Racist hit-and-run woman also has a history of getting breaks from Iowa's criminal justice system

She was charged with stabbing one boyfriend in the chest in 2017 and, months later, with threatening another with a butcher's knife. She allegedly told her ex-husband during a child custody dispute that she was going to kill him.

Despite accusations of violence and threats and her chronic drug use and mental health problems over the last three years, Nicole Marie Poole Franklin caught several breaks from Iowa's criminal justice system, court records show.

The 42-year-old unemployed white woman, who is also identified in some court and police documents at Nicole Marie Poole, was allowed to stay out of prison and avoid treatment before allegedly hitting a Latino girl and a black boy with her car on Dec. 9.

She was arrested and charged with a hate crime in connection with a disturbance later that same day at a West Des Moines gas station where witnesses told police she called an employee and customers racial epithets.

https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/crime-and-courts/2019/12/27/iowa-hit-and-runs-hate-crime-suspect-got-breaks-after-earlier-arrests/2758877001/

If she was black, she'd be a "thug". If she was Muslim, she'd be a "terrorist". If she was Hispanic, she'd be "MS-13". But because she is who she is, she "deserved some breaks" instead. She wasn't alone when she drove that car into those kids, everyone who is OK with this racial double standard drove with her.

Remember that Fox News graphic that "compared" Steve Bannon to Baghdadi?

Looks like there's something based off of it, and conservatives won't be happy about it.

A long time ago, many years ago in fact, I was the "hit" in a hit and run

It hurt physically, sure, but what really left a scar was that I was considered that much of a "nothing" in someone else's eyes that they could just strike me with their car and keep going to do something that really mattered I guess.

But you know what I never did?

I never compared what happened to me to what Jesus went through.

So I just hope anyone reading this right here remembers this post right here when they accuse Democrats or the left of creating a "culture of victimhood" or relying on feelings instead of facts.

Come the first day of a post-Trump White House...

Republicans will be all "I never REALLY supported him" and "Come on, nobody REALLY believes that the President is chosen by God".

Isn't it exhausting to be like this? Isn't it taxing? To follow this madman down whatever dark path he desires?

Republicans, free yourselves of him now, today. You're going to pretend you never supported him the day when it is no longer convenient anyway, everyone knows that. Instead of simply following what's convenient, you should be the masters of what happens in your own lives and let that day be today.

"Ah, so *THAT* is what they mean by 'strong economy'!"

Since Russian trolls are omnipresent, do we do anything to counter-troll them?

A signature line like mine would be a start IMHO.

"Sergei Magnitsky's cause of death: Heart attack. No, fall on head. No, pancreatitis. No, abdominal rupture. No, Bill Browder did it. No, self-inflicted."

Why do we need to start counter-trolling them?

I see this in many places, I'm calling the whole internet out, all sides, all factions. When someone makes an unorthodox argument, says something that defies social conventions, or says something perceived to be shocking or deviant... they get called a Russian troll or an agent of Putin trying to divide us. This should have become a dead horse when I saw a defender of Michael Flynn saying it, saying that people supporting accountability for Flynn are just doing Putin's work, but no, this circumstantial ad hominem or ad fontem argument is still with us. So let's not call someone a Russian troll just because we don't like what the other person is saying.

Also, the need to counter-troll them does not ignore or exclude the reality that Russians are indeed manipulating our political system. And if they are engaging with us, then maybe we can engage back with them. It's funny, we're supposed to somehow convince Republicans who subscribe to conspiracy theories about Pizzagate and QAnon and believe Democrats are now "socialist" and "socialist" now means valuing human lives over confederate statues or not wanting to get shot in school to vote for us in 2020. If we CAN convince those people to vote for us, then I'm pretty sure we can convince some Russian trolls to become assets against Putin as well.

So instead of just saying Russian trolls are around every e-corner and the source of every opinion you don't like, what are you doing to counter their influence or even turn them into activists against Putin?

I'm starting to wonder *why* Russian trolls are treated as the Anti-Civility

Today I've learned that:
Russian trolls are making conservative Christians look like fools in the eyes of liberals
Russian trolls are sending uplifting tweets

This isn't about the Russian government, which I believe is an illegitimate terrorist regime, this is about those Russian trolls. When Russian trolls get exposed, they get scrubbed from the Internet and they appear somewhere else, and I'm starting to think it's kind of disappointing we can't engage them.

We treat them as the very anathema of civil dialogue and civil discourse, I'm not so sure they are though. Are they really that different from other actors?

I mean, we're supposed to hold hands with people who think liberalism is not legitimate... that it's a creation of the Je- George Soros. That it results from school indoctrination. We're supposed to somehow convince people who believe in QAnon/Pizzagate conspiracy theories to vote for Democrats. We're supposed to give warm fuzzy feelings to people who think America in 2019 is awful and think America in the 1950s... or the 1860s if you're a Roy Moore voter... was awesome. We're supposed to have "understanding" for people who tell immigrants "if you don't like it, you can leave" but shrug their shoulders when they encounter people who say the wrong side won the civil war.

In short: If we CAN actually convince those people on the other side of the aisle to give up their hate and vote for us, right, then what is stopping us from convincing Russian trolls to turn against the Putinist regime? And if we can't, aren't we just excusing the irrationality and "own the libs" mentality of today's right, blaming Russians, when really, it's just all them? Why are we doing that then? How would that benefit us?

Trump: Am I out of touch? Am I dividing the country?

US seen as 'exporter of white supremacist ideology,' says counterterrorism official

After an upsurge in racially motivated attacks around the world, other countries are beginning to regard the United States as an exporter of white supremacism, a senior U.S. counterterrorism official said Friday.

“For almost two decades, the United States has pointed abroad at countries who are exporters of extreme Islamist ideology,” Russell Travers, acting director of the National Counterterrorism Center, told an audience in Washington, D.C. “We are now being seen as the exporter of white supremacist ideology. That’s a reality with which we are going to have to deal.”

Travers said there is now a global movement of what he termed “racially motivated violent extremism,” or RMVE (pronounced “rem-vee”), fueled by a wide variety of motivations and facilitated by social media and other online communications.

“A large percentage of RMVE attackers in recent years have either displayed outreach to like-minded individuals or groups or referenced early attackers as sources of inspiration,” he said.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/america-seen-as-exporter-of-white-supremacist-ideology-says-us-counterterrorism-official-232420985.html

Newsflash: There's no "clash of civilizations" between Western and Islamic civilizations. There's a secret love affair of sorts between the worst of the worst present in both (White nationalists, right wing authoritarians, right wing evangelicals, people who see George Soros and "cultural Marxism" behind everything for the former and Al Qaeda, ISIS, other groups, and government regimes like Saudi Arabia and Iran for the later); they shore each other up, they hold the other side up as the definition of that civilization, they try to produce a clear benefit from the work of that other side, and sometimes they even help the other side out directly. This is just the latest manifestation of that fact.

They need each other more than we (Both in the West and Muslims) need them. It's time to realize that.

"Greatest healthcare system in the world" dealing with worsening shortages of essential medicines

Reason why is shocking... or maybe it's not shocking.