I started the day very tired, because of my exertions for the last two days, and because my sleep has been intermittent due to muggy weather. The day did not begin well. My vision stinks, so I broke an egg on the floor. For someone in a wheelchair, that's a very difficult cleanup, as all I have is a grab stick, paper towels and a foot. Twenty minutes later, I finished cleaning and immediately broke ANOTHER egg on the floor. ARGH!! Cooking and eating breakfast took over two hours!. I'm leaving for an appointment with Courtney, my Physical Terrorist, in about an hour, so I'll finish this when I return, and this is today's only article.
Later: My Lift bus was an hour late, so I'm late getting this up. The PT session went well, except that Georges new ankle went wobbly again, do I have to go bath to Sarah, my Prosthetist.
Jig Zone Puzzle:
Today's took me 3:56 (average 5:01). To do it, click here. How did you do?
Short Takes:
From Daily Kos: Many are going to miss seeing political humorist Jessica Williams on The Daily Show. Her ‘Williness” has delighted audiences for years, first beginning with Jon Stewart and then Trevor Noah. Williams has tackled homophobia, racism, and other social issues, while bringing us a laugh or two to help audiences stomach some of the most ridiculous American culture.
For her last segment, Williams asked a group of Bernie Sanders supporters who say they are voting for Donald Trump — how they can go from supporting a Left socialist like Bernie Sanders to a Right racist like Republican nominee Donald Trump. One young man started off saying , “Trump has diarrhea of the mouth, but a lot of what he says are what a lot of people might think.” Williams retorts, “You mean “racist things?” He says, “Yeah.”
Dang! If only I had realized Hillary is a Leprechaun!! Scheesh!! Did Jessica show them for what they are, or what? Those regressives, who put their hatred for Hillary above all else, are idiots!!
From NY Times: At least one sniper, who said he wanted to shoot white police officers, killed five officers and wounded seven others in a coordinated ambush at a demonstration in Dallas on Thursday night against police shootings in Minnesota and Louisiana, officials said. The sniper was killed, and three other people are in custody, officials said.
During an hourslong standoff after the attack, in which two civilians were also wounded, one suspect told police negotiators that “he was upset about Black Lives Matter,” the Dallas police chief, David O. Brown, said on Friday.
“He said he was upset about the recent police shootings,” Chief Brown said. “The suspect said he was upset at white people. The suspect stated he wanted to kill white people, especially white officers.”
The police killed that suspect using an explosive delivered by a robot, he said, and arrested three other people. The chief said the snipers had worked together, firing rifles from triangulated positions, some of them looking down from elevated posts in downtown buildings… [emphasis added]
We shouldn't be surprised. This was bound to happen because Black after Black have been murdered by police, and the criminal cops have walked away unpunished. This, however, is not the answer. As easy as it is to understand why, the surviving Dallas shooters should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, except for the death penalty.
Correction 7/9: There were no other shooters. The Chief's statement about multple snipes triangulating targets was not honest.
From Crooks and Liars:
Shame on Matt Drudge for that headline when no one knows yet who committed the horrible crimes in Dallas last night. Shame on him for assuming the shooters were Black people when there are no reports yet as to the race or even genders of the suspects. [There weren't then, but there are now.]
But the real walk of shame belongs to former Representative and Deadbeat Dad Joe Walsh, who tweeted threats to the President of the United States along with a stream of racist hate.
Republicans are going to have a field day misrepresenting this incident. I'm surprised I haven't seen any regressive lefties blaming it on Hillary.
Cartoon:
14 Responses to “Open Thread – 7/8/2016”
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DK: I wish Ms. Williams well, she's going to go places!!
NYT: More tragedies, becoming more frequent too. 3 more shootings since this happened, one in Valdosta, and the other in Roswell, GA, police officers. Both survived. TN: A newspaper carrier was shot this morning, she died. *redstate.com
C&L: Evil, evil people. Full of hate, lies, and threats to others. Horrible, horrible!
Cartoon:Yep, let the chaos begin!
Sorry that your morning started bad. Glad your PT went good, and I hope that you can get George fixed asap. What a trying day for you. Hope that your evening gets better, and get some rest. Take good care, and Thanks, Tom.
4:10 Fish if you want (I assume if there are beach umbrellas there's a beach.) Ill be in the air conditioned dining room.
What a rough day! No kidding, I rely a lot on grabsticks due to pain, but it's not worth a toot on broken eggs. It is muggy here too, and I have been having breathing issues all day as a result. But I'm home now.
DKos – This is a pity, in a way – of course Jessica is hired to be funny, but no one can reach these people. You can't fix stupid. There are many Hillary-hating Bernie supportes who sound a lot mor rational, even if wrong. Maybe most of them cn't be reached either, but that can at least be rebutted, and the rebittals might reach someone. You can't rebut a guy who says Trump says racist things. Well, no s**t, Sherlock.
NYTimes – I get breaking news updates from the Washington Post and the LA Times, and my inbox was full of almost nothing elsethis early morning. By the time I had to leave I knew that what I already knew was going to need a lot of updating. However, I was already in my mind seeing the Drudge Report and Joe Walsh, though not by name. We – by whom I mean America – did NOT need this. People of color did NOT need this. This is worse than the French Revolution. As you say, with all the murderers in uniform who have "gone home and made a sandwich," this or something sililar was bound to happen.But it will hurt.
Mother Jones, I'm sure before any of this happened, featured an article in their newsletter today explaining that, in order for cops to stop targeting people of color, one thing that must happen is that state and local governments must stop relying on money stolen from the poor in order to function. http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/07/police-shootings-traffic-stops-excessive-fines This ties in with my Erinyes column from June 18th.
I'll just throw this out so it won't be so hard to find later when we calm down and need it: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2016/07/07/1545947/-Wake-up-fellow-white-people-Time-to-get-to-work
Cartoon – Oh, no kidding.
On the Kos article, the only thing on the list I haven;t done lately is put my body in thew street, but I think I've paqid my dues in blood on that score.
Agreed.
You have had a rough day for sure. I hope tomorrow is better.
Daily Kos: Sadly, too many Bernie supporters have no other reason to explain why they would vote for Trump or a third party candidate than they don't trust Clinton. The Republicans and right wing media have done their job well.
NY Times: It seems as though our country is imploding with hatred, both from blacks and whites. Could the last few months of hatred being spewed by political candidates have contributed to this? I think so.
Crooks an Liars: Matt Drudge and Joe Walsh are poor examples of humanity.
Cartoon: That is exactly what is hoped for by the right wing.
Too bad Killer Dawg isn't still there. He would have made quick work of the eggs.
Great point!! I told Julie what you said, and she loved it.
3:40 You all can have the beach though . . . I burn too easily!
I am way too tired to comment. It has been a long day and another is ahead tomorrow.
BTW Puddy Tat, you need to add JD to the list of Big Mouths on the sidebar.
Good night all!
Thanks. Done.
Hey, TC! How things going for you? Hope your doc appt went ok. I haven't checked the others pages yet to see how it went. Been slow gettin around myself. 100° weather and then rain storms right after it makes for a VERY muggy day. I heard the heat index was 110° today before the rain.
These tragedies that have been happening of late are getting more and more gruesome. More and more bodies pile up and seems there is no end to the ways that people will end up in battles for their lives! Unfrigginbelievable !!! I am glad that I'm not able to get out much, at times. Every time I go to the store, there is something going on that is just too much to let sink in! Tragedies EVERYWHERE! You can't swing a rope without coming up with someone that isn't going thru SOMETHING! What I REALLY want is for EVERYONE to realize THIS and COME TOGETHER! Most of this chain- reaction crap wouldn't happen IF people would just slow their roll a little and not be in such an all-fired hurry to do it NOW, NOW, NOW!
My heart goes out to ALL the who have lost family members, or someone injured. FAMILIES pay the price.They are the ones that have to go on living WITHOUT that PERSON, black, white, yellow, red or purple! Skin doesn't change a person. That person has grown up with what ever they have had to deal with. Everyone's had a different experience. We have to have PEACE!!!
Your vision is bad, and probably also lacks in depth clues which may also have caused you to drop the eggs. I'm so sorry to hear of your very frustrating morning, TomCat. A friend of mine has lost sight in one eye after surgery and had to do a lot of adjusting and training to learn how to compensate for the lack of depth vision, but he's back to playing golf again. Double vision is a real bastard though, there's not much you can do to improve it except for taking a lot of precautions in the hope you'll drop less things that way. Sorry to hear about wobbly George too. Perhaps George is in need of some physiotherapy too.
DK: Jessica ended the interview of Bernie supporters who will now vote for Drumpf with: "Maybe these Bernie supporters should listen to the guy they're supporting". Nothing to add to that.
NY Times: Criminality, violent behavior and murderous rage know not of color, belief system, ethnicity, gender, or social status. There's bad people everywhere, in all layers and in every possible cross section of society. But there are more good people than bad people. But no matter what group we feel we belong too, we ALL are biased in some way, it's human nature, it's in our psychological make-up. But bias can be manipulated, it can be increased or decreased, but sadly police forces across America have given rise to belief their officers and their leadership are more biased than most because of the increasing(?) racial profiling and more police killings of black people, and people of other minorities, most without apparent consequence. And now some bad people from a targeted group have retaliated, at a peaceful demonstration against the latest fatal police brutalities, organized by Black Lives Matter, but attended by people with all possible backgrounds. Sadly this was in the making; the way thee black community has been pushed in some states something or someone had to give and now it has. There's no excuse for what has happened, it's a terrible thing and will only make matters worse, but at some level it is understandable and seemed inevitable, almost provoked. It's been building up to this over a number of years, but I wonder if the rhetoric of Republicans in Congress and of their presidential hopefuls of late has brought this to a head.
On a side note: No one talks about the way the sniper of the stand-off in the garage met his end, but people here are shocked that the police chose to resort to sending in a robot and blowing him up with a bomb. Call us naive, but we honestly believed this only happened in movies.
C&L: And we could be sure for that to happen too, right? More racist Republicans crawling from under their rocks and basking in the Drumpfian sun in Real America.
Arrugh Day. We all have them. lol.
KOS: Jessica Williams is having her own show and I hope she does well with it. As for the episode, the Bernie supporters' responses for Drumpf shows just how well the people have been brainwashed by the GOP/TP over the past 25 years against Hillary that they would vote against their own beliefs and standards. They would vote for a racist whereas Bernie is not. A pathetic group of responders who should know better but apparently not. They are just plain uneducated and stupid in their reasonings. Don't the responders know that Drumpf is the complete opposite of Bernie!!
NY Times: Texas does have the death penalty and the shooters will, most likely, be executed by some unforeseeable method in the future if not by lethal injection.
Why is Texas #1 In Executions?
"Texas' current execution policy, then, reflects the continued struggle between the Old and New South. And, needless to say, that cultural struggle will continue for the foreseeable future."
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/execution/readings/texas.html
Which country executes the most people? Map reveals China and Iran put more people to death than anybody else
See the graph and you will see that USA is #5 on the list. The top 4 countries above USA have human rights violations and are considered to be repressive regimes. Other countries below USA are also have human rights violations and are considered repressive as well. Therefore, is the USA also a repressive regime and human rights violator?
I was surprised that the police sent in a robot with a bomb to "execute" the sniper. Nothing like a heavy duty police retaliation using military-grade weapons to take out the sniper. Wonder what is in store with the other snipers.
Crooks & Liars: The Drudge Report needs to monitor its own sensational headlines. But, do they really care?
As for Joe Walsh, ex-congresscritter. Another deadbeat racist who should not have been given any air time on CNN. Publicity hound for his biased radio show. .
Cartoon: GOP/TP: Continuous brainwashing. Gotcha.
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When it comes to executions, we certainly are a repressive regime and a human rights violator.
I forgot to include the link for which country executes the most people? Map reveals China and Iran put more people to death than anybody else:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/politics/which-countries-execute-the-most-people-chilling-new-map-reveals-china-and-iran-put-more-people-to-a6796351.html