Confederate monuments’ removal bring cry to lynch Louisiana officials

A Mississippi lawmaker recommended lynching over the weekend for New Orleans’ leaders who have had four Confederate monuments dismantled.

…In a Saturday Facebook post, state Rep. Karl Oliver, a Republican from Winona, also compared the actions of Crescent City officials to Nazis.

Confederate monuments’ removal bring cry to lynch Louisiana officials

What a psycho. Clearly his true colors have shown themselves.

New Orleans removes monuments to ‘lost cause of the Confederacy’ 

…“Three weeks ago, we began the process of removing statues erected to honor the ‘Lost Cause of the Confederacy,’ ” said Mayor Mitch Landrieu (D). “This morning, we continue our march to reconciliation by removing the Jefferson Davis Confederate statue from its pedestal of reverence.”

…[Some supporters of the statues’ removal] marched in a second-line parade to the traffic circle where Lee’s statue stands …to protest the monument’s place in the circle. …They were met by Confederate-flag wavers keeping vigil there, some wearing riot gear.

…At Lee Circle, there was some yelling between the pro-monument and anti-monument crowds and some icy stares. Much of the fury and the verbal challenges came from the monument defenders, who appeared to be outnumbered by the second-line participants by at least two to one.

~~~

…Davis was captured in the waning days of the war by Union soldiers after he fled the Confederate capital in Richmond.

“His cause went down in disastrous defeat and left the South impoverished for generations,” Smithsonian Magazine noted, adding: “Many Americans in Davis’s own time and in later generations considered him an incompetent leader, if not a traitor.”

…As the Davis statue came down, a group of proponents for removal who had been largely absent from the area around the Davis memorial since a series of verbal clashes and minor skirmishes with monument defenders, chanted “Na-na, na, Naa-na, goodbye,” according to people at the scene.
The group stood behind police metal barricades, near the corner of Canal St. and Jefferson Davis Parkway, on an expansive grassy median known in New Orleans as “the neutral ground,” a reference to the way that the space once served as a conflict-free zone where the Spanish and French settlers who once battled for political, economic and social for control of this city engaged in trade.

Across the intersection, monument defenders watched in a state of sad disbelief.

…Hours after the statue was removed by crane, the Times-Picayune reported that crews were still at the site, “attempting to [re]move the pedestal on the statue sat. … It appears [getting rid of] the pedestal is turning out to be a difficult task. [emphasis: mine]

Jefferson Davis disappears as New Orleans removes tribute to ‘lost cause of the Confederacy’ – The Washington Post

hmmmm

Jefferson Davis Statue Gone From Its Pedestal In New Orleans 

As workers slung a strap around the statue’s waist and lifted it off its pedestal, “at least 100 people cheered from across the street, outnumbering the few dozen protesters, some waving Confederate flags.” 

…”We would have preferred it to be in the daytime,” monument opponent Malcolm Suber told Kaplan-Levenson, “so everybody could see it in the light of day. But we’ll take this.”

Like an earlier removal, this one was performed in the dark because, …of “death threats against city officials and contractors.”

Before the monument could be removed, police had to clear the immediate area of demonstrators — both supporters of the monuments and those who want them taken away. [In a perhaps uniquely New Orleans fashion,] barricades [creating a “neutral zone”] were used to keep the sides separated.

Jefferson Davis Statue Gone From Its Pedestal In New Orleans : The Two-Way : NPR

Go, go gadget, good citizens of New Orleans.

FBI Investigates Alleged Bank Fraud By Jane Sanders 

Sanders stated in a 2010 loan application she had secured $2.6 million in promised donations to pay for the land purchase, which helped secure a $6.5 million loan from the People’s United Bank. Only $676,000 ever materialized over the next four years and the college defaulted on the loans, eventually going bankrupt in May 2016.

Carol Moore, who served as the final president of the college until its closure, told The DCNF the FBI contacted her as recently as a month ago regarding the allegations.

FBI Interviews Donors For Alleged Bank Fraud By Jane Sanders | The Daily Caller

Mere incompetence, as suggested by the school’s final president is far from ill intent or malfeasance. It is an interesting footnote though…

Low pay, high SF housing costs equal 1 homeless math teacher 

Etoria Cheeks teaches math at a public high school in San Francisco, explaining algebra and statistics to teenagers. In a shocking indication of just how bad San Francisco’s teacher housing situation is, Cheeks is homeless.  

…She was renting a room in a house in Daly City when she learned in December the house was in foreclosure, and she was evicted. With no family here, few friends and no savings because of a dispute over the security deposit, Cheeks had to scramble.

She put her belongings in storage and paid $30 to $50 a night for dorm beds in downtown hostels, moving around because they prohibit stays of more than 14 days. She looked at the below-market-rental lotteries run by the Mayor’s Office of Housing, but she made too much to qualify. She applied for apartments on Craigslist and other sites, but there was very little she could afford, and she kept striking out.

When her money ran low after two months in hostels, she was forced to sleep in a South of Market emergency homeless shelter called A Woman’s Place.

Low pay, high SF housing costs equal 1 homeless math teacher – San Francisco Chronicle

Sigh…

Hanford nuclear emergency: Workers take cover at ‘most toxic place in America’ after tunnel collapses 

Hundreds of workers have been forced to “take cover” after a tunnel in a nuclear finishing plant collapsed in Washington state.

…a manager sent a message to workers telling them to “secure ventilation in your building” and to “refrain from eating or drinking.” The US Department of Energy activated its Emergency Operations Center Tuesday following the collapse. Some workers were reportedly told to evacuate while others were told to shelter-in-place as officials investigated the severity of the situation.

The tunnel reportedly contained highly contaminated materials including nuclear waste trains that are used to transport radioactive fuel rods.

…Before the Tuesday collapse, those tanks were reportedly leaking toxic and radioactive vapours and chemicals that have been linked to cancer, brain damage, and lung damage. There were at least 61 workers exposed to those deadly vapours last year. Experts have called the location “the most toxic place in America” and “an underground Chernobyl waiting to happen.”

Hanford nuclear emergency: Workers take cover at ‘most toxic place in America’ after tunnel collapses | The Independent

WTF????

Jeff Sessions Seems Confused About What Country Hawaii Is In

Jeff Sessions Seems Confused About What Country Hawaii Is In

Seriously, where the fuck did Sessions think Pearl Harbor is?

Or is he just that unfamiliar with the United State’s entry into WWII ???

Or maybe, in a nod to the rule of law Sessions is refusing to acknowledge Hawaii’s entry to the United States because it was an illegal coup that overthrew the lawful and rightful ruling monarchy of the islands? (Ha, just kidding. If he doesn’t know Hawaii is now a state, he ain’t gonna be too up on how it got to be that way…. Obvos…)

Jeff Sessions Dismisses Hawaii as ‘an Island in the Pacific’ 

“I really am amazed that a judge sitting on an island in the Pacific can issue an order that stops the president of the United States from what appears to be clearly his statutory and constitutional power,” 

…[Senator] Brian Schatz: “Mr. Attorney General: You voted for that judge. And that island is called Oahu. It’s my home. Have some respect.”

….Asked for a response from Mr. Sessions, Ian Prior, a spokesman for the Justice Department, said in an email: “Hawaii is, in fact, an island in the Pacific — a beautiful one where the attorney general’s granddaughter was born. The point, however, is that there is a problem when a flawed opinion by a single judge can block the president’s lawful exercise of authority to keep the entire country safe.”

(The State of Hawaii is a chain of islands, one of which is also called Hawaii; the judge’s chambers, however, are in Honolulu, which is on the island of Oahu.)

1.) I haven’t stopped laughing about this.

2.) Some get Sessions and his staff some geography lessons. Hawaii is a state. It shares the same name as an island in that state. Hawaii is an island in Hawaii, but it’s not the one where the Judge in question is. Also, the state of Hawaii encompasses many islands, the majority of which are not named Hawaii.

3.) If Sessions’ knowledge of the laws of this country truly does not include a basic understanding of how and why a Federal Judge can issue a stay on an Executive Order then he isn’t particularly well suited to his job, is he?

4.) What pedestrian old-white-man racist bullshit.

5.) The upside is that his kind will die out sooner than later.

New Orleans Begins Confederate-Monument Removal

New Orleans is severing its ties to the racist Confederate history that lingers in the city by removing several Confederate statues. Early Monday morning, city workers were to begin to take down the statues while it was still dark to avoid clashing with those wanting to preserve the [white-washing.]

New Orleans Begins Confederate-Monument Removal

Yeah you right! Good on ya, New Orleans.

In response to a LOT of comments I saw when the mayor went live to talk about this:

1.) Yes confederates were traitors. (What are you, f’ing stupid?) They were literally waging war against the US government. How much more of a perfect definition of treason do you want?

2.) No one is erasing history. They are just refusing to elevate a totally twisted and slanted version of it above the truth anymore.

3.) You want to boycott New Orleans because of this? Great! If that’s how you feel nobody wants your backwards, hateful, fucktard self on their streets anyways. Please, stay where you are. No need to slither out from under your rock, trash!

And finally, wooohoooo!!

Red Pill Boss: All Feminists Want to Be Raped 

GOP State Rep. Robert Fisher denies he is still involved with a misogynistic Reddit forum, but an investigation suggests he may be posting incendiary comments under a new alias.

Fisher, now 31, described women as having “sub-par intelligence,” suggested that women’s bodies are the only thing that makes their “lackluster” personalities “worth it,” and commonly expressed paranoia about what he perceived as a growing plague of “false rape accusations” supposedly used as a weapon by feminists.

…redpillschool had said, “There’s no discussion of rape strategies [on the forum.]” But to his fellow red-pillers, he joked, “You don’t need a strategy for rape, other than ‘where do i buy roofies, and what’s the best brand of duct tape?’”

…In December 2016, redpillschool conducted an exhaustive three-part “thought experiment” called “All Women Lie About Rape.” …“Every woman I know has a rape or attempted rape story… But on the other side I don’t know a single man who is interested in raping women,” he wrote.

“Feminists are obsessed with rape because we live in a rape fantasy culture, where feminists wish they were hot enough to be rape-able,” he wrote in April 2014. “

“Every woman wants to be attractive enough to be raped. It’s like the pinnacle of male desire, when he can’t stop no matter what.”

And marital rape—a crime in all 50 states—shouldn’t exist as a concept in his view. “If a woman does not wish to submit to her husband she should not marry him. The contract of marriage is the verbal and written consent for sex,” he wrote in 2013.

…On The Red Pill, redpillschool wrote a lengthy post entitled, “‘Sexual Assault’ is why I’m Endorsing Donald Trump for President of the United States.”

…In 2015 and 2016 redpillschool posted a column titled, “Women are Children.” …He contends that he has “met enough women” to make an accurate generalization.

“I’m saying that women, by function of who they are, cannot have the same perspective or experience as men, and therefore cannot be expected to have the same maturity level. Even if a woman is well behaved and well mannered, her thought process still comes from a limited and childish perspective,” he wrote in May 2016.

…This perspective is one reason some on The Red Pill advocate stripping women of the right to vote.

Red Pill Boss: All Feminists Want to Be Raped – The Daily Beast

Stay classy, NH GOP!

The GOP’s Attack on Voting Rights Was the Most Under-Covered Story of 2016 

There were 25 debates during the presidential primaries and general election and not a single question about the attack on voting rights, even though this was the first presidential election in 50 years without the full protections of the Voting Rights Act.

27,000 votes currently separate Trump and Clinton in Wisconsin, where 300,000 registered voters, according to a federal court, lacked strict forms of voter ID.

On Election Day, there were 868 fewer polling places in states with a long history of voting discrimination, like Arizona, Texas, and North Carolina. These changes impacted hundreds of thousands of voters, yet received almost no coverage. In North Carolina, as my colleague Joan Walsh reported, black turnout decreased 16 percent during the first week of early voting because “in 40 heavily black counties, there were 158 fewer early polling places.” Even if these restrictions had no outcome on the election, it’s fundamentally immoral to keep people from voting in a democracy. The media devoted hours and hours to Trump’s absurd claim that the election was rigged against him, while spending precious little time on the real threat that voters faced.

The GOP’s Attack on Voting Rights Was the Most Under-Covered Story of 2016 | The Nation

sigh…

Substance Abuse Costing New Hampshire Over $2B 

CONCORD, N.H. (AP) — A nonprofit advocacy group says its latest report on the effects of alcohol and drugs on New Hampshire’s economy confirms how the lack of workforce in the substance misuse field has contributed to a public health crisis.

…New Hampshire has one of the highest per capita death rates due to drug overdoses in the nation, with nearly 500 people dying from an overdose last year. The report estimates more than 30,000 people in New Hampshire over the age of 15 abused drugs in 2014. 

Report: Substance Abuse Costing New Hampshire Over $2B | New Hampshire News | US News

Considering the fact that this happen on the former governor’s watch, and that she not only willfully passed up multiple opportunities to shift gears from a prosecutorial to a treatment oriented approach to opioid abuse but chose again and again to obstruct anyone suffering from chronic pain from having any other treatment options than the highly addictive opioid prescriptions that serves as the highway to opioid addiction, well…

…Maggie Hassan needs to sit down and shut the hell up.

The Republican Lawmaker Who Secretly Created Reddit’s Women-Hating ‘Red Pill’

A web of secret online identities connects the creator of the misogynistic Red Pill forum to a New Hampshire state representative.

…The Red Pill—an online Reddit community of nearly 200,000 subscribers that promotes itself as a “discussion of sexual strategy in a culture increasingly lacking a positive identity for men.”

…On Reddit’s Men’s Rights forum, [Fisher’s associate] Youssef described “the corruption, greed, lies, and abject depravity of the feminist system…” 

Youssef and Fisher aren’t the only New Hampshire politicos to have espoused anti-feminist beliefs. In 2015, New Hampshire State Rep. Al Baldasaro, a Republican, publicly mocked the breasts of fellow female lawmakers in the name of protecting “family values.” 

And yet Fisher’s past comments on a host of Reddit forums are arguably far more disturbing than what his colleagues have said in public. He blasted women for their “sub-par intelligence.” He said that women’s personalities are “lackluster and boring, serving little purpose in day to day life.” And Fisher once commented, “It is literally the [female] body that makes enduring these things worth it.”

…“You take the blue pill—the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill… and I show you how deep the rabbit-hole goes.”

In manosphere-speak, the rabbit hole is feminism, which the red pill reveals to be a War on Men. In this [delusional departure from] reality, the “feminine imperative” reigns; masculinity is its victim. As a result of this power struggle, old gender dynamics formerly seen as mutually beneficial, such as marriage, have all but disappeared, but female expectations of a pedestalled life unfairly remain. A common refrain among men’s rights activists is “take the pussy off the pedestal.”

The Red Pill ….community also subscribes to the beliefs that women lack both intelligence and substance, are programed to cheat on their partners, and expire after the age of 30. Its darkest sections are heavy with rape denial and apologia.

…On The Red Pill, Fisher commonly expressed disappointment that the institutions of marriage and religion were destroyed by women’s equality. He maintained that as a result of financial independence, women were no longer compelled to remain faithful and as a result, men needed to protectively adapt their sexual strategy.

“Marriage, and yes, female oppression, slut shaming, religion, these were all a means to control hypergamy [infidelity]. Marriages might be considered loveless, and women might have been unhappy, but for men it meant marriages that lasted, commitments that continued, and protection against the fickle whims of females,” Fisher wrote on The Red Pill in November 2012.

“To give women autonomy is to take away the very thing that made marriage a realistic institution… what I dislike is the general attitude that somehow we owe [women] something for sex…” …Fisher wrote.

…“Understand that in the old days, women were not brought up the way they are today. Before feminism, there was less freedom, and therefore it was not necessary to teach women consequence. Consequence was strictly a man’s game. Feminism took the lid off pandora’s box, but the mothers, and the daughters of those mothers never internalized, learned, or passed down the concept of responsibility for their freedoms, only the freedom itself.” Fisher wrote in 2013.

In addition to anti-feminist screeds, The Red Pill teaches “sexual strategy.” This includes how to “spin plates,” or balance sleeping with several women at once; how to respond to women’s “shit-tests,” a social device used to determine a suitor’s “fitness”; and how to practice “negging,” a game tactic involving a backhanded compliment calculated to undermine confidence and make a woman more vulnerable to advances. Red Pillers practice “dread game,” or intentionally instilling “dread” in a partner that you have other options, and various other techniques.

Of gaming women, Fisher said, “[Women have] absolutely done this to themselves. I feel zero regret or shame pumping and dumping.”

…Fisher seemed obsessed with the negative effects feminism was having on his dating experience.

…He felt  …that women get a free ride, believing “a pair of boobs grants [them] equal footing with somebody bringing intelligence or a personality.” 

…Fisher posited that the notion that “rape is bad” was not an absolute truth. He wrote, “I’m going to say it—Rape isn’t an absolute bad, because the rapist I think probably likes it a lot. I think he’d say it’s quite good, really.”

Though he stated he “doesn’t advocate breaking the law,” Fisher said online in 2012 that a 40-year-old man asking to see the breasts of a 15-year-old wasn’t creepy. Instead, he said it was “evolutionarily advantageous and perfectly natural.”

Besides, Fisher argued, historically, statutory rape and age of consent laws gave the sexes unequal treatment in that only females were given protection under such laws. He noted that these laws were intended to protect “teenage girls” from having their virginity stolen. Indeed, age of consent laws were originally intended to preserve virginity—a “commodity” at the time—however, in Colonial America, where statutory rape was considered a property crime, the age of consent was generally 10 or 12.

…“Regret-rape” accusations refer to the theory that women, to alleviate feelings of guilt, shame or promiscuity, accuse men of rape to detach themselves from responsibility. Men’s rights activists refer to this as an “anti-slut defense,” and have an acronym for it, ASD.

…Among Red Pillers, the notion that women commonly abuse the judicial system for means of retaliation, or “cry rape” for attention, is viewed as a matter-of-fact element of the feminist “agenda.”

The Republican Lawmaker Who Secretly Created Reddit’s Women-Hating ‘Red Pill’

And this is what NH GOP has to offer women… Charming!

Sen. Cotton blitzed by constituents at rowdy town hall 

When a man asked Cotton whether he would “take the initiative” to subpoena Trump’s tax returns, which the president has refused to release, Cotton invoked the White House defense that Trump remained under audit by the IRS. That response did not sit well with many in the room.

“Do your job!” one woman shouted as Cotton added [the fully discredited fallacy] that Trump complied with financial disclosure laws that would indicate possible conflicts of interest.

At another point, about an hour into the town hall, people yelled “Lock him up!” after Cotton praised Trump’s foreign policy.

…“Thank you for coming to Little Rock, finally,” a woman said before asking Cotton whether he was committed to the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.

“I just wondered if you were going to be as forceful as you were about the Russian hacking situation with Donald Trump as you were [in seeking answers about] the Benghazi attack,” she asked, to cheers and applause.

…One man berated Cotton for supporting another GOP deregulatory measure that would allow internet service providers to sell users’ browsing histories to advertisers and other third parties.

…Cotton replied that he was “committed” to the idea of internet privacy but insisted that the measure he supported would “level the playing field” for internet service providers competing with companies like Google and Facebook.

But Cotton’s constituent was unmoved. Unless the senator introduces legislation soon to protect consumers, the Arkansas man said, “I think it’s time to repeal and replace you in 2020.”

He sat down, and the room erupted in cheers.

Cotton blitzed by constituents at rowdy town hall – POLITICO

hmmm

This Vermont High School Is Having a Very Vermont Problem 

In South Burlington, a plan to abandon the ‘Rebels’ nickname, adopted by the local high school in 1961, has triggered a tizzy; 40-member ‘School District Mascot Selection Oversight Committee.’

…The controversy heated up in 2015 when the Burlington Free Press newspaper dug up some old high-school yearbooks from the 1960s. They showed photos of cheerleaders and sports teams posing alongside Confederate flags. Until the early 1990s, the school’s mascot was, in fact, a Confederate colonel.

The “Confederate Rebel guy,” as principal Patrick Burke calls the mascot, has long been removed from the school’s gym floor, uniforms and official materials.

Yet in this largely white, upscale, liberal city of some 18,000 people, also known as the headquarters of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream, the photos didn’t go down so well. In the November election, Donald Trump won 19% of the vote here; Hillary Clinton, 68%.

Monica Ostby, a 49-year-old parent of two South Burlington students, says she hadn’t been aware of that bit of school history. “I thought it was about Ethan Allen, ” she says, referring to the Revolutionary War figure who was a founder of Vermont. She says the Rebels nickname is too tainted to keep.

…“This will be short because I have to go home and let the dog out,” Mr. McDowell, an engineer in his 60s, told the board as the meeting neared 10 p.m.

In Mr. McDowell’s view, the Rebels name doesn’t need fixing, and it could just as easily refer to Muhammad Ali, Rosa Parks or himself, for that matter.

This Vermont High School Is Having a Very Vermont Problem – WSJ

hmmm

Landrieu: Remaining monuments to come down ‘sooner rather than later’ | wwltv.com

New Orleans has begun the process of removing its Confederate-era monuments with the removal of the monument to the Battle of Liberty Place.

…“The removal of these statues sends a clear and unequivocal message to the people of New Orleans and the nation: New Orleans celebrates our diversity, inclusion and tolerance,” said Mayor Mitch Landrieu.

“Relocating these Confederate monuments is not about taking something away from someone else. This is not about politics, blame or retaliation. This is not a naïve quest to solve all our problems at once. This is about showing the whole world that we as a city and as a people are able to acknowledge, understand, reconcile — and most importantly– choose a better future. We can remember these divisive chapters in our history in a museum or other facility where they can be put in context – and that’s where these statues belong.”

…Landrieu said the memorials were coming down during the wee hours because of death threats and intimidation from some of those who want the monuments to stay and to minimize city disruption.

…New Orleans historical records reflect that the battle was fought between a group known as the ‘White League’ and Reconstruction government forces. A few thousand members of the White League fought against members of the local police, killing some of them in the uprising. 

“The statue was put up to honor the killing of police officers by white supremacists,” said Landrieu at a press briefing shortly after the monument was removed. 

Landrieu: Remaining monuments to come down ‘sooner rather than later’ | wwltv.com

“I believe more strongly today than ever that in New Orleans we should truly remember all of our history, not some of it. that means we will no longer allow the Confederacy to literally be put on a pedestal in the heart of our city.” – Mayor Landrieu

Amen.

Shaheen: Money to Fight Opioid Epidemic Coming to N.H. 

Money that Congress approved last year to help states combat the opioid epidemic is headed to New Hampshire. 

Shaheen has been urging President Donald Trump’s administration to revise the formula used to allocate the funding so it prioritizes states like New Hampshire that are hardest hit by the crisis. She says she’s pleased officials have indicated that they will review the formula ahead of distribution next year.

Shaheen: Money to Fight Opioid Epidemic Coming to N.H. | New Hampshire Public Radio

hmmm