Jul 9, 2017

On That Klan Thing Yesterday

C'Ville Weekly:

Charlottesville police officers, Daily Progress reporters and ACLU observers were gassed, as well as bystanders near those blocking High Street, leading some to question the show of force at a demonstration that was breaking up.

John Whitehead, founder of the Rutherford Institute, a civil liberties organization, had advised local police before the event to avoid heavy-handed tactics and militarized equipment, and says people react differently when the riot shields come out. “What we had was an army,” he says. “What they were saying to the crowd was, this is a riot.”

Whitehead says he’s gotten calls from all over the country. “What I saw yesterday was not a community policing event. It was an armed police state. It’s not a good image to portray around the nation.”

“The city abdicated its duty to state police,” says civil rights attorney Jeff Fogel, who was present at Justice Park. “You can’t treat cops like human beings when they’re dressed like Ninja turtles.”

There were lots of different stripes of people in and around the park. But as usual, only one faction showed up dressed like they were looking to start some shit.


Gotta be a better way.  

Friday's Podcast


Talking about how The Overton Window has shifted - the dialogue regarding Healthcare is now focused on how we go about delivering on everybody's right to have affordable access to quality healthcare.  Adjust your rhetoric accordingly.

Episode 396 - Trusting in the process, but not the Republicans.



The Professional Left

We'll Miss It When It's Gone

Via Crooks & Liars


"But it's the unscripted Trump that's real. A man who barks out bile at 140 characters, who wastes his precious days as president at war with the west's institutions..."

Today's Tweet





But lemme guess - they'll tell the rubes it's a sure sign of 45*'s awesomely awesome awesomeness; that's he's forging ahead, being the one true leader; and if only the whole world would shove their heads up his manly ass, he'd show us all the blah blah fucking blah.

Jul 8, 2017

Today's Lesson

Michael Shermer - Morality: absolute and otherwise




Without god, there can be no "Objective Morality"?

How do you claim anything is objective if it's based on something as subjective as a belief in god?

If you start with a premise that's false, it's almost impossible to reach a conclusion that's true.

Today's GIF

At least as great as British cuisine and British cars.

Jul 7, 2017

Today's Tweet



It Gets Worse


Institutional Memory is an important thing, but keep a coupla points in mind:

Sometimes it's something that ties us in with tradition so tightly it's hard to make changes that become more and more desperately needed.

Sometimes it can keep us from repeating certain mistakes that can easily prove fatal.




Sweet dreams, kids.

A Toon

Nobody ever went broke underestimating the taste or intelligence of the American consumer.

It'll Never Fly

The Guardian:

If money amplifies the voices of wealthy Americans in politics, Seattle is trying something that aims to give low-income and middle-class voters a signal boost.

The city’s new ‘Democracy Voucher’ program, the first of its kind in the US, provides every eligible Seattle resident with $100 in taxpayer-funded vouchers to donate to the candidates of their choice. The goal is to incentivize candidates to take heed of a broad range of residents – homeless people, minimum-wage workers, seniors on fixed incomes – as well as the big-dollar donors who often dictate the political conversation.

This August’s primary is the trial run for the program. But before Seattle can crow about having re-enfranchised long-overlooked voters, it must contend with conservative opposition.

It makes too much sense in an era of "Things aren't fair? Nobody gives a fuck about fair, Snowflake".

And it provides some pretty obvious opportunity for abuse and/or manipulation.  But we gotta start somewhere with something.

Especially considering the fight we're in now.


On May 11, 2017, President Donald Trump signed an executive order creating the “Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity.” The Commission is charged with studying “the registration and voting processes used in Federal elections” and identifying “vulnerabilities in voting systems” that could lead to voter fraud. Vice President Mike Pence is the chair, and Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach—a known promoter of voting restrictions and the myth of voter fraud—is the vice chair.

The executive order comes on the heels of President Trump’s repeated assertions that millions voted illegally in the 2016 election. For years, claims of fraud have been used to justify unwarranted voting restrictions. There is strong reason to suspect this Commission is not a legitimate attempt to study elections, but rather a tool for enabling voter suppression.