STOAT!

Down the drain,

This is dF

"I’M NOT RACIST, I’M JUST SAYING F***ING RAGHEADS SHOULDN’T RUN FOR OFFICE"

ITEM: Republican South Carolina senator Jake Knotts says that Lexington Rep. Nikki Haley – an Indian-American Republican woman running for governor – is a “fucking raghead” set up by a network of Sikhs and was programmed to run for governor by outside influences in foreign countries.

He later apologizes for using the adjective “fucking”, and says he was speaking in jest when he said:

“She’s a raghead that’s ashamed of her religion trying to hide it behind being Methodist for political reasons. We got a raghead in Washington; we don’t need one in South Carolina.”

Knotts also claims that Haley’s father has been sending letters to India saying that Haley is the first Sikh running for high office in America – which is bad because “We’re at war over there.”

Asked to clarify, he said he did not mean the United States was at war with India, but was at war with “foreign countries.”

All of which could be written off as “Well, it’s South Carolina” (apologies to jreynolds  and anyone else from there), if it wasn’t for this other story about how artists who painted a mural at an elementary school in Prescott, Arizona depicting four students, with the most prominent being a Hispanic boy, were asked to lighten the skin tones.
 

R.E. Wall, the artist who heads the Prescott Downtown Mural Project, told a local newspaper passersby regularly shouted racially charged comments at his group while they were creating the mural at the Miller Valley Elementary School.

"You're desecrating our school," "Get the ni---- off the wall," "Get the sp-- off the wall," were common, Wall said. "The pressure stayed up consistently," Wall said. "We had two months of cars shouting at us."

Prescott city councilman Steve Blair, for one, finds the choice of skin tone in the mural suspicious:

"I am not a racist individual," Blair said on a radio show last month, "but I will tell you depicting a black guy in the middle of that mural, based upon who's President of the United States today and based upon the history of this community, when I grew up we had four black families - who I have been very good friends with for years - to depict the biggest picture on that building as a black person, I would have to ask the question, 'Why?'"

So, you know, it’s a good thing he’s not racist, and that racism is a thing of the past in America. Otherwise this might be worrying.

 

Lighten up,

This is dF

THIS IS NOT TORTURE. THIS IS SCIENCE.

ITEM: A human rights group, Physicians for Human Rights, has issued a report accusing the CIA of conducting illegal human experiments and unethical medical research during interrogations of high-profile terrorism suspects under the Bush administration.

The CIA denies everything.

Well, they would, wouldn’t they?

To be fair, the doctors allegedly doing the “experiments” were supposedly there to simply monitor waterboarding and other “spirited interrogation” techniques to ensure the interrogators did not inflict “severe physical and mental pain” ... and, you know, make suggestions like adding salt to the water to prevent pneumonia and hyponatremia, and working out just how much pain a person can take and how long you can keep someone awake in an uncomfortable position before you start doing serious damage.

None of which apparently counts as conducting experiments on human subjects, if you ask the CIA.

PHR is calling for a White House investigation into its findings. I seriously doubt the White House will take them up on that recommendation.

Still, leave it to Junior Bush to pick the day before the report came out to openly brag about waterboarding Khalid Sheik Mohammed and hell yeah, he’d do it again. “Because shit, what are you gonna do, arrest me?”

Ha ha. Right.

BONUS MATERIAL: The PHR report is available for download if you care to read it. 

Ask yr physician,

This is dF

PRESIDENTIAL CAT ADDRESSES THE AMERICAN PEOPLE

Those last two posts were a little heavy, and probably nullified that opening stoat vibe. I shall attempt to bring balance to the Force now. With Presidential Cat.


see more Political Pictures

Hope that helps.

Oh crap,

This is dF