t be brought into the public realm.

“[T]he disclosure of sensitive intelligence sources and methods . . . reasonably could be expected to cause exceptionally grave harm to national security,” the government wrote in one earlier filing. “The very purpose of these cases is to put at issue whether the NSA undertook certain alleged activities under presidential authorization after 9/11, and whether those activities continue today. At every stage, from standing to the merits, highly classified and properly privileged intelligence sources and methods are at risk of disclosure. The law is clear, however, that where litigation risks or requires the disclosure of information that reasonably could be expected to harm national security, dismissal is required.”

Following Snowden’s recent disclosures, though, Judge Jeffrey White of the Northern District of California ruled on July 8 that there’s a way for those cases to still be heard.

“The court rightly found that the traditional legal system can determine the legality of the mass, dragnet surveillance of innocent Americans and rejected the government’s invocation of the state secrets privilege to have the case dismissed,” the EFF’s Cohn, who is working on the case, said in a statement issued at the time of the ruling. “Over the last month, we came face-to-face with new details of mass, untargeted collection of phone and Internet records, substantially confirmed by the Director of National Intelligence. Today’s decision sets the stage for finally getting a ruling that can stop the dragnet surveillance and restore Americans’ constitutional rights.”

Weighing in weeks later to the Post, Cohn said that outcome could have more of an impact than many might imagine. “It’s tremendous, because anything that allows these cases to proceed is important,” she said.

Speaking to the New York Times this week, American Civil Liberties Union attorney Jameel Jaffer said that until now the government has operated a “shell game” to shield it’s surveillance programs from litigation. “[T]he statute has been shielded from judicial review, and controversial and far-reaching surveillance authorities have been placed beyond the reach of the Constitution,” he said.

Should Cohn’s prediction come true, though, the courts could decide to weigh in and reshape the way the government currently conducts surveillance.

According to University of Pittsburgh law professor Jules Lobel, a victory there could come in more than one way. “There is a broader function to these lawsuits than simply winning in court,” he told the Post. “The government has to respond, and forcing them to go before a court might make them want to change aspects of the programs.”

“The government does things to avoid embarrassment,’’ he added, “and lawsuits are a key pressure point.’’

Interviews to the Post and the Times come just days after Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Oregon), a long-time member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said he thought the revelations made by Snowden may influence the White House to reconsider their surveillance practices before the courts can even have their chance.

“I have a feeling that the administration is getting concerned about the bulk phone records collection, and that they are thinking about whether to move administratively to stop it,” Sen. Wyden told the Times.

“I think we are making a comeback,” he said. – RT

US Marine who urinated on Taliban dead says he’d do it again

A Marine who was fined and demoted for urinating on Taliban corpses in Afghanistan in 2011 says he would do it again.

“I regret maybe any repercussions it might have had on the Marines. But do I regret doing it? Hell no,” Sgt. Joseph Chamblin told WSOC-TV in Charlotte, N.C., adding that he would do it again.

The infamous incident was videotaped and uploaded to YouTube last year, becoming international news and raising fears of retaliation by Afghan troops against their coalition trainers.

“These were the same guys that were killing our family, killing our brothers,” said Sgt. Chamblin, who was on a mission to stop Taliban insurgents from making roadside bombs.

One of his sniper team members, Sgt. Mark Bradley, was killed by a buried bomb days before the incident.

“We’re human,” he said. “Who wouldn’t if you lost your brother or mother? Wouldn’t you want revenge?”

Sgt. Chamblin said he didn’t consider endangering other troops by the act, but considered the psychological effect it would have on the enemy “because if an infidel touches the body, they’re not going to Mecca or paradise.”

“So now these insurgents see what happens when you mess with us,” said Sgt. Chamblin, adding that he is planning to retire in September and is writing a book.

The Marines court-martialed nine troops for the incident. Sgt. Chamblin, a 15-year veteran, pleaded guilty for urinating on the bodies and dereliction of duty and was fined $500 and demoted, WSOC reported.

“Do you want the Marine Corps to be a group of Boy Scout pretty boys or do you want guys that will go out and kill the people trying to take advantage of your country and kill Americans?” he said. “Which do you want? Because you can’t have both.” – Washington Times

Another gay rights activist killed in Africa

A prominent gay rights activist in Cameroon was tortured and killed just weeks after issuing a public warning about the threat posed by “anti-gay thugs,” Human Rights Watch said.

Friends discovered the body of Eric Ohena Lembembe at his home in the capital, Yaounde, on Monday evening after he was unreachable for two days, the rights group said in a statement Tuesday.

One friend said Lembembe’s neck and feet looked broken and that he had been burned with an iron.

Lembembe was among the most prominent activists in one of Africa’s most hostile countries for sexual minorities. First as a journalist and later as executive director of CAMFAIDS, a Yaounde-based human rights organization, he documented violence, blackmail and arrests targeting members of Cameroon’s gay community. He was also a regular contributor to the Erasing 76 Crimes blog, which focuses on countries where homosexuality is illegal, and he wrote several chapters of a book released in February on the global gay rights movement titled “From Wrongs to Gay Rights.”

Lembembe is the most high-profile African gay rights activist to be killed since 2011, a year that saw the deaths of Uganda’s David Kato and South African lesbian activist Noxolo Nogwaza.

Homosexuality is punishable by prison terms of up to five years in Cameroon, and the country prosecutes more people for gay sex than any other in sub-Saharan Africa, according to Human Rights Watch.

In a statement, a U.S. State Department deputy spokeswoman deplored Lembembe’s murder. “We condemn this terrible act in the strongest terms and urge the Cameroonian authorities to thoroughly and promptly investigate and prosecute those responsible for his death,” Marie Harf said.

Lembembe was among the first activists in the country to mobilize following a sharp increase in anti-gay prosecutions beginning in 2005, said Yves Yomb, executive director of Alternatives-Cameroon, a gay rights group based in Cameroon’s largest city, Douala. A local office of the group was set on fire June 26, Harf said in her statement. – AP

Four black minors gunned down in Chicago during Zimmerman trial

In the 20-day period of the George Zimmerman trial, four black minors – three teens and a five-year-old boy – were gunned down in Chicago, according to Homicide Watch Chicago, a Chicago Sun-Times publication, which details every murder that takes place in the city.

On June 28, five-year-old Sterling Sims was killed in a double murder that also claimed the life of his mother, 31-year-old Chavonne Brown. Both were shot in their apartment, and police believe the motive was robbery.

On July 1, 16-year-old Antonio Fenner was gunned down on the sidewalk next to the body of a 32-year-old man who had gang ties. No arrests were made, and no suspects have been named. Fenner’s mother believes her son was in the wrong place at the wrong time, because no one in her family knew the other victim or what Fenner’s association was to him.

On July 3, 14-year-old Damani Henard was murdered outside a high school. His body was found next a bicycle.

On July 9, 15-year-old Ed Cooper was shot and killed while spending time with friends at the park. A gunman got out of a black van and began firing as the boys ran away. Cooper was shot in the street and continued running to a vacant lot where he died.

Zimmerman was charged with killing Trayvon Martin, an unarmed black teenager in Sanford, Fla., who was walking through a gated community on his way home from the convenience store. Zimmerman argued that he acted in self-defense.

The trial began on June 24 and ended on July 13 with Zimmerman’s acquittal. See more

Zimmerman family suspects Obama is tapping their phones

In a media appearance Tuesday morning, the brother of the recently acquitted George Zimmerman said that he and his family have concerns that the Obama administration is tapping their communications.

Appearing on Fox News, Robert Zimmerman said “We do have concerns and always have of having our phones tapped, having our phones listened to by the administration or whomever.”

“A lot of the things that we do are connecting in person—that’s how we’ve managed to stay hidden for so long. It’s kind of old school, but it works…We’re back to what we were doing in March of 2012, because it’s right in everybody’s mind right now.” he added, referring to staying safe in the wake of several threats and acts of violence related to last week’s “Not Guilty” decision.

Zimmerman’s brother also stated that the family is worried that the Department of Justice is being pressured by certain white special interest groups to open a federal investigation into the case.

“I think Eric Holder is being pressured by some groups who were calling for, initially, just an arrest. These same groups keep moving around the goal posts: the NAACP, Al Sharpton, the Rainbow Push Coalition with Jesse Jackson.” Zimmerman noted.

“First they wanted just a simple arrest and that’s it, have his fair day in court and whatever the verdict is, we’ll respect it. Then when the verdict was coming they wanted him to be found guilty. But the verdict isn’t what they wanted, so now they’re moving the goal post again, and calling on the Department of Justice to investigate him more.” the brother added.

“I understand the Justice Department’s responding to pressure,” Zimmerman continued. “But I think that the American people need a little bit of time to digest those two words ‘Not Guilty.’ It doesn’t mean nothing happened. I think most of the people who were upset with that outcome didn’t actually pay attention to the trial.”

Tiger felt ‘different energy’ with Mandela

Black golf star Tiger Woods has remembered how his first meeting with Nelson Mandela 15 years ago was an experience like no other.

“I went down there to play [at] Sun City, and he [Mandela] invited us to his home. And my father and I went to have lunch with him. It still gives me chills to this day, thinking about it,” Woods told journalists at Muirfield in Scotland on Tuesday, where the start of the British Open on Thursday coincides with Mandela’s 95th birthday.

Woods became a poster boy for multiracial America in 1997 when, at just 21, he became the first black golfer to win a major, a feat all the more startling as he did it on a course that up until seven years previously had been off limits to African-Americans.

He described his private lunch the following year with Mandela, South Africa’s anti-apartheid hero, as unforgettable.

“We walked in the room and my dad and I were just kind of looking around. And I said, ‘Dad, do you feel that?’ And he says, ‘Yeah, it feels different in this room.’ And it was just like a different energy in the room,” Woods said.

“And maybe, I’m guessing probably 30 seconds later, I heard some movement behind me and it was [former] president Mandela folding up the paper. And it was pretty amazing.

“The energy that he has, that he exudes, is unlike any person I’ve ever met. And it was an honour to meet him at his home. And that’s an experience that I will never, ever forget.”

Mandela, who overcame 27 years in jail to become South Africa’s first black president and bring an end to decades of whites-only rule, is confined to his Pretoria hospital bed on life-support as the world prepares to mark his birthday with a raft of celebrations and charity events.

Defending British Open champion and South African sporting legend Ernie Els, also paid tribute to Mandela at Muirfield and said it would be “wonderful” if a South African player could win this week and give his sports-mad nation a much-needed morale boost.

“Obviously sport has been a key factor in bringing South Africa together into a democratic place and state,” Els said on Monday. “And president Mandela played such a big part in that; also back in the early 1990s, and the World Cup and … African Nations Cup.”

Els is one of 10 South Africans competing at Muirfield, along with Thomas Aiken, Richard Sterne, Tim Clark, George Coetzee, Charl Schwartzel, Branden Grace, Louis Oosthuizen, Justin Harding and Darryn Lloyd. – AFP

It’s all about race: Zimmerman has an Anglo name

Establishment-encouraged anti-White hatred is at the core of the current ”Trayvon Martin killing” trial of mestizo George Zimmerman, as evidenced by the clear and obvious racial undertones and hypocrisy surrounding nonwhite crime.

The controlled media, encouraged by white-hating black “community leaders,” have hyped up Zimmerman as some type of “white racist” who murdered the “unarmed black youth” Martin in an unprovoked shooting.

The reality of the situation—namely that neighborhood watch patrolman Zimmerman is a mestizo Hispanic, and that Martin was a large black thug carrying burglary equipment and who violently attacked Zimmerman—has been completely covered up in yet another bout of frenzied anti-white hatred.

The fact is that if George Zimmerman had been named “Juan Garcia” or “Emilio Estefan,” the media would have paid the shooting only passing attention and he would be a free man today, and not facing a lifetime behind bars after a modern-day public lynching by the rodent press.

Instead, because this unfortunate mestizo has a German-sounding name, the media latched onto him as an example of “white racism” and even now, many of the major news networks refer to the shooting as an example of “whites shooting blacks.”

Yet nonwhites kill each other with monotonous regularity all over America, all the time—and these shootings only make it as far as local news stations

For example, concurrent to the time that the Martin shooting occurred, Fox News Chicago reported that there had been 38 shootings, and three fatalities in that city—all within a single weekend. Everyone of the shooters and almost all the victims were either black or Hispanic.

Yet the international media just ignored that outbreak of violence—because they could not twist it to try and blame “white racism.”

Even more telling of the anti-white hatred which underlays the media’s controllers, is the Mark Slavin case.

Not one person in ten million knows who Mark Slavin is, even though he was the victim of a brutal attack just a few miles away from where the Martin shooting took place.

Slavin, a 50 year old Caucasian, was attacked by two teenage blacks, one just a year older than Martin. The two black thugs beat Slavin with a hammer, and then took him into a nearby woods in his car, where they continued the senseless racial assault.

Investigators said a witness called 911 after hearing the victim’s cries for help and seeing the beating.

The two blacks, named Yahaziel Israel and Julius Bender, drove away in the victim’s vehicle before deputies arrived and they abandoned it nearby.

Deputies said they found the victim in the woods, barely conscious and with severe head injuries.
The two blacks were charged with attempted homicide, burglary with assault or battery, and armed burglary. Slavin’s injuries were reported as “life-threatening” and he was hospitalized at Orlando Regional Medical Center in critical condition.

Despite this brutal attack occurring at exactly the same time and nearly the same location as the Martin shooting, the controlled media has seen fit to cover up the incident completely—to the point of not reporting on the resultant trial or even what happened to the victim.

How different it would be if two whites had beaten a black man nearly to death with a hammer! By now, the whole world would have been informed, hundreds of times over, of the “evil racist attack” and blacks all over America would have been rioting and demonstrating against “white violence” etc.

Even now, despite Zimmerman being a mestizo, and not a white, the controlled media is still trying to incite blacks to engage in anti-white riots should he actually be acquitted of the outrageous charges against him.

The use of numerous anti-white racial epithets by witnesses in the Zimmerman trial (see Prosecution’s Star Witness In Zimmerman Trial Refuses to Say Term ‘Creepy-Ass Cracker’ Is Racial or Offensive” The Blaze, Jun. 27, 2013), even though reported on, passed without comment from the controlled media.

This contrasts dramatically with the same rodent press’s public lynching of Southern Belle cookery celebrity Paula Deen, who dared to use the word “nigger” 30 years ago, leading to the destruction of her career and sacking by all her major sponsors. – The New Observer

Unrest continues in LA after Zimmerman verdict

Burning the symbol of liberty... — Burning the symbol of liberty…

Unrest continued for the third night in Los Angeles as protesters against the Zimmerman verdict stormed a Wal-Mart, attacked bystanders and stomped on cars.

“People protesting George Zimmerman’s acquittal marched along Crenshaw Boulevard on Monday night, stomping on cars, chasing bystanders and storming a Wal-Mart,” reports the LA Times.

“Several protesters made their way into the Wal-Mart as guards scrambled to close security gates. A short while later, Los Angeles Police Department officers wearing helmets and carrying batons swarmed the store as others marched through the parking lot.”

Footage shows demonstrators attacking moving vehicles, as well as stationary police cars, in a flashback to scenes witnessed during the 1992 LA riots. Protesters also lit fireworks in the middle of the road and threw rocks at store fronts while lashing out randomly at people in the street.

Some of the protesters were seen wearing t-shirts featuring an image of George Zimmerman which read “Wanted Dead or Alive” with the last word crossed out.

Although such scenes have largely been limited to Oakland and different areas of Los Angeles, media networks have ignored them for the most part.

Yesterday we highlighted how the LAPD were being ordered to stand down and allow the disorder to escalate despite the fact that innocent bystanders were being assaulted. Police are now promising to make more arrests if the unrest continues.

Employees of businesses in Oakland lined up outside stores to prevent ‘protesters’ from smashing their windows. There were also reports that a waiter was attacked with a hammer. – Prison Planet.com

Brain scans of inmates predict reoffenders

It began with a casual question that neuroscientist Kent Kiehl posed to a postdoctoral fellow in his laboratory who had been conducting brain scans on New Mexico prison inmates.

“I asked, ‘Does ACC activity predict the risk of reoffending?'” Kiehl recalls, using the scientific shorthand for the anterior cingulate cortex, a brain structure associated with error processing.

The postdoctoral fellow, Eyal Aharoni, decided to find out. When he compared 96 inmates whose brains had been monitored while they performed a test that measures impulsiveness, he discovered a stark contrast: Those with low ACC activity were about twice as likely to commit crimes within four years of being released as those with high ACC activity.

“We cannot say with certainty that all who are in the high-risk category will reoffend — just that most will,” Kiehl says. “It has very big implications for how we think about treatment and rehabilitation.”

Currently most reoffenders are black. Lifetime incarceration is already three times higher for blacks in the US. As reported on BBC Radio 4 on 2 September 2005, the recidivism rates for released prisoners in the United States of America is roughly 60%.

The recidivism rate for prisoners released from prison within one year is 44.1%; this number rises to 67.5% within three years of being released from prison. Sixty-seven percent of the people who were rearrested were charged with 750,000 new crimes, which include property offenses, drug offenses, public-order offenses, other offenses, unknown, and over 100,000 of these crimes were violent crimes.

The study is the latest paper from Kiehl’s lab reporting on experiments performed in a powerful functional magnetic resonance imaging scanner mounted in a semi-trailer. Kiehl and his team at the nonprofit Mind Research Network have used the scanner to study the brains of nearly 3,000 convicted criminals at facilities in New Mexico and Wisconsin since 2007.

Each inmate who volunteers for testing is paid a small hourly stipend and receives a copy of the brain scan, Kiehl says. But the scan is just part of a lengthy process in which Kiehl’s assistants interview the inmates, review their prison files and assign scores on the Psychopathy Checklist-Revised, a standard test for measuring psychopathy.

The MRI trailer is parked in a secure area of the prison compound, but no guards are present during the testing, Kiehl says. “Our staff are trained in prison security protocols,” he says.

The trove of data they have gathered has revealed telltale abnormalities in the structure and functioning of psychopaths’ brains. On the whole, they have less gray matter in the paralimbic system — believed to help regulate emotion — which may help account for their characteristic glibness, pathological lying, lack of empathy and tendency to act impulsively.

Kiehl often briefs judges and legal groups on his findings and has consulted in more than 100 criminal cases where, for example, psychopathy might be raised as a mitigating factor to account for a defendant’s impaired self-control.

The mere suggestion that it might be possible to predict future criminal behavior may conjure up such futuristic films as “Minority Report,” but Kiehl cautioned that the new study merely averages test results from a large group and cannot at this point predict whether any particular individual will reoffend.

But with further refinement, he says, brain imaging might one day be considered in civil commitment proceedings, where convicted sexual offenders can be held indefinitely if it is believed they have a propensity to reoffend.

Predictions about whether an offender poses an ongoing danger to society “already play roles in a variety of legal contexts, such as in deciding whether to sentence a criminal offender to a mental health facility, deciding whether to grant parole and the like,” said Owen D. Jones, a Vanderbilt University professor of law and biology and director of the MacArthur Foundation Law and Neuroscience Project, which helped fund Kiehl’s study.

Describing the study as interesting and well-designed, Jones said the neuroscience of criminal behavior was evolving so rapidly that courts and lawmakers could barely keep up. “Although there are efforts underway to help the legal system close that gap, the gap remains,” he said. “This poses challenges to the fair and effective administration of justice.”

After hundreds of encounters with psychopaths, Jones has come to view their distinctive lack of empathy as a missing skill, akin to a dyslexic’s inability to read.

Some experts see psychopathy as an incurable defect, but Kiehl cites neuroplasticity — the brain’s lifelong ability to remold itself in the face of new stimuli — as cause for optimism: New therapies might be developed to bolster the psychopathic brain’s underactive empathy circuits, he says.

Selling that idea to judges and lawmakers, however, is likely to be an uphill battle. “The problem is, people don’t think about empathy as an ability,” he said. “They take it for granted.”

Kiehl, who has received inquiries from neuroscientists throughout North America and Europe about using his mobile MRI for data collection, is hard at work adding to the existing database of New Mexico and Wisconsin inmates.

“There are also other opportunities where it could be leased commercially,” Kiehl says. “We’re going to go international.” – LA Times/Wikipedia

Zimmerman’s parents in hiding from ‘enormous amount of death threats’

George Zimmerman immediately went back into hiding after being acquitted of murder in the shooting death of Trayvon Martin, his parents told Barbara Walters in an exclusive interview with ABC News, adding that they haven’t seen him since he left the courthouse.

The Zimmermans said that because of “an enormous amount of death threats,” they, too, have remained in hiding and still don’t feel safe enough to return to their home in Orlando, Fla.

Two days after a Florida jury found their 29-year-old son not guilty of second-degree murder and manslaughter charges in the death of Martin, 17, Zimmerman’s parents, Robert Zimmerman Sr. and Gladys Zimmerman, sat down for their first television interview. They opened up about how their son’s murder trial has affected their family and how he and they are struggling to cope with the aftermath.

“Under the circumstances, we have not been able to talk to him,” Gladys Zimmerman told Walters. “To tell you the truth, we don’t trust anything, not even the phones.”

“We have had an enormous amount of death threats. George’s legal counsel has had death threats, the police chief of Sanford, many people have had death threats,” Robert Zimmerman said.”‘Everyone with Georgie’s DNA should be killed’ — just every kind of horrible thing you can imagine.”

George Zimmerman was accused of second-degree murder for shooting Martin on Feb. 26, 2012 inside a gated community in Sanford, Fla. While he admitted to shooting the unarmed teenager, Zimmerman maintained that Martin attacked him and he acted in self defense.

A jury made up of six women found Zimmerman not guilty of both second-degree murder and manslaughter charges Saturday after deliberating for more than 16 hours over two days.

But the family’s celebration of George Zimmerman’s new freedom has been short-lived. His parents said that their son has no job and no health insurance. Gladys Zimmerman said her son has been living off small monthly stipends from his legal defense fund.

“Even for us, we have not been living a normal life for the past months, it is hard,” she said. “We have lost everything, everything — the whole family, not only George. The whole family. We have lost everything.”

When asked if her son could ever live a normal life again, Gladys Zimmerman said, “Only time will tell.”

In the wake of Martin’s death, the case quickly developed racial overtones when Sanford law enforcement declined to arrest Zimmerman, who is a white Hispanic — his father is white and his mother is originally from Peru. Trayvon Martin is black.

George Zimmerman was arrested nearly two months after the incident when the state appointed Angela Corey as a special prosecutor and she brought second-degree murder charges against him.

Outrage and protests have reignited across the country since the not-guilty verdict was announced, something George Zimmerman’s mother said was “hurtful.”

“This is America, and we went through all of this with the judicial system,” Gladys Zimmerman said. “They wanted an arrest for my son. They got an arrest. Now lets, you know, find a verdict … now they have a verdict. … He went through the whole process they were pushing for, and now they are not happy with the verdict, and I pray. I pray for them, for God to touch their heart.”- ABC