General Law and Lawsuits
Posted: Wed Apr 19, 2023 11:17 pm
Oh come on, the answer is so simple. White guy with an assault rifle, two Sig Sauer pistols, and an Uzi, not a threat. Black guy with Skittles, threat. Duh.
Falsehoods Unchallenged Only Fester and Grow
http://thefogbow.com/forum/
This is actually a big issue. I have had arguments with US Black people who insist that Egyptians were black and so should be examples of Black Culture. This ties into the whole "We are Moors" type of Black Sovereign citizens. Now, I have zero problems with black people celebrating Egyptians achievements as part of African heritage. Its no worse than Me looking at the Roman Coliseum and giving it a thumbs up. But Egyptians were not, and are not Black.Egyptian lawyer sues Netflix over Queen Cleopatra
The complaint submitted against Netflix stated, “Most of what Netflix platform displays do not conform to Islamic and societal values and principles, especially Egyptian ones.”
It added that the movie trailer, which attracted millions of viewers across the globe, contradicts Egyptian history.
The case said that the documentary promotes Afrocentrism which aims at distorting and obliterating Egyptian identity.
The complaint, which was handed into the Public Prosecution, also stated that: “In order to preserve the Egyptian national and cultural identity among Egyptians all over the world there must be pride in the makings of such work.”
The complaint has also accused the makers of the documentary and platform management of “forgery”.
Former Egyptian Antiquities Minister Zahi Hawass described depicting Queen Cleopatra as a black woman as “falsifying facts”, adding that “This is completely fake. Cleopatra was Greek, meaning that she was blonde, not black.”
Queen Cleopatra, the last ruler of the Ptolemaic dynasty, was born in 69 BC and died in 30 BC in Alexandria.
"Her Melanin back"???The Great Africa
First Look: Queen Cleopatra - new Netflix series produced by Jada Pinkett Smith.
Can we safely say, now that Cleopatra has gotten her Melanin back, the history of Ancient Ègypt is gradually becoming more inclusive of its blàckness.
How can you tell melany level from a monotone coin?
I would conclude the "level of melanin" from the fact that this person does not display some face features we usually relate to negroid decendants of the center and south of the African Continent. North Africans have lighter skin, bur far from pure European white. Then again, I hae not delved into the history books depicting those times, it may well be that nobility had a tend to appear light skinned (as it happened more recently when sub burnt skin was associated with lowly farm working).neonzx wrote: ↑Thu Apr 20, 2023 6:48 pmHow can you tell melany level from a monotone coin?Suranis wrote: ↑Thu Apr 20, 2023 6:15 pm Theres 128 coins with the Image of Cleopatra from the time that we have. Um, she does not look melany. Or particularly beutiful, it has to be said.
https://www.knowledgesnacks.com/wp-cont ... 9.jpg.webp
It reminds of the way Christian churches depict Jesus Christ. White dude with straight flowing long hair. FALSE
But why does it matter to anyone to get them right? It's Hollywood and they lived more than 2000 years ago.
‘Why Are You Here?’ Black On-Duty Secret Service Agent Detained By US Park Police Twice Within an Hour Awarded $730K
By Niko Mann |
Published on: April 9, 2023
A now-retired Black Secret Service Agent sued the United States Park Service after he was twice detained while on duty nearly eight years ago.
Former Special Agent Nathaniel Hicks was awarded $730,000 in damages by a jury in 2021, and now a federal appeals court has upheld the award.
Hicks was detained twice on July 11, 2015, by officers Brian Phillip and Gerald Ferreyra for more than an hour. The former agent was first detained by Ferreyra as he sat in his vehicle before dawn on the shoulder of the Baltimore-Washington Parkway waiting to lead a motorcade to protect the secretary of the Department of Homeland Security.
Ferreyra saw Hicks on the shoulder of the highway seated in his unmarked vehicle and claimed he wanted to perform a “welfare check.” Ferreyra claimed he noticed Hicks’ gun in its holster on the passenger seat and drew his weapon, yelling, “Don’t touch the gun.”
Hicks, who has said he heard a tap on his passenger window and looked up to see a gun pointed at him, unrolled his window while following Ferreyra’s directions and immediately identified himself as a U.S. Secret Service officer. Hicks also showed him his identification. As Ferreyra took Hicks’ gun, Hicks maintained that Ferreyra continued yelling and “telling him to shut the ‘f’ up.”
“Ferreyra continued to appear ‘very agitated to the point of . . . spitting at the mouth while he was shaking profusely with the handgun pointed in [Hicks’s] direction.’ At this point, Officer Ferreyra removed Hicks’s weapon from the car and returned to his patrol vehicle,” read the lawsuit documents.
“I said, ‘Whoa, whoa. I’m a Secret Service special agent,’” Hicks testified in a deposition.
“I felt completely helpless that here I was, an African-American male that was surrounded by all Caucasian officers [Ferreyra is Hispanic],” added Hicks at the civil trial. “I just felt very disgusted at the time and just very upset and scared.”
Even though Ferreyra could easily verify Hicks’ identity and there was no crime committed, he detained him until a Park Police officer could come from Anacostia. Officer Phillips arrived on the scene as Hicks waited and began to question him as to why he had his weapon on the seat and ask if he’d been asleep. Hicks was on the phone with his supervisor explaining the stop.
As Hicks was detained, the motorcade left without him and passed by where he was being detained at around 6:40 a.m. Phillips reportedly “mockingly waved his hand goodbye at the motorcade as it passed.” Once the Park Police Sgt. Wallace arrived and talked to Hicks’ supervisor on the phone, Hicks was released.
Within minutes, Hicks was pulled over again by Phillips, who asked for Hicks’ license and registration. Hicks was still on the phone with his supervisor so he could meet up with the motorcade. Phillips let Hicks go without writing a citation.
Hicks and Ferreyra had met previously. In 2009 Hicks had helped detain the officer before his arrest outside of a bar in Washington, the Washington Post reports. Hicks had been flagged down by a bystander at the scene of a fistfight between Ferreyra and a cab driver, where he was the first law enforcement officer on the scene to intervene in the fracas. Ferreyra later saw his charges stemming from the fight dropped.
The Washington Post noted that evidence of a turf war between local law enforcement agencies was not allowed in the proceedings. Hicks testified that Phillips asked him, “Why are you here in our district? This is the Park Police district,” during the first stop and told him he was “getting mouthy” at the second stop.
Phillips claimed during the civil proceedings that he didn’t recognize Hicks’ vehicle when he pulled him over the second time. Ferreyra justified his actions by noting that “No shots were fired” during Hick’s detainment.
The jury sided with Hicks and found Ferreyra and Phillips liable for violating Hicks’ constitutional rights.
“They violated Plaintiff’s Fourth Amendment rights by significantly prolonging the initial stop without justification and by initiating a second, unjustified stop,” read the ruling. “This constitutional right to be free from such unlawful seizures was clearly established at the time the seizures occurred. Further, the court held that Plaintiff presented sufficient evidence of emotional injury to support the compensatory damage award, and the punitive damages award was not excessive.”
Hicks was awarded $205,000 in compensatory damages plus $525,000 in punitive damages for his emotional distress. This week’s decision by a three-judge panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to uphold the award likely will be appealed.
https://atlantablackstar.com/2023/04/09 ... -officers/
The original article not credited is here - https://www.greenpeace.org/usa/news/a-v ... n-lawsuit/Greenpeace USA Defeats $100 Million Lawsuit
Today, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California dismissed a seven-year lawsuit against Greenpeace USA and Greenpeace International brought by Resolute Forest Products. After Greenpeace exposed Resolute’s unsustainable forestry practices, the Canadian logging company sued Greenpeace offices for $100 million in an attempt to silence and bankrupt their critics.
Ebony Twilley Martin, Executive Director of Greenpeace USA, said: “For seven years, Resolute Forest Products has sought to silence Greenpeace USA, simply because we exercised our First Amendment right to expose their destructive business practices. We are beyond grateful the Court defended the right to call out corporations that prioritize profit over people. Because the truth is, this fight was never just about Greenpeace: it was an attempt to silence all those who speak truth to power. And we need the right to raise our voices now more than ever–against toxic chemical spills, against oil wells in our communities, and against attacks on our democracy. We will not be silenced.”
Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation (SLAPPs), like Resolute v Greenpeace, are legal tactics taken by powerful corporations to shut down criticism from activists, academics, journalists, whistleblowers, and everyday people. They are increasingly used to stifle environmental advocacy. The decade long legal case Resolute has brought against Greenpeace Canada is ongoing and will hopefully be dismissed on similar grounds.
Over the past ten years, the fossil fuel industry has used SLAPPs to target more than 150 people and organizations, with 50 such cases being introduced in the last five years alone. Resolute — which originally alleged that Greenpeace offices violated the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) — illustrates the extreme lengths to which large corporations will resort in order to stifle free speech. There is an urgent need for federal and state protections against this type of corporate intimidation.
Paul Paz y Miño, associate director of Amazon Watch and Protect the Protest Leadership Team Member, said: “Corporate SLAPP attacks are a threat to the very idea of citizen activism and free speech. Their goal, as with any corporation engaged in SLAPP attacks and legal bullying, is to harass and chill speech and activism that might threaten its activities or expose wrongdoing – just like Resolute’s attack against Greenpeace. This tactic is egregious and a threat to anyone who has ever or will ever stand up for what’s right. Greenpeace is taking this fight on for all of us, and we stand together to denounce these corporate attacks.”
Deepa Padmanabha, Deputy General Counsel for Greenpeace USA, said: “The Court today sent a clear message—we will not be bullied into silence by corporations. Today’s decision is a huge win for free speech, but more must be done to ensure that corporations can’t abuse the legal system. Not everyone can afford to litigate a case for seven years. We must ensure that everyone has the right to fiercely criticize those willing to compromise our health and safety—without fear of a corporate sledgehammer in the form of a SLAPP suit.”
The right to speak out on environmental issues is more critical than ever. Since the beginning of this year, more than thirty incidents of chemical spills have been recorded by the Coalition to Prevent Chemical Disasters, including most recently, a polyterpene resin factory that caught fire in Brunswick, Georgia. Big Oil is planning a massive expansion in the Southwest and the Gulf Coast, which will devastate communities and blow climate targets out of the water. And in California, they are forcing a referendum on common sense legislation to keep drilling out of communities. Without the basic right to free speech, it is impossible to speak out against the companies that threaten the health and safety of our families, our communities, and our planet.
To date, 32 states and the District of Columbia have anti-SLAPP statutes on the books. Americans of all political affiliations agree that corporate bullying is unacceptable—every anti-SLAPP law was passed with bipartisan support. But we need federal anti-SLAPP legislation, such as the law introduced by Representative Jamie Raskin in 2022, and anti-SLAPP laws in every state so Americans can exercise the most fundamental right of all: to speak truth to power.
Resolute Forest Products v. Greenpeace International
Case Summary and Outcome
The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California granted Greenpeace’s Motions to Dismiss and Motions to Strike based on the California Anti-SLAPP statute finding that Greenpeace International’s campaigns against Resolute Forest Products (‘Resolute’) were not carried out with actual malice so could not support a claim for defamation and therefore met the First Amendment requirements for protection. The Court reasoned that as a limited-purpose public figure Resolute had to allege and plead facts supporting actual malice, which it failed to do, and in any event, the hyperbolic statements it complained of were not capable of being proven false and were therefore protected speech under the First Amendment.
The Court subsequently, on April 22, 2020, granted Greenpeace ‘s anti-SLAPP application for attorney fees and compensation against Resolute in the sum of $545,572.36 for attorneys’ fees and $20,687.18 in costs and ordered Resolute to reimburse Greenpeace Fund $249,296.26 in fees and $368.95 in costs.
The Greenpeace Defendants sought $669,205.50 in attorney’s fees and $20,687.18 in costs. The Greenpeace Fund (“GP Fund”) sought $261,365.94 in fees and $368.95 in costs. These claims were denied without prejudice to a “renewed motion in which they exclude non-compensable time and explain their method for doing so.” The Court also ordered a reduction in the billing rates and time spent by attorneys and paralegals.
On April 22, 2020 the Court heard the Greenpeace Defendants’ renewed application for fees and costs of $545,572.36 in attorneys’ fees and $20,687.18 in costs and the GP Fund’s application for $262,171.26 in fees and $368.95 in costs.
I began piano lessons in January to improve playing pop music and improvising as well as to hone my classical music and Scott Joplin performance. Chord progressions were an epiphany for me since classical music trains playing note by note as a piece is written. Chord progressions are playing piano like playing chords on a guitar as the main structure of the song. I learned Paul McCartney balked at classic piano lessons. He wanted to learn chords!Did Ed Sheeran hit pilfer Marvin Gaye classic? Trial to tell
NEW YORK (AP) — Jury selection and opening statements are set to begin Monday in a trial that mashes up Ed Sheeran's “Thinking Out Loud” with Marvin Gaye's “Let's Get It On.”
The heirs of Ed Townsend, Gaye's co-writer of the 1973 soul classic, sued Sheeran, alleging the English pop star's hit 2014 tune has “striking similarities” to “Let's Get It On” and “overt common elements” that violate their copyright.
The lawsuit filed in 2017 has finally made it to a trial that is expected to last a week in the Manhattan federal courtroom of 95-year-old Judge Louis L. Stanton.
Sheeran, 32, is among the witnesses expected to testify.
“Let's Get It On” is the quintessential, sexy slow jam that's been heard in countless films and commercials and garnered hundreds of millions of streams, spins and radio plays over the past 50 years. “Thinking Out Loud,” which won a Grammy for song of the year, is a much more marital take on love and sex.
While the jury will hear the recordings of both songs, probably many times, their lyrics — and vibes — are legally insignificant. Jurors are supposed to only consider the raw elements of melody, harmony and rhythm that make up the composition of “Let’s Get It On,” as documented on sheet music filed with the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
Sheeran's attorneys have said the songs' undeniable structural symmetry points only to the foundations of popular music.
“The two songs share versions of a similar and unprotectable chord progression that was freely available to all songwriters,” they said in a court filing.
Townsend family attorneys pointed out in the lawsuit that artists including Boyz II Men have performed seamless mashups of the two songs, and that even Sheeran himself has segued into “Let's Get It On” during live performances of “Thinking Out Loud.”
They sought to play a potentially damning YouTube video of one such Sheeran performance for the jury at trial. Stanton denied their motion to include it, but said he would reconsider it after he sees other evidence that’s presented.
But Sheeran — whose musical style drawing from classic soul, pop and R&B has made him a target for copyright lawsuits — has shown a willingness to go to trial before. A year ago, he won a U.K. copyright battle over his 2017 hit “Shape of You," then slammed what he described as a “culture” of baseless lawsuits intended to squeeze money out of artists eager to avoid the expense of a trial.
"I feel like claims like this are way too common now and have become a culture where a claim is made with the idea that a settlement will be cheaper than taking it to court, even if there is no basis for the claim,” Sheeran said in a video posted on Twitter after the verdict. “It’s really damaging to the songwriting industry.”
Did the author mean martial? What's a marital take? No, wait, do I really want to know?“Thinking Out Loud,” which won a Grammy for song of the year, is a much more marital take on love and sex.
When Cleopatra was alive, she wasn’t categorised by the colour of her skin
Netflix’s drama about the Egyptian queen highlights how ideas of race have evolved
Kenan Malik
Sun 23 Apr 2023 09.01 BST
In 1751, the great American polymath Benjamin Franklin worried about the small number of “purely white People in the World”. “All Africa,” he wrote, “is black or tawny. Asia chiefly tawny... And in Europe, the Spaniards, Italians, French, Russians and Swedes, are generally of what we call a swarthy Complexion; as are the Germans also.” Only “the Saxons… [and] the English make the principal Body of White People on the Face of the Earth.”
The question of “who is white?” might seem to us today as self-evident. Yet it has over the past three centuries been fiercely contested. Many groups we now think of as white were certainly not seen as such for much of that period, from the Irish to the Slavs, from Italians to Jews. It took a long process of social negotiation and conflict before they were admitted into the club of whiteness.
Today, too, racial boundaries remain in dispute. The latest “who is white?” controversy has emerged from the decision by Netflix to cast a black actor, Adele James, as Cleopatra in its new drama series, Queen Cleopatra.
As with many such debates, the issues are shrouded in layers of myth and ideology. Much of the controversy arises from the desire to impose contemporary notions of race and identity, of whiteness and blackness, on an ancient world that thought very differently about such issues. Even identities such as “Egyptian”, “Greek”, “Macedonian” and “African” have significantly different connotations today than they did two millennia ago.
Born in Alexandria in 69BC, Cleopatra VII, the last queen of the Ptolemaic Hellenistic dynasty, was an Egyptian ruler of Macedonian heritage, and possibly with a Persian and black African background too, though this is deeply contested. The casting of James as Cleopatra has, however, as much to do with contemporary sensibilities as with historical fact. “We don’t often get to see or hear stories about black queens,” observed Jada Pinkett Smith, the drama’s executive producer, “and that was really important for me, as well as for my daughter, and just for my community to be able to know those stories.”
This is history as allegory, the view of the past as a resource upon which to draw to meet the needs of the present
The idea that Cleopatra was black has a long history in African American thought, especially within the black nationalist and Afrocentrist movements. Many have claimed Egypt to be a black nation, and one from which ancient Greece stole its culture and ideas. For a people enslaved and oppressed, and living within a racist world that loudly proclaimed they had come from a continent with no history, the lure of Egypt, and of Cleopatra, as black was often irresistible.
The publication in 1987 of the first volume of Black Athena by Martin Bernal, a British scholar of Chinese political history, brought this discussion into both academia and wider public consciousness. Bernal argued that much of Greek classical culture was rooted in that of ancient Egypt, but this link had been erased by the rise of Eurocentric views in the 18th century. Many of his claims have been debunked but, on both sides, the fierce debate over the book has been driven as much by polemic as by fact.
more at the link https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... f-her-skin?
Jesus was a JUDEAN. "Palestine" came into existence after the destruction of the 2nd Temple in 70 CE, and the crushing of the Jewish Revolt in 132 CE. It was after this that Rome performed Damnatio Memorii on the Provinence of Judea by renaming it "Palesitna" after the ancient enemy Kingdom of Philistia of David & Goliath fame.
I stand corrected.Flatpoint High wrote: ↑Tue Apr 25, 2023 7:16 pmJesus was a JUDEAN. "Palestine" came into existence after the destruction of the 2nd Temple in 70 CE, and the crushing of the Jewish Revolt in 132 CE. It was after this that Rome performed Damnatio Memorii on the Provinence of Judea by renaming it "Palesitna" after the ancient enemy Kingdom of Philistia of David & Goliath fame.
A rose by any other name is still from the same genetic pool.Flatpoint High wrote: ↑Tue Apr 25, 2023 7:16 pmJesus was a JUDEAN. "Palestine" came into existence after the destruction of the 2nd Temple in 70 CE, and the crushing of the Jewish Revolt in 132 CE. It was after this that Rome performed Damnatio Memorii on the Provinence of Judea by renaming it "Palesitna" after the ancient enemy Kingdom of Philistia of David & Goliath fame.