Last Call For Washington's NFL Team

Looks like the name "Redskins" is finally on the way out after the US Patent Office canceled the team's trademark for being offensive to Native Americans.

The United States Patent and Trademark Office has canceled six federal trademark registrations for the name of the Washington Redskins, ruling that the name is “disparaging to Native Americans” and thus cannot be trademarked under federal law that prohibits the protection of offensive or disparaging language.

The U.S. PTO’s Trademark Trial and Appeal Board issued a ruling in the case, brought against the team by plaintiff Amanda Blackhorse, Wednesday morning.

“We decide, based on the evidence properly before us, that these registrations must be cancelled because they were disparaging to Native Americans at the respective times they were registered,” the board wrote in its opinion, which is here. A brief explanation of how the Board reached its decision is here.

“The Trademark Trial and Appeal Board agreed with our clients that the team’s name and trademarks disparage Native Americans. The Board ruled that the Trademark Office should never have registered these trademarks in the first place,” Jesse Witten, the plaintiffs’ lead attorney, said in a press release. “We presented a wide variety of evidence – including dictionary definitions and other reference works, newspaper clippings, movie clips, scholarly articles, expert linguist testimony, and evidence of the historic opposition by Native American groups – to demonstrate that the word ‘redskin’ is an ethnic slur.”

“I am extremely happy that the [Board] ruled in our favor,” Blackhorse said in a statement. “It is a great victory for Native Americans and for all Americans. We filed our petition eight years ago and it has been a tough battle ever since. I hope this ruling brings us a step closer to that inevitable day when the name of the Washington football team will be changed. The team’s name is racist and derogatory. I’ve said it before and I will say it again – if people wouldn’t dare call a Native American a ‘redskin’ because they know it is offensive, how can an NFL football team have this name?”

This particular fight has been going on since 1999, actually.  The trademark ruling was reversed on a technicality the last time it came up a few years ago, but this particular case seems to have resolved those issues, so this may stick.

Well, and by stick I mean "headed for SCOTUS most likely"

We will see.

Meanwhile, Back At Castle Nameless

I see the Nameless One and his spawn have dredged themselves up from the depths of the earth's mantle in order to advocate for more war crimes in the Wall Street Journal while passing the blame for their own actions onto President Obama because he hates America or something.  You know, unlike the guy that lied us into a ten-year war.

As the terrorists of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) threaten Baghdad, thousands of slaughtered Iraqis in their wake, it is worth recalling a few of President Obama's past statements about ISIS and al Qaeda. "If a J.V. team puts on Lakers' uniforms that doesn't make them Kobe Bryant" (January 2014). "[C]ore al Qaeda is on its heels, has been decimated" (August 2013). "So, let there be no doubt: The tide of war is receding" (September 2011).

Rarely has a U.S. president been so wrong about so much at the expense of so many. Too many times to count, Mr. Obama has told us he is "ending" the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan—as though wishing made it so. His rhetoric has now come crashing into reality. Watching the black-clad ISIS jihadists take territory once secured by American blood is final proof, if any were needed, that America's enemies are not "decimated." They are emboldened and on the march.

Yes, Dick and Liz actually wrote these words after faking intelligence to illegally gin up a case for an illegal war that was 100% based in falsehood, killed hundreds of thousands, and cost us trillions of dollars.  These two accusing Obama of being wrong should be done so from insude a very, very, very small prison cell.

When Mr. Obama and his team came into office in 2009, al Qaeda in Iraq had been largely defeated, thanks primarily to the heroic efforts of U.S. armed forces during the surge. Mr. Obama had only to negotiate an agreement to leave behind some residual American forces, training and intelligence capabilities to help secure the peace. Instead, he abandoned Iraq and we are watching American defeat snatched from the jaws of victory.

Actually, after we spent nearly eight years murdering the hell out of the Iraqi people, they told us to get the hell out of their country and to not come back.  Because it was their country, and that they didn't give us a choice, we left.  I'm sure Cheney would have just invaded again and hit the magic regime change button a second time, which totally would have solved the problem.

But hey, war criminal gets to write op-ed in WSJ.  WaPo's Paul Waldman destroys Chaney quite handily.

When it comes to being wrong about Iraq, Dick Cheney has been in a class by himself. It was Cheney who said, “Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction. There is no doubt he is amassing them to use against our friends, against our allies, and against us.” 

It was Cheney who said: “it’s been pretty well confirmed” that 9/11 hijacker Mohammed Atta “did go to Prague and he did meet with a senior official of the Iraqi intelligence service.” 

It was Cheney who said: “we do know, with absolute certainty, that [Saddam Hussein] is using his procurement system to acquire the equipment he needs in order to enrich uranium to build a nuclear weapon” 

It was Cheney who said in 2005: “I think they’re in the last throes, if you will, of the insurgency.” 

All those things, and many more, were false. There is not a single person in America — not Bill Kristol, not Paul Wolfowitz, not Don Rumsfeld, no pundit, not even President Bush himself — there is no one who has been more wrong and more shamelessly dishonest on the topic of Iraq than Dick Cheney.

Dear Dick:

You were wrong about everything in Iraq, and you will always be remembered as the worst veep this country ever had.

Signed,
Your Friend,

History

Your Stopped Clock Is Right Twice A Day Alert

Glenn Beck is still an awful, divisive, serial liar and scumbag and is a terrible person, but for some screwball reason he admitted that us liberals were right about Iraq on his radio show yesterday.  Mediaite covers the story:

From the beginning, most people on the left were against going into Iraq. I wasn’t. At the time I believed that the United States was under threat from Saddam Hussein. I really truly believed that Saddam Hussein was funding terrorists. We knew that. He was funding the terrorists in Hamas. We knew that he was giving money. We could track that. We knew he hated us. We knew that without a shadow of a doubt. It wasn’t much or a stretch to believe that he would fund a terror strike against us, especially since he would say that. So I took him at his word.

[...] Now, in spite of the things I felt at the time when we went into war, liberals said: We shouldn’t get involved. We shouldn’t nation-build. And there was no indication the people of Iraq had the will to be free. I thought that was insulting at the time. Everybody wants to be free. They said we couldn’t force freedom on people. Let me lead with my mistakes. You are right. Liberals, you were right. We shouldn’t have.

Well thanks Glenn.  That and 50 cents will get you two quarters and my eternal hatred for what you've done to this country with the megaphone you inexplicably still have.

“I have more of a chance of hacking off my loyal listeners and audience by saying this,” he conceded, “but so be it: Not one more life. Not one more life. Not one more dollar, not one more airplane, not one more bullet, not one more Marine, not one more arm or leg or eye. Not one more.”

Oh, so now suddenly Beck is maneuvering to attack Obama from the left on this issue.  Well, there's always money in that particular banana stand.

For his conclusion, Beck said that Republicans need to listen to their non-interventionist instincts before “politicizing” Iraq and supporting another military action simply because of politics — i.e., because the president is a Democrat. “This has to become about the principles because in the principles we all agree,” he ended. “Enough is enough. Bring them home, period.”

In other words, he's pulling a Rand Paul, with even less credibility to try to do so.  Sure, OK.  Let's not fall for this bullcrap, shall we? 

StupidiNews!

• At least 30 people are missing and five are dead after a Malaysian boat carrying nearly 100 undocumented workers sank off the west coast near the capital, Kuala Lumpur.
• Georgia has carried out the first lethal injection execution since Oklahoma's botched attempt in April sparked outrage at the practice.
• Over a dozen people were killed in a bomb blast in Nigeria as suspected Boko Haram terrorists attacked a public venue where people had gathered to watch Nigeria's World Cup match.
• College education watchdogs want the Obama administration to not only rate colleges, but to use the threat of cutting off access to student loans in order to reform for-profit schools.
• Democrats are introducing legislation to stop internet "fast lane" deals between companies and internet providers, and for the FCC to treat internet access as a public utility like phones.