Congressman Fear Mongers On Minimum Wage: 'You Guys Wanna Pay $20 For A Hamburger?'
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A Tennessee judge has ordered that a baby's name be changed from "Messiah" to "Martin," explaining that There Can Be Only One:
"The word Messiah is a title and it's a title that has only been earned by one person and that one person is Jesus Christ," Judge [Lu Ann] Ballew said.
The parents had gone to court in a child support case, and could not agree on what the 7-month-old's last name would be. They had not asked for any help with his first name, which they agreed on. Judge Ballew ruled that the child's name will combine both parents' names, and will be "Martin DeShawn McCullough." The baby's mother intends to appeal, and we support her right to give her child a perfectly awful name, because Freedom. Maybe she should name the kid Freedom? READ MORE »
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What if you gave a hate-rally and nobody came? - Iowa's favorite nut (with calves like cantaloupes) Steve King hosted a Stop Amnesty rally and almost no one showed up, except the photographer who snapped the pictures of him addressing, well, almost no one. (Think Progress)
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The last word on the amazingly insensitive plan to display open firearms at a Newtown, CT Starbucks -- thwarted by Starbucks themselves -- from the co-founder of Sandy Hook Promise. The event was actually part of a nationwide protest, organized in part by a white nationalist hate group. The gatherings were scheduled to coincide with "Robert E. Lee Day."
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I often say that conservatives never think anything all the way through. They just think until they reach the conclusion they want, then stop thinking before reason screws everything up. Rush Limbaugh proves this by arguing that Christians can't believe in global warming, because only God has the ability to do that sort of damage. If Rush had followed this own thought to its logical conclusion, he'd also have to argue that nuclear weapons are some sort of ridiculous hoax.
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Sen. Ted Cruz's father is as batshit crazy as he is. He may even be farther gone.
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If you want to see what a real death panel looks like, just glance at the comments made by ordinary Americans under this ABC News story about a black teen denied a heart transplant because he has bad grades.
A Georgia teenager needs a lifesaving heart transplant, but his family says low grades and trouble with the law have kept him off the transplant list.
Doctors at Children's Healthcare of Atlanta at Egleston told the family of 15-year-old Anthony Stokes that they won't put him on the transplant list because of his history of "noncompliance," according to ABC's Atlanta affiliate WSBTV. [...]
Anthony has an enlarged heart and has been given six months to live, according to WSBTV.
Here's the thing: I could write a story about a white high school classmate who is on the football team who has been arrested and has bad grades, and the comments I would receive after writing that he has been denied a heart transplant and will die in six months would be that of abject outrage.
Instead, because this is a criminalized 15-year-old black teen with bad grades, you receive comments such as "he shoulda thought about being a hoodlum."
Mother fuckers.
Who needs "government death panels" when ordinary Americans are more than willing to condemn people to death because they might be hoodlums?
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Attorney General Eric Holder delivered remarks to the American Bar Association today and he called for an end to mandatory minimum sentencing. He also delivered an harsh critique of the current state of our justice system as a whole.
You can read his full remarks here at the Department of Justice, but this part in particular stands out to me. And it is long overdue.
As the so-called "war on drugs" enters its fifth decade, we need to ask whether it, and the approaches that comprise it, have been truly effective – and build on the Administration's efforts, led by the Office of National Drug Control Policy, to usher in a new approach. And with an outsized, unnecessarily large prison population, we need to ensure that incarceration is used to punish, deter, and rehabilitate – not merely to warehouse and forget.
Today, a vicious cycle of poverty, criminality, and incarceration traps too many Americans and weakens too many communities. And many aspects of our criminal justice system may actually exacerbate these problems, rather than alleviate them.
It's clear – as we come together today – that too many Americans go to too many prisons for far too long, and for no truly good law enforcement reason. It's clear, at a basic level, that 20th-century criminal justice solutions are not adequate to overcome our 21st-century challenges. And it is well past time to implement common sense changes that will foster safer communities from coast to coast.
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As we come together this morning, this same promise must lead us all to acknowledge that – although incarceration has a significant role to play in our justice system – widespread incarceration at the federal, state, and local levels is both ineffective and unsustainable. It imposes a significant economic burden – totaling $80 billion in 2010 alone – and it comes with human and moral costs that are impossible to calculate.
As a nation, we are coldly efficient in our incarceration efforts. While the entire U.S. population has increased by about a third since 1980, the federal prison population has grown at an astonishing rate – by almost 800 percent. It's still growing – despite the fact that federal prisons are operating at nearly 40 percent above capacity. Even though this country comprises just 5 percent of the world's population, we incarcerate almost a quarter of the world's prisoners. More than 219,000 federal inmates are currently behind bars. Almost half of them are serving time for drug-related crimes, and many have substance use disorders. Nine to 10 million more people cycle through America's local jails each year. And roughly 40 percent of former federal prisoners – and more than 60 percent of former state prisoners – are rearrested or have their supervision revoked within three years after their release, at great cost to American taxpayers and often for technical or minor violations of the terms of their release.
As a society, we pay much too high a price whenever our system fails to deliver outcomes that deter and punish crime, keep us safe, and ensure that those who have paid their debts have the chance to become productive citizens. Right now, unwarranted disparities are far too common. As President Obama said last month, it's time to ask tough questions about how we can strengthen our communities, support young people, and address the fact that young black and Latino men are disproportionately likely to become involved in our criminal justice system – as victims as well as perpetrators.
We also must confront the reality that – once they're in that system – people of color often face harsher punishments than their peers. One deeply troubling report, released in February, indicates that – in recent years – black male offenders have received sentences nearly 20 percent longer than those imposed on white males convicted of similar crimes. This isn't just unacceptable – it is shameful. It's unworthy of our great country, and our great legal tradition. And in response, I have today directed a group of U.S. Attorneys to examine sentencing disparities, and to develop recommendations on how we can address them.
It's going to be ugly — in fact it already is — but it can't be overstated how important this overdue conversation will be. And hold onto your butts, because things are going to become a lot more racist before they get better.
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If this story is accurate, it's possible San Diego Mayor Bob Filner has been doing more than just making lewd comments and inappropriately touching women.
SAN DIEGO – As federal, state and local officials investigate Mayor Bob Filner, Team 10 has learned that members of the mayor's security detail have provided information to authorities, regarding the mayor taking different women to a popular downtown San Diego hotel.
Team 10 has also obtained some of the mayor's credit statements that beg the question, was he wining and dining women on the taxpayer's dime? [...]
After some digging, Team 10 obtained some of the mayor's corporate credit card statements from parts of January, February and May of this year, detailing 6 different transactions at the Westgate Plaza Hotel between January 21 and February 7, then two more on May 10 and May 12 for a grand total of $511.06.
Bob Filner is an abhorrent disgrace, and the idea that he may have used taxpayer money to sequester women in a hotel is actually the least disgusting charge against him. Charges which include, among other things, telling his female employees that they should go commando.
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