And Away We Go

Farther down that long and slippery slope.  From Rolling Stone:

"In terms of a clear national picture of what kind of military equipment is going to K-12 schools through the 1033 program, we don't have a 100 percent transparent picture," says Janel George, education policy counsel at the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. That lack of transparency is one reason the Legal Defense Fund and Texas Appleseed are asking the DLA to end the 1033 program's relationship with school districts and school police departments. George also emphasizes that excessive force against students by school police is already far too common, with many school officers armed with weapons like tasers and pepper-spray. "The concern is not only the potential harm when you add in military-grade weaponry – we're talking about M16s, AR 15s and grenade launchers. It's also, how does this exacerbate existing school climates that are already tense? And how does that contribute to the criminalization of youth of color in particular?"

The disproportionate punishment of Black and Latino students for the same behavior as their white peers is so well-documented that, earlier this year, the U.S. Departments of Justice and Education expressed concern that such disparities may constitute a widespread civil rights violation. The fact that students of color, as well as students with disabilities, are so much more likely to be referred to law enforcement leads advocates to wonder: On whom are such military weapons likely to be used?

"In LA, if you depend on public schools – and given that the vast majority of students are students of color – at the moment you walk into school, your interaction with police automatically grows," says Manuel Criollo, director of organizing at the Strategy Center. "You depend on a public service, and that public service is attached to the criminal legal system. Are the police there for [the students'] safety, or are they there because they perceive them as a threat?"

Like the man said - "this country is finished".



All we're doing now is arguing about who gets to do what with the corpse.

The KrugMan Speaks

I haven't put up any of Paul Krugman's stuff for a while, mostly because it gets pretty dense and since I'm generally likely to go along with the conclusions he draws, it doesn't seem necessary for me to keep flacking it.  But that's kinda the problem - I'm convinced, and so I have what I think is a reasonable expectation for certain actions to follow; certain policies to be put forward and debated and eventually enacted.  

I understand that "the other side" is thinking the same way, but c'mon - amending the US Constitution to ban abortion and same-gender marriage?  Killing unions by force of law? Denying working people a living wage while funneling billions of tax dollars into corporate off-shore accounts?  Slashing Medicare and poverty bennies?  Turning Social Security into a cash cow for Wall Street?  Privatizing the water supplies?  Ya gotta be some kinda serious butt-plug radical dip-wad to call any of that "reasonable".

So anyway, here's Krugman in Rolling Stone, defending Obama - something I've been reluctant to do (not that RS has ever asked me - ahem).  But y'know what?  With all the time we spend bitchin' about Obama's Neo-Liberal bullshit, I still can't see how those other guys are anywhere near any kind of an improvement.

When it comes to Barack Obama, I've always been out of sync. Back in 2008, when many liberals were wildly enthusiastic about his candidacy and his press was strongly favorable, I was skeptical. I worried that he was naive, that his talk about transcending the political divide was a dangerous illusion given the unyielding extremism of the modern American right. Furthermore, it seemed clear to me that, far from being the transformational figure his supporters imagined, he was rather conventional-minded: Even before taking office, he showed signs of paying far too much attention to what some of us would later take to calling Very Serious People, people who regarded cutting budget deficits and a willingness to slash Social Security as the very essence of political virtue.

And I wasn't wrong. Obama was indeed naive: He faced scorched-earth Republican opposition from Day One, and it took him years to start dealing with that opposition realistically. Furthermore, he came perilously close to doing terrible things to the U.S. safety net in pursuit of a budget Grand Bargain; we were saved from significant cuts to Social Security and a rise in the Medicare age only by Republican greed, the GOP's unwillingness to make even token concessions.

Today's Pix

 

My Country My Ass

"I feel like a stranger, in the land where I was born" --Quicksilver Messenger Service

• Vigilante "Justice"
• School kids and their teachers massacred
• Rise of Hate Groups
• Increase of 400% in death threats against the prez.
• Voting Rights legislation gutted
• Fracking
• Pipelines for the dirtiest oil on Earth
• Corporation = person
• Coat hangers for women stuck in poverty
• Disappearing middle class
• Schools for profit
• Wars for profit
• Prisons for profit
• Innocent citizens murdered by the cops
• Coin-operated politicians
• Deliberate Congressional gridlock
• Police Department funding by seizure of citizens' property
• Cutting benefits for the poor
• Subsidizing the rich
• Minority rule
• GMO gag rules
• Money = Speech
• Government by religion
• Death penalty and botched executions
• Guns Guns and More Guns

USAmerica, Inc - not brought to you by:

hat tip = Left Turn Only

Close Encounters

...of the ironic kind - from KPTV in Gresham OR:

GRESHAM, OR (KPTV) - A man openly carrying his new handgun was robbed on a Gresham street by a man with a gun of his own.

Police were called out to the area of 172nd and Glisan Street at 2:10 a.m. Saturday.

Investigators said the 21-year-old victim bought a handgun earlier in the day and was openly carrying it while talking to his cousin.

They said a man approached them and asked for a cigarette. Talk eventually turned to the victim's new purchase, before the robber pulled his own gun from his waistband and said, "I like your gun, give it to me," according to police.

The victim handed over his gun and the suspect ran away.

The suspect is described as a light-skinned black man, 19 to 23 years old, 6'1" with a skinny build. He had black, wavy hair and was clean cut, except for a small patch of facial hair on his chin. The man was wearing gray sweatpants, a white T-shirt and flip-flops.

The weapon he used in the robbery was described as a black gun, possibly semi-automatic. The stolen gun is a black Walther brand, model P22. It is semi-automatic and .22LR-caliber.

There's a rube born every minute - and 2 to steal the gun he thinks he needs to feel good about himself.

Bye, Felicia

Huckabee loves to whine about how Repubs are losing their "moral edge", and so he throws the usual fits and tantrums, but he's not about to give up his power.  He intends to do what losers always do - he's going to go sulk.  I'm pretty sure he has a decent enough organization in place by now - mailing lists and phone bank volunteers and operatives and ad makers et al - that he'll never want for money, and that he'll be a thorn in everybody's side for as long as he cares to draw breath.  That's how it works.  Money & Power - once you've got one, you can get the other.

And always remember that these guys want lotsa things, but the only reason "democracy" is  on the list is because it sounds good to the rubes who're constantly being duped into voting against it.

hat tip = Crooks and Liars

Happy Birthday, Mr Lennon

Whatever Gets You Thru The Night --John Lennon (w/ Elton John)

Small Wonder

I really don't get a lot of what Rush Limbaugh has to say.  And I'd like to think it's mostly because I'm just not that dumb.  But sometimes, it's even harder than usual for me to understand, unless I stop and remind myself that it's a show.  Like most of the wingnut junk out there, it's just a show.  The fact that millions of rubes gobble it up and then make voting decisions based on this bullshit is a disaster worthy of George Carlin's fondest imaginings, but that's a different puddle of puke waiting for us at a different subway station.

Today's wonderment is:  Limbaugh is always on some kind of rant about Political Correctness, but if he's so dead set against it, then why does he so often use the terminologies of Political Correctness?  In this clip, he even goes so far as to manufacture a phrase like "British African-Americans".

The guy is an obvious phony, but when I remember that he's been at it for 25 years - and that he's amassed a personal fortune of $400M doing it - I have to stand in awe of that level of hucksterism.

hat tip = Mock Paper Scissors

Some Day

...maybe we'll all have something to look forward to besides more of the basic "same shit, new day".

And if you've got kids in college - well, just make sure they know how to change a tire and work a cash register.

Gettin' It

From MMA via Crooks & Liars: