When You Let George Zimmerman Get Away With Murder …

Apparently two white supremacists shot bullets, at least two shots, at two bi-racial siblings (16 yo and 12 yo) who were walking on a footpath that is property of a local church and intended and maintained for public use. The evil white supremacists arrested for those shots are James Reidnauer and Brent van Besien. They don’t claim that the fired no shots, but they do insist that they fired the shots because the children were “meth heads”.

There’s little mystery about their future defense: they can claim erratic behavior on the part of the children that scared them, then invoke stand your ground. We know that Zimmerman claimed he thought Martin might have been high. We know that Zimmerman, despite being a violent, horrible jerkface ended up being found not guilty at trial. Why should the white supremacists neglect a winning strategy?

This. This is the evil that your government encourages when it passes a stand your ground law. Every single such law should be opposed in every single jurisdiction that has passed or considers passing such a provision. Do not retreat from this fight. Go on offense. The mere existence of stand your ground laws is a threat: treat it as such and never back down.

Presented Without Comment: “I Thought I Was Going To Die”

Content Note for, like, almost everything.

And to be clear, it’s not that I don’t want to comment, it’s simply that i don’t know what to say about setting someone’s hair on fire:

A 13-year-old girl is recovering after a classmate set her hair on fire, while other kids looked on laughing.

The incident happened while she was waiting at a bus stop, two blocks from the Gompers School, last Tuesday. Eighth-grader Nevaeh Robinson says a fellow classmate used a lighter to set her hair on fire.

“When it happened, I panicked real fast, because I thought I was going to die because it burned my hair so fast,” she said.

Don’t think that everything is okay except for this one minor “lighting another kid on fire” incident either:

Two years ago, a classmate broke Nevaeh’s thumb at another school.

I’ll let Nevaeh’s mom say a few words:

Robinson wants to see the bully kicked out of school.

“I want expulsion if you’re setting kids on fire,” said Robinson.

Ya think?

 

 

Constitutional Law Everyone Thinks They Know: That Fiery Theater

So, everyone thinks they know a bit of constitutional law. And in many cases they actually do. How many senators does your USA state get? Who is the Head of State of Canada? These are questions that a great many people can answer correctly. But as soon as the answer gets slightly more complicated, we reach a weird zone where people aren’t able to admit we are in “I have no idea” territory yet, despite the fact that they clearly have no idea what’s going on.

Case in point: Can you or can you not shout, “Fire!” in a crowded theater? Spoiler alert: YES!

[Read more…]

Highlighting Wonkette Wisdom

There was a bit in a piece by Wonkette writer Robyn Pennacchia that was too good not to signal boost:

I have a theory on why women are the primary audience for true crime, for why we are the primary audience for crime procedurals. It’s because justice, for us, is a kind of escapism, it’s a kind of fairy tale — about as likely to happen in real life, to us or to anyone we know, as a pumpkin turning into a carriage. Nearly every single woman I know who has reported a rape or a sexual assault to the police has been told, more or less, to fuck off, nearly every one has been retraumatized. We have hundreds of thousands of untested rape kits, just hanging around in warehouses.

I, too, have watched hours of Law & Order in its original and SVU incarnations. I, too, have come to the conclusion that the criminal justice system is aptly named. How do I combine a dislike of how rule of law is exploited to produce its opposite and along the way perpetuate injustice after injustice with an affection for shows such as this? It’s exactly what Pennacchia said: fantasies can be as comforting as fresh baked bread.

Fascist Policing: Pinellas County Edition

As long as I’ve been doing stories on fascist policing, I’ve been clear that one vital element of fascist policing is that the people who do the policing are unaccountable to the people they police. Despite the occasional officer arrested for sex abuse of a relative or stealing and reselling shipments of drugs, law enforcement officers in the US are almost entirely unaccountable for the things that they do in the process of enforcing the law, even when those actions are patently illegal.

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Hold My Beer: Irony Is Frozen Inside ICE

A spontaneous protest at a Portland, Oregon ICE facility has become an encampment over the last 24 hours. Although nothing stops ICE employees from coming or going, the protest does now stop cars from entering or leaving, which is causing some employees who don’t wish to take public transit to remain inside.

Arun Gupta (@arunindy) tweets out the tragic and hilarious response:

About 75 people blockading ICE prison in Portland, OR. DHS keep coming out to ask protesters to let 9 ICE employees to leave.

“So they can get home to their families.”

If only someone had some compassion.

Enforcement of Church Law: A Good Thing For Once?

Fuck the witch hunts, and the inquisition, and the condemnation of scientific heresies, and the support for inherited, monarchic rule, and, well, just about everything. But maybe, just maybe there’s something good that might come out of Christian church law after 1700 years?

U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions, a fellow United Methodist, [faces charges under Methodist church law] over a zero tolerance U.S. immigration policy …

Specifically, the group accuses him of child abuse in reference to separating young children from their parents and holding them in mass incarceration facilities; immorality; racial discrimination and “dissemination of doctrines contrary to the established standards of doctrines” of The United Methodist Church.

All are categories listed in 2702.3 as chargeable offenses for a professing member of a local church.

Interesting. I wonder how this might affect the national conversation, given that so many US citizens are Christian.