Los Angeles Clippers Owner Donald Sterling Must Go!

Good morning. Check out my YouTube regarding Donald Sterling's racist remarks. Please comment, rate and subscribe.  After you watch the video, please sign the petition calling for Donald Sterling to step down as owner of the Los Angeles Clippers. The petition states that:

In the wake of the audio recording of Los Angeles Clippers' owner Donald Sterling's racist remarks about African-Americans and other racial minorities, it is incumbent upon not only NBA leadership, specifically, NBA commissioner Adam Silver, but also all NBA owners to move in solidarity by taking any and all possible legal actions to force Donald Sterling to relinquish his ownership of the L.A. Clippers.

The NBA is a league made up of mostly African-American players. Some of the NBA's greatest stars, past and present, have also been African-American, and the league has marketed and promoted the names and images of stars like Michael Jordan, Isaiah Thomas, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Chris Paul, Blake Griffin, and Magic Johnson all over the world to increase the popularity of the game of basketball as well as the NBA's own financial interests.

Donald Sterling's remarks are reprehensible and repugnant, but most of all intolerable and a slap in the face to all NBA's players and fans who wish to live in a world that is more tolerant, more respectful, and more loving then what Donald Sterling obviously envisions by his narrow-minded, bigoted, and paranoid views on race.

NBA players and employees should not have to tolerate working for nor contributing to the enrichment of a racist miscreant like Donald Sterling. Immediate action should be taken by the NBA to ensure that those who are a part of the NBA family are treated with dignity and respect; this means ousting Donald Sterling and any others who espouse his hateful views from NBA ownership.

Sign the petition.

Lupita Nyong'o - People Magazine's Most Beautiful

Good morning. Congratulations, Lupita Nyong'o!

White Terrorist Attacks Jewish Centers in Kansas

Today, a white supremacist allegedly committed despicable and cowardly attacks of terrorism against the Jewish community in Kansas. The Washington Post reports that:

The 73-year-old man accused of going on a deadly shooting spree Sunday at Jewish facilities in Kansas has been identified as a former ‘grand dragon’ of the Carolina Knights of the Ku Klux Klan. The shootings took the lives of three people before he was arrested.

Two of those shot were at the Jewish Community Center of Greater Kansas City. The other was at the Village Shalom Retirement Center. Both are located in Overland Park, Kan., south of Kansas City.

The shootings occurred about 1 p.m. central time a day before Passover, the eight-day holiday in which Jews celebrate their freedom from slavery in Egypt.

The Kansas City Star said that the gunman fired at five people Sunday afternoon, but he missed two of his targets, who were not injured. Police said the man had not only a shotgun but also a handgun and possibly an assault weapon.

According to the Star:

Matt Davis, who lives near Valley Park Elementary where police arrested Miller, was shopping with his son for a suit for his upcoming bar mitzvah when he heard about the shooting. Davis was outside the school when Miller was hauled off.

The man was smiling.

‘I was wondering, Why is the guy smiling when he’s being arrested,’ said Davis, whose daughter was inside the Jewish Community Center when the shooting occurred in the parking lot. She and the hundreds of other people inside the center were not injured.

Rabbi Herbert Mandl, chaplain for the Overland Park Police Department, told CNN that the shooter was shouting neo-Nazi slogans as he was taken away. Mandl also said he was asking people whether they were Jewish before he fired. And KCTV reported he was yelling “Heil Hitler” during the arrest.

The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), a respected activist organization that tracks hate crimes and racist activities, said the man arrested and identified by police as Frazier Glenn Cross is actually Frazier Glenn Miller. Miller, the SPLC said, founded and ran the Carolina Klan before he was sued by the SPLC “for operating an illegal paramilitary organization and using intimidation tactics against African Americans.”

Read more here.

I send my condolences to the victims' families. May God bless them and keep them. May justice prevail over hatred.

Obama Calls Out the GOP for Voter Suppression

Good morning, family. Yesterday, President Obama spoke at the National Action Network National Convention. The President called a spade a spade. He called the Republicans out for suppressing the black vote. The Grio reports that:

In an unsparing critique of Republicans, President Barack Obama on Friday said the GOP is threatening voting rights in America more than at any point since the passage of the historic 1965 law expanding rights at the ballot box to millions of black Americans.

“The stark simple truth is this: The right to vote is threatened today,” Obama said in a fiery speech at civil rights activist and television talk host Al Sharpton’s National Action Network conference.

The election-year warning comes as Obama seeks to mobilize Democratic voters to fight back against state voting requirements and early balloting restrictions that many in his party fear will curb turnout in November. The president vowed that he would not let the attacks on voting rights go unchallenged, but offered no new announcements of specific actions his administration planned to take.

The president pinned efforts to curb access to the ballot box directly on the GOP, declaring that the effort “has not been led by both parties. It’s been led by the Republican Party.”

The President spoke the truth. Republicans supported striking down Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act ("VRA"). As Think Progress reports, "the Republican attorneys general of Alabama, Arizona, Georgia, South Carolina, South Dakota and Texas filed an amicus brief in the Supreme Court arguing that a key provision of the Voting Rights Act is unconstitutional." In Shelby County v. Holder, it was Republican appointed Supreme Court Justices who decided to strike down Section 4 of the VRA. Moreover, all around the country, the GOP is deliberately attempting to suppress black voters and other voters who tend to vote for Democrats.

The New York Times reports that:

Republicans in Ohio and Wisconsin this winter pushed through measures limiting the time polls are open, in particular cutting into weekend voting favored by low-income voters and blacks, who sometimes caravan from churches to polls on the Sunday before election.

Democrats in North Carolina are scrambling to fight back against the nation’s most restrictive voting laws, passed by Republicans there last year. The measures, taken together, sharply reduce the number of early voting days and establish rules that make it more difficult for people to register to vote, cast provisional ballots or, in a few cases, vote absentee.

In all, nine states have passed measures making it harder to vote since the beginning of 2013. Most have to do with voter ID laws. Other states are considering mandating proof of citizenship, like a birth certificate or a passport, after a federal court judge recently upheld such laws passed in Arizona and Kansas. Because many poor people do not have either and because documents can take time and money to obtain, Democrats say the ruling makes it far more difficult for people to register.

In sum, the President's assessment of the GOP is accurate.

The question is what are we prepared to do combat the GOP's voter suppression efforts. In addition to gathering evidence and filing lawsuits, we must combat voter suppression through intensive voter information and registration campaigns. We must ensure that all African American voters are aware of all new voter laws in their state. We must register record numbers of African American voters and inspire them to actually vote. While we inform the public and register new voters, we must continue to boldly define and vigorously push a black agenda. We must support or oppose politicians based solely on their demonstrated commitment to our agenda.  We cannot afford to vote for candidates based solely based on party affiliation. Our agenda must be primary, first and foremost.

Obama, Bush, Clinton and Carter Speak at the LBJ Civil Rights Summit

Good morning, family. TGIF. This week, President Barack Obama, former President George W. Bush, former President Bill Clinton and former President Jimmy Carter spoke at that Lyndon B. Johnson Library Civil Rights Summit. What did you think about their speeches and comments? What should be the top priority for today's black civil rights leaders?

I Stand With Rev. Al Sharpton

The Smoking Gun reports that:

A lengthy investigation by The Smoking Gun has uncovered remarkable details about Sharpton’s past work as an informant for a joint organized crime task force comprised of FBI agents and NYPD detectives, as well as his dealings with an assortment of wiseguys.

Beginning in the mid-1980s and spanning several years, Sharpton’s cooperation was fraught with danger since the FBI’s principal targets were leaders of the Genovese crime family, the country’s largest and most feared Mafia outfit. In addition to aiding the FBI/NYPD task force, which was known as the “Genovese squad,” Sharpton’s cooperation extended to several other investigative agencies.

TSG’s account of Sharpton’s secret life as “CI-7” is based on hundreds of pages of confidential FBI affidavits, documents released by the bureau in response to Freedom of Information Act requests, court records, and extensive interviews with six members of the Genovese squad, as well as other law enforcement officials to whom the activist provided assistance.

Like almost every other FBI informant, Sharpton was solely an information source. The parameters of his cooperation did not include Sharpton ever surfacing publicly or testifying on a witness stand.

Genovese squad investigators--representing both the FBI and NYPD--recalled how Sharpton, now 59, deftly extracted information from wiseguys. In fact, one Gambino crime family figure became so comfortable with the protest leader that he spoke openly--during ten wired face-to-face meetings--about a wide range of mob business, from shylocking and extortions to death threats and the sanity of Vincent “Chin” Gigante, the Genovese boss who long feigned mental illness in a bid to deflect law enforcement scrutiny. As the mafioso expounded on these topics, Sharpton’s briefcase--a specially customized Hartmann model--recorded his every word.

The article further states that:

In an interview Saturday, Sharpton again denied working as a confidential informant, claiming that his prior cooperation with FBI agents was limited to efforts to prompt investigations of drug dealing in minority communities, as well as the swindling of black artists in the recording industry. He also repeatedly denied being “flipped” by federal agents in the course of an undercover operation. When asked specifically about his recording of the Gambino crime family member, Sharpton was noncommittal: “I’m not saying yes, I’m not saying no.”

If Sharpton’s account is to be believed, he was simply a concerned citizen who voluntarily (and briefly) joined arm-in-arm with federal agents, perhaps risking peril in the process. The other explanation for Sharpton’s cooperation--one that has uniformly been offered by knowledgeable law enforcement agents--presents the reverend in a less noble light. Worried that he could face criminal charges, Sharpton opted for the path of self-preservation and did what the FBI asked. Which is usually how someone is compelled to repeatedly record a gangster discussing murder, extortion, and loan sharking.

More specifically, the article alleges that:

In the course of an investigation being run by Spinelli and his partner John Pritchard, Sharpton was secretly recorded in meetings with an FBI undercover agent posing as a wealthy drug dealer seeking to promote boxing matches.

During one meeting with Sharpton, the undercover agent offered to get him "pure coke" at $35,000 a kilo. As the phony drug kingpin spoke, Sharpton nodded his head and said, “I hear you.” When the undercover promised Sharpton a 10 percent finder’s fee if he could arrange the purchase of several kilos, the reverend referred to an unnamed buyer and said, “If he’s gonna do it, he’ll do it much more than that.” The FBI agent steered the conversation toward the possible procurement of cocaine, sources said, since investigators believed that Sharpton acquaintance Daniel Pagano--who was not present--was looking to consummate drug deals. Joseph Pagano, an East Harlem native who rose through a Genovese crew notorious for narcotics trafficking, spent nearly seven years in federal prison for heroin distribution.

While Sharpton did not explicitly offer to arrange a drug deal, some investigators thought his interaction with the undercover agent could be construed as a violation of federal conspiracy laws. Though an actual prosecution, an ex-FBI agent acknowledged, would have been “a reach,” agents decided to approach Sharpton and attempt to “flip” the activist, who was then shy of his 30th birthday. In light of Sharpton’s relationship with Don King, FBI agents wanted his help in connection with the bureau’s three-year-old boxing investigation, code named “Crown Royal” and headed by Spinelli and Pritchard.

In subsequent denials that he had been “flipped,” Sharpton has contended that he stiffened in the face of the FBI agents, meeting their bluff with bluster and bravado. He claimed to have turned away Spinelli & Co., daring them to “Indict me” and “Prosecute.” Sharpton has complained that the seasoned investigators were “trying to sting me, entrap me…a young minister.”

In fact, Sharpton fell for the FBI ruse and agreed to cooperate, a far-reaching decision he made without input from a lawyer, according to sources. “I think there was some fear [of prosecution] on his part,” recalled a former federal agent. In a TSG interview, Sharpton claimed that he rebuffed the FBI agents, who, he added, threatened to serve him with a subpoena to testify before a federal grand jury investigating King. After being confronted by the bureau, Sharpton said he consulted with an attorney (whom he declined to identify).

The United States government and reactionary forces have a long history of attacking black leaders and organizations. In fact, under the Cointelpro, the U.S. government sought "to expose, disrupt, misdirect, discredit, or otherwise neutralize" black organizations, their leaders, spokesmen and members. Our enemies discredited and neutralized leaders like Marcus Garvey, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, Stokely Carmichael (Kwame Ture), Huey P. Newton, Fred Hampton and many others.

The Smoking Gun article is an obvious example of such an effort. Clearly, the goal of that article is to discredit Al Sharpton and President Barack Obama. Even worst, the Smoking Gun may incite, whether intentionally or unintentionally, the mafia to kill Rev. Sharpton. Furthermore, shortly after Rev. Sharpton's National Action Network announced that President Obama will be the keynote speaker at their national convention, the Smoking Gun published that article.  That timing is not a coincidence.

The Smoking Gun's attempt to discredit Rev. Sharpton fails for the following reasons. First of all, the events described in the article happened over thirty years ago. Second, the mafia is a scourge that should be eradicated. They flood our communities with drugs and guns. They are responsible for murder, extortion, prostitution, gambling and other despicable crimes. Al Sharpton should be commended for helping law enforcement arrest and imprison those thugs.  Finally, in light of the F.B.I.'s abysmal track record in the black community, they have less creditability than Rev. Sharpton. Their account of how Sharpton became an informant is questionable. Since Rev. Sharpton has a history of challenging racist police officers, it is not unlikely that former F.B.I. agents would distort the facts in order to discredit Rev. Sharpton.  

We cannot allow the opposition to deceive us. Rev. Al Sharpton is a soldier in the struggle for civil rights. He stands up against police brutality, racial profiling, injustice and other forms of racism.   He demonstrated in support of affirmative action.  He was there for Sean Bell, Amadou Diallo, the Jena Six, Trayvon Martin, Jordan Davis and countless others. He has devoted his life to social justice. For those reasons, I stand with Rev. Al Sharpton.

Seymour Hersh: Obama's Rationale for War with Syria Was Wrong

Yesterday, on Democracy Now, Amy Goodman interviewed award winning journalist Seymour Hersh. On the program, Mr. Hersh explained how the Obama Administration's rationale for waging war against Syria was false. The Administration claimed that Syria crossed a red line by using chemical weapons against its own people. However, there is a strong possibility that the rebels, aided by Turkey, used chemical weapons in order to force the U.S. to attack the Assad regime.

Similar to the Iraq war, thousands of people could have been killed based on a lie. Sadly, many hypocritical, brainwashed "progressives" blindly danced to the beat of the war drums. Instead of challenging the Administration, they became its mouthpieces. Thank goodness, the war hawks did not have their way.

In Seymour Hersh's London Review of Books article entitled The Red Line and the Rat Line, he reports that:

The joint chiefs also knew that the Obama administration’s public claims that only the Syrian army had access to sarin were wrong. The American and British intelligence communities had been aware since the spring of 2013 that some rebel units in Syria were developing chemical weapons. On 20 June analysts for the US Defense Intelligence Agency issued a highly classified five-page ‘talking points’ briefing for the DIA’s deputy director, David Shedd, which stated that al-Nusra maintained a sarin production cell: its programme, the paper said, was ‘the most advanced sarin plot since al-Qaida’s pre-9/11 effort’. (According to a Defense Department consultant, US intelligence has long known that al-Qaida experimented with chemical weapons, and has a video of one of its gas experiments with dogs.) The DIA paper went on: ‘Previous IC [intelligence community] focus had been almost entirely on Syrian CW [chemical weapons] stockpiles; now we see ANF attempting to make its own CW … Al-Nusrah Front’s relative freedom of operation within Syria leads us to assess the group’s CW aspirations will be difficult to disrupt in the future.’ The paper drew on classified intelligence from numerous agencies: ‘Turkey and Saudi-based chemical facilitators,’ it said, ‘were attempting to obtain sarin precursors in bulk, tens of kilograms, likely for the anticipated large scale production effort in Syria.’ (Asked about the DIA paper, a spokesperson for the director of national intelligence said: ‘No such paper was ever requested or produced by intelligence community analysts.’)

Last May, more than ten members of the al-Nusra Front were arrested in southern Turkey with what local police told the press were two kilograms of sarin. In a 130-page indictment the group was accused of attempting to purchase fuses, piping for the construction of mortars, and chemical precursors for sarin. Five of those arrested were freed after a brief detention. The others, including the ringleader, Haytham Qassab, for whom the prosecutor requested a prison sentence of 25 years, were released pending trial. In the meantime the Turkish press has been rife with speculation that the Erdoğan administration has been covering up the extent of its involvement with the rebels. In a news conference last summer, Aydin Sezgin, Turkey’s ambassador to Moscow, dismissed the arrests and claimed to reporters that the recovered ‘sarin’ was merely ‘anti-freeze’.

The DIA paper took the arrests as evidence that al-Nusra was expanding its access to chemical weapons. It said Qassab had ‘self-identified’ as a member of al-Nusra, and that he was directly connected to Abd-al-Ghani, the ‘ANF emir for military manufacturing’. Qassab and his associate Khalid Ousta worked with Halit Unalkaya, an employee of a Turkish firm called Zirve Export, who provided ‘price quotes for bulk quantities of sarin precursors’. Abd-al-Ghani’s plan was for two associates to ‘perfect a process for making sarin, then go to Syria to train others to begin large scale production at an unidentified lab in Syria’. The DIA paper said that one of his operatives had purchased a precursor on the ‘Baghdad chemical market’, which ‘has supported at least seven CW efforts since 2004’.

Read more here.

It is a shame that the major U.S. media is not reporting on this story.

McCutcheon v. FEC and the Facade of Democracy

The New York Times reports that:

The Supreme Court on Wednesday continued its abolition of limits on election spending, striking down a decades-old cap on the total amount any individual can contribute to federal candidates in a two-year election cycle.

The ruling, issued near the start of a campaign season, will very likely increase the role money plays in American politics.

The 5-to-4 decision, with the court’s more conservative members in the majority, echoed Citizens United, the 2010 decision that struck down limits on independent campaign spending by corporations and unions.

Wednesday’s decision seemed to alter campaign finance law in subtle but important ways, notably by limiting how the government can justify laws said to restrict the exercise of First Amendment rights in the form of campaign contributions.

The court’s 88-page decision reflected sharply different visions of the meaning of the First Amendment and the role of government in regulating elections, with the majority deeply skeptical of government efforts to control participation in politics, and the minority saying that such oversight was needed to ensure a functioning democracy.

Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., writing for four justices in the controlling opinion, said the overall limits could not survive First Amendment scrutiny. “There is no right in our democracy more basic,” he wrote, “than the right to participate in electing our political leaders.”

In a dissent from the bench, Justice Stephen G. Breyer called the majority opinion a disturbing development that raised the overall contribution ceiling to “the number infinity.”

“If the court in Citizens United opened a door,” he said, “today’s decision may well open a floodgate.”

Such oral dissents are rare, and they signal deep disagreements. But Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Breyer noted from the bench that the other side’s arguments were well presented.

Wednesday’s decision did not affect familiar base limits on contributions from individuals to candidates, currently $2,600 per candidate in primary and general elections. But it said that overall limits of $48,600 by individuals every two years for contributions to all federal candidates violated the First Amendment, as did separate aggregate limits on contributions to political party committees, currently $74,600.
In his written opinion, Justice Breyer said Wednesday’s decision would allow “a single individual to contribute millions of dollars to a political party or to a candidate’s campaign.” He was joined by Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan.

The ruling, which goes in effect in a matter of weeks, concerned only contributions from individuals. Federal law continues to ban direct contributions by corporations and unions, though they remain free to spend unlimited sums through “super PACs” and similar vehicles.

The case, McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission, No. 12-536, was brought by Shaun McCutcheon, an Alabama businessman, and the Republican National Committee. Mr. McCutcheon, who had contributed a total of about $33,000 to 16 candidates for federal office in the 2012 election cycle, said he had wanted to give $1,776 each to 12 more but was stopped by the overall cap for individuals. The party committee said it wanted to receive contributions above the legal limit for political committees.

America has never been a true democracy. She has simply managed to deceive the masses with the illusion of democracy. From the day of her birth, the United States has always been a plutocracy. She is literally a government for the rich, by the rich. The composition of Congress is proof. It is a millionaires club. As reported in the Washington Post, "Lawmakers’ average net worth in 2012 nosed above the seven-figure mark to $1,008,767, according to a new analysis by the Center for Responsive Politics, up from the none-too-shabby $966,000 the year before." In addition, through campaign contributions, political ads and lobbyists, the rich and the corporations have significant influence over the electoral process and legislative process. 

Before Citizens United and McCutcheon, the power elite already wielded undue influence over politicians on the local, state and federal levels.  Those court decisions will simply make it easier and less cumbersome for the bourgeoisie to maintain its dictatorship over the various branches of government. As the top one percent exercise their "First Amendment right" to buy politicians and judges, the rest of us will watch our rights and power diminish.

If we do not mobilize and organize, we will watch all campaign contribution limits be eliminated and the facade of democracy will come tumbling down.  We must fight to create a far more democratic society.

The Devil's Advocate: The Case of Robert Richards IV

Common Dreams reports that:

This happened: Robert Richards IV, an unemployed heir to the du Pont chemical fortune who lives supported by a trust fund in a $1.8 million mansion, was given probation by a Delaware judge who ruled Richards would "not fare well" in prison even though he admitted raping his three-year-old daughter and, later, molesting his infant son. After Richards hired the best lawyer his money could buy to get him a plea deal in the 2009 case, Judge Jan Jurden ruled he would be better served by treatment than in prison where bad guys might hurt him - which is, coincidentally, true of so many other people currently rotting in cells, many of whom just, say, held up a 7/11 when they were broke, a crime considerably less heinous than raping your own children, except, see, they couldn't afford Richards' lawyer. The ruling has just come to light with the filing of a lawsuit by Richards' ex-wife, who is seeking damages for her children. So the next time someone tells you they believe justice is blind to race, class and money in America, do please tell them this story.

This is yet another reminder that we do not live in a true democracy. This is another case of affluenza, white privilege on crack. We live in a plutocracy where too often justice is manipulated, distorted and denied based on race and class. The system protects and defends devils like Robert Richards IV.

Black Achievement Series: Kwasi Enin

USA Today and News One report that:

In the next month, Kwasi Enin must make a tough decision: Which of the eight Ivy League universities should he attend this fall?

A first-generation American from Shirley, N.Y., the 17-year-old violist and aspiring physician applied to all eight, from Brown to Yale.

The responses began rolling in over the past few months, and by late last week when he opened an e-mail from Harvard, he found he'd been accepted to every one. School district officials provided scanned copies of acceptance letters from all eight on Monday. Yale confirmed that it was holding a spot for Enin.

The feat is extremely rare, say college counselors — few students even apply to all eight, because each seeks different qualities in their freshman class. Almost none are invited to attend them all. The Ivy League colleges are among the nation's most elite.

"My heart skipped a beat when he told me he was applying to all eight," says Nancy Winkler, a guidance counselor at William Floyd High School, where Enin attends class. In 29 years as a counselor, she says, she's never seen anything like this. "It's a big deal when we have students apply to one or two Ivies. To get into one or two is huge. It was extraordinary."

For most of the eight schools, acceptance comes rarely, even among the USA's top students. At the top end, Cornell University admitted only 14% of applicants. Harvard accepted just 5.9%.

But Enin has "a lot of things in his favor," says college admissions expert Katherine Cohen, CEO and founder of IvyWise, a New York-based consulting firm.

For one thing, he's a young man. "Colleges are looking for great boys," Cohen says. Application pools these days skew heavily toward girls: The U.S. Department of Education estimates that females comprised 57% of college students in degree-granting institutions last year. Colleges — especially elite ones — are struggling to keep male/female ratios even, so admitting academically gifted young men like Enin gives them an advantage.

He ranks No. 11 in a class of 647 at William Floyd, a large public school on Long Island's south shore. That puts him in the top 2% of his class. His SAT score, at 2,250 out of 2,400 points, puts him in the 99th percentile for African-American students.

Read more at USA Today.

Congratulations, Kwasi Enin!

Jordan Miles: The Face of American Injustice

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports that:

The eight-member jury that heard the Jordan Miles civil trial today reached a mixed verdict, finding the three officers liable for the false arrest of Mr. Miles, but it found that they did not use excessive force.

The jury awarded compensatory damages of $101,016.75 plus punitive damages of $6,000 against each officer, for total damages of $119,016.75.

The all-white jury of four men and four women reached the verdict following 10 days of testimony, a solid day of closing arguments and deliberations that started Friday morning.

"It's a victory on my behalf because the jury found the police officers to be guilty," said Mr. Miles. "It's not over, because God didn't say it's over."

Joel Sansone, the attorney for Mr. Miles, said, "The police officers broke the rules, arrested my client and violated his rights under the Fourth Amendment."

He said there were pre-trial decisions made by the judge that kept evidence out of the case that "points to the guilt of these police officers."

Mr. Sansone called for a reopening of the federal criminal investigation of the officers.

"I cannot explain the jury's failure to find excessive force," Mr. Sansone said. Nor could he explain the verdict amount. "You realize a six-figure verdict, while it may not seem a lot to some, is a lot of money."

The case hinged on the details of an arrest on Jan. 12, 2010, on Tioga Street in Homewood, and on the credibility of parties. Mr. Miles' version of events differed radically from those of Pittsburgh police officers Michael Saldutte and David Sisak, and former city officer Richard Ewing, now with McCandless.

The article further states that:

Undisputed is that Mr. Miles, then 18, was walking from his mother's house to his grandmother's, around the block, at around 11 p.m.

Mr. Miles said he was holding a cell phone to his ear, talking with a friend. The officers said his hands were in his pockets, suggesting he was using a Bluetooth hands-free calling device.

Mr. Miles said he walked on the street, because the sidewalks were icy. The officers said he was seen huddled between two houses, then came out to the sidewalk.

The jury had to weigh whether the three plainclothes officers leapt from their unmarked car demanding of the plaintiff money, drugs and a gun, as Mr. Miles claimed, or calmly identified themselves as law enforcement and began asking questions.

Both sides agreed that Mr. Miles tried to run, and slipped on ice. The Homewood man said he never got up and didn't fight, while the officers said he rose and elbowed the pursuing Officer Saldutte in the head.

The defense contended that Officer Sisak tried a Taser and then tackled Mr. Miles through a hedgerow, accounting for the twigs lodged in his mouth and the dreadlocks that tore free from his head. Mr. Miles has professed no recollection of a trip through the bushes.

Mr. Miles said he just curled up in a ball, while Officer Sisak said the young man donkey-kicked him in the knee.

Officer Ewing said he used a leg sweep to take Mr. Miles down.

Then there was the issue of the Mountain Dew bottle. The officers said they saw and then felt a bulge in Mr. Miles' coat pocket, which turned out to be a bottle of the soft drink. Mr. Miles said he wasn't carrying any bottle, and hates Mountain Dew.

Neither side disputes that the officers struck Mr. Miles repeatedly in his sides and finally his head, in an ultimately successful effort to get him handcuffed.

The Homewood man claimed someone choked him and struck him in the head after he was handcuffed, including a final clout with a hard object. The officers strenuously denied using any force after Mr. Miles was handcuffed.

Was Mr. Miles stripped of his coat before being placed in the police wagon? He said yes, the officers said no. There was likewise no agreement on the officers' claim that they asked a neighbor if she knew him.

Associated Press also reports that:

Miles' attorneys previously demanded $2 million to settle the case and rejected the city's offer of $180,000. The city, instead, paid $75,000 to settle Miles' claims against the government itself, with the understanding that money would be deducted from any damages award against the officers.

Because more than $41,000 of the verdict was covered by city insurance, the city's $75,000 could be deducted from the remaining $78,000 — leaving Miles with a net award of $3,000, Wymard and Campbell said. And Miles could still wind up paying some of the officers' attorneys' fees because he didn't win the case outright.

Sansone said he was still researching those claims and couldn't immediately comment, but Wymard said, "Eventually, Miles may well be writing the City of Pittsburgh a check in this case."

In America, the masses are inundated with a constant stream of the news reports about young black male criminal suspects.  The entertainment industry bombards the public with negative music, videos and movies depicting black men selling drugs and killing each other. Such imagery promotes the false notion that most black men are thugs, drug dealers, gangsters, public enemies and menaces.  As a result, society views our black skin as a badge of criminality. 

For those reasons, the police automatically assume that an African American boy walking to his grandmother's house at night must be engaged in some kind of criminal activity.  Due to his race, they wrongly assume that he must possess guns and drugs. Such assumptions give police departments around this country a license to stop, harass, beat and even kill black youth with impunity.  In the words of rapper KRS One, some police officers are like modern day overseers on urban plantations.

In this case, those three white police officers beat Jordan Miles beyond recognition. Those chumps beat Jordan Miles like he was a runaway slave.

To make matters even worst, an all white jury found that the police officers' vicious brutality was justified. The jury's verdict is completely incomprehensible.  On one hand, they found the officers liable for false arrest.  On the other hand, they found that the officers did not use excessive force against Jordan Miles. 

Similar to the Michael Dunn verdict, the only explanation has to be race. The jury was all white.  The officers were white. The plaintiff was a young black man.  That jury obviously identified with those white police officers and found their testimony to be more creditable than a young black man's testimony.  Sadly, even this Age of Obama, a black man's testimony carries little weight in the court system. Jordan Miles' battered and swollen face is a symbol of the judicial system's brutality towards black people. It is the face of American injustice.

They give the brother a few dollars for his false arrest claim and they expect him and the community to be pacified. They expect us to just bow down and surrender.  Never.  As attorney Joel Sansone said, we must demand a federal criminal investigation. 

Every other day, there is another incident of police brutality or white vigilantism. Every other day, there is another campaign for justice.  The names of the victims change, but the systemic problem of police brutality continues to fester.  Like an unabated plague, it moves from host to host, from victim to victim. Each black generation continues to experience this brutal cycle of state sponsored terrorism.  Today, it is Jordan Miles.  Tomorrow, it will be someone else.  When will this madness end?