April 30, 2015

Donald Rumsfeld: Looting Is Transition To Freedom

Donald Rumsfeld, in his own words, twelve years ago (April 11, 2003):


WASHINGTON, April 11 (UPI) -- U.S. forces should not be blamed for the lawlessness and looting in Baghdad as it is a natural consequence of the transition from a dictatorship to a free country, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said Friday at the Pentagon.

"The task we've got ahead of us now is an awkward one ... It's untidy. And freedom's untidy. And free people are free to make mistakes and commit crimes and do bad things. They're also free to live their lives and do wonderful things. And that's what's going to happen here," Rumsfeld said.

"And for suddenly the biggest problem in the world to be looting is really notable."

Rumsfeld said he believes time will take care of the problem in Baghdad, as it seems to have in the southern cities of Umm Qasr and Basra, where looting has largely abated and the streets are back under relative control.



MORE:
http://www.upi.com/Business_News/Security-Industry/2003/04/11/Rumsfeld-Looting-is-transition-to-freedom/63821050097983/
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/04/30/1381387/-Rumsfeld-Looting-Is-Transition-To-Freedom

April 30, 2015

The Real Baltimore Riot Looters

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April 30, 2015

Orioles player gave out imaginary autographs at todays first ever closed gate baseball game.

https://vine.co/v/e7Z0T35Xg2n

April 30, 2015

Senator Warren blasts kickbacks for brokers and subtly shames five of her fellow Senate Democrats.

Elizabeth Warren is Not Impressed with Your Diamond-Encrusted Ring

This week, Senator Warren blasted the insurance industry for the perks they give their annuities salespeople for peddling conflicted advice. Warren wrote in a statement that these “questionable practices” highlight the need for the very rule her five Senate colleagues are lobbying against. And she also sent 15 letters to annuity providers like Allianz and AIG, asking the companies for information about the rewards they offered to their brokers.

She didn’t stop there. In a Senate Banking Committee hearing on April 28, Senator Warren called out some of the luxurious kickbacks that annuities salespeople get:

“I got interested in what kinds of kickbacks some of these insurance salesman were getting when they pushed people to buy annuities. And what I found is pretty amazing.


I found free cruises luxury vacations at five-star resorts, an African Safari, private yacht tours of the Mediterranean, iPads, Mercedes-Benz leases, and — get this one — a diamond encrusted, NFL Superbowl style ring with a large ruby in the middle.”

While Senator Warren doesn’t mention her Democratic colleagues that have pushed back on the Labor Department’s proposal by name, her obsessive focus on the glitzy rewards the rule would prevent don’t make them look very good, either.



more:
https://medium.com/bull-market/elizabeth-warren-is-not-impressed-with-your-diamond-encrusted-ring-2b590b2feed7

April 30, 2015

Baltimore Residents Urged To Stay Indoors Until Social Progress Takes Its Course Over Next Century

Baltimore Residents Urged To Stay Indoors Until Social Progress Naturally Takes Its Course Over Next Century


BALTIMORE—Calling it an emergency measure designed to ensure public safety and order, Baltimore officials held a press conference Wednesday urging all residents to stay indoors until the natural evolution of social progress takes shape over the next century. “Given the ongoing situation in our city, we ask that everyone remain within their homes for the next 10 or 12 decades while the various barriers to equality and opportunity for all people are slowly chipped away,” said Baltimore mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, adding that, in addition to shutting down public schools and the transportation system, the city had canceled work for all nonessential government employees while they wait for the arrival of fully protected civil rights and liberties expected sometime in the 22nd century. “As we continue to incrementally evolve into a completely free and fair society over the next 100 years, please do not venture outside unless it is absolutely necessary. Those who go out onto our streets before our social, economic, and political structures have undergone gradual reform over the course of several generations are doing so at their own risk.” Rawlings-Blake then encouraged residents to visit the city’s website for further information regarding what to do as they await the year 2115.


http://www.theonion.com/articles/baltimore-residents-urged-to-stay-indoors-until-so,38511/?utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium=SocialMarketing&utm_campaign=Pic:3 efault

April 30, 2015

Baltimore's Raven

April 30, 2015

Cry new tears-Write new words-Craft new prayers-Attend new marches-Channel new anger-Feel it all....

BALTIMORE IS NOT FERGUSON; FREDDIE GRAY IS NOT MICHAEL BROWN
by Damon Young, 4/28/15

http://verysmartbrothas.com/wp-content/themes/VSB2014/timthumb.php?src=&w=658&q=80



.......................



.............. Freddie Gray wasn’t Eric Garner. And Eric Garner wasn’t Rekia Boyd. And Rekia Boyd wasn’t John Crawford III. And John Crawford III wasn’t Michael Brown. And Michael Brown wasn’t Eric Harris. And Eric Harris wasn’t Walter Scott. And Walter Scott wasn’t Laquan McDonald. And Laquan McDonald wasn’t Lavall Hall. And Lavall Hall wasn’t Jason Harrison. And Jason Harrison wasn’t Brandon Jones. And Brandon Jones wasn’t Ernest Satterwhite. And Ernest Satterwhite wasn’t Anthony Hall. And Anthony Hill wasn’t Tony Robinson. And Tony Robinson wasn’t Tamir Rice. And Tamir Rice wasn’t Tanisha Anderson. And Tanisha Anderson wasn’t James Howard Allen. And James Howard Allen wasn’t Akai Gurley. And Akai Gurley wasn’t Ezell Ford. And Ezell Ford wasn’t Rumain Brisbon. And Rumain Brisbon wasn’t Darrien Hunt. And Darrien Hunt wasn’t VonDerritt Myers Jr. And VonDerritt Myers Jr wasn’t Aiyana Stanley-Jones. And Aiyana Stanley-Jones wasn’t Luis Rodriguez. And Luis Rodriguez wasn’t Ramarley Graham. And Ramarley Graham wasn’t Jonathan Ferrell. And Jonathan Ferrell wasn’t Jack Lamar Roberson. And Jack Lamar Roberson wasn’t Kimani Gray. And Kimani Gray wasn’t Anna Brown. And Anna Brown wasn’t Oscar Grant. And Oscar Grant wasn’t Trayvon Martin.

Each of these people were people. Loving, reckless, optimistic, sincere, manipulative, sensitive, funny, lazy, talented, weak, introverted, ambitious and every other uniquely human quality existing in each of us. They did not exist to become a narrative. Or perhaps a lede to a story. Or maybe even a policy change. They existed to exist. Not to not exist. Not to be written with a dry erase marker and erased with a closed fist when a new name, a new cause, appears. Perhaps we made them into means, but they existed as ends.

...............................

So cry new tears. Write new words. Craft new prayers. Attend new marches. Channel new anger. Feel it all again. Every bit of it. All the empathy, all the sorrow, all the rage. Don’t fight it. Let it permeate you. Embrace its engulf. Because Freddie Gray deserves it. Baltimore deserves it. You deserve it. Do not allow them to desensitize you to the uniqueness and preciousness of our lives, to the beauty of being alive, and do not permit them to rob you of the agony of them being snatched away.

And when it happens again — and it will happen again — when another police-involved killing of an unarmed person of color turns a city upside down, do it all again.



the rest:
http://verysmartbrothas.com/baltimore-is-not-ferguson-freddie-gray-is-not-michael-brown/

April 30, 2015

Ta-Nehisi Coates: Baltimore in a nutshell

✔@tanehisicoates

https://twitter.com/tanehisicoates/status/593244277217619970

April 30, 2015

"You Clean It Up"

April 29, 2015

Former US President Jimmy Carter: I couldn't afford to run a campaign today

http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/former-us-president-jimmy-carter-i-couldnt-afford-run-campaign-today-1498630.

If he could do it all over again, and he was a younger man, Jimmy Carter still wouldn't run to become US president today. He couldn't afford to, he told reporters.

"I couldn't possibly do it because I have very little money," Carter said at a Pennsylvania press conference. "Now it takes $200m if you want any chance to get the Democratic or Republican nomination."

Carter , now 90, said he raised absolutely no money for his runs against Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan because he relied on public financing of campaigns, reports the Times-Tribune. Barack Obama was the first president not to accept public funds in 2008 because he could raise more.