I’ll believe corporations are people when Texas executes one. – Robert Reich HAH! No, just kidding. To summarize: Corporations are people. PG&E pleads guilty to 84 counts of manslaughter. Nobody goes to jail. Do I have that about right? Continue reading PG&E Guilty, CEO Receives Death Penalty
Watch this video now. Whoever these people are, they are not protesters. The optics are bad shooting up peaceful gatherings so it’s important for authority to establish at least the illusion of justification. By whatever means necessary. So if the … Continue reading Who Are The “Protesters” in Black?
Three quick thoughts on celebrity lawyer’s verdict… Continue reading “Michael Avenatti: Hi-ho, hi-ho, it’s off to jail he goes!”
A shoot-first state is a police state. America must do better. Continue reading “Protect and serve: American law enforcement’s greatest failure”
Deleting Facebook is a great idea in theory, but there are practical problems to be considered. Continue reading “The devil you know: the problem with #deleteFacebook”
The Mr. C case has me wondering if widespread familiarity with sexual themes and content makes today’s youth more or less susceptible to pedophiles. Continue reading “Pedophilia and our sexualized media: is naïveté a good thing or a bad thing?”
Uber says they’ll stop using Greyball. But this is only the latest outrage from America’s most incorrigibly corrupt business. Time to#DeleteUBER. As in, delete the company. Permanently.You may say I’m a dreamer / But I’m not the only one
The American corporation exists for one purpose: to “maximize shareholder value.” Thanks to a variety of factors, including a Supreme Court decision that codified this particularly sociopathic view, employees don’t matter, communities don’t matter, the environment doesn’t matter, and really the only commandment when it comes to bending the rules is “thou shalt not get caught.” Continue reading “Uber “Greyball” scandal: it’s time to consider the death penalty for corporations”
By now you have probably read a good bit about Attorney General Jeff Sessions and whether or not he unlawfully met with the Russian ambassador to discuss the 2016 Presidential election. There is a great deal of lawyering on the horizon, but for the moment here’s what we need to understand.
In his confirmation hearing Sessions was asked directly about contact with the Russians by himself or the Trump campaign. At that moment, there were a couple of ways to answer.
If his goal were transparency, he’d answer something like this: Continue reading “Everything you need to know about the Sessions controversy in a few short paragraphs”
[Note: Please forgive the snark in this post. I’m in one of those moods, but despite the tone this is a wholly factual analysis.]
The yahoos who run my native state of North Carolina have been a marvel to watch in recent months. Their latest act was to convene another of their dread “special sessions” for the purpose of repealing the state’s infamously discriminatory HB2 – the “bathroom law.”
Of course, things fell apart. If you’d like a self-serving blow-by-blow from one of the perps, I highly recommend the narrative from NC District 41 (that’s Lincolnton, I believe) Senator Jeff Tarte. If you can’t stomach that, here’s the Reader’s Digest version:
So, what’s the GOP’s motivation here? Continue reading “WTF is the NC GOP up to with the attempted “Bathroom Bill” repeal?”
According to NBC News, “new DNA testing is planned in the unsolved murder of 6-year-old JonBenet Ramsey.”
The news was first reported by NBC affiliate KUSA in Denver, Colorado, and by the Boulder Daily Camera. The two news outlets did a joint investigation in October which pointed to a variety of potential flaws in the interpretation of the DNA evidence in the case.
Boulder District Attorney Stan Garnett confirmed in a statement to NBC News Wednesday that his office had met with the Colorado Bureau of Investigation, which he said will be conducting “some further testing of the DNA evidence in the Ramsey case, as well as other cold case homicides and pending investigations,” in a new lab with new testing procedures.
There is now doubt as to the conclusions reached by former Boulder District Attorney Mary Lacy in her 2008 letter clearing the family. Specifically: Continue reading “Boulder, Colorado Bureau of Investigation planning new DNA analysis in JonBenet Ramsey case”
The NCAA Football Selection Committee today will issue its final rankings, and in doing so they face some tough choices about who gets to play for the national title. This is because NCAAF, unlike every other sport, doesn’t allow everyone with a claim to settle it on the field. It isn’t enough to win your games (and some years, your conference), you have to win a PR battle.
The NCAA has been stumbling from one corrupt system to another for years. You just wish they were making more progress, don’t you? Continue reading “A new, improved college football playoff system: how it works and why”
I’m sure you’ve read what Donald Trump said by now, but let’s watch the video and read the transcript just to make sure we’re all on the same page.
I was considering titling this essay “Donald Trump is a referendum on our character.” But it isn’t “our.” A significant majority of Americans hate Trump, including millions who are going to vote for him anyway.
So today I want to talk about you. You’re not at all comfortable with Donald Trump. Continue reading “Donald Trump is a referendum on your character”
Shaun King has a pointed question for all of you Colin Kaepernick critics: which form of protest do you actually prefer?
It’s such a great question because when you think back on it, there has never been a black protest that America’s “reasonable” and “responsible” and “moderate” whites were cool with. We turned the hoses and attack dogs on MLK’s peaceful protests. We really didn’t like Malcolm X’s “by any means necessary.” The very existence of the Black Panthers made us apoplectic.
We disapproved of Tommie Smith and John Carlos’s black power salute. Continue reading “Shaun King is right. White America doesn’t approve of ANY form of black protest.”
I’ve spent decades in the corporate world, and way too much of that time has been dedicated to crafting artful PR bullshit. I’m not proud of the fact, but truth is I’m good at it. And when making the language behave unnaturally is your stock in trade, you get really, really good at spotting it when other people start force-feeding perfectly honest words into the sausage grinder.
Which brings us to the much-discussed Ryan Lochte “apology.” Which, by the way, was written for him by some weasel in his agent’s office. Said weasel understands the basics, but sadly has all the grace and nuance of a hyena on a Cialis bender.
Didn’t work, though. See the fat, middle-aged guy with an open sore on his mouth loitering by the edge of the dance floor? That’s Lochte. See all the sorority girls easing away from him? Those are his former sponsors.
Anyhow, here’s Lochte’s fauxpology. Continue reading “Translating Ryan Lochte's bullshit into English”
That would be like getting disappointed at the sun for rising in the east. At squirrels for hoarding nuts. At Arsenal for finishing fourth. No, I’m not disappointed in Ryan Lochte. I’m disappointed in myself.
When I saw the headline – Ryan Lochte and three others robbed at gunpoint in Rio – my first thought was something like “damn, that’s awful.” But it should have been “wait – what’s the operative word in that sentence?” The answer, of course, is “Lochte,” and if I were even a little alert I’d have known, without question, that a raging, sideways douche-bro shitrain was a’fixin’ to blow up.
I should have known. You should have known. We all should have known, and the fact that we didn’t, that’s on us.
And it just keeps getting worse. First he made up the robbery story. Then we get video proving he lied and we learned that it all went down because he and some douche-bro teammates were trashing a store in the middle of the night. Then he lies some more. Continue reading “Ryan Lochte for president”
April 20, 1999. I remember exactly where I was, exactly what I was doing. My co-worker at US West, Joe Lopez, turned to me and said “hey Sammy, there’s been a shooting at a school down in Littleton.” “Find out everything you can,” I said. I’ll go tell Marti. Marti was Marti Smith, our VP, and thus began some of the hardest days those of us in Colorado have ever had to confront. It was also the moment when I realized that North Carolina, the state I grew up in, was no longer home. This piece – “Columbine and the … Continue reading Columbine: 17 years ago today
Afterward, he did drop this tweet us, though:
He’s certainly right about this. However: Continue reading “Martin Shkreli is right about Congress. But…”
Walter Palmer, the dentist who killed Cecil the Lion, says he did nothing illegal and that he’s going back to work.I don’t think Dr. Palmer understands the issue. He doesn’t grasp why people are so upset. He thinks we’re all mad because we mistakenly believe that he broke the law.
No, Walter, we know you acted legally. We live in a country where it’s legal for rich people to buy Congressmen. Most places it’s called “bribery” or “graft” or “corruption,” but here it’s called “lobbying” or “free speech.” Continue reading “Cecil the Lion’s killer doesn’t quite get it”
