It’s Not What You Say…But How You Say It: Bill Maher on Americans’ Reverence for Things That Are Said with a British Accent

Posted on May 17, 2015 by Elaine Magliaro

By Elaine Magliaro

On Real Time last Friday, Bill Maher explored America’s infatuation with British accents during his New Rules segment. Maher said, “Our reliance on the British accent to convey gravitas is kind of our way of admitting that we know we’re not really a serious people.” He added, “We drink wine out of boxes. We invented Mormonism. Our best-selling author is Bill O’Reilly. Most Americans don’t know that ‘The Big Bang Theory’ is also a theory.” Maher then proceeded to rattle off a list of “’childish stuff’ that defines us as Americans, like climate change denial, pajama jeans, and the Palin family.”

When there was an image of Tony Blair standing next to George W. Bush on the television screen, Maher said, “We have the air craft carriers, but they have the guy who knows a sentence needs a subject and an object.” Maher then made the following point: “That war sounded a whole lot better coming out of Tony Blair’s mouth — which is why the British accent is dangerous.”

Real Time with Bill Maher: New Rule: Brit for Brains (HBO)

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Posted in Humor, Short Video, United States | Tagged , , | 5 Comments

A Fine Example of Community Policing: South Carolina Police Officer Filmed Playing Football with Neighborhood Kids in a Housing Authority Development Area

Posted on May 17, 2015 by Elaine Magliaro

BennettsvillePoliceBadgeBy Elaine Magliaro

A man named Lorenzo Adams was driving his car in Bennettsville, South Carolina the other day when he spotted a police officer playing football with some young kids. Adams stopped his car and decided to catch the “delightful interaction” on camera. On Tuesday, Adams shared the video on Facebook—where it went viral. ABC News reported that as of Thursday afternoon the video had had 4 million views.

In the video, police officer C.J. Mullinax can be seen playing football with kids on a field in a Bennettsville Housing Authority development area. On Thursday, Officer Mullinax told ABC News that what he was doing was “the kind of community interaction the chief preaches to the department every day, and he hopes the video will show the public not all cops are bad, while encouraging other police departments in strained relationships with their communities to follow suit.”

Heartening Video Shows South Carolina Cop Playing Football With Kids

Larry McNeil, the chief of the Bennettsville Police Department, told ABC News, “I believe you can do so much more chasing a kid while holding a basketball or football than chasing a kid while holding a baton or gun. I always tell my guys they can do more with what’s between their ears — their brain — than the holster on their side.”

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Posted in Law Enforcement, Local Government, Media, Police, Short Video, United States | Tagged , , , | 25 Comments

Picture of the Day for May 17, 2015: A Little Humor for a Sunday Morning

Posted on May 17, 2015 by Elaine Magliaro

Posted by Elaine Magliaro

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Common Cause and the Center for Media and Democracy Add to Evidence in “Whistleblower” Tax Fraud Claim Against ALEC

Posted on May 16, 2015 by Elaine Magliaro

UnknownBy Elaine Magliaro

Common Cause announced earlier this week that it and the Center for Media and Democracy had “sent federal authorities new evidence…that the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) is falsely passing itself off as a tax-exempt charity and effectively using taxpayer dollars to subsidize its lobbying on behalf of private interests.” Common Cause said that it had filed “a supplement to its three-year-old tax whistleblower complaint against ALEC”–and that both groups had “sent a joint letter to Internal Revenue Service Commissioner John Koskinen demanding an investigation, collection of fines and back taxes, and the revocation of ALEC’s status as a tax-exempt charity.”

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David McCabe of The Hill said that Common Cause was “redoubling its attack against the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), the non-profit group they say is designed to act as a quiet lobbying organization for its corporate members.”

Mike Ludwig (Truthout):

ALEC brings together about 200 state lawmakers, most of them Republicans, and a long list of wealthy corporations, trade groups and other members of the private sector to discuss public policy and draft model bills to be considered by state legislatures. In 2012, Common Cause and the Center for Media in Democracy filed a whistleblower complaint with the IRS, claiming that ALEC’s activities amount to lobbying on behalf of its corporate members, and therefore ALEC is ripping off taxpayers by filing as a tax-exempt charity group.

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Posted in Capitalism, Climate Change Deniers, Climatology, Conservatives, Democracy, Government, IRS, Oligarchy, Political Science, Politics, Short Video, United States | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Common Cause and the Center for Media and Democracy Add to Evidence in “Whistleblower” Tax Fraud Claim Against ALEC

Another Update in the Tamir Rice Case: The Police Officer Who Killed Him Last November Still Hasn’t Been Interviewed by Investigators

Posted on May 16, 2015 by Elaine Magliaro
Tamir Rice

Tamir Rice

By Elaine Magliaro

Mother Jones and Daily Kos have reported that Timothy Loehmann and Frank Garmback, the two officers involved in the shooting of Tamir Rice, “still have not been interviewed by investigators from the sheriff’s department.” Loehmann is the officer who fired the shots that killed Rice and Garmback is the officer who drove the police car.

Mother Jones:

According to an official familiar with the case, investigators have made more than one attempt to interview Loehmann and Garmback since the Cleveland Police Department handed over the case in January…

A county official familiar with the case told Mother Jones that the criminal investigation is focused solely on Loehmann. Garmback, who pulled the police car to within a few feet of Rice right before Loehmann stepped out and shot Rice almost instantly, is currently not under criminal investigation by the sheriff’s department, the official said. 

Jaeah Lee (Mother Jones) said that Michael P. Maloney and Henry Hilow, the two attorneys who are representing the officers, “declined to comment to Mother Jones about the officers’ participation in the investigation, saying it would be inappropriate to do so while the investigation was ongoing.”

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Posted in Law Enforcement, Local Government, Police, United States | Tagged , , , , , | 4 Comments

Another Update in the Story about the Secret Service Agents Who Allegedly Crashed into White House Barricade While Drunk

Posted on May 15, 2015 by Elaine Magliaro

SecretService-StarLogo_svgBy Elaine Magliaro

Alicia A. Caldwell of the Associated Press reported this week that the two secret service agents who were involved in driving a government vehicle through a secured area and hitting a barricade at the White House in March were “more likely than not” impaired by alcohol according to a report released by a government watchdog on Wednesday.

Caldwell:

Homeland Security Inspector General John Roth found that Marc Connolly and George Ogilvie spent about five hours at a bar during and after a retirement party for a colleague and ran up a “significant” bar tab before driving to the White House on March 4. Their tab included eight glasses of scotch, two vodka drinks, three beers and a glass of wine.

CNN had reported back in mid-March that the two agents who crashed into the White House barricade “were allowed to go home after a supervisor on duty overruled on-duty law enforcement who wanted to arrest the agents and conduct sobriety tests.” At that time, Washington Post reporter Carol D. Leoning, who had broken the story, told Wolf Blitzer, “The officers for the Secret Service who monitor the safety of the White House complex and ultimately the president and his family felt that these two individuals may have been intoxicated.”

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Posted in DHS, Government, United States | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Developmentally Inappropriate: How Common Core Jeopardizes the Foundation of Learning and May Harm Some Children (VIDEO)

Posted on May 15, 2015 by Elaine Magliaro

284_article_CommonCore_0By Elaine Magliaro

Jonathan Pelto, who served five terms in the Connecticut House of Representatives, called Wendy Lecker “one of the most powerful and important voices on behalf of public education and against the corporate education reform industry’s unending assault of public school teachers, public schools and the rights of students and parents.” Lecker is a columnist for the Hearst Connecticut Media Group and is senior attorney at the Education Law Center. Pelto said that while “many policymakers, education administrators and even the organizations responsible for protecting and promoting public education have turned a blind eye or engaged in the politics of appeasement, Wendy Lecker has continued to speak the truth and promote the notion that a just society strengthens not undermines its commitment to a comprehensive public education system.”

On his blog Wait What?, Pelto called attention to an article that Lecker had written for the Stamford Advocate earlier this month titled Common Core jeopardizes foundation of learning. In her article, Lecker said that proponents of the Common Core State Standards assert that “the standards do not dictate what is to be taught in school.” Lecker stated that the “claims are false: many of the standards are bad for education and demand developmentally inappropriate educational practices in schools.”

Lecker:

Recently, experts at the organization Defending the Early Years issued a report focusing on one of these bad standards: the standard calling for kindergartners to “read emergent-reader texts with purpose and understanding.” Translation: children must learn to read in kindergarten.

This mandate contradicts everything we know about child development and forces kindergarten teachers to engage in damaging practices. Play has been severely reduced or eliminated in favor of direct instruction, worksheets and frequent testing.

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Posted in Dept. of Education, Education, Government, Short Video, United States | Tagged , , , , , , | 8 Comments

Picture of the Day for May 15, 2015: On the Subject of Fox News

Posted on May 15, 2015 by Elaine Magliaro

Posted by Elaine Magliaro

FoxNewsRichPeople

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Posted in Conservatives, Media, Tea Party, United States | Tagged , | 4 Comments

Picture of the Day for May 14, 2015: On the Subject of Science and Religion

Posted on May 14, 2015 by Elaine Magliaro

Posted by Elaine Magliaro

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Posted in Government Propaganda, Politics, Religion, Science, United States | Tagged | 1 Comment

Unequal Justice in America?: General Petraeus Gets a Slap on the Wrist for Leaking Classified Information…While Former CIA Officer Jeffrey Sterling Gets 42 Months in Prison (VIDEO)

Posted on May 13, 2015 by Elaine Magliaro
Jeffrey Sterling

Jeffrey Sterling

By Elaine Magliaro

On Monday, Jeffrey Sterling was sentenced to 42 months in prison. Sterling is the former CIA officer who was convicted of “leaking classified information to New York Times reporter James Risen about a failed U.S. effort to undermine Iran’s nuclear program.” Risen exposed how “Operation Merlin” could have actually aided the Iranian nuclear program. The US government claimed that Sterling had violated the Espionage Act by revealing details about that covert operation during the Clinton Administration, which “was to provide Iran with flawed designs for nuclear weapons components, ostensibly to delay the alleged Iranian nuclear weapons program, or frame Iran.”

Xeni Jardin (BoingBoing):

With Sterling as a source, Risen wrote about Operation Merlin operation in his 2006 book, “State of War.” Risen described it as a botched mission which may have ended up advancing, rather than deterring, Iran’s nuclear program.

I wrote about Sterling in two posts in February:

According to Peter Maass (The Intercept), Sterling’s lawyers asked the judge “not to abide by sentencing guidelines calling for 19 to 24 years behind bars.” They argued that the former CIA officer “should be treated with the same leniency shown to former Gen. David Petraeus.” Petraeus was allowed to plead guilty to a misdemeanor. He avoided prison time after he admitted “to leaking classified information to his biographer and then-girlfriend, Paula Broadwell.”

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Posted in Barack Obama, CIA, Courts, Crime, Democracy, DOJ, Free Speech, Government, Hypocrisy, Iran, Jurisprudence, Justice, Law Enforcement, Presidents, United States | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 17 Comments