Politics: Incitement to Violence

ICHC FTLOL

The Foofaraw-Of-The-Day (hereinafter FoTD) was that some motherfucking idiot butthole surfer decided to create a poll asking whether his fellow FaceBookers thought that President Obama deserved assassination.

For those who don't use FaceBook, lots and lots of third-party developers write little apps that you can use to do silly stuff on FB, like create stupid polls that actually go to your FB account and pull all kinds of data about you and your friends and then sell it to people who want to pay money to find out what kind of people use FB and how dumb they are and also how likely to pay money for the dumb things these people want to sell them.

So there's this third-party app that lets you create polls. And most of the polls are really silly, harmless stuff like "What flavour of ice-cream are you?" and "Do you wear frilly panties?" and shit like that.

Well, this bright soul (not) decides to create this fucking poll about whether the President should be assassinated, and the choices it gives you are (Yes), (Maybe), (If he cuts my healthcare), and (No).

Some 700 or so other idiots found this poll and decided to take it. Well, actually, the first person to take it probably sent it to five other friends, who sent it to 25 other friends, and it snowballed. To the credit of most of the idiots who took it, the answer was NO by a staggering margin. And the total number of responses was very small in terms of the total number of users on FB. And, the Internets responded by reporting the dumb motherfucker to the Secret Service.

To FB's credit, they immediately suspended polls when this was brought to their attention. They then had a little talk with the app developer, asking him to fix his code so that no one could ever do such a revoltingly swinish thing again. Which he is, I believe, doing as we squeak. They also had their little session with the Secret Service and, no doubt, have turned over captured IP addresses and the like.

Welp. It won't be too long before the Men In Black have a little conversation with the feckin' eejit who wrote that feckin' poll, will it, now?



Good luck, you scum-sucking swine. You're going to need all of it that you can get. Not that we think you should be allowed much of anything, with the exception of bread, water, and shelter from the elements in a jail cell for some years, but hey. You get your day in court while the prosecutor tries to prove you guilty.

Maybe this will stop the likes of Annhole Coulter, Glen Blech, and Flush Rimbowl from making their unacceptable and unwarranted cracks about poisoning Supreme Court Justices, or the Speaker of the House, or shooting at the Speaker or the President.

Listen up, Fuckwits, one and all: US Code TITLE 18 PART I CHAPTER 115 § 2385:

Whoever knowingly or willfully advocates, abets, advises, or teaches the duty, necessity, desirability, or propriety of overthrowing or destroying the government of the United States or the government of any State, Territory, District or Possession thereof, or the government of any political subdivision therein, by force or violence, or by the assassination of any officer of any such government; or
Whoever, with intent to cause the overthrow or destruction of any such government, prints, publishes, edits, issues, circulates, sells, distributes, or publicly displays any written or printed matter advocating, advising, or teaching the duty, necessity, desirability, or propriety of overthrowing or destroying any government in the United States by force or violence, or attempts to do so; or
Whoever organizes or helps or attempts to organize any society, group, or assembly of persons who teach, advocate, or encourage the overthrow or destruction of any such government by force or violence; or becomes or is a member of, or affiliates with, any such society, group, or assembly of persons, knowing the purposes thereof—
Shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both, and shall be ineligible for employment by the United States or any department or agency thereof, for the five years next following his conviction.
If two or more persons conspire to commit any offense named in this section, each shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both, and shall be ineligible for employment by the United States or any department or agency thereof, for the five years next following his conviction.
As used in this section, the terms “organizes” and “organize”, with respect to any society, group, or assembly of persons, include the recruiting of new members, the forming of new units, and the regrouping or expansion of existing clubs, classes, and other units of such society, group, or assembly of persons.

So before you form into astroturfer organizations carrying placards advocating the violent overthrow of the government, please note that it is a fucking CRIME as defined by law. There are penalties for this kind of hate speech. You can't run around flapping your ugly gobs about killing people without consequences.

Do you understand, you cone-headed dimwits? The Free Speech amendment to the Constitution gives you the right PEACEABLY to assemble. Read it, idiots:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

If you're not assembling PEACEABLY, without guns or hate speech or threats or incitements to crime, well, there are consequences for that kind of behaviour. You have to take responsibility for your bullshit, assholes. Better start sending money to the ACLU now, motherfuckers, because they're the only ones that will bail your oversized useless lardy asses out of the hoosegow.

Moreover, these heah threats you're making against your freely and fairly elected President? That shit is laid out in the same fucking code, you worthless buttfucks. Read it and meep: TITLE 18 PART I CHAPTER 41 § 871.

Threats against President and successors to the Presidency

(a) Whoever knowingly and willfully deposits for conveyance in the mail or for a delivery from any post office or by any letter carrier any letter, paper, writing, print, missive, or document containing any threat to take the life of, to kidnap, or to inflict bodily harm upon the President of the United States, the President-elect, the Vice President or other officer next in the order of succession to the office of President of the United States, or the Vice President-elect, or knowingly and willfully otherwise makes any such threat against the President, President-elect, Vice President or other officer next in the order of succession to the office of President, or Vice President-elect, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than five years, or both.
(b) The terms “President-elect” and “Vice President-elect” as used in this section shall mean such persons as are the apparent successful candidates for the offices of President and Vice President, respectively, as ascertained from the results of the general elections held to determine the electors of President and Vice President in accordance with title 3, United States Code, sections 1 and 2. The phrase “other officer next in the order of succession to the office of President” as used in this section shall mean the person next in the order of succession to act as President in accordance with title 3, United States Code, sections 19 and 20.

OK, assholes? Didja get that? Do you understand the words of more than one syllable here? The next time one of you motherfuckers starts making that cocksucking pout of the lips and spouting off about the tree of liberty being watered with the blood of tyrants? Y'awl better be prepared to see some Men In Black coming through the front door, the back door, or both.

What part of PEACEABLY TO ASSEMBLE do you pointy-headed assholes not get? "Peaceably to assemble" does not mean "bring your fucking Uzis and AK-47s to the town hall and terrify little children and old ladies," do you get that yet?



Because by all you fucking hold holy, you brainless walking excrement, if you harm one hair on the head of our lawfully elected President, our Vice-President, or our Speaker of the House, be prepared for some real patriots to kick the holy fucking shit out of your cheetos-laden ass.

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LGBTQ: The Good News

George Takei with partner Brad Altman

George Takei, who played Sulu in the original Star Trek series, is now free to marry his longtime partner under the laws of the State of California. Per the New York Post, we find:

Over the weekend, Takei announced on his Web site that he and long-time partner Brad Altman will get married this summer.

"Our California dream is reality," he wrote. "At long last, the barrier to full marriage rights for same-sex couples has been torn down."

This makes us so happy! The only downside to this is that our dear friend Jeyhan passed away before this stupid DOMA-type law was struck down. If he were still alive, he would be married to the partner that he had loved and lived with for over 30 years.

Tell you what heterosexual marriage needs to be defended from: idiots who get married by Elvis impersonators in Las Vegas, pop out kids like salad shooters, beat the crap out of each other and their children who were never consulted on whether they wanted to be born, and then fill the divorce courts and take up everyone's time and energy figuring out which of these selfish swine should have custody of their suffering sprog, while we medicate the poor sprog into a stupor to control their destructive (learned) behaviour.

Bigoted hets who get their pantalones in a wad about people in long-term loving relationships need to just get over their pathetic fucking selves. You're being manipulated by the Religious Reich, who will promise you the moon and give you buffalo chips. Just look at the last batch of rightwing fundie nutcases who took power. Didn't they promise you "faith-based" doodah? What didja get out of it? A bunch of taxpayer dollars, read YOUR goddamned tax dollars, got siphoned off to dubious projects which taught your kids about abstinence even as they were pledging purity with silly rings and getting pranged on a daily basis. Whoop-de-doodah. Was that worth it?

While you were busy praying, they were busy preying. They shipped your jobs overseas, destroyed your pension funds, told you to pay more for less healthcare, sent your kids to two foreign wars to get shot up without adequate protection, and left you with pregnant kids and grandkids to look after. Then they cut your pay (just like American Axle is doing) even though the company made "record profits." Meanwhile, your 401(k) nose-dived because the greedy goddamned corporations couldn't resist the urge to offer you scam packages designed to eat up the equity in your home. And you fell for it, hook, line, and sinker and pulled out that money to finance your knee surgery or that new Humvee, or a wedding in fucking Tahiti, like you really needed those last two.

Now your home is worth less than you paid for it, and the credit card companies have raised the interest rates to 29 and 39 per cent, and if you pay the minimum, you'll be in debt until after your kids are buried. And your son is coming home from Iraq with one leg missing but the VA refuses him disability payments, and your daughter can't get a job except at the Wal-Mart, which means no healthcare or benefits, and you have to help raise your grandchildren.

And all you can worry about is two people of the same gender might, deity forbid, love each other and get married and raise a family? Get real.

In other good news, Ellen de Generes plans to marry her girlfriend Portia de Rossi.

Chew on that, bigots. As for you pinheads who plan to make gay marriage a divisive issue for the general election this year, may the deities you worship cause your reproductive bits to fall off, or out, and leave you all busy looking for them for reattachment purposes right about that time. It would serve you right.



George's response to Tim Hardaway's homophobia is NOT SAFE FOR WORK!!! So watch it at home.

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DHS: The Fascist State

Just when you thought it was safe to travel to America comes the story of a hapless Italian tourist jailed without recourse for ten days while his "well-educated, well-connected" (we believe that means rich and powerful, in the common parlance) girlfriend and her family tried to get him out. Caveat: You need to register and login before you can view the story at the link.

Domenico Salerno, the youngest son of a prosperous contractor in Calabria and a recently graduated lawyer who works in his brother’s law firm in Rome, has an American girlfriend whom he visits several times a year.

Apparently, DHS decided that Mr. Salerno, whose command of English is limited, posed some sort of swarthy threat to the nation. They accused him of seeking asylum and dumped his tush in the hoosegow.

You might form some sort of idea about the social background of Mr. Salerno's American girlfriend when you read this comment from her father about the indignities visited upon Signor Salerno:

“We have a lot of government people here and lobbyists and lawyers and very educated, very savvy Washingtonians,” said Jim Cooper, Ms. Cooper’s father, a businessman, describing the reaction in his neighborhood, the Wessynton subdivision of Alexandria. “They were pretty shocked that the government could do this sort of thing, because it doesn’t happen that often, except to people you never hear about, like Haitians and Guatemalans.”

Although swarthiness is not an absolute prerequisite for having your ass dragged off to the caboose. Witness the treatment of Erla Osk Arnardottir Lillendahl of Iceland, who was held by these valiant representatives of our nation. All uncaring about our fragile economy and its dependence on the tourist trade, they had the gall to seize a blond, pink female person and handle her most inappropriately. And now this.

We can't wait for them to arrest an entire planeload of Israelis, or better yet, Lubavitchers, and fling their tuchuses into confinement for "looking like terrorists," or summat. The combined howls of outrage should surely lead to a "reorg," as we call it in the SillyValley, of the DHS, hopefully rousting out the most maleficent and reducing its powers to appropriate, Constitution-respecting levels.

It won't happen unless you do something about it, though. Reps Jane Harman (D-CA) and Bennie Thompson (D-Miss) have just announced that the DHS is planning to spy on Americans within the country and share any information with local law enforcement. Presumably, the DHS, like our Pretzeldunce, believe that the Constitution may be substituted for toilet paper if there is a shortage of the latter.

Write Harman and Thompson and tell them what you think. Hell, write your Rep too.

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Politics: If It's Legal, They Don't Need Immunity

Image from DailyKos

Chimpy McTardibus, L33b3r Ov T3H |=R33 WUR7d, assures the American People today that the telcos' spying on the American People was legal:

[...] Bush said. "What we asked them to do was legal, and now they're getting sued for billions of dollars."

Telephone and Internet providers like AT&T, Verizon and SBC are facing about 40 lawsuits from customers who say their privacy was violated as part of Bush's "Terrorist Surveillance Program" he says began after 9/11. Only if they are found to have violated privacy laws would these companies face the "billions of dollars" in penalties Bush warned against.

Well, if it's legal, they have nothing to worry about, Mr. Bush. So sign the existing FISA law.

No retroactive immunity for telcos! They have way more money than John and Jane Q. Public, and can well afford a day in court. Besides, they'll win anyway. Because spying on every man, woman, and child in America is LEGAL, dammit, legal, legal, legal.

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High Crimes And Misdemeanors

Bush gives Gonzales the stinkeye as seen at Raw Story

Law professor and constitutional scholar Jonathon Turley said it: the White House's involvement in the decision to destroy tapes of CIA interrogations showing torture could constitute up to SIX crimes. Raw Story has the details.

There ya have it, folks. How much evidence of wrongdoing does the country (I'm looking at you, Nancy Pelosi) need? A criminal in the highest office of the land, and impeachment is "off the table"?

It's time to start writing those letters again, folks. These are just the latest six or so crimes. Let's not forget the lying us into a war of occupation in Iraq; the million or so Iraqis killed by the invasion and subsequent violence; the disappearance of billions of dollars in cash, armaments, and no-bid "reconstruction" contracts that never happened; the inferior equipment handed off to the troops fighting this useless "war"; the criminal neglect of the victims of Hurricane Katrina; the illegal and unwarranted spying on the people in violation of the Fourth Amendment; and various other attempts to destroy the Constitution.

And all for what? A load of crap, is what, according to Raw Story's report on a retired FBI agent who reviewed the case file of the tortured detainees. A snippet:

Coleman and others in the FBI believed Abu Zubaida had mental problems and was little more than a lackey within al Qaeda who claimed to know more than he really did about the terror organization.

"They all knew he was crazy, and they knew he was always on the damn phone," Coleman said, referring to al-Qaeda operatives. "You think they're going to tell him anything?"

Sheesh. Any kid who's beaten up other kids or been beaten up on knows quite well: when you're on the receiving end of some severe pain, you'll say anything to make it stop.

For anyone who doesn't believe waterboarding is torture, there's a very simple test. Find a neutral third party. Not your mother or spouse, who can't bear to see you suffer, but someone who doesn't particularly like or hate you. Allow them to demonstrate waterboarding on you. After several such experiments, you will speak with authority on the nature of waterboarding. Assuming, of course, that you survive without serious physical, mental, or emotional damage.

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FISA: Whistleblower Alleges Government Monitored All Telecommunication

Whistleblower Mark Klein who worked for AT&T went on Keith Olbermann's program, Countdown, to allege that the government improperly spied on all traffic passing over the internet, Raw Story reports.

Appearing on MSNBC's Countdown program, whistleblower Mark Klein told Keith Olbermann that a copy of all internet traffic passing over AT&T lines was copied into a locked room at the company's San Francisco office -- to which only employees with National Security Agency clearance had access -- via a cable splitting device.

"My job was to connect circuits into the splitter device which was hard-wired to the secret room," said Klein. "And effectively, the splitter copied the entire data stream of those internet cables into the secret room -- and we're talking about phone conversations, email web browsing, everything that goes across the internet."

Everything. Every email you sent or received, every Internet phone call you made or received, every Web site or blog you visited or read, every comment you ever left on anyone else's site, every comment anyone left on yours ...

It's staggering. Stupendous. How much money did they spend doing this? Who reviewed these records? Did they look at people's business discussions? Do they have records of trade secrets? Did they spy on lovers' conversations? What does the Constitution have to say about this?

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated; and no Warrants shall issue but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

We have, apparently, a right to be secure in our persons, et cetera, against "unreasonable searches and seizures ... ." A search as broad as "every communication over the Internet" must surely violate this provision of the Constitution.

Oh, wait, I forgot - King George thinks it's just "a goddamned piece of paper." Well, there go our constitutional rights. Raw Story has the video.

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News: Lost Pants, Lost Job

Even ThePoliticalCat has to talk about something other than politics, once in a while. And we're sure you, like the editorial we over here, have been following (even if only half-brainedly) the stirring saga of one Administrative Law Judge Roy L. Pearson, also known as The Man Without The Pants. Mr. Pearson took it upon himself to sue a family-run dry-cleaning business for losing a pair of his pants. For $54 million dollars. Musta been some fancy pants.

Well, karma bit the good Mr. P right hard in the ass today - the WaPoo reports that he just lost his job, and was ordered to vacate his office. We're broken-hearted. Okay, we're not, and we'll bet you aren't either.

Apart from the sheer outrageousness of the lawsuit and the ridiculous amount of damages, the vindictiveness with which the claim was pursued was mildly alarming, to say the least. Especially after the defendants in the case offered a cash reimbursement that we (and, we're sure, you) thought was quite reasonable - $1,200.00.

Pants aside, it appears that Pearson is a litigious individual. Just as well that he no longer has the power to decide administrative issues for Washington. Although it wouldn't surprise us in the least to hear that he plans to sue the Commission on Selection and Tenure of Administrative Law Judges, who are responsible for voting not to give him tenure.

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Iraq - Possible War Crimes

Okay, I know the Iraq occupation is one big ol' war crime, but I'm talking about the recent revelation of "bait and kill" tactics, in which U.S. military snipers are instructed to scatter "bait," such as detonation cords, plastic explosives and ammunition, and kill anyone who picks them up.

Now, this is such a resoundingly bad idea that I'm at a loss to even take a wild guess at what kind of person might have thought of it. First of all, who's most likely to pick up something strange in the street? Little kids, right? Kids are curious, they'll pick up anything. God knows enough of them have picked up used condoms, dirty needles, and spent bullet casings in the relatively safe non-war zones of the USA.

In the streets of Iraq, where approximately 1 million Iraqis, nearly 4,000 U.S. servicemen and nearly 1,000 "contractors" have already been killed, what if a kid - any person between the ages of, say, three and 19, finds these "bomb makings"? Are we going to shoot them? Kill them? Paralyse or maim them?

And second, what about the rich plethora of opportunities this affords bored or psychopathic servicemen to shoot someone at random and then plant the "donated" evidence on the bodies? Judging from the reports coming out of Iraq, hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians have been shot for much less already. What safeguards exist to ensure that someone who is going out of their mind with stress, or, worse yet, someone who has a vicious streak to begin with, like, say, Charles Granier or Steven Green won't randomly shoot some civilian passerby and plant evidence later?

Couldn't happen, you say? It has already:

The secrecy of the plan was ended during an murder investigation involving three snipers who allegedly used bait items to make shootings seem legitimate. While it's unclear whether the three alleged shootings, which took place within months of the program's implementation, were part of the classified program specifically, "defense attorneys argue that the program may have opened the door to the soldiers' actions because it blurred the legal lines of killing in a complex war zone."

This is nothing more nor less than a war crime. The Geneva Conventions state, in part, regarding the treatment of civilians:

(1) Persons taking no active part in the hostilities, including members of armed forces who have laid down their arms and those placed hors de combat by sickness, wounds, detention, or any other cause, shall in all circumstances be treated humanely, without any adverse distinction founded on race, colour, religion or faith, sex, birth or wealth, or any other similar criteria.

To this end the following acts are and shall remain prohibited at any time and in any place whatsoever with respect to the above-mentioned persons:
(a) violence to life and person, in particular murder of all kinds, mutilation, cruel treatment and torture;

Fourth Convention, Part 1, Art. 3

U.S. military authorities themselves apparently believe this baiting might be criminal. And soldiers are permitted to refuse orders of a criminal nature.

The baiting program should be rigorously examined, says Eugene Fidell, the president of the National Institute of Military Justice, because it raises frightening possibilities.

"In a country that is awash in armaments and magazines and implements of war," he said, "if every time somebody picked up something that was potentially useful as a weapon, you might as well ask every Iraqi to walk around with a target on his back."

More revolting details right here.

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Long Time Comin'

By Rogelio Solis, AP

It’s been in the news yesterday and today: James Ford Seale, a Ku Klux Klansmen, was sentenced [finally!] in Mississippi for his role in kidnapping, torturing, and murdering two young African American men in 1964. The FBI investigated this at the time and arrested several men including Seale but the local authorities never prosecuted the case.

One of Seale’s cohorts ratted him out in recent years and was granted immunity. [I feel so conflicted about granting immunity. This other criminal walks!] Seale and his fellow gangsters kidnapped these young men, tied them to trees, and beat them. Then tied weights around their bodies and dumped them in the Mississippi River while they were still alive!!

Yes, yes ... another example of “Home of the brave”.

“This may be one of the most horrific crimes in my 31 years as a prosecutor, throwing these young men into the river while they were still alive," said U.S. Attorney Dunn Lampton of Jackson.

The slain youths were Henry Hezekiah Dee and Charles Eddie Moore. Only 19 years old! The hero of all this is Moore’s brother, Thomas, who has pushed for justice in his brother's case since 1998.

The case was reopened in 2005 after Thomas Moore, a retired 30-year Army veteran and the brother of Charles Moore (one of the 1964 victims), returned to Mississippi with filmmaker David Ridgen of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation on a search for justice in the case. There they met up with Donna Ladd and photographer Kate Medley from the Jackson Free Press, an alternative newsweekly in Jackson, Miss. During several days of reporting, the CBC and the Free Press discovered simultaneously from locals that Seale had not died, as had been reported to gullible press by Seale's family members. The discovery helped to re-energize interest in the case after Moore and Ridgen visited U.S. Attorney Dunn Lampton on the same trip, and Lampton pledged to re-open the case.

There's that "gullible press" again. Gullible with an agenda.

To read the entry in Wikipedia, click here.

Seale got three life terms in prison.

Judge Wingate said that he took into account Seale’s advanced age and poor health, but added, “Then I had to take a look at the crime itself, the horror, the ghastliness of it.” Seale will serve his sentence at a medical facility.

Some folks might think this is cruel to send a 72-year old man to life in prison. Not me. Not for this guy. Did he take one moment to think that he was robbing those young men of their entire lives?

Throw him in the clink.

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Announcing DUI checkpoints: Seems crazy to me

Here's something I don't get. In today's Oakland Tribune there's a very specific announcement about a DUI checkpoint tonight in a certain area of Oakland. So, I wondered "Why announce it? Isn't that warning people to avoid that area?"

Of course, with the statistics this week about how few people read books ... and the articles talking about newspapers decreased readership, maybe it's a moot point.

Then I googled DUI checkpoints and found an article stating that they are announced because that is what the courts have decreed must be done for them to not run afoul of illegal search/seizure.

Can't they do it any other way?

PolCat, have any thoughts on it?

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