First, some good news: the city of Detroit has tested more than 9 out of 10 rape kits, some of which had been waiting for over 30 years to be tested. At least three years of investigations will follow, according to the Wayne County prosecutor, but justice is at last a hope for some of these victims. It would have been hard to do, of course, without a few million dollars in state and federal help -- but that is, of course, the kind of funding right-wingers try to kill because GOVMINT DUZN'T WORK!!!!! If only they'd be so zealous about corporate welfare.
Jim Hightower confesses to wanting to "tear out my hair" after reading some former PR firm chair suggest that his fellow CEOs would pay their employees more if they just got subsidies from our government to do that. I sympathize with his frustration (though I sure wouldn't tear out my own hair because someone else acted like a moron), and of course he's right to remind us that higher pay for working families is in no way "charity," but I'm a bit surprised that he didn't remind us that these corporations already get massive welfare handouts from our state and federal governments. They sure got some cojones asking for more.
The incomparable Dave Zirin tells us why, as union-lovers, we should celebrate Judge Berman's decision rescinding Tom Brady's four-game suspension from the NFL. Long story short: even though the NFLPA's contract with the NFL allows Commissioner Goodell to essentially arbitrate grievances over player punishments he has issued, the law still demands a certain amount of fairness, which Mr. Goodell -- by failing to allow Mr. Brady the opportunity to examine evidence, among many other things -- didn't demonstrate. Yes, if it weren't Tom Brady, we'd probably see the worker rights issues a lot more clearly. That's just one reason we shouldn't think of politics the way we think of sporting events.
It had to happen sooner or later: right-wingers promote the Kentucky county clerk who still won't issue gay marriage licenses an "anti-gay Rosa Parks." It isn't just that people want to be black without doing the hard work that comes with being black, or that Ms. Parks broke a law anyone not heavily-invested in the status quo could have seen was unconstitutional in 1955, or that her freedom to sit somewhere other than the back of the bus oppresses no one else -- it's also that Rosa Parks couldn't walk away from being black, but Kim Davis can walk away from being a County Clerk. And resigning her job because she won't do her job isn't some unconscionable hardship, either -- Ms. Davis would certainly get to suck at the teat of wingnut welfare forever.
Radley Balko administers a spanking to Scott Walker after Mr. Walker suggests that heightened scrutiny of police officers has made the job more dangerous than it was when he was a kid. The facts, as you might expect, turn out to be precisely the opposite: whereas more than 30 officers per 100,000 were murdered in 1975, that rate had fallen to five officers per 100,000 in 2013. "Moreover," Mr. Balko adds, "you’d think that someone who professes to believe in limited government would welcome more oversight of a government institution." And if Mr. Walker doesn't welcome that, we might conclude that oversight gets in the way of funneling taxpayer money to cronies.
Finally, speaking of America's worst Governor again, Mr. Walker now claims he has "never talked about a wall to the north," though his statement that a border wall with Canada "is a legitimate issue for us to look at" is well-documented. Watch the whole clip; Mr. Walker's stories have more wiggle in them than a plate of jello in an earthquake. Seriously, there are two rules about word games: 1) people absolutely hate them, and 2) unless they come from a particular politician to whom they are absolutely devoted. I think Mr. Walker has overestimated the devotion the electorate has for him, or could have for him. Of course, if he had a soul, he'd know all of this already.
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