;)
The Commentariat -- August 14, 2014
Internal links, defunct videos & photos removed.
Katie Zezima & Loveday Morris of the Washington Post: "The Obama administration is considering a range of military options to rescue the thousands of refugees from the minority Yazidi sect trapped atop a mountain in northwestern Iraq, a senior official said Wednesday. The president and his national security team are expected to review those options 'in a matter of days,' said the official, Ben Rhodes, President Obama's deputy national security adviser." ...
... Michael Shear & Helene Cooper of the New York Times: "American military advisers landed on Mount Sinjar in Iraq early Wednesday to begin assessing how to organize an evacuation of the thousands of Yazidi refugees under siege from Sunni militants, an American official said. News of the landing, which involved fewer than 20 advisers, came hours after a senior White House official said that the United States would consider using American ground troops to assist in the rescue if recommended by the military team." ...
... Update. New lede: "Defense Department officials said late Wednesday that United States airstrikes and Kurdish fighters had broken the Islamic militants' siege of Mount Sinjar, allowing thousands of the Yazidis trapped there to escape. An initial report from about a dozen Marines and Special Operations forces who arrived on Tuesday and spent 24 hours on the northern Iraqi mountain said that 'the situation is much more manageable,' a senior Defense official said in an interview." ...
... Karen DeYoung & Craig Whitlock of the Washington Post: "A team of about 20 U.S. troops and aid workers who landed Wednesday on Iraq's Mount Sinjar determined that a rescue operation of besieged minorities stranded there is probably unnecessary, the Pentagon said. 'There are far fewer' refugees left at the northern Iraq location, where tens of thousands were said to have been surrounded by Sunni Muslim extremists, and they 'are in better condition than previously believed,' a Pentagon statement said."
** Dana Milbank on the National Republican Congressional Committee's new fake news websites (National Journal story on the sites linked here yesterday, plus commentary by Akhilleus): "The Republican Party has finally admitted what has been fairly obvious for much of the past six years: It produces fake news. This is not an earth-shattering revelation to anybody who has been paying attention, but, still, it's an important step for the party to embrace the phoniness.... Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.), chairman of the select committee on Benghazi, told CNN's Deirdre Walsh last week that, despite what the [Republican-led House] Intelligence Committee found [-- it reportedly exonerates the Obama administration --], 'there is more work to be done and more to be investigated.' Excellent. Maybe he can post his phony accusations on some fake news Web sites."
Matthew Goldstein of the New York Times: "... the recovery in housing is fueling a niche market for newly minted bonds that are backed by the most troubled mortgages of them all: those on homes on the verge of foreclosure. And it is not just vulture hedge funds swooping in to try to profit from the last remnants of the housing crisis. The investors making money off these obscure bonds -- none are rated by a major credit rating agency -- include mutual funds. And one of the biggest sellers of severely delinquent mortgages to investors is a United States government housing agency." HUD is selling FHA mortgages, & "Freddie Mac, the giant mortgage finance firm that operates under government control, also got into the act...."
Charlie Savage of the New York Times: "A State Department official, [John] Tye worked on Internet freedom issues and had top-secret clearance. He knew the Obama administration had also considered a proposal to impose what an internal White House document, obtained by The New York Times, portrayed as 'significant changes' to rules for handling Americans' data the N.S.A. collects from fiber-optic networks abroad. But Mr. Obama said nothing about that in his speech. So in April, as Mr. Tye was leaving the State Department, he filed a whistle-blower complaint arguing that the N.S.A.'s practices abroad violated Americans' Fourth Amendment rights. He also met with staff members for the House and Senate intelligence committees. Last month, he went public with those concerns, which have attracted growing attention."
Katie Zavadski of New York has more on James Bamford's interview of Ed Snowden (CW: which I know I should read, but I just won't): "It seems that Snowden didn't suddenly abscond with the materials available with to him at that moment, but instead gathered them over years, building his private cache -- and presumably, his courage -- for the right moment. With his higher and higher levels of clearance, Snowden had access to increasingly reprehensible plans. Eventually, a program that would effectively grant the NSA access to 'virtually all private communications coming in from overseas to people in the US' tipped him over the edge." Also, "Bamford wonders whether all of the recent revelations about NSA programs really originate with Snowden." Neither Snowden nor Laura Poitras will say.
"How Libertarians Snooked The New York Times Magazine." Jonathan Chait, after poking holes in Robert Draper's New York Times Magazine cover story about a libertarian surge among young people, heard from "Draper and his primary source..., and their replies show that the article's erroneous conclusions turn out to be even worse than I initially described.... Draper's story presents the self-presentation of such figures as Nick Gillespie, Rand Paul, the Competitive Enterprise Institute, and other libertarians almost entirely at face value. That's his judgment call to make. But the glue that holds the story together is the factual claim that younger voters lean libertarian. That claim is simply false." Alan Murray of Pew Research backs Chait's analysis: Pew "found little evidence of a surge of libertarian views in the US."
Michael Howard of Esquire: The NRA opposes a proposed Texas ruling [link fixed] that would allow alcoholic beverages at gun shows because they realize "that's too dangerous" it would disallow gun shows in private residences, outlaw live ammo at the shows, force attendees to disable their firearms & cause other assorted "hassles." "It just would have been nice to see that eighth point: 'Also, drunk people with guns is moronic.'" No such luck.
Beyond the Beltway
Julie Bosman of the New York Times: "Expressing concern over the 'violent turn' of events in this St. Louis suburb, President Obama said on Thursday that he wanted an open and transparent investigation into the shooting death on Saturday of an unarmed 18-year-old black man by the police.... Minutes earlier, Gov. Jay Nixon promised that residents of Ferguson were going to see a different tone in the response by the police after five nights of unrest during which the authorities have used tear gas and rubber bullets to control the crowds. Officials said that Governor Nixon would soon remove the St. Louis County police from handling the protests in Ferguson." ...
... Dave Weigel: Obama dances while Ferguson burns. Jay Nixon cancels fun day at the state fair to visit someplace near Ferguson. ...
... CW: I noticed on a Twitter feed that a tweet claiming (probably accurately) that Jay Nixon received 90 percent of the black vote. ...
... Burgess Everett of Politico: "Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill is calling for the 'demilitarization' of the police in Ferguson, Missouri, deeming the response by law enforcement 'the problem instead of the solution.' McCaskill, who was in Ferguson on Thursday morning meeting with community leaders, said the community needs to do 'better' to respond to the unrest in the St. Louis suburb." ...
... Anna Palmer & Jake Sherman of Politico: Hank Johnson, "a [U.S.] House Democrat from Georgia, plans to introduce the first piece of legislation responding to the shooting in the suburb of St. Louis that would focus on stopping a program providing machine guns and free military equipment to local law enforcement." ...
... Hadas Gold of Politico: Washington Post reporter Wesley Lowery slammed MSNBC's Joe Scarborough Thursday morning for suggesting he and Huffington Post reporter Ryan Reilly should have more closely followed police instructions when they were arrested Wednesday night in Ferguson, Mo.:
Well. I would invite Joe Scarborough to come down to Ferguson and get out of 30 Rock where he's sitting sipping his Starbucks smugly. I invite him to come down here and talk to residents of Ferguson where I have been Monday afternoon having tear gas shot at me, rubber bullets shot at me, having mothers, daughter, a 19-year-old boy, crying, running to pull his 21-year-old sister out from a cloud of tear gas thinking she would die. I would invite Joe Scarborough down here to do some reporting on the ground, and then maybe we can have an educated conversation about what's happening down here.
... CW: An individual has claimed, & Daily Kos has posted a tweet, that Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon (D) has confirmed that state & federal authorities will relieve (& dismiss) the St. Louis County PD presence in Ferguson, Mo. I'm trying to find confirmation, & haven't had any luck, so this may not be true. Thanks to James S. for the link. ...
... Update: See link to New York Times report by Julie Bosman above. ....
.. CW: This is such a stereotypical development that it's almost beyond belief:
"Ferguson police chief turns to Hannity to handle his PR." Karoli of Crooks & Liars: "Police Chief Thomas Jackson took a breather from all of his responsibilities in Ferguson to make a brief appearance on Hannity.... If you're trying to bring a sense of calm to the community, Hannity's show is the last place on earth you should want to show your face. If, on the other hand, you're interested in playing your side of the story to a bunch of nasty bigots, Hannity's show is exactly where you'd go":
Terrence McCoy of the Washington Post: "Despite its ubiquity across the globe and in United States, tear gas is a chemical agent banned in warfare per the Chemical Weapons Convention of 1993, which set forth agreements signed by nearly every nation in the world -- including the United States. The catch, however, is that while it's illegal in war, it's legal in domestic riot control.... Some scientists and international observers contend the tactic of spraying people with tear gas, which commonly uses the chemical agent 2-chlorobenzalmalononitrile (CS), can pose serious dangers." ..
... Jim Suhr & Jim Salter of the AP: "Protests in the St. Louis suburb rocked by racial unrest since a white police officer shot an unarmed black teenager to death turned violent Wednesday night, with some people lobbing Molotov cocktails and other objects at police who responded with smoke bombs and tear gas to disperse the crowd." (Emphasis added.) ...
... Jon Swaine of the Guardian: "A heavily armed, militarised police force fired teargas and rubber bullets to force hundreds of protesters out of the centre of a small Missouri town on Wednesday, as a crackdown on demonstrations over the killing of an unarmed 18-year-old intensified. Dozens of officers, some carrying assault rifles, advanced with a pair of armoured trucks on the young and predominantly African American crowd in Fergsuon, after two glass bottles were thrown at their lines from a largely peaceful protest against the shooting of Michael Brown, who was black, by an officer from the city's overwhelmingly white police department. For hours, police snipers trained their weapons on demonstrators who protested with their hands up as an emblem of peaceful protest. When events escalated on a fourth night of tension in this city of just 21,000 people, protesters described being subjected to military-style tactics as they fled through gas-filled residential side-streets." (Emphasis added.) ...
... CW: Hard not to notice the difference in emphasis in the two preceding accounts of events. ...
... Wesley Lowery, et al. of the Washington Post: "The [Ferguson, Mo., police] department bears little demographic resemblance to the citizens of this St. Louis suburb, a mostly African American community whose suspicions of the law enforcement agency preceded Saturday afternoon's shooting of Michael Brown, an 18-year-old who this week had been headed to technical college. But while the racial disparity between the public here and its protectors has come to define the violent aftermath of Brown's death, the department's problems stretch back years and include questions about its officers' training and racial sensitivity." Read the whole story. ...
... St. Louis Post-Dispatch: "St. Louis Alderman Antonio French emerged Thursday morning from a night in jail after his arrest at the Ferguson protests to say that the police officers' 'heavy-handed' approach on the streets is making the situation worse. French said he has no documentation that says why he was arrested, and that he was released about 7 a.m. today without having to post any bail." ...
... CW: Oh, look. Alderman French is black. Alleged Crime: Driving While Black. (See St. Louis Post-Dispatch editorial, linked below.) ...
... Rachel Maddow spoke to Wesley Lowery, whom police arrested in Ferguson, Mo. Here are some tweets from Lowery, describing his arrest. They released him with no charges. The police also arrested & released the Huff Post's Ryan Reilly. ...
... Update. Here's Lowery's account in the Post. ...
... Video of Lowery's arrest. CW: I'm having a really hard time understanding why any police officer would think a reporter can't quietly sit in a McDonald's & write his story. Apparently Ferguson is a First Amendment-free zone:
... Huffington Post: "The Huffington Post's Ryan J. Reilly and the Washington Post's Wesley Lowery were arrested Wednesday evening while covering the protests in Ferguson, Missouri after the death of unarmed black teenager Michael Brown, who was shot by a police officer last week.... SWAT officers roughed up the reporters inside a McDonald's, where both journalists were working. Reilly snapped a photo, prompting cops to request his identification." ...
... The Huff Post's Washington bureau chief Ryan Grim writes the site's statement on the arrests. ...
... Here's the statement from Marty Baron, the Post's executive editor, on Lowery's arrest. ...
... Julie Bosman, et al., of the New York Times: "The police chief [of Ferguson, Missouri], Thomas Jackson, said that minutes before the shooting on Saturday, the officer and the young man, Michael Brown, had engaged in a violent confrontation, in which the officer was hit in the face. 'The side of his face is swollen,' Chief Jackson said at a news conference, adding that the officer, who has been put on administrative leave, was treated at a hospital.... The police say Mr. Brown was shot after he assaulted the officer and tried to take his gun -- an account disputed by a witness, a friend of Mr. Brown's who said his hands were raised when the last of several shots were fired." ...
... Paul Szoldra of Business Insider: "... it's worth discussing the police response to the outrage. In photos taken Monday, we are shown a heavily armed SWAT team. They have short-barreled 5.56-mm rifles based on the military M4 carbine, with scopes that can accurately hit a target out to 500 meters. On their side they carry pistols. On their front, over their body armor, they carry at least four to six extra magazines, loaded with 30 rounds each. Their uniform would be mistaken for a soldier's if it weren't for their 'Police' patches. They wear green tops, and pants fashioned after the U.S. Marine Corps MARPAT camouflage pattern. And they stand in front of a massive uparmored truck called a Bearcat, similar in look to a mine-resistant ambush protected vehicle, or as the troops who rode in them call it, the MRAP.... The scene is tense, but the presence of what looks like a military force doesn't seem to be helping. 'Bring it. You fucking animals, bring it,' one police officer was caught on video telling protesters." ...
... Charles Blow: "... the sheer morbid, wrenching rhythm of [the Michael Brown killing & its aftermath] belies a larger phenomenon...: The criminalization of black and brown bodies -- particularly male ones -- from the moment they are first introduced to the institutions and power structures with which they must interact." Blow cites studies that demonstrate how African-American children receive discriminatory treatment from the time they hit kindergarten. The upshot, of course, "A May report by the Brookings Institution found: 'There is nearly a 70 percent chance that an African American man without a high school diploma will be imprisoned by his mid-thirties.'" ...
... St. Louis Post-Dispatch Editors: "Last year, for the 11th time in the 14 years that data has been collected, the disparity index that measures potential racial profiling by law enforcement in the state got worse. Black Missourians were 66 percent more likely in 2013 to be stopped by police, and blacks and Hispanics were both more likely to be searched, even though the likelihood of finding contraband was higher among whites.... Nearly every black man in America has a story of being pulled over, stopped or harassed as a young person for doing something that a white teenager would never imagine might end in being on the wrong end of a police officer's gun. Driving While Black. Walking While Black. Wearing a Hoodie While Black."
Theodore Schleifer of the New York Times: "Prosecutors have cast , the former governor of Virginia, as a desperate politician who was short of cash and more than willing to promote a donor's product if it meant that he and his wife, Maureen, could live a more lavish life.... Prosecutors said they would rest their case on Thursday, believing they have sufficiently shown that the McDonnells took 'official action' to benefit the donor and businessman, Jonnie R. Williams Sr., and his dietary supplement, Anatabloc, in return for those gifts. On Monday, the defense will begin to call its own witnesses...." ...
... Matt Zapotosky & Rosalind Helderman of the Washington Post: "When Robert F. McDonnell took office as Virginia’s 71st governor, he and his wife were mired in nearly $75,000 in credit card debt, records show. That figure soon grew to more than $90,000 -- and came down because of insurance proceeds, a family trust and the generosity of a wealthy Richmond businessman, the records show. On the 13th day of the federal corruption case against McDonnell (R) and his wife, prosecutors presented the evidence about the family finances as a striking wrap-up to their case, as they began working to connect the dots for jurors." ...
... Here are the Washington Post's live updates of the McDonnell trial testimony Wednesday. "Using the particular timing of phone calls, texts and visitors checking in at the governor's mansion, prosecutors are methodically building their case against Robert F. McDonnell, who they accuse of conspiring, along with his wife, to solicit businessman Jonnie R. Williams Sr.'s largess." ...
... Update: Here are the Post's live updates of the trial for today.
Senate Races
Kurtis Lee of the Los Angeles Times: "U.S. Rep. Colleen Hanabusa filed a lawsuit on Wednesday against the Hawaii Office of Elections in an effort to push back a scheduled make-up vote later this week that will decide the Democratic primary election between her and appointed incumbent U.S. Sen. Brian Schatz. 'As of this filing, voters in the affected area are still without power and local roads remain blocked,' Hanabusa’s attorneys wrote in the lawsuit filed in the state's Circuit Court against chief election officer, Scott Nago.... Residents of two Big Island precincts in the Puna area were unable to cast ballots on Saturday because of Tropical Storm Iselle. Initially, state officials had said they would mail ballots to those who had not voted before the storm. However, on Monday, Nago announced voting would be held Friday and storm-ravaged residents could only vote at a local elementary school. Schatz holds a lead of 1,635 votes -- out of 230,000 cast.... About 8,000 voters live in the two precincts, and many either already cast ballots or don't regularly vote." ...
... The New York Times story, by Ian Lovett, is here.
Geoff Pender of the Jackson, Mississippi, Clarion-Ledger: "A spokesman says Chris McDaniel on Thursday will file his court challenge of the June 24 GOP primary he lost to incumbent Sen. Thad Cochran. Thursday is the deadline to file." ...
... CW: I forgot to link this story -- also by Pender -- yesterday, but it kinda makes me think McDaniel doesn't have much of a case, despite his claim that his case is "rock-solid": "As Chris McDaniel's team continues to scour voting records to add to an expected legal challenge of his loss to Thad Cochran, it has listed McDaniel's lead lawyer in the challenge, and his wife, as irregular votes that should be tossed out."
Presidential Race
Li'l Randy and Cousin Alec. Jennifer Jacobs of the Des Moines Register: "An Iowa evangelical Christian leader stood on stage and told the 1,200 conservatives in the audience and the dozens of reporters that U.S. Sen. Rand Paul had told him he couldn't be at the event Saturday because of a 'family commitment.' Then the New York Post's 'Page Six' published the news that Paul was in the Hamptons on Saturday with Alec Baldwin. Paul was 'among the intellectual elite' at a fundraiser for a library in East Hampton that Baldwin co-sponsored, the column says.... Aides for Paul, a Republican from Kentucky, told The Des Moines Register this evening that Paul and his wife, Kelley, did indeed have a family commitment. It was in New York, and they took one of their three sons with them. The party with Baldwin was just an extra event...." CW: Yeah, Randy, I'll be you're telling the truth this time. ...
... Hunter of Daily Kos suggests, "The first rule of dodging ultra-religious, ultra-conservative voters is that you can't let them find out you're dodging them." ...
... Alec Baldwin: It wasn't a party; it was a fucking book fair! ...
Scenes from Baldwin's Hamptons Book Fair:
... Rand Paul Does Some Beach Reading. Amanda Gordon of Bloomberg News: "Rand Paul has been reading his first [Nelson] DeMille thriller, one inspired by 'The Great Gatsby,' about a WASP couple's entanglement with the mob on the gilded North Shore of Long Island." ...
... CW: As I've said before, Aqua Buddha Boy is (a) a constant source of amusement, & (b) an inveterate liar. I'm going to miss him when the "ultra-religious, ultra-conservative" Christians throw him to the lions early in official GOP primary season. ...
... MEANWHILE, on a nearby island, another likely presidential contender is signing books. Gail Collins reflects on Hillary Clinton's foreign policy views.
News Ledes
Washington Post: "Embattled Iraqi leader Nouri al-Maliki stepped aside Thursday, ending a tense political standoff and clearing the way for a new prime minister tasked with steering the country out of its security crisis. Maliki appeared on state television flanked by senior members of his party, including rival Haider al-Abadi, who has been appointed to form a new government. Maliki said he would back 'brother' Abadi for the sake of Iraq's unity."
New York Times: "Rob Manfred, a high-ranking executive in Major League Baseball for many years, was chosen Thursday by the league's owners to succeed Bud Selig as commissioner, one of the most powerful positions in sports. Mr. Manfred was confirmed after several ballots by baseball's 30 owners, who convened in a closed-door ballroom in downtown Baltimore."
Washington Post: "On Thursday, [actor-comedian Robin Williams'] wife, Susan Schneider, released a statement that said Williams was in the early stages of Parkinson's disease when he died." The Los Angeles Times story is here.
"Ocean's 11." AP: "A recently fired casino security guard used his knowledge of when and where large sums of money would change hands to help plan and pull off a daring robbery that netted more than $180,000, authorities said Thursday. Eight people were arrested in the July 21 gunpoint robbery of Caesars Atlantic City that touched off a three-state manhunt, New Jersey State Police said. The search ended with a Delaware state trooper being shot; the bulletproof vest he was wearing saved his life."
New York Times: "A Russian aid convoy destined for rebel-held territory in eastern Ukraine resumed its disputed southward journey on Thursday, in apparent defiance of demands by the government in Kiev that the shipment be stopped." ...
... Guardian UPDATE: "... while the trucks [supposedly carrying humanitarian aid] came to a halt well short of Ukraine's border, a different Russian convoy did make the crossing into Ukrainian territory late on Thursday evening. The Guardian saw a column of 23 armoured personnel carriers, supported by fuel trucks and other logistics vehicles with official Russian military plates, travelling towards the border near the Russian town of Donetsk -- about 200km away from Donetsk, Ukraine." ...
... Los Angeles Times UPDATE: "A Russian convoy carrying aid for civilians trapped in separatist-controlled Luhansk in eastern Ukraine diverted from its agreed route to the Ukrainian border Thursday, drawing warnings from Kiev that it will be blocked 'with all the forces available' unless its cargo is first inspected."
AFP: "Israel secured supplies of ammunition from the Pentagon last month without the approval of the White House or the State Department, the Wall Street Journal reported Thursday. Since officials there were caught off guard as they tried to restrain Israel's campaign in Gaza, the administration of President Barack Obama has tightened controls on arms shipments to Israel, the newspaper said, quoting US and Israeli officials."
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Reader Comments (18)
That Chris McDaniel--who may or may not be related to Hattie McDaniel (he's never clarified that)--needs to have a bucket of ice water poured over him.
Swat teams, armored cars with mounted machine guns, body armor, military weapons and a tough attitude toward protesters. We are seeing the future and should be frightened. The Ferguson police department should be a lesson for us all as more police departments become more militarized all across America.
Protesters will be controlled by defining them as terrorists and using military might against them. During the Spanish Civil War, one of the slogans was " Don't shoot your brother. " It did not help, they shot their brothers as military style police departments all across America will shoot their brothers.
Noam Chomsky says that the militarization of police forces across the country has been going on for 40 years. I definitely missed this until the UC Davis pepper spray incident:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=WmJmmnMkuEM
and of course there was the video of the capture of Tsarnaev. It was obvious that the police had military training. BTW, I hear from sources that he is now quadriplegic as a result of his injuries. No wonder we haven't seen images of him since his capture.
In a way, it's a good thing that Ferguson is being caught on tape: we need to look at this. Is this what we want from our police?
The photo of the police in military gear should replace the little blue square with the white stars on the American flag. Because, folks, this IS America now. We are no different than Gaza. Also, why the camouflage? Because they are in a jungle or a mountain hideout in Afghanistan? Geezus, what we need in this country is a ban on testosterone.
I had a Vietnam protestor sum the police up well: No police person should EVER have a background in the military. These guys are the new NFL: they only care about winning at any cost. The quote attributed to Ben Franklin comes to mind, "Those who give up freedom for security deserve neither freedom or security".
Police over-reach achieves its pinnacle with police civil seizure laws where they can steal your house or whatever based on very marginal accusations (usually the local cops shift the jurisdiction onto the Federal government for the legalities of seizure purposes). I keep looking for good (free) info about how to put property into an asset protection trust to obstruct the seizure laws, but to no avail do I find good info. Good information about the police, etc at flexyourrights.org via the ACLU. They have a great video I bought for my teenager about how to say "NO" to police searches.
I'm going out on a limb here but I doubt Ed Snowden's initial interview before working on NSA projects went like this:
Why shouldn't I work for the NSA? Scrod with Quaker State, might be one reason...
Interesting bit at the end about hitting the hash pipe, joining the National Guard and becoming president. And this stuff was written in 1997, three years before we visited the nadir, absolute zero, of the American presidency, via the feebleminded offices of George W. Dickhead.
And leave us not mention that if the writers of this speech had this sense of what the NSA did, why didn't Ed Snowden? Likely he now says that he did but joined anyway so he could save the world from the clutches of NSA surveillance.
As racist beefcake boy Scott Brown might say, bqhatevwr.
And just on the odd chance that Li'l Randy the Coward is reading this site (I'm sure it's on his morning must-read list, along with Ayn Rand Comics and old copies of his dad's racist broadsides), here's how you handle a surprise question from "kamikaze" journalists:
How not to run away.
You know you're living in the Bizarro universe when the NRA is the voice of reason. Well, okay, not exactly, but the outcome bears the marks of reason.
But now we're talking about an official board of the state of Texas, whose job it is to regulate the sale of alcohol, supporting a law that allows thousands of people walking through gigantic displays of loaded weapons, picking them up and, in some cases, firing those weapons, to do it while half in the bag. Aren't these the people who are supposed to be the adults in the room?
And the governor of that particular corner of Planet Insane wants to be president.
Christ, there are already plenty of accidental shootings at gun shows. And those people are (at least we think) stone cold sober.
Nancy,
This is another gift from Bush and Cheney, War Criminals LLC.
With all the cool weapons and military gear coming out of circulation in Iraq, it has to go somewhere. And the next question to ask, once you've purchased all this wicked cool stuff for your local police force, is "Why aren't we using it?"
So they do. The problem is that too many of the guys in the newly militarized police forces are little better than the soldiers of fortune working for operations like Blackwater.
When I in my late teens, early twenties, I knew a local cop pretty well. Actually, I knew a lot of them. One guy was just about to retire. I had seen him in action a few times and noticed that he never got close to drawing his weapon. I asked him about this. He told me that he had never drawn his gun in 30 years. He could have plenty of times but he resorted to other means. But we both knew other cops who took every opportunity to intimidate people either with an actual drawn weapon, or the threat of it.
I realize police work can be highly dangerous, and can require them to use the threat of force in certain circumstances, but it seems we have far too many guys like the latter and not nearly enough like the former.
And the camo? Just another symbol of MANLINESS. In my red state, I see people all the time walking around wearing camo. Even people who probably don't hunt. It's code for "I OWN GUNS and I'm a MAN".
So why wear your blues when you can look like a character out of a video game? Plus the camo and the masks and the high end weaponry make them look and feel like real army guys. And make them far less easy to identify when shit goes bad. And I have no doubt that wearing that stuff and carrying those kinds of weapons simply amps up the general feeling of aggressiveness. I think, and it's just my opinion, but I believe that you're a lot more likely to act in an aggressive and forceful manner when confronted by the slightest problem, when clothed like you were going into combat than you would if you were out there dressed in a standard police uniform (which already carries a fair amount of authoritarian weight).
I mean, just look at the kind of trouble we got into with a dress up military manqué like George Bush. Neither he nor Mr. Other Priorities had the balls to serve when it was their turn, but they had no problem with the faux, dress up manliness when it came to getting others killed. Remember all that bellicose bullshit like "Dead or Alive" and "If you ain't with us, your agin' us"?
I'm reminded of the title of a recent bio of Humphrey Bogart, "Tough Without a Gun". Now that's something to, er, shoot for. Aim for? Go after?....ahh...you get the point.
Just posted on Daily Kos: Gov. Jay Nixon says St. Louis county police have been "relieved" of duty in Ferguson. About time.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/08/14/1321549/-Missouri-Governor-announces-St-Louis-County-Police-to-be-relieved-of-their-duties-in-Ferguson
Let's talk Iowa.
And not because it's turning out to be a minefield for poor little Randy who, two weeks in a row, finds himself hightailing it away from something or otherin that state that scares the bejeezus out of him. The poor dear. Such a sensitive soul. Better to boogie down in the Hamptons than spend time on his knees praying in Iowa for the angel of death to visit all liberals.
Li'l Randy is going to have to hire his very own Iowa Flack so he can dodge all the questions about his cowardice and lies.
But back to Iowa.
Even if Dr. Senator Rand Paul wasn't a cowardly, lying little shit, he would still have problems in Iowa. And that's a problem for the rest of us.
The Iowa caucuses have become the focus of far too much media attention. It used to be every four years, but now any potential candidate for the office of president who sets down in an Iowa airport for anything more than a plane change, is covered like an infield during a rain delay.
And because it's Iowa, they all have to pander to the great god of wingnuttery, which drags everyone else into the fetid basements of movement conservatism.
How is it that such an all white, far-right, largely rural state, the entire population of which, plus most of their out of state relatives, could all fit nicely below 4th St. in Manhattan, set the tone for the entire presidential gauntlet?
If anything, it shouldn't be given much more authority and coverage than a state fair where the participants gather to decide whose rhubarb pie is the best. Instead, states like New York and California whose populations are a much closer approximation to that of much of America, end up far down the list in their gravitational pull on primary season politicking.
I doubt it will change any time soon. The fundies and the far-far-right wingers like it this way. They've gotten used to being the small-minded, pinched minority to whom everyone else must bow, and the media enjoys lending people like Bob Vander Plaats a gigantic megaphone, giving the impression that his fucked up ideas have any legitimacy beyond the closed doors of a fundamentalist prayer group.
As for the Little One, much more running away to come. See Randy run. Run, Randy, run! Oops...watch out for those cow flaps!
Oops...just found out one of my links takes you to someplace weird.
Here's the corrected link:
Once more with feeling: Why shouldn't I work for the NSA...
@Ak. I'm not so sure the camo is an expression of "manliness." For whatever reason it's simply become de rigueur, which like other fads begs for an answer to the question of Why?
In the red state where I work you see camo on everyone everywhere. Infants, children, adult, male, female and transgender. Shirts, pants, bras, ball caps, dresses, tarps, whatever. It's even worn in the NE blue states where hunting is much less prevalent.
Although I haven't checked, I wouldn't be surprised if there were camo condoms for the occasional sneak-in exercise.
Oh shit, I just checked on the google machine. They do exist.
http://www.camocondom.com/
Unwashed,
Camo condoms...OMFG.
I stand, or something stands, corrected.
Thanks for that info.
I think.
Not to lay into any deaceased equine forms lying about, but I just have to shake my head at what Marie describes as the predictability of Fox to consistently be on the wrong side of everything. Not only are they wrong, they're wrong at the top of their voices and proud of it.
So, in regards to the Ferguson, MO shooting, we have Bill O'Reilly lecturing uppity blacks to just STFU and go home and behave themselves because the police were just doing their job and they (the
"rioting blacks" who live there) don't have all the facts (as Loofah Man does, who doesn't live there and probably never even heard of it before now).
Next up, Joe Scarborough inserts himself into the mix by criticizing reporters on the ground for DOING THEIR JOB, unlike Scarborough. Oh wait, Joe is doing his job. Supporting any right-wing authoritarian action no matter what the facts. I'm pretty fucking sure that if, as Daddy O'Reilly maintains, the people who live there and were on the streets, including Brown's family and the friend who was with him when he was shot, don't have the facts, Joe Fucking Scarborough doesn't know shit about anything. But has that ever prevented Fox turds from expressing their factless opinions?
And then, the numbingly predictable Sean Hannity offers hugs and kisses to the Ferguson police chief who is still providing cover and protection for the cop who shot Michael Brown, until they can all get their stories straight.
Over the next week or, really, as long as the shit continues to hit the fans in Ferguson, Fox bots will do their duty as good little goose-stepping wingnuts and support one faction in Ferguson, because police, and attack another faction, because black.
Because that's how they roll over at Fox.
And I do mean roll over. Woof, woof. Good doggies!
Atlantic columnist Conor Friedersdorf is peeved that people are criticizing Libertarianism.
Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, when will this Libertarian pipe dream bullshit end?
Here's what he sees as a conundrum prompted by recent articles from Krugman, Chait, and David Frum:
"They're perfectly within their rights to proceed as though libertarianism is a political force that imperils us, or an obvious nonstarter, but it cannot be both."
Ahh....sorry Conor, but yes it can. And in some cases, it is. It's a non starter because it simply IS an unworkable fantasy. I won't go into much detail on my assertion here because I've done so in the past and very recently on this site.
But can an idea that cannot survive on its own in the real world also be dangerous?
Communism as practiced in the Soviet Union was essentially a non-starter. It was propped up as long as it could be by the state before it collapsed into the dust of history. But does that mean it was a harmless poli-sci exercise?
Libertarianism is dangerous because it is held out as a great panacea by idiots like Rand Paul and Paul Ryan, who really don't appear to have thought it through as a political philosophy. What they do is to cherry pick various elements of it in order to help push whatever right-wing agenda they're most in love with on any particular day, killing the government, ending taxation, decapitating government services, diminishing assistance for the poor and elderly and unemployed; all of these goals can find some codicil in Libertarianism handbooks to support anyone claiming that philosophy as their gold standard.
So, yes, Conor, it can be both.
Now please shut up about it, willya?
Christ, these people!
Seems to me Daily Kos is doing a much better job of covering the Ferguson out-of-control and undisciplined police than anyone. Haven't seen, for example, anyone else mentioning the tear-gassing Al Jezera, but I haven't checked the Gardian yet.
Ferguson is 67% black but the town is ruled by whites. The mayor and the police chief are white; the police force (according to Slate) is 94% white. The Slate article suggests that the reason is because the citizens are not voting in municipal elections. (However, that doesn't explain the racial makeup of the police force.) One hoped-for outcome: Ferguson turns out for elections.
http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2014/08/14/ferguson_missouri_government_why_is_it_so_white.html
Akhilleus,
Besides our lovely and lively hostess Marie, you're the best reason making RC my first read.