Which Scares You Most?

Tags

advertizing, bill of rights, Constitution, Election 2012, freedom, God, GOP, heaven and hell, Humor, Newt Gingrich, non-citizens, North Korea, religious fundamentalists

I have to tell you, I’m pretty much stumped here.

Both send shivers down my spine I tell ya.

If you knocked on your neighbor’s door and looked upon either of these alternatives, I think you might start digging that bunker about now.

While I applaud devices that tend to bring families together, I kinda draw the line at footed jammies complete with hoodies and fingerless mittens, all to enjoy the frigid environs of one’s own family room.

Oh, and you can get your name on yours so you never have to be concerned about getting into somebody else’s stinky jammie.

I understand that next year’s fashion mavens are already calling for an embedded microwave and poo bag attachment, all to eliminate those troublesome trots to the pee-room.

On the other hand, nukes in the hands of the spawn of an idiot is not a pleasant thought either.

I hear tell the spawn-apparent, Kim Jong-un has already set off a couple of missiles that fell into the ocean, in celebration of his ascension to the top of the nut-tree.

So, it’s a toss-up in my view.

♦

Meanwhile, back in our own circus tent, Newty seems to have begun to fall already. Paul is now in the lead in Iowa, which proves something, I’m just not sure what. Mostly I think it means that Iowan’s are just bored as hell this time of year. Fallow fields, and a general color of grey-brown, is after all, boring.

But don’t get your hopes up Ricky S., the bell tolls, but not for thee. See, Ricky, we here in Iowa, just dad-gum-it, don’t like you. It’s just that simple. Go home.

Newty, ya barely kept the lead for two weeks! We thought you had better staying power than that. But you just can’t do it can ya? You just can’t keep your mouth in check. Talking about having judges arrested to justify decisions you don’t like, well, good grief Oh Slimy One, that was just not gonna catch on. Not even here in Iowa. And we like to punish judges here as good as the next guy. But REALLY.

You did not think that one through Gangsta Gingrich. You can’t ignore and intimidate judges and then talk about how you’re a constitutionalist. See they have courts in Iran my grifter friend, and they do quality stamp the state’s decision there. And if we do that here, well, it really screws up the argument that we gotta get ready to force  regime change there, cuz of their Mullah-dictatorships.

Getting my drift, NG? Well, it’s probably too late now. So it’s probably best you high tail it down to Callista’s next kiddie book signing, cuz my buddy, that is your future.

We could have had lots more fun, but your mouth got in the way. I guess we always knew it would.

♦

Well, we understand that the President (whom we rather like most all of the time) has agreed to sign a bill that allows for the detention of enemy combatants arrested on American soil, for virtually as long as forever given that a war on a thing, (terrorism) is not likely to ever end.

Now we understand that the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals has agreed with the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals that “undocumented aliens” are not entitled provisions under our Constitution, such as freedom from search and seizure and so forth. Such provisions are, in the Constitution, “reserved to the people.” Both courts now claim that “people” refer to “political community” and that “illegals” are not part of that.

My question, (or comment) is this: If we think these concepts are “human rights” and we are always trying to export them, sometimes with force, around the world, then how do we justify in not applying them to what I would term “inconvenient” subsets of humanity in our own land?

I just don’t get that. Not at all. Maybe this scares me more than hoodie-footies.

♦

If you go grocery shopping this week, don’t expect to find any cayenne powder around. It’s all be sold out. I gigantic order was placed by North Korea, and sprayed liberally over crowds ordered to appear in the streets to show their sorrow at the passing of Kim Jong-il. If you hadn’t noticed, people are crying all over the place there.  And they have the pictures to prove it.

♦

The Contrarian argues that God was too busy weeping over the Packer loss yesterday to pay his customary attention to Tim Tebow’s Denver Broncos. Well, he can’t be everywhere!

♦

Bryan Fischer, all around equal-opportunity hater of huge chunks of humanity, just had to speak up on the death of Christopher Hitchens. In a brilliant tour-de-force of logic, Fischer assures us all that Hitchens is in hell.

Now you might say, well, what would you expect Fischer to say? And I agree, but his logic, now that’s the real sweet spot here. He claims that God sent him there out of His perfect love. Hitchens asks for it, and he got it.

So, God, hey, I would like to move to New Mexico, and find a $5 million dollar house, on a foreclosure sale for only $25,000. It’s what I am really asking for.

♦

Is it just me, or didn’t the GOP jackasses in Congress swear that with their ascendency in the House there would be no more bills with riders that have zero to do with the major portion of the bill? Okay, leaving that aside, once again The House GOP has found itself caught between its own stupidity and the TeaNutz®. Or in other words, it’s caught between itself and itself.

They have, in their infinite dumbness, stopped the implementation of regulations designed to put in place the energy-efficient light bulbs. Now they have done this for a couple of reasons. First, their insane drooling miniscule crazies in the trailer-parks they pander to, think having “light bulbs of choice” is a “freedom” that must be fought to be retained. And second, the word “regulation” makes then salivate and lose their ability to hear.

Well, industry folks, you know, GE, Phillips, Osram Sylvania, you know, the JOB CREATORS WHO MAKE BULBS, are livid. Since they have all retooled and are busy about the business of making the new bulbs, they WANT THE FREAKIN’ RULES TO CHANGE. The  moronic TeaNutz® sit and scratch their nether regions, all the while shrugging and wondering what they did wrong.

♦

Okay. Now get the shovel and start digging that bunker.

 

 

 

Related articles

• American Family Association’s Bryan Fischer: God Sent Hitchens to Hell Because He Loved Him (littlegreenfootballs.com)
• God Sent Christopher Hitchens to Hell Because He Loved Him – Bryan Fischer – Focal Point (richarddawkins.net)

What This World Needs is a Good Shirley Temple

Tags

"Mittens" Romney, Barney Frank, Constitution, corporate America, economy, environment, Eric Cantor, Humor, Judeo-Christianity, Newt Gingrich, Occupy Wall Street, wacko media

Hey it worked in the 30’s. Or so they tell me. I have no personal knowledge. I’m not that old. I refer to those old reels of celluloid to inform me.

Back in the 30’s this country, like today, was reeling from pessimism. The economy sucked and people had lost faith. So, those great minds in the country told Hollywood to get on board, and make lots of feel-good movies.

And they did. And Shirley saved America.  We just need another Shirley is all. Simple.

♦

Having saved the world before noon, let us move on. Did you know that back in the 20’s and 30’s that corporate Amerika fought Child Labor laws tooth and nail? Did you know that the first act passed by Congress, the Keating-Owens Act, was struck down by the US Supreme Court as a constitutional infringement on a child’s right to contract his or her own labor?

Do rational people believe that anything has changed in Corporacracy? The GOP continues to blame the economic woes of the country on “regulation” of business by Democrats. They assure us that our Corporate benefactors will “do the right” thing when it comes to safe working conditions, safe products, and otherwise fair business practices.

How low does your IQ have to be to believe that? Does anyone remember the company town? Does anyone remember the Triangle Shirtwaist fire? Does anyone remember GM strikers being attacked and beaten by corporate goons?

Yeah, I sure believe that the Koch brothers are lookin’ out for me. Sure I do.

♦

Just how clearly does our Constitution follow the commandments of the Christian faith? Beeryblog has a post you better darn read if you want to know. It’s an eye-opener.

♦

Don’t know if you heard or not, but Gingrich called for the arrest, trial and imprisonment of Barney Frank and Chris Dodd as the ” real perpetrators” of the economic collapse in this country. When the moderators suggested that that was said tongue-in-cheek- surely, Newt the Toot, doubled down and assured everyone that he meant every word of it.

Barney Frank responded with this:

“I wish I knew that he was willing to listen to my advice, I would have given him some: I would have told him not to impeach Clinton, I would have told his successors not to go to war with Iraq, and I would have told DeLay not to go on the dance show. He’s been having a bad year, you know — this self-styled intellectual leader of the free world struggling to stay ahead of Michele Bachmann in the polls is unsettling him so he talks even sillier than he sometimes does.”

H/T to Joe.My.God

♦

The nutz on the right continue to not know what the willies to do about the Occupy Wall Street phenom. Eric (everybody’s nerdish little brother) Cantor has gone from calling them “mobs” to folks who are folks who are “justifiably frustrated.” Read how Cantor tries to backtrack and still manage to tell everyone how different this group is from his beloved (let me kiss your feet) TeaNutz®.

As the movement grows across the country, the GOP is rethinking its initial condemnation of “all those dirty hippies” and “anarchists” who are out to “divide our country” and “pit Americans against Americans”. It’s a fun thing to watch I gotta admit.

And Herm, I would be guessin’, ain’t going anywhere near the “mobs” with his “stop whining and get a job” routine.

♦

If you need another primer on the economy, Robert Reich has that for you in seven lies about the economy that are being pushed by the Right. 

♦

A couple of nice finds at Political Irony. The first is a Democratic website where you can go and watch Mitt (somebody called me Mittens and I thought that was cute) Romney flippin’ and floppin’ on a huge number of issues. All out of his own mouth. Go here for that.

Or go here for late night humor.

♦

There’s two guys chasing after one brain-cell award: Beck interviewing Hank Williams Jr. on his being fired from ESPN for being just plain too stupid to exist. Of course you get that Blaze, so no link is required. You would not want to read it after all.

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Did you know that erasers have magical properties? Well they do. Whatever they erase, ceases to exist. At least on planet TEX-ASS. You see, for years TEXAS has contracted with Houston Advanced Research Center to report on the state of Galveston Bay. And they did so this year. And the water levels are rising, and the scientists said it was important proof of climate change and human causation.

References to the rising water and projections of future rising were simply erased by Rick’s boys and girls who don’t care for that kinda stuff. It’s all a left-wing hoax didn’t ya know?

♦

I’m living in a land somewhere west of Andromeda this day. I awoke to a husband who out-of-the-blue and for no-definable-reason, offered to cook dinner. I had a roast out defrosting and he said, “save it until tomorrow, I’ll go down and get the liver and fix that. I know you don’t like to cook liver.”

I immediately began looking around for MY husband. But I’m thinkin’ I may keep this imposter around, at least until after that liver is cooked. I do love me some liver ‘n onions on occasion.

 

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• Barney Frank Rips Newt Gingrich for Suggesting He Should be Jailed (towleroad.com)

“THE American People” Think You Are All NUTZ

Tags

Constitution, government, political philosophy, representation, US

We hear it from all quarters: “The American people. . .” We want and don’t want tax raises, we do and don’t want universal health care, we do and don’t believe in global warming at the hands of ourselves, we do and don’t believe in creationism, evolution, this or that war, this or that light bulb.

It’s enough to make you wretch.

The fact is, it’s pretty unclear whether anybody speaks for me at all, most of the time. I seem to be yelling out my instructions and positions to a mostly deaf government.

We have individuals who believe they have a mandate to do X simply because, often by only a few thousand votes, a minority or bare majority has voted them into office. They seem to believe that everyone voted for the exact same reasons. They shrug off concerns for minority opinions (which our Constitution was developed exactly to protect!), and pontificate about what they are going to do, giving it that stamp of imprimatur every few sentences, “The People of the US want us to . . .”

Which of course begs the question. What do we have a right to expect? Should our representatives run on a platform and then if elected, even if only by a plurality, set about putting it in motion? Or should they be forced to “compromise” to include their minority position. At what point does an individual “win” be so overwhelming that the minority can be ignored? Are there moral considerations that make this wrong on some issues no matter how small that be?

Of greater question is just what type of representation are we expecting? Was that different at the countries political inception than now? Should it change? Why? For both Houses or just one?

Philosophically, there have been two general ways of representing one’s constituents. In the first, the elected official, by way of town halls, questionnaires, office hours, and such makes every attempt to discern the general desires of the majority of his district or state. He or she then acts according to those perceptions. Kind of like a referendum on every issue approach.

This probably worked pretty darn good in the 1800’s when we weren’t so darned diversified by occupation, religion, ethnic background and all that. Today? Is it truly possible to know? Are you not simply gauging the “very very interested” who participate in polling, questionnaires and town halls and e-mails?

Is there anything special about the representative? Does she have some greater knowledge on issues, or at least certain of them, that make it unwise to trust in the mob?

This brings us to the second method. This theory claims that implicit in the election is the acknowledgment that the official is in fact specially informed, and thus is in a rare place to make the “best” decision for the “most” people. And certainly only she has the special knowledge reserved for “high clearance” information and certainly the relative merits of tradeoffs with other representatives. Shouldn’t this count?

This also worked pretty darn well in the 1800’s where your Senator might well be the rancher on the spread next to yours and a person you might reasonably share similar interests with.

So it all comes down to what do we expect? Do we know? When is the last time you had THIS discussion with yourself or anyone else? Does it matter what the answer is? If is doesn’t then heck, I’ve just wasted your time. If it does, then we are wasting our time arguing until we determine just how many believe what.

We haven’t even got to the question of K Street and it’s influence. We pretty much all agree it shouldn’t exist. I think we do at least. If our politicians are owned already by another entity, than what kind of representation we believe in is pretty much a dead issue, until we have plucked off the parasite clinging to our elected official.

I have no answers. I seldom do. Do you have an opinion? Let it fly.

Related articles

• A Congress of Wimps (fellowshipofminds.wordpress.com)
• Representatives not eager to hold August town halls (dailykos.com)

Tiny Memories of Constitutional History

Tags

Constitution, essay, founding fathers, gun regulation, Individual Rights, National Rifle Association, Second Amendment

It’s hard to know where it started. My guess is that it became a shrewd tactic of the neo-cons, Fox propagandists, the Koch brothers, et al, in forming the Tea Party movement.

“Throw in that the liberals are destroying our Constitution! Claim that they are taking away our freedoms!”

Yeah, that’s the ticket.

In short order, in a few dozens of months, the Constitution has become the rallying cry around which mostly middle-aged, fairly uneducated white men have danced to the tune of the Right Power elite.

The Constitution has taken on nearly a sacred aura. It is akin to scripture, on the level of the Bible or the Qur’an, the Upanishads, or other religious texts. One expects to find people kneeling before it in the Rotunda, whispering the holy of holies, the Words of the very gods themselves.

Indeed, talk to any TeaBagger, and no doubt you will hear that it is God-inspired at the very least, as were the *hush* Founding Fathers, revered as the Apostles of the American Way of Life.

Reading the document in the hollowed halls of Congress, the Republicans saw fit to omit the embarrassing parts, like when our Apostles considered that Africans were only 3/5 of a person, or our stumbling attempt to regulate morals through abstention from alcohol.

But, I am not here to say the document is somehow not important. No, indeed no way. It is and remains perhaps humanity’s best attempt to set up a government that was just and fair. And the wording was just general enough, just open enough, to allow for growth over the centuries.

But, alas, all is in the interpretation is it not? And the Extremist Right, much like any good fundamentalist, reads it like they wish it meant and not how it was meant. Laughably the Tea Baggers groan that our “rights are being eroded” when if anything they have been expanded as the 4th amendment has until recently been enlarged to encompass things unthought of by the Founders.

Similarly, there is an implied  right to privacy that has given people new rights to be left alone in areas of sexual matters and others. Curious that TeaBaggers, who decry our loss of rights, want this one deeply restricted.

As events unfold after the Tucson shootings, we see that there in all likelihood will be no tightening of gun control in this country. Pete King’s offering, to protect elected officials in Washington has been squashed by his party already. Other, more broad offerings appear to be faring no better.

Democrats seem resigned on the issue, the public for reasons that are unfathomable, want even more guns. Arizona legislators suggest they see no reason to back off continuing efforts to expand the right to acquire and carry weapons in their state.

All this is most curious. Jill Lepore, in the New Yorker, has an extraordinarily detailed piece on the Constitution. Including much history and interesting antidotes, she close-ups the 2nd Amendment.

From its inception up until the 1970’s! no one, liberal or conservative, seriously thought the amendment applied to anything other than the right of states to establish militias. Indeed, because of tightening gun law legislation, following the assassinations of Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr., the NRA for the first time, interjected itself into politics with the then novel argument that the 2nd Amendment was an individual right to bear arms.

Think about that. Today, people like Senator Schumer, (D-NY) say on Meet the Press, that it is after all, “clear that the Constitution gives an individual right to bear arms.” Anyone who suggests otherwise is branded stupid.

To be sure, there are differences of opinion and always will be. But historians generally agree that the right was not intended for individuals. Lawyers see the issue a bit differently, but still, the general consensus was, up to the 70’s at least, that it was a state’s right’s issue, involving a militia.

I am and have been dumbfounded that one organization can have a stranglehold on this debate to the point that Democrats are even afraid to discuss it. The NRA is able to control the dialog perfectly. Any proposed law, no matter how rational (eliminating sale of automatic weapons and large clips for instance) are infringements on sportsperson’s enjoyment of their hobby and the beginning of a slippery slope, leading to confiscation.

Every major episode like Tucson, is met with a run on gun stores for the weapon of choice, sure that the government will ban the weapon. One crazed person on a comment, said that the gun laws were “so restrictive that only crazy people could get guns” and that everyone knows that a well armed countries have the “lowest crime rates.” The deluded of course are wrong on both counts. This is just how crazy the conversation has become. This is how knee-jerk  the reaction to any reasonable legislation pro-offered.

I am at a loss, since our legislators seem unwilling to even address the issue. Any ideas?

The Second Amendment Under Fire

The Second Amendment

The Right to Keep and Bear Arms

Wikipedia (a particularly thorough examination)

The History of the Second Amendment

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The White Man Shuffle

Tags

budget, CBO, compusory service, Congress, Constitution, economy, GOP, health care act, Huckleberry Finn, Literature, Mark Twain, Michele Bachmann, military service, sociology

Nothing could be finer than to be in the 112th Congress, watching all the mutual self-pleasuring by the GOPers today. All those fresh-faced deluded newbies, all so sure they are gonna “shake up” Washington.

Today we humbly, and with great awe, read our “sacred” document, the US Constitution. But not just any old Constitution, but the new and sanitized version, you know the one without that troublesome stuff about certain people being 3/5 of a human being?

That sons and daughters of the republic was A MEND ed, and so we are gonna skip that part. No need to be reminded that our not so sacred forefathers were a bit on the bigoted side. That would not square with the story they are trying to tell. The GOP is always in control of the story–lie as it usually is.

So, we are treated to this pretense, with all the pomp and circumstance these somber, awed blowhards can muster before the cameras. Each solemnly walks to the podium and with deliberate seriousness, mouths the holy words. We sit in hushed silence, afraid to even breath, should we not exhibit the proper respect.

HOLY CRAP.  Psst? Do they get it that the Articles of Confederation, that document of state’s rights, was SCRAPPED as unworkable in favor of a strong Federal Government?

***

There is movement afoot to change the wording in Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn. You have probably heard–to take out that “N” word. Such a thing is nonsense, and wrong. In my opinion. Twain was making a point, and the language used helps drive home that point. It reminds us of who we WERE and STILL ARE in some places.

We need to confront those ideas in our own heads, and in our communities. Not sanitize them, much as the crazy right-wing revisionists want to rewrite our history to make it Judeo-Christian in orientation, and plan. Truth is always the best defense.

Do you agree or not?

***

Well, the computer has acted up, and went dead. When it revived and I got back to this post in progress, over 50% of it hadn’t been saved. Got just love that.

***

I did write that the CBO had just screwed up the GOP’s claim that the Affordable Health Care act was “too expensive. It turns out that the repeal the GOP wants, but will never get, would cost 230 billion over ten years. Of course the GOP answers that by simply not paying any attention to the non-partisan body. They don’t count costs in cutting programs, just require finding money for new spending. Watch the deficit climb under them. If for sure is gonna happen.

***

On another note, Infidel 753 has taken issue with TomCat at Politics Plus. I know the post in question, though I’ve fallen off Tom’s blog for a while now. It’s about compulsory national service. Either military or some sort of public works work. Infidel argues most convincingly it seems to me, that such is an affront to liberalism.

I hadn’t thought much about it, but I found his arguments persuasive. The discussion is worth your time I think.

***

We here in Iowa are just bouncy bouncy, happy happy, wiggly, and jiggly, over the prospect that unfavorite daughter, Michele Bachmann is heading our way to discuss the relative merits of her tossing her wild eyes into the 2012 run for the WH. Yes, you heard that right. I am apoplectic with excitement.

Imagine seeing her and the Sarah on the same stage having a GOP debate? If you can call it a debate that is. Can’t you just die for it?

***

What’s on the stove? Lasagna, salad, rolls 

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• Bring it on — Michele Bachmann mulls 2012 presidential bid (pinkbananaworld.com)
• The CBO tells Republicans what they don’t want to hear (washingtonmonthly.com)
• Funny how Boehner and Cantor used to like CBO (americablog.com)
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Well, Now that That’s Over With!

Tags

American Exceptionalism, Arkansas, China, Constitution, GOP, Michael Steele, teabuggers, wingnuts

If you woke up similar to this on New Year’s Day, then presumably you’re pretty glad it’s over with too!

So it’s on to the January blahs, or as it’s commonly known in Iowa, freakin’ cold, freakin’ snow, and freakin’ bleak. It’s something you learn to live through, other options being less enticing.

So, we made it to the big city and done our shopping. We operate like a finely tuned team. We hit the first store where we buy our meat. No packaged stuff, just a long case with meat and a slew of butchers behind the counter to cut and wrap.

Then it’s drop me off at the mega supermarket, while the Contrarian heads off to Wal-Mart for dog and cat food, as sundry clothing items and so forth. Then he returns to locate me. As it turned out today, I had just checked out with a teeming cart load when he arrived, so we were in total synch.

The lane is partly blown in so we travel via the field. Can you say washboard? The Contrarian went out Friday when it was still slushy and created a trail that has since iced down. Now it’s like getting the tires in groove and lettin’ her rip, no steering required. It’s a hair-raising event.

***

The most exciting news so far is that the GOPers are apparently about to unseat Mr. Steele as chairman of their party. Figuring they have “proved we are down with Negroes” one almost expects them to shout Arriba! and search for a token Latino or LINO, as they are called, to shore up that ethnic flavor. But as far as we know, no brown Beemers are in the running. No Cabin GOPers either.  Muslims are still too hot to handle, and women have been done (Sarah should suffice for a good twenty years). The Good Old P*ckers can be expected to stay fully in control.

***

Hey, don’t blame me. I swore off meanness for nearly two weeks. I’m raring to go!

***

It’s being reported that 5000 birds dropped out the skies of Arkansas, dead as doornails. Unlike doornails, they had once presumably been alive. Now we hear that 100,000 fish (did they really count them all?) have died in some waterway there. Reports of a Moses like figure and a guy with a lots of eye makeup named Pharoah, arguing on the Capital steps, are wildly exaggerated. We got the dead stuff report from Mock, Paper, Scissors, the rest  we dreamed up.

***

We are a nation of noodles. The news is full of instances in which teabugger candidates who were elected have fired lobbyists as their chiefs-of-staff. Some wacko state elected as their representative a dude who was illegally placed in the Justice department by Rove and was fired. He is now scheduled to sit on the Judiciary committee. West, the blowheart from Florida who claimed he had a higher security clearance than Obama, but was forced to resign his commission in the armed services, now claims that Obama is no leader because he sneaks into Afghanistan under dark of night in secrecy. This is no “leadership” as Wacko West sees it.

We are getting what we voted for aren’t we?

***

I’d like more than anything than to link up to great stories about the insanity of all these wingnuts, and do it without becoming angry, and despondent, and without hope, and resigned, and pissed off. I’d like that. I always say I’m going to remain above it all, just looking down and reporting the landscape, from up here in the trees, or clouds. But I don’t. Tell me how if you know. My blood pressure will sure thank you.

***

I hear the GOPers in the House plan to start the festivities off with reading the Constitution from front to back. This is a good beginning. It will undoubtedly be their first experience with the document. They might find that it is printed in one continuous piece of paper, and that the amendments are not “optional”.

***

I wonder who the GOP will put down once they have exhausted all the minorities on the planet. I mean after the Mauri and the Magyars. When they have hated and vilified and blamed all their woes on everyone else, who will they turn to them?

***

I’m wondering if parents who have kids about to enter college and suggesting they learn Chinese or major in Asian studies. It seems prudent to me. I think American “exceptionalism” has reached it nadir, nobody overseas buys it much, and China seems poised to take the helm, with India not far behind. Both have invested in the future. We are still romanticizing the past and wanting a return to the “good old days” when everybody was happy (meaning white men felt a lot more secure and in charge).

***

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IOWA Votes: New Name: StOOpidVille, USA

Tags

Constitution, Iowa, Iowa Supreme Court, judicial activism, literacy tests, voting

You know me, never one to think too highly of the “electorate” am I. No, and with good reason as the good ignorant people of Iowa so amply demonstrated last night. They got a corner on stoopid the likes of which hasn’t been seen since, well, since Minnesota elected Michele and Alaska elected the Wasilla Washerwoman.

Iowa waved a flag and announced to the ENTIRE FRACKIN’ WORLD, that they are both homophobic AND supremely, superbly, stupendously BATSHIT crazy stOOpid.

Iowa, the know-nothing capital of the WORLD, decided in its infinite lack of anything remotely labeled wisdom to un-elect all three of its supreme court justices. Why? FOR DOING THEIR JOBS!!!

Iowa claims, rightly or not, to have one of the best school systems in the country. It claims it educates its young in all the ways that places like Louisiana and Mississippi only dream of. It does not, for the bozos who by wide margins kicked out perfectly competent and conscientious jurists, did so because they fundamentally have no clue what judges are supposed to do.

Armed with no knowledge, they fell for the usual right-wing propaganda. When asked why the judges should be removed they mumbled in lockstep, “Because they shouldn’t be making laws just because they personally like certain things. We are supposed to vote on that stuff, not have them shove it down our throats.”  And. . . “We don’t need activist judges. . .they should follow the law.”

Yeah, moron, shut up, for you make a fool of yourself. Okay, let me explain what you should have learned in civics class in 9th grade.

1. We have three branches of government, which is called a federal republic. It is not a democracy. You don’t get to vote on everything. You are too freakin’ lazy to vote even every two years–you want to do it every two months?
2. The bench (that means the judges acting as a “court” are called upon to do two main things:
3. a. interpret laws passed by the legislature, and b. determining whether a law can be squared with the constitution of the jurisdiction (that would be IOWA here).
4. To put that in simpler terms (ask someone to read it to you) not all laws are constitutional. Sometimes they violate an amendment or article. The Court MUST strike it down as UN-Con-Sti-Tu-tion-Al, if that happens. I know this is hard for you, but try to keep up.
5. If you believe in a Constitution, which all of you claim you do, then you don’t want it ignored do you? No, of course you don’t, unless you are StOOpid. In which case, maybe you do.
6. This is not a new idea. It was decided way way back in our HISTORY. It was a case called Marbury v. Madison. It was when Madison was president. Do you remember him? I won’t bore you or tax your pea brain with the facts of the case, but it established that one of the jobs of the judiciary (that is a big word I know, but it means “the judges together”) is to decide whether a law duly passed is also constitutional.
7. You might remember them doing that in another case you should have heard of in high school–Brown v. Board of Education. In that case, they said that a law that said that it was okay to have white only schools as long as there were colored schools for colored kids to go to, was UN-Con-Sti-Tu-Tion-Al. They did not say, what do the voters want. Are you following now?
8. Now we are going to go deep kids, so as I said, find someone who can read and explain if I’m going to fast. The case you are hot about is called Varnum v Brien. I know that probably 97% of you couldn’t have told me that, though you deem yourself wise enough to pass on the justices ruling.
9. I will guarantee you that less than 99.8% of you has not read the opinion. If you had, you would have found that the people who didn’t want gays to marry in this state were given every opportunity to prove all the wild allegations they made against this. The opinion gives them all, and states all the “evidence” they could muster. They couldn’t provide any studies, and only a couple of “experts” who gave opinion testimony only. The pro-equality side submitted volumes of proof, some of it absolutely proving the other side wrong on key points. Amicus curia (I know, another big word and Latin too!) briefs were filed by all kinds of prestigious organizations across the land. They all sided with the plaintiffs (the ones who wanted equality in marriage).
10. The justices couldn’t ignore that it was a clear case of one side having all the evidence and the other side none, and that’s why it was a 9-0 decision.
11. The hate mongers told you that all nine of these justices, appointed by more than three different governors over many years, just happened to hold the same “liberal” opinions and inserted their beliefs into the case. Is this logical? Maybe that’s unfair, since you obviously aren’t logical.

Which all leads me to conclude that something is awfully wrong with our system here. A US Supreme Court Justice, now retired, Sandra Day O’Conner, suggests that all judges should be appointed, realizing that the “folks” are just not qualified to do this. You make here case.

I’m even more cynical. Goodness knows, I know the term “literacy test” raises a lot of ugly memories. It has been used to disenfranchise (you don’t have to read now–this is directed toward intelligent thinking people of which you are not one) demographic groups–African-Americans to name one.

I also recognize that in some races, (judiciary probably excluded) actual knowledge of the facts may not be essential. There is something to be said for correctly identifying a person of good character, and believing they will live up to their integrity. But for all practical purposes, the world is too complex, too dangerous, and to inter-related to allow wildly ignorant and intentionally so people to make important decisions.

People who don’t know that medicare is a government program have zero right to vote on issues involving health care. They have demonstrated such a lack of understanding and worse, wilful ignorance that it is folly to allow their participation.

Yes, I know it’s unworkable. I mean only to express my profound anger, my utter frustration with trying to communicate with children who have not the common sense of a gnat. These are Sarah’s people, this IS the face of Sarah Palin.

A pox on all your house! I am so not proud of Iowa. I am ashamed.

Related Articles

• Iowa Supreme Court Justices Ousted For Marriage Equality Ruling (bilerico.com)
• Iowa Judges Sacked Over Gay Marriage Ruling (huffingtonpost.com)
• 3 Iowa justices removed after gay marriage ruling (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
• Now they’re coming for the judges…. (tagg-lines.com)
• Iowa gay marriage foes emboldened by judges’ removal (thegazette.com)
• Joe Mirabella: Iowa Supreme Court Justices Ousted for Marriage Equality Ruling (huffingtonpost.com)