OPEN THREAD WEDNESDAY.

Tell me your thoughts or give me some insight on anything you want.

If you are a conservative, I am curious to know your thoughts about your guy, Jesse Watters, making a sexist and vile joke about your leader's daughter.

Tragedy avoided in Grand Rapids.

  * Interesting incident out of Grand Rapids, Michigan, which captures perfectly the perils and pitfalls of raising young black boys in America.

To be fair, I think that relatively speaking the Grand Rapids police department handled the situation as well as they could as well.

They were given a tip that there were kids fighting and that one of them had a gun.

Still,  you had to feel for the mothers of these children as they watched while they were confronted by the police.

These kids were young and scared. What if one of them panicked and tried to run? What if just one of the officers lacked proper training, and, as a result, while the child was running, he panicked as well and then shot the runner to death? 

You can watch the video here.

I am just thankful for body cameras and cell phones. 

Thoughts?   

*Pic courtesy of abcnews.go.com

FOX has a Negro problem, and Sheriff Clarke has an inmate problem.

  It looks like more trouble for FOX VIEWS. Some African American litigants are stating that allegedly FOX fostered a culture in that news organization that was not only misogynist, but it was racist as well.

The treatment and alleged sexual harassment of women is well documented, but now a group of African American employees are giving us an insight into how they treated their African American employees who toiled on the FOX plantation.

 "Fox News scourge Gabriel Sherman is now reporting that a racial discrimination lawsuit will be filed by seven African American employees this week. The suit alleges that employees of color were forced to arm wrestle for the entertainment of white employees. Sherman appeared on yesterday’s AM Joy on MSNBC to chat about the latest details in the case.

'I obtained a letter from their attorneys that was sent to Fox that described really horrific acts of racial discrimination in which black employees were forced to arm wrestle for the entertainment of white employees in the accounting department,' he said.

 

He added that this sort of information proves that the culture of Fox is entrenched and cannot be changed with O’Reilly’s ouster alone.

'This is a systemic problem at Fox News that was created by Roger Ailes over two decades,' said Sherman. Back in March, Fox was slapped with a different racial discrimination lawsuit..." [Source]

I am still not sure how a person of color with a conscience could work for FOX, but if what is alleged is true, they will deserve every penny that FOX has to pay to settle the suit.

Speaking of trouble, that fraud masquerading as a sheriff in Milwaukee's just might have some splaining to do.

 "A mentally ill man who last year died of severe dehydration in a jail run by Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke was kept in his cell for seven days straight after jail employees cut off his water supply, a prosecutor in Wisconsin said Monday.

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports that prosecutors told a six-person jury on Monday that cutting off water to Terrill Thomas’ cell was “highly irregular and contrary to standard operating procedure in the jail.” The comments came as part of an inquest into Thomas’ death, in which the jury decides whether there’s probable cause to charge anyone with a crime in Thomas’ death.

Assistant District Attorney Kurt Benkley told jurors that it “became apparent” that Thomas “was unable to tell people about his basic needs,” according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. The jury is considering whether there is probable cause to charge any jail officials with abuse of a prisoner.
In a court filing last month, the district attorney argued that abusing, neglecting, or ill-treating a prisoner is a public welfare offense.

“Inmates are at the mercy of their jailors for basic life-sustaining necessities like water, food, and medical care,” the district attorney wrote in a court filing. “When a mentally ill inmate, like Mr. Thomas, is locked in solitary confinement without access to water, his life is totally in his jailors’ hands. The law much strictly require jailors to safeguard lives which are so completely entrusted to their care. Stupidity, thoughtlessness, indifference, and incompetence are not morally sufficient excuses nor valid legal defenses.”

Thomas’ death was included in The Huffington Post’s investigative project examining jail deaths across the United States in the year after the high-profile death of Sandra Bland in police custody in 2015. 

of President Donald Trump who makes frequent appearances on conservative news outlets, appears to take a hands-off approach to managing the jail he’s charged with running and has deflected blame for the deaths that occurred on his watch. The Justice Department had been considering launching a civil rights investigation into the conditions at the Milwaukee County Jail, but the status of that potential investigation is unclear.

Erik J. Heipt, an attorney for Thomas’ family, noted that Monday was the one-year anniversary of his “senseless” death." [Source]

Sheriff Clarke would have been better off paying more attention to his jail instead of running around the country trying to score Brownie points with right-wingnuts by being their token black guy who isn't afraid to tell it like it is to "those other Negroes".

The thing is about Negroes like David Clarke is this: Their star will shine for a little while, but sooner or later they will crash and burn. Because that's what these types of Negroes do. They just can't help themselves.   

Just Donald being Donald.

 I know that Donald trump is new to this public service thing, and if he wasn't such a jerk I suppose I would let some of the dumb stuff that he does slide. Sadly for him, though, I cannot.

Take for instance one of the latest shockingly dumb things that he said. He actually visited a soldier to give him the Purple Heart and then told the man, "congratulations."

  "I wanted to do it myself," Trump told Barrientos as he placed the Purple Heart on the soldier's lapel. “Congratulations … tremendous.” The medal is given to service members who were wounded or killed in battle. "  [Source]

This is like sending someone a smiling face emoji after offering your condolences to them for losing a loved one. Only it's worse because we are talking about our president and commander in chief honoring one of our brave soldiers.

Of course we are not hearing much about this because it's Donald trump. The bar has been set so low for this guy that even missteps such as this one are pretty much ignored.

Can you imagine if President Obama had done this? FOX VIEWS would dedicate a day or two of programming to his faux pas. Pundits would be declaring him unfit to be president and they would be demanding that he be held accountable for his insensitive and clueless actions while acting as commander in chief.

Not Donald J. trump. He is our reality television star president, and we have to view everything that he does with a grain of salt. He has become somewhat of a running national joke, and everyone gets it except his loyal group of followers and sycophants. They are the 39% of the people in the  country who view him in a favorable light. Were it not for them his historically low approval ratings would be even lower.  

The thing is, there is nothing funny about being the most powerful person on earth and not having a clue about what you are doing. Leading the country now (especially in our current nuclear climate) is serious business. 





  

CAPTION SATURDAY.

I need a caption for this pic.

Example: "Dude, why are you yelling?

*Pic from the telegraph.com

Bad week for the buds.

  I think we all are happy that Bill O'Liely got the boot over at FOX.  As his friend Maxine Waters eloquently stated:  There might be something psychologically wrong with the man. And the fact that he lasted so long at FOX without his allegedly piggish behavior being an issue, tells you all you need to know about that network.

I hate to kick a man when he is down, but we are talking about Bill O'Reilly here. Besides, he has 25 million reasons  not to be too down on himself. 

Then we have our president and his lawyers who don't seem to quite understand how this 1st Amendment thing works
                            

"Well, this one takes the cake. And I’m not talking about the most beautiful chocolate cake you’ve ever seen.

Donald Trump is being sued for inciting violence at his 2016 Louisville rally at which several African American protesters were assaulted by his fans after he screamed “Get ‘em out of here!” from the stage. And yesterday his lawyers made one of the most ridiculous arguments I think I’ve ever heard of. They’re claiming that even if Trump did incite violence, the protesters had no right to demonstrate at his rally because they were interfering with his First Amendment rights.

Trump’s lawyers also argue that he had every right to call for the removal the protesters since they “obviously interfered with the Trump campaign’s First Amendment right” by “vigorously expressing their disdain for Mr. Trump,” including by chanting and holding up signs depicting Trump’s face on the body of a pig, among other anti-Trump messages.
“Of course, protesters have their own First Amendment right to express dissenting views, but they have no right to do so as part of the campaign rally of the political candidates they oppose,” Trump’s lawyers wrote.

I had to read this article a couple of times to make sure this is really what they’re arguing. It is." [Source]

No words.  

*Pic courtesy of salon.com

  

Our AG wants 49 states.

    I want to start this post with the words of the Attorney General of these divided states of America:

“We’ve got cases moving in the very, very liberal Ninth Circuit, who, they’ve been hostile to the order,” Sessions said Tuesday in an interview with “The Mark Levin Show” on CNN. “We won a case in Virginia recently that was a nicely-written order that just demolished, I thought, all the arguments that some of the other people have been making. We are confident that the President will prevail on appeal and particularly in the Supreme Court, if not the Ninth Circuit. So this is a huge matter. I really am amazed that a judge sitting on an island in the Pacific can issue an order that stops the President of the United States from what appears to be clearly his statutory and Constitutional power.”

Ahhm, here is the thing, Beauregard: That "island in the Pacific" is a part of the United States. And the last time I checked you represent the entire United States. If it's just some island in the Pacific why did we go to war with the Japanese after that infamous incident at a places called Pearl Harbor?

This administration has a we against them mindset that is seriously dividing the country. The scary thing is that Sessions really does believe that Hawaii is some insignificant place far away from the rest of America. (Must be all those brown people.)

But he wasn't the only member of this administration making dumb statements today. The leader of the pack tried to get one up on his AG in cluelessness when he declared, in no uncertain terms, that our neighbors to the North are "disgraceful" people.  Canada!? Come on Donald, they are some of the nicest people on earth. (Where is Drake with a nice diss track when you need him?)

Those Russians are not nearly as nice as Canadians, and yet he (trump) refuses to diss Russia.

Hmmm, maybe there is something to those golden showers rumors after all.

                                                                                                             


  

OPEN THREAD WEDNESDAY.

It's open thread Wednesday, so tell me what's on your mind.

I will tell you what's on mine:

Bill O'Liely getting the boot at FOX VIEWS. (Ladies, you can come out now.) 

How this administration managed to lose an entire fleet of ships.

Did Aaron Hernandez really hang himself?

trump is deporting "dreamers" now

And if this republican lawmaker had called his colleagues "niggas" and not "niggers", would it have made a difference?

Holla at me.

Tuesday News Day.

There is an interesting special congressional election race going on north of Atlanta tonight. The latest democratic golden boy, Jon Ossoff , will need 50% of the votes in a crowded field to go to Washington and embarrass our sitting president. It's going to be close, but my prediction is that there will be a runoff with the republican, and she will squeeze by in a two person race.

Still, this is a district that Mitt won by 25%, and it is in the heart of republican country. Dems should take heart, though, because win or lose some good things might happen in the mid-terms for them if they actually go out to vote.

I am not sure if trump will even still be our president come mid-terms, there are some serious people trying to impeach his ass, and that Russian cloud is not going away. This latest stuff with the dossier is a doozy. 

Then there is this Devin Nunes fiasco. The guy allegedly created a fake scandal and dragged a good woman and public servant through the mud because of pressure from the trump White House. If this is true he should resign from congress immediately.  Don't even wait for the ethics committee to complete their investigation. Just get out of town and save your family and your constituents the embarrassment.   

"According to a report from The New Yorker‘s Ryan Lizza, an unnamed intelligence source believes Nunes may have felt some heat from the White House to “manufacture a fake scandal.”

From the report:

The intelligence source told me that he knows, “from talking to people in the intelligence community,” that “the White House said, ‘We are going to mobilize to find something to justify the President’s tweet that he was being surveilled.’ They put out an all-points bulletin”—a call to sift through intelligence reports—“and said, ‘We need to find something that justifies the President’s crazy tweet about surveillance at Trump Tower.’ And I’m telling you there is no way you get that from those transcripts, which are about as plain vanilla as can be.”

Nunes recused himself from the Intelligence Committee’s investigation into Russian manipulation in the 2016 election, and is currently the subject of a House Ethics Committee probe into whether he leaked classified information.

But according to Lizza, “this is like getting Al Capone for tax evasion. The bigger scandal is the coordinated effort to use the American intelligence services to manufacture an excuse for Trump’s original tweet.”' [Source]

Finally, the head pig over at FOX VIEWS might finally have to leave harassment central. This latest alleged incident of harassment from Billo involves sexism, misogyny, and racism.   

"In a Twitter post on Tuesday, Bloom said that the woman called in to report a complaint on the Fox News hotline (the anonymous hotline is for all of 21st Century Fox, Fox News’ parent company, according to a spokeswoman). The woman’s identity was not disclosed.

“She is an African-American woman who was a clerical worker in 2008 at Fox News,” Bloom said in an interview with HLN. “She did not work directly for Bill O’Reilly, but she worked near him and she alleges that he engaged in a campaign for months of sexual harassment against her. He wouldn’t speak to her, other than to say things like, ‘Mmm Hmm,’ make grunting noises like an animal, she alleges, leering at her, looking at her cleavage and her legs, and he would call her ‘hot chocolate,’ which she found to be very offensive.”

Bloom said that the woman found the situation “upsetting and distressing.” She said that they have spoken to a family member, a boyfriend, and a roommate who back up her claims.

“She wanted to keep her job, she didn’t complain at the time, but now she knows that Fox News is considering whether or not to keep him, and although she is very scared and wishes to remain anonymous, she felt that she had to add her story and speak out, and so we called that into the hotline today,” Bloom said. She said that her client is not asking for money, but wants “accountability.”
Bloom spurred the internal Fox News investigation by calling the company’s HR hotline with Walsh’s complaint earlier this month. That triggered an investigation by 21st Century Fox’s outside law firm, Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison.

In an interview, Bloom said that one or more accusers are “very likely” to come forward “soon,” although she declined to get into specifics. Responding to the statement from O’Reilly’s attorney, she said, “I am representing all of my O’Reilly accusers for free, and I am sure that Mr. Kasowitz is being compensated handsomely for his representation of accused serial harasser Bill O’Reilly.”
Bloom also has called for an independent investigation of harassment and retaliation at Fox News by state authorities in New York. She has called on O’Reilly to be fired, but says that even if that were to happen, she it would still like to see a state investigation to proceed." [Source]

It couldn't have happened to a nicer guy.  

His next book will be called Killing The Urges.

Don't worry Billo, you can always get a job with the "grab em by the pussy" president.  

Racism at Albertsons? You be the judge.

  Tonight my racism chase takes me to the West Coast.

Now I must admit that the following story is not such a clear cut case of racism as others that I have highlighted on this blog in the past. And the truth is, quite a few people (especially white ones)  have lashed out at the victim in the case and told her to get over herself.

Here is the story:

"An African-American woman filed a civil rights lawsuit Monday, April 10, against Albertsons and its parent company, Safeway, alleging that its managers took no steps to correct or apologize for the actions of a checkout clerk at an Irvine store who incorrectly assumed the woman was on food stamps.

Jenna Watkinson, a spokeswoman for Safeway, said company officials have not seen the lawsuit and “do not comment on pending litigation.”

'However, any time we interact with a customer, our goal is to ensure that they are treated with the utmost respect and courtesy,' she said Wednesday.

Deirdre Harris, 42, who filed the lawsuit, said the incident occurred Jan. 27 at the Albertsons at Alton Avenue and Culver Street. Harris said she was trying to pull out a debit card from her phone case to pay for the items, when the checkout clerk asked her if she wanted to use her EBT card.

'What exactly did you say?' Harris asked the clerk.

The clerk repeated her question and asked if she wanted to use food stamps.

'I felt completely demoralized,' said Harris, an Orange County native who grew up in Huntington Beach, works as a fashion brand consultant, and has lived in Irvine for 22 years. 'For me, it was a very clear reminder — a painful reminder — that we do not live in a post-racial era.'

Harris said she spoke with three supervisors including Ron Foss, a regional manager at Safeway. She said he explained to Harris, like others supervisors had before, that the clerk had done nothing wrong and was simply trying to give her free bags, because those using food stamps don’t have to pay for reusable plastic bags.

Foss, who was mentioned in the lawsuit, eventually offered her $500 as compensation for her emotional distress, she said, and added: “If I were you, I’d take it.”

A follow-up letter sent by a Safeway claims examiner to Harris on March 24, the same day she talked to Foss, states: “Please be advised that we’ve completed our investigation and determined there’s no liability on the store. I acknowledge your allegation of emotional distress and would be willing to offer a customer service gesture of $500. …Failing to accept the customer service gesture will be construed as a rejection and will result in a formal denial of this claim as there has been no evidence of discrimination or racial profiling.”

It wasn’t the first time Harris had experienced the subtle undercurrents of racism in a city that is less than 1 percent African-American, she said. But, she added, her conversation with Foss was the “tipping point.” [Source]

Yep, clearly a case of a clerk who let her racial bias get the better of her.

And trust me, I know that I am the racism chaser, but I don't consider everything to be racist. There is nothing, for instance, racist about drinking milk. And to suggest otherwise (as someone has attempted to do) would be just asinine.

I am thinking to myself that if this incident had happened in Inglewood or Oakland, California it would not be such a clear cut case of racism, but Irvine is a different story. This might have been the only black person this clerk saw all day, and to assume that she was using food stamps because she is black was...well...racist.

Thoughts?

*Pic from yelp.com

In the battle of the bad haircuts, who will blink first?

    It's nice to be back home.  I hope y'all enjoyed your bun and cheese (if you are Jamaican) and your chocolate Easter eggs.

A lot has been happening in the world. The two world leaders with the worst haircuts in the history of world leaders, have damn near brought us to the brink of World War III.

Our president has threatened North Korea with a preemptive strike if they don't chill out, and we even dropped the "mother of all bombs" to make a point. Sadly, though, it didn't seem to have an impact on the North Koreans. Not even all those war ships steaming to the Korean Peninsula seems to be scaring the little bad haircut guy.

The American press, as is always the case, have been getting this one wrong all along. They have been declaring the North Korean missile test a failure, which it probably was, but that's not the point. The point is that there was a test. Even after trump all but dared Kim Jong-un to test another missile.

Apparently the blustering didn't work, because the North Koreans were not deterred. Dare I say it? "trump blinked first". 

I am not sure how this is a fight that trump believes that he can win. I mean when you are dealing with a suicidal maniac you don't try to play chicken with him. Unless, of course, trump himself has some mental issues. Which, if true,  might make this the last Easter Sunday many of us  will spend here on earth.  

Tax day will be on us in a couple of days, for all of you have not done your taxes you are running out of time.

This is also a good time to remind everyone that we have still not seen the president's tax returns. I suspect that this so called audit will last at least four more years.

Folks protested about it this weekend, and the president was no pleased.

"President Donald Trump on Twitter Sunday lashed out against citizens who'd taken to the streets to exercise their First Amendment rights.

While claiming that thousands of people who on Saturday demanded Trump finally release his full tax returns were "paid" protesters, Trump tweeted, "The election is over!"

"Someone should look into who paid for the small organized rallies," Trump tweeted a day after thousands of demonstrators took to the streets in more than 150 cities across the country.

An hour after wishing his 28 million followers a Happy Easter, Trump hailed his November win and called out those making his undisclosed tax history an issue. "

Someone should have told him that the election was over when he was doing his redneck victory tour.

Anyway, it's time for our orange haired leader to put down the golf clubs, delete his twitter account, and start focusing on the stuff happening in the world.

I think I speak for most people when I say that staying alive and avoiding a global catastrophe is what's most important to me right now. And seeing the president's tax returns would give us confidence in our commander in chief and would allow us to trust him a little bit more.

Let's face it, the man might lead us into a serious war any day now, the least he could do is show us his damn tax returns.

*Pic from cnn.com