Side Items
Released Without Charges: Two brothers from Pakistan who were held in the military prison at Guantanamo Bay for nearly 20 years have been released without charge. Abdul and Mohammed Ahmed Rabbani were arrested in Pakistan way back in 2002 when the pentagon claimed they operated an al-Qaeda safe house. (they didn’t). The brothers alleged that they were tortured by CIA officers, before being transferred to Guantanamo. Important to remember that Guantanamo was established by president George W. Bush in 2002 following 9/11
Forgotten American History: Remember learning about Kent State and the massacre of students protesting the Vietnam War by National Guard piglets back in 1970? Well two years prior and 55 years ago this month, one of the most violent and least remembered civil rights protests took place in Orangeburg, SC, home of South Carolina State University. Student protesters were attempting to desegregate a local bowling alley, submitting a list of demands for integration and eliminating discrimination within the community. The governor of South Carolina at the time, Robert E. McNair, responded by doing what white people have been doing for decades, calling in the National Guard after commenting that black power advocates were “running amok in the community”. Three protesters were killed and dozens more were shot, mostly in the backs and bottoms of their feet as they fled the gunfire
Tax Dollars At Work: Over the past five years, the city of Chicago has forked over ~$40 million a year to private law firms instead of hiring more in-house attorneys who would make less money as public employees. The entire Chicago Law Department budget is about the same as the total amount the city spends annually on outside law firms trying to defend police misconduct cases like Officer Houser’s. Back in 2017, Chicago piglet Lowell Houser was off-duty when he shot and killed unarmed 38-year-old Jose Nieves. Houser was convicted of second degree murder and sentenced to 10 years in prison. The Nieves family sued Houser and the City of Chicago, and, after five years of litigation, a $1.9 million settlement went to the Nieves family. Data analysis shows the city spent nearly $1 million in taxpayer money on outside law firms to litigate the case. Pathetic