About halfway through McCulloch’s statement, he declared that the grand jury determined that there was not sufficient evidence to support an indictment – for any of the five charges it considered. If you weren’t paying attention closely, it would have been easy to miss the moment when this information – really the only detail people wanted – was revealed. Without changing his tone or demeanor, McCulloch continued on explaining the facts and context of the events as the evidence showed.

The entire time, CNN (and I assume every other network covering on TV) had a split screen showing McCulloch on one side and the streets of Ferguson on the other. Several hundred people had assembled, surrounded by heavily armed Ferguson police with riot gear, shields, and who knows what else. But unlike say the OJ Simpson veridict, there was not a moment of dramatic reaction where everyone simultaneuously realized the outcome. Of course, watching a muted crowd of people from various poorly-lit camera angles is a tough way to know when people heard. But over the course of a few minutes, it was clear that the protestors and others gathered became aware that Darren Wilson would not be indicted.

Some people started running down the street. Some just stood around as before in small groups talking with one another.  Some looked agitated and were yelling. The Ferguson police stood in position, seemingly readying for combat. But McCulloch continued speaking for at least another 10-15 minutes before CNN turned it’s focus back to the Ferguson streets and began “reporting” on the announcement’s aftermath. It all went downhill from there.

(Some) protesters became looters. (Some) protesters set fire to several cars and buildings, including many local businesses owned by black citizens of Ferguson. The justice-seeking crown protesting an assault on human dignity turned into a horde of masked ruffians rampaging on a quest for free liquor and a once-in-a-lifetime pass to smash stuff, destroy property, and riot without getting arrested (although Ferguson police did arrest at least 60). Ironically, despite all the camera angles of Ferguson police officers and SWAT team members immediately before McCulloch’s statement, I barely saw a any cops in CNN’s breathless (literally) coverage over the hour and a half after the announcement.

Rather than focus on the sad and counter-productive actions of a few dozen of the worst in Ferguson, I hope people can find the patience to actually think about what happened to Mike Brown and Darren Wilson and how the country can use the lessons to improve society not just for one race or one community, but for all Americans going forward. There are most definitely lessons to be gleaned from the entire Ferguson saga. Knee-jerk racial attacks and empty one-liners about how this just proves cops can “get away with murder” or that its legal to kill young black men in America are not just incorrect and inflammatory, they are highly counter-productive and utterly pointless. At least if the goal is an improvement for race relations, an improvement for black America, or an improvement in the criminal justice system.

So I offer a few thoughts.

1) America’s Police Forces Have Become Far Too Militarized

Change for the sake of change is not necessarily an improvement. And just slapping together a cadre of random new dicta and calling it “reform” will not necessarily help anyone. But the fact is an unarmed young American man was killed by a Ferguson police officer – an officer of the government who is charged with protecting the general public and enforcing democratically enacted laws. So on the surface, it’s a perversion of what a police officer is supposed to do if he ends up killing someone. That’s obviously not what Darren Wilson woke up that morning trying to do, and it’s obviously not the goal of any PD in America, including the Ferguson police.

But, equally obvious, is the reality that sometimes police officers do kill their fellow citizens. And given the tremendous pressures and danger inherent to the job, it’s fair to debate what circumstances can justify such an act. Stopping genuine threats and reacting to the use of force by criminals surely can lead to lethal outcomes.

Stopping the terrorists who attacked a Jerusalem synagogue last week is a powerful example. After brutally murdering several men during their morning prayers (some who were Rabbis, all who were unarmed) with knives, axes and meat cleavers, the only thing that was going to halt the barbarity was a bullet fired at the two attackers. Jerusalem police responded within minutes and did the job. Who would argue that such lethal use of force by police was not justified? In fact, I think such a situation requires going further: to not immediately attempt to kill the terrorist attackers would be an abject moral failure.

But Michael Brown wasn’t carrying out a terrorist attack. Brown wasn’t attempting to kill or hurt anyone. He was not in the act of committing any crime (though he had just stolen a $30 box of cigarillos from a local convenience store). And most important of all, Michael Brown was not brandishing or even carrying a weapon of any kind.

Therefore, for him to wind up dead after a brief encounter with a Ferguson police officer is, frankly, absurd. Officer Wilson testified that Brown was immediately aggressive, charged at him, and even struck Wilson during a tussle in and around Wilson’s police car. Fine. Grant all of that and still, why was lethal force required? It’s 2014 and we have some pretty amazing technology in every corner of society. Was a taser not an option? How about mace or tear gas? Hell, what about shooting Brown in the leg? Wasn’t there any non-lethal tool available to Wilson in order to contain whatever threat Mike Brown posed? It’s incredibly hard to see how the answer is anything but “of course”.

Now, I’m not condemning Darren Wilson. I believe he was following his training and by shooting Brown he may not have committed a crime, per se. But it was still wholly unnecessary. “It” being shooting Brown (12 times apparently). So the problem is much bigger than Darren Wilson’s specific actions that day or even the policies of the Ferguson police department. Wilson should have had an alternative to lethal force. Subduing disorderly citizens is hardly an uncommon part of a police officer’s job. Some subjects even are armed and possibly violent. But to escalate from verbal confrontation and physical intimidation (by Brown) directly to lethal force is ridiculous. There has got to be a middle ground… or really, several middle grounds.

Two things might help:

• provide all police officers with at least one, or ideally several, non-lethal alternatives to using their firearm; start with tear gas and a taser;
• require all police officers to wear a body camera.

As has been restlessly examined by the media since the shooting, body cameras would serve the dual purpose of protecting citizens from over-agressive policing (and similarly muzzling all kinds of discrimination and other police misconduct) and protect police officers from false claims of police brutality. It’s a basic human tendency to control one’s behavior when it is known that someone is watching. Especially if we know it is being recorded. If Ferguson police had worn cameras, the entire social saga might have been avoided.

I have no idea what potential unforeseen consequences these two steps would have, but they seem like no-brainers as the place to start improving police interaction with citizens. Perhaps these steps would cause an officer to hesitate before employing lethal force and therefore become a victim himself by not eliminating a threat. But I doubt it. I believe training and technology can allow police officers to do their job in a manner that keeps them and the people they come in contact with safe.

The other component of the over-militarized actions of the Ferguson police is the way it handled the aftermath of both the initial shooting and the grand jury’s decision. Each time, national media showed scenes of tanks rolling through the streets of small-town America. There were heavily armed soldiers police officers lining the streets. Ferguson police officers wore Kevlar and helmets and carried what looked like rifles and were equipped with a full arsenal of actual military gear. Turns out that we have a robust government program in America that has delivered over $4 billion surplus or un-needed military equipment to police departments throughout America, including to the Ferguson police.  From the New York Times:

During the Obama administration, according to Pentagon data, police departments have received tens of thousands of machine guns; nearly 200,000 ammunition magazines; thousands of pieces of camouflage and night-vision equipment; and hundreds of silencers, armored cars and aircraft.

What, pray tell, is the point of all that? When did Al Quaeda invade with swarms of ground troops in Kansas or Missouri? Why do small-town police departments throughout the country – especially in rural America where there are not major “targets” – need all that military equipment? For what crises are Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected armored vehicles (MRAPs) critically required?

Just because we’ve already spent billions of dollars on these military weapons fighting multiple wars since 9/11 doesn’t mean we should distribute them like Halloween candy to America’s police forces. It’s not even solving a problem we don’t have. It’s creating problems by buffetting both the perception and reality of police as occupying forces in countless American communities.

Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images

It’s as if the police are preparing for war with the people they are charged with protecting. They get much of this equipment for free and glamorize the SWAT-style tactics in recruiting campaigns to sign up more soldiers officers. And even when sheriffs don’t want the equipment, their police departments wind of getting it anyway:

The police in 38 states have received silencers, which soldiers use to muffle gunfire during raids and sniper attacks. Lauren Wild, the sheriff in rural Walsh County, N.D., said he saw no need for silencers. When told he had 40 of them for his county of 11,000 people, Sheriff Wild confirmed it with a colleague and said he would look into it. “I don’t recall approving them,” he said.

Perhaps the problem here is attitude, but it may also just be inertia. We are winding down (sort of) two major wars overseas and naturally there are literally tons and tons of surplus heavy equipment. It it isn’t claimed, it’s usually destroyed according to the NY Times. But the consequences of such a militarized police presence have been ignored for too long. How can a community trust its police when SWAT teams are called in for small-time offenses, like “barbering without a license” (which, apparently, is a thing).

When you give police this kind of weaponry, it only encourages the soldier inside every police officer. It dramatically reinforces the notion that police are not there to protect, but instead to occupy America neighborhoods… especially the black and brown ones. In turn, citizens trust the Ferguson police even less and react more aggressively when events light a fuse as they did in Ferguson, Missouri.

2) America’s Criminal Justice System Requires Major Reforms

Even if Darren Wilson followed his Ferguson police training and did not commit a crime, there are clearly deep structural problems with America’s criminal justice system, particularly when it comes to the trust between many minority communities and the police. As has been repeatedly noted in the media, the Ferguson police department is almost entirely white, while the town of Ferguson is about two-thirds black. And in most urban centers the proportion of arrests are overwhelming skewed towards blacks and Latinos.

I believe there are many “causes” of this phenomenon, and is not simply a sign of the engrained latent racism of most white Americans. There are of course deep historical causes stemming from generations of systematic subjugation by the government, especially in the South but also in the North. You can’t un-do a hundred years of Jim Crow laws affecting housing, voting, education, transportation, business and criminal justice overnight.

And I don’t believe that racism is today a major concern even in the criminal justice system. Yes it’s true that minorities are disproportionately represented in jails, but again, there are many non-racial reasons for that. Drug laws, for example. Drug laws are horribly un-American, needlessly punitive, and wholly counter-productive. Those are not race-based laws, but blacks and Latinos are disproportionately affected by them. Eliminate drug laws and you eliminate the major source of the disproportionate statistics of arrests and the jailed population.

In addition, bail in America has become a heinous stain on the notions of liberty. If you’re wealthy, you get to go home and await trial comfortably (and contribute adequately to your defense). But if you’re poor (no matter your race), you are compelled to sit in a jail cell in squalid conditions with little or often no access to the internet, books, an attorney, phones, or an adequate ability to prepare a defense. That is indefensibly wrong. We must reform how the entire bail procedure functions to ensure it actually serves it’s purpose of making sure defendants show up to court. Ironically, it is the wealthy who have the means to flee the court’s jurisdiction anyway. Poor people are almost by definition less able to flee.

Also, the fact that we still have a death penalty is itself amazing in 2014. Most of my life I was a strong supporter of the death penalty. A piece of me still wants it available for the worst of the worst of the worst (I’m talking serial murderers who tortured their victims, admit their guilt, are totally unrepentant, are not mentally disabled in any way, etc.) But society still succumbs to the mob-justice mentality that we will kill you if you break the law. We will strap you down to a chair and inject several drugs to kill you. And the governor of your state will sign a piece of paper “certifying” your death like he’s signing an autograph. As heinous a crime as a person might have committed, doesn’t it just seem, kind of, wrong, to have state-sanctioned murder? And what if, you know, they didn’t do it?

My point is that there are so many significant problems with the criminal justice system in America today. So let’s focus on them and avoid the temptation to get distracted by phantom gripes by self-righteous provocateurs (…cough, cough).

3) Evidence and Facts Matter

Even before the indictment decision last night, commentators throughout America on social media and the main-stream media made declarative statements about what occurred. The demands for justice called Darren Wilson a “murderer” and people who have none of the evidence proclaimed that Michael Brown had his hands up and his back turned when he was killed – both disproven by the physical evidence and autopsy.

But, when race is in play, the facts seem to be mostly irrelevant to the self-proclaimed social justice warriors of America. Never mind that Michael Brown was the aggressor. Never mind that Michael Brown charged at Officer Wilson and refused to stop when Wilson ordered him to. Never mind that Wilson had literally just robbed a convenience store and assaulted its clear. Never mind that Brown’s blood and DNA were found on the inside of the Wilson’s SUV, indicating that Brown was at one point inside the car.

Three separate autopsies were conducted, including one conducted privately and one conducted by the federal government. Among other things, the autopsy found that Brown had gunshot residue on his hands, indicating a close up gun shot.

Also important to note is the false information, presumably leaked by the Ferguson police, that Wilson had a broken eye socket and possibly other serious injuries. All of these stories turned out to be false; Wilson had only minor redness and a few scratches.

4) Witnesses Are Never Reliable

This case will go down as a prime example of how unreliable witness accounts can be. In fact, it’s not always even clear if a person was even a direct witness, or whether they merely heard hearsay after-the-fact, or worse just made assumptions and filled in parts they did not directly observe. McCulloch spent a good portion of his statement explaining the inconsistencies between witnesses’ statements. He also noted how some witnesses changed their stories when confronted with the physical evidence. Equally problematic, others still stuck to their original stories.

Numerous studies and many real-life cases where convictions were overturned with DNA evidence have shown how unreliable witness testimony can be. Due to any number of variables a person may truly believe what they report to investigators or a jury even if it is flat-out not accurate. Some of these the justice system can control and others are just inherent to human psychology.

One of my all-time favorite “academic” videos demonstrates this idea supremely well. I have watched hundreds of people view this short clip and it is truly incredible – and shocking – how fallible human attention can be. Even when we are trying our hardest to pay extreme attention to an event, we can still miss major fundamental details of what occurred.

Saul McLeod explains how people don’t just “record” events in their memory, but instead they “reconstruct” memories after-the-fact:

In his famous study ‘War of the Ghosts‘, Bartlett (1932) showed that memory is not just a factual recording of what has occurred, but that we make “effort after meaning”.  By this, Bartlett meant that we try to fit what we remember with what we really know and understand about the world.  As a result, we quite often change our memories so they become more sensible to us.

As McCulloch noted during his statement:

The physical evidence does not change because of public pressure or personal agenda. Physical evidence does not look away as events unfold nor does it blackout or add to memory. Physical evidence remains constant and as such remains a solid foundation upon which cases are built. When statements changed, witnesses were confronted with the inconsistencies and conflict between their statements and the physical evidence. Some witnesses admitted they did not actually see the shooting or only saw part of the shooting, only repeating what they heard on the street. Some others adjusted parts of their statements to fit the facts. Others stood by original statements even though their statements were completely discredited by the physical evidence.

Maybe some of the witnesses fostered such a deep mistrust of the Ferguson police that they filled in the blanks of their memory with whatever they assumed a racist cop would have done. Maybe they wanted attention. Maybe they had a bad angle or saw only part of the events as they unfolded. Maybe the neighborhoods where the witnesses lived and the general anti-police environment after the shooting contributed to their “reconstructions”.  Whatever the case, as McCulloch pointed out, it is unlikely any of the witnesses knowingly lied to the grand jury. That would constitute perjury. In theory, America’s court system is premised largely on the idea that witnesses will be truthful when under oath. But being truthful doesn’t necessarily mean being accurate. That’s the problem.

Well, that’s one of the problems.  I know this post only touches on a smattering of the many complex issues presented by this case. For years to come people will evaluate the actions of everyone involved, and not just Wilson and Brown. The Ferguson police and the entire Ferguson community will be under heavy scrutiny for a long time. And maybe, just maybe, we can be collectively motivated to focus on the evidence and begin to implement thoughtful, productive reforms that do more than appease the anger of the loudest looters. Let’s consider the whole picture and figure out how to prevent more people from becoming a victim of their own police.

No matter what Michael Brown did before he was killed, and no matter what Darren Wilson does now, I think we as a society owe it to ourselves to take honest, positive, constructive action. That’s what America is supposed to stand for, and we’ve done it repeatedly before. Let’s do it again.

The post Ferguson Police Officer Wilson Not Indicted, Four Constructive Lessons appeared first on Cliff Satell.

“At least sesame street is actually talking about prison; the rest of us are much happier completely ignoring it.  Perhaps because it’s so easy not to care about prisoners.  They are by definition convicted criminals.”

And when the Director of US Prisons testified before the US Senate, Sen Al Franken can’t even get an answer to the simplest of questions: what is the size of the average cell?  The Director of US Prisons stammers and looks confused as if there’s absolutely no conceivable reason how the “size” of a cell would be relevant to anything!  Sen Franken struggles to keep re-forming the question in more specific terms – “size, as in feet and inches” he says – and finally gives up turning to another Senator to ask, “Am I asking this wrong?”

Nope, you were not, funny man.  Eventually the Senators are told the average cell size is 10 x 7.

It’s pretty much impossible to pursue reform when there is no political concience willing to even asses the status quo.  :We don’t know because we don’t care” is the attitude, and perhaps understandably.

“What is clear is that we are doing a terrible job taking care of people that it is very easy for us all not to care about.”

Privatization of prison suppliers

Oliver also calls out how an exploding industry of private suppliers is failing prisoners.  Food suppliers have run out of food and one news report found maggots found in prison food.

Healthcare can be similarly lacking for prison inmates: 50 people died in Arizona DOC custody so far this year, for example.  Inadequate staffing and medical resources plague many facilities.  Oliver focuses on one woman who describes prison medical staff pouring packets of table sugar into her c-section for weeks after she gave birth in prison.

“You will never pay a political price for treating prisoners…badly.  You don’t even need to pretend to care.”  Then he plays a clip of an Arizona state legislator callously accusing the prisoner who had sugar poured into her wound of lying since inmates have so much time to think up allegations while incarcerated.

Total Reform Needed

“This is all so depressing.  Private prisons are bad, yes.  But the whole system just seems fundamentally broken.”

The post John Oliver Eviscerates US Prison System appeared first on Cliff Satell.

I’ve never been the most prolific photographer, but since images and visual content generally have come to dominate social media, it seemed like I better check it out sooner than later.  I don’t plan to use it all that often – Twitter is still my go-to outlet for pithy comments, observations, news items and real-time conversations around big events like the World Cup.

Maybe I will be a mostly passive Pinterest user – there is so much engaging content on there waiting to be seen.  Everything from funny memes and animal shots to professional infographics and tech gadgets has a place on Pinterest.  Sure, the site has been utilized by artists, jewelry sellers, and other independent purveyors of physical goods that markets primarily toward soccer moms.  But since you can highly customize which boards you follow, it doesn’t seem hard to find relevant content that makes the time investment worthwhile.

Anyway, check out my first Pinterest board of pictures from the first and only Phillies game I’ve been able to make this year.  Conveniently, it was probably the single best game to attend all year since Jimmy Rollins broke the team’s all-time hits record that day (… the fireworks nights would be the best runner-up, at least this dismal year.)

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Absurd? Just a tad. In fact, as anyone who has bothered to think about it for more than 3 seconds knows, alcohol is orders of magnitude more dangerous to individuals and society. So for all my civil libertarian impulses (I was the head of the Duke Conservative Union at the time, after all), I offered up this reply (which was published virtually verbatim to my surprise.)

I’ve slightly edited the article below from the original Chronicle print version to make more sense on this blog.

Pot Does Not Kill Mexican Kids

By: Cliff Satell

Last week, the Chronicle published a column which made an impassioned case against marijuana use. It pleaded for us to prevent “another dead Latin American child,” by looking within ourselves as a nation and ceasing our rampant and destructive drug use. The author of that column, and his argument, is wrong for the following reasons.

First, he claims smoking weed is unethical because big mean people who bring pot here are violent. But you can’t argue weed is inherently unethical because the current distribution system is unsavory; his point has nothing to do with the “ethics” of marijuana use. Individual use is a choice everyone has the right to make, especially in a country that pretends to allow the pursuit of happiness. As a strong conservative, I’m embarrassed by the hypocrisy of most conservatives when they advocate the government first decide, and then tell us, what is ethical and what isn’t. The government should never be in the business of legislating morality unless another person’s rights are directly threatened.

Which brings us to his main point: he claims ‘blazing’ weed does threaten the rights of poor Mexican kids because of the border violence in sneaking the plant into America. Let’s analyze. People – especially Mexican-Americans originally – smoke a lot of weed. Some weed is imported. Weed becomes illegal as a way to control a growing Mexican-American population. Weed producers are forced to operate in an underground and illegal world, becoming ‘cartels’. They don’t want to go to jail. They fear jail so much they do whatever necessary to stay out, leading to violence. Poor Mexican kids die; UCLA kids get high.

Since demand is literally infinite and will never disappear, the only logical conclusion is to bring the production and distribution of marijuana out from hiding and into the bright light of sanctioned government regulation. Once regulated there would be no need to violently conspire to sneak drugs over because producers would operate like any other legal distribution business. Not only would it add new sources of tax revenue in a time of fiscal crisis, but it would stop the Mexican kids from dying since violence is no longer required. You don’t see gangs of French warlords killing each other trying to sneak Cabernet into America. Why? Because wine isn’t relegated to the dirty world of black markets where lots of bad people kill other people. Closer to home, you don’t see Massachusetts, New Jersey or any of the other 12 states that have legalized marijuana collapsing from gang activity or cartel warfare.

Third, the author’s logic clearly is misinformed. Most of the weed on campus at Duke and especially in the Northeast does not even come from Mexico. A significant percentage is made right here in America’s living rooms and bedroom closets. Another hefty percentage comes from Canada, where border regulations are less restrictive.

Most marijuana in the US comes from California’s so-called Emerald Triangle, not Mexico.

And finally, the open secret now is that high-end pot comes from California’s humongous “Emerald Triangle” weed industry, a three-county region where marijuana makes up two-thirds of the economy (taxes anyone?). Progressive Californians legalized medicinal marijuana, creating a need for large scale farms to supply state-sanctioned distributaries. Medicinal weed, or “Cali bud” generally, is the bees knees that most consumers crave, not low-end Mexican schwag.

Finally, while we’re on ethics, let’s look at the reality. Alcohol kills roughly 100,000 per year (and is legal). Marijuana kills zero (and isn’t). Wait, you’re surprised? Mexican kids dies from bullets, not weed. Even Advil causes more deaths per year (7,000). Don’t cave to the government’s pathetic War on Drugs and its almost-laughable propaganda campaign that began as a racist way to keep out Mexicans from the Southwest in the 1930’s. Moreover, weed is a life-enhancer that gives peace, tranquility and yes, happiness to millions of hard-working productive Americans and Duke Students.

It’s awfully easy to point fingers at the big scary pot plant, ignoring that its legitimate medicinal and recreational use dates back thousands of years. But to say little Mexican babies are murdered every time a joint is rolled is beyond self-gratifying, it’s intellectual dishonesty at its worst. Get the facts and open your mind, then you’ll learn a really inconvenient truth.

The post Marijuana Does Not Kill Mexican Kids appeared first on Cliff Satell.

Truly awesome Ted Talk. Simon Sinek outlines his “Golden Circle” thesis of behavior… basically he answers the question: how do leaders inspire action and why are some leaders better than others?

People don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it.

It’s become legendary and I try to watch it a few times a year to remind myself to stay focused on the “why”.  That’s what motivates human behavior and, ultimately, drives consumer choice.  Sinek, the Golden Circle, and this video are among the most watched Ted Talks of all-time and for good reason.  If you have not yet checked it out, please do:

The post Ted Talk – Find the Why appeared first on Cliff Satell.

But, every now and again, Ann Coulter finds a way to offend every single reader while still including some valid logic and solid political points. She has the courage (or arrogance) to identify the blatant racism and demonizing from left-wing leaders who need their black voting bloc to remain in tact and victimized in order for them to stay in power. God forbid a black person evaluates the world for himself and decides to become a conservative. Or, dare I say, a Republican!

Clarence Thomas, Colin Powell, Michael Steele, Clifford Huxtable (and the guy who played him) and now Herman Cain are all being labeled turncoats, traitors, “whitey” and worse. Every day liberals wake up and call Republicans racist for opposing Obama. Even Morgan Freeman, whom I otherwise love, gets in on the absurdity that is now commonplace: anyone who doesn’t want Obama to succeed (in pursuing his failed policies which would hurt the country and waste money) must be a racist because they cannot stand seeing such a wise and wonderful black man in the White House. Why else would anyone dare oppose Saint Barack? But that story line doesn’t work so well if the Republicans nominate a Republican (…or a woman for Vice President, or have a black leader of the Republican National Committee).

Anyway, just read her words, she does a better job. And that doesn’t happen very often. Because, again, she’s crazy.

Why Our Blacks are Better than Their Blacks

by Ann Coulter

By spending the last three decades leveling accusations of “racism” every 10 seconds, liberals have made it virtually impossible for Americans to recognize real racism — for example, the racism constantly spewed at black conservatives.

In the last year alone, a short list of the things liberals have labeled “racist” include:

• Being a Republican;
• Joining the tea party;
• The word “the” (Donald Trump’s statement that he has a “great relationship with the blacks”);
• References to Barack Obama’s playing basketball (Trump again);
• Using Obama’s middle name;
• Scott Brown’s pickup truck;
• Opposing Obamacare;
• Opposing Obama’s stimulus bill;
• Opposing Obama’s jobs bill.

The surge in conservative support for Herman Cain confuses the Democrats’ story line, which is that Republicans hate Obama because he’s black.

Cain is twice as black as Obama. (Possible Obama campaign slogan: “Too Black!”)

This is why the liberal website Politico ran with a story on Cain that had everything — a powerful black man, a Republican presidential candidate, the hint of sexuality — except facts.

All we learned was: About a decade ago, as many as two anonymous women accused Cain of making unspecified “inappropriate” remarks and one “inappropriate” gesture in the workplace. (We had more than that on John Edwards’ mistress a year into the media’s refusal to report that story.)

If the details helped liberals, we’d have the details.

To have been accused of sexual harassment in the 1990s is like having been accused of molesting children at preschools in the 1980s or accused of being a witch in Massachusetts in the 1690s.

In the 1990s, one plaintiff won a $50 million jury verdict against Wal-Mart on the grounds that a “hostile environment” was created by her supervisor’s yelling at both male and female employees. In another case, a plaintiff won a $250,000 award for sexual harassment based on her complaint that a male colleague had reached for a pastry saying, “Nothing I like more in the morning than sticky buns,” while “wriggl(ing)” his eyebrows.

It got so crazy that a 6-year-old boy was suspended from class for a day for kissing a classmate on the cheek, and a Goya painting had to be removed from a Penn State classroom because a professor complained that it constituted sexual harassment.

With no standard other than the subjective offense taken by the accuser, absolutely anyone could be called a witch, i.e., a sexual harasser. So it’s striking that the only two conservative public figures accused of being witches both happened to be conservative blacks: Clarence Thomas and Herman Cain.

Liberals go straight to ugly racist stereotypes when attacking conservative blacks, calling them oversexualized, stupid and/or incompetent.

The late, lamented, white liberal reporter Mary McGrory called Justice Antonin Scalia “a brilliant and compelling extremist” — while dismissing Thomas as “Scalia’s puppet.”

More recently, Democratic Sen. Harry Reid called Scalia “one smart guy.” In the next breath, he proclaimed Thomas “an embarrassment to the Supreme Court,” adding, “I think that his opinions are poorly written.”

When Bush made Condoleezza Rice the first black female secretary of state, terror swept through the Democratic Party. What if people began to notice and ask questions: “Who’s that black woman always standing with George Bush?” Never mind! He’s probably arresting her.

In addition to an explosion of racist cartoons portraying Rice as Aunt Jemima, Butterfly McQueen from “Gone With the Wind,” a fat-lipped Bush parrot and other racist clichés, allegedly respectable liberals promptly called her stupid and incompetent.

Joseph Cirincione, then with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said Rice “doesn’t bring much experience or knowledge of the world to this position.” (Unlike Hillary Clinton, whose experience for the job consisted of being married to an impeached, disbarred former president.)

Democratic consultant Bob Beckel — who ran Walter Mondale’s 1984 campaign so competently that Mondale lost 49 states — said of Rice, “I don’t think she’s up to the job.”

When Michael Steele ran for senator in Maryland in 2006, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee dug up a copy of his credit report — something done to no other Republican candidate. He was depicted in black face with huge red lips by liberal blogger Steve Gilliard. Oreo cookies were rolled down the aisle at Steele during a gubernatorial debate in 2002.

Trafficking in racist imagery is consequence-free for liberals because they have ruined charges of “racism” with their own overuse of the term. By now, any accusation of racism has the feel of a Big Foot sighting.

It’s a neat trick, rather as if the Nazis had called everything “genocide” right before launching the Holocaust, and then admonished resisters not to “play the genocide card.”

Liberals step on black conservatives early and often because they can’t have black children thinking, “Hmmm, the Republicans have some good ideas; maybe I’m a Republican.”

The basic setup is:

Step 1: Spend 30 years telling blacks that Republicans are racist and viciously attacking all black Republicans.

Step 2: Laugh maliciously at Republicans for not having more blacks in their party.

It is beyond insane that Herman Cain would have considered running for president if he had the tiniest skeleton in his closet. To be an out-of-the-closet black Republican, you had better be a combination rocket scientist/Baptist preacher. Which, as it happens, Cain is.

Meanwhile, MSNBC is cutting into its prime-time programming to announce updates in the fact-free hit on Cain. That’s not because anyone there thinks he’ll be the nominee. Everyone knows it’s going to be Mitt Romney.

But liberals are determined to make sure that, six months from now, everyone has forgotten Herman Cain so they can go back to claiming Republicans oppose Obama because they hate blacks.

COPYRIGHT 2011 ANN COULTER

Cliff Satell attended Duke University and led the Duke College Republicans as Vice-Chair.

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After getting into an accident, my old car had to be replaced. The accident was not major, but it did a lot of damage to my car because of the location of the contact. Police showed up and eventually both cars were towed away (the other car was a large SUV that suffered minor damage to the rear bumper.) The other driver and I both gave insurance info to the police, they filled their report, the scene was cleaned up and we went on about our business.

It was one of those things… stuff happens. Very annoying, very stupid, but it happens. I was not hurt at all, nor was the other driver. The damage could be replaced (in theory). But since my car was behind the other car, I knew that as far as insurance was concerned, I would probably be held responsible. However, I had not been drunk, was not talking on my phone, was not speeding or weaving in and out of lanes. We were going no more than 25 miles per hour at most. The police were relatively friendly and professional.

So imagine my surprise when a couple of weeks later I open my mail to find a careless driving citation. Considering none of the police officers made any mention of careless driving, or asked me any questions relating to possible careless acts, I was shocked. There had been no mention of a violation, or even the question of a violation, let alone an arrest or anything. The ticket was written days after the accident and mailed to me. Strange, to say the least.

Of course, I wasn’t going to pay the fine and accept the three points on my license since I had not violated the law. And my car was the one that had to be totally replaced (which was a month-long nightmare), not that that is relevant to culpability. My family and friends thought I should just pay the stupid fine and be done with it. But I was truly appalled by the way these cops acted as if they were deities.

They can send anyone a citation or ticket and claim you broke the law. Doesn’t much matter what the evidence is, assuming there even IS any evidence. The system is screwed up – all about ego and power and very rarely about justice, or the public’s best interest. I did not learn all that many things at Duke, but Duke is damn good at teaching you that.

Anyway, the first hearing date was continued by the state because the cop couldn’t show up that day. It was rescheduled to this week. I researched the careless driving law in the state. And guess what? I was unable to find a single case where similar facts had led to a careless or reckless driving citation. The law was crystal clear that there had to be “more than a mere lack of care” on the part of the driver; to be guilty beyond a reasonable doubt one must display such lack of care as to make a reasonable person think the safety of people might be in jeopardy (paraphrasing). So I was confident.

When I showed up to the hearing – which was a good 45 minutes away and I was unfamiliar with the area – the receptionist greeted me with a frosty, “Name?” “Cliff Satell,” I responded. She looked down, contorted her face, glanced at the clock on the wall and deadpanned: “You’re late.” Yes, Madame, that was true. I was about 10 minutes late. And my experience with these hearings are that they never begin within 20 minutes of the scheduled time. But, she was right. She gave me a flippant gesture that reminded me of a doctor’s office receptionist warning that, “Well ok, you can sit down, but we’ll see if he sees you!” Fine. I sat down and waited.

A short time later, the rather morose looking cop came out and called a few names, including Cliff Satell. I went to a back hallway to talk to him and without even making eye contact with me, the officer – cliché mustache/waistline and all – informed me that this offense carries 3 points on my license. So, he was graciously offering me a deal that would include zero points, but I’d plead guilty to the “same set of facts.” Not entirely sure what he meant by that, I made a comment to the effect of, “Ok, but I don’t think I was careless.” He retorted that since my cellphone went off right before the crash, that I was automatically guilty. Yeah, not exactly, coppo.

Super Troopers – Just doing their jobs, keeping America safe from Super Villains.

We went back and forth for a minute before he ended it by saying, “Fine, we’ll have the hearing.” I’m sure it was meant to be intimidating, as if I’d made a huge mistake. I was still pretty sure I would be fine.

So I had to go into the courtroom and basically conduct a trial. First, the cop went up to the stand, was sworn in by the judge and testified. I was allowed to cross-examine. The cop did not like my questions, which were surprisingly good, in my humble opinion. My Mock Trial days at Duke surely helped. All closed questions; succinct and clear; made him say “yes” or “correct” to virtually every question. I was also polite and not defensive, surprising even myself.

Then, I testified. I explained what had happened and why the law was on my side. The cop attempted to cross-examine me. He clearly was not a lawyer. His first question was something like, “So am I to believe that this is everybody’s fault but yours?” My answer: “Absolutely not.” He moved on.

His questions were mostly just establishing the basic facts, like that I was driving, that no one else was in my car, and that we were driving southbound on the road. Ok… cool. Then he went into some lecture type of mode. He even said directly at one point, “You see, the point I’m trying to get across to you is…”. Now, obviously, you can’t do that. So I just let him finish his paragraph-long soliloquy and the simply asked the judge if that was a question. It had not been. The judge told him to move on and stick to questions.

Finally, I got down and the judge allowed me to go right into closing arguments. I didn’t even sit down. So I wrapped up a 2 minute argument about my research, what the law requires for guilt, and the fact that the cop had failed to meet his burden. The cop just somberly repeated the facts for his closing. And he never stood up when addressing the judge. HUGE no-no, I don’t care who you are or what court you’re in.

The judge then proceeded to ramble quite passionately for 10 minutes about his experience as a cop for 18 years and a judge for 20. He had heard defenses like mine all the time, he said. And, “research is all well and good, and it’s great that you did it, but” what they don’t put in the searchable records are the cases that don’t get appealed. All the regular simple cases that are dispensed with the first hearing, either through a deal with the cop or a guilty verdict (or, I suppose, a not guilty verdict).

Then he smiled, leaned over his desk and loudly asked us what the only issue that mattered was. It was something neither of us (me or the cop) had even mentioned, he bellowed. He waved his hands indignantly as if he could hardly comprehend the absurdity that was a cop and a defendant not being able to read his mind. Since he was looking at me mostly, I stood up and softly said, “culpability?” No. Ah, my bad and I sat down. Kinda awkward. Turns out it was the following distance. Was I driving too closely to the car in front of me that I hit? The issue wasn’t a distraction like a cell phone ringing; there are a million distractions every drive and rarely do the lead to hitting things… because you’re not supposed to follow so closely that you cannot react to a distraction and not hit something. So since I hit somebody in front of me and I had been distracted slightly, he implied there was a prima facie case that I was following to closely, and therefore, being careless, and, therefore, guilty.

BUT, he reminded everyone that I had to be proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. And since there was no third-party witness, and the cop had not seen the accident himself (and there was absolutely nothing in the record to this point that I had been following to closely… a point I would have contended anyway), the judge said I had to be held:

NOT GUILTY.

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On the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington, it’s an especially good time to take a few minutes and rewatch Martin Luther King’s most famous speech.  One of the truly great orators of history, Dr. King could captivate an audience with a rhetorical dexterity rarely ever matched by any speaker.

While the Civil Rights Movement certainly had its share of charismatic leaders who could drum up a crowd, Martin Luther King uses his words to paint a picture of his message that is impossible to shrug off.  With accessible, positive, unifying language, Dr. King not only castigates the hypocritical status quo in 1960’s America, but he simultaneously touches the hearts of the American conscience, providing the very needed moral leadership to catapult the Movement’s goals into genuine motion.

Without King’s ability to speak to the Great Majority of Americans who believed in the Declaration of Independence’s words that “All Men Are Created Equal.”  Intellectually, most Americans were already on Dr. Kings side – even if they didn’t know it.  Instead of demanding that America change its fundamental being and bow to a minority group’s demands, Martin Luther King extolled the virtues of America’s ideals and urged all Americans to live up to our original founding creed.

King knew the Founders had got it right in setting the bar so high for the American experiment.  But while so many others excoriate the Founding Fathers as perpetrators of slavery, King used the lofty principles of the American Revolution to show how America didn’t need to fundamentally change, it needed to recognize what it already was: a beacon of liberty.

When the architects of our Republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir.  This note was a promise that all men – yes, black men as well as white men – would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

King’s gift for persuasion is on full display here.  Keep in mind this speech was given during an extremely volatile time in American life.  The Voting Rights Act was languishing in Congress, the peace dividend after World War II was all but over, and race riots were a constant threat to a peaceful society.  In fact, many commentators were convinced the March on Washington would devolve into yet another violent demonstration.  King’s monumental task of inspiring a demoralized black America to continue fighting with positivity in order to claim the “riches of freedom and the security of justice” while also appealing to moderate whites and a bitterly stubborn Southern tradition of knee-jerk opposition to Civil Rights.

He could have complained on behalf of black people to the white establishment.  He could have lambasted white people for the sins of their fathers and a diminishing – though certainly prevalent – racist minority.  Dr. King could have used his unparalleled pulpit to instigate anger and sow seeds of division.  He could have transferred the “heat of oppression” his people were so used to into a vindictive quest to return the hatred onto the oppressors.

But he didn’t.  After warning that there “will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights,” King emphasizes the importance of entering “the palace of justice” with a clear moral imperative:

Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred.  We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline… Again and again we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force.

All this and the speech was only mediocre to that point – at least to Dr. King himself.  He did not believe the speech was going as well as it should – he was not capturing the crowd in the same way he knew he had done before.  And with the increasingly volcanic political environment, he knew that to let this moment pass him by could mean missing out on the opportunity to move the Civil Right’s Movement a major step forward.

And then something happened.  Mahalia Jackson – the world-famous Queen of Gospel who had appeared many times with Martin Luther King previously – must have sensed that Dr. King was leaving something on the table.  “Tell them about the dream, Martin! she encouraged from just behind the podium.  And so he did, beginning one of the single most well-known and powerful sections of rhetorical awesomeness that have ever been recorded:

I say to you today, my friends, even though we face the diffichttp://www.cliffsatell.com/wp-admin/post-new.phpulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream.  It is a dream deeply rooted in the American Dream.  I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up, live out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.

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The case started when Justin made some comments online during a gaming-related argument:

Carter was first arrested in February after he got in an argument with fellow gamers on Facebook and posted a comment saying, “I’m f—ed in the head alright. I think I’ma shoot up a kindergarten and watch the blood of the innocent rain down and eat the beating heart of one of them.” Although Carter’s parents and attorney insist that the comment was a sarcastic response to another Facebook user, a Texan grand jury has indicted the teenager on charges related to terrorism.

Here’s how Justin’s father described what happened:

“Someone had said something to the effect of ‘Oh you’re insane. You’re crazy. You’re messed up in the head,'” Jack Carter told CNN affiliate KVUE in Austin.  “To which he replied ‘Oh yeah, I’m real messed up in the head. I’m going to go shoot up a school full of kids and eat their still-beating hearts.’  Jack Carter said his son followed the claim with “LOL” and “J/K” — indicating that the comment wasn’t serious.”

Apparently a “Good Samaritan” in Canada who participated in the exchange took him seriously enough to Google the area where Justin lived and saw he was next to a school.  She then contacted local police who arrested Justin back in March.  Instead of taking 10 minutes to examine the situation honestly, the prosecutors decided to indict Justin on charges of making terroristic threats.

Never mind that a search of his home revealed Justin had no weapons.  Never mind the fact that at no point was Justin’s “threat” in any way carried out or attempted.  Never mind the fact that he wrote “jk” and other phrases in the same conversation where he emphasized he was joking.

After the search warrant turned up nada, a judge still set bail for Justin at $500,000 – an astronomical number far higher than many suspects get when charged with gun charges or violent crimes.  But for a student arrested on charges even a child can quickly see are baseless, bail is half a million dollars.  He hadn’t been convicted of anything.  Yet for the privilege of walking out the door, Justin was told he needed to past half a million dollars in bail.

Now the case is just getting underway and the prosecutors are not backing down.  At a recent press conference, the prosecutors stated Justin could get as many as 10 years in prison – if he does not cave to the tremendous pressure and plead guilty to some minor charge.  Understandably, Justin is suffering a great deal as a result of being jailed – CNN reports he is on suicide watch.  And his mother has written that, “[w]hile stuck in jail, Justin has been assaulted a number of times. He has been locked in solitary confinement for weeks.”

“He’s very depressed. He’s very scared and he’s very concerned that he’s not going to get out,” Jack Carter, Justin’s father, told CNN on Tuesday. “He’s pretty much lost all hope.”

Next Steps for Student Arrested for Joke

While Justin now has a lawyer defending him for free, a Change.org petition titled “Release Justin Carter and Change the Investigative Criteria for Terroristic Threat Laws” had received nearly 35,000 digital signatures as of Tuesday afternoon.  Fortunately, an anonymous donor stepped in to post Justin’s bail so he can escape prison purgatory.

Justin’s father says he understands the need for authorities to remain vigilant about threats of school violence.  Especially after Sandy Hook – the massacre took place just weeks before Justin’s alleged threat.  “I definitely see the need to investigate such claims. Absolutely,” he said. “But at some point during the investigation there has to be some common sense.”

Yes – common sense.  What happened to common sense?  As soon as the prosecutors conducted their investigation and realized Justin’s threat was at worst an incredible stupid thing to write – but by no means was any person in any jeopardy whatsoever – the case should have been dropped.  Justin never should have been charged.  Prosecutors are supposed to use common sense in evaluating which cases to pursue.  They are supposed to be on the front lines so they can review all the facts and apply the law in a fair and reasoned manner.

Perhaps more important, the Supreme Court has clearly protected speech of this sort.  Speech is always protected unless a person is directly inciting an act of violence – or should have known that a listener would be roused to violence.  Even “fighting words” are protected when the context is a joke or not serious.  Words in and of themselves are never a threat and should never be punished.  It is when those threats are accompanied with genuine intent to harm someone that police must step in consider charges or making an arrest.

But in this tragedy, the only victim is the student arrested: Justin Carter.  Not only is he victimized physically in jail, but since being arrested and charged he’s had to quit college and fight this life-shattering battle to clear his name.  We have a system that is supposed to protect against these kinds of injustices.  There are supposed to be checks and balances that prevent trumped-up charges from getting off the ground.  We have a Constitution that is supposed to protect us from the abuses of corrupt and/or incompetent government officials.

But just ask any student arrested unfairly (Duke Lacrosse Case anyone) and you’ll realize quickly that prosecutors too often are out to make a name for themselves, not protect the public.

Let’s hope that the judge has the common sense to do the right thing.  And if not, we must keep faith in the jury system to confront the facts of this case with the common sense neutrality all cases deserve.

+Cliff Satell

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I drive by Merion every morning on the way to work, so it was fascinating to watch the landscape evolve as the USGA worked feverishly to make sure the course was prepared.  While rain threatened some major trouble, the course stood up extremely well.  Torrential rain during the practice rounds before the US Open began had many predicting a low-scoring event.  In the end, Justin Rose won his first major and finished 1-over for the tournament.

Concerns ran so high that there was a plan ready to be executed to play two holes on the West Course if the two lowest holes on the East Course were under water.  Numbers 11 (one of golf’s most famous hole – Bobby Jones secured his Grand Slam on Merion’s 11th) and 12 are both bisected by Cobb’s Creek.  When I used to caddy at Merion, I saw the creek overflow to the point where only a few square feet of 11’s green was visible.  That meant multiple bunkers around the green and a sizable chunk of the fairway were completely under water.  Fortunately, Merion was spared  – though the effort from the USGA and Merion’s grounds crew was monumental.

Check out some pictures by clicking on the picture below.  All of the pictures were taken on the weekend preceding the US Open. The East course was open to the public for four days (Thursday through Sunday) prior to the practice rounds.  When I went the weather was picture perfect and everything was set up flawlessly.  While we were not allowed onto the actual holes, the roads around Merion run close enough that you can literally walk up to the edge of the fairway on many holes.

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+Cliff Satell

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