Wednesday Reads: Take a Knee, Shut the F*ck Up!
Posted: September 21, 2016 Filed under: Black Lives Matter, Civil Liberties, Civil Rights, court rulings, Crime, Human Rights, Injustice system, Main Stream Media, morning reads, open thread, police brutality, Psychopaths in charge, public corruption, racism, Real Life Horror, right wing hate grouups, U.S. Politics | Tags: #KeithLamontScott, #TerenceCrutcher 11 Comments
Bagley cartoon: Police Reform | The Salt Lake Tribune
Today’s post is going to focus on the few days…and the shooting deaths of two black men by police.
By now I am sure you have heard of #TerenceCrutcher …you may not have yet heard of #KeithLamontScott. The fact that I’ve put their names in #hashtag format should give you a huge clue…these two men are the latest men to be killed by police while being black.
Anger grows in Tulsa as police release video of fatal shooting of unarmed black man – LA Times
A fatal police shooting of an unarmed black man by a white officer has reopened fresh wounds in this city with a fraught history among African Americans, white residents and police officers.
A graphic police video shows Terence Crutcher, 40, being fatally shot by a police officer Friday night as he walks with his hands up toward his SUV, stalled out in the middle of the road.
Video at that link and more…
The police shooting victim in Charlotte, North Carolina has been identified by friends and family as Keith Lamont Scott, 43. The officer who shot Scott has been identified as Charlotte-Mecklenburg police officer Brentley Vinson.
UPDATE: 9/20/16, 9:00 p.m. ET — The victim’s daughter, Lyric Scott, has gone live again from a growing protest in response to the police shooting of her father.
***ORIGINAL STORY BELOW***
A disabled black man has died at the hospital after being shot by a Charlotte-Mecklenburg police officer Tuesday afternoon on Old Concord Road in University City, a subdivision of Charlotte, NC.
Police said they were searching for someone who had outstanding warrants when they saw a man with what they believed to be a gun leave a vehicle.
According to police reports, the man, who has not been named, returned to his vehicle. When they approached the man, they claim he “posed an imminent deadly threat to the officers” and one of them opened fire. An eyewitness told the victim’s daughter that a Taser was used on her father, then he was shot at least three times.
Medics arrived and the injured man was taken to Carolinas Medical Center, where he was later pronounced dead.
The victim was not the subject of the initial search, said Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Chief Kerr Putney.
I have so much to say, but my internet is acting up or wordpress is doing something wonky…I will give you plenty of links for now…more to be said in the comments.
Hillary statement:
Charlotte Cops Kill Man Who Was Allegedly Unarmed and Reading in Car | Alternet
Calm urged in Charlotte, North Carolina after 16 officers hurt in protests | Reuters
Charlotte erupts after police kill black man who was waiting for his kid to get home
Police In North Carolina Fatally Shoot Black Man, Sparking Protests | Huffington Post
Tulsa cop believed Terence Crutcher was high on PCP following drug recognition training | theGrio
Police shooting of Terence Crutcher may test Tulsa tensions | PBS NewsHour
That statement about her brother was not a bad bad dude…oh wow.
Terence Crutcher’s Family Seeks Criminal Charges: ‘His Life Mattered’ | Huffington Post
The U.S. Department of Justice has opened an investigation into the police killing of 40-year-old Terence Crutcher in Tulsa, Oklahoma, on Friday, but his family is demanding that the charges against the involved officer be filed immediately.
Police were originally responding to an unrelated call when they approached Crutcher’s vehicle, which had been stalled in the middle of the street. Shortly after the officers arrived, one officer deployed his taser on Crutcher who stood by his car. Moments later, Officer Betty Shelby, who is white, fatally shot Crutcher, who was black and unarmed, while he had his hands raised in the air, according to this graphic video footage released on Monday. Inone video that was captured by an overhead helicopter, Crutcher is seen standing by his car while a police officer is overheard describing him as a “bad dude.”
“That big ‘bad dude’ ― his life mattered,” Crutcher’s twin sister Tiffany Crutcher told reporters on Monday, according to Tulsa World. She went on to demand an end to police brutality. “The chain breaks here. We’re going to stop it right here in Tulsa, Oklahoma. This is bigger than us right here. We’re going to stop it right here.”
Tiffany, who just celebrated her 40th birthday with her brother, mentioned a recent text message she received from Terence that she said read, “I’m going to show you. I’m going to make you all proud.”
She expressed her grievance over his loss and how Terence will never get that chance, “because of the negligence and the incompetency and the insensitivity, and because he was a big, ‘bad dude,’” Tiffany said. “And so we’re demanding today, immediately, that charges are pressed against this officer that was incompetent, that took my brother’s life.”
[…]
“When Terence was shot, he laid on the ground bleeding out without any assistance,” Dario Solomon-Simmons, an attorney for the family and longtime family friend, said at the conference. “Terence died on that street by himself in his own blood, without any help.”
“This video is extremely disturbing,” he added. “Without a doubt we believe this was an unjustified shooting that should not have happened.”
The anger around Crutcher’s death has been felt from many on social media who have poured out their grievances online over the police killing of yet another unarmed black man with the trending hashtag #TerenceCrutcher. However, as the mourning continues, Crutcher’s sister has asked that people remain peaceful as they demonstrate their anger over his death.
“Just know that our voices will be heard,” she said. “The video will speak for itself. Let’s protest. Let’s do what we have to do, but let’s just make sure that we do it peacefully, to respect the culture of (the Crutcher family).”
Crutcher’s attorney has a razor-sharp retort after cops say they found PCP in dead man’s SUV
When black death goes viral, it can trigger PTSD-like trauma | PBS NewsHour
This next link is from a comment by a woman who has an adopted black son…she lives in Tulsa.
Other thoughts:
A Law Professor Explains Why You Should Never Talk to Police | VICE | United States
On the Kaepernick protest:
Here’s How Many Black People Have Been Killed By Police Since Colin Kaepernick Began Protesting | Huffington Post Oh yeah, it has only been one month.
At least 15 black people have died during encounters with the police since San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick began protesting police violence by kneeling before NFL games, based on numbers compiled by The Guardian.
Kaepernick’s decision to sit or take a knee during the national anthem first drew attention after his team’s Aug. 26 preseason game against the Green Bay Packers, when he told NFL.com that he was “not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color.” Since then, Kaepernick’s continued protest has drawn considerable criticism from politicians, police unions, pundits, other professional athletesand many on social media who have opposed both his message and his method of conveying it.
But the problem Kaepernick wants to highlight has continued. And on Monday, it was back in the news again, after police in Tulsa, Oklahoma, released multiple videos that showed the fatal shooting of Terence Crutcher.
The videos show that 40-year-old Crutcher, like so many other black men, was unarmed with his hands in the air when police officers shot and killed him as he returned to his car, which had stalled in the middle of a roadway. The videos run contrary to the department’s initial statements about the shooting, which claimed that Crutcher had ignored officers’ warning to raise his hands.
Colin Kaepernick says he has received death threats – NY Daily News
8 Tweets About Terence Crutcher Show What You’re Ignoring By Shaming Colin Kaepernick | Bustle
Booker: People ‘more outraged’ by Kaepernick protests than police shooting | TheHill
Colin Kaepernick to Donate $100K Per Month to Charity – The Daily Beast
DL Hughley bursts with righteous fury at Kaepernick haters who shrug over Terence Crutcher’s killing
NFL execs say Kaepernick is a “traitor” …and then nominate a convicted serial rapist to Hall of Fame
And lastly a few links that are related to the topic today:
My Dad Is An Unarmed Black Man: Will He Be Shot Next? | Bustle
Independent Autopsy Reveals Police Likely Shot Tyre King While He Was Running Away | Colorlines
ACLU sues Connecticut state police for conspiring fake charges against a protester | McClatchy DC
Am I Going to Write About Murdered Black People Forever?
Man dies of thirst in jail run by Trump-loving sheriff after guards cut off his water for six days
Federal appeals court rules it’s okay to discriminate against black hairstyles like dreadlocks – Vox
No charges against officers in standoff that killed Korryn Gaines – NY Daily News
I can’t end this post on a happy note. No way in hell.
This is an open thread of course.
Wednesday Reads: It’s Black…Its White…It’s Whiter White
Posted: July 20, 2016 Filed under: 2016 elections, Donald Trump, education, Hillary Clinton, History, homophobia, immigration, Main Stream Media, misogyny, Psychopaths in charge, public education, racism, Refugees, religious extremists, Republican politics, Republican presidential politics, right wing hate grouups, the GOP, The Right Wing, U.S. Politics, We are so F'd | Tags: The RNC Cleveland 40 Comments
Good Afternoon
As you will notice today’s post is being accompanied by black and white stripes. (Or are they white and black stripes?)
Black and white printed stripes, black shadows against white skin, or white lights streaming upwards against a black night.
Whatever the case may be, I think the last few days have brought home my deepest fears…perhaps it is because I live in Banjoville, a town that is so predominately Trump territory. So I have the intimate knowledge of the “phenomena” that is Trump-ism… you know that shit that so many dumb-asses in the media write about…let me tell you plain and simple what is Trump’s Juju with the crowd who is voting for him come November.
It is white supremacy.
Shall I repeat it? Yes, I think I should.
White Supremacy.
And it brings with it all the other horrible baggage you would expect…the usual racism, hate, intolerance, misogyny, assholism, and all the rest peppered with a shit load of “christian values” as they define the code of religious virtue…as it applies to who they feel deserves it. Which you all know is limited to those they consider “right” enough (white enough) to meet the approved standard.
As this quote from Juan Cole, when speaking about the shit-stain Rep. Stephen King…and his disgusting comment at the RNC on Monday: Rep. Stephen King, White People and ‘Civilization’
Rep. Steve King objected to a comment during a cable news discussion at MSNBC that this will be the last election dominated by old white people.
”
Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) offered an unusual defense of the racial homogeneity of his party during a panel on MSNBC Monday evening.The group, led by Chris Hayes, was discussing the first day of the Republican national convention and Donald Trump’s history of racially-loaded comments and behavior. King told Hayes that he thought Trump had “modified” his behavior in that regard, but Esquire’s Charlie Pierce said he didn’t see much diversity reflected in the gathering itself.
“If you’re really optimistic, you can say that this is the last time that old white people will command the Republican Party’s attention, its platform, its public face,” Pierce said. “That hall is wired,” he continued. “That hall is wired by loud, unhappy, dissatisfied white people.”
King objected.
“This ‘old white people’ business does get a little tired, Charlie,” King said. “I’d ask you to go back through history and figure out, where are these contributions that have been made by these other categories of people that you’re talking about, where did any other subgroup of people contribute more to civilization?”
“Than white people?” Hayes asked, clearly amazed.
“Than, than Western civilization itself,” King replied. “It’s rooted in Western Europe, Eastern Europe and the United States of America and every place where the footprint of Christianity settled the world. That’s all of Western civilization.”
There are lots of basic things wrong with King’s statement, even just starting with his category of ‘whiteness’. Whiteness is not ‘natural’– it is an invented category. Were Irish white? A lot of English didn’t think so. “Whites” rioted against Greek immigrants to the US. White supremacists still argue over whether to let in Italian-Americans. Me, I don’t want to be called white and I decline that categorization whenever the government or other people with questionnaires will let me. The Appalachian side of my family probably has some Melungeon to it and some of us aren’t all that ‘white.’
Cole goes on to correct King’s ridiculous statement about “civilization” here:
If by civilization is meant urban society with high rates of literacy, scientific and technological innovation, role specialization and division of labor, and high levels of collective government, then northern European Christians did not invent it.
Iraq, Iran, India, China and Egypt did. The Sumerians, Babylonians, Assyrians, Elamites, Persians, Indians, Chinese and the Pharaohs of Egypt had civilization for thousands of years while Celts in Britain were painting themselves blue and doing hunting and gathering in the wastes.
There is way more at the link, please go and read the full article.
You can see video of the statements here: America And White Cultural Superiority: Representative Steve King
Of course it is no use to show or tell these Trumptarians the facts. Because they will go on, completely make up false stuff, put it in school books and teach it to the young children. And hey, they don’t even have to stick to charter schools anymore, in Texas…where most of the US public schools purchase their textbooks to use in the public education system, fact is a thing of the past.
A Textbook That Paints Mexican-Americans As Lazy Could Be Coming To A School Near You
It’s “deeply flawed,” but that hasn’t stopped the Texas State Board of Education before.
A proposed Mexican-American studies textbook has drawn harsh criticism for what Latino educators and scholars in Texas are calling a lack of scholarly expertise, major factual inaccuracies and demeaning characterizations of Mexican-Americans.
“What we have now is a deeply flawed and a deeply offensive textbook,” Celina Moreno, of the Texas Latino Education Coalition, said at a Monday press conference.
Groups like Moreno’s came together with professors who specialize in Mexican-American heritage, and who had been independently scrutinizing the textbook, to share some of their disturbing findings.
Emilio Zamora, a professor of history at the University of Texas at Austin, reviewed material that covered the U.S.-Mexican War of 1846-48 to the present. He said he found “five to seven serious, serious errors per page,” which render the entire publication “useless and even counterproductive.”
The Texas State Board of Education is currently reviewing the book for potential approval. Although the book’s fate is far from clear, the board has previously approved textbooks and curricula that deny climate change, promote creationism, whitewash historical events and maintain that the roots of Western democracy are found in the Bible.
And last year, the board rejected a proposal that state-approved elementary and high school textbooks be fact-checked by academics.
Oh, that emphasis is mine…
Because of the state’s tremendous clout in the educational publishing world, Dan Quinn of the nonpartisan educational watchdog group Texas Freedom Network told HuffPost that content that makes the grade in the Lone Star State is likely to be adopted ― in some form or another ― well beyond its borders.
I really feel that this has been coming for some time. I remember writing about this textbook shit years ago…it is one of the topics we have discussed frequently on the blog.
The lone proposal for a Mexican-American heritage textbook came from Momentum Instructions, a company linked to Cynthia Dunbar, a former education board member known for her extreme conservative views. Quinn described her four-year term on the board as “one culture war after another.”
In a 2008 book titled One Nation Under God ― released while Dunbar was still serving on the state board ― she called public education “tyrannical” and a “subtly deceptive tool of perversion,” according to the Texas Observer.
As for the proposed textbook, Quinn suggested that Dunbar and its authors were seeking to “promote their own political and personal ideas.” He said the authors lack credible expertise in the field of Mexican-American studies.
Emails and calls to Momentum Instructions were not immediately returned.
For a few more remarks on this “textbook” see this article: Scholars Have Scathing Reviews for Mexican-American History Textbook
It sounds like something you would expect in a nation that has Trump as the official GOP Candidate for President…
As the State Board of Education (SBOE) is accepting comments on the book before voting on it in November, a group of academics and advocacy groups decided to take a closer look at Mexican American Heritage. Organized as the Responsible Ethnic Studies Textbook Coalition, they announced their reviews Monday morning at the Texas Education Agency’s (TEA) offices in Austin.
As it went on, the press conference began to sound more like the least successful book blurb pitch session ever:
“A deeply flawed and deeply offensive textbook that has no place in Texas classrooms.” — Celina Moreno, Texas Latino Education Coalition
“Useless and even counter-productive.” — Emilio Zamora, professor of history at UT-Austin
“Replete with … offensive racial stereotypes.” — Lilliana Saldaña, associate professor of Mexican-American studies at UT-San Antonio
“So riddled with factual errors that a traditional publisher would not have recognized or tried to publish this book.” — Christopher Carmona, National Association for Chicana and Chicano Studies-Tejas Foco
“Willfully irresponsible, culturally chauvinist and discriminatory.” — Zamora
“The person who wrote the section on Texas history would have failed a fourth-grade exam. … There are no women cited or quoted in the entire chapter.” — José María Herrera, assistant professor of education at UT-El Paso
“Simply unworthy. … Obviously a fraud.” — Zamora, again
The coalition is calling for the SBOE to completely reject the book — not just require a few tweaks to the text — for a combination of factual errors, academic laziness and cultural insensitivity.
Saldaña noted that the book not only refers to indigenous people as “Indians,” but provides a lengthy explanation of why “Indians” is the best term to use. Elsewhere, Saldaña pointed out, the authors describe one group of people as driven by “bloodlust” — language she said was better suited to a Hollywood script than a serious academic text.
Uh…chapters with no women writers or quotes? What the fuck? (Misogyny strikes again!) I don’t know, the few comments from members of the Republican board members will give you an example of how frustrating the attitude can be…Proposed Texas textbook describes Mexican-Americans as ‘lazy,’ new coalition works to block it – The Washington Post
The Texas State Board of Education is reviewing the proposed book and will consider public comments and feedback in September.
In an article in the Austin American-Statesman last month, one board member said the textbook was okay with him:
Board member David Bradley, R-Beaumont, who opposed asking for a Mexican-American studies course and textbook, said the proposed book seems fine.
“It’s really kind of amusing. The left-leaning, radical Hispanic activists, having pounded the table for special treatment, get approval for a special course that nobody else wanted,” Bradley said. “Now they don’t like their special textbook? I bet they want everyone to also get an A for just attending? The one thing we can’t fix in this world is unhappy people.”
It really pisses me off…fuck him. (That male superior tone in the statement. How I hate it.) And this is how the majority of the population in my home town think. It is exactly how a Trumptonain thinks. And it is the kind of person who will vote him into office.
Just one more link for you today…this: What’s on Display in Cleveland? The Republican Id – BillMoyers.com
The triumph of Trump has demonstrated the cost of the devil’s bargain that party elites — and the media — have accepted over the years.
What is on display at the RNC in Cleveland is the Republican id. We always suspected it would look something like this. But even though it reared its ugly head on occasion on Fox News or in Congress — on the lips of some right-wing preacher or billionaire hedge-fund manager. They would compare gays to Satan, progressive taxation to Naziism and people of color to criminals at best, animals at worst — but the more polite, polished folks who spoke for the party would always regretfully shake their well-coiffed heads and explain that wasn’t what the party was really about.
And to their eternal shame, most in the media ran interference for this confidence game, only to be blindsided when Trump demonstrated that it had always been a charade.
Well thanks to Donald Trump and his followers, the jig is up. Melania Trump’s plagiarism of Michelle Obama was just about the least offensive thing one heard from the podium on Monday night. The rest was a near orgy of hatred, racism, sexism and ethnocentrism. Rudy Giuliani has always presented himself as an avatar of “law and order.” This has been a conservative mantra for half a century. We always suspected it was code for the suppression of African-Americans and now we know. Ditto all this talk of “Judeo-Christian” values. It’s a code for Islamophobia and oppression. And the attacks on Hillary Clinton sound an awful lot as if they are being spoken by people who simply cannot accept the fact that women have the same rights and capabilities as men. And to their eternal shame, most in the media ran interference for this confidence game, only to be blindsided when Trump demonstrated that it had always been a charade.
Listen to the speeches by the Republican heavyweights who have agreed to take the stage in Cleveland; not one of them has put forth an actual idea that makes sense in terms of how to govern the United States. That’s because governance has long ceased being relevant to the Republican coalition. What holds it together is nothing more than nostalgia for a more oppressive America and resentment toward those who refuse, any longer, to sit on the back of bus.
My only response to this is to say that it is what I’ve been seeing all along, for years…from my window into the world that is my “quiet redneck mountain town” of Banjoville, GA. It is frightening as hell. I cannot lean back and think this election is a done deal. That folks will vote for Hillary and that she is a foregone conclusion to win in November. I am truly scared Trump could pull it out, and the stupidity will put him in office…and we will once again see the white lights of supremacy that shone in Nuremberg those years ago…brightening the dark black skies over America…to make America Great Again…to make America Safe Again. (As the RNC message was on Monday.)
Fucking hell.
Wednesday Reads: Luck be a Lady!
Posted: June 22, 2016 Filed under: 2016 elections, abortion rights, Afternoon Reads, Donald Trump, Migrant and Refugee Crisis in Europe and Mediterranean, racism, right wing hate grouups, SWAT teams, the GOP, U.S. Politics, Voter Ignorance 22 Comments
Good Afternoon
Lady Luck?
Luck be a Lady?
I always wondered about that…if luck is supposed to be a feminine representation, like a boat or a car is referred to as a “she” …then why the fuck does luck have to be thought of in terms of as being a woman?
The post is late today because I spent the last couple of hours trying to remember the name of this novel I read back some 17 years ago. (It took me that long to Google terms like, Indian authors, books about women, phrases about being unfortunate to be born a woman…) Looking up on Goodreads, at title after title of hundreds of books, just to find this one…
What the Body Remembers by Shauna Singh Baldwin. 1st ed. Published 1999 by N.A. Talese in New York . (Open Library)
…so that I could put up the first few paragraphs of the prologue here in the beginning of the post today.
If your click on the images you will see them in a much larger size…please do because what is written there is so poignant.
By the way, if you want a review of the book:
SAWNET: Book Review: What the Body Remembers
Replacement Part– NY Times Book Review
What the Body Remembers– Excerpt of the book via NY Times Book Review
Now that that is put out there for y’all to think about…a few links on luck.
Luck be a lady, hell yeah! You bet, only best not be a black lady…I mean a black man….that is, a black Number 2 big shot from the Georgia Republican Party…trying to get into the meet and greet with the GOP’s “ASSumed” presidential candidate.
Georgia GOP’s No. 2 blocked from meeting Donald Trump | Political Insider blog
At least we know something happened. On Monday, Buzzfeed had a dispatch about a rather foggy incident that happened while Republican presidential presumptive Donald Trump was at the Fox Theatre in Atlanta:
A Georgia Republican Party official was thrown out of a Donald Trump event last week, according to two sources.
Michael McNeely, the first vice chair of the Georgia Republicans, was escorted out of Atlanta’s Fox Theatre by Secret Service after being told there was “no more room for you” by Trump campaign state director Brandon Phillips, according to a party official briefed on the incident. The official requested anonymity said they were not authorized to speak on behalf of the party.
This morning, McNeely sent us the following statement:
Last week, an event staffer and I had a discussion about room access. Security surrounding a Presidential candidate being what it is, he couldn’t relent from protocol and I left the building.
There were no ill feelings. We’re looking forward to defeating Hillary Clinton and working together to elect Donald Trump as the next president of the United States. Efforts made by the media to question our unity is nonsense and has no basis in fact.
Brandon Phillips, Trump’s go-to in Georgia, called it a security issue and said the Secret Service officers were being vigilant.
Here’s why the incident is worth noting: The Trump event at the Fox specifically emphasized an appeal to black voters in Georgia and elsewhere. As first vice president, McNeely is the ranking African-American in the Georgia GOP hierarchy.
That is how the Atlanta Journal-Constitution saw it anyway…if you want to read how the other news folks saw the slight, you can take a look here:
Georgia GOP Official Removed From Atlanta Trump Event – BuzzFeed News
Black Georgia GOP official booted from Atlanta Trump event with no explanation
I like that second headline…which is from Raw Story.
Seriously, I know it is a horrible show of racism, at least to me it is, but when I first read the article about what happened backstage at the Trump Rally here in Atlanta Georgia the past week…I thought, of course! What did this dude expect? “Welcome son!” “Marry my daughter?”
As for the racism shit…check this out:
Taking a cue from Trump’s slogan, “Make America Right Again”… Tenn. U.S. House candidate wants to ‘Make America White Again’ – NY Daily News
Rick Tyler, an independent Congressional candidate for Tennessee’s 3rd district, is facing a boycott of his restaurant business after he advertised his candidacy with racist billboard messages like “Make America White Again.”
Geez….or how about this asshole:
‘Go F*cking Cook My Burrito, Bitch!’: Delightful NSFW Trump Supporter Identified | Mediaite
On Saturday at a Donald J. Trump rally in Phoenix, Arizona, an over enthusiastic supporter of the real estate mogul had some choice words that were captured on film. Specifically, “Go fucking cook my burrito, bitch!”
Video at the link of course.
The Smoking Gunhas identified that delightful man in the video that is rapidly going viral: Zackary Fisher. Along with the name ID, the site provided this strangely specific description of the man who, at one point, casually offers, “I f***ed your whole fucking family with my big c**k,” in the video.
When not loudly lecturing others about tortillas, burritos, and the size of his penis, Fisher enjoys working out at LA Fitness, hiking, and spending time with his pit bull. Fisher has also fought in MMA matches, but it appears his career in the cage was derailed by injury.
Oh, and Fisher recently fired off an AR-15 rifle in a series of Instagram videos, too. Par for the course I guess.
“I love Trump! I love Trump! I love my country,” he continues in the video.
Donald Trump, the Republican party presumptive nominee ahead of the general election, once remarked, “I love the poorly educated.”
Ugh…
And, in other news, just how lucky is Marco Rubio? Cruz endorses Rubio Senate run – POLITICO
Lucky for Trump, these nuts were available: Donald Trump hires Michele Bachmann, Jerry Falwell Jr. – NY Daily News
Oh, and perhaps we know why Christie is now Donald Trump’s servant boy? Did Trump really pay off Christie’s campaign debt? No wonder….innit Christie a lucky boy?
I have to also mention, some other lucky boys…that is tongue in cheek, big time: Former Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert to Report to Prison – ABC News
Here are a few updates to stories we have written about, some deal with incidents that happened years ago:
Poland to dig up bodies of victims of 2010 Smolensk presidential jet crash | World news | The Guardian Remember this airline crash?
Prosecutors want to examine remains amid claims the crash, which killed president Lech Kaczyński, may have been caused by an explosion
A look at the Refugee Crisis, in terms of, Can we stop the Mediterranean from becoming a Refugee Graveyard? | Informed Comment
Another link from Informed Comment: $206 Mn. to Hate Groups to Promote anti-Muslim Sentiment | Informed Comment
There is also this: No ‘magic bullet’ against jihadist propaganda, Lynch says | Tampa Bay Times
The massacre at a popular gay nightclub shows no one yet has “found the magic bullet” to prevent Americans from being inspired to violence by jihadist propaganda on the Internet, Attorney General Loretta Lynch said Tuesday as she visited a city still shaken by the shootings.
But no one seems to be paying attention to it.
There was this update, also from the Tampa Times, that got me interested…what do you all think? Police told not to pursue Orlando shooter for ’15 or 20 minutes — could’ve been longer’ until SWAT arrived | Tampa Bay Times
Ah, on to a few newsy links regarding some of the Southern States.
Unlucky to be poor, and live in Louisiana: SPLC lawsuit: Louisiana judge operating modern-day debtors’ prison | Southern Poverty Law Center
Could be worse.
Hey, at least you are lucky to live outside of Kentucky…Kentucky Is Down To One Abortion Clinic | Care2 Causes
And if you do live in Kentucky, well…you probably have more rural hospitals than we do here in Georgia: Georgia’s sixth rural hospital closure on Gov. Deal’s watch
(As a side note, I am not impressed by the rural hospitals around here. But that is my own opinion.)
What do I know anyway, this really worries me: 10 Warning Signs of Alzheimer’s Disease
Another thing that has worried me lately, is all the earthquake activity in California. Have you noticed the few earthquakes rattling Southern Cali?
Talk about luck? This is luck on a big huge scale:
Large-scale motion detected around San Andreas Fault System – UPI.com
“We were able to break down the noisy signals to isolate a simple vertical motion pattern that curiously straddled the San Andreas fault,” researcher Samuel Howell said.
For the first time, scientists have produced a computer image showing huge sections of California rising and sinking around the San Andreas fault.
The vertical movement is the result of seismic strain that will be ultimately released in a large earthquake.
The San Andreas fault is California’s longest earthquake fault, and one of the state’s most dangerous. Scientists have long expected that parts of California are rising — and other parts sinking — around the fault in a way that is ongoing, very subtle and extremely slow.
Such vertical movement makes a lot of sense. California sits on the border of two gigantic tectonic plates — the Pacific and North American — that are constantly grinding past each other.
Movement on a vast scale detected near San Andreas fault | Fox News
Large sections of land on either side of the San Andreas fault are moving up or down every year by a few millimeters, a major form of motion that researchers report in a new study that sheds light on the mechanics of the famous fault line.
Compared to the more predictable horizontal movement of the fault in between earthquakes, the vertical motion of the land on either side of the fault has been more mysterious, according to the study. The pattern the researchers found was hard to detect in the messy data, which came from an array of GPS sensors, so the scientists used a statistical method to make sense of it.
The up and down motion occurred in patches of land so big— about 125 miles wide— they can be described on the county level. Santa Barbara County, San Luis Obispo County, and a big section of San Bernardino County are rising at a few millimeters per year, The Los Angeles Times reported, while Orange County, San Diego County, and a large part of the Los Angeles Basin are sinking.
Those links just lead up to this headline from RT.COM news: The Big One: ‘Large scale motion’ detected along San Andreas fault — RT America
We will end it here with two links, showing how differently the word “luck” can be perceived.
Luck as in, aren’t you lucky you were named after Donald Trump!!!!!
Lots Of Parents Are Naming Babies After Clinton, Trump… And ‘Hamilton’
And…Shit fire holy fuck! You are one lucky bastard to come out of that house ALIVE!
Woman Says ‘Frigging Huge’ Snake Has Lived In Her House For Years
Hibberd named the snake Monty (the python) and called a snake catcher to have him removed.
“Its frigging huge! Have it locked in bedroom waiting for help……my life is never boring,” Hibberd told friends on Facebook.
The snake has lived in Hibberd’s home for 10 years and finally “tried to upgrade to the master bedroom,” the BBC reports.
Now, it hasn’t lived inside the home like a pet….according to that BBC report:
‘Big fatso’
Ms Hibberd said a friend staying at her house first noticed the gargantuan reptile’s presence.
“I guess he came in to have a bit of a feed or say hello, or he’s gone a bit senile. I’ve no idea,” she told the BBC.
But she thinks he has been living in the roof of her house for many years.
Monty has now been transferred to a sewage pond within the Cassowary Coast Regional Council area, where it is hoped he will take care of a rat infestation.
“I guess Monty has gone to snake heaven and he’s going to be this big fatso,” Ms Hibberd said.
Videos are at the link, I just watched them to hear the cussing, and to see how calm this woman is when a snake this big is in her house.
That is all for me today, what’s lucky in your neck of the woods?
Live Blog: Live Blog Republican Debate Hell Realm
Posted: March 10, 2016 Filed under: 2016 elections, Live, Live Blog, right wing hate grouups | Tags: 2016, Democratic Debate from Florida, live blog, Republican 128 Comments
Good Evening!
Well, if last night’s Democratic Debate wasn’t enough over kill for you, tonight’s Republican debate should do you in.
The debate is hosted by CNN and takes place in the battleground state of Florida which is basically Rubio’s Last Stand or (hmmm) the Rubiocon. Did that come off more like a convention for dimbulbs or as I intended?
Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, John Kasich and Marco Rubio will face off at CNN’s presidential debate on Thursday night in a state that could make one of the four men virtually unstoppable — and spell doom for another.
Thursday’s debate here comes just five days ahead of the next week’s “Super Tuesday 3,” when there are more than 350 delegates up for grabs, including in winner-take-all contests in Florida and Ohio.
Both Trump and Rubio are predicting that they will be victorious here in the Sunshine State, and fully aware of how much is riding on Florida. For Trump, a win here would fuel his growing momentum and further grow his delegate lead; for Rubio, losing his home state could be the death knell for his campaign.
Cruz and Kasich will also take the debate stage at a crucial moment in their campaigns. Cruz is aggressively trying to convince the Republican Party to coalesce around him, arguing he is the only candidate other than Trump capable of reaching 1,237 delegates; Kasich, who still has not won a single state, is eying his home state of Ohio with fresh optimism after a new poll this week showed him ahead of Rubio nationally. A Fox News poll released Wednesday showed Kasich leading Trump in Ohio, but the front-runner topping Rubio in Florida.
How will Little Marcio and Lying Ted stand up against Big Donald? Also, is this just an opportunity for Kasich to apply for the VP slot?
Donald Trump is leading two of his Republican presidential rivals in their home states,topping Sen. Marco Rubio in Florida and Gov. John Kasich in Ohio, new CNN/ORC polls show.
Hillary Clinton, meanwhile, is far ahead of Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders in both states.
In Ohio, Trump holds 41% to Kasich’s 35%, with Texas Sen. Ted Cruz in third at 15% and Rubio in fourth with 7%.
And in Florida, Trump holds 40% to Rubio’s 24%, with Cruz at 19% and Kasich at 5%.
This debate could be ugly. Here’s our check off list per Gizmo.
The nuanced language and posture of each candidate.
Each candidate’s stated position on national security.
Dangerous rhetorical slip ups that could tilt the public’s perception.
Cruz’s aggressiveness towards Trump.
Rubio’s decision to dial back his negative attacks on Trump.
Underhanded compliments.
Zest for life from any of the four potential nominees.
Illness resulting from a grueling campaign schedule.
Statements about immigration.
The amount of perspiration coming from each candidate.
Hillary’s tweets during the debate.
Every time Cruz looks directly at the camera.
Zealous fans of establishment candidates in the audience.
Oligarchy.
Discussion of gun deaths in America and around the world.
International trade agreements.
Any direct attacks on Bernie rather than Hillary.
Cautious wording about deportation of undocumented immigrants.
Killer apps.
Interest in anything besides yelling.
Loud cheers for Kasich on moderate policy positions.
Love.
Every time Ted Cruz, a sitting Senator, says the word “establishment”
Racist stuff and all that.
Okay, that wasn’t serious. Well, kinda sorta. Let’s try that again.
Here’s the information on how to watch the Zodiac Killer Senator Ted Cruz and the others debate. If the others are still alive after Ted’s Dominionist Demons get to them.
Tonight’s Republican debate will air on CNN. But don’t worry: If you don’t have cable, you’ll still be able to tune in — an online live stream will be free and available to all at CNN.com. The network has said the event will kick off at 8:30 pm Eastern in Miami, Florida.
This debate is the final one before a crucial day of voting in the GOP race on Tuesday, March 15. Five states — Florida, Ohio, Illinois, North Carolina, and Missouri — will go to the polls that day, and about 15 percent of overall Republican delegates will be up for grabs. Even more importantly, both Florida and Ohio allot all their delegates to whichever candidate comes in first, so Donald Trump has a big opportunity to expand his already sizable delegate lead.
Trump also has the chance to knock Marco Rubio and John Kasich out of the race, which he’d likely do if he beats each man in his home state. And he could well pull it off. Polls show Trump up big in Florida and neck and neck with Kasich in Ohio.Rubio’s campaign appears to be in free fall lately — his performance in Tuesday’s elections was simply disastrous, and there’s been increasing speculation that he’ll drop out of the race soon. This debate is likely his last chance to turn his prospects around.
Do you think I’m tired of these freaking things yet?
So, here’s some good stuff to cheer you up about last night’s miserable excuse for a panel of human beings/journos asking questions of 
Democratic Presidential Candidates.
what the hell did we just watch?!
Dear Univision: Show Us On The Doll Where Hillary And Bernie Hurt You“Interrumpiendo La Vaca MUUUUUUUUUU!!!!”
It wasn’t just the questions themselves, either. Remember when Evan made that hilarious interrupting cow en Español joke yesterday? Yeah, so did the Univision debate moderators, apparently, because they spent the entire night doing it, repeatedly cutting off both candidates halfway through (not unreasonably long!) responses. Any time Bernie and Hillary started to go back and forth on a subject — y’know, to have a fucking debate — all three moderators brusquely attempted to force them to move on. At two separate points, Ramos told Bernie “You have 30 seconds,” then tried to cut him off before he hit 15. Even Hillary looked like she wanted to say “For fuck’s sake, let the man speak.”It wasn’t just that they were interrupted, either, it was how relentlessly dickish the moderators were about it. Four separate times (three for Bernie, one for Hillary), the candidates had clearly finished speaking, but the moderators made it a point to snap “YOUR TIME IS UP” anyway.So That Was The Most Badly Moderated Debate We’ll Ever See, Right?
God, we hope so.
Please make these debates stop. I’m not having fun any more. Please let me out of this deep well. And stop giving me lotion. I don’t want any more lotion. I just want to go one night without watching a dang debate. Here is my recap of the last one. Won’t that suffice?
If not, here is the Wednesday night Univision/Washington Post debate summarized for those of you who were not unexpectedly trapped when helping a seemingly friendly stranger move a large unwieldy piece of furniture into a van and forced to watch these debates FOREVER PLEASE HAVE MERCY SEND SNACKS AT LEAST.
Clinton: Thank you for having me. I’ve been looking forward to this debate.
Maria Elena Salinas: Secretary Clinton, why don’t people trust you?
Clinton: Maybe it’s because I just said that I was looking forward to this debate, which is either a bald-faced lie or a sign that I am some kind of a sociopath. We had one of these three days ago. Why would we have another one now? Did you just want to torment me by putting me in another situation where a man makes unrealistic promises and waves his arms while I have to smile and look unruffled, all the while living with the knowledge that somehow he was what the people of Michigan wanted, not me? What does he have that I do not have? Does this answer your question?
Salinas: Maybe?
Salinas: Secretary Clinton, why don’t people like you?
Clinton: HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO ANSWER THAT
SERIOUSLY
Ladies and Gentlemen! Start your popcorn poppers!!!
Sunday Reads: Political Avoidance Coping disorder … aka PAC’d
Posted: February 28, 2016 Filed under: 2016 elections, abortion rights, birth control, Discrimination against women, fetus fetishists, fundamentalist Christians, Hillary Clinton, open thread, Planned Parenthood, PLUB Pro-Life-Until-Birth, Reproductive Health, Reproductive Rights, Republican presidential politics, right wing hate grouups, the GOP, The Right Wing, Vagina, War on Women, Women's Healthcare, Women's Rights | Tags: Donald Trump, Political Avoidance Coping disorder aka PAC'd 38 Comments
Close up of The Allegory of Good and Bad Government. A series of three fresco panels painted by Ambrogio Lorenzetti. Salla Dei Nove 1338 – 1339.
Political Avoidance Coping disorder
aka PAC’d
(Yes, a little “d” on the disorder.)
For surely the use of Avoidance Coping as an act of desperation in this Political/Presidential/Campaign Season could not be seen as a “disorder.”
Right?
This is not to confuse you with the term PAD (Political Affected Disorder)…that Mona came up with last presidential election season.
Or with the term PLUB (Pro-Life-Until-Birth) which I often use for the freakish fetus fetish GOP fuckers who are determined and….getting away with, closing down the houses of safe/legal abortion and women’s reproductive health.
But if I travel down that road I will go off on a different angle than I had planned….so I need to stay focused and stick with the Political Avoidance Coping disorder as a defense mechanism in these truly fucked up times because…if you are like me, you have spent the last year looking to get PAC’d.
So, now that Hillary has won South Carolina, do you think my PAC’d defenses will weaken a bit?
Not likely.
I am still worried as fuck.
When this is the opposite side, and the possible choice of two for the presidency:
Ya know, I won’t be able to cope with this election until the election is over.
There is just too much at stake, just look at a few headlines:
Chris Wallace: This Week’s Debate Was ‘Embarrassment for the Republican Party’ | Mediaite
Ex-Mexican President Fox: Trump reminds me of Hitler – CNNPolitics.com
Trump Dismisses His Retweet of a Mussolini Quote: ‘What Difference Does It Make?’ | Mediaite
The Latest: Cruz needles Trump over tax information – The Washington Post
Ted Cruz Speculates Donald Trump’s Taxes Could Show Mafia Ties – ABC News
Oh that is nothing…hey, Mafia Ties? I’ll take some Wiseguys over cross-burning racist any day. (Cough, cough)
David Duke Urges His Supporters To Volunteer And Vote For Trump – BuzzFeed News
Trump on white supremacist support: – CNNPolitics.com
The actual headline is, “Trump won’t disavow support from KKK, David Duke,” but you can take it from there.
And a sideline on the KKK: Ku Klux Klan rally in Anaheim erupts in violence; 3 are stabbed and 13 arrested – LA Times
A small group of people representing the Klan had announced that it would hold a rally at Pearson Park at 1:30 p.m., police said. By 11 a.m., several dozen protesters had shown up to confront the Klan.
About an hour later, several men in black garb with Confederate flag patches arrived in an SUV near the edge of the park.
Fighting broke out moments after Klan members exited the vehicle. Some of the protesters could be seen kicking a man whose shirt read “Grand Dragon.” At some point, a protester collapsed on the ground bleeding, crying that he had been stabbed.
A Klansman in handcuffs could be heard telling a police officer that he “stabbed him in self-defense.” Several other people were also handcuffed.
Witnesses said the Klansmen used the point of a flagpole as a weapon while fighting with protesters.
Two other protesters were stabbed during the melee — one with a knife and the other with an unidentified weapon, said Sgt. Daron Wyatt of the Anaheim Police Department.
Brian Levin, director of Cal State San Bernardino’s Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism, said he was standing near the KKK members when several protesters attacked them with two-by-fours and other weapons.
Several of the Klan members jumped in the SUV and sped off, leaving three others to “fend for themselves,” Levin said.
You can read the rest of the article at the link, but this is the key phrase I wanted to get in:
Levin had been trying to interview the KKK ringleader, whom he identified as William Quigg, an Anaheim resident.
Quigg is the leader of the Loyal White Knights in California and other Western states, a sect of the hate group that aims to raise awareness about illegal immigration, terrorism and street crime, Levin said. They see themselves as a “Klan without robes” and model themselves after David Duke, the Louisiana-based former grand wizard of the Klan, Levin said.
Notice I have focused on The Donald…for it is becoming clear that he is more than likely to be the GOP’s candidate this year. Ooof!
Now for a few other links à la Dump Flambé:
A Georgia Bill Shields Discrimination Against Gays – The New York Times
Lands’ End promotes Gloria Steinem in catalog, provokes anti-abortion freakout and bails – LA Times
How Lands’ End ended up in America’s vicious abortion fight – The Washington Post
Showdown on Abortion at the Supreme Court – The New York Times
The First Successful Uterus Implant in the U.S. Just Happened in Cleveland
The War on Women Is About to Get a Whole Lot Worse | Mother Jones
Abortion Rights In Louisiana Are Under Attack, And Only The Supreme Court Can Stop It | Bustle
Alabama GOP Makes Another Push to Regulate Abortion Clinics Like Sex Offenders
Florida’s 24-Hour Abortion Waiting Period to Take Effect – ABC News
Planned Parenthood closes Augusta clinic | The Augusta Chronicle
Alaska Senate OKs bill to bar Planned Parenthood in schools | The Charlotte Observer
Utah abortion bill would mandate anesthesia for fetus after 20 weeks | The Salt Lake Tribune
Images are from The Allegory of Good and Bad Government .
This is an open thread…
Sunday Reads: Silly Human Race
Posted: February 21, 2016 Filed under: 2016 elections, GLBT Rights, homophobia, morning reads, open thread, Political Affective Disorder, public education, racism, Republican politics, right wing hate grouups, the GOP, U.S. Politics | Tags: Georgia Religious Freedom Bill, Hillary #ImWithHer 44 Comments
Good Afternoon
Or Morning, if I actually got this post up in time.
Yesterday was a good day for Hillary and her supporters.
I am so lucky to have found out the outcome of the Nevada democrat caucuses from a text sent to me by Mona…I want to share it with you because I feel many of you are experiencing the same emotional exhaustion and disgust that this 2016 primary campaign has brought about.
As you can see…She knew just what to say.
Now for some links on the outcome of the races from yesterday:
Winners and losers of South Carolina and Nevada | TheHill
Saturday was a night of political drama from Charleston to Caesar’s Palace, as results rolled in from the Republican primary in South Carolina and the Democratic caucuses in Las Vegas.
As the dust settles, who’s on the up, and who is left licking their wounds?
WINNERS
Businessman Donald Trump
It was a massive night — “huge,” as he might put it himself — for the business mogul. Trump trounced the field in South Carolina, his closest rivals Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz trailing 10 points in his wake.
Trump has won two out of the three Republican contests to date and is the undeniable favorite to claim the nomination.
[…]
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
Clinton’s win in the Nevada caucuses provided her with some much-needed stability after she was rocked by a heavy defeat at the hands of Bernie Sanders in New Hampshire.
Sanders’s supporters must now realize just how steep a climb they face if their candidate is to wrest the nomination away from the longtime front-runner.
4 Takeaways From South Carolina GOP Primary And Nevada Democratic Caucus : NPR
Donald Trump posted a decisive victory Saturday night in South Carolina, a conservative state that on its face should have been inhospitable to the New York billionaire, but was anything but when voters went to the polls.
And Hillary Clinton pulled off a badly needed win in Nevada, besting Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders with an older, more diverse electorate in the state’s caucuses.
As we dive into the entrance and exit polling data, here’s four takeaways from the results.
I will post the four takeaways, you can read more about them at the link.
1. Evangelical voters have faith in Donald Trump
2. Republican voters like some of Trump’s most controversial proposals on banning Muslims
3. Political outsiders may have an advantage, but there’s a window for an establishment candidate like Marco Rubio
4. In Nevada, Clinton benefited from an older, more diverse electorate
Okay then.
As for the Hillary win, I think this may have been more of a factor:
Hillary Clinton built her victory over Sen. Bernie Sanders in Nevada on the strength of her support among women and minorities, the voting blocs that her campaign confidently predicts will carry her toward the Democratic nomination in the next several rounds of primaries.
According to a poll of voters entering caucus sites around the state, Clinton beat Sanders 57% to 41% among women. Sanders held a somewhat smaller lead among men, according to the entrance survey, conducted by Edison Research for the Associated Press and the major TV networks.
To compound Clinton’s margin, women made up well over half the turnout, the entrance poll found.
Clinton also established a big edge among nonwhite voters, while the two candidates closely split whites. Sanders won among younger whites, Clinton among their elders.
More breakdowns at the link.
Why Sexism at the Office Makes Women Love Hillary Clinton – The New York Times
THE poll numbers and primary results so far tell a simple story: Younger Democratic women are mostly for Bernie Sanders; older women lean more toward Hillary Clinton.
The mothers-versus-daughters narrative, long an election-year trope, is particularly pronounced now, and tinged with stereotypes on both sides. The idealistic but ungrateful naïfs who think sexism is a thing of the past and believe, as Mr. Sanders recently said, that “people should not be voting for candidates based on their gender” are seemingly battling the pantsuited old scolds prattling on about feminism.
Instead, the reality may be another kind of simple numbers game: More time in a sexist world, and particularly in the workplace, radicalizes women.
AP News Guide: Trump and Clinton power past rivals – The Washington Post
I thought that headline was interesting considering some that made it out like Hillary barely squeaked out a win.
And if you want to just dip into an article for the headline’s sake: If Donald Trump Can’t Stop Donald Trump, Who Can? – NBC News
That one is a classic.
There was some crap going on over at the Bernie Sanders party last night, did y’all see this?
Civil Rights Legend Says Sanders Supporters Yelled ‘English Only’ At Her
Dolores Huerta, a civil rights leader who has endorsed Hillary Clinton, said Saturday that Bernie Sanders supporters shouted her down when she tried to offer Spanish-language translations at a Las Vegas caucus location — including by chanting “English-only” — ahead of Clinton’s win in the Nevada Democratic caucuses.
“Shouting ‘English-only’ — that is completely against the spirit of everything that we’re working for,” Huerta told The Huffington Post in a phone interview.
Many of the caucus-goers were workers who spoke only Spanish, so she volunteered to do translation, Huerta said. But she said some Sanders supporters began to yell “No, no, no” and “English only,” and in the end, they went without translation entirely.
“To deprive these voters at this crucial time of having a translation of what was going on — this is something they need to know what’s taking place,” she said. “The caucus is a kind of complicated procedure. So the Bernie supporters would rather them not have any sort of translation rather than have someone like myself, who just happened to be a Hillary supporter, do the translation.”
Sources: Bernie Supporters Did Chant “English Only” At Latina Labor Activist – BuzzFeed News
On Saturday, Bernie Sanders supporters chanted “English only!” at a longtime labor and Latina activist, two neutral sources unaffiliated with either campaign told BuzzFeed News.
Video at the Buzzfeed link above…
I will let that mess speak for itself.
How about some good old-fashioned discrimination? From my own state this time…
Georgia Senate passes anti-gay bill – Business Insider
The Georgia state Senate has passed a religious freedom bill that critics fear could lead to anti-gay discrimination, boycotts and billions of dollars of lost revenue.
The Republican-backed legislation — passed Friday by a 38-14 margin that fell along party lines — is a hybrid of two bills.
The First Amendment Defense Act has received the most criticism of the two. It allows religious organizations to deny services if they cite “a sincerely held religious belief or moral conviction” against same-sex marriage.
The bill would apply to locally funded and state-funded nonprofit organizations such as hospitals, homeless shelters and adoption centers.
“This bill protects the constitutional rights of individuals and faith-based organizations,”said Republican state Sen. Greg Kirk, chief sponsor of the legislation. “It takes nothing away from same-sex couples or members of the LGBT community.
“It is a live-and-let-live bill.”
In other words it is another discrimination bill….I hate these ratfucking republicans.
…the broad language of the bill opens the door for same-sex discrimination, as well as discrimination against people of any orientation who have sex out of wedlock.
“Kirk really thinks that allowing anyone to discriminate against anyone makes the bill fair,” Robbie Medwed, a local gay-rights activist, wrote in a column for Atlanta magazine, Creative Loafing.
Georgia business leaders also criticized the bill, fearing it could lead to costly tourism boycotts and negative publicity. Some also expressed a desire to avoid the type of negative publicity the state of Indiana received when it passed its Religious Freedom Restoration Act last year.
“We believe that treating all Georgians and visitors fairly is essential to maintaining Georgia’s strong brand as the premier home for talented workers, growing businesses, entrepreneurial innovation, and a thriving travel and tourism industry,” the Metro Atlanta Chamber said in a statement.
In response to the bill, a number of major Georgia-based businesses, including Coca-Cola, Delta, Home Depot, UPS and Arby’s, joined the Georgia Prospers coalition earlier this year, promising to promote diversity in their workforces.
The other half of the bill is the so-called “Pastor Protection Act,” which ensures that clergy will not be forced to perform same-sex marriages. The act was met with little objection.
The combined bill will now go the House of Representatives for approval.
And guess what?
Georgia ‘Religious Freedom’ Bill Could Protect KKK, Sponsor Admits | Right Wing Watch
Georgia’s state senate is considering a “religious liberty” bill that would make it easier to discriminate against LGBT people by, as Americans United explains, allowing “any individual or ‘faith-based’ business, non-profit entity, or taxpayer-funded organization to ignore any law that conflicts with their religious beliefs about marriage.”
This means, according to AU, that “any person, business, or taxpayer-funded organization could refuse anyone else rights, services, and benefits because they are part of an interracial couple; are part of an interfaith couple; are a single mother; are part of a same-sex couple; are divorced; are remarried; live or have lived with a partner without being married; or have had sex outside of marriage at any time in their life.”
The broad scope of the bill, which combines a House-passed measure with an even broader Senate bill, has alarmed many observers, including state Sen. Emanuel Jones.
In a debate over the bill today, Jones asked its sponsor, Sen. Greg Kirk, if the Ku Klux Klan would count as a faith-based organization protected under the law.
“I guess they could,” Kirk answered, adding, “I don’t know what would stop them.”
When Jones asked Kirk if that seemed like a problem to him, Kirk responded that it did not because the bill “certainly isn’t directed” at the KKK.
Kirk then compared the KKK to Beyoncé’s “tribute to the Black Panthers” at the Super Bowl, saying that the Black Panthers would also be protected under the legislation.
Now a story of a major fuck-up. This will have you laughing like hell…
A Facebook group called Stop Safe Schools (a peculiar name) instructed their members to buy every ticket available to an annual LGBT-friendly high school dance so that no LGBT teenagers could attend.
Members of the anti-gay Facebook group apparently did buy a significant number of tickets, but there’s a glaring problem with their diabolical plan.
Unforunately for the anti-gay group of haters there are an unlimited number of “tickets,” which are really just donations to fund the dance, which is open to all. “Everyone is welcome regardless of identity, allies included, as long as everyone is being friendly and respectful!”
Because the anti-gay group so generously gave their money (over $45,000) to the Minus 18 organization which hosts the event, attendance will be free for everyone this year.
Jesus thanks you.
It occurs to me that even if their plan had succeeded, they still would have effectively donated a significant amount of money to the organization. It’s not clear how that benefits the anti-gay group or harms the organization. Ultimately, they would have only inconvenienced and insulted the students who planned to attend.
Over $45K that is some big time Gay Jesus love there. Good for them!
Now the rest of the day’s links in dump fashion.
Fiji: Tropical Cyclone Winston kills 6 – CNN.com
Deadly Cyclone Winston rocks Fiji with 177 mph winds – CBS News
Michigan Gunman Kills 6 in Random Shootings, Police Say – The New York Times
U.S. Map Compares States to Countries by Education
Americans like to think they are #1 in everything, but when it comes to education, the U.S. quickly loses boasting rights. Math and science are particularly rough: U.S. ranks 28th in the world for those subjects. Although we may be a developed nation, when education is broken down by state, we aren’t all that different from countries that are more economically challenged.
HomeSnacks.com used information from the U.S. high school graduation rates from the U.S. Census and compared them against the education index of each country from the United Nations Development Program.
The result? A map of the U.S. with each state renamed as the country that resembles their level of education.
What do you see: a rabbit? or a duck?
More than a 100 years after it was first sketched, a drawing has sparked huge reaction after being shared on social media.
Some see a rabbit and others will see a duck – but are you able to see both alternatively?
What you see (and how fast you see it) could indicate how quickly your brain works – and how creative you are.
I first saw the duck, but I saw the rabbit real quick too.
Culture shapes how leaders smile, research shows
How much a political leader smiles reflects their particular country’s cultural values related to how people express themselves, a Stanford scholar has found.
Newsprint newspapers – even in the digital age – remain very special | Media | The Guardian
There was a passage in Archie Bland’s excellent article about the “lovely chaos” at the Independent that struck a particular chord. He wrote:
“The print editions of our newspapers, even as they continue their inexorable decline, are such fixtures of ordinary life – sold in corner shops, abandoned on trains, pasted across the windows of empty properties, and still read everywhere – that their disappearance seems as unthinkable as the disappearance of the church.
You needn’t buy one to retain a romantic, unexamined sense that their raucous daily appearance is one of the vital signs of the nation. If so, it may soon seem as if all of our hearts are beating a little slower.”
My father, who liked to confide that “computers will never catch on”, regretted the passing of steam trains. Although we demand progress we tend to regret what we leave behind.
Remembering Cruyff and Pelé helps Alzheimer patients recover their past | Football | The Guardian
A smile of recognition slowly spreads across the elderly man’s face.
“A great goal by Cruyff against Reina,” he says, in a voice which strengthens with increasing conviction. “Great cross from the right. And then – with his instep.
“His instep,” the man repeats, gesturing with his fingers and now smiling broadly as he remembers the famous back-post volley scored by Johan Cruyff for Barcelona past the Atlético Madrid goalkeeper, Miguel Reina, in December 1973.
More than four decades on from that goal at the Camp Nou the lifelong Barça fan is one of a group of patients with Alzheimer’s disease who are flicking through the pages of specially produced editions of the Spanish football magazine Líbero.
The patients are being helped by a project called Fútbol v Alzheimer organised by the Madrid-based Líbero and the Universidad Autònoma de Barcelona.
The idea for the project came from a 2014 study produced at the university’s Fundació Salut i Envelliment (Foundation Health and Ageing). This research found that talking about football helped stimulate the memory, attention and mood of people with Alzheimer’s and other forms of cognitive deterioration.
And to finish…we will bring it full circle:
With links from this morning:
Tapper to Trump: You Think You Can Win Over Minorities After RTing White Supremacists? | Mediaite
CNN’s Jake Tapper askedDonald Trump this morning if he really thinks he has a chance to win over minorities given his support among white supremacists.
Tapper said many Republican leaders don’t see Trump winning enough minorities to lead the party to victory, “given the fact there are white supremacist groups and individuals like that who support you,some of whomyou’ve even retweeted.”
Trump dismissed his retweets of white supremacists and made it clear he knows nothing about the white supremacist groups supporting him.
Yeah, he knows nothing, nothing about the KKK endorsement.
Trump’s SC Victory and anti-Muslim Hatred | Informed Comment
Billionaire bigot Donald Trump won the South Carolina primary Saturday with about 32.5 percent of the vote. He was about ten points ahead of his two closes rivals, Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz, who more or less tied at between 22 and 23 percent each.
Trump did much better than his rivals with men, with over-45 voters and with the less educated. He even outdid Cruz with regard to the evangelical vote (self-described evangelicals were 3/4s of Republican SC voters this year, up from 65% in 2012).
But perhaps one unexpected indication as to why he won is Trump’s strident hatred of Muslims. Some 75% of GOP primary voters in South Carolina support his bizarre and unconstitutional idea of banning Muslims from traveling to the United States. That is nearly twice the national average on this issue (46%) and more than the average among Republicans nationally (66%).
A sounding by Public Policy Polling found that SC GOP voters supporting Trump are outliers among Republicans in that state. Some 80% of them want to ban Muslims from traveling to the US, and about a third of Trump supporters want to ban gays from coming here as well. (That was twice the percentage among SC Repubicans in general). Among Trump supporters, 62 percent want to create a database to track US Muslims, and 40% want to ban mosques. 44% of Trump supporters want to ban the practice of Islam entirely (Not sure why 4% of these stupid jingoists want to allow mosques but not Muslims). About 38% of Trump voters said they wish the South had won the Civil War, as opposed to 30% of SC Republicans overall.
The evidence therefore suggests that xenophobia and hatred of Muslims, as well as a yearning for the white supremacist Confederacy, are more common among Trump supporters than among SC Republicans in general. And, it may well be that the margin of racism accounts for Trump’s win.
Moreover, a third of GOP voters in South Carolina see terrorism as the number one issue facing the US, while 28% think it is the economy and 27% are worried about government spending. That is, the hatred of Muslims seems tied to security concerns rather to immigration, and immigration per se is not a big concern there. Likely the large number of southern men who spend some time in the military is one explanation for this unusual concern with terrorism. After the Paris and San Bernardino attacks by fringe radical Muslims, the percentage of Americans who named terrorism as the number one problem jumpedfrom a few percentage points to 16% last December. So South Carolinian Republicans are twice as worried about that issue as most Americans, and are a third more worried about it than Republicans nationally (24%) as of last December. (When there aren’t attacks for a while, the general US percentages on this issue have been slipping to single digits).
It seems like South Carolina is a perfect example of the Southern State. Read more at the link…please.
Since Boston Boomer started her post yesterday with a song, I think it is fitting to end my post with a song today. Reflecting on the Win for Trump in South Carolina….
Take the lyrics from Yes, and their song…Yours is no disgrace.
One particular phrase keeps turning in my mind:
“silly human, silly human race”
Yes Yours Is No Disgrace – YouTube
Granted it is an anti-war song…but I feel very much like those soldiers. This battle against the GOP…a fight that is beyond my control. While everywhere the partying continues…I can only see the ship heading towards disaster.
Ceasars Palace…a morning glory…Hillary.
For me, maybe that is our only hope? She has to win.
This is an open thread.
Wednesday: Banjoville, Georgia. A microcosm of Trump Nation.
Posted: January 27, 2016 Filed under: 2016 elections, Barack Obama, corporate greed, corporate money, Domestic terrorism, Environmental Protection, ethics, Fox News, Free Press, fundamentalist Christians, Human Rights, immigration, Media, Mid Day Reads, misogyny, open thread, Populism, religious extremists, Religious Freedom, Republican politics, right wing hate grouups, social media, Syria, the GOP, The Media SUCKS, The Right Wing, U.S. Politics, Voter Ignorance, Water | Tags: Banjoville, Donald Trump, environmental racism, Racism 27 CommentsGood Afternoon
This little section of delight in the North Georgia Mountains…I’ve spoken before of the cross-section of folks who live and breed in the town of Banjoville. Simple kinds of folk, why the sign welcoming people to our county states as much:
I’ll give them the “Scenic Beauty” but as far as the “Friendly People” …that is open for debate.
I’ve noticed the Trump situation has made the bold hateful comments more mainstream. it is acceptable and standard and now common place to find this shit among the facebook pages of the typical Banjoville resident.
(One of those comments is written by a superintendent of schools…more on that later in the post.)
But there is something more to it than all this hate, which is deep seated in the back mountain town mentality that populates so much of the nation. The Trump Nation. It is a nation that would never support a Cruz or Rubio, because when it comes down to it…they have Latino blood.
There was a tweet I saw yesterday that sums the whole thing up perfectly.
Yes, when it all comes down to it, White always wins.
And this is what I see everywhere I go in Banjoville.
A White Right Wing Christian Hate that is prejudice against any and all who is not “one of them.” Living in a town like that is hell. My family has experienced the discrimination first hand many times. To this point I bring you the reason for this post. The Trump Nation embodied in Banjoville, what does this mean for society.
We live in a town where the Sheriff’s Office is so blatant about their total embrace of the practice of Separation of Church and State. This is the painted image that greats you as you walk into the Sheriff’s Office:
It is a picture by an artist, Beth Sweigard, known for painting fetuses and a sad Jesus…
….or Jesus at the Jewish Peoples’ Wall…
When I first saw that Patriotic Jesus poster in the sheriff’s department, I immediately thought about that other spectacular artist…Jon McNaughton.
Yeah, he is the artist who immortalized Clive Bundy above as some kind of western hero for the nation….
You want a real laugh, take a look at the gallery of patriotic work here jonmcnaughton. com /patriotic/
I’ve seemed to have gotten carried away there, I need to get back to the Banjoville Sheriff Dept.
Everywhere you look there is proof that the Sheriff is a holy man, even a plaque that states he has been to church more times than any other man alive on the planet. ( I kid you not.)
Tell me that a person who is not a “real” Christian will have a equal chance at justice in that building. (The color of their skin goes without saying…back before the State of Georgia forcibly frightened all the immigrants out of town, the officers made most of their arrest by stalking the Spanish Sunday Mass up at the Catholic Church…and pulling over any car leaving the church.)
How about the fine Doctors in the area? Who proudly display their affiliation in The Oathkeepers…Oh yeah, we even have one who is a leading authority member of the affiliation. How does this affect his service to the public…the entire public. (Well, I guess since he is in private practice that is not a legitimate question, but if he is the only doctor your insurance plan accepts what then?)
Then you have the teachers and administrators at the schools, counselors who are partial to the local Banjoville White Christian. Coaches who are prejudice against players… teachers who will penalize a student if they are the wrong” color or even the wrong Christian faith. (Y’all remember Catholics are a no go as well.) This is not something made up…this really happens and it effects the future lives of students.
This is the view of a Trump Nation from my little Banjoville. The hate and bitterness is nothing new, it is just becoming bolder in its execution.
Donald Trump might actually be able to pull it off. A new, nationwide poll from CNN/ORC shows that Trump’s lead in the Republican polls has grown even stronger going into the Iowa caucus, which kicks off the primary season. He’s reached 41 percent support amongst Republican voters, which is more than double what his closest contender, the even more ridiculous Ted Cruz, has. Even more startlingly, Trump’s supporters seem more assured of their votes than the supporters of any other candidate. It seems Trump might do what seemed to be impossible: Overcome the resistance of party leaders to grab the nomination.
[…]…things are looking a lot better for Trump than anyone could have predicted. Part of the issue is that his closest contender, Ted Cruz, hasn’t made the progress he clearly thought he would at this late stage.Mea culpa time. I’ve long thought that Ted Cruzhad a strong chance of knockingTrump out of the race, and that Cruz would either win the nomination or at least winnow it down so that Rubio could sneak up and grab it. In my own defense, the theory was pretty sound. I argued that Christian right voters would move away from go-nowhere candidates like Mike Huckabee and Ben Carson and coalesce behind a single candidate. It seemed that Cruz, who is an even nastier bully than Trump but speaks fluent evangelical-ese in a way that Trump can’t master, was well-positioned to suction up those Christian right voters.
The evangelicals did abandon the smaller candidates but, in a somewhat surprising twist, they flocked to Trump. Cruz’s once robust support amongst evangelicals is plummeting. He now has only 20 percent of the evangelical vote, whereas Trump has 37 percent of their support.
The us vs them….no that is not the right way…it is more like I said above, Trump pulls this “he is one of US” or “they are not one of us”… is more like the wording to me. One of Us being the key phrase. Us being only White Caucasians, accepting Jesus as your Savior kind of Christian, Us.
Anyway, that is my observations of Trump supporters, for another look, take a gander at this: The Return of the Middle American Radical An intellectual history of Trump supporters.
Trump not only got Jerry Falwell yesterday… Evangelical leader Jerry Falwell Jr. endorses Trump – The Washington Post . He also got: Sheriff Joe Arpaio to Endorse Donald Trump in Iowa – First Draft. Political News, Now. – The New York Times and today: Donald Trump wins John Rocker’s endorsement | www.ajc.com
A long read here: How Trump Happened – WSJ.com
However, I think the reason Trump happened is because of the media’s lack of calling Trump out for his racism, sexism, and every other thing the bigoted asshole has done. Of course the Media isn’t only to blame. I think the corporate powers are a YUUUUGGGEE part of the problem too.
Watch this interview from The Young Turks that touches on the media and corporate sponsors.
Oh, the other points of the interview are very well taken, but y’all get the message here.
Just take a look at the headline from The Washington Examiner: Why can’t Donald Trump handle Megyn Kelly? | Washington Examiner
WTF is that?
Maybe I am being sensitive?
Although the article is not as bad as the headline makes it…
This feud has gotten ridiculous. Republican front-runner and businessman Donald Trump is now threatening to boycott the upcoming GOP debate if host Fox News doesn’t remove Megyn Kelly as a moderator.
I don’t usually like the argument that takes the form of, “if candidate can’t stand up to X, how can they stand up to the Islamic State?” But I do wonder how Trump will be able to handle anyone as president if he can’t take the sort of pointed questions about his weaknesses that originally soured him on Kelly.
It all started last August at the first GOP debate, when Kelly asked Trump about the New York businessman’s comments toward women in the past. The question was one of the most memorable of the debate, and prompted Trump to later claim: “you could see there was blood coming out of her eyes … Blood coming out of her wherever.”
Kelly has recently poked fun at former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin’s endorsement of Trump, and hosted National Review editor Rich Lowry, whose magazine has come out against the Republican front-runner.
This makes Fox News spokesperson Irena Briganti’s statement all the more relevant: “Donald Trump is just trying to build up the audience for Thursday’s debate, for which we thank him.”
Trump is unlikely to actually boycott the debate and host his own town hall for rival networks, as he has claimed he would do. But if he has no plans to actually do this, his ongoing comments and actions toward Kelly are troubling.
How will Trump handle a hostile press if he is president? We know the press will be more harsh toward a Republican president, and that the press is especially hostile toward Trump, so will he just shut them out? And does Megyn Kelly, on a right-leaning network, really need to be public enemy number one to the Trump campaign?
I realize that this, like everything Trump does, is for attention, but it ultimately brings into question his ability to handle adversity and criticism.
That and imagine his fat sweaty fingers on the button of our nuclear arsenal.
Trump: ‘Obviously’ I Was Joking About Shooting People And Not Losing Votes
“It Was Like a Fascist Rally”: Sikh Protester Ejected From Trump Event Speaks Out
On Cruz and Rubio, Jesus thumping there way to Iowa:
Ted Cruz’s Evangelical Gamble – The New York Times
Rubio presses ‘Judeo-Christian values’ in Iowa | TheHill
Cruz’s Constant References to Jesus Drive Millions to Atheism – The New Yorker
Other links…
Trump Said He Bought Windows From China Because America’s Were Too Expensive – The Daily Beast
The Progressive Policy Donald Trump Just Embraced | ThinkProgress
Donald Trump endorses an idea liberals love: letting Medicare negotiate drug prices – Vox
Noam Chomsky Says GOP Is ‘Literally A Serious Danger To Human Survival’
As Donald Trump and Ted Cruz Soar, G.O.P. Leaders’ Exasperation Grows – The New York Times
Well what do you expect when you have GOP politicians like these:
Maine Gov. LePage: Bring back the guillotine
Racist, bigoted Facebook posts from top schools official can’t be tolerated
Leaked Documents Undermine Official Story Of Flint Water Crisis | ThinkProgress
In other news:
Is the Oregon Standoff Over Yet?
Eyewitnesses Give Conflicting Accounts Of How Rancher Was Killed In Standoff
Christie ‘Glad’ That ‘Thin-Skinned’ Trump Skipping Fox News Debate
That is all, more updates and links in the comment section below.
This is an open thread y’all….
Sima
peej
Carissa
bostonboomer
dakinikat
ecocatwoman
fiscalliberal
grayslady
Minkoff Minx
mablue2
NW Luna
peggysue22
quixote
skydancingguestblogger
Mona (aka Wonk the Vote)
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