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This week on Middle Theory, we begin our examination of world news and affairs with the recent declassification of secret 9/11 documents known as the ’28 Pages’. What, if anything, do we learn from the long-awaited release of these documents? Meanwhile, breaking news out of Baton Rouge describes at least three police officers that have been shot dead.
This, of course, arrives on the heels of the news that 80 people were killed by a truck crashing into a Bastille Day crowd in France. Micah and McNonymous examine the odd factors surrounding this case, which involve the fact that the Nice attacker sent large sums back home to family; according to his brother, Jaber Bouhlel, “the family received 240,000 Tunisian dinar (almost $110,000) from Mohamed Bouhlel in the past few weeks – a surprisingly large sum for a low-paid deliveryman.” Furthermore, Bouhlel had texted a pair of individuals asking for more weapons, just moments before the attack… were there others that assisted him during the attack?
Our featured story this week involves the ‘Coup’ attempt in Turkey, which failed. Following the attempt, Egypt has blocked a UN resolution, and U.S. relations with our allies in Turkey appear to have worsened… Meanwhile, as some have begun to suggest that Turkish leader Erdogan may have actually staged the coup himself, Reuters acknowledges that, coup or no, Erdogan is the winner due to “increased centralization of power and popular support”. What will Turkey, and its role in the future of international politics, resemble in the months (and years) following this incident?
Finally, McNonymous spends some time ranting about Mike Pence, Donald Trump’s announced Vice Presidential nominee. Amidst his vies, pence has said that Federal money should go to “conversion therapy programs” rather than to LGBT groups and HIV/AIDS prevention programs. Elsewhere, TIME provides us with Mike Pence’s views on LGBT issues over the years, and we also look as Pence’s apparent questioning of global warming and evolution, as well as the fact that he supports pre-emptive attacks on Iran to neutralize believed threats to Israeli security (for the record, Pence says he’s against Iran nuclear deal, as reported in the Indiana Star on Sept 8, 2015).
Special thanks to those who donated this week, whose contributions help support our efforts.
Robert Price $10
Additional Thank You’s and Societal Greetings:
- Matt Oakely (for sending several stories, and general show prep)
- Mark Brady (for sending news links… and while on vacation, to boot!)
- Janet Fitzgerald (for sending NUMEROUS news briefs on the Nice attacks)
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Finally, here’s a shot from McNonymous’s studio in Iceland, complete with a JAKO filled with Icelandic GULL in the foreground:
And lastly, the image that Micah used to try and fool Mr. McNonymous earlier today, in which the unrest in Turkey led to an apparent lack of interest in the unusual Pokemon visible in the background in the image below:
I think that any comment on the net that has a picture espousing racist remarks with either a gangster looking black guy or a gun brandishing white guy in front of a southern flag is almost 100% of the time a troll or worse a government stooge and I wish people would just ignore these posts because nobody is going to use their real photo in this day and age and risk being ousted as a racist I hope people become aware of this.
Another thing if I’m correct the main event that started the militarization of our police was the North Hollywood Bank Robbery where armed robbers in full body armor got in a shootout with police? Is it a coincidence that this took place in the land of illusions?
You know I find it quite interesting that nobody ever brings up the fact that most gun violence as in bullets actually being shot at and into people is carried out by white males many with legal guns? I have been reading article after article claiming more white people are shot by cops due to them misusing guns to try and dispel racism as the cause, yet the media does not want to point out that then does that in fact mean gun violence is mostly a white issue? White people own more guns than any other race, sell guns more than any other American, and are caught misusing them more than any other people in our country yet go around acting like black people with guns are the problem? Then who do we see on the TV and in the papers trying to take away gun rights? White males, and a lot of them are legal gun owners and legal guns despite what people believe are used in a lot of crimes and shootings involving domestic disputes? A lot of domestic disputes and drunk idiots firing down hill into camp sites that should be included in reports on the misusing of firearms are not even reported to media and many times in my personal experience police are not even called. For example: two of my friends, who are both white, who were roommates got into an argument that resulted in a shoot out between them, but because nobody pressed charges nobody lost any gun ownership and it was never reported in the news. Even though police responded to shots fired nobody was told to lay on the ground no cops held a gun to any of my friends heads and the situation was dealt with like a minor disagreement. The served violation was only for domestic dispute. I have never myself had to deal with police pointing guns at me for any traffic violation even though I am listed as being gang related but my friends who drive certain vehicles with no record or gang affiliation have been pulled out windows and thrown to the ground with guns to their heads and verbally threatened by the racial profiling gang units just for choosing to operate a classic car? So basically I’m noticing what we have going on America is that in neighborhoods with a big minority population the way you dress or the cars you choose to drive are considered by police suspicious behavior and even though I choose to hold myself a certain way just to avoid this bull shit it doesn’t make it right. We should be free to appear anyway we want in a free country. It makes me sick to hear people talk about how the middle east forces people to look a certain way when here in America you basically forfeit your constitutional rights just for choosing to dress in a certain style or drive a certain type of vehicle? But to try and justify cops shooting black people as not racial profiling and not that much of a problem because they shoot more whites; while not pointing out the fact that it is because white males misuse guns more than any other race and then go onto still portray black people and gangs as the main perpetrators of gun violence in our country is absolutely maddening in its hypocritical stupidity? Is this not further proof of a double standard?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2016/07/11/arent-more-white-people-than-black-people-killed-by-police-yes-but-no/?utm_term=.e8e828507cbb
“Police have shot and killed a young black man (ages 18 to 29) — such as Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo. —175 times since January 2015; 24 of them were unarmed. Over that same period, police have shot and killed 172 young white men, 18 of whom were unarmed. Once again, while in raw numbers there were similar totals of white and black victims”
These statistics show, despite population numbers which means nothing other than to try and make Black people look worse, white males are being shot because they are committing crimes and misusing guns just as much yet no commenters or the media are mentioning this because the population statistic makes it ok right? It’s like saying well look how many people are white so even if they commit exactly the same amount of crimes it is justified because we have more people. I see people spouting the population statistic consistently to make the Black community seem worse. I have noticed these statistics doesn’t seem to include gender, rarely have I heard of women committing crimes with guns so if a population has more women than men would that not effect the over all demographic seeing as men commit the most crime? Also simple misuse and domestic disputes and if guns are legal or illegal seems to be ignored across all statistics which I think is because if they showed how many legal guns are used it would ruin the diversion of using guns all the time to sway viewers and voters but who can say that for sure? Also notice no specific age demographic was involved in the white shootings so does that mean they only took a limited range age of black victims to make the numbers seem closer or are they insinuating both as 18-24, what exactly does young white men mean?
Personally I think they do not want our guns seeing how effective they are for agendas and political gain and by keeping them debatable by not making them look too bad or too safe, but just right down the middle where all diversions and dividing lines should lay to put the public to sleep with fairy tales like Goldie Locks and the Three Bear-els. If they took away our guns then how would they get the jelly fish to dance and prance?
Micah,
Wow…thanks for covering my critique of the McNonymous’ domino theory of inviolable amendment repeal in this week’s show!
I realized after I posted it that I double-pasted the quote from Article I, Sec. 8 of the constitution (i.e. it’s the same quote twice) when cleaning-up a draft. D’oh! I thought you’d catch it, at least as a result of verifying the text from the original source, so I didn’t follow-up. Fortunately over the air, a double reading came across like emphasis of the relevant constitutional passages.
I admit I have a bias! To re-emphasize my point, the Second Amendment has been misinterpreted. I see no free-floating individual right to bear arms in the text.
Yet, quoting District of Columbia v. Heller from the quacktivist majority (Scalia, Roberts, Kennedy, Thomas, Alito):
“The Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess a firearm unconnected with service in a militia”
Huh? Then why is the militia even mentioned in the context? It clearly has a militia context, and that context is completely defined elsewhere in the constitution. That’s when “I’ve got to get mad” at people who see an inviolable right that isn’t there.
I’ve lately started using a traffic signal analogy for how conservatives interpret the Second Amendment.
– The traffic signal of the Second Amendment –
Red fresnel: A well regulated militia,
Yellow fresnel: being necessary to the security of a free State,
Green fresnel: the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
For some, unknown reason, conservatives think the traffic signal of the Second Amendment is ALWAYS green. It’s can’t be, unless the founding fathers reveled in codifying superfluousness.
In summary, if the Second Amendment can’t be interpreted reasonably as written, and has lost the force of its original meaning and wisdom, it should be repealed. We will not become a peaceful, modern society until it is!
Sincerely,
a1213
P.S. a1213 is the contraction of “anonymous” and my birthday. I (a male) pronounce it: “A twelve thirteen”. I used it in a MOOC (Massive Open Online Course) awhile ago, and utilize it occasionally for controversial issues just like this.
So, that whole,”the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed” part is to be completely ignored? Wow.
This is statistics from the FBI the most unbiased I could find if you go to this page you can see a break down of individual offenses and notice when we step away from the who gets shot more by police you find despite the media and commenters claiming poor minorities are the problem, that more crime is committed by whites than any other race except murder which is about even with blacks yet nobody will say this and every article headline is something like Guns are not white problems or crime isn’t a problem for whites?
Here are some statistics- Note these are arrests made and do not include non arrests: the statistic for aggravated assault 18 + which means guns were involved 173,204 whites 90,518 Black so against the popular opinion we see guns are everybody’s problem especially whites. If you look at the listing of crimes you find that the only things Black criminals got arrested for more was suspicion, robbery(not by much), and gambling. These statistics do not show up on any of the websites claiming Black people commit more crime by focusing only on murder. When you go down the list you will see whites commit more crime than any other race mostly a lot more even in the 18 and under which I’m guessing is excused because population which to me makes no difference the people who are criminals are criminals it has nothing to do with population and if we just focus on the number of crimes being committed; whites are no better than any other race and you are just as likely to be a victim of a white criminal as any other race so why do all these web pages and commenters try and pretend crime is only a minority issue?
https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2012/crime-in-the-u.s.-2012/tables/43tabledatadecoverviewpdf
Arrests, by Race, 2012
◾In 2012, 69.3 percent of all individuals arrested were white, 28.1 percent were black, and 2.6 percent were of other races.
◾Of all juveniles (persons under the age of 18) arrested in 2012, 65.2 percent were white, 32.2 percent were black, and 2.5 percent were of other races.
◾Of all adults arrested in 2012, 69.7 were white, 27.6 percent were black, and 2.7 percent were of other races.
◾White individuals were arrested more often for violent crimes than individuals of any other race, accounting for 58.7 percent of those arrests.
◾The percentages of black adults and white adults arrested for murder were similar, with 49.3 percent being black and 48.3 percent being white.
◾Black juveniles accounted for 51.5 percent of all juveniles arrested for violent crimes. White juveniles accounted for 61.6 percent of all juveniles arrested for property crimes.
◾Of the juveniles arrested for drug abuse violations, 74.0 percent were white.
◾White juveniles accounted for 55.2 percent of juveniles arrested for aggravated assaults
Looks like guns and criminals are everyone’s problem one thing to point out though is that despite these numbers there are way more Black people in prison?
Here is one of many articles articulating that despite the fact white commit more crimes than any other race they get of the hook with bogus population statistics.
http://www.amren.com/news/2015/07/new-doj-statistics-on-race-and-violent-crime/
bliixx > Abe D. Bonane • a year ago
77% white ~225 million
13% black ~40 million
Whites committed 2,755 murders in 2013.
Blacks committed 2,698 murder in 2013.
So the black population of 13%(~40 million) commits almost as many murders as the white 77%(~225 million) of the population. That’s a 5-to-1 ratio. (This has 133 up votes)
So this moron is saying 77% of whites commit murder vs 13% of Blacks making a statement that reads as every person of both populations is murdering people so 100% of our population is committing murder based on this geniuses math skills? And then not only do people support his claims as a fact and use it as an excuse to make racist statements and say the person who uses the statistics correctly is ill educated for stating “doesn’t this show whites committing more murders”? These uneducated arrogant jellyfish then go on to slap each others asses and make comments about how shitty our education system is? This just proves how belligerently stupid people who have no education in this country really are and yet think they are smarter than people who have an education? Proving arrogance is a disease in our country and just as in Rome when the philosophers watched Socrates put to death for impiety and learned logic and truth holds no bearing in an idiot controlled democracy so is this still true in our country today and it makes it even more sickening being that we are a REPUBLIC. You guys catch the ads for Robotman “our democracy has been high jacked”? What happened to the Republic for which it stands oh that’s right I went to college so I’m the idiot and should let Pastor O’reily dictate to me what’s in the constitution.
So this idiot is stating that 77% of whites commit murder? The entire population? And to all people who make judgments based on population numbers where is the scientific research that correlates population to criminal activity? There is none and unfortunately this is not a simple case of cooking numbers this is pure idiocy and denial; that you could show with actual numbers whites commit more crimes than any other race and then get 133 up votes and a whole section of people bashing a Black educated person for bad math when they ignore a clear number of arrests by using half brained theories propagated by the media thinking they have proved Blacks are worse? All this despite the evidence clearly showing they are not is this not racism? Again if you want to talk about real provable population scenarios lets look at the fact that even though Whites commit more crime than Blacks the prisons have so many black people that quote from an ex federal prisoner, “The other races have to ban together to fight them and are still out numbered.” Is that not proof of racism as well seeing that more Whites have been arrested how is that even possible unless Whites are getting off easy? Holy @#$% I just cannot believe how confidently brain dead Americas have become?
My bad I meant to say 100% commit murder top of final paragraph