December 31, 2019

Chief says cop "fabricated" coffee cup insult...

A Kansas police officer "fabricated" a story that a McDonald's employee wrote an expletive on his coffee cup over the weekend, Herington Police Chief Brian Hornaday said Monday. Hornaday said the officer no longer works for the department.

https://www.cbsnews.com/video/officer-fabricated-story-about-being-served-mcdonalds-coffee-with-fing-pig-written-on-cup-police-chief-says/

December 29, 2019

Do you think the media is trying to ensure Trump's reelection?

Face the Nation conducted a softball interview with Ivanka Trump today - a few days after lamenting about not hosting obvious liars and trying to do better.

Personally, I think the media (NBC, ABC, CBS, CNN, MSNBC) absolutely LOVES all the horrible things Trump is doing, they love the wedge he has driven between citizens, they love the hatred and cruelty he's helped unleash, etc... all because of ratings/optics/pizzazz.

So I ask, do you think the media is making a concerted effort to try and help Trump win in 2020?

December 20, 2019

Lesbos migrant camp children 'say they want to die'

An increasing number of children are self-harming and attempting suicide in the Greek migrant camp on Lesbos, according to psychologists working there.

Almost 18,000 people are currently living in the camp which was built for just 2,000.

There has been a spike in refugees arriving on the Aegean islands in recent months, many of them are families who are fleeing war.

https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-europe-50814521/lesbos-migrant-camp-children-say-they-want-to-die

December 20, 2019

Former Kentucky governor Matt Bevin is defending his pardon of a child abuser by claiming...

a nine year old couldn’t have been raped because she had an intact hymen.

https://twitter.com/joesonka/status/1207794085517496320


What a monster.

December 19, 2019

'Nice school shooting' would break up impeachment coverage, KNUS host says; show canceled

Colorado talk radio host Chuck Bonniwell said "a nice school shooting" could interrupt the coverage of President Trump's impeachment.

DENVER — A Colorado radio host said this week that a “nice school shooting” might break up the coverage of Pres. Donald Trump’s impeachment hearing. One day later, KNUS 710-AM has canceled "Chuck and Julie."

“You know, you wish for a nice school shooting to interrupt [it],” Chuck Bonniwell said in a conversation with his co-host Julie Hayden, after describing the impeachment process as “never-ending.”

Hayden quickly shot down Bonniwell’s comment in their Tuesday afternoon program.

“No, no. Don’t even – don’t even say that. No, don’t even say that,” she told Bonniwell. “Don’t call us. Chuck didn’t say that.”

https://twitter.com/KyleClark/status/1207442194531045376

Bonniwell added that he wouldn’t want anyone to be hurt before the conversation moved on with a caller.

The clip was removed from the podcast as of Wednesday afternoon. 9NEWS downloaded the audio prior to the edit.

https://www.9news.com/article/news/local/next/nice-school-shooting-would-break-up-impeachment-coverage-knus-show-host-says/73-5c286d5d-217a-4d04-8e41-0bb59d6e47d2

December 16, 2019

What Working-class and Poor White People Need to Understand About Rich White People

Rich people do not care about you.
When a family like the Waltons, worth over $50 billion — that’s billion with a “b” — are fine knowing their employees are collecting food stamps to survive and they do nothing about it, that speaks volumes. It says loud and clear: I don’t fucking care about you!



Creating jobs isn’t a thing to be praised.
“Job-creation” is nothing more than a catchphrase that politicians use to get votes. It doesn’t mean anything. Let’s say there is a small town with 500 people and a factory opens and pays minimum wage. If the company hires everyone in the area, the result will not be a thriving community. It will be a community of 500 poor people. Yes, the factory technically created jobs, but it also spread poverty. Never forget they need us more than we need them. Without us working their low-paying jobs, they have nothing. Make them pay fairly for your labor. Make them create well-paying jobs.



There is NO such thing as a “Welfare Queen.”
There never was. Politicians made this up. It is propaganda designed to make you think people of color are lazy and want a free ride at your expense. If you resent them, you are more likely to vote to eliminate programs that benefit them but could also benefit your own family. Generations and generations of white people have been programmed to be racist even if it’s to their own detriment. By helping to keep people of color down, you keep yourself down — and that’s how politicians want it. Consider how the GIF below uses racist propaganda to persuade you to think negatively about people who need government assistance. (And no, one example of a person buying steaks with food stamps does not prove the entire welfare system is corrupt.)



There is a myth that raising the minimum wage would allow unskilled workers to make as much as skilled workers and that wouldn’t be fair.
Again, this is more spinning of tales so that wealthy CEOs can keep worker pay at an all-time low while they make billions. The truth is if minimum wage went up, skilled wages would go up too. How? Let’s say you are an EMT working for $15.00 an hour and the minimum wage goes up. Now everyone working in retail and fast food is making the same as you. Pretty insulting, right? Wrong. That’s what corporations want you to think so you will fight to keep other poor people down. If the minimum wage rose to $15, you could get a job anywhere for the same pay. That would give you leverage to negotiate a higher wage by saying, essentially, “There is now an abundance of jobs paying what I make. I can leave and take one of those jobs unless you pay me more for my added skills.” Your skills are now worth more. Instead of $15, you may get $20, but you’ll never get the $20 if you keep fighting to keep others down. Lifting others lifts you up too.




more: https://medium.com/jonnaivin/what-working-class-and-poor-white-people-need-to-understand-about-rich-white-people-44157a370c8f?

December 13, 2019

Bevin pardons a KY man convicted of beheading a woman and stuffing her in a barrel

It’s not clear if Betty Carnes was killed by asphyxiation or by the eight blows to her head that Delmar Partin delivered with a metal pipe. The coroner couldn’t tell which killed the mother of three first, but it was very clear that her head was then chopped off and placed on her lap in a 55-gallon barrel that was destined for a toxic waste site.

On Monday, departing Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin pardoned and commuted the sentence of Partin, who was convicted of killing her at the factory where they both worked in Barbourville in 1994.

In his order, Bevin said he pardoned Partin because potential DNA evidence had not been tested.

“Given the inability or unwillingness of the state to use existing DNA evidence to either affirm or disprove this conviction, I hearby pardon Mr. Partin for this crime and encourage the state to make every effort to bring final justice to the victim and her family,” Bevin wrote.

The prosecutor on the case, Tom Handy, said he hasn’t been this angry in a long time. He called the governor’s pardon “mystifying.”

“I think its arrogance of one who has a God-like image of himself,” Handy said of Bevin. “And a lack of concern for anybody else.”

more: https://www.kentucky.com/news/politics-government/article238320918.html

December 11, 2019

President Trump to sign an order to interpret Judaism as a nationality

https://twitter.com/CNNPolitics/status/1204585087142170624

This should go over well...

December 8, 2019

Pardoned soldiers are Trump's special guests at closed-door fundraiser in Aventura

President Donald Trump, speaking during a closed-door speech to Republican Party of Florida donors at the state party’s annual Statesman’s Dinner, was in “rare form” Saturday night.

The dinner, which raised $3.5 million for the state party, was met with unusual secrecy. The 1,000 attendees were required to check their cell phones into individual locked cases before they entered the unmarked ballroom at the south end of the resort. Reporters were not allowed to attend.

But the secrecy was key to Trump’s performance, which attendees called “hilarious.”

Riding the high of the successful event turnout — and without the pressure of press or cell phones — Trump transformed into a “total comedian,” according to six people who attended the event and spoke afterward to the Miami Herald.

He also pulled an unusual move, bringing on stage Army 1st Lt. Clint Lorance and Maj. Mathew Golsteyn, who Trump pardoned last month for cases involving war crimes. Lorance was serving a 19-year sentence for ordering his soldiers shoot at unarmed men in Afghanistan, and Golsteyn was to stand trial for the 2010 extrajudicial killing of a suspected bomb maker.

https://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics-government/national-politics/article238150139.html

December 6, 2019

Bloomberg: Taxing the Poor is Good Because They'll Have Less Money to Hurt Themselves

Now that former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg has announced his candidacy for president, he is -- of course -- fair game. And yes, that's great for us with a working memory. After all, there have been many times when Bloomberg proved himself to be an extremely arrogant member of the Know-It-All elite. Case in point? Just watch this video in which Bloomberg basically explains that it's a great idea to tax the poor because higher taxes mean they have less money to hurt themselves. Or something.



"[Some] say, well, 'taxes are regressive.' But in this case, yes they are, that's the good thing about them," Bloomberg said at the IMF's 2018 Spring Meeting about taxes on sugary drinks and such. "Because the problem is in people that don't have a lot of money. And so higher taxes should have a bigger impact on their behavior and how they deal with themselves."

In other words, Bloomberg wants to use taxes to make people behave in a way he thinks is best for them. It's Daddy Michael!

https://pjmedia.com/election/video-bloomberg-taxing-the-poor-is-good-because-theyll-have-less-money-to-hurt-themselves/