The Holy Quran Experiment

Scalia's Black Beemer by Greg Palast

Scalia's Black Beemer By Greg Palast | for OpEdNews 

It was one of our team’s weirder investigative discoveries: The recently departed Justice Antonin Scalia – aleha hashalom – in 2011, was ticketed for recklessly driving his black BMW. To his family, I offer condolences. To my readers, I offer the facts. A man's soul must be laid to rest, but history must not be buried as well, especially now that the Justice's passing has become grounds for stories that border on historical obscenity, cf. the New York Times "Liberal Love for Antonin Scalia". Love?? Well, if you want a Valentine, this ain't it.

There's been a lot of gleeful chuckling, for example, about Scalia's courtroom bench "humor." But behind his jokey comments lay a cruelty aimed at the poor, the injured, the Beemer-less class that turns to the Court as the last hope for protection against corporate and state violence.

Here’s a telling example of Scalia’s humor from a crucial voting rights case. In 2005, Indiana's Republican legislature passed a law barring the vote to anyone without current state photo ID. The excuse: an official ID would prevent voter fraud – despite the fact that the state had not found, in over 100 years, even one case of a voter illegally impersonating another.

The media did get a laugh out of the ten nuns who were turned away from an Indiana polling station because the sisters' driver’s licenses had expired. The nuns were in their eighties and nineties. Their licenses had expired, though they had not. Tough luck ladies, you lose your vote.

Bobby Kennedy and I covered the cute story of the nuns; but we also wrote about the unnoticed 78,000 African-Americans in Indiana who lost their right to vote because they did not have the right ID to vote. A disproportionate number of African-Americans lack cars, and therefore driver’s licenses; and only a few, apparently have passports for weekends in Paris.

Get a free copy of the investigative report – in comic book form, Steal Back Your Vote

Civil rights groups sued, stating the obvious: that the Indiana law is racist in its operation, a violation of the Voting Rights Act. Black folk, the elderly, students, and poor whites – were all blocked from registering and voting. Federal Justice Terence Evans threw out the biased ID law, writing, “The Indiana voter photo ID law is a not-too-thinly veiled attempt to discourage election-day turnout by certain folks believed to skew Democratic.”

But Indiana argued before the Supreme Court that anyone could get an ID – they just had to get a non-driver ID from a county office. Experts pointed out that the average poor person in Indiana – a poor person likely to be Black – lived an average 17 miles from a county seat. That’s when Justice Scalia rode, recklessly, to Indiana’s rescue. Scalia chortled that “Seventeen miles is seventeen miles for the rich and the poor,”

Black or white. How cute. How droll, Mr. Justice. And it's true, at 65 miles per hour, 17 miles is just a 15 minute cruise, whether your BMW is black or white. But the experts I spoke with told me they calculated that travel required two bus rides, cost a day of work, and included fees that amount to a poll tax. In the non-BMW world, 17 miles is just another long, obstacle-choked road to the ballot for voters of color.

All week I’ve heard Scalia praised as an "originalist," that is, sticking with the intent of the writers of the Constitution. Really? The right to vote without regard to race, the 15th Amendment, grew from the ground watered by the blood of Abraham Lincoln’s warriors. "The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state.”

Was it the original intent of these words to enable the creation of new Jim Crow obstacles to citizen rights? Since when does an "originalist" so insouciantly ignore the clearly marked signposts of the law?

My suggestion: The President should not nominate a replacement for Scalia. Let's make this election a referendum: make Americans choose our Court. Let Americans decide if our Court will defeat or cuddle up to Jim Crow, whether our government may dictate whom you love and marry, whether the Bill of Rights is just a porous veil covering an unfettered and brutal spy state. Let's put the soul of America to a vote.

We are completing our film on the latest, hidden tactics of racially poisonous vote suppression which has grown like a mold from the 2013 decision by Scalia and his Court comrades to gut the Voting Rights Act. As John Pilger kindly said of my work, "The information is a hand grenade."

This film is the peaceable weapon for the new civil rights movement. Right now, support the completion of The Best Democracy Money Can Buy: a Tale of Billionaires and Ballot Bandits, with a $100 donation and I'll list you in the film credits as a supporter and I'll send you the signed DVD once the film wraps.

Donate $50 if you just want the signed DVD ... For $1,000 or $500, get a film credit (Producer or co-Producer respectively) and tickets to the film's opening. Or support the film for any amount you can, no matter how small or large.
Please make this donation to our foundation right now. All donations are tax-deductible.

We're so close to the finish line, I can’t thank you enough for keeping us going. For 15 years, Greg Palast has been uncovering voter suppression tactics in investigative reports for BBC Television, The Guardian, Harper’s and Rolling Stone.

In 2016 Greg Palast will be releasing his new feature film The Best Democracy Money Can Buy—A Tale of Billionaires and Ballot Bandits, which includes his award-winning investigation Jim Crow Returns. Greg Palast is the author of the New York Times bestseller Billionaires & Ballot Bandits, The Best Democracy Money Can Buy, Armed Madhouse and the highly acclaimed Vultures' Picnic.

HELP US FOLLOW THE MONEY. Visit the Palast Investigative Fund's store or simply make a tax-deductible contribution to keep our work alive!

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Boycotting the Jews

I'm not sure where this piece originated. It was sent to me by an enlightened and honest friend, a man of integrity. I'm reprinting it here because I feel it deserves the widest audience possible. 

Boycotting the Jews

A short time ago, Iran's Supreme Leader Grand Ayatollah Ali Khamenei urged the Muslim World to boycott anything and everything that originates with the Jewish people. In response, Meyer M. Treinkman, a pharmacist, out of the kindness of his heart, offered to assist them in their boycott as follows:

"Any Muslim who has Syphilis must not be cured by Salvarsan discovered by a Jew, Dr. Ehrlich. He should not even try to find out whether he has Syphilis, because the Wasserman Test is the discovery of a Jew. If a Muslim suspects that he has Gonorrhea, he must not seek diagnosis, because he will be using the method of a Jew named Neissner.

"A Muslim who has heart disease must not use Digitalis, a discovery by a Jew, Ludwig Traube. Should he suffer with a toothache, he must not use Novocaine, a discovery of the Jews, Widal and Weil. If a Muslim has Diabetes, he must not use Insulin, the result of research by Minkowsky, a Jew. If one has a headache, he must shun Pyramidon and Antypyrin, due to the Jews, Spiro and Ellege. Muslims with convulsions must put up with them because it was a Jew, Oscar Leibreich, who proposed the use of Chloral Hydrate. Arabs must do likewise with their psychic ailments because Freud, father of psychoanalysis, was a Jew. Should a Muslim child get Diphtheria, he must refrain from the Schick reaction which was invented by the Jew, Bella Schick.

"Muslims should be ready to die in great numbers and must not permit treatment of ear and brain damage, work of Jewish Nobel Prize winner, Robert Baram. They should continue to die or remain crippled by Infantile Paralysis because the discoverer of the anti-polio vaccine is a Jew, Jonas Salk.

"Muslims must refuse to use Streptomycin and continue to die of Tuberculosis because a Jew, Zalman Waxman, invented the wonder drug against this killing disease. Muslim doctors must discard all discoveries and improvements by dermatologist Judas Sehn Benedict, or the lung specialist, Frawnkel, and of many other world renowned Jewish scientists and medical experts.

"In short, good and loyal Muslims properly and fittingly should remain afflicted with Syphilis, Gonorrhea, Heart Disease, Headaches, Typhus, Diabetes, Mental Disorders, Polio Convulsions and Tuberculosis and be proud to obey the Islamic boycott."

Oh, and by the way, don't call for a doctor on your cell phone because the cell phone was invented in Israel by a Jewish engineer.

Meanwhile I ask, what medical contributions to the world have the Muslims made?" The Global Islamic population is approximately 1,200,000,000; that is ONE BILLION TWO HUNDRED MILLION or 20% of the world's population.

They have received the following Nobel Prizes:

Literature: 1988 - Najib Mahfooz

Peace: 1978 - Mohamed Anwar El-Sadat 1990 - Elias James Corey 1994 - Yaser Arafat 1999 - Ahmed Zewai

Economics: (zero)

Physics: (zero)

Medicine: 1960 - Peter Brian Medawar 1998 - Ferid Mourad

TOTAL: 7


The Global Jewish population is approximately 14,000,000; that is FOURTEEN MILLION or about 0.02% of the world's population.

They have received the following Nobel Prizes:

Literature: 1910 - Paul Heyse 1927 - Henri Bergson 1958 - Boris Pasternak 1966 - Shmuel Yosef Agnon 1966 - Nelly Sachs 1976 - Saul Bellow 1978 - Isaac Bashevis Singer 1981 - Elias Canetti 1987 - Joseph Brodsky 1991 - Nadine Gordimer

World Peace: 1911 - Alfred Fried 1911 - Tobias Michael Carel Asser 1968 - Rene Cassin 1973 - Henry Kissinger 1978 - Menachem Begin 1986 - Elie Wiesel 1994 - Shimon Peres 1994 - Yitzhak Rabin

Physics: 1905 - Adolph Von Baeyer 1906 - Henri Moissan 1907 - Albert Abraham Michelson 1908 - Gabriel Lippmann 1910 - Otto Wallach 1915 - Richard Willstaetter 1918 - Fritz Haber 1921 - Albert Einstein 1922 - Niels Bohr 1925 - James Franck 1925 - Gustav Hertz 1943 - Gustav Stern 1943 - George Charles de Hevesy 1944 - Isidor Issac Rabi 1952 - Felix Bloch 1954 - Max Born 1958 - Igor Tamm 1959 - Emilio Segre 1960 - Donald A. Glaser 1961 - Robert Hofstadter 1961 - Melvin Calvin 1962 - Lev Davidovich Landau 1962 - Max Ferdinand Perutz 1965 - Richard Phillips Feynman 1965 - Julian Schwinger 1969 - Murray Gell-Mann 1971 - Dennis Gabor 1972 - William Howard Stein 1973 - Brian David Josephson 1975 - Benjamin Mottleson 1976 - Burton Richter 1977 - Ilya Prigogine 1978 - Arno Allan Penzias 1978 - Peter L Kapitza 1979 - Stephen Weinberg 1979 - Sheldon Glashow 1979 - Herbert Charles Brown 1980 - Paul Berg 1980 - Walter Gilbert 1981 - Roald Hoffmann 1982 - Aaron Klug 1985 - Albert A. Hauptman 1985 - Jerome Karle 1986 - Dudley R. Herschbach 1988 - Robert Huber 1988 - Leon Lederman 1988 - Melvin Schwartz 1988 - Jack Steinberger 1989 - Sidney Altman 1990 - Jerome Friedman 1992 - Rudolph Marcus 1995 - Martin Perl 2000 - Alan J. Heeger

Economics: 1970 - Paul Anthony Samuelson 1971 - Simon Kuznets 1972 - Kenneth Joseph Arrow 1975 - Leonid Kantorovich 1976 - Milton Friedman 1978 - Herbert A. Simon 1980 - Lawrence Robert Klein 1985 - Franco Modigliani 1987 - Robert M. Solow 1990 - Harry Markowitz 1990 - Merton Miller 1992 - Gary Becker 1993 - Robert Fogel

Medicine: 1908 - Elie Metchnikoff 1908 - Paul Erlich 1914 - Robert Barany 1922 - Otto Meyerhof 1930 - Karl Landsteiner 1931 - Otto Warburg 1936 - Otto Loewi 1944 - Joseph Erlanger 1944 - Herbert Spencer Gasser 1945 - Ernst Boris Chain 1946 - Hermann Joseph Muller 1950 - Tadeus Reichstein 1952 - Selman Abraham Waksman 1953 - Hans Krebs 1953 - Fritz Albert Lipmann 1958 - Joshua Lederberg 1959 - Arthur Kornberg 1964 - Konrad Bloch 1965 - Francois Jacob 1965 - Andre Lwoff 1967 - George Wald 1968 - Marshall W. Nirenberg 1969 - Salvador Luria 1970 - Julius Axelrod 1970 - Sir Bernard Katz 1972 - Gerald Maurice Edelman 1975 - Howard Martin Temin 1976 - Baruch S. Blumberg 1977 - Roselyn Sussman Yalow 1978 - Daniel Nathans 1980 - Baruj Benacerraf 1984 - Cesar Milstein 1985 - Michael Stuart Brown 1985 - Joseph L. Goldstein 1986 - Stanley Cohen [& Rita Levi-Montalcini] 1988 - Gertrude Elion 1989 - Harold Varmus 1991 - Erwin Neher 1991 - Bert Sakmann 1993 - Richard J. Roberts 1993 - Phillip Sharp 1994 - Alfred Gilman 1995 - Edward B. Lewis 1996- Lu RoseIacovino

TOTAL: 129!

The Jews are NOT promoting brainwashing children in military training camps, teaching them how to blow themselves up and cause maximum deaths of Jews and other non-Muslims. The Jews don't hijack planes, nor kill athletes at the Olympics, or blow themselves up in German restaurants.

There is NOT one single Jew who has destroyed a church. There is NOT a single Jew who protests by killing people. The Jews don't traffic slaves, nor have leaders calling for Jihad and death to all the Infidels.

Perhaps the world's Muslims should consider investing more in standard education and less in blaming the Jews for all their problems. Muslims must ask 'what can they do for humankind' before they demand that humankind respects them.

Regardless of your feelings about the crisis between Israel and the Palestinians and Arab neighbors, even if you believe there is more culpability on Israel 's part, the following two sentences really say it all: 'If the Arabs put down their weapons today, there would be no more violence. If the Jews put down their weapons today, there would be no more Israel."

Benjamin Netanyahu: General Eisenhower warned us. It is a matter of history that when the Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces, General Dwight Eisenhower, found the victims of the death camps he ordered all possible photographs to be taken, and for the German people from surrounding villages to be ushered through the camps and even made to bury the dead. He did this because he said in words to this effect: 'Get it all on record now - get the films - get the witnesses - because somewhere down the road of history some bastard will get up and say that this never happened'

It is not removed as yet. However, this is a frightening portent of the fear that is gripping the world and how easily each country is giving into it. It is now more than 65 years after the Second World War in Europe ended. Now, more than ever, with Iran, among others, claiming the Holocaust to be 'a myth,' it is imperative to make sure the world never forgets.


h/t to Bob Poris

Youthful Cruz Wants To Rule the World

Young Ted Cruz

In 1988, Ted Cruz was kidding about ruling the world, and it's sort of funny. In 2016 he's making the same same joke and it's not funny any more. Since this clip was provided by a former classmate, it's a fair bet to make that young Ted was not that well liked. Source: Politico A new…

Rafael Eduardo Cruz Belongs to Canada!

Born in Canada.  Can he be president?  OMG!  Maybe Canada will take him back.  We have enough scum in our country.

[The graphic is from Daily Kos]

The Jewish Version of the Night Before Christmas

This came from a friend of mine who got it from a friend of his.  I do not know the author of the piece, but thought it was wonderful in light of the right-wing's nonsensical "War Against Christmas." 

It's even more meaningful if you know anything about southeast Florida, or in particular, the city of Boca Raton.

The Jewish Version of the Night Before Christmas

T ‘was the night before Christmas
Down here in Boca.
I was sitting in Starbucks,
Drinking my Mocha.

I know we’re all Jewish,
But was wondering still
If Santa would come here
And give us a thrill.

On my way home
No Christmas lights did I see
On the houses, the windows,
Not even the trees.

What a strange feeling,
Not a decoration in sight.
Was it really December
Or a warm summer night?

I drove past the deli,
There were lines out the door.
People were waiting
For corn beef and more.

The restaurants were busy,
Christmas dinners not planned
Never, not here
We’re in Boca Land.

At home all was quiet.
I left out Kosher wine
In case Santa came to Boca
For the very first time.

Snoozing came easy
To me Christmas eve.
I wasn’t waiting for presents
To be left under a tree

I could hope all I want
I could fuss and then see
If Santa would make time
For little old me.

Then all of a sudden
He pulled up in his Jag
With a sack full of presents
Each sporting a tag.

Oy Bloomies, Oy Saks,
Oy Niemans and more.
He knows where to shop,
He frequents my stores!

He looked for the rye bread,
The coleslaw and deli.
He came to Boca first
To fill up his belly.

“I have a long night ahead
I want you to know.
From Boca I leave
For the North and the snow.”

He stayed for a while
He chatted and ate,
Then he left in a flash
Before it got late.

What a great night
I thought with a sigh.
That jolly old Santa
Is a really nice guy.

As I cleared off the table
I heard with delight
“SHALOM TO YOU ALL”
“AND TO ALL A GOOD NIGHT”

Marion County, Florida Sheriff Wants YOU To Carry A Gun!

[Photo of Sheriff Blair from OcalaPost.com]

The sheriff of Marion County, Florida, Chris Blair, "is urging residents who have gun permits to carry their weapons."

Here's his rationale:  It's dangerous out there.  We live in an era with "a level of violence and hatred ... that we have never seen before."

Of course he wants only those gun nuts "who carry firearms responsibly and are confident in their abilities," to handle their weapons to actually stick them in their pants, for they "can -- and should -- be our first line of defense in an active shooter situation."

This is all bullshit!

The argument about the right to carry guns has gone from stupid to horrendous. First of all, the Constitution does not give every Tom, Dick, and Mary the right to carry any weapon they choose.

It is very clear that only those members of a State Militia in a time of crisis can have weapons and that "right" is to be closely regulated.  That's what the Constitution says.  The NRA has become so extreme and so successful with their propaganda that even our Supreme Court is bamboozled by their unhistorical interpretation of the Second Amendment.

Be that as it may, to think that the people I meet on the street might be carrying loaded weapons which are made specifically for the purpose of killing other people, is scary to the nth degree!  In fact, I know very few people who I would trust with a loaded water pistol in their pocket much less a real gun!

Another statistic that might set your shorts to twitching is that about one in ten of our citizens are mentally ill.  And a whole lot more are merely neurotic.  Do you want those people walking around your local mall with guns at hand?

Sheriff Blair teaches a "concealed weapons" course and implies that taking such a course provides the gun carrier wannbe with the necessary resources to "bring the fight to the attacker ... [and] help save lives."

What a crock.  A concealed weapons course includes a few lectures and a few minutes on a shooting range.  An "active shooter situation" is another world and would bring most people to their knees crying for their Mommy, whether they were carrying a concealed weapon or not.  

Furthermore, just about every day we read about a "responsible" gun owner shooting a friend to death or shooting herself in the foot.  My uncle Carl was a "responsible" gun owner and he put a hole in Grandma's kitchen while cleaning one of his rifles.

It takes a lot of work and very close attention to be a responsible gun owner and that is best left to the professionals that we hire to protect us from domestic enemies, and to the military who are in charge of keeping us safe from foreign nasties.

Finally, I cannot think of any mass shooting in recent memory where people carrying concealed weapons made any difference whatsoever nor can I recall any "active shooter" situation where a concealed weapons carrier had a chance of stopping the shooting.  Take for example, the mass shooting in the Colorado theater of a few years ago.  Can you imagine what horror might have ensued if a bunch of folks pulled out their concealed weapons and began shooting into the darkness?

When a person walks into a place of business only to pull out an automatic weapon and begins spraying the room, you could have a tank in your pocket and it wouldn't do you any good.

So why would Sheriff Blair suggest such a patently stupid proposal?  It must be political.  He's a Republican.  The Republican Party belongs to the NRA.  A Republican in good standing cannot be allowed to say anything negative about NRA policy, which is basically to put a gun or guns in the hands of every man, woman and child in the world.

Sheriff Blair's suggestion has little or nothing to do with making our community safer!  It is painfully obvious that such a policy creates many more chances for gun violence, death and misery!

What we desperately need these days are leaders who are not bought and paid for by the NRA, who are not unconscious right wing nut cases, who have at least a modicum of common sense.

You would hope the local sheriff would be one of those kinds of leader.  That's not the case in Marion County, Florida.

"We made it on our own" ... with lots of government help!" - Mr. Ben Carson

On Mystical Experiences & Belief in God

"Mystical experiences are not ineffable."  [Ineffable = Beyond expression; indescribable or unspeakable."]  By downregulating posterior-medial-frontal-cortex activity via transcranial magnetic stimulation, an interdisciplinary team reduced subjects' belief in God."

Or, to put it more simply, scientists, by manipulating the brain, can make it so we don't believe in God so much.  I would love to test this out on several thousand fundamentalist Christians and several thousand extremist Muslims.

--- Harper's Magazine / "Findings," p. 96 / December 2015

Touching Ted Cruz Family Moments Brought To You By SuperPACs

Oh wow, these moments are so awkward it makes you wonder if Ted Cruz's family needs a professional producer to show them how to hug him. Gawker: Thanks to the (few) rules governing campaign Super PACs, candidates aren't technically allowed to coordinate with them. Which means candidates can't technically feed them hours and hours of raw…

Mass Shootings R Us

Ben Carson - A Diatribe on a Moron

It is impossible to refrain from mocking, deriding, and otherwise slapping down Mr. Ben Carson.  He invites disdain.  His heart expands by blowing smoke up the asses of the Republican base.  It is possible he's some kind of Manchurian Candidate - someone who is so far out in space mentally, that in the end even Jeb Bush or Rubio would look good. 

But I don't think so.  It may be as simple as he's using his candidacy to sell books.  We know from his previous connection with a grifter that he'll jump at a chance to make money.

The clue to understanding Carson, I think, is to realize he is a 7th Day Adventist. I know there is no religious test for political office and that candidates can hold some pretty strange religious beliefs, but in Carson's case, you need to consider his religion in order to understand that man.

It is his religious beliefs that define his weirdness, his implausible world view, his immunity to science and fact and truth.  The 7th Day cult was built on the beliefs of a rather strange woman, Ellen G. White, who was hit in the head with a rock when she was young, which might explain her numerous "visions."  Ellen White believed that every word in the Bible is true, that only a certain number of folks would reach heaven, that God demands his followers to obey the Sabbath.  

It's curious, though, why Adventists want to claim that particular facet of the Hebrew faith and ignore all the other commands of the Hebrew god.  

Consistency has never been at the heart of Adventism and thus Carson can hold a variety of beliefs without shame or fear of contradiction; he can deny science and he can make stupid claims about the world (which he often denies making) and feel justified in this dichotomy because to be an Adventist requires you to undergo a mental lobotomy!  

This brain surgeon is a moron.  

And no one has said it better than my friend, William Kendall, in a post titled "The Odd Case of the Sleepy Candidate," here.

The Visions of a Young Ben Carson

Thanks to William Kendall, who blogs here.

Operation Enema

Thanks to YellowDog Granny.

Second Amendment Scoreboard

Thanks to YellowDog Granny.

Whining about the so-called "war" on Christmas

Thanks to YellowDog Granny for this.

Turning Water Into Wine

Now, if he could only turn the clowns in the Republican contest for the White House into normal, intelligent people!

Carson And Jesus: Best Buds

Wow. Just wow. https://twitter.com/pauloCanning/status/663028755464605696 I understand the notion of the personal relationship with God, even though I'm an atheist -- however, I find that my reaction to this sort of thing is colored less by my lack of religious belief than by the fact that I live in New York, where a lot of people work…

Pope Francis Visits The Sick

Our thanks to William Kendall for this photo.  Please check out William's blog, "Speak of the Devil," here.

Jeb! and Oregon

News Item 1:

Nine people were shot to death at a community college in Oregon. Some were young students. Parents were also killed. One victim was a professor. It appears the shooter was an unhappy young man. Multiple weapons were found at the scene.


The Response of Jeb! Bush:

"Stuff happens."  

And we don't need any more gun control laws. 


News Item 2:

We are averaging one mass shooting a day in the U.S. in 2015.