Fresh Loaf

On Friday, crybabyquitter ex-Gov. Sarah Palin typed some foam-mouthed gibberish on her Facebook page about Obama creating “death panels” to kill old people and her babies.

Speaking to the Washington Post’s Ezra Klein, Sen. Johnny Isakson said Palin’s comment was “nuts.”

I just had a phone call where someone said Sarah Palin’s web site had talked about the House bill having death panels on it where people would be euthanized. How someone could take an end of life directive or a living will as that is nuts. You’re putting the authority in the individual rather than the government. I don’t know how that got so mixed up.

Hooray for sanity.

It’s a shame Isakson speaking a simple truth is newsworthy, but the fact is there aren’t many Republicans willing to go on the record calling-out Palin for her endless shitstream of vile stupidity.

Two days ago, Newt Gingrich had ample opportunity to disagree with Palin’s blatantly false smear when he appeared on ABC’s This Week With George Stuffing Envelopes, Newt Gingrich chickened out.

(Photo by Joeff Davis)

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I arrived too late to get inside Rep. Hank Johnson’s town hall forum on federal health care reform.

I did, however, walk around outside to snap a few pictures.

Some observations.

More than nine of 10 people waiting in line at the event were white.

Georgia 4th Congressional District, which Johnson represents, is 53 percent black and 35 percent white. In other words, the crowd was 2.7x whiter than the district. I posted several wide shots of the crowd on my Flickr page, so you can check my math.

Does that mean the crowd was packed with Republicans?

Sort of.

When a Georgia crowd is 2.7x whiter than expected, it almost certainly means the crowd had a higher proportion of Republican than the district does.

But it doesn’t mean the crowd was dominated by people who oppose the health care proposals going through Congress.

On the contrary, I saw many more signs expressing support for health care reform and Democratic positions than I saw signs opposing.

I also counted the license plates of cars parked in four randomly selected rows of the parking lot and didn’t see any evidence of “astroturfers” flooding in from more conservative suburban Congressional districts.

By the way, I heard plenty of debating among people in line. For the most part, people were very polite.

If you want to know what happened inside the meeting, ask GriftDrift.

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Wonk Room reports, and a phone call confirms, someone spray-painted a black swastika on the sign outside Rep. David Scott’s Smyrna office. Scott’s press assistant, Jennifer Wright, says it happened overnight.

Yesterday Rep. Scott told Fox News some of the critical mail he has received at this office has “racial overtones.“

Scott has been the target of right-wing blogospheric scorn since he stood up at a public meeting in Douglasville last weekend and accused some in the audience of “hijacking” the event.

Afterwards, Scott told reporters he was upset at the people who kept asking about health care because the event was intended as an opportunity for the community to comment on a controversial local road project.

Update:

Here’s a clip of Rep. Scott on Fox News discussed the vandal attack.

(Thank you Jason Pye for finding the link.)

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Many of the same people responsible for Atlanta’s Tea Party protests will gather downtown Saturday for an event called America’s Health Care Town Hall.

Don’t be fooled by the name.

Of the 17 hosts, speakers and panelists scheduled to speak, not one appears to support health care reform.

Not one.

It’s instead a roster of Republican Party politicians (past and present), Baracknophobic “Tea Party” organizers, and industry lobbyists.

This gathering isn’t America’s anything. It’s an advertisement opposing health care reform and a Republican Party Pep rally. They should be honest and call it what it is.

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Sad news for people who like to publicly insult others.

Conservative political blog Peach Pundit says he’s changing Peach Pundit’s comments infrastructure to reduce the number of personal attacks.

Bossman Erick Erickson:

For the past few months things in our comment threads have really gotten out of hand [. . .] They have descending into ad hominem chaos.

You know its bad when “goat fucking child molester” guy thinks a website is too ad hominemy.

Don’t despair.

If you’re hell-bent on calling your fellow citizens Nazis, Communists, racists, reverse racists, child molesters or you’re simply irate about President Obama’s plan to euthanize the elderly and Sarah Palin’s babies, you’re in luck:

Rep. Hank Johnson is hosting a town hall meeting tonight to discuss federal healthcare policy.

Correction: The first version of this post incorrectly stated the comments were shut down.

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I’m trying to buy myself a Wise Latina t-shirt on CafePress but none of the good designs are available in men’s sizes. That’s sexist.

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This week’s cover story in the Economist is about the U.S.’s ill-conceived and counterproductive sex laws.

The story focuses not just on Georgia, but also on Wendy Whitaker – who is considered a sex offender in Georgia because when she was a 17 year-old girl she was caught performing consensual oral sex on a 15-year-old boy.

It’s an excellent story, and a reminder to re-read Scott Henry’s also excellent 2006 CL story about Whitaker.

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This writer has noticed, and Silicon Alley Insider confirms, Twitter is down. Facebook also seems to be acting wacky this a.m.

If it stays down for three more hours, I may finish my Don’t Panic! column on time for a change!

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In case you missed it, here’s Kathleen Parker’s much talked about Washington Post op-ed calling out the G.O.P. for its over-reliance on angry, ignorant southerners.

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Forbes says Atlanta is the 31st best city in the U.S. for working moms.

I have no idea what the ranking means or what I or anyone else is supposed to do with the information.

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Southern Voice reports local gay activist and former director of Georgia Equality Allen Thornell died this morning after suffering a stroke.

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Georgia’s top conservative political blog gets funnier with each passing day. Perhaps not intentionally.

Peach Pundit chief Erick Erickson revoked contributor Andre Walker’s front-page posting privileges Saturday. Erickson says Walker violated one of Peach Pundit’s most important rules:

Says Erickson:

[W]e have never tolerated and won’t tolerate the use of expletives like the F word in front page posts. We may say the word, but we try here to keep the posts family friendly. I’d redacted the word from Andre’s post and apologize to those of you who encountered it in your reading.

What did Walker say that so offended Erickson?

Walker wrote a post Saturday quoting Erickson’s notorious April 30 outburst – the one where Erickson called retiring Supreme Court Justice David Souter “a goat fucking child molester.”

Peach Pundit chief Erick Erickson

In other words, Erick banned himself.

(Photo by Joeff Davis)

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Perception of Crime Watch® has gone bipartisan!

Look what just showed up in Jim Wooten’s Thinking Right blog:

Oh, car hijackee and Atlanta City Councilman Ceasar Mitchell, was not the victim of crime; he was the victim of perception of crime.

How about that!

Perception of Crime Watch® is on the brink of becoming the most popular Atlanta Internet crime watch meme since mid-2007’s wildly popular I Can Has Crime Wave.

Don’t forget: Perception of Crime Watch is also on Twitter. Just add #pocatl to your posts and you, too, can join the fun.

(Thank you @mattgove finding the Wooten link and the bipartisanship)

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The police chief spoke out today to reassure a frightened public after a high-profile crime.

Not Atlanta Police Chief Richard Pennington.

Don’t be ridiculous.

He would never do something as leadership-ish as that.

I’m talking about Decatur police Chief J.M. Booker.

A carjacking in Decatur’s Oakhurst neighborhood shortly before noon today has city residents on edge.

Chief Booker signed-in at Decatur Metro this afternoon to tell readers he recognizes how unsettling today’s incident was.

Atlantans take note: Decatur’s police chief managed to get through his entire letter without once mocking his fellow Decaturites. He didn’t tell Decaturites their fears are based on the mere perception of crime, nor did he brag about how awesome Decatur is.

He didn’t even mention baseball!

He said today’s carjacking troubled him a great deal and that he and his department are busting their collective backside to catch the people responsible.

An actual, sincere expression of concern about crime, without a hint of smug defiance or phony indignation. How about that?

You should try it sometime, Shirley and Richard.

And not just when celebrities get killed either.

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Jason Lee was pulling up to his girlfriend’s Edgewood home from the grocery store Saturday night when he was approached by three armed young men who demanded his car keys.

Lee gave the robbers his car keys and turned to go inside, at which point he was shot in the back. Lee is in stable condition. He spoke to WSB-TV from his hospital bed yesterday.

Here’s a chilling excerpt from a note Lee’s girlfriend posted to a neighborhood board:

I jumped in the car to take him to the hospital and as we took a right on LaFrance the three kids were casually walking down the street. I was on the phone with the police at the time and told them…but we know how that goes.

(Note: The original post omitted the victim’s name. Because he spoke to WSB-TV, I revised the post).

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Former boxing champion Vernon Forrest was gunned down during a robbery Saturday night that began when he stopped at the Chevron on Whitehall Street south of downtown to fill his car tires with air.

His manager told 11 Alive news Forrest chased after a group of men after they stole his wallet. Unable to catch them, he began to head back to the gas station, at which point he was shot repeatedly in the back. Suspects were seen fleeing in a red Chevrolet Monte Carlo.

Fans, friends, and colleagues say Forrest wasn’t just a gifted boxer, but an uncommonly kind-hearted, compassionate individual.

From Kieran Mulvaney, who covers boxing for ESPN:

In popular imagination, boxing is full of snakes, back-stabbers and thieves. Personal observation lends credence to the caricature, but also reveals another side of the sport that outsiders often miss: It is also full of kindness and consideration, an admittedly dysfunctional extended family whose members look out for one another in times of need.

People are almost invariably surprised to hear me say this, but some of the nicest people I have ever met are professional fighters.

Even by that standard, however, Vernon Forrest stood out.

Read the rest.

And thank you Scott Freeman for the link.

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The AJC reports boxer Vernon Forrest was shot and killed at 11:00 P.M. last night during a shoot-out that began after Forrest was robbed when he stopped at the Chevron on Whitehall Street (one block south of Castleberry Hill). The perceived killers have not been arrested.

21 hours earlier*, less than three miles away, Atlanta councilman Ceasar Mitchell was carjacked at gunpoint. His car was recovered, but the perceived carjackers haven’t been caught.

Neither the Mayor’s office nor the police department have issued any public statements** about these perceived crimes as neither involved a baseball bat metaphor.

(*Correction: The original post incorrectly stated when Mitchell was carjacked. Thanks to eagle-eyed CL reader S. Dekalb Voter for catching the error.)

(**See comments below for mayor’s statement.)

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This is a tip and challenge to every local Republican and/or self-described conservative with a platform from which to pontificate.

For months many of you have said you oppose the Obama/Democrat expansion of government power in part because you think growing government diminishes personal freedom.

If you want me to believe your interest in personal freedom is sincere, you’ll loudly declare your alliance with Henry Louis Gates, as well as declaring your outrage at his arrest.

You’ll also shun the Drudge-y temptation to turn the cop who arrested Gates into another fake conservative folk hero a la  Joe The Plumber.

If you think it’s okay for a cop to arrest someone for being angry or irritable (justifiably, or otherwise), you are not a conservative, you have no interest in curbing government power, and you don’t give a damn about personal freedom.

If principle doesn’t compel you, do it for your own self-interest. If you want black, brown and beige voters to ever consider voting for you, shun the white, bullying government employee and embrace the innocent black victim. Just once.

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Speaking on KCRW’s To The Point yesterday, Winslow Wheeler, Director of the Straus Military Reform Project, Center for Defense Information, had some harsh words for Sen. Saxby Chambliss and his failed effort to save the Marietta-made F-22 fighter jet.

Wheeler described Chambliss’s failed maneuvering to save the pricey-but-unusable jet as “disingenuous” and a “total dishonor” because Chambliss proposed paying for the plane with money set aside for vital support of U.S. troops in battle.

A partial transcript:

Q: Would the money save by not building more F-22s necessarily go to helping the troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Wheeler: Yes, in this case, because of the very disingenuous way that these airplanes are paid for in Sen. Saxby Chambliss’s amendment. He didn’t add money to the bill to pay for [the F-22]. He raided other accounts.

And to his total dishonor, one of the accounts he raided for $850 million was the operation and maintenance account. That’s the kind of thing that pays for training, and depot maintenance and gasoline –the kind of thing that is the true hard-core support for troops deployed in the field.

You can hear the entire program at KCRW’s web site. The conversation with Wheeler about the F-22 starts about one minute in and lasts for about six minutes.

(Photo by Joeff Davis)

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Now that AirTran (along with Delta, and several other airlines) offers in-flight Wi-Fi, the Atlanta-based carrier features an exceedingly gentle and roundabout reminder on its web site asking passengers not to watch porn on crowded airplanes.

The reminder appears on AirTran’s Internetiquette page, a primer on overal in-flight Wi-Fi politeness.

Movie and TV buffs might appreciate the site’s mock PSA videos. They feature actor Peter Graves reviving his memorable deadpan comedic role Captain Clarence Oveur, pilot of the doomed airliner in the 1980 disaster comedy Airplane!

Here’s Graves in one of Airplane!’s best and most frequently quoted scenes:

(Tip of my captain’s hat to Jim V. who spotted former 99Xer Steve Barnes in the commercial).

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Question 1: Where do accused killers go when they escape police custody?

18 year-old Matthew Wells went to his girlfriend’s house after he escaped Atlanta Police custody on July 8. You may recall, Wells gave a tender on-camera shout-out to his girlfriend after he was captured.

Still no word on why it took approximately 20 hours for the Atlanta Police Department to notify the public of Wells’ escape. I suspect there never will be.

Question 2: Where do designer jeans go after they’re stolen in-bulk from Atlanta area clothing stores?

They cover the asses of amoral people who turn a blind eye to blatant theft.

In the past, I’ve predicted the mass theft of flat-screen TVs will revive the market for large, difficult-to-steal tube televisions. Now, I’m starting to wonder if Toughskins are poised for a comeback.

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After Iran’s nascent green revolution was forced from America’s collective consciousness by Gov. Mark Sanford’s public loss of virginity, Michael Jackson beating it, and Sarah Palin quitting to prove she’s no quitter, many of my friends were dismayed. Quite a few of them complained about how titillating news is always pushing important news out of the limelight.

For a long time, I thought obsessing on nonsense was a luxury enjoyed by prosperous, peaceful societies. Humans are born with enough mental capacity to hunt for food and fight off predators and rivals. Because our society is prosperous and orderly, I thought, we Americans can’t help but devote our unused mental capacity to stupid things like “The Real Housewives of New Jersey.” OMG, have you seen Danielle’s sex tape? OMG, she’s so trashy!

Continue reading Don’t Panic!

(Illustration by Andisheh Nouraee)

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What’s the opposite of a crime wave?

A crime pit? A trough? A divot?

Whatever you call it, much of the country outside Atlanta is experiencing one. Both violent AND property crimes have dropped. Lucky them.

Today’s Washington Post has a story about the Not-lanta crime divot. This bit about police technology stuck out to me:

In Prince George’s, for example, the department’s top commanders get mobile phone updates on crimes and 911 calls every 15 minutes.

In New York, when someone is killed, police send a mobile data center to a neighborhood, allowing police on the scene to listen to 911 calls and immediately search databases that list the names of everyone in a certain building who is on parole.

In the District, the department creates a weekly “Go-Go report,” which details where and when home-grown bands are playing, because go-go concerts often bring together rival gangs, causing violence, Lanier said. There is also a weekly gang report that tells officers which gangs or crews are feuding that week.

Armed with that information, police can better predict where crimes might happen and take measures to prevent them.

Do we do anything like this in Atlanta? If the city has real-time crime tracking, why does it take months for the department to give crime information to the public? The most recent crime stats on APD’s web site are from April.

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From the AJC:

Obama, “our globe-trotting president,” Miller said, “needs to stop and take a break and quit gallivanting all around. I think (chief of staff) Rahm Emanuel ought to get some Gorilla Glue and put it in that chair in the Oval Office and say ‘Sit here awhile.’”

Ugh.

(Photo by Joeff Davis)

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@GriftDrift says there’s a jumper on the Downtown Connector’s Peachtree Street overpass.

UPDATE: AJC.com says Downtown Connector northbound is closed at Ralph McGill.

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