Friday 2, Special “Everything Is Terrible” Edition

* Geraldo Rivera Says All Six Jurors Would Have Also Killed Trayvon Martin.

RIVERA: I see those six ladies in the jury putting themselves on that rainy night, in that housing complex that has just been burglarized by three or four different groups of black youngsters from the adjacent community. So it’s a dark night, a 6-foot-2-inch hoodie-wearing stranger is in the immediate housing complex. How would the ladies of that jury have reacted? I submit that if they were armed, they would have shot and killed Trayvon Martin a lot sooner than George Zimmerman did. This is self-defense.

A human being said this on purpose, on TV, in 2013: Black men are by definition such a grave threat that they are subject to summary execution by any one at any time.

* In a world where basic services are being cut, an emerging policing apparatus in the borderlands is flourishing. As Mattea Kramer and Chris Hellman reported at TomDispatch in February, since September 11, 2001, the United States has spent $791 billion on “homeland security” alone, an inflation-adjusted $300 billion more than the cost of the entire New Deal.

* A federal judge has ruled to allow Chevron, through a subpoena to Microsoft, to collect the IP usage records and identity information for email accounts owned by over 100 environmental activists, journalists and attorneys. The oil giant is demanding the records in an attempt to cull together a lawsuit which alleges that the company was the victim of a conspiracy in the $18.2 billion judgment against it for dumping 18.5 billion gallons of oil waste in the Ecuadorean Amazon, causing untold damage to the rainforest.

 * The Eliot Spitzer candidacy is the latest to reveal that in the battle between politicians and journalists both are worse.

* San Diego Mayor Refuses To Step Down Despite Admitting To Sexually Harassing His Female Coworkers.

* I understood gender discrimination once I added “Mr.” to my resume and landed a job.

* David Petraeus’s CUNY course description, Are We On the Threshold of the North American Decade:

In this interdisciplinary seminar, students will examine in depth and then synthesize the history and trends in diverse public policy topics with a view towards recommendations for America’s leadership role in the emerging global economy.

Because you definitely hire a disgraced former general for his opinions on the global economy. It seems to me like CUNY is paying Petraeus $150K to prepare to run for president; the point of the course is to give Petraeus the ability to speak about the economy with credibility.

* But there’s one tiny flicker of light in all this darkness: Netflix and Arrested Development officially enter the “conversation” phase about a fifth season.

But I Haven’t Left Yet

* Lebron has hurt everyone, but especially the weak heart of my beloved Cleveland. Nate Silver tries to put a number on the damage he’s done to his reputation playing Hamlet.

* A federal judge has unexpectedly struck down the parts of the Defense of Marriage Act that define marriage as being between a man and a woman. There’s more at MeFi, including a link to a post from Jack Balkin that suggests this could actually be a kind of right-wing Trojan Horse designed to undermine the juridical basis for New Deal government.

* Worst lemon-to-lemonade analogy ever.

* Science proves I was right all along when I said my high school started too early in the morning.

* Žižek blogs about BP. You know what’s coming.

The lesson is simply that, while market mechanisms may work up to a certain level to contain ecological damage, serious large-scale ecological catastrophies are simply out of their reach – any pseudo-scientific statistic talk about “sustainable risks” is ridiculous here. More than two decades ago, a paparazzo caught Senator Ted Kennedy (well known for his opposition to the off-shore drilling in search of oil) in the midst of the sexual act on a lone boat off Louisiana shore; during a Senate debate a couple of days later, a Republican Senator dryly remarked: “It seems that Senator Kennedy now changed his position on off-shore drilling…” So maybe, we should return to Senator Kennedy’s position: the only acceptable off-shore drilling is the one he was engaged in.

More Žižek here.

* Of all sad words of mouth or pen, The saddest are these: “It might have been”: 55% Of Likely Voters Think Obama’s A Socialist.

Puns I’m Only Just Now Getting

Puns I’m only just now getting: Oh, it was that sort of deal…

I always thought it was a new accord/compromise/understanding/pact…

Monday News Roundup

Monday!

* Almost as if they all receive their talking points from a single, central location, the entire right-wing spin machine has spontaneously decided to start talking about how the New Deal didn’t actually work. Uh, sure.

* The first link doesn’t make the absurdity clear, but Karl Rove is Twittering.

* Also in alternate-universe news: George Bush: Greatest President.

To prove his point, Barnes points to Bush’s “ten great achievements”:

1. Bush stood up to “global warming hysteria,” and helped undermine the agenda of “alarmists.”
2. He endorsed “enhanced interrogation,” “secret prisons,” and “wireless eavesdropping.”
3. He seized unprecedented executive authority, and ignored congressional attempts at oversight.
4. He offered “unswerving support for Israel.”
5. He signed the No Child Left Behind initiative.
6. He delivered his second inaugural address.
7. He signed the Medicare prescription drug benefit.
8. He pushed the Supreme Court even further to the right.
9. He improved U.S. relations with Japan, South Korea, and Australia.
10. He created a “fragile but functioning democracy” in Iraq.

You’ll note Barnes is padding his list just a bit—delivering a second inaugural address is sort of light for a “top ten accomplishments” list, as is “improved relations with Australia.”

* Also via Washington Monthly, Jon Swift has your retort.

* Not capturing Osama bin Laden isn’t on Barnes’s list, but Cheney tells us that doesn’t matter.

Today on CNN’s Late Edition, host Wolf Blitzer asked Vice President Cheney, “How frustrating is this to you personally, knowing he’s [bin Laden] still at large?” Cheney hesitated, then simply replied that he would “obviously…like to solve that problem.” He added that it’s more “important” to “keep…this country safe,” indicating that bin Laden is inconsequential.

* North Carolina in the news! The Brunswick school district wants to teach creationism to kids. In 2008.

“I wasn’t here 2 million years ago,” Fanti said. “If evolution is so slow, why don’t we see anything evolving now?”

There’s your evidence.

* Eight reasons why we are in a depression.

* Half of world’s population could face climate-driven food crisis by 2100.

* After ten days of not sleeping, Randy Gardner was able to hold a press conference and beat a journalist at pinball. Note: this happened forty-four years ago, but I just found out about it yesterday.