Talk about culture wars cognitive dissonance. No matter your political leanings, there’s something in this story to make your head explode.
A man born a woman was fired for not being man from his $10/hour job at a drug treatment center watching people pee into cups for drug tests. He’s suing his former employer on the grounds of “gender-identity discrimination,” which is illegal in New Jersey.
Speaking of issues I thought we had long since decided (like slavery, segregation, suffrage, medicinal bleeding, etc.), a poll found a plurality of Mississippi Republicans believe interracial marriage should be illegal. Forty-six percent oppose, 40 percent support, and 14% are “undecided” (as if they’ve weighed the pros and cons of this timely issue, but still need a few more days to decide). Wow.
It’s not just the shockingly retro racism of this (and I do wonder how Democrats would fair), it’s the fact that the question asked whether inter-racial marriage should be legal or illegal. I mean, you might be a Small-Government racist who personally disapproves of kids these days who go about miscegenatin’. Okaaaay. Whatever, dude. To find racists Republicans (or in any political party) is about as noteworthy as finding out that NPR might have a liberal bias (not that “the tape” showed this).
But to want interracial marriage to be illegal, to want your supposedly small-government non-racist Tea-Party Republicans to tell Americans who they can and cannot marry is not just unpalatable and racist…. It just doesn’t make sense.
Wouldn’t it be nice if one of the Republican candidates for President did something as radical as come out unequivocally in favor of the legality of interracial marriage? I mean, even Clinton had his Sister Souljah moment. But who is daring enough to piss off the base? Of course the candidates could release a collective statement, if they didn’t want to take the risk of, gasp, coming out individually for the right of interracial marriage.
You know, the Tea Party and Republicans spend a fair amount of time saying they aren’t racist. And it’s nice that they care. And maybe most of them aren’t. But when your Republican party is 98 percent non-black and the majority of your voters in at least one state areracist… you’ve got to wonder.
Ken Jefferson of Jacksonville, Florida, that is. Now I’ve never met Ken Jefferson and I’ve never been to Jacksonville, but I did get this email from a professor at Florida State College at Jacksonville:
I thought you might like this story from my class, an Intro to Communication Class. The context is students are presenting brief plans for change and asking the legislative body (the class) to debate its merits along the conventional problem, cause, solution logic path.
A 17-year Navy veteran, African-American student from North Jacksonville (heavily black and where most crime takes place in Florida’s most dangerous city) relates how he was at the barbershop with the barbershop crowd and in walks Ken Jefferson, a 24-year veteran of the JSO (Jacksonville consolidated city & county governments 40 years ago) who was challenging the incumbent sheriff in Tuesday’s election.
Now, I was already impressed that this guy was taking his campaign to the barbershop, and so was my student. But then he started explaining what Jefferson’s plan for change was in the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office: bringing back foot patrols.
And so that was this guy’s plan, shifting money from vice and gambling investigation to fund foot patrols…. And the whole class (or at least the black/lower class folks) are nodding their heads saying yes that’s just what we need and then someone says “can we get them bicycles” and I just lost it….
[And I loved] the beautiful moment of a man practicing what he’s preaching by promoting foot policing in the corner barbershop.
I immediately donated $50 to his campaign. But it will do little to even the odds: Jefferson has raised $18,000 compared to the incumbent’s $203,000.
I think the election is today. So all you Jacksonville readers (er… well, there’s at least one) get out there and vote for Jefferson!
[Update: Jefferson lost, with 37% of the vote.]
I love NPR. And if I didn’t live in a big city, I’d be more passionate about cutting federal support for what is truly an essential public service in small-town and rural American (public radio is essential here in New York City, too–but it would survive just OK without federal funding).
This is from Glen Beck’s website: an analysis of the shenanigans involved in editing the “sting” of the NPR fund raiser. It’s actually pretty damning. And not to NPR or Ron Shiller.
Of course, if NPR did what Pam Key of The Blaze did, it would be dismissed by the right-wing as biased left-wing propaganda (“consider the source” is always one of my favorite non-arguments). But considering thissource, I’d say it’s hard to argue with. Kudos to Key for this and other stories, such as: “What You Didn’t See: NPR Execs… Proud of GOP Past, Love Fiscal Conservatism, Compare Fairness Doctrine to Communist Russia & Defend Intellect of Fox Viewers.”
I haven’t watched the two hour version. Nor do I plan to. But if I were a betting man, I’d guess I’ve probably said everything Ron Schiller said. So what? I’ve said a lot of things. Why Schiller and NPR caved so quickly because of a misleadingly edited video is another issue. Maybe we liberals really are cheese-eating surrender monkeys after all. Or maybe NPR isn’t that liberal. Probably the former.
Or why we don’t need to and shouldn’t cut spending. Let’s compare at “programs at risk” and “tax breaks for the wealthy”:
I can’t vouch for the numbers, but they seem reasonable.
From Tom Scocca at Slate. The column is actually about the debt and David Brooks. Scocca questions whether the debt is really “the” central moral challenge of our time: “Maybe I was distracted and missed the day we let all the young black men back out of prison. (How are they doing? They must feel great now.)”
But I particularly like his part about socialized health care in America.
The awkward, mainly unspoken fact of our time is that America is a socialist country, or that Americans operate under the assumption that it is a socialist country. American socialism works the same way that our system of universal health care does–and we do have universal health care.
Here is how universal health care operates, as we currently practice it: if you are sick and dying in the street, and someone sees you and calls an ambulance, the ambulance is required by law to pick you up. The ambulance will take you to the hospital, which is required by law to treat you. (These procedures are not always followed, but–at present–the failure to follow them is still mostly seen as an outrage.)
The treatment may use up all the money you have, but even when the money is gone, treatment will continue. This approach to handling the illness of poor people is incoherent and irrationally expensive–the amount spent on ambulances alone is staggering–but it comes from a series of moral decisions. We do not believe people should be left to die without medical care.
[thanks to Alan I.]
From an LA Timescolumn by Jonathan Turley: “Clarence Thomas insisted that his wife was being attacked because she believes in the same things he does and because they were ‘focused on defending liberty.’” Wow. I like liberty. Why all the brouhaha?
Thomas reported “none” in answering specific questions about “spousal non-investment income” on annual forms. … In truth she had hundreds of thousands of dollars of income from conservative organizations.
…
A justice is expressly required by federal law to recuse himself … when he knows that “his spouse … has a financial interest in the subject matter in controversy or in a party to the proceeding, or any other interest that could be substantially affected by the outcome of the proceeding.”
…
Thomas simply wrote a brief letter to the court saying that the information was “inadvertently omitted due to a misunderstanding of the filing instructions.”
The Thomas’s has a history of strange responses to criticism. Now he says that any attack on him as an attack on the Court:
“You all are going to be, unfortunately, the recipients of the fallout from that — that there’s going to be a day when you need these institutions to be credible and to be fully functioning to protect your liberties.”
Is Thomas a stalwart defender of liberty or just a corrupt sleazy bastard? Who can say? But I don’t think Virginia ever did get that apology from Anita.
Peter King sees nothing wrong with the hearings he’s holding on Muslim radicalization in America. I can’t imagine anything productive or less radical coming from these hearings.
But my main objection–even fear–is that these hearings will allow the next terrorist attempt to be successful, thus “proving” their point, and creating a horrible vicious cycle.
How are these hearings dangerous? Because, as any intel expert will tell you, plots get foiled because somebody talks. Have you noticed there hasn’t been a successful attack recently? Perhaps we’re doing something right.
The NYPD has worked long and hard to build connections (which includes everything from friendly talks to infiltration to snitches to calls to 311). These connections have paid off. Plots have been foiled. The NYPD doesn’t need help identifying radical groups; they need help infiltrating and gathering information from these groups. The police need to keep friendly lines of communication open, and they fear that this hearings will destroy years of hard work. The second people stop talking, we’re in trouble.
Pissing off good Muslim-Americans for no real gain (unless you could political points as a real gain) is not the answer. Doing things to piss off young Muslim Americans to the point where they might learn to hate America–creating radicals–is certainlynot the answer.
Seriously now, what am I missing? What are we going to learn? Except for pissing off pansy-ass terrorist-loving unpatriotic people me (I write that sarcastically), what are the potential benefits to these hearing? What is Peter King, a supporter of past IRA terrorism, going to tell law enforcement that we don’t already know?
[And does anybody notice that King sounds like a bit like Barney Frank? That’s got to be the next worst thing to Santorum.]
It amazes me that all those rugged western cowboy can get all Big State when it comes to drugs (actually, nothing really amazes me in the war on the drugs).
The headline reads: In Montana, an Economic Boom Faces Repeal Effort. Really? Because you’d think they wouldn’t be in a position to shut down money-making agriculture.
A resurgent Republican majority elected last fall is leading a drive to repeal the six-year-old voter-approved statute permitting the use of marijuana for medical purposes, which opponents argue is promoting recreational use and crime.
Promoting recreational use? Who cares. Ain’t much else to do with all that nature. And maybe fewer people will take meth. Perhaps they problem is that they’ve become too dependent on taking our money. That’s what they’re really addicted to. Talk about a culture of poverty.
As to legal marijuana promoting crime? I’d like to see some of those pesky “facts.” [A quick search of Montana crime rates shows less crime than six years ago.]
An industry group of marijuana growers (probably exaggerating a bit, but whatever) claims they spend $12 million annually around the state and created 1,400 (legal) jobs.
Montana has 975,000 people.
975,000 people.
Man oh man… The Borough of Queens has 2.3 million people. 165,000 people live in my neighborhood.
I guess Montana is so booming that they can do without their one free-market agricultural success story. I mean, who needs to work if you get $380 million in federal farm welfare last year.
It’s a shame Montana, Wyoming, and the two Dakotas–with a combined population of 3 million–get 8 senators to represent their world-view of small government and pseudo “self-sufficiency.”
These four states collectively sucked up $1.9 billion in farm welfare in 2009. They wouldn’t survive without government largess. Maybe we should take some of that dole away, at least until they reconsider their position on profit-making agriculture.
And yet not surprisingly, the same people who shout loudest again big government are really just closeted. These welfare queens (here’s a good story) say they hate Washington, but then they get a look at all sexy green coming from D.C., and they say, “I just can’t quit you!”
Hopefully just a very small part of it.
Shame on us.
I try not and make the Nazi comparison lightly, but people, this is American fascism. You know you’re a fascist when:
You wrap yourself in an American flag to call another group of Americans terrorists, killers, and pure evil.
You wish another group of Americans an early death for no other reason than their religion.
You tell people born in this country to “go back home” (Only native American Indians should be allowed to use that line).
Any others you can think of?
And in some ways these idiots are worse than the Amerikadeutscher Bund of the 1930s. Sure they’re all ignorant, hate-filled, nativists who wrap themselves in the American flag.
But at least The German American Bund of the 1930s, wanted to keep us outof war. And at least the old-time haters were kind enough to carry around swastikas, making them much easier to spot. Oh, look, there they are parading in New York City:
I’m not certain what these new extremists want (many of whom are elected Republicans) want, even if you could peel away the hate.
I hate Illinois Nazis.
Since now England seems to be the bad guy, ever since they’ve fallen under Sharia Law (note: they haven’t), can we have Freedom Muffins for breakfast?