Thursday, December 31, 2015

Racist Fucks

If you haven't already seen the video, I invite you to check it out.  A "man" in Pennsylvania decided to harass a few protesters.  This guy, who news sources have identified as John Pisone, approached a group who were protesting fracking in Mars, PA, just after Christmas.  

John Pisone - Racist Fuck
Now, Mr. Pisone approached the group, apparently to find out if any of them had ever worked for a living.  "...I do work.  What do you do?"  Because THAT is the one thing that determines a person's right to protest something they believe in.  Many of the folks I saw in the video looked old enough to have retired.  More than once, you can here him telling these people that they are lazy.  

It gets worse within the first minute.  Little Johnny decided that the camera man was a nice target, especially because he was a black man.  After showing everyone his commanding use of the English language by calling him "chimp" and "nigger", and getting admonished by several of the group, he states, "I don't give a fuck.  He's milking my tax dollars."  

Let's consider that the cameraman, Tom Jefferson, HAS a job.  He films and distributes video of events, mainly protests, near his home near Pittsburgh.  His YouTube channel has 311 subscribers as of the time I write this.  People DO make money posting videos to YouTube.  I don't know who his employer is, or if he even has an employer but, my point is, neither does John Pisone!!  He just walked up and started harassing people because HIS job (what job was that?  Oh yeah, "work".) was rained out.

Pisone is the definitive racist, insisting that Jefferson couldn't possibly have a job because the man is black.  He manages to cover most of the racist talking points in the first minute of the video, then prods the cameraman by grunting like a gorilla.  

Patrick Rushing - Racist-in-Chief
Let's move on to Airway Heights, WA, where the mayor turns out to be a bigoted S.O.B.  That's right.  THE MAYOR!  The Young Turks did a piece on this loser back in July that is poignant.    Patrick Rushing is this pud's name, and he was the mayor of this city until August, when he finally caved to pressure to resign.  His explanation?  "...back and forth banter that my friends and I do."  Nice friends, hey?

Airway Heights, according to Wikipedia, is 69.51% White, 10.47% African American, 9.93% Hispanic, 3.20% Native American, 1.84% Asian, 0.38% Pacific Islander, and 1.56% from other races.  I'll lay odds that during the next elections, the people of this city will be asking candidates if they are now, or have ever been, RACIST FUCKS.

More over, as any red-blooded American has done, he's posted his rantings on Facebook, of all places!!  Folks, if you've got something to say that could possibly be considered controversial, YOU DON'T POST IT ON FACEBOOK!!!  Now that he has, though, feel free to run to his page and comment.  In some posts, Rushing also claims to be a follower of Jesus Christ.  There's a real Christian, hey?

And, finally, just because I think it's funny, I present Dumbass number 4,264,994.  (I made that number up.  It's probably higher.)  This one is out of Florida and features this white trash.

Miss Congeniality
Pretend that she has a clue and listen to what she says.  More than once she accuses these gents of taking pictures of planes and calls it a prelude to terrorism.  Never mind the fact that two of the three guys in the video are/were in the U.S. military and served in Afganistan!  BTW, she's putting their faces and license plates on...wait for it.  FACEBOOK!  Oh, and I should mention that she has "Gawd" on her side.

Ignorance comes in many forms and these are only a scant few of the many examples.  "He's black and he's not in a factory between 9 and 5 so, he must be a lazy n--gger."  "She's black and has a 'gorilla face' that only her 'monkey man' could love."  "They're brown so they have to be 'Middle-Easters' and terrorists."

Isn't America great?  More and more, people who have NO clue go out of their way to become real assholes and preach it to the masses.  

Thursday, December 24, 2015

In practice, and now, on paper...


In the last couple years, there've been changes to the headlines regarding marijuana.  We're hearing less and less about federal authorities raiding farms, businesses or homes in search of weed.  Most of the time, there's one of two things happening.  One is, they're raiding a place for something different and find the marijuana. ("Dude rolled up to grab Tommy for stealin' Social Security checks and found his stash.")  The other possibility is that the quantity of marijuana just can NOT be ignored.  ("They busted that fucker with $25,000 cash, a new car and 14 pounds of Kush, but he works at Burger Sling!  That fucker's going down for dealing!" or "DEA agents in Miami confirmed that Pablo Ortiguez was apprehended last night by federal agents, and charged with trafficking more than 17 tons of  marijuana from a port in Mexico...")


One other headline we don't see much of, recently, is the local dispensary getting raided and all of their inventory, their computer records, their real estate and their money seized.  

It's been common knowledge for a while that the federal government has bigger things to worry about, when it comes to drugs, than marijuana.  
Graphic by HuffPo.com
 Since 1996, 23 states have legalized medicinal use of marijuana in one form or another, and three states have legalized recreational use for adults.  In the beginning, there were headlines about the DEA's raids on several (state-legal) dispensaries in California, and on outdoor grow operations.  Farmers in Northern California were used to the sight of DEA helicopters flying in the hills, looking for enterprising people getting back to the land.  

In December of 2014, Congress and President Barack Obama ended the federal prohibition on medical marijuana very non-dramatically.  And, just a few days ago, Congress passed a spending bill that now prohibits the feds from messing with states that have enacted their own marijuana laws.  

But, I'm not planning on buying a sea going vessel and a map of the Colombian coast, either.  It is still illegal to import it.  It is still against the law for businesses hoping to cash in on marijuana to use banks to transfer moneys for their business.  You still can't use the interstate highway system to transport it from one state to another.  

One other thing to consider.  Marijuana is still listed as a Schedule I drug.  This means that in the eyes of the federal government, marijuana has NO medical benefits and does NOT treat chronic ailments or acute illness.  Veterans of our armed forces cannot take advantage of medical marijuana and VA doctors can't even mention the term.  

There's more work to be done...

Sunday, December 20, 2015

The facts...

One thing that we're going to see a lot of this season is fact-checking.  There used to be a time where Joe Public couldn't access the information that we have at our fingertips.  As little as 30 years ago, you wouldn't have been able to look at "evidence" cited by politicians who were delivering speeches on the campaign trail.  Heck, twenty years back, many search engines would have had a hard time looking at analyses by think-tanks across the country.

But that was then, and this, of course, is now.  So, it makes you wonder if The Don has anyone on his staff with, say, a smartphone?  I mean, if the guy I work for, when referring to the 9/11 attackers', tells my country that "...the people, the animals that did that, they sent their wives and their families back to Saudi Arabia. Most of them went back to Saudi Arabia. Those wives knew what their husbands were going to do.", I want to check and be sure that the statement is correct and that any of the perpetrators had so much as a PET, much less a wife and/or girlfriend.  I mean, that way, The Don doesn't have a delusional moment and quote his most famous line while looking directly at me.  "No, Donald.  I'm not fired...."

Read Politifact's analysis of this very reference.  Then check out the numbers on more of the things he's said.  (Feel free to browse the statements made by, and about, the other candidates on either side of the aisle.)

I found a great video that exposes more examples of "facts" that just don't match reality.  Follow this link and spend five minutes hearing the REAL facts.

Photo by www.prnewsonline.com
This brings me back to the fact-checkers.  These guys HAVE to get it right if they expect to have jobs a year from now.  "I see you've gotten a degree from DePaul University...13th in a class of 210.  Very nice...oops.  What's this?  A stint with Trump for President?  I'm VERY sorry.  Umm,...we filled that position."

And, for those of you wondering where I got my facts from, here's a list of links that will illustrate my point much better than I:

FactCheck.org
PolitiFact
and Flackcheck.org


UPDATE:  Donald, Donald, Donald.  Can you shut the fuck up?

During a recent speech, The Don was heard to say that Hillary Clinton got "schlonged" when she lost NC during the 2012 primaries against Barack Obama.  Not ready to leave well enough alone, he went on to explain himself via Twitter:  "Once again, #MSM is dishonest. "Schlonged" is not vulgar. When I said Hillary got "schlonged" that meant beaten badly."   #MSM refers to "Mainstream Media".  Now, I'm not going to pretend that our media is totally accurate OR honest.  We've been through too much to believe that.  But, then, to say that "schlonged" means "beaten badly"...   First, get a dictionary in the language that you plan to use.  Second, I hope I'm not the first to make the connection between The Don and his badly beaten schlong...

The mainstream story....