Fusion center director: We don’t spy on Americans, just anti-government Americans

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A so-called fusion center is an information sharing center, many of which were jointly created between 2003 and 2007 under the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the Office of Justice Programs in the U.S. Department of Justice. They allegedly are designed to promote information sharing at the federal level between agencies such as the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), U.S. Department of Justice, U.S. military, and state- and local-level government. As of July 2009, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security recognized at least 72 fusion centers. Fusion centers may also be affiliated with an Emergency Operations Center that responds in the event of a disaster.

From [HERE] Law enforcement intelligence-processing fusion centers have long come under attack for spying on Americans. The Arkansas director wanted to clarify the truth: centers only spies on some Americans – those who appear to be a threat to the government.

In trying to clear up the ‘misconceptions’ about the conduct of fusion centers, Arkansas State Fusion Center Director Richard Davis simply confirmed Americans’ fears: the center does in fact spy on Americans – but only on those who are suspected to be ‘anti-government’. “The misconceptions are that we are conducting spying operations on US citizens, which is of course not a fact. That is absolutely not what we do,” he told the NWA Homepage, which supports KNWA-TV and Fox 24.

After claiming that his office ‘absolutely’ does not spy on Americans, he proceeded to explain that this does not apply to those who could be interpreted as a ‘threat’ to national security. Davis said his office places its focus on international plots, “domestic terrorism and certain groups that are anti-government. We want to kind of take a look at that and receive that information.”

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The Murder of Fred Hampton (complete film) "is the gravest domestic crime of the Nixon administration”

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From "Domestic Terrorism: Notes on the State System of Oppression"

by Noam Chomsky [HERE] 

Perhaps the most shocking story concerns the assassination of Fred Hampton and Mark Clark by Chicago police directed by the state's attorney office on December 4, 1969, in a predawn raid on a Chicago apartment. Hampton, one of the most promising leaders of the Black Panther party, was killed in bed, perhaps drugged. Depositions in a civil suit in Chicago reveal that the chief of Panther security and Hampton's personal bodyguard, William O'Neal, was an FBI infiltrator. O'Neal gave his FBI "contacting agent," Roy Mitchell, a detailed floor plan of the apartment, which Mitchell turned over to the state's attorney's office shortly before the attack, along with "information" -- of dubious veracity -- that there were two illegal shotguns in the apartment. For his services, O'Neal was paid over $10,000 from January 1969 through July 1970, according to Mitchell's affidavit.

The availability of the floor plan presumably explains why "all the police gunfire went to the inside corners of the apartment, rather than toward the entrances," and undermines still further the pretense by the police that the police barrage was caused by confusion in unfamiliar surroundings that led them to believe, falsely, that they were being fired upon by the Panthers inside. 18 Agent Mitchell was named by the Chicago Tribune as head of the Chicago Cointelpro directed against the Black Panthers and other black groups. Whether or not this is true, there is now substantial evidence of direct FBI involvement in this Gestapo-style political assassination.

O'Neal, incidentally, continued to report to Mitchell after the raid. He was taking part in meetings with the Hampton family and discussions between lawyers and clients, one of many such examples of violation of the lawyer-client relation. To cite another, which did receive considerable publicity, the chief security officer of the American Indian Movement, also a paid FBI informer, "was the only person, other than defendants and lawyers, with regular access to the room in which defense strategy was planned." So valuable were his services during this period that his cash payment from the Bureau was raised from $900 to $1,100 a month. "The Government, in a sworn affidavit at the trial, had appeared to contend that it had no informer in the defense ranks." The informer, who came to believe that AIM was, in his words, a "legal, social organization that wasn't doing anything wrong," reports also that he helped lead an armed takeover of a state office building in Iowa, among other tasks performed for the FBI. 19

There has as yet been no systematic investigation of the FBI campaign against the Black Panther party in Chicago, as part of its nationwide program of political repression. But on the basis of the scattered information that has come to light, it is possible to offer some speculations as to how FBI plotting may have progressed. The efforts of late 1968 and early 1969 to instigate gang warfare -- specifically, to incite the Rangers to murder leaders of the Black Panthers -- ended in failure. In subsequent months, it seems that the Panthers began to achieve some success in moving the Blackstone Rangers from criminal activities to political concerns. Members of the Rangers were living in the apartment where Hampton and Clark were assassinated. Hampton was proving an effective leader, particularly worrisome to the political police because of his express distate for violence and inflammatory rhetoric and his emphasis on constructive political action. As long as the Rangers were just a criminal gang terrorizing the black ghetto, they were of little concern to the FBI -- except, of course, insofar as their tendency towards violence could be exploited for the FBI's campaign of political repression. But an alliance with the Panthers, particularly under the leadership of someone like Fred Hampton, was another matter. It is possible that such an analysis led the Chicago office of the FBI, operating within the framework of Cointelpro, to set in motion the events of December 4, 1969. This, of course, remains speculation. To determine what truth there may be in this reconstruction it would be necessary to conduct a serious investigation of FBI attempts to foment murder, violence and gang warfare, and of the FBI involvement in the police raid on the Panther apartment. Neither the House nor the Senate Select Committee attempted to draw the evidence together or to pursue it, so far as publicly available evidence indicates. As for the press and the journals of opinion, they have demonstrated conclusively that they were much more concerned with tape erasures, tax fraud, illegal donations, and other such monumental and unprecedented crimes, which were seen as virtually bringing fascism to the United States. When survivors of the police raid sued the FBI and the Chicago police, the government settled out of court rather than provide a forum for investigation. [MORE] and [MORE]

 

Angola 3 - Black Panthers And The Last Slave Plantation (complete film)

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Angola 3 - Black Panthers And The Last Slave... by MVDfilm

Posted By MVDfilm

Narrated by Mumia Abu-Jamal, this film features interviews with former Panthers, political prisoners and revolutionaries. - The Angola 3: Black Panthers and the Last Slave Plantation tells the gripping story of Robert King Wilkerson, Herman Wallace and Albert Woodfox, men who have endured solitary confinement longer then any known living prisoner in the United States. 

This Saturday, Memphis, Tenn., is set to see one of the KKK's "biggest rallies of all time"

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From [HERE] This Saturday, Memphis, Tenn., is set to see one of the Ku Klux Klan's "biggest rallies of all time," as the Klan is advertising. The KKK’s announced its plan to protest here a week after the Memphis City Councilvoted to rename three local parks that had Confederate ties—Confederate Park, Jefferson Davis Park, and Nathan Bedford Forrest Park. Nathan Bedford Forrest remains a controversial figure who is often recognized as the first “Grand Wizard” of the Ku Klux Klan—until he allegedly called for the disbandment of the group in 1869.

The city council decided to make the changes effective immediately after hearing that the Tennessee state legislature was considering a bill that would prohibit name changes to any monuments, memorials, parks or streets that were dedicated to military figures.

The Klan's last rally in Memphis in January 1998 ended in violence—Memphis police used tear gas against rowdy anti-Klan protestors and several people were arrested. Memphis Police Director Toney Armstrong said his team is preparing for an even bigger crowd this time around, but is confident that the police are prepared. Members of the Klan will not be allowed to carry guns or wear masks at the protest.

It is great when white people reveal that they are white supremacist because it is difficult for non-white people to "always determine who is a racist, and who is not - as it is impossible to monitor (or judge) all the individual actions and words of any white person at all times." [theCode] Racism is deception. Remember, being white supremacist has nothing to do with membership in one of these clownish organizations and there are differing ways to practice white supremacy. 

What is a “Racist Suspect?”

ANY white person who is CAPABLE of practicing racism against non-whites. Since all whites are able to practice racism in a white supremacy system if they choose to do so, it is correct (and logical) to use the term “racist suspects” to identify whites who do not openly function as white supremacists (racists). This is not a hateful, unjust, or racist statement, but it is a logical statement. 

What is a “White Supremacist?”

A white person (a racist) who practices racism against non-whites. Being a white supremacist has nothing to do with income, title, or status. It does not mean a white person belongs to the KKK, the Aryan Nation, or is covered with Nazi tattoos. A white supremacist can be a soccer mom, a businessman, or a US Senator if they are practicing racism against non-whites. Another term for a white supremacist is “racist white man” and “racist white woman.” [MORE] 

The Racism that Fuels the "War On Terror" - the "Othering" of Non-whites

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In photo, the Denver-born American, Abdulrahman al-Awlaki, killed by a US drone strike in Yemen at the age of 16. 

From [HERE] A new Gallup poll released Monday morning has a surprising finding: a majority of Americans -- while supporting air strikes in foreign countries against foreign nationals suspected of Terrorism -- oppose such air strikes when used to target US citizens who are suspected Terrorists, whether at home or on foreign soil.

The reason this is surprising is that when the US actually killed a US citizen on foreign soil on the grounds that he was a suspected Terrorist -- Anwar al-Awlaki -- large majorities approved. One poll at the time reported that "a large proportion of Americans believe the US Government made the correct decision in killing a US born Islamist militant in a drone strike last month" -- specifically, that "69 percent of respondents think the action taken by the US Government to kill Anwar al-Awlaki was justified" (that included 77% Republicans and 73% Democrats approving). Another poll at the time reported that Obama's approval ratings on national security increased eight points in the wake of the Awlaki killing. Meanwhile, Obama aides ran to Politico to boast that Awlaki's corpse would be a significant asset in Obama's re-election bid.

What can explain this obvious discrepancy? Many Americans can (a) say that they oppose the targeted killings of Americans on foreign soil while simultaneously (b) supporting the killing of Anwar al-Awlaki in Yemen because, for them, the term "Americans" doesn't include people like Anwar al-Awlaki. "Americans" means their aunts and uncles, their nice neighbors down the street, and anyone else who looks like them, who looks and seems "American." They don't think those people -- Americans -- should be killed without charges by the US government if they travel on vacation to Paris or go to study for a semester in London. But the concept of "Americans" most definitely does not include people with foreign and Muslim-ish names like "Anwar al-Awlaki" who wear the white robes of a Muslim imam and spend time in a place like Yemen.

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The Droning of America: Here, there and Everywhere

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Thanks to the efforts of the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), which launched an extensive Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit, the FAA has now publicly disclosed that dozens of public and private entities, including police departments, colleges, small towns and counties across the country, have received FAA certificates of authorization to fly drones domestically.  n4 Just last month, EFF posted several thousand pages of new drone license records, as well as a map that tracks the location of domestic drone flights.  n5 These postings reveal that three branches of the military have also received authorization to fly over nonmilitary air space, and that some of these drones have extraordinary capability.

One drone, the Puma AE (All Environment), reportedly can land anywhere, "either in tight city streets or onto a water surface."  n6 Another, Insitu's Scan Eagle, has "an inertial-stabilized camera turret, [that] allows for the tracking of a target of interest for extended periods of time, even when the target is moving."  n7 Still another uses something called "Gorgon Stare technology"  n8 that involves multiple cameras in an aerial drone that can capture the motion imagery of an entire city.

In terms of the capacity to amass intelligence, it is important to recognize that drones can do a lot more than simply take pictures. [MORE] They can be outfitted with thermal devices, license plate readers, and laser radar.  n9 In addition, law enforcement expects that in the near future drones can be outfitted with facial recognition or biometric recognition capacity that can recognize and track individuals based a multitude of personal, physical characteristics.  n10

While there may be many valuable and appropriate uses for this emerging technology, such as search-and-rescue missions, hot pursuit in a dangerous criminal situation and detecting radiation leaks, history teaches that law enforcement agencies -- and others -- will not exercise appropriate restraint. Indeed, EFF's recent FOIA postings confirm that several police departments intend to use drone technology to augment routine investigative forays.

In Maryland, the Queen Anne County Sheriff's Department plans to use drones to search farm fields for marijuana and to track persons of interest,  n11 and the Gadsden, Alabama, Police Department wants to use a drone for drug enforcement purposes.  n12 Other departments, such as the Orange County, Florida, Sheriff's Department and the Mesa County, Colorado, Sheriff's Office, do not disclose basic information, such as the kind of drones they are flying, where they are flying, or the purpose for which they are being used.  n13 

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Israeli officials talk a lot about the Palestinian-Israeli peace process and seem fascinated with the dialogue, but actually do nothing to achieve it

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Pretending to promote justice, while working to continue, and refine, the practice of injustice. [theCode] In photo, U.S. President Barack Obama walks on the red carpet with Israel's President Shimon Peres (L) and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (R) during an official welcoming ceremony at Ben Gurion International Airport near Tel Aviv March 20, 2013. Obama arrived in Israel on Wednesday without any new peace initiative. 

From [HERE] Negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians finally topped the agenda on the second day of US president Barack Obama's visit to the region, as he urged both sides to resume negotiations but also pushed the Palestinians to drop a longstanding demand that Israel halt illegal settlement construction in the occupied West Bank.

Obama delivered two different messages, in tone and substance, to his two audiences on Thursday. Speaking in Ramallah with Palestinian Authority (PA) president Mahmoud Abbas, he urged the PA to drop its focus on settlements and return to talks without preconditions. He criticised the settlement drive, calling it not "constructive" or "appropriate," though he stopped short of calling it illegal. [MORE]

Challenge to Stop-and-Frisk Policy Begins Before Scheindlin (a white judge). White Prosecutors say stop & frisk not racial

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NYLawJournal

The courtroom fight officially began yesterday over whether New York City police violate the U.S. Constitution by stopping, questioning and frisking hundreds of thousands of minorities every year without reasonable suspicion of criminal activity.

Darius Charney of the Center for Constitutional Rights promised Southern District Judge Shira Scheindlin (See Profile) that the evidence at the bench trial will show that "the NYPD has laid siege to black and Latino neighborhoods" by the wholesale stopping and frisking of minority youths.

Charney urged the judge to "act boldly and broadly" to remedy "years of widespread and racially discriminatory and unconstitutional" policing by appointing a monitor to oversee reform at the NYPD.

But Heidi Grossman and Brenda Cooke of New York City's Law Department told the judge that Charney's statistical evidence was faulty because the plaintiffs' chief expert used flawed analysis and made the wrong assumptions in studying the data on millions of police forms detailing stop, question and frisk encounters.

Grossman went first, launching a wide-ranging defense of a police department "fully committed to policing New York City in compliance with the law" and whose officers "fully understand" the requirement of reasonable suspicion.

The number of stop-and-frisk encounters, Grossman said, dovetails with the crime rates of neighborhoods and the identity of suspects. "Minority neighborhoods," she told the judge, "overwhelmingly bear the brunt of crime."

"These neighborhoods demand and deserve the department's protection," Grossman said, as making more stops in those neighborhoods is "the nature of hot-spot policing—it is not racial profiling."

Scheindlin heard almost three hours of oral arguments yesterday to start what is expected to be a two-month trial in Floyd v. City of New York, 08 Civ. 01034, where Scheindlin is being asked to determine whether the NYPD has a pattern or practice of unconstitutional stops directed from the top down.

The plaintiffs are making two constitutional claims: intentional violation of the Fourth Amendment to be free of unreasonable searches and seizures and violation of the equal protection clause because officers are stopping and frisking individuals based on race.

They claim the police are routinely violating the standard set forth by the U.S. Supreme Court in the seminal Fourth Amendment case of Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, that the police must have reasonable suspicion a crime has been, is, or is about to be committed when making a stop and an officer can only frisk an individual where there is reasonable suspicion that the person may be armed. [MORE]

More Bloomberg White Supremacy News: NYPD Officer Says 'There Are Definitely Quotas' for Arrests

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Colorlines

This spells trouble for the outgoing administration of New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg:

Audio obtained by The Nation confirms an instance of New York City's police union cooperating with the NYPD in setting arrest quotas for the department's officers. According to some officers and critics of quotas, the practice has played a direct role in increasing the number of stop-and-frisk encounters since Mayor Michael Bloomberg came to office. Patrolmen who spoke to The Nation explained that the pressure from superiors to meet quota goals has caused some officers to seek out or even manufacture arrests to avoid department retaliation.

US-financed Honduras police accused of death squad killings

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CitizensforLegitGov

 --'The state department can and will continue funding and training the Honduran police.' 17 Mar 2013 ...Police have long been accused of operating more like assassins than law enforcement officers in Honduras, but few cases ever have been investigated. In the past year, police were alleged to have been involved in the deaths of a prominent Honduran radio journalist and the son of a former police chief - but neither killing has been solved. In the last three years, the AP has learned, Honduran prosecutors have received as many as 150 formal complaints about death squad-style killings in the capital of Tegucigalpa, and at least 50 more in the economic hub of San Pedro Sula... All but about $11 million [for police in Honduras] has since been released based on a Congressional agreement with the State Department over how counterdrug operations involving the U.S. and investigations into civilian casualties are carried out. [Yes, let's cut Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid--as long as the right-wing death squads in Honduras remain fully funded!]

Do What You're Told Brother - White Governor [S]elects New Black Fall Guy to Shadowbox Detroit

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From [HERE] A veteran lawyer who once worked on Chrysler’s bankruptcy has been handed what may prove to be his toughest case yet: to bring Detroit back from the edge of financial collapse. "Michigan officials" (white people) on Thursday appointed the lawyer, Kevyn Orr (in photo with Mayor Dave Bing, left, and Gov. Rick Snyder on Thursday), a partner in the Jones Day law firm, as an emergency manager to oversee operations in Detroit, one of the largest cities to ever receive such intervention.

The City Council, which had contested the governor’s decision to bring in an emergency manager, decided in a closed-door session on Thursday not to pursue its challenge further, said Charles Pugh, the council’s president, though he added that legal challenges by other groups remained possible. Mayor Bing, who had contended that the city did not require an outside manager but accepted that Mr. Orr’s appointment had grown inevitable, said residents were no longer particularly interested in who was in charge.

The Packard Motors plant looks as if a wrecking ball has swung through the top floors, but the building has just been left to collapse.[MORE]  And more [HERE] on this news about the undercover Negro Removal Plan of Detroit, which is 83% Black and 7% Latino. [MORE]

To the extent that racists had anything to do with Orr's selection, whatever happened or did not happen in Detroit is the result of white supremacists/racists as they control everything in all areas of people activity (economics, education, entertainment, labour, law, politics, religion, sex and war) - 24/7 worldwide. 

Racial Shadow Boxing occurs when victims of racism (non-white people) are directly or indirectly, "assigned", bribed, coerced, and/or otherwise influenced, by the racists (white Supremacist), to speak or act to do harm to other victims of racism. White Supremacists oftentimes hide behind others whom they use as shadows of themselves. [MORE] 

In photo, Les Little of Detroit stands with an American flag during a prayer vigil that was part of a protest against the proposed emergency manager for Detroit outside the Department of Justice on Thursday, March 7, 2013.  

Non-Whites are the Powerless Class. Neely Fuller explains that "in a socio-material system dominated by White Supremacists, all major decisions involving non-white people are made by White Supremacists. When a Black person needs serious help, he or she goes directly, or indirectly, to the White Supremacists and asks for that help. 

Under White Supremacy, all non-white people, regardless of age, are "children." They are the servants to, the victims of, and the "children" under the power and direction of the White Supremacists. The White Supremacists are their bosses, their masters, and their major decision-makers. [thecode] 

Whatever a Black person gets, and/or is allowed to keep, is the result of decisions made by White Supremacists. This is the functional meaning of White Supremacy (Racism) that many people — particularly non-white people — prefer not to acknowledge. 

It is correct for all non-white persons to know and understand these things to be true, and to stop pretending that they are not. Non-white people should stop pretending that they have power that they do not have." [MORE]


1246 Strathcona Dr, Detroit listed at $67,000

19150 Gilchrist St, Detroit listed at $30,000

3230 Oakman Blvd, Detroit listed at $269,000.

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Prosecutors are 3X as likely to Seek death sentence (lynching) for Black defendants in America's death penalty capital

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From [HERE] Black defendants facing trial in Houston – the death penalty capital of America – are more than three times as likely to face a possible death sentence than whites, new academic research has revealed.

The study, by a criminologist at the University of Maryland, exposes the extent of racial discrimination inherent in the administering of capital punishment in Harris County, the ground zero of the death penalty in the US. The county, which incorporates Houston, Texas's largest city, has carried out 116 executions in the modern era – more than any entire state in the union apart from Texas itself.

Professor Raymond Paternoster of the university's institute of criminal justice and criminology was commissioned by defence lawyers acting in the case of Duane Buck, a death row prisoner from Houston whose 1995 death sentence is currently being reconsidered by the Texas courts.

Paternoster, whose report is based on the latest quantitative methods, looked at 504 cases involving adult defendants who had been indicted for capital murder in Harris County between 1992 and 1999 – the period during which Buck was charged for murdering his former girlfriend, Debra Gardner, and a man called Kenneth Butler. Paternoster whittled down that pool to 20 cases that most closely echoed that of Buck's own in terms of the factors involved in the crime that were likely to incur a death sentence.

He found that of the 21 men, including Buck, seven out of the 10 who were African American were sent by the Harris County district attorney for capital trial, compared with just one of the five white defendants.

"The probability that the district attorney will advance a case to a [death] penalty trial is more than three times as high when the defendant is African American than for white defendants," Paternoster writes. He adds: "The disparity by race of the defendant, moreover, cannot be attributed to observed case characteristics because these cases are those that were most comparable".

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Federal judge upholds Arizona Law that Prohibits Public Schools from Teaching Ethnic Solidarity

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From [HERE] A judge for the US District Court for the District of Arizona has upheld the constitutionality of an Arizona law [HB 2281, PDF] prohibiting public schools from offering courses that teach ethnic solidarity, a law which targeted the Mexican-American studies program in Tucson public schools.

In the ruling [opinion, PDF] issued on Friday, Judge A Wallace Tashima found three of four sections of the law to be constitutional and denied a second motion for a preliminary injunction. Tashima found the section forbidding schools from offering "designed courses primarily for pupils of a particular ethnic group" to be unconstitutionally vague, suggesting it would interfere with the teaching of legitimate ethnic studies courses.

He ruled other sections are constitutional: "The Court's rulings stem in large part from the considerable deference that federal courts owe to the State's authority to regulate public school education." While plaintiffs argued the legislation violated free speech and equal protection of Hispanic students and teachers, Tashima noted that First Amendment rights were not compromised because the statute does not proscribe the rights of students to speak freely in the classroom.

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thanks for the votes Brown people! A Reading Guide to the President's Latest Appointments (as you can see, white folks just can't get a break in Obama's 'Merikka')

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Even though the non-white votary would have stood in line in the snow to vote for him, Obama's appointments so far are a whitewash. For your review, here is a guide to his top picks, via Propublica, all of whom are white people or racist suspects. Anon explains that there are different "types of white people" in existence. There are whites who:

  • are practicing racism against non-whites at a particular moment
  • are not practicing racism at that moment but have practiced it at a previous time, or will practice it at a later time
  • are not practicing racism at that moment, but say and do nothing to stop those who are
  • are not practicing racism at that moment, but have no problem with other whites practicing racism (don’t care)
  • are benefiting from the crime of racism even if they are not practicing racism at that moment
  • refuse to tell WHO is practicing racism; HOW racism is being practiced; and refuse to help the victims with the information they have
  • oppose racism by exposing and opposing whites who practice it [MORE]

What kind of white people has Obama appointed? 

From [HERE] Earlier this week, we detailed how President Obama has lagged his predecessors in making appointments. As we've noted, that's been a result of Republican resistance and also the challenge of filling many, many open slots. (Here are five obscure commissions Obama must fill.)

But as Obama continues into his second term, he's moved to fill a number of higher-profile positions: Chuck Hagel and Jack Lew were confirmed last week, and Obama announced three more cabinet-ranking nominations on Monday.

Here's our guide to some of the people that could be Obama's new right-hand men and women, and some of the best stories about them.

Department of State: Secretary John Kerry

(Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images)

Status: confirmed

Biggest tasks: Most pressing for the new Secretary of State is negotiating with Iran and North Korea, and navigating the U.S.'s role in the escalating crisis in Syria.

Environmentalists are also hopeful that Kerry, a climate change advocate, might slow what seems like the current fast-track to presidential approval of the Keystone XL pipeline.

So far, Kerry has freed $250 million in aid to Egypt, agreed to provide $60 million in nonlethal assistance to the Syrian opposition, and cleared once and for all that basketball player Dennis Rodman is not a U.S. diplomat.

Background: Kerry's nomination was pretty uncontroversial in the Senate: Only three senators voted against him. He sailed to nomination after Republican senators struck down Obama's first pick: U.N. ambassador Susan Rice. Kerry is a military veteran, former head of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, andeven the child of a U.S. foreign service officer. Check out the New York Times magazine's 2011 profile that shadows Kerry's trip to Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Department of the Treasury: Secretary Jacob (Jack) Lew

(Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images)

Status: confirmed

Biggest task: According to the Wall Street Journal, overhauling the corporate and individual tax codes are at the top of his to-do list. He'll be in the middle of the ongoing budget battle, advising on how to cut the cost of entitlement programs. International economic issues, like setting a market-based exchange rate with China, are also a priority.

Background: Lew has faced questions about his high-ranking positions at Citigroup, where he worked just before the bank was bailed out with $45 billion in taxpayer money. He was also under scrutiny for his unusually high compensation at New York University. He earned more than almost every university president(including NYU's) for his post as a VP of Operations, and received a $685,000 bonus when he left the post for Citigroup.

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