Daily Blend: 04/12/13

Audrie Pott (15)

Understatement of the Day: “It turns out that the Obama administration has not been honest about who the CIA has been targeting with drones in Pakistan.”
(via @ggreenwald)

I just don’t have the patience (or stomach) today to write about the horrific Kermit Gosnell case, other than to affirm how it’s the perfect argument for why abortion should be fully legalized and easily accessible to ensure women never need to resort to such barbarity out of desperation.

Ditto with Vox Day’s predictably pathetic rant about how pro-choicers are all worse than Nazis and so on.

Another teenaged girl ^[pictured] commits suicide to escape persecution resulting from the publicization of her student gang-rape. Now to watch the rape-culture-soaked media fret over those poor arrested rapists. (Again.)
(via Pharyngula)

Appeals court denies Virginia AG Ken Cuccinelli’s petition to bring back anti-sodomy law.
(via Joe. My. God.)

Uruguay becomes latest country to legalize same-sex marriage.

And finally, Cracked presents some popular online myths, revised for accuracy.

If you have any story suggestions, feel free to leave them in the comments or send them in.

Alternately: “Obama almost accidentally cleans up news media”

Now this would’ve made for one awesome April Fools: “White House Accidentally Orders Drone Strike on Fox News Headquarters”:

On Thursday, at approximately 2:37 AM, members of the Joint Chiefs alerted President Obama that the Drone Strike System or DSS had activated and that several fully armed drones had been sent to deal with an “immediate threat to national security”. The President, realizing the system’s mistake was able to abort the attack just seconds before missiles would have destroyed the headquarters for the conservative media outlet.

Surprisingly, the strike was not the fault of a programming error. The DSS monitors more than 10,000 specific threat characteristics to determine if an immediate response is necessary. If the system deems that the threat is imminent and that immediate action is vital to protect the nation, it will preemptively launch a strike. “DSS worked the way it was supposed to”, states Chief Engineer Chip Boolean. “Fox hit over 90% of the key threat characteristics created by the Department of Defense.” Some of the threat characteristics picked up by the system included direct threats to the President of the United States, supporting hate groups, perpetuating racism and spreading untruthful propaganda to facilitate public disharmony. Concluded Boolean, “Once Fox hit 9,000 of the 10,000 threat characteristics, the system engaged. Fox News runs 24-hours a day so, DSS saw the threat as imminent and acted accordingly. I would like to clarify that contrary to speculation, one of the threat characteristics was not the canceling of Joss Whedon’s brilliant TV show Firefly in 2002.”

It’s only too bad the original at Free Wood Press has apparently been taken down as of this writing.

Headline of the Day: The Huffington Post on drones

Looks like Sen. Rand Paul’s (R-KY) filibuster is making waves in the right places:

All collateral damage, of course. And if they were a few years older, they’d all be “combatants”.

(via @BuzzFeedAndrew)

Sen. Rand Paul’s filibuster and Democrat partisan hypocrisy

Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY)

Something pretty amazing (and disheartening) happened yesterday, for the two of you who may not yet have heard: Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), a certifiable regressive kook in almost every regard, took the Senate into a 12-hour filibuster – spent actually talking about policy rather than, say, reading from a phone book or some such – to stall the confirmation of John Brennan, President Obama’s chosen appointee for Director of the CIA, over concerns about the Obama administration’s use of drones.

Basically, you know something somewhere has gone egregiously wrong when a handful of stopped clocks led by a Tea Party darling are the ones who are completely and unambiguously right about something, while those who make themselves out as champions of justice and civil liberties opt for partisan pettiness, instead:

Senate Republicans took the floor on Wednesday, launching an historic filibuster in an attempt to extract an answer from the White House to a simple question: Does the administration believe it has the legal authority to kill an American citizen on American soil with a drone strike?

It's a question that seems fairly nonpartisan on its face, but a second one occurred to those watching the C-SPAN broadcast late into the morning: Where are all the Democrats?

Republicans, from Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) to filibuster-leader Rand Paul (Ky.), spoke for more than 12 hours. But only one Democrat, Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon, spoke in support of Paul during that time. Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Oregon) tweeted support, but otherwise progressives who might have assumed to have been supportive were absent, leaving members of the GOP as the sole defenders of civil liberties. The White House was equally silent.

A resounding silence … as opposed to immediately offering the only reasonable (and eminently obvious) answer: “No, the US Government does not have the right to order and carry out the extrajudicial and explicitly unconstitutional murder of its own citizens on its own soil (or anywhere else, for that matter).” But then, anyone paying attention has long since abandoned any hope that the President would seriously follow up on his erstwhile promises to reform the various executive travesties begun under President Bush & co, particularly given how he’s only expanded on them while in office.

Daily Blend: Sunday, February 10, 2013

Chris Hayes

Strong monologue by MSNBC’s Chris Hayes ^[pictured] about depressingly rampant liberal/progressive hypocrisy over the Obama administration’s escalated drone war.
(via @ggreenwald)

The easy solution to anti-gay bullying in schools: Just tell kids that they can pray the gay away!

FBI continues to heroically foil its own fake terrorist plots.

Bigot-tank Family Research Council rehashes the exact same arguments against allowing gays in the Boy Scouts that it used against repealing “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”. Because their predictions were so obviously correct the last time. (And the time before that, and …)

And finally, #INeedMasculismBecause it’s a comedic draw between watching MRAs try to explain their bigotry while the rest of the world laughs at them.

If you have any story suggestions, feel free to leave them in the comments or send them in.

Hack of the Day: MSNBC’s Touré excuses presidential crimes

There’s nothing like the recent revelation of the Obama administration’s legal justification for assassinating U.S. citizens suspected of terroristic activity to help expose the more dedicated partisans out there, and MSNBC’s Touré was quick to take the cake:

He's the Commander in Chief. RT @kirstenpowers10: You are fine w the White House deciding who is guilty and who should die?

— Touré (@Toure) February 5, 2013

Maybe I’m growing blind(er) in my old age (*cough*), but I could’ve sworn that reads “Commander in Chief”, not “king”, “emperor”, or “judge, jury and executioner”. The Office of the President is responsible for executing the law and representing the people, not subverting the whole purpose of the separation of powers by declaring who gets to live or die by fiat based on whatever loose interpretation of the law they chose. (Even if that’s what they’ve been doing for a while, now.)

Even President Bush (whose executive overreach Obama has now matched or exceeded in several ways) never dared try to declare himself the sole party responsible for wantonly murdering U.S. citizens. Yet, is there any doubt at all that apologists like Touré would have cried bloody murder if Bush had tried to pull a similar stunt as Obama’s secret kill list? But because it’s a Democratic president who does it, well, it’s just necessary to combat them evil terrorizers, then. (And really, who cares if we even know what they’re accused of, or if we’re even sure they’re the right targets in the first place?)

But that’s not all:

Daily Blend: Monday, January 07, 2013

James Dobson

Most Transparent Administration In History^TM allowed to continue hiding every single detail about its drone war.

Dishonest like a Breitbart acolyte arguing against gun control.

Looks like the design & technology community also has its issues with subconscious bigotry … and knee-jerk twits who perpetuate it.
(via @pzmyers)

Focus on the Family founder James Dobson ^[pictured] laments: “Nearly everything I have stood for these past 35 years went down to defeat.” Coincidentally, my causes are only getting better!

Research indicates crime rates may be directly influenced by … leaded gasoline? First I’ve heard of this; while certain hazards increase risks of congenital defects, can they really have such a clear effect on complex adult behaviors decades later?

And finally, this is even more tragic than what’s happened to the History Channel:

If you have any story suggestions, feel free to leave them in the comments or send them in.

Daily Blend: Tuesday, December 11, 2012

Matthew Inman

Introducing @Dronestream: Twitter feed of every reported U.S. drone strike since 2002.
(via @ggreenwald)

Another hapless critic, this time a BuzzFeed contributor, goes after The Oatmeal’s Matthew Inman ^[pictured]. It doesn’t end well (for the first guy).
(via @AdamSerwer; RT: @radleybalko)

What’s more popular than the “rapidly growing” men’s rights movement? Just about anything (including horse porn).

If you have any story suggestions, feel free to leave them in the comments or send them in.

Daily Blend: Saturday, October 27, 2012

Andrew Messina

Interactive map shows details on every single drone strike in Pakistan under the Obama administration. One wonders how many “militants” were actually military-aged male civilians.
(via @ggreenwald)

Horrible: Cherokee County, GA parents call police asking for negotiator to help their suicidal 16-year-old son ^[pictured]. Cops arrive with a tank and a sniper, who then shoots and kills the boy. Parents maintain he never acted aggressively and are planning to sue.
(via @radleybalko)

It’s getting hard to maintain any respect for the good done by the Cato Institute when they go and pull bullshit stunts like this.

If you have any story suggestions, feel free to leave them in the comments or send them in.

Ex-White House spox: Murdered teen should’ve had better father

Abdulrahman al-Awlaki

I first read this tweet about “justif[ying] killing a child by saying he should have had a better father” thinking it was a reiteration of the common anti-abortion canard that terminating a rape pregnancy meant “punishing” the child-to-be for the father’s crime. Thankfully, it was about something completely different.

Something much worse:

How does Team Obama justify killing [16-year-old U.S. citizen Abdulrahman al-Awlaki, son of deceased accused terrorist Anwar al-Awlaki]?

The answer [Robert] Gibbs gave is chilling:

ADAMSON: ...It's an American citizen that is being targeted without due process, without trial. And, he's underage. He's a minor.

GIBBS: I would suggest that you should have a far more responsible father if they are truly concerned about the well being of their children. I don't think becoming an al Qaeda jihadist terrorist is the best way to go about doing your business.

Again, note that this kid wasn't killed in the same drone strike as his father. He was hit by a drone strike elsewhere, and by the time he was killed, his father had already been dead for two weeks. Gibbs nevertheless defends the strike, not by arguing that the kid was a threat, or that killing him was an accident, but by saying that his late father irresponsibly joined al Qaeda terrorists.

Abdulrahman wasn’t a terrorist, or even an alleged sympathizer. He wasn’t on any “kill list”, nor was he accused of anything beyond setting out to find his father after having not seen him in the years since the latter went into hiding. His sole crime was that his parent had aligned himself with al-Qaeda, indicating no misbehavior or ill will on the kid’s part. He was essentially murdered because of his father’s alleged misdeeds.

And according to the former White House Press Secretary and current senior advisor to the Obama campaign, that rationale is just peachy.

At least one possible silver lining to such a staggeringly amoral pronouncement is that it’s likely to shed more public light on the story of the President’s extrajudicial murder spree, including of innocent and otherwise non-convicted U.S. citizens.

(via RT: @radleybalko)

Daily Blend: Monday, October 22, 2012

Anne Germain

Amnesty International: Secret US Drone Program Still Getting Away With Killing Children.
(via @AntDeRosa; RT: @radleybalko)

Federal judge blocks Arizona bill that would defund all Planned Parenthood clinics in the state.

Yet another psychic, Britain’s Anne Germain ^[pictured], is exposed as a Peter Popoff-style con artist.

Meanwhile, guess what happened after this “facilitated communication” practitioner was proven wrong. (No, really. You’ll be surprised.)
(via Rob F)

Why isn’t the IRS doing anything about all the tax-exempt churches breaking the law by endorsing candidates?

PZ Myers writes brilliantly about the problems with dismissing responsibility for online trolling with excuses of “free speech!”.

And finally: Paul Ryan poses for fake photo op at soup kitchen against their wishes. Soup kitchen owner complains. Ryan supporters lash out … at soup kitchen.
(via Dispatches from the Culture Wars)

If you have any story suggestions, feel free to leave them in the comments or send them in.

The U.S. drone program has a logo

One image says it all:

That’s not a photoshopped image, nor an entry in some satirical contest. It’s the real logo being used by the U.S. Navy’s Executive Office for the Unmanned Aviation and Strike Weapons Program, also known as the Obama administration’s pseudo-secret drone program that’s responsible for countless massacred civilians in the Middle-East, along with all the enraged militants who are created as a result. PZ Myers also confirms its authenticity.

Words fail me.