Posts filed under ‘Outrage Overload’
VICE Magazine Glamorizes Female Authors’ Suicides
One of my brothers committed suicide in 1988 at the age of 32, so as a “survivor,” I think it is appalling beyond words that a magazine would stage a fashion shoot based on the suicides of female writers. Suicide is not a thing to be glamorized.
This is just sick:
Vice‘s Women in Fiction issue is an interesting package. There’s a short story by Mary Gaitskill here, an interview with Marilynne Robinson there, and a short story by Joyce Carol Oates over yonder. And then…there’s the fashion spread. Featuring models styled and posed as famous female writers who have killed themselves. At their times of death.
[...]
Each photo in the spread is captioned with the name of the author depicted, her dates of birth and death, and cause of death. And the fashion credits for what the model is wearing (“Issa dress, Morgenthal Frederics glasses, Jenni Kayne shoes”), obviously.
(Image via Jezebel.com)
(Image via Jezebel.com)
Obama: Monsanto’s Man in Washington
(Image via Wikipedia)
Wow. This is huge:
The shocking minutes relating to President Putin’s meeting this past week with US Secretary of State John Kerry reveal the Russian leaders “extreme outrage” over the Obama regimes continued protection of global seed and plant bio-genetic giants Syngenta and Monsanto in the face of a growing “bee apocalypse” that the Kremlin warns “will most certainly” lead to world war.
According to these minutes, released in the Kremlin today by the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment of the Russian Federation (MNRE), Putin was so incensed over the Obama regimes refusal to discuss this grave matter that he refused for three hours to even meet with Kerry, who had traveled to Moscow on a scheduled diplomatic mission, but then relented so as to not cause an even greater rift between these two nations.
At the center of this dispute between Russia and the US, this MNRE report says, is the “undisputed evidence” that a class of neuro-active insecticides chemically related to nicotine, known as neonicotinoids, are destroying our planets bee population, and which if left unchecked could destroy our world’s ability to grow enough food to feed its population.
[...]
Most perplexing in all of this, the MRNE says, and which led to Putin’s anger at the US, has been the Obama regimes efforts to protect pesticide-producer profits over the catastrophic damaging being done to the environment, and as the Guardian News Service detailed in their 2 May article titled “US rejects EU claim of insecticide as prime reason for bee colony collapse” and which, in part, says:
“The European Union voted this week for a two-year ban on a class of pesticides, known as neonicotinoids, that has been associated with the bees’ collapse. The US government report, in contrast, found multiple causes for the collapse of the honeybees.”
To the “truer” reason for the Obama regimes protection of these bio-tech giants destroying our world, the MRNE says, can be viewed in the report titled “How did Barack Obama become Monsanto’s man in Washington?”
This is beyond shameful. Obama is in the process of establishing an awful legacy for himself.
The U.S. Invasion of Iraq, Ten Years On
I don’t know what to say on this, the 10th anniversary of the invasion of Iraq. I was against the war before it began and I’ve been against it ever since. I thought we were being lied to all along and it turns out, that’s exactly what was happening.
So much misery.
In my opinion the invasion was one of the greatest tragedies the world has ever seen.
(It’s indicative of the fantasyland George Bush lived in when we’re reminded that Bush gave his “mission accomplished” speech six weeks — SIX WEEKS — after the March 19, 2003 invasion. (The war officially ended on December 15, 2011).)
The Navy SEAL Who Killed Osama Bin Laden is…Screwed
Esquire is out with an interview with “The Shooter,” i.e., the Navy SEAL Team 6 member who killed Osama Bin Laden. He’s preparing to leave the Navy but the U.S. government has essentially kicked him to the curb, leaving him almost destitute and scared for his life (and his wife and children’s). He might have to enter the Witness Protection Program and be disappeared forever.
It’s awful the way he’s being treated.
(Image via SealSWCC.com)
But the Shooter will discover soon enough that when he leaves after sixteen years in the Navy, his body filled with scar tissue, arthritis, tendonitis, eye damage, and blown disks, here is what he gets from his employer and a grateful nation:
Nothing. No pension, no health care, and no protection for himself or his family.
Since Abbottabad, he has trained his children to hide in their bathtub at the first sign of a problem as the safest, most fortified place in their house. His wife is familiar enough with the shotgun on their armoire to use it. She knows to sit on the bed, the weapon’s butt braced against the wall, and precisely what angle to shoot out through the bedroom door, if necessary. A knife is also on the dresser should she need a backup.
Then there is the “bolt” bag of clothes, food, and other provisions for the family meant to last them two weeks in hiding.
“Personally,” his wife told me recently, “I feel more threatened by a potential retaliatory terror attack on our community than I did eight years ago,” when her husband joined ST6.
When the White House identified SEAL Team 6 as those responsible, camera crews swarmed into their Virginia Beach neighborhood, taking shots of the SEALs’ homes.
After bin Laden’s face appeared on their TV in the days after the killing, the Shooter cautioned his older child not to mention the Al Qaeda leader’s name ever again “to anybody. It’s a bad name, a curse name.” His kid started referring to him instead as “Poopyface.” It’s a story he told affectionately on that April afternoon visit to my home.
More…
Michele Bachmann, Newt Gingrich, Mitt Romney, John Bolton, Lindsay Graham and Erick Erickson Praise Obama’s Drone Plan/Kill list
They’re all warmongers so if they love it, I don’t!
(Image via WeAreHere.eu)
This:
GOP and TP on Obama’s Foreign Policy “Successes”
To wild GOP crowd cheers, Newt Gingrich and Michele Bachman vehemently defend Obama’s assassination policy.
And this:
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Graham Defends Obama on Drones
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) will offer a resolution next week commending President Barack Obama’s use of drones and the killing of Anwar al-Awlaki.
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Skip the Drone Debate, Just Kill the Terrorists Before They Kill Us
We no longer have to transport ourselves to a magical alternate reality to ponder what a love child between Richard Nixon and Dick Cheney would look like. Given a Justice Department memo obtained by NBC News, we can conclude that child would look like none other than President Barack Obama.
“Just kill the terrorists before they kill us.” Land of the free and home of the brave? No. When I saw folks tearing up at the Super Bowl over those words I gagged.
We’re a scared bunch of sheeple. We stood by while almost 60,000 Americans were killed in Vietnam because our leaders told us the commies were coming to get us. Ten years ago yesterday, Colin Powell lied his face off in front of the United Nations Security Council and as a result, we invaded Iraq because they (I’m gagging again) supposedly had WMD and were ready to send a mushroom cloud over the U.S.
None of that was true.
Yet, again, we’re so scared of the lies we’ve told ourselves, all in the name of kill them before they kill us.
Defense spending — our tax dollars! — has doubled since 2001.
Ten years ago there was no such thing as the Department of Homeland Security but now we’re dumping untold billions dollars into that agency because it’s supposedly keeping us “safe.
And now we have drones — millions going to defense contractors for their new toys that we’re paying for — AGAIN, out of our tax dollars that — and President Obama’s kill list predicated on his supposed authority to kill Americans without their Constitutional right to be charged and tried by a jury of their piers.
They tell us these drone strikes are keeping us safe. But they aren’t: “Drone attacks are doing nothing but inciting more hatred” say Pakistani protesters. Google it yourself. There’s a whole bunch of info out there about how drone attacks are actually making us less after
So when will be again become the land of the free and the HOME OF THE BRAVE and when will we stop being scared little people who sacrifice their future for defense contractors and politicians who want to enrich them?
Obama: It’s Okay to Kill Americans Without Due Process
(Image via WhiteHouse.gov)
Now I know why Barack Obama shot that gun. He wants to kill our right to due process:
Justice Department Memo Reveals Legal Case for Drone Strikes on Americans
A confidential Justice Department memo concludes that the U.S. government can order the killing of American citizens if they are believed to be “senior operational leaders” of al-Qaida or “an associated force” — even if there is no intelligence indicating they are engaged in an active plot to attack the U.S.
Last I knew, every American is entitled to and guaranteed a trial by a jury of his or her peers before he or she is sentenced to anything, much less death.
Now we have the “liberal” Constitutional lawyer Barack Obama’s Justice Department obliterating that for what will probably be forever.
Blows my mind.
93% — 93%! — of all Income Gains in 2010 Went to the Top 1%
This is one of those bits of information that is so frustrating and so infuriating it might be best not to know it. But, in the interest of staying aware and fully present, here we go:
In 2010, a stunning 93 percent of all income gains went to the top 1 percent of Americans. Also astonishing: just 15,000 households received 37 percent of all of those income gains. In no other period in recent American history have economic gains been concentrated so disproportionately in an elite sliver. (The red bars indicate recessions.)
(Image via Opinionator.Blogs.NYTimes.com)
(Filed under Outrage Overload.)
As I’ve said before, the lobbyists hired by the rich and the corporatocracy have earned their money in spades. They’ve bribed our dear leaders into structuring the US economy and its tax laws such that they benefit them and essentially, no one else.
Go here for more, especially if you’re a fan of depressing charts.
Obama Offers More Cuts to Social Security Than to the Pentagon
(Image via CNN)
There are now multiple press reports that President Obama will agree to a fiscal deal that enacts a so-called “Chained CPI” to calculate Social Security and veterans’ benefits. Under this plan, beneficiaries would get cuts in their cost of living adjustments. Outraged Congressional Democrats have been speaking out for days against these cuts.
The cuts to Social Security benefits under such a recalculation would amount to about $112 billion over ten years.
Let’s put this in perspective. In the offer Obama gave to House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH), he also put $100 billion of Pentagon spending cuts on the table for the same period.
That means that Obama offered to cut a program that doesn’t add a penny to the deficit — Social Security — by more than the single largest drain on discretionary spending, the Pentagon.
Label me one of those “outraged Democrats.”
“Beneficiaries would get cuts in their cost of living adjustments?” A Social Security recipient called in to a radio show I was listening to yesterday and said her last cost of living “raise” was $30.00. $30.00. $30.00 a year.
Hey, I have an idea; how about we cut military bands?
The Defense Department could be shelling out nearly $50 billion in the next 50 years for its military bands, a prominent defense analyst says, a figure that could raise eyebrows amid Washington’s new climate of fiscal restraint.
“The nation’s military services really are going to spend over $25 billion on music bands in the coming years,” Lexington Institute COO and industry consultant Loren Thompson said.
After adjusting that figure for inflation and other factors, Thompson projects the nominal costs of the bands will approach $50 billion — a price tag he derided as “ridiculous.”
[...]
The nation’s ground service has 35 active-duty bands, 18 Army Reserve bands and over 50 made up of Army National Guard groups, according to the site.
The Air Force has at least 15 bands, 11 regionally organized Air National Guard groups and at least one Air Force Reserve band, according to the Air Force Bands Program website.
Obama Preparing to Give Rupert Murdoch More Propaganda Power
Filed under Outrage Overload:
What if I told you the Obama administration’s first major post-election policy move was a big, fat gift for Rupert Murdoch?
[...]
Murdoch already owns the Wall Street Journal, the New York Post, Fox News Channel, Fox movie studios, 27 local TV stations and much, much more. [Check out its holdings here.]
Word is that Murdoch now covets the Los Angeles Times and Chicago Tribune — the bankrupt-but-still-dominant newspapers (and websites) in the second- and third-largest media markets, where Murdoch already own TV stations.
Under current media ownership limits, he can’t buy them. It’s illegal… unless the Federal Communications Commission changes the rules.
But according to numerous reports, that’s exactly what FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski plans to do. He’s circulating an order at the FCC to lift the longstanding ban on one company owning both daily newspapers and TV stations in any of the 20 largest media markets.
And he wants to wrap up this massive giveaway just in time for the holidays.
[...]
If these changes go through, Murdoch could own the Los Angeles Times, two TV stations and up to eight radio stations in L.A. alone. And he’s not the only potential beneficiary: These changes could mean more channels for Comcast-NBC, more deals for Disney, and more stations for Sinclair.
For anyone who actually cares about media diversity and democracy, the gutting of media ownership limits will be a complete disaster.
These rules are one of the last barriers to local media monopolies. Without them, we will lose competing voices for local news. We will see the mainstream media get even more monotone, monochrome and monotonous.
I’m speechless. Does Murdoch really need even more outlets with which to manipulate our society? I don’t think so.
If Obama was going to run again, this would be the newest entry in my “Obama — Don’t Count on my Vote” category.
Amazing.
If You Piss Voters Off, They’re Going to Fight Back
CORRECTED
Florida Rep. Alan Grayson on Wednesday after defeating certifiably insane Republican Allen West on the Joy Bahar “Say Anything” radio show:
What the Republicans are doing [now] is different from what they normally do. They normally try to vilify groups that can’t fight back. They vilify the undocumented because they can’t vote, so they can’t retaliate. They vilify pregnant teenagers because they can’t vote either. Here, they’re vilifying the voters. They’re attacking the voters. They’re pissing the voters off, and that’s a very dangerous thing for elected officials to do anywhere.
We had lines as long as six hours here in Central Florida to vote, and it was simply because the Republicans wanted it that way. It’s because [Republican Governor] Rick Scott wanted it that way. It’s because the Republican super-majorities in Tallahassee wanted it that way. If you make voters your enemy, the voters know that, and they are going to fight back.
(Image via Pospislaw.com)
The thing I loved the most about Tuesday was that voters didn’t cow to Republican voter suppression efforts, they acted up and they stood in line and they gave Republicans a big ol’ middle finger.
USA! USA! USA!
CORRECTED: Not to detract from what Grayson said or the insanity of Allen West, I must make a correction because I guess I had my head in the sand when I put this post up. Grayson did not defeat Allen West. Allen West appears to have been defeated by Democrat Patrick Murphy but a recount is taking place so there are no official results as yet (November 12). Grayson defeated Republican Todd Long.
Oy, The Second Presidential Debate
Heading into this new week I’m already exhausted because all the attention in the US media is on Wednesday night’s second presidential debate. Nobody knows what will happen of course. It’s all about speculation. Predictions. What ifs. Could be. This or that.
We’re watching talking heads justify their own existence and their own paychecks.
A friend of mine had some simple advice for me last week: Don’t watch any of the debates so you can…sleep.
I’m thinking she’s right.
And another thing: So much is going on in the world but in order to save/make money, the MSM has laid off their foreign correspondents and the campaign is all they’ve got.
So, here we are. The Debates. That’s it.
If only we could train them to to think we care about real news.
Time to Think Twice About Watching the Discovery Channel
I guess the Discovery Channel is turning into the Discover Racism, Hate and Bigotry Channel. Check this out: VIEWER DISCRETION ADVISED: Discovery Channel To Air Special Starring Ted Nugent.
“Bush Was Better Than Obama On This”
For those of us who aren’t necessarily going to vote for Barack Obama on November 6 because he’s the Democratic candidate and/or because he’s less bad than Romney, there’s this most recent info in a long line of disturbing news out of the Obama administration:
A critical document from President Barack Obama’s free trade negotiations with eight Pacific nations was leaked online early Wednesday morning, revealing that the administration intends to bestow radical new political powers upon multinational corporations, contradicting prior promises.
[...]
The new leak follows substantial controversy surrounding the secrecy of the talks, in which some members of Congress have complained they are not being given the same access to trade documents that corporate officials receive.
Gee. I’m so glad this has been all over the “liberal media.”
The newly leaked document is one of the most controversial of the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade pact. It addresses a broad sweep of regulations governing international investment and reveals the Obama administration’s advocacy for policies that environmental activists, financial reform advocates and labor unions have long rejected for eroding key protections currently in domestic laws.
Under the agreement currently being advocated by the Obama administration, American corporations would continue to be subject to domestic laws and regulations on the environment, banking and other issues. But foreign corporations operating within the U.S. would be permitted to appeal key American legal or regulatory rulings to an international tribunal. That international tribunal would be granted the power to overrule American law and impose trade sanctions on the United States for failing to abide by its rulings.
I can see it now. American corporations will rush to register in foreign countries so they can “appeal key American legal or regulatory rulings,” like clean air and water laws. Geezus. Obama’s brain has been infiltrated by CEOs.
“Bush was better than Obama on this,” said Judit Rius, U.S. manager of Doctors Without Borders Access to Medicines Campaign, referring to the medication rules.
[...]
Trans-Pacific negotiations have been taking place throughout the Obama presidency. The deal is strongly supported by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the top lobbying group for American corporations. Obama’s Republican opponent in the 2012 presidential elections, Mitt Romney, has urged the U.S. to finalize the deal as soon as possible.
I don’t recognize this hyper pro-corporate Obama. He isn’t the guy I voted for. He isn’t a Democrat as I define Democrats. Democrats have historically been pro-worker. Who’s standing up for We the People around here anymore? No one.
Filed under: Obama — Don’t Count on My Vote
Watch Cable News Outlets Cover for Paul Ryan’s Lies
Watch his painful mashup of cable newsers covering for the lies Paul Ryan told last night in his speech at the Republican National Convention.
(Via.)
Ryan wouldn’t tell lies like this if he wasn’t pretty darn sure he would never be called out on them so thanks “liberal media!”
Geezus. The cables are so terrified of being called “biased,” pointing out a lie and proving that it’s a lie is off limits. In my opinion, that’s the definition of news. Pointing to the fuc*ing facts and ah, hello, informing people for God’s sake.
Can you hear me screaming now?
UGH!
Thinking of You Tonight Haiti
Remember when we donated millions of dollars to help Haitians after the 2010 earthquake there? Me too.
What with the approach of Tropical Storm Issac I’m hearing about the hundreds of thousands of people who are still living in tents for God’s sake.
Now, in my Tweet of the Day, we hear they haven’t even been warned about Issac’s approach:
I can’t stand it.
Calling all Teachers: You Won’t Believe This
So, we lay off and/or cut teacher’s salaries because paying them high (yeah, right) salaries hurts the economy but we can’t cut defense because that would hurt the economy? Or some such crazy double talk (and it’s coming from a “Democrat” no less):
The threat of new U.S. defense spending cuts next year is creating uncertainty in the economy, and Congress should take steps this summer to reassure industry it is capable of “avoiding that train wreck,” a top senator on defense issues said on Tuesday.
“Uncertainty which is created by the threat, the prospect, the specter, of sequestration, I believe, is a real threat to this economy,” said Senator Carl Levin, referring to $500 billion in automatic cuts that will kick in unless Congress acts to stop them.
The defense budget is the first thing we should cut (see below) but instead, Levin thinks we should put it in some sort of protected lock box?
THIS IS INSANE!
Carl Levin has got to go.
Things I Didn’t Have Time to Post
Here are some things I heard about today that I thought were interesting but I’m too tired to put an individual post up about:
France Moves to Cap Executive Pay at State [Funded] Firms
France’s new government will flesh out plans to cap the pay of top executives at state-controlled companies by mid-June, laying down a marker in a Europe-wide debate fuelled by waves of austerity and rising unemployment.
Elected this month promising to curb the privileges enjoyed by France’s wealthy and powerful, Socialist President Francois Hollande pledged during campaigning to limit senior executives’ salaries [paid by taxpayer's money] to a maximum of 20 times that of their lowest-paid employee.
The tax dollars French citizens are paying are funding these “state” firms so no question about it. Executives shouldn’t reap huge salaries paid for by tax dollars. A no brainer imho. I mean, let’s cap the executive pay of defense contractors wo suck off of the boob of the U.S. tax payer. The scary –yikes! – Socialism can be a good thing.
Ah yes. Republicans. Always looking for a way to protect the corporatocracy and to rip We the People off:
North Carolina science people have determined that coastal sea levels are expected to rise 1 meter [3.28 feet] by 2100 — far more than they’ve traditionally risen, due to the expected impacts of climate change. But developers in 20 coastal counties, see, have determined that such a rise would be bad for development prospects. So they’ve lobbied the state to lower that forecast to only 15 inches instead, because why not? Fifteen’s a nice number. Arbitrary, sure, but can’t the scientists just shut up already?
The difference between 3.28 feet and 15 inches isn’t all that much right? [Yikes!] So hey, WTF. Everyone involved will be dead and buried (w/millions passed on to their ALEC-member-kids who will control the world my neighbor’s 3-year-old boy will live in.)
It’s Casserole Night in Canada
The sound of casseroles, or banging on pots and pans, has become a common sound of Montreal’s nightlife for the past week or so.
Tonight, the sound is spreading to the rest of the nation as protesters in over 60 cities across Quebec and Canada (and some international locations like Brussels, London and Madison, WA). Organizers want to emulate Quebec’s casseroles movement, which has its roots in the Chilean cacerolazos, anti-goverment protests in the 1970s and ’80s. Tonight’s Facebook page humourously dubs the event “Casseroles Night in Canada.”
The movement in Montreal was sparked by the ongoing opposition to tuition fee hikes and the introduction of Bill 78. Protesters gather on neighbourhood street corners during the evening, clanging pots, pans, and anything else they can grab, and march all over Montreal. Supporters along the way join in by making noise from their balconies, front doors and windows.
One of the things Canadians are protesting is a new law — designed to quash protests (crazy gets normalized) — requiring them to submit a map outlining their protest route eight hours in advance.
This is the map they submitted last Wednesday:
Thumbs up casserole people oh, and if I were you, I wouldn’t buy a home on the Florida coast.
The ECB’s Klaus Masuch Can’t Say Why We the People are Bailing Out the Banks
Here is some truly amazing video. This is Irish journalist Vincent Browne (this is what real journalism looks like) confronting Klaus Masuch of the European Central Bank as to why the Irish people are bailing out the banks.
Browne asks: “You people are intervening into this society, causing huge damage by requiring us to make payments, not for the benefit of anybody in Ireland, but for the benefit of European financial institutions. Now, could you explain why the Irish people are inflicted with this burden?” Masuch’s answer? It’s breathtaking. At first there is silence, then he spews out 60 seconds of pure bullshit and then he literally fumbles around and can’t or won’t respond, claiming his line of bullshit was an answer.
Everyone in the world should see this because everyone in the world is paying for what the banks did.
It’s jaw-dropping; the most amazing thing I’ve seen in a long time. And oh to have more journalists like Vincent Browne.
(Via.)
The “Consumer Financial Protection Bureau” Caves to the Corporatocracy
Once again, a cleverly named government agency — the “Consumer Financial Protection Bureau” (supposedly created to protect consumers) — caves to the corporatocracy:
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has decided not to challenge credit card companies on introductory fees. Credit card companies had been more aggressive in charging fees to users before they use a credit card, ever since new regulations made it so they could no longer charge more than 25 percent of the total credit limit in standard fees.
The CFPB originally proposed regulations to eliminate the introductory fees, but on Thursday relented and decided not to pursue the matter.
This agency is a joke.
I’m so glad it’s Friday.
Obama Acting Like a Republican Homophobe
This is just so, so wrong it’s inexcusable that Obama refuses to stop it:
President Obama disappointed and vexed gay supporters on Wednesday with his decision, conveyed to activists by a senior adviser, not to sign an executive order banning discrimination by employers with federal contracts.
The executive order, which activists said had support from the Labor and Justice Departments, would have applied to gay, bisexual and transgender people working for or seeking employment from federal contractors. Current law does not protect against discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity, and legislation to do so, which Mr. Obama endorses, lacks sufficient votes in Congress.
Employers who get “federal contracts” are employers who get our tax dollars via those federal contracts. An employer who gets so much as a dime of our tax dollars should not be permitted to discriminate against taxpaying American. Period.
I’m disgusted with Obama (Mr. Constitutional Lawyer) for not wiping this off the books once and for all. If doing away with this isn’t a core democratic (and Democratic) value, I don’t know what is.
Berkeley Police Chief Michael Meehan Has No Business Being a “Law Enforcement Officer”
The fact that the Berkeley Police Chief Michael Meehan would even think — even think — to do this is reason, imho, for his removal. Outrageous:
Minutes after reading a late-night news story online about him that he perceived to be inaccurate, Berkeley Police Chief Michael Meehan ordered a sergeant to a reporter’s home insisting on changes, a move First Amendment experts said reeked of intimidation and attempted censorship.
Meehans’s actions were “despicable, totally despicable,” said Jim Ewert, general counsel of the California Newspaper Publisher’s Association. “It’s the most intimidating type of (censorship) possible because the person trying to exercise it carries a gun.”
Bay Area News Group reporter Doug Oakley said he was shaken by the 12:45 a.m. Friday knock on the door of his Berkeley home. He said at first he and his wife thought something was drastically wrong or perhaps that a relative had died.
Meehan apologized Friday.
“I would say it was an overzealous attempt to make sure that accurate information is put out,” Meehan said. “I could have done better.” Meehan said he didn’t think Oakley would be upset or intimidated because the police sergeant, Mary Kusmiss, regularly deals with the media.
“I did not mean to upset (Oakley) or his family last night; it was late, (I was) tired, too. I don’t dispute that it could be perceived badly,” he said.
BS excuses, excuses, excuses. There’s no excuse for this kind of thinking or this kind of behavior. None. Meehan violated one of the most revered American laws and traditions — that of freedom of the press. Insofar as he obviously doesn’t fundamentally understand and respect that tenet, he has no business being a “law enforcement officer.”
Arizona’s New “Let Women Die” Bill Goes WAY TOO FAR! — Every Woman Should Read This –
I have a category called “Outrage Overload” that I don’t use very often but this post is going in it, IN SPADES! This is unbelievable. That anyone would THINK to do this sets my hair on fire:
It’s called a “wrongful birth” bill and it’s all about preventing women from having an abortion, even if it kills them. The Arizona Senate passed a bill this week that gives doctors a free pass to not inform pregnant women of prenatal problems because such information could lead to an abortion.
According to the Arizona Capitol Times, “the bill’s sponsor is Republican Nancy Barto of Phoenix. She says allowing the medical malpractice lawsuits endorses the idea that if a child is born with a disability, someone is to blame.” So Republicans are banning lawsuits against doctors who keep information from pregnant women so as to prevent them from choosing to have an abortion.
This is so wrong on so many levels. For one, there will be absolutely no trust between pregnant women and their doctors in Arizona if this is signed into law. And two, if I’m pregnant and I live in Arizona and my doctor discovers that the fetus I’m carrying will be a vegetable, and he knows I would abort if I knew that, he has the right not to tell me. But is the state going to pay for the care of the kid after he’s born, and over the course of his lifetime, or is that up to me?
OOOH, this is awful. What an incredible infringement on a woman’s relationship with her doctor and on her ability to control her own life.
American Exceptionalism is a Thing of the Past
On Monday I posted about how the good ol’ USA! USA! USA! is number one…number one in teen pregnancies that is.
Today we have more sad evidence that the idea of American exceptionalism is something we should probably put on a shelf somewhere until we get our act together.
This is not for the faint of heart.
First (bear with me), this is the mission statement of Equality Trust:
Compelling new evidence shows that large income inequalities within society damage the social and the quality of life for everyone. The Equality Trust campaigns to gain the widest public and political understanding of the harm caused by inequality.
The Equality Trust has released 10 graphs that reflect specific types on income inequality in the developed nations, but the folks over at The Society Pages.org have consolidated the graphs into an easier-to-read format.
That said you can view the graphs at either sight. They all show — all of them – that due to the dramatic income inequality in the United States (put simply, the 99% versus the 1%), the US leads the pack amongst the developed world in these areas:
Societies with more income inequality have higher infant death rates than other societies
Societies with more income inequality have higher rates of mental illness than other societies
Societies with more income inequality have a higher incidence of drug use than other societies
Societies with more income inequality have a higher high school drop out rate than other societies
Societies with more income inequality imprison a larger proportion of their population than other societies
Societies with more income inequality have a higher rate of obesity than other societies
Individuals in societies with more income inequality are less likely to be in a different class of than [sic] their parents compared to other societies
Societies with more income inequality have higher rates of homicide than other societies
Societies with more income inequality give less in foreign aid than other societies
Children in societies with more income inequality do less well than children in other societies
Again, check out the graphs. We are in a world of hurt folks.
Rand Paul’s Red Hot Hypocrisy
Not making this up:
Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), son of White House hopeful Ron Paul, was detained by the TSA Monday after refusing a pat-down, his dad tweeted Monday.
The father-son pair, both renegade libertarians within their party, are harsh critics of TSA searches they brand intrusive, and have called for the agency’s elimination.
“My son @SenRandPaul being detained by TSA for refusing full body pat-down after anomaly in body scanner in Nashville. More details coming,” the Texas Republican congressman wrote.
[...]
The younger politician was heading to Washington to address the March for Life, a massive Pro-Life [anti-choice] rally marking Sunday’s 38th anniversary of the Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion.
Grover Norquist (R) Hopes to Crush the Renewable Energy Movement
Here’s a heads up regarding Grover Norquist’s new project. (Was I asleep when he was elected president of everything?)
Rethink Renewable Energy Mandates
Sorry for the lack of a snipet. I’ve had it up to here with dictators today.
Read his craziness at the link above. He thinks building wind turbines and installing solar energy panels on homes across the country will kill jobs.
Ugh. There are no words…
Heartbreak in Egypt
I remember watching the demonstrations in Cairo’s Tahrir Square back in January and February — and seeing Hosni Mubarack crawl down from power — and feeling so proud of the people there.
Now it looks like it may all have been for naught.
This is the Egyptian army beating civilians yesterday:
Members of the army, once beloved by Egypt’s activists for standing by their side during the revolution in February, have sent hundreds of men and women to the hospital over the last 48 hours and have killed at least 10, some with live ammunition fired into crowds.
(Video via.)
More here, including an up-close photo of a woman in the video:
For these men to pull her black abaya above her head and expose her midriff and chest is, for Egypt, a profound and sexually charged humiliation. And there is a certain awful irony of using that abaya, a symbol of modesty and piety, to cover her face and drag her on the street that, though probably not intentional, will not be lost on Egyptian eyes.
[...]
The Egyptian military, the strongest and most powerful institution in the country and perhaps the Arab world, has taken a dramatic and dark turn since winning power earlier this year.
[...]
As protests against the military have grown, the generals have abandoned their earlier pledges to support the people and refrain from violence against civilians. The SCAF — the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, a panel of top military leaders — increasingly looks like Egypt’s new dictator.
FYI, the United States supports the Egyptian “military” to the tune of $2 billion annually:
The United States has given Egypt an average of $2 billion annually since 1979, much of it military aid, according to the Congressional Research Service. The combined total makes Egypt the second largest recipient of U.S. aid after Israel.
Slap Your Face Quotes from the Durban Climate Change Conference
I haven’t put up any posts about the climate change conference that took place over the last two weeks in Durban, South Africa because because, well, because of a general sense of outrage overload and a feeling that nothing would get done there.
I’ve been peeking in on it and now though and now that the conference has ended, I’m reading some summaries that pretty much confirm what I feared. Like this one from CommonDreams. (This is the second half of an article you can read in its entirety at the link above.)
Chris Huhne hailed the conclusion of the talks as “a triumph of European co-operation”.
I’m thinking we need worldwide cooperation, not just European cooperation.
“We have taken a significant step forward. This will give business confidence and stop us locking in a whole generation of high-carbon technology,” he said.
I’m sick beyond belief of thinking about giving “business confidence.” How about we give the planet and We the People confidence once and for all already?
But Martin Khor, director of the intergovernmental South Center in Geneva, said poor countries would be obliged to cut emissions proportionally more than the rich. “It’s like the starving will be made to give up half their small amount of food but the rich just a bit,” he said.
The powerful countries shit on the little ones.
Green groups said the ambition shown by countries to reduce emissions was paltry. “Negotiators have sent a clear message to the world’s hungry: let them eat carbon,” said Celine Charveriat, director of campaigns and advocacy for Oxfam.
When will the rich and powerful countries come to grips with the fact that we’re all in this together?
“Governments must immediately turn their attention to raising the ambition of their emissions cuts targets and filling the Green Climate Fund. Unless countries ratchet up their emissions cuts urgently we could still be in store for a 10-year timeout on the action we need to stay under two degrees [of temperature increase].”
Greenpeace International director Kumi Naidoo said: “The chance of averting catastrophic climate change is slipping through our hands with every passing year that nations fail to agree on a rescue plan for the planet.”
“This will force governments to admit their current pledges to cut emissions are not enough to achieve 2C rise and will have to be strengthened,” said Michael Jacobs, of the Grantham climate research institute of climate change.
Nnimmo Bassey, chair of Friends of the Earth International, said: “Delaying real action till 2020 is a crime of global proportions.
“This means the world is on track to a 4C temperature rise, a death sentence for Africa, small island states and the poor and vulnerable worldwide. The richest 1% of the world have decided that it is acceptable to sacrifice the 99%.“
I have friends and neighbors who have babies. Babies as in cherubic 7-week-olds and enthusiastic 2-year-olds. When I look at them I wonder what kind of world they will live in when they’re 30 or 40 or 60. I think it will be awful.
