Monday, December 29, 2014

White Woman Shoots Up Neighborhood And...

...well, you know how this ends, right? She pointed her gun at the police who showed up to talk to her and they merely took her into custody without either choking her or shooting her.



Astute readers will recall that 12-year-old Tamir Rice was shot to death by police because he had a pellet gun, which he was not shooting at anyone. Tamir, of course, was black.



Woman shoots up Hixson neighborhood | Local News | Times Free Press:



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Two White Guys Shoot Up Wal-Mart And...

...and nothing happens to them, for the most part. They were not choked, they were not shot; they were taken into custody, despite the fact that both were drunk and both were actually shooting the guns within the Wal-Mart store.

Astute readers will recall that John Crawford was shot dead for merely leaning on a pellet gun. Crawford, of course, was black.



North Idaho Briefs - Coeur d'Alene Press: Local News:



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Wednesday, December 17, 2014

This Just In: Marco Rubio Criticizes Peace Treaty Between Israel and Egypt!

Marco Rubio is no fan of President Obama. Apparently, he's no fan of the Castro Brothers (Fidel and Raul, of course) and wants us to know that, despite the fact that 54 years of punishing isolation hasn't budged the Castro regime one bit, it just might start working any day now! But he's not done there, not by a long shot. No, he makes it clear that he doesn't like Pope Francis, not one bit! And not only that, but Jimmy Carter was a lousy negotiator. And what of significance did Jimmy Carter ever negotiate?



The Camp David Accords, which ended decades of war and bloodshed between Israel and Egypt, and which continue to keep the peace to this day come to mind.



Clearly, Marco Rubio is no fan of peace between Israel and Egypt.



Rubio: Cuba deal makes Obama 'worst negotiator' since Jimmy Carter | TheHill:



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Monday, December 15, 2014

'Murrica! Fuck Yeah!

I've been learning a number of fascinating things about this country of mine, the United States of America, in the wake of the release of the Senate Select Committee's Report on the CIA's "Enhanced Interrogation" program. Among them are these nuggets:

  • Torture is "bad" if it's done to Americans by non-Americans, people like the Japanese, the Germans, the Chinese, or the North Koreans.
  • Torture is "good" if done by Americans to anyone -- including other Americans -- as long as some horrible event or possible event can be invoked. You can, for example, say "9/11!" and then proceed to beat, drown, and anally rape anybody you happen to have in custody.
  • Torture is awesome when it's done by fictional characters, like Jack Bauer. Not only is it awesome, but it always works!
  • If the United States of America makes a promise, we don't have to keep it. Because freedom. So if you want to wave that "Geneva Convention" in our face, go right ahead. We don't care! And why? Because we're awesome!
  • Killing American civilians is bad. Well... it's bad if somebody we don't like does it.
  • Killing foreigners -- especially foreigners who don't speak our language -- is awesome and we can do it whenever we want, because... freedom! And we can do it whenever we want, as long as we say something like "9/11!" when we do it. Even if they don't happen to have anything to do with 9/11. 
  • Killing innocent Americans on purpose is always bad. Always. Unless it's our own police who do the killing, of course.
  • Killing innocent foreigners on purpose is always good, especially if we can say something like "Oops! Sorry! Your wedding party looked like a terrorist gathering!" after we do it, or if we can claim that there was a bad guy somewhere in the area and that's who we were really after.
  • You can do whatever you want, as long as you post a picture of someone who has jumped out of the Twin Towers after the attack of 9/11. Anything.
  • The only elected official who has been tortured is a total pansy because he thinks torture is bad. Total pansy.
  • Elected officials who dodged service in the military because they had "other priorities" are Truly Heroic and Brave for advocating torture, for defending torture, and for saying that they'd be happy -- happy, I tell you  -- to torture again, because it was awesome! Or something.

Sunday, November 30, 2014

If you're a White Guy with a Gun...

So far this year, we've seen cops shoot a black guy in a Wal-Mart because he was carrying a pellet gun that he had gotten from a Wal-Mart shelf and was planning to buy.
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We've seen cops pull up to a gazebo and shoot a 12-year-old black kid dead for the crime of, again, carrying a pellet gun.

We've seen a cop in Ferguson, Missouri shoot an 18-year-old black kid dead for giving him a hard time.



But a drunken white guy parading around with an assault rifle? They get multiple cars to the scene and they negotiate with him. Seriously.



Tense encounter between open-carry advocate and Kalamazoo police detailed in recordings, reports | MLive.com:



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Wednesday, November 26, 2014

McCullough Charges Cop!

So... when a black cop hits a white person with a baton, he goes to jail. When a white cop hits a black kid with many bullets and kills him... well, you know the story.



St. Louis County Police Officer Charged « CBS St. Louis:



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Tuesday, November 11, 2014

Americans Don't Know How Good They Have it With Obama, Part 0.5

Apparently, our friends Up North have been watching the theater that is politics in America with something that can only be described as consternation. This article is from 2010:



The real problem with Americans and their disrespect for Obama—according to a Canadian - Quartz:



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Monday, November 10, 2014

Racism is Dead in America, Part Two Zillion

Charles Topher, writing for If You Only News .com spots a slight difference in the reactions to the photos of two different college graduates breastfeeding their infants while still in their caps and gowns. For some unfathomable reason, the reaction to one photo was filled with praise, while the reaction to the other was damning. See if you can guess what the difference was between the two women who were the subjects of these photos before you click on the link below.

College Moms’ Graduation Photos: A Tale Of Two Breasts (IMAGES) | If You Only News:



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Americans don’t know how good they have it with Obama

Time for a little perspective from one of our Friends Up North: Americans don’t know how good they have it with Obama:



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Friday, November 07, 2014

Do it for the Children

Paul Krugman, weighing in on the midterm election of 2014, had, in part, this to say: "But the biggest secret of the Republican triumph surely lies in the discovery that obstructionism bordering on sabotage is a winning political strategy. From Day 1 of the Obama administration, Mr. McConnell and his colleagues have done everything they could to undermine effective policy, in particular blocking every effort to do the obvious thing — boost infrastructure spending — in a time of low interest rates and high unemployment.

This was, it turned out, bad for America but good for Republicans. Most voters don’t know much about policy details, nor do they understand the legislative process. So all they saw was that the man in the White House wasn’t delivering prosperity — and they punished his party."



You should go read the entire article for yourself: Triumph of the Wrong - NYTimes.com And you should have a talk with your kids, who probably sat out this election, who probably aren't up on the issues anyway, and who will reap the whirlwind of woe as the Republicans throttle the recovery even further, boost the cost of education, fan the flames of war, further cement their control over women's bodies, and funnel even more money into the pockets of the mega-wealthy. Forget about your Crazy Uncle Bob, the one who emails you all those ALL CAPS missives about the horrors of Obama; he's too far gone. But the kids? Maybe you can save them before it's too late.



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Saturday, October 04, 2014

Orlando cop investigated after body camera surfaces showing rough arrest

Orlando cop investigated after body camera surfaces showing rough arrest:



Is there still anybody out there who doesn't think that the cops beat the shit out of anyone who pisses them off? And that's when they don't shoot them.



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Wednesday, July 30, 2014

Genocide, in Real Time



Infographic showing the number of Palestinians killed in Gaza, broken down into the categories of Civilians (further broken down into women and children), Members of armed groups, and "Unknown."

Source: United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs



This is a map of Gaza, already the most crowded place on the planet. Gazans have been ordered by Israel to move out of the pink-shaded "buffer zone" that includes almost half of Gaza. Note that this area will be without electricity, running water, and sewage treatment because the Israeli Defense Force bombed Gaza's only power plant.




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Monday, July 28, 2014

Numbers to Ponder, Israel vs. Gaza Edtion

Well over 1,000 Palestinians have been killed in the most recent "skirmish" in Gaza. More than seventy percent of those killed were civilians. With that in mind, here are some statistics:

Number of Israelis killed in traffic accidents in 2013: 303 (Source: Jerusalem Post)

Total number of Israelis killed by Hamas rocket attacks since 2001: 35 (Source: Mondoweiss)

Number of Palestinian homes demolished by Israel, 1967 - 2012: 28000 (Source: Israeli Committee Against Home Demolitions)

Wednesday, July 16, 2014

IRS Scandal! Republican MegaWealthy Donors Frightened! Oh Noes!

Paul Waldman, writing in his column in The American Prospect, talks about the current state of Republican fundraising. He touches on the IRS "scandal," said to have had a "demonizing" effect on Republican donors. About the IRS "scandal," he has this to say:

The worst thing that happened was that some Tea Party groups that had applied for 501(c)(4) status—claiming, utterly falsely, that they were charitable, non-political organizations, I might add—had to wait longer than they should have to get approval on their applications. (And, I have to repeat, when you’re waiting for your approval, you’re permitted under the law to act as though you’ve gotten your approval. You can raise and spend money, which they did.)
That's right. A few groups, who were skirting the law, had to suffer the indignity of a meaningless delay. And for this, we've had... what is it, fourteen million hearings?

Republicans. They are very very very good at crying foul or, in soccer terms, flopping.



  The Continuing Agonies of the Super-Rich:



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