White Squad

I guess I'm wishing I could think it was less necessary to take it seriously enough to  consider starting the actual company.

hat tip = FB buddy VWE, via Addicting Info

Today's Pix

Today's Grim Statistics

We get told a lot that guns make us safe, and that more guns make us safer, and that if only we could truly understand and embrace this peculiar point of view we could make USAmerica Inc great again.

While I'm on about this, I think my all-time favorite NRA bromide is that an armed society is a polite society - which BTW, was one of Meyer Lansky's favorite things to say.  So yeah - go ahead and build your sales campaign around that guy's moral framework.  It is altogether fitting and proper for you to do that.

hat tip = Democratic Underground

Today's Facebook Silly

(And a quick reminder that, for way too many of us, we're making our political decisions from deep inside an alarming deficit of knowledge about fairly simple concepts we were supposed to have learned in 9th-grade Civics.)

I see a lot of otherwise smart friends putting up some really dumb posts. I include myself in the first group of course, but there's no way I could ever break into that second group (of course again) because - you know - I'm just that awesome.

Main complaint du jour: Drug Testing people for Welfare-type Bennies.  This one pops up in various iterations; this time appearing on the wall of a high school buddy's sister:

She was a cop (I think).  She studied Law and Enforcement (says that in her bio). Did she just miss the sessions on Probable Cause and The Bill of Rights?  Or is it a little too much to expect law enforcement officers to know something about that silly old document they all swore to uphold?

Congressional Research Service:

Federal or state laws that condition the initial or ongoing receipt of governmental benefits on passing drug tests without regard to individualized suspicion of illicit drug use may be subject to constitutional challenge. To date, two state laws requiring suspicionless drug tests as a condition to receiving governmental benefits have sparked litigation. The U.S. Supreme Court has not rendered an opinion on such a law; however, the Court has issued decisions on drug testing programs in other contexts that have guided the few lower court opinions on the subject.

Constitutional challenges to suspicionless governmental drug testing most often focus on issues of personal privacy and Fourth Amendment protections against “unreasonable searches.” For searches to be reasonable, they generally must be based on individualized suspicion unless the government can show a “special need” warranting a deviation from the norm. However, governmental benefit programs like TANF, SNAP, unemployment compensation, and housing assistance do not naturally evoke special needs grounded in public safety or the care of minors in the public school setting that the Supreme Court has recognized in the past. Thus, if lawmakers wish to pursue the objective of reducing the likelihood of taxpayer funds going to individuals who abuse drugs through drug testing, legislation that only requires individuals to submit to a drug test based on an individualized suspicion of drug use is less likely to run afoul of the Fourth Amendment. Additionally, governmental drug testing procedures that restrict the sharing of test results and limit the negative consequences of failed tests to the assistance program in question would be on firmer constitutional ground.

Amendment IV

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

If you suspect me of doing something illegal, then you gather your evidence, you attach my name (and yours) to it, you present it to the nice judge, and then the judge decides what happens next - not you; not by a show of hands from your little mob of drinking buddies; not some Coin-Operated Politician who needs you to concentrate on some shiny object so you won't notice he and his Sugar Daddies Uber-Patriot Donor Base have their hands in your pants.

It's called Due Process, and it's part of that whole American Exceptionalism thing.

Seriously, kids - we gotta brighten up a little.

Today's Pix

Today's Nexus

Religion and Politics always seem to go together.  And they are both dangerous tools in the hands of unscrupulous people.

Here's Thermin Trees via YouTube, describing his own passage from curious child to indoctrinated teenager to clear-thinking adult.  The first half sounds like the very common history of most of us from that age group, but ya gotta stay with it until about 18:30 cuz that's where it kinda exploded up in my punkin' head - Religion and Politics are both very meticulous about devising systems intended to hide the manipulative lies on which their power structures are built.

Paraphrasing a little here:

What are the tools we use to detect lies?

a) the absence of confirming evidence

b) the presence of conflicting evidence

Loyalty (to faith or ideology) demands that we disregard:

a) the absence of confirming evidence

b) the presence of conflicting evidence

Today's Fugelsang

Hey, remember when liberals warned you about Bush and you questioned their patriotism? 

And then they were proved right? 

Well learning anything from that is weakness. 

Vote GOP 2016.

John Fugelsang on Facebook

And Yer Flying Monkeys Too

Where's Dorothy with that water bucket when ya really need her?

Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis is, of course, the perfect choice if we're looking for a staunch defender of "traditional marriage" because she's been spreading that One-Man-One-Woman thing all over da joint - divorced 3 times and currently seeing if she can make a go of it with hubby #4. (sometimes this shit is just too easy).

(hat tip = FB buddy VWE)

From Talking Points Memo:

MOREHEAD, Ky. (AP) — A Kentucky clerk's office on Thursday again refused to issue a marriage license to a gay couple, in defiance of a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that legalized same-sex marriage across the country two months ago.

Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis has refused to issue any marriage licenses, citing her Christian faith and constitutional right to religious freedom, since the landmark decision in June.

On Thursday morning, a deputy clerk in her office refused to issue a marriage license to William Smith Jr. and James Yates. It was their third attempt to get a license.

--and--

Mat Staver, an attorney for Davis, said he was disappointed with the ruling. He said he plans to discuss options with Davis, including an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.

"The court of appeals did not provide any religious accommodation rights to individuals, which makes little sense because at the end of the day it's individuals that are carrying out the acts of the office," Staver said. "They don't lose their individual constitutional rights just because they are employed in a public office."

What she really needs to be worrying about is that there might actually be such a thing as God's Perfect Justice, cuz that would mean her chances of getting anywhere near the pearly gates to plead her case are almost as good as my being able to travel back in time and having Geraldo Rivera discover unicorns and pixies playing strip foosball in Al Capone's secret vault.

No soul and no honor.

Meet The New Boss

Pretty sure Jeb Bush is gonna be the GOP's guy in 2016.  It's less than a sure thing that I can back up with real evidence, but more than a feeling (w/ apologies to my loyal fans for dredging up the painful memories of an 80s Hair Band).

Anyway, Bill O'Reilly got after Trump a few days ago, and put up a video clip of Bush (making some interestingly "librul-sounding" counterpoints btw) during his live on-air interview with Lil Donny.  This is not something that happens unless Roger Ailes has decided to pass on Trump in favor of somebody else.

via Crooks & Liars:

Politics is about power, and power is about leverage.

DumFux News (ie: The GOP) knows they have a major problem because of very high negatives and very low positives among Women and Brown People (specifically Latins). They can "win" at the local level and in the state houses because they've done well at organizing their ground game, which gave them plenty of opportunity to take advantage of a little thing called gerrymandering, which then makes for lotsa safe red seats in congress.  But there's still the problem of a really low probability for winning the White House for what looks like maybe decades to come.

So what's a good little opinion manipulator to do? Pick a very public fight with the guy who personifies the problems the GOP has with attracting the support of Latins and Fallopian-Americans; do it in prime time with your primest of prime time talent; and be sure to show a good long visual of Jeb Bush sounding reasonable while making just as sure to tell people Donny's positions are costly and extreme: "The guy wants to deport innocent babies and he practically word-raped one of our treasured National Virgins!!! blah blah blah").

Ailes has decided Trump won't be the nominee, so he's setting it up so Fox can present itself to Women and Latins as 'the enemy of your enemy", which (I think) he believes will gain enough support for when he officially throws in with Jeb.

And I think all that because, of course, I'm brilliant. No no no, wait. It's because Ailes knows that Trump's "commanding lead" in the polling actually represents less than 8 or 9% of the total number of people who'll vote in November 2016, and so he believes he can drive the Right Radicals back into the shadows (where he wants them; because while he needs them,  he can't afford to have them up front where everybody can see them), AND he can get a Republican elected POTUS in one swell foop.

And also too - I'll try not to be too surprised if I find out that during the "blunt-but-productive conversation" that went on between Ailes and Trump after the Megyn Kelly trouble, it was decided that Trump would at least consider attending to his own skewering by DumFux News in order to get himself a real good deal with whoever "wins" the nomination, and some kind of nice payoff from Rupert as well.

He could win the nomination - not likely, but wow if he does.  

He could win the election - very unlikely, buy holy fuck, what if. 

He could "lose" either, and still come up roses - highly probable.  

Leverage.

Just my opinion, but ya heard it here first, kids.

Today's Michelle

If you're looking for something to brighten your day - along the lines of thinking "hey, fuck it, things could be worse" - say these four words to yourself: First Lady Ann Romney.

I guess I shouldn't say 'never', but seriously, how are we ever gonna get anybody in the White House as cool as Barack and Michelle?  We kinda tho't that about Bill and Hillary, but that was goin' on 30 fucking years ago.

My first vote for Bill Clinton in the '92 primary is older than my first-born child.  Fuck, I'm old.