March 15, 2012

What if it were your daughter?

WED MAR 14, 2012 AT 08:01 PM PDT
Classic dittohead LTE and my response
bykbmanFollow

What if it were your daughter?

Suppose your daughter felt strongly about an issue, so strongly that she testified before Congress on that issue. I bet you'd be pretty proud of her, even if you disagreed with her position, you'd be proud of her standing up for herself and speaking out. Now suppose that as her price for speaking out she was dragged through the mud incessantly for three days by a right wing radio talker, called a slut and a prostitute, attacked in 52 separate instances. Suppose further that every single thing that this talker claimed she said was untrue, that he completely fabricated a false version of her testimony from whole cloth.

This is why Rush Limbaugh is losing advertisers. In my calls to advertisers on his show I have never mentioned the idea of a boycott. I simply ask if they are comfortable having their company's image associated with Mr. Limbaugh's hate speech. And make no mistake, that is exactly what this is, hate speech. The effects of this on our community are evident in Wednesday's letter from James T. Bryant. In a very short letter he uses the phrases, "idiot lib media," "moron liberals," "brain-dead left," and, " that cesspool of ignorance, intolerance, dishonesty and racism that makes up our idiot left."

This is the level of political discourse that Mr. Limbaugh's hate speech has created in our country. These are the kinds of attitudes towards those who disagree on policy that Mr. Limbaugh's approach to politics create. His opponents are not simply people who disagree, they're sluts and idiots and brain-dead, etc. How long will we continue to allow our airwaves to be polluted with this kind of hateful talk? Apparently some of his local advertisers would rather upset some of Rush's (far, far fewer than 30 million) listeners than continue supporting this kind of hatred. Good for them!


http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/03/14/1074533/-Classic-dittohead-LTE-and-my-response

March 15, 2012

TEXAS: Voting Rights Act is Unconstitutional: Case Could Reach SCOTUS - Before Election

Texas Ups Ante in Its Voter ID Case, Says Voting Rights Act is Unconstitutional: Case Could Reach SCOTUS Before Election
Posted on March 14, 2012 10:14 pm by Rick Hasen

Texas filed an amended complaint today (UPDATE, actually Tuesday) https://docs.google.com/file/d/0BxeOfQQnUr_gb2t4blV3blFUZHFGZ0hvSEIwSlhHUQ/edit?pli=1 in its action to overcome the US Department of Justice’s objection to its voter identification law. The complaint now says that the Voting Rights Act section 5, as amended in 2006, “exceeds the enumerated powers of Congress and conflicts with Article IV of the Constitution and the Tenth Amendment.”

This is a very big deal. I had expected South Carolina to do this in its own challenge to DOJ denial of preclearance of its voter id law. For some reason, South Carolina did not do so; nor did Texas in its initial complaint.

way more, plus links:
http://electionlawblog.org/?p=31583

March 15, 2012

Boulder DA to Feds: BACK OFF - Medical Marijuana Dispensaries

Boulder DA to Feds: Back Off Medical Marijuana Dispensaries

By Jeralyn, Section Colorado News
Posted on Wed Mar 14, 2012 at 03:08:24 PM EST

Stan Garnett, the District Attorney for Boulder, Colorado, has written a letter to Colorado U.S. Attorney John Walsh asking that the feds back off from threatening to prosecute medical marijuana dispensaries in Boulder that are in compliance with state law. From his letter, available here:

My view is that the resources of the United States Attorney’s Office should be focused elsewhere: on terrorism, serious economic crime, organized crime and serious drug dealing (involving significant amounts of heroin, cocaine and methamphetamine). I can see no legitimate basis in this judicial district to focus the resources of the United States government on the medical marijuana dispensaries that are otherwise compliant with Colorado law or local regulation. The people of Boulder County do not need Washington D.C. or the federal government dictating how far dispensaries should be from schools, or other fine points of local land use law.

Accordingly, speaking solely on behalf of myself as the District Attorney in the 20th Judicial District, I am urging you to exercise your prosecutorial discretion to back away from the threatened criminal prosecution of medical marijuana dispensaries in Boulder County if they are compliant with state law and local land use regulations.

Moreover, as the industry has developed and adapted to Colorado’s statutory and local land use and regulatory schemes, I have watched a maturing business that pays substantial tax revenue fit within the fabric of this community.

..........................

MORE:
http://www.talkleft.com/story/2012/3/14/16824/8634

March 15, 2012

Why? “Because I’m Mitt Romney, bitches, and I’m all you got left.”

What Mitt SHOULD say: The Liberation of Willard Romney:
A Game Plan, by Charles P. Pierce -

“Okay, so let me tell you about myself. I’m not one of you. I’m moderately pro-life. I believe that gay people are human, too, and that, maybe, there ought to be a way for them to get married. I am not what I have been pretending to be all these months. I am nowhere near as stupid and retrograde as you have to pretend to be in this primary, okay? Right now, bitches, you’ve got a gender gap that looks like the Gates of Hercules because Santorum — and have Pierce and I told you recently what a colossal dick that guy is? — is a sheet-sniffing, diaphragm-hunting male nun. You’re losing two generations of Hispanic voters because you keep lining up behind immigration laws that seem to have been drawn up in Nuremberg. How’s that going to work out for you in 2016, or 2012? You really want to be the party of angry white people in lawn chairs? I am the Massachusetts moderate, bitches, and I’ve got the money to make it work. [...]

It’s not my fault that longtime Republican solutions have been recast in the fetid reaches of The Base’s hive-mind as creeping socialism. It’s not my fault you turned ignorant poo-flinging into a national strategy. …You want the entire campaign to be about either Gingrich’s grandiose daydreams, or about Rick Santorum’s pursuit of the unauthorized use of the penis? One guy wants to be Caesar Augustus and the other one wants to be Pius IX. Is that really what you want?

…So, yeah, I’m not going to be what the Bible-bangers want. You know why? Because there aren’t enough of them to win the election, and I’m sick of throwing good money after bad trying to win the hearts and the not-entirely-functioning minds of a bunch of people who see Jesus in their cereal bowls every morning. They can come along if they want to, but I’m not doing this born-again shuck-and-jive for their amusement any more. Why?

“Because I’m Mitt Romney, bitches, and I’m all you got left.”
http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/mitt-romney-campaign-plan-7346196?src=rss

March 15, 2012

LOL! - GOP candidate gives pitch at wrong convention

GOP candidate gives pitch at wrong convention


Dan Dolan, Iowa 2nd District Republican Candidate.
By all accounts it was an honest mistake, political party convention attendees said.

Republican congressional candidate Dan Dolan of Muscatine arrived early at the Monroe County Courthouse for the Republican convention being held Saturday in Albia, Iowa.

Unfortunately, the county Democrats were holding their convention in the same building, and Dolan spoke to the wrong group of people.

“Nobody asked enough questions before he started speaking,” Monroe County Supervisor Denny Ryan said. “It finally got to the point in the speech where one of the people said, ‘Are you sure you’re at the right convention?’”


Read more: http://www.qctimes.com/news/local/gop-candidate-gives-pitch-at-wrong-convention/article_17276782-6c97-11e1-8e2b-001871e3ce6c.html#ixzz1pCHeKvXm

March 15, 2012

Mitt Romney campaign rooting for bad economic news to bail them out of that doggone car roof story

One Romney adviser said that the Seamus anecdote is “a pure negative” but that the campaign does not see it as overly damaging in a contest they believe is being shaped overwhelmingly by the economy.

“For crying out loud, with 8.3 percent unemployment, if the dog defeats you, you deserve to be defeated,” said the adviser, who requested anonymity to speak candidly. “Come on. You’ve got to run a good campaign to overcome that. President Obama overcame Reverend Wright and Bill Ayres.”


http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/mitt-romneys-dog-on-the-car-roof-story-still-proves-to-be-his-critics-best-friend/2012/03/14/gIQAp2LxCS_story_1.html
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/03/15/1074606/-Mitt-Romney-campaign-rooting-for-bad-economic-news-to-bail-them-out-of-that-doggone-car-roof-story

March 15, 2012

Voting machines are so smart/dumb they reject ballots because of one dot

Voting machines are so smart/dumb they reject ballots because of one dot
The Mobile Press-Register reports: A printing mistake on some Mobile County ballots in Tuesday's election caused electronic voting machines to reject them -- forcing poll workers to count roughly 3,000 ballots by hand into the early morning hours, Probate Court officials said today.

"This little white dot," said Probate Judge Don Davis, pointing to a white, donut-shaped mark barely one-tenth of an inch wide.

The tiny error, though, ended up in an important spot, on the security markings that let the electronic machines know whether to count it. The markings look like a bar code stretching along the side of the ballot.

The faulty marks appeared only on Republican primary ballots for precincts within the contested Mobile County Commission District 3. Not all of the District 3 ballots were affected, officials said. -- Read the whole story (and see a picture of the dot) --> Mobile County ballot problems caused by tiny printing error | al.com
Posted by Ed on March 15, 2012 8:59 AM | Permalink

http://www.votelaw.com/blog/archives/006677.html

March 15, 2012

Moroccan girl commits suicide after being forced to marry her rapist

Moroccan girl commits suicide after being forced to marry her rapist
Wednesday, 14 March 2012

A 16-year-old Moroccan girl has committed suicide after a judge ordered her to marry her rapist, according to Moroccan media reports.

Last year Amina’s parents filed charges against their daughter’s rapist, a man 10 years older than her but it was only recently that a judge in the northern city of Tangier decided that instead of punishing him, the two must be married.

The court’s decision to forcibly marry Amina to her rapist was supposed to “resolve” the damage of sexual violation against her, but it led to more suffering in the unwelcoming home of her rapist/husband’s family.

Traumatized by the painful experience of rape, Amina decided to end her life by consuming rat poison in the house of her husband’s family, according to the Moroccan daily al-Massae.

http://english.alarabiya.net/articles/2012/03/14/200577.html

March 15, 2012

NOW WE KNOW: Scott Olsen Was INTENTIONALLY Shot

Lawyer: Scott Olsen Was Hit by Beanbag Round
“It looks like one officer intentionally shot him,” Olsen's attorney says

By ZOE CORNELI on March 14, 2012 - 5:02 p.m. PDT





.....................

The question of how Olsen was injured, and by whom, has been the subject of intense speculation and an ongoing police department investigation.

................

Olsen had previously said he believed he had been hit with a tear gas canister.

“The difference is significant, because a tear gas canister, you don’t shoot at a person,” said Martel, who called the development “troubling” and said he planned to file a lawsuit against the city and the police department.


"It looks like one officer intentionally shot him"

http://www.baycitizen.org/occupy-movement/story/lawyer-scott-olsen-was-hit-bean-bag/


Source: The Bay Citizen (http://s.tt/17nus)

March 15, 2012

US Military "Heat Ray" Coming soon to a protest near you

The 'heat ray' system, which can be mounted on a military vehicle, shoots an invisible, high-frequency electromagnetic ray from what looks like a satellite dish.

Science fiction is becoming science fact as the U.S. military has developed a "heat ray" weapon to direct non-lethal electromagnetic waves at unruly crowds.

The U.S. military demonstrated the system to the media, which delivers an intense blast of unbearable heat, similar to that of a hot oven door opening.

"You're not gonna see it, you're not gonna hear it, you're not gonna smell it: you're gonna feel it," Marine Col. Tracy Taffola said at the public unveiling of the system at a U.S. Marines base near Washington, D.C. The "heat ray" has been dubbed the decidedly dull Active Denial System and can be used against crowds as far as one kilometre away.

The system, which can be mounted on a military vehicle, shoots an invisible, high-frequency electromagnetic ray from what looks like a satellite dish.

more:
http://m.ctv.ca/topstories/20120313/unitedstates-marines-military-heat-ray-weapon-120313.html