Dept. of Kids So Need Mommies and/or Daddies

Because no one could have predicted Mommy would lock her son in a closet for four and a half years.

OKLAHOMA CITY – A woman was arrested after her 14-year-son told authorities he escaped from a home where he'd been kept for 4 1/2 years, spending most of his time locked in a bedroom closet, police said Monday.

A security guard at a National Guard facility in Oklahoma City called police on Friday after the teen showed up malnourished and with numerous scars and other signs of abuse, police Sgt. Gary Knight said.

"He was hungry. He was dirty. He had numerous scars on his body," Knight said. "It was very sad."

The boy was taken to a hospital to be examined and then turned over to the custody of the Department of Human Services, Knight said.

After police interviews, officers on Saturday arrested the boy's mother, 37-year-old LaRhonda Marie McCall, and a friend, 38-year-old Steve Vern Hamilton, on 20 complaints each of child abuse and child neglect. Formal charges have not been filed, and both were being held on $400,000 bond, according to jail records.

Jail officials were not sure if either had retained an attorney, and no one answered the phone at McCall's home.

The teen, wearing only a pair of oversized shorts held up by a belt, walked up to a security guard at the Guard facility around 5 p.m. Friday and asked where a police station was located so he could report being abused, according to a police report.

He told police that scars on his stomach and torso were from where alcohol had been poured on him and set on fire. Other scars were from being tied up, hit with an extension cord and choked, the boy told police.

"He had scars covering most of his body," Knight said. "They were basically from head to foot."

The teen told police he moved to the Oklahoma City area from New Jersey about 4 1/2 years ago after his mother was released from jail. Since arriving in Oklahoma, he said, he had never been to school and spent most of his time locked in a bedroom closet.

If Your Spouse Beats the Crap Out of You = It's All Your Fault! Thus, It's a Pre-Existing Condition!!

So, really, haha, boyz and girlz.

Just suck it up. Whatever happens, suck it up!!

Billionaires for WealthCare at The Million Moran March

Be a Billionaire!

Save the status quo!

Because our dear Denial Death Panels really make a killing!

Stay Classy, Mob-GOPS

Rabid Right Mommy Scared Timid Centrist Prez Is Really Tulku of Mao-Tse Tung

How can people be so f*cking stupid?

Really.

Hey, Boys and Girls! It's Time to Mercenary-Up the Army! Privatize Cooks at Twice the Price, at Taxpayers' Expense!

You see, the military is a non-profit organization. Although the military-industrial complex so feared by that commie, Eisenhower, isn't.

So, if you don't want to seem like you're adding more troops in Afghanistan, you can outsource support staff to profit-making outfits, who charges twice the price, and can also do whateverthef*ck they want.

It's WIN-WIN-WIN!


(Which party won the election?)

Crappy "Christian' Prays Prez Dies of Brain Cancer

What would Jesus do?

You know, I'm Buddhist, but I had actually thought that the whole Golden Rule teachings of Jesus were not optional.

Family Friend Babysitter Causes "Severe Internal Injuries" to 4 Year Old

PORTSMOUTH - Police are seeking a man who is accused of causing severe internal injuries to a four-year-old boy.

It was determined that the juvenile suffered severe internal injuries and minor external injuries. . ," Doyle said.

Lorenzo R. Clark, Sr., 26, of Channing Avenue in Portsmouth, VA, is wanted on a charge of felony child abuse, Doyle said.

"Mr. Clark was a family friend and watching the child when the injuries occurred," Doyle said.

It's just a crime, not a scandal when a caregiving adult causes "severe internal injuries" to an actual 4 year old.

While millions prefer to weep for the notborn.

Alabama Mom Drags Kid By Leash Through Store

Yes, sure, it's cruelty to children.

But America's compassion begins with preborns. And ends there.

Child Abuse Du Jour: List Incomplete

1. How about a little boy beaten to death in California, where they just cut funding for child protective services?

Really, screw the damn six-year-old tattletales. Kids should fend for themselves.

2. How about a daddy belt-beating his two-year old (with the metal end of the belt -- I always ask 'which end?') so hard the kid had a seizure?

3. How about a 23-year-old Omaha man charged with beating a 4 month old infant till she was critically injured?

It takes me about one google to come up with a passel of cases. But, you know, once the innocent preborns turn into postborns, who gives a shit?

Waterboarding Without Permission

Sure we tortured in 2002 well before we cooked up some lame excuse to justify doing it.

Whut's yer frickin' problem, pussies?

Via BBC interview: former CIA Agent John Kirakou pinpoints use of torture as early as the end of May/beginning of June 2002, well before the notorious Bybee memo.

All the Lonely People -- David Brooks' Groper Edition

So, here's an adult male who is being groped in the general genital area by a lonely male Republican politician who is so powerful that columnist David Brooks does not dare to tell the Senator to take his hand off Brooks' inner thigh, but allows the Senator to leave his hand on said inner thigh all during a dinner?



Which Senator might it be? Nominations?

Teen Charged With Cat Mutilation

Cruelty to animals -- not a happy symptom.

Dad "Disciplines" Son to Death -- on Father's Day.

No, I'm not making this up. I don't have to. I never have to.

Father beats seven-year-old son to death.,

Heard about the "discipline" part on the news last night, don't have a link yet.

Iran Blames West for Deaths Caused by Neo-SAVAK Basij Murderers

Yuh. The swine claim it's all our fault.

Apparently the Iranian people didn't know they were being repressed by a brutal regime till we all twittered them.

Warning: Graphic Video Tehran: wounded girl dying in front of camera

I apologize for posting this -- and oddly enough, it went up before I had even finished working on it -- but it is important to note that the Iranian regime has apparently gone with "shoot to kill" now.

The whole world is watching, and this sad video could not be more eloquent, could it?

Update: now we know her name was Neda.
Update 2: Later coverage here.

Neda

Roger Cohen.

A Fly on the Wall at Gitmo: An Antidote for Compassion Fatigue

Here's an opportunity to do the right thing: via RobinElliot at Kos, via Major Barry Wingard, a Gitmo detainee's lawyer.

Let’s recap: Some guy made a couple of afghanis by selling Fayiz to our guys so that the thug-infested Bush administration could justify their fraudulent little war and all its torture-y perks.

And what did Fayiz get? This:

While in U.S. custody in Kabul in December 2001, Al-Kandari was shackled in various stress positions for as long as 36 hours at a time. He was beaten with a chain and water hose. Photographs documenting his condition have not been released.
In early 2002, Al-Kandari was transferred to Bagram and held in a roofed tent with no sides where overnight temperatures typically reached below freezing. Photographs again documented his condition, but they have never been released. [...] He was transferred to Kandahar in early 2002, ... [where] his entire body was shaved (except for a cross on his chest, which was later shaved off) and he was initially kept awake in solitary confinement for five straight days. The abuse continued and resulted in broken ribs and severe bruising documented by medical exams performed months later.
Before being placed on the plane out of Kandahar, his sound-proof headgear was lifted and a female voice whispered, "You are going to hell in GTMO." At the time, he was also drugged, sandbagged, and placed into a head harness for the 24 hour trip.
At Guantanamo, he was again shackled into stress positions for extended periods of time. He was also urinated on and subjected to sleep deprivation, strobe lights, ear piercing music, cell extractions, and extreme heat and cold conditions in his cell via temperature controls. All told, Al-Kandari has been interrogated approximately 400 times and abused throughout the time he was in U.S. custody.

Wait, sidebar: I smell a reason for releasing those pesky torture photos everyone's talking about... evidence. Sidebar over.

So... all that torture must have worked, right? I mean, who could withstand that kind of abuse and not spill what’s left of their guts, because, you know, "some" say torture works and-- What’s that? Sorry, something’s coming through my imaginary earpiece:

A Department of Defense legal review of Al-Kandari’s case found the evidence against him "is made up almost entirely of hearsay evidence recorded by unidentified individuals with no first hand knowledge of the events they describe."
Oh.
In short, the U.S. learned nothing of value from its abusive treatment of Al-Kandari and in all likelihood exculpatory materials confirming Al-Kandari’s whereabouts and accounts of abuse will be classified and withheld from public view.
Oh.

So what options are available to Fayiz and those like him? Not many. It all boils down to those infamous military commissions, Wingard's skills, and a judge who will believe Fayiz's testimony, because with the word "classified" popping up everywhere, that's all detainees like him have.

Sidebar #2: Per Barry Wingard, "the military is not behind the commissions." Sidebar #2 over.

However, Major Wingard did share one silver lining with me: He could get a sympathetic judge. Maybe. If he's lucky. But—and there’s always a pesky but-- delays and more delays are kicking that silver-lined opportunity down the road, and Fayiz is still in prison.

But at least he has one hell of a caring, persistent, ethical lawyer.

Vice-President Cheney insists that enhanced interrogations were only used on "hardened terrorists" after other efforts failed, that such efforts prevented the deaths of thousands, and that the U.S. never lost its moral bearings in its treatment of detainees. Al-Kandari is living proof he is wrong on all counts.

Re Fly Swat: PETA Declares Obama "Not Buddha"

No shit, Sherlock.

Obama, Unafraid of Offending His Buddhist Constituents, Kills Fly, Is Pleased With Self, Accrues Karma

It's part of the Pussy Frame, is it not? Why would one have compassion for, you know, a fly?

Compassion is just soo pussy!

WTF? Don't getcha panties in a twist, eh?

It's trivial! Haha.

And, who cares if it, you know, technically, that one act creates a perfect karma: intending the action, completing the action, and being satisfied with the result. One action. We have so many. Big f*cking deal.

Kill fly? Meh!

Merely to think that would be so -- well, so weak, so pussy!

Besides the Pussy Frame, there is another all-important frame, the Fly Frame.

Which is what makes it possible to torture sentient beings. Including human ones.

We've seen it at Abu Ghraib, at Gitmo, everywhere. Once you declare someone to be the "enemy" and then dehumanize them, insectize them -- then you can talk yourself into doing whatever the f*ck you want to them, can you not?

Ragheads. They ain't yoooo-man!

If they're no better than insects, who gives a flying f*ck?

Mirror Neuron Retardation Syndrome.

A pandemic.

GOP Reichwing Hatespeak Alive & Well in South Carolina

Freedom of speech means prominent Republican activists get caught having Macaca moments. Not to worry. This one was just "jesting" with racist comment.. Haha. Really. Just joking. Do not get panties in a twist.

Trey Walker, an advisor to S.C. Attorney General Henry McMaster, posted an innocuous Facebook update about this morning’s escape of a Western Lowlands Gorilla from Columbia’s Riverbanks Zoo.

Walker’s harmless update, however was followed by a highly-questionable comment from longtime SCGOP activist and former State Senate candidate, Rusty DePass.

“I’m sure it’s just one of Michelle’s ancestors — probably harmless,” DePass wrote.

An early South Carolina supporter of former President George W. Bush, DePass has been active in Republican politics in South Carolina for decades.