Not Difficult

If you're a normal human being and not walking, talking, harrassing scum.

Known gay male person Evan Hurst of Wonkette nails it:

Barro writes in his column that the WEINSTEIN situation and others like it “require more than just the hand wave of ‘don’t harass women, it’s simple.'” But honestly, we think it is indeed that simple! The cultural change we need isn’t about changing the workplace environment or enshrining strict conservative Christian Jesus rules so men don’t get all rapey. The change we need is STOP TEACHING MEN, TACITLY OR OUT LOUD, THAT IT’S OK TO HARASS/ASSAULT/RAPE WOMEN.

To all the men, straight or gay (Barro!), writing their #HotTakes assigning blame anywhere away from HARVEY WEINSTEIN’S dick and the dicks of other men like him, we’re gonna need you to take a million steps back, STFU, do something wild and crazy like listen to women for once, and then come back when you have a #HotTake about changing the culture so that men, cradle to grave, are all taught that women ACTUALLY FOR REAL weren’t put on this earth to satisfy their sexual harassing/groping/assaulting/raping urges.

Proof of god

PZ Myers:

I’m a hardcore atheist, but I’m not claiming to possess absolute truth, Catholics are. I’m saying that 1) believers have failed to provide an internally consistent definition of a god that does not contradict available evidence, and 2) have failed to provide specific evidence that their god is the best possible explanation. 

Saying that “things exist” is not evidence for “my specific model for why things exist”, especially when there are better alternative models that don’t have the shortcomings of the god hypothesis. There is a fundamental distinction there that they consistently fail to notice.

How to Save Obamacare

Dok Zoom at Wonkette:

Oh, dear Terrible Ones, you know this one: Organize. Speak up. If you’re currently in an exchange plan, make sure you and everyone you know signs up during the much-shortened open enrollment, November 1 to December 15. Call your representatives and tell them you won’t tolerate the president tearing down Obamacare from within. Organize more. Work to get Democrats elected and for fuckssakes stop refighting the 2016 primary. Try not to get too discouraged, and read Saint Molly Ivins if you need inspiration. Raise hell. Did we mention Organize? This is probably the biggest threat to America’s healthcare yet, and we can’t let it happen.

Gov. Craven Heartless Worm Lies About Pot

Twenty years ago we knew this shit was false, but didn't have the real-world proof to show.  Now we do.  Colorado. Washington. Nevada. Maine. Massachusetts.  California. 

Kentucky is missing out on the pot economic bonanza that could not only solve all our budget and pension problems but also the opioid epidemic.

But no. Because only rich white men are entitled to money and good drugs.

Think Progress:

Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin (R) appeared on a local radio show this week and called legalized marijuana a “sucker’s bet,” and something that will never happen so long as he’s in office. Why? Bevin says he’s concerned about overdoses.

“We are not, while I’m governor, going to be legalizing the use of marijuana in this state for recreational purposes or for revenue-generating purposes,” Bevin said on Terry Meiner’s WHAS radio show. “There are people overdosing based on ingestion of products that are edibles and things.”

Contrary to what the governor believes, however, while an individual can certainly have a “bad trip” from marijuana usage, there have been zero reported deaths from marijuana “overdoses,” according to the Centers for Disease Control.

Bevin points to the uptick in marijuana-related emergency room visits in Colorado, one of the first states to legalize marijuana, as evidence of the danger it poses. It is true, Colorado did see an increase in emergency room visits following legalization, according to a study released by the state’s Department of Public Safety. From 2014 to mid-2015, 956 emergency room visits per every 100,000 were possibly related to marijuana consumption. In the years before it was legalized, from 2010 to 2013, that figure was 739 per every 100,000 visits.

The study’s authors, however, attribute that rise to the decrease in stigma surrounding marijuana; after legalization, more people were open to trying the drug for the first time who may not have been aware of the side effects.

“The most common reason someone goes to the ER for a marijuana reaction is anxiety,” says Dr. Larry Bedard, former president of the American College of Emergency Physicians told The Cannibist. “Part of an anxiety reaction is you have an impending sense of doom. So a lot of people come in (to the hospital) thinking they’re dying, when they’re actually having a panic attack. That’s very common. If you’re smoking a joint and suddenly you can’t breathe and your chest feels tight and you start to get numb and tingly, you start to think you’ve been poisoned.”
And even though Bevin calls the notion of legalizing marijuana a “sucker’s bet,” Colorado has been consistently reaping its economic benefits.

Legalized marijuana roughly 8,005 full-time jobs and added about $2.4 billion to the state’s economy last year, an analysis from the Marijuana Policy Group (MPG) shows. The pot business is a stronger economic driver than nearly 90 percent of industries active in Colorado.

Meanwhile, legislators and cops are flooding the state with STOOPIT.

From the Legislative Research Commission:

Marijuana’s impact on public safety examined

FRANKFORT – As Kentucky lawmakers explore ways to pay for public employee pensions, a coalition of law enforcement groups say legalizing marijuana for recreational use isn’t the answer.

“I’m not willing to risk my grandchildren’s health to save my pension,” Kentucky State Police Commissioner Richard W. Sanders said yesterday while testifying before the Interim Joint Committee on Veterans, Military Affairs and Public Protection. “I don’t think that is the right way to go with this thing.”

Sanders is a 40-year law enforcement veteran with 21 years vested in the state’s hazardous duty pension.

Kentucky Office of Drug Control Policy Executive Director Van Ingram testified (sic: LIED) that marijuana is harmful to society.

“Sixty years ago big tobacco downplayed the risk of tobacco,” Ingram said. “We can see where that brought us: Huge settlements and big changes to that industry. Thirty years ago big pharma told us there was no risk of addiction to opioids. We can see where that brought us: The largest drug epidemic in the nation’s history.”

He added that 10 to 15 percent of people who use marijuana develop addiction issues.

“We are getting led down another path so some folks with a lot better suits than I have can make a lot of money,” Ingram said. “We certainly got enough addiction issues in this state without bringing more to the table.”

Rep. Tom Burch, D-Louisville, however, said Prohibition gave rise to crime …”and criminalizing marijuana has done the same thing.”

National Marijuana Initiative (MMI) Director Ed Shemelya testified that marijuana is legal for recreational use in eight states. He said at least one form of marijuana is legal for medical use in more than 21 states. He said Colorado is on track to sell $1 billion worth of marijuana this year and generate roughly $200 million in tax revenue.

“That’s a lot of money,” Shemelya said. “There is no disputing that.”

Again, states like Colorado are reaping all the benefits: massive tax revenues, reduced opiod use, more jobs and less crime because dealers of illegal pot are now out of work.

But Kentucky under repug rule can never have nice things.

It's Always the Same

Via Political Animal:

Black Aziz Ansari \uD83D\uDC4F‏ @Freeyourmindkid

Some things never change.

Repugs Just Murdered Obamacare and Millions Who Depend On It

They've stabbed it in the neck and it's bleeding out.  Do NOT let them get away with claiming it collapsed on its own.

Charlie Pierce:

This is an attempt to do the exact opposite of what the president* took an oath to do. This is an attempt to make sure a law is not faithlessly executed. It's government by renege, which was this president*'s true gift as a businessman. A landscaper in New Jersey or an invalid in Idaho, he'll find some way to stiff them all. 

SNIP

None of the "alternatives" that his order now makes possible are to the benefit of consumers, sick or otherwise. They're all designed to ensure that the Affordable Care Act cannot work, which is the primary goal not only of the president*, but of his enabling political party as well. The executive order turns health insurance back into a bull market for thieves and grifters and once again allows some disreputable characters a chance to coin sickness into gold.

SNIP

The sheer meanness of the calculations behind the effort to deprive millions of people of their health insurance, including the millions of people who found relief from this nightmare only in the past eight years, is hard for the decent mind to comprehend. On Thursday, the president* signed an order guaranteed to corrupt health insurance marketplaces all across the country, and that corruption will not be an unintended consequence. It will be a deliberate act of vandalism, like cutting a gas line into a house and waiting for the explosion that inevitably will occur.

Trump and that pack o'bastards applauding him are the perps, giggling and sweating into their palms across the street, waiting for the detonation that will shatter so many lives.

 And Kentucky's own AynRandy was there cheering it on.

The Confessed Sexual Predator in the White House

Digby:

You'll have to forgive me for not spending a lot of time fulminating about a piggish movie producer when we have an unfit demagogic moron in the White House who's threatening to incinerate the planet largely because too many people voted for this documented sexual predator over a qualified woman. The problem runs a lot deeper than Hollywood.

It's Still Happening, and NFL Owners Are Still Entitled Cowardly Motherfuckers

The kneeling is now and always has been about protesting the nationwide police brutality and murder against unarmed African-American men and women.

And the NFL is now and always has been about exploiting black bodies while denying them civil rights.

Damon Young at Very Smart Brothas:

Because men like David Derbish and Andrew Miller depend on the benefit of the doubt provided by their occupation and their whiteness to intimidate, threaten, assault, rape, paralyze and kill men and women like Leon Ford, knowing that juries will refuse to convict them.

Which is exactly what happened Monday in the federal lawsuit filed against them. Miller was cleared of assault and battery, and the jury was deadlocked on Derbish’s excessive-force charges.

That benefit of the doubt is how a kid with no criminal record is left without the use of his legs after a chance encounter with them. It’s how qualifiers like “no criminal record” are necessary, even though they shouldn’t be. Because a person’s criminal record isn’t—well, shouldn’t be—a pass for men with badges to break someone’s body with impunity. Just as blackness shouldn’t be. Just as being perceived as a threat shouldn’t be. Or being thought of as “scary” or “big” or “superhuman.”

But it is, which is why David Derbish and Andrew Miller are free to sleep in their beds and eat dinner at their kitchen tables today, while Leon Ford is reminded that justice is conditional, arbitrary and cruel.

And if justice is conditional, arbitrary and cruel, justice doesn’t exist.

But Roger Goodell and Jerry Fucking Jones don't care about that.  All they care about is jingoistic faux-patriotic displays and the billions of dollars it brings in from the rubes who tune in to watch black men get permanently disabled.

Proud

 

Noah at Down with Tyranny is out of control wonderful with his Midnight Memes.

To Attack and Suppress

This is the militarization needed by tin-pot dictators with massive insecurity complexes, not policing by a democratically-elected administration ...  Oh, wait.

Erik Loomis:

One of the scariest parts about this horrible administration is how law enforcement at all levels, from local cops to the fascists who work for ICE to the Border Patrol union, are chomping at the bit to do whatever Trump wants. We’ve seen this most aggressively from ICE of course, but our law enforcement loves a fascist president and will do everything they can to ensure more of them. Sarah Jaffe has a good piece detailing this.

This is no longer an issue of one election; Trump may not have kept many of his promises, but he is keeping the ones he made to the police officers who supported him. And it’s also not just about Trump; around the country, police work hand-in-hand with far-right politicians orchestrating crackdowns on immigrants, harsher penalties for crimes, and so-called “blue lives matter” bills that make crimes against police equivalent to crimes against marginalized and oppressed groups. In California, for example, the California State Sheriffs’ Association is working hard to bury a “sanctuary state” proposal, and one sheriff even publicly floated the idea of her county simply ignoring the law if it were to pass.

While the occasional story of an officer with neo-Nazi tattoos or apparent ties to white supremacist websites does surface from time to time, this is not a matter of individual officers going rogue. It is a belief system produced through the decades of American policing, a history that includes police collusion with white supremacist vigilantes in the South and elsewhere, as Vitale points out. There is also police overlap with militia groups like the Oath Keepers—in 2015, reporting for my book, I spoke with Sam Andrews, a former Oath Keeper who had left the organization over its refusal to endorse an open-carry march he held with black residents of Ferguson and the greater St. Louis area. For the police in the organization, he said, such a thing was a bridge too far.

These days, open collusion with white supremacist groups might be less common, but an offensive post made to the Instagram account of the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association of Newburgh, New York, this August struck a nerve because it seemed to echo the policy on the ground in Charlottesville.

The image, rapidly denounced by the PBA and the police department, showed a Confederate flag juxtaposed with a photo of young black men with sagging pants, with the words “This does not offend me” emblazoned over the flag and “This bullshit does” over the photo. It was a sign, once again, of just who “us” and “them” is.

And so, in the age of Trump, police and the institutions that represent them continue to double down on their siege mentality. As protesters confront white supremacists in city after city—as I write this, Berkeley’s streets are full of red flags and tear gas—police still seem to see protesters, particularly protesters of the political left, as a sign of disorder. The movement for black lives, along with its demands for accountability or even abolition of the police, is felt to be a particular threat to police officers, and Trump has done his best to encourage this feeling. With his approval ratings at an all-time low and officials departing his administration like proverbial rats from a sinking ship, Trump has sent a signal to what Marcy Wheeler has noted is the “respectable” part of his base—the police—that anything goes. This should concern us.

This is also incredibly dangerous. If the worst nightmares of Trump severely eroding democracy do come to fruition, law enforcement will be at the center of it. And yet even today, law enforcement are almost immune to real criticism in the public sphere. Yes, we all need law enforcement from time to time. What we don’t need is a Providence police officer coming to my house after it gets robbed and telling me to my face that if voters don’t put Buddy Cianci in the mayor’s office next month, the animals are going to take over the city. We can have policing without fascism, beatings of protestors, and mass deportations of peaceful people. But we may not get that with the police as presently constructed. There also needs to be a lot more deep diving into the salting of police forces with white supremacists, which is something I hear a lot of rumors about but haven’t seen anything real solid.

Charlie Pierce:

And we conclude, as is our wont, in the Great State Of Oklahoma, where Blog Official Copper Dowser Friedman Of The Plains brings us yet another tragedy that has befallen our brave men in blue. From The Daily Beast:

He was pronounced dead at the scene. The 35-year-old was on his front porch holding a two-foot-long pipe when police arrived in the area to investigate a hit-and-run accident. Police ordered Sanchez to drop the pipe, but he could not hear them. He walked toward the officer and waved the pipe in his right hand, officials said. Neighbors nearby saw the situation unfolding and ran toward officers, screaming. “Don’t kill him! He’s deaf,” a 12-year-old girl yelled. “Don’t do it!” Six other neighbors joined in before another officer arrived and shot him.

He should have complied. Being deaf is no excuse for not obeying orders that you can’t hear. Also, he could’ve laid waste to six young, well-trained police officers with that pipe of his. Did I cover everything?

killer martinis, who was on the ground during recent police riots in St. Louis, for Wonkette:

If you want me to feel like the police aren’t my enemy STOP SENDING THEM TO GAS ME FOR DOING MY FUCKING JOB AS A JOURNALIST.

 

If you don’t want people to get het up about how many black people you’ve killed, STOP KILLING BLACK PEOPLE.

Meanwhil, the FBI is pulling out all the stops to arrest activists, not the criminals the activists exposed.

Choose Wisely

Noah's Midnight Meme from Down with Tyranny:

New Report Exposes Pension Lies

Yep, the only thing Gov. Craven Heartless Worm's pension deform will do is bankrupt the Commonwealth while enriching his Wall Street buddies.

 

John Cheves at the Herald:

Sweeping changes recommended for Kentucky’s public pension systems would cost taxpayers and public employees more money while making public employment far less attractive to future generations, according to a report released Monday.

In the report, Colorado-based consultant Pension Trustee Advisors said ideas put forward by Republican Gov. Matt Bevin’s advisers at the PFM Group in August would only worsen Kentucky’s pension mess. Specifically, PTA said, Kentucky should not switch from a defined-benefits pension for state employees and school teachers to a defined-contribution 401(k) account that might run dry while many of them are still alive.

“Under the proposed analysis, which is based on optimistic returns, well over half of the individuals will run out of money,” William “Flick” Fornia, an actuary who founded PTA in 2010, wrote in the report.

PTA was hired to examine the PFM Group’s recommendations by two groups critical of those proposals, the Kentucky Public Pension Coalition and the Kentucky Retired Teachers Association.

Although the Bevin administration paid the PFM Group nearly $1.2 million for its advice, Republican lawmakers meeting privately with Bevin to draw up a bill for a special legislative session on pensions have said that not everything the PFM Group suggested will be included.

A spokesperson for Bevin did not respond Monday to a request for comment about the report by Pension Trustee Advisors.

Of course not.  The motherfucker has been exposed.  Now the question is whether the repugs running the General Assembly have the guts to tell him to fuck off and die.

Take Your Bibbles to Bevin

Oooooh, our so-brave Governor Craven Heartless Worm really stood up to those godless libtards this time!  Making them all cry with his bold order to the Commonwealth's kids to show off by taking their bibbles to school!

No mention, of course, of the fact that the very godless Constitution guarantees exactly that right. Nor of the fact that the very same Constitution bars government-funded entities - like teachers, not students - from proseletyzing any religion to others under cover of government authority.

You can take a bibble or a koran or a bhagavad gita any public goddamn place you please.

I recommend taking a bibble to bevin's office in the capitol. Cover it in brown paper so he can't see what it is, and start reading jeebus' words from the new testament.  Set a stopwatch so you know how many seconds it takes before bevin screams at you for being a commiemuslinterrist and leftwingbleedinghearthippie, how dare you read that unamericanatheist shit to him.

Guns and Abortion

Maryellen Stewart‏ @Maryellen

A little louder for the folks in the back.

 

Inaccurately attributed to Gloria Steinem, who merely posted it on her own account.

Complainers About "Political Correctness" Are Just Afraid to Debate

PZ Myers:

“Political correctness” is a bullshit term used to disparage something important: thoughtfulness and honest discussion. Complaining about political correctness just means you’re admitting that you have zero interest in listening to the other side.

 Of course not; they never have the facts on their side, so they will lose any reasonable debate.  They just scream "political correctness" and run away.

Force Them to Pay

Rude Pundit:

Conservative beliefs are utterly delusional and fly in the face of all facts and all aspects of human behavior. We know that gun control works because it works everywhere gun laws are strict. We know that limiting access to abortion and birth control ends up harming women. We know that use of a private email server isn't a major crime. We know that football players protesting by kneeling during the National Anthem is protected speech. But conservatives have to keep the rubes at bay. The only way to reconcile the abject, fucked-up hypocrisy that conservatives live with is that they know. They just don't fucking care because there has been no cost to not caring since 2008 (and much longer in some congressional districts).

And so nothing will be done when it comes to guns in the wake of Las Vegas (and Orlando and Newtown and...). Until they are forced to pay for their hypocrisy, for the complete and utter fraud they have perpetrated (including the support for Trump), nothing is going to ever happen.

Tax the Rich Out of Existence

It's the only thing that grows the economy.

 

Noah at Down with Tyranny:

The Stupid Price of Freedom

Via Crooks and Liars, Gin and Tacos nails it:

This is the problem in a nutshell. "The price of freedom." It doesn't matter how many people die. The rights of every impotent old white guy who needs to hoard guns in order to Feel Like a Man are more important than human life. The rights of suburban commandos to stock up on guns to fend off the Young Black Bucks or the Thugs or whatever euphemism is currently in fashion are more important than human life. The rights of some guy to indulge his hobby (Can I make chemical weapons in my basement and call it a "hobby" as long as I don't use them to kill anyone?) are more important than your right to leave the house and be reasonably certain that you're not going to get shot at random.

Mass shootings are to the modern US what human sacrifices were to some societies, but replace the sun with 2nd Amendment and the bountiful harvest with Freedom. If 58 people have to die so that we may enjoy the freedom to own 35 guns – the killer had at least that many – that is a sacrifice white America is prepared to make. YOU are a sacrifice they are prepared to make. You don't matter. Nothing matters. All that matters is Larry Limpdick's need to feel tough or manly or important or strong or ready for the Race War he and everyone else in the comments section of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel is certain is coming because BLM or campus libtards or something.

We have so thoroughly normalized a completely demented, paranoid, conspiratorial, afactual right-wing worldview that a man can buy 35 guns and not only are there no meaningful obstacles to doing so but the fact isn't even considered especially noteworthy or out of the ordinary. The very fact that we live in a society where a person can announce that they own 10 or 25 or 50 or 100 guns and the overwhelming, immediate response is not "What in the living fuck is wrong with you?" followed by a psych evaluation is the definitive proof that this will keep happening over and over and over again.

It's not merely acceptable, it's normal. And it's not merely normal, it's a sign of patriotism and masculinity. You don't like guns? What's wrong with you? You queer or vegan or somethin'? Don't you love your country?

This will never stop in a society that thinks there is nothing abnormal about fetishizing and stockpiling something that has no purpose – "fun" doesn't count here, sorry – other than to kill.

The guy who did this is not scary because he is insane or mysterious. He is scary because he is normal. All of us know probably a half-dozen of this guy. Because we live in a society that tells itself that it's perfectly normal for a person to stockpile enough weapons to outfit a brigade of paratroopers. Despite the insistence that this is a perfectly normal and healthy thing for a human being to do, it is not. It is fucked up. And until we drop the "mental health" canard and admit to ourselves that the problem is we have allowed a deeply violent, paranoid, and twisted worldview to become so ordinary as to attract little notice, these sacrifices will continue on a more or less regular schedule.

Governor I Got Mine Fuck You Earns a New Nickname

From the Herald:

Jessica Morgan, who operates the Los Angeles-based fashion blog “Go Fug Yourself,” called Bevin a “craven heartless worm” and said “people CAN vote your ass out of office for using this tragedy to shrug off grieving Americans desperate for solutions to prevent MASS MURDER.”

Morgan later said she was blocked by Bevin’s Twitter account for the tweet.

Governor Craven Heartless Worm FTW!

Trump's America Endorses Death Penalty for LGBT, Adulterers, Atheists and Blasphemers

Nope, not kidding or exaggerating at all:

PZ  Myers:

A resolution before the UN to condemn executions for apostasy, blasphemy, adultery, and consensual same-sex relations has passed, but Botswana, Burundi, Egypt, Ethiopia, Bangladesh, China, India, Iraq, Japan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates voted against it.

Oh. And one more. The United States voted against it, too, all for allowing countries to continue to execute people for being an atheist or a gay person. The United States. My country.

Your fine christian leaders, ladies and gentlemen.  Hand-in -hand with their fellow hateful freakazoids of islam, hinduism, shinto, confuscianism and buddhism.

Yes, Repug Voters Are to Blame

Charlie Pierce says Fuck You to the people who voted for Roy Moore.

And, no, when it comes to the people who voted for Moore, I don’t have to “respect their beliefs.” I don’t have to “understand where they’re coming from.” I don’t have to “see it from their side.” These people are preparing to make a lawless theocratic lunatic one of 100 United States Senators, and that means these people are about to inflict him and his medievalism on me, too. If you think that Roy Moore belongs in the Senate, then you are a half-bright goober whose understanding of American government and basic civics probably stops at the left side of your AM radio dial. You have no concept of the national interest and very little concept of your own, unless, as I suspect, you’ve made your own fears, and hating people and hawking loogies in all directions, the sum total of your involvement in self-government. You are killing democracy and you don’t know it or care. If you had any real Christian charity in your hearts, you’d keep Roy Moore in the locked ward of your local politics and not loose him on a nation that deserves so much better than him.

SNIP

I’m out of empathy for this stuff. I’m out of pity. I’m out of patience. And, not for nothing, but Moore’s opponent is a guy named Douglas Jones. In 2001, Jones convicted two men for the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham in 1963, one of the iconic white supremacist terrorist acts of that period. One of those bastards already died in prison and the other keeps getting denied parole. If you’d rather be represented in the Senate by a lawless theocratic lunatic, rather than a guy that finally got justice for four murdered little girls, well, you deserve anything that goddamn happens to you.

Ammosexuals

From Digby:

Bevin's Gun Stupidity and Hypocrisy

Yes, he's just as reflexive trumpie stupid on the biggest gun massacre in U.S. history as he is on everything else.

Nancy LeTourneau at Political Animal:

Gov. Bevin tweeted:

To all those political opportunists who are seizing on the tragedy in Las Vegas to call for more gun regs...You can't regulate evil...

7:38 AM - 2 Oct 2017

I haven’t heard anyone suggest that we should try to “regulate evil.” But that is an interesting statement coming from the party that has recently reclaimed the mantle of “law and order.” The entire criminal justice system is based on the idea of regulating behavior. A statement like that one from Bevin makes you wonder if we should simply do away with statutes that outlaw murder and theft, since they could also be construed as an attempt to regulate evil.

I'll just add that Bevin and his fellow fetus-fetishists think abortion is evil, yet they pour billions of dollars and decades of legislative effort into regulating it out of existence.  Tell ya what, motherfucker:  we'll stop demanding gun regulation and a repeal of the second amendment the instant you stop opposing abortion.

Asshole.

Erik Loomis beat me to it.

Seussian Protest

So glad Noah at Down with Tyranny put this into meme form.

-by Noah

The Trumpian worldview of African-American protest, Dr. Seuss style, courtesy of The Daily Show's Trevor Noah.

Bevin's Pension Plan Will Bankrupt the State

Don't believe me; listen to the states who tried the same plan.

In the 1990s, both West Virginia and Michigan closed public pension plans. West Virginia was first, closing its teacher pension plan in 1991. All new teachers were placed in a 401(k)-style defined contribution plan. In 1997, Michigan closed its traditional pension plan for state government employees. What happened next is a warning to other states or cities considering a similar course.

After closing the pension plan, two things happened in both states: the cost of the plan increased dramatically and retirement security for employees plummeted. As plan costs skyrocketed in West Virginia, the state began studying its options.

In 2003, West Virginia found that providing a pension to teachers cost taxpayers half the amount of a comparable 401(k)-style plan. After 15 years, West Virginia reopened the pension plan for new teachers and gave teachers in the 401(k) plan an option to switch into the pension plan. Over 78 percent of teachers switched to the pension plan.

Michigan, too, has seen plan costs increase and funding levels decrease. But worst of all, Michigan is forcing its state employees to retire into poverty rather than providing a modest, reliable defined benefit.

And yeah, of course Bevin's lying about the real cost.

Kentucky’s General Assembly will need to find an estimated $5.4 billion to fund the pension systems for state workers and school teachers in the next two-year state budget, officials told the Public Pension Oversight Board on Monday.

That amount would be a hefty funding increase and a painful squeeze for a state General Fund that — at about $20 billion over two years — also is expected to pay for education, prisons, social services and other state programs.

It's the fast-track to Kansas and Haiti. Pretend that fatal budget cuts, pension destruction and tax windfalls for the rich will fix Kentucky's finances. Then discover that oops, the Commonwealth can't operate with no money, so sorry, sux to be you, gotta go run for president now.

Veterans Know Kaepernick Is Right

Let's keep our eye on the ball.  Colin Kaepernick and the few who accompanied him starting more than a year ago had a single purpose for kneeling during the national anthem - which is still the worst anthem on the planet, an unsingable paean to violence and imperialism and just a fucking song - and that purpose was and remains this:

Protesting the police murders of unarmed black men and women.

And the general racism and inequality that pervades American society.

Not protesting the flag, which is just a fucking flag.  Not protesting the Orange Menace, as much as it deserves vigorous, widespread protest.  Not showing solidarity - that's what your union is for.

Colin Kaepernick's kneeling is about protesting racism and police brutality against black people.

Even paying attention to anything else taking place on the football field is promoting the distraction from the real issue.  Let's keep our eyes on the prize.

Bill Barnwell at ESPN:

There just isn't a strong enough case for teams to pass on Kaepernick, given the desperate public outcries for useful quarterbacks and the nature of his protests. Even if you disagree with his stance, it's bizarre to contrast his peaceful political dissent as a crime that should keep him off rosters in a league in which even marginal players embroiled with confirmed or alleged incidences of domestic and/or sexual assault can sustain careers.

Watching so many NFL teams willfully make ignorant choices and then complain about the lack of quarterback options while leaving a clearly qualified candidate on the sidelines makes it seem like the quality of decision-making in the modern NFL is far worse than the quality of play.

And veterans, who literally fought for Kaepernick's right to protest, know what the issue is.

U.S. Army veteran Richard Allen Smith felt like he was walking with a rock in his shoe all day. In the aftermath of Colin Kaepernick’s protest of the national anthem, Smith heard a lot about how he had been disrespected by what the San Francisco 49ers quarterback had done and said from a lot of folks who never served in the armed forces.

Kaepernick has been sitting during the singing of The Star Spangled Banner the entire preseason, although it was only noticed last Friday when he was dressed to play. In an exclusive interview with NFL.com’s Steve Wyche, Kaepernick explained his protest: “I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color. To me, this is bigger than football and it would be selfish on my part to look the other way.”

Smith said that people burning the quarterback’s jersey “with the troops and veterans being the reason seemed ridiculous.” Being used wasn’t a new feeling. Smith said politicians and corporations often use the military and its servicemen and women for promotion. That leaves some veterans, like Smith, feeling like props for people who haven’t made the sacrifice, but want to cloak themselves in their credibility.

By writing this letter, which was written on Medium, it was an opportunity for him and other vets to counter that rationale. Although the 31-year-old works as a media strategist with the National Education Association, the letter was thought of, created and crafted as something entirely outside of his job and among some of Smith’s friends and colleagues.

One of the most important things about the letter is the diversity of the people signing it and the reasons that they are putting their names on it.

“I wanted to put something out there in the world … to say that ‘There are veterans who not only agree with Colin Kaepernick’s right to do that, but also agree with the substance of the action,’ ” Smith said. “And are willing to stand up and say Black Lives Matter and this is an important issue that we need to address in our country.

“This is an incredibly diverse list of people. I didn’t know how many signatures I was going to get – if I’m going to get five or 10 signatures on this letter. … There’s diversity in service – every branch of the service is represented here – there are black people, white people, Latinos, a Native American person on here. Gay veterans, straight veterans, female veterans, male veterans from both coast to southeast, to southwest, the heartland, pretty much any sort of identity you can imagine, it’s signed onto this letter in the form of one person or more.”

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In 1947, former Army officer Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in Major League Baseball. Robinson experienced taunts, epithets, and threats of violence for simply standing up to the status quo of segregation in America.

Since 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick engaged in a silent protest to bring attention to the state of emergency facing people of color in America, a chorus of detractors have lined up to denounce his stand, or more accurately his sit. Fans have burned his jersey. A presidential candidate suggested he leave the country. Many have claimed his protest disrespected American veterans.

Jackie Robinson isn’t here today to tell us what he would think of Kaepernick’s protest. But he did convey the same sentiment about the national anthem as Kaepernick in his 1972 autobiography, writing, “I cannot stand and sing the anthem. I cannot salute the flag; I know that I am a black man in a white world.”

As military veterans, we write to express our support for the tradition of advocacy by athletes that is embodied by Jackie Robinson and carried on by Colin Kaepernick.

For generations, American athletes have used their public voice to force our collective attention towards the crises and issues that challenge our national conscience. Jackie Robinson, Muhammad Ali, Jim Brown, Tommie Smith, John Carlos, Ariyana Smith, the Minnesota Lynx, the Missouri Tigers football team, and stars across professional sports declaring that #BlackLivesMatter, are all part of a brave tradition of protest by athletes. Far from an anomaly, athletes leading on social change has been the norm in America.

The right for those athletes, and all Americans, to protest is one we all pledged to defend with our lives if necessary. Far from disrespecting our troops, there is no finer form of appreciation for our sacrifice than for Americans to enthusiastically exercise their freedom of speech.

While we would not all personally choose to protest in a manner identical to Kaepernick, we respect and honor his choice, and whole heartedly join him in stating unequivocally that BLACK LIVES MATTER. The current state of affairs for people of color in America is unsustainable and unacceptable. According to analysis by the Washington Post, black people in America are two and a half times more likely to be shot and killed by police than white Americans. Far too often, people of color are dying at the hands of law enforcement personnel in the streets, our jails, and their homes. Indictments are rare and convictions are essentially nonexistent.

This status quo outrages us as men and women who raised our right hands and pledged to defend, with our lives if necessary, a Constitution that proclaims intent to “establish justice, insure domestic tranquility,” and “secure the Blessings of Liberty.” Those ideals are simply not being upheld for all Americans.

As veterans, we implore all Americans to find your own way to challenge this status quo and advocate for “a more perfect union.” Your method of protest may not be to refrain from the traditions surrounding our national symbols, and it doesn’t have to be. You have the same right as Colin Kaepernick to choose whether and how to advocate, a right we support and served for. However you choose to use your voice, please do so with an understanding that many veterans do not condemn the protest of activists like Jackie Robinson, Colin Kaepernick and everyday Americans seeking justice. Indeed, we see no higher form of patriotism.

Another christian Terrorist Shooting

Oh, wait: he's black and shot white people. Obviously not domestic terrorism.

Think Progress:

While the motives for Samson’s alleged involvement in the shooting remain unknown, far-right figures and outlets have been eager to play up the racial angle, noting that Samson is African American and he targeted a predominately white church. Multiple conspiratorial Twitter accounts have further claimed that Samson is a Muslim, with one even incorrectly claiming he was a Muslim refugee, adding that “This is why we are grateful for EXTREME VETTING & thanks to @realDonaldTrump it got more extreme.”

But according to a Nashville police spokesperson, Samson recently attended church services, and was recognized by some of the parishioners in attendance. And according to his Facebook profile, Samson wasn’t shy about his religious beliefs – or the fact that he was a practicing Christian.

Most Christians, of course, disavow the type of violence Samson allegedly wrought. But Samson’s social media profile suggests he could be the latest in a string of professed Christians to target civilian populations in the United States.

For instance, in 2010, Samson wrote that he was “aiming at … becoming a preacher,” while multiple other status updates point to Samson’s affections for his Christian faith – with one noting that he’s a “church boy, that wants a church girl. As serious about God as I am, plain and simple.” Added Samson, “If youre [sic] not with God-then you’re not with me!”

Samson also had a raft of public interests pointing toward his faith, including having liked movies including The Passion of the Christ and Left Behind: The Movie. Other likes include groups ranging from “Jesus Christ” and “Resolved To Know Christ” to “I Love Jesus” and “Jesus the Savior.” Some of the other groups followed by Samson had more grammatically challenged names, including “Help put Jesus back in EVERYTHING!”, “JESUS IS LORD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! if you know this is true press like. ” and “Let’s join forces as Christians and start a Jesus Christ revival! Press like if Jesus is your Savior!!!”

The alleged shooter additionally liked only one book on Facebook: the Bible.

None of this means that Samson necessarily leaned on his Christian faith as justification for the mass shooting. There isn’t enough information about his motives to draw that conclusion.

However, the United States has seen a recent spate of domestic terror incidents specifically tied to fundamentalist Christianity, as well as the rise of white supremacist “Christian Identity” groups and individuals who, as ThinkProgress detailed in 2014, “spout scripture while engaging in horrifying acts of violence.”

The rise in violent acts committed by self-avowed Christians, ranging from plotting to bomb civil rights organizations in Oklahoma to plans to assassinate state officials in Washington to shooting sprees in Texas, has paralleled a broader spike in right-wing domestic terror incidents since the mid-2000s. As the Anti-Defamation League’s Center on Extremism recently found, some three-quarters of extremist-related murders from 2007-2016 were attributed to right-wing extremists – a rise, and a reality, to which the Trump administration has paid little heed.

Samson was not a white supremacist, and did not appear to be a member of any “Christian Identity” sect. But just like Roof’s church attack two years ago, Samson’s shooting further highlights the reality that what’s often called domestic terrorism is by no means confined to any specific ideology – nor, as we’ve seen, to any specific religion.

The danger is freakazoids with guns.