This is a hilarious attempt at theory by a right wing pundit who implements a discussion of liberal relativism and root causes. Perhaps we should be discussing “root causes” and “liberalism” because both are important and problematic topics for US discourse about almost anything historical and political. But this is a rather glaring miss.

FOXNews’ “The Five” is produced to look like it’s a panel of intellectuals speaking intellectually about American Life. Actually, it’s a lame attempt at the same shtick Chris Hayes and Rachel Maddow attempt to pull off on MSNBC. There are no intellectuals on corporate news channels; there is no intellectual discourse. It’s strictly prohibited. Dig the sexism in the video clip, too, as they focus on one woman’s response. You have to watch until the end to see how they end it with a misogynist sneer.

OK, well Marco Rubio has now weighed in on the suggestion that we should stop offering Muslim students Visas. Go figure. After Boston, he’d consider it. This is how conservative capitalist mind works. Something bad happens that gets international recognition and then they decide to think about it, by which they mean to choose the most reactionary and least helpful options out of all possible options to publicly reflect on. Both the panel’s and Rubio’s responses illustrate—it’s without fail ALWAYS the way they think about social problems. It’s as if Rubio woke up and said, “Well, I guess NOW is the time to consider NOT granting VISAs to Muslim students. Makes sense, right?”

Rights or Freedoms*, for right libertarians and conservatives, is always in the negative. The Freedom FROM Muslims, in this case. Or, they’d say, the right to not have those hateful violent people around.

________________

*When conservative say rights, they mean to say “freedoms”. When they use the word “right” they are attending to their bullshit notions about natural law. When they use they word “freedom” they are attending to their bullshit notions about human law. They improperly use the two words interchangeably, conflating the concepts of human and natural laws.

"Settlements are illegal under international law and, should the E1 settlement be constructed, it would represent an almost fatal blow to remaining chances of securing a two-state solution."

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Israel’s vehement opposition to reaching a peace agreement with Palestine

Read: Israel plan another 3,000 homes in illegal settlements on stolen Palestinian land

About 600,000 Jews live illegally in more than 100 settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

The settlements are illegal under international law.

(via israelfacts)

israelfacts:

IDF Spokesman Posts Blackface Photo Of Himself As Obama

The head of the Israeli Army’s social media campaign has come under criticism for a scandalous picture on his Facebook page. The photo in question shows Sacha Dratwa wearing what appears to be blackface, alongside a caption that reads “Obama Style.”

He released a statement after his photo gained worldwide attention, not issuing an apology:

There have been attempts to make use of private photos from my Facebook profile in order to publicly misrepresent my opinions. Due to the amount of public attention I’ve garnered in recent days I have decided to restrict access to my page, in order to protect my privacy and prevent further cynical use of the information therein.

I am, and have always been, completely candid about my beliefs and have nothing to hide – as reflected by my Facebook profile, which until recently was open to everyone. The aforementioned photos do not reflect my beliefs and have no bearing whatsoever on my position in the IDF.

Related: Israel is deporting Africans and also putting tens of thousands of them into detention camps

"In Israel, they talk of “mowing the lawn” in Gaza, a callous idiom used to refer to the periodic bombardment of a besieged territory in the hopes of reducing the capacity of militant groups every few years. Each time they “mow,” however, they sow seeds of hatred for the next generation. How successful, morally or militarily, is a war whose repetition is planned? At best, the idea of “mowing the lawn” exposes a profound absence of long-term strategic thinking."

Yousef Munayyer

Read this article.

(via fearandwar)

Cop spends weeks to trick an 18-year-old into possession and sale of a gram of pot

anticapitalist:

Cop spends weeks to trick an 18-year-old into possession and sale of a gram of pot

More fun from the self-loathing society: This American Life had a show about how young female undercover cops infiltrated a high school and flirted with boys to entrap them into selling pot, so they could charge them with felonies and destroy their lives at an early age.

Last year in three high schools in Florida, several undercover police officers posed as students. The undercover cops went to classes, became Facebook friends and flirted with the other students. One 18-year-old honor student named Justin fell in love with an attractive 25-year-old undercover cop after spending weeks sharing stories about their lives, texting and flirting with each other. 

One day she asked Justin if he smoked pot. Even though he didn’t smoke marijuana, the love-struck teen promised to help find some for her. Every couple of days she would text him asking if he had the marijuana. Finally, Justin was able to get it to her. She tried to give him $25 for the marijuana and he said he didn’t want the money — he got it for her as a present. 

A short while later, the police did a big sweep and arrest 31 students — including Justin. Almost all were charged with selling a small amount of marijuana to the undercover cops. Now Justin has a felony hanging over his head.

Sick: Young, Undercover Cops Flirted With Students to Trick Them Into Selling Pot (Via Aurich Lawson)

"I just might have tacos for dinner tonight."

East Haven Mayor Joseph Maturo on how he would help the Latino community.

Racist scum.

(via anticapitalist)

(via anticapitalist)

of-praxis:

sinidentidades:

Karen Santorum: Gays ‘vilify’ my husband

Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum’s wife, Karen, on Monday accused the gay community of vilifying her husband.

At an event with mothers in South Carolina, a woman, who said her son was gay, told the candidate that she felt guilty for supporting him due to his opposition to gay rights.

“I still have that sense of guilt because his friends react to what they hear,” the woman explained. “Help me. How do I deal with that?”

Karen Santorum spoke up in defense of her husband.

“As Rick’s wife, I have known him and loved him for 23 years,” she said. “I think it’s very sad what the gay activists have done out there. They vilify him. It is so wrong. He loves them. What he has simply said is marriage shouldn’t happen.”

“As far as hating, it’s very unfortunate that has happened,” Karen Santorum added. “A lot of it is backyard bullying, where people will come up to us and they’ll say something. And we’ll ask them to give us an example, and they can’t even provide one example as to why they took the position they took.”

After Santorum compared homosexuality to “man on child, man on dog, or whatever the case may be” in an interview with The Associated Press in 2003, gay activist Dan Savage created a website redefining the former Pennsylvania senator’s last name as “the frothy mixture of lube and fecal matter that is sometimes the by-product of anal sex.”

For years, Google has returned Savage’s website as the top search result for “Santorum.”

“The Internet allows for this type of vulgarity to circulate,” the candidate complained to Roll Call last year. “It’s unfortunate that we have someone who obviously has some issues. But he has an opportunity to speak.”

Speaking to CafeMom’s “Moms Matter 2012″ on Monday, Santorum said he was “doing what I’m called to do, which is to love everyone and accept everybody.”

“This is a public policy difference,” he said. “And I think the problem is that some see that public policy difference as a personal assault, that because I believe that marriage, which has existed before governments existed — marriage existed from the very beginning of time — it’s the way we were meant to be.”

(via le-kif-kif)

White Power 101: Whiteness is a legal construction and must be protected

Arizona Judge Rules Mexican American Studies program illegal

angryfuckingliberal:

PHOENIX (AP) - An administrative law judge ruled Tuesday that a Tucson school district’s ethnic studies program violates state law, agreeing with the findings of Arizona’s public schools chief.

Judge Lewis Kowal’s ruling marked a defeat for the Tucson Unified School District, which appealed the findings issued in June by Superintendent of Public Instruction John Huppenthal.

Kowal’s ruling, first reported by The Arizona Daily Star, said the district’s Mexican-American Studies program violated state law by having one or more classes designed primarily for one ethnic group, promoting racial resentment and advocating ethnic solidarity instead of treating students as individuals.

The judge, who found grounds to withhold 10 percent of the district’s monthly state aid until it comes into compliance, said the law permits the objective instruction about the oppression of people that may result in racial resentment or ethnic solidarity.

“However, teaching oppression objectively is quite different than actively presenting material in a biased, political and emotionally charged manner, which is what occurred in (Mexican-American Studies) classes,” Kowal wrote.

The judge said such teaching promotes activism against white people, promotes racial resentment and advocates ethnic solidarity.

Huppenthal has 30 days to accept, reject or modify the ruling. If he accepts the judge’s decision, the district has about 30 days to appeal the ruling in Superior Court.

“In the end, I made a decision based on the totality of the information and facts gathered during my investigation - a decision that I felt was best for all students in the Tucson Unified School District.” Huppenthal said in a written statement.

Messages left for a district spokeswoman Tuesday night weren’t immediately returned. In the past, district officials have said they can’t afford to the financial hit that Huppenthal’s decision would bring.

The battle over the ethnic studies program escalated shortly after Arizona’s heavily scrutinized immigration enforcement law was passed in April 2010.

The program’s supporters have call challenges to the courses an attack on the state’s Hispanic population, while critics say the program demonizes white people as oppressors of Hispanics.

Huppenthal ordered a review of the program when he took office in January after his predecessor, Tom Horne, said the Mexican-American Studies program violated state law and that Huppenthal would have to decide whether to withhold funding.

Huppenthal, a Republican, had voted in favor of the ethnic studies law as a state senator before becoming the state’s schools chief.

Possessive whiteness. That a “Mexican-American” studies program is not a study of American History, United States History, is proof of white power in public education. One must ignore US History to make the Court’s argument. In other words, Arizona is actively teaching White History and revising history with the goal of constructing white subjects from its students.

Arizona is white dildos.

(via stfuconfederates-deactivated201)

BURN DOWN THE OCCUPY WALL STREET SHOP

occupywallstreetshop:

Occupy Fist Dark T-Shirt

Wear this Occupy Fist apparel to show your support for the Occupy Movements message.

(via Occupy Wall Street Shop)

scum.

what the fuck is an occupy fist?

motherjones:

VIP State Health Care Exposed, or “GOP Tea Party Hypocrisy of the Day”

Last year, political neophyte Rick Scott spent $73 million of his own money to bring the tea party’s anti-government, pro-privatization agenda to the Florida governor’s office. Today, the former executive pays just $30 a month for health care—and lets taxpayers cover the rest…

Scott and his dependents pay one-fifth what a janitor in the state Capitol pays for health insurance… and less than 3 percent of what a retired state trooper pays for life-saving coverage.

Here’s how he does it.

(Source: Mother Jones)

Anti-Bicycle Man Resigns

Penis is much more  popular than poverty these days. An asshole liberals loved to love has to resign because all of a sudden everyone began to realize that he, like all the other professional politicians, doesn’t really give a shit about Americans. He actually is just a repressed self-promoting capitalist. Apparently, working out everyday with the Republican closet-cases in the Congressional gym. When they’re not insulting each other in front of cameras, they’re underneath it all together—drinking, eating, exercising, and masturbating.

Now Rachel Maddow will have to work really hard to show how hypocritical Republicans are. Extra hard. You might ask why a woman with a platform like that doesn’t non-stop talk about the poor, the imprisoned, the killed, the tortured. Doesn’t each night remind her fans about the everyday life for the majority of Americans. You might wonder. But liberals want to talk about politicians. She has to cover the wealthy, legacy-ed elite. She has to cover the sheen of power, not anything having to with everyday lives of millions of people suffering the result of libertarian capitalism.

But she’s a liberal, isn’t she. She thinks the liberal social order of the market can equally work for everybody. It’s like a cult, isn’t it? I’m rather fed up with all of this gaming of the vote, the media, the government: the public discourse. Why would anyone want to be “left of center”? It just isn’t going to change anything. (Sorry for the liberal bashing.)

I’ve kind of had enough of people “telling the truth” about power. It’s all a part of reaffirming the oppressive ideological apparatus. “Telling the truth” in the public sphere usually amounts to little more than bargaining with the power structure. You cannot convince anyone who would vote for Michele Bachmann, but you really cannot convince an Obama fan either. And this represents a consensus in the majority of voters that represents the best interests in the status quo.

No bargaining. Only confrontation. No peace. Only conflict. That’s always on my mind. Confront, conflict, disrupt. Insist on it.

Anthony Weiner illustrates what politicians are. That’s the story. He’s a perfect symbol. And we’re forced to deal with a media that wants to ignore that symbol and/or rehabilitate it.

File Under: Things White Travelers Like To Do.  Thousands of white students come to Korea each year and many more than not treat the country as an open bar where everyone works to cater to their pleasure. In this photo, kids drink and play cards on a busy Seoul subway, breaking at least four cardinal rules about cramped public transport use in this city. The incident so infuriated Koreans in 2009 that it’s still widely circulated, still fucking up foreigner rep in the nationalist state.  Thanks Privileged Assholes.

(photo source)

Handling the Westboro Lunatic Fringe

I should note that I do not in any way endorse the right-wing site I’m linking to within this post. I loathe it and find the discourse on it about politics both useless and crass. I do like what the Brandon folks did to the Westboro nuts. On the other hand, I worry that these Mississippians would do the same thing to me and my lefty friends if we were to show up. This time they went after the true enemies of the people.

From the article about the Brandon, Mississippi, action:

A couple of days before, one of them (Westboro protestors) ran his mouth at a Brandon gas station and got his arse waxed. Police were called and the beaten man could not give much of a description of who beat him. When they canvassed the station and spoke to the large crowd that had gathered around, no one seemed to remember anything about what had happened.

Rankin County handled this thing perfectly. There were many things that were put into place that most will never know about and at great expense to the county.

Most of the morons never made it out of their hotel parking lot. It seems that certain Rankin county pickup trucks were parked directly behind any car that had Kansas plates in the hotel parking lot and the drivers mysteriously disappeared until after the funeral was over. Police were called but their wrecker service was running behind and it was going to be a few hours before they could tow the trucks so the Kansas plated cars could get out.

A few made it to the funeral but were ushered away to be questioned about a crime they might have possibly been involved in. Turns out, after a few hours of questioning, that they were not involved and they were allowed to go on about their business.

daglists: What am I reading today?

Same as He Ever Was. Paul Krugman, New York Times.

Folks, he’s always been like this. The image of Ryan as a thoughtful, serious conservative never had any basis in reality. The original “roadmap” was just as nonsensical as the new proposal; the Ryan-led attack on health reform was crude nonsense.

Student dons KKK Hood at School Assembly. Joanna @ The Intersection of Madness & Reality.

Recently, a high school student in Utah was accused of racism after wearing a pillowcase over his head during a spirit assembly at Alta High School. The pillowcase looked similar to KKK hood, and when student Larz Cosby (who is described as “multi-ethnic”) demanded that it be removed, the hooded teen taunted the concerned Cosby and yelled “white power.” Cosby then removed the boys hood and threw it to the ground. He later blogged about the incident, and reported it to authorities at the school.

Alta High administrators placed on paid leave during investigation. Amanda Verzello, KSL.com.

The principal and vice principal of Alta High School have been placed on paid leave during the investigation of multiple “serious incidents” uncovered by a district investigation, according to a school employee.

Prompted by a March 18 incident where a student wore a white pointed hood to a school spirit bowl that some felt resembled the infamous Ku Klux Klan symbol, the Canyons School District has uncovered evidence of other “serious incidents” that have occurred at the school over the past year, according to district spokeswoman Jennifer Toomer-Cook.

Dissents of the Day. Andrew Sullivan, The Dish @ The Daily Beast.

The in-tray is still bulging with fury over Paul Ryan. I find the arguments bracing - and in themselves evidence that Ryan’s proposal has already helped move the debate to more earnest grounds.

Cathie Black and the Privatisation of Education. Daniel Denvir, The Guardian.

Cathleen Black, the multimillionaire publishing executive with absolutely no background in education, has resigned as New York City schools chancellor. Her departure is a rare setback for a corporate-funded education reform movement that lauds standardised tests, non-union teachers and private management as the solution to the problems of public education.