In Contrast

Two kinds of people in the world - those who have more time than money and those with more money than sense.

People (and remember, "corporations are people, my friend") who have enough money get to pay for their crimes by donating cash to whatever government agency gets in on the action.  When the government is being starved of the funds it needs to operate properly, you're going to see the evolution of semi-entrepreneurial efforts to make up those short-falls.  Eventually you get exactly what we're seeing now - people in government selling freedom to wealthy law-breakers for whatever price can be negotiated over a few breakfast meetings downtown.

So Credit Suisse "pleads guilty" and mails a few big fat checks to Eric Holder and to Andrew Cuomo et al, and they go on their merry way.  A few upper management suits have been fired, but are you willing to bet they don't land on their feet somewhere else?  Or that they didn't picked up a nice severance package on their way out the door?

Meanwhile, a woman named Cecily McMillan is going to prison because she elbowed a cop who (essentially) sexually assaulted her while trying to arrest her during one of the dust-ups between NYPD and Occupy Wall Street - and she was sentenced to 90 days in jail and 5 years probation even tho' something like seven jurors wrote letters to the judge saying that while they had to vote to convict, they think she deserves leniency and shouldn't be punished by having to serve time in jail.



No peace without justice.

Crank It Up

The fact that there are 100,000 gun casualties in the US every year starts to look like little more than prelude.

Quick Review: We have a self-sustaining cycle where the NRA floods our election process with money to peddle the bullshit about how Da Gubmint is coming to take yer guns, which riles up the rubes who go to the polls to put their local gun freaks in office, who then press for ever-more liberal "gun rights" and gun-related policies, which makes a shitload more money for the gun makers, who then boost the NRA, which collects more money from the whole Ammosexual Community in order to flood the next election with more money...

Not that the NRA's the only outfit that does this, mind you - that's how the game is played.

But there's a nasty little twist when it comes to the guns.

The NRA has had to contend with it's own bit of paranoia for a good long time; afraid that people would eventually wise up and see that simply having access to a gun is a big part of the problem we have with gun violence.  So every time there's been a big deal shooting, they've had to spend significant time and money and energy on damage control, which kinda cuts in on the profits, y'know?

Anyway, they hit on the brilliant notion of doubling down (big surprise, right?), but that's getting to be old hat now, so they had to dress it up in a fresh new jumper and smear even more lipstick on it by sloganizing it with, "Good guy with a gun vs bad guy with a gun", which of course is hooey because once everybody has a gun, how the fuck are you supposed to know who's who?

Enter Gary Kiehne, running in the GOP primary for the nomination in Arizona's 1st district:

“If you look at all the fiascos that have occurred, 99 percent of them have been by Democrats pulling their guns out and shooting people. So I don’t think you have a problem with the Republicans.”

“But I can assure you that if you don’t have a firearm, you ought to go buy one.”

So there it is:  The Good guys with guns will stop the bad guys with guns, and the bad guys are Democrats.

We are so fucked.

Don't It Make Ya Wonder

These two Alaska state troopers were killed the other day by a kid with an assault-style weapon.  They were shot in the back several times as they were trying to arrest the kid's dad.

From NY Daily News:

The charging documents for Nathaniel Kangas, 19, say he fired seven shots and killed two Alaska State troopers at close range as they wrestled with his father during an arrest on misdemeanor charges.

All eyes were on the shackled teenager as he was escorted to his arraignment in a Fairbanks courtroom packed with solemn law enforcement officers and the families of Sgt. Patrick Johnson, 45, and State Trooper Gabriel Rich, 26, who were shot to death on May 1.

The judge stated his charges as felony assault and two counts of murder and set the bail at $4 million before asking, the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner reported, if Kangas had anything to say.

The teen took his time to respond with two words: “I’m sorry.”

Kind of interesting that NY Daily News put up a fairly straightforward story. More interesting (to me anyway) is that FoxNews.com ran the pre-packaged report from the wire service and as of 9:00am, the comments section is closed.  Hmmm.

Meanwhile, over at Washington Times, "this story is no longer available".  Hmmm, again.

But I was really just wondering when Oath Keepers or any of the other gun-suckin' militia mites are likely to show up to protect the nobly rebellious Mr Kangas from the evil clutches of an over-zealous and tyrannical state government.

One tho't: More training for the cops and less weaponry for everybody could make this kinda shit pretty rare.

A Mob

These mush-brained TeaParty dipwads really are just a fuckin' mob.

And BTW - when the Bloglodytes on the "conservative" side throw the term Lynch Mob at The Libruls (and their own guys now too) with such regularity and dispatch, one thing ya gotta figure is that they're employing the same ol' same ol' tactics of Straw Man and Projection.  Cuz y'know what - if lynching somebody is not on your mind (or on your agenda) then why do you keep bringing it up?

Second - isn't a lynch mob pretty much what happens when your system of government breaks down?  And one step further - which party has been speaking so stridently and working so diligently to rid us of this meddlesome government?

So, the TeaTards had a little get-together at the White House over the weekend...

...because they actually believe the crapload of crap they've been fed about "A Citizens' Grand Jury" and how it's OK for them to show up in DC to "arrest the Prez" and how they aren't really a buncha racist Neo-Confederacy assholes at all.

(hat tip = The Richmonder)

When it gets this fucked up, it almost never ends well.




And from Democratic Underground:

Looking Back To See Our Own Arrival

Little Red State Fundy by driftglass:

One day we will have to explain to the children what happened when Thurston Howell III lost his right mind and decided that for the sake of some tax cuts to make him incrementally more comfortable, his very bestest buddies in the whole, wide world were the Ultra Right Wing Gorgons down in Jesusland.

May I suggest the following?

The Story of Little Red State Fundy

Little Red State Fundy found a grain of hate.

"Who will help me plant the hate?" she asked.

"Not I," said the Moderate Republicans.

"Not I," said the Undecideds.

"Not I," said the Libertarians.

"Then I will," said Little Red State Fundy.

So she buried the hate in the bloody ground of the Old Confederacy. After a while it grew up paranoid and ignorant and violent.

"The hate is ripe now," said Little Red State Fundy. "Who will do the mass mailings and preach bigotry from the Pulpit?"

"Not I," said the Moderate Republicans.

"Not I," said the Undecideds.

"Not I," said the Libertarians.

"Then I will," said Little Red State Fundy.

So she licked envelopes until her bill was cracked and dry and stood up into the House of God and crowed to her flocks in their millions that God Loved Them for hating and killing creatures who were not like them.

Then she asked, "Who will help me focus this hatred politically?"

"Not I," said the Moderate Republicans.

"Not I," said the Undecideds.

"Not I," said the Libertarians.

"Then I will," said Little Red State Fundy.

So she made databases and phone banks, and walked door-to-door with petitions that talked of Gods Great Hatred of Gays, and Gods Great Hatred of Judges that did not worship the Hate God in exactly the way the Little Red State Fundy told them to.

Then she carried the hate to steps of the Congress and the White House.

"Who will make a mandate from this hate?" she asked.

"Not I," said the Moderate Republicans.

"Not I," said the Undecideds.

"Not I," said the Libertarians.

"Then I will," said Little Red State Fundy.

So she got on the phone with her very good friend Karl Rove and with his help organized carpools to the polls, and get-out-the-vote drives, anti-gay marriage amendments and smear campaigns. For Jesus.

And Little Red State Fundy delivered the margin of victory and was featured in many, many magazines: without Little Red State Fundy, the Republican Party could never, ever, ever win anything.

And now everybody knew it.

Then she said, "Now who shall help me Rule the Earth."

"We will!" said Moderate Republicans, Undecideds, and Libertarians.

"I am quite sure you would," said Little Red State Fundy, "but see, now you are all my bitches."

Then she called Randall Terry and Tom DeLay and Ann Coulter and Jerry Falwell and Rush Limbaugh and James Dobson, and they and the rest of the Shining Path Republicans used what was left of the Constitution as ass-floss.
And judges were terrorized into silence.
And those deemed ungodly were beaten in the streets.
And they invaded whoever the fuck they felt like, for whatever fucking reason they chose.
And the very idea of a Free and Fair press died.

And to people who had been very clear all along that they genuinely believed in a Theocratic Nanny State and thought that precipitating Armageddon and triggering the Second Coming should be the highest calling of any worldly government, were handed over the police, courts, government, treasury and nuclear weapons stockpiles of the United States of America.

And in the end -- just as they had been warned for the past twenty years -- there was nothing whatsoever left at all for Moderate Republicans, Undecideds, and Libertarians.

Today's Eternal Sadness

Another white neighborhood, another white cop, and another dead black guy.

Addicting Info:

At this time there is no evidence to suggest that this was anything more than a terrible accident. However, once again it raises questions about racial attitudes in America. Jonathan Ferrell was black. From the information and photos available on the Bradfield Farms HOA’s website the community appears to be a middle class, mostly white neighborhood. Based on reports there is no evidence that Ferrell attempted to enter the residence of the woman who called police, or that he attempted to accost her in any way, yet apparently she did not try to communicate with him, even through a locked door. Instead she hit her “panic alarm” and called police. Just as George Zimmerman decided that Trayvon Martin was out of place in the community where he was killed, could both the woman and the police officers have assumed that Ferrell was “up to no good” because he was “out-of-place?”

As the Trayvon Martin case proved, the media created myth of the criminal young black man is alive and well in supposedly “post-racial” America. While we will never know for sure, there is a good chance that had Jonathan Ferrell been white, he would still be alive.

The KrugMan Speaks

August 6, 2013, 10:42 am 48 Comments

Another Bad Story Bites The Dust

One of the remarkable things about the ongoing economic crisis is the endless search for explanations of something that’s actually quite simple — the sluggish pace of recovery. You have a large overhang of private debt; you have a still-depressed housing sector; and you have contractionary fiscal policy. Add to this the well-established fact that recovery tends to be slow after recessions caused not by tight money but by private-sector overreach, and there’s just no mystery that needs explaining.

Yet we’ve seen an endless series of analyses declaring that there is indeed a deep mystery, and it must be Obama’s Fault. Probably the most influential of these analyses was the claim that Obama was creating “uncertainty”, and this was holding everything back.

Larry Mishel did a thorough debunking of this meme almost two years ago. And sure enough, the index of uncertainty that everyone was pointing to has plunged, with no visible boost to the economy.

Will anyone who bought into this story engage in some serious self-analysis? Why am I even asking?

That last line is the dominant theme of our current dysfunction, and I'm trying hard not to think we can just slap some sense into people.  

Civil War II

'Conservatives' are exceedingly fond of prattling about FREEDOM as if the word itself had some kind of magical power.

It's as if the Conservative Handbook has instructions that read: "Never mind the actual concept the word is supposed to represent - that shit's for the pansy-ass eggheads who spend way too much time thinking - just intone the word whenever you're in a debate that you know you're losing because you've brought nothing to the party but bumper stickers and t-shirts to rationalize putting your basest instincts into action.  Don't think, just act; and if anybody calls you on it, they're just a LibTard who's trying to take away your FREEDOM."

Here's a bit from a speech Mr Lincoln delivered in Baltimore almost 150 years ago.

"We all declare for liberty; but in using the same word we do not all mean the same thing. With some the word liberty may mean for each man to do as he pleases with himself, and the product of his labor; while with others the same word may mean for some men to do as they please with other men, and the product of other men's labor. Here are two, not only different, but incompatible things, called by the same name-liberty. And it follows that each of the things is, by the respective parties, called by two different and incompatible names-liberty and tyranny.

"The shepherd drives the wolf from the sheep's throat, for which the sheep thanks the shepherd as a liberator, while the wolf denounces him for the same act as the destroyer of liberty, especially as the sheep was a black one. Plainly the sheep and the wolf are not agreed upon a definition of the word liberty; and precisely the same difference prevails today among us human creatures, even in the North, and all professing to love liberty. Hence we behold the process by which thousands are daily passing from under the yoke of bondage, hailed by some as the advance of liberty, and bewailed by others as the destruction of all liberty. Recently, as it seems, the people of Maryland have been doing something to define liberty [abolishing slavery in the state]; and thanks to them that, in what they have done, the wolf's dictionary, has been repudiated."

giant hat tip = Blue Virginia

Zimmerman Walks

I guess I should own up to some things.

• I wasn't very into the Zimmerman trial.
• I half-expected the jury to let him off.
• I'm not overly surprised that the reaction from "the black community" hasn't been too bad (so far), mostly because I fear that reaction is coming in the form of outright reprisal.  So if you're looking for a great medium-to-long-run business opportunity, open a gun store in any Majority Black neighborhood ASAP.

But I'm more than a little bothered about the total lack of focus on the bullshit Stand Your Ground law itself.

There's a lot more to it than this, but the salient points are that Trayvon's walking home a little after dark when some misguided dipwad with a bad case of The Wyatt Earps goes out of his way (and against the cops' direct instruction) to confront the kid on the off chance that Martin is up to no good, and happens to fit with Zimmerman's bigoted imaginings of what a bad guy looks like according to some pretty fucked up cultural history in Sanford FL.

That's the synopsis when I'm feeling charitable; when I'm not assuming Zimmerman was just out looking to goad somebody into a fight so he'd have a plausible excuse to gun him down.

I don't want this to turn into a big long thesis, and I don't know how to make it good and short, so I'll just sum it up:  Without Stand Your Ground, the trial probably turns out differently, but without the gun, everything turns out differently.

One last thing - when we're looking back on the events and the causes leading to Civil War II, this is likely to be a big one.

Ya heard it here first.

Oops - Almost Forgot

In honor of Confederate History Month here's my tribute to The Lost Cause, and to the nobility of the great struggle to defend our proud traditions during The War Of Northern Aggression:

Offended?  Bite me.

Racist Asshole Alert

From Addicting Info:

And, yes, Obama’s race is a factor, contrary to what conservatives will (and always) say. Lynching a black man – even symbolically – in the South is a deliberate statement. It’s meant to invoke the “good ol’ days” when white southerners could terrorize the African American community with impunity. When contacted about this by Burnt Orange Report, Johnson responded, “I don’t really give a damn whether it disturbs you or not. You can take [your concerns] and go straight to hell and take Obama with you. I don’t give a shit. If you don’t like it, don’t come down my street.”

This is terrorism.  Luckily, this particular act is on the low end of the Terrorism Spectrum, but I can't help thinking it's just more evidence that we're a little closer to pickin' up the Civil War where we left off.