George Zimmerman, as I predicted, was acquitted. Because we’re all surprised six white women in Florida would come up with any other verdict.
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This post is in: Post-racial America
George Zimmerman, as I predicted, was acquitted. Because we’re all surprised six white women in Florida would come up with any other verdict.
Comments are closed.
4tehlulz
inb4 “riots”
Elizabelle
Fucking maroons.
I will take great pleasure spending no money in Florida.
Plantsmantx
It just means that if you’re black, you aren’t and never have been an American. That’s alright. We needed to know that
Michael Demmons
So sorry tonight for a lot of reasons. What a shit day.
PhoenixRising
Wow. I’m fixin’ to run out of bourbon. Dammit.
Odie Hugh Manatee
But this wasn’t about race, not at all. If the roles were reversed we all know that Trayvon also would have been found not guilty.
/vomit
Zimmerman just got away with stalking and murdering an innocent person, all because he didn’t like the way he looked.
Justice is supposed to be blind, not the jury.
KXB
After OJ, I did not follow these trial of the centuries too closely. I’d read the writeups in the papers, because I did not want to hear constant yapping by experts talking matters to death. I thought they would not get the 2nd degree murder charge, but that Zimmerman walked on manslaughter is equal parts surprising/not suprising, and damn depressing.
adog
What a fucking terrible day. Jesus Christ.
Unabogie
Honestly I don’t understand how anyone could think this was a justified murder. That they didn’t even vote for manslaughter when the ENTIRE FUCKING THING WAS HIS DOING, is just sickening.
Fuck George Zimmerman. And especially fuck the Sanford police who sucked each other’s dicks instead of investigating the killing of a minor. And fuck the whole lot of those “neighbors” who testified how nice and meek Zimmerman is.
Fucking incest committing, child murdering, cop assaulting, piece of shit.
AliceBlue
Goddamn it. Shitshitshit.
Jeff Spender
I’ve been avoiding this trial because, I think, deep down I knew this would be the outcome. Logically, I don’t understand the verdict. Older man stalks kid, kid dies—seems pretty straightforward.
Emotionally I am a mess. This activates so many schemata and I’m really trying to my best to dissociate the emotional reasoning from being level-headed.
And it isn’t working.
Elizabelle
We did not get the truth for Trayvon Martin.
And justice was not done.
Teddy's Person
My heart goes out to Trayvon Martin’s family. As for me, stop the world I want to get off now.
PsiFighter37
Just another excuse to get trashed. I think we can blame Obama for everything and just be done with it. One good cathartic suitshow.
PF37 +who’s counting yet
Luthe
I hope the Martin family files a wrongful death suit at 9am Monday morning.
the Conster
Fuck me running. Just fuckety fuck fuck fuck.
amk
Congrats ‘murka. Now you can kill kids legally and get away with it.
MrSnrub
I got nothin’
What a crappy day.
lahke
@Plantsmantx:
Or Asian (vide all those Japanese exchange students shot in the south). Or any other way different enough for a scared guy to bring out his equalizer to protect his Amurrican way of life.
Because this really is a license to kill.
donnah
Jesus. This day is a total disaster. I almost threw up when they read the verdict.
Jesus.
Comrade Scrutinizer
As Alice Cooper said: “All I need is a holocaust to make my day complete.”
Going to bed before it becomes self-fulfilling.
Again, sorry John.
Tone in DC
Reverend Al just mentioned that DoJ already suspended their investigation into this murder (I’ll call it what it is). That just leaves a civil suit for wrongful death.
Not even manslaughter. I cannot take this shit.
Amir Khalid
And we have the gloating of that charming fellow with the ampersand in his nym to look forward to.
Jay C
One major question that came up chez nous wrt this verdict:
What The F*ck is wrong with this country?
And no easy (or, for that matter ANY) answers……
Shit.
The Dangerman
I’m appalled but, sadly, not surprised; has nothing to do with White/Black or Florida, but rather reasonable doubt. It appears the jury bought into that last Forensic MD’s (De Mayo?) account of the affairs sufficiently to get reasonable doubt on self-defense. It sounded like a crock to me, but I’m biased.
Like OJ, Zimmerman will get reamed in the Civil Suit sure to follow. He may get on the NRA gravy train, but every dime will be going to the Martin family.
Just Some Fuckhead
Trayvon Martin found guilty.
dance around in your bones
Truly a crummy-ass day. I always figured he’d get acquitted because, well, Florida and the race factor and the bugshit crazies down there.
Two shocking RIPs in one day on Balloon Juice plus – RIP Trayvon. Hope Zimmerman gets shunned but figure he’ll be glorified by the gun nuts. What a world.
ruemara
Jesus Christ. I posted about this and someone had the gall to compare it to Caylee Anthony. Fucking whitesplaining bullshit and she’s smarter than this.
Nicole
Dear July 13, 2013: you suck. Please have improved by next year.
JWL
Lincoln was wrong. Those in blue who fought were wrong.
Fuck Florida, Floridians, and fuck the South. Let the assholes secede. If Southern states refuse, cut them out, as with a cancer.
YellowJournalism
I don’t blame the jury much on this one. The burden of proof was on the prosecution and, unfortunately, they didn’t meet it. The questions regarding the credibility of Zimmerman’s story were not enough to legally convict him of 2nd degree murder, and I bet we’ll hear that it was stretching to get to manslaughter. If they had convicted, the appeals process would have been hellish, too.
Zimmerman will not have much of a life after this, but it is still more than an innocent kid gets in the end. Fuck Florida.
Fluke bucket
Seriously. Was there ever any doubt? Jesus people, how old are ya’ll?
Betty Cracker
I wasn’t going to drink today, but fuck it. The confirmation about General Stuck, the horrible news about Tunch, and now this miscarriage of justice. Fuck this day.
rikyrah
This is enough to make a Negro turn Black.
Redshirt
Betty Cracker is a white women in Florida, and she’s great.
Is there any explanation for this verdict? What the rationale was?
cdmarine
Horrible fucking day.
Spaghetti Lee
Wonderful. So you can apparently stalk and kill someone you think looks suspicious and suffer no legal punishment. I was optimistic at the start, but as soon as the chatter turned to how Rachel Jeantel sure done talked funny hurr-hurr I sort of felt it deep down, despite hoping that justice could still win out.
I guess I can see, logically, why the jury would shy away from second degree murder. But not even a fucking manslaughter charge?
rikyrah
@gn – someone said on Twitter this week that Trayvon was this generation’s Emmett Till.
Just Some Fuckhead
http://i.imgur.com/BwLoQWq.gif
Zam
@Just Some Fuckhead: Basically. Lot’s of peopled were treating this as a trial of Martin.
Narcissus
@amk: Just the black ones
PsiFighter37
@Fluke bucket: Liberals are eternally optimistic about the substance of human nature. Learn to deal with it if you want to be one.
rikyrah
Elon James White @elonjames 5m
Next time you hear someone ask “Why do you have to be “black?” why can’t you just be American?” remember this moment.
Cacti
@The Dangerman:
Right.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Just Some Fuckhead:
That’s exactly it, as if we’re all surprised six white women in Florida would come up with any other verdict. It’s a shandah.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Redshirt:
It’s my understanding the prosecution was criminally incompetent.
Steeplejack
Fox News broke into the baseball game to cover this. Their commenters are unbelievable. Sean Hannity: “a classic case of self-defense.” Greta Van Susteren equally odious. I had to turn it off.
NickT
Some days I am ashamed to be white. I am going to say this – the more I see this kind of blatant injustice, the more determined I am to do my bit in making America a better place where all are treated equally. I want to see the corrupt politicians and lawyers who rig the system against justice exposed and removed from any and all power or privilege. I want to see a country where it isn’t a crime to be young and black and armed with candy. Time to put our shoulders to the wheel and move things forward so that the bitter, twisted, old, white racists lose their last scraps of power and a better day dawns for all of us.
Soonergrunt
@Amir Khalid: no, we don’t.
rikyrah
Gary Owen @garyowencomedy 21s
Plaxico Burress shot himself, Mike Vick killed some dogs, both went to jail. Zimmerman no jail time.
Jeff Spender
“but as soon as the chatter turned to how Rachel Jeantel sure done talked funny hurr-hurr I sort of felt it deep down”
This is what really did it for me. I had to hold my tongue when talking about this to my family because they were, essentially, repeating the inane babble of the assholes on TV.
Cue misanthropic comments.
Jeanne
Fuck this day indeed. Between the news about Gen Stuck (I always enjoyed his comments), the horrible and horribly sad news about Tunch and now this, what a shitshow of a day.
/back to lurking. And crying.
Elizabelle
@rikyrah:
Yeah, that’s exactly what we’re seeing.
Emmet Till, 2013.
raven
@Redshirt: From many quarters it seemed like the prosecution did a lousy job. They were part and parcel of the selection of the jury so I need someone to explain to me how THEY could construct this group?
JoyceH
Well, this old white lady thought Zimmerman was guilty as all crap. I’m stunned he got away with it. And yeah, he’s gonna jump on the wingnut gravy train and make money off it, I’d bet on that.
trollhattan
@Betty Cracker:
Can you please work up either a picture or capsule sculpture of Tunchie heading to kitty heaven passing Zimmerman heading to hell?
Gawd, what a day.
FlyingToaster
I want fucking passport controls between Florida and the rest of humanity. Jeebus!
It really sucks since I have no choice about my annual trip southwards (my mom lives outside Ft. Myers, and otherwise she and WarriorGirl will never see each other). They’re getting some of my money (mostly fees for the rental car and hotel, plus the bridge toll to Sanibel), because the logistics of shipping a dozen juice and milk boxes to FL are just not worth thinking about.
Please, please let them file for secession. I’m sick of being dragged down by their fucking third-world antics.
The Dangerman
@Cacti:
So sorry, but the verdict doesn’t appear to be a White/Black thing.
The crime? Absolutely!
The verdict? No. Again, he wasn’t found innocent, he was found not guilty. That’s the way reasonable doubt works and appears to have worked in this trial. It sucks, but don’t inflame it more than it is.
NickT
@JoyceH:
It’ll be interesting in a vomiting with disgust kind of way to watch the GOP decide whether he’s now officially white, or whether he’s more useful as a conservative Hispanic.
Tone in DC
I don ‘t damn well care at this point how juvenile this comment sounds.
Fuck “reasonable doubt” in this case. Sideways with a chainsaw.
Fuck all these people changing their damn stories.
Fuck ignorant people in and outside the courtroom, who should know better but do not.
And yes, fuck Florida. Thought I had it bad walking and driving through Virginia.
Linda
My cousin is a white (Republican) woman in Florida, and she is shocked, too.
Howard Beale IV
Here’s hoping that Florida gets hammered by hurricanes and gets flooded out by global warming.
Cacti
I hate injustice, but I expected nothing less.
I truly hoped I’d be wrong.
Trayvon Martin was found guilty of walking while black through George Zimmerman’s neighborhood. The penalty for this crime in the State of Florida is death.
Baud
I’m glad so many people thought he would walk. It would be so much worse if people thought it would be a slam dunk guilty verdict.
Gex
The fact that he consistently used the plural when talking about a single person apparently means nothing. The fact that he consistently judged Martin not based on him as a person or what he was actually doing, but based on what Zimmerman perceives to be how “they” always get away with whatever he imagines them getting away with in no way means that Martin was killed primarily for being black. Oh no. That’s just a weird quirk about how Zimmerman speaks about some people, always in the plural. But only for some people. And those people all just happen to be black.
Fuck everything.
TS
So walking while black is a crime in Florida – guess the idea is to move along all those blacks who want the right to be an American living in Florida.
bg
Open season on black kids here in fla
These fucking assholes they always get away with it like the slave patrols before the civil war
Cacti
@The Dangerman:
Uh huh.
Completely unpredictable that an all white jury would acquit the shooter of a scary black teen.
DH
First of all, Mr. Cole you have my deepest sympathy for the loss of Tunch. I was stunned when I saw the headline a few minutes ago.
As for the verdict, 2 thoughts:
Fuck Chief Justice Roberts on his vote on the Voting Rights Act.
Can’t the Old Southern White Bigots Die already? I know that is not nice, but it’s how I feel right now.
Suzanne
Jesus. Hussein. Christ.
I cannot handle this shit.
Fuck. Just…. FUCK.
cckids
Because he was “armed” with the sidewalk. According to that logic, all of us are walking around armed every day. Jesus wept.
The Dangerman
@Cacti:
You do realize it wasn’t an all-white jury, right? Just checking.
Mr Stagger Lee
The family should first get their pound of flesh first from the Sanford PD, they fucked the investigation, in the beginning.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Linda: I know that was painting with a broad brush, But the in the Sanford area I think it’s true. Hell the town itself used to be a white enclave, and integration has not gone smoothly, to say the least.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Cacti:
We should be grateful they didn’t request Trayvon be dug up and executed properly for his crime.
rikyrah
the Martin family has been put through more than anyone should have to go through.
NickT
@Cacti:
And let’s remember why the NRA and their little GOP buddies in Washington are so keen to have the appalling gun laws we do – that very much is about white property owners and the dangerous black hordes – and has been since this country was founded.
PsiFighter37
Jesus Christ what a shitty verdict. Bet that asshole Rick Scott is masturbating furiously as a result.
Linda Featheringill
This is ridiculous.
I would have accepted a manslaughter charge, even though I would have voted for murder. Acquittal?
Mothra1
OK, everyone told me this is what would happen, but I really thought that the jury would give Zimmerman what he deserved, instead of letting him walk around free.
TS
@raven:
Every black person in the jury pool truthfully stated that they knew about the case. Those remaining were presumably removed by the defense (despite they are NOT allowed to do that, based on race). Most men in the pool had the hardship excuse, so what was left – white housewives & retirees.
Made no difference – Most of Florida believes Zimmerman had every right to kill a black thug.
rikyrah
Nerdy Wonka @NerdyWonka
The jury in Florida just announced to the world that in America, it is perfectly okay by them to kill innocent young black men.
9:04 PM – 13 Jul 2013
Nina-the-first
@4tehlulz: Riots? I’m afraid of more George Zimmermans.
Elizabelle
Who was following who?
That’s the rub.
How could that jury be so goddamned stupid?
Spaghetti Lee
I hope Zimmerman never goes a day, not a day, for the rest of his stinking life, without people staring him down and reminding him of what he did. He is a murderer. An unconvicted murderer, but a murderer nonetheless. He killed a teenager. He stalked and killed an unarmed teenager. He should have to remember that every day of his life.
Southern Beale
I am shocked and saddened but not in the least bit surprised. It’s why I’ve stayed out of Florida for over 10 years. Very fucked up people, fucked up laws, fucked up place. Stay away.
A Ghost To Most
Man, what a day. I actually accepted a job offer this morning, and now I’m thinking, given the rest of the day’s events, that it will turn out to be a disaster.
I hope George Z. spends the rest of his miserable life looking over his shoulder.
gbear
My only response (besides asking What The Fuck Is Wrong With America again), is to repost this video that someone posted in the comments at LGF.
Soonergrunt
I’m sure glad that Chief Justice Roberts explained to us all how there’s no more racism in America when he overturned the VRA, because otherwise this verdict would be really disturbing.
raven
@TS: I guess that was too late for a change of venue at that point?
Mnemosyne
I knew there was a reason G and I didn’t leave the house today. Fuck.
And it looks like this really was the white people’s version of the OJ trial: they found a guilty man not guilty out of racial solidarity.
Comrade Dread
God damn it.
If I were a black man in Florida, I’d be looking to move ASAP before some jackhole felt ‘threatened’ because I was packing Skittles.
Because we all know if a black man was carrying and felt ‘threatened’ by said jackhole, Stand Your Ground would not apply.
Southern Beale
And the first RWer to make the wholly inappropriate comment on the verdict will be …. ???
Urza
I like that [email protected]Just Some Fuckhead: I like the gif, but can we adjust it to saw off the entire confederacy
michelle
@raven: NO APOLOGIES
Finally got your thread after waiting how many minutes?
Cacti
The jury has essentially admitted that they would have pulled the trigger on young Trayvon too.
Poopyman
@Howard Beale IV: We’ll end up paying for it. Your tax dollars at work.
Fuckers.
Mr Stagger Lee
@Elizabelle: Forget it Elizabelle, this is Floriduh!
Spaghetti Lee
@Southern Beale:
Check the Blaze or Fox. You’ll find hundreds. Me, I don’t understand why anyone would go within a mile of right-wing shitholes in the wake of news like this.
Omnes Omnibus
Jesus. Fuck.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
Someone on Facebook’s comment went “At least they got the verdict right.” I could tell what channel she watched, not that I expected the outcome to be any different.
PhoenixRising
BRB.
Running to Joann Fabrics before they close for the big-ass pinking shears.
Because my child cannot leave this house in a hoodie again.
Kay
@Steeplejack:
Interesting how the media personalities usually ooze phony sentimentality and concern towards “the kids” with the glaring and jarring exception of this particular teenager, isn’t it?
Dennis G.
What an intensely fucked-up day. If the fucking meteor is next, I won’t be surprised.
Jim C
I find it fascinating that Angela Corey couldn’t stop smiling during the press conference. The defense attorneys certainly aren’t.
jenn
I don’t understand. I will never understand. What a bloody miscarriage of justice. I just do not see why Trayvon could be stalked and attacked, and not be allowed to stand HIS ground. But it’s the crowning touch on why I will never go to Florida – I know there are fantastic folks down there (Betty Cracker as an awesome example), but the idea that I can be stalked and killed with impunity ….
ChrisNYC
I’m appalled. I thought it would be manslaughter … because I think it was manslaughter.
One thing, tho, is that I think this did change or open up or focus a lot of minds. It did for me; made me see in whole different way young black (mostly) men and what they’ve been saddled with by our history, by our culture. And the obscene amount of constraint that goes with that, which is just ignored by our country’s supposed defenders of liberty. I knew that, intellectually, sure, but it’s much much much more present to me now. Since most things I think are utterly common, I imagine this is true for others as well.
Gex
And my brother in law wonders why I won’t visit him in Florida. Maybe the brown, female, gay, atheist aspects of me don’t relish going to a state where you can legally murder people you don’t like because the white people there think people that are different in any way count as threatening, and feeling threatened is the main justification in our increasingly rising count of “justifiable” homicides in this country thanks to SYG laws like the one in play here.
How about this, BIL. YOU do the work to have your buddies and the people they elect make it so murdering people you don’t like the look of isn’t legal. Then we can MAYBE reconsider.
Liquid
O.J. 2.0.
PsiFighter37
I still fail to see, given all the circumstantial evidence (let alone what happened at the scene), how the fuck this asshole gets off scott-free. He fucking called in to the police wetting himself over the fact there was a non-white kid in a hoodie walking around the neighborhood!!! It’s clear Zimmerman instigated whatever exchange followed.
Fucking a.
scav
Florida: jumping in to the frenzy to carve even deeper in stone the well-earned reputation of the ‘Mercan South.
But, in a larger sense, we can not damn, we can not de-consecrate, we can not further profane that blood-soaked ground. The local jurors, official and abetters, who approved this act, have reaffirmed it and the principles behind it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here, what priciples they chose to embrace and worship.
WaynersT
My only hope is his parents seem pretty together – and may be able to turn this into a real movement getting the ALEC/NRA lawmakers voted out and some gun laws voted in.
rikyrah
tell it Kay
Mike in NC
Been to Florida lately? That’s how they roll.
SiubhanDuinne
I think the last time there was a day this sucky for me was November 2, 2004. This is worse, actually. Stuck, Tunch, Zimmerman. Suck suck suck.
eemom
@michelle:
How very comforting that, in the midst of triple layered tragedy, we’ve got obscure assholes like you to show up and lecture us about OT.
Go jerk off with that sick fuck in the last thread talking about “humanely euthanized.”
AxelFoley
@YellowJournalism:
BULLSHIT. I blame the jury. Them six bitches had all the evidence and still voted to acquit a child murderer. Fuck them, fuck Zimmerman, fuck Zimmerman’s family and lawyers, and fuck my home state of Florida.
Elizabelle
I wonder if enough of us could stay the fuck out of Florida to make them take notice?
Hit them in their pocketbooks.
rikyrah
MirandaObot: The hate for black people is boiling over. We are being punished for daring to want to breathe
mai naem
Unfortunately I’ve listened to Smerconish talk about this trial quite a bit so I kind of expecting this, although, this AM when they asked about manslaughter I thought they might get him on manslaughter. Smerc. did say they’d get him in a civil suit. This POS with a 1.6 GPA or whatever is now going to on the wingnut gravy train and he’ll probably set up the proceeds in a way that the Martin family won’t get it even in a civil suit. You damn well know if the roles were reversed with just the colors being changed, Trayvon would be in prison already and facing the death penalty. This country will never get beyond the color issue.
raven
@michelle:Who the fuck do you think you are? I don’t give one fuck what you think about what I post and when. You have a problem take it up with the blog owner.
Sandy M
@NickT: This – exactly. I agree totally. I am a middle aged white lady and I am just appalled at this verdict. Sadly, I am not shocked, but I am really disgusted that they couldn’t even return a manslaughter verdict. A young black man gets stalked and killed and the killer gets away with it. I cannot imagine how it feels to be Trayvon’s family tonight. RIP Trayvon. RIP Tunch.
Southern Beale
One of the most intelligent things on Twitter related to the case was this:
Jury duty and voting are two of the most important things citizens can do. Don’t forget it.
Omnes Omnibus
@michelle: Jesus Christ, get over yourself.
Cacti
Well, at least we only have one toolbox on the thread so far who insists race had nothing to do with the verdict.
SiubhanDuinne
@Gex: I had a big Florida vacation-cum-volunteer/work trip scheduled for next November. Probably would have dropped a cool $1,500-2,000 in the state, easy. So sorry, America’s limp dick, you won’t be getting a penny from me. Canceling all my reservations.
Southern Beale
RIP Tunch.???
Whaaa….???
Liquid
To steal from the other thread —
“WORST. TIMING. EVER.
Seriously, I wrote a eulogy for Tunch and now it’s right back to you-know-what. Fuck that, I’m on Steam and sucking down the vodka. There’s been enough pain today.”
KmCO
American justice is a joke. This country is rotten to the core in some ways. I’m sorry we’ve failed you, Trayvon.
Ruckus
@Baud:
I feel the same way, but don’t really want to.
I’m speechless though, about this verdict. I expected it but all the reasons that I did make me want to vomit. I served my country in the military during a war. I didn’t have to shoot at anyone, nor did I get shot at. But I was hoping that my service meant something, that in some very, very small way I could help make this a better place. How fucking wrong can one person be?
PeakVT
Hard to believe Zimmerdouche didn’t get manslaughter. I mean, what the fuck?
What.The.Fuck?
dm
Over at the Great Orange Satan it’s been pointed out that we have ALEC to thank for this verdict.
Like Mother Jones said, “Don’t mourn. Organize.” There are lots of perfectly decent people in Florida, and these Stand Your Ground laws are present in a lot of states.
Time to win our civilization back.
WaynersT
@NickT:
Amen.
gmann
Power-ade and Vodka, because it gets the alcohol into your system faster.
Hal
I still can’t get over the fact that if this asshole had just stayed the fuck home none of this would have happened. Idiot wannabe cop.
Zimmermann you look terrible for a 29 yo.
YellowJournalism
@AxelFoley: At this time, we have no idea why they went with “not guilty.” (Not the same as innocent.)
But totally agree on the fuck Zimmerman and his asshole lawyers. The press conference is making steam come out of my ears and tears well in mu eyes to know the Martin family has to hear it. Don West is an insensitive pig.
Keith
Now all the people who were pissed off when OJ got acquitted will surely be glad when Zimmerman gets hit with a civil suit.
Southern Beale
OMFG I just read the thread about Tunch. I’m in shock. There just are no words.
Jesus but tonight sucks.
James E. Powell
I can’t get too wound up hearing the verdict. Like Cole, it’s the verdict I expected. I have no idea what it looked like from the perspective of the women sitting on the jury. From my spot on the left coast, it looked like a typical case of massive mass media coverage makes anything like a trial impossible.
My only theory – whatever they thought of him or what he did, they didn’t want to send him to prison.
Elizabelle
@SiubhanDuinne:
Do it, do it, do it. And then write to the Sanford paper, and to any other Florida paper you like, telling them of the money you will not be spending to help Florida’s economy.
I think you have to hit these assholes in their pockets, right next to their guns.
Their god is Mammon, it’s not mercy or justice.
mai naem
@WaynersT: I doubt it. The Newtown people with their mostly rich lily white little kids murdered haven’t gotten anywhere. You seriously think that a black couple with an older black teenage son shot by a guy who got off scott free is going to change anything? You’re dreaming.
Cacti
@KmCO:
Institutionalized white supremacy is the original sin of our republic, and one that we never made amends for…regardless of the opinion of certain Supreme Court Justices.
TS
@raven:
The judge was satisfied that they had enough people through the basic issues (they selected 40) to get a jury. This was the one selected. The prosecution – as you say – was terrible. I watched the jury selection & the first day or so – then I just couldn’t handle the “poor George did no wrong” and only went back to see the foregone conclusion that “walking while black is a crime in Florida”
Elizabelle
@Southern Beale:
I know. When I saw the Tunch picture and headline, at first I thought it was a crazy sick joke. But not.
rikyrah
@worldwatcher—Trayvon was put on trial for his lynching and found guilty.
raven
@TS: Thx.
trollhattan
I certainly hope special timmeh is on time out right now, his Nelson Muntz moment.
YellowJournalism
Fuck you, O’Mara. He wouldn’t have been arrested if he was black?!
cckids
@Southern Beale: all of them. none of them will feel any compunction to be “appropriate” or even human.
A tweet I read last night says it all: ” only in America can a black kid get killed, then tried for his own murder.”
Southern Beale
@efgoldman:
Last time I was in Florida was in 2002. I saw a pickup truck with “Nuke The Ragheads” spray-painted on the side. I haven’t been back since.
michelle
@raven: The blog owner is currently grieving, but put up a post about this so you and Elizabelle and whoever else can vent. You, however, could have been more SENSITIVE to that, but fuck that unless it involves you and your mate and your problems. Which are more important than anything, including JOHN FUCKING COLE LOSING TUNCH.
But yeah, your being able to comment on this verdict tops Tunch.
Asshole.
eemom
@AxelFoley:
Don’t forget, fuck the gun-worshipping piece of shit nation wherein “laws” like this one are allowed to exist.
TS
@dm:
This was NOT a stand your ground case – the defense was “self defense”. The black kid attacked George Zimmerman and the latter was simply defending himself when he shot Trayvon dead.
Donut
The one and only thing I can take comfort in is that George Zimmerman will be repaid for killing Trayvon Martin. Not in the way many of us wanted, but karma will take care of that bastard.
I feel so awful for Trayvon’s parents and family. They deserve so much better than this.
As others have also said, I may not be a fancy law talking guy, but Trayvon’s death was no accident, so it seems to me it was manslaughter at the very least. He had every right to confront Zimmerman and tell him to back off. Zimmerman didn’t have the right to end that confrontation with a bullet. So fucked up.
Nina-the-first
My love and sorrow to Trayvon Martin’s family…again they have lost.
raven
A reporter is asking how it O’Mara felt when the jury thanked him for explaining the law.
MelissaM
I read the header and immediately started singing Black Boys on Mopeds.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n14lwdpYkAA
raven
@michelle: Read my comments to John you loudmouth idiot.
Omnes Omnibus
@raven: She’s too self-righteous to bother with.
Cacti
@YellowJournalism:
O’Mara is right, but not for the reason he thinks.
If Zimmerman was black, Sanford PD would have shot him on sight if they saw him standing over a dead body.
Ben
Verdicts like this is why I’m planning on moving back to Florida and working on turning it blue. Fuck boycotts; let’s make it a better place to live for all Floridians, not just old white people.
Just Another Face In The Crowd
I’m sure the governor is way out in front of it… “Welcome to the Sunshine State. We now have Non-resident 7 day conceal/carry permits available at any of our Welcome Stations. Have more fun, carry a gun. Enjoy your stay!”
A Ghost To Most
@scav:
Lincoln would approve, I’m thinking.
michelle
@eemom: When a culture values property over life, this is what you get.
That the GOP is a party of life is a joke. It’s only some lives and property and profit are valued more.
mai naem
I hope Floriduh gets a massive hurricane and takes out the defense scumballs, Zimmerman, his asshole racist POS brother, the white male witness on the stand who essentially insisted that Trayvon was the aggressor and the idiot security trainer mind reader expert witness. And,oh, yeah Limbaugh,Rubio, Scott and Jebbie Bush. And hopefully the whole lot are at some NRA conference in the panhandle.
lamh35
@keithboykin 2m
Mark O’Mara: Things would have been different if George Zimmerman was black because he never would have been charged with a crime.
Ruckus
@rikyrah:
It really was a lynching. Dude set out to find him a black person to kill. That’s why we are all mad. We just saw a lynching.
BruinKid
Bugs Bunny had it right.
cckids
@TS: Ok, FOAD. The evidence presented at trial showed the only “self defense” was in Zimmerman’s mind. Mostly after he’d shot Martin. He lied, lied, lied, lied; got caught at it & the jury just let it go. How do they look their kids in the eye?
Steeplejack
@Kay:
Greta Van Susteren and the (black!) anchor were moaning about what a tough job the jurors had, what a tremendous sacrifice they had made, what disruption they had suffered in their lives, and then they went on to “Where does George Zimmerman go from here? How does he put his life back together?” All in knitted-brow concern. No mention of Trayvon Martin at all. It was nauseating.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@michelle: Jesus. Give it a fucking rest, will you? Why are you insiting on picking a fight with raven over something obnoxious you said in the thread below? He can hold his own with tougher than you, but some of the rest of us are getting sick of it.
michelle
@Omnes Omnibus: You think?
Donut
Do any of you fancy law talking types think Martin’s parents have a reasonable chance of pursuing a wrongful death claim against Zimmerman?
Ben Cisco (onboard the Defiant)
NeoConfederates will reap what they sow. Guaranteed.
dance around in your bones
It’s quite literally sickening to watch the two defense lawyers crowing about their “win” on MSNBC so I turned it off. They’re yucking it up like it’s all so funny and aren’t we great for helping Zimmerman get away with killing an innocent kid.
The prosecutor (who talked first to the press) was PISSED.
Comrade Scrutinizer
@michelle: How ’bout you go piss yourself somewhere else.
raven
@michelle Bitch about people venting and then vent. What a fucking piece of work.
Howard Beale IV
@Poopyman: Given that FEMA spiked the Texas town’s request that got blown to kingdom come with that fertilizer explosion, there’s a sliver of hope that private industry will make it cost-prohibitive to underwrite insurance down there. And if parts of Florida go underwater in the next 20-40 years, let the citizens of Florida deal with it. They made their bed, they get to sleep in it.
jamick6000
in dubio pro reo, i guess
rikyrah
@Cacti:
using that he was ‘ resisting arrest’.
Cacti
@Donut:
Probably.
But a wrongful death civil judgment is cold fucking comfort when your child’s murderer will never spend a day behind bars.
Angela
@Omnes Omnibus: Is she what they call a troll?
jenn
@michelle: Good lord, who are you, and who elected you blog police? You’ve spent a whole lot more comments hectoring than did the posts by elizabelle & raven that got you started. Its a triply shitty day for some of us, maybe you can back off a little bit.
raven
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q): Don’t sweat the small shit, I’m out anyway.
cokane
shocking that the manslaughter charge was not met in the jury’s mind. :[
People here shouldnt get so worked up about this. It sucks, but injustices far exceeding this have passed during the course of the trial. Voting rights act weakened, House basically trying to cut all food stamp funding.
Also Florida is a really big, really diverse state. Kind of half-witted to make judgments about it or Floridians based on the events of one trial.
michelle
@raven: But you had to change the subject even though you had another thread to comment on.
Keep crying about how badly I have treated you and that other person whothinks you add something here.
Go take care of you business.
TS
@rikyrah:
You are being punished because the country had the temerity to elect a black President.
Omnes Omnibus
@Donut: Fuck if I know. I figured on manslaughter in this trial. I obviously have no sense whatsoever of how a Florida jury functions.
@michelle: Yeah, just drop it. It is huge fucking news, and it is worth a brief interruption of the Tunch threads to mention it.
Cacti
@cokane:
And toolbox #3 weighs in.
Mighty white of ya.
Howard Beale IV
@raven: Ya better pray that yer not on a fixed IP-it would be trivial to block yer posts if you were.
Mr Stagger Lee
@SiubhanDuinne: I would love to see Black Athletes do a one day strike in Florida, refusing to play. Or a movement of HS athletes refusing to play for Florida colleges. Or something like what John Carlos and Tommie Smith did at the 1968 Summer Games in Mexico City. Hell if Florida considers Travon Martin was expendable is not LeBron James?
The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik
I just peeked in at Twitter. I have never felt as misanthropic as I do right now.
michelle
@Angela: Nice to meet you Angela. Have you left your condolences for Tunch and JC?
p.a.
@dm: Wasn’t it Joe Hill who said that? Anyone remember the talk of an Arizona boycott for voting down the MLK holiday? Was there one? If so, was it effective?
Comrade Scrutinizer
@michelle: My, you are a self-righteous prig, aren’t you?
Omnes Omnibus
@Howard Beale IV: And why would raven’s posts need to be blocked?
Ruckus
@Angela:
I think you left off an adjective that starts with as….
She wasn’t by the way, she just doesn’t know when it is appropriate to shut the fuck up.
Howard Beale IV
@Donut: The Feds might make a civil rights case against Zimmerman, but whether or not the DOJ decides to do it is an open question.
Given the fact that the USDOJ is more concerned with the status quo and persecuting whistelsblowers that prosecuting those who caused the great recession, I have my doubts.
Cacti
Now Don West can go have a victory ice cream (vanilla of course), with his bleach blonde daughter, to celebrate helping a killer walk.
God Bless America
NickT
@Angela:
Let’s just say that she spends a lot of time checking out the underside of the rickety-rackety bridge.
michelle
@Comrade Scrutinizer: I’m ok here. There is a solution to your problem with me. Look it up.
The Dangerman
@Cacti:
Instead, he gets to go through life looking over his shoulder; I would prefer behind bars. Smug fucker will get on the RW gravy train, but his life is well ruined. Not exactly a good consolation prize, but I’ll take what I can get.
Spaghetti Lee
@cokane:
Also Florida is a really big, really diverse state. Kind of half-witted to make judgments about it or Floridians based on the events of one trial.
I kind of agree, and I also don’t like all the white people this, white people that as if we all supported Zimmerman. But also, I think, come on. Let people rage. This is worth raging about. We can let it out tonight and find a better way to respond tomorrow.
Suzanne
John, I am worried about you getting monstrously fucked up tonight. Please be careful. Don’t be alone.
lamh35
Trayvon Martin’s father tweets: “Even though I am broken-hearted my faith is unshattered I WILL ALWAYS LOVE MY BABY TRAY” http://bet.us/1bbjZTt
Cacti
@p.a.:
The NFL removed Phoenix as Super Bowl host city. That’s what got AZ to change its tune.
Donut
@Cacti:
True, but that seems to be just about the only way they will get any measure of justice, at this point. Zimmerman can be made to pay for his actions financially, for the rest of his godforsaken life, if the potential judgement is substantial enough.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
According to twitter, there are people setting off fireworks.
jamick6000
i guess there was not evidence beyond a reasonable doubt.
NickT
@Belafon (formerly anonevent):
Give ’em a day or two and they’ll be sizing up Fort Sumter and buying artillery on the Russian black market.
Cacti
@The Dangerman:
Congrats, you’ve pulled into the lead in the thread toolbox race.
Suzanne
@The Dangerman: Maybe he can go live under the same rock as Casey Anthony.
Note to FSM: If you were looking for a place to send the next asteroid, might I suggest that as a possible location?
michelle
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q): You love raven because he is weak. Admit it.
scav
@Belafon (formerly anonevent): You mean those people that would be rioiting with dangerous explosives and WMDs if they were other than they are?
The prophet Nostradumbass
@michelle: you complained in the other thread about people making off-topic comments, and now you’re doing your level best to derail this thread. Right.
Comrade Scrutinizer
@michelle: Thanks, but I already know how to deal with self-appointed self-righteous moral cops. Bless your heart.
A Ghost To Most
@The Dangerman:
Perhaps, one day, George Z. will look over his shoulder, and Retribution will be looking back at him, wearing a hoodie.
Howard Beale IV
@Southern Beale: And that’s why I’m a big fan of jury nullification. Perhaps that’s one reason why I’ve never been called to server on a jury….
TS
@cckids:
I’m sorry my reply didn’t read as I meant – I agree entirely with what you said here – I was trying to explain that in Florida you don’t even need the SYG legislation to kill folks for the crime of being black. Zimmerman’s lawyers had an inkling that SYG wouldn’t work – hence they went for the alternative.
Kay
@Steeplejack:
It is. They’re ghouls.
I’ll remember this the next time they go into high-fake-concern for “kids”
Except this kid, right ghouls? This one spent 2 fucking weeks getting trashed in that room while they babbled on about George Zimmerman’s weight gain.
It is just unbearable to me that Martin was silent, while we heard thousands of words from George Zimmerman. That seems brutally unfair to me.
The Dangerman
@Cacti:
Hey, I’m not the one spamming the thread with claims of an all-white jury, which is demonstrably false (read: better a tool than a fucking idiot).
ETA: To think I almost agreed with you about the Sanford PD; they are the ones most culpable in this fuckup. The jury, which was my initial point, not so much.
dewzke
This is horseshit. You follow/chase a a kid and then kill him. Fact. I’d fight for my life against mr underoos. This sucks.
MomSense
I should have known better than to turn on the teevee–first thing I see is that fucking defense lawyer lecturing the press about how they judged Zimmerman and unfairly portrayed him as a monster.
He is a fucking monster. He judged, stalked, and murdered a child walking home from the store with candy and iced tea. He was in his own neighborhood.
Trayvon deserved better in life and in death. I pray that his family will get some support and comfort because I can’t imagine the hell that they are enduring.
michelle
Come on everyone please: Elizabelle and raven wanted to be the first to post about the verdict so they tried to high jack the post about Tunch and John even though he put up this post minutes later.
You guys jumping on me for them jumping on a heartfelt post like that is just shameful.
Yeah you all know how to pie me and Anne Laurie can ban me but what the fuck? We go through the day with John and it is terrible and then you all can’t wait a few minutes for him to post? After what he has gone through? And you attack me as a scold and say don’t apologize?
WTF?
Donut
@michelle:
Whatever moral superiority you thought you had is long gone by now, stupid. You’re just being an asshole troll now.
Cole did not have a problem with the comment that so deeply hurt your delicate fee-fees in the Tunch thread.
Maybe you ought to take a cue from the guy whose fucking cat died and just let it go.
Cacti
@The Dangerman:
Verdict had nothing to do with race.
Having to look over your shoulder is worse than prison.
Have you ever spent a moment of your natural life outside of Stepford suburbia?
raven
Michelle and Helen
handsmile
Motherfucking Christ! Right now, I’ve got nothing but anger and disgust.
Tomorrow I’ll think about how to respond more constructively.
Melissa Harris-Perry should be unmissable tomorrow morning (MSNBC 10:00am EST). I couldn’t watch television news now for anything.
@rikyrah: Your comments throughout this thread have been ferociously righteous and simply brilliant! “Emmett Till 2013” Fucking exactly. Thanks!
Spaghetti Lee
I know a lot of folks here think Facebook is the pit of hell, but I thought this post by an old high school friend was quite moving: https://www.facebook.com/sharree.walls/posts/10151748426471221
ChrisNYC
@raven: Yep
HRA
You said it, John “What a day”
I could not go through all of the comments on Tunch, Stuck and here.
I just wish I could find the post about the dishwasher overflowing and Tunch coming to you with suds all over his face. It is a classic.
Stuck was one of a kind when I found this blog a few years back. I had to look for his comments even if I did not care for the subject. He often came across a bit grouchy but I suspected it was a ruse all along.
G followed this trial closely. Although I knew it would end this way, I am disappointed.
max
I did not watch the trial because that’s cable TV news and I like my brain, so I hadn’t realized the police chief got up there and said, ‘I believe him’ about Zimmerman. I’m sure that’s what did the trick with the jury, because it’s all about reasonable doubt, and the cops always say the defendant did it.
I also expect Zimmerman to get up on TV or something somewhere eventually and basically admit that he did it (as in stalked and shot him).
@Nicole: Dear July 13, 2013: you suck. Please have improved by next year.
A guy goes to buy some auto parts and take a nap and all hell breaks loose. I’m sorry, John. Dunno what to say. I lost my oldish (13) dachshund Zoe yesterday. She started panting occasionally over the last month or so, but was otherwise fine. And then Thursday she started panting in the morning and could not stop. Took her to the vet yesterday morning, and they got her in an oxygen tent and did the X-rays – lymphatic cancer up around her neck and around her heart (which was blocking her airway), so much so they could see if she had heart damage. Her lungs were full of fluid. They wanted to put her down, they took her out of the tent about three hours after she got there when her mommy arrived and she just collapsed and was gone. (Dachshunds will whine food, but they won’t whine about pain, at all.)
Zoe’s sister (who belongs to my ex-) died about two months ago. Also cancer.
max
[‘Crappy week.’]
NickT
@michelle:
Where did they teach you to talk like that, in some Panama City “Sailor wanna hump-hump” bar, or is it getaway day and your last shot at his whiskey? Sell crazy someplace else, we’re all stocked up here.
michelle
@Donut: You can read his mind mutherfucker?
Omnes Omnibus
@michelle: FWIW I just don’t find self-righteous prigs all that appealing.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
From what I remember of history, African Americans had enjoyed some progress in the late 19th and early 20th centuries until whites had decided they had moved far enough away from the Civil War to start repressing them. They removed a lot of the advances, such as playing in the majors and being elected to offices.
A number of whites, from John Roberts through Fox News and some southerners (I live in Texas, so I know it’s not all of them), have decided we are now far enough away from the excesses seen in the 50s to start restricting minority rights.
SYG, like so many laws, is an indirect way of continuing to give whites power over blacks (see the way the decisions in SYG have played out by race). This decision is really about whites continuing their power, because SYG sets the reasonable doubt bar so high that it is almost unclearable, if the defendant is white that is.
But so many white women – once again not all – have bought into this, which has allowed white men to start taking power away from white women as well.
Unlike the early 1900s, it will be our job, those of us whites who see all of this, to join with everyone to and prevent this lurch backwards from being permanent.
Genine
I’m feeling very three-fifths of a person right now.
Howard Beale IV
@Omnes Omnibus: That’s best left to Cole. It’s his place, after all. I’m just pointing out a reality of most internet subscribers (save those who use TOR.)
The Dangerman
@Cacti:
I don’t exactly know what “Stepford suburbia” is supposed to mean, but given that I’ve spent many years as a homeless man sleeping in my car (at 6′ 7″, it sucks), I’ll guess the answer to your question is “yes”.
michelle
@raven: You couldn’t wait for the topic to change from Tunch to the verdict.
You showed that in the last thread and this.
Wanker don’t apologize.
lojasmo
@The Dangerman:
1 of 8 is nonwhite. Congratulations on your pedantry.
michelle
@Omnes Omnibus: don’t care
raven
@Howard Beale IV: Do you seriously think I would worry about that?
Kathleen
@rikyrah: Rikyrah: It does indeed appear that is the truth. But if MLK could believe in the long arc of justice, I think the least I can do for my part is trust as much as he did. I am white. Many other white people feel like I do. I don’t know if that is any comfort. I can understand if it does not offer you comfort. Prayers to you.
Keith
I guess this means that CNN will now spend the next 2 weeks alternating between analyzing the verdict and running specials about the case. What a shit channel.
Gin & Tonic
@michelle: First rule of holes…
scav
michelle seems to be doing her level best to turn poor Tunch’s death into a white person’s problem that trumps all other considerations and topics — while simultaneously carrying on here troing to drown out this massive topic in her assertations of aggreeive superiority in tenderness. masterpiece in passive agressive bs. That’s a two-fer in crass manipulation of two sad events (one nationally, one locally important) for personal self-aggrandizement
Pinkamena Panic
Bugs Bunny got it right decades ago: http://youtu.be/xiTM2HQ0g98
amk
@raven: It’s the double dick alright.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@eemom: I now feel bad about my rant at that asshole because (the second) comment I answered got deleted. It (his) was reply to yours was worse than the first, actually. I almost told him to DIAF, but not quite.
Kay
@MomSense:
I think you’d have to ask yourself, seeing this, if it were your kid, if it’s worth it.
You know the kid isn’t there to defend himself and the structure of self defense is such that they’re going to be trying the victim on whatever the shooter alleges.
I don’t know if I could stand it. It played out as just an additional.punch in the
gut for those people. They lost their son twice.
Spaghetti Lee
Just heard some fireworks. For once I actually hope it’s people drunkenly turning ‘4th of July’ into ‘Month of July’ and not a celebration…
NickT
@raven:
T & H obviously got banned again. I’ve managed to scare him so he doesn’t respond to me, which is another tell for michelle not so belle.
TCG
Every now and then you get a reminder of just how much this country hates black people. No wonder we (black people) all have high blood pressure.
SiubhanDuinne
@Southern Beale:
Nominated for understatement of the decade.
michelle
@NickT: I didn’t take you for a racist, but there you are.
The Dangerman
@lojasmo:
I’ll take congratulations on being correct. Incorrectly claiming an all-white jury only inflames an inflammable situation.
As for the jury makeup, it sounds like shit to me to have it be overwhelmingly white, but that’s on the prosecution.
ETA: …and the judge, I suppose. I thought she presided fairly, but the jury makeup IS a problem that shouldn’t have occurred.
Omnes Omnibus
@Howard Beale IV: raven wasn’t trolling. He suggested that someone did not need to apologize for bringing up the Zimmerman verdict in one of the Tunch threads. I was wondering why you thought that might be ban worthy.
raven
@NickT: An I’m supposed to worry about a static IP address!
Howard Beale IV
@raven: No-not at all-but your posts will cement in many BJ’ers mind whether you’re a crank or not. Right now, in my view, it’s the former.
Ruckus
@raven:
Still sounds like a sanctimonious twit. Give her credit though she know how to dig a big fucking hole real fast.
MikeJ
At the meetup- Say hi Casey.hiya
Cacti
@Kathleen:
MLK wasn’t the only voice for civil rights in that era, and some of the others didn’t exactly favor a non-violent approach to social justice. Events like this verdict tend to reinforce the belief that working within the system is a fool’s errand, as the system is rigged in favor of injustice.
michelle
@eemom: You seem to be informationally deprived.
Spaghetti Lee
@The Dangerman:
TS pointed out about 100 comments back that during jury selection, it was harder for the prosecution to find black people who hadn’t been closely following the case than white people. That’s one of the problems with media-blitz trials, the prosecution has to actively select people who stay disconnected from society.
NickT
@raven:
Yeah, TeddyTroll just doesn’t have much game, does he? He’s back to playing his tired little games and whining to himself in the shadows.
SiubhanDuinne
@Elizabelle: Thanks, good idea to let them know. I’ll write to conference organizers, friends and family I had planned to visit, local papers and Chambers of Commerce.
Elizabelle
@dance around in your bones:
Ayup. The defense team made my remote go “click.”
You guys are plenty of company, and make more sense.
Donut
@michelle:
Oh, shut the fuck up, your comments are worthless to this thread. This one is about TRAYVON MARTIN, not your carry-over stalkeresque grudge.. You’re as much fun as the dingle berry I pulled off of my puppy’s ass a couple hours ago. You’re fucking Jesus Christ? You get to say whatever you want, but no one should dare question you? Pfffft. Go play in traffic. Loser.
jamick6000
https://twitter.com/GeraldoRivera/status/182982712934674432
raven
@Howard Beale IV: Ha, well that settles it now doesn’t it Howie?
A Ghost To Most
@michelle:
Please, give it a rest. You are in a pissing contest with some of the best people on this blog, on a day most of us want to (but will never) forget.
Even Ted & Helen has had the decency to not stir shit up today. I can’t believe I just wrote that.
Eta: just saw raven’s comment about T&H being banned.
Steeplejack
@Spaghetti Lee:
Getting a “You must log in to see this page” message on your link.
The Dangerman
@Spaghetti Lee:
You know, morons.
/blazing saddles
Spaghetti Lee
Guys.
Troll. Feeding it. Stop.
NickT
@A Ghost To Most:
I hate to say this, but you are talking to T & H’s latest malodorous disguise.
Omnes Omnibus
My local PBS station is showing the original The Thomas Crown Affair in a few minutes. I think I will pour a drink or two and go watch it.
jamick6000
@handsmile: MHP is pretty much unwatchable actually
Cacti
@The Dangerman:
Congratulations on what?
Hispanic is an ethnicity, not a race. Or was Spain recently removed from Europe?
Spaghetti Lee
@Steeplejack:
Ooooooffff course. Feckin’ facebook. Here I’ll copy and paste.
George Zimmerman isn’t just the man that murdered Trayvonn Martin, he’s the school officials that start planning for prison space for black children in the third grade, he’s politician creates and votes for voting laws that limit democracy, he’s the media that disportionately spotlights black male criminals. Today, we are still in the practice of deciding who receives the benefits of freedom. Knowing that black people’s freedom still lies in the hands of others who haven’t come to terms with their internal hierarchy of who’s human, is painful. It hurts.
-S. W.
Howard Beale IV
@raven:
You’re such a piker.
TheOtherWA
WTF? I go out for a few hours and when I get back, all hell has broken loose. We now know for sure Gen Stuck is gone, Tunch is gone ([email protected]*[email protected]@!!) and now this shitty, shitty verdict.
As the oceans rise, let’s just abandon Florida. No one will miss it.
I’ll be here in the corner drinking wine. Just don’t trip over me.
Soonergrunt
Michelle–give it a rest.
Everybody here has had a very long day. I just got back from something else, and while your compassion is compelling, you’re annoying the shit out of people for no apparent reason.
Give it a rest.
The Dangerman
@Cacti:
Fuck, read a newspaper or something; the odd juror out was listed as either Hispanic or Black.
Whatever she was/is, she isn’t white. That is absolutely correct.
burnspbesq
The prosecution has to prove every element of the offense beyond a reasonable doubt. Including the mental state. The evidence presented in court as to Zimmerman’s mental state appeared to me to be far more equivocal than outsiders’ pre-conceived notions of “the facts.”
This is what happens when you deliberately design your criminal justice system to be far more likely to deliver false negatives than false positives. And yes, this was a deliberate design decision by the Framers. Would you really rather have it the other way?
Omnes Omnibus
@TheOtherWA: You’re in my corner. You can stay if you share the wine.
Ruckus
@Howard Beale IV:
What in the hell are you on about?
You must not come here often or know the regulars like raven very well at all. That or I have to assume that you don’t understand english very well.
michelle
@NickT: Ha
The Dangerman
Hey, welcome to the tool shed (and educated tool shed, but a tool shed nonetheless).
Cacti
@burnspbesq:
Go jump up your own ass, Dimestore J. Taxlawyer, Esq. When those of us who actually know our ass from our elbows predicted this result, you were busy tsk-tsking us about how embarrassed we’d all be when the guilty verdict came in.
NickT
@Ruckus:
Anyone cursed with a long ancestral line of Howard Beales probably has other problems.
Cacti
@The Dangerman:
How soon I forget. White = anglo saxon.
leeleeFL
@Howard Beale IV: hey, I live here and so do my Grandbabies! Don’t be calling down misery on us. We are just heartbroken over this.
DH
I happen to live in Dade County(it includes Miami) Florida. I understand the frustration(see my earlier comment).
It cant be said enough: Organize.
Remember Obama won our state twice. Once you get past Lake Okeechobee going N, Florida is part of the South.
As Faulkner said: The Past isn’t over. It’s not even the Past(fuck you Chief Justice, Scalia, Kennedy, Thomas, and Alito)
A Ghost To Most
@NickT: Fuck. I should know better.
Howard Beale IV
@SiubhanDuinne: And to think my brother and sister-in-law plan to retire in Florida all due to the (lack of) tax burden.
Worse still, is that his career has been 100% government funded. Holy hypocrisy, Batman!
amk
@burnspbesq: wtf? weren’t you predicting just y’day that acquittal is a remote possibility?
Ruckus
@NickT:
That’s the first time I’ve laughed in quite a while.
Diana
my favorite comment so far, tweeted from Kieran Healy:
The arc of history is long, but it bends towards oh who the fuck am I kidding….
Omnes Omnibus
@burnspbesq: And when you design a system where, unlike any other place in the Anglo-American common law sphere, the self-defense is not an affirmative defense that must be established by the defendant, you get an aberration.
TS
@The Dangerman:
Only 6 people deliberated on the jury – they were all women. I gather 5 were white – no-one seems to mention the other , but when I watched jury selection – no black women were selected. The other 2 jurors were alternates and they were dismissed when deliberations started
michelle
I’ve already felt the burn from this at work. If none of you have lived with this — looking at you raven and to some extent Elizabelle — you don’t know.
MomSense
@Kay:
They have handled themselves with unbelievable grace and dignity throughout this ordeal and it doesn’t ever end for them. Every day of their lives.
I saw an amazing tweet earlier that the real danger of acquittal is not more riots–but more Zimmermans.
Wow this really has been a spectacularly terrible horrible no good very bad day.
Howard Beale IV
@leeleeFL: Too fsckiing bad. Your state elected Voldermeont as governor, you deal with its consequences.
? Martin
Florida got the outcome they legislated for. This wasn’t a miscarriage of justice, it was the outcome of what Florida Republicans intended all along.
burnspbesq
@amk:
No, you either misunderstood or you’re misremembering. What I actually said was a conviction for manslaughter seemed to me to be more likely than a conviction for second-degree murder. “More likely” isn’t the same as “likely.”
My personal view, based on what was publicly available, is that Zimmerman was guilty of voluntary manslaughter. I wasn’t on the jury. The people who were had a different view.
And there is no inconsistency between thinking the system is well-designed and thinking that the results in particular cases suck. At the risk of sounding callous, it’s inevitable, given the way the system is designed, that there will be “wtf” outcomes. This was one such outcome.
It’s not just about outcomes, and it can’t be just about outcomes. Process matters.
ruemara
@A Ghost To Most: No, don’t think that. I send my best wishes to you and congratulations to your new job.
The Dangerman
@TS:
I wasn’t there, so I can only report what the TV channel was reporting (I think it was MSNBC, but could have been CNN)…
…but one of the deliberating jurors was Hispanic or Black.
Big Daddy
I am so Goddamned disgusted!! Evidently, here in the US of A, person A can challenge person B (since person A is emboldened by their hidden fireaarm), and then, when Person B starts beating Person A’s ass, Person A can pull out their hidden firearm and MURDER Person B. What the FUCK have I spent my life defending? Two tours in Iraq, two tours in Afghanistan . . . for this SHIT? What the FUCK!!??!!
Odie Hugh Manatee
@cckids: “How do they look their kids in the eye?”
Easy, they’re white and theirs.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Mr Stagger Lee: Remember Sanford was the town whose residents ran Jackie Robinson out of town with death threats. Clearly the town’s made progress from just threats. Rumor has it a few Klan groups still active in Seminole county as well.
? Martin
Elsewhere in Florida:
Anyone want to guess her race before clicking through?
Elizabelle
@BruinKid: Love the Bugs Bunny gif.
@Pinkamena Panic:
The comments on “Panic’s” Bugs Bunny clip are hilarious. Along the lines of “fuck my state.”
TheOtherWA
@Omnes Omnibus: Gladly. /pours big glass for Omnes
The Sheriff's A Ni-
@burnspbesq:
I don’t think now is the time to sound callous.
cckids
@TS: ok, sorry for my knee-jerk reaction. That the “self defense” crap worked makes me physically ill.
Howard Beale IV
@Ruckus: You’re a moron.
How do I know with 100% certainty that ‘raven’ (or anybody else who posts here) is who they say they are when they post?
T. Scheisskopf
I am a recent transplant to FL, from NJ. As bad as you think it is down here, trust me, it is even worse. A large part of the population is sociopathic. Lots and lots of sociopaths, many armed. We keep to ourselves, to the point of fearful isolation.
And John: as an abulatory cat toy, my heart just aches for you, as does that of my SO. I mean, it hurts us, too. Deeply.
Luckily, you have a family here and you are loved and not alone. In that, you are rich.
Thymezone
Welcome to the New South Africa.
Kay
@MomSense:
Yeah, it’s really hard for me. At one point I was thinking “shouldn’t they appoint a lawyer for Martin? Now that they’re trying him for attempted murder?”
Watching this, you could conclude it’s better to just accept whatever the self defense claim is rather than putting your kid out there alone. I really couldn’t bear it.
Omnes Omnibus
@Howard Beale IV: Oh fuck off.
burnspbesq
@MomSense:
Stand-your-ground laws have to go. This needs to be an issue in the next legislative elections in Florida and every other state that has one of these stupid provisions.
InternetDragons
Jesus Christ, what a horrible day, and I effing wish people in this thread would stop picking on each other.
Post in John’s thread if you haven’t already, and go donate to MARC.
But this thread is needed too, because as cynical as I am, I didn’t want to believe this verdict would turn out the way it did. I think I knew, though, when the media and a sickeningly huge proportion of the online population decided to turn Rachel Jenteal into a joke.
I started to feel like I was surrounded by members of the Klan, all giggling and telling hateful jokes to each other with that sickening confidence that comes from being sure that “everyone” agrees with you and nobody is going to object to the poison you are spewing.
If I, an older white woman, can see so clearly that the only explanation for that verdict is racism, then surely it’s got to be screamingly obvious. Right? Right??
I am just at a freaking loss. I know how to take loss. I’ve been a left-wing activist my entire life. I know we pick up, light the candle, rekindle the hope, and keep pushing for change, because the arc of the moral universe does indeed bend toward justice.
But days like this just weigh on the soul. My heart breaks for that beautiful young man and his parents. Sometimes it really is hard to see the light.
Crusty Dem
@burnspbesq:
As if you’ve ever been anything BUT callous.
Gustopher
Crap. How the hell did he not get manslaughter? The Florida self-defense law is a travesty and a disgrace, but manslaughter seems pretty straightforward.
I hope Zimmerman lives a very long life always in fear that someone is going to come after him for this. And when he’s 90 and in his hospital bed dying of cancer, begging for some pain killers, I hope the nurse looks him in the eye and says “fuck you, murderer, suffer.”
Omnes Omnibus
@InternetDragons: The picking at one another is just a way for the rage to leak out.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@raven: And don’t forget I love you because you’re weak. There, I admitted it. Perhaps Michelle and Hellen will shut the fuck up now.
A Ghost To Most
@ruemara:
Thanks. I hope we all see better days than this, and no worse ones. John has brought us all together; hopefully together we can help him. Tunch knows, this place has helped me over the years.
Betty Cracker
Jesus, Zimmerman’s brother is a ginormous douche-tanker. He’s on CNN right now. I want to put my fist through the TV.
? Martin
Wisdom from Twitter:
Hard to argue with that.
Spaghetti Lee
@Betty Cracker:
Why are you watching CNN? Why is ANYONE watching CNN? That way lies madness, people. Pure madness.
Jesus, folks, pour yourself a drink, put on a nice old movie, sit on the porch. Don’t give the professional dipsticks at CNN more ratings just because you’re curious about how bad the trainwreck is.
Chris
@Fluke bucket:
Not that old, which is why somehow this still manages to surprise me. Post racial America, indeed.
Fred Fnord
I am not typically wont to post stupid animated gifs, but for some reason this one seems mighty appropriate today.
Sasha
I just need to say that Hispanic does not equal Black. Especially when the defendant is Hispanic and the victim is Black.
Howard Beale IV
@Omnes Omnibus:
You can’t use facts so you use an insult. Noted.
The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik
@Betty Cracker:
Somehow even more douchey than O’Mara? What did he say? I don’t have the heart or stomach to read more on this after O’Mara claimed Zimmerman wouldn’t have even been arrested if he were black.
cokane
@Cacti: sorry that my level of outrage does not meet yours. It can’t be that we merely disagree, it has to be because of a fundamental shortcoming from me. Try to lay off the commenter acid for a bit, and accept the fact that BJ, unlike you seemingly, respects and welcomes people from diverse points of view.
amk
@burnspbesq: Typical weaselly lawyerese.
ChrisNYC
@Gustopher: He was a terrible fear-riven coward before this, so that’s pretty much assured. Sat in his SUV, in his gated subdivision, with a gun, on the phone with 911, cops on the way and decided that he was under threat. Then he got a bloody nose six feet from scads of his neighbors and decided he was going to be killed.
Spaghetti Lee
@burnspbesq:
Burns, I get what you’re saying, and I think it’s worth saying.
But, maybe, shush, just for tonight? This won’t be the last thread on this.
Omnes Omnibus
@Howard Beale IV: “Fuck off” isn’t an insult. It is an imperative.
The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik
@Kay:
This is the thing that makes me feel ill for Trayvon’s parents. Their son was put on trial instead, and then found guilty of being a hair-trigger violent thug in the court and, apparently, in a depressingly significant percentage of the public. He’s apparently become living proof to far too many that ‘them blacks are all feral monsters!’
They’ve lost their son and seen his memory turned into an indictment.
TheOtherWA
@Fred Fnord: That was actually funny, and appropriate. One of the few things that could possibly get me to smile this evening.
Elizabelle
@Gustopher:
I don’t wish Zimmerman a long life. I wish him a hunted and haunted one.
If he’d gotten manslaughter (teenslaughter), he could have eventually paid his debt to society, for killing one of its young.
As it is, he is a not innocent man walking.
Kay
@Omnes Omnibus:
My husband thought the state shoukd have focused on attitudes towards guns when they interviewed jurors.
He thought that would sway a juror toward Zimmerman. That there was a gun subtext going on in this, and if a juror was sympathetic on “carrying” they would “hear” that and respond.
It worried me thru the whole thing, with the focus on “moms”
cckids
@Spaghetti Lee: This. We’re catching up on Game of Thrones. Even as grisly and full of senseless violence as it is, its looking better than Florida.
At least in Westeros, you don’t expect justice.
Elizabelle
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q):
Yesh indeed re Sanford.
Sanford had a role in the recent movie “42.”
A pretty town with some ugly people in it.
Still.
Howard Beale IV
@Omnes Omnibus: If it’s an imperative, it’s incomplete, you animal food-trough wiper you.
I fart in your general direction. Your mother was a hamster, and your father smelt of elderberries.
Now go away before I taunt your a third time!
Ruckus
@Howard Beale IV:
I’m a moron? Because I can read and understand what someone writes? And you don’t seem to be able to?
Glad we cleared that up.
lojasmo
@raven:
That would be my guess.
Betty Cracker
@The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik: Infinitely douchier than O’Mara. He said something like, “I’m sorry Trayvon caused his own death by lying in wait for my brother and viciously attacking him.” Jesus. I get that GZ is his brother, and maybe he really believes that. But why the fuck go on TV and say that shit?
Howard Beale IV
@Ruckus: Yes, with that reply you have proven with 100% certainty that you are a moron.
Piker.
nineone
@Redshirt:
Something about a chifferobe or something like that. ‘Course I may have heard that wrong.
Omnes Omnibus
@Kay: I don’t get this verdict at all.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Kay: I’m inclined to agree with your husband. But I’m not certain that a good-for-the-state jury was possible in this instance. I was worried about so many women, who might sympathize with being scared
The victim was on trial for walking while black wearing a hoodie, and he was convicted. As noted earlier, he jury essentially admitted that they would have pulled the trigger on young Trayvon too.
The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik
@Betty Cracker:
*sigh* Like I said, I can’t understand the grief the parents are going through, losing their son, then having his memory turn into an indictment against himself and the entirety of blacks. I mean…fuck. Having some douchenozzle go on TV and basically say “I’m sorry your son was such a feral vicious animal that had to be righteously be put down’
Ruckus
@Omnes Omnibus:
As we read down the thread I see that the problem here becomes clearer and clearer.
The solution is as well.
Kay
@The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik:
It’s obscene. It breaks my heart.
When do you think he’ll take the offer from FOX? His repulsive fake friends are already cashing in on the kid’s death.
lojasmo
@MikeJ:
Lojasmo waves from MN.
Regarding T/H, I was wondering if he would get banned when the Zimmerman decision came down.
Don’t need to have this decision whitesplained on B-J
TCG
@Sasha: This. Black people will always be the most hated and feared.
MomSense
@Kay:
Every time the defense attorney called him Mr. Martin I wanted to punch him in the face. It was just a not so subtle way of trying to diminish the reality that he was a child. But it was probably the least atrocious of the ways in which the defense tried to justify why capital punishment by Zimmerman was justified.
@burnspbesq:
Yeah those ALEC written and funded Stand Your Ground laws are absolute BS. We have to organize on this.
nineone
@Mr Stagger Lee:
This times infinity plus another motherfuckin’ infinity. They were ever more interested in protecting their stupid “shoot first, shoot last, shoot forever” laws than doing an actual investigation.
The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik
@Kay:
I’m too sick to even snark about something like that in all honesty. From what I’m hearing, Fox is already reaching an extra level of bile tonight in the aftermath.
Howard Beale IV
Everyone here whose bellayaching about the Zimmerman verdict and its supposive injustice best wake the fuck up and realize that the majority of the citizens in Florida voted for the results that happened.
Deal with it.
Spaghetti Lee
@Howard Beale IV:
People vote on the outcome of a trial? That’s news to me.
TCG
@Spaghetti Lee: They voted for the legislatures who made the laws.
Howard Beale IV
@Ruckus:
Dream on.
Kay
@Betty Cracker:
We literally had worse injuries here after a brawl at a teenage wedding. Stitches, people going to emergency room, ect.
No one was charged with anything worse than a misdemeanor. It was a blip. People laughed about it after.
It woukd have been an absolute life-changing tragedy if one of them had a gun.
Howard Beale IV
@Spaghetti Lee: In case you haven’t noticed, that’s reality.
Deal with it-or fight it. The choice is yours.
rikyrah
eclecticbrotha @eclecticbrotha 1h
The week in review: a woman with tampons and a black kid with Skittles are both more dangerous than a white man with a gun
Howard Beale IV
@TCG: Your brutal use of the truth shows a clear lack of imagination.
IOW, Great rejoinder.
rikyrah
Will Smith – We live in a country where the woman who threw flower on Kim K. went to jail but the killer of Trayvon Martin walked.
The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik
@rikyrah:
They forgot to add in that ‘Black people are the real racists’. God knows I’m seeing enough of that crowing as well.
Spaghetti Lee
@TCG:
So (some) of the people who voted for (some) of a legislature that passed a law that one defense team used to let one crook walk, therefore everyone there needs to suffer. And yes, that’s what Howard Beale is hoping for. He said that he hopes a hurricane hits and that people are displaced through global warming. People who had nothing to do with the trial, and many of whom were rooting against this outcome as hard as any of us were.
I’m sorry, but I’ve never got on the whole “(state) is dead to me” bandwagon when something like this happens. I get maybe that’s how some people get their rage out, but I just can’t do it. There are good people everywhere. Today the bad guys won. But I don’t see how you can answer hate with more hate, directed at even greater numbers of people. I don’t see how that works. I’m sorry, but I just can’t do these mass condemnations that so many people seem to love. There’s nothing righteous about them. It’s just more hate. I’m sick of hate.
Kay
@MomSense:
“You’re going to die tonight”
“you got me”
Yeah, right. Watch a lot of movies there, Mr. Zimmerman?
Omnes Omnibus
@Howard Beale IV: Yes, the voters of Florida elected legislators who made this result possible. A child is, nevertheless, dead and the person who did it is unlikely to be held accountable. Late on a Saturday evening, we aren’t going be able to do much other than being upset and bitching.
Ruckus
@rikyrah:
One would get that impression.
Spaghetti Lee
@Howard Beale IV:
Yeah, there’s always one arguer in every thread like this, going on about how the outcome of a trial means whole states, whole regions of the country are degenerate and backwards and everyone else better accept that fact. I don’t need to accept any of your delusions, and I certainly don’t need to accept your hope that more people die because of this.
Soonergrunt
@lojasmo: unlikely
The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik
@Kay:
It was believable enough for an acquittal, which is just as absurd as the lame spaghetti western villain dialogue stuffed into Trayvon’s mouth by Zimmerman.
vheidi
@Soonergrunt: thank you
MomSense
@Kay:
Or what about those interviews with the police where Zimmerman kept calling him “the suspect”.
TCG
@Spaghetti Lee: What? I was simply referring to the fact that a majority of Floridians seem to be ok with these kinds of laws. I missed the hurricane comment. Having said that people can vote with their feet and if Florida is a place where it’s legal to shoot unarmed black teenagers with candy in their pockets, black people who live in Florida, especially the one’s with children might want to consider relocating. If their is a silent majority of decent people that don’t like how shit it going, now would be the time for them to stop being silent. In Florida and everywhere else.
Howard Beale IV
@Spaghetti Lee:
You’re dead wrong that the Zimmerman trial outcome is what I hoped for-far from it. Zimmerman was told told by the dispatcher to stand down and he didn’t. Between this and the state prosecutors not seating a representative peer jury doomed the prosecution’s case.
But hey-feel free to to label me a bad dog and hang me on the nearest pole.
Betty Cracker
Joy Reid is on MSNBC now and had a really great and poignant point: She has a teenage son, and she said she doesn’t know what to tell her child. She said she and her son talked about how he should act if he was ever questioned by a cop — watch what you say, don’t make any sudden moves, etc. Now he’s in a life-threatening situation if any random yahoo with a gun (and ONE MILLION Floridians have concealed carry permits) decides he looks suspicious. Jesus.
Kay
@The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik:
His story reads like bullet pointed self defense. “I feared for my life”
Really? Would you say…imminent? Let’s just pencil that in. We can add it to the final. It’s like 3 drafts and a final.
Omnes Omnibus
@Howard Beale IV: Your reading comprehension is lacking. Go back and read what SL wrote one more time.
Spaghetti Lee
@TCG:
Well, maybe I overreacted, but I just don’t like this eliminationism shit, this idea that people deserve terrible shit because some of them voted for a shitty government. Isn’t this whole lefty thing supposed to be about empathizing with people and helping them?
I mean, I have elderly relatives in Florida who are liberals, but who can barely walk, much less uproot and buy a new house in another state. So staying in Florida means they implicitly support Martin’s death? They live in a blue county, though-are they exempt? That’s what I don’t like about this shit, it’s nothing but mass generalization and stereotyping. Huge numbers of people who don’t fit whatever the dumb with-us-or-against-us standard is get scooped up in the rhetoric.
If there’s any silver lining to this, maybe some of those batshit crazy SYG laws and guns-everywhere-all-the-time laws will be re-examined. But if the people willing to fight that fight have already written off the whole state as racist savages and the only thing for decent people to do is leave, how the hell will that fight ever be won?
askew
If I was a minority living in Florida, I would do everything in my power to leave the state. Too many racist assholes carrying guns there and the government is turning a blind eye to their vigilantism.
And there should have been at least on AA person on the jury. The prosecution should have demanded it.
The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik
@Kay:
It really is just so goddamned absurd. Like he was casting himself as the hero of some pulp novel.
Howard Beale IV
@Omnes Omnibus:
Now here’s the $64,000 question: will this travesty of justice be addressed?
In Florida, even money says no.
Kay
@Betty Cracker:
I thought about this. I think I would tell them to start filming. It will act as both a deterrent and a record, should that become necessary.
They all have phones. Don’t call your friends. Film the pursuit.
MomSense
@Kay:
And he had never, ever, ever heard of Stand Your Ground.
RaflW
@Tone in DC:
Good g*d. People get manslaughter for recklessly driving a car and killing someone. I too cannot take this shit.
Howard Beale IV
@Spaghetti Lee: The bottom line:
Now ask your relatives which side of the equation they want to be a part of.
Spaghetti Lee
@Howard Beale IV:
I liked it better when Bush phrased it as “If you’re not with us, you’re against us.”
TCG
@Spaghetti Lee: I would love for the laws to be reexamined, but I doubt. Nothing happened after 20 white 6 year old were gunned down and nothing will change after Travon. Like I said if their is a silent majority of decent people in Florida, they will have to deal with this and vote for different and better elected officials. Same with everywhere else. I live in Texas and nothing will change here either. Not unless their is a secret majority of decent people who just haven’t bothered to vote in Texas for 15 years.
Look people are venting tonight. Just let it be that. The misogyny, racism and bigotry of this country is overwhelming sometimes.
Howard Beale IV
@Omnes Omnibus: I did.
Your point?
Roy G.
@Spaghetti Lee: Amen. I’ve spent the past ten days visiting my wife in CPMC (California Pacific Medical Center), where all the teevees are tuned to CNN – they even have it on monitors in the elevators. I’ve been throwing up a little in my mouth each time I walk past one. The worst crawl headline that I can’t get out of my head was, ‘They both stalked each other.’ I kept thinking about the many good people working and visiting the hospital that saw these titillating images and headlines with no context, and how their view of the case could be so easily twisted as a result.
I have to believe a large part of CNN’s ratings come from public venues like this, where CNN is innocently put on the monitors because ‘It’s the news.’ I’d like to see some organizing to get CNN removed from as many public viewing places as possible, per Jay Rosen’s recent posting that CNN is not really news at all, but 24/7 Nancy Grace with a slightly better reputation.
http://pressthink.org/2013/07/criticizing-cnn-goodbye-to-that/
Kay
Just for the record, I don’t agree that it’s Florida. It coukd absolutely happen here. It would be a little different. He would be patrolling an entire roadway, because he “lives on 15”, which means it’s his “castle” but same idea.
amk
@Betty Cracker: This. This horrible verdict has enabled the fear of normal people, even whites, how they have to act when confronted by a gun nut.
Howard Beale IV
@Spaghetti Lee: Eeeesh.
Comparing Dick Gregory to George Bush Is almost near to blasphemy as you can get.
Spaghetti Lee
@Howard Beale IV:
I did not accuse you of hoping for an acquittal. I know that you weren’t hoping for that. I was referring more to this post: https://balloon-juice.com/2013/07/13/and-if-there-was-any-way-for-the-day-to-get-worse/#comment-4533452
And I get that people need to say things at times like this, but…come on.
RaflW
And just because I’m in a foul mood: f*ck Andrew Sullivan.
Omnes Omnibus
@Howard Beale IV: He didn’t say you were calling for or celebrating the not guilty verdict. He was critical of your call for Florida to be more or less visited by biblical plagues. Fight with him all you want, but do try to get the reason for the fight right.
Roy G.
@Roy G.: As it appears I cross-posted into a dispute on another post SL made, I’ll just say that a better common ground would be to hate all of CNN than all of Florida.
Spaghetti Lee
@Howard Beale IV:
…OK, now I’m confused. When was that phrase associated with Dick Gregory?
RaflW
@JWL:
+1
I think we need an emergency relocation fund so we can get a couple million decent people out of the forsaken South and then put up that supermax border fence the GOP has been wanking over. Only east and north of where they think it goes.
Howard Beale IV
@Spaghetti Lee: Actually, I’m as serious as a heart attack when ti comes to those who live in Florida and along the coasts. Think about it-who in their right mind would insure property in Florida when its ground zero for all sorts of adverse weather?
Howard Beale IV
@Spaghetti Lee: Dick Gregory was known for that quote, even though he wasn’t the source of it.
Spaghetti Lee
@Howard Beale IV:
And they need a hurricane/massive flood to…teach them a lesson? Yeah, that’ll show ’em. You’re a wacko. G’night.
Howard Beale IV
@Omnes Omnibus: As far as I’m concerned, people who decide to live in particular regions for whatever reasons get whatever happens to them. If they avoid tornadoes and blizzards, all the more power to them.
Howard Beale IV
@Spaghetti Lee: Have a good night, Mr. Lee
Kay
Well, thank you BJ’ers for talking about this. It’s comforting to know there are sympathetic people. In the world. A few.
And lock up your teenagers. Just ground them all. There’s going to be a lot of armed people out strutting around “protecting” us, whether we like it or NOT.
sharl
I’m glad rikyrah has been bringing some of the better tweets over here, because I gotta tell ya, there is some poisonous shit in Twitterland too.
One of my favorite tweets brought up a problem noted by Betty Cracker at #388 and elsewhere upthread:
And of course, that “Daily Trawler” creep from the equally creepy Daily Caller – no, ain’t linking him – had a reply that maximized dishonesty and offensiveness.
Of course, that creep’s job is apparently to be that way; who knows what he actually believes or cares about beyond his paycheck. More disturbing (if not surprising) are the other reports, e.g., spontaneous applause in an upscale restaurant (via John Rogers, aka kung-fu monkey, “discoverer” of the 27% crazification factor), random reports of celebrations, and a higher-than-usual regurgitation of racist and homicidal hurrahs.
Between this and Tunch and the General, what a collection of suck.
TCG
@Kay: You probably don’t have to ground the white ones.
Joel
Disgusted, not surprised.
sharl
@sharl: Just to clarify, Rogers said it was a couple white “ladies” in the restaurant who applauded (not the whole room, as my post might have implied, now that I look at it).
Rogers said his wife had to hustle him out to the car pronto, where he managed to destroy a pair of sunglasses, which was a preferable form of violence to what was running through his head in the restaurant.
lojasmo
@Soonergrunt:
Shares the same vapid argumentative style, and T/H who was a blazing “you don’t know he is guilty” fuckhead hasn’t been around to whitesplain the verdict.
The prophet Nostradumbass
@lojasmo: He can see things about commenters we can’t.
mouse tolliver
I know it’s probably irresponsible to say this, but I don’t care right now.
I hope the jurors names are made public. And I hope they are made to feel this verdict for the rest of their lives.
Mister Papercut
@Steeplejack:
They let Hannity do live coverage? I’d have thought they’d give him the rest of the weekend off for all the furious masturbating you know he’s gonna have to do.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
“He (Zimmerman) has to be very cautious and protective of his safety because there is still a fringe element who have said, at least in tweets and everything else, that they want revenge — that they will not listen to a verdict of not guilty,” defense attorney Mark O’Mara said.
Your clients inability to control his fear has been the driving force in all of this Mr O’Mara.
And BTW, correct me if I am wrong but didn’t most gangs start as a from of neighborhood watch?
Applejinx
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: I know, right? Clearly he now needs an assault weapon, and to blow away every black person he ever sees for the rest of his life.
If he didn’t have ‘reasonable’ expectation that he was in jeopardy, he soon would have every reason to fear any black face anywhere ever.
Of course, there is a reason for that and it is a reason he’d be wholly responsible for. He is already responsible for whatever life he’s gonna get.
And I am SO pissed off at the whole thing. I want to fuckin’ carry Skittles around 24/7 now. And the thing is, I am Caucasian. So what the heck would that even prove? It might even be taken as mockery! I wouldn’t be surprised if some wingnuts are doing just that, they seem to like mockery and whipping out symbols like coathangers, like some end zone taunt.
Lurking Canadian
@burnspbesq: I submit that this:
goes somewhat beyond this:
In your place, I might consider retracting the “pig-fuck ignorant” bit, anyway.
John S.
What a disgusting outcome. Not surprised, though, having been through Sanford many times in my life.
But Jesus Christ, people. The entire state of Florida and its inhabitants are not to blame. And all the pontificating about how fucked up Florida is based on what you saw the last time you rolled through here as a tourist is bullshit. South Florida is very different than the rest of the state, and is home to an extremely ethnically and culturally diverse population.
With rare exception, there are many other parts of the United States that are more fucked up than here. Iowa just made it legal to fire someone if they are pretty. Texas just made abortion extremely difficult. Even California voted to ban gay marriage. So a little fucking perspective, please.
I’m ashamed by this verdict, and sickened by the laws that made it possible. But now Floridians need to organize and do something about it before it happens again. But don’t blame the entire state and its many decent citizens for this injustice. That’s bullshit.
MomSense
@Applejinx:
When my teenager came home from work last night and I told him about the verdict–he let fly a righteous and totally appropriate string of expletives. Then he said that Zimmerman should receive thousands of skittles every day. He wants to mail him a single skittle in an envelope every single day.
I want to dump a truck full of them on his lawn but my son is probably right that he should just get them every single day for the rest of his life so he knows that we know the score.
Applejinx
Cops must feel CHEAP. Think about it:
Cop- “Sir, please desist hunting the black kid with the Skittles.”
Zimmerman- “No!”
Cop- *SIGH* “Sir, calm down. Please return to your vehicle, if you feel there is a threat…”
Zimmerman- “And call the cops!”
Cop- “We ARE the cops, sir.”
Zimmerman- “No, I mean the real cops!”
Cop- “What?”
Zimmerman- “Oh shit! Backup! I need backup!” *BANG* “I got him!”
Cop- “Sir…”
Zimmerman- “Finally! Where do you put dead punks? He almost killed my nose with skittles! And concrete!”
Cop, hanging up phone, consulting superior- “Now what? The usual?”
Superior- “You mean… do the coverup, smooth it over, AS IF he was one of us, take the PR hit and legal hassle, except that he’s not even a cop? Is he white?”
Cop- “Kinda.”
Superior- “OH COME ON!”
Cop- “Whatever.” *back on phone* “Here’s what you say…”
Jury- “Not guilty!”
Cop- “FFS, at least that’s over…”
Zimmerman- “Yay! I’mma hunt some more punks now. That’s my job, as an AMERICAN!”
Cop- “What?!?”
Zimmerman- “The jury said so! I did everything right! It’s my duty as an American to punish the malefactor, kick ass, and carry a gun that I am not afraid to use for justice!”
Cop- “Wait a minute, that’s MY fucking job, buddy!”
Zimmerman and chorus- “Not anymore!”
Cop- “THEN WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU NEED US FOR?”
Zimmerman- “Filling out the paperwork?”
Cop- “…”
Zimmerman- “And protecting my freedom! Excuse me! Duty calls! I see danger!” *exits, firing*
Cop- “…it’s gonna be a loooooong ‘arc of the moral universe bending toward justice’.”
Trayvon Martin- “…tell me about it.”
Bobby Thomson
@John S.: You DID elect Rick Scott, but then you’re being punished for that every day.
Ksmiami
@NickT: as a shareholder in the disney corporation, I’m writing them that the syg laws put their business in jeopardy and they need to lobby the state… I’m never setting foot in fl again
bob h
@Elizabelle: I wonder whether there should be a boycott of Florida, the way there was for Arizona.
You know this is all going to get much worse: Zimmerman will be on Fox, and making good money out of his notoriety,
Patricia Kayden
Well no shocker, huh? I think most people knew Zimmerman would walk.
And guess what, White people, Black people aren’t rioting in the streets? Shocking, huh?
johnny aquitard
Christ. Woke up this morning and decided to see what’s up after a few days away. And all this shit. Stuck confirmed gone, Tunch gone just-like-that, Zimmerman free.
Goddammit.
And fuck fox news. fucking sick of these crowing crackers.
John S.
@Bobby Thomson:
No I did not. I voted for Alex Sink. She lost.
Pogonip
There are 6 people on this earth who are even dumber than the O.J. jury. Who’d have thought?