Taliban bastards shot this girl, who has literally been fighting for the right of girls to be educated, for years. The world is hopeful that she is not brain damaged and will survive this misogynistic and regressive attack against a child who is trying to build a better world.
Category Archives: Politics
How I’m Voting
President/VP of US – Incumbents Obama & Biden (I’m not a fool).
US Representative 15th Congressional District – Incumbent Fortney Pete Stark
US Senator – Incumbent Dianne Feinstein
State Assembly 20th District – Jennifer Ong
Hayward Unified School District – Annette Walker, Heather Reyes and Luis Reynoso
Eden Township Healthcare District Directors – Dr. Vin Sawhney & David Coleman
Oro Loma Sanitary District Directors – Roland Dias and Laython Landis
AC Transit District Director – Dollene Jones
BART Director – Rebecca Saltzman
Measure 30 Yes
31 No
32 Yes
33 Yes
34 Yes
35 Yes
36 Yes
37 Yes
38 Yes
39 Yes
40 Yes
A1 Yes
B1 Yes
I Yes
Good Economic News Before Re-election of Obama (gasp)
Unemployment solidly below 8% (as Obama sought) despite all of the obstruction and rooting on the part of the conservatives in the US legislature and the Romney camp for economic failure. How do you like them apples, mofos?
Thread on Trayvon on Facebook
Jason Drawhorn I listened to the 911 calls, and I absolutely agree that this George Zimmerman shot this young man without probable cause. Why did he follow the young man to begin with after being told not to by the dispatcher? He was creating an altercation with Trayvon so he could shoot him. He was going to make sure this “asshole” didn’t get away, those are his words not mine. In the third 911 call down on this page you hear Trayvon begging for help, then a gunshot is fired and the screaming stops. This is an outrage that this man has not been arrested! This saddens me so much.
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www.huffingtonpost.com SANFORD, Fla. — Police have released audio 911 tapes in the shooting death of Trayvon Martin, the unarmed teenager allegedly killed by a neighborhood watch captain while walking home from a store. In eight chilling recordings, made the night of February 26, listeners can hear the frightened voices o…
Kellie Ann Kunkel I couldn’t agree more, so very sadMac McGuirk Jason, you can hear someone screaming for help in the third recording. How is it known that it is Trayvon begging for help?Jason Drawhorn That is why he needs to be arrested and put on trial, so he can be judged by his peersMac McGuirk I agree that there should be a proper trial and introduction of evidence. My point was simply that we don’t know who was screaming for help.Mac McGuirk I believe a grand jury is set to convene on April 10th as well.Joseph Andrew Hayden @Mac – We don’t KNOW who was screaming for help? Are you kidding me? Everyone who heard the tape who knew Trayvon identified him as the screamer. Trayvon was 100 POUNDS lighter and 11 years younger that George Zimmerman! Do you belong to the flat world society? Did anyone in this thread note the use of the word “coon” by George Zimmerman (still not arrested)? Was George Zimmerman worried for his life having a gun in his SUV with an unarmed teen walking by with candy and ice tea? Wake up people!Mac McGuirk Well, Joseph, your mind is made up. Mine is not, and George Zimmerman should be processed under the guise of innocent until proven guilty. My world is quite round and all of the reports I read say that no one knows who is screaming. I hope that the grand jury is more apt to hear all of the facts before making their decision as you already have obviously. I am not saying I think he is innocent, I am saying that it’s not been proven that Trayvon is the person pleading for help. Also of interest is the fact that George had become separated from Trayvon and returned to his SUV. I am not sure why someone who planned to murder someone in cold blood would self-identify to 911 operators before he did so. His injuries were consistent with his report of being attacked from behind at his SUV and he had fresh grass stains on his back. These are all things that justice professionals and the Grand Jury should address to determine whether George should be indicted. If George was attacked after returning to his SUV, the Florida stand-your-ground law would be correctly applied in the case of someone having their head beaten against the sidewalk as George reported. My point is that there are a lot of unknowns and just like every sensationalized case, more details will slowly emerge.Joseph Andrew Hayden @Mac – With all due respect, this is not about presumption of innocence or guilt. GEORGE ZIMMERMAN IS STILL NOT ARRESTED. Unless someone does something, he will never even have his innocence tested! This is about NRA-lobbied legislation that goes above and beyond the already well established Anglo-American law for self-defense. I have a law degree, but it does not take a lawyer or a criminologist to see what is going on here. I’m so glad we have the audio tapes of what happened. Hopefully, as I’ve heard, there is a credible eyewitness to testify further to the assassination of this unarmed boy. I do recommend you stop watching FOX “news” if you have yet to hear his own parents suffer through the screams of their son which they unequivocally identified. Do you hear George Zimmerman’s family claiming the screams for help were him? Do you yourself not hear a teenage voice screaming for help? You heard George’s voice while he was sneaking up on Trayvon on the 911 tape. Do you claim the scream is from the same voice? Did George tell the police he was screaming for help? Did you notice the screams completely stopped when Trayvon was murdered? Why would a 250 pound man in his twenties be screaming “help” when he had a gun and and SUV to protect him and the person he shot and killed was 100 pounds smaller than him and unarmed? I did not say it was “in cold blood” but his predatory intent was obvious when he defied the POLICE dispatcher by chasing someone when George was not even on as watcher that night (and he should not have been armed to “watch” the neighborhood anyway). Did you see the grass stains as if they could only have been caused by Trayvon? Did you know that the “broken nose” was not even observed in the hospital until the next day so that it must not have been that bad? Do you know George assaulted a police officer and was arrested in a domestic abuse case, not to mention the dozens and dozens of 911 calls he has made in the months leading up to his killing this young boy which led him to say on the 911 tape “they always get away” (this was said at a different time than his use of the word “coon”)? The point is that there IS no correct application of the “Stand Your Ground” law because it is a bogus piece of legislation that was written and pushed through by gun lobbyists who needed to beef up the legitimacy of the NRA in the wake of the Gabrielle Giffords assassination attempt. I think you are blinded by your lack of knowledge. I have a daughter and I would recognize her scream for help. I can’t believe you are “standing your ground” that we don’t know who screamed and you are still trying to claim that it was in dispute. Have you even watched one interview with Trayvon’s parents? Some cases DESERVE to be sensationalizedJoseph Andrew Hayden In the interest of accuracy, the ultimately-dropped charges against Zimmerman for the attack on a policeman was back in 2005, although I did hear his dozens of 911 calls were made in the months prior to this assassination. If you read the article above, Trayvon’s father once again affirmatively identifies his son’s voice screaming for help. Some are saying that Zimmerman had political connections to get the charges dropped and to completely avoid drug testing on the night of the shooting, although because Trayvon was black, I suppose, his corpse WAS tested for drugs (which came out negative). Unexplained Sanford Police Department favoritism toward Zimmerman also led him to avoid arrest or even detainment to date!
Trayvon could have been MY son
If I had a son instead of a daughter with my ex-wife, who is African-American, he would have been only two years older than Trayvon was when he was gunned down for being black. Hence, I can’t help but identify with our biracial president who said so wisely and to give people pause, “If I had a son, he would have looked like Trayvon Martin.”
No reasonable person can dispute the impetus to shoot this unarmed minor with no criminal record any longer, especially now that the 911 tapes clearly have George Zimmerman calling him a “coon”! I can’t help but cry today thinking about losing my child this way, but for her gender. Even as a daughter of color, I have warned my child of the perception of her being “suspicious” just as my ex-wife had been when she walked into a store and even as my perceptibly Latino ex-lover had been. We’ve got a long way to go.
As for Geraldo Rivera (half Latino himself) talking about his “dark” son and discouraging him from wearing a hoodie, the comment that children of color should dress DIFFERENTLY than their white counterparts to avoid getting shot is tantamount to telling a woman not to dress provocatively or she’d be responsible for getting raped! Talk about blaming the victim! What’s even more egregious about Rivera playing to his FOX “News” audience of minimal brain cell patterns, is that he said the hoodie was “equally” responsible for the murder as George Zimmerman himself! What the hell?
Introspection
As Facebook is not my life, content that I post there is only ancillary to what I post here at my own domain. I recently changed my theological and political views from Agnostic and Liberal thusly:
Devout Agnostic – Not interested in pursuing and not interested in debating useless unscientific contradictory ideas, whether they were reduced to writing at some point or not. Philosophy and scientific mental health are far more interesting to me.
Progressive Lefty – Not as liberal as some people consider me to be, but certainly not politically paternalistic. I am a loyal Democrat (as in non-backstabbing swing Democrat). Some of my best friends are Republican-identified.
Four Years of Italian Injustice
As an Italian-American who has lived in Italy and knows how corrupt and political everything there is, I am embarrassed by how long it took to free Amanda Knox, who was convicted so Draconiously on almost no evidence and completely concocted xenophobia. I hope she is forever rewarded for her endurance of being used as a ploy by the Machiavellian prosecutor who sought to use her as a scapegoat for a horrific murder she had no reason nor no ability to commit.
Lest we forget that her boyfriend at the time of the killing, an Italian national, was also targeted, for being with what the media there considered a party girl harlot. He too was freed today.
This is not like the OJ Simpson trial where someone was acquitted finally after there was no explanation on how the victim died. There has already been a drifter drug dealer who had both the motive and the gender to rape and mutilate the poor roommate of Amanda. In this case he was tried and convicted with sound evidence long ago. Why the Italian tribunals had to create a conspiracy out of thin air for two other college students to have been involved is the fodder of garbage tabloids. Finally in the appeal some science was used and it was because of the diligence of those who had some common sense that Amanda and her boyfriend were exonerated. It remains to be seen if the propaganda in the Italian press will admit their mistake and correct the embarrassing excuse they have for a legal system.
Veteran with no Insurance of Any Kind
Relatives and friends of my recently passed uncle have discovered that he had no insurance. My Uncle was in the military and lived overseas for this country. He contributed and worked his whole life, but died without much of anything, and his lack of health insurance probably did not help, as his CPAP machine for apnea, not to mention his gastro-intestinal problems, could not have helped the fact that he died at the age of sixty (so not even old enough to receive social security or Medicare) last week. I’m pretty furious to find out that he was another American citizen who fell through the cracks and was not able to receive optimal medical care because he could not afford it!
His VA Benefits will only cover $600 of the $2,400 funeral in Sedona, so we are taking up a collection, as his estate will definitely not be able to afford it. I can’t stand to think that this man would not be able to be buried with dignity and would rather forego taking a trip to his memorial next weekend to be able to contribute more to his funeral expenses.
Wieners in DC
I definitely respect Wiener for exposing (sorry) the ugly side of politics over the many years he was in Washington.
Democrats take the position of resigning when they are caught with their pants off (even if there is no insinuation of physical contact with women on the other side of the country), but there is something that precious few talk show pundits have been discussing in recent weeks. The difference between the Wiener scandal and all of the other, ignoble, far more egregious and often criminal cases of salacious sexual impropriety among Repubs, is solely that the Repubs have not been caught engaging in their exploits on camera. The pictures went viral because they could go viral. It was far too easy for Wiener to have accidentally mixed his public photo cache with his very private cache. He doesn’t sound like the most tech-savvy guy in the world to begin with.
In principle, I’m not surprised how many people have x-rated photos of themselves online, even headless ones and even among heterosexuals, although I would wager that far fewer women are asking to see body parts before taking someone in the ether very seriously. I’m not surprised that the exchange of pictures is not dominated by teenagers, as some reports have recently shown, but let’s remember that Anthony Wiener was not in Congress lecturing others about sexual morality and he was certainly not preaching his views to the public about what people should do in their private lives.
I wish Wiener luck on his new marriage and prospective fatherhood. I don’t think they should try to make him to go rehab. No no no.
Pinko Liberals?
I usually agree with 99% of what Religulous filmmaker Bill Maher says and 95% of what Michael Moore says, and I still don’t consider myself to be that liberal. The U.S. population is just artificially puritanical.
Bill Maher let mainstream Republicans and conspiracy theorists have it in a major response rant to the capture and killing of Osama bin Laden (reposted via Politicus USA):
“Now that it’s become clear that the Republicans, the fiscally conservative strong on defense party are neither fiscally conservative nor strong on defense, they have to tell us what exactly it is they’re good at. It’s not defense. 9/11 happened on your watch, and you retaliated by invading the wrong country, and you lost a 10 year game of hide and seek with Osama Bin Laden, and you’re responsible for running up most of the debt, which more than anything makes us weak.”
“You’re supposed to be the party with the killer instinct, but it was a Democrat who put a bomb in Gadhafi’s bedroom, and bullet in Bin Laden’s eye like Moe Green. Raising the question how many Muslims does a black guy have to kill in one weekend before crackers climb down off his ass? Let’s look at some facts. Now for you Fox News viewers feel free to turn down the sound until the flashing facts light at the bottom of your screen disappears.”