sauce for the goose, sauce for the raptor

The Rebel flag of treason, on the move a lot

Today 'old Gory', as I refer to the battle flag of the army of northern Virgina, in contrast to Old Glory, the stars and stripes, came down from a prominent flag pole in the capitol of South Carolina, and was sent to a 'relic room'.  Before that, the flag was on the exterior of the capitol dome, and also draped prominently behind the seat of the speaker of the state house. So it has moved from the inside to the outside dome, to the front yard of the capitol.  And now it's gone, to a 'relic room'.

The flag is finally, FOR NOW, no longer painfully confronting those whom it oppressed, and continues to oppress - and to inspire killing them.  Not just the flag, but the rest of the equipment necessary to fly it has been removed.
From wrdw:

2:35 p.m.
The 30-foot tall flagpole where the Confederate flag flew for 15 years on the front lawn of the South Carolina Capitol has been pulled down.
A crane yanked the pole from the ground about 2:20 p.m. Friday, just over four hours after the flag was removed.
The flagpole didn't go easily. The crane operator had to firmly pull several times before the pole finally came out of the ground.
The crowd cheered, but it was small. On Friday morning, an estimated 8,000 to 10,000 people had gathered and chanted as the flag was removed.
Crews also were removing the wrought iron fence around the flagpole and the flood lights that were required by law to illuminate the rebel banner.
The flagpole was set to be loaded on a flatbed truck and hauled away.

The whole damn monument should be removed.

The flag should have been sent to the dust bin of history.

Most of the thousands of observers who watched the flag come down cheered; some cried.

And a few bemoaned the disappearance of racism from their state capitol.  They claimed it was like a kick in the face to see their honored heritage removed. They see themselves as the victims, not those who were genuinely oppressed, brutalized, intimidated and even killed by what it represented.

Those Old Gory lovers are NOT victims.  They are whiny, indulgent, self-centered and selfish bigots who do not give a damn for anyone but themselves.

In the face of the grace, compassion and forgiveness of the families who lost a loved one to the white supremacy represented by the confederate flag, in the face of the testimony of their fellow citizens describing how much pain THEY suffered at that flag flying at the capitol, and how much it excluded them, the selfishness and insensitivity of them is epic.

It demonstrates everything that is wrong with the conservative South.

In the face of the efforts by Republicans in Congress in Washington D.C., it demonstrates everything that is wrong with the conservatives across the nation.

Friday Fun-day laugh

From MM on FB:

South Carolina -- the symbol of evil is coming down!

The "history and heritage" argument has failed.




Not only will the flag come down, but the NAACP will be ending the boycott of South Carolina.  While some disagree on how successful the sanctions were over time, it is clear that the Governor and many of the establishment conservatives, as distinct from the more rabid and racist teabaggers, were concerned about the kind of corporate consequences that faced Indiana when they passed anti-gay legislation.  It was exclusively conservatives who attempted to block the passage of the flag takedown.

Conservatives are attempting to defend racism and oppression with false equivalencies.  The video below is excellent in making the more accurate distinctions that counter the false equivalents.



Pressure is effective.  Conservatives will not stop, will never stop behaving badly in preserving institutionalized racism like this, unless such pressure is brought to bear on them, especially the pressure of the dollar versus the shrinking bigot bucks, not conservative 'principles'.

From  WISTV:

Even before it began, more than 40 state and national groups canceled meetings and conventions.

Musicians, dancers and athletes refused to perform in South Carolina, families moved reunions out of the state, a Hilton Head hotel lost more than a million dollars in business and an African American religious group took its annual meeting over the state line to Charlotte.

In 2001, the NCAA banned post-season events where locations were "pre-determined."

Three years later, the NCAA added bowl games to the list of prohibited activities.

South Carolina has launched a trend across the south, across the nation.

What DOES the Confederate Flag represent to Southerners?

Confederate bigot flag loving, cross burning KKK

Many of us wonder why the heck Southern racists keep yammering on and on about how the Confederate flag is a symbol they honor, heritage, blah blah blah blah blah.

Here is one example of a comment on a FB page, in response to a prior comment that the Confederate secession was treason, about the news a county in Florida had taken down the Confederate flag and then put it back up again:

Treason? There was nothing treasonous in the South reclaiming their State soveriegnty. In fact, they were following the spirit of the Declaration of Independence in doing so, but I guess a hardcore, treasonous liberal can't understand that.

Based on the inability of the commenter to spell properly, I'm betting this is from another teabagger style conservative. (Sovereignty, it is not soveriegnty.)

Anyone, including am liberal with an adequate history and civics education, knows that the secession by violence of the southern states, including Florida WAS TREASON, as defined in the U.S. Constitution, specifically Article III, section 3:

Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court.
The Congress shall have Power to declare the Punishment of Treason, but no Attainder of Treason shall work Corruption of Blood, or Forfeiture except during the Life of the Person attainted.

This article and section exists because of the earlier experience of the United States under the Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Unity, where there were both small rebellions like Shay's Rebellion (1786-7) and individual wars between states like the Yankee Pennamite war (1769 - 1791).  To expand on what is included and what was rejected in defining treason in the U.S. Constitution  (1787), from wikipedia:

Under English law effective during the ratification of the U.S. Constitution, there were essentially five species of treason. Of the five, the Constitution adopted only two: levying war and adhering to enemies.

Proper legal secession is the reverse of joining the Union; it requires a similar vote of the states to allow a state to seceded, the mirror of accepting a state joining the Union.  It is peaceful, and it requires a broader consensus than just what any one states wants at some point in time.  This is because the founders understood from their experience under the comparatively libertarian Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Unity that a strong federal government was essential.  That experience is the reason the Articles of Confederation were replaced by the U.S. Constitution.

Therefore it was no surprise or secret, no surprise to those southern states that waging war against the Union they joined with their eyes wide open -- and in some cases like Virginia, Georgia, and the Carolinas participated in from the beginning -- that waging war was treason, not legitimate secession, and certainly not consistent with or like the conflict with the UK of the American Revolution.

Here is the applicable wording of the Declaration of Independence, with(which the pro-Confederate commenter appears unfamiliar.  You can view the entire text of the Declaration of Independence here for the complete list of wrongs against the colonies, but I think it is a fair observation that it is something of a 'kitchen sink' list, and that not all wrongs or perceived wrongs were equally serious or significant .  Below is the intro to the Declaration of Independence, followed by a few of those more important and substantive issues that distinguish and separate the American Revolution from the Southern War of Aggression (they started it), which was primarily about slavery, both directly and indirectly. 

Nothing could be more ironic and offensive than claiming a war to perpetuate slavery was consistent with all men being created equal, or having unalienable Rights, including Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness -- NONE of which applied to those held in slavery, and which at best minimally applied to the poor white underclass of the Confederacy. 

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed

Here are a few of the wrongs which justified the rebellion of the American colonies, notably the principle complaint was  taxation without representation - NONE of these can fairly be claimed of the United States federal government, where the slave holding states had exactly the representation they had negotiated as a compromise in the U.S. Constitution:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

States rights, and the Confederate flag has always represented one thing and one thing only to the exclusion of all other claims for it -- treason and oppression, violence and brutality of the worst quantity and quality, and conservatives wanting to justify something bad that the federal government prevented them from doing, like Jim Crow.  There has never been any honor or other desirable quality represented by EITHER states rights OR the Confederate flag, LEAST OF ALL all men being created equal, unalienable rights, or life, liberty or the pursuit of happiness.

It is on a par to this country and our heritage and history what the Nazi flag is to the history and heritage of Germany, except that our shameful era lasted longer, and tortured and killed more people, and stole the labor of more human beings.  At least the Nazis never sold anyone.  Only those who posit that African American lives did not matter then when they were slaves and do not matter since the Civil War under Jim Crow can claim that the Confederate flag represents anything else.

It's time for southerners to drop the bogus attitude of being aggrieved, pull up their big boy and big girl britches, and find themselves a new flag or other symbol.  Although since no other regional group of states feels any need to identify in this divisive manner, I don't really see any merit or need for them to bother.  The Confederate flag was for vicious and conservative racists then, and it is the emblem of vicious and conservative racists NOW.

If you believe that the Confederate flag is consistent with the Enlightenment principles of the founding fathers, then you are lying to yourself, and you are in denial of the reality.  That painful reality was yes, a gracious way of life, with gentility and a slow pace --- that existed only by the stolen labor, enforced ignorance, and enslavement of others.  That painful reality is that the life of the white underclass was horrific as well, in part because of the economic consequences of slave labor.  That painful reality was that Confederate flag symbolizes  a  systematic way of life that involved and accepted white men raping black women and then forcing or selling their own illegitimate children into horrific conditions, including expecting their daughters would be raped by future owners as well.  That is not freedom or equality or even basic human decency.   While all of that is sanctioned by the Bible, and by the alternate reality 'Murica', it is not any part of the heritage held dear by those who live in, are loyal to and love the REAL, historically accurate AMERICA under a very different flag.

RFRA RAH RAH / Conservative Rifraff

bad religion logo

RFRA is not a justification for discrimination, no matter how conservatives try to use and abuse it.  This use of RFRA and of religious belief are wrong, bad, and flat out evil.  It is also generally, broadly illegal.

Those conservatives who seem to be bent on misusing freedom of religion are wrong, but they also tend to be the riffraff, the fringe, the mouth breathers, knuckle daggers, Bible-thumping mouth-foamers of the radical right who are too cray-cray to merit serious consideration. 

These are the extremists who have hijacked the GOP.  The GOP needs to hijack their party back, they need to expel these crazy extremists, or the party will fracture and die out, like the Whigs which preceded them.

That does not seem to stop them from trying to get attention or their evil and hateful way.

Conservatives as the right side of the political spectrum, regardless of parties, has always been pro-discrimination, pro-unequal treatment,pro-injustice,  pro-subordination of others.  We have had to pass civil rights laws, and had ill treatment adjudicated BECAUSE conservatives won't treat people fairly and equally without the coercion of law.  Rather we see conservatives having used terrible violence to coerce conformity to their discrimination.

Conservatives also believe in an 'immaculate conception' notion of business creation, by which I mean the belief that any business can be created without the contribution of others, notably government provided services like infrastructure (roads, utilities, educated workforce, customers, fire and police services, etc.).  Nope, it's just the business owner and divine fertilization, in the minds of conservatives.

This is factually false.  But it is also the core premise underlying the current attempt by conservatives to claim a right of businesses to discriminate, and to assert a religious right to treat people differently by refusing service to some (aka public accommodation).

I cannot come up with a better definition of public accommodation than that offered by wikipedia:

Within U.S. law, public accommodations are generally defined as entities, both public and private, that are used by the public. Examples include retail stores, rental establishments and service establishments, as well as educational institutions, recreational facilities and service centers. Private clubs and religious institutions were exempt. However, in 1984, the United States Supreme Court declared the previously all-male Junior Chamber International, a chamber of Commerce organization for persons between the ages of eighteen and thirty-six, to be a public accommodation, which compelled the admission of women into the ranks.

One of the premises of a right of the public to service is that the public provides the context and framework, the infrastructure, in which business operates, and which are essential to business to exist.  But more than that, it is a foundational premise of equality that people be able to expect equal treatment in the public sphere, that separate is not equal, that disparate or inferior is not fair or equal, and that refusal of service causes harm.

Courtesy of Findlaw for a partial list of court cases relating to civil rights decisions relating to the conservative laws being overturned that mandated or gave legal cover to discriminate, INCLUDING ON THE BASIS OF SINCERELY HELD RELIGIOUS BELIEFS:

Shelley v Kramer, 1948, overturned the right to exclude property sales on the basis of race, used to keep neighborhoods segregated;  

Brown v Board of Education 1954 and 55(I and II) ended segregated education, invalidating separate but equal (hint: it was never equal, but consistently inferior);

Bailey v Patterson, 1962, overturned segregation of transportation facilities (public or private, inter and intrastate);

Loving v Virginia, 1967, overturned prohibitions of inter-racial marriage, in which the Bible and sincerely held religious beliefs about the separation of the races figured prominently;

Jones v Mayer, 1968, another decision that prohibits in property sales and property rentals, (regardless of sincerely held religious belief, or any other pretext or justification);

Griggs v Duke Power Co., 1971, (yes - THAT Duke Power that funds/ owns conservative candidates) overturned discriminatory education and IQ testing for employment (again, based in part on a sincerely held religious-based belief in racial differences);

Oncale v Sundowner Offshore Serv., Inc. 1987 banned same-sex sexual harassment violated the provision of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964  (the court did not make an exception for sincerely held religious beliefs motivating harassment or bullying);

Add to this list any of the Bob Jones University court decisions that religion or religious beliefs (sincere or otherwise) was not an excuse or legal pretext for discrimination; also

Heart of Atlanta Motel Inc. v. United States, 379 U.S. 241 (1964),  that the U.S. Congress could use the Constitution's Commerce Clause to force private businesses to abide by the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

This has not been an encyclopedic listing of cases, rather it is a sampling only.  Religion is not a legitimate or legal basis for discrimination.  In some locations, like the state of Oregon, these protections extend to gender and sexual orientation, and this has been the trend in civil rights.

The right to accommodation, the right regardless of race to service by businesses was settled in the last century -- and not the END of the last century either.  In the latter 19th and first half of the 20th century, sincerely held religious beliefs that the races should be separate, (because 'the Bible') was a large part of the justification used by conservative bigots to find ways to subordinate and restrict and oppress black Americans, and to exercise prejudice against other groups, notably Jews and Catholics, and atheists.  Now that is extending to those Jews and Christians and other groups who do not conform to their interpretation of religious belief.

That is not decent or spiritual, that is not freedom, that is not "all men (and women) are created equal".  That is not our constitution, that is contrary to the essence of community and contrary to the concept of majority rule (with protections for minorities).

We saw in the last election Mitts-on-our-Money Romney's big GOP convention stressed empty chairs and "I created that" notions of businesses being solely the creation of their founders. The premise totally and completely ignored the essential community support and services - and customers - that were essential to the creation and growth of those businesses.  There was a denial that any other factors, from services to labor, contributed to the creation of business.

We're seeing the bitter end of bigotry being stripped of legal cover in discrimination against members for the LGBT community.  ENDA is inevitable, the only question becomes when not if.  It may or may not happen as the SCOTUS is currently constituted, given it is the most conservative court in our history, but it is unlikely that the SCOTUS will remain that conservative or that religion will trump civil rights in the public sphere.

The nature of consent - the Wednesday cartoon.

Substitute sex for watching and people of either gender for the guy who doesn't want to continue -- perfect analogy for rape.  Make similar substitutions involving consent vs. rape in the remaining examples.

Cartoon of the Day

Via Exposing Religion on FB:

Right Wing Flag Propaganda 6 & 7: Old Glory and Florida

Actual flag of the United States: note the size (approximately 1/3 of the long axis, and 1/2 of the short axis), and position of the blue square relative to the stripes; note the number of rows of stars and the pattern of stars in alternating rows; note the number and width of the stripes.

Conservatives are angry all the time. The further to the extreme right, the higher the sustained anger level.


Fact and reason have nothing to do with this anger level. The anger is real; the causes are not.


The condition of perpetual free-floating rage on the right is the result of careful and deliberate priming - read LYING - by the right wing propaganda machine. They tell their gullible little stooges that things are BAD BAD BAD, and without a thought to fact checking a word of it, the right wingers fall into line and foam at the mouth on command.


You tend not to see these stories in the mainstream media, because they don't survive the fact checking process. Tell the truth about these ginned up incidents, no one gets angry. It takes lies to anger the base. It takes lies to unite the base in support of bad candidates as well. There is so much of this propaganda, that the right cannot fully identify why they are so angry - they just know they ARE.


To move on to the latest of these manipulated anger political dramas, specifically about the flag (there are entire separate persistent right wing propaganda themes, memes, or genres, although they do sometimes overlap - black people are thugs, homophobia, Islamophobia, etc.), here are a couple of the more recent ones. The flag propaganda series posts illustrate qualities common to all of the different propaganda themes.


Nothing says patriotism like cars made in Korea........or not. Hey, I'm all for trade, so long as we have an even playing field to compete, but it is an issue in the TPP that we are suffering from some bad provisions of past trade agreements with South Korea, and Kia is just one of the imports that contribute to those problems of lost jobs and trade imbalance.


So in that larger world economics context, I was equal parts angry and amused at the latest two examples of right wing propaganda that usurps legitimate patriotism and hijacks the flag for purposes of propaganda. Both take place in Florida, one in Sunrise, one in West Palm Beach.


Note that there is no upper (viewers) left hand corner of blue (technically a canton) with 50 stars representing 50 states, but rather the blue takes up slightly less than half of the flag. The number of stars in each row, and the arrangement of stars in each row also appear to be incorrect.



photo of the so-called 'American Flags' being flown at the Kia dealership in West Palm Beach.

Moving on to the 'stripes' of the flag, they are the wrong width, and there are more than the 13, representing the original colonies, that appear on our American flag.


These are NOT AMERICAN FLAGS.


This is a form of bunting, which is prohibited by local ordinance, apparently intended to keep dealerships from unduly junking up the municipality.

In contrast, here is what comes out of the right wing propaganda machine to orchestrate the outrage against "evil flag hating liberals":

"The Kia dealership general manager Mike Wangle is definitely a patriot. The whole dealership is standing its ground against some bureaucratic fascists in Florida who evidently hate the American flag. They have cooked up some random, stupid code-enforcement violations to try and strong-arm the dealership into taking down the American flags they are displaying for the Fourth of July. Get this, they are not considering them ‘flags.’ You guys need glasses and a brain enema. These Marxist thugs just don’t want anything displayed that shows a love for America or her history. That’s Progressives for you. Fortunately, the Kia dealership has told them to pound sand. And I hear there’s a lot of sand in Florida.

BizPac Review wrote:

The Kia dealership in West Palm Beach faces penalties of up to $1,000 per day for a code-enforcement violation it received from Palm Beach County for displaying six American flags on its property, WPTV reported.

The county said the dealership is violating a[n ordinance] that prohibits the display of pennants, balloons, banners and other signs made of lightweight fabric, plastic or similar substances. (added emphasis mine - DG)

“We’re just trying to show our patriotism,” dealership general manager Mike Wangle told WPTV.

Gosh, that sounds terrible.......until you realize these are not actually American flags, and this is a fairly identified violation of municipal ordinances, reasonably regulating local commerce, and the right wing nuts own pictures prove the municipality is correct.


Real patriots fly real flags. Real patriots know what a real U.S. flag LOOKS LIKE.


On social media where I first came across this story, NOT ONE CONSERVATIVE realized this was not a correct US flag. But every single one of the people who commented was OUTRAGED at how liberals HATE America, blah blah blah blah blah. Anger! Outrage! Factually false, but no one notices, because the emotion has replaced reason before reason can get a start.


Our next case of flag porn /propaganda is another Florida Kia dealership, this one in a town called Sunrise.


This one is from May of this year, via the Sunrise Sentinel.

New car dealership in Sunrise aims to fly American flag high

...Car dealer Rick Case, who is in the process of building a new Kia dealership in the city and moving his corporate headquarters from Plantation to Sunrise, wants to fly an American flag on the 5.5-acre property.

The problem is that the city code allows only a 25-foot flag pole, while Case wants to put up a 120-foot flag pole to match the size of some of his other dealerships, like in Davie and Weston.

"I am so proud of [being in America] that I want to fly an American flag in my new dealership on Sunrise Boulevard, the entrance to this wonderful city off the Sawgrass Expressway," Case said to commissioners at a City Commission meeting. "I would like [the city] to consider letting me fly an American flag, as I do in all my other dealerships around the country."

..."I have no problem with anyone flying an American flag; as a veteran, I support that principle 110 percent," Assistant Deputy Mayor Don Rosen said, "but I don't want to run into a competition where you put a flag so large or a pole so large that it now forces [other car dealerships] into a back and forth… but I think it's something that can be worked out."

Commissioners agreed to have city staff evaluate options for allowing a larger flag pole, including finding out what other surrounding dealerships would do if they also had the option for a larger flag.

"It wouldn't be fair to just allow [Case] to have a flag on the property," Commissioner Joey Scuotto said. "If this is something we [allow], we'll have to allow it [for everyone else]."

Blah blah blah : liberal marxist socialist communist anti-Americans, blah blah blah - government overreach and political correctness. Consider the conservative outrage over flag flying as read. Not fair, not accurate, not legitimate or justified, but it is there and making the right wing nuts mad as hell; mad as hell over NOTHING.

Tom Cotton - representative of right wing misogyny and their war on women

Even the founding fathers would reject this bullshit, and they did not initially give women the vote -- the equality for women came later. But they were not THIS bad.

Friday Fiore!

Fiore - speaking truth to power with humor.

More Friday fun!

A llittle fun on Friday Fun-Day!

Conservatives Inadvertantly Mock Themselves on Face Book

I laughed out loud this morning when I came across this, because it goes to how horrifically and yet hilariously funny conservative whining is when they don't get their way to be bigots. 

Here is the image that gave me the giggles, because of how glaringly counter the message is to the photo.


And this was the reply to the question posed :

First, before replying, we would have to stop laughing at the premise that anti-racism, especially the racism of southern history / pro-LGBT actor Laurence Fishburne would be the image you would choose to go with this message. You could not have presented a worse case for your faulty argument that the offense is even remotely equal or that your offense is in any way justified.

If you said that, we would point out that 'Old Gory' the stars and bars is a flag of treason, and is the symbol for 20 million black people murdered under slavery and many more lynched, raped, and jailed and otherwise abused under Jim Crow. We would say Old Gory was the flag of anti-miscegenation laws and white supremacy -- all claimed as sincere Biblical beliefs at the time.

And then we would point out that the rainbow flag has always been in contrast a flag about love and inclusion -- and a fuck of a lot better Bible based religious scholarship.

We would say your Old Gory is a flag of hate, violence, and obscenity,and ignorance, and the rainbow flag is a flag of love and inclusion and dignity.

So what offends you does not speak well to your character, while what offends us speaks well to both character and the judgement of history. That is why millions MORE are offended by Old Gory than are offended by the rainbow flag. You are like the dinosaurs so many of you believe Jesus was riding around on -- crazy, foolish, factually in error and too damn bad. You are disappearing every second into the mists of ugly anachronism.

Look at the company you keep -- the fundie Muslims are pretty much the only other people on your side, and a few other retro conservatives scattered across the globe like Putin.

Happy Canada Day, Good Neighbor to the North!

Texas caves to gay marriage after less time than the battle of the Alamo

The Battle of the Alamo in Texas in the spring of 1836 lasted 11 days, following a 13 day siege of the fort.  The Battle was ultimately lost, not even a Pyrrhic victory, but it became a famous and unifying loss.

The modern opposition, no matter how vehement those who are in opposition CLAIM to be, lasted less than 24 hours, not even the 24 days of the Alamo conflict.

Raw Story notes:

Texas county clerk reverses course, starts issuing same-sex marriage licenses

Texas county clerk said on Tuesday her office will issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, reversing a previous decision that was based on religious objections.

Some counties in other socially conservative states such as Kentucky have declined to issue such licenses since the U.S. Supreme Court said on Friday the U.S. Constitution provides same-sex couples the right to marry. The controversy could result in a new round of lawsuits over gay marriage.

Katie Lang, clerk of Hood County, southwest of Fort Worth, said staffers will issue the licenses although she will not do so based on her Christian beliefs, which she believes are protected under the Constitution.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has said county clerks who object to gay marriage can refuse to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples.

Paxton, a Republican, said those officials could expect to be sued but would have ample legal support.

“Several groups have publicly expressed their willingness to help government employees who feel their religious rights have been violated,” a spokeswoman for the attorney general’s office said.

Legal experts said same-sex couples could seek injunctions compelling clerks to issue licenses and easily win, based on the Supreme Court decision. They also could file civil suits seeking damages from counties that are largely rural and short on funds for a prolonged legal fight.

But clerks could try to request pre-emptively an injunction or judgment that says they do not have to issue the licenses because of religious liberty, said Texas A&M University law professor Meg Penrose.

Counties in the most populous areas of Texas began issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples shortly after the Supreme Court ruling.

Out of 254 counties in Texas, 114 are ready and willing to issue same-sex marriage licenses, according to the Dallas Morning News. Nearly 100 other counties said they were waiting for software upgrades and gender-neutral application forms.

So we have 214 counties out of 254 that are cooperating with the recent gay marriage SCOTUS decision.

From the Dallas News earlier this week:

Benefits to be extended to spouses of Texas' gay state workers 

AUSTIN — The state bureaucracy is moving forward to comply with the U.S. Supreme Court’s gay marriage decision, even as statewide elected leaders, including Gov. Greg Abbott, have lambasted the landmark ruling. Starting Wednesday — less than a week after the decision — the Employees Retirement System of Texas, the University of Texas System and the Texas A&M University System will extend benefits to spouses of gay and lesbian employees. That means the list of employers providing same-sex partner benefits will include the state’s largest: the state itself.

I expect that the remaining pockets of opposition are going to crumble.  But if they do not, I expect not only action by the DOJ, but from individuals like those who brought suits that rose to the level of the SCOTUS decision.

The Advocate notes:

WATCH: Now's the Time to Defend the Marriage Victory

By all means, let's celebrate this milestone achievement. But don't think for a second that the work is done.

...But there are some pockets of resistance where the lingering opponents of equality will do everything they can to block marriage. For example, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said that clerks may be able to turn same-sex couples away. He also noted that clerks will open themselves up to possible litigation if they refuse LGBT couples. Essentially, he's inviting clerks to prompt a lawsuit so that his office can step in and fight for their right to discriminate.
Conflicts like that will probably keep popping up, at least for a while. Missouri's looking at getting out of the marriage business altogether. North Carolina just passed a bill that lets officials refuse to issue licenses to all couples — gay and straight. Florida clerks have done the same, without waiting for a law making it legal for them to do so. The Constitution may guarantee equal protection, but we'll still have to fight for that protection being recognized across the whole country.
The conflict is essentially a throwback to the 1950s, when the Supreme Court ordered an end to segregated schools. Some places just closed their schools altogether, rather than integrate them. Kids literally had nowhere to go, because officials preferred to deprive everyone of their rights rather than extend those rights to a minority.

We will see more fighting, but given recent widespread court failures and the high cost of such legal actions to conservatives, as well as the increasing number of Christian churches and other religious entities that DO perform those gay marriages, I am betting that most of them will cave too, rather than fight.

If these hold outs do NOT cave, I think we can expect law suits like those in North Carolina brought by the United Church of Christ and Jewish congregations that the refusal to issue marriage licenses violates THEIR freedom of religion.  It is entirely possible that the laws enacted by conservatives solely to obstruct gay marriage could be the very statutes that defeat that obstruction, much like the United Church of Christ law suit in North Carolina that was joined by Baptists, and Jews.  It would not surprise me to see other religious denominations join such suits going forward.  The premise of religious freedom isn't gong to fly, the premise that only those who oppose gay marriage are genuinely or sincerely religious in their beliefs will fail.  It is extremely unwise to put the courts in the position of deciding a civil right by making it a conflict between competing religious groups and their sincerity.  No court is going to reward the hold outs to gay marriage in such a suit.

From the United Church of Christ web site, in June 2014:

The United Church of Christ welcomed new allies in its quest for religious freedom, as three religious organizations joined the UCC's First Amendment lawsuit against the state of North Carolina. The Rev. J. Bennett Guess, a national officer of the church, stood with the additional plaintiffs during a news conference in Durham, N.C. on Thursday, and applauded their stance as people of faith committed to preserving equality.

The Alliance of Baptists, the Central Conference of American Rabbis and the Association of Welcoming & Affirming Baptists are the newest co-plaintiffs seeking to eradicate North Carolina's marriage laws.
The organizations, now part General Synod of the United Church of Christ v. Cooper,  claim that state laws wrongly criminalize clergy for performing same-gender marriages and unconstitutionally deny LGBT couples the freedom to marry.

My prediction is that in spite of the noisy histrionics, this will never be a 'Remember the Alamo' moment. The loss will not be celebrated like the Alamo. This will end with a barely audible sulky whimper, not a roar, not embroidery, and then become just another embarrassment in our history.

Ann Coulter, 'self-possessed'? (and not in a good way)

Rafael 'Ted' Cruz, Clown, and Scum Bucket: pandering to the lowest common denominator aong foolish conservatives

Via Juanita Jeans

At the end of the most recent Supreme Court session, we again have Senator Cruz making wild statements about the latest SCOTUS decisions on gay marriage and the ACA.

Some are ironic, some are just bubbling buckets of pus designed to deceive and mislead his electorate base.

From Today News:

Cruz, a Harvard grad, criticized the Supreme Court justices as a group of "elites" from Harvard or Yale who lack religious diversity.

"They think that our views are simply parochial and don't deserve to be respected," he said. He said it was a point amplified by Justice Antonin Scalia, who dissented in both cases: "What a crazy system to have the most important issues of our day decided by unelected lawyers."

Let us Fisk these statements.

(To Fisk: verb 1.(slang) to refute or criticize (a journalistic article or blog) point by point
Word Origin
C21: after the use of this technique by Robert Fisk (born 1946), British journalist, to criticize articles - dictionary.com)

First of all we have the grotesque hypocrisy of Cruz being a Harvard Law graduate com laude, and much like President Obama, a few years ahead of him, Cruz was an editor of the Law Review. So for Cruz to criticize ANY justice of the SCOTUS as an 'elite' for having high qualifications for the bench is ridiculous. It is precisely people with legal training who should be sitting on the Supreme Court Bench. A lack of such credentials should be a deterrent, not a qualification to serve on the SCOTUS.

This is the rankest kind of pandering to the anti-intellectual crowd of the willfully ignorant conservative extremists.

Then Cruz goes on to complain about what the Today article refers to as a lack of religious diversity because none of the SCOTUS justices were Evangelicals.

THERE IS NO REQUIREMENT OR EVEN DESIRABILITY THAT EVANGELICALS HAVE A SEAT ON THE SCOTUS BENCH. Cruz is not concerned about an ACTUAL diversity of religion on the court -- he does not seek the court adding more Jews, Muslims, Eastern Orthodox, Buddhists, Sikhs or Hindus. THAT would be genuine religious diversity, as would having an atheist or agnostic. The reason we do NOT have that provision is that we are NOT A THEOCRACY.  It is INTENTIONAL that there be no preference for Evangelicals - OR ANY OTHER BELIEF OR FAITH.

But this is not a failing of the court, this is a feature not a bug of our Constitution, and it has a name: the No Religious Test Clause, Article VI, paragraph 3.

The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.

So for Cruz, who is in his own right knowledgeable about the Constitution, to complain about this is to conservatives as some kind of religious SLIGHT to them, or quality of unfairness, is a crock of manure too toxic to be used as organic fertilizer.  It is intended only to foment distrust of the government and to promote ignorance about our Constitution.

This is just the crassest ploy to extract conservative mouth breathers and knuckle draggers from their hard earned cash.

Likewise, the emotional appeal to the exclusion of reason and logic, and facts, that the SCOTUS decision is one of the 'darkest days' of our nation is propaganda, designed to manipulate the weak-minded who vote for candidates like Cruz.

Like the No Religious Test clause, it is a feature, a deliberate choice, that the SCOTUS Justices are not elected and have no term limits, a choice made by the Founding Fathers in writing the Constitution, which they created to solve the obvious problems and failures of the original government post-American Revolution, the Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Unity.  This Constitution was established by those august Founding Fathers, who were well aware of the need to avoid political pressures on that entity.  It was not an oversight, it was not a mistake, and it was ratified by the people of the United States after it was created through a carefully negotiated approval process.

The approval of those Justices by the Senate, by our  directly elected Senators courtesy of the 17th amendment to the Constitution, which superseded Article I, §3, Clauses 1 and 2 of the Constitution.  Ironically, hypocritically, and in direct contradiction of trusting the electorate to vote on important positions directly, Cruz (along with other teabaggers) wants to REMOVE the right to direct vote our choice of Senators, by repealing the 17th amendment:

The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each State, elected by the people thereof, for six years; and each Senator shall have one vote. The electors in each State shall have the qualifications requisite for electors of the most numerous branch of the State legislatures.
When vacancies happen in the representation of any State in the Senate, the executive authority of such State shall issue writs of election to fill such vacancies: Provided, That the legislature of any State may empower the executive thereof to make temporary appointments until the people fill the vacancies by election as the legislature may direct.
This amendment shall not be so construed as to affect that the election or term of any Senator chosen before it becomes valid as part of the Constitution.

It makes no sense and has no chance of successful repeal to delete the 17th amendment from the Constitution but then to further alter it for direct election of the SCOTUS.  Either you trust the electorate - and your elected representatives - or you don't.

Specifically, Article II, Section 2, paragraph 2 of the U.S. Constitution provides:

[The President] shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur; and he shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States, whose Appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by Law: but the Congress may by Law vest the Appointment of such inferior Officers, as they think proper, in the President alone, in the Courts of Law, or in the Heads of Departments.

We elect or senators to approve Justices appointed to the SCOTUS on our behalf.  Specifically the Senate holds the power to advise and consent to nominations from the President, which confers legitimacy on the SCOTUS by an approval  process that includes both the Executive branch and the senior /more prestigious  house of the Legislative branch.  Direct election would not confer greater legitimacy on the SCOTUS Justices, particularly when we have been faced with such an epidemic of conservative enacted voter suppression and resulting decline in voter participation.

All Cruz is angling for is to offer the illusion of a means of control for the minority fringe to hijack the Constitution and to gin up dissatisfaction with the fact that everyone sometimes has to contend with a decision they do not like.

We saw no such objections to the SCOTUS over Hobby Lobby, an ENTIRELY PAROCHIAL decision.  If Cruz was making a valid criticism, that criticism would have been appropriate to the legitimacy of that decision as well, yet no such criticism was offered.  The minority extremist right wing evangelical fringe won on that one.

This kind of invalid criticism from Cruz ONLY appeals to those who claim to LOVE the Constitution, but who have no functional working knowledge of it.

These dishonest and unconstitutional opinions of Senator Rafael Cruz should disqualify him with the electorate of the United States from being a presidential candidate.  Cruz is genuinely demonstrating that he is a danger to the nation, a threat to the Constitution, and that he is a profoundly dishonest man.

Creationism is NOT SCIENCE, and has no place in curricula

Why is Bobby Jindal running for President?

Bobby Jindal has no chance in hell of winning the presidency, or of being asked to be the Vice President on someone else's ticket.  So why would he announce a run for office?

Last week,  Piyush "Bobby" Jindal with his wife Supriya, announced his intention to get into the race to be the GOP nominee for president in 2016.  Louisiana has some unusual practices in gubernatorial elections; it holds them in the year before a year divisible by 4, which is November 2015; and it allows the governor two consecutive terms, but require a 4 year interim term out of office before a candidate for governor can run for additional terms, also in a maximum of two consecutive 4 year terms.  Essentially a governor, should he or she be sufficiently popular can run for two terms in office, one term out, then two terms in office again.

I would argue that the answer to this candidacy lies in the experience of another Republican, from the Dubya administration, equally failed Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.  Gonzales, for years after he left government office, was unable to find a job -- any kind of job, much less as a practicing lawyer.  Eventually a big donor player in Texas politics was able to force through a pity job for Alberto, teaching a couple of so-called 'special' classes at a university for atypically big $$$$ relative to other not-staff instructors, over the strong objections of the administration, academic staff and students.  The job was pure political patronage, not merit.

Texas Tech University Faculty Protest Alberto Gonzales Appointment

 According to a local TV station as late as last night there were 45 signatories to the petition, whose creator is quoted by the Avalanche-Journal thusly:

Walter Schaller, a Tech philosophy professor since 1986, said Friday he decided to take action because "with the emphasis on ethics the university has adopted, a guy that misled Congress is not the kind of person we want to represent Texas Tech."

The petition protesting Gonzales' appointment as a visiting professor in political science isn't a secret from the college's chancellor. Not surprisingly, Texas Tech University Chancellor Kent Hance has said he'll go ahead with the appointment. Hance, Tech's third chancellor and the first alumnus to serve the university in that position is a lawyer and a veteran politician.
The A-J gives some more details on Schaller's petition and position regarding Gonzales:
The petition cites two main reasons for opposing Gonzales' hire: because the chancellor should not hire faculty and because Gonzales' record is questionable. The attorney general resigned from his post amid controversy in 2007.

"It is unclear what Gonzales has done that makes him deserving of employment at Texas Tech. Does he have a noteworthy academic record? Does he have a record of publishing in law reviews? Was his service to his country particularly distinguished?," the petition reads.
Hance's hiring of a "good friend" is in conflict with Tech's "Statement of Ethical Principles," according to the petition, which calls the chancellor's involvement in selecting faculty and the "celebrity hire" as "troubling."

The document goes on to list Gonzales "ethical failings," including: frequently misleading Congress and the American people; rejecting the Geneva Conventions; denying the constitutional right of habeas corpus; and showing more loyalty to President George W. Bush than to the Constitution.
"I tried to document all of the charges against Gonzales," Schaller said, citing a 2008 Department of Justice report and a 2009 Inspector Generals' report investigating Gonzales' surveillance programs as his information sources.

After the limited gig was up at Texas Tech, Gonzales went on to become the dean of a tiny Christian law school which at the time he started there in 2012 was not accredited.  This could fairly be termed another right wing evangelical pity job for someone no law firm in the nation was interested in taking on staff as a practicing attorney.  This is the best a failed  very public, highly partisan political figure can hope for when you are so conspicuously, even scandalously unsuccessful.  No one wants you, not in the public sector, and not in the private sector.  In this regard, I would argue that Jindal is very much like Gonzales, and that therefore his no-hope presidential run is really a run at finding a sympathetic patronage position.

From the WSJ:

Belmont University on Thursday announced that it has hired Mr. Gonzales to be dean of its law school.
Mr. Gonzales has taught at the law school since 2012, lecturing students on topics such as constitutional law, separation of powers, national security law, according to the university.
Belmont College of Law, part of a private Christian university in Nashville, enrolled about 300 students during the 2013-14 academic year, its third year in operation. Last year, it received provisional accreditation from the American Bar Association.

Given how much Jindal has wrangled and tangled in opposition to business, large and small, in his own state, in pursuing culture war and right wing failed economic policy, it is unlikely that the private sector would want anything to do with him as an employee in or outside of Louisiana.  Jindal has offended entities in his state like IBM, as well as the highly lucrative hospitality industry, with his actions and his extreme ideology.  You have to be very extreme to be too far to the right for one of the deep south Bible belt states.

Jindal has his own wealthy patron / pal, the Duck Dynasty patriarch, but in the context of the Donor class where other players include the Koch brothers and the likes of Sheldon Adelson, that is insignificant, unless you can imagine Piyush working on a duck call assembly line.  The Dynasty clan is not academically affiliated, and might well be described more as academically challenged.

And given his failure to be a successful public speaker, like his 2009 State of the Union response, I just do not see Jindal successfully making a living on the speaking engagement circuit the way someone like Bill and Hillary Clinton have done, or even the big-hair-brained Sarah Palin.  Jindal is not white-trashy and is too educated-elite for the Palin teabagger crowd, no matter how much religious zealotry he spouts.


Governor Jindal, who has the WORST approval ratings of any governor in the country, is also the past Vice Chair of the Republican Governor's Association.  Also in the race is New Jersey Governor and 2014 chair of the Republican Governor's Association is expected presidential candidate Chris Christie, who has the second worst approval ratings of any sitting governor in the country.  both Jindal and Christie were the darlings of the right back in 2012. Now, not so much as their respective states are in bad shape and they face scandal and controversy, not to mention being unable to carry their own respective state in a general election.  That suggests that Jindal, and probably Christie, will be short lived as candidates this election cycle, and further that the Republican clown car turned shuttle bus will become self-limiting around the end of 2015 into early 2016.

The respective chance at the White House for both Jindal and Christie seems to have come and gone.  That can probably be said of Huckster-bee and Perry as well, and of Pataki, and as his record becomes better known, of Scott Walker.  Jebbie might be able to skate by for a while longer, but his record is not really all that stellar as a governor either.  The whole lot look to be versions of fail like former half-term governor Sarah Palin.

It is fair to say that Jindal's  recent presidential announcement did not go well, in fact it went as poorly as his past response to President Obama's 2009 State of the Union speech, which went only marginally better than crazy-eyes Michele Bachmann's Teabagger rebuttal did in 2011; both were the subject of much well deserved mockery.

In 2015, Jindal has failed substantially to improve on that 2009 failure, or his 2015 State of the Union tweet failure.

From the Inquistir

Bobby Jindal’s Presidential Announcement Video Is New Source Of Ridicule

While Bobby Jindal’s announcement that he was getting into an already crowded GOP presidential field was met by celebration in some sectors, there are also plenty of people who think Bobby Jindal entered the race in the worst way possible. In particular, Bobby Jindal’s announcement video seemed to show that the Louisiana Governor’s own family is only slightly on board with his candidacy.

The right wing propaganda machine would have us believe their big bench of candidates, declared and waiting to declare, is full of stronger candidates than Mitt Romney was last time around. They now try to claim their blue-chip candidate in 2014 was more chipped / flawed and weak than they claimed at the time. But the reality is that every one of the candidates entering the race THIS cycle is weaker, less plausible, and are probably less sincere than Romney in actually seeking to attain to the presidency. Rather there is money and possible position and influence lurking for the also-rans, and I would argue that Jindal, but not only Jindal, is really pursuing THAT goal, not the oval office.  Most of what is playing out nominally as a race is  superficial pandering to the rabid primary voters, coating a core of political prostitution marketing.  To corrupt a well known phrase, there is gold in them thar shills.