Sunday Funnies (final edition)

Sunday Funnies (city edition)

Sunday Funnies (first edition)

A hangman's noose in the boss' office *UPDATED*

(Update, 9:15 a.m. 10/15: Welcome to the many CPS Energy visitors to this blog! Please leave a comment regarding this photograph. Be careful NOT to do so from your workstation, however).


Click for a larger view.

This is a photograph from the cubicle of a supervisor at CPS Energy of San Antonio, "the nation's largest municipally-owned energy company providing both natural gas and electric service", according to their website.

The photo was provided to me by a representative of IBEW, which recently organized eleven employees there in the map support services department. I'll let him tell you the rest:

We set up a meeting with management to discuss the 11 employees that joined the IBEW. I received an e-mail from management telling me that I could not come into their building and represent these employees that exercised their rights to join a labor organization. In the past they had been told by management that salaried employees could not join the union. I sent a letter out to non-members working at CPS Energy and explained to them they had the right to join a union. In the past several months since, a number of salaried employees joined the union. In this department they had a black supervisor that was demoted. He took this picture after his demotion and told another CPS supervisor who was also demoted and showed him the photo (above) of the twelve noose, the old testament and the new version and the split between the bibles so they don’t touch, which is a symbol of white supremacy.

I was showed the picture by several other black employees who were also demoted and asked to find other jobs. We started looking into this and found out that people of color, older employees, Hispanics and white female employees were constructively being moved out of the company. A number of them were forced to take a sum of money to retire and leave the company.

Here is a link to KSAT's video of the story.

Hangman's nooses have been in the news far too frequently of late, as anyone who is familiar with the case of the Jena 6 knows. Another supervisor for a public utility company in Nassau County, New York, was apparently making a similar display at his office about a year ago. Jack and Jill document several noose appearances in just the past two weeks across the country. And it was just last year as well that former Sen. George Allen of Virginia gained infamy for his "macaca" remark and was later revealed to have a ficus tree with a hangman's noose in his law office.

Most interesting to me is that while my source indicates management at CPS was notified about this matter more than once and failed to respond, the CEO of CPS Energy, Milton Lee, is African-American, as is the company's vice president and chief administrative officer, Paula Gold-Williams.

Hangman's nooses shouldn't be on display in the offices of a publicly-owned utility company, or any business, in America in 2007. They shouldn't be displayed anywhere, publicly or privately, but obviously racial tolerance still has a long journey ahead.

Let's take a small step forward by contacting CPS Energy and asking them to instruct this supervisor to remove the noose display from his cubicle. Their e-address is feedback@cpsenergy.com .

Update (10/15): A press conference is scheduled this morning:

An International Union Representative of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW), representing employees of CPS Energy, will make a public statement and take questions from the press concerning the recent discovery that a manager at CPS Energy keeps a hangman’s noose with Ku Klux Klan symbolism in his office. The press conference will take place on Monday, October 15, 2007, at 10:00 a.m. in front of the CPS Energy office at 145 Navarro Street (San Antonio).

An employee discovered the hangman’s noose, photographed it, and informed representatives of the IBEW. A number of minority employees at CPS Energy have suffered adverse personnel actions in recent months and have complained of discrimination. In addition, Union members throughout the CPS Energy workforce have been complaining for months about management’s disregard of established working conditions and acts of retaliation against employees who assert their rights. On October 10, the IBEW’s International Representative was refused entry to CPS Energy offices to meet with management to discuss the deteriorating working conditions at CPS Energy on behalf of employees.

Ralph Merriweather, IBEW International Representative, stated, “The hangman’s noose is the tip of the iceberg. There is a management culture of repression and vindictiveness toward employees throughout CPS Energy. No community can tolerate this kind of hatefulness in a public agency.” Merriweather will address the issue more fully in the Monday morning press conference.

Update (2:15 p.m.) : KSAT.com has a video link to this morning's press conference and reports that the noose has been removed.

An inconvenient Nobel

Inconvenient particularly for the Climate Deniers but also for those who still have a candle lit for a Gore presidency. Two pieces of advice for both parties:

1. Yes, the polar ice is all melted, the polar bears are drowning, we're never going to drill in the ANWR, and you need to re-think that fourth SUV for your kid and those CFLs.

2. It ain't happenin', dreamer. Free your mind and pick one of the candidates who's running (and be happy with your choice).

Congratulations, Mr. Gore.

Sharon Killer's Justice

"Judge Keller's actions denied Michael Richard two constitutional rights, access to the courts and due process, which led to his execution," the complaint states. "Her actions also brought the integrity of the Texas judiciary and of her court into disrepute ... "

Judge Sharon Killer's interpretation of 'justice for all' closes at 5 p.m.

"Justice should be both fair and competent. Here it was not. The result is a man was killed on a day he should have lived," said Chuck Herring, an Austin lawyer who joined in the complaint and who has written on professional ethics and responsibility.

Judge Sharon Killer, who was narrowly re-elected in 2006 over an opponent who barely fielded a challenge, has a longstanding reputation for sending Texans to their death under questionable circumstances.

Judge Sharon Keller, landlord to a Dallas titty bar which has had more than its share of police calls and neighborhood complaints, disagreed with most of her colleagues that a woman whose children burned to death in a accidental fire wasn't criminally responsible.

Keller's killing has failed to draw any response from Texas attorney general Greg Abbott, and two previous attorneys general -- Mark White and Jim Mattox -- have criticized him for his silence.

Sharon "Killer" Keller is way beyond the cartoon conceptions of hanging-tree, Judge Roy Bean, cinematic Texas justice. She is an abomination and a disgrace to the bench, and should resign or be removed from it.

Potential third party candidates Paul and Tancredo

Yesterday's GOP debate (a good wrap-up is here) produced only one surprise: the emergence of a couple of possible challengers to the eventual Republican nominee. Via MyDD, First Read observes that Ron Paul and Tom Tancredo said they might not go along:

Paul and Tancredo said they would not necessarily support the GOP nominee. That is interesting. Does this feeling persist within the Republican Party? Is that bad news for Giuliani? Maybe. Maybe not. Brownback, the "values candidate" said no matter what he would support the nominee -- however grudgingly.

I heard Ron Paul specifically dismiss the possibility of running as a Libertarian in 2008, just last week on the Ed Schultz Show. My own speculation regarding third party challenges is here. Continuing:

... there was the waffling by Ron Paul and Tom Tancredo at the GOP debate about whether they'd support the eventual GOP nominee. Remember, it wouldn't take more than a percentage or two in some states for a third party candidate like Paul or Tancredo to cost the GOP a whole bunch of Bush '04 states out West.

There's also potential for the Christian conservatives to peel off and find a candidate, possibly *choking back maniacal laughter* Rick Santorum.

It appears that the GOP nationally is in the early stages of a major meltdown. Couldn't happen to a nicer bunch.

Let's stop Bush's warrantless wiretapping

While I have my outrage on this morning:

I am one of the 73% of Americans who oppose George Bush's warrantless wiretapping of American citizens in violation of the Fourth Amendment and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 (FISA).

I am outraged that George Bush admits he broke the FISA law at least 30 times by authorizing activities that were illegal -- and I am outraged Congress has not impeached Bush for doing so.

I am outraged that the Bush Administration has lied about its illegal activities for years, especially former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' perjury before Congress -- and I am outraged Gonzales has not been prosecuted for doing so.

I am outraged that George Bush used a false terrorist threat in August to terrorize Congress into legalizing his illegal wiretapping -- and I am outraged Congress has not impeached Bush for doing so.

I am outraged that nearly every Republican and a few dozen Democrats voted for Bush's wiretapping bill.

I therefore demand the following:

(1) Immediate repeal of the "Protect America Act of 2007" enacted in August, or at bare minimum allowing it to expire in January.

(2) Defeat of any further legislation to legalize warrantless wiretapping or give immunity to telephone companies or Bush Administration officials who participated in the illegal wiretapping of American citizens

(3) Prosecution of Alberto Gonzales for lying to Congress when he testified that there was no "serious disagreement" inside the Justice Department over the illegal program, even though then-Attorney General John Ashcroft and his top aides dramatically threatened to resign over the program.

(4) Impeachment of George Bush for violating the Fourth Amendment and FISA over 30 times and for falsely terrorizing Congress into passing the Protect America Act.

(5) Criminal prosecution of Bush, Gonzales, and everyone else who committed these crimes.

Care to join me?

The terrorists on the Right

Easter Lemming has compiled the data, so I don't have to. Read all of it. One of the excerpts and links there is from Hunter at DKos, who also has the outrage:

It's long past time for people to stop treating Fox-style, Malkin-style, Limbaugh-style conservatism as merely a "political" phenomenon. It may once have been, but it isn't now. As of this millennium, it's nothing but a hate movement with neckties. Protofascism with bright, patriotic logos. Stop treating it with anything but revulsion and disdain. Stop pretending for even a bare moment that they are anything more than thugs.

The bile generally accepted as conservative discourse from people like these, and Coulter, and Hannity, and O'Reilly, isn't something that we can continue to ignore.

The BS over the MoveOn advertisement, the "phony soldiers" remark by Limbaugh, the obsession over contrivances like this will not be allowed to dominate the framing of the debate over who is best qualified to lead this nation out of the moral quagmire that Bush led us into, and from which someone will have to extricate us.

We are going to have a debate over how best to end this war, and not over flag lapel pins. We are going to have a debate over how best to address the concerns of climate change, not whether or not it exists or who's responsible for it.

We will progress on the challenges we face, not refuse to acknowledge them or allow ourselves to be preoccupied by inanities.

As citizens we simply no longer have the luxury of being distracted by Cavemen or American Idol; we are now compelled to look at the circumstances created by the unethical leadership which derived from our earlier apathy and begin making improvements to our republican democracy.

Before it collapses on our heads.

Of, By, and For the Corporations

The Federal Communications Commission is doing a swell job communicating with lobbyists, but with the public? Not so good, according to a government report.

The Government Accountability Office says the agency tips off some people with business before the commission in advance about what items are coming up for a vote, usually before the public is notified.

"Situations where some, but not all, stakeholders know what FCC is considering for an upcoming vote undermine the fairness and transparency of the process and constitute a violation of FCC's rules," the GAO said.

Just SOP for an administration run on cronyism.

A small private intelligence company that monitors Islamic terrorist groups obtained a new Osama bin Laden video ahead of its official release last month, and around 10 a.m. on Sept. 7, it notified the Bush administration of its secret acquisition. It gave two senior officials access on the condition that the officials not reveal they had it until the al-Qaeda release.

Within 20 minutes, a range of intelligence agencies had begun downloading it from the company's Web site. By midafternoon that day, the video and a transcript of its audio track had been leaked from within the Bush administration to cable television news and broadcast worldwide.

The founder of the company, the SITE Intelligence Group, says this premature disclosure tipped al-Qaeda to a security breach and destroyed a years-long surveillance operation that the company has used to intercept and pass along secret messages, videos and advance warnings of suicide bombings from the terrorist group's communications network.

Slightly more over the line toward actual recklessness. On par with the outing of Valerie Plame. Of course, when the extent of one's foreign policy expertise is dependent on leaking sensitive, classified information to Fox News sometimes one has to blow valuable intelligence cover in order to do it.

Those who recall the indignity of President Richard Nixon having to declare, in response to a question from the press, “I am not a crook,” must have winced yesterday when President George W. Bush, also talking to the press, was forced to avow, “This government does not torture people.”

That the questions had to be asked speaks volumes in itself. That the answers from both presidents were thoroughly unconvincing says just as much.

Or perhaps Bush was only suggesting that our military and our private contractors may torture people but "this government" does not.

We already knew about the "few bad apples" at Abu Ghraib. But are we still performing extraordinary rendition to countries like Turkey or is "this government" outsourcing torture to firms like Blackwater?

Is this the real reason for having 130,000 soldiers and 180,000 mercenaries? And what is the point of extracting intelligence data by waterboarding if you're going to leak it to the media? To keep the low-grade fear factor going among the general (sheeple) population?

Andrew Sullivan, formerly one of Bush's buddies:

The way in which conservative lawyers, and conservative intellectuals, and conservative journalists aided and abetted these war crimes; the way in which the president of the United States revealed so much contempt for the law that he put a candidate to run the Office of Legal Counsel on probation before he appointed him in order to keep the torture regime in place, the way in which Republicans and Democrats in the Congress pathetically refused to stand up to these violations of American honor and decency in any serious way (and, I'm sorry, Senator McCain, but in the end, you caved, as you always do lately): these will go down in history as some of the most shameful decisions these people ever made. Perhaps a sudden, panicked decision by the president to use torture after 9/11 is understandable if unforgivable. But the relentless, sustained attempt to make torture permanent part of the war-powers of the president, even to the point of abusing the law beyond recognition, removes any benefit of the doubt from these people. And they did it all in secret - and lied about it when Abu Ghraib emerged. They upended two centuries of American humane detention and interrogation practices without even letting us know. And the decision to allow one man - the decider - to pre-empt and knowingly distort the rule of law in order to detain and torture anyone he wants - is a function not of conservatism, but of fascism.

Fascism? I think I've heard that mentioned before. Mussolini: "Fascism should rightly be called Corporatism, as it is the merger of corporate and government power."

There is no doubt - no doubt at all - that these tactics are torture and subject to prosecution as war crimes. We know this because the law is very clear when you don't have war criminals like AEI's John Yoo rewriting it to give one man unchecked power. We know this because the very same techniques - hypothermia, long-time standing, beating - and even the very same term "enhanced interrogation techniques" - "verschaerfte Vernehmung" in the original German - were once prosecuted by American forces as war crimes. The perpetrators were the Gestapo. The penalty was death. You can verify the history here.

We have war criminals in the White House. What are we going to do about it?

What, indeed.