Monday
May042015
The Commentariat -- May 4, 2015
All internal links removed.
Lousy artwork via New York mag.Paul Krugman: "... much though by no means all of the horror one sees in Baltimore and many other places is really about class, about the devastating effects of extreme and rising inequality." Here I'll pause to mention that my fatuous colleague David Brooks is a liar and/or an ignoramus: "And it's also disheartening to see commentators still purveying another debunked myth, that we've spent vast sums fighting poverty to no avail (because of values, you see.) In reality, federal spending on means-tested programs other than Medicaid has fluctuated between 1 and 2 percent of G.D.P. for decades, going up in recessions and down in recoveries.... The poor don't need lectures on morality, they need more resources -- which we can afford to provide -- and better economic opportunities.... Baltimore, and America, don't have to be as unjust as they are." ...
... Why, Jonathan Chait sees a Brooks connection, too! "Tune in next week to see if the world's longest argument nobody will admit is taking place continues."
... David Leonhardt, et al., of the New York Times: "Based on the earnings records of millions of families that moved with children, it finds that poor children who grow up in some cities and towns have sharply better odds of escaping poverty than similar poor children elsewhere. The feelings heard across Baltimore's recent protests -- of being trapped in poverty -- seem to be backed up by the new data [from a large study]. Among the nation's 100 largest counties, the one where children face the worst odds of escaping poverty is the city of Baltimore, the study found. ...
... ** Nicholas Kristof: "Just the annual bonuses for just the sliver of Americans who work just in finance just in New York City dwarfed the combined year-round earnings of all Americans earning the federal minimum wage.... The roots of inequality are complex and, to some extent, reflect global forces, but they also reflect our policy choices.... We as a nation have chosen to prioritize tax shelters over minimum wages, subsidies for private jets over robust services for children to break the cycle of poverty."
Jelani Cobb of the New Yorker: "With the exception of the riots that followed the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., every major riot by the black community of an American city since the Second World War has been ignited by a single issue: police tactics.
"The Milwaukee Experiment." Jeff Toobin writes an excellent piece for the New Yorker on our racist "justice" system & presents evidence that prosecutors, who wield tremendous power, are just as responsible for racially disparate prosecutions as are the police. Also, too, judges & legislators -- including our little friend Scott Walker. Just one more reason Scottie would be a horrible POTUS. But as the reform prosecutor John Chisholm of Milwaukee acknowledges: "poverty, hopelessness, lack of education, drug addiction, and the easy availability of guns" are beyond the control of prosecutors. See Krugman. "Where we're at" can be laid at the feet of knee-jerk "law & order" advocates like Walker.
Alan Blinder, et al., of the New York Times: "In a pair of gestures on Sunday that suggested that [Baltimore] ... was staggering toward normalcy, the National Guard began to pull its troops from Baltimore, and the mayor lifted a curfew that, after several days of relative calm, had come under mounting criticism."
Yastreblyansky whacks both David Brooks & "Monsignor Ross Douthat, Apostolic Nuncio to 42nd Street. Brooks addressing the fattened ex-liberal looking for reasons to hate teachers, Douthat addressing the movement conservative looking for ways to sound less like an illiterate yahoo.... The right's pseudo-intellectual critique of public sector unions is illustrated only by the police (and to a lesser extent the staffs of correctional institutions), because they're the only ones eagerly supported by conservative politicians and placated by terrorized liberal ones afraid of being stigmatized as pro-criminal. Teachers, health inspectors, tax assessors, even firefighters don't get this kind of backing from anybody.... It's the conservatism that makes the police forces abusive, and nothing less." ...
...Boyz Will Be Boyz. Steve M.: "Let's look at a few other institutions where we utterly lack the national will to regulated or deter misconduct. Think of Wall Street.... Look at rape in the military, or among college athletes.... All the institutions I've just named have something in common with the police: They're overwhelmingly male cultures that represent what conservatives consider the best of traditional masculinity. (And you could add that they're cultures believed to be antithetical to liberalism, which makes them even more admirable to conservatives.) We're reluctant to hold the bad actors in these cultures responsible for their crimes because we think they're real men, and only wussy metrosexual liberals are unmoved by their real maleness."
Heather of Crooks & Liars: Wall Street Journal columnist Kimberley Strassel blames teachers' unions for Baltimore's problems. (Also, thanks, Chuck Todd, for your excellent "both sides equality.") CW: Yeah, teachers, unions. I knew police brutality & raging poverty was their fault.
David Sanger of the New York Times: Michael Morrell, "the former deputy director of the C.I.A., asserts in a forthcoming book that Republicans, in their eagerness to politicize the killing of the American ambassador to Libya, repeatedly distorted the agency's analysis of events. But he also argues that the C.I.A. should get out of the business of providing 'talking points' for administration officials in national security events that quickly become partisan, as happened after the Benghazi attack in 2012.
Joanna Rothkopf of Salon rounds up some of the worst confederate reactions to the attack on the anti-Muslim group meeting in Garland, Texas. See today's News Ledes.
Presidential Race
Adrian Carrasquillo of BuzzFeed: Hillary "Clinton's first 2016 foray into proving her immigration bonafides to activists will begin on Tuesday at a roundtable event at Rancho High School in Las Vegas, [Nevada,] where she is expected to affirm her support for a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants, say she supports the president's executive actions, and call out the Republican field for their shortcomings on the issue, sources familiar with the event told BuzzFeed News." ...
... Tom Hamburger, et al., of the Washington Post: Frank "Giustra, 57, a Vancouver, B.C.-based mogul whose eclectic business interests include founding Lionsgate Entertainment and investing in gold mines and an olive oil company, has come to symbolize a relatively new butsubstantial category of Clinton backers: foreign donors who are not legally eligible to contribute to U.S. political candidates but grew close to the Clintons through the charity.... Giustra's donations [to the Clinton Foundation], and others from his friends in the international mining business, are becoming a factor in Hillary Clinton's campaign." ...
... Jaime Fuller of New York: "Bill Clinton, who is currently traveling in Africa, did an interview with NBC News to defend the Clinton Foundation, saying his organization had never done anything 'knowingly inappropriate.' He said Hillary told him, 'No one has ever tried to influence me by helping you.' The former president also defended his hefty speaking fees, saying, 'People like to hear me speak,' and 'I gotta pay our bills.'" CW: Because we buy millions & millions of dollars of pretty things. Okay then. ...
... The interview, with Cynthia McFadden, is here.
John Wagner of the Washington Post: "Former Maryland governor Martin O'Malley said Sunday that he will announce his presidential campaign in riot-scarred Baltimore if he moves forward with a White House bid.... The tenure of O'Malley, who served as Baltimore's mayor between 1999 and 2007, has come under intense scrutiny since rioting broke out after the funeral of Freddie Gray...."
Alan Rappeport of the New York Times: "Carly Fiorina [will be] announcing her long-shot bid for the Republican nomination Monday morning and former Gov. Mike Huckabee of Arkansas set to announce his own on Tuesday. Ben Carson announced his bid on Sunday night." ...
... CW: Well, Carson accidentally announced his candidacy last night. ...
... Robert Samuels of the Washington Post: "For many young African Americans who grew up seeing Carson as the embodiment of black achievement -- a poor inner-city boy who became one of the world's most accomplished neurosurgeons -- his emergence as a conservative hero and unabashed critic of the United States' first black president has been jarring. Carson has been a black icon since 1987, when he became the first person to successfully separate twins conjoined at the backs of their heads. He was a rare and much-desired role model...."
News Ledes
CBS New York: "An NYPD officer died Monday, two days after being shot in the head while sitting in an unmarked squad car in Queens. Officer Brian Moore, 25, was in a medically induced coma after undergoing surgery shortly after the incident in Queens Village.... He was removed from life support at 11:15 a.m. Monday, sources said."
New York Times: "Dave Goldberg, the chief executive of SurveyMonkey and husband of Sheryl Sandberg of Facebook, died of head trauma Friday night after he collapsed at the gym at a private resort in Mexico, according to a Mexican government official."
New York Times: "Two gunmen were killed after they opened fire Sunday evening outside an event hosted by an anti-Islam group in Garland, Tex., featuring cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad, local officials said. According to the authorities, the two assailants shot a security guard and were, in turn, shot and killed by police officers. Officials did not name the gunmen or assign a motive for the attack. A spokeswoman for the F.B.I. in Dallas said the agency was providing investigative and bomb technician assistance to the Garland police." ...
... CW: Expect Fox "News" to handle this in their usual professional manner. ...
... ABC News: "One of the suspects in the shooting in Garland, Texas, late Sunday has been identified as Elton Simpson, an Arizona man who was previously the subject of a terror investigation, according to a senior FBI official." Simpson's roommate is believed to be the other shooter. Simpson was on the no-fly list.
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Reader Comments (16)
My first thought upon reading Krugman's column late last night was, "He's talking to you David." Obviously Marie and others had the same reaction. Here's an amusing take on "the world’s longest argument nobody will admit is taking place...."
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2015/05/krugman-definitely-not-arguing-with-david-brooks.html
On another matter, few facts have been released concerning the shooting in Garland Texas but one thing made clear is that the attendees were assembled for an exhibit of cartoons depicting the prophet Mohammed. In my view, mocking anyone's God is a vile thing to do. And one of the proponents of this little exercise is indeed the thoroughly vile Pamela Geller. The group pretends it exists to promote free speech, but it would appear to be just another one of those right- wing perversions of the language. A more accurate term for it is hate speech. There is a difference.
Still one more reason why people can't rise out of poverty could be attributed to that bargain fashion you just snapped up. John Oliver does a scathing take down on the price of that dress "...something which moralist David Brooks probably can't fathom. There are no longer the jobs that used to exist in communities across the country that give people the opportunity for income and to live better. Manufacturing has died and gone away.
@Victoria: The Annie Lowrey article that Jonathan Chait links to "David Brooks Is Not Buying Your Excuses, Poor People" puts this very well.
On the other hand, it is chilling to see where it has gone and how very young children and others are enslaved under horrible conditions in the production of affordable fashions that are sold everywhere.
Marie, thank you for your efforts at rounding up so many interesting articles about poverty and inequality. I only hope that the offensive moral arguments of Mr. Brooks will be smacked out of the conversation by the more thoughtful and data-driven ones of Krugman et al.
The Toobin article about John Chisholm and the Milwaukee prosecutor's office was fascinating. It is difficult to get fact-based information about Mr. Chisholm in Wisconsin because of his vilification by the right-wing for daring to investigate the governor and his henchmen, six of whom have been convicted for crimes ranging from campaigning on public time to embezzling funds from a veteran's group. None of which Scott Walker knew about, of course of course--and apparently in Wisconsin we do not hold our officials to the same standards as New Jersey, where Gov Christie is taking heat from the NYT because he is in charge of the indicted guys.
A few more comments on the Toobin article: Mr. Toobin, you mentioned that Chisholm and Walker both attended Marquette University. You omitted the facts that Chisholm graduated and went on to earn a law degree, while Walker dropped out after earning three years' worth of credit in four years. There, fixed that for you. You also could have emphasiezed that Walker was executive of Milwaukee County for eight years and did just about nothing to fix any of the problems mentioned. Also, he not only is a law and order candidate but he is ideologically opposed to pardons and has refused to pardon anyone since becoming governor.
One last comment about Toobin's article: Chisholm comes off as articulate and thoughtful. Sheriff Clarke comes off as an idiot, which he probably is. And Walker isn't quoted. That's because he is completely unable to think in depth about any issues or articulate any vision or even defense of his own ideas other than well-rehearsed talking points. I was keeping track of some of his word-salad responses to questions, but he has pretty much gone deep as far as public unscripted appearances. Here is one brief statement representative of his analytical abilities:
"You look at his (Bush's) past as governor and the stuff he talks about, he often has a whole theme of things he does. And I think it's as simple as that."
More good ideas from the Right.
Hey, let's hold a contest and offer ten grand for the most insulting depiction of the prophet Mohammed!
The hate filled creator of this ridiculous event, Pamela Geller, claims on one hand that it was her attempt to push back against Muslims who are taking over Texas and the US and crushing freedom of speech and implementing Sharia Law (Muslims in Texas comprise less than one percent (.07) of the population. Islamic flags will be flying over Austin any day now). But on the other, it's nothing more than a humble local art festival with a some harmless cartoons. Who could possibly think anything bad was going on?
Of course that assessment didn't prevent Geller from hiring a boat load of security then demanding more from local officials. The whole even was staged as a provocation. She's been screaming that Muslims who claim to love the US aren't standing with her but, as usual with wingnut haters, her scope does not extend past Islamaphobic websites and screamers. The Daily Beast reports that Alia Salem, head of the Dallas chapter of the Council on Islamic Relations, had, for weeks, been asking Muslims to ignore this idiot and not react to her need for publicity.
No one knows if the gunmen were Muslim or not, but staging an event for the express purpose of pissing off crazies (Muslim or not) can't be the best idea in town.
And this is not to say that NOT pissing off the crazies is knuckling under to them and giving up your free speech. Staging a public event where families and children will be strolling around, even with hordes of security, with the express purpose of hoping for a violent, deadly reaction (which she got), is immoral in the extreme. Putting people's lives in danger to score hate points is beyond unethical. It's evil. But it demonstrates that these people inhabit a far darker, more dangerous zone than most of us would care to think about.
This morning I happened to mention to someone here in my very red state, a very smart, reasonable person, by the way, that this didn't seem to be the brightest idea, suggesting that Christians wouldn't like it very much if some local mullah held a contest for people do draw pictures making fun of Christianity and depicting Jesus as a clown. Her answer was surprising, although it shouldn't have been. She said that no one would care. They would just consider it the work of sad, crazy people.
I truly wish that were the case. And it may for many people, but there is another group, a pretty large one at that, that would be screaming for the nukes.
@Akhilleus: OR, they would see it as part of the ongoing "war on Christians" & use it as an excuse to buy some more guns to defend their liberties against the coming Obama-led apocalypse. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott could send out the SBI to do something about the Jesus cartoonists' inhibiting Christians' First Amendment freedom of religion. Because only Republicans "believe in" the Constitooshun.
Marie
Scarcity, science, David Brooks, and the poor.
Counterfeit moralists like David Brooks concern themselves with the moral failings of the poor and suggest that the poor be more like themselves. White, rich, upper class, and, of course, unimpeachably moral (sniff, sniff).
Nearly all of the "solutions" to "handling" poor people coming from the right, restrictions on what kind of food they can buy, limits on ATM withdrawals, draconian punishment for the most minor infractions, all share a single premise: poor people are lazy irresponsible slobs who make stupid decisions that rich people would never make and thus need harsh guidelines to keep them from falling off the back of the right-wing morals train (leave us not concern ourselves that the rest of the train is practically empty, there being few truly moral people in right-wing world, and as with David Brooks, it's all about doing as I say, not as I do).
This weekend, I came across an intriguing article which points towards a different way of considering the problem, one contained in the science of scarcity.
We all have an idea of what this is like. Time is scarce, there's never enough time, and that can make us irritable. But when there's not enough of things like food and money, we become more than simply short tempered. We become less smart. Numerous tests in behavioral economics clearly demonstrate this phenomenon.
Scarcity, argues the author of this completely engaging piece, is what we're dealing with. It's not news that lack of sleep and poor nutrition are bad for health, but lack of employment, money, good food, opportunity, also tend to reduce our ability to make good choices. The switch here, and the basis of this research is "...that [this research] work inverts the long-held thinking that the poor are poor because they make bad decisions...Instead, people make bad decisions because they are poor."
It has little to do with the "personal responsibility" stick the right is forever using to hit poor people over the heads, while decrying their lack of morality and, as Brooks puts it, the bad "quality of their relationships".
As an example, the author points to a problem experienced by certain pilots during WWII in which planes were crashing shortly after takeoff. The initial studies were looking at what was wrong with the pilots. Surely, they must be at fault. The answer was nothing was wrong. At least not with the pilots. The problem had to do with the way cockpit controls in certain planes were aligned. The answer came not by looking at the people, but at the environment they inhabited that encouraged catastrophic decisions to be made easily, almost invisibly.
The science of scarcity also offers a fascinating way of looking at the problem of why people remain locked in poverty and even why many well-intentioned programs often fail.
This will be a tough sell to Confederates like Brooks and Paul Ryan and every single one of the current passengers of the GOP Presidential Clown Car who equate success with morality and morality with success. If you're not rich, you must be immoral, and vice versa.
Read it for yourself. The authors of the research offer some valuable insights into how policy can be slightly adjusted to ensure success for many more people in life.
Whether or not this is an actual goal for Confederate ideology apologists is another.
Hillary, in her kick off video, said that the deck is stacked. And it is. Those with less scarcity have a much easier time of it and make better decisions because of it which leads to a further decrease of scarcity and even better opportunities. And it really doesn't matter whether she believes that or not, it only matters whether she and other Democrats will be willing to try some new ways of unstacking that deck.
Those who would believe (as I would like to but do not) that it is OUR Constitution know little or no history. In fact, as experience with our brave experiment in constitutional democracy illustrates, the Constitution is a multi-million-fold iteration of MY Constitutions, variously understood. A mostly secular equivalent of The Bible or the Koran, the faithful divine it for meaning, with the SCOTUS its high priests.
Those priests parse and plumb to find what they, as individuals with distinct perspectives, want to find. That the Second Amendment as currently interpreted bears no resemblance to past, saner interpretations is only one case in point. And since we live in a democracy, where everyone has a right to his or her own opinion and in most cases to express it, what we have is a myriad of schismatic constitutions, the legal equivalent of a different church on every corner all of which claim to be the One True Faith.
I am no scholar of Constitutional sociology, so don't know what proportion of previous generations spent so much of their time and energy vociferously announcing their allegiance to their Constitution, but simply raising the question makes me think of the passionate religious movements that accompanied the demise the Catholic Church's hegemony.
I would think that with modern, unfiltered communication as a vehicle, we have far more Constitutional "experts" that at any time in our history, the same history which I'd bet those experts have never consulted.
We know what sectarian schisms have led to. Millions of deaths and nearly as many churches.
And all of the are Right.
I did suggest the other day that I might have a go at taking a pointed stick to the latest David Brooks "social psychology" piñata, in which he attempts to kick start his low wattage intellect to engage the problem of What to Do About Those Pesky, Immoral Poors, but others (thanks, Driftglass) have done a bang up job of it which let me off the hook.
Instead, I decided to spend my time commenting, as above, on real world solutions devised by people who are concerned more with serious scholarship than fluffing up their own elephantine egos. It's much more refreshing than spending time slogging through Brooks' Potemkin moralizing and interminable and soporific intellectual wanking.
Speaking of scarcity, the GOP in Wisconsin is trying to make life's difficulties even more difficult through contorting their bête-noir, the SNAP program:
"The law would restrict access to a whole range of commonplace ingredients. Some of the things that would be harder to buy for poor families who cook include “herbs, spices, or seasonings,” all nuts, red and yellow potatoes, smoothies, spaghetti sauce, “soups, salsas, ketchup,” sauerkraut, pickles, dried beans sold in bulk, and white or albacore tuna. (Cans of “light tuna” are allowed under the rules.)"
No herbs, no spices, no "red" or "yellow" potatoes, no FUCKING spaghetti sauce, no ketchup!!!!! WTF are these people thinking?
I remember my university years very well, when I studied full time while working full time and I definitely remember all the pasta and potatoes I ate because it's cheap enough to fill up the belly even if they're lacking in necessary vitamins and minerals. And trying to take away herbs and spices? Really? I can understand trying to limit "junk food" because it's ultimately for their own good, but legislating away their ability to make their cheap food even taste "tasty", these assholes have no conscience.
Sorry, forgot the link: http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2015/05/01/3653919/wisconsin-food-stamps-shellfish/
Safari,
If you buy into the problems of scarcity and acknowledge its effects, it would seem that Confederates are purposely pursuing a path to not just keep poor people poor, but to punish them for being poor into the bargain.
This isn't just pulling up the ladder after you've escaped, as Paul Ryan is always doing, this is dousing those remaining in the hole with lighter fluid, then tossing down cigarettes and matches and encouraging the poor devils to cultivate a smoking habit.
I can barely put words to how fucking evil this shit is, and makes me wonder where people like this come from.
There's a line in Wordsworth's Prelude that talks about how people are formed.
The mind of man is fashioned and built up
Even as strain of music: I believe
That there are spirits, which, when they would form
A favored being, from his very dawn
Of infancy do open out the clouds
As at the touch of lightning
Wordsworth, in keeping with a largely Romantic bent, was intent on seeing the better angels of our nature, much as Emerson does in his essay The Oversoul. But this question of what is it that makes us who and what we are is an ancient philosophical one, bouncing back and forth between the Platonists and the Empiricists (Locke and Hume, among many others) who believe we are either creatures with a metaphysical origin or are largely built up from a collection of sensations.
Keats, in a letter to his brother and sister, talks about a place where all of this ontological stuff goes on, he calls it the Vale of Soul-Making. For Keats, as with Wordsworth, personality and intelligence are created by the circumstances of our lives, by what hurts us, defines us, remakes us (remember that ol' Johnny Keats wasn't having barrel O monkeys type fun during his short life)--the slings and arrows sorts of stuff--and these experiences are what create our "sense of identity" or soul.
I'd have to say then, based on empirical evidence coming from Right Wing World, that many of these people have no souls. They work mightily to keep from ever having to see or even acknowledge human suffering, unless it's of the fabricated kind (War on Christians!!!!). Of course the other option is that they do have a soul, a black one created of maliciousness, mendacity, hatred, greed, and cynicism.
I'm not sure which is worse, but at all events, these people surely have inflicted enormous damage on the world and are fixing to surpass themselves.
Keats didn't believe in an afterlife, but he might change his mind about wishing there was a hell, had he met any of these monsters.
I don't know why we're all fretting over this bidnez about inequality and animosity between the have lots and the have nothings cuz it's not going to matter soon anyway.
As Marie mentions above the Obama-led apocalypse is coming and it's coming sooner than we all think. Before January 2017 as a matter of fact. How do I know? I read it on the Intertoobz so it must be true.
You see, there's this guy named Alexander Cain who figgered it all out. He's an educated guy with advanced degrees in theology, history and stuff. Besides, he's also a professor at some well-known universities. Where? In Arkansas, where the hell else?
How did he figger it out? He spent the last 16 years, or 17 (he can't seem to remember how many), studying the Holly [sic] Book, parsing the words of the great prophets and their prophecizing to determine when and how the world as we know it is going to end.
What's going to happen? Well, Obama is actually the King of the South and Putin is the King of the North. They're going to get into a major pissing contest before Obama leaves office as President of 'Merica. Obama's going to piss on Putin until Putin gets pissed off to the point that he gets really, really mad.
What's Putin going to do? He's going to launch a secret missile up into the air that's aimed and armed to explode 20 miles above the US. It's going to set off an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) that's going to fry anything electrical or electronic. Poof goes the power grid. Cars quit running so no more transportation. No power for anything - no TV, no Internet, no iPods, no iPads, no cell phones, no microwave ovens, no ATMS, nothing. People will revolt en masse. The cities are going to burn. Men, women and children will all starve.
What to do to protect yourself against the inevitable? Well, naturally, you plan ahead. How? Duh, you just have to buy his ebook (reduced from $97 down to only a once-in-a-lifetime low price of $27, today only.) What do you learn? How to prepare you and your loved ones, using simple common products that you have to buy before it hits, in order to live in a world without electricity. After all, he's studied numerous cultures around the world that are able to do it today, so you can learn how to do it too.
In-fucking-credible.
I just hope his book includes all the requisite pictures, diagrams, check lists, techniques, and other pertinent things to know and learn.
under "Heather of Crooks & Liars: Wall Street Journal columnist Kimberley Strassel blames teachers' unions for Baltimore's problems. ..."
in the comments section is a beautiful pic of the Golden Turd Award .
Great visual comment re Kimberly Strassel.
Note - Its way down in the comments.
mae finch
So we've got a list of all the things that are wrong with Baltimore, things that caused the Freddie Gray "pain in the ass". Let's see what they are, shall we?
1. Black people who don't know their place.
2. Unions.
3. Marilyn Mosby (and her husband)
4. Unions.
5. Black people.
6. Immorality, per David Brooks and every Fox host.
7. Bad Relationships, mostly just David Brooks.
8. Rioters are all looters and criminals, per Fox.
9. Black people. Natch.
10. ISIS is recruiting black people, who already constitute problems 1, 5, 9, 18 and 19.
11. Freddie Gray. Asshole started the whole thing. Jerk bag.
12. Kevin Moore, the traitor who videoed Baltimore cops beating on Freddie Gray who said that "They had him folded up like he was a crab or a piece of origami. He was all bent up," He was arrested for daring to shoot police abuse because FREEDOM. And because you just don't do that to cops.
13. President Obama. Because natch.
14. Breakdown of family structure and fatherly involvement, per US senator whose son has been arrested numerous times for public displays of drunk driving and idiocy because his father is roaming the country talking shit.
15. Family values, per right-wing radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh who is a drug addict and has been divorced multiple times.
16. Teachers.
17. Teacher unions.
18. Teachers again. Because many of them are black, and you know how that is. Most of them didn't deserve the job in the first place. Moochers.
19. Black people who don't do what po-lice tell them to do.
20. Any Baltimore or Maryland official who isn't white and who isn't on board with beating on black citizens on a regular basis.
The single problem with Baltimore you will never hear from right-wing media sources?
Police brutality. Unchecked violence from Baltimore police, who don't live in Baltimore, against Baltimore non-white residents. Baltimore police who aren't even disciplined after payouts of tens of millions of dollars in cases of abuse of citizens.
Why?
Right Wing World would never allow it. That's why.
Here's a pretty interesting take on Fiorina's history at HP (and women's CEO tenures in general.)
http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2015/05/04/3654326/carly-fiorina-glass-cliff/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=tptop3
Akhilleus: Freeedom has 3 eee's