Cowardly Bevin Terrified of Icky, Scary Transpeople

If we're going to start discriminating on the basis of gender identity, then let's start with cis, hetero white men.

And top of the list to be fired will be Gov. If You Don't Have a Penis That You're Proud Of, Drop Dead.

Think Progress:

A group of sixteen states has filed a brief calling on the Supreme Court to rule that it’s legal to fire people for being transgender.

SNIP
 
The states represented in the suit include Nebraska, Alabama, Arkansas, Kansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, West Virginia, and Wyoming, as well as Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin (R), Maine Gov. Paul LePage (R), and Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant (R). Utah and Maine have state laws protecting against anti-LGBTQ employment discrimination, but none of the rest do.

There has already been significant backlash against the brief.

Kentucky Attorney General Andy Beshear (D), who refused to sign the brief on behalf of the state, called Bevin’s decision to sign on “surprising” given that Kentucky state employees do enjoy protections against anti-LGBTQ discrimination, thanks to an executive order that Bevin has not rescinded. The Fairness Campaign, Kentucky’s state LGBTQ group, has also decried Bevin’s decision.

 Shut up, Andy: you'll give the motherfucker ideas.

GOP Delenda Est

Kevin Drum:

Today, the Republican Party exists for one and only one purpose: to pass tax cuts for the rich and regulatory rollbacks for corporations. They accomplish this using one and only method: unapologetically racist and bigoted appeals to win the votes of the heartland riff-raff they otherwise treat as mere money machines for their endless mail-order cons.

Like it or not, this is the modern Republican Party. It no longer serves any legitimate purpose. It needs to be crushed and the earth salted behind it, while a new conservative party rises to take its place. This new party should be conservative; brash; ruthless when it needs to be; as simpleminded as any major party usually is; and absolutely dedicated to making Democrats look like idiots. There should be no holds barred except for one: no appeals to racism. None. Not loud ones, not subtle ones. Whatever else it is, it should be a conservative party genuinely open to any person of any color.

When that happens, I will change my mind about how we should fight the Republican Party. Until then, no, I don’t think Brett Kavanaugh deserves any help from Democrats and I don’t think liberals should waste any time tut-tutting over Twitter mockery from 2013 that all of us know perfectly well doesn’t represent any genuine anti-white sentiment.

GOPus delendus est. That’s it. Whatever works best, I’m in.

Tuesday, November 6.  Vote early, vote often.  Take your family, take your friends, take your neighbors, take your dogs.

The Proud Deplorables

Their candidates are shit, and they are shit. Stop making excuses for them.

Digby:

I keep hearing this. And it's true that the rest of the country disdains them. It's because they are voting for cretinous monsters who are destroying the country and possibly the world. Maybe if they stop doing that the rest of us would have a little bit more respect for them.

Seriously --- pussy grabbers and child molesters? They have lost all common decency. And they expect the rest of the country to just sit back and say nothing? 

It Will Be Anarchy

And anarchy is exactly what the freakazoids want.

 

LGM:

Although the Court could reinvigorate the principle it stated in the Boy Scouts case, the consequence would be anarchy. It would allow anyone to violate any law if obeying it would conventionally be taken to convey a message with which the objector disagrees.

There is a similar absurdity in Phillips’s claim that the state is discriminating on the basis of viewpoint because the antidiscrimination law, as applied, “favors cake artists who support same-sex marriage over those like Phillips who do not.” The law makes no reference at all to viewpoint. It just prohibits discrimination. It is true that the law favors those who oppose the conduct it prohibits over those who would like to engage in it. But that is true of every law. Again, there is no way to articulate the principle behind this claim that is not an invitation to chaos.

But Wonkette really nails it.

Not Old, Not New, Just Good

Atheism is what you do with it.  If you use your atheism to work against racism and misogyny and homophobia and all the other evils of religion, you're an activist atheist and good on ya.  If you use your atheism to justify your racism and misogyny and homophobia, or even just to pretend you don't have to make the world a better place, then you're a pig and shame on you.

PZ Myers:

I have a problem with this description.

 Follow

Existential Comics @existentialcoms

Old Atheism: "there is no God."
New Atheism: "we need to bomb more Muslims. European culture is superior. Also modern feminism is a cancer."

2:41 PM - Oct 18, 2017

• 
  
   150150 Replies

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   2,2432,243 Retweets

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   5,8875,887 likes

Twitter

They forgot the usual immediate followup:

New Atheism: “But all atheism means is that there is no god, and so we’re going to exclude any attempt to insert your values into it.”

But then, somehow, their heads fail to explode at the contradictions and hypocrisy. I don’t get it.

Homophobic Judge Forced Off Bench

Good on the state judicial commission for holding the freakazoid to account.

From the Courier:

A Kentucky Family Court judge who refuses to hear adoption cases involving gays and lesbians will resign amid an ethics and misconduct inquiry. 

Judge W. Mitchell Nance submitted a letter of resignation to Gov. Matt Bevin on Wednesday, saying he will retire on Dec. 16, according to documents made public Thursday by the state's Judicial Conduct Commission. 

In April, Nance drew national attention when he said he would no longer hear adoption cases involving "homosexual parties" because he believes allowing a gay person to adopt could never be in the child's best interest.

The Barren and Metcalf county judge further said he would recuse himself from such cases because ethics rules require judges to do so when they have a personal bias or prejudice.

Last month the commission, which investigates complaints of judicial misconduct and wrongdoing, notified Nance that it was charging him with multiple violations of judicial ethics rules, including those banning bias or prejudice based on sexual orientation.

Bevin Must Be So Proud

Resign, motherfucker.  No sweet judgeships for practicing homophobic bigots.

From the AP:

A Kentucky family court judge says he won't hear any more adoption cases that involve gay adults.

The Courier-Journal reports Judge Mitchell Nance issued an order Thursday saying he believes that "under no circumstance" would "the best interest of the child be promoted by the adoption by a practicing homosexual."

Nance cited an ethical rule that says judges must disqualify themselves when they have a personal bias or prejudice.

Nance's order said lawyers representing gay people in adoptions in Barren and Metcalfe counties would have to request a special judge.

Don't bother sending Nance the dozens of studies showing that the vast majority of pedophiles and child abuses are heterosexual.  Or the hundreds showing that children thrive with gay parents

He's a trumpy.  He doesn't care about the facts. Fags make him feel icky in his bathing suit area, so no adoptions for them!

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/latest-news/article147409639.html#storylink=cpy

No, the White Working Class Man Will Never Save the Democratic Party

I am so sick and tired of all this fucking shit about how Democratic politicians have to reach out and embrace the very poisonous snakes of the white working class men who have been trying to kill us for decades. (No names; you motherfuckers know who you are.)

That we have to "embrace" their "cultural values."  Those would be the "cultural values" of racism, misogyny, homophobia, xenophobia, right-wing violence, domestic terrorism, greed, freakazoid religion and stupidity.

In other words, the entire platform of the Republican Party.

We've been here before.  Whenever the repugs steal elections from the Democratic Party, the response is always "we have to become more like repugs!"  Democratic candidates who campaign like repugs Are. Not. Democrats.  They. Are. Repugs.

And somebody's missing from this equation.  A whole lot of somebodys.  Working class African-Americans.  Working class Hispanics. Working class white women.  Working class immigrants.  Working class Muslims.  Working class LGBTI people.

Together, we vastly outnumber those white men who think an imbecilic game show con artist is going to bring back coal jobs.

The repugs were able to steal the 2016 election because the Democratic Party did not do enough to stop repugs from suppressing the vote and preventing all those non-white, non-male, non-christian, non-straight non-rich Democratic voters from voting.

Whining to white male repugs that we understand their racism, misogyny, homophobia, religion and stupidity is not going to gain a single white working class vote.  And it sure as fuck is not going to get a single suppressed Democratic voter to the polls and voting.

Forget the working class white man.  He abandoned the Democratic Party the instant the Democratic Party noticed that black people and brown people and female people and gay people are human beings with rights the full equal of any white man.

Let's work with the voters who have proven their loyalty.  The voters whose rights have been stolen by the repugs.  The voters who gave us President Barack Obama and thus millions of auto industry jobs, a 4.5 percent unemployment rate, hundreds of billions of dollars in infrastructure and oh yeah, an Affordable Care Act that has saved countless lives, hundreds of rural hospitals and their communities, and by the way Medicare and Medicaid.

Let's dance with the ones that brung us.

Working class white men are not anyone who will prove an asset in any way to the Democratic Party. They've abandoned us, and it's far past time that we abandon them to the repugs who will laugh as them as they die of trumpism.

Good riddance.

Trumpians Got What They Voted For

Don't ever let them forget it.

Jamelle Bouie in Slate:

Millions of Americans are justifiably afraid of what they’ll face under a Trump administration. If any group demands our support and sympathy, it’s these people, not the Americans who backed Trump and his threat of state-sanctioned violence against Hispanic immigrants and Muslim Americans. All the solicitude, outrage, and moral telepathy being deployed in defense of Trump supporters—who voted for a racist who promised racist outcomes—is perverse, bordering on abhorrent.

It’s worth repeating what Trump said throughout the election. His campaign indulged in hateful rhetoric against Hispanics and condemned Muslim Americans with the collective guilt of anyone who would commit terror. It treated black America as a lawless dystopia and spoke of black Americans as dupes and fools. And to his supporters, Trump promised mass deportations, a ban on Muslim entry to the United States, and strict “law and order” as applied to those black communities. Trump is now president-elect. Judging from his choices for the transition—figures like immigration hardliner Kris Kobach and white nationalist Stephen Bannon—it’s clear he plans to deliver on those promises.

Whether Trump’s election reveals an “inherent malice” in his voters is irrelevant. What is relevant are the practical outcomes of a Trump presidency. Trump campaigned on state repression of disfavored minorities. He gives every sign that he plans to deliver that repression. This will mean disadvantage, immiseration, and violence for real people, people whose “inner pain and fear” were not reckoned worthy of many-thousand-word magazine feature stories. If you voted for Trump, you voted for this, regardless of what you believe about the groups in question. That you have black friends or Latino colleagues, that you think yourself to be tolerant and decent, doesn’t change the fact that you voted for racist policy that may affect, change, or harm their lives. And on that score, your frustration at being labeled a racist doesn’t justify or mitigate the moral weight of your political choice.

Make These Signs

And post them everywhere.  I am posting both in large type on the walls of my office, where I am surrounded by Trump and Bevin voters.  They know me better than to confront me about them, but I've got my phone on camera record at all times just in case.

Battochio at Hullabaloo:

I've seen some memes and personal offers of aid this week that give me hope. Several schools have posted some version of this:

Dear undocumented students, in this classroom, there are no walls.
Dear black students, in this classroom, your life matters.
Dear Mexican students, you are not rapists or drug dealers.
Dear female students, men cannot grab you.
Dear Muslim students, you are not terrorists.

I've also seen this one:

If you wear a hijab, I'll sit with you on the train.
If you're trans, I'll go to the bathroom with you.
If you're a person of color, I'll stand with you if the cops stop you.
If you're a person with disabilities, I'll hand you my megaphone.
If you're an immigrant, I'll help you find resources..
If you're a survivor, I'll believe you.
If you're a refugee, I'll make sure you're welcome.
If you're a veteran, I'll take up your fight.
If you're LGBTQ, I won't let anyone tell you you're broken.
If you're a woman, I'll make sure you get home ok.
If you're tired, me too.
If you need a hug, I've got an infinite supply.
If you need me, I'll be with you. All I ask is that you be with me, too.

These might seem a bit hokey, but not to someone in genuine need. Facing discouragement is often draining, and confronting actual hatred all the more so. It's easy to get burnt out as an activist, and finding a way to recuperate and support each other is important. Jared Bernstein has characterized conservatism as YOLO, "You're on your own," whereas liberalism is WITT, "We're in this together." This week, I've seen many people genuinely upset, or scared or grieving – and occasionally some nasty taunting in response – but also plenty of compassion, kindness and support. I'll be making my annual food bank donation soon, and I'm reflecting on what else to do in the months ahead. Developing a long-term political strategy is crucial, and specific, concrete activism is as well, but another key way to face down inhumanity and make America better is simply to be better to one another.

Any "Reconciliation" is on Trump

From Digby:

Harry Reid speaks for me

He issued this statement:

“I have personally been on the ballot in Nevada for 26 elections and I have never seen anything like the reaction to the election completed last Tuesday. The election of Donald Trump has emboldened the forces of hate and bigotry in America. 

“White nationalists, Vladimir Putin and ISIS are celebrating Donald Trump’s victory, while innocent, law-abiding Americans are wracked with fear – especially African Americans, Hispanic Americans, Muslim Americans, LGBT Americans and Asian Americans. Watching white nationalists celebrate while innocent Americans cry tears of fear does not feel like America. 

“I have heard more stories in the past 48 hours of Americans living in fear of their own government and their fellow Americans than I can remember hearing in five decades in politics. Hispanic Americans who fear their families will be torn apart, African Americans being heckled on the street, Muslim Americans afraid to wear a headscarf, gay and lesbian couples having slurs hurled at them and feeling afraid to walk down the street holding hands. American children waking up in the middle of the night crying, terrified that Trump will take their parents away. Young girls unable to understand why a man who brags about sexually assaulting women has been elected president. 

“I have a large family. I have one daughter and twelve granddaughters. The texts, emails and phone calls I have received from them have been filled with fear – fear for themselves, fear for their Hispanic and African American friends, for their Muslim and Jewish friends, for their LBGT friends, for their Asian friends. I’ve felt their tears and I’ve felt their fear. 

“We as a nation must find a way to move forward without consigning those who Trump has threatened to the shadows. Their fear is entirely rational, because Donald Trump has talked openly about doing terrible things to them. Every news piece that breathlessly obsesses over inauguration preparations compounds their fear by normalizing a man who has threatened to tear families apart, who has bragged about sexually assaulting women and who has directed crowds of thousands to intimidate reporters and assault African Americans. Their fear is legitimate and we must refuse to let it fall through the cracks between the fluff pieces. 

“If this is going to be a time of healing, we must first put the responsibility for healing where it belongs: at the feet of Donald Trump, a sexual predator who lost the popular vote and fueled his campaign with bigotry and hate. Winning the electoral college does not absolve Trump of the grave sins he committed against millions of Americans. Donald Trump may not possess the capacity to assuage those fears, but he owes it to this nation to try. 

“If Trump wants to roll back the tide of hate he unleashed, he has a tremendous amount of work to do and he must begin immediately.”

 Until he does, all the harassment, all the threats, all the assault, all the deaths are on his head.

Normalized Hate

A year ago - fuck, a week ago - this would have gotten those students expelled. And the teachers who refused to intervene fired.

From Crooks and Liars:

The news that Donald Trump won the 2016 presidential race reportedly incited racial slurs and assaults at one vocational school in Pennsylvania.

In a Facebook post on Wednesday, York NAACP President Sandra Thompson revealed that she had been receiving reports of students at York Vo-Tech "being spit on, attacked, and called names because of their race or perceived Immigrant status."

One concerned parent provided video of students at the school holding a Donald Trump campaign sign while shouting "white power."

The group "Parents of York County School of Technology Students" said on Facebook that members had received reports that "Trump's presidential win was announced at school today amidst chants of 'white power.' That white students referred to other races as their slaves, and at some points even spit on those students."

"I think we should all have a chat tonight with our students, whether they were participating, appalled bystanders, or victims," the group recommended. "This whole situation is absolutely horrible."

Social media accounts collected by WHP indicated that the racial tensions had caused fights at the school. One student said that she had her breasts grabbed by another student who claimed "it was his right."

The school confirmed to WHP that the incidents were being investigated.

Schools in Michigan and Minnesota also reported racial incidents this week related to Donald Trump's election victory.

And more from Think Progress:

CREDIT: Twitter

In the days following the election, students are already invoking the name of our president-elect while they spread white supremacist messages.

During lunch at Royal Oak Middle School in Royal Oak, Michigan, a group of students chanted “Build the wall! Build the wall!”

The superintendent said the school is addressing the issue.

“We are working with our students to help them understand the impact of their words and actions on others in their school community,” Royal Oak Schools superintendent Shawn Lewis-Lakin said in a statement to The Detroit News.

Shaun King, senior justice reporter for the Daily News said parents have reached out to him about incidents at York County Technical High School in York, Pennsylvania and tweeted a short video of white students chanting “white power” while holding a Trump sign.

There have also been incidents of racist graffiti invoking Trump. At Maple Grove Senior High School in Minnesota, someone left graffiti with the messages “go back to Africa” and “whites only” as well as “Trump train” and “make America great again.”

Political Correctness

If you're not reading the Rude Pundit every day, you're missing some of the best political truth-speaking out there.

In other words, "political correctness" is now shorthand for the rule of law, for civil rights, for the guarantees of fair treatment in the fucking Constitution. You can throw that into the catch-all bucket for the phrase, along with not being able to say "nigger" or "fag" with abandon, treating immigrants like human beings, and sexing up the lady employees being a no-no.

Fucking hell, times change. Civilizations advance. What you once thought was fine is now fucked up. That's the way it goes. The march of progress, as we once liked to call it. You don't fucking spear the bull anymore because we know that's fucked up. And if you don't think it's fucked up, you're fucked up. And we get to say that because we're the ones who want the world to move forward. You're the ones who want to hold it back or send it back to a mythical time of greatness.

You just came up with a fancy way to make being a dick sound like a you're taking a mighty stand when, really, you're just a dick. It's so convenient and so useful.

At this point, Trump could fuck the corpse of that drowned Syrian toddler at a rally, and, when people responded with revulsion and anger, his idiot hordes would say that it's just political correctness, not that baby corpse fucking is, in and of itself, wrong.

Compare and Contrast

Jesusfuckingchocolatecoveredchristonapogostick: 

Yes, these motherfuckers have always been with us and always will be, but when the majority makes clear that they are not welcome in public, they stay in their caves and sulk.  Not even the Great Demagogue, Huey Long, gave them the utter freedom to exercise their hatred and violence the way Trump has.

Hard to believe that can exist in the same nation as this:

Here is how the president responded to Trump yesterday, in case you missed it:

And let me make a final point. For a while now, the main contribution of some of my friends on the other side of the aisle have made in the fight against ISIL is to criticize this administration and me for not using the phrase “radical Islam.” That’s the key, they tell us -- we can’t beat ISIL unless we call them “radical Islamists.” What exactly would using this label accomplish? What exactly would it change? Would it make ISIL less committed to trying to kill Americans? Would it bring in more allies? Is there a military strategy that is served by this? The answer is none of the above. Calling a threat by a different name does not make it go away. This is a political distraction. Since before I was President, I’ve been clear about how extremist groups have perverted Islam to justify terrorism. As President, I have repeatedly called on our Muslim friends and allies at home and around the world to work with us to reject this twisted interpretation of one of the world’s great religions.

There has not been a moment in my seven and a half years as President where we have not been able to pursue a strategy because we didn’t use the label "radical Islam." Not once has an advisor of mine said, man, if we really use that phrase, we're going to turn this whole thing around. Not once. So if someone seriously thinks that we don’t know who we're fighting, if there's anyone out there who thinks we're confused about who our enemies are, that would come as a surprise to the thousands of terrorists who we've taken off the battlefield. If the implication is that those of us up here and the thousands of people around the country and around the world who are working to defeat ISIL aren't taking the fight seriously, that would come as a surprise to those who have spent these last seven and a half years dismantling al Qaeda in the FATA, for example -- including the men and women in uniform who put their lives at risk and the Special Forces that I ordered to get bin Laden and are now on the ground in Iraq and in Syria. They know full well who the enemy is. So do the intelligence and law enforcement officers who spend countless hours disrupting plots and protecting all Americans, including politicians who tweet and appear on cable news shows. They know who the nature of the enemy is.

So there’s no magic to the phrase “radical Islam.” It’s a political talking point; it's not a strategy. And the reason I am careful about how I describe this threat has nothing to do with political correctness and everything to do with actually defeating extremism. Groups like ISIL and al Qaeda want to make this war a war between Islam and America, or between Islam and the West. They want to claim that they are the true leaders of over a billion Muslims around the world who reject their crazy notions. They want us to validate them by implying that they speak for those billion-plus people; that they speak for Islam. That’s their propaganda. That's how they recruit. And if we fall into the trap of painting all Muslims with a broad brush and imply that we are at war with an entire religion -- then we’re doing the terrorists' work for them.

Now, up until this point, this argument about labels has mostly just been partisan rhetoric. And, sadly, we've all become accustomed to that kind of partisanship, even when it involves the fight against these extremist groups. And that kind of yapping has not prevented folks across government from doing their jobs, from sacrificing and working really hard to protect the American people.

But we are now seeing how dangerous this kind of mindset and this kind of thinking can be. We're starting to see where this kind of rhetoric and loose talk and sloppiness about who exactly we're fighting, where this can lead us. We now have proposals from the presumptive Republican nominee for President of the United States to bar all Muslims from emigrating to America. We hear language that singles out immigrants and suggests that entire religious communities are complicit in violence. Where does this stop? The Orlando killer, one of the San Bernardino killers, the Fort Hood killer -- they were all U.S. citizens.

Are we going to start treating all Muslim Americans differently? Are we going to start subjecting them to special surveillance? Are we going to start discriminating against them because of their faith? We’ve heard these suggestions during the course of this campaign. Do Republican officials actually agree with this? Because that's not the America we want. It doesn't reflect our democratic ideals. It won’t make us more safe; it will make us less safe -- fueling ISIL’s notion that the West hates Muslims, making young Muslims in this country and around the world feel like no matter what they do, they're going to be under suspicion and under attack. It makes Muslim Americans feel like they're government is betraying them. It betrays the very values America stands for.

We've gone through moments in our history before when we acted out of fear -- and we came to regret it. We've seen our government mistreat our fellow citizens. And it has been a shameful part of our history.

This is a country founded on basic freedoms, including freedom of religion. We don't have religious tests here. Our Founders, our Constitution, our Bill of Rights are clear about that. And if we ever abandon those values, we would not only make it a lot easier to radicalize people here and around the world, but we would have betrayed the very things we are trying to protect -- the pluralism and the openness, our rule of law, our civil liberties -- the very things that make this country great; the very things that make us exceptional. And then the terrorists would have won. And we cannot let that happen. I will not let that happen.

Two weeks ago, I was at the commencement ceremony at the Air Force Academy. And it could not have been more inspiring to see these young people stepping up, dedicated to serve and protect this country. And part of what was inspiring was the incredible diversity of these cadets. We saw cadets, who are straight, applauding classmates who were openly gay. We saw cadets, born here in America, applauding classmates who are immigrants and love this country so much they decided they wanted to be part of our armed forces. We saw cadets and families of all religions applaud cadets who are proud, patriotic Muslim Americans serving their country in uniform, ready to lay their lives on the line to protect you and to protect me. We saw male cadets applauding for female classmates, who can now serve in combat positions. That’s the American military. That’s America -- one team, one nation. Those are the values that ISIL is trying to destroy, and we shouldn’t help them do it.

Our diversity and our respect for one another, our drawing on the talents of everybody in this country, our making sure that we are treating everybody fairly -- that we’re not judging people on the basis of what faith they are or what race they are, or what ethnicity they are, or what their sexual orientation is -- that’s what makes this country great. That’s the spirit we see in Orlando. That’s the unity and resolve that will allow us to defeat ISIL. That’s what will preserve our values and our ideals that define us as Americans. That’s how we’re going to defend this nation, and that’s how we’re going to defend our way of life.

People, Not Bodies

Talking Points Memo:

Last Monday, Akyra Murray, who turned 18 in January, graduated third in her class of 42 students at West Catholic Preparatory High School in Philadelphia, where she had also been a 1,000-point scorer on the basketball team. She had recently signed a letter of intent to play basketball at Mercyhurst University in Erie.

"She was very loving, caring, out to help anybody," her mother, Natalie Murray, recalled.

To celebrate her graduation, Akyra, her parents and her 4-year-old sister traveled to Orlando for a family vacation.

On Saturday, Murray told her parents she wanted to party in downtown Orlando. They dropped her off at Pulse at 11:30 Saturday night.

At about 2 a.m., Akyra Murray sent a text message to her mother, saying that she and her cousins wanted to be picked up. She said there had been a shooting.

Moments later, the phone rang.

"She was saying she was shot and she was screaming, saying she was losing a lot of blood," Natalie Murray said.

Murray said her daughter was hiding in a bathroom stall, cowering from the shooter, her arm bleeding for hours with no medical treatment.

Akyra Murray told her mother to call police and send help.

They never spoke again. "It was devastating," Natalie Murray said.

There are 48 more.  Go read them.

Don't Mourn: Organize!

If your city does not have a Fairness Ordinance (I'm looking at YOU, Shelbyville), get to your next city council meeting and DEMAND IT.

Louisville Pride Parade:  THIS FRIDAY, June 17

Lexington Pride Parade:  Saturday, June 25

• June 17-18: Kentuckiana Pride Parade and Festival
  (If you'll be in Louisville, register to march with the ACLU-KY contingent)
• June 25: Lexington Pride Festival, 11 a.m.-10 p.m.
• June 26: Owensboro Pride, noon–6 p.m.

From TPM commenter stiggy:

Stop Coddling the Racist, Homophobic, Misogynistic, Xenophobic Hateful Repugs

It only encourages them.

 

Articles like this can only be written by people who don't live every fucking hour of every fucking day surrounded by white supremacists whining about how oppressed they are.

Perhaps it would be wise to be a bit more charitable to these folks, a little more patient and understanding.

A bleeding-heart liberal acquaintance almost died in a fire deliberately set by her psychopathic adopted son.  Six years old, and he'd been displaying violent behavior since he could walk. But never suffered any kind of discipline for it. I asked her what she was going to do about his fire-setting, and she said she hadn't even criticized him, much less punished him, because she didn't want him to "grow up afraid."

I said: "I want him to grow up afraid.  I want him to spend every minute terrified that he's going to spend the rest of his life in prison."

That psychopathic little shit is American conservatives, and his mother is liberals like Martin Longman, insisting we keep forgiving and coddling and understanding them.

As if doing that consistently for the last 70 years has not been the biggest political failure in American history.

You cannot - CANNOT - change the behavior of a psychopath, whether a six-year-old or a million-moron movement. You can only confine them where they cannot harm others.

 

Longman at Political Animal:

But their minority status is precisely why they’re feeling so anxious and angry, and there’s no reason to fear that they’ll somehow constitute an electoral majority (by themselves) in November. If calling Trump on his racism and misogyny makes these folks love him more, it’s not an electoral problem. Their views are on the margin as it is.

What’s problematic is how this affects our culture, and the fissures that are opening in our society are causing a gridlocked government where consensus on issues large and small has become illusive.

It might be healthier for our country if there were a little more space for alternative views before they get shut down as obviously racist and intolerant, but it’s hard to be gracious and patient with people who are trying beat you politically so that they can continue to discriminate against our nation’s most vulnerable people.

On the other hand, while it may be hard, it’s also part of the recipe for political and cultural success. When you meet firehoses and billy clubs with love and a shining humanity, you will eventually win. And, before too long, most of your oppressors will come to respect what you’ve done.

Are. You. Fucking. Kidding. Me.  When you meet firehoses and billy clubs with love and a shining humanity ... You. Die.  Ask Viola Liuzzo.  Ask Trayvon Martin how non-violence saved his life.  Ask Matthew Shepherd how being a nice guy saved his.

Ask American gays how politely asking conservatives and repugs to grant them human rights achieved marriage equality without having to drag the motherfuckers all the way to the Supreme Court.

Ask Hillary Clinton how 25 years of ignoring and rising above the rabid hatred that spews from the right-wing swamps has turned that hatred into republican respect and admiration for her accomplishments.

Ask President Obama how constant, non-stop compromise with repugs who publicly called him a terrorist and a traitor got the American Jobs Act passed, and the Economic Stimulus extended, and Medicaid expanded in red states, and unanimous support for efforts to stop climate change.

This is not the 1960s, when racists could be shamed into letting Congress pass the Voting Rights Act and the Civil Rights Act. 

This is the 21st century, when conservatives and repugs represent an immediate and lethal threat to very survival not just of American democracy, but of the nation itself.

You don't fight a genuine existential threat with sweetness and light. You fight it with overwhelming force.

Or you inaugurate Donald Trump today.

Why is it always on people of color and progressives to be the bigger person?

I don’t know. But there are real limits on how much you accomplish by meeting intolerance with intolerance. And it’s hard to be patient with angry people or to win them over with an attitude of moral superiority. That’s why love for your neighbor and setting the right examples are still the best answers.

Meanwhile, conservatard celebration of Trump has already poisoned the nation's children.  Digby:

Yet the spirit of the GOP presidential candidate has surfaced here and, according to one study, in schools across the country.

An online survey of approximately 2,000 K-12 teachers by the Southern Poverty Law Center found toxic political rhetoric invading elementary, middle and high schools, emboldening children to make racist taunts that leave others bewildered and anxious.

“We mapped it out. There was no state or region that jumped out. It was everywhere,” said Maureen Costello, the study’s author. “Marginalized students are feeling very frightened, especially Muslims and Mexicans. Many teachers use the word terrified.” The children who did the taunting were echoing Trump’s rhetoric, she said. “Bad behavior has been normalized. They think it’s OK.”

More than two-thirds of the teachers in the survey reported that students – especially immigrants, children of immigrants and Muslims – have expressed worries about what might happen to them or their families after the November election. More than half reported an increase in uncivil political discourse, and more than a third observed an increase in anti-Muslim or anti-immigrant sentiment.

I'm sure Longman thinks those children should be encouraged in their vicious hatred. Because that will make them such valuable citizens.

Bevin Terrified of Tinkling Trans

As Trevor Noah pointed on the Daily Show, we've all been sharing public toilets with transwomen and transmen all our lives.

Also, that the number of attacks by trans people on cis people in public toilets has now reached a grand total of - wait for it - zero.

In the entire country.

I don't know what Governor Lying Coward's bathroom fears are and I don't want to know.

I do know that these ridiculous bathroom bills have nothing to do with public safety and everything to do with forcing trans people back into the shadows.

From the public statement:

FRANKFORT, KY (May 13, 2016) – Governor Matt Bevin released the following statement regarding President Obama’s proposed bathroom rules for public schools:

“It is difficult to imagine a more absurd federal overreach into a local issue.  Under the Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, the federal government has no authority to interfere in local school districts' bathroom policies. The President is not promoting unity. In fact, he is doing quite the opposite. He is intentionally dividing America by threatening to sue or withhold funding from our cash-strapped public schools if they do not agree with his personal opinion on policies that remain squarely in their jurisdiction. They should not feel compelled to bow to such intimidation. My administration is researching the options available for ensuring that this local issue is decided by Kentuckians, not by bureaucrats in Washington.”

Doing Justice

U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch concluding her announcement about suing the ever-loving shit out of the state of North Carolina:

Let me also speak directly to the transgender community itself. Some of you have lived freely for decades. Others of you are still wondering how you can possibly live the lives you were born to lead. But no matter how isolated or scared you may feel today, the Department of Justice and the entire Obama Administration wants you to know that we see you; we stand with you; and we will do everything we can to protect you going forward.

Now that's what I call a Department of Justice.

Christian Superiority

Divine Irony:



↵ Reblogged from cure-your-delusions