The Harris Plan--Supporting Our Values

 

What if the way to support families and the middle class was to put our money where our values are and invest in the changes we want to see to make life better for the average American? 

It's a loaded question, and I get why some folks would be mad--supporting new families and encouraging homeownership are fine things for people who want to talk about financial security for households to reference, but actually doing something about it? Isn't that the business of other people to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps about? 

Look, I used to do a feature on this blog about our "Know Your Class War" and just like "Climate Sunday", it fell by the wayside because we have a first-world economy with disastrous outcomes in terms of health, happiness, and upward mobility in general. Democrats have, through measures like Social Security, Medicare, the ACA, and others--actually tried to do something about this. Republicans usually dub these measures "Communism".  (See Reagan and Medicare.)

Meanwhile in Texas

 

Texas radio host @TheRyanHamilton is speaking out after his state’s extreme abortion ban left his wife in serious danger and distress during a miscarriage. Thank you, Ryan for your bravery in sharing your story and speaking up against this cruel ban on essential health care. pic.twitter.com/qqyqYhaBqh

— Center for Reproductive Rights (@ReproRights) June 18, 2024

So, a few weeks ago, the Texas Supreme Court denied a challenge to the oppressive anti-abortion law on the grounds that doctors who tell their patients they won't perform abortions because of the law are just being silly. Seriously. Which I take to mean that goddamn it, maybe the doctors who can perform this care should test the theory and see how bullshit it is. All they have to lose is their...livelihood and well-being. (See George Tiller, etc.) What does this mean for pregnant people in this state?

Kate Cox, who had to flee Texas to receive vital reproductive care: I'm actually pregnant. It's a very exciting time. But it's a hard feeling. There's so much happiness, but I'm scared at the same time. I live in a state with an extreme abortion ban. If I have an emergency with… pic.twitter.com/r4V1C3abhq

— Biden-Harris HQ (@BidenHQ) June 21, 2024

Concern that they will not receive life-saving care if needed, or that they will face the prospect of their life saved, but reproductively-impaired or maimed by sepsi sor other effects of a pregnancy gone wrong. This is not a pro-life stance at all--merely pro-abusing women for capricious reasons.

Fox News Hates Families

 

what a monster pic.twitter.com/Nmj2HZl3BO

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) October 11, 2022

Last night, the above screencap sums up the argument that Sean Hannity wanted to make against President Biden--he's a loving father. 

That's it. Joe Biden, the man, not the politician, understood his son was going through a rough time and offered support and unconditional love, and that was...suspicious? As if, if your child was going through troubles, was imperfect, you should throw them out? 

It makes me wonder if conservatives like Hannity are the way they are because they don't have the grace to do that, and I understand a little better why they were ready to kill their own viewers with lies about COVID-19 and profoundly damage LGBT kids with lies meant to alienate their families from them, to not accept them for who they are. 

The most horrible lie--that we are not responsible to one another, that we don't need to care for one another, not even our own families, lies at the heart of it. Suddenly the sad stories of older people watching Fox News all day who can no longer talk to their family members makes sense--their sense of connectedness was undermined in a culture war. 

There is rehab for substance abusers. How does one rehab a person who does not understand compassion? How do you walk them through the baby-steps of learning to regard another human's feelings, their life? 

Fox News attacks Joe Biden through his family not because he is a bad man, but because he is not bad. But they must attack him somewhere, so they find what they think is the softest part. I do not think they understand--it is the strongest part. Compassion is the strength to support others, and Biden has used his time after time in a lifetime of loss and confrontation with the worries of the world. 

I am aghast they this is not understood, because it seems the most human thing to understand. 

They Want to Ban Abortions Federally!

 

News: @LindseyGrahamSC will introduce a national abortion ban in the Senate tomorrow.

Unless something really unexpected has happened, this will be a 15-week ban. Very interesting that it’s being cast as a “late term abortions act” 👀 pic.twitter.com/WMUVO3ys8l

— Caroline Kitchener (@CAKitchener) September 13, 2022

Fifteen weeks is definitely not a late-term abortion ban; I don't care what language they want to use about it. That's not "very interesting"--that's Republicans lying. Republicans do lie about abortion: would you like to see a big old lie made just today?

The Family Research Council decided to lie and say that "Abortion is never medically necessary to save the life of the mother." This is a big steaming lie. Ectopic pregnancies. fetal hydrocephaly, and the continuations of cancer therapies where the treatment is contraindicated for pregnancy spring to mind. They are vicious liars, but of course, they would be. This is child abuse promoter James Dobson's little corner of the culture war, which can boast George Rekers and Josh Duggar among its more notorious membership. and is fronted by Tony Perkins who somehow counts as a daywalker among these values vampires. 

Lies about things like maternal mortality show that these people don't care about the lives of people who become pregnant. Lies about fetal heartbeats (for a version of "heart" that doesn't yet even have chambers) and "pain-capable" fetuses are gratuitously imposing the qualities of born persons on pregnancies to try to create a separate life for that which depends solely on the body of a whole other, sentient person. 

I want to be hopeful about the turnout we saw in Kansas against a deadly stupid abortion ban, and to read into the voter registration numbers that show record female participation as a wholly good thing.  But if this is a real thing Senate Republicans are thinking of doing to turn out their base--

I hope they get good and screwed to the ever-loving wall over it. Because they are telling us that they don't want the Dobbs' ruling's concept of states' rights (itself a dodgy, shitty construction saying some people can just be freer to self-determination based on geography) but want to just deny female-bodied people the right to end a pregnancy based on some arbitrary deadline that politically sounded good to them and had nothing to do with our bodies, needs, economic status, or any of the other things that affect us as people. Because who are mere child-bearers anyways?

This is hostility to people who want to determine their reproductive future. I give them hostility in return. A thousandfold. 

UPDATE: The bill is worse than others Graham has put up before, with a 20-week gestation. The GOP can claim there are exceptions for rape and the life of the mother, but these are worse than useless.  See this part:

This Rhetoric is Harmful and Misogynistic

 

JD Vance thinks parents should stay in violent marriages "for the sake of their kids." That's not just wrong, it's unbelievably dangerous. pic.twitter.com/aQnTGRCuNi

— Tim Ryan (@TimRyan) July 25, 2022

I'm not going to get into the argument of "Well, women can be abusers, too", because I really feel like what Vance is getting at here is women don't like their helpings of marital chastisement, so the little round heels use lawyers to slink away from their otherwise perfectly good homes. Homes, where, presumably, they would be raising their children in a much better environment with two parents than by trying to go it alone.

It's appalling that a supposedly educated man knows no better than this. I heard something some time ago that really stuck with me--it's better to be from a broken home than to live in a broken family. If a spouse is being abused, what are the odds the kids aren't absorbing the trauma of that, and being abused themselves? 

On the other side of Roe, we're already looking at homicide being the number one cause of maternal mortality, and the likelihood of it being due to intimate partner violence being really high. Staying together "for the kids" in a world where parents might not have planned for or wanted these kids feels like so much resentment and interpersonal aggression ready to happen in a world where resources aren't there for them.  But once the kids are here, should they have a loving, not-violent environment to grow up in? 

His answer that getting a divorce is too easy is a disgrace--what if getting your ass beat and your psyche trampled on the daily is something no human should have to suffer? What if no one deserves the threat of violence or even death as a part of their interactions in their own home, which should be a refuge and place of safety and comfort? What if raising a child with healthy boundaries and physical and emotional safety was more important than some arbitrary feelings about two parents in the home? 

We have child marriage and rapists being fathers in this country. We have families ripe for abusive relationships. And this fool wants to pontificate on whether maybe spouses should just put up with beatings? Fatherlessness is better than a monster for a father. 

I don't know if this is his true belief or something he's signifying for the hard-right evangelicals who believe the rod shouldn't be spared and the husband is the head of the house in some iron-clad spiritual way, but this view is unhealthy and misguided, and saying it out loud displays an unfitness for making decisions pertaining to other people's lives. 

He needs to lose. Tim Ryan should be the next US Senator from Ohio. 

Republicans Don't Care About Your Family

 

Transportation Sec. Pete Buttigieg had sharp words for the Republicans opposing a bill codifying the right to same-sex marriages, urging them to support the legislation's passage in the Senate after it won bipartisan House approval. https://t.co/mBKJi45Egb

— ABC News (@ABC) July 24, 2022

Republicans demonstrated with their vote in the House against supporting same-sex or interracial marriages that they don't care about all of our American families. After all, House Republicans also failed to support access to contraception.  They don't care if lack of access to abortion means that a pregnant person dies, or that pregnant people can't move freely across the country to access their right to bodily autonomy according to their own conscience. 

It has to be finally admitted--they don't care about your family. Republicans chatted quite comfortably with a gay man and then right afterwards told him his family did not matter to them. They don't care about his family, and his young children. They don't care about his parental rights and those of his spouse. 

They would not care about your family, that you made via IVF, because it offends the anti-abortion people. I want you to know that. 

If you are Jewish or gay, they would probably prefer you not adopt because you aren't the right sort of people to raise kids. Marjorie Taylor Greene considers adoptive parents "fake" and thinks they are a danger to children. 

Researching Your Ginormous Balls Off

 

Maybe it's wrong of me to doubt that Nicki's cousin's best friend's balls blew up (at 31 Flavors, so I guess it's pretty serious) but unless the vax came with a side of chlamydia, I'm guessing that the wedding was called off because friendo was raw-dogging karma and it bit back. I only snark here to make a point--she is saying "pray on it and make sure you're comfortable" and isn't saying she won't get the vaccine ever, just not now and appreciated that some people do have to get it for their job. That's not anti-vax, and it's definitely respectful to people who have reservations, but...

I'm so tired of the vaccine hesitancy because the worst case scenarios of the virus are just way worse than the anecdotal evidence out there about any problems the vaccine might have. I'm talking about parents passing it to their little kids and losing them so young. Or families with young children suddenly becoming orphans. Pediatric COVID-19 deaths in the US have remained in the few hundreds, so it's rare, but we don't know what the long-term effects on these kids could be. The US is 4th in the world for children orphaned by COVID-19, with well over 100,000 kids with lost parents. 

So I guess what I'm getting at is, doing research sounds smart--the rational thing to do, and all. But I think people who start to research what might be wrong with the vaccine start to forget to weigh it against what we definitely know is wrong with COVID-19, and it's a hell of a lot. 

Like, for one thing, it is definitely killing people. Contrary to what the hardcore hospital-protesting crazies want to say, which seems to be that somehow, health care workers are actually contriving COVID-19 deaths for their own nefarious ends. 

(I have never been a fan of turning rubber hoses on protestors, but you know...they pose a risk to public safety and welfare and are interfering with the care of all kinds of sick and injured people, so I see what they are doing as basically terrorism against patients and healthcare workers. But once we allowed anti-abortion protesters space to harass healthcare workers and patients at clinics, this is the creep you get.) 

It has also caused increased lost pregnancies and loss of maternal life or increased risk of serious illness for obstetric patients.  And while there's no evidence the vaccines cause reproductive sterility, there is a risk that COVID-19 can. 

Or People Could Just Mind Their Own Business

 

lmfao pic.twitter.com/frUDUD76He

— Andrew Lawrence (@ndrew_lawrence) August 4, 2021

This is a very deeply weird thing to decide: that leftists hate babies. Now, I am not their biggest fan, largely for aesthetic reasons. Often they are so basic and derivative of their parents. (Given what we know, the recent Domenech child is probably a cut and paste job.)  Also they are lousy conversationalists and not one of them can mix a proper drink. But as a general rule, I think of having children like getting a pool or a nipple piercing--it isn't my thing, but if it's yours, you just go ahead and be sure to take care of it. 

The argument is that children are a refutation of the left.  I've never felt refuted by them--frankly, a lot of what I want, like a cleaner environment and good schools and access to health care, is about people being able to raise their kids knowing they will have opportunities to live up to their potential. I'd love it if maternity was medically safe for all people, that the kids in this world could be sure of being homed, fed, and educated well, and that we were leaving a safe, and not-stupid world for them to live in--I'm pretty committed to it! 

But some of what he's saying is just dumb--

Children are brave—terrifyingly brave. Girls are fierce and independent. Boys are heroically reckless. They are not the helpless, timid victims leftists say people are. Just as important, neither are we. That’s the Left’s real problem with children: they create families. They turn boys into men, couples into parents, and women into the archangels we call moms

.Children are terrifyingly brave because they have no concept of consequences--that is learned over time. They do stupid things and we have to childproof the electric sockets and keep sharp things and household chemicals away from them. They might not be timid, but I'm pretty damn sure you wouldn't leave them all to themselves or think they can talk to any old stranger or would count on them to have your back in a knife fight. Parenting is, near as I can tell, steering kids away from being victims (and some parents are absolutely shit at that by victimizing their kids first off) but what about the sexism! Men without children aren't real patriarchs. Women without children aren't "archangels". 

His Burdensome DNA

This story seems to go a bit unnoticed, and I am not entirely sure why, but E. Jean Carroll, who a lot of folks basically know of, came out last year with a claim that a man who has been a notorious philanderer at least, and is a multiply-accused sex pest as we all should know, raped her after some light banter in the dressing room of a department store. 

He called her a liar and said she "wasn't his type". (His type, near as I can tell, is tall, blonde, cheerleader/homecoming queen/model types--E. Jean Carroll, albeit age-appropriate to Trump, is very much a tall, slender blonde.)

She is suing for defamation because he called her a liar. He wants it on hold because he is appealing a case with another woman he called a liar regarding sexual assault, thanks. 

She kept the dress from that encounter. She had it tested. Her counsel is now seeking a sample of his DNA. 

And Trump says no. Giving up his DNA would be "burdensome". It would take seconds (it's a cheek swab!), she doesn't want blood (which was drawn from President Clinton), and Clinton v. Jones makes very clear that a civil suit against a president is so possible. The remaining, unidentified DNA might not even be his. As was once said in another context: Donald--What have you go to lose?

It's a little like anything else with him; witnesses, documents, his tax returns, they are all indicators of a problem he would prefer not to address. So he fights tooth and nail over the evidence, until it starts to look a little bit like evidence, itself. Is he afraid that if he provides DNA evidence in this one situation, he will be subject now to comparative analysis for every claim? Were the wanderings of his penis this fraught?

Of course they were.  Jesus Jumping Criminy on a pogo-stick family values party, party of personal responsibility--this guy never takes personal responsibility, and has not proven himself to be a family values guy. What the entire hell? Is the GOP's support of him just a farcical flaunting of the degree to which their supposed values is just a hypocritical pose?

Boy, I guess. But why is it that the claims of so many women were this easily dismissed, from 2016 to the present, regarding Trump? Why is it even only slightly an issue that he paid to cover up his consensual sexual affairs? Shouldn't that be a bigger deal? Or it is just overshadowed by the possibility of things like "light treason" and "extortion of Ukraine for what his deeply complicit AG and the GOP in the Senate would do for free in the matter of the Bidens vs. the appearance of being money-grubbers" to skew the 2020 election?

Take the swab, Donny. What have you got to lose? Really. Lay it on out there for us: What. Have. You. Got. To Lose?

But regardless, even if it didn't get enough play in 2016--this is who stains the White House right now with his undeserved fucking approval when he is for so many women, emblematic of the way the powerful can use and abuse human beings and silence them afterwards. He is a disgrace. Of all the things I abhor, it is that he has apparently hurt people, quite purposefully, and is celebrated, defended, and protected by his privilege. Like his friendship with Epstein and the way this is rubbed in our faces.

What secrets even lurk in the heart of Trump's DNA, anyway, that it is so burdensome that three seconds will disrupt Trump's life? What sort of person would prefer not to know?

The Old Boys' Club

Many of the NBC executives who obstructed Ronan Farrow's investigation into Harvey Weinstein have been accused of sexual misconduct themselves, Farrow reports in his new book. https://t.co/t2WPp6Yg2H

— NPR (@NPR) October 11, 2019

I recall when writing about Fox News' ongoing issues with Bill O'Reilly and Roger Ailes' multiple allegations of sexual misconduct as thinking of this culture as probably being unique to that institution of retrograde and cranky notions, even though I should know better. When you hear that someone like Matt Lauer* was able to survive as a top-paid media personality for years despite allegations of sexual misconduct, it has to be necessary to examine the culture that tolerated him. It's the same culture that tolerated Harvey Weinstein, even killing stories about him because for some reason, networks didn't want to pursue issues about rape and sexual harassment. Fox News and NBC aren't even in a class by themselves. CBS was a horror-show, and not just regarding news personalities.

It's depressing that men have covered for men in this way. It's disturbing to know that men you considered more or less decent and intelligent are drawn to sex pests (even pedophiles) as friends, despite knowing full well the counts against them as human beings. It's freakish to witness a credibly-accused attempted acquaintance-rapist sits on a SCOTUS bench, and has his alleged sins wiped away by a multiply-accused President* in front of a group of so-called "Values Voters"*.

Trump on sexual assault allegations against Kavanaugh: "They're phony stories about him. They were made up. Just like they are made up about me and other people." pic.twitter.com/DY98aKEcjn

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) October 12, 2019

And you can see these people who believe they are the good people applaud, because obviously, the kinds of women who make accusations aren't the good kind of people, because they are fallen, and the kind of men accusations are made about are the right sort of people, because they have risen in the world. (I can honestly not think of anything that puts me off religion than exactly this kind of thinking.)

If that is not "rape culture"--an entire culture where abuse against people on account of sex is pardoned and excused and ignored, I do not know what else to call it. Ecrasez l'infame!

* Yikes--Matt Lauer.  We shall never wonder "Where in the world?" but only "What in the world?" from this point on.

* Forty-three new allegations are detailed in a book regarding President Trump's relationships with women. This is Bill Cosby-level accusations.  Donald Trump worked for NBC on a show called The Celebrity Apprentice and is also alleged to have horked shit-tons of Adderall up his face. And I think it really shows.

*The Family Research Council is an actual hate group against LGBT people. Appearing before these assholes should be considered an insult to every person in the queer mishpocha. Call it "virtue-signaling" on my part for saying so.

This Would be an Awkward Office Situation

The news that Rep. Trent Franks, an anti-abortion "family values" warrior, was resigning because of sexual harassment didn't strike me as too shocking: holier-than-thou sorts are often bearers of disappointing personal morals because their pecksniffery is solely for other folks. But, peculiar as the actual details are, when I read that he had actually awkwardly approached female staffers about being a gestational surrogate to increase his family, it was like hearing a puzzle piece snap into place. 

He didn't do anything creepy and lewd. Gosh! He just wanted to see if there was anyone close to hand who had reproductive organs they weren't using at the moment. Since having babies was what they were for. Not in a weird, lusting in his heart way. Just in a using a woman's body according to Biblical precedent sort of way. 

Now, to get a little technical, as Franks is staunchly pro-life, in vitro is obviously not an option for his family, because not all embryos implant successfully. This leaves traditional surrogacy, in which the surrogate provides the egg and the patriarch provides the rest. This intrauterine insemination is a bit cheaper than in vitro, and can be done without sexual, um, congress. (Although, you know! It could be done the old-fashioned way, too.) But the whole upshot is that his message to some female employees was "You are female and I would like to put my sperm in you because this is what females are for, and it would be doing me a big old favor."  Not too different from how horny men just want to borrow their workplace subordinates' reproductive organs for a bit after all, is it?

And it is just as coercive. After all, it's just doing a favor. People donate kidneys and bone marrow to people they work with don't they? Except this is about making a child. That creates bonds. In a power imbalance situation like employer/employee, that can create bondage.

It's hard for me to fathom not seeing this as a wholly inappropriate thing to bring up with one's staffers, but what I know of Franks' worldview oddly put the "how" of his awkwardness into perspective. But it is really, deeply inappropriate. 

Thankful

I think taking the time to take stock of your blessings in life is a great thing. The troubles of the world weigh on us, sometimes lighter than they should. If I am thankful for my full plate, I have to also know that there are people whose larder has been bare. If I am thankful for my heat and light and access to the world through the internet, I also have to understand what it is to be without these things. If I am thankful for my health, I have to also remember those who are without health care, or who soon could be. If I am thankful for the safety of my home, I have to also think of those who might have no home, or might lose their home. If I am thankful for the love I have enjoyed in my life, it needs to be balanced by knowing the love that has been denied  (and is still being denied). If I am thankful for my education, I need to acknowledge that getting a good education is still a struggle for so many.

What I am thankful for, and humbled by, is the gift of perspective. I could be unhappy about the things I do not have, but find the only desire I should by rights want is the ability to work to make anything better for anyone else because of the gifts I do have. And understanding that creates purpose to me, and a better appreciation for all of it.

I could almost pity someone with no perspective, or empathy, or appreciation of the power and wealth dumped in their lap, lacking all capacity to better the life of a single deprived soul because knowing how isn't in them. But of that particular knowledge and blessing, I find myself bereft. And perhaps, it's just as well. Recognizing obstacles that need to be removed is also a kind of perspective.

Trump's "Jokes" Aren't Funny When They Are Our Lives

It might get a little lost in the midst of Donald Trump Tweeting in favor of the Reagan Era's "One Weird Tax Trick" Pony, Arthur Laffer, or letting out a giant lie about preceding Presidential Administrations relating to how a POTUS communicates his respects to Gold Star families, but a sick "joke" was relayed that reflects how Trump views the point of view of his Vice President, Mike Pence, regarding LGBT people. He is reported to have said:

"Don't ask that guy--he wants to hang them all!"

regarding Mike Pence. The funny/weird thing is, the Vice President that Donald Trump selected actually is pretty seriously anti-gay and has been for a long time. Trump should have been well-aware of that much, and if he had any objection, that could have happened during the campaign--and he could have picked somebody else. The funny/ha-ha part is, there is no part of this that is actually funny/ha-ha. Nope. Even if Trump thinks Pence's anti-LGBT bigotry is really caveman and so last century, because Trump has nonetheless completely bought in.

The evidence?

Well, there is that military trans-ban. He's weakened protections against gay workers.  And he's signaled he is okay about businesses discriminating against LGBT customers--even enshrining bigotry into our Constitution.  His judicial picks have been anti-gay.

At this rate--who the hell is Donald Trump to go picking on Mike Pence for being a virulent homophobe? It's like the pot calling the kettle a thing very much designed for also being a vessel for warming up comestibles.

And take the Values Voters appearance this past weekend.  What an abominable disgrace that was! The attendees at this Christian Conservative shindig are pretty well-described as representing "hate groups".

To think Trump used the Orlando shooting to pretend he would defend LGBT people against the real enemy (Muslims, because hey! a minority he also hates!) then didn't know LGBT people at all except to also be a hated minority.  So he used LGBT people, because he just thinks people exist to be used. (And by the way, Pence and other Religious Right folks are also being used, they just haven't entirely figured out how yet.)

But it's actual people's lives, isn't it? Our jobs, our health care, our marriages, our children. Ha ha. He doesn't care.

Marco Rubio Should Keep Out of This

One of the most disturbing things the media tried to do with Marco Rubio was try to portray him as someone who was less radical and incendiary than a loud-mouth like Trump. Rubio's professed beliefs on social issues are extremely retrograde--take his appearance at a homophobe hootenanny.  The guy claimed that the mass shooting at an Orlando LGBT nightclub reminded him of his calling to public service--and at the first opportunity, he's back on the side of oppressing people who happen to be gay, and he won't do anything about guns, either, and oh, he's basically fish-titty useless on understanding the causes and concerns of Islamic radicalism, because he doesn't know the difference between Shia Iran and Sunni Wahhabist ISIS. But you know what he never needs to insert himself in--

Family planning. Especially when it comes to his recent empathy and good sense-lacking commentary on what Zika-infected women should do regarding their pregnancies.

The short of the long is, because he's so very, very pro-life, he doesn't think women should have the right to determine whether they can terminate a pregnancy that may result in a severely impaired child, that may be physically onerous on them (because of being infected) and may prove highly costly to that woman, her family, and their community. He lets his four-letter fig leaf, in other words--"life"--trump everything else that might be meaningful in this discussion. He would prefer he take the power to choose out of the hands of women, leaving them with children whose lives are extraordinarily burdened, and inflicting suffering on families as a result.

I find it less than amusing to note, that he uses the language of pseudoscience: "pain-capable" regarding fetuses, and yet ignorantly and with all paternalism, ignores the actual real pain that is experienced by the post-born people who live in the actual world, and who, if one were the baby in question, endure such symptoms as vision and hearing loss, severely delayed development, seizures, and a host of other ills. And, if one were the parents, a lifetime controlled by the need to provide for a severely impaired infant--who would cease to be an infant in time and would become, at some point, an adult, with all these impairments, with elderly parents who might not outlive that child's needs.

It's none of his fucking pro-life concern whether these people seek out a legal medical procedure to avoid that enduring pain. It's brutality on his part to suppose that his moral qualms supplant the understanding of other people about what they need to do for the better future of their families. He is mind-blind to the struggles they will face, in the certainty of his own internal righteousness.

I hope he loses his damn Senate seat, and that the private sector is as cold to him as as the moral freezer he keeps his regard for us human meat-puppets in.

Too Grotesque for Mere Schadenfruede

The revelation that former GOP Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert sexually abused at least four minors and then tried to pay to keep it silent is disturbing in and of itself. It certainly is troubling that he abused those kids before leading the impeachment of President Bill Clinton for lying about a consensual affair after his predecessors were removed from that position for various things. It was probably really weird when he found out about Mark Foley and those pages. 

But what does it say about hypocrisy? What does it say about so-called "family values"?

I dunno.  What does it ever say? George Reker, Ted Haggard, Larry Craig. John G. Schmitz (father of Joseph E. Schmitz and Mary Kate Letourneau.) There's a lot of fucking about amongst yon pillars of rectitude. And hypocrisy is, verily, really awful.

But kid-touching is really worse than just hypocrisy. So I look at Hastert with something worse than just schadenfreude. And I am sure some foreign tongue has a name for it, even if I don't.

Ted Cruz Disses NYC

Stop the presses! A new Page 1... DROP DEAD, TED: https://t.co/68hKgqmjBx pic.twitter.com/veDsxLYDTN

— New York Daily News (@NYDailyNews) January 15, 2016

At last night's debate, Senator Ted Cruz got put in his place by Donald Trump over a characteristically culture war sneer at "New York values". It really reminded me of Sarah Palin's 2008 comments on "real America" (for which she ended up apologizing). It's sort of a weird way to talk about values that has always rankled me. Does Cruz really think small towns in red states have one set of values (church, mom, apple pie) and then there's coastal big cities doing some whole other stuff (orgies and Satan-worship)? I'd say it isn't helpful to write off that many voters who happen to live in NYC and environs, but you know? He might just be calculating those aren't his voters, anyway.

In Case You Were Wondering, Ted Cruz is Awful

Sen. Ted Cruz will prosecute and defund Planned Parenthood--a non-profit organization that sometimes performs abortions which are legal per Roe v. Wade and also prepares tissue for donation, which is also legal, but Cruz will prosecute them to the fullest extent of: he's really grossed out, you guys. As everyone, but let's pick Gawker, has pointed out, the polio thing, since the development of the vaccines uses fetal cells, was probably the most inapt use of a thing that involves science in a political ad ever. This is what we might call an "unforced error", but the audience Cruz was aiming for would probably be completely unimpressed by little old scientific facts. (See also--would fail like a very fail-hard thing in the general election.)

He's basically been rolling heavy lately; he visited the AFA to reassure them that voting for a theocracy will get them the theocracy that will save America from the heathen hordes. And he'll be showing up at a theocratic fucked-up family values shindig that is planning to give an award to a guy who handed off his adopted kids to a rapist.

Which just leads me to wonder--seriously Ted? Are you that worried about Mike Huckabee stealing your Christofascist kid-touching proponent voters?

Because if that's your base--maybe you should not be running for president. Cult leader, maybe. Not president.

Values Voters 2014 is a Commentary on the 2016 GOP Goat Rodeo

It's probably no coincidence that the Value Voters Hootenany considers Sarah Palin as much of a draw as CPAC does. They adore prop comedy. (Since Dennis Miller hasn't made regular folks laugh since the 1990's, I really think wingnut welfare should at least comp him a rubber chicken. If he can't incorporate it into his act, maybe he can bite it.)  Once again, Senator Ted "Tailgunner" Cruz is the beneficiary of the Bible-based zeitgeist. (Nota bene: Christie was not invited and finished behind Biden. Even us big-time lefties aren't putting Biden in our "sure thing" column. If he's winning over Christie in the VV14 poll, that's kind of a message, you think?) But I can't pretend that I know. I don't speak "Values Voters" lingo fluently.

I will say, I think Palin is irrelevant, but everyone has known that since 2009. She's there for schtick, and I commend the right wing for keeping vaudeville alive. But Santorum and Huckabee and Rand Paul and Cruz all spoke (and Anne Laurie at Balloon-Juice gives great re-cap of all of them) and all kind of gave a hint into the ways they aren't serious 2016 candidates.

I see things as an internetizen first and foremost--if it is on Youtube, it cannot die. I don't know how anyone can drop red meat at a VV do, and then pretend it doesn't exist in a general election. So if, say, Bobby Jindal, wants to allege Barack Obama doesn't understand American exceptionalism in a week where "we" are bombing ISIL in Syria just because--he's out on a ridiculous limb. Ditto Rand Paul on "personhood", or Cruz on a lot of things.

I see easily a time when the Values Voters' do is a thing to avoid, because I don't see anyone selected by it in a straw poll as viable in any general election. But I do see the GOP probably pandering to that crowd for some time to come, anyway.

Liz Cheney on the Wrong Side of History. Or "Another Day ending in 'Y'"

Scowling Sith Kid Liz, Daughter of Dick, is not doing especially well in her primary race against incumbent WY Sen. Mike Enzi, and she isn't exactly endearing herself with her sister and sister-in-law, either.

Here is La Liz:

Wyoming Senate candidate Liz Cheney (R) on Sunday defended her opposition to same-sex marriage, saying that she disagrees with her sister, who is married to a woman and has criticized the Senate contender's views on gay marriage. 

"I love Mary very much, I love her family very much. This is just an issue on which we disagree," Cheney said on "Fox News Sunday." 

Cheney's sister Mary Cheney said in August that Liz Cheney is "dead wrong" on the issue of gay marriage.

And here is Heather Poe, her sister-in-law, who took to Facebook to disagree:

No, Wait, Wait--Everyone Actually *LOVES* Ted Cruz!

It's true! Because wouldn't you know it, the straw poll at the 2013 Values Voters' Summit had him as the big winner, should he be thinking about a White House run in 2016 (and you know he is thinking about it dontcha?). And this was after he said some of the most gee-gosh-darn things, too.

You know what? On second thought, maybe it's because he has said the most gee-gosh-darn things. You know, like joking that the president was going to disappear him and that hecklers were probably paid OFA shills. Because obviously. Nothing succeeds like flaming paranoia. (Unless you are appealing to the fringe, in which case paranoia is best known as "fitting in".) And amongst the values voters, that enlightened bastion of Godwinning for Goobers, Homophobia for Herp-Derps, and Bible-Banging for Bigots, he actually has a crowd in which he doesn't stand out. Good going, Ted.

Now, you might have gotten a different impression from more old-school Republican politicians like NY Rep. Peter King (who is a likely contender against Cruz should there even be a 2016 GOP primary with debates an' all that). He doesn't like what Cruz is laying down even a little, because by doom saying against Obamacare he kind of is making it look like a quite a reasonable system by comparison of his fantasy-world (inherited from the Sr. Cruz, because the Rev. does believe in death panels) with the affordable care reality. And for what it's worth, many Democrats find themselves in the odd position of agreeing with Rep. King, because they, too, think Cruz has done quite a lot for making the ACA popular.

So there you go. Honestly, I think I am beginning to have a kind of hate-love thing for him. He could be my new Santorum. Anything is possible.