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Woman in audience to Nixon says “Why is this whole press conference focused on controlling peoples anger? There’s been no arrest!” #Ferguson
— Patrick deHahn (@patrickdehahn) August 16, 2014
What you are hearing at the press conference in St. Louis is decades of frustration and anger at being treated as less than human. #Ferguson
— Omar Moore (@popcornreel) August 16, 2014
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They’re all there about the dead body. And no one from the government is willing to speak about the dead body.
— southpaw (@nycsouthpaw) August 16, 2014
Members of the community also at press conference. Someone shouted, “You need to charge that officer with murder!” #MikeBrown #Ferguson
— Bridjes O’Neil (@BridjesONeil) August 16, 2014
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We STILL don’t know how many shots were fired. Unreal.
— Matt Murphy (@MattMurph24) August 16, 2014
@MattMurph24 But they know how many cigarillos Mike Brown allegedly stole…
— aspirational12 (@aspirational12) August 16, 2014
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@AntonioFrench: From the signs of babes. #Ferguson
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Live streaming from Ferguson here
Stay safe, Ferguson.
in front of the makeshift memorial where Mike Brown was killed, they’ve set up a voter registration table #Ferguson pic.twitter.com/Puj339x9o6
— Jessica Lee (@BusquedaJess) August 16, 2014
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What Gov. Nixon will demand: Curfew on #Ferguson residents. What Gov. Nixon won’t demand: Autopsy, ballistics, incident/shooting report.
— Nerdy Wonka (@NerdyWonka) August 16, 2014
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What Nixon doesn’t realize is that justice and openness and fairness will bring the peace he thinks a crackdown will bring. #Ferguson
— Harold Itzkowitz (@HaroldItz) August 16, 2014
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Gov. Nixon declares state of emergency and curfew. So basically #Ferguson PD won. And everybody else’s Constitutional rights lost
— GrooveSDC (@GrooveSDC) August 16, 2014
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Great point by the woman in the audience. Who lets a person who murdered an unarmed young man, skip town?! Explain that, #Ferguson PD.
— Nerdy Wonka (@NerdyWonka) August 16, 2014
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Kudos to @GovJayNixon for the worst press conference by a Democrat since Anthony Weiner.
— Allan Brauer (@allanbrauer) August 16, 2014
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#YesWeCan #MikeBrown #Ferguson #NMOS14 Thank you #PBO, #AGHolder & #CaptJohnson cc @VP @vj44 @TheJusticeDept @FBI pic.twitter.com/Z7sHo062gV
— Bobfr (@Our4thEstate) August 15, 2014
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This!!! => RT @CapehartJ: We are seeing, in high relief, why we need a federal government. #Ferguson
— Nancy LeTourneau (@Smartypants60) August 15, 2014
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So @GovJayNixon declares state of emergency & a curfew in #Ferguson? It’s your cops who need to be curfewed, Gov, so your people are safe.
— TheObamaDiary.com (@TheObamaDiary) August 16, 2014
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#REMINDER: MikeBrown’s tragic death isn’t a #Ferguson problem or a #Missouri problem, it’s an American problem. #p2 pic.twitter.com/obpPtJQDGL
— Eric Wolfson (@EricWolfson) August 15, 2014
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When I read through @NerdyWonka‘s #Ferguson tweets (http://t.co/KSQDoKX58c), all I could think was: pic.twitter.com/EqwFuz1tjL
— TheObamaDiary.com (@TheObamaDiary) August 16, 2014
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Took a week, but we finally at the moment where Mike Brown Is officially a suspect in his own murder. #Ferguson
— BWD (@theonlyadult) August 15, 2014
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I’m not worried about being named a terror suspect and spied on by the NSA. I worry about being named a robbery suspect and shot by cops.
— Zandar (@ZandarVTS) August 15, 2014
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THIS> Creator of “The Wire” letter to #Ferguson police chief. Accountable cops always “stand by the body” they shot http://t.co/kRY9KwbIv0 …
— Chernynkaya (@Chernynkaya) August 16, 2014
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White man aiming down on police…nothing happens. Unarmed black kid walking back from store shot 10 times. #Ferguson pic.twitter.com/48EcUF2Bwa
— 3ChicsPolitico (@3ChicsPolitico) August 10, 2014
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Man walks with cane for #MikeBrown in #Ferguson. pic.twitter.com/LmWAhhRF6c
— Bridjes O’Neil (@BridjesONeil) August 16, 2014
#Ferguson Peaceful protestors arrested? ✓ Members of Media arrested? ✓ Killer of #MikeBrown arrested? ✘ pic.twitter.com/17mOcF6vFr
— TheObamaDiary.com (@TheObamaDiary) August 14, 2014
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Great #Ferguson reporting, updates and photos from @BridjesONeil, thank you for your work. pic.twitter.com/OQatChDg7k
— TheObamaDiary.com (@TheObamaDiary) August 16, 2014
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Its clear local Ferguson PD are waging a battle – not just against their own community – but against Capt. Johnson, FBI & DOJ. .
— Nancy LeTourneau (@Smartypants60) August 16, 2014
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#DarrenWilson‘s friend got his side of story from FB. #Ferguson PD gave him 5 days to erase his online history http://t.co/Oix7cDlqZq
— Chernynkaya (@Chernynkaya) August 16, 2014
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I don’t condone violence. Never will. But you can’t keep pushing people and not think people won’t push back.
— Mr. NFTG (@Kennymack1971) August 16, 2014
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Not one more damn press conference until the one releasing the police report, autopsy and service record of Darren Wilson. Not ONE.
— Greg Pinelo (@gregpinelo) August 16, 2014
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The pain on the face of #MikeBrown‘s mother Lesley McSpadden should haunt us forever. pic.twitter.com/p4sugDaIYQ
— TheObamaDiary.com (@TheObamaDiary) August 10, 2014
Wow. I just got some CRAZY inside information. Darren Wilson, recently divorced is dating another officer. Here is what she’s telling folk..
— Shaun King (@ShaunKing) August 16, 2014
This is going to be the defense story of Darren Wilson. It’s confirmed multiple times over. It’s COMPLETELY different than ALL eyewitnesses.
— Shaun King (@ShaunKing) August 16, 2014
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Officer Wilson is saying that Mike Brown ran 30 feet away from the car, yelled “You ain’t doing nothing” then RAN FULL SPEED AT THE OFFICER
— Shaun King (@ShaunKing) August 16, 2014
Darren Wilson is saying that Mike Brown kept charging toward him, even when shot, until he finally shot him in the head from just feet away.
— Shaun King (@ShaunKing) August 16, 2014
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I’m working on some audio now. This is going to be the Wilson defense. Knowing this, now you know why NO incident report has been released.
— Shaun King (@ShaunKing) August 16, 2014
Officer Darren Wilson & his police officer girlfriend are telling every friend & family member this same story :: http://t.co/VSLQ8fTi5e
— Shaun King (@ShaunKing) August 16, 2014
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Militias at Bundy ranch,NV
Open-Carry advocates in Austin, TX
Open-carry advocates in Target store, TX
Protesters of Michael Brown shooting in Ferguson, MO
Riot police descend on Black protesters in Ferguson, MO
Riot police descend on Black protesters in Ferguson, MO
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Consider the photographs above of events that happened this year less than six months apart? There is no comparison. That is the point. They all involve American citizens in protest over perceived affront to their rights. But can the people in those photographs be interchanged with the same outcomes? Can the Ferguson MO black residents stage their protest armed like the Bundy-ranch militias or the open-carry ammosexuals flaunting their AR-15s in stores in public? Would they be covered by the media with fawning deference as we saw during the standoff in Nevada or in the narratives spun about open-carry advocates?
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Of course no. It is not hyperbole to say the streets there would already have been littered with many more black bodies being gunned down by platoons of SWAT teams pouring in to maintain “law and order.” They would not be retreating like the BLM and law enforcement did outside the Bundy ranch in Nevada in order to safeguard “public peace” and NOT escalating the potential for violence. The media would have whipped up the fear factor to the rafters, not the love-in we saw when the Bundy ranch militias had federal officials locked in their gunsights and bragged they were ready to “water the tree of liberty”.
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Likewise, the language of inherent criminality being used now to describe Ferguson’s black residents’ protests would not be invoked in similar actions by white protestors. It is like clockwork, the types of thesauri with stock phrasing that get whipped out to describe public behavior of American citizens depending on their race and class. White Militias are “patriots” defending the “constitution”, not “lawbreakers, or thugs, or looters.” White youths’ public misbehavior and even serious felonies are given benefit of the doubt as “feisty pranks” or aberrant “lone wolves” or “mentally challenged” individuals.
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Blacks and Latinos are described as criminals-in-the-making and bearers of regressive group cultural traits who should be “feared” and removed from civilized society. There is an insistence that their citizenship can only rest on approval of their morality, something that is not required of any other groups. The statistics from our criminal justice system glaringly show the disparities in who gets convicted for similar crimes and who gets slapped on the wrist.
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Therein lies the dirty underbelly of American creed of “Freedom” and “justice”. It was always a lie, from the nation’s founding. But it was a powerful lie that sewed together a nation populated by peoples of disparate backgrounds ever re-making themselves anew with infinite optimism in this vast land. City on a Hill, it was. Even if built on the blood of shackled slaves. Frederick Douglass described this foundational hypocrisy so astutely in his famous speech “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?”
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Question is why the lie? Other societies don’t bother to broadcast “Freedom” for all. Don’t pretend to want equality for all. For a nation that prided itself on throwing off the yoke of calcified monarchies, and hewing to the creed — “all men are created equal”, why does this country keep insisting on universal “freedom”? I argue that “freedom” is a useful cover that keeps a tight lid on fissures cracking apart a deeply unequal society. It is a release valve in the same way that maintaining an underclass that can be scapegoated for society’s ills. That way we don’t have to deal with crushing class inequality.
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And what the wielders of power bet on is that the eruptions be it in Ferguson or Nevada, will inure to their benefit. The Fearful buy more weapons, and disenfranchised minorities get slaughtered in the street, or fill profit-making private prisons!
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Freedom!
@AntonioFrench: #Ferguson #JusticeForMikeBrown #PeaceInFerguson #STL
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I’m very proud of these young people. All love! #Ferguson#JusticeForMikeBrownpic.twitter.com/uInTjCmytl
— Antonio French (@AntonioFrench) August 15, 2014
Hop on this peace train! #Ferguson #JusticeForMikeBrown pic.twitter.com/Shx665e0kD
— Antonio French (@AntonioFrench) August 15, 2014
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In solidarity in NYC: pic.twitter.com/M7DPJ9uCGh #Ferguson #JusticeForMikeBrown
— Antonio French (@AntonioFrench) August 15, 2014
In solidarity in Chicago. #JusticeForMikeBrown pic.twitter.com/nw4ajs6Z2I
— Antonio French (@AntonioFrench) August 15, 2014
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On This Day: President Barack Obama looks at the Grand Canyon in Arizona on Aug. 16, 2009 (Photo by Pete Souza)
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Morning again everyone!
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MoooOOOooorning – Happy Saturday!
Obama White House.gov WH Tumblr The People’s View Smartypants Steve Benen
The Obama Diary 
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