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Adam Kokesh is a strange bird. He's a veteran of the Iraq war and a hard-core libertarian who claims to support the tea party and Occupy Wall Street.

I'm going out on a limb here and saying he actually tends to lean more anarchist than anything else. Based on his latest and greatest idea, that would seem to be the case.

Kokesh is calling for an armed march on Washington, DC. By armed march, I mean a march from Virginia to Washington, DC with at least 1000 marchers carrying loaded rifles. Being the kind of guy that plans for every contingency, he warns that such a march would be intended to be non-violent, unless...

On the morning of July 4, 2013, Independence Day, we will muster at the National Cemetery & at noon we will step off to march across the Memorial Bridge, down Independence Avenue, around the Capitol, the Supreme Court, & the White House, then peacefully return to Virginia across the Memorial Bridge. This is an act of civil disobedience, not a permitted event. We will march with rifles loaded & slung across our backs to put the government on notice that we will not be intimidated & cower in submission to tyranny. We are marching to mark the high water mark of government & to turn the tide. This will be a non-violent event, unless the government chooses to make it violent. Should we meet physical resistance, we will peacefully turn back, having shown that free people are not welcome in Washington, & returning with the resolve that the politicians, bureaucrats, & enforcers of the federal government will not be welcome in the land of the free.

There's a remote chance that there will be violence as there has been from government before, and I think it should be clear that if anyone involved in this event is approached respectfully by agents of the state, they will submit to arrest without resisting. We are truly saying in the SUBTLEST way possible that we would rather die on our feet than live on our knees.

Yes, Kokesh calls for peaceful retreat with their loaded rifles, but my gut tells me it's not that simple, nor is it so easy to manage a thousand or more "patriots" with their loaded rifles into simply "peacefully turning back."

So far, 975 people have said they're attending. I don't know how many of them would actually be carrying the loaded rifle, though I think it's safe to err on the side of the majority.

Salon has more:

He started an anti-government radio show as the Tea Party picked up steam and was eventually picked up by RT, the news channel funded by the Russian government that is often critical of U.S. policy, where he promoted both the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street in a worldview that some sociologists describe as “fusion paranoia,” a visceral anti-governmentalism that isn’t limited to typical left-right divides.

He ran into trouble when he endorsed Ron Paul in the 2012 election, which led to an FEC complaint and his termination from RT, though employees have told me privately that there were other, darker issues.

Since then, he’s taken his show “Adam vs. The Man” to the Internet, and seems to have become increasingly radicalized. “It’s time to abolish the US federal government,” hetweeted yesterday. Today he tweeted this:

When the government comes to take your guns, you can shoot government agents, or submit to slavery.— Adam Kokesh (@adamkokesh) May 3, 2013

If Kokesh carries through with this plan, I do not see it ending well.

via Crooks and Liars http://crooksandliars.com/karoli/marching-dc-loaded-rifles-what-could-possib

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10:09

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[h/t Heather at VideoCafe]

Meet Allen Tharp. Mr Tharp is president of Allen Tharp & Associates, Inc. in San Antonio, Texas. As the current president of the San Antonio Tea Party, Mr. Tharp would like for you to believe he is barely scraping by as a local restaurant service business. Because he is barely scraping by, he wants you to be very sad for him if he has to pay his workers more than one extra dime more than he's paying them now, or God forbid, provide health insurance or pay the penalty for not providing it.

That's what Mr. Tharp wants Cavuto, his guests, and everyone who is gullible enough to buy his bill of goods to know. Here are some things he hopes you and Fox viewers will overlook:

• Tharp is a government contractor. His business has ballooned in the last three years after he landed the exclusive contract to provide food services to Lackland Air Force Base. Tharp is classified as a "SBA Certificated 8a Program Participant,Small Disadvantaged". That means he gets preferential consideration on contract bids. This hasn't stopped Tharp from claiming he built it all without the assistance of government.


• Tharp's business isn't all that small. A single division of his business, Golden Chick restaurants, was expected to rake in $75 million in 2012. Tharp unashamedly confesses that he has taken advantage of the current economic conditions to get cut-rate land and building contractor prices.

Someone needs to tell Mr. Tharp that a big chunk of his profits is being paid for by the government he despises. Someone should also point out that someone looking to expand their business into China and a large chunk of Texas should think twice about filing a federal lawsuit against the Affordable Care Act and whining on national television about how he will cut employees' hours before he will provide insurance coverage for his employees.

People like this honestly make me sick and they might make you sick too. He's all about pimping himself as a disadvantaged small business to get the fat government contracts but doesn't give enough of a damn about his employees to provide health insurance? I wouldn't eat in his restaurants. That's a public health hazard. One employee gets norovirus, breathes on the food, and wham! Customers take home more than their golden chicks.

This taxpayer says if he can't manage to pony up for his employees, I might not be inclined to patronize any of his restaurants, and will suggest that my Texas friends follow suit.

via Crooks and Liars http://crooksandliars.com/karoli/cavuto-paints-restaurant-chain-ceo-and-tea-

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09:24

Imagine being a domestic violence victim who is routinely stalked and beaten by a former boyfriend. Imagine being that same victim and trying to work and raise a three-year old daughter, while living in HUD Section 8 approved housing.

Now imagine being that same victim and being threatened with eviction because your ex-boyfriend's penchant for beating the crap out of you whenever he felt like it was considered to be a "nuisance" for which your landlord was held partly responsible. Because your landlord was held partly responsible, your landlord also has the right to evict you if that nuisance thing gets in his way.

This is what happened to Pennsyvania resident Lakisha Briggs. By her landlord's own admission, she paid her rent on time and didn't cause any trouble. That's true, she didn't. But her ex-boyfriend was trouble any time he came around, and that trouble led her down a path of near-eviction:

Yes, that's right. The police threatened Ms. Briggs with eviction because she had received their assistance for domestic violence. Under Norristown's "disorderly behavior ordinance," the city penalizes landlords and tenants when the police respond to three instances of "disorderly behavior" within a four-month period. The ordinance specifically includes "domestic disturbances" as disorderly behavior that triggers enforcement of the law.

After her first "strike," Ms. Briggs was terrified of calling the police. She did not want to do anything to risk losing her home. So even when her now ex-boyfriend attacked her with a brick, she did not call. And later, when he stabbed her in the neck, she was still too afraid to reach out. But both times, someone else did call the police. Based on these "strikes," the city pressured her landlord to evict. After a housing court refused to order an eviction, the city said it planned to condemn the property and forcibly remove Ms. Briggs from her home. The ACLU intervened, and the city did not carry out its threats, and even agreed to repeal the ordinance. But just two weeks later, Norristown quietly passed a virtually identical ordinance that imposes fines on landlords unless they evict tenants who obtain police assistance, including for domestic violence.

You can read the full text of the lawsuit here (PDF). It's not unique to Norristown, PA. A similar law was passed in Providence, Rhode Island last year. After an outcry from domestic violence groups, the mayor promised to amend the law to exclude victims of domestic violence. That's one city. Many others don't really care. They're more interested in conserving police resources and if that means a few women lose their homes, oh well.

Women in general, yes. But more often than not, it's not simply women in general. It's poor women of color. This recent study confirms the frequency that women of color in poor neighborhoods are likely to receive a nuisance citation from police rather than the protection they deserve.

A recent study of Milwaukee's nuisance ordinance showed that domestic violence was the third most common reason that police issued a nuisance citation, far above drug, property damage, or trespassing offenses. The study also established that enforcement of the ordinance disproportionately targeted African-American neighborhoods. The result? Women of color, like Ms. Briggs, were less able to access police protection.

The ACLU has filed a lawsuit against the city of Norristown. If successful, cities across the country would have to amend their nuisance laws to exclude calls for domestic violence. I would think this is a no-brainer. It's unthinkable that a law put on the books to deal with noisy parties and drug dealers is capturing battered women in the net and victimizing them again.

As things progress, I'm certain efforts will be made on the right-hand side of blogging and news to demonize this woman for whatever they can dig up on her. They should rot for that. Domestic violence toward anyone -- male, female, white, black or otherwise -- is a worm that eats society from the inside out. No city or police department should be punishing the victims.

via Crooks and Liars http://crooksandliars.com/karoli/battered-women-considered-nuisance-some-nei

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09:22

As the mom of a dancer, I know how much dancing means to them, which is why this story made me happy and sad all at the same time.

Adrianne Haslett lost her foot in last week's bombing. But she's undaunted, and she's also really angry.

ABC:

The blast had torn off the dancer’s left foot – a devastating loss for the ballroom dance instructor at Boston’s Arthur Murray Studios. The bombings killed three people, including an 8-year-old boy, and injured at least 200 people.

Haslet, who appeared on the cover of the Boston Herald this morning, said she had not lost her spirit.

“I absolutely want to dance again,” she said.

Dr. Linda Arslanian, a physical therapist at Boston’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital, said Haslett likely would dance again thanks to the advancement of prosthetic technology.

“If they were walking before they had their amputation, we can have them walk again,” she said. “Much depends on the level of their amputation and all of it depends on what their goals and objectives are.”

Her husband had just returned from Afghanistan, and was also seriously injured in the blast.

A healthy dose of anger is driving her resolve. Jezebel:

She still hasn't come to terms with it completely (no duh), and her honest and candid answers are downright inspiring:

“I’ve been better, but I’m doing OK.” When asked about the dark moments, she bellowed, “Hell, yeah, I’ve had plenty. I’ve thrown my walker across the room and haven’t used it yet. But I realized you have to be selfish about the things that matter the most. My husband. The job I love. Dancing is my life. Yeah, having my foot blown off, that really sucks. But I can’t wallow in woe is me.

"I can’t let some (expletive) come along and steal my whole life. So, I’ll dance again. And next year, though I’ve never been a runner, yes, I plan to run the marathon.”

Resounding applause. Now, if we can just keep the politicians from turning what looks to be an evil act of violence with no organized political motivation into a terrible terrorist plot, we might actually see good come from an evil act.

via Crooks and Liars http://crooksandliars.com/karoli/dancer-who-lost-foot-boston-bombing-vows-sh

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09:22

Chris Hayes' opening segment on All In was superb. He very clearly and precisely said what we all thought on Wednesday when CNN claimed a suspect had been arrested in Boston and that suspect was 'dark-skinned.'

Since 9-11, CNN has really changed, and not for the better. When I worked there, they were far more concerned with being right over being first. But that standard has been shattered, along with any pretense of objectivity. Hayes gives it a name:

This wasn't just some abstraction happening on cable news that no one was paying attention to, and I understand people make mistakes, but the bungling of the story today mattered. This is video outside the courthouse in Boston after all that frenzied, inaccurate reporting this afternoon. A crowd has gathered. To be sure, a lot of these people are reporters and media folks, but they are people who show up in hopes of seeing a suspect brought in.

Among them were likely anguished, angry people whose city has just been through a terrible trauma who wanted to see with their own eyes someone suspected of being responsible for it, a suspect who would not even exist yet but were told by the news was already in custody. And the one thing people knew about the suspect, the only thing they thought they knew for sure, thanks to CNN's reporting was the following descriptor:

It was described to me as a dark-skinned male individual.

I was told by a source that was a law enforcement official that this was a dark-skinned male. Source had been briefed on the investigation, I should say, that the suspect was a dark-skinned male.

Forget about the fact that CNN got wrong the information they said they had. Just explain to me precisely what news value exists in the adjective "dark skinned." What exactly that's newsworthy is communicated in that phrase? A dark-skinned individual could be my swarthier Italian relatives or the Ethiopian that won the Boston Marathon before it was bombed on Monday and everyone in between.

No, that's not the purpose of that phrase. That phrase is not there to convey journalism. What 'dark-skinned' indicates is aha, all you folks who thought it was a bad Muslim who did this, you were right.

Because, of course, let's be honest, that is the subtext that says all of this.

But our job, our job in the media is not to flatter those knee-jerk presumptions for the sake of momentary titilation, it's to wrestle that to the ground and get the facts right.

He's absolutely right. Shades of Oklahoma City, when everyone was sure it was some Arab terrorist who blew up the Murrah Building and not the very white Timothy McVeigh. In the face of the unknown, we turn to reporters and those reporters seem to lack filters to pass along actual facts. Or they think because a cop tells them it was a dark-skinned guy, they should take that at face value, unverified and pass it along.

You'd think by now they'd have some clue, just based on their error ratios, but it seems they're driven by some weird need to constantly demonize Muslims -- Arab Muslims in particular -- rather than getting the news right.

Props to Hayes for saying it out loud.

via Crooks and Liars http://crooksandliars.com/karoli/chris-hayes-takes-cnn-task-over-dark-skinne

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08:22

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Teaching fellow. It sounds so official and educated, doesn't it? That is, until you have a look at the ad on Craigslist recruiting future "fellows" for special ed teaching positions in Chicago:

Chicago Public Schools currently administers Special Education services to over 49,000 students, accounting for almost 13% of the student population. The district has identified a growing need for new teachers in Special Education to serve these students. Chicago Teaching Fellows aims to meet that need by recruiting highly qualified individuals, like you, to train to be Special Education teachers!

We strongly encourage candidates to apply this week, as we review applications on a rolling basis. No teaching or education experience is required. Our program provides extensive on-the-job training and individualized coaching to all participants.

Qualifications and eligibility vary by program, but generally include:

• Bachelor's degree completed by Spring 2013


• Legal authorization to work in the U.S.


• Passing an FBI background investigation


• No previous teaching certifications

This is a project done by Teach for America, the non-profit formed to make sure inexperienced teachers are in your children's schools worldwide! Funded by hefty contributions from billionaires like Bill Gates and the Walton family, it receives millions of dollars each year to place college graduates with perfunctory training into schools around the nation.

The TFA model assumes teachers are a commodity, bodies to fill seats behind desks facing students. No particular expertise required. If it's such a great model, maybe we'll start seeing CraigList ads for positions like these:

1. Heal for America — The healthcare system in America is crumbling, and what we really need to solve it are quality doctors. Give aspiring doctors 6 weeks of training, then put them in the most overcrowded hospitals around the country. If successful, we can send them abroad!

2. Police for America — Let’s solve the problem of gun violence on our streets once and for all by getting rid of corrupt and inept police officers. We will give aspiring police officers 6 weeks of training and then put them in neighborhoods with the highest rates of violent crime.

3. Experiment for America — If we want to cure cancer, we need fresh voices in the scientific community. Obviously, the scientists who’ve been working on a cure for the past decades aren’t doing their job very well, as cancer rates are skyrocketing with no cure in sight. Aspiring chemists will get six weeks of training, and then be put in charge of experiments testing cancer-curing drugs.

4. Defend America — The war in Afghanistan has been draining resources from the American people. We need better soldiers on the ground, or this conflict will never be resolved. What we need are bright young soldiers to shake things up a little bit. We will give aspiring army officers 6 weeks of training, and then put them in charge of units in the most complex arenas of war.

If you're like me, you're laughing at these four examples. But they are exactly what Teach for America does. They recruit green college kids, give them six weeks' of group training, and turn them out like freshly-baked cookies to teach in challenged districts and inner-city schools. Their salaries are covered by the billionaire donors. In some cases those donors designate specific school districts and positions their donations are intended to cover.

Here's a lovely recruiting video. It all seems so nice, so inspiring. But it's not. It's grueling, brutal and unfair to the students and the TFA recruits.

In case anyone was wondering why teachers' unions are such a critical part of our education system, go read a few TFA "after" stories and ask yourself whether you're ready for other professions to adopt the same model.

via Crooks and Liars http://crooksandliars.com/karoli/craigslist-ad-special-ed-teachers-sought-ex

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09:07

Whoever shot Texas District Attorney Mike McClelland and his wife Cynthia wanted to make sure they were dead.

According to NBC News, McClelland was shot at 20 times. It is unclear whether or not he was hit with that number of bullets. The reports did note that they recovered shell casings from a weapon using .223 caliber ammunition, which just happens to be the same type of ammunition used in AR-15 assault-style weapons. While it's not unique to AR-15s, the number of bullets shot at McClelland could indicate that such a rapid-fire weapon was used.

A Texas district attorney was shot at 20 times and his wife, Cynthia, was shot once when they were gunned down in their home on Saturday, a federal source with knowledge of the investigation told NBC News.

The source didn't say exactly how many times the man was hit. An earlier affidavit in the case said both of the victims sustained multiple gunshot wounds. The reason for the discrepancy was unclear.

The slayings of Kaufman County District Attorney Mike McLelland and his wife have rocked the the small town of Kaufman on the eastern outskirts of Dallas.

The brazen attack on the justice official comes weeks after Colorado's prison director, Tom Clements, was shot to death at his home, with a paroled white supremacist ex-con killed in a Texas shootout the main suspect.

The Star-Telegram has published the full affidavit (PDF), which includes requests for a cell phone records dump for the period beginning January 1, 2013 and ending March 31, 2013.

Even though police are not making public statements connecting white supremacist gang prosecutions with the assassination of Assistant DA Haase and DA McClellan, the federal prosecutor in charge of the Texas racketeering case pending against the Aryan Brotherhood has withdrawn, citing security concerns.

Over at AlterNet, a chilling reminder that our prison system has something to do with turning out cold-blooded killers who ache to wage war on their own countrymen:

The prisoner, a black man who said he got on the Aryan Brotherhood’s good side after assisting them with a legal request, says that law enforcement should know about the danger of the prison gang because “it’s something they should have been aware of for decades,” he writes.

“If these recent killings represent the Brotherhood’s twisted form of retribution, the fact that it has taken so long to begin is all the more chilling. To me this would demonstrate a hard-nosed determination that all citizens should find frightening,” the prisoner said in the Daily Beast. “America’s harsh judicial system, coupled with a growing national affinity for utilizing complete isolation at super-max prisons as a corrections tactic of first choice, in many cases turns men into monsters.”

The prisoner warned that “many of the first men locked up when our nation embarked on a policy of for-profit mass incarceration near the end of the last century are now returning into society.” He also provided details on what motivates the members of the Aryan Brotherhood gang.

"They were still mentally fighting the Civil War (like so many other whites) and traced their roots back to men like Confederate guerrilla William Clarke Quantrill, whose Quantrill’s Raiders sacked the pro-abolitionis t town of Lawrence, Kansas, at the beginning of the Civil War," the prisoner wrote.

While the perspective of the man writing the letter might be shaped by his own incarceration, the prison system in place today undeniably serves profits more efficiently than society. If what he says is true, it could only be the beginning.

via Crooks and Liars http://crooksandliars.com/karoli/texas-da-died-hail-bullets

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07:22

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Friday night, Michelle Rhee took her endless book tour to Bill Maher's set, and found herself facing an interviewer who was at least somewhat less kind to her than all the others.

Bill Maher clearly had done some homework when he sat down with to über-school reformer Michelle Rhee onhis HBO show, challenging her “no-excuses” philosophy on teachers by saying that he thinks the problem with public education is “poverty and parents.”

On Friday night’s episode of “Real Time With Bill Maher,” he wasn’t the sledgehammer that he can be on other topics, but he did push back on some of her major talking points: teachers can overcome poverty, teachers don’t need tenure, etc.

Jersey Jazzman dug into the correlation between poverty and learning:

MAHER: "I have some statistics here on studies they have done on schools here in America, and it doesn't really indicate that it's the schools that is the problem. I mean, we hear all the time that America is falling behind, but in three major international tests - there's the one, Progress of International Reading and Literacy Study - I'll just give the two - the Trends in International Math and Science...

Students in U.S. schools where the poverty rate is less than 10% are first in reading and science in the world."

RHEE: "Compared to the average kids in the other countries - you can't do an apples to oranges comparison. If you look at the top quartile of kids in our country by income level - right, so the most privileged kids - and you compare them internationally to the top quartile of other countries, they rank 23rd. "

I'd embed the video but HBO is funny about that, so here's the link for those of you who have HBO.

Maher hit the nail on the head with the question, which Rhee deflected by pointing at the most privileged. I can think of a lot of reasons why the most privileged don't stack up well next to the rest of the world (like entitled attitudes and far too much emphasis on sports), but she still didn't answer the question, and neither do any of the other reformer types out there. We get reams of data and barbs turned on teachers, but no one wants to address the most fundamental issue: Hungry kids don't learn. Click that chart at the top to see statistics backing that up.

Jersey Jazzman also zeroed in on why reformers would rather not discuss indelicate topics like poverty and want:

1. No one argues that the lower performance of poor minority students is shameful and must be fixed. But in every country in the world, the poor have worse educational outcomes than the rich. Doesn't that tell you something?


2. Affluent white students in America actually perform well in international comparisons. The few "studies" that claim otherwise do not take into account the curvilinearity of America's correlation between test scores and socio-economic status; in other words,poor and middle class students pay a greater price for not being rich than in other countries.


3. At least 60% of student outcomes are based on student characteristics and background. America is a highly-unequal nation. While we can and should try to make our schools better, the solutions to the problems of inequality and chronic poverty clearly lie outside of our public education system.


4. We will never equalize educational outcomes until we provide a basic standard of living for every citizen of this country. We could rapidly implement plans to provide universal health care, create jobs, rebuild our infrastructure, make taxes truly progressive, and get monied interests out of politics and our media. So why don't we? It is not a coincidence that the wealthiest people in this country are behind the corporate "reform" movement: they are happy to lay America's problems at the feet of our public schools system so that we, the people, are distracted from having a serious discussion about inequity, chronic poverty, and racism.

This book tour of Rhee's has largely been softball questions and fuzzy little interviews. It's nice to see one that at least attempts to cut past the corporate doublespeak and aims at the heart of the matter.

via Crooks and Liars http://crooksandliars.com/karoli/michelle-rhee-spars-bill-maher

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07:22

Saturday evening both sides rested in the trial that sparked a firestorm of controversy over football, town loyalty and rape. The judge will announce a verdict from the bench at 10 AM this morning.

Testimony has been graphic and difficult to hear. Whatever the judge rules, the conduct of the teenagers was out of control and points to some larger issues with regard to how parents talk to their teenage boys and girls about sexual contact, rape, and consent.

In Saturday's testimony, the victim took the stand and testified that she didn't know what had even happened to her until friends (and I use the term loosely) told her what happened the next day. Some of the teens had posted photos and taken videos of some of the sexual activity, but deleted them later.

Anthony Craig took a photograph of the naked victim, and sent it to numerous people. When Cole received the image, he sent a text to Mays:

“No, like serious Trent, you can’t be doing that,” Cole texted. “And is that your [expletive] [semen] on her stomach?”

“Ha, ha, ha,” Mays texted back. “Yeah.”

CNN:

Trent Mays, 17, and Ma'lik Richmond, 16, are accused of raping the girl during a series of end-of-summer parties in August 2012.

One of the witnesses, a 17-year-old, told Judge Thomas Lipps that he used his cell phone to record Mays putting his fingers inside the girl's vagina during a drive from one party to another. The boy said he deleted the video the next morning when he realized it was wrong.

[...]

A third witness, 18-year-old Anthony Craig, testified he saw Richmond digitally penetrate the girl in the basement.

"She wasn't moving. She wasn't talking. She wasn't participating," he told the court. Craig was identified in as a Steubenville High School wrestler and friend of Mays and Richmond.

The teen, who testified the alleged victim was also a friend, admitted to taking a cell phone picture of the girl when she was naked in the basement and then showing it later to friends. Asked why, he responded: "It was stupid."

Over the course of the trial, prosecutors revealed text messages that were flying around, including a series where one of the alleged perpetrators pressured the victim to keep silent, saying that his "life would be ruined over nothing." If you'd like to get a sense of what "nothing" is, FreakoutNation has a video of one of the boys "confessing." Be forewarned: The content of the video is graphic and could trigger any victim of sexual assault.

If this case demonstrates anything, it demonstrates why the nonsense spewed into our political discussions about rape is so harmful. I'm certain Steubenville is a place with many, many good people. But what we're looking at right here is the product of a culture that has overlooked common sense and empathy.

In the closing arguments made by the defense, Ma'lik's lawyer stood before the judge and argued that even though his client's conduct - whether it rose to the level of rape or not - was unacceptable, in all other aspects he was extraordinary.

He is extraordinary, and therefore the judge should overlook conduct which included this episode on the evening of August 11th, which was not disputed or impeached by the defense?

The problem for the defense is this: The moment they could argue that the girl perhaps wasn't as completely trashed as the picture suggests, more ugliness emerged.

She might not have been dragged to the car by her alleged attackers, but she didn't just jump up and innocently walk out, either. Mays scooped her up, carried her over one shoulder and took her through the door. Besides, it was just minutes later that she lay in the street in front of the house, puking on the pavement with her shirt off, wearing only a bra, as a group of boys watched.

That included Patrick Pizzoferrato, who isn't facing charges, yet acknowledged on the stand Wednesday that he pulled $3 from his pocket and offered it to anyone who would urinate on the girl.

One of the kids who, at least vocally, claimed to be considering the offer was Ma'lik Richmond.

"He was asking if he should piss on her," said witness Jake Howarth.

Yes. Extraordinary, indeed. Who does something like that? The defense attorney was making the case that even though these things happened, Richmond was extraordinary. How can the word extraordinary be interpreted any other way than as a reference to his football prowess? It's certainly possible that he's a good student too, but my gut tells me that's less important than his extraordinary-ness on the football field.

The trial was broadcast live on the Internet and also on broadcast television, with power to cut off the feed at any time in the hands of the judge. After the victim's full name was mentioned several times, the judge did cut it off, only to come back and revive it for the closing arguments where both sides used her full name at least three separate times.

As a parent, this is unacceptable to me, whether a parent of the defendant or the victim, but my sympathies are mostly with the victim. It feels like subtle intimidation, a way to say that even when all of this is over, it won't be over, but instead will haunt her and hunt her down. It almost felt defiant, communicating a subtle statement that if someone is going to have the nerve to prosecute these boys, they damn well better be ready to own it and the consequences.

So Jane Doe will, but she has an ally in adult film star Traci Lords, who came out this week with her own story of rape in Steubenville -- hers and her mother's.

It's our sisters, it's our mothers, it's our daughters. I'm so happy that we're having this conversation. - Traci Lords

Well, at least some of us are.

via Crooks and Liars http://crooksandliars.com/karoli/steubenville-rape-trial-verdict-be-announce

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07:23

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Martosko left out a significant part of his employment history

It's one thing to suspect it and quite another to have it confirmed. Mother Jones reports that outgoing Daily Caller Executive Editor David Martosko had quite the career impersonating liberals in order to infiltrate and disrupt their organizations while he worked for PR hack RIck Berman.

Before Daily Caller Editor in Chief Tucker Carlson hired him in 2011—a controversial choice given Martosko's previous arrests and lack of experience in journalism—Martosko spent a decade working for Richard Berman, a longtime PR operative behind a number of industry-backed campaigns. At Berman and Company, Martosko served as the director of research for the Center for Consumer Freedom, a Berman-run nonprofit that opposes new laws on food and beverages. CCF, which is funded by the food and beverage industry, runs Humane Watch, a website that posts derogatory information about the Humane Society of the United States. Martosko was the site's "founding editor." CCF also operates Activist Cash, a website that compiles biographical information on groups and individuals that engage in "anti-consumer activism."

In the 2011 deposition, Martosko acknowledged he used a Facebook account under the name of "Gregory Davis" (later changed to "Preston Davis") to obtain information about animal rights activists. (You can read the full deposition here.) Read the rest...

Martosko didn't stop there. He went on to intentionally disrupt the organizations he was spying on.

"Davis wanted people to think he was a real extreme animal rights advocate or like a vegan abolitionist. He kind of invented a cover story for himself," one of the women who moderated the Stop Humane Watch Facebook page in 2010 told Mother Jones. (She asked that she not be identified, citing job concerns.) "I didn't think much of it at the time," she noted. "When people posted abolitionist or extreme stuff, we dealt with it. We weren't about doing away with farms altogether; we were about changing the practices." She recalled a particular incident in May 2010 when Gregory Davis posted a comment advocating violent action against Conklin Dairy—an Ohio farm that was the target of protests after animal rights campaigners released a video of a worker abusing livestock.

"He was trying to rile up people to go to this protest," the moderator said. The post was taken down, as Stop Humane Watch did not want be seen as encouraging violent acts. Asked about the Conklin Dairy incident in the deposition, Martosko said, "I don't recall doing that." But he would not absolutely deny he did so.

I've described some of the events that quite nearly disrupted the StopRush effort, and they were mirror images of the behavior described in this deposition. That effort was also plagued with a volunteer who jumped into the effort, developed relationships and then over a short period of time started posting messages that were menacing and violent, contradicting the goals of the group of honest volunteers and attempting to discredit their effort altogether. When the offending account was ejected, chaos ensued. It's difficult to read this story without recalling how much trouble that individual caused, too.

Martosko is leaving the Daily Caller to move to the Daily Mail, where I'm sure he can muckrake to his heart's content for conservative causes. Either that, or Tucker Carlson decided there was too much exposure from Martosko's hack story about Senator Menendez and Dominican Republic prostitutes.

The practice of infiltrating groups that challenge corporations isn't unusual, but it is evil. Until there is some resolution to the question of how identity is handled online, there will be a public relations hack somewhere trying to undermine messages that challenge corporate supremacy. Whether it's Rush Limbaugh or Bank of America, they will continue to exploit identity holes in order to silence messengers they don't like.

via Crooks and Liars http://crooksandliars.com/karoli/daily-caller-political-editor-faked-persona

Crooks and Liars johalputt karoli

07:07

Troll, defined: One who posts a deliberately provocative message to a newsgroup or message board with the intention of causing maximum disruption and argument."

Ted Cruz is a troll, although his venue is Senate Committee Hearings rather than online interaction. Between his behavior during the Chuck Hagel confirmation process and his behavior yesterday during the committee debate on Senator Dianne Feinstein's assault weapons ban and clip limits, he's proved he's only interested in disrupting and getting a reaction from his prey.

He wanted a reaction, and he got one:

“I’m not a sixth grader. Senator, I’ve been on the committee for 20 years,” Feinstein said. “I was a mayor for nine years. I walked in, I saw people shot, I’ve looked at bodies that have been shot with these weapons, I’ve seen the bullets that implode. And Sandy Hook youngsters were dismembered… I’m not a lawyer, but after 20 years, I’ve been up close and personal with the Constitution. I have great respect for it.”

“You know, it’s fine, you want to lecture me on the Constitution. I appreciate it, but just know I’ve been here for a long time. I’ve passed a number of bills. I’ve studied the Constitution myself. I am reasonably well-educated and I thank you for the lecture,” Feinstein said.

He also got one from Senators Chuck Schumer and Sheldon Whitehouse. Schumer:

In reference to the question my colleague from Texas asked, would you limit books? Would you name specific books? Yeah. It’s constitutional within the ambit of the First Amendment to eliminate child pornography. And we have lots of laws that are very explicit about that. Very explicit. That are constitutional, that have been upheld as constitutional. Similarly, you can’t falsely scream fire in a crowded theater. Similarly, we have libel laws. Every one of these is an impingement on the sacred First Amendment, upheld as constitutional. There are reasonable limits on each amendment, and I think it is anomalous, to put it kindly, for either side to interpret one amendment so expansively and another amendment so narrowly that it just doesn’t add up because your interpretation of the Constitution should be consistent.

Whitehouse followed up with the death blow:

It is hard to imagine that it would be a violation of the First Amendment for somebody to yell fire in a crowded theater but it’s not a violation of the Second Amendment to prevent somebody from bringing a hundred-round magazine into a crowded theater in a Aurora, Colorado.

Of course, trolls don't really care about whether or not their quarries lob the ball back with actual facts. It's enough for them to be trolls, and Cruz proves that over and over. He's fine saying that there were communists at Harvard whether or not it's true, because it provokes the reaction he's looking for. He's fine saying that Chuck Hagel received funding from a group that didn't exist (Friends of Hamas), because it creates a firestorm.

Cruz is with us for at least 5 years and 9 months more. But he should be identified for the troll he is, and given no attention. He's just playing that game in order to make himself into the biggest pain in the butt the Senate has seen yet.

Josh Marshall shared his memories of the Harvey Milk shooting and why he was so rattled by the exchange:

Feinstein was on the scene at one of the biggest American political assassinations of the post-60s era — the murder of George Moscone and Harvey Milk in San Francisco in November 1978. Feinstein was actually the first into Milk’s office and made a momentary and vain effort to revive Milk who was clearly already dead.

The other part of this story was that Feinstein was then head of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. So Mayor Moscone’s death meant she was the new mayor.

I was a little boy growing up in California at the time, 9 years old. We lived in Southern California. But it was still a very big deal even there. And it came just a week or so after the Jonestown mass suicide, which was in Guyana but grew out of San Francisco and California, which added somehow to the sickness and horror of it. I remember the whole thing vividly. A very surreal and obviously tragic story, and even more surreal because the murderer wasn’t some random loner but a guy who himself had just resigned from the City Council.

The story is obviously part of the story of Harvey Milk, who was then the first openly gay person elected to anything anywhere in America. But Feinstein was also deeply part of it.

Obviously, trolls don't care about the humans they might unnerve with their trolling, but I'm with Josh on this one. It was a particularly cold and psychopathic thing for him to do.

via Crooks and Liars http://crooksandliars.com/karoli/ted-cruz-trolls-dianne-feinstein-gets-smack

Crooks and Liars johalputt karoli

07:37

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Oh, wingnuts. If only you could possibly understand how insane you sound. The newest recycled craze is hysteria over Muslims taking over the United States, but honestly, this one tops some of the weirdest of the weird.

Via Right Wing Watch:

End Times fanatic Rick Wiles of TruNews on Friday hosted notorious anti-Muslimactivist Steven Emerson to discuss how the Muslim Brotherhood is coming to power in the US and around the globe. Emerson alleged that members of Congress, specifically Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) and Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN) are “in the pocket” of Islamist groups which are using “stealth jihad.”

WTF, people? Did Frank Gaffney inject another round of cash into your can of crazy?

I snark about this, but what these people are doing is quite dangerous, and it fits with the NRA's campaign to throw a nationwide hissy fit about any limitations on gun rights whatsoever. Muslims are the new Commie, with the added bonus of being brown, which appeals to the nativists and Klan members. But hey, fear is fear, and right now they need fear stoked up high in order to get people distracted from reasonable gun limits like universal background checks and the like.

This particular segment feels creepily like the McCarthy days. Look who they're blaming:

He also claimed that the Muslim Brotherhood has “penetrated virtually all institutions in the United States, wittingly or unwittingly,” including the federal government, news media, entertainment industry, book publishers and academia, as they back the group’s “ultra-fascist ideology.”

That certainly sounds familiar, doesn't it?

Meanwhile, a FrontPageMag reporter infiltrated the Muslim Student's Conference last month and ended up with absolutely nothing to report. Instead of simply saying so, he offered a theory:

And, politicizing and organizing that younger generation in campus groups and strengthening their sense of community as Muslims, strengthening their campus activism, that’s all, that’s a very important goal because it radicalizes them and it steers them toward further radicalization down the line. So, yeah, it's all about capturing the hearts and minds of the young.

Dick Durbin, Keith Ellison, and the Muslim Brotherhood, bringing jihad to a neighborhood near you? Do you think these people really believe the nonsense they spew, or is it just a cynical effort to keep everyone afraid and submissive?

via Crooks and Liars http://crooksandliars.com/karoli/stealth-jihad-coming-wingnut-near-you

Crooks and Liars johalputt karoli

06:52

Ouch, that #DumpTrump campaign must be working! Donald Trump sent his enforcer, attorney Allen Garten, to debate Media Matters' VP Angelo Carusone's effort to hold Trump accountable for his bigotry and political blowhardiness.

Saturday, Carusone went on Rock Newman's radio show to discuss his petition and why he started it, and then had a little telephone discussion with Trump attorney Allen Garten about it. It's a bit of a long segment but worth listening to, particularly when Garten proves Carusone's point by accusing him of "bullying, mob-like tactics."

Garten's reference to "mob-like tactics" at about the 6:30 mark was, of course, intended to use Carusone's name to imply he was a Mafia bully, scary and mean, which isn't much different than Trump's nasty insinuations about where President Obama was born, right? It's the same thing, just aimed at a different target.

From there, Carusone zooms in on the real issue:

What I would say is that it's quite consistent with what Mr. Trump's brand has become. I'm not making a characterization of Trump's brand ten years ago or five years ago. That's really irrelevant and not part of the discussion here.

The discussion is what Donald Trump's brand has become and in some ways he needs to keep upping the ante to get his free media fix.

And that's why it has become consistently more odious and contemptible. My point is not that Donald Trump should be sanctioned or silenced by the government, which is what you threatened to do to me, is to actually tell the government to stop me and silence me and punish me.

My point was simply that a company that I and 690 other thousand people support and like should not be investing in and as the CEO said, further developing that brand because Trump's brand is not worth pouring more money into.

And if he's as successful as you pointed out before, then I don't see what the problem is. He could easily go someplace else unless of course there are concerns that his brand has become something so toxic that nobody's really interested in it, at least at a fashion level.

Angelo has nearly 700,000 signatures on his petition, and Garten did nothing in this interview to de-toxify or otherwise rehabilitate Trump.

Perhaps Macy's should just listen to their customers, hmmmm?

via Crooks and Liars http://crooksandliars.com/karoli/media-matters-vp-carusone-trumps-brand

Crooks and Liars johalputt karoli

07:23

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Oh, I know I can't wait to have James O'Keefe uncover the truth about something. Anything at all would be a refreshing change, since O'Keefe doesn't seem to recognize the truth when it comes and smacks him on the butt, to the tune of $100,000.

No, it's just another opportunity for some wingnut welfare appeals. One of the best known ways wingnuts support their own is to give them a bogus book contract which then gets published through Regnery with a nice little advance to the wingnut of choice and a gamed place on various bestseller lists.

O'Keefe released a statement about his settlement with Juan Carlos Vera making it abundantly clear he has no regrets at all:

“There comes a time when the cost to defend yourself against meritless accusations becomes so burdensome financially and personally, it is simply too great. The settlement admits no liability and there is no benefit from extending this ridiculous lawsuit.

“Sadly, this is the cost of exposing the truth. That’s why so few people do it. There are liability issues inherent in undercover journalism. But let me be clear, this lawsuit had nothing to do with editing or misrepresentation. It was an action under the California Invasion of Privacy Act. The anti-recording statute under which the suit was brought is unconstitutional, overbroad, and gives the police and other public officials too much power.

“As President of Project Veritas and undertaking 5 current investigations, my time and resources are better served in working toward our mission of exposing waste, fraud, and abuse then defending myself against lies. I will not be deterred from investigating and exposing corruption. Now more than ever, America is in need of a more ethical and transparent society.”

Never-heard before details surrounding this case and much more will be revealed in a book by James O'Keefe to be released in June 2013.

I'm sure Nadia Naffe would like James O'Keefe to tell all, starting with his little stunt at the farmhouse, and his efforts to frame reputable journalism professors.

NPR would appreciate the truth about how he punked them, too. Along with ACORN, of course.

It's nice that O'Keefe had to settle his lawsuit with fired ACORN employee Juan Carlos Vera, but he managed to do it without ever admitting the truth. In the settlement agreement, O'Keefe "regrets any pain suffered by Vera or his family." Sure he regrets it. So much he called it a "meritless lawsuit." Some regret there.

Yeah, being made out to be a sex trafficker does tend to cause pain. So does losing your job for doing the right thing. But being a wingnut means never having to say you're sorry.

You know what makes me sorry? Thinking how many trees will die as a sacrifice to O'Keefe's wingnut-welfare book, provided by the high-class grifters of the right wing.

via Crooks and Liars http://crooksandliars.com/karoli/wingnut-welfare-paying-james-okeefes

Crooks and Liars johalputt karoli

07:22