Oh Dear: American Deja Vu & Madness

Victim Ke'Arre Stewart, 29

Sadly, here we are again. What a way to close out the month.

Another weekend dominated by the dark shadow cast by more senseless gun violence from yet another incident of home-grown terrorism.

As you've likely heard or read by now, this latest mass shooting began around 11:30am last Friday when 57-year-old Robert Dear entered the Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado Springs with an assault-style rifle and started shooting.

As widely reported the three innocent victims include a married 44-year-old police officer and father of two named Garret Swasey, a 35-year-old wife and mother named Jennifer Markovsky and Ke'Arre Stewart, a 29-year-old Army veteran (pictured left) who served overseas with the 4th Infantry Division in Iraq - along with nine other people who were wounded.

Earlier this morning Joan Malin, the president and CEO of Planned Parenthood in New York City appeared on a segment of The Brian Lehrer Show to discuss the impact of Friday's shooting on the organization's services, facilities and employees. 

During the interview she mentioned that Garret Swasey, the campus police officer who raced to the scene of the shooting to help other first responders, was actually a pro-life Christian who strongly opposed abortion; but yet he still went to the Planned Parenthood facility to try and help save lives - and ultimately gave his own.

That has stuck in my mind all day.

To me the scope of this latest horror is multiplied by a few disturbing things, first of which as I mentioned before is that this is just the latest in a string of incidents with troubling similarities.

John Russell Houser

It was only back in late July of this year when 59-year-old John Russell Houser walked into the Grand 16  movie theater in Lafayette, Louisiana and purchased a ticket to a 7:10pm showing of the Amy Schumer comedy Trainwreck. 

He then sat at the rear of the theater for about 20 minutes before opening fire with a .40-caliber handgun - killing two women and wounding nine other people before turning the gun on himself.


Houser turned out to have had an extensive and documented  history with extremist right-wing views on topics like gender, immigration, race and politics.

According to Wikipedia:

"The July 27th issue of The Hollywood Reporter reported that investigators believed Houser chose to commit his attack in a theater playing Trainwreck due to its feminist themes and characters, as well as its lead actor's Jewish background. Houser was said to have been a misogynist and praised the actions of Adolf Hitler on online message boards."

Shooter Robert Dear

Like Houser, shooter Robert Dear seems to have been a troubled loner with extremist right-wing leanings who was motivated by the toxic extremist rhetoric manufactured by Republican politicians in Washington who turned the vilification of Planned Parenthood into a national obsession.

Only the modern conservative mindset could explain how in the world a provider of health care services like Planned Parenthood could be cast as the manifestation of evil in the contrived theatrical spectacle put on by Republicans earlier this summer and early fall on Capitol Hill.

Exactly two months ago to the day on September 30th, I blogged about the absurd Congressional hearings on Planned Parenthood held in Washington, D.C. at the height of a highly-politicized ideological frenzy generated by House Republicans.

To add to the absurdity, the manufactured political outrage vented by Republican Congressmen, Senators and 2016 presidential candidates was sparked not by truth or actual facts; it came as the result of a widely-discredited fake "sting" video that was intentionally and deceptively edited to misrepresent Planned Parenthood's involvement with fetal tissue research.

Despite evidence that the video was little more than anti-abortion propaganda and an extensive investigation by Missouri State Attorney General Chris Koster showed that there was absolutely no evidence found to suggest that employees of Planned Parenthood had mishandled fetal tissue samples, Republicans whipped themselves into a state of borderline hysteria over the fake videos created by the misogynist right-wing nut bag David Daleiden.

Republican House Oversight Comm Chair Jason Chaffetz

Remember the seething moral indignation from Republican House Oversight Committee Chair Jason Chaffetz (pictured left) as he grilled Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards?

His constant interruptions, shameless grandstanding and bullying set a new low for Congressional hearings.

The Utah Congressman even tried to present a concocted chart as evidence that Planned Parenthood had decreased cancer prevention and screenings as they increased abortions until Cecile Richards reamed him by pointing out that the chart was made up by a right-wing anti-abortion group and had nothing to do with Planned Parenthood's spending records.

Remember presidential candidate Carly Fiorina standing on the stage of a live, nationally televised Republican debate during the week of September 14th and repeating an outright lie about David Daleiden's fake sting video? She told this whopper:

“Watch a fully formed fetus on the table, its heart beating, its legs kicking while someone says, ‘We have to keep it alive to harvest its brain.’ ” 

Not true, Didn't happen.

In an act of defiant political lunacy, Republicans from the House Freedom Caucus sought to use the stripping of government funding for Planned Parenthood as a wedge issue designed to hold up the authorization of a budget deal.

Think about that for a moment.

Republican House Freedom Caucus members

Yearly budget spending intended to ensure that the government of the largest economy in the world would be funded so it can function was held up by Republicans based on a fake smear video put together by fringe anti-abortion activists.
        
The outrageous claims from the video were quoted repeatedly by Republicans eager to capitalize on the anger they sparked - stoking bogus claims that Planned Parenthood was dealing in "baby parts".

Now I'm not saying all this just to tee off on Republicans (well...), I think it's important to illustrate how these politicians with the help of conservative media saturated people like Robert Dear with toxic lies, distortions and half-truths about Planned Parenthood for weeks over the course of the summer.

Then tried to legitimize this bogus smear campaign designed to motivate the pro-life voter base by having no less than four separate Congressional committees "investigating" Planned Parenthood.

When police in Colorado Springs finally subdued Robert Dear after a lengthy standoff last Friday and began to interrogate him to try and understand why he'd murdered three people in cold blood and injured nine more, according to the NY Times, he reportedly told police, "no more baby parts."

Let's hope the anti-abortion wing are proud of their efforts to demonize a personal medical decision and pass laws making it harder for women to access critical health care services.

They (Republicans) were certainly successful in motivating the pro-life constituency of their target voter base; too bad they "motivated" Robert Dear to take the lives of a wife and mother, a church-going Christian campus police officer-husband-and father and an Iraq war veteran and father.

All in the name of the "pro-life" movement.

To quote director David Lean's 1957 masterpiece POW film The Bridge Over the River Kwai:

"Madness."

Black Friday On The Miracle Mile & Film Editing CPD Style

Black Friday shopper Joy Ramey carries a TV to checkout

Back in June in his stunning encyclical on climate change, Pope Francis warned of the dire effects of "compulsive consumerism" on the environment.

As Joe Romm observed on ThinkProgress.org in an article about the fragility of the global economy earlier today, Pope Frances warned that:

“Obsession with a consumerist lifestyle, above all when few people are capable of maintaining it, can only lead to violence and mutual destruction.”

Here in the United States, we place a premium on the freedom to do whatever we want, so more power to ya' if you're fortunate enough to be a member of one of America's wealthiest households.

The still-fragile economy recovery has doled out the lion's share of income growth and asset recovery to the bank accounts and balance sheets of the top 7% since 2009 - so if you like to shop and you've got the coin by all means knock yourself out if it makes you happy.

If you're a member of the 99%, it certainly wouldn't be fair to fault you for taking advantage of Black Friday sales specials - especially those who are still unemployed, underemployed, haven't seen a meaningful paycheck raise in years, or those living on a fixed income.

As I've blogged about in the past, I personally have no desire to be anywhere near the crowded consumer orgies that take place in some stores on, or near the first official shopping day of the holiday season.

In my view, retail employees should have the right to enjoy some time off work to spend with their families too, so I choose to opt-out of making any purchases in person or on my cell phone on Thanksgiving or Black Friday.

I was certainly thankful to be able to spend Thanksgiving with family yesterday and enjoy a generous calorie-rich feast; and I'll be thankful again shortly when I heat up some of those leftovers for dinner.

Black Friday protesters pack Miracle Mile in Chicago

But I'm also thankful to see that the overwhelming majority of the hundreds of protesters who took to the streets in Chicago for Black Friday are taking a page from the book of Ghandi and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. by engaging in acts of peaceful civil disobedience to express outrage over the dash-cam footage of CPD Officer Jason Van Dyke's shooting of teenager Laquan McDonald 16 times and prosecutor's taking over a year to file charges in the case.

Today's protests in Chicago were concentrated on the Miracle Mile in the ritzy downtown shopping district, where peaceful protesters engaged in non-violent civil disobedience by blocking access to the store entrances of major retailers like The Apple Store, Saks Fifth Avenue, Brooks Brothers, The Disney Store, Neiman Marcus, Tiffany's and Ralph Lauren.

Today's protests are also an expression of anger over the fact that hours after the shooting on October 20, 2014, members of the Chicago Police Department walked into a Burger King, demanded access to the security camera footage which shows the area of South Pulaski Road where the incident took place, then intentionally erased at least 86 minutes of video leading up to and around the shooting.

Burger King where CPD officers deleted security footage

As an article posted on Gawker.com reported on Tuesday Jay Darshane, the manager of the Burger King located at 4060 S. Pulaski Road in Chicago, (pictured left) reports that he gave the CPD officers the password to the security camera system and they then spent three hours going over the footage.

When they left, there was an 86-minute gap.

In the Gawker.com article, Darshane was quoted as saying about the Chicago PD:

“We had no idea they were going to sit there and delete files,” Darshane said. “I mean we were just trying to help the police officers.”

If it's proven that Chicago PD intentionally erased portions of the security camera footage, that's blatant destruction of evidence and interference with a criminal investigation - it certainly won't help Van Dyke's defense, or do much for the reputation and ethics of the Chicago PD.

Van Dyke himself spent his Thanksgiving in custody where he remains held without bond until a judge gets the chance to review the content of the dash-cam video on Monday to decide if he'll be released on bail - I'd have to believe he's seen it already.

I guess we should also be thankful that this guy isn't still out on the streets of Chicago in uniform with a badge and gun demonstrating the kind of restraint, professionalism and self-control he showed to Laquan McDonald last year.

We'll see what the judge decides to do soon enough but in the meantime the peaceful protests in Chicago and in other cities around the nation will continue through the weekend.

In an ideal world it would be nice if ethics, the rule of law and the desire for justice moves the gears of the Chicago judicial system to see that Jason Van Dyke is held responsible for his actions.

But money talks in this country and if it takes some high-end retailers loosing some customers and revenue to put pressure on the system to do right by Laquan McDonald, so be it.

Getting justice for a 17-year-old gunned down in cold blood is a lot more important than buying a bunch of stuff on discount anyway - those retailers have all the time in the world to recover any profits they might have lost today.

Laquan McDonald's short time on this earth was already taken from him.

Van Dyke, DCFS & The Tragic Death of Laquan McDonald

Chicago PD officer Jason Van Dyke

It's late Tuesday night at as I write this and it's about 40 degrees out in Chicago but there are reportedly hundreds of people assembling on the streets in response to the release of the police dash-cam footage showing the violent death of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald.

Personally speaking, after watching the video a couple times myself, the presence of protesters on the streets shouldn't surprise anyone. 

You can see it on The New York Times Website, but with millions of people off on Thursday and Friday for Thanksgiving it's going to be replayed a lot in the coming days as people try to understand why a teenager brandishing a three-inch knife while traipsing down a busy street in full view of at least 6 armed Chicago PD officers in two separate vehicles needed to be shot.

Chicago officials, including Mayor Rahm Emmanuel, tried to keep the footage from being released and now it's clear why - the video clip completely contradicts previous police statements that the shooter was in fear for his life after the teenager lunged at him. 

The video showed no lunge, in fact McDonald was actually walking away when he was shot.

At 7:41am this morning, thirteen months after fatally shooting the teenager during a confrontation in Chicago on October 20, 2014, 37-year-old Chicago PD officer Jason Van Dyke walked into the Leighton Criminal Court Building and turned himself in to investigators.

While he'd been on paid desk duty during an extensive 12 month investigation, today he became the first CPD officer in 35 years to be charged with murder. 

Van Dyke and his partner were only on the scene about thirty seconds before the veteran officer jumped out of the car six seconds later and began firing shots at McDonald; who'd been accused of breaking into cars in the area and was holding a 3-inch knife which he'd used to punch a hole in the tire of a police vehicle at some point during his foot chase.

According to an article in The Chicago Tribune, autopsy reports reveal that nine of the sixteen shots that entered McDonald's body entered at a downward trajectory; meaning Van Dyke fired at least nine shots as McDonald, already wounded, lay on the ground.

Nine.

To me, part of what's chilling about the video, aside from the teenager being gunned down like an animal, is the reaction of the officers on the scene.

After McDonald is on the ground, there's a pause before one of the officers walks over and kicks the three-inch knife away from the teenager's hand - then not one of the officers bothers to approach McDonald to check his pulse, or see if he might still be alive.

The shooting wasn't some kind of behavioral anomaly for Officer Van Dyke.

According to data complied by the Citizens Police Data Project (CPDP) Website, at least 18 separate civilian complaints have been filed against Van Dyke since he joined the CPD in June, 2001 - charges that include verbal abuse (including multiple charges of using of the word 'nigger' while performing arrests or serving warrants), excessive force, misconduct and violations of arrest & lockup procedures.

Check out this article on Heavy.com if you want to read some more details about Van Dyke's extensive record of physical violence and excessive use of force.

The shooting wasn't an anomaly for the Chicago PD either, they were responsible for 70 fatal police shootings between 2011 - 2014, the most in the U.S. and more than New York and Los Angles which both have larger populations.

In contrast, non-military police in Germany have shot and killed fifteen people since 2009.

Protest against gun violence in Chicago,  2014

When you consider the extent of the global reaction to the approximately 128 people killed in the terrorist attacks in Paris recently, it seems like there should be more of a public outcry over the huge number of gun deaths that have taken place in the city of Chicago, Illinois this year.

Back in July, Rolling Stone explored that very question in a searing piece titled 'Inside Chicago's Endless Cycle of Gun Violence.


Without minimizing the horrific death toll of approximately 128 people in Paris at the hands of ISIS killers, according to the latest statistics tracked by staff members of The Chicago Tribune, as of today November 24th, approximately 2,712 people have been victims of gun violence in the Windy City this year.

Is it the race or social class of the victims in Chicago that doesn't seem to warrant global outrage? The neighborhoods they live in?

Think you had a rough Monday? At least seven people were shot on Monday November 23rd in various parts of Chicago. 

As statistics compiled by The Guardian project The Counted have revealed, 2015 has been a horrific year for the use of deadly police force against American citizens and the data is alarming.

According to The Counted: over 1,000 people have been killed by members of American law enforcement this year; and there are still six days left in November.

•  883 of those were killed after being shot by police
• 47 died after being shot by a taser
• 36 people were killed while in custody
• 102 people were unarmed
• 26% of the 248 African-American people killed by police were unarmed
• 18% of the 490 white people killed by police were unarmed

Disturbing stats like that are one of the reasons that the deaths of people at the hands of the police is often a focus of this blog.

It's not because I'm anti-cop or anything, I hold members of law enforcement in the highest regard as I was one of those kids raised to respect police officers and recognize the essential public service they perform.

In fact, it's because I hold them to such a high standard that I consider it critical to examine the alarming disparity with which people of color loose their lives during confrontations with police officers.

Because the more these incidents happen, there's a proportional loss of respect for police authority that undermines the essential relationship that must exist between the community and those sworn to protect and serve them.

As the excessive use of deadly force has reached epic proportions in this country and police departments have come under increased scrutiny by the media, politicians, citizens and activist groups like Black Lives Matter, opportunistic push-button reactionaries like New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and Donald Trump have been quick to vilify and demonize activists who oppose police violence.

Not because what they say reflects truth, but because it reflects a warped perception of America, reinforces their internalized beliefs and fears; and serves their trite political objectives.

Laquan McDonald

In the coming days as the video of Laquan McDonald becomes the central focus of mainstream media coverage, watch how people like Christie and Trump react.

Watch who they vent their anger at and how they frame this shooting.

Despite the truth of the dash-cam footage showing McDonald wasn't actually threatening anyone when he was shot 16 times (and what was he going to do with a three-inch pocket knife anyway with three police vehicles around him??) you can be sure that conservative media will be hard at work vilifying the 17-year-old teenager.

Like Tryavon Martin, the news that traces of drugs were supposedly found in McDonald's system is already being offered up like some sort of iron-clad scientific proof that he was some kind of raving maniac on a deadly rampage.

Punching a hole in the tire of a Chicago PD cop car wasn't the brightest thing he could have done; but it was a tire, not a human being.

Only time will tell if Officer Jason Van Dyke is held accountable for taking McDonald's life.

But at the least, his being a member of a major metropolitan police force facing murder charges represents a significant step for growing public demands that members of law enforcement be made to take responsibility for their actions.

Regardless of the color of the victim's skin.

It's just sad that such a step had to come as the result of such a horrific and violent end to the life of a teenage kid who'd already faced such uphill battles in his young life.

As The Chicago Sun Times reported:
"Twice, the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services removed him from his mother’s care — once when he was 2 years old and again when he was 5 — because of abuse allegations leveled at the mother’s boyfriend. As is too often the case, McDonald was allegedly sexually molested in two different foster homes, according to a source familiar with his juvenile court record."

Laquan McDonald didn't just morph out of thin air on that Chicago street with a knife in his hand, he'd faced unspeakable horrors in his young life before he ever had the misfortune to meet Officer Jason Van Dyke.

Maybe people should take a few minutes to read The Sun-Times piece by Mary Mitchell before simply dismissing this kid as some kind of monster.

Perhaps the folks at Fox News preparing to portray him as a knife-wielding criminal who was threatening a cop's life should learn a little about Laquan McDonald's life before condemning him.

Like the fact that "McDonald was particularly close to his grandmother, Goldie Hunter, and was in her care until she died last year. His daily life seemed to unravel after her death" 

Oh, and as Mitchell reports in her heart-breaking article, even though the Department of Child & Family Services reports that McDonald was a ward of the state at the time of his death and had been the subject of two separate abuse investigations in 2000 and 2003, “DCFS never did anything in terms of following up on the sexual abuse,”

As Mitchell reported, just two days before being shot on October 20, 2014, "DCFS had given custody of McDonald and his sister to an uncle. “The uncle had a live-in girlfriend, and the sister had spent the night away from home,” said the source familiar with this case. “When she came back the next morning, the girlfriend wouldn’t let her back in the house.

“DCFS came and took the sister and was trying to take Laquan. For the third time, he was made a ward of the state. It was a pretty upsetting thing.” 

Upsetting? I think that's a monumental understatement considering the sexual abuse he'd suffered as a ward of the state of Illinois when he was 9-years-old and 12-years-old.

Unfortunately, it appears that the last representative of the City of Chicago to follow up on Laquan McDonald was Chicago PD Officer Jason Van Dyke who used the only tool he knew how to use to deal with this troubled teenager; a gun. 

That's the teenager who was running down the street that night with a three-inch knife in his hand.

It's just too bad those Chicago PD officers didn't know or understand what Laquan McDonald was running from that night, had they known they might have treated him like a human being.

Upset In The Bayou - Democrats Take Back the Louisiana Governor's Mansion

John Bel Edwards raises the victory umbrella last night in LA

It was a pretty festive Saturday night down in the French Quarter for Louisiana Democrats after Democratic state representative John Bel Edwards defeated Republican U.S. Senator David Vitter in a runoff race for governor.

With 56% of the vote, Edwards broke a seven year loosing streak for Democrats in a solidly Red State that hadn't elected a single Democrat to state office since 2008.

There's little doubt that last nights results will reverberate around the country and have national political implications for the 2016 elections too.

You can bet your Thanksgiving Day leftovers that the current crop of Republican presidential candidates were huddling with their respective brain trusts this morning to reevaluate their own campaign messages in light of last nights election results in Louisiana.

In many ways, the governors race in Louisiana served as a political temperature gauge for 2016; one that warmed the hearts of Democrats and left Republicans feeling a little chilly.

A decisive majority of voters in a deep south state that voted Republican in the 2000, 2004, 2008 and 2012 presidential elections have just soundly rejected the failed extremist, partisan hyper-conservative policies of two-term Republican Governor Bobby Jindal.
  

Fiscal policy twins? Chris Christie & Bobby Jindal

Like other Republican governors, (we see you Chris Christie) Jindal's ill-advised embrace of the disastrous conservative "Starve The Beast" economic theories has left the Louisiana budget $1.6 billion in the red for 2015.

Despite his fiscal mismanagement, he still lavished $1 billion a year in tax breaks for corporations and the state's wealthiest citizens that have left Louisiana State University, public schools and the state's health care system facing deep cuts.

To get a true sense of the litany of ways that Jindal has failed the people of Louisiana and made problems far worse during his tenure, check out Alice Ollstein's article that was posted on ThinkProgress.org back in June of this year.

When you understand what an unqualified disaster Jindal's administration has been for Louisiana, it's easy to understand why a significant number of Louisiana Republicans crossed party lines and voted for Edwards in the runoff election for governor.  

From the cultural perspective, it's of interest to note that when he first started out in politics, Jindal was well liked and highly-regarded by members of the Indian-American community across the nation; including both Republicans and Democrats.

As reported in a revealing NPR segment last Thursday, after accepting their generous political donations to help propel himself to the Governor's mansion in 2008, Jindal began to surf the wave of conservative resentment over the election of President Obama and morphed into a far right reactionary figure who had a polarizing effect on politics.

His controversial official governor's portrait (pictured below) symbolizes the peculiar dichotomy between how he sees himself, and who he actually is. And yes, that image on the left is his actual official portrait.
   

Wait. Who 'Dat?? Bobby Jindal's official Governor's portrait

Jindal, who changed his first name from Piyush to Bobby and converted to Christianity in high school, started taking his political cues from the Tea Party and tax policy advice from from the fringe anti-government tax-dodger Grover Norquist. 

He began to embrace the rigid social ideology of the racist zealot, conservative "thinker" and author Dinesh D'Souza and disappointed many in the Indian-American community during his failed bid for the Republican presidential nomination by trying to score points with primary voters by demonizing immigrants and publicly rejecting the hyphenated term Indian-American.

He displayed a quasi-delusional hypocrisy by using the derogatory term "Anchor Babies" even though his own mother was three months pregnant with him when his parents immigrated to America from India 45 years ago.

But Bobby Jindal's record as governor is just one of the factors in Democrats taking back the Louisiana governor's mansion for the first time since 2008.

By all accounts Governor-elect John Bel Edwards stuck to running an issues-oriented campaign even as Republican candidates squabbled amongst themselves; reflecting broader philosophical divisions within the Republican party taking place in Washington.

David Vitter (w/ his wife) faces the media in 2007 scandal

The unfortunate scandal surrounding Senator David Vitter's highly publicized 2007 tryst with a prostitute certainly didn't help his cause either in a state haunted by the specter of a long history of sketchy political ethics.

In contrast, Edwards military background, conservative Catholic upbringing and deep family ties to law enforcement played well to Louisiana voters across the political spectrum.

Any way you cut it, Edwards has certainly got his work cut out for him with all the fiscal wreckage and budget short falls left behind by Bobby Jindal and a Republican-dominated state legislature.

But keep your eye on this guy folks.

From a political standpoint 2020 isn't that far off.

And as both Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton have shown, being a popular Democratic governor from a southern state who can appeal to conservative-leaning swing voters in traditional Red States can be a pathway to the White House.

Just sayin'.

Compassion - Republican Style

Are Syrian refugees really a threat to US security?

It's been a week since the terrorist attacks took place in Paris last Friday night.

Those horrific events may have taken place in a city more than 3,600 miles from the east coast of the United States, but the impact they've had on the political landscape here in this country has been significant.

Donald Trump calling for a "database" of Muslims who live in America.

Ben Carson comparing Syrian refugees to a "rabid dog" running around a neighborhood, and Bobby Jindal and Ted Cruz should be thankful that reactionary xenophobes like themselves weren't scoring cheap points with anti-immigrant fear-mongering when the both of them immigrated to the U.S. as children.

There's something unsettling about the depth of the acrimonious anti-immigrant rhetoric that's come from leading Republican politicians this week.

Elected leaders, aspiring presidential nominees and conservative media pundits have all seized the opportunity to once again deal in the currency of fear and simultaneously scapegoat and politicize Syrian refugees in order to attack the President and Democrats in the name of national security.

Newly elected House Speaker Paul Ryan abandoned his recent pledge to restore a measure of balance to the GOP majority in the House and led the overwhelming passage of a measure intended to toughen the already rigorous screening process for Syrian refugees to enter the country.

On the individual state level, Republican (and one Democratic) Governors from at least twenty six different states across the nation announced plans to stop admitting Syrian refugees to their respective states.

Which, despite a lot of bluster and posturing, they don't have the legal authority to do.

As Ian Millhiser explained in an article posted on ThinkProgress.org on Monday:

"As the Supreme Court explained in Hines v. Davidowitz, “the supremacy of the national power in the general field of foreign affairs, including power over immigration, naturalization and deportation, is made clear by the Constitution.” States do not get to overrule the federal government on matters such as this one."

Sorry Governors.
 

NJ Assembly Speaker Vincent Prieto from Paramus

Earlier this week, New Jersey Democratic State Assembly Speaker Vincent Prieto (pictured left), who fled Cuba and came to the U.S. when he was 10, tore into Governor Chris Christie for his "xenophobia" after Christie said on a radio interview with Hugh Hewitt on Monday that he would bar Syrian refugees from entering New Jersey; even orphans under the age of five.

In response, an outraged Prieto said:
"No matter our political beliefs, no matter our principles, it's imperative we never forget the idea that whatever we do for the least among us, we do for ourselves. Gov. Christie has forgotten this most American of ideals."

But Republicans aren't the only ones in this nation with short memories.

The attacks in Paris combined with threats from ISIS have left the country almost evenly split on whether it's safe to admit refugees fleeing the war, torture, starvation, persecution and destruction that have devastated Syria since the start of the civil war.

On Thursday morning, The Brian Lehrer Show kicked off with a conversation with The Atlantic senior associate editor Russel Berman on the likelihood that terrorists could realistically infiltrate the ranks of the Syrian refugees who enter the United States.

About fifteen or twenty minutes into the segment, a woman who was clearly on the far right side of the conservative spectrum called in to express outrage at the idea of Syrian refugees entering the country.

She seethed with anger at President Obama and seemed to blame him for the situation in Syria and the Paris attacks before suggesting that he was "more interested in protecting Muslims than Americans."

Trump bashing Syrian refugees on O'Reilly back in September

To me she sounded like she'd been binge-watching Fox News non-stop since last Friday as she ticked off points that seemed to come straight from the desk of Roger Ailes.

She was ranting incoherently about there being no vetting process for Syrian refugees in place.

When in fact, the Defense Department, F.B.I and the national counter-terrorism center all conduct extensive background checks of Syrian refugees trying to enter the country that can take two years or more. 

She seemed unaware that over 700,000 refugees have entered the United States since September 11, 2001 - and not one has turned out to be a terrorist.

The fact that the bulk of the Syrian refugees seeking to enter the United States are not "young males" (as GOP presidential candidate Ben Carson incorrectly suggested on CNN back in September) but senior citizens, women and children seemed to elude this woman as well.

But I was glad Brian put her on the air so people could listen to the kind of fear-based hysteria that led the Republican-led Congress to pass legislation intended to make it even harder for them to reach America than it already is.

But like the dozens of meaningless votes to defund the Affordable Care Act, the legislation passed yesterday is purely symbolic; it has no chance of passing the Senate and would be immediately vetoed even it were to reach the President's desk.

To me it's sad that the only time this Republican Congress gets motivated to do their job and actually draft and pass legislation is if it's purely ideological in nature and will damage President Obama politically or thwart his political initiatives.

Can you imagine the kinds of good they could do for people if they used their Constitutional authority to tackle real issues and not just symbolic ones?

On Wednesday, the WBUR program Here and Now did an interesting interview with Kathryn Edin and Luke Schaefer; co-authors of the book $2 a Day: Living On Almost Nothing in America.

Give it a listen, it runs about 10 minutes and it's really eye-opening in an unsettling way as it chronicles the challenges facing the scores of Americans forced to live on $2.00 a day.

It wasn't an easy segment to listen to as I ate lunch.

But it occurred to me that Republicans are spending all this time and energy whipping up hysteria over war refugees fleeing war, violence and torture - why aren't they channeling that energy to deal with the plight of the 1.5 million Americans who are trapped in this cycle of extreme poverty?

In two days they can draft and pass legislation to keep people fleeing poverty and war out of the country, but they won't bother drafting legislation to help 1.5 million Americans who are trapped in poverty and hunger who are already here in the country.

Does it make sense? No.

But perhaps that's just the state, and the nature, of Republican compassion.

Potentially Tainted? Investigators Conceal Video of Jamar Clark's Death

Jamar Clark taken off life support Monday

The news that 24-year old Jamar Clark (pictured left) has died as a result of the gunshot wound to the head he received from one of two as-yet unnamed Minneapolis police officers early Sunday morning is a real kick in the gut to the idea of America as a place of "liberty and justice for all" that's governed by the rule of law.

A couple hours ago the LA Times reported that the county medical examiner announced that they are ruling Clark's death a homicide.

Minneapolis Mayor Betsy Hodges has already called for a federal investigation of the circumstances surrounding his death.

If the reports turn out to be true that he was interfering with the ability of EMT workers who were trying to assist a woman that he was suspected of assaulting, then of course he deserved to be subdued, arrested and taken to court to face the appropriate charges.

But did the guy deserve to die?

Like so many other young men of color who've lost their lives to members of law enforcement in highly-publicized incidents, Clark was unarmed at the time he got into a confrontation with the two Minneapolis police officers who arrived at the scene outside an apartment building.

But widespread reports from witnesses at the scene are suggesting that he was also handcuffed when one of the officers allegedly leaned over Clark's body, put a knee on him and shot him in the head at point blank range.

BCA Superintendent Drew Evans

According to Drew Evans (pictured left), Superintendent of the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, a pair of handcuffs were found at the scene, but no determination has yet been made as to whether Clark was actually cuffed when he was shot.

The BCA confirms they have multiple sources of video taken of the incident, including from an ambulance at the scene, exterior security cameras from the apartment building where the incident took place and from several people who captured video on cell phones; but no single source shows everything that led up to the actual shooting - or what happened in it's entirety.

Prosecutors, members of the Clark family and protesters have called for the video to be released, but Evans says the BCA won't release any of the video out of concerns that doing so "may potentially taint portions of the investigation."

From my experience (and it's just an opinion) when investigators express reluctance to release video surveillance of fatal cop shootings, more often than not there's something on the video that's not going to be good for the two cops in question.

Protesters block traffic across I-94 in Minneapolis

The incident has sparked a series of protests across Minneapolis and dozens were arrested after a multi-ethnic, multiracial group of people (pictured left) intentionally blocked traffic across I-94 by linking hands in front of oncoming vehicles.

My guess is the two officers, who've been placed on paid leave pending an investigation, are huddling with lawyers while they try to cobble together a version of the incident that points to them fearing for their own safety.

Even though there were two of them, the guy was unarmed, and by all accounts, was already on the ground at the time that he was shot.

Did he tussle with the two officers? By all accounts he did.

But that doesn't make an unarmed man accused of assault being shot in the head by a police officer any less of an egregious example of excessive use of force.

While some media sources are already publicizing the fact that court records show he had a 2010 conviction for aggravated robbery and a conviction for making terroristic threats earlier this year, Clark's brother Mario Reed said Clark was just a 24-year old who'd made some mistakes and was actively trying to make positive changes in his life - according to Reed:

"He was trying to get his life back together, he was going to work every day. I was dropping him off every day. He worked at the car wash in northeast Minneapolis and he was just getting his life back in order," 

That chance was taken from this young man.

And now his grieving family is left to deal with the reality that Jamar Clark has joined the ranks of The Counted nine days before Thanksgiving.

By the way, according to the latest statistics in The Counted database, over 1,000 people have been killed by members of law enforcement in the United States in 2015.

"With liberty and justice for all."

Horror In the City of Lights & Republican Relevancy in 2016

People in Times Square watching news of the Paris attacks

As news reports of the terrorist attacks in Paris trickled in Friday afternoon, it ripped me from the normalcy of a day-off from work spent taking care of bills and running routine errands to the dry cleaners, bank, laundry, gym, grocery store, gas station and pet store.

My initial plan had been to come home and spend Friday afternoon catching up on emails and doing some writing.

But instead I ended up in front of the TV for hours like the two people seen in this photo sitting in Times Square watching snippets of information scrolling across the screen - trying to wrap my head around what had happened in the City of Lights.  

I lived in Manhattan on September 11, 2001 and I'm still trying to wrap my head around that day.

One of the obvious things lost in much of the initial nonstop news coverage over the first 24 hours is the fact that that the attacks took place on Friday the 13th. 

True to form, ISIS decided to execute yet another mass slaughter of innocent people on a date they hope will be "branded" into the minds of the billions of people around the world forced to bear witness to a depraved act of barbarity that killed at least 129 people and injured 352.

EMT personnel evacuate survivors in Paris Friday night

Not only that, they scheduled the attacks to take place on a Friday night when the streets of Paris were packed and the global media news cycle would have no choice but to spend the weekend focusing on these despicable acts.

As the media continues to examine the "how and why", and people around the world begin to try and come to grips with the scale of this unfolding human tragedy, I think it's important to look at how this terrorist event is going to impact our own presidential elections. 

We're less than 12 months out from electing a new president, and the Paris attacks suddenly put even more of an emphasis on which candidates are going to be best suited to take the reins of a highly complex foreign policy apparatus while serving as Commander in Chief of the largest military in the world.

It shifted the question and topic emphasis for Saturday night's Democratic presidential debate; and probably puts Hillary Clinton in a much more appealing light.

Frankly, if I was a Republican strategist right now I'd be concerned with over 50% of registered Republican primary voters supporting Donald Trump and Ben Carson; two ideological extremists who've never been elected to public office, lack experience operating the levers of government, and have zero foreign policy experience between them.

According to an AP report released earlier today, at the Florida Republican Party's Sunshine Summit, Republican presidential hopeful Carly Fiorina has already blamed President Obama and Hillary Clinton for the attacks in Paris "mostly because Obama and former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton didn't do enough to stop the growth of the Islamic State group."

Leave it to a GOP presidential candidate who's never held public office and has no foreign policy experience to blame a senseless attack by ISIS in Paris on the same U.S. president who approved the killing of Osama Bin Laden and the drone strike that killed ISIS butcher "Jihadi John" just last week. 

Fiorina's delusional comments reflect not just her low standing in the polls, but a much broader political issue for the Republican party. 

David Brooks

On Friday morning, syndicated New York Times columnist and author David Brooks published a really insightful op-ed piece entitled, The G.O.P at an Immigration Crossroads, that used the division within the Republican party on immigration to frame some serious questions the GOP needs to answer - and fast.

But the piece was also clearly intended as an open letter to the GOP presidential candidates and the Republican party as a whole.

The gist of his article is a question millions of Americans have been asking since the late 90's - what kind of political party does the GOP want to be in a nation that is increasingly made up of ethnic and racial minorities and people who have immigrated to this country from other nations?

Moving forward, can the party be relevant in it's current form?


As Brooks observes in his article, "Some Republican leaders simply lack the ability or willingness to acknowledge reality."

Who was he taking about? He mentioned Cruz and Jindal by name but there are other GOP candidates (including Mike Huckabee) who have some serious reality issues.

In his op-ed yesterday, it's worthy to note that Brooks didn't even bother mentioning NJ Governor Chris Christie by name.

As someone who reads Brook's column regularly and has listened to his political analysis and decidedly pro-conservative commentary on The PBS Newshour for years, my sense is that his unstated message is that "Christie is not the guy for 2016."  

Just consider two of the headlines Christie made last week alone.

On Monday he vetoed a domestic violence gun bill that had overwhelming support from both Republican and Democratic members of the New Jersey legislature that would have required judges to order any domestic abuser who is either convicted or the recipient of a restraining order, to turn in any guns they own to police within 24 hours and provide proof to a court within 48 hours. 

That sounds pretty reasonable right? Both sides of the NJ legislature backed it.

Members of law enforcement (whom Christie claims to support when he trashes the Black Lives Matter movement) backed it and the public backed it - but Christie vetoed it.

This despite poll results published by TheTrace.org showing that 63% of registered American voters fear guns and gun violence; so whose interests are being served by Christie using his authority as governor to veto legislation intended to make sure convicted domestic abusers don't have access to firearms?

Then on Wednesday during a town hall meeting at Mickey's Country Cafe in Bettendorf, Iowa when an audience member who claimed to be the mother of two police officers asked Christie how he would support law enforcement, he told her that he would refuse to meet with members of the protest movement Black Lives Matter. "I want the Black Lives Matter people to understand, don't call me for a meeting. You're not getting one."

He then went on to again repeat the lie that Black Lives Matter has called for the murder of police officers - which he's been doing for weeks despite being confronted by statements from BLM itself and members of the media over the fact that the group has never called for the murder of anyone.

There's nothing presidential about intentionally mischaracterizing a grass roots activist group and lying about it in order to pander to a conservative segment of society and please right-wing dark money groups back by the National Rifle Association.

You'd think "Mr. Tell It Like It Is" was threatened by them.

Or so eager to "out-conservative" other conservatives that he ends up making a fool of himself - like back during the 2012 presidential run when Mitt Romney assured Republican voters that he was "severely conservative" even though he pushed through universal health care as governor of Massachusetts.  

With the George Washington Bridge scandal back in the news and likely to surface again in ways that are going hurt his image nationally and scare off the big money donors, I don't think the issues related to his pretending to be more conservative than he is are going to matter for Christie much longer anyway - not while he's polling in the very low single digits and is relegated to the "kids table" at the GOP debates.

But Republicans struggling to operate within the framework of reality is not limited to the presidential candidates either.

Republican Michele Fiore's Twitter message last night

The outspoken Nevada Republican state Assemblywoman Michele Fiore was quick to use the Paris attacks as an opportunity to denounce gun control on social media. 

Fiore (pictured left) is a vocal advocate of concealed carry laws who made headlines back in February when she suggested in a NY Times interview that combating sexual assault on college campuses would be easier “If these young, hot little girls on campus have a firearm, I wonder how many men will want to assault them. The sexual assaults that are occurring would go down once these sexual predators get a bullet in their head.”

Last night the 45-year old controversial 2nd term politician posted an inflammatory Twitter message (pictured above) promoting a Website linked to the ultra right-wing John Birch Society and suggested that the strict gun control laws in France were to blame for the attacks committed by three separate highly-coordinated ISIS attackers on Friday night.

Fiore Tweeted: "STICKING TO MY GUNS - GUN CONTROL LEFT FRENCH DEFENSELESS."
 
While I can certainly recognize that she was probably shocked and upset when she posted that Tweet at 8:17pm Friday night as news of the Paris attacks were unfolding, that's still a pretty simplistic and irresponsible message to post on social media when a comprehensive investigation has only just started.

She has absolutely no evidence that concealed carry laws allowing French citizens to carry weapons would have done anything to stop the carefully-coordinated attacks by ISIS last night.

While it's obviously horrific that 129 people were killed in the Paris attacks yesterday, I'm not sure Fiore understands that more than 11,485 people have been killed in gun-related incidents in the U.S. this year alone according to statistics posted by GunViolenceArchive.org. 11,485.

Contrast that number with France where a total of 1,856 people died from gun-related incidents in 2012.

The attacks in Paris are another horrific reminder of the global danger of a radicalized extremist terror movement guided by medieval principles that doesn't recognize borders, ethics, morals or laws.

If Republicans want to make some kind of constructive or insightful commentary on these acts that helps to build consensus on how to stop them, or reveals details about their own foreign policy objectives; so be it.

But if GOP politicians or candidates just want to use another nation's tragedy as a cheap political soundbite, then they might as well just keep their mouths shut - because by politicizing a terrorist attack, some Republicans are simply revealing how disconnected to reality they are.

And as David Brooks observed, whether the issue is abortion, immigration, terrorism or the art of governance, operating in an echo chamber that's detached from the mainstream isn't the way to win the White House; let alone stay relevant to an increasingly diverse American landscape.  

Bloomingdale's Date Rape Ad - Don Draper Anyone?

Bloomingdale's ad endorsing date rape? Yikes.

Can you believe that Thanksgiving is just two weeks from today?

For those of you who are cooking, it wasn't my intent to stress you out or anything; consider it a helpful holiday "two-minute warning" from the Culturegeist if you have to shop, order a pre-cooked turkey or make travel plans.

For retailers, advertisers and many of us, Thanksgiving marks the official opening to the holiday shopping season.

Given all the negative impact from bad publicity that large retailers in New York City like Macy's and Barney's have faced in recent years following some really troubling incidents related to the treatment of African-American shoppers, one would think that major retailers would make not offending shoppers right before one of the biggest shopping seasons of the year a priority, right?

The ad (pictured above) taken from a Bloomingdale's holiday catalog, is getting a lot of attention (and comments) on Twitter and other social media platforms today because the text accompanying the ad sounds a lot like an endorsement of date rape - the story is blowing up on major media outlets too.

Like Danielle Paquette's Washington Post story analyzing what the ad says about rape.

If you can't read the words between the leering guy on the right and the smiling unsuspecting blond woman on the left, it reads:

"Spike Your BEST FRIEND'S eggnog when they're not looking."

Really? Bloomingdale's green-lit this ad in this day and age when date rape is recognized nationally as a widespread entrenched social crisis affecting institutions like schools and the military? 

Someone at Bloomingdale's thinks they're Don Draper

Now if this was the fictional world of Mad Men, I could see Don Draper (pictured left) pitching this ad in a smoke-filled conference room in front of a bunch of white guys in suits with tumblers of scotch in front of them in the 1960's as they prepare to head out to a three-hour Manhattan lunch and get sauced on the ad agency's dime.

But this is 2015 and the honchos over at Bloomingdale's are obviously already hard at work trying to stem the bleeding from this disastrous self-inflicted PR wound to one of the most widely-recognized retail brands in the world.

No doubt the emails are flying and phones are ringing while the brain-trust at Bloomingdale's tries to come up with a way to demonstrate to female shoppers that the company didn't really intend to suggest that intentionally spiking a woman's drink with alcohol or a date-rape drug like GHB would make for a happy holidays.

Or prompt said woman to go out and shop at Bloomingdale's after whatever transpires when the leering perv in the ad image spikes the woman's eggnog.

But given the importance of the role American women play with major purchasing decisions around the holidays, I think this ad reflects the glaring lack of diversity that still exits in the hermetically-sealed world of advertising - a problem that the experts have been talking about for years.

Now as I've mentioned before on this blog, I used to work in advertising when I lived in New York City. I  know a little about the creative challenges related to visualizing images designed to convey a sales or marketing objective and then coming up with words designed to influence someone's purchasing or behavioral decision.

It's not easy. An ad may look simple, but it's not and a lot of work goes into incorporating complex research and data intended to help advertisers target a very specific demographic.

So that's just one of the reasons a lot of people are wondering what the Hell the copywriter who came up with that ad and the director or exec who approved it was thinking.

As a former copywriter, my guess is the ad is a subtle and poorly-executed attempt to play off the throwback appeal and politically-incorrect aesthetic of Mad Men where sexual harassment in the workplace was all too common.

Unfortunately, the creators of this Bloomingdale's ad forgot that Mad Men is a fictional television show that was set in the 60's and early 70's.

Given the failure of the advertising industry to take responsibility to attract a more diverse talent pool into the creative and executive ranks, this ad can probably be attributed to the fact that it was assigned to a bunch of Ivy-league educated frat guys who've watched way to much Mad Men sitting in a room who thought it was clever and risque.

When in fact, it was just plain offensive and demeaning to women; what a way for Bloomingdale's to start off the holiday shopping season.

If I didn't know better, I'd swear that offending women and ethnic minorities has become a pre-holiday tradition for large retailers in New York City.

Aysmmetrical Leadership: Wolfe Resigns - Yale Heats Up & More SAE Racism?

Tim Wolfe resigns as president of Missouri

The resignation of University of Missouri president Tim Wolfe this morning is a testament both to the power of peaceful forms of nonviolent protest combined with social media, and the importance the university places on the revenue stream from its Division I college football program.

Grad student Jonathan Butler's announcement last Monday that he was going on a hunger strike until Wolfe resigned really helped to focus national media attention on the issue.

I suspect he's doing some serious chowing down at this point after six days with no food. It took some cojones to do what he did.

But the mere threat of a possible forfeit of the Mizzou Tigers - BYU football game this weekend, and the revenue from tickets, concessions, broadcast rights, merchandise and advertising (plus a $1 million penalty) really sealed the deal for Wolfe.

That speaks to the power of sports and money in our society; but it's nice to see them used to help drive positive social change and in doing so, take a stand against the racism, intolerance and ignorance that's all to common on college campuses around the U.S.

Given the seriousness of the racial incidents and the subsequent inaction on the part of the Mizzou administration to address them in a timely manner that sparked the protests, it's doubtful that members of Concerned Students 1950 and other University of Missouri students and staff who actively campaigned for Wolfe's resignation are under the illusion that everything is fine now.

This is not a "kumbaya moment".

It's a defining moment for a major educational institution in a state still reeling from the aftermath of the Ferguson protests that erupted in the wake of the killing of teenager Michael Brown and the revelation of shocking institutionalized racism and bias entrenched within the local court system and the police department.

For Missouri this is a moment that can't be wasted  given what's at stake for the school's reputation and it's future. 

Yale students marching across campus on Monday 11/9/15

1,157 miles to the northeast of the Missouri campus in New Haven, Connecticut, a defining moment is also taking shape.

Earlier today hundreds of Yale University students and supporters engaged in a "March of Resilience" to protest against what many are calling the Ivy League institutions lack of racial sensitivity.

The protests were sparked back in late October after an administrator named Erika Christakis wrote a controversial email disagreeing with a request by the school's Intercultural Affairs Committee calling for students to avoid wearing Halloween costumes that might be considered racially or culturally insensitive.

Her email was sent out to the entire university and read in part:
"Is there no room anymore for a child or young person to be a little bit obnoxious … a little bit inappropriate or provocative or, yes, offensive? American universities were once a safe space not only for maturation but also for a certain regressive, or even transgressive, experience; increasingly, it seems, they have become places of censure and prohibition."

In response to Christakis' remarkably tone deaf email longing for the days in America when dressing in an offensive Halloween costume was considered a 'hoot', more than 740 students, faculty members and Yale staff signed an open letter to Christakis, calling her email "offensive".

A heated public exchange between a female student and Christakis' husband Nicholas, who serves as the Master for Silliman (one of Yale's student residence houses) in which the student emotionally berates Christakis for putting the intellectual concept of free speech expressed by his wife above the importance of racial sensitivity has gone viral.

If you haven't seen or heard it give it watch, it's not long and it offers a glimpse of the depth of cultural tension that is simmering on the campus of one of the most esteemed universities in the world.

Yale students gathered on campus

To me what's most important is illustrated in the photo of the march at Yale seen on the left.

The hundreds of Yale students who came out to protest cultural insensitivity today were Asian, white, Hispanic and African-American.

The march went from the Afro-American Cultural Center across campus past the Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity where a female Yale sophomore named Neema Githere alleged that she and her friends of color were turned away from a party last Friday by an unidentified frat brother who supposedly told them they couldn't be admitted because the event was for "white girls only".

Seriously, what is it with these SAE frat brothers anyway?

Remember back in March of this year when the SAE chapter at the University of Oklahoma was closed after video of frat members in tuxedos on a bus headed to a formal while gleefully singing along to a chant called "There will never be a nigger at SAE..." was making national headlines?

I guess some students will never learn.

Regardless, I'm interested to see what will come of the protests in Columbia and New Haven in terms of policy changes or enforcement of codes of conduct for students and staff.

But I do get the sense we're seeing a rising backlash against the angry, divisive tone in this country that has come from the extreme political right that now dominates the Republican party.  

Leadership has traditionally been a top-down thing in this nation and I think some of these incidents happening on college campuses in this country are a byproduct of the years of normalization of intolerance and acceptance of bigotry by conservative politicians who seem to exist in the echo chamber of the right-wing media they pander to.

But as the protests and subsequent resignation of Tim Wolfe in Missouri demonstrates, what appears to be a new kind of  "asymmetrical leadership" is emerging; a 21st century version of the great American protest movements of the 20th century for women's rights, civil rights, the anti-war movement in the 60's, environmental rights.

It's what I see as a style of leadership characterized by people coalescing around an issue and using social media to communicate and create momentum that doesn't require the support or endorsement of mainstream media, corporate entities, political parties, or any other "institution".

This leadership style is a reflection of the evolution of the merger of Web-based platforms and technology into our lives;  we carry it in our phones wherever we go.

Like the Internet it's amorphous, powerful and doesn't require any one leader to tell it  how to think or what it should do - as Tim Wolfe learned the hard way.

Keep your eyes peeled, it will be interesting to watch how this rejection of intolerance influences the tone of the 2016 elections and who we want to be as a nation.