Can They Get Any Crazier?

Tags

abortion, right to choose

I do not mean to offend anyone.

That said, lets begin offending!

Seriously, I recognize that people have legitimate feelings and beliefs on this subject. I can sympathize. I can even say (easy coming from my perch as post-menopausal of course), that I might personally agree with those who say that it is taking a life. For me it might have been had I decided to do such a thing at the time that I was capable of conceiving. It never happened so I can’t say.

All that being said, let’s look at some points of contention:

(1) when does life begin? The simple answer to the simple-minded is “at conception. When egg meets sperm, cell division begins. But pregnancy does not, and some 50-80 percent of all fertilized eggs don’t implant successfully, and this can take six to twelve days to happen. Where you draw the line raises a host of really ugly problems that are legal in nature, and that is why when life begins is a subject medical and legal experts would rather avoid.

(2) Is personhood different from life? Surely most of us would say yes. When in the growth of the foetus does it become a person? Most would argue when it has viability outside the womb. Other’s of course want to return to that moment of conception. Again, medical experts will differ and the legal implications are huge.

(3) can you rationally be for some types of abortion and not others? Can you justify logically abortion to save the life of the mother? Are you not tampering with God’s province then? Can you make exceptions for rape and incest and if so why? Morally aren’t you compelled as Steve King is to ban them all? (men find these issues so darned easy don’t they?)

(4) what are the common lies told about abortions: (a) it causes  breast cancer (b) it causes infertility (c) most women regret them later (d) forcing women to watch ultrasounds will change their minds (e) abortions psychologically damage women (f) imposing severe regulations on abortion clinics makes abortions safer (g) abortions threaten women’s lives and health. None of these claims are remotely true.

(5) Fetuses suffer pain at abortion. This is not true either. Most medical experts based on a myriad of studies don’t believe a fetus is capable of pain prior to the cortex being wired in at 24 weeks. The vast majority of abortions are done before this period.

(6) the US in the guise of the right to anti-abortionists is well-known for its save the fetus at all costs” but then ignore the infant, child, youngster afterward. The same people who are in the forefront of pushing these anti-abortion bills through the House of Representatives, are the same folks who vote against food stamps, contraceptive care for women, medical care for children, and a host of other social programs that ensure that youngsters born in this country will be raised under healthy conditions. The argument is clear, you aren’t pro-life if your ONLY concern is bringing forth a birth, a birth you then abandon.

As you can see, the issue is a complicated one and there are no easy answers. While it is easy to take a flat stand as many Republican men do (not having to contend with pregnancy has it’s benefits), when you get in the weeds the going gets pretty darn hard. Not that most of the far right has any problem with being disingenuous or illogical.

On the anniversary of Roe v Wade, the GOP House thought to take advantage of the situation and pro-offer a bill that would make their base happy, and accomplish nothing since it could not pass the Senate, nor be signed by the President. It was a win-win for them. •

Until even some of their Republican ladies even thought that the bill went too far, encompassed too much, and was just full of some of those unintended consequences mentioned in (1) and (2). Marsha Blackburn, (R-TN) and all around stupid person, charged with marshalling the bill through the House, retreated in the face of  growing distrust in their own caucus. The provision that proved deadly was the requirement that rape victims would be denied an exception to the general ban unless they had reported the rape to police.

The extremists on the right are predictably displeased and threatening to pressure those wavering Republican women. I’m sure it’s the traditional, if you want to keep your job, you better!

With all this at hand, just how comfortable are you with telling another woman what is best for her? I know I’m not. And I will support her right to decide these very complicated matters herself and with the people she chooses to ask advice of. As they say, if men could have babies, this would never be an issue.

• • •

It Wasn’t THAT Long Ago. . . .

Tags

abortion, contraception, fundamentalism, GOP, Hobby Lobby, Women's issues

A little history seems in order.

Okay, so before we start, let’s get this straight. This is not an anti-male diatribe, much as you may think it is. There are damn well plenty of stupid women out there who have drunk the kool-aid and think women’s place is in the home, tending the kitchen, children and pets, in that order. The trouble is, the women who tell you that are ANYTHING BUT stay-at-homers themselves and even if they are, they are writing blogs, books, and preachin’ on social media that YOU should not be like them, but rather like the fantasy women they envision–pampered, protected, cared for, and wiper of runny noses all wearing that crisp peter pan-collared cotton frock and perfectly shined respectable two-inch pumps and pushing the vacuum with a free hand.

Whew. . . .

No this is against paternalism and all its ugly underbelly of psychological signals that tell the female gender that they are all they can be just by primping in front of the mirror and making very sure that that eyeliner is on straight and that lipstick is the latest fashion color of the season.

Ya see, I grew up in that tween place, on the cusp, able to see both shores as it were.

Women got the vote in 1920. My mother was born in ’26, so she grew up having it, though I must say, she pretty much used is as far as I can tell, as her husbands explained to her was right and good. But her mother came into her adulthood without it, my grandmother was born in ’01, so it impacted her most. I knew these women for whom the vote was a “new” thing,  but grew up knowing that voting was no different for me than for any guy I knew.

It was not until the 60’s, during the general period of awakening that lots of minorities were going through, least of all white males who were being conscripted to be the fodder in another war, but one this time that seemed to merit no one’s patriotic fervor, that we women began to learn of our own deeper oppression. We began to learn that it was not okay that our bodies were not our own to control, that we were not by “nature” relegated to certain types of jobs, and paid less in others simply because we were women.

We learned that there was much more to do in this journey to equality.

And we secured our right to control our bodies–in other words–to make mistakes just like men do with theirs.

And we worked hard to break through glass ceilings that prevented us from being fighter pilots, (if that’s what we wanted), neurosurgeons, police officers, firefighters,  and corporate CEO’s. And then we discovered that even when we got the jobs we didn’t get the pay, and we began that fight too.

Always with a certain segment of scared men and the women they controlled telling us that we were going against God, country, and well, nature itself.

Always with those who believed that as we gained our power to control our lives, theirs would somehow be diminished. Sharing is a hard lesson to learn.

They argued of course that women would become “just like men”, or worse, punish men in some Amazonian-driven lust for power themselves.

They argued that we would cry during tense negotiations with a Khrushchev and rain down upon America the nuclear holocaust that permeated the Cold War era.

They called us atheistic feminists and the spittle trickled down their chins, catching and rerouting through grizzled stubble, that they wiped away with grubby fingers still clutching ragged signs with misspelled words echoing their hate: Back to the kitchen you sluts!

But while these battles went on quietly across America with thousands of dedicated women, all the clamor died down, and life didn’t change a whole lot. We figured we were still on the journey, but life as we know it hadn’t stopped, and someday we would reach our goal of full integration and equality in America. Most of us thrived in a world that seemed increasingly equal to us.

And then along came the “IMMORAL MINORITY”  waving their bibles, and explaining to middle-aged white men who had failed in the great American dream to be great achievers, that women were the problem and not corporate greed. Women were and always were the problem ever since that bitch picked that apple off that tree and seduced God’s great creation Adam into sinning. Women were the problem.

And as the rich got richer and the poor got poorer and the great middle started to age and find that damn they weren’t much better off than their parents, some thing had to give. Corporate America became adept at focusing the blame on minorities, takers all. Suddenly, feminism became a dirty word again. Our enemies are mostly aging white men who feel left behind (damn that Rapture, where are you?). The feel and it’s certainly palpable at this point, emasculated by articulate, educated women.

Ask me about it. I belong to a forum of my old high school, and my wars always end up being against these male types (one of which actually said that he ended up calling me names because “I drove him to it.”), and women who believe that women were created to serve me according to their fine uneducated reading of certain pseudo-Pauline texts.  And invariably they block me, so I can read the their comments and they don’t have to respond to mine. Except that there are men on the forum who are just as liberal as I am, just as knowledgeable, and just as “in-your-face”, and they don’t get blocked. Why? Because men can argue with men, but women must be very careful to be properly respectful lest they be branded as “stupid” and “a troll” and “self-defined intellectual”. (I was once told that educated people were “pissants” all, by one tiny-penised patriarchal dope.)

So along comes Hobby Lobby and it’s claim that its corporate religiosity is being assaulted by requiring it “pay” for certain contraceptive methods it in its utter stupidity deems abortifacients, and the Feds have no right to make them offer same to their employees. There is so much wrong here that it’s sick. First, HL provided all these methods before they were picked as the “plaintiff” and then told, “damn, guys, you offer this stuff already!” Hobby Lobby owner Green claims “shit, I have no idea”. Hobby Lobby gets I would guess 80% of its inventory from China, a nation that makes abortion a national policy and until recently required it after one child. Hobby Lobby has a 401K retirement benefits package which includes owning shares of various big pharma companies which, you guessed it, manufacture all the abortifacients that HL moans about.

So the SCROTUS decided that corporate religious well-being trumps women’s rights to good health. Along with that, they decided that there can be no buffer zone between women trying to enter clinics that offer contraceptive care along with abortions and those who want to scream at them demanding that they “think again”.  Women seeking treatment at a PPH clinic must be within “spittin’ distance” of those who seek to turn them away.

Across America, Republican led legislatures make it hard if not impossible for poor women to get reproductive care of any kind by loading down clinics with regulations (aren’t Republicans against business regulation as a matter of principle?) that are so burdensome that they have to close.

And all this in the name of NOT ABORTING. When all of these restrictions do exactly the opposite.

Republicans in Congress vote down equal pay for women.

There is a line.

It has now been crossed.

We will not go back.

Vote in 2014 as if you life depends on it, because control of it is surely at stake.

 

 

 

 

Some Uncomfortable Truths

Well, take it from me.

People can really suck.

If you are looking to prove that, it’s fairly easy.

It’s just about as easy to prove that they don’t.

But this post is not about the latter. It’s about the former, because this ain’t no pie-in-the-sky utopian blog, it’s a rant haven where the ills of society are regularly pointed out to the tone-deaf idiots who don’t read this blog anyway, but should.

That said.

People really can suck.

I was over reading Squato Rant’s post today about how Tennessee continues to screw over poor people,  because they can. And it pointed out a very serious truth to me. People continue to believe what they want because it serves some purpose–mainly their moral worldview. Now their moral worldview may be world’s away from mine, and thus, from my perspective damned offensive, but they actually (hate to admit this but it’s very true) believe it just every bit as sincerely as I do mine. The fact that to do so is jackassery in the extreme is also part of my worldview.

But I have to admit that they are sincere.

You see we not only search for that which supports our being right in the world, we also vary the amount of proof required accordingly. According to Professor Haidt, it’s called, can/must thinking.

See, when we want to believe something, we look for any evidence that says we can. It doesn’t matter if most of the evidence says we can’t, as long as some speck of evidence says it’s “rational”. So you want to believe in creationism? Sure. While the vast array of evidence suggests that the earth, the universe and all it contains,  was not created in six days, there is that pesky bible, if believed literally, which says it was. And if there is one shred of question about ANY tiny aspect of evolutionary theory (and there always will be), then I’m “allowed” to believe in creationism, no matter how utterly crazy that is. I can believe in it.

But conversely, when you don’t want to believe something, you look for any shred of evidence that suggests that you are not required to believe in it–must I? No, it might be incredibly prudent in order to not look like the wrong end of an elephant, but if you are willing to do that, by all means, there is that little hole in the evidence over there. Go stand by it and proclaim that evolution isn’t true because they haven’t solved this mystery of how life originated from inert matter.

So that’s where we find ourselves, each clinging to all sorts of things we want to, while denying all sorts of other things we don’t want to believe are true.

The fact is, the truth is what it is no matter what.

Now there is some answer here. We gotta assume that most people are interested enough in reality to mostly cling to stuff that is actually true, and mostly discard that which is not. We gotta assume that most people are psychologically sane in other words. And since we have cars, computers, skyscrapers (do they still use that term?), and electric can openers, we can pretty much assume that that assumption is correct.

So here is just a list of stuff that ain’t true no matter how many times you say it. Just in case you are confused.

1. People who have a lot of money are not “job creators”. They are experts in making money. They try to make as much as they can, and that means selling whatever they sell for the most money, and at the cheapest cost to themselves. Cheapest cost, includes labor. Nobody hires one more person that they think they can get away with and still make the highest profit. (Proviso: there are some rich folks who aren’t in it for the money, and actually believe in everyone making a fair wage. These are called exceptions to the rule).
2. Climate change is real. No matter how much you wish it weren’t and no matter how much you don’t want to pay for it, it’s still real. I just read that Senator Inhofe from the great? state of Oklahoma, used to believe in climate change. That was before he found out how much it would cost to repair the damage. Well he decided to look for “evidence” to the contrary, and shockingly, he found it. Truth is sorta not interested in costs Senator.
3. America was not designed to be a “Christian” nation. It was created by men who were more deist than anything. Moreover they were men of the Enlightenment–the idea that reason was supplanting religious explanation for physical phenomenon. The came from theocratic countries and wanted no part of that sort of government–hence the 1st Amendment and its proscription against government intruding on religious freedom. Even St. Paul recognized that God was known through creation by the use of mind: “since God has made it plain to them: ever since the creation of the world, the invisible existence of God and his everlasting power have been clearly seen by the mind’s understanding of created things.” (Rom. 1: 19-20) See, it’s not a trick, we can trust our minds and our senses.
4. The North won the civil war. Get over it. Same with Obama.
5. Women will still have abortions as a last resort no matter what you legislate Republicans. You can force them to go to back-alley charlatans or you can get out of the way so they can obtain them safely. They always have gotten them throughout history. That’s the truth.
6. The world is increasingly NOT-white. Deal with that. Or at least get over it. It’s true, and it’s going to remain true. It is also true of this country which will be more non-white than white shortly. Trust me, I live in New Mexico. I live in a city where the population of Latino people is larger than that of the white population. I can’t imagine why anyone would care. And you get to learn a whole new cuisine and culture. What is bad about that?
7. In any universe known or unknown, the truth is that Louis Gohmert (not giving people food stamps to buy King crab legs!), Steve King, Michele Bachmann, Ted Cruz, Rick Perry, James Inhofe, and a whole list as long as my arm x 20, are still going to be insufferably stupid, evil, and owned by big business interests. They represent loons. Is that a good use of your tax money.

That’s just a few. No doubt you have others.

 

The Chronically Stupid Aways Find an Obtuse Angle

Tags

abortion rights, education, gay rights, GOP, gun control, Media, rightwing idiots, teabaggers, Women's issues

So much stupid, so little time to expose it all.

First there is the Daily Caller. The Daily Caller is a piece of stupid run by Tucker Carlson, from Fox Noise. The Daily Collection of Stupid leaves no stone unturned in its attempt to be irrelevant, stupidly funny, and masterful in its invention of new ways to be stupid every day.

You no doubt have always known that the Reactionary Right, of which the Daily Curd attempts to be the voice for, is a huge supporter of gay rights? You’re not aware of that? Well, slap yourself silly dumb person and listen up.

You see, it’s a crying shame, that compromise bill worked out by Senators Manchin and Toomey. Those darn Democrats, always seeking to betray and abuse their gay brothers and sisters.

The bill, Daily Crap points out, will discriminate against gay gun owners. See if you can figure out why?

Figured it out yet?

Well, you see, in states that don’t recognize gay marriage, said gay gun owner will be forced to submit his or her partner to a background check before selling them or giving them a gun for Christmas. That’s because the “family exception” to the proposed new law would not be recognized in non-same-sex marriage recognizing states.

Yes, indeed. I kid you not as they say.

I guess they forgot the provision about neighbor-to-neighbor transfers. I mean what can be more neighborly than actually living in the same house? Seems about as friendly as neighbors can get doncha think?

I gave you the link, lest you think I was pulling your leg, or attempting a frontal lobotomy with a rusty butter knife.

Next on our hit parade of stupid is the ever growing legend of another of those Texas wonders, Steve Stockman.

You remember Steve right? The Texan Representative who decided it was a great idea to invite Ted Nugent, aging rocker with like two old hits over 30 years old, who loves guns more than he loves his kids, and all around crazy conspiracy-laden anti-Obama screamer, to the State of the Union speech? THAT Steve Stockman?

Well this is his new way of attracting the marvelous people who contribute to his campaign to continue being a public nuisance.

This is his newly designed bumper sticker which you can attach to the bumper of your car, horse, or forehead, proclaiming you too are stupid as hell.

Is there anything left to say here? Stockman is offensive on just about all of Dante’s levels of hell.

But my favorite this week? Oh that was easy. You probably heard about the kerfuffle about Melissa Harris Perry’s promo for her show on MSNBC? Where she talks about the education of our children and suggests that children just don’t belong to their parents, but in fact belong to the entire community?

The Really Really Ridiculous Right started fainting and running for smelling salts on that one. One heard the immediate refrain, “COMMUNISM” expounded by the likes of Rush, the Drudge, Daily Caller, and Newsbusters.

Newsbusters said this: “. . .the notion of collective responsibility for children was a philosophy that undergirded the Cultural Revolution in Communist China under Chairman Mao. I bring that up because, as you may recall, another Harris-Perry “Lean Forward” spot contains a reference to a “great leap forward,” which calls to mind the disastrous agricultural reform plan which starved millions of Chinese to death in the 1950s.”

Sarah, “HEY, remember me?” Palin tweeted: Apparently MSNBC doesn’t think your children belong to you. Unflippingbelievable.

Rush ME MORE DRUGS Limbaugh said: So how does this manifest itself? So you need your yard mowed, what do you do?” he continued. “You go knock on the door down the street — your kid that you don’t own. I do today. For the next hour, your kid is going to mow my yard. And then after that, my trash needs taking out and after that I need somebody to go to the grocery store for me and my kid’s tied up, so I’m claiming your kid. How does this work?”

From the Lonely Conservative (who decries a new promo declaring that people have basic human rights to education, food, housing and so forth): Maybe in her next promo she can just come out and quote directly from the Communist Manifesto.

Okay folks, settle down. Let’s recall a few things. There is a rather famous saying, “it takes a village to raise a child.” That is in fact the title of one of Hillary Clinton’s books. Let’s not forget that we all pay property taxes wherever we live, and part of that money goes directly to support local school systems. Guess what? Those who are not parents pay them as well, on the theory that EVERYONE  has a stake in children being educated.

Has everyone on the Right forgotten the “good old days”? You remember when extended families lived together and everyone thought that all children were so much better off having more people busy raising them? Remember the Waltons? Remember when we were children and the teacher as “loco parentis” was considered “always right” if we were disciplined? Remember when any neighbor had a perfect right to correct your behavior if not physically, at least verbally?

Do we not all have a stake in the future of our next generation of teachers, lawyers, doctors, soldiers, and seamstresses? These are the folks who will govern the country when we are using our walkers in the hallways of senior facilities.

I mean how stupid can you be to see something sinister in what Ms Harris-Perry said? How much must you twist and distort it to make it look dangerous and “otherly”?

Do you not see that it is exactly this utterly over-the-top reaction to something so innocent and benign and TRUE, that makes even the fairly non-interested middle of America think the far Right has more than a few screws loose? The GOP and it’s cadre of stupid are swirling into the sinkhole of oblivion and pretty much nobody cares.

Next: RED Jello is a Commie plot with nanobots invading your body and indoctrination in each red sugary gelatin grain.

Related articles

• Rep. Steve Stockman, super genius (dailykos.com)
• MSNBC host thinks your kids are her kids & vice versa (theblaze.com)
• Because Melissa Harris-Perry is That Good, Limbaugh and Palin Are Attacking Her (thisblksistaspage.wordpress.com)
• Glenn Beck: Harris-Perry’s Public Education Promo Part of UN Conspiracy to Collectivize Children (crooksandliars.com)

 

North Dakota Votes Fred Flintstone as Women’s Rights Spokesperson

Tags

abortion rights, gay rights, Insane Republicans, Women's issues

Dino named Secretary of Education.

This is one state to steer way way clear of. If you even see the letters, DAK, start backing away.

The folks there have returned to living in caves. The signs say brake for Brontosaurus.

Seriously.

In what can only be the happiest marriage between fundamentalism and unscience, the legislature (really four old white dudes sitting around a campfire), have determined that women shall bear all children put upon them by any many who gets a hankering to “get a little.” And the governor, one Dalrymple, really the owner of the local stone quarry, has signed the dang thing into law, or laws as the case may be, because there are several.

Now of course there will be lawsuits since this is just about the opposite of the law of the land. And the good Dalrymple has decided in his rubbing of two brain cells together, that the fair cave citizens of said cave state should pay for that. After all, it’s for their own good.

They have managed to reduce the clinics in the realm to one, and they are determined to put that one out of business by loading it down with so many odious regulations that nobody but God himself could comply.

Now these cave men purport to be Republicans, who last time I checked, were for small government and getting off the backs of business operators. Except of course when they aren’t for that because they are more interested in controlling the lives of women in their cave realm.

Wouldn’t it just be easier to conk them over the head like usual?

As I said, avoid at all costs. Ken Ham is said to be scoping out the area for another of his fun times with science “museums”.

HINT: you know guys, one day women will get a majority in these legislative bodies. You might think about that before you keep screwing with us.

Ä

California, by and large, is a crazy state, but at least half the time, it’s good crazy. That’s a pretty good track record if you throw totally insane places like Alabama into the mix.

Yet, following the Peyton rule that each state is required by law to maintain at least two certifiable simpletons in its band of state or federal legislative arenas, California no doubt counts Rep. Jack Kimble as one of their (hide him in the closet when company comes) boneheads.

Seems that Mr. Kimble is pretty worried about what might happen should the SCOTUS decided that California must allow marriage between people who love each other, without checking under skirts and peeking inside trousers to determine the gender of said love birds.

Kimble in a last gasp of intellectual showmanship, tweeted this:

Jack? Are you worried, or just a wee bit excited by that prospect?

Ä

Fearful that the gay will be just popping up everywhere, Tony Perkins, that nice hateful man who runs the Family Research Council and knows God better than most people know their own toes, suggests that if the SCOTUS makes that fateful decision legalizing all that “nasty stuff”, why people might just rise up and start a revolution.

Yeah, I figure that people are aching to destroy their families, neighborhood, businesses, and such just to make sure that some stranger is not doing the nasty with someone who shares plumbing equipment with them.

But no doubt, it will be a good enough excuse for the survivalists to go out and purchase another half-dozen big guns.

La PeePee Lapierre certainly hopes so anyway.

Ä

There is a group called Concerned Women for America. As best as I can tell, they are women who are concerned about a certain kind of America, one that they control and which they feel comfortable in. They are really mad at Starbucks.

Starbucks, as you may already know, is in favor of marriage equality. So it stands to reason that somebody would make the leaping logical conclusion, that that means that Starbucks will probably soon start discriminating against straight people. Or at least discriminate against straight people who want to (just cuz) discriminate against gay people. I mean, old habits are hard to break.

Oh I do love a dose of stupid with my coffee.

Ä

We understand that Wisconsin Governor, Scott Walker is writing a book.

I know.

You can’t wait to go stand in line to get it autographed  can you?

Reports are that it will be written in crayon and Walker promised it would be in his own words, at least the ones he can spell.

Everyone is delighted that there will be plenty of pictures to color throughout.

There is still a debate as to what category it will fall under for you librarians wanting to dust off a special shelf. Suggestions range from Sci-fi fantasy to Abnormal psychology.

I am putting in my Amazon pre-order.

Yeah, I believe in unicorns too.

 

Related articles

• N.D. lawmakers define start of life, outlaw abortion (usatoday.com)
• North Dakota governor approves 6-week abortion ban (kfwbam.com)

 

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.

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Standing in Line to Make that Assiness First

Tags

abortion, GOP, Secretary of Defense, teabaggers, Women's issues

They breed ’em big in Texas.

Asshats that is.

Ted Cruz, the newly elected, still wet-behind the ears, Senator from the late great state of YeHaw, is making it very clear that the Tea Bag Nation is full to the brim with bluster if not brains.

Ted got all in-your-face at the hearings over the proposed new gun legislation and then did the same when it came to confirmation hearings on Chuck Hagel.

Now let me state up front, I have no clear opinion on Chuck. His performance at the hearings was unstellar to say the least, though I’ve read that he was warned again and again not to get into a pissing contest with his opponents. I am basically not terribly impressed with him, but I’m not the President either, so I say, if that’s the man he wants, he should have him.

Ted ranted like a child, and now threatens by his demands to further prove his assiness. He’s demanding records from Hagel of companies that Hagel was involved with but did not control (i.e. he has no right to the documents) and copies of speeches he gave that were never in writing to begin with and never recorded.

Ted you see is an all around jerk. He’s a perfect example of the substantivelessness of the Tea People in general. Bluster abounds, actual facts, knowledge, or even basic common sense are absent. That makes one wonder if he more resembles a Texan or a Tea Bibber. (apologies to all my Texan friends, seriously, I know you are embarrassed by this idiot as I was of the king of stupid Steven King, and am close to be of the Tea Pipsqueak Steven Pence of New Mexico.)

Rational heads even in the Republican party think he’s beginning to act like a first class douche. He has ambitions it’s clear. I rather think he’s dumb enough to destroy his own campaign.

Š

Meanwhile Republican-controlled legislatures across the country continue their assault on women’s rights. Oh, yeah, I forget, “protecting women’s health and safety.” I forget, when Republicans aren’t calling women too stupid to think for themselves, they are busy protecting their health–the better to breed my dear!

In Tennessee, Jim Stacy who has his eye on a congressional seat, is introducing legislation to require women to not only undergo ultrasounds before any abortion, but to see the photograph and listen to the fetal heartbeat. All because, women you know, probably have no idea what they are aborting, thinking perhaps its just a bag of Cheetos.

In Alabama, that bastion of intellectual plenty, a WOMAN legislator has decided that the architecture of the building in which an abortion takes place contributes to unsafe medical procedures, and thus are illegal places to perform said procedures. Such ploys are becoming most common, demanding that the building contain one more broom closet per floor, or six more heating vents. Just utter crap demands that cost thousands to comply with and thus force many clinics to close their doors. These bills of course are called “women’s health and safety acts” to pretty them all up.

Women who have no reasonable place to get an abortion? Suffer and have that kid. But that’s where the “help” stops of course. These states are fairly notorious for not wanting to help care for the infants they demand to be born.

Š

Just a bit of flotsam here. Bet you didn’t know that George W. Bush and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad have something in common did ya? They do, they do! Both have had shoes thrown at them by irate Arabs. You all remember that George got his in Iraq. Well Mahmoud got his (several in fact) thrown at him from a crowd in Cairo. I just love the symmetry of that don’t you? Both nuts, both shoe dodgers.

Š

Do run by Woodgate’s View today and read the great reblogged post on the character Polonius from Hamlet and John McCain. It is both hilarious and a dead on accurate assessment of the great Maverick who really wasn’t. Great read.

Š

Under the theory, that if I can waste upwards of 300 million dollars in one election cycle, that should stand as no impediment to giving me more, Karl Rove is back at it, as you have no doubt heard. He’s formed a new group that is designed to purge the party of the craziest segment of the TeaDom and keep their airy little heads from winning primaries statewide. The first target is one near and dear to my liberal heart, one Steven King (R-IA) whom we understand is wanting to run for Tom Harkin’s Senatorial seat. Trouble is, as we know, Steven is a harebrained lunatic of the highest magnitude short of a quasar and cannot possibly win statewide (all the crazies being mostly kept in the western corner of the state). Karl wants him out and a more respectable (less crazy) alternative, probably Latham.

Fox Noise, with ratings dropping badly from their assurance that Willard would carry the day easily, is out to purge its ranks of the most awful of the awful, starting with Dick Morris who has been told to go peddle his Clinton-hating nonsense somewhere else. Ditto for the grifter queen herself, our dear little Sarah.

And of course, the GOP has offered the hot chile to the Latino community by designating Marco Rubio, to be the answer man to the President’s State of the Union speech. They want that brown vote BAD! All the while, Marco assures the Right that the new “path to citizenship” will be arduous and the line will be long, probably years in the traversing, to soothe the bigoted minds of the trailer trash that is THE TeaMonsterAutoBashBudBowl. None of it is true of course, but the stupid, usually stay that way, and will never know what hit them.

Which is all to say, that the emperor has no clothes and we see your little dickie bobbing in the wind, just fine, and nobody wants a little dickie.

Got that?

K.

Bye.

Related articles

• Hagel Will Be Confirmed, But The Hagel Battle Tells Us Much About The GOP (outsidethebeltway.com)
• GOP throws new roadblock in Hagel’s way (maddowblog.msnbc.com)
• Joe Scarborough Calls John McCain And Ted Cruz ‘Embarrassing’ For ‘Badgering’ Chuck Hagel (businessinsider.com)