Good morning!

From the Huff Po.

Seniors Forced Into Poverty As Education Department Demands Payment

The Education Department is demanding so much money from seniors with defaulted student loans that it’s forcing tens of thousands of them into poverty, according to agovernment audit.

At least 22,000 Americans aged 65 and older had a part of their Social Security benefits garnished last year to the point that their monthly benefits were below federal poverty thresholds, according to the Government Accountability Office.

Education Department-initiated collections on defaulted federal student loans left at least another 83,000 Americans aged 64 and younger with poverty-level Social Security payments, GAO data show. Federal auditors cautioned that the number of Americans forced to accept poverty-level benefits because of past defaults on federal student loans are surely higher.

More than half, or 54 percent, of federal student loans held by borrowers at least 75 years old are in default, according to the federal watchdog. About 27 percent of loans held by borrowers aged 65 to 74 are in default. Among borrowers aged 50 to 64, 19 percent of their loans are in default. The Education Department generally defines a default as being at least 360 days past due.

As unpaid student debt approaches $1.3 trillion, the federal watchdog’s findings underscore the consequences of increased student debt burdens and the risk they’ll wreak havoc on households in the coming years if U.S. workers continue to see little increase in their paychecks, the economy barely grows, and the Education Department’s contractors keep borrowers in the dark on repayment options.

“This GAO report strikes me as a kind of canary in a coal mine,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) said Wednesday during a hearing prompted by the report held by the Senate Special Committee on Aging. “What it says to me is, look at this narrow slice of the Baby Boom generation that now has debt [and] look at its impact … which is, if anything, more pernicious and insidious than it is for younger people.

“This age group is not only affected in more serious ways, but it is also going to grow,” Blumenthal continued. “In other words, this report says: Look out, the cliff is ahead, or the avalanche, [or] maybe it’s a tsunami, of older student debt.”

Struggling borrowers are rarely able to discharge federal student loans by declaring bankruptcy. As a result, federal auditors noted, their student debts follow them into retirement.

As the increase in average college tuitions outpaces federal borrowing limits for undergraduates, more parents are taking out federal student loans to pay for their children’s education. But GAO auditors said the vast majority of loan balances held by older Americans is for their own educations. Among borrowers aged 50 to 64, about 73 percent of their federal student loan debt was for their own schooling. For borrowers aged 65 and older, more than 82 percent of their debts was for their own education.

Some 40 million Americans have student debt, according to the Federal Reserve and the Education Department. The average recipient of federal student loans owed 28 percent more in 2013 than in 2007, after adjusting for inflation, according to Education Department data.

Meanwhile, the typical holder of a bachelor’s degree working full time experienced a 0.08 percent decrease in weekly earnings during that same period. Among workers with advanced degrees, median wages increased just 0.02 percent, according to figures from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

With student loan debt rising and inflation-adjusted wages falling, borrowers with student loans are reducing their spending to make their loan payments, according toa Federal Reserve survey. Nearly half of Americans said they had to curb their spending last year in order to make monthly payments on student loans.

Some 35 percent of survey respondents who are paying back student loans said they had to reduce their spending by “a little” over the past year to keep up with student debt payments. Another 11 percent said they had to cut back their spending by “a lot.”

With consumer spending powering much of the economy, any reduction in household expenditures is likely to dampen growth.

Some 12 percent of federal student loans held by borrowers aged 25 to 49 were in default, according to the GAO.

“One out of every eight student loans held by this group is in default,” said Charles Jeszeck, director of education, workforce, and income security issues at the GAO. “That’s a lot of loans!”

Rising student loan debt also risks leaving Americans with less money for their retirement, as ever bigger chunks of workers’ paychecks are devoted to repaying education loans.

“The presence of student loan debt for those nearing retirement can also affect retirement security as it may keep individuals from saving for retirement,” Jeszeck’s team said in their report.

According to the GAO, student debt already is affecting older Americans’ financial security.

Nearly 155,000 Americans had their Social Security benefits reduced last year as a result of past defaults on their federal student loans, a five-fold increase from the 31,000 borrowers whose benefits were cut in 2002. Of the 155,000 borrowers in 2013, about 36,000 of them were at least 65 years old, according to the GAO.

Part of the reason why the Education Department is putting older Americans into poverty is federal law. Existing rules governing Social Security garnishment specify that the federal government cannot seize more than 15 percent of monthly benefits or take anything that would leave Americans with checks of less than $750.

But the rules, crafted in the late 1990s, have not been adjusted for inflation. The $750 limit was above the poverty level in 1998. Had policymakers raised the garnishment level to keep up with inflation, the level last year would have been $1,073, according to the accountability office. Defaulted federal student loan borrowers with monthly checks below that limit wouldn’t have had their benefits garnished.

The Education Department refers defaulted borrowers for Social Security garnishments after the department’s collection agencies fail to recoup on the soured debt. Earlier this month, the National Consumer Law Center criticized the department for effectively turning a blind eye to allegations that its debt collectors routinely misled distressed borrowers or provided them false information.

Last year, Education Department-initiated collections of Social Security benefits caused Americans to receive $150 million less than they otherwise would have absent garnishment. The average borrower lost more than $130 every month. The average recipient of old age, survivor and disability insurance, or Social Security, received about $1,182 a month last year, according to the Social Security Administration.

The problem is likely to get worse, the GAO cautioned.

“As the baby boomers continue to move into retirement, the number of older Americans with defaulted loans will only continue to increase. This creates the potential for an unpleasant surprise for some, as their benefits are offset and they face the possibility of a less secure retirement.”

The Education Department is demanding so much money from seniors with defaulted student loans that it’s forcing tens of thousands of them into poverty, according to agovernment audit.

At least 22,000 Americans aged 65 and older had a part of their Social Security benefits garnished last year to the point that their monthly benefits were below federal poverty thresholds, according to the Government Accountability Office.

Education Department-initiated collections on defaulted federal student loans left at least another 83,000 Americans aged 64 and younger with poverty-level Social Security payments, GAO data show. Federal auditors cautioned that the number of Americans forced to accept poverty-level benefits because of past defaults on federal student loans are surely higher.

More than half, or 54 percent, of federal student loans held by borrowers at least 75 years old are in default, according to the federal watchdog. About 27 percent of loans held by borrowers aged 65 to 74 are in default. Among borrowers aged 50 to 64, 19 percent of their loans are in default. The Education Department generally defines a default as being at least 360 days past due.

As unpaid student debt approaches $1.3 trillion, the federal watchdog’s findings underscore the consequences of increased student debt burdens and the risk they’ll wreak havoc on households in the coming years if U.S. workers continue to see little increase in their paychecks, the economy barely grows, and the Education Department’s contractors keep borrowers in the dark on repayment options.

“This GAO report strikes me as a kind of canary in a coal mine,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) said Wednesday during a hearing prompted by the report held by the Senate Special Committee on Aging. “What it says to me is, look at this narrow slice of the Baby Boom generation that now has debt [and] look at its impact … which is, if anything, more pernicious and insidious than it is for younger people.

“This age group is not only affected in more serious ways, but it is also going to grow,” Blumenthal continued. “In other words, this report says: Look out, the cliff is ahead, or the avalanche, [or] maybe it’s a tsunami, of older student debt.”

Struggling borrowers are rarely able to discharge federal student loans by declaring bankruptcy. As a result, federal auditors noted, their student debts follow them into retirement.

As the increase in average college tuitions outpaces federal borrowing limits for undergraduates, more parents are taking out federal student loans to pay for their children’s education. But GAO auditors said the vast majority of loan balances held by older Americans is for their own educations. Among borrowers aged 50 to 64, about 73 percent of their federal student loan debt was for their own schooling. For borrowers aged 65 and older, more than 82 percent of their debts was for their own education.

Some 40 million Americans have student debt, according to the Federal Reserve and the Education Department. The average recipient of federal student loans owed 28 percent more in 2013 than in 2007, after adjusting for inflation, according to Education Department data.

Meanwhile, the typical holder of a bachelor’s degree working full time experienced a 0.08 percent decrease in weekly earnings during that same period. Among workers with advanced degrees, median wages increased just 0.02 percent, according to figures from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

With student loan debt rising and inflation-adjusted wages falling, borrowers with student loans are reducing their spending to make their loan payments, according to a Federal Reserve survey. Nearly half of Americans said they had to curb their spending last year in order to make monthly payments on student loans.

Some 35 percent of survey respondents who are paying back student loans said they had to reduce their spending by “a little” over the past year to keep up with student debt payments. Another 11 percent said they had to cut back their spending by “a lot.”

With consumer spending powering much of the economy, any reduction in household expenditures is likely to dampen growth.

Some 12 percent of federal student loans held by borrowers aged 25 to 49 were in default, according to the GAO.

“One out of every eight student loans held by this group is in default,” said Charles Jeszeck, director of education, workforce, and income security issues at the GAO. “That’s a lot of loans!”

Rising student loan debt also risks leaving Americans with less money for their retirement, as ever bigger chunks of workers’ paychecks are devoted to repaying education loans.

“The presence of student loan debt for those nearing retirement can also affect retirement security as it may keep individuals from saving for retirement,” Jeszeck’s team said in their report.

According to the GAO, student debt already is affecting older Americans’ financial security.

Nearly 155,000 Americans had their Social Security benefits reduced last year as a result of past defaults on their federal student loans, a five-fold increase from the 31,000 borrowers whose benefits were cut in 2002. Of the 155,000 borrowers in 2013, about 36,000 of them were at least 65 years old, according to the GAO.

Part of the reason why the Education Department is putting older Americans into poverty is federal law. Existing rules governing Social Security garnishment specify that the federal government cannot seize more than 15 percent of monthly benefits or take anything that would leave Americans with checks of less than $750.

But the rules, crafted in the late 1990s, have not been adjusted for inflation. The $750 limit was above the poverty level in 1998. Had policymakers raised the garnishment level to keep up with inflation, the level last year would have been $1,073, according to the accountability office. Defaulted federal student loan borrowers with monthly checks below that limit wouldn’t have had their benefits garnished.

The Education Department refers defaulted borrowers for Social Security garnishments after the department’s collection agencies fail to recoup on the soured debt. Earlier this month, the National Consumer Law Center criticized the department for effectively turning a blind eye to allegations that its debt collectors routinely misled distressed borrowers or provided them false information.

Last year, Education Department-initiated collections of Social Security benefits caused Americans to receive $150 million less than they otherwise would have absent garnishment. The average borrower lost more than $130 every month. The average recipient of old age, survivor and disability insurance, or Social Security, received about $1,182 a month last year, according to the Social Security Administration.

The problem is likely to get worse, the GAO cautioned.

“As the baby boomers continue to move into retirement, the number of older Americans with defaulted loans will only continue to increase. This creates the potential for an unpleasant surprise for some, as their benefits are offset and they face the possibility of a less secure retirement.”

*****

Readers: Whether it’s the loans taken out by the Baby Boomers or their kids, it’s a mess. Instead of lowering student loan rates, they’re making money on Americans…and that is simply criminal. It only makes it more challenging for Baby Boomer parents in the retirement years, as well as their kids, to pay off these loans.  Plus we have student loan debt rising, add in the fact that loans are at higher rates + inflation-adjusted wages are falling – it isn’t exactly a recipe for success.

These kids are getting left with lots of high rate debt (their own) and possibly having to take care of their impoverished parents because of their loan debt, when they should be focusing on their careers, living their own lives, and starting their own families.

You can thank the repubs Back in June of this year for blocking Senator Elizabeth Warren’s student loan refinancing bill. (I blogged about this back then.) As usual, the repubs are protecting the wealthiest Americans from having to pay higher taxes, instead of supporting our youth who are our future, and the elderly in their retirement years.

Thoughts? Rants? What should be done? Blog me. 

Thanks Owen: I’m pretty partial to them myself. :) Seriously, though, I do have a little help.

Tucker, George, Xena: My pleasure. I thought it was pretty awesome too.

Jay: Spectacular!

Peace & Love…

Lastly, greed over a great story is surfacing from my “loyal”(?) readers. With all this back and forth about who owns what, that appears on my blog, let me reiterate that all material posted on my blog becomes the sole property of my blog. If you want to reserve any proprietary rights don’t post it to my blog. I will prominently display this caveat on my blog from now on to remind those who may have forgotten this notice.

Gratefully your blog host,

michelle

Aka BABE: We all know what this means by now :)

If you love my blog and my writes, please make a donation via PayPal, credit card, or e-check, please click the “Donate” button below. (Please only donations from those readers within the United States. – International readers please see my “Donate” page)

Or if you would like to send a check via snail mail, please make checks payable to “Michelle Moquin”, and send to:

Michelle Moquin PO Box 29235 San Francisco, Ca. 94129

Thank you for your loyal support!

All content on this site are property of Michelle Moquin © copyright 2008-2014

“Though she be but little, she be fierce.” – William Shakespeare Midsummer Night’s Dream 

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Good morning!

Readers: What are your thoughts from Obama’s address last night? What’s on your mind?

This is what’s on mine. From the Wash Po.

I am a 14-year-old Yazidi girl given as a gift to an ISIS commander. Here’s how I escaped.

“Narin” was deeply scarred by her ordeal. (Hassan Haji for the Washington Post)

This is the story told to me by a 14-year-old Yazidi girl I’ll call “Narin,” currently staying in northern Iraqi Kurdistan. I am a Kurdish journalist with a journalism degree from the University of Missouri at Columbia who covers northern Iraq as a freelancer for several international news outlets. I heard about Narin’s tale through a Yazidi friend who knew her. Aside from translating from Kurdish and excerpting her story in collaboration with Washington Post editors, the only things I changed are all the names, at Narin’s request, to protect her and other victims from reprisal; many of her relatives are still in captivity.

*       *       *

As the sun rose over my dusty village on Aug. 3, relatives called with terrifying news: Jihadists from the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) were coming for us. I’d expected just another day full of household tasks in Tel Uzer, a quiet spot on the western Nineveh plains of Iraq, where I lived with my family. Instead, we scrambled out of town on foot, taking only our clothes and some valuables.

After an hour of walking north, we stopped to drink from a well in the heart of the desert. Our plan was to take refuge on Mount Sinjar, along with thousands of other Yazidis like us who were fleeing there, because we had heard a lot of stories about Islamic State brutality and what they had done to non-Muslims. They’d been converting religious minorities or simply killing them. But suddenly several vehicles drew up and we found ourselves surrounded by militants wearing Islamic State uniforms. Several people screamed in horror; we were scared for our lives. I’ve never felt so helpless in my 14 years. They had blocked our path to safety, and there was nothing we could do.

The militants divided us by gender and age: One for young and capable men, another for girls and young women, and a third for older men and women. The jihadists stole cash and jewelry from this last group, and left them alone at the oasis. Then they placed the girls and women in trucks. As they drove us away, we heard gunshots. Later we learned that they were killing the young men, including my 19-year old brother, who had married just six months ago.

That afternoon, they brought us to an empty school in Baaj, a little town west of Mosul near the Syrian border. We met many other Yazidi women who were captured by Islamic State. Their fathers, brothers and husbands had also been killed, they told us. Then Islamic State fighters entered. One of them recited the words to the shahada, the Muslim creed – “I testify that there is no God but Allah, and that Muhammad is his prophet” – and said that if we repeated them, we would become Muslims. But we refused. They were furious. They insulted us a lot and cursed us and our beliefs.

A couple of days later, we were taken to a large hall full of a few dozen more Yazidi girls and women in Mosul, where Islamic State has its Iraqi headquarters. Some of the fighters were my age. They told us we were pagans and confined us for 20 days inside the building, where we slept on the floor and ate only once per day. Every now and then, an Islamic State man would come in and tell us to convert, but each time we refused. As faithful Yazidis, we would not abandon our religion. We wept a lot and mourned the losses suffered by our community.

One day, our guards separated the married from unmarried women. My good childhood friend Shayma and I were given as a gift to two Islamic State members from the south, near Baghdad. They wanted to make us their wives or concubines. Shayma was awarded to Abu Hussein, who was a cleric. I was given to an overweight, dark-bearded man about 50 years old who seemed to have some high rank. He went by the nickname Abu Ahmed. They drove us down to their home in Fallujah. On the road, we saw many Islamic State fighters and remnants of their battles.

Abu Ahmed, Abu Hussein and an aide lived in a Fallujah house that looked like a palace. Abu Ahmed kept telling me to convert, which I ignored. He tried to rape me several times, but I did not allow him to touch me in any sexual way. Instead, he cursed me and beat me every day, punching and kicking me. He fed me only one meal per day. Shayma and I began to discuss killing ourselves.

We were given mobile phones and instructed to call our families. Their journey had been almost as hard as ours: They’d made it to Mount Sinjar, where ISIS surrounded them and tried to starve them to death. After five days under siege, Kurdish rescue forces evacuated them to Syria and then brought them back to northern Iraq. If they traveled to Mosul and converted to Islam, our captors had us tell them, we would be released. Understandably, they did not trust ISIS, so they did not make the trip.

On our sixth day in Fallujah, Abu Ahmed and the aide left for business in Mosul. Abu Hussein, Shayma’s captor, stayed behind. Around sunset the next evening, he went to the mosque for prayers, leaving us alone in the house. Using our cellphones, we had contacted Mahmoud, a Sunni friend of Shayma’s cousin, who lived in Fallujah, for help. It was too dangerous for him to rescue us from the house, so Shayma and I used kitchen knives and meat cleavers to break the locks of two doors to get out. Wearing traditional long black abayas that we found in the house, we walked for 15 minutes through town, which was quiet for evening prayers. Then Mahmoud came and picked us up on the street and took us to his home.

That night, Mahmoud fed us and gave us a place to sleep. The next morning, he recruited a cab driver to take us all on the two-hour ride to Baghdad. The driver said he was afraid of Islamic State but offered to help us for God’s sake. We dressed like local women and covered our faces with a niqab, leaving only our eyes visible. Mahmoud gave us fake student IDs in case we were stopped at checkpoints.

Islamic State militants shot Narin’s brother and still hold her sister-in-law captive. (Hassan Haji for the Washington Post)

I had never felt so much anxiety. At each checkpoint, I was sure we’d be discovered. At one – I cannot recall if it was controlled by Islamic State or Iraqi forces – Mahmoud bribed the guards to let us through. We had contacted Yazidi and Muslim Kurdish family friends to help us in Baghdad, and I cannot describe the dizzy sense of relief I felt when we arrived at their house.

In Baghdad, the family friends gave us another pair of fake ID cards that enabled us to board a flight to Irbil, the capital of Kurdistan in the north. I still couldn’t believe we were free until our plane touched the ground. After staying in Irbil overnight at the house of a Yazidi member of the Iraqi parliament, Vian Dakhil, we traveled north to Shekhan, to the residence of Baba Sheikh, the spiritual leader of the world’s Yazidis.

After so much fear for so many days, hugging my dad again was the best moment of my life. He said he had cried for me every day since I disappeared. That evening, we went to Khanke, where my mother was staying with her relatives. We hugged and kept crying until then I fainted. My month-long ordeal was over, and I felt reborn.

But there more bad news to come. That’s when I learned that Islamic State had shot my brother at the oasis. My sister-in-law, a very beautiful woman, is still captive somewhere in Mosul. Now I am trying to come to terms with what happened. I can never again set foot in our little village, even if it’s freed from Islamic State, because the memory of my brother who died nearby would haunt me too much. I still have nightmares and swoon several times a day – when I remember what I saw or imagine what would have happened if Shayma and I hadn’t escaped.

What can I do? I want to leave this country altogether. This country is no place for me anymore. I want to go to a place where I might be able to start over, if that is even possible.

*****

Readers: These young girls were lucky they were able to escape. Many girls and women are not so lucky. I don’t know what the answer is nor what actions are needed to take out and destroy this disease, ISIS, but I trust Obama and his advisors will do what is necessary to protect the U.S.

If you didn’t get a chance to watch his address last night or would like to read the transcript, click here. 

With respect to Roger Goodell, after reading the writes from the Huff Po, I have no doubt that he saw that second video of Ray Rice punching his then-fiance.

The Associated Press reported on Wednesday that an unnamed law enforcement official sent an NFL executive the video of Ray Rice punching his then-fiancee in April, months before it was released by TMZ. The report contradicts the claims of NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell that no one in the league office had seen the footage before it became public on Monday.

In my opinion he’s just protecting his own interest. Ray Rice is a big ticket for him…so it all comes down to money. Once again money means more than anything. So what if a woman gets knocked out cold by her so-called loving man. If men will take down a country for money and racism (That’s a nod to you Henry and Wendy) a mere woman is expendable. As usual, sickening.

HOPEfully it will all be revealed soon, but as Chris Hayes mentioned on MSNBC, they’ll try to blame it on some guy in the NFL mailroom who didn’t deliver the video.

Goodell should be fired.

Keith Olbermann said it well:

“You have already forfeited your privilege of resigning because to restore just the slightest credibility to the den of liars, CYA specialists and investigators whose job it is to bury whatever they actually find, the owners and the NFL need to publicly and loudly fire you,” Olbermann said.

Debra: I think about that all the time. Not only with Obama but just about any other OTW, that is held back or limited because of racism. We are such a beautiful diverse country that we could be the leaders in so much more if we just nourished the incredible assortment of brain power that resides in the U.S.

It’s really too bad and so sad that the color of one’s skin gets in the way of being truly a great country. Because if we were truly the greatest country in the world, we would love and cultivate the diversity, and be an inspiration to the rest of the world.

I ignorantly thought that Obama, a black man, becoming president, and doing all that I knew he was capable of accomplishing, would break down racism. Was I wrong. Obama becoming president inflamed racism to rear its ugly head. It is more strong than ever before. Or perhaps I should say, if we ever doubted racism was prevalent in this country, what we have been experiencing in politics and the murder of young black boys, etc., should erase that doubt.

As much as I loathe and am thoroughly disgusted by the racism I witness here and in the world, just because we may not have noticed as much racism before Obama became president, does not mean it did not exist or was as rampant as it is. Ask any black person.

In a way, as much as I am sickened by it, the blatant acts of racism that were always there, just not so obvious as they are now, perhaps needs to be exposed and revealed to the world so that we can be sickened and shocked enough to do something. It is a rough way to bring about change but it may be the only way.

Anything else to add…blog me. 

Peace & Love

Lastly, greed over a great story is surfacing from my “loyal”(?) readers. With all this back and forth about who owns what, that appears on my blog, let me reiterate that all material posted on my blog becomes the sole property of my blog. If you want to reserve any proprietary rights don’t post it to my blog. I will prominently display this caveat on my blog from now on to remind those who may have forgotten this notice.

Gratefully your blog host,

michelle

Aka BABE: We all know what this means by now :)

If you love my blog and my writes, please make a donation via PayPal, credit card, or e-check, please click the “Donate” button below. (Please only donations from those readers within the United States. – International readers please see my “Donate” page)

Or if you would like to send a check via snail mail, please make checks payable to “Michelle Moquin”, and send to:

Michelle Moquin PO Box 29235 San Francisco, Ca. 94129

Thank you for your loyal support!

All content on this site are property of Michelle Moquin © copyright 2008-2014

“Though she be but little, she be fierce.” – William Shakespeare Midsummer Night’s Dream 

" Politics, god, Life, News, Music, Family, Personal, Travel, Random, Photography, Religion, Aliens, Art, Entertainment, Food, Books, Thoughts, Media, Culture, Love, Sex, Poetry, Prose, Friends, Technology, Humor, Health, Writing, Events, Movies, Sports, Video, Christianity, Atheist, Blogging, History, Work, Education, Business, Fashion, Barack Obama, People, Internet, Relationships, Faith, Photos, Videos, Hillary Clinton, School, Reviews, God, TV, Philosophy, Fun, Science, Environment, Design, The Page, Rants, Pictures, Church, Blog, Nature, Marketing, Television, Democrats, Parenting, Miscellaneous, Current Events, Film, Spirituality, Obama, Musings, Home, Human Rights, Society, Comedy, Me, Random Thoughts, Research, Government, Election 2008, Baseball, Opinion, Recipes, Children, Iraq, Funny, Women, Economics, America, Misc, Commentary, John McCain, Reflections, All, Celebrities, Inspiration, Lifestyle, Theology, Linux, Kids, Games, World, India, Literature, China, Ramblings, Fitness, Money, Review, War, Articles, Economy, Journal, Quotes, NBA, Crime, Anime, Islam, 2008, Stories, Prayer, Diary, Jesus, Buddha, Muslim, Israel, Europe, Links, Marriage, Fiction, American Idol, Software, Leadership, Pop culture, Rants, Video Games, Republicans, Updates, Political, Football, Healing, Blogs, Shopping, USA, Class, Matrix, Course, Work, Web 2.0, My Life, Psychology, Gay, Happiness, Advertising, Field Hockey, Hip-hop, sex, fucking, ass, Soccer, sox"

Good morning!

The Juice starts at 1:30 on MSNBC’s video thanks to The Rachel Maddow Show.

Tough ISIS decisions cow Congress as Obama preps national address

Readers: Tune in tonight. It should be very interesting.

Thoughts? Blog me.

Alycedale: Sometimes I just post a write without saying much, kick back, and become curious to see what conclusions my readers come to, what they learn, and who will respond. That being said, it doesn’t surprise me that you were the one to point out the truth. I agree with what you said. The honest truth would have been to title the write: The police caught the cop who allegedly sexually abused 8 black women because the perpetrator picked the wrong woman.” In other words the perpetrator made a mistake and fucked with the wrong black woman, hence he got caught.

I can’t say that I would do the exact same with the cop as you described. I HOPE I am never in that position to test whether I would. What I do know for sure is that my lips would not be sealed. It seems you certainly have inspired the courage of at least one woman to come forth and report her perpetrator, so I thank you for being you and putting it out there.

Peace out. 

Lastly, greed over a great story is surfacing from my “loyal”(?) readers. With all this back and forth about who owns what, that appears on my blog, let me reiterate that all material posted on my blog becomes the sole property of my blog. If you want to reserve any proprietary rights don’t post it to my blog. I will prominently display this caveat on my blog from now on to remind those who may have forgotten this notice.

Gratefully your blog host,

michelle

Aka BABE: We all know what this means by now :)

If you love my blog and my writes, please make a donation via PayPal, credit card, or e-check, please click the “Donate” button below. (Please only donations from those readers within the United States. – International readers please see my “Donate” page)

Or if you would like to send a check via snail mail, please make checks payable to “Michelle Moquin”, and send to:

Michelle Moquin PO Box 29235 San Francisco, Ca. 94129

Thank you for your loyal support!

All content on this site are property of Michelle Moquin © copyright 2008-2014

“Though she be but little, she be fierce.” – William Shakespeare Midsummer Night’s Dream 

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Good morning!

Many of these writes are a few years old. But don’t think that means enough time has gone by and the Koch Brothers have changed. Nope. They are still the same.

From Pro Publica.

Koch Fact Number 8: The Kochs lobbied against recognition of formaldehyde as a cancer-causing carcinogen because it might be bad for their business.

Company Owned By Cancer Research Donor Lobbied Against Designation of Formaldehyde as Carcinogen

Readers: Thanks for being here with me. Blog me.

Peace & Love...

…You know what to do. 

Lastly, greed over a great story is surfacing from my “loyal”(?) readers. With all this back and forth about who owns what, that appears on my blog, let me reiterate that all material posted on my blog becomes the sole property of my blog. If you want to reserve any proprietary rights don’t post it to my blog. I will prominently display this caveat on my blog from now on to remind those who may have forgotten this notice.

Gratefully your blog host,

michelle

Aka BABE: We all know what this means by now :)

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All content on this site are property of Michelle Moquin © copyright 2008-2014

“Though she be but little, she be fierce.” – William Shakespeare Midsummer Night’s Dream 

" Politics, god, Life, News, Music, Family, Personal, Travel, Random, Photography, Religion, Aliens, Art, Entertainment, Food, Books, Thoughts, Media, Culture, Love, Sex, Poetry, Prose, Friends, Technology, Humor, Health, Writing, Events, Movies, Sports, Video, Christianity, Atheist, Blogging, History, Work, Education, Business, Fashion, Barack Obama, People, Internet, Relationships, Faith, Photos, Videos, Hillary Clinton, School, Reviews, God, TV, Philosophy, Fun, Science, Environment, Design, The Page, Rants, Pictures, Church, Blog, Nature, Marketing, Television, Democrats, Parenting, Miscellaneous, Current Events, Film, Spirituality, Obama, Musings, Home, Human Rights, Society, Comedy, Me, Random Thoughts, Research, Government, Election 2008, Baseball, Opinion, Recipes, Children, Iraq, Funny, Women, Economics, America, Misc, Commentary, John McCain, Reflections, All, Celebrities, Inspiration, Lifestyle, Theology, Linux, Kids, Games, World, India, Literature, China, Ramblings, Fitness, Money, Review, War, Articles, Economy, Journal, Quotes, NBA, Crime, Anime, Islam, 2008, Stories, Prayer, Diary, Jesus, Buddha, Muslim, Israel, Europe, Links, Marriage, Fiction, American Idol, Software, Leadership, Pop culture, Rants, Video Games, Republicans, Updates, Political, Football, Healing, Blogs, Shopping, USA, Class, Matrix, Course, Work, Web 2.0, My Life, Psychology, Gay, Happiness, Advertising, Field Hockey, Hip-hop, sex, fucking, ass, Soccer, sox"

Good morning!

Mike, TM: Thanks for keeping this blog informed by providing us with info we need to know. This man is the kind of misogynistic men you were referring to in your comment. Sickening.

From BuzzFeed:

How Police Caught The Cop Who Allegedly Sexually Abused 8 Black Women

Prosecutors say Officer Daniel Holtzclaw made a mistake after a series of sexual assaults on black women in Oklahoma City — he profiled the wrong woman. His family says he’s a victim of “solicited testimony” from women who have “personal motives” to lie. BuzzFeed News reports from the Oklahoma County courtroom where, Wednesday, prosecutors described a pattern of sexual harassment and assault.

AP Photo/Oklahoma County Sheriff’s Office

OKLAHOMA CITY — Daniel Holtzclaw made a mistake, an Oklahoma County prosecutor argued on Wednesday: “He messed up.”

Holtzclaw’s mistake was pulling over the wrong person: A woman who, when he allegedly assaulted her, wouldn’t hesitate to call the police.

It happened around 2 a.m. on June 18, when Holtzclaw, a 27-year-old police officer, was ending his shift on the northeast side of Oklahoma City. He switched off his patrol car computer. Then, without calling for assistance or otherwise notifying his station, police said, Holtzclaw made a traffic stop.

The woman — identified in court documents as J.L. and in local media reports as a 57-year-old grandmother — said she was driving home after playing dominos with a friend, according to detective Kim Davis, who recounted J.L.’s story at length during a hearing at the Oklahoma County Courthouse.

When Officer Holtzclaw approached J.L.’s car, she couldn’t roll down her broken driver’s side window, Davis said. So Holtzclaw directed her to the rear passenger side seat of his patrol car. He asked if she had been drinking — he had noticed a Styrofoam cup in her front seat. She said no, according to Davis, and that the drink was Kool-Aid. He continued questioning her, and she suggested he go taste it. He walked over to her car, but J.L. couldn’t see what he was doing. When he came back, Holtzclaw asked if J.L. had anything else on her.

“If you have something on you and you tell me now, then I won’t take you to jail,” he allegedly told J.L., according to Davis. “But if you don’t tell me about it now, and I find something, then I’m gonna take you to jail.” J.L. said no, again. She was still sitting in his patrol car.

“He opens the door and he tells her, ‘I’ve got to check you,’” Davis said. “And he says, ‘Lift your shirt.’”

She lifted her shirt to her stomach, and Davis motioned. “He goes, ‘I can’t see that. There might be something in your bra.’ And so she grabs the bottom of her bra, she said, and just shakes it … And he goes, ‘Nope, that’s not good enough.’”

J.L. lifted her shirt and bra, Davis said, and Holtzclaw shined his flashlight on her exposed breasts.

“She said about that time, she noticed that he started playing with his penis,” Davis said. “Then he tells her to stand up … and he says, ‘Pull down your pants.’”

J.L. lowered her pants but left her underwear up, and Holtzclaw turned his flashlight to her “vaginal area,” Davis said. Holtzclaw then told J.L. to sit back down. She planted her feet on the concrete, sitting sideways in his patrol car.

When J.L. looked up, Davis said, Holtzclaw’s penis was in her face.

“She started begging him, ‘Please don’t do this. You’re not supposed to do this.’ … She kept thinking in her mind, OK, this is a police officer, and if he’s gonna do this, he’s gonna kill me. And I’m not gonna make it out of this alive …”

“And he put it in her mouth, and she pulled away. And she said, ‘Please, please don’t do this.’ And he put it back in her mouth. And she said for about 10 seconds. Then he pulled it out and stopped, and he told her, ‘I’m gonna follow you home.’”

J.L. went back to her car, Davis said. She pulled into what she thought was a driveway, then did a U-turn. Holtzclaw pulled his car around her and unexpectedly took off.

At home, J.L. and her daughter did what middle-class people in Oklahoma City do when they’ve been the victim of crimes: called the local police station. When no one answered, according to Davis, they went to report the alleged assault in person.

Davis was the on-call detective in the Oklahoma City Police Sex Crimes Unit that night and met J.L. at the hospital, where she was receiving a sexual assault medical forensic exam. Two and a half months later, on Wednesday afternoon, Davis and another detective recounted for a district judge how J.L.’s report was similar to an unsolved May 2014 assault report allegedly involving an officer. The connection led the detectives to identify six more women who said they’d been assaulted, raped, or forced to expose themselves to Holtzclaw while he was on duty.

Holtzclaw’s “mistake” — the slip-up that prosecutors said landed him in orange jail scrubs in an unremarkable fluorescent-lit courtroom on Wednesday — was believing J.L. was similar to his other alleged victims: all black middle-aged women, but women of a lower social status and with reason to fear the authorities. They had been caught with active warrants or drug paraphernalia. J.L., Davis said, had no criminal record to be held over her. She was driving through the neighborhood where the other women were confronted, but she didn’t live there.

“He’s stepping out,” Assistant District Attorney Gayland Gieger said Wednesday. “He’s getting bolder.”

J.L.’s report would put Holtzclaw on administrative leave and make up two of the state’s 16 charges against the young cop. But more broadly, it would launch a case that underscores how alleged police abuse of minorities goes far beyond Ferguson, Missouri — but how national attention does not.

In this Sept. 29, 2007, file photo, Eastern Michigan linebacker Daniel Holtzclaw (right) brings down Vanderbilt tailback Cassen Jackson-Garrison (22) in the first quarter of a college football game in Nashville. AP / Mark Humphrey

Daniel Holtzclaw “vehemently denies each and every” charge brought against him, his lawyer said in a statement Saturday. Holtzclaw didn’t speak at Wednesday’s hearing. He would occasionally whisper to his attorneys, but his expression remained unreadable as he intently watched the witnesses — among them his father, a childhood friend who lived with Holtzclaw while he was at the police academy, and a sports reporter. Many more family members and friends sat in the front rows of the courtroom, including Holtzclaw’s girlfriend of six months, his defense attorney Scott Adams said.

Holtzclaw joined the Oklahoma City Police Department in September 2011, officials said in a press conference after his arrest. A year earlier, he had graduated from Eastern Michigan University with a criminal justice degree and had tried and failed to get drafted into the NFL.

Holtzclaw today looks the same award-winning linebacker he did then: 6-foot-2, 260 pounds, tree-trunk neck, short black hair. When he was arrested, it was outside his gym.

Holtzclaw’s father, Eric, is a 17-year veteran of the Enid Police Department. His mother, Kumiko, is unemployed but does some baking from their home, Eric Holtzclaw said. He has two sisters. One of them, Jenny, has been leading the movement to raise support for him online, selling shirts that say “Free the Claw” — his nickname.

Recently, on the Justice for Daniel Holtzclaw Facebook page she created, Jenny posted amessage her father sent her after he passed a Coke machine at work and saw two bottles with their names — Daniel and Eric — side by side. He saw this as a “sign from god” and bought them. “I am determined to help him through these tough [times] for he is my son and I love him dearly!!!”

In a statement, the Holtzclaw family said much of the “witness and officer testimony presented by the prosecution … is based on solicited testimony by the police department of felons, prostitutes and others who would have personal motives beyond the basic truth to fabricate their stories.”

“We ask the public to wait to cast judgment on Daniel as he is entitled to the same rights under the law as any other citizen,” the family said.

AP / Sue Ogrocki

In May, a woman known as T.M. approached a group of officers and reported that an unknown officer had sexually assaulted her, Detective Rocky Gregory testified Wednesday.

Gregory said T.M. — an “admitted drug user, prostitute” — was at an apartment complex “kind of known for drugs,” around 9 p.m. on May 8. She left on foot but was stopped by Holtzclaw, whom she’d allegedly seen at the complex earlier that night.

Holtzclaw put her in the backseat of his patrol car and took her purse, Gregory said. He drove for about two blocks before stopping to check her name for existing warrants. He then went through her purse and allegedly found a crack pipe.

“What are we gonna do about this?” Holtzclaw asked, according to Gregory.

“She says, ‘Why don’t you just stomp out the pipe, we’ll call it good?’” Gregory said. T.M. was still sitting in the backseat, she said, when Holtzclaw got out of the car and exposed his erect penis to her.

“He’s made it very clear it’s basically this or jail,” Gregory said. “She then turns her head, places her mouth on his penis, and performs oral sex for a short period of time.”

Holtzclaw did not ejaculate, Gregory said, but he stopped after about two minutes. He offered to give her a ride, but she said no.

“He says, ‘No, I want to make sure that you’re safe,’” Gregory said. “He was supposed to take her to another location to let her go, but then he goes almost in the exact opposite direction, kind of zigzags through the neighborhood … And then he starts to pull off by an open-field park area. Once he stopped there, she got real worried. She started to scream, thinking that this is not where it’s gonna end.”

But then Holtzclaw drove back around again, taking her to the place she originally wanted to go and letting her out. Later, T.M. showed Gregory in person the route they went. Gregory then referenced the route with Holtzclaw’s automated vehicle locator, a GPS recorder on all patrol cars. It was an exact match, he said.

After connecting T.M. and J.L.’s reports, the Sex Crimes Unit began looking through Holtzclaw’s automatically recorded history of running names through the department’s two databases, looking specifically for people who’d been checked out multiple times. (One system shows information including someone’s arrest record, what kind of contact they’ve had with police, whether they’ve reported a crime, and their address. The other system is used to check for existing warrants.)

Davis and Gregory took two lists of names — created by the unit’s lieutenant through a victimology profile — into northeast Oklahoma City, telling each woman on the list that they had received a tip that she may have been sexually assaulted. An undisclosed “percentage” of the women said yes. By the end of the investigation, six more women joined T.M. — who initially did not want to prosecute — and J.L.

“They all matched up basically in age,” Gregory said. “The earliest one was probably in her thirties. The oldest in the fifties. They all kind of looked like they were in their fifties.”

They were all black women — a majority, he added, had “some kind of drug history, maybe a prostitution history.”

By allegedly focusing on poor black women with criminal records, Holtzclaw kept himself from being caught — until he met J.L., a black woman who was just passing through the neighborhood he patrolled. “Not only is this individual stopping women who fit a profile of members of our society who are confronted rightly or wrongly by police officers all the time,” said the prosecutor, Gieger. “He identifies a vulnerable society that without exception except one have an attitude for ‘What good is it gonna do? He’s a police officer. Who’s going to believe me?’”

There was T.B., a woman who said she was confronted by Holtzclaw while sitting in a parked car in front of her house on Feb. 27, 2014. He ran her name and found existing warrants, Gregory said. He began asking her about drugs in the house and brought up the warrants, telling T.B. he could place her under arrest. He told her he needed to “check her for any drugs,” Gregory said.

“He then tells her to lift her shirt. He lifts her shirt to her belly, says, ‘Now I need to see everything.’ He then makes reference about the warrants and the arrest … She just goes ahead and lifts her bra and shirt according to what he requested.”

Oklahoma City Police Department policy is to call a female officer over to do a complete search when the suspect is required to lift her shirt above her belly. T.B. had been stopped before and knew that was the procedure, Gregory said. But according to court documents, Holtzclaw touched her bare breasts with his hand and without her consent.

Through Holtzclaw’s car GPS record, Gregory confirmed that the officer returned to T.B.’s house multiple times over the following month. In one instance, Holtzclaw allegedly broke into the house without permission, woke T.B.’s sleeping boyfriend — the only person in the house at the time — and told him to go outside, running his name for warrants.

Shortly afterward, T.B. pulled up to the house with her kids in the car, Gregory said, and Holtzclaw told her to step back to his patrol car.

He repeated the same motions, Gregory said — running her name for warrants, asking about drugs, and making “reference to, you know, ‘We can kind of take care of these warrants … Just play by my rules.’”

T.B. said she knew Holtzclaw meant that she could “do sexual favors and the warrants could probably disappear,” according to Gregory.

Holtzclaw told T.B. to lift her shirt again, and T.B. complied, though “it was obvious she did not have a bra on,” Gregory said. Then he looked down her pants; she said she didn’t have any underwear on, according to Gregory.

T.B.’s boyfriend, Terry Williams, testified on Wednesday that Holtzclaw woke him up and “ran me outside,” though he couldn’t recall many specific details — he was “kind of tipsy that day,” he said. But when T.B. later told him about her interactions with Holtzclaw, Williams “got kinda mad, and I just told her just to handle it the best way she can.”

“Afterwards, [Holtzclaw] told [Williams], ‘If I ever see you in this neighborhood or around this area, I’m gonna stop you every time,’” Gregory said. “He made it very clear he was not welcome around there, at this woman’s house.”

The next day, around dinnertime, Gregory said, T.B. saw Holtzclaw walking up to her house. She still didn’t know the officer’s name; she called him “Spike,” because of his hair. “She knew that she was gonna be harassed by him again,” Gregory said, and started to call her mother. Holtzclaw knocked at the door, and T.B. answered.

“She says, ‘I’m making dinner for my kids,’” Gregory said. “He asked to come in. She tells him, ‘No, you can’t.’ He says, ‘Well, I need to check your house for drugs.’” They argued, and Holtzclaw told her that he would be back, according to Gregory, while T.B.’s mother listened on from the phone. T.B.’s mother later allegedly told the detective she could hear Holtzclaw “bullying her daughter.”

T.B.’s allegations make up five of the 16 counts against Holtzclaw, including sexual battery, burglary, two counts of indecent exposure, and stalking.

AP Photo/Oklahoma Police Dept.

Prosecutors said they believe that Holtzclaw gradually escalated his behavior; on March 14, one of the earlier instances of misconduct uncovered, he stopped a woman known as C.R. and had her expose her breasts in the same way he allegedly did the others.

“She said she had been stopped several times by officers, but this was the only time she felt like she was forced into doing something that she didn’t feel comfortable with, [and] was inappropriate,” Gregory said.

On Wednesday, the prosecutor asked Gregory why C.R. didn’t report the incident.

“The reason she didn’t is the reason that she would feel [like] a lot of females probably wouldn’t either,” Gregory said. “If they had turned in an officer, the officer would cause a lot more problems for them — maybe tell a drug house they’re a snitch — and then they have a lot of problems in the neighborhood. And she said that that would keep her from ever telling on an officer.”

On April 14, Holtzclaw allegedly stopped a woman known as F.M., following the pattern described by prosecutors: putting her in the backseat, asking about drugs and prostitution, running a check on her through the police systems, and telling her he needed to search her.

“She said that she kind of turned her back to him, because she thought he was going to do a pat search,” Davis said. Holtzclaw allegedly “reached up behind her and grabbed her butt and boobs” over her clothes. Davis added that when she first approached F.M. about the possibility she’d been assaulted, F.M. “immediately bowed her head and started crying.”

On April 24, a woman named R.G. had “just left a crack house,” Davis said, when Holtzclaw pulled his car beside her and asked what she was doing. She allegedly told him she was getting high.

Holtzclaw got out of the car and searched R.G.’s purse, Davis said. He found her pipe and made her break it on the ground in front of him. He put her in the backseat, and she acknowledged that she had been getting “some dates” that night, according to Davis. He offered to give her a ride home.

“Her words were, ‘He pulled up in the driveway like he lived there,’” Davis said. R.G. told Davis she noticed Holtzclaw was following her into the house, but she assumed it was because she was on probation and he was trying to verify her address.

“She kind of was giving him a tour,” Davis said. “She was like, ‘This is the living room, this is the den, this is where I live.’ He doesn’t say anything. He follows her upstairs.”

In her bedroom, Holtzclaw told R.G. to sit down. “He said, ‘This is better than the county,’ unzipped his pants, and, she said, he put his erect penis in her face,” Davis said.

R.G. began performing oral sex, according to Davis. Then “he told her to lay back, and she did, and he climbed on top of her and had vaginal sex with her and he did not use a condom.”

Afterward, R.G. told Holtzclaw she thought she heard the front door, Davis said. “He zipped up his pants and left.”

On May 7, Holtzclaw stopped a woman known as S.E. Like in the other alleged victims’ accounts, he put her in the back of his patrol car and asked her questions about drugs before getting out, standing next to her open door, and unzipping his pants. “His penis was erect, and he forced her to put it in her mouth,” Davis said, but he didn’t ejaculate.

Then he got back into the driver’s seat, Davis said, and headed down a dead-end street. He allegedly drove over a curb and toward an abandoned school.

“He pulled between a building and a tree, got out of the car, opened the back door, made her get out of the car, told her to bend over, and he put his penis in her vagina,” Davis said. “When he let her go, he said, ‘Have a nice night,’ and she walked off.”

The police computer system later showed that Holtzclaw had run S.E.’s name twice on May 7 and twice on May 8, the day after.

“I thought he was running her to see if she reported him,” Davis said.

On May 26, Holtzclaw allegedly stopped a woman known as C.J. and put her in the backseat of his car — asking about drugs, running her name, etc. He’d done this before with C.J., in March, but let her go before any misconduct occurred, Davis said. This time, during the search, “he fondled her boobs and he put his hand down the front of her pants and fingered her vagina,” Davis said.

When C.J. was later interviewed by Davis, the woman, like F.M., began crying.

In court on Wednesday, Davis also revealed that a DNA sample was found on a triangle-shaped flap on the inside of Holtzclaw’s uniform pants, near the zipper. Seven of the eight victims were tested against the sample, along with Holtzclaw’s girlfriend. The DNA did not match any of them.

When he cross-examined Davis, Holtzclaw’s defense attorney Scott Adams said, “it could also be that Mr. Holtzclaw could have cheated on his girlfriend and not wanted to tell anyone.” Davis confirmed this was a possibility. But the prosecutor later redirected the question.

“If that was the case and [he] had cheated on his girlfriend and didn’t want that to be uncovered, certainly he lied to you, because you asked specifically about that,” Assistant DA Gieger said.

“Correct,” Davis said.

In an interview with a local station later on Wednesday, Adams presented an alternate theory:

“It could be as simple as someone at the cleaners grabbing his pants and transferring the skin cells,” he told KOCO. “None of what the detectives said surprised me. They can make anything look sinister, and that’s what they attempt to do.”

“The facts are that there is no DNA linking him to any of these women as far as was presented in the hearing,” the family said in their statement.

In his closing argument at the hearing, Adams suggested that he didn’t have ample time with the prosecution’s discovery materials, and that Holtzclaw — being held in solitary confinement under $5 million — could not adequately defend himself either. The judge reduced Holtzclaw’s bond to $500,000, based largely on Holtzclaw’s lack of criminal record and under the conditions that he stay with his parents under house arrest, wear a GPS tracker, and not contact any of his alleged victims. He left jail on Friday afternoon.

Participant Michael Washington holds his hands in the air during a rally in Oklahoma City, Thursday, Aug. 21, in response to the shooting death of 18-year-old Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. AP / Sue Ogrocki

Oklahoma NAACP President Anthony Douglas first learned of the Holtzclaw case on Thursday, Aug. 21 — the day Holtzclaw was arrested — while at a rally showing support for the people of Ferguson, who were still protesting the death of Michael Brown and the Ferguson police’s display of force in response to their protests. Local media began calling for Douglas’ reaction to the Holtzclaw case. On the heels of the Ferguson, Douglas prepared for a storm. But it never came.

“Where’s my media and where’s my women’s groups?” he asked BuzzFeed News on Thursday.

Douglas said Ferguson had no impact on how he approached the Holtzclaw case, but the media spectacle in Missouri made him examine how the media was “not providing the coverage as it should be brought to light.” Douglas’ contribution to the mostly local coverage has been to call for the Department of Justice to “look at whether this fits a pattern of racial profiling.” The president views Holtzclaw’s targeting of black women as a hate crime.

“[People] have not grasped the severity of the case,” Douglas said. “I don’t look at this gentleman as a sex offender or a rapist. I look at him as a racist, because he racially profiled and targeted African-American women.”

Garland Pruitt, NAACP Oklahoma City Branch president, suggested that cases involving abuse simply don’t get the kind of attention that cases involving death do. “How many folks have been beat down […] that didn’t die at the hands of the police officers? That did not get the recognition that’s possibly needed?” he said.

The local NAACP also disagrees with how the neighborhood where Holtzclaw’s alleged attacks occurred has been portrayed. During the Wednesday hearing, a detective said there was an unknown man lying in T.B.’s yard on a day Holtzclaw dropped by her house. The prosecutor asked the detective if that was an “unusual occurrence in this part of the city.” The detective said no. At another point in the hearing, in addressing the victims’ struggle to remember specific dates, the prosecutor said, “These people don’t live by calendars.”

Douglas challenged that assumption, saying the northeast side is a low- to middle-class neighborhood of “hardworking families” and professionals, while acknowledging “every neighborhood has issues with drugs.”

“They attempt to paint this as a depressed area,” he said. “That’s not the truth.”

The neighborhood’s real struggle going forward, Douglas said, will be having trust in the police — something the chief of police himself acknowledged in a press conference last week, when he said he hopes the community “realizes that our officers, 99.9% of them are trustworthy.”

But even outside Oklahoma City, many people are talking about Oklahoma City and Holtzclaw in the same sentence as Ferguson and Darren Wilson.

“The only thing that I can say is that anytime a police officer anywhere in the country makes a mistake or indulges in misconduct, police officers around the country are held in that same light regardless of the circumstances,” Oklahoma City Police Department spokesman Capt. Dexter Nelson said in an email. “OKC is not Ferguson, Missouri and there is no comparison. Our departments are very different in many ways. Our department and community demographics are different, and our working relationship with the community is different.”

This is certainly true — the population of Ferguson is not even 4% that of Oklahoma City. And while black police officers make up only 6% of police forces in both cities, only 15% of Oklahoma City residents are black, compared to 67% of Ferguson residents.

Oklahoma City Police also opened an investigation the day the first report about an unknown officer came in, and closed it within two months of identifying Holtzclaw as a suspect. They kept the investigation quiet for that entire time, in an effort to make sure the women bringing forward allegations weren’t influenced by media reports or neighborhood gossip.

Still, both incidents of violence deeply affect black communities. And with them occurring so close together, the comparisons have been unavoidable, particularly in light of how people have rallied around the alleged offenders.

AP / Sue Ogrocki

On Aug. 24, Holtzclaw’s sister, Jenny, created a GoFundMe page for her brother (“JUSTICE FOR DANIEL HOLTZCLAW”) two days after a judge set his initial bond at $5 million in cash. On Aug. 26, GoFundMe verified the page, making it fully visible to the public. On Sept. 2, GoFundMe pulled the campaign, which had raised more than $7,000.

“GoFundMe reviews campaigns that have received a high number of complaints on a case-by-case basis,” a customer service representative wrote in an email to Jenny. “In this particular case, your campaign contains subject matter that GoFundMe would rather not be associated with.”

Jenny was livid. “PEOPLE DO BELIEVE IN DANIEL’S INNOCENCE and not into the media hype that everyone is believing into!!!!” she wrote in a statement. “It looks like clearly they have caved into the media hype and social pressure rather than stand on the principle that a person is innocent until proven guilty.”

GoFundMe is still hosting a campaign to raise funds for the Ferguson officer who shot Michael Brown. When asked what distinction it drew between the two campaigns, GoFundMe did not respond, only saying it conducted “an internal content review.”

In the meantime, Jenny has become the family spokesman on the Facebook page, where she sells T-shirts, deletes negative comments, and shares messages from Holtzclaw’s friends and family. One of the recent messages appears to hint at what’s to come as Holtzclaw’s case inches toward a trial.

Someone claiming to be Holtzclaw’s childhood friend who attended the court hearing Wednesday later wrote about how “disgusted” he or she was by the lack of “physical evidence” presented:

“The media is giving one side of the story and leaving out major details like the fact that all of these women are active drug addicts and prostitutes from the same area of town who ‘happen to not know each other.’”

It appears the prosecutor is prepared for more reactions like this one. At the hearing on Wednesday, Gieger told the judge he could see “what’s coming for these ladies … ‘You’re liars. Look at your lifestyle.’”

Correction: An earlier version of this story misidentified the author of an anonymous message posted to the Justice For Daniel Holtzclaw Facebook page.

*****

Blog me. 

Lastly, greed over a great story is surfacing from my “loyal”(?) readers. With all this back and forth about who owns what, that appears on my blog, let me reiterate that all material posted on my blog becomes the sole property of my blog. If you want to reserve any proprietary rights don’t post it to my blog. I will prominently display this caveat on my blog from now on to remind those who may have forgotten this notice.

Gratefully your blog host,

michelle

Aka BABE: We all know what this means by now :)

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All content on this site are property of Michelle Moquin © copyright 2008-2014

“Though she be but little, she be fierce.” – William Shakespeare Midsummer Night’s Dream 

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