Whose Ox Is Getting Gored Today?

Tags

4th Amendment, Bruce Braley, constitutional rights, freedom, GOP, Health care, Steve King, tea party, teabaggers, Tom Latham, welfare programs

With some folks, freedom and all that fuzzy patriotic stuff can be, shall we say, relative. Much like fundamentalists and their rather astute manner in taking what they like in the Bible quite literally (even when that is not the actual meaning) and ignoring that which they don’t agree with, it seems that our more loudmouthed extremists on the right do the same thing.

You don’t have to watch it. Suffice it to say that our Hannity of Faux News is busy calling Mayor Bloomberg a nanny for his efforts to help his constituents stop ingesting such awful fake food into their bodies.

Now you can agree or not agree with Bloomberg on this. I tend to agree, but I also recognize that it’s very hard to impose such things on people who are addicted to the high sugar, high fat, no nutrient value of a lot of fast food and drink. And there is this other thing–it is an impingement in a sense on one’s right to kill themselves if they so choose.

Note we are not talking about school lunches and the right of school officials to help children develop good eating habits in the first place. That is a laudable goal, and schools provide the opportunity for some children to get the only decent meal they get all day.

But juxtapose Hannity’s silly outrage at Bloomberg’s behavior with that of Nikki Halley’s attempt to limit food stamp usage in her state to only “healthy” food items, meaning that you can’t use them to buy chips and soda and stuff like that I presume. Is she now to be called “nanny” Halley? I’m sure Republicans support her efforts to reduce “obesity” in her state, or is it just possible there is some other motive involved?

I recently had a conversation with a man who hates government programs like food stamps, precisely because he has “stood behind people in line who had food stamps and they weren’t buying good food, but stuff that was unhealthy, and “stuff I wouldn’t be buying if I was allegedly that poor” The real motive being–I want to control charity to others so I can make sure it goes to the “right” people and is used in the “right” way. He had early objected when he offered some leftover pizza to a man who asked for a couple of bucks. When the man reiterated that he’s just like the two bucks, the guy grew incensed, since “he wanted the money, obviously for something other than hunger relief.”

This raises the ugly specter of folks that think they have the right to control those people who they deign to give help to. I you think I’m assuming a bit too much here, I invite you to the case of Florida and Governor Scott’s attempt to impose drug testing on welfare applicants. 

A federal district court ruled Scott’s attempt blatantly unconstitutional, and a Federal appellate court agreed, finding unanimously that the attempt to monitor citizens in this fashion violated their 4th Amendment rights. Note the assumption made here by Scott and Republicans: that welfare recipients necessarily pose a significantly higher threat of drug usage than other citizens. Such is neither warranted by the facts or commons sense, and bespeaks a racist overtone that is apparent to at least me.

Now, I’m told that the conservative seeks to remove government from interfering in the lives of individuals. These examples, serve I think to suggest that that is nothing but balderdash to use a quaint conservative term. It all depends it seems on whose freedoms are at stake–the tiny minority of fellow-traveling extremists, or all those “others” who we don’t really like simply because they ain’t like us.

¥

What to know the ugly truth of why health care costs are so high? It’s because they charge ten times more for stuff and you get stuck with it. They give you a Tylenol and the charge is more than a whole bottle would be at the drugstore. There is a major exposé in Time this week and you can read it here. Thanks to Squatlo Rant for the link up.

¥

Best news of the day? Oh by far it’s that Tom Latham, (R-IA) has determined not to run for Tom Harkin’s senate seat. Latham is a true conservative, but he’s not insane. This leaves the pathway wide open for the one and only truly insane candidate on the extremity of the Republican Right little toe—-our favorite idiot Steve King.

And that means that Bruce Braley, an excellent Democratic candidate who is already “in” for running, is sure to win this seat.

I cannot wait to watch this one. King, who is so famous for not debating his opponent, won’t get away with it this time. It should be fun.

Dear Karl of course was threatening to send in his money against King, which hopefully only will make him want it all the more, and that is all she wrote, said the spider to the fly.

Related articles

• Tom Latham won’t run for Senate in Iowa, clearing path for Steve King (dailykos.com)
• Latham out of U.S. Senate race; King weighing decision (thegazette.com)

 

Fool Me Once. . . .You Know the Rest

Tags

budget, environment, gay rights, GOP, immigration, Internal politics, sequester, teabaggers, Violence Against Women Act

I’m having a bizarre discussion on Facebook with a reactionary. I say that because he is a Republican, a small businessman (three employees), and a climate denier.

He’s sure that green energy is a total waste of time. He finds all kinds of bogus “studies” to prove that and that the sun is the culprit in our current environmental woes. He tried to “prove” his case by suggesting that Greenland was named by the Vikings as such because one thousand years ago it was temperate.

That makes as much sense as saying, “hey it’s snowing! So much for global warming!” A tiny investment in some research shows that the Vikings never ventured inland and the coasts of Greenland are always ice-free, and Erik may have named it so precisely to encourage settlement there when he returned to Iceland.

In any event, I find it curious when little guys like this are so enthralled with being in the “club” with the big guys that they don’t realize that while they may be members of the same club, i.e. “business” entrepreneurs, they are waiting tables rather than eating at them. What it boils down to is they don’t want to pay the taxes they perceive come with supporting green technologies, but they are more than happy to continue to pay taxes to subsidize industries like Exxon-Mobile who make BILLIONS in profits every year, and the only part of that they will ever see is as a valet tip.

Meanwhile the Tea Bibbers continue to weigh as an anchor around the neck of the GOP whose rational members are paddling like crazy while the Tea Bibbers continue to punch more holes in the bottom of the boat. They are the sticky paper once touched that you can’t get off your fingers no matter how hard you shake them.

The latest polling suggests that the world for the GOP remains dismal. Nearly 50% of the electorate things they are crazy and useless. The numbers if anything, have gotten worse than they were immediately following the election. Republicans cannot seem to find their way, and when one jumps to the front and announces the “new” pathway, he or she is shot full of arrows from the bottomless quiver of the Tea Faction that wants no truck with RINOs.

As Joe Scarborough put it, the CPAC boys and girls chose not to invite Chris Christie, a governor who enjoys a 74% approval rating in a blue state. His conservative credentials are not in question by rational people. But he had the temerity to act nicely to the President and that is not allowed by the rank and file nuts.

Rubio, who is hungry for a shot at the White House, cut  his teabag in half and got on board with some form of immigration reform that leads to citizenship. Well that caused the expected riff. He’s up against the insanity that John McCain ran into out in Arizona–“where’s the damn fence?” and “they come here and get on welfare.” With that kind of mentality, the reactionary Right ain’t going to get on board. Hell they are going to shoot holes in the bow.

Plenty of the truly demented want the sequester to kick in, because they just want to prove that they are in control. They aren’t but they sure have Johnny Boehner by the short hairs. He’s fallen to the dubious task of lying through his bright whites about how black is white and white is chartreuse. Having no clue what the American people want, he continues to spout that he does, and of course people continue to laugh. John is finding that we actually read papers and read magazines and we KNOW how we got to this place, and his dirty fingerprints are all over it.

Republicans can’t bring themselves to stop sucking at Wayne La PeePee Lapierre’s nether regions long enough to read a poll that suggests that over 90% of Americans want strong background checks on all gun purchases. They are all over the place on this one, from the usual “not from my dead cold hands” to “okay, I can handle background checks.”

Similarly, when it comes to gays, the GOP is turning itself inside out. A number of Republicans have broken from the pack and suggested its time to get out of the dark ages and move into the sunshine. That of course is met with derision and out right calls for hanging among the insane wackos. I do not foresee a happy resolution here no matter what is proposed. The wingnuts are firmly stuck in Leviticus, wallowing in their presumed righteousness, all the while munching on pork chops and engaging in usury, things also prohibited by the Almighty in his dealings with the Chosen.

On women, things get no better. The party that insisted that the “war on women” was merely a campaign ploy by desperate Democrats, continue to amass a mountain of dead (women who will never vote Republican) in their non-war. Plenty of states are still doing everything possible to make sure that women’s private goodies are open for inspection by well-meaning (read lecherous) legislators who are so sure women can’t imagine what is in that womb of theirs that they need men to explain it to them. And then putting impossible demands upon abortion providers that cause them to close their doors in dismay. All this while tens of thousands of women lose the only health care they ever had.

And of course  who can forget that a goodly group of morons parade around as grown-ups yet are unwilling to pass the Violence Against Women Act because it protects Native women from assault by non-native men. And good grief we aren’t going to protect same-sex men and women against violence by their partner either, because well, that would suggest we really do love them, just not the “act.” And since they really DO hate them, well you can see why that can’t be passed. The bill remains in limbo as the Senate version (with the above) is up for a vote by the unwilling jackasses otherwise known as Tea Bibbers.

Well, as I see it, the GOP has learned nada and is headed for more election troubles. And of course, we haven’t even touched upon the anger Karl has unleashed by his attempt to shut the Tea Bags the hell up!  It’s a party for us, and the best show in town.

Related articles

• Don’t bite on GOP’s clever sequester trick, Dems (washingtonpost.com)
• BREAKING: House Republicans Backing Down On Violence Against Women Act (tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com)
• Sequester Poll Gives GOP Low Marks On Federal Spending (huffingtonpost.com)
• The GOP’s Ted Cruz problem (salon.com)
• Why do more and more Americans despise the GOP? It’s the hypocrisy (eclectablog.com)
• New Poll Shows Majority Of Americans Think The GOP Is ‘Out Of Touch’ And ‘Extreme’ (addictinginfo.org)
• MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough: GOP Full of ‘Resentment,’ ‘Hate’ & ‘Anger’ for Not Inviting Christie (ijreview.com)
• Joe Scarborough: GOP Cheating To Win Implies Party In Decline (VIDEO) (addictinginfo.org)

 

Germany May Be On to Something

Tags

child abuse, homeschooling, parental rights

I was just minding my own business when this popped up:

A German family racked up some $10,000 in fines, police visits and forced removal of their children when they refused to stop homeschooling them. They fled to America, and asked for asylum. That may not happen.

Now, I have not have good experiences with homeschoolers, let’s be clear. We demand that our teachers GO TO COLLEGE and be CERTIFIED to teach in our schools. Yet for some reason that defies all common sense, we think, (in some states at least) that it is perfectly okay to “edu-kate” your youngin’s with a high school diploma.

I mean it defies logic.

Now I have no quarrel, as I said in the past, with those who live so far from the school that such a plan makes sense. I’m also, I guess, okay with those who can prove to some standard that their available schools are so substandard that although they don’t have credentials that would allow them to teach, the can prove that they can do a better job than the local system.

I am unwilling to extend the offer to those who simply want to indoctrinate their kids with THEIR religious opinions, and prevent their darlings from learning about the real world, until they have had enough time to brainwash them into their way of thinking, and can safely send them into the enemy camp.

Germany apparently simply doesn’t allow it. When you look at the issue across the world, you find great variance. It seems to have little to do with form of government or population size, or anything else that I can discern. But in MOST of those countries that allow it, it is moderately to severely monitored, and in many cases, you have to show a real need in order to qualify.

While studies don’t suggest that homeschooled kids do badly when compared to their schooled counterparts, (in fact they score better on standardized tests often), they don’t do nearly as well in math and science, subjects that a high-school graduate is more likely to not have the requisite expertise. And of course, when they are being taught religious doctrine to wit: evolution is not true, climate change is a hoax, and similar anti-science drivel, it is  little wonder that these kids are not going on to become tomorrow’s scientists.

This has led some argue that homeschooling is a form of child abuse. While that is strong language, I do feel that there is some merit to the argument.

We have, in this country, a strong thread of “child ownership”. We believe that parents (for which there is no education at all) somehow, by osmosis know “what’s best”. As so many of us can attest to, that is not the case. An all too large number of adults today would admit that they were raised by people who were essentially incompetent.

We are not talking about physical abuse, although surely that exists as well (and of course homeschooling is a great way to avoid detection there too), so much as we are talking about emotional abuse, which is rampant in American families. We can it “dysfunctional families”. We are not talking about evil people, we are talking about people who are wounded themselves attempting to raise a well-rounded emotionally healthy child. Too many parents are as I said, emotionally damaged themselves and woefully uneducated as well. They do the best they can, but they don’t have the tools to do the job well.

Yet, because we have this strong sense of children “belonging” to people, we are afraid to touch this holy grail, even when it means that our children suffer. I know from personal experience of friends whose were fundamentalists and raised their children in such an atmosphere. When their children grew up and got into the world, what happened? They decided that their parents had lied to them, and a rift in the family occurred which never was healed. This is not an unusual outcome either.

Look at the ranks of the atheists. A strong percentage of them were raised in fundamentalist homes. They feel, as they explain it, abused and lied to. They reject, as a result, all religion and faith itself.

How many potential great scientists out there are nipped in the bud by parents who don’t believe in those “Eastern intellectual elites”? Much of the Madison Avenue sell to parents as to why they should homeschool is based on warning them that their kids are being indoctrinated by homosexuals, taught faulty science by atheists, and threatened by liberal elitists  whose intent is to turn their children into Marxists. “Keep you kids home and educate them in our Founding Fathers principles of God and freedom!” they spout.

Surely we need to improve our school systems across the land. Every parent has the ability to supplement their child’s education in dozens of ways. Every parent has the ability to indoctrinate their child in their religious views. But does EVERY parent have the right to keep their child from others and use them as some experiment in “my world view”? I say no.

I leave you again with the words of Kahil Gibran:

I think this sums things up rather well.

Your children are not your children,

They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.

They come through you but not from you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts.

For they have their own thoughts.

You may house their bodies but not their souls,

For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,

which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.

you may strive to like them, but seek not to make them like you.

For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.

The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite,

and He bends you with His might

that His arrows may go swift and far.

Let your bending in the archer’s hand be for gladness;

For even as He loves the arrow that flies,

so He loves the bow that is stable.

Kahil Gibran

Other posts I’ve done on homeschooling:

So You Wanna Homeschool?

Is It Child Abuse?

Related articles

• ” There Is No Right To Homeschooling “ (youviewed.com)
• Dispelling Some Homeschooling Myths, by Lori R. (survivalblog.com)

Oh Good Gracious, She Just Ruined the Whole Show!

Tags

GOP, Michelle Obama, racism, right-wing awards, right-wing loons, teabaggers

The moment her face appeared, I gasped, “oh the crazy Right will be having a field day tomorrow about this!”

The “this” was Michelle Obama’s surprise appearance at the end of the Oscars to announce the best picture award. You’d have thought she was having a private meeting with the widow of Osama Bin Laden to hear the hue and cry from the reactionaries.

“She’s being petty and small” cavorting with all those Hollywood types, raged Jennifer Rubin. I mean really! Can’t they EVER leave America alone to its fun without intruding?

Forget that the crazy element that comprises the Republican right these days hates Hollywood which begs the question why they were watching in the first place.

Breitbart always the class act, called her appearance “obscene” for reasons only they could understand.

Of course they forget as they always do, that both Bushes, Laura and George W. made appearances at the Oscars themselves.

But oh lawdy, when Michelle does it, it’s “grasping.” And of course, it ain’t about race, or nuthin’ like that. No, it’s never about that.

∞

Alternet does a great job of coming up with its own Oscar picks this year. For saying and doing really dumb things all the while trying to appear normal–as in corporate executives and others of their ilk. The list of quotes is rather telling–*hint*–they don’t really give a rat’s behind about us regular folks. It’s always about them.

Here are just a few to whet your appetite:

Facebook’s Eduardo Saverin scored big-time, landing Mark Zuckerberg as a roommate at Harvard, using American resources to score billions in income, and then revoking his citizenship to avoid paying any taxes

Chicago Tribune: “Western-style private enterprise..will lead the world out of the mess it led the world into.”

PRO-LIFE GOWN:  Rep. Scott DesJarlais (R-TN) said “All life should be cherished and protected. We are pro-life.” It was later learned that he had encouraged both his lover and his wife to get abortions.

Billionaire Kenneth Griffin: The wealthy “have an insufficient influence” on politics today.

Rick Santorum: “Rape victims should make the best of a bad situation.”

CEO Ilana Weinstein about Wall Street bonus cutbacks: “It’s a disaster.”

Senator James Inhofe: “The arrogance of people to think that we, human beings, would be able to change what He is doing in the climate is to me outrageous.”

Nutrition classes being taught by Coca Cola and Hershey’s

Now go and read the rest of them!

∞

Make note of this man. If you see him, call authorities. He’s slipped out of the home again and is running loose. It’s hard to understand how he does with, not having a brain and all, but he does.

His name?

Steve Lavin. He’s an elected official. Yes, the good people of Montana abandoned their brains at the voting booth and sent him to the State House.

Once there, Steve introduced legislation that would allow corporations to. .  . .wait for it . . . .VOTE!

And I guess, if a “person” can vote, well I guess they can run for office, right?

If you see a brain rolling down the road, stop and pick it up.

It’s either Steve’s or some other Montana voter who thought he’d be a good person to help run the state.

I don’t know which is sadder.

I really don’t.

∞

I just want you to know ahead of time. These people are not racist. They surely tell you they are not. The head of the Montana Tea Party posted this on her Facebook page or on her blog, “Cowgirl Blog”. Don’t bother trying to find it, she’s apparently shut it down. You ask why? Oh, because she thinks this is humorous:

Yeah, no racism here, move along.

∞

Well now sleep on that and meet me tomorrow.

 

Just Send Them to a Psychiatrist

Tags

budget, cartoons, Catholic Church, China, Congress, espionage, GOP, gun control, Humor, immigration, NRA, religion, teabaggers

I finally figured it out. How stupid of me not to have seen it before. Nobody beats their head against a wall forever. The outcome does not change.

It is apparent that the GOP is suffering from a bad case of masochism. I mean a really severe case of it. I mean let me explain it by way of a baby.

Okay, you hold an animal cracker in front of an infant, and they will reach for it. You hold out four animal crackers and they will drop the one and grab for the four. Then hold out one, and they will drop the four and grab for the one. They don’t differentiate because they don’t know the concept of quantity yet.

Now the GOP sorta like this. You dangle a few teabibbers in front of them, and they will drop a legion of regular fiscal conservatives. They can’t seem to get the idea of counting. They give up the vast middle because the fraction dances a jig in front of them and threatens to go (where exactly?).

I think they get a perverse sexual kick out of it. Just a theory mind you. But you explain why they can’t let go of the crazies in favor of a really much larger middle.

The Chinese are busy stealing our intellectual property.

That used to be done by stealth by men and women sneaking into offices and jimming safes and taking pictures of formulas.

Cloak and dagger stuff. Something you could at least applaud for the sheer audacity of it.

Now? It’s all done thousands of miles away by geeky types with lips smeared with pizza sauce and button-down plaid shirts and cheap sneakers.

I am very sure that if you go to that building in Shanghai where the special section of the Chinese army is busy breaking into computers all over our land, that is what you will find.

I think we should shame them. I mean, “hey Chinese government, can’t you think up these things yourself? Are you so pathetic in intellect that you have to steal it? So much  for your much touted smarts!”

After all, it worked so well with Japan and South Korea.

It must be something in the rice that makes these folks so wily when it comes to cheating. Or again, it may speak to just how smart they really are.

In any event, we are getting screwed.

The GOP are messing up the immigration thing.

There is no way out for them.

Even if the “calmer” heads in the GOP (stop laughing!) prevail, do you think that the Latino population is going to forget the fight within the party?

When folks are talking about keeping them in guest worker mode forever as a way to insure cheap labor for the “dirty” jobs, well, I think you have already lost the battle no matter what the final outcome.

Perhaps the GOP needs a lesson in “shut the f**k up” when it comes to talking outside of very very closed doors.

It’s that masochism thing again I think.

It is lost on no one, that anything the President proposes, is “dead on arrival”. They actually use those very words.

So if the President proposes  some ideas on immigration, they call it “interference” and “political posturing”. If he leaves Congress alone, they call it
“unengaged” and “not leading.”

They also think we are too dumb to catch on.

They always think we don’t see the truth.

But to be fair, when you have been divorced from the truth as long as they have on almost everything, it’s probably pretty hard to know fact from fiction.

And they are still using the old Rovian playbook which states on page one: If you say a thing again and again, sooner or later, it will be taken as true.”

Of course that is only true if you keep a straight face and are talking to a Teabibber. Actually with a Teabibber, you don’t need the straight face. They are so wrapped in their own little alternative reality that the won’t know the difference.

Lord, things are getting wicked in the Vatican.

Now they are talking about a secret study that shows that the Curia is just chock full of backbiting intrigue, jockeying for power, and *gasp* homosexual liaisons.

Sounds like your average government to me.

Sounds like Benedict has buyers remorse.

Sounds like the Catholic Church is in for a very bumpy ride.

I sigh a lot. I’d even consider going back to the Episcopals, but here in my town, there are no liberal Episcopals only the conservative Anglicans.

It’s just about enough to make a person give up organized religion and just steer an independent spiritual ship. I’m sure Jesus gets tired too.

Once upon a time it used to be pretty easy to tell who was crazier.

Kim Dong Un, like his crazy daddy, Kim Jong Il, were just about the craziest of the loons on the globe.

But America does like to be first.

And we have been running that race into the ground lately.

I mean, like I said, it’s darn near impossible to pick a jackass of the week in Amerika any more.

There are people just standing in line for the honor of being named to that lofty pedestal.

A perennial finalist every week is Wayne La Pee Pee Pierre.

But I’m pretty convinced I’m gonna live long enough to see him placed in a lock box and buried. Better yet, he can be chopped up and put in the nose cone of every nuclear device we have. I bet he would like that.

Let’s Hear It for Louis the Lunatic!

Tags

death penalty, GOP, Karl Rove, Louis Gohmert, teabaggers

Ah dang, he’s gone and done it again. Put me into a dilemma as to who is the dumbest TeaBibber of them all.

And I really really object to the poor elephant being subjected to association with this band of misfits. It’s, well, elephant abuse!

Anyway, Louis, cuz he’s dumb as a bag of hammers, finally let the cat out of the bag. (Like all those metaphors doncha?) What did he reveal unintentionally?

Oh what the REAL reason for the hoopla over gun safety is about. You see it’s not about the lil children and their safety. Nor the pregnant woman home with three squalling babes having to fend off sixteen rapist-mad snarling sub-humans. It’s not about protecting oneself from evil criminals. No, it’s never really been about that.

It’s all about protecting ourselves from the Evil man in the White House and his black ops helicopter crews and their drones come to ferret out the true Americans from all the takers in the land.

Yes old Louis says we need those big clips for ammo precisely because as you no doubt already know–you can’t take down a government drone with only a few bullets. It will take a BIG clip. And you just know it’s gonna happen. Why else have you bought all that camouflage gear?

Do you think anybody walks down the hall in Congress and sees Louis without snickering?

Oh, in case you didn’t have this information at the ready, Louis says it takes 50 bullets to accomplish the task. So buy accordingly.  And he got his info straight from some yahoo in Alabama or Georgia–the repository of all good solid knowledge in America.

↔

One of the true joys of living a long time is the very real chance to see complete and utter butt asshats get theirs. No, I’m not vindictive. I don’t actively go out and try to get back at anybody who wrongs me or mine. I am utterly convinced that bad shit will eventually happen to bad people. It’s karma.

That seems to be what is happening at last to Karl Rove, the little dough boy who is sicker than your average serial killer. Karl has some more dirty crap that most people could do in seven lifetimes, and after wasting millions of dollars ($400 or more) in the last election, he’s trying to resurrect himself by blaming it all on the Tea Bibbers.

Now, I’d be the first to say that they are a major player in the joke that has become the GOP, some of it falls on dear old Karl himself and various other idiots from Grover Norquist, to Willard Romney, to the extreme right-wing religiosity gang. In any event, Karl wants you to think it’s the Tea Toters, and that it would be a good idea to give him more money so that he can rectify the good ship GOP.

To that end, he started his new super Pac, Conservative Victory Project, to make sure that none of those stupid Christine McDonnell and Ted Akin wannabe’s need apply to run for any office, especially for the House or Senate. Well, as you might assume, the afternoon tea sippers are a might testy at that, trying to limit the public’s right to nominate idiots.

Proving that there is no familial love within the party, plenty are suggesting that it’s time for old Karl to jump back inside his biscuit tube and roll away. Preferably to an underground cave somewhere in the middle of North Dakota.

Ahh revenge, it is best served cold.

↔

You know, I recall that when Ricky Perry was trying to convince the country that he wasn’t quite the idiot people thought he was, he said I believe very directly that after all the folks he had signed off of and allowed to be snuffed out by a “legal” execution by the state and citizenry of Texas, he never suffered from an inability to sleep.

Such a remark of course is only said by a complete dolt.

It turns out that states are starting to move away from this hideous and barbaric crime against humanity. Maryland seems poised to repeal its death penalty law and return to being a civilized group of folks.

I’ve lived in four states in my life time, Michigan, Connecticut, Iowa and now New Mexico. Only one, Connecticut had the death penalty and they have not used it in decades I don’t believe.

Texas leads the nation with executing better than 450 since 1976, four times more than the next in line, Virginia. After that, it falls off hugely. Mostly the South is still kill happy. The link has a state-by-state rundown. See how your state fares.

↔

Well, it’s Friday. I wish you all a great weekend, though I shall be posting tomorrow, but seriously, you need to stop reading all this gloom and doom and have some fun. Or get inspired. Or get stinky high on whatever floats your boat. Here’s some pretty for you to begin with.

 

 

Related articles

• Nate Silver: Karl Rove’s War On Tea Party Extremists ‘Could Backfire’ (addictinginfo.org)
• The GOP & the Visage of Doom! ~ Tom Degan (elephantjournal.com)
• The Republican Party eats its own: Newt Gingrich and the Tea party vs. Karl Rove (dangerousminds.net)
• Tea Party Group Sends Fundraising Email With Pic of Karl Rove in Nazi Uniform (littlegreenfootballs.com)
• The rise of the lunatic fringe is an early warning (polizeros.com)
• Tea Party Congressman targets Muslims to oppose gun safety law (worldbulletin.net)

Here is Why Republicans Suck

Tags

Bob Carson, Bob Goodlatte, Chuck Grassley, GOP, immigration reform, racism, right to privacy, Roe v Wade, teabaggers

Never heard of him?

Lucky you.

He’s the chairman of the Judiciary Committee in the House. He’s from Virginia. He’s an asshole.

Big time.

I mean really big time.

He’s the point man for the GOP on immigration reform in the House.

Did I mention he’s an asshole?

He spoke with NPR recently, and gave his views on how he plans to shape the House response to the bill created in the Senate.

Did I mention he’s an asshole?

He’s made it clear. There will be no path to citizenship on his watch. No sirree bob.

But he has a plan. It’s called guest worker. See, he wants all the undocumented workers to be given guest worker status with no hope of citizenship. There is a reason he wants it done this way.

“You’re going to have to have a program that assures those farms and those processing plants that there will be workers,” he says. “Because if you give them legal status, they can work anywhere in the United States — they’re not going to necessarily work at the hardest, toughest, dirtiest jobs.”

Ya see, Bob wants a permanent slave labor pool. And the only way to insure that is to never give them citizenship. No, they are here to do the dirty jobs that Americans can’t be expected to do, being superior in every way, you know.

Bob is a superior in every way too. Superior in being an asshole. He’s the best at that job I’ve seen this week.

His name? Forgettable: Bob Goodlatte.

Good luck with that piece of work Johnny B. of Orange.

Δ

My good old friend Chucky the Farmer, Grassley, is probably learning that those town hall meetings are not as much fun as he expected (as Johnny McCain learned too!).

If you were unaware, Chuck, is an old curmudgeon who is the perfect conservative foil to Tom Harkin, both senators from Iowa. Except of course that Chucky is not quite the bright light that Harkin is.

At his town meeting, some yahoo from wacko land, asked if it was true that the government was about to microchip all children under the ruse that they were just tracking their medical files. Grassley unlike Mitch the Turtle McConnell was asked about a similar urban myth (in McConnell’s case the claim was that Gitmo prisoners were getting the benefits of the GI Bill), Grassley knew the answer. “No truth to that” he muttered and then went on to say:

No. First of all, nothing can be done to your body without your permission. It’d be a violation of the constitutional right to privacy if that were to happen.

Now, I do agree with Grassley on this statement. But I doubt Grassley believes in it, for you see, the basis of Roe v. Wade is based on the implicit right to privacy that all the amendments imply. So held the Roe Court.

This is not the meme of the GOP, which through its ally Antonin Scalia, completely rejects. Scalia and other Republicans have steadfastly said that Roe is unconstitutional precisely because there is no constitutional right to privacy.

I am most sure that Grassley will retract that statement. I think sometimes a man needs a push to get him to retire. It’s time Chuck. You’re losing your edge.

Δ

Republicans continue under the delusion that if they can find a black man to glom onto, they can win an election.

It goes something like this:

• Black people vote for other black people because their black.
• If the GOP can put up a black candidate, they will surely split the vote, presumably African-Americans will just play a game of eenie-meenie, or rock, paper, scissors to decide which to vote for.

Of course they don’t get that such a belief is in itself racist as all get out.

Anyway, the new latest GOP savior is Ben Carson, neurosurgeon in pediatric care. Carson has a compelling story, coming from humble means. He has risen to being director of pediatric neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins.

But his ideas are decidedly ultra conservative. Combining the usual GOP mishmash of biblical literalism and individualism, Carson argues for the usual laundry list of Republican talking points on taxes, and smaller government and so forth.

Foxy Noise and the WSJ are all in a tither hyping Carson as the new Herm Cain/Alan West/Alan Keyes/ blah blah blah black man to prove the GOP en mass is still not a largely white organization with no clue about its own racism.

HINT: Black folks vote for issues just like white people do. Color plays at best a tangential role, the same role it played for me when I voted for the Black guy occupying the WHITE House right now. It was really nice to be part of a historic event made possible by the fact that the candidate in question WAS A COMPETENT AND WORTHY CANDIDATE TO BE HEAD OF STATE.

Got it now?

No, I suspect you don’t. But I tried.

I leave you with this, because I thought it was really cool. From Don in Massachusetts.

Related articles

• Grassley says he hasn’t decided whether to seek re-election (thegazette.com)
• Guest worker issue may kill immigration reform (cnn.com)
• Analyst: Dems Worry Guest Worker Program Could Create Permanent Underclass (voicerussia.com)
• U.S. Work Programs ‘Close To Slavery’ (huffingtonpost.com)
• Meet The Virginian Shaping The House GOP’s Immigration Plan (wnyc.org)
• McCain fails in defending amnesty scheme to angry AZ citizens (seeingredaz.wordpress.com)
• Obama’s decoy plan could deliver a winner on immigration reform (newsobserver.com)
• Why Republicans Won’t Pass Obama’s Immigration Plan (politicalwire.com)
• Pathway To Citizenship Becomes GOP Roadblock On Immigration Reform (crooksandliars.com)