A day that will live in infamy.

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My whole life has been about beating the bullies.

So I know what I am going to be doing the next four years.

How about all of you?

New Clinton ad compares Donald Trump to famous cinematic bullies.

There are a lot of bullies in this world. The last thing we need is one in the White House. pic.twitter.com/M0owOglPjy

— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) October 17, 2016

Courtesy of the Washington Post:  

The latest campaign ad from Hillary Clinton offers a compendium of big-screen bullies going back a few decades, including those portrayed in “Back to the Future,” “The Karate Kid” and “Mean Girls.” 

The 60-second spot suggests Donald Trump fits into that tradition, interspersing clips of the movies with similar lines that the Republican nominee has employed during the campaign (“Get ‘em out of here,” “stupid,” and “he’s like a little baby,” among them). 

The ad ends by showing Clinton, the Democratic nominee, comforting a young girl at a rally after the girl shares that people talk behind her back because she has asthma.

This comparison actually has some basis in fact, since as it turns out that Trump was the inspiration for Biff Tannen the villain from those Back to the Future movies.

Oh yeah, now that you see it it's hard to believe you did not know it all along.

Estimated 200,000 bullied students bring guns or other weapons to school EACH month. NO, you did not read that wrong.

Courtesy of Mother Jones: 

A new study based on a survey of more than 15,000 American high school students found that victims of bullying are nearly twice as likely to carry guns and other weapons at school. An estimated 200,000 victims of bullying bring weapons to school over the course of a month, according to the authors' analysis of data from the Centers for Disease Control's 2011 Youth Risk Surveillance System Survey. That's a substantial portion of the estimated 750,000 high school students who bring weapons to school every month. 

The study, presented yesterday at the annual meeting of the Pediatric Academic Societies, found that 20 percent of participating students reported being victims of bullying, and that those teens were substantially more likely to carry weapons if they had experienced one or more "risk factors." These included feeling unsafe at school, having property stolen or damaged, having been in a fight in the past year, or having been threatened or injured by a weapon. Among bullying victims experiencing all four of those factors, 72 percent had brought a weapon to school in the past month and 63 percent had carried a gun. Those victims were, according to the study's authors, nearly 50 times more likely to carry a weapon in school as students who weren't bullied. 

For years, anti-bullying groups have drawn a connection between bullying and school shootings. The Department of Health and Human Services's Stopbullying.gov website reports that the perpetrators of 12 of 15 school shootings in the 1990s had a history of being bullied. Witnesses of a 2013 shooting at Sparks Middle School in Nevada recall the 12-year-old shooter telling a group of students, "You guys ruined my life, so I'm going to ruin yours."

You know it is not often that I read a statistic that stuns me into silence, but 750,000 weapons being brought to schools each month did exactly that. 

And the fact that 200,000 of them are being carried by frightened or angry students who carry them in response to bullying, should make every a chill run up the spine of every parent in this country.

You know it almost makes the actual number of school shootings each year seem remarkably low considering the potential for violence that this study reveals.

Seriously, whatever happened to simply punching a bully in the nose?

The effects of bullying can last a lifetime.

Courtesy of NPR:  

What doesn't kill us only makes us stronger, right? Well, not when it comes to bullying. 

Some may still consider bullying a harmless part of growing up, but mounting evidence suggests that the adverse effects of being bullied aren't something kids can just shake off. The psychological and physical tolls, like anxiety and depression, can follow a person into early adulthood.
 
In fact, the damage doesn't stop there, a British study published this week in the American Journal of Psychiatry suggests. It actually lasts well into the adults' 40s and 50s. 

"Midlife ... is an important stage in life because that sets in place the process of aging," says Louise Arseneault, a developmental psychologist at King's College London and the study's senior author. "At age 50, if you have physical [and] mental health problems, it could be downhill from here." 

And health isn't the only thing to worry about. Chronic bullying's effect on a person's socioeconomic status, social life and even cognitive function can persist decades later, too, Arseneault's research suggests.

I was a bully. 

The thing was I did not realize it until I was in my early thirties.

I know that sounds a little hard to believe, but it's true.

When I was younger I was pretty passive, for the most part. A few scrapes here and there, nothing serious.

However when I hit my mid teens things took a turn.

Like a lot of teenagers I was full of testosterone driven energy, and conflicted emotions. And I did not know what to do with them.

So I started to workout every day with weights and practice martial arts for hours on end.

Instead of being an outlet for my energy, it instead turned me into a powder keg of aggression.

Though I felt no animosity towards those younger or weaker than myself, for those who I considered my physical equal all it took was one wrong move before fists would be flying.

How I justified that was by focusing on bullies.

My guidelines were if somebody hurt or intimidated others that made it open season on them. All I needed was to catch them in the act, or hear about it from somebody else, and I felt, not only justified, but obligated to "set things right."

By the time I made it to my senior year I got most of it out of my system, and simply coasted through the remainder on my reputation.

In fact my first two serious relationships after high school were somewhat based on this reputation, as the bad boy image I had cultivated was part of what attracted them to me. Even though after I graduated there were very few physical altercations.

It was my third serious relationship after high school where I received my reality check.

This was a thirty year old woman, trained in early childhood education, who was quite unimpressed with hearing about my exploits during my teen years, and after being regaled by my family with story after story, she seemed very pensive and quiet on the drive home.

Later when I asked what was wrong she said that she never knew I was a bully.

I became immediately defensive at that and told her she had it all wrong. I was a GOOD guy.

"Did you beat people up?"

"Well yes sometimes, but.."

"Were students in your school frightened of you?"

"Well maybe a few, but they....."

"Do you think that their fear of you had an effect on their school work, their self esteem, and their emotional health?"

"Well they were bad guys so..."

"If they were bad guys for intimidating those who could not defend themselves, and they could not defend themselves from you, then what does that make you?"

"Well I was...I mean they were....I only....."

Well fuck.

She was right. I HAD actively intimidated people who I identified as bullies, even IF what they had done was fairly minor, and would have sorted itself out with no involvement from me whatsoever.

I simply used their anti-social behaviors as an excuse for MY anti-social behaviors.

To be honest, I was angry at her for making me face that about myself. It meant that I had to go back and reevaluate everything I thought I knew about me.

But in the end I had to recognize the inconvenient truth, I was in fact a bully.

So though I have done a number of good, and selfless things, with my life since then, there is a group of men in their mid fifties who are, right now, walking around with emotional scars that I inflicted.

And you know what? That kind of sucks.

Not usually a royal watcher but Prince Harry has DEFINITELY earned my respect.

Courtesy of the Daily Mail:  

A gay soldier told last night how Prince Harry bravely rescued him from a terrifying homophobic attack by squaddies from a rival regiment. 

The Prince stepped in to save Trooper James Wharton after he was confronted by six soldiers threatening to ‘batter’ him. 

Trooper Wharton fled to find Harry – who was his tank commander – and tearfully told the Prince what had happened. 

‘I told him, “I think I’m going to be murdered by the infantry.” I climbed into the turret and talked Harry through exactly what had happened. He had a complete look of bewilderment on his face. 

‘I couldn’t stop the tears from welling up in my eyes. He said, “Right I’m going to sort this s*** out once and for all.” 

'He climbed out of the tank and I poked my head out of the turret a few moments later to see him having a go,’ Wharton said.

Harry, a Troop Commander in the Blues and Royals, confronted the tormentors, warning them they would face severe discipline if they continued their violent threats. 

‘I could see he wasn’t holding back,’ said Wharton, who was 21 at the time. 

After taking on the gang, Harry briefed a senior officer before returning to assure Wharton the situation had been ‘sorted’. 

Battling homophobes in the military. Now THAT is the kind of thing that would make even a common soldier a prince among men.

Just so happens this is an actual prince.

I have kind of been a Prince Harry fan for awhile now. Especially after I watched him abruptly end an interview while in Afghanistan in response to an alarm.

When the 2nd Amendment bullies the 1st Amendment into submission. NRA brings 20 armed gunmen into National Press Club to intimidate reporters. Update!

Cover me guys, these reporters are armed with dangerous looking pens.

Courtesy of the Washington Post:  

The gun-lobby goons were at it again. 

The National Rifle Association’s security guards gained notoriety earlier this year when, escorting NRA officials to a hearing, they were upbraided by Capitol authorities for pushing cameramen. The thugs were back Tuesday when the NRA rolled out its “National School Shield” — the gun lobbyists’ plan to get armed guards in public schools — and this time they were packing heat. 

About 20 of them — roughly one for every three reporters — fanned out through the National Press Club, some in uniforms with gun holsters exposed, others with earpieces and bulges under their suit jackets. 

In a spectacle that officials at the National Press Club said they had never seen before, the NRA gunmen directed some photographers not to take pictures, ordered reporters out of the lobby when NRA officials passed and inspected reporters’ briefcases before granting them access to the news conference. 

The antics gave new meaning to the notion of disarming your critics.

I just saw Dana Milbank talking about this on Hardball and I almost could not believe my ears. (I will link to that interview when it become available.)

I almost don't know how to respond to this, but I am so angry I am spitting nails!

The idea that these NRA assholes would use their 2nd Amendment rights to bully reporters into NOT being able to exercise their 1st Amendment rights, demonstrates the seriousness of what is going on in this country right now.

And by the way if you are so paranoid that you find yourself terrified to face a roomful of unarmed reporters without a phalanx of armed guards around you, perhaps you are not the best person to be telling schools how to keep our children safe.

Update: As promised here is the interview with Dana Milbank on Hardball.

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Despite great improvement in overall attitudes, hatred toward gays and lesbians still alive and well.

Courtesy of the Dallas Voice:  

A lesbian from Seagoville was recovering this week after suffering a dislocated jaw when she was brutally attacked in an apparent anti-gay hate crime at a Mesquite playground. 

The suspect yelled gay epithets while he beat Sondra Scarber after she tried to defend her 4-year-old son from bullying at the hands of the suspect’s children. After knocking Scarber to the ground, the suspect kicked her in the mouth and stomped her face. She would later need surgery on her jaw, which had been knocked an inch-and-a-half out of alignment. 

The assault happened Feb. 17 at the Seabourn Elementary School playground, where Scarber and her partner Hillary Causey had taken their son to play. 

A 10-year-old began pushing their son around so Scarber told the boy to stop. That’s when the boy’s younger sister went to the car to get their father. Causey said she expected the father to tell his son not to pick on a 4-year-old but as he got closer, she could see his anger. At first, he thought Scarber was a man. 

When he realized she was woman, he said, “Oh, it’s a bitch. It’s a bitch,” according to Causey. “You’re a woman, but you think you’re a man.” 

He called her a dyke and a faggot, holding her up by her necklace and repeatedly hitting her in the face until he knocked her out. 

“I’m going to beat you like a man,” he said. 

Causey said a woman who was with the suspect tried to stop him but he pushed her away. He dropped Scarber to the ground and kicked her in the mouth, detaching her jaw on the right side. Scarber said as she was trying to regain consciousness, she saw his foot come down on her face. 

She said her son was standing there watching. 

“Please don’t kill her,” she said he pleaded.

You know as the father of a gay daughter, this is the kind of thing that terrifies me. 

This level of hatred is almost incomprehensible, and yet there are still so many who feel justified in treating gays and lesbians like depositories for all of the hate and anger they feel inside.

I have little doubt that this POS feels that he is a Christian, and probably believes the Bible justifies this kind of behavior toward another human being. Hopefully, after witnessing this, his hatefulness will not be passed on to this children.

All I can say is that I am not a Bible believing Christian, but his behaviors would certainly make me feel justified to respond with a little "eye for an eye."

New York Senate bill aimed at destroying anonymity on the internet.

Courtesy of CBS News:

New York state lawmakers have proposed a ban on anonymous online comments. Called the Internet Protection Act (A.8688/S.6779), the legislation would require a web site administrator to pull down anonymous comments from sites, including "social networks, blogs forums, message boards or any other discussion site where people can hold conversations in the form of posted messages." 

The bill states: 

A web site administrator upon request shall remove any comments posted on his or her web site by an anonymous poster unless such anonymous poster agrees to attach his or her name to the post and confirms that his or her IP address, legal name, and home address are accurate. All web site administrators shall have a contact number or e-mail address posted for such removal requests, clearly visible in any sections where comments are posted.

This is just the latest attack on free speech and privacy on the internet. I am sure that most of you remember the SOPA legislation that was proposed earlier this year and soundly defeated possibly as a direct result of a backlash from all over the internet.

Supposedly THAT legislation was designed to protect intellectual property and stop online piracy, but of course it would have done much more and seriously impacted our Constitutionally protected rights of free speech.

This time they found a different excuse to shut us up.  

Among the bills' sponsors are New York Assemblyman Dean Murray and Sen. Thomas O'Mara, who say the proposed law is to fight cyberbullying. "Cyberbullying has become one of the great tragedies of the Internet age," O'Mara said at a press conference. 

"Numerous national studies tell us that upwards of 40 percent of students have experienced some form of cyberbullying at least once, and they feel helpless in the face of it. Victims of anonymous cyberbullies need protection. We're hopeful that this legislation can be helpful to the overall effort to deter and prevent anonymous criminals from hiding behind modern technology and using the Internet to bully, defame and harass their victims."

Everybody wants to stop cyber bullying, myself included, but THIS is clearly just an excuse to take away the rights of citizens to spread information not controlled by giant media conglomerates as well as our right to speak out and share our opinions without fear of retribution by those who want to shut us up.

By the way I have little concern this will pass, but be warned that it is just one of many attempts coming down the pike to gain control of the internet, which in my opinion is possibly the greatest tool to ensure free speech since the invention of the printing press.

The difference could not be more stark, Mitt Romney left emotional scars on those he deemed to be different, while Barack Obama is a man whose scars give him purpose.

According to new information Mitt Romney's lack of compassion for those who were the victim of bullies, did not simply extend to his OWN victims, but also to victims of bullying while he was Governor of Massachusetts:

Mitt Romney clashed with a state commission tasked with helping LGBT youth at risk for bullying and suicide throughout his term as Massachusetts governor over funding and its participation in a pride parade. He eventually abolished the group altogether. 

“We remember well what Romney tried to do as governor of Massachusetts and we now we have more info on some of his own attitudes that may have led to his policy actions,” Eliza Byard, executive director of LGBT anti-bullying organization GLSEN, told TPM, drawing a connection with reports that Romney cornered a youth in high school and cut his hair. “If he’s willing to dismiss that incident as ‘hijinks,’ I could understand that he wouldn’t understand at all why this program was so critical.”

This lack sensitivity to the plight of the LGBT community, and other victims of bullying, has enraged many anti-bullying advocates including the mother of Matthew Shepard, a teenager who was killed for being gay, and in whose name the Hate Prevention Act was signed by President Obama:

“While this may seem like an innocent prank to some, it was an act of torment against a child for being different,” Shepard said. Her son Matthew was kidnapped and brutally murdered in 1998. “We expect the people we elect to be leaders in the charge against bullying so that all students are afforded the right to learn and grow in an environment free of fear. This incident calls into question whether Mitt Romney can be an advocate for the nation’s most vulnerable children.”

For those of us who have found Romney to be oddly lacking in human warmth and were originally horrified by the story of him placing a frightened family pet onto the roof of his car while speeding toward a vacation spot, all while the dog defecated all over the roof of the station wagon in terror, we now realize that were simply recognizing the tip of an iceberg of a certain pathology that has now been fully revealed to the American people.

The "I like being able to fire people who provide services to me" guy really does not seem to feel much of a connection to ANYBODY who are not exactly like himself. Which I guess explains why his sons all look like carbon copies of him.

I think we can say with very little doubt that Romney has NEVER had to develop compassion for those who are bullied, or have to do without, because HE has never felt the emotions attached to such circumstances.

But let's contrast that to the man he hopes to defeat in this election cycle.

To do that all we have to do is revisit Barack Obama's time in Indonesia.

Former playmates remember Obama as "Barry Soetoro," or simply "Barry," a chubby little boy very different from the gangly Obama people know today. All say he was teased more than any other kid in the neighborhood--primarily because he was bigger and had black features. 

Zulfan Adi was one of the neighborhood kids who teased Obama most mercilessly. He remembers one day when young Obama, a hopelessly upbeat boy who seemed oblivious to the fact that the older kids didn't want him tagging along, followed a group of Adi's friends to a nearby swamp. 

"They held his hands and feet and said, `One, two, three,' and threw him in the swamp," recalled Adi, who still lives in the same house where he grew up. "Luckily he could swim. They only did it to Barry." 

The other kids would scrap with him sometimes, but because Obama was bigger and better-fed than many of them, he was hard to defeat. 

"He was built like a bull. So we'd get three kids together to fight him," recalled Yunaldi Askiar, 45, a former neighborhood friend. "But it was only playing." 

The teacher, who still lives in Obama's old neighborhood, remembers that he always sat in the back corner of her classroom. 

"His friends called him `Negro,' " Darmawan said. 

The term wasn't considered a slur at the time in Indonesia. 

Still, all of his teachers at the Catholic school recognized leadership qualities in him. "He would be very helpful with friends. He'd pick them up if they fell down,'' Darmawan recalled. "He would protect the smaller ones."

Is it any wonder President Obama was the one to sign the Matthew Shepard Act into law?

So this is the contrast we see between the two men who want to lead this country for the next four years. One feels a sense of entitlement, and is so lacking in compassion that he claims not to even remember traumatizing a fellow class mate he decided"did not fit in, and the other felt the sting of ridicule and the isolation of those who are identified as "the other."

Everybody keeps saying it is about high gas prices, and a failing economy, but there is absolutely NO evidence that Romney has clue one as to how to deal with those challenges more effectively than our President.

However if the choice comes down to who understands, and EMPATHIZES, with the difficulties facing the American people I think the choice could not be more clear.

But hey, what do I know? After all I am just one of those bleeding heart liberals who cares about the people around me. Sound familiar?

Update: I thought that this was a good place to put the newest ad "Mitt Gets Worse."

Ed Schultz comes out hard against Mitt Romney's high school bullying and rejects his pathetic excuse for an "apology."

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You know sometimes I am a little put off by Ed's strident approach to some of the news stories, but I have to say that in THIS case his disgust with this story almost exactly reflects my own.

Apparently Mitt Romney is a homophobe and a bully from way back. Update, Romney responds.

"First off let me just say that I don't remember this incident. But if it happened, the guy had long hair, so he totally deserved it!"

Courtesy of the Washington Post:

Mitt Romney returned from a three-week spring break in 1965 to resume his studies as a high school senior at the prestigious Cranbrook School. Back on the handsome campus, studded with Tudor brick buildings and manicured fields, he spotted something he thought did not belong at a school where the boys wore ties and carried briefcases. John Lauber, a soft-spoken new student one year behind Romney, was perpetually teased for his nonconformity and presumed homosexuality. Now he was walking around the all-boys school with bleached-blond hair that draped over one eye, and Romney wasn’t having it. 

 “He can’t look like that. That’s wrong. Just look at him!” an incensed Romney told Matthew Friedemann, his close friend in the Stevens Hall dorm, according to Friedemann’s recollection. Mitt, the teenaged son of Michigan Gov. George Romney, kept complaining about Lauber’s look, Friedemann recalled. 

A few days later, Friedemann entered Stevens Hall off the school’s collegiate quad to find Romney marching out of his own room ahead of a prep school posse shouting about their plan to cut Lauber’s hair. Friedemann followed them to a nearby room where they came upon Lauber, tackled him and pinned him to the ground. As Lauber, his eyes filling with tears, screamed for help, Romney repeatedly clipped his hair with a pair of scissors. 

The incident was recalled similarly by five students, who gave their accounts independently of one another. Four of them — Friedemann, now a dentist; Phillip Maxwell, a lawyer; Thomas Buford, a retired prosecutor; and David Seed, a retired principal — spoke on the record. Another former student who witnessed the incident asked not to be named. The men have differing political affiliations, although they mostly lean Democratic. Buford volunteered for Barack Obama’s campaign in 2008. Seed, a registered independent, has served as a Republican county chairman in Michigan. All of them said that politics in no way colored their recollections. 

“It happened very quickly, and to this day it troubles me,” said Buford, the school’s wrestling champion, who said he joined Romney in restraining Lauber. Buford subsequently apologized to Lauber, who was “terrified,” he said. “What a senseless, stupid, idiotic thing to do.” 

“It was a hack job,” recalled Maxwell, a childhood friend of Romney who was in the dorm room when the incident occurred. “It was vicious.” 

“He was just easy pickins,” said Friedemann, then the student prefect, or student authority leader of Stevens Hall, expressing remorse about his failure to stop it. 

The incident transpired in a flash, and Friedemann said Romney then led his cheering schoolmates back to his bay-windowed room in Stevens Hall. 

Friedemann, guilt ridden, made a point of not talking about it with his friend and waited to see what form of discipline would befall Romney at the famously strict institution. Nothing happened.

Seriously, WTF? Well I guess now we understand why Romney won't support gay marriage!

Okay now before I start ripping into Romney, in the interest of full disclosure I should mention that I was once attacked in a elementary school bathroom by a bunch of older kids who wanted to cut my long hair. (I managed to escape and the boys were expelled for their actions.) So I may have some built in anger toward anybody who would bully somebody due to the length of their hair. However, to be honest, I have a lot of built in anger towards bullies in general, which I will share in a few minutes.

Now the excuse can be made that this incident happened a LONG TIME AGO. And that is fair, but it also demonstrates a character issue.  While true that prejudice can change over time, and that bullies can grow up to be contributing members of society, it is hard to  argue that a person who does not demonstrate empathy for other people at a younger age, suddenly develops it when they are older.

And in fact much of the criticisms toward Romney stem form his inability to "feel other people's pain," which this incident aligns with perfectly.

It is one thing to dislike a person's appearance, or even to call out an insult to demonstrate that dislike, but Romney attacked this young man, and encouraged others to assist him in the boy's humiliation.

That is WAY beyond a "high school prank."

In 1965 Romney was eighteen years old, easily old enough to determine the difference between right and wrong. And if he did not know it then, what makes us think he knows it now?

Clearly Bill Maher gets it.

As reality based skeptic, I have virtually NO trust in any person living in this day and age, who claims to make decisions based on a literal interpretation of a book filled with fables and allegories, that were clearly intended to frighten unsophisticated illiterates into doing as they were told by the priests.

And to have that same book used as a bludgeon to bully people into following ancient instruction on who they can love, how many babies they must have, and how to live their life, literally makes me want to scream in frustration.

Everybody has the right to believe whatever they want to believe, but they have NO right to inflict those beliefs on others.

Teabaggers use intimidation to disrupt Moveon.org meeting in Roseburg, Oregon.

Courtesy of The News Review:

Many members of the Douglas County tea party, including Americans for Prosperity President Rich Raynor, initially defended the party's actions and vowed to use similar tactics to break up future MoveOn meetings.

After the incident was reported, Raynor told The News-Review he received phone calls threatening his family. Raynor said several email accounts and his Facebook account had been hacked. 

Seemingly boastful exchanges between him and tea party member Karen Meier were posted in The News-Review's comment section, allegedly by an email hacker. 

Meier and Raynor said the hackings are being investigated by the FBI. Regional FBI spokeswoman Beth Anne Steele said she was “not aware of any active investigations” involving email hacking.

In a voice mail message, Raynor said he had been “advised not to make any further comment.” 

In a phone interview Tuesday, Meier, who attended the event, extended an apology to the MoveOn group, saying tea partiers got caught up in the moment.

This is a shameful display.  How can people who claim to want to defend the Constitution so callously interrupt someone's attempts to exercise their right to free speech?

They were clearly just being bullies and assholes, and if nobody every stands up to them they will continue acting that way until somebody gets hurt.

Of course it could have been worse for the MoveOn.org people.  When Dennis Zaki and I interviewed Teabaggers in Anchorage two years ago, a number of them were packing guns and wearing shirts that claimed they were members of the 2nd Amendment Patriots. (Later they gathered outside of the Dena'ina Convention Center and dared Senator Mark Begich to come out and talk to them.)

Heartbreaking.

Alye Pollack, Connecticut teenager, victim of bullying, crying out for help.

Statistics on Bullying.