And he has three beauts up now. Today, a post entitled "are we tasering people enough?" referring to Florida police tasering a kid who asked John Kerry a tough question. Kerry didn't mind the question, but the police dragged him out and tasered him anyway.
Second item (you can page down) is a post entitled, "At the Emmys Fox Guards the Hollywood Henhouse of Obscenity" referring to Fox censoring Emmy winner Sally Field who, according to observers started to make an anti-war statement. That statement, was something along the lines of "If mothers ruled the world, there would be no Goddamned wars in the first place." Fox went to black the moment she started the "no" part of her sentence. Seriously, are we that sensitive that we can't even hear something like that? I say, go for it, Sally. We are all sick of this war. Well, except those at Fox. Unless their years of running sleazy programming has made them suddenly concerned about offensive language?
Third, Mr. Swift brilliantly references the Moveon.org ad last week asking General Petraeus not to "Betray us." Personally, I thought it was a decent question and was set up completely by the White House talking about their political people writing his "report." I think reasonable people can question the authenticity of this voice, especially since there are so many reports suggesting that the Pentagon has cooked the numbers and the surge really isn't working the way they want. Anyway, Jon's post was entitled, "MoveOn.org and Other Traitors Are Welcome To Advertise Here."
Brilliant site, just brilliant.
7 comments:
I found that whole tasering incident pretty disturbing. There seem to be a rise in these, or at least in the publicity they get. Around here, there have been a few deaths and an incident where a deputy was bragging online how much he enjoys tasering prisoners and that "you should see their face when it hits them."
I was pleased that two of the University Police that tasered the student were suspended, pending an investigation by the Florida dept. of law enforcement.
As for the Sally Field thing, under current FCC rules, there aren't specific words that are banned, but if enough people complain, then they get fined. Personally, I hate awards shows, so I don't watch them.
I wonder about the police too. I wonder if the Iraq war has had more impact than we realize. How many of our cops are ex-military or people who might go into the military, but the war has disrupted that. They are being forced to accept people into the army that they would not have even 5 years ago, so what is happening to our police force? Could that be filtering down?
As for Sally Field, I think we all know that the justification is the swear word, but Fox has no credibility on either that or the political. Rupert Murdock said publicly that Fox News worked to support the war effort.
That is certainly a possibility, but I think that a small percentage of hyper-aggressive people end up in law enforcement. Most departments do a decent job of screening, but universities always seem to have the bottom of the academy grads, at least around here.
Kerry claimed that he didn't know the student was being hit with the taser, but if you watch this video over at crooks and liars, it certainly seems like he was aware. I thought the student asked some good questions. It is too bad that free speech doesn't apply when it comes to our leaders.
Steve, your comment is confusing. Are you blaming the tasering on Kerry? Kerry seems to respond to the questions as if they are legitimate. Perhaps you need to rephrase.
No, I don't believe that Kerry had anything to do with the tasering, but I just don't understand why he denied knowing it was happening, when it appear that he did.
This just seems to be the latest in a line of events that set our elected officials apart from us. Bush has "free speech" zones, The Secret Service arrested some guy for talking to Cheney and now this. I just don't like this trend.
I don't know where you get that. He obviously knew the kid had been detained. Not sure that he realized he was being tasered.
I guess I object to you linking this to Bush/Cheney and the free speech zones. There is no evidence that Kerry requested this, while there is ample evidence that Bush and Cheney did. I know people don't like Kerry, but not sure why this story about police abuse and issues of free speech become a mechanism to attack Kerry.
My take on the situation was that the question had more to do with the incidents of voter fraud than Kerry's quick concession. While Kerry was the speaker, this simply provided the student with an opportunity to comment on the Florida Republican Party. From this perspective, the incident is very similar to Bush and Cheney restricting free speech and does not indicate that "Democrats do it too."
Kerry seemed to regard the question as legit, and it looked to me as though he began to answer it until the student was hauled away. How he could have missed "don't tase me, bro!" and "AAAAAAAHHHHHH!!! OOOOWWWWWWWWW!!" is simply beyond me, even if the student had been hauled out of the room.
I self-censored the awards show myself -- I don't watch them. I can see how a network might be sensitive to the word goddamn, but do not see any justification for censoring the entire anti-war comment. It is particularly troubling that it was Fox, whose news network has generally championed the war in Iraq.
As far as the police go, when the pool of potential cops is diminished due to war or other circumstances, we are more likely to see in uniform those who would not otherwise be selected. I am not sure that university police are 'bottom of the barrel' so much as that since many do not carry firearms, they may not be as well trained.
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