Wish I’d Said That Thursday

Tags

abortion, contraception, Health care, Hobby Lobby, Women's issues

I truly wish I had said it.

Reblogged from BrainSpank

 

I am a woman. I gave birth. It was painful.  Excruciating.  Agony.  No one knows.  I do.

My child knows no one other purview until it gulps air outside of me. Until it leaves my womb it belongs to me and no one else. No other body, governmental or even judicial matters at all to me.

Not as far as I’m concerned anyway.

I really don’t care what you have to say.

I cannot stand five catholic men in black robes who would decide anything for me or the child in my body.  I loathe you for trying.  Your ignorance.  Your arrogance.  Your hubris.  When the day comes I want to relinquish control of my life, my child’s life, to the likes of you, I’ll let you know.  It will have a big fancy seal.  It will be on parchment.  Sheepskin.  You’ll know.  Champagne and caviar.

Until then, shut the fuck up.

We all know you think it’s your religious privilege.  We all know you think you’re somehow entitled to a voice here.  A heavy legislative hand.  A right.  But you are wrong.  You don’t.  You can’t.  You won’t.  You can’t tell me what contraception to use anymore than you can tell me what to do with my womb.  My body.  You stand there, collecting your filthy lucre from the dirtier angels of our filthiest nature and presume to define sin for me.

Fuck you.

You took a stand on the side of a company that wears its hypocrisy on its goddamn face.  They invest in and make money off of the manufacture of contraceptive products.  They willingly paid for the objectionable products for their employees for years.  Decades.  What changed besides Obamacare?  They say their mission is to prevent abortion but the only net gain from this will be more abortion.

By the way, they say the contraceptive products the won’t pay for kill babies.  Wrong.  Completely wrong.  What they do is prevent fertilization.  No beings.  No babies.  How did we get to a place where the Supreme Court is guilty of science denial while listening to and valuing the opinions of clerics and wizards?

Five Roman Catholic men who wear black robes to work.

In this process you would willingly consign me to a coat hanger.

I am a man and I do not accept this jurisprudence.  It is the antithesis of jurisprudence.

But I am a woman too.

It’s like your whole reason is to make sure it’s born.

After that, it’s nobodies business but mine.  Ironic how you grab responsibility before it’s born and surrender it completely the second after.  How do adult white men entertain the notion that they somehow get to champion the fetus and forgo the child?

Jackasses.

They are the last people.

Then, some sonafabitching congressman comes along to make my last stand.

To pretend to speak for me and all the unborn.

I am a woman and I have given birth and if I begin to understand that delivery might mean my death, I get to decide what to do.  If that child will be born inside out?  My problem.  If that child is born with whatever disability?  My problem.

Not yours.

Fuck off.

The same goes for my contraception.  Sometimes it’s to prevent an unwanted pregnancy. 56% of the women in this country that avail themselves of contraceptive medication have it prescribed to them by doctors for reasons other than preventing pregnancy.  Sometimes it’s to prevent my spending days in bed writhing in the kind of pain that makes botulism or ebola look Fischer Price.  Sometimes it’s to reduce my risk of certain cancers.  Viruses.  You don’t know.  You can’t you bastards.  I am a woman and you are not.

I can no longer countenance five greasy old academic males deciding any of this shit.  It’s none of their business.

None at all.

I am a woman.

I would make each of you pregnant tomorrow morning if I could.

Or, I would visit the menstrual cycle upon each of you if I could.

Then we would see who the women are.

That would be awesome.

Bitches.

I am a man speaking for women.

Drinks for my friends.

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.

 

 

 

 

Weeping For Joy

Tags

1 st Amendment, judiciary, tea party

It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen. —George Orwell, 1984 (1949)

There are times in life when the universe slaps you in the face, not out of spite or meanness, but to be most sure that it has your attention.

This is a good thing.

Such a thing happened to me.

It often does, I have to admit.

This, I ponder, may not be the case with most of humanity, it’s hard to say. I can only speak for myself. But it is a regular occurrence for me, I assure you.

If one believes, as some do, that the universe is a vast sea of intelligence, and we are but threads in the great tapestry that is the universal brain, then one is required, or so it seems to me, to respond promptly to its nudge, or slap as the case may be. Perhaps to the more aware it is a nudge. As I said, to me it seems a good healthy slap, one that stings for a few seconds, leaves a pink echo upon my cheek, but no lasting imprint.

The prompting today seems directed at reminding me that there is much to this thing called humanity, this thing of being human. In fact, there is so much diversity along the spectrum of human to not so very, as to suggest that some of us many not be exactly of the same species at all. This of course could figure quite prominently in those circles where UFO’s and alien meddling are believed to be involved in so-called human evolution. A helping hand to Darwin so to speak.

What I mean to say is that, well some of us seem not to play by the normal rules of logic. You know the drill. Two plus two equals four. Rain falls down unless carried by wind in some not gravity direction. You know, basics.

It is undoubtedly what makes it nearly impossible for rational normal people to get facts across to people of the TeaSwillin’ party. Which is a whole failure of logic in and of itself, since of course said party is not really known for its tea swilling at all, rather for its Bud delight I would generalize. Yet it clings to an appellation, their collective minds conclude,  that suggests  a willingness to “give the last full measure” for an America they have dreamed up at back yard barbecue meets during lazy Saturday nights.

The following is but an example.

There was a time, long ago and in a universe perhaps far away, when the public at large looked up to those of great learning. Such were judges, who were given a reverence seldom accorded politicians at least. Wearing archaic uniforms of flowing robes, they dispensed justice from on high. They did this by reasoning from old and rather dusty tomes of ancient writings which consisted of “precedent” or the honor given to past pronouncements from similar men dressed similarly.

But I must say, that no longer can we accord such men, or women if they exist, with this presumed pedestal right.

Alas, they too have proven to be of mere clay.

Fine you say, the likes of Thomas, Alito, Scalia have made that case  for some time now.

Yes, you would be right, but, no I speak of one so low as to commune with pond scum.

That man would be Chief Judge Roy Moore of Alabama, a state always in the running for title as location of the world’s stupidest people.

Yes, THAT Roy Moore, the fool who refused to remove the 10 commandments from a courthouse under order from a Federal Judge. For that he was unanimously removed from the bench by other jurists of that state. But, yes, you remember don’t you? The good but stupid people of Alabama sent him right on back.

Roy was no doubt a stellar student at Alabama University but must have slept through most of his Constitutional law courses. This seems plausible, since Roy admits that his tenure as company commander of a MP unit in Vietnam was, shall we say, problematic. Known for his strict adherence to rules and interpretation, he became known as Captain America. This was not an endearing name, and poor Roy took to sleeping upon sandbags should his men decide to lob a grenade under his cot. So he might well have been in need of sleep during those years after in stuffy constitutional law classes.

In any case, Roy has developed a rather unusual interpretation of the First Amendment in its entirety. It seems, or so Roy says, that the darn thing only applies to Christians, since as he says, Buddha did not make us, and he is unaware of any copy of the Koran having come on the Mayflower.

If you don’t know this, then Roy invites you to “get back and learn your history”.

Roy expounds on life itself, saying that it’s clear that life begins “when the baby kicks, not when it’s head comes out!” Common sense found at the bottom of a cracker jack box folks.

Now if all this sounds somewhat different from what you learned, well, you don’t inhabit Roy’s jello brain.

See the universe is trying to tell ya something here folks. Not all humans are created, well quite human. Some of us are imposters. Roy proves that.

Aren’t you glad you don’t live in Alabama?

Get out there and look for the aliens among us…If you smell tea, you are on the right track.

Source: The Raw Story

Roy on vacation

Should You Ever Find Yourself Stopped By the Fuzz

Tags

crime, criminal law, police, race

Well, see, most of you won’t. Won’t find yourself stopped and “frisked” by the PO-lice. I am pretty sure of that. But some of you will.

And you will wonder why.

And you will know.

You were “walking or driving while black”, or brown. Pretty much stop and frisk laws don’t apply to driving. But the principle is still pretty much the same. Pretty much they don’t apply to white people. Pretty much they are really “stop and frisk that black/brown kid” laws.

And I should know.

I worked with this stuff for twenty years, “back in the day”. Yes, it goes back that far, in fact it goes back way far. To the early 60’s.

When crime was “rampant” and large cities were losing white folks due to “white flight”, and that was due to “crime” or so they thought. And so they thought they would get tough on crime.

Detroit, of which I am intimately familiar, did it with a unit called S.T.R.E.S.S. (Stop the Robberies, Enjoy Safe Streets). It was supposed to reduce crime. All it did was make the black community fear and hate the cops, and after a whole lot of black kids were shot to death, it was disbanded by newly elected black mayor Coleman Young.

S.T.R.E.S.S. had been brought to an end before I arrived, freshly washed behind the ears, full of the desire to stick it to the “pigs” and protect “the people” from militarist style policing.

But then there was stop and frisk. Stop and Frisk arose from a case called Terry v. Ohio. Now we can ignore the facts, and just state the rule: “if an officer comes upon a person who he reasonably believes is, has or is about to commit a crime, he may, IF he can point to specific and articulable facts from which it can reasonably be deduced that the person so confronted is armed and dangerous,  he may pat down the outer clothing of said person for the SOLE purpose of determining whether said person is carrying a weapon.” Whew. Got all that?

If he feels a weapon, he may retrieve it. Otherwise he may ask the person questions which may or may not allay his fears and concerns. The point of the frisk is solely for the officer or “bystanders” safety in the moment. The law was extended to an “area” around the individual to which he might “lunge” in an attempt to secure a weapon. (read glove box or sofa or other hiding spot).

Now that’s what the law says is legal.

And being a normal person, you assume that that is how it works.

If you believe that then you believe that doctors and nurses have no dirty little secrets about what goes on in hospitals, labs and operating rooms, and you trust the military to always follow the rules of war.

Some of you may be familiar with the Rules of Justice as enunciated by Alan Dershowitz, well-known professor of law and attorney:

I. ALMOST ALL CRIMINAL DEFENDANTS ARE , IN FACT, GUILTY.

II. ALL CRIMINAL DEFENSE LAWYERS, PROSECUTORS AND JUDGES UNDERSTAND AND BELIEVE RULE I.

III. IT IS EASIER TO CONVICT GUILTY DEFENDANTS BY VIOLATING THE CONSTITUTION THAN BY COMPLYING WITH IT, AND IN SOME CASES IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO CONVICT GUILTY DEFENDANTS WITHOUT VIOLATING THE CONSTITUTION.

IV. ALMOST ALL POLICE LIE ABOUT WHETHER THEY VIOLATED THE CONSTITUTION IN ORDER TO CONVICT GUILTY DEFENDANTS.

V. ALL PROSECUTORS, JUDGES AND DEFENSE ATTORNEYS ARE AWARE OF RULE IV.

VI. MANY PROSECUTORS IMPLICITLY ENCOURAGE POLICE TO LIE ABOUT WHETHER THEY VIOLATED THE CONSTITUTION IN ORDER TO CONVICT GUILTY DEFENDANTS.

VII. ALL JUDGES ARE AWARE OF RULE VI.

VIII. MOST TRIAL JUDGES PRETEND TO BELIEVE POLICE OFFICERS WHO THEY KNOW ARE LYING

IX. ALL APPELLATE JUDGES ARE AWARE OF RULE VIII, YET MANY PRETEND TO BELIEVE THE TRIAL JUDGES WHO PRETEND TO BELIEVE THE POLICE OFFICERS.

X. MOST JUDGES DISBELIEVE DEFENDANTS ABOUT WHETHER THEIR CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS HAVE BEEN VIOLATED, EVEN IF THEY ARE TELLING THE TRUTH.

XI. MOST JUDGES AND PROSECUTORS WOULD NOT KNOWINGLY CONVICT A DEFENDANT WHO THEY BELIEVE TO BE INNOCENT OF THE CRIME CHARGED (OR A CLOSELY RELATED CRIME).

XII. RULE XI DOES NOT APPLY TO MEMBERS OF ORGANIZED CRIME, DRUG DEALERS, CAREER CRIMINALS, OR POTENTIAL INFORMANTS.

XIII. NOBODY REALLY WANTS JUSTICE.

And that my friends is pretty close to being the utter truth. In big city courts, it’s mostly about moving the mountain of cases through the system in a reasonable order, such that the state supreme court doesn’t start getting on your back for “backlogs”. The entire plea-bargaining system is predicated on it–too many cases, not enough cells. Plead to something you did not do, get out of jail, OR insist on a trial, wait until next year and wait IN jail for it, and God help you if you lose, cuz them I’m gonna throw the damned book and the library it’s attached to at ya, and say hi to not getting out of prison before you’re a very old man.

That’s the system.

So, how is this stop and frisk actually done in practice you ask?

Well, it goes something like this:

1. Drive to area which is designated as “high crime” usually involving drugs.
2. Swoop in. Multiple police cars coming from all for directions works best.
3. Jump out and start chasing all the young black men you see.
4. Scream a lot, using the “f” word liberally.
5. Spread-eagle on any wall of any building all those corralled.
6. Search them all.
7. Go around the sidewalks picking up any dope you find lying around.
8. Arrest anyone who was “holding”. Give the “found” dope to anyone who is a big mouth.
9. At station, write a report that says something like:

“My partner and I, while on routine patrol in the vicinity of John R and Erskine, observed the defendant walking down the sidewalk. As we approached, he looked in our direction, then turned and walked briskly away. As he was walking, I saw a white folded up paper, which through previous experience, I suspected was cocaine, fall from his hand onto the sidewalk. We stopped the scout car, and my partner went toward the paper while I continued to follow the defendant on foot. My partner alerted me that it was suspected cocaine, and I detained the defendant and placed him under arrest.”

And that is what he will testify to in court, or as we now call it, testalie.

And the defendant will most often plead, though he was one of the loudmouths who didn’t have any dope, but was visiting his uncle’s house down the street, and was actually sitting on the porch when the police came in and ordered him off the porch. He told them they were harassing him for no reason and that he would sue. So he got to be “it” –the recipient of any contraband they could not obviously tie to any individual.

He will plead because the judge said he would entertain a motion to release him on personal bond if he copped, but alas if he wanted a trial (which he really does, being innocent and all), he won’t get one for five months and being a drug user presumably, poses such a risk to all, that he will have to remain in the county jail all that time. Oh, and due to the fact that he has no record,he will surely get probation most probably (I’m sure your lawyer already told you that) for a plea,  but if a jury convicts you, well then we will just have to see (the book is headed for your head).

And that is how justice is pretty much meted out in the mean streets of big city USA, and yeah, it’s all racial profiling, and worse, and nobody thinks it can be fixed, because nobody really cares.

All that crap Bloomberg has been spouting about “stop, question, frisk? Pure bull.

Are we clear?

Related articles

• Stop & Frisk (skyestats.wordpress.com)
• Judge Rules NYC Stop-and-Frisk Policy Unconstitutional (newsy.com)
• Stop And Frisk Is Criminal (dish.andrewsullivan.com)

Yeah It’s Good For Some

Tags

corporations, drones, economy, Individual Rights, North Korea, Scalia, SCOTUS, wealthy

The Stock Market hit a new high.

Corporate profits are probably at all-time highs as well.

The people who do the work? Not so much.

Between 1979 and 2007 59.9% of gains in income went to the top 1%, 36.7% alone going to the top 0.1%. During that period, gains by the 90%? A mere 8.6%.

Productivity has increased since 1950 by 254%. During that same period, wages went up 113%, and most of that increase occurred by 1975. Productivity, on the other hand, has risen steadily and continues to rise.

The response of the corporate board room to the recession has been to find more efficient ways to accomplish their target goals. They devote their R and D to the purpose of creating a cheaper way to make their product. Cheaper never involves hiring workers. They would make their products devoid of human workers if that were possible. Machines don’t require health care benefits and pensions. They don’t need money devoted to safe working conditions and lunch breaks.

Don’t tell me, please that corporations are job creators. They are profit creators, and hiring is now the last resort to accomplishing that goal. That’s why Wall Street is doing so well, and yet the unemployment figures are still so high. It’s got zero to do with regulations or very little. It’s got very little to do with “uncertainty” about what the buffoons in Congress are going to do. It’s got to do with profit. There is no morality here. It’s not part of the capitalistic model.

Meanwhile, there was this farcical drama in North Korea.

The pity is that the media thought any of this worthy to report upon. Dennis Rodman is a delightful entertainer. As an intellectual, well, he leaves a great deal to be desired.

His “opinion” is about as useful as that of a three-year-old. And I like the dude. He’s had a tough life as a kid, and he’s managed to make a good life for himself. I give him credit.

Kim? Oh good lord, he never got spanked as a child, that is certain. And I’m not much for corporal punishment either.

But he definitely needed spanking. In fact he needs spanking now. He’s always in the middle of a tantrum.

And dude, find a new barber. That haircut is silly. Seriously.

It’s hard to judge this Supreme Court. I’m not sure if we haven’t had this kind of horror before, when the Court was filled with really nutty people who make a mockery of the Constitution.

The Dred Scot Court comes to mind. That must have been an awful one.

But it would be hard to argue that this one is close to the top of the list of really awful benches.

Scalia is an intellectual joke, playing word games about original intent of the Framers, when all it comes down to is his personal disgusting beliefs.

Calling the right to vote a “racial entitlement”. And then suggesting that instead of testing a law against the Constitution, he has a new job–doing the dirty work for Congress, meaning that Congress is too beholden to special interests and can’t do the “right” thing because it might cost them an election.

So Scalia to the rescue. Doing the “right” thing. What a douche.

Let me get this straight.

Some Republicans are all upset at the use of drones against US citizens.

Got that.

No Republicans ever raised this issue when Bush starting using them.

Don’t get that.

In American courts, EVERYone, citizen or not, is gets the same rights.

Got that.

Sulaiman Abu Ghaith is arrested in Turkey. He is moved from Turkey to Jordan (Turkey prohibits the extradition of prisoners to those few countries that still practice the use of the death penalty and we are one of THOSE countries) and then transported from Jordan to the US for trial.

Got that.

Republicans are incensed because he can’t be interrogated properly except at Guantanamo (he was interrogated by an elite force of experts in Turkey and talked to the tune of some 20 pages), and because he is a bad dude and has no right to the rights granted him in our civilian courts.

Don’t get that.

Morality sure winds a crooked course in the Republican mind. And incidentally, in a good many Democratic ones as well.

Just a word about something I care about.

I am now the Sunday morning cat adoption “cleaner” for Pet Smart. I do this through a local adoption group in my area called A.W.A.R.E. What I learned is that Pet Smart joins with local animal groups across the country to adopt out animals. That’s a good thing.

My job is to clean the cages, feed and water where these cats live, and to play with them as much as I wish while I’m there. This is done twice a day, seven days a week, all serviced by volunteers.

My only point here, is that if you are interested in adopting a kitten, think of them as a source. You are not getting a “kitten” mill animal, but one that has been rescued and needs a good home. Prices are typically $50, and all animals are already spayed or neutered and have all their shots. In some cases the animals may come from the local shelter. You will probably get a bit better animal, since these kittens get more socialization than those typically housed in shelters.

I have no agreements of any kind with Pet Smart or A.W.A.R.E. in return for these statements. It’s only because I care about the animals. Perhaps other pet stores do the same. I haven’t inquired.

 

Related articles

• Scalia Calls Voting Rights Act ‘Perpetual Racial Entitlement’ (crooksandliars.com)
• Why Scalia’s ‘Racial Entitlement’ Quote Is Even Scarier Than You Think (thinkprogress.org)
• Voting is no ‘racial entitlement,’ Justice Scalia (tv.msnbc.com)
• Dennis Rodman Puts The New Abnormal Into Absurd Perspective (zerohedge.com)

 

I Bet Todd Went Fishing

Tags

Election 2012, Entertainment, judiciary, Mitt Romney, Movies, Sarah Palin, teabaggers

 

 

Dat man and the kids have gone camping some place where the crazy lady don’t know. He knew better than to be around when Sistah Sarah learned that the TV movie, Game Changer did pretty darn well at the Emmys last night.

Oh she was no doubt throwing things, maybe so far that they landed in Russia. Who knows. The lamestream media skewered her once again, reminding America that she was such a ditz-douche, and played a good share in the reason why the old warrior and war-mongering senile mean guy, John S. McCain was not destined to occupy the White House.

I would have liked to have witnessed her ire when Julianna Moore won as best actress. Ms. Moore, laughed and thanked everyone for the validation because as she reported, Ms. Palin had given her performance a “thumbs down.”

But actually she might be secretly pleased, since she loves to play the poor victim, which can be witnessed almost any time she is on Foxy Noise, which I’m guessin’ won’t be too much longer since nobody gives a flying FuManchu what she has to say about nuttin.’ Ahh, fame, thy life can be brief.

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I don’t know if you watched the Great Wonder Willard on 60 Minutes last night or not. But Wiggly Willard actually said that the vast numbers of uninsured under his “non-health care plan” could go to the emergency rooms for treatment. He smiled when he said it. Next question?

Sarah Kliff, writing on Ezra Klein’s blog, Wonk Blog,  points out the fallacy of that stupid answer.

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We keep bringing this up because latest numbers suggest that as many as 10 million people could be prevented from voting across the nation. There are number of brilliant reports on it, and you can find them all listed again at Ezra Klein’s blog. And he has a list of other good reads for the day as well, so go take a scroll down the page!

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Having been on the inside, I know something about the justice system in this country. I know it is filled with unfairness and the rich do better than the poor for sure. I know all about extraordinary judges and incompetent idiots who have all the talent required to affix a widget with a screwdriver and little more. I KNOW there is incompetence, fraud, and a whole lot of cutting of corners to get it done.

That said, NO democracy is gonna be worth a hill of beans if the population at large doesn’t basically accept the judiciary as the final arbiter of LEGAL. You may disagree with a decision, you may think a number of the judges are akin to hyenas. But you accept that whatever is the decision, it was reached because the judge in question REALLY believes that the law should be what he/she says. In other words, their decisions have finality and certitude. They have VALIDITY.

This is now under assault my friends. It started in a big way in Iowa when the Supreme Court there unanimously held that the state had presented absolutely no evidence that validated their decision to refuse same-sex marriage. The Constitution, both state and local, provides that all persons be given due process of law and equal protection of the law. Iowa, could not produce the most anything to justify treating the gay community differently.

Whereupon they struck down the law, and the crazy began. A group set about to make sure that those justices who were up for re-election were defeated. In that they succeeded. I’m told that the move to take out the next three this year, is not doing as well, and perhaps they will fail.

However, there is talk that the Tea Party in Pennsylvania, and the GOP in Florida, plan to attack running Justices of their respective courts for not going along with the GOP desire to prevent as many people from voting as possible.

Worse, it seems that when we await a decision from some court on some important issue, we soon learn which justices are
“Democrats” and which “Republicans”. We are frighteningly, now contemplating that most tough cases are coming down to whether the judge is a Democrat or Republican. We are clearly already there for the most part when it comes to the SCOTUS.

Once the electorate concludes that decisions are not made based on judicial philosophy and law, but merely based on party affiliation, then the rule of law is dead. Witness Rand Paul’s remarks about the AHCA decision by SCOTUS, that it was basically just the “opinion” of a few people.

This issue could prove to be a huge threat to democracy. At least as I see it.

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Finally John Cassidy, over at the New Yorker, asks and answers the question, “Why is Romney Such a Loser?”

Related articles

• Republicans Helped Create Romney’s “Taker Class” (duanegraham.wordpress.com)
• What Mitt Romney Doesn’t Get About Responsibility – Bloomberg (bloomberg.com)
• Mitt Romney Hoisted With His Own Contextless Petard (nymag.com)
• Worst Campaign Ever? (Guest Voice) (themoderatevoice.com)

 

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Tags

2nd Amendment, Election 2012, Humor, Justice Scalia, Mitt Romney, satire

 

 

It was bound to happen. Somebody, and then a lot of some bodies were gonna call out Willard for being a wimp. Wimp is really too nice a word–gutless would be more to the point.

We got some indication of this just by looking at how Bain operated. It’s basic business model was to so structure the take-over so that Bain made money no matter what happened to the company they were restructuring.

Others say that Willard is uncomfortable among those not of “his kind” and gets flustered. This explains why he avoids the press–he fails to anticipate the question, hasn’t thought much about it anyway, and tends to be fairly unaware of what is coming out of his mouth. Thus the silly references to “trees being the right height”, a funny picture reducing him to “guffaws”, and so forth.

He has no real convictions I’m convinced, and thus it is of little consequence from his point of view to change his position to satisfy whomever stands before him. He has no courage to stand up. If you have watched him over the last week with his new “attack dog” motif, you can surely see the fake-ness of it all. There is nothing authentic about him, thus nothing authentic sounding about anything that pours forth from his lips.

The latest pander, by the way, is to declare Jerusalem the rightful capital of Israel, something no American president has done since 1948. The UN has declared it an “international city” and frankly Willard seems not to realize that to claim to intend to move the American embassy to Jerusalem is to whip the winds of war in the Middle East.

More talking out of both sides of his mouth came when he praised the Israeli health care system–a system that has been socialized since its inception in 1948. What is good for Israel is not of course good for America apparently.

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I  just thought this was funny. I think the headline should be “don’t drink and drive”. How ’bout you?

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Justice Scalia has put an ad in the paper asking anyone who may find it to return his brain. This looney-toons thinks that the proper way to interpret the Constitution is the use the plain meaning of the words as meant at the time the document was formed.

Therefore. . . .this idiot claims that the only restrictions that can be placed upon the 2nd Amendment are limitations that would have been “reasonable” to the people at the time. He cites that a misdemeanor for carrying a head ax was proper because such a weapon was considered frightening at the time.

Do you think that a rifle made to look like a AK-47 might be frightening to-day you moron? According to Scalia, it doesn’t matter. If the locals of 1770’s couldn’t foresee such a weapon, it is not illegal today. Nor are hand-held rocket launchers, under his theory that any hand-held weapons are protected, which a cannon would not be. (I suppose that refers to “keep and bear” obviously meaning hand-held?)

Oh, if you find any screws around, send them to him too, he’s obviously lost all of those too.

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Enjoy your day. There is no more news. Trust me.

Related articles

• Bain controversy evokes Mitt Romney’s ‘wimp factor’ – US politics live (guardian.co.uk)