Good Words

We've come a long way...

What happened in Ferguson may not be unique but it’s no longer endemic. It’s no longer sanctioned by law or custom, and before the civil rights movement, it most surely was.

And we have a long way to go...

We don’t need the Ferguson report to know that’s not true. We just need to open our eyes and our ears and our hearts to know that this nation’s racial history still casts its long shadow upon us. We know the march is not yet over; we know the race is not yet won. We know reaching that blessed destination where we are judged by the content of our character requires admitting as much.

Understanding the nuances of this is vital if one wants to understand race in the United States today.

Supreme Court of United States Gives Air Time To Right Wing Blogger

It comes as  absolutely no surprise to me that the face of King V Burwell suffers from Obama Mental Meltdown Syndrome.

The man who could cripple Obamacare isn’t shy about telling the world that he thinks the president is an “idiot,” posting altered images of the first lady in Middle Eastern clothing and expressing his hatred for the “Democraps” who enacted the health care law.

A review of King’s public social media accounts show he is a proud grandfather who loves his family, enjoys cooking and sharing photos from conservative blogs. One image shows a photo from the movie “Back to the Future” with instructions to the time traveler: “Marty, there is no time to lose. You must go back in time and give Obama’s dad a condom.”

On Facebook, King frequently criticizes Obamacare and immigration policies and espouses support for limited government, the Second Amendment and Republican political candidates. He jokes often that the federal government is watching him.

Great...

So, somehow, the Supreme Court of the United States managed to give air time to a fucking right wing blogger. I do take heart in one thing, though...

“So do you think NSA, FBI and the other three letter government workers watch face book? Just wonder because if they do I’ll have a house full of them soon. I guess we will be able to enjoy a cold beer and make fun of the idiot in the White House,” he posted on Oct. 8, 2013. “I sued the irs over this bull shit so … get ready.”

So much for the "frivolous" lawsuits meme!

Health Care of 9.6 Million People

Ferguson: Racism in Action, or Just Plain Old Greed?

The Department of Justice has issued its report on the police in Ferguson, Missouri, and it's completely disgusting.

The city Finance Director ordered the Chief of Police to increase revenue by writing more tickets. The police attack blacks preferentially, stopping and arresting them at a higher rate than whites.

A black woman parked her car illegally once, got two tickets for $152, and when she couldn't pay the fine, she was arrested twice, and spent six days in jail. The city refused partial payments, and over seven years she has paid $550, and but they keep jacking up the fines and she still owes $541.

And when these people are jailed, the time served isn't even recorded by the court to reduce their fine.

Cops just drive up to people sitting in cars or waiting for the bus and harass them, accusing them of being pedophiles.

The only reason the cops arrest these people is because they resisted arrest.

In all cases where the only reason cops arrested a stopped driver is for "resisting arrest," the victim was black. Yeah, you read that right. The only reason they arrest these people is because they resisted arrest. If you're black and you complain when the cops in Ferguson harass you, they arrest you.

And because these people have no money, they can't hire a lawyer to sue these bastards.

The Ferguson city government is trying to balance its budget on the backs of its poorest citizens, who are overwhelmingly black. This is part of a larger pattern of the rich and powerful using their economic clout to take away what little money the poor have. This pattern is well established with payday lenders who entrap the disadvantaged in an endless cycle of usurious loans, and rent-to-own stores that charge twice what you can get products for at Walmart.

Does Ferguson do this for malicious and racist reasons, just to keep blacks down? Or is it just because the poor can't afford to pay the fines up front, which means that -- like the payday lenders -- they can just keep poor blacks on the hook forever, charging them again and again and again for the same minor infractions that whites are never charged with, because the cops don't even patrol those areas since they're ostensibly "low crime?"

This is the kind of crap that African Americans in Ferguson have to put up with every day of their lives. And it's not just Ferguson. This happens all over the country, as with Eric Garner in New York. More disgustingly, it's not just African American adults, it's even the kids.

For example, in Georgia two girls, one white and one black, wrote on a lavatory stall. The treatment they received at the hands of the system was totally different. The white girl's parents paid $100 restitution and that was basically it. But Mikia Hutchings couldn't afford to pay:

While both students were suspended from school for a few days, Mikia had to face a school disciplinary hearing and, a few weeks later, a visit by a uniformed officer from the local Sheriff’s Department, who served her grandmother with papers accusing Mikia of a trespassing misdemeanor and, potentially, a felony.

As part of an agreement with the state to have the charges dismissed in juvenile court, Mikia admitted to the allegations of criminal trespassing. Mikia, who is African-American, spent her summer on probation, under a 7 p.m. curfew, and had to complete 16 hours of community service in addition to writing an apology letter to a student whose sneakers were defaced in the incident.

It is just crazy that a school is involving the police and the courts in cases of childish misbehavior. The rich can just buy their way out of all their problems, while the poor have their entire lives ruined from childhood on.

Worse, why are the cops are wasting their time harassing twelve-year-old children instead of doing real police work? How many hours of the court's and the police department's time were wasted? Ten? Twenty? Forty? This city most likely spent $1,000 to $5,000 in a vain attempt to extract a $100 fine from a 12-year-old.

It's hard to believe that cities like Ferguson can recoup the salaries of court officials and police officers with fines levied against African Americans who can't pay them for puffed-up offenses they don't even bother to charge whites with. And I thought putting people in jail for not paying fines went away with debtor's prison? Apparently not... Private probation companies are raking in millions by putting poor people in jail for non-payment of fines.

Do these cities have more cops than they need, if they have nothing better to do with their time than hassle poor people? Or write racist emails at work joking about how Obama wouldn't be president for more than four years because "what black man holds a steady job for four years?"

No wonder their budgets are in such a mess.

Sounds like a whole lot of these folks should be fired.

It MUST Be About BENGHAZI

As I predicted, conservatives are only interested in the Hillary email kerfuffle as it relates to Benghazi. Like a dog that just won't let go of that Frisbee, they are laser focused in on the emails that pertain to the thing they still think they can "get" Obama on and win (see: still with the sour grapes that he got bin Laden and Bush didn't).

At first, I couldn't figure out why they haven't been more vocal about these emails but this piece on Politico explains it quite well. They know that their emails are next. In fact, I predict that every candidate who currently holds public office is going to have to release all their emails to the public. Further, their silence calls attention to the fact that it was the New York Fucking Times that broke this story. So, I guess the whole "liberal media" narrative has been blown to shit...again.

The media does deserve some criticism, though, because we are likely going to have to hear about this shit for the next 20 months along with a bunch of bullshit stories about the rest of the candidates. Wouldn't it be nice if we looked at how each candidate might, y'know, address the myriad of challenges our nation faces?

Hillary's Emails

Yesterday's revelation that Hillary Clinton used her personal email while Secretary of State seems like no big deal to me. John Kerry is the first Secretary of State to actually use the government email. Condeleeza Rice didn't use email and Colin Powell used his personal email. This all has the smell of government silliness.

But it should matter to Hillary Clinton because, once again, she's seen as hiding something. Handing over 55,000 emails is nice but now we will have every fat ass blogger with man titties howling about secrecy and Benghazi again because she didn't hand over all of them. I see a lot of tone deafness within her almost launched campaign and she needs to tighten up that shit most ricky tick.

The air of inevitability thing is what did her in during the 2008 campaign. That's why I think it would behoove the Democrats to put up some serious challengers to her so she can stay on her game. If she somehow manages to end up tanking, at least they will have some other players in the mix. Right now their other star (Elizabeth Warren) has repeatedly said she is not running. Let's see some new faces like Joaquín or Julian Castro. What about Maggie Hassan? Or my own Amy Klobuchar?

Hillary needs to get kicked in the ass a bit if she's going to earn it.

Standing in King V Burwell

Two recent stories in the Wall Street Journal (here and here) raise significant queries as to whether or not the people bringing suit against the ACA have standing to even do so.

Legal experts say the fact that Mr. King could avoid paying the penalty for lacking insurance by enrolling in VA coverage undermines his legal right to bring the case, known as “standing.” The wife of a second plaintiff has described her husband on social media as being a Vietnam veteran. The government previously questioned the standing of a third plaintiff on the grounds that her income may exempt her from paying the penalty for lacking insurance, but a lower court didn’t address the issue.

So, why did they bring about this suit?

Mr. King said his challenge to the law is “not about me,” but rather an effort he undertook for his family and others to bring down the health law.

Ah, so he suffers from Obama Mental Meltdown Syndrome....always a sound reason to go to the Supreme Court.

Worse, we are still stuck on the "not letting him win no matter what!!" mentality.

House Republicans to Host Sharia Law Foreign Leader

Lots of Republicans think the United States is a Christian nation, and that Congress and state legislatures should make it official. Yet Republicans in Congress are asking the leader of a foreign country that recognizes Muslim Sharia Law to lecture Americans about moral imperatives.

They criticize President Obama because he frames the war against the so-called Islamic State as an action against criminals and terrorists. Obama refuses to give into the terrorists' narrative that they somehow represent Islam, and that Islam and Christianity are somehow at war. The president believes that if the United States is perceived as embarking on another Crusade in the Middle East, as Republicans appear to fervently desire by their pious declarations, then other Muslims will feel that the US is waging a war against them as well.

Anti-Islamic rhetoric has reached a fevered pitch in many parts of the United States since 2001. Republican-controlled legislatures have debated or passed laws that prohibit "Sharia" law, or recognizing any form of "foreign" law. They believe that only "Christian" law should apply in the United States.

Common law, the basis of American law, predates Christianity.

However, the Christian part of the bible, the New Testament, doesn't establish any laws: it's just the story of Jesus, plus some dire predictions about hellfire and damnation. The part of the Bible that contains actual laws is the Torah, also known as the Old Testament. This set of laws, known as Mosaic Law, is not Christian, it's Jewish law, and is expanded upon by the Talmud. American law is based on British common law, which existed before Christianity.

In Israel Judaism is the official state religion. Religious law governs family matters. That means that in order for a Jewish woman to get a divorce, she has to get her husband's permission, even if she's an atheist Russian emigree who's never set foot in a synagogue. Some women have been forced to wait for decades to get a divorce, held hostage by husbands who are free to take up with other women and have children who will be recognized as Jews by the rabbinate.

However, Israel has a very large Muslim population, and a sizable Christian one. That means that Israel also recognizes Sharia courts:

The jurisdiction of the Sharia Courts
Under  the Palestine Order in Council 1922-1947, the Sharia Courts were given jurisdiction to adjudicate the following matters in accordance with the Sharia Courts Procedure Law for the year 1333 E:

• Marriages - Proof of marriage, annulment of marriage, ratification of marriage, bride prices and dowries.
• Divorce - Proof of divorce, arbitration, separation and dissolution of marriage.
• Maintenance - Wife, son, father and grandfather.
• Legal capacity and guardianship.  
• Custody of children - visitation and accommodation arrangements.
• Inheritance.

Republicans invited Bibi Netanyahu, a foreign leader, to come scare Americans with stories of Muslim bogeymen, when his own country allows Sharia Courts dictate the most basic rights of Israeli citizens to marry, divorce, have children and inherit property.

Yeah, there are complex historical reasons for this. But it just shows how foolish the idea is that a democracy should have an official state religion, especially Christianity. Because there's no such monolithic thing called "Christianity" -- or Judaism or Islam, for that matter, which demonstrates what a farce the Israeli situation is.

The theocracies in Iran and Saudi Arabia illustrate the evils of official state religions run amok, and even Britain has several dark pages in its history when the State wielded religious power to murder its political opponents.

Religious laws governing marriage and family are all over the map in Christianity: most protestant faiths allow divorce, Catholicism bans it, and when it started, Mormonism allowed polygamy, and some adherents still claim it does.

Think of the utter chaos trying to enforce several hundred religious courts in this country over issues of marriage, divorce and child custody and especially inheritance, considering how frequently Americans marry people of other faiths, and how Americans can simply change faiths by walking across the street.

Our modern secular moral code is stronger than so-called biblical morality.

And an official state religion is unnecessary. Morality has nothing to do with religion -- it's just a set of rules established to govern social interaction. Morality is merely informed by religion and philosophy, not dictated by them.

Despite the popular claim to the contrary, morality can, is and should be legislated. By Americans, for all Americans who alive right and here and now. Not by decree of some self-styled foreign oracle who's been dead for centuries, for a tiny sliver of Americans who think they know better than everyone else.

The irony is that our modern secular moral code is stronger and more just than so-called morality of the Bible, which condoned, promoted and even glorified genocide, vengeful murders, ritual human sacrifice, polygamy and slavery.

The Gun Cult Completely Dismantled

I love how Jefferies takes apart every single argument made by members of the Gun Cult. He's right...there really is only one valid argument to have a gun...because they like them. The rest are all bullshit.

Of course, that's not the best part, though. The comparison of slavery to gun rights is so fucking spot on that I found myself laughing out loud. Not surprising that it's the descendants of the same people who bitched about their right to own slaves being taken away that are now screaming, "Don't take away my guns!!!!"

What Doesn't Work and What Does Work

Shut Down Politics

We Are Spock

Leonard Nimoy, best known for portraying Spock on Star Trek, has died. The character that NBC execs wanted to dump because he was too Satanic is among the most iconic in screen history -- perhaps in even all of fiction.

I was nine years old when Star Trek first aired in 1966. I don't remember when I started watching, but at one point my parents let me stay up late on Friday nights to see it. And I remember watching the last episode, the terrible "Turnabout Intruder," in 1969. I watched the show endlessly in reruns in the 1970s.

I'd always been interested in the space program. My uncle worked for Lockheed in California as a materials scientist and some of his work wound up in the Apollo spacecraft. He was a voracious reader of science fiction, and I aspired to be like him.

So when Star Trek came out, it wasn't surprising that Spock became my favorite character. One Halloween I used nose putty to make pointed ears. I shaved off half my eyebrows and my mom drew upswept eyebrows on my forehead with eyeliner. I sewed gold braid on the sleeves of a pale blue sweatshirt. I even bear a passing physical resemblance to Leonard Nimoy.

Like Spock, I strive to eschew irrationality and violence. But also like Spock, I have flashes of temper and sentimentality. But Spock is just a character in a show. He's a fiction.

As such, the fictional character and the men who play him -- Nimoy and Zachary Quinto -- are not heroes. They should not be adulated and admired just for doing a highly-paid and relatively risk-free job. Their on-screen exploits are entertaining, and maybe even inspiring and touching. There's nothing wrong with letting them know that we like their work. But the actors are not the characters.

That's the Spock in me talking.

For many years I had a peripheral connection  to science fiction fandom. I attended dozens of conventions, including five or six Worldcons in places like Miami, Phoenix, Boston and Chicago. But I've never attended any Star Trek or Star Wars conventions.

Leonard Nimoy was not Spock: he just played him on TV.

Why? Those show-specific cons promote the whole cult of personality, which I find repellant (I know, another Spock-like reaction). It embarrasses me that so many fans seem incapable of distinguishing the character from the actor. Leonard Nimoy was not Spock: he just played him on TV. When fans drill Harrison Ford about the minutiae of plot points in Star Wars and how they connect to the 23,000 Star Wars novels and he rolls his eyes and tries to explain for the six millionth time that he's not Han Solo and he has no idea what the producers are planning, I roll my eyes with him.

Nimoy was similarly peeved, so much so that he wrote an autobiography entitled I Am Not Spock, published in 1975. I never read it because, well, I'm not a fanboy.

The real brains behind Spock were Gene Roddenberry, the creator of the series, and the dozens of screen writers who worked on the scripts. Spock is the creation of a hive mind that pulled Nimoy's strings. They too were just regular guys doing a job, with a full complement of human frailties and failings: they weren't Spock either.

But in 1995 Nimoy published I Am Spock. I never read that either, not being a fanboy, so I must rely on Wikipedia for this insight:

Nimoy had much input into how Spock would act in certain situations, and conversely, Nimoy's contemplation of how Spock acted gave him cause to think about things in a way that he never would have thought if he had not portrayed the character. As such, in this autobiography Nimoy maintains that in some meaningful sense he has merged with Spock while at the same time maintaining the distance between fact and fiction.  

Those of us who watched him play the character also think about things differently. Anyone who adopts an ethos of logic tempered by compassion, the promotion of the common good, the belief that the future can be better, and an eternal search for the truth, is Spock in a meaningful sense.

Not many television shows have philosophical underpinnings, but Star Trek does in all its incarnations. And Spock embodied them all in a single character.

Leonard Nimoy has died. May Spock live long and prosper.

And There Goes Scott Walker's Candidacy...

The National Review’s Jim Geraghty...

…it is insulting to the protesters, a group I take no pleasure in defending. The protesters in Wisconsin, so furiously angry over Walker’s reforms and disruptive to the procedures of passing laws, earned plenty of legitimate criticism. But they’re not ISIS. They’re not beheading innocent people. They’re Americans, and as much as we may find their ideas, worldview, and perspective spectacularly wrongheaded, they don’t deserve to be compared to murderous terrorists.

When you lose the National Review...

The 12 Year Olds In The House

Yesterday's actions in Congress, specifically the House of Representatives, regarding DHS funding illustrate most clearly the maturity level of Republicans. They would rather have an adolescent temper tantrum than fund a department whose very reason for being is to protect our country from terrorists attacks.

In addition to seeing how 12 year olds behave while they are in charge, it also puts to bed which party really cares about national defense. Any comments about how Barack Obama is weak or leading from behind now ring completely hollow. What a pathetic joke these people are. Is there anyone out there who is still taking them seriously?

Put them in charge of Congress and this is what happens. Perhaps people who actually give a shit about what the federal government does should be in charge come the next election.

The Mentality of the Climate Denier

Does this guy even understand fundamental concepts of science?

I thought we were done with this shit 500 years ago with Copernicus. Ah well....

Conservatives Have A Long Way To Go

A recent PPP poll shows that conservatives really have a long way to go in terms of...oh...I don't know...joining the rest of us past the 15th century!

Q16 (Republicans) Do you believe in evolution or not? 
Believe in evolution 37% 
Do not believe in evolution 49% 
Not sure 13%

Uh...not a matter of belief, folks, it's settled science (see: true, whether you believe it or not). Speaking of which...

Q15 (Republicans) Do you believe in global warming or not? 
Believe in global warming 25% 
Do not believe in global warming 66% 
Not sure 10%

Also, settle science.

So, with nearly half of conservatives not believing in evolution and more than half not believing in global warming, it becomes obvious that this is the party about IRRATIONAL BELIEF, not logic, facts, and evidence. If you look at where they stand on all of the issues of the day, it's really all belief.

Supply Side Economics? Proven to be a failed model and recanted by the people that came up with it (Bruce Bartlett and David Stockman). Still believe? Yep

Guns protect me and my family? Proven to be more likely that an accident is more likely in homes with firearms. Still believe? Yep

Immigrants-self deport! Shown to be completely unfeasible given the number of undocumented workers and how integral they are to our economy. Still believe? Get the fuck out, crime breakers!!

It's no wonder that so many conservatives are very religious. They have tied up all of their beliefs into one, gigantic, epistemically closed ball of intransigence.

And there is nothing more dangerous than ideologues. Why? This...

Q17 (Republicans) Would you support or oppose establishing Christianity as the national religion? 
57% Support establishing Christianity as the national religion
30% Oppose establishing Christianity as the national religion
13% Not sure

How To Govern An Economy

Minnesota got another shout out for having a great economy despite the "destruction" that raising taxes, increasing the minimum wage, and increasing government spending brings with it.

Between 2011 and 2015, Gov. Dayton added 172,000 new jobs to Minnesota's economy -- that's 165,800 more jobs in Dayton's first term than Pawlenty added in both of his terms combined. Even though Minnesota's top income tax rate is the 4th-highest in the country, it has the 5th-lowest unemployment rate in the country at 3.6 percent. According to 2012-2013 U.S. census figures, Minnesotans had a median income that was $10,000 larger than the U.S. average, and their median income is still $8,000 more than the U.S. average today.

Take note that the predictions from Republicans were completely wrong.

I wonder if they'll get the message in Wisconsin...

Keystone Should Happen, But Only If America Benefits

President Obama has vetoed the Keystone pipeline bill, but it won't be the last we hear of it. I think that eventually he will sign some kind of bill. But it should be one that benefits Americans, not foreign oil companies. In the original House bill, the particularly nasty crude coming through the pipeline would have been exempt from the oil spill tax!

The current method of transporting oil via trains is unacceptable because of the constant derailings and explosions of oil cars (now forecast at 10 a year). A pipeline is much safer in principle: it has fewer moving parts, it's out of the way under ground (or can be), it's not as prone to collisions, and so on.

The problem is that pipelines have a history of poor maintenance and there's a tendency to route them through areas that are the cheapest for the pipeline company, disregarding local ecological concerns and property owners' rights.

Giant corporations always spin off the subsidiaries that build such risky and large projects as separate companies so that they can declare bankruptcy when it blows up figuratively in their faces, and literally in American backyards. All too often these companies leave the local people and local and federal governments holding the bag for their disasters.
It's even worse in this case because the company building the pipeline is foreign, which means the guys responsible aren't even Americans and don't give a damn if an oil spill in the Ogallala Aquifer poisons all the wells in Nebraska, Oklahoma, Kansas and north Texas. They're treating the American Great Plains like it's some third world country where they can do anything they damn well please.

The real question isn't whether the pipeline should be built, but where and how to build it to be safe enough. We also have to ensure that the company that builds it will be held responsible for the damage it will inevitably cause when it leaks. Because it will leak, and they know it. The people responsible for it shouldn't just be able to skate away and not pay for the destruction they will have wrought.

It's not clear that the people building the pipeline really understand how corrosive this Canadian crude is. It's not clear that they're willing to spend the money necessary to build an adequate pipeline and will monitor and repair it adequately for next 20 years. And then pay to have it decommissioned 30 years from now when the tar sands and the Bakken oil field are depleted, and we've got a thousand miles of filthy, leaky pipeline cutting through the middle of the country.

If some foreign company wants to pump a zillion barrels of oil in a pipeline through the heart of America to the Gulf of Mexico so that it can be shipped off to China, then the United States should be profiting from that.

Will this foreign company be paying American taxes? Or will it siphon off all profits to some Cayman Islands bank account, putting all the risk on American property owners and taxpayers while keeping all the profit?

If we're going to be building something like this through America, then Americans should benefit.

The President Goes 3 for 3

The President had a good day yesterday. He vetoed the Keystone Pipleline legislation, put the GOP in a corner on DHS funding, and got Republicans to cave on net neutrality.

The Keystone Pipeline has pretty much become joke so it's really not a big deal that he vetoed the bill. The issue is largely symbolic now yet I still question the value of the project. It will only create temporary jobs in a market that is really not doing very well right now. The DHS funding battle perplexes me as well. The president's immigration action is on hold pending court action so the GOP doesn't have to fight about it in Congress. They should be putting their energy into the court battle. Why put the people at DHS out of a job?

The net neutrality action is the big one out of this bunch. The internet should be regulated like a utility and the idea that the various providers should be allowed to slow down speeds or offer fast lanes for certain customers would eventually end up eroding consumer surplus. The internet is indeed a public good and should be governed as such.

Our Violent Nation

We hear an awful lot these days about how the violent crime rate has dropped in this country. Yet, in looking at the numbers, the "drop" is really from an insanely high number to just a high number. Our murder rate is higher than nearly all other developed countries. So, what is it about culture that makes it such a violent place?

I'm sure it has to do with a combination of several phenomena but what are those key ingredients? I think the numbers in my first link illustrate that we haven't really done a very good job identifying our addressing what these key ingredients are that make us so violent. Obviously, there have been multitude of studies but perhaps it's time to erase the entire board and start over.