Playing The Victim

As usual, a politician talks out of his or her ass. Then they claim that they were misunderstood or their words were taken out of context. They claim they're getting death threats. And they try to play the VICTIM!!

NC rep calls gay student slaying case a 'hoax'

RALEIGH, N.C. – A North Carolina congresswoman said Thursday she chose her words poorly when she called claims that a Wyoming college student was murdered because he was gay a "hoax."

Republican Rep. Virginia Foxx said during debate in the House that Matthew Shepard's 1998 death wasn't a hate crime and shouldn't be invoked by supporters of a bill to expand the definition of such crimes to include violence motivated by sexual orientation.

"We know that young man was killed in the commitment of a robbery. It wasn't because he was gay," Foxx said during debate. "The bill was named for him, the hate-crimes bill was named for him, but it's really a hoax that continues to be used as an excuse for passing these bills."

Shepard died several days after he was found tied to a remote fence in Wyoming, severely beaten and robbed of $20. Prosecutors said he was lured from a bar by two men, including one whose defense attorney said reacted violently after Shepard made a sexual advance.

The House approved the bill Wednesday despite Foxx's comments. On Thursday, after Foxx drew heated reaction from several gay rights groups and others upset by her comments, she said her words didn't convey what she meant to say.

"The term 'hoax' was a poor choice of words used in the discussion of the hate crimes bill," Foxx said in a statement. "Mr. Shepard's death was nothing less than a tragedy, and those responsible for his death certainly deserved the punishment they received."

Still, it wasn't enough to quell the firestorm.

"I haven't ever heard anyone say before that Matthew Shepard's death wasn't a hate crime," said Becky Dansky, federal legislative director for the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force.

She said her organization was surprised by the comments and noted the House version of the bill doesn't even reference Shepard's case. The Senate bill carries Shepard's name.

Foxx spokesman Aaron Groen said the congresswoman relied on articles that she later realized were faulty and especially regrets upsetting the Shepard family. He said she declined further comment.

"Calls to her office have been mostly from outside North Carolina," Groen said. "We've gotten our share of death threats and the like but that's to be expected on such an emotional issue."

The University of Wyoming student's slaying became a rallying point for the gay rights movement.

The two men who killed him are serving life in prison. Prosecutors' cases included evidence with elements of robbery, drugs and hatred against gays. The court found the men guilty of murder, but did not determine their motivation.

Neil Giuliano, president of the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, said Foxx's comments might help encourage discussions favorable to equality.

"She should know better," Giuliano said Thursday. "Her research is a little shoddy. The good thing is it has exposed yet another very anti-equality, anti-gay elected official at a time when public opinion is moving more and more toward equality."

I just love how her mouthpiece claims that she's getting death threats now. Really? Because gay rights supporters and hate crimes legislation supporters have absolutely nothing better to do than threaten to kill some dumb bitch from North Carolina who has absolutely no fucking clue what the hell she's talking about. Right? RIGHT!!

That's what gay people do right? They believe that they have a right to be treated equally and when they don't get their way they threaten to kill someone? Sure Mr. Groen!! Portray your boss as a victim!! That's what you all do best!! You know that she's full of shit and when called on it, you make her look like the victim in all of this.

Foxx claims that Matthew's death as a result of a hate crime is just a hoax. She claims that he wasn't killed because he was gay. And she knows that because????? Was she there when the crime took place? Did she personally speak to the killers and determine that he died simply because a robbery "went bad", and not because he was gay?

No, she didn't!! She shot her mouth off about something that she knows nothing about and too ignorant and bigoted to educate herself about.

Matthew Shepard died because he was gay, and two bigoted assholes decided that he wasn't worthy of living!! Matthew Shepard's name deserves to be on this bill, and it deserves to be passed. He died for no other reason!!

It's because of people who think like Ms. Foxx that hate crimes legislation is necessary in this country. If people like Ms. Foxx would get their heads out of their asses and their asses out of their Bibles, maybe there would be fewer cases like Matthew's!!

Maybe the next "Matthew" won't have to die because he or she is gay. But if they are murdered, their families will get justice because of a little something called the Matthew Shepard Act!!

Obama's First 100 Daze

That's where everyone's been.

In a daze.

One that's lasted longer than a mere three months and change.

If anything, there are people that have been in this stupor for four or more years, ever since Obama became one of two senators from Illinois. At least since he gave the speech heard 'round the world at the 2004 Democratic Convention, which may or may not be the point at which the corporations said, “By damn! This kid's got some potential! We oughta hitch our star to this guy!”

Today, the day after he celebrated the fact that he's been in office a whopping handful of time, all we're hearing about is how great his speech was. Brilliant, in fact. So brilliant that the Baltimore Sun, a newspaper that became irrelevant a long time ago, had this to say:

“Even on his best nights, John F. Kennedy did not seem as calm, confident and masterful as Obama did in an hour’s worth of prime time give and take with the press. As good as Obama has been in such settings before, Wednesday he seemed perfectly tuned to each shifting topic and tone. The president was appropriately sober, moral and earnest in talking about waterboarding as torture — without taking the bait and using the question to attack players in the previous administration for their excesses in prisoner abuse.”

You'd think someone could rid us of this Kennedy comparison but of course not.

What's interesting is the fact that the company that owns the Baltimore Sun is the exact same company that owns the Chicago Tribune. And who's the hometown kid? Yep.

You'll forgive me now as I go off on a tangent.

I especially enjoyed the last sentence about how Obama talked about torture but didn't "take the bait" and accuse anyone in the Bush administration of committing a crime.

How very convenient of our Constitutional Law professor president, wouldn't you agree?

Nevermind that the Bush administration shat on the Constitution, at one point referring to it as “a goddamned piece of paper”.

Torture? Perish the thought. No one in “the previous administration” would ever think of doing such a thing. After all, we have laws against that.

Yeah, because those fucks were so very concerned about law. Don't forget these are the same people that stole three elections in the course of six years and reigned with an iron fist and a gun to the world's collective head for eight.

What did Obama actually have to say about torture?

He said that he was very comfortable “banning” waterboarding.

He then was asked about Bush and company and said, “I think that whatever legal rationale was used, it was a mistake.”

This is what the Baltimore Sun called brilliant because Obama didn't “take the bait”.

So call a crime a “mistake” and everyone should be happy about it and hail you as being brilliant, savvy, smart, presidential.

I'd call it being a chickenshit but, hey, what do I know, right?

You might wonder why I put quotation marks around the word banning.

Well, I think it's probably because I find it so interesting that a guy that doesn't believe in torture, up to the point of calling it a crime (because then he shrinks away in terror), actually has a Secretary Of War that had no problem with the torture that he engaged in under the Bush administration. I think it's probably because I find it so interesting that he has a National Intelligence Director (Admiral Dennis Blair) that thinks torture works. He has a senior intelligence official that has been accused of covering up the torture of an American nun in Guatemala in 1989 and another that is an apologist for Augusto Pinochet.

Does this sound like change of any sort? Does this sound like torture is going to end anytime soon? Out of sight, out of practice. Not likely.

Lest we forget about Obama's adamant urging that prisoners at Guantanamo Bay not be recognized as people or that those being held in Afghanistan have no right to habeas corpus. Even Stephen Colbert thinks this is fucking ridiculous and if you didn't hear his audience's reaction to this point a couple weeks ago, you don't know what you missed.

Fortunately, not everyone has been asleep or zoned out.

We still have the Black Agenda Report, whose Bruce Dixon just did a report card on the prez.

And we have Paul Street, Noam Chomsky, John Pilger and Counterpunch.org, to name a small handful.

It's not too late to snap out of it and get objective about Barack Obama. No one can be “good” or “evil” all the time. It's time to wake up and start learning the truth, instead of just taking spoon-feeding from CNN, MSNBC and FOX.

Racial Insensitivity?

Okay, I'm sorry but this is just ridiculous!!

Disney Accused of Racial Insensitivity Over First Animated Black Princess

The arrival of a black First Lady in the White House might have been greeted with celebration around the world, but the similarly historic debut of Walt Disney’s first black princess has not been received so warmly.

The studio, known for its wholesome and predominantly white family values, has made several changes to its first African-American princess, Tiana, who will star in a new animated film this Christmas entitled "The Princess and the Frog," amid accusations of racial insensitivity.

Disney has already changed the profession of the princess (an aspiring restaurant entrepreneur instead of a chambermaid) and name (Tiana instead of Maddy, which critics thought was too similar to “Mammy," a once-common term for black female slaves in white households). Tiana will be played by Anika Noni Rose, who starred in "Dreamgirls," while Tiana’s mother will be played by the talk-show host Oprah Winfrey.

The controversy has intensified after it was revealed that the film would be set in New Orleans and that Tiana would find love with a white prince — well, almost. His skin has been described as olive-toned and he will be voiced by Bruno Campos, a Brazilian actor.

“What? No black prince? What’s up with this?” blogged James Collier on Acting White, an anti-racism Web site, in a posting typical of the general disbelief among the film’s most vocal black critics. “Perhaps Disney doesn’t want the future mothers of dwindling white America being imprinted so early in their lives with the notion of a black suitor.”

Another blogger, Angela Helm, attracted nearly 3,000 comments on the Black Voices Web site when she complained that “even though there is a real-life black man in the highest office in the land with a black wife, Disney obviously doesn’t think a black man is worthy of the title of prince."

It has been more than seven decades since Disney released its first princess movie, "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs." The company’s “princess division” has eight characters, which generates an estimated $4 billion in revenues annually.

Until now, the line-up of royal heroines, which includes a Native American character (Pocahontas) and an Asian character (Mulan), was missing something: a black woman. And so the decision was made in the mid-2000s — before anyone outside of Chicago had heard of the Obamas — to make Tiana the ninth princess.

According to leaked details, the princess is transformed into a frog after kissing one and has to venture into the mystical bayous of Louisiana to find a cure from a voodoo queen.

The first objection was to her name because Maddy sounded too close to Mammy? Yes, I can see how the letters d and m sound the same!! Fine, so they changed the name to Tiana. Next!!

The second objection was to her profession as a chambermaid. They changed it to an aspiring restaurant entrepreneur. Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't she supposed to be a Princess? Why the hell is anyone making her anything other than a Princess? And just when in the hell is she going to have time to be a restaurant entrepreneur when she's looking for her Prince and becomes a frog herself?

Snow White was a *gasp* maid/slave who was banished to a forest!!

Cinderella was a *gasp* maid/slave who met a Prince, married, and became a Princess!!

Princess Aurora (Sleeping Beauty) was already a Princess. All she did was fall asleep, and kiss a Prince!!

Princess Ariel was a mermaid. Does that qualify as a profession? She met a Prince, and became a Princess. In a later film, she became a mother. Oh the horror!! Should that be changed so we're not promoting sex? Or did the baby just come along through the use of magic?

Belle didn't have a profession!! She met a Beast, and fell in love. Should that be changed as well? After all, we don't want to promote beastiality.

Princess Jasmine is a Princess who met Aladdin, fell in love, and got married.

Pocahontas didn't have a profession that was mentioned in the movie. I would encourage people to learn about the real Pocahontas and not the Disney character!!

Mulan secretly joined the army.

So, as you see, the majority of the characters were either already a Princess or became one. They don't have other professions!!

Then came the bitching about Tiana being involved with an olive-skinned "white" Prince, who will be voiced by a Brazilian actor.

“What? No black prince? What’s up with this?” blogged James Collier on Acting White, an anti-racism Web site, in a posting typical of the general disbelief among the film’s most vocal black critics. “Perhaps Disney doesn’t want the future mothers of dwindling white America being imprinted so early in their lives with the notion of a black suitor.”

Another blogger, Angela Helm, attracted nearly 3,000 comments on the Black Voices Web site when she complained that “even though there is a real-life black man in the highest office in the land with a black wife, Disney obviously doesn’t think a black man is worthy of the title of prince."

Excuse me? So Disney is being racially insensitive because the character meets an olive-skinned "white" Prince? What the hell is wrong with that? It does happen in real life. People of one race do date people of another race!! Is that wrong? No!!

Just because the Prince is not black doesn't mean that Disney and the rest of the world believes that a black man isn't worthy of being a Prince. I would argue with Ms. Helm that this is an idea that she put into her own head. She sees what she chooses to see, and believes what she wants to believe.

Disney is not being racially insensitive!! If people have nothing better to do than bitch about a fictional character, they should grow up and seek some professional help. There are far more important things to deal with and worry about, and these things actually impact lives. A fictional character is just that, fictional!!

That was ten minutes that I'll never get back!! NEXT!!!!!

Jailed Reporter On Hunger Strike

Is she planning to be on a hunger strike for eight years?

U.S. Reporter Jailed in Iran on Fifth Day of Hunger Strike

TEHRAN, Iran — The father of an American journalist who has been convicted of spying in Iran says she has gone on a hunger strike to protest her imprisonment.

Reza Saberi has told the Associated Press that "she went on a hunger strike Tuesday to protest her imprisonment. Today is the fifth day."

He added Saturday that his daughter Roxana Saberi will remain on a hunger strike "until she is freed."

The 31-year-old dual American-Iranian citizen was sentenced to eight years in prison just days after she was tried behind closed doors earlier this month.

Saberi was arrested in late January and initially accused of working without press credentials. But earlier this month, an Iranian judge charged her with spying for the United States.

I honestly don't get the point of a hunger strike. What exactly does it accomplish, other than doing bodily harm to yourself? You're not hurting anyone else by starving yourself!!

Does she think that if she starves herself that she's going to garner sympathy and be freed?

Here's the deal. If her press credentials expired, she should have known that they needed to be renewed. If she didn't have press credentials to begin with, she should have known that she needed them in order to work as a reporter. She has been in Iran for six years. She's well aware of the laws of the country.

If she was actually spying which she's been accused and convicted of doing, what's the problem? We convict people for spying and jail them. Hell, most of those people are sentenced to a hell of a lot longer than 8 years. Try, oh I don't know, for LIFE!!

The question remains, did she receive a fair trial? We don't know!! She has the right to appeal, and that's how this should play out.

She will be allowed to appeal her conviction which is far more than I can say for what the United States does. At least she had a trial, fair or not!! They could have pulled a card from our deck and thrown her in a Gitmo-like environment, never to be charged, go to trial, or see the light of day again!! But Iran didn't do that!! Why? Because Iran is NOT the United States!! The United States doesn't care about the rule of law, be it our own or that of another country!!

The President doesn't get to stand up and think that he has a right to demand anything from another country. Clinton doesn't get to stand up and think that she can engage in a pissing match with Iran to see how much more shit this country can stir up.

Tea Parties And Other Bullshit

When was the last time I blogged here? Who cares, right? Let's get to the main event now before the expiration date, well, expires.

I have to talk about these tea parties that are taking place supposedly all over the country. You probably have heard these imbeciles say that this is NOT, repeat, NOT a right-wing event.

Sure, and the Pope ain't Catholic, a bear does not shit in the woods and the sun will not come out tomorrow.

When such brain-trusts as Sean Hannity, Newt Gingrich and Joe The Plumber Crack (someone flush this turd already) are arrayed around the country, you should seriously ask the question: how goddamn stupid do these slugs think we are?

Now, each and every one of you know how I feel about Barack Obama.

How I think that he's a corporate shill just the way Hannity, Gingrich and Joe Blow Me are.

How I think he says and does what his corporate masters want him to say and do, just like Rush Slimeball and Bill "Someone Lock My Ass Up For Sexual Harrassment And Stalking Already" O'Reilly do.

But what separates me from these ass-clowns is this:

I would be out there protesting these giant colossus corporations, hoping millions of my fellow Americans would be doing the same, but not really giving a shit if I was there alone.

Put GE out of business. Kick Goldman Sachs in the fucking nuts. Tell Citigroup to go fuck themselves.

Then and only then will the same old, same old end.

But, of course, these fucking nimrods go out and decide they're going to toss tea into water everywhere.

Let me ask you a question. Suppose this tea pollutes the shit out that water. Suppose some genius decides, instead of tea, he's going toss Drano or motor oil into the harbor, lake, pond, ocean, whatever. Suppose he decides to drive a car into the body of water (and wouldn't that be ironic?).

What do you think that genius is going to be shouting about in a couple months?

That's right. "We gotta fucking pay for the clean-up?!? Fucking environmentalists! Goddamn it!"

These people are so bright, I took my shades off a long time ago.

What's the real reason Sean Hannity, Newt Gingrich and Joe The War Correspondent are out there with the rest of the under-50 IQ house plants?

They didn't "win" the "election". Simple as that.

Someone else got into "power" and now they can't handle it. Anyone remember when these same dumbasses talked about people sucking off the government tit? Yeah, the irony is not lost on me, either.

So, not more than three months into the four years of the same old, same old that we've had forever, they want everyone to look the other way yet again. Want to divide the people up yet again. Want you to be under-50 IQ house plants yet again.

I, for one, am bored of all this shit.

Did You Hear The One About The.....?

No, this isn't a joke!! Did you hear the story about the FEMALE "CHRISTIAN" Sunday School Teacher who murdered an 8 year old child in California? Probably not, considering that the media doesn't want to talk about it much!!

They don't want to talk about it because the killer doesn't match their typical scapegoat, and they can't say I TOLD YOU SO!! Not only is the killer not a MAN, but the killer is also not a SEX OFFENDER. The killer is a woman, and a supposed CHRISTIAN too!!

Maybe they'll think twice before pointing the finger at their typical scapegoat. Yeah right!!

The family says that they can't fathom what the motive would be for the killing. I can think of a few excuses that may come up.

1) God told her to do it because the child was possessed by the Devil.

2) The Devil made her do it.

And if you think I'm joking, just wait and see!! Those are two very common excuses that Christians like to use whenever they do something wrong.