What kind of law enforcement is Raymond Kelly teaching his people?

A cop pulled me up by my shoulders and told me to step back.  I said, “He’s my brother.”  Several cops pushed me away as I asked, “What is he being arrested for?  He was taking pictures.”  A cop said, “He didn’t produce an official press pass, so that means he was resisting arrest.”  I quite literally didn’t understand, so I said, “What?”  At that point, the same cop said, “If you don’t step back immediately, you will be arrested too.”

What an asinine remark by the officer. Taking pictures is tantamount to resisting arrest? Yet cops in the Bronx clearing up tickets as special favors is OK?

This is a shameful story. It follows a history in this country of the government subjecting individuals to cruel medical and drug tests. I’m reminded of the Tuskegee syphilis experiments conducted between 1932 and 1972 (see photo above).

Here is a summary in all its gruesome details:

Government-funded researchers tested AIDS drugs on hundreds of foster children over the past two decades, often without providing them a basic protection afforded in federal law and required by some states, an Associated Press review has found.

Sure, these poor and minority children received what would seem as the best healthcare available at the government’s expense, but there was a hidden cost. They were giving these foster children experimental drugs that were known to have serious side effects. The United States government took advantage of children that were poor or minority.

In one study, researchers reported a “disturbing” higher death rate among children who took higher doses of a drug. That study was unable to determine a safe and effective dosage.

This is horrible and this news needs to get out there into the American mainstream. It’s already been online for a few days I’m hoping the story gains some traction.

I hope that title gets a rise out of some. The blocking of the President’s appointments like the one for the CFPB is ridiculous. Senate  Republicans are nasty people. They are old, tired, cranky and bitter men. Olympia Snowe essentially voted no. We might as well suspend the government until the 2012 elections are over because Republicans will not let the government function.

Whether it’s the current mayor Vincent Gray (I wasn’t a Fenty fan either) or the city council, this city truly is suffering from a crisis in governance. The Washington Times of all papers (I don’t read the conservative press) has done an investigation which has found that members of the city council abuse a fund that’s supposed to be used to help people in need.

A Washington Times review of 10,000 payments totaling $3.3 million since 2004 shows that just 3 percent or $84,000 has gone to power and water bills, presumably for needy constituents, and $37,000 for phone bills. More — $133,000 — has been spent at pro sporting events.

Members also spent about $22,000 for delivery of bottled water and wrote $63,000 in checks to themselves, reimbursing themselves for meals with constituents and undisclosed other expenses from the so-called constituent services funds. Lawmakers raise money for the accounts from businesses and unions.

There are some serious reforms needed as one council member Tommy Wells has suggested.

Just look at what Yvette Alexander is doing -

Ward 7 Democrat Yvette Alexander, who represents some of the city’s poorest and lashed out against those who suggested eliminating the funds, saying the move would deprive needy residents, has used about $6,000 assisting impoverished constituents including $1,200 on gift cards — 4 percent of the $141,000 she has spent, The Times analysis found. Some $6,000 more was donated to assorted charities at fundraisers, while the remainder went toward expenses like consultants’ fees, desserts, catering, advertising and office costs.

Rajoy’s electoral strategy was based on letting the PSOE government take the blame for the poor condition of the economy (including 20 percent unemployment and very high deficits) and for the austerity measures, which had led to a widespread protest movement by the “indignados” (indignant ones) similar to, and related to the Occupy Wall Street movement in the United States, while being vague about what he would actually do in power. But Rajoy is likely to implement policies even further to the right and even more painful to the Spanish working class than did Rodriguez Zapatero. Rajoy is close to conservative Catholic Church sectors and is likely to put the brakes on liberalization of social policy initiated under Rodriguez Zapatero. Abortion rights and the rights of gays and lesbians will be endangered.

via Spain: crushing right-wing victory as economy teeters at brink » peoplesworld.

So you’re upset about the economy. You’re angry at austerity measures that your government is currently implementing. What do you do? You go out and elect a party that will only worsen the things you dislike. Say what? You heard me, that’s exactly what voters in Spain did on November 20th.

It’s one thing to be angry and want to “throw the bums out,” but who are you letting in? In the United States, during the 2010 election season the seeds of discontent were sowed nationwide by conservatives. “Where are the jobs?” a teary-eyed John Boehner was known to ask. Yet, after Republicans took the House what gains have those angered by the current economic climate gotten? Nothing. In the end I really wished people would not just vote with their emotions.

It looks like one positive thing came out of the RIM Blackberry email outage last week. Car crashes decreased significantly.

The paper reports that crashes dropped by 20 percent in Dubai during the disruption, and by some 40 percent in Abu Dhabi, where none of the crashes that occurred were fatal. By comparison, there is normally a fatal crash in Abu Dhabi every two days, and a crash occurs every three minutes in Dubai.

I am just fascinated by this statistic. Obviously Blackberry’s are not the only device in the world that can cause vehicle collisions. It just goes to show you how careless drivers are.

Just like old times right?! This is some sort of nostalgia touristy thing that lets you see what it was like in the pre Civil Rights era right? Sadly, no.

On the morning of October 12, Melissa Franchy boarded the B110 bus in Brooklyn and sat down near the front. For a few minutes she was left in silence, although the other passengers gave her a noticeably wide berth. But as the bus began to fill up, the men told her that she had to get up. Move to the back, they insisted.

With all due respect to the religion involved here, there comes a point where liberty and justice must outweigh religious and cultural practices in the US.

We saw this earlier in the summer, following a devastating tornado hit Joplin, Missouri. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor R-Va. said he was willing to provide relief aid, just as soon as Democrats agreed to pay for it by cutting funding for a clean-energy program. His party agreed.

via Political Animal – Cantor’s callousness continues.

He’s trying to starve the beast. Conservatives don’t even want to provide basic government services without cutting from a program they don’t like.

New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman on Tuesday was kicked off the committee leading the 50-state task force charged with probing foreclosure abuses and negotiating a possible settlement agreement with the nations five largest mortgage firms, according to an email reviewed by The Huffington Post.

Schneiderman was one of roughly a dozen state attorneys general leading the talks with the five companies, alongside representatives of the U.S. Department of Justice, the Department of Housing and Urban Development and other federal agencies. The government launched the negotiations in the spring after widespread reports of foreclosure irregularities, such as so-called “robo-signing” and illegal home seizures, emerged.

via New York Attorney General Kicked Off Government Group Leading Foreclosure Probe.

It seems to me that the New York Attorney General’s office is one of the few offices doing the people’s work. The Obama administration and all of its allies in this matter are flatly not.

We dont know what Keenans abortion experience was like. She could, like many women who ended up injured or dead from abortions in that era, have tried to self-induce. Douching with soap or bleach was a “common and frequently fatal method,” though there were many others, according to Leslie Reagans book ”When Abortion Was a Crime.” Big city hospitals treated thousands of women each year for often brutal injuries related to illegal abortions. By the early 1960s, as childbirth became safer, abortion-related deaths made up nearly half of the entire maternal mortality rate in New York City, according to one study.

via The abortion that Mitt doesnt talk about anymore – War Room – Salon.com.

This is absolutely terrifying and horrible. We cannot allow this country to return to the day’s of Mitt Romney’s youth! This is barbaric. It must have been like living under the Taliban for a woman back then.