This was nice of him
Tina Fey’s last dress ever
I got a kick out of this:
https://youtu.be/2tKhr5Ujbd4
Payback
You think the civil suit he filed has anything to do with this?
Dorian Johnson, the man who was with Michael Brown when Brown was fatally shot by a Ferguson police officer last summer, has been arrested on suspicion of drug charges and resisting arrest, a St. Louis police source said Wednesday.
Police released details of an incident involving three men taken into custody after officers were called to the 5700 block of Acme Avenue at 3:21 p.m. Wednesday by someone “reporting a large group of subjects who were possibly armed with firearms.”
The police report did not name Johnson, but a police source who spoke on the condition of anonymity said that the incident involved Johnson and two of his brothers. Johnson allegedly had a cough medication mixed with what police believe to be an illegal narcotic on him.
The report said that as the officers who went to the scene dispersed the crowd, they noticed that one man had a bulge in his clothes that they suspected might be a weapon. A second man grabbed the arm of the officer who attempted to pat the first man down. The officer then attempted to detain the second man.
Anthony Williams and the hood
Will Bunch on the sudden political conversation of charter-school champion Anthony Williams in the Philadelphia mayor’s race:
But the really awkward thing is Williams’ rank hypocrisy here. Since he’s eager to revisit the 1990s, it’s worth noting that that was an era in which Williams couldn’t throw citizens from “our communities” behind bars quickly enough. Then a state rep from West Philly, Williams worked with three Republican lawmakers as part of a tough-on-crime posse called “the Gang of Five” that lobbied then-Mayor Ed Rendell (successfully) to bring in New York’s John Timoney as police commissioner and to institute so-called “broken windows policing” that would cite and even jail low-level, non-violent offenders.
Of course, “broken windows” policing became the “gateway drug” to the mass incarceration crisis in America, which has ripped urban communities apart, and eventually to policies like stop-and-frisk that 2015 Williams now wants to end. At the height of the Gang of Five crusade, Williams even championed what was described in the Inquirer as their “most intriguing idea: a plan to set up tent cities for incarcerating low-level offenders during warm-weather months. At present, a lack of city jail space makes it tough to keep prostitutes, for instance, off the streets…”
Yes, Anthony Williams wanted to keep non-violent criminals, like sex workers, in sweltering tent cities during the summer (an idea borrowed from Phoenix’s barbaric sheriff Joe Arpaio, by the way) because there weren’t enough jail cells for all the folks he wanted to lock up. But I guess that’s a lot harder to fit on a cardboard sign than #BlackLivesMatter. Especially at the height of 2015’s Black Spring.
Continue reading “Anthony Williams and the hood”
Snowden was right
Glad to see the courts agree with him:
Washington (CNN)A federal appeals court ruled on Thursday that the telephone metadata collection program, under which the National Security Agency gathers up millions of phone records on an ongoing daily basis, is illegal under the Patriot Act.
The government has argued it has the power to carry forward with the program under a section of the Patriot Act, which expires in June. Lawmakers are locked in a debate on whether or how to renew the authority, which was first passed shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks on New York and Washington, but has been renewed by both Presidents Bush and Obama in the intervening years.
Continue reading “Snowden was right”
I thought it was just me
Years ago, I got knocked down, punched and kicked in the ribs in a mosh pit at an X show. Apparently this is how some people treat women who dare to go to live shows:
Most women who frequently attend live shows will tell you that they have been harassed, groped or assaulted as they listen to their favorite bands. A standing-room-only show, when you’re wedged into a massive crowd fueled by beer and testosterone, is particularly scary. There seems to be a spectrum of violence that women experience at live shows, ranging from misogynist verbal harassment to sexual assault. Sometimes, it means being called a “fat bitch” by a guy who wants to cut in front of you in line at the bar. Other times it involves being forcefully shoved across a raging mosh pit by someone three times your size, or being touched inappropriately as you try to crowd-surf. These may seem like harmless little interactions, something that should just be expected in a rowdy crowd. But every time one of these acts of violence occurs, in their varying degrees of severity, it has the same effect: making women feel scared or vulnerable as they enjoy the bands that they love.
In the past few years, there have been a torrent of stories in the news in which women are abused, assaulted or raped at live shows. Earlier this year, video surfaced of Afroman decking a woman who jumped up on his stage to dance. Last year, Tim McGraw slapped a fan who grabbed his leg across the face. Even though the actions of both of these women were completely unjustified, the artists responded with violence. In the experience of many female fans, the men whom they share space with at shows can cross that line, too.
The author goes on to say how it’s assumed that women at these stories are “just groupies.” I was never a groupie; I had lots of musician friends but it simply wouldn’t occur to me to sleep with any of them. It just wasn’t my thing, I was there for the music.
Now that I read this, I realized I stopped going to these kind of shows after this happened. Maybe it’s just safer to go to singer-songwriter shows.
@susiemadrak I'm male and got punched, groped, and covered w/ beer at a punk concert, too. W/o cheating at the beer line! Big deal, d'oh.
— Gray Goods (@graygoods) May 7, 2015
Sound and color
Alabama Shakes:
Happy Hour: Ron Carter – I Remember Clifford…
White House blues
I’m not a trade expert. But the people I know who are say Warren’s right:
So far in her battle against President Barack Obama’s trade agenda, Sen. Elizabeth Warren has raised the specter of shady international courts invalidating U.S. laws and a cabal of business interests writing trade agreements in secret, smoky rooms.
Now she has a new complaint: If Congress gives Obama what he wants on fast-track trade authority, says Warren (D-Mass.), some future Republican president could use that power to gut the Dodd-Frank financial reform law and let Wall Street run wild once again.
Supporters of the Trans-Pacific Partnership in the White House, Congress and the business community are growing increasingly alarmed at the escalating rhetoric. Warren’s arguments, these people say, are increasingly wide of the mark and easily rebutted. But administration officials are at odds over how aggressively to take her on, knowing that a sustained attack would only arouse her supporters in the progressive and labor movements.Obama has already called Warren “wrong” on trade. But in private, administration officials fume in much more colorful terms over Warren’s attacks, calling them “baseless” and “desperate,” with “no bearing or relation to anything we are doing.” They also suggest the Massachusetts senator knows going after trade deals will only further energize the “Draft Warren” movement that desperately wants her to run for president.