Heads up Tallahassee! Tornado warnings are out:

Giving to the Salvation Army- Let me ask this:

If they were singling out African-Americans, someone who is Jewish, or another group would you be so accepting of 'a little bigotry'?

It is not ok. Their charity provides needed services, but they also use it as a cover for their bigoted views and missionary goals. If they are criticized, their good works are thrown up as a shield. Posts here prove that.

Is it a purity test? If that's what you call it then yes. Why is not giving aid to a group that advances bigotry a purity test? I think it is a reasonable request.

Oh, and some of those kids they feed now will be shunned later by them. In addition, people who receive their help are in a lot of cases likely to also give more credence to their beliefs. Bigotry spreads in many ways.

There are many groups who provide services for the needy without a side of nasty. They also have good ratings for how much of their money actually goes to charity.

So give your heart out to the Santa bells. Just realize they aren't ringing only for peace, goodwill, and donations.

Dear Bibi, Cornyn, Fleischer, and the rest of the usual suspects,

Dear Bibi, Cornyn, Fleischer, and the rest of the usual suspects,

The US AND other nations reached an AGREEMENT with Iran on their nuclear program. This was accomplished through negotiations and nobody was killed in that process. I am sure this disappoints all of you greatly. Your default position is scream and shoot or vice versa.

No matter what is agreed upon, NOBODY is closing up their monitoring programs. None of the principals involved trust each other nor should they. There will still be spying, hacking, HUMINT collection, and programs we haven't ever heard of.

In fact, I would argue there will be more Secret Squirrels skulking around the Middle East doing gawd knows what. The mind reels.

What has changed is the tone of the rhetoric thrown about. It is never a bad thing if people are talking about negotiations rather than how they will destroy some other country. And again I am sure this disappoints you because one of your few tactics is throwing rhetorical firebombs into delicate situations.

So in sum, what has changed? Who really knows? I don't think the Iranians are being straight up but at least they are up. The proof of what has changed remains to be seen.

They are probably pretending to do what we want, and we are pretending we believe them. If we think we can fully know what exactly they are doing where, we are fools.

The status quo will largely remain. Watching, watching, watching, always watching. The Middle East is an unstable region and always will be because of economic questions and the many players involved. Many groups there hate other groups and have for centuries. Good luck controlling that.

In the meantime, I suggest we pretend that the Afghani government can hold it's own and they can pretend it's true. Not one more American soldier should die in that godforsaken land that NOBODY has ever conquered. An open American presence will be a target and an irritant. Bring them home! Forever!

Spy vs Spy will proceed as usual.

Sleepover!

Lol! Best Photobomb Ever:

Harry Reid has always baffled me.

He grew up in very poor circumstances in Nevada. His father committed suicide and he had to overcome that also. I don't think anything came easy to him.

He was also a boxer in his youth. Later he was the Chairman of The Las Vegas Gaming Commission. In that role, he took on the mob and others who were running the corruption show. He was facing very real danger in that position. A bomb was attached to his wife's car in one incident.

I have always believed there was much more to him than met the eye. However, it has only been lately that the hard-nosed side of him has emerged for any length of time.

I wish his grit had been shown much earlier. I can only surmise he held out too much hope that many people he worked with in the GOP would at some point back away from the edge of The Tea
Party Earth.

The GOP finally stepped on Harry's one last nerve. He may be circumspect about pulling the 'nuclear trigger' but I don't think there was ever any doubt in his own mind that he would. The GOP bet the same way too many times and lost big.

Don't play poker with him. He may lose a lot while winning a few. However, at the end when the biggest bet has been made, he will leave with all the money and you will be left with no game at all.

Florida Rep Trey Radel is resigning from Congress to run for another job:

@BetteMidler:
I just heard that Florida Rep. Trey Radel was resigning from Congress in order to run for Mayor of Toronto.

Ha!
Loves me some Bette!

Peek Show:

Muffled Drums

Until the day I die I will hear muffled drums and horse hooves on asphalt. Those were the sounds I remember from watching JFK's horse-drawn caisson rolling through the silent streets of DC. Those are the sounds of grief beating with our broken hearts.

Quickstop owner installs video cameras to protect his customers and employees from the police:

Earl Sampson has been stopped and questioned by Miami Gardens police 258 times in four years. He’s been searched more than 100 times. And arrested and jailed 56 times. Despite his long rap sheet, Sampson, 28, has never been convicted of anything more serious than possession of marijuana. Miami Gardens police have arrested Sampson 62 times for one offense: trespassing. Almost every citation was issued at the same place: the 207 Quickstop, a convenience store on 207th Street in Miami Gardens.

But Sampson isn’t loitering. He works as a clerk at the Quickstop.

So how can he be trespassing when he works there?
It’s a question the store’s owner, Alex Saleh, 36, has been asking for more than a year as he watched Sampson, his other employees and his customers, day after day, being stopped and frisked by Miami Gardens police. Most of them, like Sampson, are poor and black. And, like Sampson, many of them have been cited for minor infractions, sometimes as often as three times in the same day.

Saleh was so troubled by what he saw that he decided to install video cameras in his store. Not to protect himself from criminals, because he says he has never been robbed. He installed the cameras — 15 of them — he said, to protect him and his customers from police.

Since he installed the cameras in June 2012 he has collected more than two dozen videos, some of which have been obtained by the Miami Herald. Those tapes, and Sampson’s 38-page criminal history — including charges never even pursued by prosecutors — raise some troubling questions about the conduct of the city’s police officers.

The videos show, among other things, cops stopping citizens, questioning them, aggressively searching them and arresting them for trespassing when they have permission to be on the premises; officers conducting searches of Saleh’s business without search warrants or permission; using what appears to be excessive force on subjects who are clearly not resisting arrest and filing inaccurate police reports in connection with the arrests.
<snip>
Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/11/21/3769823/in-miami-gardens-store-video-catches.html#storylink=cpy

Lots of people need to be held accountable for this travesty.