The Watering Hole, Monday, November 30, 2015: And The Right Just Keeps On Lying

This past Friday, a lunatic with a gun he no doubt purchased legally opened fire outside a Planned Parenthood facility in Colorado Springs, CO, killing three people, including a police officer responding to reports of shots fired at the clinic. From the beginning, the Right began lying about what happened and why it happened. They tried to say it had nothing to do with Planned Parenthood or abortion, and that the shooter just happened to pick that nearby building to take cover. That was not true. The entire incident took place at the Planned Parenthood facility. They tried to say it started out as a bank robbery, but that was also untrue. The shooter started shooting at Planned Parenthood and when police cars started arriving on the scene, he started shooting at them. As some took cover behind a nearby Chase bank, the shooter took shots at them. That’s how the bank robbery lie started. After he was arrested and identified, the Right tried to claim the shooter was transgendered, and a Leftist (they love using that word, “Leftist.” It’s so close to calling us “Communists” and, as we all know, Communism is Pure Evil. And since “Leftist” sounds like “Communist,” that leans Leftists must be evil, too. See how easy it is to be a Conservative? No thinking required.) The same voter registration form from which they determined he used to be female (it was an obvious typo) also listed his party affiliation as Unaffiliated. As for why he did it, the police have not released any official determination, but it has been widely repeated in the media that one cop said the shooter had muttered something about “no more baby parts” as he was being led into custody. This would appear to be a reference to the debunked videos which were purported by their publishers to show Planned Parenthood personnel negotiating the sale of human fetal tissue, but which actually, showed no such thing at all due to their being deceptively edited.

And yet the Right refuses to acknowledge that fact. Just yesterday morning, Chris Wallace of Fox News Sunday allowed Carly Fiorina to further the false claim that the videos were legitimate and showed that Planned parenthood was selling baby parts. She also lied and said that they announced they would stop selling fetal tissues which would imply that they were doing so before. Again, a lie. What Planned Parenthood actually said was that they would no longer accept reimbursement for the costs of providing the tissue for medical research, which is all they were accepting money for in the first place. But Wallace just let Fiorina lie as if it was of no consequence. Even the Fox News article to which I just linked is in denial about the videos:

The attack thrust the clinic to the center of the ongoing debate over Planned Parenthood, which was reignited in July when anti-abortion activists released undercover video they said showed the organization’s personnel negotiating the sale of fetal organs.

I suppose you could say that, technically, there isn’t anything untrue about what they wrote, other than that it’s incomplete and makes no mention of them being deceptively edited. But because of that deception, there are people believing exactly what the video producers wanted them to believe – that Planned Parenthood was aborting fetuses for the purpose of selling off the body parts for profit. What other purpose would there be to making the videos?

What’s worse is that it’s impossible to deny that someone violently opposed to abortion might use that misinformation as justification to start shooting people at a clinic where abortions might be performed (though in much, much smaller numbers than the person believing the first lie might think true.) Liberals tend not to use violence against people to protest their views, but Conservatives have been known to do it many, many times in this country’s history. If heard and reported accurately, the reference the shooter made to “baby parts” is a direct reference to the doctored videos, which means the people who made those videos, as well as the media organizations that promoted them as undisputed fact, and even including the presidential candidates who intentionally lied about the videos’ content, share responsibility for the murders those videos incited. They can’t have it both ways. They can’t deliberately manipulate peoples’ emotions in a way certain to drive them to anger, and them claim no responsibility when they act on that anger and good people die. This can’t be allowed.

Nor can it be allowed that we not discuss how easy it is for such gun violence to happen in the first place. The gun supporters say there isn’t anything you can do about that, but there is. And it’s perfectly constitutional. You can tax the manufacture of guns. Put a $5,000 or even a $25,000 non-refundable tax on the manufacture of every handgun. The gun manufacturers would pay this tax as soon as they make the gun, and not when they sell it. This is perfectly legal and perfectly constitutional. Part of the problem has been that gun makers made excessive amounts of guns and then have to find ways to dump them off somewhere. And they know they can, so there’s no real downside to over-manufacturing. Unless you have to pay to do it and may never recover the taxes you pay to make the guns. No, it doesn’t solve the problem entirely, but it makes a lot of it go away. And that’s reason enough to try. Conservatives won’t see it that way. They’ll find some ridiculous reason based on the concept that this won’t stop all gun violence, and wouldn’t have stopped the Colorado shooting, so why bother? That’s why conservatives are part of the problem.

This is our daily open thread. Have fun with it.

The Watering Hole, Saturday, November 28th, 2015: Planned Parenthood Under Attack

Planned Parenthood is always under some kind of attack, whether by the religious-right forced-birthers protesting outside PP offices, or by the Republican-led legislature’s ginned-up witch hunts about fetal tissue, or by the many states’ impositions of prohibitively strict restrictions on both clinics and patients. This time, however, the attack was physical, violent, and deadly.

“Sneak Preview” of cover of Denver Post for Saturday, 11/28/15 (from Twitter)

It’s nearly 3:30am Eastern Time as I’m typing this, and right now the most up-to-date information seems to be from the Denver Post. They’ve assembled a timeline of the more than five-hour shooting/standoff here. A third Denver Post article paints a more vivid picture of the unfolding situation, including this tidbit that I haven’t seen anywhere else:

“At roughly 12:15, the gunman went inside Planned Parenthood and began firing out the windows at propane tanks placed around the clinic’s parking lot, an officer told dispatch over his radio.”

Now, other articles mentioned that the police were sorting through several items that the suspect had brought with him, including mention of ‘a propane tank.’ Nothing about more than one tank, or that any were “placed around the clinic’s parking lot” – but that could explain why most articles say the shooting started outside the Planned Parenthood offices, in the parking lot. Supposedly [it was reported somewhere, I forget where] the suspect had been shooting at cars passing by, possibly if any of the drivers noticed what he was doing. But I’m just speculating here, which I shouldn’t be doing. That, apparently, is the job of the TV ‘news’ media. We turned on the TV after we initially read about the shooting as it was happening, but turned it off again after hearing some of the inane questions and ‘we-don’t-want-to-speculate-but-we-have-to’ bumbling.

Of course there will be much more information available by the time I wake up later this morning–hell, probably even by the time I finish writing this. So I’m definitely not going to speculate about the shooting suspect’s motive(s), or his religion, or his political persuasion; when the information comes out, I’m sure there will be much ranting to follow. I just need to get this one little rant off my chest before I finally go to bed:

Back in September, Illinois Republican Rep. Adam Kinzinger had spoken about the now-debunked videos purportedly showing PP “harvesting” fetal tissue for fun and profit:

“I mean it’s Nazi Germany,” he told Rockford radio station WROK recently. “You think of the doctors in the concentration camps experimenting on their victims. It’s kind of reminiscent of that.”

The fact that the ‘smoking-gun’ videos were proven to be fraudulent didn’t deter Kinzinger from throwing them up again, with amazingly tone-deaf, brain-dead timing. From one of the ThinkProgress articles covering the shooting:

“While the shooter was active inside the Planned Parenthood clinic, Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) went on live TV and blasted the organization. “We saw these barbaric videos, and that was something that many of us have a legitimate concern about,” Kinzinger said.”

Yes. He said that while the shooting spree was in progress; while police officers were being shot at; while at least 100 people were huddling in fear, not just in the Planned Parenthood offices, but in nearby shops and buildings; while a shooter terrorized the area. And he said it as if having “a legitimate concern about” Planned Parenthood could somehow be a “legitimate” cause or reason or excuse for shooting and killing innocent people.

This is our daily Open Thread–have at it.

The Watering Hole, Friday November 27, 2015 – Music Night

Russian Eyes, from the Spanish band Limbotheque.

 

The Watering Hole; Friday November 27 2015; Happy “Holidays”

Far from the madding crowd’s ignoble strife,
Their sober wishes never learn’d to stray;
Along the cool sequester’d vale of life
They kept the noiseless tenor of their way.
(Thomas Gray, from Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard)

The Holiday Season has officially begun, and here, in all its glory, is the season’s formal (2015) Colorado debut on Thanksgiving Eve — the view (from my front door) of . . .

. . . The Sky Over the Front Range’s 13,000 ft. Greenhorn Peak.

It’s sad that humans don’t have the soul of Mother Nature. If we did, maybe we could all avoid the nonsensical ‘Holiday’ blather, including all that (alleged) ‘War on Christmas’ gibberish, and maybe even the ‘shop till you drop!’ and ‘spend spend spend!’ urgings with which the mass media firebombs us for close to forty days and forty nights — each and every year — right about this time.

Still, it only took the other night’s singular event — when the sky literally exploded in full color on the eve before Thanksgiving — to remind me of days long gone, even to suggest it might be worth maybe a moment’s peek at old photo files . . . ?  In years past, you see, we made it an annual point to spend as many days and nights as possible —  especially during the “Holiday Season” — away from the city and every bit as “Far from the madding crowd’s ignoble strife” as we could manage. Following are a handful of ‘sky’ photos from some of those years, each and all of which offer that hoped-for PROOF that Nature can NEVER be as boring as is human’s recurrent ‘celebratory’ world.

— Sunrise over Arizona’s Superstition Mountains; Nov. 2001 —

— Sonoran Desert Sunrise; Nov. 2002 —

— Four Peaks and the Mazatzals from Phoenix Mtn. Preserve; Nov. 2003 —

— Sonoran Desert Sunrise; Dec. 2005 —

— Sunset, White Tank Mountains, Arizona; Dec. 2006 —

— Gathering storm, Sierra Mojada, Colorado; New Years Day, 2009 —

So that’s how Nature celebrates the Holidays in each of two dramatically different corners of the American West. Might I assume she does much the same everywhere else as well? I’m guessing . . . ummmm . . . yes? 🙂

There still (sadly) remains, however, that ‘other’ side of the coin, the human side, the ‘Holiday Season’ side that has, over the centuries, evolved to accommodate huge numbers of zealots who (a) give thanks to their (Christian) God for the blessings that result from their (always bountiful?) harvests, and (b) demand celebration of the birth of their (Christian) God’s  (alleged) son. One might think, therefore, that their included ‘Holydays’ would be a time of tolerance, of kindness, of understanding, even a time of love. Instead, what’s come to pass is a month’s worth of commercialism, blended with various levels of accusatory hate- and fear-mongering against ‘outliers’ everywhere. So while some sceptics might find their ‘Holiday Season’ tirades entertaining (see, e.g., ‘Oppression Of America’s Churches’ Reminiscent Of Nazi Germany), I’ve decided to make MY choice be something more like this (once again) view from my front door:

— Greenhorn Peak, December 2008 —

No fear, no hate, no oppression, no Christers, no Nazis, only the Great ‘Out There.’ My OUR world, the one that reminds — always — that

The boast of heraldry, the pomp of pow’r,
And all that beauty, all that wealth e’er gave,
Awaits alike th’ inevitable hour:
The paths of glory lead but to the grave.
(Thomas Gray)

Meanwhile, Happy Holidays!

OPEN THREAD

The Watering Hole; Thursday November 26 2015; Thanks (for) Giving

In 1863, President Abraham Lincoln declared the fourth Thursday in November to be a day of “Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens.” ‘Thanksgiving’ was first celebrated by the Pilgrims in 1621 after their successful ‘first harvest’ in the New World; the celebration lasted for three days back then. Those concepts have pretty much dissipated over the last several decades, however, to the point where these days Thanksgiving — still the fourth Thursday in November — means a day off, a turkey dinner, and the start of the so-called ‘Holiday Season’  and its ‘shop till you drop’ commercial mentality.

This year, another factor has entered the room and, thanks to its high volume political campaign (Republican, of course) rhetoric, has infected the holiday with an almost surreal contagion of unadulterated and largely irrational fear — a fear of terrorism; of ISIL; of Islam; of Muslims everywhere; and most prominently, the fear of Syrian refugees, especially those trying to obtain sanctuary in America: TERRORISTS!!

So in response, virtually every Republican governor along with one Democratic governor have publicly proclaimed their state as being OFF LIMITS! to all Syrian refugees who are of course most likely NOT innocent people, but are Muslim extremists or radical Islamists who are out to kill Americans! And they’re all part of Obama’s sinister plot to bring on Shariah Law . . . etc.

Fear. Hopefully it can be made to lead to hatred, then to more fear, maybe help a Republican get elected as President next year so we can Save America!!

Thanksgiving.  “Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens” — for protecting us from those evil evil terrorists?

There is another side to that coin, however. Imagine it: NO fear, NO hatred, simply the goal, the desire, to help those who truly need help, to provide those refugee families with a safe and secure — and comfortable — surround; the surround which most Americans consider their birthright. And most impressively, some are offering to help even in spite of their own governor’s completely irrational position. Here, below, the perfect example — a letter from Michael Moore to (Michigan) Governor Snyder: ‘I myself am going to defy your ban’:

Dear Gov. Snyder:

I just wanted to let you know that, contrary to your declaration of denying Syrian refugees a home in our state of Michigan, I myself am going to defy your ban and will offer MY home in Traverse City, Michigan, to those very Syrian refugees you’ve decided to keep out. I will contact the State Department to let them know I am happy to provide a safe haven to any Syrian refugee couple approved by the Obama administration’s vetting procedures in which I have full faith and trust.

Your action is not only disgraceful, it is, as you know, unconstitutional (only the President has the legal right to decide things like this).

What you’ve done is anti-American. This is not who we are supposed to be. We are, for better and for worse, a nation of descendants of three groups: slaves from Africa who were brought here in chains and then forced to provide trillions of dollars of free labor to build this country; native peoples who were mostly exterminated by white Christians through acts of mass genocide; and immigrants from EVERYWHERE around the globe. In Michigan we are fortunate to count amongst us tens of thousands of Arab and Muslim Americans.

I’m disappointed in you, Governor Snyder, for your heartless and un-Christian actions, and for joining in with at least 25 other governors (all but one a Republican) who’ve decided to block legal Syrian refugees from coming into their states. Fortunately I’m an American and not a Republican.

Governor, count me out of whatever you think it means to be a Michigander. I look forward to welcoming Syrians to my home and I wholeheartedly encourage other Americans to do the same.

Michael Moore

P.S. By the way, my 700-sq. ft. apartment in northern Michigan is a little small, but it’s got cable, wi-fi and a new dishwasher! Also, no haters live on my floor! Stop by any time for a hot chocolate this winter.

Finally. A genuine reason to celebrate Thanksgiving in 2015. I will, however, change the word — slightly — in honor of Michael Moore and all like him.

Thanks for Giving!

Imagine it, if you dare. A world free of fear and hate, a world filled instead with caring and generosity for all people, especially for those less fortunate, those struggling for the simple joy of leading a peaceful life. It can happen, apparently.

Just never ask a Republican to help make it possible because, as Rep. Steve King points out, Muslim immigrants are ‘incompatible’ with Americanism

OPEN THREAD

The Watering Hole, Wednesday, November 25, 2015. WWIII

The attacks in Paris have made one thing abundantly clear: we are in World War III.

It started with a singular incident: the attack on American soil against civilian and military targets. The World Trade Centers represented imperialist capitalism. The Pentagon represented imperialist militarism. Together, they represented the worst of the American Empire.

If the attacks on 9/11 were a false flag attack, as has been committed by governments before, designed to whip the populace into its place through fear and prejudice, it worked. People gladly gave up civil liberties and signed up to go to war. The rule of law was suspended. Torture of the enemy, accepted. Anything – anything for the illusion of safety. Including war. Invading two sovereign countries. Killing hundreds of thousands of civilians. Acceptable. Why? Because – terrorists.

If the attacks of 9/11 were committed by a small group of militant revolutionaries in the Middle East, it worked. The strike against the symbols of moneyed capitalists and war-mongering imperialists generated the expected response: war. A new Crusade. Carnage so abominable as to attract thousands to rally to the side of the revolutionaries.

The megapowers of the world pounded their might against civilian populations. The populace responded the only way possible. Car bombs. Improvised Explosive Devises. Suicide bombers. The fought on their homeland.

Until now. (at least, a ‘now’ that the western media recognizes.) Now, they’ve taken the fight to the enemy. They’ve attacked and killed civilians in the Capital of France. Other attacks are occurring around the globe.

The War on Terror is World War III.

PETER NEUMANN, Director, International Center for the Study of Radicalization, King’s College:

 I think there are three aims here. The first is classical asymmetric warfare — warfare. You’re hitting us. We’re going to take revenge by hitting you where it hurts most, namely at home.

The second intention is really to polarize and to divide European societies, to create that sense of Islam against the West, and to create a lot of mess in the countries that they oppose.

The third intention that often gets forgotten is also internally. I think the Islamic State has been on the defensive in its core territory in Iraq and Syria.

 OPEN THREAD

UPDATE – This occurred after this post was drafted:
http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2015/11/turkey-shoots-down-russian-warplane-close-syria-border

The Watering Hole, Tuesday November 24, 2015 – Happy Healthy Thanksgiving

Came across food blog from Self. Some excellent healthy alternatives.

Having the family over for T-Day. Hope you all enjoy yours. As holidays go, it is my favorite.

Be well.

The Watering Hole, Monday, November 23rd, 2015: NatGeo, Take Me Away!

I can’t deal with “Ugly Americans” [of course, “Ugly Americans” = “Republican Presidential Candidates and their Fans/Supporters”] anymore; we keep thinking, “How can these guys sink so low?”, then, the next hour or day or week, one or two or several of them come out with such outrageous shit that we really need a new word to define what circle of hell lies beyond “outrageous” or “horrific” or “despicable” or “abhorrent” or “inhuman” – sorry, I need more words!

And I’ve had it up to HERE with the holidays being turned into meaningless “shop-’til-you-drop” commercialism [how about if “Black Friday” could be turned into “Black Lives Matter Friday” – hell, make every day of the entire Thanksgiving/Christmas holiday shopping season a day of protests]. So I’m going with some beautiful photos from National Geographic to start the week.

Here’s some pretty birds, from “A Flight of Birds”, a section of NatGeo’s Photo Ark, including a photo capturing the iridescent plumage of the Purple Glossy Starling, such as seen below,

and a more close-up shot of the Javan Rhinoceros Hornbill, like the one seen below:

And if you prefer a larger gallery for leisurely viewing, here’s more from NatGeo’s 2015 Photo Contest. The “Week 10” group includes a brooding sunset photo of Godafoss Waterfall in Iceland – here’s a chilly winter shot of the falls, just to start the calming process:

This is our daily Open Thread – enjoy the views or rant away – or you can do both!

Sunday Roast: Adele…again

Yeah, I know!  I just did an Adele post a couple weeks ago!  But it’s different now, because her new album, 25, is out.  This means the whole world is a different place now, which calls for another Adele post.

Too over the top…?  Whatever, dude!  At least I didn’t pull a cringe-worthy Wasilla Grifter stunt.  Ugh.

This is our daily open thread — I missed music night, so post your tunes!

The Watering Hole, Saturday, November 21, 2015: When Being Afraid Just Doesn’t Help

Fear is not always a bad thing. It plays an important role in our evolution as a species. Evolution, BTW, is a fact of Science.

As Bill Nye says, there’s no reason to doubt it. None. And there certainly isn’t any reason to teach your kids Creationism as a valid theory in its place. Creationism is not Science. It doesn’t propose testable hypotheses. It simply tells you what is supposed to have happened and then tells you, “Believe this, or else.” I agree with Nye that one of the worst things you can do to your kids is to teach them that Creationism explains how we got here.

But fear is not always a good thing, either. Erick Erickson (who has blocked me on the twitter https://twitter.com/EWErickson ) is afraid, but not for any good reasons. He says that he won’t go see the new Star Wars movie because…well, here’s what he posted on his website [And, yes, I’m posting it in its entirety. Sue me.]

I’m really glad I didn’t get tickets on opening day to see Star Wars. Seriously.

I have no confidence in this Administration to keep us all safe, particularly in light of President Obama’s statement today that there’s really no way to stop this stuff.

There are no metal detectors at American theaters.

I think I’ll wait till Star Wars is less a threat scenario.

His post is titled, without irony, “Truth be told…”. Except, where did he get the idea that his hometown theater in Macon, GA, is under credible threat of attack? And why would terrorists, of any nationality or religious affiliation, choose the premiere of Star Wars to launch an attack? And for him to say that he has “no confidence in this Administration to keep us all safe” is a very disingenuous thing to say, because as a Conservative, he already believes the world is a dangerous place and always will be. It’s true that the world is dangerous, and there will always be dangers that will never go away (such as climate change and Fox News Channel), but we Liberals believe that it can be made safer from certain dangers, like fear and ignorance. Through education people can be taught to overcome their fears and to think before acting. President Obama is right to say that attacks like the ones in Paris are never going to be stopped entirely, especially if you want to live as the free people we are. Being free means being free to do things that could harm others. To deter these acts, we institute laws with punishments for violating them. And it works for the vast majority of people. But no law will stop someone who doesn’t care if he lives or dies, and this is true whether the person is motivated by extreme hatred of a certain ethnicity or skin color or by religious fundamentalism. And the only way to eliminate those kinds of attacks entirely is turn this country into a police state, where you would be stopped on the street and forced to show the cop your papers permitting you to walk around freely. And none of us wants that, Liberal or Conservative. And Erickson’s saying this for one reason, and one reason only (if you don’t count the other reasons like he’s stupid, and ill-informed, and six or seven other things): He wants you to be afraid. And he doesn’t want you to stop and think. Because when you stop and think, you realize there is nothing to fear. Because if he thinks metal detectors are going to stop would-be religious extremists from gunning down the very audience in which he and his family sit, then he’s forgetting how the Aurora, CO, theater shooter propped open an emergency exit so he could retrieve his weapons from his car and return to the theater to massacre people. A metal detector at the front entrance would not have made any difference there, would it? But simple reasoning like that doesn’t stop Conservatives in or out of government from trying to gin up fears where there is no rational reason to fear. Conservatives love hyping ridiculous conspiracy theories to keep people afraid. And as we all know, people who are afraid make bad decisions. Like voting for Conservatives to govern them.

The danger in all of this fear mongering is that when ACTUAL dangers come along, ACTUAL things that could kill much but not all of humanity, and both for the same reason – Evolution – people are not going to respond to it thoughtfully and rationally. Or they will dismiss it because none of the other world’s-gonna-die stories turned out to be true (on account of they were made up out of bullshit ideas.) And billions could die. I’m not trying to monger up any fear, I’m trying to point out a legitimate danger that could result in massive amounts of people dying. I learned something the other day and it should give you cause for concern. Not the fact that I learned something, I actually do that all the time without anyone being concerned. I mean what I learned should make us rethink how we use antibiotics. There is an antibiotic called Colistin that is considered a last resort weapon to fight dangerous bacteria. And a study out of China suggests that certain bacteria may be developing a resistance to Colistin. Not only that, but some of these bacteria “have developed a mechanism to transfer resistance to neighboring bacteria. And those bacteria don’t even have to be the same strain as those that originally developed the resistance. So bacteria that cause other health problems could be affected.” This is a cause for concern, but let’s not panic and become fearful. The World Health Organization (Whooooo are they? Who? Who? Who? Who?) has developed an action plan to combat drug-resistant bacteria. The Obama Administration has also developed a plan to fight these dangerous bacteria, which became dangerous thanks to Evolution. Does that mean Evolution is dangerous? Well, it can be. I mean, we’re here because of Evolution, but we can also be replaced by more intelligent, more rational, and less fear-based versions of humans because of Evolution. And that wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing. But don’t worry, Conservatives. By the time that happens, you’ll be long gone. And that would definitely be a good thing.

This is our daily open thread. Feel free to discuss your fears, rational or not, or the fears of conservatives (almost always irrational), or anything else you want to discuss. Don’t be afraid. It’s okay. You have nothing to fear at The Zoo.

The Watering Hole, Friday November 20, 2015 – Music Night

Genre- bending…

 

 

The Watering Hole; Friday November 20 2015; American Darkness

Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me . . .

The Paris terrorist attacks of a week ago — Friday, November 13, 2015 — have served to again expose one of this country’s most deep-seated and extremely dark undercurrents: her penchant to accept hate and fear rather than intelligent analysis and action. As Obama has just recently pointed out, “We are not well served when, in response to a terrorist attack, we descend into fear and panic. We don’t make good decisions if its based on hysteria or an exaggeration of risks.” 

Here are just a small handful of current examples of that ‘descent into fear and panic‘ which has suddenly (?) come to drive the opinions of so many:

A Complete Guide To How The GOP Candidates Reacted To Syrian Refugees After The Paris Attacks

Tony Perkins: Refugee Resettlement Shows Obama & Liberals ‘Hate America’

Congress takes up Syrian refugee fight, starts slide toward shutdown

“There is not one voice of sanity among Republicans as they try to one-up each other in the xenophobia game.”

Paris Terror: Why ISIS Needs The ‘Useful Idiots’ Who Demonize Muslims

“Sadly the Republican candidates for president, and too many in their party, will seek to use this crisis as a partisan weapon against President Obama and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the leading Democratic presidential contender. They will charge the Obama administration with “weakness” even as American warplanes fly thousands of sorties against ISIS positions in Iraq and Syria. Such political attacks sound ridiculous to anyone familiar with the recent history of the Mideast. As a product of Al Qaeda in Iraq, ISIS rose directly from the ill-conceived invasion and occupation of that unfortunate country – and the fact that Clinton mistakenly voted to give George W. Bush the conditional authority to wage that war in no way makes her (or Obama) responsible for its botched execution.

“The social chaos, religious strife, and massive bloodshed resulting from the US invasion created fertile ground for a new terrorist movement. And as Washington Post reporter Joby Warrick explains in Black Flags, his authoritative new history of the rise of ISIS, the Bush administration elevated its founder, a minor Jordanian gangster named Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, into an international terrorist celebrity with its bogus claim that he represented a link between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden.”

And last but by no means least — and speaking of “Useful Idiots” —

Trump crosses the Nazi line: Maybe Muslims should wear special ID badges

Gee, Herr Donald. What could possibly go wrong?

It obviously doesn’t take a lot to bring America’s Dark Side to the forefront. I wonder why that is? Are we as a nation so uniformly burdened that irrational fear and hate are the only available option? Or maybe the burden is limited to just one segment of vociferous folks? A relatively low percentage? I recently saw somewhere — can’t name the source, unfortunately — the results of a current poll which asked, concerning the fate of Syrian refugees, whether the idea of allowing them entrance to the United States as refugees is supportable or not. I don’t remember the  precise result, but somewhere in the neighborhood of 55% said NO, no Syrian refugees, period. The percentage that said YES, do it, was somewhere above thirty but less than forty percent. The poll also noted that those who identified themselves as ‘Republican’ were far more likely to say NO! than were all others.

And with that view in mind, here are the results from another similar poll on a similar issue, a poll that was taken almost 76 years ago, in January of 1939:

Note that only slightly more said NO back then than now. I’m guessing those two surveys may well support what seems to be the obvious conclusion that in America, the percentage of people who are driven/defined by fear, hate, and greed doesn’t change much from century to century. Makes me think that perhaps the concept of “darkness” more clearly defines we the people than does the oft-quoted “gleaming city on the hill” meme (or however it goes).

So. With apologies to Emma Lazarus, I’m forced by the circumstances detailed above to slightly modify the last line in her famous and epic poem, ‘The New Colossus,’ to make it a bit more accurate:

 I lift douse my lamp beside the golden door

American Darkness thus defined.

OPEN THREAD

 

The Watering Hole; Thursday November 19 2015; A Thru Z of the G.O.P.

O wad some Power the giftie gie us
To see oursels as ithers see us!
It wad frae monie a blunder free us,
an’ foolish notion
What airs in dress an’ gait wad lea’e us,
an’ ev’n devotion!
(Robert Burns from ‘To a Louse’)

Sounds like a request from the RNC, doesn’t it? I mean, the G.O.P. really does need it, after all — the means To see oursels as ithers see us! — especially in view of their collective reactions to the recent Paris mass murders for which they have so far blamed everyone BUT the underlying cuplrit, best described as the subterranean politic that’s most ably portrayed, this day, by those images they each see every morning in their respective mirrors.

So here’s my contribution, the A thru Z of the way that at least one “ither” (moi) sees them all, the entire of the G.O.P., its presidential Clown Car occupants in particular:

America’s Bullish Contentiousness Demands
Expressions of Fear, Greed, Hatred, and
Irrationality, each Justified via
“Knowledge” of Luciferian and Messianic Nonsense,
Organized and Politicized
Quixotically by Republican Sociopathologists, via 
Tendentious Undercurrents of Vicarious and
Wistful Xenophobia.

Yeehaw!

Zap!

The G.O.P.’s post-Paris Expressions of Fear, Greed, Hatred, and Irrationality remind me of another era and an event depicted therein — one which well defines what should be sanity’s reaction to what *they* see as *their* subliminally ‘Germanic’ but nonetheless Star Spangled (Conservative) ‘Vaterland,’ including its Tendentious Undercurrents of Vicarious and Wistful Xenophobia:

Vive la France!

For some odd reason, both current and past events also bring to mind yet another Burns’ verse, one in which he perfectly describes today’s G.O.P. reaction to almost anything that happens anywhere on earth or beyond. This from “To a Mouse”:

But, Och! I backward cast my e’e.
On prospects drear!
An’ forward, tho’ I canna see,
I guess an’ fear!”

Amen and Yea Verily.

OPEN THREAD

The Watering Hole, Wednesday, November 18, 2015: Fighting Terrorism

I’m Briseadh na Faire, and I’m running for President.

Today’s topic du jour: Terrorism.

“For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.” Newton’s 3rd law of physics.

Yet this applies with equal, if not greater force, to social interactions, especially on the massed scale.

Terrorists act = governments react.

Both kill innocent civilians.

The equal and opposite reaction to anarchy is authoritarianism; to terrorism is torture; to drone strikes is suicide bombings; and the cycle continues.

The path is endless; oddly enough, perhaps necessary, at least until we address the problem of overpopulation. Poverty – lack of food, water, the basic necessities of life – is the stagnant pool from which terrorists are bred and recruited. The suicide bomber doesn’t hope in 72 virgins. He hopes in a better life for those he leaves behind. He has given up all hope in a better life for himself. So, in a perverse sort of way, these endless wars have a driving function to equalize population with available resources.

And therein lies the solution.

Fighting terrorists with authoritarianism, with bombs, with drone strikes, with tanks and boots on the ground never works. Terrorism is like the Hydra – cut off one head, two more grow in its place. It’s an ‘ism’ not a person, or even a group of persons. War, violence, extraordinary renditions, torture – these reactions by governments only create more terrorists.

(And terrorists, if they truly wanted to be revolutionaries – freedom fighters – would confine their attacks to military targets, thus garnering support instead of fear, from their civilian populations.)

To put an end to terrorism, we must first accept it will take some time. This cesspool was not created overnight – it will not be cleaned up overnight. We must take positive steps globally to address population control. And we must take positive steps globally to address the inequitable distribution of wealth.

We must live up to our ideals when it comes to the rule of law, and not cast aside protections for human rights for the sake of the illusion of security.

If a handful of people commit a heinous crime – does that justify turning away 10,000 innocent victims seeking refuge? If it does, we are the ones who have lost our way.

Once upon a time, we held the ideal that it was better to not convict 10 criminals than to send one innocent person to jail. Now, it seems to be better to send 10 innocent people to jail than release one criminal.

Governments react to terrorism with their own version of terrorism. While those in power stay in power this way (at least for awhile) it does not eliminate terrorism.

For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. The true equal and opposite reaction to terrorism is love. Love balances hate. Tolerance balances rejection. Acceptance balances exclusion. Faith balances fear.

And by faith, I do not mean religious faith – but faith in a positive outcome. The masses have yet to embrace this level of faith – the level of faith necessary to overcome the ‘us against them’ attitude; the level of faith necessary to not see everything as an attack against their religion. The masses are still controlled by the messages propagated by the few empowered from birth by the wealth of their progenitors.

Fight terrorism with love. It’s not a new idea. It’s just one that’s not been tried since the son of a carpenter suggested it some 2000 years ago.

I’m Briseadh na Faire, and I’m running for President (all satire aside); a vote for me is a vote that won’t be counted, because the two-party system has rigged the process to prevent the counting of write-in candidates who don’t jump through their hoops.

Meanwhile, there’s this:

OPEN THREAD

The Watering Hole, Tuesday November 17, 2015.

I can’t bring myself to post about the environment or food politics.

The events in France just overwhelm. Can’t think of one fundamentalist religion that has ever done the world one bit of good, ever. It’s the 21st Century. You would think people would be beyond this now. It has been quite evident for some time that people can act morally and humanistic-ally without religion. I just don’t see the draw.

Open thread

The Watering Hole, Monday, November 16, 2015: None So Blind

On Friday, November 13, at approximately 9:20 PM local time, a group of well-armed criminals began a mass murder of completely innocent people in Paris, France. There were people from many countries killed, including America. More than 120 people died, not counting the killers, at least two of whom detonated bomb vests killing themselves and one other person total. While suicide bombers attacked a stadium where the President of France was attending a football match, several kilometers across town gunmen opened fire on cafes and bars killing fifteen people. They got in their cars and calmly drove down the road where they got out and killed at least five more people dining in a restaurant terrace. Witnesses say they got in their cars and, again, drove away slowly, calmly. About a mile away they opened fire on an other establishment killing at least 19 people. A third group of attackers converged on a concert hall where an American rock band, Eagles of Death Metal, was performing. They began systematically shooting people and when the police arrived, they began a two-hour-forty-minute siege that ended with at least 89 innocent people losing their lives. Another suicide bomber detonated himself taking no one else with him. By about 12:30 AM local time (6:30 PM EST) it was over. In all, at least 129 innocent people were killed by these ruthless, deluded criminals. My heart goes out to their families and friends. I can’t pretend to know what going through something as horrific as this is like.

And, yes, I am calling them “criminals,” not the “t-word.” I refuse to frame these criminal acts the way the perpetrators want them portrayed. To do so would be to fight this conflict on their terms. They want people to be afraid, and the right wing in this country is giving them everything they want. They want the United States and its European allies to to begin flexing their military muscle and reign bombs down on millions of people, killing as many innocent people, preferably children, as possible. The bombing campaigns will then be used to recruit young, disillusioned, easily-brainwashed kids to become killing machines in an effort to exert more control over the people in the region. The recruiters are cowards, of course. They would never strap on a bomb vest and blow themselves up. They get others to do it. And, yes, they are systematically performing deadly acts meant to strike fear in a populace in order to effect political change and thus are, by definition, “terrorists.” Or so they claim. Either way, they are still criminals. And criminals are fought by the police, not by the army. You’ve heard the expression, “When all you have is a hammer, everything starts to look like a nail.” Well, in the same sense, when all you want to use is an army, everything happening around you starts to look like a war. This mindset has to stop.

Conservatives want to use nothing but the army to fight these criminals. They want us to constantly send our brave men and women in uniform (well, they would prefer the women stay behind, but that’s a topic for another post) off to fight fanatical criminals in faraway lands. People who, by the way, will almost certainly never be setting foot on our shores to do the things conservatives say they will do. They recruit other people to do that. The people we’re sending our troops to fight are terrorizing people in other countries. The only people being terrorized here are conservatives, especially the ones who watch Fox News Channel. And, as they so often do, they ignore history and reality to tell you not only who you should fear, but who you should blame for that fear. President Obama.

A little background before continuing. On September 11, 2001, a bunch of murderous criminals carried out a mass murder so effectively that we decided to forget we had a Constitution that gave us certain rights, and begin preparations for a military invasion of a country which had nothing whatsoever to do with those attacks. And to help convince the American people that this invasion was not only justified but absolutely necessary to the very survival of our own country, they used their friends at Fox News Channel to spread a few lies. By the time they were through, a majority of Fox News Viewers believed at least one, and sometimes all, of these three things to be true: 1) That Saddam Hussein had stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction (which ones were never quite clear); 2) That Saddam had a working relationship with al Qaeda – the people whom we blamed for the attacks of 9/11 – and that he was prepared to pass of his chemical weapons to them; or, 3) That Saddam and Iraq were involved with the planning or execution of the 9/11 attacks. At least half of all Fox News Channel viewers believed at least one of those things to be true. Not one of them is. And to this day, some conservatives out there still believe at least one of those three false things to be true. Eventually, Saddam was captured, put on trial for killing about 150 people, found guilty and executed. Saddam was a brutal dictator but because of that there wasn’t a problem with groups of wannabe terrorists roaming the country killing people. Once he was gone, his less brutal replacements were unable to stop the infiltration of Iraq by al Qaeda. And the presence of al Qaeda in Iraq gave rise to groups like ISIS. It is an undeniable fact. Had we not invaded Iraq and removed Saddam from power, al Qaeda would never gave gained a foothold there, and ISIS would never have been formed from them. So when Fox News Channel starts spreading provable lies, I get concerned. And what are they saying now? That the attacks in Paris are Obama’s fault.

It started around 6:16 PM, before the events in Paris had come to a conclusion. Courtesy of Newshounds:

CHARLES PAYNE: Many Americans, Ambassador, are sort of frustrated here with the administration for perhaps being too reserved on this issue, for not calling out what everyone else suspects and thinks seriously is going on here and perhaps even emboldening these kind of attacks.

Less than an hour later, Megyn Kelly was “just asking” if Obama was to blame for not being more like Bush. Never mind that the primary reason we elected Obama was to have someone who was less like Bush. In many ways, he was less like Bush. Not all. Anyway…

After that it wasn’t long before more and more Fox Folks started throwing accusations around that if it weren’t for Obama not being Bush, maybe we wouldn’t be having all these problems with ISIS. Yet they will never see that if it weren’t for Bush being Bush, ISIS wouldn’t be around today killing people like the murderous assholes they are.

This is our daily open thread.

Sunday Roast: Imagine…

via MotherJones

Posted without comment, in remembrance and support of the victims of terrorism.

The Watering Hole, Saturday, November 14th, 2015: Populism That Works

ICYMI, or maybe ICIMI: there’s a petition going around for a great idea that was brought to our attention today in a newsletter from populist Jim Hightower. The Campaign for Postal Banking is pushing for local Post Offices to also provide banking services. As Jim Hightower states:

“Millions of Americans live in areas that now have no alternative to the Wall Street-backed predatory lenders and check-cashing chains that rip them off. We can change this. The Campaign for Postal Banking has started a petition to the US Postmaster General to make postal banking a reality. With postal banking, folks that don’t have access to good banks or credit unions can go to their community post office for non-profit, consumer-driven financial services — getting their basic banking needs met without being gouged by Wall Street profiteers.”

From an article by Ralph Nader at Huffington Post yesterday discusses the topic as well:

“According to Bloomberg, from 2008 to 2013: “Banks have shut 1,826 branches…. and 93 percent of closings were in postal codes where the household income is below the national median.”

and

“Last year, the office of the USPS inspector general released a report detailing the ways in which postal banking would be beneficial to both the public and the USPS itself, which has been made to endure an unprecedented advanced payment of $103.7 billion by 2016 to cover future health benefits of postal retirees for the next 75 years. No other government or private corporation is required to meet this unreasonable prepayment burden.”

An article at OurFuture.org from May of this year has more, including this excerpt:

“For millions of underserved families, the Postal Service is already a part of their financial lives,” the report said, noting that post offices sold $21 billion worth of money orders in 2014. Yet, “in order to get the funds to purchase those money orders, many families likely first went to expensive check cashers to convert their paychecks into currency. What if those consumers could instead cash their paychecks at a post office for a lower fee? What if they also could pay bills, buy low-fee prepaid cards, and maybe even get affordable small-dollar loans, all in one convenient location? This could help consumers save money and time, and it would help the Postal Service fulfill its mission to facilitate commerce and serve citizens.”

An idea that’s a total win-win for poorer Americans; empowers “Main Street”; helps to save the U.S. Postal Service from its deliberate destruction by Congress; that keeps and creates jobs, thereby improving the economy; and helps to break the chokehold of Wall Street and the too-big-to-fail banks that WE THE TAXPAYERS bailed out? Every politician who’s in bed with the Wall Street/big bank cabal will be fighting this with every bit of power they have. This is an idea worth fighting for, and one that should show any non-1%er-American who still has a functioning brain exactly what “populism” means and what Democratic Socialist Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders is standing for.

Let’s all say a big, loud “FUCK YOU” to the real “takers” in our country, and make something happen.

This is our daily Open Thread – feel free to talk about this topic or anything else on your mind.

The Watering Hole, Friday November 13, 2015 -Music Night

Jam in the van.

The Watering Hole; November 2015’s Friday the Thirteenth

“Against stupidity the gods themselves contend in vain.”
(Friedrich Schiller)

Friday the Thirteenth is supposed to mean bad luck, something like that. So I’ve decided to lend a hand and offer huge piles of bad luck to a small handful of really DESERVING candidates. I won’t elaborate; as you will see, there is no need to do so when the candidates have already . . . ummm . . . elaborated?

Without further ado, first there’s Ted Cruz, presidential candidate, who will be doubling down on Saturday at a “Rally For Religious Freedom” in South Carolina. Recall that last weekend, Cruz spoke at a rally in Iowa held by the nutcase preacher who advocates execution of gays; this week, Cruz will speak at the rally where activists preach that gays are really Satanic manifestations. Ted will be accompanied by his daddy, Rafael Cruz, who has already blamed the SCOTUS gay marriage decision on (who else) The Devil!

Conclusion: Ted Cruz is (legitimately) nuts.

Next we learn that Duck Dynasty “stars” are rallying to support the Louisiana gubernatorial candidacy of Diaper Dave Vitter. As Dynasty’s Willie Robertson puts it, “I know he’s made some mistakes, but who hasn’t? The whole story of the Bible is about redemption, and I’m concerned about our state.”

Conclusion: Gays might be the work of the Devil, but US Senators who get caught hanging with hookers while wearing a diaper? No problem. No biggee. No Debbil. . Redeemable. Like a coupon.

Meanwhile, pHuckabee claims he’s innocent, that he had NO IDEA that (Reverend?) Kevin Swanson’s ‘religious freedom’ ideas included the execution of gay people. That — IN SPITE of the fact that the whole thing had been cussed and discussed for most of the week in advance of the event. I mean, even *I* knew about Swanson’s absurd thesis, and we don’t even have cable TV!

Conclusion: pHuckabee just might tell a lie, every now and then.

Summary:

“You see, if you’re very, very stupid, how can you possibly realize
that you’re very, very stupid? You’d have to be relatively intelligent
to realize how stupid you are.”
(John Cleese; January 2015)

OPEN THREAD

The Watering Hole; Thursday November 12 2015; The “Bully and Cheat” Party

Just because you do not take an interest in politics doesn’t mean
politics won’t take an interest in you.
(Pericles; 430 B.C.E.)

I didn’t watch the Republican “debate” Tuesday night. I waited for the Wednesday morning abridged version (that’s the one made of snippets, a handful of edited transcripts, etc.) It works out to roughly five minutes worth of non-substance summary, and seems far less a waste of time than the two hours it would have taken to watch the whole thing. Also in the brevity vein, I offer here a thirty second summation of the entire of the debate’s “substance.” Watch it, then with your imagination, simply plug in any other face(s) and/or any other subject(s), and voila, there you have it — two hours worth of debate “substance” sprawled into thirty seconds.

In any case, after spending all five, maybe six minutes running through the rest of my summarizing process, one thing that surreptitiously began to tweak my attention was the recollection of something that I had run across (and saved) back in 2003, a snippet from a post-9/11 essay titled “And Our Flag Was Still There.” I pulled it up, and after a quick read, was stunned at how uncannily it describes today’s Republican philosophy, the one rendered and practiced both by the GOP’s contingent(s) in the halls of Congress and by its current slate of Presidential hopefuls. So with Tuesday’s debate (summarized) in mind, here stands the more-than-able GOP philosophical summary, derived from said essay via these brief excerpts:

“. . . When fear rules the day, many minds are weak enough to crack the world into nothing but ‘me’ and ‘evil-doers,’ and as long as we’re proudly killing unlike minds over there, they feel emboldened to do the same over here. For minds like that, the great attraction to patriotism is, as Aldous Huxley wrote, that ‘it fulfills our worst wishes. In the person of our nation we are able, vicariously, to bully and cheat. Bully and cheat, what’s more, with a feeling that we are profoundly virtuous.’

“Such cowards have surely never arrived at a majority in this country, though their power has taken the helm in such dark moments as the McCarthy persecutions and the Japanese American internments. At such times, patriotism falls to whoever claims it loudest, and the rest of us are left struggling to find a definition in a clamor of reaction. In the days and months following September 11, some bully-patriots claiming to own my flag promoted a brand of nationalism that threatened freedom of speech and religion with death, as witnessed by the Sikhs and Muslims in my own community, and U.S. Representative Barbara Lee in hers. (Several of her colleagues confessed they wanted to vote the same way she did, but were frightened by the obvious threat from vigilante patriots.) Such men were infuriated by thoughtful hesitation, constructive criticism of our leaders, and pleas for peace. They ridiculed and despised people of foreign birth (one of our congressmen actually used the hideous term “rag heads”) who’ve spent years becoming part of our culture and contributing their labor and talents to our economy. In one stunning statement uttered by a fundamentalist religious leader, this brand of patriotism specifically blamed homosexuals, feminists, and the American Civil Liberties Union for the horrors of September 11. In other words, these hoodlum-Americans were asking me to believe that their flag stood for intimidation, censorship, violence, bigotry, sexism, homophobia, and shoving the Constitution through a paper shredder? Well, our flag does not, and I’m determined that it never will. Outsiders can destroy airplanes and buildings, but only we the people have the power to demolish our own ideals.”

Those excerpts are verbatim quotes from Barbara Kingsolver’s “And Our Flag Was Still There”, an essay in her book Small Wonder, published in 2002 by Harper Collins Publishers, Inc.

It’s remarkably simple to bring Ms Kingsolver’s ‘old’ essay in and apply it to current times.  When one of this country’s two major political parties descends to the point where its entire governing philosophy is based solely on fear, on hate, and on greed, most any cogent review of this day’s Republican party suggests that they may well have read Aldous Huxley, as quoted by Kingsolver, and adopted his premise, that “we are able, vicariously, to bully and cheat. Bully and cheat, what’s more, with a feeling that we are profoundly virtuous.”

it is, indeed, time for action. As Kingsolver points out, only we the people have the power to demolish our own ideals. It seems (to the non-coercive mind) that If the ‘bully and cheat’ party should prevail in 2016 and gain full control of all branches of the government, then we the people will, indeed, have used the collective power of our vote to demolish our own ideals.

Kingsolver also notes that “We’re a much nobler country than our narrowest minds and loudest mouths suggest. I believe it is my patriotic duty to recapture my flag from the men who wave it in the name of jingoism . . .” to which I can suggest only a single word change: I believe it is OUR patriotic duty to . . . somehow see to it that this version of the Republican Party is retired once and for all and for good — and as quickly as possible. ‘Jingoism’ included.

The punishment for those who are too intelligent to engage in politics is
that they shall be governed by idiots.
(Plato)

OPEN THREAD

The Watering Hole. 11/11/15. Veteran’s Day.

The best way we can honor Veterans is to stop making them.

But as long as poor kids sign up to fight rich kid’s wars, we will continue to see mothers grieving over their children’s caskets.

OPEN THREAD

The Watering Hole, Tuesday November 10, 2015 – Environmental News and Food Politics

“Ocean acidification may well be helping invasive species of algae, jellyfish, crabs and shellfish to move to new areas of the planet with damaging consequences, according to the findings of a new report.

Slimy, jelly-like creatures are far more tolerant of rising carbon dioxide levels than those with hard parts like corals, since exposed shells and skeletons simply dissolve away as CO2 levels rise.”

Read the rest here: The Jellyfish are coming. Actually, they seem to be already here.

The Watering Hole, Monday, November 9, 2015: This Week In Crazy – Christian Persecution, God’s Punishment, and Transgenders and Bathrooms, Again

When you want to hear truly crazy, off-the-hook nonsense, it’s hard to beat the right wing. Those lovable misanthropes never fail to deliver when it comes to conspiracy theories so crazy even Alex Jones says, “Whoa, are you nuts?” Courtesy of the good people at Right Wing Watch (A project of People For the American Way dedicated to monitoring and exposing the activities of the right-wing movement), here are some of the things that have gotten the right wing in a lather. We’ll begin and end with Pat Robertson.

Poor Pat Robertson. No matter how much he condemns them, he just can’t stop thinking about gay men and the things they do when they’re alone together. And now he’s so worried about it that he thinks God is going to collapse our financial markets.

Actually, Pat, I’d be more concerned about what Republicans are going to do to our financial markets. They’re the ones borrowing money at an unsustainable rate while refusing to raise taxes to pay for it. They talk about cutting spending, but not in the areas where they are borrowing the most money – the wars and the prescription drug plan, put together by a corrupt Louisiana Congressman (redundant, I know) who then resigned from Congress to head up Big Pharma. If Republicans were really worried about spending, why not make cuts in those areas? Why not raise taxes back to the pre-Reagan days, when all this income inequality started taking off and getting worse? It’s a popular Conservative myth that tax cuts pay for themselves. They do nothing of the sort. All they do is starve the government of the funds needed to help people who are down on their luck. But they don’t care as long as they keep getting re-elected to their phony-baloney jobs with the help of the very people helping to ruin the lives of millions. But this is nothing new to you, Dear Readers.

Over at Fox News’ “Outnumbered” they’re worried about illegal immigrants bringing disease to America. Specifically, they targeted tuberculosis (TB) as the problem, mainly because they misread and misinterpreted recent reports from the World Health Organization that say TB rivals HIV/AIDS as the leading infectious disease killer. Of course, as is typical with low-effort thinking conservatives, they didn’t explain why that is so. One reason is that spending on HIV has increased so much that fewer people are dying of it. Another is that just like reports of rape increased when women were encouraged to report it (not that the rate actually increased, just our awareness of its pervasiveness), health organizations are better able to track and report TB which leads to an increase in the numbers of people reported it have it. Relax. The death rate from TB is about half of what it was 25 years ago, with much of that improvement taking place in this millennium.

Congressman Randy Forbes (who apparently is also a preacher in his spare time, and who is also part of a constitutionally suspect group called the Congressional Prayer Caucus Foundation) thinks that there is a vast conspiracy of many organizations trying to destroy faith in America.

Speaking for myself only, I would be happy if this were true. I do not oppose all religion, just the ones that claim to worship a deity or deities. Those are the most dangerous because there is always somebody running them who claims to speak for God(s), and who always says you will be punished if you don’t do what God wants you to do. They often take it upon themselves to punish you in God’s name because apparently God is unable to punish you personally by Himself. There’s a very valid explanation for why that is. God doesn’t exist. That’s why He hasn’t punished us yet (or destroyed our financial markets yet.) And, of course, they’ll claim that you aren’t righteous enough to have heard this from God yourself, which to them is all the proof they need to punish you. It’s a game you can never win when believers in God take control of your government. The only thing you can do is attack these people all at once. As Ben Carson observed, they can’t get you all.

Bryan Fischer, who never met a Christian persecution myth he didn’t like, thinks that President Obama is going to imprison all conservative Christians, “if he had his way.”

Naturally, in true conspiracy nut fashion, Fischer is taking one story about prisons being cleared of some 6,000 non-violent drug offenders, chosen by the US Sentencing Commission for release because future sentencing guidelines are being made less harsh and applied retroactively, and assuming it’s for a purpose they fear – being locked up for disagreeing with the president. Here’s the problem with that theory, besides that it’s completely false – if President Obama were really the tyrant these RWNJs have been saying he is for the past seven years, he would have locked them all up a long time ago. He hasn’t because he isn’t.

Finally, back to good ol’ Pat. After previously expressing support for transgender folk, Pat took a turn in the opposite direction and claimed to not understand it at all. After reporting on a story of an Illinois school district cited for violating the civil rights of a transgender student, Pat then explained his problem, proving he doesn’t get it.

“This transgender stuff, I mean, this was a boy and this boy, we don’t know what surgery was performed on him, if any, we don’t know what his parts are, and yet he wants to go into the girls’ locker room and see all these disrobed little girls running around.”

Pat, I don’t claim to be an expert on transgender issues, and I’m not going to pretend I am. But I’m pretty sure that a boy who identifies as a female is not going to want to go into female locker rooms so he can look at the naked girls. May you do, but not him.

That’s it for this week’s look into the crazy minds of the right wing. I hope I didn’t frighten you too much.

This is our daily open thread. Enjoy.

The Watering Hole, Saturday, November 7, 2015: Adrenaline Rush To Judgment

There is a misunderstood problem in America that is not being talked about from the proper perspective. There are police officers, few in number to be sure, but there nonetheless, who have killed unarmed people who were absolutely posing no life or death danger to the police officer whatsoever. What has exacerbated the problem are the fruitless attempts to hold these police officers criminally liable for taking those lives. Time after time, a police officer caught on video killing an unarmed civilian has walked away free and clear of any punishment for his (or her) crimes. And they clearly were crimes from a moral standpoint. There shouldn’t be any way to defend these actions, should there? Well, if you don’t consider being human as part of the problem, there apparently is.

We are human beings, which means we are animals. I’ll give the more religious ones of you out there a moment to absorb that fact……….[looks at watch]………that’s enough time. And as animals, we have things called survival mechanisms. These are the natural, innate reactions we have to certain stimuli. When we suddenly smell a new aroma we hadn’t noticed before, our brains immediately kick in to identify it. Once we are confident we know its origin and have assessed any danger to ourselves, we unconsciously desensitize our nose to it (if it isn’t too pungent.) This makes our nose and brain better able to notice new smells, like smoke, which alerts the brain to the danger of fire (an association we learned as youths.) This is when our innate flight or fight response kicks in. The adrenal glands start producing adrenaline in case we have to move quickly or exert great strength. Fear can also stimulate the flight or fight response, which likewise produces extra adrenaline. You are now in an adrenaline rush, stimulated into believing, rightly or wrongly right now (but who has time to check?), that your life is in danger. And we humans in this situation do not think, we act. We do something. (Assuming we are not, literally, paralyzed with fear, which does happen, no shame in that.) But we have to do something, as they say in the movies, we can’t just sit here and wait to die. And what we often do is act without thinking things through thoroughly first. We are trying to resolve the situation in a way that puts us out of danger as quickly as possible. This is just part of the reality of being an animal prone to chemically reacting to stimuli in a certain way. If you were to inject yourself with adrenaline right now, you would be so hyped up you’d be looking for something you could call dangerous, just so you could react to it. Your brain would tell you that you are seeing danger where a less hyped-up mind, able to calmly think for a few moments, not subject to a reflex action that demands swift resolution of a crisis situation, would not. You’re not thinking clearly when your brain is telling you to react to anything you see as possibly being dangerous until you feel calm enough to decide that the danger has passed. Your brain is telling you to do whatever you have to to remove yourself from danger. Either you’re going to run as far away from the danger as you can (take flight), or prepare to battle against whatever you think is about to kill you (fight). Some refer to this as “standing your ground.”

Do you think at this point it would be wise to have a gun?

And that is the perspective from which we should be addressing these police shootings of unarmed people. Now, before we get sidetracked, yes, there has been in many of the cases that have come to the public forefront, an element of racism involved. And that is a serious problem in and of itself, and it often plays a significant role in these killings because it contributes to the sense of fear that the cop is feeling at that moment. That cop with a gun at his side. The one whose flight or fight response is about to kick in, but who knows he can’t resort to flight in this situation. (The cop can’t run away from the guy running away from the cop.) He must resort to fight. And what he is about to fight may very well not be an actual danger to him at all. But his brain is not perceiving it that way. His beliefs, formed in part by his experience, are leading him think a danger exists. Yes, that belief may be that all black men are armed and dangerous, but whatever the reason, however motivated, the belief is that a danger exists where none actually does. And that cop has a gun.

Many of these recent shootings involved either an emotionally unstable cop who shouldn’t have been allowed to become a cop in the first place, a veteran cop of some years with a history of valid excessive force complaints, or a very inexperienced cop not used to being in a situation where he thought his life was in danger. None of these are ideal situations, where you might feel comfortable about the cop involved having a loaded gun available. But that is what has been happening more and more lately. At least we are hearing about it more and more, and that is because of social media. But that begs the question of how many of these shootings are happening that are not caught on video? They are happening, and have been happening more often in the past, when there was less of a chance of the killing being recorded for later confirmation (or manipulation, as in the criminal case against the cops who tried to kill Rodney King for no valid reason.) We usually just took the word of the cop in question because there was no visual evidence to the contrary. Of course, this was usually after he had some time to formulate an explanation for his actions. We’re often never sure of what happened because we only heard one side of it, the other side being dead. And the fact that these cops are getting acquitted even after video of the events contradicts their story, as clearly evident in the case of Officer Lisa Mearkle, who shot and killed David Kassick in Pennsylvania after a foot pursuit, which began as a traffic stop over an expired inspection sticker, is an aspect of the problem that won’t go away without addressing the fact that we are giving cops deadly weapons and letting them use them in non-deadly situations, even though they think it is a deadly situation (or so they claim afterwards.) We can never be sure what happened because they can never be sure what happened. With or without the videos, a cop pumped up with adrenaline is not thinking clearly. (Were they calm and rationale, they would not be pumped up with adrenaline.) We are allowing them to defend their actions by claiming a perception of being in danger even absent a confirmation of a danger to them or the public existing. And we know that the very situation they are in can cause them to misperceive the truth of what is really happening. Is that a gun? I see no evidence it isn’t, so it must be. And we are not only allowing this defense to excuse their actions, we are even training our cops to shoot to kill, rather than shoot to wound. The problem is they are shooting to kill in situations where the person they are killing would never have faced the death penalty for whatever he is believed to have done. And this never seems to come up in the discussions I see on this topic. We are letting cops use deadly force in situations where the alleged crimes being committed would never have resulted in the death penalty.

Eric Garner wasn’t selling loose cigarettes without paying the taxes when cops strangled him to death. He was accused by someone and several cops confronted him to question him about the situation. He wasn’t in the act of selling those cigarettes when confronted. Whatever happened after that point, Eric Garner did nothing that would have brought him the death penalty if convicted in court. Selling loose cigarettes without paying the taxes is not a capital crime. Refusing to talk to cops harassing you for something you aren’t doing is not a capital crime. Failure to obey a cop is not a capital crime. Resisting arrest without any weapon is not a capital crime. Holding a toy gun, pointed down to the ground, is not a capital crime. Holding a toy gun in a non-threatening manner, in a store that sells that very toy gun, while talking on a cell phone is not a capital crime. Why are we letting cops get away with using deadly force at all in situations where the person they killed would not have faced the death penalty for anything he did?

Why are we giving deadly weapons to people we put in tense, but not deadly, situations, where the very natural instincts that are a part of being human, are going to make them think they perceive danger where none actually exists? Why are we letting the misperception of danger excuse the use of deadly force in those non-deadly situations? The human brain arrives at a conclusion in one of two ways – either by factoring in the details one perceives and arriving at a conclusion about what is happening, or presupposing what is happening and using the absence of contradictory evidence serve as proof that the theory is correct. In virtually all of the cases of cops killing unarmed civilians, this is how that cop arrived at the perception that his (or her) life was in danger. He assumed what he saw or heard was a gun, then took the fact that he could not see proof he was wrong as proof he was right. We can’t continue to do things this way. We have to change the rules and the training for use of deadly force. We have to train cops in non-lethal techniques to diffuse situations rather than escalate them. We have to drill it into their heads that the use of deadly force is a LAST resort, not the first reaction to the perception of danger, given that it’s more likely no actual danger exists. We have to do a better job of screening applicants to a police force, such as finding out why they were fired from their previous police force. We have to do all these things and more. But we have to do them now, before another unarmed person is murdered by a cop who had no business being issued a deadly weapon in the first place.

This is our daily open thread. Discuss whatever you wish. Just don’t shoot me.