• Meanwhile...

    Pictured above is suspected wildlife terrorist and television personality Phil Robertson, seen at a recent event declaring "jihad" on the treacherous Marxist Usurper in Chief, Baraq Hussein Superallah Obama al-Kenya. Moments after this speech, Robertson's prized pickup truck was destroyed along with 7 other trucks and a small ice cream cart in a targeted drone strike.

    - Phil, you've got some pretty unhealthy and un-Christian fantasies. Maybe you need to seek help.

    - It's no surprise that a company specializing in legalized racketeering would eventually get nailed for...racketeering:

    Judicial Correction Services (JCS), the for-profit probation company at the center of the recently settled Georgia "debtors' prison" suit, is now being sued by the Southern Poverty Law Center for violating federal racketeering laws in Clanton, Alabama.

    In the federal lawsuit, SPLC accuses JCS and its Clanton manager Steven Raymond of violating the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act, by threatening jail time for probationers who failed to pay their misdemeanor fines and probationer fees in a timely fashion. This, the group argues, is plain and simple extortion.

    The suit also goes after the current contract between Clanton and JCS, alleging that their relationship violates Alabama law, which forbids city courts from charging individuals extra money for being on probation. Since 2009, Clanton has contracted with JCS to manage its pay-only probationers (individuals who are only on probation because they can't pay their court fines upfront); however, the courts pay nothing for the for-profit company's services. Rather, JCS makes money off of the additional fees it forces upon probationers. For example, JCS charges probationers a $10 "set up" fee and then an additional $40 a month for the privilege of having their money collected.

    For many municipalities, it's a win-win setup: leading officials keep taxes low and maintain a "tough-on-crime" posture that wins elections, police departments and courts get to fund themselves by shaking down offenders and the ordinary Johns and Janes who have the money and class/race privilege to stay off the radar get to feel a bit safer at night.

    Meanwhile, the offenders are marched through a revolving door of poverty, incarceration and wealth extraction, thus keeping them in a state of permanent underclassdom.

    - Serena Williams is the first black female athlete to appear on a Vogue solo cover. What took you so long, Vogue?

    - You'd figure that by now, people would learn not to be racist on the job:

    Officials say four Fort Lauderdale police officers have lost their jobs following an investigation into a racist video and text messages.

    CBS Miami reported 30-year-old James Wells, 31-year-old Jason Holding and 25-year-old Christopher Sousa were fired. A fourth officer, 22-year-old Alex Alvarez, resigned.

    "The officers were terminated due to a sustained department misconduct," Chief Frank Adderley said during a news conference Friday. "The four officers conduct was inexcusable, and there is zero tolerance for this type of behavior within the Fort Lauderdale Police Department."
    According to CBS Miami, the video was allegedly made by Alvarez. Styled as a movie trailer, it included "racially insensitive" images including attacks on minorities, a Ku Klux Klan hood and a caricature of President Barack Obama with large gold teeth.

    Some of the text messages mentioned killing and injuring black people, CBS Miami reported. According to an investigative report obtained by the station, "The messages criticized their coworkers' grammar, appearance, work ethic and referred to an entire shift as lazy (expletives).... The officers also exchanged text messages that included derogatory comments towards Hispanics and homosexuals."

    For these guys, I have a feeling the moral of the story won't be "being racist shitheads comes with consequences." It'll be "no paper trails and no credible witnesses equals no racism."

    - For some reason, Nellie Andreeva thinks too many black faces on TV and film is actually a bad thing.