Inward Focus (Split Canyon Distraction Mix)

[#resist]

There is nearly a joke waiting here—

Hundreds of Tunisians protested on Saturday in the streets of the capital against a widely contested new law that grants officials from the former regime involved in corruption amnesty from prosecution.

Tunisia’s parliament on Wednesday approved a law protecting officials accused of graft during the rule of autocrat Zine El-Abidine Ben Ali, triggering angry protests by the opposition and activists.

Waving flags and banners saying “No to forgiveness”, “Resisting against mafia rule”, around 1,500 people marched through the capital’s central Avenue Habib Bourguiba in the company of opposition leaders.

After months of protests, the law was amended from an original draft which would have also granted amnesty to corrupt businessmen. Now they will be liable to prosecution for crimes committed during Ben Ali’s 24-year rule.

(Reuters)

—because it should not be quite so easy for Americans to empathize so proximally.   

Cheesy

I am here to announce what I’m sure will be the most talked-about executive action this month. Today, I’m taking an action fully within my legal authority—the same kind of action taken by Democrats and Republican presidents before me—to spare the lives of two turkeys, Mac and Cheese, from a terrible and delicious fate ....

.... I know some will call this amnesty—but don’t worry, there’s plenty of turkey to go around.

―President Barack Obama

They call him … Cheese.

Wait, no, really?

Yes, really.

And, yes, the other one really is named Mac. Given that they are being pardoned for the crime of being turkeys, perhaps they should have been named Ted and Mitch.

Meanwhile, Max Read of Gawker notes the sideshow that is White House parenthood:

Not even the pomp and ritual of the White House can overcome the most powerful force known to man: TEEN CONTEMPT.

Today President Obama undertook the White House’s stupid traditional Thanksgiving ceremony of “pardoning” a turkey. His daughters Malia and Sasha, 16 and 13, accompanied him. Their barely contained disdain for the production was utterly appropriate and utterly magnificent ....

Er … um … ah … right. Hey, it’s Gawker. What, really, do we expect?

____________________

Obama, Barack. “Remarks by the President at Pardoning of the National Turkey”. The White House. 26 November 2014.

Read, Max. “Malia and Sasha Obama Are Over the Stupid White House Turkey Pardon”. Gawker. 26 November 2014.