The idea is to keep an open mind, not to sink a hole in your skull

Tea party wingnuts promote Igor Panarin’s theories that the United States will break up in 2010.

House of Representatives minority leader John Boehner and well-known Minnesota wingnut Representative Michelle Bachmann appear at the tea party rally on the steps of the U.S. Capitol, where abound multiple Nazi-like shouts and racial slurs on handmade signs. Boehner read aloud from the Declaration of Independence (after claiming it was from the Constitution), and wingnuts galore wander the halls of the Rayburn Office Building, seeking Congresscritters to harass and finding unhappy security and police personnel.

Sarah Palin, the GOP’s Princess-in-Waiting, abandons her party during a NY representative election in favor of the Conservative Party candidate.

Orly Taitz.

Published in: on 6 November 2009 at 10:37 Leave a Comment

Glenn Beck and PETA

Strange bedfellows.

Beck and Newkirk really shouldn’t pick on the handicapped.

Published in: on 5 November 2009 at 10:38 Leave a Comment

One step forward, one step back

Yesterday Maine voters chose to discriminate against an estimated 10% of the state’s citizens by repealing the law giving gay people the right to marry each other. Imagine having to get the permission of half of 536,000 people in order to marry the person you love.

Maine voters also chose to allow the sale of marijuana for medical purposes. Imagine how long racial desegregation of schools in Alabama and Mississippi would have taken in the 1960s if it had been put to a popular vote.

There’s a reason why the U.S. employs representative government instead of a pure democracy.

I’ve always been a big believer in social change by evolution rather than by revolution. You cannot healthily force social change; attempts to do so often lead to totalitarianism. In the latter case above, we’ve evolved one small step toward legalizing the use of a substance with no known toxicity effects and proven medical benefits. In the former, evolution still has a long way to go.

That being said, I begin to understand why revolutionaries tire of waiting.

Published in: on 4 November 2009 at 8:54 Leave a Comment

I don’t normally post twice a day…

…but this one’s too good to let go by unnoticed.

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia would have voted against Brown vs. Board of Education, the landmark legal case that paved the way for racial desegregation of school systems across America.

So, homosexual acts, abortion upon demand, same-sex marriage, equal pay for equal work, and racial desegration of school systems are all “new constitutional rights that were never intended by the drafters”.

This man is evil. (And Justice Clarence Thomas is his sock puppet.)

Published in: on 27 October 2009 at 14:13 Comments (3)

The new disease: Crazy Fatigue Syndrome (CFS)

It’s enough to make you collapse into the newest American disease: CFS, the crippler of young liberals

Published in: on 26 October 2009 at 7:59 Comments (2)

Meet 30 senators who approve of rape

A recent defense spending bill (FY2010 Defense Appropriations Bill) contains an amendment, sponsored by Minnesota Democratic Senator Al Franken, that requires companies with government contracts to allow employees to seek redress in a court of law rather than be forced into private arbitration. The penalty for violating companies would be loss of all government contracts.

Minnesota junior senator Al Franken

Minnesota junior senator Al Franken

The amendment was prompted by the plight of Jamie Leigh Jones, a former Halliburton contractor who was gang-raped by co-workers while she was on assignment in Iraq. Her contract forbade her to seek legal redress; it also required her to not disclose what happened. She ignored that requirement, and was fired.

The Senate passed the amendment 68-30. 30 senators, all Republican, voted against this particular amendment.

I’ll say it again: 30 United States senators decided that staying on Halliburton’s good list was more important than allowing Americans to seek redress in our legal system.

And, they gave tacit approval to rape.

Here are the names of those distinguished white middle-aged (or older) gentlemen:

Alexander (R-TN) Barrasso (R-WY) Bond (R-MO) Brownback (R-KS) Bunning (R-KY) Burr (R-NC) Chambliss  (R-GA) Coburn (R-OK) Cochran (R-MS) Corker (R-TN) Cornyn (R-TX) Crapo (R-ID) DeMint (R-SC) Ensign (R-NV) Enzi (R-WY) Graham (R-SC) Gregg (R-NH) Inhofe (R-OK) Isakson (R-GA) Johanns (R-NE) Kyl (R-AZ) McCain (R-AZ) McConnell (R-KY) Risch (R-ID) Roberts (R-KS) Sessions (R-AL) Shelby (R-AL) Thune (R-SD) Vitter (R-LA) Wicker (R-MS).

Here’s a lovely list of these gentlemen, with pictures and contact phone numbers.

(Note that from 11 states both senators voted against the amendment, including the last Republican candidate for the U.S. Presidency.)

In addition, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce lobbied against it, and the U.S. Department of Defense conspired to stop it.

The House is now considering the appropriations bill, and Hawaii Representative Dan Inouye (of congressional Watergate investigative committee fame) is being heavily lobbied to remove or water down the amendment. Let’s see how he and the rest of the House votes.

Published in: on 23 October 2009 at 10:15 Leave a Comment

Sometimes those Founding Fathers were damned sharp

From President James Madison’s Speech on the Right of Suffrage:

“The right of suffrage is a fundamental Article in Republican Constitutions. The regulation of it is, at the same time, a task of peculiar delicacy.

“Allow the right exclusively to property, and the rights of persons may be oppressed. The feudal polity alone sufficiently proves it.

“Extend it equally to all, and the rights of property or the claims of justice may be overruled by a majority without property, or interested in measures of injustice. Of this abundant proof is afforded by other popular Govts. and is not without examples in our own…

“In a just & a free Government, therefore, the rights both of property & of persons ought to be effectually guarded…

“Should Experience or public opinion require an equal & universal suffrage for each branch of the Govt…a resource favorable to the rights of landed & other property, when its possessors become the Minority, may be found in an enlargement of the Election Districts for one branch of the Legislature, and an extension of its period of service [the U.S. Senate]. Large districts are manifestly favorable to the election of persons of general respectability, and of probable attachment to the rights of property…The tendency of a longer period of service would be, to render the Body more stable in its policy, and more capable of stemming popular currents taking a wrong direction, till reason & justice could regain their ascendancy.”

[bracketed insert and emphases mine]

The U.S. Senate was created to supply a more stable institution to balance the more frequently elected, more volatile House of Representatives. Also note that the Senate, created to represent the “rights of landed & other property”, cannot initiate bills dealing with money (revenue). That is reserved to the House only.

Published in: on 22 October 2009 at 11:10 Leave a Comment

Gamer laugh of the day

Oh, this is rich:

An on-line game about a fictitious coup by President Obama. (Wingnuts of America, gamers are not exactly your ideal demographic, unless you’re offering free pizza and Mountain Dew.)

The mind boggles.

Published in: on 19 October 2009 at 11:28 Comments (1)

An arson suspect, a governor, and a fire expert walk into a bar…

Cameron Todd Willingham, who refused to plead guilty for a lighter sentence

Cameron Todd Willingham, who refused to plead guilty for a lighter sentence

So, you take an apparent case of arson and resultant deaths, you convict someone of it, and you execute the guilty party.

Years later, arson experts (including Craig Beyler, one of the most respected in the field) bring up strong evidence that indicates that the fire was accidental. This comes up before a review board, which is rightly concerned that the wrong person was sentenced and executed, and an investigation of the issue is planned.

As governor of that state, what do you do? You could:

a) support the discovery of the facts in the case (if any were missed), discover any missteps in the pursuit of justice, and humbly apologize (and possibly offer some sort of recompense) to the family of the executed man on behalf of the state if facts dictate that he was not guilty;

or

b) ignore the whole thing;

or

(c) dismiss three members of the review board (causing cancellation of the scheduled inquiry), proclaim that the executed man, Cameron Todd Willingham, was “a monster”, tell the review board to “look forward, not backward”, and then run scared that he won’t get the GOP’s nod to run for re-election in 2010.

Guess which one Texas Governor Rick Perry chose?

Published in: on 15 October 2009 at 10:56 Comments (2)

It took a Republican to stand up to DOMA, I guess

Arnold Schwarzenegger signed a bill last night bringing into law California’s recognition of same-sex marriages made in other states.

That’s a big fat goober of spit in the eyes of most of the other states. There’s at least one governor with political cojones. Now if he would stand up to the wingnuts in his own state…

Published in: on 12 October 2009 at 14:23 Leave a Comment

Language is a virus? What does that make thought?

language_virus

Big TOTH to Tom Tomorrow. He deserves a big sloppy kiss for this one.

Published in: on 9 October 2009 at 8:15 Leave a Comment

Has everyone gone *completely* batshit crazy over the term “czar”?

The term as far as it applies to the U.S. government was entirely a media invention, and has happened before.

President George H. Bush (aka Prince George the Oblivious) appointed William Bennett, Reagan’s Secretary of Education, as the Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy. Since Bennett was in essence completely in charge of the U.S. “war on drugs” (a completely pointless, tragic, devastatingly harmful money pit of a government program), the press got around to calling Bennett the drug “czar” (the title used by the pre-Bolshevik rulers of Russia).

The approbation stuck, and the use of the term “czar” to denote presidentially-appointed personnel who wield plenipotentiary powers to create and implement policy became common.

Now, those who don’t know history continue to demonstrate their preponderance to repeat it. When the early U.S. presidents gathered trusted friends about them to advise on domestic and foreign issues, the press and Congress began to derisively call such groups of advisors “kitchen cabinets”. The phrase got shortened to “cabinet”, and became calcified (if not codified) into governmental structure.

It was the same damned thing.

So, the ignorant who wring their hands about “commie pinkos” being appointed can now unclench and take a breath.

Published in: on 8 October 2009 at 13:27 Comments (1)

Gay, and in the military? Tough shit.

The current administration has told gays in the military that “we’re busy–come back some other time“.

Published in: on 5 October 2009 at 13:17 Leave a Comment

Ya gotta love the Washington Times

Owned by the “Reverend” Sun Myung Moon, the Times has played the role of Fox News Lite for years, spreading unsubstantiated rumors as if they were factual news.

The latest? Kevin Jennings, President Obama’s “safe schools czar”, is being accused of not reporting a reported incident of sex between a 15-year-old student and “an older man” years ago. The story goes that Jennings not only did not reported the repeated statutory rape, but reportedly encouraged continuance of the relationship and advised the boy to use condoms (a highly responsible thing to do). In Massachusetts, as elsewhere, teachers (the profession which Jennings had at the time), are required to report such to law enforcement.

The Times picked this item up from Fox News, which should have been a big red flag right there. An editorial from the Times declares

It’s getting hard to keep track of all of this president’s problematic appointments. Clearly, the process for vetting White House employees has broken down.

The real story? The boy was actually 16, which is age of consent for Massachusetts. The rest of the real story? Jennings is gay, which is, of course, likely to be the real reason.

Nice try, Mr. Beck. Try harder next time.

UPDATE: A very quiet retraction from Fox News, but a roaring silence from Hannity and the other fringe-y wingnuts.

UPDATE 2: Continue to manufacture facts, Mr. Hannity. Like a broken watch, you’re bound to be right twice a day, anyway.

Published in: on 2 October 2009 at 7:56 Comments (7)

Your weekly morning cry

In 1997 the city of New London, Connecticut, decided that it wanted to increase its tax base to generate revenue.

They decided that the best way to do this is to take people’s property from them.

The city’s Development Corporation spearheaded an effort to steal 90 acres of land from its owners in order to offer the land to private development, including a $390 million Pfizer research facility. The estimated increase of taxes generated by this development was over $1 million.

The original owners took the case all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, claiming that eminent domain didn’t entitle the city of New London to steal their land and then give it to others for private development. The eminent domain argument forwarded by the city didn’t apply in this case, it was argued, because the land was settled with people’s homes and not just empty unused land.

The Supreme Court disagreed, 5-4.

John Brooks, executive director of the New London Development Corp., the group responsible for 90 acres of state-sponsored theft

This is John Brooks, executive director of the New London Development Corp., the group responsible for 90 acres of state-sponsored theft. Smile, you bastard.

Now, 12 years later?

No development. The financing never came through. Mr. Brooks, pictured above, blames the prolonged litigation that prevented the development from moving forward for years. So landowners and homesteaders lost their property for absofuckinglutely no reason at all.

So in America, where this isn’t supposed to happen, we have no habeus corpus and confiscation of private property by the government. What’s next?

Published in: on 26 September 2009 at 6:55 Leave a Comment
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