new york

Texas Says Yes To Guns but No To Health Care

January 22, 2013 By mario piperni

At least three people were shot in a shooting at Lone Star College in north Houston, Texas some time before 12:30 PM. Witnesses on the scene say the shooting may have escalated after a heated argument, possibly over a bad grade. At least two victims were caught in the crossfire and suffered “multiple gun shot wounds,” KTRK reports, and are in serious condition. They were brought into surgery at Ben Taub General Hospital. One of the victims — who was shot in the leg — is a school employee. The other, a younger student, was found on the ground unconscious, with his eyes closed.

…reminded me of an email a friend sent me with a poster attached containing the words you see in the illustration above. I’d give credit to the author of those words but there was none mentioned.

Texas has some of the most lax gun laws around and they’ve been making a lot of noise bitching about President Obama’s suggestion that gun control laws be tightened in the wake of the Sandy Hook shootings. Texas’ pea-brained governor, Rick Perry, believes that the fix to gun violence lies not in tighter gun laws but instead in more prayer.

“As a free people, let us choose what kind of people we will be. Laws, the only redoubt of secularism, will not suffice. Let us all return to our places of worship and pray for help. Above all, let us pray for our children.”

Yeah, that’s it. Pray for the nation’s children while you make it easier for any kook to obtain semi-automatic weapons without as much as a background check. And while you’re at it, let bullshit politicians like Marco Rubio parade about uttering their NRA-endorsed crap.

“President Obama is targeting the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding citizens instead of seriously addressing the real underlying causes of such violence.”

When you have nothing else, lies and fear will have to suffice. Blaming gun violence on video games and movies is not going to make a dent in the number of people killed each year by gunfire. Only 52 people in Canada were killed by gunfire in 2011; Japan had 48 and Great Britain had 8. In the same year, there were just under 11,000 people killed in the United States by gunshots and yet Canada, Japan and Great Britain have the exact same violent video games and movies available to their population as does the U.S. Might not the reason for the high death rate by guns in the U.S. be that it has the laxest gun laws in the industrialized world while Canada, Japan and the U.K. have some of the strictest?

And while Rick Perry works on making guns easily available for all, he’s refusing to implement parts of ObamaCare that would make health care more affordable for all of his state’s citizens – 25 percent of which have no health insurance.

In a letter to U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, Perry said he will not implement an health insurance exchange. Also, he will not expand Medicaid to cover families earning below 133% of the Federal poverty level. That leaves an estimated 1.5 million Texans eligible for expanded Medicaid coverage without healthcare and leaving an estimated $13 billion in Federal funds to be distributed to other states.)

Perry wrote, “I will not be party to socializing healthcare and bankrupting my state in direct contradiction to our Constitution and our founding principles of limited government.

Which state has the worst healthcare in the country? According to a study by the US Department of Health and Human Services, it’s…Texas. Surprise!

Guns, yes. Health care, no. And that, my friends, is how you take care of the citizens of your state.
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Filed Under: Guns 'n Stuff, Health Care Tagged With: new york, texas

Political Cartoons of the Day – Same-Sex Marriage Edition

June 29, 2011 By mario piperni

“What is straight? A line can be straight, or a street, but the human heart,
oh, no, it’s curved like a road through mountains.”
~Tennessee Williams, A Streetcar Named Desire, 1947

For every narrow-minded, homophobic bigot out there, this one’s for you. Oh, and if you believe that homosexuality is a ‘life-style choice‘, then make no mistake about it, you’re a narrow-minded, homophobic bigot.

Happy Wednesday.

Jim Morin, Miami Herald

Steve Benson

Drew Sheneman

Rob Rogers, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Chan Lowe

Clay Jones, Virginia — The Freelance-Star, Fredericksburg

Jeff Stahler, The Columbus Dispatch, Ohio

Filed Under: Toons Tagged With: cartoons, new york, political humor, same-sex marriage

Wireless In New York

December 14, 2010 By mario piperni

I’m up in northern New York state for a week and the first snow storm of the season just hit. I’m not a big fan of snow but I do love snow storms. There is something uniquely special about being stranded in for a few days with no place to go because the city just shut down on you. A coffee machine, a good book, my laptop and I’m happy.

Of course it would be nice if the internet wasn’t affected by the storm. That last line was my segue to let you know that the internet has been popping in and out all morning so if you’re not hearing from me, do NOT send in St. Bernards with those cute little whiskey barrels tied to their necks. I’m in no hurry to be rescued.

Filed Under: Stuff Tagged With: new york, snowstorm

Another Hate Crime Toward Muslims

August 26, 2010 By mario piperni

You know there’s going to be a lot of more of these.

A drunk barged into a Queens mosque last night and shouted anti-Muslim slurs as he urinated on prayer rugs, cops and witnesses said.

“He fumbled over to our rugs where people were praying” and then committed the despicable desecration, Sadouki said,

The man, identified by cops as Omar Rivera, also allegedly shouted slurs, calling the worshippers “terrorists.”

“He stuck up his middle finger and cursed at everyone,” said Sadouki, 43.

“He calls us terrorists, yet he comes into our mosque and terrorizes other people.

“This is a true hate crime.”

I can’t see how this mosque controversy is going to get resolved any time soon. The bigots have unleashed a beast and getting it back into its cage does not seem likely. Appealing to people’s innate xenophobic tendencies by way of fear-mongering is always a dangerous game and society will now pay the price.

This might be the time for President Obama to step up and show some leadership on the issue regardless of the political consequences. Michael Bloomberg cannot do it alone.

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Filed Under: Islamophobia Tagged With: islam, Islamophobia, mosque, muslim, new york, political issues

NY Muslim Stabbed In Face And Throat

August 25, 2010 By mario piperni

Racists don’t need much to get fired up. A little hate-induced anger and booze often does the trick.

A cabdriver was attacked by a knife-wielding passenger who made anti-Muslim remarks on Tuesday evening, the police said.

The passenger, Michael Enright, 21, of Brewster, N.Y., hailed the cab at Second Avenue and East 24th Street around 6 p.m. Tuesday, the police said. Twenty blocks north, they said, he slashed and stabbed the 43-year-old driver in his throat, face and arm.

Both men were taken to Bellevue Hospital Center. The driver, whose name was not released, was in stable condition.

A law enforcement official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the investigation is ongoing, said Mr. Enright was “very drunk” at the time of the attack.

The police charged Mr. Enright with attempted murder as a hate crime, assault, aggravated harassment and criminal possession of a weapon. He was awaiting arraignment on Wednesday.

The attack began after the driver was asked if he was Muslim and answered in the affirmative. Of course, those opposing the mosque will deny that their hateful rhetoric is to blame for the actions of a madman. Demagogues and bigots never take credit for the havoc they create.

NY mayor Michael Bloomberg on moving the location of the Islamic center.

“The question will then become, ‘How big should the ‘no-mosque zone’ around the World Trade Center be?’ ”

“There is already a mosque four blocks away. Should it, too, be moved? This is a test of our commitment to American values. We must have the courage of our convictions. We must do what is right, not what is easy.”

Polls indicate that in this instance, 70% of Americans have already failed the test of their commitment to American values.

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