Last Call For Murder In His Eyes

Next time you ask yourself thinking "Why would a woman still not report sexual assault in 2015" please recall the awful case of Maine's Brittany Irish, who reported assault and most likely ended up kidnapped and wounded because she did.

The parents of a woman police say was kidnapped during a shooting rampage that left two people dead believe the gunman was furious at her when he found out she went to police saying he abducted and sexually assaulted her days earlier.

Rick and Kim Irish told The Associated Press that Anthony Lord had become obsessed with their 21-year-old daughter, Brittany Irish, before abducting her and attacking her on July 15, two days before the shooting rampage. 

Because of his lengthy criminal record, Lord knew he would be going back to prison and didn't care about the consequences, the parents said. 

"He knows he was going to jail for life for what he did to Brittany ... so he was just going to go out with a bang," Rick Irish said Monday at the family's home in Benedicta, where police say Lord fatally shot Brittany Irish's boyfriend, Kyle Hewitt, and shot and wounded her mother before kidnapping her early Friday. 

Afterward, police say, Lord fled from the Irishes' home and shot three other people, setting off a manhunt that shut down roads in parts of northern Maine and sent panic through several small rural towns where violence is so rare that residents usually leave their homes unlocked. 

Police have not publicly said what they believe motivated the shootings, which they say killed the 22-year-old Hewitt and 58-year-old Kevin Tozier, whom Lord happened upon during his crime rampage, and wounded three others. The Irishes said Brittany Irish also was wounded in the arm during the shootings. 

Lord, 35, is charged with kidnapping and murder. He remained in the Aroostook County Jail after making a brief court appearance via video link Monday. His lawyer did not immediately respond to a message from the AP on Tuesday seeking comment on the sexual-assault allegations.

So again, she reported the assault to the police, and the cops did...nothing.  Then when Lord found out about it, he kidnapped her and killed two people when things seriously went off the rails. If you want to know why women don't report sexual assault 100% of the time when it happens, it's because police don't protect victims 100% of the time.

It's a heartbreaking and all too common story in America.

Her New Favorite Crush

So if there are any remaining questions about the goal of the Wingnut Perpetual Outrage Machine and the kinds of things they want to accomplish with fake videos, this USA Today op-ed should answer them rather neatly.

This is stomach-turning stuff. But the problem here is not one of tone. It’s the crushing. It’s the organ harvesting of fetuses that abortion-rights activists want us to believe have no more moral value than a fingernail. It’s the lie that these are not human beings worthy of protection. There is no nice way to talk about this. As my friend and former Obama White House staffer Michael Wear tweeted, “It should bother us as a society that we have use for aborted human organs, but not the baby that provides them.” 

Richards worked to discredit the video by complaining it was “heavily edited.” But the nearly three-hour unedited video — a nauseating journey through the inner workings of the abortion industry — was posted at the same time as the edited video. Richards intoned menacingly that the video was “secretly recorded.” So what? When Mitt Romney was caught by “secret video” making his 47% remarks, the means of attaining the information was not the focus of the story.

By the way, the Kirsten Powers piece is entitled "Crush Planned Parenthood". Her new book is called "The Silencing: How The Left Is Killing Free Speech" which is odd, because she has a regular weekly column in the nation's largest daily newspaper in which to espouse her views.

As a matter of fact, the right wing regularly gets to say whatever the hell they want to, as evidenced by Powers and a wide array of GOP presidential candidates all screaming about how they are being "silenced" to anyone within earshot.

But the women who want and need these clinic services that Planned Parenthood provides? We don't get to hear their side of the story so much over the noise from the right, now do we?

Buried Under Bigotry, Con't

Well, the story of how nutjobs in Farmersville, Texas are calling on town leaders to reject a Muslim cemetery is bad enough, especially since the town's Baptist minister is the one leading the charge. But right on cue, the story just got a whole lot more awful.

“When somebody dies they bury them at that time. They don’t know whether they were shot, diseased or anything else. All they do is wrap them in a sheet from the grave and bury them,” Troy Gosnell told the local CBS station. 

Patricia Munroe voiced fears that local drinking water could be polluted. 

“We used to grow onions here. We sure enough don’t want to be growing bodies,” said another resident, Mont Hendrick. 

Feelings ran high at a town meeting earlier this week, where direct action was proposed to prevent the Muslims pressing ahead with the project. 

Take and dump pig’s blood and put pig’s heads on a post so they won’t buy the land,” one resident said.

Why no, 14 years after 9/11, America is still as Islamophobic as ever, and the real shame is thinking that this ridiculousness is limited to a podunk town in Texas and not the people you know.

Alia Salem with the Council on American Islamic Relations of Dallas, tried to dispel locals’ concerns. 

“They are fearful of what they don’t understand and hopefully it’s an opportunity for us to come together and learn a little bit more about each other and hopefully dispel some of those misconceptions.

Americans don't learn squat.  Good luck with that.

StupidiNews!

• Cincinnati police are investigating the death of Samuel Dubose, an unarmed black man shot and killed in the head by a white Cincinnati police officer on Sunday.
• President Obama made his final appearance on Jon Stewart's Daily Show last night, with Stewart leaving the show in less than three weeks.
• Greece's parliament faces another tough vote on EU bailout provisions as lawmakers will vote on banking and justice system reforms.
• Contract workers at both of New York City's major airports will walk off the job tonight, demanding higher wages as airlines rake in record profits.
• FCC head Tom Wheeler is signing off on AT&T's $48.5 billion buyout of satellite service DirecTV, with a number of conditions set for internet and cable TV competition.