So, campaign to smear Michael Brown as an excuse for shooting an unarmed teen in the middle of a street continues. Err, unarmed BLACK teen. Can’t forget that. If it were an unarmed WHITE teen, well, we wouldn’t be having any discussion about this. In the last episode, the right wing nut jobs were claiming Michael Brown had a juvenile conviction for murder. The St. Louis County Juvenile Authority pointed out that juvenile convictions for murder were open records and there was no record of such. Then they claimed that Michael Brown had been charged with murder. The St. Louis County Juvenile Authority once again pointed out that serious felony charges against juveniles over age 12 are open records in Missouri and there was no such record. The right wing blogger who started the lawsuit then whined that okay, but did he have a conviction for truancy or jaywalking. At which point, (eyeroll). WTF does that have to do with anything? C’mon, truancy?!
So anyhow, right wingnuts have been circulating this picture of police officer Darren Wilson after his encounter with Michael Brown:
There’s only one problem: Here is a picture of Officer Darren Wilson, from the City of Ferguson web site, taken at an awards ceremony where he was receiving some award for service:
Err, that first guy is not this second guy Not the same hair, not the same facial shape, just not him. Hmm. So who is that first guy?
It turns out that the first guy is motocross rider Jim McNeil, who died in 2011 from injuries incurred when he crashed during a stunt exhibition (the picture is from a crash in 2006, however). In other words, right wing liars like radio host Larry Elder and right wing blogger Charles C. Johnson are using the photo of a man who died three years ago to say that it’s fully justified to shoot an unarmed black man down like a stray dog.
The reality is that it’s pretty much impossible for what the Ferguson Police claim happened to actually have happened. You cannot simply open a police car’s door from outside the police car. You cannot reach a police officer’s service weapon from outside the car, it’s on his inside hip, next to the drive shaft tunnel. And there is a simple solution if someone does reach into the window and tries to assault a police officer: step on the gas, then call for backup from a safe distance. A personal automobile with an open road in front of it pretty much is the closest thing to a tank outside of an actual tank, you’re not going to get into it unless the person inside the vehicle wants you to get into it or deliberately opens the door.
I don’t know what actually happened there. But I do know smear campaigns when I see them, and both the Ferguson police statements, and the right wing nut job attempts to paint Michael Brown as a “thug”, are the most vile right wing smear job that I’ve seen since the Swift Boaters revved up their motors and painted a war hero as a coward and a draft dodger as a hero. Truth doesn’t seem to matter to right wingers. It’s all a game to them, a game where anything goes and truth is just one of those quaint old fashioned values that don’t matter. I suppose their heroes Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan (who often made up stories that were total lies, such as the welfare queen who made $150,000/year) taught them this. So it goes. So it goes.
– Badtux the Lie-detector Penguin
All though similar wingers are truly different in that they cheat better than the other guys. they lie and steal just as well and if none of that works they’ll fucking kill you if they have to.
Being dead and being swift boated sucks. Being alive and being swift boated is one thing and not fighting back is another. Fuck ‘ol Horseface too while we’re at it this morning.
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Lies are one thing but then there is stupid. Pols from both parties lie but the repubs seem to have a choke hold on stupid.
“Trees cause more pollution than automobiles do.” — Ronald Reagan, 1981
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So the way I read the articles, all cops are bad? Or just white cops? But what happened to our court system? Why can we not wait to get the “real story” and convict the guilty party. Why the rush n haste to convict prior to trial? But the rule of the meanest will prevail when the tea party wins because of the next limits on our personal freedom. Whether the cop was guilty of excessive force, or the victim was aggressor which initiated the excessive force, is racist? how?
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The problem is that there is a culture of lying in our police forces. Don’t deny it, there is. I’ve been there, done that, seen that, had a cop lie on my behalf (because I’m white) and say I said things I most definitely did not say but that he wished I had said because it made his life easier. They even have a word for it, “testi-lying”. Again, go read Radley Balko. One reason cops are so pissed about people video-recording their interactions is that now there’s evidence that they’re lying, which they hate, hate, hate, hate, hate. I mean, c’mon. Why *else* would they get so pissed about being video-recorded, so pissed that they’ve been sued in virtually every city of the nation for assaulting people who are video-recording them?
As for what happened, all I know is that the “facts” stated don’t match physical reality. I don’t know what happened when Darren Wilson opened the door to his police cruiser and pulled his gun, but I do know that he *did* open the door to that cruiser and pulled his gun, because that’s the only way that the gun would be close enough to Michael Brown for Michael Brown to grab — despite the bullshit story that somehow Michael Brown reached across his body with elastic arms while Darren Wilson sat in the cruiser and somehow tried to disarm Darren Wilson as he sat in his cruiser.
It doesn’t take a trial to spot that story (b) is total bullshit, just a knowledge that people’s arms aren’t made of elastic rubber.
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memeorandum two wks. ago:
One “source” lies, the others swear to it. I doubt if any of them have changed the story since.
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Better yet, i’ll bet you it really some one elses fault. And I would blame the press. And how they are trying to stir up a story. go to kmbc.com/men-swarm-and-attack, not called a racial attack, but low keying thugs as beating up some other poor white guy caught in their neighborhood. Why? If they were like me, thats where the better fried chicken is sold. Or like the Chinese neighborhood where there is the better tasting Chinese food without the massive doses of MSG. But this discourages my kind from utilizing the businesses there, Why? I’m one of the least race cultured people out here, because there are business that do what I want them hired for, ability counts, not race.
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Jim, the entire story is outing attempts to use lies or made-up facts to attack the victim. You ignore that and rant on about judgements being made against the shooter (victim and shooter are well defined roles and proven, but I expect you to go ahead and argue about it). Jim, please get help, and not from NewsMax.
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Pretty much, CP. I was focusing on the efforts of right wing bloggers, radio hosts, and the Ferguson Police Department to smear the victim as a “thug” as an excuse for shooting an unarmed man in the middle of a street. I see nothing smearing Officer Darren Wilson in what I’ve wrote. I criticized the Ferguson Police Department for throwing out a bullshit story to justify the shooting (and also for starting the smear campaign against Michael Brown by claiming he robbed a store despite the fact that neither the owner of the store nor the clerk who works at the store called the police or pressed charges when the police showed up unsolicited), but that is a criticism of the Ferguson Police Department, not of Officer Darren Wilson, who has made no statements and made no attempt to smear the victim as far as I know.
I do not know what actually happened on that street. I do, however, know bullshit when people spew it, and I also recognize barely disguised racism when I see it. These people are pulling out every racist stereotype in their inventory of racist stereotypes and throwing them at a wall to see what sticks. It’s ugly, it’s disgusting, it’s vile, and it’s un-American to smear a dead man who has no ability to defend himself in such a blatant manner.
– Badtux the Sickened by Racism Penguin
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I don’t know if I should be outraged at being told lies that flimsy, or grateful.
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The sad thing is that the right-wing Kool-aid drinkers will look at the picture on top and swear on their Momma’s Bible that it’s the same person as the picture on the bottom. “He was beaten beyond recognition!” they’ll whine. Sigh. You can’t fix Stupid. Unless Stupid is a cat.
– Badtux the Non-koolaid-drinkin’ Penguin
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The people who looked at those two pics and thought they were the same guy must have face blindness. Less than 3% of the population is supposed to suffer from it, but from anecdotal experience, I’ve run into dozens who have it which makes me wonder if that number is a bit low.
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More like willful blindness. They want it to be true, so it’s true.
– Badtux the “Seeing what you want to see” Penguin
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Oh it’s better than that, badtux. That cop got the blonde beat out of him!
And fear not stubborn stupidity. When you mock a fool, you won’t convince him, and you’ll look like a fool yourself, but you might amuse, and thus win over, the people watching both of you. The trick is to be the _funnier_ fool.
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One comment: the cop’s weapon is not always between the cop and the tranny. If the cop is left-handed, the gun is on the left… wedged between the donut aftermath and the door, and hence even LESS accessible.
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Looking at the photos of Officer Darren Wilson walking with a black pride parade from last year, he carries his service weapon on the right. He’s also fairly tall and built, looming over the people nearby him, and while he seems to be carrying a few extra pounds he’s nowhere near the donut stereotype, there’s more muscle than blubber. The receding hairline might make him look nerdy, but the rest of the package certainly isn’t. My gay friends might call him a hunk.
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