Be INFORMED

Friday, August 15, 2014

Friday Funny’s: Robin Williams Funniest Quotes On Politics and Life

"Politics: 'Poli', a Latin word meaning 'many' and 'tics' meaning 'bloodsucking creatures'."

"You could talk about same-sex marriage, but people who have been married say, ‘It’s the same sex all the time.’ "

On Canada: "You are a big country. You are the kindest country in the world. You are like a really nice apartment over a meth lab."

"A woman would never make a nuclear bomb. They would never make a weapon that kills. They’d make a weapon that makes you feel bad for a while."

"Where did they get Sarah Palin? . . . Did Ronald Reagan have a kid with Posh Spice? It’s like she came from some reality show — ‘Project Running Mate.’"

On George W. Bush: "People say satire is dead. It's not dead; it's alive and living in the White House."

On the end of the George Bush presidency: "It’s the end of the reign of George the Second. The reign of error is over. America is officially out of rehab."

On the American economy: "And you can’t blame the economy on [George W. Bush]. They say the economy is essentially sound because people are considering buying things. That’s like saying fat people are healthy because they might exercise."

On Osama bin Laden: "We can't find him, but he's a 6-foot-5 Arab on dialysis. Call me crazy, but look for a guy connected to his luggage."

"When the media ask George W. Bush a question, he answers, "Can I use a lifeline?"
"You'll notice that Bush never speaks when Cheney is drinking water."

"Having George W. Bush giving a lecture on business ethics is like having a leper give you a facial, it just doesn't work!

Thursday, August 14, 2014

Ferguson protestors see police not as protectors, but as an occupying force.

Hunter on Thursday,  August 14, 2014

Why did this take this long?

St. Louis County police will be withdrawn from Ferguson, Mo., Gov. Jay Nixon will announce Thursday, in a law enforcement shift for a town where anger over the police shooting of an unarmed black teenager have sparked violent protests.
This may have been the most visibly incompetent police response in a decade, and yes—it can all be chalked up to the apparent desire or need for local police departments to kit themselves out in Iraq-era military gear that makes them look like they're about to storm Fallujah. The protests were—are—about excessive police force that in this case led to what to witnesses are describing as an outright murder, and the response has been to systemically prove the residents right.

When you have television reporters being attacked with tear gas so that their camera equipment can then be disassembled by "police," how must residents be treated when reporters are not there? If a national reporter can get handcuffed and have his head slammed into a window by an officer for being in McDonalds when the authorities don't want him to be, what has been going on while the cameras were not watching? When you've got seventy-plus officers in full military garb, wearing not police uniforms but infantry gear, sitting on the top of armored vehicles and pointing sniper rifles at a daytime crowd of people of people singing, is that the act of a protecting force, or an occupying one?

When residents are protesting the violence of your police force, maybe don't point sniper rifles at them while they're singing. There's not a damn non-sociopathic person alive who you can point a gun at and have them like you more. When you point rifles at reporters asking for directions away from town, you've made it perfectly clear how much contempt you have for any American who isn't sitting in the same armored vehicle as you are. This has been a clusterfuck of staggering proportions. It seems crafted precisely to demonstrate that residents do not, in fact, have the "rights" other police forces might grant their citizens. The people of Ferguson are, unmistakably, being treated like animals.

Right now Ferguson residents are protesting because they don't trust their own police force. They see them not as protectors of the community, but as occupiers. Looking at the pictures, they're not wrong.

  Original DailyKos