The Daily Kos has a post Australian comedian tries to make sense of American gun laws—nailed it! featuring the video below.

Comedian Jim Jeffries tackled one of the most controversial subjects in the U.S. gun control laws.

Jeffries was once the victim of a home invasion in which he was tied up and beaten with his girlfriend, who was also threatened with rape. You’d think he’d have some cause for carrying a gun, no? Wrong! He brilliantly nails why Americans need to make a case for more gun control.

Warning: NSFW – Not Safe For Work

Apparently The Daily Kos published the blog post, From Yesterday’s NYT: Sandra Bland Prosecutor Inadvertenly Shows His Cards on Friday, July 24.

Why the “paper of record” failed to note the completely obvious factual misstatement by the DA regarding the time it takes for trace marijuana to leave the system is confounding but hardly surprising these days. The propensity for MJ to hang in the bloodstream for much longer than other drugs is general knowledge, not something on the cutting edge of medical science that has yet to be determined for crissake.

I left the comment titled Why the large, hang yourself garbage bag?

Why did the Sheriff’s department deploy a garbage bag in her cell that was big enough to hang herself with? What did they expect her to have with her in her cell that would have filled up such a large receptacle on a daily basis?

Do they place such bags in all cells, or just the ones where the detainee needs to be hanged?

Where is the video of all the traffic by her cell for the three days she was held? Who is saving these records for safe keeping?

Where are the “journalists” asking these questions? Where are the public and the politicians asking these questions of the authorities, the US “justice” department, and the “journalists”?

We just cannot let them get away with this, this time.

If you want to help my comment stand out among the 429 other comments, you can add your own reply to it.

Bernie Sanders’ web site has the transcript of Remarks by Senator Sanders at the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. His vision for this country is one we should all want to achieve. He closed his speech with the following paragraphs:

I believe the time has come to say loudly and clearly: enough is enough. This great nation and its government belong to all of the people, and not to a handful of billionaires, their Super-PACs and their lobbyists.

​Now is not the time for thinking small. Now is not the time for the same-old, same-old establishment politics and stale inside-the-beltway ideas.

Now is the time for millions of working families – black and white, Latino and Native American, gay and straight – to come together, to revitalize American democracy, to end the collapse of the American middle class and to make certain that our children and grandchildren are able to enjoy a quality of life that brings them health, prosperity, security and joy – and that once again makes the United States the leader in the world in the fight for economic and social justice, for environmental sanity and for a world of peace.

America striving to be a “leader in the world in the fight for economic and social justice, for environmental sanity and for a world of peace” is something that inspires. Being first in military power or economic might is not very inspirational as far as I am concerned. There is something to be said for making the world a better place for everyone, not just for me and my family.

MSNBC has the article Racially fraught legacy where Sandra Bland died.

But the story of the public’s mistrust goes beyond personal details of Bland’s life and further back in time than when the circumstances of her untimely death began with a routine traffic stop. Appealing to a community skeptical of the official account of Bland’s death as a suicide, Waller County District Attorney Elton Mathis acknowledged this week the root behind palpable lack of trust behind the investigation.

Not only skeptical about the authorities there in Texas, but also about all the “journalists” who write about this story.

I have a few questions about this incident that I have not seen answered in any of the stories. Admittedly, I have not read all the stories.

What was Bland doing in jail three days after the minor traffic infraction? I think I recall reading that she had a high bail that she could not meet. I think the sum was $5,000. Who was it that set a bail of $5,000 for a minor traffic infraction? What does this person have to say about setting that bail? Who was the public defender who represented Bland at the bail hearing? Was there a public defender? Where are the videos of the three days she was held captive? What was her treatment like? Why would a jail use a large trash receptacle in a jail cell that would use a trash bag so large that it could be used for suicide? This is not the first prisoner who ever used such a trash bag to commit “suicide”. Why wasn’t the sheriff’s office more aware of this history? Or were they completely aware of this history? Who are all the people that Bland came in contact with after she was arrested? What contacts was Bland allowed to make to help her seek her freedom? What was she told that would make her situation look so hopeless to her that she might commit suicide?

Aren’t there any reporters who are interested in asking these questions? If they have asked these questions, but have been stonewalled, wouldn’t they want to report this very fact? Where are the editors of news outlets who wonder why these questions have not been asked? Where is the public who should be outraged that these questions have not been asked, and answered? Where are the Presidential candidates who want to know these answers?

Slate has the article Why a Fight in Massachusetts Over Kindergarten Funding Is Getting Ugly.

State Sen. Eric Lesser, a Democrat from Longmeadow, told me he has received more calls about the kindergarten budget cuts than any other item vetoed. “These were grants that were aimed at enhancing kindergarten access in high-poverty urban areas,” Lesser said. In the city of Springfield alone, he said, “It would represent as much as a million dollars in cuts and require significant layoffs of teachers and paraprofessionals who help so much in the early years.”

Did the people in Massachusetts who chose Charlie Baker to be our governor know what they were getting? I find it hard to imagine that they didn’t know, and I find it hard to imagine what they were thinking.

Alternet has the post Neighbors From Hell: Now Parents Have a Bedtime Story About How Predatory America Has Become.

It came in a vision a few years back: a book for children that approximated some of the horrors of society that everyday people face, and the monstrous qualities that many people take on as they try to earn a living. Especially since the financial crisis. Mortgage loan officers, slumlords, private prison lobbyists are the new growth industry jobs.

Fairy tales of yore had to invent fictional monsters to scare little children. Is it a sign of progress that now all we have to do is to tell the truth to scare little children?

In the article #BlackLivesMatter Cofounders Speak Out on Sandra Bland, Truthout features the Democracy Now video below.

As a Movement for Black Lives Convening is set to take place this weekend in Cleveland, we discuss the case of Sandra Bland and many others who have died in the custody of law enforcement with the three founders of the Black Lives Matter movement.

In this segment we get to hear from the organizers of the protest at the Netroots Nation Convention. It is very important to learn why this protest was staged at the time and place that it was, and what they hope to accomplish.

Amy Goodman mentioned the web site democracynow.org for further information.

The headline that Bernie Sanders gave this story when he featured it on his web site is I am a cashier at the US Capitol. I earn so little that I work two jobs.

The Guardian that has published the full story, uses the headline I work at the US Capitol and KFC. Colonel Sanders pays me more than Uncle Sam by
Sontia Bailey.

The sub-head should give you the gist.

When I had a miscarriage, I couldn’t even afford to grieve – I had to get back to work so I could pay for a decent funeral for my son.

This is the story that candidates like John Ellis Bush don’t seem to have a way of comprehending. Not only would a living wage have saved this woman’s baby by allowing her to have to work only a single job, it would also open up her second job to another worker who needs it.

Why is it so hard for some people to understand how important raising the minimum wage is to the health of our economy and to our people?

Slate has the article Earth’s Most Famous Climate Scientist Issues Bombshell Sea Level Warning.

The study—written by James Hansen, NASA’s former lead climate scientist, and 16 co-authors, many of whom are considered among the top in their fields—concludes that glaciers in Greenland and Antarctica will melt 10 times faster than previous consensus estimates, resulting in sea level rise of at least 10 feet in as little as 50 years.
.
.
.

We conclude that continued high emissions will make multi-meter sea level rise practically unavoidable and likely to occur this century. Social disruption and economic consequences of such large sea level rise could be devastating. It is not difficult to imagine that conflicts arising from forced migrations and economic collapse might make the planet ungovernable, threatening the fabric of civilization.

Bernie Sanders is calling for massive infrastructure spending. What he didn’t plan on is how much effort we need to put into building dikes. Forget the border fence to stop the “flood of Mexicans”, Donald Trump has his eyes focused on the wrong flood.

Yesterday I was watching a discussion on The Weather Channel about the disposition of various ice masses on the globe. They were saying what you would expect about the Arctic and about Greenland.

Then they commented that the sea ice of Antarctica was actually increasing. I thought, “You twits, of course it is increasing. It is dropping of the land and into the sea.” However, they were not twits. They went on to make almost the same point. The melting freshwater on land is flowing into the sea. The salty sea waters freezes at a much lower temperature than the fresh water from land. For this reason, the land water flowing into the ocean produces more ice than the sea water that melted lost in ice coverage.

I credit Michael Horan for posting this on his Facebook page.