Jul/090
Off-topic at Yahoo Finance
Walter Bagdasarian lives in San Diego. One night last October he was a bit drunk and found himself in front of a computer. He opened a web browser and found his way to a Yahoo Finance message board and, well –
(XETV-TV) SAN DIEGO – A La Mesa man who posted racially charged comments on Yahoo about killing Barack Obama during the presidential campaign was convicted Tuesday of making threats against a major candidate for president.
Walter Bagdasarian — who was indicted in January — faces up to 10 years in federal prison when he is sentenced Oct. 26 by U.S. District Judge Marilyn Huff.
If Bagdasarian had stuck with racist jokes and just generally being a shitty person he’d still be free, but after a lifetime of bigoted dickery the thrill fades. It always takes just a little more to get that same emotional fix and, eventually, you’re drunk in the middle of the night at a Yahoo message board typing shit like this.
Bagdasarian used the computer to post threatening messages on a Yahoo Finance message board, including one that read, “He will have a 50 cal in the head soon,” and 20 minutes later posted a message that read “Shoot the n—— -,” said Assistant U.S. Attorney William Cole.The defendant also sent e-mail messages containing a link to a YouTube video depicting a junk vehicle exploding after being hit by a round from a firearm, the prosecutor said.
Oh, and he had an arsenal. Did I mention that?
During a search of the defendant’s home, agents found six weapons, including a .50-caliber rifle, Cole said.
There is literally no sane reason for him to own or have access to a .50 caliber rifle. Far be it from me to suggest that he’s compensating for anything, though.
Jul/090
David McKalip, Come on Down
David McKalip, M.D. is a neurosurgeon in Florida. He’s a member of the American Medical Association’s House of Delegates. David McKalip, M.D. is also a huge goddamn racist.
Amateur racist David McKalip sent an image of Obama as an African witch doctor to a Tea Party listserv. TPMmuckracker got in touch with David McKalip to ask him, essentially, what the fuck.
Asked about the email in a brief phone interview with TPMmuckraker, McKalip said he believes that by depicting the president as an African witch doctor, the artist who created the image “was expressing concerns that the health-care proposals [made by President Obama] would make the quality of medical care worse in our country.” McKalip said he didn’t know who created it.
But pressed on what was funny about an image that plays on racist stereotypes about Africans, McKalip declined to say, instead offering to talk about why he opposes Obama’s health-care proposals.
“I have a busy day,” he said eventually, before ending the call.
That he resorted to crude stereotype shows that not only is David McKalip, M.D. a racist asshole, but he’s a lazy one. Instead of critiquing the plan or policy McKalip just points and shrieks, indignant that a black man had the gall to win an election.
Also, whoever put together the image could have at least balanced the lighting and color on President Obama’s head. Being a racist shitheel isn’t an excuse for shoddy workmanship.
Jul/090
The Right Responds (Kind Of)
One of the few graphics on Free Republic
I got to wondering after that last post what Internet People on the right side of the political spectrum thought. These are from Free Republic, which has a habit of being in the news.
a preeminent professor of African American studies at the prestigious Harvard University
(spit, choke) LMAO!!!
5 posted on Monday, July 20, 2009 7:36:48 PM by Lancey Howard
According to the police report, Gates repeatedly told officers at the scene that “this is what happens to black men in America.”
DRUNK AND DISORDERLY?
6 posted on Monday, July 20, 2009 7:37:43 PM by guitarplayer1953
That’s some pretty good racism, a little bland but that just adds to the quiet horror.
Particularly with Ogletree as his lawyer this “professor” is gonna win and win big.Ogletree is “plugged in” in Massachusetts politics.Add that to the black Harvard “professor” and it’s lights out for the City of Cambridge.In fact,the City will be lucky if they aren’t sued for some serious $$$.
15 posted on Monday, July 20, 2009 7:48:57 PM by Gay State Conservative (Christian+Veteran=Terrorist)
One guess as to why Gay State Conservative1 is doubting that a genius-grant winning Harvard professor is really a professor. The prize if you get it right is to be really angry.
That “Do you know who I am??” crap really pisses off some cops. I doubt there’s ever been a “professor” of black studies who wasn’t an out-and-out racist.
31 posted on Monday, July 20, 2009 9:31:01 PM by ozzymandus
Once again we have the questioning of credentials, but the part where ozzy here tries to turn the tables is precious. The idea is that pointing out racism is racist because omg, why were you even thinking about race in the first place you racist?
It’s the kind of argument that a mental child would make.
1. I can’t decide if the user name means “a conservative from a gay state (geographic)” or “a conservative in a gay state (of being)”. Maybe “a gay person who is also a state conservative for some reason”?
Jul/090
Always Hide a Spare Key Somewhere
Have you ever been locked out of your house? It sucks pretty hard, even moreso if you’rethe pre-eminent black scholar.
BOSTON — Henry Louis Gates Jr., the nation’s pre-eminent black scholar, is accusing Cambridge police of racism after he was arrested while trying to force open the locked front door of his home near Harvard University.
Cambridge police were called to the home Thursday afternoon after a woman reported seeing a man “wedging his shoulder into the front door as to pry the door open,” according to a police report.
An officer ordered the man to identify himself, and Gates refused, according to the report. Gates began calling the officer a racist and said repeatedly, “This is what happens to black men in America.”
Officers said they tried to calm down the 58-year-old academic, who responded, “You don’t know who you’re messing with,” according to the police report.
Gates was arrested on a disorderly conduct charge after police said he “exhibited loud and tumultuous behavior.” He was released later that day on his own recognizance and arraignment was scheduled for Aug. 26.
…Counter said he spoke to Gates, who told him police continued to question him after he showed them his license and Harvard identification.
“They did not believe him when he said that he was in his own home,” Counter said. “He was totally mistreated in this incident.”
The incident report (pdf) was put online by The Boston Globe.
The account in the incident report certainly makes it look like Gates was an overreacting crazy-man, but that’s assuming officers only tell the truth. Officers who feel honor-bound to the truth are a cultural fabrication, a myth. In situations where it’s a citizen’s word against an officer’s, the cop usually wins. It would take a special kind of naiveté to not believe this is regularly taken advantage of. Take, for example, what just happened in Philadelphia.
WHEN AGNES LAWLESS and three friends were inside a Lukoil convenience store in the Northeast at 3 a.m. last August, they’d all but forgotten the fender-bender in which they’d been involved moments earlier.
There was little damage, and the other driver had left the scene, near Northeast Philadelphia Airport.
What they didn’t know was that they’d been rear-ended by the son of a police officer who was on duty, and dad was about to get involved.
Lawless was standing at the counter of the store, at Comly Road and Roosevelt Boulevard, smiling and chatting with the clerk, when she was grabbed from behind and violently pushed back with a police officer’s gun in her face.
…After a chaotic struggle, Lawless was arrested and charged with assaulting the officer.
Lawless and her three friends, all in their early 20s, filed complaints with the Police Department’s Internal Affairs Bureau. But in cases in which it’s a defendant’s word against a police officer’s, the benefit of doubt often falls to the cop.
Except when there’s video.
That right there is one of the many reasons I don’t trust the police, let alone an incident report. The odds are pretty good that the cop in the Gates situation is indeed a super racist, but I’ve been wrong before. Maybe Gates is just an asshole, who knows.
Still, I think I’m still going to trust a goddamn MacArthur Fellow over Officer Random.
Jul/090
No Disrespect, Honest
Living in California, I roll my eyes whenever somebody in the media refers to the state as some super-liberal gay commietopia. This is why. (Emphasis is mine.)
ATWATER – In the past several months Atwater City Councilman Gary Frago has sent at least a half-dozen e-mails to city staff and other prominent community members containing racist jokes aimed at President Barack Obama, his wife and black people in general…
Some compared Obama to O.J. Simpson while others suggested that “nigger rigs” should now be called “presidential solutions.”
Perhaps the most overboard e-mail was sent on Jan. 15. It read: “Breaking News Playboy just offered Sarah Palin $1 million to pose nude in the January issue. Michelle Obama got the same offer from National Geographic.”
Frago admitted sending the e-mails, but showed no regret. “If they’re from me, then I sent them,” he said. “I have no disrespect for the president or anybody, they weren’t meant in any bad way or harm.”
The list of people who either sent or received the e-mails reads like a who’s who of Atwater community and political leadership, including a county supervisor, a former police chief, a city manager, a former city council member, a former president of a veterans group, a former grand knight of the Knights of Columbus, among others.
I appreciate the pure dickery it takes to claim that incredibly racist jokes about the President meant no disrespect. Unless calling Presidential policy “nigger rigs” is a sign of respect in his (incredibly racist) culture, this is the equivalent of saying “no disrespect, but,” and then urinating on somebody’s shoes.
It doesn’t surprise me that this is from a Californian town called Atwater, a little north of Merced in the middle of absolutely nowhere. This is important because what most people think of when they think “California” is a thin strip along the coast. Travel east for a bit and that gloss rubs off, revealing a vast rural wasteland with pockets of exurbia growing like little tumors. Here there be racists like good ol’ Gary Frago, valiantly standing up for the white man’s right to be a brazenly racist dickhole. God bless.
Jul/090
The Coburn Sotomayor Comedy Hour
Judge Sotomayor’s Confirmation hearings have given us a wealth of completely insane moments, but there’s one in particular that’s stuck in my head. On Wednesday there was a particularly weird exchange between Judge Sotomayor and Senator Coburn that, predictably, became pretty goddamn racist.
SOTOMAYOR: …the question that would come up, and does come up before juries and judges, is how eminent is the threat. If the threat was in this room, “I’m going to come get you,” and you go home and get — or I go home.
I don’t want to suggest I am, by the way. Please, I’m not — I don’t want anybody to misunderstand what I’m trying to say.
(LAUGHTER)
If I go home, get a gun, come back and shoot you, that may not be legal under New York law because you would have alternative ways to defend…
COBURN: You’ll have lots of ’splainin’ to do.
SOTOMAYOR: I’d be in a lot of trouble then.
Really, Sen. Coburn? A Ricky Ricardo impersonation? It’s stunning that there isn’t some little part of his brain screaming you idiot, that is not a thing you should say. He’s a Senator for fuck’s sake, this is the kind of thing he should be aware of.
Hell, with all the talk about guns he could have at least gone with Scarface – that could actually have been argued to be relevant. People would still call him out for being racist, but at least he’d have something to work with.
So considering that the alternative to his being a total idiot is that he’s a complete racist, I almost feel sorry for the man.
Almost.
Jul/090
Birther Bill – Now with 9 Racist Co-Sponsors
Today in news of the Oh my god, this is never going to go away, is it? The bill seeking to demand proof of citizenship in campaign laws is now up to 9 sponsors. Do y’all remember when the GOP wanted to amend the constitution to remove the natural born citizen requirement so the Governator could run for president? Wasn’t so long ago.
Absolute best comment from this article?
I am not a bigot nor bitter but I do beleive that he should be required as McCain was to provide proof of his citezenship .The peice of paper he has shown is not a birth certificate it is a cetificate of live birth and for you retards that is not proof of where he was born,read your own birth certificate this thing does not provide a third of the offical information. Also his transcripts show that he was enrolled as a forgein student of British citizenship. thes half breed is not an American He is a muslim educated fake that has more names than John Dillenger
Well… since you say you’re not a bigot, I’ll just have to take your word and ignore all the bigoted claims you’re making. Pro-tip – when trying to argue you’re not a racist, avoid using phrases like “half breed.”