Scary Alabama Racist Newspaper Editorial Takes Us Back To The Jim Crow Days

Goodie Sutton, my nominee for the most racist newspaper
editor in the United States. 

UPDATE: Saturday, 2/23/19

So, a little karma happened with this story.

Under pressure, this racist loser has resigned. He's still not sorry for the editorial, but I love the deliciousness of this update.

The new publisher, owner and editor of the Democrat-Reporter is a woman named Elecia Dexter.

Oh, Dexter happens to be a black African-American woman.

Dexter says her understanding is that Sutton is actually still the owner of the paper. But regardless, this is definitely an improvement. It couldn't get any worse.

As for Sutton, he says he now has time to, as he says "drink beer and chase women."

Good luck with that, bubba.

PREVIOUS DISCUSSION

Racism is, of course, always bad.

There are different degrees of it, or at least different degrees of what is said out loud by racists.

A small town newspaper editor in Alabama, though, has gone full throated racist, and his words are jaw-droppingly horrifying. The editorial's headline: "Klan Needs To Ride Again"

This piece of, um, literature was recently published by a creep named Goodloe Sutton, who is the publisher of the Democrat-Reporter in Linden, Alabama.

As the Montgomery (Alabama) Advertiser reports, Sutton is unrepentant and stands by his editorial.

Sutton begins with the source of his ire: "Democrats in the Republican Party and Democrats are plotting to raise taxes in Alabama."

Um, OK, if you say so.  Then this all turns very dark, very quickly. He blames the "socialist-communist ideology" for all this, and then pretty much applauds the KKK who once "rode through the night to frighten some evil doer. Sometimes they had to kill one or two of them but so what."

Sutton then dreams of the day in which the Klan heads north to "raid the gated communities. They call them compounds now."

Montgomery Advertiser reporter Melissa Brown went over to Linden to interview him about the editorial. During the interview, Sutton said, "If we could get the Klan to go up there and clean out D.C., we'd all be better off."

Brown asked what Sutton meant by that. He suggested lynching.

It gets even more off the rails. Here's another excerpt from the Montgomery Advertiser article:

"'We'll get the hemp ropes out, loop them over a tall limb and hang all of them,' Sutton said.

When asked if he felt it was appropriate for the publisher of a newspaper to call for the lynching of Americans, Sutton doubled down on his position. 

'....It's not calling for the lynchings of Americans. These are socialist-communist we're talking about. Do you know what socialism and communism is?' Sutton asked."

Apparently, it's anybody who disagrees with him. And, to state the obvious, yes he is calling for the lynching of Americans.

Sutton goes on to say that the Klan is not racist and violent, hilariously comparing it to the NAACP.

As an aside, Sutton's newspaper used to be good. In the 1990s, the Democrat-Reporter got national acclaim for reporting on a corrupt sheriff in the area.

However, the Democrat-Reporter gained a reputation for racism and ugliness well before Sutton's recent editorial.  In recent years, readers were treated to headlines like "Homosexuals take black spotlight" and "Slavery was a good lesson for Jews."

I've been complaining that the boorish Trump administration has given racists, bigots, misogynists and the like "permission" to blurt out their awfulness in public rather than keep in hidden.

Sometimes I've been told I've been overstating the Trump influence on the worst of American society. I counter that this editorial bolsters my case. I have always thought there are people as odious as Sutton out there.   However, it seemed that they had largely gone silent, or crawled back into the woodwork.

They're back out. But maybe Trump has done us a favor. Through example, he has encouraged these lowlifes to come back out into the sunshine. Now we know they're there, and I hope we can deal with them more easily.

Point at them at object and perhaps, just maybe, they'll think twice about hurting other people. You can only hope.

Cub Scout Booted For Asking Lawmaker Good Constituent Questions

If you wanted any more proof that many (conservative) adults don't want kids to learn anything and keep them stupid, we bring you a Cub Scout in Colorado.  

This young Cub Scout was kicked out of a Colorado den
for the crime of asking a politician about her views
on gun control.

Recently, a Cub Scout den in Broomfield, Colorado hosted a Republican state senator named Vicki Marble for a question and answer session.

The kids ask Marble about gun control, a proposed border wall with Mexico and some racially charged remarks she made in 2013, says 7News, the ABC affiliate in Denver. 

One of the Cub Scouts, Ames Mayfield, was particularly prying with his questions, questioning Marble about her infamous 2013 remarks about African Americans, fried chicken and poverty. (I won't get into those comments, but they were pretty bad.)

During the exchange, Ames had clearly done his homework and his facts were correct, but Marble's weren't. 

Ames then asked a fairly lengthy but good question about gun control.

"I was shocked that you co-sponsored a bill to allow domestic violence offenders to continue to own a gun..... Why on earth would you want someone who beats their wife to have access to a gun?

Decent question, but the Cub Scout den leader cut him off. No question guns, please! Second Amendment! Second Amendment.  And too bad we didn't get to hear Marble's response. Who knows? Maybe she had a good answer. 

Ames's question about gun control was apparently so offensive to the so called leader of this scout pack that he booted Ames from the pack, just days before he would have become a Boy Scout. 

7News said the Denver area council of the Boy Scouts said it's up to the local organizations to determine who can stay with the Scouts and how can't. The Council said they would look for another den for Ames to join and latest reports say they found one for Ames. 

But Ames is understandably devastated by his getting kicked out. He actually really liked his den leader before he booted Ames. The den leader is not talking to the press.

So, unfortunate life lesson learned: We should not question our elected politicians anymore. Just let them do what they want, and don't hold them to account.

Is this the way we really should be raising kids?

 

Sorry, But I Think This TSA Agent Was Getting His Jollies

Image of the creepy TSA patdown of a 13 year old kid at
te Dallas-Fort Worth airport recently. Ugh. 

A lot of people have been yelling and screaming in social media about Aaron Henderson, 13, who got quite the NSFW patdown from a weird TSA agent at an airport recently.

This all started at the Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport when agents detected what might have been a trace of an explosive substance in the kid's laptop.

There are a lot of false positives with these tests, but I can't blame the TSA from taking a closer, second look at the laptop, and Aaron. Better safe than sorry, right?

However, the "patdown" Aaron got looked like foreplay in a porn movie, though Aaron was clearly not happy about this. I wouldn't be, either.

This apparently is a new policy at the TSA, giving them permission to really feel out people for contraband.

Sorry to blame everything on Donald Trump, but things are getting more police state-ish under his administration, so the TSA "rubdowns" might be part of this.

In addition, CBS News reports that this is part of new TSA procedures that came after an undercover audit in 2015 revealed major lapses in security.

 Aaron's mother, Jennifer told CBS News, "I believe he was patted down excessively. They went over his sensitive areas, a little more than necessary, especially given that he wasn't wearing bulky clothing or anything like that."

The TSA says new procedures took effext March 2.

I get it that they're trying to prevent terrorist attacks.

But working for the TSA is a thankless job which pays poorly. Most people don't want to work there. But the desperate, sometimes the stupid, sometimes the perverts also want to work there, since nobody else will.

This won't end well.

Here's the creepy video from CBS, showing the patdown. To me, it's almost child porn, so I was reluctant to show it. But we need to know what the TSA is doing, so I tried to overcome my qualms to post it.

Latest Outrage: Tennessee Bills Teen Nearly $2,970 For Wrecking Guardrail That Killed Her

Hannah Elmers, 17, died in a Tennessee car crash involving
an unsafe guardrail. The state of Tennessee later billed
her for the wrecked guardrail, but withdrew the
bill after public outcry.

Last November, Hannah Elmers, 17, was driving her dad's 2000 Volvo down Interstate 75 near Niota, Tennesees when she somehow lost control of the vehicle, traveled into the median skidded sideways, forcing the driver's side door to hit the end of a guardrail.

As USA Today reported, instead of deflecting the car, the guardrail pierced it, killing Elmers.

This would have ended up as another terrible local tragedy, a nice young teenager dying too young.

Except Tennessee decided to make things worse. Much worse, as Hannah's dad, Steven Elmers soon learned.

As USA Today describes it:

"Four months later, Steven Elmers of Lenoir City received a $2,970 bill from the Tennessee Department of Transportation, dated February 24 and addressed to Hannah for the cost of labor and materials to install 25 feet of guardrail at the scene of the crash. 

'I'm shocked, the audacity,' he said. 'What bothers me is that they're playing Russian roulette with people's lives. They know these devices do not perform at high speeds and in situations like my daughter's accident, but they leave them in place.'"

Wait, what?!?

It turns out, not only did Tennessee have the audacity to bill Hannah, they also know the type of guardrail they used is unsafe. And could kill other people.

Last fall, Tennessee transportation officials did decide to stop buying the type of guardrail involved in Hannah's crash, called a Lindsay X-Lite.

When a car hits the end of this type of guardrail, it's supposed to collapse like a telescope, theoretically minimizing injuries to the people in the car that hits it.

However, at high speeds, it doesn't collapse, and you get situations like Hannah's, where she crashed into it at high speeds. The stretch of Interstate where she was driving has a speed limit of 70 mph.

The state was originally going to leave existing dangerous guardrails in place, but now says they are  going to remove the remaining Lindsay X-Lite guardrails from other high speed locations in Tennessee.

They'd better. The Knoxville News-Sentinel says that since June, 2016, four people have died in Tennessee after colliding with this type of guardrail.

But what about that $2,980 bill?

A spokesman for the Tennessee Department of Transportation says the bill came from "a mistake somewhere in processing" and the department "greatly apologies for it."

Nice, but I don't trust it. How could somebody not catch this before it went out? I think the reversal and apology is more because of the bad PR that came when after the bill went out than any good intentions from the state.

By the way, the maybe unsafe other types of guardrails, made by Trinity Industries Inc. might be along highways in other states, like yours.

A whistleblower named Joshua Harman won a $663 million settlement against Trinity, after he alleged the company altered the design of one of its guardrails without getting approval from the Federal Highway Administration, the Knoxville News-Sentinel said. 

Virginia, citing the safety reasons, is removing a Trinity guardrail called ET-Plus for safety reasons. The city of Nashville, Tennessee did the same.

Adds the Knoxville News-Sentinel: 

"Trinity has since been involved in a slew of lawsuits nationwide in which crash victims alleged the unauthorized changes caused the guardrails to spear vehicles, resulting in injuries and deaths."

Hoo, boy, this company is in trouble. Let's hope any problematic guardrails made by this company get replaced before there are more tragedies.

At Least People Are Keeping Up The Pressure On Trump, So Far

Massive anti-Trump protest at JFK airport Saturday

President Trump said yesterday that his un-American, incredibly poorly thought out sudden ban on Muslims entering the United States is "working out very nicely."

Which is one way to look at it, I suppose.

Another way to look at it is through the lens of reality - what a concept!  There have been a few, um, complications, as I'm sure you've seen on the news.

To review:

--- A federal judge in Brooklyn blocked part of the executive order not much more than 24 hours after Trump issued it.  The judge helped prevent some of the people who had just arrived from being deported, and freed them from a weird airport limbo, because they arrived just as the executive order was implemented.  Federal judges in Virginia, Washington State and Boston have made similar rulings.

---- Speaking of that, the world noticed how incredibly poorly executed Trump's executive order was. Even if you agree with all of its goals. (I surely do not) can you believe you incompetently it was laid out?  My wonderful but dopey cocker spaniel Jackson could have done a better job with implementation.

I'm sure Trump's dopeyness increased his standing in the world, ha!

---- Thousands of Americans rushed out to airports Saturday to demonstrate against Trump's ban and to support refugees. This is a biggie. Mr. Rogers famously said that whenever bad things happen, look for the helpers. There's always helpers. Sure enough, the airports were packed with 'em. Take that, Trump!

It's especially telling that the demonstrations pretty much started spontaneously. No real advocacy group slowly organizing a movement. Just a bunch of Americans heading to the airports to protest. And a bunch of immigration lawyers heading out there with them for some patriotic pro bono work.

This isn't to say I've gone all Pollyanna on everybody. Trump will continue to make everything more dangerous, tilt us toward war and ever-increasing terrorist attacks, wreck the economy, hopelessly smear America's reputation and make us a world embarrassment.

Tough times are ahead because of this.

I just have a small sense of relief, anyway, that many Americans are not taking this sitting down. The Women's March last weekend was "Yuuuuge!!!" as Trump might say, had he supported the demonstration.

It's also good that some of the leaders, not enough of them, but some of them, are following the protesters. I noticed the mayors of New York and Boston, two cities that have suffered terrorist attacks, are all gung-ho about the anti-Trump protests.  

I swear my slightly dopey but loveable dog
Jackson could run the country more competently
than Donald Trump

Trump's backers often say that people who protest against the president are "snowflakes" who are overly sensitive, and get their feelings hurt over every so-called bold move the president makes.

One of my Vermont friends on Twitter, Caitlin Maroney said that when a whole bunch of snowflakes get together, you end up with a blizzard. You know how disruptive blizzards can be. Don't you, Mr. Trump?

I  hope all these protests remain peaceful. We're playing into Trump's hands, his lie that we've become a nation out of control, if things become violent. All those airport protests were peaceful. More are planned today.

These big demonstrations won't alone get rid of Trump. But each outbreak of peaceful outrage does tear down his authority a little bit. He's big on optics, and these demonstrations are terrible optics for Trump on the world stage.

He'll keep overreaching and being stupid and authoritarian, just like his henchman and shadow dictator Steve Bannon.

People power can win in the end.

Scammers Use The Word "Yes" Outrageously To Screw You

This is the most outrageous thing I've heard in ages and there's a lot of outrages out there.

We're all used to getting scam phone calls. We generally hang up, but sometimes we respond a bit before hanging up.  

Here's how the Worst Scam Ever works.

You get a call, and it's a recording and it sounds like a real person. Or it really is a real person. The voice asks "Can you hear me?"

Any normal person would say "Yes," if you can indeed hear them.

That is when you're totally screwed.

Consumerist reports that police departments all over the country are saying that the moment you say "Yes," the scammers have a recording of you doing so.

Here's what that means, says Consumerist:

"Even if you never agree to buy anything, you might later find out you've been signed up for a home alarm system, a cruise, some added service for your phone or any other thing you couldn't possibly want. 

If you dispute the charges, the company may take legal action, sticking that recording of you saying "yes" into a recording of a different conversation as evidence that you agreed to the transaction."

There's lots of variations to this scam, says Consumerist. The con artists will use the recording to "prove" that agreed to a number of charges on your credit card whose information they've already stolen.

The scammers in this case might have called you posing as pollsters, asking innocuous sounding questions like, "Do you have a dog?"

These horrible people will often use phone area codes from your area, making it look like the calling is coming from somebody local, somebody you know. That makes you more likely to fall for it.

This "Yes" scam has spread across the country, with police from California to Virginia reporting victims of these creepy con artists who frankly ought to be shot.

Of course, any time you get a phone call from an unfamiliar source or number, you should just hang up quickly without saying anything.

However, this is what pisses me off the most. You have to be so on guard, all the time, no matter what you do and where you are and no matter how distracted you are with what's' going on in your life.

Make the slightest mistake, have the slightest moment of inattention, and you're totally screwed.

Why should we have to go through life so totally on guard?

This is a whine, because nothing is going to be done about this.

Because it's so hard to catch the scammers. Plus regulators and lawmakers are not really into protecting people.

It's commerce after all.  While I'm certain few lawmakers approve of scams, they also don't want to do anything that would make it even a teeny, tiny bit harder for legitimate companies from making money by, say, obeying "Do Not Call" registries.

So, we're in a wonderful world where we always have to watch what we say, what we do, what we with our phones because an army of scammers is out there trying to get us.

Incredibly frustrating.

Deplorables Now Trying To Kill Journalists? Harass All 'Enemies"?

Journalist Kurt Eichenwald, who has epilepsy,
was sent Tweets with flashing lights to induce
 seizures. People who can't stand to see
Donald Trump criticized sent them, and now
these assailants might face legal trouble.

One of the reasons I worry about the rise of facism in America at the expense of democracy is some of Trump's biggest fans.  

They are truly The Deplorables, badly attacking, sometimes physically,  anyone who dares criticize Trump or anything he does.

I know this is familiar territory to anyone who reads this blog thingy here. I'm always complaining about the undemocratic, un-American Deplorables who make up the core of Trump's most base base.

However, they must constantly be exposed, called on the carpet and mocked into irrelevance to rid ourselves of this cancer.

And like cancer, it takes repeated treatments, repeated exposure to powerful medicines, to get rid of it. This is my small part. Everyone should partake in providing these "treatments." Mockery is good medicine.

That's becuse It really feels as if the Deplorables believe they have a license to be Trump's "enforcers" making sure any dissent is squelched. If violence is necessary so be it.

Unfortunately, it often works. People are afraid to speak up if they are going to get harassed, threatened, hurt, maybe even killed.

This isn't the M.O. of most Trump supporters, of course. Generally, they just prefer his politics and his way of doing things, and will pretty much leave everyone alone. Totally fine.

It's the still-too-many Deplorables that are and will cause all kinds of havoc during the Trump administration.

This week we have a report of Deplorables attacking a journalist who has epilepsy with messages designed to trigger grand mal seizures. All because the Deplorables don't like what the journalist says about  Trump

THE JOURNALIST

One person brave enough to take the Deplorables on is journalist Kurt Eichenwald. He has a form of epilepsy in which grand mal seizures can be triggered by certain types of light patterns.

Some of the nation's Deplorables know this, so they sent Eichenwald tweets, emails and such that contain these light patterns, in addition to the usual death threats against him and his family, for having the temerity of calling out what he believes are the worst of Trump's excesses.

Like I said, though, Eichenwald is fighting back.

Eichenwald is working to find and press assault charges against the people who send him these seizure-inducing strobes, and also working to get them off social media platforms like Twitter, reducing the Deplorables ability to troll.

The only thing I can say that Eichenwald is doing wrong is trying to appeal to the Deplorables' humanity, or at least trying to get others to encourage the Deplorables to put a lid on it.

One of Eihenwald's tweets read, "Look at how many Trump followers seem to think it's funny or deserved that someone used my disability a weapon. What's wrong with them?"

A lot, but that's not going to stop them, unfortunately.

Eichenwald also tweeted, "How have so many ppl become such sociopaths that they think it's OK to assault someone if they write political stories they don't like?"

I'm not sure, but they certainly have their share of supporters and abetters.

Eichenwald is seeking out the people who sent him the seizure tweets and plans to press charges, which is good. It was an assault, so it should be treated as such.

Twitter, citing its user policies, said it would turn over data that would likely lead to the person who sent the seizure-causing tweet.

Of course, we're all free to criticize Eichenwald's reporting and writing. He's human and capable of being wrong. He's a big boy, he can handle criticism. It's part of the job.

But trying to induce seizures? Sounds to me some of his critics are too afraid to take Eichenwald on intellectually, so they resort to this.

The defense of the seizure tweets by obnoxious web sites like Twitchy, Breitbart the Daily Caller is the usual story: To them, Eichenwald is lying and being silly to boot. Because the Deplorables never do anything wrong, uh-uh!

The Daily Caller the other day seemed to suggest that Eichenwald was lying because a police report hadn't been filed yet.

Twitchy re-ran tweets from some of the worst of the Deplorables who pretty much all said that Eichenwald had a psychotic breakdown, not a seizure. But then, the Deplorables probably are too dumb tell the difference between the two.

I'll let "Ursulafaw," writing in Daily Kos, to say what's on my mind, since they do a great job of summarizing how I feel, and how the rest of us should feel:

"It is beyond deplorable that anybody would lash out at a reporter like the Trumpites have lashed out at Kurt Eichenwald, literally trying to destroy the man. Inducing a grand mal seizure is not something that responsible people choose as a viable tool to express their disagreement with something that someone has written. Not in a civilized society, where divergent opinion in the free marketplace of ideas is the order of the day. 

Post 11/09 we no longer live in a civilized society that much is made manifestly clear by the headlines of each and every day. There are literally two countries now, the United States of America and the Trump States of America and I am not talking about Democratic or Republican. I am talking about civility vs. barbarism, about decency vs. degeneracy. The bottom feeders of Trump supporters defy description."

But the bottom feeders will continue bottom feeding. It's going to be a long four years, and we all need to call out the people who do this kind of thing. Even if it's exhausting.

A Guy Named Carl Paladino Is New York's Biggest Jerk

The Jerk Of The Week Award Goes To
Carl Paladino. Congratulations! 

When given an opportunity to make a statement or a joke in public, don't be a gross jerk.

That nugget of advice might seem obvious to most of us, but not a guy named Carl Paladino who obviously didn't get the memo.

This all started when a western New York publication,  Buffalo ArtVoice, had one of those end-of-the-year easy features where they ask people in their community wishes for the new year.

Practically every news outlet does this,  and the answers are usually heartfelt wishes or a joke.

ArtVoice asked numerous prominent people around Bufflalo, "What would you most like to happen in 2017?" and "What would you like to see go away in 2017?"

None of the answers were particularly newsworthy except for  those by Carl Paladino, who is on the Buffalo School Board and was a New York co-chairman of Donald Trump's election campaign earlier this year. .

For 2017, Paladino wished that Barack Obama would contract mad cow disease and die after having sex with a Hereford.

Barrel of laughs right?

Paladino got even worse when he described what he'd like to see go away in 2017. He answered, "Michelle Obama. I'd like her to return to bein a male and let loose in the outback of Zimbabwe where she lives comfortably in a cave with Maxie, the gorilla."

Incredibly racist and crude right?

Not to old Carl here.

Paladino later confirmed to the Buffalo News that he made those statements. "Yeah, I'm not politically correct.....They asked what I want and I told them."

He later put out a statement that read in part, "Merry Christmas and tough luck if you don't like my answer."

To nobody's surprise, not many people do like his answer. Trump's transition team hated it, along with pretty much everybody in New York from the governor on down.

Even Paladino's own son, who now runs the real estate firm that Carl founded, posted a message on Facebook distancing him and his company from dad's stupidity.

The son, William, said in part, "We do not condone the statements made about the President of the United States and his wife. They were disrespectfu and absolutely unnecessary."

Fellow members of the Buffalo School Board, which serves a student population that has lots of racial minorities, are trying to find ways to kick Paladino off the board.

It's about time. Paladino has a long history of being a jerk, including in 2010 when he unsuccessfully (thank gawd) ran for governor of New York. At the start of and during that campaign, Paladino e-mailed racist and pornographic images that apparently somehow to his mind showed his intention to run for office.

Whatever.

Yeah, Paladino is an irrelevant jerk. Part of me was tempted to just ignore him.

But as I always say, it's good to shine a cleansing light on the most toxic of people and public figures like Paladino.

I still feel like I have to take a shower after writing about this idiot, though.

Kafka Lives In Roadside Drug Testing Kits

These two people were held in an Arkansas jail for
two months because authorities thought baking soda
found in their truck was cocaine, and didn't bother
to properly test it to prove their suspicions. 

A couple from Utah learned the hard way that in today's America, if you have a baggie full of baking soda in your truck and the cops decide it's cocaine, then it's cocaine and you're in a heap of trouble.

Talk about living in a post-fact world!  

According to KUTV in Salt Lake City, Gail Griffin and her husband Wendell Harvey are truck drivers who haul explosives for the military.

At least they did until the fine law enforcement officials in Arkansas went into stubborn batshit crazy mode over a couple bags of baking soda Harvey had in the truc.

As KUTV describes it: "They have top security clearance, and they've never been in trouble with the law. So in May, while driving through Arkansas, they weren't concerned when police stopped them in Fort Chaffee."

They should have been concerned, it turns out.

Police found the three baggies full of baking soda. The cops used a roadside drug testing kit to see what was in the baggies. The widely used drug testing kit is known to be wildly inaccurate, coming up with zillions of false positives, but it's used by lots of cop shops anyway.

The road side drug testing kit decided that the baking soda was $3,000 worth of cocaine, so police locked the couple up.

For two and a half months if you can believe that, because nobody in Arkansas would do a more accurate follow up test to see if the baking soda was really cocaine and not, you know, baking soda.

Only after lots of pleading from the Arkansas Public Defender's office that the stuff was tested. According to television station KATV in Little Rock, Arkansas, the couple didn't have phone numbers memorized and so were not able to call relatives for help getting an attorney.

No easy phone access was provided. Prosecutors dragged their feet getting the substance authorities found in the truck tested correctly. And you guessed it, the powdery stuff in the baggies was baking soda.

By the way, the truck drivers arrested were African-American. This being Arkansas, there is the possibility of racism, though I know I can't prove that here

The Fort Chaffee Police Department is basically shrugging its shoulders at locking an innocent couple up for more than two months and quite possibly destroying their livlihoods.

Fort Chaffee Police say they tested three times using the faulty device and it came up cocaine three times. Good enough for them.

Sure, hold the couple until you get a more sophisticated test, but why did authorities wait two months to do it, and only when prodded?

A reporter for KUTV got his hands on one of these road side test kits and received instruction on how to use it. He tested common household items like Comet cleanser, aspirin, cold medicine and chocolate. Four of the ten tests he did came up (false) positive for illicit drugs.

Now that's a REALLY inaccurate testing device!

Even if Arkansas authorities were trying to demonstrate how "tough" they were on drug criminals, they wasted a lot of Arkansans' tax money on incarcerating the pair.

Says KUTV: 

"As for Harvey and Griffin, they only recently got their truck back from Arkansas authorities. But they say the truck has major damage that requires repairs. 

The couple also said they have not worked since they were released from jail. They said they are still trying to get their security clearance reinstated, and that they are running out of money.

Harvey said what is expecially concerning to him and his wife is the fact that other people may have been victimized by the test."

Or by Arkansas and perhaps other states. As I said, I can certainly see holding a suspect for a day or two until it's determined whether the stuff they had was drugs.

Shouldn't Arkansas authorities compensate Harvey and Griffin, since they were punished severely for not doing anything wrong?

I'm not holding my breath on that one.

World's Cruelest Shopping Mall Kept "World's Saddest Polar Bear" Hostage In Terrible Conditions

This polar bear has been on display in a unnatural
enclosure in a Chinese shopping mall. It's the
height of cruelty to do this to an animal. 

This is the height of animal cruelty and no wonder the world is outraged.

A shopping mall in China kept a polar bear on display inside the mall, with no natural light, nothing to do, no stimulation, aside from the thousands of tourists snapping photos that were blinding the bear with their camera flashes.
Under intense international pressure, the mall owners have "temporarily" removed the polar bear but promise to bring the poor thing back.

The polar bear, named Pizza, was exhibiting signs of serious mental distress, as  you can well imagine.

Pizza was completely out of his element, not given any way to enjoy life. He was/is just a prop to make the mall owners money.

Pretty cruel, right?

It's obvious why this animal is now widely described in the media as "the world's saddest polar bear."

Sounds like a parody of a childrens book, but this is just awful.

According to the New York Times:

"Video footage showed Pizza pacing, rearing up on the side of his glass enclosure farthest from visitors, shaking his head from side to side, and sniffing and pawing at an air vent - distress behaviors, according to animal rights activists."

This Chinese animal welfare problem goes well beyond one polar bear in a mall.

Again, the New York Times:

"Animal welfare groups say shopping malls in China increasingly are using wild animals to attract customers in a bid to compete against a growing popularity of more convenient and often cheaper e-commerce. 

China does not have an animal welfare law. Animal welfare advocates say one is long overdue."

I'll say!

I get it that a lot of people know that there are even bigger problems in the world than Chinese mall owners badly mistreating wild animals.

But it says something bad about our humanity that this is allowed to go on, doesn't it?

Latest Outrage: Pentagon Clawing Back Enlistment Bonuses To California Guardsmen

Robert D'Andrea, a retired Army Major, has been toldhe has to
repay $20,000 in enlistment bonuses because
recruiters improperly  issued the bonuses. So he's being
punished for somebody else's misdeed. Photo by Al Seib/LA Times. 

UPDATE:

A couple days ago, U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter suspended the clawbacks of bonuses given to Californial National Guard members.

It's possible the clawbacks might be reinstated at some point, at least for some people, though that's in doubt.

And what do you do with the people who already repaid the bonuses, which were given improperly, though the people that received them had no idea they were given the money wrongly.

Congress might step in and wipe the slate clean for everybody involved. But you can't trust Congress with anything these days.

It was nice of Ash Carter to suspend the clawbacks, but why did he, along with everybody else, wait to take action until bad publicity, courtesy of the LA Times, caused the uproar?

THAT, I'd like to hear.

PREVIOUS DISCUSSION

I guess when you don't need extra soldiers to fight your wars, you throw them under the bus.

That seems to be the case with nearly 10,000 California National Guardsmen, who were enticed to serve with bonuses of up to $15,000 to fight in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Los Angeles Times, which broke the story Saturday,  tells us.

Says the LA Times:

"Nearly 10,000 soldiers, many of whom served multiple combat tours, have been ordered to repay large enlistment bonuses - and slapped with interest charges, wage garnishments and tax liens if they refuse - after audits revealed widespread overpayments by the California Guard at the height of the wars last decade."

In other words, the California Guard brass improperly offered the bonuses, but its the soldiers who took the bonuses that are being punished, even though they had no idea the bonuses were improper.

The soldiers, understandably, are angry the Pentagon is reneging on ten year old agreements and imposing terrible financial hardships on veterans.

As one of many examples, The LA Times cited Robert Richmond, 48, who received a bonus, and then received permanent back and brain injuries in a road side bomb blast in Iraq. The Pentagon is trying to claw back more than $19,000 in bonuses, penalties and interest from Richmond.

He's too far in debt to qualify for a home loan, and doesn't know how to pay back the money.

"I signed a contract tht I literally risked my life to fulfill.....We want the somebody in the government, anybody, to say this is wrong and we'll stop going after this money," Richmond told the LA Times.

 So far, it does not appear the crooked leadership of the California Guard is getting in all that much trouble.

After a federal investigation regarding the bonuses started, Army Master Sgt. Toni Jaffe, California Guard's incentive manager, pleaded guilty to filing $15.2 million in false claims and was sentenced to 30 months in federal prison, the Los Angeles Times said.

OK, fine, but, again, why are they punishing the soldiers who took the bonuses in good faith?

As always, it seems, the mucky-mucks don't get screwed for their misdeeds. Instead, their victims get victimized again.

Aren't you proud to be an American?

Now that the Los Angeles Times has thrown a harsh light on this scandal, politicians are finally falling all over each other to fix this mess.

The Pentagon says they were required to seek the reimbursements from the soldiers because it was a matter of law, something that only Congress can do.

God save us.

Anyway, House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy said there would be a House investigation on this issue, and called the situation disgraceful.

Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle now say they want to change the law to void the repayments.

Where were they, though, before the shit hit the fan and the publicity struck? After all, I'm sure some of these soldiers and veterans who were being harassed to repay the money contacted their local Congress Creatures, asking for help.

Couldn't legislation have been introduced before so much of this heartache happened? The Los Angeles Times said Congress has known about this situation for two years and did nothing. Why?

I hope this isn't another  case where we make soldiers risk their lives and throw them away. Can't we do better than this?

Another Journalist Arrested, Jailed For Covering Anti-Pipeline Protests In North Dakota.

Filmmaker Deia Schlosberg was arrested in North Dakota
for filming anti-pipeline demonstrators and could face
up to 45 years in prison. Add caption 

Last week, I thought sanity finally prevailed when a North Dakota judge dropped charges against Democracy Now! journalist Amy Goodman.

She'd documented an anti-oil pipeline demonstration by Native Americans that turned rather violent. (Guards for the company building the pipeline pepper sprayed protestors and threatened them with attack dogs.)

Goodman was charged with "rioting," mostly because her film of the incident turned viral, but a judge last week said the charge was unwarranted.

Yay! right?

Um, no.

Another journalist/film maker, Deia Schlosberg, was arrested in North Dakota more than a week ago and faces up to 45 years in jail, charged with conspiracy, along with activists Samuel Jessup and Michael Foster.

Reuters says the criminal complaint accuses Schlosberg of agreeing with Jessup and Foster two weeks in advance to "engage in conduct that would constitute theft of property" and of traveling to the pipeline site in the same vehicle as Jessup and Foster.

According to Reuters and other sources, Schlosberg was taken into custody early this month. For 48 hours, she was reported denied access to a lawyer.

The reports don't make clear what Schlosberg was supposedly going to steal, and of course a documentarian with a point of view would travel with people she's interviewing, and probably agreeing with.

Reuters said the Pembina County Sheriff's Office has repeatedly declined to comment. As if shutting up will make this mess go away.

Especially with the publicity this latest round of North Dakota anti-First Amendment censorship is getting.

A number of random celebrities are rallying around Schlosberg, including Neil Young, Mark Ruffalo,
and Daryl Hannah.

Whether the celebrities have any influence or not, North Dakota prosecutors really need to brush up on their Constitution.

I'm sure Schlosberg's work has a specific point of view, a slant, a bias, if you will, that North Dakota prosecutors don't like.  I'm guessing for sure she's on the side of the anti-pipeline demonstrators.

Of course those prosecutors are under no requirement to like her work. They, too have the First Amendment right to say she's biased, her journalism is unfair, her work is shoddy, if that's what they believe. They can yell these opinions from the rooftops and we'll all just have to suck it up and let them.

That's the deal in America.

What the state's attorneys and prosecutors in North Dakota can't do is shut journalists and documentarians up via criminal charges because they don't like what they're saying, or the way they're saying it.

State sponsored censorship, anyone?

State's Attorneys in North Dakota are elected positions, and it would be interesting to find out to what extent the oil pipeline companies contribute to their campaigns. I wonder how much those likely contributions are influencing decisions to press charges.

Meanwhile, the protests against the pipelines continue in North Dakota, with or without people filming it. About 80 people were arrested in demonstrations Saturday, says Reuters. 

Weird Couple Tells Waitress She Should Be Home Taking Care Of Her Nonexistent Husband

A South Carolina Cracker Barrel waitress recently
received a "tip" to stay home and be a housewife
because Jesus. 

It seems there's a certain segment of the population that gets off on telling wait staff in restaurants what to do with their personal lives.

Don't be gay, don't be fat, whatever.

A waitress at a South Carolina Crackle Barrel was recently told that she shouldn't be working, that her job is to stay home and take care of her husband and kids

Never mind said waitress has neither a husband, nor kids, notes television station WBTV in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Instead of leaving a monetary tip, the couple left a "tip" in the form a handwritten message on a napkin.

I'll leave the grammatical mistakes intact in the note, as that's not exactly the biggest problem. Here's what the note said:

"The womans place is in the home You're place is in the home. It even says so in the Bible. You may think that your  contributing to your household by coming into work, but yournot.

While your in here 'working' this is the reason your husband must see another women on his way home from a long day at his work. Because you shoudl be home taking care of the household duties. You may think what you are doing 'working' is right, it is really essentially a disgrace to his manhood and to the American family.

So instead of coming to your 'job' and ooking for hand out's to feed your family hows about going home and cleaning your house and cooking a hot meal for your husband and children, the way you're husband and God intended, and help make America great again. Praying for families and our nation.

Love,
The Watley's."

As you can imagine, I don't know where to begin with the Watleys'  note. How many households can even affort to have someone stay home to be a housewife?

I'm being Captain Obvious here, but if a guy's wife is working and is so distraught by that he has to go find another woman to screw around with, isn't that the guy's fault and problem, and not the wife's?

Do the Watleys believe men have absolutely no self control?

If we took all the women out of the workforce so they can play wifey homemaker at home, wouldn't that screw things up. And the Watleys must be completely freaking out that a woman is poised to become the U.S. President instead of staying home and feather dusting the furniture at home to make Bill happy.

For the record, WBTV says the waitress who got the note does have a boyfriend who she says it's quite supportive of her going to work. Especially since she's using some of the income to further her education. To you know, find a more rewarding job where she doesn't have to put up the the Watleys' nonsense.

Charges Dropped Against Amy Goodman, So Journalism Continues.

Democracy Now! journalist Amy Goodman is still facing
charges from her reporting in North Dakota, shown
here, of an anti-oil pipeline protest. Add caption

NEW UPDATE MONDAY 10/17

A North Dakota judge has declined to proceed with a rioting charge against Amy Goodman, her news organization, Democracy Now! just announced.

District Judge John Grinsteiner did not find probable cause for the charge, Democracy Now! reports.

So, journalism and the First Amendment lives for now, it seems.

UPDATE:

It seems the State's Attorney in North Dakota is digging in much more, in a bid to discourage journalism, or get publicity. Whatever.

After Amy Goodman announced she would go to North Dakota to answer the bogus trespassing charges for her coverage of a Native American anti-oil pipeline there, they want to up the criminal charges against her.

Goodman on Saturday announced the attempt at the steeper criminal charges on the Democracy Now! website.

The State's Attorney, Ladd Erickson, wants to add a charge of rioting against Goodman, who, as you can see in her video from the protest, isn't exactly rioting.

Kinda just filming and asking questions, like, you know, journalists tend to do.

A judge will decide Monday if there's probable cause to add the rioting charge.

PREVIOUS DISCUSSION:

A couple months back, we mentioned Democracy Now! journalist Amy Goodman, who faces charges in North Dakota for the crime of covering a protest, mostly by Native Americans, against an oil pipeline that was under construction.

Freedom Of The Press Foundation quoted Goodman yesterday as such:

"I will go back to North Dakota to fight this charge.... It is a clear violation of the First Amendment. I was doing my job as a journalist, covering a violent attack on Native American Protestors."

Back on September 3, Goodman was the only journalist, or at least one of only a few journalists, who were on the scene as Native Americans went onto the property of the pipeline construction, and were met with security guards wielding pepper spray.

Goodman and her crew got it all on video, and that video went viral. It got no fewer than 14 million views on Facebook, and the video and story were picked up by major news outlets like CBS, NBC, NPR, CNN, MSNBC and Huffington Post.

Days later, the Obama administration suspended construction of the pipeline, pending further review. The protestors feared the pipeline would contaminate drinking water and despoil Native American burial grounds.

As I noted when I first mentioned this outrage, it seems to me the increased publicity brought on by Goodman and the resulting shutdown annoyed state officials, many of whom benefit politically and maybe financially from the oil industry.

They were trying to teach other journalists a lesson: Stay away, don't criticize, don't cover or ELSE.

Amazingly, North Dakota prosecutors have not backed down, despite the additional uproar over the likely unconstitutionality of charging Goodman.

As Freedom Of the Press Foundation notes, the prosecutor in the case said, "Everything she reported on was from the position of justifying the protest actions."

In other words, the problem for prosecutors is they thought Goodman was biased. Even if she was, you don't get to press charges against the journalist who created the allegedly biased reporting.

There's this little item called the First Amendment. Unless Goodman intentionally spread false, damaging information about people - which she didn't - you don't charge her. In fact, even if she was spreading malicious falsehoods -again, she wasn't. - you can try suing in civil court, but criminal courts stay out.

I'm not sure why North Dakota prosecutors are still pursuing this losing case. You'd think they'd have something better to do.

But we all ought to pay attention. With Donald Trump also less than enthusiastic about press freedoms to say the least, we need to keep on top of these things every time they happen. 

Montreal Passes Worst Anti-Dog Law Ever; Judge Temporarily Suspends IT

If the guy in this picture lived in Montreal, chances
are he's have to get rid of his dog, under
a bizarre and mean new city ordinance.  

UPDATE: 

A judge on Monday temporarily suspended the loathsome Montreal pit bull band, pending an appeal by the SPCA.

It's unclear whether the law would be overturned. But the ordinance, which was to have begun Monday, is now not quite on yet.

The judge will decide Wednesday if the law's suspension should go on for the entire appeal.

We'll see.

PREVIOUS DISCUSSION

Back in June, a pit bull, or a dog that looked like a pit bull, mauled and killed a 55-year old Montreal woman.

This was obviously an enormous tragedy, and the owner of the dog that killed that woman must be held culpable for allowing a dangerous dog to do such a thing.

In response to this tragedy, the City Council and Mayor of Montreal have just done something that will create a tragedy of a different sort.

The new law could force the euthansia of thousands of perfectly safe, well behaved and loved dogs just because they are pit bulls or sort of, kinda look like pit bulls.

Owners of these dogs in Montreal must pass a criminal background check, pay hundreds of dollars in fees, muzzle the dogs and keep them on less than a four-foot leash anytime they are outdoors.

As the Montreal Gazette reports, the city of Montreal is yet to explain how it will determine what is a "pit bull type dog," how a person deemed to have this type of dog would appeal if the city rules against them, how it will enforce this ordinance, how residents with these dogs will prove they have no criminal record, what actually constitutes a criminal record.

Oh, and you have to take time off during a three hour window during the work week when thousands of other dog owners are trying to register their dogs. And if you don't register in a timely manner, you lose your dogs.

Sounds fair to me! Ugh.

Politicians always react to tragedy by "doing something, The horrified family of the woman called for all pit bulls to be banned, so the city acted. Of course, the City of Montreal is just making things much, much worse.

Most pit bulls, and dogs that look like that breed, are perfectly fine and safe. A few bad people train or neglect these dogs so that they can become dangerous and vicious. Shouldn't you go after these idiots instead of all dogs? o be i

The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty To Animals does not euthanize animals, but it doesn't know what it's going to do with an influx of animals the city wants killed. The SPCA also said it would cancel its contract with the City of Montreal over the ban.

There are rescue organizations trying to ship some of these dogs to other parts of Canada, but still, its a huge task beyond the capabilities of existing animal rescue organization.

Veterinarians are fighting back, too. The CBC reports that Quebec's Order of Veterinarians has told members that they have the right to refuse to euthanize healthy dogs, even if the owners violated Montreal's stupid law.

The Order of Veterinarians says "no municipal regulation or provincial legislation can obligate a veterinarian to carry out any veterinary act,"

Veterinarians interviewed by the CBC say they have no qualms about euthanizing obviously dangerous dogs, but not wipe out several breeds of them because of municipal rules.

To me, this is like an instance where a white guy kills a woman, so you're going to register and possibly jail all white guys as a result, whether or not these white guys have violent tendencies or not.

Montreal is being stupid. I thought it was such a civilized city in my frequent visits up there. In this case, it's not.

Shame on Montreal.

Extreme Vulgar Temper Tantrums On Facebook Won't Get You Elected To Office

Weirdo former GOP candidate Michael Krawitz
and his hate messages to a reporter.  

Breaking news out of New Jersey: Republican Michael Krawitz is no longer a candidate for the West Deptford Township Committee.

OK, this isn't earthshattering news.  With all due respect to the fine citizens of West Deptford, we normally wouldn't care about this bit of election news.

Except for the reason why Krawitz has withdrawn his candidacy. He's a big Donald Trump fan, and wasn't happy at all that Daily Beast reporter Olivia Nuzzi posted on her Facebook page a critical article about Trump written by a colleague.

So Krawitz took to Facebook to criticize Nuzzi. So far, we're OK. You can criticize a reporter's work. Journalists tend to have thick skin.

But the problem is Krawitz's, um, way with words.   

He wrote to Nuzzi: "Fuck.You. Olivia. I. Hope. Somebody.Rapes.You.Today. :)

Nuzzi responded by writing: "This man who wants me to be raped today was a Republican candidate for office in NJ."

To which Krawitz responded. "Hope.You. Get. Raped. By. A. Syrian. Refugee. :)

You can see the obvious problem here.   Not a nice guy.  Not somebody who would get a lot of votes for the West Deptford Township Committee. Or any other office.

I'm also curious about his style. Every word is followed by a period. And he ends his hate sentences with a smile emoticon. Like the little smile makes the nastiness go away or something?

Definitely some issues here.

Krawitz apparently said his Facebook account got hacked the day his messages appeared so it wasn't him. With that, Nuzzi produced another Facebook love note she received from Krawitz back on August 10:

"Hows. The. Gun. Crime. In. Democrat. Chicago. Olivia. You. Ugly. Stupid. Cunt. :)

Again with the periods after every word and the smiley emoticon!

Nuzzi said she's been harassed by Krawitz since 2014. And as a female reporter, she always gets totally misogynistic comments from guys - mostly on the far right of the political spectrum, who don't like her work.

I guess they can't criticize the quality and accuracy of Nuzzi's reporting because it's solid, so their onl recourse is to call her every horrible name in the book. That accomplishes a lot!

In a statement before Krawitz withdrew his candidacy, Nuzzi said she trusted the voters of West Deptford Township to make the right election decision.

And Nuzzi said this:

"As a reporter, bullying of this kind from would-be politicians makes you fear for your First Amendment rights. As an American and a woman, it makes you fear for the state of our country and the safety of half the population that inhabits it."

She's got a great point: We can laugh at the stupidity and awfulness of Krawitz. But the legions of Internet trolls and such out there like Krawitz really do degrade this nation.

Krawitz is no longer running for office and has crawled back under his rock.  So that's good. I just wish the rest of the trolls out there would crawl under rocks and go away, too. But there's so many trolls, I don't think there's enough rocks out there for them.

Couple Upset Restaurant Posted "No Tip To Non-Citizens" Note They Left On Receipt

The nasty note left on a restaurant receipt. Add caption

Nasty notes written by customers on restaurant receipts is a reliable source of outrage, and we have another.

According to the Washington Post, Sadie Karima Elledge was working in her grandfather's Harrisonburg, Virginia restaurant last Monday. A couple Sadie served did not leave a tip when they ate there, and instead wrote a note on the receipt that read, "We only tip citizens." 

Yeah, real nice. Just that stupid hostility to anybody who is non-white because 'Merica is for Whites Only! Or something like that. 

By the way, Sadie was born in the United States and is of Honduran and Mexican descent.

Sadie's grandfather, John Elledge, who is white, posted a photo of the couple's nasty note on Facebook and captioned it "You are a complete and total piece of dung."

A little too polite in my opinion, but what the heck.

Then again, Mr. Elledge also had this to say on Facebook, according to the Washington Post:

"I'd happily do the jail time if I could get just one solid punch in to the face of the son of a bitch who paid for his meal at the luncheonette where my granddaughter works and left the receipt for her with a note saying 'Sorry, we only tip citizens."

Sadie is universally known in town as a fine young woman. She recently graduated from a local high school and is set to start classes at a community college soon.


Sadie Karima Elledge got a nasty note
from a customer due to her heritage. A

As is often the case with these rude receipts, which I've written about before, this one caught fire on social media.  

The people that left the nasty "citizen" note also saw it on social media and --- poor babies --- they are mad, MAD I tell ya!  

The couple returned to the restaurant and complained four digits of their credit card were on the Facebook post (turned out it wasn't their card).

But they were equally mad about having their note out there for all the world to see. You can see the signature Ada M. Doriot on the receipt.

The guy yelled at Mr. Elledge, but otherwise didn't get much resolved. "The guy, he was being really belligerent," Elledge told the Washington Post.

The woman half of the couple asked why he posted it, as if it wasn't obvious.

By the way, the couple is not invited back to the restaurant.

Maybe this couple wants to go back to the days of the whites only lunch counters?

I think maybe they should eat out less often and just stay home in front of the TV. Maybe while watching white supremecists videos.





 .”

DEA, Like Other Law Enforcement Shakes Down Airline, Train Passengers

Is the DEA enforcing drug laws, or or
they just shaking down people for cash. USAToday
raised the question.  

Asset forfeiture, the habit of law enforcement of taking money from people they "suspect" of a crime, whether these people actually committed a crime or not, keeps getting more widespread, we find out.

It's basically larceny by law enforcement, but shhhh! We're suppose to call it, "Cracking down on the drug trade."

Or whatever.

According to a USA Today report last week, federal DEA agents routinely mine data on airline and Amtrak passengers to find supposedly suspicious activity, then seize large quantities of money from some of these passengers, then often let them go.

The point of this, says the DEA, is to stop the flow of cash in the drug trade. And I'm sure some or even many of the cash seizures involve drug curriers or other people involved in the illicit drug industry.

But as I've complained about regarding other police agencies, is it really OK for law enforcement to just grab money for fun and profit without due process?

Technically, it's legal in a lot of places, but doesn't seem to follow the spirit of the Constitution for me. But hey! If we can just steal money from stupid schlubs who get in our way, we don't have to go through the pain in the neck process of bothering law-abiding taxpayers.

And you keep those anti-tax and spend politicians happy.

Never mind that some of the people law enforcement steals money from are also law abiding. It's just easier this way, apparently.

Based on the USA Today report, you probably shouldn't travel one-way, pay for your ticket with cash, have checked baggage or give the ticket agent a phone number for you that's not working.

The DEA could well mine that data on you, then take your money at your next stop.

The danger of this pervasive practice, which so far nobody has really put a stop to, is that we lose more and more confidence in law enforcement. They're written off as just another part of the corrupt system.

If people come to that conclusion, what's to stop them from really breaking the law. Hey, the cops do it, why shouldn't I,? goes the logic.

But, people running these law enforcement shakedowns don't think in those terms. They just want to rake in the cash.

Mississippi Lawmaker Wins Competition As Most Heartless Pol

This Mississippi politician apparently thinks
if you're not rich enough to buy
lifesaving medication on your own
maybe you should just die and get out of the way. 

When you're in Congress, or a state legislature, or a governor or whatever, you do have to make tough financial choices.

What gets funded, what doesn't based on limited tax revenue. The reality is some worthy, needed programs  - or people in a tough spot - just don't get the money they need.

Such is the case in Mississippi.

According to the Clarion-Ledger newspaper, a mom named Nicole Nichols was getting Medicaid to help pay fo ran expensive insulin pump for her eight year old daughter, who has insulin.

She is a stay at home mom, but her husband works two jobs, so the family does have an income.

But this pump is extremely expensive, the Nichols' can't afford it on their own, and they reluctantly had to turn to Medicaid to help pay for the life saving device.

Then, the company that supplied the pump outsourced products and shipping to another company.

That other company was not covered by Medicaid, and Nichols can't find another outfit that is covered by Medicaid. So she could no longer get the insulin pumps with help from Medicaid. She tried something like 23 of them.

So, that's not Nichols' fault. It's bureaucracy.

In frustration, she reached out to Mississippi state lawmakers. Two were sympathetic but not committal. They'll see what they can do. Which is fine, that's all you can really ask.

But a third state rep, Jeffrey Guice, R-Ocean Springs  wrote back and told Nichols: "I am sorry for your problem. Have you thought abouty buying the supplies with money that you earn?"

I'll remind you again here that Nichols and her husband are employed.  I'll also note that right now, the out of pocket expenses for their kid's insulin pump is $2,000 a month.

So what Guice is really saying is if your job doesn't pay enough to pay for the medicines you need to stay alive, you just have to earn more money. Just like that.

In other words, only rich people deserve life-saving medicine.

I won't paint Republicans with the same brush, since many of them at least have some compassion and have their act together.

But there is a strain of awfulness in some corners of the GOP in which I think they believe only the 1 percent deserve to live. Everybody else is expendable.

At least Guice was blunt about this belief, unlike a lot of 'em who say they want to help but not really.

Guice right now isn't talking about this, refusing to answer questions from the Clarion Ledger, telling the paper, "I don't do interviews."

Oh, OK, you're an elected official who also thinks he's not accountable to the public. We got a real winner here.

Although, after the outcry over his remarks, Guice still wasn't taking calls, but released this emailed statement to the Associated Press:

"I realize my remarks to Mrs. Nichols were completely insensitive and out of line. I am sorry and deeply regret my reply. I know nothing about her and her family and replied in knee-jerk fashion. I'd like to think the people of Mississippi and my constituents know that I'm willing to help where I am able."

I'm still not satisfied. Guise said he replied to Nichols in "knee-jerk fashion." In other words, he assumed Nichols was just another freeloader, just like every person on Medicaid or other government assistance allegedly is.

Time to get those stupid, simplistic assumptions out of your head, Mr. Guise

On the bright side, all this publicity over Guise's comments has prompted Mississippi Medicaid to step in and see if there's anything they can do for Nichols. They're supposed to get in touch with her today.

So I guess Guise did end up helping in his own, bitter way.

Conspiracy Nutjobs Delight In Torturing Orlando Shooting Victims

Patience Carter, who was injured during The Pulse nightclub
massacre in Orlando, was victimized again by nutjobs
 claiming she's a crisis actor partiipating in a government
ruse to take all our guns away, or something.
Photo by Zack Wittman/Tampa Bay Times 

A woman named Patience Carter was shot and injured at The Pulse nightclub during the massacre there earlier this month and a friend she was with was killed.

Carter, like all the victims in this shooting deserves all the support and love anybody can give her,  obviously.  

But cue the nutjobs!

Every time something like this happens the conspiracy weirdos come out of the woodwork to tell us the same old story they have. This massacre didn't happen. It was staged by the government to take all our guns away and suspend all our civil rights.

And those victims we all saw on TV? Those are all crisis actors brought in to stage the "shooting"

Riiiigghht.

You'd think the conspiracy wackos would come up with something original, but that's the narrative they give every time.

We could safely ignore these idiots if they didn't make sport of harassing people like Patience Carter. But they seek people like her out, splash her all over the internet and "expose" her as the fraud she is clearly not.

According to Slate, the "proof" the conspiracy dingbats offer is that Carter is supposedly a crisis actor , which is obvious because she had interned at television station WTFX.

She worked for awhile at a TV station! Which proves she's an actor!

Or something like that.

Patience Carter meets with President Obama after the
Orlando shooting, not before, as the conspiracy nutjobs
would have it. 

Carter also Instagrammed photos of herself after the shooting, including one in which President Obama was comforting her when he went down to Orlando after the crime. 

Someone changed the time stamps on Carter's Instagrams to make it look like they were taken before the shooting, then re-posted them on line.

Hey, if you do a sleight of hand and change the time stamp, then the time sequence really did alter, apparently. What, these conspiracy theories have Cher's "If I Can Turn Back Time" as a constant earworm in their sick little heads?

Similarly to this situation, the kooks tortured parents of young children who were killed in the 2012 Newtown, Connecticut school massacre. As if these grieving parents needed more pain in their lives.

I'm not sure what to do about these nutjobs. Trying to bat away their idiotic rantings is just a fruitless, endless game of whack-a-mole.  Still, they deserve all the ridicule we can throw at them, which is what I'm trying to do here.

As for Patience Carter, she ended up "thanking" the morons who were bothering her with the nutty conspiracy theories. On Instagram she wrote: "It's your outrageous insensitivity that makes me want to heal even faster, and grow even stronger."




WTFX