Tag Archives: msnbc

American Gun Culture Is Literally Killing Us: A Reading List

Featured Image -- 265

Em Perper's avatarLongreads

“You look like you’re saving the world. Are you saving the world?”

I looked up from my notebook into the face of a tipsy, friendly woman, glammed up for her night out. We were in the narrow aisle of our local pizza joint. She’d shared a quick snack with her friend, and my sandwich and soda were half-finished. Writing here has become a Friday night tradition: When I wrap up my shift at the bookstore, I head here to eat, read and sketch out last-minute ideas for my reading lists.

If she knew what I was reading, she wouldn’t ask me that. “No!” I laughed. “I wish.”

“Well, good luck with it, whatever you’re doing,” she said. I thanked her. She left with her friend.

I was reading—am reading—about guns. About their magnetism, their effect, their handlers. About the people caught in the literal crossfire, the innocent and the marginalized.

View original post 953 more words

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos Wants to Send Donald Trump to Space

bezostrump

Donald Trump hates the media. Trump hates other rich and powerful people who think he’s a moron. But Amazon founder Jeff Bezos occupies a special place in Trump’s ire. Not only is Bezos a bleeding-heart Silicon Valley tech founder, but he owns the Washington Post — which makes him a media mogul of his own. To Trump, Bezos occupies a sweet space between those two loathed groups of people.

Trump lashed out at Bezos on Monday morning, calling him a shoddy business leader who owns two businesses that don’t profit.

Never mind Trump properties’ many bankruptcies. Never mind Trump’s admitted use of financial devices in order to manipulate his assets. He is right about one thing: Amazon has gone years without making a profit, because Bezos is wreaking havoc on the retail and shipping industries in the name of innovation. Investors are just fine with this.

Bezos, always a man who appreciates humor, basked in the recognition of finally receiving one of Trump’s many attempted digital smackdowns, and gave his own response:

 

 

That hashtag proposing we #sendDonaldtospace has inspired others to send Trump their own bon voyages, suggesting that the Republican presidential candidate shoot for the moon and land among the stars.

 

 

 

Bezos’ net worth is estimated to be close to $50 billion, which by some measures is anywhere from five to 10times the net worth of Trump.

 

 

Originally Written & Published by Jack Smith IV of Mic

Twitter Erupts to Trump’s Remarks with Trending Hashtag #TrumpIsDisqualifiedParty

trumppp

White House press secretary Josh Earnest said on Tuesday said that Donald Trump’s proposal to ban Muslims from entering the United States “disqualifies” him from serving as president.

“What Donald Trump said yesterday disqualifies him from serving as president,” Earnest said to reporters at the daily briefing.

He cited the presidential oath of office to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”

“And for Republican candidates for president, to stand by their pledge to support Mr. Trump, that in and of itself is disqualifying.”

He also said that the Trump campaign was a “whole carnival barker routine.”

Twitter responded with the trending hashtag #TrumpIsDisqualifiedParty – ranging in participants from high-caliber celebrities to your local neighbors.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Florida Mayor Bans Trump
Rick Kriseman, the mayor of St Petersburg – a city of 253,000 in Florida, has suddenly found himself very popular.
His tweet was reposted over 13,000 times, and “liked” 15,000 times.
He seems to have struck a nerve…

 

Chicago cops’ account of Laquan McDonald killing differed wildly from video footage

Protesters in Chicago prepared for a new round of action on Sundayafter the city released documents showing that at least five Chicago police officers told a story about the killing of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald that is wholly unsupported by the notorious video footage of the incident.

McDonald was shot 16 times in 15 seconds while he was walking away from officers. Jason Van Dyke, the officer who shot him, has been charged with murder.

But, as the New York Times noted, that version of events differs markedly from the story that multiple officers told—something we know thanks to newly released police records:

[A]t least five other officers on the scene that night corroborated a version of events similar to the one Officer Van Dyke, now charged with murder in the shooting, gave his supervisors: that Mr. McDonald was aggressively swinging his knife and was moving toward the police, giving Officer Van Dyke no choice but to start shooting.

The revelation will only heighten the scandal swirling around the Chicago Police Department. Protests have rocked the city since the McDonald video was released. Mayor Rahm Emanuel has fired the department’s superintendent in response to the scandal. There is also the possibility of an investigation by the Justice Department into the department’s wider problems.

A Chicago Tribune report on Saturday detailed some of the ways in which the department has managed to evade the kind of public scrutiny it is currently facing:

Of 409 shootings since the [Independent Police Review Authority’s] formation in September 2007 — an average of roughly one a week — only two have led to allegations against an officer being found credible, according to IPRA. Both involved off-duty officers.

[…]

Overall, police misconduct, including shootings and other wrongdoing, has cost taxpayers more than $500 million since 2004, according to officials.

The Chicago officers are far from the first to tell stories about police killings that wound up differing drastically from recorded footage of the events. Officers in the shootings of both Tamir Rice and Walter Scott, for instance, presented completely contradictory accounts of the incident.

blm

Sunday’s protests in Chicago are set to begin at 1:30 PM.

 

 

 

Originally Written & Published by Jack Mirkinson of Fusion

Seven Times Donald Trump Promised to Make America White Again

Donald Trump, a leading Republican hopeful for president of the United States, has made white supremacy a defining element of his campaign. Behold:

1. When President Barack Obama challenged the nation Sunday not to resort to bigotry after a Muslim couple killed 14 people in San Bernardino, California, Trump issued a press release Monday that read: “Donald J. Trump is calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country’s representatives can figure out what is going on.”

trump

2. When people said that sounded ridiculous, Trump doubled down. “I wrote something today that I think is very very salient, very important and probably not politically correct, but I don’t care,” he told reporters Monday in South Carolina.

trump2

3. When the Syrian refugee crisis was wrongly blamed for the terrorist attacks in Paris in November, Trump’s answer was to ban all Syrians from entering the United States:

trump2

Because Christian refugees are “superior” to Muslims, Trump said.

4. When Trump announced his candidacy and outlined his thoughts on immigrants who come to the United States seeking better lives, he told his supporters in June, “When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs, they’re bringing crime, they’re rapists.”

trump2

5. When viewers pointed out that those comments seemed a bit inflammatory, Trump doubled down. “It’s unbelievable when you look at what’s going on. So all I’m doing is telling the truth,” Trump said in July in an interview with CNN’s Don Lemon. “Well, somebody’s doing the raping, Don! I mean somebody’s doing it! Who’s doing the raping? Who’s doing the raping?”

trump2Source: Mic/CNN

6. When Trump blasted the Democratic Party for “catering” to Black Lives Matter activists. “I think it’s disgraceful the way they’re being catered to by the Democrats,” Trump told Bill O’Reilly in September. “And it’s going to end up kicking them you-know-where. I don’t think it’s going to end up good. The fact is all lives matter. That includes black and it includes white and it includes everybody else.”

trump3Source: Scott Olson/Getty Images

 

7. When he gave his interpretation of the problem of police shootings in the United States. “It’s a massive crisis. It’s a double crisis. What’s happening and people. You know, I look at things. And I see it on television. And some horrible mistakes are made,” Trump said in August. “At the same time, we have to give power back to the police because crime is rampant. And I’m a big person that believes in very big — you know, we need police.”

trump4Source: Scott Olson/Getty Images

With Trump still drawing thousands of supporters and doing well in the polls, these dangerous comments keep on coming. Dare we ask what’s next?

 

 

Originally Published & Written by: Jamilah King of Mic News