Fuck its silent in here.......

[CT III]

Now THIS, is irony:

http://www.syracuse.com/news/index.ssf/2011/07/parish_man_protesting_motorcyc.html

A Parish man who was participating in a motorcycle helmet protest ride was killed this afternoon when he went over the handlebars of his motorcycle and injured his head on the pavement, state police said.

Evidence at the scene and information from the attending physician indicate Contos would have survived if he had been wearing a Department of Transportation approved helmet, troopers said.

[J. Walter Weatherman]

http://www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/chicago-marijuana-arrest-statistics/Content?oid=4198958

The ratio of black to white arrests for marijuana possession in Chicago is 15 to 1, according to a Reader analysis of police and court data. And by the time the cases make their way through the court system, the gap widens even further: the ratio among those who plead or are found guilty is 40 to 1.

Here's another way to look at it: almost nine of every ten people who end up guilty of possessing marijuana in Chicago—86 percent, to be precise—are black men.

The racial gap has become so glaring that Cook County Board president Toni Preckwinkle says something has to change, if only because taxpayers can't afford to continue arresting, detaining, and prosecuting low-level marijuana offenders. In an interview last week, Preckwinkle, for the first time, said what no other high-ranking local official has dared: "I think we should decriminalize possession of small amounts of marijuana, that's for sure."

Preckwinkle added that she recently told Chicago police superintendent Garry McCarthy to "stop arresting people for small amounts of drugs, because you're wasting our time."

McCarthy did not respond to our requests for comment on the racial disparity. Instead, a spokeswoman e-mailed a statement: "Crime and disorder issues emerge from a complicated web of social ills which law enforcement alone cannot correct."

...

Swanson and other activists want the police to stop making so many marijuana arrests, but Superintendent McCarthy's position on the issue is not clear—at times he's argued different sides of the same issue.

Cook County state's attorney Anita Alvarez, whose office is responsible for prosecuting the cases, puts the onus on McCarthy and the police. "We handle the cases that come in," she says. "As far as any specifics as to how people are getting arrested, that's not a question for me—that's a question for the police department."

Furthermore, Alvarez says she is not about to join the call to decriminalize marijuana, though she would be open to "sitting at the table" for a discussion of drug policies. "If the state wants to legalize marijuana, well, that will be the law, but it's not a discussion we've had here."

That leaves Preckwinkle as the only prominent elected official in Chicago speaking candidly about the matter. In June she spoke at a downtown rally decrying the 40-year-old war on drugs as a failure. No other elected officials showed up.

In our interview, Preckwinkle noted that it costs taxpayers $143 a day to house someone in the Cook County jail. "The drug policies in this country are stupid and extraordinarily expensive," she said.

When asked why marijuana laws have such a disproportionate impact on blacks, she simply said: "Poverty and racism."

Still, Preckwinkle says she realizes if anything builds support for changing marijuana and other drug laws, it's likely to be the cost to taxpayers of arresting, detaining, and incarcerating users.

"If you have no compassion for the people in the criminal justice system or their families or the communities from which they come, and all you care about is the money, I'll take you as an ally any day."

[CBStew]

"Toni Preckwinkle"?   I feel like I am back in the seventh grade.

[CT III]

"Toni Preckwinkle"?   I feel like I am back in the seventh grade.

Racist.

[Gilgamesh]

Read it and weep, Nixon-haters: http://nationalinterest.org/blog/jacob-heilbrunn/the-importance-nixon-todays-gop-5577

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/06/opinion/06iht-edswitzer06.html?_r=3&ref=global

[J. Walter Weatherman]

"Toni Preckwinkle"?   I feel like I am back in the seventh grade.

Racist.

Intrepid Reader: Wheezer

Something something something orthopaedic shoes.

[R-V]

Read it and weep, Nixon-haters: http://nationalinterest.org/blog/jacob-heilbrunn/the-importance-nixon-todays-gop-5577

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/06/opinion/06iht-edswitzer06.html?_r=3&ref=global

Such wisdom should make a comeback in the GOP. Will it?

No. And it won't in the Democratic party either.

[Tinker to Evers to Chance]

Read it and weep, Nixon-haters: http://nationalinterest.org/blog/jacob-heilbrunn/the-importance-nixon-todays-gop-5577

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/06/opinion/06iht-edswitzer06.html?_r=3&ref=global

In the past two decades, the accepted wisdom in Washington has embraced several expressions about the U.S. place in the post-Cold War world, from "indispensable nation" and "sole remaining superpower" to "benign hegemony" and "A New American Century."

Richard Nixon recognized the perils of such grandiose visions. For U.S. foreign policy, the key word was not "and" but "or," and the key question was not "how" but "why." Democrats and Republicans could do worse than reflect on Nixon's remarks 40 years ago.

For a guy who came to accept that America was in decline as a great power in the early 70s stuck with that view for the rest of his life, he had an odd way of showing it.

We now live in a world in which the United States is the only superpower.  We must recast our foreign policy to cope with this radically new situation.  For many on the American left and right, the knee-jerk response to the decline of the Soviet Union as a credible superpower is to withdraw to a new isolationism.  But in fact American world leadership will be indispensable in the coming decades.

[Tinker to Evers to Chance]

DPD.

There's also an entire Chapter in "Beyond Peace" called "Asia and the New American Century"

So yeah, the NYT article is right.  He never talked about a "new American Century" or referred to America as "indispensable" or the "only superpower" except for all the times that he said those things.

Have you ever even read anything Nixon wrote, Gil?  I think you're a Nixon fan poser.

[R-V]

Some ugly, ugly numbers and charts here

http://www.newdeal20.org/2011/07/08/the-july-jobs-numbers-there-is-no-silver-lining-51067/

[Quality Start Machine]

Some ugly, ugly numbers and charts here

http://www.newdeal20.org/2011/07/08/the-july-jobs-numbers-there-is-no-silver-lining-51067/

Damn, if the Bush tax cuts were extended and government jobs were cut, this never would of happened.

[Gilgamesh]

God bless America: http://consumerist.com/2011/07/chase-gets-man-thrown-in-jail-for-fraudulent-check-except-the-check-is-legit.html

[BH]

God bless America: http://consumerist.com/2011/07/chase-gets-man-thrown-in-jail-for-fraudulent-check-except-the-check-is-legit.html

Huey's brother really screwed the pooch on this one.

[J. Walter Weatherman]

Tailor made for the Daily Show...

http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2011/07/the-most-incredible-thing-fox-news-has-ever-done/242037/

[Wheezer]

"Toni Preckwinkle"?   I feel like I am back in the seventh grade.

Racist.

Intrepid Reader: Wheezer

Something something something orthopaedic shoes.

And public child-whipping. Don't forget that.