Different Day, Same Shit.

- 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.

- Alternet's Sam Adler-Bell interviews Robin DiAngelo on the concept of "white fragility" and how terms like "white privilege" and "entitlement" are losing their effectiveness in the white mindspace. Witness DiAngelo succinctly explain the origins of white fragility and how feelings of superiority are cultivated in the first place:

RD: Exactly. And white fragility also comes from a deep sense of entitlement. Think about it like this: from the time I opened my eyes, I have been told that as a white person, I am superior to people of color. There’s never been a space in which I have not been receiving that message. From what hospital I was allowed to be born in, to how my mother was treated by the staff, to who owned the hospital, to who cleaned the rooms and took out the garbage. We are born into a racial hierarchy, and every interaction with media and culture confirms it—our sense that, at a fundamental level, we are superior.

And, the thing is, it feels good. Even though it contradicts our most basic principles and values. So we know it, but we can never admit it. It creates this kind of dangerous internal stew that gets enacted externally in our interactions with people of color, and is crazy-making for people of color. We have set the world up to preserve that internal sense of superiority and also resist challenges to it. All while denying that anything is going on and insisting that race is meaningless to us.

One of the best quotes in the interview, IMHO.

- Strong Towns has a series of articles on American suburbia as a glorified ponzi scheme and the growing costs of maintaining this far-flung infrastructure. Yours truly will hopefully have a post on gentrification and suburbia's changing demographics later on.

- In post-racial America, blatant, naked discrimination takes more subtle, insidious forms. For instance, Mother Jones' Marc Bookman shows how virulent racism affects how the gears of the justice system turns for minorities. To wit:

...nearly eight years after Kenneth Fults was sentenced to death for kidnapping and murdering his neighbor Cathy Bounds in Spalding County, Georgia, one of the trial jurors made a startling admission under oath: He'd voted for the death penalty, he said, because "that's what that nigger deserved."

In 2005, a former prosecutor in Texas revealed that her superiors had instructed her, if she wanted to strike a black juror, to falsely claim that she'd seen the person sleeping. This was just a dressed-up version of the Dallas prosecution training manual from 1963, which directed assistant district attorneys to "not take Jews, Negroes, Dagos, Mexicans, or a member of any minority race on a jury, no matter how rich or how well educated."

As the clock wound down on Osborne's appeals, a former US attorney general, a former Georgia chief justice, and former President Jimmy Carter (previously the governor of Georgia) all spoke out against the execution. They had heard the allegation by another one of Mostiler's clients, a white man named Gerald Huey, that Mostiler had told him, speaking of Osborne, that "that little nigger deserves the chair."

a transcript from the trial of Derrick Middlebrooks, a black defendant who was so troubled by the racist talk that he asked the judge to dismiss Mostiler as his public defender: "He indicated to me that he wouldn't—he couldn't go up there among them niggers because them niggers would kill him," Middlebrooks said. "Now personally I don't know if he meant anything really by it. But I find it, you know, kind of hard to have an attorney to represent me when he uses those type of words. It doesn't help my confidence in my attorney."

This is nothing new, aside from the fact that things like these are being aired out for all the world to see.

- Gawker's David Graeber talks about Ferguson and how a perfect storm of institutional racism and policing for profit has culminated into a system that essentially harvests its own captive citizenry while keeping them locked in a permanent state of underclassdom.

- Abagond talks about segregation academies and their legacy. A few of the commentators are also discussing how integration has possibly done more harm than good for the black community (which is something I'll talk about at a later date, as well).

Pictured above is the treacherous Marxist Usurper in Chief, Baraq Hussein Superallah Obama al-Kenya, palling around with his "bestie" and fellow dictator, Supreme Leader Kim Jong "Make-em Say" Un, in an undisclosed location.

- Putin's back, baby! Turns out he was just in bed with the flu. Even authoritarian ex-KGB types get sick every once in a while. He should be glad he didn't come down with a sudden case of polonium poisoning.

- Say "goodnight" to the grand white Christian experiment. White, non-Hispanic Christians are no longer a majority in 19 states. By the 2040s, the white majority in the U.S. will vanish altogether.

- Fresh-faced senator and presumptive shoe-in for the "who's ready to become a GOP presidential candidate 2016" sweepstakes Tom Cotton recently led the effort to undo the White House's efforts to not start any more Middle Eastern conflicts. The Iranian government, POTUS and the rest of America reacted in shock and disdain.

Now let's see what an Army veteran has to say about Tom Cotton:

“I would use the word mutinous,” said Eaton, whose long career includes training Iraqi forces from 2003 to 2004. He is now a senior adviser to VoteVets.org. “I do not believe these senators were trying to sell out America. I do believe they defied the chain of command in what could be construed as an illegal act.” Eaton certainly had stern words for Cotton.

“What Senator Cotton did is a gross breach of discipline, and especially as a veteran of the Army, he should know better,” Eaton told me. “I have no issue with Senator Cotton, or others, voicing their opinion in opposition to any deal to halt Iran’s nuclear progress. Speaking out on these issues is clearly part of his job. But to directly engage a foreign entity, in this way, undermining the strategy and work of our diplomats and our Commander in Chief, strains the very discipline and structure that our foreign relations depend on, to succeed.” The consequences of Cotton’s missive were plainly apparent to Eaton. “The breach of discipline is extremely dangerous, because undermining our diplomatic efforts, at this moment, brings us another step closer to a very costly and perilous war with Iran,” he said.

“I think Senator Cotton recognizes this, and he simply does not care,” Eaton went on to say. “That’s what disappoints me the most.”

Ouch.

- The recent hubbub over Selma has besmirched the delicate sensibilities of the city's most stalwart Confederates, prompting a valiant defense of the grand southern tradition and the peculiar institution it nurtured and supported:

“The people in the south – the white people, who were being abused – organised a neighbourhood watch to try to re-establish some order,” he said of the nascent Klan. Slavery in the south was “a bad institution”, he said, but possibly “the mildest, most humane form of slavery ever practiced”.

“If you look at the wealth created by the slaves, in food, clothing, shelter, medical care, care before you’re old enough to work, care until you died, they got 90% of the wealth that they generated,” he said. “I don’t get that. The damn government takes my money to the tune of 50%.”

You know what the scariest thing about this is? A mainstream conservative pundit like Glenn Beck can clean this up and totally roll with it nearly word-for-word and no one in his listening group would bat an eyelash.

- Because the great state of Alabama largely finds the idea of same-sex marriages to be an absolute affront to the natural order of things, a gay couple's having second thoughts about leaving their substantial estate to the University of Alabama.

And how much were they intending to leave behind? A cool $15 to 18 million.

- Because the GOP largely finds the idea of helping the undeserving poor to be an absolute affront to how the natural order of things should be, it's unveiling a budget that cuts a $100 million chunk out of the SNAP program.

And remember, if you call yourself a "Man of God" and think it's totally OK to ask your congregation for a cool $65 million so you can buy yourself a new private jet, then you probably need to have another pastor sit with you while you re-read the Holy Bible cover to cover.

- Where's Putin? Who knows? Maybe he took a page from Mark Sanford's book and went on a "hiking trip." After all, presidential side chick Alina Kabaeva recently gave birth to a bouncing baby girl, although Swiss authorities claim there's no proof he ever paid a visit.

- Pando's Mark Ames (nee NSFWCorp) offers a quick reminder of the racist origins behind "Right to Work" legislation. From Ames' previous piece on the same subject:

Those hearings revealed that the anti-FDR "convention" that Vance Muse put on, through his "Southern Committee to Uphold the Constitution"— which featured guests of honor like Gerald L K Smith, America’s leading anti-Semite and godfather to the modern American Nazi movement — was financed not only by Confederate sponsors like Texan Will Clayton, owner of the world’s largest cotton broker, but also reactionary northeast Republican money: the DuPont brothers, J. Howard Pew of Sun Oil, Alfred Sloan of General Motors... That unholy alliance of Northeastern and Confederate plutocrat money financed the first serious attempt at splitting the Southern Democrats off by exploiting white supremacism, all in order to break labor power and return to the world before the New Deal — and to the open shop.

Incidentally, Vance Muse’s northern donors — DuPont, Pew, Sloan — were the same core investors in (and board directors of) the first modern libertarian think-tanks of the 40s and 50s, including the Foundation for Economic Education. DuPont, Pew and Sloan funds also seeded the American careers of Ludwig von Mises, Friedrich von Hayek, Milton Friedman and Murray Rothbard, among others. In other words, Vance Muse’s funders built the first layer of the libertarian nomenklatura that Charles Koch later took control of — no surprise, since Koch outfits are credited with making the Michigan "right to work" law possible.

To the average industrialist in search of fatter bottom lines and cheaper labor, unrepentant bigots like Vance Muse are useful tools. All you have to do is stir up their feelings about those blacks and browns and they'll do whatever you ask of them, just as long as it accomplishes knee-capping the "other" even at the expense of their own well-being.

- It's been a while since the right wing had a "vast left-wing conspiracy" to catch vapors over. So when it was discovered that former Secretary of State and likely presidential candidate Hillary Clinton not only exclusively used a personal email account instead of a government account and pole-axed over 30,000 emails associated with that personal account, you knew the right finally had another juicy Clinton scandal to work themselves silly over.

Yes, using your personal email for your State Dept. gig smacks of a complete lack of accountability and, if it were anyone else, grounds for termination. But when you step back and think of all the potential controversies that could have surfaced, this one seems a bit weak in comparison.

Meanwhile, some sources say Valerie Jarrett blew the whistle over Email-gate because of how the Clintons seemed to be dissing the current Commander-in-Chief.

- Jarvis DeBerry drops a little Dr. Seuss on presumptive presidential fodder Bobby (nee Piyush) Jindal.

- Sure, the Department of Justice wasn't able to stick Darren Wilson in a can, but it did crack open the proverbial hamper and aired out the city of Ferguson, Missouri's dirty laundry. And because of the DOJ's findings, several high-ranking city officials have resigned, including the city manager and police chief.

Meanwhile, St. Louis-based Organization for Black Struggle has launched an effort to recall the city's current mayor. This is the same guy who, months prior to Michael Brown's death, staunchly championed privatizing large portions of Ferguson's law enforcement services.

The DOJ revealed a city (and numerous others like it) as little more than a naked cash-harvesting program using captive residents as a semi-renewable revenue stream. Yours truly will have more on this soon.

- Jeremy Clarkson discovers there are consequences for punching people not named Piers Morgan. How this affects the future of one of the world's most popular television series remains to be seen.

And by the way, John McCain, the next time you and your friends in the Senate try to undermine the president's authority and foreign affairs acumen, you might want to come up with an excuse a bit more substantial than "I sign lots of letters."

More and more haters are climbing out of the woodpile for our esteemed president. Just ask Rudy Giuliani, would-be/could-be/shouldn't-be contender for the 2016 presidential elections, who recently expressed doubts over POTUS's love of country and all it stands for, for better or worse. Meanwhile...

- The Great State of Alabama officially apologizes for mistaking an elderly Indian man for a really skinny black guy. You know how these things are and, well...they all look alike sometimes. Fortunately for Sureshbhai Patel and family, the Indian government has brought to bear tremendous pressure upon the state on their behalf, resulting in the offending officer's swift dismissal and arrest. Meanwhile, the black community looks on in envy.

- Police shootings are kinda getting out of hand. You shouldn't be shot 16 times in your own bed for grabbing your wallet. At least the victim got a $3 million settlement out of it.

- As it turns out, the conservative PACs that benefited most from Citizens United have been lining their own pockets by fleecing their donors:

Let’s say Ronald Reagan is still alive and someone starts the Re-Elect Ronald Reagan To A Third Term PAC. Because people love Reagan, let’s suppose that conservative donors pony up $500,000 to help the organization. However, the donors don’t know that Ronald Reagan has nothing to do with the PAC. Furthermore, the real goal of the PAC is to line the pockets of its owner, not to help Ronald Reagan. So, the PAC sets up two vendors, both controlled by the PAC owner: Scam Vendor #1 and Scam Vendor #2. Let’s assume it costs $50,000 to raise the half million the PAC takes in. Then, the PAC sends $100,000 to the first company and $100,000 to the second company to “promote Ronald Reagan for President.” Each of the companies then goes out and spends $1,000 on fliers. The “independent expenditures” that show up on the FEC report? They’re at 40%. That’s because the FEC doesn’t require vendors to disclose how much of the money they receive is eaten up as overhead. The dubious net benefit that Ronald Reagan receives from an organization that raised $500,000 on his name? It’s $2,000. On the other hand, the net profit for the PAC owner is $448,000. Is that legal? The short answer is, “It’s a bit of a grey area, but, yes, it is legal.”

I'm not surprised. This is what happens when you open the floodgates to every grifter and con artist on the block.

- Dinesh D'Souza continues to fight for America's freedoms using the power of Twitter. Shine on, you crazy diamond.

And remember folks, a little rioting is healthy for the soul. Unless you happen to be black, then it's a mug's game for thugs or, as buyers of commemorative "I Am Darren Wilson" sweatshirts would say, "a good day for a good shoot."

A Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to you and yours, from yours truly.

And yes, I know I've been remiss about blog posts here, especially with everything that's been going on these past few weeks. Expect some stuff to come out soon.

On July 4, 1776, the Continental Congress issued the Declaration of Independence, a document that declared the 13 colonies under the control of and at war with Great Britain to be independent entities. Within the document's Preamble is the following phrase:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

Please note that at the time, these unalienable Rights were reserved only for the white male inhabitants of this burgeoning nation. Woman and African slaves were not afforded many, if any of the rights outlined here.

In 1789, the Articles of Confederation were replaced with what would be known as the United States Constitution. This document set the tone for law and order throughout the entire young nation. Once again, the rights defined in this document were reserved only for the white male inhabitants of this nation. Women and African slaves were not afforded many, if any of the rights outlined here.

The founding fathers' failure to put paid to the question of whether a country should actually declare itself a genuine symbol of freedom when it was willing to quietly tolerate and ignore the subjugation and enslavement of millions of people in its own borders eventually led to the American Civil War, in which the southern states sought to secede to protect their interest in the "peculiar institution," among other reasons. In 1863, President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, an executive order calling for the freedom of nearly 3.1 million slaves within the Confederate states. Approximately 50,000 were immediately set free, with more to come as Union troops made short work of Confederate forces.

Lincoln's gesture is sometimes seen as magnanimous, but it was more a tactical maneuver designed to deprive Confederate forces of their readily available pool of manual labor and a potential source of "volunteers" to draft into service. As Lincoln said himself in his August 1862 letter to Horace Greeley:

If there be those who would not save the Union, unless they could at the same time save slavery, I do not agree with them. If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time destroy slavery, I do not agree with them. My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union. . . . I have here stated my purpose according to my view of official duty; and I intend no modification of my oft-expressed personal wish that all men everywhere could be free.

Lincoln's first and foremost goal was to save the Union. Whether he realized that this action, along with the eventual defeat of the Confederacy in 1865 would sew the seeds of resentment, revenge and low-level retribution in the Deep South would remain uncertain, as he didn't live long enough to see any of that.

Hopscotching over the Black Codes, Jim Crow, Separate but Equal, the Civil Rights Movement and the pubic hair on Clarence Thomas' Coke can, we come to Chris Rock, whose Fourth of July tweet upset the delicate sensibilities of many Independence Day celebrators:

Happy white peoples independence day the slaves weren't free but I'm sure they enjoyed fireworks
— Chris Rock (@chrisrock) July 4, 2012

Yep, this is what got him yelled at throughout the Internet and Twitter. Maybe he should have let Louis C.K. or some other white American comic "unironically" fire this one off.

Look at it this way -- during the first 89 years or so of this country's official existence, black Americans had little, if nothing to celebrate about. Most were enslaved and the scant few fortunate enough to buy their freedom could not enjoy it as their white counterparts could. For at least a hundred years afterwards, black Americans were officially second-class citizens, denied the full and unalienable rights given to their white counterparts (which now included white women). Today, efforts continue to remind black Americans that even though a guy who mostly looks like them is now the President, their black asses are still not deemed worthy of the unalienable rights they fought and died to get and to enjoy.*

For the past 188 years or so, that part in the Preamble of the Declaration of Independence was, as far as blacks were concerned, a lie. And yet people still expect black Americans to suck it up, put on their patriotic faces and wave those flags around like good Americans. People expect the same of the native Americans, nevermind how the U.S., for all intents and purposes, ethnically cleansed tribe after tribe, leaving mere remnants to drink themselves into depression and death on the reservations. If someone did that to your people, it'd probably drive you to drink, too.

Black Americans have more to celebrate about Juneteenth than Independence Day. Too bad everyone tends to forget about Juneteenth. As Ta-Nehisi Coates once mentioned, everything surrounding the American Civil War is treated as a series of tragic events, at least outside of Confederate war re-enactments and antebellum society balls. Actually celebrating Juneteenth the same way we do the Fourth of July is more or less a breach of established decorum -- everything has to be Ken Burns-grade somber, like visiting the grave of an old friend. You wouldn't dance on your old friends grave...unless you hated him, right?

Perceived hatred. That's another thing that annoys me about the bitching that comes when black Americans speak up and speak out. Chris Rock's tweet was immediately construed as some sort of hatred for the Fourth of July and consequently, a hatred of white people and America. How the hell does that happen?

Apparently, unless black Americans remain in the role of white America's best (black) friend, offering only flattery, positive advice and a shoulder to lean on when they're not busy making white America look good, blacks are immediately assumed to harbor some sort of deep-seated hatred for white folk. It's almost as though it speaks to an innate fear that practically every white American has had since one of their forefathers came up with the idea of bringing black slaves onto the country: a sudden and swift revenge riot that ends with countless white heads on sticks and countless white women claimed as trophies. White America's been waiting for a "payback/revenge" plot** that most likely will never materialize. We've proven we're much better than that.

A lot of people don't want to hear the truth, especially when it comes to this country's screwed-up ethnic relations. Chris Rock tweeted an uncomfortable truth and many of us proved we couldn't handle it. We have to do something about that and it doesn't include shouting a great comedian into silence.☨ Maybe we should give that whole "unalienable rights" thing another go, this time, for all Americans, no matter their ethnicity.

* These days, even the white men and women whom were guaranteed these unalienable rights are losing them, bit by bit.
** If some of these folks started listening to James Brown's "The Payback," they'd probably get the wrong idea and piss themselves in a fit of conspiracy theorizing.
☨ Because if there's something that's practically impossible, it's shouting down a great comedian.

If one could arrange every U.S. presidency on a cynic's sliding scale ranging from "above average" to "stage a coup-de-etat," George W. Bush's two terms in office would merit a "mediocre" rating. Mediocre enough to earn the 43rd President of the United States a 22% approval rating upon his exit.

As a liberally-minded individual, I could do as many of my fellow liberals would at this point and highlight the man's numerous failures during his time in office. The complete failure to take seriously information that could have prevented the 9/11 terrorist attacks, for one. Or the grand misadventure that was the Iraq War. Or the complete and utter failure of leadership showcased in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

These days, George Bush's image as a lump of a president has given way to the image of George Bush as a pretty swell guy. He's taken up painting and he's kept a largely quiet public profile as of late. At least that's the angle of Matt Bai's "life after the presidency" introspective:

But then a strange thing happens. A president leaves, and the partisan mob moves on to savaging (or defending) someone else's morality. And in contrast with the new president, or with the new breed of opposition trying to destroy him, the last guy never looks quite so monstrous anymore.

And one morning we wake up to find that the things we once admired in a politician, even one whose policies we didn't like, are still what make him essentially human and worth our respect. Turns out George H.W. Bush is an honest man with a thoughtful view of the world. Turns out Bill Clinton was the kind of agile, pragmatic leader with whom conservatives could actually find some common ground.

And what do you know: George W. Bush really does care deeply about the men and women he sent to war, and he really did want to do good for the country. And as contemptuous of government and generally arrogant as he could be, he seems almost moderate next to the tea party crowd that's turned everything in Congress upside down.

This isn't Americans revising history. It's Americans dispensing, finally, with the cartoon version of it. It's the country getting some perspective.

Granted it's hard to get a good read on a person when you're bombarded with countless different perspectives of who that person is and what he's done, especially when you don't know that person intimately. All you're left with is deeds, actions and a public persona that sets the tone for the entire nation to follow. With that said, Bush's deeds, actions and public persona all pointed to a man governed by an overwhelming sense of mediocrity and confusion - something that's never reflected well on the nation.

George W. Bush might be a guy you'd wouldn't mind knocking back a few beers with on a slow Thursday night, but he's still a terrible president. That's something that no amount of PR whitewashing can ever clean up.

Yesterday, yours truly had the pleasure of being trapped in the midst of Atlanta's very own Snowmageddon. A couple of inches of snow and scads of ice turned a 30-minute trip into a seven-hour ordeal. But at least I didn't have to spend the night in a grocery store or a school, as hundreds had to overnight.

The above shot is I-75 facing northbound, a ghost town compared to last night. Meanwhile...

- It doesn't take much for black Americans to lose their lives in these United States. For instance, all you have to do is inspect a shed on your newly-purchased property:

A man from Barboursville, W.Va., fatally shot his new neighbor and the neighbor’s brother without warning as the two men were inspecting their property, New York's Daily News reports.

Rodney Bruce Black, 62, told authorities that he thought his victims were breaking into a building he owned. However, although the building is on land that once belonged to Black’s family, that was not the case anymore.

One of the victims, Garrick Hopkins, 60, and his wife had just purchased the property next door to Black and were planning to build a house within the next few weeks, Sheriff Tom McComas told the Daily News on Monday. Hopkins invited his brother, Carl, who was 61, to inspect the property with him Saturday afternoon.

Black saw the two men looking into a shed and, allegedly without warning or calling the police, took his rifle and fired at the men. They died at the site. Both men leave behind their wives and children.

Of course, race isn't being factored into the shooting.

- Then again, it doesn't take much for anyone to lose their life, these days. Could you imagine getting killed over poetry?

- The parents of this seven-year-old girl are thankful their child wasn't killed behind this:

7-year-old girl suffered a mild concussion after she was beaten unconscious by four boys at Thomas Claggett Elementary School in District Heights, Md., on Tuesday, Fox 5 reports.

The incident occurred during a recess in the school's gym, into which 75 students were allegedly crammed, with only about five teachers supervising the crowd. The teachers apparently did not see the attack.

The girl was taken to the Children's Hospital in Washington, D.C., where she was diagnosed with a mild concussion.

Needless to say, her parents are outraged and can't fathom how this could have happened, the news site reports.

"That's my baby. I bring her to school and that's the last thing I expect is a phone call informing me that my daughter is unconscious," the girl’s mother, Phersephone Holland, told the station.

Her father, Rodney Smyers, said this was not the first time his daughter had been bullied and attacked at the school, having come home with bruises before.

"One incident, she came home, she had a split in her lip," he said, acknowledging that he had not expected school officials to allow the situation to get this out of hand. "It's an ongoing problem."

An ongoing problem that school officials apparently won't take seriously until someone dies or lawyers get involved. I say it's past time for the parents to open a can of legal whup-ass on the school district.

- Remember the as-of-yet unidentified 18-year-old who flung racial insults at Kim Kardashian, resulting in a quick laying of hands by Rev. Kanye West of the Church of Yeezus? Guy's looking for a cash settlement. Figures.

- Unlike most people, I could care less about what Justin Bieber's doing. Whatever it is, he'll get off lightly and not miss a beat.

- I could also care less about some white Russian socialite making an ass of herself. The only lesson she'll learn from this is how to hide her fetish for "ethnic furniture" a bit better.

- Contrary to what designated bleach-blonde talking head Martha MacCallum thinks, the solution to sky-high arrest rates for minorities isn't abstinence from demon weed.

- Twitter finally sees Black Twitter. As a potential cash cow. Funny how certain black issues, activities and products only get recognized when someone finally figures out how to make money off of them.

- In his State of the Union address, President Obama threatened to veto a new sanctions bill for Iran, in light of careful negotiations over that nation's nuclear program:

“The sanctions that we put in place helped make this opportunity possible,” he said, but added, “let me be clear: if this Congress sends me a new sanctions bill now that threatens to derail these talks, I will veto it. For the sake of our national security, we must give diplomacy a chance to succeed.”

Which sent the co-sponsor of said bill, Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) walking sideways away from it:

“I did not sign it with the intention that it would ever be voted upon or used upon while we’re negotiating,” he told MSNBC’s Chris Matthews. “I signed it because I wanted to make sure the president had a hammer if he needed it and showed him how determined we were to do it and use it if we had to. But with that being said we’ve got to give peace a chance here and we’ve got to support this process.”

Introducing a new set of sanctions on Iran in the middle of diplomatic talks smacks of the highest levels of stupid.

To those in the Atlanta metro area, stay warm and stay safe. Winter Storm Leon's work isn't done just yet and the state of Georgia is still under a state of emergency.

- See what you started, George? Now you've got black guys thinking they can shoot other black guys in hoodies and claim self-defense under "Stand Your Ground." But as Claudius Smith is about to learn, SYG isn't applicable when you don't have the complexion for the protection.

- Chris Christie isn't the only governor who's dipped in shit these days. But at least the feds were nice enough to let Bob McDonnell quietly leave office before popping him and his wife for 14 felony charges involving his failure to completely account for over $135,000 in gifts:

The gifts included a silver Rolex watch, golf clubs, Louis Vitton shoes, and $15,000 to help pay for the McDonnells’ daughter’s wedding. According to the indictment, the former governor and his wife conspired to commit wire fraud to accept bribes, knowingly made false statements on loan applications to avoid reporting the Williams loans, and obstructed justice.

In July, then-Gov. McDonnell apologized for the “embarrassment” he and his family caused to Virginia and announced that he had repaid the roughly $120,000 in loans from Williams — loans he had previously insisted were not improper. He later promised to return all the gifts the family had received.

Unlike a certain former Alabama city mayor and county commissioner who got a solid 15 years for a bunch of suits and a nice lunch, you can rest assured Bob and the missus won't be burdened by anything that arduous.

- Speaking of Chris Christie, he's a goddamned bully. Whodathunkit?

- Add this to the "Things Black America Already Knew" pile:

Nearly 50 percent of black men and 40 percent of white men are arrested at least once on non-traffic-related crimes by the time they turn 23, according to a new study.

One of the authors of the study published this month in the journal "Crime & Delinquency" said the statistics could be useful in shaping policy so that people aren't haunted by arrests when they apply for jobs, schools or public housing.
"Many, many people are involved with the criminal justice system at this level," said Shawn Bushway, a University at Albany criminologist. "And treating them all as if they're hardened criminals is a serious mistake."

The authors found that by age 18, 30 percent of black men, 26 percent of Hispanic men and 22 percent of white men have been arrested. By 23, those numbers climb to 49 percent for black men, 44 percent for Hispanic men and 38 percent for white men.

What'll be interesting to learn is how many of those 40 percent of white men were left with felonies on their criminal record, as opposed to the 50 percent of black men.

- Yes, I know Kanye punched out some smug little shit who called Kim a "nigger lover" or something to that effect. I don't blame him, but I would have sent some goons to deal with the little shit instead of getting myself personally involved.

- The future of war fighting lies with robots. Lots and lots of robots:

In the future, an Army brigade might have 3,000 human troops instead of 4,000, but a lot more robots, according to recent remarks by General Robert Cone, the Army's head of Training and Doctrine Command.

Robots could reduce the force protection burden, giving the Army more killing power per brigade.

Those robots could be a pack bot like the Legged Squad Support System perhaps, or a conventional-looking semi or fully autonomous vehicle like Lockheed Martin's Squad Mission Support System.

- So Richard Sherman got a little hype after the Seahawks whipped the 49ers 23-17. Big deal.

Wait...I was supposed to feel sorry for Erin Andrews?

Erin Andrews during that Richard Sherman interview pic.twitter.com/noXrI00wWo
— Evil Mike Tomlin (@EvilMikeTomlin) January 20, 2014

Last but not least, climate change deniers will have to explain how a millenias-old ice shelf suddenly crumbled apart like O.J.'s latest hopes for a release. Denying climate change is happening is like denying the earth is round and that it revolves around the sun.

- Abagond recently posted a profile of LaVena Johnson, a U.S. Army soldier whose death was ruled as a suicide by Army officials, despite indisputable signs of her rape and murder and the perpetrator(s) attempts to destroy evidence. There's currently a MoveOn.org petition in place to bring her death and the refusal of the Army to conduct a proper investigation to the president's attention. To say this is some shameful shit would be a hell of an understatement.

- There's also the ongoing saga of Legal Schnauzer blogger Roger Shuler. Exposing the rampant corruption that goes on in the Great State of Alabama has its costs. It's something that definitely deserves a more thorough post here at DDSS.

- It's not just Bridgegate that Chris Christie's worrying about. He's also facing a federal probe into the possible misuse of funds for the Superstorm Sandy relief effort:

Already enmeshed in a scandal over snarled traffic at the George Washington Bridge, Christie, a rising star in the Republican party, is now being audited by the Inspector General at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, said New Jersey Congressman Frank Pallone Jr., a Democrat.(...)

(...)The inspector is focusing on a federally financed $25 million Jersey Shore marketing campaign that included a television commercial featuring Christie and his family, which cost $2 million more than a competing bid without them.

The winning ad, with the tag line that New Jersey was "Stronger than the Storm," aired in the spring as Christie headed into a re-election campaign to win a second term(...)

(...)"Had Governor Christie chosen the less expensive firm, $2.2 million in federal disaster aid could have potentially been directed elsewhere, for example, to provide 44 Sandy-impacted homeowners $50,000 grants to raise their homes," Pallone said in a press release.

Tom Degan sums up Chris Christie's distant hopes for a nod as the GOP's top candidate for the 2016 presidential election thusly:

What amuses me more than anything about this entire affair is how the talking heads are speculating that this incident might very well mean the end of his alleged quest for the White House. Are these people paying any attention? Chris Christie's chances at winning the GOP nomination in two years are about as good as mine. There is no chance that the halfwits in the South and Midwest who now control that party are ever going to give the nod to a Northeastern Catholic/moderate with a vowel at the end of his name. Just put it out of your mind.

He'd have a better time bullying Eskimos into buying ice at this point.

- With lost pensions, crippling student loan debts and a two-tier economy geared to benefit only the comfortably moneyed, lots of older (and young) adults are wondering whether they'll ever manage to retire. According to Nina Ippolito over at PolicyMic, the Social Security Administration never expected you to make retirement age in the first place. Not the most polished article in the world, but interesting nonetheless.

- "States Rights" and "War on Poverty" are two phrases you thought you'd never see together in one sentence. At least until Marco Rubio came up with this whopper:

I am proposing that we turn over Washington’s anti-poverty programs and the trillions that are spent on them to the states. Our anti-poverty program should be replaced with a revenue-neutral flex fund. We would streamline most of our existing federal anti-poverty funding into a single agency. Then, each year, these flex funds would be transferred to the states so they can design and fund creative initiatives that address the factors behind inequality of opportunity. This worked in the 1990s with welfare reform.

Rubes, I don't think you've thought this through. Seeing the likes of Alabama getting its hands on federal monies for anti-poverty measures and doing with it as its legislature pleases fills me with a noisome dread that shakes the very core of my southern soul. It won't take long for the money to somehow disappear into pork barrels and politicians' pocketbooks.

As Randle Aubrey explains, the Clinton-era welfare reforms were a sop to conservatives and an abject failure in the long run. Giving the states card blanche to run their own anti-poverty programs with federal funds in their direct control is a terrible idea and Rubio deserves a swift boot to the head for it.

- Abiding by the maxim "the enemy of my enemy is my friend," the DEA colludes with the Sinaloa cartel to gain intel on rival cartel members. The DEA gets the busts, seizures and accolades it wants, the Calderon administration mop the floor with the Zetas and other rival cartels and the Sinaloas finally reestablish themselves as the premiere power in the drug trafficking business. Everyone wins. Except the millions of people on both sides of the border who are walking casualties of the seemingly neverending War on Drugs.

- A heated argument over texting in a theater ends in a shooting and subsequent homicide. Even though there was a fatality, let's be thankful our retired cop perpetrator didn't go all out James Eagan Holmes-style.

It's been a while since I've done one of these. I had a lot of apprehension in doing these "Meanwhile" posts again, considering the original intent of starting DDSS Abridged was to post those stories over there while keeping longer blog posts over here. That hasn't worked out as I planned. This doesn't mean the abridged blog is going anywhere.

I read somewhere that roughly 95 percent of blogs wind up abandoned after a short span of time. Sometimes, I feel as though this place is on the verge of abandonment. Not saying that DDSS is done for, but something has to be done to keep this place alive or it's gonna end up like a lot of other blogs that have been abandoned for various reasons.

Mine? I've had a lot on my plate, as I've hinted in one of my previous updates. My day job and the never-ending struggle to maintain a reasonable standard of living for yours truly means that updates are often sparse and sporadic. The fact that DDSS is a one-man show also means that updates are often sparse and sporadic. It takes a lot of time, effort and energy to create a quality post that I feel is worthy for DDSS. Unfortunately, my day job also involves the literary arts and that also takes a lot of time, effort and energy. At the end of the day, the last thing I want to do is jump from one energy sink to another. I hate to describe DDSS that way, but there it is.

Then there's the pace at which news travels. I realize that a ton of shit happened this year. I read it on news sites, other blogs and the good ol' Twitter feed. But it's hard to actually blog about since I simply don't have the time to actually sit down, pore over the details and offer a uniquely interesting take that passes muster for yours truly. Add on the fact that trying to absorb all of the news of the day causes information overload, which causes my brain to just lock right the hell up and suspend itself in a crippling limbo of indecisiveness and inaction.

So between the lack of time, the Twitter/Internet ADHD/overload and my own vicious perfectionist streak, things haven't been looking so good here. Which is probably why I haven't bothered to make a rundown of all the shit that's happened in the news during the year. And that's probably why I haven't made as many updates as I should have.

I'm not a pundit and I don't get paid for this shit (although I wish I did). I did this as an outlet and as a place where people who find what I write interesting can read it, draw their own conclusions about things and perhaps leave their own comments. If I were a professional blogger getting paid good money to blog about political and social issues, this place would be livelier. But as it stands, I do what I can whenever I have the opportunity to get it done.

And as I've also mentioned before, I'm seriously rethinking my approach to DDSS. I still have no idea what format I should pursue or how to get it done. Suggestions are welcome. I'll do my best to maintain the Tumblr blog for short vignettes, but even that's running into the same problems as the main blog. Nevertheless, yours truly will continue to see things through and not end up like those aforementioned 95 percent of blogs.

Although it wouldn't hurt if DDSS was whisked up to the rarefied air of the upper-crust 1 percent blogs, sans the attendant loss of principles, of course.

By the way, Happy (soon to be) New Year.

After seeing George Zimmerman lurch from crisis to crisis, I figured it's only a matter of time before he eventually finds himself behind bars. In the meantime, he's found new notoriety as a fledgling artist of sorts:

It appears George Zimmerman has turned to painting, and is selling his own, original artwork on eBay not one week after prosecutors dropped domestic violence charges against him.

Now the painting has a bid of almost $100,000.

The canvas painting appeared on the auction website Monday. A picture of the artwork shows a U.S. flag painted only in various shades of blue, with the words "God, One Nation, with Liberty and Justice for All," stamped in white letters on the flag's darker blue stripes.

Zimmerman's brother, Robert Zimmerman Jr., has confirmed the auction is real, and said the painting is, indeed, the work of his brother, who was acquitted of murder in July for the 2012 shooting death of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin in Sanford.

The painting's starting bid was set at $50, plus an additional $40 for expedited shipping from Sanford, according to the auction page. As of 10:50 p.m. Monday, the winning bid was $99,966. Bidding was set to end early Monday, Dec. 22, at 12:55 a.m. EST.

However, I can't help but feel that I've seen that image before...



Oh.

I've seen people paint and draw from reference pictures. Under normal circumstances, this would likely be lauded as a great effort from a freshman-level high school art class. It certainly isn't worth a hundred grand in dead presidents.

But that's not the point. These days, plenty of designated bad guys turn to art for stress relief and a quick buck. Paul Bremer, for one. Then there's the contemplative shower scenes of a certain George W. Bush. Guys like Charles Manson have all the time in the world to create works of art.

Not that they shouldn't make art, but Zimmerman's efforts smack of profiteering based on his notoriety, even though the man himself says differently:

First hand painted artwork by me, George Zimmerman. Everyone has been asking what I have been doing with myself. I found a creative, way to express myself, my emotions and the symbols that represent my experiences. My art work allows me to reflect, providing a therapeutic outlet and allows me to remain indoors :-) I hope you enjoy owning this piece as much as I enjoyed creating it. Your friend, George Zimmerman

Or your worst nightmare if you happened to be a 17-year-old black kid on a dark suburban street. It just irks me that a man who wantonly chased down and eventually murdered a young man for the crime of being a minority in a place he supposedly didn't belong is not only allowed to walk the streets a free man, but also gets the chance to play up a sympathy angle, create a "kinder, gentler" image and profit immensely by tapping into the arts.

And the reason for the very first picture of this post? It describes exactly how I feel about George Zimmerman.

Today's the day set aside by the nation to commemorate and honor those who've served in our armed forces, many with distinction and valor.

In the midst of honoring our veterans, we should also reflect on the decisions made by our military and political leaders - decisions that have not only had broad consequences, but are also likely to reverberate for years to come.

We should also reflect on how we treat our veterans, many whom are often neglected and forgotten. Many of our veterans find it supremely difficult to get the help and care they need. This is where countless organizations, such as the one represented in the video below, attempt to step in to offer that help.

Health insurance. It's something you might not think you need, until you need it. Then you wish you had it. Or perhaps you want it but simply can't afford it. Either way, it's a critical necessity, despite what many people think to the contrary.

Confused over the ongoing fight over Obamacare? What to know exactly what the hell's going on and how it could possibly affect you? Then take a seat and read on as yours truly attempts to hash out an explanation. Keep in mind this explanation is rather simple and to the point, so there might be a few technical things and other nuances that got thrown out of the boat:

---

To better understand Obamacare and people's reactions to it across the political spectrum, it's important to understand how health insurance in works, not just in general, but in this country and elsewhere.

How the hell does this health insurance stuff work?

Health insurance is essentially a large group of recipients paying into a pool of money. When a recipient needs medical care, whether it's preventative care (monthly checkups, etc.) or emergency care, money is taken from the pool to pay for their expenses. Since health insurance works on the principle of there being more healthy people than sick, there's always a relatively large pool of money to tap into.

What's up with insurance companies and their coverages and why does the shit cost so much?

The vast majority of people in the United States rely on private health insurance providers. Here, most folks pay either a (steep) monthly or annual premium out of their own wallets or have a portion of their paycheck deducted to pay for a healthcare plan shared with their coworkers. As a result, there are thousands of different pools that people pay into for their coverage, some more expensive than others, all of them with their own rules and guidelines.

Private health insurance providers also have plenty of leeway regarding who gets to dip into the pool and who doesn't. On the face of it, you can't blame them - thousands of scattered insurance pools are more vulnerable to getting syphoned dry by people with a boatload of health risk factors. That means smokers, the morbidly obese, diabetics and others with a slew of health problems are either told to pay ridiculous amounts of money or get tossed out of the pool. Got a preexisting condition? Good luck. Insurance companies also have their profits to think of. These profits usually average around three percent, but that's been bumped up to around eight percent as of late, accompanied by rising premiums. Ordinary Joes and Janes who are the perfect image of health are forced to pay much more than they should, just to cover both profit margins and the folks who need to dip into the money pool.

And that dip's a relatively deep one, too. Thanks to the high cost of health insurance, approximately 48 million Americans, many of whom are on the wrong side of the poverty line, simply go without. That means they go without preventative care unless they're lucky enough to either pay for it out of pocket or land a job that gives them some form of coverage. A lack of preventative care means that potential health issues go undetected, usually for years at a time. In the end, most people won't go to the hospital until the proverbial shit hits the fan and they need a trip to the emergency room. Emergency room care costs big bucks. So does surgery and treatment for issues that could have been nipped in the bud early on (like, say, cancer). At any rate, the overall cost of healthcare skyrockets.

My health insurance provider told me to go fuck myself with a rusty pipe when I got sick. What's up with that?

Of course, insurance companies absolutely hate paying out hundreds of thousands of dollars to cover medical expenses, hence they'll find any excuse in the book (and a few that don't exist) to unceremoniously drop paying recipients if they dip too deep into the money pool too often. In fact, many companies have panels that review medical requests before signing off on them and those that don't meet their particular criteria are often denied. They'll also stiff hospitals on the bill, which is why they routinely charge insurance companies much more than necessary just in case they get shortchanged. The fight between hospitals, private insurers and their customers can easily be replicated by laying down in the middle of a pack of starving pitbulls with a bloody steak on your face.

Did you know that many private health insurance providers have a network of select hospitals their insured customers can only go to if they're to expect continuing coverage? Stray outside of that network and be prepared to take that second mortgage out on your soul.

So what's this single-payer shit I keep hearing about?

On the other hand, there's single-payer healthcare, commonly known as socialized or universal healthcare. With this type of coverage, there's one money pool (usually administered by a government agency) and every citizen in the country it's enacted in pays into that pool, usually through taxes or mandated fees. Except for the desperately poor, who are given a break and are still allowed to draw out of that pool. The all-inclusive nature of the single-payer system means that 1)there's only one huge pool to pay into and draw out of, therefore 2)there's always enough money in the pool to cover every paying recipient, plus those who aren't able to pay and 3)recipients wind up paying far less in premiums than they had to with private coverage.

Since it's the government footing the bill, hospitals and healthcare providers can rest easier knowing that they'll pay. And since it's the government's dime, the government itself can dictate exactly how much it's willing to pay said hospitals, thereby lowering overall costs.

In short, single-payer saves money. Instead of ignoring that stabbing, throbbing pain in the side for months until you get rushed to the emergency room for a $10k stay and a $100k emergency surgery, your single-payer coverage allows you to go to the doctor to see what that pain's all about. Thanks to that huge pool effectively subsidizing your doctor's visit, the $1k in preventative care costs you zero or damn near close to it.

Other, more respectable countries throughout the world have some form of universal health coverage, provided through public funding sourced from taxes and fees. Some countries combine their publicly funded healthcare with optional coverage from a private health insurer. Other countries leave their healthcare coverage up to these private companies, but strongly regulate how much they can charge and even provide significantly low-cost (or free) health insurance coverage. This is essentially the route that Obamacare's going (but more on that in a minute).

Wait...doesn't that sound an awful lot like Medicare/Medicaid?

It does, doesn't it? In fact, some would say that a single-payer system in America would just be Medicare for All.* As it stands, Medicare is strictly for those over age 65 or anyone with disabilities. Medicaid is for people who are too poor to purchase private coverage on their own - mainly families, women and children. Unfortunately, the eligibility requirements vary among each state. Each year, the federal government disburses a set amount of money to individual states for their Medicare and Medicaid programs. Some states are more generous with the proceeds than others.

Okay...Obamacare.

Once upon a time, President Barack Obama foolishly attempted to bring single-payer healthcare to these United States. The measure was dragged behind the Capitol by conservative legislators and unceremoniously double-tapped in the head. The End.

Said legislators dressed the corpse in a new suit, took out the stuff they didn't really like (like the whole single-payer thing), slapped on a sticker reading "private insurance-friendly" and reintroduced it as the Affordable Care Act, which Congress passed and the president eventually signed in March 2010.

The simplest explanation of "Obamacare" (which is what opponents called it whenever they wanted to disparage it - the name kinda stuck after a while) is that it's a stop-gap between private insurance and single-payer insurance. In other words, all of the private healthcare providers are now part of a regulated "exchange" where they are obligated to insure each and every citizen, regardless of their condition, at something approaching relatively sane premiums.

At the same time, each and every citizen is obligated (hence the term "individual mandate) to sign up for health insurance, so they won't get tempted to sign up for a quick, free dip into the money pool just at the moment they get sick and subsequently screw other paying customers. Those who don't sign up by March 31, 2014 get hit with a penalty, starting at $95 or 1 percent of your taxable income, whichever's greater.

So I lose $95/year if I don't sign up. Big whoop.

$95 or 1 percent of your taxable income. You make $70,000/year? That's $700 you have to pay. And it gets worse. By 2015, the penalty grows to $325 or 2 percent of your taxable income. The year after and subsequent years, its $695 or 2.5 percent of taxable income.

But Mack! I don't even have a pot to piss in, let alone a window. How am I gonna pay for this shit?

You don't. At least if your income's below a certain threshold. In addition to the individual mandate, the Affordable Care Act also expands Medicaid coverage to include individuals age 19 to 65. That means those stuck below the federal poverty line can simply opt for Medicaid coverage. That is, if their state's playing ball.




Thanks to a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that mandated voluntary participation, 22 states have opted out or are leaning close to opting out of the federal government's Medicaid expansion through the ACA. That means if you make more than 100% of the federal poverty level, you can buy your health insurance coverage through the exchange for a significant discount. If not, you're left to the tender mercies of your state's income thresholds for Medicaid eligibility.

In the Great State of Alabama, the Medicaid income threshold for a family of three is $3,221. Per year. Make more than $3,221 but fall short of the $19,530 required to qualify for Obamacare? You're just about as screwed as the folks stuck in the Medicare Part D "doughnut hole".

Speaking of Medicare, the Affordable Care Act also unfucks a lot of what was wrong with it. For starters, enrollees get more preventative services (e.g. mammograms, colonoscopies, etc.) without paying extra. Enrollees stuck in the $2,970- $4,750 drug cost "doughnut hole" also receive a 50-percent discount when they purchase Part D-covered brand-name prescription drugs at the counter.

So why do guys like Ted Cruz treat Obamacare like the spawn of Satan and Grace Jones?

Because Tea Party?

But seriously, that's a good question that can only be answered with yet another lengthy and well thought-out blog post.

*Ba boom tish!

- Ariel Castro might not think of himself as a monster, but he is, at least as far as the law and the rest of America's concerned. He was sentenced to life imprisonment plus 1,000 years:

Castro pleaded guilty to 937 counts, including murder and kidnapping, in connection with the kidnapping and abuse of Michelle Knight, Georgina DeJesus and Amanda Berry, whom he held captive for a decade in his Cleveland home. As part of the plea deal, the death penalty was taken off the table.

- Bradley Manning, the U.S. Army private who passed over 700,000 documents to Julian Assange's WikiLeaks Foundation, was found not guilty of "aiding the enemy," a charge that could have earned him the death penalty had prosecutors not chosen to seek a life sentence instead. However, he was found guilty on 19 of the 22 charges laid against him, charges that would likely keep Manning behind bars for the rest of his life.

- The Russian government just gave Edward Snowden asylum:

On Thursday, Snowden was granted temporary asylum in Russia and was allowed to enter the country’s territory.

According to the issued documents, the former CIA employee who broke PRISM spying scandal to the world is free to stay in Russia until at least July 31, 2014. Then the asylum status may be extended.

With that in hand, Snowden cannot be handed over to the US authorities, even if Washington files an official request. He can now be transported to the United States only if he agrees to go voluntarily.

- I bet NYPD Community Affairs Bureau chief Douglas Zeigler didn't think he would be a target for "driving occupying a vehicle merely existing while black":

Chief Douglas Zeigler, 60, head of the Community Affairs Bureau, was in his NYPD-issued vehicle near a fire hydrant when two plainclothes cops approached on May 2, sources said.

One officer walked up on each side of the SUV at 57th Ave. and Xenia St. in Corona about 7 p.m. and told the driver to roll down the heavily tinted windows, sources said. What happened next is in dispute.

In his briefing to Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly, Zeigler said the two cops, who are white, had no legitimate reason to approach his SUV, ranking sources said. After they ordered him to get out, one officer did not believe the NYPD identification Zeigler gave him.

The cops gave a different account:

When one officer spotted Zeigler's service weapon through the rolled-down window, he yelled "Gun!" according to sources who have spoken with the officers. Both cops raised their weapons and ordered the driver out of the car, sources said. Instead of saying he was an armed member of the NYPD, Zeigler shouted, "Don't you know who I am?" the sources said.

When one cop reached over to check the identification badge around Zeigler's neck, the chief pushed him away, sources said. Only then did Zeigler tell the two officers his name and rank, those sources said.

Zeigler, in his discussions with Kelly, said the officers never yelled "Gun!" sources said. One cop got into a heated argument with the chief even after seeing the ID, sources said.

Even being a part of the thin blue line doesn't make you immune to the Stop and Frisk phenomenon if you happen to be the wrong skin color. In fact, your mayor might think he's being a bit too soft on you and your kind.

- Gilberton Police Chief Mark Kessler has the next 30 days off to buff up his Second Amendment bonafides:

In a closed meeting, the council voted 5-1 to suspended Kessler for 30 days, “for use of borough property for non-borough purposes without prior borough permission.” In one of the videos, the tiny town’s sole police officer used automatic weapons, which he was only legally authorized to do in his official capacity.

He's already being hailed as a "Second Amendment leader" by numerous gun rights advocates. But seriously, can the town of Gilberton afford to have an individual this mentally unstable in charge of its police department?


As a law-abiding citizen and a supporter of the Second Amendment, I wouldn't want someone like this pulling me over.

- You really wanna know why the Benghazi and IRS scandals dried up and blew away like that fresh parsley you forgot to put away that one time? According to Greg Gutfeld of Fox News, it was the Zimmerman trial. If only that "little ghetto thug monkey" had the common decency to not get himself killed by that George feller, our favorite Socialist Marxist Kenyan in Chief would be taking his last ride in the "Bulletproof Jesus" back to Chicago.

- Among the many, many stupid things the GOP-dominated North Carolina legislation has done*, its now allowing gun owners with concealed-carry permits to tote their weapons in bars and playgrounds across the state. At least it didn't fly with the controversial provision calling for the end of background checks or handgun permits.

Now, we all know that kids and guns don't mix. Liquor and guns don't mix, either. I'm sure the N.C. legislature knows that, but it can't be bothered to give two fucks as it rushes to push the Overton window as far towards the right as possible. And quite possibly over a cliff. That should give people something to talk about during the next "Moral Mondays" protest.

Meanwhile, the state wants to fingerprint welfare recipients. Because they're all probably criminals, anyway. Too bad it's likely to cost the Department of Social Services a lot of money to do it. But that's "small government" for you.

- I'm sure Margie Rhea Ramey is a nice enough woman. She just got tired of people "tearing up her driveway" and decided to do something about it:

Oscar Scott and his family of seven decided to go out for a nice Sunday visit to Bays Mountain Park in northeastern Tennessee. When it was time to go home, they thought it’d be nice to take the scenic route. After enjoying some scenery, they came across Bays Mountain Road and took it, curious to see if it would take them back to the park. After going a ways down the road, they noticed that the road became very narrow and turned in to what Scott described as “an old log road.” Figuring it was best to turn around, he put the car in reverse, and chaos ensued.

Margie Rhea Ramey saw the car go into reverse from her front porch, where she’d been sitting with a few other people. Sick of people who were “tearing up her driveway,” Margie started yelling. Before they even touched her driveway, Scott’s son asked “Does she got a gun?” and Margie opened fire on the SUV carrying five children, ages four to twelve. She fired two shots, one hitting close to where the children were seated in the car. Scott’s wife yelled to her that they were simply turning around, but ol’ Margie wasn’t having it. Scott put pedal to the metal and got them out of there as fast as he could and called the police.

Ramey was detained, charged with seven counts of reckless endangerment (most likely a misdemeanor charge) and later released on $1,000 bond on Sunday. Luckily for her, she didn't share the same skin tone as a certain Marissa Alexander, otherwise she'd be looking at a 20-year bid. And rest assured Oscar Scott won't be taking that scenic route ever again.

But hey, despite one of those bullets coming close to where the kids were, at least she didn't point blank shoot anyone in the face like this guy did, and right in front of the poor bastard's wife, too. Puts "standing your ground" in a whole new light.

- Texas is #1 when it comes to lost and stolen firearms, according to a report from the BATFE. Georgia, Florida, California and North Carolina round out the top five states. From the report:

“In 2012, NCIC received reports reflecting 190,342 lost and stolen firearms nationwide. Of those 190,342 lost and stolen firearms reported, 16,667 (9% of the total reported) were the result of thefts/losses from FFLs. Of the 16,667 firearms reported as lost or stolen from a FFL, a total of 10,915 firearms were reported as lost. The remaining 5,762 were reported as stolen.”

- A young woman characterized as "ghetto" and "dumb and stupid" is now receiving a full-ride scholarship to the HBCU of her choosing, along with the tutoring and mentoring to help her graduate from high school and move on to bigger and better things. After what she's been through, Rachel Jeantel deserves that and much more.

- You can add Madonna, Usher, Patti Labelle, Kanye West, Jay Z, the Rolling Stones, Justin Timberlake, R. Kelly, Rhianna, Alicia Keys, will i am, Erykah Badu and Rod Stewart to the list of people who are staying the hell away from Florida until it does something about its "Stand Your Ground" laws.

Wait, you mean that's just a rumor? Damn. These celebs could have put some force behind this thing in a way that only Change.org could dream of. Sadly, this means our friend MichaelJay over at WPTV.com can't keep up his entitled white rage against Jay-Z and Beyonce:

I say lets boycott Jay Z, Beyonce. Their obviously racist themselves.They dont care about white blood being spilled only black. This just in Zimmerman not WHITE!!!!!!!! I WILL NEVER LISTEN TO ANOTHER PIECE OF RACIST MUSIC COMING FROM EITHER OF THOSE ARTIST..........

Projection's a hell of a thing. And get a load of the argument that Zimmerman's a Hispanic, in spite of his very much white father*.

- Terrell Gausha wasn't happy about the way the Zimmerman trial went down:

“When I represented my country in the Olympics, I was proud to wear my flag. I even wore it on my head on the way to the ring. What happened this weekend was a slap in the face.”

So Gausha's putting the red, white and blues away. I hope he braces himself for the flood of hatred and vitriol headed his way, courtesy of the MichaelJays of the world. And let's also hope he doesn't get the kind of death threats Michael Vick got over his autobiography.

Last up, Jasiri-X:


*I'll get to this ASAP. It's a trip.
*I guess the "One Drop Rule" doesn't apply here.