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A Trans Republican?

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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;

Veronica

 

 


 

 

 


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

 

 

V

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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.       

           

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Thanks Homophobic Pizza Hillbillies!

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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?   

     

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Both Parties Are Exactly The Same, Part I

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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.  

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The Inevitability Of Hillary

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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;

 

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/

 

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Journalism By Way Of Comedian

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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.                  

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My Wallet Is Anti Apartheid

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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. 

     

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Protesting With A Gun

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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. 

 

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Republican Contempt For The Constitution

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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.

 

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The Evidence Of Ferguson’s Racism

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Everyone is probably aware that the Department Of Justice’s report into the situation in Ferguson was released yesterday. If you regularly read this blog or follow me on social media, you probably surmised that my lack of comment was due to the fact that I was reading the whole report. That would have been a correct assumption. Rather than write a narrative, explaining my reaction to the report, I’m going to do something different. I’m going to give you the evidence (not the conclusions) that the report was based on in bullet points.

This is all of the evidence, so you can draw your own conclusions before reading mine at the end of this piece.

This is all going to be verbatim from the report. This report is full of individual anecdotal evidence. I am only going to post data because we all know how I feel about anecdotal evidence. You can read the whole report if you want more information.

FERGUSON LAW ENFORCEMENT EFFORTS ARE FOCUSED ON GENERATING REVENUE

 City officials have consistently set maximizing revenue as the priority for Ferguson’s law enforcement activity. Ferguson generates a significant and increasing amount of revenue from the enforcement of code provisions. Of the $11.07 million in general fund revenue the City collected in fiscal year 2010, $1.38 million came from fines and fees collected by the court; similarly, in fiscal year 2011, the City’s general fund revenue of $11.44 million included $1.41 million from fines and fees. In its budget for fiscal year 2012, however, the City predicted that revenue from municipal fines and fees would increase over 30% from the previous year’s amount to $1.92 million; the court exceeded that target, collecting $2.11 million. In its budget for fiscal year 2013, the City budgeted for fines and fees to yield $2.11 million; the court exceeded that target as well, collecting $2.46 million. For 2014, the City budgeted for the municipal court to generate $2.63 million in revenue. The City has not yet made public the actual revenue collected that year, although budget documents forecasted lower revenue than was budgeted. Nonetheless, for fiscal year 2015, the City’s budget anticipates fine and fee revenues to account for $3.09 million of a projected $13.26 million in general fund revenues. 

Officers sometimes write six, eight, or, in at least one instance, fourteen citations for a single encounter. Indeed, officers told us that some compete to see who can issue the largest number of citations during a single stop.

The City has been aware for years of concerns about the impact its focus on revenue has had on lawful police action and the fair administration of justice in Ferguson. It has disregarded those concerns—even concerns raised from within the City government—to avoid disturbing the court’s ability to optimize revenue generation. In 2012, a Ferguson City Council member wrote to other City officials in opposition to Judge Brockmeyer’s reappointment, stating that “[the Judge] does not listen to the testimony, does not review the reports or the criminal history of defendants, and doesn’t let all the pertinent witnesses testify before rendering a verdict.” The Council member then addressed the concern that “switching judges would/could lead to loss of revenue,” arguing that even if such a switch did “lead to a slight loss, I think it’s more important that cases are being handled properly and fairly.” The City Manager acknowledged mixed reviews of the Judge’s work but urged that the Judge be reappointed, noting that “[i]t goes without saying the City cannot afford to lose any efficiency in our Courts, nor experience any decrease in our Fines and Forfeitures.”

Ferguson’s Police Practices

FPD Engages in a Pattern of Unconstitutional Stops and Arrests in Violation of the Fourth Amendment

FPD’s approach to law enforcement has led officers to conduct stops and arrests that violate the Constitution. We identified several elements to this pattern of misconduct. Frequently, officers stop people without reasonable suspicion or arrest them without probable cause. Officers rely heavily on the municipal “Failure to Comply” charge, which appears to be facially unconstitutional in part, and is frequently abused in practice. FPD also relies on a system of officer-generated arrest orders called “wanteds” that circumvents the warrant system and poses a significant risk of abuse. The data show, moreover, that FPD misconduct in the area of stops and arrests disproportionately impacts African Americans.

Good supervision would correct improper arrests by an officer before they became routine. But in Ferguson, the same dynamics that lead officers to make unlawful stops and arrests cause supervisors to conduct only perfunctory review of officers’ actions—when they conduct any review at all. FPD supervisors are more concerned with the number of citations and arrests officers produce than whether those citations and arrests are lawful or promote public safety. Internal communications among command staff reveal that FPD for years has failed to ensure even that officers write their reports and first-line supervisors approve them. In 2010, a senior police official complained to supervisors that every week reports go unwritten, and hundreds of reports remain unapproved. “It is time for you to hold your officers accountable,” he urged them. In 2014, the official had the same complaint, remarking on 600 reports that had not been approved over a six-month period. Another supervisor remarked that coding errors in the new records management system is set up “to hide, do away with, or just forget reports,” creating a heavy administrative burden for supervisors who discover incomplete reports months after they are created. In practice, not all arrests are given incident numbers, meaning supervisors may never know to review them. These systemic deficiencies in oversight are consistent with an approach to law enforcement in which productivity and revenue generation, rather than lawful policing, are the priority. Thus, even as commanders exhort line supervisors to more closely supervise officer activity, they perpetuate the dynamics that discourage meaningful supervision.

FPD Engages in a Pattern of First Amendment Violations

FPD’s approach to enforcement results in violations of individuals’ First Amendment rights. FPD arrests people for a variety of protected conduct: people are punished for talking back to officers, recording public police activities, and lawfully protesting perceived injustices.

In Ferguson, however, officers frequently make enforcement decisions based on what subjects say, or how they say it. Just as officers reflexively resort to arrest immediately upon noncompliance with their orders, whether lawful or not, they are quick to overreact to challenges and verbal slights. These incidents—sometimes called “contempt of cop” cases—are propelled by officers’ belief that arrest is an appropriate response to disrespect. These arrests are typically charged as a Failure to Comply, Disorderly Conduct, Interference with Officer, or Resisting Arrest.

FPD officers also routinely infringe on the public’s First Amendment rights by preventing people from recording their activities.

In Ferguson, however, officers claim without any factual support that the use of camera phones endangers officer safety. Sometimes, officers offer no rationale at all. Our conversations with community members and review of FPD records found numerous violations of the right to record police activity.

The Ferguson Police Department’s infringement of individuals’ freedom of speech and right to record has been highlighted in recent months in the context of large-scale public protest. In November 2014, a federal judge entered a consent order prohibiting Ferguson officers from interfering with individuals’ rights to lawfully and peacefully record public police activities. That same month, the City settled another suit alleging that it had abused its loitering ordinance, Mun. Code § 29-89, to arrest people who were protesting peacefully on public sidewalks.

Despite these lawsuits, it appears that FPD continues to interfere with individuals’ rights to protest and record police activities. On February 9, 2015, several individuals were protesting outside the Ferguson police station on the six-month anniversary of Michael Brown’s death. According to protesters, and consistent with several video recordings from that evening, the protesters stood peacefully in the police department’s parking lot, on the sidewalks in front of it, and across the street. Video footage shows that two FPD vehicles abruptly accelerated from the police parking lot into the street. An officer announced, “everybody here’s going to jail,” causing the protesters to run. Video shows that as one man recorded the police arresting others, he was arrested for interfering with police action. Officers pushed him to the ground, began handcuffing him, and announced, “stop resisting or you’re going to get tased.” It appears from the video, however, that the man was neither interfering nor resisting. A protester in a wheelchair who was live streaming the protest was also arrested. Another officer moved several people with cameras away from the scene of the arrests, warning them against interfering and urging them to back up or else be arrested for Failure to Obey. The sergeant shouted at those filming that they would be arrested for Manner of Walking if they did not back away out of the street, even though it appears from the video recordings that the protesters and those recording were on the sidewalk at most, if not all, times. Six people were arrested during this incident. It appears that officers’ escalation of this incident was unnecessary and in response to derogatory comments written in chalk on the FPD parking lot asphalt and on a police vehicle.  

FPD Engages in a Pattern of Excessive Force in Violation of the Fourth Amendment

FPD engages in a pattern of excessive force in violation of the Fourth Amendment.
Many officers are quick to escalate encounters with subjects they perceive to be disobeying their orders or resisting arrest. They have come to rely on ECWs, specifically Tasers®, where less force—or no force at all—would do. They also release canines on unarmed subjects unreasonably and before attempting to use force less likely to cause injury. Some incidents of excessive force result from stops or arrests that have no basis in law. Others are punitive and retaliatory. In addition, FPD records suggest a tendency to use unnecessary force against vulnerable groups such as people with mental health conditions or cognitive disabilities, and juvenile students. Furthermore, as discussed in greater detail in Part III.C. of this report, Ferguson’s pattern of using excessive force disproportionately harms African-American members of the community. The overwhelming majority of force—almost 90%—is used against African Americans.

Finally, FPD does not perform any comprehensive review of force incidents sufficient to detect patterns of misconduct by a particular officer or unit, or patterns regarding a particular type of force. Indeed, FPD does not keep records in a manner that would allow for such a review. Within FPD’s paper storage system, the two-page use-of-force reports (which are usually handwritten) are kept separately from all other documentation, including ECW and pursuit forms for the same incidents. Offense reports are attached to some use-of-force reports but not others. Some use-of-force reports have been removed from FPD’s set of force files because the incidents became the subjects of an internal investigation or a lawsuit. As a consequence, when FPD provided us what it considers to be its force files—which, as described above, we have reason to believe do not capture all actual force incidents—a majority of those files were missing a critical document, such as an offense report, ECW report, or the use-of-force report itself. We had to make repeated requests for documents to construct force files amenable to fair review. There were some documents that FPD was unable to locate, even after repeated requests.

With its records incomplete and scattered, the department is unable to implement an early intervention system to identify officers who tend to use excessive force or the need for more training or better equipment—goals explicitly set out by FPD policy. It appears that no annual review of force incidents is conducted, as required by FPD General Order 410.07; indeed, a meaningful annual audit would be impossible. These recordkeeping problems also explain why Chief Jackson told us he could not remember ever imposing discipline for an improper use of force or ordering further training based on force problems.

Ferguson’sMunicipalCourtPractices

The Ferguson municipal court handles most charges brought by FPD, and does so not with the primary goal of administering justice or protecting the rights of the accused, but of maximizing revenue. The impact that revenue concerns have on court operations undermines the court’s role as a fair and impartial judicial body.20 Our investigation has uncovered substantial evidence that the court’s procedures are constitutionally deficient and function to impede a person’s ability to challenge or resolve a municipal charge, resulting in unnecessarily prolonged cases and an increased likelihood of running afoul of court requirements. At the same time, the court imposes severe penalties when a defendant fails to meet court requirements, including added fines and fees and arrest warrants that are unnecessary and run counter to public safety. These practices both reflect and reinforce an approach to law enforcement in Ferguson that violates the Constitution and undermines police legitimacy and community trust.

Ferguson’s municipal court practices combine to cause significant harm to many individuals who have cases pending before the court. Our investigation has found overwhelming evidence of minor municipal code violations resulting in multiple arrests, jail time, and payments that exceed the cost of the original ticket many times over. One woman, discussed above, received two parking tickets for a single violation in 2007 that then totaled $151 plus fees. Over seven years later, she still owed Ferguson $541—after already paying $550 in fines and fees, having multiple arrest warrants issued against her, and being arrested and jailed on several occasions. Another woman told us that when she went to court to try to pay $100 on a $600 outstanding balance, the Court Clerk refused to take the partial payment, even though the woman explained that she was a single mother and could not afford to pay more that month. A 90-year- old man had a warrant issued for his arrest after he failed to timely pay the five citations FPD issued to him during a single traffic stop in 2013. An 83-year-old man had a warrant issued against him when he failed to timely resolve his Derelict Auto violation. A 67-year-old woman told us she was stopped and arrested by a Ferguson police officer for an outstanding warrant for failure to pay a trash-removal citation. She did not know about the warrant until her arrest, and the court ultimately charged her $1,000 in fines, which she continues to pay off in $100 monthly increments despite being on a limited, fixed income. We have heard similar stories from dozens of other individuals and have reviewed court records documenting many additional instances of similarly harsh penalties, often for relatively minor violations.

Our review of police and court records suggests that much of the harm of Ferguson’s law enforcement practices in recent years is attributable to the court’s routine use of arrest warrants to secure collection and compliance when a person misses a required court appearance or payment. In a case involving a moving violation, procedural failures also result in the suspension of the defendant’s license. And, until recently, the court regularly imposed a separate Failure to Appear charge for missed appearances and payments; that charge resulted in an additional fine in the amount of $75.50, plus $26.50 in court costs. See Ferguson Mun. Code § 13-58 (repealed Sept. 23, 2014). During the last three years, the court imposed roughly one Failure to Appear charge per every two citations or summonses issued by FPD. Since at least 2010, the court has collected more revenue for Failure to Appear charges than for any other charge. This includes $442,901 in fines for Failure to Appear violations in 2013, which comprised 24% of the total revenue the court collected that year. While the City Council repealed the Failure to Appear ordinance in September 2014, many people continue to owe fines and fees stemming from that charge.

Ferguson Law Enforcement Practices Disproportionately Harm Ferguson’s African-American Residents and Are Driven in Part by Racial Bias

Ferguson’s police and municipal court practices disproportionately harm African Americans. Further, our investigation found substantial evidence that this harm stems in part from intentional discrimination in violation of the Constitution.

  • African Americans experience disparate impact in nearly every aspect of Ferguson’s law enforcement system. Despite making up 67% of the population, African Americans accounted for 85% of FPD’s traffic stops, 90% of FPD’s citations, and 93% of FPD’s arrests from 2012 to 2014. Other statistical disparities, set forth in detail below, show that in Ferguson:
  • African Americans are 2.07 times more likely to be searched during a vehicular stop but are 26% less likely to have contraband found on them during a search. They are 2.00 times more likely to receive a citation and 2.37 times more likely to be arrested following a vehicular stop.
  • African Americans have force used against them at disproportionately high rates, accounting for 88% of all cases from 2010 to August 2014 in which an FPD officer reported using force. In all 14 uses of force involving a canine bite for which we have information about the race of the person bitten, the person was African American.
  • African Americans are more likely to receive multiple citations during a single incident, receiving four or more citations on 73 occasions between October 2012 and July 2014, whereas non-African Americans received four or more citations only twice during that period.
  • African Americans account for 95% of Manner of Walking charges; 94% of all Fail to Comply charges; 92% of all Resisting Arrest charges; 92% of all Peace Disturbance charges; and 89% of all Failure to Obey charges.38
  • African Americans account for 96% of known arrests made exclusively because of an outstanding municipal warrant.
  • African Americans are 68% less likely than others to have their cases dismissed by the Municipal Judge, and in 2013 African Americans accounted for 92% of cases in which an arrest warrant was issued.

The racially disparate impact of Ferguson’s practices is driven, at least in part, by intentional discrimination in violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Racial bias and stereotyping is evident from the facts, taken together. This evidence includes: the consistency and magnitude of the racial disparities throughout Ferguson’s police and court enforcement actions; the selection and execution of police and court practices that disproportionately harm African Americans and do little to promote public safety; the persistent exercise of discretion to the detriment of African Americans; the apparent consideration of race in assessing threat; and the historical opposition to having African Americans live in Ferguson, which lingers among some today. We have also found explicit racial bias in the communications of police and court supervisors and that some officials apply racial stereotypes, rather than facts, to explain the harm African Americans experience due to Ferguson’s approach to law enforcement. “Determining whether invidious discriminatory purpose was a motivating factor demands a sensitive inquiry into such circumstantial and direct evidence of intent as may be available.” Vill. of Arlington Heights v. Metro. Hous. Dev. Corp., 429 U.S. 252, 266 (1977). Based on this evidence as a whole, we have found that Ferguson’s law enforcement activities stem in part from a discriminatory purpose and thus deny African Americans equal protection of the laws in violation of the Constitution.

Ferguson’s Law Enforcement Actions Impose a Disparate Impact on African Americans that Violates Federal Law

African Americans are disproportionately represented at nearly every stage of Ferguson law enforcement, from initial police contact to final disposition of a case in municipal court. While FPD’s data collection and retention practices are deficient in many respects, the data that is collected by FPD is sufficient to allow for meaningful and reliable analysis of racial disparities. This data—collected directly by police and court officials—reveals racial disparities that are substantial and consistent across a wide range of police and court enforcement actions.

African Americans experience the harms of the disparities identified below as part of a comprehensive municipal justice system that, at each juncture, enforces the law more harshly against black people than others. The disparate impact of Ferguson’s enforcement actions is compounding: at each point in the enforcement process there is a higher likelihood that an African American will be subjected to harsher treatment; accordingly, as the adverse consequences imposed by Ferguson grow more and more severe, those consequences are imposed more and more disproportionately against African Americans. Thus, while 85% of FPD’s vehicle stops are of African Americans, 90% of FPD’s citations are issued to African Americans, and 92% of all warrants are issued in cases against African Americans. Strikingly, available data shows that of those subjected to one of the most severe actions this system routinely imposes—actual arrest for an outstanding municipal warrant—96% are African American.

FPD reported 11,610 vehicle stops between October 2012 and October 2014. African Americans accounted for 85%, or 9,875, of those stops, despite making up only 67% of the population. White individuals made up 15%, or 1,735, of stops during that period, despite representing 29% of the population. These differences indicate that FPD traffic stop practices may disparately impact black drivers.39 Even setting aside the question of whether there are racial disparities in FPD’s traffic stop practices, however, the data collected during those stops reliably shows statistically significant racial disparities in the outcomes people receive after being stopped. Unlike with vehicle stops, assessing the disparate impact of post-stop outcomes—such as the rate at which stops result in citations, searches, or arrests—is not dependent on population data or on assumptions about differential offending rates by race; instead, the enforcement actions imposed against stopped black drivers are compared directly to the enforcement actions imposed against stopped white drivers.

In Ferguson, traffic stops of black drivers are more likely to lead to searches, citations, and arrests than are stops of white drivers. Black people are significantly more likely to be searched during a traffic stop than white people. From October 2012 to October 2014, 11% of stopped black drivers were searched, whereas only 5% of stopped white drivers were searched.

Despite being searched at higher rates, African Americans are 26% less likely to have contraband found on them than whites: 24% of searches of African Americans resulted in a contraband finding, whereas 30% of searches of whites resulted in a contraband finding. This disparity exists even after controlling for the type of search conducted, whether a search incident to arrest, a consent search, or a search predicated on reasonable suspicion. The lower rate at which officers find contraband when searching African Americans indicates either that officers’ suspicion of criminal wrongdoing is less likely to be accurate when interacting with African Americans or that officers are more likely to search African Americans without any suspicion of criminal wrongdoing. Either explanation suggests bias, whether explicit or implicit.40 This lower hit rate for African Americans also underscores that this disparate enforcement practice is ineffective.

Other, more subtle indicators likewise show meaningful disparities in FPD’s search practices: of the 31 Terry stop searches FPD conducted during this period between October 2012 to October 2014, 30 were of black individuals; of the 103 times FPD asked both the driver and passenger to exit a vehicle during a search, the searched individuals were black in 95 cases; and, while only one search of a white person lasted more than half an hour (1% of all searches of white drivers), 59 searches of African Americans lasted that long (5% of all searches of black drivers).

Of all stopped black drivers, 91%, or 8,987, received citations, while 87%, or 1,501, of all stopped white drivers received a citation.41 891 stopped black drivers—10% of all stopped black drivers—were arrested as a result of the stop, whereas only 63 stopped white drivers—4% of all stopped white drivers—were arrested. This disparity is explainable in large part by the high number of black individuals arrested for outstanding municipal warrants issued for missed court payments and appearances. As we discuss below, African Americans are more likely to have warrants issued against them than whites and are more likely to be arrested for an outstanding warrant than their white counterparts. Notably, on 14 occasions FPD listed the only reason for an arrest following a traffic stop as “resisting arrest.” In all 14 of those cases, the person arrested was black.

These disparities in the outcomes that result from traffic stops remain even after regression analysis is used to control for non-race-based variables, including driver age; gender; the assignment of the officer making the stop; disparities in officer behavior; and the stated reason the stop was initiated. Upon accounting for differences in those variables, African Americans remained 2.07 times more likely to be searched; 2.00 times more likely to receive a citation; and 2.37 times more likely to be arrested than other stopped individuals. Each of these disparities is statistically significant and would occur by chance less than one time in 1,000.42 The odds of these disparities occurring by chance together are significantly lower still.

Disparate Impact of FPD’s Multiple Citation Practices

The substantial racial disparities that exist within the data collected from traffic stops are consistent with the disparities found throughout FPD’s practices. As discussed above, our investigation found that FPD officers frequently make discretionary choices to issue multiple citations during a single incident. Setting aside the fact that, in some cases, citations are redundant and impose duplicative penalties for the same offense, the issuance of multiples citations also disproportionately impacts African Americans. In 2013, for instance, more than 50% of all African Americans cited received multiple citations during a single encounter with FPD, whereas only 26% of non-African Americans did. Specifically, 26% of African Americans receiving a citation received two citations at once, whereas only 17% of white individuals received two citations at once. Those disparities are even greater for incidents that resulted in more than two citations: 15% of African Americans cited received three citations at the same time, whereas 6% of cited whites received three citations; and while 10% of cited African Americans received four or more citations at once, only 3% of cited whites received that many during a single incident. Each of these disparities is statistically significant, and would occur by chance less than one time in 1,000. Indeed, related data from an overlapping time period shows that, between October 2012 to July 2014, 38 black individuals received four citations during a single incident, compared with only two white individuals; and while 35 black individuals received five or more citations at once, not a single white person did.43

Disparate Impact of Other FPD Charging Practices

From October 2012 to July 2014, African Americans accounted for 85%, or 30,525, of the 35,871 total charges brought by FPD—including traffic citations, summonses, and arrests. Non-African Americans accounted for 15%, or 5,346, of all charges brought during that period.44 These rates vary somewhat across different offenses. For example, African Americans represent a relatively low proportion of those charged with Driving While Intoxicated and Speeding on State Roads or Highways. With respect to speeding offenses for all roads, African Americans account for 72% of citations based on radar or laser, but 80% of citations based on other or unspecified methods. Thus, as evaluated by radar, African Americans violate the law at lower rates than as evaluated by FPD officers. Indeed, controlling for other factors, the disparity in speeding tickets between African Americans and non-African Americans is 48% larger when citations are issued not on the basis of radar or laser, but by some other method, such as the officer’s own visual assessment. This difference is statistically significant.

Data on charges issued by FPD from 2011-2013 shows that, for numerous municipal offenses for which FPD officers have a high degree of discretion in charging, African Americans are disproportionately represented relative to their representation in Ferguson’s population. While African Americans make up 67% of Ferguson’s population, they make up 95% of Manner of Walking in Roadway charges; 94% of Failure to Comply charges; 92% of Resisting Arrest charges; 92% of Peace Disturbance charges; and 89% of Failure to Obey charges. Because these non-traffic offenses are more likely to be brought against persons who actually live in Ferguson than are vehicle stops, census data here does provide a useful benchmark for whether a pattern of racially disparate policing appears to exist. These disparities mean that African Americans in Ferguson bear the overwhelming burden of FPD’s pattern of unlawful stops, searches, and arrests with respect to these highly discretionary ordinances.

Disparate Impact of FPD Arrests for Outstanding Warrants

FPD records show that once a warrant issues, racial disparities in FPD’s warrant execution practices make it exceedingly more likely for a black individual with an outstanding warrant to be arrested than a white individual with an outstanding warrant. Arrest data captured by FPD often fails to identify when a person is arrested solely on account of an outstanding warrant. Nonetheless, the data FPD collects during traffic stops pursuant to Missouri state requirements does capture information regarding when arrests are made for no other reason than that an arrest warrant was pending. Based upon that data, from October 2012 to October 2014, FPD arrested 460 individuals exclusively because the person had an outstanding arrest warrant. Of those 460 people arrested, 443, or 96%, were black. That African Americans are disproportionately impacted by FPD’s warrant execution practices is also reflected in the fact that, during the roughly six-month period from April to September 2014, African Americans accounted for 96% of those booked into the Ferguson City Jail at least in part because they were arrested for an outstanding municipal warrant.

Disparate Impact of Court Practices

In light of the opaque court procedures previously discussed, the likelihood of running afoul of a court requirement increases when a case lasts for a longer period of time and results in more court encounters. Court cases involving black individuals typically last longer than those involving white individuals. Of the 2,369 charges filed against white defendants in 2011, over 63% were closed after six months. By contrast, only 34% of the 10,984 charges against black defendants were closed within that time period. 10% of black defendants, however, resolved their case between six months and a year from when it was filed, while 9% of white defendants required that much time to secure resolution. And, while 17% of black defendants resolved their charge over a year after it was brought against them, only 9% of white defendants required that much time. Each of these cases was ultimately resolved, in most instances by satisfying debts owed to the court; but this data shows substantial disparities between blacks and whites regarding how long it took to do so.

On average, African Americans are also more likely to have a high number of “events” occur before a case is resolved. The court’s records track all activities that occur in a case—from payments and court appearances to continuances and Failure to Appear charges. 11% of cases involving African Americans had three “events,” whereas 10% of cases involving white defendants had three events. 14% of cases involving black defendants had four to five events, compared with 9% of cases involving white defendants. Those disparities increase as the recorded number of events per case increases. Data show that there are ten or more events in 17% of cases involving black defendants but only 5% of cases involving white defendants. Given that an “event” can represent a variety of different kinds of occurrences, these particular disparities are perhaps less probative; nonetheless, they strongly suggest that black defendants have, on average, more encounters with the court during a single case than their white peers.

Given the figures above, it is perhaps unsurprising that the municipal court’s practice of issuing warrants to compel fine payments following a missed court appearance or missed payment has a disparate impact on black defendants. 92% of all warrants issued in 2013 were issued in cases involving an African-American defendant. This figure is disproportionate to the representation of African Americans in the court’s docket. Although the proportion of court cases involving black defendants has increased in recent years—81% of all cases filed in 2009, compared with 85% of all cases filed in 2013—that proportion remains substantially below the proportion of warrants issued to African Americans.

That analysis suggests that there may be racial disparities in the court’s fine assessment practices. In analyzing the initial fines assessed for those ten offenses for each year from 2011-2013—30 data points in total—the average fine assessment was higher for African Americans than others in 26 of the 30 data points. For example, among the 53 Failure to Obey charges brought in 2013 that did not lead to added Failure to Appear fines—44 of which involved an African-American defendant—African Americans were assessed an average fine of $206, whereas the average fine for others was $147. The magnitude of racial disparities in fine amounts varied across the 30 yearly offense averages analyzed, but those disparities consistently disfavored African Americans.

Further, an evaluation of dismissal rates throughout the life of a case shows that, on average, an African-American defendant is 68% less likely than other defendants to have a case dismissed. In addition to cases that are “Dismissed,” court records also show cases that are “Voided” altogether. There are only roughly 400 cases listed as Voided from 2011-2013, but the data that is available for that relatively small number of Voided cases shows that African Americans are three times less likely to receive the Voided outcome than others.

Ferguson’s Law Enforcement Practices Are Motivated in Part by Discriminatory Intent in Violation of the Fourteenth Amendment and Other Federal Laws

Direct Evidence of Racial Bias

Our investigation uncovered direct evidence of racial bias in the communications of influential Ferguson decision makers. In email messages and during interviews, several court and law enforcement personnel expressed discriminatory views and intolerance with regard to race, religion, and national origin. The content of these communications is unequivocally derogatory, dehumanizing, and demonstrative of impermissible bias.

We have discovered evidence of racial bias in emails sent by Ferguson officials, all of whom are current employees, almost without exception through their official City of Ferguson email accounts, and apparently sent during work hours. These email exchanges involved several police and court supervisors, including FPD supervisors and commanders. The following emails are illustrative:

  • A November 2008 email stated that President Barack Obama would not be President for very long because “what black man holds a steady job for four years.”
  • A March 2010 email mocked African Americans through speech and familial stereotypes, using a story involving child support. One line from the email read: “I be so glad that dis be my last child support payment! Month after month, year after year, all dose payments!”
  • An April 2011 email depicted President Barack Obama as a chimpanzee.
  • A May 2011 email stated: “An African-American woman in New Orleans was admitted into the hospital for a pregnancy termination. Two weeks later she received a check for $5,000. She phoned the hospital to ask who it was from. The hospital said, ‘Crimestoppers.’”
  • A June 2011 email described a man seeking to obtain “welfare” for his dogs because they are “mixed in color, unemployed, lazy, can’t speak English and have no frigging clue who their Daddies are.”
  • An October 2011 email included a photo of a bare-chested group of dancing women, apparently in Africa, with the caption, “Michelle Obama’s High School Reunion.”
  • A December 2011 email included jokes that are based on offensive stereotypes about Muslims.
Our review of documents revealed many additional email communications that exhibited racial or ethnic bias, as well as other forms of bias. Our investigation has not revealed any indication that any officer or court clerk engaged in these communications was ever disciplined. Nor did we see a single instance in which a police or court recipient of such an email asked that the sender refrain from sending such emails, or any indication that these emails were reported as inappropriate. Instead, the emails were usually forwarded along to others.49

 

Critically, each of these email exchanges involved supervisors of FPD’s patrol and court operations.50 FPD patrol supervisors are responsible for holding officers accountable to governing laws, including the Constitution, and helping to ensure that officers treat all people equally under the law, regardless of race or any other protected characteristic. The racial animus and stereotypes expressed by these supervisors suggest that they are unlikely to hold an officer accountable for discriminatory conduct or to take any steps to discourage the development or perpetuation of racial stereotypes among officers.

Similarly, court supervisors have significant influence and discretion in managing the court’s operations and in processing individual cases. As discussed in Parts I and III.B of this report, our investigation has found that a number of court rules and procedures are interpreted and applied entirely at the discretion of the court clerks. These include: whether to require a court appearance for certain offenses; whether to grant continuances or other procedural requests; whether to accept partial payment of an owed fine; whether to cancel a warrant without a bond payment; and whether to provide individuals with documentation enabling them to have a suspended driver’s license reinstated before the full fine owed has been paid off. Court clerks are also largely responsible for setting bond amounts. The evidence we found thus shows not only racial bias, but racial bias by those with considerable influence over the outcome of any given court case.

Evidence of Racial Stereotyping

Several Ferguson officials told us during our investigation that it is a lack of “personal responsibility” among African-American members of the Ferguson community that causes African Americans to experience disproportionate harm under Ferguson’s approach to law enforcement. Our investigation suggests that this explanation is at odd with the facts. While there are people of all races who may lack personal responsibility, the harm of Ferguson’s approach to law enforcement is largely due to the myriad systemic deficiencies discussed above. Our investigation revealed African Americans making extraordinary efforts to pay off expensive tickets for minor, often unfairly charged, violations, despite systemic obstacles to resolving those tickets. While our investigation did not indicate that African Americans are disproportionately irresponsible, it did reveal that, as the above emails reflect, some Ferguson decision makers hold negative stereotypes about African Americans, and lack of personal responsibility is one of them. Application of this stereotype furthers the disproportionate impact of Ferguson’s police and court practices. It causes court and police decision makers to discredit African Americans’ explanations for not being able to pay tickets and allows officials to disown the harms of Ferguson’s law enforcement practices.

I know that was a lot to read, but I distilled the important parts out of a 105 page report. But I will keep my comments short. This report does a good job of illustrating not only the racism, but it also cuts off the "but blacks commit more crimes" argument that racists so love.

I included all of the information regarding how much the city relies on fining the shit out of people to generate revenue because that should enrage any true "small government" conservative. I included the process information about multiple citations turning into arrest warrants to demonstrate that once a black person gets pulled over or stopped by a police officer in Ferguson, they’re going to have the albatross of the legal system around their necks for years. Once you get into Ferguson’s "justice" system, you shouldn’t ever expect to get out especially if you’re black. You should expect to spend a significant percentage of your income trying to get out, but even a parking ticket is going to be a long and expensive process to deal with.

Remember my two first pieces of the year about privilege and institutional racism? I said that all of the things I went over, when put together, create a cascading effect. Well, Ferguson is cascading on steroids.

This city’s justice system is literally rotten to the corps. From the budget planning, to the cops on the street, to (it appears) every single person who works in the courthouse. No wonder Darren Wilson saw a demon where a 19 year old boy was. In Ferguson, all black residents are demons.   

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50 Shades Of Me Not Caring

by

So this showed up in my Tumblr feed:

tumblr_njsbd9HTum1r42ihho5_540

 

All I could think was, "wasted activism" and "who cares?" We’re spending time in theaters, protesting a movie based on a book that millions of women read? These books weren’t flying off the shelves because men couldn’t get enough. Women made these books a thing. Do these protesters think that women can’t tell the difference between erotic fantasy and oppression?

I’m just irritated by this because this is the type of absurd outrage and over sensitivity that makes it easy for some people to mock liberals. To be clear, I’m a liberal. I think that you should be able any damned thing you want, as long as it affects no one else. And when the things you want to do start to adversely affect the public, we need to weigh your freedom against the public good. But in your home, in your body, and in your freaking bookstore, you can do whatever you damned well please.

These protests are predicated on the same thing the anti-choice movement is predicated on: that women don’t know better. Let me repeat: women were the ones who bought millions of copies of these books. Are these protesters saying that those women are too stupid to know what oppression looks like?

I haven’t read these books. I heard that the writing was terrible, and the word "hack" came up a lot when these books were mentioned. I don’t like poorly written books. I don’t care what the subject is; if it’s poorly written, I’m not interested. I didn’t choose not to read these books because I equate bondage fantasies to oppression. I’m not that stupid and simple minded. I have a well written set of books that apparently take the fantasy and the bondage much further than this trilogy took them (yes, I’m referring to the Sleeping Beauty series by Anne Rice). Fantasies are not oppressive.

Fantasies are normal and healthy, and we don’t need the PC police turning them into something else. Wanna know who has fantasies about being completely dominated? Everyone. Men, women, men who like women, men who like men, women who like men, and women who like women. We’re not all advocating for the oppression of women. We’re being human. I knew someone who earned a living dominating (no, there was no sex) men. Really, really rich and powerful men who paid thousands of dollars to be completely dominated for a couple of hours. Are either she or her customers participating in the oppression of women?

Come on, give me a break with this. Surely there are better things that these people can be doing with their lives, than telling women that they’re assholes for buying these books and for going to see this movie. In the process of "liberating" women, they’ve ended up shaming them. There’s nothing shameful or oppressive about fantasies. Stop making people feel shitty about having them. If we were more open and less obtuse about sexual fantasies, women wouldn’t have to resort to buying sophomorically written books. The fact that these crappy books sold so many copies tells me that women are less oppressed than ever. That’s actually not entirely true. They still have to resort to reading crap. If we stopped shaming sex and sexual fantasies, maybe better writers would start writing what there’s obviously a big market for.

I know that you’re all well intentioned, but I need you to stop shaming people over sex. And most of all, I need you to stop being mockable liberals.    

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