Rock bottom. Poster boy for how poorly prepared professional athletes are for real life.
Author: susie
BP oil spill
You’ll never guess! It was a lot worse than they ever admitted!
Lipstick sunset
John Hiatt:
Another shooting clusterfuck
Thank God for these well-regulated militias, huh?
Well holy shit
Personally, I don’t trust the cloud. Never did. Here’s a horrifying example why.
We’ll never know
From Russ Baker at Whowhatwhy.com on the Boston bombing and the media coverage:
Was there anything else we could have been focused on? There was, but it was just too “distasteful” to broach, at least in the early hours. Perhaps counter-intuitively, it was the Fox brand (admittedly a local station, not the propagandistic Fox News Channel) that dared to raise questions about events that terrorize the public. In this report, the correspondent dares to remind us that the FBI has in the past had close relationships with people who want to blow things up, and has even facilitated these plots up to the point where law enforcement can intervene to thwart the bad guys. Was a similar sting in place at the Marathon – a sting that went horribly wrong?
One veteran marathoner, Alistair Stevenson, the cross-country coach at the University of Mobile, says that he noticed an unusually heavy police presence, including bomb-sniffing dogs and spotters on rooftops, before the race, and that runners were told not to worry—that law enforcement was carrying out “drills.”
Stevenson’s account was reported in an Alabama blog run by a consortium of respectable local news organizations, but it was virtually ignored by the traditional media. Nothing here worth a second-look? Really?
Is it heresy or madness to take a harder look at the metastatic growth of the national security state? History is replete with examples of cynical efforts to create “strategies of tension” in which the public, fearful of growing chaos, turns to the reassurances of those who promise order.
In fact, it so happens that advocates of increasing surveillance are pressing their game on every front. One involves the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA), which, if enacted, would authorize your web service provider to pass along your real-time personal data to the Federal spooks. There’s been a lot of opposition to this, but something like the Marathon bombing can be a game-changer. Those who monitor public sentiment understand the power of emotion to alter public stances.
Continue reading “We’ll never know”
Extreme
Sen. Heidi Heitkamp was happy to run as a progressive and take our money, then fold when we needed her:
Oh happy Monday
That brings us such wonderful news.
The billionaire oil moguls Charles and David Koch are pushing ahead with their plans to purchase several news outlets across the United States, according to a detailed report in the New York Times on Sunday.
At a recent seminar in Aspen, one attendee reported that the brothers — infamous for bankrolling conservative candidates and causes — put forth the question of, “How do we make sure our voice is being heard?” Their answer, it seems, will be to purchase the entire Tribune company, which constitutes a huge swath of American print media:
The papers, valued at roughly $623 million, would be a financially diminutive deal for Koch Industries, the energy and manufacturing conglomerate based in Wichita, Kan., with annual revenue of about $115 billion.
Politically, however, the papers could serve as a broader platform for the Kochs’ laissez-faire ideas. The Los Angeles Times is the fourth-largest paper in the country, and The Tribune is No. 9, and others are in several battleground states, including two of the largest newspapers in Florida, The Orlando Sentinel and The Sun Sentinel in Fort Lauderdale. A deal could include Hoy, the second-largest Spanish-language daily newspaper, which speaks to the pivotal Hispanic demographic.
In total, the Tribune company is responsible for eight print publications.
Charles and David Koch’s money has been instrumental in getting anti-climate politicians into office, and in funding anti-climate science studies. The brothers have also funded with the secretive conservative network ALEC (the American Legislative Exchange Council), which has crafted “model legislation” for voter ID laws that limit voting rights, particularly for low-income people of color. The group was also responsible for the so-called “Stand Your Ground” law that temporarily allowed Trayvon Martin’s killer, George Zimmerman, to walk free.
(h/t/ William White.)
IOIYAR
We’ll just hit the reset button and no one will ever bring it up again:
Perry’s hypocrisy isn’t nearly good enough for Texas’s junior senator, Tea Party darling Ted Cruz.
Cruz defeated Perry’s favored candidate in the GOP primary by attacking the big-spending establishment that didn’t spend enough time pretending they were the only people who had ever read the Constitution.
One of Cruz’s first stands as a senator was to vote against aid to the victims of Hurricane Sandy. Why?
“Emergency relief for the families who are suffering from this natural disaster should not be used as a Christmas tree for billions in unrelated spending, including projects such as Smithsonian repairs, upgrades to National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration airplanes, and more funding for Head Start,” he said in a statement.
What Cruz didn’t note is that the extra appropriations in the bill were mostly demands — some would say bribes — that red-state senators negotiated for their states to pass the aid that had been blocked by the last Congress.
Cruz’s stand after the Sandy aid — which took exponentially longer to arrive in the affected blue states than it typically does when a disaster strikes a red state like Texas — is in sharp contrast to the statement he made after Wednesday’s explosion in West.
“It’s truly horrific and we are working to ensure that all available resources are marshaled to deal with the horrific loss of life and suffering that we’ve seen,” Cruz said.
LOL. All available resources. Hmmm. So the blue states shouldn’t do to Texas what Republicans did to the northeast after Sandy?
Paul Abrahams calls this a “teachable moment” and thinks help for Texas should be tied to numerous demands, including Cruz being forced to lead the fight for aid on the Senate floor and Texas being forced to accept Medicaid expansion. Basically, in exchange for help, Texas would be forced to do something it hates doing — saving the lives of the uninsured.
But President Obama has already pledged help to the region and Democrats likely will rush to do what they believe the federal government exists to do — provide the help no one else can. Then perhaps we can get to the darkest part of both Perry’s and Cruz’s hypocrisy in attacking federal government overreach.
Cruz has falsely accused the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) of “trying to use a lizard to shut down oil and gas production.” Perry has built his career on attacking the EPA. If God wanted us to protect the environment, why would he have created Republicans?
We’re not sure how many of Texas’ recent disasters were caused by climate change, but it’s certainly making the state a tinder box.
The government that deals best with disasters is the one that avoids them.
‘Everybody likes cops again’
Charlie Pierce on the Sunday morning scene in Watertown:
“It’s really been something,” he said a few minutes later. “It’s kind of like after 9/11. Everybody likes cops again. It’s kind of weird, to tell you the truth.
“Hey, you should come to the headquarters and see all the food.”
Ever since last Thursday night, when the Tsarnaev brothers came crashing up Mt. Auburn Street and all hell broke loose in Watertown, people have been stopping by the Watertown police headquarters further down Main Street, dropping off all manner of baked goods and sandwiches, boxes of coffee, and, yes, doughnuts by the carton. (“Take a doughnut,” MacLellan says. “Please.”) The roll call room looked very much like an overamped food court. Domino’s has had a big week, as have the higher-end pizza shops in town. One order was phoned in by the people working in an office of the U.S. Customs Service. In Seattle.
“It’s unbelievable,” MacLellan said again. “Yesterday, every one of these tables was full. We’ve even hired a couple of people to distribute the perishable stuff so it doesn’t go bad. We can’t eat all of this. No, really, take some of it.”
Short, bullnecked, but with an easy smile and a Boston accent that makes Denis Leary sound like Bill Weld, MacLellan was the patrol commander on Thursday night when he heard a radio call about a carjacking in Cambridge that was headed up Mt. Auburn Street and into Watertown. “I told my officer to follow them but not to approach them,” he said. “Then I got there, and all hell broke loose.” MacLellan took part in the ensuing firefight that shot up the neighborhood in and around Laurel Street. He emptied his weapon. Now, the forensic guys have it, and MacLellan’s on three weeks worth of “administrative leave” — what some cops indelicately call “ass duty” — while all the gunplay gets sorted out. After that, he could face what now appears to be an endless rondelay of court appearances, legal proceedings, and a interminable opportunity to take part in what a defense lawyer friend of mine calls, “riding every ride in Depositionland.” He could be taking a lot of oaths over the next couple of years.
This one case could be a lot of what John MacLellan does as a police officer for a very long time. His life changed completely in those minutes along Laurel Street.
“How do I get back to being an ordinary officer?” he said. “I don’t know if I can for a while.”
A lot has been made by politicians and pundits of the cooperation between the people of Watertown and the various investigative agencies who worked the case last week. This is, remarkably, considered somewhat remarkable. But this is the way that it’s supposed to be. This is why really good cops hate really bad cops as much as they do. Really good cops know how valuable the public trust really is, how much more easy the public trust can make their jobs. So when a cop gets brutal, or venal, or stupid, and some of that trust drains away, everybody loses. After all, this is what the purpose was when so many people went back to what is called “community policing” a few years back. (My grandfather, a detective on the Worcester P.D. for 20 years, would have called this “walking a beat,” but no matter.) He was born in Watertown and never left. He’s been on the job here for 24 years.
Prior to this pst week, he only time he hit the news was when he busted a fellow officer for failing to properly serve a restraining order. He also has helped run his department’s rape-prevention and self-defense program. Nobody had to write a memo to teach John MacLellan how to be a community police officer. And, on Thursday night, community policing meant hauling ass to Laurel Street and getting shot at, and shooting back, and now it means he’s off the street until it all gets sorted out.
“No kidding,” John MacLellan said. “Take something, willya? It’s all going to go to waste if it just sits there.”
But then a friend of his named Stephanie, who came back to the headquarters with us, and who took some food for herself, had an idea. There’s a coffee hour down at St. Patrick’s after the 10 o’clock Mass. “That’s a great idea,” MacLellan said. “Here, we can all take some.” And that’s what we did, the last act of a very strange drama. John MacLellan, a community police officer, his friend, and one reporter trolling for whatever was left of the story in Watertown, we all brought some cookies down to the church and went about our business.