ESPN is reporting that the St. Louis Rams players who made the “Hands Up, Don’t Shoot” display over the weekend will not face fines from the team or league.
Open thread otherwise.
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Come for the politics, stay for the snark.
My years-long effort to drive family and friends away has really paid off this year.
The worst democrat is better than the best republican.
Since we are repeating ourselves, let me just say fuck that.
We will not go quietly into the night; we will not vanish without a fight.
Speaking of republicans, is there a way for a political party to declare intellectual bankruptcy?
Why is it so hard for them to condemn hate?
Everyone is in a bubble, but some bubbles model reality far better than others!
At some point, the ability to learn is a factor of character, not IQ.
“Loving your country does not mean lying about it’s history.”
I desperately hope that, yet again, I am wrong.
Sitting here in limbo waiting for the dice to roll
Good lord, these people are nuts.
Putin must be throwing ketchup at the walls.
If you still can’t see these things even now, maybe politics isn’t your forte and you should stop writing about it.
Second rate reporter says what?
Accountability, motherfuckers.
I’d try pessimism, but it probably wouldn’t work.
Republicans don’t lie to be believed, they lie to be repeated.
Make the republican party small enough to drown in a bathtub.
Republican obstruction dressed up as bipartisanship. Again.
There are a lot more evil idiots than evil geniuses.
Fear or fury? The choice is ours.
Jesus, Mary, & Joseph how is that election even close?
An almost top 10,000 blog!
FlyingToaster
Cue the wingers’ head explosions in three, two….
Tom Levenson
Is Roger Goodell learning? (Spoiler alert — probably not, but this is the right result anyway, of course.)
JMG
The NFL does not need another lost beef with the Players’ Association. Since it’s also a significant source of ancillary revenue for those lucky police officers who work near stadiums and get paid crowd control and traffic details, I doubt too many cops will do much in the way of protesting.
AliceBlue
I don’t watch football but I think I’m a Rams fan now!
p.a.
The Constitution stops at the factory door. Good thing there’s a viable black middle class that spends money on sports tickets, cable access, and paraphenalia or I bet their actions wouldn’t go unpunished.
Hal
Haha:
http://jezebel.com/gop-staffer-resigns-over-comments-about-obama-girls-lac-1665120252
Elizabelle
@Hal:
That was the part that bothered me the most about that woman’s FB post. That would wound me more than hearing some white bitch thought I looked slutty.
Article of faith among rightwingers, and not true at all.
I’m glad she lost her job.
The Red Pen
These football players are large and imposing and wearing some kind of body armor.
I think it’s legal for the STL PD to just shoot them. That’ll teach them to jaywalk or whatever it was they did.
tbone
Why would they?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Jesus Christ. I hadn’t seen that part before.
as is often the case with wing nuttery, I can’t even figure out what that means.
kindness
Now can we discuss the fines that the St. Louis Police Association (or what ever they are calling themselves) should be paying?
Elizabelle
The Rams players who signaled “hands up, don’t shoot” showed moral courage.
The police association hoping to have them sanctioned, not so. Silence would have been a better response.
In DC, protestors held up traffic on the 14th Street Bridge into DC today, and will protest at the Justice Department at 4 today. Very proud they’re doing that. Young people, mostly.
Mandalay
@Hal: She issued a non-apology apology:
As Forbes pointed out, she apologized for the post, but did not apologize to those she attacked.
FlyingToaster
@tbone: The STL county Police Officers Association demanded fines and apologies. Joe Scar is mad at the players.
Fortunately, after the Rice mess, I suspect the lawyers are supervising that maroon Goodell.
Frankensteinbeck
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
It means they’re black. Seriously. ‘Blacks are bad parents with broken families’ is a major stereotype. It’s a filter. Everything she sees in the Obamas is interpreted by whether it matches stereotypes. So, if the girls are having a good time, they’re slutty hos, and if their parents are having a good time they’re lazy and don’t give the job proper dignity, and so on and so on. How people see things really is that subjective.
El Caganer
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Why couldn’t they be classy like those Bush girls?
beltane
Someone on the DKos FB page posted a picture of the not-at-all-trashy Elizabeth Lauten at a bar with a beer bottle in her pie hole https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=892835207413627&set=p.892835207413627&type=1
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@beltane: I think she’s throwing gang signs too.
beltane
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q): You could be right. I thought she was just practicing the right way to nurse on the wingnut welfare teat.
RareSanity
Silly StL police union…you just tried to bully one of the few organizations in this country that has a bigger ego than your department. Roger Goodell and the rest of the NFL owners don’t give a flying fuck about what you think they should be doing about anything.
Now, don’t mistake this for them supporting the players…they don’t give a damn about them, or the cause the message they were sending either. However, since the STL police union and usual right wing nutjobs are the only ones howling, they know they can safely sweep this one under the rug and continue with business as usual.
It’s not until people watching The Today Show, Good Morning America, and Live with Kelly and Michael start howling that they actually need to take action.
…and this is coming from a fan of the NFL. I may be a fan of the sport, but I’m not stupid.
So STL police union…that feeling of being ignored when you believe you are expressing a legitimate complaint, how does it feel? Kinda frustrating, huh?
I know the irony will be lost on you…
Jay C
Also: this bit really stood out for me as the most classless/clueless part of the whole kerfuffle:
Really nice the way he immediately conflates anyone with the temerity to criticize any police actions with “violent thugs burning down buildings” Plus the explicit contrast with the “good people of St. Louis“. Sweet.
KG
@Frankensteinbeck: it’s probably not even that nuanced. it probably doesn’t go any deeper than the Fox New trope that the president is shredding the constitution, and that the first lady is undignified because she shook the queen’s hand and/or wore a sleeveless dress (the sleeveless dress thing, I think bothers them because Michelle has the arms to pull it off and they don’t).
Keep in mind, these are the same people that send around pictures of the president’s face on a witch doctor’s body and call the first lady a wookie on a regular basis.
burnspbesq
@kindness:
Sure, we can discuss that. You can start by citing the statute or regulation you claim they violated.
Do as much research as necessary.
I’ll check back on Thursday to see whether you’ve found anything.
SatanicPanic
Oh so some Rams players can make this gesture without fear of repercussions, but some staffer is forced to quit for offering useful advice to Obama’s children? Where are her First Amendment rights!?!
KG
@Jay C: don’t cops swear an oath to protect and defend the constitution of the United States and of their respective State? And don’t the federal and (most) state constitutions include something about the freedom of speech?
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@burnspbesq: That research could lead to lots of 1st Amendment cases, I suspect.
? Martin
Amazon is automating their fulfillment centers:
They’re making the job of working a fulfillment center less horrific, but eventually Amazon will find a way to automate the entire process and eliminate those workers (in favor of fewer, better paid workers that design, build, program and maintain the robots). Just a reminder to the young people to aim for careers that are value-add to employers. Packing items into boxes doesn’t make the items any better, you’re only employed because they haven’t yet figured out how to eliminate or automate that step.
Zandar
Also part of President Obama’s proposal to address police abuses: $75 million for 50,000 police body cameras.. By my back of the napkin math, that still leaves about 475,000 cops without them.
CarolDuhart2
@SatanicPanic: @RareSanity:
The resignation is because her boss has to get elected somewhere, and because she lives in a bubble that was punctured. She can say it, but has to live with the criticism.
As for the players, it’s clear that this was not an official gesture by the NFL or its employees. And it’s not as if the NFL has to worry about elections or anything.
For nearly four months, the protestors in Ferguson have been teargassed everytime they protested and faced heavy weaponry as well. If the police had respected free speech, things wouldn’t have gotten to the point where Ferguson got national. So tough STl cops. Black people have a First Amendment right to speak.
RareSanity
@KG:
I find that 9 times out of 10, when somebody starts a sentence with “I’d like to remind…”, there’s usually some authoritarian bullshit that follows it.
I’m a parent, I use it a lot myself. But it’s different when a parent says it to their child, and when adults with money/power/guns say it to other adults without those things.
GregB
If only those horrible Obama children would raise themselves up with dignity like the young Palins.
Petorado
Why should the NFL punish the players? It seems to have gone unnoticed that NFL referees also gave the “hands up, don’t shoot” sign after every score this past Sunday.
SatanicPanic
@CarolDuhart2: I was being sarcastic, maybe should have laid it on a bit thicker
CarolDuhart2
@JMG: Not only that, but the majority of the guys on the field are minorities of some sort Black/Hispanic/combination. The best way to get players to walk out in the middle of the season and crater revenues is to sanction these guys for what is clearly a First Amendment issue. Try filling rosters with scrubs who haven’t played a down in about a couple of years at best and who happen to be white in the stretch run of a season.
So there, St Louis police Association.
Another Holocene Human
@p.a.:
Very true, also the NFL is bigger than STL and whites in blue states do not broadly share the same notions about African Americans that cops and red-staters do. This is STL cops with the support of STL whites throwing a tantrum. Unfortunately instead of having a sudden epiphany due to cognitive dissonance these asshats are going to ignore the white NFL commissioner and owners and tell themselves they’ve been foiled again by Supernegro.
The white supremacist is the most discriminated against man in America. //
Bruuuuce
@Jay C: “…I’d remind the NFL and their players that it is not the violent thugs burning down buildings that buy their advertiser’s products. It’s cops and the g/o/o/d/ white people of St. Louis and other NFL towns that do. Somebody needs to throw a flag on this play. If it’s not the NFL and the Rams, then it’ll be cops and their _white_ supporters.”
There. FTFY. (Actually, fixed it for the STLPA, who get a hearty GFY for this crap.)
MomSense
Apparently Roberts is pissed about the EO on immigration and now there is speculation that he will get his revenge on the ACA insurance subsidies case.
Great. The way to punish Obama is to take away the health insurance for millions of people who otherwise can’t afford it.
Another Holocene Human
@beltane: win.
Seanly
@Hal:
Nice little passive-aggressive digs at the POTUS & FLOTUS. She’s basically saying “They don’t respect the nicer quarters we’ve deigned to give these uppity blahs.”
I expect this white b*tch to have a Regeny book about proper etiquette for children of politicians (IOKIYAR) out within a couple of weeks.
Another Holocene Human
@Jay C: I’m sure they really won points with the NFL communications team by couching it as a veiled threat. What do they mean by “plan” to exercise 1st amendment rights … isn’t their fucking union mouthing off 1st amen right there? Or do they mean to imply other forms of expression … which given that we’re talking about cops …
Then they kind of imply a boycott. I’m sure Goodell is so scared right now, y’all.
Another Holocene Human
@KG: She was looking at them through hate glasses.
Another Holocene Human
@? Martin: Seasonal work sucks balls anyway. Don’t cry for those jobs.
When it comes to employment and wages, all of the action is at the NY Fed (Yellen) and the NLRB (which Obama staffed). Oh, and your respective state houses (if your state sucks, I feel your pain – Florida for me).
What Amazon is up to is not a biggie. If the Fed is more about profits for the few than employment for the many, look out, and if you can’t enforce the pathetic labor laws we have, look out again. There’s a damn good reason the middle class and working class lost a ton of ground during the Bush years. That shit was deliberate.
ETA: oh yeah and there’s tax policy as well, that is federal, but we would need a progressive sweep of govt committed to reinstating progressive taxes and THIS time, we would have to come after those gilded age estates, which would basically be war at this point
RareSanity
@CarolDuhart2:
First, I’d say that there are two completely separate instances that I talking about. The display of hands up in protest by the Rams players…which was on-point, thoughtful, and courageous…which I also, personally fully support. Then there is the NFL’s decision to not take any disciplinary action against those players.
As far as the NFL’s non-action…I’ve been a fan of the NFL since as long as I can remember (almost 40 years), and I can say with relative confidence that the NFL took no action against these players because, frankly, there just was not much negative sentiment from the public about it…and it got a lot of media coverage.
There’s a reason that this announcement wasn’t made until mid-afternoon today, even though the “event” occurred early yesterday afternoon…they were waiting to see what the public response would be when it hit the morning shows. Once they saw that, outside of Fox News, the response was either indifferent-to-positive, they decided not to do anything.
You’ll note that their press release did not take a position on any rights of the players, or the situation in Ferguson. They just said, (paraphrasing) “We respect that there are strong opinions on both sides of the issue.”
Eric U.
@Jay C: seems like there are violent thugs in STL with uniforms, and the statement by the police association is proof positive of that. Looks like a threat, “we got guns and a license to kill, so watch what you say”
Arclite
I hope it spreads to other teams. C’mon whiteys, you can participate too!
Another Holocene Human
@Zandar: I wonder if that was done with input from the congressional players. Not a very bold proposal, I agree. He’s got a GOP lege, and the CoC as an ally of convenience right now. CoC won some primaries and maybe they can use that against the teatoddlers. Hard to fix stupid, though.
Belafon
@Eric U.:
A cop that kills an NFL owner’s property will pay dearly.
Another Holocene Human
@CarolDuhart2:
Exactly. Her mistake is that she works for an elected official and this is a gaffe. If she worked for a wingnut welfare organ or had a RW blog, she could say that shit all day long and nobody would bat an eyelash.
I guess she was too young and dumb to understand all the subtleties of context. Not that I forgive her obviously, she ran her mouth, she can live with the consequences. And she is a person who is filled with hate.
Mandalay
@RareSanity:
Yep. And make that 10 times out of 10 when someone uses the word “thug” to support their position.
Face
@MomSense: They wouldn’t have taken the case, in the midst of still being adjudicated in the lower courts, if they didn’t already know they had the votes to bounce the subs.
And once the Red Team recognizes that this court will just toss all precedent and common sense aside, I look forward to them presenting SCOTUS with all sorts of shit in need of reversing in their minds. A rogue SOCTUS can do a shit ton of damage, regardless of a Dem in office next term.
? Martin
@Another Holocene Human:
Oh, yes it is. Apple is increasingly automating their assembly lines – there’s a million workers on those lines. Automation is getting to the point where small businesses can deploy robots. You’re going to see other forms of fulfillment automated. A large target is the 2 million or so workers for the USPS and delivery services.
This will create a significant number of jobs, but fewer than it displaces. Most likely the GDP of these groups will be constant – you’ll get back half as many jobs paying twice as much, which is awesome if you’re a programmer, etc. and not so great if dropped out of school or didn’t go after that college degree. This will be a significant displacement in workers over the next few decades, which is why I issue it as a warning to young people – make sure you’re on the right side of this.
Bottom line is that workers that aren’t replaceable have much better working conditions and much less need for unions and other forms of labor protection than workers that are replaceable. If the CEO is frustrated that robots aren’t quite ready to do this robotic work, then that person is going to treat you like the robot they want to replace you with. It’s not right, but it’s going to happen. Best to avoid finding yourself in that position if you are at these decision points early in life.
beltane
@Face: It once took a war to undo the damage inflicted by a rogue SCOTUS. Who know what it would take now.
Villago Delenda Est
@FlyingToaster: Fine. Let the heads of the winger scum explode.
Joel
Well, I’m glad the NFL decided to not fuck up one thing this season.
Another Holocene Human
@RareSanity: I opened up my mouth and said this yesterday to my hippy dippy friends who are raising two children:
Cops and other authoritarians don’t get that a parent-child relationship is different from any other relationship. (This is one reason we have age of consent laws, btw, because of the psychology of a child interacting with an adult.) A crucial part of a child’s development, and not an easy one, is learning how to interact with peers in a cooperative fashion without bullying, hitting, drawing in adults as bullies by proxy, etc. There’s a whole toolchest of behaviors that have to be mastered to get other people to cooperate with you since they by definition aren’t required to cooperate with you.
Cops have decided they don’t like that so they go in public armed to the teeth and ready to attack. They put the public on defensive as victims. And they can victimize you in public or back at the station. But that still doesn’t make them parents and that still doesn’t make their mode of interaction valid, especially in a democracy. Instead it makes them seem as criminal as the criminals they’re supposed to be bringing to justice.
scav
@Another Holocene Human:
It’s not like she was a communications director or anything. Oh, their cute little staffing pretences . . .
Arclite
@? Martin: Yeah, automation is just a reality, and young people should be prepping for jobs that aren’t automatable. 150 years ago 75% of the nation were farmers. Today it’s 1% due to mechanization and automation. Apple and Amazon employees will have to retrain and find other jobs, and it sucks, but it can’t be helped.
Joel
@? Martin: Yeah, but it’s worth keeping in mind that people don’t choose a career in the Amazon packaging industry.
beltane
@Villago Delenda Est: The problem is that when winger heads explode, the rest of the country gets sprayed with the resulting foul-smelling slime.
? Martin
@Joel: True. But many are presented opportunities to do something more early in life and let those go by. There’s a lot of ‘I’ll figure it out later’ only to realize that when later rolls around you’re too busy working Amazon fulfillment to go to school and learn the things you need for a better career.
max
@Zandar: By my back of the napkin math, that still leaves about 475,000 cops without them.
Probably because there will be no money from Congress. A small ask has a better chance (still low) of a result. If he’s going to use discretionary money, well, he hasn’t got much in the way of discretionary money that would apply.
@Jay C:
Wow. The cops in St. Louis are really losing their shit.
max
[‘I did not know (prior to Furguson) that St. Louis was still so far down the white supremacist rathole.’]
ms_canadada
@Elizabelle: So she uses the girls to get to the parents…good thing the Obama Family is able to rise above all the crap.
This Canadian loves your First Family, especially Granny.
Villago Delenda Est
@beltane: I’m willing to put up with the smell for a short time in order to send the wingnuts to Hell, where they belong.
scav
@beltane: It’s not like what is constantly sprewing from their lips already is exacly a controlled leak though.
JPL
@MomSense: he was going to take it away anyhow.
Another Holocene Human
@MomSense:
Seriously? Is he stupid or something? All it is is 3 years max of deferred action so some people who are eligible to apply for green cards anyway can do so. It’s mostly necessary because INS takes fucking forever to process anyone’s application for anything because they suck. Some of them aren’t eligible in the US but would be eligible outside the US because the law is an ass. So Obama’s like, you get a 3 year library fine holiday. Turn in all of those books you know belong at the library but never returned because it was 5 years ago.
Plus he threw in some post-grad slave labor visas as a sop to the bidniss community. Roberts should be eating that shit up with a spoon.
Seriously, is Roberts afraid whatever family he stole his children from will be coming for him now? DACA was a lot more dramatic, IMO, even if it affected less people. It was an actual policy change, this last thing was a bandaid.
Zandar
@max: You’re right of course, but the response from Congress will be “Sure, now what will you cut to pay for it?”
beltane
@Another Holocene Human:
Whenever his children come of age, they will almost certainly take a DNA test in an effort to reconnect with their birth families.
Another Holocene Human
@Seanly: She’s probably an overgrown Southern sorority sister who got used to negging all the junior girls because her family had some status and she was queen bee. The notion that there is this thing outside of the sorority bubble called “fashion sense”, Michelle Obama has it, Elizabeth Lauten couldn’t find it if it poked her between the eyes, is just beyond her ken. So here she is trying to establish dominance by negging again and finding herself out on her ass AND IT’S JUST NOT FAIR!!!
(I would not be surprised if the way sorority girls dress themselves in public for official events is part of the hazing. One year they were all wearing pillow cases cinched at the waist. Okay, I know they bought them at Dillard’s in the dress section, but they looked like pillow cases. Ugh.)
Death Panel Truck
@Joel: It’s also worth keeping in mind that Amazon packaging employees didn’t choose to be victims of the Bush economic collapse. I wonder how many of them aren’t able to find better jobs because of it.
Another Holocene Human
@? Martin: And I’m telling you, dude, that automation is not where the eggs are scrambled in high unemployment and low wages!!! That shit happens in NYC and Wash, DC.
There is PLENTY O MONEY to go around and there is no reason on god’s green earth that employed people should be working 60 hour weeks. Or 50 hour weeks. We tried 40, that wasn’t bad. 37 or 36 or 35 would be fine, too. Not every person in the household needs to be working. We could keep unemployment low, improve wages and benefits, and curtail this overtime explosion.
Look at the stock market. The economy is not laid out on the ground getting its head bashed in with a bottle any more.
And any change for workers is going to happen in DC and NYC if it happens at all. Or in your state lege. Not all states have had the same recovery because not all states made the same choices.
beltane
An exception to this year’s decline in Black Friday sales numbers, guns: http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/business-of-the-holidays/gun-sales-boom-black-friday-n259001
Amerika, fuck yeah!
Another Holocene Human
@? Martin:
The jobs that robots replace were NOT unionized, there were OSHA violations a-plenty, they were employed seasonally and at-will and the pay was atrocious.
Your analysis is flawed. Workers have NO leverage if they can’t seize the means of production. GUESS WHAT THAT IS ILLEGAL. Your only recourse is through NLRB procedures, and if there is no NLRB, as during the GWB years, YOU ARE FUCKED.
RareSanity
@Another Holocene Human:
They also seem to be continuously shocked when after they’ve had enough of the bullying, even (what they perceive as) the weakest kid will snap and fight back…almost unconsciously, with inhuman strength and fury.
Another Holocene Human
@scav: GOPers seem to think that PR and communications is about having the right friends and knowing how to do your makeup right for the photo op. The degree of unprofessional behavior I’ve seen by GOP PR/communications people is incredible. It’s even more incredible because not everybody on Team Red is a blithering incompetent. Many of them are very good at their jobs. And they don’t seem to hurt for cash.
I think some of it is about “the tribe” and their desire to hire and promote within the tribe and assuming everything else will take care of itself. It really shows who is cynical and who is true believer or at least pretty delusional. The cynical ones will run a tight ship and hire pros.
Bob In Portland
Here is some mightly fine NY Times propaganda for you.
Half stories are half-stories. Alois Brunner was connected to Reinhard Gehlen’s Org after the war and worked for the CIA in the Middle East in WWII. The CIA protected him and used him. Early fifties.
Why would Brunner’s dying four years ago in Syria be front page news for the New York Times? Oh, he was in Syria four years ago and we’re trying to knock over Syria now.
Another Holocene Human
@Arclite: Any job that destroys your back and/or kidneys by age 35 is not to be mourned.
Martin’s stuck in a common fallacy that holds that ‘for want of this shitty job, a household was lost’. Well, no. Your household was robbed several layers above Amazon and its influence in the world.
Also, broken window fallacy. Just as a broken window doesn’t stimulate the economy, really shitty jobs that make people die early don’t actually drive local economic engines. Just like in Appalachia, ever seen a coal town that’s thriving? Not exactly, right? How about Louisiana and those oil rigs?
If all of the added value is being sucked out with a very long straw to somewhere far far away–I don’t know, maybe like your milkshake?–then all those “goods” of dirty jobs don’t accrue to the community, there is no benefit, they could be just as poor and broke without the death, disability, and pollution.
Tata
Did I totally space it or is there a 2015 calendar?
Another Holocene Human
@? Martin: You sound like you have somebody very specific in mind.
I can remember in the late 90s when an amazon warehouse job was very desirable because you got company stock … some people cashed out at the right time and got very wealthy …
but once the bubble was over they were still addicted to low pay … and the rest is history
? Martin
@Another Holocene Human:
I’m not saying that. I’m not bemoaning the loss of those jobs at all. I’m just saying to young people that there will be increasingly fewer jobs that you can walk into unskilled in the future. The trend is inevitable and not undesirable, but it’ll kick your ass if you aren’t recognizing it and stepping up.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
God bless the internet:
Elizabeth Lauten, the GOP staffer who resigned Monday morning after calling President Obama’s teenage daughters classless, was arrested when she was 17 for shoplifting, according to the Smoking Gun.
I expect that whichever internet widget is the one with pictures will have a thread dedicated to every available fashion choice she’s made in the last ten years.
Another Holocene Human
@max:
Me either, although I wasn’t exactly shocked. What was shocking was how surprised they were at the attention it was all getting. Like the total lack of national media savvy. You wouldn’t see that in a big city in Texas or Florida. I don’t know if STL is overall worse than the South or not but STL has definitely been in a bubble and has not faced that kind of scrutiny.
Tree With Water
Chris Rock was recently interviewed and made this salient point, among others (republished in today’s Salon.com).
“When we talk about race relations in America or racial progress, it’s all nonsense. There are no race relations. White people were crazy. Now they’re not as crazy. To say that black people have made progress would be to say they deserve what happened to them before…So, to say Obama is progress is saying that he’s the first black person that is qualified to be president. That’s not black progress. That’s white progress. There’s been black people qualified to be president for hundreds of years”.
Another Holocene Human
@? Martin: Then I’m not sure what your point is because I’m pretty sure young folk today are WELL aware of that shit.
I’m confused about what you said earlier about passing up other opportunities. Are you aware of that summer unemployment rates for Black teens? There are no opportunities being rolled their way!
beltane
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: So Lauter is not only a tramp, she is a thug as well. If she was black instead of putty-pink she would be worthy of being executed according to wingnuts such as herself.
Another Holocene Human
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Whatever that was she was wearing during the beer pic kind of told me everything I need to know. Her first image on Google is also pretty atrocious. We’re talking some serious sartorial Dunning-Kruger here.
PurpleGirl
@Tata: Yes, there will be a 2015 calendar. The deadline for giving in pictures was the beginning of November, IIRC. There should be mention of ordering it coming soon.
beltane
Why are Republican congress reps allowed to employ such lawless thugs like Elizabeth Lauter? I bet she steals taxpayer funded office supplies.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@beltane: @Another Holocene Human: also, too, before she worked for Congress’s biggest Welfare King, our parenting critic worked for Congress’s most famous (and given the internet, we can probably assume, only) deadbeat dad, Joe Walsh.
(I’m following this precisely because it’s so silly, the news du jour is too fucking depressing)
Bob In Portland
Another victory for Big Oil.
I got lots of grief around here for suggesting the coup in Ukraine was about who controlled the energy in Europe. And lookee, lookee, what a coincidence, Bulgaria doesn’t want the South Stream now. What a surprise.
People will be freezing in the streets of Kiev this winter because someone at Chevron’s headquarters wanted to squeeze a little more money.
So keep on building those LNG terminals! Hooray.
Another Holocene Human
@Tree With Water: That’s an interesting take. I still think there is something to the argument that techniques of resistance are not equal in their effectiveness. MLK jr took an interest in non-violent resistance because it was working. It worked in the US too. It didn’t work in Prague or Hungary but it worked in Selma and Birmingham.
There are techniques of war and there are techniques of non-violent resistance. If you look at the history of Black resistance since the Am Rev, pursuing redress through the courts has been a consistent theme. There have been times that court strategies have succeeded, but many other times they have failed. Either because the SCOTUS is biased or because terrorism redrew the whole playing field.
This is a war, an asymmetric war, and part of that war has been about redrawing the battle lines, redefining the enemy, and winning hearts and minds.
What Chris Rock is missing, or maybe he addressed this elsewhere, is that Black people fought that war. White people never changed their minds on their own, for the most part. Survivors of slavery were in great demand and repute in the Abolitionist community because they brought recruits into the fold, not some Northern white folks thumping a Bible and moralizing. White people have had little progress “solving” this problem on their own turf … mostly because they don’t have to. They just shield themselves from the consequences of the world they’re created. So this has been a history of self-help with very little assistance from others. I think that’s a hopeful message. I think it’s also realistic.
Woodrowfan
@Zandar:
it’s a start, and once some cops start getting them, other communities will start saying “hey, why does Shelbyville get them and we don’t?” Once some places can show that it works, others will follow…
rlrr
Lauten has a Linkedin profile.
JaneE
Next thing you know, the SLPD will condemn North Korea for criticizing the US on human rights issues. As for the players, I can’t help but think that they are the better role models for siding with the oppressed instead of the oppressors. The constitution, our highest law, requires that all persons have equal protection under it. Too bad the police in St. Lou can’t follow that law.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
isn’t Schilling also the one who went broke with Rhode Island’s money?
CONGRATULATIONS!
@Arclite: Most of our jobs are make-work anyhow, especially the white collar ones. Take away the last of the manual labor jobs from the proles and you’ll have a staggeringly huge underclass who will never be employed save for sporadic day labor opportunities, at best. Because, let’s face reality: maybe 1 in 100 of those folks will have the brains, ambition, intellectual ability and opportunity to make the jump to skilled labor.
At that point, you can kiss a number of things goodbye:
1. A stable society
2. A safe society
3. Liberalism
There is no best case scenario here. You cut out labor by eliminating people with robots and you’re going to get a society that nobody can survive in.
Another Holocene Human
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Ah, so she IS a true believer!
Yeah, I’ve noticed this too, staffers for wingnut congresscritters that come from out of state. It’s like, yeah, you’re really in it for the local population, right? So tuned in you have a staffer from CO at your local office in FL. Uh huh.
? Martin
@Another Holocene Human: They’re not. I should say, more are, but most are not. I work with a lot of high school age students, and they still don’t really get it. The ones that do get it are motivated but frustrated and stressed because universities aren’t keeping up with the demand.
The lack of opportunities for black teens is part of a different problem. The regional lack of access to opportunities yet another problem.
Another Holocene Human
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Curt Schilling: still inept and understanding things. Still quick with the insults, though.
I guess what makes great sports drama doesn’t make for a good person.
RobertDSC (Quad Intel Mac)
Is anyone else getting Verizon voice ads while reading pages here at BJ? I get them every so often and can’t figure out where they’re coming from.
They only appear here at BJ, no where else. Strange.
Another Holocene Human
@CONGRATULATIONS!: Spare me the platitudes about the proles. More than 1/100 felons managed to get into skilled work and that’s with our criminally bad “reform” system. The proles aren’t as dumb and violent as you take them for, and white collar workers aren’t as smart as they think they are either. I’ve worked both and I’ll tell you something, blue collar has the dishonest users just like white collar, but blue collar has to work at that work-avoiding game. It’s a pretty low bullshit threshold kind of place. Yeah, even where you’ve supposedly seen “five guys standing around” or “all these people getting paid to do nothing”. There are rules at those workplaces. I have seen some bullshit, though. Anyone in a truck or truck crew who can run off from the job site and is doing something self-directed, if the foreman is really lazy or in on it they can fuck off for hours not working. Seen it happen. But that means the white collars above them were lazy or incompetent.
Tommy
@AliceBlue: Funny thing, as a St. Louis resident, this isn’t the first time a few Rams players have done this. They also as an entire team been interlocking arms during the National Anthem. The players and coaches have been quick to point out the only real political statement they are trying to make is they want peace and love for their fans and the community they play in.
In fact after the St. Louis Police Officers Association said the NFL should do something, several of the players released statement again even more forcefully saying these were their fans. They buy tickets, purchase jerseys, and that it is painful for them to watch this. If he wasn’t for these fans they wouldn’t have a job nor be making all the money they are making. Peace and love!
BTW: These players are all pretty young (I mean really young) players. Now I am not a Rams fans (it isn’t even PC to type the name of my team), but at least the way I see they drafted some players with a lot of integrity, and that folks is how to start to build a Super Bowl team IMHO.
schrodinger's cat
@RobertDSC (Quad Intel Mac): I see no ads, I have NoScript installed.
beltane
@CONGRATULATIONS!: When most of society consists of an unemployed underclass, the need for skilled labor of any kind will also decline. The presence of a large middle class is a historical anomaly, and one which requires effort and will to maintain. It’s quite possible that the future will look like the past: a handful of people who own everything, their servants and security guards, and then everyone else.
Doug r
@AliceBluge: too bad they had to leave LA to win the Superbowl and then get classy. They were my favorite team before the Seahawks were formed.
Tommy
@Woodrowfan: Not to remotely highjack this thread, but it is related. Laying in bed last night I listened to Wilson’s interview again. I had a thought, where the heck is the video from this dashboard cam? Then when I thought about it more, not even heard a single person ask that question.
Jeffro
@Tree With Water: That whole interview was fantastic – too many good points to mention just one. Read here: http://www.vulture.com/2014/11/chris-rock-frank-rich-in-conversation.html
skerry
@Tommy: I understood that there was no dashboard camera.
beltane
@Another Holocene Human: People who deny the rigidness of our class system are truly delusional. As hard as it is to move up a rung on the ladder, it just as hard for the offspring of the rich to move down. They can be dumb, lazy, and unmotivated as they want (and many of them are), but unless they suffer from a severe developmental disability or an untreated substance abuse problem, they are going to do well in life. Even during the middle ages, the occasional son of a peasant would rise through the ranks, but for the vast majority of the population, then as now, your life track is pretty much determined from before you are born. The upheavals of the mid-20th century may have equalized things a bit (the Russian revolution really scared the shit out of the elites), but we seem to be reverting to the mean at a rapid clip.
Woodrowfan
deleted. OBE
CONGRATULATIONS!
@beltane: That was kind of my point. Thanks for getting it.
And yesah, that is what the future is going to look like, because we (collective “we”) are too stupid to make anything else happen.
ETA: oh yeah, and “everyone else” will be dead, because robots.
Tenar Darell
@Another Holocene Human: Schilling is an object lesson that sports heros often fail to evolve into successful businessman. Also, this may have something to do with the fact that they’ve been working in a legal monopoly environment for years. /sarcasm
Another Holocene Human
@beltane: A new dark age because that way lies economic collapse.
JPL
@Another Holocene Human: Most staffing jobs occur because of family money, given in the form of donations. I don’t know anything about her particular situation though.
Heck, I don’t even know if she has granite countertops.
Another Holocene Human
@beltane: @CONGRATULATIONS!:
You get there via a massive die-off. This can be managed by elites (see: Russian Federation) but there will be violence. Quite a bit of it. And there’s no guarantee that the elites won’t topple in a bread or rice riot. That they will be replaced by other, just as craven elites following their public executions will be little comfort.
Tommy
@skerry: Which of course begs the questions WTF. Wilson was “tooling” around in a pretty new if not almost brand new SUV from the pics I’ve seen. Not like a 10-year-old car where they would have to retrofit a dashboard cam. I don’t know, but are there really any police forces buying new vehicles without cams? I can get a GoPro for $129.99. You’d think will all the tickets I’ve read the city gives they could have found the funds, I mean they did for the SUV itself.
Another Holocene Human
@JPL: It’s either actual money or big hat no cattle or no money but aping the ones who had it as she attempts to personally claw her way up but the last seems less likely to me. Just by the way she talks, acts, dresses. I think the last tends to try to put out a more conservative image (think Rick Scott or Billionaire Boy’s Club) because they are painfully aware that they can get tossed back down the ladder and the truly rich kids they’re manipulating won’t.
Another Holocene Human
@Tommy: Yes, this is a lovely question, isn’t it?
Tommy
@Tenar Darell: Or just because you like to play video games 24/7, like Schilling did, doesn’t mean you can develop a video game. I am a pretty huge gamer and don’t think for a split second I could develop a game, even if I had the almost unlimited resources I’ve read Schilling had. I read some of the “gaming” sites on a daily basis and developing a huge game, like he was trying to do, is arguably far harder than doing a major studio movie. Often costs a lot more and takes far long.
NeutronFlux
@RareSanity: Outstanding comment and true as an added bonus.
aimai
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: You must really be a foolish literalist if you can’t figure out what that means! But I think that must be sarcasm. Yup. The entire slut shaming of the Obama girls was meant as a sideswipe at the déclassé arrivistes cum savages currently occupying the seat meant for Mitt Romney and his boy band.
aimai
@RareSanity: Maybe they should riot? And see how they like police batons and tear gas from the other side? Wish a motherfucker would.
FlyingToaster
@beltane: Bleach is cheap.
gene108
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
There are holes in what Darwin originally surmised, but those holes have more to do with our understanding of the natural world and the microscopic world, since Darwin put his ideas together.
But his general idea are still spot on and the basis of much of modern science.
Another Holocene Human
I read more of Chris Rock’s comments. I still think he is a reactionary. How can he say white people need to own the actions of their “dads” when they won’t even own their OWN actions. The past is important, it shapes and informs the present. But white people have a big fat problem owning what is going on RIGHT THE FUCK NOW. They fucking think that blackface and Native appropriation is no biggie. They think saying nasty things should have no consequences and minorities need to learn to “take a joke”. They think that perpetuating injustice is a-okay, and they are visibly online and in public rooting for injuries. They want to take Barack Obama down and any other visible Black man who doesn’t shuck’n’jive and kiss their ass. They want to feed their hatred of poor mestizo migrants and Arab Muslims far away whose culture and politics they know nothing about, and throw tantrums when anybody tries to get them to not stop but just cool it for a while.
Who gives a fuck what your dad did. That’s white america’s whole problem, thinking “I’m speshull because my ancestors were speshull and I have speshull genes.” It’s the deadly sins that Gandhi spoke of, wealth without work, pleasure without conscience. As human beings, we have to answer for OUR OWN actions. And that includes profiting off of iniquity. The big lie of American white supremacy is that racism and inequality was all in the past. The whole explosion of Ferguson is one more served on a silver platter example that NO! It’s right now! It explodes white supremacist lies and they hate that. They’ve been shouting down the truth ever since because they hate that.
Chris Rock, you’re a very funny man, but your social commentary sucks as much now as it did in the 1990s. Go back to wisecracking in Kevin Smith movies.
Tenar Darell
@Tommy: True. The tax breaks he got for moving his company to Rhode Island, did not solve the underlying problems with his business which were evident in Massachusetts. And then he blamed RI for not throwing good money after bad to bail him out when he failed to do something, as you say, quite hard. Personally, every time he says something un-educated, and F.O.C. like he has been about evolution, someone should point out to him that he has vividly proven, he has no expertise to comment on anything other than pitching. (Man, he pisses me off as much as tax payer funded stadiums).
Another Holocene Human
The notion that talent is inborn is not only part of white supremacy, it’s part of the reason that Americans do poorly in school compared to other countries, especially East Asian countries.
Americans firmly believe that if you don’t show an early aptitude for something that you shouldn’t put much effort into it because you’ll never get better and you’re just making a fool of yourself and wasting everyone’s time. But if you’re good at something you should go all out (but make it look easy or something’s wrong with you) and make it your career. Heck, you OWE it to everyone to do so.
This is nothing more than a peculiar cultural belief. It is not backed up by anything. Funny story, in East Asia they have a cultural belief that the person who works the hardest will succeed. So a kid who is bad at math will study harder, and probably beat the score of the kid who found it easy and slacked off.
This is a cultural belief too and has some weaknesses … but they are right about one thing–it’s perfectly possible for the kid with a weaker aptitude to outshine the kid with more “talent” by being more determined and persistent, qualities that will also help you succeed in life after school, unlike most of the social lessons that school teaches.
Belafon
@Another Holocene Human: I think you’re wrong to dismiss Rock’s point. You are correct that whites need to own what they are doing. But we whites also have to own up to the advantages we have gained, and the costs blacks have suffered, by our parents actions against blacks. Until whites come to terms with that, we will never reconcile all of the issues. If you have a fifty yard head start in the hundred yard dash, it doesn’t matter if you say “Yeah, you can also start when the starting gun goes off.”
Another Holocene Human
@Tenar Darell: Yeah, he pisses me off as much as wealthfare stadiums too. What he did to RI, with help from the feckless RI GOP, was pretty sick.
Mike in NC
@rlrr: From Columbia, SC. Speaks volumes.
Belafon
@Another Holocene Human:
No, they don’t. Otherwise we wouldn’t have this idea that you can be whatever you want to be, including president.
Considering that a lot of other countries have tests you take early on that decide whether you will go to college, and which college you will go to, we’re quite a bit different from your statement.
Another Holocene Human
@Belafon: I disagree because the first thing any white person in denial tells me is “Yeah, I know all about Jim Crow (slavery, lynching, yadda yadda) but that was in the past. There’s no reason those people can’t succeed now.
It’s the assist to the “bad culture” bad faith argument layup.
And that is not okay.
You can’t understand the present without looking into the past. But you can’t change the present without OWNING the present. And that means pulling your ass out of the past or your distorted version of it and dealing with RIGHT NOW.
Another Holocene Human
@Another Holocene Human: oh, and Chris Rock is often cited by white people as they make their bad faith “it’s the culture” argument
I’m in no position to tell Rock to sit down and frankly, it’s all a little too cute because he wasn’t even speaking to them. They (bad faith argument white people) need to sit their ass down. But I think I’m right about how Rock conceptualizes these issues and I think he’s wrong. Wrong on the analysis and wrong on what to do about it.
Tommy
@Tenar Darell: Exactly. I am a gamer and a huge baseball fan (Cardinals, not the Red Sox BTW) so for me the story of his company was like a “perfect storm” of interest. How he fleeced the taxpayers of RI is stunning. And of MA. But what always gets me is that at one time his company had about 230 employees, full-time. He hid his financial problems so well that one day they thought they had good jobs. And literally the next day they were unemployed.
That pissed me off more than anything. Many, many software well any business often have problems. They have the ability to look at the books and realize this, sure layout people, but ultimately give the company a chance to be successful. They tell employees this (have at a firm I worked at). Best I can tell from the stories I’ve read Schilling just kept thinking spend more money, we’ll be fine. Spend more money. Hide the problems.
That worked out for Schilling the way it has worked out for everybody else that does it, not so well!
Bob In Portland
@Another Holocene Human: But if someone suggests that Ebola originated in that laboratory in Germany where they had that accident with the Marburg virus you’d be accused of being a conspiracy theorist.
Another Holocene Human
@Belafon: “you can be whatever you want to be” because we ALSO have a cultural belief that running organizations takes no particular talent except for extreme chutzpah
that is why we hire sociopaths and narcissists to run all of our major organizations
we do NOT believe that anyone can be an olympic athlete, or anyone can be a science genius, or that anyone can sing, etc, etc
in fact a lot of people have been excluded because of existing preconceptions of where this “talent” would be found
gene108
@Another Holocene Human:
Asian cultures believe a lot more in inherent talent than America does.
You come from a community that produces doctors, lawyers, etc., it is expected you should be better at academics than a kid, who comes from a community that produces shop owners.
The problem with American education is that there are and always have been a few badly performing areas, due in large part to poverty and generational poverty, coupled with those who want to keep the unequal system in place and/or have taken hold of well intentioned reform ideas as a chance for personal profits, as seen in the current education reform movement.
Most Americans go to public schools and most Americans are satisfied with the schools they or their children attend.
gene108
@Tommy:
Seems to be the M.O. of any (temporarily) cash rich Venture Capital funded company. As long as the owners are spending other people’s money everyone gets paid well, but when they do not produce what the VC’s think will be worth while for future investments, they will pull up stakes in a heartbeat, like they were never there, and screw their employees and vendors.
The company I work with was a vendor to several VC dot.com firms, back in 1999 and 2000, and to a one, when the funds ran out they had no problem shafting us and as they had little in the way of tangible assets, there was not a lot of stuff to attach any judgements against them to.
Tommy
@Another Holocene Human: The past wasn’t that long ago on this topic. There are many African Americans today that can recall in their youth winking or smiling at a “white” women, much less dating her could get you lynched. Heck helping them to register to vote. These people are not 104. They are 70.
I so hate to admit this, but my family owned slaves. I knew in my lifetime, and I am 44, family members that knew those slave owners. This wasn’t 500 years ago, it was in the not distant past. I recall one African American writer noting that his people have been slaves in this nation far, far long then they’d not been slaves.
Until this changes, and we got a couple centuries I guess, I will give a lot of leeway to African Americans to feel this or that, even if I don’t understand it. Just common courtesy isn’t it?
Belafon
@Another Holocene Human: I don’t see them as mutually exclusive. I don’t even see how you can have one without the other. Your example, to me, shows someone who neither knows what he/she’s doing now nor knows what actually happened 50+ years ago. These are the same people who probably say “It was the Democrats who were racist.”
The Thin Black Duke
@Another Holocene Human: I think what Chris Rock observed is spot on. Sorry.
Tone In DC
@beltane:
And she’s all, “Look ma, no hands!”.
Silly rabbit.
Tommy
Happy, happy thoughts. Got the chest high freezer delivered a few minutes ago. I have a super high-tech refrigerator in my kitchen. The freezer is so small. I’ve found these places (isn’t hard) to get amazing meats and other things local and even online. But no room for them. No place for a 1/4 locally slaughtered cow or pig.
No room. I now can.
Don’t laugh at me, but I would have thought it would have cost a ton more for something like this. Like part of the cost of my fridge which cost a ton. Nope, was $129. $49 for delivery for a 7.1 foot freezer.
Buying nothing that isn’t local.
Mandalay
@Another Holocene Human: A fine post. You have far more to say, and say it far more eloquently, than most of our OPs.
It’s time for Cole to do some hiring and firing in BJ’s OP department. And of course the firing should be done on Christmas Eve.
VFX Lurker
@? Martin:
Having worked in the visual effects industry, I’m not sure about that.
It takes years to acquire a certain set of skills to make a spaceship or a dragon pop out of a computer. However, despite generating billions of dollars of wealth for their clients, most of the larger VFX shops have collapsed. Most VFX artists I know will subsist on Social Security if they survive to age 62 — they have nothing saved for retirement.
Meanwhile, those who work in the unionized animation industry get three pensions + employer-paid health insurance. There’s not much difference between the technical skill set for AVENGERS and the technical skill set for BIG HERO 6. The union workers just get a better deal than the non-union workers.
Gex
As a friend of mine noted, cops are now taking offense at people sticking their hands up in the air. The gesture one uses to surrender to cops is now offensive to cops. There can be no hope for peace between citizens and cops when that is the case.
pseudonymous in nc
@MomSense:
Fine. Obama can just deport Roberts’ kids, given the questions surrounding their adoption.
(I kid, I kid, but plenty of wingnuts argued that the original ACA decision was because Roberts was being blackmailed by Big Bad Obama over the circumstances of those adoptions.)
pseudonymous in nc
@Belafon:
I agree with this. One aspect of the American educational system that’s not terrible is that it technically allows you to recover from fuckups or bad decisions: the combination of GPA and standardised tests, the broad-based nature of college courses. In Germany there’s the technical/vocational and academic split; in France there’s the grandes écoles for the ruling classes, in the UK there’s the early choice of options.
In practice, if you fuck up in the US when you’re young, you’re fucked for life, especially if your skin is the wrong colour. Also if you fuck up by taking big student loans when the nice college advisors tell you to sign the forms.