Head-Spinning Political Shit!

[dreadgeek]

A couple of weeks ago, there was a post singing the praises of vigilante justice and bemoaning all of the rights that the accused receive. It was stated that on the island the poster grew up on, there was no law enforcement and no prisons. If someone did something to you, your family did something to their family. This was offered as the more desirable way of handling crime and punishment.

For those with the "shoot 'em all" mentality, I offer you this:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/0..._n_888454.html

MONTICELLO, Miss. -- After 10 years of incarceration, and seven years after a jury sentenced him to die, 30-year-old Cory Maye will soon be going home. Mississippi Circuit Court Judge Prentiss Harrell signed a plea agreement Friday morning in which Maye pled guilty to manslaughter for the 2001 death of Prentiss, Mississippi, police officer Ron Jones, Jr.

Per the agreement, Harrell then sentenced Maye to 10 years in prison, time he has now already served. Maye will be taken to Rankin County, Mississippi, for processing and some procedural work. He is expected to be released within days.

Maye's story, a haunting tale about race, the rural south, the excesses of the drug war, the inequities of the criminal justice system and a father's instincts to protect his daughter, caught fire across the Internet and the then-emerging blogging world when I first posted the details on my own blog in late 2006.

Shortly after midnight on December 26, 2001, Maye, then 21, was drifting off to sleep in his Prentiss duplex as the television blared in the background. Hours earlier, he had put his 18-month-old-daughter to sleep. He was soon awoken by the sounds of armed men attempting to break into his home. In the confusion, he fired three bullets from the handgun he kept in his nightstand.

As he'd later testify in court, Maye realized within seconds that he'd just shot a cop. A team of police officers from the area had received a tip from an informant -- later revealed to be a racist drug addict -- that there was a drug dealer living in the small yellow duplex on Mary Street. It now seems clear that the police were after Jamie Smith, who lived on the other side of the duplex, not Maye or his live-in girlfriend Chenteal Longino. Neither Maye nor Longino had a criminal record. Their names weren't on the search warrants.

Maye would later testify that as soon as he realized the armed men in his home were police, he surrendered and put up his hands. There were three bullets still left in his gun. But Maye had just shot a cop. And not just any cop. He shot Officer Ron Jones, Jr., the son of Prentiss Police Chief Ron Jones, Sr. Maye is black; Jones was white. And this was Jefferson Davis County, a part of Mississippi still divided by tense relations between races. Maye was arrested and charged with capital murder, the intentional killing of a police officer.

Let's say, for sake of argument, that America went the vigilante route espoused by this poster. Where would Mr. Maye be? In a coffin. What if we still had the law but the "convict 'em and shoot 'em" ethic that is *also* espoused here? Where would might we find Mr. Maye then? In a coffin.

But *because* Mr. Maye could appeal and *because* more evidence could come to light, Mr. Maye lives, he lost 10 years of his life but he still lives. He can now have the rest of his life. Is that worth the tax dollars? Without doubt.


Cheers
Aj

[Andrea]

Originally Posted by dreadgeek

A couple of weeks ago, there was a post singing the praises of vigilante justice and bemoaning all of the rights that the accused receive. It was stated that on the island the poster grew up on, there was no law enforcement and no prisons. If someone did something to you, your family did something to their family. This was offered as the more desirable way of handling crime and punishment.

For those with the "shoot 'em all" mentality, I offer you this:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/0..._n_888454.html

MONTICELLO, Miss. -- After 10 years of incarceration, and seven years after a jury sentenced him to die, 30-year-old Cory Maye will soon be going home. Mississippi Circuit Court Judge Prentiss Harrell signed a plea agreement Friday morning in which Maye pled guilty to manslaughter for the 2001 death of Prentiss, Mississippi, police officer Ron Jones, Jr.

Per the agreement, Harrell then sentenced Maye to 10 years in prison, time he has now already served. Maye will be taken to Rankin County, Mississippi, for processing and some procedural work. He is expected to be released within days.

Maye's story, a haunting tale about race, the rural south, the excesses of the drug war, the inequities of the criminal justice system and a father's instincts to protect his daughter, caught fire across the Internet and the then-emerging blogging world when I first posted the details on my own blog in late 2006.

Shortly after midnight on December 26, 2001, Maye, then 21, was drifting off to sleep in his Prentiss duplex as the television blared in the background. Hours earlier, he had put his 18-month-old-daughter to sleep. He was soon awoken by the sounds of armed men attempting to break into his home. In the confusion, he fired three bullets from the handgun he kept in his nightstand.

As he'd later testify in court, Maye realized within seconds that he'd just shot a cop. A team of police officers from the area had received a tip from an informant -- later revealed to be a racist drug addict -- that there was a drug dealer living in the small yellow duplex on Mary Street. It now seems clear that the police were after Jamie Smith, who lived on the other side of the duplex, not Maye or his live-in girlfriend Chenteal Longino. Neither Maye nor Longino had a criminal record. Their names weren't on the search warrants.

Maye would later testify that as soon as he realized the armed men in his home were police, he surrendered and put up his hands. There were three bullets still left in his gun. But Maye had just shot a cop. And not just any cop. He shot Officer Ron Jones, Jr., the son of Prentiss Police Chief Ron Jones, Sr. Maye is black; Jones was white. And this was Jefferson Davis County, a part of Mississippi still divided by tense relations between races. Maye was arrested and charged with capital murder, the intentional killing of a police officer.

Let's say, for sake of argument, that America went the vigilante route espoused by this poster. Where would Mr. Maye be? In a coffin. What if we still had the law but the "convict 'em and shoot 'em" ethic that is *also* espoused here? Where would might we find Mr. Maye then? In a coffin.

But *because* Mr. Maye could appeal and *because* more evidence could come to light, Mr. Maye lives, he lost 10 years of his life but he still lives. He can now have the rest of his life. Is that worth the tax dollars? Without doubt.


Cheers
Aj

Although one such story is sufficient reason to eliminate the death penalty, in my opinion, there seems to be a great number of similar situations in the news in recent years.

Yes, some times it feels as if the criminal has more rights than the victim, but some times it is the 'criminal' that is the victim, and I would want all those rights available to me if I found myself in that situation.

Thank you for posting this, Aj.

Andrea

[dreadgeek]

Originally Posted by Andrea

Although one such story is sufficient reason to eliminate the death penalty, in my opinion, there seems to be a great number of similar situations in the news in recent years.

Yes, some times it feels as if the criminal has more rights than the victim, but some times it is the 'criminal' that is the victim, and I would want all those rights available to me if I found myself in that situation.

Thank you for posting this, Aj.

Andrea

Thank you. It always does my heart good when people can put themselves in the situation of someone wrongly accused of a crime and say to themselves, "what rights would I want to have in my favor if I were in that situation". It is even better when folks can then extend that out to encompass actual criminals.

I think that criminals and victims of crimes have the same rights. The difference is that criminals don't *respect* the rights of others.

Cheers
Aj

[dreadgeek]

Originally Posted by theoddz

[FONT="Book Antiqua"][SIZE="4"][COLOR="Black"]I know this is a few months old, but it's the complete speech by Michael Moore to the worker protesters in Madison, Wisconsin this past March. I'm watching this....ALL nearly 30 minutes of this, and I can't help but think about my history lessons in high school and college and remember what happened that brought about the Russian revolution and the rise of the USSR.

I'm not thinking so much about the actual results of that revolution asmuch as this video/speech makes me think about how the Russian people rose up against much the same political/class structor that brought the royal family and aristocratic society of old Russia down and brought in the USSR.

I'm looking at this in the sense of the energy that starts this kind of revolt. The rhetoric, thoughts and energy here has to be nearly the same as what the socialists ("socialism" isn't necessarily a negative thing to me, btw, so don't think I'm talking about that in a negative sense). Take a look and watch the whole thing. Really. What do you think??? I'm interested in hearing what you good folks think.

Thanks!!!

Honestly, one of the things that has driven me crazy the last two decades or so is how astoundingly stupid the wealthy have been. Jobs have been shipped overseas and at the same time the wealthy have bought into this Ayn Rand philosophy that *any* social welfare or business regulation or taxes is nothing more than the 'parasites' (her words, not mine) trying to milk the John Galt's of this world. The complete stupidity of doing the former while enacting policies based on the latter seems to me to be a perfect recipe for a historical disaster.

Something the West hit on during the 20th century was that the middle-class is a stabilizing presence in democracies. Look, let us all admit that we're not going to all have the wealth of Gates or Winfrey or, for that matter, a hedge fund manager or member of the Senate (every one a millionaire). But if you came from humble beginnings, you might be able to get a job and eventually get yourself into the middle-class. If you were middle-class you could pass on something to your kids, who might do a little better than you did. The poor had something to shoot for--something that was attainable if jobs were present and unions kept wages high. Was it perfect? No, but it was workable.

Then this Rand meme grabbed the imagination of American conservatism and off to the races they went. Our current woes are rooted in the short-sightedness of the ruling economic and political classes. They are enabled by the general fecklessness of American liberalism which, at some point, forgot its organized labor roots and lost blue-collar Americans.

The thing that makes me shake my head is that it didn't and doesn't have to be this way. Good schools, a sense of shared sacrifice, a recognition that patriotism is far more than shouting "USA! USA!" and a willingness to actually, I don't know, apply the law to all and we could turn this around. That is why I appreciate what Moore and Van Jones are trying to do. They are trying to get the middle-class and the working-class to join up in a common cause so that those voices will be heard--or if they are summarily ignored, at least we know where we stand.

The political elite of a democratic republic that are not, at least, attuned to the will of the public is no longer either. It is probably safe to say that clear majorities of Americans believe that the oil companies should no longer have their subsidies, that corporations should not be able to hold their profits made offshore beyond the reach of the IRS, and that we should not be maintaining an imperial military abroad. Now, the question becomes will the political elites be responsive to that. If they aren't when the last fires are put out and the last kangaroo court has closed up shop, they will only have themselves to blame for the wreckage of the nation.

Do any of those folks look like people who want revolution for the sake of revolution? No. If those people didn't fear for their jobs, their homes, did not feel that every break went to the people at the top and corporations and thought that their children would do a little better than them that they would even turn out? I don't think they would.

"I am on the social-democratic left with regard to domestic economic policy: “democratic” because I do not see how one can fully nationalize an economy without creating an enormous and repressive state apparatus, “social-democratic” because I believe that without a measure of practical equality with regard to fundamental human needs, freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose." (Michael Berube)

Cheers
Aj

[Ebon]

Original Article

Bachmann Signs Anti-Porn Pledge Saying Blacks Were Better Off During Slavery

Avatar for Irin Carmon Irin Carmon —Bachmann Signs Anti-Porn Pledge Saying Blacks Were Better Off During SlaveryMichele Bachmann, it will not shock you to learn, is the first Republican candidate to sign a pledge to be the most socially conservative candidate to walk the plains of Iowa. The document itself is a thing of beauty.

As an artifact of the current socially conservative philosophy, the tenets are nothing new — anti-gay, anti-choice, obsessed with sexual mores — but it's notable in its pseudo-feminist language and bizarre references to science. A casual observer might accidentally mistake it for something other than bigotry.

Think Progress points out that the pledge includes an anti-pornography call; we'd add that it lumps it in with sex slavery, trafficking, and abortion under "humane protection for women and the innocent fruits of conjugal intimacy." With this, and all the talk of "stolen innocence," and the conflation of women in combat roles with sexual exploitation and sexual harassment with Don't Ask Don't Tell (really), women are given roughly the same amount of agency as embryos.

Speaking of biology, look who's anti-science now! You are, gays who were born this way.

Jack and Jill Politics also points out the creepy and racist language about African American families:

Slavery had a disastrous impact on African-American families, yet sadly a child born into slavery in 1860 was more likely to be raised by his mother and father in a two-parent household than was an African-American baby born after the election of the USA's first African-American President.

"Given that families were broken up regularly for sales during slavery and that rape by masters was pretty common, this could not be more offensive," writes Cheryl Contee. Surely we can blame this on the gays.

[AtLast]

The continuing drama "on the Hill" over the debt-ceiling is one BIG piece of political shit going on. Here is an OpEd from the Post that is interesting in terms of Obama invoking the 14th Amendment and ordering the Treasury to lift it by Executive Order. I know very well that this would errupt into calls for impeachment (plus who knows what else- he is taken to task for going to the bathroom as far as I'm concerned) by the GOP, yet, it does call out the ultra-right and the Tea Party congressional members on all their "get back to the Constitution" line of bull. I saw vander Heuvel interviewed about this piece last night and as usual, she has some damn good points!

Invoke-the-14th Katrina vanden Heuvel

Editor and publisher of the Nation magazine, vanden Heuvel writes a weekly column for The Post.



http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinio...emailtoafriend

[Melissa]

Originally Posted by AtLastHome

Now, here is a blog that represents the worst of the worst in the homophobic poliotical realm- And this article is centered on the B-F dynamic specifically!

http://baptistsforbrown2008.wordpres...mme-sodomites/

This is a satire site. Click on some of the links. The link to the no sin zone is a hoot.

Melissa

[Jess]

from: http://www.tampabay.com/news/environ...cle1180112.ece

fav quotes in red

Everybody knows what the tea party members oppose. High taxes. Big government. Obama's health care plan. High-speed rail.

Now, for at least some local tea party members, there's one more to add: manatee protection.

A Citrus County tea party group has announced that it's fighting new restrictions on boating and other human activities in Kings Bay that have been proposed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

"We cannot elevate nature above people," explained Edna Mattos, 63, leader of the Citrus County Tea Party Patriots, in an interview. "That's against the Bible and the Bill of Rights."

Federal officials "want to restrict the entire bay," she contended. "They don't want people here."

Last week, Mattos, who says she has 800 members signed up on her group's website, and other tea party members picketed outside a public hearing on the new rules. Because they weren't allowed to bring their signs inside, she said, "my anger took over" and she sent a sharply worded e-mail to thousands of tea party members across Florida, urging them to write to Congress to block the Fish and Wildlife Service.

Then, on Tuesday, Barbara Bartlett, who identified herself as a tea party member, told the Hernando County Commission that the federal wildlife agency had no business sticking its nose into Citrus County. But parts of Kings Bay have been a federal wildlife refuge since 1980.

Tea party members are far from alone in opposing the new rules. The Crystal River City Council and Citrus County Commission contend the new regulations will be bad for the local economy.

Kings Bay, famed as the one place in Florida where humans can swim with and even touch the manatees, is facing a renewed battle over how much protection for manatees is too much. That argument has been going on there since Jacques Cousteau featured Kings Bay's manatees in his 1972 documentary Forgotten Mermaids.

When the first sanctuary rules were put in place in 1980, there were about 100 manatees there. Now federal officials estimate that more than 550 manatees use the bay year-round, and in the winter more than 100,000 people show up in Crystal River to see them.

But of the 16 boat-related deaths that have occurred in Kings Bay, 13 happened in the past decade, and half of those were in the summer.

"I don't know of a more dangerous place for manatees in the summer," said Pat Rose of the Save the Manatee Club.

New rules proposed by the wildlife agency last month would end the controversial summer water sport zone, which allowed fast-moving boats to zoom through Kings Bay.

If approved, all of Kings Bay would become a refuge, and a set of temporary rules posted by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service this winter would become permanent. The rules enabled the federal agency to establish closed areas or other rules anywhere in the bay, as situations arise.

For instance, federal officials can establish temporary no-entry areas lasting up to two weeks if a cold front hits before the manatee season begins, or after the manatee season has closed, to prevent manatees from being harassed in Kings Bay. They're accepting public comments on the proposal through Aug. 22.

To Mattos, what the agency has proposed will erode private property rights. She predicted they will prevent people who own waterfront land from tying up boats at their docks "because you can't have anything that interferes with the manatee because they'll get trampled on."

Rose called that argument "dead wrong." People whose property sits on a manatee sanctuary — where boat traffic is not allowed — may have to get stickers on their boats allowing them exclusive access, but that's it, he said.

Current regulations have helped boost the manatee population from 100 to 500, so clearly they're sufficient, Mattos said. In fact, in her view, the manatee rules tie in to global development issues.

"We believe that (federal regulators') aim is to control the fish and wildlife, in addition to the use of the land that surrounds this area, and the people that live here and visit. … As most of us know, this all ties in to the United Nations' Agenda 21 and Sustainability."

Agenda 21 is a program, adopted by the U.N. in 1992, to encourage countries around the world to promote only development that does not harm nature. Pundit Glenn Beck and other conservatives have attacked it as an attempt to impose world government's rules on every aspect of American lives. The Citrus County tea party group's website says Agenda 21 is "designed to make humans into livestock."

Mattos said she enjoys showing off the manatees to her grandchildren, but she had little use for the Save the Manatee Club, explaining, "If some of these environmental movements had been around in the days of the dinosaurs, we'd be living in Jurassic Park now."

Times staff writers Barbara Behrendt and Logan Neill and Times researcher Caryn Baird contributed to this report.

[tapu]

Originally Posted by Melissa

I always want to write to these people and say, since heterosexual men statistically rape women and molest children in higher numbers than any other group we should just ban all heterosexual men from the classroom.

Melissa

That reminds me of something I ran across in print a while ago: Let's put all men in jail. We'll get rid of nearly all violent crime, and there won't be any spit on the streets.

[dreadgeek]

I remember, when all of this Tea Party stuff started a couple of years back, I recall Tea Party spokespeople, their apologists and fellow travelers all saying that the TP was in no way identical to the Republican party. Can someone explain to me, since the Tea Party seems to match the GOP agenda of the last two decades word-for-word, how they are different?

Originally Posted by Jess

from:
"We cannot elevate nature above people," explained Edna Mattos, 63, leader of the Citrus County Tea Party Patriots, in an interview. "That's against the Bible and the Bill of Rights."

Against the Bible, I'm willing to believe but against the Bill of Rights? Really? How many times does this or that ultra-conservative have to get a non-trivial point of Constitutional content or American history completely, utterly, totally wrong before people will stop believing the myth that conservatives but not liberals, are the true keepers of the American flame?

The Citrus County tea party group's website says Agenda 21 is "designed to make humans into livestock."

Mattos said she enjoys showing off the manatees to her grandchildren, but she had little use for the Save the Manatee Club, explaining, "If some of these environmental movements had been around in the days of the dinosaurs, we'd be living in Jurassic Park now."

Make humans into livestock? Really? When will the media start calling this kind of stuff out for the absolutely insanity it most manifestly is?

Cheers
Aj

[tapu]

Originally Posted by softness

now thats some crazy %$)*!!!

I could hear people try to argue that he isnt being homophobic because he didnt attack gays just because we are gay...he attacked us because we werent legally married in a traditional way. He was inclusive to add single women who arent married but are pregnant...

oh but wait Sir...why just the women? What about the male teacher who impregnates someone without benefit of marraige...

no?

so, its not gays and hetero unmarried couples you are after...

its gays and single het women.

hmmm....

And the straight women have to be pregnant to get banned? So it doesn't count if unmarried people are having sex, or if married people are having sex with someone other than their spouse. I'm afraid that, pretty quick here, there will be no one qualified to be a teacher.

[Nat]

This racist, sexist viral political ad against Janice Hahn backfired. Some are speculating the ad helped her win due to it's offensiveness.

It made my head spin. :/

[*Anya*]

Sometimes I am embarrassed to be an American. My head does spin around when I read and hear shit like this. I have family in the UK that just can't believe some of the for-real things that they hear about us!

Honestly, I can't either. The Tea-baggers, oh excuse me, the "Tea Party" is such a joke. The truly sorry thing is that they have the following that they do and that so many Americans do not have critical-thinking skills and whatever that they hear on Fox news- they take as the truth.

I am fixing my hair right now (as femmes are wont to do) & listening to a new political add on CNN. A big load of BS to me but I know right now someone else listening is saying: "Oh, yes, that is true".

[AtLast]

Originally Posted by Nat

This racist, sexist viral political ad against Janice Hahn backfired. Some are speculating the ad helped her win due to it's offensiveness.

It made my head spin. :/

GOOD! Keep the back-firing going! Sometimes I still can get a little hope going in the midst of what is going on in the US political machine.

I fear that the 2012 General is going to be a brutal mess with this kind of garbage. And there are so many people hurting in the US. People that deserve a government that gives a damn about most of us being able to just live and work and take care of our families.

Get ready for more racist ads- these jerks won't stop.

[Corkey]

Originally Posted by AtLastHome

GOOD! Keep the back-firing going! Sometimes I still can get a little hope going in the midst of what is going on in the US political machine.

I fear that the 2012 General is going to be a brutal mess with this kind of garbage. And there are so many people hurting in the US. People that deserve a government that gives a damn about most of us being able to just live and work and take care of our families.

Get ready for more racist ads- these jerks won't stop.

I love the mute button personally.

[AtLast]

Any one else having a hard time with the debt-ceiling fiasco going on? I have had it with the political posturing (of both major parties, although the GOP wins my assbite award) and lack of regard for the real fear that the common people in the US will face if it is not raised. This is no joke.

Then again, if we default and services cease- it will probably take not being able to buy beer or cigerettes to get people to demand action- just like in Minnisota right now. Can you believe this? Social services that are to protect kids, police protection and fire services, etc. don't matter as much as these 2things do?

Sometimes I just want to scream!!!

[tapu]

Originally Posted by AtLastHome

Any one else having a hard time with the debt-ceiling fiasco going on? I have had it with the political posturing (of both major parties, although the GOP wins my assbite award) and lack of regard for the real fear that the common people in the US will face if it is not raised. This is no joke.

Then again, if we default and services cease- it will probably take not being able to buy beer or cigerettes to get people to demand action- just like in Minnisota right now. Can you believe this? Social services that are to protect kids, police protection and fire services, etc. don't matter as much as these 2things do?

Sometimes I just want to scream!!!

Yes. I was talking to someone here recently about the reasons behind the lack of activism--or even acknowledgment--that is evident in the people suffering the most from this recession. It took a depression last time before people rebelled. I've been looking for the seeds of uprising on the net but there's not a lot of cohesiveness yet. I want to jump on something when I can find a group that seems capable of organizing something with impact.

[Corkey]

http://maddowblog.msnbc.msn.com/_new...882-muzzle-tov

Can't help it, this cracked me up!

[AtLast]

Originally Posted by tapu

Yes. I was talking to someone here recently about the reasons behind the lack of activism--or even acknowledgment--that is evident in the people suffering the most from this recession. It took a depression last time before people rebelled. I've been looking for the seeds of uprising on the net but there's not a lot of cohesiveness yet. I want to jump on something when I can find a group that seems capable of organizing something with impact.

yes, there needs to be a rebellion other than the Tea Party crowd. A common sense, reality-based rebellion that believes in compromise and working together without all the damn political posturing. I'm so sick of everything being about the nearest election cycle and who will win. No one is winning.

Congress has actually had 7 months to deal with the areas being discussed during this insane debt-ceiling debate. It should not even be debated!!

[Vanessa Emma Goldman]

Originally Posted by MsDemeanor

I'm not surprised. This is just the sort of thing that sexual repression does to folks.

Remember, the GOP is lead by people who keep getting caught in (same and opposite) sex scandals, practice serial marriage ("honey, I know you're kinda busy here in this hospital bed, but I want a divorce"), use taxpayer dollars to visit girlfriends in other countries, hold fundraisers at lesbian bondage clubs, and held a convention in Tampa, aka the Strip Club Capital of America.

linkyloo

The GOP is PINO - Puritanical in Name Only.

yep, the Republicans are the party of "Do as we say, not as we do!"