I think the word I'm looking for is AAAAAARRRRGGGGHH!!!!!

[WilliamPitt]

In Iraq, US Is Spending Millions to Blow Up Captured American War Machines

Last week was a weird one for American military hardware.

In the United States, Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles (MRAPs), AR-15s and camouflage body armor all made an appearance on the streets of a suburb in the heartland, helping to give a tense situation the push needed to turn into a week of riots. American citizens in Ferguson, Missouri, feeling they were being occupied by a foreign army, rather than their friendly neighborhood cop on the beat.

(SNIP)

Now, U.S. warplanes are flying sorties, at a cost somewhere between $22,000 to 30,000 per hour for the F-16s, to drop bombs that cost at least $20,000 each, to destroy this captured equipment.

That means if an F-16 were to take off from Incirclik Air Force Base in Turkey and fly two hours to Erbil, Iraq, and successfully drop both of its bombs on one target each, it costs the United States somewhere between $84,000 to $104,000 for the sortie and destroys a minimum of $1 million and a maximum of $12 million in U.S.-made equipment.

The rest: http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/2014/08/18/how-much-it-costs-the-u-s-to-blow-up-captured-u-s-military-hardware-in-iraq/

...and:

Georgia County Won't Pay Medical Bills for Toddler Critically Injured by Flash Bang Grenade During Drug Raid

(snip)

Earlier this year, we brought you the story of Baby Bounkham, who was severely injured after a Georgia SWAT team threw a flashbang grenade that landed inside Bounkham's crib—cops were serving a drug warrant based on information from a confidential informant about a small amount of meth. The raid yielded no drugs and no suspect. Cops insisted they did what they could to prepare and didn't know there were children in the house, two seemingly contradictory contentions. The sad case illustrates the interplay between the war on drugs, militarized police, and police brutality.

The story didn't elicit national outrage, and a friend of the family raised just $38,000 in two months to cover Boumkham's medical bills. They're going to need more than that, as the county government has ruled it would be a "violation of the law" for it to pick up the medical costs their officers created the necessity for.

The rest: http://reason.com/blog/2014/08/19/georgia-county-wont-pay-medical-bills-fo

[NYC_SKP]

1. I'm wit you...

[SammyWinstonJack]

2. ...

[phantom power]

3. For the plutocracy, this is a feature, not a bug.

[Roy Rolling]

15. good point

This is a win-win for the military-industrial complex.

[newfie11]

4. No much I'm proud of anymore

We've sunk pretty low.

[hifiguy]

5. This country has turned into

An open-air lunatic asylum.

[Enthusiast]

13. +1

[Owl]

6. Every day the news gets suckier.

[Dustlawyer]

7. K&R!!!! For exposure. Let's fight the Plutocracy by taking away their ability to control our

Government! Let's do everything in our power to fight for Publicly Funded Elections! Outlaw all campaign contributions and make the MSM air campaign ads as a public service for using our airwaves! If they can't buy the politicians legally we will see a return of Representative Democracy and all that comes with it. Wall Streeters and other white collar criminals will start being prosecuted and going to jail. Oligarchies in media, phone, cable, and banking can be broken up!

This is why America is falling! I am sure Romans kept saying "We're number 1" long after they weren't either. Other countries vote in much higher percentages because they know how bad things can get. We have been fortunate, but spoiled in our thinking. Before things get much worse, our environment included, we need to wake up and use our Democracy! The founding fathers counted on us to be the check on over-reach by the government and the Plutocracy. They gave us these rights to use in case of Emergency, it's time to break the glass!!!

[Enthusiast]

11. Publicly Funded Elections should be foremost in the Democratic Party platform.

Unfortunately you seldom hear them speak of it.

[Dustlawyer]

18. That's because they like that corporate money too. It will take enough voters being actively

involved in writing and calling elected Representatives, posting, blogging, spreading the word, and marching/protesting peaceably to convince them they have to give up their addiction to campaign cash. Maybe Ferguson has lit a match, remains to be seen if it is dry enough to catch. The midterms would be the perfect time to do it. If we could just make enough people aware!

[Enthusiast]

19. I hear you, but.

Don't they recognize how truly fucked up this nation has become? Don't they want to help correct our errant course? I thought they comprised the Democratic Party.

[raouldukelives]

25. Hell yes. And you if you can't keep the corporate money out of elections.

At least we still have the freedom to keep our money & time out of helping them succeed in those ends.
Sadly, those who profit from investments and oiling the oligarchy machine prefer the money to doing the right thing for this and future generations.
It is where liberal idealism rubber meets the proverbial road. Just as people who profited from slavery. Some had the ability to see past the dollar signs and do the right thing. Some reacted with rage and fear. Wondering where the money would come from.

Think climate change as an issue is bigger than slavery? I do. I think its bigger and more evil than anything this world and those who would champion human and animal rights could ever imagine. It is a damn shame it is the way it is. I wish with with all my heart and soul it wasn't this way, but it is. We are dying out here, animals are suffering, our future looks bleak at best. In the face of that assured suffering and misery, to still hold out and support the plutocracy, is just as bad as being any redneck plantation owner who ever lived. And in the arc of history, for the future of this planet and its lifeforms, far worse.

[Initech]

8. Wait so we're spending our own money to blow up equipment that we own that was captured by Iraq?

[Owl]

23. Like this wasn't forseen?

Maybe it would have been more sensible and cheaper to have blown the crap up beforehand?



We wasted money building the crap, wasted money using the crap. Now waste even more money blowing up the crap!!

[riverbendviewgal]

9. Bernie Sanders Has a Brilliant Idea: Instead of Giving Police Tanks, Let’s Create Jobs

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) has a brilliant idea. Instead of militarizing local police departments with tanks and heavy equipment, the country should take the billions of dollars and use it to create jobs.
it might be a good idea that instead of putting heavy equipment into police departments in those areas, we start creating jobs for the kids there who desperately need them.

http://www.politicususa.com/2014/08/18/bernie-sanders-brilliant-idea-giving-police-tanks-create-jobs.html

[logosoco]

16. I think in a republicans mind this does create jobs.

Once all of that stuff is destroyed, they will just make more.

It's like a game to them.

[Enthusiast]

20. Well that's Bernie, possibly the last good soul.

[riverbendviewgal]

21. I agree

It is so sad that he won't be Democratic president nominee. Or Elizabeth Warren or Alan Grayson. They are the puppets of the oligarchy.

[840high]

27. Yes he is.

[Enthusiast]

10. Kicked and recommended! I'm with you, WilliamPitt.

This nation's priorities are slightly askew.

[Paper Roses]

29. Slightly? I think that is putting it mildly.

I'm so upset and overwhelmed by events these last few weeks. This old brain cannot handle much more and stay reasonably sane.

[Enthusiast]

30. I'm with you, Paper Roses.

[ballyhoo]

12. Speakin' to the choir here.

[lpbk2713]

14. Not a child of privileged (read rethuglican) parents.

Therefore it's OK to let this one slip through the cracks.

[iscooterliberally]

17. The war on drugs is police brutality. n/t

[IDemo]

22. I'm surprised the MIC doesn't just put an expiration date in the firmware

Maybe include a pop-up notice on the tank or fighter jet -"Your license has expired. Please see your McDonnell Douglas representative for details about exciting upgrades."

[Uncle Joe]

24. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, WilliamPitt.

[Martin Eden]

26. Alternate thread title: What's wrong with this picture?

Perhaps the biggest problem is the American people (the common people, which includes your average teabagger) are too bitterly divided to stand together for our own common interests.

Our House is divided because the Powers That Be want it that way, and have fostered the polarization of the American electorate.

My biggest hope for President Obama was that his intelligence and eloquence as a speaker combined with his position at the bully pulpit would expose this paradigm for what it is.

And therein lies my biggest disappointment.

[JEB]

28. K&R