May 18, 2016

Get Control, Senator Sanders, or Get Out

Violence. Death threats. Vile, misogynistic names screamed at women. Rage. Hatred. Menacing, anonymous phone calls to homes and offices. Public officials whisked offstage by security agents frightened of the growing mob. None of this has any place in a political campaign. And the candidate who has been tolerating this obscene behavior among his supporters is showing himself to be unfit for office.

So, Senator Sanders, either get control of what is becoming your increasingly unhinged cult or get out of the race. Whatever respect sane liberals had for you is rapidly dwindling, and the damage being inflicted on your reputation may be unfixable. If you can’t even manage the vicious thugs who act in your name, you can’t be trusted to run a convenience store, much less the country.

When Bernie Sanders launched his presidential campaign, he seemed to be the kind of candidate who would inspire voters from the liberal blocs of the Democratic Party, push the party leftward and influence the future direction of politics—either as the nominee or as a force for change. But Sanders has increasingly signaled that he is in this race for Sanders, and day after day shows himself to be a whining crybaby with little interest in a broader movement. His vicious—and often ridiculous—attacks on the party whenever he doesn’t win a contest have inspired a level of ignorant fanaticism among a large swath of his supporters that is becoming more akin to what might be seen at an out-of-control rally for Donald Trump. Signs are emerging that the Sanders campaign is transmogrifying into the type of movement through which tyrants are born.

The ugly was on display at the recent state convention of the Nevada Democratic Party, where Hillary Clinton won more delegates than Sanders. Now, this should hardly have been a surprise to anyone except the Sandernistas, whose certainty in their righteousness has overwhelmed any commitment they may have ever had to democracy. Sanders lost the Nevada caucuses in February by more than 5 percent. A rational person who cared about the will of the people would presume that Clinton would emerge from the state with the most delegates. But Sanders supporters were outraged—outraged!—that the person with the largest number of votes ended up with the largest share of delegates.

http://www.newsweek.com/bernie-sanders-get-control-get-out-race-461195

May 16, 2016

'You want a description of hell?’ OxyContin’s 12-hour problem

The drugmaker Purdue Pharma launched OxyContin two decades ago with a bold marketing claim: One dose relieves pain for 12 hours, more than twice as long as generic medications.

Patients would no longer have to wake up in the middle of the night to take their pills, Purdue told doctors. One OxyContin tablet in the morning and one before bed would provide “smooth and sustained pain control all day and all night.”

When Purdue unveiled OxyContin in 1996, it touted 12-hour duration.

On the strength of that promise, OxyContin became America’s bestselling painkiller, and Purdue reaped $31 billion in revenue.

But OxyContin’s stunning success masked a fundamental problem: The drug wears off hours early in many people, a Los Angeles Times investigation found. OxyContin is a chemical cousin of heroin, and when it doesn’t last, patients can experience excruciating symptoms of withdrawal, including an intense craving for the drug.

The problem offers new insight into why so many people have become addicted to OxyContin, one of the most abused pharmaceuticals in U.S. history.

http://static.latimes.com/oxycontin-part1/

May 12, 2016

Arizona man sentenced for leaving granddaughter in desert with loaded gun

An Arizona man was sentenced to six months in jail for abandoning his five-year-old granddaughter in the desert and instructing her to 'shoot any bad guys,' prosecutors said.

Paul Armand Rater, 54, of Buckeye, pleaded guilty to one count of felony child abuse under a plea agreement stemming from the November 2015 incident, county Attorney Bill Montgomery said.

The girl was reported missing by family members four hours after Rater took her for a ride in his newpickup truck, authorities said.

She was found holding a .45-caliber pistol during a search of the area by her mother and an off-duty firefighter,court records said.

She told sheriff's detectives that she had been told to 'shoot any bad guys' and added: 'I don't know why papa left me.'

Rater was located at a store and he admitted to leaving the girl under a tree with his gun after his vehicle apparently had broken down and he left to seek help.

But he then proceeded to go into an establishment where he had drinks and ate a cheeseburger, court records showed.

'There still has been no satisfactory explanation for why that happened,' Montgomery said at a news conference on Wednesday. 'I can't tell you why.'

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3585692/Arizona-grandfather-jailed-leaving-5-year-old-desert-gun.html


Am I the only one who thinks this was an attempted murder and six months is WAY too short?

May 12, 2016

Court Papers Reveal Qaeda Operative’s Work as Trainer and Bomb Expert

WASHINGTON — The Qaeda bomb-making instructor carefully demonstrated for his student how to mix the chemicals to make a volatile powder, then supervised a test explosion and added a sinister final tip: tape bolts around the homemade bomb to produce lethal shrapnel.

The explosive expert’s identity, revealed by a Qaeda operative facing sentencing next week, came as a surprise: He was Anwar al-Awlaki, the American imam who had joined Al Qaeda in Yemen and become the terrorist network’s leading English-language propagandist.

Mr. Awlaki had long been known for public oratory on behalf of Al Qaeda before he was killed in a drone strike in 2011 on President Obama’s orders, making him the first American citizen killed without criminal charges or trial in the campaign against terrorism.

But new court filings in New York offer the most detailed account yet of a hidden side of Mr. Awlaki’s work inside Al Qaeda’s branch in Yemen — as a hands-on trainer who taught recruits how to make bombs, gave them money for missions and offered suggestions about how to carry out suicide attacks.

The papers, part of a sentencing memorandum submitted by the government, were filed Tuesday in Federal District Court in Manhattan in the case of Mr. Awlaki’s former bomb-making student, Minh Quang Pham, a Vietnamese-British convert to Islam. He has pleaded guilty to three terrorism-related counts and is to be sentenced Monday.

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/05/11/world/middleeast/anwar-al-awlaki-qaeda.html?referer=

Remember the good old days when DUers used to argue he had nothing to do with AQ and was completely innocent?

May 6, 2016

These West Point cadets are being investigated, mostly for being black

The U.S. Military Academy at West Point in New York is investigating a photo showing 16 black female cadets in uniform with their fists raised in a salute that critics are calling a gesture of solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement, the Army Times reports.

"We can confirm that the cadets in this photo are members of the U.S. Military Academy's Class of 2016," West Point’s director of public affairs, Lt. Col. Christopher Kasker, said in a statement. "Academy officials are conducting an inquiry into the matter."

According to the Army Times, not many details are known about the photo, although it has since been shared wildly in military circles, along with the claim that the women are supporting BLM. Critics are reportedly concerned that the photo violates the Department of Defense Directive 1344.10, which cautions against "partisan political activity" when in uniform.

http://www.theroot.com/articles/news/2016/05/united_states_military_academy_at_west_point_investigates_photo_of_black.html?

May 6, 2016

Cops Tried To Memory-Hole Hasidic Jews' Beating Of Black Man In Williamsburg

Police seem to have tried to deep-six an investigation into the brutal beatdown of a gay black man in Williamsburg, allegedly by Hasidic Jewish neighborhood watch members, and only reopened the case after the victim's mother made a fuss in the media. The Daily News reports that within a day of the December 2013 attack on then-fashion student Taj Patterson that left him with a broken eye socket and blind in one eye, the NYPD had marked the case a misdemeanor assault and labeled the case closed, with no arrests made.

Patterson was walking home along Flushing Avenue early in the morning when a group of men pounced on him, according to prosecutors. Five men accused him of damaging cars in the area and surrounded him, then were joined by another 10 people, and when Patterson tried to flee, they held him down and kicked and punched him, prosecutors allege.

The pummeling only ceased when a bus driver pulled over and started to take photos.

"That wasn’t a misdemeanor," the driver told the News.

He continued:

"They were actually stomping and kicking him. One of his eyes was closed and so swollen. He was saying, 'My eye. I can’t see.'"

Somehow, the initial police report only mentioned one attacker, and called Patterson, "highly intoxicated, uncooperative and incoherent," according to the tabloid.

The NYPD wouldn't discuss the News's findings.

http://gothamist.com/2016/05/06/taj_patterson_coverup.php

May 6, 2016

Shootings reported at Westfield Montgomery Mall, Giant grocery; at least 3 injured

Source: WJLA-TV//ABC 7

BETHESDA, Md. (WJLA) - Two men and one woman were injured in a shooting at Westfield Montgomery Mall in Bethesda Friday morning, according to police.

Montgomery County Police responded to 7101 Democracy Blvd. at approximately 11:30 a.m.

A second shooting was reported shortly after the first at a Giant grocery store located in the 13700 block of Connecticut Avenue at approximately 11:50 a.m.

There was speculation that the suspect in both of the shootings was 62-year-old Eulalio Tordil, who was already wanted in connection with the shooting death of his estranged wife Gladys Tordil Thursday, sources told ABC7.

Nearby Walter Johnson High School, Tilden Middle School and Bells Mill Elementary were all on "shelter in place" status while the incidents were under investigation.

The condition of the victims was not yet known.


Read more: http://wjla.com/news/crime/report-shooting-at-westfield-montgomery-mall-in-bethesda

May 3, 2016

Vladimir Putin’s Newest Target: Children

Russia’s transparency is gone. Pro-Putin radicals now attack independent journalists, famous intellectuals, politicians, and civil society activists, and the violence remains unpunished.

On Thursday, dozens of nationalists wearing ribbons of Saint George poured a bottle of green disinfectant over the face of internationally acclaimed novelist Lyudmila Ulitskaya. The well-organized attackers cursed high school children and their teachers—visitors to Moscow who arrived from Russia’s regions to participate in a history contest devoted to memories of Stalin’s political repression.

One of the contest’s jury members, Irina Yasina, witnessed the attacks. The wheelchair-bound Yasina said that the radical activists scared her and the students she was working with. “Police did not stop the criminals, that means the state approves of this shameful, ugly attacks on children and women,” Yasina told The Daily Beast. “Russia is closing, withdrawing into some brutal self-isolated world, where young people do not want to remember their own history,” she said.

One part of the country, the North Caucasus republic of Chechnya, has already closed its doors for outside observers. Moscow reporters described the republic as “hell,” where locals suffer constant abductions and arrests but can find no sympathy or support from the Russian authorities. A dark new trend is the abduction of Chechen intellectuals who have a different opinion from the republic’s authoritarian leader, Ramzan Kadyrov. The most recent cases include a university professor, a well-known poet, and two book publishers.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/05/03/vladimir-putin-s-newest-target-children.html

Can't wait to read Snowden's next hot take about this in the Guardian... Yeah, right...

Have at it, Snowdenistas...

April 29, 2016

How Our Country Fails Black Women and Girls

The following was delivered before the Congressional Caucus for Black Women and Girls earlier today.

I hold a professorship named for one of the most extraordinary Americans to live in the twentieth century. Born in 1928, Maya Angelou experienced childhood poverty and dislocation. She was raped by an adult man when she only seven years old. The brutality and unresolved trauma resulting from that early sexual violence stole her voice and shaped her young adulthood. Eventually she became an unwed teen mother. More than three generations after Maya's childhood, poverty, familial disruption, sexual violence, interrupted education, and teen pregnancy remain key barriers facing black girls in America's cities, towns, and rural communities.

Maya Angelou's story does not end with her struggles; it only begins there. She was guided out of silence by the loving hand of an educator. Her teacher did not practice zero tolerance or call a school resource officer to slam young Maya to the ground. She saw the brokenness of a girl child who needed to be drawn gently back into the world. She helped Maya regain her voice through a love of literature and poetry. As a girl Maya was burdened with poverty and brokenness, but she also encountered meaningful opportunities to learn, grow, and discover her talents while experiencing the care of her community. Maya transformed these opportunities into a life of singular accomplishment and remarkable contributions.

Maya became a fierce advocate for voting rights and human rights, working first with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X and later with both Coretta Scott King and Dr. Betty Shabazz. Recognizing the importance of race and gender health disparities, Dr. Angelou gave her name to the Maya Angelou Center for Health Equity at the Wake Forest University School of Medicine. In Washington, D.C., she enthusiastically contributed her name to the Maya Angelou Public Charter School offering second chances to young people emerging from juvenile incarceration. Maya Angelou's path was not always pretty or polite, but it always affirmed that Black Girls Rock and Black Women Matter.

Indeed, Maya Angelou's story embodies the barriers and pathways for black women and girls we have gathered to discuss today. I believe she would be pleased by this unprecedented gathering of scholars, activists, artists, journalists, citizens, and lawmakers committed to eliminating injustices black women face. I believe she would commend each of the co-chairs for the visionary leadership to develop the first Congressional Caucus for Black Women and Girls. And I believe she would ask of the larger legislative body, "What took so long?"

What took so long? After all, it is not safe to be a black girl in America.

http://www.elle.com/culture/career-politics/a35983/melissa-harris-perry-congressional-testimony-black-women-and-girls/