Stupid!

That's what I say about this report.

Harvard scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr. and the police sergeant who arrested him last July after a confrontation outside his home both missed opportunities to "ratchet down" the situation and end things more calmly, according to a review of the case released Wednesday.

So according to the report, Gates shares partial blame for this stupid white cop showing up in his house for no reason and arresting Gates when he asked for his badge number. Uh, okay.

The independent review said "misunderstandings and failed communications" and a "certain degree of fear" each man had for the other led to the six-minute dispute that ended with the renowned black scholar being placed in handcuffs by the veteran white Cambridge police sergeant.

There's a term for an innocent black man having fear for a white man with a gun, it's called "reason."

There's a term for a white man having fear for an innocent unarmed black man, it's called "racism."

The report is stupid and fucked. If the people who wrote the report don't understand that, then there is no hope for them.

What's the Difference Between a Teabagger and a Bear?

If you are in the Kentucky woods, a bear won't hang you and write "FED" on your chest.

Robert Byrd 1917-2010

RIP

First Kennedy, now Byrd. The senate is losing its great old men.

In France, the Kids are Alright

Can you imagine this ever happening in the US?

Brandishing "Save our Pensions!" banners, students who haven't even entered the job market yet are already worried about what happens when they leave it.

Welcome to France, where workers' rights are so deeply entwined into the culture that even teenagers are unsettled about plans to raise the retirement age from 60 to 62, which is still among the lowest in Europe. The reform protest brought nearly a million people out into the streets across the country Thursday.

Wow.

These are the anti-teabaggers, they have actual issues that they need adressed from the government. In France, they actually value their freedoms and rights instead of mindlessly doing whatever Sarah Palin or Ron Paul tells them to do.

I wish the French would bring this additude to the US. We saved them in WW1 and 2, now it's time for them to return the favor and rescue us.

Idiot of the week

Jack Abramoff

LOL!

Conservatives Can't Hide Their Crazies

To be fair, all conservatives are crazy in their own way, but some are crazier than others. One of them from the Bush administration, General Boykin was suppose to testify against Kagan, but things didn't work out well.

The GOP abruptly scrapped plans Friday evening to call a retired Army general who drew criticism for church speeches casting the war on terrorism in religious terms to make the case against Kagan in Judiciary Committee hearings scheduled to begin Monday.

Just hours after announcing he would testify, Republicans said Lt. Gen. William G. "Jerry" Boykin's past comments painting the war on terror as a Christian fight against Satan and suggesting that Muslims worship idols would distract from Kagan's actions.

But they kept plans to call three other military witnesses who are expected to strongly criticize Kagan's decision to bar recruiters from the Harvard Law career services office over the prohibition on openly gay soldiers.

That would be equivalent to Republicans having a current or past Klan member testify against affirmative action or have Fred Phelps testify and then quickly scrapping them. Republicans are a bunch of bigoted assholes, some more than others and it's as important to highlight who they scrap as their speakers as who they allow to speak.

Malkintented, Standing up for the Powerful and Corrupt

In the conservative worldview, those who have power and money are the victims and those who try to do something about it are "evil." Big banks, big tobacco, the health insurance companies, and especially big oil are all innocent entities and liberals are meanies for even trying to attempt regulation. We see this from Malkintented:


For all his John Wayne rhetoric on the BP oil spill, President Obama has failed to administer a swift kick to the ample, deserving rump of Interior Secretary Ken Salazar. No matter. Federal judge Martin Feldman has now done the job the White House won’t do.


In a scathing ruling issued Tuesday afternoon, New Orleans-based Feldman overturned the administration’s radical six-month moratorium on deepwater drilling – and he singled out Salazar’s central role in jerry-rigging a federal panel’s scientific report to bolster flagrantly politicized conclusions. In a sane world, Salazar’s head would roll. In Obama world, he gets immunity.


Move over BP with their turtle and dolphin killing oil, there's a new bad guy, Salazar? Seriously, does Michelle have no fucking shame? Never mind the violent imagery of "heads rolling" of course. In the conservative world, "jerry-rigging a federal panel’s scientific report to bolster flagrantly politicized conclusions" means anything that stands in the way of our narrow-world view and tells the truth.


But who is this Feldman dude? Oh right.

The federal judge who overturned the Obama administration's deepwater drilling ban in the Gulf of Mexico reportedly has extensive investments in the energy industry, financial disclosure reports reveal.Read more:

U.S. District Judge Martin Feldman owned roughly $15,000 in Transocean Ltd. stock in 2008.

Transocean owned the Deepwater Horizon rig that exploded April 20, killing 11 workers and triggering the worst oil spill disaster in U.S. history, with as much as 127 million gallons of oil leaked into the Gulf of Mexico.

Oops. I guess corruption is okay with Malkintented, but doing something about it is wrong to her.

Note to William Jacobson

Shinseki did not ask "who's that" when asked about Cheney or any of his top advisers told Cheney to "bite me." Stop the equivalence.

Idiot of the Week

Joe Barton

"I'm not speaking for anybody in the House of Representatives but myself," Barton explained, "but I'm ashamed of what happened in the White House yesterday. I think it is a tragedy of the first proportion that a private corporation can be subjected to what I would characterize as a shakedown. In this case a $20 billion shakedown."

Fuck you Joe, you are full of shit. How is 20 billion dollars a "shakedown?" BP owns way more than that, they should pay 10 times that much. But you are just a whore and apologist for the polluters, go fuck yourself.

Quote of the Day

"Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes that you can do these things. Among them are a few Texas oil millionaires, and an occasional politician or businessman from other areas. Their number is negligible and they are stupid."

-President Dwight Eisenhower, the last Republican with a brain.

Tell that one to the Teabaggers trying to grab power.

The Idiocy of Doug Powers Part 2

Doug wasn't done with his idiocy in the next blog entry. He was quoting an article about how the barges weren't safe for oil cleanup and get this:

What? No checking to make sure the barge workers were applying the proper SPF sunscreen and wearing hardhats?

Doug dude, that's not what it says, reread it:

The Coast Guard needed to confirm that there were fire extinguishers and life vests on board, and then it had trouble contacting the people who built the barges.

The article says fire extinguishers and life vests, you said sunscreen and hardhats. Read it again Doug.

The Coast Guard needed to confirm that there were fire extinguishers and life vests on board, and then it had trouble contacting the people who built the barges.

Again.

The Coast Guard needed to confirm that there were fire extinguishers and life vests on board, and then it had trouble contacting the people who built the barges.

And again.

The Coast Guard needed to confirm that there were fire extinguishers and life vests on board, and then it had trouble contacting the people who built the barges.

Having fun Doug? Oh sorry, you can't read.

When people are going out at sea to do anything, I'm guessing that life vests are important to have. And since these barges are drifting in OIL, it's important to have a fire extinguisher handy as well. Remember, this disaster/crime happened because people cut corners when it came to safety, for the rescue effort to do the same would be offensive.

Dumb Doug!

The Idiocy of Doug Powers Part 1

Malkintented's funnier, but dumber co-blogger Doug Powers has his take on endangered Red Squirrels in Arizona.

The money is from a Federal Highway Administration grant. I’d imagine that any fraction of the “Bridge to Nutwhere” money that Arizona doesn’t spend will be returned to the federal government and put into a fund that will be used to sue them over the immigration law.

Ha ha ha, "Bridge to Nutwhere", you are so funny! I guess when the squirrel goes extinct, they will call it the "Memorial Bridge to Nutwhere." The John "Cut-Down-The-Birch" Society rules again!

By the way, do you know what 1.25 million dollars in terms of government spending is? There are 300 million Americans, if every one of them gave a penny, that's 3 million dollars. 1.25 million is less than half a penny from every American. In terms of spending, that's nothing and if you don't want to spend less than half a penny to help save a species from going extinct forever, I have to conclude that you hate that species...or are just stupid or both.

Doug wasn't done with the comedy.

At least when drug cartels take over the entire state, the squirrels will have an escape route.

Like Cindy McCain?

Coming Soon

The Albert Cirrus Doctrine, a list of my solutions to the countrie's problems.

All Conservatives are Racist

It seems like weekly we see a conservative/Republican come out with some racially charged comment and a week later, we forget about it. We had the racism over the mural of the students in Arizona, the racial slur by Jake Knotts in South Carolina, and now this by Steve King.

"The president has demonstrated that he has a default mechanism in him that breaks down the side of race on the side that favors the black person in the case of professor Gates and officer Crowley."

"He jumped to a conclusion without having heard the facts."

Yeah, that Henry Gates incident had nothing to do with race at all. We see white people get arrested every day for uh, breaking into their own homes. If these people were around a few years ago, they would claim those Klan lynchings were because the black person supported the wrong sports team. But we know the truth, it's all about racism and this right-wing tendency towards it.

First thing, no conservative would ever admit to being racist, that's why it's imperative to never stop calling them it. Second thing, the conservative has defined the term "racist" so tightly that unless someone was setting fires to crosses while wearing white hoods, they are not racist. That way they can deny any allegations of racism from liberals. Third thing, their racism is so abstract and full of code words, that just about anything they say can be racist. Lee Atwaters said it best:

You start out in 1954 by saying, "N*****, n*****, n*****." By 1968 you can't say "n*****" — that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states' rights and all that stuff. You're getting so abstract now [that] you're talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you're talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is [that] blacks get hurt worse than whites. And subconsciously maybe that is part of it. I'm not saying that. But I'm saying that if it is getting that abstract, and that coded, that we are doing away with the racial problem one way or the other. You follow me — because obviously sitting around saying, "We want to cut this," is much more abstract than even the busing thing, and a hell of a lot more abstract than "N*****, n*****."

Or in King's case, you talk about how Obama favors blacks over whites. Get this straight, King is a racist son of a bitch and needs to be exposed for it. If conservatives get their way, we will be back to slavery and segregation.

Lightning Works for the ACLU

HA HA HA HA HA!!!!!

Idiot of the Week

Rand Paul

I don’t think anybody's going to be missing a hill or two here and there.

Uh, try 500 nimrod.

Quote of the Month

"You know what happens when windmills collapse into the sea? A splash."-Bill Maher

Fascist Democrat

When the entire Republican Party is fucked, it's not very reassuring that there are Democrats who think this way.

Activists with several free Gaza groups will symbolically surrender Thursday at a Congressman's office, after the lawmaker called for the prosecution of Americans who were aboard a flotilla raided last week by Israeli authorities.

It gets worse.

Sherman said the activists could be prosecuted under the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, which makes it illegal to give supplies to terror groups.

So now he's pro-death penalty and believes everyone in Gaza is a terrorist. This is what I mean when I say the Democratic Party needs to be purged of these immoral idiots.

Don't Scapegoat BP...Go After All Businesses

People are justly angry at BP and their CEO for the shitstorm in the Gulf. But let's not forget that they aren't the only corporation that is fucking us over. We need an honest anti-corporate grassroots campaign against the corporatizing of America. There has been a war waged against the environment, labor, and consumers by the fascist power structure and the first line of defense should come from the government through taxing and regulating. Until this happens, we are to as a society stand up to them.

Fuck Arkansas!

A state that has given us Walmart, a centrist Democratic president, a rapist-paroling governor, a ban on gay adoptions, and two right-wing Democratic senators and now the worst of those two senators won the primary last night. Blanche Lincoln beat Bill Halter for the nomination and will face the Republican John Boozman (yes that's his real name). Lincoln has spent the last few months trashing labor and every good thing Democrats have done and millions of corporate dollars later, she has won.

You know what, even though she's a Democrat, I hope she loses and her poll numbers look that way too. Conservative and centrist Democrats are killing the party even if they are giving us a placebo majority. Liberalism is the only way to go, triangulation needs strangulation.

Anti-Semitism Projection

With all the fuss of Helen Thomas's comments, I have to call bullshit on those who are calling her anti-semitic for them.

1. I believe Thomas was angry over the flotilla raid that resulted in 9 deaths of peace activists. I think even at Helen's age, journalists make mistakes. Her mistake was giving a sound bite to the media. "Get the hell out of Palestine" doesn't really sound good, if given time she would have made a better argument. But at the same time, I don't want to blame the victim here and this outrage was a calculated attack from her critics to smear her 50 years of service to this country.

2. What kind of anti-semite would want Jews to live in America? Seriously, an anti-semite in the US would want fewer Jews living in the US instead of more as Thomas put it. The US, Germany, or Poland would be 100 times safer for Jews than in Israel. Israelis currently live in constant fear of revenge attacks from pissed-off Palestinians, anywhere else would be safer.

3. The real anti-semites are Christian conservatives. Christianity has always been in conflict with Judaism and it hit a peak with Hitler. The truth is that many anti-semites support Israel for two reasons: they hate the Muslims more than Jews and they want the Jews in Israel because they believe the raptures will come some day. Until that day (which will never come), they will sit on the sidelines and watch both sides kill each other. Conservatives are the real anti-semites, we need to remember that at all time.

As for Helen Thomas, she is old and will die some day and I hope her legacy will be positive because she is a pioneer and a hero.

Why do People Litter?

I was at the beach this morning picking up garbage and I wondered to myself, why do people litter? Is it convenient? There were garbage cans every 50 feet, so I guess it's more likely to be willful ignorance than anything. It's ironic, people come to beach for its beauty, but they throw shit on the ground, do they do that at their own home? Well maybe, but at least they will cleanup after themselves after a while. I'm not a fan of fining people for stupid reasons, but if you litter, you should be fined. Some places already have hefty fines for littering, but they aren't enforced. Every beach needs at least one guard on duty to patrol for litterers. And cigarette butts aren't exempt! Those are the most numerous trash items I find and they stay around for a while. Smokers, you might think it's fun to temporarily toss your butt on the ground, but in a few decades, tarma will give you cancer!

For the Record

I hope Rush Limbaugh's fourth marriage fails.

Helen Thomas, an American Hero Quits

Helen Thomas was one of the only voices to stand up to George Bush and company, but when it comes to Israel, dissent is verboten.

Yes her statement might have been blunt and a little over the top, but I think this sets a bad precedent that any questions about Israel will equal career suicide. Thomas has had a remarkable career and it's sad to see her go out this way. I wish you well Helen!

Malkintented Just Hates Muslims

Whenever conservatives are confronted with the choice to distinguish peaceful Muslims from violent ones, they never get it.

Can you hear the rising chorus of voices of Americans who haven’t forgotten yet?

Unless the mosque being built was built in honor of the hijackers, any opposition to it should be dismissed as hateful Islamophobia. When the Christian terrorist Timothy Mcveigh bombed Oklahoma City, you didn't see atheists try to oppose any new churches in the city. Think about that.

Beck Loves Nazis

This is not a surprise.

Glenn Beck's new book club pick: Nazi sympathizer who praised Hitler and denounced the Allies

I think when it really comes down to it, conservatives love what the Nazis stood for and no matter how much projection they can throw at us (ie "liberal fascism"), they will be on the same page as Nazis.

Oil Drilling Off Normandy 1944

Imagine our World War 2 veterans having to wade through oil while storming Normandy. Think about how many more lives would have been lost the next time someone says "drill baby drill."

Pat Robertson and the Oil Spill

Talibangelist, errr, I mean televangelist Pat Robertson made some new controversial remarks on his show about the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. In a statement, Robertson said, "I got another message from God today. He told me that this spill is the result of American slaves wanting freedom in the 19th Century. You see, they made a pact with the devil and now 150 years later, God turned the Gulf black to symbolize their black skin color."

This comment outraged many black Americans who have picketed the 700 Club. In response, Pat Robertson sent some aide to help starving Africans in need...who are mining in Pat's diamond mines.

In a follow up interview, Pat Robertson backed away from his comments about the spill being God's revenge for the slaves being freed. Instead he blamed homosexuals for the spill. Fellow Christian zealot Bryan Fischer agrees and also blames whales for the spill.

"We should have executed the whale who killed the trainer at SeaWorld this year because he escaped and sabotaged the oil platform that led to 11 deaths and the spill. What about the term 'killer whale' do SeaWorld officials not understand?"*

We asked Pat Robertson how he would stop the oil and he gave us an interesting reply.

"Stop? The oil gushing out of the pipe is an act of God and the magical oil is impregnating the Gulf. To put a cap over the pipe would be like putting a condom on it, it's evil and wrong."

At that moment, Kanye West barged in and tried to claim that Robertson's response was crazier than Fischer's. When we told him there wasn't a contest, Kanye told us Pat doesn't care about black people, talked like a robot, and left.

We finished the interview by asking him about the oil clean up. "I'm against cleaning it up, that would be an abortion and God doesn't like those. What will happen is that the oil will spread throughout the whole Gulf until it's large enough to be born and the Gulf will give birth and the oil will flow into the Carribean. The spill will then flow to Venezuela, get a rifle, and assassinate Hugo Chavez."

When asked how he knows this, he said, "God told me."

Next week, we will talk to Fred Phelps about the spill and his new website called "God Hates Pelicans."

*Last sentence is an actual quote.

Idiot of the Week

Jan Brewer

"The Nazi comments... they are awful," she said, her voice dropping. "Knowing that my father died fighting the Nazi regime in Germany, that I lost him when I was 11 because of that... and then to have them call me Hitler's daughter. It hurts. It's ugliness beyond anything I've ever experienced."

Liar.

Gov. Jan Brewer said in a recent interview that her father died fighting Nazi Germany. In fact, the death of Wilford Drinkwine came 10 years after World War II had ended. During the war, Drinkwine worked as a civilian supervisor for a naval munitions depot in Hawthorne, Nev. He died of lung disease in 1955 in California.

Even if that was true, her dad would be pretty fucking sick of her daughter if he knew what kind of a Nazi she was.

Racist Arizona Politicians

I'm so sick of Arizona politicians I want to fucking puke out my ass!

An artist's decision to prominently feature a non-white child on an elementary-school mural in Prescott, Ariz., sparked so much controversy that school administrators asked him to "lighten" the child's face after a city councilman launched a campaign against the mural.

Oh wait, it gets better.

Steve Blair didn't like that. Blair, local city councilman and talk-radio host, inveighed against the mural on his show last month, according to the New York Daily News:

"I am not a racist individual," Blair said on a radio show last month, "but I will tell you depicting a black guy in the middle of that mural, based upon who's President of the United States today and based upon the history of this community, when I grew up we had four black families — who I have been very good friends with for years — to depict the biggest picture on that building as a black person, I would have to ask the question, 'Why?' "

Ah, the "I'm not racist, but I say racist shit" defense. My friend would call this a "crazyfolk." I would call him a racist fuck. This next part I like.

It is suspicious, though, seeing as how only 42 percent of Arizonans aren't white.

You know, I have to ask why with a large Hispanic population, how does Arizona get such racist politicians elected? Is it because A. all the whites are racist, B. Hispanic voting turnout is low, or C. Hispanic voters help elect them. I don't have the data, but one day these racists will be voted out in droves and Arizona will be a respectable state again.

Wrong Lesson From a Bad Call

For the past two days, there has been a lot of talk about umpire Jim Joyce's bad call at first base and the call was bad. But we are angry for the wrong reasons.

You see, like all sports that involve more than one player, it's a team effort and the outrage should be "the Tigers could have lost", not "the umpire ruined Galarraga's 'perfect game.'" If you think about it, the Indians were only down 0-3 in the 9th with 2 outs. Games can change fast and what if that blown call led to an Indian rally and a loss for the Tigers? This is why I support allowing more plays to be challenged in all sports.

The one major thing should change is the way we view these "perfect games", they should be a team effort and not a pitching effort. Think about it, the other 8 players have to catch the fly balls, tag the bases, and not make errors for it to work and there is a reason there have only been 20 of these games, it requires a team effort. I believe this type of fake individualism for the pitchers should not be counted as a stat unless it's given to the whole team.

The only exception to this rule IMHO should be if all 27 outs are strikeouts, then the credit should be given to the pitcher.............and the catcher.

If Israel does Something Stupid...

...Charles Johnson at LGF supports it.

When I thought Charles had repented, he goes and attacks peace activists bringing aide to the suffering in Gaza. Classy. Will he bring back "Saint Pancake" next?

Fuck the Private Sector!

When public sector gives people jobs while the private sector lags behind, it's time for the government to save the economy.

Job creation by private companies grew at the slowest pace since the start of the year, as a wave of census hiring lifted payrolls by 431,000 in May.

This is what saved America in the Great Depression, the government being the savior of the economy until the private sector kept people unemployed. Obama and Congress need to start hiring more people to work on works projects like fixing highways, building wind turbines, etc to get the ball rolling. And don't worry about the fucking deficit, these projects create long-term success and growth.

The census proved that the government can give people jobs out of nowhere with less hassle from CEOs trying to squeeze every nickle out of us. Also public sector unions are less likely to be harassed by those in charge.

Thursday Hicks

Rush Limbaugh is a scat muncher, he munches scat!

Peace is Impossible

Watching the "let's defend Israel/trash Palestine" chorus come out every time Israel does some dumb shit makes me pessimistic that peace will ever occur in that region. Whenever there is a one sided condemnation like that, nothing gets accomplished. Okay, a few bad apples in Hamas blow up some Israelis, that is bad too. But killing nine peace activists trying to bring supplies to Gaza is probably far worse because I realise that my tax dollars are probably going to that. Once Israel stops killing people, Hamas won't have a reason to retaliate and boom, you have peace. But that's a rational solution and will never happen because some politicians (even Democrats) have too much loyalty to whatever Israel does and nobody will win.

Davis Fail

I guess when you vote against the healthcare bill, don't be surprised to lose the Democratic primary.

Time to Cut Off Funding

How many more of these "accidents" will it take until we decide to stop sending Israel money?