Showing posts with label that's pretty fucked up right there. Show all posts
Showing posts with label that's pretty fucked up right there. Show all posts
Jun 13, 2024
Jan 5, 2023
Oy
Kevin McCarthy blew right thru the modern era record for failing at getting enough votes to be Speaker Of The House.
And he's losing some of whatever steam he started with, because Ken Buck (R-CO04) has been MIA for the last three ballots.
11 tries - 11 crap-outs
And he's losing some of whatever steam he started with, because Ken Buck (R-CO04) has been MIA for the last three ballots.
Feb 7, 2022
Just Sayin'
The flap over Joe Rogan
has now lasted longer
than last week's news
about Trump trying to get
the US military
to seize voting machines.
Nov 4, 2021
Today's Head-Shaker
Somebody needs to burn for this.
A COVID-19 victim was dissected in front of a paying audience in Oregon without his family’s knowledge or consent, according to a report from local outlet KING 5 News. The autopsy of David Saunders, 98, was hosted in a Portland Marriott hotel ballroom on Oct. 17 as part of the traveling “Oddities and Curiosities Expo.” Organizers sold tickets for up to $500. Saunders’ widow and other family members only learned of the fate of Saunders’ body from a previous KING 5 investigation, the outlet said.
Mike Clark, the funeral director who had handled the preparation of Saunders’ body, handed it off to a private company with the family’s expectation his remains would be used for medical research. Clark was “totally horrified,” he said, when he discovered where the body had actually ended up. Jeremy Ciliberto, the autopsy’s organizer and founder of DeathScience.org, claimed that Saunders and his family did give consent. A representative for the middleman firm, Med Ed Labs, said that they had been misled by the “beyond” dishonest Ciliberto. The spokesperson, Obteen Nassiri, said the company had been told by Ciliberto that Saunders’ body would be used for a medical class. Nassiri could not explain to KING 5 why he had supplied a client with COVID-infected remains, however.
A COVID-19 victim was dissected in front of a paying audience in Oregon without his family’s knowledge or consent, according to a report from local outlet KING 5 News. The autopsy of David Saunders, 98, was hosted in a Portland Marriott hotel ballroom on Oct. 17 as part of the traveling “Oddities and Curiosities Expo.” Organizers sold tickets for up to $500. Saunders’ widow and other family members only learned of the fate of Saunders’ body from a previous KING 5 investigation, the outlet said.
Mike Clark, the funeral director who had handled the preparation of Saunders’ body, handed it off to a private company with the family’s expectation his remains would be used for medical research. Clark was “totally horrified,” he said, when he discovered where the body had actually ended up. Jeremy Ciliberto, the autopsy’s organizer and founder of DeathScience.org, claimed that Saunders and his family did give consent. A representative for the middleman firm, Med Ed Labs, said that they had been misled by the “beyond” dishonest Ciliberto. The spokesperson, Obteen Nassiri, said the company had been told by Ciliberto that Saunders’ body would be used for a medical class. Nassiri could not explain to KING 5 why he had supplied a client with COVID-infected remains, however.
Please explain to me how we are not behaving like a buncha fuckin' Romans in about 35 BCE.
Aug 29, 2019
Devolving
There's an obvious pattern to the way Cult45 operates.
First, always always always remember that no matter what else, putting money in Trump's pocket while ducking his responsibility is the whole fucking point of the exercise.
So the tactical distractions are becoming epic, and I think the level of the weirdness of those distractions is proportional to the panic 45* feels as we accelerate towards the revelation of damning and (hopefully irrefutable) evidence of depravities that make Dorian Grey look like Jefferson Smith.
Three things popped up in the last few days - the first of which is kind of a redux of an old scandal.
Forbes:
Like autumn leaves, sponsored Cadillacs, Ferraris and Maseratis descend on the Trump National Golf Club in Westchester County, New York, in September for the Eric Trump Foundation golf invitational. Year after year, the formula is consistent: 18 holes of perfectly trimmed fairways with a dose of Trumpian tackiness, including Hooters waitresses and cigar spreads, followed by a clubhouse dinner, dates encouraged. The crowd leans toward real estate insiders, family friends and C-list celebrities, such as former baseball slugger Darryl Strawberry and reality housewife (and bankruptcy-fraud felon) Teresa Giudice.
The real star of the day is Eric Trump, the president's second son and now the co-head of the Trump Organization, who has hosted this event for ten years on behalf of the St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis. He's done a ton of good: To date, he's directed more than $11 million there, the vast majority of it via this annual golf event. He has also helped raise another $5 million through events with other organizations.
The best part about all this, according to Eric Trump, is the charity's efficiency: Because he can get his family's golf course for free and have most of the other costs donated, virtually all the money contributed will go toward helping kids with cancer. "We get to use our assets 100% free of charge," Trump tells Forbes.
Children born overseas to some American parents serving in the military or working for the federal government may no longer automatically claim U.S. citizenship if their parents had lived in the United States for less than five years, according to a new federal policy issued Wednesday.
Boston Mayor Marty Walsh called the decision “absurd and inhumane.”
Under acting director Ken Cuccinelli, USCIS has become increasingly politicized. Cuccinelli recently defended the Trump administration’s“public charge” rule, which intends to deny visas or green cards to immigrants who may rely on government assistance, by providing a reinterpretation of the famous poem inscribed on the Statue of Liberty.
All of this weird shit - especially the weird shit they're doing with immigrants - has purpose.
First, always always always remember that no matter what else, putting money in Trump's pocket while ducking his responsibility is the whole fucking point of the exercise.
So the tactical distractions are becoming epic, and I think the level of the weirdness of those distractions is proportional to the panic 45* feels as we accelerate towards the revelation of damning and (hopefully irrefutable) evidence of depravities that make Dorian Grey look like Jefferson Smith.
Three things popped up in the last few days - the first of which is kind of a redux of an old scandal.
Forbes:
The real star of the day is Eric Trump, the president's second son and now the co-head of the Trump Organization, who has hosted this event for ten years on behalf of the St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis. He's done a ton of good: To date, he's directed more than $11 million there, the vast majority of it via this annual golf event. He has also helped raise another $5 million through events with other organizations.
The best part about all this, according to Eric Trump, is the charity's efficiency: Because he can get his family's golf course for free and have most of the other costs donated, virtually all the money contributed will go toward helping kids with cancer. "We get to use our assets 100% free of charge," Trump tells Forbes.
That's not the case. In reviewing filings from the Eric Trump Foundation and other charities, it's clear that the course wasn't free--that the Trump Organization received payments for its use, part of more than $1.2 million that has no documented recipients past the Trump Organization. Golf charity experts say the listed expenses defy any reasonable cost justification for a one-day golf tournament.
So we're right back to playing the donors for suckers - or worse, enlisting those "donors" in service of the scam that easily could include kickbacks and influence peddling.
Eric Trump is in the running for top honors in the Douche Nozzle Of The Year awards every fucking year.
And then there's this one via WaPo:
Instead, officials said, those parents must apply for citizenship on behalf of their children before they turn 18 years old.
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, which processes citizenship applications, said it rescinded a policy that had allowed some members of the military and government employees to easily transmit citizenship to children born overseas, because it conflicted with other policies and federal law.
Families of kids receiving medical care in the U.S. got letters saying they have to leave within 33 days or face deportation and a temporary ban on returning
Massachusetts politicians slammed the recent change. “By no longer considering medical deferred action requests for immigrants, the Trump administration is now literally deporting kids with cancer,” Massachusetts Sen. Ed Markey said on Facebook.
Now, they do tell us they're not out to fuck people over with this, and that the change in policy doesn't affect anyone who's already a citizen, or people born before the effective date of the new policy.
So, you might ask, what's the point? Why change the policy?
Good questions. Especially when we know Cult45 lies all fucking day every fucking day.
Other good questions:
Seein' as how the mother of my kids was born in Germany when her dad was active duty Air Force, and that she had to get some special declaration from the State Department to establish her citizenship (as an adult), could she be stripped of that citizenship?
Would my children then be considered anchor babies?
Are they subject to being rounded up and deported?
And now this, from VICE:
ICE will now be able to decide whether undocumented immigrants getting treatment for serious medical conditions can stay in the country, WBUR and the Associated Press reported Monday.
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, the federal agency that handles matters like naturalization and adjustment of status, had previously handled cases through the "medical deferred action" program. But these requests — essentially a form of short-term deportation relief for people getting treated for conditions like cancer, cystic fibrosis, and muscular dystrophy — are now being referred to ICE for “consideration,” a USCIS spokesperson told VICE News.
Under acting director Ken Cuccinelli, USCIS has become increasingly politicized. Cuccinelli recently defended the Trump administration’s“public charge” rule, which intends to deny visas or green cards to immigrants who may rely on government assistance, by providing a reinterpretation of the famous poem inscribed on the Statue of Liberty.
They told us over a year ago. John Kelly mentioned it at least once when he was Sec'y of DHS, and I think again when he went to work as 45*'s Chief of Staff, that we were taking these actions as a means to deter immigration from Hispanic countries to our south.
We might as well be saying, "We will treat you like you're dog shit on the soles of our shoes - and we have no qualms about fucking up your kids in order to get what we want."
So the original point of the cruelty was to warn people away. But as is always the case with such things, the point of the cruelty became cruelty for its own sake, and the whole mess escalates practically all by itself.
Most people can be talked into the notion that it's OK to do bad things for good reasons. But good people won't go along with it for long. So eventually, you have to replace all those good people.
Inevitably, all you have left is a group of people who're not only willing to do those shitty things, but who want to do those shitty things because they like to do shitty things.
We've seen it before - we're now entering the phase where the point of the cruelty is cruelty - the point of bullying is bullying - the act of torturing people is the point of torturing people.
The kicker is that we have a "POTUS" who stokes the drive to abandon our sense of honor - our very humanity - by floating a presidential pardon in front of anyone willing to step up and do his dirty work.
All of which, while not part of some elaborate strategically-plotted 4-dimensional chess, is in fact deliberate, in that it's calculated to spread wave after wave after wave of bullshit across the media spectrum in order to: a) create opportunities to steal money, and b) provide cover for the crimes.
This is not a government - this is a fucking robbery. And it's 39 kinds of fucked up.
Jun 2, 2018
The System
Politicians and political consultants all know this. The Russkies figured it out and applied it in order to put Cult45 in power.
Jul 2, 2017
Today's Irony
There is something very wrong here.
The political party currently holding all the power is moving to cut back on almost all of the rights guaranteed under US law, while encouraging people to take up arms for fear the federal government is taking away our rights.
The political party currently holding all the power is moving to cut back on almost all of the rights guaranteed under US law, while encouraging people to take up arms for fear the federal government is taking away our rights.
Jun 22, 2017
Today's Charlie
I try. Lord knows how I try. I try to maintain a certain equilibrium about all of my fellow citizens. We're all in this great democratic experiment together, after all. I think we have an obligation as a self-governing democratic republic to make government work best for all our people. I believe in the idea of a political commonwealth, and in the political commons to which we all have a right and in which we all have a stake. Economic anxiety in de-industrialized America is very real and it is a real danger to all of what we can achieve together. It is now, and it was in 1980, when I drove from Youngstown to Toledo to Flint to Grand Rapids as we wound into the election that brought us Ronald Reagan.
(So, by the way, is the intractable poverty of people, working class and otherwise, who are not white.)
So, I try. Lord knows how I try.
But what am I supposed to do when so many of my fellow citizens guzzle snake oil by the gallon and call it champagne?
I think what hangs us up the most is that we're all clinging rather desperately to the Presumption of Regularity. We need something that looks and feels more like normal. So we project that need onto an awful lot of what's going on. Especially with 45* making such forceful and deliberate efforts to vacate the norm.
Add it all up and we're danger-close to a charge of False Consciousness, but what else we got?
Feb 8, 2017
Keith
No, dude - Nixon leads it 55 - 11
45* is a perfect example of the classic Weak Salesman - throw enough shit and eventually something will stick.
The overall point is to overwhelm the filter system. We get tired of dealing with the shit storm and retreat.
To reiterate: This guy is no success story. He's spent 40 years failing up. He starts with $200 Million in the late 70s. He leverages the fuck out of it, basically borrowing so much that if he defaults, he takes the bankers down with him. So it's in their best interest to prop him up and help him make it work. After several rounds, he doesn't even have to run his own business - the creditors are doing all the work and he gets to sit back and enjoy the ride.
Jan 17, 2017
Telling
GOP voters are begging the people they voted into office not to fuck 'em over by repealing ACA, and those representatives are high-fiving each other for moving to repeal it anyway.
What does that tell us about the GOP?
What does it tell us about ourselves?
What does it say about how fucked up it has to get before we figure out that it's fucked up?
What does that tell us about the GOP?
What does it tell us about ourselves?
What does it say about how fucked up it has to get before we figure out that it's fucked up?
Oct 29, 2016
Oh, By The Fucking Way
The day before yesterday was Teddy Roosevelt's birthday - he would've been 158 years old. Yay, TR.
Now, how do you suppose we managed to celebrate the Father of Public Lands; the guy who invented the National Park?
We acquitted and released the Bundy Gang, sending a swell message to the rest of Y'all Qaeda (thanks, tengrain) and every fucking yahoo with a gun, a bad attitude and a 7th grader's understanding of the US Constitution that it's open season on the BLM and pretty much all the other institutions having grown out of a deep abiding respect for the land and for the commitment that your rights don't include doing whatever the law can't force you not to do because you're gullible enough to swallow every little piece of shit that floats by on the intertoobz.
One more thing - Nullification has a distinct aroma, and it seems to be strongly wafting in from points west. You thought the 90s were pretty fucked up? Hang loose and just watch what comes next.
Cosmic Muffin have mercy.
Now, how do you suppose we managed to celebrate the Father of Public Lands; the guy who invented the National Park?
We acquitted and released the Bundy Gang, sending a swell message to the rest of Y'all Qaeda (thanks, tengrain) and every fucking yahoo with a gun, a bad attitude and a 7th grader's understanding of the US Constitution that it's open season on the BLM and pretty much all the other institutions having grown out of a deep abiding respect for the land and for the commitment that your rights don't include doing whatever the law can't force you not to do because you're gullible enough to swallow every little piece of shit that floats by on the intertoobz.
One more thing - Nullification has a distinct aroma, and it seems to be strongly wafting in from points west. You thought the 90s were pretty fucked up? Hang loose and just watch what comes next.
Cosmic Muffin have mercy.
Sep 2, 2016
This Shit Is Bullshit
I've been listening in on this one for a while, and I think I've got my bearings now.
In short - this is more or less about a ConservaDem who needs to go the fuck away. I don't want anyone to hurt him; I'm not wishing he'd get Ass Cancer and die after enduring long, bloody, painful attempts to save his miserable worthless hide; I just want him to be unemployed for a good long time. I want him to live in a shitty basement for about 10 years while he works an occasional odd shift at The Dollar Store and has to eat what he can find in the dumpsters behind the local liposuction clinic.
The drug is not the issue, the Epi-Pen itself is the issue. Epinephrine is pretty cheap and available as a generic - but the delivery method is the key. The Epi-Pen is amazing, and it's ridiculously effective and easy to use, and it's saved more than a few lives; and it's a great little peace-of-mind thing - and it's patented, which is the key to the whole banana.
So Mylan expects a full and vigorous effort to enforce its patent rights under US Federal Law - at tax-payer expense of course - but they get to shift the jobs overseas; they get to dodge a shitload of the taxes by hiding out in The Netherlands, and they can jack the price by 500%, etc etc etc. And that little parlay is what pumps enough profit into Mylan's coffers to "justify" paying Ms Bresch almost $19 Million last year.
It's fucking immoral - and that's before we take a look at the campaign contributions bullshit that helps perpetuate it, because it's part of a fucked up System of Interlocking Interests that makes it profitable to hold people hostage while the people who take those hostages are doing it legally, and so, are completely out of the reach of "justice".
That's gotta change.
Like I said, I'm really not wishing for harm to come to any of them, but a well-placed runaway cement truck wouldn't exactly hurt my feelings.
In short - this is more or less about a ConservaDem who needs to go the fuck away. I don't want anyone to hurt him; I'm not wishing he'd get Ass Cancer and die after enduring long, bloody, painful attempts to save his miserable worthless hide; I just want him to be unemployed for a good long time. I want him to live in a shitty basement for about 10 years while he works an occasional odd shift at The Dollar Store and has to eat what he can find in the dumpsters behind the local liposuction clinic.
 |
| Sen Joe Manchin D-WV |
Seriously - fuck that guy.
In case you haven't heard, Joe Manchin's daughter (Heather Bresch) is the asshole CEO who has blown up the price on Epi-Pen.
According to reports, Bresch got her first job at Mylan working in the factory basement, when her well-connected dad asked the company’s then-CEO, Milan Puskar, for a favor. Later, a scandal erupted when it was discovered that West Virginia University, which had received a $20 million donation from Puskar and whose president was a Manchin and Bresch family friend, had awarded her an MBA although she had not completed the required coursework.
The school president and other administrators were forced to resign, but Bresch survived the controversy and has done very well indeed in the pharmaceutical business, rising through the ranks and at the same time learning how to adroitly manipulate government and its regulations — lessons for which life in a successful political family with its network of friends and colleagues prepared her well.I guess what grates on my soul in the worst way possible is this:
The drug is not the issue, the Epi-Pen itself is the issue. Epinephrine is pretty cheap and available as a generic - but the delivery method is the key. The Epi-Pen is amazing, and it's ridiculously effective and easy to use, and it's saved more than a few lives; and it's a great little peace-of-mind thing - and it's patented, which is the key to the whole banana.
So Mylan expects a full and vigorous effort to enforce its patent rights under US Federal Law - at tax-payer expense of course - but they get to shift the jobs overseas; they get to dodge a shitload of the taxes by hiding out in The Netherlands, and they can jack the price by 500%, etc etc etc. And that little parlay is what pumps enough profit into Mylan's coffers to "justify" paying Ms Bresch almost $19 Million last year.
It's fucking immoral - and that's before we take a look at the campaign contributions bullshit that helps perpetuate it, because it's part of a fucked up System of Interlocking Interests that makes it profitable to hold people hostage while the people who take those hostages are doing it legally, and so, are completely out of the reach of "justice".
That's gotta change.
Like I said, I'm really not wishing for harm to come to any of them, but a well-placed runaway cement truck wouldn't exactly hurt my feelings.
 |
| Fight The Power |
Jul 21, 2016
Today's WTF
Charles Kinsey is a Behavioral Therapist. He was trying to help a 20-something Autistic patient. Somebody called the North Miami PD because they tho't the patient had a gun (it was a toy truck). The patient "failed" to respond to officers' commands; Mr Kinsey knew enough not to abandon his patient; the cops apparently don't know one fuckin' thing except the use of force - so they shot Kinsey as he lay on the ground with his hands in the air.
Charles Kinsey must be wondering what else he needs to do in order to be included in the "all" part of All Lives Matter.
That's pretty fucked up right there.
That's pretty fucked up right there.
Jun 22, 2015
Today's Podcast
...is actually from last Thursday:
And I have to paraphrase George Carlin: "Think about how stoopid the average DumFux News viewer must be - now consider the fact that 50% of 'em are even stoopider than that.
And also too - the rebuttal for the standard bullshit argument, "...a good guy with a gun..." gets pretty simple: What if the good guy with a gun is the first one to be shot and killed?
And then of course, everybody should have a gun because "an armed society is a polite society". Yeah - everybody knows what a Paradise of Courtesy they've got going in places like Somalia and Syria and Yemen and Nigeria and Sudan. Pick any truly fucked up joint anywhere in the world and tell me the ubiquity of guns isn't at least a top 3 factor contributing to the fucked-up-ed-ness.
And also too - the rebuttal for the standard bullshit argument, "...a good guy with a gun..." gets pretty simple: What if the good guy with a gun is the first one to be shot and killed?
And then of course, everybody should have a gun because "an armed society is a polite society". Yeah - everybody knows what a Paradise of Courtesy they've got going in places like Somalia and Syria and Yemen and Nigeria and Sudan. Pick any truly fucked up joint anywhere in the world and tell me the ubiquity of guns isn't at least a top 3 factor contributing to the fucked-up-ed-ness.
Dec 10, 2014
About That Torture Thing
Our politicians and Press Poodles and everybody else showing off a talent for farting thru their mouths have all been telling us for quite a while that they don't want those rotten terrorists at Gitmo to be brought into this country because they'll stink up the joint - or some such nonsense.
Here's the thing. I think we know now why we can't just close Gitmo and bring 'em here - it's because we tortured them. If we put these guys into the regular channels of either our civilian justice system or the military justice system, we lose 'em.
Nothing we have against them can be used in court now because we fucking tortured them.
We completely lost our shit after 9/11. We went more than a little looney, and we did all these really lousy things to people.
BTW - not to put us on the couch too much here, but we made the transition from Andy Hardy to Vlad The Impaler in one big fuckin' hurry; fast enough to make me think maybe we weren't really making this huge change so much as we were just kinda coming out of the closet(?).
So anyway, when we began to understand just how fucked up it was that we were doing all this really bad shit, we went into the standard CYA mode that happens every god dammed time we allow too few people to hold too much power, and let 'em do their thing without any way to keep an eye on 'em.
And the kicker - we knew it was wrong. All of us. We knew it. It's wrong to torture people. And it was wrong to change the law in order to help us pretend we were still the good guys just trying to protect our sweet innocent little ol' American selves. We knew it was wrong and we did it anyway.
Can we stop pretending now?
Here's the thing. I think we know now why we can't just close Gitmo and bring 'em here - it's because we tortured them. If we put these guys into the regular channels of either our civilian justice system or the military justice system, we lose 'em.
Nothing we have against them can be used in court now because we fucking tortured them.
We completely lost our shit after 9/11. We went more than a little looney, and we did all these really lousy things to people.
BTW - not to put us on the couch too much here, but we made the transition from Andy Hardy to Vlad The Impaler in one big fuckin' hurry; fast enough to make me think maybe we weren't really making this huge change so much as we were just kinda coming out of the closet(?).
So anyway, when we began to understand just how fucked up it was that we were doing all this really bad shit, we went into the standard CYA mode that happens every god dammed time we allow too few people to hold too much power, and let 'em do their thing without any way to keep an eye on 'em.
And the kicker - we knew it was wrong. All of us. We knew it. It's wrong to torture people. And it was wrong to change the law in order to help us pretend we were still the good guys just trying to protect our sweet innocent little ol' American selves. We knew it was wrong and we did it anyway.
Can we stop pretending now?
Dec 8, 2014
It Got Me Thinkin'
Which is always a little dangerous, but anyway - here's a little bit of a thing:
'Conservatives' are always yammerin' about how they want Gubmint to run more like a Bidness.
My contention is that's pretty much exactly what we've been seeing for 20 or more years, and here's why I think it: Congress Critters are privy to lots and lots of information that's either not known to the rest of us, or that they get to know about way before we get to know about it; AND, they get to make rules and regulations that can easily tilt the money chute a little (or a lot) in the general direction of their own bank accounts and portfolios. So while we have managed to put certain safeguards in place to make it harder for them to give themselves raises in their salaries, we've done practically nothing to keep them from creating a very slick and lucrative money-laundering apparatus that funnels shitloads of cash into their pockets, even if it does happen behind a thick veil of toxic fog.
Meanwhile, Corporate Bosses get to do this in a slightly more open way - but it's still pretty fucked up. CEOs and Directors and Senior Execs get paid a lot, but the way they make the real money is by putting policy decisions in place that benefit them greatly at the expense (often) of everybody else.
Ask a simple question: why are so many companies spending so much (~$2.4 TRILLION) buying their own stock?
Then ask: what's the Comp Plan look like for those Bosses?
I'm betting dollars to dingleberries that those guys are gonna make more than a few bucks over and above their salaries if the company stock performs well, and what better way to boost the value of a share of your stock than to make it look like it's a hot property because "somebody's snapping it up like crazy"?
And when you're in bed with the politicians who conveniently vote against close enforcement of the rules you've already gotten them to weaken, then collusion and cronyism and outright bribery become the orders of the day, and simply the usual and customary way of doing business.
It gets really complex and convoluted, and I'm not pretending to know what all is wrong or what all needs to be done. But I think it points back to the need for Separation-Of-Powers solutions; we have to rebuild the firewalls - the ones that keep Businesses and Governments and individuals from becoming too big and too powerful.
Cuz always remember - a business is not a democracy.
'Conservatives' are always yammerin' about how they want Gubmint to run more like a Bidness.
My contention is that's pretty much exactly what we've been seeing for 20 or more years, and here's why I think it: Congress Critters are privy to lots and lots of information that's either not known to the rest of us, or that they get to know about way before we get to know about it; AND, they get to make rules and regulations that can easily tilt the money chute a little (or a lot) in the general direction of their own bank accounts and portfolios. So while we have managed to put certain safeguards in place to make it harder for them to give themselves raises in their salaries, we've done practically nothing to keep them from creating a very slick and lucrative money-laundering apparatus that funnels shitloads of cash into their pockets, even if it does happen behind a thick veil of toxic fog.
Meanwhile, Corporate Bosses get to do this in a slightly more open way - but it's still pretty fucked up. CEOs and Directors and Senior Execs get paid a lot, but the way they make the real money is by putting policy decisions in place that benefit them greatly at the expense (often) of everybody else.
Ask a simple question: why are so many companies spending so much (~$2.4 TRILLION) buying their own stock?
Then ask: what's the Comp Plan look like for those Bosses?
I'm betting dollars to dingleberries that those guys are gonna make more than a few bucks over and above their salaries if the company stock performs well, and what better way to boost the value of a share of your stock than to make it look like it's a hot property because "somebody's snapping it up like crazy"?
And when you're in bed with the politicians who conveniently vote against close enforcement of the rules you've already gotten them to weaken, then collusion and cronyism and outright bribery become the orders of the day, and simply the usual and customary way of doing business.
It gets really complex and convoluted, and I'm not pretending to know what all is wrong or what all needs to be done. But I think it points back to the need for Separation-Of-Powers solutions; we have to rebuild the firewalls - the ones that keep Businesses and Governments and individuals from becoming too big and too powerful.
Cuz always remember - a business is not a democracy.
Sep 25, 2014
Narrowly Averted Eternal Sadness
hat tip = Addicting Info
Stopped for a seatbelt violation, the driver makes the near-fatal mistake of trying to cooperate and comply with the cop's instructions. Of course, that near-fatal mistake followed the obvious mistake of having dark brown skin in South Carolina, and then the guy just makes it worse by raising his hands trying to demonstrate he was actually not a threat to the officer - all of which taken together tends to cause a lot of stress in the minds of some people (maybe like this cop) - people who've been over-trained to expect trouble, to the point where their brains will manufacture a threat even tho' all their sensory input indicates otherwise. The cop did in fact shoot that guy at least once AFTER he put his hands up.
More simply - if we teach people to expect trouble, let's try not to be surprised when they find it even where it doesn't exist.
In this case, at least the Cop Shop Mgmt made the right calls in firing that officer, charging him with "Assault and Battery of a High and Aggravated Nature", with bail set at $75K. But I do wonder how they plan to address a pretty obvious failure when it comes to training their officers, and in their reckless inability to identify and neutralize potential fuck-ups like this guy.
And BTW - with so many of these incidents coming to light, at what point do we stop considering these guys "Rogue Cops" and start to understand there's a big fucking problem here? What dots can we connect between cops shooting unarmed citizens, and the proliferation of guns, and the headlong slide into authoritarian governance, and the trend toward militarized policing, and the post-trauma emotional time bombs ticking away in the brains of way too many veterans (many of whom are now cops), and and and?
We need to get this thing unfucked in a big fuckin' hurry.
(As of 10:24am EDT, I'm waiting to hear from Lt Kelly Hughes at SC State Patrol as to how long Groubert had been a trooper and whether he's a US Military Veteran)
Stopped for a seatbelt violation, the driver makes the near-fatal mistake of trying to cooperate and comply with the cop's instructions. Of course, that near-fatal mistake followed the obvious mistake of having dark brown skin in South Carolina, and then the guy just makes it worse by raising his hands trying to demonstrate he was actually not a threat to the officer - all of which taken together tends to cause a lot of stress in the minds of some people (maybe like this cop) - people who've been over-trained to expect trouble, to the point where their brains will manufacture a threat even tho' all their sensory input indicates otherwise. The cop did in fact shoot that guy at least once AFTER he put his hands up.
More simply - if we teach people to expect trouble, let's try not to be surprised when they find it even where it doesn't exist.
In this case, at least the Cop Shop Mgmt made the right calls in firing that officer, charging him with "Assault and Battery of a High and Aggravated Nature", with bail set at $75K. But I do wonder how they plan to address a pretty obvious failure when it comes to training their officers, and in their reckless inability to identify and neutralize potential fuck-ups like this guy.
And BTW - with so many of these incidents coming to light, at what point do we stop considering these guys "Rogue Cops" and start to understand there's a big fucking problem here? What dots can we connect between cops shooting unarmed citizens, and the proliferation of guns, and the headlong slide into authoritarian governance, and the trend toward militarized policing, and the post-trauma emotional time bombs ticking away in the brains of way too many veterans (many of whom are now cops), and and and?
We need to get this thing unfucked in a big fuckin' hurry.
(As of 10:24am EDT, I'm waiting to hear from Lt Kelly Hughes at SC State Patrol as to how long Groubert had been a trooper and whether he's a US Military Veteran)
Sep 4, 2014
Piling On
The all new Meet The Press - the "news" show formerly known as Dancin' Dave Takes It Hard And Deep From Both Ends Sides - is kinda set to debut pretty soon, and they're announcing the additions of Luke (you-knew-my-dad-so-you-owe-me-something) Russert and Scabrous Joe (The Schmo From That Morning Show) to a production that prob'ly won't be called "UpChuck The Toadie Is Not Here To Tell You The Facts".
Meet The Press hasn't been a news show for quite a while - and that includes the Tim Russert era. To wit:
When your show's big advertisers are Boeing and General Dynamics and Raytheon; and your guest list is always dominated by "The Right", then you're not a news show - you're a soft porn infomercial pimping for an oligarchy. And your little puppet parade has nothing to do with your responsibilities as The 4th Estate in maintaining a healthy democracy.
It's shameful. We deserve better.
hat tip = Crooks and Liars
Meet The Press hasn't been a news show for quite a while - and that includes the Tim Russert era. To wit:
When your show's big advertisers are Boeing and General Dynamics and Raytheon; and your guest list is always dominated by "The Right", then you're not a news show - you're a soft porn infomercial pimping for an oligarchy. And your little puppet parade has nothing to do with your responsibilities as The 4th Estate in maintaining a healthy democracy.
It's shameful. We deserve better.
hat tip = Crooks and Liars
Aug 28, 2014
Today's Officer Friendly
hat tip = Addicting Info
Lemme make it real plain - I'm pretty sure the 2nd cop had absolutely no fuckin' business threatening to shoot that guy.
I don't know the whole deal here, but it looks a lot like these cops have a big problem with attitude - their own at least as much as that coming from the young studs being hassled.
And go ahead and argue all you want about how these kids should've been smarter and more respectful and less asshole-teenager-y, but there's no law against being stupid, which BTW is also a fortunate thing for the officers, but it seems to break pretty large in favor of the cops a lot more often than the other way.
The main thing for me is that we're going to get nowhere trying to preach the benefits of being politely submissive to too many black kids who're trying to grow up under the enormous, and often conflicting, pressures they're subjected to pretty much every day of their lives.
What do we expect will happen when the message of self-respect and self-reliance and standing up for yourself and demanding your rights crashes headlong into a real-world encounter with a cop who's been getting messages about zero tolerance, and tough on crime, and obedience to authority etc etc etc?
Add what seems like The Universal Theme - "always assume they're all out to kill your ass" - and it gets pretty easy to see what shitty things are going to happen next.
And that's pretty fucked up right there.
Aug 25, 2014
Would The Real Media Bias Please Stand Up
From the Twitter thing called #iftheygunnedmedown, asking which picture would the Press Poodles use to tell the story:
Now then - what do we usually see when the Librul Press tells us about what's goin' on?
WHITE SUSPECT
That's how the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal chose to present the story of Amy Bishop, a former college professor who eventually pleaded guilty to killing three colleagues and wounding three others at a faculty meeting in 2010.
BLACK VICTIM
And that's the headline AL.com ran about the shooting death of a 25-year-old black man in Alabama earlier this year.
WHITE SUSPECT
This is how the Staten Island Advance covered the case of Eric Bellucci, a mentally ill New York man who allegedly killed his parents.
BLACK VICTIM
Meanwhile, NBC News ran this headline during ongoing coverage of the Trayvon Martin killing.
WHITE SUSPECT
This Fox News headline quoted friends shocked that 15-year-old Jared Michael Padgett had entered his high school heavily armed and killed a classmate, injured a teacher and took his own life.
BLACK VICTIM
But in Florida, this headline in the Ledger focused on a police account that made the death of a black 19-year-old seem somehow expected, or at least unsurprising.
WHITE SUSPECT
In the wake of the mass shooting in Santa Barbara, California, earlier this year, theWhittier Daily News offered a headline showing one man's disbelief that Elliot Rodger could have committed such a crime.
BLACK VICTIM
Earlier this month, the New York Daily News ran this headline, carrying comments by the Ohio attorney general that appeared to defend police after killing a black man at a Walmart.
WHITE SUSPECT
This was the headline given to an Associated Press story at Mlive.com about an Ohio teen who later pleaded guilty to a school shooting in which three students were killed and two were wounded.
BLACK VICTIM
But when an unarmed father of two was killed by a police officer while entering a vehicle that contained his own children, the Los Angeles Times served up this claimfrom officials.
WHITE SUSPECT
In 2008, 18-year-old Ryan Schallenberger was accused of plotting to bomb his South Carolina high school. Ohio's Chronicle Telegram wanted readers to know that he was a straight-A student, running an AP story with this headline.
BLACK VICTIM
And according to the Omaha World-Herald, this is what you needed to know about Julius B. Vaughn, a 19-year-old gunned down in Omaha last year:
WHITE SUSPECT
Kerri Ann Heffernan was charged in 2012 in a string of bank robberies and stores.This headline at Wicked Local wonders how she'd come so far from her days as a smart high school student.
BLACK VICTIM
Of 22-year-old black man Deon Sanders' killing in Ohio earlier this year, WKBN's headline said "gang member," and that apparently was enough.
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