Clinton Politics and Philanthropy Overlap, Free Parks for Fourth Graders, Ukraine Asks U.N. for Help: A.M. Links

Plus: Rudy Giuliani disses Obama, Kochs team up with Center for American Progress

• 

  Ready for Hillary/Flickr

  The Clinton Foundation has raised nearly $2 billion since 2001, according to a new analysis from The Washington Post. The review also found "substantial overlap between the Clinton political machinery and the foundation."

• Next from President Obama's magical bag of free! things!: U.S. fourth graders and their families will get free admission to all national parks and federal lands in 2016. 
• Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko is asking the U.N. for help enforcing the ceasefire that never was. 
• Koch Industries is teaming up with liberal advocacy group the Center for American Progress to launch a new organization, the Coaliton for Public Safety, that will focus on criminal justice reform. 
• Rudy Giuliani laments that Obama "wasn't brought up the way you were brought up and I was brought up" and it's led him to have attachment issues with America. 
• And this is why you don't keep your gun in your bra, kids.

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Comments

[Fist of Etiquette]

And this is why you don't keep your gun in your bra, kids.

No one needs double d's?

[Rufus J. Firefly]

Hello.

"The Clinton Foundation has raised nearly $2 billion since 2001, according to a new analysis from The Washington Post. The review also found "substantial overlap between the Clinton political machinery and the foundation."

They were dirt poor.

Plus ou moins.

[WTF]

Charity begins at home.

[Ted S.]

I don't see why H&R posted this story, since there are no female libertarians.

[The Last American Hero]

Good thing it wasn't one of those scary black assault bras.

[Ted S.]

It's got one of those things that goes up. Well, technically, two of those things.

[Rich]

You could shoot your eye out!

/Captain Obvious

[WTF]

Darwin Award.

[Pope Jimbo]

She packed a pair of 38's... and she had a gun too!

[Elspeth Flashman]

Isn't that a Benny Hill joke? NTTAWTT.

[Pope Jimbo]

Probably even earlier than that. My dad used to tell that joke all the time.

[Scruffy Nerfherder]

Anyone see what kind of gun it was? I'm betting it wasn't a J-frame revolver.

[Suthenboy]

Uh...I would say not. It is damn near impossible to fire one of those accidentally unless the hammer is cocked, which it probably wasn't if it was in the holster.

I am betting a small auto that the safety had been pushed off on. It is not difficult to knock the safety off by having it move around in the holster and then if the hammer is cocked bumping the trigger doesn't take much.

[DEG]

No one needs double d's?

Nonsense. DDs are lovely.

[Fist of Etiquette]

Koch Industries is teaming up with liberal advocacy group the Center for American Progress to launch a new organization, the Coaliton for Public Safety, that will focus on criminal justice reform.

Yet another conservative tentacle.

[Matrix]

Progs really don't know what to do with themselves because the Koch brother are not acting as the Progs think they should. Some don't want to accept their blood money and anything the Kochs do is tainted.

[Lord Humungus]

Job ad for Antarctica postman warns of 'smelly penguins'

A job ad offers a new life far away from the stresses of modern life, as a postman in Antarctica.

There are just a couple of tiny warnings ? applicants only have 2000 'smelly' penguins for company.

The postman running the world's most southerly post office must also be willing to go without showering for up to a month.

Among the skills the trust are looking for are 'coordination ? can you carry a big heavy box over slippery rocks and slushy snow whilst dodging penguins?'

[Notorious G.K.C.]

With his luck, Mr. Beasley will get that job, and Dagwood will keep bumping into him while emerging from his igloo.

[Notorious G.K.C.]

I *knew* I could make a joke out of that.

[Aloysious]

That picture is truly heinous. What a way to start the day.

[Rich]

"What do you get when you cross ??"

[Aloysious]

Yesterday we got that fool Biden, and to day we get the Clantons, all three of them.

Puts me off my morning smoothie.

[gaijin]

is it just me, or does Chelsea resemble Alfred E Nueman?

[R C Dean]

I was kinda hoping for her sake that she would age well.

Not happening, is it.

[UnCivilServant]

Look to the DNA - when you're a crossbreed between a harpy and a jackass, how are you going to age well?

[Enough About Palin]

Bill ain't her daddy.

[Enough About Palin]

http://radaronline.com/exclusi.....y-clinton/

[Fist of Etiquette]

The review also found "substantial overlap between the Clinton political machinery and the foundation."

Somewhere outside that venn diagram Billary went dead broke.

[UnCivilServant]

"We have no money for tax purposes."

[Lord Humungus]

The Clinton Foundation has dropped its self-imposed ban on collecting funds from foreign governments and is winning contributions at an accelerating rate, raising ethical questions as Hillary Clinton ramps up her expected bid for the presidency. Recent donors include the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Australia, Germany and a Canadian government agency promoting the Keystone XL pipeline.

http://www.nationalreview.com/.....m-geraghty

[Cyto]

I wonder what they expect in return? Surely the Canadian government doesn't think contributing to a US charity will directly promote the Keystone XL pipeline.

[Lord Humungus]

Biden's strange claim of knowing 'an awful lot' of Somali cab drivers in Delaware

"Somalis have made my city of Wilmington, Del. [their home] on a smaller scale. There is a very identifiable Somali community. I might add if you come to the train station with me you'll notice I have great relationships with them because there's an awful lot driving cabs and are friends of mine. For real. I'm not being solicitous. I'm being serious."

?Vice President Biden, during a discussion at the White House Summit on Counter Violent Extremism, Feb. 17, 2015

These comments by Vice President Biden went viral earlier this week, and a reader questioned whether there were really many Somali taxi drivers in Wilmington, Del. CNN interviewed some Delaware cab company owners, who disputed the idea there were Somali drivers in the city; rather, they said they were from other African nations.

[Rich]

"Moreover, they have great-smelling hair!"

[Rufus J. Firefly]

Right in line with his you can't go into a 7/11 without speaking with an Indian accent.

I think, if there was ever a proper analogy, it's safe to say if he were a Republican...

[WTF]

who disputed the idea there were Somali drivers in the city; rather, they said they were from other African nations.

Creepy uncle Joe thinks they all look alike.

[Fist of Etiquette]

Biden is angling for his next job anchoring NBC Nightly News.

[dave b.]

How would they get practice driving if there are no ROADZZZ?!??!

[Bill Dalasio]

Shows me I need to see what's put there earlier.

[Bill Dalasio]

Of course Biden should have known there were no Somali taxi drivers. Every Democrat knows that, in Somalia, there are no ROADZZSZ!!1ONE

[Cdr Lytton]

That's why they came here!!!!!!

[Cdr Lytton]

Is Fibbin' Joe seriously claiming that the Secret Service lets the Vice President take taxis on a regular basis?

I call more bullshit.

[Lord Humungus]

Naked woman in Florida stops traffic near Orlando by masturbating in front of a car: cops

Amie Carter, 31, was found naked and under the influence of 'a heavy unknown substance' after her debauched stroll down an Orlando street, according to a police report. Police said she masturbated in front of a car, climbed on top of it, stomped on the hood and threw a cell phone at another car.

[Crusty Juggler]

I wonder if she is single...

[Swiss Servator... Switzy!]

Florida Woman...beware, CJ!

[Crusty Juggler]

The threat of castration, or perhaps receiving a new strain of herpes...turns me on. I am into danger. And gators. And humidity.

[RBS]

What about pythons?

[Crusty Juggler]

Yes. Pythons, college football, Chuck Finley.

[gaijin]

I am into danger.

Danger + Survival = fun!

[carol]

Ah, but do you like fire ants? Lots and lots of fire ants?

[Crusty Juggler]

This has become the sexiest chatroom ever!

[Aloysious]

She was arrested and charged with criminal mischief and exposure of sexual organs.

At least she didn't get shot.

[Swiss Servator... Switzy!]

Cops were too busy filming...

[gaijin]

Using body cameras no doubt

[Fist of Etiquette]

But the coppers did shoot.

[Swiss Servator... Switzy!]

*gags*

[Pro Libertate]

Wait, under the influence of a "heavy unknown substance"? Heavy?

[Zeb]

Bismuth.

[Pro Libertate]

Whoa. Heavy.

[BuSab Agent]

Dark matter.

[Certified Public Asskicker]

I Can't Love Taylor Swift Anymore Because Yes, "Shake It Off" Is Still Racist

I long to hear someone else say it: "Shake It Off" is racist.

A few weeks ago, I got my wish via a status update.

There it was, waiting for me on my Facebook feed. I blinked hard as I read and re-read each word: "So glad 'Shake It Off' isn't racist anymore cuz that beat is undeniable." Below someone commented, "It was racist?" Their question puzzled me. I felt the compulsion to answer their question with a lengthy paragraph explaining why. Instead I commented with a gif of Swift's awkward crawl beneath her twerk team, hoping that the looping image would prove the reasons why her video isn't merely artistic expression or an unintentional offense.

[Crusty Juggler]

Taylor Swift is my generation's Robert Byrd.

[BardMetal]

Wait I'm a little out the loop on pop culture, why is the song racist?

[Rich]

I *think* it's because she's white and used black back-up dancers.

[Certified Public Asskicker]

That is correct, and someone may have twerked.

[RBS]

From the comments:

I have a huge problem with this article's conflation of twerking with Black culture and womanhood. Twerking is NOT a venerable African-American art form that needs to be defended from White appropriation. It's a minor flash-in-the-pan dance trend from rap videos 10+ years ago that was rediscovered by Miley Cyrus and became trendy again for some godawful reason. It's not a Black thing, it's a stupid pop culture thing, and the fact that several dancers appear to be White just reinforces that.

[Free Society]

White appropriationzzzzzz!?!? Christ you'd think those offended blacks would be happier if everyone regarded them as sub-human and unworthy of taking cultural cues from them. Problem 326,759 with mainstream black culture; having everything both ways.

[Scruffy Nerfherder]

No, they want to own their "inventions" and be worshiped for it. But don't imitate, that's appropriation.

At least they're consistent, they get all pissy when a black person acts white too.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

There's a certain degree of arrogance when it comes to protecting their cultural heritage I've detected over the years. An arrogance accordingly deemed as 'ethno-centric' when applied to Western civilization.

[Notorious G.K.C.]

And if whites *didn't* appropriate black culture that would be racist, too, because it would show ignorance and lack of appreciation of black contributions.

[Free Society]

The first two story building in sub-saharan Africa was built by white missionaries. The fact that they're making contributions to anything in civilization is a testament to the decent nature of the very society they claim is so racist against them.

[UnCivilServant]

So, you've never paid much attention to indiginous architecture then?

[Heroic Mulatto]

The first two story building in sub-saharan Africa was built by white missionaries.

I don't know where you're getting that.

[Suthenboy]

That was the first thing that popped in my head too. I was a bit puzzled by that comment.

[Rhywun]

Twerking is NOT a venerable African-American art form that needs to be defended from White appropriation.

This might be the most unintentionally hilarious thing I read all week.

[Heroic Mulatto]

That is correct, as what we know now as "twerking" seems to have been first documented by the Ancient Greeks. (Really!)

[Zeb]

Complaining about cultural appropriation is the stupidest thing ever. And extremely racist.

Anyway, the greatest victims of cultural appropriation in the world are Americans. The whole fucking world wants to steal our culture.

[Suthenboy]

Thats right, because when someone steals your culture you don't have it anymore.

[NebulousFocus]

Mastodon when through the same shit.

[RBS]

I read the article and still don't really know...

Cultural appropriation might be a current hot topic for bloggers and those who consider themselves to be allies of women of color, but for women of color like me, it's another reminder of all the ways in which my identity is constantly being devalued, mocked, and trivialized by the media and its stars. It's more than a just a video, it's more than just a song. It is a successor in our nation's exhaustingly long legacy of racism.

[wareagle]

yup...nothing says mocked and devalued quite like hiring "women like me" to do a job, a job that those women could decline if they found it insulting.

[UnCivilServant]

'Cultural appropriation' is bullshit predicated on the assumption that 'culture' is static, to be true, it would render all other SJW efforts pointless, as 'culture' therefore cannot change.

That is all.

[gaijin]

Agreed. Somehow, when African Americans play a game invented by a white guy named Naismith, I'm guessing that isn;t cultural appropriation...but cultural imperialism.

[Brett L]

Without the cultural appropriation of yoga there would be no yoga pants, therefore, cultural appropriation is as American as D batteries at a sports game in Philly. And I will not sit here and allow anyone to impugn the honor of this great nation by stating otherwise!

[Ted S.]

allies of women of color,

Fucking groupthink.

[AuH20]

Look, it makes right-thinking white people feel better if all culture is preserved in amber.

Somehow, this view of culture is held by people who call themselves "progressives."

Honestly, I think the human race exists so a very sick, very cynical god has something to laugh at.

[sssbobbyr]

I don't wanna start any blasphemous rumors...

[Zeb]

Maybe it's not a good idea to base your identity on superficial characteristics like race.

God these people are disgusting. Did she ever consider that perhaps people just genuinely enjoy certain aspects of black culture? Or is that racist too?

[Suthenboy]

"Maybe it's not a good idea to base your identity on superficial characteristics like race."

^This.

Just yesterday my stepson's buddy (black kid) asked me for something to read. I was pleasantly surprised. I handed him a bio on Ben Franklin. We talked about it a bit and it got around to great men in history. He asked about blacks. I said "Great men have a lot of qualities in common but skin color is not one of them."

I took back the book on Franklin and gave him one on Frederick Douglas. If he finished that and likes it (how could anyone not?) I will start him on Sowell.

[Heroic Mulatto]

How old is this kid? Sowell can get pretty heady at times. Still, Black Rednecks and White Liberals is a good choice. You might also want to direct him toward anything Dumas (Alexandre or Thomas-Alexandre).

[Scruffy Nerfherder]

After posting the gif, I re-watched the video. Just like always, I felt my eyes roll hard and a sigh exit my mouth at a little past the 1:29 mark, and again at 2:01. 1989's release date was literally last year. Bloggers, critics, and even fellow feminists have moved on. They're over it. "Shake It Off" is old news. And yet, here I am, still pained by the way Swift exploits the culture of women of color while simultaneously objectifying their bodies.

A little obsessed, aren't we?

[Crusty Juggler]

Watching the video over and over and over and over again is much easier than exercising or eating vegetables.

[Rich]

Hey! Shaking with rage is *damn* fine exercise!

[ColonelEngineer]

"the culture of women of color"

Sooooooo if you're not white and have a vuh jay jay, your culture is set in stone?

I don't think even Klansmen are that blunt and narrow. Good grief.

[BardMetal]

Isn't funny how the racist attitudes of yesteryear now become the attitude of tolerance and racial sensitivity?

The Nazis banned Jazz music because they didn't want any pure Aryans listening to any music with an African influence. Who knew that they were just trying to prevent "cultural approbation"

[Heroic Mulatto]

For the first half of the 20th Century, music companies taking Black musical styles and even outright taking songs written and performed by Black artists and giving them to White artists to cover without offering the original artist royalties was a thing.

However, that situation doesn't exist anymore. Nicki Minaj has not lost one ounce of recognition or has she lost one penny of income from the fact that Swift shook her boney ass in some music video.

The complaints that Swift had twerking in a music video are nothing more than the author's self-indulgent Munchausen syndrome of victimhood. In fact, if you examine the two contributions of Ms. London to the website, you can see that they both revolve around her imagined slights, which is reflective of her utter narcissism.

[Somalian Road Corporation]

I find it perpetually hilarious that the outrageous slur of "colored person" ended up finding new life as the tr?s-politically-correct "person of color".

[Zeb]

The odd thing about that (and other words that were once the politically correct, polite terms to use, like "negro") is that those terms never really were slurs or offensive. But somehow as they fall out of currency people decide that they are somehow bad.

So I just stick with "black" for people of African descent.

[bodenlosen Schweinerei]

Yes, and see how fast someone corrects you with "African-American", because you're the "ignorant" one, not someone who doesn't realize there's an entire world outside the US populated by black people.

[MJGreen]

Swift exploits the culture of women of color while simultaneously objectifying their bodies.

Aren't those one and the same? She is "exploiting" them by objectifying them.

Or am I being pedantic while simultaneously criticizing a minor detail?

[Idle Hands]

xojane is like a more retarded version of jezebel.

[Certified Public Asskicker]

I don't know about that, it's pretty close between the two.

[Lord Humungus]

*head explodes*

[Azathoth!!]

Oppressed?

really?

I cannot truly fathom the mountain of privileged arrogance one must sit atop to truly believe that in all the history of the world only black women have ever thought to shake their asses.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

"Rudy Giuliani laments that Obama "wasn't brought up the way you were brought up and I was brought up" and it's led him to have attachment issues with America."

I hung on to my Bat-Man blanket until I was, oh I'd say 21?

[wareagle]

it is what it is, no matter how much people don't like Rudi saying it. Obama's upbringing included time in places few of us spend formative years. It's not a bad thing, it's just a recognition of reality.

Here's a comparison: two military brats, one raised exclusively on domestic bases and the other solely on installations overseas. There is no way the two are not differently informed. Nature matters; it does not have to be an insult.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

Clearly, judging from his comments and actions, he was influenced by his upbringing and environment.

[Free Society]

Obama's upbringing included time in places few of us spend formative years. It's not a bad thing, it's just a recognition of reality.

Being raised by series of Marxists does warp one's outlook, I have no doubt.

[Agammamon]

Obama's not unique in this, as far as US presidents go.

How many of them have *ever* espoused anything except support for big-government, central-planning,'Top Men' fix everything policies?

[Agammamon]

And it may not even be completely fair to call him a Marxist.

Marxism at least considers the state to be a temporary evil to be discarded when no longer necessary - modern leftists consider it to be eternal.

[Free Society]

I dare say that a trained Marxist turned government worshiping buffoon is more of a hardcore statist than an unthinking liberal turned government worshiping buffoon. I don't mean to quibble over such tiny distinctions in Obama's tyrannical impulses.

[Agammamon]

Thing is - Giuliani's statement contains the implicit assumption that someone who is not corn-fed, born and bred in the US is, by definition, not sufficiently loyal.

I don't like Obama, think he's only loyal to himself, and Giuliani's an arse.

[Notorious G.K.C.]

Has Giuliani gone back to his wife yet?

[Rufus J. Firefly]

Another spin on Jimmy the Greek?

[PRX]

Obama and Guiliani both love the government and think it is America.

[R C Dean]

Giuliani's statement contains the implicit assumption that someone who is not corn-fed, born and bred in the US is, by definition, not sufficiently loyal.

I could read it one of two ways.

Either the way you do: "You can't be loyal unless you are corn-fed, etc.", or

"This fucker does not seem loyal. Could be because he was raised overseas by Marxists."

[Zeb]

Obama had an unusual upbringing to be sure. And I'm sure it has influenced everything about him.

What I find really stupid about Giuliani's statement is the presumption that all "regular Americans" were brought up in the same or similar ways.

A lot of presidents have unusual life stories. George Bush grew up rich. Reagan had an acting career. Those aren't exactly typical American starts either.

[Azathoth!!]

A not incosequential number of Americans grow up 'rich'--so much so that the 'rich kid' is a common clique archetype.

Reagan didn't grow up rich--I'm not sure why you bring up his acting career, that wasn't part of his upbrininging--but there are a great many Americans with acting careers or aspirations thereunto--again, so much so that we have an archetype for them.

They sound pretty American to me.

Obama, on the other hand was raised in a variety of foreign countries by marxists. Name someone else like that.

[MJGreen]

Koch Industries is teaming up with liberal advocacy group the Center for American Progress to launch a new organization, the Coaliton for Public Safety, that will focus on criminal justice reform.

Hisssssss! Evil money! Get it away!

[BardMetal]

Coalition for Public Safety? Is that same group that ran around beheading folks in revolutionary France?

[Notorious G.K.C.]

I believe that was a Committee, not a Coalition.

[Swiss Servator... Switzy!]

So what would the prog version of Matthew look like?

3 Then Podesta, which had betrayed Progs, when he saw that they were condemned, repented himself, and brought again the thirty pieces of silver to the CEO Neera Tanden.

4 Saying, I have sinned in that I have betrayed the innocent cause. And they said, What is that to us? see thou to that.

5 And he cast down the pieces of silver in the think tank, and departed, and went and self criticized himself.

6 And the chief Progs took the silver pieces, and said, It is not lawful for to put them into the treasury, because it is the price of Koch.

7 And they took counsel, and bought with them the EPA's brownfield, to heal Gaia.

[Agammamon]

I thought Matthew *was* a prog - they all were.

Well, maybe not John with his free-lance baptism business.

[Notorious G.K.C.]

Matthew was a prog until he quit the tax-collection racket.

[Fist of Etiquette]

U.S. fourth graders and their families will get free admission to all national parks and federal lands in 2016.

I hadn't realized we were paying to step onto those First Amendment-free zones known as public land.

[Aloysious]

I wonder why it is only fourth graders. What is wrong with third or fifth graders? Maybe I should rtfa...

[gaijin]

Business Opportunity: Creating fake transcripts proving your kid is a fourth grader so the entire family in your minivan is admitted free...like Amnesty.

[UnCivilServant]

You think they're checking documentation? All you have to do is assert it. It works for voting after all.

[gaijin]

*tears up term sheet for venture capitalist presentation and throws in garbage*

[WTF]

It works ONLY for voting.

[Agammamon]

Yeah, there'll be 15 forms of ID and signed forms to 'prove'.

[The Other Kevin]

My youngest will be in 5th grade next year. D'oh!

[Agammamon]

Not if he's 'held back' a grade. Hint, hint.

[Swiss Servator... Switzy!]

Second larf of the morning - good job!

[Pro Libertate]

Does this count homeschoolers?

[Auric Demonocles]

Hmm, I'll have to find a kid to help me cheat my hiking fees next year.

[Pro Libertate]

I'm curious how they define "4th grade."

[Auric Demonocles]

Perhaps after he gets a bunch more promotions?

[Pro Libertate]

I'm in the 4th grade of Khan Academy.

[Zeb]

Nor did I. I've never paid to go into a national park. But I've only been to a few and at odd times of year.

[Lord Humungus]

Michigan State Senate Votes to Ban Hunting with Drones

Michigan's state Senate passed legislation Tuesday that would prohibit hunters from using drones, according to an Associated Press report on WOOD TV8's website.

The bill also would ban drone use by those "seeking to interfere with hunting," the story said.

MLive has more on the measures' legislative history and notes that:

States including Alaska, Montana, and Colorado have reportedly banned the use of drones in hunting, according to a review by the non-partisan House Fiscal Agency. Other states cover drones in existing hunting regulations.

[UnCivilServant]

Does that include hunting of humans?

[The Last American Hero]

Skynet has a sad.

[gaijin]

GUess Ted Nugent will have to rethink his next series on Outdoor network

[Swiss Servator... Switzy!]

Next on "Drone Crossbow X-treme Hunting"...?

[Lord Humungus]

Dead Puerto Rican man is propped up, dons Green Lantern costume during bizarre wake

Relatives of a recently deceased Puerto Rican man dressed him in a Green Lantern costume and propped him up at his wake after he spent the last weeks of his life donning the comic book disguise.

Renato Garcia, 50, passed away last week in the Rio Piedras neighborhood of San Jose, where friends and neighbors saw him wearing the costume for weeks after he found it in a bag of donated clothes, according to his sister.

As in life, so in death, she decided.

[Ted S.]

His name wasn't Bernie?

[Swiss Servator... Switzy!]

+1 Weekend

[Bo Cara Esq.]

Shouldn't he have been a Black Lantern?

[Heroic Mulatto]

I can't tell if he was going for Lantern Stewart or Lantern Baz. I'm guessing Stewart by the mask.

[Fist of Etiquette]

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko is asking the U.N. for help enforcing the ceasefire that never was.

How is dithering and graft going to help?

[Swiss Servator... Switzy!]

The Blue Helmets will come in and rape everyone and thus the Russians will leave?

[Swiss Servator... Switzy!]

Or is it spread cholera and everyone will flee, shitting themselves?

[Jordan]

In Fairfax, Va., a different, no-less-scary police shooting

The killing of John Geer is probably the clearest and most compelling example of what amounts to police impunity in recent American history.

He committed no crime the day he was killed. Even the officer who shot him acknowledges that. There was no struggle. The details are not murky.

According to those official documents, the shooter ? a cop with significant anger issues (he once screamed and cursed at prosecutors in open court) ? is contradicted by four fellow officers and two civilian witnesses. That sort of rank-breaking is practically unheard of.

This article is pretty incredible (ignore the "white privilege" quip at the beginning. Cop murders unarmed, cooperating man. When asked why he shot, he said his wrist hurt, and he had just had a fight with his wife. Also claims that the victim reached down to his waist. 4 cops and 2 civilians contradict his claims, and the investigation goes nowhere. Cop also says he feels no remorse.

[Matrix]

What sort of capital punishment is given in VA? This cop should ride the lightning.

[The Last American Hero]

No, he should swing from a rope for all to see.

[UnCivilServant]

Guillotine! Guillotine!

(Sorry, I recently finished Assassin's Creed: Unity)

[Scruffy Nerfherder]

They don't convict cops in Fairfax, that bastion of progressive liberalism in northern Virginia.

IIRC, the police stopped putting out blotter entries a few years ago, because FYTW.

[Jordan]

Fairfax is also where an undercover cop befriended a guy and eventually convinced him to place a bet just barely over the legal limit, then sent in a SWAT team to murder him while he was reading a book.

[Scruffy Nerfherder]

Yes, I remember that

[Andrew S.]

And where the police union protested the two week suspension given to that police officer, claiming that the more appropriate punishment for "accidentally" murdering an unarmed man was a written reprimand.

[Scruffy Nerfherder]

Justice will not exist until it is taken by the people it is owed to.

[Ted S.]

IIRC, the police stopped putting out blotter entries a few years ago, because FYTW.

Are you sure this is a bad thing? Much of local TV seems to be reporting on arrests (not convictions or even indictments) and seems to me in no small part designed to embarrass the arrestees. We don't hear if they're found not guilty for the most part, especially if the charges are dropped without trial.

[Scruffy Nerfherder]

It is a bad thing since you can't get any crime stats without it. You want to know what the police are working on (or supposed to be working on). Most of the time, it's reports of crimes, not arrests.

[Scruffy Nerfherder]

Barnes would later recall that Geer was polite, but reluctant to leave his home, saying repeatedly he was frightened of being killed.

He said "I don't want anybody to get hurt," the negotiator told investigators a few months later. "I don't want to get shot."

I guess he knew what he was dealing with.

[Drake]

What the Fucking Fuck?

I really didn't want absolute indisputable proof that the law doesn't apply to cops. If Geer has any next of kin, they will be showered with $ millions from their fellow subjects in Fairfax and not a penny from the cops.

[Agammamon]

It's not the machine. There's a mismatch on the personnel code numbers... Deer should have had ?31.06, debited against his account, not Geer!

[Swiss Servator... Switzy!]

+1 swatted fly

[Agammamon]

By the time police tactical forces arrived to enter the home, Geer had bled to death.

'Cuz OFFICER SAFETY! You get a man shot and all you do is stand around until 'tactical response' shows up?

[Scruffy Nerfherder]

Everybody needs time to decide how they're going to spin it.

[MJGreen]

Got to call the union rep first.

[Zeb]

So, apparently white privilege now means that nobody gives a fuck when you get shot.
The author also seems not to realize quite how many people get murdered by police, mentioning incidents in NY and Missouri as if they were the only other ones.

[Fist of Etiquette]

Rudy Giuliani laments that Obama "wasn't brought up the way you were brought up and I was brought up..."

Well, like I was brought up anyway, with no desire to force others to do what I think they should.

[Lord Humungus]

Why it matters that Hillary Clinton is a woman

Which is where the first-woman-president thing comes into play for Clinton. It might not sway as many swing voters as women's groups might like, and there is also probably a countervailing effect of some swing voters still being hesitant about voting for a woman president (more than people would likely acknowledge in a poll).

But where it could really make the difference for Clinton is if it spurs higher turnout among women -- who tilt Democratic -- and particularly among lower-turnout unmarried and college-educated women -- who tilt much more Democratic. And likewise, if it doesn't get those voters out to vote, it's going to be much more difficult for her to win.

[Injun, as in from India]

Cast aside your doubts, men and women!
Forget policy! It is time for someone with female genitalia in to the White House, so that America can gloat at having shattered its glass ceiling.

Who gives a f*** anyway? The country is well its way to fiscal ruin, so we might as well have people of every background sit in the front seat of the roller coaster ride!

[Suthenboy]

"America can gloat at having shattered its glass ceiling."

Why not? Electing a black as president has ushered in a post-racial America.

[WTF]

It's her turn, dammit!

[Pro Libertate]

We'll have a female president sooner or later, anyway. But why pick the least capable, least pleasant, and least honest option to be the first? NASA didn't find its biggest asshole to be the first guy to step on the Moon, right?

[BardMetal]

Well it worked out with the first black president oh wait..

[Ted S.]

And yet these assholes will praise folks who say Margaret Thatcher wasn't a real woman.

[Pro Libertate]

And Clarence Thomas isn't "black." But Bill Clinton was.

[Injun, as in from India]

According to this white Democrat state rep from Minnesota, Clarence Thomas is actually an Uncle Thomas.

[Pro Libertate]

And it's okay to say such things from the left. Wow.

[mad libertarian guy]

There's no type of racism quite like lefty racism. If you you're black and have the temerity to disagree with your liberal plantation masters, you aren't really black, but a self-hating race traitor.

[Lord Humungus]

New 'Alien' Movie Confirmed with Director Neill Blomkamp

20th Century Fox has closed a deal with director Neill Blomkamp to develop a new "Alien" movie, sources confirm.

The untitled sci-fi project is separate from "Prometheus 2," which Fox is still making with Ridley Scott.

Blomkamp, who directed "District 9? and the upcoming Sony feature "Chappie," had been teasing the project in recent months but said the extra-terrestrial reboot was likely abandoned. It was supposed to star "Alien" veteran Sigourney Weaver.

But on Wednesday Blomkamp confirmed the tentpole was back on track at Fox.

[Fist of Etiquette]

Ugh. Is it going to fight Freddy Krueger this time?

[UnCivilServant]

That would imply that aliens dream.

Hrmm... do aliens dream of mutant sheep?

[Fist of Etiquette]

That's a question for Philip K. Dick.

[Swiss Servator... Switzy!]

GAH!!!

[Fist of Etiquette]

You had two minutes to refresh.

[Swiss Servator... Switzy!]

I SHOULD HAVE CHECKED A SWISS WATCH!

[Swiss Servator... Switzy!]

I hear androids dream of electric sheep.

[Idle Hands]

Seriously is there any juice at all left in that lemon.

[Notorious G.K.C.]

"Let's find out!" - Hollywood

[Crusty Juggler]

"I want Sigourney Weaver to choke me out with her thighs."

[John]

She looked very good in her underwear back in the day.

[Irish]

Elysium was terrible and Chappie looks mediocre at best, but an Alien sequel might be awesome coming from Blomkamp.

District 9 was great and I feel like an Alien sequel would have more in common with that than his other movies.

[Crusty Juggler]

Said Ripley to the android bishop.

[Agammamon]

So, it'll look gorgeous, but the crew of the freighter will all be union so they have a big fight with management when ordered to go to the planet to investigate the transmission - its not in their job description.

Then the union steps in and says that they'll strike if management doesn't send in the 'transmission investigation' department. Which now has to be created. And is staffed by pulling personnel from other departments (given first right of refusal according to seniority of course).

And this joke went on for too long.

[UnCivilServant]

But then won't you be cheering when the alien kills them all?

[Zeb]

How about a district 9 sequel? That seemed to actually call for one.

[Jordan]

A Man Is Listening to 168 Hours of Nickelback for Charity

God help this man.

[BardMetal]

Jesus Christ, that is horrifying. Can't he just have some dominatrix kick him in the balls like a normal masochist?

[Swiss Servator... Switzy!]

I larfed. A lot, actually.

[Matrix]

The bravest man on Earth!

[John]

He is either an epic masochist or the most charitable man on earth. Wow.

[Lord Humungus]

perhaps he is deaf.

Or wishes he was.

[AuH20]

When he completes this he will pity the dead.

[Zeb]

I don't get that kind of charity drive, even less dumb ones like "walk for whatever". Why should whether you walk for 10 miles or not have any influence on whether I decide to donate to a charity? I guess it must work on a lot of people.

[Lord Humungus]

Judge Rules Florist Broke Law Denying Service For Gay Wedding

A Christian florist violated anti-discrimination laws when she refused to sell flowers to a gay couple for their wedding, despite her defense that she was exempted by her religious beliefs, a judge in Washington state ruled Wednesday.

"In trade and commerce, and more particularly when seeking to prevent discrimination in public accommodations, the courts have confirmed the power of the legislative branch to prohibit conduct it deems discriminatory, even where the motivation for that conduct is grounded in religious belief," said Benton County Superior Court Judge Alexander C. Ekstrom in a 60-page order.

[BardMetal]

She is just lucky they didn't send her to tolerance camp, where intolerance won't be tolerated.

[Matrix]

FREEDOM!

[Free Society]

Note this is not philosophical belief, only irrational superstition will qualify as an affirmative defense against government overreach. That narrow reading of the first amendment is about as useful to liberty as the narrow reading of the 4th that predominates.

[Notorious G.K.C.]

So...throw out the 1st Amendment, then?

[Notorious G.K.C.]

Anyway, I think it's both/and. There's religious freedom *and* the right not to be forced to say something you disagree with, whether your objection is religiously based or not.

[Free Society]

So...throw out the 1st Amendment, then?

So...I said don't read it so narrowly.

There's religious freedom *and* the right not to be forced to say something you disagree with, whether your objection is religiously based or not.

The judiciary doesn't seem to think so. Superstition has always been a much more robust defense against government policy than philosophical disagreement.

[Notorious G.K.C.]

Then there's your answer. If religious-freedom arguments work better, use them.

Or simply surrender unilaterally because religion is icky and you don't want to win if the victory isn't complete, and on the right rationale.

[Free Society]

Then there's your answer. If religious-freedom arguments work better, use them.

Whoooooooosh. The fact that superstitious arguments work better is irrational and counterproductive to the noble goal of justice. That's my entire point.

Or simply surrender unilaterally because religion is icky and you don't want to win if the victory isn't complete, and on the right rationale.

Where did I say surrender? I'm wondering if you actually read what was written. I said a narrow reading of the 1st is as helpful as a narrow reading of the 4th, I didn't say either is entirely worthless.

[John]

The first amendment protects religion. You can't read the free exercise clause out of the document. I don't understand why Libertarians treat the free exercise clause the way Liberals treat the 2nd and 10th Amendments.

Sorry, Religion gets special protection other beliefs don't. It is that simple. If you don't like it, try and amend the BOR. Whatever you do, please don't just ignore parts of the BOR you don't like.

[Zeb]

Actually, if you want to get all technically correct, the free exercise of religion is protected, not religious beliefs. What part of the exercise of Christianity involves refusing to sell flowers to sodomites?

The right answer to that is that everyone gets to decide what their religious practices consist of. Which basically means that all beliefs are protected just the same. You just have to say that your philosophical beliefs are your religion.

As I have said a million times, there is no freedom of religion unless all people are completely free to decide exactly what their religious beliefs consist of, regardless of anyone else's definitions.

[Zeb]

I don't understand why Libertarians treat the free exercise clause the way Liberals treat the 2nd and 10th Amendments.

John, what libertarian does that? Seriously? Find me one example of a libertarian saying that anyone should be prevented from freely exercising their religion by government force. And don't give me the "if you think gay marriage is OK, then you are for forcing people to make cakes" bullshit.

Really, what the fuck are you talking about?

[Notorious G.K.C.]

Free Society,

I'm very sorry if I missed your point.

*As written,* the First Amendment protects *both* religion and the right not to be compelled to say things you disagree with.

As indicated by this very case, the courts tend to water down the First Amendment, in both of these senses.

But if the First Amendment were enforced as written, you'd have protection both for the rights of "irrational" religious people to practice their faith and of "rational" people not to say what they don't believe.

I suppose your use of the term "irrational" to refer to all religions triggered me, as it were. The idea that the founders of the great universities of Europe and the U.S. were irrational, while everyone with a Darwin fish on his Prius is rational, irritates me.

[Zeb]

People can be rational in most ways, and irrational in some others. I don't think you will find many people who are rational in every way.

[Andrew S.]

Once again: WHY WOULD YOU WANT TO GIVE YOUR MONEY FORCIBLY TO SOMEBODY WHO HATES YOU? I've asked that question 100 times. All I've received from progs has been avoidance and "but, but, what if you were at the only gas station for 100 miles and you were out of gas and the owner wouldn't sell you gas" type answers.

[UnCivilServant]

"If I were planning a road trip through a desolate span like that, I'd have filled the tank and the reserve can before heading into the desert to avoid that problem."

[Free Society]

"but, but, what if you were at the only gas station for 100 miles and you were out of gas and the owner wouldn't sell you gas" type answers.

Which is funny because the first place they go is to promote slavery.

[R C Dean]

Andrew, the answer is simple:

This isn't about giving money to people who hate you.

This is about establishing dominance and control over people you hate.

[Rich]

"I do not believe, and I know this is a horrible thing to say, but I do not believe that the president loves America. He doesn't love you. And he doesn't love me."

Contest! What will be the, um, rebuttal?

I'll say: Josh Earnest says, "He loves you, Mr. Mayor. He just doesn't like you very much right now."

[UnCivilServant]

"Mister Obama loves America - Central America."

[Rich]

"'He doesn't love you. And he doesn't love me.' Nice beat. You can dance to it."

[Swiss Servator... Switzy!]

Da da da, ich lieb' dich nicht du liebst mich nicht aha aha

[BardMetal]

Warte ist das ein Leid? Deutschers mag Musik das ist nicht Metal?

[Heroic Mulatto]

Aber ja!

[AuH20]

I think Obama would prefer Rudy to show his love in a more physical way...

*Paging Mr. SugarFree. Mr. Sugarfree, please pick up the jizz stained courtesy phone*

BTW, where has Sug been? He go blind from the beetus?

[MJGreen]

He doesn't love me? But then why does he hit me?

[gaijin]

Everyone should remember this defense from the story on CLinton Foundation mixing politics and fundraising:

Minassian said it was a "false choice to suggest that people who may be interested in supporting political causes wouldn't also support philanthropic work."

...unless they are Koch brothers, Big Ag, Big Pharma and Big Oil...among other bigs

[Lord Humungus]

92-year-old slams into 9 cars in Piggly Wiggly parking lot

The elderly driver, Russell Kerr, was pulling out of his parking spot at the supermarket chain on Friday when he lost control of his vehicle, a Chrysler Pacifica.

"His foot got stuck on the accelerator, and from that point, he panicked," MacNeill said.

Two of the nine cars Kerr hit were occupied, but no one was hurt in the incident, which was captured on surveillance video. Because it was considered an accident, MacNeill said, police decided not to cite Kerr.

[Rich]

His foot got stuck on the accelerator

Bullshit.

[BuSab Agent]

Dammit Uncle Russell! Will you listen to the family now, when they tell you you shouldn't be fucking driving?

[Jordan]

Hong Kong's pro-Beijing leader asks residents to be like 'sheep'

At least he's more honest than the people who whine about a lack of bipartisanship (i.e. "just agree with me, already!").

[BardMetal]

I'm no expert on Chinese culture but doesn't the comment fit with their whole concept of harmony?

I don't think Chinese culture looks the same way at individualism as they do in the Western world.

[Jordan]

It's less so with the younger generations, especially in Hong Kong, hence the massive protests.

[Rhywun]

China would love nothing more than to wipe out such alien "Western" ideas.

[John]

I like the cut of that man's jib.

/Obama

[gaijin]

Hong Kong's pro-Beijing leader asks residents to be like 'sheep'

Some guys sexual fantasies are just plain bizarre

[Notorious G.K.C.]

"Would that the world had but one fleece..."

/Kinky Caligula

[gaijin]

^excellent

[Hey Nikki!]

It's because it just became the year of the sheep.

[Swiss Servator... Switzy!]

And they are dancing in the streets, in New Zealand!

[MJGreen]

You and your damn facts. No wonder everyone says you're the worst.

[Lord Humungus]

Fox News has no shame: Easily duped wingnuts spout phony science and climate-change lies

Every few months, when climate change deniers decide they've come up with an all-new reason to convince themselves that global warming is all a big hoax, we like to take a look at whatever the latest scam is that they are propagating, either because they are part of the effort to help out the fossil-fuel industry, or simply because they enjoy being their brainwashed and/or incurious little tools.

Back in 2013 these stooges were promoting the phony notion that "Arctic ice has grown to a record level!" It hadn't. After that debacle, they claimed UN scientists had found their predictions of warming were off by 50 percent or more. They weren't. More recently, they were pushing the false claim that the globe has been cooling ever since 1998. It hasn't been. And, of course, when all else failed, they could always fall back on their old standby: weaning ourselves from dangerous fossil fuels won't make any difference anyway because China would never do the same. But, of course, China is now doing so at a rate that should embarrass these jackasses. But it won't. Because they are never embarrassed about being wrong.

[Free Society]

So basically their response to all of the contrary evidence and arguments is just saying "Nuh uhhh. Not so. Nuhh uhhhhhhhhhhh!"

[John]

They don't give a single link to any evidence to support their assertions. And these are objective facts. Either the ice increased or it didn't. Either the models were off by 50% or they were not. So, it should be easy to provide a source to show why the facts are as they claim.

Somehow they didn't do that. I guess they felt charitable and didn't want to run up the score too much on Fox News or something.

[Free Society]

The climate alarmists are usually successful by just belittling their opponent, so using citations and counterarguments is just extra work.

[John]

That and also the ice really did go to record levels and the models really were wrong.

[Free Society]

That and also the ice really did go to record levels and the models really were wrong.

How can the ice have grown and how can the models be wrong when you're a smelly pirate hooker? See, your argument doesn't hold water.

[bodenlosen Schweinerei]

The possibility of a non-smelly pirate hooker is more believable.

[BardMetal]

It is fucking -15 degrees in my neck of the woods right now.

Thousands of years from now someone will find one of these assholes frozen in a glacier holding a paper warning about global warming.

[Certified Public Asskicker]

I kinda like when Matt Walsh stirs up shit:

ADHD Definitely Doesn't Exist

ADHD is not a matter of psychology or neurology, but of institutions. Schools can't deal with kids who act this way, parents don't want to deal with them, daycares aren't equipped to deal with them, and society at large has no patience for any of it ? so, we call it a disease and start passing out the prescription strength speed.

And then the offended mommies show up in the comments.

[Illocust]

Ummmm, I have ADD, note the lack of H I'm not Hyperactive. It's not a discipline problem. Before I was finally diagnosed in my senior year of my engineering degree, I would zone out about every five minutes. There were multiple conversations where I would ask someone where a meeting was, then zone out when they answered. I'd then ask them again, zone out again, and just because my attention was that bad I would repeat this a third time.

I am more than willing to believe that ADD and ADHD might be over diagnosed, but they are real conditions.

[UnCivilServant]

I know one person in real life who I'd admit has ADD. I know many people who were misdiagnozed simply because they were energetic.

[Illocust]

Yeah, that is the issue. Poor discipline and ADD have a lot of overlap. There are a lot of people who don't pay attention in class, there are only a few who can't physically do so no matter how hard they try.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

I'm ADD.

Or just plain inattentive sometimes.

[John]

I could buy into it existing in adults. Some adults just never quite mature and gain an adult attention span. With children, however, I don't see how you could ever properly diagnose it even if it did exist, because all children have short attention spans. With children ADHD has become a way to feed speed to boys that their teachers and parents are unable to reach or discipline.

IF I were King, Adderall would be over the counter for adults and considered a mental performance enhancer. It would however be unavailable to anyone under the age of 16. Let kids be kids for God's sake.

[Certified Public Asskicker]

This is how I feel, I do believe it exists, but I don't think it is very prevalent.

Shoving it down kid's throats because they are kids I have a big problem with.

[John]

Kids can't consent to things like that. Certainly, they don't and shouldn't get a say in truly needed medical procedures. I don't think it is ethical to give a kid a drug like Adderall. You are screwing with someone's brain and body who can't consent or fully understand what you are doing. Fuck that.

[Scruffy Nerfherder]

There are definitely many kids who are prescribed meds when they are not necessary. Simply making sure they got some more sleep and ate well would help them.

That said, there are ways to test for ADD based on your response to medication.

[Griffin3]

This. According to a pediatrician I sometimes sleep with, if you give a kid with ADHD or ADD massive loads of caffiene and the settle down/focus, you probably have a correct diagnosis. Try more medicines.

If they just become hyper little hellions, you are probably looking at a case of CHD (Chronic Hickory Deficiency).

[Lord Humungus]

woosh.

This is what Republican governance looks like: Bruce Rauner's frightening agenda
In radical new budget, Illinois governor proposes drastic spending cuts

Rauner fired the opening salvo in his war on workers earlier this month, issuing an executive order that allows public employees to opt out of paying fees to unions that collectively bargain on their behalf. Under current state law, nonmembers who benefit from union contracts ? about 14 percent of unionized state employees ? must pay "fair share" fees to help fund collective bargaining and contract negotiations; those fees are lower than the dues paid by full members. Despite a 1977 Supreme Court ruling upholding the constitutionality of fair share fees, Rauner argues that they're unconstitutional, forcing workers to support political speech with which they disagree. The governor makes this assertion even though, in accordance with that same Court ruling, public unions don't use fair share fees to fund political activities. Cognizant that he's on shaky legal ground, Rauner has retained the white-shoe law firm Winston & Strawn to defend his executive order in court.

[Irish]

"Despite a 1977 Supreme Court ruling upholding the constitutionality of fair share fees, Rauner argues that they're unconstitutional, forcing workers to support political speech with which they disagree. The governor makes this assertion even though, in accordance with that same Court ruling, public unions don't use fair share fees to fund political activities."

The left's arguments get ever more idiotic.

Look, even if the union can't explicitly use 'fair share fees' to engage in political speech, they can use the fair share fees to pay salaries or overhead which frees up other money for political activities.

So even if the 'fair share fees' are put in a completely separate account which isn't used for organizing, picketing, or advertisements, they are still being used to subsidize political activities.

[WTF]

Money is fungible!? The hell you say!

[Hey Nikki!]

It's hard to argue with people who simply don't know what "fungible" means.

[Puddin' Stick]

It's only fungible when Republicans do it.

[Ted S.]

Not taking money out of people's paychecks to give money to a union that doesn't represent them is a "cut" in spending?

[Lord Humungus]

oh the article goes on... and on... and on.

[Ted S.]

I noticed it was Salon, so I decided not to click the link.

[John]

This is why Scott Walker winning his recall and then re-election in Wisconsin were the most important elections this century. They were more important than any of the Presidential elections. Walker proved that you can go after the public employee unions and live to tell about it. Now it is going to spread to other states.

Politicians of any stripe like to spend money and hand out goodies more than anything. And even the ones who don't like to cut taxes. You can't do any of that if your entire budget is going to pay public employees. Now that Walker has shown you can go and get some of that money back, there will be no stopping them.

[Notorious G.K.C.]

From your lips to God's ears...

[Irish]

"Next from President Obama's magical bag of free! things!: U.S. fourth graders and their families will get free admission to all national parks and federal lands in 2016."

I don't think this is quite on the level of Barack Obama's other FREE SHIT stupidity. The land is already owned by the government and they're just allowing the public entrance without a fee.

If anything, I approve of the government extorting less money from the public in order to view land that, by all rights, should be the public's anyway.

[Andrew S.]

I agree, but why fourth graders? Why not all students? Why not everyone?

[Pope Jimbo]

I GAY-RON-TEE that next year, the US Park Service will cite a drop in revenue as a reason to raise next year's admission fees. They will also threaten to close some parks if they don't get their new money.

[Agammamon]

*Owned* by the government.

*Run* by private business who are probably going to take a haircut now.

[Free Society]

Koch Industries is teaming up with liberal advocacy group the Center for American Progress to launch a new organization, the Coaliton for Public Safety, that will focus on criminal justice reform.

I knew it! Center for American Progress is but one tentacle of the Kochtipus!!!

[Ted S.]

Demographers bitch that government may stop dragooning people into providing information for them

Summary: Australia suggests the decennial census is a financial drain; greedy demographers shriek in horror.

It's none of the government's fucking business how many toilets I've got

[gaijin]

that government may stop dragooning people

Smaug alert?

[UnCivilServant]

That's 'Dragonning' people.

Dragoons are mounted infantry.

Still don't know what it has to do with the census though.

[Swiss Servator... Switzy!]

If you don't answer the census, they ride up and beat you with the flats of their sabres until you comply.

[gaijin]

Dude, it was a joke...a pun...a bad one yes.

[Brett L]

Dragooning means to hand some yokel a musket and a horse and tell them to ride out in front of the other army's cavalry, dismount, and try to fight off men who had grown up riding horses and sabering peasants. Thenceforth, to be dragooned is to be volunteered for a shit job on pain of force.

[Agammamon]

Would 'pressing' be a better (and more nautical) alternative.

[Swiss Servator... Switzy!]

Yes. Plus you get to make "rum, sodomy and the lash" jokes.

[R C Dean]

Oh, I was supposed to be joking?

/redrafts job descriptions

[Irish]

Is Tony Abbot the only 'conservative' leader in the West who actually doesn't completely suck?

Every time I hear about him it's because progressives are howling that he repealed the carbon tax or some such thing.

Of course, he failed to repeal section 18c of the Racial Discrimination Act which he promised to get rid of. That's the one where people get fined and imprisoned for engaging in 'hate speech' which in the context of Australia means 'disagreeing with the left on any subject related to immigration, Islam, or aborigines.'

[Andrew S.]

Wasn't Abbot behind those stupid internet censorship laws? Or was that whoever preceded him?

[BardMetal]

Got to love the left. That create a policy of open immigration then make it illegal to criticize their policy.

I really am surprised that "climate change denial" isn't a crime yet.

[Irish]

Andrew Bolt is an Australian columnist who was charged with hate speech for pointing out that it's fashionable for people who are white to declare themselves aboriginal if they have a single aboriginal ancestor from 200 years ago because it gives them prestige and helps with their careers.

When you're charged w/ hate speech for something like that, your hate speech laws are outright tyrannical.

[Ted S.]

It's amazing how the ABC propagandize against him.

[robc]

Company I worked for from 1997-2000 used a lot of Demographic/Census data.

When I mentioned I wasnt filling out the long form I received in 2000, but was answering 3 questions only, one of the partners about flipped out.

It was kind of funny.

[gaijin]

Saw this again today...never gets old (not a Team supporter, but always a fan of calling out hypocrisy). Bonus points: Name that tune

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N5p-qIq32m8

[Rich]

"We have to address grievances terrorists exploit, including economic grievances," Obama said. "Poverty alone does not cause a person to become a terrorist anymore than poverty alone causes, to become a criminal."

The quickness of *that* reversal *must* be a record!

[Agammamon]

He's right about the 'poverty alone' bit.

But couple poverty with government laws that make it hard to start a business or make the lucrative opportunities illegal - well then you can get all the criminals an ambitious government needs to justify its expansion.

[Rich]

Well ?. OK.

[Derpetologist]

Rise and shine with Spot the Not! The game the invites you to separate real derp from fake. 2 of the following are real quotes from Imagine: Living in a Socialist USA

1. Even complex and sometimes troubling issues such as sex between adults and minors would be discussed without assumptions of guilt or imposition of shame. For instance, would there be an 'age of consent' that most people are comfortable with, and if so, what might that be? A relationship between a boy of sixteen or seventeen who is just coming out and a gay man in his thirties or forties might be quite positive and healthy, but it might still bother some people.

2. This is a book of imagination, not utopian fantasy. What it envisions- what it hopes for-is eminently possible. And without hope as our friend Ramsey Clark says, what's the use of doing anything? Indeed, it is ultimately hope that the authors write about. "At the risk of sounding ridiculous", as Che Guevara once said, they imagine a world of love and solidarity.

3. Movements come and movements go. Leaders speak, but the movement ends when they get bullets in their heads. Martin Luther King spoke out on Vietnam. He wanted to return power to the have-nots. And then King was shot. Malcolm X was shot and they blamed it on Islam. Departments of police, judges, and feds work at keeping people calm with their networks.

[Rich]

Ima say ? 2.

[Idle Hands]

2 is just stupid enough to be real.

[Rich]

*** whispering ***

I'm basing it on the punctuation.

[Irish]

This is hard because it's not from someone whose writing I know.

I pick 1 because it doesn't really have to do with socialism.

[Idle Hands]

you have to believe 1 and 2 are real because they contradict each other so well.

[Idle Hands]

3.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

3 sounds out of place.

[Andrew S.]

Most difficult one yet, Derpy Hooves. I'm guessing 3.

[Aloysious]

3. The other two sound appropriately foolish.

[robc]

Im going with 2.

[Swiss Servator... Switzy!]

3

[Scruffy Nerfherder]

3

[Derpetologist]

No more bets! No more bets!

The not was #3. Those are lyrics from the Rage Against the Machine (remember them?) song "Wake Up".

[Irish]

Wow. Rage Against the Machine's lyrics are even dumber than I remember.

I used to love Rage Against the Machine, but then I turned 13.

[Derpetologist]

Tear down the capitalist machine: buy our CDs and t-shirts!

[bodenlosen Schweinerei]

'Cause Sony isn't a capitalist machine and paying 20 bucks for a CD is an act of rebellion!

Maybe RATM were actually trolling their fans with that shit.

[Notorious G.K.C.]

2

[Agammamon]

3 is a RATM lyric.

[Ted S.]

3.

[Timon 19]

3

Right out of Rage Against the Machine...can't remember the song, though.

[Timon 19]

I SWEAR I didn't look ahead. I swear!

[Mike M.]

The Clinton Foundation has raised nearly $2 billion since 2001, according to a new analysis from The Washington Post. The review also found "substantial overlap between the Clinton political machinery and the foundation."

Raping underage girls on your own little private island is pretty costly.

[Andrew S.]

Via Balko:

Prisoners say doctor required rectal exams for everything. Even toothaches.

[BardMetal]

Well it's called a cavity search so why wouldn't it work for toothaches?

[Swiss Servator... Switzy!]

*narrows gaze*

[CatoTheElder]

What is wrong with New Mexico?

[Coeus]

The Feb. 13 lawsuit claims that prison staff became suspicious shortly after Walden was hired, and that the suspicions were based on "a sudden notable increase in volume of digital rectal exams being performed, un-indicated digital rectal exams on young inmates, refusal by defendant Walden to have a third party present during exams, and lack of semen samples being sent to the lab for analysis."

[Coeus]

Black officers rally around white cop who used N-word during Denver 'zombie crawl' turmoil

A young black man attempted to navigate the area the police were trying to clear, and when Paulsen told him he would have to go around, the man said, "N*gger, I'm trying to get through."

"I am not a n*gger," Paulsen calmly replied, "walk around to your family."

"I'm trying to get through, homie," the man said.

"I'm not you're 'homie' either, just walk around," Paulsen replied.

The man involved in the incident did not file a complaint, but when Paulsen's superiors saw the video ? which was recorded by Paulsen's own body-mounted camera ? he received a written reprimand.

"While Officer Paulsen did not call anyone the 'N' word, the use of the word could have caused a bad situation to become worse. The 'N' word is highly offensive to the majority of people," the reprimand obtained by CBS4 read. "There is a preponderance of the evidence indicating Officer Paulsen was discourteous in his statements; therefore a violation?is sustained."

However, Detective Victoria Oliver, an African American Denver Police Department officer, said "this is political correctness gone awry."

No shit.

[Coeus]

from the comments:

JEM4GOD ? 17 hours ago
This Police Officer should NOT be disciplined - I am a Black Female and 100% agree with the Female Officer and other Black Officers who support him......SHAME ON THE DENVER POLICE FORCE FOR MAKING THIS ISSUE BIGGER THAN WHAT IT IS!
11 ? Reply?Share ?
?
Avatar
AKHENATEN01 JEM4GOD ? 16 hours ago
You are a black WOMAN! Stop going along with the dumb shit!...Human beings are Women, Men, Girls, and Boys...male and female are biological and zoological descriptors...stop cooperating with orchestrated attempts to dehumanize yourself!

[ColonelEngineer]

Sounds familiar...

http://www.metalblast.net/wp-c.....Blog-4.jpg

[Pope Jimbo]

How the fuck did they transcribe "I'm not you're 'homie'" from the audio? Was there some sort of physical sign that indicated that he definitely meant to use "you're" and not the homonym "your"?

I'm not usually a grammar nazi, but that sucks.

[Spoonman.]

Didn't read the whole article, but he didn't even call anybody it? Just repeated it? There are bigger problems.

[R C Dean]

Back up here.

There's an African American Denver? Or is that an African American Denver Police Department?

What a weird country.

[Bo Cara Esq.]

"The review also found "substantial overlap between the Clinton political machinery and the foundation"

I thought the WaPo was part of the Clinton election team writing hit pieces on Scott Walkers totally normal and common lack of a college degree as a governor?

[Idle Hands]

Wapo has kind of always hinted about the corruption in the Clinton political machine, they really couldn't stand McCauliffe in the VA gov race. It was pretty hilarious as you could see how much it tortured them to endorse him.

[Pro Libertate]

I wonder if they're shifting at all since the Bezos acquisition? I hardly read the paper anymore, so it's hard to tell.

[mad libertarian guy]

Since Bezos bought WaPo, they've brought on Balko and Volokh, so I'd say yes.

[Pro Libertate]

Yes, those moves impressed me.

[Derpetologist]

Oh, Bo. This is what gets you in trouble: harping on something after the conversation has moved on.

I have found the commenters here to be great virtual company. The fact that you have managed to piss off almost all of them is not a good omen for a future lawyer, a job where your success will depend on your ability to get people to like and agree with you.

Perhaps you are more charming in person. In any case, when a dozen strangers say you're annoying, do you think it's just a conspiracy? You're a libertarian and you have managed to irritate a whole bunch of them. Think about it.

[Bo Cara Esq.]

I think it's the very common phenomena of dissenters on ideological websites being personally pilloried by a group on that site.

If you went to Huff Post and started posting as you do here how long before you'd be getting the same speech you're giving me?

[Derpetologist]

False analogy. I have had heated disagreements here with many others and still we respect each other. Part of that is because I know when to stop talking about something.

[Bo Cara Esq.]

No, really, let's test it. Start cross posting on Huff under your name everything you post here and let's see how long before you get similar treatment.

[Derpetologist]

They'd flame me because I'd be a libertarian posting in swarm of progs.

You get teased because you are stubborn, argumentative, and pedantic. John has the same problem, albeit to a much smaller degree. It has nothing to do with the views you present.

[Bo Cara Esq.]

Yes, John disagrees with libertarians from the right, me supposedly from the right, but we get the same treatment not for that but for our manners. Lol

[Contrarian P]

I've seen people raise reasonable questions on HuffPo and not be disliked the way you are. You aren't a dissenter in any real sense. In the main, you're a quibbler that seems to delight in finding a tiny point that's tangential to an argument and harping on it endlessly. Maybe that's what passes for good lawyering these days but judging by the responses of the more legal-minded on these boards I fear it's just you.

I cringe whenever I see you lighting up a thread with endless posts, trying to prove a largely inconsequential point and generally skip ahead to the next group of postings, or even the next article, because the discussion will literally add nothing to my day. I tried to give you the benefit of the doubt, but I must agree with many of the other posters here that your style is tiresome.

[Emmerson Biggins]

Really, you just go ahead and play the Martyr Card?

Stay classy Bo.

/Ron Burgundy.

[Bo Cara Esq.]

"Rudy Giuliani laments that Obama "wasn't brought up the way you were brought up and I was brought up" and it's led him to have attachment issues with America. "

And yet despite the different upbringings they both turned out to be raging statists...score one for nature over nurture?

[Lord Humungus]

Obama pressured to re-open ObamaCare

Democrats and several advocacy groups argue that people without insurance don't realize they're in danger of taking a significant economic hit.

"Millions upon millions of people are unaware about these penalties," Ron Pollack, the executive director of the nonprofit group Families USA, said in a briefing Wednesday.

This year's penalty is up significantly from the $95 or 1 percent of income fine for not having insurance in ObamaCare's first year.

The first time people will actually pay the fine is in this coming tax season. Just one-third of people without health insurance said they were aware of the healthcare law's penalty in a March 2014 poll by the Kaiser Family Foundation. The administration estimates that as many as 6 million people will be forced to pay up this spring.

[Bo Cara Esq.]

This is great. Chickens coming home to roost and the Dems are worried about all the chicken crap piling up...

[Injun, as in from India]

PenalTax in all of its glory. This is going to be fun to watch.

[Pope Jimbo]

It is nice to see that the bureaucrats have decided to clamp down on those wily vets who had a limb blown off just to get on the gravy train of prescription pain meds.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/.....story.html

Sorry, but I think if you get fucked up fighting in a war, you should get lots of free pain meds even if you do get addicted.

[Jordan]

The DEA is evil. Radley Balko's series on the DEA's war on chronic pain sufferers is incredibly infuriating.

[Injun, as in from India]

And this is why you don't keep your gun in your bra, kids.

Don't stick your finger in the trigger well if you are not ready to fire.

I'm expecting the hoplophobes to hype this into "see, no one can handle a gun safely" bullsh!t argument.

[Lord Humungus]

Lights the Bo signal:

The Education of Scott Walker

Such is the domination of not just college grads, but specifically Ivy League grads and especially Harvard grads, at the upper echelons of our government that the nation's political competition can be seen as one big intramural battle at the Harvard Club.

George W. Bush (Harvard Business School, 1975) was succeeded as president by Barack Obama (Harvard Law, 1991), whose fiercest tea party critic is perhaps Ted Cruz (Harvard Law, 1995).

Should Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton get elected president she will at least provide a dollop of diversity (Yale Law School, 1973) and restore to New Haven what had once appeared to be its ascendancy, running from George H.W. Bush (Yale, 1948) to Bill Clinton (Yale Law School, 1973) to the double-credentialed George W. Bush (Yale, 1968).

[Bo Cara Esq.]

That focus is bit too recent, both Carter and Reagan, while having degrees, were not Ivy educated.

[John]

And even Carter was a good President when compared to Obama. We have now had a run of four straight Ivy League Presidents. Before that, there had only been one (JFK) since World War II. It is perhaps time to try something else.

Also, the Harvard of the 1970s was a whole lot different than the one JFK attended.

[Scruffy Nerfherder]

Carter was a fucking genius compared to Obama.

[John]

He really was. At least Carter learned from his mistakes. After the Soviets invaded Afghanistan he understood there was no placating them and changed course. The Reagan military build up was actually started under Carter. And of course Carter had a basic understanding of the market and deregulated a few things. Obama is incapable of changing course about anything or doing anything but relentlessly regulating and destroying everything possible.

[Scruffy Nerfherder]

Carter gets a bad rep for inheriting Nixon's fubar economy. He actually did something about it, although it took Volcker to really start straightening it out (a situation he helped create).

[John]

He appointed Volker to head the Fed. Carter did half of it but Reagan did the other half. Carter wasn't willing to do something about taxes. The biggest thing Reagan did was index the tax tables to inflation. Before Reagan the tax tables never changed absent an act of Congress. So every time there was a bout of inflation everyone's taxes were raised as they moved up in the tax brackets even though adjusted for inflation they were often making less money.

[Certified Public Asskicker]

*Kicks over Bo signal, slaps Lord Humungus*

[Lord Humungus]

*runs off, sobbing*

*gathers minions to raid CPA's guzzoline*

[Bo Cara Esq.]

CPA, future college commencement speaker protestor?

[Certified Public Asskicker]

CPA, future current college commencement speaker protestor?.

[Restoras]

The obsession with the Ivy League makes no sense to me.

Consider the horrendous government we currently have, and the utterly awful hole they have dug for us.

Then consider the number of Ivy League grads that occupied positions of power while that hole was dug and while all these unconstitutional laws and regulations were created.

Attending Harvard, Yale, and Princeton should be a disqualification for office. Would rather have people that attended state universities and then had to build a career for themselves than these entitled, self-important morons.

[Coeus]

you have got to be kidding me.

The killing of Muslim bodies is nothing new. The 14-year institutionalized effort known as the War on Terror is in many ways the latest installment of centuries of anti-Muslim violence. But the murders of Razan, Yusor, and Deah last week delivered a soul-crushing reminder that no amount of American Dream can safeguard us.

I feel perverse relief, knowing that my sisters and mother live abroad. But that relief is brief and followed by an immobilizing kind of fear that, on some days, I find myself drowning in. I think about the possibility of my sisters being next. I watch conversations of our parents pleading with our daughters to take off their scarves. I am paralyzed by daydreams where my best friend becomes the next dead Muslim body because Oklahoma police ignored gun threats against her.

[Coeus]

I recognize that this how-does-this-crime-affect-me thought process in some ways is incredibly self-centering, but I think that's what hate crimes do ? what terrorism does. Hate crimes force us to recognize the vulnerability we desperately wish to ignore; they remind us that our distance from the victims cannot protect us from terror. They leave Muslims ? particularly women ? questioning their visibility. How do you tell your boss that you can't work because you are consumed with the grief of knowing your sister could be next? Debilitating fear is far from representative of our community; Muslim women show remarkable courage and agency in how they perform their faith and femininity. But those who choose to wear hijab always make a choice that recognizes potential for violence.

[BardMetal]

Uh Muslim women are usually killed by their Muslim relatives for doing things like not wearing the hijab.

What bizarre alternate reality does this writer live in?

[CatoTheElder]

Just curious: how many American Muslim women have actually been killed for wearing a hijab?

[Injun, as in from India]

How do you tell your boss that you can't work because you are consumed with the grief of knowing your sister could be next?

You don't have to tell your boss anything, Hon.

Just quit the job and apply for disability "benefits", and tell the Social Security bureaucrats that you can't work because you are paralyzed by fear.

[Ted S.]

The killing of Muslim bodies is nothing new.

Muslims have no brains?

[AuH20]

Muslims are not Western. Therefore they are good.

Everything Western is bad. This has been an axiom in certain leftist corners since the West rejected communism.

[BardMetal]

This.

The left has their enemy, and every event both past and present will be twisted and bent to point toward that enemy. I can guarantee you that leftist professors are already blaming the murder of those Coptic Christians by ISIS on Western imperialism.

[JeremyR]

Certain? Almost every, and not just leftist, look at the columns Richman and that Barton something or other put out. Right out of Chomsky.

[R C Dean]

Ima guess that the vast majority of Muslims who die by violence, die at the hands of other Muslims.

But the Big Problem for Muslims who just want to be left alone and live their lives is . . . us?

[Injun, as in from India]

Biden as Quagmire from Family Guy. Hilarious.

http://goo.gl/GoWjQ2

[WTF]

Giggity!

[Rhywun]

Watch NYC and NYS flail about in search of more sweet, sweet revenue.

Money quote:

"UPS's slogan used to be 'What Can Brown Do For You?' Well, Brown can obey the law and stop delivering illegal cigarettes!"

[Injun, as in from India]

I'm waiting for Schneiderman to throw RICO at UPS, because KKKorporations are organized crooks.

[Rhywun]

The relentless propaganda against smoking on local television, billboards, and such plus their pants-shitting fear at losing that money... the double-think at work here is a thing of beauty.

[Stormy Dragon]

Over the past four years, Earl Sampson has been arrested 62 times for being at the convenience store where he works:

http://www.nydailynews.com/new.....-1.1526422

[John]

That is totally fucked up. Even cops are not that stupid. And cops work the same neighborhoods. So he had to have been arrested by the same cop more than once.

I think there is more to that story than racial profiling. I wonder if the cops are just not shaking people down for bribes. Hey, start paying me or you can expect to be arrested and harassed every day you show up for work.

If not that, then there must be some kind of arrest quota system. That happens a lot in big cities. I teach law courses to reservists who are training to be MPs. Many of my students are from inner city Baltimore and DC. Many of them have been arrested for the crime of walking down the street so the cops can meet their arrest quota. They spend the night in jail and are released without charges. It is unbelievable the shit that goes on in some of our cities.

[Swiss Servator... Switzy!]

That was from November of 2013...I would love to know what happened in the lawsuit (if it got filed).

[Stormy Dragon]

The next episode of This American Life is discussing it (which is how I found out about it), so I'm sure there will be more up to date information there.

[WTF]

I wonder if he was killed resisting arrest before the suit could proceed.

[Derpetologist]

Don't look at it, Marion!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQIZCCthRbs

[AuH20]

So I just started reading a bit on the Rampart Scandal, which I had never really heard of before (I'm young! Sue me!).

So... it would appear, based on wiki (not always the most reliable source, mind you), that of the 70 officers implicated in misconduct... 0 went to jail?

I'm not entirely surprised, but still... are you fucking kidding me?

[Pro Libertate]

Rampart? The hospital from Emergency!?

[Restoras]

I loved that show. Still not sure why.

[Pro Libertate]

You need more lidocaine.

[mr lizard]

The movie Training Day was probably a compilation of true stories.

[Derpetologist]

Here on Derp Farms, we grow only the finest, freshest derp picked at the peak of the season. That's why every can of Uncle Derpy's Derp Concentrate comes with my personal guarantee that it will be the dumbest thing you have seen in at least a week. Uncle Derpy's: The brand of stupidity you can trust

The ignorance about what socialism really is and how it could be realized in our own country is appalling. The mainstream media and the powers that be have made the word "socialism" frightening, foreign, unpatriotic, and menacing. It threatens their ill-gotten gains, so the idea of workers sharing in the wealth their sweat and toil has generated has to be labeled "un-American". "Sharing the wealth" scares the "1 percent" and provokes them to quash, arrest, and jail those- like members of the Occupy movement- who dare to question their power.

[Swiss Servator... Switzy!]

*puts Derp back on shelf, slowly backs away*

[Lord Humungus]

Not fresh enough for you?

[Rhywun]

All *I* saw was the cover, which looks straight out of the 70s. Oh, and the first sentence talking about "Free Mumia". Rolled eyes, closed tab.

[Derpetologist]

Nowhere in the world would socialism be more feasible than in our United States.

[redacted; WARNING! Extreme derp!]

It's not a dream. It can be done if the people struggle to replace rapacious capitalism with life-enhancing socialism.

http://books.google.com/books?.....q&f;=false

[Zeb]

Yeah, capitalism never enhanced anyone's life. What fucking world do these people live in?

[Rhywun]

Isn't "sharing" what we teach our kids to do? That's good, right? Why do you hate children, Derp?

[Zeb]

I'm right about at the median in terms of income and "share the wealth" terrifies me because it shows how poorly most people understand what wealth is and the awful consequences that might lead to.

[AuH20]

So, I just started watching Galavant on Hulu (yes, I know the run is already over). It probably has no chance of renewal, but dang, it is a funny show. And pretty clever musical numbers, overall.

Also, Timothy Ombudsman is a national treasure.

[Stormy Dragon]

Worst part is that the show was clearly intended to go for at least another season and thus doesn't resolve anything, so people who liked it are likely to be left completely hanging as to what happened.

[Lord Humungus]

so it's like my sex life?

[?????]

Test

[Rich]

At a briefing with reporters Wednesday, Navy Rear Adm. John Kirby called the relationship with Egypt "complicated."

Perhaps we should see other countries for a while?

[Derpetologist]

The latest ISIS video is pretty hair raising:

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=5c2_1411222393

last 5 minutes has Jihad Jimmy flapping his gums.

[Irish]

That's the least of it. The Obama administration has continued to meet with Muslim Brotherhood members behind the Egyptians' backs. The Egyptian government is not happy about that.

[John]

Could someone please explain to me how this doesn't mean Obama is actually on the other side? I can see no explanation for this other than Obama likes ISIS and wants to see it succeed. Sure, he is bombing them a little bit, but he is doing it just enough to get the political dogs off at home, not enough to really harm them. I honestly think he might be on their side in this. Normal stupidity or incompetence doesn't explain this.

[Pro Libertate]

Um, why not?

[BardMetal]

Sounds like Obummer isn't serious about ISIS but just using it to play politics with the Republicans. The Repubs can be evil warmongers and vote to fight ISIS or they can be evil uncaring bastards that let Coptic Christians get murdered.

Either way the media will make sure the Repubs will get the blame for everything,and Obama is blamed for nothing.

[Injun, as in from India]

Journalism 101.

Anything Republican is worthy of hyping in a negative light, while mentioning Democrat in something as egregious as the Kitzhaber scandal is worthless.

[Cyto]

it is there to point out the irony. Republicans fight gun control. If she had been barred from obtaining a pistol, as everyone knows is just and right, then she would still be alive. She not only committed suicide by adjusting her bra holster, she also killed herself by supporting Republican lawmakers who allowed her to get a gun.

[CharlesWT]

I thought Republicans only shot themselves in the foot.

[John]

Like I saw below, I am starting to think he really is a secret radical Muslim. No one is this stupid.

[Derpetologist]

The flag of the MB is a verse from the Qur'an called Al ayat as saif kafir, which means "the verse of the sword [for the] infidel".

The verse contains the simple command for fighting non-Muslims: torhibuna.
That means terrorize them.

The root word is irhab which means panic or terror.

[Bo Cara Esq.]

Why is it stupid to maintain contacts with opposition parties? That way if the regime changes you have an in with the new one.

[Mike M.]

It's not much of a secret anymore, is it?

It has been apparent to me for a couple of years now that he's deliberately trying to throw one country after another in the region into the hands of the radicals. All of this stuff is on purpose, and he is nefarious.

[R C Dean]

Honestly, if you apply Occam's Razor to Obama's foreign policy, its hard to say that he's not an ally of radical Muslims.

Everything he does in the ME benefits radical Muslims. Every. Single. Thing.

Sure, he's gotten sucked into attacking a few subsets of radical Muslims, but it generally seems to benefit their radical Muslim rivals as much or more than anyone else.

[Rhywun]

Like I saw below, I am starting to think he really is a secret radical Muslim. No one is this stupid.

Nothing that a few more "religion of peace" summits with American Muslim leaders can't cure.

[John]

I read where 78% of the public supports bombing ISIS. I am pretty sure the war monger line won't hunt too well.

Regardless, I honestly can't figure out what the hell Obama is doing here. It sounds crazy to say he is on the other side but that is the only explanation I can come up with.

[Pro Libertate]

It's funny you say that, because I heard part of a recent speech of his last night on the way home and was shaking my head at him once again putting domestic politics over foreign policy.

I get that everything is political with these scumbags, but the whole country may face the consequences of what they do and don't do.

[John]

When those parties are radical Muslims who are totally opposed to any civilized view of the world and US interests, there is a lot wrong.

This isn't a case of supporting bad guys to keep worse guys out. This is a case of undermining bad guys by working with and supporting utterly evil ones.

[Scruffy Nerfherder]

Because this particular opposition party has proven to be untrustworthy. And I say that as someone who felt they deserved their chance to participate after the Arab Spring.

[Irish]

"Why is it stupid to maintain contacts with opposition parties? That way if the regime changes you have an in with the new one."

Because this opposition party is run by radical Islamists and also happens to function as a terrorist organization.

[Notorious G.K.C.]

ISIS ought to be more bombed than Lindsay Lohan on a Saturday night.

[Injun, as in from India]

Media bias is just a right-wing meme, Tundra Man.

[Somalian Road Corporation]

Heh. Thanks for pointing that out.

[BardMetal]

Everything Obama does is about hurting his political enemies. The man really is that petty and small. He has no problem hurting millions of people if he thinks it will in some way harm the Republicans.

Look at the fiasco that was the government shutdown.

[sssbobbyr]

From what we have seen of the negative correlation between obama's actions and words I am beginning to suspect he is about to lead us headlong into WWIII. and do it in the manner of a 13 year old girl throwing a hissy fit. "Oh? Well, if every one thinks going to WAR is such a GREAT idea, fine! Ill show you war."

[John]

Yes BardMetal. The thing I dislike about Obama the most is that he uses much more harsh language when talking about fellow Americans who oppose him than he will ever use when talking about the country's enemies. Obama seems to really not like the country or the people who live here very much. He dislikes the US more than he dislikes the governments of places like Iran or Russia or dare I say even ISIS. It is horrible.

[tarran]

He's an anticolonialist who attended a primary school as Suharto was purging Soekarno's supporters from running the place.

I think he thinks NASAKOM was a workable political philosophy and it still guides his decisionmaking. Given that Nasakom attempted to fuse principles of communism, islam and Indonesian nationalism into a single political system, I think he sees in groups like MB parallels to the people on the losing side of the purge that drove his mom away from his stepdad and him out of Indonesia.

[Pro Libertate]

If he could push a button and remove Fox News or ISIS from the planet (without consequences, that is), is there any question which one he'd zap?

How fucked up we are these days that this kind of thinking is not totally repudiated? Giuliani is wrong--Obama's not screwed up because of his foreign upbringing or even his exposure to the extreme left. He's screwed up because there are a lot of people who think the way he does and support and reinforce this kind of nonsense.

[BardMetal]

It is horrible,it's a mental pathology of the left that I just don't understand.

They try to understand the thinking and points of views of groups like ISIS, or people like Vladimir Putin, but they can't seem to do the same with their political enemies in the United States.

Talk to any prog about conservatives, or Rush, or Fox News, and all you'll hear back is some sort nasty caricature with little basis in reality. Ask the same people about Islamic terrorists, and you'll hear how we need to try to understand where they are coming from, and to keep an open mind.

It's really quite bizarre.

and sadly we won't be done with Obama in 2016. There is no way he's going to just retire with dignity like past presidents. He'll be on TV shows for the next 40 years bitching about Republicans, and Conservatives.

[Irish]

"This isn't a case of supporting bad guys to keep worse guys out. This is a case of undermining bad guys by working with and supporting utterly evil ones."

I have no love for Sisi, but realistically he might be the best thing to ever happen to Egypt. He isn't as oppressive as Mubarak was (though that's a low bar) and is vehemently anti-Islamic fundamentalism.

He could very easily end up being Egypt's Pinochet: A despicable human being who murders members of the political opposition but leaves the country in better shape than he found it.

I'd also like to point out that Sisi (despite hardly being in favor of women's rights by western standards) has been trying to combat the serious problem of gang rapes in Egypt and has cracked down hard on sexual assaults.

[John]

I hope you are right. If you are, then that makes Obama look even worse. Again, tell me how he is not on the other side?

[John]

He and a lot of the people around him certainly have a thing for the MB. But how does that explain him not supporting Egypt bombing ISIS. Where does his sympathy for ISIS come from?

[Somalian Road Corporation]

Indeed. To refer to the aforementioned government shutdown, when you have people of their own free will publishing articles like these, well...

I mean, seriously, read the thing, it's short. Two minutes (hate) or so.

[Swiss Servator... Switzy!]

"There is no way he's going to just retire with dignity like past presidents."

Oh, I expect he will retire with all the "dignity" of a Jimmy Carter...

[John]

IN the same speech he will jump through his ass to explain how ISIS burning people to death has nothing to do with Islam and then in the next breath say every Christian in the world has to answer for the Crusades before they can criticize Islam.

[BardMetal]

In his mind I'm sure he thinks ISIS is just fighting back against centuries of Western imperialism. He likes them the same way people like Communism's goals, even if they don't agree with their methods.

[CatoTheElder]

Face it: Obama is not very bright.

He has a rigid ideological model for foreign policy based upon a seriously flawed world-view.

Obama is smart enough to understand his ideological model of the world, but not smart enough to process the abundant evidence that it simply does not model human reality. He surrounds himself with sycophants who re-assure him that his model works, and praise his brilliant insight. The more intelligent of these sycophants actively exploit the flaws of Obama's ideology and his mediocre intelligence to achieve their own venal interests or, perhaps, their own ideological objectives.

It is entirely possible that Obama is a fellow-traveler of the Muslim Brotherhood. However, he displays little genuine adherence to any religious faith, and it is not necessary to explain what he does. Any of a number of flawed world-views could explain the stupidity of the Obama foreign policy.

[CatoTheElder]

When I apply Occam's Razor to Obama's foreign policy, I conclude that his objectives are permanent escalation of turmoil in the Middle East, and the Muslim world generally.

US policy with respect to Muslims is incoherent. Obama's policies favor Sunni religious traditionalists in Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Oman, and UAE, insane Sunni militants in Syria and Libya, Shi'ites in Iraq and Iran. US policy with respect to Israel seems to be directed at permanent conflict.

[bodenlosen Schweinerei]

Cui bono? Is there some foreign, some group of terrorists, that benefits from this radicalization? I'm too lazy to Google it, but I heard something like "Wahhabi". I think that might be a Japanese condiment, though.

[CatoTheElder]

I responded above. You're right: normal stupidity and incompetence don't explain this. It is ideologically directed stupidity. I don't think Obama is particularly bright, but his foreign policy reflects a very special kind of stupidity.