April 4, 2015

WTF. Did someone slip some LSD in Billo's martini?

Bill O’Reilly Shocks Fox News Anchor By Expressing Support For Iran Deal
BY IGOR VOLSKY * APRIL 2, 2015 * ThinkProgress.com

A slew of Democratic lawmakers endorsed the tentative deal the United States and its international partners reached on Thursday to contain Iran’s nuclear program. But support for the agreement also came from an unusual source: Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly.

Appearing on the conservative network just minutes after President Barack Obama held a news conference in the White House Rose Garden laying out the broad outlines for how the United States hopes to limit Tehran’s nuclear capabilities, O’Reilly — a harsh critic of Obama’s foreign policy — argued that conservatives should give diplomacy a chance.

“You don’t want a war with Iran,” he explained. “You don’t want to bomb that country because the unintended consequences will set the world aflame. So if you can get something that’s decent, you give it a shot. I think that’s a legitimate point,” O’Reilly said to a surprised Gretchen Carlson, host of the network’s daytime show, The Real Story.

O’Reilly also warned Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu against immediately rejecting the compromise, counseling the long-time opponent of talks to wait and see “specifically what the Iranians are going to agree to.”
http://thinkprogress.org/world/2015/04/02/3642246/bill-oreilly-expresses-support-iran-deal-give-shot/

April 4, 2015

Occupy the Democratic Party?

I was not aware of this group or it's website until today, but it's been around for 3-4 years apparently.
http://www.occupydemocrats.com

Here's their "About Us" statement:

Is anyone else on DU aware of this group? Is this authentically an OWS-based group, or a brainchild of 3rd Wayers to avoid progressive third-party organizing? The reason I ask this is that it also says this on their "About Us" page:

***WE ADVOCATE WORKING WITH DEMOCRATS, NOT THIRD PARTIES, TO FIGHT SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC INEQUALITY, AND WE LOVE, SUPPORT, RESPECT, AND ADMIRE PRESIDENT OBAMA***

I'd love to hear from all you DU Progressives if you know anything about this Occupy Democrats effort.

April 3, 2015

American police killed more people in March (111) than the entire UK police have killed since 1900

American police killed more people in March (111) than the entire UK police have killed since 1900
Apr 01, 2015 * by Shaun King * Daily Kos

Yeah. Those numbers are real.
A total of 111 people were killed by police in the United States in March of 2015. Since 1900, in the entire United Kingdom, 52 people have been killed by police.

Don't bother adjusting for population differences, or poverty, or mental illness, or anything else. The sheer fact that American police kill TWICE as many people per month as police have killed in the modern history of the United Kingdom is sick, preposterous, and alarming.

In March:

Police beat Phillip White to death in New Jersey. He was unarmed.

Police shot and killed Meagan Hockaday, a 26-year-old mother of three.

Police shot and killed Nicholas Thomas, an unarmed man on his job at Goodyear in metro Atlanta.

Police shot and killed Anthony Hill, an unarmed war veteran fighting through mental illness, in metro Atlanta.

I could tell 107 more of those stories.

This has to end.

http://m.dailykos.com/story/2015/04/01/1374908/-American-police-killed-more-people-in-March-111-than-in-the-entire-United-Kingdom-since-1900?detail=email

April 1, 2015

University removes Common (a hip-hop artist) as graduation speaker amid police whining

So Academy Award-winning hip-hop artists in NJ must choose: 1) gag yourself for fear you'll be, you know, "not invited into polite company". OR 2) remain authentic, and suffer the indignity of not getting invited to stuff?



University removes Common as graduation speaker amid police outcry
Kean University spokeswoman said school will ‘pursue other options’ after state police complaint over hip-hop artists’s song about woman convincted of killing officer
AP via The Guardian * Wednesday 1 April 2015

New Jersey’s Kean University has cancelled hip-hop artist Common as commencement speaker after police voiced concerns over a song about a woman convicted of killing a police officer who fled to Cuba.

The school announced the Academy Award winner’s selection on Monday, but said on its social media sites on Tuesday night that he would not be the speaker.

A university spokeswoman, Susan Kayne, told the Record newspaper the announcement was made prematurely.

Common won an Academy Award for composing the song Glory for the 2014 film Selma.

The film’s director, Ava DuVernay, tweeted #Assata in support of the rapper.

“The students expressed interest in Common because he composed the Oscar-winning song Glory with our prior commencement speaker John Legend,” Kayne said. “While we respect his talent, Kean is pursuing other speaker options.”

New Jersey state police were troubled by the choice because of lyrics in Common’s 2000 recording A Song for Assata. The song is about Joanne Chesimard, who goes by the name Assata Shakur, and was convicted in 1977 of killing trooper Werner Foerster in 1973. She escaped from prison and has been living in Cuba as a fugitive.

The song describes the shootout and the treatment meted out to Shakur in prison: “A call, one cot, no window, facing hell/Put in the basement of a prison with all males” and concludes “Assata had been convicted of a murder she couldn’t have done/Medical evidence shown she couldn’t have shot the gun.”

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/apr/01/new-jersey-kean-university-common-commencement-speaker