Can We Reduce Bias in Criminal Justice? – Jason Marsh

This article is the first in a series exploring the effects that unconscious racial biases have on the criminal justice system in the United States. While this article reports on evidence of those biases, subsequent essays will propose ways to mitigate their effects. Long before Officer Darren Wilson fired the shots that killed Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, questions of …

It’s Our Money with Ellen Brown – Connecting the Dots – 05.06.15

At what point are you willing to challenge your own notions of what’s really going on? Can you even imagine that the mavens of the Money Power would threaten human survival to serve themselves for even bigger personal profits? Ellen’s guest, researcher Dane Wigington, has a trove of data to suggest that they would. And they do so in the form of geoengineering, a covert tool allegedly being used to control natural systems for private profit. We also hear commentary from Matt Stannard about the economics of the Baltimore uprising and from Marc Armstrong about America’s only publicly-owned depository bank, the Bank of North Dakota, which just issued its latest annual report — it’s another record-setting winner!

The Wars Come Home – Michael Gould-Wartofsky

Last week, as Baltimore braced for renewed protests over the death ofFreddie Gray, the Baltimore Police Department (BPD) prepared for battle. With state-of-the-art surveillance of local teenagers’ Twitter feeds, law enforcement had learned that a group of high school students was planning to march on the Mondawmin Mall. In response, the BPD did what any self-respecting police department in post-9/11 …

Baltimore Youths Have It Worse Than Those in Nigeria – Elizabeth Kulze

When a teenager from East Baltimore was asked to describe his neighborhood, he spoke of “big rats going around in people’s trash, vacant houses full of squatters and needles on the ground.” A young woman in New Delhi, asked the same question, described the dirt and the “dirty water found lying on the roads,” while a young man in Ibadan, a large …

Why Iran Must Remain a US Enemy – GARETH PORTER

Since the start of the US nuclear negotiations with Iran, both Israeli and Saudi officials have indulged in highly publicised handwringing over their belief that such a nuclear deal would represent a fundamental strategic shift in US policy towards the region at the expense of its traditional alliances with Israel and Saudi Arabia. But the Obama administration is no more likely …

6 Natural Solutions To Decontaminate Soil – MARCO TORRES

With a progressively educated population becoming more aware of the inherent dangers of the conventional food supply, urban farming has become hugely popular. However, more people are also becoming aware ofcontaminated soil and how heavy metals pose potential risks to their food crops. As backyard gardening continues to explode in popularity, we must ask how contaminated is our soil? Many municipalities …

Leid Stories – 05.04.15

Baltimore: A Legal Primer on Cop Indictments in Freddie Gray Case

Baltimoreans rejoiced last Friday after State’s Attorney Marilyn J. Mosby announced the indictment and arrest of six police officers allegedly connected to the death of Freddie Gray, a 25-year-old local man, while in their custody after an illegal arrest April 12.
Gray, who suffered a severed spinal cord and crushed voice box among other injuries, died a week later. His death touched off a series of protests locally and nationally, including a rebellion in Baltimore that was quashed by martial law.
Indictment of the police officers, however, is no guarantee of convictions in the case, says our guest, “Attorney at War” Alton H. Maddox Jr. There are major legal obstacles to overcome, he says, noting that the Baltimore Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 3, the officers’ union, has already asserted that the officers did nothing wrong.
Maddox, an expert on police-brutality and wrongful-death litigation, provides a legal primer on the case.

Brother of Hillary Clinton’s Top Campaign Aide Lobbied for Fracked Gas Export Terminal Co-Owned by Qatar – Steve Horn

Anthony “Tony” Podesta began lobbying in late 2013 on behalf of a company co-owned by ExxonMobil and Qatar Petroleum aiming to export liquefied natural gas (LNG) [3] to the global market. Tony is the brother of John Podesta, former top climate change adviser to President Barack Obama and current top campaign aide for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 bid for president [4]. In October 2012 [5], Podesta Group began lobbying on …