Reports of hate crimes against gays and religious groups increased sharply in 2008, according to FBI data released Monday.
Overall, the number of reported hate crimes increased about 2 percent. These same figures show a nearly 11 percent increase in hate crimes based on sexual orientation, and a nearly 9 percent increase in hate crimes based on religion.
The largest category, racially motivated hate crimes, fell less than 1 percent.
Joe Solmonese, president of Human Rights Campaign, the nation's largest gay civil rights group, called the numbers unacceptable and said they showed the need for the expanded federal hate crimes law signed last month by President Barack Obama.
Among all categories of hate crimes, roughly a third are vandalism or property damage. About 30 percent involve intimidation of some kind, and another 30 percent were physical attacks.
The FBI does not compare year-to-year trends in hate crimes, saying the number of agencies reporting changes too much. In fact, the bureau cautioned that the increase reported Monday might well be due to more agencies tracking such incidents.
Overall, “the 2008 numbers are up slightly — 7,783 incidents and 9,691 victims” were reported last year. Hate crimes based on sexual orientation had the largest increase — nearly 11 percent. Hate crimes based on religion rose 9 percent and the “largest category, racially-motivated hate crimes, fell less than 1 percent.” A breakdown of the 1,706 victims of sexual-orientation hate crimes:
– 57.5 percent were victims of an offender’s anti-male homosexual bias.
– 27.3 percent were victims because of an anti-homosexual bias.
– 11.6 percent were victims because of an anti-female homosexual bias.
– 2.0 percent were victims because of an anti-heterosexual bias.
– 1.6 percent were victims because of an anti-bisexual bias.
The FBI notes that with the recent passage of the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr., Hate Crimes Prevention Act, it will now “begin the process of adding the collection of hate crimes motivated by gender and gender identity and incorporating them into our annual report.”Reports of hate crimes against gays and religious groups increased sharply in 2008,... more
"None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free. The truth has been kept from the depth of their minds by masters who rule them with lies. They feed them on falsehoods till wrong looks like right in their eyes." - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
"How to get people to vote against their interests and to really think against their interests is very clever. It's the cleverest ruling class that I have ever come across in history. It's been 200 years at it. It's superb." - Gore VidalThe Critical Unraveling of U.S. Society
By David DeGraw The Public Record Nov 19th,... more
A grieving soldier faces a "war crimes" trial for punching a Taliban prisoner suspected of killing his closest comrade.
Lance Corporal Lawrence Soni had a "flash of anger" after the fanatic - caught laying a mine - laughed in his face.
Days earlier he had been given the heartbreaking news that Cpl Joseph "Etch" Etchells, had been blown up and killed.
Fellow troops restrained Soni after he landed a hot-headed thump on the insurgent, knocking him out.
The 22-year-old, on his second tour of Afghanistan, was put under investigation and detectives from the Army's Special Investigation Branch are investigating him for a possible "war crime" charge of assaulting a prisoner.
The soldier's shocked father Jaspal, 50, said last night: "All Lawrence ever wanted was to fight for his country.
"He and Joseph were incredibly close. Lawrence lashed out but in his mind this was the man that had killed his friend. The Army have used him as a scapegoat."
If convicted he could spend up to a year in prison and would be thrown out of the Army in disgrace. Last night Colonel Richard Kemp, a former commander of British forces in Afghanistan, said: "This doesn't sound like a war crime. Considering the huge pressures that troops face in Helmand - getting blown up at any time and seeing their friends blown up - we should be in awe of their restraint."
You have the right as an individual to own a gun and defend yourself.
Prohibition didn't stop liquor use; the drug laws can't stop drug use. Making gun ownership illegal will not stop gun ownership.
The primary victim of these misguided efforts is the honest citizen whose civil rights are trampled as frustrated legislators and police tighten the screws.
Banning guns will make guns more expensive and give organized crime a great opportunity to make profits in a new black market for weapons. Street violence will increase in new turf wars. Criminals will not give up their guns. But, many law abiding citizens will, leaving them defenseless against armed bandits.
Rather than banning guns, the politicians and the police should encourage gun ownership, as well as education and training programs. A responsible, well-armed and trained citizenry is the best protection against domestic crime and the threat of foreign invasion. America's founders knew that. It is still true today.You have the right as an individual to own a gun and defend yourself.
Prohibition... more
A White Professor at the University of Yukub in Los Angeles,CA. was asked what he felt about the true crime stories blog urbanpulp.blogspot.com by one of his students.
The educator became so enraged at the mere thought of the controversial blog that he literally lost it and blurted out. "Isn't that the blog that glamorizes those nigger criminals!!" Students then throw books at the professor and he was escorted safely off campus by school security!!!
To see for yourself what the controversy is head over to http://urbanpulp.blogspot.com/A White Professor at the University of Yukub in Los Angeles,CA. was asked what he felt... more
"LONDON (Reuters) - Leading banks have funded arms manufacturers, whose products include cluster bombs, to the tune of $5 billion in the past two years, despite an international accord to ban such weapons, a study said Thursday.
The report by Profundo consultancy and several NGOs said the banks loaned money to companies whose products include cluster bombs or their components.
It did not say the funds went directly to make cluster bombs. The manufacturers could use the money for any of their production lines.
The top five loan providers were Bank of America, Citigroup , JP Morgan, Barclays and Goldman Sachs, the study said.
The researchers used publicly available information, such as that supplied by stock exchanges and financial databases, to produce their study.
According to the research, the banks have provided financing for diversified manufacturer Textron, aerospace and defense group Alliant Techsystems and defense contractor Lockheed Martin , all based in the United States.
Cluster bombs, which open in mid-air and scatter a multitude of bomblets over a wide area, have killed and maimed tens of thousands of civilians, campaigners say.
Nations agreed to outlaw cluster bombs in May 2008. The resulting convention will come into force when 30 countries have ratified it -- 23 have already done so.
Neither the United States nor Britain, where the top five loan providers are based, have yet ratified the treaty.
The Convention on Cluster Munitions includes a ban on assisting anyone to make the bombs.
Bank of America and JP Morgan declined to comment while Citigroup and Goldman Sachs also had no immediate reaction.""LONDON (Reuters) - Leading banks have funded arms manufacturers, whose products... more
Indigenous people from south-east Peru are suing Repsol-YPF and US company Hunt Oil over their plans to explore for oil on their land.
Local indigenous organisation FENAMAD has filed a lawsuit asking for an injunction to be placed on both the companies’ activities. The suit argues that the government did not consult with local people before giving the companies permission to work there, as is required under international law, and oil exploration would violate local peoples’ fundamental human rights to ‘enjoy a balanced environment’.
Hunt and Repsol-YPF own the rights to explore in an area known as ‘Lot 76’, which includes land belonging to the Yine, Matsigenka and Harakmbut tribes. At the heart of the Lot is the Amarakaeri Communal Reserve, used by many villages in the region and the source of six rivers that are the only fresh water supply for an estimated ten thousand people.
‘FENAMAD hopes that this legal action will paralyze any activity inside the Amarakaeri Communal Reserve, as otherwise the very existence of Madre de Dios’s indigenous peoples would be put at risk,’ said FENAMAD spokesperson Jaime Corisepa.
Watch a film of the meeting with Hunt http://fenamad-indigenas.blogspot.com/ (in Spanish), entitled ‘See how the Peruvian Amazon’s indigenous peoples say ‘NO’ to Hunt Oil company’.Survival International
Indigenous people from south-east Peru are suing Repsol-YPF... more
100 years of congressional efforts to limit corporate spending in elections going down the drain !
This is a pretty depressing saga unfolding right before our eyes and it's another reason why we need cameras in the Supreme Court so we can view the mockery Roberts is making out of the Third Branch of government. They are about to grant corporations the right to spend unlimited amounts of money to attack political candidates right up until an election, which would make destroy the very fabric of our voting structure. Did you know that a corporation is an individual in Scalia's mind? http://thirdbranch.crooksandliars.com/john-amato/roberts-court-about-do-unthinkable
The Supreme Court is returning early from its summer recess to consider a potential watermark case that couldoverturn a century of campaign finance restrictions and clear the way for unregulated spending by corporations on political campaigns. The case, Citizens United v. The Federal Election Commission, has grown from a limited question about a political documentary to a broad challenge to the government's right to restrict corporations from spending money to support or oppose political candidates.
Encompassing questions on First Amendment rights, the power of corporations and the influence of money on political elections, it's no wonder the case has created an assortment of strange bedfellows. Conservatives and liberals appear on both sides, either to defend the government's right to restrict corporate political advocacy or, on the other side, to argue that such regulations are a violation of the First Amendment.
To help sort through the complicated background and ramifications of the case, Bill Moyers talks with two prominent lawyers: Trevor Potter, president and general counsel of The Campaign Legal Center, who has submitted a brief to the court in support of the F.E.C.; and Floyd Abrams, a First Amendment attorney, who will be arguing before the court on behalf of Citizens United. http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/09042009/profile.html
“It’s here that the American dream decided it liked the taste of the vomit it was chocking on. Just rolled over on its back and screamed for more drugs. it didn't die.“ - Warren EllisTHIS IS NO DRILL !
100 years of congressional efforts to limit corporate spending... more
There isn't a single category of journalist. There are two very different kinds of journalists: the real ones and the ones paid by their masters to make propaganda. This second category usurps the name of journalist without having the right to it, does a job in which doen't risk anything and earns a lot and often attracts the hatred and the disgust of citizens against this profession. But in the world there are many true journalists, even in places where it's almost impossible to be one of them.There isn't a single category of journalist. There are two very different kinds of... more
NOTE : I KNOW THIS IS EMBARASSING TO THE HILT FOR A NATION THAT PRIDES ITSELF ON BEING HOME OF THE BRAVE & FREE BUT REALITY REARS ITS UGLY HEAD; WHAT CAN I SAY BUT PLEASE RATIONALIZE THE DIGNITY NEEDED TO ACCOMPLISH THIS MISSION BY REMEMBERING THAT GOLDEN RULE WE ARE ALL SUPOSE TO APPLY AS A BASIC UNDERSTANDING OF OUR HUMAN NATURE ? YOU KNOW THAT PESKY…”DO UNTO OTHER” STUFF !
Compiled below, in hopes that it may be of some assistance to Eric Holder, John Conyers, Patrick Leahy, active citizens, foreign courts, the International Criminal Court, law firms preparing civil suits, and local or state prosecutors with decency and nerve is a list of 50 top living U.S. war criminals.
These are men and women who helped to launch wars of aggression or who have been complicit in lesser war crimes. These are not the lowest-ranking employees or troops who managed to stray from official criminal policies. These are the makers of those policies.
The occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan have seen the United States target civilians, journalists, hospitals, and ambulances, use antipersonnel weapons including cluster bombs in densely settled urban areas, use white phosphorous as a weapon, use depleted uranium weapons, employ a new version of napalm found in Mark 77 firebombs, engage in collective punishment of Iraqi civilian populations - including by blocking roads, cutting electricity and water, destroying fuel stations, planting bombs in farm fields, demolishing houses, and plowing down orchards - detain people without charge or legal process without the rights of prisoners of war, imprison children, torture, and murder.
Because each of the people on this list should be nonviolently protested everywhere they go (more on that below), I have organized them by location. Please post updates on where they are as comments ;)
CALIFORNIA
1. John Yoo: Professor of Law at Boalt Hall School of Law in Berkeley, California, with house at 1241 Grizzly Peak Blvd., Berkeley, (but a lawyer with the Pennsylvania bar from which he should be disbarred and would be if enough people demanded it) counseled the White House on how to get away with war crimes, wrote this memo promoting presidential power to launch aggressive war, and claimed the power to decree that the federal statutes against torture, assault, maiming, and stalking do not apply to the military in the conduct of the war, and to announce a new definition of torture limiting it to acts causing intense pain or suffering equivalent to pain associated with serious physical injury so severe that death, organ failure or permanent damage resulting in loss of significant body functions will likely result. Yoo claimed in 2005 that a president has the right to enhance an interrogation by crushing the testicles of someone's child. Yoo has been confronted in his classroom: video, and defended by the Washington Post, and again confronted in the classroom.
Additional collaborators:
2. Robert J. Delahunty, Yoo colleague, should be disbarred in NY
3. Patrick F. Philbin, Yoo colleague, Deputy, should be disbarred in D.C. and MA
4. Jay Bybee: federal judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, headquartered in San Francisco, California (but Bybee based in Las Vegas), counseled the White House on how to get away with war crimes, including by helping Yoo draft the memo linked above. He signed not only torture memos but also a memo purporting to legalize illegal and unconstitutional wars. BYBEE SHOULD BE IMPEACHED. He works, among other places, at the James R. Browning Courthouse, 95 7th Street, San Francisco, CA 94103, - This is a giant marble building in the center of the city represented in Congress by the Speaker of the House.NOTE : I KNOW THIS IS EMBARASSING TO THE HILT FOR A NATION THAT PRIDES ITSELF ON BEING... more
The absolute power was historically the one of the kings before the English, American and French revolutions. The King could do anything and didn't have to answer to anyone, so no one could control what he did, nor oppose him. Today the world is returning back to that time. The only difference is that instead of the Kings now there are groups of political and economic power. Power has a bad and a worse aspect.The absolute power was historically the one of the kings before the English, American... more
Italy is the land of compromise, the country where no one ever follows upright conduct and transparency in anything. Italy is a vast gray area of complicity between institutions, economy and mafias. A morass of conflicts of interest. A labyrinth of power and unofficial powers where many people try to prevent citizens from understanding who did what and why he did so.Italy is the land of compromise, the country where no one ever follows upright conduct... more
Shelton (WTNH) - Nineteen people are under arrest, accused in a bird fighting ring.
Police carried out cages and cages of the canaries and some saffron finches. Investigators say they removed 150 birds from a house on Ripton Road this morning.
They also seized $8,000 in cash inside the house and it's where the people living there set up the birds to fight.
Shelton detectives and several agencies including the State Police are looking into how the birds got there, where they came from and how extensive this operation was.
"And I was shocked because, like I said, the neighborhood is quiet and the people seemed like really nice neighbors and how they could get 100 canaries in there and nobody know about it is beyond me," said Marion Segea.
Police say they caught the group before the next fight was set to happen today. But they believe it's been going on for some time. The suspects face several charges including animal cruelty and illegal gambling.Shelton (WTNH) - Nineteen people are under arrest, accused in a bird fighting ring.... more
Over 1,000 criminal cases may be return to court; lawyer to be disciplined
INDIANAPOLIS - Hundreds of criminal convictions, including that of a man found guilty of a crash that killed three people, could return to court because the Indiana prosecutor who oversaw the cases had an inactive law license for more than three years.
Newton County Prosecutor Ed Barce asked the state to change his license status in August 2005, saying he did not practice law in Indiana. Yet he continued to prosecute cases.
Barce, who has since reactivated his license, denies committing misconduct. He may have a sound defense: Indiana's constitution requires prosecutors to have law licenses before taking office but doesn't specify that they must keep them active. Legal experts say they're baffled by the case but doubt whether Barce's inactive license could be enough to throw out the convictions.
"Why in God's name did he put himself in this position?" asked John A. Strait, a Seattle University School of Law professor.
The state Supreme Court set a disciplinary hearing Oct. 16 and Barce could be disbarred, reprimanded or suspended.Over 1,000 criminal cases may be return to court; lawyer to be disciplined... more
Often we speak badly of crime journalism because it would be morbid: people are concerned with violent crime more than anything else to throw a glance on the dark depths of the human soul. But crime news also has their utility, when you need to warn potential victims about the presence of a criminal. The case of rapes in Rome for example was reported by the major italian media with considerable delay.Often we speak badly of crime journalism because it would be morbid: people are... more
The wheels of justice grind slowly, but this is pushing the envelope.
In Montana's Toole County, retired District Judge Ronald McPhillips ruled this week in a lawsuit that was left hanging for nearly a quarter-century.
The judge ruled in Great Falls against Milan Ayers, who contended that former partner James Rubow swindled him out of his share of a natural gas field, with leases potentially worth millions of dollars.
The lawsuit was filed March 31, 1983. The last entry in the clerk's register was in March 1985. Then the file disappeared from the clerk's office.
After the Great Falls Tribune wrote about it, McPhillips found the case documents.
"I think he found it in an old briefcase he had at home," said longtime administrative assistant Elda Nichols, who had worked for McPhillips before his retirement in 1994.
McPhillips brought the lawsuit and his notes to the court late last week, said Nichols, and District Judge Laurie McKinnon asked the Montana Supreme Court for guidance on how to proceed.
If the case is in good shape, let McPhillips rule on it, the judge was told.
On Monday, McPhillips ruled that Rubow did not breach his agreement with Ayers. The lawsuit was dismissed, and no damages were awarded.
"He had taken very good, very copious notes on the case, so it was good he was able to rule on it, and we were able to avoid a new hearing," Nichols said.
Ayers said he's uncertain whether he'll appeal.The wheels of justice grind slowly, but this is pushing the envelope.
In Montana's... more
Israeli forces killed hundreds of Palestinian civilians and destroyed thousands of Gaza Strip homes in attacks that amounted to war crimes, Amnesty International charged Thursday, in the first in-depth human rights group report on the recent war in Gaza.
Amnesty called on Israel to publicly pledge not to use artillery, white phosphorus and other imprecise weapons in densely populated areas. And it urged Gaza's militant Hamas rulers to stop rocket fire against Israeli civilians — attacks it also described as war crimes.
Amnesty — which first accused Israel of war crimes shortly after the fighting ended on Jan. 18 — said "disturbing questions" remain about why high-precision weapons like tank shells and air-delivered bombs and missiles "killed so many children and other civilians."
The group also deplored Israel's use of less-precise artillery shells and highly incendiary white phosphorous in densely populated areas. It also accused Israeli forces of using Palestinians as "human shields" and frequently blocking civilians from receiving medical care and humanitarian aid.
'Disregard for civilian lives'
The pattern of Israeli attacks and the high number of civilian casualties "showed elements of reckless conduct, disregard for civilian lives and property and a consistent failure to distinguish between military targets and civilians and civilian objects," Amnesty International charged.
More than 1,400 Palestinians, including more than 900 civilians, were killed during the three-week offensive, according to Gaza health officials and human rights groups. Israel puts the death toll closer to 1,100 and says the vast majority of the dead were militants, though it has refused requests to provide a list of the dead.
Amnesty says some 300 children and hundreds of other unarmed civilians were among the dead. Thirteen Israelis also were killed, including three civilians who died by rocket fire.
The Israeli military did not respond to requests for comment. But in the past, it has blamed Hamas for civilian casualties, accusing the Islamic group of using mosques, schools and residential areas for cover to stage attacks.Israeli forces killed hundreds of Palestinian civilians and destroyed thousands of... more
The top item on the Chinese website of Beijing's embassy in Pyongyang is a condemnation of North Korea's nuclear test.
That, and a recent blast of blunt criticism of North Korea in China's state-run press, suggest the rancour that officials feel towards their communist neighbour -- anger likely to bring Beijing behind a U.N. resolution condemning the May 25 test and threatening fresh sanctions.
North Korea's second nuclear test took place 85 km (53 miles) from China's border, and the tremors from the blast forced many schools on the Chinese side to evacuate, wrote Zhang Lianggui, a prominent Chinese expert on the North.
He warned of catastrophe if Pyongyang mishandles a nuclear test.
"Future generations of the Korean people will have no place of their own, and China's reviving northeast will burst like a bubble," Zhang wrote in the Global Times, a popular tabloid, on Tuesday.
"This is an unprecedented threat that China has never faced in its thousands of years."
On Monday, a commentary in the same paper called North Korea a "strategic burden" for China. Not the kind of language the government would have allowed earlier this year, when the focus was on celebrating 60 years of ties with the Communist North.
Zhan Debin, an expert on Korea at Fudan University in Shanghai, wrote in the paper that the Chinese government could soon be pushed to abandon its usual reticence.
"If this continues, China will not be able to stall international expectations by saying that North Korea doesn't listen or that we have no influence," wrote Zhan.
If Pyongyang continues raising the international stakes, Zhan added, war cannot be ruled out, and North Korea will "either continue trapped in a Cold War or will swiftly disappear".
Such harsh words may not have the express approval of China's leaders. But they reflect the government's growing impatience with its neighbour.The top item on the Chinese website of Beijing's embassy in Pyongyang is a... more
This was around the news earlier this morning but it was only stated that someone 'high profile' was killed. Now we know...
Los Angeles Angels pitcher Nick Adenhart was among three people killed in a crash in Fullerton, California, early Thursday, according to a hospital spokesman.
Adenhart, 22, from Silver Spring, Maryland, died at UC Irvine Medical Center, according to spokesman John Murray.
The crash occurred just hours after Adenhart made his first start of the season for the Angels, pitching six scoreless innings in a 6-4 loss to the Athletics.
One person was arrested in connection with the three-vehicle accident occurred about 12:23 a.m. Thursday in Fullerton, south of Los Angeles. Witnesses say a red minivan ran a red light and struck two vehicles at a Fullerton intersection, police Lt. Craig Brower told CNN.This was around the news earlier this morning but it was only stated that someone... more
