Tag Archives: Tea Party
Not too far!
Oh, Now I Get It!
It’s getting really confusing.
Here’s my problem:
If it is God’s will that a woman gets pregnant when she’s raped, how do these lady parts that shut down and prevent pregnancy fit in?
You see why I’m confused now, don’t you?
But naturally, Bloggers have saved the day.
Yup, they answered my question. Illustrated the situation. And now you too will understand it all. You’re welcome.
Here is a guide posted on one of my favorite blogs, DailyKos.com (that’s where I learn all kinds of fascinating things). I just had to share this illustration so you won’t be confused either. It was originally posted there by Connecticutie but updated by brainwrap today in light of Richard Mourdock’s comment at last night’s debate.
Understand it now? Good. I knew you would.
* * *
Full disclosure here.
I am not pro-abortion. I have never had an abortion, and I recall how when I was young and single that I grappled with the question: “If I get pregnant, what will I do?” It was never a question that needed an actionable answer. I was lucky. Many others weren’t.
You know, I don’t know or know of anyone who is, actually, pro-abortion, come to think of it. And you know what? I think that the moniker “pro-choice” is a poor one. It’s part of the problem. It sounds too much like a casual decision. And of course, it is anything but. I think that the poor name choice demeans the difficult decision that women, either alone or with their partner or their parent or a caring friend, must grapple with. Richard Mourdock, Todd Akin, Paul Ryan and the rest of the jokers in the GOP shouldn’t be in on this very personal crisis resolution.
We should call it something else. But I’ve been unable to come up with a better name, either. Maybe that’s why we got stuck with the one we got.
Nevertheless, we fought the battle over abortion 40 years ago. Forty Fucking Years Ago. And people who knew that it was better to have it safe and regulated as opposed to done in back alleys under unsanitary conditions at the cost of many women’s lives, well they/we won it. It happened just over a decade after the first contraceptives were approved for use in the United States.
And of course, the GOP is against contraception, too.
A Romney presidency will basically guarantee that the folks who don’t really understand how human biology works will control all the things we women need to control our reproductive health. Which, of course, significantly impacts our economic health as well.
[Hey! Maybe this is the GOP jobs plan — keep women barefoot and pregnant and out of the workplace!]
Many of these Republicans don’t even quite understand how basic human biology works, but they are willing to legislate it nevertheless. They don’t actually know when in the, ummm, process, conception occurs and/or how contraception actually occurs. They don’t understand that oral contraceptives do not prevent the sperm from fertilizing the egg but rather prevents the fertilized egg from implanting in the womb.
So that fertilized egg? If the GOP has its way, that egg becomes more important than the mother. Yup. That’s what the “Personhood” Amendment does. The one VP Candidate Paul Ryan sponsored along with Senate Candidate Todd Akin. It gives property rights to fertilized eggs. Human ones, that is. They haven’t made any inroads in giving chicken eggs the keys to the henhouse. Yet.
A Romney presidency will guarantee Supreme Court appointments will overturn Roe v. Wade. Everybody knows that.
And Obama victory will prevent that. A Democratic Senate will prevent that, too.
But there is more.
In the last 2 years while the GOP has controlled the U.S. House of Representatives, they have passed 55 bills outlawing abortion. They have passed 0 jobs bills. Yeah, that’s a ZERO. A big goose egg (ahem). And of course, they campaigned on JOBS, JOBS, JOBs! in 2010. That’s the promise that gave them the House of Representatives. And then they blocked all bills that would have helped create jobs.
We really need to get rid of these crazies. We need to get rid of the nutcases, the fanatics that want to control our bodies, eliminate our liberties, stop on our freedoms and who then wrap it in the flag and sing The Star Spangled Banner.
Well, Damn it, that’s my flag too, and my national anthem. Keep your crazy ass hands off of them both.
Filed under Campaigning, Childhood Traumas, Criminal Activity, Elections, Family, Health and Medicine, History, Hypocrisy, Law, Politics, Science, Stupidity, Voting
Seat of the Pants Math
The best line I’ve read about Mitt Romney firing Big Bird:
Let’s channel one of Big Bird’s colleagues, Count von Count, and do some math: The federal government gave $445 million this year to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which distributes that money to PBS and, to a lesser degree, NPR member stations across the country.
That $445 million works out to about 1/100 of 1 percent of the federal budget.
That’s like me saying I’m going to lose weight by trimming my nails.
From the Chicago Sun Times article: No debate about it: Big Bird is small potatoes when it comes to federal budget which I stumbled upon on DailyKos.com.
Yup. Way to go Mitt. Hollow gestures, lies and gimmicks.
Damn these folks who think pre-school is an important time.
Damn them to hell!
First Amendment Rights
Adlai Stevenson is one of my heroes. I’m sure you remember him (well, probably if you are an American). He was the Democratic nominee for president in 1952 and 1956 and ran against Ike. Now, that was a tall order — running against the guy who led the Allied Troops in World War II. So really, Adlai was a bit of a sacrificial lamb.
But he had a heart and a spirit and he didn’t take bull from anyone. And he repelled bull with finesse.
Stevenson was the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations during the Cuban Missile Crisis and famously asked the Soviet Ambassador to explain why missiles were being put into Cuba. When the Soviet Ambassador, Valerian Zorin, didn’t respond, Stevenson famously responded:
“I am prepared to wait for my answer until Hell freezes over.”
Stevenson was the sort of man who made up the Pre-Reagan government, actually. The Best. The Brightest. The Most Articulate. Smart folks who made the government work. Who made our government the envy of the world.
Now, I’m not in Adlai’s class. Nope, I’m not even close. But as a concerned citizen, I feel compelled to watch what is happening and call out injustice when I see it. I call a lie, “a lie.” And shout to the rooftops when I see the bullshit that passes for public discourse coming from the GOP and its evil twin, the Tea Party.
You see, I really love my country. I am a liberal Democrat and proud to be one. And you know what? I am angry. And vocal. I also take full advantage of my First Amendment right to Free Speech. Now remember, I live near Washington, DC. And I pay attention. That’s important.
I see a lot of folks in and around government who believe it is their duty to make sure that President Obama fails.
Now think about that. There truly are powerful people in the GOP who believe that the GOP is more important than the country. That what they believe is more important than what the voters (YOU AND ME!) chose. That the country can go to hell as long as the result is that they will get more power. More money. More, well who cares what else they’re looking for.
Yes, it’s true. On January 20, 2009, the night Barack Obama was inaugurated, a group of Republicans meet and decided that, rather than giving the new president their backing to help the country, that — nope. They weren’t going to go along with the mandate of the people of the United States. Nope. They would impede Obama in every way they could. Invalidate him. That way the GOP would retake the House of Representatives in 2010 (they did) and maybe the Senate too in 2012. Paul Ryan was there at that dinner. Yup. A fine group of patriotic Americans.
Now think about that.
They didn’t give Obama a chance to succeed or to heal the country. More importantly, though, they didn’t give the American people a chance. Because by electing Obama, people chose his ideas, his plans, his hopes. The People rejected those of the GOP.
Nevertheless, the power brokers of the GOP banded together to stamp their feet and say: “I don’t care if the American People decided that your way is what we should try. WE SAY NO.”
And you know what? They’re doing it again! Yup it’s true.
Senate Majority Leader, Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has already stated publicly that even if Obama wins a second term, the GOP will not cooperate with him.
Can you say “gridlock”? Sure, I knew you could.
So, when things like this happen, well, I get mad. I get angry. And I make my feelings known. I have a platform. I have a soap box. I have a blog. And while I will try to write about politics with humor, sometimes, dammit, it will be in anger. Like tonight.
Because there is a hell of a lot to be angry about.
Take for example the latest example.
Saturday in Virginia, Myth Romney implied that President Obama, should he be re-elected, was planning to take the word “God” off our currency. Off our money.
Huh?
Romney made it up. Completely out of that whole cloth his underwear is made of.
Yes, this is the same guy who chose Paul “Sure, Vouchers for Senior Citizens is the best idea since sliced bread” Ryan as his running mate.
The same Myth Romney who went Birther on us all a week or so ago when he commented that he was in Michigan and nobody was asking for his birth certificate. Ho ho ho, Mitt. Good try at a joke. Try another next year. Maybe that joke will work. Maybe that joke will be funny.
[Now I’m going to digress here a bit. Because the whole Birther issue just makes me want to scream. It points out the complete and total ignorance of those who insist that Obama was born in Kenya and that his Hawaiian birth certificate is a hoax.
Do these folks even realize that in order to be an American Citizen by birth and therefore qualify to be president, you have to be born to an American Citizen. Yup. It’s true. The fact that Barack Hussein Obama’s mother was an American entitles him automatically to American Citizenship. And she could have given birth on the moon; her son, Barack Obama would still be an American Citizen. By birth. The same as John McCain, who was born in Panama. The same as George Romney, Mitt’s Dad, who was born in Mexico and who also ran for President.]
There has been much ballyhoo on the nets, in the press, on the TV about folks wanting us all to play nice and just get along.
No. Sorry. I am not going to play nice with the folks I think have damaged my country. I would not play nice with folks who tried/succeeded in burning down my house; who killed a friend or family member. So I am not going to play nice and polite with folks who have destroyed our economy, undermined our willingness to work together to solve problems, and the pride that made the American Dream a reality.
Nope. Not gonna do it.
The folks who ask for that often tend to be folks who don’t want their opinions questioned or challenged, or folks who don’t want to pay enough attention.
I have a voice. I have a First Amendment Right to voice it. And I plan to us it.
So, as my hero Adlai Stevenson would have said:
If the Republicans will stop telling lies about the Democrats, we will stop telling the truth about them.
* * *
Other wonderful quotes from Adlai:
- Freedom rings where opinions clash.
- A hypocrite is the kind of politician who would cut down a redwood tree, then mount the stump and make a speech for conservation.
- A free society is one where it is safe to be unpopular.
- A hungry man is not a free man.
- I don’t want to send them to jail. I want to send them to school.
- Freedom is not an ideal, it is not even a protection, if it means nothing more than the freedom to stagnate.
- We have confused the free with the free and easy.
- I believe that if we really want human brotherhood to spread and increase until it makes life safe and sane, we must also be certain that there is no one true faith or path by which it may spread.
- Those who corrupt the public mind are just as evil as those who steal from the public purse.
- Saskatchewan is much like Texas- except it’s more friendly to the United States.
- As citizens of this democracy, you are the rulers and the ruled, the law-givers and the law-abiding, the beginning and the end.
Filed under Campaigning, Criminal Activity, Elections, Global Warming, Gun control, Health and Medicine, History, Humor, Hypocrisy, Politics, Stupidity
Property Rights
As you can probably tell, I don’t normally struggle with making my opinion known. But the last few days I’ve been so overwhelmed by the crap that the GOP is spewing that, well, I went into “outrage overload.” It’s an epidemic amongst thinking Americans everywhere.
But after reading Eleanor Tomczyk of How The Hell Did I End Up Here, I was reminded of someone I knew slightly when I worked at a law school in my younger days.
Mark was member of the “Lawyers for Christ” group while at law school, and was known as a deeply devout, incredibly pleasant guy. We weren’t close friends, but he was a nice guy.
Well, Mark is now a Federal Judge! It’s pretty cool, isn’t it? I mean when folks you know make good?
One night when Mark was in DC, I was invited to a dinner of some of his law school classmates who were also friends of mine. I came away in shock. Because this good man who had been the bible studies leader at law school, the number one Christian sharing his beliefs and values, well, Mark had changed.
“I went back home and studied my soul, studied my bible,” Mark said. “And I came away knowing that Christianity, in fact, all the beliefs Jesus preached on, well, they’re based on property rights. In fact, Jesus preached property rights.”
Huh?
Yes, Mark, the man who had believed that Jesus preached love, preached helping the poor, preached paying Caesar what is Caesar’s now had, well, a different line of thinking. One that was way more compatible with his expanding wallet, waistband and increasing prominence as a fat-cat GOP member.
Holy Shit.
Available for $3.95 from Zazzle.com. It’s their picture.
Or should I say “Holy Bullshit”?
Stephen Colbert on Jesus and Our Christian Nation
“If this is going to be a Christian nation that doesn’t help the poor, either we have to pretend that Jesus is just as selfish as we are or we’ve got to acknowledge that he commanded us to love the poor and serve the needy without condition. And then admit that we just don’t want to do it.” – Stephen Colbert
Mark, Federal Judge Mark, that is, went with Stephen’s first option – choosing to believe that Jesus was just as selfish.
Me, I believe that Jesus would be a liberal Democrat. Because the difference in the parties can be summed up one way:
Democrats believe in helping the poor;
Republicans believe in helping themselves.
* * * * *
Thanks to Eleanor Tomczyk of How The Hell Did I End Up Here for reminding me of this conversation and for her incredibly eloquent post on this subject: A Warning to Mittens and the Gang. Eleanor included Colbert’s comment, which I must say, I think of often.
Filed under Conspicuous consumption, Criminal Activity, History, Humor, Hypocrisy, Law, Politics, Real Estate, Stupidity, Taxes
FiftyFourandAHalf 