Jesus Fuq, Lady

The makers of Ambien wish to remind the public that being a racist asshole is not one of the side effects of their medication. That shit's on you.

WUSA9 TV:

Bye Bye Job

Unfortunately, we're holding random fools on the street, and NFL coaches, to a higher standard than we are Republican politicians.

According to the Wall Street Journal, which first reported the email, Gruden wrote to Allen:

“Dumboriss Smith has lips the size of Michellin tires.”

WaPo: (pay wall)

Jon Gruden resigned Monday as coach of the Las Vegas Raiders, stepping aside amid a burgeoning controversy over racist, homophobic and misogynistic language that he used in emails over a span of approximately seven years before he agreed to return to the NFL in 2018 as the Raiders’ coach.

Gruden met Monday with Raiders owner Mark Davis and later told staff members that he was resigning, according to a person close to the situation.

“I have resigned as Head Coach of the Las Vegas Raiders,” Gruden said in a statement. “I love the Raiders and do not want to be a distraction. Thank you to all the players, coaches, staff, and fans of Raider Nation. I’m sorry, I never meant to hurt anyone.”

The NFL said Friday that it condemned a 2011 email by Gruden, who worked for ESPN at the time, that used racist language to denigrate DeMaurice Smith, the executive director of the NFL Players Association. Gruden apologized for the language that he used but said he is not a racist.

The league sent the Raiders additional emails in which Gruden used homophobic and misogynistic language to describe people and events within the league and other public figures, according to a person familiar with the case. The content of those emails was first reported by the New York Times.

The additional emails sent to the Raiders spanned from 2011 to roughly 2017, according to a person with knowledge of the case. The emails were sent from Gruden to Bruce Allen, the former president of the organization now known as the Washington Football Team, and other associates that included Jim McVay, an executive involved with the Outback Bowl, and several business leaders.

Brewer: Jon Gruden is done — in Las Vegas, in football and anywhere decency matters

Gruden used a homophobic slur to describe NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell. He derided Goodell’s player-safety efforts and used vulgar and misogynistic language to describe the commissioner and others. He also used homophobic language in contending that Goodell should not have influenced the Rams, then based in St. Louis, to select Michael Sam in the draft. The Rams chose Sam, who was seeking to become the league’s first openly gay player, in 2014.

Davis said in a statement Monday night that he had accepted Gruden’s resignation. The Raiders named Rich Bisaccia, their assistant head coach and special teams coordinator, their interim head coach. Gruden was in the fourth season of a 10-year contract worth an estimated $100 million.

The Fritz Pollard Alliance, the diversity group that works closely with the NFL, had called Sunday for the league or the Raiders to act.

“The insensitive remarks made by Jon Gruden about DeMaurice Smith are indicative of the racism that exist[s] on many levels of professional sports,” Rod Graves, the group’s executive director, said in a statement. “Furthermore, it reveals that the journey for African Americans and other minorities in sports, is riddled with irrepressible mindsets at the highest level. It is our hope that the league and team ownership will address this matter with a remedy commensurate with these painful words. This is yet another inflection point in a society fraught with cynical social blinders, absent of respect for the intellectual capacity and leadership of minorities. When will it end?”

Speaking to reporters following the Raiders’ 20-9 loss to the Chicago Bears on Sunday in Las Vegas, Gruden was asked what he expected to happen.

“I’m not going to answer all these questions today,” he said. “I think I’ve addressed it already. I can’t remember a lot of the things that transpired 10 or 12 years ago. But I stand here in front of everybody apologizing. I know I don’t have an ounce of racism in me. I’m a guy that takes pride in leading people together, and I’ll continue to do that for the rest of my life. And again, I apologize to De Smith and anybody out there that I have offended.”

Gruden said Sunday that the language that he used in his 2011 email was not reflective of his views on race.

“All I can say is I’m not a racist,” he said. “I can’t tell you how sick I am. I apologize again to De Smith. But I feel good about who I am and what I’ve done my entire life. I apologize for the insensitive remarks. I had no racial intentions with those remarks at all. ... I’m not like that at all. But I apologize. I don’t want to keep addressing it.”

"I'm not a racist"? "I'm not like that"?

Oh yes you are, Jon. Non-racist people don't say shit like that. You don't get to say that shit and then pretend what you said doesn't prove that you are, in fact, a racist.

Like it not - know it or not -  you're a racist, Jon - just like the rest of us.

I'm willing to give Gruden a little credit for not saying "if". ie: "I apologize if my remarks offended anyone."

That tells me he knows he majorly fucked up, but there's still a big problem in that he then denies the racism that's hard-wired in members of the dominant (white) culture. And he doesn't give me any indication that, like the rest of us, he's got some work to do.

Because leaders lead. They model the behavior they think we should emulate. If Gruden wants to be seen as the leader he holds himself up to be, then he acknowledges his faults a lot more fully than he has, and he tells us what he plans on doing so this shit doesn't happen again.

Ending Another War

I'll go ahead and be critical of Joe Biden, and the Clintons, and Republicans, and myself - and anyone else who was more than a bit dumb about all that get-tough-on-crime bullshit from back in the 80s and 90s.

Seemed like a good idea at the time, but...

And I'm not trying to be all woke and shit. I don't think I'm simply following a trend again, which is pretty much what we were all doing 35 years ago - I just got fooled.

I had plenty of company of course, but that's not an excuse, or even a good way to explain it.

I was just wrong. My outlook, my attitude, my philosophy - all of it - flat fuckin' wrong.

If there's nothing particularly racist about our criminal justice system - which, BTW, doesn't exist in isolation from the society it's supposed to serve - then that justice system wouldn't be choked with brown people all the fuckin' time.

And if that society isn't racist, but somehow POC are still way over-represented in the statistics and the prison population etc, then there must be something actually wrong with POC, and if that ain't racist thinking, then the whole fucking universe is upside down and backwards.

There is something very very very wrong with the way we've been doing things.

Brookings Institution:

The War on Drugs, not the war in Afghanistan, is America’s longest war. It has used trillions of American taxpayer dollars, militarized American law enforcement agencies (federal, state, and local), claimed an untold number of lives, railroaded people’s futures (especially among Black, Latino, and Native populations), and concentrated the effort in the country’s most diverse and poorest neighborhoods. The War on Drugs has been a staggering policy failure, advancing few of the claims that presidents, members of Congress, law enforcement officials, and state and local leaders have sought to achieve. The illicit drug trade thrived under prohibition; adults of all ages and youth had access to illicit substances. Substance use disorders thrived, and policymakers’ efforts to protect public health were fully undermined by policy that disproportionately focused, if unsuccessfully, on public safety. It is time for an American president to think seriously about broad-based policy change to disrupt the manner in which the United States deals with drugs.

Despite its dramatic policy failures, the War on Drugs has been wildly successful in one specific area: institutionalizing racism. The drug war was built on a foundation of racism and xenophobia. As I have written in Marijuana: A Short History, the historical foundation of drug policy in the United States was to vilify African Americans, Native Americans, immigrants from Asia and Mexico, and other outgroups, and to turn White America against each. Michelle Alexander and numerous others have effectively highlighted how America’s criminal justice system from arrest to trial to incarceration to post-release conditions disproportionately punish people of color, creating a cycle of harm in their communities.

We know the design and enforcement of America’s drug laws were racist in intent and in practice. The Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986 enacted penalties for possession of crack cocaine (a substance predominantly used by poor and minorities users) that were 100 times higher than for the possession of powder cocaine (a substance used more often by wealthier, white users). And while Congress in 2010 reduced that disparity in penalties from 100 to 1 to 18 to 1, and in 2018 President Trump signed a law making that change retroactive, thousands of low level offenders were left out from resentencing because of a loophole. And in 2021, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to extend the retroactive resentencing effort for those low-level offenders.

In addition, research shows that Black and white Americans use cannabis at roughly the same rates. However, Black Americans are more than 3.6 times more likely to be arrested for a cannabis offense than are white Americans. And even in states that have reformed their cannabis laws, the institutionalization of racism in police departments’ enforcement of the drug war sustains, as Blacks are more than two times as likely as whites to be arrested for cannabis offenses in those legal jurisdictions. And while cannabis offenses have plummeted in those states, the impact of those remaining arrests and convictions are felt in an outsized way across Black and Brown America and in Native American communities.

The 2018 law mentioned above was titled the First Step Act. This label was fitting in that it described the long road toward broader criminal justice reform and for justice in the communities that the War on Drugs targeted for decades. And in his 2019 State of the Union Address, President Trump praised that bill becoming law, by noting that it addresses the explicit racism in the American criminal justice system. He noted,

“This legislation reformed sentencing laws that have wrongly and disproportionately harmed the African American community. The First Step Act gives nonviolent offenders the chance to reenter society as productive, law-abiding citizens. Now States across the country are following our lead. America is a nation that believes in redemption.”

President Trump was right that America believes in redemption, but only in theory. It rarely advances redemption in practice. Every president in the 20th and 21st centuries helped perpetuate, in some way, a drug war with one “crowning achievement”: systematically harming minority communities in America with intent and malice. Supporters of prohibition, be they presidents or other elected officials, advocates, law enforcement leaders, or everyday citizens wrap themselves in a mystical cloak of “protecting the children” and “keeping communities safe.” In reality, that hypocrisy has sought simply to protect white children (a failed effort) and to keep white communities safe (another missed target).

If prohibition supporters cared deeply about children and the safety of communities, they would look at what the War on Drugs have done to Black and Brown children and communities and be sickened. They would see families divided, young people (especially young Black men) have dreams dashed and future opportunities restricted, communities rocked by gang and police violence, systematic underinvestment with simultaneous over-policing in cities, and dozens more disastrous consequences because of their failed drug policies. Prohibition supporters from Main Street to Pennsylvania Avenue should consider how the drug war has harmed specific American communities and recoil, but instead, they ignore reality and refuse to advance legitimate alternatives.

It is time for President Biden to face the reality of his role and the role of his colleagues and predecessors in advancing the drug war. He must consider vast reforms—some which require the cooperation of Congress and others than can be implemented via executive action—that deal with drug policy in a thoughtful and reasoned, rather than anachronistic and heartless way. Mr. Biden must realize that choices about drug reform—pardons, sentencing reform policy, the expansion of mental health and addiction services, cannabis legalization, police reform, prison reform, community reinvestment—should not focus on whether those reforms come without costs. Mr. Biden must compare whether those reforms are a policy improvement over the status quo: prohibition.

Too often elected officials, policy analysts, advocates, and citizens hide behind the cowardice of highlighting the challenges that drug reform can potentially cause, while refusing to speak and think bravely about the comprehensive failures and harms perpetuated by current policy. Mr. Biden can no longer do what he and his predecessors have done: sit idly by, awaiting a perfect policy to replace the unmitigated failures of the War on Drugs. A significant part of the electoral coalition that swept Mr. Biden to the Democratic presidential nomination and eventually to the White House were Black, Latino, and Native Americans who have been harmed the most by the War on Drugs.

Part of that solution must be an embrace of full-scale criminal justice reform that works to inject fairness into a system that has, for centuries, disproportionately punished people of color, the poor, the undereducated, those without personal or political connections, and any others in our society who fall on hard times. Drug reform—and particularly—cannabis reform must sit at the forefront of the president’s efforts to chase the type of justice that has eluded so many for so long. Legalizing cannabis, focusing broader drug reform efforts around public health policy rather than inhumane criminalization, prioritizing law enforcement funds toward violent crime rather than petty crime, coordinating an intergovernmental effort to harmonize criminal justice reform through legislative and executive efforts, and reinvesting in the communities that our government has targeted and persecuted are a requirement for President Biden to be the humane and justice-oriented president he marketed himself to be in the 2020 campaign.

Eight months into this administration, Mr. Biden faces an embarrassing reality with regard to drug policy. Donald Trump, who received only 8% of the Black vote in 2016, did more as president to change drug policy and ameliorate the effects of the drug war for communities of color than has Joe Biden, who won 87% of Black support in 2020.

In the same way this president took the bold step of ending America’s second longest war in Afghanistan, he should take the equally bold step of ending America’s longest war: the War on Drugs.

Out With A Whimper

For a while the "right" made a big noise about the removal of statues that honored the racist traitorous assholes of the Confederacy, but now that they're actually being taken down, the outrage seems to have faded rather abruptly.

And this one's the big one - the biggest baddest Confederacy-est general of 'em all being taken down and cut in half - removed from the snootiest street in the snootiest capital city in the snooty south.

But it didn't draw that much of a crowd, and if there was a presence of an outraged populace, it went unnoticed - most likely because it is now, and always was, all but nonexistent.

It's almost as if all that anger was kinda phony - another Astro-Turf movement pimped by shadowy forces that want us to squabble amongst ourselves so we'll be less inclined to see how we're being manipulated by people working on behalf of those shadowy forces who continue to fuck us with our pants on.

And just in case you think I'm being as weird and foil-hat-ey as I know I'm sounding here, please remember: I may be paranoid, but that don't mean nobody's out to get me.

The Daily Progress (Charlottesville):

A statue of Gen. Robert E. Lee that towered over Richmond for generations was taken down, cut into pieces and hauled away Wednesday, as the former capital of the Confederacy erased the last of the Civil War figures that once defined its most prominent thoroughfare.

Hundreds of onlookers erupted in cheers and song as the 21-foot-tall bronze figure was lifted off a pedestal and lowered to the ground. The removal marked a major victory for civil rights activists, whose previous calls to dismantle the statues had been steadfastly rebuked by city and state officials alike.

“It’s very difficult to imagine, certainly, even two years ago that the statues on Monument Avenue would actually be removed,” said Ana Edwards, a community activist and founding member of the Virginia Defenders for Freedom Justice & Equality. “It’s representative of the fact that we’re sort of peeling back the layers of injustice that Black people and people of color have experienced when governed by white supremacist policies for so long.”
Democratic Gov. Ralph Northam ordered the statue’s removal last summer amid the nationwide protest movement that erupted after the murder of George Floyd by a police officer in Minneapolis. But litigation tied up his plans until the state Supreme Court cleared the way last week.

Northam, who watched the work, called it “hopefully a new day, a new era in Virginia.”

“Any remnant like this that glorifies the lost cause of the Civil War, it needs to come down,” he said.

The 21-foot (6-meter) bronze sculpture was installed in 1890 atop a granite pedestal about twice that tall. The sculpture was perched in the middle of a state-owned traffic circle, and it stood among four other massive Confederate statues that were removed by the city last summer.

A construction worker who strapped harnesses around Lee and his horse lifted his arms in the air and counted, “Three, two, one!” to jubilant shouts from the crowd as the crane prepared to wrest the statue away.

Some chanted “Whose streets? Our streets!” and sang, “Hey, hey, hey, goodbye.”

Once the statue was on the ground, the crew used a power saw to cut it in two along the general’s waist, so that it could be hauled under highway overpasses to an undisclosed state-owned facility until a decision is made about its future.

The job was overseen by Team Henry Enterprises, led by Devon Henry, a Black executive who faced death threats after his company’s role in removing Richmond’s other Confederate statues was made public last year. He said the Lee statue posed their most complex challenge.

Within hours, the pieces were gone. They were hauled away on a flatbed truck to cheers from the remaining crowd and claps of thunder from a midday storm. The pedestal is to remain for now, although workers are expected to remove a time capsule from the structure on Thursday.

The work proceeded under a heavy police presence, with streets closed for blocks around the area, but no arrests were reported, and no counter protesters emerged.

Those who opposed the statue’s removal often noted its artistic significance and Virginia’s centrality to the Civil War. They argued that taking the statues down would amount to erasing a key part of the commonwealth’s history. As recently as several years ago, key government officials argued for keeping it in place.

After a rally of white supremacists in the city of Charlottesville erupted into violence in 2017, other Confederate monuments started falling around the country. But at the time, local governments in Virginia were hamstrung by a state law protecting memorials to war veterans. That law was amended by the new Democratic majority at the Statehouse and signed by Northam, allowing localities to decide the monuments’ fate as of July 1, 2020.

Del. Delores McQuinn, a Democrat whose district includes Richmond and who sponsored the 2020 war memorial legislation, said she used to avoid driving on Monument Avenue because she found the statues so offensive. Seeing Lee come down Wednesday was “surreal,” she said.

“The fight, the struggle ... hopefully some of the ancestors feel vindicated,” said McQuinn, who is Black and has been an outspoken advocate for a better telling of Richmond’s Black history in public spaces.

State Sen. Jennifer McClellan, who represents Richmond and lives in the neighborhood, said the idea of the removal had long felt “impossible,” though that began to shift after Floyd’s murder, when the area around the statute became a hub for the growing protest movement and saw occasional clashes between police and demonstrators. The pedestal has been covered by constantly evolving, colorful graffiti, with many of the hand-painted messages denouncing police and demanding an end to systemic racism and inequality.

“I physically felt in the air hope, if that makes sense, because I saw multigenerational, multiracial people chanting to take it down and demanding change,” said McClellan, who is Black.

The changes to Monument Avenue have remade the prestigious boulevard, which is lined with mansions and tony apartments and is partly preserved as a National Historic Landmark district.

Northam, who after a 2019 scandal involving a racist photo in his medical school yearbook pledged to spend the rest of his term addressing Virginia’s racial inequalities, has tapped the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts to lead a community-driven redesign for the whole avenue.

Christy S. Coleman, executive director of the Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation and the former president and chief operating officer of the American Civil War Museum in Richmond, said she saw Wednesday’s removal as a historical moment in the city’s long-running struggle with how to tell its history.

That effort "is perfectly normal for communities to do — question who and what they are, what they value and how they want those values to be reflected, not only in the landscape, but in its laws,” she said.

Today's Daddy State Thing

...is just a variation on the old White Supremacy thing, which of course is almost always at the root of all the racist shit that's been going on in USAmerica Inc for 400 years.

"Power-mad outa-control black man kills innocent patriotic white girl."

Joy Reid and Mary Trump:

Here's a rundown on the film that started it all - including a mention of the first ever Cute Cat video.

Note - the ugly side of American populism has been there forever, and sometimes it manifests itself in cynical efforts to manipulate public opinion by way of products and services available on new media platforms.

It's About Them

"Conservatives" aren't really worried about Critical Race Theory - shit, they don't even know what it is.

It all just adds another layer of fretfulness and heartache to their small bereft lives because they can't stand the prospect of having to explain themselves - again - when their grandbabies see this in Social Studies class and ask "What the fuck, Nana?".

But y'know what?

When you're sick of the diversity training,

and the consciousness raising,

and the kneeling and the protests -

when it all gets to be just too much to bear, remember this:

Y'all coulda picked your own damned cotton and left those folks alone.

Today's Dumbass

In the Dumb-As-A-Fuckin'-Stump Sweepstakes, the shit that falls out of the front of Lindsey Graham's head whenever he goes on DumFux News always keeps him in the running.

And for a guy who depended on the largesse of the JAG corps for most of his "military cred" (along with his being a total suckup to John McCain), this dope is way outa step with the people he thinks are on his side.

Air Force Times:

Commentary - Esteban Castellanos

Enough about ‘not picking sides.’

The only right position is against white supremacy and extremism

In late March, the U.S. Air Force Academy held its Department of Defense-mandated extremism stand-down training to examine and to eradicate extremism and white supremacy within the ranks.

Superintendent Lt. Gen. Richard Clarke spoke of extreme ideologies on “both sides,” rather than confronting the unique flavor of the extremism threat on display Jan. 6 at the U.S. Capitol. Cadets learn how to lead by the example set from their leaders. Whether they lead with honor and integrity in all aspects of their lives, and especially in moments of duress, depends on the standard of leadership that is set by people like Lt. Gen. Clarke.

Many USAFA graduates feel the mild response to the insurrection from the academy and its Association of Graduates failed to reflect these values and stands counter to everything they publicly expect of graduates. We are disappointed and feel that leadership has failed our graduates, the members they lead, and ultimately the citizens of this country.

Simply put, many of our leaders are underreacting to the attack. We need them to state, unequivocally, that the insurrection was wrong, intolerable and against our values and oath of service to the Constitution. They must state publicly and emphatically that those within our ranks who participate in, or are sympathetic to, the organizations that took part in the riot at the Capitol are not welcome in our ranks because they are supporting domestic insurrectionists and terrorists.

Approximately one in five of the insurrectionists were veterans, according to criminal charging reports. They included at least one U.S. Air Force Academy graduate. Many more veterans are sympathetic to the insurrection, espouse the lies upon which it was based, or are participants in related causes.

Air Force Academy class Facebook pages and other social media sources show clear evidence that our officer corps members either do not take the threat seriously or support the underlying insurrectionist groups, many of which hold white supremacist ideologies.

Where does the academy and its AOG leadership stand on white supremacy within our ranks? Are they afraid of alienating large donors that may sympathize with the terrorists’ cause instead of doing the right thing?

It took 26 days after the insurrection for retired Lt. Gen. Michael Gould, the AOG’s CEO, to repudiate the insurrection after failing to do so on a video call with members the previous week. He said they “made it a point that we would stay totally apolitical … and that we weren’t going to pick sides in any of this.” This unsatisfactory initial response only served to give more life to our concern.

Our character was molded by the academy, and that is why this “picking sides” debate hits us so hard, because the Air Force Academy and its Association of Graduates know better.

The average American likely doesn’t understand that the U.S. Air Force Academy, its related AOG and the US Air Force are distinct institutions. It’s all just “the Air Force.” Therefore, what USAFA or the AOG say, or don’t say, speaks on behalf of all U.S. Air Force members.

The academy’s lack of a strong rejection of the insurrection is, in effect, a political stance, one which undermines trust as well as good order and discipline within the ranks and the graduate community. Additionally, many of us, as service members of color and our allies, feel the insurrection was not only an assault on American democracy but on the value of all as equal citizens in this country. We saw our government nearly overthrown after an election victory brought about, in large part, by people of color.

Our AOG and USAFA leadership should have come together, with united strength, to support Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s call for a stand-down in a meaningful way. We need a forceful plan to continue this effort within the academy and its graduate community. We cannot wait for the next constitutional crisis or extremist attack.

This is personal and painful for those who have served because we’ve fought for our Constitution and for the rights of our fellow citizens. Any more hesitation or equivocation in doing so risks losing the trust of the very Americans we have sworn to defend.

Graduate co-signers

Lawrence Romo ’78

Martin France ’81

Kathryn Smith ’82

Ed Tomme ’85

David Englin ’96

Aaron Pultz ’97

John Kleven ’98

Tino Dinh ’99

Diane Zorri ’01

Nikki Foster ’03

Leo Kim ’09

BTW - these are some really smart people coming out of our service academies. They're not in the habit of condemning shit that ain't there.

In Their Own Words

You'll never convince me with that tired stale bullshit about "honor and tradition" and blah blah blah.

The Monument Fund (hacked)

"Its foundations are laid, its cornerstone rests upon the great truth, that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery — subordination to the superior race — is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth."

Alexander Stephens
Vice President of the Confederate States of America

"We recognize the fact of the inferiority stamped upon that race of men by the Creator, and from the cradle to the grave, our Government, as a civil institution, marks that inferiority."

"It would grant me much relief to learn your sons were engaged matrimonially to other white men if I was previously faced with the spectre of those same sons wedding negro women, slave or free, and siring negro sons that could presume to claim inheritance of your namesakes and property, or worse, equality with your purer grandchildren."

Jefferson Davis
President of the Confederate States of America

"The blacks are immeasurably better off here than in Africa, morally, socially & physically. The painful discipline they are undergoing, is necessary for their instruction as a race, & I hope will prepare & lead them to better things. How long their subjugation may be necessary is known & ordered by a wise Merciful Providence."

Gen. Robert E. Lee
Army of Northern Virginia, CSA

"I’ve never heard of any other cause than slavery”

Col. John S. Mosby
43rd Battalion (Mosby's Rangers), Virginia Cavalry, CSA

"This fight is against slavery; if we lose it, you will be made free."

Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest
3rd Tennessee Cavalry, CSA
(first Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan)

 

On Shaky Ground

I can hope this turns out to be cause for celebration, and not an excuse for racist assholes to come and fuck up my town again.

WaPo: (pay wall)

Virginia Supreme Court clears the way for Charlottesville to take down statue of Robert E Lee

The Supreme Court of Virginia has cleared the way for the city of Charlottesville to take down the statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee that was the focus of 2017's deadly Unite the Right rally, and the ruling appears to open the door for statue removals around the state.

The Charlottesville City Council voted to take down both the Lee and a nearby statue of Stonewall Jackson shortly after the rally in which white supremacists defended Confederate iconography, with one of them driving his car through a crowd of counterprotesters and killing a young woman.

But several local residents sued to prevent the statues from coming down. They argued that a state law passed in 1997 prohibited localities from removing Confederate war memorials.

A circuit court judge agreed and placed an injunction against any removal, even ordering the city to pay court costs.

The city appealed, and Thursday the Supreme Court of Virginia ruled that the 1997 state statute applies only to monuments erected after the law was adopted.

That law provides authority for localities to create war memorials and monuments, and the prohibition on taking them down “only applies to monuments and memorials erected prospectively under that statute’s grant of authority,” the court wrote.

“The statute has no language which imposes regulation upon the movement or covering of war monuments and memorials erected before [the law] was enacted,” the justices ruled.

The court found that Charlottesville is free to take down its statues, which were erected in the 1920s.

But L. Steven Emmert, a Virginia Supreme Court analyst, said the ruling appears to clear the way for such statues to come down statewide.

“Most of the statues that were erected for Civil War leaders or veterans were put up in a period roughly between the 1880s and 1920s. What this means is that none of those monuments are governed by this statute,” Emmert said. “That means localities are free to consider whether they want to continue to display them. It means they can take them down if they want.”

The General Assembly passed a law last year that set up a mechanism for localities to take down statues after a lengthy public review process. Emmert said he was uncertain how Thursday’s ruling affects that law.

Amid last summer’s protests over racial inequity, triggered by the killing of George Floyd while in police custody in Minneapolis, one of the localities that used the new law to take down a statue was Albemarle County.

Supervisors voted to remove a statue of a Confederate soldier outside its courthouse, which is in downtown Charlottesville, a short distance from the Lee statue.

I can also hope that the statues can be preserved as art, but kept in the appropriate historical context of a War To Perpetuate Slavery and the attempts to re-establish White Supremacy after that war.

Today's Tweet

I was raised by them - I am them

PERFECTION pic.twitter.com/auhntYdoaf

— Dr.WearYourFnMask (@PissOffTrumpz) March 27, 2021

We Are Our Own Worst Problem

We should be getting pretty fuckin' sick of the cops saying asinine things about white murder suspects, and then having to listen to the Press Poodles report those asinine things like it's all just part of the deal somehow.

Daily Beast:

How does knowing that Dylann Roof was polite in jail or that Eliot Rodger couldn’t get laid help fix the problem at the root of the violence—that white men are seen as more human?

When Georgia law enforcement briefed the public on Wednesday morning about the 21-year-old white man who shot and killed eight people—six of them Asian women—at Atlanta-area massage parlors Tuesday night, it wasn’t helpful.

Officials made a puzzling series of claims of fact, despite being cartoonishly cautious about other aspects of the case. Officials claimed that 21-year-old Robert Aaron Long had a “sex addiction” but admitted they didn’t know whether sex work occurred at the places where Long killed people. Who told them that Long had a sex addiction? Was it Long himself?

They weren’t sure whether Long was motivated by the racial identity or gender of his victims, and thus said they couldn’t say with certainty that a hate crime had been committed, but then again, they said with certainty that before he’d committed the crimes the shooter had “a really bad day.” Who told them that Long had a really bad day? Did they fact-check that one, or did they once again simply repeat the words of a suspected mass killer into a microphone? (I think I speak for a lot of people when I say: I don’t give a flying-saucer fuck about what kind of day a mass shooter was having before opening fire.)

I don't know exactly what has to change, but I know that insistence on maintaining neutrality in the face of what is so obviously evil, is itself an evil that we have to address and eradicate.

Opinion

Trump's main "contribution" has been the re-popularization of the Out-n-Proud Racist American Asshole.

Gene Robinson, WaPo: (pay wall)

Opinion: Ron Johnson’s racism is breathtaking

It has become perfectly acceptable in the Republican Party to just go ahead and say the racism out loud — and to do so with apparent pride, and with no fear of consequences.

The most recent proof came from Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), who said last week that he “never felt threatened” by the overwhelmingly White crowd of insurrectionists that stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, chanting, among other things, “Hang Mike Pence.” But, depending on who the protesters were, Johnson said, well, it might have been a different matter.

Johnson made the comments on conservative talk-radio host Joe Pagliarulo’s nationally syndicated show. “Now, had the tables been turned — Joe, this will get me in trouble — had the tables been turned and President Trump won the election and those were tens of thousands of Black Lives Matter and antifa protesters, I might have been a little concerned.”

But Johnson described the White mob this way: “I knew those are people that love this country, that truly respect law enforcement, would never do anything to break the law, so I wasn’t concerned.”

As anyone whose brain is not addled by white supremacy recalls, the rioters showed how much they “respect law enforcement,” with their actions leading to the death of one police officer who was defending the Capitol and the injury of some 140 others. One policeman was beaten with a pole bearing the American flag, which is a strange way for his attackers to demonstrate love of country.

Johnson should have been pilloried by his GOP colleagues in the Senate, but none spoke up in outrage — or even mild disagreement. Asked Sunday on ABC’s “This Week” about Johnson’s comments, Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) mumbled something about how members “speak for themselves.” That’s not the way it works, though. When it comes to such unambiguous racism, Republicans have only two choices: denounce it or own it.

This was not the first foolish and irresponsible thing Johnson has said about the Capitol insurrection. For a while, he tried to claim the violence was somehow sparked by leftist provocateurs just pretending to be supporters of then-President Donald Trump — until FBI Director Christopher A. Wray testified under oath that there was no evidence of any “fake” Trump supporters in the crowd.

But the racism of Johnson’s latest words is breathtaking. As far as he is concerned, a White mob at the Capitol that overruns police lines, smashes windows and ransacks offices isn’t breaking the law. In Johnson’s view, the millions of Americans who participated in Black Lives Matter protests do not “love this country.” And according to him, Black people who demonstrate against police violence and structural racism do not “truly respect law enforcement.”

Anyone who knows anything about American history will recognize this mind-set. I was reminded of something another prominent Republican said many years ago:

“I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the White and Black races — that I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of Negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with White people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the White and Black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the White race.”

The speaker was Abraham Lincoln in his fourth debate with Stephen A. Douglas, which took place Sept. 18, 1858, in Charleston, Ill. Lincoln’s views on race subsequently evolved, and so did the views of his party. But today’s Republicans have radically devolved — and are becoming increasingly frank defenders of White privilege and position.

Keep Johnson’s words in mind when you hear GOP officials claim that the scores of voter-suppression bills making their way through Republican-controlled state legislatures are merely attempts to guarantee the “integrity” of our elections. If they were — if they had any intent other than to keep Democratic-leaning Black, Hispanic and Asian American voters away from the polls — then surely we would hear Republicans across the land making clear there was no place in the party for views like those Johnson expressed. Instead, we hear only guilty silence.

And sometimes, silence is enough to get the message across. On Jan. 6, when Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) raised his fist in solidarity with the crowd gathering at the Capitol, he didn’t say a word. He didn’t have to.

Learning How Not To Be That Guy

Move On . org

1. Don't wait to be perfect
2. Witness and act
3. Don't wait for others to be perfect
4. Identify your own roll in the process
5. Share power and fight for reparations

Today's Reminder

I got into it a little bit with a friend on Facebook - a pleasant enough woman I went to high school with.

She posted that meme of Morgan Freeman saying he doesn't want a Black History Month, and that the way to get rid of racism is to stop talking about it:

So I countered with the meme about weaponizing a famous black guy's words: 

She got a little snippy, saying she just can't believe how quick people can be to lash out, and I countered that with my usual rapier-like wit, born of superior intellect - something like, "Nuh-huh, you greasy twat".

But here's the thing about Freeman's contention on "just stop talking about racism":

IT DOESN'T FUCKING WORK THAT WAY

You don't stop child abuse by not talking about it.

You don't cure cancer by not talking about it.

You don't disrupt the cycle of ignorance and poverty and crime by not talking about it.

You don't stop gun violence by not talking about it.

Sorry not sorry, Famous Black Guy, but problems don't magically disappear just by ignoring them.

And apropos of nothing really, I just discovered Omeleto on YouTube, and this one seems to fit - more or less:

Rush Limbaugh Is Dead

I'm not celebrating the death of Rush Limbaugh. I just don't do that. I didn't celebrate when the SEALs nailed bin Laden, and I'm not going to do that even now when one of god's great asshole-ish fuckups suffers greatly and dies in pain.

You may have noticed, I'm not exactly sad about it either.

Rolling Stone:

When Rush Limbaugh, the Great Bloviater of the AM dial, signed off from the “Limbaugh Institute for Advanced Conservative Studies,” two days before Christmas, he warned the faithful in the raspy remains of his famous trumpeting baritone: “The day is gonna come, folks, where I’m not going to be able to do this anymore.”

For 13 terrible days in Trumpland — while the mad president that Limbaugh helped make possible was flailing for survival, while the­ faithful were trying to “stop the steal” of the election, and even while the Republicans blew their Senate majority in the Georgia runoffs — the loudest voice in the right-wing echo chamber remained silent. By the time January 6th rolled around, even the millions of fans praying for a miracle cancer cure had to figure: If Rush had passed up the chance to fearmonger about Raphael Warnock’s old sermons and mock Jon Ossoff’s hair, well, he must be finished. At least with his trademark golden microphone, if not with this earthly realm.

But then, a miracle: The president incited a white riot on Capitol Hill, and like a mortally wounded superhero detecting cries of distress from his people, Limbaugh got himself to his Palm Beach studio by noon the next day, and unleashed a master class in state-of-the-art conservative disinformation. He knew the drill. He’d pretty much invented it.

First, a signature move: Belittle the story as partisan hysteria from the lamestream media while sneaking in a big, exonerating lie. “All of a sudden, protesting Congress is being called the end of the world!” Limbaugh sneered, making use of his rested voice. “A bloody coup attempt! Even though the only blood spilled was that of an unarmed Trump supporter.”

Rioting? Looting? Blue Lives lost? Uncle Rush was here to remind everyone that those are things that the left, especially the “anti-American” Black Lives Matter, does all the time. “They’ve burned down political federal courthouses, after barricading people inside of them. They’ve taken over freeways. They’ve taken over entire cities,” Limbaugh said. Contrast that with the harmless shenanigans at the Capitol. “Yeah, I know they breached the doors and took some selfies.” But, folks, really — just look at who was in Washington on January 6th! “These are Republicans, they don’t raise mayhem,” Limbaugh scoffed. “They don’t know how. How many times have we sat here over 30 years bemoaning the fact that this is not what Republicans do?” A master touch there: So far were the “rioters” from actually rioting, one can only wish they had raised just a little hell while they were there, like the blacks and antifa do.

Then, of course, after he dramatically made the case that there was no violent insurrection on January 6th, Limbaugh justified and praised the violent insurrection on January 6th. “We’re supposed to be horrified by the protesters,” he said, feigning perplexity. “There’s a lot of people out there calling for an end to violence” — even, can you believe it, “a lot of conservatives, social media, who say that any violence or aggression at all is unacceptable regardless of the circumstances.” Pause for effect, here it comes: “I am glad Sam Adams, Thomas Paine, the actual tea-party guys, the men at Lexington and Concord, didn’t feel that way.”

As Limbaugh surely hoped and expected, social media lit up with both “dittoheads” — shorthand, in Rush World, for 100 percent agreement with the host — and denunciations, as headlines quickly sprouted: “Limbaugh Compares Capitol Hill Riot to American Revolution,” “Limbaugh Dismisses Calls to End Violence After Mob Hits Capitol.” (On the next day’s show, he humble-bragged: “I did it on purpose. … I wanted to take the hit yesterday. I was attempting to take the flak and the incoming for Donald Trump.”)

So there: That’s how it’s done. The plain, observable events of January 6th had not merely been denied and deflected, but transcended — wafted into the bubble of alternative right-wing reality that Limbaugh first began blowing up 32 years ago. Of course, this new narrative (or narratives — you can choose Republican innocence or justified violence, as you please) had absolutely no contact point with reality. And of course, Limbaugh spun his tale (as always) from the flotsam and jetsam of post-riot rumor and innuendo, subreddits, and Gateway pundits. Inside the bubble, sources matter as little as facts or logic. What makes sense in this parallel universe is whatever distracts and absolves white, non-liberal Americans from blame, guilt, or responsibility. It’s whatever reminds them of both their supremacy and their victimhood. It’s whatever emboldens them to strike back at the evil left-wing empire that is always busy plotting to subjugate them and destroy America As We Knew It.

And that is what Limbaugh delivered, once again, for Republican America in the wake of the insurrection. It was a final command performance of its kind, especially given the host’s condition. But it’s what Limbaugh had done, while dying, for a whole year. This incredibly wealthy super-patriot used his life’s last energies to do his damnedest to recast a pandemic as a deadly, partisan culture war. To paint a lawless and lunatic president as a wronged and heroic savior of the republic, a symbol of all the myriad wrongs done to Team White America. To call the first woman of color nominated for vice president a “ho” and a “mattress,” to depict racial-justice protests as signs of a coming Armageddon, and to stir up hysteria about a Democratic plot to steal the election. And, ultimately, to lead the cheers and comfort the troops as Republicans turned against democracy itself.

He did it all so well, in fact, that Limbaugh — despite frequent absences — shot back to the top of the Power 50 radio rankings for audience and influence. It was the strangest sort of comeback-slash-curtain call. And it should be career-defining now that Limbaugh, who died on Wednesday, has had his final say. Limbaugh might have begun as a ratings-obsessed provocateur, but he became one of the most influential subversives in American history. If we didn’t fully recognize that before 2020, or January 6th, we ought to know it now. No single person — not Reagan, not Cheney, not McConnell, not Trump, not Q — has contributed more than Limbaugh to the mass derangement of white America.

The piece goes on to describe Limbaugh's rise, and I don't give a fuck about that. I was there to watch it - it disgusted me then, and since, and that fucker's dead now, and I'm not the least bit interested in recounting the details of what a complete asshole he was.

Sometimes a man's death is a net positive.

What Is Understood

... needs no explanation.

The racists hear exactly what is being said.

Refresher

Tim Wise - it's a long one, so strap up, bitches. You don't get the smarts without doin' the work.

Today's Tweet

Get a lungful of that down home racist shit.

TRUMP: "30 percent-plus of the people living in suburbia are minorities ... the number is even higher -- they say 35 -- but I like to cut it a little bit lower. You know why? That way I can never get myself in too much trouble with the fake news." pic.twitter.com/pZVEhxKpFx

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) August 12, 2020

Meanwhile, The New York Post ran a story about the dumbass mayor in Luray - just about 30 miles up the road from here:

A Virginia mayor is facing calls to resign for a Facebook post saying Joe Biden “just announced Aunt Jemima” as his running mate in his bid for the White House.

Luray Mayor Barry Presgraves posted the comment late Sunday on his Facebook page. It was later removed, but not before the offensive remark was condemned by a council member, town officials and residents in the small town where he’s served as mayor since 2008.

Presgraves said he saw the post last week and shared it because he “thought it was funny,” but claimed he wasn’t prepared for the ensuing blowback.

“I had no idea people would react the way they did,” he said. “If I had a chance to do it over again, I wouldn’t do it. You can apologize all you want, but no one will believe it.”

Presgraves said he took down the post within 30 minutes and insisted he had no negative “intent behind it.”

And the kicker:

“I don’t even depict that as racist,” he continued. “I ate Aunt Jemima all my life.”

Today's Saddest Thing

Rob Bliss - in Harrison Arkasas

White Pride Billboard GPS coordinates: https://goo.gl/maps/EzXGR4CUWYBnbQKr6

Where did Tom Cotton say has was from again?