Fox News:
This is how it started:
Investigators said police shot and killed Scout Schultz late Saturday night after the 21-year-old student called 911 to report an armed and possibly intoxicated suspicious person who fit Schultz's physical description. Police said an officer shot Schultz after she refused to drop a knife. The student’s family claimed the officer overreacted. ‘This is the result:
A lawyer for the family told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that Schultz was carrying a small utility tool. He said the blade was not out.
Three people were arrested when protests turned violent at Georgia Tech Monday night in the wake of a fatal shooting days ago by campus police.This follows violent protests over the weekend in St. Louis, after the acquittal of a police officer who shot and killed Anthony Lamar Smith.
The three were arrested and charged with inciting a riot and battery of an officer.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that two police officers suffered minor injuries, one of whom was sent to the hospital.
University spokesman Lance Wallace said in a statement that after the vigil, a group of about 50 protesters marched to the campus police department.
At least one protester reportedly tossed a flare into the police vehicle, setting it ablaze.
The difference between these two incidents couldn't be more striking. Anthony Lamar Smith was gunned down by police after dangerously fleeing from police in his vehicle. Scout Schultz was killed by campus police after refusing "to drop a knife", that was later suggested to be a "utility tool".
In addition, Smith was alleged by police to have been involved in a drug deal, whereas Schultz was the person who reported a possible crime to campus police.
Finally, let us not forget the racial aspect: Smith was a black man and Schultz was a white woman.
The only common aspect to both of these crimes is the use of questionable lethal force by police after two people refused orders by police.
In the case of Smith, the use of his car as a means to evade police, and his willingness to use it as a weapon, made the killing justified. Sorry St. Louis, but this guy was a thug. If he had been white, he would have deserved it. Criminals like this are why we have armed police.
As for Schultz, there may be more to this story than we are hearing.
The problem in these stories isn't so much the use of questionable lethal force by police, but rather the way the stories are framed by the media, followed quickly by a public over-reaction. When there are limited details in the early days of these shooting stories, the media puts them out there in the worst light possible, which causes the public to reach a fever pitch, leading to violent riots. By the time the full story gets out, the violence is already done.
This is why we have a justice system in the first place: To take the time to reasonably deliberate the TRUTH of any case. One can argue the justice system is stacked against certain people, but rioting without even giving the justice system a chance is the proverbial "two wrongs make a right" solution.
Having said all that, there have been some clear cases of injustice by police, even after the fact.
Personally, I still consider the death of Eric Garner to be a textbook example of excessive force by police, in spite of the fact his family got a nice pay-off ($5.9 million) from New York City. That doesn't do Eric much good.
On the other hand, the shooting of Walter Scott finally led to some justice when the cop who shot him in the back pled guilty to civil rights violations (in exchange for dropping the murder charges) back in May.
The justice system isn't perfect, and if anyone has suggestions to improve it, we are all ears. But rioting isn't a suggestion, or a solution.
In other news...
CNN:
Republican senators couldn't escape the question as they shuffled to the Senate floor for votes Monday night. Would they support the Graham-Cassidy bill, perhaps their last chance to overhaul Obamacare?What caused this to happen?
It's a repeal-and-replace proposal that less than a week ago seemed dead on arrival in the Senate. The Republicans, after all, had tried repealing Obamacare before - multiple times in fact -- and the bill's lead sponsors Sens. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Bill Cassidy of Louisiana were two of the only members willing to go on record to say the Senate had to try it again.
Their optimism, however, seemed to spread in a closed-door meeting Thursday in which members and aides say that Majority Leader Mitch McConnell made it clear that he would bring the bill to the floor if Cassidy and Graham delivered the votes to pass it. There was a recognition that the GOP didn't have any choice but to try again to finally deliver on their seven-year campaign promise.
Last month, the Senate's parliamentarian informed the budget committee that the Senate only had until September 30 to repeal Obamacare with just a simple majority.So what does this bill do?
The Graham-Cassidy bill could be the most far-reaching of the repeal efforts this year.Let's pretend Obamacare never existed, and look at this bill in isolation. Does it make sense to send money to Washington, to have them send it back to your state to pay for whatever health insurance scheme your state decides to inflict upon you?
The legislation would eliminate federal funding for Medicaid expansion and for Obamacare subsidies that lower premiums, deductibles and co-pays in 2020.
Instead, states would receive a lump sum of money annually through 2026 that they could use in a variety of ways, including helping consumers pay for premiums or shielding insurers from costly, sick enrollees by funding high-risk pools or reinsurance programs.
The bill would also waive several key Obamacare protections for those with pre-existing conditions. While insurers would be required to provide coverage to everyone, it would allow carriers to charge enrollees more based on their medical history.
The legislation also would eliminate Obamacare's essential health benefits provision, which mandates insurers cover an array of services, including hospitalization, maternity care, prescription drugs, mental health and substance abuse services.
The bill shares several measures with its predecessor repeal bills in the House and Senate. It would repeal the individual and employer mandates. It also would reduce federal support for the overall Medicaid program by sending states a fixed amount per enrollee, known as a per-capita cap, or a lump sum, known as a block grant. And it would allow states to institute a work requirement.
It would defund Planned Parenthood for one year. The bill would also repeal a few taxes, including the much-loathed levy on medical devices. But it would keep the taxes on health insurers and on the wealthy.
Admittedly, this bill is less onerous than Obamacare, but that doesn't make it a good solution. Just a less bad one.
Finally, in news of the climate change apocalypse...
The Telegraph:
Climate change poses less of an immediate threat to the planet than previously thought because scientists got their modelling wrong, a new study has found. New research by British scientists reveals the world is being polluted and warming up less quickly than 10-year-old forecasts predicted, giving countries more time to get a grip on their carbon output.The renewable energy explanation is a speculation based on absolutely no proven scientific correlation between man-made CO2 production and the climate. Because CO2 is absorbed by plant life on this planet, nobody has yet to look into how this works on a planetary scale. Does CO2 consumption by plant life increase when it is present in greater levels? The existence of more and larger plant life during the Earth's dinosaur periods (when CO2 was also present in the climate in far greater percentages than today) would seem to suggest that.
An unexpected “revolution” in affordable renewable energy has also contributed to the more positive outlook.
Continuing:
Experts now say there is a two-in-three chance of keeping global temperatures within 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels, the ultimate goal of the 2015 Paris Agreement.
...According to the models used to draw up the agreement, the world ought now to be 1.3 degrees above the mid-19th-Century average, whereas the most recent observations suggest it is actually between 0.9 to 1 degree above.No, the discrepancy just means the models are wrong. The reason they are wrong is because they overestimate the impact of man-made CO2 on climate change, and underestimate the impact of this big hot ball in the sky which produces ALL global warming on every planet in this solar system, including Earth:
The discrepancy means nations could continue emitting carbon dioxide at the current rate for another 20 years before the target was breached, instead of the three to five predicted by the previous model.
(hat tip to BasedPhoenix on Youtube for the pic)
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