The DudeBro Bill of Rights

It's been a while since I've written.  The subject of Dudebros and their faux outrage at President Obama, the NSA, and the west in general got me to thinking.  Maybe the dudebros need to form their own nation. If they're going to do that, the need a Constitution, and a Bill of Rights.

For those wondering about who the Dudebros are, they are generally the far left libertarians in the vein of Glenn Greenwald and Edward Snowden. Some call them Utopian Left, some call the Emo-progressives.

Tom Nichols at his blog The War Room describes them as nihilistic millenials, who got a ribbon for participating and thought they won something. He further says they're incredibly self centered and immature and have no concept of how things work in the real world.   

So here follows the Dudebro Bill of Rights. I took liberties with the constitution by adding a preamble, but if the Kenyan Marxist Socialist Nazi President Blackenstein can trample on the Constitution, anyone can. 

The DudeBro Bill of Rights

Preamble:

We the Dudebros , in Order to form the most perfect Union, establish Just Us, disrupt domestic Tranquility, Disdain for The Common and Defense, Disdain for Welfare, Secure the blessings of Libertarians to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for Dudebros but not Evil America.

Amendment 1

Dudebros shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, except for the cult of personality as evidenced in the divine visage of Julian Assange and his prophet Edward Snowden. or abridging the freedom of speech, unless its the speech we don't like especially if it comes from brown people. No abridgement of the Dudebro Press Glenn Greenwald and David Sirota , but the evil Mainstream Media totes abridged. The right of the people to peaceably assemble, unless they're brown, then they'll be frisked. And to petition the Government for a redress of grievances, but  only our pet grievances, yours don't matter.

Amendment 2

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed, except those pesky Chicago thugs, they give gun owners a bad name.

Amendment 3

No Soldiers 

Amendment 4

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized. So stop listening to my calls President Obummer.

Amendment 5

No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, even if they steal state secrets and give them to bloggers, cause FREEDOM BRUH!

Amendment 6

In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, except data thieves (See Amendment 5)

Amendment 7

In Suits at common law, frankly, we don't care about anything common. Our parents taught us all that we are special and precious and perfect and never wrong.

Amendment 8

Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted, cruel punishments like hiding in an Ecuadorian Embassy is travesty.

Amendment 9

The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people unless they're women, blacks, the poor, and centrists, then we can disparage them, cause they just don't get it man...

Amendment 10

The powers not delegated to the Dudebros by the Constitution,  don't really matter, because our Dudebro Utopia doesn't care about non Dudebros. 

Allies

I've been thinking about how to write this piece since Saturday.  I've started and restarted it 3 times. I finally got a frame when I read Chez Pazienza's fine piece about a young man who took his own life, Carlos Vigil. Carlos committed suicide because he was bullied, called fat, made fun of because he had acne and because he was gay. A tragedy played out every day.

Chez's work made me reflect on the bullying I suffered as a child, and suddenly I knew how I could write about being an ally to African Americans, Women, Gay people and any other minorities.

Being a white male in America is a pretty good gig, and it's hard to articulate where and how I was able to learn how to be an ally.  For me, being an ally has been molded by several things, childhood bullying, growing up poor, good parents and working as a social worker.

As a child I was mercilessly teased and bullied by my peers.  I was fat. I had a Fat Albert lunch box. To this day I remember being made fun of by the lunch lady, an adult. All the kids joined in. It was 40 years ago. As I got older, because I wasn't a fighter, I got spit on, my ears flicked, books grabbed away and hidden.  I was mocked as Fat Pat forever.

We also grew up poor. While the other kids had Levis and Nikes I had Sears Huskys and Trax from KMart. These differences were again a source of constant mocking and teasing.

Things improved slightly in High School, because I played football and I turned my anger inward and made myself the first person in the history of my high school to get a 4.0 GPA.

The bullying gave me a profound respect for others who have traditionally been considered "other". People who have been demeaned and downtrodden for no other reason than  they are black or female or gay. I just can't stand injustice to anyone, but especially to those folks who look different or have different sexual orientations than what is considered "normal".

My parents raised us to be nice people. Not just nice to people who looked like us or acted like us. Nice  to everybody.  My mom was the nicest person I ever met. My dad is a crazy old dude, but he's unfailing the nicest guy in any room he enters.

When a mixed race couple moved into our neighborhood in the early 80's mom and dad put the skids to a group of neighbors who were essentially pointing and staring.  Both mom and dad had friends and colleagues at work who were African American and Hispanic, even a few Vietnamese refuges. So we had good roll modeling regarding different races and cultures.

I went to college and wanted to be a physicist.  I found out the psych majors had more fun and switched majors.  Through a series of coincidences and good fortune, I ended  up being a child abuse investigator for the last 20 years.

As a social worker, I have learned that the most important skill I have in most situations is listening. Just listening. Not offering a solution all the time, not telling people how they ought to do it. Listen. Be present for people.

I used this skill a lot these last few days after the Zimmerman verdict. All of the African American friends I've made on social media were to some extent angered and saddened. I notice several white people who should know better trying to tell my black friends how they should be.  That's not being an ally, that's being privileged.

It's not okay to point out to your black friends that "not all of us (whites)" are like that.  Your black friends know. Just shut up and let them vent unless they specifically ask you for advice. That's good advice for a lot of situations.

If you truly want to be an ally for minorities, it isn't hard.  Be nice, don't condescend, don't look at those relationships for what you can get out of them.  Listen. Learn. Support. Don't be afraid to stand up for your friends, but don't do it to be a glory hound.

Be an ally because it's right.

Spies Like Us

It's been a while since I sat down and wrote.  Frankly life has been busy and I didn't find anything worth writing about that I couldn't accomplish in 140 characters on Twitter, or a random smart ass quip on Facebook.

I pointedly stayed away from writing about Edward Snowden and Glenn Greenwald and the NSA revelations.  Other people have been doing a much better job of debunking the non story than I would have dreamed of doing.  Bob Cesca, and Charles Johnson among others have been doing yeoman's work in reporting the facts of the Snowden case without Greenwald's disturbing bias towards the President and his Administration.

I chose today to jump back into the fray because Snowden was charged in Federal Court in the Eastern District of Virginia.  Per the AP he was charged with two counts under the Espionage act and one count of theft of government property.  Glenn Greenwald and his hoard of navel gazing fan boys are already crying foul and accuse the government of "over charging".

As somebody who is a both a Government employee (State of Illinois), and someone who routinely seeks criminal charges, I have some perspective on Snowden's charges.

If you work for the Government, whether it's Federal, State, or Local, there are some pretty strict rules about what you can take out of the office.  By strict I mean: You can't take ANYTHING out of the office. The only exception for us is State of Illinois pens, but much like the legislature they work fine for about 20 minutes, then get gummed up and useless.

In addition to working for the man, I'm also a union steward for AFSCME.  In that duty, I have represented co-workers in numerous grievance and discipline meetings.  People get disciplined up to and including dismissal for all sorts of things involving misusing Government issued phones, computers, what have you.  I represented a guy who got a day off with no pay for downloading 1.99 game to his work cell.

Lest ye think that I'm above it all. I once got a verbal reprimand for sending an office wide email that my daughter was selling pizza's for her school.  The point of these anecdotes is to underscore the fact that when you work for the Government there are certain things you don't do.

Taking classified documents is right at the top of that list.  What Snowden did would be like me bringing home a client file and giving it to the media. I would be fired on the spot and because client confidentiality is codified in Illinois, I would be charged with crime.

Which brings me to the "over charging" issue.  I have no idea exactly what Snowden is charged with but speaking to prosecutors charging suspects, issuing multiple charges is nothing new.  As a matter of fact,  I have been involved in cases in which an adult had sex with a minor.  The Assistant State's Attorney on the cases issued a discrete felony count for every single act. The ASA charged each individual act of intercourse, each individual fondle etc.

The reason that prosecutor's over charge as well as including lesser included charges is pretty obvious in dealing with sex cases.  A perp may be charged with 8 counts, plead guilty to two counts and do 10-20 years as apposed to the 160 years if he was convicted on all 8 counts.

I suspect that the Federal indictment of Snowden is similar. He and his jongleur Greenwald can claim all they want that the Government is going too far, but they've already admitted that Snowden broke the law.  In the end the Government may drop the Espionage Act charges if he pleads to stealing property.

If he does plead to a lesser charge, he'll probably end up serving a couple of years at a country club prison camp like Marion.

Who knows maybe he'll end up on a beach in Brazil with Greenwald drinking an ice cold bohemia style beer.  Although knowing Greenwald, I'm sure beer is something that "you people" drink.  Too bad for Snowden that when he's no longer useful to Greenwald, he'll be "you people" too.

An Investigator's View of the DoJ/AP Dust-up

There's trouble a foot in DC for President Obama and Attorney General Holder, or so the the usual assortment of hacks, wannabes and never weres that make up the beltway media would have us believe.

You see, back in 2012, the Associated Press ran a story about the CIA thwarting of an Al Queda plan to bring down a US passenger jet.  In so doing they used information that was classified that they had gotten from a source.  Congress responded by asking Department of Justice to find and stop the leak.

Beltway pundits, politicians and their hangers on got all kinds of butt hurt about the revelation that in the course of the investigation the Department Of Justice obtained the telephone records of reporters for the Associated Press.  Words, like wire tap and bugging, ran rampant throughout social media and blogs all across the internet. 

People immediately called for Eric Holder’s head.  Even people like Charles Pierce whom I admire a great deal dashed off a thousand words on how this was overreach and DoJ was out of control and Holder must go. 

Funny thing happened on the way to storm the castle.  As it turns out Eric Holder recused himself as he had already been question by the FBI about the leak investigation.  It should also come as no surprise to anybody that phone records of the reporters were obtained by subpoena.  This is a very common practice in investigation.

As a child abuse investigator for the last 20 years, I have gathered evidence, including using subpoenas for records.  I emphasize that I am not law enforcement, but I have worked closely with law enforcement and have received much of the same training in regards to collecting evidence and following leads. 

In the press conference today, Attorney General Holder said that the content of the subpoenaed phone calls was not turned over, just the phone numbers, times, dates, etc.

You may ask why they did this with the reporter’s phone information. The answer is very simple.  It’s much easier to go through the phone records of 20 people to find a lead on a government employee, than it is to go through the phone records of over a hundred thousand employees at the Department of Defense or CIA.

I have had similar experiences with phone records, albeit for an entirely different type of case.  I helped a co-worker and police on a case of a teacher who was having sex with a teenaged student.  We combed through 30,000 text messages between the two because there was a concern that there were other victims.  We also looked through emails of the perpetrator looking for clues as to other trysts he may have had. 

That particular case ended well, but it illustrates what I was talking about re: the volume of information we had to go through.  We could have subpoenaed the records of all of the students the teacher had interactions with but it was easier to go through the teacher’s records. 

In the AP case, Congress directed the DoJ to find the leak.  There was really no other way to get a lead on the leak, without going through the phone records of the recipients of the leaked information. In fact the use of the subpoena per DoJ rules was a last resort which explains why the phone records weren't immediately looked at.  In fact the records were requested in April and May of last year, several weeks after Holder was directed by Congress to investigate.

I completely understand the fears of interference with the media and a free press.  In the case of the AP investigation, the Department of Justice is not going after a member of the press for possible prosecution.  They are using readily available and commonly used law enforcement tools to develop leads on the real criminal.  The person who leaked the information could have gotten a CIA asset killed and at very least tipped off our enemies that they had a mole in their operation.  

If the forth estate plans on continuing to abet criminal activity, they better damn well be ready to be party to the criminal investigation. 

Heroes

By now most everyone has at least a passing understanding of who Charles Ramsey is.  If the name doesn't ring a bell, he was the neighbor who helped rescue three women in Cleveland who had been held captive for a decade.

Upon hearing screaming from his neighbor's house, he went to the door and a woman asked him to help her. He told reporters that he at first thought she was a victim of domestic violence.  He quickly became an internet meme because of his awesome interview with local TV.

The aftermath of all this has been rather strange to observe.  Some people are worried that Ramsey is being treated like the "funny black neighbor".  Not understanding that we can laugh a funny guy without mocking him. I'd love to talk to him. He's a good story teller, and a character.

Today it was revealed by the omnipresent media that seems to find the bad side of everybody, that Mr. Ramsey has a record including an assault on a woman in his past.  National media especially seem to love to find the dirt to tarnish a heroic act.

As many of you know, I work for DCFS in Illinois. In the last 20 years I have interviewed thousands of people a lot like Mr. Ramsey.  People who may have had a bad past, or made bad choices but who have grown from those experiences to become better people and better parents.

It may be bone headed optimism, but the fact that Mr. Ramsey initially thought the victim may have been a DV victim, could be because he learned from his past.  Most men who are convicted of Domestic Battery have to take classes in anger management and other counseling to help them recognize their own triggers.  Is it so far off base to think that Mr. Ramsey internalized what he learned and put it to good use when needed?

It's easy to be a cynic, but people can change.  I've seen it countless  times. While there are really bad people in the world who will never change (mostly White Sox fans but I digress), the capacity for positive change exists in us all.

I recognize that Mr. Ramsey has a checkered past, and I've certainly called out abusers in this blog before, but for now, he did a heroic thing.  On top of his heroism, when Anderson Cooper asked about the reward money, he said give it those women, give it to that little girl who was out here crying last night.

Maybe karma isn't always a bitch.

What Can the Browns Do For Us

I’ve been struggling with how to get a hook for this piece about white privilege without repeating what I wrote two months ago.  While I was thinking about what I was going to write, I learned that Roger Ebert had passed away.  Richard Roeper said when it was time to write, Roger would just start writing, so taking that to heart, here's my latest.

In my previous piece I took Joan Walsh and David Sirota to task for being dismissive at best and down right bitchy at worst to Goldie Taylor.  Ms. Taylor for the uninitiated is a commentator on MSNBC, a former Marine, a mother and brand new grandmother, who also happens to be black. 

After taking a firestorm of criticism for that work, Ms. Walsh seemed to walk back some things, (easier to ask forgiveness no doubt), and it seemed like the point that white privilege is alive and well was understood by her and other liberal pundits.

Then came yesterday, Walsh penned a piece that drips with the privilege that she seems to revel in.  In it she bemoaned the shrinking white hegemony in the Democratic party,  stating falsely that whites will be a minority by mid century. 

Population estimates predict that all minorities combined will be around 52%, whites will be 48%.  When you break out the numbers after Whites, Hispanics will be around 20% Blacks around 12%.  If you’re not a complete moron you’d see that  2.5 times as many Whites as Hispanics and 4 times as many Whites as Blacks DOES NOT MAKE WHITES A MINORITY.

Walsh went on to discuss the coalition that got President Obama elected and highlighted the fact that the coalition stayed home in 2010.  She didn't mention that professional lefties like her actively encouraged people to stay home to teach the President a lesson.  Again, teaching the black President a lesson by sabotaging his agenda because it's not yours reeks of privilege

She even gave insightful instruction on how to talk to  "America's newest minority".  My guess is that she doesn't know how people of color should speak to her if they’re not turning down her bed or dusting her mantle (that’s not a euphemism).

To be fair she did admit that white privilege exists but she likened it to other types of privilege, completely missing the point about the pervasiveness of white privilege by acting privileged! Of course when this was pointed out to her on Twitter by another woman of color that I admire, Imani Gandy, it was sloughed off as "ironic snobbery".

Now if we're keeping score at home, Walsh has been dismissive of the valid concerns of Goldie Taylor, Imani Gandy, and Melissa Harris-Perry, and those are just instances that I'm aware of.  I'm sure there are others.  I just couldn't find any in which liberal white women were dismissed thusly.

If the column on the poor oppressed white folks wasn't bad enough, late yesterday she led the charge in being outraged and aghast that President Obama called Kamala Harris the California AG "by far the best looking Attorney General".

It my have been a poor choice of words, but of course Walsh and her many supporters hectored the President about it until last night, according to his press secretary, the President called Harris and apologized for all the attention the comment garnered.

It seems that Ms. Walsh and her cohorts in the elite liberal punditry have no problem holding men, especially the President, to account for objectifying women.  Odd that they are silent when that woman happens to be a 9 year old black girl. Walsh and other so called feminists barely spoke up when the Onion tweeted an insult of Quvenzhané Wallis.

I find it beyond insulting that the same people outraged that the President dare call a pretty woman, "the best looking AG" sat idly by as Wallis was called a c---.  

See that's what privilege is all about, you can't take up the cause for a 9 year old girl because after all it was a "joke",  but you can sure as fuck jump down Blacky O's neck when he does something you disapprove of. 

I'm not asking for miracles, I'm sure there'll be plenty more pearl clutching over the President. There will be more columns bemoaning how people of color just don't get how the liberal white folks really know what's best for them.  

My advice to Walsh and anybody else who tries to explain privilege to people of color, or write columns about how oppressed white liberals are? Pull up your sleeves look closely at the pasty white flab of your under arm, realize you've got it pretty fucking good, and please just shut the hell up. 

The show that never ends.

Welcome back friends to the show that never ends. Today's post has to do with what in my opinion has been a banner day for rape culture in America. A veritable victory lap for victim shamers.

Let's start with one of my pet projects, Jerry Sandusky and Penn State.  In what has to be one of the all time journalistic blunders, NBC aired a partial interview with Jerry Sandusky from prison.  They did not produce the interview or do the questioning.  They let arrogant douchebag and Conservative huckster John Ziegler do that.  Chez Pazienza wrote two scathing pieces here and here in which he sums up the journalist malpractice much better than I could.

I'd like to focus on the victims for a minute.  Every time Sandusky or Penn State apologists get air time, it affects the victims.  As observers we can be outraged, we can rail at people like Ziegler.  We can boycott the Today show, but those are just to make us feel better.  There is really nothing other than years of therapy and maybe a revenge fantasy or two that can make this better for Sandusky's victims.

I see the effects on victims every day in my job.  I've currently got cases in the court system that involve pretty heinous acts of sex abuse.  The victims are in therapy, but every time the court case is mentioned on TV one victim in particular gets so upset she can't function, wets herself or pukes and goes to her room and hides. I can only imagine that Victim 2 who was called out by Sandusky and Ziegler today feels something akin to this.

We've read recently that the victim in the Steubenville was very intoxicated and possibly drugged.  This gave rise to a whole bunch of nonsense about consent as it relates to rape.  Progressive commentator Zerlina Maxwell made the point that we can stop rape culture by teaching men not to rape.  She took a ton of evil crap about her statements including rape threats.

Today, on twitter she posted a retweeted picture of an ad for liquor exhorting a young man to ply a young woman with liquor to "Avoid the friend zone".  This is the ad in question. When she pointed out that this picture is what rape culture looks like, she got a lot of blow back from people who basically don't know what consent is.

Since I'm a white straight man, I can whitesplain and mansplain like nobody's business.

Let me break it down. When Ms. Maxwell says we need to educate men not to rape this is what she's talking about. Date rape, acquaintance rape, having sex without consent. Most people think of rape as the guy leaping from the bushes and beating and assaulting a woman.  Having sex with someone who's too drunk to consent is rape too.

That's not to say that if you have a few drinks with a date and go home and knock it til dawn, you're raping someone, if consent is given, great.

Having said that, if the only way you can bed her, is to get her drunk, you're doing it wrong.

I'd love for this to be the last thing that I post about rape culture, Sandusky, et al, but unfortunately, rape culture in America?  It's the show that never ends.