;)
The Commentariat -- April 30, 2015
Internal links removed.
CW: As promised, another day of goofing off here on my part. Do check out Jon Stewart's interview of Judith Miller, which Victoria D. linked today.
Jonathan Weisman of the New York Times: "Shinzo Abe, in the first address by a Japanese prime minister to a joint meeting of Congress, praised his nation's 'quantum leap' in economic reforms but offered no specific concessions as he appealed to skeptical lawmakers to back a far-reaching Pacific trade accord. Mr. Abe faced a Congress deeply divided by President Obama's drive to obtain fast-track negotiating authority to complete the Trans-Pacific Partnership with Japan and 10 other nations on the Pacific Rim. Lawmakers in both parties have questioned Mr. Abe's ability to open his nation's agriculture and auto markets to American products, one of the biggest questions that remain in the trade talks." ...
... CW: Apparently, Abe's address made Speaker Boehner very, very sad:
Rebecca Shabad of the Hill: "Republicans on Wednesday unveiled a joint House-Senate budget that aims to torpedo ObamaCare while balancing the federal books within 10 years. The release of the blueprint sets up a vote in the House on Friday, with the Senate expected to follow suit next week." ...
... Robert Greenstein of the Center on Budget & Policy Priorities: "The budget conference agreement, if adopted by Congress, will represent one of the most radical budget plans that lawmakers have adopted since they created the modern budget process in 1974. That's no exaggeration. If they follow this plan, lawmakers would eviscerate substantial parts of the federal government -- including parts that have previously enjoyed bipartisan support -- and they also would violate the clear intent of the 2011 Budget Control Act (BCA). Consider this: More than doubling the sequestration cuts.... Radically shrinking much of government.... Using a blatant gimmick to increase defense spending.... Magic asterisk.... Robin Hood in reverse."
Amy Howe of ScotusBlog: "In the past few years, the Roberts Court has been very supportive of the freedom of speech.... But today an unusual coalition of five Justices -- Chief Justice John Roberts and the Court's four more liberal Justices -- agreed on one kind of speech that the government can ban: personal solicitations of campaign funds by people running for judgeships .... in Williams-Yulee v. The Florida Bar. ...
... Rick Hasen: "This is a case which makes it much more likely that limits on money and speech in judicial elections will be upheld.... This is a HUGE win for those who support reasonable limits on judicial elections -- and getting Roberts on this side of the issue is surprising, welcome, and momentous.... Justice Kennedy's dissent [is] not only a dissent to this case, but a defense of his decision in Citizens United." ...
... Gail Collins: "The reform community was thrilled. This is how low our expectations for clean elections have dropped, people.... Antonin Scalia ... found the whole idea of restricting judges' ability to hit up trial lawyers for money a 'wildly disproportionate restriction' upon judicial candidates' right of free speech.... Chief Justice Roberts provided the swing vote on the decision, an irony not lost on pretty much anybody. It's been Roberts who's led the court in castrating limits on the role of big money in other elections. The difference in this case, he explained, is that 'judges are not politicians.' While Roberts thinks his own profession needs to appear impartial and above the fray, he appears to feel that there's no need whatsoever for the public to believe that candidates for, say, president of the United States, aren't being swayed by rich donors."
Lyle Denniston of ScotusBlog: "What appears to be a clear majority of the Court has grown frustrated with the repeated constitutional assaults on the death penalty, especially since that penalty is still constitutionally permitted. That frustration almost boiled over as the Court heard the case of Glossip v. Gross." ...
... Ed Pilkington of the Guardian: "Anger spilled from the nine justices from both sides of the court's ideological divide. The more conservative wing vented their disapproval at those they called 'abolitionists' who they accused of trying to overturn the death penalty by stealth, while the more liberal judges attacked states such as Oklahoma for using a new drug protocol that had left prisoners 'writhing in pain' in executions that took up to two hours to complete.... 'If there's no method of executing a person that does not cause pain, that may show the death penalty is not consistent with the eighth amendment,' [Justice Breyer] said."
June's gonna be a nice time for a gay wedding. -- Jon Stewart
... CW: Also, too, it was pretty clever of the states opposing marriage equality to choose a gay man to argue their case. (Yeah, I know he's married to a woman & has five children for added window-dressing. But he is still gay-gay-gay-diddy-gay.) Please, Supremes, free John Birch Bursch. (But make him pay child support.) ...
... Linda Greenhouse: U.S. Solicitor General Donald Verrilli explains to the Supremes why "wait-and-see" is just another way of validating the "house-divided" status for gays which racial minorities enduring for generations under "de jure racial segregation" in some states.
Margaret Hartmann of New York: "Two nights after Baltimore was burned and looted by rioters, the city's curfew appears to be working. National Guardsmen and police in riot gear were stationed through the city once again, but at 10:00 p.m. only a few stragglers were still out. Members of the community were credited with helping clear the streets, averting clashes with police. 'We are very proud of what has happened here tonight. We are proud of our city,' said Congressman Elijah Cummings. Earlier on Wednesday evening, protesters across the country turned out by the thousands to express their outrage over the death of Freddie Gray, and other victims of police brutality. Massive demonstrations in Washington, D.C., Boston, and Minneapolis were peaceful, but a march in New York ended with the arrest of more than 60 protesters." ...
... Jason Molinet, et al., of the New York Daily News: "Protesters jammed Union Square and clashed with NYPD officers as they marched through the streets of New York City in solidarity with Baltimore activists Wednesday night, briefly shutting down the Holland Tunnel and snarling traffic along the West Side Highway - resulting in at least 100 arrests. What began as a small gathering at Union Square around 6 p.m. swelled to more than 1,000 people, many holding 'Justice 4 Freddie Gray' placards while chanting 'Black Lives Matter' and continued into the early hours Thursday." ...
... Today in Blame-the-Victim News. Peter Hermann of the Washington Post: "A prisoner sharing a police transport van with Freddie Gray told investigators that he could hear Gray 'banging against the walls' of the vehicle and believed that he 'was intentionally trying to injure himself,' according to a police document obtained by The Washington Post." CW: Will consume Fox "News" coverage for days. ...
... Adam Chandler of the Atlantic: "Jayne Miller, a reporter for WBAL-TV, disputed the prisoner's claims on Twitter. She argues that Baltimore Police Commissioner Anthony Batts told her the second prisoner in the police van said Gray had been 'mostly quiet' during the ride and there had been 'no evidence' of Gray banging his head against the van." ...
... In a discussion with Lawrence O'Donnell of MSNBC, Miller cites her own reporting that completely debunks the claim. "The second prisoner is ony in the van for the last five minutes of the ride..., a full 30 minutes after Gray was loaded in the van." ...
... Blame-the-Victim, Ctd. Mark Puente & Doug Donovan of the Baltimore Sun: "Online reports are swirling that Freddie Gray had spinal surgery shortly before he died in police custody, and had collected a payout in a settlement from a car accident. Those reports -- which raise questions about the injury that led to his death in April 19 --; point to Howard County court records as proof. But court records examined Wednesday by The Baltimore Sun show the case had nothing to do with a car accident or a spine injury. Instead, they are connected to a lawsuit alleging that Gray and his sister were injured by exposure to lead paint." ...
... Terrence McCoy of the Washington Post: "Before his controversial death earlier this month while in police custody..., the life of Freddie Gray was defined by failures in the classroom, run-ins with the law, and an inability to focus on anything for very long. Many of those problems began when he was a child and living in [a] house [with pealing lead paint], according to a 2008 lead poisoning lawsuit filed by Gray and his siblings against the property owner, which resulted in an undisclosed settlement.... Advocates and studies say [lead poisoning] can diminish cognitive function, increase aggression and ultimately exacerbate the cycle of poverty that is already exceedingly difficult to break.... The burden weighs heaviest on the poorestcommunities like the Sandtown-Winchester neighborhood in West Baltimore that produced Freddie Gray." ...
... See Keith Howard's comment in today's thread. ...
... Charles Blow: "We can't roundly condemn violent revolt now while ignoring the violent revolts that have littered this country's history. We can't rush to label violent protesters as 'thugs' while reserving judgment about the violence of police killings until a full investigation has been completed and all the facts are in." Thanks to safari for the link.
Dana Milbank: "The Civil War era's 14th Amendment, granting automatic citizenship to any baby born on American soil, is a proud achievement of the Party of Lincoln. But now House Republicans are talking about abolishing birthright citizenship. A House Judiciary subcommittee took up the question Wednesday afternoon, prompted by legislation sponsored by Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) and 22 other lawmakers that, after nearly 150 years, would end automatic citizenship." Read the whole column.
Donald McNeil of the New York Times: "Rubella, a disease with terrible consequences for unborn children, has finally been eliminated from the Americas, a scientific panel set up by global health authorities announced on Wednesday. The disease, also known as German measles, once infected millions of people in the Western Hemisphere. In a 1964-65 outbreak in the United States, 11,000 fetuses were miscarried, died in the womb or were aborted, and 20,000 babies were born with defects."
Nicholas Kulich & Nicola Clark of the New York Times: "The Federal Aviation Administration raised questions in 2010 about whether it should grant a pilot's license in the United States to Andreas Lubitz, who in March flew a Germanwings jetliner into a French mountainside, but was assured by his doctors in Germany that he had fully recovered from an episode of depression the year before, according to newly released documents.... The release of the information, in response to Freedom of Information Act requests from news organizations, helps to fill in gaps in the timeline of Mr. Lubitz's illness and treatment.... There is also evidence suggesting that Mr. Lubitz might have tried to mislead the F.A.A. about his treatment, initially marking 'no' in response to a question on whether he had ever been treated for mental disorders on a form dated June 2010. Referring to a question number on the form, the file notes, 'changed from N to Y.'"
Presidential Race
Alan Rappeport of the New York Times: "Senator Bernie Sanders, an independent from Vermont, announced Thursday that he was running for president as a Democrat, injecting a progressive voice into the contest and providing Hillary Rodham Clinton with her first official challenger for the party's nomination.... Mr. Sanders issued a statement to supporters that laid out his goals for reducing income inequality, addressing climate change and scaling back the influence of money in politics." ...
... Here's Sanders' interview with the AP's Dave Gram.
Mike McIntire & Jo Becker of the New York Times: "Aides to former President Bill Clinton helped start a Canadian charity that effectively shielded the identities of donors who gave more than $33 million that went to his foundation, despite a pledge of transparency when Hillary Rodham Clinton became secretary of state. The nonprofit, the Clinton Giustra Enterprise Partnership (Canada), operates in parallel to a Clinton Foundation project called the Clinton Giustra Enterprise Partnership, which is expressly named in an agreement Mrs. Clinton signed to make all donors public while she led the State Department. However, the foundation maintains that the Canadian partnership is not bound by that agreement and that under Canadian law contributors' names cannot be made public."
Amy Chozick & Michael Barbaro of the New York Times: "In an unusually impassioned speech, Hillary Rodham Clinton delivered a pointed assessment of race in America on Wednesday, lamenting the recent deaths of young black men and calling for overhauling the 'out-of-balance' criminal justice system on display on the smoke-filled streets of Baltimore. In her first major policy speech since announcing her presidential run, Mrs. Clinton spoke forcefully about the damage done, ticking off the names of the unarmed African-American men who have died at the hands of white police officers in recent months." ...
... Video & the transcript of Clinton's speech is here. ...
... Elias Isquith of Salon: Aside from the fact that she failed to mention that her husband -- and Joe Biden -- "contributed to the mass incarceration she decried in her speech..., those who want to see criminal justice reform and inequality at the center of her campaign have reason to be optimistic.... She consistently tied ... policy tweaks to a broader theme of economic inequality, describing 'talk about smart policing and reforming the criminal justice system' as worthless unless paired with 'talk about what's needed to provide economic opportunity.'"
Frank Rich on various topics, beginning with Baltimore. Rich takes a moment to whack Li'l Randy: "Then we have Rand Paul, who in an interview with the conservative radio host Laura Ingraham yesterday, joked that he was 'glad the train didn't stop' in Baltimore when he passed through it this week. Remember Rand Paul? This is the one Republican presidential hopeful who has been making a point of reaching out to African-Americans. He doesn't seem to realize that not stopping in Baltimore is exactly the problem for him and his peers." ...
... Andrew Rosenthal of the New York Times: "Rand Paul, the Kentucky senator and political aspirant, for instance, chose an interview with the Republican radio host Laura Ingraham the other night to show that he has a) no taste, b) no sense of humor and c) nothing useful to add to the discussion of race.... Mr. Paul's witless joke demonstrates that he's simply not prepared to take on national leadership. Hiding in a moving rail car is not anything remotely like an adequate response to the Baltimore mess from someone who wants to be president."
Beyond the Beltway
Emma Fitzsimmons of the New York Times: "The board of the [New York City] Metropolitan Transportation Authority voted on Wednesday to ban political advertising on New York City subways and buses to avoid the legal challenges it had faced after rejecting some ads with political messages.... The vote followed a lively debate over free speech as dissenting board members and advocacy groups argued that the transit system was a public space that should be a forum for debating political issues.... The change came a week after a federal judge ordered the authority to display an ad produced by a pro-Israel group that the authority argued could be interpreted as a call to violence."
News Lede
Guardian: "A Nasa spacecraft crashed into the planet Mercury on Thursday, ending its four-year mission to explore the planet by creating a new crater on its surface. Out of fuel after more than a decade in space, the robotic Messenger probe slammed into the planet at about 3.26pm ET, on the far side of Mercury and out of sight of telescopes."
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Reader Comments (22)
My fearless prediction: The event most remembered from this day will be the baseball game in Baltimore, played to an audience of 0.0 actual human beings in the stands. It won't be the last.
Charles Blow brings his insights to the Baltimore incident. Worth the read:
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/30/opinion/charles-blow-violence-in-baltimore.html?hpw&rref=opinion&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region®ion=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well&_r=0
From yesterday's thread: Akhilleus' comments re: Phil Gramm––seeing the name alone made me squirm. Here is what I posted back in 2012:
Where is Phil Gramm hiding? The former Republican senator from Texas, who
wrote the radical banking deregulation of the 1990s and was rewarded for his
efforts to enrich the banks with a plum job at Switzerland-based UBS, has
not been heard from since his bank got nailed by the G-men. Or, as The New
York Times put it, UBS now has the distinction of being the first big
global bank in more than two decades to have a subsidiary plead guilty to fraud.
This got me thinking of all those important "serious" people that screwed us
and left us in the lurch, all those Bushies who took us into a war we
shouldn't have gone into plus all those Enron type frauds who crippled our
system. It's as though they come, they conquer, they destroy and they
disappear. Poof! All gone, all forgotten except when we catch them once
again still trying to play those bad hands.
And my sympathies to Kay for her ordeal with Enron.
Today is the 40th anniversary of the fall of Saigon.
The principal Lesson of History is that no one learns anything from the Lessons of History.
Also from yesterday's discussion re: Baltimore and "The Wire":
David Simon, creator of "The Wire" "talks smack" against Martin O'Malley over Baltimore policing during the time O'Malley was mayor.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/04/29/david-simon-martin-_n_7175274.html
@D.C.Clark: As Haley Simon pointed out in yesterday's thread, "There is a new poll out on Millennials. Turns out they are in favor of ground troops to fight ISIS! 57% in favor. Seems like a good argument for bringing back the draft."
From the report she cited:
"Contrary to popular belief, Millennials are not strictly pacifists or isolationists. 57% said they support using ground troops to combat ISIS. 23% agreed with the statement, 'in today’s world, it is sometimes necessary to attack potentially hostile countries, rather than waiting until we are attacked to respond.' Those results were up from 16% last year.
“'There’s a swell of support for more forceful policies beginning to take shape,' Della Volpe says. 'It’s a minority, but it’s growing.'”
Marie
@DC: PBS featured the documentary "Last Days in Vietnam" this week. It's producer was Rory Kennedy (she resembles Robert) and it's a riveting production. I did not know some of the details of those last days––the heroic effort that was made to get thousands of South Vietnamese out of Saigon, for instance. That sad, bitter, despicable war haunts this country whose lessons we should carve in stone (the names on the Vietnam Memorial should be a great reminder) instead, as D.C. points out, we don't.
Heavens to Betsy!!! The United Nations is infiltrating the American army and they're stealthing into Texas unannounced! Hide your women, grab your rifles and the binoculars!
This is wingnuttery that only Ak can best put into perspective, but it seems that the Governor of Texas, yes that guy who is responsible for sensibly managing his state and its resources, has succombed to the lunatics on the right who are spreading disinformation that the US special operations forces are carrying out exercises in and around Texas, potentially preparing to attack Conservatives and especially the Tea Party!
Shit's getting so out of control that the army had to send in a spokesman to assure that Texans are safe, but the spokesman didn't speak fluent wingnuttery, “The Army spokesman assured participants that the United Nations was not involved in the operations, but the crowd jeered when he told them he was not familiar with Agenda 21.”
After some serious reflection, the governor called on the Texas State Guard to monitor the Special Forces exercises, thus the Texas military is spying on the U.S. Army for fear of surprise attacks and the foundation of this impending fear is naturally the man sitting in the White House, "Republican State Rep. Jonathan Stickland defended the move enthusiastically and said Texans’ distrust of the Obama administration probably informed his decision. He said that the exercises have caused “justified concern.”
And America hits a new level of idiocy and incomprehension.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/04/30/texas-guv-surrenders-to-conspiracy-nuts.html
If we brought back the draft (fat chance) how much you want to bet all those 57 percenters would be reduced to 10.
Dear President Obama,
Could you also please declare martial law in Florida? It could only help.
Marie Burns
Concerned Citizen of the Sovereign Confederate State of Rick Scott
I would like to see the return of the draft, with a few revisions: instead of a lottery, call people up in order of their family income, let the rich go first this time. But, first of all, the children and grandchildren of members of Congress. Send them to the front.
If you will all forgive a personal note: My draft lottery number was 36. Enlisted in the Navy to avoid being drafted and sent to Vietnam. Started volunteering for way too many things, and wound up in country for nearly 2 years. I had been looking forward to the PBS documentaries this week. At the last moment, to my surprise, I found I just couldn't bear to watch. Thought I was over it. Maybe the 50th -- I should live so long.
Jon Stewart interviewed Judith Miller last night about her roll in promoting the war in Iraq and it was a thing to be hold. Unlike some of his counterparts on "real" news shows, Mr. Stewart did not let Miller off lightly. It was a thing to behold - journalism.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/04/30/jon-stewart-grills-judith-miller-on-iraq-she-blames-the-clintons.html
She was poised and tried to make nice and hold her own, but he was having none of it. Here is his parting comment:
“I appreciate you coming on the program. These discussions always make me incredibly sad because they point to institutional failure at the highest levels and no one will take responsibility for it, and they pass the buck to every individual but themselves. It’s sad.”
Re Jon Stewart quote: Bad enough that "no one will take responsibility". Far worse that no one responsible will experience any consequences. plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose
Forget my suggestion that the children of Congressmen go first -- send the Congressmen themselves. And let's see Judith Miller try her hand at disarming IEDs.
Why did the Army choose Texas for its “Jade Helm” military exercises in which 1,200 special ops soldiers are going to conduct a fake, covert infiltration?
Tyler Durden of ZeroHedge decodes the official rationale: “because the US Special Operations Command thinks that in a lot of ways, Texas resembles Afghanistan."
Specifically, “the Lone Star state: 1) resembles the type of desert wasteland soldiers might expect to encounter in a modern overseas conflict, 2) is just underdeveloped enough in many areas to give trainees an idea of what it might be like to be operating undercover in a hostile Middle Eastern country, 3) is home to the type of xenophobia which will make the locals approximately as skeptical of ‘outsiders’ as the inhabitants of an occupied country might be, but who are at the same time just gullible enough to be tricked into trusting the ‘invaders,’ and best of all 4) is home to social and economic conditions that any normal American would consider ‘unfamiliar.’
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-04-29/texas-governor-calls-state-guard-counter-jade-helm-federal-invasion-fears
Re: that 57% in favor of boots on the ground to fight crazy people who will very likely torture any troops captured, or simply put them in a cage and set them on fire.
Have at it dudes. I wonder if they think they were being asked should someone else go and fight or if at least a few of them thought they might be the ones to go.
And it's probably too glib and way too easy to make a comment like this, but I'm wondering what, if any, effect the glut of hyper combat computer games, first person shooter games like Call of Duty, Medal of Honor, and Halo, have on this rise in aggression.
These games offer intensely immersive simulations of warfare in which players have access to a range of weaponry and can often pick up something that will vaporize the enemy. And if you die, just restart the game.
I don't want to sound like those fogies back in the 50's ("Kids today!") who wanted all comic books banned because of their suspected deleterious effect on kids (turn them into criminals and raving Commies!), but no comic book can approach the realistic simulations of HD games with the kind of audio and graphics engines available today. It's a pretty addicting experience for many. I don't think this is the only or even the biggest reason for an uptick in a positive feeling toward aggression, but I'm wondering if it doesn't factor in a tiny bit of unrealistic impressions of what actual combat is all about.
Just askin'.
It could just be that we're far enough away from the Bush Debacle for them to realize that the decision to put people in harm's way is not some macho shoot from the hip, cool thing to do. But, as always, I could be wrong. Maybe they just see ISIS as a pretty bad outfit and think someone should go kick their asses.
Someone else, that is.
I realize that parsing wingnuttery is a cheerless task and there are plenty of better things to do with one's time, but some 'bagger eruptions deserve to be roundly pilloried.
I had not heard of this Texas hysteria, but the disjointedness of the "logic" nicely illuminates just how out of whack these people are.
But before I get too far into the cow flaps, I'd like to revisit a couple of quotes from the Daily Beast piece that Safari has linked. Gov. Abbott, in a letter to the Texas State Guard commander (how many military and paramilitary groups does Texas have, by the way? Are the Boy Scouts armed too? Do the Brownies go out for target practice after working on their cookie baking badges? Chocolate chips and double oughts?), says that his goal is to "...ensure that Texas communities remain safe."
Safe? Safe from whom? The US ARMY?? And how the hell did the UN get into this 'bagger delusion? (then again, I suppose the UN is never far removed from 'bagger brain pans.) This guy wants to make sure the US Army is not there to harm Texans? WTF? But this idiocy is made clear by another quote from a Texas state rep who begins his alarum with "I don't want to instill panic..." a statement in which the negative form of the verb To Do is nearly always a sad, transparent lie. To wit:
"'I don’t want to instill panic', he added. 'I’ll tell you what’s scary is if we get to a place where it’s not normal to question our government or their motives. We should always be questioning government.'"
Remind me kids, how much questioning of the government were Texas state reps (or any Republicans) doing when Bush and Cheney were calling up the US Army to guarantee oil profits and settling personal scores using American lives to do it? Could this new found skepticism have something to do with a black guy named Obama?
So we have the standard Confederate Confusions. Then there's the UN. On the one hand, we've been hearing for decades about what a namby-pamby, impotent force for nothing the UN is. BUT when the wingers get deep into the Kool-Aid stash, suddenly UN operatives are deathly efficient agents of darkness, digging tunnels under their homes, the better to come up from holes in the back yard at night and spirit the kids away to re-education camps where they will learn to love the New World Government that should be taking over any minute now.
This could go on for a long time and I'm already depressed about the room temperature IQ's of people who believe this kind of crap, so I'm gonna quit now and wonder how in the hell people like this idiot get elected to run a state.
Leaders don't say "Oh shit, yeah, the fucking Loch Ness Monster is out again! Call out the Guard!" They say "Now, now, everything is going to be just fine. Y'all go home now, have a nice cup of tea, and whatever you do, don't be watching Fox News."
Pssst....
I have it on good authority that Cheeto Man was crying because Shinzo Abe had just announced that Boehener's favorite brand of saké would no longer be exported to the US.
Charles Blow has an excellent point.
Why is it that when blacks are involved in skirmishes with police, they are termed "thugs" but whites in similar circumstances are rarely depicted thusly?
There have been quite a few incidences in which authorities deemed intrusive, unstable, and prone to volatile and violent action have clashed with citizens.
Here's one.
A crowd of locals streaming up a city street begins to taunt one of the officials that have been acting almost like an occupying police force, implementing curfews and pushing citizens hard on any and all minor infractions of the rules. Things begin to get out of hand. Other "cops" show up with weapons drawn. The crowd pelts them with rocks and bottles, and clubs are used to threaten the authorities. The situation becomes extreme when one of the "police" is hit in the head. Some in the crowd taunt the "police" and dare them to fire. Suddenly, the "cops" draw down on the crowd. They fire. Eleven are hit. Three die instantly, several more later.
After the incident, there is a trial in which almost all of the "police" were found not guilty. Two were given reduced sentences.
The place? Outside the Custom House on King Street in Boston. The year? 1770.
The British press called it the "Incident at King Street". We call it the Boston Massacre.
Would Fox News bots call the Americans who taunted the British soldiers, who were effectively a police force, "thugs"? Would they refer to Bostonians in the crowd, several of whom went on to play important roles in the coming revolution, as "criminals"?
@Monoloco: Thanks so much for your link to Tyler Durden's report. I commend it to others. Durden really puts the whole project into perspective, & I find it beyond hilarious (although of course ultimately dismaying) that Greg Abbott has inadvertently cast himself as a Taliban mullah. When even Special Forces casts you & yours as archenemies of the U.S., it might be a good time to wonder if you're a teensy bit anti-American.
Marie
D.C.,
You make an excellent point regarding the fact that not only will few prognosticators of panic take responsibility for their statements, they also seem never to suffer any consequences for their inaccuracies and lies.
Krugman made this same point the other day, picking out the economic doomsayers who made a lot of noise about the horrors of the ACA and other Obama initiatives, claiming that depression was right around the corner. When the opposite result obtained, not only did they not acknowledge their error, they pretended they never said any such thing.
Not to drag out this Texas idiocy any further, but the same sort of thing happens in Right Wing World on a depressingly frequent basis. Some Confederate Chicken Little warns of something terrifying, with zero facts to back up their claims. When nothing happens (the UN taking over, immigrants working with Al Qaeda, Obama coming to take all the guns, gay marriage will lead to rampant abortions (still can't figure this one), death panels, forced contraception, yadda, yadda, yadda....) no one writes a piece saying, "Gee, we were really off base about that one..."
No. Instead, they jump back on the backward running pony and pinch out the next loaf of crazy.
Drudge is one of the premier supporters of this nuttiness in Texas (it's perfectly okay if you ask "which nuttiness in Texas?") about the US Army coming to do bad things to Texans at the behest of King Obama and the UN. And yet Fox has this dangerous lunatic on regularly to spit out whatever cuckoo bilge water he'd like the rest of the loonies to swallow. It makes absolutely no difference that his last 8,907 "scoops" have all been complete fabrications.
Christ, even the kid in the Aesop story gets his comeuppance for crying wolf, and he only got two chances before no one believed him anymore. In Right Wing World, you can cry "wolf" day and night and everyone will still come running.
These people really do need their own Ring.
Well, I wasn't going to add another comment, but this is just too far over the line.
The new Confederate Answer to why Freddie Gray had his spinal cord severed has nothing to do with police mishandling of a relatively inert situation (aka Police Brutality) because Mr. Gray severed his spinal cord himself! Reminds me of all those CIA fables of individuals committing suicide even though they were shot 9 or 10 times from 50 paces.
In any event, the report in the Bush Home for War Criminal Supporters aka the Washington Post, that another man thrown into the police van after the Gray arrest, heard some banging that made him think that Gray killed himself, was ingested by Fox douchebags like parched travelers in the desert finding water. Perennial asshole Sean Hannity took the word of this guy who didn't even see Gray and was only in the van with him for a few minutes, as the unchallengeable word of Jesus Christ, screaming at fellow Fox bot Geraldo Rivera that anyone who thought differently was saying that the "facts be damned", facts, I suppose, being the supposition of a guy who hadn't even seen Gray.
Too bad for Hannity though, because it seems that this apparent attempt to break his own spine came minutes after Gray begged police for medical assistance and the sound was likely his attempt to get their attention, not the sound of him committing suicide as Hannity insists, based on zero facts.
Interesting to hear a Fox rectal cyst like Hannity demand that "facts" not be ignored. Hannity's connection to facts (real ones) is about as strong as Nino Scalia's admiration for the difficulties gays and lesbians have endured simply to be considered human beings.
But Hannity is right when he says "Facts be damned". This is the exact motto of Fox "News".
@Akhilleus: See the reporting by Jayne Miller of WBAL, linked in two stories above. Her reporting, accompanied by video, blows away the WashPo report -- which I actually think they should retract even though Hermann includes some caveats down the page. The "facts" Hermann cites come from a police person who said in an affidavit s/he heard the story of Gray's likely injuring himself from the other prisoner. Earlier reports, including one from the police commissioner, indicated the same prisoner, who was only in the van for the last 5 minutes of the ride, during a time when it's been fairly-well determined that Gray's condition had degenerated to nonresponsive, had said Gray was quiet. It's just a bullshit report. And as I indicated from the get-go, it would be red meat for Fox "News."
Marie