Froth Slosh B'Gosh

Here Is A Simple Solution For You

If you object to drag queens reading stories to your children, don't take them to drag queen story time.  That's a much better way to handle your bigotry, as opposed to issuing threats. 

IOKIYAR

Because it always is.

"And you have zero issue posting your pro-life stance all over the place when you had no issue asking me to abort our unborn child just last week when we thought that was one of the options," Shannon Edwards, a forensic psychologist in Pittsburgh with whom the congressman admitted last month to having a relationship, wrote to Mr. Murphy on Jan. 25, in the midst of an unfounded pregnancy scare.
A text from Mr. Murphy’s cell phone number that same day in response says, "I get what you say about my March for life messages. I've never written them. Staff does them. I read them and winced. I told staff don't write any more. I will."
The congressman has been lauded by the Family Research Council, for his stance on abortion, as well as for family values, generally. He also has been endorsed by LifePAC, which opposes abortion rights, and is a member of the House Pro-Life Caucus, an affiliation that is often cited by his office.

And he will pay no price politically, because he's a Republican.

Overheard

I stopped by McDonalds for a quick breakfast this morning on my way to hunt morels.  I generally don't do fast food, but I do like McDonald's coffee and their sausage biscuit.

The place is usually filled with older men, I think because they get free coffee or something.  These are people generally 10 to 20 years older than me, so they were teenagers in the sixties to early 70's.

This one fellow was railing about how some person on some TV show kept saying "Damn this" and "damn that" and he was quite upset that children found that funny.

I was amused that he was so put out by such a mild curse on TV, and wondered what people who were his age in the late 60's felt about his hair, or his clothes, or his music.

And then he said, quite loudly, "That's what's wrong with America.  No one gives a shit."  He was so put out by "damn" but loudly says "shit" just a few tables away from the McDonald's Playland.

All I could do was chuckle. 

 

The Slow Creep

What is happening :

It is by small steps of incremental meanness and viciousness that we lose our humanity. The Nazis, in the end, embodied the ascension of utter demonic inhumanity, but they didn't get that way overnight. They got that way through, day after day, attacking and demonizing and urging the elimination of those they deemed their enemies.

And this is what has been happening to America – in particular, to the conservative movement and the Republican Party – for a very long time. Donald Trump represents the apotheosis of this, the culmination of a very long-growing trend that really began in the 1990s.

That was when we first saw the popular rise of eliminationist hate talk, wielded with thoughtless glee and great regularity by an increasingly rabid set of right-wing pundits led by Rush Limbaugh, and then deeply codified by the talking heads who have subsequently marched across the sound stages at Fox News. It rose to the surface with the vice-presidential candidacy of Sarah Palin in 2008, followed immediately, in reaction to the election of Barack Obama, by the birth of the Tea Party, which is perhaps the single most significant manifestation of right-wing populism in the nation’s history.

Its a long read, but well worth your time.

 

The Slow Creep

What is happening :

It is by small steps of incremental meanness and viciousness that we lose our humanity. The Nazis, in the end, embodied the ascension of utter demonic inhumanity, but they didn't get that way overnight. They got that way through, day after day, attacking and demonizing and urging the elimination of those they deemed their enemies.

And this is what has been happening to America – in particular, to the conservative movement and the Republican Party – for a very long time. Donald Trump represents the apotheosis of this, the culmination of a very long-growing trend that really began in the 1990s.

That was when we first saw the popular rise of eliminationist hate talk, wielded with thoughtless glee and great regularity by an increasingly rabid set of right-wing pundits led by Rush Limbaugh, and then deeply codified by the talking heads who have subsequently marched across the sound stages at Fox News. It rose to the surface with the vice-presidential candidacy of Sarah Palin in 2008, followed immediately, in reaction to the election of Barack Obama, by the birth of the Tea Party, which is perhaps the single most significant manifestation of right-wing populism in the nation’s history.

Its a long read, but well worth your time.

 

Resign

If your religious beliefs prevent you from doing your job, well then, its time to find a different line of work.

A county clerk has again refused to issue marriage licenses to gay couples, invoking her religious beliefs and “God’s authority” — this time in defiance of a U.S. Supreme Court ruling against her.

This morning, Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis’ office denied the licenses to at least two couples. At first, Ms. Davis remained in her office with the door closed and blinds drawn. But she emerged a few minutes later, telling the couples and the activists gathered there that her office is continuing to deny the licenses “under God’s authority.”

Ummm..you're a public servent.  We're not a theocracy.  Part of your job, Ms Davis, is the issuence of marriage licenses.  If you are incpable of doing that, then by definition, you are incompetent.

Progress Marches On

Michigan.

 

No Satanic Display In Florida

Here comes the lawsuit?

 A Satanic display will not be joining a Festivus pole made from beer cans, an office desk chair representing the Flying Spaghetti Monster, and a nativity scene at the Florida State Capitol building.

The Florida Department of Management Services on Wednesday rejected an application to give floor space at the Capitol building to the New York-based Satanic Temple.

“The department’s position is that your proposed display is grossly offensive during the holiday season,” DMS Administrative Assistant Sherrie K. Routt told the group...

The 5-foot-by-5-foot poster the Satanists hoped to display showed an angel falling into hell along with a message reading, “Happy holidays from the Satanic Temple.”

This is a perfect example of why the government shouldn't allow any sort of religious displays on public property, because once you open that space to one point of view, you open it to all points of view, be they "joke" religions like Pastafarianism, holidays like Festivus, or beliefs like Satanism. 

If for example, a government body allowed a Wiccan group to erect a display on public property for Beltane, then they couldn't stop a Christian, or any other group from also putting up a display.  I can't think of anything that's more of a "counterpoint" to a Nativity scene than a display from a Satanist group.

If they choose to sue, I'm pretty sure they'd win.

PA Gay Marriage Ban Heads To Federal Court

Very interesting, especially with some of Judge Jones' comments:

A lawsuit seeking to overturn the state’s ban on gay marriage cleared an early  hurdle today as a federal judge ruled against three motions to dismiss that were  filed by state and county-level officials...

U.S. District Judge John E. Jones III, of the Middle District of  Pennsylvania, noted that there was a time when federal courts did not weigh in  on gay rights claims, but that time has passed.

“The Supreme Court has decided several cases since [1972] which demonstrate  that it no longer views constitutional challenges based on sex or sexual  identity classifications as unsubstantial,” he wrote. “Finally, in June of this  year, the Supreme Court held that a federal statute defining marriage as only  between heterosexual couples violated the equal protection and due process  rights of same-sex couples who had married in states where same-sex marriage is  legally recognized.”

Of course, trying to divine how a judge is going to rule based on statements issued before the case is even heard is a fool's game, but it sure sounds like the judge will carefully weigh the arguments.

 

 

Stay Classy Tom

Governor Bought-And-Paid-For compares gay marriage to incest.