Towson University, Maryland — The new student-run organization, the Towson White Student Union, has arranged for Jared Taylor to speak on campus on October 2, 2012 at 8pm in the Chesapeake 3 room of the University Union. At the public and free event, attendees will hear Mr. Taylor discuss the political and cultural interests of Whites in the contemporary West, which is quickly becoming balkanized through multiculturalism. His topic will be: “What is White Identity?”
Mr. Taylor is an American journalist who founded and currently serves as editor of American Renaissance. Mr. Taylor is the president of the New Century Foundation and is a former director of the National Policy Institute, which is a Georgia-based think tank. He is also a former member of the advisory board of The Occidental Quarterly.
Born to missionary parents in Japan, Mr. Taylor has written or edited the following published books: White Identity, Paved With Good Intentions: The Failure of Race Relations in Contemporary America, The Color of Crime, and A Race Against Time: Racial Heresies for the 21st Century.
Matthew Heimbach, the founder and president of the White Student Union, said, “It is an honor to host Jared Taylor. I could not think of a better way to begin the academic school year than by hosting a speech by him. The students of Towson will finally be afforded the opportunity to learn something other than the cultural Marxism that is espoused by their professors.”
Birthmarks, be damned: the FBI has officially started rolling out a state-of-the-art face recognition project that will assist in their effort to accumulate and archive information about each and every American at a cost of a billion dollars.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation has reached a milestone in the development of their Next Generation Identification (NGI) program and is now implementing the intelligence database in unidentified locales across the country, New Scientist reports in an article this week. The FBI first outlined the project back in 2005, explaining to the Justice Department in an August 2006 document (.pdf) that their new system will eventually serve as an upgrade to the current Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System (IAFIS) that keeps track of citizens with criminal records across America .
“The NGI Program is a compilation of initiatives that will either improve or expand existing biometric identification services,” its administrator explained to the Department of Justice at the time, adding that the project, “will accommodate increased information processing and sharing demands in support of anti-terrorism.”
“The NGI Program Office mission is to reduce terrorist and criminal activities by improving and expanding biometric identification and criminal history information services through research, evaluation and implementation of advanced technology within the IAFIS environment.”
The agency insists, “As a result of the NGI initiatives, the FBI will be able to provide services to enhance interoperability between stakeholders at all levels of government, including local, state, federal, and international partners.” In doing as such, though, the government is now going ahead with linking a database of images and personally identifiable information of anyone in their records with departments around the world thanks to technology that makes fingerprint tracking seem like kids’ stuff.
According to their 2006 report, the NGI program utilizes “specialized requirements in the Latent Services, Facial Recognition and Multi-modal Biometrics areas” that “will allow the FnewBI to establish a terrorist fingerprint identification system that is compatible with other systems; increase the accessibility and number of the IAFIS terrorist fingerprint records; and provide latent palm print search capabilities.”
Is that just all, though? During a 2010 presentation (.pdf) made by the FBI’s Biometric Center of Intelligence, the agency identified why facial recognition technology needs to be embraced. Specifically, the FBI said that the technology could be used for “Identifying subjects in public datasets,” as well as “conducting automated surveillance at lookout locations” and “tracking subject movements,” meaning NGI is more than just a database of mug shots mixed up with fingerprints — the FBI has admitted that this their intent with the technology surpasses just searching for criminals but includes spectacular surveillance capabilities. Together, it’s a system unheard of outside of science fiction.
New Scientist reports that a 2010 study found technology used by NGI to be accurate in picking out suspects from a pool of 1.6 million mug shots 92 percent of the time. The system was tested on a trial basis in the state of Michigan earlier this year, and has already been cleared for pilot runs in Washington, Florida and North Carolina. Now according to this week’s New Scientist report, the full rollout of the program has begun and the FBI expects its intelligence infrastructure to be in place across the United States by 2014.
In 2008, the FBI announced that it awarded Lockheed Martin Transportation and Security Solutions, one of the Defense Department’s most favored contractors, with the authorization to design, develop, test and deploy the NGI System. Thomas E. Bush III, the former FBI agent who helped develop the NGI’s system requirements, tells NextGov.com, “The idea was to be able to plug and play with these identifiers and biometrics.” With those items being collected without much oversight being admitted, though, putting the personal facts pertaining to millions of Americans into the hands of some playful Pentagon staffers only begins to open up civil liberties issues.
Jim Harper, director of information policy at the Cato Institute, adds to NextGov that investigators pair facial recognition technology with publically available social networks in order to build bigger profiles. Facial recognition “is more accurate with a Google or a Facebook, because they will have anywhere from a half-dozen to a dozen pictures of an individual, whereas I imagine the FBI has one or two mug shots,” he says. When these files are then fed to law enforcement agencies on local, federal and international levels, intelligence databases that include everything from close-ups of eyeballs and irises to online interests could be shared among offices.
The FBI expects the NGI system to include as many as 14 million photographs by the time the project is in full swing in only two years, but the pace of technology and the new connections constantly created by law enforcement agencies could allow for a database that dwarfs that estimate. As RT reported earlier this week, the city of Los Angeles now considers photography in public space “suspicious,” and authorizes LAPD officers to file reports if they have reason to believe a suspect is up to no good. Those reports, which may not necessarily involve any arrests, crimes, charges or even interviews with the suspect, can then be filed, analyzed, stored and shared with federal and local agencies connected across the country to massive data fusion centers. Similarly, live video transmissions from thousands of surveillance cameras across the country are believed to be sent to the same fusion centers as part of TrapWire, a global eye-in-the-sky endeavor that RT first exposed earlier this year.
“Facial recognition creates acute privacy concerns that fingerprints do not,” US Senator Al Franken (D-Minnesota) told the Senate Judiciary Committee’s subcommittee on privacy, technology and the law earlier this year. “Once someone has your faceprint, they can get your name, they can find your social networking account and they can find and track you in the street, in the stores you visit, the government buildings you enter, and the photos your friends post online.”
In his own testimony, Carnegie Mellon University Professor Alessandro Acquisti said to Sen. Franken, “the convergence of face recognition, online social networks and data mining has made it possible to use publicly available data and inexpensive technologies to produce sensitive inferences merely starting from an anonymous face.”
“Face recognition, like other information technologies, can be source of both benefits and costs to society and its individual members,” Prof. Acquisti added. “However, the combination of face recognition, social networks data and data mining can significant undermine our current notions and expectations of privacy and anonymity.”
With the latest report suggesting the NGI program is now a reality in America, though, it might be too late to try and keep the FBI from interfering with seemingly every aspect of life in the US, both private and public. As of July 18, 2012, the FBI reports, “The NGI program … is on scope, on schedule, on cost, and 60 percent deployed.”
On Wednesday, hosts at MSNBC informed America that the words “golf” and “Chicago” are racist, especially if they are used while speaking of Barack Obama.
Newsbusters’ Rusty Weiss reported early Thursday morning that while covering the GOP convention, Chris Matthews “came to the conclusion that reminding people of the President’s roots in Chicago politics is racist.”
The Washington Post’s Eugene Robinson set the tone of the exchange.
“It’s all part of this Barack Obama as ‘other’ sort of blanket campaign that has been waged by the Republican Party for some time now. It may be gaining some traction now, though I wonder why now as opposed to a bit closer to election,” he said.
“Yea, well let me ask you about that, gentleman,” Matthews responded. “What about now, is this constant barrage of assaults, saying the guy is basically playing an old game of demagoguery politics, where you take the money from the worker bees and give it to the poor people to buy votes. That’s basically what they’re charging him with. Old big-style, big-city machine of 50 years ago.”
“They keep saying Chicago, by the way, you noticed?” he asked.
“Well, there’s a lot of black people in Chicago,” said New York Magazine’s John Heileman.
The same day, MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell claimed that a reference to Obama’s golf outings was also racial code.
“For four years, Barack Obama has been running from the nation’s problems, he hasn’t been working to earn re-election. He has been working to earn a spot on the PGA Tour,” Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) said.
Naturally, O’Donnell saw racism in the remark.
“Well, we know exactly what he’s trying to do there. He is trying to align to Tiger Woods and surely, the — lifestyle of Tiger Woods with Barack Obama,” he said.
Martin Bashir, another MSNBC host, asked O’Donnell to clarify his remarks.
“Lawrence — don’t you think — don’t you think that what he’s really trying to do is to suggest that the president is not paying attention to the central issues that come with the responsibility he has?” Bashir asked.
“Martin, there are many, many, many rhetorical choices you can make at any point in any speech to make whatever point up want to make. If he wanted to make the point that you just suggested and I think he does want to make that point, they had a menu of a minimum of ten different kinds of images that they could have raised,” O’Donnell said.
“And I promise you, the speech writers went through, rejecting three or four before they land order that one. That’s the one they want for a very deliberate reason. That — there’s — these people reach for every single possible racial double entendre they can find in every one of these speeches,” he added.
“You really believe that about Mitch McConnell?” Bashir asked.
“I know these people are insensitive. I know the speechwriters are insensitive. I know the way they work. They do not have the same sensitivity level that other speechwriters do. But when you get to the Tiger Woods reference, there were people in the speech writing room, I know this, without a shadow of a doubt, who said wait a minute, do we really want to go there?” O’Donnell responded.
“The singular focus of MSNBC for the past six days has been racism. There’s one subject that they’re talking about: racism. The racism of Romney; the racism of Ryan; the racism of every speaker the convention; the racism of the Republican Party; the racism of every Republican and conservative. It’s all they’re talking about. It’s laughably hilarious, except to them,” he said.
Limbaugh went on to say the network is “nothing more than an arm” of the Obama campaign.
“Their charge they’ve been given is to run around on TV and to say that everything every Republican is saying is racist. Because they don’t have anything else. It really demonstrates the depths to which they have descended,” he added.
Townhall’s Katie Pavlich noted that Obama “refers to Chicago often in his own speeches.” By Matthews’ own “logic,” that would make him a racist.
Rep. Allen West (R-FL) said that perhaps Matthews has “gotten off of his medications.” West also wondered what other cities he was not allowed to speak of.
London: Madonna shared some piece of advice with fans during her Philadelphia gig, telling them not to get fat and lazy.
The 54-year-old singer made the comment as she kicked off the North American leg of her MDNA world tour before promptly stripping off.
The pop diva got racy during ‘Like a Virgin’ and ‘Human Nature,’ taking off her shirt to reveal her bra, and pulling down her pants to reveal her thong.
“Sometimes it’s easier to show your (butt) than show your feelings,” the Daily Mail quoted Madonna, who had the words “No Fear” on her back, as saying.
“Maybe tonight we can all live dangerously,” she said.
Earlier, the ‘Like A Virgin’ hitmaker had told the assembled crowd at the Fargo Center in Philadelphia: “Don’t get fat and lazy and take that freedom for granted.
Her remark had come on the back of comments that she was making about how lucky Americans were to live in a country where freedom of expression was allowed.
She said that she was happy to party in the USA after touring Europe for three months.
She also told the crowd on Tuesday night that they should “never forget how lucky you are to live where you live and to have the freedom that they have.”
She made the comments after talking about the arrest of three members of the Russian punk-rock female band Pussy Riot.
The women have been sentenced to two years in prison after they performed a “punk prayer” at Moscow’s Christ the Savior cathedral in which they called on the Virgin Mary to deliver Russia from its leader, Vladimir Putin.
“In my travels around the world the one thing I truly witnessed is we in America have freedom of speech, freedom of expression,” Madonna said.
She has called for the Pussy Riot members to be freed.
“I don’t think that it’s a coincidence that I’m in the city where the Declaration of Independence was signed,” she said at the Wells Fargo Center to nearly 20,000 fans.
“We are in the land of democracy,” she added.
When speaking about the Pussy Riot, she said that about 80 gay men were jailed in St. Petersburg because of their sexual orientation. She told the crowd that the arrests were unfair, who booed back in her support.
Madonna had kicked off her concert late on Tuesday, apologising to the crowd, who began to boo before she hit the stage around 10:30 pm.
“We had many changes to make from Europe to America, and I wanted the show to be perfect for you because my fans deserve it and quite frankly I deserve it,” she said. – ANI
Dozens of delegates for White House also-ran Ron Paul walked out of the Republican National convention for a second straight day Wednesday, angered by rule changes they say squelch grass roots political rights.
It was a rowdy end to Texas congressman Paul’s presidential bid, which fell short against rival Mitt Romney, the former Massachusetts governor who accepts the party’s nomination on Thursday.
Paul was not given a speaking slot at the convention in Tampa, Florida, but organizers aired a video tribute to the longtime lawmaker, and his son, Senator Rand Paul, did get to address the delegates Wednesday, praising the American system which led an immigrant’s son like Ron Paul to run for president.
Several loud supporters headed into the halls of the Tampa Bay Times Forum where they marched around the building chanting “As goes Maine, so goes the nation.”
The reference was to last-minute efforts by the Republican Party to award half of Maine’s delegates to Romney, and preventing the ousted Paul delegates from being seated at the convention.
“This walkout was specifically in support of the Maine delegation and how it was treated,” Ann Barnet of Nevada said.
GOP officials “have violated a lot of their own rules. It’s not a clean process,” she added.
Ron Paul won 154 delegates in this year’s state-by-state primary race, coming in third behind Romney and ex-senator Rick Santorum.
But Paul’s backers, through savvy and persistent maneuvering, managed to control additional delegates in the process, and they were pressing –unsuccessfully, in the end — to have Paul’s name entered into nomination before the roll call vote on Tuesday.
“We feel that this process has become a sham. How can these people stand up there and talk about the constitution if they don’t follow their own rules?” said Adam Bates, a Ron Paul supporter from Oklahoma who heard the chants and joined the group.
“The GOP can’t even run a convention, and want us to believe they can run the country.”
Paul lit a fuse under the party’s libertarian wing, uniting legions of young supporters behind his anti-tax, anti-war message.
The surge in popularity for the movement has coincided with US weariness at expensive overseas wars and seething anger at the 2008 financial crisis that made fiscal discipline more appealing to voters.
Paul, 77, retires in January, leaving the causes of personal liberty and small government without their Washington champion just as they appear to be gaining traction.
Son Rand, elected in 2010 as part of the Tea Party surge, is a constitutional conservative and libertarian, and he is the most logical person to take up the baton from his father.
But his endorsement of Romney alienated many in the movement who say the nominee, and former multimillionaire businessman, shares none of their beliefs. – AFP
Tampa – Two people were ejected from the Republican National Convention for throwing nuts at an African-American camera operator for CNN and telling her: “This is how we feed animals,” the cable network said.
The incident happened on Tuesday in the Tampa Bay Times Forum where delegates officially nominated Mitt Romney as the Republican candidate to face President Barack Obama in the Nov. 6 election.
“Two attendees tonight exhibited deplorable behavior. Their conduct was inexcusable and unacceptable. This kind of behavior will not be tolerated,” CNN quoted the convention as saying in a statement.
Multiple witnesses saw the incident and RNC security and police immediately removed the two people from the forum, CNN said. – Reuters
Two people were killed and at least eight were wounded in a shooting outside the landmark Empire State Building in New York City on Friday, a New York police source said.
One of the dead was the shooter, the source said, adding there was no apparent link to terrorism.
A white tarp covered what was believed to be a body in front of the entrance to the office building but police declined to confirm if it was the shooter.
“I heard the gunshots,” said Dahlia Anister, 33, who works at an office near the 102-story Empire State Building. “It was like pop, pop, pop. It was definitely in a bunch.”
The shooting started shortly after 9 a.m. on the busy sidewalk on Fifth Avenue outside the Midtown Manhattan building.
It came at the height of the tourist season outside one of New York City’s most popular attractions, startling tourists and commuters. Police cordoned off the area around the building, one of the most recognizable in the world.
The Empire State Building is two blocks from Pennsylvania Station and a few blocks from Grand Central Terminal, two of New York City’s main transportation hubs.
“People started running, saying somebody has a gun, so I just ran the other way. I was scared,” said Adrianne Lapar, 27, who works in the Empire State Building.
The United States has had two other mass shooting cases this summer. On July 20, James Holmes, 24, is accused of opening fire at a midnight screening of the Batman film “The Dark Knight Rises” in Aurora, Colorado, killing 12 people and wounding 58.
On August 5, a gunman killed six people and critically wounded three at a Sikh temple outside Milwaukee before police shot him dead in an attack authorities treated as an act of domestic terrorism.
The Empire State Building was the world’s tallest building for 40 years from its completion in 1931 until construction of the World Trade Center. Following the September 11, 2001, attacks, it was again the tallest building in the city, though was recently surpassed by a new tower under construction at the World Trade Center. – Reuters
Sarah Formato cuddled the whiny three-year-old on her lap and cast her thoughts back to 2008, when she had voted for Barack Obama.
“Politicians are in the pockets of big companies,” she said. “Obama understood the problem. He wasn’t going for that.”
Today, Formato’s enthusiasm has waned. “He hasn’t changed anything,” she complained. Nonetheless, she added with a shrug, “I would give him another shot.”
The president’s fierce struggle for re-election hinges in part on women such as Formato, whose support has turned lukewarm. The 31-year-old stay-at-home mom lives in a swing district in a swing state – the sprawling suburbs of Arapahoe County, southeast of Denver.
Few doubt that Obama will win a majority of female votes nationwide, as he did in 2008. The question is whether he will capture enough of them in key states to offset a comparative lack of enthusiasm among men. And the cracks in his support among women appear to depend on whether they have children or not.
According to a national Reuters/Ipsos poll of 25- to 45-year-olds, mothers tend to differ from women without children on issues ranging from the economy, taxes and military spending to healthcare and birth control – as well as on presidential candidates.
Childless working women favour Obama over Mitt Romney, the presumed Republican nominee, by a striking 20 points, 46% to 26%.
“Obama has done pretty well, stimulating the economy, getting out of Iraq and investing in healthcare,” said Joanna Giddens, 27, who works for a Denver nonprofit and can’t afford health insurance.
Working mothers were less likely to favour the president, by 42% to 34%. Stay-at-home mothers such as Formato, along with unemployed mothers, gave the president only a five-point margin: 37% to 32%.
What the groups have in common is that, so far, no more than three out of 10 of the women polled support Romney.
In 2008 women made up 53% of the electorate, and Obama won their vote by 13 points over John McCain, compared to his overall victory of seven points. Then in the 2010 congressional elections, women voted Republican by a narrow margin. They helped elect a GOP-controlled House that has sought to thwart the president’s agenda.
Today, Obama and Romney are neck and neck in the polls, and both are furiously courting female votes.
“It’s a scary time to be a woman,” says a thirtysomething woman in an Obama ad that aired in swing states. A narrator explains: “Romney opposes requiring insurance coverage for contraception, and Romney supports overturning Roe versus Wade,” the 1973 Supreme Court decision affirming the right to abortion.
Democrats are accusing Republicans of a “war on women”.
Romney has responded by homing in on women’s financial insecurity. “The real war on women is being waged by the Obama administration’s failure on the economy,” he says.
On Wednesday, Romney announced a new “Women for Mitt Coalition” headed up by his wife Ann, who is more popular than he is, according to some polls. – Reuters
NORFOLK, Va. (AP) — Appearing for the first time as Mitt Romney’s running mate, Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan is attacking President Barack Obama for what he calls a “record of failure.”
The seven-term congressman says Obama has led the “worst economic recovery in 70 years.” He notes that unemployment has been above 8 percent for more than three years – the longest stretch since the Great Depression.
He spoke in remarks prepared for delivery at the first public appearance of the new GOP ticket.
Ryan, the architect of a controversial budget plan, is promising not to “duck the tough issues.” And he says he has the courage to tell the truth.
OAK CREEK, Wis. (AP) — Before he strode into a Sikh temple with a 9mm handgun and multiple magazines of ammunition, Wade Michael Page played in white supremacist heavy metal bands with names such as Definite Hate and End Apathy.
The bald, heavily tattooed bassist was a 40-year-old Army veteran who trained in psychological warfare before he was demoted and discharged more than a decade ago.
A day after he killed six worshippers at the suburban Milwaukee temple, fragments of Page’s life emerged in public records and interviews. But his motive was still largely a mystery. So far, no hate-filled manifesto has emerged, nor any angry blog or ranting Facebook entries to explain the attack.
Oak Creek Police Chief John Edwards suggested Monday that investigators might never know for certain why the lone attacker targeted a temple full of strangers.
“We have a lot of information to decipher, to put it all together before we can positively tell you what that motive is — if we can determine that,” Edwards said.
Page, who was shot to death by police, joined the Army in 1992 and was discharged in 1998. He was described Monday by the Southern Poverty Law Center as a “frustrated neo-Nazi” who had long been active in the obscure underworld of white supremacist music.
Page wrote frequently on white supremacist websites, describing himself as a member of the “Hammerskins Nation,” a skinhead group rooted in Texas that has offshoots in Australia and Canada, according to the SITE Monitoring Service, a Maryland-based private intelligence firm that searches the Internet for terrorist and other extremist activity.
In online forums, Page promoted his music while interacting with other skinheads. He posted 250 messages on one site between March 2010 and the middle of this year, and appeared eager to recruit others. In March 2011, he advertised for a “family friendly” barbeque in North Carolina, exhorting those online to attend.
“If you are wanting to meet people, get involved and become active, then you really need to attend,” he wrote, according to SITE. “Stop hiding behind the computer or making excuses.”
In November, Page challenged a poster who indicated he would leave the United States if Herman Cain were elected president.
“Stand and fight, don’t run,” he replied.
In an April message, Page said: “Passive submission is indirect support to the oppressors. Stand up for yourself and live the 14 words,” a reference to a common white supremacists mantra.
Mark Potok, a senior fellow at the law center, a nonprofit civil rights organization in Montgomery, Ala., said Page played in groups whose often sinister-sounding names seemed to “reflect what he went out and actually did.” The music talked about genocide against Jews and other minorities.
In a 2010 interview, Page told a white supremacist website that he became active in white-power music in 2000, when he left his native Colorado and started the band End Apathy in 2005. The band’s MySpace page listed the group as based in Nashville, N.C.
Page joined the military in Milwaukee in 1992 and was a repairman for the Hawk missile system before switching jobs to become one of the Army’s psychological operations specialists assigned to a battalion at Fort Bragg, N.C.
As a “psy-ops” specialist, Page would have trained to host public meetings between locals and American forces, use leaflet campaigns in a conflict zone or use loudspeakers to communicate with enemy soldiers.
He never deployed overseas in that role, Army spokesman George Wright said.
Page was demoted in June 1998 for getting drunk while on duty and going AWOL, two defense officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to release information about the gunman.
Page also received extra duty and was fined. The defense officials said they had no other details about the incident, such as how long Page was gone or whether he turned himself in.
Outside Fayetteville, N.C., a brick ranch house Page bought in 2007 with help from a Veterans Administration mortgage stood boarded up Monday with knee-high weeds in the yard. A notice taped to the front indicated the home was in foreclosure and had been sold to a bank in January.
Before buying the home, Page lived with Army soldier Darren Shearlock, his wife and young children in a doublewide trailer in a rural community near Fort Bragg, records show.
Shearlock, dressed in his military fatigues, declined to comment about Page or the shooting when approached Monday by The Associated Press.
Page’s former stepmother said she was devastated to learn of the bloodshed.
“He was a precious little boy, and that’s what my mind keeps going back to,” said Laura Page of Denver, who was divorced from Page’s father around 2001.
In Wisconsin, Page responded to a recent online ad seeking a roommate in Cudahy, a small city outside Milwaukee.
He rented a room in Kurt Weins’ house in June, telling Wein he had recently broken up with his girlfriend and needed a place to stay.
Weins said Page stayed in that room all the time, declining invitations to watch TV with him. Several weeks later, Page rented an apartment in a duplex owned by Weins across the street. Page explained that he wanted to bring some belongings out of storage.
“We talked, but it was really about nothing,” Weins said. “He seemed pretty calm. He didn’t seem like the type to raise his voice.”
After the FBI searched the apartment in the duplex, Weins returned and found only a computer desk, chair and an inflatable mattress.
Suburban Milwaukee police had no contact with Page before Sunday, and his record gave no indication he was capable of such intense violence.
The FBI was leading the investigation because the shooting was considered domestic terrorism. The agency said it had no reason to believe anyone other than Page was involved.
Page entered the Sikh Temple of Wisconsin as several dozen people prepared for Sunday services. He opened fire without saying a word.
The president of the temple died defending the house of worship he founded.
Satwant Singh Kaleka, 65, managed to find a simple butter knife in the temple and attempted to stab the gunman before being shot twice, his son said Monday.
Amardeep Singh Kaleka said FBI agents hugged him, shook his hand and told him his father was a hero.
“Whatever time he spent in that struggle gave the women time to get cover” in the kitchen, Kaleka said.
With their turbans and long beards, Sikhs are often mistaken for Muslims or Arabs, and have inadvertently become targets of anti-Muslim bias in the United States.
Federal officials said the gun used in the attack had been legally purchased. Page was issued five pistol-purchase permits in 2008 in North Carolina, paying a $5 fee for each.
On Sunday, the first officer to respond was shot eight to nine times as he tended to a victim outside the temple. A second officer then exchanged gunfire with the suspect, who was fatally shot.
The six dead ranged in age from 39 to 84 years old. Three people were critically wounded, including the police officer.
Online records show Page had a brief criminal history in other states, including pleading guilty to misdemeanor criminal mischief after a 1994 arrest in El Paso for getting drunk and kicking holes in the wall of a bar. He received six months’ probation.
Page also pleaded guilty to driving under the influence in Colorado in 1999 but never completed a sentence that included alcohol treatment, records show.
Page was arrested on suspicion of drunk driving again in 2010 in North Carolina after running his car off the side of a highway. The case was dropped a year later for lack of evidence, according to court records.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton visited with Nelson Mandela at his home on Monday to pay her respects to the aging South African icon.
Clinton and a small group flew to the 94-year-old Mandela’s home village of Qunu, where they reminisced and had a small private lunch.
Clinton and Mandela’s wife, Graca Machel, talked as photographers snapped pictures and Mandela looked on smiling from his wingback chair.
“That’s a beautiful smile!” Clinton said.
“Madiba’s smile is a trademark,” Machel said, affectionately referring to Mandela by his Xhosa clan name.
Afterwards, Clinton, Machel and the others went into the main dining room for lunch. Mandela remained in the living room with his medical attendants.
The former president of South Africa has homes in Johannesburg and Qunu. In recent years, he has spent more and more time in Qunu and in May, it was announced that he would stay there indefinitely.
Mandela, a Nobel peace laureate who spent 27 years in prison for fighting racist white rule, has retired from public life. – Associated Press
OAK CREEK, Wis. (AP) — An unidentified gunman killed six people at a Sikh temple in suburban Milwaukee on Sunday in a rampage that left terrified congregants hiding in closets and others texting friends outside for help. The suspect was killed outside the temple in a shootout with police officers.
Police called the attack an act of domestic terrorism by a suspect federal authorities described as a white man in his 40s, but neither provided further details or suggested a possible motive, including whether he specifically targeted the Sikh temple.
“We never thought this could happen to our community,” said Devendar Nagra, 48, of Mount Pleasant, whose sister escaped injury by hiding as the gunman fired in the temple’s kitchen. “We never did anything wrong to anyone.”
Late Sunday, the investigation appeared to move beyond the temple as police, federal agents and the county sheriff’s bomb squad swarmed a neighborhood in nearby Cudahy, evacuated several homes and searched a duplex. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives agent Tom Ahern said warrants were being served at the home of the gunman.
“He did not speak, he just began shooting,” said Harpreet Singh, relaying a description of the attack from the wife of his uncle, temple president Satwant Singh Kaleka.
Singh said Satpal Kaleka told him she was in the front room when the shooter walked in. She said the 6-foot-tall bald white man – who worshippers said they had never before seen at the temple – seemed like he had a purpose and knew where he was going.
Oak Creek Police Chief John Edwards said police expected to release more information Monday. He said the FBI will lead the investigation because the shootings are being treated as domestic terrorism, or an attack that originated inside the U.S.
“While the FBI is investigating whether this matter might be an act of domestic terrorism, no motive has been determined at this time,” Teresa Carlson, Special Agent in Charge with the agency’s Milwaukee division, said in a Sunday night statement.
During a chaotic few hours after the first shots were fired around 10:30 a.m., police in tactical gear and carrying assault rifles surrounded the Sikh Temple of Wisconsin with armored vehicles and ambulances. Witnesses struggled with unrealized fears that several shooters were holding women and children hostage inside.
One of the first officers to respond to frantic 911 calls seeking help was shot several times as he tended to a wounded victim, and was in critical condition along with two other victims Sunday night, authorities said. Police said the officer was expected to survive.
Jatinder Mangat, 38, of Racine, another nephew of the temple’s president, said his uncle was among those shot, but he didn’t know the extent of his injuries. When Mangat later learned people had died, he said “it was like the heart just sat down.”
Edwards said the gunman “ambushed” one of the first officers to arrive at the temple as the officer, a 20-year veteran with tactical experience, tended to a victim outside. A second officer then exchanged gunfire with the suspect, who was fatally shot. Police had earlier said the officer who was shot killed the suspected shooter.
Tactical units went through the temple and found four people dead inside and two outside, in addition to the shooter.
Gurpreet Kaur, 24, of Oak Creek, said her mother and a group of about 14 other women were preparing a meal in the temple kitchen when the gunman entered and started firing. Kaur said her mother felt two bullets fly by her as the group fled to the pantry. Her mother suffered what Kaur thought was shrapnel wound in her foot.
“These are people I’ve grown up with,” she said. “They’re like aunts and uncles to me. To see our community to go through something like this is numbing.”
Many Sikhs in the U.S. worship on Sundays at a temple, or gurdwara, and a typical service consists of meditation and singing in a prayer room where worshippers remove their shoes and sit on the floor. Worshippers gather afterward for a meal that is open to community members, regardless of their religious beliefs.
Kaur said she spent the afternoon serving as a translator between law enforcement and survivors at a nearby bowling alley. Police investigators kept witnesses inside the bowling alley’s basement into the evening.
“We don’t even know who’s downstairs,” Ravi P. Singh, 25, of Greenfield, said after going to the bowling alley to see if he could get more information about what had happened.
Sixteen-year-old LeRon Bridges, of Oak Creek, works at the bowling alley said police brought people from the temple over in two armored trucks. At one point, about 50 to 60 people were at the bowling alley, including police officers questioning witnesses and paramedics treating victims’ wounds, he said.
“They were just hysterical,” Bridges said. “There were kids. One big load came out of the truck.”
Sikhism is a monotheistic faith founded more than 500 years ago in South Asia. It has roughly 27 million followers worldwide. Observant Sikhs do not cut their hair; male followers often cover their heads with turbans – which are considered sacred – and refrain from shaving their beards. There are roughly 500,000 Sikhs in the U.S., according to estimates. The majority worldwide live in India.
The Sikh Temple of Wisconsin started in 1997 with about 25 families who gathered in community halls in Milwaukee. Construction on the current temple in Oak Creek began in 2006, according to the temple’s website.
Sikh rights groups have reported a rise in bias attacks since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. The Washington-based Sikh Coalition has reported more than 700 incidents in the U.S. since 9/11, which advocates blame on anti-Islamic sentiment. Sikhs are not Muslims, but their long beards and turbans often cause them to be mistaken for Muslims, advocates say.
Police in New York and Chicago issued statements saying they were giving Sikh temples in those cities additional attention as a precaution after the shooting, which also came two weeks after a gunman killed 12 people at movie theater in Colorado.
Valarie Kaur, who chronicled violence against Sikh Americans in the 2006 documentary “Divided We Fall,” was returning to her home in New Haven, Conn., after speaking at a White House conference Friday when she heard about the shootings.
Even though the gunman’s motives were a mystery Sunday, Kaur said the shootings reopened wounds in a community whose members have found themselves frequent targets of hate-based attacks since Sept. 11.
“We are experiencing it as a hate crime,” she said. “Every Sikh American today is hurting, grieving and afraid.”
Hillary Clinton and President Joyce Banda of Malawi
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is to meet with South Africa’s anti-apartheid hero Nelson Mandela on Monday, the State Department said, hours after her arrival on the latest leg of her Africa tour.
The luncheon with the 94-year-old former president will take place in Qunu, a village in the country’s southeast.
Clinton, who met schoolgirls and Africa’s second woman president during an unprecedented visit to Malawi Sunday before jetting to South Africa, will be in Johannesburg, Pretoria and Cape Town until Thursday morning.
While in South Africa, Clinton is also expected to meet with senior government officials, as well as senior representatives from the South African private sector.
The State Department announced earlier it was partnering with the US Chamber of Commerce to lead a business delegation of approximately 10 senior US executives to the three cities Clinton is visiting.
“South Africa is the leading market in Africa for American goods, and the United States is both an important export market and a source of foreign direct investment for South Africa,” it said.
Members of the business delegation were said to include senior executives from Black & Veatch, Boeing, Chevron, EMD/Caterpillar, FedEx Express, GE, Symbion, Trimble, Wal-Mart, and Zanbato.
A trade mission meanwhile includes the heads of the Overseas Private Investment Corporation, the Export-Import Bank of the United States, the US Trade and Development Agency, as well as Robert Hormats, under secretary of state for economic growth, energy and the environment, and Francisco Sanchez, under secretary of commerce for international trade.
“The mission showcases our commitment to highlighting investment opportunities in Sub-Saharan Africa, particularly in infrastructure, the State Department said.
After trips to Nigeria and Benin, Clinton is due to travel to Turkey Saturday for talks on the conflict in Syria. – Sapa
JERUSALEM – Mitt Romney told Jewish donors Monday that their culture is part of what has allowed them to be more economically successful than the nearby Palestinians, outraging Palestinian leaders who called his comments racist and out of touch.
“As you come here and you see the GDP per capita, for instance, in Israel which is about $21,000 dollars, and compare that with the GDP per capita just across the areas managed by the Palestinian Authority, which is more like $10,000 per capita, you notice such a dramatically stark difference in economic vitality,” the Republican presidential candidate told about 40 wealthy donors who breakfasted around a U-shaped table at the luxurious King David Hotel.
The reaction of Palestinian leaders to Romney’s comments was swift and pointed.
“What is this man doing here?” said Saeb Erekat, a top Palestinian official. “Yesterday, he destroyed negotiations by saying Jerusalem is the capital of Israel, and today he is saying Israeli culture is more advanced than Palestinian culture. Isn’t this racism?”
The economic disparity between the Israelis and the Palestinians is actually much greater than Romney stated. Israel had a per capita gross domestic product of about $31,000 in 2011, while the West Bank and Gaza had a per capita GDP of just over $1,500, according to the World Bank.
Romney, seated next to billionaire casino owner Sheldon Adelson at the head of the table, told donors at his fundraiser that he had read books and relied on his own business experience to understand why the difference is so great.
“And as I come here and I look out over this city and consider the accomplishments of the people of this nation, I recognize the power of at least culture and a few other things,” Romney said, citing an innovative business climate, the Jewish history of thriving in difficult circumstances and the “hand of providence.”
Romney, in comparing the Israeli and Palestinian economies, made no mention of the fact that Israel has controlled the West Bank, Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem since capturing them in the 1967 war. Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005, but continues to control access, and has enforced a crippling border blockade since the Islamic militant Hamas seized the territory in 2007.
In the West Bank, Israel retains overall control, and Palestinians only have limited self-rule. Israel controls all border crossings in and out of the West Bank, and continues to restrict Palestinian trade and movement.
The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund have said repeatedly that the Palestinian economy can only grow if Israel lifts those restrictions.
“It’s Israeli occupiers and Palestinians under occupation, and that’s why Palestinians cannot realize their potential,” Erekat said.
The breakfast with top donors – including Adelson, New York Jets owner Woody Johnson and hedge fund manager Paul Singer – concluded Romney’s visit to Israel, the second leg of a three-nation overseas tour designed to bolster the his foreign policy credentials.
Standing on Israeli soil for the first time as the GOP’s presumptive presidential nominee, Romney on Sunday declared Jerusalem to be the capital of the Jewish state and said the United States has promised never to “look away from our passion and commitment to Israel.”
The status of Jerusalem is a critical issue in peace talks between the Israelis and the Palestinians.
During his visit to Israel, Romney did not meet with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas or visit the West Bank. He held a brief meeting with Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad.
Romney’s campaign says his trip abroad, which began in England last week, is aimed at improving the former Massachusetts governor’s foreign policy experience through a series of meetings with foreign leaders. The candidate has largely avoided direct criticism of U.S. President Barack Obama while on foreign soil.
The Jerusalem fundraiser, however, was a political event that raised more than $1 million for Romney’s campaign. It marks at least the second finance event during his tour. The first, in London, attracted about 250 people to a $2,500 per person fundraiser.
Both presidential candidates have aggressively courted American donors living abroad, a practice that is legal and has been used for decades.
Romney’s declaration that Jerusalem is Israel’s capital was keeping with claims made by Israeli governments for decades, even though the United States, like other nations, maintains its embassy in Tel Aviv.
His remarks on the subject during his speech drew a standing ovation from his audience, which included Adelson, the American businessman who has promised to donate more than $100 million to help defeat Obama.
Adelson was among a several donors who flew to Israel for a day of sightseeing with Romney in addition to private meetings with top Israeli officials.
A group of donors also met with a top aide to President Benjamin Netanyahu, one donor said on the condition of anonymity to discuss private meetings.
Romney met with Netanyahu and other leaders before his speech Sunday. He also visited the Western Wall, Judaism’s holiest site, where he was mobbed by worshippers.
In his remarks, Romney steered clear of overt criticism of Obama, even though he said the threat of a nuclear-armed Iran “has only become worse” in the past five years.
Romney flew to the Middle East from Britain, where he caused a stir by questioning whether officials there were fully prepared for the Olympic Games. A stop in Poland will complete his trip.
Four years ago, Obama visited Israel as a presidential candidate, part of a five-nation trip meant to establish his own foreign policy credentials.
A goal of Romney’s overseas trip is to demonstrate his confidence on the world stage, but his stop in Israel also was designed to appeal to evangelical voters at home and to cut into Obama’s support among Jewish voters and donors. A Gallup survey of Jewish voters released Friday showed Obama with a 68-25 edge over Romney.
Romney and other Republicans have said Obama is insufficiently supportive of Israel.
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