Posts by Matthew Poole
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Hard News: Holiday Open Thread 2:…, in reply to Danielle,
It wasn’t just voting, though. Riding on any bus you wanted, going to any hospital you wanted, enrolling in any school you wanted, even using any public water fountain you wanted. Those were not options for many Southern blacks.
The economic and police-relationship issues facing blacks across the entire US (and the headline cause of most of those riots) haven’t gone away, but having your access to public facilities blocked because of the colour of your skin has. That’s what I meant by “waiting for the South to get with the programme”, because enfranchisement was just the biggest issue of a multitude of segregationist matters that were addressed in that period in the South but which hadn’t been a consideration in the North for quite some time.
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Hard News: Holiday Open Thread 2:…, in reply to Angus Robertson,
Or George W Bush is a WAR CRIMINAL, circa 2004.
Circa now, too. And unlike claims that Obama's a closet Muslim, there's actually evidence to support assertions that Bush the Second did, indeed, commit war crimes. Like government officials torturing prisoners-of-war under a policy that originated from the White House. That's a war crime.
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Hard News: Holiday Open Thread 2:…, in reply to Simon Grigg,
It was a very long time ago though. As were the 1950s/60s and Mississippi & Alabama. And as central as some of those people were in those states, they had no national platform that espoused hate in the way that Fox and many of its talking heads do.
This, I think, gets to the crux of the difference. The civil rights era was nasty, with plenty of authority (literally) figures batting for the KKK. When it becomes necessary to send in the feds just to ensure that the local boys don't cover up their own civil rights violations, or to escort people to their chosen institution of education, you have problems.
However, there was no Faux News to stir things up. No national broadcasting network would've dared allow the talent to blithely suggest that targeted violence against specific individuals was acceptable as a way of resolving political disagreements. As ugly as the discourse got locally, it didn't have open support on a national platform. There was also no national unity on the enfranchisement of blacks, because in the North it just wasn't an issue by the 60s. Blacks could vote, the world hadn't ended, why couldn't the South just get with the programme? That's counter to the radical right currently, which has open support on nationwide broadcast and is represented vocally coast-to-coast, top-to-bottom.
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Hard News: Holiday Open Thread 2:…, in reply to Tom Semmens,
Who's Kevin Taylor when he's at home?
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Hard News: Behaving badly at the bottom…, in reply to Kyle Matthews,
The inquiry wasn’t hushed up. It was prevented by the ruling of a judge, presumably acting under the law, in an open court.
Emphasis mine.
That's the problem nzlemming has. A judge stopped the inquiry, ergo, the system protected its own. That it was a ruling on points of law, which can only be delivered by a judge, seems to have escaped him (her?). Or maybe he'd rather have had a kangaroo court just for the sake of doing something. Anything.
I also disagree with calling it "gaming the system", since the remedy he originally sought was reinstatement. He didn't go into it looking for a payout, he went in looking to get his job back.
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Hard News: Holiday Open Thread 2:…, in reply to James Butler,
Why did you leave out in your episode recap that the reason why she missed was that the rifle’s scope was off?
So maybe my lack of doubt is misplaced, or maybe not.
One can typically get much closer to an errant journalist than to a caribou before one shoots, so scope accuracy shouldn't be a crucial factor when dealing with disrespectful meedja types. -
Hard News: Holiday Open Thread 2:…, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
I pity any journalist who has had to deal with Palin for any length of time. She’s like some ’roid rage prom queen who has never had to grow up,
One who's got guns, and knows how to use them. One of the few things I doubt that Palin has any difficulty using with great competence is a weapon, be it a firearm or a knife.
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Hard News: Holiday Open Thread 2:…, in reply to Lucy Stewart,
Or change the RAF logo from a bullseye to crosshairs.
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Hard News: Holiday Open Thread 2:…, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
In other words, it’s likely that some of the people in your local bar are at greater risk of committing murder than your average person with mental illness.
Depending on the bar, some of them may well have committed murder.
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Hard News: Holiday Open Thread 2:…, in reply to Russell Brown,
The more I hear, the more he sounds diametrically opposed to Bremner's assertion that he was an LWNJ as opposed to an RWNJ. The gold standard and constitutional absolutism are very definitely not left-wing talking points.