When you embolden terrorists, they continue to take advantage of you.
That's a line we here all the time from conservatives and I actually agree with it, taking a harder line against those who would do us harm because of stark differences in ideology. Where conservatives and I part ways, however, is the definition of what is terrorism. For example, I view people that actively support gun rights and people who vote for candidates who actively support gun rights as aiding and abetting the murders of thousands of Americans. A stark example of this is domestic terrorist Robert Dear. Dear is another example of where I part ways with conservatives. No doubt many of them view him as a freedom fighter, crusading against the evil that is abortion.
Similar to their support of Dear is their support of Cliven Bundy. Recall that Bundy is the guy who thinks that all land belongs to the people, not the federal government (see also: communism) and has still not been arrested for grazing his cattle on federal lands. This inaction by the federal government has led to another incident in Oregon where similar minded people, including Bundy's son, Ammon Bundy, have now seized a federal government wildlife facility with no intention to leave.
The federal response to both of these incidents has been lackluster at best. They need to arrest all of these people and remove them by force, if necessary. I get they don't want another Waco but these people are in direct violation of the Constitution. They are committing and overt act of sedition and need to go to jail.
In the final analysis, they are honestly communists. Property, whether owned by a person or an entity, isn't owned by the people. How that works out to be conservative in their pea brains, we'll never know. Yet we do know that they are dangerous and it's way past time to take them down several notches.
I think a tank ought to do quite nicely:)
Sunday, January 03, 2016
Saturday, January 02, 2016
Trump's New Reality TV Show
A couple of weeks ago Hillary Clinton claimed that terrorists were using Donald Trump in their recruiting videos. At an event she said:
"You know, people around the world pay close attention to our elections. And if you go on Arabic television, as we have, and you look at what is being blasted out with video of Mr. Trump being translated into Arabic, 'No Muslims coming into the United States,' other kinds of derogatory, defamatory statements, it is playing into the hands of the violent jihadists," she said. "There is nothing they want more than to be able to claim that the United States is against Islam and against Muslims and that then lights an even bigger fire for them to make their propaganda claims through social media and other ways."At the time various organizations investigated this and found that Clinton was exaggerating, and rating her claim false. Well, no more. Trump is now starring in a different kind of reality TV show:
Al Qaeda’s branch in Somalia released a recruitment video on Friday that criticized racism and anti-Muslim sentiment in the United States and contained footage of the Republican presidential candidate Donald J. Trump announcing his proposal to bar Muslims from entering the country.
The video, released by the militant group Shabab, appeared to be the first time that Mr. Trump was featured in jihadist recruitment material. During a Democratic presidential debate last month, Hillary Clinton said that Mr. Trump had been used in a recruitment video for the Islamic State, a claim that was later debunked.
Al Qaeda and the Islamic State are rival jihadist groups that compete for recruits and money among radicalized Muslims.
Representatives for the Trump campaign did not respond to requests for comment on Friday.
The video was part of a series dedicated to Somali-American jihadists from Minnesota and one Canadian who died on the battlefield in Somalia. The video was authenticated by the SITE Intelligence Group, which studies jihadist propaganda, and it appeared to be aimed at the African-American community.This is especially concerning because there are thousands of Somalis living in the United States, in my state. But the answer isn't to treat Muslim Americans as if they're terrorists and traitors as Trump is doing; that plays directly into the terrorists' hands.
The physicist Lawrence Krauss puts the whole terrorism panic currently gripping the United States into perspective:
As far as the U.S. is concerned, it has been pointed out already—by the President, in fact—that about thirty-three thousand people die each year from gunshot wounds. That’s about four hundred thousand people since 2001. By contrast, setting aside 9/11, and even including the San Bernardino shootings, only fifty-four deaths have occurred because of domestic acts of terrorism during that time. Even if you include 9/11, the total death toll from terrorism amounts to less than one per cent of the death toll from gun violence. Just before San Bernardino, the Washington Post reported that, in the first three hundred and thirty-four days of 2015, there had been three hundred and fifty-one mass shootings in the United States—that is, shootings in which four or more people were killed or injured by gunfire. That is more than one per day. It is sobering to recognize that this month’s attack in California, as horrific as it was, does not skew the statistics at all; sadly, December 2nd in San Bernardino was just another average day in the United States. In fact, with over a hundred and eighty people shot each day in this country, even a mass killing like that which occurred in Paris would not significantly affect the death toll from guns in the U.S.For some mysterious reason Americans go nuts when a tiny percentage of Americans are killed by foreign nutjobs trying to bring about the apocalypse, but simply shrug when Americans slaughter each other annually by the tens of thousands.
Krauss makes an observation:
A cynical individual might wonder who benefits more from the terror induced by terrorism: the terrorists themselves or the politicians and governments who use the public reaction to acts of terror for political gain? Hermann Göring, interviewed during the Nuremberg Trials, said, “The people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country.” We need to be vigilant against those who seek to manipulate us—whoever they are.To put it bluntly: ISIS and Al Shabab are the Hermann Görings of the Muslim world. Marine Le Pen and Donald Trump are the Hermann Görings of the Western world.
Extremist conservative elements in both the West and the Islamic world are taking cues from the Nazi playbook, using their opposing counterparts as bogeymen to frighten moderates in their own societies and incite hatred against "the other" to cynically bolster their own power grabs.
The recent defeat of ISIS in Ramadi by US airpower and Iraqi ground forces shows how ridiculous the notion that ISIS is an "existential" threat to the United States. If countries like Russia and the US, Saudi Arabia and Iran, India and Pakistan, would put aside their differences and turf wars for a year or two, we could wipe out the current scourge of international terrorism.
But as long as the people of the world give into their fears and give power to demagogues and tyrants like Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin, Bashar Assad in Syria, the king of Saudi Arabia, the grand ayatollah of Iran, Bibi Netanyahu in Israel, Hamas in Gaza, and all the others of their ilk, we will be their pawns and the victims of their cynical, double-dealing machinations.
A Matter of Survival
If I were a conservative, here are some numbers that should concern me.
In 2012, Democrats made up 44.7 percent of party-affiliated likely voters, compared to 39.1 percent Republicans, a difference of about 6 percentage points, according to the analysis of 87,778 likely presidential voters polled leading up to the 2012 presidential election. The results have a credibility interval of plus or minus 0.3 percentage points.
Three years later, that lead had grown to nine points, 45.9 percent to 36.9 percent, according to the analysis of 93,181 likely presidential voters polled in 2015. The results in 2015 have the same credibility interval as 2012.
Among Hispanics who are likely presidential voters, the percentage affiliated with the Republican Party has slipped nearly five points, from 30.6 percent in 2012 to 26 percent in 2015. Meanwhile, Hispanic Democrats grew by six percentage points to 59.6 percent.
Among whites under 40, the shift is even more dramatic. In 2012, they were more likely to identify with the Republican Party by about 5 percentage points. In 2015, the advantage flipped: Young whites are now more likely to identify with the Democratic Party by about 8 percentage points.
Meanwhile, black likely voters remain overwhelmingly Democratic, at about 80 percent.
All of this data roughly translates into one thing: the electoral math doesn't add up in any way for them to win the presidency. Further...
All of this data roughly translates into one thing: the electoral math doesn't add up in any way for them to win the presidency. Further...
Friday, January 01, 2016
Looking Back At A Great Year
At least 265 people were accidentally shot by children in 2015.
That works out to be an average of about 5 a week. Here's how most of the stories go...
On Monday, three days after Christmas, the four-year-old son of an Alaska state trooper had just returned home from sledding. He was playing by himself in the living room. His mom and grandmother were not far away, in the kitchen, the Alaska Dispatch News reports. But somehow the boy, William Anderson, found a gun belonging to his father.
The gun went off and killed William.
What the Gun Cult fails to grasp is that society is filled with irresponsible people who end up falling through the cracks of loose gun laws. That's why we need the entire country to adopt the law that is already in effect in 28 states and hold gun owners criminally liable if children have access to their guns.
Research shows that these laws work. A 2005 study found that child access prevention (CAP) laws in 10 states prevented 829 injuries in 2001, saving $37 million in medical costs. A study in the Journal of the American Medical Association in 2004 found that CAP laws prevented 333 teen suicides between 1989 and 2001. Clearly, this should be a federal law.
I have a great deal of hope for 2016 in terms of gun safety. The president is going to be issuing an executive order on background checks next week. We'll find get to see how well open carry works in Texas...not that any facts or data will change the mind of the Gun Cult but at least the rest of America will. The NRA is raising their membership fee for the first time in 20 years which tells me that they are hurting for cash and expect a tougher than usual fight in this year's election.
And every single time there is a mass shooting, the levee continues to erode for the Gun Cult. We've given them a long leash (largely due to fear and emotions) but its clear that leash is shrinking.
That works out to be an average of about 5 a week. Here's how most of the stories go...
On Monday, three days after Christmas, the four-year-old son of an Alaska state trooper had just returned home from sledding. He was playing by himself in the living room. His mom and grandmother were not far away, in the kitchen, the Alaska Dispatch News reports. But somehow the boy, William Anderson, found a gun belonging to his father.
The gun went off and killed William.
What the Gun Cult fails to grasp is that society is filled with irresponsible people who end up falling through the cracks of loose gun laws. That's why we need the entire country to adopt the law that is already in effect in 28 states and hold gun owners criminally liable if children have access to their guns.
Research shows that these laws work. A 2005 study found that child access prevention (CAP) laws in 10 states prevented 829 injuries in 2001, saving $37 million in medical costs. A study in the Journal of the American Medical Association in 2004 found that CAP laws prevented 333 teen suicides between 1989 and 2001. Clearly, this should be a federal law.
I have a great deal of hope for 2016 in terms of gun safety. The president is going to be issuing an executive order on background checks next week. We'll find get to see how well open carry works in Texas...not that any facts or data will change the mind of the Gun Cult but at least the rest of America will. The NRA is raising their membership fee for the first time in 20 years which tells me that they are hurting for cash and expect a tougher than usual fight in this year's election.
And every single time there is a mass shooting, the levee continues to erode for the Gun Cult. We've given them a long leash (largely due to fear and emotions) but its clear that leash is shrinking.
Thursday, December 31, 2015
A Preview of Things to Come
But elsewhere the weather was much worse. Since Dec. 21st, tornadoes have struck Texas, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana. Dozens of people died.
On New Years Eve the Mississippi and Merrimac rivers are flooding, flooding large areas of Illinois and Missouri. Dozens more died. Thousands have fled their homes for higher ground.
This past summer Asia and the Pacific were hammered by 16 hurricanes (cyclones), including the strongest hurricane ever recorded in the Western hemisphere (Patricia).
On Wednesday the same weather system that brought flooding and tornadoes to the United States brought temperatures 50 degrees hotter than normal to the North Pole. At the end of December the temperature at the North Pole was above freezing, reaching 35 degrees.
This has happened before. A few years ago we had tornadoes in January and February, but this year is particularly bad because it's an "El Niño" year. El Niño years also occurred in 1953 and 1980, causing a string of tornadoes in December. The combination of El Niño and climate change made 2015 the hottest year on record.
The people who have been hardest hit by tornadoes and floods come from states whose Republican representatives in Congress say that climate change is a hoax, that temperatures aren't rising: politicians like Ted Cruz of Texas and James Inhofe of Oklahoma.
Last year Inhofe brought a snowball into the Senate to "prove" that climate change isn't happening. It was stupid stunt, because one snowfall doesn't prove climate change isn't happening (the large snowfalls that year were caused by a weakening of the polar vortex, when warm air intruded on the North Pole and pushed cold air into the Northeast). But long-term trends do, and beach volleyball weather on Christmas in New York is the culmination of trend that has been occurring for the past 50 years. We've seen it here in Minnesota: in the 1990s the beach volleyball season started in May and ended in August. In the past few years we've regularly started as soon as early to late March and played until late October and mid-November.
The tornadoes and floods hitting the Bible belt aren't God's wrath, or Nature's wrath, or the planet wreaking revenge on us for killing polar bears and whales. It's thermodynamics, plain and simple. Hot air has more energy and holds more water, causing more extreme storms.
This year's weather is worse than previous El Niño years because it's being exacerbated by global warming. As carbon dioxide from the burning of oil, gas and coal continues to build up in the atmosphere, the Pacific will continue to warm to the point where this year's high ocean temperatures will become the norm.
Before long every year will be an El Niño year.
Best Political Moment of 2015
Looking back on this year, I suppose I could note the various accomplishments that the president helped to achieve (Iran, final legality of the ACA, gay marriage legal in all states, ISIL long term strategy drives group out of Ramadi... among others).
Honestly, though, the best political moment of this year was all thanks to Donald Trump. He has singlehandedly laid bare the neo-fascist, ultra-nationalism that permeates a substantial portion of the conservative base. There can be no more denials of racism when the leading candidate for the GOP (now five months running) calls for no Muslims to be allowed in the country AND THE PEOPLE CHEER.
If you want to know how totalitarians take over a country, this is it. They use anger, hate and fear as a fuel to drive nationalism and pick a scapegoat. With the Nazis, it was the Jews. With the Soviets, it was capitalists. With the Italian fascists, it was socialists. With the Japanese, it was the imperialists...even though they themselves were imperialists.
It's this last example that makes me crack up the most. The conservative base bemoans state control and authoritarianism. Yet, that is EXACTLY what they want. They want a return to the aristocracy of the Antebellum South where the non whites remained at their lower station. Donald Trump is their perfect king, even using the word "reign" instead of presidency.
He is their hero and the Best Political Moment of 2015.
Honestly, though, the best political moment of this year was all thanks to Donald Trump. He has singlehandedly laid bare the neo-fascist, ultra-nationalism that permeates a substantial portion of the conservative base. There can be no more denials of racism when the leading candidate for the GOP (now five months running) calls for no Muslims to be allowed in the country AND THE PEOPLE CHEER.
If you want to know how totalitarians take over a country, this is it. They use anger, hate and fear as a fuel to drive nationalism and pick a scapegoat. With the Nazis, it was the Jews. With the Soviets, it was capitalists. With the Italian fascists, it was socialists. With the Japanese, it was the imperialists...even though they themselves were imperialists.
It's this last example that makes me crack up the most. The conservative base bemoans state control and authoritarianism. Yet, that is EXACTLY what they want. They want a return to the aristocracy of the Antebellum South where the non whites remained at their lower station. Donald Trump is their perfect king, even using the word "reign" instead of presidency.
He is their hero and the Best Political Moment of 2015.
Wednesday, December 30, 2015
Getting What They Deserve
Paul Krugman put it best recently when he noted that Republicans are getting the candidate they deserve in Donald Trump.
Donald Trump as a political phenomenon is very much in a line of succession that runs from W. through Mrs. Palin, and in many ways he’s entirely representative of the Republican mainstream. For example, were you shocked when Mr. Trump revealed his admiration for Vladimir Putin? He was only articulating a feeling that was already widespread in his party…
What is consistently felt, Krugman notes, is bluster and belligerence as substitutes for analysis, disdain for any kind of measure response, and the continued dismissal of inconvenient facts related by the "liberal media." This isn't anything new. This is what the GOP has been training their followers with for the last 15+ years.
Why on earth do they seem surprised now that Trump is the likely nominee?
The Obama team has it right when they say that the GOP is getting what they deserve. I've been saying all along that being an adolescent is what they party is all about these days and they are incapable of behaving like rational adults. Hilariously, many pundits and prognosticators are saying that when the GOP gets their ass kicked (again) this year, they'll finally see the light.
No, they won't:)
Donald Trump as a political phenomenon is very much in a line of succession that runs from W. through Mrs. Palin, and in many ways he’s entirely representative of the Republican mainstream. For example, were you shocked when Mr. Trump revealed his admiration for Vladimir Putin? He was only articulating a feeling that was already widespread in his party…
What is consistently felt, Krugman notes, is bluster and belligerence as substitutes for analysis, disdain for any kind of measure response, and the continued dismissal of inconvenient facts related by the "liberal media." This isn't anything new. This is what the GOP has been training their followers with for the last 15+ years.
Why on earth do they seem surprised now that Trump is the likely nominee?
The Obama team has it right when they say that the GOP is getting what they deserve. I've been saying all along that being an adolescent is what they party is all about these days and they are incapable of behaving like rational adults. Hilariously, many pundits and prognosticators are saying that when the GOP gets their ass kicked (again) this year, they'll finally see the light.
No, they won't:)
Tuesday, December 29, 2015
This Week in Gun Tropes
In the last week three stories hit the news that illustrate the silliness of the notion that more guns are more better:
1) In Chicago, cops killed a 55-year-old woman by accident when responding to a domestic violence call. Some mentally disturbed college engineering student with a baseball bat was also shot to death. They just happened to be black...
Cops are supposed to be trained to respond to these situations. If good guys with guns can't distinguish between dangerous nut cases and grandmothers, how can anyone expect a random dufus with a concealed pistol in his waistband or purse to be able to make snap decisions and avoid "collateral damage?"
2) The grand jury declined to file charges against the cop who killed Tamir Rice. A year ago two Cleveland cops pulled into a park where a 12-year-old black boy was playing with a pellet gun and shot him dead within three seconds.
It's an outrage that cops just whacked this black kid without first figuring out what the hell was going on.
But what should really worry gun nuts is that the cops whacked this kid without first figuring out what the hell was going on. Suppose this kid was carrying a real gun, like so many of those open-carry idiots roaming fast-food joints in Texas. People wouldn't be quite so outraged if the kid actually posed a real danger. This grand jury decision justifies cops just driving up and blowing away anyone who's carrying a gun, if they feel threatened.
And gun lovers shouldn't think that being white is going to save their hides. The vast majority of shooters in murder sprees are disaffected, gun-loving white guys, so few people will shed tears when cops shoot guys who are just one step away from becoming Dylan Klebold or Dylann Roof.
If you have a gun when something bad goes down, the cops are going to target you because you're not wearing a uniform. They can't tell good guys from bad guys who are carrying guns. After the Gabrielle Giffords shooting in Tucson an innocent man was very nearly shot because he'd taken the gun away from the shooter, but wasn't because a man carrying a concealed weapon paused to figure out what the hell was going on. Maybe he should hold a training session for the cops in Cleveland and Chicago.
3) When Republican state lawmaker David Ramadan responded to one of Donald Trump's moronic tweets with the disdain it deserved, Trump's followers accused him being a Muslim, demanded his citizenship be revoked, told him to "go back home" to Lebanon and made not-so-subtle threats of violence against him. He responded with typical conservative bravado:
“I think I can protect myself,” he said, chuckling. “Second Amendment guy here.”Ha ha. Good one.
The thing is, neither the Second Amendment nor a handgun will protect you like a flak jacket and a ballistic helmet can. Guns are pretty worthless "protection" because you can't shoot what you don't see coming.
The guys threatening him aren't going to meet him at high noon in front of the saloon on Main Street. They're going to throw a brick through the window of his office, or a Molotov cocktail through the front window of his house, or terrorize his children at the bus stop, or ambush him with a passel of their punk-ass pals, or shoot him from a safe distance with a rifle, the way other political figures such as JFK and Martin Luther King were assassinated.
As long as guns are everywhere, bad guys will always have the upper hand: when a trained shooter picks the time and place for an attack he can unload a full magazine (6, 7, 10, 17, 20, 30 or more rounds) into a person or a crowd long before anyone can possibly react. Even if you've got your weapon in your hand and a round in the chamber, people will be dead on the floor before you can get a single shot off.
The only way to reduce the carnage wrought by guns is to reduce the number of guns in the hands of nitwits who shoot people when they get scared or pissed off.
Monday, December 28, 2015
Weak and Paranoid
This piece from The Trace is the best gift I've received this holiday season. I had no idea that there was this much progress on the issue of guns in this country. Take some time to look through each of the stories on the 10 Americans and how they are helping shift our nation's attitude about guns.
I think my favorite was Chris Lane's fantastic post entitled "3 Reasons I Went From Being A Gun Nut To Supporting Gun Control." Choice cuts...
Americans aren't completely free in many ways, and most gun owners don't seem to worry about the many laws and social customs that place limits on other aspects of their lives. I'm not free to walk down the city street completely naked (have no fear folks, that's not something I want to do), yet there are open carry advocates walking around stores with AR15s on their backs.
People willingly submit to rules and limits on their personal freedom in countless ways; it's the price of living in a civilized society without being a huge nuisance to other people. One day I realized that nudity is controlled more tightly than ownership of deadly weapons, and that seemed absurd to me.
Indeed. It is absurd. But one has to understand that people that feel this way aren't really rational. They feel powerless without their guns. It's pretty fucking sad when you think about it. Worse...
They seem to believe that the reason a lot of people are in favor of gun control measures is because they don't value freedom and are "Sheeple," somehow rejecting the fact that more and more mass shootings and gun crimes seem to be happening and worry the rest of us.
Some of the hardcore gun owners I met were convinced that America is heading towards an Orwellian future where no one is free and the government controls every aspect of our lives. To many of them, the only thing standing in our evil government's way is their personal stockpile of AR15s. They seem to ignore the fact that if the government went to such an authoritarian extreme, it would have the resources to effectively vaporize any suburban "patriots" who decided to raise an armed resistance against it.
Thinking the government is out to get them is a very simple and fairly stupid way of looking at things, and not something the majority of responsible gun owners buy into, but once I found myself encountering a bunch of those characters, I decided I didn't want to be part of that culture anymore.
Bravo! Way to deprogram yourself and wake the fuck up. Why would anyone want live their life that way? Gun bloggers and the commenters that post on such sites seem to lack the capacity to reason at all. They are so overcome with emotion that it astounds me they can even function in society at all.
Too often guns are shown to be totems of power, the only way to deal with a conflict, and as a symbol of masculinity. It's stupid. I personally began to feel less powerful whenever I carried a gun. Living in fear while going about my business just made me feel weak and paranoid.
Exactly right. And it's self feeding as long as they are armed.
I challenge all gun owners to stop living in fear and being weak and paranoid. It's no way to go though life.
Here's a much better idea.
I think my favorite was Chris Lane's fantastic post entitled "3 Reasons I Went From Being A Gun Nut To Supporting Gun Control." Choice cuts...
Americans aren't completely free in many ways, and most gun owners don't seem to worry about the many laws and social customs that place limits on other aspects of their lives. I'm not free to walk down the city street completely naked (have no fear folks, that's not something I want to do), yet there are open carry advocates walking around stores with AR15s on their backs.
People willingly submit to rules and limits on their personal freedom in countless ways; it's the price of living in a civilized society without being a huge nuisance to other people. One day I realized that nudity is controlled more tightly than ownership of deadly weapons, and that seemed absurd to me.
Indeed. It is absurd. But one has to understand that people that feel this way aren't really rational. They feel powerless without their guns. It's pretty fucking sad when you think about it. Worse...
They seem to believe that the reason a lot of people are in favor of gun control measures is because they don't value freedom and are "Sheeple," somehow rejecting the fact that more and more mass shootings and gun crimes seem to be happening and worry the rest of us.
Some of the hardcore gun owners I met were convinced that America is heading towards an Orwellian future where no one is free and the government controls every aspect of our lives. To many of them, the only thing standing in our evil government's way is their personal stockpile of AR15s. They seem to ignore the fact that if the government went to such an authoritarian extreme, it would have the resources to effectively vaporize any suburban "patriots" who decided to raise an armed resistance against it.
Thinking the government is out to get them is a very simple and fairly stupid way of looking at things, and not something the majority of responsible gun owners buy into, but once I found myself encountering a bunch of those characters, I decided I didn't want to be part of that culture anymore.
Bravo! Way to deprogram yourself and wake the fuck up. Why would anyone want live their life that way? Gun bloggers and the commenters that post on such sites seem to lack the capacity to reason at all. They are so overcome with emotion that it astounds me they can even function in society at all.
Too often guns are shown to be totems of power, the only way to deal with a conflict, and as a symbol of masculinity. It's stupid. I personally began to feel less powerful whenever I carried a gun. Living in fear while going about my business just made me feel weak and paranoid.
Exactly right. And it's self feeding as long as they are armed.
I challenge all gun owners to stop living in fear and being weak and paranoid. It's no way to go though life.
Here's a much better idea.
Sunday, December 27, 2015
Panic!
Politico has a piece up about the whole boiling pit of sewage message from the GOP and how easily they can fall into disseminating it.
For a moment, it looked like the fever that had burned since the election of President Barack Obama in 2008 had broken. But then came the Mexican rapists, and Benghazi, and the plot to “Islamize” America, and Planned Parenthood acting as an agent of holocaust. We heard endless dark warnings about Obama the Nazi, Obama the ISIS apologist. We learned that the Affordable Care Act is tantamount to slavery and the Holocaust could have been averted if the Jews just had guns, and that the Iran deal will trigger the second Holocaust (so many holocausts!).
Once the Paris attacks happened, the panic tightened its grip, with two leading Republican presidential candidates suddenly possessed by dueling hallucinations of celebratory Muslims in Jersey on 9/11. Then came San Bernardino. Donald Trump, who had previously contented himself with talk of an authoritarian state in which Muslims were made to register and neighbor spied upon neighbor, doubled down, calling for a ban of all Muslims trying to come to the United States. The rest of the field, while not quite scaling such rhetorical heights, hardly distinguished itself with steely Churchillian reserve, opting instead for a flurry of muppet arms.
When Obama gave a speech emphasizing calm and fortitude, Marco Rubio responded by saying that, on the contrary, Americans are “really scared,” John Kasich said “our way of life is at stake,” Chris Christie proclaimed that World War III had begun, and Jeb Bush said ISIS is “organizing to destroy Western Civilization.”
They seem to have real difficulty calming down, don't they? Do we really want people with this much fear and panic running our country?
For a moment, it looked like the fever that had burned since the election of President Barack Obama in 2008 had broken. But then came the Mexican rapists, and Benghazi, and the plot to “Islamize” America, and Planned Parenthood acting as an agent of holocaust. We heard endless dark warnings about Obama the Nazi, Obama the ISIS apologist. We learned that the Affordable Care Act is tantamount to slavery and the Holocaust could have been averted if the Jews just had guns, and that the Iran deal will trigger the second Holocaust (so many holocausts!).
Once the Paris attacks happened, the panic tightened its grip, with two leading Republican presidential candidates suddenly possessed by dueling hallucinations of celebratory Muslims in Jersey on 9/11. Then came San Bernardino. Donald Trump, who had previously contented himself with talk of an authoritarian state in which Muslims were made to register and neighbor spied upon neighbor, doubled down, calling for a ban of all Muslims trying to come to the United States. The rest of the field, while not quite scaling such rhetorical heights, hardly distinguished itself with steely Churchillian reserve, opting instead for a flurry of muppet arms.
When Obama gave a speech emphasizing calm and fortitude, Marco Rubio responded by saying that, on the contrary, Americans are “really scared,” John Kasich said “our way of life is at stake,” Chris Christie proclaimed that World War III had begun, and Jeb Bush said ISIS is “organizing to destroy Western Civilization.”
They seem to have real difficulty calming down, don't they? Do we really want people with this much fear and panic running our country?
Saturday, December 26, 2015
Friday, December 25, 2015
A Message of Peace
Reprinted in its entirety...
To our Christian brothers and sisters:
Out of our shared love for the Messiah, Jesus, Son of Mary, Peace Be Upon Him, we greet you with peace and joy during your celebration of his life.
The Bible refers to him as the Messiah and describes the annunciation, his miraculous birth and his numerous miracles.
The Qur’an refers to him as the Messiah, Jesus, son of Mary. It teaches about his miraculous birth and how his mother Mary was honored above all the worlds. Muslims are instructed to invoke peace upon him whenever his name is mentioned.
The Qur’an narrates the story of the angel who visited Mary, saying “O Mary, indeed God has chosen you and purified you and chosen you above the women of all the worlds.” (Qur’an 3:42)
The angel said, “O Mary, indeed God gives you good news of a word from Him, whose name will be the Messiah, Jesus, son of Mary. He will be honored in this world and the Hereafter and he will be among those closest to God. He will speak to the people in the cradle and in maturity and he will be of the righteous.” (Qur’an 3:44-45)
She said, “My Lord, how will I have a child when no man has touched me?” The angel said, “Such is God; He creates what He wills. When He decrees a matter, He only says to it, ‘Be,’ and it is.” (3:47)
The Qur’an describes how the baby Jesus, immediately upon birth, looked up to his mother and comforted her: “Do not be sad; your Lord has provided beneath you a stream. And shake toward you the trunk of the palm tree; it will drop upon you ripe, fresh dates. So eat and drink and be contented.” (Qur’an 19:24-26)
The Qur’an describes many instances in the life of Jesus: how he preached the worship of God and compassion to people, how he healed the leper, how he healed the blind, and even how he brought the dead back to life.
Our two religions, Christianity and Islam, which both profess love and reverence for Jesus as a central figure in each of our religions, constitute over half of the population of the world.
Mercy and compassion, charity and love are the divine attributes that the Christmas season evokes among Christians. A mother’s devotion, a child’s love, and the promise of God’s mercy and grace in the coming of Jesus to us are sentiments that Muslims can share and appreciate.
In the Bible, we are told that Jesus, in response to a question about the most important commandment, is said to have answered: “You should love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul and mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is similar. You should love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” (Matthew 22:35-40) Jesus added that those whose hearts are filled with such love of God and neighbor live not far from the kingdom of God. (Mark 12:34)
Similarly, the Qur’an teaches us that to “worship God being sincere to Him in faith, to incline towards the truth, to establish prayer and to give alms to the poor is the essence of the religion.” (Qur’an 98:5) “ … And you should forgive and overlook: Do you not like God to forgive you? And God is The Merciful Forgiving.” (Qur’an 24:22)
The Prophet Mohammad, Peace Be Upon Him, taught: “None of you truly believes until he loves for his brother that which he loves for himself.” (Bukhari & Muslim)
In the words of St. Paul, let us put on the armor of light which is the teaching of God that we are to love one another that we might together better confront the dark that lies within some human hearts which are far from God. (Romans 13:12)
As Jesus taught so movingly, let our lights so shine together before all people that they may see our good works which glorify our God in Heaven. (Matthew 5:16)
Jesus taught us that we should not live by bread alone but by every word of God. (Matthew 4:4)
Thus, we applaud the good hearts and loving deeds seeking to please God in His mercy and compassion that are befitting for us not only during this Christmas season but also every day of every year. Let all people, Christians and Muslims, who love Jesus, peace be upon him, come together to practice what he preached. Let peace and goodwill spread among us all.
We invite all our Muslim brothers and sisters of goodwill to join us in this open letter at this Christmas season and throughout the year as peace and joy, love of God and neighbor, are to be with us always.
This article was submitted by Imam Asad Zaman, Muslim American Society of Minnesota; Dr. Odeh Muhawesh, Imam Hussain Islamic Center; Shaykha Tamara Gray, Rabata/Daybreak Bookstore; Dr. Tamim Saidi, Masjid Al Kareem; Fedwa Wazwaz, Engage Minnesota; Dr. Shah Khan, Islamic Center of Minnesota; Dr. Onder Uluyol, Islamic Resource Group; Zafar Siddiqui, Al Amal School; Imam Sharif Mohamed, Islamic Civic Society of America — Masjid Dar Al-Hijrah, and Owais Bayunus, Islamic Center of Minnesota.
Thursday, December 24, 2015
A Child's Christmas In Wales
In what has become an annual tradition here at Zombie Politics, we turn to Dylan Thomas' "A Child's Christmas in Wales." (full text here).
There are so many elements that I love to this story that they are just too numerous to count. I suppose my personal story is the one that resonates the most. I was part of a dramatic ensemble that read it a church on Christmas Eve, 1984. I had never heard the story before and was sort of dragged into doing it by our drama teacher. I even forgot to read a line!
Yet, by the end of the reading, something magical happened to me. "All the Christmases rolled down" in a wonderfully warm bundle of memories and, as I left the church, the words cemented themselves in my soul. I realized this story would be with me forever...especially at Christmas.
There are so many elements that I love to this story that they are just too numerous to count. I suppose my personal story is the one that resonates the most. I was part of a dramatic ensemble that read it a church on Christmas Eve, 1984. I had never heard the story before and was sort of dragged into doing it by our drama teacher. I even forgot to read a line!
Yet, by the end of the reading, something magical happened to me. "All the Christmases rolled down" in a wonderfully warm bundle of memories and, as I left the church, the words cemented themselves in my soul. I realized this story would be with me forever...especially at Christmas.
Wednesday, December 23, 2015
Cruz Against Political Correctness Except When He's for It
Last week Ted Cruz released a video in which he pimped his daughters to make a political point ("How Obamacare Stole Christmas").
But when Ann Telnaes of the Washington Post ridiculed him for bringing his young daughters into the tawdry business of politics with a cartoon that depicted him as a Santa Claus organgrinder with a pair of dancing monkeys, that was beyond the pale for the tough-talking Texan.
Cruz whined that the cartoon attacked the girls, but it's really attacking him for forcing his children to parrot his partisan lies. The cartoon is really about children being the victims of a father who will stoop to anything to get elected president.
The Post withdrew the cartoon, but it shouldn't have. The Telnaes cartoon wasn't an unmotivated attack on the Cruz girls; it was a parody of a political ad that Cruz himself put out there. That makes it fair game. It's Cruz's fault for exposing his own daughters to this; this is on him, not Telnaes and the Post.
What makes it doubly ridiculous is that nearly every parent refers to their children as monkeys: it's a term of endearment. I'm sure Cruz and his wife are no different. If you could stomach watching the 15 hours of excruciating Cruz family videos his campaign shat on YouTube, you could probably find multiple instances of Cruz calling his children monkeys. Perhaps there should be a Senate hearing to look into the matter of whether Cruz now calls, or has ever called, his daughters monkeys.
The real subtext here is that for years Republicans have been circulating cartoons depicting President Obama as a monkey. By carping about the cartoon Cruz is underlining the "injustice" of his minions getting called for portraying the president of the United States as a monkey, while "liberals" do the same thing to his children.
The difference, of course, is that Republican portrayals of Obama as an ape are motivated by racism, while Telnaes is using the common organgrinder trope that is completely inoffensive when applied to white children.
Donald Trump and Ted Cruz are always the first ones to start screaming about the tyranny of political correctness every time they spout derogatory nonsense about Mexicans, Muslims, women, the disabled, and every other group they insult to get elected. Yet they're the first ones to pretend they're the victim when they talk trash and prostitute their children to further their own political goals.
These guys are such whiny little bitches...
Cruz whined that the cartoon attacked the girls, but it's really attacking him for forcing his children to parrot his partisan lies. The cartoon is really about children being the victims of a father who will stoop to anything to get elected president.
The Post withdrew the cartoon, but it shouldn't have. The Telnaes cartoon wasn't an unmotivated attack on the Cruz girls; it was a parody of a political ad that Cruz himself put out there. That makes it fair game. It's Cruz's fault for exposing his own daughters to this; this is on him, not Telnaes and the Post.
What makes it doubly ridiculous is that nearly every parent refers to their children as monkeys: it's a term of endearment. I'm sure Cruz and his wife are no different. If you could stomach watching the 15 hours of excruciating Cruz family videos his campaign shat on YouTube, you could probably find multiple instances of Cruz calling his children monkeys. Perhaps there should be a Senate hearing to look into the matter of whether Cruz now calls, or has ever called, his daughters monkeys.
The real subtext here is that for years Republicans have been circulating cartoons depicting President Obama as a monkey. By carping about the cartoon Cruz is underlining the "injustice" of his minions getting called for portraying the president of the United States as a monkey, while "liberals" do the same thing to his children.
The difference, of course, is that Republican portrayals of Obama as an ape are motivated by racism, while Telnaes is using the common organgrinder trope that is completely inoffensive when applied to white children.
Donald Trump and Ted Cruz are always the first ones to start screaming about the tyranny of political correctness every time they spout derogatory nonsense about Mexicans, Muslims, women, the disabled, and every other group they insult to get elected. Yet they're the first ones to pretend they're the victim when they talk trash and prostitute their children to further their own political goals.
These guys are such whiny little bitches...
Tuesday, December 22, 2015
Moving Left
The main reason why the Right are so out of their minds right now is this.
Why America Is Moving Left
It means that on domestic policy—foreign policy is following a different trajectory, as it often does—the terms of the national debate will continue tilting to the left. The next Democratic president will be more liberal than Barack Obama. The next Republican president will be more liberal than George W. Bush.
Yep.
Why America Is Moving Left
It means that on domestic policy—foreign policy is following a different trajectory, as it often does—the terms of the national debate will continue tilting to the left. The next Democratic president will be more liberal than Barack Obama. The next Republican president will be more liberal than George W. Bush.
Yep.
Monday, December 21, 2015
The Deadly Trap of Opioid Painkillers
In the Democratic debate one of the questions dealt with the epidemic of heroin overdoses that has hit the country in recent years. But it's not just heroin: a lot of it is other opioids such as OxyContin and Vicodin and Percocet. Heroin use is way up because people addicted to those prescription drugs turn to street when their pusher doctor stops handing out scrips like candy.
Last year more than 47,000 people died of drug overdose; almost 30,000 of those deaths were from opioids -- as many people as were killed by guns and car accidents. The three candidates in the debate all agreed that more has to be done to prevent doctors from overprescribing addictive drugs. But it's not just doctors: patients have to stop asking for them.
And doctors do hand these drugs out like candy. About 10 years ago I came down with pneumonia. I didn't even know I had it -- I just had a terrible headache and couldn't sleep, but had no congestion or even a cough. After a false start with the wrong antibiotic, they finally gave me the right stuff -- Zithromax -- and without my asking for it, a prescription for Percocet.
I don't generally bother with drugs to treat headaches -- they never work anyway. But I hadn't slept for days, so I took the antibiotic and one tablet of Percocet. However, as soon as I started to drift asleep I stopped breathing: I'd overdosed on a single pill. So now I had to force myself to stay awake and concentrate on each breath, and the headache was still killing me. Fortunately the Zithromax worked almost immediately and I was better the next day.
And it's just getting worse: every time I or my wife have even the most minor surgery, the doctors are always eager to push some more Vicodin or OxyContin on us.
My system is probably hypersensitive to the effects of opioids, but these drugs -- Percocet, OxyContin and Vicodin -- are inherently dangerous. The difference between a useful therapeutic dose and an overdose is fairly small. People who rely on them to alleviate severe pain for years on end build up an addiction and a tolerance to opioids. They have to take larger and larger doses, inching over the years toward an eventual deadly overdose.
When their doctors finally cut them off they turn to the street to buy prescription meds illegally, like Rush Limbaugh did, or they buy heroin. The quality of street drugs is extremely uneven, increasing the likelihood of an overdose.
The CDC has now recognized opioid overdoses as an epidemic, and has been working to revamp the guidelines for prescribing these drugs. But drug companies are fighting this tooth and nail. CDC has now delayed a plan to issue new guidelines. Big Pharma doesn't want their opioid cash cow gored.
People who have severe pain feel they have no alternative but to take drugs. But opioids like oxycodone were originally intended as a temporary stopgap for cancer patients; people in acute pain who were either being cured of their disease or dying from it. These drugs were not intended to be taken for years on end for chronic pain from mundane conditions such as ruptured discs or diabetic nerve damage.
Now, I'm not saying that people plagued by severe back pain should just suffer. But painkillers can only ameliorate pain temporarily -- they cure absolutely nothing. If patients have severe neuropathy, the goal should be to remedy the underlying physical condition. Not dope them into a stupor for the rest of their lives.
Real cures require expensive and/or risky surgery, or extensive changes in behavior or ongoing physical therapy and exercise. Health insurance companies don't like the former and patients don't like the latter. And in some cases we don't have any viable cures yet.
So the cheap, easy and lazy thing to do is hand out painkillers as if they were M&Ms.
Taking painkillers will never fix what's really wrong when people suffer from pain. But drug companies like that. They have no incentive to find real cures for the underlying causes of chronic pain, because their business model depends on hooking more and more people on opioids and milking their pain for the rest of their lives. Just like any pusher on the street.
Martin Shkreli, the former CEO of Turing Pharmaceuticals who was recently arrested for securities fraud, became infamous for jacking up the price of a sixty-year-old life-saving drug by 5,000 percent, from $13.50 to $750 dollars per pill. He saw nothing wrong with telling AIDS patients and mothers of sick newborns, "Your money or your life!"
Shkreli is a disgusting imitation of a human being, but at least he was being honest. The CEOs of drug companies hawking opioids are doing the same thing, saying, "Pay us or suffer the fires of hell for the rest of your miserable life!"
This is the problem when capitalism intersects with medicine. Corporations, as Shkreli told us, aren't in the business of making people healthy. They're solely in the business of making money. More money. More quickly.
Americans should stop putting up with expensive, half-assed solutions to medical problems: painkillers are not the answer to chronic pain. The medical-industrial complex is making trillions of dollars off our suffering.
We should be getting real cures for all the money we're spending. Not a temporary fix that addicts us to dangerous drugs that will eventually kill us.
Last year more than 47,000 people died of drug overdose; almost 30,000 of those deaths were from opioids -- as many people as were killed by guns and car accidents. The three candidates in the debate all agreed that more has to be done to prevent doctors from overprescribing addictive drugs. But it's not just doctors: patients have to stop asking for them.
And doctors do hand these drugs out like candy. About 10 years ago I came down with pneumonia. I didn't even know I had it -- I just had a terrible headache and couldn't sleep, but had no congestion or even a cough. After a false start with the wrong antibiotic, they finally gave me the right stuff -- Zithromax -- and without my asking for it, a prescription for Percocet.
I don't generally bother with drugs to treat headaches -- they never work anyway. But I hadn't slept for days, so I took the antibiotic and one tablet of Percocet. However, as soon as I started to drift asleep I stopped breathing: I'd overdosed on a single pill. So now I had to force myself to stay awake and concentrate on each breath, and the headache was still killing me. Fortunately the Zithromax worked almost immediately and I was better the next day.
And it's just getting worse: every time I or my wife have even the most minor surgery, the doctors are always eager to push some more Vicodin or OxyContin on us.
My system is probably hypersensitive to the effects of opioids, but these drugs -- Percocet, OxyContin and Vicodin -- are inherently dangerous. The difference between a useful therapeutic dose and an overdose is fairly small. People who rely on them to alleviate severe pain for years on end build up an addiction and a tolerance to opioids. They have to take larger and larger doses, inching over the years toward an eventual deadly overdose.
When their doctors finally cut them off they turn to the street to buy prescription meds illegally, like Rush Limbaugh did, or they buy heroin. The quality of street drugs is extremely uneven, increasing the likelihood of an overdose.
The CDC has now recognized opioid overdoses as an epidemic, and has been working to revamp the guidelines for prescribing these drugs. But drug companies are fighting this tooth and nail. CDC has now delayed a plan to issue new guidelines. Big Pharma doesn't want their opioid cash cow gored.
People who have severe pain feel they have no alternative but to take drugs. But opioids like oxycodone were originally intended as a temporary stopgap for cancer patients; people in acute pain who were either being cured of their disease or dying from it. These drugs were not intended to be taken for years on end for chronic pain from mundane conditions such as ruptured discs or diabetic nerve damage.
Now, I'm not saying that people plagued by severe back pain should just suffer. But painkillers can only ameliorate pain temporarily -- they cure absolutely nothing. If patients have severe neuropathy, the goal should be to remedy the underlying physical condition. Not dope them into a stupor for the rest of their lives.
Real cures require expensive and/or risky surgery, or extensive changes in behavior or ongoing physical therapy and exercise. Health insurance companies don't like the former and patients don't like the latter. And in some cases we don't have any viable cures yet.
So the cheap, easy and lazy thing to do is hand out painkillers as if they were M&Ms.
Taking painkillers will never fix what's really wrong when people suffer from pain. But drug companies like that. They have no incentive to find real cures for the underlying causes of chronic pain, because their business model depends on hooking more and more people on opioids and milking their pain for the rest of their lives. Just like any pusher on the street.
Martin Shkreli, the former CEO of Turing Pharmaceuticals who was recently arrested for securities fraud, became infamous for jacking up the price of a sixty-year-old life-saving drug by 5,000 percent, from $13.50 to $750 dollars per pill. He saw nothing wrong with telling AIDS patients and mothers of sick newborns, "Your money or your life!"
Shkreli is a disgusting imitation of a human being, but at least he was being honest. The CEOs of drug companies hawking opioids are doing the same thing, saying, "Pay us or suffer the fires of hell for the rest of your miserable life!"
This is the problem when capitalism intersects with medicine. Corporations, as Shkreli told us, aren't in the business of making people healthy. They're solely in the business of making money. More money. More quickly.
Americans should stop putting up with expensive, half-assed solutions to medical problems: painkillers are not the answer to chronic pain. The medical-industrial complex is making trillions of dollars off our suffering.
We should be getting real cures for all the money we're spending. Not a temporary fix that addicts us to dangerous drugs that will eventually kill us.
And Then There Were 13....
Well, Lindsey Graham is out of the GOP race. Does anyone really care? I for one will miss his little seen performances in the undercard debates:)
That leaves the following candidates:
Jim Gilmore: Who? Or, more appropriately, why?
George Pataki: He must be looking in horror at what his party has become. See also: extinct species, Northeast Republican
Rick Santorum: The evangelical vote is no more
Mike Huckabee: see Rick Santorum
Carly Fiorina: She has her 15 minutes. Now she's trying to repeat them over and over again.
Rand Paul: There aren't enough sensible libertarians out there.
John Kasich: Probably the most qualified and reasonable GOP candidate in the mix which is why he'll never get above 2 percent.
Jeb Bush: He does indeed remind the entire nation of your awkward father.
Ben Carson: When he finally showed some energy, he was just...weird.
Chris Christie: I think this guy could surprise some people in New Hampshire.
Marco Rubio: Currently down or flat lining but still in the top three. If he can win an early primary, he might catch fire.
Ted Cruz: He will win Iowa. After that, it depends on his organization to get out the vote in the Southern states.
Donald Trump: Still the front runner and proof positive of maturity of the conservative base.
Note how I ordered and grouped each of the candidates. One of the last three will likely be the nominee, At this point, I'm hoping that it's Cruz. "Real" conservatives have assured me that if a true, deep red Republican were nominated, magic will happen and the silent majority will turn out to vote.
I can't wait.
That leaves the following candidates:
Jim Gilmore: Who? Or, more appropriately, why?
George Pataki: He must be looking in horror at what his party has become. See also: extinct species, Northeast Republican
Rick Santorum: The evangelical vote is no more
Mike Huckabee: see Rick Santorum
Carly Fiorina: She has her 15 minutes. Now she's trying to repeat them over and over again.
Rand Paul: There aren't enough sensible libertarians out there.
John Kasich: Probably the most qualified and reasonable GOP candidate in the mix which is why he'll never get above 2 percent.
Jeb Bush: He does indeed remind the entire nation of your awkward father.
Ben Carson: When he finally showed some energy, he was just...weird.
Chris Christie: I think this guy could surprise some people in New Hampshire.
Marco Rubio: Currently down or flat lining but still in the top three. If he can win an early primary, he might catch fire.
Ted Cruz: He will win Iowa. After that, it depends on his organization to get out the vote in the Southern states.
Donald Trump: Still the front runner and proof positive of maturity of the conservative base.
Note how I ordered and grouped each of the candidates. One of the last three will likely be the nominee, At this point, I'm hoping that it's Cruz. "Real" conservatives have assured me that if a true, deep red Republican were nominated, magic will happen and the silent majority will turn out to vote.
I can't wait.
Sunday, December 20, 2015
Old Dixie Hwy. renamed for President Obama
I'd say this is a metaphor for about eight zillion things...:)
Racism and Bigotry on Full Display
Rip Donald Trump all you want but I think his "block all Muslims" comment was the best thing that ever happened. Why? Check out his poll numbers. What we see here is fantastic proof that conservatives are fucking bigots. Examples.
Rather than being pissed off about these view, I'm actually pretty happy that it's out there now on full display so we can now deal with it.
And deal with it we will. There simply aren't enough bigots out there to win a national election. When you add this stuff in with the anti-immigrant garbage, how can any GOP nominee possibly win?
Rather than being pissed off about these view, I'm actually pretty happy that it's out there now on full display so we can now deal with it.
And deal with it we will. There simply aren't enough bigots out there to win a national election. When you add this stuff in with the anti-immigrant garbage, how can any GOP nominee possibly win?
Saturday, December 19, 2015
Thoughts on the New Star Wars Film
Here are my thoughts on the new Star Wars film The Force Awakens
(WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD)
I give it an 8 out of 10. I gave the other films as follows:
Episode IV: 10. The first one is still the best. I'll never forget that feeling of wonder I got my first time I saw it.
Episode V: 8. I realize I'll lose my fan boy cred by not giving a blowjob to Empire every other minute but I hated that I had to wait to find out what happened to Han. And it was such a downbeat film.
Episode VI: 9. Only one point off for the stupid Ewoks. The space battles at the end just blew me away.
Episode I: 7. I realize the prequels get a lot of shit but this movie was really great. It had been years since Star Wars had come out and it was so amazing to come back to this universe again.
Episode II: 2. Barf. Really fucking bad rehash of Titanic. Multiple plot points vague and silly.
Episode III: 4. Mildly better but still lacking plot wise in many ways.
Episode V: 8. I realize I'll lose my fan boy cred by not giving a blowjob to Empire every other minute but I hated that I had to wait to find out what happened to Han. And it was such a downbeat film.
Episode VI: 9. Only one point off for the stupid Ewoks. The space battles at the end just blew me away.
Episode I: 7. I realize the prequels get a lot of shit but this movie was really great. It had been years since Star Wars had come out and it was so amazing to come back to this universe again.
Episode II: 2. Barf. Really fucking bad rehash of Titanic. Multiple plot points vague and silly.
Episode III: 4. Mildly better but still lacking plot wise in many ways.
Force Awakens gets an 8 overall for several reasons...the complaints first.
-I realize JJ Abrams means lingering questions (see: Lost) but I was mildly irritated about the mystery around Rey. They don't need to hook anyone to stick around.
-Too much happened in the 35 years since VI to gloss over in just a few lines of dialog. The whole Kylo son gone bad with Leia and Han lamenting felt too light. It needed another scene or two.
-Han dying sucked. I realize why they did it but it still was hard to take.
Other than those very minor issues, the film was great. The three new characters are incredibly fascinating. Give me some more Poe Dameron, baby!! Finn was really cool and Rey is just a fucking boss. And what about Snoke? I think he's actually really small in real life (Wizard of Oz dealio).
I'm very excited to see the future films!!.
Friday, December 18, 2015
Thursday, December 17, 2015
Wednesday, December 16, 2015
Trump Aspires to Turn Americans into Baby Killers
In the Republican debate last night Donald Trump defended his monstrous idea to murder innocent women and children to retaliate against ISIS.
So, let me get this straight, Mr. Trump. If you were president today, you would have the infant daughter of the San Bernadino terrorists killed. A baby who happens to be an American citizen.
And you'd have her grandmother killed too, because she must have seen those pipe bombs on the floor of the apartment. And the baby's grandfather too, on general principles.
Because if you didn't have that baby executed after promising that you'd kill the families of ISIS terrorists, you'd be caving in to them. You'd be making idle threats that you'll never carry out. You'd be exposed as a gutless braggart who can't back up his big mouth with big actions.
And you couldn't do this in secret, and just have the news report that you'd had a baby executed. No, you'd have to put the whole sorry spectacle on YouTube, just like ISIS does when it beheads foreign aid workers who are just trying to help the people displaced by war.
And you couldn't have some hooded executioner kill the little girl. No, to prove you're not a pussy, you'd have to pull the trigger yourself and blow her brains out. Or better yet, you'd use an AR-15, like the terrorists did in San Berdoo, and unload a full clip into that tiny body, splattering blood all over, maybe even getting some of that sweet, sticky baby blood on your face...
Is this is the sick fantasy of Donald Trump and the people who support him?
How will Trump respond when one of his sick sycophants carries out Trump's threats of retribution against the infant daughter of Malik and Farooz, or some other innocent Muslim child who's easier to find?
Trump and his sycophants just don't get it: ISIS terrorists are suicidal maniacs who believe the Apocalypse is nigh and that those killed by their enemies are martyrs and will go straight to heaven without passing GO, and will collect 72 virgins. That includes their families, who will be with them in heaven that much sooner if Trump murders them.
Carrying out Trump's threats of intentionally killing babies and grandmas would be the greatest gift the U.S. could give ISIS: millions would sign up, rather than thousands.
The way to get these guys is not to make them martyrs, but to show them as the cowardly scum they really are. Adopting their tactics legitimizes them, lowering us to their level. Doing that would bring the murderous chaos that daily fills the streets of Iraq and Syria to the streets of America.
Once you uncork that bottle, the genie won't go back in.
So, let me get this straight, Mr. Trump. If you were president today, you would have the infant daughter of the San Bernadino terrorists killed. A baby who happens to be an American citizen.
And you'd have her grandmother killed too, because she must have seen those pipe bombs on the floor of the apartment. And the baby's grandfather too, on general principles.
Because if you didn't have that baby executed after promising that you'd kill the families of ISIS terrorists, you'd be caving in to them. You'd be making idle threats that you'll never carry out. You'd be exposed as a gutless braggart who can't back up his big mouth with big actions.
And you couldn't do this in secret, and just have the news report that you'd had a baby executed. No, you'd have to put the whole sorry spectacle on YouTube, just like ISIS does when it beheads foreign aid workers who are just trying to help the people displaced by war.
And you couldn't have some hooded executioner kill the little girl. No, to prove you're not a pussy, you'd have to pull the trigger yourself and blow her brains out. Or better yet, you'd use an AR-15, like the terrorists did in San Berdoo, and unload a full clip into that tiny body, splattering blood all over, maybe even getting some of that sweet, sticky baby blood on your face...
Is this is the sick fantasy of Donald Trump and the people who support him?
How will Trump respond when one of his sick sycophants carries out Trump's threats of retribution against the infant daughter of Malik and Farooz, or some other innocent Muslim child who's easier to find?
Trump and his sycophants just don't get it: ISIS terrorists are suicidal maniacs who believe the Apocalypse is nigh and that those killed by their enemies are martyrs and will go straight to heaven without passing GO, and will collect 72 virgins. That includes their families, who will be with them in heaven that much sooner if Trump murders them.
Carrying out Trump's threats of intentionally killing babies and grandmas would be the greatest gift the U.S. could give ISIS: millions would sign up, rather than thousands.
The way to get these guys is not to make them martyrs, but to show them as the cowardly scum they really are. Adopting their tactics legitimizes them, lowering us to their level. Doing that would bring the murderous chaos that daily fills the streets of Iraq and Syria to the streets of America.
Once you uncork that bottle, the genie won't go back in.
Tuesday, December 15, 2015
Red Alert!
Starting Tuesday and continuing for three days, the more than 20 million residents of Beijing will have heavy limitations imposed on their daily activities. Schools will be closed, outdoor construction will be halted, and as the BBC reported, “cars with odd and even number plates will be banned from driving on alternate days.” It’s the first time China’s highest alert has ever been enacted in the city.
 |
| Beijing, December 2015 |
We used to see these sorts of things here all the time in the United States and in Europe. In 1952 London experienced a "killer fog" that killed about 12,000 people. On December 7th visibility was reduced to one foot. At noon it was pitch dark. The air was so filthy that the coal smoke penetrated people's clothes and made their underwear filthy.
 |
| London, December 1953 |
As in China today, most of the smoke in London came from burning coal. Londoners heated their homes with coal, in addition to using it to generate electricity (China has the same problem today).
In the United States, the pollution that caused deadly smogs came from automobiles, industry (steel plants and smelting), coal-fired power plants, and so on. By the late Sixties it was clear that business as usual was no longer possible. So on January 1, 1970, Republican Richard Nixon signed the legislation that created the Environmental Protection Agency.
 |
| New York, November 1966 |
Because of the EPA, cities like New York and Los Angeles have much lower smog levels, and our skies are blue most of the time. Literally millions of American lives have been saved because of EPA regulations.
Yet when you hear Republicans, especially Republican presidential candidates, talk about the EPA, they just bitch about "burdensome" regulations or the "war on coal."
The same pollution that causes the smog that kills vulnerable adults with asthma, children, and the elderly also causes climate change. The same coal plant emissions that poison our lakes and rivers with mercury and other heavy metals also cause climate change.
Republicans like to think of themselves as rough and ready individualists. They idealize freedom as driving a big 4x4 pickup truck that gets 10 miles a gallon and belches black smoke. They cast it in terms of the lone hunter going hunting on the back 40.
But the Republican ideal of individualism doesn't scale up in modern life with antique fossil-fuel technology. We can't all drive inefficient pickup trucks to work in New York and LA and Houston and Chicago, or even Minneapolis and Milwaukee. We can't build that many freeways -- or parking lots -- and the atmosphere can't absorb that much pollution and CO2.
The same thing is true for generating electricity: you can't generate electricity for 350 million Americans with coal: it's just too dirty and inefficient. Natural gas is better, but it still generates CO2, which is causing climate change.
Now, nearly every Republican elected official denies the fact of climate change. They pretend scientists are perpetrating a gigantic hoax and a conspiracy, but we all know for a fact they deny it because they're paid to do so by the oil, gas and coal industries. How do we know this for certain? Because they also want to eliminate EPA regulations that regulate power plant and automobile emissions that were originally enacted by Republican themselves because, as we saw for decades since the industrial revolution, pollution kills people. By calling for repeal of EPA regulations, they are denying that pollution kills people in exactly the same way they're denying CO2 causes climate change.
Our population has simply grown too large to continue to burn things for energy and heat: just as we had to move away from wood-fired fireplaces and coal-fired pot-bellied stoves to oil- and natural-gas-fired furnaces, we now now have to move away from all forms of combustion.
We could continue to burn fossil fuels -- if the population of the United States and the world were what they were five centuries ago: the earth's natural systems can absorb a limited amount of CO2 and other air-borne toxins. But to do so we'd have to wage a major campaign of limiting population growth, but also of actively reducing the world's population.
Are Republicans advocating we commit mass genocide so they can continue to burn coal and drive gas guzzlers?
In order to maintain and perpetuate the kind of individualistic lifestyle that Americans are accustomed to -- and the rest of the world wants to attain -- we have to turn to renewable, clean sources of energy. We have to drive cars that run on electricity or renewable fuels, like hydrogen generated by non-polluting carbon-neutral processes.
Republicans still refuse to acknowledge this reality, but the business world already has: the stock of coal mining companies has tanked and several have gone bankrupt. The prices of gasoline and natural gas have dropped precipitously as demand has dropped and supply has spiked. However, they'll almost certainly go up again as drilling companies go bust, the production bubble bursts and demand increases. (Market economies are notoriously volatile and unstable, aren't they?)
Now is the time to begin phasing out coal completely, because there's nothing good about burning coal: it's dangerous to mine, it leaves wretched scars in the earth, it's bulky and expensive to transport, it produces toxic pollution and CO2 when burned, and presents a huge waste disposal problem with millions of tons of toxic ash that spills on regular basis, killing millions of fish and poisoning our waterways.
We can replace all the jobs lost in coal mines with better jobs building, installing and maintaining wind and solar facilities: instead of working in dark and filthy mines, workers can build wind turbines and solar panels in high-tech factories and install them in the clean, fresh air.
Rugged American individuals can install their own solar panels and Tesla Powerwalls, achieving their own energy independence, something that's impossible with fossil fuels. A clean renewable independent energy future is much more in line with historical conservative ideology, rather than toadying to oil barons like the Kochs and petro-dictatorships like Saudi Arabia, Iran and Russia.
In any case, we're going to run out of oil, gas and coal at some point. Fossil fuels are dinosaurs, literally and figuratively. We need to switch to the next thing while we still have the energy and resources to do so, instead of descending into war and chaos over dwindling fossil fuel supplies.
Monday, December 14, 2015
The End of Fossil Fuels
Great piece from CNN about the climate agreement in Paris.
The Paris Agreement, which came out of two weeks often-sleepless negotiations at a conference center here in a Paris suburb, is just the type of blaring signal the world needs that the era of fossil fuels is coming to a rapid close. Countries around the world pledged to do the near-impossible -- limit warming "well below" 2 degrees, and below 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels if feasible. That basically requires the world to move rapidly toward 100% clean energy, producing zero net greenhouse gas emissions between about 2050 and 2080.
Yep.
If I were a firm in the fossil fuel industry, I'd think about getting out now. Oil is bad for business.
Perhaps that's why I haven't heard any of these lies lately. No one is listening.
The Paris Agreement, which came out of two weeks often-sleepless negotiations at a conference center here in a Paris suburb, is just the type of blaring signal the world needs that the era of fossil fuels is coming to a rapid close. Countries around the world pledged to do the near-impossible -- limit warming "well below" 2 degrees, and below 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels if feasible. That basically requires the world to move rapidly toward 100% clean energy, producing zero net greenhouse gas emissions between about 2050 and 2080.
Yep.
If I were a firm in the fossil fuel industry, I'd think about getting out now. Oil is bad for business.
Perhaps that's why I haven't heard any of these lies lately. No one is listening.
Sunday, December 13, 2015
WWJD?
What would Jesus Do?
It's a question every Christian ask themselves at one point or another in their lives. I think that Canada just showed us what He would do.
It's a question every Christian ask themselves at one point or another in their lives. I think that Canada just showed us what He would do.
Saturday, December 12, 2015
Friday, December 11, 2015
Look In The Fucking Mirror
Since Barack Obama was elected president, we've heard quite a bit about fascism, Hitler, and totalitarian states from the Children (aka conservatives in the United States). They've foamed at the mouth and fretted their little noses about fascist states and re-education camps.
Yet, their support for Donald Trump and his call to ban all Jews...oops...I mean Muslims from the United States shows just how adept they are at the art of projection. As the Times recently noted, this attitude has spread across Europe and it's all rooted in that same insecure, "appeal to fear" nationalism that we saw in the late 19th century.
It was this same nationalism that gave rise to Benito Mussolini and Adolph Hitler. A key ingredient to this form of totalitarianism is a scapegoat and, boy oh boy, do we have one now. As I have said for quite some time now, conservatives are deeply bigoted and support the policies that Trump is espousing.
Thankfully, we have people like Doris Matsui to remind us when our country has made horrible mistakes.
Yet, their support for Donald Trump and his call to ban all Jews...oops...I mean Muslims from the United States shows just how adept they are at the art of projection. As the Times recently noted, this attitude has spread across Europe and it's all rooted in that same insecure, "appeal to fear" nationalism that we saw in the late 19th century.
It was this same nationalism that gave rise to Benito Mussolini and Adolph Hitler. A key ingredient to this form of totalitarianism is a scapegoat and, boy oh boy, do we have one now. As I have said for quite some time now, conservatives are deeply bigoted and support the policies that Trump is espousing.
Thankfully, we have people like Doris Matsui to remind us when our country has made horrible mistakes.
Thursday, December 10, 2015
Combat Vets Torpedo Good Guy With A Gun Myth
Some combat veterans recently torpedoed the good guy with a gun lie and it was fucking brilliant.
“I think there’s this fantasy world of gunplay in the movies, but it doesn’t really happen that way. When I heard gunfire [in Iraq], I didn’t immediately pick up my rifle and react. I first tried to ascertain where the shooting was coming from, where I was in relation to the gunfire and how far away it was,” said retired Army Sgt. Rafael Noboa y Rivera. “I think most untrained people are either going to freeze up, or just whip out their gun and start firing in that circumstance. I think they would absolutely panic.”
Many combat veterans believe that civilian “good guys” taking on the “bad guys” during an active shooting isn’t as simple as it seems in movies and video games. Although more weapons owners are taking weekend-long tactical weapon training, that doesn’t instantly make a “good guy” ready for combat.
Considering that many in the Gun Cult play video games and use its lingo ("target rich environment") to strategerize how they would save people, rationality and logic are way past gone.
I think about all the gun bloggers and commenters out there and I have to wonder...would their tits get in the way when they tried to pull out their penis extension? I doubt they would even be able to walk a few steps without huffing and puffing.
Don't have to be in good shape to use a gun effectively?
“I think there’s this fantasy world of gunplay in the movies, but it doesn’t really happen that way. When I heard gunfire [in Iraq], I didn’t immediately pick up my rifle and react. I first tried to ascertain where the shooting was coming from, where I was in relation to the gunfire and how far away it was,” said retired Army Sgt. Rafael Noboa y Rivera. “I think most untrained people are either going to freeze up, or just whip out their gun and start firing in that circumstance. I think they would absolutely panic.”
Many combat veterans believe that civilian “good guys” taking on the “bad guys” during an active shooting isn’t as simple as it seems in movies and video games. Although more weapons owners are taking weekend-long tactical weapon training, that doesn’t instantly make a “good guy” ready for combat.
Considering that many in the Gun Cult play video games and use its lingo ("target rich environment") to strategerize how they would save people, rationality and logic are way past gone.
I think about all the gun bloggers and commenters out there and I have to wonder...would their tits get in the way when they tried to pull out their penis extension? I doubt they would even be able to walk a few steps without huffing and puffing.
Don't have to be in good shape to use a gun effectively?
The NRA's Vision is Anarchy
Check out what this former gun rights supporter and police chief of Milwaukee had to say recently....
The result is a huge increase in guns and violent crime in Milwaukee, Flynn contends, and a situation where police safety is in jeopardy. Under the current law, he says, “we are doing everything we can to make sure our criminals have unfettered access to high-quality firearms and get to carry them in record numbers. There are more guns out there every year.”
“The law was dictated by the NRA,” Flynn charges. “The NRA’s vision for America is anarchy. We are supposed to believe the founding fathers wanted to arm our pirates, the highwaymen and anyone else who wanted to tear down democratic institutions. It’s insane.”
Yep.
The result is a huge increase in guns and violent crime in Milwaukee, Flynn contends, and a situation where police safety is in jeopardy. Under the current law, he says, “we are doing everything we can to make sure our criminals have unfettered access to high-quality firearms and get to carry them in record numbers. There are more guns out there every year.”
“The law was dictated by the NRA,” Flynn charges. “The NRA’s vision for America is anarchy. We are supposed to believe the founding fathers wanted to arm our pirates, the highwaymen and anyone else who wanted to tear down democratic institutions. It’s insane.”
Yep.
How About A Mock Mass Shooting?
Any doubt that the Gun Cult should be locked up or neutralized should be gone now after this pile of shit.
Gun rights groups, in protest at Texas campus, plan mock mass shooting
I say we give these assholes what they are the most afraid of...a re-education camp. Maybe somewhere in San Francisco? :)
Gun rights groups, in protest at Texas campus, plan mock mass shooting
I say we give these assholes what they are the most afraid of...a re-education camp. Maybe somewhere in San Francisco? :)
Wednesday, December 09, 2015
Our Terrorism Problems Aren't in Afghanistan and Syria, They're in Pakistan and Saudi Arabia
Republicans have been criticizing the president for "not doing enough" to stop Daesh, as ISIS hates to be called. But what more can be done? We're already bombing the hell out of Daesh in Syria and Iraq, and we're backing Iraqi, Kurdish and Syrian ground troops, as well as sending in special forces to conduct various missions.
Trump wants to carpet bomb the entire region and destroy every oil production facility in Iraq and Syria to prevent Daesh from making money from smuggling oil. Numerous Republicans have demanded we mount another full-scale invasion of Iraq and Syria, apparently having forgotten that we just did that in 2003, which is what created Daesh in the first place.
On the home front some Republicans are demanding we ban all Muslims entering the country. Tashfeen Malik, the female half of the terrorist couple behind the San Bernadino attack, entered the United States on a K-1 visa a couple of years ago. Authorities now believe that she had been "radicalized" for a considerable time.
Malik was a Pakistani who had spent more than half her life in Saudi Arabia. This one woman embodies the real source of the current terrorism problem: conditions in Pakistan and Saudi Arabia.
The war in Afghanistan has dragged on now for 14 years. This is in large part due to the fact that Pakistan is a haven for the Taliban, and Pakistan has been actively backing the Afghan Taliban for decades. The Pakistani secret service believes that a free Afghanistan will somehow come under the control of India, and Pakistan has an unreasoning fear of India.
But we're afraid to do anything to Pakistan because they've got nuclear weapons (they also sold the technology to North Korea that gave the Kim dynasty the bomb).
Osama bin Laden was from Saudi Arabia, as were most of the terrorists in the 9/11 attacks. Back in the day, the king of Saudi Arabia cut a deal with the Wahhabi sect of Islam. In exchange for endorsing his claim, the king gave the Wahhabis free reign to establish religious schools, making it the de facto state religion. Wahhabism is an extremely conservative sect that teaches other Muslims (Shiites, Sufis, etc.) are not real Muslims, and should all be killed for their heresies. The fact is, Daesh kills thousands of times more Muslims than Christians -- their main goal is to establish a caliphate and wipe out Muslim "heretics."
The only way to stop Daesh and the Taliban for good is to cut off their supply lines of money, weapons and ideology from their benefactors in Pakistan and Saudi Arabia.
The problem is that Pakistan and Saudi Arabia are ostensibly our allies. We're afraid of doing anything to piss off Pakistan because they've got nukes. And we're afraid of pissing off Saudi Arabia because they've got oil, and could trash the world economy if we don't play ball with them.
The solution to the problems of Daesh and the Taliban is much more complicated than just bombing the hell out of the Middle East and Afghanistan. Republicans who spout more hatred and fear against Muslims so are not only turning Muslims around the world against the United States, but are also turning American Muslims against their own country. Donald Trump's unconstitutional rants are only creating more Syed Farooks.
To destroy the Taliban we need to get Pakistan and India to resolve their issues. To destroy Daesh, we need to eliminate the monetary and moral support they receive from Saudi Arabia.
The first is a very tall order, but since Afghanistan, India and Pakistan are all our allies, we have some leverage. The second is actually a whole lot easier.
Most Saudis don't have to work because the country is awash in oil money. The Saudi government just hands out cash to citizens (like Alaska used to), and all the work is done by immigrants. So instead lots of Saudis spend all their time studying the Qur'an, under the tutelage of Wahhabis.
If Saudi Arabia didn't have so much oil money Saudis would actually have to work, and wouldn't have so much free time to get all bent out of shape about heretics. Plus, they wouldn't have all that oil money to give to terrorists.
The best thing we could do to stop Daesh, therefore, is to make sure the Paris climate talks are successful. The sooner we reduce our dependence on oil, the sooner we stop funding countries like Saudi Arabia, Iran and Russia, who fuel international terrorism and war.
Trump wants to carpet bomb the entire region and destroy every oil production facility in Iraq and Syria to prevent Daesh from making money from smuggling oil. Numerous Republicans have demanded we mount another full-scale invasion of Iraq and Syria, apparently having forgotten that we just did that in 2003, which is what created Daesh in the first place.
On the home front some Republicans are demanding we ban all Muslims entering the country. Tashfeen Malik, the female half of the terrorist couple behind the San Bernadino attack, entered the United States on a K-1 visa a couple of years ago. Authorities now believe that she had been "radicalized" for a considerable time.
Malik was a Pakistani who had spent more than half her life in Saudi Arabia. This one woman embodies the real source of the current terrorism problem: conditions in Pakistan and Saudi Arabia.
The war in Afghanistan has dragged on now for 14 years. This is in large part due to the fact that Pakistan is a haven for the Taliban, and Pakistan has been actively backing the Afghan Taliban for decades. The Pakistani secret service believes that a free Afghanistan will somehow come under the control of India, and Pakistan has an unreasoning fear of India.
But we're afraid to do anything to Pakistan because they've got nuclear weapons (they also sold the technology to North Korea that gave the Kim dynasty the bomb).
Osama bin Laden was from Saudi Arabia, as were most of the terrorists in the 9/11 attacks. Back in the day, the king of Saudi Arabia cut a deal with the Wahhabi sect of Islam. In exchange for endorsing his claim, the king gave the Wahhabis free reign to establish religious schools, making it the de facto state religion. Wahhabism is an extremely conservative sect that teaches other Muslims (Shiites, Sufis, etc.) are not real Muslims, and should all be killed for their heresies. The fact is, Daesh kills thousands of times more Muslims than Christians -- their main goal is to establish a caliphate and wipe out Muslim "heretics."
The only way to stop Daesh and the Taliban for good is to cut off their supply lines of money, weapons and ideology from their benefactors in Pakistan and Saudi Arabia.
The problem is that Pakistan and Saudi Arabia are ostensibly our allies. We're afraid of doing anything to piss off Pakistan because they've got nukes. And we're afraid of pissing off Saudi Arabia because they've got oil, and could trash the world economy if we don't play ball with them.
The solution to the problems of Daesh and the Taliban is much more complicated than just bombing the hell out of the Middle East and Afghanistan. Republicans who spout more hatred and fear against Muslims so are not only turning Muslims around the world against the United States, but are also turning American Muslims against their own country. Donald Trump's unconstitutional rants are only creating more Syed Farooks.
To destroy the Taliban we need to get Pakistan and India to resolve their issues. To destroy Daesh, we need to eliminate the monetary and moral support they receive from Saudi Arabia.
The first is a very tall order, but since Afghanistan, India and Pakistan are all our allies, we have some leverage. The second is actually a whole lot easier.
Most Saudis don't have to work because the country is awash in oil money. The Saudi government just hands out cash to citizens (like Alaska used to), and all the work is done by immigrants. So instead lots of Saudis spend all their time studying the Qur'an, under the tutelage of Wahhabis.
If Saudi Arabia didn't have so much oil money Saudis would actually have to work, and wouldn't have so much free time to get all bent out of shape about heretics. Plus, they wouldn't have all that oil money to give to terrorists.
The best thing we could do to stop Daesh, therefore, is to make sure the Paris climate talks are successful. The sooner we reduce our dependence on oil, the sooner we stop funding countries like Saudi Arabia, Iran and Russia, who fuel international terrorism and war.
Tuesday, December 08, 2015
Convicted Rapist Endorses Trump
Man, the opposition research teams for the Republican presidential candidates are really incompetent.
It didn't get much play at the time, but convicted rapist Mike Tyson endorsed Donald Trump in October. This is salient not just because Trump has characterized Mexican immigrants as rapists, but because after Tyson was convicted in 1992 of raping beauty queen Desiree Washington, Trump proposed that Tyson instead just pay a lot of money and get off without doing any prison time. At the time Trump was trying to arrange a boxing match between Tyson and Evander Holyfield that would make Trump millions.
Republican candidates are getting slaughtered by Trump in the polls, yet it took Mother Jones magazine to dig up the dirt on Trump's plan to let rich rapists get off. Trump's got tons of dirty laundry like this, but his opponents just let him suck up all the media time with his insults against female reporters and proposals to deny Americans their basic rights.
The Tyson episode illustrates clearly that Trump's line about being against the "elites" is total bull. A Trump presidency would be the worst sort of corrupt oligarchy, where justice is apportioned not by guilt or innocence, but by how rich and how useful you are to Donald Trump.
If Trump is elected, how much will he charge for luxurious presidential pardons?
It didn't get much play at the time, but convicted rapist Mike Tyson endorsed Donald Trump in October. This is salient not just because Trump has characterized Mexican immigrants as rapists, but because after Tyson was convicted in 1992 of raping beauty queen Desiree Washington, Trump proposed that Tyson instead just pay a lot of money and get off without doing any prison time. At the time Trump was trying to arrange a boxing match between Tyson and Evander Holyfield that would make Trump millions.
Republican candidates are getting slaughtered by Trump in the polls, yet it took Mother Jones magazine to dig up the dirt on Trump's plan to let rich rapists get off. Trump's got tons of dirty laundry like this, but his opponents just let him suck up all the media time with his insults against female reporters and proposals to deny Americans their basic rights.
The Tyson episode illustrates clearly that Trump's line about being against the "elites" is total bull. A Trump presidency would be the worst sort of corrupt oligarchy, where justice is apportioned not by guilt or innocence, but by how rich and how useful you are to Donald Trump.
If Trump is elected, how much will he charge for luxurious presidential pardons?
Ban 'Em All!!!
I find it hilarious that people are shocked by Donald Trump's recent call to ban all Muslims from entering this country. I have no doubt that his poll numbers will go up as a result of this exclamation. As I have been saying for quite some time, Trump is popular because he is the living embodiment of the GOP-xenophobic, adolescent tantrums.
This is they guy they want to be their nominee and I think now, after several months of polling in all the early states, he is going to be their pick and I think that's absolutely perfect. The part of the country that doesn't pay much attention to politics...the independents and casual voters...need to see what the GOP has been about for the last several years.
Without a doubt. Donald Trump is the poster child for conservatives in 2015.
This is they guy they want to be their nominee and I think now, after several months of polling in all the early states, he is going to be their pick and I think that's absolutely perfect. The part of the country that doesn't pay much attention to politics...the independents and casual voters...need to see what the GOP has been about for the last several years.
Without a doubt. Donald Trump is the poster child for conservatives in 2015.
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