Tuesday, April 5, 2011



The second segment of the above video reports that a teenage high school girl was on the bus when she observed the manner in which Newark, NJ police were treating a man who had become unconscious on a city bus in which she, also, was a passenger.  The girl began filming the public's police in a public place and then she was arrested my Newark Police.  She was later released with no charges filed.  Obviously, she was exercising her First Amendment right to free speech and the police had no reason to arrest her in the first place.

What is remarkable about this second segment of the above video is that Fox News, a Republican propaganda organ, (which is so not because I say so, but because Fox hires Republican candidates such as Sarah Palin as commentators when they are not in office), Fox nonetheless reports negatively on illegal police behavior and abuse of the public.  I wonder (and I imagine) that the girl arrested was Black.  If so, that makes Fox News' interest in this story doubly notable, since Fox is not known to focus on Police brutality as a cause for them to take up. 

Meanwhile, the first segment of the Fox video above hammers President Obama, blaming him for what they call a "one hundred percent increase in gas prices" since he was elected.  Although I'm not even sure why Obama wants to be president anymore, I cannot publish the first segment above without putting it in some factual context.  Just for some perspective from a mainstream (but not necessarily honest) news source, we go to the US News site and find the following:
Few issues have more of an impact on voters than the rising cost of gasoline. Soaring prices at the pump make commuting more expensive and put a crimp in motorists' vacation plans. Businesses that rely on gasoline often raise prices to keep pace and are sometimes forced to limit expansion and hiring. At another level, high gas prices suggest that America's fate is not in its own hands, that the country's way of life is at the mercy of oil-rich nations that mean us harm or don't care about our well-being.  (Link to other page deleted.)
That's why so many politicians in Washington are suddenly jumping on the gas-price issue. The stakes are particularly high for President Obama, who is up for re-election next year. Some of the lowest presidential approval ratings have been recorded when there was a "gas crisis," either shortages or high prices or both, according to Gallup. This happened to President Richard Nixon in 1973, President Jimmy Carter in 1979, George H.W. Bush in 1990, and George W. Bush in 2005. Americans of a certain age remember vividly one of the worst gasoline-related crises in recent history, when oil shortages resulted in long lines at filling stations across the country during the mid-1970s. No one wants to go through that again.
I would have tended to agree that high gas prices would weigh against a President's re-election, until I recall that President George W. Bush started wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, both of which wars made the availability of gasoline and heating oil seem less certain, and therefore caused gas prices to spike. Nonetheless, he was re-elected for a number of reasons which are not the subject of the Police Brutality (and Atrocity) Blog.

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