• I suppose CNN didn't want to make a big deal about a black camerawoman having peanuts tossed at her like a maltreated circus animal, since it'll make them look less "balanced" and not "serious" somehow.

    Well, she did speak out and like millions of black Americans who have to deal with the daily rigors of being black in these United States, she wasn't surprised at all.

    Patricia Carroll, the CNN camerawoman who was assaulted with peanuts and called an animal by two attendees at the Republican National Convention, told Journal-isms on Thursday that "I hate that it happened, but I'm not surprised at all."

    Carroll, who agreed to be named for the first time, said she does not want her situation to be used for political advantage. "This situation could happen to me at the Democratic convention or standing on the street corner. Racism is a global issue," she said by telephone from Tampa.

    But Carroll, 34, said that as an Alabama native, she was not surprised. "This is Florida, and I'm from the Deep South," she said. "You come to places like this, you can count the black people on your hand. They see us doing things they don't think I should do."

    Carroll noted of the Republican convention, "There are not that many black women there."

    She's right. There aren't many black women out there, at the convention or in the GOP's voter ranks. You can literally count the number of black people present at the RNC on one hand, not counting anyone who happened to be part of "the help" out back.

    Well, Artur Davis couldn't be the only one to hype up the crowd, so it fell to Condoleezza Rice to get the crowd's blood up:


    “Ours has never been a narrative of grievance and entitlement. We have not believed that I am doing poorly because you are doing well. We have not been jealous of one another and never been envious of each other’s success,” she said to more cheers. “Ours has been a belief in opportunity.”

    Talk about knocking out two birds with one stone - score a hit against Americans complaining about the nation's wealth inequality while giving the so-called racial grievance-mongers a glancing blow. Rather efficient, she is.

    “A little girl grows up in Jim Crow Birmingham, the segregated city of the south where her parents can’t take her to a movie theater or a restaurant, but they have her absolutely convinced that even if she can’t have a hamburger at the Woolworth’s lunch counter she can be President of the United States, if she wanted to be, and she becomes the Secretary of State,” Rice said to more deafening, extended cheers of approval. “Yes, America has a way of making the impossible seem inevitable in retrospect. But of course it has never been inevitable — it took leadership, and it took courage and it took belief in our values.”

    Juxtapose the above with the current company she keeps - the same people who're actively denying minorities and the elderly the right to vote. The same people who wouldn't have minded if she ended up being one of the four young girls blown up in a church basement in Jim Crow Birmingham.

    At this point, someone points out that the people behind Jim Crow were Democrats and that, in a nutshell, the GOP is still "the party of Lincoln" and blacks are stupid for abandoning them for LBJ's Great Society and Civil Rights Act Flavor-Aid. Here's some required reading material that should finally explain, once and for all, how black Americans saw the great big bait-and-switch coming and how they managed to gingerly step across the aisle without missing a beat. I should thank @Jon_Rollings for bringing this up, but his Twitter account wound up receiving a burn notice a few days back. I can't imagine why.*

    Meanwhile, the Field Negro is not pleased with Mia Love:

    Ms. Love, of course, isn't from Utah. Her parents are Haitian, and she migrated to Utah from Connecticut.

    Ms. Love represents the typical immigrant who came to America looking for a better life with her family. Her American experience is not like the American experience of the Negro born in America. She came here looking for a better life, and like most immigrants she found it. You could argue that anything would be better than the Third World existence that most immigrants left behind.

    Ms. Love, in her mind, isn't burdened by America's sad history when it comes the blacks who were brought here under quite different conditions. So sadly she doesn't even view herself as one of those American blacks. When her white friends in Utah tell her that she is "different than those other blacks", she actually believes it.

    I can speak to this, because I too came to America from a different country. I was brought here by my family as well. The difference is that my parents didn't come to stay. They came for an education and went back home to the country that they loved. I was taught to understand that I am no different than the Negro in America, the only difference is that my ancestors came off the boats just a little bit sooner. Ms. Love is the type of Negro who looks down on the American born Negro, because she has failed to understand their history and where she fits into it.

    Yes, the black immigrants who have nary an inkling of nor a desire to understand the experience of black Americans tend to look their noses down on us. And that's a shame, because it leaves them wide open to be played like fiddles in the Tennessee foothills. White Americans love these guys because they represent what they'd rather black Americans should be and therefore, there's no longer any need or effort to understand black Americans on their own terms. Also, having Mia and a score of other black men and women around allows the GOP to maintain its culturally diverse bonafides while the whitest of white bread continues to administer the party and the Oval Office, whenever the GOP can put itself in a position to command it once more.

    It says a lot about the GOP's chances of winning black hearts and minds when there are more black folks on stage than in attendance.

    *Anyone who still believes in Twitter Gulag should get a refresher course on how Twitter actually works. Slamming the API with multiple posts just seconds apart is a surefire way of going to Twitter Jail. It's why the most devoted and prolific Tweeters have Jail accounts.
  • Everyone expected Clint Eastwood to show up and knock the RNC crowd over with his best Dirty Harry Callahan or Walt Kowalski routine. Instead, he channeled what was, by far, the best impersonation of Ronald Reagan (mid-Alzheimer's) anyone could hope for.



    This is the RNC and the Republican party distilled to its essence: an angry old man yelling at an empty chair. Many conservatives are surely thinking Clint's suffering the first signs of dementia. They're wondering why the hell they traded the holographic homage of Ronaldus Maximus himself for this. I'm surprised no one's made a classy remark about it being time for poor Clint to see the Death Panel.

    Eastwood's speech is something not even a campaign spokesperson can walk back, no matter how hard they try:

    “Judging an American icon like Clint Eastwood through a typical political lens doesn’t work. His ad libbing was a break from all the political speeches, and the crowd enjoyed it.”

    If the folks who came up with this idea had a single bone of creativity, they would have had a nice, assembled suit draped upright across the chair. There's your imagery for the day, GOP - A "real Republican" talking down to an empty suit. You're welcome.

    I understand how something like, say, Mitt Romney's own acceptance speech, can be overshadowed by something like this.



    I watch this and I see a man who's doing his damnedest to fake as much sincerity and compassion as possible. It's all in those overly expressive eyebrows. Even an invisible Obama has more substance and charisma than Mittens.

    Later on, the same man who expressed a willingness to fire any executive who came up with the cockamamie idea of establishing a moon colony paid homage to Neil Armstrong.

    Meanwhile, the FLOTUS placed herself above and beyond the RNC in the following video. I wonder how many people are going to accuse her of being "aloof," "deliberately uninformed" or "willfully ignorant":


    Looks like Hurricane Issac was right to change up its itinerary and go swirl around the French Quarter for a couple of days. The Republican National Convention proved more than capable of destroying itself.

    More to come later on...
  • Let's get this one out of the way first.



    Folks, if you want to know why Mitt Romney has a 0% approval rating among black American voters and why most black Americans wouldn't touch the GOP with a ten-foot pole, here's one of your answers. If you're a black American, joining a party whose members have shown callous disregard towards your people  time and again isn't on your to-do list. Gawker's lady-oriented media dish rag Jezebel has a bit more on that story, plus reports that there were two attendees who reached the Ni-CLANG Event Horizon.

    Now, juxtapose the above with Artur Davis' appearance at the RNC:


    Seems he's still smarting over the fact that 1)black voters wouldn't vote for him in lockstep as he assumed during the 2010 Alabama gubernatorial primary and 2)trying to be a bigger conservative than the most conservative guy in the room while carrying the Democrat mantle is a sure-fire way to lose. Thus, he's taken on the role as the GOP's designated black voice of disapproval over the president in an attempt to rehabilitate his forlorn image. Personally, I think that despite Artur taking up his new role as the succulent black treat for non-crazy swing state voters, he has yet to realize how utterly insignificant he is in his new home.

    More highlights to come...
  • Our plutocracy now lives like the British in colonial India: in the place and ruling it, but not of it. If one can afford private security, public safety is of no concern; if one owns a Gulfstream jet, crumbling bridges cause less apprehension—and viable public transportation doesn’t even show up on the radar screen. With private doctors on call and a chartered plane to get to the Mayo Clinic, why worry about Medicare?
    Mike Lofgren of the American Conservative happens to be one of the increasingly rare conservatives who are less concerned about maintaining the lockstep Tea Party insanity or garnering votes from constituencies who are best swayed by ever-increasing extremism and charged rhetoric, and more concerned about the damage being caused by the country's wealthiest and consequently, most powerful people. It's not every day that you find yours truly nodding in agreement with a conservative, but his article puts paid to what's wrong with cheerleading and, in effect, worshiping the wealthy and their money.

    Come to think of it, that's what today's Republican party is all about. Hardworking Americans are guilt-tripped into believing that they aren't worth the waste defecated from the anus of a rich celebutante's Shiatsu unless they're rich, that all rich people are smart and hardworking, and that their ever-growing piles of money are proof positive of their smarts and work ethic, never mind if they made that money through the financial equivalent of three card monte or simply inherited the money from a wealthy relative who actually worked hard for it. It's easier for today's Republicans to have their poor constituents dreaming about becoming wealthy than to actually commit to any reforms or projects that could actually lift everyone's standard of living.

    The average hardworking American genuinely believes his interests somehow align with those of the wealthy, as it's what he or she's been told for the past 30 to 40 years by the GOP and wealthy individuals. Whenever the issue of tax increases comes up, the wealthy are more than content to let these people do their work for them - Americans have been trained to become hyper-reflexive against any sort of tax increase and not just the ones that don't make sense or ones that happen to be screaming cash grabs.

    Make no mistake - America's so-called "super-wealthy" have no allegiance to this country or any other country. As Lofgren explains, it's precisely why a corporate maverick would have no qualms about outsourcing tens of thousands of jobs to overseas locations. The economic ramifications are less of a concern than the immediate boost in profits and, most importantly, stock value. This is why I'm concerned about the Republicans rallying behind a presidential candidate who is hailed for his "business experience," yet displays all of the traditional hallmarks of a sociopathic being who is, by virtue of his personality and wealth, disconnected from the rest of America. He's already shown willful disregard for the well-being of "lesser" Americans through his business dealings and if made president, that willful disregard will become even more apparent.
    It is no coincidence that as the Supreme Court has been removing the last constraints on the legalized corruption of politicians, the American standard of living has been falling at the fastest rate in decades. According to the Federal Reserve Board’s report of June 2012, the median net worth of families plummeted almost 40 percent between 2007 and 2010. This is not only a decline when measured against our own past economic performance; it also represents a decline relative to other countries, a far cry from the post-World War II era, when the United States had by any measure the highest living standard in the world. A study by the Bertelsmann Foundation concluded that in measures of economic equality, social mobility, and poverty prevention, the United States ranks 27th out of the 31 advanced industrial nations belonging to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Thank God we are still ahead of Turkey, Chile, and Mexico!
    None of this disturbs the super wealthy. As Lofgren mentioned, they are truly in the world, but not of it. Therefore, the ordinary concerns of average folk don't concern them. After all, when you rely on private security for protection, send your children to private learning institutions, live in gated enclaves that are isolated from the rest of the world and vacation to far-flung locales that most people would never dream of imagining, let alone actually going, the concerns of those common people are of no concern to you. So when you have reports of America's highway infrastructure crumbling to nothing, it doesn't concern the super wealthy. As long as there's an idling Leer jet waiting, they can bounce from a crumbling America and rest their head at practically any location they wish.

    The one danger of the super wealthy being completely aloof to the turmoil happening around them is being caught up in the blowback that comes from ignoring the ever-increasing pain of being destitute in a country that holds wealth as the highest and holiest standard to follow. Squeezing the blood of productivity from overworked turnips and rolling over ever increasing amounts of money in ethereal financial instruments while ignoring or even participating in the active destruction of the country's social safety nets is something that can't go on forever. Let's just say that history is full of examples where entire nations reached the breaking point for endless looting and there will come a time when that idling Leer jet will suddenly go up in flames.

    We all know exactly what Mitt Romney stands for. Now, my question is, come Election Day, will Mike Lofgren march in lockstep with his fellow conservatives and mark a ballot in Mitt Romney's favor out of sheer party loyalty?

  • Right now, Hurricane Issac's making landfall on the NOLA region. Compared to Katrina, Issac's a relative lightweight. To be honest, I was all set to see Hurricane Issac literally rain on the parade of idiocy personified by the Republican National Convention in Tampa, but that didn't happen. As it turns out, even hurricanes can't stand being among the likes of Sher Valenzuela, Mitt Romney, Janine Turner and John Kasich.

    Someone, somewhere had a tweet that basically asked that now since the hurricane didn't hit Tampa, if the Republican National Convention would be postponed out of respect for those in NOLA. Here's your answer.



    Of course. The president should be right in the eye of the storm using whatever it is that blah people do tame hurricanes. Meanwhile, Jindal's back in LA because, well, he's the governor and it's his job to be there when things like hurricanes happen.

    More to follow after watching the RNC's live coverage on C-Span.
  • The Handmaid's Tale is set in the near future in the Republic of Gilead, a country formed within the borders of what was formerly the United States of America. It was founded by a racist, homophobic, male chauvinist, nativist, theocratic-organized military coup as an ideologically driven response to the pervasive ecological, physical and social degradation of the country.
    Beginning with a staged terrorist attack (blamed on Islamic extremist terrorists) that kills the President and most of Congress, a movement calling itself the "Sons of Jacob" launch a revolution and suspend the United States Constitution under the pretext of restoring order.

    Taking advantage of electronic banking, they were quickly able to freeze the assets of all women and other "undesirables" in the country, stripping them of their rights. The new theocratic military dictatorship, styled "The Republic of Gilead", moved quickly to consolidate its power and reorganize society along a new militarized, hierarchical, compulsorily Christian regime of Old Testament-inspired social and religious orthodoxy among its newly created social classes. In this society, almost all women are forbidden to read.

    The story is presented from the point of view of a woman called Offred (a patronymic name that means "Of Fred", referring to the man she serves). The character is one of a class of individuals kept as concubines ("handmaids") for reproductive purposes by the ruling class in an era of declining births. The book is told in the first person by Offred, who describes her life during her third assignment as a handmaid, in this case to Fred (referred to as "The Commander"). If Offred fails to become pregnant on this, her third attempt, she will be declared an "unwoman" and discarded.

    Interspersed in flashbacks are portions of her life from before and during the beginning of the revolution, when she finds she has lost all autonomy to her husband, through her failed attempt to escape with her husband and daughter to Canada, to her indoctrination into life as a handmaid. Through her eyes, the structure of Gilead's society is described, including the several different categories of women and their circumscribed lives in the new theocracy.

    I wonder if, when Canadian author Margaret Atwood published The Handmaid's Tale back in 1985, she knew that fundamentalists would actually try to set up something similar to the theocratic hell that was the Republic of Gilead. Today, her classic dystopian novel is considered an unofficial rough draft of the kind of society today's staunch conservative Republicans would very much like to see.

    The Handmaid's Tale paints an ugly picture of a nation in which the anti-abortion and anti-birth control "pro-life" movement comes to an odious, yet logical conclusion. Instead of attempting to explain in my own words the odiousness of a Gileadian existence, here's an excerpt from "Giving Birth to a 'Rapist's Child': A Discussion and Analysis of the Limited Legal Protections Afforded to Women Who Become Mothers Through Rape," written for the Georgetown Law Journal by Shauna R. Prewitt, a lawyer and a survivor of rape who - get this - had to fight off her rapist's legal attempts to obtain custody and visitation rights for the child she bore due to the rape:

    Like the stranger-rape prototype, the pregnant-raped-woman prototype may have emerged and continues to persist because it reinforces social hierarchies. For example, by describing the unborn children in terms that suggest the children are exclusively extensions of the rapist fathers, proponents of the pregnant-raped-woman prototype—underpinned by the rape-product justification—reify many sexist and patriarchal ideas. Sandra Mahkorn argues that rhetoric which portrays the unborn child as “being the property of the rapist” derives from a “sexist mentality.” It is the mentality that views a woman as “merchandise to which a man can claim ownership,” such that any offspring of that relationship are viewed as “the property of the owner, the father.” As a result, through use of the pregnant-raped-woman prototype, “chauvinistic predispositions are tolerated and succumbed to.” This “property” view not only allows for the illogic that a child conceived through rape is exclusively a genetic product of the rapist father, but also “de-legitimiz[es] [the] maternal genetic link,” and thereby, “erase[s] all identity characteristics of the mother other than that as a sexual container.” In doing so, it “reifies the patriarchal notion of patrilineal descent,” as well as the sexist ideology that “promote[s] the concept that a woman is a mere receptacle.” Finally, the depiction of an unborn child as being “‘worthless’ or ‘valueless’” derives from the notion that pregnancy from rape is “symbolic of ‘damage’ to male property.”

    The world of The Handmaid's Tale effectively reduces female existence to mere property and such property is utilized as tools for sexual gratification or tools for procreation and lineage continuation. To insure both functions are always available, barriers to both are brought down under religious and moral pretexts with assistance from legal and judicial avenues. Therefore, abortion, birth control and the very idea of sovereignty over one's own body are barriers that are to be brought down. Once that happens, society's menfolk, or at least those who wield considerable amounts of power, will have their theoretical pick of the female litter.

    Notice how the commanders have their pick of wives, "Marthas," handmaids and of course, "Jezebels" for relief and entertainment. Women who can't serve one or the other purpose are deemed "unwomen" and essentially sent away to die. Meanwhile, the common man only has an "econowife" to look forward to. Gileadian society's "big men" get to benefit from the spoils while the foot soldiers contend with the crumbs, along with proud accolades for their service under said big men and promises of more crumbs being thrown their way in due time.

    This world is one men like Rep. Todd Akin and VP candidate Paul Ryan advocate for bringing into fruition, even if they themselves don't quite know it. Many others are unwilling to just come out and admit that the bedroom and kitchen are the only places they believe women should be. Others have religious and moral objections to abortion and birth control; some people are more than willing to hitchhike their way to achieving an abortion/birth control ban, even at the cost of reducing women to living Fleshlights and incubators in the long run. Akin and other politicians are definitely willing to use the conservative pro-life movement as a slingshot to political career advancement, regardless of the consequences.

    As for conservatives bent on slighting their liberal counterparts by ushering in odious legislation that further turns women into the aforementioned "handmaids," they're shooting themselves in the foot in the long run, too. And just as pro-lifers seem to cease caring about the new lives they claim to protect once they're out of the womb, the Gileadian society in The Handmaid's Tale is quick to quietly dispose of newborns born with defects and shuffle "undesirables" out of the way. Even the women who've outlived their procreative and sexual usefulness are exiled to the novel's wasteland colonies. I'm sure pro-lifers would say they would never act that way in similar circumstances, but the lack of concern for life outside of the womb tends to make their concern for life within it seem...hollow.

    Unlike the novel, there's no natural disaster or crisis needed to start slouching towards Gilead. All it takes is a few people convinced that women would have better lives as property than they would as full-fledged human beings, and scores of people who are just following their moral convictions without knowing exactly who they're following.

  • "Rape is rape. And the idea that we should be parsing, qualifying and slicing what qualifies as rape doesn’t make sense to me and doesn’t make sense to the American people. What I think these comments do underscore is why we shouldnt have a bunch of pols, the majority of whom are men, making health-care decisions on behalf of women."

    The above quoted comes from the president, poignantly articulating the inherent stupidity of not only dictating how women govern their own faculties, but also narrowly defining the act of rape, to the point of which women are automatically deemed "sluts" unless it happens in an exact way that fits some sort of moral template.
  • “Wait a minute, don’t touch my groceries. I can’t have someone negroidal touch my food. It’s against my creed,”
    While Texans prepare for a post-Obama re-election civil war and possible UN takeover*, one Texan is making a brave stand against...some black guy bagging his groceries. Seriously.

    A Hawkins man is claiming his civil rights and religious freedom were violated earlier this year when a black man sacked his groceries and a Big Sandy grocery store owner banned the customer from the business.

    DeWitt R. Thomas filed a federal lawsuit in July against Keith Langston, owner of Two Rivers Grocery & Market.

    According to the lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Tyler, Thomas entered the market on March 5 to buy food.

    He stated in a nine-page, hand-written lawsuit that he told the grocery sacker, a black man, “Wait a minute, don’t touch my groceries. I can’t have someone negroidal touch my food. It’s against my creed.”

    Thomas claimed the cashier was “perplexed” by his request and yelled at him to take his items and leave.

    In a telephone interview Wednesday, Thomas said, “It’s pretty simple. They treated me really bad because I told them it was against my creed.”

    According to the lawsuit, Thomas went on to explain he meant a black person when he used the term “negroidal.”

    If you're wondering what sort of "creed" prevents him from having someone "negroidal" touch his Lunchables and Capri Suns, you're not alone.

    Thomas said his religious beliefs are based on Vedism, which he said encompasses Hinduism.

    “Vedism translates into knowledge. I am not this way because I am ignorant. Ignorance is the enemy,” he said.

    This isn't the first time anyone's attempted to cloak their racial viewpoints in religious doctrine. Consider Mormon views on blacks in the ministry and the old story of how Shem, Ham and Japheth justified black slavery. Sadly, religion has always served as the last refuge of racist scoundrels.

    A quick glance of Vedism doesn't seem to bring up any red flags about having "negroidal" folks touch your belongings. My thinking is that this could all be a foundation of bullshit used to springboard an otherwise frivolous lawsuit.

    Good on the storeowner for giving this guy the boot. Too bad there are many others just like him, most of them who are just a bit smarter to keep their mouths shut and not embarrass themselves in public.

    *It's funny how the same people who'd probably vote for a property tax increase to keep the captivating Kenyan's claws off the country would most likely scream in terror if their taxes were raised for anything else.

  • It's not everyday you see a person of color willing to pal around with a confederacy of Confederates, let alone pose for a photo shoot that proved to be a bit too much for the NAACP to take. Apparently, the city of Lake City, Florida has a rich and storied history of capturing and reverberating the echos of the long-since-lost Confederate States of America under the guise of "heritage." If the National Socialist German Workers' Party had been better students of history, you'd probably see the swastika aloft in Germany as much quantity as one sees the Confederate battle flag in portions of the United States:

    The controversy surrounding the Stars and Bars, or the Confederate Flag, is a controversy that has hounded Lake City for decades. The Stars and Bars, emblazoned as part of Lake City's logo, rides on every City vehicle and is part of Lake City stationery. The recent controversies surrounding the City Police Chief and the City Manager have culminated in the Local Branch of the NAACP asking for the Chief and City Manager's resignations. The straw that broke the camel's back, a photo of Lake City's African American Police Chief posing with the Confederate Mechanized Cavalry during the Olustee Festival. The Lake City Branch of the NAACP is being supported in its efforts by the State chapter of the NAACP.

    A letter obtained by the Observer and dated July 2, 2012, purports to be from the NAACP and is addressed to the City Council. It asks for the resignations or termination of both Police Chief Gilmore and City Manager Wendell Johnson. The letter claims that the community has lost "all confidence in Chief Gilmore and the Police Department." The letter also claims that black and white Lake City police officers are treated differently.

    The letter concludes: "We supported Chief Gilmore when she became the new police chief but after several incidents of poor decision making and judgments, we believe that continuing to turn our heads, is not going to solve the problem, and City Manager Johnson has done nothing to address any of these problems. We wish Chief Gilmore and City Manager Johnson much success in their endeavors but we believe that Chief Gilmore has not managed the Lake City Police Department well during her tenure here, and neither has City Manager Johnson."
    It's interesting to me how the Confederate mystique is so embedded in this community that the police chief has to take a glamour shot with people who like to "ride with Forrest."

    For those who don't know who Nathan Bedford Forrest is, he was, to put it lightly, an interesting figure in the annals of history. Born in poverty, he eventually grew up to become a wealthy businessman and slave trader. When the Civil War started, he joined the Confederate Army, where he was swiftly kicked upstairs* to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel and with time, Lieutenant General. After the war, he became the first "Grand Wizard" of the Ku Klux Klan, an organization that would have defined the words "domestic terrorists" if their targets weren't so...colored. People with a starry-eyed affection towards the defeated Confederacy won't waste any time hailing him as a great man. Everyone else will most likely wonder why the Union neglected to hang him and other Confederate commanders for treason.

    By not putting Forrest, Jefferson Davis and other important figures who created and contributed to the Confederacy to the gallows and by not "deconfederatizing" the southeast when it had the chance, the U.S. not only allowed a sick and otherwise deficient mindset to develop for generations, it also cultivated a spirit of rebellion that caused the "solid south" to remain at political and ideological odds with the rest of the nation till this very day. It's one that caused the state of Georgia to incorporate the Confederate battle flag within its own state flag in protest of Brown v. Board of Education.

    That spirit recently manifested itself as the Tea Party/GOP goal of open rebellion against the "liberal" federal government, with the president featured as the centerpiece at which Teabaggers and other conservatives hurl hateful invective and death threats. It's a spirit that encourages discriminatory laws and behavior against minorities for the good of the nation and one that suggests national safety nets like Medicare and Social Security to be "socialist" devices hardworking people would do without. People kept saying "The South Shall Rise Again," but no one figured it would be the spirit of the South that would be risen.

    It's sad that the NAACP and Southern Christian Leadership Conference have to fight battles that should have been long won. Then again, I suppose the price of freedom and progress is constant vigilance.

    *His superior officers didn't think wealthy planters should have to suffer the indignity of being low-ranked cannon fodder.
  • The following is Missouri Senate candidate and current Representative Todd Akin shoving a size 12 patent leather shoe down his own throat:


    There's not much anyone with any common sense can say about this, except that this is perhaps the unmitigated height of stupidity and insensitivity.

    I don't think anyone knows exactly what a "legitimate rape" is. It's probably the same thing as Whoopi Goldberg's "rape rape." The fact that there's an established threshold before anyone takes rape seriously should make just about anyone throw up.

    I've heard of theories about how the stress and trauma of rape supposedly cuts off the chemical and hormonal processes needed to facilitate pregnancy. The underlying implication here is that if you were really raped, your body wouldn't allow the fertilization process to continue. Therefore, if you become pregnant after you were raped, then you really weren't raped, were you? And if you want an abortion, that would make you some sort of slut, right? "Good girls" don't get themselves into those typ...*pauses to throw up*..es of situations.

    I hope you had a barf bag on you. That stuff's hell to clean off a keyboard.

    It's not just Akin who thinks this way. The GOP has successfully cultivated a legion of politicians who are absolutely retrograde when it comes to matters that affect women most. These people are stuck in the mindset that declares female autonomy over their own destinies and biological functions to be the greatest societal sin imaginable. To them, it just ain't right that women can make their own decisions about bringing new life into this world and protecting themselves from predatory assholes who not only mistake a woman's vagina for a 24-hour convenience store, but feel that if women didn't want their registers robbed, they shouldn't have been open in the first place. No, I don't understand that line of thinking, either.

    And people wonder why rape remains one of the most under-reported crimes out there.

    The GOP is insistent using the power of the federal government to lock down women's reproductive rights at the same time it's equally insistent on the power of the federal government to be vanquished in just about every other matter save for the country's ability to go to war. That definitely speaks to the rather fucked up priorities of conservatives nowadays.

    It's not just Todd Akin who's busy refining rape to fit retrograde sensibilities. It's definitely worth mentioning that GOP vice-president candidate Paul Ryan was Akin's partner in crime when penning the infamous "forcible rape" language in the "No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act." Ryan himself believes that abortion should be illegal everywhere, under any circumstance. If you need an abortion to keep yourself alive due to pregnancy complications or if you don't want to carry a child conceived in rape to term, then you're all out of luck.* If you think you'll at least have birth control, don't. Ryan's against that, too.

    None of this is about maintaining the well-being of women everywhere. If that were the case, this post wouldn't exist and neither would these attitudes. It's about maintaining control over women, a two-pronged process that involves shrinking women's autonomy over their own being via legislation while sanctioning society's shaming of women who remain determined to exercise their rights. The hoped result for many is a return to a society where women are seen (and fucked), but not heard. The menfolk are no longer threatened  by women who are not only not impressed with their success and trappings, but are more than capable of creating their own. In this rather fucked-up scenario, women remain property passed on from father to husband (and if said husband or father dies, from uncle to brother-in-law).

    Akin later issued out a boilerplate tweet that expressed regret over being excoriated over his comments:


    Meanwhile, Dana Loesch thinks people, namely the Democrats, are making too much of a fuss over this issue. Loesch managed to write the book on abject stupidity on countless occasions, so there's no new ground being broken here. You'd think that even a conservative woman would recognize how wrong Akin's comments were. *sigh*

    *Unless you travel to another country that's more than happy to get that done, but who's wealthy enough to make that happen?
  • In between fighting against the overwhelming stupidity displayed by all of Conservativedom over women's reproductive rights through #TeamUterati, Imani Gandy, the titular "Angry Black Lady," is also on the constant lookout for conservatives stepping over the "Ni-CLANG Event Horizon."

    Wait, what the hell is a "Ni-CLANG"?


    The "Ni-CLANG Event Horizon" is a moment where conservative politicians and just about anyone else who isn't particularly fond of blacks and other American minorities dispenses with the various dog whistles and code words and simply let their feelings known, either deliberately or via Freudian slip. In other words, it's a swift devolution from Lee Atwater's theory on veiled bigotry back to unabashed, open bigotry as once enjoyed in large swathes of the country.

    In short, someone fucks around and calls someone a "nigger" on primetime TV.

    Of course, calling someone a "nigger" is about as fashionable as having someone dragged off the back of a pickup truck - it's just something that no one in polite society would dare ginny up the stones to do, thanks largely to social ostracism and, in the right environment, a swift and solid punch to the face. Unfortunately, conservatives are quickly running out of new code words to use and those dog whistles are getting harder to hear with each passing day. It's just a matter of time before someone, somewhere rapidly approaches the dreaded "Ni-CLANG Event Horizon" and just falls right off the edge.

    Today's post title comes courtesy of Franklin County, Ohio GOP Chairman Doug Preisse. No, he hasn't quite reached that dreaded event horizon just yet, but it's coming on as fast.

    “I guess I really actually feel we shouldn’t contort the voting process to accommodate the urban — read African-American — voter-turnout machine,” said Doug Preisse, chairman of the county Republican Party and elections board member who voted against weekend hours, in an email to The Dispatch. “Let’s be fair and reasonable.”

    Sorry, Doug. You're being far from fair and reasonable.

    Ohio is one of several states that are a hotbed of controversy thanks to ongoing efforts to restrict and effectively disenfranchise Democrat voters through various means, from voter roll purging and voter ID requirements to restricting voting hours. After getting caught with its pants down on that latter issue, the state came up with the idea of applying uniform voting rules across the entire state. Seems reasonable, until people found out that the same restrictions Democrat-leaning counties were facing would be applied everywhere. Which brings us to Doug's unfortunate quote.

    So, what's the big deal about voting hours?

    34 U.S. states allow early voting. It's a good way for those who otherwise wouldn't be able to show up at the polls on Election Day to cast their vote (i.e. deployed military personnel, etc.) During the weekday, voting is restricted to 8am - 5pm, unless evening voting is allowed, which stretches on to about 7pm. Night and weekend voting allows those who are usually at work during weekday hours to come out and vote early at their convenience.

    Not everyone can take off from work for the day or pop into the nearest precinct during their 30-minute or 1-hour (if you're lucky) lunch break. Eliminate night and weekend early voting and you have a lot of people who otherwise wouldn't be able to vote at all. Oddly enough, many of those folks usually vote Dem. Funny how that works out.

    I have to digress - it's not just about keeping those dangblasted ni-CLANG from voting. It's about Republicans doing whatever they can to win. That's right, folks. The GOP's star candidates for the presidency are so milquetoast that the only way they can eke out a win is to outright rig the vote in their favor. Since not even the U.S. Supreme Court can tip the scales their way, Republicans are pushing effort after effort to deny those who would most likely vote Democrat the right to do just that. If that doesn't tell you how desperate these morons are, practically nothing will.

    I've always thought the GOP's ultimate goal was achieving a one-party state, damn the consequences and damn the ideals of what this country is supposed to stand for. The political cap-peeling of Don Siegelman and the rest of Alabama's powerful Democrat movers and shakers was an unsung canary in a flooded coal mine. This election, shit is gonna get real with each passing moment.
  • - People who want to vent displeasure at a political figure often do it by burning them in effigy. Someone in Minneapolis did it by burning a cat:

    A threat to President Obama in the form of a burned cat staked to a tree stump drew officers from several city and federal agencies to a south Minneapolis park before dawn on Monday.

    The cat's carcass in Longfellow Park was staked with a handheld American flag on a small stick, according to a federal law enforcement official. Standing next to the cat was an Obama/Biden 2012 lawn sign, the official said.

    No arrests have been made.

    On the stump along with the cat, with the flag's stick staked through its throat, were an iced tea can and a cat food tin, the federal official said. There was no note, the official added.

    - The president doesn't have to worry about lame-assed threats like the one above, as he's learned how to harness the power of the sun. Conservatives reacted by calling the president's discovery "socialist Kenyan voodoo crap" and "proof positive" that he was, somehow, the anti-Christ.

    - In an interview with American Enterprise Institute tax scholar Alan Viard, Derek Thompson ponders whether liberals are really, REALLY giving Paul Ryan a fair shake. Please have a bottle of Pepto-Bismo ready prior to reading.

    - I shouldn't be surprised Paul Ryan's brother happens to be a private equity executive, too. He also did a little work with Bain & Company, but after Mittens made his exit from the company. I'm also not surprised about big names from private equity and venture capital investment firms chipping in on the wannabe-VP's bottom line.

    - Some factories in the U.S. are finally realizing that prison labor is eating their lunch. Speaking of which, there's yet another "kids-for-cash" scandal happening in "Lawd Jesus hold meh" Mississippi. And the "Schools-to-Prison" pipeline goes on as intended.

    Last, but not least:



    And from the peanut gallery over at Current:

    You really think it is a First Amendment right to enter a place like that - most likely uninvited - and shout down a speaker? That is to be our process of discourse in our country - to scream and yell and shout down that with which we disagree? Is that what the Left is all about? Is that what the Left thinks our freedom of speech was intended for?



    I doubt Paul Ryan would have entertained this man's questions if he had simply shut up and politely waited until the end, especially since they would most likely be the wrong sort of questions to ask. That Q&A could have ended the same way. Politeness isn't something that flows freely from conservatives, yet it's expected and demanded of liberals and everyone else.



  • Mitt Romney's known for his gaffes and Freudian slips, but this is perhaps the biggest and most revealing by far. In short, here's a guy whose core support group could care less about aside from the vaunted (R) by his name picking a guy who's a bit more palatable to most of that core. Magic underwear meets soup kitchen and cat food sensibility. Anyone hoping he'd pad his campaign with a minority for vice-president were sorely mistaken. So no Sarah Palin and no Michelle Bachmann. I was personally hoping he'd really fall off the rocker and go with Allen West, as a sort of comedy option. It would have been hilarious.

    Instead, we get Paul Ryan. Of the Ryan Plan.

    This pick pretty much says everything Romney's "supporters" have been thinking to themselves ever since he won the nomination. "Did it really have to be you, Mitt?" If it wasn't for the other nominees undoing themselves spectacularly, Mittens probably would be working on a House or Senate seat right about now.

    You go with the nominee you have, not the nominee you wish you had. Unless the nominee you have picks the nominee you wish you had as his running mate, the consolation prize being he's second-in-line to the presidency if Mittens falls off one of his wife's dressage horses on the White House lawn and breaks his back or something equally tragic.

    I sincerely hope there isn't some sort of elaborate bait-and-switch plot brewing. Romney has yet to reveal the bulk of his tax information and if there's anything that could cripple his campaign. If things get too hot for him to handle on that front, he could always resign his nomination ahead of the 2012 Republican National Convention. I honestly don't know how that would work, but I can imagine the following happening:

    • Mittens finally releases his tax info ahead of 2012 RNC.
    • People discover serious improprieties in said tax info.
    • Tax info and any other related info quickly becomes a massive scandal.
    • Mittens "steps down" to "save" the GOP's electoral chances.
    • Paul Ryan is somehow gifted the nomination, barring calls for a impromptu second primary.
    • Tea Party-goers and GOP supporters finally get a presidential pick they actually like, causing the saga of the magic underwear-donning gaffe machine to fade into irrelevance.

    GOP supporters love Ryan. He's a clean-cut, inoffensive white guy of the proper Christian faith with proper conservative bonafides and no track record of being a walking, talking gaffe machine. The Tea Party loves him, thanks to his supposed fiscal hardassery thanks to the Ryan Plan. If you haven't noticed what the plan actually entails, here's a quick synopsis that'll probably save you time reading the aforementioned Wiki link:

    By selecting Ryan, Romney closely associates himself with the author of a controversial budget plan which would dramatically overhaul the federal government. Ryan, as head of the House Budget Committee, has called for big reductions in taxes for both wealthy individuals and corporations and turning Medicare into a program in which each senior citizen gets a voucher of several thousand dollars to purchase their own plan, instead of the current, government-operated program. He would make Medicaid a block grant program where each state could set its own rules.

    Under Ryan, corporate taxes would be 25 percent instead of 35 percent, and the highest tax bracket for individuals would also be 25 percent instead of 35 percent. He would also cut trillions in government spending, likely reducing funds for education, health care and transportation at a much faster rate than Democrats have proposed in order to balance the federal budget.

    And here's a walk-through of exactly how the Ryan plan will affect millions of Americans:


    1. The Ryan Plan shitcans Medicare as we currently know it in 2022 for everyone born after 1956. In other words, everyone under the age of 66 who hasn't already enrolled in Medicare at that point will receive vouchers. These vouchers will go towards purchasing a private health insurance plan of their choice. It's the illusion of choice that opponents of universal health care clamor for. After all, they don't want government "dictating" their health care - that's for the health insurance companies to do.

      The vouchers feature a fixed amount indexed to the projected net federal spending per capita for the average 65-year-old in the old Medicare, specified to be somewhere around $8,000 for 2022. If your private health insurance plan is more than that amount, then you'll just have to supplement it with your own money.
    2. Age eligibility for Medicare increases by two months per year starting in 2022, until it reaches 67 in 2033. God help you if you can't afford or qualify for insurance until then, because the Ryan Plan also shitcans the Affordable Care Act.
    3. Medicaid goes from a state/federal funded program to a block grant program, where the federal government simply hands over a set amount (which will be much less than the current federal government funding) and lets the states do as they wish regarding their Medicaid programs. States like Alabama are guaranteed to be parsimonious with this eligibility, which means millions of low-income people will be without some form of insurance coverage.
    4. Federal discretionary spending takes a dive to 6 percent of the nation's GDP by 2021 and 3.75 percent by 2050, or less than one-third of today's current spending. Meanwhile, Ryan and Romney are pushing for increases in defense spending. There's plenty wrong with that picture.
    5. The Alternative Minimum Tax and taxation on foreign profits goes away and the corporate tax rate drops from 35 percent to 25 percent. Meanwhile, the tax burden on the poor is set to increase.


    Personally, I don't understand why Republicans are falling over themselves over Paul Ryan. If anything, the GOP should be running away from him as fast as they can. The Ryan Plan is the GOP's very own Fukushima  Daiichi in the making and all it needs is a tsunami to make Romney/Ryan radioactive to voters. It's only a matter of time before the GOP's thrown into panic mode when the sheer toxicity of the dynamic duo reaches campaign-threatening levels.

    I'm sure it's easy for President Obama to dismiss these clowns, but even clowns like Ryan and Romney display cunning every once in a while.

  • Just as James Holmes did in an Aurora, Colorado movie theater, just as Charles Carl Roberts IV did in a one-room schoolhouse in Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania and just as those four bastards did decades ago at the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, Wade Michael Page took his hatred, frustrations and bloodlust out on a group of unsuspecting innocents -- people without the ability and foresight to protect themselves or perhaps strike back. After all, who but the most paranoid of individuals expects a gunman to burst into their normally quiet place of worship?

    In my book (and hopefully anyone else's), that's cowardice. It's a trait all of the above players share among each other. When pitted against equal or greater force, these individuals often fold under pressure. Holmes quietly gave up and turned himself in. Roberts took his own life. Cherry, Blanton, Cash and Chambliss scattered like roaches before being found, charged and eventually imprisoned.

    Page apparently chose "suicide by cop."

    Page visited his hate on a community of Sikhs, a people often mistaken (and sometimes used as stand-ins) for the Muslims whom "God-fearing Americans" have been trained to reflexively hate since 9/11, if not longer. Because there are never any Muslim extremists around when you need one, Page figured a Sikh temple would do in a pinch.

    And that's how six people ended up losing their lives.

    Holmes and Roberts' actions were treated as outliers, as something atypical of how men of their societal makeup should behave. It's much harder to do the same for Page, given his connections to and affiliations with Neo-Nazi hate groups, but that doesn't mean they won't try.* Nevertheless, his actions represent the proverbial canary in a  blood-filled coal mine.

    It's funny how right-wing-oriented "patriot" groups grow like weeds during "liberal" administrations, only to fall dormant during conservative ones, like a bad herpes infection:
    The Patriot movement first emerged in 1994, a response to what was seen as violent government repression of dissident groups at Ruby Ridge, Idaho, in 1992 and near Waco, Texas, in 1993, along with anger at gun control and the Democratic Clinton Administration in general. It peaked in 1996, a year after the Oklahoma City bombing, with 858 groups, then began to fade. By the turn of the millennium, the Patriot movement was reduced to fewer than 150 relatively inactive groups.

    But the movement came roaring back beginning in late 2008, just as the economy went south with the subprime collapse and, more importantly, as Barack Obama appeared on the political scene as the Democratic nominee and, ultimately, the president-elect. Even as most of the nation cheered the election of the first black president that November, an angry backlash developed that included several plots to murder Obama. Many Americans, infused with populist fury over bank and auto bailouts and a feeling that they had lost their country, joined Patriot groups.

    The swelling of the Patriot movement since that time has been astounding. From 149 groups in 2008, the number of Patriot organizations skyrocketed to 512 in 2009, shot up again in 2010 to 824, and then, last year, jumped to 1,274. That works out to a staggering 755% growth in the three years ending last Dec. 31. Last year's total was more than 400 groups higher than the prior all-time high, in 1996.

    All of this talk about "taking back our country" didn't really kick into overdrive until the dreaded "Marxist socialist Kenyan" planted his hind parts in the Oval Office chair. From there, memberships to these various "patriot" groups became less about disaffected losers slouching towards hatedom in search of an identity and a scapegoat, and more about people finding new outlets to vent their frustrations through before they suffered a humiliating "Ni*clang!*" moment in front of polite society.

    As long as these people see the current president, along with black Americans, Latinos, Muslims, liberal-minded folk and others who are ideologically, socially or politically different from them as dire threats to be eliminated with extreme prejudice, you'll keep seeing scenes like these. You'll keep seeing cowards pick soft targets to unload maximum death and misery just to make a statement and you'll keep hearing people attempt to explain why these events are somehow in no way connected to any future trends.

    Meanwhile, people are more scared of the raggedy-assed New Black Panther Party frightening elderly white Americans with their mere presence than they are of disaffected Neo-Nazis and other militia types deciding to strike out on their own rampage of terror and mayhem. After all, those ni*clang!*s are pretty scary...

    *For morbid hilarity, check out the FReep comments prescribing the Ku Klux Klan and Neo-Nazis as "radical leftist" entities. "National Socialist," indeed.

  • A few days ago, former Alabama governor Don Siegelman was re-sentenced on bribery charges and sent back to prison. Siegelman has to serve 78 months in addition to the time he's already served, plus spend the preceding 36 months on probation and pay restitution of approximately $50,000.

    Siegelman's re-sentencing caps off the systemic destruction of the Alabama Democrat party, namely by removing many of the most powerful progressive politicians from the picture. The epic Electronic Bingo Boogaloo saga brushed away many of these figures, with the side benefit of securing the interests of Mississippi gambling concerns and those of the casinos located on Native American lands throughout the state. Today, the state of Alabama is, for all intents and purposes, a one-party state led solely by the Republicans.

    This is also a hard-hitting lesson on why it's important for new administrations to clean house. Without Bush-era holdovers like Leura Canary and hubby Bill Canary, this entire investigation would have fallen apart before it grew legs. Mentioning Karl Rove's name in this mess will surely draw cries of conspiratorial thinking from conservatives, but his involvement in positioning former GOP governor Bob Riley's ascension is recorded, noted and undeniable:

    According to the Alabama RNC source, Rove met regularly with operatives for the Riley campaign. The source’s allegations are confirmed in part by campaign disclosure forms, which show that Windom paid Canary as a consultant between 1999 and early 2001 and later received large contributions from Canary’s business partner, a pattern that is duplicated with Riley and Canary.

    According to public records, Windom paid Canary’s firm $38,022 for consulting and polling between 1999 and 2001. At the same time, PACs associated with Canary’s business partner, Patrick McWhorter, donated heavily to Windom’s campaign, contributing $149,000 in 2001 and another $75,000 in 2002.

    After Windom lost the primary, PACs associated with McWhorter and Canary switched their donations to Bob Riley, giving him $85,000 in the days immediately preceding the November election. After the election victory, Windom emerged immediately as a close confidant of Riley’s, advising him on the appointment of a new Insurance Commissioner, Walter A. Bell, and other matters. Canary also emerged as a key Riley advisor.

    Public records also show that at the same time Canary was consulting for Bob Riley’s campaign, his lobbying group, the Business Council for Alabama, donated $678,000 to the campaign of his client. This was the third largest donation the campaign received, exceeded only by those from the Republican National State Elections Committee, for $2,475,000, and from Bob Riley himself, who contributed $1,070,000 to his own campaign.
    Here's a lovely flowchart provided by Raw Story

    Fellow blogger Legal Schnauzer has been on this case for quite a while, with a volume of detailed and in-depth blog posts to boot. You can follow the "Don Siegelman" tag and read to your heart's content, but here are a few posts that stand out IMHO:

    Judge In Siegelman Case Displays Monumental Arrogance and a Seriously Faulty Memory

    Siegelman Resentencing Serves as a Grim Reminder That His Prosecution Was Bogus from the Outset

    Justice Department Lawyer Has Conflict of Interest In SCOTUS Review of Siegelman Convictions
  • Walton Henry Butler, 59, allegedly shot the 32-year-old Everett Gant in the head, who visited his Port Saint Joe apartment to confront him about making racist comments to children in the apartment complex, according to the Broward Palm Beach New Times. The blog reports that Butler proceeded to eat dinner as Gant lay bleeding outside his door and cites an affidavit saying that Butler used the racial slur when questioned by the sheriff.

    Butler is charged with attempted murder with a hate crime enhancement.

    Police said Butler called 911, and expressed confusion at his arrest. "He was brought to the investigation unit where he was interviewed and basically admitted to shooting the victim and said he shot a, used a racial slur, and said that is what he shot and acted like it was not like a big deal or anything to him," Gulf County Sheriff Joe Nugent told WJHG.

    What's the big deal? He only shot a ni-*clang!*

    When people ask if we're truly in a "post-racial" society, you can include this incident in a growing pile of incidents as evidence to the contrary. If Trayvon Martin and the ongoing abuses meted out by law enforcement throughout the country didn't shank your idea of a "post-racial" America into a bloody heap, this incident should blast it's head clean off its naive shoulders. Black Americans are living in a country where a significant portion of the population actively hates them and, if it wasn't for criminal punishments and societal consequences, they'd grab a rope and have themselves a good ol' fashioned picnic.

    I doubt anything will happen to this guy once he sets foot in prison. The staff will most likely isolate him from the rest of the general population to keep headline-making incidents from happening. Once he's inside, he can always hook up with the resident Aryan Brotherhood for protection. Unless someone's brazen or crafty enough to drive a shank through his cold heart, he's going to remain untouched for the duration of his prison stay.

    Meanwhile:
    A police investigation has been launched in response to the shooting death of a 21-year-old man. The victim was shot in the head and died from his injuries while handcuffed and sitting in the back of a police patrol car on Saturday night. The victim, Chavis Carter, was riding as a passenger in a pickup truck that happened to be pulled over by police in Jonesboro, Arkansas. According to a report, an officer found marijuana and decided to run Carter’s information. The officer discovered that Carter had a warrant from Mississippi so he was put into the patrol car.

    “As protocol, he was handcuffed behind his back, double-locked and searched,” said Jonesboro Police Department Sgt. Lyle Waterworth.

    Minutes after putting Carter in the vehicle, officers claim they heard a thump noise. They turned to the vehicle and found that Carter had been shot in the head. Waterworth said that he believes Carter had a gun hidden on himself, which he pulled out and then shot himself with.

    “Any given officer has missed something on a search, you know, be it drugs, be it knives, be it razor blades,” he said. “This instance, it happened to be a gun.”

    Carter’s mom, Teresa Carter, does not agree with the police. “I think they killed him,” she said. “My son wasn’t suicidal.” She was told that her son suffered a bullet wound in his right temple. Her son is left-handed. “I mean, I just want to know what really happened,” she said. “That’s all I want to know.”

    Yes, exactly how does a left-handed person with his hands cuffed behind his back manage to get a hold of a "hidden" gun and shoot himself in his right temple? Secondly, why would he kill himself over a simple arrest? I hate to say it, but many black Americans who are about the criminal life treat jail as just another phase in their semi-short and violent lives. Suicide doesn't figure in this case.

    Unless it was "cop-assisted 'suicide'." Yep, definitely the worst case of "suicide" I've ever seen. I can bet money on an officer deciding to do away with this gentleman by killing him with a throwdown weapon.

    At least Alexis Sumpter wasn't killed by the cops over a MetroCard. There's a lot going wrong when we're relieved that law enforcement officials merely harass us instead of summarily executing us for frivolous and trivial shit. Something's definitely wrong with that picture.
  • "I don't believe in calling him the first black president," she said, "I voted for the white guy myself. I call him a monkey."
    The above comment left the mouth of conservative radio show host Barbara Espinosa, who somehow thinks that her Hispanic heritage excuses the above outburst. More telling was how her guest, Arizona Republican Party Chairman Tom Morrissey, remained silent during the above tirade and the subsequent argument between her and another caller over her remarks.



    Espinosa's outburst, along with Daily Caller reporter Neil Munro's disrespectful interruption of the president and, if you want to go back even further, Joe Wilson's ignorant outburst during the 2009 presidential address, are just one of the countless symptoms of a big problem that many Americans still can't own up to. The blatant disrespect of the president stems not from his party affiliation, but from an old problem that has yet to be laid bare for all to see and discuss.

    That problem is defined as a complete and total lack of respect for and outright hatred of non-white Americans, most notably black Americans and especially if they happen to occupy any position of power, hold any considerable amount of wealth or both.

    It's hard to explain the irrational hatred that comes over a vast swath of white Americans when it comes to the president, from the prototypical Tea Partier to even the most enlightened of liberals, without learning a fair bit of background information regarding the relations between black and white Americans, from the time Africans were involuntarily imported into the U.S. as slave labor to today. As a way to preserve the status of those slaves as such and to blunt the possibility of poor whites and black slaves from joining in a combined effort to demand and extract economic and social equality, the idea of blacks being somehow inferior became embedded within the collective psyche of the nation and it's been nearly impossible to root out ever since. This idea of the "other" as a "naturally inferior being" also affected Italian, Scottish, Polish and Irish immigrants, at least until they were finally able to literally melt into the great WASP collective, a feat that remains a non-option for scores of black Americans for obvious reasons.

    Seeing one of these "naturally inferior beings" ascend to the highest office in the land was a literal mind-fuck for many Americans, as it took the world view they were used to and challenged the living daylights out of it. Seeing an "inferior being" suddenly rise to the top should cause you to ask yourself if they were really inferior in the first place. Instead, many Americans doubled down on these beliefs, provoking the formation of oddities like the Tea Party, the racially-charged GOP presidential candidate race and, of course, the copious amounts of disrespect towards a man of color in spite of holding the highest title in the entire country.

    For a while, I wondered how would racism look like when visualized in terms of tribes. It's becoming easier for me to explain this as a case of one tribe's fear and subsequent hatred of the other. No matter how you cut it, one tribe just won't stand for being led by someone from the "other" tribe.

    Barack Obama is an "other." He was born from an African father and white American mother in a state unconnected to the U.S. mainland and, in many ways, very much foreign. His childhood wasn't like that of the average American child and his experiences were vastly different than others. His appearance, demeanor, speech and style don't match the expectations and assumptions of many Americans, nor do these attributes match the generally accepted expectations and assumptions made Americans have of those who happen to share his complexion and visual identity.

    The fact that he is an "other" who is constantly conflated with being aligned with those who share his visual identity is enough to send the psyche of many Americans into a tailspin. Which explains why many are willing to overlook their dislike of Mormons and their suspicions against an effete moderate conservative who is only concerned with monetary/corporate matters to support Mitt Romney, someone whom the Teabaggers treat as a "second-best" choice. A fiery firebrand of a fire starter like Newt Gingrich probably would have been their first if he didn't come with a matching set of bad luggage.

    It's less about President Obama's actual policies (which have so far worked towards benefiting the country as a whole) or his behavior in the White House (which has been nothing short of exemplary), but more about how his mere presence as the highest authority throughout the land constantly threatens to destroy the preconceived notions many Americans have about how those who happen to look like him should behave and are expected to behave, in their minds.

    If you want a detailed take on this problem, check out Steven Thrasher's piece and then check out the comments in response.


  • The following video features Atlanta-based rapper "Booghatti" having a severe disagreement with his producer "Sporty" over selling his song "Like a Kid." I can't wrap my head around why, but it was apparently enough to warrant the following ass whuppin':




    When an artist has a dispute with their producer, they often let the lawyers hash things out in court. This one decided to take his dispute "to the streets," resulting in a man literally beaten out of his clothing for some of the most trifling shit imaginable.

    One black man beating another over a trivial dispute. I bet not only does this "Booghatti" character feel good about himself for whipping on someone, he'll probably use this incident to further his "street cred." He should hope the man he senselessly beat doesn't decide to "come back" on him in an effort to save face and salvage what's left of his dignity.

    Now take this scene and multiply that across the country. There's trifling shit happening in just about every neighborhood over some of the most inconsequential shit possible. That's something that needs to come to an end, before more people get hurt or even killed.
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