Usually when a gun nut gets himself shot while engaging in gunnuttery, I find it amusing. Even laughable. But this is a bit different.
Child firing Uzi at Ariz. shooting range accidentally kills instructor, police say
By Steve Almasy, AnneClaire Stapleton and Ray Sanchez, CNN
Ordinarily, a guy who teaches gun nuts how to fire military-grade assault weapons being shot by the very military-grade assault weapon he is teaching some nut to fire would give me an attack of schadenfreude. But this little girl is going to have to live with this the rest of her life.
She is going to carry this weight of having killed a man for the rest of her days because her idiot parents thought that their irrational obsession with weaponry was more important than the health and safety of their child. This poor kid is going to have nightmares the rest of her life because her mouth-breathing, knuckle-dragging parents placed more value on their love affair with deadly weapons than on the well-being of their little girl. Absolutely despicable.
Honestly, it's amazing this doesn't happen more often, given our nation's dysfunctional relationship with firearms.
Although, that's not to say that it doesn't happen.
And it goes on and on and on because we don't dare risk hurting the feelings of people like this
who believe that their "right" to dress up and play Army man in public trumps the right of the rest of us not to have to live with the knowledge that any one of us can be shot dead at any moment for any or no reason because FREEDOMMMM!!!!
And they have the world's weirdest movie critic, David T. Lindsay, who sees every movie ever made as an example of his weird political views.
For instance, here is the opening line of his review of teen movie The Giver:
The Giver [PG-13]: The dazed stupor of the hysterical do-gooders who foster racism while calling for censorship disguised as fair play find the fruits of their labor realized in director Phillip Noyce’s adaptation of Lois Lowry’s 1993 children’s classic, The Giver.
Um. . . what???
Owing a huge debt to both Ayn Rand’s Anthem and Huxley’s Brave New World, there have been other dystopian films such as Equilibrium and Harrison Bergeron that show a not-too-distant future where emotion has been eradicated in the attempt to guarantee there being no losers, that no one achieves popularity more so than anyone else so that everyone measures up to a sameness – no better off than anyone else.
It doesn’t sound like the not-too-distant future. It sounds like last week. Especially when you take into account that for complete obedience, one of the first distractions eliminated is music! Shades of Georgia Public Broadcasting!
Um. . . yeah. . . Georgia Public Broadcasting doesn't play a whole lot of music, but there are tons of other stations that do. No one's eliminating music. Your magazine has a weekly radio show on WMLB that is all about music.
I remember years ago when an American in Manila was caught in the act of vandalizing cars. Convicted, he was sentenced to bamboo caning, which caused an American outcry that this was barbaric! Nope – true barbarism was his failure to respect private property! There are no human rights without property rights.
Okay, that fucking came out of nowhere. What the fuck does this have to do with the movie? Hell if I know! (Also, it was Singapore, not the Philippines)
Well, I'm sure he'll get back to critiquing the movie in the next paragraph.
Again, for those with the “progressive” brain aneurysm: there are no human rights without property rights!
What does it benefit an individual to be designated as the beneficiary of “human rights” if his property can be seized by Imminent Domain? Or his bank account confiscated and redistributed? If his home is burned to the ground? His business looted – robbed for cigars or gold? If allowed unchallenged, what’s to keep the looter satisfied with mere property? What if he returns to demand your life? The issue in the real world is that some are permitted, out of a sense of injustice or envy, to sacrifice others.
So you can imagine what the world's weirdest film critic would have to say about Dinesh D'Souza's latest lie-turd:
America: Imagine the World Without Her [PG-13]: Payback is a bitch for the lunatic fringe who blame America for a conquest ethic that has existed since the dawn of man in this documentary from the man who exposed 2016: Obama's America. The American left, or their latest identification as "progressives"(Ooh-la-la!), would blame George W. Bush for the crucifixion, the Black Plague, Katrina and the Challenger explosion if it weren't for guys like Dinesh D’Souza to call their bluff.
If the most "payback" they can muster is a shitty movie that no one but them is going to see, I think we'll be just fine.
Also, it's interesting how you lump Katrina in there with all those things that Bush couldn't possibly be blamed for. I mean, obviously Hurricane Katrina wasn't caused by Dubya, but it's more than fair to blame him for his administration's piss-poor response to the tragedy.
As the shining beacon of ALL liberty, whose constitution has been used as the basis for ALL freedom-seeking people everywhere on this planet, the United States has nonetheless spawned ravenous deniers like Saul Alinsky and Howard Zinn who have perpetuated the myth that the nation was built on slave labor on stolen Indian and Mexican land.
Um. . . okay. . . let's go ahead and stipulate that the US Constitution is pretty great. How does that negate the existence of slavery? And no matter how neato a country we built on this land, that doesn't change the fact that we stole it from the people who were already living here.
D’Souza responds by pointing out that Christopher Columbus NEVER stepped foot on American soil since his landing was in 1492 and America was established in 1776!
How the fuck is that a response? That's like saying "Joe's not a wife-beater. They weren't married yet when he beat Susan up."
I really don't get what the point of that is even supposed to be. Columbus may have done some horrible things, but he did them before the Western Hemisphere was called "America?" So therefore, the US is immune from criticism over atrocities like slavery? You know, come to think of it, that does pretty much sound like D'Souza logic.
Furthermore, every piece of land claimed by Europeans was previously stolen by Indian tribes from lesser tribes, and since Mexico NEVER owned California or New Mexico but inherited from the Spaniards when they ran them out of Mexico, they can't claim any territorial rights to the United States!
Did various Native American tribes steal land from other tribes? I don't know. Maybe. Let's say they did. I guess that totally justifies the Trail of Tears!
And, yes, there was no Nation of Mexico before Spain was ejected from the Americas, but how is that relevant? The same peoples who were living in Texas, California, etc before the Mexican Revolution were still there after. If they went from being called Aztecs to being citizens of Nueva Espana to being called Mexicans, that really doesn't justify running them off their land at gunpoint.
And now. . .
The most insane and offensive line of the piece:
And, since individual rights are the product of America's Declaration of Independence, there can be no claim to “rights” of any sort by the tribal Indians!
So, up until 1776, throughout all of human history until 1776 no persons had any rights anywhere in the world. There was no such thing as human rights until Thomas Jefferson wrote the finest piece of public relations ever published. The Declaration of Independence which, by the way, is not a legally binding document, but an open letter to the crown heads of Europe convincing them not to intervene on the side of Britain, states clearly that it is enumerating rights which already exist, not creating new ones.
Also, why would these rights apply to white folks but not Indians? At the very least, the Indians' human rights should have been respected post-1776 (by your logic).
You shall have rights when I say you shall have rights!
The left NEVER admit they are wrong about anything, so occasionally D’Sousa has to rub their noses in the facts. It is not enough to expose their sedition without tying the leaders of the Democrat Party to the twisted fabricated guilt that’s been taught in public schools from textbooks designed to blame America.
Sedition? Pointing out things that America has done wrong is sedition?
P.S. If you are not fortunate enough to live in the Atlanta area, you probably don't know about WMLB, the greatest radio station in the world. (Yes, I have sampled every radio station in the world)
Check 'em out here: http://1690wmlb.com/ you can listen to live-streaming audio.
Someone interviewed Dinesh D'Souza recently. Dinesh D'Souza, who besides being a wingnut liar has just been convicted of violating campaign finance law. Do you have any idea how hard it is to violate campaign finance law anymore? It's like running afoul of Bird Law.
You have to really want to set out to commit a crime to violate whatever scraps of campaign finance law still exists in this country.
At any rate, some idiot interviewed Dinesh D'Souza and he crapped out this gem:
“The common thread between ISIS and what’s going in Ferguson is you have these people who basically believe that to correct a perceived injustice, it’s perfectly okay to inflict all types of new injustices,” D’Souza said. “Behead guys who had nothing to do with it. Go and loot shops from business owners who were not part of the original problem whatsoever. And all of this is then licensed by the left and licensed to some degree by the media.”
Okay, so going forward, here is how journalists should handle someone like D'Souza:
When a ridiculous person says something ridiculous, just say: "You're a very silly man and I'm not going to interview you."
When you come in to work and find that your producer has booked Donald Trump and he starts telling you about his private investigators in Hawaii, just hold up your hand, look him right in the eye and say "You're a very silly man and I'm not going to interview you."
Think of the trouble that could have been avoided if, when Michele Bachmann first appeared on the scene and started babbling about investigating congress members with un-American ideas, the interviewer had simply said.
"You're a very silly woman and I'm not going to interview you."
When Lindsey Graham comes in to your studio with a list of reasons that we really really need to go to war with yet another country, just say
"You're a very silly man and I'm not going to interview you."
When Louie Gohmert or Steve King open their mouths to say anything,
"You're a very silly man and I'm not going to interview you."
So, if you're a cop, and you think maybe cops are getting a bad rap due to all the unarmed black guys they keep somehow killing and their generally thuggish behavior in Ferguson, what sort of an op-ed might you write?
Well, assuming you're not a moron, you probably wouldn't come out with something like this column in the Washington Post:
I’m a cop. If you don’t want to get hurt, don’t challenge me.
What the fuck? Are you sure this isn't the Onion?
Nope, WaPo!
Wow.
So who the fuck is this scumbag?
By Sunil DuttaAugust 19
Sunil
Dutta, a professor of homeland security at Colorado Tech University,
has been an officer with the Los Angeles Police Department for 17 years.
The views presented here are his own and do not represent the LAPD or
CTU.
Really? The LAPD? The LAPD doesn't share this viewpoint? You sure?
A teenager is fatally shot by a police officer; the police are accused
of being bloodthirsty, trigger-happy murderers; riots erupt. This, we
are led to believe, is the way of things in America.
Well, yeah. All those things happened in America, so. . . yeah, I would say that this is the way of things in America.
It is also a terrible calumny; cops are not murderers.
Um, really?
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — A
Utah police officer who killed his wife, their two children, his
mother-in-law and then himself received text messages from his wife just
hours earlier threatening to leave him and take their kids and
confronting him for raping her, new documents show.
Posted
Police Officer kills wife, son, himself in Boulder City
(CNN) -- A former policeman is on trial in Kansas,
accused of killing his wife and setting their home on fire more than two
years ago.
Well. . . .
Hardly Everrrr!!!
cops are not murderers. No officer goes out in the field wishing to shoot anyone, armed or unarmed.
Really? No officer? How many police officers are there in the US? I mean, there are about 2,000 in Atlanta and we're not even that big a city. So there must be several hundred thousand in America. And none of those cops are looking to shoot someone? Not one? You know how ridiculous people sound when they say that all cops are corrupt or all cops are thugs? Saying none of them are is just as ridiculous.
Regardless of what happened with Mike Brown, in the overwhelming
majority of cases it is not the cops, but the people they stop, who can
prevent detentions from turning into tragedies.
Regardless of what happened with Mike Brown? You do know a young man was killed, right? That's not some minor detail to be brushed aside. But regardless of your gross insensitivity, you sound like an abusive husband saying that it's his wife's responsibility to prevent him from getting upset enough to beat her up. In other words, you sound like a scumbag.
Working the street, I can’t even count how many times I withstood
curses, screaming tantrums, aggressive and menacing encroachments on my
safety zone, and outright challenges to my authority. In the vast
majority of such encounters, I was able to peacefully resolve the
situation without using force.
Why would you ever use force? There's no law against tantrums, curses or challenges. You're an American cop, not a member of Saddam's Republican Guard. You're not actually allowed to use force on people who hurt your feelings.
One time, for instance, my partner and I faced a belligerent man who had
doused his car with gallons of gas and was about to create a firebomb
at a busy mall filled with holiday shoppers. The potential for serious
harm to the bystanders would have justified deadly force. Instead, I
distracted him with a hook about his family and loved ones, and he
disengaged without hurting anyone. Every day cops show similar restraint
and resolve incidents that could easily end up in serious injuries or
worse.
Yes. There are many many good cops who do good work and are heroes. That doesn't excuse the ones who shoot unarmed kids for jaywalking, or choke a man to death for maybe selling cigarettes, ar kill a man holding a bb gun in Target. If you arrested Tony Soprano, would you listen to him tell you about all the Italians in New Jersey who weren't mobbed up? Would that make a difference? Because most Italians in New Jersey are not criminals does not mean that we should overlook the crimes of the Soprano family.
That's him, right?
Sometimes, though, no amount of persuasion or warnings work on a
belligerent person; that’s when cops have to use force, and the results
can be tragic. We are still learning what transpired between Officer
Darren Wilson and Brown, but in most cases it’s less ambiguous — and
officers are rarely at fault. When they use force, they are defending
their, or the public’s, safety.
No, we already know what happened. There were witnesses. It couldn't be less ambiguous. And if officers are rarely at fault, that does not excuse the ones who are.
Even though it might sound harsh and impolitic, here is the bottom line:
if you don’t want to get shot, tased, pepper-sprayed, struck with a
baton or thrown to the ground, just do what I tell you.
What?
Don’t argue with me, don’t call me names, don’t tell me that I can’t
stop you, don’t say I’m a racist pig, don’t threaten that you’ll sue me
and take away my badge.
Wait. You're saying that if I argue with you, ARGUE, you're gonna shoot me? You're gonna club me with your baton if I call you names? Where are you stationed, Tahir Square?
I am aware that corrupt and bully cops exist. When it comes to police
misconduct, I side with the ACLU: Having worked as an internal affairs
investigator, I know that some officers engage in unprofessional and
arrogant behavior; sometimes they behave like criminals themselves.
WHAT??? You just now said that you would behave like a corrupt bully if I argued with you! Threatening to throw me down and pepper-spray me if I call you names is pretty much the epitome of unprofessional and arrogant behavior.
And you don’t have to submit to an illegal stop or search. You can
refuse consent to search your car or home if there’s no warrant (though a
pat-down is still allowed if there is cause for suspicion). Always ask
the officer whether you are under detention or are free to leave. Unless
the officer has a legal basis to stop and search you, he or she must
let you go.
Unless that cop is you. Then you will tase me, pepper spray me, beat me and shoot me for daring to question your authority.
But if you believe (or know) that the cop stopping you is violating your
rights or is acting like a bully, I guarantee that the situation will
not become easier if you show your anger and resentment.
So, in other words, when your rights are being violated, you just smile and take it, bitch!
Save your anger for later, and channel it appropriately. Do what the
officer tells you to and it will end safely for both of you.
If you're white.
And not occupying anything.
Community members deserve courtesy, respect and professionalism from
their officers. Every person stopped by a cop should feel safe instead
of feeling that their wellbeing is in jeopardy. Shouldn’t the community
members extend the same courtesy to their officers and project that the
officer’s safety is not threatened by their actions?
Yeah, all you have to do is just put your hands up in the air, and. . . oh. . . Right. . . Never mind.
Eric Holder put out a sort of open letter to the people of Ferguson, MO today which seems to indicate that he does indeed have a pulse after all. Naturally, it was pathetic.
It includes such gems as:
The Justice Department will defend the right of protesters to peacefully demonstrate and for the media to cover a story that must be told.
Um, really? Then go ahead. Do some defending. Send in Federal Marshalls to keep the local cops from going all goon squad on peaceful protestors. Or, I don't know, do. . . something? Anything? It's easy to say "we defend the rights of protestors" it's like putting an "I support the troops" sticker on your car. It means nothing unless you do some actual supporting. So far, the justice department has done exactly nothing to support anyone's rights in Ferguson.
At the same time, good law enforcement requires forging bonds of trust between the police and the public. This trust is all-important, but it is also fragile. It requires that force be used in appropriate ways. Enforcement priorities and arrest patterns must not lead to disparate treatment under the law, even if such treatment is unintended.
Yes, the bond of trust is so fragile. So easily broken. I mean, you murder one defenseless kid, and all of a sudden people don't trust you anymore.
In order to begin the healing process, however, we must first see an end to the acts of violence in the streets of Ferguson. Although these acts have been committed by a very small minority — and, in many cases, by individuals from outside Ferguson — they seriously undermine, rather than advance, the cause of justice.
Hmm, and what about the police? Should they maybe also stop committing acts of violence? Or are the violent acts all being committed by this small minority of outsiders? Nope. Nowhere in the letter does Holder mention at all that the police are beating, gassing and shooting peaceful protestors and reporters (the people whose rights he pledges to support) on a nightly basis.
If this is what Holder comes up with when he does finally stir, I'd just a s soon he went back to being comatose.
This article ran this morning in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution under the headline
"Officials Trying to Learn From Tragedy."
By SHARON COHEN
The Associated Press
They've lined the streets with police in riot gear, brought in a new black commander with an empathetic manner, imposed a curfew, lifted it and deployed the National Guard. But violence is still erupting nightly in Ferguson, Missouri.
Yeah, wow, what a mystery. How could violence still possibly be erupting after all that? Gosh, no matter how many people we beat, tear-gas, and pelt with rubber-coated bullets, there still seems to be violence occurring!
And are we really going to pretend that the violence is not coming from the cops?
Yeah, these guys look like they're just trying to restore peace and order.
Let's see, one guy is armed with a rifle, the other with a posterboard sign.* Who do you think is instigating violence? Apparently, it's a mystery. At least to Sharon Cohen, who is officially part of the problem.
*And, now that I look closer, seems to be a lady wearing pajamas.
Gross ex-cop Bo Dietl was on some piece of crap show to defend a cop shooting an unarmed kid a bunch of times while his hands were raised, and this is what he came up with:
“When you’re in a shoot-out, and you’re firing away, and you stop, and you’re shooting the torso, you’re trying to stop somebody,” Dietl continued. “I don’t know how he got hit in the head, but bullets go that way. He was trying to stop this guy obviously.”
Um okayyyy. . .
That might be a valid point, maybe, if the cop had been in a shootout. Then, yeah, maybe you could say that bullets go every-which-way and hey, what are ya gonna do? but THERE WAS NO SHOOTOUT! Even the cop has never claimed that the kid had a gun. Do you know what a shootout is? There has to be at least two shooters, otherwise it's just someone getting gunned down.
Have you ever seen a Western movie? They have shootouts in them. Notice that there is always more than one shooter in every single one of these shootouts. Otherwise, it's just Wyatt Earp murdering all the Clantons while they try to surrender which would be a really shitty movie.
Hmm. . . or would it?
I know that for some reason (racism? Nah!) the same people who usually are wetting their pants over the specter of "Jack-Booted Government Thugs" feel the need to defend this particular government thug and his jack-booted compatriots who are militarizing a small Midwestern town, but holy fuck, Dietl, do you even listen to yourself? Are you even trying?
Seems like the last few days have been more-than-usually full of shitty people saying shitty things. Whether they're saying shitty things about Micheal brown being murdered or Robin Williams killing himself, there seems to be a contest among right-wing commentators to see who can say the shittiest thing about something tragic.
And, sure, everyone occasionally says something shitty, or does something shitty, but honest to God, you could spend the day swimming laps in a hog lagoon and then eat feces sandwiches for dinner and not approach the level of shittiness that it takes to take cheap shots at the memory of a beloved entertainer whose life has just ended tragically. Or to criticize a group of bereaved people for not grieving correctly when a member of their community is mowed down in the prime of life.
But for some reason, this shitty comment has been getting a lot of attention:
Fox’s Keith Ablow: Michelle Obama Could Stand to ‘Drop a Few’ Pounds
I'm not sure why this particular shitty comment has been garnering so much attention, because right-wing idiots have been trotting this out for years, ever since Ms Obama decided to make childhood obesity her issue. I think it was Rush Limbaugh who first attacked her for this.
Now, a semi-normal person, if he had an irrational hatred of the First Lady, might criticize her from the perspective of "oh, she thinks she's so great, she thinks that just because she is in perfect physical condition, she can tell the rest of us how to raise our sugar-cured piglets." Or whatever. But, no. Rush decided to take this weird approach of pretending that she has no room to criticize other people's weight, because she herself is supposedly a big fat fatty fatfat.
And one of these idiots coined the term "Moochelle," which caught on in spite of its complete detachment from any reality. Do a Google search for the word "Moochelle." You Know what you get?
About 107,000 results (0.63 seconds)
Yeah, I don't get it.
I mean, if Michelle Obama did happen to be a heavy-set woman, this would be a cheap, shabby, juvenile and mean taunt, but come on, look at her!
She looks like a goddamned Olympic athlete!
If you blurred out her face and told people that this was a photo of the captain of the Women's World Cup team, or the new starting forward for the Atlanta Dream, people would believe you.
I mean, does she look remotely cow-like to anyone?
If you wanted to compare her to some sort of animal, I might go with giraffe, since she is rather tall and quite slender. Maybe you could get some kind of laughs from that comparison? I don't know, but Moochelle? How much blinding, irrational rage do you have to have for the woman to look at someone who is the very picture of physical fitness and star making cow noises? How far off the rails do you have to have gone to convince yourself that Michelle Fucking Obama is overweight? Jeezus, she could be the third Williams sister!
Oh, maybe she is!
So, in the spirit of the Rush Limbaughs of the world, I would now like to present snarky comments about past prominent persons in American History.
Geez, Ike, why don't you control that unruly mop on your head?
You're the President, for God's sake, not a Beatle! Buy a comb, why dontcha?
Dang, look at this scrawny little wimp. How is America supposed to project an image of strength with this 98-pound weakling at the helm?
Ooh, look at me, I won the Civil War! I freed the slaves! Sounds like someone's overcompensating for his Napoleon complex! Get over it, shorty!
Oh, man, look at these two prudes! I bet neither of these Puritans has ever gotten laid!
I don't know how crazy Ron Paul actually is. I suspect some of the insanity might be an act to appeal to a certain demographic that can easily be convinced to buy gold because FEMA is gonna put you in a camp and force-feed you flouride!!1!
But either way, if he's going to keep playing the part of a bug-eyed lunatic, can't we just fit him for a straightjacket and toss him into a padded cell?
Ron Paul Says U.S. 'Likely Hiding Truth' About MH17 Crash
Because of course they are, just like they've been hiding the truth about Area 51 for all these years.
"The U.S. government has grown strangely quite on the accusation that it
was Russia or her allies that brought down the Malaysian airliner with a
buck anti-aircraft missile [sic]," the former GOP presidential
candidate wrote. "The little that we have heard from U.S. intelligence
is that it has no evidence that Russia was involved. Yet the war
propaganda were successful in convincing the American public that it was
all Russia’s fault."
I've read that paragraph like 10 times now, and I'm still not sure what point he's making about whose propaganda, other than maybe "YOUR GOVERNMENT IS LYING TO YOU! WAKE UP, SHEEPLE!!!"
Also, "strangely silent?' The administration has not really been all that silent about pinning at least some of the blame on Russia:
Do a quick Google search for "Obama + Russia + Flight 17" and see what pops up:
Jul 18, 2014 -WASHINGTON: US President Barack Obama on Friday squarely blamed Russia and its President Putin for the outrageous shooting down of ..
So I don't really get what "strange silence" he's referring to.
"It’s hard to believe that the U.S., with all of its spy satellites
available for monitoring everything in Ukraine that precise proof of who
did what and when is not available," he added.
Really? Hard to believe, is it? Hard to believe that the US Intelligence community might have missed something? You know, the crack group that didn't foresee the fall of the Berlin Wall? The guys who took decades to figure out that maybe Aldrich Ames was up to something fishy? Those guys?
I will never understand why people who hold as a fundamental belief that government is inherently incompetent and can do nothing right also somehow believe that the CIA/NSA/etc are omniscient, omnipotent entities capable of pulling off the wildest of conspiracies.
"Questions do remain regarding the serious international incident," Paul
wrote last week of the MH17 crash. "Too bad we can’t count on our
government to just tell us the truth and show us the evidence. I’m
convinced that it knows a lot more than it’s telling us."
Seriously, can we just have this guy committed already?
I don't know whether Roger F. Noriega is a stupid man.
He does have a Bachelor's Degree from something called Washburn University, so I'm guessing he's not actually stupid. But it's hard to tell.
There are two schools of Right-Wing punditry, the stupid school ( Tucker Carlson, Sarah Palin, everyone on Fox & Friends) and the dishonest school (Charles Krauthammer, George Will, etc). And of course, there are those with one foot in each category (lookin' at you, Sean Hannity!)
So it's hard to say whether Roger F. Noriega was being stupid, dishonest or both when he belched up this column, printed in the Atlanta Journal Constitution under the headline
Border Crisis is Obama's
WASHINGTON — Try as he might, President Obama cannot escape
responsibility for the debacle at the U.S. southwest border, caused, in
part, by his administration’s mismanagement.
Now, if one were trying to do actual legitimate journalism here, one might point out an example or two of the President trying to evade responsibility, but Noriega is from the American Enterprise Institute whose motto is "Facts? We don't have to show you any stinking facts!"
Until Congress returns next month, he should use the tools he has to
secure the border and to discourage illegal crossings. One can only hope
that he will not take unilateral actions that might make matters worse.
So, he should act on his own without Congress, but hopefully not take any unilateral action.
After all, the current crisis has been stoked by loose talk in
Washington about a possible “amnesty” of illegal immigrants, stoked by
Obama’s 2012 decision to suspend deportation of youth with long-standing
ties to the United States, and news that young children arriving at the
border were being released pending hearings.
Okay. Except the "loose talk" has come from Republican scare-mongers who scream "Amnesty!!!" every time anyone suggests maybe treating immigrants with some human decency.
And the children being given hearings is due to the Obama Administration enforcing a law signed by president George W. Bush.
Other than that, though, sure. Clearly all Obama's fault!
During a visit to Washington last month, Honduran President Juan Orlando
Hernandez cited “ambiguities” about U.S. border enforcement that are
part of the “pull factor” encouraging people to rush across the U.S.
border.
Sure. Because, obviously these children are leaving the only home they've ever known, traveling 1,200 miles across a rapist-infested desert clinging to a train that they themselves refer to as the "Death Train" because of an "ambiguity" in US Border enforcement. Sure, that's probably it. It couldn't be the fact that their hometowns have become so overrun by gangs, cartels, and assorted murderers that the Death Train seems like a slightly safer alternative to staying in their homes.
Hernandez also explained the “push factor”: Narco-violence that sows
insecurity and deadly street gangs preying on youth in his country and
neighboring El Salvador and Guatemala. Unfortunately, these are poor
nations with governments unable or unwilling to deal with these
challenges.
Are you even going to try to find a way that that's Obama's fault?
No?
You got nothing?
Okay, carry on!
Refugee advocates contend that more than half of those arriving in
recent months have bona fide claims that require a hearing under U.S.
and international law. That is contradicted by a Border Patrol
survey in May that found that nearly all of those interviewed made the
trek because of recent rumors of leniency. According to sources in
Central America, so-called “coyotes” — criminals who make their living
smuggling people — have been advertising lax U.S. border enforcement to
drum up business.
Oh my God, how many times does that need to be debunked?
Do you really think these desperate children are, in between ducking bullets and evading kidnappers. thumbing through the local paper looking for articles describing the state of border enforcement in El Paso?
It's interesting that you don't provide a link to this survey, because from what I hear, most of these kids haven't heard these rumors until their journey is well underway.
Part of the initial problem in responding to the border crisis was the
administration’s overly broad application of a 2008
anti-human-trafficking law that requires a complicated hearing on an
immigrant’s asylum pleas.
Overly broad how?
And seriously, complicated? Is that really the problem here? Are the hearings too "complicated" for immigration judges? Who have law degrees? And specialize in exactly these kinds of cases? Really? Oh, no, these hearings are just too darn complicated, let's send these children back to their deaths. That's much simpler!
The current crisis is fueled primarily by smuggling, not trafficking.
Border personnel should be allowed to use their experience and
discretion to screen for legitimate refugee or trafficking cases.
Yes, just like street cops get to use their discretion whether to jail someone. It's not like there are trials and judges and what-not. That would be too "complicated!"
Of course, bona fide refugees in U.S. territory must be attended to
lawfully. However, the U.N. should work with local governments to offer
relief to refugees in their country of origin, rather than wait for them
to run the gauntlet to the U.S. border.
And since Barack Obama is totally in charge of the UN, this is clearly another failure! Impeach!!!
I mean, he must be, right, seeing as how this is "his" crisis!
One thing that all can agree upon is that no one is better off
risking the thousand-mile trek through Mexico, during which many
migrants are abused, robbed, raped or killed. If the perception of
lax enforcement lures people to risk life and limb, that must change
immediately. Republicans made these arguments while crafting a tough
measure that would strengthen border enforcement, make it easier to
deport new arrivals and send an unambiguous signal that the border is
being secured.
Right, the only humane thing to do to a child who has survived the hellish journey is to send him on a return trip back through the robbers, rapists and murderers, so that he can spread the word back in his hometown that our borders are secure, goddammit!
Although the president initially talked tough on border enforcement, his
political advisers apparently recommended that he toss the “hot potato”
to congressional Republicans.
Wait, are you saying that he expects Republican legislators to legislate? He actually thinks that lawmakers should make laws? No, clearly he is completely derelict in his duties by not acting unilaterally so that John Boehner can then sue him for acting unilaterally.
However, securing the border is the responsibility of the president, not
the Congress. And, the president does not need new authority to get a
handle on this crisis by sending an unambiguous message that illegal
crossings will be stopped, most new arrivals will be turned around, and a
sweeping unilateral “amnesty” is off the table.
Okay, let me see if I got this. Border enforcement is the purview of the Executive Branch. And the executive decides how to execute the laws. And it is up to him to decide whether to show basic human decency by taking in child refugees or to turn them around, give them a swift kick in the pants and say "sorry, kid. Try not to get murdered on the way back!" That's up to him right? Then how about you shut the fuck up and let him do his job? When you're the president, you can decide how to execute the laws of the land. Until then, the guy who is President is going to have to do that. And the fact that you don't like it isn't all that relevant. You want a more cruel border policy? Win an election. Find a candidate who isn't batshit insane, unctously corrupt or both and try to win an election. Until then, just get out of the way and let the grownups handle this.
Yeah. . . I don't know who could possibly be screwing things up for Mitch McConnell more than Mitch McConnell.
Although, I guess a Kentucky Republican might be hurt by being married to a non-Caucasian woman, even one who worked for The George W. Bush administration.
But no, that's not even it.
This is too good:
McConnell says that he is a “friend of coal.”
But Chao sits on the board of Bloomberg Philanthropies which supports a “war on coal.” (This is former New York Mayor Bloomberg’s. organization)
McConnell is big on tobacco.
But Chao is advising Bloomberg which “backs a global battle against tobacco.”
Oh my God. She's actually hurting McConnell's campaign by doing something decent! I mean, I'm sure she's working for the Bloomberg group for the money, not out of any sense of conviction or human decency, but by somehow finding herself on the side of, if not good, then at least "not-evil," she is having the unintended side-effect of hurting her horrible husband's re-election chances.
Cecil Roberts, Union Mine Workers Association (UMWA) union chief, released a statement, “One has to wonder just where Sen. McConnell is with respect to this,
and whether he supports his wife’s continued service on the board of
this organization, one whose actions have already cost thousands of coal
miners in Kentucky and elsewhere their jobs.”
Now, is this true? No, probably not. There seems to be no shortage of coal-powered plants in the US and around the world. If anything, coal mining jobs have probably been lost to mountain-top removal and other technological advances which make it possible to extract more coal with fewer workers, but who cares? If the coal-miners union is coming out in opposition to McConnell, that can only be good news for Alison Lundgren-Grimes. I don't know enough about Ms Lundgren-Grimes to know if she would make a good Senator or not, but I know enough. I know that she is not Mitch McConnell, so she would definitely be an improvement over Mitch McConnell.
So, to former Labor Secratary Elaine Chao, I say "You Go, Girl!"
Last week, I said that Michael Ramirez was Exhibit A in the case of "Conservatives Should Never Try to be Funny Ever."
Exhibit B is David M. Hitch
Here's a recent example:
Okay, why is that even supposed to be funny?
The whole point of the political cartoon is that the joke has to be based on something that actually happened in the real world.
See, here's how a professional does it:
See, the joke is based on Sarah Palin's repeated insistence that the Affordable Care Act would contain "Death Panels." That's what makes the joke work. (That and the fact that Sarah Palin is pretty much a living, breathing punchline)
For your joke to work, Al Gore would have had to have claimed at some point that a movie or TV show or some other work of fiction served as evidence to back up his warnings about global warming.
But he didn't do that.
So there's no joke.
Also, there absolutely has been reams of scientific evidence supporting Al Gore's claims about global warming. The scientific evidence is what his warnings were based on. Global warming was not something discovered by or postulated by Al Gore. He was merely serving as a mouthpiece for the entire legitimate scientific community.
And you don't even need any scientific expertise, the average global temperature gets a little higher every year. It's not even climatoilogy at this point, it's basic arithmetic.
There was a scene in an episode of "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia" in which Charlie is keeping a hornet's nest in a box, convinced that he will eventually get free honey. Dennis explains to him that hornets do not make honey, to which Charlie replies "I don't think there's any good science behind that."
"Yes there is," says Dennis. "there's very good sci - - you know what, it's not even science, it's just true!" (paraphrasing)
That's how I feel whenever I hear someone questioning the science behind global warming. "It's not even science, it's just true!" You can look for yourself. Google pictures of polar ice several years ago vs today
You don't need a degree in climatology to see the difference.
And that's why conservatives should never try to be funny ever.
Somehow, from out of the ass-clown circus that is the Republican's Benghazi committee, actual real-world sanity managed to poke its head out. Of course, it saw its shadow and we're going to get 6 more weeks of bullshit.
House panel: No administration wrongdoing in Benghazi attack
[Rep. Mike]Thompson said the report "confirms that no one was deliberately misled, no military assets were withheld and no stand-down order (to U.S. forces) was given."
So it's over, right? We're done with this now, right?
But, but. . . it's over. We're done now. There can't possibly be any more, right?
Gowdy, the committee’s Republican chairman, also said the panel is gaining access to witnesses who didn’t participate in previous congressional investigations into the attacks.
Wait, you found more people who weren't there to make shit up? Alert CBS!
“I know I’m biased, but one of the good parts about running an investigation in a way that appears to be serious-minded is that witnesses who were previously unavailable or not interested in cooperating are now interested in cooperating,” Gowdy said.
Oh fer fuck sake! This investigation absolutely does not appear to be any more serious than any of the other phony clown-show inquisitions. Although I do have to give you credit for admitting that A: you are biased, and B: this investigation only "appears" to be serious-minded. (although, honestly it really doesn't even seem to be)
Gowdy, in an interview, said the panel isn’t scheduled to meet during the August congressional recess, but committee lawyers and investigators will be working.
Which is how you can tell how super-important and serious this is, they're not going to let it interfere with their month off.
Last week, the 12 committee members — seven Republicans and five Democrats — met behind closed doors with family members of the four men killed in Benghazi on the 11th anniversary of the 2001 terrorist attacks in the U.S.
“One of the issues in homicide cases is that the jury knows more about the defendant and virtually nothing about the victim,” said Gowdy, a former prosecutor. “We wanted to give the family members a chance to tell us whatever was on their heart and mind.”
How is that supposed to help anything? Is there something that a grieving family member is going to tell you that's going to crack the case wide open? If these four Americans were brave, noble patriots or if they were jerks who took an overseas posting because they wanted to get far away from their exes, the case is exactly the same. Very bad people stormed the embassy and killed four Americans. It's not like getting some insight into the victims' personalities is going to help you sort through the facts of the case. Facts which, I might add, have already been thoroughly investigated.
Oh, Ambassador Stevens was a big sports fan, eh? So that's how they did it!
Oh, he liked Italian food? That proves that Hillary was in on it!
So who is this Gowdy character?
Seriously? That's a congressman? Must be a bad picture.
No, that's really what they elected. Wow!
He looks like Draco Malfoy grew up and developed a substance abuse problem.
Anyway, I guess the way he looks is kind of the least of his problems. But this guy seriously wants to do another Benghazi investigation? Fuck this guy!
