June 13, 2014

To CNN, Murders Like My Son's Don't Count: An Open Letter From a Parent

My son Blair was an honors student. He was the most important thing in my life. And in 2007 a gang member killed him -- and injured four others -- on his way home from school on a public bus with many of his classmates. Blair died trying to save another girl's life. He was just another innocent bystander whose life was cut short because a gun was in the wrong hands.

But to CNN and other media outlets, murders like my son's don't count. You see, they looked at the list of 74 school shootings and picked and chose the 15 they thought were worthy of mentioning. Their reasoning? Because our innocent sons and daughters are killed by gang members, they don't deserve a spot on the list.

According to their own count of school shootings, the ones with "personal arguments, accidents and alleged gang activities and drug deals" don't merit mention.

Whenever a gun is fired at school, parents are rightfully terrified. Students are rightfully terrified. Try explaining to a shocked and devastated community that the school shooting it's mourning is disqualified because the gun was fired as the result of a "personal argument."

I suppose if your innocent son is shot by a gang member, it doesn't make the cut. Or if he was shot in an "accidental" shooting (how it's an accident that a gun wound up on school grounds to begin with is beyond me). Or if he pulled a gun out in a classroom and shot himself. Or if he got into a "personal argument" and was shot down in the type of mild playground fight that happens every day in schools, but turned deadly in that instance because a gun was present.

Maybe I should be giving CNN credit because they've managed to do something Washington politicians could not. They've reduced the number of school shootings across the country. But their insistence that 59 school shootings -- which have killed 25 people and injured 40 others -- don't matter isn't much consolation to parents like me.


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/annette-holt/cnn-school-shooting-stats_b_5489805.html?utm_hp_ref=tw

June 13, 2014

Wisconsin AG Warns Clerks Issuing Gay Marriage Licenses Could Be Prosecuted

Wisconsin Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen warned Thursday that county clerks issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples in the state could be prosecuted.

"You do have many people in Wisconsin basically taking the law into their own hands and there can be legal repercussions for that," Van Hollen said, as quoted by the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel. "So, depending on who believes they're married under the law and who doesn't believe they're married under the law may cause them to get themselves in some legal problems that I think are going to take years for them and the courts to work out."

Van Hollen added that the clerks were risking prosecution even though he didn't think the same applied to same-sex couples.

"That's going to be up to district attorneys, not me," Van Hallen said, according to the newspaper. "There are penalties within our marriage code, within our statutes, and hopefully they're acting with full awareness of what's contained therein."


http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/wisconsin-ag-clerks-issuing-gay-marriage-licenses-face-prosecution

June 13, 2014

Iowa Senate Hopeful 'Appalled' Her Husband Called Janet Napolitano A 'Traitorous Skank'

Iowa's Republican Senate nominee Joni Ernst told a local news outlet she's "appalled" that her husband once called former U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano a "traitorous skank" on Facebook.

As reported by the Des Moines Register, Democrats took a screenshot of Gail Ernst's written comments, which had been up since April 2013, and seized on them. That prompted him to delete that and other inflammatory posts and apologize for them before Ernst denounced them.

"I'm appalled by my husband's remarks," Joni Ernst said, according to the Register. "They are uncalled for and clearly inappropriate. I've addressed this issue with my husband and that's between us."

Gail Ernst also called Hillary Clinton a "hag" in a May 2013 post on Facebook.

The flap is particularly notable because Ernst's allies have been sensitive to sexist attacks on the candidate in her race against Democrat Bruce Braley for Iowa's open Senate seat this November.

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/joni-ernst-husband-traitorous-skank

June 13, 2014

The Ontario elections should be a lesson to the all-or-nothing crowd.

Tonights elections in Ontario were brought about by the New Democratic Party's (NDP) decision to bring down the current Liberal minority government by opposing a budget that had most, but not all of what the NDP wanted. Now, the Liberals have a majority and the NDP has no voice at all for the next few years. Please, everyone, take that as a lesson.

June 13, 2014

Those who are celebrating the Cantor loss should be aware.

I've seen comments here on DU how the Cantor loss is a blow against corruption, elitism and the establishment in general. But as much I dislike that guy, I want to take a moment to point out what's following him: A racist, Bible-thumping, xenophobic, homophobic tea bagger who is just as batshit crazy as Michelle Bachmann and Louie Gohmert. So we can chuckle all we like, but come January, the asylum gets another lunatic.

June 11, 2014

How Dems plotted Cantor's demise.

Former congressman Ben Jones (D-Ga.), better known as "Cooter" from Dukes of Hazzard, has a plan to knock Eric Cantor out of the House. He's urging his fellow Democrats to cross over and vote for a tea party-backed candidate in Virginia's primary election.

Cooter, who ran against Cantor in 2002, has penned an open letter calling upon Democrats in his former Virginia district to vote in the open primary next Tuesday for tea party opponent Dave Brat in order to defeat U.S. House Majority Leader Cantor.

Crossing party lines to vote in an open primary has a long tradition in the solidly one-party South, Cooter argues in his letter. "y voting for David Brat in the Seventh District Republican primary, we Democrats, independents, and Libertarians can make a big difference in American politics," he argues. "It is your right to cast that vote. It is an 'open' primary and it doesn’t preclude anyone from voting anyway they wish in November. It may be the only way to empower those who want to make a statement about the dysfunctional Congress and 'politics as usual.'"

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/06/ben-cooter-jones_n_5463196.html

June 8, 2014

National group calls for Target to ban open carry of firearms

ACKSONVILLE, Fla. - A national organization is locking in on Target as the focus of its latest petition to ban customers from openly carrying guns inside stores.

Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America launched the petition Wednesday, responding to demonstrations in Texas and other states by Open Carry, a gun-rights group.

Open Carry members demonstrated at Target stores in Texas by openly carrying rifles and assault weapons inside the stores and posting photos online.

Moms Demand Action has already successfully petitioned other businesses, including Starbucks and Chipotle, to ban customers from openly carrying firearms in states where open carry is legal.

http://www.news4jax.com/news/national-group-calls-for-target-to-ban-open-carry-of-firearms/26357476

June 8, 2014

Fox News Guest Launches Race-Based Attack On Neil deGrasse Tyson

A frequent Fox News guest who has contributed to a white nationalist website attacked Neil deGrasse Tyson, an astrophysicist and host of FOX's Cosmos, for speaking out about racial profiling he has experienced.

Gavin McInnes, who co-founded Vice but left the company in 2008, reportedly because he was a "liability," said he "hate[s]" Tyson and complained about Tyson stating that he has been racially profiled in stores on the June 3 edition of Fox News' Red Eye:

MCINNES: I hate this guy [...] White liberal nerds love this guy so much, he could defecate on them like Martin Bashir's fantasies and they would dance in the streets. All he does is, he's drunk with adulation. And he talks about things like "when I was young in New York I would get racially profiled when I'd go into stores." Back then he looked like he was in The Warriors. He had a huge afro and a cutoff shirt and New York was a war zone. Sorry, you fit the profile.

McInnes was apparently referring to a panel discussion at the Center for Inquiry in which Tyson discussed how many adults tried to steer him away from a career as a scientist as a child, and said that he has been racially profiled in stores (starting 1 hour, 1 minute and 30 seconds in).



http://mediamatters.org/blog/2014/06/05/meet-the-hipster-racist-fox-news-guest-attackin/199617

June 8, 2014

Serious gap with Orange is the New Black (Potential Spoilers)

As much as I love the show, there is one serious gap that I have a hard time overlooking: A number of women are serving time in a (fictional) federal prison for state crimes. For example;

1. Yoga Jones serving time for mistakingly shooting an 8-year old boy in Humbolt (State crime. Does pot grow make it federal?)
2. Janae serving time for knocking over a liquor store. (State crime)
3. Gloria serving time for food stamp fraud. (state crime).
4. Tiffany serving time in a MINIMUM security facility for shooting a nurse at an abortion clinic with a shotgun. (state)

Can anyone point out where there might a federal angle?

June 5, 2014

SF: 4th Day of Sick-out Feared

NOTE: Tonight the light-rail worker flat out disappeared without so much as calling in sick. I'm going broke paying taxi fares.


A day after San Francisco's city attorney filed a charge of unfair labor practices against the city's transit drivers' union, there was still no official word early Thursday that operators would call an end to their sick-out protest over an unpopular labor contract.

Buses and trains were operating at about 70 percent of their normal service Wednesday, up from 50 percent a day earlier and from 33 percent on Monday, agency spokesman Paul Rose said.

The agency and its workers are at odds over a new contract. Workers overwhelmingly rejected a contract proposal on Friday that union officials said would have resulted in a pay cut.

City Attorney Dennis Herrera filed the charge with California state labor officials. Herrera said the contract between Transport Workers Union Local 250-A and the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency forbids strikes and work stoppages such as the sick-out.

"This is an unfortunate attempt by the union to get around a law and contract provisions they don't like," he said.

The union's president, Eric Williams, said Tuesday that the labor group has nothing to do with the sick calls and urged those who called in sick to be prepared to have a doctor's note. Union officials weren't immediately available for comment Wednesday.

The agency known as Muni runs buses, light rail and street cars in addition to the cable cars and serves about 700,000 passengers each day. Its operators, represented by Transport Workers Union Local 250-A, rejected the contract by a 1,198-42 vote Friday, according to totals on the union's website.

The workers are not allowed to go on strike, but they can call in sick.

Transit officials said those who reported being sick must confirm they were ill to get sick pay and could be subject to discipline up to being fired.


http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/4th-day-sick-feared-24003516