041 The Erickson Report, Page 5: Two Weeks of Stupid: Clowns and Outrages [the Clowns]

041 The Erickson Report, Page 5: Two Weeks of Stupid: Clowns and Outrages [the Clowns]

Now for a regular feature, Two Weeks of Stupid, Clowns and Outrages. And we start, as usual, with the Clowns.

Our first Clown this time out is President Joe Coal Baron Manchin. After his event at the Economic Club of DC on October 26, three climate hunger strikers confronted him on his demand to cut climate provisions from the reconciliation package.

Manchin replied by asserting “the United States has done more than any other country. All the emissions are coming from Asia.”

So apparently all that West Virginia coal from which he gains a million a bucks a year from investments is being used for what, doing artists' sketches?

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Next there is Texas Republican state Rep. Matt Krause, who has a 16-page list of roughly 850 books and he intends to "investigate" to see if Texas school libraries might be harboring any of them.

Krause has used his position as chair of the House Committee on General Investigating to dispatch a letter wanting school districts to report whether they have any copies of any of the named books and if so, to report how many of them and how much money the district spent to get them.

Beyond such titles as The Confessions of Nat Turner by William Styron and Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates, the list, not at all oddly, seems obsessed with LGBTQ+ titles and ones about reproduction.

A peek under Krause's mattress might be interesting.

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Then there is the case of a reporter at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch uncovering a flaw in the website of Missouri's Department of Elementary and Secondary Education that left the Social Security numbers for 100,000 staff members vulnerable. The information was contained in the html source code for the site.

The paper notified the agency and held the story until the agency had a chance to correct the error.

But it seems true that no good deed goes unpunished, because Missouri Gov. Mike Parson, apparently jealous of all the other GOPpes who've been awarded The Order of Big Red Nose, is vowing to prosecute the staff of the paper, charging they are "hackers" who "decoded" the source code to uncover the data. He claimed such an investigation would cost taxpayers $50 million.

Now, not only is that figure manifestly absurd, the thing is, the source code for a website is easily available to anyone with at most a couple of clicks because your own computer must have access to that information in order to display the web page correctly. Try it. Look for the Tools menu in your web browser, where you should find something listed like "View source code." In fact, if your browser is Firefox, just do control-u.

In other words, all this proves is that Mike Parson has absolutely no idea what hacking is.

I love this one because it gets back to the true meaning of Clown.

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But finally, sometimes it's hard to say if something is a Clown or an Outrage, it straddles the line between. Here's an example.

It's an unnamed teacher at Ridgefield Memorial High School in Ridgefield, New Jersey.

On October 18, Mohammed Zubi, A Muslim Arab-American senior at the school, asked for an extension on completing a math assignment. The teacher responded with 'We don't negotiate with terrorists."

Shortly after making the comment, the teacher supposedly told Zubi he did not “mean it like that.”

Excuse me, teacher person, but just how the hell did you mean it?

A supporting Clown award goes to the school administration which initially dismissed it as a “personal matter.” Only after the incident became known through social media did school board members take it seriously. In a statement a couple of days later, the district said it is conducting a full investigation and that the teacher in question has been suspended until further notice.

039 The Erickson Report, June 17

 

The Erickson Report, June 17

Good News
   - SCOTUS dismisses Obamacare suit
   - Title IX applies to LGBTQ youth
   - Reality Winner moved to halfway house
Update on Israel-Palestine
Afghanistan becoming new drone war
Biden pushes federal death sentence
Mass news media misinforms
Clown Award: Rep. Louis Gohmert
Goodbye for now

029 The Erickson Report for January 7 to 19, Page Two: Five Things Noted in Passing about January 6

029 The Erickson Report for January 7 to 19, Page Two: Five Things Noted in Passing about January 6

There is so much more that could be said about this. Every time I see a news item about it, I find something else that deserves comment. It's impossible to cover it all so I think I'm going to wrap this up with some quick takes. Consider it a focused version of Five Things Noted in Passing.

The first, it's been only lightly noted that there were Tweetie-pie-supporting rallies in lots of places outside of DC. Most were peaceful, but not all:

- In Los Angeles, Tweetie-pie troops clashed with police, who declared an unlawful assembly.
- In Olympia, Washington, the governor and his family were moved to a secure location after yahoos broke into the grounds of the governor's mansion.
- In Salem, Oregon, state police declared an unlawful assembly to keep Tweetie-pie acolytes away from the state Capitol.
- In Phoenix, the crowd tried to break into the locked capitol building, smashing a window in the process, while another group brought a guillotine with a letter saying they are ready for war.
- In Atlanta, senior staffers, including Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, had to be escorted out of the state capitol building
- And Georgia, Texas, Wyoming, Pennsylvania, New Mexico, and Utah took precautionary measures such as closing their state legislative buildings for the day.

Second, remember that I referenced the "unfocused rage burning" in Tweetie-pie's supporters. We would be wise to remember that some, maybe a lot, of these folks have genuine grievances, that they are no less liable to economic strains and stresses than the rest of us, that they are no less worried about their futures and the futures of their families than we are about ours. The reactionary corporate elites that dominate our economic lives have long excelled at taking that justified anger and directing it toward someone, anyone, other than them, that is, at getting people to blame the wrong targets.

Around 1998 I think it was, Bill Clinton of all people offered an image of a stereotypical family - working father, stay-at-home mother, couple of kids - with the parents pursuing the idea of a "good life" of sending the kids to college followed by a comfortable retirement.

But now, he said, the father hasn't had a raise in a few years and thinks he might be laid off at any time, and he looks at his family and feels he let them down, wondering "What did I do wrong?"

It's easy, Clinton said, for that sort of person to respond to a hot 30-second ad saying "You didn't do anything wrong. 'They' did it to you." The point being that the "they" here surely is not the corporate bosses.

The particulars may have changed in the last 20-plus years, but the game is the same.

Third, in line with Rule #13 of my "Rules for Right-wingers," which is "When all else has failed - and even when it hasn't - lie," we find various right wing flakes and Faux News hosts claiming that the mob that invaded the Capitol wasn't made of Tweetie-pie supporters, it was actually Antifa in disguise.

Fourth, one good thing - I suppose I can call it that - that came out of January 6 is that it has seemed to break the spell that Tweetie-pie had maintained over a major part of the GOPper party. People are breaking away from him, quitting the administration, openly criticizing him in a way that did not seem possible literally days earlier. It may that they thought it would never go this far, that the forces they unleashed could be contained in a way beneficial to them, or it could just be a calculation that he won't be as potent a figure post-presidency as had been thought.

In either case, it may not seem like much since it'd just mean we'll be dealing with ordinary reactionaries instead of fanatical ones, but I'll take what I can get.

Finally, we end with a Clown Award, given as always for meritorious stupidity. The winner this time is AFP, the French Press Agency.

The picture to the right had been going around to illustrate the difference in Washington DC security between that on January 6 with that, shown here, for a Black Lives Matter protest in June.

An AFP fact check declared the image "misleading" because it was labeled as security for the Capitol when in fact the BLM demonstration was at the other end of the Mall from the Capitol and the photo was the security for the Lincoln Memorial.

And so the Clown Award goes to AFP for noteworthy achievement in straining at a gnat and utterly, utterly, missing the point.

The Erickson Report for October 28 to November 10, Page 4: Two Weeks of Stupid: Clowns and Outrages [the Clowns]

The Erickson Report for October 28 to November 10, Page 4: Two Weeks of Stupid: Clowns and Outrages [the Clowns]

Now for Two Weeks of Stupid: Clowns and Outrages, starting, as we commonly do, with the Clowns.

Madison Cawthorn and Moe Davis are in a tight race in North Carolina's 11th congressional district. You'll know which one is the GOPper and the Clown when I tell you that Cawthorn attacked Tom Fiedler, one of Davis's supporters, by saying Fiedler went "to work for non-white males, like Cory Booker, who aims to ruin white males running for office" - and, when he was called out on his racism, blamed "poor syntax."

Know them by their fruits. Racist Clowns.

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Speaking of racist clowns, we come to Jared Kushner, who described black Americans' issues with inequality and racism in the country as "complaining" and suggested that the reason for their disproportionate lack of wealth and job opportunities along with health disparities and other inequalities is because they just don't want to be successful.

On - naturally - Fox and Friends on October 26, he blathered that Tweetie-pie's policies can help the black community "break out of the problems that they're complaining about, but he can't want them to be successful more than that they want to be successful."

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But finally for this time out, we have the return of a former champion.

Pat Robertson - and I know I could stop right there but there is more - said on his show "The 700 Club" last week everyone should be sure to vote because God had told him the Tweetie-pie is going to win and "it's going to lead to civil unrest and then, a war against Israel and so forth," as predicted in Ezekiel 38.

In other words, get out and vote for Tweetie-pie because that will help bring about the End Times, when Jesus comes back to Earth for the final judgement and the end of the world.

Which actually sounds like a good reason for GOPpers to stay home. Although admittedly, he's certainly not the only one who thinks of a second term for Tweetie-pie as the end of the world.

By the way, this is at least the third time he has predicted the apocalypse. In 1976 he predicted it would be in 1982. Then, in 1990, he said it would come in 2017. Now, Tweetie-pie's second term will initiate the events.

Pat Robertson: a Clown, but at least a persistent one.

The Erickson Report, Page 3: Clown of the Year, Total Jackassery category

The Erickson Report, Page 3: Clown of the Year, Total Jackassery category

Moving on the the Total Jackassery category, our second runner-up is the Department of Energy.

Back in May, the agency issued a press release announcing approval of more exports of LNG - liquified natural gas - by a Freeport LNG terminal off the coast of Texas.

In the release, the fossil-fuel-sucking bureaucrats declared the expansion of such exports to be "critical to spreading freedom gas throughout the world" and that more such exports will allow for "molecules of US freedom to be exported to the world.”

So it’s kind of like freebasing but without the kick.

Our first runner-up is a perennial champion, always a threat to take the top spot, but this year he fell just short. It's our old friend Tucks Carlson.

On one show in June, he deranged - which I made up as a verb because it fits cases like this so well - he deranged that "Almost every nation on Earth has fallen under the yoke of tyranny." Only the brave and noble US has resisted!

And what is this yoke of tyranny, what is this horrendous worldwide oppression?

Quoting again: "From Beijing to Buenos Aires, from Lusaka to London, the people of the world have been forced to measure their environment in millimeters and kilograms."

Yeah, the tyrant is the metric system. Indeed, a world in chains.

He made a last ditch attempt for the crown, declaring on a show two weeks later that - and I'm not exaggerating, this is a quote - he actually said "If white supremacy were a huge problem in America, how did Cory Booker become a senator?"

Of course if white supremacy is not a huge problem in America, why is Cory Booker being a senator so worthy of note, but that level of thought is beyond his reach.

What could top that double-barreled action? Our winner is another repeat offender, conservative radio host and poster boy for privilege Ben Shapiro.

First, in August he said on his radio show that people who have to work two jobs are actually just, well, stupid: Quoting: "If you had to work more than one job to have a roof over your head or food on the table, you probably shouldn’t have taken the job that’s not paying you enough. That’d be a you problem."

Ben Shapiro

That is, if your primary job doesn't pay enough to live on, well, you just should have taken a different and higher-paying job, you moron.

Then in September, again on his radio show, he praised America’s healthcare system by touting the country’s life expectancy. Now, the US ranks 34th among the nations of the world in life expectancy, and our life expectancy has actually declined the last three years in a row.

But no matter, Shapiro praised it as “pretty good when you take out all the confounding factors” such as auto accidents, murders, and suicide. Note that gun deaths and suicides are both considered public health issues.

In other words, Shapiro was saying, our life expectancy is great - as long as you ignore a lot of the people who died. A master class in venal inanity.

Ben Shapiro, Clown of the Year, Total Jackassery Category.

The Erickson Report, Page 2: Clown of the Year, Basic Stupid category

The Erickson Report, Page 2: Clown of the Year, Basic Stupid category

So now we have our Clowns of the Year for 2019. The reason I say Clowns, plural, is that for the Clown of the Year, there are two categories: Basic Stupid, for those cases that are just mind-numbingly dumb, and Total Jackassery, for those cases that involve some level of venality.

So under Basic Stupid, our second runner-up is Americans - all of us, or at least a majority. In May, CivicScience, a Pittsburgh-based market research firm, released a new poll they had done of more than 3600 Americans on the issue of mathematics instruction.

In response to one question, 56% of the respondents said Arabic numerals should not be taught in American schools; jst 29% said they should be part of the curriculum; while 16% offered no opinion.

And if you don't get why that is some Clown combination of ignorance plus a soupçon of bigotry, these are Arabic numerals: 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9.

And before you start going "Oh those stupid right wingers again," know that when respondents were sorted into three categories, GOPper, Democrat, and Independent, not one of those three showed a majority in favor of teaching those numerals in American schools.

Our first runner-up is an unnamed woman in Lincoln, Nebraska. That city has more than 50 sculptures installed in various places as a public art project called "Serving Hands Lincoln."

The sculptures each consist of a pair of hands, open and holding something like a butterfly, a field of grain, flags of the world, the moon, whatever.

One sculpture, however, so offended our clown that she wrote to the mayor, demanding it be removed. She described it as "two hands open, painted Red and Black, and formed into Devil Horns."

She claimed it to be anti-Christian, demonic, ugly, perverse, and a "hate crime against the church."

The picture on the right shows the sculpture. Yep, the hands were those of Spiderman.

Footnote: The city said no, we are not removing the sculpture.

But our winner would have to rank among an all-time top 10 if I ever were to make such a list.

Rev. Dan Rehill

Rev. Dan Reehil is a pastor at the St. Edward's Roman Catholic grammar school in Nashville, Tennessee. In early September he sent an email to parents of the students telling them that the Harry Potter books have been removed from the school library because they "risk conjuring evil spirits."

Seriously.

Quoting the email: "These books present magic as both good and evil, which is not true, but in fact a clever deception. The curses and spells used in the books are actual curses and spells; which when read by a human being risk conjuring evil spirits into the presence of the person reading the text."

Personally, I think that's just Riddikulus.

Rev. Dan Reehil of St. Edward's Roman Catholic grammar school in Nashville, Tennessee: Clown of the Year, Basic Stupid category.

The Erickson Report for January 2-15, 2020

The Erickson Report for January 2-15, 2020

This time:

Clown of the Year, Basic Stupid category
https://whoviating.blogspot.com/2019/06/the-erickson-report-page-2-two-weeks-of.html
https://whoviating.blogspot.com/2019/07/the-erickson-report-page-3-two-weeks-of_27.html
https://whoviating.blogspot.com/2019/09/the-erickson-report-page-2-two-weeks-of.html

Clown of the Year, Total Jackassery category
https://whoviating.blogspot.com/2019/06/the-erickson-report-page-1-two-weeks-of.html
https://whoviating.blogspot.com/2019/07/the-erickson-report-page-2-two-weeks-of.html
https://whoviating.blogspot.com/2019/09/the-erickson-report-page-2-two-weeks-of.html
https://whoviating.blogspot.com/2019/10/the-erickson-report-page-3-two-weeks-of.html
https://www.worldlifeexpectancy.com/

Outrage of the Year
https://whoviating.blogspot.com/2019/06/the-erickson-report-page-2-two-weeks-of.html
https://whoviating.blogspot.com/2019/10/the-erickson-report-page-6-two-weeks-of.html
https://whoviating.blogspot.com/2019/10/the-erickson-report-page-3-two-weeks-of_18.html
https://whoviating.blogspot.com/2019/06/the-erickson-report-page-2-two-weeks-of_23.html
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2019/12/23/1907560/-Pastors-use-17-000-from-church-budget-to-erase-student-lunch-debt-in-two-Virginia-school-systems
https://whoviating.blogspot.com/2019/07/the-erickson-report-page-4-two-weeks-of.html
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/other/trump-administration-aims-to-cut-snap-programs-affecting-millions/vi-BBYeq73?ocid=00000000
https://whoviating.blogspot.com/2019/08/the-erickson-report-page-4-following-up.html
https://whoviating.blogspot.com/2019/07/the-erickson-report-page-3-two-weeks-of.html
https://www.indy100.com/article/trump-us-election-2020-president-five-terms-rally-speech-8923291
https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1204578302872162304
https://whoviating.blogspot.com/2019/08/the-erickson-report-page-7-two-weeks-of.html
https://whoviating.blogspot.com/2019/09/the-erickson-report-page-3-two-weeks-of.html
https://whoviating.blogspot.com/2019/09/the-erickson-report-page-4-longer-look.html
https://nypost.com/2019/12/22/dna-test-frees-man-serving-life-sentence-for-houston-murder-leads-to-new-arrest/
https://www.abqjournal.com/1403713/texas-man-to-be-exonerated-after-dna-leads-to-new-arrest.html
https://whoviating.blogspot.com/2019/10/the-erickson-report-page-4-two-weeks-of.html

The Erickson Report, Page 1: Two Weeks of Stupid: Clowns and Outrages - the Clowns

Two Weeks of Stupid: Clowns and Outrages - the Clowns

We're going to start the show with one of our frequent features, called Two Weeks of Stupid: Clowns and Outrages and this time we're going to start with the Clowns.

Our first clown is the Department of Energy. I’ll note that this is from a little more than two weeks back but it's too good to let pass.

1. In an otherwise mundane press release on May 28 announcing approval of more exports by a Freeport LNG terminal off the coast of Texas, the DOE declared the expansion of exports to be "critical to spreading freedom gas throughout the world" and that more such exports will allow for "molecules of U.S. freedom to be exported to the world.”

So it’s kind of like freebasing but without the kick.

2. Next up is the news that the Wicked Witch of the Desk and Clown Lady Supreme Sarah Huckabee Sanders is leaving us. She’s going home to spend more time lying to her family.

Actually, since there hasn't been a press briefing for about three months, I thought she left some time ago.

My favorite memory of her infamous career is when she told the press after Tweetie-pie fired James Comey that the White House had heard from “countless” - that was her word - “countless” FBI agents that they has lost faith in him only to have to tell investigators for Robert Mueller - a moment when there might be actual consequences for lying - that those comments were based on "nothing."

3. Our next clown is Sinclair Broadcasting, infamous for top-down corporate control of the well over 200 local TV stations it owns,control including distributing "must-run" segments touting the corporation's right-wing blather, including sometimes having it included in news shows as if it were a real news item.

One demand was that local stations use a huge "code red day" graphic any time there was a prediction of severe weather. Joe Crain, a meteorologist at WICS-TV in Springfield, Illinois, complained about the system on-air, noting that the dramatic, one-size fits all style is not nearly as informative as the more graded system used by the National Weather Service system and adding that many viewers had complained about it before calling it "a corporate initiative."

A day later, Crain disappeared from the air and a job listing for a meteorologist at WICS appeared - interestingly, not on WICS’s website, but on Sinclair's.

Robert Samuelson

4. Finally on this, Robert Samuelson, a Washington Post columnist who several years ago wished the Internet would just go away, well deserves his red nose.

In a column on June 12, he bemoaned the fact that the population of Japan is shrinking a little, predicting all sorts of dramatic, hideous outcomes as a result: Labor shortages! Deficits! Crushing debt burdens!

Of course, Japan is ten times as densely populated as the United States, so it would seem it could use a little more room.

Oh, but it's debt has ballooned! Well, yes it has, so much so that its debt service burden - which is the real measure of the “burden” of a debt, not how big it is but how much it costs to service it - its debt service burden will be about 0.1% of GDP, which in the US, allowing for the differences in the sizes of the two economies, would be about $20 billion. Utterly crushing.

But you know what makes it really bad in Samuelson's eyes? According to him, “Half of Japanese children born in 2007 are expected to live to 107.” The utter horror.

By the way, why is this a problem to him? Because capitalism is based on growth. There always has to be more: more people, more stuff, more production, more waste, more resource extraction, more more more. Without a constant flow of more, capitalism falters and ultimately fails.

Which means the dire future he sees for Japan is not dire for the Japanese but for capitalism.

The Erickson Report for June 5 to 18, 2019

The Erickson Report for June 5 to 18, 2019

This week:

Following Up on reproductive rights
https://www.wired.com/story/heartbeat-bills-get-the-science-of-fetal-heartbeats-all-wrong/
https://www.thecut.com/2019/05/embryos-dont-have-hearts.html
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/more-heartbeat-abortion-bans-advancing-in-south-midwest/ar-AABdRgK?li=BBnb7Kz
https://news.yahoo.com/roe-v-wade-danger-states-120000421.html
https://www.pressconnects.com/story/news/local/2019/05/17/abortion-america-how-ny-law-differs-alabama/3692504002/
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/nevada-bill-abortion-pro-choice_n_5ce46870e4b0d513447bf2de
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/illinois-passes-abortion-rights-bill_n_5cedc171e4b0ae671058a21c
https://www.vox.com/2019/6/1/18648506/illinois-abortion-bill-2019-fundamental-right-repeal-restrictions
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/kansas-supreme-court-abortion-ruli_n_5cc342cbe4b04eb7ff95ab6e
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2019/05/previously-unreleased-poll-shows-alabama-voters-disapprove-of-extreme-abortion-ban/
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2019/06/03/abortion-poll-fetal-heartbeat-laws-most-oppose-democrat-voters-energized/1319419001/
https://www.henryherald.com/features/pattillo-says-he-won-t-enforce-hb/article_586ee2ba-815c-11e9-8ab1-cf068ca463ea.html
https://www.salon.com/2019/05/29/clarence-thomas-makes-it-clear-the-right-is-coming-for-birth-control-next/
https://thinkprogress.org/supreme-court-abortion-opinion-kavanaugh-3c85c3260764/
https://www.businessinsider.com/states-passing-abortion-bans-have-highest-infant-mortality-rates-2019-5

Two Weeks of Stupid: Clowns and Outrages
https://triblive.com/news/roman-numerals-anyone-poll-suggests-bias-against-arabic-numerals/
https://twitter.com/jdcivicscience/status/1127285936977522688/photo/1
https://www.mediamatters.org/video/2019/05/16/fox-analyst-inaccurately-says-if-roe-were-overturned-pregnant-people-could-just-go-where-infanticide/223716
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/missouri-barry-hovis-consensual-rapes-abortion-ban_n_5ce0194de4b00e035b90c307
https://www.npr.org/2019/05/20/723990399/california-teachers-pay-for-their-own-substitutes-during-extended-sick-leave
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/ben-carson-house-finance-services-committee_n_5ce44115e4b06f64624be926
https://www.commondreams.org/further/2019/05/22/its-not-brain-surgery-oreos-and-idiots-and-arrogant-incompetence-oh-my
http://time.com/5595474/donald-trump-roll-back-transgender-protections/
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/05/24/latest-attack-women-and-trans-people-trump-invites-medical-providers-discriminate
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/alabama-marriage-licenses_n_5ce997b5e4b0512156f26cd3
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/jews-germany-kippahs_n_5cea826fe4b0512156f339c2
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/hogan-gidley-trump-pelosi-compliant-media_n_5cead2e3e4b0512156f3a10b
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-insult-tweet-biden-absurd-excuse_n_5cedb178e4b0793c2346e8b1
https://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-the-difference-between-a-moron-imbecile-and-idiot.htm
https://www.mediamatters.org/blog/2019/05/30/fox-news-and-right-wing-media-freak-out-about-muellers-press-conference-you-are-disgrace/223835
https://eeas.europa.eu/delegations/palestine-occupied-palestinian-territory-west-bank-and-gaza-strip_en/52895/EU%20Local%20statement%20on%20the%20dismantling%20of%20schools%20in%20the%20West%20Bank
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/05/31/shockingly-cruel-move-israel-auction-classrooms-it-dismantled-west-bank
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/may/31/israel-to-auction-prefab-classrooms-donated-by-eu-to-palestinians
https://www.cnn.com/us/live-news/virginia-beach-mass-shooting/index.html
https://www.theonion.com/
https://www.theonion.com/no-way-to-prevent-this-says-only-nation-where-this-r-1819576527
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/thomas-tobin-child-harm-lqbtq-pride-abuse_n_5cf30259e4b0e346ce7f3e36

A Longer Look at immigration
https://www.aol.com/article/news/2019/05/19/officials-possibly-1712-more-migrant-children-separated/23730010/
https://www.politico.com/story/2019/05/30/asylum-restrictions-trump-central-america-1489012
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naturalization_Act_of_1790
https://www.bostonglobe.com/ideas/2013/03/03/america-borders-porous-from-start/OUF92CcYcpCFbAeruuKwKO/story.html
https://www.history.com/topics/immigration/chinese-exclusion-act-1882
https://www.vox.com/2018/1/11/16880750/trump-immigrants-shithole-countries-norway
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_Act_of_1924
https://openborders.info/blog/diminish-white-supremacy-increased-immigration/
https://whoviating.blogspot.com/2017/07/282-outrage-of-week-enforcement-of.html

Clown of the Year 2017 - Total Jackassery Category

Now for the Clown of the Year 2017 - Total Jackassery Category.

And not surprisingly, we had a good number of jackasses from which to choose. For example, we had Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, who in describing Tweetie-pie's trip to Saudi Arabia in June, positively gushed over the fact that "there was not a single hint of a protestor anywhere there during the whole time we were there, not one guy with a bad placard."

The host interrupted to suggest that maybe that was true because Saudi Arabia is, y'know, a dictatorship, but that didn't stop Ross, who enthused as how "there was certainly no sign of [protest], there was not a single effort at any incursion. There wasn't anything. The mood was a genuinely good mood."

Then there was old Clown pro Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, who took his best shot at the award.

Daesh - that is, ISIS - took credit for a suicide bomber attack and siege at Iran's parliament and the shrine of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini on June 7. At a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing the next day, Rohrabacher said the attack could be a "good thing" and actually proposed that the US government support ISIS in attacking rival groups and even suggested the attack was part of some secret foreign policy of TheRump.

He later issued a statement "clarifying" his position, which, until it was corrected - a clarification of the clarification - assumed Khomeini is still alive. He died in 1989.

Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin was a serious contender and has to be considered first runner-up.
On September 28, when asked by a high school student whether he considered health care a right or a privilege, Johnson not only went with privilege, he also said that food and shelter and clothing should also be considered "privileges," reserved to those who can afford them.

"What we have as rights," he said, "are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Past that point, everything else is a limited resource that we have to use our opportunities given to us so that we can afford those things."

So in other words, there's only so much health care - or food or clothing or shelter - to go around, so it's up to you to be able to pay whatever the market demands and if you can't, well, you just didn't "use your opportunities." Johnson did not explain how you can have a "right to life" if you don't have food, shelter, clothing, or health care.

What - in a great old phrase I like - capped the climax was that not only did Johnson, in addressing "rights," refer to the Declaration of Independence, not the Constitution, but the actual quote is "certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." Which means the very source he cited says those are not the only rights. [Emphasis of course added.]

Our final nominee before announcing the winner was a sort of a crossover in that he could just as easily been in the Basic Stupid group.

His name is Mike Shoesmith, and he is the self-styled executive editor of something called PNN News and Ministry Network although I couldn't for the life of me find out what the PNN is supposed to (or ever did) stand for.

Anyway, writing on his "news and ministry network" which is actually a blog on October 19, he argued - and I do mean he argued, he went on at some length, this was no tweet, it was a column - he argued that "when a man sees a naked or partially dressed woman a chemical reaction happens in his brain ... giving him an involuntary surge of pleasure," which he apparently regards as a bad thing. But this means that, he turns to the criminal code now, "without his consent" she has "applied or attempted to apply" a force against him.

Which means that, he rambled, that if a woman wears "suggestive clothing" around a man she is committing criminal sexual assault against him. Seriously.

So what could top all of that? Because yes, something could and did.

So the winner of the Really Big Red Nose for Clown of the Year, Total Jackassery Category, is, how could it be otherwise:

"Time" Magazine.

Amal Clooney is an accomplished, international human rights lawyer who made a powerful speech to the UN General Assembly on March 10 calling on the world body to investigate human rights crimes by ISIS in Iraq, especially against the Yazidis, a religious minority who ISIS regards as devil worshippers to be wiped out. She specifically called on Iraq's Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi to send a letter to the Security Council so it can vote to begin investigating those crimes.

And how did Time decide to tweet about this story? With an image of her dancing with George and a headline about showing her "baby bump" at the UN.

And if that isn't award-winning jackassery, I can't imagine what would be.

They weren't the only ones, but while we might - emphasize might - expect it from outfits like "Entertainment Tonight" or "E! News" or tabloids like The Mirror in the UK, to see it from as establishment and mainstream a publication as Time just serves to emphasize how deep-rooted and pervasive sexism in our media really is.

"Time" magazine: Clown of the Year 2017, Total Jackassery Category.

Clown of the Year 2017 - Basic Stupid Category

Yep. it's the Clown of the Year for 2017!

For Clown of the Year, we have two categories. First is Basic Stupid, for those who just made us go "Wha?"

We had, for example, HUD Secretary Ben Carson, who in March said that among our nation's immigrants were those "who came here in the bottom of slave ships, worked even longer, even harder, for less. But they too had a dream that one day, their sons, daughters, grandsons, granddaughters...might pursue prosperity and happiness in this land" - asserting, that is, that slaves were actually immigrants seeking a better future for their descendants.

We had Pennsylvania state senator and gubernatorial hopeful Scott Wagner, who insisted fossil fuels have nothing to do with global warming which is, he said, actually caused by the Earth moving closer to the Sun and the increased body heat from a growing population.

Speaking of climate change, we had Rep. Tim Walberg, who told a constituent town hall on May 26 that he isn't worried about it because "if there's a real problem, God can take care of it" - just as, apparently, God has stepped in to head off every other major catastrophe, plague, or extinction throughout history.

And there was Lucian Wintrich, White House correspondent for the right-wing conspiracy blog The Gateway Pundit, who took offense at a picture of three people giving the finger to Mt. Rushmore, fuming that "They break into our country, steal resources, and then do this. And libs wonder why we are pushing for immigration controls," apparently so blinded by the sight of brown skin that he didn't notice that the three are Native Americans - and then responded to a mocking headline that we was telling "Native Americans To Go Back To Mexico" by saying - and I swear this is a quote - "And they should."

Before I announce the winner, I want to note that Kellyanne Conartist was a leading contender early on. For example, in January she groused that the media wouldn't give Tweetie-pie "the benefit of the doubt" because "he's telling you what was in his heart. You always want to go by what comes out of his mouth rather than look at what's in his heart." That is, TheRump's chief media mouthpiece whined that the media pays attention to what he says.

Then in February, faced with questions about TheRump's team's possible collusion with Russia, she spluttered "you're not looking at the other side, which is 'What if it's not true?' I haven't heard that question at all."

Either of which would be a worthy candidate, but she was disqualified when it was noted that saying inane crap like that was part of her job description.

So now: The winners of the Really Big Red Nose for Clown of the Year, Basic Stupid Category is (or rather are)...

Donald TheRump supporters!

Clowns of the Year, Basic Stupid Category

For the past 29 years, National Public Radio's “Morning Edition” has observed the Fourth of July by having the show's hosts, reporters, newscasters, and commentators do a reading of the Declaration of Independence.

This year, NPR also tweeted out the Declaration, 140-character line by 140-character line.

So what happened? Backers of TheRump, who I suppose could be called Rumpers, who usually can be found ritually chanting "Make America Great Again" interspersed with accusations of how everyone to their left is un-American, didn't recognize the Declaration of Independence and accused NPR of "calling for revolution," "condon[ing] the violence" (of the Left, of course) and pushing "biased propaganda" and "trash," while references to George III as an "unworthy" leader were taken to be code for TheRump.

Even when people pointed out the source document for NPRs tweets, the Rumpers still claimed it all was bias on the part of NPR. Put another way, they are saying that the Declaration of Independence is anti-TheRump propaganda.

Which, I suppose, in a way it actually is.

Donald TheRump supporters: Clowns of the Year 2017, Basic Stupid Category.

So that's it. Your own proposals can be in comments. Just remember the standard: This is for the really dumb, not the (merely) venal. That comes under Total Jackassery, up next.

38.2 - Clown Award: unnamed man who went to a Halloween party dressed as a suicide bomber

Clown Award: unnamed man who went to a Halloween party dressed as a suicide bomber

Next, the Clown Award, given as always for an act of meritorious stupidity.

Two years ago, Warren Demesme was arrested in New Orleans on suspicion of sexually assaulting two girls, both of them minors. He was read his Miranda rights but waived them to deny the allegations, which he had already done in a previous interrogation. During his questioning, he invoked his constitutional right to counsel, telling the police as quoted in the police transcript:

If y'all, this is how I feel, if y'all think I did it, I know that I didn't do it so why don't you just give me a lawyer dog cause this is not what's up.

Despite that, the cops kept questioning him and he later made incriminating statements. Demesme was charged with aggravated rape and indecent behavior with a juvenile, which in Louisiana carries a mandatory sentence of life in prison.

His attorneys petitioned to have his incriminating statements tossed from his upcoming trial. But on October 27 the Louisiana Supreme Court ruled 6–1 that because he included the slang term "dog," his statement was so ambiguous that neither the cops nor the courts could have any idea if he was asking for a lawyer or not and so there was no need to stop the questioning or bar use of the statements.

This is not the kind of thing that is normal for the Clown Award, which is usually geared to what is mockable, but this was just so outrageously offensive and stupid that I had to find a way to include it.

Okay, back to the mockery.

Roy Moore

Right-wing psycho bigot Roy Moore is, I expect you know, the GOPper candidate for Senate in Alabama, with a special election on December 12 intending to fill the seat vacated by Jeff - "I'm not a racist, I swear I'm not" - Sessions.

On October 31 he called for the impeachment of District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, who issued an injunction against Tweetie-pie's ban on transgenders in the military.

He called the injunction, quoting,

absolutely ridiculous and a perfect example of the outlandish doctrine of judicial supremacy whereby judges exalt themselves over the Constitution they are sworn to uphold.

Roy Moore was kicked off the Alabama Supreme Court in 2003 because he refused to remove a 10 Commandments monument from the lobby of the court building despite an order from a federal court to remove it as an unconstitutional violation of the separation of church and state.

He got himself elected back to the Court in 2013 only to be suspended in 2016 and later resign - in essence, he was booted again - because he ordered state probate judges to continue to enforce the state's ban on same-sex marriage despite the fact that it had been deemed unconstitutional by the Supreme Court.

And this is the guy who is now whining about judges thinking they're something special and above the law and the constitution. Now, that is a clown.

Happy Halloween

But I do like to give the award for genuine stupidity, so here it is, the Big Red Nose, and it must go to someone whose name I don't know because I believe it has not been released.

It happened this past week in Petaling Jaya, Malaysia, a suburb of the capital, Kuala Lumpur.

Malaysia has seen several incidents liked to Daesh, that is, ISIS, over the past few years, including some in country and some where Malaysian nationals were suicide bombers in Iraq.

So this guy, identified only as a man in his thirties, thought it would be clever to go to a Halloween party - including going to the condominium building and riding the elevator up to the floor where the party was - dressed as a suicide bomber.

Yeah, he would up getting arrested. Officials say he is being investigated for a charge of criminal intimidation.

Apparently there is no legal charge of clown.

What's Left #38

What's Left
for the week of November 10 - 16, 2017

This week:

Hero Award: Brennon Jones and Sean Johnson
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2017/11/6/1713224/-Barber-who-has-been-giving-free-haircuts-to-homeless-is-gifted-barbershop-by-stranger
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2017/11/01/stranger-gifts-barbershop-to-man-behind-haircuts-for-homeless.html

Clown Award: unnamed man who went to a Halloween party dressed as a suicide bomber
https://splinternews.com/louisiana-supreme-court-rules-that-a-man-who-asked-for-1820085946
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/true-crime/wp/2017/11/02/the-suspect-told-police-give-me-a-lawyer-dog-the-court-says-he-wasnt-asking-for-a-lawyer/
http://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/357985-roy-moore-impeach-judge-blocking-transgender-military-ban
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/09/the-lawlessness-of-roy-moore/541467/
http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/asiapacific/malaysia-arrests-man-who-dressed-as-suicide-bomber-for-halloween-9384492

Question: why has the left dropped military spending as an issue?
https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/house-senate-negotiators-land-on-700-billion-deal-for-pentagon/
http://fair.org/home/outlets-that-scolded-sanders-over-deficits-uniformly-silent-on-700b-pentagon-handout/
http://www.pogoarchives.org/straus/dm/defense_monitor_jan_may_2017.pdf
https://www.defense.gov/News/News-Releases/News-Release-View/Article/1190216/dod-releases-fiscal-year-2018-budget-proposal/
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/22/opinion/americas-forever-wars.html

We Are Not Alone: Malaysia, Vietnam, India
http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/asiapacific/malaysia-to-roll-out-more-than-us-1b-worth-of-flood-mitigation-9378508
http://www.todayonline.com/world/asia/7-killed-10000-evacuated-penang-and-kedah-floods-worsen
http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/asiapacific/malaysia-to-roll-out-more-than-us-1b-worth-of-flood-mitigation-9378508
https://www.nst.com.my/news/nation/2017/11/299593/penang-floods-meteorological-dept-explains-what-triggered-heavy-rainfall
http://news.iafrica.com/worldnews/1056471.html
http://www.freemalaysiatoday.com/category/world/2017/11/07/death-toll-from-vietnam-typhoon-rises-to-69/
http://www.sfgate.com/world/article/Blanketed-in-toxic-haze-New-Delhi-has-become-12338697.php
http://abcnews.go.com/International/severe-air-pollution-declared-public-health-emergency-delhi/story?id=50987745

Outrage of the Week: sexism, the cause of sexual harassment and assault
https://www.aol.com/article/news/2017/10/22/women-of-the-senate-share-their-metoo-stories-of-harassment/23251721/
https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/one-common-denominator-all-sexual-harassers-seem-share
https://hbr.org/2017/10/a-study-used-sensors-to-show-that-men-and-women-are-treated-differently-at-work
http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/04/03/gender-pay-gap-facts/
https://womenintheworkplace.com/

RIP: "Fats" Domino
https://www.yahoo.com/news/fats-domino-rock-pioneer-behind-143021193.html
https://www.aol.com/article/entertainment/2017/10/25/legendary-new-orleans-musician-fats-domino-dead-at-89/23255560/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I6JZW7zMDfY

37.7 - Clown Award: Mike Shoesmith

Clown Award: Mike Shoesmith

Now for one of our popular features, this is the Clown Award, given as always for meritorious stupidity.

Our first candidate and winner of the Least Self-Aware Person in the World Award is Swiss investor and frequent business media commentator Marc Faber. In an investment newsletter he writes, he said:

"Thank God white people populated America, and not the blacks. Otherwise, the US would look like Zimbabwe, which it might look like one day anyway, but at least America enjoyed 200 years in the economic and political sun under a white majority."

He then immediately said, and you know this is coming, "I am not a racist."

Um, yeah, you are.

Next is Gary Cohn and he is Tweetie-pie's chief economic adviser and a former president of Goldman Sachs.

Pitching Tweetie-pie's tax plan at a White House press briefing recently, he referred to what he described as a typical family that has two children and earns $100,000 per year, saying they can expect annual tax savings of approximately $1,000 under the plan.

Some people have jumped on his idiotic claim that with that $1000 that family could "renovate their kitchen" or "buy a new car" - but what sealed it for me was "a typical family" making 100Gs a year - close to twice the median income and more than over 70% of US households make.

Gary Cohn: a man who would have to travel thousands of miles in order to be close enough to be out of touch.

Now we head into the space of just weird and I do mean space.

Bettina Rodriguez Aguilera is a GOPper running for Congress from Florida's 27th Congressional district to replace the retiring Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen.

In 2009, Rodriguez Aguilera described how at the age of seven she was taken aboard a spaceship by three blond, big-bodied aliens who have communicated telepathically with her several times since.

She should fit right in with the other space cadets in the House chamber.

Mike Shoesmith

But our winner, oh, our winner, returns us to the glory days of the Clown Award when genuine stupidity was the ruling force.

So the winner of the Big Red Nose this week is Mike Shoesmith, self-styled executive editor of something called PNN News & Ministry Network although I can't for the life of me find out what the PNN is supposed to (or ever did) stand for.

Anyway, writing on his "news and ministry network" which is actually a blog on October 19, he argued - and I do mean he argued, he went on at some length, this was no tweet, it was a column - he argued that if a woman wears "suggestive clothing" around a man she is committing criminal sexual assault. Seriously.

Because, y'see, quoting him, "when a man sees a naked or partially dressed woman a chemical reaction happens in his brain ... giving him an involuntary surge of pleasure," which he apparently regards as a bad thing. But this means that, he turns to the criminal code now, "without his consent" she has "applied or attempted to apply" a force against him.

Thus, "Men are in a state of constant sexual assault by women who either don't understand the severity of what they are doing because it's cute and they like the attention, or worse - they do know the feelings it stirs and like the control they have over men."

I would like to have pity on, feel sorry for, Mike Shoesmith in his obvious fear of women and of his own feelings and his pathetic pleas for women to protect him from his own feelings by "putting some clothes on" and "stopping the sexual assault against men," but I can't.

Because while he may be pathetic, he is still a clown.

34.6 - Clown Award: Sen. Ron Johnson

Clown Award: Sen. Ron Johnson

And that in fact leads us right into one of our regular features, the Clown Award, given as always for meritorious stupidity.

It leads us in because our first nominee this week is Pat Robertson, who attributed the Las Vegas mass shooting to "disrespect for authority" including, particularly, disrespect for President TheRump.

Quoting Robertson,

we have disrespect for authority - there is profound disrespect of our president, all across this nation. They say terrible things about him - it's in the news, it's in other places.

He also blamed, among other things, "disrespect for our national anthem," which apparently means that Stephen Paddock saw NFL players kneeling for the anthem and went "That's it! Their disrespect justifies me killing a whole bunch of people."

I thought all this was pretty clownish but thent I thought "Does anyone still take Pat Robertson seriously?"

Realizing the answer is "no," I decided to move on to our second nominee, Rep. Tim Murphy of Pennsylvania, a favorite of the far-right anti-choice crowd who brags about how anti-abortion he is.

Turns out that back in January this "family values" bloviator was having an extra-marital affair with a woman who was concerned she may have gotten pregnant as a result. He told her to get an abortion.

A real clown! But wait, it's really just plain old run-of-the-mill right-wing hypocrisy. And it turns out that he has gone with the "spend time with my family" route and won't run for re-election in 2018. (Update: He resigned.)

So we turn to this week's winner of the Big Red Nose, Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin.

Sen. Ron Johnson: Clown

On September 28, when asked by a high school student whether he considered health care a right or a privilege, Johnson not only went with privilege, he also said that food and shelter and clothing should also be considered "privileges," reserved to those who can afford them.

"What we have as rights," he said, "are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Past that point, everything else is a limited resource that we have to use our opportunities given to us so that we can afford those things." He also referred to Rand Paul's statement from a few years ago describing a universal health care system as the imposition of slavery.

So in other words, there's only so much health care - or food or clothing or shelter - to go around, so it's up to you to be able to pay whatever the market demands and if you can't, well, you just didn't "use your opportunities."

Missing from Johnson's blathering was an explanation how you can have a "right to life" if you don't have food, shelter, clothing, or health care.

What was not missing is the fact that Ron Johnson is a smug, self-satisfied, prig - and a clown.

Footnote: Of the 25 wealthiest nations in the world, the United States is the only one not to recognize health care as a right by providing some measure of universal health care to its residents.

And it's worth noting that Article 25 of the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which the US has endorsed and had a major hand in creating, says:

Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services.

It's doubtful Sen. Clown Johnson knows - or cares.

33.5 - Clown Award: Air Force chaplain Captain Sonny Hernandez

Clown Award: Air Force chaplain Captain Sonny Hernandez

Next, let's lighten things up a little bit - a very little bit, as it turns out - with the Clown Award, given out here on a regular basis for some act of meritorious stupidity.

First among the nominees is former Milwaukee sheriff and man who wears a hat to keep his brains from falling out David Clarke, who has been given 100 days to revise his master's thesis after he was found to have failed to properly attribute sources - that is, he had plagerized - at least 47 times.

The dean of the school said he didn't think it was "intentional deception," which is maybe true: It could have been plain old incompetence and besides, intentional deception would require a degree of cleverness and subtlety which appears to lie entirely beyond this bozo's grasp.

Next up is that generic GOPper senator (because he's an old white man) Chuck Grassley of Iowa.

Speaking to a group of Iowa reporters on September 20, Grassley explained his support for the catastrophically bad Graham-Cassidy health care destruction bill the GOPpers are desperately trying to get through the Senate, saying that, quoting,

You know, I could maybe give you 10 reasons why this bill shouldn't be considered. But Republicans campaigned on this so often that you have a responsibility to carry out what you said in the campaign. That's as much of a reason as the substance of the bill.

So yeah, it shouldn't even be considered but heck, we said it in a campaign so whaddaya gonna do, y'know, because of course no GOPper (or any other politician) ever broke a campaign promise before and so it's better to condemn people to a premature death from lack of affordable health care than to admit we screwed up.

I could ascribe that to sheer cold-blooded inhumanity, but I'm feeling kind for some reason so I'd just ascribe it to advancing senility.

But our winner this week has no excuses for being an evil clown.

evil clown Sonny Hernandez

So the winner of the Big Red Nose is Air Force chaplain Captain Sonny Hernandez, who ministers to thousands of men and women at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio.

On September 12 he posted an article on a right-wing website saying that, quoting,

Christian service members who openly profess and support the rights of Muslims, Buddhists, and all other anti-Christian worldviews to practice their religions - because the language in the Constitution permits - are grossly in error, and deceived.

What's more, such "counterfeit Christians," as he called them, ultimately "serve Satan." (And I'm sure lots of people just heard The Church Lady in their heads.)

In other words, actually believing in freedom of religion, actually upholding your oath to support the Constitution, an oath with Hernandez took, is to be a devil-worshipper.

Sonny Hernandez: religious bigot, fanatic, and clown.

As a footnote to that, the Military Religious Freedom Foundation says that the number of complaints it has received from servicemen and -women in the Army, Air Force, Marines, and other branches of the military has doubled since Trump's election.

What's Left #33

Left Side of the Aisle
for the weeks of September 22 - October 6

This week:

Good News: House pushes back against civil asset forfeiture
http://whoviating.blogspot.com/2013/08/left-side-of-aisle-120-part-1.html
http://reason.com/blog/2017/08/31/legislation-in-congress-would-block-jeff
https://theintercept.com/2017/07/20/jeff-sessions-wants-to-make-legalized-theft-great-again/
http://ij.org/press-release/house-unanimously-passes-bill-curb-civil-forfeiture-irs/
https://theintercept.com/2017/09/12/in-surprise-vote-house-passes-amendment-to-restrict-asset-forfeiture/

Good News: Teamsters Local is a "sanctuary" union; California is a "sanctuary" state
http://teamsters.nyc/2017/09/13/new-york-teamsters-become-sanctuary-union-following-deportation-union-member/
http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/41976-teamsters-resolve-to-become-sanctuary-union-to-fight-deportation-of-members
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2017/7/25/1683837/-ICE-agent-anonymously-speaks-out-We-seem-to-be-targeting-the-most-vulnerable-not-the-worst
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/immigration/sessions-visits-sanctuary-city-tells-it-stop-n802796
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2017/9/1/1695283/-Jeff-Sessions-s-constant-claims-that-violent-crime-is-on-the-rise-are-simply-not-true
http://www.france24.com/en/20170918-anti-trump-resistance-grows-california-values-act-declares-sanctuary-state
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/politics-government/national-politics/article172605966.html
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2017/09/15/trumps-crackdown-sanctuary-cities-blocked-nationwide/671900001/
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2017/04/25/california-judge-blocks-trump-order-sanctuary-city-money/100897066/
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2017/08/30/federal-judge-blocks-texas-tough-sanctuary-cities-law/619168001/
http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-wexler-sanctuary-cities-immigration-crime-20170306-story.html

Not Good News: SCOTUS reinstates TheRump's ban on refugees while case is on appeal
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/12/us/supreme-court-refugee-ban.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/us-appeals-court-rules-against-trump-effort-to-broadly-enforce-travel-ban_us_59b1cde0e4b0dfaafcf6cb7d?section=us_politics
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2017/9/8/1697022/-Trump-s-Muslim-ban-2-0-gets-smacked-down-in-court-yet-again

And the wars drag on: Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq, and Yemen
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/mattis-says-over-3000-additional-u-s-troops-will-deploy-to-afghanistan/
https://www.vox.com/world/2017/9/19/16227730/trump-afghanistan-3000-troops-mattis
http://indianexpress.com/article/world/us-backed-militia-hit-by-air-strikes-in-syrias-deir-al-zor-say-syrian-democratic-forces-4846399/
http://us.cnn.com/2017/09/21/politics/russia-us-syria-meeting/index.html
http://www.newsweek.com/russia-threatens-us-special-forces-syria-and-will-fire-them-if-provoked-668855
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-syria-kurds/syrias-kurds-to-hold-historic-vote-in-message-to-assad-idUSKCN1BW279
http://www.dcmilitary.com/strikes-continue-in-effort-to-defeat-isis-in-syria-iraq/article_63c34e59-151b-506b-a69f-f672b564ea9f.html
https://www.democracynow.org/2017/9/21/headlines/us_led_coalition_airstrikes_reportedly_kill_six_civilians_on_syria_iraq_border
http://www.france24.com/en/20170921-iraq-begins-offensive-retake-islamic-state-group-stronghold-hawija
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/sep/14/isis-kills-at-least-50-in-southern-iraq-attacks
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/09/urges-kurds-call-independence-vote-170916070603153.html
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/09/guterres-urges-iraqi-kurds-scrap-referendum-170917223002535.html
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-kurds-referendum-minis/turkey-iran-iraq-consider-counter-measures-over-kurdish-referendum-idUSKCN1BW1EA
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/09/iraq-top-court-rules-suspend-kurdish-referendum-170918102729593.html
https://www.albawaba.com/news/hrw-saudi-led-airstrikes-yemen-are-war-crimes-1020666
https://www.hrw.org/news/2017/09/12/yemen-coalition-airstrikes-deadly-children
http://whoviating.blogspot.com/2017/07/276-outrage-of-week-war-crimes-in-yemen.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AKsYw8n3Fyw

Clown Award: Air Force chaplain Captain Sonny Hernandez
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4891096/Trump-supporting-David-Clarke-told-revise-thesis.html
http://splinternews.com/republican-senator-accidentally-reveals-the-toxic-truth-1818593567
https://www.vox.com/health-care/2017/9/20/16333338/obamacare-repeal-graham-cassidy
http://www.newsweek.com/chaplain-urges-service-members-reject-religious-tolerance-665614
https://www.militaryreligiousfreedom.org/

The little Thing: Airlines ripping off last-minute passengers is emblematic of capitalism
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/dr-gridlock/wp/2017/09/06/3200-for-a-one-way-ticket-out-of-miami-the-story-behind-the-hurricane-irma-tweet-that-went-viral/
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/09/travel/airlines-face-criticism-amid-irma-price-gouging-charges.html
https://www.wsj.com/articles/airlines-mark-down-tickets-in-irma-affected-areas-following-complaints-1504989080
http://whoviating.blogspot.com/2017/04/166-love-of-profit-is-root-of-all.html
http://whoviating.blogspot.com/2015/10/2227-pursuit-of-profit-is-baseline.html

32.2 - Clown Award: Nigel and Sally Rowe

Clown Award: Nigel and Sally Rowe

So it seems appropriate that this brings us to our next item, the Clown Award, given as always for meritorious stupidity.

Appropriate because one of our nominees this week is right-wing talk radio host Mark Levin, who recently came out with what may be the stupidest denial argument ever.

On his August 30 show, he listed several scientists: Aristotle, Archimedes, Galileo, Tesla, Faraday, Newton, Pasteur, Einstein, and Edison, mispronouncing Archimedes as "Archie-medes," then asked "What do they all have in common?"

His answer was that none of them ever wrote about human-caused climate change, which, he said, proves that climate change is not about science but about importing "a foreign ideology."

Then we have Kimberley Paige Barnette, a candidate for mayor in Charlotte, NC, who had a big "Vote for Me!" post on her Facebook page which listed among her qualifications "Republican," "smart," "traditional," and "white."

She was running far behind the other candidates. Happily, she stayed there, finishing last.

Next, we have Rand Paul, auditioning for the next remake of Stephen King's "It," proposing that we pay for relief for victims of Harvey and Irma by making equivalent cuts in foreign aid, because after all why shouldn't we let those damn foreigners suffer.

Notably, we have Hillary Clinton, proving yet again that she still doesn't get it. In her new book, she again blames pretty much everybody except herself for losing to the most unpopular presidential candidate ever. Not only the expected targets like sexism and Bernie Sanders - I mean, apparently just that he ran in primaries against her was in and of itself just such a mean, horrible, destructive thing to do - but pretty much everyone and everything within reach.

In fact, she even blames what she calls her biggest gaffe - the bit about "putting coal mines out of business" - on Barack Obama, who she also blames for getting her to "go easy" on Sanders - as if the accusations and innuendos of racism and sexism were "going easy."

She even blamed the energized anti-Trump women-lead marches and demonstrations, asking why weren't they there for her, sniffle.

Nigel Rowe

The only reason she isn't the Clown - well, two reasons, because yes there was someone worse, but this is one - is that the institutional Democratic Party seems at long last to have had enough of her, with even people like Chuck Schumer, Elizabeth Warren, and Joe Biden criticizing her and there appears to be a general feeling, including among donors, that she should just go away. Here's hoping she will take the hint.

Which leaves this week's winners of the Big Red Nose and they are Nigel and Sally Rowe (I only have a picture of Nigel), the Bible-thumping Christian parents of a six-year-old boy attending an unnamed Church of England primary school near Portsmouth, England who are threatening to sue the school because it allowed a boy in their son's class to wear a dress.

They intend to argue that the school has acted without due regard to pupils and not respected their rights to bring up their children according to their biblical beliefs.

In other words, they are saying the school was obligated to insure that every other parent made sure that their own children acted in that school according to the Rowes' beliefs, and those parents' own religious (or lack of religious) beliefs be damned. Only the Rowes' beliefs mattered. And it's hard to imagine anything more transparently clownish than that.

And yet there is more. To top it off, they said it was "simply not the case" that they were demonstrating prejudice against transgender people - even as Nigel Rowe went on BBC to insist that boys are boys and girls are girls and the "way we are" is "within our DNA" and all this transgender nonsense is "a political agenda."

Nigel and Sally Rowe. Yeah. Clowns.

What's Left #32

What's Left
for the week of September 15-21, 2017

This week:

Harvey, Irma, and global warming
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Harvey
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Irma
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/hurricane-irma-record-atlantic-ocean-category-5-track-forecast-path/https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/07/climate/climate-change-drastic-warming-trump.html
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2017/9/6/1696441/-Scientist-on-climate-change-That-s-not-so-much-a-future-projection-but-an-observational-reality
http://shaperssurvey2017.org/
http://www.newsweek.com/donald-trumps-administration-denies-climate-change-exists-americans-concerned-664222?yptr=yahoo
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/03/21/climate/how-americans-think-about-climate-change-in-six-maps.html
http://bangordailynews.com/2017/08/20/news/trump-administration-disbands-federal-advisory-committee-on-climate-change/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/pope-francis-climate-change-denial-stupid_us_59b6ed8ae4b09be416574f72

Clown Award: Nigel and Sally Rowe
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2017/8/31/1694892/-Mark-Levin-just-made-possibly-the-most-hilarious-climate-denial-argument-ever
http://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/349431-candidate-for-charlotte-mayor-puts-white-among-qualifications
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/kimberley-barnette-white-mayor_us_59af342ae4b0b5e53101d60d
http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/economy-budget/349623-opinion-sen-rand-paul-pay-for-the-emergency-funds-with
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/clinton-says-sanders-did-lasting-damage-in-her-new-book-according-to-report/
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4858922/Hillary-s-latest-targets-blame-women-marchers-Lauer.html
http://nypost.com/2017/09/06/cluelessness-thy-name-is-hillary-clinton/
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/christian-parents-sue-school-allowed-wear-dress-uniform-transphobia-church-enland-a7938926.html?S2ref=906656

News on voter suppression
http://www.pfaw.org/blog-posts/federal-judge-kobach-repeatedly-misled-court-in-voting-rights-case/
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2017/9/8/1697032/-It-took-the-Washington-Post-one-hour-to-debunk-Kris-Kobach-s-ridiculous-voter-fraud-claims-in-NH
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/2017/09/08/election-integrity-commission-members-accuse-new-hampshire-voters-of-fraud/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/2017/09/08/election-integrity-commission-members-accuse-new-hampshire-voters-of-fraud/
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2017/9/8/1697038/-Kris-Kobach-alleges-voter-fraud-in-New-Hampshire-because-he-can-t-read
https://www.mediamatters.org/research/2017/09/08/right-wing-medias-new-voter-fraud-proof-even-more-asinine-usual/217887
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/muckraker/trump-voter-fraud-panel-to-push-debunked-new-hampshire-claims
http://gizmodo.com/jeff-sessions-was-lobbied-to-exclude-democrats-from-tru-1804006784/amp
https://twitter.com/CharlesPPierce/status/907754056139059202
https://twitter.com/dellcam/status/907722857203077121
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/supreme-court-texas-electoral-maps_us_59b8d9a7e4b02da0e13d674b

Good News: Senate committee overturns abortion gag rule
http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/09/07/senate-votes-against-administration-on-anti-abortion-global-gag-rule/
https://www.hrw.org/news/2017/06/22/trumps-mexico-city-policy-or-global-gag-rule
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Handmaid%27s_Tale

Good News: Medicare for All bill introduced
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2017/9/12/1698079/-15-Senators-will-introduce-a-Medicare-for-All-bill-tomorrow-Is-your-senator-among-them

Good News: Martin Shkreli in jail
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-crime-shkreli/shkreli-ordered-jailed-after-online-bounty-on-hillary-clintons-hair-idUSKCN1BO2T8

Outrages of the Week
http://thehill.com/regulation/healthcare/345411-fight-over-right-to-sue-nursing-homes-heats-up?amp
https://www.aclu.org/blog/lgbt-rights/lgbt-nondiscrimination-protections/president-trump-and-attorney-general-sessions
https://www.aclu.org/legal-document/charlie-craig-and-david-mullins-v-masterpiece-cakeshop-united-states