Different Day, Same Shit.

If you're a minority and you're suffering from racial inequality, Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal thinks it's all your fault:

We have made tremendous progress, but as long as our society is comprised of imperfect human beings, we will always be striving for a more perfect union. We must not let this constant process prevent us from acknowledging the enormous strides we have already made.

Yet we still place far too much emphasis on our “separateness,” our heritage, ethnic background, skin color, etc. We live in the age of hyphenated Americans: Asian-Americans, Italian-Americans, African-Americans, Mexican-Americans, Cuban-Americans, Indian-Americans, and Native Americans, to name just a few.

Here’s an idea: How about just “Americans?” That has a nice ring to it, if you ask me. Placing undue emphasis on our “separateness” is a step backward. Bring back the melting pot.

There is nothing wrong with people being proud of their different heritages. We have a long tradition of folks from all different backgrounds incorporating their traditions into the American experience, but we must resist the politically correct trend of changing the melting pot into a salad bowl. E pluribus Unum.

For the longest, black Americans really, REALLY wanted to be just plain ol' "Americans." Too bad about the constant, unending and institutionalized push via a variety of social, political and economic forces to keep those African-Americans and others hyphenated not just in name, but also in how they interact with so-called "plain ol' Americans."

For the record, Asian-Americans, Italian-Americans, Mexican-Americans, Cuban-Americans and Indian-Americans can all integrate themselves into the plain ol' American collective by adopting varying degrees of Whiteness™. That's something that hasn't quite been afforded to African-Americans. Or Native-Americans, for that matter.

As Aviva Shen sums things up over at Think Progress:

If he had done even cursory research before writing his editorial, Jindal may have discovered some systemic inequities preventing minorities from assimilating to his satisfaction. Though Jindal is right that Americans have made “significant progress” since the March On Washington For Jobs And Freedom, the national black unemployment rate has steadily remained double the white unemployment rate for the past 60 years.

In urban areas like Chicago, the poverty rate and median income for black families is also about the same as it was in 1963.

Even segregation, once vanquished by the civil rights movement, is rebounding aggressively. Since 2001, urban schools and neighborhoods have become increasingly re-segregated through lax integration enforcement and so-called “white flight.” Research shows this resegregation intensifies poverty and violence in minority neighborhoods, trapping black families in an endless cycle. Jindal himself has helped this trend along in New Orleans with his school privatization plan, which has worsened racial inequality in 34 historically segregated public schools and, according to the Justice Department, “reversed much of the progress made toward integration.”

Instead of digging deep into the historical, social and institutional flaws that have served to cockblock genuine equality and progress, Piyush makes a standard-issue plea for "togetherness" and through his criticism of those who dare hold on to their own cultural identities, subtly blames minorities for not working hard enough to genuinely be a part of America.

A platitude of this magnitude just goes to show how much our friend Piyush is out-of-touch with the realities of being in the "minority" column in the U.S. I know he has to keep those conservative bonafides burnished, as he's done by taking pot-shots at Eric Holder over school vouchers, but come on - you'd figure that someone who had to change his name to meet the minimum standards of acceptability among the unreconstructed should know better.

Then again, I should know better, especially with guys like Allen West around.

Meanwhile, the state of Louisiana leads the world in incarceration. He may want to take a good look at that, too.

For the past few months, Koch Carbon, an affiliate of Koch Industries, stored tons of petroleum coke on a lot near the Detroit-Windsor Ambassador Bridge. This stuff happens to be a byproduct of the ongoing tar sands oil operations in Alberta, Canada. When it's not sitting idle on some industrial lot, the "pet coke" is usually shipped overseas as a cheap but nastier alternative to coal.

Normally, this stuff is hosed down with an epoxy to keep it from blowing everywhere. The following is what happens when the epoxy stops working.



After seeing portions of the city devolve into wastelands and crumble to bits, the average Detroiter probably thinks this is the shriveled cherry on top of a heaping shit sundae. Understandably, Detroit and Windsor residents are a bit upset over their respective cities being treated like dumps.

To top it all off, all of that pet coke was being stored without a permit:

After months of operating without one, the company responsible for Detroit’s petroleum coke piles went hunting for one Tuesday.

Detroit Bulk Storage representatives faced a city panel that will decide the issue. At times, panel members were highly skeptical of the company’s actions.

A company representative said they didn’t know they needed a permit to openly store pet coke along the Detroit River.

It’s stopped taking additional shipments of the substance — a byproduct of refining Canadian tar sands oil — until it gets one.

“Our understanding was that once we were moving toward compliance, we could continue our operations,” said Detroit Bulk Storage lawyer Terri Whitehead.

A Detroit Bulk Storage representative also insists the company is using “best practices” when it comes to handling the openly-stored piles safely.

Fantastic.

“I am a black male who grew up in the inner city of Atlanta and no one ever followed me in a mall. I don’t recall any doors clicking when I crossed the street. And I never had anyone clutching their handbag when I got on an elevator. I guess having two awesome parents who taught me to be a respectful young man paid dividends.” – Allen West

I find that extraordinarily hard to believe, Allen. First of all, you are a man of presumably African-American descent. Your physical appearance alone sends certain individuals and subgroups into fits of near-fatal apoplexy.

Perhaps your parents gave you The Talk™. Perhaps they trained you how to control your movements and mannerisms so that you don't cast off such a threatening appearance. Perhaps you displayed an affinity at a young age towards accommodation in exchange for whites being more at ease with you. Or maybe you just chose to be oblivious to any sort of indirect profiling that happens, as I admittedly do at times.* I'm just throwing that out there.

I have no doubt your parents trained you well, Allen. But when you break out a whopper that big, you're bound to get side-eyed from here to infinity.

*No, seriously. I never notice or pay any attention to security staff or shopkeepers who decide to "keep an eye on me." Then again, I can be a bit oblivious about my surroundings, too.

A pickpocket grabs opportunity by the horns and gets gored for his troubles. At least it wasn't all about the shoes:

According to witnesses, an armed man tried to rob a group of customers in line about 5:30 a.m. But one of the customers who was armed with his on own handgun shot and killed the suspect. The suspect ran just a few yards away before he collapsed and died, police said.

Witnesses told Channel 2 Action News the suspect had been pick-pocketing people all week long. "(The suspect) wanted to pick-pocket everybody. But people out here, they weren't going for none of that," said customer Taylor White.

White told Channel 2’s Amanda Cook the suspect should have thought twice before approaching the customers. "I didn't even expect him to come up here, thinking it was that sweet; Thinking it’s that candy land like that," White said.

Far from "candy land," Mr. White. I can safely say this goes into "senseless" territory.

"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.

SPECIAL EDIT:

Video of the incident can be found via this direct link. This is to circumvent NDN Media Player's autoplay feature and keep people from getting written up at work. :D

This happened on her birthday.

I'll just say that if the above had happened to anyone in my family...strike that. The last thing I'd want to do is to leave behind a paper trail for investigators. Let's just say that I know people and I know how to do...things. Yeah, let's just leave it at that.

The LAPD stated it would start its investigation on Jan 21, when schools were back in session. I thought schools were closed on MLK, Jr. Day. At any rate, we can't afford to wait for scum to be brought to justice, no matter the circumstance.

EDIT:

Cops arrest 33yo mom accused of helping 12yo daughter beat up schoolmate. #LAPD lt. says video of incident is "pretty disturbing." @knx1070
— Claudia Peschiutta (@ReporterClaudia) January 23, 2013

UPDATE:

LONG BEACH, Calif. (KTLA) — A San Pedro woman has been charged with beating up a 12-year-old girl who was a rival of her daughter in an alley fight that first aired exclusively on KTLA.

Amber Lee Gutierrez, 33, was arrested Tuesday for her alleged involvement in a prearranged fight in a West Gaffey Street alley after school on January 14.

Gutierrez was charged on Tuesday with assault by means likely to produce great bodily injury. She is being held on $100,000 bond.

If convicted as charged, Gutierrez faces a possible maximum state prison term of seven years.

According to police, the 12-year-old and Gutierrez’s daughter had agreed to fight in the alley, but mothers and adults showed up as well and got involved.

The girl suffered a broken arm. Her mother, who spoke anonymously to KTLA, said she’s disappointed Gutierrez hasn’t been charged with a hate crime.

Racial slurs are heard repeatedly on the video, which was recorded on a cellphone by an onlooker.

Prosecutors have not decided whether to charge Gutierrez’s sister, who is also seen in the video throwing punches.

Both the aunt and the child are said to be in hiding. Not that I have any sympathy for either one or the mother, for that matter. If and when she's convicted, she might have to spend most of those seven years in protective custody.

My guess is that we're going to get a law anyway, and my hope is that it will consist of small measures that might have some tiny actual effect, like restrictions on magazine capacity. I'd also like us to encourage people to gang rush shooters, rather than following their instincts to hide; if we drilled it into young people that the correct thing to do is for everyone to instantly run at the guy with the gun, these sorts of mass shootings would be less deadly, because even a guy with a very powerful weapon can be brought down by 8-12 unarmed bodies piling on him at once. Would it work? Would people do it? I have no idea; all I can say is that both these things would be more effective than banning rifles with pistol grips.

The above quoted comes courtesy of Megan McArdle's lengthy essay on the futility of stopping the Adam Lanzas of the world from dealing death to innocents. You can just visualize poor Megan sighing in despair over a mocha latte while typing out another paean to the overall uselessness of gun control on her Macbook Air.

Meanwhile, others are visualizing the spectacle of young schoolchildren being trained to zerg rush gunmen in utter disregard of their otherwise natural inclination to run away from the bad guy with the gun:

Are you kidding me? You think gun control is impractical, so your plan is to turn the entire national population, including young children, into a standby suicide squad? Through private initiative, of course. It's way more feasible than gun control!

Unless I am missing a very subtle parody of libertarianism, McArdle's plan to teach children to launch banzai charges against mass murderers is the single worst solution to any problem I have ever seen offered in a major publication. Newsweek, I award this essay no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.

Actually, the single worst solution to this particular problem is allowing teachers and janitors to carry guns inside schools, but this ranks a close second.

Even the Department of Homeland Security would call a "time out" on this. Zerg rushing a gunman is perhaps one of the worst things you could do - not only are you putting your life at risk for little gain, there's no guarantee that people will break out of "bystander mode" and reconcile numerical strength in numbers with a lowered chance of dying. That's hard for even grown men and women to do and yet we expect it from our children.

Sandy Hook did a hell of a number on the overall psyche of rabid gun owners and supporters. The NRA took a moment, but they eventually managed to find a narrative that would allow them to support gun ownership with a straight face. Now you have rank assholes convincing themselves that Sandy Hook was actually an elaborate hoax designed just so President Obama could declare those nasty-looking AR-15s illegal and send the spiritual successors of the Waffen-Schutzstaffel into the homes of patriotic Americans everywhere to destroy their ability to defend themselves, their country and the idea of Freedom™ (which, oddly enough, is encapsulated in the ability to own lots and lots of guns). A lone bald eagle sheds a solitary tear in front of a strategically placed American flag.

Well, at least you have the youngsters doing their part to protect their fellow students from future Sandy Hooks. Sorry, kid - only the adults get to pack heat in the schoolhouse.

This past Fourth of July, the fine folks in Winfield, Alabama woke up to the handywork of their friendly neighborhood "Christian organization", that left flyers encouraging the town's white Christians to join them for a Negro-free holiday gathering full of good food, great music and plenty of pro-white propaganda.


Gee, I thought Christ's love didn't recognize any ethnic boundaries. Or many religious ones, at that. Then again, when your Jesus looks like this, you kinda expect him to stay on the right (or is that white?) team.


The city is a bit miffed. They don't want to be associated with any of this shit, and I don't blame them. The only thing that sucks more than a closeted Klansman in a Hardee's bathroom is a bunch of "Christians" using the faith as a cover for their bigoted tendencies. Speaking of which:

According to the flier, the three-day conference, being held in a rural area, will end with a "Sacred Christian Cross Lighting Ceremony."

Welp, at least they saved on the laundry bills. And I'm done.

"If you look at the totality of Bain Capital's record, they've done a lot to support businesses, to grow businesses," he added. "And this, to me, I'm very uncomfortable."

"This kind of stuff is nauseating to me on both sides," Booker said. "It's nauseating to the American public. Enough is enough. Stop attacking private equity. Stop attacking Jeremiah Wright. This stuff has got to stop, because what it does is it undermines, to me, what this country should be focused on. It's a distraction from the real issues."

The above quoted came courtesy of Cory Booker. Although he still lends support to President Obama's re-election campaign, he doesn't like how his campaign pushed around poor Bain Capital. In fact, he equates such attacks on the private equity firm with those from the GOP on Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Don't ask. Perhaps it has something to do with Booker looking towards the future and how he will have to utilize his connections with financial big hitters for his future political aspirations. In that case, it was smart of him to springboard himself a considerable distance away from President Obama, in the event the president ends up tarred and feathered for being "anti-business."

The focus of Booker's (and many other's) discontent is a video focusing on Bain's acquisition of GST Steel in 1993 and the company's subsequent bankruptcy years later:


Not said in the current consternation swirling around the news outlets and Twitter is how Bain Capital managed a $40 million takeaway before directing the scraps to the garbage can. At the cost of thousands of jobs, of course. Even the authenticity of that "100,000 jobs" claim is suspect:

The claim that Romney helped create more than 100,000 jobs is difficult to prove. The campaign has said the figure comes from current statistics on three companies that Romney helped start or expand -- Staples (89,000 jobs), Sports Authority (15,000 jobs) and Domino's (7,900 jobs). However, the companies themselves, as opposed to Romney and Bain, may be responsible for the actual job creation since Bain's initial investment. The figure also does not include companies -- like GST Steel, which the Obama campaign and super PAC are highlighting -- where jobs were lost.

For some odd reason, private equity is sacrosanct, along with the rest of corporate America and the "job creators." At least that's the message I get from Booker and many others, including former auto czar Steve Rattner:

I think the ad is unfair. Look, Mitt Romney made a mistake ever talking about the fact that he created 100,000 jobs. Bain Capital’s responsibility was not to create 100,000 jobs or some other number. It was to make profits for his investors, most of whom were pension funds, endowments, and foundations. and it did it superbly, acting within the rules and very responsibly and was a leading firm. So, yeah, I do think to pick out an example of somebody who lost their job unfortunately, this is part of capitalism. This is part of life. And I don’t think there’s anything Bain Capital did that they need to be embarrassed about.

Mitt Romney shouldn't be "embarrassed" about partaking in vulture capitalism, an exclusive pastime that's becoming as American as baseball and apple pie.

Could this all be a rather subtle way of telling Obama he should lay off the "job creators," lest he find his re-election chances that much dicier come November? Considering how the Citizens United case opened the floodgates for corporate participation in elections, it's easy to see his supporters on Wall Street get a bit uncomfortable if he starts attacking them just a wee bit too much. And it's also easy to see said supporters send a subtle signal for him to knock it off before they drown Mitt Romney in millions of campaign funds in retaliation.

And with those attacks off the table, it's assumed that the Obama campaign will scramble to whup on some other aspect of Mitt Romney, preferably one that not only doesn't matter in the realm of electoral chances, but could also result in fierce backlash for Obama and Democrats. Religion? Nah, they made it clear they wouldn't touch that with a ten foot pole:

Mr. Axelrod also said that the Obama campaign had no intention of focusing on Mr. Romney’s religion.

“We’ve said that’s not fair game,’’ Mr. Axelrod said, when asked if he believes Mr. Romney’s Mormonism is an issue in the campaign.

Neutering the Obama campaign while pushing for certain types of Democrats to provide cover by denouncing strong criticism of certain issues surrounding Mitt Romney's campaign is something the GOP wouldn't mind happening. From the talk on Twitter, there are more people attempting to defend Booker's rationale for his statements than those who want to put the focus back where it belongs: on Bain Capital and its practices. It's a far-gone conclusion that the GOP will point to people in Obama's own party urging him to lay off Bain, Romney and the "job creators" when his campaign attempts to focus on this and other economic issues.

The man has plenty of cool points, but not nearly enough to cash in for throwing the GOP a nice, juicy bone.

"I have never been so humiliated in my life, all because I wanted a job,"

Like millions of Americans, Tateasa Adams pounded the pavement for a decent-paying job. When Six Flags Over Georgia called her back for a follow-up, she expected a face-to-face interview for a stage performer gig. She didn't expect to be led off in handcuffs.

When an outstanding warrant in Gwinnett County, GA popped up on a background check, Adams admitted to blowing off a traffic court date on account of being at her fiance's bedside as he underwent cancer treatment in Boston. When you're dealing with a loved one who's sick and ailing, you want to be by that person's side and in the process, you tend to blow off things that don't seem as important in comparison. For some, that includes a court date.

She didn't expect park officials to immediately call the police. While some businesses have a stated obligation to ring the alarm on scofflaws, the following is a profile in entrapment:

Six Flags sent Adams an email confirming her appointment on Feb. 29 for a "pre-appointment screen." She was instructed to return to the park "dressed in business attire -- this is an interview." Adams was also told to bring a valid photo identification.

"I arrived early," she said. "When I got there they sat me down in a room with a video camera, took my license, and had me fill out another application."

So park officials not only tricked Adams into showing up for her own arrest, they also stalled for time until the county police showed up. While most people are probably livid over park officials taking it upon themselves to see a scofflaw receive sweet, sweet justice, you'd have to wonder what the overall response would be if Tateasa Adams was Todd Adams, wanted for indecency with a child. I know, it's the "devil's advocate" angle, but you'd have to wonder.

On the other hand, it's still entrapment. Even the folks at the Cobb County P.D. say it's not the purview of some theme park to set up its own law enforcement sting:

“It seems to me a dangerous practice to engineer someone’s arrest,” Buckley told the AJC. “They run the risk of creating unnecessary claims for themselves. It just doesn’t make any sense.”

Adams was taken to Gwinnett County where she made bail and was subsequently released. The kicker?

Adams said she's still looking for work but fears she's already lost out on opportunities due to her arrest record. Her mugshot appears on the first page returned when one does a web search of the name "Tateasa Adams."

"This has been a total nightmare," she said. "I'm not making any excuses for missing the court date. I should've taken care of that. But it's not like I'm some dangerous criminal."

In the U.S., having a criminal record is a scarlet letter that precludes you from any occupation short of "temp worker" and "fry cook," and even I'm not so sure about the latter. I have to wonder if Ms. Adams happened to be of a different hue, would she had been given an opportunity to sort this out on her own. (i.e. seek an attorney, voluntarily turn herself in, etc.)

Thanks to a critical life decision, Tatesia Adams gets to have her literal mugshot at the top of Google's search rankings for her own name. If I were in her shoes, I'd hire these guys to help scrub my name clean, consider filing suit against Six Flags and burnish up that singing career while thinking about what it means to be "self-employed" for the foreseeable future.

When Marissa Alexander used her legally licensed firearm to protect herself and her kids, she didn't imagine she'd be sent up the river for 20 years. But that's exactly what's happening. What makes it worse is that Alexander's case is the perfect scenario for how Florida's "Stand Your Ground" law should be used:

Alexander claims she was acting in self-defense, that her husband, Rico Gray, attacked her when he found messages to her ex-husband on her cell phone. Gray has said in testimony that he had previously warned Alexander that he would kill her if he ever found out that she had been unfaithful. In her panic, she ran to the garage, hoping to escape. Once there, she found that she did not have her keys and that the garage door was broken.

Feeling that there was no other route of escape, Alexander armed herself and re-entered the house. Gray confronted her, threatening to kill her once again. The mother of three turned her face away and fired a warning shot into the ceiling in hopes that Gray would back down, which he did, taking his children from a previous relationship and fleeing the house.

Ironically, there'd be a much greater chance of her walking free had she actually shot and killed him. Now there's a lesson domestic abuse victims might pick up in similar situations. It'd also help if Alexander was a photogenic blonde woman of noticeably WASP heritage. The law tends to be an ass when it comes to black Americans, black American women especially.

It's also worth noting that Alexander passed up a three-year plea deal, like any person would do if they genuinely believed themselves to be innocent. For some odd reason, the prospect of a 20-year bid seems like the prosecution and judges making an example of someone who didn't cop out when asked to.

The judge's rationale for convicting Alexander?

“Maybe I would be agreeing to a new Stand Your Ground motion, which highlights some of the difficulties we are struggling with procedurally implementing this new law,” he wrote, “but ultimately the motion is denied.” In his opinion, Alexander’s decision to re-enter the house was “inconsistent with a person in genuine fear of his or her life.”

Now contrast this ruling with the one for Greyston Garcia:

Circuit Judge Beth Bloom ruled Mar. 27 in a widely reported case that Greyston Garcia would not have to stand trial for killing Pedro Roteta, whom Garcia stabbed. According to Judge Bloom, Garcia was within his rights under Stand Your Ground law, because Roteta swung a bag of radios at Garcia, which, had it struck its intended target, could have been lethal.

Garcia, of Miami's Little Havana neighborhood, did not come under attack from Roteta. Instead, he found Roteta stealing a radio from his car. When Roteta saw Garcia, he ran away, and Garcia followed him, pulling out a knife. Garcia chased Roteta for a block, cornering him, and Roteta swung his bag of radios at Garcia - the potential lethal force. It was then that Garcia stabbed him.

Protecting your property is OK and "protecting" your neighborhood from an imagined menace is OK, too. But protecting yourself from an abusive human being isn't in the cards.

Rulings like these send a message. Battered wives, minorities and those who are perceived to be at the bottom of America's socioeconomic totem pole are now being put on notice.

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.

"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. 

In this blog post, we have a 45-year-old rapper whose career was built on heaping piles of misogyny, the "Pimp" allure, flagrant disrespect and objectification of women and overall coonery giving "fatherly" tips on how to "turn girls out." As Phlip over at the Intersection of Madness and Reality explained, fathers everywhere should be lined up for several blocks for an opportunity to beat this man senseless.

“When you get to late middle school, early high school and you start feeling a certain way about the girls… I’m gonna tell you a couple tricks. A lot of the boys are going to be running around trying to get kisses from the girls… We’re going way past that. I’m taking you to the hole.”

“You push her up against the wall, you take your finger and put a little spit on it and you stick your finger in her underwear and you rub it on there and watch what happens.”

Sadly, beyond black-oriented news sites and blogs, I haven't heard much about Too Short's predatory pontificating. Perhaps if he made the same mistake as Jamie Foxx and directed his "advice" towards the ever-so-impressionable white teenagers, there would be a bit more exposure. In fact, the outrage generated by this would probably make Michael Vick's dogfighting conviction seem like a quaint shoplifting incident at Target.

But when it comes to bullshit that happens within the black community, events like these don't even rate an eyebrow raise. Black men in general who predate on black women and girls don't rate a mention unless the target happens to be extremely famous or white. It's how Anthony Sowell managed to get away with his crimes for so long and why Rihanna's abuse at the hands of Chris Brown became as noteworthy as it did.

I know there was a time where I had thicker skin for this kind of talk; usually ending it with “meh, it’s just music,” but something about the situation in which the person posting this from the position of a now-former rapper (pending earlier explanation, naturally) at age 45 and presumably a father, one would hope that one just wouldn’t take it this far, especially not providing specific rape instructions. I guess achievement of the ripe old age of 32 and the presence of a 7-month-old all too willing to show me her two teeth changed that.

Just like the words spewed by Troi Torain (also known as "DJ Starr") against the daughter and wife of then-rival DJ Envy, most people who are up and up on rap and R&B are quick to dismiss those words as just that: words. Unfortunately, those words can often take a life of their own, reinforcing a negative lifestyle and negative trends that go a long way to hurt the most vulnerable within the black community. It's bad enough that the media and rap culture both go out of its way to devalue black women and reduce them to nothing more than mere sexual objects, but when the famous black men actively advocate said commodification and other black Americans see it as being no big deal...you have to wonder if there's a disconnect somewhere:

Just as it's incredibly offensive and wrong for Star to bring a 4-year-old girl into an ugly radio debate, it seems wrong for Envy to be taking the fight to the same level by calling the police in on the case, when it's really quite clear that Star was just being an asshole in public.

People tend to just shrug and not take these things seriously until 1)it personally affects them or 2)it happens to someone who "matters" and in turn generates publicity that's too big to ignore or shrug off. To get a better idea of what was said:

“I will come for your kids” and I want to “do an R. Kelly (i.e. urinate during sexual intercourse)…on your seed (i.e. child)”. Torain also offered $500 to any listener who could provide information about the rival DJ’s daughter’s school and used racial slurs when talking about the DJ’s wife. Torain went on to say that he wanted to “put mayonnaise in the ass cheeks” of the rival DJ’s young daughter, immediately adding that he also desired to take a bite out of it.

The shit is downright pedophilic. It's no wonder DJ Envy brought the police in on this. Despite his involvement in the beef between him and Torain, this stepped over the line.

It took constant hammering against the walls of tone deaf mass media to momentarily knock Torain off his "hustle." His antics didn't reverberate throughout the media like those of Chris Brown or Jamie Foxx. When your bullshit is aimed at ordinary black women and girls - people whom, in the eyes of the media, don't matter all that much, it's easy to get away with it. Although Too Short and the people at XXL have been called out for it, I doubt it's knocking anyone from those camps off of their hustle. No wonder folks like Gina McCauley are greatly concerned:

"The black community has a problem with how it treats its girls and boys as it relates to violence," McCauley concluded, and she called on black men to take Too Short to task for his comments and re-educate him about respecting black women.

Too many black men are willing to just stand back and not call guys like Too Short out on hurting black women and girls. Too many people want to remain in such a person's good graces rather than risk being ostracized for standing up. The longer these black men sit in silence, the more black women and girls get hurt.

He probably has daughters by multiple women. This is what happens...he tells his daughters to keep her legs closed; he tells his sons to "Be a pimp player"; he has a rotation of women for his children to see. Straight up mixed signals.

That's true for just about every ethnic group and culture. Men and boys are encouraged to predate and fornicate to their hearts' content (except in very specific circumstances), while the onus of sexual protection from said predation falls squarely on women and girls. The menfolk get little blue pills while the womenfolk get little white pills...to hold between their knees.

I hereby re-submit Todd Anthony Shaw's name to the Field Negro for consideration for House Negro of the Day.* I'm sure DMX will be glad to get some of that heat up off him. I'd submit Chris Brown's name, but he doesn't need the publicity or another award.**

*I've just been informed he already made House Negro once.
**He's probably been in the House himself.

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?"

No, homies. Just no.

You need brain bleach. Here, have some brain bleach.

There isn't much else you can say about this shit. Eddie Long is a sick man and has been that way for quite some time.

Update: The Komen Foundation reversed their decision to withhold funding from Planned Parenthood. Too bad it won't reverse the damage this debacle's done to their organization.

The Susan G. Komen Foundation's seemingly sudden decision to pull funding from Planned Parenthood garnered a great deal of attention these past few days and remains a popular topic in most corners of the Internet. Personally speaking, there's been so many perspectives already written on the topic that I've been vexed about whether it'd be worth offering one of my own, as opposed to just sending readers off to other sites with more detailed info, but I digress.

Seeing first-hand what breast cancer can do to a family member, I didn't mind giving my support to the Komen Foundation and I found their overall mission to be an admirable one. Detecting breast cancer (or any other type of cancer, for that matter) early on is one of the best ways to ensure that those who have it won't lose their lives over it. Improper screening of another form of cancer allowed it to metastasize into a more serious and deadly condition in another family member. I didn't know about the corporate goings-on behind the scenes, nor about how the foundation spent most of its donations on suing smaller foundations for petty copyright infringements.

So hearing about the Komen Foundation unceremoniously pulling its funding from Planned Parenthood took me by surprise, given how I didn't expect an organization such as this one to jeopardize itself over what appeared to be a case of ideological weight-slinging. The Komen Foundation gave $680,000 to Planned Parenthood for breast cancer screening and other related services. Not a single dime went to abortion services, something that Planned Parenthood is assumed to be big on. On the contrary, the organization's is largely devoted to testing and treating sexually transmitted diseases, as well as providing contraception and other reproductive health services, especially to those in areas where access to such services are hard to come by. Despite what many people think, Planned Parenthood is not an abortion mill that has fetuses hauled off by the truckload to be reformulated into tofu or stem cell soup or Mitt Romney's toothpaste.

"It's a Biblical principle. If you double a teacher's pay scale, you'll attract people who aren't called to teach.

"To go in and raise someone's child for eight hours a day, or many people's children for eight hours a day, requires a calling. It better be a calling in your life. I know I wouldn't want to do it, OK?

"And these teachers that are called to teach, regardless of the pay scale, they would teach. It's just in them to do. It's the ability that God give 'em. And there are also some teachers, it wouldn't matter how much you would pay them, they would still perform to the same capacity.

"If you don't keep that in balance, you're going to attract people who are not called, who don't need to be teaching our children. So, everything has a balance."

The above comes from Alabama state Senator Shadrack McGill (R). It's not every day you're confronted with a statement that is so irretrievably stupid that it takes the rest of the day just to wrap your mind around the sheer stupidity of it all.

For starters, I have yet to run into a passage in the Holy Bible that holds keeping teacher salaries at well below the national average as a "biblical principle." That's just something you won't see in the Old or New Testaments any time soon. McGill must have one of those custom-made Holy Bibles filled with "scripture" specially designed to justify the entire conservative philosophy.

Second, those who have a calling for teaching might initially go in without regard to how much they're being paid, but eventually their thoughts will turn towards keeping the lights on and the fridge stocked up. As this whole "calling" thing, sounds like McGill is mixing up teaching with preaching. The classroom is not a pulpit, the students are not church folk and there's no deacon walking around the room with a collection plate in hand.

Last but not least, sounding off a desire to keep teacher salaries as low as possible should be a red flag to just about anyone who is teaching or thinking of teaching in the state of Alabama. One of the things that brings the cream of the crop to the surface is a decent salary. Although the state has one of the highest starting salaries in the nation, the average salary is well below the national median. Depressing those salaries won't bring in the best and brightest, because the best and brightest want to be paid a decent salary that is commensurate to what they're worth and if they have to go outside the state to be paid well, then that's exactly what will happen. The idea that great teachers have to sacrifice their salaries and livelihoods just to do the job they love is quite nonsensical and patently stupid.

Meanwhile, McGill believes that such sacrifices should not extend to the legislature:

McGill, R-Woodville, said a 62 percent pay raise in 2007 - passed first by a controversial voice vote and later in an override of a veto by then-Gov. Bob Riley - better rewards lawmakers and makes them less susceptible to being swayed by lobbyists.
Lawmakers entered the 2007 legislative session making $30,710 a year, a rate that had not been changed in 16 years. The raise increased it to $49,500 annually.

McGill said that by paying legislators more, they're less susceptible to taking bribes.

I doubt that. No politician who's getting hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes and perks is going to suddenly give that up over a nearly $20k annual pay raise. That's just extra change dug out from underneath the couch for those guys, on top of the kickbacks and gifts they'll continue to receive. It's interesting how McGill is willing to give legislators such as himself a larger paycheck, yet he's adamant about keeping teacher salaries as low as possible.

I suppose the end game of all this is to keep teacher salaries depressed to the point at which no one in their right mind would want to take up the job (at least in that state) for a living. This will be one of the many sources of justification for pushing ahead with the idea of charter schools as a replacement for the "failed" public education system, a system that is currently being driven into failure thanks to a number of factors, with underfunding being one of them. If you take a close look at most school systems in Alabama, you'll notice how inflated the salaries of the administration are in comparison to the faculty and staff within the schools themselves. That might not bother someone who approaches the issue of public education with a business mindset - after all, the CEO and other execs have to be "well-compensated" in order to perform a good job.

Looking at education from a business perspective also demands that the guys on the ground floor - the teachers and support staff - be paid as little as possible to preserve the bottom line. That's something that Casey Wardynski is introducing to Huntsville City Schools with "Teach For America." Instead of having qualified teachers with hundreds of hours in traditional training and years of experience in connecting with and motivating students, HCS students will be taught by fresh-faced college graduates who have relatively little experience. While the strong push for "Teach For America" is just Wardynski's way of making sure the Broad Foundation gets a return on their investment, a cunning politician can seize on TFA as being a backdoor for dumping qualified and experienced teachers in favor of what will eventually amount to as "temp workers." There is a certain allure towards paying teachers fry-cook wages, on the mistaken believe that they don't do much of anything aside from sit on their asses and babysit kids all day.

Perhaps McGill should borrow a proper copy of the Holy Bible and spend the next few days going over it from cover to cover, preferably with a good minister who'll guide him through the text. That should help him separate genuine biblical principles from the principles he's conjured up in his head.

Mittens winning the Florida primary was a far-gone conclusion, considering how southern belle Newt Gingrich realized that the same tactics that won him the South Carolina primary wouldn't work in the Sunshine State and how Rick Santorum was being, well, Rick Santorum. The "rape babies are gifts from God" thing didn't do him any favors, and despite his performance at the debate prior to the primary, he still clocked in at a distant third.

At any rate, I'm glad to see Rick's kid pull through okay. Trisomy 18 is no laughing matter and neither is pneumonia in both lungs. Given that he's already lost a child, the last thing he needs is the loss of another. Of course, some people are wishing otherwise.


Only 19 tweets since mid-December and this person is already attempting to make a name for his/herself by crafting these beyond-the-pale tweets. If you find yourself wishing death on a three-year-old just because she's the daughter of a guy you happen to loath, you'd probably need to step away from the keyboard for a while and rethink your life.

Last, but not least, Jeffery Goldberg tells the rest of America what plenty of us already know about the GOP primary:

Here are some things you could learn about black Americans from the recent statements and insinuations of Republican presidential candidates, Republican congressmen and Republican-friendly radio personalities:

Black people have lost the desire to perform a day’s work. Black people rely on food stamps provided to them by white taxpayers. Black people, including Barack and Michelle Obama, believe that the U.S. owes them something because they are black. Black children should work as janitors in their high schools as a way to keep them from becoming pimps. And the pathologies afflicting black Americans are caused partly by the Democratic Party, which has created in them a dependency on government not dissimilar to the forced dependency of slaves on their owners.

Judging by these claims, all of which have actually been put forward recently, here is a modest prediction: This presidential election will be one of the most race- soaked in recent history. It is already more race-soaked than the 2008 election, which, of course, marked the first time that a black man became a major-party candidate.

Yes, Jeff. Tell us more shit we already know. We're all ears.