Carlson Made the Fool, Once Again

Perpetually confused Tucker Carlson engaged in a heated abortion debate this week and got handed his shit by pro-choice advocate Monica Klein.

 
Carlson began by asking about late-term abortion comments made by Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam, but Kleinput him on notice right out of the gate: 

“I understand that you want to go back to a time where Roe v. Wade was illegal, where women were having back-alley abortions and they were using coat hangers to have abortions,” she said.

Carlson told Klein not to be “tiresome” and said, “Please don’t be a robot.” He also asked her to pause “as a woman” to think about the issue. 

Klein, perhaps emboldened by Carlson's weak response, steamed ahead, asking the Fox mouthpiece:

    “Have you asked yourself why you spend so much time talking about this rather than thinking about why your party is trying to repeal Roe v. Wade and control women’s bodies. Right now, there are seven states where there’s only one abortion clinic. There are four states with trigger bans where if Roe v. Wade is repealed, women cannot get reproductive healthcare. This is about a woman’s right to choose and you as a man should not have a single say in that.”

Carlson, clearly caught unawares, could only respond with, "Wow."  Friar Tucker meekly tried to steer the conversation back to late-term abortions, but Klein turned it around on him once again: 

“Your party is the one tearing families apart at the border and allowing children to die in federal custody,” Klein fired back. “Whose party is harming children?”

“Wow," Carlson lamely responded.  Eventually, Carlson realized that he was completely out of his element, and proceeded to wrap up the segment, saying   “This is obviously a pointless conversation and I think less of you after it, I have to say."

“I already think less of you, so don’t worry,” Klein replied.

Venezuela Has a New President to Join the Shadow Supreme Court

"I swear to formally assume the national executive powers as acting president," Juan Guaidó told cheering crowds of protesters in Venezuela this week.  Juan Guaidó's election as leader of the opposition-held National Assembly has re-energized opposition to Nicolás Maduro in a country crippled by a severe economic crisis.

Guaidó was relatively unknown until picked as the head of the legislative body just three weeks ago.   He was born one of seven children in the port city of La Guaira in the state of Vargas.  Guaidó was 15 years old when Nicolás Maduro's predecessor, Hugo Chávez, came to power in 1999.

That same year heavy rains caused flash floods which swept through La Guaira, killing tens of thousands of people and destroying large swathes of the city.  Guaidó and his family survived the Vargas tragedy, although people close to him reportedly say the government's ineffective response to the tragedy drove him into politics.

As a student, Guaidó protested against what he saw as Chavez's efforts to control the media when he did not renew the license of independent broadcaster Radio Caracas Television.  Guaidó was a founding member of centrist political party Popular Will in 2009, along with former opposition leader Leopoldo López.

López, now under house arrest, reportedly has acted as a mentor to him.  Opposition parties picked Guaidó to lead the National Assembly as a compromise candidate, and he took up his post on January 5th.

State security forces arrested Guaidó just days after his election-- but he was released from detention hours later.  Since then, Guaidó's youth and background from one of Venezuela's poorest states has made it difficult for the government to paint him as a member of the country's elite.

In his first major speech to protesters, Guaidó dismissed Maduro as a "usurper" but  gave little indication of his vision for Venezuela.  Reports however suggest he supports the Popular Will party's policies of a market economy and greater powers for regional governments.  Guaidó has called on the army to withdraw their support for Maduro, promising an amnesty for those soldiers who do so.   The U.S. and most of Latin American has now recognized Guaidó as the legitimate leader of Venezuela, while Russian and China still back Maduro. 

In the meantime, the Maduro-installed Supreme Court of Venezuela froze Guaidó's bank accounts and revoked his passport.  The Supreme Tribunal of Justice of Venezuela in exile (the legitimate Supreme Court operating out of Panama) has declared Guaidó the interim president of Venezuela, after Maduro was sentenced to 18 years in prison for corruption.    Keep your eyes on Venezuela-- things are finally starting to happen.

Greyhound Continues to Let CBP Agents Harrass Their Customers

Stand-up comic Mohanad Elshieky was taking a Greyhound bus from a gig in Washington state back home to Oregon when the bus he was riding was stopped by Customs and Border Protection (CBP). 

As detailed by Gabe Ortiz of Daily Kos,  CBP has been harassing Greyhound riders for years now because of an “obscure law” that agents believe gives them the right to demand to see the papers of anyone within 100 miles of a border. Advocates have repeatedly called on Greyhound to protect riders from immigration harassment.

When he was singled out by CBP agents on the bus, Elshieky explained to them that he was granted asylum here in the United States, showing the agents his Oregon driver’s license and work authorization card. The agents told Elshieky that he was lying and the documents could pretty much be falsified.  Agents then demanded to see his asylum approval document, but Elshieky, originally from Libya, didn’t have that on him. “They got on the phone with immigration and gave them my name and document number and I can hear the person on the end of the line saying that yes they can see my name and yes, I entered the country legally,” Elshieky continued.

The agent ended the call and lied to Elshieky, saying "there are no records of your Asylum."  The ordeal ended shortly after Elshieky threatened to call his lawyer on them. “They handed my documents back and said ‘next time, have your papers on you’ which means nothing because I did and they said they were fake.”

Border Patrol has been pulling this shit for years, stopping a Latino man last February while he was waiting for a Greyhound bus in Indio, California, because his “shoes looked suspicious,” like a recent border crosser, according to an American Civil Liberties (ACLU) attorney. ”What Greyhound and its passengers need to know is that there is no legal requirement for the company to let Border Patrol board its buses,” the ACLU said.

Greyhound has the power to stop the harassment of bus passengers. “The Fourth Amendment prohibits government agents from entering private property without consent or a warrant, and it protects everyone on U.S. soil—regardless of citizenship—from being detained or searched without cause,” the ACLU continued. “By law, Greyhound is fully capable of saying NO to Border Patrol. So why aren't they?”

Words to the Wise

Karma's a Bitch, Ain't It?

Played By Nancy

Lock Him Up!

Philippines President Duterte Admits To Rape

There has been a wave of criticism after Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte said he sexually assaulted a maid when he was a teenager. 

In a speech, he recalled confessing to a priest how he reached into the maid's underwear as she slept.  "I lifted the blanket... I tried to touch what was inside the panty," he said. "I was touching. She woke up so I left the room."  He said he told the priest that he later returned to the woman's room and tried to molest her again.

Women's rights group Gabriela said Duterte was "unworthy of his position and should resign".

Rights groups in the Philippines have strongly condemned the comments, which were made as part of a tirade against the Catholic Church over the sexual abuse of children.

Gabriela, a political party representing women's rights groups, said the comments were tantamount to admitting rape.

The Coalition Against Trafficking in Women-Asia Pacific warned that the president's comments put domestic workers at risk.  "Flaunting abusive practices encourages the rape culture and in this case, sexual abuse of domestic workers," said executive director Jean Enriquez.

The Philippines president has sparked outrage with a number of provocative comments but remains popular.

Trump Shutdown Really Putting the Screws to Federal Workers

Fear of eviction, inability to pay their mortgages and failure to feed their children are among the real fears of federal workers. Real estate developer Donald Trump, who was responsible for thousands of cruel evictions over the years, is now going to be responsible for thousands more potential evictions.



Faye Smith, Security Guard at the Smithsonian Museum, standing in from of Sentator Mitch McConnell's office told reporters:

 “I’m here today to bring my bill for Mr. Mitch McConnell, to show him, if you’re not familiar, I want a ‘Second Chance’ [rent credit] program. I have to have my rent in on time. I have no more money coming in. I am a guard at The Smithsonian Institute and I need my rent paid and I have nothing and I need to know when is he going to open things back up because I’m about to be evicted. If I don’t have my rent in by the first of next month, through the ‘Second Chance’ program, I will be evicted.” 

Audrey Murrary, a janitor at the State Departmet, told a congressional panel:

“I am a single mother. I lost my husband last year. I bought me a house in the process, and I’m worried about how I’m going to pay my mortgage.” 

Angela Vasquez, a janitor at the Department of Agriculture, testified:

“It’s heartbreaking when my children come home from school hungry, open the fridge, and there’s nothing there. They ask me, ‘Mom, why is there no food, why haven’t you bought food?’ I tell them I’m going to go tomorrow. They don’t need to know what’s going on as it’s traumatic for them too. Therefore I ask the government to please reopen the buildings so we can continue with our struggle, what we do every day.”

So True

Mabel - Don't Call Me Up

Happy MLK Day from Haitian Artist Walter Mere

Catholic School Students Harrass Elderly Native American

Fury is growing nationwide after a crowd of teenagers mocked a Native American elder and other activists at the Indigenous Peoples March at the Lincoln Memorial.

Videos of the confrontation show a smiling young man in a red MAGA hat standing directly in front of the man, who was playing a drum and chanting.  Other kids could be seen laughing, jumping around and making fun of the chants.  "I did not feel safe in that circle," said Kaya Taitano, a student at the University of the District of Columbia who participated in the march and shot the videos.
According to reports, the teens were chanting things like "Build the wall" and "Trump 2020."

Taitano said the whole incident started when the teens and four young African-Americans, who'd been preaching about the Bible nearby, started yelling and calling each other names.  To defuse the tension, Nathan Phillips, an elder with the Omaha tribe, started playing his drum and chanting a prayer for peace and healing..  Phillips walked through the crowd, and things were starting to calm down until he got to the grinning boy seen in the video.

"This one kid just refused to move and he just got in Nathan's face," Taitano said.  Other boys circled around, she said. "They just surrounded him and they were mocking him and mocking the chant. We really didn't know what was going to happen there."  Phillips is a Vietnam veteran who says he served between 1972 and 1976.  "I was scared, I was worried for my young friends. I don't want to cause harm to anyone," Phillips said. "I don't like the word 'hate.' I don't like even saying it, but it was hate unbridled. It was like a storm."

The crowd kept growing as Phillips and the boy stood face to face, but Phillips kept on chanting and playing his drum.  "What the young man was doing was blocking my escape. I wanted to leave. I was thinking, 'How do I get myself out of this? I want to get away from it,'" Phillips said.  Taitano said the standoff continued until a chaperone came and led the teens away.

Some of the boys could be seen wearing hoodies and jackets with the name of Covington Catholic High School, an all-boys' school in Northern Kentucky.  The school's website said a group of students had planned to attend Friday's March for Life rally in Washington.

After the video started going viral, the Diocese released a statement saying it condemned the boys' actions and promised that the matter would be investigated and appropriate action taken.  According to the school's disciplinary policy, acts of harassment or or off campus can be punished with suspension or expulsion.

This incident reminded a lot of people about the lunch counter sit-in protests in the 60s, when brave activists like Dion Diamond was surrounded by whites organized by American Nazi Party leader George Lincoln Rockwell.

Other critics have pointed out the following:

This is a group of adolescent young men who went to the nation’s capital for the explicit purpose of demanding that the government remove basic human rights from half of the nation. The entire purpose of their presence in DC was entitled, arrogant, smug and violent.

Long before there was a Trump presidency, there was the March for Life, and marchers who participated in this annual antichoice festival demonstrated exactly these values. Year after year. Particularly the men.

Yes-- they have been emboldened by the atmosphere that has been created in this country in the past couple of years, but the anti-choice movement is precisely where this kind of behavior is taught to kids from very young ages.  So when you see people asking the question “where were they radicalized?“ The answer is that they were radicalized in a Catholic school that has taught them from the youngest age to fetishize fetuses as the ideal of humanity and hold everyone else’s humanity as conditional.

Their participation in this annual assault on human rights makes it very clear that the driver of their behavior is their investment in a belief that they are righteous because of their inherently misogynist, white supremacist beliefs around abortion.  There is no way to decouple participation in the religious antiabortion movement  from misogyny and racism. None. It is integral to the beliefs, the actions and the twin desires to control and punish that drive the movement.

Covington Catholic High School is the same school that graduated Jacob Walter, who was arrested and charged with rape and sodomy  or an assault he committed while a senior. 

If you want to tweet about your reaction to this incident, you can mention the following accounts in your tweets, even though they're private:

• Covington Catholic High School — @CovCathColonels
• Mike Clines, Diocese Superintendent of Schools — @SupMikeClines (was on the trip with them)
• Michael Hennigan, school chaplain — @FrHennigan

Please contact the Covington Catholic High School  and the Covington Diocese and let them know how you feel about their students disrespecting and harassing Native American elders.

Covington Catholic High School
1600 Dixie Highway
Park Hills, KY 41011
https://www.covcath.org/
Phone:  (859) 491-2247
FAX:   (859) 448-2242

Principal:  Bob Rowe  browe@covcath.org
Dean of Discipline: Sam Beiting   sbeiting@covcath.org

Diocese of Covington
1125 Madison Avenue
Covington, KY  41011-3115
Phone: 859-392-1500

Bishop of Covington: Roger J Foys    email:  info@covdio.org

On the Niche website, you can leave a review of the Covington Catholic High  School and give feedback on how such an institution can produce such evil, heartless brats as those we saw taunting and harassing elderly Native Americans.

Covington Catholic High School also has six corporate sponsors, who can be contacted as indicated:

St. Elizabeth Healthcare (guy.karrick@stelizabeth.com   859-301-6315)
Global Business Solutions (info@gbs-inc.com   859-491-5900)
Ortho Cincy (drhoad@OrthoCincy.com   859-301-2663)
Barleycorn's Restaurants (joe@barleycorns.com  859-442-3400)
U.S. Bank (lawrence.chappell@usbank.com  859-578-6030)
Schrudde & Zimmerman, Inc. (Facebook   859-331-3160)


Covington's financial information can be found here.

Fuel Theft Triggers Deadly Explosiion in Mexico

Mexican authorities now put the number killed in Friday night's fuel pipeline blast at 66, with more than 75 injured.  Among the injured were three women and a child of 12.

The explosion occurred after the line was ruptured by suspected fuel thieves in the town of Tlahuelilpan, in Hidalgo state.  Distraught relatives are still gathered at the field where the explosion took place.  Forensic experts continue to photograph the remains amid a backdrop of burned clothing and discarded fuel buckets.

According to reports, the explosion was triggered by fuel thieves after they drilled through the pipeline. Images before the explosion showed a large jet of liquid rising into the air.  Pemex, Mexico's state-owned petroleum company, confirmed in a statement that the fire was caused by illegal tapping.

Officials say scores of people had been scrambling to fill up containers and were engulfed in an inferno.  Dozens of charred bodies remain at the scene, which is cordoned off by security forces.  Public Security Minister Alfonso Durazo said the blaze had been extinguished shortly before midnight local time (06:00 GMT).

Some locals criticised security forces at the scene for not warning people more forcibly to get away from the leaking fuel.  Durazo told broadcaster Televisa: "At some point there were too many people there and the army and military personnel withdrew to avoid problems." That was shortly before the blast occurred.

Fuel theft, known locally as "huachicoleo" (or moonshining) is rampant in some Mexican communities.  The government has said the practice cost the country about $3bn last year.  President López Obrador, who took office in December, has launched a major crackdown. Thousands of marines have been deployed to guard pipelines and transport has been shut down altogether in places.  The policy has led to increased reliance on tanker deliveries and there have been widespread reports of fuel shortages and long lines at petrol stations.

After the blast, Mr Fayad issued a plea on Twitter to try to avoid further disasters.  "I urge the entire population not to be complicit in fuel theft," Mr Fayad posted (in Spanish). "Apart from being illegal, it puts your life and those of your families at risk. What happened today in Tlahuelilpan should not be repeated."  Talking to local media after the blast, President López Obrador vowed to press on with his anti-theft policy until it was eradicated.

You're Lookin' At It

Cohen's Testimony Is Going to Be a Blockbuster

 

Trump is now on the hook for witness tampering, obstruction of justice and suborning of perjury.  It is truly a Nixonian moment and could spell the beginning of the end.  Read all about it here.

The Kremlim's Kitten Feeds the Clemson Tigers

 

Trump Doesn't Know or Even Care

The contempt in the administration and among Republican allies toward over 800,000 public servants couldn't be more clear, starting at the top. Trump has said they don't matter anyway, because they all vote Democratic. Other advisers have suggested that this is a pleasant vacation for all these folks, a welcome respite from their jobs. Republicans have dismissed their economic concerns, callously scoffing at the idea that these folks are living paycheck to paycheck.

As of now, the administration is making tens of thousands of employees in the IRS, air traffic control, Coast Guard, food inspection, law enforcement, TSA, fish and wildlife, and BLM continue working or come back to work despite the fact that they've been deemed non-essential. This eats into their ability to do what the administration has suggested to cover their missing paychecks-- working off their rent with chores, or taking on side jobs. If they're full-time on their actual jobs, there's not a lot of time in the day to perform side jobs to cover the essentials.

Making it even worse, the employees who have been ordered back but are still classified as furloughed can't even get unemployment benefits like their counterparts who aren't on the job.  A guidance still in effect from 2013 says that federal workers who are excepted from the shutdown and are required to work without being paid are "generally not eligible for unemployment benefits."

Steve King Finally Held Accountable for Racist Views

The Daily Kos was quick to call out Rep. Steve King on his bullshit following the outcry over his New York times interview.  King, longtime promoter of white nationalist and even neo-Nazi talking points and activists, was quite obviously again attempting to normalize white supremacy by declaring supposed puzzlement as to why the term would be found "offensive."

There is nothing about Steve King's career that is fuzzy on the point. He began his political ambitions by demanding English-only laws, seeking via legislation and lawsuits to bar government officials from providing non-English-language services. He has been furiously anti-immigrant and wall-obsessed throughout his career. He repeats white supremacist warnings that the Other is out-breeding white America, threatening our "civilization." He famously sneered at immigrants brought to America by their parents as children, blasting efforts to legalize their status by claiming that for "every one who's a valedictorian, there's another 100 out there that weigh 130 pounds and they've got calves the size of cantaloupes" from hauling marijuana across the border.

But it has been in the last several years that King has embraced not just the talking points of racism, but white nationalist, supremacist, and neo-Nazi leaders. He has a fondness for toxic anti-Muslim Dutch racist Geert Wilders and boosted the far-right Marine Le Pen. He has promoted white supremacist tract "Camp of the Saints," a gaudy tale of white civilization's downfall at the hands of immigrants that has achieved cult status among neo-Nazi groups. He has on multiple occasions retweeted and endorsed the declarations of European white nationalist and neo-Nazi leaders.  And just before his latest re-election, he publicly endorsed an openly white-supremacist Toronto mayoral candidate.

King has been asked about white nationalism and white supremacy frequently. It is his most prominent national characteristic. He is not confused by the terms; he was not caught off-guard by the Times when it was brought up again. His response was to pretend to be confused as to why the ideology of white supremacy was considered offensive, the precise same rhetorical burp used by white supremacist groups themselves to claim respectability for their violent eliminationist views. It was no accident, and there was no question that he intended his answer as a defense of white supremacy as a legitimate public "question."

Fresh Wave Of Gay Persecutions in Chechnya

Two men have died and more than 40 have been arrested after authorities in Chechnya launched a fresh crackdown on gay people, according to reports.

Police began rounding up homosexuals in December and have been sending them to a 'concentration camp' where they have been tortured.  Two men have died as a result of torture at a camp inside a former military facility in the town of Argun.

It is the same camp where more than 100 people said they were detained in another apparent crackdown on the homosexual community in 2017.

Igor Kochetkov, program director at the Russian LGBT Network, said the new wave of persecution started at the end of the year when Chechen authorities detained the administrator of a social media group popular with LGBT people.  Mass detentions began after authorities got hold of the contacts on his phone.

Kochetkov said, "Persecution of men and women suspected of being gay never stopped. It's only that its scale has been changing."

Despite several victims coming forward to speak about their time in detention, Chechen authorities continue to refute the charges and have always denied accusations of killing and torture-- even after one man came forward to talk about the time he spent in detention two years ago in Chechnya.

Maxim Lapunov said he was detained by unidentified people on a street in the Chechen capital, Grozny, in 2017 and kept in custody for two weeks.

While there, he was repeatedly beaten. He was let go after he signed a statement acknowledging that he was gay and was told he would be killed if he talked about his time in detention.

The Russian LGBT Network has been monitoring the situation in Chechnya and continues to help victims of detention and torture.

Shouldn't Be Any Doubt About It: Comrade Trump is Putin's Puppet

Amid the shocking news that the FBI actually conducted an internal investigation as to whether Trump was actively furthering Russian interests on behalf of Putin, let's stop to consider the issue for ourselves. 

Actually, Max Boot at the Washington Post has done just that-- and it's a testament to the power of the bully pulpit (and Twitter) that anyone should have any doubt that Trump and administration are actually colluding with Russia to further Russia's interests.  Consider the following:

1. Comrade Trump has a long history of financial ties to Russia.  From 2003 to 2017, people from the former USSR made 86 all-cash purchases — a red flag of potential money laundering — of Trump properties, totaling $109 million. In 2010, the private-wealth division of Deutsche Bank also loaned him hundreds of millions of dollars during the same period it was laundering billions in Russian money. ‘Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets,’ said Donald Jr. in 2008. ‘We don’t rely on American banks. We have all the funding we need out of Russia,’ boasted Eric Trump in 2014.” According to Trump attorney Michael Cohen’s guilty plea of lying to Congress, Trump was even pursuing his dream of building a Trump Tower during the 2016 campaign with the help of a Vladimir Putin aide.

2.  The Russians interfered in the 2016 U.S. election to help elect Trump president-- widely believe to have occurred with the consent and cooperation of Trump campaign aides.  Trump himself publicly urged Russian to hack Hillary Clinton's emails.

3.  There were over 100 proven contacts between Trump campaign operatives and Russia, with Trump's campaign team and administration attempting to cover up every single one of them.

4.  The Trump campaign was full of individuals, such as Carter Page, George Papadopoulos, Paul Manafort, Rick Gates and Michael Flynn, with suspiciously close links to Moscow.

5.  Paul Manafort, who ran the Trump campaign for free and was heavily in debt to a Russian oligarch, now admits to offering his Russian business partner, who is suspected of links to Russian intelligence, polling data that could have been used to target the Russian social media campaign on behalf of Trump.

6.  Trump associate Roger Stone, who was in contact with Russian conduit WikiLeaks,  knew in advance that the Russians had hacked Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta’s emails.

7.  Once in office, Comrade Trump fired Comey to stop the Russia investigation— and then bragged about having done so to the Russian ambassador and foreign minister while also sharing with them top-secret information.

8.  Comrade Trump fired Attorney General Jeff Sessions because he would not end the special counsel investigation that resulted after the firing of Comey. According to legal experts,, “the obstruction was the collusion” — Trump has been effectively protecting the Russians by trying to impede the investigation of their attack on the U.S.

9.  Comrade Trump has refused to mobilize a government effort to stop future interference in our elections. He has accepted Putin’s protestations that the Russians did not meddle in the election over the “high confidence” assessment of the U.S. intelligence community that they did.

10.  Like no president before him, Comrade Trump attacks and undermines the Justice Department and the FBI (“a cancer in our country”) — two institutions that stand on the front lines of combatting Russian espionage and influence operations in the United States.

11.  Comrade Trump attacks and undermines the European Union and NATO (even saying that France should leave the E.U. and that the U.S. should leave NATO). The E.U. and NATO are the two major obstacles to Russian designs in Europe.

12.  Comrade Trump supports populist, pro-Russian leaders across the world and in Europe-- such as Viktor Orban in Hungary and Marine Le Pen in France, just as the Russians do.

13.  Comrade Trump has consistently praised Putin as “a strong leader”--   going so far as to praise him for expelling U.S. diplomats and, despite clear-cut instruction from his own aides NOT to do so, he congratulated Putin on winning a rigged reelection.

14.  Comrade Trump has been shockingly conciliatory in his meetings with Putin, principally in Hamburg and Helsinki. Even more suspiciously, Trump “has gone to extraordinary lengths to conceal details of his conversations with Putin-- on at least one occasion taking possession of his interpreter's notes and instructing the linguist not to discuss what had transpired with other administration officials.  Several officials have said they have never been able to get a reliable readout of the president’s two-hour meeting in Helsinki.

15.  Comrade Trump defends the Russian invasion of Afghanistan and continually repast pro-Russian talking points.

16.  Over the objections of his generals and advisers, Comrade Trump is pulling U.S. troops out of Syria, handing that country to Russia and its ally Iran.

17.  Comrade Trump has effectively done nothing in response to the Russian attack on Ukrainian ships in international waters, thereby encouraging greater Russian aggression.

18.  Comrade Trump continues to sow chaos in the government, most recently with a record-breaking government shutdown and failing to quickly make permanent appointments in key posts such as the Defense Department and Justice Department, thus furthering a Russian objective of undermining its chief adversary.

Private Security Guards Accused of Racism in Cape Town

Protesters have taken to one of Cape Town's most picturesque beaches after private security guards were accused of ordering black visitors to leave.

The guards, hired by local residents, allegedly cleared the Clifton 4th beach of tourists on a Sunday evening.  Demonstrators say black beachgoers were unfairly targeted, but the firm denies closing the beach and says it only acts to protect residents from crime.

Beaches and other public areas were segregated during the apartheid era.

Cape Town Mayor Dan Plato said that the guards had "asked people of all races to leave" and had not targeted black people specifically.

Demonstrators disputed this assertion.  "These private security guards... are actually briefed to not allow black people who appear to look like they are from the townships on to the beach," local activist Chumani Maxwele told reporters.

Maxwele, who instigated a social media protest under the hashtag #ReclaimClifton, oversaw the slaughter of a sheep in a ritual that protesters said would cleanse the beach of racism.  A small number of animal rights activists later protested against the act.

Alwyn Landman, chief executive of the PPA security firm, whose job he said was to protect residents from criminal activity, denied that the company had closed the beach at all.  He told reporters that police had cleared the area after a crime had been committed.  However, the police said they had not received any reports of criminal activity on the beach that evening.

Tucker Carlson Whines About Merit

The infamous "Tuckface"

Gotta love Wonkette-- they really know how to take down a blowhard.  Especially a lightweight like Tucker Carlson:

Tucker Carlson's daddy was the president of the Corporation for Public Broacasting and an ambassador to the Seychelles. His stepmommy is a TV dinner heiress. He attended boarding school at St. George's School, an elite academy in Middletown, Rhode Island, which boasts Prescott Bush and several Astors as alumni, and then went on to Trinity College in Connecticut.

Anyway, Carlson would like to give us all a good talking-to about merit.

Carlson began by relating the sad tale of James Damore, who was tragically fired from Google for simply suggesting that women were incapable of doing their jobs there because of their ladybrains, and the equally sad story of Alex Jones, who was banished from YouTube for hate speech and glorifying violence. He then launched into a tirade about how, since Trump's election, things have gotten even tougher for white Christian men who wish to say terrible and discriminatory things about other groups of people,

No matter how qualified James Damore might have been, he made his workplace uncomfortable for others in it, and that can be just as bad for a company as having someone who sucks at their job.

Almost no one gets completely free speech at work. You can't go around insulting your coworkers, you can't stand up in the middle of a meeting and start going on about the particulars of your diverticulitis, you can't scream at your boss. If your political beliefs or your "Traditional Christian" beliefs involve insulting other people or creating a hostile work environment, then you must keep them to yourself. It's called "being professional."


America has always loved "merit." We love Horatio Alger-ish stories, we love to pretend we don't have a class system, we love believing the true reason white men -- particularly those who grew up very rich -- have led our country, our companies and our board rooms is simply because they were the most qualified. Men like Dan Quayle and George W. Bush and Donald Trump, all of whom definitely would have made it to the executive branch even if they had been born poor black women, because they had so much merit!

it's not just having money that provides privilege, though it certainly helps. It's what comes with it. It's the connections and the introductions and the ability to get an internship from the guy your dad plays golf with at the club, or from your fraternity brother's daddy. It's having your parents support you while you do an unpaid internship. It's legacy admissions to elite universities. It's getting extra points on admissions for extra-curricular activities that maybe not everyone else could afford to do.

If companies that have diversity policies are successful, that is a threat to people like Tucker Carlson -- who, you know, just might have had some non-merit-based help here and there in their lives. The very idea that it could even be possible to find any person of color who could do a job just as well as or better than a white man is a threat. It ruins everything. 

Whine on, Tucker-- whine on!

Zuckerberg Still in Utter Denial Over Facebook's Heinous Ways

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg delivered a tone-deaf year-end message, saying that he was “proud of the progress we’ve made.”   He compounded the damage by claiming he addressed such "challenges" as "preventing election interference, stopping the spread of hate speech and misinformation, making sure people have control of their information, and ensuring our services improve people’s well-being.”

He went on to say “We’ve fundamentally altered our DNA to focus more on preventing harm in all our services, and we’ve systematically shifted a large portion of our company to work on preventing harm.”

It didn’t take long for the critics to come through and say “really?” to Zuckerberg. Forbes said his message was “bizarrely worded” while TechCrunch said his “tone-deaf remarks read like 1,000 words of patting himself on the back.”

“Nothing about selling our data without our consent I see. I guess it’s just too deeply ingrained in Facebook’s ‘DNA'” said one user.

Another said, “Too bad u allowed access to ur users data. No need to put a lock on a door which has already been opened.”

This user did not mince words: “Here’s a New Year’s resolution for you Mr. Zuckerberg: Stop insulting our intelligence by referring to Facebook users as “our community.” We’re your PRODUCT and we now know you made a decision early on to sell us to the highest bidder, consequences be damned.”

View From Outside the White House

I Just Watched A Moron Who Works in an Oval-Shaped Office Back Himself Into a Corner

Trump Is Gonna Give A Speech

When Hate Speech Catches Up With You (aka, Kharma's a Bitch)

Gavin McInnes, the founder of the violent, misogynistic street gang known as the Proud Boys, found a safe space in Larchmont, NY, a quaint, upscale village in Westchester County.  The beautiful waterside community just north of New York City insulates McInnes’ wife and three young children from his daily life as an extremist gang leader who incites violence and espouses hate on any social media platform that’ll accept him.

McInnes’ family is shielded from what the rest of the nation sees on a regular basis: the rampant racism and misogyny that made him famous among chuds online; the punch-happy gang he started that commits violent acts across the country; his associations with white supremacists and skinheads and conspiracy theorists like Alex Jones; and his predilection for playing with himself on camera-- the list goes on.

Some local residents, who asked that their names not be published for fear of retribution from McInnes, said they weren’t aware of his status as leader of a neo-fascist organization until several Proud Boys made national headlines last year for attacking protesters in Manhattan. They were charged with assault and rioting, and McInnes’ neighbors began to take notice, as The Daily Beast reported at the time.

In Larchmont, Gavin McInnes found an escape from himself. That is, until his community found out who he was.

Today, there are signs dotting lawns in McInnes’ neighborhood that read, “Hate Has No Home Here.” They’re passed out by local religious organizations and displayed proudly by locals.

“We stand together as a community, and violence and hate are not tolerated here,” one resident told HuffingtonPost. “Everyone is entitled to their opinions, but Gavin? What he’s doing is a radical departure from discourse. He makes a conscious decision to incite violence and hate. We have our sign up because we want people to know this is a safe and friendly home.”

Once McInnes’ demons began to catch up with him within his own community, he decided to pen a letter to some of his neighbors who displayed signs on their properties. In a three-page, computer-typed screed dated Dec. 28, McInnes told numerous and blatant lies about the Proud Boys, his status as their leader and his intolerant views.

He claimed that his wife was a Democrat (which has nothing to do with McInnes' statements and deeds); that he is a “businessman and humorist” (he was a onetime businessman, but he left Vice Media over ten years ago), but his incitement of violence and his public comments about rape, women and LGBTQ communities are anything but funny); and that the Proud Boys are merely a “drinking club I started several years ago as a joke” (that’s simply not true).

The most telling aspect of the letter is that McInnes seems to argue that displaying an anti-hate sign is an inherent attack on his family.

HuffingtonPost spoke to several Larchmont residents who cited various reasons for displaying anti-hate signs in their neighborhood, not all of them having to do with McInnes. But they all agreed on one thing: McInnes is full of it.

“If you’re so tolerant, then put up a fucking sign in your yard, too, and stop being so narcissistic as to think that this is all about you,” said one resident.