Criminal Justice Reform Empties Cells, Parole Fills Them Up Again
By Ginia Bellafante
The New York Times
February 2, 2018
Despite his longstanding position on law and order, delivered in a rhetorical style that can seem borrowed from “Walker, Texas Ranger,” President Trump in his State of the Union speech called for a reform of our prison system, committing his administration to helping “former inmates who have served their time get a second chance.” Presumably he wasn’t thinking only of Paul Manafort’s future. Liberals look at the country’s high incarceration rate and see the tragedy of racial animus; many on the right look at it and see the spreadsheet — another example of wasteful and ineffective government spending. Here there can exist a convergence of goals.
Advocacy around criminal justice reform in recent years has been increasingly fierce and successful. According to the latest government data, in2016, the number of prisoners in state and federal correctional facilities fell for the third consecutive year. A movement to end or drastically curtail cash bail, and thus reduce the number of people held in pretrial detention for their inability to pay it, has swept across the country. New Jersey has nearly eliminated it altogether; in New York, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo has proposed getting rid of cash bail for people facing misdemeanor and nonviolent felony charges. Even Alaska, which has voted for a Republican in the last eight presidential elections, has reformed bail.
But the fate of prisoners when they return home remains a confounding problem, apart from the obvious difficulties of getting work. This is largely because of a parole system that replicates and often magnifies the anxieties of poverty, which in many instances served as the catalyst for an engagement with crime in the first place. Too often, former prisoners find themselves incarcerated a second or third time, not because they have done anything particularly wrong or pose a threat to their communities, but because they are found to have violated stringent rules that have little to do with maintaining public well-being. Famously last year the rapper Meek Mill was given a two- to four-year prison sentence for violating his parole, for breaches including popping a wheelie on his motorcycle in a music video.
Just this week a report from Columbia University’s Justice Lab examined the way the issue has played out in New York City. For the four years ending on Jan. 1, the city’s jail population declined by 21 percent, the result of decreases in the number of people held at Rikers Island, for the most part, before their trials begin. During the same period, though, one subgroup of the city’s jail population grew: the number of people held on technical parole violations. That figure increased by 15 percent. Between 2016 and 2017, the average daily population of those in jail for such infractions climbed to 20 percent. As Vincent Schiraldi, co-director of the Justice Lab and a former probation commissioner put it, these are people who most of the time “haven’t even jaywalked or jumped a turnstile.”
Typically what sends someone back to prison, Lorraine McEvilley, director of the Parole Revocation Defense Unit at the Legal Aid Society, told me, is a combination of a missed curfew or parole appointment and “dirty urine.” In New York, parole officers will often make unscheduled visits to the home to see that a parolee is there by 9 at night. A warrant can result from an absence.Former prisoners are also subject to drug testing and do often test positive for traces of pot. “In all my years of doing this,’’ she said, “I have not seen an instance of a curfew violation standing alone as any indication that a person was on the path of committing some offense.”
A major destabilizer in post-prison life revolves around housing. In New York, those just out of prison are not supposed to have contact with anyone in possession of a criminal record, an anachronistic rule that would keep released prisoners out of rehabilitation groups where they might share their experiences. Many people come out hoping to live with family, but if any members of the family have had contact with the system, then this is not possible. There are children 18 and 19 years old who cannot live with their parents. As a result, parolees are often sent to big homeless shelters where they are sure to encounter others with criminal records, and the nightmare of incarceration is simply extended. The fear of getting into fights, of having their things stolen, of relapsing, persists, and the stress of shelter life often insures that these fears are realized.
The case of Ismael Bonano almost perfectly illustrates how quickly things can go horribly wrong. After a criminal history that included serving a two-year sentence for robbery in the third-degree, he said, he was released to a shelter. He found work, and also began taking classes at Columbia. Eventually he found an apartment on Staten Island, but one night he returned home 30 minutes past curfew from a meeting at New York University where he had been trying to organize a poetry slam — his parole officer had showed up earlier. Getting to and from work was stressful, sometimes taking two hours, and he began smoking pot, which led to a 45-day stay last summer at Edgecombe, a correctional facility in Upper Manhattan for those dealing with addiction. As of last week, Mr. Bonano was in a residential drug treatment facility in Brooklyn.
The spike in the jailed parolee population began to appear right about the same time that the city started scaling back its use of stop-and-frisk policing, a practice that had put so many young minority men needlessly in jail. It is as if the system, despite the changing actors and their good intentions, were biased as a matter of organic configuration: it would find a way to contain young black men one way or another; it would exchange one dangerous habit for a second.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Whoa, not so fast there. While some parolees are returned to prison because a parole officer wants to get rid of a nuisance, this is rarely the case.
When Ginia Bellafante says that paroles have “stringent rules that have little to do with maintaining public well-being” she doesn’t know what she’s talking about. The rules imposed on a parolee are designed to keep him on parole rather than as an excuse to send him back to prison.
Furthermore, it takes the approval of the parole board to return a parolee back to prison only for technical violations. Parole officers have to prove their case when recommending a return to prison on technical violations and a parolee can demand a hearing before the parole board to challenge any charges brought against him. Add parole boards have been under pressure not to return parolees to prison.
So when Bellafante says “Criminal Justice Reform Empties Cells, Parole Fills Them Up Again,” she is whistling Dixie.
Monday, March 26, 2018
AMNESTY FOR THE MEXICAN DRUG CARTELS?
The Drug War Debate Reshapes Mexican Politics
BY Devon Van Houten Maldonado
OZY
March 21, 2018
When Mexican presidential candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador of the leftist National Regeneration Movement (Morena) proposed amnesty for cartels in December to end the country’s drug war, he drew sharp criticism from multiple stakeholders. But three months later, he retains his lead for the July 1 elections. He hasn’t retracted his proposal. His critics haven’t backed off. A deepening divide is shaping the discourse ahead of the upcoming polls.
Current President Enrique Peña Nieto of the centrist Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), which has ruled Mexico for most of the past century, has said that amnesty would be a betrayal of the country. The conservative National Action Party (PAN) has mocked Obrador’s proposal, calling him confused. And many parents of the more than 200,000 men and women killed in the drug war over the past decade have challenged the suggestion of amnesty. Last year — 2017 — was the deadliest of the past 10 years, with 25,000 killed. If Obrador wins, he says, his administration would consider amnesty “when and if it includes the support of the victims.”
But recent surveys by reputed polling firm Parametria show that while 30 percent of the country’s citizens think amnesty would increase crime, an exact same number think it would help curtail violence. And 43 percent of respondents said that the cartels “do more public works in communities than the government,” while 42 percent disagreed — highlighting a deep distrust in government. Obrador’s proposal for amnesty isn’t giving him an edge, but Colombia’s example — 100,000 people associated with the drug trade reentered the mainstream after the country’s milestone peace pact with the left-wing rebel Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) last year — is increasingly also echoing in Mexico.
“In some way, you have to rebuild the social fabric,” says Nancy Garcia Fregoso, adviser to the Electoral Tribunal of the Federal Judiciary.
Since the presidency of Felipe Calderón of the PAN starting in 2006, Mexico has adopted a military-first approach to tackling drug cartels. It is an approach that has resonated for large periods of the past decade with a nation angry at the bloodletting of the drug cartels. Calderón’s successor, Peña Nieto, constituted a National Gendarmerie to battle the cartels.
Not atypically for a seasoned politician — Obrador is contesting for the country’s top post for the third time — the reality of his platform is a lot more nuanced than some of his public pronouncements. He has held up the ongoing violence — including almost 19,000 executions by organized crime in 2017, according to public policy analysis firm Lantia Consultores — as evidence that the old approach is failing. His campaign document, called the Project of the Nation 2018–2024, promises to break with armed conflict, reform the country’s crowded and corrupt prisons and focus on reintegration and alternative penal models for minor crimes. “The country’s penitentiary centers have become true schools of crime” reads the document. And “prioritizing intelligence over force” is a theme that runs through the document. At the same time, though, he has proposed creating a National Guard of more than 200,000 soldiers and 50,000 navy servicemen and women. It is unclear how this force would be any different from the one Peña Nieto instituted.
And amnesty won’t be easy to accomplish. It would require the passage of a law that clearly defines the advantages for the government, the criminals and society at large. It would also require temporary enforcement measures to bring about what is known as “transitional justice,” says Garcia Fregoso.
But Obrador’s proposal has sparked a debate that continues to rage as a key political theme ahead of the presidential elections. The central argument against unconditional amnesty has been that of victims’ human rights, including their right to justice. “Granting amnesty for serious crimes is against international law where victims’ right to justice must be granted,” says Pascal Hubatka, a human rights consultant based in Mexico City. Victims and their families have a right to justice, reparations and to know the truth about what happened to their loved ones, he adds.
In Mexico, justice — and not just for victims of the drug war — has long proven elusive. According to the country’s National Institute of Statistic and Geography, 94 percent of all crimes go unreported, and only about 1 percent are punished by jail. And to some families of those killed in the drug war, Obrador’s proposal is akin to rubbing salt on wounds. “Can you in good conscience ask us to forget the victims, especially the victims of the disappearings, who still haven’t found their loved ones?” Javier Sicilia, poet, activist and father to Juan Francisco, who was killed in 2011, wrote in an open letter in January.
Political opponents too continue to criticize Obrador. PAN leader Damián Zepeda says the Morena presidential candidate is “confused about the solutions that Mexico requires to confront the problems of corruption, violence and education.” Meanwhile, Alfonso Durazo, Morena’s candidate for public security secretary, has insisted on national television that amnesty is a viable option, citing the example of Colombia.
A poll of polls by Mexican agency Oraculus in February concluded that Obrador stood a 99 percent chance of winning if the elections were held then. Every poll since then has only backed the assessment that he remains in the lead ahead of the upcoming elections. But as Peña Nieto and Calderón found, ending the drug war is harder than winning the presidency. The growing rift in Mexico on how best to approach drug cartels won’t make it any easier.
BY Devon Van Houten Maldonado
OZY
March 21, 2018
When Mexican presidential candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador of the leftist National Regeneration Movement (Morena) proposed amnesty for cartels in December to end the country’s drug war, he drew sharp criticism from multiple stakeholders. But three months later, he retains his lead for the July 1 elections. He hasn’t retracted his proposal. His critics haven’t backed off. A deepening divide is shaping the discourse ahead of the upcoming polls.
Current President Enrique Peña Nieto of the centrist Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), which has ruled Mexico for most of the past century, has said that amnesty would be a betrayal of the country. The conservative National Action Party (PAN) has mocked Obrador’s proposal, calling him confused. And many parents of the more than 200,000 men and women killed in the drug war over the past decade have challenged the suggestion of amnesty. Last year — 2017 — was the deadliest of the past 10 years, with 25,000 killed. If Obrador wins, he says, his administration would consider amnesty “when and if it includes the support of the victims.”
But recent surveys by reputed polling firm Parametria show that while 30 percent of the country’s citizens think amnesty would increase crime, an exact same number think it would help curtail violence. And 43 percent of respondents said that the cartels “do more public works in communities than the government,” while 42 percent disagreed — highlighting a deep distrust in government. Obrador’s proposal for amnesty isn’t giving him an edge, but Colombia’s example — 100,000 people associated with the drug trade reentered the mainstream after the country’s milestone peace pact with the left-wing rebel Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) last year — is increasingly also echoing in Mexico.
“In some way, you have to rebuild the social fabric,” says Nancy Garcia Fregoso, adviser to the Electoral Tribunal of the Federal Judiciary.
Since the presidency of Felipe Calderón of the PAN starting in 2006, Mexico has adopted a military-first approach to tackling drug cartels. It is an approach that has resonated for large periods of the past decade with a nation angry at the bloodletting of the drug cartels. Calderón’s successor, Peña Nieto, constituted a National Gendarmerie to battle the cartels.
Not atypically for a seasoned politician — Obrador is contesting for the country’s top post for the third time — the reality of his platform is a lot more nuanced than some of his public pronouncements. He has held up the ongoing violence — including almost 19,000 executions by organized crime in 2017, according to public policy analysis firm Lantia Consultores — as evidence that the old approach is failing. His campaign document, called the Project of the Nation 2018–2024, promises to break with armed conflict, reform the country’s crowded and corrupt prisons and focus on reintegration and alternative penal models for minor crimes. “The country’s penitentiary centers have become true schools of crime” reads the document. And “prioritizing intelligence over force” is a theme that runs through the document. At the same time, though, he has proposed creating a National Guard of more than 200,000 soldiers and 50,000 navy servicemen and women. It is unclear how this force would be any different from the one Peña Nieto instituted.
And amnesty won’t be easy to accomplish. It would require the passage of a law that clearly defines the advantages for the government, the criminals and society at large. It would also require temporary enforcement measures to bring about what is known as “transitional justice,” says Garcia Fregoso.
But Obrador’s proposal has sparked a debate that continues to rage as a key political theme ahead of the presidential elections. The central argument against unconditional amnesty has been that of victims’ human rights, including their right to justice. “Granting amnesty for serious crimes is against international law where victims’ right to justice must be granted,” says Pascal Hubatka, a human rights consultant based in Mexico City. Victims and their families have a right to justice, reparations and to know the truth about what happened to their loved ones, he adds.
In Mexico, justice — and not just for victims of the drug war — has long proven elusive. According to the country’s National Institute of Statistic and Geography, 94 percent of all crimes go unreported, and only about 1 percent are punished by jail. And to some families of those killed in the drug war, Obrador’s proposal is akin to rubbing salt on wounds. “Can you in good conscience ask us to forget the victims, especially the victims of the disappearings, who still haven’t found their loved ones?” Javier Sicilia, poet, activist and father to Juan Francisco, who was killed in 2011, wrote in an open letter in January.
Political opponents too continue to criticize Obrador. PAN leader Damián Zepeda says the Morena presidential candidate is “confused about the solutions that Mexico requires to confront the problems of corruption, violence and education.” Meanwhile, Alfonso Durazo, Morena’s candidate for public security secretary, has insisted on national television that amnesty is a viable option, citing the example of Colombia.
A poll of polls by Mexican agency Oraculus in February concluded that Obrador stood a 99 percent chance of winning if the elections were held then. Every poll since then has only backed the assessment that he remains in the lead ahead of the upcoming elections. But as Peña Nieto and Calderón found, ending the drug war is harder than winning the presidency. The growing rift in Mexico on how best to approach drug cartels won’t make it any easier.
THE NEW YORK TIMES DOCUMENTS POLICE LYING
‘Entrenched Perjury . . . Shows Little Sign of Fading’
By Richard Prince
The Root
March 23, 2018
“An investigation by The New York Times has found that on more than 25 occasions since January 2015, judges or prosecutors determined that a key aspect of a New York City police officer’s testimony was probably untrue,” Joseph Goldstein reported Sunday for the news organization. “The Times identified these cases — many of which are sealed —through interviews with lawyers, police officers and current and former judges.
“In these cases, officers have lied about the whereabouts of guns, putting them in suspects’ hands or waistbands when they were actually hidden out of sight. They have barged into apartments and conducted searches, only to testify otherwise later. Under oath, they have given firsthand accounts of crimes or arrests that they did not in fact witness. They have falsely claimed to have watched drug deals happen, only to later recant or be shown to have lied.
Detective Kevin Desormeau has made hundreds of arrests in his decade on the New York police force. But prosecutors now say he struggled with one aspect of police work: telling the truth, Nilo Tabrizy and Joseph Goldstein reported for the New York Times last Oct. 10. (New York Times video)
“No detail, seemingly, is too minor to embellish. ‘Clenched fists’ is how one Brooklyn officer described the hands of a man he claimed had angrily approached him and started screaming and yelling — an encounter that prosecutors later determined never occurred. Another officer, during a Bronx trial, accused a driver of recklessly crossing the double-yellow line — on a stretch of road that had no double-yellow line.
“In many instances, the motive for lying was readily apparent: to skirt constitutional restrictions against unreasonable searches and stops. In other cases, the falsehoods appear aimed at convicting people — who may or may not have committed a crime — with trumped-up evidence. . . .”
Goldstein also reported, “Police lying raises the likelihood that the innocent end up in jail — and that as juries and judges come to regard the police as less credible, or as cases are dismissed when the lies are discovered, the guilty will go free. Police falsehoods also impede judges’ efforts to enforce constitutional limits on police searches and seizures.
“ ‘We have 36,000 officers with law enforcement power, and there are a small handful of these cases every year,’ said J. Peter Donald, a spokesman for the Police Department, the nation’s largest municipal force. ‘That doesn’t make any of these cases any less troubling. Our goal is always, always zero. One is too many, but we have taken significant steps to combat this issue.’
“The 25 cases identified by The Times are almost certainly only a fraction of those in which officers have come under suspicion for lying in the past three years. That’s because a vast majority of cases end in plea deals before an officer is ever required to take the witness stand in open court, meaning the possibility that an officer lied is seldom aired in public. And in the rare cases when an officer does testify in court — and a judge finds the testimony suspicious, leading to the dismissal of the case — the proceedings are often sealed afterward.
“Still, the cases identified by The Times reveal an entrenched perjury problem several decades in the making that shows little sign of fading. . . .”
EDITOR’S NOTE: Police officers do lie on the witness stand. A very few do it maliciously. In almost all instances where an officer lies, he does it to bolster his case and not out of malice.
One of the most famous lies by a cop was that of former LAPD detective Mark Fuhrman when he testified during the O.J. Simpson murder trial that he had never used the word ’nigger’. Fuhrman was not being malicious. He wanted to avoid being pictured as a racist. That’s exactly what he ended up being pictured as in addition to being branded a liar.
By Richard Prince
The Root
March 23, 2018
“An investigation by The New York Times has found that on more than 25 occasions since January 2015, judges or prosecutors determined that a key aspect of a New York City police officer’s testimony was probably untrue,” Joseph Goldstein reported Sunday for the news organization. “The Times identified these cases — many of which are sealed —through interviews with lawyers, police officers and current and former judges.
“In these cases, officers have lied about the whereabouts of guns, putting them in suspects’ hands or waistbands when they were actually hidden out of sight. They have barged into apartments and conducted searches, only to testify otherwise later. Under oath, they have given firsthand accounts of crimes or arrests that they did not in fact witness. They have falsely claimed to have watched drug deals happen, only to later recant or be shown to have lied.
Detective Kevin Desormeau has made hundreds of arrests in his decade on the New York police force. But prosecutors now say he struggled with one aspect of police work: telling the truth, Nilo Tabrizy and Joseph Goldstein reported for the New York Times last Oct. 10. (New York Times video)
“No detail, seemingly, is too minor to embellish. ‘Clenched fists’ is how one Brooklyn officer described the hands of a man he claimed had angrily approached him and started screaming and yelling — an encounter that prosecutors later determined never occurred. Another officer, during a Bronx trial, accused a driver of recklessly crossing the double-yellow line — on a stretch of road that had no double-yellow line.
“In many instances, the motive for lying was readily apparent: to skirt constitutional restrictions against unreasonable searches and stops. In other cases, the falsehoods appear aimed at convicting people — who may or may not have committed a crime — with trumped-up evidence. . . .”
Goldstein also reported, “Police lying raises the likelihood that the innocent end up in jail — and that as juries and judges come to regard the police as less credible, or as cases are dismissed when the lies are discovered, the guilty will go free. Police falsehoods also impede judges’ efforts to enforce constitutional limits on police searches and seizures.
“ ‘We have 36,000 officers with law enforcement power, and there are a small handful of these cases every year,’ said J. Peter Donald, a spokesman for the Police Department, the nation’s largest municipal force. ‘That doesn’t make any of these cases any less troubling. Our goal is always, always zero. One is too many, but we have taken significant steps to combat this issue.’
“The 25 cases identified by The Times are almost certainly only a fraction of those in which officers have come under suspicion for lying in the past three years. That’s because a vast majority of cases end in plea deals before an officer is ever required to take the witness stand in open court, meaning the possibility that an officer lied is seldom aired in public. And in the rare cases when an officer does testify in court — and a judge finds the testimony suspicious, leading to the dismissal of the case — the proceedings are often sealed afterward.
“Still, the cases identified by The Times reveal an entrenched perjury problem several decades in the making that shows little sign of fading. . . .”
EDITOR’S NOTE: Police officers do lie on the witness stand. A very few do it maliciously. In almost all instances where an officer lies, he does it to bolster his case and not out of malice.
One of the most famous lies by a cop was that of former LAPD detective Mark Fuhrman when he testified during the O.J. Simpson murder trial that he had never used the word ’nigger’. Fuhrman was not being malicious. He wanted to avoid being pictured as a racist. That’s exactly what he ended up being pictured as in addition to being branded a liar.
Sunday, March 25, 2018
IF YOU WANT YOUR PERSONAL DATA KEPT PRIVATE, DON’T PUT IT ON SOCIAL NETWORKS
Whatever personal data you put on Facebook, Instagram, Linkedin and other social networks is out there for the whole world to see
By Howie Katz
Big Jolly Times
March 24, 2018
Facebook and its founder Mark Zuckerberg have come under fire because Cambridge Analytica had obtained the personal data of over 50 million Facebook users and misused it to develop “psychographic” profiles which were used to help the Trump presidential campaign.
It is amazing what people put on social networks, and it isn’t just messages. Both men and women have sent pictures of their genitals to others by using social networks. One of the most notable cases is that of Anthony Weiner, a former congressman and husband of Hillary Clinton’s close aide Huma Abedin. Wienee waving Weiner was sent to prison for flashing his genitals to a 15-year-old girl on a social media site.
Once you’ve put any of your personal data on a social network, it’s there for the whole world to see. No matter what security steps social networks take, a hacker will still be able to gain access to your personal data.
A retired Texas state police lieutenant with more than 40 years of law enforcement experience told me that cops should not make any comments whatsoever on the internet because, according to him, criminal defense attorneys scan the internet to see if they can dig up any dirt on officers that may testify against their clients at trial.
Teachers and cops have lost their jobs for outrageous remarks they’ve made on social media. Political office holders have been forced to resign from their offices or face recall elections because of what they said on the internet. President Trump has left himself open to a backlash of criticism for what he said on some of his many tweets on Twitter.
Personally I’ve been described as a moron, as lacking in intelligence, as a liar, etc. for some of what I’ve posted on my blogs and on Big Jolly Times, and for comments I made on Grits for Breakfast in response to anti-police posts on that website. But you will find little personal data on anything I’ve written on the internet.
Cambridge Analytica has been denounced and is being investigated for criminally misusing the personal data of Facebook users. But Cambridge Analytica merely used data it readily obtained from Facebook to bolster the business it is engaged in.
I do not feel sorry for those 50 million Facebook users whose personal data may have been misused. They should have known better than to put it on that social network site or on any other such site.
Trump’s campaign may have benefited from the data Cambridge Analytica obtained. Hillary Clinton, who has successively blamed James Comey, WikiLeaks, the Russians and white men and their wives for her defeat, can now add Cambridge Analytica to that list.
Zuckerberg has apologized and promised to make the personal data of Facebook users secure. But that will not be easy to achieve. Hackers will always find some way of gaining access to Facebook accounts.
Call me a moron for not using Facebook or any other social network. And if you want your personal data kept private, don’t put it on a social network. Stick to your emails, but remember that your email account can also be hacked … so always be careful what you say. It’s out there and cannot really be erased.
By Howie Katz
Big Jolly Times
March 24, 2018
Facebook and its founder Mark Zuckerberg have come under fire because Cambridge Analytica had obtained the personal data of over 50 million Facebook users and misused it to develop “psychographic” profiles which were used to help the Trump presidential campaign.
It is amazing what people put on social networks, and it isn’t just messages. Both men and women have sent pictures of their genitals to others by using social networks. One of the most notable cases is that of Anthony Weiner, a former congressman and husband of Hillary Clinton’s close aide Huma Abedin. Wienee waving Weiner was sent to prison for flashing his genitals to a 15-year-old girl on a social media site.
Once you’ve put any of your personal data on a social network, it’s there for the whole world to see. No matter what security steps social networks take, a hacker will still be able to gain access to your personal data.
A retired Texas state police lieutenant with more than 40 years of law enforcement experience told me that cops should not make any comments whatsoever on the internet because, according to him, criminal defense attorneys scan the internet to see if they can dig up any dirt on officers that may testify against their clients at trial.
Teachers and cops have lost their jobs for outrageous remarks they’ve made on social media. Political office holders have been forced to resign from their offices or face recall elections because of what they said on the internet. President Trump has left himself open to a backlash of criticism for what he said on some of his many tweets on Twitter.
Personally I’ve been described as a moron, as lacking in intelligence, as a liar, etc. for some of what I’ve posted on my blogs and on Big Jolly Times, and for comments I made on Grits for Breakfast in response to anti-police posts on that website. But you will find little personal data on anything I’ve written on the internet.
Cambridge Analytica has been denounced and is being investigated for criminally misusing the personal data of Facebook users. But Cambridge Analytica merely used data it readily obtained from Facebook to bolster the business it is engaged in.
I do not feel sorry for those 50 million Facebook users whose personal data may have been misused. They should have known better than to put it on that social network site or on any other such site.
Trump’s campaign may have benefited from the data Cambridge Analytica obtained. Hillary Clinton, who has successively blamed James Comey, WikiLeaks, the Russians and white men and their wives for her defeat, can now add Cambridge Analytica to that list.
Zuckerberg has apologized and promised to make the personal data of Facebook users secure. But that will not be easy to achieve. Hackers will always find some way of gaining access to Facebook accounts.
Call me a moron for not using Facebook or any other social network. And if you want your personal data kept private, don’t put it on a social network. Stick to your emails, but remember that your email account can also be hacked … so always be careful what you say. It’s out there and cannot really be erased.
SOUTH AFRICAN GOVERNMENT CANNOT OR WILL NOT STOP BLACKS FROM MURDERING WHITE FARMERS
Inside the 'most dangerous job in the world': White farmers in South Africa are FOUR times more likely to be murdered than anyone else - as Peter Dutton vows to 'fast-track' them into Australia as refugees
by Max Margan
Daily Mail
March 23, 2018
White farmers in South Africa have the most dangerous job in the country, are twice as likely to be murdered than police and are killed at four times the rate of the wider community, a rights group claims.
This week, as the government moves to seize all white-owned land without compensation, civil rights organisation AfriForum claimed there had been 109 attacks which left 15 white farm workers dead so far this year.
This follows 82 killings and 423 attacks in 2016, though none of the figures can be verified because the South African government has refused to release farm murder statistics since 2007.
Some of the killings are reported to have been barbaric, with farm owners tortured, raped, burned alive and slaughtered in front of their families.
Farm attack victims are usually restrained with shoe laces, telephone wires or electric cables, according to a previous AfriForum report.
Some have had their nails pulled out, had boiling water poured over their bodies and been beaten to death with makeshift weapons.
'Some of the murders have been accompanied by gratuitous violence and torture that can only be explained as racial hatred,' Australian National University international law expert Associate Professor Jolyon Ford told SBS.
In January this year, 86-year-old Piet Els and his partner Rikkie Alsemgeest were the alleged victims of a brutal attack which saw four black men storm their farm, beat them with steel pipes and burn them with an iron.
'They tied me to a chair and came with a steam iron they found in the kitchen and burned me,' Ms Alsemgeest told The Daily Telegraph.
'Piet, they burned on his back in three or four places and burned on the back of his leg. They stripped off his skin... I thought Piet was dead because he was lying on the floor.
'They put a cloth in my face and tied me to the chair. They stripped off my top. I was naked. They put some tape over my face and eyes. They took my breast and twisted, humiliating me, not saying a word.'
This week, a 40-year-old farm manager was tied up and hacked to death by a group of attackers, according to local reports. His wife was said to have been raped.
Earlier this month, a woman was allegedly 'repeatedly and violently' sexually assaulted in front of her young son as five attackers stormed the family farm.
The group tied the family up in separate rooms and told the woman they would harm her husband if she didn't comply, according to AfriForum.
The brother of another South African farm owner who witnessed his murder spoke to Australian activist Avi Yemini on Friday.
'I could see the fear in his eyes before he was shot. Then I tried to convince myself that my brother was one of the lucky ones... His fear was only for a few minutes,' he said.
'There are people that are being tortured for nine hours and through the night.'
The South African government denies white people are deliberately targeted and says farm murders are part of South Africa's wider violent crime problem.
Afriforum claims 156 commercial farmers are killed per 100,000 of the population, more than four times the wider murder rate of 34 per 100,000.
The group said it is forced to compile its own statistics because the government stopped releasing its own figures more than 10 years ago.
'Although the South African government denies that a violence crisis is staring rural areas in the face, the numbers prove that excessive violence plague these areas,' Ian Cameron, AfriForum's head of security, said.
'The government cannot deny the facts - our people are being mowed down... Our rural areas are trapped in a crime war.'
Ernst Roets, AfriForum's vice president, said last year 'political factors' were fuelling the violent attacks.
'We are concerned about hate speech, political leaders who... would say for example ''the white farmers should be blamed for everything'',' he said.
The situation has worsened since the ruling African National Congress joined with the Economic Freedom Fighters party (EFF) earlier this month and announced a motion to confiscate white-owned land without compensation.
EFF leader Julius Malema, who was previously convicted of hate speech for singing the outlawed apartheid-era song 'Shoot the Farmer,' said two weeks ago: 'We are starting with this whiteness. We are cutting the throat of whiteness.'
On Wednesday, he urged white South Africans to 'go and live in a racist country like Australia' in front of a cheering crowd during a Human Rights Day rally in Mpumalanga.
'A racist country like Australia says, ''EFF wants to kill white farmers – they must come to Australia''. If they want to go, they must go. They must leave the keys of the tractors because we want to work the land.
'They must leave the keys of the houses, because we want to live in those houses. They must leave everything that they did not come with to South Africa.'
He went on to say anyone who immigrated to South Africa from Australia must 'leave quietly' and added: 'Don't make a noise because you will irritate us.'
Australia's Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton last week announced controversial plans to fast-track white South African farmers through Australia's refugee program.
'If you look at the footage and read the stories, you hear the accounts, it's a horrific circumstance they face,' Mr Dutton told the Daily Telegraph.
'We have the potential to help some of these people that are being persecuted.'
Mr Dutton directed his department to explore whether the farmers can be accepted into Australia through refugee, humanitarian or other visas, including the in-country persecution visa category.
'I do think on the information that I've seen, people do need help, and they need help from a civilised country like ours,' Mr Dutton said.
Australian Greens leader Senator Di Natale said Mr Dutton was invoking the White Australia policy, questioning the difference between the white South African farmers and the 700,000 Rohingya people forced from their homes.
'The difference is that they are white and that the other communities who are suffering - and we're talking about an ethnic cleansing in Myanmar right now - that they're not white,' Senator Di Natale told Sky News.
Mr Dutton insists he is blind to skin colour and will continue to bring in migrants based on the national interest.
'It concerns me that people are being persecuted at the moment - that's the reality - the numbers of people dying or being savagely attacked in South Africa is a reality,' he said.
by Max Margan
Daily Mail
March 23, 2018
White farmers in South Africa have the most dangerous job in the country, are twice as likely to be murdered than police and are killed at four times the rate of the wider community, a rights group claims.
This week, as the government moves to seize all white-owned land without compensation, civil rights organisation AfriForum claimed there had been 109 attacks which left 15 white farm workers dead so far this year.
This follows 82 killings and 423 attacks in 2016, though none of the figures can be verified because the South African government has refused to release farm murder statistics since 2007.
Some of the killings are reported to have been barbaric, with farm owners tortured, raped, burned alive and slaughtered in front of their families.
Farm attack victims are usually restrained with shoe laces, telephone wires or electric cables, according to a previous AfriForum report.
Some have had their nails pulled out, had boiling water poured over their bodies and been beaten to death with makeshift weapons.
'Some of the murders have been accompanied by gratuitous violence and torture that can only be explained as racial hatred,' Australian National University international law expert Associate Professor Jolyon Ford told SBS.
In January this year, 86-year-old Piet Els and his partner Rikkie Alsemgeest were the alleged victims of a brutal attack which saw four black men storm their farm, beat them with steel pipes and burn them with an iron.
'They tied me to a chair and came with a steam iron they found in the kitchen and burned me,' Ms Alsemgeest told The Daily Telegraph.
'Piet, they burned on his back in three or four places and burned on the back of his leg. They stripped off his skin... I thought Piet was dead because he was lying on the floor.
'They put a cloth in my face and tied me to the chair. They stripped off my top. I was naked. They put some tape over my face and eyes. They took my breast and twisted, humiliating me, not saying a word.'
This week, a 40-year-old farm manager was tied up and hacked to death by a group of attackers, according to local reports. His wife was said to have been raped.
Earlier this month, a woman was allegedly 'repeatedly and violently' sexually assaulted in front of her young son as five attackers stormed the family farm.
The group tied the family up in separate rooms and told the woman they would harm her husband if she didn't comply, according to AfriForum.
The brother of another South African farm owner who witnessed his murder spoke to Australian activist Avi Yemini on Friday.
'I could see the fear in his eyes before he was shot. Then I tried to convince myself that my brother was one of the lucky ones... His fear was only for a few minutes,' he said.
'There are people that are being tortured for nine hours and through the night.'
The South African government denies white people are deliberately targeted and says farm murders are part of South Africa's wider violent crime problem.
Afriforum claims 156 commercial farmers are killed per 100,000 of the population, more than four times the wider murder rate of 34 per 100,000.
The group said it is forced to compile its own statistics because the government stopped releasing its own figures more than 10 years ago.
'Although the South African government denies that a violence crisis is staring rural areas in the face, the numbers prove that excessive violence plague these areas,' Ian Cameron, AfriForum's head of security, said.
'The government cannot deny the facts - our people are being mowed down... Our rural areas are trapped in a crime war.'
Ernst Roets, AfriForum's vice president, said last year 'political factors' were fuelling the violent attacks.
'We are concerned about hate speech, political leaders who... would say for example ''the white farmers should be blamed for everything'',' he said.
The situation has worsened since the ruling African National Congress joined with the Economic Freedom Fighters party (EFF) earlier this month and announced a motion to confiscate white-owned land without compensation.
EFF leader Julius Malema, who was previously convicted of hate speech for singing the outlawed apartheid-era song 'Shoot the Farmer,' said two weeks ago: 'We are starting with this whiteness. We are cutting the throat of whiteness.'
On Wednesday, he urged white South Africans to 'go and live in a racist country like Australia' in front of a cheering crowd during a Human Rights Day rally in Mpumalanga.
'A racist country like Australia says, ''EFF wants to kill white farmers – they must come to Australia''. If they want to go, they must go. They must leave the keys of the tractors because we want to work the land.
'They must leave the keys of the houses, because we want to live in those houses. They must leave everything that they did not come with to South Africa.'
He went on to say anyone who immigrated to South Africa from Australia must 'leave quietly' and added: 'Don't make a noise because you will irritate us.'
Australia's Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton last week announced controversial plans to fast-track white South African farmers through Australia's refugee program.
'If you look at the footage and read the stories, you hear the accounts, it's a horrific circumstance they face,' Mr Dutton told the Daily Telegraph.
'We have the potential to help some of these people that are being persecuted.'
Mr Dutton directed his department to explore whether the farmers can be accepted into Australia through refugee, humanitarian or other visas, including the in-country persecution visa category.
'I do think on the information that I've seen, people do need help, and they need help from a civilised country like ours,' Mr Dutton said.
Australian Greens leader Senator Di Natale said Mr Dutton was invoking the White Australia policy, questioning the difference between the white South African farmers and the 700,000 Rohingya people forced from their homes.
'The difference is that they are white and that the other communities who are suffering - and we're talking about an ethnic cleansing in Myanmar right now - that they're not white,' Senator Di Natale told Sky News.
Mr Dutton insists he is blind to skin colour and will continue to bring in migrants based on the national interest.
'It concerns me that people are being persecuted at the moment - that's the reality - the numbers of people dying or being savagely attacked in South Africa is a reality,' he said.
SEVEN DAYS OF LAUGHERS
SUNDAY
Groups of Americans were traveling by tour bus through Switzerland. As they stopped at a cheese farm, a young guide led them through the process of cheese making, explaining that goat's milk was used. She showed the group a lovely hillside where many goats were grazing.
"These," she explained, "are the older goats put out to pasture when they no longer produce."
She then asked, "What do you do in America with your old goats?"
A spry old gentleman answered, "They send us on bus tours!"
MONDAY
The mother of a 17-year-old girl was concerned that her daughter was having sex. Worried the girl might become pregnant and adversely impact the family's status, she consulted the family doctor.
The doctor told her that teenagers today were very willful and any attempt to stop the girl would probably result in rebellion. He then told her to arrange for her daughter to be put on birth control and until then, talk to her and give her a box of condoms.
Later that evening, as her daughter was preparing for a date, the mother told her about the situation and handed her a box of condoms.The girl burst out laughing and reached over to hug her mother, saying, "Oh Mom! You don't have to worry about that! I'm dating Susan!"
TUESDAY
A man went to church one day and afterward he stopped to shake the preacher's hand. He said, "Preacher, I'll tell you, that was a damned fine sermon. Damned good!"
The preacher said, "Thank you sir, but I'd rather you didn't use profanity."
The man said, "I was so damned impressed with that sermon I put five thousand dollars in the offering plate!"
The preacher exclaimed, "Holy shit!"
WEDNESDAY
Brenda and Steve took their six-year-old son to the doctor. With some hesitation, they explained that although their little angel appeared to be in good health, they were concerned about his rather small penis.
After examining the child, the doctor confidently declared, "Just feed him pancakes. That should solve the problem."
The next morning when the boy arrived at breakfast, there was a large stack of warm pancakes in the middle of the table.
"Gee, Mom," he exclaimed, "for me?" "Just take two," Brenda replied. "The rest are for your father."
THURSDAY
One night, an 87-year-old woman came home from Bingo to find her 92-year-old husband in bed with another woman.
She became violent and ended up pushing him off the balcony of their 20th floor apartment, killing him instantly.
Brought before the court on the charge of murder, she was asked if she had anything to say in her own defense.
"Your Honor," she began coolly, "I figured that at 92, if he could screw, he could fly."
FRIDAY
A Doctor was addressing a large audience in Tampa ... "The material we put into our stomachs is enough to have killed most of us sitting here, years ago. Red meat is awful. Soft drinks corrode your stomach lining. Chinese food is loaded with MSG. High fat diets can be disastrous, and none of us realizes the long-term harm caused by the germs in our drinking water.
However, there is one thing that's the most dangerous of all and we all have eaten, or will eat it.
Can anyone here tell me what food it is that causes the most grief and suffering for years after eating it?"
After several seconds of quiet, a 75-year-old man in the front row raised his hand, and softly said, "Wedding Cake."
SATURDAY
Bob, a 70-year-old, extremely wealthy widower, shows up at the Country Club with a breathtakingly beautiful and very sexy 25-year-old blonde-haired woman who knocks everyone's socks off with her youthful sex appeal and charm and who hangs over Bob's arm and listens intently to his every word.
His buddies at the club are all aghast. At their very first chance, they corner him and ask, "Bob, how'd you get the trophy girlfriend?" Bob replied, "Girlfriend? She's my wife!"
They're knocked over, but continue to ask: "So, how'd you persuade her to marry you?"
"I lied about my age," Bob replied.
"What? Did you tell her you were only 50?
"Bob smiled and said, "No, I told her I was 90."
Groups of Americans were traveling by tour bus through Switzerland. As they stopped at a cheese farm, a young guide led them through the process of cheese making, explaining that goat's milk was used. She showed the group a lovely hillside where many goats were grazing.
"These," she explained, "are the older goats put out to pasture when they no longer produce."
She then asked, "What do you do in America with your old goats?"
A spry old gentleman answered, "They send us on bus tours!"
MONDAY
The mother of a 17-year-old girl was concerned that her daughter was having sex. Worried the girl might become pregnant and adversely impact the family's status, she consulted the family doctor.
The doctor told her that teenagers today were very willful and any attempt to stop the girl would probably result in rebellion. He then told her to arrange for her daughter to be put on birth control and until then, talk to her and give her a box of condoms.
Later that evening, as her daughter was preparing for a date, the mother told her about the situation and handed her a box of condoms.The girl burst out laughing and reached over to hug her mother, saying, "Oh Mom! You don't have to worry about that! I'm dating Susan!"
TUESDAY
A man went to church one day and afterward he stopped to shake the preacher's hand. He said, "Preacher, I'll tell you, that was a damned fine sermon. Damned good!"
The preacher said, "Thank you sir, but I'd rather you didn't use profanity."
The man said, "I was so damned impressed with that sermon I put five thousand dollars in the offering plate!"
The preacher exclaimed, "Holy shit!"
WEDNESDAY
Brenda and Steve took their six-year-old son to the doctor. With some hesitation, they explained that although their little angel appeared to be in good health, they were concerned about his rather small penis.
After examining the child, the doctor confidently declared, "Just feed him pancakes. That should solve the problem."
The next morning when the boy arrived at breakfast, there was a large stack of warm pancakes in the middle of the table.
"Gee, Mom," he exclaimed, "for me?" "Just take two," Brenda replied. "The rest are for your father."
THURSDAY
One night, an 87-year-old woman came home from Bingo to find her 92-year-old husband in bed with another woman.
She became violent and ended up pushing him off the balcony of their 20th floor apartment, killing him instantly.
Brought before the court on the charge of murder, she was asked if she had anything to say in her own defense.
"Your Honor," she began coolly, "I figured that at 92, if he could screw, he could fly."
FRIDAY
A Doctor was addressing a large audience in Tampa ... "The material we put into our stomachs is enough to have killed most of us sitting here, years ago. Red meat is awful. Soft drinks corrode your stomach lining. Chinese food is loaded with MSG. High fat diets can be disastrous, and none of us realizes the long-term harm caused by the germs in our drinking water.
However, there is one thing that's the most dangerous of all and we all have eaten, or will eat it.
Can anyone here tell me what food it is that causes the most grief and suffering for years after eating it?"
After several seconds of quiet, a 75-year-old man in the front row raised his hand, and softly said, "Wedding Cake."
SATURDAY
Bob, a 70-year-old, extremely wealthy widower, shows up at the Country Club with a breathtakingly beautiful and very sexy 25-year-old blonde-haired woman who knocks everyone's socks off with her youthful sex appeal and charm and who hangs over Bob's arm and listens intently to his every word.
His buddies at the club are all aghast. At their very first chance, they corner him and ask, "Bob, how'd you get the trophy girlfriend?" Bob replied, "Girlfriend? She's my wife!"
They're knocked over, but continue to ask: "So, how'd you persuade her to marry you?"
"I lied about my age," Bob replied.
"What? Did you tell her you were only 50?
"Bob smiled and said, "No, I told her I was 90."
Saturday, March 24, 2018
JOCK CHARGED WITH BEATING UP CRIPPLED OLD LADY
by Bob Walsh
Yesterday a Harris County, TX grand jury indicted Michael Bennett, a defensive end for the Philadelphia Eagles, for beating up a crippled old lady at the football stadium.
Bennett was trying to access the field at the NRG stadium in February of 2017 to watch his brother Martellus who was playing in the Superbowl. He pushed his way thru three access control employees, including a 66-year old woman in a wheel chair. He also ignored a cop who tried to stop him. According to the Houston PD Bennett said, "You all must know who I am and I can own this shit. I'm going down to the field whether you like it or not."
The charge against Bennet is a felony as the woman was over 65 and disabled, in an electric wheel chair. He could get ten years as a guest of the state if charged, convicted and hammered.
The Eagles organization has declined comment, as has his agent..
Houston police chief Art Acevedo called Bennet "morally bankrupt" for pushing the two woman. The lady in the wheel chair was injured in the altercation.
I wonder if the TDC has football teams?
Yesterday a Harris County, TX grand jury indicted Michael Bennett, a defensive end for the Philadelphia Eagles, for beating up a crippled old lady at the football stadium.
Bennett was trying to access the field at the NRG stadium in February of 2017 to watch his brother Martellus who was playing in the Superbowl. He pushed his way thru three access control employees, including a 66-year old woman in a wheel chair. He also ignored a cop who tried to stop him. According to the Houston PD Bennett said, "You all must know who I am and I can own this shit. I'm going down to the field whether you like it or not."
The charge against Bennet is a felony as the woman was over 65 and disabled, in an electric wheel chair. He could get ten years as a guest of the state if charged, convicted and hammered.
The Eagles organization has declined comment, as has his agent..
Houston police chief Art Acevedo called Bennet "morally bankrupt" for pushing the two woman. The lady in the wheel chair was injured in the altercation.
I wonder if the TDC has football teams?
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