And The Lie, the Big, Huge LIE.

In every major publication, you can read articles about the horrific chaos happening everywhere, of people in absolute fear and desperation, but of course, to our fucking LIAR in chief, everything is going just great, you betcha! Oh, and it’s not a muslim ban, it’s just a muslim ban.

Nonetheless, when reporters asked the new president how the new policies are being received, he said, “It’s not a Muslim ban, but we’re totally prepared. It’s working out very nicely. You see it at the airports, you see it all over. It’s working out very nicely and we’re gonna have a very, very strict ban and we’re going to have extreme vetting, which we should have had in this country for many years.”

Via Raw Story.

*Walks away in tears and disgust.*

Up in Flames, So We Go…

Used with permission from the Islamic Center of Victoria.

Used with permission from the Islamic Center of Victoria.

A Texas mosque was set on fire just hours after Trump signed an executive order restricting migration from Muslim-majority countries.

The Islamic Center of Victoria was set on fire around 2 a.m. on Saturday, according to localreports.

Victoria Fire Marshal Tom Legler told the Victoria Advocate he had no theories about the cause of the fire, but he is seeking assistance from state and federal fire investigators.

[…]

On Sunday, the center plans to hold a public prayer service in the lawn to “pray for peace & safety for all.” The center said it will be rebuilt with love, and it has already started a GoFundMe fundraiser for financial support to do so.

[…]

Since the election in November, there has been an increase in hate crimes across the country. In the one month following the election, the Southern Poverty Law Center found over 1,000 reports of hate incidents. ThinkProgress is keeping a stricter record of targeted incidents, and we have still found almost 250 incidents of hate. A significant number of these are anti-Islam in nature.

The fire in Victoria comes just three weeks after an Islamic Center under construction in Austin was set on fire and destroyed.

The full story at Think Progress. I read this right after checking a conversation at Pharyngula, where people are still fiercely arguing against punching Nazis, and fully defending their right to speech, because talking about killing all black people, having a dreamy white state, or ethnic cleansing, well, it’s just talk, and that’s okay. Some people in that thread are still behaving as though ‘merica was still this great democracy, so it will be okay. No, it won’t be okay. There is no democracy, it’s gone. Oh, there’s still a partial skeleton of tattered and deliquescent bones, but they are falling fast. Nazism is being defended and normalised not just by all the Joe Q. Publics’, but liberals and lefties all over the place. We must be nice! We must be better! We must do this the right way! I have one thing to say to all that: Fuck No.

I am sick to death of this “we must be better” crap. I’m not better for refusing to stand up to nazis speechifying about the horrors of non-white, non-hetero people. I’m not better for turning my head away when I see someone targeted by nazis. I’m not better for defending the rights of nazis to talk about how wonderful nazism is, we just have to get rid of all those people. I will say this straight out: I am one hell of a fucktonne better than anyone who is being a handwringing milquetoast over the rights of fucking nazis. I will fight, openly, every inch of the way. I will not stand by along a road which will end up littered with bodies. I will not be complicit. I will not condone. I will shout down nazis at every opportunity. Fuck them. They do not have any right to speech as far as I’m concerned, because it’s all hate, and it’s incitement. A person in that thread stated that speech was not action. That’s not true. Of course speech is an action, it’s an attempt to communicate. Only an idiot would consider all speech benign. Speech, as wielded by nazis, is an incitement, an incitement to horrific actions.

We are past trouble here in the States. Everything you thought you knew, forget it. We are in a dark, lost age, and while this terrifies me personally, I refuse to shut my eyes to what is happening right in front of my face. I will stand, no matter how much I may tremble, and I will try to help and protect all those who are nothing more than fuel for the fire in the eyes of nazis and racists everywhere.

You’re Mad Because a Nazi Got Punched in the Face?

Sunday Facepalm.

632914834-4630

Trump’s little nazi, Bannon, is everywhere. I’m surprised Trump isn’t trying to clone him. Now it’s Nazi NSA.

Meanwhile, Trump signed a presidential memo directing the Pentagon to submit a plan within 30 days to defeat the Islamic State, an effort to make good on his campaign promise to more aggressively confront Islamist terrorism than his predecessor did. … As he signed his directive at his desk in the Oval Office, Trump said, “I think it’s going to be very successful. That’s big stuff.”

Jesus Fuck. I still can’t believe we have a president who talks like a toddler.

Counseling Trump in the effort will be Stephen K. Bannon, the White House chief strategist whose influence inside the administration is expanding far beyond politics. In a separate presidential memo, Trump reorganized the National Security Council to, along with other changes, give Bannon a regular seat on the principals committee — the meetings of the most senior national security officials, including the secretaries of defense and state.

That memo also states that the director of national intelligence and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff will sit on the principals committee only when the issues to be discussed pertain to their “responsibilities and expertise.” In the previous two administrations, both were included as regular attendees.

The White House thinks the changes will make the NSC more adaptive to modern threats. Trump said the changes would bring “a lot of efficiency and, I think, a lot of additional safety.”

The changes affirm the ascent of Bannon, the former executive chairman of Breitbart, a conservative website that is popular with white nationalists, who has emerged as Trump’s political consigliere and the keeper of the president’s populist flame.

I think it’s fairly clear who the new president actually is, and it’s not Trump. Trump is an easily manipulable puppet. The Nazis are here and in charge.

Full story at Washington Post.

Think Progress is also covering this unprecedented  move, noting that even that asshole Bush jr never went so far, and in fact, went to considerable trouble to keep Rove away from any and all NSA meetings. Let that one sink in a little.

And don’t forget about Bannon:

Bannon has a history of anti-Semitic, misogynistic, and bigoted comments, and has openly disparaged Jews and minorities and has called women “dykes.” Both the Klu Klux Klan and the American Nazi Party cheered his appointment to the White House. Bannon also reportedly had a major role in crafting key parts of Trump’s Muslim ban, including the fact that the ban also applies to people with lawful permanent residence.

Fuck Nones.

So. There’s an article up about the so-called rise of the irreligious, and how they might change the political landscape. My initial reaction on seeing the headline was a rather cynical hmmm. Ever since people got all excited about the wave of ‘nones’, it’s been my experience in interacting with them that they are remarkably wishy-washy. The thing they seem to be most intensely reluctant to discuss or be involved in, activism wise, is anything to do with religion or secularism. Oh, they don’t believe, but it’s not a big deal, right, live and let live, all that jazz or “I think most religious people are okay, it’s just not my thing” or or or or or. Yeah, great, catch ya later. They don’t want to be rude. They don’t want to be pushy. They don’t care enough, in any direction. For the most part, I’ve found them to be one big shrug. Disclaimer: This is not every single person who identifies as ‘none’. Most, but not all.

I’m reading the article. Nothing I don’t already know, keep reading. Then I get to a bit I didn’t know – most nones can’t be arsed to vote. They don’t care, and even worse, most of them are uninformed about the recent election, out of choice. Fucking idiots. Thanks for fascism, thanks ever so fucking much.

chart

The 2016 Presidential Election

Interest in the Election

Consistent with their lower rates of voter registration, religiously unaffiliated Americans express less interest in the 2016 election, compared to white Christian groups. Fewer than four in ten (37%) religiously unaffiliated Americans say they are following news about the 2016 election very closely. Three in ten (30%) say they are following it fairly closely, while more than one-third (34%) say they are following the election not too closely or not at all closely. In contrast, a majority (56%) of white evangelical Protestants say they are following the election very closely.

PRRI. Oh well, maybe when nuclear winter hits, they’ll organize a nice bonfire or something. Fuck’s sake.

Google Goes Conservative.

Eric Schmidt, the chairman of Alphabet, Google’s parent company, arriving at Trump Tower in January to meet with Donald J. Trump. Mr. Trump’s team is wary of Mr. Schmidt, who has been allied with Democrats and advised the Obama White House. Credit Kevin Hagen for The New York Times.

Eric Schmidt, the chairman of Alphabet, Google’s parent company, arriving at Trump Tower in January to meet with Donald J. Trump. Mr. Trump’s team is wary of Mr. Schmidt, who has been allied with Democrats and advised the Obama White House. Credit Kevin Hagen for The New York Times.

WASHINGTON — Few companies have been as intimately tied to the Democratic Party in recent years as Google. So now that Donald J. Trump is president, the giant company, in Silicon Valley parlance, is having to pivot.

The shift was evident a day after Congress began its new session this month. That evening, about 70 lawmakers, a majority of them Republicans, were feted at the stately Smithsonian Arts and Industries Building, where they clinked champagne and bourbon glasses and posed for selfies with the 600 guests assembled in their honor.

The event’s main host was not from the Republican establishment. Instead, the party was primarily financed and anchored by Google.

“We’ve partnered with Google on events before, but nothing like this party,” said Alex Skatell, a founder of The Independent Journal Review, a news start-up with a right-leaning millennial audience, which also helped host the event. “I’ve never heard of an event as big.”

The event was emblematic of an about-face by Google. Over the last eight years, the company was closely associated with former President Barack Obama. Google employees overwhelmingly supported Mr. Obama’s presidential campaigns and some later took roles in his administration. Eric Schmidt, the chairman of Alphabet, Google’s parent company, advised the Obama White House. And last year, Google employees gave $1.3 million to Hillary Clinton’s campaign to succeed Mr. Obama, compared with $26,000 to the Trump campaign, according to federal filings.

Now, the tech giant is scrambling to forge ties with Mr. Trump’s new administration and to strengthen its relationship with a Republican-dominated Congress. Most important, Google is trying to change the perception that it is a Democratic stronghold.

So terribly reassuring to see everyone rush to suck up. CNN has the full story.

“I sat under the glory spout and it just was coming out all day long on me.”

Rick Wiles.

Rick Wiles.

Rick Wiles has been orgasmic over Trump, and that psychopathic god of his, ecstatically going on about ooze and glory spouts. It’s kinda disturbing. I don’t care what Wiles does in private, but I don’t need to hear about it, either. In this latest outing, Wiles is comparing Trump to Samson, which I find quite amusing, because El Shaddai didn’t do well by Samson.

“Friends, listen to me,” he said. “God’s favor is on us. Please, please, please comprehend what is happening. It’s more than a political revolution. This is a spiritual revolution. God’s favor is shining on us. I can’t get out of my mind what Mario Murillo said Monday, ‘Grace is oozing out of Heaven.’ It’s just oozing towards us right now. I’m basking in it. I’m rolling around in it. I’m enjoying it.”

That’s nice. I’ll stay ooze free if you don’t mind.

I keep getting this picture that Donald Trump is like this Samson, who has been raised up by God to fight the Philistines and all the Philistines have now turned their attention away from the church, turned their attention away from attacking Christianity, and all of the Philistines are running to Washington to attack Samson. But Samson is strong enough for them. He’s been called. He’s been equipped for this battle. That is his job. That is his assignment. He’s going to beat them down. They will not be able to overtake him. He’s Samson. He was designed by God. He was created for this hour to fight these Philistines.

The story of Samson is an interesting one. Warped, seriously fucked up, but interesting. Once again, I highly recommend Drunk With Blood: God’s Killings in the Bible, by Steve Wells. If you don’t have the book, but would like the insightful commentary, head over to SAB, and note the commentary on the right side. Samson wasn’t a terribly smart guy, and you couldn’t give him any points at all for astuteness, even though his mum was knocked up by an angel while her husband was gone. Tsk. Samson is wandering about one day, sees a Philistine woman he likes the look of, and demands his parents procure her. They do, he’s pleased. Apparently at some point, they marry, there’s a week long party, an inexplicable riddle, Samson gets pissed, kills 30 people and steals their clothes so he doesn’t have to pay his buddies, then gives his wife to a companion and leaves. Some hero.

Then there’s a raft of super-nonsense. Samson decides he wants to go back and have sex with his wife (the one he gave away). Now the story is that her father gave her to someone else (women rarely have names in the bible), and offers her younger sister to Samson. He doesn’t want the sister, so he has a cunning plan to get sex with his wife: he’s gonna set the Philistines grain fields on fire. This wouldn’t be a problem for most people. Samson figures the best way to do this is to catch 300 foxes, tie their tails together, light them on fire, and set them loose in the grain fields. Genius! How in the fuck can people not be embarrassed by this shit? Anyway, the cunning plan didn’t work, Samson’s wife and father were burned to death by the pissed off Philistines. Golly, there’s just so much love and light in this How To Be A Psychopath book. Samson then slaughtered a bunch of Philistines. Then that glory spout thing happened, y’know, the spirit of the lord came upon him, and he grabbed that conveniently placed jawbone of an ass and killed 1,000 men. Yeah. As Steve Wells notes, it’s easier to believe stories like this if you don’t know they exist.

Then Samson goes to Gaza, has sex with a prostitute, ripped out the doors and gate posts of the city, carried them up a hill, and fell in love with Delilah. Delilah was paid to find out the magical source of Samson’s strength, y’know, find his wand or whatever. There’s a long, idiotic story about these attempts. Delilah finally gets it right, and cuts his hair. The Philistines nab Samson and gouge out his eyes. They also chained him up, and put him in a prison house. Then someone gets the bright idea to bring Samson out to entertain them. Naturally, Samson prayed to El Shaddai:

Now the house was full of…about three thousand men and women…And Samson called unto the LORD, and said, O Lord God…strengthen me…that I may be at once avenged of the Philistines for my two eyes…and he house fell upon the lords, and upon all the people that were therein. So the dead which he slew at this death were more than they which he slew in his life. Judges 16.27-30.

As Steve Wells notes, this was the first suicide terrorist act. It resulted in the deaths of 3,000 civilian men and women. God approved it, and gave Samson the strength to do it. Why in the hell christians still parade this idiotic story around, I don’t know. Samson was something of a dumbfuck, mostly interested in sex and getting out of paying his bets. He was a murderer and a thief. He wasn’t too kind to animals, either. Point being, there was no reason at all to hold him above the Philistines, who couldn’t really be any worse; at best they were pretty much the same. El Shaddai didn’t love Samson enough to enhance his thinking ability, or to magically give him his eyes back, or find a way for Samson to avenge himself without having to commit suicide. Somehow this awful story never manages to make the point that the situation Samson found himself in was his own doing. It has always baffled me that christians are so damn impressed with this story. It’s awful, and just one more story highlighting the fact that Jehovah is a bloodthirsty, stupid, psychopath.

If Trump is Samson of a latter day…yeah. Maybe the folks in charge of the Doomsday Clock should shave off that 30 seconds.

Wiles added that God is also blessing his radio ministry and that God’s glory has been flowing: “I didn’t get home until after 8 last night and I had some visitors in the house, they were waiting and everybody had already finished dinner and I came in and I was floating, I just said, ‘I’ve been sitting under the glory spout all day.’ That’s what I felt like. I sat under the glory spout and it just was coming out all day long on me.”

Eeuuw. If you happen to be one of those people blessing Wiles’s ministry, I beg of you, please, think. Give me five fucking minutes: think.

Via RRW.

Costly, Wasteful, Harmful. Yeah, Trump.

Suspected undocumented immigrants are transferred out of the holding area after being processed at the Tucson Sector of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection headquarters CREDIT: AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin, File.

Suspected undocumented immigrants are transferred out of the holding area after being processed at the Tucson Sector of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection headquarters CREDIT: AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin, File.

Trump’s scarily close to insane fixation on immigration is going to be incredibly costly, and it should go without saying, highly harmful to all manner of peoples.

As part of a series of executive orders aimed at attacking immigrants and immigrant communities, President Donald Trump announced on Wednesday that going forward, his administration will order the mandatory detention of all those apprehended or arrested by immigration enforcement officials.

The U.S. already spends more on all immigration enforcement — nearly $20 billion a year — than on all other federal law enforcement combined, and currently detains more immigrants each day — more than 42,000 — than ever before. Summary removals and mandatory detention are at an all-time high. And the focus on removals has come at the cost of due process, placing vulnerable populations like asylum seekers at risk. The number of asylum seekers held in detention increased threefold from 2010 to 2014.

Making detention mandatory will only exacerbate these issues.

It will also be expensive. The mandatory detention of all immigrants apprehended or arrested will cost the U.S. an additional $902 million each year, for a total of $9 billion in new federal spending over the next decade.

[…]

And these estimates are by their nature conservative. They don’t take into account potentially lengthened stays in detention under this executive order, nor any costs to DHS for rapidly building or acquiring more detention facilities and bed space to meet new needs.

Let’s put that in perspective. For $9 billion, the U.S. could instead:

Ah, those would be good things though, and the rethuglicans are in charge of the asylum, so we definitely rule that out. No point at all in helping all people, and building a safe and stable society, with some thought to a social safety net. No, in our new fascist order, that sort of thing is bad. Spending all that money to simply no point outside of causing harm, that must be more of those really good business moves we keep hearing about. *eyeroll*

Full story here.

New CIA Director: ‘Jesus Christ Our Savior Is Truly the Only Solution For Our World.’

170112111433-02-pompeo-testifies-0112-exlarge-169

Speaking at a church event in Wichita [in 2014], then-Rep. Mike Pompeo (R-Kansas), the newly confirmed Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, said radical Muslims want “to wipe Christians from the face of the Earth,” and that Christians need to pray, fight, and understand that “Jesus Christ our Savior is truly the only solution for our world.”

[…]

“But I can tell you that this threat to America is from people who deeply believe that Islam is the way and the light and the only answer,” said Pompeo.

“So, as we think about what U.S. policy needs to be, how we will begin to combat this, we need to recognize that these folks believe it is religiously driven for them to wipe Christians from the face of the Earth,” he said.

Right. You think your god [placeholder] is the way and the light and the only answer. You believe, as a christian, you are religiously driven to wipe muslims from the face of the earth, and you want to force your religious beliefs on everyone. As usual, such fanatics completely ignore the fact that you aren’t fighting over two gods [placeholder], it’s the same fucking one. Abrahamaic religions: Judaism, Islam, Christianity. Same fucking god. (If you’re confused, ‘god’ is a generic word, a placeholder for a specific god; ‘allah’ is the same thing, means ‘god’. Unless you specify, ‘god’ in any language could be applicable to thousands of imaginary beings.)

You bloodthirsty christian assholes want a jihad, you want to kill, slaughter, and most likely torture first. No room to talk here, a fanatic is a fanatic, and all you idiotic fanatics want to do this over different interpretations. It’s fair enough to say most christians just want to live their lives, like everyone else, and be left in peace. It’s fair enough to say the very same thing about most muslims. I dearly wish we could just lock up all you fucking religious fanatics in a room, lock it, and walk away.

“But these folks are serious and they abhor Christians,” said the future CIA director. “And [they] will continue to press against us until we make sure that we pray and stand and fight and make sure that we know that Jesus Christ our Savior is truly the only solution for our world.”

Yes, some fanatical assholes do abhor christians. Just like some fanatical assholes abhor muslims. Can’t say I’m altogether fond of fanatics of any stripe, but here in the States, where I live, it’s christians who constantly prove to be a threat to all people who don’t measure up to their fucked up immoral standards. Turn that laser focus on yourself, sir, and let that ‘god’ of yours fight its own fucking battles.

Unsurprisingly, Pompeo is willing to go along with Trump and bring torture back, because torture good.

Via CNS.

South Dakota: New Attack on Transgender Kids.

South Dakota Gov. Dennis Daugaard (R). CREDIT: AP Photo/James Nord.

South Dakota Gov. Dennis Daugaard (R). CREDIT: AP Photo/James Nord.

Last year, Gov. Daugaard vetoed an anti-transgender bill, after meeting with a number of transgender persons. Unsurprisingly, the bigoted bill is back on the table, with a new twist.

The 2017 bill, SB 115, has the same purpose as last year’s: blocking schools from letting transgender students from accessing bathrooms and locker rooms that match their gender identity. But there’s a new word included in the bill — one not seen in other anti-transgender bills — that could set a dangerous new precedent for legislation designed to discriminate against transgender people.

“The term, biological sex, as used in this Act, means a person’s immutable biological sex as objectively determined by anatomy and genetics existing at the time of birth,” the bill reads. “A person’s original birth certificate may be relied upon as definitive evidence of the person’s biological sex.”

That word “original” means there would be no way for any transgender person to ever obtain legal recognition.

Currently, in South Dakota, transgender people can obtain court orders to amend their birth certificates to reflect their gender identity without any specific medical requirements.

[…]

But if anti-trans legislation starts referring to “original birth certificates” like South Dakota’s new bill does, that would further limit the already-few ways trans people have to protect their gender identities under the law. Indeed, it would eliminate the relevance of any legal documentation they obtain that confirms their gender identity.

[…]

Given South Dakota’s otherwise-identical bill made it all the way to the governor’s desk last year, this year’s version could similarly have legs. And there’s nothing to stop the many other states considering various anti-trans bills from incorporating the same change or propose new bills with this extra rejection of transgender identities.

This is absolutely evil, and so unnecessary. I’m tired of saying it should not be alright to legislate hate and bigotry. I would hope that Daugaard find the spine to do the right thing again, but I’m doubtful. Even if he does, this will be picked up by spiteful, bigoted, hateful, christian asses in many other states.

Full story at Think Progress.

Let It Burn!

Firefighters (Shutterstock www.shutterstock.com).

Firefighters (Shutterstock).

A decision by newly elected President Trump to freeze all federal government hiring has Forest Service employees wondering if they will be able to bring in emergency help during fire-fighting season, reports the Missoulian.

On Monday, Trump issued an order stating, “no vacant positions existing at noon on January 22, 2017, may be filled and no new positions may be created, except in limited circumstances.”

“The Director of the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) may grant exemptions from this freeze where those exemptions are otherwise necessary,” the order continued.

According to National Federation of Federal Employees (NFFE) Council President Melissa Baumann, Trump’s decision may make the Forest Service’s job tough with hiring for permanent firefighting positions beginning next week at job fairs.

“We all had a hard time just trying to get hold of the executive order itself yesterday,” Baumann explained. “We’re waiting to see where the chips fall.”

Baumann added that the Forest Service hired about 11,000 seasonal workers in 2015, with at least 6,200 of those being firefighters or having firefighting-related duties. Additionally, many were hired as trail maintenance workers and forest rangers.

[…]

“By the time you get your undersecretary and all those people in place, you’re 60 to 90 days behind the scene and off schedule,” Duran explained. “I’m pretty sure they’ll give a (public safety) exemption, but you still won’t be able to staff up in a timely manner. In California, firefighting is already year-round. And in most other places, it’s getting year-round, too.”

According to Wildfire Today, “from the mid-1980s through 2015 the average number of acres burned has grown from about 2  million acres a year to around 8 million.”

This bit of governmental idiocy will not only put the populace, land, and wildlife at risk, it will put firefighters at risk as well. I have no doubt this will have a very negative and potentially dangerous effect on other important public sector jobs. Places all over are being ravaged by weather, and the additional disasters they bring, and that fucking idiot Donny can’t deal with those, either, as Mississippi is still waiting for emergency relief and assistance from the Twaddler-in-Chief, having been hit by severe storms, tornadoes, and floods. Naturally, Donny promised to “expedite the recovery process”, but so far, hasn’t done shit. You’re on your own, people.

Via Raw Story, one, two.

Upcoming Marches.

1

Resistance in Philly: Fighting for Our Lives. January 26th.

 

counterprotest

Planned Parenthood Counter Protest. February 11th.

 

climate_change

San Diego Climate Change Rally. February 21st.

 

chicago

Latinx Against Trump @ Chicago. February 25th.

 

agenda

Stop the Trump Agenda in Chicago. February 19th.

 

nodapl

NoDAPL, Central NJ, January 28th. Keep up with #NoDAPL for news.

Normally, I would post about this, but all I can do is scream at all the fucking lies, so go read about the fucking asshole of the day.

There are an additional 9 more marches coming up, you can see them all, with links, at The Advocate.

Oh Gods. More Assholes.

Credit: Youtube.

Credit: Youtube.

The Charlotte Observer reports that Sen. Dan Bishop, a Charlotte Republican, has proposed a new measure that would make it a crime to “threaten, intimidate, or retaliate against a present or former North Carolina official in the course of, or on account of, the performance of his or her duties.”

The measure came in response to a video in which several protesters followed Ex-Gov. McCrory down a street in Washington, D.C. while chanting things like “Shame!” and “Anti-gay bigot!”

“If Gov. McCrory were a former official of the District of Columbia, this incident might have been a crime punishable by five years in prison,” Bishop in an official statement. “So should it be in North Carolina. This is dangerous. Jim Hunt, Bev Purdue and other governors never faced riotous mobs in their post-service, private lives, without personal security.”

Chanting “Shame!” and “Anti-gay bigot” are not dangerous. They might be embarrassing, yes. And a shameful bigot like McCrory certainly would have his little ears burning, but it’s still not dangerous. Five years in prison? Unfuckingbelievable. Is there any redeeming feature to self righteous rethuglicans? Just one? Because I never see one. People are fighting for basic human rights and the rethug answer? Prison! If there are any repubs who think they are chock full of redeeming features, you’re staying awfully quiet.

At no point in the video did any protester physically touch McCrory or make any threat against the former governor.

And since issuing threats to public officials is already a crime, the scope of Bishop’s bill would likely depend on how it defines “harassment” and “retaliation” against current or former government officials.

And there’s the heart of it. In the new Fascist States of America, you should not have the right to criticise. So much for those vaunted frozen peaches.* Full story here. *Free Speech / Freeze Peach / Frozen Peaches.

And in Louisiana, all that matters are blue lives, the rest of us can just go to hell or prison, whichever comes first:

Following suit with the Trump administration’s law enforcement platform, police in Acadiana, Louisiana have used the state’s new “Blue Lives Matter” law. Louisiana is the first state to enact such a law, which aims to protect the conduct of police officers by slamming people who resist arrest with hate crime charges.

“We don’t need the general public being murdered for no reason and we don’t need officers being murdered for no reason. We all need to just work together,” said the St. Martinville Police Chief, Calder Hebert in defense of the new law. “Resisting an officer or battery of a police officer was just that charge, simply. But now, Governor Edwards, in the legislation, made it a hate crime now.”

CBS News correspondent David Begnaud clarified on Twitter that the police chief’s language was inaccurate, according to Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards’ communications director. However, the Blue Lives Matter provision has already been used to charge someone with a hate crime.

If the response to protesters at Donald Trump’s inauguration is any indication of what’s to come from police, any Blue Lives Matter law that seeks to slap felony hate crime charges on people for resisting arrest is just another component of a serious crackdown on dissent.

Based on Louisiana’s Blue Lives Matter law, anyone who resists arrest or uses physical force against an officer can now be charged with a felony hate crime, a serious offense that will only further criminalize those most affected by abusive policing. Hate crimes are punishable by ten years to life in prison.

Again, the only answer: prison. And that’s for lawful dissent. Dark days. Full story here.

Insufferable Assholes.

Texas Rep. Tony Tinderholt (Facebook).

Texas Rep. Tony Tinderholt (Facebook).

A short while back, I read about one Tony Tinderholt, and his quest to imprison women and strip their right to vote, if they had an abortion in Texas. (I can’t believe dude goes with that photo. Really.) Apparently, Tony hasn’t given up on his dream, because you know, it’s all about responsibility, yes. That horrid abortion availability, it just makes people terribly lax about sex, after all, you can just fit a termination in between the mani-pedi and lunch at the club, right?

In an interview with the Texas Observer, the Republican lawmaker explained that women need to know there are “repercussions” for their actions.

It’s always right up front. Women. Women must…Women need…Women should. There’s never a word about how men need to know there are repercussions for their actions. There’s never a word about how Men must…Men need…Men should. It’s women who end up pregnant, so naturally all the responsibility rests on them. Nary a word about all the semen six guns out there.

“Right now, it’s real easy,” Tinderholt said. “Right now, they don’t make it important to be personally responsible because they know that they have a backup of ‘oh, I can just go get an abortion.’ Now, we both know that consenting adults don’t always think smartly sometimes. But consenting adults need to also consider the repercussions of the sexual relationship that they’re gonna have, which is a child.”

There hasn’t been a backup of “oh I can just go get an abortion” ever. It’s never been that simple, even when it was much easier and accessible, like it was in the 1970s. All medical procedures cost money, and most of them are inconvenient. A termination is seldom a blithe, off the cuff decision. Most people who are capable of getting pregnant and don’t want to be take steps to see that doesn’t happen. Unfortunately, shit happens. Now I note it’s a case of ‘they’ and ‘consenting adults’. Interesting how in Tony’s world, the law he wants would not put ‘they’ in prison, nor would it strip ‘their’ voting rights.

The repercussions of the sexual relationship, a child. I don’t know anything about Tony’s personal life, but I think he needs a proper sex investigator following him around, because god knows, he wouldn’t want to commit the sin of having sex for fun or anything. When you’re done having sproggen, no more sex!

House Bill 948 has been named by Tinderholt as the “Abolition of Abortion in Texas Act” and will likely draw another costly lawsuit for Texas taxpayers to fund in court. Under this bill, there would no longer be any exception for women who are abused, raped or have fetal abnormalities. If a teen is raped by her father she would be forced to carry the child under this law under penalty of jail.

Tinderholt explains that the women should be forced to carry the child because he’s “a firm believer that God creates children in his own image, regardless of how that child is brought into the world, it’s created in his image, and how can someone want to destroy that?”

Oh, I can think of all manner of reasons someone might want to rid themselves of a blastocyst. My decision to do that is no more germane to public opinion than a decision to have spinal shots or to kill a tumor. It’s a private medical procedure, which isn’t anyone else’s business, especially not that of an asshole god botherer, who thinks they have a divine right to intermeddle. I don’t believe in any gods, but the idea of beings created in the image of various gods is an amusing one. Given that christians believe there are two distinct genders, and made in god’s image is amusing, too, but they seldom think that far. I’m surprised Tony the Asshole doesn’t go full court biblical, with rapists made to fork over money to the victim’s father, then getting to legally shackle the victim to them for life. Why not go full hog? Of course, that only applies to single virgins.

If a man find a damsel that is a virgin, which is not betrothed, and lay hold on her, and lie with her, and they be found; Then the man that lay with her shall give unto the damsel’s father fifty shekels of silver, and she shall be his wife; because he hath humbled her, he may not put her away all his days. — Deuteronomy 22:28-29

Tinderholt said that since he announced the bill he and his family have received death threats and Department of Public Safety officers have been outside of his home for days for his own protection. DPS won’t confirm that.

I imagine Tony is quite proud of that. Asshole. Full story here.

Moving on to Ohio, and one Bruce Jones:

Bruce Jones (Facebook).

Bruce Jones (Facebook).

An Ohio township official refuses to apologize for calling a woman mentally ill during a contentious Facebook argument over the Women’s March.

Bruce Jones, the fiscal officer for West Chester Township, shared a post by conservative blogger Matt Walsh about the march Saturday that challenged women to name a right men have but they don’t — besides the right “to kill their kids,” reported the Cincinnati Enquirer.

One of the official’s Facebook friends told Jones she faced inequality every day and complained that he had “mansplained” women’s rights to her.

That’s when Jones launched an all-caps tirade.

“YOU THINK YOU’RE GOING TO CENSOR ME BECAUSE I’M A MAN! YOU are ILL!” Jones responded. “Now be off – back to the asylum.”

If someone had the ability to censor you, sir, you wouldn’t be able to have all caps tirades published on the ‘net. Also, this is more of a “you’re an asshole” issue than a “you’re a man” issue. I know lots and lots of men who are fine people and not assholes. Most women do.

The township official, who’s up for re-election in 2019, complained about liberals’ “obsession” with equal rights.

“They’re obsessed with equality above all else, as if they’d recognize it though it’s all around them,” Jones wrote. “Something happened to them and now they’re jaded, broken people with varying degrees of mental illness, impairing their ability to be rational.”

When you’ve had to fight, every step of the way, from the mists of time, yes, you can get preoccupied with rights, especially as assholes like yourself are so damn determined to never step off your privilege perch and see reality from a different perspective. Calling women names and impugning their rationality is not new. The ancient Greeks and Romans were doing the same thing. So y’see, it’s been a long fucking time. We’re tired. And more than a bit pissed off.

Jones then complained that “servicemen” had given their lives to ensure the woman’s right to “Affirmative Action, free access to judicial recourse, child abortion on demand, and organize protests where you drag your (living) child around, dressed like a vagina, while carrying a sign, “F__k Trump.”

Oh look, an old, white guy who doesn’t know jack shit. Women have fought in wars from time immemorial, and in many cases, led. You want to complain that women can’t recognize what’s all around them, while you don’t recognize chauvinistic sexism falling from your own brain. Affirmative action? Oh my, does that ever say it all. Abortion on demand? No, I’m afraid not. By the way, no one is busy aborting children. All the children I saw at various marches were enthusiastic participants, happy to be involved with their parents. Children aren’t stupid, y’know, most of them knew what they were doing there. I didn’t see people dressed as vaginas, that would be a somewhat awkward costume to march in. Lots of people in pink pussy hats, yes. Y’know, pussy like in cat, you dumbfuck. I also saw lots and lots and lots of signs, many of which were brilliant, and the majority of them were much more clever than “fuck Trump”, although there’s nothing at all wrong with saying “fuck Trump”. Most signs didn’t, and I have to say that wouldn’t be my choice, because Trump is a serial sexual assaulter and a rapist. Most people wouldn’t want to be in grabbing distance, let alone give any impression they might fuck him.

Full story here.