Sunday Facepalm.

Students protest for tighter gun laws in Washington, DC, on March 14, 2018. (Photo: Bradley Williams for People For the American Way).

Students protest for tighter gun laws in Washington, DC, on March 14, 2018. (Photo: Bradley Williams for People For the American Way).

Master of rabid frothery Kevin Swanson is upset about guns, sort of. He can’t seem to figure out why those meddling kids are upset, but da youth is going to destroy Amerikka, yessir, just like every generation gone before them.

Radical right-wing pastor Kevin Swanson was not impressed with yesterday’s nationwide walkout in which thousands of students left school to protest gun violence in the wake of the mass shooting last month at a Florida high school, saying that the fact that the movement is being led by young people is a sign that America is under the judgment of God.

[Snips irrelevant passage from Isaiah]

“In other words, the young folks have all this revolutionary zeal but no real wisdom to govern what they are doing,” he said. “This is the result of the breaking of the commandment of God. Things are not going well with us in the land, we are not seeing things going well for tens of millions, if not hundreds of millions of people across the country largely because the massive violation of the Fifth Commandment: Honor your father and your mother.”

Oh, the same old shite argument: you don’t have experience! Taking action is one way to gain experience, Mr. Swanson, and all kids need to start somewhere. Also, I am sick to death of these self-righteous assholes acting as though all the high school students are toddlers. A good many of these young people are mere months away from legal adulthood and voting. Others are quite a few years away from that, but you don’t get to act as though they have no right to think about issues and come to a conclusion about them. As issues go, guns are an easy one. We don’t need the fucking things, they should be under strict control, if for no other reason, to prevent more young people from needlessly dying. Most of these kids are in favour of gun reform, so they don’t even want to completely take your lethal toys away. The kids are alright, they are doing the right thing. As for your commandment, did it not occur, Mr. Swanson, that the majority of these kids have parents who stand behind them one hundred percent? Parents who are proud of their children for taking action and refusing to back down?

I’ve always hated that idiotic commandment. A lot of people end up with shit parents, you know, and no, they aren’t deserving of honour, or obedience, or any other thing. When it comes to parents and children, that whole ‘honour’ business needs to work both ways. Parenting is a difficult business much of the time, but you are supposed to be raising up individuals who can think for themselves. Well, at least if you’re not an asshole christian, who is more into brainwashing and numb obedience.

“Young people need to come to grips with the fact that they have not honored their parents’ wisdom,” Swanson said. “For this, God is bringing his judgment upon these individuals and upon this nation.”

Uh huh. Perhaps you’d like to say that to the parents who have lost a child to gun violence. Seems to me that a lot of parents are embracing their children’s wisdom, and they are acting together for the greater good. They don’t want more dead children and parents lost in a lifetime of grief, which is more than I can say for you asshole christians, who think some dead kids here and there are an acceptable price to pay in order to keep your lethal toys.

The whole thing is at RWW.

Trophy Hunting: an enhancement to foreign wildlife conservation and survival.

Cecil the lion gained fame after he was killed by Safari Club International member Walter Palmer during an illegal hunt in Zimbabwe. Paula French/ZUMA.

Cecil the lion gained fame after he was killed by Safari Club International member Walter Palmer during an illegal hunt in Zimbabwe. Paula French/ZUMA.

Just the other day, I posted about Amerikka doing its best to reach shithole country status. Naturally, no matter how great a country truly is, there’s always the fucking idiot contingent who moans that they have higher taxes, so bad. I would be more than happy to pay taxes which went to the common good, that’s the point of taxes. Here in Ustates, taxes rarely go to the common good. They certainly don’t under the current regime. Taxes end up in the pockets of the obscenely wealthy and corrupt. Today brings you a fine example of where tax dollars in this shithole go.

The Trump administration has launched a commission at the Interior Department to promote big-game trophy hunting and the “economic benefits that result from US citizens traveling to foreign nations to engage in hunting.” The council, which will cost taxpayers $250,000 a year, is charged with making recommendations to Secretary Ryan Zinke about removing barriers to importing trophy hunting animals—such as the recently overturned ban on elephant and lion trophies from some countries—and relaxing legal restrictions on hunting and importing endangered species.

Anyone impressed by this? Anyone happy about having their pocket picked for this utterly immoral, corrupt bullshit? Wait, it gets worse.

The members of the International Wildlife Conservation Council, which is holding its first meeting Friday, include a reality-TV safari hunting guide, a former beauty queen, gun industry representatives, members and affiliates of a controversial trophy hunting group, and a veterinarian associated with an exotic animal breeding facility in Florida that sells endangered animals to roadside zoos.

“It’s really embarrassing,” says Masha Kalinina, the international trade policy specialist for the wildlife department at the Humane Society International. “I just question the qualifications of each and every one of these people. Notably missing from this trophy hunting council are legitimate representatives of the conservation community with proper scientific credentials and a record of successful conservation programs, along with wildlife law enforcement experts and biologists who have no financial stake in promoting trophy hunting.”

The council’s charter calls hunting “an enhancement to foreign wildlife conservation and survival.” Along with pushing to relax imports of trophy animals, it will also review the way the US complies with an international treaty designed to protect endangered plants and animals that guides regulation of the exotic animal trade. But the membership of the council seems heavily weighted toward people who think the best way to conserve wildlife is to kill it.

Indeed, the country’s largest trophy-hunting lobby seems to have an outsized role on the council. Of the 16 IWCC members, at least 10 have an affiliation with Safari Club International, which represents wealthy big-game hunters who often tangle with the Fish and Wildlife Service over permits to import of game trophies from overseas, particularly for endangered species. The advocacy group, with 50,000 members, frequently lobbies Congress and federal agencies to fight environmental regulations. It sued to overturn the Obama-era ban on importing elephant and lion trophies from Zimbabwe and Zambia. The Trump administration ended the ban earlier this month, despite the president’s earlier objections and comments that elephant hunting is a “horror show.”

Those members include Walter Palmer, the Minnesota dentist and asshole extraordinaire who killed Cecil the Lion.

The principal deputy director of the US Fish and Wildlife Service, Greg Sheehan, who is effectively running the agency in the absence of a congressionally confirmed director, oversees the IWCC. He is an SCI member and attended the group’s convention in Las Vegas last month when it awarded its “professional hunter of the year” honors to a South African man who has been fined for leading hunts of endangered black rhinos.

It gets much worse from there. It’s a sickening read, and its symptomatic of the rot spreading out like gangrene from the current regime to poison everything. Those people who want to point to higher taxes in other countries, countries which provide healthcare, free education, and many other benefits to their citizens, you need to shut the fuck up when tax dollars here go to such evil, corrupt enterprise.

Mother Jones has the full story, with all the relevant links, and you can read about all the members of this “council”.