Wayne LaPierre is king of the douchenozzles.

Ok first off, full disclosure, I own a handgun. I was raised in a house that contained them and used rifles regularly as my father was an avid hunter. Everything dear old dad killed, we ate.

Now, with that said..I have always supported more gun and ammo control measures both statewide and nationally. With today's 30th anniversary of the botched assassination of Ronald Reagan, it's a good time to bring up how far backwards we, as a nation, have come and gone on the issue of gun and/or ammo control and how nutjobs like John Hinkley,Jared  Loughner, Seung-Hui Cho and millions of other wingnuts can so easily get handguns with huge clips that can hold thirty-fucking-rounds of human slaughtering ammo.

Recently, Obama penned an OpEd on gun and ammo control. He stated that he wanted to have a nice, sit down meeting with the fuckwads at the NRA.

Wayne LaPierre said no way will he attend such a meeting. Wayne is the chief executive asshole for the NRA. In fact, here is the money quote from him via a NYT writeup on the subject:

“Why should I or the N.R.A. go sit down with a group of people that have spent a lifetime trying to destroy the Second Amendment in the United States?”

Oh yeah Wayne, you aren't paranoid are you? You don't play politics either I bet you friggin disgusting bag of sheep shit.

But the truth is that yes, Wayne DOES play politics about gun and ammo control. This toiletbowl turd also accused Obama of wanting the meeting purely for political reasons.

The biggest problem with our laws regarding guns and ammo is that the national registry is about as useful as tits on a bullfrog when it comes to screening out the wingnuts. All three of the sick fucks I named above were as batshit crazy as they come..yet all three legally bought guns and ammo.

Wayne and his friends at the NRA are nothing more than greedy fucks that lie their collective asses off when it comes to even the smallest measures aimed at keeping the batshit crazy killers away from guns and those high capacity ammo clips that hold thirty-fucking-rounds of bullets.

If we are honest with ourselves the majority of elected Democrats also want to run the other way every time someone mentions gun or ammo control....for purely political reasons. The next big election is looming large on the horizon and nothing stirs the NRA crowd up more than a change, or threatened change, in gun or ammo control laws.

Thirty years ago today, the godfather of all Republicans was shot. Yet, even Reagan didn't want tougher measures enacted. It was Jim Brady, Reagan's Press Secretary who was paralyzed by the bullet he took that day, that pushed into law, stricter measures that the Bush Administration and Congress allowed to expire in 2004.

But back to Wayne.  He will lie and lie and lie to his NRA membership, but one thing Wayne hasn't been able to change is the way Americans as a whole feel about gun/ammo control measures. From the ThinkProgress link:

A poll in the aftermath of the Tucson shooting found that Americans agree with Obama's approach, finding that large majorities support stricter background checks. Recent polling also found that "over 80% of public - including over 70% of gun owners - in Arizona, Colorado, Indiana, Ohio and Virginia, support tougher laws to keep guns out of the hands of dangerous people."

So, what does that tell you? What it tells me is that NRA members are very gullible and the nation as a whole is not.

But I guess it really doesn't matter as no one elected to national office or as a senator or congress critter is going to challenge the power of the NRA so that Americans will not have to fear a batshit crazy, gun-toting wingtard  showing up at their grocery store, college classroom, a federal park or any other place loaded down with an automatic or semi-automatic gun that can shoot and kill 30 humans within seconds of first squeezing that fucking trigger.

And that is wrong on many, many levels. It makes me madder than hell that politics is played by BOTH sides on an issue so important to the safety of Americans in public places.

Below is a trailer for the documentary called Living for 32. It is the story of Colin Goddard who was shot 4 times by the VA tech killer and how that horrific moment changed his entire life and made him a gun control advocate in memory of the 32 students killed by a nutter that could legally buy the guns that killed them.


Living for 32 - Trailer from Living for 32 on Vimeo.

Musings on Trump The Tool.

First thing I thought of when I heard this jerkwad might actually run for President was this:

Asshole has filed two bankruptcies, and he wants to run the country? Puleeeze!

Now, both of those bankruptcies were business ones, and he personally came out of them clean as the proverbial whistle..but still.....the jackass isn't "all that" in running a business. He is as big a publicity whore as anyone else out there vying for voters on the right.

Second, if you count all of his marriages and those of Eye-of-Newt, you come up with six marriages total. And these morons are trying to appeal to the far right, socially ignorant wingtards? I almost busted my newly fixed spine by laughing so damn hard at this bit o' news.

Wait! update on the number of bankruptcies!

The Donald is still in bankruptcy court on his third drink at that fountain. From the Murdoch-owned WallStJournal:

“I don’t like the ‘b’ word,” Donald Trump declared Thursday from the witness stand in a Camden, N.J., bankruptcy courtroom, explaining why the gambling company that bears his name is now on its third pass through Chapter 11. 

Rushed, pre-arranged financial restructurings, “very quick in and out,” left Trump Entertainment Resorts Inc. with more debt than it could bear, the company’s former chairman said. 

“The mistake of the first two cases, the debt should have been cut more,” Trump said, adding, “This time, the debt is being cut by a lot.”

Oh hell yeah, give that sumbitch a bigger break on not paying his bills! That is the answer for all bad business decisions...blow off the bills and screw those that trusted you to actually pay your bills.. multiple times!

But we, as individuals, can not blow off our obligations. Even if a Chapter 7 is filed, individual bankruptcies are expected to pay something back to the creditors,even if it means selling your car or other items the court deems 'valuable'. You can thank that wonderful law passed in 2005, which btw was written by the credit card companies, for the changes in filing a Ch 7. In fact, there are reports out there that show the changes made in 2005 have most likely contributed to the foreclosure crisis we are in the middle of.

The Donald is a lousy business man and a serial divorcer..as such, he will never sit in the chair occupied currently by Barack Obama. But he will continue getting a free pass on paying his bills and making lousy business decisions that he can blow off by filing bankrupty. .

CCR files FOIA suit Re: Honduras coup and US role.

Pro Zelaya protesters

The Freedom of Information Act is a wonderful tool that shines a bright light in the beady little eyes of our federal government and provides us w/the truth. Sadly, the feds fight these requests tooth and nail which of course isn't a surprise, right? From Jurist:

The Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) filed a complaint on Thursday to compel the release of documents related to the 2009 Honduras coup. The complaint names the US Department of Defense (DOD) and Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) as defendants alleging the agencies withheld documents requested under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) [5 USC § 552; JURIST news archive] regarding if and how the US government and its interests affected the coup. The complaint details the events of the 2009 coup where the Honduran military kidnapped then-president Manual Zelaya from his home and put him on a plane to Costa Rica. The complaint refers to the coup as "one of the most significant recent political events in the region" and states that the US continues to have a close relationship with Honduras, including training members of Honduran military and security forces.

In light of the close relationship between the United States an Honduras, it is probable that little goes on in Honduras without the knowledge of, and/or consultation with, the U.S. Government. ... Despite public information regarding the U.S. Government's knowledge of the coup and its perpetrators, before and during the actual commission of the act, Defendants refuse to release and continue to unlawfully withhold documents responsive to Plaintiff's requests. 

In addition to the complaint, the CCR also filed several more FOIA requests with the DOD and CIA on behalf of the Honduras Commission for Truth, an organization tasked with investigating and establishing human rights violations that occurred during the coup.

The US State Department admits contact and interaction with the military group that overthrew the democratically elected President in June 2009, but that is as far as they will go. Zelaya, the deposed President, raised the minimum wage, gave out free school lunches, provided milk for the babies and pensions for the elderly, distributed energy-saving light bulbs, decreased the price of public transportation, made more scholarships available for students, and passed legislation to protect forests from logging.

So, if he did all those good things, why was he deposed? Why would our federal government support a coup against Zelaya? Why does Obama continue to support the current head of the country? Why does Obama continue to send our tax dollars to a country that deposed a legitimately elected President, when, as GlobalResearch states: Under the Foreign Assistance Act, no US aid can be given to a country whose elected head of government is removed by a military coup. The US is providing Honduras with $43 million in aid this year and maintains a major military presence in the country, including a base staffed by 600 US troops located 50 miles from the capital, Tegucigalpa. The US has also refrained from recalling its ambassador to Honduras.

A great read on this issue and the US history in the country and region, can be found at GlobalResearch here. CCR is a wonderful advocate for truth and justice.

Lots of questions, so few answers coming from a man that said he would have a transparent government if we elected him. We are still waiting for that transparency, President Obama.

FCC wakes up and smells the coffee re: Fake News

One station was a Fox affiliate, the other an NBC affiliate. From SaveTheNews.org:

The FCC fined a pair of television stations for airing commercials masquerading as news segments. These video news releases (VNRs) are advertisements produced to be virtually indistinguishable from news stories and distributed to television news departments, and they violate the FCC’s longstanding “sponsorship identification” rules when they are aired without disclosing their origins. 

The fines came in response to a 2006 complaint filed by Free Press and the Center for Media and Democracy, which exposed the rampant use of PR firm-generated VNRs disguised as news programming. The groups filed a follow-up report and complaints in 2007, further detailing the trend. Overall the groups cited the use of over 100 undisclosed VNRs.

Jesus, it took them a while to act on this crap wouldn't you say? The fines were minuscule of course, Four grand each.

The stations used the propaganda as if it was actual news. The violation they ran afoul of was disclosure:

The FCC imposed the fines against the licensees of Minneapolis Fox affiliate KMSP-TV and South New Jersey NBC affiliate WMGM-TV for violating FCC rules that requires broadcasters to disclose a sponsor in a broadcast in which “money, service or other valuable consideration is directly or indirectly paid, or promised to or charged or accepted by the station.”

Hopefully this trend by the FCC will continue, as I am quite sure those two stations are not the only ones using this brand of fuckery to dupe their audience. Moving at a snails pace however gives these assholes plenty of time to continue showing infomercial-like pieces as valid news.

From our Dept of WTF?

I expect a lot of batshit crazy out of the R's elected last year, but this fuckery really, seriously blows my little mind:

Maine Governor Paul LePage has ordered state workers to remove from the state labor department a 36-foot mural depicting the state’s labor history. Among other things the mural illustrates the 1937 shoe mill strike in Auburn and Lewiston. It also features the iconic “Rosie the Riveter,” who in real life worked at the Bath Iron Works. One panel shows my predecessor at the U.S. Department of Labor, Frances Perkins, who was buried in Newcastle, Maine. 

The LePage Administration is also renaming conference rooms that had carried the names of historic leaders of American labor, as well as former Secretary Perkins. 

The Governor’s spokesman explains that the mural and the conference-room names were “not in keeping with the department’s pro-business goals.”

Ok, its the department of labor jackass, not the department of corporations. Does this dipshit think he was elected by thousands of rich CEO's?

Methinks Governor Paul LePage has hit the motherlode of all rightwing nuttery. He also wants to be able to hold secret meetings with business leaders. He wants to hold these meetings so bad, he actually created an executive order establishing a business counsel who's gatherings would be behind locked doors and was exempt from Maine's public disclosure laws.

This is the candidate that told Obama to go to hell and the NAACP to kiss his ass.

Christ, what a douchenozzle. Workers mean little to this bag o' batshit evidently and I hope to hell the voters of Maine are already suffering from buyers remorse.

KO's first SC as a normal type blogger.

I have missed you Keith!

ACLU to defend student sent home for wearing pro-equality Tshirt

The state is Louisiana, which isn't surprising in and of itself. From RawStory:

KTBS reported that De Soto Middle School student Dawn Henderson was ordered to go home after refusing to remove a shirt with the text "Some Kids are Gay. That's OK." 

De Soto Middle School Principal Keith Simmons said he sent her home because her shirt was a distraction to other students. 

"Students do not give up their free speech rights at the schoolhouse gate," ACLU of Louisiana Executive Director Marjorie R. Esman said in a letter to Simmons. "To allow students to express one kind of opinion but not another is the very definition of censorship, and it violates the Constitutional rights of students like Dawn Henderson, who may have views different from those of her school Principal." 

"Schools should encourage discussion of issues of public concern, and especially issues about which there may be conflicting opinions," Esman continued. "Sending Dawn home for wearing a shirt with the word ‘gay’ on it not only trampled her right to freedom of expression, but also sent a destructive message to all students that there is something wrong with being gay or even saying the word 'gay.' A school is the best place to encourage young people to share opinions." 

In a similar incident, the ACLU of Illinois defended the free speech rights of Neuqua Valley High School students who wore shirts that said "Be Happy, Not Gay." The 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in early March that a "school that permits advocacy of the rights of homosexual students cannot be allowed to stifle criticism of homosexuality."

This also goes to the point that the ACLU does represent unpopular causes, like the IL student that appears to not like gay people. Whatever your pov is on the ACLU, they are there to protect everyone's rights..and that is a good thing, as even homophobes have the right to express their opinions...unless it's the idiots at Westboro, then you won't find me supporting their right to hate speech and picketing innocent soldiers funerals and verbally brutalizing the family that is trying to mourn their dead child.  The first amendment right does NOT trump all other rights in my humble yet noisy opinion.

Below is a photo of Dawn in her Tshirt, courtesy of TheDailyMail and KTBS.

It's not jobs that are important, its outlawing reproductive choice people!!!

Last night Rachel did a great piece on the new S.Dakota law (pdf) that, for the most part, outlaws abortions in the state....or makes it as hard as humanely possible to get what is a legal medical procedure. You are gonna just love this newest fuckery folks..it goes right along with their 2006 bill that did everything possible to outlaw abortions as well, although it was repealed a year later. Although I was drugged up to my brown eyes, it made me sit the hell up (painfully) and take notice. WTF? How can this be? What in the blue-friggin-hell did SD Governor Dennis Daugaard sign and why?

The new law has placed limits and criteria that must be met by the pregnant woman before she can get her legal medical procedure. First, she has to attend a consultation with an anti-choice pregnancy (cough) help center that actually tries to disguise that it's an anti-choice center.

Then, she must wait an additional three days before getting the legal medical procedure if the assholes at the anti-choice center/group haven't scared the shit out of her. From a NYT piece on this crap:

A law signed by Gov. Dennis Daugaard on Tuesday makes the state the first to require women who are seeking abortions to first attend a consultation at such “pregnancy help centers,” to learn what assistance is available “to help the mother keep and care for her child.” 

The legislation, which passed easily in a state Legislature where Republicans outnumber Democrats by more than 3 to 1, also establishes the nation’s longest waiting period — three days — after an initial visit with an abortion provider before the procedure can be done. It makes exceptions for medical emergencies, but not for rape or incest. 

Many states require counseling from doctors or other clinic staff members before an abortion to cover topics like health risks. What makes the new South Dakota law different is that the mandated counseling will come from people whose central qualification is that they are opposed to abortion.

This whole bit of bullshit goes to what the GOP thinks is THE most important thing to get done this year.

It's not about the economy, the recession or about creating jobs. It's about stopping a woman's right to choose. It's about outlawing a legal medical procedure for the rightwing nutters in both the federal and state governments.

24 States have or are currently attacking a woman's right to choose, also known as reproductive rights, by requiring them to attend 'counseling' sessions at anti-choice centers. The Guttmacher.org site lists them all here.  The site also provides a plethora of information about all the actions being taken to outlaw what is a legal medical procedure. Read the following and get pissed:

  34 states require that women receive counseling before an abortion is performed: 24 of these states detail the information a woman must be given; 10 states have abortion-specific requirements generally following the established principles of informed consent.
 25 of these states also require women to wait a specified amount of time—most often 24 hours—between the counseling and the abortion procedure.
 7 states require that all counseling be provided in person and that the counseling take place before the waiting period begins, thereby necessitating two separate trips to the facility.
 24 states direct the state health agency to develop written materials: 8 require that the materials be given to a woman seeking an abortion, 16 require that the materials be offered to her.
 9 states require that the woman be informed that she cannot be coerced into obtaining an abortion.
 Nearly all the states that require counseling require information about the abortion procedure and fetal development.
 32 states require that the woman be given information about the specific procedure, while 19
require information about all common abortion procedures.
 32 states require that the woman be told the gestational age of the fetus.
 23 states include information on fetal development throughout pregnancy.
 10 states include information on the ability of a fetus to feel pain.
 10 states provide information on accessing ultrasound services. (See also Requirements for Ultrasound.)
 22 states include information about the risks of abortion.
 18 states include accurate information on the potential effect of abortion on future fertility; in 2
states, the written materials inaccurately portray this risk.
 5 of the 7 states that include information on breast cancer inaccurately assert a link between abortion and an increased risk of breast cancer. 

 7 of the 20 states that include information on possible psychological responses to abortion describe only negative emotional responses.

 It's an all out war on women and their reproductive rights folks..and it's just begun. Lets give a big thank you to all the fuckwads that elected this crop of rightwing GOP nutters who think controlling women is far more important than creating jobs or righting our economic ship.

And they tell us they want smaller government. Lying sacks of shit....

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Crossposted at that fine new group blog RoundTable7

No, I don't back Obama on Libya.

I don't give a rat's ass if over half the population backs Obama's move into Libya. It's wrong,  and it's not going to friggin work. Here is why:

The so-called revolutionaries are nothing more than a rag-tag bunch of men that have no clear goal, and no clear leader. 

That is all you need to know. If those folks can't agree on what they want, and they can't...then nothing we do there is going to help them overthrow batshit crazy Col.Qaddafi. Now, we have one of our pilots shot down.

Obama picked the wrong fucking fight to back. He is blowing millions of bucks, we don't have, on a losing team.

It's just more bullshit and bravado coming out of the Oval office. It's also a great way to take pressure off this administration's shortcomings with regard to jobs and bringing down the deficit.

Personally, the deficit is not something I give a rats ass about right now. I don't want unions busted, public workers fried and/or laid off, and I don't fucking want another war on foreign soil.

Let the Arab Nations fight this one, it's not our war, it's not our fight, and it's fucking not worth the millions we are spending. We have outfitted all our cough...friendly Arab Nations with the best military's money can buy...so where in the blue fucking hell are they in this nightmare?

On the sidelines as usual, changing their mind's like most people change their friggin underwear. Fuckers..

Hey Obama, why not Sudan if your in an warmongering mood?

If our head honcho wanted to attack a nation that has a civil war/genocide action going and is Muslim..why didn't he go into Sudan? I mean really, you wanna spend money we don't have, go whole hog dude and kick some ass in the Darfur region..ya know what I mean fer christ sakes?

Darfur has been in a constant state of civil war since 1983, if not longer. WTF? They have friggin oil too if that is the main reason for going into Libya, which is my general  take on the fuckery and why the US, France,etc went batshit into the hell hole known as Libya.

Sudan has been listed as a terrorist-supporting state since Bush was sitting his ass in the Oval office.

Ah, but the Chinese are pretty much running the show in Sudan and the IMF (Intl Monetary Fund) controls the purse strings. That the IMF is involved tells you that keeping Sudan poor and broke is the goal. Fucking IMF and their economic control over impoverished nations should be bombed out of existence in my pov...but that is probably not going to happen any time soon, just based on history.

That, in a friggin nutshell is why Sudan in general and Darfur specifically are royally fucked and Obama could give a shit.

Guess I answered my own fucking question.

Ps...back at home, but moving slowly and in a lot of pain. Wearing a big-assed, nasty back brace too, which the doc says I will have to continue for around three months..oh joy to that bit o' news. . I think a 95 year old woman gets around better than I do at this point. So saying I am a tad cranky is an understatement. ;)

The brave 50 that are still at Daiichi.

Dai-ichi nuclear plant today

As we sit and watch our tv's to catch the newest fresh hell with regard to Japan's nuclear nightmare, we need to remember the fifty workers who have to stay and try to put out the fires and contain the nuclear crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Plant. Those worker are risking their lives in a manner that makes them heros to me..something I am sure they do not even consider as they fight to keep this crisis from becoming a world-wide emergency. From England's Independent:

After most emergency workers were evacuated yesterday, about 50 remained inside the plant. They have had to perform emergency tasks in extremely difficult conditions – battling to keep the nuclear reactors from entering meltdown and fighting off outbreaks of fire. Dressed in protective gear, they have had to pump seawater into the failing reactors to try to keep them cool, and all their work has been carried out in conditions of escalating radiation. 

"I'm fairly sure the workers inside are being subjected to high levels of radiation," said Rianne Teule, an anti-nuclear campaigner for Greenpeace. "The information we have is they are working in 15-minute shifts to reduce exposure."

The 'first responders' at Chernobyl knew they were going to die, by most accounts.Chernobyl's 25th anniversary happens to be near...as in next month. I have read extensively, over the last two decades, on the biggest nuclear accident to ever happen on terra firma. Probably because I have lived in the shadow of the San Onofre nuclear plant in southern CA for years and years and I have never liked nor trusted nuclear energy.

Why? Because the so-called experts don't know enough about it and no country has yet to figure out how to dispose safely of the spent fuel and other radioactive items that stay deadly for thousands of years.From the Indy writeup again:

Japanese authorities have not released information about maximum doses of radiation workers will be exposed to, or whether they will be replaced. But with a finite pool of workers available, unless the problem is brought under control, they will ultimately be exposed to dangerous doses – or the work will be abandoned. There was speculation yesterday that volunteers from other plants and retirees might be called in.

Such calculations are familiar to those who worked at Chernobyl, site of the worst nuclear accident in history in 1986, when reactor number four exploded. After that catastrophe, a volunteer group of older experts travelled to the site to offer their help, on the principle that the longer-term consequences such as cancers, which emerge many years later, would matter less to them. In the immediate aftermath of the disaster, the earliest responders, such as the local firemen, were exposed to doses of radiation so large that many of them died within weeks. Later, the Soviet authorities flew in hundreds of thousands of workers to aid the clean-up operation. Some of them worked for as little as 15 seconds before they had reached the maximum dose and were sent home.

Our leaders tell us how safe nuclear generated power is.How it's the greenest of technologies.

They lie. They lie to us most likely because they are probably lied to by the so-called experts, who are usually pro-nuclear energy in the first place.

Too bad they do not consult scientists that have no vested interest in building nuclear energy plants only keeping them safe, like those at the Union of Concerned Scientists, who are now giving daily, if not hourly tele-conference briefings on what is going on and what can actually be done. Those are the folks who I read and listen to. I also want to know what the veteran scientists in Russia think, those who are still alive and dealt with Chernobyl in the days, weeks, months and years after that catastrophic event took place.

Of course even I know there is no comparison between the Chernobyl nuclear plant and Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant. Chernobyl didn't even have a friggin containment building for starters. They also didn't evacuate the closest city, Pripyat, until a day and a half after the meltdown occurred.

But that said...this latest of fresh hells can still become a nightmare that rivals Chernobyl in many respects. We can only hope that it doesn't....and that Japan doesn't bury the truth like the Russians did, 25 years ago next month.

Leaving for Hell-A tomorrow morning...for major surgery..oh joy.

So that means I will be off the grid, internet-wise, until probably the weekend, Sunday a good guess. I don't want to bring my computer to the hospital for obvious reasons..like it will be a sitting duck in my room whilst I go under the knife. It's a rather nice, but 4 yr old 17 in screen HP laptop. It's all I have, so if someone lifted it..I would be on a rampage to say the least, regardless of my level of pain or any nurse telling me to get back to my room. I do not take direction well when I am highly pissed the fuck off.

Carry-on Bloggers! Keep holding their feet to the fire and rip em a new one every chance you get. Cyber hugs to you all, and thinking good thoughts about this spine surgery since it will be the first I have experienced in my life.

AMF until I return, rested and full of piss and vinegar! (translated it means: adios mutha fuckas)

I love you Tony Schultz! Farmers, the backbone of America.

Athens, WI farmer Tony Schultz gives a rousing, reaffirming speech at last Saturday's Protest in Madison, WI. Tony needs to run for political office as we do not have enough people like him representing us in the halls of congress.



Kudos to DKos blogger Strobusguy for linking to this video and his post. Also, check out Family Farm Defenders, their website is great.  53 farmers with their tractors attended the Saturday protest. The Tractorcade they organized really gives me a good, positive feeling about middle America, in a time when I have been feeling so down about the state of our union.

If you can spare a couple of bucks for these honorable Americans, please visit the site and contribute.

Democrats introduce bill to outlaw bullying in schools.

Congress Critters Al Franken and Jared Polis have introduced a bill to protect students from the hateful practice of bullying. This protection would extend to all students attending a federally-funded school. From Jurist:

US Representative Jared Polis (D-CO) and Senator Al Franken (D-MN) [official websites] on Thursday introduced legislation to protect lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) students in federally funded public elementary and high schools from bullying. The Student Non-Discrimination Act (SNDA) [materials] was reintroduced in both the US House of Representatives and the Senate [official websites] prompted by the suicides resulting from anti-LGBT bullying of several students in the past year. The SNDA is modeled after Title IX [20 USC § 1681 et seq.] of the Education Amendments of 1972 and would establish a comprehensive federal prohibition of discrimination against LGBT students in public schools. The act would also prohibit schools from discriminating against students based on actual or perceived sexual orientation and gender identity, as well as prohibit schools from ignoring harassment. If enacted into law, violations of the SNDA would result in the loss of federal funding and provide a legal cause of action for victims who encounter discrimination in public schools. The American Civil Liberties Union(ACLU) [advocacy website] supports the legislation [letter, PDF] and decries the treatment of LGBT students in public schools:

The recent tragic deaths of young gay students from across the country underscore the fact that LGBT students are an especially vulnerable population in our nation’s schools. Discrimination and harassment, even physical abuse, are often a part of these students’ daily lives. … The Student Non-Discrimination Act would have a profound impact in improving the lives of LGBT students by ensuring that discrimination and harassment of students on the basis of their sexual orientation or gender identity has no place in our country’s public elementary and secondary schools. 

The legislation was first introduced [HR 4530 materials] in the 111th Congress and currently has 99 co-sponsors in the House and 27 co-sponsors in the Senate.

Wow, makes me feel good to know that 126 people have signed on to co-sponsor this bill. Of course, the question I have is this: How many of them are republicans? Anyone want to bet the answer is zero?

Music for the Soul- Clapton - Little Queen of Spades

Yes, we need some of this today...The great EC doing a wonderful blues tune, Little Queen of Spades. Irony is, this was recorded during a Tsunami Relief Concert in 2005.

On a personal note...

I haven't been active on the blogging front all week for a reason. I am going in for surgery on my spine next week and have been going back and forth to LA for doctor visits and pre-op exams. The fuckwads at Workers Comp actually approved something for a change instead of their usual deny, deny, deny bullshit.

Yesterday, they found an abnormality in my heart during the Echo Cardiogram. The Tech wouldn't elaborate on the severity of this 'abnormality'. Hopefully it will not halt my surgery as the back pain has gotten unbearable this winter and, as messed up as my back is..it's been hard to find a Neurosurgeon that has the talent and the balls to attempt to fix it.

Dr. Ian Armstrong stepped up to the plate, bless him. He is also a great human being, as he also goes to Haiti twice a year as part of the Doctors Without Borders group. He is there now and will return in time for my surgery which is scheduled for Thursday the 17th. That is next week for those who don't keep track of time.

If you pray, please do so for me. If you don't, well, keep my happy ass in your thoughts ok? I heart you all. Hope I don't jinx myself by posting this. I have no idea wtf is wrong w/my ticker as it has served me well my entire life, especially when you consider what a pain in the ass I am and how I have not been the best person in the world when it comes to living right or eating right.

So, I am trying to be positive...which ain't easy for me since I bitch relentlessly about anything and everything.

Hang in there bitches and be good to yourself and those you care about.

Wyoming State Senate kills anti-gay marriage bill. Can I get an amen?

GOP penis size revealed

By a vote of 16-14 the dumbest of anti-gay bills was stuffed..as in killed. This is a big deal for several reasons:

1. Wyoming only has 4 Democratic state senators. It is THE most Republican-led of all the states in the United States.

2. Small 'c' conservatives, who also happen to be Republicans, said hell no to this ridiculous disgusting bill. They stood by their beliefs as small government people as well.

Can I get an amen on that?? They actually stood on the state Senate floor and berated this fuckery for what it is.

From the Trib.com link above:

By a 16-14 vote, senators rejected a last-minute compromise version of House Bill 74, ending weeks of heated debate and emotional arguments over the legislation from both sides of the issue. 

Earlier in the day, the bill barely passed the Wyoming House 31-28. 

Supporters of the legislation said it was needed to resolve a conflict in Wyoming law, which defines marriage as a contract “between a male and a female person” but also recognizes any valid marriage performed outside the state. 

Last November, a Wyoming district court judge refused to grant a divorce to a lesbian couple from Lusk who married in Canada; the couple has appealed the case to the Wyoming Supreme Court. 

But state Sens. John Hines, R-Gillette, and Bill Landen, R-Casper, who cast the deciding votes against HB74 on Wednesday, said they opposed it because it didn’t guarantee same-sex couples access to Wyoming courts to get a divorce or for other disputes. 

Hines and Landen had joined a majority of senators last month in approving a version of HB74 that included such a guarantee for gay couples in out-of-state civil unions. 

But the Wyoming House rejected the Senate’s version, and a compromise bill hammered out by a legislative conference committee earlier this week stripped out any reference to court access or civil unions. 

Both Landen and Hines also said they thought the compromise bill wouldn’t do anything to protect the institution of marriage beyond what’s already in Wyoming law. 

“It was one of these bills that we call ‘feel-good bills’ that doesn’t do anything,” Hines said.

Rachel Maddow did a great piece on this tonight. Bless those small government lovin Republicans who stood up against the bullshit and bravado of the 14 Republicans in their legislature. ;)

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Indiana's Sec of State charged with voter fraud.

Oh sweet irony of ironies. A Rethug that did what they accuse the D's of (and have never proved) all the time...voter fraud. From the NYT:

Indiana’s top elections official, Secretary of State Charles P. White, was indicted Thursday on felony charges that he committed voter fraud. 

The indictment, announced by two special prosecutors, prompted immediate, bipartisan calls for Mr. White to resign. But Mr. White, a Republican who took office two months ago, said he would remain in the post as he contests the charges. 

At issue was Mr. White’s listing his ex-wife’s address rather than his own on official documents, including his voter registration, allowing him to keep his seat on the Fishers Town Council after he had moved outside his district and remarried. 

The seven felony charges include voter fraud, perjury and theft relating to his continuing to accept a salary as a Town Council member. If convicted of any count he would automatically be removed from office.

Removed from office, give me an effin break. How about wearing an orange jumpsuit and doing the perp walk? As much as the right has blathered on about voter fraud by groups that support Democrats, this asshole deserves nothing less than jail time.

And he won't step down. Like Randy Duke Cunningham, he will hold on for dear life. Randy's kool-aid drinking voters in northern San Diego county actually elected that crooked fuck whilst his trial was taking place. I swear, I almost shat myself when he got re-elected. But then..I danced for happy happy joy joy when he went to jail and lost everything.

Lets hope we can do the same for old Charlie White of Indiana.

For the R's its all about getting elected, not solving problems

As we watch the economy and our society in general, go down into the dark hell hole created by Wall Street and their rich corporate friends, it makes me wonder aloud why people keep electing rightwing republicans to lead them when history shows us they do nothing to solve the problems we face as a nation.

The rightwing governors are not trying to solve their state's woes, they are only worried about one thing..looking like they are doing something, when they actually aren't, and getting more R's re-elected in 2012. EJ Dionne has a good read up at WaPo that addresses this issue. Dionne addresses the problem we have with the corporate media and how they and the rightwingers control the conversation. From his OpEd:

If you want to get national attention as a governor these days, don't try to be innovative about solving the problems you were elected to deal with - in education, transportation and health care.No, if you want ink and television time, just cut and cut and cut some more.

Almost no one in the national media is noticing governors who say the reasonable thing: that state budget deficits, caused largely by drops in revenue in the economic downturn, can't be solved by cuts or tax increases alone. 

There is nothing courageous about an ideological governor hacking away at programs that partisans of his philosophy, including campaign contributors, want eliminated. That's staying in your comfort zone. 

The brave ones are governors such as Jerry Brown in California, Dan Malloy in Connecticut, Pat Quinn in Illinois, Mark Dayton in Minnesota and Neil Abercrombie in Hawaii. They are declaring that you have to cut programs, even when your own side likes them, and raise taxes, which nobody likes much at all. Rhode Island's Lincoln Chafee has warned of possible tax increases too.

Don't you find it amazing how these corporate stooges on the right keep putting the burden on those that can least afford it? How they refuse to actually deal with the state deficits in a sane and rational manner? I do not get how Americans can sit and watch the carnage, that will eventually impact them, and think everything is just fucking fine..when it's anything but. Taxes must be raised to cover the shortfalls created by this recession..just to stay at the same levels as before. Even my dumbass gets that. 


Pat Quinn (D), not someone on my radar, has raised income tax rates in Illinois. He got so much shit for it from the right, I am surprised they haven't started a recall movement. 


My own governor, Jerry Brown, made a campaign promise that he would take all tax hikes to the people via a special election, aka a statewide vote by the citizens of my fine state of California. The idiot GOP state reps are pissing down both legs over this idea and have already stated they will do what they can to block such a vote. God forbid we, the people, make the hard decisions ourselves!


As Dionne notes in his OpEd, the corporate media fucks aren't paying attention to the governors that are trying to make smart decisions about their state budget woes. All we hear about are the fuckwads like NJ's Christie, FL's Rick Scott and WI's dipshit Scott  Walker. Again from Dionne's piece:

What's truly amazing, as Stateline.org reported recently, is the number of governors who are cutting taxes at the same time they are eviscerating programs. A particularly dramatic case is Florida's Republican Gov. Rick Scott. He faces a $3.5 billion budget gap - and is pushing for $2 billion in corporate and property tax cuts. 

Historically, times of fiscal stress forced states to make useful economies in programs that didn't work or were not essential. But what's happening in so many places now is a reckless rush to gut the parts of government that all but the most extreme libertarians support - and that truly deserve to be seen (one thinks of education and programs for poor children) as investments in the future. 

And those governors doing the hard work trying to balance cutbacks and tax increases get ignored, because there's nothing sexy about being responsible.

Being responsible doesn't get anyone any press? How fucked up is that? So the problem isn't all on the governors, its the friggin media..the corporate media, that isn't serving our best interests either. 


That's a fight we can't win. We have no control over the Corporate Media skanks and what they determine as newsworthy. They would rather feed us fodder daily on that disgusting human cesspool known as Charlie Sheen.


Charlie Sheen will not fix our economy. Hello? Is this thing on? Let me say it again..Charlie Sheen will not fix our fucking economy. 


We deserve better than we are getting..from both the corporate media and our elected representatives. Yet, the majority of Americans will continue to bury their fucking heads in the sand and ignore the real problems..thereby taking ALL of us down with them.  

John Boehner sucks as Speaker of the House, part 2

Last night, Rachel Maddow continued her series on how bad Johnny Boehner runs one of the most important parts of our federal government, The House of Representatives. Boehner is a clown and as such, has no clue about fixing our economy, creating a budget or controlling his fellow clowns..aka the GOP.

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The GOP has yet to create one job for the millions of unemployed Americans. But they sure as fuck know how to control the agenda, the tax breaks for the rich and the talking points in general. They also know how to protect their constituency, as they showed us yesterday by voting to continue Big Oil's subsidies.

WI voters launch recall effort against 8 GOP senators.

ThinkProgress has the 411 on this new twist to the union-busting antics of the rightwing nutters in WI. From their link:

Last month, ThinkProgress reported that Wisconsin law allows any elected official who has served at least one year of their current term to be recalled from office. Today, a group of Wisconsin voters took the first step towards invoking this recall process. According to a Wisconsin Democratic Party e-mail that was obtained by ThinkProgress:

This morning citizens from around the state took the first steps by filing recall papers against key Republican Senators who have stood with Scott Walker and pushed his partisan power grab that will strip thousands of middle class teachers, nurses, librarians and other workers of their right to collective bargaining. And we learned just last night that their disastrous budget that will cut millions from our schools and universities. . . .

Make no mistake, these Republican Senators are vulnerable to recall for their radical partisan overreach. Senator Randy Hopper won his last election by just 184 votes. And Alberta Darling won her last race by only 1,007. By recalling just three of the eight Senators [Democrats] are targeting, [Democrats] can regain control of the Senate.

Under Wisconsin law, supporters of this recall effort now have 60 days to collect an amount of signatures “equal to at least 25% of the vote cast for the office of governor at the last election within the same district or territory as that of the officeholder being recalled.” The amount of signatures necessary to trigger a recall will vary from district to district, but will range from about 15,000 to 21,000 signatures per recalled senator.

Alrighty then! I hope to hell this is a wakeup call for the nutters that think they can make a hundred years of workers rights disappear like they never existed. The whole disgusting mess has done what unions haven’t been able to do in decades… bring workers rights and the right to collective bargaining, a major topic of discussion in the media and in homes across America.  There is a time frame for the recall action:

Under Wisconsin law, supporters of this recall effort now have 60 days to collect an amount of signatures “equal to at least 25% of the vote cast for the office of governor at the last election within the same district or territory as that of the officeholder being recalled.” The amount of signatures necessary to trigger a recall will vary from district to district, but will range from about 15,000 to 21,000 signatures per recalled senator.

YAY!!! You go WI…you folks are awesome! This is democracy in action! It’s also a big f-you to Scott Walker and his minions, which makes me feel great, in spite of this damn cold I have going on. 

1st amendment rights trump all others according to SCOTUS.

SCOTUS ruled for the pigs at Westboro this morning. From TPM:

"Simply put, the church members had the right to be where they were," Chief Justice John Roberts wrote on behalf of the majority. "Westboro alerted local authorities to its funeral protest and fully complied with police guidance on where the picketing could be staged. The picketing was conducted under police supervision some 1,000 feet from the church, out of the sight of those at the church. The protest was not unruly; there was no shouting, profanity, or violence."

The court's decision came after a hearing on the case of Albert Snyder, the father of a Marine who sued the church for picketing his son's funeral in October. There was universal condemnation of the Church's message, but ultimately the court found that the First Amendment protected the church's protests. 

Don't hand me the horseshit that free speech is painful. Hate speech is wrong, its just fucking wrong.  The right to spew hate and venom should not outweigh all other rights.

The ruling was an 8-1 decision. Only Alito voted against the fucktards at Westboro. Color me surprised as hell over that. Alito had the following to say over this ruling:

"In order to have a society in which public issues can be openly and vigorously debated, it is not necessary to allow the brutalization of innocent victims like petitioner,"

Damn skippy dude. Damn skippy.