DL Open Thread Thursday, April 29, 2021
Biden’s speech is getting good reviews — I thought I heard thunder last night, but it was just exploding Republican heads — but not so much for the rebuttal from South Carolina Sen. “Uncle Tim” Scott. He claims America is not a racist country. Hey Tim, the kapos at the Nazi death camps were Jews. Giving them that tiny bit of authority didn’t mean the Nazis weren’t anti-Semitic. And you ought to hear what your GOP colleagues say behind your back.
Menthol cigarettes, which function as training wheels for people seeking a tabacco addiction, are under fire, and it appears the administration plans to ban them. I always thought it was just a stereotype that Blacks prefer menthol, but the stats say a staggering 85% of Black smokers buy menthol, three times the rate for other smokers.
Supreme Court watchers are all atwitter about The Case of the Profane Cheerleader. Seems a 14-year-old cheerleader in Pennsyltucky, upset over not being promoted to the varsity squad, posted her frustration on social media thus: “Fuck school Fuck softball, Fuck cheer, Fuck everything.” Mahanoy City being a town smaller than an Amazon warehouse — the “city” part is aspirational, if you want big-city shopping you have to drive 13 miles to Hazelton — school officials kicked her off the cheer team for the year, claiming her post was “bad for morale.” This shouldn’t tax the mental capacity of anyone but the court’s conservatives — school officials clearly overstepped their authority by trying to stifle off-campus speech — but my response to the whole thing is, “And so her parents sued? Their kid couldn’t be a cheerleader so they fucking sued?” This country has an unhealthy addiction to lawsuits, prove me wrong.
Schadenfreude meters all over the country redlined again yesterday when the feds raided Rudy Giuliani’s office and seized his cell phones, which means we won’t be getting any updates on the case when he butt-dials reporters.
Remember when Bubba, Cletus and their friend Festus chased and killed a guy in Georgia last year for jogging while Black? A federal grand jury indicted them on hate crime charges. I suppose they were afraid that police might only arrest the guy.
On the other side of the coin, the Delmar police officer who was ambushed and brutally beaten responding alone to a 911 call has died. Conservatives will rush to blame this on a “lack of respect for police,” but the real problem here was the fact that the town’s residents won’t pay enough in taxes to sent out two-person patrols.
Speaking of which, a team of human rights lawyers from around the globe issued a report that said America’s plague of police-on-Black violence constitutes crimes against humanity and charges should be addressed in international court. Yeah, right, that’ll happen.
Facebook did an internal analysis of how the company’s fascist-coddling policies abetted the Jan. 6 insurrection, but they don’t want anyone to read it. This link to BuzzFeed reprints it.
The floor’s yours.
Alby had a lot for me to get worked up about so I center on Metholated cigarettes. If you go into npr.org search engine, you will find story after story. All bad. I truly believe these type of cigarettes are killing most black and poor people because their respiratory system is destroyed and Covid takes them out. The national press hasn’t connected these dots because they are afraid of the industry or plain stupid. Alby would know which one or even another take. Menthol is very addictive is banned by the EU and should be banned everywhere. They are a crime against humanity. That is all.
Actually it’s not the menthol that’s addictive, or people would get hooked on Vicks Vapo-Rub. The menthol covers up the harshness of the tobacco smoke. I started out on menthols, and one summer when I worked construction on a mostly Black crew, I had to buy Kools to bet if I wanted to play in the lunchtime game of rummy.
Come to think of it, why DIDN’T Trump pardon Giuliani?
Because it implies — it used to be you had to admit to — something illegal was done.
Executive pardons are a terrible way to correct injustice, because their capricious nature practically guarantees corruption.
I agree, not that ‘guaranteeing corruption’ was a turn-off to Trump.
One way or another, those Minny cops are gonna face justice. Including from DOJ. I doubt that this will stop in Minny, and it shouldn’t:
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/report-feds-plan-to-indict-chauvin-and-other-officers-on-civil-rights-violation-charges
There were 533,000 new jobless claims this past week. This is being spun as good news in MSM because it’s the third consecutive week of decline, indicating a continuing recovery. But, as Atrios points out, that’s still a lot of people — for 55 consecutive weeks during the pandemic, initial claims were higher than the highest week of the Great Recession, a streak that only ended three weeks ago.
https://www.eschatonblog.com/2021/04/thursday-is-new-jobless-day_29.html
Massive episode for the history buffs drops tomorrow.
Here’s how Matt Gaetz survives.
Flood the zone with bullshit about how he is a victim of the woke mob.
He’ll fundraise off of it and since he’s facing state charges, all he has to do is convince 1 in 12 FLORIDA VOTERS that he’s some target. Search your feelings. You know it to be true. He’ll be re-elected.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/joel-greenberg-letter-written-for-roger-stone-says-matt-gaetz-paid-for-sex-with-minor
A confession letter written by Joel Greenberg in the final months of the Trump presidency claims that he and close associate Rep. Matt Gaetz paid for sex with multiple women—as well as a girl who was 17 at the time.