Jackass of the Day

Today's outstanding jackass: Judge Edith Jones!

 

Federal judge accused of making racial comments

 

June 4, 2013, 6:42 pm

Jones is accused of saying that certain "racial groups like African-Americans and Hispanics are predisposed to crime," and are "prone to commit acts of violence" and be involved in more violent and "heinous" crimes than people of other ethnicities.

Sure, because it's not like judges are supposed to be un-biased or anything!

Holy shit! Did she actually say this out loud?

Her comments were not recorded, but five students and one attorney who were in attendance signed affidavits on what was said.

Okay, then. So she's a huge racist. Yawn. What else ya got?

The complaint also states that Jones said defendants' claims of racism, innocence, arbitrariness, and violations of international law and treaties are just "red herrings" used by opponents of the death penalty

Innocence? You know, I could give you "international law" or "arbitrariness" maybe, but innocence? Innocence is a red herring? Isn't innocence kinda the main thing? Does she mean that defendant's claims of innocence are always lies? Because that at least has some sort of logic to it, even though it's demonstrably false, but how is innocence a "Red Herring?"
 

red herring: noun

something that distracts attention from the real issue

Examples of RED HERRING:

The argument is a red herring. It actually has nothing to do with the issue.

 

. . . and that claims of "mental retardation" by capital defendants disgust her. The fact that those defendants were convicted of a capital crime is sufficient to prove they are not "mentally retarded," the complaint alleges Jones to have said.

Um,

Federal court clears way for execution of mentally disabled Georgia man

And,

Supreme Court Outlawed Executing Mentally Retarded, But Texas Does It Anyway

And um,

Scalia Denies Stay, Allows Execution of Mentally Retarded Man in Texas

But sure. Yeah, the mentally disabled are never executed. Not in this great land of ours.

Oh, but it gets worse.

 

 

 

Okay, maybe not worse, but just as bad.

 

 

According to Think Progress: "she wrote a dissenting opinion claiming that a woman who “was repeatedly propositioned, was groped and grabbed, [had] pornography [] placed in her locker, and [had] other employees broadcast[] obscene comments about her over the company’s public address system” did not experience sexual harassment."

 

I guess she was never harassed in the same way that the mentally disabled are never executed?

 

  She also said the death penalty provides a public service by allowing an inmate to “make peace with God,” citing an article called “Hanging Concentrates the Mind,” according to the Austin Chronicle.

 

I feel so at peace!

 



 

 

 

 

 But, also according to TP, she is a frequent recipient of something I was unaware of, judicial junkets.

 

This is a very disturbing practice in which judges attend corporate-sponsored "legal education" activities before ruling on cases which affect those corporations.

 

The Center for Public Integrity reports:

 

After all, the Center found instances where judges traveled to seminars paid for by oil companies, the American Petroleum Institute, or the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and later issued rulings favoring some of those same sponsors. . .   And, there is nothing illegal about having the trip paid for by corporations who in some cases are also litigants before the federal courts.

 

 

Because if corporations are allowed to buy the Congress, Senate, White House and regulatory agencies, why should the courts be any different?

 

 

 

 

 



Having a gun makes you safer!

Because without an AK-47, how would you protect yourself from your elderly father who has his hands in his pockets. HIS POCKETS!

Murder suspect told 911 operators he ‘had to shoot’ his father
Posted: 12:23 p.m. Tuesday, June 4, 2013

 

The Henry County man who police say shot and killed his father at the family’s auto parts business last Wednesday told 911 operators that he killed his father after the older man threatened him.

 

So I guess the old man had a gun pointed at the son? Or a knife? Or something?

 

“He came in here wanting to fight me, and had his hands in his pocket and I didn’t have no choice but to shoot him,” Morgan told the operator.

 

No choice! What else could he do? I know if my dad ever comes at me with pocketed hands, well, I'd sure want to have a military-grade assault weapon at hand!

 

 

 

Asked by the dispatcher where in the body his father was shot, Morgan replied, “I shot him wherever I could hit him.”

The operator asked if the victim was breathing, and Morgan said, “no, he ain’t; he’s dead.”

And here comes the really salient part:

The operator then asked Morgan to look and see if his father’s chest was rising.

“I shot him with an AK-47; there ain’t no way he’s breathing,” Morgan said.

Because I gotta think that if this nut had been armed with, say a deer rifle or a revolver, maybe the old man might still be breathing. Maybe he would have survived one shot to the gut, but instead, his moron son "shot him wherever he could hit him" with a goddamm AK.

How long are we going to allow mentally unstable idiots to arm themselves with military-style weaponry just because the cowards in DC are afraid of hurting the feelings of guys like this?

Good songs Spoiled

Sometimes, an otherwise good song can be spoiled by an ugly bit of lyrics. here are a few examples.


1. That's The Way The World Goes Round - John Prine

Mostly, this is a pleasant song about how "you're up one day, the next you're down." However, the first verse is about a guy who's "a pretty nice fella but kinda confused" which sounds okay until this part:

He starts in drinkin', gets a big red nose

Beats his old lady with a rubber hose

 

 

 



 

 



Holy shit! Where the hell did that come from?
And you know, it would be one thing if this guy was the villain of the story, but Prine has already established that he's a "pretty nice fella," which he definitely is not if he's beating his old lady with a rubber hose. And the next line is

then he takes her out to dinner and buys her new clothes.
That's the way that the world goes 'round.

Like that's just one of those things that happens! You know, on the one hand, he's violently beating this woman, but hey, on the other hand, he's taking her out to dinner and buying her clothes, so I guess it all evens out!


2. Jack Straw - The Grateful Dead

Like most songs with lyrics by Robert Hunter, I have no fucking idea what this song is about. Except that it concerns a man named Jack Straw from Wichita. But it's mostly a perfectly fine song, although there are a lot of crimes committed within it. But for some reason, the song both opens and closes with the line:

We can share the women, we can share the wine.

What does it even have to do with the rest of the song? Hell if I know. But it seems like you could have come up with some line that doesn't involve passing women around like some sort of commodity, like bottles of wine.

3.  Getting Better - The Beatles

As the title implies, this is a song about things getting a bit better all the time. And most of the lyrics are about little innocuous things like:

 

I used to get mad at my school
The teachers who taught me weren't cool

But basically, he's getting over his anger issues, and everything's getting better, and Isn't that nice? Except:

I used to be cruel to my woman
I beat her and kept her apart from the things that she loved

No. You don't get to just drop that in there in verse 3 like it was just another foible. Oh, I was really frustrated in school, oh, yeah, and I committed a bunch of domestic abuse, but hey things are much better now!
Seriously, look how frivolously the entire domestic violence issue is tossed aside:

I used to be cruel to my woman
I beat her and kept her apart from the things that she loved
Man I was mean but I'm changing my scene
And I'm doing the best that I can (Ooh)

 I admit it's getting better (Better)
A little better all the time (It can't get more worse)

4. Slip It In - Black Flag

Musically, this is a great song. This is Black Flag at the height of their powers, a perfect demonstration of the raw power of LA hardcore.
Unfortunately, the entirety of the lyrics is a combination of slut-shaming and date-rape apologia.

For instance, here's the chorus:

You say you don't want it

You don't want it

Say you don't want it

Then you slip it on in

 

So, saying you don't want it is just a type of foreplay?  Or a pretense to be ignored?  The girl repeatedly says that she doesn't "want it," but don't worry, she'll give in eventually. And you wanna know why? 'Cuz she's loose! Seriously, in 1984, Henry Rollins was using the perjorative "loose!" (I don't know why I had the impression Henry Rollins was kind of an enlightened, progressive guy.)
Check this shit out:

You're loose
Put your brain in a noose
The next day you regret it
But, you're still loose

And the song climaxes with the denunciation

You're not loose, you're wide open!

 

I'm running out of Jon Stewart GIF's.

 

 

 5. Only The Good Die Young - Billy Joel

I feel strange including a Billy Joel song on a list of "good songs," as I usually find his stuff to be, as the French say, "shitty." But this is the one song of his I can stand, it's got a great beat and you can dance to it, Dick. And the lyrics are even pretty sharp and clever. Unfortunately, the entire song is Billy mocking his girlfriend's deeply-held religious beliefs in order to pressure her into having sex with him.

Come out come out come out Virgina don't let me wait,
You Catholic girls start much too late
Sooner or later it comes down to fate
I might as well be the one.

Really? You might as well? What girl could resist that kind of smooth talk?

Obviously, this isn't as offensive as some of the other songs, but I still feel like I should be offended.

More Right-Wing Boys With Their Feelings Hurt

Bryan Fischer, leader of the American Family Association, or something like that, and just generally all-around terrible person finds (surprise, surprise) Biblical justification for his pathetic gynophobia. According to his reading of Scripture, God designed men to be "breadwinners," because that was totally a thing that existed in ancient hunter-gatherer / nomadic herder societies.

 I believe it was in the book of Genesis when the Lord said unto Adam "Yea, and thou shalt put on a tie and go to thine office each day, excepting of course for the Sabbath, and shall endure the wrath of Mr. Dithers so that thou shalt be able to bring home thy bacon which thou shalt not ever eat, for it is unclean unto thee. And Thou, Eve, shalt stay in thine house and raise thy children and bring unto thine husband a cocktail when he arriveth home. And verily, this child-rearing arrangement shall be so foolproof that there shall be very little chance that thy first-born son shall ever murder his brother."

 

 

Of course, I could be wrong. . .

 

 

 Of course, Fischer's real reason for why women should not out-earn their husbands is that the mens' feelings will be hurt. Seriously, that's his main reason. All these men are going to feel bad about themselves if they aren't the primary earner, because I guess they realize that money is pretty much all they bring to the relationship?

 

 

 

There is absolutely no other reason she would tolerate me!

 

 

 My wife earns more money than I do. A lot more, thank God, which is why we live in a house and not a cardboard box under an overpass. But I guess I'm supposed to feel bad about that. And if she was a decent God-fearing lady she would immediately quit her job and become dependent on me so that I could feel like there's some reason she keeps me around? Besides my cooking and a pretty nice head of hair. (Also, I can reach stuff on the top shelf, so I got that going for me.)

 

So basically, our 18 years of marriage have been a complete sham. It's almost as if she likes me because of who I am, not because of how much bread I can win. She must be insane!

 

 



Brave Miami Cops Neutralize a Threat

Oops, I mean "find creative excuses for roughing up a black kid with a puppy."