Ask George Smith e-mail: webmaster at dick destiny
The sound of someone’s brain crumbling, plus friends, you don’t have to listen to all 100 minutes.
Chief Kessler: “I don’t run with the mainstream … I didn’t grow up with a silver spoon shoved in my ass.”
Terry from Ohio: “Our mayor is in league with the Muslims, the Turks … they’re all over the place, they’re coming in like hordes.”
Chief Kessler: “I started a national movement nullifying all gun control laws.”
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By race, nonwhites still have a higher risk of being economically insecure, at 90 percent. But compared with the official poverty rate, some of the biggest jumps under the newer measure are among whites, with more than 76 percent enduring periods of joblessness, life on welfare or near-poverty.
By 2030, based on the current trend of widening income inequality, close to 85 percent of all working-age adults in the U.S. will experience bouts of economic insecurity …
“There is the real possibility that white alienation will increase if steps are not taken to highlight and address inequality on a broad front,” said some expert to the news agency.
White alienation. Geez. That’s what it will take to start the food riots, eh?
Big version. Do statistics belong in modern folk art?
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More in the fine satirical art series.
The Republican Party has spent 30 years careering ever more deeply into ideological extremism, but one of the novel developments of the Obama years is its embrace of procedural extremism. The Republican fringe has evolved from being politically shrewd proponents of radical policy changes to a gang of saboteurs who would rather stop government from functioning at all. In this sense, their historical precedents are not so much the Gingrich revolutionaries, or even their tea-party selves of a few years ago; the movement is more like the radical left of the sixties, had it occupied a position of power in Congress. And so the terms we traditionally use to scold bad Congresses—partisanship, obstruction, gridlock—don’t come close to describing this situation. The hard right’s extremism has bent back upon itself, leaving an inscrutable void of paranoia and formless rage and twisting the Republican Party into a band of anarchists.
And the worst is not behind us.
“The reign of the Republican House has not yet inflicted any deep or permanent disaster on the country, but it looks like it is just a matter of time,” it concludes.
Hat tip to Frank and Pine View Farm.
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I see it everyday crossing the el Molino bridge. (You have to live here.)
In a new critique of how minorities are treated in the Antelope Valley, a judge has ruled that Palmdale violated state voting laws by maintaining an election system that stymied Latinos and blacks from winning office.
The judge’s findings come a month after the U.S. Justice Department accused Palmdale, Lancaster and the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department of a systematic effort to discriminate against minorities who received low-income subsidized housing.
Federal officials said deputies conducted widespread unlawful searches of homes, improper detentions and used unreasonable force that specifically targeted blacks and Latinos …
Judge Mark V. Mooney, in an opinion released this week, concluded that Palmdale’s at-large voting system for its city council violated state law because the city has “racially polarized voting??? and minority voters are unable to influence the outcome of elections.
The judge agreed with plaintiff Juan Jauregui, who argued that Palmdale had not adequately followed the California Voting Rights Act, which requires district rather than citywide elections if there is any evidence of racially polarized voting, and if it can be shown that a minority district can be drawn. Palmdale is 54.4% Latino and nearly 15% black yet has only elected one Latino city council member and never a black council member in its history, said Jauregui’s attorney, R. Rex Parris. Parris is also the mayor of Lancaster.
“The current absence of any Latinos or African Americans on the Palmdale City Council reveals a lack of access to the political process??? …
This Los Angeles Times map of how LA County voted shows the voting polarization. LA County went heavily for Obama.
But in the high desert, which is where Palmdale and the neighboring
town of Lancaster sit, the black and Hispanic voters are in roughly
two distinct areas, surrounded by red. The blue areas tend to urban and are more densely populated.
A link to the map which is zoom-able and and searchable by city
is here. Once you’ve zoomed in, you can mouse over various precincts to see the voting results.
The Republican Party works voter suppression wherever it can get it, even at the most local level.
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Police Chief Mark Kessler, now briefly Pennsyltucky’s most famous citizen, has the attention of all the medium-sized newspapers in the region. And the Southern Poverty Law Center which noticed his attempts to take a militia-style group nationwide earlier this summer.
From the Morning Call:
Gilberton police chief Kessler told NBC News on Wednesday that he expects to lose his job, but believes his speech is protected under the First Amendment.
From the Harrisburg Patriot-News, an editorial:
Kessler, 41, bald, outspoken and as hard as the coal that’s scraped from the ground in the massive fields on the east edge of town, is literally a force of one. He also serves on a local school board.
He’s also active in gun-rights circles. He appears on a radio show on the conspiracy-minded website “Infowars??? [run by crazy Alex Jones.] And he hosts his own website where he’s organizing a militia-style group called The Constitutional Security Force.
He also pushed a resolution through the Gilberton borough council authorizing him to take any measures needed to prevent the “unconstitutional enforcement??? of changes to federal gun laws.
Let’s be clear, there’s something seriously disturbing about the idea of a gun-toting, F-Bomb spewing, conspiracy-theorist, police chief/school board member who may or may not have anger management issues being anywhere near a position of power.
But there’s also something weirdly Pennsylvanian about the rhetoric that sprays from Kessler’s mouth as fast as the rounds he fires from the borough-owned weapons in his videos.
Let’s dispense with hard coal romanticism bit. I grew up there and hard men mining hard coal were pretty much all gone by the time I was in my early teens.
The rest is fine, though, and reading it I thought of responding to it from the perspective of having been there and now being here.
What is to be said to my old tribe back in Schuylkill County?
Well, I had some points to make:
Dear Schuylkill County:
I’m writing to you from today from the sunny streets of Pasadena in southern California. But I grew up in Pine Grove and spent almost half my life in Schuylkill Country. I’ve been gone now for over two decades.
However, I can’t imagine any police chief in a small town in the area in the early-70’s, when I was a teen, being anything like Mark Kessler. I didn’t know anyone, in a place where plenty of people had guns, who had a couple assault rifles firing full auto. Didn’t know anyone with even a remote chance of going nationwide with profanity as a brand, a stars-and-bars patch on his shirt and the assertion that “libtards”, uh, take it … well, watch the videos.
The place was strongly Republican and Gus Yatron was the representative in our nation’s capital for a really long time. He was an uncontroversial man, quiet, not known for much of anything. He would have been appalled at someone like Mark Kessler. I suspect everyone who ran things in the small town of Pine Grove, only twice and some as large as Gilberton, would have been horrified. Sure, there were raging jerks but they were kept out of any positions of power or authority.
If you could place Mark Kessler’s videos in a time machine and send them back to Gilberton forty years ago I bet you the people would watch and be convinced the country had collapsed and been overtaken by complete violence and anarchy.
Police Chief Mark is a symbol of national progress, I suppose, and not of any good kind. You can respect the freedom of speech and still believe a person like him needs to be ejected from any position of government-mandated responsibility at once. You can’t excuse away a personal website that just looks like a recruiting advertisement for a militia, one that declares the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms unconstitutional. How does that work with local law enforcement, anyway, since the ATF is a specific enforcement agency of federal law? What happens when, theoretically, the ATF comes to Gilberton?
I can tell you that in southern California, Mark Kessler would have been history as a policeman or sheriff, probably less than a day after his videos went viral. Then maybe he could have a career in private security.
Yes, Schuylkill County and Los Angeles County might as well be as far apart and different as Earth is from Jupiter. But I think we can probably agree that a warm heart is of much greater value than curses, the middle finger and a demonstration spray of hot lead meant to intimidate.
I feel sorry for the people in Gilberton. Perhaps they did not know Chief Mark Kessler like this. But now that they do they should realize, too, that government and its ability to authorize someone to have an assault rifle that’s used to get in the face of others is not good government. Law enforcement that uses its position to try and recruit a militia is not, by any definition, good law enforcement.
Doesn’t matter how small and close-knit your town is, it’s just bad and you’re the worse for it.
On Police Chief Mark Kessler’s website he calls the Southern Poverty Law Center an “anti-American group.”
If you know what the SPLC and what it does, track the violent right, you have an inkling as to why.
Earlier this summer Kessler and his Constitutional Security Force became an object of interest:
In preparation for that feared day when the federal government comes for citizens’ guns — a fear that animates much of the antigovernment “Patriot??? movement — a police chief in Pennsylvania has formed a militia-like group to stand against federal authorities he believes are intent on destroying the Constitution. The group, the Constitutional Protection Force (CPF), has already grown to 38 chapters in 38 states, with each dedicated to “meeting any attempts by the federal government to forcibly disarm the public,??? one website claims.
Behind the effort is Mark Kessler, police chief in the tiny borough of Gilberton, Pa …
Of course, it remains to be seen just what will become of Kessler’s militia — if it will grow or dissolve amid the ever-tendentious fight to pass gun control legislation. But in the meantime, the CPF has attracted widespread attention, and support, from a growing faction on the radical right.
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North Carolina’s voter suppression bill got final approval in the Senate by a vote of 33 to 14 late Thursday afternoon.
The House Bill 589 aka vote suppression bill was passed in the rules committee on Monday and got the Senate’s blessing for the third time this afternoon. Comparatively speaking in Pope’s North Carolina, three days is a long time to debate and pass a bill that contains three pages on voter ID, to eradicate non-existent rampant voter fraud, with another 53 pages on matters that wouldn’t stop voter fraud even if it did exist. The only thing this bill achieves, as Democratic Senator after Democratic Senator pointed out is suppress the vote …
One intersting twist was made by a Republican Senator who claimed that this bill doesn’t suppress the vote, because when other states did it in 2012 – voting in their states went up. That’s because people recognizing that Republicans were coming for their votes so it was a matter of using it or losing it. It was not because these laws made voting more accessible! — PoliticsUSA
“I didn’t want to be right,??? Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg says about her prediction that striking a key prong of the Voting Rights Act will lead to a wave of minority voter suppression, “but sadly I am.??? — ThinkProgress
There are literally too many shitheels in USA 2013 to keep up.
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From PARIAH mag cover star, Ted Nugent, at WorldNetDaily:
As I celebrate the greatest R&B rocktour of my gravity defying career, the Ted Nugent Black Power Tour 2013, paying homage and gushing love every night for the black musical geniuses that inspire all great music, like I have for more than 50 years, it pains me deeply to see the return of such nasty, unnecessary racism erupting across America today.
And before the racism scam industry unleashes their predictable, soulless lying hatred at me, my musicians include my dear black friend Johnny Gunnel and Marco Mendoza, a Mexican-born American. For like everybody I have ever known, and the George Zimmerman family as well I believe, there does not exist a racist fiber in the bones of any Nugent or Nugent associate. Not by any stretch of the imagination, contrary to the real racists out there. I have never met a racist, but I see and hear them on TV all the time, more and more lately …
Did you happen to mention that the misguided, I believe racist prosecution team’s prime witness, one Rachel Jeantel, displayed pretty much every self-inflicted bad choice that really oppresses blacks?
Obesity is also a major cause of death for blacks. That no one disciplined Rachel to get the most basic education to be able to read or speak clearly is the root of unemployment for blacks.
In light of this wisdom, the banner of Ted’s column is UNINTENTIONALLY THE BEST ON THE SUBJECT, EVER!
One can only bow the head in admiration. What a publication! What a guy!
And this is the best iJunkcast ever.
Listen to it all if you dare! Take the DD challenge! Proffer your reaction in fifteen to twenty words or less in the space below! Win an Escape from WhiteManistan No-Prize!
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Police chief Mark Kessler puts the sleepy patch of Gilberton, Pennsylvania, on the map! The birthplace of a new nation!
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Confederate flag patch wearin’, swearin’, sub-machine gun firin’ Gilberton, Schuylkill County, police chief Mark Kessler, gone famous for the next 48 hours for his major-lapse-in-judgment video.
Gilberton is about half an hour from where I grew up, part of the North Schuylkill school district, where Kessler is a member of the local board.
Kessler uses his police permit to fire restricted sub-machine guns on private property as a personal statement. I’m reasonably sure this will draw attention from the feds, particularly since his personal website, chiefkessler.com, boldly proclaims:
Thus, ALL laws made by Congress, ALL regulations made by the Bureau of Alcohol, Firearms, and Tobacco (BAFT), are unconstitutional as outside the scope of the powers granted to Congress and to the Executive Branch by our Constitution. Regulation of arms and ammunition is NOT one of the “enumerated powers??? delegated to Congress or the Executive Branch.
Furthermore, all pretended regulations made by the BAFT are also unconstitutional as in violation of Art. I, Sec. 1, U.S. Constitution, which vests ALL legislative powers granted by the Constitution in CONGRESS. Executive agencies have no lawful authority whatsoever to make rules or regulations of general application to The People!
The website appears to be an attempt to recruit for a militia-styled group, the Constitutional Security Force. Ladies, Chief Mark is also looking for models for a “girls of the CSF” calender. Go, dear readers, before it all comes down.
Kessler is also a fan of the Holocaust-denier rock band, Poker Face, out of Allentown. (You can read about Poker Face on this blog, from the archives. I particularly liked the old post — Amusing Fuhrers.)
Chief Kessler is a gift from WhiteManistan, someone custom made for my definition, heevahava, one like many many others, but still an embarrassment of riches for those who follow the American demographic of insurrectionist neo-Confederates bent on patriotically saving the country and Constitution (with a capital “C’) from tyranny.
The white power right horn-of-plenty is all there on his website. Today he’s a star, the burgermeister of Gilberton and the North Schuylkill school board director still not quite grasping what national publicity has done. And the big public relations problem that’s about to fall on them.
From the Morning Call newspaper:
Despite the ensuing media stir and calls to Borough Hall the video generated Tuesday, Mayor Mary Lou Hannon said she saw no reason to discipline Kessler, who said he made the video to draw attention to gun rights. Hannon noted he did it on his own time and violated no laws.
“Each member of council, each employee and each citizen is not only entitled to their own political opinions, but also the right to express them,” she said in a prepared statement. “We will not take action to quash free speech, whether or not each member of council or any member of council agrees with it.”
Charles Hepler, school board president in the North Schuylkill School District, said he had not seen the video. He declined to comment because the board has not had time to review or discuss it.
So, using your photo in police chief’s uniform to recruit members of a Constitutional Security Force while declaring the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, a federal law enforcement agency, unconstitutional is just “drawing attention to gun rights” Mayor Hannon?
[Horselaugh.]
Yes, and the North Schuylkill board of education endorses Civil War 2.
Gone, eventually, even deep inna hart of Pennsyltucky.
And now for a musical interlude, entirely appropriate, given the circumstances.
It took about a week for Kessler’s video to get noticed. Surf out and you’ll see he’s already disabled comments although he has taken time to monetize it with overlay advertising. So hurry, it may not be long until he’s granted exactly what he wants, a visit from the tyrannical government to inquire about the sub-machine guns.
Because of his well-publicized comments on the Zimmerman trial, Ted Nugent has become the object of a picket to get him out of a gig at Toad’s Place in New Haven, Conn.
The local newspaper, the New Haven Register, came down firmly on the matter. It is the first time I’ve seen a mainstream daily newspaper have the stones to call Nugent a bigot in no uncertain terms. The newspaper runs down the laundry list of Nugent-isms, many of which you have read here. His public record is quite clear.
Ted Nugent is not welcome in New Haven, and Toad’s Place should cancel the Aug.6 concert he is planning here.
It’s not a question of censorship. It’s about the type of people to whom Toad’s Place, as an institution in a community whose values are the opposite of Nugent’s, chooses to provide a platform.
Nugent is a racist, misogynistic, homophobic hate-monger who has demeaned and even threatened violence against the people who live in our community …
Toad’s Place wouldn’t (we hope) choose to host a lecture by David Duke or a concert by the KKK’s house band. So why do its managers think it’s acceptable to support someone who is saying the same kinds of things …
And this is the key to making people pay a penalty for empowering Ted Nugent in the marketplace of ideas. It’s possible for the New Haven newspaper, the city, and a big picketing group, to hurt Toad’s Place. Maybe not enough to stop the Nugent show this year but enough to guarantee he won’t be back again.
I worked for a newspaper. You hand out enough bad press and you can afflict those who need and deserve affliction.
Media Matters has put together a video chain of Ted Nugent words over the last few years.
Nugent’s speech may be protected but he’s also a certified shit-heel, someone who if he were not famous would be treated with no more deference than a guitarist in a white supremacy punk rock band. In a real democracy, not American democracy, he would be a pariah.
And there’s the thing in 2013 America. It made Ted Nugent’s public hate into a money-maker. He is as much a creature of CNN and the Washington Post as he is of the extreme right wing.
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