Red Headed Femme

There's been a lot of outrage, and deservedly so, about Representative Louie Gohmert telling a woman who had a medically necessary late-term abortion she should have given birth anyway. But nothing I've read has addressed this little snippet of his comment. (Maybe I look for these things because I read a lot of science fiction dystopias.)

Ms. Zink, having my great sympathy and empathy both. I still come back wondering, shouldn’t we wait… and see if the child can survive before we decide to rip him apart? So, these are ethical issues, they’re moral issues, they’re difficult issues, and the parents should certainly be consulted. But it just seems like, it’s a more educated decision if the child is in front of you to make those decisions.

The parents should certainly be consulted?

This lends a very creepy undertone to the whole thing. If the parents are not making the decision, then who the hell is? Who is this 'we' you speak of, kemosabe?

That's a rhetorical question, of course. Obviously, in Mr. Gohmert's mind, the omniscent, all-knowing State is the only entity capable of making such decisions, and we should bow to its godlike wisdom.

A party of small, limited government, my ass.

 "I'm an uncaring asshole and proud of it."  ~Chuck Palahniuk



Feel the contempt. Taste the scorn. 

America, do you really want to vote for this soulless, contemptible prick? 

So this op-ed appeared in my hometown newspaper today, which rather surprised me; I was always under the impression that if my newspaper's editor ever printed something like this, s/he would be run out of town. 

First, the writer lists his Republican bonafides. 

Indeed, my first political act was passionately lobbying my fourth-grade classmates to vote for Reagan over Walter Mondale in a mock election in 1984. As an adult, I continued to be a rock-solid Republican- I helped run my law school’s chapter of the Federalist Society and its Republican club. And after the election of President Obama in 2008, I served as an officer in my state Republican Party.

Then he lowers the boom. 

So my Secretary of State, Ken Bennett, finally gave up his ridiculous "birther" crusade after Hawaii verified the facts of President Obama's birth. 

(If I had been one of those Hawaiian officials Bennett kept pestering, I would have told him to take a flying leap at a rolling doughnut. You can't accept established facts? Sucks to be you.)

The thing that gets me is that Bennett supposedly began this stupidity because of 1,200 emails from constituents.

Honestly, it would surprise me greatly if there were only 1,200 nuts in my state. Nevertheless, does that mean we have to pay attention to them? Ken Bennett certainly ignored the petition (signed by more than 17,000 people) asking him to investigate whether or not Mitt Romney is a unicorn, and rightly so; such a supposition is ridiculous on its face (although a rather clever response).

So is the idea that the President was not born in this country.  

Answer me this, Mr. Bennett. If 1200 of your constituents asked you to hunt down a Sasquatch, or drag Nessie from the murky waters of her loch, or dig up the alien bodies buried in Roswell, or open the old rusty hangar containing interstellar spacecraft in Area 51, would you sit up and hop to just because they're your constituents? 

No? Then why would you pander to the equally loony birther crowd? 

The proper response should have been this, a form email sent to all who questioned the President's birthplace. 

Dear Arizona voter,

Thank you for your inquiry regarding the President's birth certificate. The answer to your question can be found here on the White House web site. As you'll see on the bottom of the PDF, Hawaii's state registrar on April 25, 2011 certified this is a true copy of the record on file. 

Of course, you are free to reject this evidence, and it is your right to believe whatever you wish regarding the President. However, if you insist on pushing these cockamamie ideas, you will have to do it without the State of Arizona's help. As Secretary of State, I will not allow our wonderful state to be dragged into this ridiculousness. 

I look forward to hearing from you on any other topic. Please do not bother me with this one again.

Sincerely, 

Ken Bennett

See how easy that is? 

"Men--their rights and nothing more; Women--their rights and nothing less."  ~ Susan B. Anthony

This is a sad, horrible commentary on the state of this country.












I hope, forty or fifty years from now when I'm on my deathbed, I won't be reminiscing about an America "when women were free." 

"Opposition may become sweet to a man when he has christened it persecution."  ~George Eliot

After watching last night's CNN Republican debate, I can only conclude that the modern-day Republican Party is of besieged* white males, by besieged white males, and for besieged white males. 

No one else need apply. 

(*Besieged by whom? You decide.)

Wow. The Germans don't mince any words, do they?

A Club of Liars, Demagogues, and Fools—By Scott Horton (Harper's Magazine)

The money quote is this: "They are ruining the reputation of the United States."

With the way Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich blather on about "American exceptionalism," you'd think they would drop out of the race on that count alone.

Oh well. One can dream.