Facebook, Oh Facebook IX.

Charles Wasko (Classmates.com)

Charles Wasko (Classmates.com)

Yet another bigoted, white politician just couldn’t manage to keep all that nasty poison off their facebook. This time, bigotry presents one Charles Wasko, the mayor of West York, Pennsylvania, who likes making monkey jokes about the President and First Lady, and thinks it’s very funny to make jokes about lynching the President. Golly, I find myself with no desire to laugh at all.

Several West York borough council members have called on Mayor Charles Wasko to step down in light of racist posts he has made on Facebook.

Wasko, who was elected mayor in 2013, has posted several pictures on Facebook this year that council members took issue with: Two compared President Barack Obama and his family to monkeys, and one suggested Obama should be hanged with a noose. Another post featured a fictional black person saying that socialism is “when the white folks work every day so we can get all our governmental entitlement stuff for free.”

The four council members reachable by phone on Wednesday — two Democrats and two Republicans —  out of the seven members of the council, said they want Wasko out as mayor.

Wasko didn’t respond to multiple messages seeking comment on Wednesday.

Council president Shawn Mauck said this was the first he’d heard about issues regarding the mayor’s posts. He was shocked when he pulled up the mayor’s publicly visible profile and read them.

cw

One of Wasko’s posts from June features a picture of a wheelbarrow full of apes with the words “Aww … moving day at the Whitehouse has finally arrived” and “Kenya or bust.” Another, from February, is a photo of a monkey gritting its teeth, to which Wasko added the comment, “Most think it is Obama’s picture……sorry its Moochelles baby photo,” presumably referring to Michelle Obama.

 

636106840816336674-wasko3

Mauck and councilman Brian Wilson  raised a particular issue: the fact that Wasko has some oversight of the day-to-day operations of the West York Borough Police Department.

“With those types of thoughts in your mind, how can you oversee the police department?” said Wilson, who also called on the mayor to resign. “We can’t have anybody being racist or bigoted … especially an elected official.”

Matthew Millsaps, the acting chief of the department, said Wasko does, by law, have some role in the department’s operations, though Wasko’s interactions with Millsaps have been limited, the chief said. The council appointed Millsaps acting chief after Justin Seibel, who had been chief, was suspended earlier this month.

“I’ve viewed these images and am disturbed,” Millsaps said in a statement he read over the phone Wednesday night.

He said two of the borough’s eight officers are minorities — a Hispanic man and a black woman — so the percentage of people of color in the department is about the same as for the borough as a whole.

“This in no way reflects the ideology or beliefs of this department,” he said,

“Of particular concern are any images with undertones of violence — lynching or that are threatening in nature,” he said.

When asked if the picture of Eastwood and the noose was one such image, he said: “I could understand how it could be taken that way.”

How it could be taken that way? FFS, in what other way could it possibly be taken? West York, you have a serious problem.

[…]

Wasko also has made headlines for physical confrontations with council members.

Former council member Tim Berkheimer said that in November 2013, Wasko grabbed his arm and tried to choke him. Wasko claimed the two men came together when they tried to walk up the stairs to the borough building at the same time, but said he indeed pushed the former councilman.

More recently, this past April, Seibel, the now-suspended West York Police chief, had to physically separate Wasko from Nick Laughman, who then was vice president of the council.

Gosh, what a charming guy.

Full story at York Dispatch.

Every alt-right Nazi I know…

Brian Culpepper and Mike Schoeler - Channel 4 screencap

Brian Culpepper and Mike Schoeler – Channel 4 screencap

Trump’s surprise rise to become the GOP presidential nominee, built largely on a willingness to openly criticize minority groups and tap into long-simmering racial divisions, has reenergized white supremacist groups and drawn them into mainstream American politics like nothing seen in decades.

White nationalist leaders who once shunned presidential races have endorsed Trump, marking the first time some have openly supported a candidate from one of the two main parties.

Members are showing up at his rallies, knocking on doors to get out the vote and organizing debate-watching parties.

White supremacists are active on social media and their websites report a sharp rise in traffic and visitors, particularly when posting stories and chat forums about the New York businessman.

Stormfront, already one of the oldest and largest white nationalist websites, reported a 600% increase in readership since President Obama’s election, and now has more than one in five threads devoted to Trump. It reportedly had to upgrade its servers recently due to the increased traffic.

“Before Trump, our identity ideas, national ideas, they had no place to go,” said Richard Spencer, president of the National Policy Institute, a white nationalist think tank based in Arlington, Va.

Not since Southern segregationist George Wallace’s failed presidential bids in 1968 and 1972 have white nationalists been so motivated to participate in a presidential election.

Andrew Anglin, editor of the Daily Stormer website and an emerging leader of a new generation of millennial extremists, said he had “zero interest” in the 2012 general election and viewed presidential politics as “pointless.” That is, until he heard Trump.

“Trump had me at ‘build a wall,’” Anglin said. “Virtually every alt-right Nazi I know is volunteering for the Trump campaign.”

One California white nationalist leader dug into his own pockets to give $12,000 to launch a pro-Trump super PAC that made robocalls in seven primary states — with more promised before the Nov. 8 election.

“The idea that [Trump] is taking a wrecking ball to ‘political correctness’ excites them,” said Peter Montgomery, who has tracked far right groups as a senior fellow at People for the American Way, the Norman Lear-founded advocacy group. “They’ve been marginalized in our discourse, but he’s really made space for them…. He has energized these folks politically in a way that’s going to have damaging long-term consequences.”

The LA Times has a good look at this ongoing problem.

“Miss Piggy” “Miss Housekeeping” “Miss Eating Machine”.

Alicia Machado, who won the Miss Universe pageant in 1996, was photographed in May of this year in Los Angeles. Credit Emily Berl for The New York Times.

Alicia Machado, who won the Miss Universe pageant in 1996, was photographed in May of this year in Los Angeles. Credit Emily Berl for The New York Times.

The undeniably beautiful Ms. Machado, who is beautiful at any size, (preferably a well-nourished one) speaks out about her treatment at Trump’s hands, and the trauma she’s lived with for 20 years. As I understand it, Ms. Clinton had quite a moment in the debate regarding Trump’s abusive tactics with Ms. Machado. The whole article is a good read. I’d dearly like to think that Trump was at the very least moderately shamed, but no. All he cared about was how he was caught out. Nasty creep, that one.

For 20 years, Alicia Machado has lived with the agony of what Donald J. Trump did to her after she won the Miss Universe title: shame her, over and over, for gaining weight.

Private scolding was apparently insufficient. Mr. Trump, at the time an executive producer of the pageant, insisted on accompanying Ms. Machado, then a teenager, to a gym, where dozens of reporters and cameramen watched as she exercised.

Mr. Trump, in his trademark suit and tie, posed for photographs beside her as she burned calories in front of the news media. “This is somebody who likes to eat,” Mr. Trump said from inside the gym.

[…]

“I was sick — anorexia and bulimia for five years,” she said in an interview with The New York Times in May. “I was 18. My personality wasn’t created yet. I was just a girl.”

Mr. Trump has acknowledged pressuring her to lose weight, saying it was her job as Miss Universe to remain in peak physical shape. On Tuesday morning, he made no apologies for that.

“She gained a massive amount of weight and it was a real problem,” Mr. Trump told Fox News.

The full story is here.

United Nations: U.S. Owes Reparations to Black People.

Credit: Shutterstock.

Credit: Shutterstock.

The United States should give African Americans reparations for slavery, UN experts said Tuesday, warning that the country had not yet confronted its legacy of “racial terrorism.”

Amid a presidential election campaign in which racial rhetoric has played a central role, the UN working group on people of African descent warned that blacks in the US were facing a “human rights crisis.”

This has largely been fuelled by impunity for police officers who have killed a series of black men — many of them unarmed — across the country in recent months, the working group’s report said.

Those killings “and the trauma they create are reminiscent of the past racial terror of lynchings,” said the report, which was presented to the United Nations Human Rights Council on Monday.

Addressing the deeper causes of America’s racial tensions, the experts voiced concern over the unresolved “legacy of colonial history, enslavement, racial subordination and segregation, racial terrorism and racial inequality.”

“There has been no real commitment to reparations and to truth and reconciliation for people of African descent,” the report said.

Just as there has no real commitment to reparations and to truth and reconciliation for Indigenous people in the U.S. either. The uStates government has always been good at the gift of gab, with their constitution, freedom for all, blah blah blah. The trouble with it all is that it was aimed at white people alone. Other people were subjected to slavery, others to genocide. The aftermaths of both those things was nearly as terroristic as the initial events. Indigenous people are still dealing with that racial terror today, both the generational echoes of committed travesties, and the current assaults. The same can be said for Black people, who are still treated as little more than slaves, and always viewed through the lens of suspicion. We’ve all been herded, whether it’s into reservations, ghettos, or “that neighbourhood”.

I was reading an article the other day, about my old stomping grounds in SoCal, where white people still build enclaves to keep them safe from all those Mexicans, except for the cleaning and maintenance staff, natch. A 15 year old was quoted as saying something along the lines of “it’s not racism, it’s not segregation! People prefer to be with their own.” Right. Well, that sort of thing is easy when you don’t allow anyone in. I was quite pleased to see that Santana (Santa Ana) is very majority Hispanic now. I wasn’t born there, that was in LA county, but I did grow up there, and I also grew up with the familial grumbles and complaints about all those Mexicans.

The States are a seething hotbed of racism, and it’s not new, it did not show up with our current President, it’s the blood, bone and skin of this country, built upon all those ruthlessly slaughtered so their land could be stolen, and built upon the backs of those people who were stolen and put in chains. Until the day the U.S. government fully acknowledges all the horrendous wrong it did, and agrees not to just reparations and the return of much of what was stolen, and goes well past that by actually addressing the problems caused by those past actions, we won’t be moving past the racism here. And for those who would respond to this with a sneer and a “if you don’t like it here, leave”, I’ll lob that one back atcha. As a person who is part Lakota, I’ll point out to all the white folks that we were here first, and if you don’t like it, you’re more than welcome to leave Turtle Island.

Via Raw Story.

We the People…

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The people of Florida murder 72,000 babies every year while the “pro life” politicians we’ve elected to protect them attempt to regulate the practice of child sacrifice as if it were healthcare, instead of addressing it as murder. The governing authorities of our state possess the moral, legal, and constitutional duty to establish justice for all human beings within their jurisdiction, including the pre-born fatherless by prohibiting the slaughter of children in the womb. Contrary to widespread misinformation, the right to murder humans is not protected by the Constitution and our legislature is not bound by any law or duty to aid or abet the Supreme Court in their attempted perversion of it. On the contrary, they are duty bound by their oaths to support, obey, and defend the United States Constitution and oppose such perversions and abuses of it. We demand that our legislators stop passing laws to regulate abortion. We demand the total and immediate abolition of human abortion.

Some evangelical Christians in Florida are already making plans for the 2018 ballot, and they want heads to roll. Specifically, they want abortion declared a capital crime, premeditated murder, so that any person who seeks and obtains an abortion, as well as any doctor who perform the procedure, to be arrested and tried, while eligible for the death penalty. Why that’s just so stunningly pro-life, it’s smacked my gob.

Their resolution to the Florida legislature can be read here. Be warned, it’s done in very bad ‘colonial constitution’ style, a la the header above, with each clause beginning with a flourished “Whereas”.

Their constitutional amendment petition is a tad more on the modern side:

Given that our state legislature has thoroughly failed to establish justice for the pre-born, Abolitionists in Florida have taken it upon themselves to attempt to put such a measure before the people and make way for the abolition of abortion.

Unlike our Resolution, this is an official constitutional amendment initiative petition. When enough signatures are collected, it may become a state question on the ballot for a vote. With enough votes, it will become law in Florida. Please sign and collect signatures (instructions below).

BALLOT TITLE: ABOLISH ABORTION

BALLOT SUMMARY: Abortion deprives an innocent human being of the inalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Any person who performs or procures an abortion shall be guilty of premeditated murder in the first degree, and any person who attempts to perform or procure an abortion shall be guilty of felony attempted murder. This provision shall prevail over any other conflicting provisions.

ARTICLE AND SECTION BEING CREATED OR AMENDED: Amends Article I to create a new Section 28.

FULL TEXT OF THE PROPOSED CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT: Article 1, Section 28. Abortion is Murder – Inasmuch as abortion deprives an innocent human being of the inalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, any person who performs or procures an abortion shall be guilty of premeditated murder in the first degree, and any person who attempts to perform or procure an abortion shall be guilty of felony attempted murder. This provision shall prevail over any other conflicting provision(s). “Abortion” means the use or prescription of any instrument, medicine, drug, or any other substance or device, to intentionally kill an unborn human being. “Unborn human being” means the offspring of human beings, from the moment of fertilization of the ovum of a female individual by the sperm of a male individual until either live birth or natural death, whether conceived and/or located inside or outside the body of a human female.

Daz was nice enough to render the resolution into text, so here it is:

We are calling on the legislature to do its job and protect the innocent.

WHEREAS all human beings are created in the image of God, and are thus endowed by their Creator with an inalienable right to life—

WHEREAS governments are instituted by God among men, being charged with the duty to secure this right and establish justice for all—

WHEREAS the Constitution of the United States is the supreme law of the land throughout all the states and territories of our nation—

WHEREAS the Constitution of the United Slates mandates that no state shall deprive any human being of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law, nor deny to any human being within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws—

WHEREAS the Constitution of the United States in no way, shape, or form gives the Supreme Court the right to pervert the meaning of the Constitution and impose this perversion upon the other branches and/or states with the legal force of the Constitution itself—

WHEREAS the policy of following judicial precedent (stare decisis) is merely a judicial policy and not a rule of law mandated by the Constitution—

WHEREAS our state legislators, judges, and executive officers have sworn a solemn oath to support, obey, and defend the Constitution of the United States—

WHEREAS murder deprives an innocent human being of life—

WHEREAS abortion is murder—the murder of the weakest and most innocent human beings within our midst—

WHEREAS any government that allows murder to go unpunished has abandoned its most basic moral duties and obligations—

THEREFORE,
We the people of the State of Florida are:

Resolved. That by allowing the murder of innocent children to go unpunished, the government of the State of Florida has abandoned its most basic moral duties and obligations—

Resolved. That by falsely claiming that the “right” to murder one’s child is a right mandated by the Constitution of the United Stales, the Supreme Court has perverted the meaning of the Constitution—

Resolved. That our state legislators, judges, and executive officers are bound by neither law nor moral duty to accept or enforce this perversion of the Constitution—

Resolved. That our state legislators, judges, and executive officers are bound by solemn oath and moral duty to oppose this perversion of the Constitution within our state—

Resolved. That our state legislators, judges, and executive officers are bound by solemn oath and moral duty to provide the equal protection of the laws to all human beings in our state.

BEING SO RESOLVED,
we hereby respectfully demand that our state government stop protecting the murder of children by abortion within its jurisdiction and establish justice for all pre-born human beings in our state. We demand that our legislators stop passing laws to regulate abortion, and instead outlaw all abortion as murder. We demand that our judges fulfill [sic] their oaths of office and stop rubber-stamping the Supreme Court’s perversion of the U.S. Constitution in Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey. We demand that these changes be made now—not five, ten, or fifteen years down the road. In short, we the people of the State of Florida demand the total and immediate abolition of human abortion as the legal, Constitutional. and moral duty of our elected and appointed officials.

Via AAFL.

Clinton, Trump, And Spit Buckets.

Courtesy globalresearch.ca

Courtesy globalresearch.ca

Simon Moya-Smith outlines the current plot lines in the political show. If you’re feeling a bit more serious, you can read Steve Russell’s take on the debate. Right now, I’m thinking maybe weed and ice cream are the way to go. Yep.

Right now, somewhere in America, Anthony Weiner is taking another dick pic.

In New York, however, earlier today, I imagine Hillary Clinton was popping throat lozenges like a Vicodin addict, and Donald Trump was backstage pulling on his fingers because he’s convinced that if he does this twice daily for 30-minute intervals, his puny digits will stretch and the jokes will cease.

But he’s wrong. The jokes will never cease, and his fingers will never grow, and Clinton will keep on coughing for reasons unknown (to us, anyway), and Weiner will snap pic after pic after pic of his dick – because if there’s anything he loves more than sexting strangers it’s seeing his phallic name in headlines for doing so.

There’s been an overwhelming shared and looming sense of loss and fear in this country since Bernie Sanders dropped out of this rotten presidential race at the Democratic National Convention in July. How did the fracking lady and the reality television shill make it this far?

“How could it be that these two are the best America has to offer?” a man muttered into his Lefthand Milk Stout at a pub here in Denver recently. He looked like a sports fan who has lost all hope in his team. So I bought him another beer and said, “Hey, at least we’ve still got legal weed and ice cream, huh?” That cheered him up a bit, I think.

I was recently at a local pot dispensary on the west side where they’ve got tightly-rolled joints and edibles that would calm a rhino, or at minimum, Chris Christie.

But that’s another story for another day. About tonight’s debate:

[Read more…]

39.

whitehouse.gov

whitehouse.gov

James Earl “Jimmy” Carter Jr., made no public mention of American Indians during his entire first year in office.

The 39th president of the United States, Carter only briefly mentioned Indians in his first State of the Union Address, a 12,000-word speech delivered to Congress in January 1978. Even then, Carter’s remarks were vague.

“The Administration has acted consistently to uphold its trusteeship responsibility to Native Americans,” he told Congress. “In 1978, the Administration will review Federal Native American policy and will step up efforts to help Indian tribes assess and manage their natural resources.”

The reference, likely the work of Carter’s speechwriter, Chris Matthews, set the tone for an administration that—in the beginning—largely ignored Indians. In fact, by the end of 1978, the Carter administration had decided not to announce any formal presidential Indian policy at all, historian George Pierre Castile wrote in his 2006 book Taking Charge: Native American Self-Determination and Federal Indian Policy, 1975-1993.

“Absent a presidential message, the policy of self-determination remained in place by default, but never seems to have gotten a clear endorsement by the Carter domestic policy staff,” Castile wrote. “Indian matters were dealt with piecemeal.”

Carter, who took office in January 1977, followed Richard M. Nixon and Gerald R. Ford—two presidents who championed for the end of Indian termination and ushered in an era of self-determination. Yet Carter, who inherited the new approach to Indian Affairs, maintained minimal involvement and thrust primary responsibility for Indians on the Interior Department.

[Read more…]

Trump & Santorum, One Bad Mixture.

AP photo.

AP photo.

Trump’s pandering to the religious right has gotten worse. He’s now brought on Santorum, in a bid to protect Catholics from the big, bad wolf of something or other.

Trump has hired the former U.S. Senator from Pennsylvania, Rick Santorum, as an advisor for his Catholic Advisory Council.

Santorum, who ended his campaign for president in February, is one of 35 people slated for the council. In a press release announcing the council, Trump included a list of “issues of importance to Catholics.” The topics on the list include religious liberty, pro-life, judicial nominations, education, healthcare, jobs and taxation, and safety and security.

In June, Santorum signed an antigay “pledge in solidarity to defend marriage,” that claims marriage should only exist “between one man and one woman.” Santorum has also said he would reinstate the ban on ‘don’t ask don’t tell.’ The former U.S. Senator has also defended ‘religious liberty’ in the past, and it is something that Trump comments on, in his list of “issues of importance to Catholics.”

On the topic of religious liberty, Trump said, “Religious liberty is enshrined in the First Amendment to the Constitution. It is our first liberty and provides the most important protection in that it protects our right of conscience. Activist judges and executive orders issued by Presidents who have no regard for the Constitution have put these protections in jeopardy. If I am elected president and Congress passes the First Amendment Defense Act, I will sign it to protect the deeply held religious beliefs of Catholics and the beliefs of Americans of all faiths. The Little Sisters of the Poor, or any religious order for that matter, will always have their religious liberty protected on my watch and will not have to face bullying from the government because of their religious beliefs.”

Nothing like announcing you plan to go backwards, as far and as fast as you can go.

The Advocate has the story.

Sacred Burial Ground Sold to Dakota Access.

Courtesy LandofDakota.com Cannonball Ranch, which is full of sacred burial sites and artifacts, was sold on September 22 to Dakota Access LLC.

Courtesy LandofDakota.com
Cannonball Ranch, which is full of sacred burial sites and artifacts, was sold on September 22 to Dakota Access LLC.

No words. None. Okay, a few. If the owners, who reside in Flasher, were all that concerned about liability, why didn’t they offer the land for sale to Standing Rock? I smell shit. A whole lot of bullshit.

Cannonball Ranch in North Dakota has been sold to Dakota Access LLC. The ranch is not the site of the Standing Rock Camp where protectors are taking a stand against the Dakota Access pipeline, but the ranch has hundreds of burials and artifacts.

MyNDNow reports the land was sold by David and Brenda Meyer on September 22 for liability reasons. David Meyer told MyNDNow that there were just too many people on the property.

“It’s a beautiful ranch, but I just wanted out,” he said.

Standing Rock Sioux Tribal Chairman David Archambault II made a statement at the Protecting Native Land and Resources, Rejecting North Dakota Pipeline Forum:

“Recently, they purchased the Cannonball Ranch, yesterday the transaction was final, the documents are signed and recorded with the county and the money was transferred. So the owner of the Cannonball Ranch, where we’re demonstrating, what we’re protecting, has now been sold to the pipeline company so it’s really disturbing to me because the intention is all wrong. Without having any further review and without understanding what the process was… it’s not fair. It’s not right and the company is going to try to move forward without any consideration of tribes. I am not asking that you stop this pipeline, I’m asking that you do a full EIS [Environmental Impact Statement].”

Read his full statement on the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe Facebook page.

On the same day as the Cannonball Ranch sale, more than 1,200 archaeologists and museums sent a letter to President Barack Obama, the Department of Justice, the Department of the Interior and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers urging a full Environmental Impact Statement be completed as well as a survey of cultural resources along the pipeline’s route.

“The destruction of these sacred sites adds yet another injury to the Lakota, Dakota, and other Indigenous Peoples who bear the impacts of fossil fuel extraction and transportation. If constructed, this pipeline will continue to encourage oil consumption that causes climate change, all the while harming those populations who contributed little to this crisis,” reads part of the letter.

Via ICTMN.  See comments for additional info.

The Rewards of Being A Dirty Rotten Judge: $203,100 A Year.

Judge Walter S. Smith Jr. (right) swears Felipe Reyna in as an Associate Justice of the 10th Court of Appeals in January 2004. (Baylor University).

Judge Walter S. Smith Jr. (right) swears Felipe Reyna in as an Associate Justice of the 10th Court of Appeals in January 2004. (Baylor University).

Appointed to the Western District of Texas by President Ronald Reagan in 1984, Walter S. Smith Jr. quickly developed a reputation as one of Texas’ harshest federal judges. People who worked with him knew he had a temper.

That’s what a former clerk in Smith’s Waco office says she had in mind when he forced himself on her in the late 1990s. After harassing the woman at work one morning, Smith called her into his office, wrapped his arms around her and shoved his tongue down her throat as he pressed his erection into her, according to a deposition the woman gave in 2014. He tried to direct her toward the couch even as she pulled away and kept saying no.

“I just panicked, and all I thought about was his anger, you know,” the woman testified. “And I was like how am I going to get out of here without making him angry.”

A panel of judges with the federal Fifth Circuit appeals court began investigating Smith after a Dallas lawyer named Ty Clevenger filed a complaint against the judge in 2014. Clevenger wants Congress to impeach Smith for his conduct toward women in his office. In late 2015, the Fifth Circuit judges didn’t recommend impeachment, but rather handed Smith the super serious punishment of barring him from hearing any new cases for a full year. They’ve also asked that the court’s so-called Judicial Council keep investigating Smith for allegations of additional sexual misconduct.

But as the Express-News first reported yesterday, Smith, 75, submitted his resignation to President Barack Obama last week. Which means that, as a retired federal judge, he’ll draw an annuity equal to his current salary of $203,100 per year – for the rest of his life.

There’s much more at the linked article, be warned, there is a great deal of detail about the sexual abuse and harassment. Too little happened to this horrible excuse of a human being, and now, he’s managed to put himself in the cosy position of receiving a great deal of money every year until he dies. Perhaps that won’t be long, given his age, but whether he lives one year or twenty more years, this is a slap in our collective faces of just how rotten the system happens to be. This man has seen little punishment for what he put his co-worker through, and now he gets to be rewarded by a guaranteed golden salary. Saying serious reform is needed is a serious understatement.

Full story at San Antonio Current. Content Note: extensive detail of sexual abuse and harassment.

Joss Whedon’s Save the Day!

Some of America’s biggest stars — including actors Robert Downey Jr and Scarlett Johansson — appear in a short video, taking potshots at Donald Trump while rallying voters to the polls on election day.

[…]

Save the Day was founded by Joss Whedon, director of two installments of the hit “The Avengers” films, among other works.

Via Raw Story.

Read Your Own Writing? Absolutely Not!

hell-cover

There’s an in-depth, heart-rending article at Solitary Watch, about William “Billy” Blake, now in his 29th year of solitary confinement, having been sentenced to 77 years in solitary. Blake wrote an essay which has been included in the slim volume Hell Is A Very Small Place: Voices from Solitary Confinement. The editors naturally sent a copy of the book to all those writers who contributed, but the powers who be have decided that it’s much too dangerous for Blake to read his own writing. Yep. I highly recommend the whole article, just excerpts here.

One of Blake’s essays about living in isolation, “A Sentence Worse Than Death,” was published in the first anthology of narratives about solitary. Although the book, titled Hell is a Very Small Place: Voices from Solitary Confinement, was released in February, Blake has yet to hold a copy in his hands.

Jean Casella, co-director of Solitary Watch and co-editor of the book, reports that two copies of Hell Is a Very Small Place were mailed to Blake at Great Meadow Correctional Facility in upstate New York, where he is currently incarcerated. They were sent directly by the publisher, in accordance with policies laid out by the New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision (DOCCS), but the copies never reached him.

Great Meadow Correctional Facility—referred to by most individuals serving time there as “Comstock,” after the small town where it is located—forwards all books entering the prison to the Facility Media Review Committee (FMRC). In deciding whether to allow access to a publication, the FMRC operates under a code of directives, or rules. After the evaluation, incarcerated individuals are issued an Inmate Disposition Notice, informing them of the FMRC’s decision.

Weeks after it was sent to him, Blake received a notice informing him that he was being denied access to his book.

The reason for the denial of Blake’s book reads: “Publication which incites disobedience towards law enforcement officers or prison personell [sic], presents clear and immediate risk of lawlessness, violence, anarchy, or rebellion agiainst [sic] governmental authority.” The notice flags fourteen page numbers but fails to mention the content in violation or where on the pages that content can be found—both of which are required by DOCCS Directive 4572.

[Read more…]

Witnessing history – Thank you DAPL.

11

Dave Archambault Sr. has a terrific column up at Native Sun News Today:

…Nothing much has changed for Indian Nations and their tribal members since Dee Brown’s book was written 46 years ago. Nothing – Until just recently! For some unexplainable reason, the book has miraculously come to life near a small Indian village in North Dakota, called Cannonball. In live and living color, just as the book revealed tragic treatment of Indian Nations in chapter after chapter, comes Tribal Nation after Tribal Nation announcing their arrival to the “Spirit Camp.” Here throngs of water and land protectors are gathering in a fight against corporate greed. Accounts of injustices and struggles in Indian country echoes throughout the camp and serves to strengthen the resolve to stop the Dakota Access Pipeline. “I want to cheer and cry I’m so happy to see the support that arrives daily and hourly,” said Chairman of Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, Dave Archambault II.

The words to describe the happening are hard to find. Never in the history of the America’s has so many Tribes come together is such a unified way. This joining is about expressing solidarity in behalf of Mother Earth and to also condemn the number one enemy of Mother Earth – Greed.

It is here beside the Cannonball and Missouri Rivers, that it appears the world is watching. It is here, that the Standing Rock Sioux have drawn the line against a history of crooked dealings and disrespect for all Native rights.

[Read more…]