A Culture Of Police Brutality

May 7, 2015 by Bitchy

Since it’s a day that ends in “day”, we have another cop brutalizing another member of the community he’s supposed to be serving and protecting. This one is a slight variation on the theme we’ve grown completely accustomed to in that, the cop is a black male and the victim is a tiny white woman. This incident happened in Miami in 2013, but we just got the video and “justice” yesterday.

Let me start with what happened. In the early evening of June 26th 2013, the police get a call from the South Bay Club, who had a drunk woman (Megan Adamescu) who wouldn’t leave in their lobby. Enter officer Philippe Archer, who responded in plain clothes. He takes the woman outside and tried to get her to give him her ID. She was apparently too drunk to comprehend what was going on, so he took her purse and started looking for ID. That’s when fifty year old Andrew Mossberg happened to be walking by. He thought he was witnessing a mugging so he called the police. Here are his words from an article in the Miami New Times;

“I saw him grab her purse and pull things out of it. When she tried to grab the bag back, he punched her in the face. She fell down, got up, and tried to go for her purse again. He then kicked her legs from underneath her so she would fall down again.”

Mossberg……alleges Archer was not wearing a police badge or any other ID. So Mossberg called the Miami Beach Police nonemergency number and asked the dispatcher to send units over. “I yelled at him that the police are on their way,” Mossberg says. “That’s when he ran at me, kicked me once in the left side of the head, then kicked me again in the forehead, and punched me twice.”

Okay, so this a fifty year old man who is trying to do the right thing when he sees what he believes to be a crime being committed. Here’s the cop’s version of events (from the report he filed);

Adamescu yelled “fuck you nigger,” “became hostile and belligerent,” and that she “attempted to snatch her passport out of my hands.” Archer alleges he got distracted when Mossberg approached him. That’s when Adamescu “slapped me on the left side of the face, knowing that I was a law enforcement officer. I immediately countered with an open hand strike to [the] right side of her face causing her to fall to the ground and hit the back of her head,” Archer wrote.

That’s when Mossberg charged me, preparing to attack me. I conducted a front kick to his abdomen area, causing him to step back. [Mossberg] became enraged and came back at me. So Archer says he kicked Mossberg in the face. “During the violent and physical confrontation, [Mossberg] sustained a laceration to the right side of his head, a left swollen face cheek, and scratches about his arms,” Archer wrote.

As far as I can tell, the cops own original account doesn’t indicate that he identified himself as a police officer to Mossberg. I don’t know if he subsequently made that claim, but it doesn’t matter (you’ll see why later).

That report did leave out some punching and kicking that he did to both Adamescu and Mossberg (of course it did).

So Archer takes both Adamescu and Mossberg to the precinct, where this happens in the parking garage;

Before some of you say that she kicked him (and what a forceful kick it was), so he was justified in what he did, it’s picture time.

This is officer Philippe Archer:

This is Andrew Mossberg:

This is what Mossberg looked like after Philippe fended off the obvious threat to his life:

You could clearly see Megan Adamescu’s size relative to Archer’s in the video. Here’s what she looked like after he punched her:

So you decide if the cop was justified in his actions, given the threat level these two posed to him. He had another detective take a picture of himself with Amamescu in her bandaged state, where he’s grinning from ear to ear. That photo hasn’t been published anywhere, but doesn’t he sound charming?

Did I mention that Archer has been accused of police brutality at least three times prior to this? I couldn’t tell you how many times because, while cops have the ability to run your record in a few seconds to see everything you’ve ever been charged with, we don’t get to easily access their performance records. I do know that when this incident took place, but I do know that the good citizens if Miami had just paid out $60,000 to settle one claim against Archer who didn’t appear to have been punished at all.

There was an internal investigation that concluded that Archer was guilty of excessive use of force. Here’s what the Miami Herald said about the report;

“Your experience, knowledge of rules, policies and proper practice dictates that you knew you should have reported and documented the events at the police station, you knew that taking a photo with a prisoner was inappropriate, you knew you should have properly secured the prisoners, and you knew you used excessive force,” states the report. “Your lack of judgment and your poor decisions defy your tenure as a Miami Beach Police Officer of 19 years.”

The report continues: “You met this slight woman’s meager schoolyard kick with excessive, unnecessary, and unwarranted use of force.”

The good news is that Archer is facing swift and severe punishment for his brutal beating of two people who posed no threat whatsoever to him. That’s not true, he’s technically only been found guilty of punching Adamescu, since that’s all we have video evidence of. There’s no video of what he did to Mossberg. No video means nothing untoward happened, right? He’s being suspended for a month without pay. Harsh. I know, right? But don’t worry, he won’t have to lose that pay for a whole month in a row. He’s going to take several long weekends from May – July so that he’s only missing a few hundred dollars out of several paychecks, instead of getting no paycheck at all for a month. WHEW! My heart was starting to bleed for him, thinking about the hardship he was facing. It looks like the poor bastard may make it through after all.

Does any of this sound like it’s going to serve as a deterrent to the next cop with anger management issues? This asshole has kept his job through lord knows how many excessive force complaints, at least one settlement over his brutality and now this. This incident is going to settle for a much higher amount because he was found guilty of excessive force. That’s just going to help the plaintiffs in their civil suits. And to be clear, he didn’t get fired because he’s been on the force for nineteen years. Being fired means losing his pension, when he’s one year away from being eligible to retire. There was no way his union was going to let that happen. See, the longer a bad cop is serving on a force for, the harder the union is going to fight to get him to that retirement finish line. By year twelve or so, a shitty cop is almost entire unfireable.

There is a cultural problem with out police forces all across the country. There is no deterrent mechanism for violence and brutality. If I were a sociopath with sadistic tendencies , I would be signing up for the police academy. I’m not kidding. This is the place for me to act out my issues with impunity and no fear of punishment. Each time one of these cops gets away with these killings or beatings, they make very other cop confident in the knowledge that they can do whatever the fuck they want without fear of retribution.

None of those cops in the garage reported the punch that was recorded on the video. How many “good cops” does that leave us with? And why fucking bother? Seriously, why bother being a good cop? Obviously, you can’t report a fellow officer punching the shit out of a twig on two legs because that isn’t something cops do. Even if you did, that cop will suffer virtually no punishment, so why bother?

The abuse by cops is always doled out on members of society who they deem to be powerless. This is why it’s predominantly people of color who are getting killed and beaten. This doesn’t happen in Beverly Hills or the Upper East Side of Manhattan where people have power. We know about the affluenza sufferers in these neighborhoods, so it’s really not like there aren’t any miscreants to beat the fuck out of. It’s just that miscreants in Beverly Hills come with high priced attorneys. Beating the shit out of, or murdering them would be a career ender. But shooting Tamir Rice, that has no consequences. That motherfucker hasn’t faced a single charge yet because he chose his victim wisely.

People keep saying there are lots of good cops out there. I think that’s true. It’s just that all the “good cops” are patrolling affluent neighborhoods where the incentives don’t allow for beating and killing members of those neighborhoods. I’ve said this several times; I have a bias against cops. My bias comes from each new video I see of a cop behaving viciously toward someone who is unarmed (both physically and societally) and powerless to stop them.

There are no good cops in poor neighborhoods. There just aren’t. We’d see more news stories of cops being retaliated against for reporting their psychopathic co-workers if there were good cops in bad neighborhoods.

I’m forced to conclude that the only good cops in America work in upper middle class or affluent neighborhoods. Is that true? Perhaps not but I can’t tell, what with all the secrecy within the police departments. Is it fair? You’re goddamned right it is. Every single time this happens, it’s fair to conclude that cops are the problem.

I’ve said this before; I know where my bias comes from. Where does the bias on the other side come from?

Leaded Rioting

May 5, 2015 by Bitchy

Violent crime started dropping precipitously in the 90s, and has continued to drop for over twenty years. It started happening during Bill Clinton’s presidency. In 1994, he passed a crime bill that did several things including putting around 100,000 more cops on the streets by issuing $200 million in grants to local police forces to help them staff up. It also included a lot of other "tough on crime" legislation that put more people in prison for longer, but I’m not going to get into the specifics because they’re not relevant to this piece. The Clinton administration naturally took credit for the decrease in violent crime, which sounds reasonable until you realize that those crime rates started dropping in 1991 and never went up for a single year since then.

Governors all across the country also took credit since their crack downs were clearly the reason for the decreasing violent crime rates. Rudy Guiliani, the most obnoxious of all mayoral peacocks, still claims that his harassment of people of color approach (it’s called the broken windows policing) is why crime went down in New York City during his tenure as mayor. As I stated above, violent crime started declining three years before Rudy began his racially bias policing practices so no rational person would agree with his self aggrandizing assessment of his efforts.

The Freakonomics guys had an interesting theory that Roe v Wade was responsible for the decrease in violent crime. Their thinking is that legalizing abortion meant that would-be criminals weren’t being born because the mothers who weren’t equipped to raise children had access to safe and legal abortions. There seems to be a correlation in terms of the timeline. Roe was decided in 1973, about 18 years before the crime rate started dropping. Sounds pretty good, right? Not so fast. Just like the "tough on crime" thing, it doesn’t hold up to more scrutiny. This theory doesn’t work outside of the US. The UK legalized abortion in 1968. Their crime started dropping in 1995.

That was a nice try by Freakonomics. It sounded great, and relied on more data than criminologists turn to. I generally like theories from economists more than I do, those of criminologists. They don’t suffer from the curse of being a hammer, and therefore needing to turn everything else into a nail. Also, economists found the flaw in the economists’ theory. The criminologists are still clinging to their fallacies.

Criminologists have also theorized that crack was the culprit. See, the crack epidemic had increased violent crime so much, that when the crack epidemic burned itself out, crime dropped. But after crack there was meth. And during crack and meth, there’s always been heroin so that lame theory doesn’t hold up to 20 seconds of just thinking it through without having to Google anything. They also came up with the "when times are tough, crime gets worse" explanation. The problem with that is that the late 80s were a pretty good time to find a job. The much bigger problem is that crime didn’t increase from 2008 – 2012, when times were as tough as they’d been in sixty years.

So what is it? What explains the drop in violent crime. It’s looking very much like lead is the culprit. We have another economist with a theory that seems to be holding up all around the world, in a way that hasn’t yet been countered. In 1994, the US Department of Housing and Urban Development (yes, the dreaded HUD) hired an economist named Rick Nevin to help them do a cost benefit analysis on removing lead paint from old homes. There had been a mountain of research at that point, demonstrating that exposure to lead can cause a laundry list of issues like lowered IQ, hyperactivity, behavioral issues, and learning disabilities. There was also a study that linked lead exposure to juvenile delinquency. This study got Nevin thinking about whether there could be a link between lead and violent crime. Remember, this was 1994 so violent crime had been decreasing for three years at that point.

Nevin found that the highest lead exposure wasn’t coming from paint, but from leaded gasoline.

Here’s a little history on the lead in the gas. In 1921, tetra-ethyl (known as TEL or ethyl) lead was developed for GM by Thomas Midgley, who discovered that adding the lead to the gas reduced the "knocking" in engines. In February, 1923, leaded gas was first sold commercially. Four months later, the US Public Health service was made aware of the leaded gas and requested safety tests (pesky big government!). By September of the same year, workers in the DuPont TEL plant were starting to die. The scene was described as, “sickening deaths and illnesses of hundreds of TEL workers… Gripped by violent bursts of insanity, the afflicted would imagine they were being persecuted by butterflies and other winged insects before expiring, their bodies having turned black and blue.” By April 1925, a Yale study (among others) concluded that "the greatest single question [whether leaded gasoline is safe] in the field of public health which has ever faced the American public.". In May 1925, the US Public Health Service held a conference to discuss both sides of the ethyl (as usual, the sides were science vs corporate profits) issue and appoint a blue ribbon committee to conduct an independent inquiry.

What followed was a now very familiar decades long period in which more and more studies around the world were sounding alarm bells about the dangers of lead, which naturally generated industry funded "studies" to counter the broader scientific community. This was the beginning of the allegations (by DuPont and GM) of "partisan science". Stop me when this starts to sound familiar to you. People are dying in the manufacturing plants, and everyone knew it was because of the "looney gas". By the late 60s, the government was starting to lay out timelines and regulations for the phasing out of lead. Here’s a fun quote from the VP of Ethyl Corp in 1971;

“The clincher by all prophets of doom is that someone started the rumor that lead was the cause of the fall of the Roman Empire… The legend always gets fuzzy — sometimes it is caused by lead-lined aqueducts, other times it is from their wine being drunk from lead-lined flasks.”

Again, just let me know when this is starting to sound familiar to you. The victimhood, the hyperbole, the fear tactics…these are all echoed by tobacco companies, the NRA, the entirety of the energy industry. Basically any corporation who needs for science not to be so sciency. And when it gets too sciency, it’s time to cook up just enough "science" to claim that there are unanswered questions. There were no unanswered questions about tobacco. There were no unanswered questions about lead. There are no unanswered questions about why our climate is changing, and there are no unanswered questions about how to reduce gun deaths and gun crime.

In 1972, the EPA mandated that gas stations would be required to sell unleaded gasoline to protect these new fangled "catalytic converters" that the government forced the automotive industry to develop (fucking big government, all up in our business again!) It wasn’t until 1986 that all leaded gasoline was eradicated in the US. That’s over sixty fucking years from when serious questions about lead emerged. No wonder this tactic is still being used.

Okay, back to Nevin. He’s published dozens of papers on the topic of lead and its correlation to violent crime. Here’s a link to the one paper I’m primarily using. I’m just going to give you some bite sized samples of what he’s found by sharing some of his graphs.

It’s impossible to imagine a more clear correlation.

You get the idea. He demonstrated a clear correlation between lead and IQ, behavioral issues and violence. All of it correlates as clearly as the graphs above.

Guess where lead paint still exists in the US? If you guessed that it exists in poor neighborhoods, you win a cookie. Wanna know where there’s likely still a decent amount of lead paint? Yep, Baltimore. Three years ago, they paid out a $3.7 million settlement to a public housing resident who suffered lead poisoning as a child in the 80s.

Maryland’s lead poisoning prevention law didn’t kick in until 1996. Nevin found a nearly precisely twenty year correlation between the elimination of lead and the reduction in crime. In other words, if Nevin is correct and all of Maryland took care of its lead paint problem (I know, I’m being hypothetical) in 1996, we should expect to see low IQ, behavioral issues, and violent tendencies until 2016.

There is an actual physiological factor at play in poor areas of America. All of the privileged people who get to say, "violence is unacceptable under any circumstances" have no idea what they’re talking about. Of course violence is unacceptable, and I’m fairly certain that a significant number of the people committing the violence would be able to agree, had they grown up in a different neighborhood. Being poor comes with innumerable hazards that don’t come with being middle class or rich. Don’t even get me started on the asthma situation.

My response to every single "this is unacceptable" comment was that this isn’t mine to judge. If you didn’t grow up under the circumstances that residents of Ferguson or Baltimore did, then you are not qualified to judge what the appropriate level of rage would be. Lead is just one of dozens of factors involved in these situations that most people aren’t aware of. Stay in your lane. Judging people in these neighborhoods is not your lane. And making an uninformed judgment says more about you than it does about the rioters. I’m just saying that realizing that you don’t know what you don’t know would be the wise thing to do sometimes.

A Trans Republican?

April 26, 2015 by Bitchy

So all the jokes about Bruce Jenner’s deviant lifestyle choice in being a republican have been put out there. I made a few myself because it’s a inexplicable choice.

I’ve chosen to post articles about all of the anti-trans (specifically) legislation that republicans have put forth in various states. These bills really address no problem at all. They’re designed to humiliate, ostracize, and dehumanize members of the trans community. Some of these bills involve fines for peeing without producing ID. Others involve handcuffs. Some incentivize people to seek out and turn in a trans person peeing in the "wrong" bathroom by enticing them with $2500 in compensation for the emotional trauma they went through, what with peeing next to someone so icky and all.

These republicans claim that they’re goal is to "protect" the public by preventing the sexual assaults that have never materialized, but need preventing anyway. Republicans don’t see the trans community as human.

So Bruce Jenner really is inexplicably stupid and self destructive in his support of the republican party. Except that I think I can explain it, although I can’t make it less stupid. Bruce Jenner will never be fined for using the wrong bathroom. Bruce Jenner will never be jailed for using the wrong bathroom. Bruce Jenner will never have this done to him;

This is Veronica Bolina on two weeks ago. Cops in Brazil did this to her.

This is what she normally looks like.

That’s never going to happen to Bruce Jenner. Not by cops, and not by anyone else.

Bruce Jenner will never have to deal with being trapped in a body he knows he doesn’t belong in because he can’t afford the surgeries, medications, and therapy involved in getting where he knows he should be.

In short, Bruce Jenner’s primary concern is with keeping his money. Like most republicans in California, he gets to be a republican because democrats have created an environment where they have that luxury.

California spent money on all of the things that you need to spend money on to attract business and grow an economy. According to a study by Endeavor, entrepreneurs choose where they want to start their companies based on several factors.

Access to a skilled and educated talent pool. California had set up a great higher education system that was accessible to all until Reagan killed free tuition to state schools. Even though a great education isn’t available to as many people in CA, it’s still there.
Access to clients and suppliers. California invested in the kind of infrastructure that makes people want to live in a certain place over another. Local transportation, airports, and highways are all means of attracting people to a city or state.

Wanna know what these entrepreneurs didn’t cite as a factor in deciding where to start their companies? Low taxes. Only 5% of entrepreneurs included that on their list of factors.

California did the opposite of what (for example) Kentucky is doing. They’re sitting around and whining about being piss poor because the big, mean government won’t let business squeeze every last bit of natural resources out of the land and sets taxes too high for anyone to want to start a business there. California in the mean time, ran out of gold a long fucking time ago but since they invested in building infrastructure and universities like UCLA and Berkeley, they are now the world’s seventh largest economy.

California spent the money it needed to in order to create a climate for California republicans to prosper, and have no worries other than how not to pay to maintain the environment that enables their wealth.

Bruce Jenner gets to focus on his taxes because he doesn’t have the needs of a poor transgender person living in a red state. He doesn’t have to worry about being the victim of a hate crime because California is a much more open and accepting place than other states. Let’s keep it real, his wealth largely protects him, but living in an accepting culture doesn’t hurt.

Don’t misunderstand me, my intention is not to blame Jenner for his views or to diminish the positive impact I believe he’s going to have on trans acceptance in the US. I’m just trying to explain how someone in his position may have come to hold republican view. He’s completely sheltered from the destructiveness of conservatism. You can’t be responsible for now knowing what you don’t know. He’s living in a bubble (okay, it’s actually more like a circus tent) where he’s not exposed to these efforts by republicans to humiliate and denigrate him.

He’s lucky enough to spend time worrying on how to keep as much of his money as he can so that he can pass it down to his lovely family, who will undoubtedly create more jobs that Google, if only they get the chance to inherit all of his money without paying any taxes on it.

Thanks Homophobic Pizza Hillbillies!

April 19, 2015 by Bitchy

If you follow me on social media, you know that I never bought the idea that the pizza place in Indiana who proudly stated that they would refuse to cater a gay wedding raised $842,000. Everything about that GoFundMe campaign looked fishy. First of all, the donations were nearly entirely anonymous with no messages of support. Who the hell makes a political statement donation without making a political statement? On any other funding campaign, the majority of donations have a name and a comment from most of the contributors. This one had virtually none. The next thing was the dollar amount. Something happens after a while in fundraising campaigns; people will go to contribute and after a certain amount has been raised, they don’t end up contributing. Wouldn’t you think that at (say) 200k, contributors would tell themselves that the pizza hillbillies don’t need their money because they’ve raised plenty?

My suspicion is that they were getting robodonations from a big anti-gay group like Focus On The Family, Brian Fisher, or any other group that has the nerve to use the word ‘family to push their family busting agenda forward.

But this post isn’t about that. This post is about thanking the pizza hillbillies and their allies. Because they allegedly made so much money letting their bigoted freak flags fly, other bigots felt empowered to let let their hate rip. Their really stupid strategy to grab some short term headlines, has really put one of the last remaining nails in the homophobe coffin. The most predictable thing in the world happened, when the pizza hillbillies appeared to get rich because of their hate. Another homophobe boldly came out, thinking that he would mine him some of that hate gold from them thar hills.

Enter Brian Klawiter, a car repair shop owner who has been victimized enough, and he’s going to use the few literacy skills he possesses to let everyone know:

Enough is enough.

Our rights as conservative Americans are being squashed more and more everyday. Apparently if you are white (or close to it), you have a job, go to church, and own a gun~~… T~~ , that translates into racists, privileged, bigoted, conspiracy theorist. Too many of us say nothing. Well, freedom of speech isn’t just for Liberals,. THEY are the ones that need to learn to ~~"co-exist"~~, coexist. THEY are the ones who need to WORK to be ~~"equal"~~ equal.

Therefore, in the spirit of freedom (whats left of it) and MY right to operate MY business as I see fit:

Guns ARE allowed at DIESELTEC, so much so in fact that we will offer a discount if you bring in your gun. ("On duty" cops are excluded because that‘s not their gun,. That‘s my gun bought with my money,. ~~off duty absolutely!~~ Armed off duty officers are welcome to take advantage of this offer)

I am a Christian. My company will be run in a way that reflects that. Dishonesty, thievery, immoral behavior, etc. will not be welcomed at MY place of business. (I would not hesitate to refuse service to an openly gay person or persons. Homosexuality is wrong, period. If you want to argue this fact with me then I will put your vehicle together with all bolts and no nuts and you can see how that works.)

We, as a team, work hard for whats ours. We are not protected by unions or contracts. We absolutely MUST provide our customers with a service level that would make them come back or tell their friends about us. We don’t have a "right", and we are not "entitled" to our pay. We must EARN it.

I am not racists,. You are for assuming I am, however, I am really quick to judge... if it acts like a duck, and quacks like a duck…

It IS a free country and I support your right to your opinion,. That being said, if you don’t like what I have to say, I reserve that same right to tell you to go cry to your momma (cause your daddy would probably smack ya’,. Better yet, ~~yes,~~ go tell your dad.)

I took the liberty of grading it, although I did leave the colloquialisms in for fun. I hope you don’t mind.

Naturally, a GoFundMe page went up because….he was anticipating losing business? Felt he deserved to get paid for extra effort in doing a racist/ homophobic/ ammosexual/ Christian victimhood quadruple axel? Apparently, just saying something stupid and hateful is reason enough to panhandle the world. No actual cause or need is necessary. Just allowing fellow haters the satisfaction of throwing a dollar in the hate jar is justification in itself. GoFundMe ended up taking the page down after a few hours. I couldn’t find a cache of the page, but it apparently only raised five bucks from a married lesbian mother of three who commented, “Will you except [sic] my money? Or is it too gay for you?”

The single five dollar contribution in the form of a bitch slap is awesome. It actually demonstrates the opposite of what the pizza hillbillies’ page supposedly demonstrated (and it makes that page that much more suspicious, thereby adding credibility to my theory). I hope that more people try this because I am certain that they will get the same result; virtually no public support. By the way, I don’t agree with GoFundMe taking down pages. If your website is a conduit for people to raise money for a cause, you shouldn’t censor those causes. Let the murdering cop raise money. Let that cop’s victim’s family raise money to civilly sue the fuck out of the cop. Let the hateful hillbillies raise money. Let anyone donate to anything. You don’t get to act as a moral compass for a small but vocal segment of the country. The easiest way to let people judge their own morality, as well as the courage of their convictions, is to not allow anonymous donations. I wouldn’t be opposed to GoFundMe doing that, but I don’t feel comfortable with their selective removal of fundraising campaigns. I guess that’s just me. I believe that over time, my views will prevail because they’re the morally correct ones. If a loathsome person raises a few hundred thousand dollars along the way, that doesn’t bother me because it’s a nice reality check on where the country is on issues. I promise you that there won’t be a nickel in donations for homophobic, "Christian" pizzeria owners (who nonetheless serve sausage) ten years from now. Let them raise as much money as they can, until they can’t anymore.

That five dollar protest donation isn’t the only response the illiterate, homophobic car repair guy got. Cummins Inc, a huge car engine manufacturer contacted Deiseltec and told them not to use their logo in their store window. That happened a day after the illiterate and homophobic rant.

But my favorite response (so far) came from Jeffrey Mapes, a bankruptcy lawyer in Grand Rapids, MI. He posted the following letter on his practices’ website;

Dear Dieseltec:

Allow me to introduce myself, my name is Jeffrey Mapes, and I specialize in bankruptcy law — helping individuals and corporations when things go wrong. I noticed your post on Facebook where you decided to alienate most of the general public by stating that you will refuse service to openly homosexual people. This is certainly an unorthodox business strategy, and perhaps it will work for you, but I get the feeling you will need a bankruptcy attorney pretty soon and I wanted to offer my services. Like you, I am white, male, Christian, a business owner, and a gun owner. Unlike you, I provide services to everyone regardless of their sexual orientation because it doesn’t matter to me — I hope this won’t be a deal breaker for you.

If that upsets you, let me tell you a little bit more about our office to try and persuade you. The first thing you will notice is how friendly and compassionate the office staff is. Despite your inane, incoherent and just plain dumb comments, we know that everyone makes mistakes and we want to help you overcome them. They will also be more than willing to help you with some basic grammar that you seem to struggle with.

If you still need more convincing, let me assure you that we will make certain that your bankruptcy petition is filed correctly and there are no errors. You stated in your post that you would incorrectly assemble a vehicle in order to prove a point. I want to let you know that despite the fact that I would love to prove a point to you about tolerance, I won’t compromise my standards of quality to do so. After all, I have to look in the mirror at the end of the day and if I didn’t do my best for everyone, I would have trouble sleeping. Perhaps you could give me pointers on how you sleep at night?

Just a few other housekeeping items. While I certainly don’t encourage people to bring guns into my office, so long as you have the proper permit and handle it responsibly, you can bring your gun along. I would only ask that you refrain from menacingly stroking your weapon while you quietly sing David Allen Coe songs to yourself. I also think you have a deep and fundamental misunderstanding of the First Amendment and how it works, but that is a long discussion and we should save that for when we meet in person.

Well Dieseltec, I hope I’ve convinced you that Mapes Law Offices is the right place for you to file your bankruptcy. I would like to leave you with some words of inspiration from the dramatic film Billy Madison and I hope that you will take them to heart:

"What you’ve just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul."

Sincerely,

Jeffrey D. Mapes

I like it. I think that people should be able to speak their minds (unless their mind is full of death threats or any threat for that matter), whether that’s with their words or with their contributions. Why? Because I’m not worried about opposing views. I’m confident that mine will win in the long run.

So please, homophobes, racists, anti semites, lay here on the word’s couch and tell us how you feel. And everyone else, feel free to reply. But for fucks sake, can we cut the crap with the threats? How fucking insecure are you, about your point of view, that you have to resort to threats of violence?

Both Parties Are Exactly The Same, Part I

April 14, 2015 by Bitchy

I hear this nonsense a lot, so I thought I would start a series of posts highlighting how completely untrue this mantra is. "Both parties are exactly the same" is truly the view of someone who doesn’t like to think, but enjoys having an opinion nonetheless.

By the way, correcting that fallacy does not mean that the person who is doing the correcting is doing anything other than correcting the fallacy. That leap to, "you’re crazy if you think democrats are awesome" isn’t well reasoned. Telling you you’re wrong about the false equivalency isn’t the same as saying that democrats are eighteen flavors of awesome. That would be the leap of a lazy thinker. I’m aware that neither party is laser focused in the poor and the middle class. I’m aware that democrats aren’t fabulous. But pointing out that every decade or so, democrats do something meaningful to help you is a fact. It’s a fact that isn’t true of republicans. Do I think that throwing me a crumb every ten years is sufficient? Not even remotely, but it’s a difference that makes the "they’re exactly the same" argument a lie.

No one I’ve ever gotten into this conversation with has ever been able to come up with a single thing that republicans have done to improve their lives. That should be a clear indication that the "exactly the same" argument isn’t true. And yet, the person who makes the claim usually soldiers on with their losing opinion.

So I’m going to highlight differences as they come up. Part one starts in Texas. Oh Texas, how I love you.

We have all seen copious amounts of footage of cops behaving badly in the past year. As a result, we’ve all spent the past year or two talking about outfitting these cops with body cameras to ensure that we have video of every incident involving any cop. The public seems to be in agreement that body cameras are a good idea. Everyone doesn’t necessarily agree that the body cams alone will solve the problems we’ve been seeing, but everyone agrees that they need to be more widely used. There are a small minority of people who don’t agree with putting body cams on cops.

That small minority includes cops, their unions, and a handful of legislators. One of these legislators is state representative Jason Villalba of Dallas, who introduced house bill 2918. This bill makes recording a cop a class B misdemeanor. You can’t record from within 25 feet, or 100 feet if you’re armed. Let’s be honest here, this is Texas. Who isn’t armed (don’t email me, I’m kidding)? Anyway, he’s getting lots of shit for this bill from freedom loving Texans (and Americans at large).

He claims that the bill is designed to prevent videographer from "interfering" with law enforcement. I guess he’s concerned about citizens interfering with incidents of misconduct, police brutality, and murder by a police officer.

Did I mention he’s a republican? YAY small government conservatism!

At virtually the same moment that freedom loving Jason Villalba is attempting to make taping cops a crime, state representative Ron Reynolds from Missouri City filed a bill that would require all police officers who come in contact with the public to wear body cameras. Reynolds introduced his bill a week after the video of Walter Scott’s murder came out and completely contradicted the murdering cop’s fanciful account.

Did I mention that Representative Reynolds is a democrat?

His bill didn’t make it out of committee, by the way. Killing it appears to be a joint effort by both republicans and democrats.

But still, Reynold’s bill was a natural (and widely held) reaction to the Walter Scott video. What was Villalba’s bill a reaction to?

Villalba got so much shit for his bill, that he’s retracted it for now. If you think he learned something from the reaction, think again. He’s going back to rewrite it. The Dallas Morning News spoke with him. What he had to say them was interesting. From the article;

The Dallas Republican conceded flaws in the bill, written by outside police groups, and he takes responsibility for not properly vetting it before filing.

So he got a bill from an interest group (police union) and just filed it without reading it? Okay that’s not unusual even though it’s always outrageous, but republicans really are much more comfortable with this process. They’re used to just putting a bill out there, as it was written by a special interest. They’ve been selling out for much longer than democrats have.

But wait, listen to what he thinks the problem was with his bill;

Villalba said he’ll fix the biggest problem — that the legislation would subject a citizen to arrest if the citizen photographed his own encounter with police……….Of course, he said, a person should be able to video his own detainment. He said the bill should have made clear the proposed 25-foot cordon around a police scene pertained only to third-party onlookers.

Oh, well that solves the problem and preserves freedom. So if you’re witnessing a cop beating the shit out of a homeless man, you would still be committing a crime by taping the incident. But if you’re the one who’s being beaten, by all means, get out your iPhone and tape away. Is this asshole serious?

Does this new version sound more "conservative" to anyone? Does this bill sound like it’s aim is to serve anyone other than dirty cops?

Please spare me the "they’re all the same" mantra. While I’m at it, I’m also tired of that "republicans want smaller government" bullshit too. Can we finally put that to rest once and for all?

As I said earlier, I will be posting more examples of the differences as they come up. I wanted to write about these two bills because they were both introduced within three weeks of each other. The bill protecting the public isn’t going to go anywhere because members of both parties have been paid off by police unions. But at least someone (a democrat) tried to protect the public.

Republicans are always in 100% lockstep with throwing the public over in favor of the special interests that serve them. Okay that’s not actually true. There are a handful of republicans on a local level that aren’t 100% corporate shills, but on the national level, my 100% figure is entirely accurate.

Wanna prove me wrong? Awesome. Show me something republicans have done for you in the past forty years. Until then, stop telling me they’re exactly the same.

The Inevitability Of Hillary

April 13, 2015 by Bitchy

I posted this stupid piece yesterday with a long commentary, but the piece is so stupid that I have more to say. The offensively stupid piece is titled, There’s A Reality About Hillary Clinton That Many Liberals Need To Face. So at this point I’m already a little irritated because of the condescending tone, but I thought that maybe the writer had something substantive, thoughtful, and new to say.

Nope. He starts off by listing the ages of four Supreme Court justices. Cause the "you’re voting for the supreme court" point is on that has never been made before. Genius! Oh, wait. Yawn.

The next point he makes in mounting this great case for Hillary, is that he points out that Elizabeth Warren isn’t running. He actually tells us this three times. When you’re making a case for why people should show up to vote for the candidate your piece is about, perhaps pointing out that the candidate many people really want isn’t going to run isn’t the best way to start. Your opening salvo is, "your first choice isn’t running, so get yourself used to the idea of settling for what you’re going to get." Weak. Seriously, that’s so weak. If you’re going to write a piece outlining why people need to turn out for Hillary, perhaps you should make a case for Hillary.

He never makes a case for Hillary. Not once in the whole condescending piece in which he lectures everyone who isn’t bright enough to have thought of his hackneyed points before. He lists precisely no accomplishments and no qualifications.

But the most galling part of this ridiculous piece, is that he’s talking to liberals who have assessed Hillary to be too far right for us. In other words, he’s talking down to people who have been paying attention. I find this notion that liberals (real liberals, for whom Hillary isn’t all that) are going to stay home and let republicans take the white house, completely ludicrous. We’re not stupid. If we were stupid, we would be excited by Hillary and rooting for her to raise every penny of that 2.5 billion dollars she’s aiming for, cause how could that possibly not be awesome for us? I mean, it’s not like the corporations and banks giving her the money don’t have the interests of the middle class and poor on the forefront of their minds, right? I mean, Monsanto and Goldman Sachs obviously want her elected so that she can finish what Occupy Wall Street started, don’t they?

We’re not stupid, and we’re going to hold our noses when the time comes. But until that time comes, we’re going to push her left. Why? Cause we’re smarter than the buffoon who lectured me in this stupid piece of his. Did anyone actually watch Rahm Emanuel’s campaign after he failed to fend off Chuy Garcia’s primary challenge? Here. watch Jon Stewart show you;

The Daily Show
Daily Show Full Episodes, More Daily Show Videos, Comedy Central Full Episodes

Has anyone ever seen Rahm as humble as he was in those campaign commercials? You know why that happened? Cause we didn’t accept the inevitable, went for a progressive, and made a statement.

The writer of this piece thinks it’s smarter, and more forward thinking to just suck it up. We know better because we just saw it. We know better because neither Elizabeth Warren nor Bill de Blasio should be serving as senator and mayor (respectively) right now. The liberals this author he’s talking to are more sophisticated than the average voter. We don’t need lectures on short term strategy to motivate us to do what needs to be done and accept that which must be accepted, when it needs to be accepted.

In fact, some of us are so politically sophisticated, that we’ve really thought this through and concluded that even huge supporters of Hillary Clinton should be very concerned about what’s going on here. The coronation it looks like we’re about to have should make no one happy.

What’s happening in the democratic primary process is all that is wrong with Citizen’s United. Republicans have always had their coronations. It was always going to be McCain in 2008 because he was next in line (and owed after what Bush did to him in 2000). It was always going to be Romney in 2012 because the corporate overlords had already picked him four years earlier. The next republican in line always gets the nomination, but at least they put on a show with primary opponents. They still invest the time in building the theater and putting on a show for republican voters.

Democrats just leapfrogged to the next inevitable phase of post Citizen’s United elections. They’re not going to bother with a primary, and idiots like the guy who wrote that piece are telling us to just embrace the new coronation process. I mean honestly, no thinking person can be happy with this.

Let’s get into what else this writer failed to think forward about: the vice president. Primaries are how VP candidates are vetted and chosen. We’re going to have none of that. No vetting of a candidate, and no strengthening of the ticket by adding the primary opponent that can help carry a few more states. I’m not worried about Hillary, since she’s the most vetted candidate in the history of vetting. But who is her VP going to be, and how is this person going to be chosen? We’re supposed to just suck it up and trust that Hillary is wisely going to choose the person who is ostensibly going to be the democratic heir to the White House? What if she misses something in her vetting process and her pick gets chewed up and thrown out by republicans over something in their past that she missed?

This whole thing stinks and everyone, regardless of their views on Hillary should agree with me.

But enduring these ridiculous articles that assume that the not-happy-with-Hillary-crowd aren’t happy with her cause we’re dolts is ridiculous. We’re not overjoyed because we’re the opposite of dolts. We pay more attention than most.

There’s A Reality About Hillary Clinton That Many Liberals Need To Face

Read more at: http://www.forwardprogressives.com/reality-hillary-clinton-liberals-need-face/

There’s A Reality About Hillary Clinton That Many Liberals Need To Face

Read more at: http://www.forwardprogressives.com/reality-hillary-clinton-liberals-need-face/

There’s A Reality About Hillary Clinton That Many Liberals Need To Face

Read more at: http://www.forwardprogressives.com/reality-hillary-clinton-liberals-need-face/

Journalism By Way Of Comedian

April 8, 2015 by Bitchy

Anyone who is paying attention knows that Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert are far more informative than cable or network news. We have several polls and studies to prove it. I think it’s funny that they’re perceived as partisan liberals. They may be liberals, but they’re not partisan. They’re comedians, so neither of them has ever left a joke on the table because of loyalty to democrats. They’re perceived as partisan because republicans are batshit crazy, and therefore more funny. Democrats are not batshit crazy. They’re also not quite as corrupt as republicans (yet). So when Colbert said that "the facts have a well known liberal bias", he was being earnest.

Picking on republicans more isn’t partisanship. It’s sentience. The funny thing is that Jon Stewart, who owns both Daily Show and Colbert never set out to change the world. He never had an agenda, and never intended to play a partisan role in politics. In fact, he actively worked at staying in his comedian lane until he took the path of media watch dog.

I think Colbert is more inclined to use his influence to affect change. That whole thing he did with his PAC was genius. But by and large, Colbert also stayed in his comedian lane. Oh, except for that one time when he said everything that I’ve always wanted to say to George W Bush at the Correspondent’s Dinner. That was awesome. That was also (I’m not kidding) the first time republicans realized he wasn’t one of them.

Here comes John Oliver. He really does seem intent on changing the world. From dropping millions of people on the FCC to going after big tobacco, it’s clear that he doesn’t plan on just being funny. He’s an activist.

I felt that on Sunday, he went even beyond activist and became a journalist. He did an interview with Edward Snowden. Everyone is talking about the ‘dick pic’ part of the interview, where Oliver figured out that the only way to get Americans to give a shit about their privacy, was to frame the issue around their dick and said dick’s privacy. That was hysterical and clever, but that wasn’t the part of the interview that struck me.

The part that I found fascinating (and awesome) was the ten minutes that preceded the dick pic bit. The interview starts at about the 15:00 mark;

At the 19:40 minute mark, Oliver starts to ask Snowden some seriously tough questions. He asks Snowden if he’s read all the documents before he turned them over to the press. Snowden replied by saying, "I have evaluated all the documents that are in the archive". Oliver comes back with, "You’ve read every single one?" Snowden replies with, "Well, I do understand what I’ve turned over." And then Oliver shoots back with, "There’s a difference between understanding what’s in the documents and reading the documents." And then he punches Snowden hard with a sarcastic, "Right cause when you’re handing over thousands of NSA documents, the last thing you want to do is read them."

This interview was outstanding, and it was conducted by a comedian. I’m going to let you watch it because it gets even better from where I left off in relaying it to you.

To be clear, my position is that Edward Snowden is an American hero. He is a patriot who did what true patriots do; tried to make the country better by exposing something the government was doing in total secrecy.

That said, John Oliver is the first person to ever hold his (Snowden’s) feet to the fire on how he did what he did. He held Snowden accountable for a New York Times fuck up (watch the interview) in improperly redacting something that was actually harmful to national security. I loved that. I loved watching Snowden consider his own culpability for the unintended consequences of his actions.

Why did I love that? Because I’m a supporter of Snowden and what he did, and watching him being challenged helps me to reassess my support with more information. I am so sick to death of the stenography that happens in our "news". When a journalist actually challenges a politician on something they said, that’s the news. Everyone was talking about how George Stephanopoulos challenged Mike Pence over his hateful attempt at legalizing discrimination. It’s like everyone wanted to give Stephanopoulos a cookie for doing his job.

Our media sucks at this, and some of them are proud of the poop they sling every day. Chuck Todd proclaimed that it’s not his job to correct falsehoods. He also said that if he challenges guests on his show, they won’t come back. I have news for you Chuckie; you’re an overpaid stenographer, and if you can’t do an entertaining and informative show without having guests on, you’re a shitty broadcaster with no talent. Remember when Lara Logan was outraged that Michael Hastings committed the crime of journalism by reporting on what he saw when he was embedded with General McChrystal? When she told me she was a hack, I believed her so when her entirely unbelievable Benghazi propaganda piece came out in 60 Minutes, I wasn’t at all surprised.

Since we clearly can’t have journalists that do journalism in America, I hope we get more political comedian-journalists. Here, watch everyone on freaking Morning Joe, completely in awe of Oliver’s journalism. No really, click on that link and watch it.

Yeah, that happened totally unironically.

Here’s the thing about John Oliver – he’s also a flaming liberal who doesn’t do his job through a partisan lens. When a right wing hackneyed douchebag like Scarborough heaps praise on Oliver, that’s proof that you can be strongly politically oriented without being a partisan hack.

Media Matters is a partisan website. That doesn’t mean they’re not reputable and that they lie. Lying means they lie and unless you can prove that a media outlet lies, you can’t dismiss them because they’re partisan. Fox News lies. It’s the lies that make them unreliable, not the partisanship. Wanna know how I know they lie? Cause Media Matters and Right Wing Watch post videos of them lying every day. The fact that I don’t like Fox doesn’t make them liars. The fact that I can demonstrate they lie, makes them liars. "Partisan" does not mean "unreliable.

I’m going to side track for a minute. You know that whole, "liberal media" crap we’ve been hearing about for twenty years? Well that was all started by Roger Ailes whose head exploded over the coverage of the civil rights movement and MLK in the 60s. He was pissed off that the media aired events like the brutal beatings on the Edmund Pettis bridge in Selma on Bloody Sunday. In Ailes’ twisted and bigoted mind, showing America what segregation and bigotry looked like was liberal. Reporting on the endless and pointlessness that was going on in Vietnam was liberal. Never mind the fact that it was endless and pointless. Never mind the fact that discrimination is abhorrent. Both of those "liberal" positions were the correct positions morally and historically. But they were liberal, and Ailes didn’t agree with either position. And that’s when the words "liberal media" were foisted on America for the purpose of making journalists afraid of presenting the facts. Facts don’t have two sides. They’re facts. Evolution and creationism are not two sides of an issue. One is science, and the other is purely faith. There is no "side" there. There are no "sides" to the issue of climate change. 99% of scientists are telling us what they’ve found, and Exxon has a handful of "scientists" they’ve paid to say that it’s all a fiction. Those are not two equally valid and compelling "sides". So now we have a media who creates false equivalencies so as not to seem like they’re too liberal when they’re on the right sides of issues like showing you what happened in Selma. But I digress.

John Oliver is the best journalist we’ve seen since Walter Cronkite. I say that as someone who wants to see my heroes challenged. How the fuck else am I supposed to know if they’re worthy of my respect if no one ever challenges them? Anyone who uses the phrase, "gotcha question" needs to stop talking. Seriously, shut up and stop talking now. There’s no such thing as a gotcha question, since there’s an easy way to avoid them; don’t get got. And if you’re a lemming who doesn’t want to see your government officials "gotchaed", I urge you to stop spending time on politics. Perhaps sports is more your speed?

You should want your position challenged as often as it can be. You should learn to address someone who opposes you directly with facts and citations to the facts you base your opinion on. You shouldn’t talk past people. Someone brings up a point, you should address that point before introducing one you like better. That’s how you form sound opinions; by testing your beliefs. Now that journalists aren’t doing that, we’ve all forgotten how legitimate disagreement and debate is done. Don’t point somewhere else in order to distract from something someone said. Address it head on. If you can’t do that, you need to reassess your position.

I’m hoping that John Oliver will bring back the antiquated notion of critically looking at issues. I’m hoping that more comedians take his lead and fill the void left by our media.

My Wallet Is Anti Apartheid

March 19, 2015 by Bitchy

I’ve been boycotting Israeli products for a few years now, because I wasn’t confused about Bibi’s thoughts regarding a two state solution, or any solution that creates a Palestine. But now that he’s finally done everyone the courtesy of articulating his position that he will never support a Palestinian state, he’s made the situation far less ambiguous for everyone all around the world.

Europe is going to have to decide if they’re going to impose sanctions on Israel, or if they’re fine with the Palestinians remaining second class citizens in perpetuity. They’ve always said that they would support Israel as long as Israel was sitting at the negotiation table. Israel, of course hasn’t entered the building where the table is located for years, but Bibi has finally made it clear that as long as he’s the prime minister, it never will.

The US is going to have to decide what we’re going to do, especially by the time the next UN shindig takes place. Do we support Israel under any circumstances, and with no hope of peace ever happening in that region, or do we act in our own self interest? Remember when we were hearing the "they hate us for our freedom" bullshit? They never hated us for our freedom. That was a childish and simplistic thing to say. To the extent that "they" hate us, it’s probably much more about our incessant involvement in the region from installing The Shah in Iran to supporting and then killing Saddam, to enabling Israel in their efforts drive every single Palestinian out of their homes so that Israel can have the whole pie to themselves.

Personally, I’ve always been opposed to apartheid so my Jewiness isn’t really a factor in my human rights stance. I’m still against apartheid. Bibi’s admission makes things far less nuanced and confusing for anyone wasn’t sure who the "bad guys" are in this situation. Under Netanyahu’s leadership, Israel will always be an apartheid state. It’s pretty straight forward. Either you believe that Palestinians deserve to be second class citizens, getting everything they deserve and Israel is nothing but awesome sauce, or you’re against the oppression of anyone, regardless of who the oppressors are.

So if your wallet wants to join my wallet in not supporting apartheid, you should join me in boycotting Israeli products. Here are some major ones;

SodaStream – Cuisinart makes a soda machine that costs less and doesn’t require those pesky proprietary cartridges.
Sabra hummus – avoiding this should be easy. Trader Joe’s has great hummus that costs less and doesn’t drive anyone out of their homeland.
Tribe hummas – see above solution.
Ahava beauty products.
Hewlett Packard
Motorola
Moroccan oil – sorry ladies, but look into Euphora.

That’s obviously just a partial list. To ensure that you don’t inadvertently support Israeli apartheid, you can download an app called Buycott. It’s available for both iPhone and Android. All you have to do is use the app to scan the barcode of any product you’re thinking about buying. The app will help you to avoid supporting a myriad of different things so it’s not just limited to identifying products that support Israeli apartheid. It will identify Koch industries products, environmentally disastrous products, and a whole slew of other causes that are important to you.

I know what you’re thinking; but Bibi took it all back today and said that he would consider a two state solution. That is, in fact, what he said. That’s when you include a couple of data points in determining whether he was being honest two days ago, or if he’s being honest today. For example, there was that video he put out on election day when he was pooping his pants over the possibility of losing the election. You know, the one where he said,

"Arab voters are heading to the polling stations in droves!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!",

and urged his supporters to come out and vote. Was he excited because Israeli citizens who are Arab were voting, so turnout was going to be awesome? Or was he sounding alarm bells because Israeli second class citizens who are Arab were voting and that would be bad?

You decide.

Has he reached out anytime in your memory to open talks with Abbas? Or do his actions line up with his statement about never allowing a two state solution?

You decide.

I have and surprisingly, trusting my lying eyes is ultimately the direction that made more sense to me.

So until I see evidence of an earnest attempt on Israel’s part to reach an agreement, my wallet and I will be sure not to support Israeli apartheid.

Protesting With A Gun

March 13, 2015 by Bitchy

You probably know by now that two police officers in Ferguson were shot during a protest last night.

Congratulations shooter, you just made it really easy for the cops, the right wing, and everyone else who is anti-democracy to demonize the protestors. You have made the cops the victims, and you’ve undermined every single thing the protestors have been doing for the past nine months.

Two shots. That’s all it took to wipe out the tiny, tiny gains that were made in Ferguson.

Two shots. That’s all it took to make the citizens of Ferguson as guilty as the cops who targeted people based on who they are.

Two shots. That’s all it took to turn the victims of the racism in Ferguson into punks who must we policed more closely.

Two shots. That’s all it took to justify every can of tear gas and every piece of riot gear that any police department across the country decides to use in order to deal with protestors.

This shooter made things worse for everyone who lives in or around Ferguson. The cops, the residents, and the Department of Justice, who’s there to right the wrongs done there.

When a cop uses excessive force, or is caught committing a crime, it’s always an isolated incident, attributed to one bad apple. When one person among the thousands of protestors in Ferguson over the past nine months shoots cops, all protestors are violent criminals and must be treated as such.

There is a different standard for those with less power, and there always has been That’s just a fact. That’s a fact that Martin King Luther Jr knew all too well, which is why he insisted on nonviolence. I cannot believe that someone would take shots at police officers five days after the fiftieth anniversary of Bloody Sunday. The events that took place on that bridge would have been seen very differently, had a single one of those cops been harmed in any way by a protestor.

When you are an oppressed minority, you have to be exponentially better than the people oppressing you. You have to be patient, you have to be peaceful, and you have to be professorial because it is your job to educate everyone else on your own oppression. I know it sucks, but it is the job of the oppressed to turn members of the oppressing class into allies. That is the only way to end the oppression. It’s never worked any other way, anywhere in time or space.

The moment any single member of that oppressed group acts out violently, that entire group is viewed as deserving of that oppression.

What happened last night was awful. It was awful for the two cops who may or may not have been part of the problem in Ferguson. It was awful for the people fighting for equality in Ferguson, and it was awful for all black people all across the country because they must all now apologize profusely and in perpetuity for what the shooter did.

"What happened last night was a pure ambush. This was not someone who was trying to bring healing to Ferguson, this was a damn punk." – Eric Holder

Let the requisite apologizing begin.

Republican Contempt For The Constitution

March 10, 2015 by Bitchy

In case you missed it yesterday, forty-seven republicans in the senate sent a letter to the Ayatollah of Iran, letting him know that Obama’s word in the negotiations is basically meaningless. Think I’m being hyperbolic? See for yourself;

It has come to our attention while observing your nuclear negotiations with our government that you may not fully understand our constitutional system. Thus, we are writing to bring to your attention two features of our Constitution—the power to make binding international agreements and the different character of federal offices—which you should seriously consider as negotiations progress.

We hope this letter enriches your knowledge of our constitutional system and promotes mutual understanding and clarity as nuclear negotiations progress.

First, under our Constitution, while the president negotiates international agreements, Congress plays the significant role of ratifying them. In the case of a treaty, the Senate must ratify it by a two-thirds vote. A so-called congressional-executive agreement requires a majority vote in both the House and the Senate (which, because of procedural rules, effectively means a three-fifths vote in the Senate). Anything not approved by Congress is a mere executive agreement.

Second, the offices of our Constitution have different characteristics. For example, the president may serve only two 4-year terms, whereas senators may serve an unlimited number of 6-year terms. As applied today, for instance, President Obama will leave office in January 2017, while most of us will remain in office well beyond then—perhaps decades.

What these two constitutional provisions mean is that we will consider any agreement regarding your nuclear-weapons program that is not approved by the Congress as nothing more than an executive agreement between President Obama and Ayatollah Khamenei. The next president could revoke such an executive agreement with the stroke of a pen and future Congresses could modify the terms of the agreement at any time.

Here’s the thing; congress’ role with regard to foreign treaties, is to vote on a deal after the president has done the negotiating. Congress does not enter into treaties with foreign countries. And it’s unprecedented for congress to step in to halt a treaty. This has literally never happened before.

These idiots think they stuck it to the black guy but what they actually did, was take another step toward turning the US into the clown car of developed countries. Step one was with the perpetual government shutdowns over deciding whether to pay for the spending they already approved (and spent). That was nice. Those headlines all around the world that basically said, "WTF, United States?" were awesome. So was the downgrading of our credit rating. So now what they’ve done, in addition to letting the world know that we don’t take our debt all that seriously, is to tell the world that we don’t take our president all that seriously and neither should they.

I’ve never witnessed this level of disrespect for the office of the presidency. Not even when it was deserved in 2000, when the president was selected by the Supreme Court (it’s a fact, look it up), rather than duly elected by the citizens of the United States. No one in congress threw a temper tantrum to subvert the powers of the executive branch, just because the presidency wasn’t legitimately won by that occupant of the oval office. I didn’t see this level of disrespect when congress passed The Boland Amendment explicitly banning president Reagan from "overthrowing the government of Nicaragua or provoking a war between Nicaragua and Honduras". Reagan flat out ignored that law and went ahead and did as he pleased anyway, and that congress never undermined him the way this congress is undermining President Obama.

These were legitimately questionable presidencies and still, congress respected the authority given to the president by the constitution. Why? Well for one, I don’t think it ever occurred to them to so thoroughly crap on the constitution, the way this congress has.

But more importantly, I want to believe that there was some thought given to precedent. This moronic republican congress is utterly incapable of calculating the ramifications of their actions. President Obama has less than two years left in office so shitting on him in public doesn’t have much of an upside if you really think about it. It is well within congress’ power not to ratify any deal Obama makes with Iran. From the constitution;

He shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur…..

All they had to do, was to wait for their turn to vote on any deal Obama may have made with Iran. This letter wasn’t about killing the treaty. It was about undermining Obama. They weren’t afraid that Obama was going to make a bad deal, as their leader President Netanyahu warned. They were afraid that he was going to make a really good deal that was going to neutralize this bogeyman they love so much, for good. But they actually did way more than that. They permanently undermined the executive branch. They diminished not only this president, but all future presidents, as well as all future congresses.

They literally turned the United States government into the laughing stock of the world. They turned themselves into a joke.

Read me now, quote me later; they insured that President Obama will have an approval rating greater than or equal to the 68% that President Clinton had when he left office. I’ll go a step further so that you don’t have to wait nearly two years to see if I know what the hell I’m talking about; by summer, President Obama’s approval rating is going to be around 50%. These morons in congress have ensured that President Obama will be seen as one of the most beloved presidents in history. Why? Because the American people don’t like to see their president picked on by congress or anyone else. We’ve seen this movie before with Bill Clinton. On December 18, 1998, the house spent the whole day debating the impeachment of President Clinton. On December 19, 1998, the house approved two articles of impeachment. On December 19 – 20, 1998, Gallup reports the highest approval rating of the Clinton presidency at 73%.

My prediction isn’t wishful thinking, or rectally generated. I usually have a basis I can point to when I embark on the fool’s errand of making predictions!

Here’s another thing that congress didn’t take into account; sanctions against Iran. We alone, can’t successfully damage Iran with our sanctions. We have partners all around the world that joined us in squeezing Iran hard enough to get them to the negotiating table. I suspect that more than a few of our allies in these sanctions is going to question whether going along with the US still seems like a good idea. The sanctions that Obama negotiated had their desired effect; getting Iran to the negotiating table. If our congress is saying that we won’t be sitting on the other side of that table, under any circumstances, I don’t see why our allies would continue with the sanctions.

There is literally no upside for congressional republicans or the American people at large, in what those forty-seven idiotic senators did yesterday. They accomplished nothing for themselves, for you, or for the rest of the world. And if they get to their goal of starting a war with Iran, it’s going to be your kids that fight it.

Elections have consequences. This last election had nothing but negative consequences for all of us, regardless of party affiliation.