February 2011
66 posts
Caught on tape: Cops talk about stealing man’s property →
rawstory.com
Police officers in Lansing, Michigan are in hot water after an investigative report by local ABC News affiliate WXYZ.
According to the report’s source, officers with the OMNI Drug Task Force executed a search warrant on the home of Rudy Simpson in June 2008, and found a small bag of marijuana and half a pain pill that he’d been prescribed.
While talking about what they should do, officers began to eye the expensive recording equipment around Simpson’s home, ultimately deciding that they could very well take everything if they wanted thanks to the drugs they’d found.
A unionized public employee, a member of the Tea Party, and a CEO are sitting at a table. In the middle of the table are a dozen cookies. The CEO reaches across and takes 11 cookies, looks at the teabagger and says, “Watch out for that union guy, he wants a piece of your cookie.”
“Look out the window. These people are not going to go away. This is a constituency that knows patience. They fish through ice.”
—
Actor and Madison native Bradley Whitford, in a message supporting the thousands of people in Wisconsin’s capitol who are protesting Governor Scott Walker’s plan to strip most public employee unions of their collective bargaining powers. I don’t usually feel the need to post the political opinions of actors, but Fuck Yeah Josh Lyman. (Via USA Today)
Can it be?
that would be incredible.
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1:56
Oglethorpe County Man to Rep. Broun - "Who's Going to Shoot Obama?"
“Who is going to shoot Obama?”
—
An audience member at a town hall meeting hosted by Rep. Paul Broun (R-GA), a Tea Party congressman.
According to Blake Aued of the Athens Banner-Herald, who was in attendance, the question “got a big laugh.”
[tpm.]
(via thedailywhat)
Fuck you, Tea Party. Denounce this stuff or get the fuck out of this country and our politics. You make a mockery of what this nation is about.
(via heshallfromtimetotime)
Aside from these statements, flying planes into IRS buildings, shooting it out with the police on your way to te Tides Foundation and taking guns to townhalls featuring President Obama, the Tea Party is just like you and I.
Alright I was being sarcastic but we need to seriously reconsider the loyalty of individuals to a democracy, particularly within our society, if such claims are made and subsequenty dismissed as humor in a serious political setting. When we’ve reduced politics to “I don’t agree with you so I’m going to shoot you”, are we then not enabling restrictions on our freedoms? What incentive does President Obama have to rescind the Patriot Act if at any moment some person, even in political climates, wants to gun him down? This is the paranoia that haunts leaders and creates tyrants, we should confront such rhetoric and explain how this behavior ultimately hurts the individual and society. I am not against free speech, I am pro-keeping it real.
(via thenoobyorker)
I am also not against free speech, but the Supreme Court has repeatedly struck down First Amendment cases where the speech being used was threatening or outright false. For instance, the Supreme Court has said that yelling “FIRE!” in a crowded theater while there is no fire is not constitutionally protected free speech. Asking if someone is going to shoot the president is not free speech either, it’s legally termed as assault and can be tried as a felony.
This is my representative. So embarrassed.
I’m assuming the Secret Service will be visiting Oglethorpe County now. Anyone know more about this?
Well, damn. I’ve lost three followers in the past week. Wonder if it’s all the posts about Wisconsin. Must be since that’s just about all I’ve been posting lately. Eh well, you get some, you lose some.
In other news, I think I might join Facebook again. I received an email from a friend who quit Facebook for reasons very similar to my own. He rejoined for activist reasons, which is why I am considering signing back up. If I do, I’ll take a few cues from my friend. He set his page so that no one can comment or “like” any of his posts. I don’t really want to get into heated arguments with folks; I just want to share things I find interesting. I don’t mind debating, but I don’t want to do it on my Facebook Wall.
We’ll see.
glanced at wife’s facebook and saw that one of her friends had written a post about WI. it said:
Government workers in Wisconsin are on strike. Awesome! I hope they never go back to work. I might have to move up there.
after that was a long list of idiotic comments.
this guy describes himself as an an anarcho-capitalist, if that puts his views into any sort of context for you.
first of all, fuck him. it was all i could do not to comment. then it was all i could do not to email the little shit. and now i’m venting to you, my tumblr pals.
so i guess this asshole wants me to lose my job. then i wouldn’t be suckling the teat of the taxyaper, right?
we don’t really see this jerkoff very often, which is a good thing. he always comes to the New Year’s Eve Eve party we have every year. i wonder if an invitation will find its way to him this year. right.
“One in three pregnancies end in miscarriage. As a woman who miscarried in the fall of 2009, I cannot tell you how utterly disgusted by the thought that someone would even consider proposing such a bill. Many women after miscarriage already blame themselves, wondering if they had done something wrong that accidentally caused them to lose a very wanted child. This bill would treat every woman as a potential criminal at a time when they are already at their most emotionally vulnerable. But that’s just another day in the war against women for the country’s Republican party.”
Georgia Representative Wants To Investigate All Miscarriages
And it would also discourage women from seeking needed medical attention if they miscarry.
If you’re not getting more and more pissed every day, you’re not paying attention.
(via sarahchristine)
it never ends with those bastards.
It’s so difficult to live in this state sometimes.
Let’s not leave this bastard’s name out of the story. His name is Bobby Franklin and this is his website: www1.legis.ga.gov/legis/2009_10/house/bios/franklinBobby/franklinBobby.htm
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“The stakes in Wisconsin could not be higher, as both the right and labor view the state as the most committed stronghold of public-sector unionism. The virtual eradication of public unions in Wisconsin would instantly trigger campaigns by Republicans in dozens of states where the public-sector labor movement is less entrenched. If successful in Wisconsin, the right’s drive against union rights among public workers would mean the eventual loss of any standard for living wages, good benefits and working conditions in which workers have a voice. It would mean the further political fragmentation of a working class already fractured by de-industrialization and the demise of cohesive working-class neighborhoods.”
—The Importance of Wisconsin (via notemily)
Tom Morello from RATM Will Play Show in Madison →
huffingtonpost.com
“So clearly, the issue isn’t the state budget,” said Morello. “It’s breaking the right of working people to stand up to corporate power. That’s what they want to do, and that’s what we’re not going to let them do.”
I saw Morello play in N.C. a few years ago. Boots Riley was there, too. That was before he and Morello formed The Street Sweeper Social Club. If you’re in Madison, hope you enjoy the show! And remember what RATM said: “Anger is a gift.”
The Republican Strategy →
robertreich.org
“The Republican strategy is to split the vast middle and working class – pitting unionized workers against non-unionized, public-sector workers against non-public, older workers within sight of Medicare and Social Security against younger workers who don’t believe these programs will be there for them, and the poor against the working middle class.
By splitting working America along these lines, Republicans want Americans to believe that we can no longer afford to do what we need to do as a nation. They hope to deflect attention from the increasing share of total income and wealth going to the richest 1 percent while the jobs and wages of everyone else languish.”
dead on.
reminds me of a Chomsky quote:
“The more you can increase fear of drugs and crime, welfare mothers, immigrants and aliens, the more you control all the people.”
If Government Shutdown Occurs, Prepare For Much Collateral Damage →
npr.org
A September 2010 Congressional Research Service report on the effects of the 1995 shutdown reported the following:
• Health. New patients were not accepted into clinical research at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) clinical center; the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ceased disease surveillance; hotline calls to NIH concerning diseases were not answered; and toxic waste clean-up work at 609 sites reportedly stopped and resulted in 2,400 Superfund workers being sent home.
• Law Enforcement and Public Safety. Delays occurred in the processing of alcohol, tobacco, firearms, and explosives applications by the Bureau of Alcohol,Tobacco, and Firearms; work on more than 3,500 bankruptcy cases reportedly was suspended; cancellation of the recruitment and testing of federal law enforcement officials reportedly occurred, including the hiring of 400 border patrol agents; and delinquent child-support cases were delayed.
• Parks, Museums, and Monuments. Closure of 368 National Park Service sites (loss of 7 million visitors) reportedly occurred, with loss of tourism revenues to local communities; and closure of national museums and monuments (reportedly with an estimated loss of 2 million visitors) occurred.
• Visas and Passports. Approximately 20,000-30,000 applications by foreigners for visas reportedly went unprocessed each day; 200,000 U.S. applications for passports reportedly went unprocessed; and U.S. tourist industries and airlines reportedly sustained millions of dollars in losses.
• American Veterans. Multiple services were curtailed, ranging from health and welfare to finance and travel.
• Federal Contractors. Of $18 billion in Washington, D.C., area contracts, $3.7billion (over 20%) reportedly were affected adversely by the funding lapse; the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) was unable to issue a new standard for lights and lamps that was scheduled to be effective January 1, 1996,possibly resulting in delayed product delivery and lost sales; and employees of federal contractors reportedly were furloughed without pay.
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Obama Rescinds Bush 'Conscience' Rule
The Obama administration revoked most of a controversial federal regulation designed to protect health-care workers who choose not to provide care they find morally objectionable. The rule was put into effect during the final days of George W. Bush’s presidency, and was criticized by women’s health advocates and family planning proponents who said it made it more difficult to get birth control, emergency contraception, and abortions. In the new decision, the Health and Human Services Department called the rule “unclear and potentially overbroad in scope,” and rescinded almost all of it, leaving in place only longstanding protections for workers who don’t want to perform abortions or sterilizations.
PROGRESS! Everything is too gloomy today so here’s something, at least! Although I wish the whole thing had been rescinded. I still say that if you don’t want to perform certain medical procedures, become the type of doctor who does those sorts of procedures.
First, I wanted to say that I loved your tag on this post: “#I’m a children’s librarian who won’t let people check out CHILDREN’S books.”
I’m married to a pharmacist and we’ve often discussed the absurdity of pharmacists who refuse to give patients the “morning-after” pill. How crazy would it be for a pharmacist to refuse to give out round pills to patients because it was a violation of his beliefs?
Imagine no religion.
Police in the US commit sex crimes almost 3 times as often as the general population. →
informationliberation.com
Unfortunately, there may be few things you can do to protect yourself from a rapist with a badge. Even if you successfully resist an attack, you still may end up doing time for “resisting arrest” or assaulting a police officer. You may still be victimized. But, there is one weapon you have at our disposal to help prevent yourself from becoming a victim of a badged rapist; the video camera. Use it. Every time you interact with a police officer, you should record that interaction. If they want to know why you are recording them, tell them the truth, “I fear for my safety. You could be a rapist.”
“Nobody is saying Planned Parenthood can’t be the leading advocate of abortion on demand, but why do I have to pay for it?”
— Rep. Mike Pence (R-Ind.)
Why do I have to pay for the murders of innocent people in Iraq and Afghanistan, you stupid prick? Why do I have to pay for support of Israel? Millions of Americans don’t like Halliburton, but you’re not kicking them out of bed, are you Mr. Pence?
Fuck you, Mike Pence. Fuck you.
“I had planned to speak of something else, but the gentleman from New Jersey has just put my stomach in knots because I’m one of those women he spoke about just now. I had a procedure at 17 weeks, pregnant with a child that had moved from the vagina into the cervix. And that procedure that you just talked about was a procedure that I endured. I lost a baby. But for you to stand on this floor and to suggest, as you have, that somehow this is a procedure that is either welcomed or done cavalierly or done without any thought is preposterous. To think that we are here tonight debating this issue when the American people, if they are listening, are scratching their heads and wondering what does this have to do with me getting a job? What does this have to do with reducing the deficit? And the answer is nothing at all. There is a vendetta against Planned Parenthood, and it was played out in this room tonight. Planned Parenthood has a right to operate. Planned Parenthood has a right to provide services for family planning. Planned Parenthood has a right to offer abortions. Last time you checked abortions were legal in this country.”
—
Rep. Jackie Speier, D-Calif.
I have so much respect for this woman right now.
(via elitefourabby)
There was some good news today, though. The Pentagon can still spend $7 million for ads on Nascar cars.
Rage.
Military Chaplain: ‘It Must Have Been God’s Will for Her to Be Raped’ →
friendlyatheist.com
When SGT Havrilla met with the military chaplain, he told her that “it must have been God’s will for her to be raped” and recommended that she attend church more frequently.
Imagine no religion.
it was such a relief to see your comment about the quote equating abortion to the military bombing civilians. i was so baffled (and a little sickened) scrolling through the amount of 'likes' and reblogs it had without question.
thank you for speaking some sense! :)
thanks!
“If a woman should be forced to see a sonogram of her unborn fetus before an abortion, shouldn’t military decision-makers be forced to visit the civilians they bomb?”
— Usuallyskeptical (via thermaldetonator)
Am I the only one who doesn’t really like this quote? It equates having an abortion with murder.
Yes, the U.S. military should be forced to visit the civilians they bomb murder (let’s call it what it is). And no, a woman shouldn’t be forced to see a sonogram before ending her pregnancy.
Bad analogy - at least that’s the way I see it.
My little girl just took her first steps!
We’re watching An Idiot Abroad and I must say I love it. I identify with Karl (the idiot) so much. In this episode, he’s in the Middle East. Just about everything that comes out of his mouth is exactly what I’m thinking. Spoiler: He’s not a fan.
