Zero Outrage

So, everyone's outrage level is at maximum over a lion being killed yet the 418 children ages 0-11 that have been killed so far just this year due to gun violence gets nothing. Wait, I'm sorry...there is outrage over the children being killed by guns...it's "FUCK YOU, DON'T TAKE MY GUNS!!!"

The contest on social media right now as to who can be more outraged at a dentist who killed a lion nauseates me.

Meanwhile, in the land of human beings, we've had 207 mass shootings so far this year and 419 children ages 0-11 killed or injured by gun violence. Hey, let's all go blow a bowel about a lion...yay!!

Why Trump Is Winning

Check out this focus group of New Hampshire voters.



A "classy" presidency? Wow. Yet in many ways this makes sense, right? Consider all the reasons I've discussed as to why Trump is doing so well with GOP primary voters. Their comments in this video confirm all of it and more. Like any good marketing person, Trump understands exactly what they want and he gives it to them.

Truly Grateful

So They Did a Study About Defensive Gun Use...

With the NRA constantly claiming that more guns are more better, someone actually did a study about the effectiveness of untrained gun users. It turns out that untrained people are really bad at defending themselves with guns:

They found that, perhaps unsurprisingly, people without firearms training performed poorly in the scenarios. They didn't take cover. They didn't attempt to issue commands to their assailants. Their trigger fingers were either too itchy -- they shot innocent bystanders or unarmed people, or not itchy enough -- they didn't shoot armed assailants until they were already being shot at.

It was a relatively small study, so the statistical significance isn't the greatest. But it backs up what every gun owner should already know: without effective, consistent and repeated training, carrying a gun is useless at best, and will get you killed at worst.

The Concealed Carry University (which sells training DVDs) outlines several gun myths that amateur gun owners fall victim to:

• The “find the gun that works for you” myth. At least 60% of the guns and gear out there were designed with sales and popularity in mind, not effectiveness in a fight. Which are good, which are bad, and what makes them poor choices for self-defense combat?
• The myth of “Accuracy in Combat = Accuracy at the Range." Statistically, 77 percent of shots fired in self-defense situations will miss their targets, even when fired by trained gun-handlers
• The “I’ll see him coming" myth. Roughly 67 percent of the time, the bad guy is the first one to use lethal force. They ambush us. This tells us that a gunfight is not a clear-cut incident where a target pops up from behind a barricade.
• The “I’ll have time to think and decide” myth. The average violent attack is over in 3 seconds. They are “blitz” attacks, designed to blindside and overwhelm us.
• The myth of ‘Fight or Flight’. The reason criminals prefer these ‘blitz attack ambushes’ is because it forces our minds into a state of reflexive reaction. The problem is, our bodies don’t only choose between Fight and Flight, but instead between Fight, Flight, and Freeze. And without specific training, many (if not most) of us are prone to freezing for 3 or more seconds when confronted with a sudden, psychologically and physically overwhelming attack.
• The myth of one shot drops. 93% of single-gunshot wounds are survivable, and in the majority of recorded gunfights, good and bad guys report not even knowing they’ve been shot until after the fight ends. Handguns do not have “stopping power”. A bullet hits with exactly as much force as the recoil of the handgun that fired it. In order to effectively stop a threat, we must destroy something in the attacker’s body (or destroy his psychological motivation), that he needs to continue attacking us. This must be ingrained at the reflexive, muscle-memory level.

But perhaps the most important consideration is your willingness to kill. If you buy a gun, you have to want to kill someone, and do so without having any time to think about it. You can't pull your pistol out with the expectation that you will scare the bad guy away by simply waving it at them. 

The problem is that civilians will never have enough training to safely and effectively wield handguns. They can't afford either the cost or the time to maintain an adequate skill level. Cops are constantly being trained and evaluated, and all too frequently even they shoot bystanders or suspects who are unarmed and harmless.

The final thing civilians are missing is constant psychological evaluation. Police forces constantly monitor the performance and mental state of officers. Bad cops don't just up and kill someone like Walter Scott out of the blue. They typically have a track record of excessive violence and civilian complaints against them.

Civilians have no such oversight. When someone like John Houser, the Lafayette theater shooter, buys a gun there's no one making sure he stays on the straight and narrow. Even when a Houser is reported to the police for violating a restraining order, they frequently don't take his guns away. And in the rare occasions when guns are confiscated, the NRA has forced lawmakers to pass laws that return them in short order. Police departments are made to err on the side of "let the kooks have their guns" in most states, 'cuz it's the Second Amendment!

The NRA wants people to buy lots of guns and go the whole hog and get into the killer mindset. To do that right requires serious training -- not just on the shooting range, but tactical training that simulates real life situations. Anyone who buys a gun should be required to undergo that on a regular basis. However, the vast majority of us would never do that: we don't have the inclination, the time, the money, or the emotional makeup to become ruthless killers.

Unless you plan to become a soulless killing machine like John Houser, having a gun will only make you a menace to yourself and everyone around you.

Someone Please Notice Mike Huckabee

With the GOP clown car filled up to max cap, Mike Huckabee needed to do something to get noticed. This task was especially difficult given the Donald's suckage of all of the air out the room. So, he offered up some right wing blog commenting porn and compared Barack Obama to Adolph Hitler.

I was not offended by what he said as many others are now pretending to be in the media. For me, it was simply another shining example of the type of people are country has to deal with on a daily basis. They start with a straw man (Obama is helping Iran) and then sashay into appeal to fear (Obama is helping Iran kill Jews). They top it off with a false equivalency (Obama is helping Iran kill Jews like Hitler!). This tactic works every time for the audience he is targeting: the GOP base.

Conservatives become more animated when anger, hate and fear are all involved.

The Trump Bubble Has Still Not Burst

Recent polls show Donald Trump as the clear front runner of the GOP nomination. He's ahead of Jeb Bush in New Hampshire by seven points and has pulled to within 2 of Scott Walker in Iowa. Conversely, he would get his ass kicked by Hillary in a general by 16 points and, most surprisingly, by Bernie Sanders by 21 points! The other interesting note about the polls show Jeb only beating Bernie Sanders by 1 point, certainly within the margin of error, while a Sanders-Walker matchup (wouldn't that be something?) has Sanders coming out on top by five points.

Predictions of the Trump Bubble bursting have not come to pass. It's not really that surprising given that he truly is the epitome of the conservative base. He's aristocratic, authoritarian, wealthy, arrogant, loud, angry, fear peddling, hate filled and has one conviction...his own vanity. The words he uses and how he uses them are nearly identical to those we see in the major right wing forums. Any facts presented that directly refute what he says are ignored with hubris.

He's the pissed adolescent's wet fucking dream.

Good Words

Now it’s routine for gun lobby commentators and politicians to blame mass shootings on the existence of so-called “gun-free zones.” This is a red herring, pushed by the gun lobby to advance a “guns everywhere” agenda, which insults the dead and mocks the living by reducing tragedy to a mere trope. 

It’s past time to lay this fallacy to rest.

So-called “gun-free zones” are not the problem, and victim-blaming is not a solution. Dangerous people’s continued access to guns is the problem, largely due to the gun lobby’s extreme agenda which harms everyone, including law-abiding gun owners, military members, and law enforcement. So let’s work on the real problem, together. 

The solution is to strengthen our common-sense gun violence prevention laws, like legislation pending in Congress right now to ensure background checks occur on all gun sales. It won’t prevent every tragedy – nothing will – but it would go a long way toward making Americans safer.

--Peter Read, Ex-Air Force officer: Gun laws, not ‘gun-free zones,’ are the real problem.

Agreed. And thank you for your service.

Trump on Scott Walker

AHAHAHAHAHAHHAHHAHAHHAHHHAHHAHAHAHHHAAA!!!!!!!

Chattanooga Good Guys Had Guns After All

The conservative meme is that five men died in Chattanooga because big bad government wouldn't let them have guns. However, the FBI reports that some service personnel in the Chattanooga shooting were armed:

A Navy officer and a Marine fired their sidearms hoping to kill or subdue the gunman who murdered five service members last week in Chattanooga, Tennessee, according to multiple military officials familiar with internal reporting on the tragedy.

It remains unclear whether either hit Muhammad Abdulazeez, who was shot and killed on July 16 after he gunned down four Marines and a sailor at the Navy Operational Support Center in Chattanooga. It's also unclear why they were armed, as it is against Defense Department policy for anyone other than military police or law enforcement to carry weapons on federal property.

Other independent news outlets have the same account, including the Chattanooga paper and U.S. News and World Reports. Yet gun nuts around the country have been insisting that if only the service members had guns everyone would be saved, and some of these kooks have been standing "guard" at recruiting centers against the advice of the Pentagon.

In fact, the shooter was being chased by cops with guns, some of the victims had guns, and people died anyway. This proves, for the thousand and first time, that guns are not armor: they do not protect you from bullets.

Abdulazeez attacked two military facilities: no one was killed at the recruiting center where the gunman shot up the windows with a Kalashnikov. Then he drove to the Navy support center, while the cops were chasing him, and killed five guys:

According to FBI Special Agent in Charge Ed Reinhold, who spoke at a press conference July 22, Abdulazeez plowed his rented car through the gates, and with Chattanooga Police chasing close behind, the gunman got out of the car and stormed into the building. Abdulazeez wore a vest with extra ammunition and carried an assault rifle and a handgun. An additional gun was found in his vehicle.

A service member inside the building saw Abdulazeez approaching and fired at hi[m], Reinhold said. The investigator's description of this incident matches account of White's actions that day, as relayed by officials close to the investigation to Navy Times. The gunman shot back and then proceeded inside.

Once inside, he fatally wounded a sailor and "continued to shoot those he encountered," Reinhold said.

As police followed the gunshots, he then walked out the back door into a gated motor pool area, where troops tried to scramble over a fence to safety, and it was here that the four Marines were killed.

When the shooting first started, troops inside the building went room to room to rush their colleagues to safety, said Maj. Gen. Paul W. Brier, commanding general of the 4th Marine Division. Then, some rushed back into the fight.

Two guns belonging to service members were recovered at the scene, he said; shots were fired from at least one. It's unclear if the gunman was hit by one of those weapons, Reinhold said. The military will investigate whether the service members were authorized to have those weapons, he said.

This is a text-book example of how guns provide no form of "protection" in mass shootings.

The bad guys will always have the advantage: they are calm (usually described as having "dead eyes") because they're suicidal nutjobs trying to take out as many people at they can before killing themselves. They shoot first and have surprise.

The targets of shootings like the ones in Chattanooga and Lafayette are busy doing their jobs, or watching a movie. They're not expecting to be shot at. A lot of the time they're not even sure they're hearing gunfire. They're not psychologically prepared for combat mode. They are slow to react.

Most of the time, therefore, even when intended victims are armed, shooters will be able to empty their entire clip before anyone has a chance to respond -- semiautomatic weapons can easily discharge two to four rounds per second. That's a big reason why once upon a time there were laws that limited ammo capacity.

Preventing kooks from getting guns in the first place will save more lives than killing them after they've already shot ten people.

These are the simple facts. Being armed will not prevent all deaths in mass shootings. At best, it can only reduce the number of victims. By the same token, making it harder for nuts like Houser in Lafayette and Abdulazeez in Chattanooga to buy guns won't stop all killings -- but it will reduce the number of victims.

After the Chattanooga shooting everyone was screaming about self-radicalized Islamic terrorists, even though it's clear that Abdulazeez was a mentally ill drug and alcohol abuser. He was basically the same as any other loser who shoots up a mall or high school.

Contrast that with the reaction to the Lafayette theater shooting, when a right-wing white man shot up theater and killed two women. Officials could only bemoan the sorry state of mental health care in this country.

The mental health history of both these men was known before they bought their weapons: that should have made it impossible for them to buy guns legally. And when these mentally ill men attempted to buy guns it should have sent off alarm bells, bringing the FBI and local law enforcement in to evaluate their mental state.

The problem isn't mental health care as much as the sheer ease with which mentally ill Americans can buy massive amounts of firepower. One possible solution: hold gun stores culpable when crooks and kooks use the guns they sell to murder people.

Conservatives blamed "the government" for the sorry state of the mental health care system, but they made it that way.

In the wake of Lafayette conservatives blamed "the government" for the sorry state of the mental health care system, but conservatives made it that way. They constantly rail against Medicaid and the ACA, which is exactly what funds the mental health care system that they insist should stop these shootings. Then they don't want to change the gun laws to make it harder for these nuts to get hold of guns in the first place.

Conservative policies are the direct cause of these shootings: that's why there's a cluster of mass shootings in the South, where gun laws are lax and spending on mental health care is nil.

Nothing will prevent all mass shootings. Tougher gun laws will stop some. Better mental health care will stop some. Better reporting by local governments to federal databases will stop some. Tighter background checks will stop some. Holding gun sellers responsible for selling guns to crooks and kooks will stop some. Adequately funding police departments to improve their response times will stop some.

And, yes, shooting the bastards when they open fire in a public place will prevent some tiny number of additional deaths.

But if you look at the tens of thousands of deaths due to the profusion of guns -- due to suicide, domestic disputes, children getting hold of guns, stupid gun accidents (dropped weapons, cleaning "unloaded" guns), guns stolen from honest citizens' houses and then used to commit murder -- the number of lives armed civilians might save in relatively rare mass shootings would be dwarfed by the carnage caused by our gun-crazy culture.

Why Aren't Republicans Going After Trump's Mob Connections?

I found this article from four years ago about why Donald Trump wouldn't run for president in 2012. The upshot: Trump's connections to organized crime connections would torpedo a serious run.

With lawsuits pending, Trump's business empire could not withstand the close scrutiny of a presidential campaign, and even his kids might have been muddied. Wayne Barrett, who first exposed Trump’s ties to organized crime in his 1992 book, looked into the Donald’s most recent business dealings and discovered:

• One associate who was an "unindicted co-conspirator" in a massive 2000 stock swindle  — and escaped prison only by helping to convict 19 others, including six members of New York crime families
• Two associates who served prison time on cocaine charges
• Another partner prosecuted for trafficking underage girls after a dramatic helicopter raid on a yacht off the Turkish coast
• A pending lawsuit against Trump Soho that alleges daughter Ivanka, among others, made fraudulent misrepresentations

When Trump dropped out the last time, he said:

"Nobody said it was going to be easy, but I had no idea I would get hammered in the way I've been hammered the past few weeks," Trump said in Nashua, New Hampshire. 

Much of that was due to the ridicule Trump suffered after President Obama released his birth certificate. So why is Trump so popular this time around? And why aren't Republicans hammering him?

I get that some Republicans are quaking in their boots after he issued his extortion threat last week -- "Be nice to me or I'll  run as a third-party candidate and hand the election to the Democrats." But the Republican who takes down Trump will be a hero to the rest of the party -- why are they so afraid of this blowhard?

It should be trivial to dethrone Trump. Just have your lawyers look into any one of his golf courses or hotels or casinos on the East Coast -- they've all got to be riddled with corruption of some sort or other, or based on sweet-heart deals he cut with the Democratic office holders to whom he contributed campaign dollars. They could take out Trump and embarrass some Democrats at the same time.

And does anyone seriously believe Trump is is no longer connected to organized crime? As a casino owner and real estate developer in New York and New Jersey, how can he not be all mobbed up?

Finally, Trump brags about what an unreliable, underhanded and dishonest businessman he is -- it's his definition of "smart." Trump is a crook six ways to Sunday. He's a shell of a human being: all blustering ego and native cunning with a marginally average intelligence. He succeeds only because he's a soulless, narcissistic sociopath without the conscience that prevents most people from swindling everyone they deal with. There must be dozens of people that Trump has screwed over who are just itching to get back at him. Why haven't Republicans dug any of them up? They might start looking into his four bankruptcies.

The Democrats certainly will if Trump is the nominee.

Republicans are constantly complaining about us becoming Greece, but with Trump as president we'd become Italy. Trump is just Silvio Berlusconi with more hair glued on his head.

Take Down Future John Housers

Here are a couple of reports (#1 and #2) that detail John Houser's all too familiar ideology.

Educated in accounting and law, he owned bars in Georgia — including one where he flew a Nazi banner out front as an anti-government statement. He tried real estate in Phenix City. But Houser's own resume, posted online, says what he really loved to do was make provocative statements at local board meetings and in the media.

Anti government...posted online

On an NBC television affiliate's call-in show in the 1990s, Houser encouraged violent responses to abortion and condemned working women, host Calvin Floyd recalled. He was an "angry man" who spoke opposite a Democrat and really lit up the phones, he added.

Anti women and anti abortion...

In recent years, Houser turned to right-wing extremist Internet message boards, where he praised Adolf Hitler, and advised people not to underestimate "the power of the lone wolf," according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, whose hate-group watchdogs spotted Houser registering to meet with former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke in 2005.

Right wing extremist message boards...

The man Bone once knew as a church-going neighbor had grown into someone better known by neighbors and colleagues as an angry provocateur. Police say his anger culminated Thursday night in a slaughter at The Grand 16 theater in Lafayette, Louisiana, leaving two women dead and nine other people hurt.

Angry provocateur...

It was then that he regularly appeared on a local television show, appearing opposite a Democrat as a radical Republican railing against women in the workplace and calling for violence against abortion providers.“He made a lot of wild accusations,” said Calvin Floyd, who hosted the show on WLTZ-TV in Columbus for more than two decades. “He could make the phones ring.”

Violence against abortion providers...

Houser sums up the conservative base today. They are a very angry, hate and fear filled lot who are a direct threat to our country's security. Their support of continued gun violence makes them even more of a threat to national security as they are responsible for thousands of deaths every year. You can add the victims of John Houser to the list.

It's time we started taking these fuckers out and by out, I mean prison. And I don't mean a minimum security place. Perhaps since we can't get Gitmo closed, we send some of them down there for awhile. That should chill their American Taliban asses out and send a message to those individuals out there who wish to perpetuate continued attacks on our country.

I say we start with Clive Bundy and his followers...

Hey Governor Jindal, What Did You Think Would Happen?

My kind of campaign stop; Capital Armament in Sibley. #IAPolitics pic.twitter.com/26VDrrr9sY

— Gov. Bobby Jindal (@BobbyJindal) July 3, 2015

Another Right Wing Nut Job

AP News is reporting that John Houser, the shooter at the theater in Louisiana, was a right wing nut job.

In the 1990s, he frequently appeared on a local television call-in show, advocating violence against people involved in abortions, said Calvin Floyd, who hosted the morning show on WLTZ-TV in Columbus, Georgia. Houser also espoused other radical views, including his opposition to women in the workplace. Floyd described Houser as an "angry man" who made "wild accusations" about all sorts of topics, and said he put him on to counter a Democratic voice because "he could make the phones ring."

I could have seen that one coming from a mile away. As soon as I heard "white man in his late 50s," his ideology was obvious. The question is...why was it so easy for him to still own a gun? Given the failure of Manchin Toomey to pass and the relaxed gun laws in the South, he clearly didn't have any trouble figuring out some sort of loophole.

Ilooks like his wife hid his guns and his family had him committed at one point. I'm calling on all wives of Gun Cultists to do the same. You never know when your husband might snap.

A Look at Ronald Reagan's Iran Weapon Deals

As Congress debates the deal that the was worked out with Iran and the rest of the world over their Iran's nuclear program, one of the major criticisms Republicans are leveling against the deal is that it didn't include the release of four American hostages.

Iran takes hostages in order to extract concessions from the United States. If you include hostages as part of these deals, then that only encourages Iran to kidnap more Americans.

There was, however, an American president who did cut deals with Iran for hostages, setting the stage for endless abductions of Americans by Iran: Ronald Reagan.

Obama's nuclear weapons deal isn't the first weapons deal the United States has made with Iran. During the Iran-Contra affair the Reagan Administration sold missiles to Iran in exchange for the release of American hostages being held by Iranian terrorists in Lebanon:

In 1985, while Iran and Iraq were at war, Iran made a secret request to buy weapons from the United States. [National Security Advisor Robert] McFarlane sought Reagan's approval, in spite of the embargo against selling arms to Iran. McFarlane explained that the sale of arms would not only improve U.S. relations with Iran, but might in turn lead to improved relations with Lebanon, increasing U.S. influence in the troubled Middle East. Reagan was driven by a different obsession. He had become frustrated at his inability to secure the release of the seven American hostages being held by Iranian terrorists in Lebanon. As president, Reagan felt that "he had the duty to bring those Americans home," and he convinced himself that he was not negotiating with terrorists. While shipping arms to Iran violated the embargo, dealing with terrorists violated Reagan's campaign promise never to do so. Reagan had always been admired for his honesty.

The arms-for-hostages proposal divided the administration. Longtime policy adversaries Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger and Secretary of State George Shultz opposed the deal, but Reagan, McFarlane and CIA director William Casey supported it. With the backing of the president, the plan progressed. By the time the sales were discovered, more than 1,500 missiles had been shipped to Iran. Three hostages had been released, only to be replaced with three more, in what Secretary of State George Shultz called "a hostage bazaar."

Yes, Reagan sold thousands of missiles to hostage-taking terrorists even as they continued to take more hostages. Reagan not only cut deals with terrorists, he was duped by them. Then he lied about it, only to be forced to admit it a week later.

At the time Reagan was publicly backing Saddam Hussein (yes, that Saddam Hussein) in the Iran-Iraq War, but Reagan was secretly selling missiles to Saddam's enemy.

Bibi Netanyahu has utterly condemned the current nuclear agreement with Iran. But who funneled the weapons to Iran during the 1980s? The same country that constantly makes hostage deals, sometimes even exchanging Hezbollah terrorists -- Iran's proxies in Lebanon -- for Israeli corpses: none other than Israel:

It was planned that Israel would ship weapons to Iran, and then the United States would resupply Israel and receive the Israeli payment. The Iranian recipients promised to do everything in their power to achieve the release of the U.S. hostages. The plan deteriorated into an arms-for-hostages scheme, in which members of the executive branch sold weapons to Iran in exchange for the release of the American hostages. Large modifications to the plan were devised by Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North of the National Security Council in late 1985, in which a portion of the proceeds from the weapon sales was diverted to fund anti-Sandinista and anti-communist rebels, or Contras, in Nicaragua.

The Contras were right-wing death squads who killed indiscriminately; they were most famous for the murder of nuns, including an American, in 1990.

There are also credible allegations by Abolhasan Banisadr, the former president of Iran, as well as former National Security Council officials, that Reagan made back-door negotiations with Iran to delay the release of American hostages taken by the Iranians at the American embassy in Teheran until the day of Reagan's inauguration, again in exchange for weapons funneled through Israel.

Unquestionably, this arms for hostage deal won Reagan the presidency. It was never completely exposed because the main actor -- William Casey, Reagan's CIA director -- was conveniently dead by the time the accusations came to light.

Given the venom and vitriol Republicans are leveling at Obama over this Iran deal, how can Republicans continue to venerate someone like Ronald Reagan?

And the "He didn't know what his underlings were doing" line doesn't cut it: George H. W. Bush pardoned the officials charged in the Iran-Contra affair before their trials were complete in order to cover up Reagan's and Bush's roles in the scandal.

Another Shooting...Oh Well

We had yet another mass shooting last night and another one in a movie theater. The location was the Grand Theater in Lafayette, Louisiana and the shooter was named John Houser, an older white male who has been described as a drifter. He stood up about twenty minutes into the film "Trainwreck" and started firing. He killed two people, wounded nine and then killed himself.

At this point we don't know much about the circumstances behind the shooting. We do know, however, that Louisiana is an open carry state that does not require a license to own a firearm. Their laws are very lax in terms of gun ownership. Before the shooting, the president gave an interview with the BBC and had this to say about gun violence in the United States.

"That is an area where …I feel that I've been most frustrated and most stymied," he said. "It is the fact that the United States of America is the one advanced nation on earth in which we do not have sufficient common-sense, gun-safety laws. Even in the face of repeated mass killings."

He added: "If you look at the number of Americans killed since 9/11 by terrorism, it's less than 100. If you look at the number been killed by gun violence, it's in the tens of thousands. And for us not to be able to resolve that issue has been something that is distressing. But it is not something that I intend to stop working on in the remaining 18 months."

At this point, it's getting hard to keep track of the regularly occurring mass shootings. It's simply stunning to me that we have now accepted this as part of our culture with shrugs, oh wells, and don't take my fucking guns!!! I've stated previously that the only way things are going to change is if the Gun Cult is affected personally and has some sort of tragedy of gun violence within their community. Yet Chris Mooney and his Republican Brain research shows me otherwise.

Because of this sad truth, I think the only way to deal with this ideology is through the only language they understand: force. They have repeatedly demonstrated a complete unwillingness to compromise in the face of repeated violence heaped upon American citizens. They are partly responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of people and should be held accountable for it.

#loserswithguns

So, the Gun Cult got themselves the idear that THEY should be the stalwart Murcans to stand watch (and their ground!!) in front of military recruitment centers since Barack Obama and other librals have taken away their right to be idiots. Even though the US Marine Corps asked them to get the fuck out, they are still there.

In a statement Tuesday, the U.S. Marine Corps said, "While we greatly appreciate the support of the American public during this tragedy, we ask that citizens do not stand guard at our recruiting offices. Our continued public trust lies among our trained first responders for the safety of the communities where we live and work."

Not surprisingly, this happened.

Civilian guards ordered to leave shopping center after one accidentally fires rifle

Message to #loserwithguns:

You are overly emotional, irrational, and don't know what the fuck you are doing. 

Go Home.

Sad Words

A very good friend of mine just posted this on Facebook regarding Sandra Bland.

To me, one of the most haunting things about the Sandra Bland tragedy is how just another normal sunny day can so swiftly turn to darkness and death. That so quickly one could slip the dividing line between the world we see and share to one with no exit or escape. 

And, most haltingly, that there are people among us who this can happen to so much more easily than others. They can sense the menace behind the quotidian, and they never know when it will loom out and grab them. Cross the river, Sandra, and rest in peace under the trees. I fear we failed you.

The more we hear about Sandra Bland, the worse it gets. It absolutely sickens me that shit like this happens in this country...

Amen

Scott Walker's New Scandal

When Scott Walker was elected he promised to attract tons of new jobs to Wisconsin. That didn't happen, for a lot of reasons. But one of the big ones is that Walker eliminated the Commerce Department and replaced it with the Wisconsin Economic Development Agency, a "public-private partnership" which he apparently used to funnel state money into the wallets of campaign contributors and cronies:

Agency projects have also come under scrutiny for political ties, with major Walker donors receiving handsome payouts.

Cheese manufacturers controlled by the Gentine family, which has cumulatively given $104,000 to Walker's campaigns, have received five separate deals totaling more than $1.5 million in loans and more than $9 million in financing. A $2 million tax credit went to a company ultimately owned by Diane Hendricks, a billionaire construction magnate who contributed $500,000 to Scott Walker's campaign during the 2012 recall, when there were effectively no donor limits. And companies represented on the board of Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce, a business trade group that spent undisclosed sums against Walker's recall, are regular awardees.

Walker was in such a hurry to shovel state money into dump trucks that didn't bother to vet the companies he put on the government dole:

The Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation awarded $1.2 million in grants and loans in 2011 and 2012 to Green Box NA Green Bay LLC, a company that said it could produce recycled products, electricity and even diesel from fast-food waste.

"Gov. Walker and I are firmly committed to doing everything possible to expedite the processing and awarding of this incentive award," then-agency Chief Executive Paul Jadin wrote in a September 2011 letter to Green Box.

There were warning signs. Green Box told the state that the company and its founder, Ron Van Den Heuvel, had no recent legal troubles. But court records showed that Van Den Heuvel had been sued 27 times in the prior five years by banks, business partners, state tax officials and even a jeweler. Green Box said it held seven patents, but the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office lists no patents granted or assigned to Van Den Heuvel or the company.

Four years later, the 116 jobs the company promised to create don't exist, according to a recent legal deposition of Van Den Heuvel, though in another setting the company has said it created all 116 jobs. Green Box is in court-ordered receivership, and its attorney told a court that sheriff's deputies had seized five truckloads of documents from its offices, according to the Green Bay Press-Gazette on Monday.

Nonpartisan state audits have determined that the agency doled out tax breaks, loans and grants in ways that ran contrary to its own rules and state law. Expected jobs never materialized, with some award recipients receiving payouts even as they outsourced Wisconsin jobs overseas. Awards appear to have gone to Walker's political supporters and allies-- at least in one case, after a high-ranking Walker appointee interceded on an applicant's behalf. 

WEDC wasn't some obscure government agency that Walker inherited. He created it, he was its champion and chairman until July 12 of this year. He appointed six of the 15 board members, all but two of whom are Republicans. Walker's adviser, Eileen Schoenfeldt, also has complete access to every detail of the agency's grants and loans.

WEDC is Walker's baby, the crux of his unfulfilled promise to create jobs. He ignored all the warning signs of catastrophe in his pet project. Instead he spent all his time busting unions, kowtowing to mining interests and the Koch brothers, and running for president.

Republicans carp about the government loan program Solyndra used (which was started under George Bush, not Obama). Solyndra failed because Chinese companies dumped solar panels on the world market. Walker's WEDC failed because of graft and fraud.

Walker's very own creation is the epitome of crony capitalism and corporate welfare. And it's all on Walker: he was either party to the fraud at WEDC, or he was totally oblivious to it. Either way, he's clearly not competent to be governor of Wisconsin, and especially not president of the United States.

Checking His Watch