Site Cancels Trayvon Martin Murder Weapon Auction

Today the story of George Zimmerman's latest in an extreeemely long line of very bad choices is spreading like horrifying wildfire across the internet and traditional media.  ICYMI, Zimmerman decided that he was going to auction off the gun he used to kill Florida teen Trayvon Martin.

But now for the good news - the auction appears to have been pulled. 

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The Zimmerman auction link as of this writing

Not yet clear - who pulled the auction?  Did George Zimmerman have sudden, simultaneous bouts of common sense and decency (an exceedingly unlikely convergence of events, if ever there were one)?  Or did gunbroker.com get a heap of backlash and decide that proceeding with the auction was unseemly and/or bad business?

My odds are 10:1 on the latter.  And I'd be willing to bet that no small measure of the backlash came from pro-Second Amendment champions.  At least, I sincerely hope that's the case.

Muslim Student: Obama at Mosque Says I Am Just As American As Any Other

College student Sabah Muktar introduces President Obama in Baltimore. Source: YouTube

THIS - college student Sabah Muktar, introducing President Obama's speech at the Islamic Society of Baltimore moments ago:

"And personally, [President Obama speaking at this mosque] reassures me that I, a proud, black, Muslim, African-American, am just as American, and have the obligation to fulfill my loyalty to my country, as any other."

Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. Sarah Palin and friends don't get to define "Real America." I've lived in Real America in rural Idaho, inner city Seattle, suburban Redlands (CA), a middle class Portland (OR) neighborhood, DC, "Portlandia"- like college towns, and on the Nez Perce Reservation. I've visited Real America in Montana, Tucson, Atlanta, Nashville, NYC, Ithaca, Charleston, San Antonio, Chicago, San Francisco, LA, San Diego, Boise, Pocatello, Spokane, Coeur d'Alene, Tacoma, Yakima, Walla Walla, Salem (OR), St. Louis, Minneapolis, Salt Lake City, Kuna, Grangeville, Mukilteo, Everett, Olympia. I haven't had an opportunity to go see Real America in Hawaii, Puerto Rico, New Orleans, Miami, Dallas, Boston, Philadelphia, rural New England, Alaska, or any number of other places on my Bucket List, but I hope to get there someday.

Scientific Evidence Shows Extensive Unconscious Race Bias

 Racism: The Elephant in the Room / John Duffy, CC BY 2.0

A recent Washington Post piece linked to an excellent overview of the current state of science around unconscious race bias, as of a year ago.

A number of studies have indicated a significant degree of unconscious race bias among Americans, particularly against African Americans.  Experts in the fields of psychiatry, psychology, and neuroscience have been exploring a variety of possible remedial measures to counteract unconscious bias.  Which is pretty damn exciting.

Sen. John Cornyn's A Lot of Things, But KKK Member Ain't One of 'Em

Senator John Cornyn / Gage Skidmore, CC BY-SA 2.0

Today in don't believe everything you read on the Internet: anonymously-made allegations that a variety of politicians are members of the KKK.

The list of politicians allegedly involved with the KKK that was released today looks very, very dubious.  It was released by someone calling themselves @sgtbilko420.  Their Twitter feed says they're not directly involved in Anonymous, but they're sympathetic.

But their identity is anonymous - so how accountable are they, really?  I take a "trust, but verify" approach with most people who've actually earned my trust.  Those who haven't - especially anonymous folks on the Interwebs - get a "be skeptical, and investigate" response, instead.

Knoxville, Tennessee Mayor Madeline Rogero seems on the level to me (see her Facebook refutation.)  She started her career working with the United Farmworkers - an unlikely start for a seething white supremacist.  She participated in a December Black Lives Matter rally.  And here’s a picture of Rogero's multi-racial family.  Not a likely candidate for the KKK.

Also listed - the Mayor of Lexington, KY.  Who's openly gay.  And has been an openly gay politician since 2005.  In Kentucky.  Not seeing him as a KKK member.

Also listed - U.S. Senator John Cornyn (R-TX).  Who's been derided as a RINO by right-wingers for years for offenses such as: saying compassionate things about undocumented kids last year, supporting immigration reform, voting to allow a vote on Loretta Lynch’s nomination to the post of Attorney General, supporting President Obama on the need to act in Syria two years ago, and co-sponsoring the Sentencing Reform Act with Senator Corey Booker (D-NJ) and others.  I don't know John Cornyn's heart when it comes to race, but a KKK leadership role seems very, very unlikely. 

Here's a report showing the refutations of a number of those listed on the so-called "KKK list."

Additional debunking will be posted as found.

UPDATE at 4:26 PM PST:

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Black Oregon Deputy Sues WA Restaurant That Illegally Made Him Prepay For Breakfast

I wonder how the right-wing racism-denial industry will try to spin this one ...  on second thought, not really.  Obviously they'll just claim this is some guy with a victim mentality trying to get rich off a made up story, and yet another example of the scourge of abusive litigation and the need for tort reform.

But will they change their tune when they realize that the plaintiff is actually a Multnomah County Sheriff's Deputy?  Which will win out - their desire to support law enforcement no matter what, or the desire to discredit stories of real life racist treatment no matter what?

Full story at The Oregonian.

Short Take: Clock Kid School Officials & LEOs Should Have Texan Cards Revoked

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A handful of thoughts about the Muslim Texan kid with the homemade clock, and the predictable attempts in some right-wing corners to minimize the story and shift the focus elsewhere.

1. Breitbart, for people who bemoan leftists' "victim mentality," you sure are quick to trot out examples and ask why President Obama hasn't also called THESE families who were the victims of BS at school, implying that it's because he doesn't care about white people, or non-Muslim people, or what have you.

2. The fact that the teacher became aware of the clock "when it's alarm went off in class" should have been their first clue that this wasn't a bomb. Because when a bomb's alarm goes off, the bomb goes BOOM.

3. The adults who looked at this contraption - which is only comprised of electronics and contains no plastique, no massive quantities of fertilizer, no ordnance, no other variety of materiel, and no incendiary device whatsoever - and thought that it was a bomb should be ashamed to consider themselves Texans.  Surely, good Texans are more familiar armaments than THAT by the time they complete elementary school.  

4. In a different story, a school official or law enforcement officer explained that the child was arrested because when asked about it, he said it was a clock, and didn't give any other explanation for it.  It's unclear what sort of other explanation he should have given for it, since it was, in fact, a clock.

Short Take: Another Racially-Motivated Police Brutality Case

James Blake practicing for the 2010 US Open / Photo: Paul VanDerWerf, CC BY 2.0

On Monday, a plain clothes NYPD officer thought this guy standing around in front of a nice hotel was a credit card fraud suspect.  So clearly, he had to apprehend the suspect by bum rushing him.  Because, y'know, you can never be too careful - white collar criminals are renowned for their deadly encounters with police.

Unfortunately, as it turns out, the bum-rushee was actually professional tennis player James Blake, not a fraudster, and not the actual suspect (who, it turns out, wasn't even the perp.)  Oops.  TMZ obtained security camera footage from the NYPD (below.)

America Is Too Great For Donald Trump's Hate-Mongering

This is not who we are as Americans.

Trump's just warming up to full-fledged rage. Photo: Gage Skidmore, CC BY-SA 2.0

     
Israeli columnist Chemi Shalev recently drew an interesting parallel between Donald Trump's current anti-Latino/Hispanic propaganda and European anti-Semitic propaganda of a century ago.  

I disagree with his column’s larger thesis.  But this example of old European anti-Semitic propaganda he included got me thinking about the fear-mongering propaganda we hear increasingly here in the U.S.:

Can Bristol Palin Improve Racial Harmony, Bridge the Partisan Divide, AND Lower Abortion Rates?

Bristol Palin at 2011 book signing for Not Afraid of Life / Photo: Gage Skidmore, CC BY-SA 2.0

Could Bristol Palin's second pregnancy outside of wedlock actually result in more than yet another eruption of culture-warring partisan snarkery?  Maybe.

I'm not interested in ranting about conservative Christian hypocrisy.  Plenty of other folks are already doing that, with the predictable churning up of noisy angst on all sides of the debate.

But it seems to me that this turn of events may actually provide an opportunity for some growth and healing across racial, religious, and political lines.  Heck, it could even get us one teeny step closer to an even more precipitous decline in the abortion rate than we're already experiencing. 

How the Two Major Parties Differ, and Why Who Appoints Fed Judges Matters, Exhibit 8,502:

"Supreme Court upholds housing discrimination law"  (USA Today)

No doubt the predictable howling erupted in right-wing media today over the Supreme Court's Inclusive Communities Project decision.  So I'll just note that, (1) the decision is in accordance with decades of Supreme Court precedent, and (2) the disparate impact claim is an important tool in combating housing discrimination.  As a practical matter, unless an individual defendant, an agent of a defendant entity, or a local lawmaker debating a challenged policy pulls a Donald Sterling and says a bunch of nonsense while being (lawfully) recorded - which rarely happens - intent can be *extremely* difficult to prove.  

Morgan Williams, General Counsel to the National Housing Law Forum, does a great job of explaining the decision - and its basis - here.  NAACP Legal Defense Fund Special Counsel John Paul Schnapper-Casteras also provides informative insights.  If you'd like to better understand the decision, give 'em a read - while both authors are intimately familiar with fair housing law, the pieces avoid the abundance of jargon that helps attorneys sound like they possess a special, magical sort of knowledge far beyond the reach of mere mortals.  

Note: some of the other commentators on SCOTUS-blog read Justice Kennedy (who authored the majority opinion) as worrying that the decision could be interpreted to place developers or public housing agencies in a damned if you do, damned if you don't type of double-bind.  But he's quite explicit in stating that neither the FHA nor this decision have that effect:  

Economy sucks? Don't worry about it - worry about THOSE people instead!

In late 1991 or early 1992, the GOP's politics of hate led me to become a Democrat.* Little has changed on that front. Krugman calls out US Rep Paul Ryan's race-baiting: http://nyti.ms/1qJUMFX


* After a few years of indecision, a parade of GOP US Senate hopefuls gleefully trying to outdo one another in gay-bashing during a primary debate in my college's chapel - including US Rep Sonny Bono, father of then-out-lesbian Chaz Bono - clinched my decision. Even though I was far from a gay rights activist - I was still "uncomfortable" with homosexuality at that time because of my partly-evangelical upbringing - I "knew" that demonizing people and fostering hatred and division to score political points was decidedly un-Godly behavior.

Happy St. Paddy's Day, You Defective Bastards!

This St. Paddy's Day, we 35 million Irish-Americans (Rep. Paul Ryan included) would do well to recall that we supposedly came from a "defective culture." http://nyti.ms/1e4BhCC

Heck, Polish-Americans, Italian-Americans, Catholic Americans of ANY ethnicity - we've all been slapped with this label at one time or another by "the protectors of the culture."  I suspect if you tallied us all up, we'd be the vast majority of Americans at this point.

Apparently the only culture worth celebrating in these folks' books is one where you hoard everything you can get your mitts on for yourself, and squelch the nagging conscience that tells you that greed is a deadly sin by assuring yourself that:
1. you're morally superior and deserve everything you've got,
2. poor people are morally corrupt and deserving of their lot, and
3. your material success is all God's will and evidence of His special love for, and approval of, you (nice appropriation of the historical notion of the Divine Right of Kings, there, by the way!)