World News

[Silverwing]

Horrible news out of Dallas tonight.

At least two snipers shooting, one female and two masked men caught, one man still firing at police.
11 Police officers shot, at least four dead in Dallas.
Suspect yells that, "End if near," and he will kill many more officers.

Four officers are dead – three Dallas police officers and one DART transit officer – after two snipers ambushed and opened fire on police at the end of a peaceful protest against nationwide officer-involved shootings Thursday night, officials say.
Eleven officers were shot by gunmen who were still at large hours after what was believed to be a coordinated shooting, according to Dallas Police Chief David Brown.
"We believe that these suspects were positioning themselves to triangulate on our officers and planned to injure and kill as many law enforcement officers as they could," Brown said.
One person was taken into custody at about 11:30 p.m., Dallas police said, following an exchange of gunfire with Dallas SWAT officers. A suspicious package was located near that person, and the package is being investigated by bomb squad personnel.

[Wolfwood]

Death toll reaches 5 Officers Killed.

Black Lives Matters Supporters Celebrate Murder of Dallas Officer Deaths, even when Dallas cops protected them during shootout.

Aggitators Mock Cops In Video.

Black Lives Matters Supporter Loot Downtown Dallas Store.

Shooter Wanted to kill white people and white cops.

Obama turns the issue into a race issue, blames Republicans for Dallas officer deaths.

"On Thursday, before the Dallas shootings, Obama tried to strike a balance as he talked about anger and grief in the African-American community after the latest killings by police and the feeling among some law enforcement officials that Obama has not always supported them."

[HulkbowSMASH]

There are real problems with law enforcement in the US, some places more than others.  I can't say how much is racially motivated, only that it's definitely not restricted to any particular demographic, which means it still boils down to a LE problem.  The media--and I mean media of all political biases--has been stoking the racial angle for a while now, I would guess for the boost in ad revenue they get from the viral traffic which hot-button topics like this generates.  Between this and BLM, I'm honestly surprised something like this hasn't happened sooner.  BLM (er, not the Bureau of Land Management, that Oregon standoff is a completely different flavor of nutty) is really doing themselves, and likely others, more harm than good.

/soapbox

[yasl]

I came here to give my opinion, but I see that Hulkbow already gave it ^^

The online ads funding model seems to provide very perverse incentives to news publishers, incentives that did not exist to anything like the same extent in the age of the newspaper.  (To the extent that they did exist, we got tabloids.)  It's more than a little troubling.

I wonder to what extent this moral hazard is to blame for the recent surge in political populism?  A (Euro-focused) paper I read a few days ago gave the opinion that populism bottomed out in the early 80s and has been coming back since, which I suppose is contra evidence.  On the other hand, most of populism's rapid gains have been concentrated in the last decade.  On the gripping hand, perhaps that just means that the GFC was the primary trigger?

[Death Blossom]

My friend wrote this out and posted it on a pro BLM post only for it to get deleted by posted because "her post her rules". Anyway. I felt like sharing it.

990 people were shot by cops last year.
748 of those were while an attack was in progress.
216 were other factors.
44 were undetermined.
Of the 990: 948 were male. 42 were female.
494 were white.
258 were black.
172 were Hispanic.
66 were other races.
782 of the 990 had a deadly weapon on them.
54 used a vehicle as a weapon.
34 had a toy weapon.

The only disparity out there is, whites are killed more often and have more run ins with cops than black people do. On average, 4,472 black men were killed by other black men annually between Jan. 1, 2009, and Dec. 31, 2012, according to the FBI’s Supplementary Homicide Reports. Using FBI and CDC statistics, Professor Johnson calculates that 112 black men, on average, suffered both justified and unjustified police-involved deaths annually during this period.

This equals 2.5 percent of these 4,472 yearly deaths. For every black man — criminal or innocent — killed by a cop, 40 black men were murdered by other black men. The, at most, 2.5 percent of the problem generates relentless rage. And, yet, it is rude-to-racist to mention 97.5 percent of the problem.

FACT 1. Over 1,400 more black Americans murdered other blacks in two years than were lynched from 1882 to 1968.
According to FBI data, 4,906 black people murdered other blacks in 2010 and 2011. That is 1,460 more black Americans killed by other blacks in two years than were lynched from 1882 to 1968, according to the Tuskegee Institute.

FACT 2. Black People (mostly men) commit a grossly disproportionate amount of crime.
In 2012, white males were 38 percent of the population and committed 4,582 murders. That same year, black males were just 6.6 percent of the population but committed a staggering 5,531 murders.
In other words: black people–at just a fifth of the size–committed almost 1,000 more murders than their white counterparts.
The figures above highlight a horrific truth that black racialists and white liberals routinely ignore: Lawbreaking black Americans, young black males particularly, put themselves in close proximity to (mostly white male) police officers at rates sometimes five to 10 times higher than whites. This is a recipe for disaster. Thusly….

FACT 3. Despite making up just 13% of the population, blacks committed half of homicides in the United States for nearly 30 years.

DOJ statistics show that between 1980 and 2008, black people committed 52% of homicides.
In 2013, black criminals committed 38% of the murders. Whites accounted for just 31 percent.
There are five times fewer black people than white people in America and, yet, they consistently carry out a larger share of the crimes? Given this rate, it’s no wonder that there aren’t more assistances where cops kill black criminals.

FACT 4. Chicago’s death toll is almost equal to that of both wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, combined.
There have been almost as many deaths in one American city as there have been in the two major wars carried out by the U.S. military this century.
Chicago’s death toll from 2001–November, 26 2015 stands at 7,401. The combined total deaths during Operation Iraqi Freedom (2003-2015: 4,815) and Operation Enduring Freedom/Afghanistan (2001-2015: 3,506), total 8,321.

FACT 5. It would take cops 40 years to kill as many black men as have died at the hands of others black men in 2012 alone.

University of Toledo criminologist Dr. Richard R. Johnson examined the latest crime data from the FBI’s Supplementary Homicide Reports and Centers for Disease Control and found that an average of 4,472 black men were killed by other black men annually between Jan. 1, 2009, and Dec. 31, 2012.
Professor Johnson’s research further concluded that 112 black men died from both justified and unjustified police-involved killings annually during this same period.

[MasterXtreme]

Lots to read, but good research.

Prayers to the officers killed and all the other loved ones lost.  This divide among the LE community and certain groups is a real shame. 

[HulkbowSMASH]

The online ads funding model seems to provide very perverse incentives to news publishers, incentives that did not exist to anything like the same extent in the age of the newspaper.  (To the extent that they did exist, we got tabloids.)  It's more than a little troubling.

Heh, my previous post is a grammatical mess.  Glad it wasn't completely incomprehensible.

I'm not sure the ad revenue issue is all that new though.  It seems more that the media has gotten a lot bolder over time in how far they're willing to go for those views.

Professor Johnson calculates that 112 black men, on average, suffered both justified and unjustified police-involved deaths annually during this period.
[...]
This equals 2.5 percent of these 4,472 yearly deaths.
[...]
That same year, black males were just 6.6 percent of the population

There's way more in that post than I want to tackle, so I'll only hit some parts which stood out.  Though firstly, a [citation needed] on those numbers; not saying they're necessarily wrong, but they need to be supported before they can be taken seriously.

While looking at absolute numbers is of course one valid way of presenting data, it comes with implications.  In absolute terms the figures look more or less as your friend stated, but consider in terms of deaths compared to population percentages and you get a wholly different picture--one that indicates that in any given interaction with LE, a black male is more likely to wind up dead.  But trying to draw any sort of conclusion based solely on raw figures would be premature, so crying "Racism!" in response is just as faulty as crying "Thug culture!" or whatever else one cares to come up with.  (In truth, both probably play their parts, but to say the numbers support either is the error.)

Using the same percentage-based figures rather than absolute numbers for crimes by different demographics also changes the picture, in this case to an even stronger disparity in crimes perpetrated by each. 

The figures above highlight a horrific truth that black racialists and white liberals routinely ignore

Politics-baiting only serves to polarize people further.  This alone could've been reason enough for your friend's post to get deleted.  The point is also largely irrelevant to the topic of LEO abuse of power.  It is a problem, just a separate one, and muddling them together only makes for a muddied argument.  Same with BLM's argument, where I see two separate issues:  LEOs violating the public's civil rights, and a question of racial discrimination.  Actually a third as well, being the judicial system failing to maintain checks on enforcement, which only exacerbates the situation, and likely leaves members of the public feeling that the only way to find justice is by their own hands; hence, Dallas.

[HulkbowSMASH]

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/dallas-shooter-micah-xavier-johnson-decorated-army-veteran-article-1.2704275
The Dallas sniper was a lone gunman; other suspects were released.

http://www.wrex.com/story/32406917/protest-over-minnesota-police-shooting-calm-but-constant
"My son would not have approved of the shootings," Valerie Castile told CNN Friday night, "because he believed that all lives matter."

[HulkbowSMASH]

http://nypost.com/2016/07/08/video-surfaces-of-nypd-cops-road-rage-shooting/
Brooklyn Assemblyman Charles Barron insisted “things can get out of control” if the attorney general doesn’t bring charges against the cop.

“We won’t have any next steps to tell our people to even bother with this system,” he said. “People will take matters into their own hands because they won’t have any other alternative.”

The plot thickens.

[MasterXtreme]

Two Officers killed in Michigan, suspect killed by police.

[Wolfwood]

Has race relation gotten better after President Obama was elected?  Didn't people tout us electing him as a bridge towards a future without as much racism?  I feel that if anyone has propelled us to a new era of worse race relations, it has been our president and his committee.  It is a shame really.  He could have used his position to help things, but instead seems to always say the wrong things.

I remember when he was first elected, there was an officer involved shooting (I don't remember the exact case, but if I find it, I will link it).  Immediately Pres. Obama attacked the officer saying his actions were wrong.  After the investigation, the officer was found in the right and the person he shot was completely in the wrong.  I don't believe that racism can only be a white thing.  Whoever came up with that idea is dead wrong, and said an uniformed statement. 

Did I mention (and I shouldn't mention, but since there is so much heated race debate), the two recent officer involved shootings that killed two African American's (both of which were committing crimes or breaking the law at the time), did you know that neither of those officers were white that shot?  The recent Dallas PD shooting was directed at white officers, and white officers only.  Isn't that racism?  Isn't that a hate crime?  Aren't all crimes besides maybe theft and some others, a hate crime?

[Death Blossom]

I think the main "defense" people use when people ask if one can be racist against whites is "white people are privileged so they can't be oppressed" or "white people aren't a race".

But in a similar vain, does that mean "privileged" Hispanics or African Americans can't be victims of racism?

This world is just so crazy, and this country constantly feels like it's tearing itself apart. Instead of standing together we're pushing each other away and letting hatred blind us. And instead of seeing tragedy in these events, people use them to advance their campaigns, to advance their organizations beliefs. And that's sick.

[HulkbowSMASH]

I remember when he was first elected, there was an officer involved shooting (I don't remember the exact case, but if I find it, I will link it).  Immediately Pres. Obama attacked the officer saying his actions were wrong.  After the investigation, the officer was found in the right and the person he shot was completely in the wrong.

I don't know which case you're thinking of either, so I can't comment on it directly.  However, one of the issues around LE accountability has long been that almost universally the investigations exonerate officers.  It's the more recent proliferation of video which have caught officers blatantly lying, such as the recent road rage off-duty cop incident (and surprisingly he was stripped of his badge and gun as soon as the video surfaced).

I don't believe that racism can only be a white thing.  Whoever came up with that idea is dead wrong, and said an uniformed statement.

Yeah, that's part of the tumblrina/SJW attempt at redefining terms to suit their agendas.  Unfortunately, many people appear to have accepted this version over long-standing and easily found dictionary definitions.

the two recent officer involved shootings that killed two African American's (both of which were committing crimes or breaking the law at the time),

The recent ones I can think of were the guy selling CDs and the traffic stop with the CCW holder.  The CD guy had a gun in his pocket, but I don't know yet the reasons why the officers initiated contact with him; what I have seen of it seems fishy, but I'm reserving judgement until I find out more.  The CCW holder appeared to have done everything right--he informed the cop that he had a firearm on him and a permit to carry it, which is what you're supposed to do.  The officer seems to have panicked at that, but again more info is needed.  Still, it doesn't appear the CCW holder was doing anything illegal.  Maybe we're thinking of different cases.

did you know that neither of those officers were white that shot?  The recent Dallas PD shooting was directed at white officers, and white officers only.  Isn't that racism?  Isn't that a hate crime?  Aren't all crimes besides maybe theft and some others, a hate crime?

The cop who shot the CCW holder was apparently Hispanic, though the passenger identified him as Asian.  The two who took on the CD seller were both white as I recall.  As for the Dallas guy, I would certainly call it racism on his part.  But bringing charges of that sort, or really any other, are rather pointless seeing as how he's kinda dead.

[yasl]

Has race relation gotten better after President Obama was elected?  Didn't people tout us electing him as a bridge towards a future without as much racism?

He was a symbol/sign of such a future.  A milestone.  Many romanticized it (see: Nobel Peace Prize, though that's always been the unwanted stepchild of the real Nobel prizes).  I don't think any cool heads were suggesting that Obama's Blackness would join with the Seal of the POTUS and By Their Powers Combined wipe racism off the face of the US.

I don't believe that racism can only be a white thing.

Of course not.

By dint of being the majority, whites suffer less systematic racism than other identified ethnic groups in the US.

Now, some seem to feel a very Catholic need to whip themselves for the sins of others.  Some others feel a very hipster need to dis their apparent in-group to appeal to their actual in-group.  And others feel an understandable but ill-directed rage at the state of play.

The result seems to be the framing of the largest problem as the only problem, which is an excellent way to alienate half of your potential supporters.

So instead of debating ways to reduce the global rate of discrimination and to minimize tribalism, we're here whining about semantics.  (Also, solving tribalism is a Hard Problem, while bemoaning semantics is easy and fun!)

[Wolfwood]

Terrorist attack in Nice, France.  So far 60 dead, over 100 wounded.