we scoop reuters

looks like i ought to tweet more. yesterday "the lookout" blog on yahoo posted this story, which begins:

A partially redacted police report detailing the initial investigation in the Feb. 26 shooting death of Trayvon Martin has surfaced.

Reuters reporter Matthew Keys first posted scanned copies of the report to his Twitter account. As the Chicago Tribune noted, the report contains details that conflict with several rumors surrounding the case.

here's a screenshot of matthew keys' tweet, also dated 3 april:

and here's a screenshot of a little bit of my facebook timeline, dated march 31:

the only problem is that the chicago tribune beat me by 4 days.

thinkprogress

Half of North Carolina Concealed Carry Permit Holders With Felony Convictions Keep Their Permit


VIDEO: New Iowa Frontrunner Thinks Medicare, Paper Money And Nearly Everything Else Is Unconstitutional


Justice Who Upheld Gov. Walker’s Anti-Union Law Received Over $10k Worth Of Free Services From Walker’s Law Firm


Romney Wants His Billionaire Wall Street Donors To Be Able To Give Him Unlimited Sums Of Money

till killing stops

boycott mex dope

sure, ending the war on drugs and stopping the flow of arms across the border would be best, but until those unlikely events occur, we can help somewhat by getting our illegal drugs somewhere else!

RWNJs

ok! now we get down to ground!

james delingpole's 365 ways to drive a liberal crazy #254 has at last revealed (as if we didn't know) what the authoritarian right wing really believes in: big lies, elitism, and violence (all of which the right projects onto the left). take a look here:

Pick a fight with a liberal on:
FAIRNESS.
The top 5 percent of taxpayers contribute 60 percent of government revenue; the top 10 percent of taxpayers contribute 75 percent of revenue; another two-fifths make up the rest. Half the U.S. population is now exempt from paying tax. 2012 may turn out to be the first presidential election in American history where non-taxpaying voters outnumber taxpaying voters. At this point, remind the liberal: "Still, I guess the imbalance will find a way of working itself out in the end. Your side thinks it can go on taking more and more of our money. Our side has most of the guns and ammunition."

see the implied threat at the end? that's no joke.

and the justification for that threat is that "your side" [which means us] is taking "more and more of our money" [which means their money]. that big lie is based on the false statistics cited earlier, culminating in the assertion that "Half the U.S. population is now exempt from paying tax."

in reality, 40% of federal revenue in FY 2010 came from social security and social insurance taxes. all wage earners pay those taxes, not just the richer half of americans, and they are the most regressive taxes of all because of the income cap on social security tax.

you may be interested in wikipedia's article on right-wing authoritarianism, which includes this:

Authoritarians are generally more favorable to punishment and control than personal freedom and diversity. For example, they are more willing to suspend constitutional guarantees of liberty such as the Bill of Rights. They are more likely to advocate strict, punitive sentences for criminals, and they report that they obtain personal satisfaction from punishing such people. They tend to be ethnocentric and prejudiced against racial and ethnic minorities, and homosexuals.

In roleplaying situations, authoritarians tend to seek dominance over others by being competitive and destructive instead of cooperative. In a study by Altemeyer, 68 authoritarians played a three hour simulation of the Earth's future entitled the Global change game. Unlike a comparison game played by individuals with low RWA scores, which resulted in world peace and widespread international cooperation, the simulation by authoritarians became highly militarized and eventually entered the stage of nuclear war. By the end of the high RWA game, the entire population of the earth was declared dead.

a related article on authoritarian personality contains these tidbits:

The focus of RWA research is political preferences as measured through surveys, that suggest three tendencies as noted in attitudinal clusters. These are: 1) submission to legitimated authorities; 2) aggression towards sanctioned targeted minority groups; and 3) adherence to values and beliefs perceived as endorsed by followed leadership. McCrae & Costa (1997) report that the big 5 dimension of openness to experience is negatively correlated to RWA....

More recently, Jost, Glaser, Kruglanski, and Sulloway (2003) have proposed that Authoritarianism, RWA and other similar constructs of political conservatism are a form of motivated social cognition. These researchers propose that conservatism has similar characteristics as to authoritarianism, with resistance to change, and justification for inequality as the core components. In addition, conservative individuals have needs to manage uncertainty and threat with both situational motives (e.g., striving for security and dominance in social hierarchies) and dispositional motives (e.g., terror management and self-esteem).

of course, i've taken quotes out of context, and there are objections to the conclusions of those researchers, so i suggest you investigate fully before making up your mind.

media matters

Glenn Beck thinks he can spew his hateful rhetoric, take a few days of heat, and then dance away from accountability for what he's done.

Last week, we brought your attention to Glenn Beck's comparison of the young, innocent victims of the Norway mass murders to "Hitler youth" and his attempt to escape responsibility for that outrageous claim -- and you responded en masse with more than 10,000 petition signatures asking radio stations to drop Beck for his indefensibly hateful statements.

One radio station informed us that it had already made the decision to cancel Beck's show, which is a reflection that Beck's vitriol is bad for business and a testament to how grassroots power can help restore responsibility to our public airwaves.

But we need to keep up the pressure on other radio station managers across the country, so they won't be able to defend providing a platform for such hateful and profoundly disturbing intolerance for very much longer. [more]

alternet

The Utterly Wrong Beltway Myth Driving the Debt Ceiling Insanity

By Joshua Holland / AlterNet

5 Reasons Michele Bachmann Is the New Sarah Palin

By Sarah Seltzer
AlterNet

The Reason CEOs Make 350 Times More Money Than Their Workers -- And Why That's Terrible for the Economy

By William Lazonick
New Deal 2.0

8 Dumbest, Most Insensitive Right-Wing Reactions to the Norway Shooting

By Mark Howard
AlterNet

12 Ways Rupert Murdoch's Media Empire Has Made the World Worse

By Russ Baker
WhoWhatWhy.com

speculation about what caused the norway massacre has degenerated into finger-pointing and simplistic solutions, as usual.

the simplistic category includes "If one counselor or youth had a gun on them and shot back at this guy, he would of killed far less people." [exact quote; don't blame me for the phrasing]

the fingers point all over the map: at cops, right-wingers, christians, islamophobes, atheists — i almost said "you name it" and put myself among the oversimplifiers.

i find it ironic that some christians defend what they view as their side by blaming atheism because a few prominent atheists have attacked islam, like richard dawkins, below.

it's surprising that such a smart guy would say "in the former christendom ... there's more of a historical tradition of questioning." dawkins ought to recall that christianity, at islam's present age, sent inquisitors to interrogate questioners of the faith, often quite harshly.

i'm willing to admit i don't have too many answers, tho i suspect more information couldn't hurt, but i can't deny that some react violently when overexposed to information (not necessarily misinformation) that alarms or provokes them.

for now i'll just call for more light. if we humans want to avoid a mass throat-cutting, we need to wake up. few of us think clearly as we sleep.

going slow

Mississippi schools get tough on bullies

...a video circulating the Internet showed a special needs child in a north Mississippi district being punched in the face.

And in Yazoo County a couple of years ago, a girl carried a gun onto the school bus because she said she had been the victim of bullying, one of the instances lawmakers used to illustrate the need for a stricter law.

Bullying doesn't apply only to students, either: Moss Point's high school principal was recently fired in part for alleged bullying of a subordinate.

In response to the rising problem, Mississippi last year passed a new, tougher anti-bullying law. The law requires that all districts have a policy and procedure prohibiting bullying under any conditions. Teachers and coaches, under the law, are required to report any suspected bullying to administrators.

It includes off-campus incidents such as school-bus and cyber bullying.

The onus is on principals to investigate each case.... [more]

Mississippi Goddam
(1963) Nina Simone

The name of this tune is Mississippi Goddam
And I mean every word of it

Alabama's gotten me so upset
Tennessee made me lose my rest
And everybody knows about Mississippi Goddam

Alabama's gotten me so upset
Tennessee made me lose my rest
And everybody knows about Mississippi Goddam

Can't you see it
Can't you feel it
It's all in the air
I can't stand the pressure much longer
Somebody say a prayer

Alabama's gotten me so upset
Tennessee made me lose my rest
And everybody knows about Mississippi Goddam

This is a show tune
But the show hasn't been written for it, yet

Hound dogs on my trail
School children sitting in jail
Black cat cross my path
I think every day's gonna be my last

Lord have mercy on this land of mine
We all gonna get it in due time
I don't belong here
I don't belong there
I've even stopped believing in prayer

Don't tell me
I tell you
Me and my people just about due
I've been there so I know
They keep on saying "Go slow!"

But that's just the trouble
"do it slow"
Washing the windows
"do it slow"
Picking the cotton
"do it slow"
You're just plain rotten
"do it slow"
You're too damn lazy
"do it slow"
The thinking's crazy
"do it slow"
Where am I going
What am I doing
I don't know
I don't know

Just try to do your very best
Stand up be counted with all the rest
For everybody knows about Mississippi Goddam

I made you thought I was kiddin' didn't we

Picket lines
School boycotts
They try to say it's a communist plot
All I want is equality
for my sister my brother my people and me

Yes you lied to me all these years
You told me to wash and clean my ears
And talk real fine just like a lady
And you'd stop calling me Sister Sadie

Oh but this whole country is full of lies
You're all gonna die and die like flies
I don't trust you any more
You keep on saying "Go slow!"
"Go slow!"

But that's just the trouble
"do it slow"
Desegregation
"do it slow"
Mass participation
"do it slow"
Reunification
"do it slow"
Do things gradually
"do it slow"
But bring more tragedy
"do it slow"
Why don't you see it
Why don't you feel it
I don't know
I don't know

You don't have to live next to me
Just give me my equality
Everybody knows about Mississippi
Everybody knows about Alabama
Everybody knows about Mississippi Goddam

That's it for now! see ya' later

eml from media matters

Here [is] today's news [item] from Media Matters for America, click on the title or 'read more' to read the entirety of [the] story.

Wall Street Journal Spins Fracking Study To Downplay Risks
A Wall Street Journal editorial obscured the fact that a Duke University study strongly suggested methane from a natural gas extraction process known as hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, contaminated water supplies. Read More

Here are [yesterday's] news items from Media Matters for America, click on the title or 'read more' to read the entirety of each story.

Neal Boortz Uses Mythology To Say The Bush Tax Cuts "Worked"
Writing in the Atlanta Journal Constitution, syndicated radio host Neal Boortz perpetuated the myth that tax cuts increase revenue to bolster his argument that the Bush tax cuts "worked." Economists have said the Bush tax cuts reduced revenue and had little positive impact on the economy. Read More

Washington Times' History Of Anti-Gay Attacks
The incoming editor of The Washington Times, Ed Kelley, recently suggested he was not familiar with the newspaper's long history of anti-gay attacks, saying the only controversy he had heard on the issue was "a change in whether or not the term either civil unions or gay marriage or something, whether or not there were going to be quotes used around the term or not." In fact,The Washington Times has long history of extreme rhetoric and smears against the LGBT community. Read More

Here [is 6/24's news item] from Media Matters for America, click on the title or 'read more' to read the entirety of [the] story.

Fox Panel Teams Up To Promote A Bushel Of Misinformation On Health Care Reform
A seven-minute segment on Fox News' America Live featured a deluge of falsehoods and distortions about President Obama's health care reform record, including the false suggestion that PricewaterhouseCoopers found that health care reform is responsible for rising costs. In fact, Pricewaterhouse found that reform is "expected to have minimal impact on [the] medical cost trend in 2012." Read More

Here are [6/23]'s news items from Media Matters for America, click on the title or 'read more' to read the entirety of each story.

Another "Indoctrination" Freakout: Right-Wing Media Attack MD's Environmental Literacy Education Requirement
Right-wing media have attacked a recent Maryland State Board of Education ruling that requires high school students to be "environmentally literate" before graduating as "indoctrination" and "brainwash[ing]," while using it as an opportunity continue the right-wing's longstanding war on climate science. Read More

Right-Wing Media Strain To Portray Obama's Speech As A "Mission Accomplished" Moment
Following President Obama's speech announcing the drawdown of troops in Afghanistan, right-wing media have strained to portray the announcement as a "mission accomplished" moment. However, Obama acknowledged that "huge challenges remain" in Afghanistan and "[w]e'll have to do the hard work of keeping the gains that we've made." Read More

Right-Wing Media Launches Kitchen Sink Attack On Obama's Afghanistan Speech
The right-wing media reacted to President Obama's address on troop withdrawals in Afghanistan by dredging up familiar, petty attacks, such as criticizing the number of times Obama referred to himself, and claiming the address was a "campaign speech" instead of a "war update." This follows a long history of the right-wing media launching frivolous attacks over speeches Obama makes on all manner of issues. Read More

Fox Uses Oil Reserve Announcement To Demand More Drilling
After President Obama announced that the U.S. will tap the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, Fox News figures falsely suggested that government restrictions are encumbering domestic oil production. In fact, drilling is nearing a twenty-year high, and countless economists have explained that expanded U.S. oil production is not a solution to high oil prices. Read More

Right-Wing Media Attack Vargas With Stereotypical, Anti-Immigrant Vigor
Jose Antonio Vargas, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, recently revealed that he is an undocumented immigrant. Right-wing media responded with virulent anti-immigrant attacks, with Don Surber of the Charleston Daily Mail writing: "kick the lying, illegal alien Jose Antonio Vargas out." Read More

Here are [6/22]'s news items from Media Matters for America, click on the title or 'read more' to read the entirety of each story.

Plane Falsehoods: Krauthammer Continues To Misinform About Boeing's Alleged Union-Busting
Previously, Fox News contributor Charles Krauthammer misinformed the public on a National Labor Relations Board complaint that Boeing illegally moved jobs away from a unionized facility, claiming that "paying off the unions to [President Obama] is more important than a healthy export economy." Krauthammer spread more falsehoods in a Washington Post column in which he suggested that the NLRB is a political organization "trying to get the [South Carolina] plant declared illegal" because "Democrats need unions." Read More

Beck Guest Falsely Claims Oil And Gas Companies Get "Zero" Government Subsidies
On his Fox News show, Glenn Beck hosted several oil and gas industry executives to attack President Obama's energy policies and tout fossil fuels. During the show, Beck hyped the false claim by one of his guests, the CEO of the American Petroleum Institute, that "the oil and natural gas industry gets zero subsidies" from the federal government. Read More

Fox News "Headline" Is A GOP Press Release
Fox News adopted its "headline" for today straight from a press release from the office of Republican Rep. Paul Ryan, claiming that the Congressional Budget Office estimated that "government spending as a share of our economy will increase by nearly 70 percent by 2035." In its long-term budget outlook, CBO projected that spending would increase from 24.1 percent of GDP in 2011 to 27.4 percent in 2035. Read More

Fox Protects Investment By Attempting To Spin Lack Of Enthusiasm For GOP Field
Fox News has recently tried to spin GOP voter dissatisfaction with the 2012 presidential field by suggesting it is a manufactured Democratic talking point designed to "handicap" the candidates, when, in fact, polling has consistently shown Republicans are dissatisfied with the GOP field. This spin comes as Fox is investing a significant amount of resources into promoting the GOP presidential candidates. Read More

With Renewed National Focus On Immigration Reform, Fox Revs Up Anti-Immigrant Campaign
As immigration reform has re-entered the public debate, Fox News has spent the past several weeks misleading on the issue and slanting its news coverage to paint immigrants in a negative light. Read More

Jon Stewart Gets It Right About Fox News
Fox News has attacked Daily Show host Jon Stewart for claiming that Fox News viewers are "the most consistently misinformed viewers" of cable news. However, Stewart was correct -- Fox News consistently misinforms its viewers, and its viewers are found among the most likely to hold misinformed beliefs about current events. Read More

Here are [6/21]'s news items from Media Matters for America, click on the title or 'read more' to read the entirety of each story.

Eric Bolling: Fox News' In-House Corporate Lobbyist
Fox News' Eric Bolling has been promoting what he described as his own stimulus plan, a plan centered on tax breaks for multinational corporations on money currently parked offshore. Bolling's proposal is remarkably similar to a plan reportedly promoted by corporate lobbyists during a Washington, D.C. conference on June 15 - the day before Bolling discussed his plan on Fox News. Read More

Fox Still Misrepresenting NLRB's Case Against Boeing
Fox News has repeatedly suggested that the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) is engaging in unlawful or "anti-American" activity by filing a complaint against Boeing for deciding to build a new plant in the "right to work" state of South Carolina. But the NLRB complaint alleges that Boeing moved to South Carolina in retaliation for union workers' decision to strike, and experts say that allegations in the case represent an "absolutely standard violation" of federal labor law.Read More

Fox Hyped McKinsey & Co. Study But Ignored Admission That It's Not A "Predictive Economic Analysis"
After hyping a McKinsey & Company survey that predicted the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPAC) would cause millions of employees to lose their employer-basedhealth care coverage, Fox did not cover that McKinsey & Co. admitted that their findings were not meant as "a predictive economic analysis." Fox further failed to note a study reinforcing President Obama's claim that employer-sponsored insurance (ESI) markets would be virtually unchanged by the health care bill. Read More

Here are [6/20]'s news items from Media Matters for America, click on the title or 'read more' to read the entirety of each story.

Fox News Maligns Scientists With Baseless Accusation Of "Doctoring" Sea Level Data
Following the lead of the Heartland Institute, Fox News trumpeted the utterly baseless claim that scientists at the University of Colorado are "doctoring" sea level data to "exaggerate theeffects of global warming." In reality, the scientists used a standard and transparent procedure performed by other research groups around the world, and even the climate skeptic cited by Fox News objects to the implication that the group engaged in scientific wrongdoing. Read More

Fox Hosts Official From Extremist-Linked Pro-Gun Group To Distort Link Between "Carry Laws" And Crime
Fox & Friends hosted John Velleco, director of federal affairs for Gun Owners of America (GOA), to argue in favor of concealed weapons laws by dubiously claiming that "crime goes down" when "a state tries to relax concealed carry laws." But according to PolitiFact, crime data shows no "straight-line correlation between states with 'right to carry' laws and crime rates"; moreover, GOA's executive director has been tied to militia groups, white supremacists, and has a history of extremist rhetoric. Read More

more fox lies

following on the dispute between jon stewart and politifact over whether fox viewers are misinformed, check out how many false stories came from fox "news" in just three consecutive days this month and got posted on media matters.

eml from media matters

Here are today's news items from Media Matters for America, click on the title or 'read more' to read the entirety of each story.

Continuing Attack On Tucson Ethnic Studies Class, Beck Ignores Report That Contradicts His Fearmongering
Glenn Beck said that "the top education official" in Arizona ruled that an ethnic studies program, which Beck claimed "called for the overthrow of the United States government," was in violation of state law. But Beck didn't note that a study commissioned by that same Arizona official found no violation of the law. Read More

Fox's "Doctor" Ablow Dismisses Threat From Coal Plants
Fox News contributor and psychiatrist Keith Ablow misinformed viewers by dismissing EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson's statement that limits on air pollution from coal-fired power plants benefit those who suffer from asthma. Indeed, it is widely accepted among public health professionals that pollution from these plants exacerbates asthma symptoms. Read More

Varney Revives False Claim That Cutting Taxes Increases Revenue
On Fox & Friends, Fox Business host Stuart Varney revived the false claim that "history shows that you get more money to the Treasury by lowering tax rates than by raising tax rates." In fact, virtually no economist believes the evidence supports the claim that tax cuts result in increased federal revenues. Read More

Here are [yesterday's] news items from Media Matters for America, click on the title or 'read more' to read the entirety of each story.

Forgot To Google It? Right-Wing Media Hype False Report That Google Gave "Special Deal" To Obama Campaign

The Drudge Report and Fox News both recently seized on discredited allegations that Google may have given a "special deal" to the Obama campaign in giving the campaign select access to a new advertising product. In fact, both Google and the Obama campaign denied the report; moreover, a Google spokesman pointed out that the ad that sparked the controversy was not a Google ad at all. Read More

Right-Wing Media Attack Wasserman Schultz For Economic Recovery Remarks
Several right-wing media figures and outlets have attacked Democratic National Committee chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz for accurately saying that President Obama "began to turn the economy around." Read More

Fox Continues To Misinform About WI Anti-Union Legislation
Fox & Friends hosted Glenn Grothman, a Republican state senator from Wisconsin, to promote Wisconsin GOP Gov. Scott Walker's anti-union bill and to misleadingly suggest that the legal challenges to the bill simply involved state employees' contributions to their pensions. In fact, the controversy surrounding the bill was its intention to strip most public workers of collective bargaining rights; the unions have consistently agreed to higher pension and health care contributions. Read More

In WSJ Column, Rove Advances Dubious Health Care Reform Claims
In a Wall Street Journal column, Karl Rove advanced the misleading claim that the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) "added $115 billion to administer" the health care reform law, which "reduced ... claimed savings to $28 billion." Rove also hyped a dubious study that he claimed found that "78 million Americans would lose their current health coverage" because of the health care reform law. Read More

Fox Wildly Misrepresents Allegation That Boeing Engaged In Unlawful Union Busting
Fox repeatedly spread misinformation about a case brought by the National Labor Relations Board's office of general counsel alleging that Boeing retaliated against workers in Washington state who had previously gone on strike by moving work to South Carolina. One Fox News personality went so far as to call the case "the end of freedom in America." Read More

and here are wednesday's items:

Right-Wing Media Attack Obama For Accurate Remarks On Business' Investment In Automated Machines
Right-wing media have seized on recent comments by President Obama to claim that Obama "blame[d] ATMs for high unemployment." But Obama's full comments show that he was suggesting that businesses are investing more heavily in automated machines than in hiring new employees, a view shared by economists. Read More

Right-Wing Media Use Benign Comment About Regulatory Reform To Call Millions Of Jobs A Waste Of Money
Media conservatives have found yet another excuse to push the myth that President Obama's economic policies have failed to increase employment, this time pointing to Obama's unremarkable observation that eliminating unnecessary regulations might speed up business activity and help create jobs. Economists have said that Obama's economic policies have boosted employment and raised gross domestic product. Read More

Fox Hypes Bogus Theory That ATF Operation Meant To Lay Groundwork For Stricter Gun Laws
Continuing its pattern of hyping ridiculous conspiracy theories to attack the Obama administration, Fox News baselessly suggested that the ATF's Operation Fast and Furious was deliberately designed to go badly in order to justify stricter U.S. gun laws. In fact, even a report prepared for House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-CA) and Sen. Chuck Grassley(R-IA) refutes this theory. Read More