WHO CARES WHO DOES THE KILLING? IT'S ALL MURDER
And now one reads about the totally bonkers Mr. Dear (ayiyi!) who killed people at a Planned Parenthood clinic the other day. We certainly do not need Islamic terrorists to terrorize. Our own white christian fuck-ups can kill innocent human beings without any problems. How dare Trump talk about  banning Muslims when he and his Repugs have been egging these people on for years. "Body parts... babies..." that's what Dear talks about. Is that any less crazy than the people who cut heads off. I hope the Repugs are happy with the audience they've created. No help for the mentally ill, and no decent education for anyone. Their followers and their boisterous cheers are clearly traitors themselves, and that's what they've been groomed for by the Repugs.

MASS SHOOTING IN SAN BERNADINO
I hope these congresspeople are satisfied. Fourteen dead (probably all Democrats) at a mass shooting inspired, apparently, by ISIS. And yet, no one seems quite to understand that, although it was not done under an express order from the Caliphate, ISIS did tell people to just do it--rain death and destruction in the US, while guns were still available without background checks, on-line and at gun shows. "What are you waiting for," apparently they said. What total idiocy, and beyond idiocy into treason, it seems to me, for the Congress to do NOTHING in the face of such messages, let alone the many many unbearably many mass shootings that occur in the US. So shall we say the NRA is personally responsible for all these deaths. I think we say the entire US Congress also bears responsibility, big-time.

DO THEY KNOW HILLARY ENDED "WELFARE AS WE KNOW IT"? (OR AT LEAST SUPPORTED HER HUSBAND'S ENDING IT)

Do they know that no one can be on welfare any more than five years total now--whether they or their children are sick, disabled or anything else? Do they realize there are no jobs for a lot of people? That is just since Bill Clinton was president, and Hillary was his first lady.

Is it so important that the Jewish people survive? Even at the expense of the Palestinian people? I don't think so. (David Gregory being interviewed by the Atlantic; he I guess does think so.)

AIPAC Defeated!
Finally, some senators remembered they were Americans first; then Jews. The Iran Deal, supported by nearly all Democratic senators, survived. Take that, Chuck Schumer! I think the only way HE can redeem himself, morally and politically, is to vote in favor of Palestinians whenever the subject of occupation or of Gaza comes up. He could lead the fight to diminish our aid to Israel, for example. Now that would be very fine.

"NOW Calls for Overhaul of Criminal Justice System in Light of Police Brutality Crisis," is the head of a press release I received by email today.
At last, NOW is doing something that I consider radical today and not some leftover from yesterday. With the police totally out of control all across the country, citizens must speak out against them.  And it's a help to have NOW, which up to now (no pun intended) has been the whitest, middle-classest organization of our time, urging change in this epidemic of police killings.
NOW also said,
 "What can be said about the state of our criminal justice system when, in the past two weeks alone, five women of color have been found dead inside correctional facilities?

Raynetta Turner, 43 years old. Arrested in Mt. Vernon, NY for shoplifting. Found dead in her cell within 48 hours after being arrested.

Kindra Chapman, 18 years old. Arrested in Homewood, AL for stealing a cell phone. Committed suicide within 24-48 hours after being locked up.

Joyce Curnell, 50 years old. Arrested in North Charleston, SC on a bench warrant for shoplifting. Found dead in her cell within 24-48 hours of being locked up.

Ralkina Jones, 44 years old. Arrested in Cleveland, OH for assaulting her ex-husband and his car with a tire iron. Found dead in her cell 2 days after her arrest.

Sandra Bland, 28 years old. Pulled over in Waller County, TX for making a lane change without signaling. Found dead in her cell 3 days later."

I don't think we even knew about most of these other women. I'd like to know why the man who stopped Sandra Bland is not in jail, though. But the worst of it is that even when these people are charged with murder, as they must be, they are never convicted. That has to change. There must be a nationwide re-education (what am I smoking?) about how the police are our servants; we pay their salaries; they follow our laws and they don't fucking step out of line.

As NOW says, "Our criminal justice system is in crisis. Police officers are seemingly trained as if they are a military occupying force and believe that Black and brown people are all presumptively dangerous insurgents. They are also, seemingly, trained to believe that their personal safety is threatened whenever a Black or brown person fails to be utterly compliant and utterly submissive to an officer’s every command, however whimsical (like instructing Sandra Bland to put out her cigarette on pain of being tasered)." 

I would add that they now seem quite emboldened with white people too, from what I've heard, although I don't live in that country anymore. THIS MUST CHANGE. 

The police just have to be stopped. They seem to kill another Black person every day. I suppose they've always done it and we just haven't known until now. And it seems as if it's the police all over the country--New York City (Staten Island), Missouri, Ohio, Texas--doing it, and they get away with it everywhere. What is this? Changing lanes without the right signal lands a woman in jail for three days and she ends up killing herself (if she did). Come on! This is intolerable. I've changed lanes without signaling hundreds of times plus, look at the video and you see what was happening. Also, I cannot bear hearing people like Dan Lemon (if that's his name) on CNN saying you must obey what cops tell you to do--please do we live in a democracy or not? I don't believe you can't talk back to public servants (which the police are) without being killed. Weren't we all taught, We pay their salaries? I was. This is effing outrageous. Something must be done, and if it requires shutting down the whole system, so be it. Yes, Black Lives Matter. And they better matter to everyone or it's the end of everything the U.S. has ever stood for (well, since the Civil War). The meaning of Democracy--every human being deserves respect, decency,  a vote and someone decent to vote for! Bernie Bernie Bernie! (Does everyone know he endorsed Jesse Jackson in Vermont's presidential primary in the 80s?)

Today's story about ISIS or ISIL or whatever in the Times covers how this organization now provides services in the areas it controls and thus captures the allegiance of residents (because it provides services that pre-exising governments could not seem to manage). So, how about spending the same amount as we waste on the military to provide services people need? Give up destruction and murder and simply help people on the ground with sewage, water supplies, and the like. There's so much we could do, and we could do it without hurting women's rights, unlike ISIS. As it is, we lay waste our powers and theirs, simply destroying and killing, with nothing to show for our billions but devastation.

Doesn't anyone understand that the poor, in order to have bank accounts at all, need to have more money. Banksters--it's the only way. They must have higher incomes!

Just realized "mansplaining" is just a new way of saying, "'Shut up,' he explained." So Ring Lardner was way ahead of the game when he wrote the latter.

The New York Times is a whited sepulcher

Why hasn't the Times printed the cartoons about Mohammed that Charlie Hebdo's staff was killed for? The Guardian managed to do it, yesterday. Apparently the Times can editorialize on the subject and write about it, but is unable to print the cartoons. Who has been cowed into submission here? The Grey Lady, obviously. And an abject sight it is.