Thursday, December 03, 2015

********************************************
Don't forget:
Nationwide Baby-Drop Day
is almost here!

Starting at midnight, December 22, 2015,
just drop off your unwanted baby, child,
(or husband)
at the nearest anti-choice location.

Just look for any Catholic church,
any evangelical Christian church,
or the home or office of any
Tea Partier, Christian, or Republican.

When in doubt, just leave the bundle
on the hood of a car
with one of the above bumper stickers
(anti-science bumper stickers work, too).

Then walk away, knowing that
they'll welcome your gift
as coming from God.

Remember:
If they want to make your decisions,
then give them the consequences
of THEIR decisions!
********************************************

A few more AlterNet summaries

I've posted a couple full AlterNet articles below, but some of these teaser blurbs were too intriguing not to share.

Steve Salaita, Salon
His terrible deed does not spring from an unknowable foreign culture. It is violence endemic to the United States. READ MORE»


Kali Holloway, AlterNet
The late-night host notes in 2015 we've had more mass shooting than we've had days. READ MORE»


By Frederick Lemieux, The Conversation
There's a difference between mass shootings and terrorism, for starters. READ MORE»


By Laura Clawson, Daily Kos
Donald Trump retweeted the wisdom that 'his poll numbers jump every time instances like this occur.' READ MORE»


By Mike Sawyer, The Free Thought Project
The man who tried to report a road-raging cop's bad driving was subsequently assaulted gets arrested. READ MORE»


By David Edwards, Raw Story
"I confront my whiteness by going to the tanning salon." READ MORE»


Kali Holloway, AlterNet
The misrepresentation of American attitudes on abortion is influencing policy abroad—for the worse. READ MORE»


By Brittany Wienke, Rainforest Alliance
You might think that the Paris Climate Talks have little bearing on your day-to-day life. But you’d be wrong. READ MORE»


By Steven Rosenfeld, AlterNet
Fairly taxing the wealth of the super-wealthy could transform America. READ MORE»


By Eva Decesare, The Free Thought Project
Chase Sherman's parents maintain that the deputies were never in danger and that their son was not armed. READ MORE»


By Scott Eric Kaufman, Salon
Because nothing says 'compassion' like summary execution. READ MORE»


By William N. Grigg, The Free Thought Project
Brian J. Wood is one of the two Adams County, Idaho deputies involved in the November 1 killing of rancher Jack Yantis. READ MORE»

From AlterNet: CHRISTIANS have the MOST abortions!

Editor's note: I changed some of the text in the article below to large just to make a point. 

Christian Group's Survey Finds That Christians Have the Most Abortions in U.S.

It won’t be surprising to most on the left that the Christians who kill people in order to protest killing are hypocrites.

By Walter Einenkel / DailyKos 
December 2, 2015



Photo Credit: Blend Images/Shutterstock.com

With the terrible events that unfolded over the holiday weekend still reverberating across the country, it is timely that the Christian Research group LifeWay would release the findings of a survey they conducted concerning abortion and the demographics of abortion when it comes to religion. The study was co-sponsored by Care Net, a pregnancy center support organization. Some of their findings:
70 percent of the women they surveyed identified as Christians.

23 percent of Christian women who have had an abortion consider themselves evangelical Christians.
Over one third of the women surveyed attend a church once a week or more.

Over half of the women who attend church regularly have kept their terminated pregnancy secret from their church community.

On the plus side, and probably surprising to many on the right of this issue who frequently share horror stories of women secretly having abortions while good Christian men are powerless, the majority of women based their decision to terminate a pregnancy (regardless of their religious affiliation) on the influence of the father of the unborn child. The influence of the father in this case was followed by the influence of a medical provider. So women who end up terminating a pregnancy aren’t, on the whole, a part of the four horsemen of the apocalypse.

There is much more ambivalence when it comes to how safe it is to talk with a pastor about such issues and how applicable local congregation’s religious teachings are when dealing with the ramifications of terminated pregnancies.

Only 51 percent of women agree that churches are prepared to provide support to women who choose to keep a child from an unplanned pregnancy.

This is not a good number.

Only 7 percent said they discussed their decision with anyone at church.

Twice as many women would not recommend to someone close to them that they discuss their decision regarding an unplanned pregnancy with someone at a local church.

Doesn’t sound like the church is considered welcoming to many women dealing with very tough decisions. Maybe there is another way to look at this? When Christian Post asked an anti-abortion group, here’s how they spun this news.

"I'm not surprised but I don't think that necessarily reflects anything bad about churches," Jeanne Mancini, the president of the March for Life organization that organizes an annual pro-life rally in Washington D.C., told The Christian Post Wednesday.

"That would be fantastic if she went to a church member but the reality is that they know often that they are not doing what's right, so they are not going to go [to someone] who is an expert in morality to find that out," Mancini added. "They want somebody to tell them that it's OK and they are not going to hear that from a church, at least not most churches."

[my emphasis]

Or maybe it’s tied to this reality:

64 percent agree that church members are more likely to gossip about a woman considering abortion than help her understand her options.

Turns out Jesus liked to talk smack about people behind their backs. It’s perfect that the president of the March for Life would just go straight to judging the women instead of judging their religious institution’s inability to actually come through and provide an atmosphere that practices what it preaches. Here’s Jeanne Mancini’s Twitter account. Usually pretty active, got super quiet during the Planned Parenthood Christian terrorist act. Strange, right?

Finally, here’s the religious preference breakdown of their survey:



Survey indicates 7 in 10 women who had an abortion indicate Christian as their religious preference.
Not so bad, atheists!

It won’t be surprising to most on the left that the Christians who kill people in order to protest killing are hypocrites.
 
But this is a nice survey to pass around to your more religious friends since it was conducted by a Christian organization and you can at least get around that usual right-wing rhetorical device of saying your evidence is biased against the Church.

From AlterNet: San Bernardino, second that day and 355th of the year, is worst mass shooting since Sandy Hook

Editor's note: at this point, I have no more words for the mass shootings that have become the new normal in America. Robert Lewis Dear committed murder because Carly Fiorina and baby parts. Dude, rilly? Why did these people do it? Same reason? - did they kill people because killing people is wrong? Wayne LaPierre must be seriously drunk from all the champagne and highballs he swills in celebration of each death. Maybe he has his own drinking game--one swig for each person gunned down each day, which means he has a killer case of alcohol poisoning right now. Oh, you know he celebrates each and every precious death--they are all his doing, his babies, the work of his own blood-drenched hands.

More Troubling Details Emerge from Shootings in California That Killed 14, Wounded 17

Suspects named, and more details emerge about the tragic mass shooting in San Bernardino.

By Steven Rosenfeld / AlterNet
December 2, 2015






The worst mass shooting since 2012’s Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting unfolded in the working-class city of San Bernardino, Calif. where 14 people attending a county employee Christmas party at a building serving the region’s disabled were gunned down by two assailants dressed in black and carrying assault rifles.

 Later reports early Thursday revealed the shooters wore GoPro cameras to film the massacre. It is not clear what the killers did with their recorded footage, but according to police accounts the two returned home after the shooting and fled when police arrived.

The suspected killers were identified late Wednesday night by police as Syed Rizwan Farook, 28, who for the past five years was a county environmental health employee and was born in the U.S., and Tashfeen Malik, 27. Both were killed Wednesday afternoon in a shootout with 21 officers on a city street. The two are married and have a six-month-old baby, according to press reports.

Earlier in the day, there were reports that three shooters gained entry to the Inland Regional Center, a non-profit serving people with disabilities, and used assault rifles to slaughter the party’s attendees. Seventeen people were injured and taken to hospitals.

At a late evening press conference, San Bernardino Police Chief Jarrod Burguan said police were "reasonably confident that we have two shooters, two dead suspects."

Burguan and other law enforcement officials said they were looking at several motives, but would not confirm any theory other than saying there had been an argument before the shooting began, and that Farook had attended the same county party a year ago.

"There had to be some degree of planning that went into this,” the police chief said, adding that explosive experts had retrieved and destroyed three devices that appeared to be pipe bombs found at Inland Regional Center.

The shooting and police chase paralyzed the working-class city of 200,000 that lies 60 miles east of Los Angeles. As the afternoon and evening unfolded, it was clear that local, state and federal police were investigating tips that pointed to Farook as a prime suspect.

For several hours, it was unclear where the shooters had escaped to. They reportedly left the Inland Regional Center in a dark SUV. Police spotted the vehicle leaving a house in the nearby city of Redlands and followed it back to a San Bernardino neighborhood where a gun battle erupted killing the two suspects.

In the meantime, it was not clear if there was a third suspect. A person seen by police fleeing the shootout scene was taken into custody. The surrounding neighborhood was locked down as SWAT teams went from house to house and carefully combed for explosive devices, following reports that the shooters had pipe bombs.

At the same time, a search warrant was being served by a SWAT team in a condominium complex in the nearby town of Redlands that Farook had listed as his address. The building had been evacuated, local media reported.

One police officer was injured in the gunfight with the suspects, Burguan said, though his injuries are not life-threatening. He said the dead shooters were found with two military-style assault rifles and two semi-automatic handguns in their SUV.

Burguan said police and emergency responders arrived at the shooting four minutes after the first 911 call, and most victims were being treated by paramedics within 15 minutes, which he said was "fairly fast."

Reports from at least one trauma center said two shooting victims were in critical but stable condition. Another local hospital said other victims were in critical condition and most of those hospitalized there were women.

In his late evening press conference, Burguan said he did not know the identities or conditions of the 17 wounded victims.

The San Bernardino incident was the second mass shooting Wednesday—four people were killed in a Savannah, Georgia incident—and the 355th such event in 2015. A mass shooting is defined by police as involving four or more victims.

The San Bernardino shooting occurred at about 11am PST, when the shooters burst into a conference room being used by the county health department for its annual Christmas party. Witnesses said they were dressed in black and wore ski masks. After the shooters escaped, a massive manhunt began that unfolded for hours and was televised live. Entire city neighborhoods were told to shelter in place and dozens of public schools were locked down until late afternoon.

Local police were working with the FBI and other authorities to investigate the shooting, motives and possible accomplices. The FBI officer in charge was repeatedly asked if this was a terrorist attack, which he would neither confirm nor deny.

“They were dressed and equipped,” Burguan said earlier in the day. “Dressed in dark tactical gear; that’s the best way I can put it.”

On Wednesday evening, the Los Angeles chapter of the Council on Islamic Relations held a press conference expressing sorrow, sadness and solidaity with the victims and denouncing the violence.

"Please do not condemn Islam," Islamic Council chair Muzammil Siddiqi told reporters.