Showing posts with label epic stupidity. Show all posts
    Showing posts with label epic stupidity. Show all posts
  • We all know how tone-deaf Republicans tend to get when it comes to women's issues. Par for the course for those folks. In an effort to go against type and score those sweet, precious political points, Mike Huckabee crafted what Alexandra Petri at the Washington Post describes as a "three-coil steamer." Well, she's being extraordinarily polite here:

    I think it’s time for Republicans to no longer accept listening to Democrats talk about a war on women. Because the fact is, the Republicans don’t have a war on women. They have a war FOR women. For them to be empowered; to be something other than victims of their gender. Women I know are outraged that Democrats think that women are nothing more than helpless and hopeless creatures whose only goal in life is to have a government provide for them birth control medication. Women I know are smart, educated, intelligent, capable of doing anything anyone else can do. Our party stands for the recognition of the equality of women and the capacity of women. That’s not a war ON them, it’s a war FOR them. And if the Democrats want to insult the women of America by making them believe that they are helpless without Uncle Sugar coming in and providing or them a prescription each month for birth control because they cannot control their libido or their reproductive system without the help of the government, then so be it, let’s take that discussion all across America because women are far more than Democrats have made them to be. And women across America have to stand up and say, Enough of that nonsense.

    This, from the same folks who brought to you mandatory transvaginal ultrasounds and cockneyed theories about rape, birth control and pregnancy.

    But even if Huckabee's "Uncle Sugar" speech went over like a lead balloon with women everywhere, at least it resonated with the base. A recent poll shows Huckabee in the top spot for the GOP presidential primary for 2016:

    Following the controversy over his 'Uncle Sugar' speech Mike Huckabee has...taken the lead in the Republican primary race for 2016. He's at 16% to 14% for Jeb Bush, 13% for Chris Christie, 11% for Rand Paul, 8% each for Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, and Paul Ryan, 6% for Scott Walker, and 5% for Bobby Jindal.

    There's been more movement than usual over the last month, with Huckabee and Bush each gaining 3-4 points, and Chris Christie and Ted Cruz each falling by 6 points. Cruz had been leading the field among 'very conservative' voters for months but in the wake of Huckabee's press attention last week he's taken the top spot with that group. He's at 20% to 15% for Paul, 11% for Cruz, and 10% for Bush. In the wake of Bridgegate Christie's supremacy with moderate voters is being challenged- a month ago he led Bush by 23 points with them, but now his advantage is down to 3 points at 28/25.

    The same poll also shows Sarah Palin winning the "Ms. Congeniality" prize of "best liked person."



  • Last time on Adventures In Senseless Shit, yours truly brought to you the story of a little boy who, encouraged by relatives, played up to the "gangster/trapper/thug" archetype instead of doing something kids his age usually do, like yank cats around by their tails or smear nail polish all over the new loveseat and recliner set, nevermind the plastic's still on it and everything.

    Thanks to the power of Facebook, video camera technology and a few of Omaha, Nebraska's finest, he became the poster child of all that's perpetually wrong with the black community, young black males especially. The boys in blue caught a lot of flak behind that and rightfully so. Feigning sincere concern to showcase "proof" of black thuggishness and validate your own prejudices in the process has always been a bit of a dick move.

    What I wasn't looking for was this nonsense from Crystal Wright:

    Maybe if blacks would stop killing each other, having babies out of wedlock and basically acting like thugs, people wouldn’t call them thugs.

    In a bold move to show residents, the pathology of violence they encounter and who is perpetrating the crimes, the Omaha Police Officers Association posted a video of a “local black thug” spewing profanity, sexual and violent laced language at a toddler.

    Mr. Thug was so proud of his video masterpiece, he posted it on Facebook and his black friends cheered him on.

    Liberals and some liberal blacks have expressed disdain for the Omaha police in posting the video, claiming it stereotypes blacks and the man’s behavior is an anomaly. But the opposite is true. In DC where I currently live and witness frequently uneducated blacks calling each other and their children the same sorts of heinous names.

    I have never seen white people talk to each other this way, much less their children. While black activists and liberals can try to pretend, we all know hip hop and rap glorify and extol this exact thug culture, using the very same offensive words in their music. So let’s stop pretending.

    Crystal, let's stop pretending you have the good interests of black folks at heart. We know you're just doing this whole Stepin' Fetchit routine for the big bucks, fanfare and connections. This formulaic recycling of the usual conservative arguments about blacks and black thugdom might impress your paymasters and send tingles up the spines of the unreconstructed, but just isn't gonna cut it with the rest of us today.

    So Crystal goes on to tell us that the truth isn't politically correct, which segues into the big whopper of the day:

    The ugly truth is blacks, who represent a mere 13% of the population, are committing most of the violent crimes in America and 55% of federal prisoners are black. About 54% of all homicides are murders of blacks and according to the Justice Department data from 1980 to 2008, “blacks were six times more likely than whites to be homicide victims and seven times more likely than whites to commit homicide.”

    I have a love/hate relationship with the FBI/DOJ data. I love it because of how it lets the unreconstructed lay down a distorted version of "the truth" with remarkable ease. I hate it because it takes too damn long to correct that bit of statistical malpractice and keep a captive audience. Even Tim Wise can't cut it down to a succinct, salient point that single-handedly blows the above out of the water.

    I could say the stats are bullshit, because they are. But then I'd just be accused of being in denial.

    To be honest, the true face of the thug life isn't a little kid who knows only what he's taught or any number of random black males who fit the broad description of a "thug."

    Take a look at the above photo. That's the true face of the thug life.

    Hear me out on this. She's a ride-or-die chick with the conservative clique who's not afraid to put a cap in the collective ass of an entire community to get her program over with. With this drive-by piece, she unloaded the race realist gat and sprayed hot hollow-point bile all over the block for her conservative homies. Now that's some real gangster-ass shit.



  • Wanna know what might blow a hole in your political ambitions for 2016? It's not being seen palling around with the Socialist Marxist Kenyan in Chief. Or having a mouth that's just as wide as your own personal girth. Turns out it's having your minions gridlock one of the busiest thoroughfares in the nation just to get back at some Democrat mayor who wouldn't endorse your generously proportioned Republican ass so you could have bigger numbers to fuel your presidential campaign.

    Screwing with poor welfare recipients and schoolteachers is one thing. But screwing with the ordinary motorist on one of the busiest commutes in the nation is just something you don't do, period.

    Chris Christie figured he could escape the backlash and watch his minions take the hit, because that's what minions are supposed to be there for. And indeed they did. Sorta.



    At least Mittens had the forethought to expunge any and all traces of impropriety on part of his staff. As far as pulling dirty tricks on political opponents, Christie still has a lot to learn from Richard Nixon, nevermind how his penchant for rigging the playing field even when handed sure-fire victory was driven by pathological paranoia, whereas Christie's own egomania was calling the shots.

    Meanwhile, a lot of people are saying Christie's fucked. And he is. And in a way, he's always been fucked. He's not a fan favorite of the rabid GOP base, except when he's yelling and throwing his weight around. They liked how he pissed off liberals, but that's pretty much it. His penchant for maneuvering himself as the moderate choice works for grabbing moderate GOP voters, but it does him no favors for attracting conservative voters who like a little fire-breathing with their sermons.

    Problem is, we're still at least a year away from presidential nominations and most people have short memory spans. Will this man still be fucked when it comes time to pick the next GOP candidate for president come 2016? That's anyone's guess and it all depends on how deep investigators dig and how much political gold gets unearthed.

    Or perhaps how long ordinary motorists stay pissed at Christie's Soprano-esque move.



  • The above video shows exactly what a "perfect storm of abusive power and arrogance" looks like. Watch the video in its entirety. This is what a police state looks like.

    Also, note the conduct and demeanor of the deputies involved. They crack jokes, hurl abuse, intimidate and issue threats. One deputy even states, "I wish we could cane the both of y'all though." Highly aggressive, antagonistic and waiting for an opportunity to issue physical and possibly lethal violence.

    All because one of the occupants had a warrant for an overdue $1,000 civil fine, which was paid the next day.

    The Dekalb County, Georgia sheriff has already vowed to punish the seven deputies and their sergeant for their conduct. Sadly, most "punishments" involve the words "paid leave" and "suspension with pay."

    As one of the deputies barked, "there's repercussions and consequences behind everything you do!" For the deputies involved in this shameful and arrogant display, we'll see.
  • - One day, Glendon Scott Crawford came up with an idea straight from 1950s-era Sci-fi: build a "death ray" that would silently kill its targets with massive amounts of radiation. First, he tried to hock his wares to a local Jewish synagogue in hopes it would be used in defense of the Israelis. When the Ku Klux Klan came calling, Crawford thought he finally hit paydirt.

    What he hit was a FBI sting operation and a possible 15-year stint for himself and accomplice Eric J. Feight:

    The suspects had successfully tested the remote triggering system that could work from a little less than a half mile away from the weapon, the complaint states. On June 12, they planned to have a dinner where Crawford would be provided with the radiation system, which was not finished. When the men were meeting, the FBI was monitoring their activities, including using undercover informants who posed as members of a South Carolina Ku Klux Klan group interested in purchasing the device and financing the project.

    On Tuesday, the FBI seized a vehicle of Crawford's at Shorty's, an out-of-business auto body shop Schaghticoke, where Crawford had allegedly planned to conduct a test-run of the triggering system. A law enforcement official said the auto business had nothing to do with the plot.

    Executive Assistant U.S. Attorney John Duncan said Crawford was arrested at 3 p.m. Tuesday as he was "in the process of attempting to assemble various components of this device. Again, the entire operation was under very close control of the JTTF and, as a result he did not have the opportunity to do that. This device was never going to be capable the way it was set up of emitting any dangerous X-ray radiation."

    Any chance of these guys getting sent down to Gitmo as "enemy combatants"? Not a chance.

    - Paula Deen's been outed as a racist and an all-around terrible human being:

    Paula, 66, admitted to using the N-word and wanting black waiters to play the role of slaves at a wedding party she was putting together, a new bombshell report from the National Enquirer claims.

    “The personal disclosures uncovered have stunned Paula’s family and could mark the collapse of her entire empire,” a source told the tabloid.

    When asked by Lisa’s Atlanta-based attorney if she’d ever used the N-word, Paula responded, “Yes, of course,” and gave examples of times she used the offensive term.

    In terms of telling racist jokes, Paula said, “It’s just what they are — they’re jokes…most jokes are about Jewish people, rednecks, black folks…I can’t determine what offends another person.”

    And when asked if she wanted black men to play the role of slaves at a wedding she explained she got the idea from a restaurant her husband and her had dined at saying, “The whole entire waiter staff was middle-aged black men, and they had on beautiful white jackets with a black bow tie.

    “I mean, it was really impressive. That restaurant represented a certain era in America…after the Civil War, during the Civil War, before the Civil War…It was not only black men, it was black women…I would say they were slaves.”

    There's nothing new here. The idea of guilt-free indulgence in a romanticized variant of the antebellum experience has always been with us in one form or another. For example, Aunt Fanny's Cabin.

    - The Farm Bill died an ignoble death in the House, 195-234. And good thing it did, too - Republicans added provisions within the bill that would have stripped $20 billion from the food stamp program and added  work requirements for eligibility. Considering how it's low-income women, children and the elderly who benefit most the food stamp program, it's easy to see how well this would turn out.

    Thanks to the bill's defeat, John Boehner looks less like a leader and more like stir-fried shit in a suit. Fingers are pointing everywhere - the GOP's accusing the Dems of sandbagging the bill by withdrawing votes at the last second, while the Dems accuse the GOP of loading the bill with several petty bullshit amendments that wound up fracturing Republican support. Throwing in things like an amendment to ax a dairy supply management program just to fuck over legislators from dairy-producing states will do that to a bill.

    - To prove a point about the food stamp cuts in the recently-defeated Farm Bill, 26 House Democrats tried their hand at keeping themselves fed on $1.50/day, or $31.50/week:

    Rep. Johnson explained how little $31.50 actually bought. He detailed his diet for the week. Johnson said that he would only be eating two meals a day. His meat for the day will be bacon. He got lucky, and found a buy one get one free sale. He also will subsist on oatmeal, Ramen noodles, hot dogs, waffles, syrup, bananas, and he “splurged” on some tea.

    Rep. Johnson said that Republicans would never pass these cuts if they had to live on $31.50 a week, but, “The problem is that we have so many millionaires on the other side of the aisle that they will never have to worry about where their next meal is coming from, or trying to stretch dollars so that they can eat for the period of time that they have the finances to pay for.”

    Last up:



    It starts out with doors. Then doors with knobs. Next thing you know, they'll master crude hand tools and simple machinery.
  • In the ongoing IRS debacle and Benghazi, the GOP figures it hit a home run, or at least a triple with all bases covered. Something tells me the GOP hit a couple of fouls and is well and truly on its way to striking out.

    First, the specter of the Obama administration being responsible for targeting conservative groups through the IRS was swiftly snuffed with the following:

    Over two years, IRS field office agents repeatedly changed their criteria while sifting through thousands of applications from groups seeking tax-exempt status to select ones for possible closer examination, the findings showed.

    At one point, the agents chose to screen applications from groups focused on making "America a better place to live."

    Exactly who at the IRS made the decisions to start applying extra scrutiny was not clear from the findings, which were contained in portions of an investigative report from the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA).
    After brewing for months, the IRS effort exploded into wider view on Friday when Lois Lerner, director of exempt organizations for the IRS, apologized for what she called the "inappropriate" targeting of conservative groups for closer scrutiny, something the agency had long denied.

    At a legal conference in Washington, while taking questions from the audience, Lerner said the agency was sorry.

    She said the screening practice was confined to an IRS office in Cincinnati; that it was "absolutely not" influenced by the Obama administration; and that none of the targeted groups was denied tax-free status.
    By July 2011, the IRS was no longer targeting just groups with certain key words in their names. Rather, the screening criteria had changed to "organizations involved with political, lobbying, or advocacy."

    But then it changed again in January 2012 to cover "political action type organizations involved in limiting/expanding government, educating on the constitution and bill of rights, social economic reform/movement," according to the findings contained in a Treasury Department watchdog report.

    In March 2012, after Tea Party groups complained about delays in processing of their applications, then-IRS Commissioner Doug Shulman was called to testify by a congressional committee. He denied that the IRS was targeting tax-exempt groups based on their politics.

    The IRS said on Saturday that senior IRS executives were not aware of the screening process. The documents reviewed by Reuters do not show that Shulman had any role.

    In May 2012, the criteria for scrutiny were revised again to cover a variety of tax-exempt groups "with indicators of significant amounts of political campaign intervention (raising questions as to exempt purpose and/or excess private benefit)," according to a TIGTA timeline included in the findings.

    The happy scandal balloon deflated even more when two salient facts came to light: that a Bush administration appointee was in charge of the IRS at the time this happened and that the IRS has been without a commissioner since he stepped down. In spite of the presence of an acting commissioner, the big chair remains empty due to the usual GOP obstructionism:

    Moreover, details of the IRS’s efforts to target conservative groups reached the highest levels of the agency in May 2012, far earlier than has been disclosed, according to Republican congressional aides briefed by the IRS and the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration ­(TIGTA) on the details of their reviews.

    Then-Commissioner Douglas Shulman, a George W. Bush appointee who stepped down in November, received a briefing from the TIGTA about what was happening in the Cincinnati office in May 2012, the aides said. His deputy and the agency’s current acting commissioner, Steven T. Miller, also learned about the matter that month, the aides said.

    If the GOP still wants to place the blame on the Obama administration since this "happened on his watch," let the investigative processes commence.

    Not only is the IRS "scandal" proving to be anything but, so is Benghazi. Courtesy of PoliticusUSA:

    After CNN’s Jake Tapper exposed ABC’s report was based on information that was edited in order to make the Obama administration look bad, ABC tried to explain away their lies by claiming that their inaccurate story, and the actual emails are the same thing, “Assuming the email cited by Jake Tapper is accurate, it is consistent with the summary quoted by Jon Karl.”

    In the process of trying to defend himself, Karl exposed his own lies, “This is how I reported the contents of that e-mail, quoting verbatim a source who reviewed the original documents and shared detailed notes.” (In his original story, Karl claimed that ABC News had obtained the emails. This obviously wasn’t true.)

    Karl also explained that he and ABC News never reviewed the emails, “The source was not permitted to make copies of the original e-mails. The White House has refused multiple requests – from journalists, including myself, and from Republican leaders in Congress – to release the full e-mail exchanges.”

    For the sake of getting the scoop first, ABC News managed to trip all over its own shoelaces and get shown up by the folks at CNN. But that's beside the point. What matters is the lengths Republican leaders have gone to paint Benghazi as the next Watergate. It didn't hurt that they had a little help along the way:

    Jon Karl wrote that nobody could get copies the emails. If this was true, how did Jake Tapper get them?

    The truth is that Karl’s source was likely someone within the Republican House, because these emails were made available to the Republicans investigating Benghazi months ago. (Before Karl came to ABC he was a congressional correspondent at CNN, so connect the dots. Plus, it wasn’t a coincidence that this story broke days before House Republicans held another Benghazi hearing.)

    Jon Karl thought he found his "Deep Throat" and well...nah. Had a pretty good metaphor for this one, but it would be a bit uncouth even for DDSS standards. Jake Tapper saw an opening to make himself look good for once at Karl's expense. It's gonna make for a rather awkward meet when they run into each other at the next cocktail dinner.



  • Many men, wish death upon me
    Blood in my eye dog and I can't see
    I'm tryin' to be what I'm destined to be
    And niggas tryin' to take my life away

    It's not every day that yours truly would lead a blog post with lyrics from a rap song, but after listening to 50 Cent's urban lament, it felt somewhat appropriate. After all, many men and women have wished death on the president, from ordinary citizens to militia members and even U.S. servicemen. And now we can add a law enforcement official to that ever-growing list:

    A sheriff in Massachusetts is refusing to apologize for joking that President Barack Obama could best serve the country by being assassinated.

    Plymouth County Sheriff Joseph D. McDonald, Jr. made the joke during a local St. Patrick’s Day breakfast for Republicans on Sunday. He said that the ghost of Lincoln appeared to Obama in a dream and advised him to go to the theater, where the former president was shot in the head.

    Of course, invoking the imagery of Abraham Lincoln's assassination at Ford's Theatre in April 1865 is considered a "joke," one made "in jest," to boot. Perhaps the president should just lighten up and shrug off this latest threat to his and his family's well-being.

    Both of Barack Obama's terms as President of the United States have been marked by a thorough and unrelenting disrespect of his being and the office he holds, on both racial and ideological grounds. Through thoughts, words and actions, that unending disrespect constantly oozes out of the pores of people who see the president as an aberration, as someone who neither deserves the office he currently occupies nor deserves to lead a nation populated by men and women of a certain ideological bent. This seething, unrelenting disrespect manifests itself most noticeably in calls for the president's life, his wife's life or (and I shudder at the thought) his childrens' lives.

    Sheriff MacDonald should not only be heaved away from his department with great force, he should also be prevented from taking on any more jobs within the law enforcement sector. By all indications, this is what's least likely to happen. If the trials and tribulations of countless men and women are anything to go by, it's a given that those within law enforcement not only tolerate, but also welcome and perpetuate the ideologies and rhetoric that drives people to threaten the president's life. As long as the good sheriff is tolerated by his constituency and the Powers That Be™ above his own pay grade, he and others like him will continue to exist as a part of law enforcement.

    It's interesting to note that news of Sheriff MacDonald's "joke" was included in an initial report by the Boston Globe, only for any and all mentions of said "joke" to be scrubbed without so much as an editorial note. Perhaps someone didn't want to become a target of the Plymouth County authorities or perhaps the good sheriff had some good friends in all the right places. Nevertheless, sources like the Boston Globe end up making themselves irrelevant and unimportant to ordinary people as they stray from reporting actual news and gravitate towards issuing stories that read more like the latest public relations news wire.

    With a press that's all too willing to cover for the disrespect of others who "don't belong" and the willingness of people to look the other way and remain silent during these fragrant acts of disrespect, it's little wonder the president has to tolerate having death threats hurled his way on a constant basis by people who feel entitled to do just that. At least until the Secret Service shows up.

    Speaking of the Secret Service, I hope the sequester isn't hitting them too hard. The last thing we need is for the people who actively seek to neutralize assassination plots to be underpaid.



  • A day at Disneyland should be a day of pure, unadulterated fun for the young-uns. The last thing you should run into is some asshole in a rabbit costume impressing his own racist beliefs on your child and others who happen to look like him:

    An African American family sued Disneyland after the actor who portrayed the White Rabbit character from “Alice in Wonderland” allegedly refused to hug or touch their children because of their skin color.

    Jason and Annelia Black of San Diego County said the person in the rabbit costume also acted impatiently as their young kids posed for a picture at the Anaheim theme park.

    The Blacks, however, said it was a different scene when a Caucasian family arrived.

    “There were two other kids that came up. The rabbit showered them. Hugged them, kissed them, posed with them, and took pictures. Meanwhile, that made my kids feel horrible,” said Jason.

    The family immediately filed a complaint with Disneyland officials.

    The Blacks said they were offered VIP passes and $500, but they turned down both gifts.

    In addition, they were asked to sign a confidentiality agreement.

    The family said they want a public apology and the employee involved in the incident to be fired.

    So the family was handed some VIP passes and $500 in hush money, which amounts to a pat on the head and a dismissive hand wave. It didn't do anything towards counseling or reprimanding the guy in the white rabbit suit, so they turned it down and instead chose to held Disney accountable in the only way you can (unless you happen to have billions of dollars and an army of lobbyists at your call): a lawsuit.

    Of course, one (mostly) anonymous commentator on ABLC figured that once the Blacks (ironic, I know) turned down what he saw was an acceptable apology, he figured they were in it for the big bucks, using their "Race Card to fund what he saw as a litigation gamble:

    If I understand children $500 free rides and an appology, maybe a special photo op with their favourite character(s) would salve their hurt feelings. Unless the parents want their children to LOOK for slights to be offended about. (...)

    (...)he was probably under instuction not to get the suit too dirty ….but who knows.

    Of course, it's perfectly reasonable to assume that like most black families in their position, the Blacks would get offended by a perfectly logical rationale (after all, that dirt does blend in really good on black kids) and get all pie-eyed about a possible settlement with a loaded corporate entity.

    This is where ABLC commentator Zapruder F. Mashtots, D.D.S. steps in with a treatise that puts an end to the above bullshit:

    I know I harp on this without end, but it’s typical. When there’s some kind of blowup involving whites and blacks, people will fall all over themselves to find reasons that the white guy didn’t mean it or the white guy got a raw deal or everybody took what the white guy said “out of context” or some such bullshit. And then the same people will reach up their asses to find some reason, any reason that the black guy “had it coming”. It seems to be automatic. People do this, seemingly, without even thinking about it; it’s nothing more than a reflex.

    I mean, shitfuck, this even happened last March when a would-be vigilante shot an unarmed kid walking through his own fucking neighborhood! People just couldn’t help themselves, it seemed. He must have “done something”. He must have deserved it. And even when it came out in dribs and drabs that the vigilante was a fucked up loser asshole, people still excused away everything he’d ever done (“Oh, the assault conviction (or whatever it was)? Oh, that was nothing. That was only a misunderstanding. It’s so unfair the way the corrupt police are railroading this fine young man!”

    And at the same time, as we learned some new little detail every day that showed that Martin was a decent kid, people couldn’t wait to “interpret” everything in the worst light, twisting things far beyond what was reasonable, or even sane.

    Now, to be sure, this is nothing like the Martin case. Nothing nearly so awful happened here. But, fuck me sideways, people are having the same reflexive reactions to it: Black people? They’re amoral, grifting scumbags. Even if they look like decent people, well, you know how they are, they’re always hiding something, they’re always up to no good. But white people? Oh, they’re always blameless. Whatever they might seem to have done, well, that’s nothing but a misunderstanding.

    I’m sorry to go off on you, but I get so god dmaned sick of this shit.

    That's the basic narrative America's operated under for generations. Black people are assumed to be bad people until proven otherwise. White people are assumed to be good people until proven otherwise. Others are assigned bad/good labels according to whatever's geopolitically expedient or acceptable at the moment. The Blacks were assumed to be bad people for not taking the pat on the head and hush money. Our (mostly) anonymous friend's supposed outrage would be next to nonexistent if the Blacks were, well...white. In fact, he and several others might not have bothered to comment at all. They might have even encouraged the white Blacks to sue in order to get "justice." Funny how that works.

    You know the irony of all this?  After reading Mashtots' response, our (mostly) anonymous commentator would turn around and accuse him of whining.

    Whining about injustice. Whining about getting the shit end of the socioeconomic stick for centuries. Whining about things like police brutality, microaggressions, institutionalized racism and a pervasive perception that black Americans are somehow not worthy of the same sort of respect automatically given to their white counterparts. Instead of addressing grievances, it's just whining.

    Come to think of it, a great way to marginalize and eventually silence someone is to either call them crazy or just dismiss them as being whiny.
  • "I’m beginning to get some evidence from certain doctors and certain scientists that have done research on women’s wombs after they've gone through the surgery, and they've compared the wombs of women who were on the birth control pill to those who were not on the birth control pill," Swanson explains.

    "And they have found that with women who are on the birth control pill, there are these little tiny fetuses, these little babies, that are embedded into the womb. They’re just like dead babies. They’re on the inside of the womb. And these wombs of women who have been on the birth control pill effectively have become graveyards for lots and lots of little babies."

    The above quoted comes from Kevin Swanson. No, not Joe and Bonnie's kid, although this Kevin's done a great job turning himself into a cartoonish caricature. This Kevin is a fundamentalist pastor with a radio show of his very own. He's also a guy who genuinely believes (or at least wants people to believe) that birth control not only ruthlessly murders forming fetuses on contact, but it also turns the uterine wall into a vertical graveyard of little tiny fetuses, at which point they're eventually discarded and flushed away in a genocidal red tide, meeting an ignoble end on a tampon or a maxi-pad.

    No, Kevin, birth control does not work that way. Here, let me help you (and anyone else clueless about birth control) understand how it all goes down, courtesy of Columbia University:

    Birth control pills prevent pregnancy through several mechanisms, mainly by stopping ovulation. If no egg is released, there is nothing to be fertilized by sperm, and the woman cannot get pregnant. Most birth control pills contain synthetic forms of two female hormones: estrogen and progestin. These synthetic hormones stabilize a woman's natural hormone levels, and prevent estrogen from peaking mid-cycle. Without the estrogen bump, the pituitary gland does not release other hormones that normally cause the ovaries to release mature eggs.

    Specifically, synthetic estrogen in the pill works to:
    • Stop the pituitary gland from producing follicle stimulating hormone (FSH) and luteinizing hormone (LH) in order to prevent ovulation.
    • Support the uterine lining (endometrium) to prevent breakthrough bleeding mid-cycle.
    Meanwhile, synthetic progestin works to:
    • Stop the pituitary gland from producing LH in order to prevent egg release.
    • Make the uterine lining inhospitable to a fertilized egg.
    • Partially limit the sperm's ability to fertilize the egg.
    • Thicken the cervical mucus to hinder sperm movement (although this effect may not be key to preventing pregnancy).

    Seems like poor Kevin's confusing birth control with more controversial abortifacients like Mifepristone, better known under the catchier name "RU 486." Then again, lumping the two together works well for drawing more outrage from concerned anti-abortion groups, as well as intentionally muddying the waters for everyone else.

    At any rate, you have to wonder where our friend Kevin came up with his home-grown theory on how birth control strangles the Gift of Life™ and tacks it on the wall like a Cenobite's bulletin board posting. The above quote indicates research was involved, and I'd like to know who did that research and what it entailed. I have a feeling Kevin simply reached back to the idea of preformation, where ready-made modules of humanity are fired off in the form of sperm into the female uterus, where the one (or more) chosen sperm will eventually grow into a healthy human being or wind up the uterine equivalent of a deer antler on a sportsman's wall.

    Oddly enough, nothing's said about the wanton murder that male masturbation causes, especially if you keep in mind the whole "preformation" idea. Trillions upon trillions of sperm are left to die a cottony death on the napkins, paper towels, socks and bedsheets of young and adult American men, yet nothing's ever said about this genocide of epic proportions. As one unlucky spermatozoa croaked just before expiring on a hotel mattress, "Kevin Swanson don't care about sperm people."





    There's also this thing about Kevin homeschooling himself. Not to knock the homeschool movement, but it's the perfect way for religious fundamentalists, the mentally imbalanced and the overly paranoid to short-circuit and bypass the public education process, creating a legion of misinformed and otherwise maligned beings who don't do all that well in society. Meanwhile, it causes problems for successful homeschoolers and their kids, now that they're lumped in with the snake handlers, crazies and other assorted assholes.

    Kevin self-matriculated from his own self-managed homeschool and wound up as "the student body president of a large (unnamed) west coast university." He homeschools his kids. He writes books for homeschoolers. Thousands, even millions of people are learning Kevin's theory on birth control's gynecological graveyard. That should bring a shudder to anyone with common sense.


  • “One thing he’s gonna be asked is, why did he jump on [the hurricane] so quickly and go back to D.C. so quickly when in…Benghazi, he went to Las Vegas?” Brown says. “Why was this so quick?… At some point, somebody’s going to ask that question…. This is like the inverse of Benghazi.”

    The above quote comes courtesy of former FEMA Director Michael Brown. If you all remember, our friend "Brownie" was in charge of FEMA during Hurricane Katrina. The slow response of the agency fell squarely on his shoulders according to a 2006 report from the Department of Homeland Security's inspector general, leading to his resignation from FEMA two weeks after the hurricane struck.

    And apparently, the man sees fit to chastise the president for "jumping too quickly" on Hurricane Sandy, just to get in an oblique jab on President Obama's response to Benghazi. Yeah, the GOP's still trying to make hay of his response to that tragic event:

    Conservatives have been hitting Obama for weeks on his attendance at a fundraiser in Nevada following the assault in Benghazi, claiming at alternate times that the President either cared more about politics than lives lost or that he was trying to downplay the attack’s significance. Now the critique has mutated into a belief that Obama is currently “playing President” to score points during disaster relief in the run-up to the election, in contrast to his actions in September.

    Actually, from the moment President Obama took the oath of office, it was decided by the unreconstructed throughout the GOP that he was, in fact, "playing president." Because no ni*CLANG* could ever be president of the United States of America, no matter how hard he faked it.

    The bottom line of all this shit talk is an undercurrent of disrespect that now lays open like an open sewer or a beached whale carcass. I'm genuinely surprised that no actual politician has gathered the required minerals to cross the dreaded "Ni-CLANG! Event Horizon" openly and unapologetically call the current President of the United States a "ni*CLANG*." In that regard, there's not much the president can do to that would earn their respect or approval, as demonstrated handily over the course of an entire presidential term.

    Michael Brown had his time in the sunshine and with a dubious track record such as his, he should be the last individual to have anything to say about Obama's handling of this and other natural disasters. I wonder what Kanye West would have to say about all this...
  • 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...
  • Today, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder was held in both civil and criminal contempt by the House of Representatives.

    Washington (CNN) -- The House of Representatives voted Thursday to hold Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt for refusing to turn over documents tied to the botched Fast and Furious gun-running sting -- a discredited operation that has become a sharp point of contention between Democrats and Republicans in Washington.
    The House approved a pair of criminal and civil measures against the attorney general, marking the first time in American history that the head of the Justice Department has been held in contempt by Congress.

    House members approved the criminal contempt measure in a 255-67 vote. Almost every House Republican backed the measure, along with 17 Democrats. Shortly thereafter, the civil measure passed in a sharply polarized 258-95 vote.

    A large number of Democrats -- including members of the Congressional Black Caucus and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi -- walked off the House floor in protest and refused to participate in the criminal contempt vote. A slightly smaller number of Democrats appeared to boycott the vote on the civil measure as well.

    17 Democrats voted along with Republicans on the criminal contempt measure. 21 Democrats did likewise on the civil contempt measure. NBC News' Frank Thorpe thoughtfully provided a list of names:





    And there you have it. Concerned Democrats who chafe at this display of Blue Dog dumbassery can organize a movement to replace these people with actual Democrats. Speaking of which, dozens of Democrats walked off the House floor in protest of the civil and criminal contempt votes.

    So, what happens next?

    Unlike a contempt charge at the county courthouse, AG Holder isn't gonna spend 30 or 60 days cooling his heels in the pokey. But Darrell Issa and crew can push him to resign under the assumption Holder's been tarred and feathered good over this "disgrace." The GOP can also use this to further de-legitimize the Obama administration's authority and run it out on a rail come this Election Day:

    ...the next step would be to send the contempt citation against Holder to the local U.S. attorney for enforcement. Traditionally the Justice Department doesn't pursue criminal contempt of Congress cases against its own administration.

    If, as history suggests, the Justice Department won't prosecute a criminal case against Holder, the House could hire its own lawyer and file a civil lawsuit in federal court. Such a case could lead to an order for Holder to turn over the documents. But the federal District Court in Washington has been reluctant to rush into such cases.

    The hopes of the House winning a legal resolution before the November elections are dim. And the authority behind House subpoenas or contempt citations traditionally are considered to expire when that Congress ends, according to the Congressional Research Service. That happens in January 2013.

    In any event, if Obama loses his re-election bid the case becomes moot. If Obama wins and Republicans retain control of the House, they could vote to restart the fight. But Holder might no longer be in office.

    A contempt of Congress vote against Holder probably would amplify calls from some Republicans for his resignation. Although the administration's shown no signs of that so far, it's widely believed, even among Holder's close associates, that he doesn't intend to return should Obama win a second term. When asked about it, Holder has been noncommittal.

    However, in issuing these contempt measures, the GOP once again verified that it would go to great lengths just to see the president and attorney general bum-rushed out of office by any means necessary. It also has plenty of racial overtones. A lot of people want to see Holder, a black guy, fail in order to validate their beliefs of black American men being incapable of managing leadership positions unless they happen to be both conservative as all get out and under the total and complete tutelage of the GOP (Cain, Thomas, Steele, West, etc). If they can't get Obama to go down in flames, Holder will do just nicely. Even better if they both go down.

    Holder happens to be the first black U.S. Attorney General. He also happens to be the first AG to be held in contempt by Congress. Funny how that works out. Even funnier is this excruciatingly detailed account on how the GOP's narrative of the "Fast and Furious" operation isn't what it appears to be at a close glance.
  • My sympathy for Mark Judge died a few days after his bike got stolen. It was on a Good Friday that the non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma survivor came back from a wonderful day of activity, only to see an odd sight.

    He saw his bike. He also saw a rather large Negro holding his bike, forcefully liberated from its secure bounds. Before Mark could respond, the naturally swift-footed Negro took off in an instant. Mark gave valiant chase, but the fast twitch fibers afforded by his extra set of leg muscles allowed the strapping Negro to leap across five lanes of traffic and pirouette gently onto the roof of a five-story building. Mark's gaze met the cold, soulless eyes of the elusive Negro for a brief moment, and in a flash, the Negro was gone. And so was Mark's bike. Negro stole Mark Judge's bike.

    Of course Mark Judge didn't actually see who stole his bike and neither did anyone else. He merely assumed that the only way his bike could had been stolen was if a Negro gentleman of a large and strapping size or a team of small, crafty and fleet-footed Negroids illegally liberated his conveyance from its moorings. When his friend warned Judge not to jump to race-tinged conclusions, that was the final straw that broke the biker's back. No longer would he be moored down by his own burdensome white guilt. No longer would he actually have to give those black fiends benefit of a doubt. No longer would he be subject to the politically correct demands of treating blacks as human beings without undue suspicion. Judge was finally free to consider his safety in the same manner John Derbyshire asked of his sons.

    In short, Mark Judge finally found the vindication he needed to emulate the so-called "fear" that his white counterparts "experienced," while comforted in the knowledge that with a single phone call or cry, he could have that awful Negro "subdued" via taser or bullets by a cadre of surly and unforgiving law enforcement officers. In some states, merely feeling that since of "fear" is enough to end said Negro's life, as a man by the name of George found out.

    Having your bike stolen sucks. They're by far the easiest things one could steal and get away with. Seems like no one gives a shit if they see a guy (or even a black guy *gasp*) working over a bike lock or chain with a rusty hacksaw and lots of elbow grease. Someone might even give the guy a hand if he plays his story right. But I lost sympathy for this cancer survivor the moment he allowed his ignorance to override his judgement. Anyone could have stolen Mark Judge's bike. Even the seemingly nice monks could have his beloved silver-blue L.L. Bean tucked away in a quiet corner of the Dominican House of Studies, awaiting a tricked-out flame job and some new front brakes.

    Oh, who am I kidding?

    I stole his bike.

    Now that I feel sorry for him again, he can come over to my house and get it back. Of course, he'll have to look around for a while. When he shows up, I'll wish him good luck.



  • Remember that long-running thread from Something Awful highlighting the epic stench of stupidity and failed aspirations emanating from the lovely Free Republic? It's still going on strong, with twice the stupid, twice the bigotry and double your daily recommended amount of Vitamin Asshole™. FReepers (not to be confused with the far more admirable Detroit Free Press or "Freep") have proven to be a hardy breed, even during the challenging "dark age" (hehe) that is the Obama Administration. Sadly, all signs of a white lord and savior have proven to be for naught this election period, especially since perennial asshole Newt Gingrich's chances of being the GOP's designated golden boy are as good as Rick Santorum's.

    For a moment, imagine the House That Jim Robinson Built as an old and decrepit rancher built back in the 1950s with peeling vinyl siding and droopy gutters. The lawn seems manicured to a tee, until you run across the various weeds that've been cut down instead of uprooted. Rusted burn barrels and car doors litter the backyard. The backyard itself is bare in most spots and littered with brass casings. A half-finished bunker is out there somewhere, but you dare not climb over the fence to look for it. Parked nearby are various full-size American trucks in various states of disrepair. Out front near the garage is a newish Toyota with a huge American flag screenprint on the window and a "Don't You Fucking Re-Nig" sticker on the bumper. The windows are either boarded up or simply covered in dust, dirt and grime.

    You reach the front door and eye the sign informing you of your impending demise if you're black, Mexican, gay or a Democrat supporter. Open the door and you're confronted by a noxious stench that incapacitates people from the next county over. It's a hoarder's paradise. You brush past tall stacks of years old newspapers, gun magazines and printed emails featuring cartoons poking fun at Bill Clinton and Al Gore. You clamber over mountains of sweat and shit-stained clothes. You step gingerly over piss puddles, rotted food, empty Viagra and Cialis bottles and cat shit. Lots and lots of cat shit. There are empty dog food cans littered all over the place, but no dog. Ol' Nagger's been dead for years now.

    The kitchen has stack after stack of dishes piled up, all dirty and unwashed since 1999. The fridge does not work. Of course it doesn't work. Part of a skinned deer carcass stands in the corner, rotten and maggot ridden. You pass another room that's filled with guns, laid out carefully on a nearby bed. The guns are well taken care of and there's stack after stack of ammo in the corner, with more out back in a shed.

    You approach the bedroom located at the back of the house. Hunched over a Gateway 2000 desktop is a FReeper, personified as a morbidly obese man. An old USMC cap covers his shaved head and a well-worn inhaler administers medication for his severe asthma. The room is enveloped in a foul cascade of shit, sweat, pit odor and failure. A nearby printer slowly pounds out an image of Michelle Obama in a mammy outfit and Barack Obama in a butler suit, both serving a perky-titted Sarah Palin and a massively corpulent Rush Limbaugh. The ghost of Ronald Reagan looks on with approval while an American eagle sheds a single tear. You can barely see the Free Republic board through the green-tinted CRT monitor. You notice something on the man's plate. It vaguely looks like...dog food?

    You quietly back away from the horrors in front of you, only to trip over an ill-placed copy of "Guns and Ammo" and land face first into a puddle of goddamned cat piss. You rouse the FReeper. He's pissed. He picks up something, but that something isn't one of the many guns in his collection. No, it's two dead cats, each fitted with...viking helmets? He starts swinging wildly. You clamber over the magazines, the rank clothes, the old newspapers, desperate to find a way out of this miserable hell. You reach the door and it's...locked? You turn around and it's just you, the FReeper and the makeshift dead cat nun-chucks he dubs the "Viking Kitties..."

    Let's cut away from that highly unpleasant imagery and begin examining two examples of abject stupidity, the first representing blatant bigotry that's been coded for your pleasure (but just barely):

    The simple solution would be for them to go to Africa, just “go”, live in a mud hut, breed and figure out how to kill each other. They sure as hell don’t belong in a civilized world.
    I’ll chip in boat fare.

    The above plays into the "All Blacks Are Savages™" theme while satisfying the "exotic creature/dangerous creature" prerequisites. The dehumanization effect is already built in, fortified by the rock-solid assumption that all blacks are criminal in nature and thus forth undeserving of any human treatment. So of course, the best way to deal with that pesky "black problem" is to ship them "back" to their "homeland." After all, it's where their ancestors got them, right? Doesn't matter which country on the African continent, they all look alike. *chortle*

    Funny how these folks think problems can be solved by shipping them off. Negro gets uppity? Ship him downriver to another owner. Indians on "your" land? Have the U.S. government ship them off somewheres. Daughter gets diddled by Uncle Ted? Ship her off to relatives or a boarding school. She's pregnant? Ship the baby off to an orphanage. Baby's half-black? Say, where did that Negro get off to...

    Nevermind two asshats who think their problems can be solved with man-sized crates and a UPS label. The following is perhaps the most blatant sympathizing for the ultimate personification of failure and victimhood: the Confederacy:

    Lincoln was a Tyrant and a Atheist who used just enough phrases from the Bible to sound Christian. The South did not start a Insurrection against the Federal government but instead tried to leave the US and they started their own government!

    Lincoln was the Poster Child for Adolf Hitler. The Nazi’s studied Lincoln’s war against the South to learn how to overthrow a government yet seemingly keeping the people from knowing they were destroying their own government.

    Show me one instance were a Southerner tried to take over the US government! You can’t because it never happened!

    The deaths of nearly 750,000 people and the dislocation of nearly 500,000 more rest solely on Lincoln’s head! He may not of killed as many people as Hitler but his war plans were the blueprint that Hitler used in Germany and against other countries.

    In essence, Lincoln was a tyrant for putting an end to the tragicomedy that was the Confederacy. In preserving the Union, he became worse than Hitler, Tojo and William Tecumseh Sherman combined. The deaths of those 750,000 rest solely atop the man's stovepipe hat and not within the hands of men who thought succession was a wonderful idea.

    BTW, let's ignore attempts by pro-slavery figures to induct more slave states into the Union prior to the Confederate clusterfuck.

    Amazing how Confederate fans can wrap themselves up in pity, victimhood and delusion, something those same individuals constantly chastise black Americans for supposedly doing*. The Free Republic is chock-full of these nuts and I tip my hat to the folks at SA for not only making this happen, but also for having the courage and intestinal fortitude to provide (paying) viewers with a front-row seat to the Saddest Spectacle on Earth™. It's like a Gallagher show, only you have a two old, grizzled white guys spraying pressurized shit from a septic truck onto the audience. Have your rain coat, umbrella and a match handy.

    *You see, blacks "whine" while Confederate symps merely "air out their grievances." Nope, there's no double standard here...
  • Today marks the 40th day of George Zimmerman's fugitive status. Yes, I said "fugitive." As far as I'm concerned, the man is on the run from justice. The FBI began its own investigation into Zimmerman's culpability for Martin's death and whether his actions were racially motivated. The state of Florida has yet to bring charges against Zimmerman.

    Anyone who's being let off the hook for killing another person should count themselves "lucky" and book the nearest flight out of the country. I wouldn't be surprised if Zimmy did just that. Meanwhile, I'm not surprised that most white Americans see Zimmy as a misunderstood guy who just "made a mistake," or worst still, didn't do anything at all. Only in America can killing a black person be called "doing nothing."

    Understandably, black Americans are pissed. Unfortunately, that tends to scare some white Americans. In response to uneasy tensions and the New Black Panthers spoiling to do something stupid, Neo-Nazi groups have taken it upon themselves to maintain the safety and integrity of whites in and around the Sanford, FL area. Just what we need most: more white guys* with guns spoiling for a "threatening" encounter with blacks. Meanwhile, some nutcase has taken it upon himself to conduct a round of ethnic cleansing in the Tulsa, OK area. Whoever he is, he needs to be stopped, whether with handcuffs or with bullets.**

    Needless to say, some of the comments that followed the Neo-Nazi story in the Miami New Times disgusted and it frustrated me to no end, because there was no way I could counter such abject stupidity without losing my patience and fulfilling the stereotypes they've come to expect.

    Then I read Abagond's latest blog post. It sheds a bit of light on the so-called "fear" that some people have when being around black Americans. Many white Americans use personal experience, media exposure, crime stats, learned prejudices or just abject jealousy and cowardice to convince themselves that they need to fear black Americans, to keep them at bay, to vanquish them at every turn or harness them for their own means, kinda like those mythical dragons in D&D or some other fantasy Sci-Fi game.

    This "fear" is very much evident in this country's basic framework. Sometimes that fear morphs into hatred, aided by jealousy and translated into murderous actions and intent. It's happened at countless points of this nation's existence.

    In essence, this "fear" is institutional, whether anyone wants to admit it or not. America's implicit acceptance of the peculiar institution, its continuance in denying black Americans full acceptance into the national fabric and its overall disregard of any worth affixed to black American life has rendered a karmic balance that has yet to be paid off. In other words:

    Wanda Sykes said it best when she quipped [and I'm paraphrasing], “What you’re afraid of isn’t called reverse racism. What you’re afraid of is called karma.”

    White Americans live in collective fear of a day when the shoe is on the other foot. They expect black Americans to treat them with the same sort of abuse, ridicule and disregard, under the subconscious belief that, after all, they had it coming. They expect vengeance and retribution. We don't want that. We just want to be left alone.

    That's what the Greenwood section of Tulsa, OK and Rosewood, FL was all about. Black communities that sustained themselves, with black Americans going about their own business. Jealousy and hatred essentially put an end to those communities.

    The Neo-Nazis in Sanford, FL are capitalizing on that fear of vengeance and retribution by positioning themselves as a "savior" and "friend" to fretful white Americans. Some already share their views and beliefs while others are only an unfortunate encounter or a convincing, self-validating argument away from subscribing to such views. Either way, just like the chumps in black liberation garb, the chumps in Aryan cosplay garb* are making a horrible situation that much worse, by providing enough dry straw for a firestorm of epic proportions. All we need (or don't need, really) is a spark.

    Seriously, white America, why can't you just let us be? It would have saved Trayvon and his family a lot of grief.

    *Zimmerman is about as Hispanic as a Taco Bell $2 meal deal. Live with it.
    **Ever notice how when these nutbags target victims, they never seem to target actual thugs, gangbangers and the like? Because unlike that 49-year-old woman, 54-year-old man and the other 31-year old man, those young "g's" and "young bucks" are often armed and have no qualms against shooting back. It also explains why those Neo-Nazis who "patrolled" the U.S./Mexico border probably took great pains in avoiding cartels or "narcotraffacantes" who also have no qualms against shooting back. I doubt a Neo-Nazi vs. Zetas gunbattle would last long.


  • It's been 18 days and counting since Trayvon Martin was shot and killed by George Zimmerman. Zimmerman has yet to be charged and jailed for his role in killing Martin, nor has the Sanford Police Department seen fit to do anything other than give excuses, intimidate and tamper witnesses and pray this whole thing somehow blows over or disappears.

    There have been a few developments. For one, the case was turned over to the Florida state district attorney's office for further investigation. Hopefully the state D.A. can find that same probable cause that seemed to elude the Sanford P.D. for the past two-and-a-half weeks. The family of Trayvon Martin is pushing for the FBI to intervene in the case.

    Another development is the release of the 911 tapes, the first featuring the call made by George Zimmerman himself and the second made by a nearby resident. The second tape has Martin screaming "Help me," essentially begging for his life before you hear Zimmerman pull the trigger. Unfortunately, I can't embed those videos, so they're in the links below.

    You might not want to listen to the second 911 tape. To say it's unsettling is a major understatement.

    First video (audio only): Zimmerman calls 911.
    Second video (audio only): Resident calls 911, Trayvon in background, shot fired.

    In the second video, you can hear two shots fired: one shot near the beginning of the call and a second, louder shot towards the end. That pretty much blows Zimmerman's self-defense claims to shit. This child was murdered.

    So now we need the murder weapon and the shell cases from said weapon to bring it all home, right? A commentator over at the Atlantic asked a very important question in regards to that:

    I want to know if they bothered to collect shell casings, or even keep his gun, since he was released. This recording is the first reporting of two shots fired.

    It's something myself and others want to know. If they didn't, it shows the Sanford P.D. didn't just do a extraordinarily sloppy job of locating and securing evidence -- they completely abrogated their duties as sworn law enforcement officers. And it is something that will make any case brought against Zimmerman that much harder to prosecute.

    The entire police department deserves a federal foot shoved up its ass, but chances are the GOP will use any moves made by the DOJ on Eric Holder's watch to bitch about government somehow "overstepping its bounds" or claim Holder's involvement somehow equals racial solidarity. You know, because he's black, Trayvon's black and you know how those darkies black people love sticking up for one another.

    Meanwhile, it seems like gunning down young black men is no big deal for police and other persons of authority in Sanford, Florida:

    In 2005, two white security guards shot and killed Travares McGill, one of them was the son of a Sanford Police officer. The shooting drove city race relations to a modern low, according to some black residents.

    Security guards Patrick Swofford and Bryan Ansley saw Travares dropping off friends in the parking lot of the apartment complex they were hired to guard, according to published reports.

    The two claimed Travares tried to run them down and both fired their weapons at him, they later would claim self-defense.

    Travares was pronounced dead at the scene. Swofford was a police department volunteer and Ansley is the son of a former veteran of the force.

    The pair were arrested and charged, Swofford with manslaughter and Ansley with firing into an occupied vehicle. But a judge later cited lack of evidence and dismissed both cases.

    According to autopsy reports, Travares suffered fatal gunshot wounds to the back, and it was unclear if the pair was in danger.

    Suffice to say, some people are worried that Trayvon's death and Zimmerman's non-prosecution will wind up setting off something ugly in this turmoil-stricken town.  That "something ugly" might just be right around the corner:

    The New Black Liberation Militia, a self-styled black survival group, has announced that it plans to make a citizens arrest of Zimmerman next week, the Associated Press reported.

    It quoted Najee Muhammad, a group leader, saying, "We'll find him. We've got his mug shot and everything."

    Natalie Jackson, a lawyer for the Martin family, said she does not support the threat, but also cannot control them.

    "There are people out there with their own agendas," Jackson said. "It's nothing we condone."

    Zimmerman has moved out of his Sanford home because of death threats, according to his father, Robert Zimmerman.

    If these people get a hold of Zimmerman, there is no guarantee he'll live through the experience. If Zimmerman turns up dead by another man's hand at this point...

    This case has some similarities to that of Easton "DJ" Henry, a young college student who was shot and killed by a Pleasantville, N.Y. police officer who claimed Henry tried to run him over with his vehicle. Henry's family and friends maintain he was moving out of a fire lane when he was murdered:

    A passenger inside “DJ” Henry’s vehicle told New York authorities he thought a police officer wanted Henry to move the car he was driving by tapping the driver’s side window with a flashlight seconds before Henry was fatally shot by police in October 2010.

    Desmond Hinds, 21, a Pace University football player, told police in Mount Pleasant, N.Y., that Henry, the driver, then pulled around the bend “going at a decent speed.”

    Hinds said he looked down briefly, and when he looked up, he saw a person in front of the car “with his hands up together.”

    “And then I saw two to three holes in the windshield,” Hinds told police.

    Trigger-happy cops and young black males who are perceived as "threats," no matter how they look. Trayvon Martin was not the dark, hulking, physically superior but mentally challenged "Supernigger" that exists in the minds of FReepers and the unreconstructed among us. He was a harmless high school student who was just walking from the store with a pack of Skittles and a Arizona Ice Tea in hand.

    Speaking of trigger-happy, a critical component in this entire case is Florida's "Stand Your Ground" law, passed in 2005. This provision eliminates the "duty to retreat" clause that is included in most self-defense statutes. It's also how Zimmerman managed to walk away a free man shortly after killing Martin:

    A person who is not engaged in an unlawful activity and who is attacked in any other place where he or she has a right to be has no duty to retreat and has the right to stand his or her ground and meet force with force, including deadly force if he or she reasonably believes it is necessary to do so to prevent death or great bodily harm to himself or herself or another or to prevent the commission of a forcible felony.

    Given how certain segments of the population feel about other particular segments, this results in cases where one person could perceive as a threat someone who comes from a group that is perceived as a threat as a whole and given such, act in a manner that leads to the death of said person under the guise of the other acting in "self-defense." A person's perception of what constitutes a "threat" can be tainted by racism or personal prejudices. What appears to be an innocent young man can be perceived by someone indoctrinated to view that young man and others like him in a entirely negative manner as a "threat." I doubt a white teenager in a hoodie would have solicited the same sort of reaction that seeing Trayvon Martin had on George Zimmerman.

    Many people have called for Zimmerman's death and I'll admit, I was in that camp, too. Now that I've sat back and cleared the unbridled anger I had over this tragedy, I'd rather see Zimmerman made to account for his actions via trial, where he can then be convicted and sentenced to spend the rest of his natural life either in an isolated jail cell or on Death Row. Killing Zimmerman will set off a horrific wave of anger, violence and ill-will the likes no one's seen. Letting Zimmerman walk will do the same thing, except it'll prove once and for all that it's Open Season on young black males and any other group the unreconstructed and Teabagging faux-patriots deem "hostile" or "undesirable" or a "threat."


  • "One of the things that I would do is take all black people back to the South and put them on the plantation so they would understand the ethic of working. I'm going to put them all on the plantation. They need a good hard education on what it is to work."

    I think Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson's gonna have a hard time convincing even his fellow House Negros that voluntarily giving one's self up to the "peculiar institution" as a way of building character is a good idea. I guess he never did watch Roots or better still, "Slavery by Another Name."

    "Newt (Gingrich) said that he would have black children, minority children work as janitors at school. Working as a janitor would build character, more so than the handouts so many of them like."

    "I know some people take it personally because a whole lot of folks don't like hearing the truth; they like to be in denial," he added. "Not all black people, but most black people know, and white people know, and black people say it more in private than they would in public, but for the last 50 years or so, generations and generations of black people have relied on the government or someone else to take care of them."

    "Many black women have had babies out of wedlock and passed that on to their daughters that if they have babies out of wedlock, they'll get food stamps, free houses and your rent paid," Peterson said.

    There are many ways to instill character and good work ethics in young kids, and making them work a mop and broom at school isn't exactly one of those ways to go about it.* You're not gonna instill a good work ethic in someone by forcing them to reenact the life and times of an ordinary black slave in 1840s Alabama. Resentment and a desire to kill whoever thought this was a good idea, oh yes. Very much so. Also note the stereotypical garbage Peterson spouts at the end. Reads just like an ordinary GOP script.

    As I read the above, I began to think about Elizabeth Wright, a woman who shared many of the same traits Peterson's exhibiting, one glaring trait being the compulsion to chastise, upbraid and castigate other blacks within the presence of and for the approval of white America. It's one thing to speak about the problems plaguing the black community; it's another to speak on those problems just to get brownie points from your fellow white conservative friends, many who'd die laughing at the spectacle of one "nigger" whipping another.

    ...if they have babies out of wedlock, they'll get food stamps, free houses and your rent paid...

    Why do conservatives tell themselves this? Being in poverty is not a picnic where you're suddenly showered with all sorts of freebies and an opportunity to live in a life of leisure that even the wealthy 0.1% would envy. Everything comes with a string attached: the food stamps are set at a paltry amount with restrictions on what you can and can't buy, the "free" house is in a shitty neighborhood and requires mandatory community service and surprise "inspections," and that "free" rent suddenly evaporates if you manage to make one cent over the state/federal poverty line. You're given enough to keep you in poverty but not enough to overcome it, in most cases. Poverty isn't luxurious -- it's stressful as hell. But try telling the average conservative making a comfortable $55k to $250k that.

    Speaking of conservatives:

    According to the report, Peterson himself grew up on an Alabama plantation where his family had once been enslaved, and where members of his family had later worked as share croppers.

    It's all coming to focus. I have to wonder if Peterson's ancestors were overseers or trusties back then.

    Perhaps the good Rev. should be a bit more honest with us and tell us what he really wants: to forfeit his own right to be considered and treated as a full-fledged human being and be returned to sub-human status, whence he'll be worked from sunup to sundown with the callousness and lack of dignity given to even most common livestock and whipped for his troubles if he reconsiders or steps out of line. He'll be lesser than livestock, but at least he'll be exactly where he wants to be.

    *Most Japanese schools have their students pitch in with tidying up the classroom after instruction. As far as I know, the task is largely voluntary, although the collective spirit precludes all but a few from deliberately opting out. But this isn't Japan. 
  • Whitney Houston was an amazing singer and wonderful actress who made some extremely poor choices in her life: falling prey to drug addiction and a hellish marriage with shades of co-dependency and enabling, leading to the loss of her looks, singing voice and career. In the brief time before her death, she managed to overcome those poor choices and it seemed she was coming out of what was a long period of darkness in her life, but it wasn't to be.

    Fox News produced a news post concerning the details of her death and how many of our most famous celebs were handling the horrible news. Like so many other websites, there was a comments feature below the story. This news piece drew over 5000 comments, many of them lacking a great deal of charity for Houston and by extension, those of her ethnic background in general.

    This is Fox News we're talking about, but you'd think that the unreconstructed and hate-filled among us would have some semblance of respect for the recently departed, irrespective of ethnic background or deeds.* You'd be dead wrong:

    A tragedy is when someones passes away from a terminal disease or something else that no one saw coming.Whitney is just an inferior lo w life ni gg er that needed to go,no tragedy,no loss.
    Any death is a tragedy you heartless bástard.
    not nignogs their death is a plus
    SHe couldn’t even sell issues of “the national enquirer” anymore. Everyone was tired of the TNB. Niqqer flaps her lips and screeches, niqqer becomes rich. Niqqer ends up nearly broke after spending all of her money. Niqqer in constant fights and drug binges. Niqqer ODs when she learns she’s nearly broke and she is so wasted physically she can’t make another album. Niqqer hit the end of the road, niqqer thinking and niqqer behavior led her to where she had nothing. She couldn’t face life without the “bling bling”, she knew she would never have any more “kaching kaching”
    I am now patiently waiting for the grand messiah Obama to have a blk fundraiser in honor of Whitley with Kevin Costner as guest of honor with all the Hollywood elites invited along with Alan Colmes, Al Sharpton, Jeremia Wright, Charles Rangel, etc. with a menu featuring blk eyed peas, grits, Imported Kobe steak, Dom Perignon, sweet potato pie and a mus lll im scarf as a momento of this great occasion.

    Of course the door prize will be an all expense paid trip to Kenya to visit the Obama tribe and birthplace of his ancestors while the American people still look for this imposter’s birth certificate in Hawaii !!!
    This is typical of the blk gene pool; it happens all the time. They cannot handle fame and fortune whether it’s derived from music, acting, sports or just plain entertainment. Too much fame and too much money at one time will ki ll ll you.

    How many blk people have died from drugs including alcohol that have been in the sports and the entertainment industry or screwed up their married lives like Tiger Woods or worse, OJ Simpson !!!

    This is the same disease that got Obama voted into the White House.
    i don’t even consider them to be included in the human race let alone on a pedistal. the people that do are a bunch of loosers.
    Story goes Obama sh0ved to much cr@ck up the wh0res @zz when he was going to sniiff it…
    Obvious the use of to much hair strengthener did her in.That s__t will peel paint
    unfortunately like most nignog crack hoes she was able to apply her trade on “da streets”
    Another nignog off the public social rolls
    BIack females are the fattest segment of the population. BIack males are the most murderousss segment of the population. Africans have the lowest IQ of all people.
    Like most of her species, she suffered from chronic stupidity.
    tough break niqqer.
    Nothing wrong with Coors, what is good about it most_n i g g e r s_ don’t like it
    oh niqqa please,nigga please.
    one of the only b l a c k chics i would have ever banged…..once you go c r ack er…..you dont do cr a c k
    Woo Hoo One less obama voter
    Whitney who?!? some /\/iggress music artist that had a couple of hits in the early 90’s. She’s since been forgotten and now she’s dead.. Who cares..
    Africans love their drugs.
    Jungle Buggie ??
    This is a good lesson for all of you God loving Christian girls out there, stay away from “Jungle Love.”
    One less bIack crack addict in the world today. Not such a big loss.
    We Whiteys dont care about some monkey crackhead, change the headline!
    How funny would it be if they fuckedup the tombstone.

    WHITEY HOUSTON
    Their are B L A C K S and their are N i G G A S, which class do you put her mentor Bobby Brown into??? Whitney chose ???
    Who cares? Black_trash gone is enough.
    She is just like any other gh e tto queen.I hope the rest of these worthless piles in the inner cities follow her act .
    What a waste of a good slit.
    HER REAL NAME SHOULD BE KUNTA KINTI OR MOGUBA MAGABA, WHY AFRO-AMERICANS ARE USING ENGLISH NAMES AND LAST NAMES?….SHAME ON THEM!!
    You know what you call Whitney Houston in a bathtub? A dead n i g g a h
    Another buckwheat supporter bites the dust, oh well.
    hatesandniqqers 3 hours ago

    phuk you w hore,,,,,,,,,
    Buckwheat is ne gro trash!
    Bammy should not have given her crack from his personal stash!
    B l a c k s have little to brag about about so they strut and crow about anything. The politically correct whites whine and cringe and try to be b l a c k themselves and identify with their “brothers”. Great singer but as stupid as her pal, the malignancy in the white house
    she still be voting for the head niggg this nov
    To bad it wasnt the monkey in the White House

    Once upon a time, I'd figure that the bulk of these comments were the work of young and warped minds who found delight in leaving the electronic equivalent of a lit turd in a paper bag on one's doorstep. You know, "for the lulz."

    No. This is hate. Pure, 100% hatred. The type of hatred that seeps through every pore of one's being despite attempts to keep it contained. It's the type of vile, vicious bile that eventually finds an outlet at some point - it has to, as keeping it bottled up only leads to the most explosive of results. The comments about Whitney Houston, the comments about Obama and black Americans in general...this is hatred we're dealing with. Irrational, color-aroused hate that has been imprinted and implanted in the minds of many for generations on end.

    I'm not even sure I want to blame Fox News on any level. These hateful comments could have very well found their way on a news site with a more liberal bent. No matter where a story like this pops up, if someone wanted to ooze their hatred all over it, that's what they would do, at least until the moderation (if any) kicks in.

    Because sifting through 5000+ comments is a arduous task for any moderation team, the entire comments section was nixed. Apparently, no comments are good comments in some cases. But this should serve as a reminder that for all of the talk about how racism is "in the past" or how this society we live in is a "colorless" one, there remains racial hatred, albeit bottled up and penned in by polite social standards. Nevertheless, it remains just underneath the surface, constantly poised to seep out at any given moment, whether in public, in private or within the electronic confines of the Internet.

    HT to Little Green Footballs blogger Charles Johnson for scraping up this vile batch of detritus and placing it on display before the whole thing was swept under the rug.

    EDIT: Fox News apparently has a rudimentary word filter that blocks offensive words and perhaps phrases, but the commentators made a conscientiousness effort to evade the word filter. Amazing how some people can find ways to vent bigotry in spite of safeguards and roadblocks.

    *Although that'd bring us to the question "Well what about folks like Joe Paterno?"
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