Here’s Occupy OKC mic-checking Wal-Mart. Evidently, even though they were peaceably leaving the premises, Del City police decided that they were enough of a “threat” to start tackling and arresting. If you listen closely, you can hear on of the officers say, “get on the ground or get tased!”
Tased. For yelling in a Wal-Mart and then leaving when asked.
Remember, this is the message:
An interesting catch over at digby’s blog: did you know that Alabama has its own Dept. of Homeland Security? Not just a couple of officers, mind you, but a cabinet level agency on top of their state and local police forces, FBI offices, and Federal DHS offices. As digby notes, it’s not surprising that everyone went a little nuts in 2001, creating an entirely new government bureaucracy from whole cloth (with a 2010 budget of nearly $100 billion, by the by) but the extent to which this federal system was mimicked by the states is staggering. As this WaPo special report lays out, this is a very lucrative and extremely comprehensive network that essentially does the work that the federal agency already does and still manages to find very little to do.
What’s even more striking is how little attention this receives and how it explains things like this:
It’s much, much worse than we thought. Keep in mind, the $4 Trillion long-term number is also leaving out such important metrics such as:
…along with some other important items. Here’s the entire report [PDF] written by Neta C. Crawford and Catherine Lutz. It’s a pretty sorry state of affairs all around. Given the low-ball estimates when we began this great colonial adventure compared to what this report outines, there’s every reason to believe that the numbers only get bleaker from here.
Police are beating protesters (WARNING GRAPHIC VIDEO!). Funny how you won’t hear about this in the Mostly Useless Media. The protesters, by the way, are demonstrating against high unemployment and the ongoing financial crisis hitting the middle and lower classes.
Wait a minute! That sounds like a place I know!
Front Page News!
By continuing to support Laurent Gbagbo, the incumbent president who refused to step down from his office after losing an internationally certified election in November and who is now in custody, that’s how:
Yes, that would be the same ‘Happy Face’ now likely facing charges of crimes against humanity in the ICC. I’m sure the fact that Gbagbo is a born-again christianist and incoming president Alassane Ouattara is a Muslim has nothing to do with it.
(Update via TPM) Besides supporting despots, Inhofe apparently likes scaring the shit out of airport construction workers by ignoring closed runways. What a guy!
Sometimes, ignorance is just that. If a person, a US senator, say, wants to remain willfully uninformed on issues that pertain to science and society then I suppose that’s they’re right. It’s no reason for anyone to take them seriously but it’s still a personal prerogative.
This, on the other hand, crosses the line from willful stupidity into outright nefarious. Steve Benen puts it this way:
“With forces loyal to Gbagbo targeting civilians and allegedly responsible for brutal violence, and a refugee crisis unfolding, the international community is rallying in support of the lawful Ouattara government. The U.S., E.U., U.N., and African Union have all called for Gbagbo to honor the will of the people and relinquish power. He’s refused, prompting the U.N. Security Council to place tough sanctions on his regime today.”
Seems pretty cut-and-dried. The Obama administration, along with the rest of the international community recognize that Gbagbo is clearly in violation of a whole host of human rights issues as well as illegally refusing to leave office after a democratic election certified by the AU.
Jim Inhofe feels differently. If this petty tyrant wants to murder and torture his opponents and wage a civil war to remain in power, then all he has to do is throw a few mentions of ‘God’ in his speeches and he’s always got a bed at the C Street house. Remember, the Family takes a vow of secrecy, follows a twisted version of Prosperity Doctrine, supports the murder of gays in Uganda, and regularly helps cover up extra-marital wrongdoing by its members. These are nothing more than a bunch of neo-fascists who believe the country should bow down in fealty to Right Wing Christianism and boast an enormous amount of influence over the governing of our nation. Jim Inhofe is a proud member.
I wonder what the reaction would be on the Right if a secretive, unaccountable Democratic group was offering support to a criminal dictator?
Here’s Inhofe’s DC number – (202) 224-4721, and the number for his Oklahoma City office – (405) 608-4381. Let’s ask him why he thinks it’s ok to support a murderous criminal and go against his own government and the international community.
A perfect example of the myopic and dangerous views of terrorism held by demagogues like Peter King. To him, terrorism doesn’t mean using violence to instill fear and chaos in a population. Rather it means brown people are scary. His hearings, a farce of McCarthy-esque proportions, are designed to look into radicalized Muslim groups simply because he and his ilk don’t understand and are afraid of those different from him. His witch hunt is so laughably one-sided, he’s now reduced to defending his support of the IRA on the grounds that they’re not American.
Could these two years be over any sooner?
Rep. Paul Broun of Georgia, easily one of the wackiest congressmen in the house, is in some hot water today after it was revealed that he laughed (according to some witnesses) when asked by a constituent “who’s going to shoot Obama?” In case you’re worried about the seriousness of the remark, the Secret Service checked the elderly guy out and closed the case, so there’s no threat, just very poor judgment. Rep. Broun, for his part, denies the report that he laughed and offered his own version of events, a full three days after the incident occurred. Given his past statements concerning Obama, forgive me if I have a hard time taking his apology at face value. However, just for the sake of argument, let’s assume that the elderly gentleman was simply making a joke and Broun chuckled along, all in jest, nothing to see here. If that’s what happened, shouldn’t we focus on what is actually funny? For reference, let’s take a look at some more quality conservative humor to get a sense of what they mean when they use the word ‘satire’:
“My only regret with Timothy McVeigh is he did not go to the New York Times Building.”
—Ann Coulter
”I’m thinking about killing Michael Moore, and I’m wondering if I could kill him myself, or if I would need to hire somebody to do it.”
—Glenn Beck
”So, Speaker Pelosi, I just wanted to — you gonna drink your wine? Are you blind? Do those eyes not work? There you — I want you to drink it now. Drink it. Drink it. Drink it.
I really just wanted to thank you for having me over here to wine country. You know, to be invited, I thought I had to be a major Democratic donor or a longtime friend of yours, which I’m not.
By the way, I put poison in your — no, I — I look forward to all the policy discussions that we’re supposed to have — you know, on health care, energy reform, and the economy.”
–Glenn Beck
“To fight only the al-Qaida scum is to miss the terrorist network operating within our own borders. Who are these traitors? Every rotten radical left-winger in this country, that’s who.”
–Michael Savage
“I tell people don’t kill all the liberals. Leave enough so we can have two on every campus—living fossils—so we we’ll never forget what these people stood for.”
–Rush Limbaugh
”This war [between liberals and conservatives] has to be fought with the scale and duration and savagery that is only true of civil wars.”
– Newt Gingrich
“I say round liberals up and hang em’ high. When I hear someone’s in the civil rights business, I oil up my AR-25.”
–Michael Savage
Ha ha.
Of course, that’s just a tiny little sample. But remember, these hilarious jokes would never entice someone to actually act violently, right? Aside from the violence, I think the real issue is that conservatives are not funny because their brand of ‘humor’ stems from hatred, condescension and ignorance. When you factor in the violence you get something else entirely. The extra added bonus is that even unfunny jokes let you claim plausible deniability when some lunatic actually kills people.
Those Republicans. What jokers.
It’s gone viral over the weekend so I’m a little late but this speech from Rep. Jackie Speier (D-CA) really lays it all out on the line. She was prompted to give the impromptu remarks after listening to Republican Chris Smith of NJ describe the abortion procedure in detail. For her to go on the floor of the house and admit this personal detail of her life shows an unbelievable amount of courage. Much more courage than a male waxing poetic on how hard it is.
And really, that’s the crux of the debate. Males (generally older and white) telling women what they can do with their bodies out of concern for “unborn babies”. Now, I would have some sympathy for their position if they cared so much about these babies that they went out of their way to provide for them once women were forced to have them. But that’s obviously not the case. On the contrary, they’re on a mission to deny them care. In the absence of support for lower income mothers and children, the only thing that can be surmised is that they simply don’t care for free will. They believe so strongly in the rights of a non-thinking clump of cells that they will gladly trample all over the rights of an adult women to make her own medical decisions.
And lest you think that these christianist fascists have any shred of decency about someone who has actually undergone the procedure, there’s this anecdote from an article in last Friday’s Oakland Tribune :
In November 1978, Speier was a congressional aide to Peninsula Rep. Leo Ryan when the congressman was gunned down by members of Jim Jones’ People’s Temple in Jonestown, Guyana. Speier also was wounded.
[…]
Thursday’s revelation wasn’t the first time Speier had brought up her abortion publicly.
In 1996, as a member of the [CA] Legislature, “I was talking about it on the floor,” she recalled, “and a colleague on the Republican side was responding and in a closed-door caucus afterwards said, ‘Jim Jones didn’t finish the job.’
“That’s the nature of this kind of vitriol that’s out there.”
And with all due respect, Rep. Speier, it’s not just the vitriol; that’s the nature of the ideologues who are running the House. If you’d like to help out with awareness and defense of choice, some friends are offering these cool items in their Cafe Press shop with all mark-up proceeds going to Planned Parenthood. Of course, signing a petition, making a phone call, or writing a letter is also encouraged.
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