KrauserKrauser hyperventilating(Obama's Gates comment)

[Hillary]

Good grief! And people still claim that racism is dead in the water.

[Darth Wong]

Good grief! And people still claim that racism is dead in the water.

Generally speaking, it's only white people who claim that, because it serves their own self-interest to do so. No honest person claims that unless he's a complete idiot.

[General Zod]

Good grief! And people still claim that racism is dead in the water.

Generally speaking, it's only white people who claim that, because it serves their own self-interest to do so. No honest person claims that unless he's a complete idiot.

The sad thing is a lot of these tards will claim that racial profiling of minorities is perfectly justified and not really racist because they're profiling according to "statistics" as opposed to any kind of predisposed racial prejudices. Despite the sheer amount of studies that show profiling is pretty laughable.

[Surlethe]

The biggest non-sequitur racism-deniers employ goes like this: "racism has been stripped out of the law, and I don't practice it, so it cannot be a major social force anymore." More specifically, the argument relies on the assumptions that (a) it's inconceivable that a significant fraction of the population is more than a tiny little bit racist, and (b) tiny little bits of racism in most of the population can't add up to a pervasive social current directed against black (or hispanic or asian) people.

Here's a neat analogy. Think of racism like magnetism in a permanent magnet: the magnetic field of any particular domain may be pointing any which way, but if there's even a slight deviation from randomness, the magnet can generate a magnetic field.

[Siege]

Generally speaking, it's only white people who claim that, because it serves their own self-interest to do so. No honest person claims that unless he's a complete idiot.

Either that, or they would just very much like to believe that racism is a thing of the past. I know that when I was a younger man I might not have definitively claimed that racism wasn't a factor anymore, but I sure as hell thought it was based on, well, nothing much at all really. After all I didn't discriminate, and none of the people around me did, and it would be silly for any reasonable human being to do so, so how bad could it be?

Looking back it was a pretty idiotic, or at the very least damned naive, mindset which didn't survive the transition to the Real World... But it still makes me wonder if it's not often a matter more of wide-eyed naivete and selection bias than plain dishonesty. Then again, I guess if one makes claims, or has opinions, on a sensitive subject like racism without having done ones research, that classifies one as an idiot. A very gullible idiot indeed.

[Themightytom]

One of my clients tried to claim he was discriminated against because he called his black ccoworker a monkey, and that white people aren't allowed to call black people monkeys.

Except the story came out that he called him a SPEAR chucking monkey. Its amazing that people can indulge in such nonesense to hurt someone and then become truly indignant about it when they are called on it. Granted my client was just being a complete dick, whereas a police officer is really a serious problem if he is either racist, ignorant, or an apologist for either. Crowley must be throwing up his hands, because it REALLY undermines everything he's fighting for when a cop in a nearby city shootts his mouth of like that. that was spectacularly poor judgement on many many levels.

Its also amazing that the cop can find a lawyer to try to wordsmith him out of being an asshole.

on a slightly lighter note now the patriotic crowd wants to be heard. When I read obama's choice of beer it DID occur to me that he was picking a beer now owned by belgians but I figured what the hell let him pick a beer he likes right?

Wrong??:

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/20 ... more-62636

July 30, 2009
Beer choice at Obama meeting touches off new debate
Posted: 11:32 AM ET

From CNN Ticker Producer Alexander Mooney


What beer should be served at the Obama-Gates-Crowley get together?
(CNN) — The upcoming White House meeting with Henry Louis Gates, Jr., and the Cambridge police officer who arrested him earlier this month appears to have touched off a fresh debate all on its own: what kind of beer should be served?

Earlier this week the White House indicated each man would drink the beer of their choice — Bud Light for President Obama, Blue Moon for the police officer, and perhaps Red Stripe or Beck's for Gates.

But one Massachusetts congressman thinks another beer entirely should be served: Boston's own Sam Adams.

In a letter to Obama dated Wednesday, Massachusetts Rep. Richard Neal strongly urges the president not to drink Budweiser, now owned by a Belgian company. Nor should the White House consider serving Miller or Coors, Neal writes, both owned by a United Kingdom conglomerate.

Instead, the White House should serve the three men — all with ties to Massachusetts — the local favorite, not only because of its popularity in the region but also because it remains the largest American-owned and brewed beer, Neal says.

But Sam Adams founder and brewer Jim Koch told NPR if it was up to him he would make a special beer just for the event.

"I'd make a blend of ingredients from all over the world. Which is certainly what's represented there with the three participants," he said. "I would blend those ingredients together artfully and harmoniously, because that's really what we all hope for."


Meanwhile, the Boston Globe reports other Massachusetts-based beer companies are also hoping to get their product a space at the high-profile meeting.

Dan Kenary, president of Harpoon Brewery, told the paper they are working every "back-door channel" the company has.

"We'd love to be the beer at this event," Kenary said

Good frigging luck, harpoon tastes like ass. Forgetting the polittics for a moment, if I was going to choose a beer that would likely result in my getting it for free the rest of my life, I might indeed have gone with it as Sgt Crowley did. I'm not sure i'd want to try an "experimental" beer if I were obama, Sam Adam's cranberry Lambic is wierd shit.

I wonder if there's a Chinese beer Obama could drink just to fuck with republicans.

[Lagmonster]

In a letter to Obama dated Wednesday, Massachusetts Rep. Richard Neal strongly urges the president not to drink Budweiser, now owned by a Belgian company. Nor should the White House consider serving Miller or Coors, Neal writes, both owned by a United Kingdom conglomerate.

The most amusing part of the article is the near-unanimous voice among the comments deriding Neal and CNN for caring; It seems that the Freedom to Choose Your Own Beer is something that brings Democrats and Republicans together.

Hilariously enough, on skimming the comments, the biggest gripe about the beer selection itself was the fact that Obama was drinking a 'wimpy' light beer.

[Ziggy Stardust]

Even though Budweiser is owned by the Belgians, don't they still employ rather large numbers of Americans anyway? I mean, when Obama buys a beer the money isn't stuffed in an envelope and shipped straight to Brussels on the taxpayer dime.

God dammit, it hurts my head trying to think rationally about some of these things.

[Mr. Coffee]

But Sam Adams founder and brewer Jim Koch told NPR if it was up to him he would make a special beer just for the event.

"I'd make a blend of ingredients from all over the world. Which is certainly what's represented there with the three participants," he said. "I would blend those ingredients together artfully and harmoniously, because that's really what we all hope for."

I'd hand strangle every kitten and puppy at the local humane society shelter for a case of it...

[LMSx]

Would anyone like Henry Gates, with a gay twist?

Attorney arrested, says D.C. officer called him 'faggot'
Gay man was ‘joking’ with friends about his dislike of police

By LOU CHIBBARO JR, Washington Blade
Jul 29 2009, 4:55 PM

D.C. Police Chief Cathy Lanier has ordered an internal investigation into a gay man’s arrest for disorderly conduct after the man filed a complaint alleging that an officer detained and arrested him for expressing his dislike for police.

District resident Pepin Tuma, 33, an attorney in private practice, said the arrest took place at 17th and U streets, N.W., shortly after midnight July 26, seconds after a police officer overheard him telling two friends “jokingly” and in a loud voice, “I hate the police.”

Tuma said he made the comment in jest as he and two friends, who also are lawyers, were walking to Dupont Circle gay bar Cobalt while talking among themselves about the controversial arrest of Harvard University Professor Henry Louis Gates in Cambridge, Mass., for disorderly conduct.

Police spokesperson Traci Hughes said she could not comment on Tuma’s arrest because it’s a pending case.

Hughes said the arresting officer's version of what happened would be reflected in a police report at the Second District police station, but the report is not a public document and isn't available to the media or public.

In an e-mail to Lanier, Tuma said that after repeating twice to his friends in a “sing-song” voice, “I hate the police,” an officer “charged 40-50 feet towards us while yelling at me phrases like ‘who do you think you are’ and ‘who do you think you’re talking to.’”

“I said nothing at this time, except asking why I was being detained, whether I was being arrested, and my belief that it was not a crime to offer an opinion to my friends about the police,” Tuma wrote in his e-mail to Lanier.

He said the officer, later identified as Second District Officer J. Culp, pushed him against a transformer box, placed him under arrest and handcuffed him without immediately informing him of the charge.

“As Officer Culp moved me toward a police cruiser, he told me to ‘just shut up, faggot,’” Tuma told Lanier in his e-mail.

He said police took him to the Second District station at Connecticut and Idaho avenues, N.W., near the National Cathedral, where he was booked and released about four hours later. He said his release came after he agreed to pay a fine as part of a “post and forfeit” plea, which is an acknowledgement of possible guilt.

Tuma said he agreed to the post and forfeit plea after officers who processed his arrest told him he would be forced to remain in a holding cell before being presented before a magistrate in D.C. Superior Court had he pleaded not guilty to the charge.

He said he had a longstanding commitment that morning and did not want to miss it by having to appear in court. Tuma said he plans to exercise his right to withdraw the post and forfeit the plea at a later date and fully contest the charge in court.

D.C. attorney Luke Platzer, one of Tuma’s two friends to witness the arrest, said he and a second friend, attorney Dave Stetson, were approached by a D.C. police sergeant shortly after police drove Tuma to the station to process his arrest. Platzer said the sergeant, whose last name is Geer, told them he observed Tuma attempting to “resist” arrest in a disorderly way and asked them if they would give a statement confirming his observation.

“We said, ‘No, we did not see that at all,’” Platzer told the Blade. “We thought he was trying to trick us into saying that there was physical resistance by Pepin to the arrest. That is not true.”

Platzer said he and Stetson took a cab to the Second District station to meet Tuma when he was released.

Steve Block, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union of the National Capital Area, said prosecutors often drop disorderly conduct charges when cases come before them for review.

The D.C. Attorney General's office is in charge of prosecuting disorderly conduct cases in the city.

Block said the ACLU believes police routinely use the city’s disorderly conduct statute as a “catchall” means of making an arrest, often without proper justification.

He said the statute, and subsequent court rulings, limit disorderly conduct arrests to cases where the behavior of someone being charged threatens or endangers public safety or has the potential to put a police officer at risk of harm.

“As a general proposition, saying the police are no good or that you hate the police — that’s not grounds for a disorderly conduct charge,” Block said.

“There are court decisions holding that you can’t be charged with disorderly conduct by merely insulting or even cursing at a police officer.”

Nykisha Cleveland, a spokesperson for the D.C. Office of Police Complaints, an independent city agency that investigates complaints by citizens of police abuse, said five previous complaints by citizens have been filed with her office against Officer J. Culp during his tenure as a D.C. police officer.

She said two of the complaints were referred back to the police because they “were outside OPC’s statutory jurisdiction.” Cleveland said one of the complaints was withdrawn and the remaining two were dismissed.

Tuma said he filed his complaint with the Second District police rather than with the Office of Police Complaint. Cleveland said citizens have the option of filing complaints with the OPC or the police department.

Acting Lt. Brett Parson, who oversees the department’s Gay & Lesbian Liaison Unit, said he could not comment on a pending case, but he added that police officials would review the matter.

“Upon learning of the allegations, I contacted the chief by e-mail and was assured Mr. Tuma’s complaint was immediately forwarded to our Internal Affairs Bureau,” Parson told the Blade. “I am confident it will be investigated thoroughly.”

“Generally speaking, Chief Lanier takes allegations such as this very seriously. She has stated publicly, in the past, she will not tolerate discrimination, abuse of power or unprofessional behavior,” Parson said. “I have every reason to believe she will take appropriate action should the investigation determine members of our department have acted in such a manner.”

Parson asked for the community to “withhold judgment until the chief has had an opportunity to review the investigation and take any action she deems appropriate.”

Tuma said an officer with the police Internal Affairs Bureau contacted him this week to arrange an interview to discuss Tuma’s complaint.

Posted in this thread due to likely overlap from discussion of prejudice, disorderly conduct and the rights of police, but certainly up to the discretion of the moderators.

[Themightytom]

It also references the Gate's incident. There's a lot of backlash from it because of the Presidents involvement.

[Darth Wong]

In a letter to Obama dated Wednesday, Massachusetts Rep. Richard Neal strongly urges the president not to drink Budweiser, now owned by a Belgian company. Nor should the White House consider serving Miller or Coors, Neal writes, both owned by a United Kingdom conglomerate.

The most amusing part of the article is the near-unanimous voice among the comments deriding Neal and CNN for caring; It seems that the Freedom to Choose Your Own Beer is something that brings Democrats and Republicans together.

Hilariously enough, on skimming the comments, the biggest gripe about the beer selection itself was the fact that Obama was drinking a 'wimpy' light beer.

Perhaps they should talk to the "birthers" about this. They may not believe that a certificate of live birth proves Obama is an American, but we've just learned that Obama actually thinks Bud Light is palatable! He must be an American.

[Ypoknons]

I wonder if there's a Chinese beer Obama could drink just to fuck with republicans.

Tsingtao is very popular and not very hard to find, even in America (ref. Chinatowns). Tsingtao was once a German colony, and it doesn't taste at all bad - I like a more of a Bud Light, that's for sure.

[seanrobertson]

In a letter to Obama dated Wednesday, Massachusetts Rep. Richard Neal strongly urges the president not to drink Budweiser, now owned by a Belgian company. Nor should the White House consider serving Miller or Coors, Neal writes, both owned by a United Kingdom conglomerate.

The most amusing part of the article is the near-unanimous voice among the comments deriding Neal and CNN for caring; It seems that the Freedom to Choose Your Own Beer is something that brings Democrats and Republicans together.

Hilariously enough, on skimming the comments, the biggest gripe about the beer selection itself was the fact that Obama was drinking a 'wimpy' light beer.

I wonder what they'd prefer him to drink? Three fingers of bourbon on the rocks? That'd be more manly, alright ... up until the president got drunk

Seriously, where do these rabid conservatives get off? They're supposed to be the lot that's all for exercising a kind of bland, self-affacing Puritanical existence. If they're not up in-arms about the Prez having a beer, they should be praising the guy for drinking the least alcoholic shit available, nay?

Perhaps they should talk to the "birthers" about this. They may not believe that a certificate of live birth proves Obama is an American, but we've just learned that Obama actually thinks Bud Light is palatable! He must be an American.

Man, if liking Bud Light were a serious criterion for "Americanhood," I'd flunk the test. Bleh! Even when that stuff's near-ice cold, I think it has a vaguely moldlike aftertaste.

By the way, Ypoknons, I've had a couple of Tsingtaos in my time. I'm all but certain it's available at the grocery store nearest me, and my town doesn't have a sizable Chinese-American community.

[Themightytom]

Budweiser has undocumented side effects: its called Mudbutt.

Doesn't matter what 'race" you are nobody needs that. the objection was more that obama chose a light beer, because we're americans and watching your carbs is weak.

They're jsut comparing him to the LAST guy who loved his alky.

[Phillip Hone]

In a letter to Obama dated Wednesday, Massachusetts Rep. Richard Neal strongly urges the president not to drink Budweiser, now owned by a Belgian company. Nor should the White House consider serving Miller or Coors, Neal writes, both owned by a United Kingdom conglomerate.

The most amusing part of the article is the near-unanimous voice among the comments deriding Neal and CNN for caring; It seems that the Freedom to Choose Your Own Beer is something that brings Democrats and Republicans together.

Hilariously enough, on skimming the comments, the biggest gripe about the beer selection itself was the fact that Obama was drinking a 'wimpy' light beer.

Perhaps they should talk to the "birthers" about this. They may not believe that a certificate of live birth proves Obama is an American, but we've just learned that Obama actually thinks Bud Light is palatable! He must be an American.

The Wall Street Journal takes a dim view of Obama's despicable treason towards something as important to America as its beer industry.

...

Among rival brewers, the news fell flat. "We would hope they would pick a family-owned, American beer to lubricate the conversation," said Bill Manley, a spokesman for the Sierra Nevada Brewing Co., a California-based brewer that happens to be family-owned.

Jim Koch, founder of Boston Beer Co., which brews Samuel Adams, decried "the foreign domination of something so basic and important to our culture as beer."

Genesee Brewery, Rochester, N.Y., released a statement congratulating the president for having beer at the meeting but adding: "We just hope the next time the President has a beer, he chooses an American beer, made by American workers, and an American-owned brewery like Genesee."

....

In general, the White House strives to showcase American food, wines and traditional concoctions at official meals and parties. Sometimes, even menu items with a foreign provenance are Americanized. In the George W. Bush White House, a favorite chocolate dessert was referred to not as a French-style soufflé, but as a "chocolate freedom."

I had no idea beer was such an important and basic part of our culture!

[Vendetta]

I had no idea beer was such an important and basic part of our culture!

If it was, you'd be better at making it

* Disclaimer, humourless cocks, I am aware that there are many quite palatable beers of american origin, but they're all so tiddly and provincial that no-one gives a shit about them.

[Themightytom]

I had no idea beer was such an important and basic part of our culture!

If it was, you'd be better at making it

* Disclaimer, humourless cocks, I am aware that there are many quite palatable beers of american origin, but they're all so tiddly and provincial that no-one gives a shit about them.

Newsflash: The best beers ARE provincial. We're just lucky that America hasn't franchised itself to the point where there is no local culture at all.

[Patrick Degan]

In a letter to Obama dated Wednesday, Massachusetts Rep. Richard Neal strongly urges the president not to drink Budweiser, now owned by a Belgian company. Nor should the White House consider serving Miller or Coors, Neal writes, both owned by a United Kingdom conglomerate.

The most amusing part of the article is the near-unanimous voice among the comments deriding Neal and CNN for caring; It seems that the Freedom to Choose Your Own Beer is something that brings Democrats and Republicans together.

Hilariously enough, on skimming the comments, the biggest gripe about the beer selection itself was the fact that Obama was drinking a 'wimpy' light beer.

I wonder what they'd prefer him to drink? Three fingers of bourbon on the rocks? That'd be more manly, alright ... up until the president got drunk

Seriously, where do these rabid conservatives get off? They're supposed to be the lot that's all for exercising a kind of bland, self-affacing Puritanical existence. If they're not up in-arms about the Prez having a beer, they should be praising the guy for drinking the least alcoholic shit available, nay?

Wouldn't matter what Obama's choice of brew would have been. It would have just been an excuse to bash.

And as far as their whining about the president having a "wimpy light beer", that's to laugh considering this bunch wouldn't know the difference between beer and urine.

[Darth Wong]

nd as far as their whining about the president having a "wimpy light beer", that's to laugh considering this bunch wouldn't know the difference between beer and urine.

Not to mention the fact that most of them are probably the sort of fat greasy slobs you see in sports bars who think they're manly because they drink beer while watching other men play sports on TV.