Teen social media dispute ends in fatal stabbing.

Other family members said Rashawn was on a near-full scholarship to Sacred Heart after attending middle school at Buena Vista Horace Mann in the Mission, and had his eye on attending an Ivy League college.

"His smile would brighten up anybody's day," Jamar said.

Sacred Heart's head football coach, Ken Peralta, said in a Facebook post that Rashawn was a 4.0 student who was fluent in Spanish and was a "wonderful young man."

"Seems that another young man had issues with him over social media issues and was threatening him," Peralta wrote. "The two crossed paths and with his little brother in hand, Rashawn was knifed in the heart."

Efforts to reach Peralta were unsuccessful. But Rashawn's aunt, Maria MacMurray, also said social media may have played a role in the killing, though she did not give details.

"He was such a humble kid," MacMurray said. "He was so good-hearted. His dream was to go to Harvard. This is a tragedy."


http://www.sfgate.com/crime/article/Teen-fatally-stabbed-in-San-Francisco-s-Mission-5730743.php

Top Koch Strategist Argues The Minimum Wage Leads Directly To Fascism

At a political strategy summit hosted on June 16 by the conservative billionaires Charles and David Koch, Richard Fink, their top political strategist, told the private audience that when he sees someone “on the street” he says, “Get off your ass, and work hard like we did.” Fink's anecdote came during his presentation titled “The Long-Term Strategy: Engaging the Middle Third,” which capped off a session of four speeches detailing the intellectual foundation of Charles Koch’s political ideology. Audio of the event was obtained by The Undercurrent and shared exclusively with The Huffington Post.

Charles Koch opened the session by laying out his grand vision for the conference; Dr. Victor Hanson, a military historian, described the nature of the threat of collectivism; and Dr. Will Ruger, vice president of research and policy at the Charles Koch Institute, discussed the features of a free society. Fink rounded out the set, outlining the path to achieve the goals of deregulation and limited government. The message, he said, should focus on intent, meaning, and well-being.

Of the four speeches, Fink’s was the longest and the most candid, offering observations on fascism, environmentalism, and the application of business marketing principles to the Koch brothers' political messaging. His statements were not offhand remarks, but rather should be seen as representative of the Kochs, as he was hailed as their “grand strategist” by emcee Kevin Gentry in the proceedings and sits on the boards of several of their organizations.

In his speech titled “American Courage: Our Commitment to a Free Society,” Charles Koch echoed an op-ed he wrote earlier this year in the Wall Street Journal in both his paranoia and self-pity. The billionaire oil industrialist, hosting some of the most powerful men in Washington, without irony claimed in his speech that he and his brother were “put squarely in front of the firing squad.” He later framed the path ahead for America as a binary choice between freedom and collectivism, a catchall term he used to describe liberalism, socialism, and fascism.




http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/09/03/koch-brothers-recording_n_5757592.html?utm_hp_ref=politics

Kansas Democrat puts country ahead of ambition and withdraws from Senate race.

A Democratic candidate for the Senate seat in Kansas has withdrawn from the race, paving the way for a serious third-party contender against longtime Republican Sen. Pat Roberts — and jolting Republicans’ calculus for retaking the Senate.

Chad Taylor, a little-known and underfunded candidate who won the Democratic nomination last month, told the Kansas secretary of state’s office Wednesday afternoon that he is withdrawing from the race, a spokeswoman for the office said. That move could present Roberts with a strong reelection challenge from businessman Greg Orman, an independent candidate who, according to one recent poll, led Roberts in a head-to-head matchup.

Orman, 45, has shown some fundraising prowess throughout the campaign, raising more than $670,000 through mid-July.

The development could have serious implications in the battle for control of the Senate. Once viewed as a GOP lock, Kansas may now emerge as a critical race in determining whether Republicans return to power for the first time in nearly a decade. Republican outside groups — which had been mainly focused on four red states and battlegrounds states like Iowa, Colorado and New Hampshire — may be forced to spend money to save Roberts’ seat.

A mid-August poll of likely voters from Democratic firm Public Policy Polling showed Orman, a former Democrat, beating Roberts 43-33 in a head-to-head matchup, while Taylor was shown losing narrowly. Randy Batson, a Libertarian candidate, will also be on the ballot.


http://www.politico.com/story/2014/09/democrat-withdrawal-threat-pat-roberts-110574.html#ixzz3CJCLRUQI

Parents of girl with uzi did ignored instructor as he lay with mortal head wound

The 9-year-old girl who accidentally shot and killed her instructor at an Arizona gun range said the gun was too powerful for her after firing it, according to reports released by police on Tuesday and reviewed by the Associated Press.

The AP reported that the girl complained of shoulder pain after the incident and her family was so focused on her being injured from the gun's recoil that they didn't notice her instructor had been shot. A coworker rushed over to the shooting instructor, Charles Vacca, before the girl's family realized what had occurred.

The Aug. 25 incident occurred after the 9-year-old fired off single rounds and then Vacca switched the gun to automatic. The gun recoiled and fired upward, striking Vacca in the head and causing the girl to drop the weapon as Vacca himself fell to the ground.

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/arizona-girl-uzi-too-powerful

Richie Havens - Here Comes The Sun (VIDEO)

Eric Burdon & War - Spill The Wine (VIDEO)

Woman assaulted at GOP rally: ”He didn’t need to have his body pressed against my rear end,”

Tisdale would eventually be charged with trespassing, a misdemeanor, and obstructing an officer “by elbowing him in the right cheek area and kicking him in the right shin.” That last one’s a felony.

”He didn’t need to have his body pressed against my rear end,” Tisdale said Wednesday.

Linda Clary Umberger, chairman of the Dawson County GOP, followed the citizen journalist and the officer to an outbuilding. “I watched as a woman was bent over the counter on her face, with an officer over her,” Umberger said. “If I had been her, I would have elbowed him in the face, too.

“I was so upset at how they handled it – I walked out,” said the county GOP chairman. It was one of those seminal events, she said, likely to split relationships and end friendships. The arresting officer, fetchyournews.com would report Wednesday, has been suspended pending an internal investigation.

The rally went on without Umberger and Tisdale. But only Olens dealt with what everyone had witnessed. The attorney general couldn’t ignore what had just happened to the same woman he’d spent the last two years defending.

“Let me be possibly politically incorrect here a second,” Olens told the crowd. “If we stand for anything as a party, what are we afraid of with the lady having a camera, filming us? What are we saying here that shouldn’t be on film? What message are we sending? That because it’s private property, they shouldn’t be filming? What is the harm?


http://politics.blog.ajc.com/2014/08/27/how-a-plan-to-keep-a-gop-rally-off-the-internet-went-awry/?__federated=1

Reel Women: How Misogyny in Gamer Culture Hurts All of Us

One of the biggest issues in the news this week has been the ongoing rampant misogyny and outright terrorism in gamer culture, specifically the attacks on Depression Quest developer Zoe Quinn and feminist media commentator Anita Sarkeesian — both of whom have suffered exceedingly personal attacks and threats on their lives (including the horrible one in the graphic above, which was sent to Sarkeesian via Twitter). The former for merely talking sexual agency as an independent, adult woman, and the latter for criticizing the industry’s treatment of women in its games. What do these issues have to do with the rest of geek culture? Well …. everything. Misogyny in gamer culture is a symptom of a larger, systemic issue. And something needs to be done about it. Now.

I am not steeped in gamer culture, but I can tell you that what I’ve learned over the last week about the treatment of Anita Sarkeesian and Zoe Quinn has horrified me (you can read a great primer here from Andrew Todd at Badass Digest). This isn’t casual sexism — these are women who are being tormented and terrorized because they are women. And the men who are responsible for crusading against them are fighting against people they’ve labeled “Social Justice Warriors” — a derogatory term they’ve coined to insinuate that anyone who supports social justice and equality is limiting them and holding them down. These are men who were born with every right handed to them; the only struggle is the one they’re imposing upon themselves by fighting to repress women.

What Zoe Quinn did or did not do doesn’t matter. That Anita Sarkeesian has opinions that these men do not agree with does not matter. Nothing — nothing — makes the actions of these men and their crusade justifiable. Nothing justifies releasing the personal information of another person on the internet. Nothing justifies making threats to their personal safety and the safety of their loved ones to the point where they have to leave their own home. These men will never know what it feels like to be a woman on this planet, to fear for your safety and your well-being just for having a totally sane opinion and speaking up about it — and the idea that women should be treated equally and with respect shouldn’t even be an opinion; it should be an accepted reality, something we just acknowledge is right, that we do every day without even having to stop and consider whether it’s right.

This misogyny isn’t just endemic to gaming culture — it’s rampant in all geek culture, including movie fanboyism. There’s this sinister notion of ownership, that men have more claim over geek properties than women do, that’s been ingrained from childhood. We have toys for boys and toys for girls. Video games, comic books, and superheroes are all for little boys, while princesses and romance and hearts and flowers are for girls. When I — like many women I know — was growing up, this wasn’t the case. My Ninja Turtles and Ghostbusters were mixed in with my Barbies in one giant toy box, and I played video games with the little boys on my street without them calling me a “dumb bitch” or a “whore.”



http://screencrush.com/reel-women-misogyny-gamer-culture/?trackback=tsmclip

GOP governors pay a price for blocking the ACA

Scott Walker, the Governor of Wisconsin, is in electoral jeopardy. This may come as a surprise, because for most of 2014 he was considered an odds-on favorite for reëlection against his Democratic challenger, Mary Burke. Recent surveys show that his median lead over Burke has narrowed from seven points, at its peak, to just half a point. The Princeton Election Consortium model (of which I’m a founder)* estimates that Walker’s probability for reëlection is fifty-five per cent, which is barely better than even odds.

Walker achieved prominence in both Republican and Democratic circles when he took away collective-bargaining power from government-employee unions. This was met with angry backlash, leading to massive protests and a recall election, in 2011, which Walker survived, making him a hero to Republicans and leading some to tout him as a potential Presidential candidate. This year, Burke, the C.E.O. of Trek Bicycle Corporation, has run a campaign focussed almost entirely on being the Democratic alternative to Walker, as well as on job growth, which has been anemic in Wisconsin. The strategy—part “I’m not Scott,” part bread-and-butter policy—seems to be working.

Walker isn’t the only incumbent governor who could lose his seat. There are thirty-six gubernatorial races being held this year. This chart, from RealClearPolitics, shows elections that are competitive or likely to result in a switch.


http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/swing-states-is-obamacare-asset

My Labor Day Election 2014 predictions:

Here are my predictions pulled straight out of my ass:

House: Republicans make small gains. Nancy Pelosi announces retirement (rumor circulating around the City. RUN, AMMIANO RUN).

Senate: Republicans pick up sets in West Virginia, South Dakota, Montana, and Arkansas. Louisiana will go to a runoff. McConnell will squeak through in Kentucky.

Governor: Democrats pick up Pennsylvania, Maine, Florida, Kansas, and Georgia. Republicans pick up Arkansas and Illinois. Wisconsin and Michigan are too close.