Last Call For The Epidemic In South Carolina

A new in-depth feature from Charleston, SC's Post and Courier examines the state's massive domestic violence epidemic, and what the state's lawmakers, clergy, state workers, women's groups, and others are, and in most cases are not, doing about it.

More than 300 women were shot, stabbed, strangled, beaten, bludgeoned or burned to death over the past decade by men in South Carolina, dying at a rate of one every 12 days while the state does little to stem the carnage from domestic abuse.

More than three times as many women have died here at the hands of current or former lovers than the number of Palmetto State soldiers killed in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars combined.

It’s a staggering toll that for more than 15 years has placed South Carolina among the top 10 states nationally in the rate of women killed by men. The state topped the list on three occasions, including this past year, when it posted a murder rate for women that was more than double the national rate.

Awash in guns, saddled with ineffective laws and lacking enough shelters for the battered, South Carolina is a state where the deck is stacked against women trapped in the cycle of abuse, a Post and Courier investigation has found.

Couple this with deep-rooted beliefs about the sanctity of marriage and the place of women in the home, and the vows “till death do us part” take on a sinister tone.

The stories here are heartbreaking, and all too real.

Consider 25-year-old Erica Olsen of Anderson, who was two months pregnant when her boyfriend stabbed her 25 times in front of her young daughter in October 2006. Or Andrenna Butler, 72, whose estranged husband drove from Pennsylvania to gun her down in her Newberry home in December. Or 30-year-old Dara Watson, whose fiancé shot her in the head at their Mount Pleasant home and dumped her in a Lowcountry forest in February 2012 before killing himself.

Interviews with more than 100 victims, counselors, police, prosecutors and judges reveal an ingrained, multi-generational problem in South Carolina, where abusive behavior is passed down from parents to their children. Yet the problem essentially remains a silent epidemic, a private matter that is seldom discussed outside the home until someone is seriously hurt.

Do read the whole article.

The Root Of All Evil

Part-time Republican candidate and full-time white supremacist Wayne Allyn Root has some thoughts on Ferguson, Missouri and the shooting of Michael Brown, and the one thing he's fairly sure of is that racism in America was a solved problem until January 20, 2009.

“It’s like we’re reliving the 1960s with Barack Obama,” said Wayne Allyn Root during a radio appearance Wednesday. “He didn’t come in to help us end the specter of racism, he brought it back, folks.” 

Root, a Fox News contributor and the 2008 Libertarian Party vice-presidential nominee, told religious right broadcaster Steve Deace that police had been cowed into submission by Obama, reported Right Wing Watch.

“Is it not a racist overreaction by the police department that is scared to death of being called racist to allow people to loot and burn and do nothing but stand by while stores are being looted and burned because the people doing the looting and burning might have dark skin, and therefore if you hit one of them, if you arrest any of them – if you kill one of them in a gunfight – you’ll be charged with even more racism?” Root argued.

To recap, Root is arguing that racism is worse than murder.  In fact, he's arguing that perceived racism is so awful, it makes people kill people in ways that can be perceived as racist, like some Moebius strip steamroller of shame.

The Tea Party activist claimed Ferguson police were deeply concerned about being perceived as racist. 

“It’ll make the riots that much worse, and you’ll look that much worse in the eyes of a president who’s looking to indict police officers for racism,” Root said.

And it's all Obama's fault.  Of course it is.  Because no black man was ever shot by police before January 20, 2009.

PS, Wayne here is going to be running for Harry Reid's job in Nevada in 2016.  Good luck with that.

Plumber And Dumber

If there is anything advantageous to this whole awful Ferguson, Missouri tragedy, it's the fact that it's made the racist elements of the GOP readily visible for all the world to see.  Take Joe (actually Samuel) the Plumber (not a plumber) here in Ohio, for example.

Samuel Wurzelbacher, better known as "Joe the Plumber," took to Facebook on Wednesday to post his thoughts about the ongoing conflict in Ferguson, Mo. and compared the protestors to "cockroaches."

In two separate Facebook posts, Wurzelbacher speculated about the clashes and looting that have broken out in Ferguson in the wake of the killing of a black unarmed teen by a white police officer:

Yeah.  Because we all know those people are all lazy parasites who do as little work as possible, cost taxpayers billions, and do nothing but complain.

Oh wait.  That's Congress.  Never mind.

StupidiNews!

• Dr. Kent Brantly, who contracted Ebola while fighting the outbreak in West Africa and was flown to the US for treatment, will be leaving Atlanta's Emory University Hospital today.
• A number of Missouri state lawmakers and civic leaders are demanding that Ferguson, Missouri Mayor James Knowles and Police Chief Tom Jackon both resign from office immediately.
• An Israeli airstrike in Gaza Thursday morning has killed three Hamas commanders near the southern town of Rafah.
• The beheading death of US journalist James Foley has elicited hard words from President Obama, who has promised a response to Islamic State forces in Iraq.
• UPS says that at least 51 of its UPS Stores in several states have been infected by credit-card stealing malware, the latest company to admit hackers have compromised retailer credit card security.