First Florida, Now Wisconsin

For Some Wisconsin State Workers, ‘Climate Change’ Isn’t Something You Can Talk About

Discussing climate change is out of bounds for workers at a state agency in Wisconsin. So is any work related to climate change—even responding to e-mails about the topic.

A vote on Tuesday by Wisconsin’s Board of Commissioners of Public Lands, a three-member panel overseeing an agency that benefits schools and communities in the state, enacted the staff ban on climate change. “It’s not a part of our sole mission, which is to make money for our beneficiaries,” said State Treasurer Matt Adamczyk, a Republican who sits on the board. “That’s what I want our employees working on. That’s it. Managing our trust funds.”

Seriously, this is getting ridiculous. What a bunch of fucking babies. Once again, the closet fascists come out to play!

Cooties!

After the all the noise in Indiana about a law that tried to legitimize religious prejudice, we have a story about the depths of stupidity that such thinking leads to:

Francesca Hogi, 40, had settled into her aisle seat for the flight from New York to London when the man assigned to the adjoining window seat arrived and refused to sit down. He said his religion prevented him from sitting beside a woman who was not his wife. Irritated but eager to get underway, she eventually agreed to move. 

Imagine how completely annoying it would be to have your flight delayed half an hour because some forty-year-old man was acting like a six-year-old boy who's afraid he'll get cooties sitting next to a girl.

And it's not an isolated occurrence.

TEL AVIV (JTA) — For approximately a half hour at the beginning of her El Al Israel Airlines flight last week from New York to Tel Aviv, Elana Sztokman watched as the haredi Orthodox man seated next to her rushed up and down the aisle searching for someone willing to switch seats so he wouldn’t have to sit beside her.

On the same route several hours later, another El Al flight was delayed as haredi men stood in the aisles refusing to sit next to women.

After takeoff, the men resumed their protest until other seats were found for them. A passenger on the flight told the Israeli website Ynet that the trip was “an 11-hour nightmare.”

Does their religion really require such silliness?

Rabbi Shafran noted that despite religious laws that prohibit physical contact between Jewish men and women who are not their wives, many ultra-Orthodox men follow the guidance of an eminent Orthodox scholar, Rabbi Moshe Feinstein, who counseled that it was acceptable for a Jewish man to sit next to a woman on a subway or bus so long as there was no intention to seek sexual pleasure from any incidental contact.

Apparently these guys are afraid they will succumb to a dark temptation on an airplane, in public, in front of hundreds of other passengers and flight crew.

This is exactly the kind of thinking that has repressed women for centuries. And it's not just Judaism. This same strain of prejudice abounds in many forms of Islam and Christianity.

Men who are too weak to control their own impulses demand separate seating in airplanes and buses and temples. They force boys and girls into separate schools, or ban girls going to school altogether. They make women cover themselves from head to toe. They force women to sequester themselves in their houses and never go out in public.

It's ridiculous that these people think their barbaric religious laws should be accommodated by the rest of society. They're demanding that Talmudic and Sharia law govern everyday interactions between people in public, under the guise of "religious freedom."

Just like those businesses in Indiana who want to use Old Testament law as a basis to refuse to do business with gays and lesbians.

The Final Word On The American Taliban (Part Three)

Next up in this series are the following questions...

-Which political party in the United States (Democrats or Republicans or neither) suffers from severe xenophobia and why?

There weren't as many views on this one so the answers should be taken with the smaller numbers in mind. My favorite?

I'm not sure either party suffers from severe xenophobia, although I would say the right wing of the Republican Party uses fear based appeals as a tactic more. Fear of Muslims, fear of undocumented immigrants, fear of socialism, fear of gays, fear of home invaders, fear of the government, fear of the collapse of America, fear of the United Nations, fear of economic collapse, and so on. Is it xenophobia? Not so much. Fear of change? Pretty much.

If they want to win elections, they are going to have to change this ideology.

-Which political party in the United States (the Democrats or the Republicans or neither) demonizes education and why?

Top answer?

Both and neither, really. 

The Republicans, when playing to their base, like to deride their opponents' education as being uppity or out of touch all while poo-poo-ing scientific evidence which might point to a need to enact policies which could negatively impact Big Business (their donors) profit margins. I don't consider that demonization, though. 

The Democrats tend to want what they consider to be thoughtful measurement with benchmarks and clearly defined objectives, which, when laid like a template over public education, becomes a strait jacket of regulations and teaching-to-the-test without much learning actually going on in the classroom. Again, problem that this is, I cannot label it demonization. 

If I had to choose one or the other, though, which has less trouble convincing themselves education is "not important", it would be the GOP; the Democrats, from their consistent meddling, have always seemed VERY interested in exactly what goes on in every classroom, right down to the slightest zero for not turning in homework- the child obviously has problems which we all must help solve....

The rest of the answers are equally as thoughtful.

Here We Go Again

A South Carolina police officer has been charged with murder after shooting an unarmed black man in the back.

The shooting unfolded after Officer [Michael] Slager stopped the driver of a Mercedes-Benz with a broken taillight, according to police reports.

As soon as he stopped the car, the driver, Mr. [Walter] Scott, fled and Officer Slager chased him into a grassy lot that abuts a muffler shop. The officer fired his Taser, a stun gun, but it did not stop Mr. Scott, according to police reports.

A video taken by a bystander shows what happened next. Wires, which carry the electrical current from the stun gun, appear to be extending from Mr. Scott’s body as he tussled with Officer Slager. As Mr. Scott turns to run, something — it is not clear whether it is the stun gun — is either tossed or knocked to the ground behind the two men.

Officer Slager draws his gun as Mr. Scott is running away. When the officer fires, Mr. Scott appears to be 15 to 20 feet away and fleeing. He falls after the last of eight shots.

The officer then goes back toward where the initial scuffle occurred and picks something up off the ground. Moments later, he drops an object near Mr. Scott’s body, the video shows.

Initially Slager claimed that Scott had taken his taser, but the video clearly shows this was a lie. Slager calmly shot Scott in the back, and then, without a moment's hesitation, methodically staged the crime scene to support the lie.

Now, the talking heads at Fox are probably going to ask, "Why did this black man run away from a cop if he hadn't done anything wrong?" and "Why did he resist arrest? Resisting arrest is a crime!"

Seriously? As this incident shows, any black man in this day and age has every expectation to fear for his life any time a cop stops him. This happens all too frequently: once the cops get hold of you, you never know whether they'll choke you to death like Eric Garner, shoot you for obeying their commands like Levar Jones (also in South Carolina), or beat and sodomize you like Abner Louima.

And there are other reasons. In South Carolina you can be sent to jail for failing to pay child support. People generally don't pay child support because they don't have the money. How does putting them in jail -- making it impossible to earn more money -- further the cause of paying child support?

The United States supposedly abolished debtor's prisons a century ago. Yet in places like Ferguson, MO and South Carolina, people are jailed for not paying fines and court fees. If these cities are serious about getting paid, the authorities should put them to work and garnish their wages. But instead they jail them for not paying fines, and then make them pay room and board for being jailed.

Throwing them in jail prevents collecting fines and child support. It's simply counterproductive and vindictive Catch 22 type of retribution that seems specifically targeted at poor people to prevent them from ever escaping the trap of poverty.

You would expect this kind of state-sponsored injustice in a Charles Dickens story, or a Franz Kafka novel, or newspaper article about Nazi Germany or Soviet Russia. Not in 21st century America.

But that's life in the American South, the land of no income taxes.

This Year's NRA Convention=Gun Free, Civilian Slaughter Zone

Working guns prohibited at NRA convention

Wait...wha? I thought gun free zones were a big no no for the Gun Cult. Talk about hypocritical...

And dangerous! Imagine if one of those left wing commie bastards who wants to take guns away chooses this gun free zone as his next point of slaughter and chaos. Let's see if the Gun Cult's predictions comes true about crazed killers and how they evily plot mass shootings.

We got ourselves a gun free zone right cheer!

The Middle East Is Burning Because Bush and Cheney Set It on Fire

Dick Cheney says President Obama is the "worst president on foreign policy." That's rich coming from the architect of the Iraq War, the biggest pooch-screwing since Vietnam.

A recent article in the Washington Post indicates that Saddam's Baathist cronies form the core of ISIS, the current bugaboo (after Iran) in Republican circles. But why did these guys start ISIS?

The de-Baathification law promulgated by L.­ Paul Bremer, Iraq’s American ruler in 2003, has long been identified as one of the contributors to the original insurgency. At a stroke, 400,000 members of the defeated Iraqi army were barred from government employment, denied pensions — and also allowed to keep their guns.

The U.S. military failed in the early years to recognize the role the disbanded Baathist officers would eventually come to play in the extremist group, eclipsing the foreign fighters whom American officials preferred to blame, said Col. Joel Rayburn, a senior fellow at the National Defense University who served as an adviser to top generals in Iraq and describes the links between Baathists and the Islamic State in his book, “Iraq After America.”

The U.S. military always knew that the former Baathist officers had joined other insurgent groups and were giving tactical support to the Al Qaeda in Iraq affiliate, the precursor to the Islamic State, he said. But American officials didn’t anticipate that they would become not only adjuncts to al-Qaeda, but core members of the jihadist group.

Bush installed Shiite Iranian puppets in Iraq, knowing they would persecute the Sunni minority. Bush signed a Status of Forces Agreement in 2008, calling for American troops to withdraw from Iraq by June, 2009. And now Republicans had the gall to criticize Obama for their mistakes.

Again and again, Republicans made colossally stupid foreign policy decisions: Eisenhower deposing a democratically elected government in Iran in 1953, Reagan supporting Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan in the 1980s, Reagan selling missiles to Iran in exchange for hostages, Reagan supporting Saddam and turning a blind eye to the Kurdish genocide, Bush letting bin Laden get away again in 2001, Bush being duped by Iranian agents in 2003, Bush invading Iraq in 2003, Bush's vindictive de-Baathification fiasco, Bush's torture scandals at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo.

Time and again Bush was warned that his actions were just creating more terrorists. Yet he kept making the same mistakes over and over, all on Cheney's advice. And today, we have ISIS.

Yeah, the Middle East is burning. Because George Bush and Dick Cheney literally set it on fire.

The Final Word On The American Taliban (Part Two)

Next up in my American Taliban, Final Word series are these two questions...

-Which U.S. political party (Democrats or Republicans) has a fundamental belief in scriptural literalism? Why?

Top answer?

Definitely the GOP simply because of the dominance of religious conservatives. Many of the GOP platform stances such as anti gay rights and anti abortion are rooted in scriptural literalism. When someone believes that an arbitrary historical text written by ordinary men is the divine word of God there is no room for compromise or discussion. 

These people want clarity and certainty in their beliefs and mindset. Reality is black and white with no ambiguity. This is what makes all fundamentalist religions such as Christianity, Judaism and Islam identical to each other. All historical religious texts contain an increasily massive number of propagated human errors from translation and transcription that monotonically increases with time. The Bible and all other religious texts are all written by humans yet many attribute these texts as the word of God. 

To me it is logically absurd that so many people can blindly follow religious texts in a literal manner that conflict drastically with each other. Each religion essentially invalidates itself and all others by declaring itself the one true religion.

No room for compromise or discussion...wholeheartedly agree! It's pretty sad when you think about it. Where is the room for progress?

-Which political party in the United States (Democrats or Republicans or neither) writes and passes legislation to control a woman's body?

The top answer (from my favorite responder!!) was filled with data and incredibly detailed. Save the link for future information. It will definitely be useful in the coming election.

Thousands of Murderers?

Election Day in Ferguson

When the Justice Department released its reports on Ferguson last month, conservative whites believed they had "won" because Officer Darren Wilson was cleared of murder charges. Fox News and its yes men claimed the "Hands Up Don't Shoot" narrative was a complete lie, and that Michael Brown was a thug who deserved what he got.

Yet the Justice Department released a second report that showed a consistent pattern of racism and civil rights violations in the police department and the courts that intentionally screwed poverty-stricken black residents of Ferguson out of millions of dollars and repeatedly threw them in jail because they couldn't pay. Police abuse of African Americans was an integral part of the city's budget. This resulted in a slew of resignations in Ferguson and the dissolution of the Ferguson municipal court.

This was a clear abuse of police and government power, something that should be near and dear to the hearts of conservatives. Yet all they can do is crow about Michael Brown getting what he deserved.

For months protesters filled the streets of Ferguson, spending hour upon hour upon hour -- sometimes all night long -- protesting the abuse the police and the city government have heaped upon African Americans for years.

Today is election day in Ferguson. A cynic might say they picked the date to minimize turnout.

During those protests some activists were trying to register people to vote. Conservatives went ballistic. Even though Ferguson has a majority black population, everyone in the police and the city government was white.

Today is election day in Ferguson.  Yeah. Today. The Tuesday after Easter. In an odd-numbered year. A cynic might say they picked the date to minimize turnout:

In 2013, the turnout rate was just 17 percent among white voters and 6 percent among black voters. One reason for the small number of voters is the fact that elections are held in April on odd-numbered years. That's been shown to seriously depress turnout, compared to November in a presidential year, or even to November in midterm years. Turnout topped 40 percent during November's midterm elections, but that also represented a 10 percent drop from 2010. But in 2012, 76 percent of eligible voters cast ballots, almost 20 points above the national average (and Barack Obama thrashed Mitt Romney, taking 85 percent of the vote).

It seems crazy to me that people can spend hour upon hour for week after week, standing in the streets yelling, "Hands Up Don't Shoot," yet they can't spend half an hour on a day in April to cast a vote.

You can protest all you want, but it won't make a damn bit of difference if you don't elect people who will listen to your protests.

I know that for a century and a half white conservatives have put up all kinds of roadblocks to prevent African Americans from voting. But as the 2012 election results show, blacks can clearly make their voices heard, if they just show up to vote.

Today's turnout in Ferguson will show whether all the protesters who stood on the streets were serious. If they can spend countless hours, night after night, chanting about justice and peace, surely they can make an appearance at a polling place to elect the people they want to ensure justice and keep the peace.

You can protest all you want, but it won't make a damn bit of difference if you don't elect people who will listen to your protests.

Lil' Wayne (LaPierres)

VERY Good Words (on guns)

I was asked recently to answer a question on Quora.

Is America's Second Amendment "right to bear arms" a bit antiquated and needing to be reformed?

I haven't yet but check out this answer, from a "Firearm owner, firearm safety, military weapons training, responsible firearm use."

Right now, no, I do not believe it should be altered in any way. We can, however, change gun laws. I believe in the individuals right to own weapons, for person defense, hunting, and the ultimate purpose of the 2nd amendment - defense against tyranny. I personally do not see at this point the threat of a violent movement by the government that would cause us to rise up, but very few people who are destroyed by such things can see it coming.

I think we need to tighten up the screening process for owning firearms. Better mental health evaluation, better evaluation in screening buyers to determine their level of responsibility, and making more courses and training facilities available for people to learn how to use their weapons effectively, safely, and the most critical part - WHEN they should actually use it. An example in closing: Adam Lanza murdered children and teachers with his mother's guns. She was a shooting enthusiast. She knew Adam was troubled, mentally ill, and unstable - Yet she did not lock her weapons up as a responsible owner should - And that mistake cost her her own life, and the lives of many others. 

Responsible owners vs Irresponsible is what needs to be looked at. How exactly we do that, I am not sure.

It's that last line that really nails the debate right now. The difficulty in this is that there are many firearms owners and gun rights activists that realize that they are likely not mentally fit to own guns. Some of these people are the loudest in that group and it's so obvious they would be affected by any changes to laws. So, they prey upon responsible gun owners fears and everyone just goes along.

It won't change until, sadly, these folks are personally affected by gun violence.

The Final Word On The American Taliban (Part One)

I've written extensively on this site about the validity of Aaron Sorkin's American Taliban description of the modern day conservative. Taken as a whole, it can seem overwhelming and perhaps even sensationalized. But what if you took it one characteristic at a time?

That's just what I did on Quora and the results were very interesting. Here are the first couple of questions.

By far, the most popular (36K views and counting!) was this one:

-Which US political party, the Democrats or the Republicans, denies science on a regular basis? Why?

Part of the reason for this was renowned sci fi author, David Brin, weighing in with a response.

Alas. Let there be no mistake. The American right, which used to admire science, is now in full tilt against science. Thirty years ago, 40% of US scientists called themselves Republican, now it is 5%. They are voting with their feet, the smartest, wisest, most logical and by far the most competitive humans our species ever produced. 

And not just science. Can you name one profession of high knowledge and skill that is not under attack by Fox & its cohorts? Teachers, medical doctors, journalists, civil servants, law professionals, economists, skilled labor, professors… oh yes, and science. I defy you to name one that isn't under assault by a hijacked-insane version of what used to be an intellectual conservative movement. One that now screeches invective upon all of the "smartypants" professions, in the worst know-nothing movement in 150 years. 

The anti-all-smartypants campaign has driven all of those professions away from conservatism and the GOP. 

Do some liberals or (more often) their leftist allies sometimes do unscientific things? Sure. You can pile up anecdotes of leftist groups and persons doing/saying nostalgic tripe and romantic claptrap. But Democrats pour money into real science, and most non-leftist liberals do listen to it. Further more, among the billionaires, most all of the tech moguls (except for one or two) are Democrats, while the so-called resource extractors and Wall Street guys are Republicans.

His was the top response for awhile but has since been voted down to second because he is a poopy headed fat face whose face is fat! (side note: how can 422 upvotes be second to 41 upvotes?) Regardless, both of the top answers (and many others) resounding illustrate that it is, in fact, the Republicans. 

-Which political party in the United States demands more ideological purity, the Democrats or the Republicans and why?

Top answer?

Absolutely the Republicans. There isn't any equivalent to the term "DINO" on the Democratic side, despite the existence of many it would well fit. The "Blue Dog" Democrats, who at times align with the Republicans, are a very real part of the Democratic party. They don't face rabid hatred and primary challenges even that being so. 

I guarantee you that if a Republican crosses the aisle one too many times (or even once on some object of extreme hate like PPACA), they will face and possibly lose a primary challenge. At minimum, they will get derided as a "RINO". If Ronald Reagan were to run for office today on the same platform as in 1980, he'd almost certainly get that treatment. Conversely, the Democrats tend to run the spectrum from center-right to somewhat past center-left. Obama is more toward center-right, while someone like Elizabeth Warren is farther over to the left. Neither is run out of the party on a rail for it.

Second answer...

Republicans.

Democratic lawmakers face little fear of being primaried out of office by the far left fringe if they stake out a few moderate positions. In the republican party, the risk of being primaried out of a job is far higher, thus republican politicians are much more reluctant to challenge the party line (unless they are challenging it from the fringe instead of the center), and thanks to the Tea Party, the party line has shifted markedly rightward. The end result is that many republican office-holders have now backpedaled from former statements they've made taking somewhat moderate positions on issues like climate change, women's reproductive freedoms, restrictions on armour-piercing bullets, gun purchase background checks, support for renewable energy, an individual mandate to get health insurance, and a variety of other matters. Consider the case of South Carolina republican congressman Bob Inglis. 

Initially a climate change skeptic, he studied the issue and became convinced that in fact there actually IS an overwhelming scientific consensus that anthropogenic climate change is real, and that the science is sound, so he changed his position and began advocating for taking the issue seriously. Result - in the next election he received only 27% of the vote, getting trounced by a more ideologically pure opponent who stuck to the climate denial party line. Many other republicans have lost primaries under similar circumstances - they were just not pure enough to avoid suffering the wrath of the far right fringe. Even House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, considered a rising star of the party, was primaried out of office. Along the same lines, almost no republican is willing to publicly criticize the Grover Norquist pledge to not raise taxes, on anything, ever. Many of them are known to loath the pledge, but they don't dare challenge it out loud - they know doing so will earn them a well-funded primary challenger.

I'm sensing a trend here:)

Just In Case

Man Always Carries Gun In Case He Needs To Escalate Situation

“I never leave home without my Glock, because you just don’t know when someone might mouth off to you in a bar and leave you with no choice but to turn a minor altercation into a tense life-or-death scenario,” said Donner, noting that he keeps his loaded weapon in a hip holster should the need arise for him to respond quickly, and with deadly force, when he is angered by a perceived slight.


Some satire that is a little too close to home...

Good Words

From a recent piece on Politico...

Some are insisting on a “better deal” than the framework nuclear agreement reached with Iran on April 2. But the idea of a better deal is a chimera, an illusory option, and it should not lull us into thinking there is another agreement to be had if only we were to bear down harder. The present agreement, which depends on important pieces to be resolved by the end of June, can substantially reduce the ability of Iran to develop a nuclear weapon over the next ten years or more and also creates a dynamic that could be a game changer in the combustible Middle East. 

The rest of the piece explains why this is true and completely torpedoes the Right's talking points.

Sorry, conservatives, you are going to have to allow the president yet another win. It's what is best for the country and, more importantly, the security situation in the Middle East.

So, grow the fuck up!!

Moms On A Roll

Greater Than These

Across the United States today, many Americans will be celebrating the risen Jesus Christ and that His message is eternal. The core of that message is that we love one another while doing His works and greater than these. In so many ways, we are doing that. Take a look...

Greater than these...

Fucking Glorious

Indiana and Arkansas took steps this week to quell the national uproar over their religious "freedom" laws. In short, they caved to the will of the free market.

And it was fucking glorious.

The revised Indiana law prohibits service providers from using it as a legal defense for refusing to provide goods, services, facilities or accommodations. It also bars discrimination based on race, color, religion, ancestry, age, national origin, disability, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or U.S. military service.

You can almost here the slumped soldiers now that they can't refuse the gays anymore.

Arkansas was able to avert much of the fallout Indiana has seen by making changes before Hutchinson signed the law. The revised language more closely mirrors the 1993 federal law and only addresses actions by the government, not by businesses or individuals. 

People have focused on the call Governor Hutchinson got from Doug McMillon but consider the pressure Wal Mart is under from...well...US! My pals on the left like to squawk about corporate power but it has really been the people...the consumers that drive demand (that again?!? :)) that are putting the screws to these folks.

This whole affair was a massive statement on where we are at in 2015 in terms of civil rights. This country is not going to tolerate this bullshit anymore.

Thank God.

Focus on the Right Questions

The biggest problem conservatives have heading in to the 2016 election is they continually attack the person and not the policy. Actually, this is true even in political debates between citizens. I've noticed over the years that when the facts are against them (as they are often), conservatives switch to attacking me or some sort of trait/style that I have and run very quickly away from the issue.

Of course, they can't talk about the issues and run on policy because of stuff like this.

Walker's Wisconsin Still Lags Nation in Job Growth

It's also why they limit the availability of the media. They whine about "liberal bias" but reporters are going to ask him about his economic record and it's not good. Their policies don't work and they know it, hence the reason they switch to ad hominem.

This election should be about the issues and policies that each candidate is going to support and implement. It should not be about Hillary Clinton's personal life or Rand Paul's time at college. What are their plans for the problems we fact as a nation? Have these plans worked in the past? Where? How? These are the questions that should be asked and focused on intently in the next election.

That's what we will be focusing here at Markdelphia.

Vicarious Patriotism

As the reaction to the framework deal on Iran's nuclear capability poured in from the various corners of the globe, I noted the reaction from the hardliners. It was a resounding no. Then it occurred to me that perhaps the hardliners from Iran, Israel and our own country should leave. Perhaps a desert island where they can all spy on and fight each other would be more suitable.

I've spoken previously of the similarity between our conservatives here in the US and the conservatives in Iran. Both groups are religious zealots who support a theocracy. Both are intolerant of dissent and want an authoritarian government. And they all want war.

I posed a question on Quora recently regarding the conservative reaction to the Iran agreement. The top answer say it all.

Let's see: 

-The Prime Minister of Israel is upset because the United States of America is not doing what he ordered the United States of America to do regarding Iran. 

-A U.S. Senator who once falsely claimed to have been named "Intelligence Officer of the Year" (in 2002) and who also falsely claimed to have served during Operation Desert Storm (which I did serve in) thinks the negotiations with Iran are like "Nazi appeasement". 

-The Speaker of the House of Representatives, whose military service consisted of 8 weeks of Navy basic and a medical discharge for a bad back, wants to follow the orders of Israel's Prime Minister and move toward an eventual war between the United States and Iran as a means to protect Israel. Sorry, my cynicism is coming to the fore. 

I served in the U.S. military for 27 years, and I hate war. I have killed for my country and I have taken two bullets in the service of my country and I also suffer from PTSD. If necessary, I would fight again or support younger Americans fighting in my stead - but not to serve the foreign policy efforts of any country other than the United States (be it Israeli foreign policy or Liechtenstein's foreign policy). All too many Republican legislators are financially supported by individuals and corporations who make their living constructing and supplying war materials and who need wars to sell their products. 

These legislators see war as a means to help those individuals and corporations who helped them get elected, as a means to reduce unemployment by giving presently unemployed people jobs as soldiers or as workers making war materials and in many case they see war as a game played by others, like an American football fan who loves to watch the games but knows in their heart that if they put on a helmet and shoulder pads and actually played, they would get physically damaged - I call it "Vicarious Patriotism". 

It's not just the legislators. Their base suffers from the same delusions...

Willfull Ignorance on the Highways

Over the last 20 years, since the national 55-mph speed limit was lifted, many states have increased their speed limits. Most have raised it to 65 or 70, but some have raised freeway speeds to 75, 80 and 85 mph.

South Dakota just raised their speed limit to 80. Texas allows speeds up to 85. I suppose you can justify these limits on the basis that people should be made to spend as little time as possible in those states, but there are other considerations.

State legislatures who raise these limits have ignored one important thing: truck tires are not designed for speeds above 75 mph:

"It's a recipe for disaster," said James Perham, president of Extreme Transportation Corp., an automobile-hauling company near San Diego that filed a complaint with regulators about Michelin tires after seven blowouts caused an estimated $20,000 to $30,000 in damage to its rigs.

Even if you've never looked at a speed limit sign, the evidence of these increased speed limits is easy to see: these freeways are covered with shredded truck tires.

Shredded tires are major menace, especially to motorcycle riders. A 22-year-old motorcyclist died in Vadnais Heights, MN, when she hit tire debris on the road one night and was thrown into the path of an SUV. A tire flew off a trailer in Iowa and killed a motorcyclist in Iowa last August.

Officials from states with higher speed limits are completely oblivious to tire safety. Caught with their pants down, they have refused to answer questions from the AP, or they offer lame excuses:

In Wyoming, which raised speeds on some rural highways to 80 mph last July, "it doesn't look like necessarily there was any consideration of truck tire speed ratings," said Bruce Burrows, a spokesman for the state Transportation Department. Wyoming hasn't seen a spike in tire failures, he said.

Burrows also noted that the speed limit doesn't require truckers to go 80 mph, and said they should be aware of how fast their equipment can safely travel — a common refrain among state officials.

What planet do these guys live on? First, because time is literally money for truckers, they always go as fast as possible. Second, nothing inspires road rage more than someone poking along a highway at less than the speed limit. Third, disparate vehicle speeds increase the chance of accidents because there's more passing and a greater likelihood that inattentive drivers will rear-end slower vehicles. Fourth, most truckers have no clue that their tires aren't rated for more than 75 mph. They just assume that states wouldn't let them drive at unsafe speeds.

Then there's physics. Kinetic energy is related to mass times velocity squared. A truck traveling at 85 mph has twice the kinetic energy of a truck going 60 mph. Ergo, a truck going 85 takes twice as long to stop as one going 60.

Finally, there's human physiology. The average person's reaction time is 250 milliseconds. At 85 mph you'll travel 31 feet before your brain can even register that something has happened. Even the most conscientious driver can be distracted for a couple of seconds -- changing the radio station, adjusting the volume, cursing at some nitwit who cut him off at 90 mph. In that time you go the entire length of a football field and ramming into the back end of a family minivan "poking along" at 65.

Highways aren't NASCAR speedways. Trucks and cars are driven by regular Joes, not trained stuntmen. Animals run across highways all the time. Limits over 70 are just too fast for these conditions.

Not surprisingly, all the unsafe speed limits are in solid red conservative states. Are these legislators  just ignorant, selfish, impatient yahoos who don't give a damn who gets hurt? Or are they slyly making sure the numbers of self-inflicted gun deaths in their states don't exceed traffic fatalities?

The Closet Facsists

I love it when the Gun Cult pretends to be all about freedom and fake spits at all things authoritarian. Essentially, they are full of shit. Here is an example:

Do Gun Owners Need An App To Tell Them Where Anti-Gun-Violence Activists Live?

On Thursday morning, a handful of anti-gun-violence activists realized there is an app in the Google Play Store with their names on it—literally. The app, Gunfree Geo Marker, features a map pinpointing the home and work addresses of politicians, gun control organization employees, and "random anti-gun trolls" who "push the anti-gun agenda in any way, shape or form." 

I wonder what the Gun Cult would say if there was an app to track them...

Pants Shitters Unite!

The United States, Iran and five other countries that no one ever mentions came to a framework agreement yesterday regarding Iran's nuclear energy and weapons development. Before the details (which are included in the link above) were even released, we saw this.

John Boehner in Israel: ‘The world is on fire’

Iran nuclear deal threatens Israel's 'survival,' Netanyahu says 

Republican senator compares Iran deal to Nazi appeasement

O...M....G...!!!!

I don't think I have seen this much pants shitting since Obama got Osama!! Appeasement? I wasn't aware that we were granting large swaths of land in the Middle East to Iran...oh wait, maybe we are as we fight alongside them against ISIL:)

When I saw the reaction to the framework of this yet to be detailed and signed agreement, it became glaringly obvious what was really going on. Conservatives are going to have to endure yet another Obama success and they don't wanna hafta because he is a poopy headed fat face whose face is fat!!! (I put Bibi in this category as well since he has decided to behave as insecurely as the Republicans due to his impending irrelevance).

So, while the 8 year old boys have their little temper tantrum, take a look at the details of the framework. It's glaringly obvious that the effectiveness of the sanctions (which are now ookey-dokey with conservatives) have led Iran to this massive capitulation. It's a laundry list of actions that Iran has to take or else it's back to the Big Squeeze. They must really be hurting. In fact, I can attest to this personally.  

One of  my long time students is Iranian. She and I have had many conversations about relations between our two countries. Her and her family travel back to Iran frequently and she has noted just how angry the people are with their government. This is why they are giving up so much. The government is growing increasingly afraid of another uprising-one which they will not be able to quell as they have in the past. The younger people in particular want to be a part of the world community and look to the United States with great envy as a model for what they want their society to be someday. They are very tired of the old ways and crave change.

It's time to help them get there and this agreement is a very large first step. 

The Welcome Varies

New "Religious Freedom" Laws Try to Legalize Religious Intolerance

With all these religious freedom bills flying around the country, we need to examine what religious freedom really is.

The federal religious freedom law (RFRA) was passed so that Native Americans could conduct ceremonies on sacred lands that had fallen into federal hands, and to use peyote in religious ceremonies. The precedent for this sort of thing was recognized as long ago as Prohibition; the Volstead Act allowed the sale of sacramental wine.

Thus, the intent of the RFRA wasn't to let people use their religion as an excuse to express their hatred for other Americans, it was to  to prevent the government from interfering with religious practices.

But there have been several cases in recent years where businesses and individuals have insisted that it's their religious right to discriminate against and even harm others:

• Taxi drivers refusing to give cab rides to passengers carrying alcohol.
• Checkout clerks refusing to sell bacon to customers.
• Pharmacists refusing to sell birth control pills to unmarried women.
• Pharmacists refusing to sell certain other drugs (Plan B) to anyone.
• Bakers refusing to sell cakes and florists refusing to sell floral arrangements to gays and lesbians.
• Employers refusing to provide birth control coverage for employees. 
• Right-wing Christians murdering doctors who perform abortion and blowing up women's health clinics.

Whenever there are interactions between people, there's always going to be some contention between one person's rights and another person's responsibilities in a civil society. If we allow individuals and businesses to discriminate against gays and lesbians on "religious grounds," then all these types of discrimination would also be allowed:

• Orthodox Jews denying services to men who are not wearing hats.
• Catholics denying services to Protestants.
• Christians and Jews denying services to persons of mixed race individuals and interracial couples (cf. Deuteronomy 7:1).
• Muslims denying services to women who are not wearing veils.
• Ultraorthodox Jews denying services to menstruating women (because they're "unclean"), and since they can't really tell by looking, to all women.
• Baptist cab drivers refusing to give rides to people who have been drinking.
• Christian Scientist cab drivers refusing to bring patrons to hospitals.
• Hindus, Jews and Muslims refusing to give medical treatments because they contain certain animal products.
• Jehovah's Witnesses doctors denying blood transfusions during surgery.

There's no difference between a white cab driver refusing to give a black man a ride, a Christian baker refusing to sell a cake to a gay couple and a Muslim cab driver refusing to give a ride to a miniskirted woman leaving a bar at two in the morning.

As soon as we let people start discriminating against other people based on their own prejudices all the crap that  took us centuries to get rid of (segregated bathrooms and lunch counters, miscegenation laws, you know the drill) will start popping up all over again, under the guise of "religious freedom."

It's not big a step is it for ultra-conservative Christians to claim their religion requires them kill Wiccans, based on Exodus 22:18, "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live," or their own children for cursing them, based on Leviticus 20:19, "For anyone who curses his father or his mother shall surely be put to death; he has cursed his father or his mother; his blood is upon him." Eating shellfish is an abomination, according to Leviticus 11:12, so is it their religious duty to blow up Red Lobster?

Your religious rights end when you start violating someone else's civil rights.

Your religious rights end when you start violating someone else's civil rights. Anyone can make up their own phony religion and create whatever bogus dogma they want. Don't believe me? The Church of Scientology is a "religion," even though everyone knows it's just a gigantic scam expressly perpetrated by L. Ron Hubbard in the 1950s to evade taxes. All it takes these days to be a religion is a lot of money, lawyers and a supply of suckers stupid enough to be led around by the nose.

But back to the matter at hand. If you don't want to sell cakes to gays, don't be a baker. If you don't want to sell birth control pills to women, don't be a pharmacist. If you don't want to sell bacon, don't work the checkout counter at Walmart.

Arkansas Balks

Arkansas governor urges changes to religious objection bill

Ah, the power of the free market...

I love how our country has changed:)

The Indiana Backpedal

Governor Mike Pence has caved.  He wants "clarification" legislation on his desk this week so there can be no mistake that Indiana SB 101 will allow discrimination against gays and lesbians.

So, once this gets all sorted out, how will businesses then be allowed to exercise their "religious freedom" if they view homosexuality as a sin? It seems to me that any clarification legislation will nullify the very goal of the law. Yet, conservatives are telling us that this was never the goal nor will it be so in the future. If this is the case, what was the goal?

Indiana A Go Go

Let the mad scramble to "explain" the new Indiana law begin!

I've watched with great amusement as conservatives in Indiana and across the nation have been falling all over themselves to reassure folks that their law does not allow discrimination against gay people. They've foamed at the mouth about "narratives" (code for "shit, we got caught with the truth again") and made false equivalencies to other laws which are supposedly the same thing. If they had only followed their own ideology of laws and unintended consequences, perhaps it might have turned out differently.

Instead, they passed a law to protect the thousands (see: absolutely fucking no one, misleading vividness) of people (see: Christians) being persecuted by the state (see: Obama...somehow) for their religious beliefs (see: making a cake for a gross gay couple) across Indiana. Didn't they realize that the free market (oh, hee hee hee ho ho...giggle fit complete with stomach grab) and the FIRST FUCKING AMENDMENT might not work in their favor?

Well, now Republican legislators are scrambling to add language to the bill that won't allow for discrimination against gays and lesbians. Shit...there goes the whole "I hate gays and won't serve 'em cuz my religion says so" point of this law!

AP has a nice summation of all of the latest, including this most excellent part.

Republican Senate President Pro Tem David Long stressed that the new law is based on the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993, which has been upheld by courts. But the Human Rights Campaign said it's disingenuous to compare the two laws. 

The campaign's legal director, Sarah Warbelow, said the federal law was designed to ensure religious minorities were protected from laws passed by the federal government that might not have been intended to discriminate but had that effect. The Indiana law, she said, allows individuals to invoke government action even when the government is not a party to a lawsuit. It also allows all businesses to assert religious beliefs regardless of whether they are actually religious organizations.

Disingenuous...shocking!

We've Already Had This Conversation

How The GOP Will And Won't Win in 2016

The New York Times has a piece up about the contrast within the GOP today and how that will play out in 2016.

On Jeb Bush...

That night, he told Republicans that their party had to “go out and reach out to people of every walk of life, not with a divisive message but one that is unifying.”

He is telling Republicans, in effect, that they must accept a changing country: that the path to the presidency will be found through appealing to voters who may not look like them, and with a standard-bearer whose state and immediate family resemble tomorrow’s America.

On Scott Walker...

...making his own maiden New Hampshire swing, proudly donned a hat given to him by a gun-rights group and, highlighting his frugality, bragged about the sweater he had bought at Kohl’s for a dollar.

He has succeeded by confronting his adversaries and by generating soaring levels of support from his fellow Republicans in a state they have failed to carry in a presidential race for more than three decades. The party’s way forward, by Mr. Walker’s lights, lies in demonstrating toughness in the face of intense opposition from the left and mobilizing those who are already inclined to support conservatism.

Gee, I wonder which philosophy can win a national election...:)

Fine Tuning the Gay-Dar

Indiana passed a law this week allowing business to refuse customers due to religious objections. Essentially this means that if a business owner sniffs out the gay on someone, the state won't be allowed to compel them to serve said sinner.

There are a number of profoundly stupid things about this law and we are now seeing the fallout. Businesses are scrambling for "We Serve Everyone" stickers. Angie's list is cancelling their plans to expand into Indiana. The NCAA is reconsidering its place in Indianapolis and for future Final Four events. Indiana tourism are worried that the 4.4 billion dollar a year/75,000 jobs industry is going to be hit. Even Indiana businesses, the ones that conservative ideologues in the state are saying they are "protecting" are in full on pants shitting mode.

But the one thing I can't figure out is this. How can someone who is one of these "religious freedom riders" tell if someone is gay who enters their store? Men carrying photos of themselves with a vagina? :)

Anger And What They Want To Hear

I'm not a fan of Lindsey Graham but I agree with this.

I’m not going to tell people things that they emotionally want to hear that I don’t think are going to happen. People are picking up on anger and frustration with the president, which I get. They are turning that anger and frustration into an emotional response to try to get people to vote for them. What I’m trying to do is talk about the anger and frustration but also try to get realistic assessments of how we solve these problems. 

You can’t govern the country based on being angry.

Exactly right. And this is why the Republicans are having such trouble winning national elections. All they have is anger and all they want is someone to tell them what they want to hear...

A Recipe for Total Disaster

Well, that didn't take long. Yesterday European authorities determined that the co-pilot of Germanwings Flight 9525 was depressed and responded by locking out the pilot and crashing his aircraft into a mountain.

Today we have people making suggestions like this:

With the news that the co-pilot, Andreas Lubitz, apparently brought down the plane deliberately, killing all 150 on board, we should quickly develop procedures and install equipment to allow air traffic control officials to override cabin cockpit controls. They could then take over a troubled flight — whether from an incapacitated crew or someone bent on malevolence — and fly the plane to safety, much in the way that drones are routinely operated.

This is, to put it mildly, a colossally stupid idea. Every day we hear more stories about hackers getting into bank computers, cash registers for major retailers, email accounts for major corporations, and nuclear power plants.

When you write code you either do it fast or you do it right.

Now they want to quickly place the thousands of airplanes flying through our skies at the mercy of hackers. As every software engineer knows, when you write code you either do it fast or you do it right. Mucking around with code that operates the flight controls of an aircraft and exposing them to external influence will introduce thousands of unintentional security vulnerabilities, especially if we rush to do so.

There are tens of thousands of flights per day. Terrorists could kill a hundred thousand people in a single day if they discovered a security hole in the remote control code for the Airbus 320. After 9/11 the airline industry was screwed up for years. If terrorists crashed 100 planes simultaneously the airline industry would never recover.

And even if the remote control code was 100% bulletproof, what if an unbalanced person or a group of terrorists or took over the remote control center itself?

In any case, remote control would be trivial to circumvent: would-be hijackers or suicidal pilots could simply jam radio signals on the plane. For decades the FAA has been afraid that cell phones, MP3 players and laptops would interfere with avionics, which is why we always had to turn them off during vulnerable times like takeoff and landing. Devices that intentionally jam radio signals could easily be smuggled aboard planes in the guise of those very same laptops, cell phones and MP3 players, rendering any form of remote control impossible.

There is no technological fix for a human problem

The reality is, there is no magic technological fix for what is essentially a human problem. All of our security ultimately relies on trusting human beings to do their jobs. Even the most popular idea, requiring two pilots in the cockpit at all times, isn't foolproof: it assumes that the pilot and copilot would never conspire in a suicide pact.

It also assumes that a pilot can't get a gun or knife aboard a plane and would never shoot or slit the throat of the other pilot. This is a foolish assumption, because it's ridiculously easy for airline employees to smuggle weapons onto airplanes, as we witnessed last year when Delta employees at the Atlanta airport smuggled hundreds of guns to New York aboard airplanes.

We also allow sky marshals to carry firearms on airplanes, and it would be trivial for them to shoot the pilots when the cockpit door is open. Given the recent spate of scandals at the Secret Service, I can't imagine the sky marshal service is any more rigorous in its screening of its employees, so there are without a doubt a few bad eggs there as well.

It looks like at least three airline pilots (on Egypt Air, Malaysian Airlines and Germanwings flights) have committed suicide by plane since 1999, despite rigorous psychological screening.

People need to stop running around screaming it's the end of the world and just accept the fact that it's impossible to be 100% safe. After all, there are 200 million idiots out on the highways, and you're far several thousand more times likely to be killed on the road by some drunken dolt on a Friday night than by a terrorist or suicidal pilot crashing a plane.

Yes, we need to take reasonable precautions, but in the heat of the moment we must not get sidetracked with stupid unworkable ideas in our attempt to pander to chicken littles who think the sky is falling, and avoid doing things that will only make us less safe.

It's Worse If You're Correct

I have come to the conclusion that when you are debating politics with a conservative, it gets worse the more you are accurate.

I recently engaged in a long discussion on Facebook over whether or not Barack Obama has destroyed our economy. I pointed out several key indicators (jobs, GDP, stock market, debt/deficit) which indicate that he has not "destroyed" our economy. In fact, it has vastly improved on his watch. As I presented them with more and more data, they grew increasingly hostile. One fellow named Dana eventually wrote this.

I hope that you and the rest of the liberals in this country do us a favor and end your own lives. 

I have to admit that I was pretty shocked by this statement. No one in the group (about 14 people) called him out on it. In fact, they kept piling on me. I did get a message from a guy named Connor who told me that Dana said the same thing to him. How can someone like this be so angry? The whole discussion certainly confirms many of the assertions I've made about conservatives in the past (adolescent, anger, hate, fear etc) but something new came out of it.

As we near the end of the Obama presidency, our country continues to improve in a number of sectors. Like the frustrated child that simply can't take someone doing a better job than they do, conservatives are going to grow more petulant...more hateful...more angry...and behave in ways that we probably can't imagine.

I'd advise all of you to be careful about future discussions like this and realize that facts may no longer help. It seems now that they make it worse.

Good Words

An Apology To Readers

I'd like to apologize to my 200-300 daily readers of this site for losing the courage of my convictions. It's been something that has been sticking in my craw for a while now and I felt it necessary to get it off my chest.

About a year ago, I noticed something about Benjamin Netanyahu and how he treated President Obama. It was merely how he treated him but how he looked at him. It reminded me a lot of how white men from the South look at the president. But I didn't say anything because I had doubt. That doubt was placed there by conservatives with their continual redirect and DARVOing. Being the reflective fellow I am, I listened to them and thought twice about putting up a post about how it's incredibly fucking obvious that Bibi no likey the blackies.

Yet now that he has made his comment about Arabs voting in droves, my suspicions are confirmed. So, I apologize, dear readers, for holding back. It will NEVER happen again. Clearly, their main goal in life is to foment doubt and act like adolescents. My days of listening to their garbage are over.

Now that we have comments cleaned up and monitored more closely, I encourage you to leave feedback and start some conversations. Registration is no longer required and you can post under any name you like..even anonymous. The comments will be moderated and checked for personal remarks to posters/commenters and spam so you will not be attacked by other commenters. The issues themselves will be the foundation of the discussion.

Thanks for sticking with us for all these years!

Fading Into Irrelevance

From a recent question on Quora...

If we look at the historical record. In the period from 1990 - 2915. You will find that the GOP has more consistently refused any Compromise. You also have GOP politicians stating that "there is no Compromising their values." Newt Gingritch was essentially de-throned as Speaker because he Compromised with Clinton. Conservatives try to pretend that "Democrats are exactly the same." But this would be nothing more than their continued slide into a Post-Modernist world where they can basically invent their own facts, rather than accepting that a consensus reality exists for which concrete observable facts are a part. 

And, it represents their failure to understand that on some issues (abortion, Global Warming, Religion, .....) that we have established laws, and they are trying to re-litigate these issues. Today's GOP has essentially become a mixture of the John Birch Society and Neo-Confederates trying to continue to fight the Civil War. And the fact that they have had to resort to cheats, gaming the system, and brinksmanship for EVERY ISSUE rather than let their ideas stand on merit shows that they are holding a losing hand (the only reason they remain in power in Congress is through a heavily gerrymanders majority, which defies the millions of votes more that went to Democratic Candidates than went to the GOP). 

 But... This will all get ironed out in 2016, when they are likely to fare even worse than they did in 2012, and by 2020, the new SCOTUS will likely undo all gerrymandering. So, by then, unless the GOP begins to accept reality, they will then fade into irrelevance as a regional party of grumpy old white guys.

Intelligent minds think alike!!

Five Numbers, Five Years

As the Affordable Care Act hits its five year anniversary, here are five numbers to keep in mind.

$7.4 Billion: The Amount of Money Hospitals Saved on Uncompensated Costs Last Year

29: Number of States (Including the District of Columbia) That Have Expanded Medicaid

$66 Billion: The Amount of Economic Output the Nation Is Losing by States Not Expanding Medicaid

$1.2 Trillion: The Cost of Obamacare Over the Next Decade (Revised lower yet again)

56: Number of Unsuccessful Votes in Congress to Undermine/Repeal the Law

Ted Cruz Going On Obamacare

No, that's not an Onion headline. It's the real deal.

It's a deeply ironic development for the Texas conservative firebrand, who vaulted to fame during his few years in the Senate in large part by denouncing President Barack Obama's landmark health care law. He led an effort to defund the law that contributed to the 2013 government shutdown.

Actually, what's deeply ironic is that he could end up voting to repeal his own health care!

Billions Saved Because of ACA

HHS: Hospitals saved billions under ObamaCare

A massive expansion of insurance programs like Medicaid and a drop in emergency room visits saved hospitals at least $7.4 billion over the last year, the Obama administration announced Monday. With millions more people covered under ObamaCare last year, hospitals faced fewer bills from patients who lacked insurance and were unable to pay. Hospitals also saw fewer emergency room visits, which rack up far higher costs and often leave hospitals with the tab.

Thanks, Obama!!

Thanks Obama!

Victim George Zimmerman has someone else to blame for all his troubles...Barack Obama!

Q. George you mentioned unfairness and if you had to point to a government agency or official, who do you think the highest level of fairness to your personal situation? 

A. By far, the President of the United States, Barack Hussein Obama. He had the most authority and in that sense I would hold him in the highest regard believing that he would hold that position and do his absolute hardest to not inflame racial tensions in America. Unfortunately after even after Jay Carney, his press secretary stated in the White House briefing that the White House will not interject in a local law enforcement matter and at most a state criminal matter, President Obama held his Rose Garden speech stating if I had a son he would look like Trayvon. 

To me that was clearly a dereliction of duty pitting Americans against each other solely based on race. He took what should have been a clear-cut self-defense matter and still to this day on the anniversary of incident he held a ceremony at the White House inviting the Martin-Fulton family and stating that they should take the day to reflect upon the fact that all children’s lives matter. Unfortunately for the president I’m also my parent’s child and my life matters as well. And for him to make incendiary comments as he did and direct the Department of Justice to pursue a baseless prosecution he by far overstretched, overreached, even broke the law in certain aspects to where you have an innocent American being prosecuted by the federal government which should never happen.

I bolded the right wing dog whistles. Perhaps he wants his own show on Fox someday.

Gee, it looks like someone has fully embraced right wing victimhood with all this wacky, ideological nonsense. His lot in life is Barack Obama's fault?

Thanks Obama!

He Can't Say "Climate Change"

Witness what happens when you allow Republicans to lead governments

 

I suppose I would be laughing along with the Democrats on the panel but this Soviet style muzzling is more nauseating than anything else.

Good Words

From a recent question on Quora...

In the old Soviet Union, people who expressed unwelcome opinions or stated unflattering truths about the regime in power, were often sent to mental hospitals. This served the dual purpose of getting them out of the way for a while, and discrediting their mental health so people were less likely to listen to them. Governor Scott is simply following in this repressive tradition. 

This behavior is typical for American Conservatives today who are waging what Jon Stewart called "a chronically angry war for ideological purity, where every aspect of life becomes a two-dimensional battle for America’s soul." Nowhere is this more evident than their rejection of science.

A chronically angry war indeed...

Thank You, Ted Cruz

Now that Ted Cruz has entered the presidential race, Hillary Clinton can breathe a sigh of relief. He's going to do her job for her.

People close to Clinton smiled at the sight of the first-term senator wandering alone on stage at Liberty University, implicitly threatening a civil war with the “mushy” establishment of his party that he loves to decry — while at the exact same time Clinton sat comfortably alongside heavyweights from her own party’s progressive and labor elements, who have thus far entirely declined to challenge her.  

So, not only will to be amusing to watch Cruz wax short wave radioese but it will also be tons o' fun watching him take apart the rest of the field, leaving them so bruised that by the time they get to the general to face Hillary, it will be like Mitt Romney 2012 all over again:)

Not So Much On The Ted Cruz Bandwagon

Ted Cruz Has Skeptics at Liberty, and They Use Yik Yak

Looks like they were forced to be there. And they like Rand Paul much more.

Check out some of the posts...hee hee...will conservatives ever appeal to young people again?

GOP Adds First Victim To Clown Car

Senator Ted Cruz announced his candidacy for president today and became he first official conservative to throw his hat into the ring.

“Imagine a president who stands unapologetically with the nation of Israel,” he said. “Imagine in 2017, a president signing legislation repealing every word of Obamacare.” Story Continued Below Referring to the educational standards backed by Bush, the Texas senator said: “Imagine repealing every word of Common Core.” In another swipe at the governor, who has supported comprehensive immigration reform, Cruz promised to oppose “unconstitutional executive amnesty.”

It's going to be fun watching him get his ass kicked. Even more amusing will be the mental calisthenics that the right wing blogger crowd (Cruz's gristle) will perform in an attempt to be all factsy and truthy about how there are literally millions (see: maybe a few thousand in the comment section of this one awesome blog read in parent's basements across the country) upon millions of Americans that have embrace this ideology to run the United States.

Of course, there is also that issue of where Ted Cruz was born...cue the crickets:)

Here Come The Thought Police!

Conservatives like to caterwaul about authoritarian government and how liberals are bringing all of us closer and closer to totalitarianism. I submit that the reason why they say this is because THEY are the ones who can't resist the elixir of power and would do all of things they say liberals would do. Likely worse. Remember this? Well, it's gotten worse.

SCOTT’S CLIMATE CHANGE GAG ORDER CLAIMS A VICTIM 

Washington, DC — A Florida state employee is in hot water for speaking about climate change at an official meeting and keeping notes of that discussion in official minutes, according to a complaint filed today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). In response, his superiors at the Florida Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) issued him a letter of reprimand, ordered him to take two days leave and then told him not to return until he had medical clearance of his fitness for duty.

Medical clearance? WTF?

Well, apparently, Mr. Bibler has to see a psychiatrist in order to return to work. Perhaps he will need psychic probe to remove all of those evil climate change thoughts from his noggin. Here is a copy of the official reprimand.

The next time you hear a conservative bitching about "liberal fascism," show them this story.

A Clinical Psychologist On Ayn Rand

Here's an interesting piece on Ayn Rand which posits the following.

A century later, Ayn Rand (1905-1982) helped make the United States into one of the most uncaring nations in the industrialized world, a neo-Dickensian society where healthcare is only for those who can afford it, and where young people are coerced into huge student-loan debt that cannot be discharged in bankruptcy.

Sadly, somewhat true. The entire piece is fantastic. Check it out!

Good Words

From a recent piece in Politico from Representative Mike Thompson

To that end, the priority of Congress should be straightforward: Keep guns away from criminals, domestic abusers and the dangerously mentally ill while protecting the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding citizens. The best way to do this is by expanding criminal background checks. 

Yep.

The reaction on one side of the debate is to argue that guns have no place in our society. Significant constraints on gun ownership are proposed as legislative remedies. On the other side of the debate, we’re told the answer is to put more guns in schools and make it easier for people to carry weapons in public places such as malls and movie theaters. Both responses are extreme. Neither side gets anywhere. Gun violence continues unabated, and we fail to pass meaningful legislation that could save lives

Yep.

If you’re a Second Amendment supporter like me, this is problematic. Persistent gun violence will eventually lead to laws that place substantial and overly burdensome restrictions on our right to own guns. You don’t have to look any further than California’s attempt to require that all ammunition purchases be made through face-to-face interactions, or New York’s attempt to limit magazine capacity to seven rounds despite the fact that almost no handguns have seven-round magazines available to see the truth of this.

Yep.

We need to stop criminals, domestic abusers and those with a history of dangerous mental illness from getting guns. The only way to know if someone falls into one of these categories is to conduct a background check. This is a rationale that an overwhelming majority of gun owners support. It’s one that even the National Rifle Association used to support before it changed its stance. Ironically, by flip-flopping on expanded background checks, the gun lobby has undermined a legitimate effort to reduce gun violence and, in doing so, has left the door open for more stringent restrictions on Second Amendment rights in the future. 

In short, the Gun Cult should give a little now and save themselves a whole worse later...

Watch That Gun Cleaning!

God Shoots Himself While Cleaning Gun

ISIS, Death and Taxes

An article in the New York Times raises the specter of Americans haring off to the Middle East to join ISIS and wreck havoc. It's supposed to be particularly shocking because several of these would-be terrorists are coming from white-bread Minnesota, where Somali immigrants have been settling for decades with very few problems.

The total number of ISIS sympathizers who have left the US is unknown, but is probably small. The FBI and concerned Somali Americans have been working together to keep these kids from going to certain misery and death in Iraq and Syria. They have been monitoring social media and have stopped many would-be terrorists from leaving the country. For example,

Mohammed Hamzah Khan, 19, took his younger brother and sister with him to O’Hare airport in Chicago, where agents intercepted them. He left his parents a long letter saying he could not stay in the United States because his taxes might be used to kill Muslims overseas.

It's interesting how the right-wing American objection to their taxes being spent on things they don't like -- such as abortion -- has now been wedded with Islamic fervor. Right-wing crazies are the same no matter what their religion.

The thing is, ISIS terrorists spend almost every waking moment in the Middle East killing other Muslims. This kid doesn't want his taxes to be spent killing Muslims, but he wanted to go to the Middle East where ISIS would make him kill Muslims. Huh?

Sure, ISIS terrorists have lopped off the heads of a few American, Japanese and British aid workers and reporters. But the vast majority of their victims have been tens of thousands of Iraqi, Syrian, Egyptian, Yemeni, Tunisian Muslims.

By now it's clear that ISIS doesn't give a damn about Muslims or Islam. They're just a bunch of hoodlums and thieves who want to steal oil and land from real Muslims in the Middle East.

It's also clear that we can't defeat ISIS by declaring a war against all Islam. We must defeat them by exposing them as the hypocrites they are: a bunch of greedy scum bags flying a fake Islamic flag using Muslim kids to murder other Muslims to set themselves up as petty dictators, pedophiles and slave traders.

By characterizing ISIS as an Islamic entity and declaring war on all Islam, Republicans are blundering into the trap that ISIS has set. The more Republicans scream about the fight against ISIS being a war against Islam, the more American kids will want to join ISIS.

Because, you know, kids are contrary like that.

Declining Gun Ownership

I'll always be amused by the calisthenics on display by the Gun Cult when the facts of declining gun ownership are presented.

They can try to pull whatever they want out of their collective asses but the simple fact is that younger people generally aren't interested in guns. Once the boomers are gone, the debate over guns will effectively be over because there won't be anybody on one of the sides. The NRA knows this and their masters in the gun industry (side note: also eternally amused by the men who run the NRA who claim to be all about individualism and freedom. How does it feel to someone's bitch every single fucking day?)see the writing on the wall via their market projections, hence the fear/shit your pants push to buy more guns.

They are cashing in now while they have the chance.

Good Words

Stepping Up On Carbon Emissions

The president announced yesterday that he would be directing federal agencies to cut carbon emissions by 40 percent by the year 2025. While it's more symbolic than anything else (federal agencies only account for 0.7 of our country's carbon emissions), I still think it's significant. It sets a precedent for the private sector and other countries to follow.

The United States has always been a leader in the world. In fact, we are THE leader. Despite the denying of science by the adolescents on the Right, the US will be the go to country for renewable energy and solving the problem of increased carbon emissions that is leading to climate change. It will be our technology, our innovation, and our ingenuity that will eventually save the day...again!

Good Words