Norwegianity

Easily the biggest news of the day, the L.A. Times has broken a story about the deaths of over 100 young L.A. women of color who were murdered by serial killers during the 1984-1993 time period.

The Times neglects, of course, to remind us that the crack cocaine epidemic that fueled this lawlessness was in part thanks to the CIA’s Contra-cocaine smuggling-fundraising.

One-hundred dead young women of color because Elliot Abrams, Ollie North and the rest of Reagan’s foreign policy fascists thought it was clever to finance counter-revolution by smugging drugs into this country.

Jobs had vanished. Crack cocaine, a new drug so powerful and profitable it was worth dying over, ravaged the neighborhood. Gangs carved up the streets. The LAPD recorded a violent crime every eight minutes. It was a world, the prosecutor told the jury, in which “life itself is degraded.”

It was a world in which people could be killed with impunity.

The recent arrest of another man accused of being a serial killer active in that era, Lonnie David Franklin Jr. — allegedly the long-sought Grim Sleeper — prompted jubilation and noisy public pronouncements. The celebrations served to obscure, once again, a terrible truth about South Los Angeles: During a 10-year period beginning in 1984, multiple serial killers operated there, all of them targeting young, poor, African American women.

All told, between 1984 and 1993, LAPD detectives estimate that more than 100 women, almost all African American, were killed in South L.A. and the surrounding neighborhoods.

Some of the cases have been solved; others remain open. Detectives say many are tied to five serial killers operating in the area.

Cunts, and I mean that in the UK and not the anatomical sense of the word, and I’m referencing the CIA cocaine cowboys, not the only slightly less depraved serial killers. Not to mention the thumpers who’ve been running L.A.’s police department since before the water wars of the early 20th Century. L.A. had 757 murders in 1984, not to mention over 50,000 violent crimes, none of which resulted in improved social services funding or poverty abatement measures of any kind.

Just more thumping. Because that worked really, really well. Just like the NRA-assisted gun crazies upgrading L.A. gangs from revolvers to automatic weapons helped to further exacerbate the insanity. Oh, and did I mention ALL the victims were black? Not that southern California racism had anything to do with that although L.A. did its best to label them all as “prostitution murders,” despite the fact that many of the victims were church-going and normally employed.

The serial killers? Not only did they mostly get away with it, they inspired a new killer called the Grim Sleeper. He was finally arrested just last month.

The poor need police protection the most, but we live in a gated country where most of the law enforcement focus is now on protecting property and the good parts of town. The poor and disenfranchised? Fuck ‘em if they care so little about their children that they don’t up and move to a better part of town.

Minneapolis went through its murder craze in the ’90s, and because people were getting shot on Lake Street, police budgets in all the ‘burbs went up, up, up.

Because protecting upper class kids is always job 1.

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One important part of our economic recovery is getting small businesses back on their feet. Congress has a bill for that, a bill written in part by various Republicans who now refuse to vote for it because god fucking forbid we experience any jobs recovery before the fall elections.

But if I say “Kill the rich” that would be rude and unacceptable. No matter how many Republican members of Congress call for war critics to be executed.

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I’m beginning to sincerely loathe Ruth Marcus. Politically tone deaf and subject to the sociopathic hate memes that flutter through the WaPost editorial offices (blown in from the WaTimes, no doubt), she’s usually the first to attack Democrats for the crime of being attacked by Republicans.

Yes, Charlie Rangel is a scumbag who needs to go (Gang of Four?), but Maxine Waters is a totally different matter, not that Marcus noticed.

This may sound both harsh and glib. I’m certainly not suggesting that most lawmakers are as heedless of ethics rules as Rangel and Waters appear to have been — although many members of the public appear disposed to believe so, and the seemingly endless stream of ethics revelations reinforces this misperception.

No, actually it sounds superficial and stenographic. Rangel and Waters joined at the hip? Sure, just like Dick Cheney and Dick Lugar are exact identical twins. Not. Waters was fighting to keep banks open that served depressed parts of L.A. Her husband put their money where her mouth was, risking the family fortune to keep banks open that actually served their communities. That’s what the establishment calls a conflict of interest. Voting for war when all your biggest campaign donors are munitions makers? Business as usual.

[Here's another WaPost blog, scroll down to the jawdropping conclusion.]

And god forbid that any WaPost columnist EVER mention John staff-fucker Ensign., or that they ever notice that Jane Harmon is — by WaPost standards — far more corrupt than the constituent service-oriented Waters.

Waters is DEMANDING that the charges be made public (instead of merely leaked) and that her case be investigated before November’s election. The Ethics Committee held this charge for a year before bringing it, and they should have to answer for their timing, as well as their bizarre sense of propriety. (And yes, this reeks of Rahm.)

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Red State Update talks about racism.

No particular reason because as we all know, this is the least racist country in central North America.

Why just last Thursday a Randall Terry led mob lynched an effigy of the notoriously whitebread Senator Lindsey Graham. And in response to criticism, Anchorage police are urging Alaskans to stop using tasers . . . on bears. And in California last weekend the call for teabaggers to bring their dogs to a new mosque opening only turned out one dog.

More from the folks who got Left Behind (shhh! don’t tell them!):

Palin’s lose-lose clusterfuck in AK

Fox execs kiss Jewish ass after yet another Beck blooper (update)

Video of Ken Buck insisting children give birth to their rapist-father’s baby

119 rounds of golf in one year while working “full-time”

Upcoming teabagger news alerts via Tom Tomorrow (here’s one already in progress)

Pastor Tom Brock likes to talk about gay sex (a lot)

Chamber of Commerce splits over an outbreak of sanity within their ranks

World Net Daily currently has SEVEN BIRTHER STORIES ON THEIR FRONT PAGE

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More politics:

Scott Horton on our neoconservative legacy

Obama freezes bonuses for political appointees (because Democrats include themselves when they call for sacrifices)

The Target donation to Emmer catches Mother Jones’ attention

Time thrilled that their war porn cover has “provoked” talk about the war

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Etc.:

Critics claim old people don’t “get” Inception (if you read the article, you get the feeling that the few remaining movie critics out there are due to be replaced by younger people)

A study says people don’t like modern classical because their brains can’t cope with it (I have quite a bit of this stuff and it’s very rewarding, but often not on the first listening — imho some of the greatest music is not immediately accessible and I can give you examples from every format, not just modern classical)

Roy Edroso on the decision to let the mosque be built, and the racist response

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The case against Koua Fong Lee, R.I.P.

City of St. Paul mechanic Michael Churchich told the jury at Lee’s 1997 trial that Lee’s car did not have an ABS system. Hilliard projected a large slide on a screen in the courtroom Tuesday, showing a photo of a car part; Sero used a laser pointer to show where the system was.

“Any trained mechanic can walk up and look at a car and say, ‘Yep, it’s there,’ ” Sero said.

An anti-lock brake system equalizes the speeds of the wheels, Sero said, but a car in a wide-open throttle condition, as he believes Lee’s car was in, “doesn’t know what to do.”

Basically, he said, when the throttle is open, the brakes “won’t try to stop the car.”

Sero also said the anti-lock braking system uses a vacuum assist, so that minimal force on the brake will stop the car.

But the vacuum is quickly depleted when the engine is racing, he said.

“If the throttle is open, you get 1 1/2 pumps off the brake, then the vacuum is gone,” he said. “After that, you have no vacuum assist left because the engine is sucking everything.”

Lee testified he was pumping the brakes just before the collision, trying to get his car to stop, but that the brakes did not appear to be working.

He smashed into the back of an Oldsmobile stopped at a red light at Snelling. Three people in the Oldsmobile died.

Mark Lystig, an assistant Ramsey County attorney, questioned Sero on his qualifications. He also homed in on Sero’s conclusion about which car was hit first — pointing out that three or four other investigators had said the opposite.

Lystig did not question Sero about his conclusion that Churchich was wrong about the brakes.

Again, testimony from a city mechanic, who in the course of his normal work would never ever touch a foreign-made car, sealed the case against Koua Fong Lee. If Sero is lying about the ABS system, Ramsey County will have absolutely no trouble proving that and then prosecuting Sero for perjury. That ain’t gonna happen because Sero is speaking truth to some guy who drew the short straw and is now trying to keep the Ramsey County Attorney’s office from looking totally racist and criminally petulant.

Churchich’s professional competency has been challenged and if Sero’s testimony is upheld, an investigation into Lee’s prosecutors should be conducted to see how the Gaertner-selected team justified sticking it to Lee for eight years when DWI murderers get out in 18 months.

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And a special bonus just for Minnesota Vikings fans: Matt Taibbi on Bret Favre!