Snowden escaping Russia:

BREAKING: Liz Cheney will challenge Se.Mike Enzi in 2014

@maddow: Amazing. Amazing! AmazingAMAZING RT @AP BREAKING
Liz Cheney, daughter of Dick Cheney, says she'll challenge Sen Mike Enzi nxt yr.

I love the smell of sulphur in the morning.

Angela Corey is all mad at Twitter for stirring up the Marissa Alexander case:

<snip>
Supporters say Alexander, who is African American, was a victim of ingrained racism in Florida’s courts. Some say that those same alleged prejudices allowed Zimmerman, who has a white father and a Peruvian mother, to walk free after killing Martin, who was black. But Angela Corey, the state attorney who prosecuted Alexander and oversaw the Zimmerman case, says there were “zero parallels.” The facts surrounding Alexander’s conviction, she adds, are more complex than the Twitter-fueled pardon campaign makes it appear.

“I think social media is going to be the destruction of this country,” Corey said. “How dare people just repeat something without checking it’s true.”

Alexander was convicted of three counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon for firing a gun into a wall close to where her husband, Rico Gray, and stepsons were standing, after she and Gray had a dispute. Kevin Cobbin, Alexander’s attorney, said his client was justified in firing her gun because Gray “had put his hands on her and there was a fight in the bathroom.”
<>
She said Gray’s sons were pulling on their shoes to leave the house when Alexander raised her weapon to fire — in other words, they and their father were about to leave. While online accounts sympathetic to Alexander say she fired shots into the ceiling, the single bullet she fired actually hit the wall, not far from Gray and the boys, then ricocheted into the ceiling, Corey said.

Corey also points out a later incident when Alexander, while free on bail and awaiting trial, became involved in an altercation with Gray that left him with a swollen eye.

“She put a round in the chamber, and she fired that shot out of anger, not fear,” Corey said. “She didn’t need to use that gun. Those kids were scared to death. They ran for their lives.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/marissa-alexander-case-in-spotlight-after-zimmerman-trial/2013/07/15/6030be5a-ed5c-11e2-9008-61e94a7ea20d_story.html

She is a disgrace.

Now I have massive agita. I agree with Ted Cruz:

Senator Ted Cruz ‏@SenTedCruz 1h
Proud to stand w/ @SenGillibrand & others to protect our service men and women from any threat of sexual assault

Rand Paul has signed too.

I look at it this way. We ARE NOT on the same political path. He is on some weird road in and out of Mordor. At this one point in time, our roads head in the same direction. They will diverge in 4...3...2..

Nadezhda Popova, WWII ‘Night Witch,’ Dies at 91

The Nazis called them “Night Witches” because the whooshing noise their plywood and canvas airplanes made reminded the Germans of the sound of a witch’s broomstick.

The Russian women who piloted those planes, onetime crop dusters, took it as a compliment. In 30,000 missions over four years, they dumped 23,000 tons of bombs on the German invaders, ultimately helping to chase them back to Berlin. Any German pilot who downed a “witch” was awarded an Iron Cross.

These young heroines, all volunteers and most in their teens and early 20s, became legends of World War II but are now largely forgotten. Flying only in the dark, they had no parachutes, guns, radios or radar, only maps and compasses. If hit by tracer bullets, their planes would burn like sheets of paper.

Their uniforms were hand-me-downs from male pilots. Their faces froze in the open cockpits. Each night, the 40 or so two-woman crews flew 8 or more missions — sometimes as many as 18.
<snip>
More: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/15/world/europe/nadezhda-popova-ww-ii-night-witch-dies-at-91.html

Crazy brave!
There are many women who performed amazing feats during WWII. The French Resistance had many.
RIP Deputy Commander Popova!

Juanita Jean has some choice thoughts about the Trayvon Martin trial and verdict:

This will not be funny. This is perfectly serious.

I did not stay glued to the television set throughout the Trayvon Martin investigation and trial. But, I saw enough of it to draw some very strong conclusions.

Let me correct a misconception that’s all over Facebook today: stand your ground was not an issue in this case. That was not the defense. The defense was simple self-defense.

The second solution suggested was to do away with self-defense. A slight overreaction, don’t ya think? Actually, nine times out of ten it is women and minorities who are helped by self defense laws. Ask Bubba – he’ll tell you about at least 20 cases he’s defended on self defense — all of the minorities.

The third was to blame the jury. (Heavy sigh.) Great, now all you’re doing is discouraging good people from serving on juries for fear of being targeted as wrong-doers.

I have a few suggestions.

First of all, we have to pay juries better to allow minorities to participate. In my county, the $24 jurors are paid can be extremely damaging to people who don’t get paid if they don’t work. So, they don’t show up when summoned for jury duty, knowing nothing will happen to them if they don’t. Why would the District Attorney’s office go hunt them down when the last thing a District Attorney wants – as least in my county – is minorities on jury panels.

But now comes the part you don’t want to hear. If the Trayvon Martin case had a competent district attorney, a judge who at least seem to pay attention, and a police department who didn’t make up their minds before all the evidence was available, the outcome might have been different.

Surely I wasn’t the only person who noticed that the only minority in that courtroom was the victim and every damn person in that county is to blame for that.

It is like pulling teeth to get people to vote in non-Presidential years, when judges, DAs and sheriffs are elected. Barack Obama can change the world, but who your local sheriff is will most certainly change your life.

I live in a majority minority county yet we elected a man to be sheriff who called the President of the United States of America, “that clown in Washington.” Every single judge we have is white, old, and Republican with the exception of one, who is female. Our District Attorney, also white, old and Republican, could not try his way out of a paper bag.

Elections have consequences.

Please do not vote just the top of your ballot. Find out something about the candidates who decide if your child is safe walking home from the store with Skittles and ice tea. They are all our children. And until we can protect them, the job is not done.

One other small thing. George Zimmerman’s brother said that George will spend the rest of his life looking over his shoulder. Yeah, well, so will every black kid in America. I figure that’s even so quit whining.

Okay, sermon over.
http://juanitajean.com/

Word!

Dawgs- "Love Them Back" (all pets)

Dilbert explains the customer service we receive:

The World Without Us:

I want all the people who report the news to answer this!