Columbopossum - Columbopossum

November 23

It Is Expensive to Be Poor

Minimum-wage jobs are physically demanding, have unpredictable schedules, and pay so meagerly that workers can't save up enough to move on.

Ugh!

This is an elected representative smashing a homeless person’s possessions with a sledgehammer. Worst person ever?

Paper sculptures by Peter Gentenaar

Primer for those who still don’t understand in the wake of the arrest of, incarceration of, and likely murder of Sandra Bland in TX: 1. Asking a cop why they are stopping you/ticketing you is your right. They do not have the right to arrest you for asking, beat you for asking or in any way mistreat you for asking that question. 2. You have the right to say whatever you wish to a cop in response to being stopped. ANYTHING at all, so long as it does not constitute a threat of harm. You can cuss a cop, yell at a cop, and call a cop a fascist pig or a racist if you like. I do not recommend it, you shouldn’t do it (because sadly cops don’t care about the Constitution in far too many cases, and thus, might beat or kill you), and it’s not very nice I suppose (even when deserved), but it is NOT illegal to do so. 3. Refusing to put out a cigarette when asked by a cop is not a criminal offense either. The cop has no lawful right to arrest you for smoking or “disobeying” an order to stop smoking. Only if you are already being arrested for an actual crime and putting out the cigarette is necessary to affect the arrest, can such a request be considered lawful and can failure to do so constitute “resisting arrest.” But refusing to put the cigarette out, in and of itself, does not constitute a crime. 4. If you do any of the above, the cop still does not have the right to beat you or arrest you. And if you end up beaten or killed, it is not your fault. It is entirely and only the cop’s fault. They should be arrested, tried, convicted and jailed. Your “arrogance” or “attitude” is not grounds for brutality, ever. 5. None of the above is made any less true by the fact that “cops have a hard job and put their lives on the line.” That is entirely irrelevant and has no bearing on the rights of the people or the limitations on police power. 6. Any cop who disagrees with the previous points is not qualified to be a cop and should be summarily dismissed from their jobs. Any cop who can’t handle being challenged as to their authority, or who in any way disregards the rights of the people is not qualified to be a cop and should be summarily dismissed from their jobs. 7. Anyone at all who disagrees with these previous points has contempt for the Constitution and would clearly be more comfortable in a police state. Yet these are the same people who think “government regulation” of industry is tyranny, or that the IRS is equivalent to the Nazi SS or that Obamacare is totalitarianism. So they don’t mind actual authoritarian actions (so long as they are worked out mostly on the bodies of black folks and/or the poor), but God forbid government try and ensure health care, or collect taxes from the rich or try and limit pollution. THEN they scream about big brother and how awful the state is…

Tim Wise (via la-lobalita)

Not a single pro-life person that I have met is truly pro-life. They’re pro-forced pregnancy. Pro-forced birth. Anti-abortion. Anti-choice. But not pro-life. Else, they would be in Ferguson holding signs. They would counter bullying as though, quite literally, our children’s lives depend on it. They would promote support for mothers, for poor children, for food stamps, for education. They would advocate for gun control, rehab programs, helping the homeless and sick, and suicide prevention. They would fight police brutality, domestic violence, gang violence, the death penalty, hate crimes, human trafficking, the prison industrial complex, every single war, and anything else that kills people. But they don’t. You’ve heard it all before, but I’ll say it again. Nothing—not one single element—of the so-called ‘pro-life movement’ is actually about protecting the living and extending the lives of people.

Death Sentence (via heroes-get-made, truth-has-a-liberal-bias, foulmouthedliberty)

Truth.

Source: Occupy Democrats